life – Page 26 – p i x e l s c r i b b l e s

I feel good

This whole walking thing is really what the doctor ordered. Each day I feel like I can do more.

Yesterday I felt great. My morning walk seemed to take less effort, even though it was hotter. At lunchtime I got antsy and went ahead and walked back to my car, then realized I had a good 40 minutes left…so I drove down to the North Augusta Boat Dock and Fishing Piers to look around.

I was ecstatic as I wandered around the piers snapping photos. It felt like it had been such a long time since I’d really gone on a photo jaunt. Feeling healthy and energetic made me want to do all the things I enjoy and haven’t done lately.

I was having such a good time, in fact, that I recorded–and later uploaded!–a video of myself.

Last night I had to run an errand, so I couldn’t go biking–and it actually started to rain on and off after work anyway. But I still managed to cook dinner, which I ate while watching some Detective Conan. I went to bed on time at 10:30 and woke up this morning naturally at 7 (though my not being able to breathe due to congestion might not be the most “natural” way to awaken).

So far this is going really well. I plan to keep my good habits going into the weekend, though I haven’t decided how yet. Biking, probably. Once I’ve adjusted to doing this I hope to add other things to my schedule that I’ve been meaning to get to, like a couple of web design projects and my Cowboy Bebop game for the AMRN.

It feels so good to be active again, even if it’s only a 15-minute walk here and there. I’ll work up to more in time :)

Trying a couple new things

I parked at a shopping center and walked from there to work this morning. It was a little warm to be doing that, plus it was all uphill, but I feel great.

The walk only took about 15 minutes, rather than the 30 I was expecting, but that’s fine, since I was huffing and puffing by the end. I’ll work my way up to 30.

I’ll either walk to my car and bring it back up here at lunchtime, or wait until after work to do so, since it’s usually daylight when I get off now.

Hopefully doing this will keep me getting at least a little exercise every day. Actually having a destination for a walk makes it much easier to commit to, so I’m thinking I should be able to keep this up.

I also packed my Fujiyama leftovers from last night into a new bento box I bought from Asian Art Mall, then wrapped the box up in a kitchen towel my mom gave me. It kind of looks authentic! Maybe the unique presentation will inspire me to cook/assemble a lunch more often.

I’ve been getting fond memories all morning of sitting at the low table with my Yatsushiro host family, eating breakfast–rice, eggs, vegetables, and various small items–and watching my host sister pack things from the table into her bento.

I’ll add pictures of the bento to this post when I get home from work.

Update: Here they are. Out of focus, boo!

Okay, I don’t really fail at life

Every now and then I hit a breaking point, I guess.

Sean made the very good point that I’m not getting enough sleep, which is absolutely true. I guess I just have to resign myself to not seeing him during the week, and going to bed at 10 o’clock or something.

Meanwhile, we’ve decided that every Saturday, we’ll go on a date together.

Hopefully with extra sleep and guaranteed time with my baby, I’ll be able to manage the rest of my time better and get back to work on my goals.

I fail at life

Warning: Emo Alert Level 9.

Once again I’m reminded how I fail to measure up. Once again I’m reminded that no one can help me but me. Once again I feel powerless and insecure and depressed and afraid and gut-wrenchingly sad, and no one knows how to stop it.

Sitting around watching DVDs only helps me escape for a little while, but it’s all I’m apparently capable of doing.

I am not kidding

I’m sure that those of you who, like me, spend the majority of your day on the computer have, like me, confused the two realities. Saying “LOL” out loud, for example.

Well, I’ve got you beat.

Just now, I dropped a pile of laundry on top of the dryer. Then, wondering why I hadn’t simply dropped it into the laundry basket, I decided I would do that…and for two full seconds I tried to figure out how to hit Control-Z so the clothes would be back in my arms.

A normal yet nonstandard Tuesday

Today was kinda weird and very fun.

Traffic was just bizarre. This morning there was about triple the normal number of cars on the road when I headed off to work. I have no idea why. It made the commute a little more difficult, especially since one of the Bobby Jones onramps was blocked by cones into being a yield instead of having an acceleration lane. That always gets me, because those people are supposed to stop and wait for traffic, but it’s a hell of a way to get onto the interstate, so I usually try to get out of their way. This time I was unable to, and I ended up slowing down way too much until they finally got the picture and pulled out in front of me.

Work was good. The nature of my job is shifting somewhat, from content manager-esque with occasional design to content creation and revenue generation. Just since last week I’ve been able to start three projects I’ve been wanting to work on for awhile.

For lunch, as my Twitter followers know, I picked up some Chick-fil-A and headed over to Riverview Park to eat at the picnic tables near the baseball fields. On my way there, I finally found the route that I charted out on Google Maps months ago, the one that avoids Buena Vista and the Georgetown apartments. It’s pretty simple, but I don’t know if it actually saves any time.

It was a beautiful day, hot in the sun but cool in the shade, and I suppose since it’s still relatively early summer there weren’t any wasps. I did notice a bird’s nest crammed into one of the inside corners of the chimney above the large grill in front of the bathrooms. Guess the thing doesn’t get used much.

After work I headed over to Mellow Mushroom, where a bunch of people from the station were gathering to celebrate the birthday of one of the photogs. This is a guy who likes to hang out in my office on his lunch break and chat, and he also uses my office as a cut-through quite a bit. He’s cool.

(I’ve been thinking for awhile about rearranging my office–again–so that my back is to the wall. It’s really not feng shui to have people walking around behind me all the time.)

