Change we can believe in

So marks Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention. This marks the first DNC that I've taken pains to observe. I have my week scheduled accordingly, with each night recorded on my mom's DVR, just in case.

I have to admit, and I'll eat my own cliche, I am so - very - inspired.

We kick started the DNC with an address from house speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi, always an avid Obama supporter, attacked McCain, as is expected of any conventions opening predator, and did so with a somewhat nervous demeanor that didn't really behoove her. Thankfully, she worked in a call and response refrain, "Obama is right, John McCain is wrong", and worked in the repetitions so many times that the audience, with gusto, chanted in queue. However, her delivery was a bit frigid and her cadence seemed a bit too rehearsed. While she was an ideal speaker to address the connectivity, tenants and hopes of this week, she paled in comparison to the later speaker's that surfaced. Oh wow. They are, as follows:

Caroline Kennedy paid tribute to her uncle in an unassuming and loving way, and in so doing worked in references and parallel ties to Barrack Obama that almost demanded that all in attendance (listeners, too) never consider the two mutually exclusive. The video montage started off a bit trite, with Ted Kennedy in a yacht that I worried would widen the yield between voters with lower socio-economic status- but they stretched the metaphor in an all encompassing manner. They pulled it off to where no one could deny the impact Senator Kennedy has had on our nation as a member of the senate for the past decades of my life, and the lives before I lived. Caroline made certain we'd remember as she detailed her uncle's contributions. Then, of all the speaker's to align themselves with Barrack, Teddy took to the stage in a robust, confident and endearing speech in which he promised to be present at all points in the Obama/McCain race and instilled hope and promise in us in assuring he'd be standing in much the same position this January. MSNBC was forewarned that he'd speak for 4 minutes and he far surpassed that anticipated time frame. He was as he's always been when dedicated to his craft and it only heightened the DNC's mission to further support Barrack Obama.

Now, Michelle. Oh Michelle. Her oratory delivery was one of the most spectacular I've yet seen. She pulled not the race card. She didn't dwell on the misgivings or hardships of her youth. Instead, she employed creative rhetoric in detailing her family's values with those of her husband in a tender, stoic and emphathetic manner. She spoke of balance, and her words, not necessarily detailing any political platforms only served to further promote her husband's position. It was beautiful. I'd argue she won the election for her husband. Commentators commented on her role in addressing the congregation today. If her main intent were to focus on delivery, she sunk it out of the park. Viewers identified with her. Felt comfortable with her. Weren't threatened or annoyed as they were with Mama Heinz. If she wanted to focus on content, she ace'd that as well, touching on some of the more intimate and immediate concerns we carry - the war in Iraq, family values, the economy in subtle, but demanding ways. She was both a vision and an inspiration, and her dialogue with her husband, that followed, in satellite television with her two daughters in tow, only perpetuated the belief shared by many that Barrack is truly a family man and that this 'illusion' isn't. That this is the American Dream realized. "With the current of history that meets the new tide of hope. You see, that, is why i love this country."-Michele Obama.

So much more to come. Until then vote with assurance. vote with heart.

We're going out in a din of discordant voices

Soon to begin work and I wildly welcome the opportunity. I'm a whirlwind of movement and anxiety and vacations and holidays and time to myself just don't become me. It's ideal, then, that I have an itinerary in place. That I travel 15 hours only to work longer days. Our assignment seems secure. Elect Betsy Markey. Unseat Marilyn Musgrave. With the good people of Colorado's 4th District already disillusioned, the stakes seem safe, but I aim to collapse exhausted. I want to talk to all the people that I've never before been privileged to talk to. Talk shop. Talk life, living, the grand design. I want to be a component of the machine. The wheel. The cog. Something to expedite movement, or be essential to. I have started new, and changed my time accordingly.

"Our hell is a good life"

Her, more than musing:

I wore a dress that moved

Found Poem. Memories of a hair stylist, if you'll join me in inverting the pro-nouns.



What They Do To You In Distant Places

I never told you.
There was a woman-in the greening season
of a tropical island
where I had gone to break some hard thoughts
across my knee
and also, although I am no athlete
but breathe with my stomach like a satyr
and live in my stomach
according to bile and acid and bread and bitter chocolate,
to run a long race for the first time.
On that morning,
it was raining in great screens
of the purest water and almost no one at 4 a.m.
where I waited, half-sheltered
by the edge of my dark hotel, for a let-up.
Except her, suddenly
from nowhere-smelling of long hair and dew,
smelling of dew and grass and a little powder.
She wore a dress that moved.
She had been out dancing and the night and she
were young.
I wore a black watch cap like an old sailor
but I was all there was.

