Not well and not well known (apparently)

I've been absent for a week!
While I was at the hospital last week I was feeling at a low-ebb. Perhaps I'd been doing too much! I just felt so tired. I went up to see Hitomi at the studio and she was having quite a busy day and so I helped out doing what I could. It was good to see her busy but of course it didn't leave her much time to have a celebration for her birthday and as it was we had just thirty minutes in the late afternoon and then we didn't leave there until nine at night.
Saturday morning was dreadful - I had a cold and I stayed in bed. Madame Plum was working but Hiro sent up some food for me. By the time Monday arrived I phoned into work to say I was sick and I'd be taking a few days off and I ended up having a discussion about literal translations and maintaining context. One headache and sore throat later I finally managed to bathe in the hot tub. When you disrobe and you start to shiver violently is an awful feeling but that's how it is sometimes with colds and flu. It's just so difficult maintaining a comfortable body temperature.

It must be said that I don't have many male friends and there could be many reasons for that but on Tuesday night, and I was feeling much better, Hitomi had invited a couple of girlfriends over and they brought their boyfriends. We had a dinner together downstairs in the restaurant and then came up to the apartment for coffee and wine and a nice cozy chat. I suppose it's natural from when the conversation came up about relationships and ours being girl-girl that the topic would evolve into boys and girls and quite frankly what was said by the boys amazed me and I came to the sudden conclusion that a lot of men either dismiss the fact that women are different, and I don't just mean physically and wash their hands of this fact and just accept it or they live under a series of misapprehensions. These guys and I'm really talking about the two that visited our apartment as well as many many others world-wide, must believe the myths that men share around a boys night out table. It was painful to hear what they believed sometimes and the girls were not much better and so it turned out that ignorance abounded around my couches on that Tuesday night. Sadly it isn't just confined there, it appears many men and women simply don't know the facts, even if they come close and they live under the cloak of serious misapprehension.

So here is Auntie Jazz's guide to peering beyond the veil. What I'm going to talk about is a generalized and very specific view of why we think differently and of course there will be exceptions, nothing I say is written in stone. This is not an attack on either gender, it's simply how I see this and it's a view I've built up from experience and reading. This is not difficult and I'll try to keep it very simple and it is a very base view, there is much more too it!

Let's establish one idea to start with: We all know what it's like to be drunk right? We know from drinking too much ourselves or we've witnessed it in others. We know that when someone is drunk they act differently, yes? Good, we now have established that putting something in our bloodstream changes our behavior. What about drugs? Okay let me give you an example and not use the blanket term of 'drugs' but let me choose two. Amphetamines and barbiturates are the two I choose. While each can again have sub-categories they are generally known as 'uppers' and 'downers'. Amphetamines increase performance and they make you awake and alert and they also make you feel good about yourself. Barbiturates are just the opposite! They are depressants and they can easily sedate you. So now you know that putting different things into your bloodstream can have different effects, right?
Men have lots and lots of a hormone called testosterone and we have lots and lots of a hormone called estrogen and while they are not considered opposites, they do work differently and so one gender will not act or think in the same way the other one does. Once you accept this we can go into a little more juicy detail about what each side wants in sex and love and the plan that nature has to continue the species and for the point of this blog excluding lesbians and homosexuals and for the sake of relationships I am also leaving aside infidelity and fetishes. I am simply going to stay with a simplified and normal ideal male and female relationship, understanding and how it's all supposed to work in theory so none of my sweet readers are left in the cold and wondering if what they heard in the gym about the other gender is true.

When it comes to the idea of selecting a mate, men are highly visual and look for the markers that would suggest that she can make lots of strong and healthy babies. The visual markers in a woman for this include youth, beauty and childbearing hips. Women on the other hand look at a man's power, commitment, status and the very important material resources. This is the way it has been for human history even if it's an unpopular thing in a world that needs to be seen to be politically correct. In such a world they say men and women want the same things and that's what confuses the hell out of those setting out to find their first mate in life. I have to ask why religious leaders, feminist groups and other power seekers maintain this myth when everyone who has lived with a member of the opposite sex in a relationship simply knows it isn't true. I cannot answer that, it is a mystery to me. All I can say is that we don't have the same motivations, preferences or urges.
Fact: Love and romantic love is universal. It appears in songs and poems and stories in every single culture and so we have to believe that it is common to humanity as a whole and is not culture or geographical feature like a language or a religion. It is something that we are born with and aspire to find when we grow.
If I am to take away the poetry and romance from love for a moment and look at it from the scientific and medical point of view, then we will see that falling in love is a set of hormones acting on the brain. These chemicals and hormones include dopamine, oxytocin, testosterone, estrogen and norepinephrine. All mammals have these and they work on their brains the same way as they do in ours.
If we experience that love at first sight we get dopamine and norepinephrine flooding into our brain and it can lead to obsessions that can last for days or even years. Lust on the other hand is brought about by surges in the sex specific hormone, testosterone or estrogen. Lust, according to my medical encyclopedia, starts by two parts of the brain becoming active, the hypothalamus (the bit that controls primordial urges like thirst and hunger) and the amygdale (which is responsible for arousal) and that all makes perfect sense if I hunger for someone and feel that I want her (or him). Dopamine is released into these areas and that triggers a massive release of testosterone (even in girls) which makes sexual attraction occur. Even a casual chat with a girl will have testosterone levels climbing high in a male because of the possibilities. I must however add that the levels rise far higher in single men than they do in married men or Fathers. Obviously this is because the single men are still looking to pass on their genes. If we look at lust as a biological imperative it is obvious that this came about to continue the species under stressful conditions (such as war, tribal conflicts) when there was little time for romance. Human females can only (generally) produce one offspring per year (with the rare exception of twins and other even rarer multiples) and so because compared with other animals we are slow at reproducing, Mother Nature in her wisdom made us enthusiastic reproducers. Before men go off to war or if they manage to get home on leave during times of conflict we know exactly what they want and that's to pass on their genes before anything bad were to happen to them.