Anyway, we had a blast. Several photogs were in attendance, as was one of the sports guys for the beginning of the evening and one guy from production. It is always fun to hang out with photogs and production assistants because they are some of the most “real” people you can find in television.

Most of what was said tonight can’t be repeated ;) Suffice it to say it was hilarious. I even made a pretty good joke about some rapper the guys were talking about who calls himself Pimpzilla. (I think this is him.)

I had a portobello sandwich with chips and tea. Several people had pizza, and most people, except of course the photog who was on call, had beer. One guy had quite a bit of beer, and if you know our photogs at all you can probably guess who ;> At one point he was trying to say “theoretically” and it came out “theologically”.

Good times.

Traffic felt strange on my way home, too, but it wasn’t particularly dangerous, just faster than I expected. Normally when cars get to the construction zone they slow down a little, but today they were blowing through at 60 or 70. It might have something to do with the fact that it was almost 10 o’clock rather than my usual 7 or 8.

Something just felt unique about today, even though I didn’t do anything spectacular. I guess a day doesn’t have to be groundbreaking to be a good one :)

Interview

Merujo sent me five interview questions. Here are my responses:

1. What do you love about anime? What recommendations would you make for an anime newbie as the best of the genre?

I originally got into anime because it, like other products of Japan, could tell me something about the culture. It was actually my brother AJ who was first interested in anime; I remember being kind of “meh” about it. I had seen and enjoyed Akira on the Sci-Fi Channel, but I didn’t pursue an interest in anime, didn’t go to Blockbuster and rent various titles like AJ did.

But I randomly took a Japanese culture class in college, and that really piqued my interest in Japanese history and society. There was a girl in my class who brought in a huge book of manga and explained the anime/manga phenomenon, and I remember feeling a little snobby towards her, like there was something wrong with her because she was interested in that.

But as time went on and I took more classes, both language and culture, and my professors actually used manga and anime to help them get their ideas across and to share the culture with me, I started to have a greater appreciation for it. I joined AMUK–Anime/Manga of the University of Kentucky. It was there that I first saw shows like Please Save My Earth and Yawara.

After awhile I stopped going to the meetings, but I was always grateful for the windows into Japanese culture that the club offered me.

(AMUK is now defunct. After some drama, the newer members took over, kicked the old-school members off the listserv, and renamed the club “UK Anime”. As an observer, I don’t know the whole story, but it seemed like a good move to me. People who weren’t even at UK anymore were trying to have a say in the club, which seemed a little backwards, in my opinion.)

I continued my research into the anime/manga phenomenon online. It was then that I discovered the world of fansubbing, which opened up a million opportunities for me to see anime. By this time I was pursuing a Japan Studies minor and had been to Japan on a six week trip (and AJ’s own interest in anime had flagged). Anime was the most convenient–and, I’ll admit, the easiest–way for me to keep a flood of Japanese culture coming into my life. After I graduated, this became even more important, because I had moved to another city and was no longer surrounded by Japan resources. (I never realized how many Japanese people lived in and around Lexington, Kentucky until I moved.)

So in a way, asking me what I like about anime is like asking me what I like about Japanese culture. And it’s hard to describe. I think part of it, honestly, is an interest in seeing US culture refracted in the lens of a culture that existed long before the US. Here is a land with so much history, so many things that are incomprehensible without detailed study, and yet English (in derivative forms) is everywhere, US music and movies abound, and certain ways of doing things are obvious imports.

But as you keep going, you realize it’s not just the US. Japan imports, and often improves, facets of every culture it comes in contact with. It is just fascinating to see. As a linguistics major, I studied how languages interact and change one another and evolve over time. Linguistics is just one branch of anthropology, which is the main lens through which I like to observe the world. I’m always wondering where certain traditions came from, why people dress a certain way, where a certain way of thinking came from.

In a way, Japan is an extreme cultural melting pot, and that is fascinating to me.

But there are inaccessible things about Japan, things that have been a part of the culture for so long that it’s not easy to trace their roots. Things that, as an outsider, mean there are always surprises, no matter how much you think you understand.

Japan is inaccessible in many ways, and I think that makes it attractive as well. Even as you are invited in with open arms, there are so many closed doors.

So I enjoy watching anime partly because it was not made for me. I like trying to understand why it was made the way it was, and what it says about the people who wrote it. I use it as a means of better understanding the culture and practicing my comprehension of the language.

I especially enjoy high school comedies and dramas because they are abundant…because this idea of “seishun”, youth, is such a driving force. High school is so important that people around the country watch the national high school baseball tournament, which takes place at the largest and most famous stadium in Japan, Koushien Stadium ~~in Osaka~~ [Koushien is not actually in Osaka]. One of my all-time favorite anime, Touch, centers around three high schoolers as their baseball team tries to make it to Koushien.

What’s intriguing is that Japan is not unaware of how it idealizes the high school experience. There was one short series whose name escapes me that dealt with life for a group of friends after high school. There was a love triangle, of course: two girls loved the same guy. One of the girls had been a brilliant swimmer in high school and looked to be on her way to being a professional swimmer. She loved the guy, but was best friends with the other, quieter girl who loved him, and so she cheered the two of them on and kept her feelings to herself. One day the quiet girl was waiting for the guy to show up for their date and she was hit by a car. This left her in a coma.

The story starts with everyone around 20. The guy is in college and working part time, and the swimmer girl has become an office worker. They have ended up dating each other, but aren’t happy about it because the other girl is still alive, albeit in the coma. A feeling of unfinished business permeates the story, until finally the girl comes out of the coma and everyone’s feelings are resolved.