I said no, I had to do something else.
She asked how far? And
if I would run all that way-hours.
I said I'd try,
and then she kissed me for luck
and her mouth on mine was as sweet as the wild guava
and the smell of her hair
was that of the little bit of dew the lover
brings home from the park
when again she shows up in the morning.

I don't know where I have been
that I have ever had such a kiss
that asked nothing and gave everything.
I walked out into the rain
as if blessed. But I had forgotten
what they do to you in distant places,
taking away your memory
before sending you back. You and me.
I confess,
I forget her within the hour
in the gross odors of my labors.
If I had known what she was doing...
Perhaps she's with you now.
-Marvin Bell

Hope is a thing, with feathers

back, and not a moment too soon:

What do we do with the beauty we find in the smallest of things?

Everything really was beautiful.
And nothing hurt.

I am really, truly, howl at the moon happy right now.

This is Kim-chan, signing off.
More to come from Chicago, the campaign trail and a life well lived.

The machines were struggling for a beauty beyond their humble states

Writhe through the first one minute and 8 seconds.

Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship...

Today I nearly set my apartment on fire. See, I put the kettle on. Yes, I do that. Daily. I usually consume an entire carafe of coffee, but because I've been sick I've taken to green tea. It's easy to defer to in these parts.

Regardless, gas top a-gassing I notice the fire is more pronounced than ever. There also appears to be a billowing stream of black smoke pouring out from under the kettle. Odd. Perhaps, I muse, there was some remnant of some food product on the bottom of my kettle. I remove it and turn down the gas. Trouble is, when I turn down the gas, the fire won't subside. It's then I realize I've placed, inexplicably, the rubber stopper for my sink on the range and that it's wildly on fire.

Well, hmm.. That's curious. Herald back to horror films of old. Frozen in fear, or maybe mere amusement. I, for a moment think it the worst decision ever to douse the flames. I figure I need baking soda. Do I have baking soda? Oh wait. This isn't a grease fire. Then I snap back into reality. Oh yes, now, now, now put it out with water. And so I do.

My apartment reeks of burnt rubber, but there was some satisfaction in having removed the charred rubber remnants in one fellow swoop with a dollar store kitchen fork.

All's well and quiet on the eastern front. Coffee is just now being made.

They gave us the wine to drink, not to talk about

A new aim. Wine in the sky that seems plausible. And delicious.



My apartment is not nearly packed. I can excuse myself in part because I'm busy. One part. The other stems from the fact that I may not be ready to leave. I've made new friends. I've taken Hiroshima as a new lover and I've found that now- life, living, this moment in August, I'm as good alone as I ever was with another.

Let's drink to that. And all this mixed-up adventures to follow.
I'm bellyfull of beauty.

Trying to walk the same way to the same store takes high-wire balance...

The summer that will soon define all my summers to follow starts. here.:
www.wedoitin400.blogspot.com

The venerable Lady jean Ann Stanula and I pair up to compose 400 word shorts (cross genre, hybrid genre, genre sans genre) every Monday. More to come. On Monday.

...she presented a naked white countenance to the faultfinding light of spring.

"He must be always on his guard and devote every minute and module of life to the decoding of the undulation of things. The very air he exhales is indexed and filed away. If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not! With distance, the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. The silhouettes of his blood corpuscles, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains; and still farther away, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up, in terms of granite and groaning firs, the ultimate truth of his being."

What many mistake for narcissim...

And here we are. Ready as ever for round two. I've been hunting the ghost, and mostly successful in my attempt, until this weekend, when I was foolish and trotted, cantered, loped backwards only to awake with a terrible headache.

that is precisely what Franklin Delanor Roosevelt said moments before his death. His last words, in fact: "I have a terrible headache."
If I have to liken it to a death sequence then I will gladly interpret my apotheosis. I tire of needing love. Disappointment is cumbersome. I'm eliminating the memory of him and all my silly short-comings. I want to walk off the tarmac, shoulders erect, anxious and anticipatory of all the beauty to follow. I know this is possible, even if Nabokov (see: above) negates it.

