Tick tick.
Next Wednesday will mark the passing of another year since I first poked my head into the world, and I've recently spent a lot of time forgetting about this fine event. Unconsciously, that is. Maybe next week I'll be hit with some sort of realization about why I wanted to forget about this birthday, but for now -- eh. I've been calling myself 25 in my head now for a couple of weeks. In my experience, I have to lie to myself (and sometimes others) for a while before I really start to believe any new thing about myself. When I was sixteen, I started telling my high school lunch table buddies that I was a vegetarian, and I started having peanut butter and jelly in my brown bag rather than bologna and cheese, though I'd still be eating chicken tenders and chopped steak at dinner for another year. When I first arrived in Japan and had to go through the same getting-to-know-you questions with the Kinshicho students, I always answered the inevitable, "What is your hobby?" question with something about running a couple kilometers every day. After four months in Japan, I finally dug my running shoes out of a box and felt like some sort of clumsy exhibitionist as I left the apartment building and put my trust in my legs to carry me breezily down the street. I made it only one block that first morning, but by summer I was running for an hour late at night, every night, because such things can be done in Japan without having to worry about any safety precautions save for dodging some drunken businessmen on bicycles. I would come home just in time to see one day give way to another, to see Ngo eating fish-flavored potato chips and watching game shows, and to flop down on the carpet in front of her obsessively cleaned feet, to do my sit-ups and feel the crumbs from too many snacks stick to my elbows and the backs of my legs.
Lately I have been telling everyone at work that I write every morning from 5 to 7 AM. I don't know if they believe me, because I don't think someone who actually does that would sound as enthusiastic about it as I do. I'd like to think that when I really do fully get on that schedule, I'll still sound as energetic at work as I do now. Currently, though, the earliest getting-up-to-write time I've been able to manage has been 6:15. One night, sometime soon, I just need to pop a Tylenol PM, go to sleep at 9 PM, really get up at 5, have my Raisin Bran and soy milk, and just scribble mindlessly in my paper journal for two hours. And then we'll go from there. I want to join this site to get some decent freelancing opportunities, but I can't justify the $35 monthly fee until I know I'm going to do more than just look at submission guidelines with a cocked head and a starry eye.
***
Tomorrow is Adam's birthday (he'll be 28), meaning that it's now been:
one year since he came all the way across the world to lose his passport in Japan's Narita Airport, spent a day tracking it down to a taxi company on the outskirts of Tokyo, surprised me at work with a rose, had his first experience with yakiniku (Korean barbecue-ish Japanese culinary phenomenon. Basically, your dinner table has a charcoal grill in it) at Gyu Kaku in M-G Town (the menu is the ultimate in horrifying cuteness, with little happy cows pictured all over it, despite a whole section of the menu being titled "Hormone"), and then attempted to finish a huge bottle of sho-chu with me at Doma Doma. We finally called my roommates to come help us finish the massive jug.
two years since he proposed to me at the Foley House Inn in Savannah. He had just unwrapped the Family Guy DVDs I'd gotten him as a birthday present, and then I stared curiously at the container of translucent green jewelry cleaner he'd wrapped up in a box for me, before glancing over to the side and seeing him holding out a ring. We spent the rest of the day giddily walking around, having no idea what to do with ourselves. We eventually bought new shoes and went out for dinner, which suited the mood about as well as anything could have.
three years since his brilliant girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned-wife forgot about her last ever literature final (Restoration Drama, how I will never forget thee), hyperventilated in the hallway, and spent the rest of the evening worrying about how she was ever going to wheedle her way out of the mess.
Something tells me that this year's birthday won't be as eventful, but at least we're going to our favorite Thai restaurant tomorrow evening, so while there won't be lost passports, new engagement rings, and hyperventilating college students, there will be mangos, sticky rice, and coconut milk.
(Happy birthday.)
Lately I have been telling everyone at work that I write every morning from 5 to 7 AM. I don't know if they believe me, because I don't think someone who actually does that would sound as enthusiastic about it as I do. I'd like to think that when I really do fully get on that schedule, I'll still sound as energetic at work as I do now. Currently, though, the earliest getting-up-to-write time I've been able to manage has been 6:15. One night, sometime soon, I just need to pop a Tylenol PM, go to sleep at 9 PM, really get up at 5, have my Raisin Bran and soy milk, and just scribble mindlessly in my paper journal for two hours. And then we'll go from there. I want to join this site to get some decent freelancing opportunities, but I can't justify the $35 monthly fee until I know I'm going to do more than just look at submission guidelines with a cocked head and a starry eye.
***
Tomorrow is Adam's birthday (he'll be 28), meaning that it's now been:
one year since he came all the way across the world to lose his passport in Japan's Narita Airport, spent a day tracking it down to a taxi company on the outskirts of Tokyo, surprised me at work with a rose, had his first experience with yakiniku (Korean barbecue-ish Japanese culinary phenomenon. Basically, your dinner table has a charcoal grill in it) at Gyu Kaku in M-G Town (the menu is the ultimate in horrifying cuteness, with little happy cows pictured all over it, despite a whole section of the menu being titled "Hormone"), and then attempted to finish a huge bottle of sho-chu with me at Doma Doma. We finally called my roommates to come help us finish the massive jug.
two years since he proposed to me at the Foley House Inn in Savannah. He had just unwrapped the Family Guy DVDs I'd gotten him as a birthday present, and then I stared curiously at the container of translucent green jewelry cleaner he'd wrapped up in a box for me, before glancing over to the side and seeing him holding out a ring. We spent the rest of the day giddily walking around, having no idea what to do with ourselves. We eventually bought new shoes and went out for dinner, which suited the mood about as well as anything could have.
three years since his brilliant girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned-wife forgot about her last ever literature final (Restoration Drama, how I will never forget thee), hyperventilated in the hallway, and spent the rest of the evening worrying about how she was ever going to wheedle her way out of the mess.
Something tells me that this year's birthday won't be as eventful, but at least we're going to our favorite Thai restaurant tomorrow evening, so while there won't be lost passports, new engagement rings, and hyperventilating college students, there will be mangos, sticky rice, and coconut milk.
(Happy birthday.)