What struck me most about this, beyond the thoughtful exploration of how people would respond to such horrible circumstances, was how small life seemed to be after high school for all of them. All they had to look forward to was work, and perhaps the comfort of each other. It wasn’t like school where their opportunities seemed limitless. It was interesting to see this actually shown, and striking to me that I haven’t seen it very often.

This gets to why I started enjoying anime beyond a tool to help me learn about Japanese culture. The stories are so rich. There are series that are nothing but fluff, obviously, and those have their place, and can be really fun. What I realized, though, was that anime was simply another medium for storytelling, and there were plenty of really good stories being told.

The reason I love Touch, for example, is not because it is so revealing about Japan’s love of high school and/or baseball, but because it has enduring, believable characters who all grow and change as they deal with both normal and extreme events in their lives. Something happens in this show that you will rarely see in a US series, but I won’t tell you what it is because I want you to watch it!

As far as recommendations…

There are just as many genres of anime as you would find in any other storytelling medium. Maybe more, since Japan likes to categorize things to the extreme. I have found myself drawn to the “sports” genre, which is essentially a story where the main character works and gets better at something, competing with a broad cast of various personalities and going through tests of skill. As you can guess, an actual sport is typically involved, but this can also cover things like board games, or fighting, or magic.

I also love the “high school comedy/romance” genre. The “mecha” genre, which involves giant robots that are piloted by people, can be good if done well. But as you’ll see below, I don’t trap myself within any genre. If the characters are real and the story is compelling, I’ll even watch an anime about, say, baking bread!

I can’t expect that everyone in the world is as obsessed with learning about Japanese culture as I am, so there are some series that are brilliant but might not quite work as “gateway” anime. Too many jokes that don’t make sense, etc. So with that in mind, here’s what I would recommend:

1) Cowboy Bebop

This show takes place in the future and spans the solar system. There are interesting projections of various cultures into a radically different world from the one we live in. I think this makes it pretty accessible, because it’s familiar and foreign at the same time, but you don’t have to know anything about the universe before you start.

The story centers around a group of people who are forced through various circumstances to come together and become bounty hunters. Each has his or her own issues to deal with that affect the lives of the others.

Plus there’s music by one of the greatest, most versatile composers in the world, Yoko Kanno, and the art and animation are stunning.

It’s just 26 episodes long–that’s a standard series length, though variations include 13, 12, and 24. There are other series that run far longer.

This series is licensed in the US, so you can Netflix it or buy it at the store or online.

If you’re not into reading subtitles, the dub isn’t bad.

2) Detective Conan (Case Closed)

If you like detective stories, including murder mysteries, and can handle the weirdness of having a group of elementary school kids who occasionally solve them, then that’s all you need to enjoy this show. Heartwarming and hilarious, it’s got a main character who might need to be taken down a peg or two–and boy, is he ever!

The main plot of the series is that high school detective Kudou Shin’ichi (Jimmy Kudo in the dub) is force-fed a pill that shrinks his body so it looks like that of a child. He spends his time solving mysteries as Edogawa Conan (this is a Sherlock Holmes in-joke name) and trying to find the crime syndicate that did it to him.

At first the plot centers around Conan, his love interest Ran, her father Mouri Kogoro, and the aforementioned group of junior detectives. As the show continues, more characters are introduced, each with their own issues that may or may not have anything to do with Conan’s.

The characters end up visiting many cultural spots in Japan throughout the series. Some episodes are hour-long or two-hour-long specials that often involve a discussion of Japanese history/legend. So in this way the series is good for learning more about Japan. But someone uninterested in this might find these episodes rather dull.

Another thing is that while it is possible to guess who the criminal is, most of the murders are absolutely ridiculous. For me that’s part of the fun, but someone who is an avid mystery fan might find that annoying.

The show’s been running in Japan since 1996! But the episodes are slowly coming out on DVD here in the US, under the name Case Closed, and you can get them at Amazon.

As I mentioned previously, the dub for this show is amazing. It’s not a literal translation, and they did add some jokes of their own, but the general feeling of the show and who the characters are absolutely comes through, which is what I want from any translation.

You’ll want to keep in mind that names are changed, both character names and place names. So Mt. Fuji is called Mt. Fincher, or something.

3) Touch

The previous two series I’ve recommended are both licensed in the US and pretty much universally appealing. Touch is neither.

It isn’t licensed, so you won’t be able to rent or buy it anywhere. And it’s a story about Japanese high schoolers and baseball…so it might not engage you if you’re not interested in those things.

But it has some of the best character development I have ever seen in any series, anime or not. This show made me want to learn about baseball! If good storytelling floats your boat, do not pass this series up.

The tale centers around Uesugi Tatsuya, his twin brother Kazuya, and their next-door neighbor and childhood friend, Asakura Minami. Tatsuya is naturally gifted at many things, but doesn’t try hard at anything. Kazuya has some talent, but has had to work very hard to become the brilliant pitcher that he is.

The main conflicts/crises are how the brothers feel about each other, how they feel about Minami, and what all three of them are going to do with their lives.

There are 101 episodes in this series. There are also some movies, but I haven’t seen them and don’t plan to. The series stands on its own; the movies are, as far as I can tell, rehashes. (Even the one that takes place after the series just seems to cover old ground instead of doing anything new.)