Stumbled upon an incredible compilation of independent and electronic artists who cover James Joyce's "Chamber Music" poems.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91757715
It's nothing incredibly inventive, but the lyricism and supplementary illusive sounds- the cadence, the verse lifted in beat is pulled off in execution. I think differently of the poem when presented in such a medium. That's to suggest, I don't often attribute an electronic base to grandiose verse, so in listening I'm more apt to summon newfound meaning. Something saucy. Something contemporary. Sure, that may cheapen it some, but it has me reassessing Joyce, and that's something few contemporary artists can do to date.

My post-secret was posted. I was so concerned that the he it was not written for would assume I had him in mind, but in the end what does it matter, his interpretation? I chose to sleep soundly. I've excavated the pea.

I am madly in love with this life.

And all you see, is where else you can be when you're at home...

She was the kind of woman who thought that any injustice could be counterbalanced by something good to eat...

Calling into question escape. In any and all costume.

"...And my heart needs a polygraph. I was so eager to pack my bags. When I really want to stay. When I really want to stay..."



Matsuyama and the beauty found in small things next episode. In list sequence. Emphatic! With exclamation!

until then.

Even Captain BookSmart fears contagion...

I have it on good authority Nancy (see: Drew) would, too.

Let's attribute it to the booze. And the company. The ex-pat commradorie. Boots and whiskey are of the same cloth, so it stands to reason that an evening dedicated to seeing Boots off would equip me with all the liquid courage this ramshackle island can supply.

That said, I drank in merriment and recognized that the winks (what I originally dismissed as a nervous tick emotion) our waiter kept winking were for me. What does a woman do with winks? Score some free dessert, scribble her number on a cocktail napkin (I was without my craft kit), thrust it in his hands and run screaming for the streets.

Now, the reason I'd call in the assistance of lovelies Nancy and Bess. Shortly thereafter I receive the following text:

"Thank you for Email me. (insert smiley emoticon).
Let's meet up and let's chat some time!
I wanna meet up soon!! But, I gotta terrible lumbago (insert cry-eye emoticon).
I should take a day off for a month! (cry-eye, again).
when I get a complete cure, Let's meet up (thumbs up emoticon).
Keep in touch (blushing emoticon)."

WHAT?
I know this blog promises that I am found in translation, but I've never been more lost. Anyone who can discern what disease a lumbago is gets all my love and batteries. And lately I've been a small wonder.

Still reeling from my private showing of "There Will Be Blood". Mr. PTA is, has and will forever remain my favorite director. I gushed and awed over Magnolia, having watched it two times in succession, only to devote a full day and a half to internet research that confirmed that Mr. PTA is a compulsive, cinematic nut who uses one well placed bible parable, Exodus 8:2 and references it, in a variety of compelling and creepy ways 82 times throughout the film. There Will Be Blood got me going in much the same way. The end sequence, without any research to speak of is phenomenal, but it wasn't until I discovered the pirated lines, and political references of our main characters monologue, "I drink from your milkshake! I drink it up!" that I grew spastic and elated in the excuse to watch this film again and again. It's slow moving. My mother will surely hate it, but it's PTA at perhaps his finest and I'll recommend it to any and all.

Special thanks to Whitney for the viewing encouragement.

51 days. In all of 40 minutes, 50. My student wrapped his little paws around me this afternoon after having seen my goodbye poster. The mother's eek, and ask after Chicago as if it's there own departure. I worry I won't be able to pass the baton on for fear I'll be forgotten. Shoganai.

Matsuyama and other feats of strength this weekend. I'm going to carve a haiku into every concrete edifice I see.

I am presently commissioning artwork. My Reno love Dan is making me a tryptych, I'm purging photos off CoMO and calling on the artistic styles of the New York damned. If you have something, I may be willing to buy. I should probably take into account the limited wall space of my January dwelling. It's small. Turn left and I've urinated, made coffee, synched my i-pod and shaved- consecutively. I suppose it works in that I'm a multi-tasker.

I can't believe I've been this long without Helen or Jason. Or Michele, Danno, Suzanne and Patty. And Tom. And my typewriter. And my heart-to-heart bear. And Chicago - the number one love of my life.

I'm calling on the past to meet me in Cognito.

At what point, it's fair to ask, did snowflakes start believing their own publicity?

