On the other side of the Island

The view from the fourteenth floor overlooking the inland sea can be inspiring. There is a vivifying view to drive dreamers and prompt poets towards new aspirations. It can even revive and reassure over-worked writers and jaded journalists into believing that we can once again capture and contour a moment like this within a composition that is more than a mere cascade of words and more than a cluster of colloquial components. It is the proverbial moment to savor, a breath of fresh air, a piece of paradise, an intoxicated impulsive instance of enthusiastic and elated ebullience.
This is stuff of dreams and the experience of life placed preciously into a paragraph!

There are moments when someone can feel absolutely drained and this week has been one of those weeks. I really didn't want to get out of bed so early on Saturday morning. I was not required in the office and I had no schedule for the whole week-end. I was free and all that I desired was to stay cocooned in that dark, safe place in my bedroom. But there is no one to make the world go away and suddenly there is also no one to cuddle up with because she's already running around and demanding that I too get up!
My eyes are shut tight against the cruel light and I pull the cover over my head, I know exactly where she is and what she's doing because my ears are like twin radars. I was not yet free of the arms of Morpheus but just like a bat that is aware of the exact position of its prey, I felt her occupy a place in space and her presence invaded my ability to return to sleep.
"Come on!" she insisted.
My request for tea was denied because she remembers the last time that she made tea and brought it through to the bedroom for me. She probably remembers the time before that and the time before that one too! I fell asleep and it went cold and remained untouched. Every part of my body wanted to return to a state of unconsciousness, every part that was except my bladder which was being a little rebellious. I finally rolled out of my comfort zone and yawningly fell into my pre-planned routine starting with quieting the dissenting screams of my bladder!

On the train to Kobe, Miss 'Intensive Conversationalist' had her IPod in her ears and her eyes in a magazine and that seemed a waste of a window seat! I would have not used the window seat any better as this was unfortunately an alcohol free day which I'm sure my liver was very grateful for as I sat with my laptop looking over a few drafts that I'd promised to complete over the week-end. I spent about 30 minutes on the first one and thought I could do the rest later, then both my laptop and I shutdown and conserved power. We took almost three hours on the train to Kobe and a two hour bus ride to reach Tokushima, traveling across the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, which is the world's longest suspension bridge. That took us onto Awaji Island and from there we crossed Onaruto Bridge onto the island of Shikoku. It is while crossing this straight that we often see whirlpools in the waters below!

We shared a delicious lunch in the hotel and the afternoon was spent by the pool and this truly was heaven and every part of me rejoiced in the relaxing sunshine.

It was just after seven when Hitomi received the phone call telling her to expect the imminent arrival of our guest, Miss Hayashi and a couple of young ladies. We met them in the foyer and we made our introductions over a few drinks and a very informal chat. The alcohol-free time had to end sometime! The result of our meeting had me spending my Sunday in her small office here in Tokushima city to discuss a possibility of future business and Hitomi, or Miss Indianna Jones as I am now want to call her, went out on an tourist trip to see the Iyano Kasurabashi (Iya vine bridge) which is a national cultural asset. It is said to have been built during the war in 1185 and it was made purely from vines which would be easy to cut down in case of pursuit by the enemy. Today it is supported by steel cables and the vines are replaced every three years. You pay a small fee to cross the bridge which, a sign says, helps preserve the bridge, helps keep the skills of building with vines to be passed to future generations and unofficially it's also to stop bloody tourists from falling to their deaths on the rocks below which would be slightly bad for business.

We leave here on Monday afternoon and I'll be back in the office on Tuesday. The result of my meeting with Miss Hayashi will be concluded with a second meeting with her in her Kobe office in two weeks time.

Footnote 1:
I have been approached by Daniel Dragomirescu, the editor in chief of a European cultural magazine called Contemporary Literary Horizon, with a view to contributing an article or two. It is based in Romania and his own blog can be found here.
I have made no decision as yet since I am fully committed with work over the next two weeks and I also stand at one of those proverbial cross-roads in life.

Footnote 2:
I am surprised that a lot of regular readers have not yet given me a Google mail account to enable them access when this blog goes private on September 12.

Footnote 3:
If anyone is interested in reading a previous post that I hid with an encryption routine last month because I was feeling so awful and down at the time, then the password is (case sensitive) "Fate"
I won't reply any comments to that one so don't expect answers.

Across the water

It's been a fairly hot week and with not having much of a cooling wind, it has quietly baked us dry. Sales of drinks have gone up and you know I'm always eager to be seen to be doing my part when it comes to drinks!
This afternoon I picked up Sayou, my sister-in-law and Kiyoshichan, my little niece who is not so little now. They grow so quickly these days although if you look at me you would think I stopped growing when I was twelve. We decided to 'cool in the pool'. Sayou couldn't join us in the water so she sat by the side shouting encouragement for her daughter.
When I learned to swim I remember having a plain white float that looked like the front half of a surf board and that was my only comfort as I dared to take my feet off of the floor and trust that somehow my head would not slip under the water as I tried to float.
Now it's all water wings and plastic rings.
It was lovely and private in the training pool where I could teach my already confident niece the art of propelling yourself through the water. She is happy in the water and swims well. It was spoiled when six or seven guys started staring at us through the observation glass and were making fairly rude gestures. Not something that should be done in front of children. I made a complaint to one of the pool attendants and slipped my vest on over my swim suit. Their banging on the window soon stopped and we could peacefully continue without interruption. I have never known such a disturbance at the pool, it was such a disgrace!

