There is a Japanese word, mieppari, that means a person hung up on maintaining appearances or caring too much about status and wanting to impress others. Keeping up with the Joneses, if you will. Ah, keeping up with the Joneses...are you immune? I am not. I still vividly remember feeling mortified whenever my dad drove up in our jalopy of a Chevy Nova to pick me up from one middle school event or another. I even asked him to park at least a block away so no one would see me duck into the back ... Read more
Criticism and How I Got a Book Deal
I started and stopped several light and easy posts for today, but I've been stuck on this idea of criticisms so I decided to just go with it even though it's neither light nor easy. It's also not a short read, so I've inserted random illustrations I've been painting these days to break up the text. When I was in my early twenties, I quietly mentioned to someone I respected -- a much older woman -- that I might want to be a writer or a "creative" of some sort. She leveled her world-weary eyes ... Read more
And Then There Was Love
It's Valentine's Day tomorrow and I have love on the mind. Let me start by saying that I've always been a late bloomer. I didn't have my first kiss or boyfriend until I was seventeen (I somehow managed to miss out on the requisite pre-adolescent spin-the-bottle games). The other stuff came much, much, much later. I was angst-y in my twenties, and I'm certain that I emitted a "stay away from me" vibe for most of that decade. It was terribly confusing to me that I sailed through my prime dating ... Read more
International Women’s Club
I've been thinking of you, lovely readers of this little blog. As I assembled the post for the Secret Valentine Exchange yesterday, I was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. I dug around the roots of my memories, and realized that almost everything about this blog takes me back to a very particular time in my life: grad school. After teaching English in Japan for a couple of years in my mid-twenties, I knew that I would be a basket case trying to transition back into American society (ironically ... Read more
Tolerations
As 2013 dwindles to a close, I've been doing a lot of reflecting as is my habit. For the better part of this last year, there's a particular conversation I had with a friend that has flitted in and out of my mind at regular intervals. It was almost two years ago, this conversation, and it was with a lovely writer friend of mine at a cozy cafe with a distinctly French flair. She, like me, wanted to combat her procrastination tendencies, but unlike me, she took proactive action and hired a life ... Read more