flemmings | Entries tagged with rl

I'm very sorry so many people seem to have had a frightful year last year. I had a wonderful year, in keeping with my habit of having wonderful years in the midst of rampant death, doom and chaos. Last red letter year was 2003 which from an objective standpoint sucked mightily, even for me. But I was writing dragons and almost didn't notice SARS, Iraq invasions, bicycles being stolen and the AC going off for three days in mid-August. Give me enough crack and sufficiently charming young companionship, and I am very happy indeed.
( Thus 2008. )

( With irascible comments )

Have been landed with a scheduling snafu next week that sees me alone with six babies for two hours on three consecutive days, which is worse than undoable: it's illegal. In consequence I've decided to stay drunk all weekend on my Christmas wine. Things will sort themselves out somehow. They always do.

In which spirit (pun intended) happy birthday

joasakura, may it be better than last.

And if I stay drunk, maybe I'll be able to make some sense of Tantei Aoneko and his ~~pash~~ ~~fuckbuddy~~ pal the pander Uguisu. ( Cut for the usual Motoni headbangings )

stanking,

deepfryerfire, your book arrived- one I'd contemplated buying for myself, so how lucky I didn't. Thank you for that and for the good wishes in the card, especially the easy dragons. The knees and the rest can do as they please if only I have those.

paleaswater, *your* book came today as well, and equal thanks. The historical background notes are immensely useful (finally, she says, *finally*, someone to tell me who all these guys are, including the fact that Yoshitoshi's Cao Cao is heading towards his defeat at the Red Cliff. See, progress is always possible. Now I know, which I didn't at 36, both who Cao Cao is and what the Red Cliff was. Err- more or less.) Renumbering the plates for thematic purposes strikes me as a bit odd, and I must wonder at the happy anecdotal postscript of 'how we carefully amassed a complete set of The Hundred Phases of the Moon from all over the world' when the colours of the set they did amass are... not of the best, let us say. They look distinctly faded to me, and I can't believe it's all photographic quality. But I envy them the time they had doing it, riffling through print dealers' bins. (!) Those were the days, my friend. By the time *I* started buying, prints weren't found in bins nohow.

Then it must be solstice fever or some especially malign astrological conjunction. I discount Christmas depression. Babies know nothing of Christmas depression and the babies yesterday were all simultaneously wired and inconsolable. Of course, it could be molars, and in their case I rather fancy it was.

However my molars have been with me for over half a century. That's not what's causing the current bout of dark night of the soul. YesAsia tells me last night that my copy of Woxin has shipped, though the webpage said it wouldn't be released until January 9 and their email had said expect it around the 18th. And all I can think is 'It's the wrong version' though it *says* English subtitles American edition, and 'Watch Customs and the shipping firm screw me for another $40 on this.' Gloom doom life is a howling wilderness, people still haven't chipped the ice off their sidewalks a week later and I wrench my knees inching across it, I can't bike the winter streets and even if I could my bike is a balky hard-mouthed beast, my hot water heater doesn't heat enough hot water any more, and we're all going to die.
( When I find myself in times of trouble part 2: A E Housman )

Having a not so wonderful week in small but sharp-edged ways. At least today passed without major disasters, screw-ups, or heart-scald, and tomorrow is Friday. I only have to work four hours with the screamers, even if I have to work to 6; there's a parcel for me at the PO; and then I have five days to do what I've wanted to do all this week, which is contemplate the ways of dragons.

But one good thing: Kinokuniya finally answered my email- after I'd emailed them again- apologizing for the mix-up with the WARD order and saying they'd order me the right one. 'And since it was our mistake you needn't send the spring edition back.' (Whether they bill me again is another question which I didn't feel like tormenting the poor clerk with; he has to write to me in English, which is clearly punishment enough for him.)

The spring WARD has no Gaiden ep but it does have that alternative cover Minekura drew for Gaiden 3. Anyone here want it? First dibs gets it.