The very nice attendant returned shortly after that and said that the rowdy group had been asked to leave the building. I imagine they were asked to behave and failed to do that and so the next step of eviction resulted. I have no doubt that incidents like this will be written up somewhere saying that 'foreigners were evicted from public pools', suggesting that we are xenophobic rather than just trying to keep public order!

Hitomi and I are catching an early morning train across the water to Tokushima in Shikoku.
It's a week-end away where we can relax and get some sand in between our toes but with an underlying motive. Through one of her contacts, I will speak with someone regarding a possible career move when my resignation is final at the end of October. Perhaps I can say more of that later, I don't want to be too hopeful about it prematurely and then be disappointed if it amounts to nothing.

Uninspired

The day the words ran out!

Monday kept its promise to be a warm day outside but inside my steel and glass enclosure it remained cool. It seemed to be an endless round of meetings of planning content and coverage. After all said and done I looked at my future schedules and my assignments and my head just went totally blank. Hello, I'm running on empty here! I got up and dared to drink something warm and black from the drinks machine and I knew at once that something was wrong because what was in my paper cup was actually palatable for once! My personal history with machines of any kind, from coffee vending machines to paper shredders has been one of conflict and disagreement. Machines and I seem to have an estrangement that sometimes crosses the line of discord and becomes a relationship of mutual hostility! I drank and looked at my still blank monitor screen. Writers should not have to suffer the indignity of 'writer's block' although it seems quite logical from where the phrase of "writer's block" originated! I am one and I suffered. What if I was a pilot bringing in an A380 airbus to land and I suddenly suffered from pilot's block? Let's put the plane in a holding pattern, endlessly circling the airport until I can figure out our best approach. Did we bring in extra fuel and another in-flight movie? I sat back down and glanced over the papers strewn about my desk and still my head was as empty as an election promise. I say 'strewn' as if it was some war zone disorganized clutter but I knew where everything was so for me it was organized! Gone were the imagery and creative designs that usually flood my imagination with ideas that beg to be crafted into reality and make some blank page an artistic masterpiece. 'En masse' they had decided to go on vacation and leave me all alone with that terrible and frightening blank page! What will happen on the day that I don't have anything to blog about?
Who cares?

Midday slowly dragged itself past the lethargic morning hours and offered me a brief respite from the disappointing content of the morning meetings by allowing my escape to go in search of food. I had a noodles and salad lunch with Riko and we discussed the now open and blatantly obvious power of advertisers, who it seems are holding onto the reins of direction with a stronger grasp than some of the senior editors. I feel downhearted and perhaps I feel worse because I may see my own directional input become somewhat lessened when I see, or at least I think I see, that those who write the editorial content are slowly, deliberately and dare I say manipulatory 'guidance' by those who pay the big money. I'm used to my work passing between editors like a ball at volleyball practice match and after all of the alterations my name still gets tagged onto it. I don't believe that I would feel comfortable if the advertisers themselves were steering the re-writes and the focus and direction with my name being tagged onto the end of that to make it look like I am personally endorsing their product! Even though I only have two months left here I still feel such a loyalty to the original concept and I do feel that this influence is pretty invasive. I'll drown my woes in vodka and sorrow at a great loss indeed when it seems to me that the dedicated ad-space becomes smaller and to maintain revenues the content itself becomes advertiser driven.

Riko and I are paired up for the next two weeks which will be nice because I do like her style.

Important!

As from September 12 - I will be making my blog private.
I think this move will give it a more communal and select feel. I don't know if this will be a permanent move or not. If you wish to continue reading my blog after this date then please go to my profile before that date, click the email link and send me an e-mail stating your wish. You will need to give me your Google mail account to enable me to grant you access. If you do not do so by that date then you will no longer have access or perhaps the means to communicate with me.
If you don't have a Google account then making a new google account is easy!
Private Blogger blogs will require you to have one to log in.
Thanks.

Statue of Jazz found on Mars

Someone once said "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people" and it seems to me to be fairly accurate even if the latter part of it is a well defined description of me on a Saturday night. I think that if people listened to themselves more often then they would talk less and if cats could talk then they probably wouldn't! It's really good to talk but what are you going to talk about? Does anyone sit down with a nice cup of tea and read a good newspaper or magazine? We can get a lot of ideas from the things we read...
... And thanks for reading me!

Responsible journalism is supposed to be the reporting of facts and the presentation of unbiased opinion to promote reasoned discussion of public affairs. Tabloids in most countries avoid this and produce a regular flow of scandals, secrets, outrages, conflicts, splits, arguments, sex and TV-gossip. The masses love it and the paper/magazine sales go up. As a joke you could call it yellow journalism! (Laughs)

The Asahi Geino comes to mind as a particular example of the 'mush for the masses' kind of tabloid magazine, not to be confused with the Asahi Shimbun, which is a damn good newspaper and one that I regularly read. The Genio is a typical example of a magazine that is full of fiction and hypocrisy such as denouncing sex education in schools and campaigns to keep our young innocent and unfortunately ignorant and we all know what happens next. Turn the page over and you have 'sexy schoolgirl of the week' naked! These and other 'true weeklies' usually have fictional stories full of what the older males like and look for when buying a magazine.