Testosterone is the hormone responsible for sex drive and men have it up to thirty times more than we do and that's what makes the drive in them so much more urgent. It makes men bigger, stronger, hairier, more aggressive and more hornier than women. However men have thirty times less oxytocin than we do and it's this hormone that makes us want to cuddle, in fact it is called the cuddle hormone, Google "cuddle hormone" and see! Both genders get this flooding into our brains during orgasm. Men get a massive hit and their orgasm reaches a peak that we women will never know but because we have large amounts of this hormone to being with, we have longer lasting and multiple orgasms that men will never know. Unfortunately after his orgasm and his penis becomes flaccid once more, his oxytocin levels dissipate quickly and so to then does his desire to cuddle. That's why after sex cuddles are important to us women but of very limited appeal to men. Oxytocin gives us the warm fuzzy feelings of being in love and men get it when they feel love for the first time but since we have more, we naturally feel deeper in love than men do. This is no fault of men, it is how nature works. But as we fall in love, men will experience a high of this oxytocin and give them a warm feeling too. It is part of a bonding process since this cuddle hormone makes them softer, more relaxed and easy going (we've all seen this - they do not behave in a lovers company as they do when they are out with the boys talking sports or cars). As we women fall in love our testosterone levels rise and it makes us hornier and this gives the illusion that our sex drive is as strong as a man's. So laughingly, after six months to a year of lots and lots of sex in the new relationship and our hormone levels return to normal, men get the idea that we lose interest in sex and we get the idea that they are sex maniacs! Who said Mother nature did not have a sense of humor?

As I have said, men are very visual, they love to look at women and fantasize and watch pornography which is no surprise to any of us! For over a million years they needed to look at women to assess the young, the healthy and the strong to initiate the mating process. Men use their eyes to evaluate a woman's potential and since visual imagery is instantaneous, they get to fall in love all that much quicker. They get erections as they are flushed with all those sex hormones (which also amazingly turns off the part of the brain that they use to make rational decisions and figure out logical procedures) which leads to the old joke about God giving man a brain and a penis but only enough blood to run one at a time.
Women on the other hand remember things well and the areas of the brain associated with recall become active when falling in love. We remember his words, his behavior. The Woman's role  for the last few million years was to raise the baby (the product of all our wild sex) to a stage where a modicum of independence was realized. Of all the mammals on Earth, the human job of Mothering is the hardest. Our newborns can't walk on the first day and don't stay silent when predators are close. Because of this, we Mothers need care and protection from the male. In ancient days, if a woman's partner died, she would expend a lot of energy caring for the infant, herself and hopefully, attract a new partner and one that would invest in a child not of his seed. So where the man can make a visual assessment and say yeah, I'll have this one, a woman needs time to assess the important things like if he's honest and trustworthy and can he hunt successfully and bring home the meat and share it! In today's world we look at his assets, his employment and is he kind and generous, does he relate well to children, his Mother and we use that to evaluate his potential of being a good partner.

In basic terms, even though the world we live in has changed in just one or two generations. We had the sex taboos and then the freedom of love in the 1960's but our instincts have remained intact for a million years. What was important then is still hardwired into our brains and is still important now.

After the show

After we’d thanked the guests of the last show, Hitomi, Amemiya and I went and sat and ate dinner in the staff eating area.

It was a small and quiet affair. Hitomi and I kept looking at one another and after watching us for some time he asked if there was anything wrong. I can’t imagine what he was thinking or what he thought he saw. I was just stealing glances and she was doing the same. It only seemed awkward if we glanced at the same time. Strangers in the night! Amemiya joined in thinking we were playing a game, only he did it in such an exaggerated way he had us both laughing pretty soon. It came to the point where I only had to look up at his face and I’d start giggling like I was a schoolgirl again.

My Stars!

After dinner I thanked Amemiya for such a great opportunity to work with him and he said I was a wonderful actress, which made me feel very good. I told him that I wasn’t really acting. I really did think he was a bad singer (as I’d had to say in my script) and I’d be donating his CD to the school for the deaf.*

He looked up at me strangely and I pointed to him and laughed.

He laughed too. He quickly realized that I was making a joke to get him to laugh for all the wonderful belly laughs he’d given everyone else today.

After Dinner Hitomi went up to her room and I told her I was going to see Dad. She didn’t want to come. I went up and got changed and then I ordered a taxi. I went to visit with dad who was staying at the Nikko Hotel. We’d actually passed his hotel on the way in.

When I’m with dad I tend not to drink beer from cans, I guess it’s not lady like. Instead, he ordered a nice bottle of ‘Grace Koshu’, which is a nice full bodied dry white and we had a selection of dried fruits to accompany it while we sat and talked in the relaxed and rather secluded lounge.

He asked how my day went and I told him it went better than I expected. He nodded and then he said something which brought a second lump to my throat. He said that despite everything he was very proud of me and he said that he really wished Mother could have seen me up there on the stage.

I had to sneeze again.

I reminded him that Mother had seen me do well in my previous roles.

He said he didn’t mean my acting ability, which he considered just average, he winked at me. Instead he meant how I had faced my fears and still acted accordingly. I said it has to be this way because he taught me such values when I was small.

He nodded and then told me that Mother had always said I was too sensitive.

I folded my arms and looked at him questioningly.

He shook his head and told me that he was getting old and before he leaves this world he wants to see all his children settled and I am the last one. Tokutaro, Kenjiro and Hiro are all settled with good positions and families around them and I alone seem lost.

I hung my head and asked if I’d shamed myself.

He shook his head in the negative and said that life is full of trials and I have come through some particularly hard ones. He was also sad that there is a great distance between us as a family.

I said that I did phone my older brothers at least once each month. He frowned at me.
I knew this was not what he meant.

We talked a while longer on other matters, ones I won’t say here but I acknowledge that I do have to find my focus again and stop drifting like boxes lost at sea.

It was late when I got back.

I tapped on Hitomi’s door to let her know I was back but I had no answer. So I went to my own little room and undressed and slipped into my robe I went to the small communal bathroom on our little corridor. Hitomi was sat in there doing her toe nails. She said that her hairdryer had broken and she asked if could she borrow mine. I gave her my room key and she went while I showered.

When I got back she was still in my room in front of my small dresser doing her hair. Then I dried my hair when she was finished and we talked about things we’d done since she moved out.  She told me about her new studio which she invited me to come see and I promised that I would.

She then asked if I’d like her to stay in my room for the night and I said that I’d like that very much.

We undressed and slipped into bed and I turned out the light.

It’s a funny thing and I think and I'm quite sure that it’s a common question at times like this. While we cuddled and got ourselves comfortable she asked if I’d slept with anyone since she moved out.

I explained who I’d been out with but that I hadn’t been intimate with anyone and she said the same. That said I think we both felt able to do what we did with clear consciences.

