Alan's Fashion Death March

Last year Alan took us on a long walk around some of the hippest neighborhoods in Tokyo, including Aoyama, Harajuku, Daikamyama. We strolled down the Omotesando and sought out boutiques along the side streets. This year, Alan offered to take us on this modern fashion tour again - but, remembering how much our feet hurt from last year's, we decided to christen it "The Fashion Death March."

We set off on a beautiful Sunday morning. The first stop, as always, was Evisu, where Alan stocked up on nice clothes. Justin tried on an eye-popping purple blazer with gold buttons. There were very cute canvas skirts and pants for girls with matching bags buttoned to the back yoke. Shirts with super-wide collars faced with traditional Japanese kimono fabric were fresh and charming.

To the right, Alan tries on a beautiful red cotton track suit at Evisu.

They don't like you to take photos in stores, but you can sneak them. The retail spaces here are absolutely amazing. Every job is custom, from the floor (sometimes gorgeous cedar, a gravel of gray polished stones, a pixelated carpet) to the lighting. I haven't captioned the photos yet, but perhaps they can give you an idea of some of the fun to be had on the trendy streets of Tokyo.

View from the Top

This morning, I am awake before everyone else at 6:30 am. I sequester myself in the bathroom, where I will be less of a bother to the sleepers. The view from the bathroom window is spectacular.

I update, I check email, I write. It's not so bad. Every day is a new struggle; sometimes I lose, sometimes I win, and sometimes - sometimes I can escape the struggle entirely.

Wandering

Alone in Tokyo today. Alone, and unable to find pleasure in anything. I go to my favorite department stores. I order delicious iced coffee. I wander through the streets with the other Saturday shoppers, but all I feel is loneliness.

"I can't be with you," he said. "I can't be responsible for you." The words echo hollowly as I walk, obscuring everything else I hear. Crossing the street, I nearly got run over by a bus. Where is my mind?

I see so many faces which remind me of my mother. Little women in their fifties, stalwartly shouldering their way through the crowds. My mother was so frail I doubt she could have lasted long here. So many stairs, so much walking, so many people to navigate through. I suppose she would have added, "So many souls to save."

Today I am just concerned about my own. Perhaps that makes me selfish. Perhaps, after all, I deserve to feel so alone.

I watch the young people who hand out tissues - they've been there all day, like me. I saw them set up shop earlier and now they are hard at work, and will be well into evening. I wonder what they must feel as they work, trying to convince jaded passers-by that they want tissues. I wonder how much they get paid. I wonder how they manage not to go mad with the monotony and the boredom.

If they are happy, then they are better off than I.

Found and Translated

I saw "Lost in Translation" a couple days ago. It was a memorable experience, just perfect to watch before I go off to Japan myself. I wrote about it on Chanpon.org, which isn't live yet, but I've been given permission to provide the link.

Open Season

Shit, if fucking Everybody Loves Raymond can get an Emmy, anyone can.

So It Is, After All

Playing rock shows is fun!

So often I forget that, especially lately. I'm so distracted, so anxious. Before we start playing I invariably run through scenarios in my head, starting with driving to the event. What if we get into a car accident? What if we forget something? What if we suck? That self-destructive line winds around my head, making it hard for me to think. But once we're actually on the stage and playing, I feel relaxed and happy. And afterwards, almost euphoric.

Thanks so much to you all for coming out. It was lovely to see you. Thanks for giving me a chance to do something I love to do. Sometimes I must believe that I do be the luckiest, luckiest girl, indeed I do.

Writing on Writing

I've been working my way, chronologically, through my favorite female authors. Yesterday was Austen: Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice; today, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Tonight I picked up a long-neglected copy of Mrs. Dalloway with pleasurable anticipation. It's been a long time since I've read it.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself," I read, then stopped. "Clarrissa" was written, in red pen, in the margin by an unknown hand. The careful, curvy, undeniably feminine script belonged to no-one I knew. All my pleasure seeped away. I cannot read books which have been marked. I spend far too long puzzling out the marks themselves. Why did this reader underline simply the word "thought" in the third sentence? What does the asterisk in black pen on the second page mean? Does it indicate the presence of a third reader? What did this mysterious reader think worth marking?