Think of politics and imagine in the council rooms where all great debates are held and ideas are discussed and different points of views are explored. The tabloids report this as splits amongst the house as if debating was somehow a weakness and they should already know all the answers to all future policy. This kind of reporting undermines the though about the social questions that the public need to know and have access to accurate and reliable information. I can imagine that such discussions on prostitution, sex education, pornography, obscenity, drug laws, religious involvement to name but a few, would have some politicians close-lipped for fear of the war waged upon them for the mob tabloid mentality. The resulting inability to have sensible public debates on such things is the main reason we suffer from their effects.
This tabloid mentality is not concerned with your interest in local and national matters. It's only concerned with what they 'think' will interest the public. Even the truth can be twisted in order to increase profits. Conflict and scandal increase sales and so if there isn't any happening in real life then make it up! People should debate the presented opinions. Debates for those who produce and those who digest these tabloids don't care about who is right and what is right. They only care that they can get others to agree with them. The true debater shares the concerns of other true debaters and simply wants to arrive at the truth with sound judgements to allow all to arrive at a better understanding. We should criticize and disagree against the presented ideas and not presenter and if you find a strong argument different from your own initial thoughts then be glad. Don't feel that you have lost face or lost ground, debate is not a battle in such a way! Be glad that you have gained an insight and an alternate point of view which can only increase your own understanding.

I picked up a couple of books for light reading /research /more mush for the masses and I'm not sure that I learned anything but I was mildly amused. I liked the cover of 'Lesbian hair' and it made me think of someone in particular. Both books promised laughs and I was quite disappointed and feel led astray by the cheap cover illustrations. The funny moments were too far apart and the underlying feeling throughout both books was a feeling of revenge against an uncaring world that treats them bad. You hate me so I hate you!

Where are all the decent lesbian erotica stories that come with insight into their own personal lives and come without political diatribes?

...In response to J from California who asks rather bluntly which of us takes the 'male role?'

The answer is neither of us. Trying to put it as simply as I can, I would have to say that I'm a girl who likes the usual girl things but I am attracted to other girls and not real 'he-men' such as yourself. If you need labels and identifying tags to help you understand then think of it as 'femme on femme.'

I saw this on yahoo news:
People use music as a "badge" to tell people about their personality and values

Dr Jason Rentfrow, of Cambridge University, said musical preferences and lists of favourite bands on profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace were "clear public statements of who we are and how we should be perceived, whether we are conscious of that or not".

Sample groups of subjects regularly made the same assumptions about people's personalities, values, social class and even their ethnicity, based on their musical preferences, he said.

Jazz fans were viewed as friendly, emotionally stable people with a limited sense of responsibility, while rap fans were viewed as more hostile, but energetic and athletic, the research found.

Classical music was linked to white, upper-class people and rap to black or mixed-race people from lower class backgrounds. Dr Rentfrow, of the university's department of social and developmental psychology, said: "Humans, as social beings, develop techniques that help them to predict what another person is going to be like from the moment they first meet. "Because we can't carry out a full psychological assessment on the spot, we ask them questions which help us to build up a picture of their personality. "This research suggests that, even though our assumptions may not be accurate, we get a very strong impression about someone when we ask them what music they like."

I'm glad all you Jazz fans out there are friendly people!
I like mainstream popular, light rock, indie, R&B, electronica, retro and soulful ballads and you all know what kind of girl I am - you know me through my writings!
So what kind of music do you like? Who wants to tell me a few bands or artistes or styles that they like? What do you think your music tastes will say about you?
(I try to offer you a way of interactivity!)
I also like this one. You can tell from the embedded English translation lyrics that some of the lines are really terrible but one or two really speak to me and I can identify with them. Armed with the reputation and history of this group and the few lines that sing in my ear, it's enough to have this song in my mind quite often!

From Korea with love Pt 2

One and a half million soldiers of the Korean People's army protect Kim Jong-il's little empire with five million more in reserve and they shout to the world the same as most armies that they stand ready for war. Physically he's such a weak little man but with so much power in his hands. This tyrant is the same as any other tyrant before him and is the absolute ruler. He has no restrictions and no limitations whatsoever. I have always associated tyrants with oppression and cruelty. What do they say about power corrupting and absolute power...?
If the downfall of such tyrants causes so much rejoicing and partying you have to wonder why tyrannies still exist and yet most forms of rule throughout history have been tyrannies or close to it. The best weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed and once the people are enslaved then they usually police themselves. Their own fear makes them betray others and by mental surrender to the state they believe they protect themselves and their families. It would take great courage to resist such a regime and those who have it and those who do resist become heroes.

In the beginning there is the laziness in the minds of the many and so much so that they may not even notice the taste of a new regime. Perhaps they are seduced by promises as they escape from what was before. They look up to and need this new 'strong leader' and perhaps they only realize the errors that they've collectively made when the sirens wail in the distance and they hear the heavy boots race up the steps and the men in overcoats take one of your family members away for questioning.
Getting rid of all of the opposition is the usual first step which is quickly followed by any dissenting voices. Mass graves, torture, rape, building up the military and starting wars. It's a route of madness that seems to have no end point other than the 'sad-demise' of the leader and this death usually comes by revolt, assassination or external forcible actions. I don't think I've ever heard of a tyrant who voluntarily gives up his power unless it is to his chosen successor and heir.
I've also never heard of tyrants promoting liberty, love and welfare, freedom of information or enlightenment. Most tyrants offer the usual 'bread and circuses' to keep everyone distracted and offer them a little contentment. Address your people Mr Tyrant and point your finger of blame to the foreigners outside of your borders and say that they are the reason for all of your internal problems. Create that sense of siege and let your people focus malcontent across borders and seas away from the true source of their ills. Fear is your instrument of control and you use it to destroy all of the 'would be heroes' of the resistance. Everyone does know that there are not enough secret police to kill all of the citizens if they chose to rise up all at once. Tyrants are usually sick and pale men hiding behind their medals and their bodyguards, walking across their palace balconies with an occasional wave to the fearful population.
When they do fall they all offer the same excuse of doing what needed to be done but the only mourners at the tyrants demise are those very few who stood to gain, his henchmen and his executioners.