If at all possible it somehow seemed better than before and I certainly made sure she knew what she was missing.

We both slept soundly.

At breakfast she told me she was working for the next two weeks and then she was taking a holiday. When she got back she’d like it if we could meet up for a meal and talk.

I told her I was willing to do that. I told her some of the things that Dad and I had talked about.

She laughed at the sensitive Momo part.

I poked her ribs!

The train back home felt a lot better but it just seemed strange hugging her goodbye at the station.

It’s mad!

This emotion is not sentimental, noble or brave, it’s foolish and unfair.

Welcome to the real world!

*My joke regarding the deaf: It was a private joke shared between the three of us but now I've made it public here on the internet, I will apologies to anyone with hearing problems and I don't mean any disrespect to you. I'm sorry if anyone thinks it in bad taste.

It must be love.

Summer skies and winter snows have passed in an endless progression and sixty seasons have passed since a young girl and her friends stood here by this tree. A laughing walk together down a tall wall lined alley that left the main road next to the candy store far behind us, found us far enough from most people's inquisitive eyes. We stood in a ruined warehouse forgotten by all except perhaps in the memories of men that used to work there back in the years before I saw my Mothers first smile.
Those were the days that we smiled as we found our place to meet each other after school and on weekends. Our hideout! There within its broken walls and under a partial roof we played our games and exchanged our news and made our gang plans like the young yakuza we sometimes pretended to be. Just outside those crumbling walls and to one side of the bolted gates with the small creepy hole in it stood a tree that had seen the games of girls from my mother's generation and of her mother's generation before her, all laughing together beneath a deliciously green umbrella that shaded us and them from the summer sun. One branch had a large truck tire hanging by an old rope and it was pride of place during the good weather days as we swung with carefree attitudes. Back inside, during the cold months we sometimes made fires and roasted sausages and fish on sticks and we baked potatoes in aluminum foil and then we'd run and hide if the police or property inspectors came to investigate the fire. Children are amazingly adept at secreting themselves in the labyrinth like and tumble down office and warehouse complexes, finding the most impossible hiding places. Little holes and niches and inside boxes and out on a ledge just past the glassless windows helped make the building look deserted to those who extinguished our fires. Our spirits were never extinguished.

I have fond memories of those times and of those faces who gave me the loyal smiles of co-conspirators.
Fifteen long and eventful years pass and my hand once again touches my tree.
Gone are the broken buildings and the laughter of innocence. The tree, minus its branches, stands inside a cafe-bar as its centerpiece to a forgotten history. A more sophisticated ambiance pervades its immediate territory and the aroma of liqueur and coffee replaces the smell of peeling paint and wooden decay.
The bar is called the deep forest and it has been built around that tree. This single tree, my tree, bears little resemblance to the building's name. One tree does not a forest make! The marks we made upon its bark as vicious teens have been etched away by polishing machines as it stands now almost as an artificial icon of nature. The days have changed and I have changed with them and my gang grew up and probably look disdainfully upon the gangs of today. But for a few school years, we were the world and we had our moment in time and our place within our collective history.

As I read great tales of history, I read of people who are no more but they left a memory and a mark so that we, generations later will read of them. When we look at today what do we do? Those in the news perhaps make their mark but you and I perhaps do nothing more than plan for today, the week, our summer vacation. During this time we don't consider the mortality of this finite life. Why should we consider our end of days?
The simple answer is that there is no need to because no matter what we think, it is there waiting for us in one of our distant tomorrows. Until then we have life and we live it like we have forever until something like age or serious injury or disease reminds us of that thin thread like line that tethers us to a sometimes fragile mortal life.

Perhaps a personal encounter with that cold angel makes me respect his presence and acknowledge his great power to take away all that I hold dear. His touch changes the way we see and changes the values we once held as unshakable and reorder certain perspectives in a way that those who were never touched cannot possibly understand.

Swim and join the egg, a spark,
the match is struck
I erupt in a glorious flare
I burn bright and hold back the darkness
I warm those close to me
Burn with me companion stars
Slowly I'll fade to red.
Then I disappear from sight,
my essence the smoke that drifts away from you all.
Just a memory and a cinder, ash returned to the soil.

But fortunately it doesn't take this cold icy touch to know the greatest thing in life.
The greatest thing is love.
My family has remained consistent with some leaving for their final destinations and new members arrive to be welcomed with loving arms and warm smiles.
My friends from school and my gang have moved into adult lives far removed from mine and rarely do I see any of their smiles these days and the one I love most has changed several times as we look for someone to share our life with. I sincerely hope that my current lover is my last one because of all my lovers, she is the one without doubt and with whom I feel the greatest rapport.

Love is a many a splendid thing, all you need is love and we have all heard the songs but love comes in many forms and into many different parts of our lives. Love is that promise of happiness and the threat of its loss is distressing to the point of grief.
Love is a wonderful topic of conversation between friends who smile at its intimacy and pure emotion. The word whispered between lovers is a secret word, a powerful word that electrifies nerve endings. Its tenderness across my tongue as I say "I love you" with meaning and with feeling to the one who so needs to hear me say it most. The completeness I feel when she says it to me with equal depth and truth. Love is a passion and we are all passionate about someone or something.
What do you love, is it a sports team, food, money, power, politics or work or art or books or music?
We can love those interests but without passion I don't think there can be an interest at all. Passion is the drive!
I love 'love' and without love I can wonder is life worth living? The suicides of lost lovers shed no more tears and smile no more. Lessons lay in pools of blood for those with eyes to see yet the only question we ask is why they threw it all away. Time counts down to our final moment and a lost love is a step as we learn and then we hope that we may love again. My heart was broken several times and I looked down into deep dark waters that seemed cool and inviting, waiting to step forward and be swallowed whole. Thankfully I am a coward and I never took that last step.
Now I am here and I'm glad I have learned all that I needed to learn so far in order to love again and perhaps become more lovable for my special one. I am still learning and learning together is far more enjoyable. Moments are fleeting things like the flash on a camera that freezes one instance of time. The image we capture today may last a lifetime in our digital age and we try to preserve those photographs from a hundred years ago. The future is as always uncertain and as much as we think of it as sustainable, the past tells us that all things must change. Lifetimes are also fleeting things in the grand scheme of things. Our names may not be recorded in books for all of the future generations to read of but while we are here, we can mean something to some people just as they can mean something to us.
Let's try to make that meaning as meaningful as we can.
Let's all find our passion and let us love ourselves and those special people in our lives.
Do not let your seasons pass emptily, life is made up of time, give that time some meaning if you know what I mean!

