Birthday Post of Imminent Fail
IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. I am officially 23 years old, yet I think my parents have lied to me my entire life, and I'm actually just 18. Because I feel like I should still be in high school. Sometimes people actually think I'm a senior in high school because, thanks to genetics, I look young for my age. It's not just me, either. My brother, my parents, and my maternal grandparents all look young. I can't say my nephew looks young because he IS young. Thanks so much to everyone for the birthday wishes and to cynabuns for the virtual gift of a yellow duckie. Even though we only met for one day in San Francisco, you're awesome, Chanchan.
In fact, I feel really bad because pretty much my entire flist is made of awesome and gives birthday wishes, and I think I've given two in the past year. So I really will try and be a better friend. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO EVERYONE WHO HAD A BIRTHDAY IN THE PAST YEAR! *wink*
I haven't actually done anything special for my birthday for the past...four years, I think. It's been maybe pizza and a cake or something while watching a movie at home. At midnight, when I was at work, I mini-celebrated by watching the new episodes of Mei-chan no Shitsuji (why do I torture myself?) and Akai Ito (why does this drama choose to torture me?) This year, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And I did it:
I WENT TO SEE CORALINE IN 3-D AND ATE AWESOME CHINESE FOOD.
The 3-D part was unexpected because I had planned to see it in regular format, but the theatre only had 3-D. So we had to shell out an extra $2.50 per ticket for some Buddy Holly-esque 3-D glasses. The 3-D had some good moments where things came out of the screen and got really close, but it was mostly 3-D within the frame to give it more dimension. It was definitely cool, but I wish more things had popped out of the screen. My fellow Neil Gaiman fans will be happy to know it followed the book fairly well and even had some new, slightly disturbing moments with Miss Forcible and Miss Spink. Anyway, after the movie, we went to New Century Buffet where, according to the ad, they serve Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and American food. This is very misleading as I saw no real Italian food, and the only Japanese food they had was sushi. But I ate a lot and felt pleasantly sick for many hours afterward.
So I started a post the other night, but it ended in fail, so here's what I had before I just went, "Meh..." and went off to YouTube.
This is what I get for:
1.) being insanely bored at 5:34 am at work
2.) having an easily misspelled username
I decided to Google my username because it's the one I've been using for the last year or so. Not much shows up outside of this journal and the TLS board. One person mentioned me in a blogspot post because of el fanfic. Everything else was a misspelling of the word "area" except for one random person who actually has the name Areea. Oh, but apparently I am one of the top listeners of Ikuta Toma at last.fm, which makes me rather proud.
night_inscr iber and myself had a study session for Japanese on Wednesday which inevitably led to a tangent about JE boys and a new term for Toma's friends. Which made me think: someone should come up with a JE dictionary for those people new to the fandom who want to know random terms. Some possible entries (which are really just terms we all know by now) could be:
tomadachi: a friend of Toma's. Ex: Yamapi, MatsuJun
Jun-bait: 1.) Discovering JE through Jun Matsumoto of arashi, most often through dramas such as Hana Yori Dango or Gokusen. 2.) Matsumoto Jun just before he was legal.
Bakanishi: 1.) Nickname for Akanishi Jin of KAT-TUN. 2.) Whenever Jin acts like like an idiot.
In my last post, I forgot to talk about Akai Ito. It's sort of a fall/winter drama, and I haven't seen it in awhile, so I forgot. Akai Ito hasn't gotten great ratings. Better ratings than Kami no Shizuku, which is still sad because it's a wonderful drama. It's so romantic, and Mizobata Junpei is just so adorable as A-kun. It's based on a popular cellphone novel. It really has depth and tragedy, too, even though I find the whole Sara-jumping-off-a-building-and-surviving thing unbelievable. Because she was high up. It's highly unlikely she would survive a fall like that and fully recover in only a couple of months. Actually, I don't remember the time span, but it couldn't have been more than a couple of months.
My original prediction/fear that A-kun and Mei are siblings has thankfully been debunked thanks to episode 6. That would have made the drama wrong on SO many levels. But A-kun and Mei are clearly destined for each other. I just don't want it to end tragically. That would suck. I completely love the theme song, though. It's "366 Nichi" by HY, and it fits the drama so well. The lyrics and the music and even the title. Mei and A-kun were born on February 29th (making them both Pisces, yay!), and on a leap year there are 366 days.
Sigh...this post fails. I'm too tired to make a real post.
I said I would do it, and I did. I downloaded the ONE DROP single. But I only listened to ONE DROP because it's so darn catchy and would go through my head during work or class so I just had to get it so I could listen to it and get it out my head. This reminds me, though, I have to update my J-Drama Song post. I also got the Akai Ito theme song and that awesome mix from J-Bootie with "Kibou Yell" and "Hold On."
Ahhh, this post is failing, too. I keep thinking about stuff I need to finish or work on so I don't feel so utterly failable.
1. You Never Have to Be Alone (Erg, I'm gonna end up writing a behind-the-scenes thing on my other journal)
2. Honey and Clover music video (stupid second verse, it's so hard to find clips that fit)
3. The other music videos I want to do like the Hana Kimi one and the It Sudden, Like a Storm one
4. The 4-Tops pimp post I promised to do last year and still haven't gotten around to writing
So I don't feel like this post is completely wasteful, I'm posting a part of "Over the Rain" that I waaaassss writing for the semi-prestigious school literary journal (hah, it wishes), but I missed the deadline, so I'm thinking of submitting it to the Women's Studies writing contest. It's based on the photobook in flumpool's album "Unreal" and unfortunately, I can't find scans online. But I appreciate any (constructive) comments cause I'm a little stuck at the moment.