4) NANA

This is another one in the amazing character development department. It’s ongoing and just started last year. It hasn’t been licensed, so there’s nowhere to buy it with subtitles/dubbing. (You can buy the movie, which only covers part of the story, and the manga, which is where the story originated.)

This is the story of two girls with the same name. They meet coincidentally on a train and become friends. At first their lives are completely different, but then they grow together. And then complications arise…

It’s a brilliant exploration of the relationships between women and other women and women and men and what people expect out of life versus what they actually get. I can’t say enough about this series. I eagerly await each episode.

5) Rose of Versailles

As you might guess, this is historical fiction based in France. It begins a bit before the French Revolution. The main character is a fictional Royal Guard named Oscar Francois de Jarjeyes…who is a woman who was raised as a man.

I love that.

You might also guess that this story ends tragically, and you’d be right. But it is brilliantly done. It presents Marie Antoinette from a more sympathetic perspective, but still manages to show how how she fell from glory and ultimately ruined her country.

This 41-episode series is not licensed. It was made in the 70s, and that leads me to wonder if it ever will be. Manly women don’t seem to sell in the US anime market. (We love us some girly men, though; see below!)

6) Kyou Kara Maou!

Once you’ve gotten through the anime above, you might want to try this one, which happens to be my all-time favorite. It’s often quirky and silly, yet it also deals with themes of prejudice and war. I think the real reason it appeals to me is that the main character has such strength and such a sense of honor and justice. He seems naive, but the truth is he makes an active choice to believe in people. And in this series, that approach to life has some amazing results.

So this show speaks to my eternal optimism :)

The basic premise is a Japanese high schooler named Yuuri (who happens to love baseball) gets flushed down a toilet (I told you it was silly) and into another dimension, where he is told that he’s the king of the demons.

There are some funny cultural things, like how they eat with sporks in the Demon Kingdom, and how hardly anyone has black eyes and black hair (this is cute because the opposite is true in Japan), and how when Yuuri first arrives one of the demons calls him a “foreigner”. What a role-reversal for a Japanese person!

By the way, demons in this series look like humans, only they are typically flashier, with more varied hair colors. There are other things about them that get revealed as the series goes on. But basically, the main difference between them and regular people is that they have natural magic from making a pact with the elements, while humans have to pray (to something undefined in the series) whenever they want to do magic. Human magic is weaker and contrived, which has caused resentment and fear between the two groups. Now the demons all live in their own country, and many of them despise humans as stupid, lesser beings.

The characters are great. My favorite after Yuuri is Adelbert–I can’t explain why without discussing his plot in detail, but suffice it to say he gets a lot of character development. Then there’s Conrad, who is simply fabulous.

One thing you have to understand is that this series is made to appeal to people who like looking at handsome/pretty men. There are many homosexual overtones. There also aren’t a whole lot of female characters, and most of the ones who do exist have really weird personalities. I think this is a lot of fun, but it might be off-putting to others.

Other than those, I definitely recommend Hikaru no Go (“sports” anime about playing the board game go), Initial D (“sports” anime about illegally street racing cars on twisting mountain roads), Vision of Escaflowne (fantasy in which a girl with prophetic powers is transported to a dimension where people fight inside giant robots), and The Prince of Tennis (an absolutely ridiculous “sports” genre anime about playing tennis, with extreme special effects. The characters are fabulous).

2. Let’s say you just won a tidy sum on a scratch-off ticket and you have two weeks of vacation time to burn. Where are you headed and what will you do/buy?

My answers to questions about what I would do with a million dollars always involve traveling around the world, experiencing as many different places as possible. (My way of experiencing places is usually going to restaurants, wandering the streets, going to performances like plays, operas, or classical music concerts, and visiting museums, by the way…I’m not much of a partier.)

If I only had two weeks and a few thou, though, there are a few places I’d consider.

First, Japan. I’ve been there twice already, but there is so much I have yet to see, and so many bloggers over there I want to meet. My next (non-theoretical) vacation will hopefully involve both.

Then there’s Wales. My dad’s side of the family, the Aubreys, descended from Wales, and I’ve always wanted to see it.

England, of course, because Brooke’s there. I considered visiting back when it was just David there, too, but I’m not an Anglophile or anything.

One thing I have really always wanted to do is take a road trip around the United States, and stop at all those weird tourist attractions along the interstates.

I’d also like to visit all my far-flung friends and family, but that would probably take longer than two weeks.

All of the above assume I have time to plan. If I don’t have time, I might very well chuck the majority of the money in savings, spend some nice time off at home (or perhaps in Kentucky visiting the immediate fam), and then run off to the beach. I’m not the type to “lay out”, but I love playing in the waves, and beach culture fascinates me. Plus seafood is damn good! So I could definitely see myself slipping away to Myrtle Beach or Savannah for a few days.

3. What is your dream profession? Is it really “a dream” or something you are aiming for as a life goal?

I like to joke that my dream profession is “rich man’s wife” ;) Basically, I want to be free to pursue my interests, so my dream job would involve doing that.

The closest thing I’ve found is the job I hold currently: web content manager. I get to find cool things to put on the web or link to, and design things. It’s diverse enough to keep my interest and it involves stuff I do in my free time anyway! Hell, I even take photos for the site sometimes.

But I’m always thinking about what I want to be doing. Part of me still dreams of living in Japan for a few years, so I keep my mind open to possibilities there.

I like the idea of owning my own business, but as my parents own their own and I know a few small business owners, I’m quite aware of the sheer amount of dedication it takes to get anywhere, and the costs involved. I don’t have any product or service that I feel excited enough about to give up my free time and financial security for.

