Chilly

One would think that I am welded to my computer today, being that I've barely been out of reach of Twitter but I have managed to go to the doctor today (nothing to worry about), buy some jasmine rice, do a round of laundry and read 50 pages of a non-fiction book (A Hundred and One Days by Åsne Seierstad). It could have been a good day to walk about with the camera but it is just cold enough for me not to be in the mood.



Tonight is a Thai curry and probably a few pages of The Brothers Karamazov. Tomorrow is cherry blossom viewing if it is at all possible. The trees were far from blooming outside the doctors' surgery this morning.

Tanzawa Hike

What I learned today:

Don't hike in trainers, invest in proper boots.
When the Lonely Planet: Hiking In Japan book says "steep" they mean almost vertical, and when they say "exciting" they mean physically exerting and borderline dangerous. And when they say medium standard, they mean medium standard for someone who hikes a lot.



See also my flickr set.

Doings

I got some old films developed. A bit of a mixed bag if I'm honest, but some OK stuff on them.



Last night I went to see my girlfriend's friend's art exhibition in Ikebukuro, which was fantastic. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Also, two friends got married recently (to each other). Congratulations.

Various

This week I have mostly been counting down to pay day. While I haven't been eating mayonnaise sandwiches and drinking only water, I have been tightening my belt, so to speak. I have however been enjoying tofu with kinako (soy bean flour), sugar and milk. It tastes like Weetabix.

Today I enjoyed the luxury of a haircut and bought a book, The Brothers Karamazov. I have started to read it and I am not sure whether it is a weird translation or just that Dostoevsky was ahead of his time by eighty years or more. It's a 130-year-old book but it reads like it could have been written last week. Marvellous so far.

My redraft of the novel is gathering pace and I think I am on the final draft now. It seems to be a matter of tidying up rather than rewriting whole sections (touch wood).

Now to put my laundry away and make the bed so I can sleep in it.

Snow again

While the snow was a big surprise when it started coming down last month, it has not been a pleasant surprise lately. Today, coming home from work I had to waddle in order to arrive home without slipping and falling into the path of oncoming cars.

My girlfriend is deeply unhappy and very busy and I wish I could be there to comfort her when she needs it. Then again, I seem to be proving myself to be quite inept at comforting anybody, even myself sometimes.

I finished Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby last week and enjoyed it immensely. This week I am reading the local library's English copy of Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies which also seems to be rather good if totally different to the Hornby book.

Picks

Pictory - Neighborhood Treasure

One of my photographs is featured in the current Pictory showcase, Neighborhood Treasure. My photo is number twelve. Check out the showcase because all of the photos that aren't mine are great. I am biased toward my own. But yeah, check it out. It costs nothing but time you'd spend on Facebook.

Scary

Today I had the pleasure of my first visit to a certain kind of specialist.

Yesterday I had the displeasure of finding a lump. You can't really say the words "a lump" without the connotations of "early death" or "have you seen 'Terms of Endearment'?" I tried not to worry. Work was a very welcome distraction. Sleep didn't really come last night, and I just lay in bed entertaining dark thoughts about terminal illness. People cried. Unable to afford a funeral I jumped into a volcano.

I do not have anything to be alarmed about though. It's a stupid disease (but embarrassing).

I feel like I am born new. There is no waste to this any more. There will be more exercise and more fresh fruit and vegetables in my new lifestyle.

I finished the novel's draft on Monday. This next draft should be somewhat quicker.