when the cat's away...

What's a girl to do when she finds herself home alone in her tiny little apartment one cold, snowy evening?  Clean the bathroom?  Don't be silly.

I started the evening off right with a nice home-cooked prepared dinner.  A classic.  The peanut butter and jelly sandwich (don't worry, the husband didn't leave me alone with no food - this was me spoiling myself).

Then I puttered around for a bit.  Thought about doing some work to prepare for lessons this week.  Decided that would be a poor use of my "me time."  Wrote a few emails.  Ate a few pieces of chocolate (note to self: buy multi-vitamins).  Poured myself a glass of wine.  Decided to play around with photo booth.

Commence photo booth montage:

not enough light.

That's better.

Starting to get boring.

Obligatory Japanese high school girl pose. 

Fun with comic book effect.

Ok, enough of that.  I'm off to get started on one of the three books I picked out at the library today.  Another pillar of Japanese literature, Kenzaburo Oe (winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize), and two pillars of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Henry James. 

Mata ne,
Melissa

P.S. For those of you who are concerned about such things, I was not a bum all day.  I followed yesterday's 11 mile run with 2500 yards meters in the pool today.  Surprisingly, the run was easier.

hunting and fishing and reading

Yesterday at the library I picked up "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing"  Let's just say I was mislead by the title. 

Not that I thought that it would actually be a hunting and fishing guide, those of you who know me well can guess that those activities have little appeal to me.  I did go fishing once or twice with my dad in the Adirondaks when I was a kid.  All I remember is that fishing is boring and you have to touch worms. 

I went in under the assumption that this book would be in some way adventurous - or at least use interesting hunting and fishing metaphors to explain some aspect of the main character's life. Not so.  It was a hollow memoir of a shallowly crafted character's poor dating choices. 

The jacket reviews were outstanding.  Maybe I should have been tipped off not to trust them when the only publication produced by the quoted authors that I recognized was Cosmopolitan. 

On the bright side, I picked up the book yesterday and I'm finished with it already.  Not because I stayed up half the night hiding under the sheets with a flashlight reading as I was known to do with The Baby-sitter's Club books, but because it was deceivingly short.  It feels like a fairly substantial book, coming in just under 300 pages, but the typeface is large and there can not be more than 200 words on any page. 

It wasn't a terrible book, but a great work of literature it was not.  Well, moving on.  To another pillar of the Japanese literary world, Kenzaburo Oe and A Personal Matter.

And we did get to take a glorious bike ride around Ogikubo today followed by gnocci, broccoli, and spinach in white wine sauce for dinner.  Spring is springing!

Mata ne,
Melissa

again?

So the snow that two days ago was a novelty is still here, trying hard not to melt in quaint little piles around town (if you've seen the snow piles that would accumulate in the old Fayetteville Mall parking lot, then you know what a real snow pile looks like).  Tonight, it wasn't so exciting to discover as I was taking out the ridiculous daily ration of garbage that it is, once again, snowing in Tokyo.  Not Funny.

We did have a nice day though, eating all of our meals at home (yes, this is a major accomplishment for us these days) and doing a lot of work(jeff)/reading(melissa) at a coffee shop.  Well, we did have coffee and a choco-cro (chocolate croissant) but that doesn't count, right?

I started a new book by Natsume Soseki, the author of Kokoro, and I am less that 15 pages from the end so I think I can safely say I'll be finishing it tonight.  Unless we watch all of last week's Daily Shows before bed.....

Mata ne,
Melissa

photo from choco cro website

killing two books with one sun*

Yesterday I finished two, that's right TWO, books!  One of them I'd started earlier in the week and the other I read start to finish yesterday.  They were both by (very) well known Japanese authors and were translated (by others) into English.  I say this because having been translated to another language, one must wonder if any of the original style or charm that make the authors so well-liked is lost.

At least he never walked.

The first book is What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.  It was recommended to us by my Ironwoman Aunt Nancy.  For anyone who is a runner, or participates in any activity where one spends considerable time alone with their thoughts and is constantly questioned about why they do it, I recommend taking a look at this book.  At just 180 pages, it is a relatively quick read.  More personal memoir than narrative, it has interesting insights into both the life of the runner and the life of the author.  I have to wonder, though, for someone who discusses the art of translating a novel without losing the beauty of the original words, if this translation does an adequate job.  Maybe I'll make Jeff read the original and tell me.  (For the record, he is playing sudoku on his phone in the background.)

The heart of things.
(Don't judge the 1 a.m. portrait by my husband.  He loves me just the way I am - at 1 a.m. or otherwise)

Kokoro (which is best translated as the heart of things, by Soseki Natsume) is the second book I read, the one I read cover-to-cover yesterday.  I think maybe it helps to have just a slight familiarity with Japanese culture and customs when reading this book - but really, just a slight familiarity - I was quite comfortable with all of the context required.  This book was first published in 1914 and is considered a classic of Japanese literature.  It is essentially a story of a friendship between two men - one young, one old - and the differences in how they interact with the world.

Much like Jane Austen, Natsume writes of a time when long entrenched traditions and the established social order meet with an evolving modern world, and the different ways that old and young people relate to the changing cultural context.  Sounds heavy, I know, but it was a quick read (250 pages - hence me reading it in one day) and I think a very thought-provoking tale addressing the concepts of friendship, love, jealousy, honor, and loneliness.  And the translation (be sure to get the one by Edwin McCellan in 1957) was wonderful. 

Check two more books off the list for me.  We're headed back to the library within the next few days and I plan to further my exploration of Japan through its classic literature.

Mata ne,
Melissa

*one sun is one day in Japan