I can't remember what I did this week but the size of my paycheque suggests I worked. Money is good, but I'm tired and have a persistent crick in my neck and my feet have been cramping these last three days to the point where I must take taxis. Cannot bike: snow and ice and slick streets. Sniff.

However a small parcel was waiting for me in the mailbox today. 'Good, my Christmas cards from Riverkids, I'll spend the weekend writing Christmas cards,' I thought. But no. It was vols 1-3 of Silver Diamond from jpqueen. I can take a hint. I shall spend the weekend reading Silver Diamond.

( This explains why I'm now reading Godchild 3. )

A dilemma for the meteorologically minded. We have 10 cm (4") of snow on the ground, to be followed by freezing rain this aft to be followed by rain rain this evening- quite a lot of it, in fact. Now good citizen me, mindful of my civic obligations and of the poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er they are, that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm on their way to work, school and the local supermarkets, would ordinarily don the many layers of the winter onion and go out to shovel-- my walk and my brother's walk because he won't and sometimes my brother's neighbour's walk because my b's n. will shovel my brother's walk if he's out early enough and one must return the courtesy periodically and my brother won't. Truly, the balance of neighbourly favours is quite as complex in Toronto as it is in Tokyo.
( But. But. )

I came home today to a slim parcel in the mailbox. 'My Christmas cards from Singapore,' I thought, 'and about time; or maybe my Christmas cards from UNICEF, also about time, though they're a bit... heavy for UNICEF cards.' But no: it was

i_am_zan's books, blazing with the speed of summer lightning, cause the last thing to arrive from S'pore took over three weeks.

So thanks very much, love, and for the recipes as well- opened the first one to 'pumpkin in coconut milk' which is marvellous, because I love pumpkin but never know what to do with it. (Also suspect that your pumpkin is not our pumpkin, but that's for laters.) Only now I worry- did my books not reach you yet? It's been over three weeks, which is slow even for Canada Snail/ Escargot Canada. Must clearly send you more...

Came home to something else. ( Read more... )

Have been occupied these last few days with les malheurs de la vie: ( listed herein to save FLs )

But none of this matters because

rasetsunyo translates Chinese lyrics and reveals at the same time that Yahoo in Chinese is 'elegant tiger': 雅虎搜索 (ya hu sou suo, Elegant Tiger Search).

Alas that it becomes 'gaku' in Japanese. If I were to ateji Yahoo in Japanese (which I needn't thanks to twice-blessed thrice-cursed katakana) what would it be? 夜夫 (night husband)? 野風 (field wind)? 爺冨 (old man's prosperity)? or the one IME doesn't give, 鵺瘋- a madness like that of the fearsome nue bird, with the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the tail of a snake and the legs of a tiger, that the guy in my icon killed.

( The mini version )

First Honest Ed, now Ernie the hot dog vendor.

Also, anent Hyakki Yakki 16- oh Saburou. Sancta simplicitas, without the unpleasant associations of the original. There's a Japanese word for Saburou, but it is from my mind at the moment.
( Cut for background spoilers. The real spoiler is luxed )

My numberless blessings:

1. Kinokuniya is ordering me the winter WARD so I will get it "within three weeks to a month"- but get it I will.

2. Hakky Yakky 16 came today, along with the (bunko, alas) Master of the Haunted Inn.

3. Tomorrow's 12:30 shift got cancelled so I needn't go in tll 4:30. Thus tonight I am going to sit on the sofa under my flannel-covered duvet wearing the sleep-balaclava

kintail made me and read Hakky Yakky 16 until the very wee hours of the morning, sipping cold mugicha and feeling virtuous.

( Of interest only to middle-aged females )

Good: Firefox now keeps me logged in to lj.
Bad: Firefox now tells me the plug-in at Overheard in NY has committed an illegal action and must be shut down. The plug-in???

Best:

sho_sunaga, if you didn't get the answer I left to the comment you left me six weeks ago that lj never told me about (stops for breath) your package came and thank you very much. Opened by Revenue Canada because (I think) you didn't say what was inside, or else the label fell off. This doubtless explains the +4 weeks added on to the usual 2 weeks from Anywhere Near Tokyo. RevCan takes its time.
( The worlde turn'd upside down )

Happy birthday, Fearless Leader! and many many more of them.