Where is she?

Finally after working eleven days I have a long weekend, although I have a studio appointment on Saturday morning I am not back to the office until Tuesday morning which gives me enough time to recharge my batteries and also to have some time with that gorgeous girl who lives with me.
It seems that after losing two office staff, which have not yet been replaced I might add, have endured the workload that has been shared on we hardy souls who remain. That's one of the reasons why my blogs seem to be far and few between, my apologies for that.
I also note a distinct lack of comments as to how it was and I blame myself for being tired by the time I've sat at my desk and thrown up a diary entry really of absolute nothing!
So let the people speak, "Vox populi". If I get a feeling of what people like more then perhaps, past all the replies (if any) of "Just keep it as it is", I may get some indication of what is popular and what you prefer to see..
Please notice at the top of my right hand column, a poll. It's there until next Saturday. You may answer how you like of even contact me if you're really shy and express an option or opinion. It would be nice to have a response or two even to prove to me that you're alive and unlike Google spiders you just scan the page and leave.
I see a couple of responses already and I haven't even made the explanatory blog yet!

Spending a little time on the Internet as I do perhaps prompted an interesting question from my sweetheart. She asked, "Is it possible for two people to meet on the net and fall in love without physical attraction or body language or even pheromones."

Instantly I think of date sites, romance sites and introduction sites but of course these are designed for the people to physically meet. In yahoo chat, where I sometimes go to enjoy chats, I believe they call it 'long distance dating.' I am not sure of the success rate.
So I believe it is possible for two people who interact on the net to develop feeling for each other. There may well be many factors involved. If the two people in question are fairly lonely this may exasperate their emotions of wanting to 'connect' and I think as you consider my words you may remember that we could have 'feelings' for a movie star or musician and we don't even interact with them, we just 'idolize' from afar!
Back to the Internet! When we interact with someone in real life, face to face or by phone, we have chemicals released in our systems that creates change in us. I don't see why interaction with someone across the world wide won't do exactly the same thing since we are communicating with a person. These chemicals have us thinking that this person we talk with is really interesting and funny, we may start feeling admiration and respect for the person, hoping the person feels the same way about us, sharing goals with the person, and perhaps that would lead to the feelings of sexual desire for the person. This sounds like the onset of love to me and that is two souls crying out in this game we learn to play, singing "I don't want to be alone anymore."

Consider also that the person you think you love across the Internet may not be your soul mate after all. I think some may meet and then the physical signals they have mess up the great net relationship altogether.
Goodbye and thanks for all the e-mails and texts.
If love be true then love is something the greatest pain. 

"But love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit. Oh yes, love can make you foolish. It may be sublime, but it can grip us in the most inappropriate ways.

"Yes!" I tell my lover, "Two people can fall in love across the net but my love is here at home and I have no need to search out such haphazard companionships and possibly precarious encounters."

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!

Feelings of spring

When I sleep I have a dream. It is not one that lies on the edge of forgetfulness that when I wake it is lost or was it but once and so outstanding that I remember it for the moment in which it visited me. This dream is special because it returns to me often and like a theater run it is the same performance each time. The craftswomen of my mind weave out the same embroidered dream of love as I see her walk out of the sea and walk towards me where I sit beneath the shade of an overhanging palmae. On her approach, which is almost a glide across the warm white sands, she wears such a wonderful smile that at once endears her to me. I sense such a mounting excitement and my heart races as she reaches to me. She bends and leans forward as if to kiss me, then in the terrible disillusionment of all anticlimaxes, the dream ends. It is by no means to be considered an epic and if it was a movie this would be a single scene on the trailer. As I dream it, it may last a mere second in real time but for me living within it, it seems five or ten minutes long and so real in its warmth and texture as if I really do live it and I note such fine detail as if it is real event. I do not remember this moment ever happening in real life and I have never met the girl or visited the place of my dream. The possibility is then that it represents something I want and desire to happen in its symbolic nature.
Perhaps some of us pay little attention to dreams or some look for a deep or esoterical meaning. I think I just accept the fact that some parts of my mind does things that the rest of me does not always understand. Perhaps rather than just relying on what my eyes or my mind's eye alone tells me I should allow my heart to interpret those things as feelings. Letting my heart tell me my dreams rather than any cold analytical mind might help me understand more. What would those scientists say about love as they look at it under their microscopes, some chemicals in my blood affecting my behavior?
I would rather hear it from the Poets and I'd give anything to hear their voice tell me the warmth of my dream rather than why it is I dream it. It seems that life is very often a puzzle and all the pieces will fit together in the creation of who we are and what we feel and even our dreams. Every experience we have will be one more daub of paint on our life's canvas. All the shapes come together to create the picture of who we are now and what we will eventually become.

Some of us seem to wish that life was easier. I just wish that it was easier for me to understand with a greater depth in its seemingly intricate and often perplexing complexities. It is asked how we can understand others if we cannot at first understand ourselves. I have spent a great deal of time in trying to do just that and attempt to understand myself and I'm still trying. Just as soon as I cry out "Eureka, I have it", then it all seems to change and I have to start all over again. Thankfully my core beliefs seem to remain intact and true.
I am often undecided whether to follow my heart or my dreams. Momma always said that I should follow my heart even when I thought it was my dreams that I should be chasing. I have found really that love and the happiness that love brings is in my heart and in my dreams too. All I ever wanted was acceptance, love and understanding. I just wanted someone to love me as much as I would love them.

What is this post? Is it one of those with soppy girly feelings that I occasionally offer?
You all know I'm a tough girl, a gay girl but still a girl. One who is aware of what's important and for me this is important. Sometimes I feel like I'm a great explorer and I'll eagerly set off on a voyage of self-discovery that millions have already sailed before me. In simple truth, some of it is still new to me as I explore myself and the world I find myself in.
In understanding myself, I have just said that I might understand others better. You can transpose that into thinking that by reading me here and understanding me a little more, you might well see some of your self reflected here and so you too can explore your selves.
It also occurs to me that being in love is like setting sail on another adventure, perhaps the greatest one we'll ever undertake in our lives. In love the smallest distance is sometimes just too great and yet strangely we all know that in love the greatest distance can be bridged. It is something to consider as I wish all of you happiness and love in your own voyages of self discoveries. Spring is certainly the season to feel it!