From Japan with love!
Hitomi and I had a log chat about life the universe and everything and the answer strangely enough was only two and not forty two ! I spoke to her about the reasons behind my resignation from my current position and most importantly about the future. We spoke of Nietzsche, of good and bad and even of ascetic ideals. We spoke of hypotheticals and of some of the bad things in the world and ended on the good news that I had heard on Tuesday morning. She agrees with most of my decisions that I've made and has one or two ideas that could be wonderfully interesting.

And so the day ends with our imaginative dressing up and then the role play of my figuring out what to do with a sleeping cheerleader! Do you have imaginations? I'm not telling you what we did but perhaps we can get an interesting comment or two on what you'd like to do with a sleeping cheerleader!

I unashamedly need the ideas for a little project I'm working on so be liberal with them!

From Korea with love Pt 1

Her name may or may not have once been Myung-hee.
Although she and her son have a life here in Japan with a completely different name, she grew up in North Korea and severed in the military. Having such a history made her choice even harder because if caught she wouldn't face prison but death. She crossed the border illegally into China and made the long slow journey to Thailand through Laos on many local short journey trains because the transport police regularly inspected travelers on the long distance trains. She journeyed from there to South Korea and from there to here. She was once an enemy of my nation and now happily living here in much better conditions than she could ever have attained staying there. Only by place of birth was she once an enemy of my nation and now we see how human she and those many others are under the uniform of brainwashed regimentation and beneath that dark foreign politic.

I noticed this following idea on Ikjeld and was amused enough to reproduce the basics of it here.
The KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK has its server in here in Japan funnily enough! They don't have to be professional journalists to write for this site and a simple browsing of it (its a link!) will demonstrate this fact. If you browse through the dates you will notice exactly 'how' they report their view of the news, especially about the nation states that they don't like such as Japan, South Korea and the USA.

Here are the instructions to write news articles for that site!

We build our walls and fences to keep out the barbarians and those who would do us harm. The hopeless ambitions of leaders to build barriers and maintain our internal safety and to keep the threats at bay continually prove futile. Most were designed to keep unwanted people out but in recent decades we have seen them built to keep people in.
Looking back across the history of walls and fences it seems that all have eventually failed and yet still there are those who spend so much money on erecting new ones. The futility of such gestures can only be prompted by desperation and tragedy. It seems to me that physical walls are built after mental ones have already been well established and this is the real problem. We have hatred and hostility rising from the flames of fear and insult and injuries both real and imagined. Then comes the acknowledgment of racism, religious intolerance and territorial disputes that serve to make the barriers a desired thing and once these people are separated then they only come together to fight! These walls create distance that promotes ignorance and it becomes so much harder to reach any kind of mutual understandings as we can all witness in the current and various 'peace process' deals at locations around the world.

When individuals get to know each other such as Myung-hee and I have then it becomes almost impossible to hate based on the generalities of race, religion and history. To hate you need an abstraction because once we give those outsiders a face and a home and we share moments of life together and eat together then all abstractions fade away.
To help ourselves progress we need to take down those walls that exist in our head. Ignorance holds us all back. While I can applaud Myung-hee at her bravery to change her life through great risk as I sit and eat with her and her three year old I can only feel sorry for the human condition that fills us with fear of strangers and how for so many people it much easier to remain in ignorance and hate than it is to learn, to tolerate and enjoy differences and to meet others face to face without wanting to kill them.

Renewed

It's a strange feeling that I feel inside and of course I want to credit some of it to Hitomi coming home to me once again but it's more than that. Imagine you had been walking for a few weeks and many kilometers in a foggy place and no matter which way you looked everything was slightly indistinct and blurred. It just felt like things suddenly came into focus or perhaps I finally put on my eye glasses. "The mists are clearing" the fortune teller whispers as she waves her hands over the crystal orb.

Monday was a good day. I had to go into work for a few hours but in the early afternoon I met up with someone special, someone who I hadn't seen since... breakfast!
Hitomi met me outside the agency office and we went to feast carnivorously at the steak house as her treat. It was a small affair and just the two of us on my birthday lunch.
I'd like to thank everyone from the net who kindly sent me birthday cards and greetings. Thank you very much for kindly remembering me.

Strangely one of the topics that we discussed over lunch was infidelity. Let me reach for my indigestion pills!
The rumor around the club and everyone knows that the value of unsubstantiated rumors, is that our friend Azami has left her partner Kuri. I had felt that there was some problem between them last week and look at me talking is if this was already established fact! Oh the lure of speculation.