I must also talk a little about the cleverness of me. ( That time of year thou may'st outside behold When yellow leaves, or few or none, do hang... )

          In speculation
          I would not willingly acquire a name
                For ill-digested thought;
                But after pondering much
          To this conclusion I at last have come:
                PEOPLE ARE STUPID.
                This truth I have written deep
                In my reflective midriff
                On tablets not of wax,
          Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
          For many reasons: PEOPLE, I say, ARE NOT
                STRANGERS TO STUPIDITY.
          Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
                This fact did I discover,
          Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
                Nor yet Dodona.
          Its native ingenuity sufficed
                My self-taught diaphragm.

Housman's original is here. It's much funnier if you've read Aeschylus in Greek: about the only funny thing to reading Aeschylus in Greek, come to that.

I return to my newest discovered love (c.10 am this morning): Singlish

This partly because when you spell Hokkien words out in romaji and say what they mean, their relation to Japanese on-yomi hits you between the eyes. This doesn't happen with mandarin. Stupid Manchu.

I heart Overheard in New York. Especially this one:

Conductor: Attention, passengers, this J Train is now going express to Myrtle. You hear me? Express. Express! There is a local train right behind this one. This train is going express! [Mob of angry passengers exits train.] Psych! This is a local J Train to Manhattan. Next stop: Chauncey. Please enjoy the leg room brought to you by the New York City MTA.

--Broadway Junction Station, Brooklyn

Overheard by: JRider

I might almost believe that would happen in New York, though otherwise I go for the 'last line of Hedda Gabler' response: Good God!--people don't do things like that!

( Otherwise, I wish I didn't insist that all books come to me virgins )

The Millennium is upon us. I buy something online today- from Singapore but priced in US dollars of course: 'international money,' my father used to call it; and up comes the bill:

TOTAL: 35.00 USD
From credit card xxxxxxxxx: 33.46CD.

This has never happened, not *once*, in all the decades I've been a (credit)card-carrying adult. And I cherish it, I cherish it with all the fervour of someone who used to get statements saying

TOTAL: 35.00 USD
From credit card xxxxxxxxx: 54.46CD.

Otherwise Detective Bluecat 5 is pwning me flat. Alas, this month I evidently don't understand Japanese. Or not Motoni's Japanese, in any case.

Stumbled across on

incandescens' FL (I'm sure someone has mentioned this before but I must have been asleep):

Aside from google and Minekura, this is why I'm glad I live in the generally undistinguished 21st century.

Pretending to be the characters in O'Brian's books opens up a fanciful, playful way to explore deeply personal fears of closeness which often, neither person in the couple realize are stagnating their relationship.

WWJD: What would Jack do?

(Aside from the fact the author picked a series with, yanno, decent complex people in it, which is happy-making right there, don't other people frequently pretend to be fictional characters at need, even after they grow up?)

Me, I never thought random mention of tampons constituted too much information, but you never know what information is too much for some people, hence I cut.
( Like, American culture thinks bowels are an indelicate subject except when they *aren't* functioning normally )

I have an aspirin-and-codeine habit of many decades standing. Migraines and structural FUBARs do it to you. With an eye to future decrepitude ('you'll need it more later and then it won't work') I've cut back severely on my aspirin-and-codeine intake: from as many as four a day in season to two a week. For everything else there's basil leaves uhh tylenol.

I also have a My-Opinions-Let-Me-Show-You-Them habit of many decades standing. I've cut back severely on showing my opinions on anything but impersonal topics. (Yes, manga are impersonal, especially if they're manga no one else reads. Possibly Bleach doesn't fall under this rubric.) In both cases, I've happily discovered that the exercise leaves me in much less pain than I'd expected it would.

