I witnessed an atrocity on the way to school today. I was feeling kind of weak, paranoid and vulnerable, kind of lost in thought (I usually feel this way the day after I cut sensitive areas), when I heard a loud group of crows ahead of me. I often hear crows on the way to school, there is a group of them around here, but today it was especially loud. I continued to walk toward school, and when I reached the crows, I saw a pigeon fall out of the sky and land on the grass beside me, injured and struggling, followed by the manic crows. They were all attacking the pigeon and grey feathers were everywhere. I stopped and watched for a while, but I couldn't really do much about it. I continued on my way after the pigeon died and other students noticed.

I suspected that I was anemic so I tested my skin with my mother's gold wedding band. The black lines that appeared were much more distinct than the lines I remember seeing when I was put on iron pills in high school. I am guessing that is a bad thing. Whatever, I am not taking iron again. I hardly ever have the opportunity to eat meat, it's not really part of my diet, I get my protein from eggs and seafood. Fuck iron.

I have my first piano lesson tomorrow, looking forward to playing some songs. The first draft of my research paper is due on Saturday, so I need to focus. I have been having trouble with that lately. Too much procrastination.

All those who have left,
have left,
white sun,
high at noon,
the bell rings,
warming my body,
my ashy skin,
and I'm not sure,
if we will meet again.

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I am not sure if I should be proud, but I wish I didn't feel guilty. I ditched Tuesday, who has been wanting to see me for a few weeks. Problem is that Tuesday wants to meet on the early weekdays, when I have the most reading to do. I have made excuses the past couple weeks and this week Tuesday asked if we could spend the night together since there is a national holiday on Wednesday. I said that it would be perfect and got excited about the date, reassuring him that I would be able to make it, he hinted at big plans and inviting people.

That was Saturday morning. Saturday evening Ryu also asked me about the upcoming Tuesday. I told him I already had plans and that I couldn't see him. He accepted this without questioning further. But I really enjoyed being with him that night and realised that I would rather spend Tuesday with him.

What to do, what to do? One thing about me, I never ditch people; even if I am sick and sleepy, I never skip class. Even if it costs me something, I will be there if I promised you that I would be. I am offended when people are late, and I take pains not to be. So, I am not the type to switch plans like this. I struggled all day with the decision. But I called both parties in the evening after much mental struggle.

Ryu said that he had accepted that he would not see me on Tuesday, but now was so relieved. I felt like such a loser telling him that I wanted to see him and that I had changed plans. But it was the truth. I had to lie to Tuesday though.

Tuesday knows I am seeing someone else, I mentioned it on Saturday. I refused to give details about who it was. I don't think it matters to Tuesday, it just makes my excuses about school seem less credible.

I won't get into detail about the phone call, but there were lots of plans for us on Tuesday. Difficult arrangements were made, people were sent away, people were invited and dinner was arranged. All this preparation for me, I felt so selfish when I lied straight into the phone and said that I have too much work to do.

Ryu better be extremely worthwhile tonight.

P.S. I hung out with a bunch of CIA agents at the Deca Hotel (bad memories of that place!) last night, they were recruiting from my university. They invited Jackson school students for an analysis game, testing our analysing skills and showing us what it's like to work as an intelligence analyst. In the end, I decided it would be kind of boring and tough to be an analyst, but being a spy and getting the intelligence would be interesting. I am still considering applying to the CIA.

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It is well into November now and the cold weather reflects the date on the calendar. Last week's strange sunshine and strong showers, loud thunder and bright lightening have left Seattle, replaced with biting cold I am all too familiar with.

Luckily I did not have to spend last night alone.

I was invited to a few parties, all of which were dismissed by Ryu when he came to my house. He wanted to stay in. I didn't resist. We drank a little wine, I, a single glass slowly, he, a bit more. We spoke quite a lot, mostly I asked about him. I like how he answers my questions without hiding anything, without faltering to think. I like how he speaks about his family, not detached but with an adult appreciation.

I asked him if he liked hot chocolate. He said yes. I made two cups of cocoa for us. I think he was pleased. He told me, No girl has ever made anything for me, only my mother and my sister. Who would have thought such a simple thing would make him smile?

His older, only sister is an opera singer, and he told me that he respects her because she works so hard to forward her dream. Needless to say, opera singing isn't exactly the easiest career path to follow, much less in Japan, of all places. He told me that she hardly goes out and he thinks she has never had a regular boyfriend.