"You disrupted the predictable pattern of my life, and although uncertainties and changes can be quite uncomfortable, a life is only a paper puppet show without them."

Houses move and houses speak

if you take me then you'll get relief...

Oscillating between love and a need to run. Hiroshima is such a fickle mistress.
57 days and I'm not near ready.

I have the inexplicable urge to ride a motorcycle.
And of some American Movie Classic from some classically movie'd actress:
"Fasten your seat belts. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Maybe this post-secret

l'audace, l'audace, tojour l'audace.

the season was almost done, we managed it 12-1...

...so far I have known no humiliation, in front of my friends and close relations.

Blog post of no particular immediacy. I'd write of my time spent in Shikoku on our Golden Week holiday, but that's a time long past and I'd sooner defer you to pictures posted on Flickr- my new play-by-play tell-all darling lover.

I've been thrust into goodbyes more than I've ever known. I'm usually the one leaving the left and these past few weeks have found my friends, good/great/best ones, off to their homelands or areas far removed from where I'll ever be. The city of Hiroshima is minus one Boots, and his absence was obvious in the late night hours where once the streets shouted in ways different than they do now. Mike is off in favor of saving the world, and I've no doubt he will. That, among other things. We called one another the best conversationalists we've known, but our conversations always paralleled one another and it's hard to lose someone so close to understanding me. Said goodbye to Keith after a week long stay at my Fuchu mansion. Movies were watched. Pictures were painted and while I have space to stretch my legs and arms and roll over in the night without disruption, I miss the comfort of assigning someone else a key.

But, but, but were rolling in ashes. We're coming up phoenix.

Beer Garden Sunday-Funday. Some 30-40 of us took up space, drank beer, discussed in three languages the anatomical dynamics of sex, went elsewhere, danced a choreographed shuffle, made plans for adventure camping, and did the night right. Hiroshima takes me in as she had when I first arrived. It feels like coming home.
61 days.
61 days!

B-B-B-Boston and other feats of strength quickly approaching. Tokusan next weekend. Lucky lasses of the prefecture dress in Yukata. I'll be certain to post pictures.

Everything is beautiful. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

The silence was pregnant with avoided topics

Private pilgrimage to Koyasan. The morning: muddled, sleep deprived and me forgiving myself my misgivings of the previous night. I board a shinkansen and sleep. I ride a subway and, again, sleep. I ride an alternate rail car inbound to Mt. Koya and can't do anything other than gape- mouth wide and frosting the window pane. This route took us out of the confines of inner-Osaka and into a train trail unlike any I've ever known. To liken it to the mysticism of the Polar Express would be to do it a great injustice. Imagine a narrow track, flanked in trees with inner rings that surely peak the hundreds. It took every ounce of self restraint not to de-board at one of the many vacant, untouched rail stops that suggested nothing more than their temporal space in a land so quiet and vast. The mountains collected colors and the streams moved westward- untouched- beautiful in their ability to push water as fast as they had. I'll never know a more picturesque 100 minutes in my life.

What followed was a diagonal cable car, fixed in track and also suspended for safe passage. Surely this 10 ton piece of badass machinery, full loaded, can't ascend the mountain at a near vertical angle. It was/is the bully of all ropeways. In 5 minutes I reached the peak (although I walked down the mountain in descent) of what's expected to be a 5 hour hike. Children loved the thrill. An old man snuck a photograph of his purse-lipped wife and we all filed out in a solemn procession.

Queue Koyasan (!), oh my Koyasan. I board a bus with a retired couple from San Fran to find they are staying in the same temple as I. Shinjoshin-in Temple. New Gentleman has just turned 64 so he sings, on loop, 64 by the Beatles. He's visited Japan a fistful of times and his wife appears perturbed, sore from the solid fact of his statement. It is her first visit to Japan.

I check in and am shown to my room. Larger than expected in scale with well manicured rice paper doors and a view of the garden. There is a muted vase with simple fresh flowers and the dividing doors have opalescent handpainted decals that prism in kind to whatever color I'm wearing and whichever way I sashshay. I leave the room to explore the sights nearby. I chance upon a garden with a natural stone formation and it restores my belief in the beauty of the natural. Temples in every direction- conjoined directions too!- and the rain leant them a less weather-worn look. The fog and misted skin reflected their surroundings and I hugged my camera and shot everything in sight.

