(no subject)
Today was a national holiday in Japan. There are so many national holidays here. I forget the name of this one, but it involved all the 20-year-olds dressing up in kimonos. Everyone else in the city, it seemed, was wearing jeans and waiting in line at Mister Donut.
The combination of bitter cold and lack of central heat in the apartment has brought the roommates together. There's a big heater in the living room, so we huddle in here for hours in the evening, talking and drinking tea and studying Japanese. Belinda has been uncharacteristically tolerable and even nice. Tonight, she sounded genuinely interested when she asked me, "So how long have you been vegetarian?" For a minute, I was scared to answer, hoping she wouldn't go into one of her I'm-so-offended-by-your-eating-habits moods, but she really wanted to know. And she said, "Wow, you have such will power," as she bit into a long, stringy piece of pork from the bowl of mushy, ketchup-covered pasta she had made for dinner.
Off to try to score a free drink or two at the Melting Pot, the international bar around the corner. Our neighbor JR has just started bartending there. Dorothy invited me out tonight, and I accepted without realizing that I didn't have any cash and that the ATMs were all closed. Ah well, I haven't had much of a taste for alcohol since the Christmas unpleasantness.
The combination of bitter cold and lack of central heat in the apartment has brought the roommates together. There's a big heater in the living room, so we huddle in here for hours in the evening, talking and drinking tea and studying Japanese. Belinda has been uncharacteristically tolerable and even nice. Tonight, she sounded genuinely interested when she asked me, "So how long have you been vegetarian?" For a minute, I was scared to answer, hoping she wouldn't go into one of her I'm-so-offended-by-your-eating-habits moods, but she really wanted to know. And she said, "Wow, you have such will power," as she bit into a long, stringy piece of pork from the bowl of mushy, ketchup-covered pasta she had made for dinner.
Off to try to score a free drink or two at the Melting Pot, the international bar around the corner. Our neighbor JR has just started bartending there. Dorothy invited me out tonight, and I accepted without realizing that I didn't have any cash and that the ATMs were all closed. Ah well, I haven't had much of a taste for alcohol since the Christmas unpleasantness.