At least the wielder of the red pen was a diligient, if intellectually challenged, reader - her marks persist up to the very end of the book, page 193: a short paragraph squiggled, and noted, "not only who done it."

Not only who done it, but why - that is what I want to know.

Story I

She had constructed as many scenarios for her death as there are hours in the day; for not an hour passed that she did not imagine herself employed in some method or other of escape from life. Making coffee in the morning she thought how easily shut up the kitchen, how quickly the gas turned on, how gently death invited. Driving to an appointment she pictured sailing the car off into the deep blue sky and ocean, diving deep into a place where cares could not follow. Walking on the street she considered flinging her body directly into the path of a swift-moving truck, bang! Lights out. At the grocery store, she lingered over common pesticides, wondering how to calculate an effective dose. At home she considered whether a fall from her rooftop would be sufficient to impart a fatal injury.

But if it were done, 'twere best done well, and quickly. She did not fancy lingering on half-dead in an anonymous hostpital bed. So far none of the strategies inspired by quotidien activity met her exacting standards. She must needs be certain. She must be assured of finality. She would have to arrange a more elaborate, and satisfactory, scheme.

production

i dreamt i was staging a new production of "Les Miserables" in the house where i grew up, on the kitchen floor. i had a crowd of dancers and i was teaching them moves i'd choreographed for the "I Am Jean Valjean" piece. it was to be a comic musical in the broad cinematic colorful style of the 30's, so i had all the gentlemen twirling around in circles. but the kitchen was too small.

and Tony Shalhoub was the star.

Parable

A Poem a day
Keeps the Sadness at bay.

A Friend in Need

When I think I am alone
Then comes my old friend
Sorrow, now my familiar,
Looking over my shoulder,
Whispering in my ear.
She's made a nest in me
And wrapped her dark wings
To brood.

Strange comfort in an unwelcome companion.

lost

turned out of heart
and home,
grief unlooked-for
haunts every path,
and any peace i seek
new pain unravels -

school

i dreamt last night i was a mother, bringing my daughter to kindergarten for her first day of school. she was nervous and she hid behind me. i tried to reassure her by acting as if everything was normal and all right, but i knew it wasn't. i felt anxious too. i could see my daughter's future spread out before her, growing up in elementary school, in junior high, in high school - all the problems she'd encounter, all the frustrations, the pain. and i felt very sad and frustrated that i couldn't protect her from all that.

New York City, Fall 03

at the pad with the kidz	Godzuki and friend	that's a Jaguar
breakfast in bed!	in iso	take daily
eric at gameLab	douglas at NYU	handsome ethan
towering desserts	pink cheeks	awww....
shake it	kiss me, fool	souris+silvio =clazy!
da bomb	we are so hip.	street love
boys and their toys	cory flashes a sign	the boy in blue

with anne in amsterdam

i dreamt i was in Amsterdam. i stayed in a lovely time-share flat at the top of a townhouse, a spacious attic; from the western window i could see all of the city as the sun slowly went down. every morning i took the train and a short, pretty walk to a university where i was either teaching a class or taking a class.

then my sister came to meet me, along with the Rheingolds, Mamie and Judy. we all stayed together in the flat. the morning after Anne arrived, she wanted to make fresh apple pie. i said, let's go out on the city and take an early morning walk before everyone else wakes up. so we went to the train station, bought a ticket, and we were going to go, but then Anne saw some apples she wanted to get at a fruit stand just outside the train station. so we snuck out to get the apples, but one of the train conducters caught us. "What are you doing? You think you don't need to pay?"

"But we did pay, we just didn't go through..."

"No excuses! Everyone must pay!"

but i was able to produce my unused ticket and he let us go. walking home from the fruit stand we ran into Justin Timberlake, who was going lo-pro in a big powder-blue puffy coat, hat, and sunglasses. he flashed me a smile and we exchanged a secret hand wave before he sauntered off. Anne observed, and asked, "What was that all about?"

"Oh, Justin and I are secretly dating. But we can't let anyone know, of course."

Of course.

bad food

i dreamt i was eating all kinds of terrible junk food, food i don't usually touch: Twix bars and Hostess Cups and masses of Dorito-like chips. my stomach felt heavy.

i woke up and spoke to my sister today. she told me she'd had a similar dream. does depression cause dreams about over-eating?