Except today. I am *dying* to dope myself to the gills/ lay about me with the mighty sword of righteous wrath.
( Deeeep breaths )

( Cut for local interest only stuff )

I'm not, is why I'm doing this meme (ganked from

kijjohnson): Ten things that recently made me happy.
( 'Let me count my numberless blessings one by one' )

I first had mooncakes last year at

paleaswater's wedding. They were good. I went looking for them this year ( and couldn't find them )

...you open up Word and look at the blank screen, wondering why your homepage document isn't loading.

(Daisan no Teikoku grows on one. Bar the time spent looking for kanji that don't exist because they're hanzi, and words that don't exist because they're names: the last of which is a chronic pitfall for the beginning Chinese learner. And also this weird quite Japanese thing- 條- which I finally discover, thanks to H&S, is a variant reading of 条. IME has it, H&S has it, but Nelson's doesn't: not in the index. I should have crawled upstairs to consult H&S instead of looking in vain for twenty minutes under ninben radicals in the wordtank and Nelson's, pfui.)

I've been fretting that it takes me longer and longer to read manga. I can't believe that my Japanese is worse than it was a dozen years back, when I'd polish off a book over breakfast. A leisurely breakfast, but still. It's been the rare manga these last years that's taken less than an hour to read: some Saiyuki, some Akino, one Kou Josei (which astonished me: manga with Chinese in them take forever.) Hell, I can't read English manga in less than an hour.

I may have stumbled on the solution. ( Click for amazing revelations )

So every Sunday I read Postsecret. Today I go look at Postsecret. It's suddenly a blogspot blog belonging to someone called nicole, created this month with no entries. The google cache from yesterday has the old postsecret with the old secret postcards.

WTF, blogspot?

I await enlightenment.

(And while we're at it, why are blogspot's headers always in Japanese on my machine? This is a Japanese blogging service?)

ETA: and now it's back- in Firefox. IE gives you a string of totd browser-freezing gobbledeygook.

ETA2: And now it's back in IE. Not updated, of course.

Well, this has been your excitement for the day.

They're in my linen closet. No really, they are. I turned it out today and you wouldn't believe what I found. ( Cut for listing and amazement )

(if my heart were great, 'twould burst at this.)

To have seen Nureyev or Pavarotti in their heyday, you must necessarily now be well into decrepit middle age, and I am. (Very decrepit middle age- structural problems, you know.) But I did. It all balances out.

( And how did I spend yesterday evening? )

The weekend's bk1 order is sitting happily on the front porch when I come home. No 'we called and you weren't here come to outer suburbia tonight to get your books,' no 'call our toll-free number and negotiate five automated answering menues to rebook a dropoff', no 'we have a box for you but you owe the gov't GST and us a chunk of change for doing the paperwork.' Just the books, ma'am: 4 GnS, 1 Phantom Moon Tower. Total cost of shipping five manga by courier is 3000 yen, the place where amazon.jp starts.

Inside the door is a bill from Fedex for, yes, an additional $23 for my last amazon.jp shipment because the $7 they charged me then was not enough.

Sayonara, amazon.jp. Rot in peace. Thank you

mikeneko for recommending bk1.

Seidensticker is dead. Rather an unlikable git in many ways, but still, an institution. And he died in Tokyo, which is devotion. If I had a worrisome medical condition at an advanced age, I'd come home to where there are western doctors. They at least are accountable. Japanese doctors are regarded as God, and think themselves God, and like God reserve the right to slay their worshippers without repercussion.

(Spellcheck suggests 'Seidensticker' wants to be any of Sadistic, Hedonistic, Modernistic, Dynastic, Sternest, Stochastic, Statistic, Stylistic. All of the above, say I, though I need to look up Stochastic.)