	Pet Shop Boys - I Want To Wake Up
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I have been out and chosen a nice little dress for my friend's wedding next week. You'll have to wait to see it!

~ ~ ~

I had a moment to chat with a dear friend of mine from China. I won't mention her name because she never gave me permission to do so. She mentioned that she often comes to read and excused herself for lack of comments but told me herself that she admired my writings.

It does not matter to me that she doesn't comment. I like that through my own therapeutic reasons of opening up my soul just a little and expressing myself in how I feel attracts readers to often view my page. I must admit thought that when she said that to me, I can tell you that inside I glowed. Simple words she gave me and that's all I needed to make it feel all so worthwhile....

Thank you my dear friend.

Across distant passions

I don't have any problems with men wearing ladies clothing. I believe the term is "Cross-dressing" or transvestitism. Lots of men dress up in uniforms of the self defense forces or police or employers uniforms. Perhaps this way even those with absolutely no sense of fashion can categorize people into niches just by what they wear. But as soon as a male puts on our clothes there are problems it seems. Some wives fear he'll stretch her clothes out of shape or even that's he might be gay. Drag Queens do it for entertainment and the majority of them are gay but that display is usually all show and spectacle. There was a time when gay men wore ladies clothes and we lesbians used to butch it up and wear male attire as a sign of our 'hidden' orientation but since a semi acceptance and recognition where gay people can come out of their closets and have gay parades and events and be more open about it, we have moved away from those that just like cross dressing. Transvestitism is just really the love and possibly rarely a sexual thrill of wearing the opposite genders clothes but rarely is it also an attraction for the same gender. If it was just a sexual arousal from the wearing of them then I think it would be a fetish kind of transvestitism. These people have their own little niche and I don't think they should be considered as gay. Sadly anything that differs from the "norm" identifies us all as a target for some people. We girls have it easier though, I can walk out in public wearing a male's items and no one bothers at all. I may be considered an eccentric or making a fashion statement by some but it is easily accepted and I think a social norm. Put a man in a pink dress and have him walk out and I wonder what your reaction would be and what you think some people around you would say?

One of my friends is a transvestite and he is a lovely man. A good father and family man and luckily he also has an understanding wife. He does it simply because it's his way to lower his stress from a really stressful job. It really is often a stressful thing being a male he assures me and I can imagine that's true. I find a lot of stress being a girl too, although being a gay girl might add to that stress sometimes. (Laughs) A lot of different men have different release valves to reduce their stress levels but he simply stops being a male in appearance, switches off and becomes a woman. When he dresses as a woman he's not trying to be deceitful and fool a male into treating him like a girl. He loves his wife and son very much and I believe they have a 'normal' life. I'm really happy about that because I know a lot of girls might not accept that kind of lifestyle from their husband. Often he won't go out of the house dressed as a woman although he says he always wears girl's underwear under his suit and tie.
So what do you think to the girl that I'm with in this photo?

^.^ Is she pretty in pink? ^.^

	The Dresden Dolls - Pretty in Pink
	Jazz found this at skreemr.com

I chose the Dresden Dolls version because I like it over the original by the Psychedelic Furs

Yesterday was a complete upset to me with all my work schedules changing in an instant. A cacophony of apologetic voices over busy telephones as many appointments are canceled and postponed and new ones affirmed. My diary has more straight red lines scrawled though old appointments than a spillage in a red chopstick factory, with hardly any space for new entries, I need an electronic diary for sure! I worked from about 8:30am through until a few minutes past midnight just accommodating the start of these changes. I have a new partner for my assignments next week since Anzu is on vacation. Her name is Chinami and shes new! New is good, it means that she has no bad habits and she will be eager to take my direction. New is bad, she will be lost and probably short on creative ideas. I will be Shepard to a lost sheep, a teacher to student and above all of that, I'll still have our assignments and deadlines to meet.
Oh check out that leather Jacket. It's a mans boys jacket.
Be honest, you didn't know it did you?

The scent of love drifts lazily on gentle spring breezes. The sakura has bloomed and so has love. My friend from my school days and who sometimes visits our restaurant has invited me to her wedding next week. I love events like that and even if I have to direct my new assistant to cover for me as I attend you can guess that's what I'll do, but next Saturday is free so far!
It's really quite a romantic story that started off as each of them sat alone at their writing desks on different continents with hope in their hearts and they lived their love through pen and paper as 'pen-pals'. Usually today it's online dating agencies and computer cyber-sex in sordid little online affairs that end up by being candidate material for such farcical and public embarrassment TV shows that fill uncreative afternoon TV slots. But here we have a purity and a passion recorded in such eloquence as to be a shared poetry from their longing hearts. Looking back through history there have been quite a few romantic exchanges in passionate correspondence passed back and forth between the affectionate respondents and recipients. Living their hot infatuated cravings in a mental wonderland of their own creation crafted from the heart-felt and devoted words of each other.
Some of those letters between distant lovers are on the internet, all you have to do is Google them. I'd like to print one here that I find full of eager warmth.
From Franz Liszt to his lover, Marie:

My heart overflows with emotion and joy! I do not know what heavenly languor, what infinite pleasure permeates it and burns me up. It is as if I had never loved!!! Tell me whence these uncanny disturbances spring, these inexpressible foretastes of delight, these divine, tremors of love. Oh! all this can only spring from you, sister, angel, woman, Marie! All this can only be, is surely nothing less than a gentle ray streaming from your fiery soul, or else some secret poignant teardrop which you have long since left in my breast.
My God, my God, never force us apart, take pity on us! But what am I saying? Forgive my weakness, how couldst Thou divide us! Thou wouldst have nothing but pity for us…No no! It is not in vain that our flesh and our souls quicken and become immortal through Thy Word, which cries out deep within us Father, Father…out Thy hand to us, that our broken hearts seek their refuge in Thee…O! we thank, bless and praise Thee, O God, for all that Thou has given us, and all that Thou hast prepared for us….
This is to be — to be!
Marie! Marie!
Oh let me repeat that name a hundred times, a thousand times over; for three days now it has lived within me, oppressed me, set me afire. I am not writing to you, no, I am close beside you. I see you, I hear you. Eternity in your arms… Heaven, Hell, everything, all is within you, redoubled… Oh! Leave me free to rave in my delirium. Drab, tame, constricting reality is no longer enough for me. We must live our lives to the full, loving and suffering to extremes!…
Franz

Can you feel that emotion burning within his words?
Imagine if you and your lover were separated by ten thousand brutal kilometers like my school friend was with her man. Very rarely do they receive a phone call or internet because he was in a remote part of Africa working but always a letter each week would arrive and always a dedicated reply as the echo from each calling. Isn't that romantic and beautiful? I honestly believe that some instances from real life can have a greater fiery passion about them than the cheap romance novels that I sometimes read - but for curiosity only you understand.

