Things that keep me sane

I've been steering clear of blogging this week because I feel like I have nothing positive to say. How does that saying go? If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all? Or something like that.

Well, that's not exactly true. I was thinking that I should try to record my thoughts, good or bad, since the primary purpose of this blog is to serve as my journal, a recording of all the major and minor happenings in my life and thoughts that ramble through my head, in case the universe one day hears my plea and gives me the wisdom and patience to author a decent novel which manages to get published and sell enough copies to fund my vagabond and gluttonous ways, after which the publishing company decides I should write a memoir, in which case I will need to recollect the happenings and thoughts I had so I can give a fulsome account. So...that's the super-secret desire I harbor in the deepest darkest corners of my soul. I guess I happen to be in a revealing-the-supersecret-desires-of-the-darkest-corners-of-my-soul kind of mood today.

Actually, that was kind of a tangent. What I meant to say was that since this is my journal, I should a) keep an accurate account of happenings and b) not withhold from writing simply because I have nothing nice to say.

Another reason for not writing this week was that El Hombre was visiting during the earlier part of the week and I spent most of the latter part of the week shopping online. I mean, what is there to really write about that? El Hombre was in Tokyo, and it was so great to have a piece of home with me for a few days and we spent a great few days eating and spending time together and occasionally arguing. And as simple as that sounds, I can't really begin to describe how poignant and fulfilling such simple moments together are. As for the second part of the week: I spent 2 days shopping online like a madwoman and believe I may be a good candidate for Shopaholics Anonymous.

So those were the happenings, now the thoughts. To sum up, my general mood and thoughts for the week were: Tokyo. BLEHHHHHHH!!!! I miss home. WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I thought it was just because it's the HOLIDAY SEASON, my favorite time of the year, and I wished I could be home among friends and family and Christmas carols and general holiday cheer (Tokyo is woefully lacking in Christmas carols and holiday cheer - they put Christmas lights up in the major commercial areas but the city still lacks holiday SPIRIT and cheer. It's hard to explain. It's kind of like what I imagine would happen if aliens landed in the US and observed Christmas in a city such as SF or NY and thought "we should replicate this" and put up Christmas lights on their own planet but totally failed to really "get" the holiday spirit of sharing and caring and giving and friends and family. Because while Tokyo puts up holiday lights, Christmas is NOT a holiday here! It's a normal working day AND I'm told families do not exchange gifts or have a family gathering or anything of the sort for Christmas. Actually, Christmas Eve here is like a second Valentine's Day - guys are supposed to take girls out to a nice romantic contrived dinner, whereas on V-day, girls are supposed to take out the guy). But T, who has been here for a mind-boggling 8 years, noted that I've reached the pinnacle of hating Tokyo/missing home on the normal timeline for most expats. That is to say, he said that most people go through an intense hating Tokyo/missing home phase at around the 3 or 4 month stage. For him, he said the strongest ache occurred at the four month mark, which is exactly where I am right now. He also said that the aches return at the 6 month mark, one year mark, 2 years, and so on, but not as strongly. And I replied: it seems sad to me that people continue to stay long enough to feel the ache year after year. Why not just go back home so you don't feel the ache?! But I suppose after 8 years of making a life in Tokyo, he would feel a reverse ache upon returning to the US, because he's made a home here.

When I woke up this morning and flipped on my computer to turn on my iTunes radio, I thought: this is one of the things that keep me sane here. And I wanted to note all the things that contribute to keeping me sane in Tokyo:

- iTunes radio, which keeps me plugged in to all the latest Top 40's and gives me my Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift and Black Eyed Peas fix

- blogging, which serves as an outlet for all my thoughts, which is therapeutic

- having my next trip home planned, so I know that it's only a fixed period away

- Kindle, which opens up totally different worlds/lives (in the past two weeks I've been transported to the life of an American expat in France tracing the history of a Jewish girl whose family was rounded up by the French police and executed in Auschwitz (Sarah's Key); the life of a solitary, gay writer whose strange, disconnected life takes him between the US and Mexico at various stages of his life, during which he befriends Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky (The Lacuna); the life of a free-spirited journalist who starts a correspondence with residents of a town in the Channel Islands shortly after the Nazi occupation and falls in love with a humble pig farmer rather than an arrogant socialite publisher (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society); the life of a man whose wife leaves him for his boss and whose father passes away and who has to sit shiva with his dysfunctional family for seven days (This Is Where I Leave You); the life of a white girl whose family adopts her black best friend after her family is killed in a fire in the segregated deep South (Fireflies in December))

- visitors from home

- kindred spirits in Tokyo

- running

- Skype