I chanced upon a small shop with a woman at a loom waving me in. Her items were precious- perfect and priced at their worth. I purchased the start of a scarf- a makeshift keitai charm in the hopes that one day I'll finish it or find someone who will gladly take on the task with me.

There were a long series of low hanging tori gates. I followed them and along the dirt path the trees had shed their best blooms and roses and peonines lay trampled and rain beaten along the ground. It seemed ominous as the path led me to a temple so old and ramshackle that it appeared abandonned- a scene segway to Deliverance. I cut through the weeds to get a closer look and found a tiny shack cluttered- community yard sale stocked- with statues and icons and money trays. It was and will forever remain my only representative example for the phrase 'organized chaos'. I loved it.

Walked further to find Kongobuji Temple- the central temple for the Japanese sect of Shingon Buddhism. The place was boisterous with raucous and laughing tour groups. I removed myself from the throngs to the opposite end of the temple hall to case the rice paper doors- each depicting different scenes of the start of Buddhism in Tang China. The gold leaf left no room for errors and I moved in as closely as I could to view the carefully painted maple leaves, peonies and cherry blossoms. There was a beautiful set of doors depicting Kobo Daishi's meet and great with the great spirits who summoned him to Mt. Koya with a black and white dog as his aides. I learned of Mt. Koya's peculiar makeup- with 8 mountain peaks that conglomerate to suggest the silhouette of a lotus flower. I stood in the room where Toyotomi Hidetsugu committed ritual suicide, and walked alongside Japan's largest rock garden- raked and ready with two clusters of rocks depicting dragons at both the mouth and foot of the garden for protection. I returned to the temple to bathe: hot tub- cool night, and eat dinner in the assembly hall. Dinner, while delicious, was awkward with one couple that seemed to keep quiet in respect for me and the other lone traveler who arrived as I had finished. No matter, as we all became fast friends later on. I have a newfound love for temple food- the sesame tofu (a Mt. Koya specialty) made me reconsider my long standing separation from the food. I ate well, wore my yukata in complete comfort and made way to trek the cemetary at dusk.

All throughout the day I grew slightly sentimental, then agitated at the mass effect of gaijin couples working their way through Koyasan. Having just started up singledom, it seemed Koyasan was the place where love comes to repose. Figures. So I helped that I walked outside to find another lone traveler- a trot-on Irish traveler who was staying in the same temple as I. We talked for awhile, so much so that I lost dusk and found myself in the blackness of night. I had some decisions to make: do I traipse through an ancient and long winded cemetary alone, at night, without a flashlight?

Of course I do.

Aged, stone lanterns lit the way that were so laced with moss they provided very little light. The scene: the etheral windslap on stone was terrifying but not enough to deter me. A jogger flew past excusing himself in Japanese for disturbing my experience. the stone monuments were stories tall and the trees could easily rival the redwoods. It was perhaps the most conscious I've even been of my surroundings and the most lost I've ever been in the vastness of one great thing. Etomology be damned- words and their origins have no place in describing this hike- so cryptic and perfectly calm. I heard the repeated cries of the wind up bird. I walked in tandem with another lone traveler- a tall, handsome man. We looked at one another and it felt like forfeiting a plate of understanding.

I rocked on my heels. I understood exactly what it means to be alone.

And I exhaled in relief.

So here I am (was), room U-4, coddling, at times, the the idea of secured comfort- a partner to love and love me in return. If this is at all possible I couldn't say. I simply want to feel as terrified yet magnetically determined as I had in that cemetary. Again. And again.

In the belly of a whale

Sometime after the new year I sent the e-mail (see below) to a gaggle of Hiroshima friends, a former professor and myself:

Last year Disney promoted a campagin: "The Year of 1,000,000 Dreams". They offered up 1,000,000 incentives, at the cost of the company, to Disney guests. In the end this merely amounted to 900,000 free plastic cups for additional consumption of over-priced soda water, but I can't shake their intent. Accomplishments. Many of them. To be completed in a designated time. I can do that.

This is my new years resolution.

This is the point of the writing.

Here's what I propose: Hula's year of 52 adventures.

The idea is simple. There are 52 weeks in a year. I'm to complete 52 adventures in 2008. And I'd like your help in this effort.