I don't believe that monogamy is a natural thing and although we all want to be faithful and most of us think that we have a line which we won't cross, some people don't care and will take sexual gratification at any chance that comes along. Others are just tempted into it by circumstances and weakness of willpower against desires and then in suffering pangs of guilt afterwards may seek to hide it or confess to it. Despite the obvious flaws of humanity I like to think of us in our best moments that we are basically altruistic and most of us would help others without desire of reward. Think of all the acts of people in the rescue services and even bystanders who would help strangers in distress. This co-operation and want to help seems to be instinctive.
The media like to report on conflicts and hatred and cheating and usually end with a by-line of a local hero who did well. We are collectively quick to condemn the cheats even if we are detached observers. Fairness matters a great deal in a co-operative society and so we want transgressors of even unspoken rules to be punished harshly.

Of course this topic expanded into 'what-if's' and the feelings associated with it.

Does having a flirtatious relationship on the internet have the same impact as one in real life?

I think most people would agree with me that it is and it can damage real life relationships. I had thought she was inferring some of my behavior online. Oh am I guilty?

It is not so much a modern phenomenon as much as it is an evolution of the secret correspondence of past eras. Such love letters passed covertly between far away lovers that told of desire and the imaginings of what could be if things were different. We spoke of opportunities that arise based on lonely feelings when partners are away for long periods. As we sat with our white wine, we decided that infidelity is more of the psychological act and is truly about what is said and what is shared and we should forget about the medium in which it is conveyed. Trust is something both she and I have and we are determined that no such similar speculative gossip will be spread about us. Of course it could be made up if there is no real drama to whisper about!

We spent my birthday evening in my young brother's apartment with his and Rina's company. It was nice of my eldest brother, Tokutaro, to phone me a birthday greeting. He is a man of his word and we have talked more since his promise to me. My other brother, Kenjiro and dad both phoned me earlier in the afternoon so it had been another good day.

The fog burning away in the morning sun...

She lights my day of course but like an added birthday gift I had some really good news on Tuesday morning.

It was one of those hope inspiring moments that you want so much to be true even after having resigned myself to what I had already considered as inevitable!

I'll leave that in a silent world for the moment.

Seven and a half weeks

Seven weeks have past with the love of my life doing what she does best and all of it far away from home. Within that time I have learned a lot and now that she's home she will also learn of it too but not just yet! I have a happy day coming up very soon and I'd like to keep the mood happy. I want nothing more than smiles and laughter and the pleasure of us being together sharing our moments and our feelings. The arrangement had been that I would meet her at the train station at 14:30. Life doesn't always comply with our little plans especially when someone wants to surprise you. I was downstairs in the restaurant at around 12:30 and I was just taking the fresh linens from the store cupboard into the restaurant ready for the tables to be laid for the afternoon when suddenly the door opened and in she comes with that delicious smile of hers.
It wasn't so much of a solitude that I'd endured during her time away because I had my close family and I had my friends and work colleagues around me but we all know what was missing from my days and nights. The one with whom I can enjoy everything.

Is it romance? I'm not sure about this...
In my mind romance has never been about the 'love' in of itself but more like the 'dream of love'. It is the prelude and the sunrise of a beautiful love. It is the introduction to the greatest of all happiness. The prologue of passion, it is the flowers and the chocolates given to me and those that I give to her. Does not the flower seduce the bee into assistance with its fertilization? Does not chocolate contain a certain chemical that is naturally produced inside our bodies as we get 'hot' with sexual infatuation?

Well actually no! If you click the link then read just past the part where it says that 'low levels are found in those suffering from depression and high levels are found in those with schizophrenia' and read the sub-heading, "Chocolate theory of love." Perhaps armed with this knowledge, I think that the romantic gifts given to me were more often likely to be sexy lingerie! At least it implies an invitation to what we really want. The more prudish amongst us are the ones that tell us not to kiss in public and personally I can quite live with that one. I don't have the impulse to grab my girlfriend and kiss her while we are heading up to the 'ni-chome' or just out shopping in the mall and quite honestly I don't need to see other couples doing it!
Perhaps it really is as some say, "the primrose path to perdition!" (Laughs)
You don't have to be a man or a lesbian like me to acknowledge the fact that the female body is a powerful drug and an attractive lure. I think that it can be regarded as the key component of the desire to initiate romance. The Muslims of course knew this and cut the chance of romance blossoming by demanding that their women hide their beauty that was given by biology. Their long flowing hair and curvaceous hips are well hidden behind dark veils and shapeless robes. Is it an insult to the nature of men or to the beauty of women or is it an insult to nature itself? Romance might be an illusion but it is one that gave me color and lured me along the paths of dreams into my promised land. I love it and even this deep into a relationship I do not say that the romance has gone.

So this is love and we race upstairs, still unpacked and not yet showered from her travels, she and I shared the joy of togetherness after such a long time apart. This is the tenderness, the respect, the desire, the concern, the affection and possessiveness that grow like fruits in the vines of our land. Our utopia is the totality of all that I give and all she gives. It is the reciprocation of me thinking more of her than I do of myself and of her showing me the same esteem and values. The romance hasn't gone entirely as we approach our fourth year, it appears in exactly the places where it's least expected, which of course is exactly the right place for it.
These are magic moments, unexpected moments and spontaneous moments. The newness of fresh relationships are full of the soft tenderness and the sexual infatuations but we all know these things gradually fall into habit and perhaps lassitude. Love is what allows a couple to stay together after the thrill of those initial stages. There are moments of boredom brought on by routines and we suffer the tensions of individual frictions from the annoyances of sometimes being too close. We can fall into the numbness of intermittent anaesthesia and seek respite in solitary moments or perhaps the company of others.
Yes we have all of that too but our secret of staying together and of enjoying it is quite simple and not something that any of you' could fail to understand. When we are alone it’s something we could do without but when you are a couple then absence makes it a missed part of our normal togetherness. We make time for each other and we make time for imaginatively good sex.
I still like romance movies and books because even if it’s not my romance, I like to see the joy of others sharing it and when we see it in fiction, we can be up close and personal and identify with those characters on an intimate level.