I told him I will be sad when he returns to Kyoto. He sympathised and said that he wanted to bring me with him and keep me at his house. I joked about how his traditional grandmother would react to the new foreign addition to the family. He laughed and said that she wasn't so bad, his cousin recently married a foreigner after all.

He told me that he wants to visit me. He told me that he thinks it is good that I want to study so much, that I want to go to New York. He thinks I should do what I want to do. I told him that I don't want to be lonely any more. I don't want to be alone like his big sister.

He told me that I won't be lonely. I asked him why he thought so. He said, because I am changing.

Love For Sale

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I have so much to read and so little time... Books piling up for school and for my personal reading. I wish I could read faster.

I read a poem last night at Revolution Books, I really like being there. I love having a space downtown where I can escape the university environment I am beginning to hate. It's hard to imagine my goal of being in graduate school for several more years. I am very tired of the institution and the focus of it all, the goals of the university. I feel like it is turning most of the students into useless office workers that will be victim to the oppressive capitalist system. I want to escape it so badly, but each day it gets harder and harder to see beyond the dollar signs. A creative career is a terribly rare thing.

Sometimes I just want to shut myself up into my room and forget the rest of the world. Well, sometimes I do exactly that.

I promised I would spend next Tuesday night with someone who destroys me and drains me, so I am about to face a trying week. I am spending tonight with Ryu, looking forward to seeing him, but I have some things to do in the meantime. I am preparing myself, reading and getting ahead before Tuesday and the subsequent empty days it will cause.

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Red lines, black lines
White drop back drop
Take a picture, this moment lasts forever.
In the security of night, I have nothing to fear,
Hold me close, my dear,
Your body allows me
To leave this city,
You aren’t really here.
Carefully you
Take everything I contain,
Swallowing,
I refrain from saying
No,
You aren’t allowed to do so.
Sorry I
never shut up.
19:06

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It's the sixth week of the quarter, which means classes will become more demanding, work will start piling up, and I will have less time to do all my favorite things (i.e. sitting around reading websites/books without direct application to my studies).

Dug through the university library catalog for sources for my research paper this quarter, social reform and nationalism in the Ottoman empire. I found some good books!

Had the "what are your life plans" talk with Ryu. It's simple. In two years he will be working twelve hours a day for some Japanese company and I will be beginning my master's degree somewhere on the East coast (if not farther away). He didn't seem very excited to hear about my uncompromising ambitions. And I told him I will be too busy this week to spend much time with him.

Signing up for piano lessons. My goal is to be able to play the first movement of Moonlight Sonata by the end of the school year. I've (re)taught myself how to read music and some of the scales and chords.

Also planning to read a poem at the second Revolution Books open mic this Friday.

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Back from the underworld.

Ryu came over around 19:00 and I did his makeup, painting a whiter face and eyeliner under his eyes to make him look like L. The makeup helped make a really good effect! I wore a black corset top that restricted my breathing and smushed my boobs together in a weird shape. I thought about being a school girl, but I wanted to be a little bit scarier, so I went with more black and chains. Ryu had no complaints. We took a few shots of vodka at a friend's house in the neighborhood with Kensuke and Tetsuya, then went to the party later at night.

I don't really like going to house parties (well, the few I have been to have been uninteresting) but I guess it has more to do with the people there rather than the setting and beer. Last night I went to the Halloween party of a bunch of (mostly Japanese and other Asian) International students. There were a lot of people I knew and many I didn't. When we showed up, the beer was gone so we were left with bottles of tequila, vodka, rum, and a bunch of mixers.

Of course we took more shots like the smart, efficient people we are... I lost count, all I know today is that it was too many.

The party was cool though, the house was packed, everyone was dressed up and beautiful. Lots of cute guys and girls. I didn't bring my camera, but Ryu did. I tried to play cupid for my friends Kensuke and Kei... they are perfect for each other I think, both 19 and petite and adorable. I pushed them into a bathroom together and I don't know how it went. At one point, people were cheering for Ryu and me to kiss and we did. All I remember is a million camera flashes going off (freakin' Japanese, always taking pictures) and then shouts of mo ikkai, チューして！kiss again~!!. Like I said, I haven't seen any of these pictures, I didn't have my camera!