Now I realize that many of my ideas hold steadfast and fade out (see: adventure mondays), but I've never fallen back on a resolution, and I write to make this work. Let this document lock testimony.

I'd like you to sign on, as well. What good are adventures if they can't be shared? So here's what I'm thinking:

We adventure like we'd never adventured before. Considering my poor financial state the adventures can be as simple and as frugal as jumping off a large stone structure in Kumano, and as elaborate as getting a tattoo. These are the things we often keep ourselves from doing. I've already completed two this year. One in Houston and the other on a San Antonio Ranch. I shot some guns. I hadn't realized my fear until I held the monster in my hands. So now, my Japan loves, what's next?

This weekend I'm up for adventure. Any and all of it. I'll start a spreadsheet to document my progress.

Adventures haven't been as timely as I initially called for, but can an adventure really be scheduled? That said, I have a few under my belt and many, most and a myriad to come. They are, as follows:

1. Crazy business in the Diamond City super mall near my apartment. Think big mall. Huge. Stadium style shops for days. It's actually something of a filthy eye-sore that I try to avoid as I don't need to accumulate anything more out here save intangible awesome fear factors that I can dutifully relay to you, my faithful blogdience. That said, I can not, in good conscience explain my actions. Know they were legal (I'm not a lifter) and perhaps the best way to start off the campaign.

2. Oyster consumption. Kaki, the word used when ordering here. Alex ordered me a lunch set of fried oyster and I squirmed and reconsidered too many times before taking one in, contemplating my palette and finally offering up an emphatic thumbs up. I ate them all. In turn, I also greedily devoured a raw one. That I could take or leave but I'm still oyster-full and ready to overcome my next great obstacle: sushi. CELEBRATE!

3. Japanese OBGYN. Now to most this is something less than an adventure and more of a questionable call to all things new. But that's a counter-argument only privy to those who haven't experienced the thrilling Sweeny-Todd type automated chair mechanism they mount you in. The doctor keep calling behind a veiled curtain, "Ittai, Ittai?" Translation: Does it hurt? Does it hurt? I had been both laughing and crying. As is the case with most fun-house rides.

4. Cue the tattoo. This is a difficult post in that my mother (hi mom) is one of few to diligently attend to my blog. She's gone so far as to call to remind me that my blog is a bore and I need to update more frequently. She's also an endearing creature, and, in being just that, doesn't want her children to deface their bodies for fear of infection and regret. Luckily my pal Dan scouted out the best artist for the job. Together we hit up "Wild Monkey Tattoo" where after an initial session being canceled (our artist sick) I had a full week to further freak out over the potential pain of being poked endlessly with needle. Our plan was for me to go first as I'd surely back out after seeing Dan writhe through the pain of his more complicated tatt. After surveying the scene (the palor clean, reputable and our artist sweet and thug-friendly) I did something more than freak out. I lost my sh&*. I paced and pouted and Dan, at the ready, offered to go first. I watched him sit stoically through the endeavor and was sure I'd bow out come my turn. Alex aided in humoring me as I kept excusing myself to make convenee store runs (chocolate for days) and writing scathing journal entries to convince myself I was a badass woman worthy of a tattoo. In the end my conviction won out as I reclined on the artists chair, after 20 minutes of deciding upon a fantastic font, extended my leg, bit my lip and waited for the world's worst pain to attack me. It hurt, but in ways I hadn't experienced. Things have hurt much more and as he inked and wiped I knew it wasn't so much the pain as it was resounding sounds- the friends in arms trying to calm me by delivering tasteless jokes, the buzz of the hand-held device, something like a lady razor- that kept me white-faced and ready to faint. I burrowed my face in Alex's green sweater. Dan and Alex acted as a dynamic duo of spoilt comedy and within ten quick minutes I was tattoo'ed. It was really that easy. So now I've an impressive "26.2" insignia on my right ankle. It's something to see everything I run. It's a nod to a comment made to me by someone I'd like to memorialize. And I'm without infection. Without blood and scab and fear. In having legs that kill I plan to unleash this beaut to the wild this summer, and all the summers that follow.

All this. Such adventure! And surely more to come. Mountains to hike. Oceans to wade in. Horses to ride. Cheese to make. I am at the whim of all things wonderful.

There is no love, where there is no bramble.