A little spice

We really enjoyed sitting to watch the movie, "Slumdog millionaire". It was a lot better than we'd thought and we were not surprised that it had won as many awards as it did. The story overview was that of an ordinary Indian boy in the chair of a TV Quiz show winning the top prize. In the pauses we have the segments of his very hard life in the slums of Mumbai. It detailed all the experiences that he had which enabled him to be there in the hot seat and also to answer, or guess correctly, the questions. He also had his domineering and gangster member older brother to deal with, who was really bad at first but sacrificed it all in the end to make good his duty and his memory. He also had the love of a girl who had also suffered many hardships running parallel to his life. It culminates into a wonderful love story that had us both watery eyed and tight in the throat. It was one of those movies that has a powerful happy ever after.

It's a shame the curry afterwards was a little bit of a disappointment. A little shop called Himalaya Curry, with what looked like Christmas lights in the window, not far from Sangubashi station. Inside was a small but brightly lit and warm looking place with a Nepalese flag outside the window. We entered and we were squeezed into a small corner. Now we really felt how tight it was but full of people and the smell from the cooking downstairs was lovely. Complete the ambiance with the relaxing and very Indian sounding music and we anticipated something spectacular. The curry was more like rice in soup and not a lot of meat in there. We ate it because we were hungry. We didn't stay for long and amazingly there were people standing eager for our seats. On the way up the hill back to the station we passed a McDonald's and we went in there for chicken and salad sandwich. Miss Nibbles still felt like raiding the fridge when we got home. It's nice to see her appetite return.

My sweetheart gave me a wonderful perfume from BVLGARI, called 'Voile de jasmin' which means 'Veil of jasmine' and it's a wonderfully divine fragrance but then of course you all know that anything to do with Jazz or Jasmine will be fantastic! I have used Bvlgari black which is one of those warm leathery sort of smells that makes you feel like you're hugged within a lovers strong passionate arms. But this one is fresh and light and innocent like the promise of spring after a long winter and it has that subtle lingering effect so that when I walk out of the office you may forget me but you won't forget my scent.

Really it's beautiful.
Big Kiss for Hitomi.


I think I have often talked about feelings and Hitomi and I talked about our recent argument. Not about the causes or our subsequent actions but about the way we felt deep inside. A lot of people use the phase, "I felt that a part of me was missing", casually and while it may be true to the best of their way of describing it, have you ever thought what part is actually missing?
I know if I asked one of my ex boyfriends I can imagine what part he would say that he missed. It's usually route one with them! (Laughs) But you know when something has gone and left such emptiness behind it and we all know that nature abhors a vacuum. As if the first school you ever attended was suddenly pulled down and some new building occupies the space now. You would feel as if you have lost something like a tangible reference to a part of your own personal history. I won't walk the halls of that school but I could look at it and enjoy fond memories. Then when it's torn down I no longer have the choice to walk its halls or look upon its construct again. It has all been taken away from me. Let's bring that idea a little closer and think of a long lost school friend you haven't seen for ten years. You'll talk and share news, feeling happy at once meeting this person who is a stranger really but you can both share moments from so long ago and be familiar at once with shared memories and experiences. This is the key here in the sharing of a part of your life.

When we part from our lover, she (or he) takes away the shared experience of the time you've had and been together. One comment a few posts ago said that my life revolves around Hitomi and I guess that it does. My life has had several partners drift in and out of of it with various intensities and my life changed accordingly with each one. But I have now reached that part of my life where I can't believe that I've ever been as happy or as relaxed and as content with a person as I am with her. I feel that she is the one who will hold my hand and walk with me together into our old age. It's the commitment that we have to each other and everything that we have shared so far that would simply evaporate if she were to just leave.

We are not one we are two.
We are two people living together with our lives firmly entrenched within the other sharing everything. Two people with different thoughts and different ideas and different reasons to argue. But if we can find one common goal then we can work together and if we can find ourselves within the other then that love will be the greatest love of all. If she leaves then she takes with her my reason of how I live my life and all the things she puts there. She takes that life, which is one where I have finally come to regard as an enjoyable one and one not filled with pains and disappointments of the past. She would take all that and leave behind the greatest emptiness of all, my very essence. That would be the missing part. She has without doubt brought out the best in me and I've heard that from several people who knew me before and know me now.

I don't want to lose that and there is no reason to lose it as long as we keep talking about how we feel inside openly and honestly and we continue to believe in each other.
It's a bad world out there sometimes but facing it with someone else makes it so worthwhile.

^*^
REMOVED:

My complaint about someone copying my words

Life, love and madness

Life!
From way up there in the sky we are small and insignificant as ants in myriad tunnels. We are small splashes of color on Google maps at its greatest zoom as we scurry about meeting people and falling in love with them. Most of are lives are about finding or living in one or more of the various aspects of love. But over there on the other side of the slope is the downside and the slippery side that we all fear and dread. Over there is the losing or falling out of love and when we part, the parallel and intertwining paths of joy we both loved part ways and wander off in different and often meaningless directions. Their legacy is to leave their marks upon us always for us to remember them by. Memories burned and seared into our minds branding those moments possessively as their time and their influence in our lives. Our lovers mold us and fold us and shape us into something different than we were before. They color our canvas and they define us for better or for worse until we are merely nothing more than the tokens in a game and the next move is determined by the outcome of the dice falling across our lives.
While we are together we can conceive of no other condition and enjoy and accept that the definition of mutualism is all about 'us.' But sometimes the Gods forget to smile and the dice fall badly or even into a place where we can't see them and extracting solitary individualism is a truly painful process. After the parting we might be scarred but we are stronger...
...Or we are more fragile or needy or angry or guilty but never are we unchanged, as we were.
Our past lovers persist and remain inside us like phantoms haunting the corridors of our minds and our reflective moments. We feel an occasional cold shiver as one walks right through us. Sometimes we hear them whisper and sometimes they scream at us. Invisible but always they are there, waiting and wanting to unravel the threads of our peace, our contentment and our sanity.