I appear to suffer from an odd recurring hallucination, which is that I own Genjuu no Seiza 6, the one with Fuuto riding on a tiger. I was convinced I'd bought it in New York in 2005 along with 7 & 8. I knew I'd seen it among the other manga I brought back from that trip, which sat around the living room in piles for several months before I got around to reading/ shelving them. I was thus confidently assured that I owned 1-3 and 6-8, and it was only when I sat down to read the later volumes that I couldn't find #6 anywhere. But I saw it. I *know* I saw it.
( Curiouser and curiouser )

Yesterday afternoon the mug of the last few days blows away in a deluge and a restrained thunderstorm; the wind ripples the leaves, the sun appears among baroque clouds, and in the returned coolness I can think sensibly again. So of course the first thing I do is very sensibly go over to Markham St and spend upwards of $40 on English translations of manga I already own in Japanese; and then take me out to dinner to read them. Cause, you know, I just want to see what they're like. Curiosity emptied the bank account, is what.
( Results: pass with honours; could try harder; utmost fail )

So yesterday, see, I come home to find an utterly unexpected package from kinokuniya in my front door, as described here. And I open it all happily and blah blah. Seems I could have lost a hand or something so what a good thing I didn't read The Star before opening my kinokuniya package.

Equally, amazon.jp books arrive today. $16 of GST on five volumes whose combined price is about $30. GST is 6%. How did they arrive at this figure? I shall squint at the numbers but I bet it was by adding in amazon's shipping costs. OTOH Fedex only charged me $7 handling. OTOOH this is still being screwed right, left and centre and I say the hell with it.

amazon.jp has switched from DHL to Fedex.

amazon's 3000 yen shipping charges + amazon's 300 per item handling charge + Fedex's $30 paperwork handling charge + laughable GST (eg $1.50 on a $25 order) = too damned expensive to order from Japan any more.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, but fun never lasts.

( Cut for same. Good breeding in these degenerate days may have come down to being considerate of one's friends' FLs )

But what I really came to talk about was ghosts. In Toronto. In daycares.
( Ghost stories inside. You have been warned )

Weather network, you said it would be 17 last night. It was 20. You lied to me. (Why yes, there's a difference between 68 and 63, which would be tedious to explain to the layman.) You are full of fail.

But not as full as myself, alas.

I go to the kitchen to get my morning PepsiTM, which is in a box that's sellotaped shut, again for reasons it would be tedious to go into. My guess is it's been sellotaped by an enthusiastic young male store employee, because it's beyond the abilities of this impatient aging female nanny to prise off. I cut the box open with my kitchen knife, stab hack. I then: put the two cans I punctured with the knifetip into the sink before they can leak all over the floor; think 'What a waste of two cans of Pepsi'; think 'I could drain them into a glass and drink them that way' and pat me on the back for my brilliance; put them slit down over two glasses; think 'They're draining very slowly, I'll have to wait forever for my Pepsi' ohh woe; make the hole in one larger; watch as it still drains slowly; think at long last 'You know if you took off the tab and emptied it into the glass from the top the way it was designed to do, it would go faster.'

I'm almost afraid to go into work today. Fortunately I'm with the pre-schoolers who can tell me (and will) if I do things like give milk to the kid who comes out in red welt rashes if she drinks milk.

Shoutout to lux: for future reference, you can get into Canada by marrying a Canadian. We come in a wide array of designer colours and two basic models. You are free to marry the model of your choice and if you ask me if I still can't belive that, the answer is yes. Since the way it went through, as I saw it, was something like-

Mainstream society: Yes but not 'marriage'.
Paul Martin: Marriage.
Mainstream society: Meh. Whatever.

It's the 'whatever' part that makes me blink. Never underestimate a Canadian's ability not to be terribly interested in anything outside their own particular region. But still.

Hot, it's so hot. I gaman without AC. I mean, I have AC but I don't turn it on at night if I can get by with window fans. So I sweat a lot. Hence this drabble. And it's not like I didn't totally steal the idea from Usagi, because I did. But Minekura helped too, as we all know. ( Read more... )

"Arrival of the Marshmallow King of the Youkais."

In a box plastered with tape marked 'DHL Repack YYZ-670.' (YYZ is Toronto.)

mikeneko, your words of ill-omen almost- almost- derailed my package, but it arrived intact nonetheless.

Though naked!Goujun looked better in the scan, I think, than in the book...