She is the one that I want to spend all my days with and if I could marry her I would. In a monogamous society, marriage is the long term commitment of two people who pool their resources and endeavors and share the consequences of life together both good and bad. We live together as a married couple and so in a sense we are married. We are just denied the social and legal recognition of it because those who make the laws are offended by it. These moral conservatives cant' stop me from loving her or her from loving me. They can't stop us from living together and from comforting one another and in helping each other in our daily lives. They can just be mean enough to withhold the blessings and support from the community that we live in.

They say that gay marriage isn't natural because it won't produce children. Is this their justification for sex? Actually thanks to science one of us could have a child and we could raise it into being a healthy adult. What children need is love, not limitations on who is allowed to provide it.

The world is unfair and always will be.
Konna dokusaisha ni iyashime rareru nowa kanashii
I really don't understand the situation and it's no game!

Read me like a book!

I put down my magazine and gently rubbed the strained muscles around my eyes a little before sipping at my hot chocolate. Do you enjoy reading my blog? Do you enjoy reading anything? I think reading is one of the essentials in life and I do feel sorry for those who cannot and I do worry at those in the world who have the opportunity to learn to read but somehow pass though their nations education system and leave it having severe reading difficulties! Reading helps us to grow as individuals because the things we read do affect us to some degree, no matter if it's a news item or a childhood story-book. You don't even have to think about it too deeply to realize that 'reading' is so much more then understanding the ink marks scrawled across pages. It becomes a focused experience, just you and the book and for a while the real world could disappear as you enjoy your private moments within your private pages.

The current novel that I'm reading, by Haruki Murakami, is a little hard for me to digest and yet at the same time I find it strangely compelling. I cannot rush though it, instead I have to wade slowly through a sea of beautiful but viscous words. We know that a play cannot be stopped in the way that our pages can be re-read to savor some passage or to ensure complete understanding (although we can with video and DVD). I can hold my novel complete in my hand and I can read it in my own time and at my own speed. I can read parts and re-read parts of it. I can sample it and devour it in part or in whole. This ability just adds to its value but of course the contents matter most. Novels sometimes do nothing more than amuse us and offer us an escape like the story-tellers around the camp fires of old would relate but even these simple stories can offer us something. Within it we can consider our own life experiences and see mirrored in the story the reflections of the world we live in. Perhaps the little twists and disguised truths may amuse us once we peer through such thin veils but the author's inspiration had to come from somewhere! We can also gain insight into the experiences of others. Ones we have not shared yet or indeed may never have the opportunity to do so. Restricting ourselves to our own personal experience and that of our families and close circle of friends is not a wide enough scope to the path of perceptiveness and wisdom. When we read the stories of these experiences that we will never live, it manages to enrich our own lives and our own knowledge. It gives us a chance to speculate, argue and sympathize with choices in life that we may never have to make, to live through another's eyes in times and places far distant from our normal ordinary lives. Even average novels that will never make the best sellers list nor be the discussion points of literacy circles can do this but the rule of thumb will be 'the better the novel, the richer the opportunities to experience the different dimensions and pleasures that a good book brings.

Books bring a promise to enlarge our understandings of ourselves reaction to events and as such they can expand our education. For centuries story tellers we not only a pleasing night's entertainment but also it was a way of informing listeners about possibilities beyond their own life circles and in a sense increase their knowledge through the related experiences of the characters. Once we can sympathize with others, even fictional characters, our own values and morals in life become focused and we begin to see others interests and needs and reasons for their choices. It makes us somehow more 'mutual' and we function better in groups because reading promotes insight into ourselves and into others. You can imagine then that a society composed of readers can make for a good one and those groups who do not can become closed and stagnate. I think about still ponds and running rivers for an analogy!

Writing is not everyone's 'forte' and although it is important, I would suggest that it is perhaps nowhere as near as important as reading. As long as some have the desire to write and give fuel to the passions of a world of readers, we shall not go hungry. Give a thought for a moment for those who craft such an art as they slave away through the hours over a well worn keyboard, seeking the perfect combination of words and the smooth flow of each continuous paragraph. The times writes seek inspiration and they have been stuck for the next step! Pacing the room in consideration of the last paragraph and then erasing it without remorse or pity. We dread the approach of deadlines and then we have the satisfaction of having it in print. Even then as you look back on it you realize that you could have done it better! I will miss that environment.

Hitomi is back on Saturday and to say that "I've missed her" is an understatement. I have a feeling of dread about me too because we need to talk about things, important things and of the future. We will exist in our personal dreams and nightmares, not perhaps in equal measure but co-existing nonetheless. I hope the 'binding' of our current volume is strong.

Jazzy get your gun!

On Saturday morning Rina helped me to dress and then she drove me to a formal meeting with my boss and a couple of company representatives. This meeting created a mixture of feelings within me and yet I didn't want to prolong this atmosphere for longer than I had too because such meeting are usually heavy and overbearing as if it were taking place during a stormy depression. I understand that they need to be seen to be doing the right things and make sure that certain options have been made available to me but I have decided that despite all of their kind considerations and offers of alternative choices, I am formally resigning my post at the end of October.
I have enjoyed immensely my short time with such a great company and all the people that I have worked with both within the company and by association, who have made it so much more of a wonderful experience for me.