He must have stood in that window for a long time, staring out into the bleak city streets. Just waiting for someone to come along and buy him.
Light poured from the antique store window in warm, yellow-orange glow. The window was filled with things that had long since forgotten. A brass angel hung in a corner, her delicate face a bit tarnished. Her smile remained fixed, as if she knew something could happen at any moment.
Dolls with painted china faces stared at passerby. Their red lips remained closed. They observed. A porcelain cheetah looked down the street. He could have been waiting for his owner to return. She had probably been some glamorous circus star who tamed cheetahs for a living. One old portrait hung on the left side wall. The girl looked sad. You could see it in her eyes.
The store sat on a fairly empty street near the edge of town. Older buildings surrounded it. They had long since turned gray from wind and rain and looked as sad as the girl in the portrait. I passed the store every day on my way to work and back home. I never paid much attention to it until that one day. I stopped to adjust my skirt when I felt eyes staring at me. I looked over, and there he was; as if he had been waiting for me.
He was still there that night. Maybe he had been there since the world began. The street was empty as I stepped up to the glass. Rain sprinkled down, making tiny thunk thunk sounds on my plastic umbrella. He stared at me, his eyes a deep oak brown. His dark brown bangs fells across his left eye, giving him a bit of insouciance. He was handsome, that was certain. Whoever had him last had dressed him in plain, dark jeans, a white button-up shirt, and black sneakers.
His face was blank, like he was staring out into space. Yet his eyes met mine, and I found I couldn’t look away. Something about those eyes haunted me. They made me want to keep looking, until, like Narcissus, I wasted away in front of him, content only to stare into his eyes.
I started drawing pictures of him. They began as doodles whenever I was bored. I would start with those haunting eyes and work my way outward, carefully outlining the shape of his jaw, the way his bottom lip curved slightly to the right. I never completed them. Though I passed by that store every day and stared at him, memorizing his features, I could never remember them all. My desk became littered with the crumpled scribblings of my incomplete imagination.
A few days later, I went to the store and bought him. He was too big to put in a box, and I didn’t have enough money to pay for a delivery, so I stood him up and managed to pull him up on my back. I carried him home in the rain, the umbrella mostly covering him. It was a little hard keeping him up. His arms wouldn’t stay clasped around my neck. But they were long arms, and they crossed in front of me, one arm hooking over the over. I looked down at his hands as we walked. They were smooth and white. No dirt under the fingernails. He had been well kept.
The umbrella slipped backward the rain plastered my bangs to my forehead. Still, we trudged on. My arms burned from carrying his weight, and the rain felt cold against my skin. The city was dark. Only a few people were out in the rain, and they passed by without giving us much notice.
The feeling of him against my back made me happy, though. I could have him to look at whenever I wished. I could draw him in perfect detail. I could take him anywhere. His face was so close to mine, that had he been able to breathe, I would have felt his warm breath on my ear.
I turned on the light as soon as I got to my apartment. Slipping off my wet shoes at the doorway, I walked the few steps to my room. He started to slip, so I quickly knelt down and let him collapse onto the floor in a graceful heap. He lay in front of my bed, still staring of into nowhere. His shirt was wet and had come unbuttoned. I pulled off his shoes and sat them next to mine in the entryway.
I slowly knelt down beside him. I looked at him and felt that happiness of knowing I could look at him whenever I wanted to. His arm fell over his stomach. I reached out and uncurled his fingers and examined them. They felt cold. I gazed at his face. His eyes stared back into mine without seeing. I ran my hand against his cheek and brushed the hair from his eyes.
Over the next few days, I examined him. I took out my instant camera and took pictures of him from various angles. Then I would sit for hours with those pictures at my desk and attempt to draw him. The sketches gradually got better, but they still didn’t feel right. I would occasionally look over at him sitting on my bed and try to draw him that way, but it made no difference.
Our days together continued like this. I would leave him in the apartment while I went to work. When I came home, I would fix dinner and give him a bath. I would sit him on the bed and sketch for a few hours until my eyes blurred. Then I would gently lay him on the bed, climb in next to him, and cover us both. He was always cold. We’d lie there for awhile, and I’d stare at him as I fell asleep. My head nestled into his shoulder. My hand rested upon his chest. It sometimes made me sad that I couldn’t feel his heartbeat.
My sketches became better, but they lacked something. At the same time, I couldn’t get my mind off of him. I worried about him when I wasn’t at home, although there wasn’t anything to worry about. I looked forward to seeing him when I got home. I’m sure my co-workers and friends all thought I had a boyfriend.
“Good work today. We’re all going out to this new bar that just opened up. You want to go?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I can’t. There’s someone waiting for me at home.”
I wasn’t sure when you became someone to me.
I scribbled out a sketch one day. It just wasn’t right. I looked around at you, sitting there on my bed, staring like you always did. I went over and knelt down in front of you.
You looked kinder. It seemed as if a small smile played around your lips. Had that always been there? I smiled back. You stared directly above my head, so I rose up to eye level so that we stared into each other’s eyes.
I found myself moving forward toward you, the distance between our mouths growing smaller. I closed my eyes.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
I stopped and opened my eyes. I looked at him. He stared past me, the same blank look in his eyes. There was no smile on his lips. He simply looked as he had before.
In the background, a song I knew came on the television. My eyes automatically went to it. It was a nice song, full of hope and how the rainbow comes after the rain. The lead singer looked sort of like him. As he sang, his eyes closed, and you could feel the passion radiating from the words. I looked back at him sitting on my bed and suddenly felt sad.
Ja ne!