I believe that love really is the biggest part of our lives far outweighing anything else and as such it must therefore be or closely be the opposite of the empty nothingness of death. It makes us do such wonderful things, brave, heroic things and tragically it can also make us do horrible and terrible things. It can overpower our own sense of survival and sometimes I believe it can hold us here and even bring us back from the edge of death. It should be our greatest reason for wanting to be here. What else have we got, sports, fashion, movies, blogging on the internet? But love gets so complicated. It gets twisted up with a lot of other things like possession and heartbreak, lust and fear.

There was a moment so many years ago where I was held back despite my tears and protests and the dawn of my needs to say goodbye and find closure. I was not allowed to do what every part of me cried out to do. I was restrained because they would not shatter my childhood with the cruel sticks of life. Their demand of retaining the illusion and the innocence was preserved. Later when I was considered old enough to look upon a face so different from any I had ever witnessed her carry before I think I may have wished I had not. A complete absence of pain and the presence of peace across her features were in evidence and that was the one single comfort that offered me my moment of thankfulness but there was no sign of love and that was my pain.
She would never hold me again and tell me things. She would never kiss me and wipe my tears away and she wouldn't smile at my hopes and dreams and share my happy moments anymore.
Something so soft was so strong and something so full was suddenly empty.
What lies on the other side of the door?
Everyone asks this question and everyone holds what they believe to be an answer but I keep forgetting mine and I see so many doors.
Tarot's fool transfixed by the edge. We all ask that she turn and walk back into our waiting arms and warmth and comfort and safety but our appeals seem lost in a shouted silence. Plead as we will she won't turn to see our frantic gestures begging her to come back. She is captivated by the view of what lies over the precipice.
Faith that a path is suspended there in mid-air even though we can't see it and inside her the growing urges to step forward.
Here lies the prospect of an imminent tragedy when the light finally goes out and I'm strangled by such subtleties as the dream flies away. My wishes are lost on the falling star and it is no longer in my pocket!
Which way is therapy and the quiet room?

Resurface

Friday night disappeared into my own brief firework display and my face must have lit up too with the reflected bask of satisfactory glows and admiration. We slipped quietly beneath the sheets and let dreams whisk us above the clouds until the first rays of dawn burned the sleep from our eyes.

	The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You
	Found by Jazz also in blue

A three and a half hour drive, a creased map and an equally creased set of location instructions found us facing a large fence. Turn left and drive into the sea or turn right and drive into some commercial looking warehouses. It was not such a bad choice really, we saw a two groups of people who didn't exactly look like dockside workers and so we turned right and followed them and disappeared into what looked like fifty year old factory buildings. We were still forty minutes early. One of these buildings had the production company name on a large board outside and a sign for people with a booking notice to report into door "C".
Inside was a huge space with rack after rack of costumes and people hurrying around and people sitting in corners and others trying to organize people and some operating steam cleaning machines or sewing machines. I just tried to blend into the background. I really didn't want to wait in the car outside for hours and hours.
Hitomi had to show her notice and cast slip and was issued a number stapled onto to the booking notice while they hurriedly scribbled things down and she was directed into area five. Hitomi knew a couple of the other people getting sent to the various corners and smiled and nodded her hello to them. After about an hour of looking at 'no eating' and 'no drinking' signs a couple of assistants called Hitomi's number and she went off for make up and hair. Then she came back to the assistants and she undressed to her underwear and was quickly measured, they read her card and several costumes were brought over and tried on. Now there are bigger signs than the no eating signs and they say no unauthorized camera or video allowed. Of all the costumes that Hitomi tried on, one blue dress simply marked 'ballroom 126' was simply gorgeous and with her hair pulled back and the wig gracefully on her head really complimented the look and I forgot completely about that sign. My camera slipped out of my bag into my hand and took a picture before I realized how quickly it had happened and how naughty it was. I quickly put it away and whistled the innocent song of an angel. No one appeared to have noticed.
I fall in love with her all over again. She is so beautiful.
It reminds me of the first time I ever saw her in a theater in Nakano-ku.
We left at 7pm and headed home. She slept most of the way home.
We showered and ate dinner together. I told her that I was really excited about it all after sharing the day with her and apologized for my downbeat attitude of the week. She said I was tired and worn out and need to sleep more. She told me a lot more than that really and let me know how unfounded some of my fears really were. Fatigue has the habit of making small obstacles or worries look huge.
Does my rear look tired in this?
She dragged me into the bedroom (ok I chased her really) and we slept and I felt really good. The sense of relief of throwing off an unreal burden is exhilarating really.

Sunday morning I went to Excel, because I wanted extensions put in my hair. Treating myself to a whim but oh it felt so good. I cut my hair shorter two years ago to have a style and color much more stylish and modern and manageable and, oh yeah, a little more like Hitomi's but I think I'll grow it long again and the extensions is for the impatient part of me. And also because of how Miss fashion looked the other day, the girl who imitated my choice of outfit in front of me. The three hours in the salon were worth the results. When I got home my brother pretended not to recognize me and wouldn't let me in so I threatened to tell the customers that we only use imported milk from China and he kindly opened the door for me.That was funny ha ha.
We were invited over to my friend Kuri's home for the evening. Although we have many friends at the lesbian bar, it's really only Kuri and her partner Azami that we really become close with. The reason I feel is that they are like us, a long term couple free of the usual lesbian issues and are secure enough (read stable) to be mildly flirtatious to the point of fun but never to the point of a threat, which I must admit, I feel a lot in the club. It's loud, it's fun and it's a great time as long as you keep your hands away from the Venus fly traps!
Some gurls are a little bit too much!
I mean the closet is fine really and when you come out, so is a relaxed attitude and your own comfort with it, but never ever get led by the club scene that has currents that almost demand you showcase in a loud manner strong convictions beyond pink pride and rainbow marches and never ever be led astray by the slick back greased up butch babes with the soft alluring eyes and the siren voices. They are wildfire with a 'suicide on the rocks' in each hand.
No need to unfurl your banners or stand on self made pedestals, hello, attention seeking here! Just relax to the music of your soul and follow your heart.
I like Kuri and Azami because they are the kind of gurls you could trust with your most precious possessions and your deepest secrets and you would still feel and be safe with them.

