(no subject)

Rosa really seems to be adjusting to day care now. She gives me a kiss as I take her coat off, then turns to survey the room, finds some other children doing something interesting, and she's off without a backward glance. It hurts me a little, but I'm also happy that she's taken so well to it. She needs the little friends and new experiences that I haven't been able to give her so far. It's also helping her be more open to other adults, too.

(no subject)

Yes, I'm obsessed, I admit it. I cannot wait for tonight so I can play Amber again. It's been two weeks without a fix and I'm dying here!

Yeah, I know, I could've done some work on Amber Eternal, and in fact I meant to, but somehow talking to Liz and/or Elissa and/or BriAnne has been much more appealing. I'm so behind that it's a daunting task just to catch up and order my thoughts.

I really need to organize my life better in hopes of defeating procrastination. Even when it's something I really want to do, I end up putting it off. Maybe the morning pages concept could work for other things too: Schedule some "sacred time" for whatever important goal I have, even if it were only a few minutes a day. I can't get up much earlier in the morning, but I can find a half-hour here and there that I can take to be my own.

Tasks at hand: Write La Llorona. Catch up with AE. Finish my new webpages.

Goth type test

( The totally unsurprising results )

The quiz of which all quizzes are but Shadow

Which member of the Royal House of Amber are you?

We have looked deep into the Jewel of Judgement, with some help from Ghostwheel, and determined that your amnesia hides the fact that you are actually Brand.

Brand, son of Clarissa. Sir! You've obviously recovered from the fall off the cliff. Did you? Nevermind. I, at least, am glad to have you back at the Castle.

We've been keeping your room in the Castle ready. If you decide to join the rest of the family at dinner, please let me know, so that I may set the appropriate number of places.

Natsukashisa

I've just been telling neeuqdrazil that I missed Japanese. I spent nine months in Japan in 1988-89, and by the end of my time there I was reading and writing with considerable fluency. I still have about a dozen novels in Japanese, of which I have read four or five. Reading Japanese books on the train, as a blonde blue-eyed foreigner, attracts a lot of attention. I met more people that way. No one could quite believe I was really reading it and not just turning pages. So I got lots of impromptu quizzes on the books. The same thing happened on the plane home, with the stewardesses.

It was funny to see how people would react differently to me depending on whether or not they could see my face. If the ticket agent at the subway was looking down, he'd answer my questions and sell me my ticket in Japanese without hesitation. If he glanced up, he'd immediately switch into broken English. Another time, I was returning to Japan from a trip to Thailand, handed my US passport to the customs inspector and started chatting to him in Japanese. He stamped my passport "Returning Japanese native". I had to point out the error and get it stamped properly, but I've been proud of that erroneous stamp ever since.

What makes me unutterably sad is the fact that except for a few words and some carefully memorized set pieces--a song and a poem (the second of which I wrote myself)--I've forgotten so very very much. I feel sure that if I had a chance for long-term immersion in Japanese again I would remember much of it, but living here in St Louis there is little chance of that.

Ima haruru
Sora sae miezu
Kano me todzu

(I wrote this haiku the day one of my classmates was killed in a motorcycle accident)
(Extremely free translation: "Unable to see today's clear sky, his eyes are closed.")