Squeeze - Annie get your gun

After such an oppressive feeling start to my morning we stopped by Hanayashiki in Asakusa to raise my spirits a little with the contagious smiles of everyone there and indulge our selves with a little cotton candy {I love that stuff!} that we found there. After that we felt 'over the moon' while we whistled nonsensical tunes. It was too early for drinks and painting the town red and other strange sounding phrases but we felt quite happy.

I watched someone win a toy bear by shooting a small gun at targets. 'How hard can that be?' I thought to myself! I held the toy gun wrong to start because it can't fit into my shoulder at the same time I look down to the sights. It only fires a small dart and so there isn't really any reaction, just the shock of the spring release. The shock was enough to make my first dart end up in the canopy roof! A little coaching from the kindly booth owner had me getting somewhere approaching the level of a professional sniper, only with a toy gun! I won candy!




On Saturday evening I decided to head up to our usual haunt, the mars bar because I haven't been there while Hitomi has been away on tour. We had a strong shock while I was en-route to Shinjuku, but the buildings didn't fall on my head and the ground didn't open up and swallow me whole. That's two pretty strong quakes that we have felt in a single week, which is enough to have me thinking the 'big one is coming' very soon now.
We give our earthquakes a 'shindo value' which really means how much shaking is involved. The range is from an unnoticeable zero to a devastatingly major seven and both the shocks that we felt this week were classed as value five.

I sat with Kuri and Azami for a while and although it was fine at first, it became more uncomfortable as the time passed and I could tell that there was something wrong between them. I made my excuse, got up and actually mingled a little. So unlike me! It gives them time to sort out whatever ill is spilling out into everything they say and do and gives me a chance to meet new people and hear a few lines that I haven't heard for a while.

I eventually sat with Asuka, one of the regulars at the Mars. We sat at the bar and we both nursed drinks while we exchanged tearful stories of unrequited love and I think we found a kind of rapport with each other or at least we think we did! Alcohol may somewhat distort not only perceptions of that moment and our words but also our memories of that time.

Strange Dream

I emerge from the cover of the forest trees into an open meadow. Across the meadow I see a ridge rising gently to the left and the right but directly in front the ridge has a natural break and I see the woodlands beyond. I walk towards the break when I see soldiers mounted on horses coming through towards me. I feel that I am their target and I run to my right and up on the steep incline of the ridge. I feel such cavalry cannot pursue me up such a steep slope with perilously uneven ground and a tree line running along the top. I reach it quickly and run along the peak feeling safe from the horses and soldiers. In the valley on the other side from the cavalry I see a lone warrior running parallel to me.
Even at the distance where I look down on him in the valley below me, I see him clearly and I feel as if I should know him as if I have seen him somewhere before and my memory hides the fact. If I pause behind a tree, he pauses and starts to climb towards me and so I run again.
Eventually I come to a wide rushing river and I can run no further. I turn to face my pursuer who walks towards me with a blade drawn. I have no weapon with which to attempt to defend myself.
I wake up!
This has become a recurring dream and I have dreamed this same dream at least four times in the last few weeks.

Today I shall light some small paper lanterns to honor those that fell on this day sixty four years ago. Let us all hope this horror never befalls any people anywhere ever again. One hundred and thirty thousand people suddenly ceased to be. Our hope is that we can all move forward in cooperation, tolerance and peace and yet each day seems to bring us more news of conflicts, violence, suicide bombings, assassinations and other atrocities.
It appears that we have made no progress and some of us continue to prey on each other often over worthless and irrelevant differences.
We want peace and security and Japan continues to say "no" to nuclear weapons on its soil. We look across the waters to North Korea and wonder why they need to have them. Is it a status symbol? A status of what I wonder.
The money they spent on such things could have given a better living to many of its people.
I congratulate Mr Clinton for his efforts there in these last days.

Canned happiness

Mizuki and I had an assignment in Niigata for some sneak previews of some street-wear designs that will hit one of the shows here in Tokyo next month. This isn't so much a show as much as it is browsing through endless rails of new ideas. Short on models and short on displays, it never fails to impress those looking for new lines to incorporate and new names to sign up.
On the way there it's a two hour discussion between us that is about ten minutes of our strategy planning and one hundred and ten minutes on all the latest gossip from private lives, overheard snippets of conversation and the latest blooms from the grapevine.
A clear head is essential!
On the way back we have ten minutes formulating an initial presentation and one hundred and ten minutes replacing lost bodily fluids!
My life seems to pass by on trains and also indulging in a little drink or two!

Mizuki was quite a laugh and certainly not used to drinking so much because she started to flirt with me quite openly but in a playful way. She knows my orientation and I know she has a serious boyfriend and we work together so there is no way I'd allow such an innocent fun thing to get out of hand and become something serious. I did like it though!
If you seriously want to understand flirting, click here.
Once back home I made sure she was in her apartment safe before I left her. These young girls!