I'm glad Ryu decided to leave when he did, it's always better to leave early. He told me let's go and his reason was simple, if we stay longer, we will drink more. So logical! Why don't I ever think of that? On the way out, in the front yard, I saw a group of guys smoking a bowl, and I took a couple hits, and even got a green hit! It was really good stuff, I forgot what he called it. The guy actually knows my friend Heather so I will keep in touch with him somehow. I walked home with Ryu, stoned and drunk and generally happy but tired of my high heels.

We saw lots of drunk students in costume on the way home. Ryu was commenting on how great Halloween was, he was surprised, he was taught it was a children's holiday. There was a cop standing at a frat house on my block who surprised me and made me paranoid, and I remembered that I was breaking the law. It is so ridiculous that I can't drink legally.

Anyway, I went home and Ryu kinda took care of me, I am grateful. He took all my clothes off very slowly and carefully, while I suffered in my super high, intoxicated body, he removed all my accessories, my socks, and folded everything away. I did nothing, just lay in bed. It felt nice.

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Though it has been on the back-burner of my consciousness, I had not heard from the super competitive and bureaucratic International studies department about my application to the major. I applied a couple weeks ago, and I was kind of confident about getting in, but nothing was official.

I am pleased to report that I just received my acceptance email. Woo! Both of my majors are officially declared! yatta!

Date with Ryu tonight, he is so cute sometimes. More about him later, I have a comp lit midterm due in 55 minutes! I've titled it, "Sex, an Art of Tensions?" and it's an analysis of a sex scene in a comic we read for class.

---

So I'm at home, finished with the week. What do I do? It's always a rush to to finish. And afterward I still feel at edge. I still have a bunch of wine at my house from last weekend.... *pours a glass*

Ryu says he wants to meet later, around 7 for dinner. It's weird. I think going out in public with him will be strange. I will have a few drinks before I see him, otherwise, I won't be able to relax.

I had sex with him a few times, and I was totally sober. I'm preoccupied with the idea of it lately. Starting to feel perverse. No, I am not saying he was amazing, I'm saying that I am probably thinking about it a lot more than is normal. It is strange to be doing this with a student. He thinks I'm his girlfriend. No one has ever really called me that. Even Arihito last month in Tokyo, we saw each other pretty regularly but we were just friends. Even Yusuke... called me every day, but I was so busy and ignored him so much that I don't think even he could consider me a girlfriend.

Ryu on the other hand, is informing all his buddies back home that he has "made an American girlfriend."

Anyway, sex. As much as I try to convince myself otherwise, it is still not as good as a dose of really good H. Or alternatively (if you aren't into the needles and illegal stuff) a bunch of oxies. Seems like nothing will ever be.

I like how the effect of drugs lingers, I like how it makes me feel, what it does to my mind and how it changes the world. I need nothing else when I'm high, just me, satisfied with myself for a while. Sex doesn't do that. I really gave it a chance! I "liberated" myself from a previously very negative attitude toward sex. No I don't think it's dirty, I think it can be very sensual and it makes you feel good for a little while, even a day or two after, you might be thinking about that person. But to be honest, it's not really satisfying on the same level that I feel after writing something I imagined during a high, or the feeling of my body when I take opiates.

I don't want to say that I've tried everything, but I feel like I have, different types of people, different scenes, I don't even want to describe all the different situations, but it's still not as good as sticking a pen into my hand til I bleed or getting high out my mind. Nothing compares to the calm that I feel the day after I cut myself or after getting high and writing all night.

Today is auspicious. It's very windy, and somehow warm.

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Two quotes from Polish-born American author, Isaac Bashevis Singer:

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

Today we spoke about autobiography as truth in my comparative literature comics class. A lot of the power that autobiographies (and memoirs, for that matter) have is based in the reality and honesty the genre promises. The reader trusts the author to tell the truth, his personal experience, his story. But perhaps autobiography is closer to fiction than we might expect.

It is completely up to the writer's discretion to decide what is worth retelling. And besides the glossing over and remolding of facts (as well as simply lying), to fit something as abstract as life into some sort of literary model, with a beginning, middle, and end is already distorting the truth, isn't it? Taking random, fragmented events in life and putting them into some sort of meaningful, organised form or narrative, isn't that a type of trickery? An illusion? A type of lie? And having one person's perspective on a lifetime of events, isn't that a bit limiting and unfair? Yes it is! And I think it's wonderful.