Ahh- amazon.jp? Remember how I ordered something from you Wednesday morning my time aka Wednesday night yours? And how you emailed me back Thursday night my time aka Friday morning yours that my books were in the mail? And how you dinged me for 3000 yen basic for **priority** shipping plus 300 yen per book on top of that? Yes, well, it is now Monday evening my time aka Tuesday morning yours, which I make to be four days since you put the books in the mail. Granted one day was a Sunday, even so. Three day delivery. My books should be here. They aren't. Why not?

Amazon.jp, you low-lived slithery-slimy scum-sucking money-grabbers, where is my Gaiden 3 and my Papuwa 11??? Huh? Hunh?? HUNHH??

lj keeps logging me out. Oh the wuvable wascally ways of our blog of choice.

Because

tammylee has passed on many useful recipes in the course of her journalling, I post one back. ( Faux Penne Pesto )

So livejournal goes down, ohh woe what is there to do? Well, I spent ninety minutes yesterday morning working through three pages of Soseki's Sorekara and writing down all his obscure (to me) kanji for future reference. Parenthetically, I can't remember why I bought Sorekara. I think because of all his novels that's the one that impressed me in translation as having the least there there and I wanted to see how it looked in the original. The main character turns out to be as much a dweeb in Japanese as I remember him from good god was it really twenty years ago? only more so, obscure kanji or no obscure kanji. I bought the book a good eight or ten years ago, and I fancy it'll be another eight or ten before I finish it. Sometimes I feel like I operate in sidereal time. ( Pastime with good company )

Us Epicureans are often faced with dilemmas like this. Which is it that gives the greatest pleasure and the least pain: reading 800 pages of Rowling's prose or reading other people's spoilers? ( The economics of enjoyment )

I'm writing a 100 Demons AU. This was a happy little idea I got three weeks or so ago and scribbled away at until the last week in June when I was scheduled to work full-time. And when my full-time week was over, the sense of a perfect story-line I'd had in my mind had vanished too, so there I was without a convincing ending. This is why writers shouldn't work, or at least not full-time. ( Where the need is sorest, there the help comes soonest )

I have an earache and I feel lousy which means it's time to do what I never do and watch TV. Or rather, watch something *on* the TV. Or rather, go down to Honest Ed's video and rent some back seasons of Dr. Who, a series I've never seen. Tell me, ye that know, which Doctor do I want, supposing it's available? Take your time- Suspect Video doesn't open for ~~three~~ two hours yet. (Man I type slow.)

June reading list is pathetic: WA 6 all together finally, and finally finished Ima Ichiko's Five Box Stories. The latter is a collection of early(ish: mid 90's) mild BL stories, first published in a magazine that's long gone and then persistently shopped around by one of her editors for several years until someone agreed to print the collection. (Is now in bunko as well. Editors know what they're doing.) Ima has an afterword about how she thought these stories were safely gone and buried and now here they are in tank again, thank you for reading them and now please go and bury the book in a deep hole in the back garden mmkay? Proving that no one likes their early stuff.

( Ima Ichiko is not a BL writer )

I was going to do that self-indulgent 'if you had me in your power and could make me write anything you wanted what would it be' meme, so possibly it's a good thing my right shoulder suddenly went sproing this morning as I was innocently drinking coffee and reading volume whatever of Kurotsubaki in Second Cup. So I now can't type comfortably at all. This is good from the pov of dignity anyway, and expanding one's skills- I type with one hand mostly and it usually isn't the left one.
( More blasts from the past )

Weird. That new manga store. One of those cases where I seem to be always talking at cross-purposes with someone.( But maybe I've figured out the reason )

There's a new manga store on Bloor near Spadina where the used CD place was. I only realized it *was* a manga store because I caught a glimpse of a Full Metal Alchemist cover in the window and wondered vaguely if the used CD place was now dealing in used DVDs as well and if so did I want to buy the series, and wandered in. Having ascertained what it was- a store with translated manga- I briefly checked out the shelves, to find manga divided into 'action adventure' (meaning shounen), 'romance' (meaning shoujo) and... ( Oh, take a wild guess )

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