We enjoyed a few drinks and shared news, especially the sad news about Nagi Noda, the artist who sadly passed away last week who most of us admired. But generally we just joked around with each other and it got worse (read better) when Chiki came over. She's fun, she really is, she isn't lesbian but is bi-curious a little (read lot) and plays the part outrageously to the point of over-statement. But more importantly and especially from my own personal point of view, I desperately needed this relaxing night out with friends and let my hair down (it's longer now) and once more Hitomi had found my cure, my medicine to relax and be comfortable again. I, more than many, know the hardships some people have to endure are a lot worse than the petty little worries I contemplate. But having a one on one talk on Friday night, sharing her day at costume fitting on Saturday and getting my hair done and being with friends on Sunday just made me feel human again, it made me feel wanted and accepted and loved. You know... the important little things in life.
... And note the length of my hair {wink}

Doubts and unfounded worries can be a cause for feeling isolated just as much as a shipwreck and a deserted island can. I tell everyone how important it is to communicate and then when I don't do it, the dark shadow is cast across Momo and I stand unbalanced on the edge of the world.

So everything is bright in the garden again and the world seems fine.
Shadows are only momentary darkness passing across the light.

How I feel with a Little Kiss

When I was young I would sometimes hide what my heart told me was right and sometimes I would deny it and try to reject it. I would pretend it was some wrong feelings trying to grow within me. Yet denial does not make it untrue and does not dispel it and make it go away like a cure for some strange illness. It seems as right for me to love my own gender as it may do for you to desire the opposite one.
When you talk about falling in love, making love or even desiring to be with another in a lustful way, as long as the two are consenting adults what does it matter their gender?
I really don't care for the teachings of some so called enlightened religious or moral leaders if they say it is wrong. I choose to follow what my heart and mind tells me is ok and if I choose to love another girl... is that love wrong?
No!

It is love in every sense and every feeling the same as anyone else has felt. We all want happiness and so when two girls find it together, who has the right to sit and judge it as something wrong or unnatural? It is still love.
All of our lives should be inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Don't let some misguided old gossip or the ignorance of fools who would preach that "any way not their way is wrong" cloud your judgment. The heart has its own reasons to love of which reason of the mind knows not. Happiness cannot be journeyed to like a place over the mountains. It cannot be owned, earned, worn like a pendant or consumed like a bowl of rice. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love. It is our selves at our beautiful best. The love we give away is the only love we keep and we need not think alike to love alike.

And when it's gone?
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds. It dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing. It dies because one or both of us allow it.

The greatest natural desire in life is to love and be loved. I have loved men and I have loved other girls. I do not judge one gender above the other as some competition and I don't compare my past loves with the others that I have known. Each one was special to me and helped me grow and learn and I do not regret loving any one of them. Each one was wonderful in their unique way and each was beyond compare.
My true love now is Hitomi. She and I have been together for two years and she's everything to me. I hope we are together always.

Am I a lesbian?
It's not something I shout from the roof-tops or have to wear a members badge or have a warning sign tattooed onto me. I always considered myself as "Bisexual" because I have loved both genders equally although my feeling is slightly more towards females. But since I only love one at a time and my one and only love is now female I suppose you can class me as that if you really need to tag me with some label.
I'm just someone in love.

My sexuality, which I'm brave enough to be open about now is no threat to anyone. I don't prey on the naive and inexperienced. I am not driven by physical desires or needs. I don't wear gay pride tee shirts or feel the need to highlight problems we sometimes experience or attend rallies and marches. I don't hate men. Yes I do go to lesbian bars but not to pick up girls, only to meet friends that I have made over the years. I was only driven to find someone to love and someone to love me in return. Now that I have found her then I can say the physical part excites me and fulfils me and satisfies me. I don't need a man to give me anything else that 'he' may assume I am missing. The greatest meaning of my relationship is the deeper feelings of just having that special person in my life. Someone I can care for and who will care for me.

A relationship can only truly be enjoyed on such a deep & loving level if you are totally true with your partner, discussing likes and dislikes and all the diverse aspects of our lives. Being true to the point where some truth may hurt ourself and hurt our partner in the way that some honesty can be brutal, abrupt and direct. Understanding and consideration is paramount in the way we deal with that knowing that those truths are meant to be beneficial to us.
My love knows all the good things about me and all the bad and I know all about her. Isn't that how it should be? If I lock some secrets away could they be revealed later and spoil all that I have now?
This sounds like a good advice for all couples right?
If you think so then love and let love! Love is beautiful and it doesn't matter if it's a guy and a girl, two guys or two girls. It is LOVE.

I would like to be able to tell Hitomi's father that I will care for her always, that I will be there for her. I will sacrifice anything for her. I know that he knows that we are are lovers without us having to say it and I know he doesn't like the idea. I see it in his eyes in the way he looks at me and I hear it in the tone of his voice when he talks to me. I see the expressions of his features almost contort with disgust as if he were in pain.
A lot of things don't bother me and I live with them. I don't allow many ripples to disturb me and many ripples should pass by us almost unnoticed. But the fact that I'm described as his 'daughters friend' in his dismissive, almost derisive tone, paints me as a phase he hopes she will grow out of. Anyone could say it and it won't affect me, but because he is her Father, then it does. Of course she holds me and tells me it doesn't matter because she's found her love in me and I believe her. I had just hoped that the acceptance could come from her family where I think it does matter. My own Father has things he doesn't like, but thankfully this isn't one of them. He has that wonderful 'as long as his little girl is happy' attitude, that I love him so much for. At least he accepts Hitomi into my life when we have visited him. Of course like any good Father, he will correct me if he thinks I do something very wrong and advise me on many things in life.

The world has too much hatred and intolerance, ignorance and lack of understanding already. That saddens me so much when I just ask that everyone could acknowledge that love in its many forms is beautiful, admirable and the pinnacle of most of our dreams. And if it's something we all want and need so much, if its something we could die for then please don't condemn it when others find it.

This News link says we do it better

Interestingly in the news from Singapore, a society that tolerates gay couples but hates the idea of it being shown in the media, had a cable television company fined for airing a commercial which promoted a song titled "Silly Child" (see video below) by pop singer Olivia Yan (阎韦伶), that showed scenes of a lesbian nature. Two girls kissing!
Click here for that news article.

Here is the song commercial.

Annoyingly for me, the commercial paints her as having a silly moment and she goes back to the guy!- Hence the title of the song, silly child! (傻孩子)
eerrkkk!

If you wanna listen to the whole song. Click here

You never realized that two girls kissing would create such an impact!

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