It's a contentedness that has us relaxing and reclining with that feeling that all is well in the world. Of course not everything is well but for our moment and our place we can fool ourselves that it is! Our pleasures and our achievements and having the respect of people whose respect is worth having can make it feel so. In our slightly inebriated conversation we decided that this is one of the key points. We add value to life by making good choices and you can't do that unless you are well informed and you have a reflective nature. The same conversation appeared later with my dear friend Ania when we too decided that we must read, enquire, debate and consider. In her blog, Ania also mentioned about her happiness being complete only when those around her are also happy. I must fully concur with what she says. I think that we cannot really be happy when those around us are not because our natural sympathies make their happiness a part of our own. We are basically social creatures and apart from a few weird people in our society, like sadists, a good life for any one of us has to connect to being a part of a community effort of trying to create a good society around us, one where we may all have the chance of flourishing and prospering.
Think of those who live under threat of guns and bombs. What kind of happiness can you imagine for them?
How lucky are we then to live in relatively safe societies where we have our theaters and schools and gyms and hospitals and full shops. We have our safe homes and our bellies are full.
Close your eyes for a moment and try to feel that difference with your imagination if you have no experiences to draw upon.

What is it that makes you happy?
I ask anyone who feels like commenting this question.
First you may realize how hard that question may be to actually put into words and then you may feel a little reluctant to say exactly what it is, even if ninety percent of the readers would silently agree with you.

According to my friend Riko, who works in our advertising department, happiness is easy to find amongst "thin people who care for themselves and have the ability to buy things."
According to an Islamic friend of mine, happiness is accepting that life is pain and suffering but by obeying God's law, true happiness follows in the paradise after death.

I'm all for acceptance but I want my happiness on this side of the final curtain.
One thing that makes me happy and it might make you happy too, is to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Would you like to try it? How about making a small monetary sum to your favorite charity or "Save the children", which is my favorite charity and see how good that makes you feel. Don't just think it, do it!
You will feel good.

Post 200

Two hundred posts!
Did you read all of them?
If you did then I hope I've given you a few laughs and a few things to consider and even a point of view of some things a little different to your own. Perhaps together we have explored and learned a few things too. The two hundred marker is a little milestone really and my next target should of course be the three hundred mark but although that maybe in my mind as I type this paragraph just to acknowledge such an insignificant and mediocre achievement, I blog only because it pleases me to do so and as long as it does I shall continue to write.

Since I was at school I have kept a diary and recorded events in my life and my thoughts. It was not a strict dedication so that each night before bed I would sit with pen in hand and start my "Dear Diary!" It was just occasional entries written almost haphazardly at first but as I got older they became more and more regular. Since my coming of age I have at least four entries in every week and a couple of years later saw me improve on that figure to about 300 to 320 per year. I still have all my yearly journals and early diaries in a locked case in the utility room across the way from my apartment. Looking in my very first diary again, I can smile as I read about my horse riding lessons and a couple of the girls that I rode with who I was quite envious of because of their greater experience and therefore of having better skills. I wrote of some of my friends and teachers at my school and I wrote down things my parents said to me when I felt that it was something I needed to know and remember. It seems quite shallow now to my adult eyes today but I can smile because there are one or two entries that have such emotional association that I can actually remember and relive that event in my memory and on a couple more I can actually remember my writing it! This was so important back then but not so much now. It's all relative!

Moving up to blogging was not a natural step for me. It was really just an idle thought created by the actions of others. I used to me a member of a message board or 'forum' called "Access Denied", that was run by Jim Goldbloom, an old American friend of mine, who as part of his constant modifications to his forum software, created an area that was just for blogging and an e-friend and fellow member, Angela, jumped straight in there and wrote off a couple of entries. Unwilling to be viewed as unappreciative of his efforts and be seen as a 'party-popper', I followed her example and began to write my own blogs. Of course these being public meant that I limited myself on certain information. They were then as they still are now, little things that happen in my life and thoughts that cross my mind. These blogs transfered across to a couple more forums and then I felt the need to find my own home for them. Thankfully I found Blogger!

Thought for the day: There are no such things as miracles!
(No matter how much you want to believe in them)

We are an animal that dominates this world and we are alone. We only have each other or our little pets for company and we don't always treat them correctly. This is a world made up of rocks and dust and as we humans have grown through the ages we have observed natural laws. Events that happen as regularities and we have our tried and trusted methods. We know the motions of the stars and we see day following night. We known that if we put our head underwater it becomes difficult to breathe and putting our hands in fire will burn us. Eventually we amass lists of facts about the real world that we live in.

Miracles then are transgressions of the laws of nature and because we don't see them regularly and because we have no explanation for it we dismiss it from contemplation or further study by saying "God did it" and relieve our selves of the burden of thinking. If I could fly through the air like Superman, then this would be considered a miracle and I would be locked up somewhere and studied and the best theories might make good reading. If you or I won the lottery this would not be a miracle it would just be extra-ordinary and unlikely and against the 'odds.' The idea of me flying is actually defying gravity and therefore it would be considered a miracle. Many people 'claim' to have witnessed such miracles and I don't think such testimony should be considered as facts unless of course it is more miraculous that they were lying or somehow deceived. Always have that little touch of cynicism and believe the lesser of the two choices, believe the extra-ordinary rather than the miraculous.

People like to believe such eye witness accounts or miracles because our emotions of amazement and wonder are like drugs which can make us high. These people who claim to have witnessed miracles always get a little extra attention and they can be considered as special or 'chosen' and this will usually elevate their status above that of us ordinary people to somehow make their testimony seem much more credible.
It will be a miraculous day on the day that I either believe one or see one.

No comments about having faith please!
Miracles are not contrary to nature, only contrary to what we know about nature.