I also like the idea of living off investments. I want to do more research into how I could achieve that, because then I would have plenty of time for travel and learning new things. But so far I haven’t done anything. ;P

4. You have come through a genuine life/health crisis victorious. What advice would you give to anyone facing real adversity like you have?

Be cheerful to everyone around you. Don’t be demanding. Focus on good things in your life. Be appreciative of people’s efforts on your behalf.

There may not be anyone around you who understands what you’re going through. But they’re trying. And this situation is not their fault.

If you’re negative all the time, they won’t want to be around you and will stop helping you, and loneliness is one of the hardest things when you’re already dealing with so much. Having people near you will help you stay positive.

That said, let yourself be angry. Cry. Express yourself when you need to. Let the emotions roll through you until you’re exhausted…and then move past them.

Dedicate yourself to something tangible. Work hard. I spent my time in the hospital learning web design. You never know how what you focus your attention on in the hard times might affect your future–now my career is all about the web.

That’s really it. All you can do is decide to beat it, whatever it is, and then do it. You have to somehow accept that you can’t control what’s happening. You can only endure. You can control your own reactions. You can decide to drive people away or draw them to you. You can keep moving forward in your life, or you can stop everything and feel sorry for yourself and accomplish nothing. No one can take those decisions away from you.

Merujo, the face you show to us on your blog is the face I tried to show. You are suffering, and you share that pain when it gets to the breaking point, but you come back later with a joke, and you keep moving forward. You’re not letting it beat you. It’s hard, especially with no end in sight…but you have to keep it up. You can win. And you will.

5. Chocolate: evil device of Satan or one of the best things in the world?

Whoa, okay, that’s a total 180 question :)

I would have to say: both. ;)

Seriously, at this point, I don’t find chocolate anywhere near as much of a threat to my health as I do the fast food I eat regularly for lunch and dinner. There was a time when I ate a candy bar every day, but I haven’t done that in a long time. I think chocolate is just like anything else in this world: good in moderation, bad if you let it control you.

Would you like to be interviewed? If you want me to send you a set of five questions to ponder and answer, follow the directions below:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” (And make sure I have your e-mail addy so I can zap you the questions!)

2. I will respond by e-mailing you five questions. I get to pick them, and you have to answer them all.

3. You will update your blog (or comment here if you don’t have a blog) with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

If anybody else wants to interview me, use the comment form here to send me questions :) I’m all about stuff like this (as you well know).

Mom

The more I see how other people interact with their mothers, the more I realize how amazingly lucky I am to have the one I’ve got.

There are some people whose mothers don’t care anything about them. Then there are some people who can’t get their mothers to go away!

My mom is in my life just enough. She’s there for me and she’s always interested in me, but she doesn’t smother me.

I can only think of a handful of times in which she has “butted in”, and she was right at those times, so I can hardly protest ;>

I love you, Mom.

Schedule manipulation

I’m going to try something new.

My hours at work are 10 am to 7 pm. Sean’s hours are 3:30 pm to 11:30 pm. This means there are four or so hours where I have time “to myself”, but then there is at best one hour in which I can spend time with my husband before I should be asleep. Of late I have been ignoring the should and staying up until 2 or 3, and this has crippled my mornings.

I’ve never been one of those people who can consistently sleep for only five hours a night. I tend to need at least 7 hours of sleep, and on weekends I often sleep for 12 hours. (I’ve even slept longer than that, which is scary.)

Anyway, it’s obvious that I can’t stay up that late. But that means hardly getting to see Sean at all. So I’m going to try something his mom proposed: naps.

I will hop in bed when I get home from work, nap until after he gets home, and then get up and mess around while he’s here. We won’t necessarily do anything together, but it’s always nice to be able to look over and see him. I get lonely sitting here by myself.

Then, eventually, I will go back to bed for another nap until I need to get up and start my day.

I’m not sure this will work. I lived on naps back when I was going to college and working night desk, and I had a pretty decent routine going then, but I’m rapidly nearing age 30 and I’m not entirely sure my body can pull that off anymore.

We’ll just have to see.

I worked late today, which is why I’m still up. As soon as I hit “Publish”, I’m off to dreamland. (It may actually work, too, because I’m pretty tired. I stayed up late watching the end of Pumpkin Scissors last night. More on that later.)

Update: Well, I slept through the alarm I had set for 12:30 am and didn’t wake up until 5. That didn’t quite work, did it?

Maybe I can try for going to bed as soon as I get home and getting up ridiculously early…but then wouldn’t I be really tired at the end of my workday? Bleh.

Photos

Lots of photos have been uploaded, but I haven’t had the time to tell you about them. So here goes.

Shaker Village, Kentucky, April 15, 2007

Ben and Manda and I drove out to Shaker Village, as has become typical for us when I visit. Aside from the beautiful rolling hills, well-maintained buildings and fences, and farm animals, we also had the rare experience of seeing a whole herd of deer. There were something like eight or ten of them running around the grounds. Ben managed some close-up shots from behind a stone fence, starting here.

Family Farm, April 17, 2007

AJ and I headed up to the farm with Dad, where we met up with Grandma and Uncle Steve. AJ and Dad busied themselves with uprooting small trees using a car battery-powered motor and a rolling tripod of Dad’s design, while Uncle Steve mowed the grass and I walked the grounds and sat and chatted with Grandma. And took pictures, of course!