Fiction on the other hand, is the opposite. You have a story that never happened, people who don't exist, and an attempt to make the events seem as real and probable as possible. It's the reverse strategy. I'm not very good at it.

I met up with Ryu today after school for coffee. He says he "always wants to be with" me. He asked me if I would accept that, I said alright, sure. He's kinda cute, a typical, private, all-boys' school guy (middle and high school in his case) and studies international peace and conflict resolution. His English is pretty good-o, and-o he wants to hang out tomorrow.

Where are you?
A deep grey blue,
A heavy mood in the late afternoon,
Gloom enters my room,
Seeps through the blinds,
Clear lines,
A sort of bright, artificial night,
Darkness in the light,
Into a thick, cloudy white,
I disappear,
Under this cover,
Until sun sets,
The color of blood
I begin to see
An orange glow
Burning in the window.
Where are you?

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So there's this guy, Tetsuya from Kyoto, well, there are a whole group of guys from Ritsumeikan uni who are studying here for a quarter and I met some of them at Wednesday lunch. Two of them, Tetsuya and Kensuke asked for my phone number a couple weeks ago and I gave it to them. This week, Tetsuya invited me to a party. I said okay.

I met up with Tetsuya in the University district, he was with another guy, Ryu, who he introduced to me as the most kakkoi of his friends. He was alright, kind of standoffish and quiet, but he looked okay. Tetsuya on the other hand reminds me a little bit of Ai from Osaka, they are both from Kansai, and both are outgoing and smile all the time.

I had already eaten but they took me to drink with a group of people at this Korean place. There were a bunch of Japanese-American girls dressed similarly in black club dresses. They didn't talk to me. There was one other non-Japanese person there, a friendly Iranian-American guy who was born and raised in Tokyo, he had a lisp, but his Japanese was really good. I thought he was an interesting political product, I like meeting people with messed up national identities.

Tetsuya ordered a bottle of soju and let me drink most of it. I spoke with him most of the night but when he went to go to the bathroom I was left seated next to Ryu, who hadn't said a single word to me since we were first introduced. We talked about the Japanese elections and how he didn't vote because he was coming here and about his view of Japanese politics in general. Any guy who can stand talking politics with me for more than ten minutes gets extra points. And his name is Ryu for god's sake, he had already gotten me when I learned that (see: Ryu Murakami).

Anyway, after he finished eating, the Iranian guy left and the girls left to go clubbing downtown, acting all shy about it, like they were doing something super scandalous. The boys stayed with me. We called Kensuke, we considered going to his house on the south side, but he was actually in the University district singing karaoke with some girls. We let him be. In the end, the two guys came to my house, not without two bottles of cheap champagne (I don't have a bottle opener for wine) and cheese (Tetsuya's idea).

We drank the first bottle quickly. We thought to wait for Kensuke to come to open the second bottle, but he was being too slow. We drank the second bottle. When Kensuke showed up, we went to buy wine and chocolate ice cream (Tetsuya's suggestion again). Kensuke had to drink to catch up with us so we forced him to drink. He is the smallest one but he can handle drinking pretty well. We talked about this and that, love and heartbreak...

After a while, Tetsuya was falling asleep, actually, he did fall asleep and start snoring on my floor. We woke him up and made him go home. I was getting sleepy too, and too drunk. I rested my head on Ryu's lap (we were sitting on the floor) but continued conversing, though I don't really remember what we were talking about at that point. I was just paying attention to the feeling of Ryu's hand on my body.

I went downstairs and threw up in the bathroom. The vomit was deep purple like the cheap Merlot we were drinking. I came back to my room and lay in bed, which sort of signaled to the boys it was time to go. I said good night and I heard them leave my house. I got up and I showered, well, I sat under the running water for a while.

When I went back to my room, I saw that my window was open and someone was outside on the roof, ninja-style trying to come inside. It was Ryu. I was in my towel, dripping wet. I closed the door behind me and invited him in. He was trying to explain how he forgot his bag and that he tried to call but I didn't pick up. I told him yes, I was in the shower (clearly), and dried myself off. I told him he could stay, the buses were out of service at that point. He said thank you.

I dried my hair and hung the towel up. I was completely naked so I put on a long shirt. I didn't keep it on for very long. He commented on my tattoo while we were having sex, ukifune? That's always what they say. As if I am the one who needs to confirm the reading. We slept. He left around 7am. I also got up and brushed my teeth, took out my contacts, and went back to sleep.

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