And so we celebrate a Japanese Valentine's Day that is the inverse of all I know. Women are expected to give gifts, coated in chocolate, professionally wrapped. This is good news for the choir as I love to gift, and unconventionally so. With this great news I commissioned my pal Dan (an artist and Mass Effect guru) to draw a portrait of Alex and I. Being a patron is really all it's made out to be. I could command Dan to white wash my acne scars and tint my hair to match the fashion of the day. Thankfully my hair is always in fashion, but Dan did masterful work and the portrait, framed and gleaming, went off without a hitch.

Oh wait, there was that darling hitch I worked in. I wrapped the frame in the world's most concerning newsprint. It was a faux paper that detailed how one lady might make efforts to find her 'prince' and 'keep him'. These loosely translated articles detailed how one princess should dress, how she can find happy with her love-time soul mate if she's to keep quiet, and how said princess should turn to her friends to understand the royalty that she possesses. The later giving the paper too much credit but it's par for the course in philosophy. So I stacked on a bow and a lovely ornamental flower and stowed the gift away. Upon Alex's arrival this past weekend I presented him with the package on the pretense it was the obligatory chocolates lovers are expected to present to one another. He, anxious because it seemed to be the worlds biggest piece of chocolate, tore in. Ha, ho. Oh, we all rolled around with that one because my gift was not edible, but awesome. And, in the end, I had some freakish 3-D Ultraman and creepy alien cohort chocolate thing to present him with.

The weekend also included a ryokan stay in Miyajima. Miyajima, being on the top three illustrious list of most scenic places in Japan, was also hosting an oyster festival. CELEBRATE! Or not, as I'm terrified of fish. Oysters seem so at the ready. Bulbous. Decidedly pregnant. Ready to slide and flavor your trachea as soon as you let them in. Thus, I have never had an oyster. Any fish for that matter. And maybe it was the romance of the week. Maybe I was still reeling from the events of last night (see: Dan Fan's surprise birthday party- posts to come), but I was adamant on eating an oyster. So I ate 5. Bloody 5 oysters, of all varieties. I ate fried oyster. But that was a freebie as all fried things are delicious. Then, after much hesitation and a rowdy gaggle of friends pounding fists on a table shouting, "Hula- Oyster" in a quiet subdued restaurant, I went for the jugular and ate a slimy, just cracked, flithy-eye sore of a raw thing. Oh doctor...... it was okay! I'm getting a little crazy in my old age. Quarter life is a culinary beast.

Ryokan was perfect. Dinner was served in full Japanese fashion with all the prepared food groups present and accounted for. Breakfast even more lovely. Our view overlooked as much of the Seto Inland Sea as I've been privy to see. (That's a lot of sea, and a lot of sea/see for one sentence). As night fell, all the tourists (and hordes of them as Kaki filled as we) rushed out to make the last ferry and we pretty much had the run of the island. It was lovely to walk its ways with no one in sight and absorb all the top three ranked beauty that is this island. I'd go back every weekend if I could.

And to end, it is Valentine's Day. Students may make me cards and give me chocolates but I urge any and all reading this post to also consider others reasons we see red:

Feb 14 is also V-Day. V-Day was born in 1998 as an outgrowth of Eve Ensler's Obie-Award winning play, "The Vagina Monologues." As Eve performed the piece in small towns and large cities all around the world, she saw and heard first hand the destructive personal, social, political and economic consequences violence against women has for many nations.

From this experience V-Day was born.

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.
V-Day is an organized response against violence toward women.
V-Day is a vision: We see a world where women live safely and freely.
V-Day is a demand: Rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation and sexual slavery must end now.
V-Day is a spirit: We believe women should spend their lives creating and thriving rather than surviving or recovering from terrible atrocities.
V-Day is a catalyst: By raising money and consciousness, it will unify and strengthen existing anti-violence efforts. Triggering far-reaching awareness, it will lay the groundwork for new educational, protective, and legislative endeavors throughout the world.
V-Day is a process: We will work as long as it takes. We will not stop until the violence stops.
V-Day is a day. We proclaim Valentine's Day as V-Day, to celebrate women and end the violence.

So, wear Red tomorrow, and every Feb 14, to stop violence against women and girls, especially if you, or a woman you know, has been a victim of violence. When someone comments that you are wearing red for Valentines day, correct them—tell them the real reason you wear red.

Please forward this message along. For more info visit: http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/aboutvday/mission