Around the time we were gathering on the porch for lunch, Uncle Steve found a tiny frog in the grass :)

Riverwalk at Lunch, April 26, 2007

I grabbed some Chick-fil-A and headed to Riverwalk for lunch this past Thursday. Instead of the usual St. Paul’s parking I went to the Marina parking just off the 5th Street bridge. Much nicer! You don’t have to walk down a bazillion steps. I may make a habit of parking there.

While I was sitting on a bench by the river eating my lunch, some pigeons with blue coloring were poking around the area nearby. I was surprised at how close they got to me.

Later, as I was taking pictures of a rose bush, a woman asked me if I was a photographer. :>

There are also some new photos in my Life > 2007 > April 2007 gallery, including Renfro Valley, hanging out with Ben and Manda and having a pizza roll, a trip to a furniture store with Mom and Connor, a beautiful mountain road in Jellico, Tennessee, the new nightstands I just put in our bedroom last night with Reid’s help, and the new layout of the living room, which is a mess, but much closer to what I want than it used to be.

And here’s the view from where I’m sitting as I write this post.

What is UP?!

Thought I’d drop a quick line and tell you what’s going on with me.

1) Brooke’s wedding was beautiful, and this past weekend I saw her off at the airport. She’s coming back next month though, so it’s kind of like she’s just on vacation…especially since her apartment still looks like she lives there ;)

2) Sean got a new job. He started yesterday. So far it looks pretty good. He works my same hours, 10 to 7. This morning I got up and made us both a lunch :) Assuming things work out, we will be buying my new Yaris around the middle of March.

3) My mom’s older sister is going through a difficult time with some medical issues, so my mom is ~~flying~~ driving up there to take care of things. I’m just hoping everything will work out. I wish my aunt would move to Kentucky and live near my mom.

4) Water is dripping from the apartment above directly into Sean’s shower. I guess it’s good that it’s not seeping into our floor! The maintenance guy showed up this morning at 8 o’clock. I was still in bed.

5) I have a BIG DECISION that I have been weighing for weeks now. I think I’ve almost made it, but I’m still waiting on some information before I commit. Certain things that are happening in the meantime are making the new venture more and more appealing…

6) I love art blogs. One relatively minor goal in my life is to make enough money so that I can buy a few pieces from my favorite art bloggers.

7) Lately I have really been wanting to buy a Japanese-style hot water heater, some green tea (the actual tea, not a tea bag), and a teapot. The water heater would be the most expensive, but I’ve wanted to have one ever since I first went to Japan. It’s just that in the past few weeks, I’ve really wanted to have the option to brew a pot of green tea at work without having to microwave the water.

8) I’m getting over my cold.

2006

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve accomplished in the past 365 days for a few weeks now, and the list seems rather small.

One big thing is getting a job that has been amazingly perfect for me. It was sheer luck; I happened to see the job opening, so I applied and got it. Initially I didn’t know what the job would really entail. I wasn’t sure I would like it, but I figured I could do it for awhile, and try to figure out what I did want to do in the meantime.

Over time I have taken ownership of the position and used my role to expand and improve the station’s website. I work with sales and promotions as well as news. I’ve learned so much about the television industry, and I’ve expanded my knowledge of what’s possible on the web. And there’s still so much to learn.

But working full time for the first time in years has really changed other aspects of my life. I get up in time to get ready for work, and I get home at night tired and unwilling to cook. I just watch anime or DVDs all night and then go to bed. In recent months I’ve even stopped packing my lunches, going out for fast food instead.

I was so much more active in 2005, before the fire. I went biking often. I think I only took my bike to the Canal once in 2006, and other than that I rode my bike twice around my neighborhood–once down to the Y, and once just back in the neighborhoods. Both times I ended up entirely too winded.

So I’ve deteriorated physically, and I haven’t really done anything else, either. I haven’t done more to improve my knowledge of Japanese. I haven’t read hardly anything. Pretty much all the learning I’ve done has been in the course of my job. I haven’t gone exploring–I’ve been wanting to see the dam, and Mystery Photo Guy has turned me on to another place to check out, but it seems all I do on the weekend is sit around. I’ve fallen into a rut; I do only what I need to do, and nothing more.

And it’s driving me crazy.

I think part of this has just been recovery time from the fire. I dealt with it and moved on, in general–I was able to function. But was I really living?

There were so many things I planned to do and then backed out of. Baking Christmas cookies. Going to Wes’ church for a Halloween mystery dinner. Having a party. And I still haven’t bought the lining Brooke needs to make the curtains she said she’d make for Sean and my bedroom.

Some of these can be attributed to procrastination and laziness, but I feel like there’s something more. Even when I feel totally motivated to accomplish something, I ultimately don’t do it.

I wonder: was I afraid to live, in 2006?

Ever since the fire, I have wondered what it taught me. I wondered if I was supposed to learn not to be so attached to material possessions. I wondered if I was supposed to give up on my obsessive-compulsive self-archiving.

Have I spent my time wondering this, in lieu of doing anything else?

Do I analyze myself too much? Was the lesson really to just get over it and live?

I feel like I’ve been trying to learn that one for years.

Ultimately, there are some things I want, and I didn’t make any progress on any of it in 2006.

I want to lose weight. But in 2006, I gained it.

I want to learn Japanese. But in 2006, I didn’t even crack a book. My “studying” consisted of occasionally trying to read katakana on websites, and watching anime.

I want to play the piano again. But in 2006, I didn’t even try to figure out how to get back into it.

I want to join a choir or chorus. But in 2006, I didn’t look for one.

I want to be more sociable. But in 2006, I avoided social occasions and really only spent time with Brooke–essentially clinging unfairly to someone who will be moving soon.

I want to cook dinner and pack lunches. But in 2006, I ate out for the majority of my meals.

I want to write blog posts–and hell, maybe even other things–that are interesting for people to read. But in 2006, every time I thought of writing something, I just felt tired…so usually I didn’t even bother to try.

In fact, pretty much everything in 2006 made me feel tired.

I remember being so happy when 2005 ended. I was so excited to leave the year of the fire behind me. But what did I do with the new year? Nothing.

“Why don’t you want anymore?” AJ asked. “Straight up. Is it because you just don’t like it, or are you afraid of what might happen?”

“I’m not afraid of anything happening,” I said. “I just don’t see the point.”

“Fair enough,” AJ said.

“There really isn’t a point,” Dan added.

Later, AJ said, “I really wonder what you’d be like drunk.”

“I know, you really want to know,” I said.

“It’s because you’re different–not in a bad way, but just different–normally. So what would you be like when you’re not normal?”

“Probably depressed,” I said.

“Depressed? Why? Do you feel depressed right now?”

“Yeah.”

“…okay, yeah, you’d probably be depressed. Or pissed.”

Happy New Year.

Lost and found

The odd thing about the fire that destroyed my home and all my possessions one year ago today is that when I remember it, I see myself in the third person.

I’m wearing my big navy blue stretch-waist shorts and my oversized, scrubs-channeling light blue shirt, and I’m very annoyed that a loud bang has awakened me from my two or so hours of sleep. It’s the weekend, so I don’t have anywhere to be in the morning, but I’ve always been fond of sleeping and disliked having it interrupted.

So I storm out of the first bedroom Sean and I shared as husband and wife, round the corner to the left and head towards the living room. The noise sounded like it came from outside; I’m assuming for some sleep-addled reason that the air conditioner exploded, and I’m headed for the deck to take a look at it.

Except when I get beyond the entrance hall, I see that the deck is ablaze. And more than that, I see that the flames are licking their way in through an apparently nonexistent deck door.

I’ve thought back to what I did next a million times. A million times I’ve asked myself why I didn’t quickly run to the office and try to grab my purse, camera, and maybe even my computer, which contained nearly all of my memories–or why I didn’t grab my beautiful tea set that I got at Hirashimizu Pottery near Yamagata, since it was right there on the table, or why I didn’t at least pull the scroll with my host sister’s beautiful, award-winning calligraphy–a Chinese poem about spring–off the dining room wall, because that is irreplaceable.

And then I think why, when I ran back to the bedroom shouting at Sean to get his phone and get out of the apartment, didn’t I think to get some clothes from the closet. At least some shoes. A bra would have been nice, so the next day when we woke up at Sean’s parents’ house and realized we had nothing, I could have at least gone out and gotten us something else to wear, rather than sending his parents on that errand.

But danger does strange things to a person. I didn’t think to grab any of that–or my personal documents, my photos, my yearbooks, my scrapbooks, my diaries. And Sean took me literally when I said “Grab your phone”–he left his sunglasses, wallet, wedding ring, pocket knife, and high school class ring all sitting on the battered nightstand that used to be my TV table back in Kentucky.

He did, however, have the presence of mind to pull the fire alarm and to think about putting the fire out. And so while I was concentrating on getting out, he was searching for a hose and finding a fire extinguisher. I didn’t know this, so when I was two flights down and he wasn’t with me and I turned back to see him heading back into the now smoke-filled apartment, I screamed at him, “Get out of there! Get out of there!”

Seeing that there was nothing he could do with all that smoke, he got out of there.

Barefoot, we stood out front, unable to see anything. A few neighbors had gathered, and a fire truck came. Sean left the fire extinguisher next to the fire hydrant and we walked around the building to see what it looked like from the back. We called our parents on our soon-to-be-useless-without-battery-chargers cell phones while we watched our home be decimated by flames.

It was horribly beautiful…and there was the sweet smell of burning wood, which to this day makes me paranoid, takes me back to standing on the other side of the pond and watching my deck collapse onto the decks below it. The fire moved so fast, gutting the living room, eating the roof, and it was then that I first realized that I might have had time to save something. The grass beneath my feet was a cold reminder of my lack of foresight.

Honeymoon pictures, gone. Any photos not on smugmug, gone. All my writing, gone. My thousand-dollar Star Wars collection, gone. All my sweet little souvenirs from Japan, gone. My books–all my books!–gone.

The first shirt I ever bought for Sean, gone. My wedding dress, gone. My childhood dresser, gone. Grandma’s hope chest, gone. My crocheted afghan from Aunt Sally, gone. My beautiful dining room set from Aunt Bev, gone. The Kitchenaid mixer I’d used throughout my teen years, gone. The old mixing bowl from the mixer I’d used through my childhood, gone.

Mom’s beautiful wrought-iron cookbook stand, gone. My huge collection of dishes, gone. The first and only TV I’d ever owned, that Dad had bought me as a surprise one summer, gone. The only copies of film photos from high school, gone. My first matching comforter, pillow sham, and window valance from my childhood bedroom, gone.

Sean’s saxophone, gone. His vintage Nintendo, in pristine condition, gone. His rare artbooks, which we may never find again, gone. Our limited-edition collector’s sets–two of them!–of Macross, gone. The handsome metal briefcase of tools his parents had given him one Christmas, gone. His expensive model kits, which had never even been assembled, gone.

My records from the hospital, and the cute little bean bag doggie Pat and Wolf gave me to cheer me up while I was there, gone. My first porcelain unicorn, which spawned a massive collection during my preteen years, gone.

The seashells my mom’s best friend collected on various beaches, gone. I always admired how she loved culture and travel, and after she passed away I ended up not only with those shells, but with some paintings she’d collected. Gone.

The laptop I’d taken to Japan twice, which still held on its hard drive a reaction essay Sean had never posted anywhere, gone. The video I’d made of myself and my family and never sent to my first best friend Noelle, gone. My collection of fortune cookie fortunes, gone. The book of high school memories I’d painstakingly assembled, gone.

Mom’s old breadbox, gone. My childhood desk, gone. All the silly hats I wore when I was bald, gone. The faux-Tiffany lamp Ben gave me, gone. The beautiful living room furniture from Sean’s Mema, gone. The little glass box with the silk flower in it that I’d admired as a child and which Grandma had given to me when I moved to Georgia, gone.

My tins of expensive green tea, gone. My hatbox full of letters and cards and notes passed in class, dating back to middle school, gone. Our marriage license, gone. The goblets we used at our wedding reception, gone. The cute picture frame given to us by the nice people at Augusta Golf and Gardens, where we got married, gone.

Our first home, gone.

It still hurts. It hurts to lose those reminders of happy memories, those fragments of the lives we’ve led. Human memory is fragile and fallible. I used to go through my old diaries and videos and learn things I’d already forgotten about myself. I won’t have that opportunity ever again.

And yet, things have changed so much in just one year. I’ve found work that is fulfilling on so many levels it’s astounding. Through careful saving and the amazing generosity of our loved ones, we’ve made a new home for ourselves. Now we’re surrounded by things that remind us just how lucky we are.

We’ve had other hardships. Sean was in a car accident that totalled his Corolla, and my car’s brakes went completely out on me while I was driving home one evening. But Sean got a nice, newer car and I’m on the road to getting a brand new one, and in the meantime my brakes have been fixed and are working beautifully. And Sean’s contract at work is up, so now he has to find something else…but we’re viewing this as an opportunity for him to find something great.

Despite everything that’s happened to us in the past year, I still believe we’re lucky. We’re lucky first of all to have been born in a country where we can live how we choose and make our own way and be confident that we’ll have luxuries like electricity and running water. Where two people can afford to own two cars. Where there are so many things to see and do and learn, and if a door closes, there are open windows all over the place. If you have to go through hardship, I recommend doing it in America.

And we’re so lucky to have so many people who love us. It has been amazing this year to be the recipients of so much kindness. It’s wonderful to feel so connected to people, near and far, and to know that the idea of community, of family, hasn’t died, despite of the isolated lives we lead.

There will be more suffering. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but pain is a guarantee.

But so is love, and happiness, and kindness, and truth, and opportunity, and adventure.

I’m excited to see what’s next.

I am eating an absolutely delicious peach right now

I’m trying to get more fruits in my diet (though I don’t seem to be reducing the chocolate just yet). Yesterday I walked both during lunch (with Wes at the Greeneway, Martintown Road entrance) and after work (with Brooke at the Greeneway, The River Golf Club entrance). And today I went over to the Y during lunch and did some kung fu aerobics (I made that up) and walked on the treadmill some.

When I look in the mirror at my profile, my stomach looks huge. It’d be nice if there was a baby in there, but since that’s impossible, it just means that I have become very, very fat. It’s irritating that it looks so much like a pregnant belly, though. My body has a sick sense of humor.

In any case, this peach is divine.

It’s a nice day.

Today I have eaten:

1 Slim-Fast (Strawberry)
1 tuna fish sandwich (homemade)
1 fat-free blackberry yogurt (Dannon)
~15 baby carrots

And while my readers are pondering whether or not they’ve accidentally opened an archived post from 2003…

I got a lot of sleep last night. I left work early and went to bed right when I got home. I woke up at around 11, and got up for a couple of hours, but then I went right back to sleep, and awoke naturally at 7:30.

I wasn’t sure how I was feeling when I got up, but I got some work done that I would have done yesterday had I been at work, then I packed lunches for me and Sean, then I showered, and then I headed off to work.

The morning passed fairly uneventfully, with me catching up on yesterday’s work, and then at around noon I ate my lunch, which was delicious. I can’t even really begin to describe how good it was to eat a tuna fish sandwich again. I think all the fast food lately has really been messing with my system.

After lunch and the midday news, I took my official lunchbreak, heading out for a nice walk around the area. I strolled down the road I can never remember the name of, then cut across to Georgia Avenue and walked back to the left, then ran across the street at Communigraphics and took that side road back into the neighborhoods. From there I took a winding path through unknown territory until I got to Martintown Road, from which point I circled back to Observatory and headed straight back to the station.

When I arrived I still had plenty of time, so I took the opportunity to finally climb the tree in the park. It took me awhile to find a good spot to begin the climb, but I finally managed to haul myself up to a branch at about my eye level. Maybe someday I’ll be able to climb higher, but that was enough for me for today.

The day is beautiful. It’s hot in the sun, but cool in the shade. It feels comfortable.

I feel pretty good after that walk, and I’m glad I was finally able to climb into the tree. Now that I’m sitting at my desk, I feel like a small headache is coming on, and I also feel a little tired, but I think I’m much better off now than I was yesterday.