in other news...

So, how 'bout that PREGNANT MAN? You know, the one that used to be a woman, then had a sex change operation to become a man, but kept the female reproductive organs because s/he wanted to have a child one day? As a man. Which I guess was a good thing, because he is now carrying a child, the result of artificial insemination, which was performed at home. By his wife.

To be clear, I am not knocking the sex change, nor the subsequent marriage, nor the couple's decision to have children. All of that is part of a normal life that I strongly believe everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, is entitled to. And I am absolutely of the opinion that many traditional gender roles have no place in today's society (and by that, I'm talking more about the expectation that each gender has specific roles, such as the woman cooking and cleaning and raising the kids and the man out hunting and breadwinning, and less about the actual choices that individuals make).

But I'm struggling with this particular situation. On one hand, is it really that different for the father instead of the mother to be physically carrying and then popping that kid out, than it is for the father to assume any other "traditionally female" role such as raising the child after it's born? I mean, the father used to be a woman, and obviously has the mental and emotional capacity to bear a child. After that, all you need is the hardware, and he obviously has that as well. On the other hand, daddy dearest is no longer a woman - granted, he still has female reproductive parts (hmm, I wonder whether he also has male bits) but self-identifies as a male, which I think is the key factor. And men are simply not meant - biologically, physiologically, whatever the proper term is - to bear children. This guy is having his cake and eating it too, and whether you look to a higher being or to science for guidance on these matters, that somehow just feels... wrong.

So, moving on, let's now discuss that baby-making incestual couple. I actually don't have the words to expresss my reaction to this, so will go with these three: mouth, hanging, and open. And um, judge, your solution was to ban them from having sex with each other? Did you post a sentry in the bedroom to enforce this? And can anyone enlighten me, what does it actually mean to have been "released on a good behavior bond"? Released them from the no-hanky-panky ban, for a few hundred dollars? I actually don't even know where to go with this topic, so um, yeah. There's that.

on Lost

*Almost-spoilers ahead! "Almost" because whenever I talk about this show my mind races, my thoughts become jumbled and words just kind of tumble out willy-nilly, so there's a good chance you won't know what I'm talking about anyway.*

The last few episodes (I think I'm caught up… the last one I saw was the Michael story) had me going "Wha…aaaat???", mouth agape, eyes bugged. Seriously though - wha???? First there was the one about Desmond and the scientist guy and the time warping and "Wait, what? Where is he? Oh, Australia. Wait, WHEN is he? HUH??" And then there was "Hi, I'm Kevin Johnson." I almost pee'd myself. And then Sun and Jin - my feelings during that episode were part nervous anticipation - it seemed easy enough to follow, Sun and Jin, okay, but what will they spring on us now?! - and part frustration because Jin, FORGET THE DAMN PANDA ALREADY AND JUST GO! But then, at the end - holy shitters! And heartbreak - I almost cried during Sun's monologue (ok, attributable partly to me being smack in the middle of my Almost Ladies' Days). That episode did such a number on me that I completely forgot to do my routine post-show tally of the Oceanic 6, until the next day, standing on the subway platform, it hit me and my jaw dropped (and I think my hands might actually have tensed up and spread out in surprise) and I had to immediately text P or else burst with the burden of the unshared revelation. Sorry Barnum, too bad Bailey - Lost wins, it is the Greatest Show on Earth.

And I've just found out that the next episode won't be aired until April 24! Excuse me while I go drown my sorrows by sticking my head into a chocolate cake.

the fairer sex: the truth revealed

Ladies who use the bathrooms in this office: why is it that several times a week I almost walk into a stall, almost prepare to do my business, almost hover my bare bum mere inches away from the SKID MARKS YOU HAVE LEFT BEHIND? And also, ladies, when you've finished your business, pulled up your panties and are about to leave the stall, please take a second to turn around and make sure you have not left a Down There Hair perched atop the toilet seat.

a little of this, a little of that

Booger McSnotterson - my springtime alter ego. I seem to get allergies much worse here than I did in New York, and last season knocked me on my ass. So far, though, this season has been somewhat more bearable (as long as I pop my daily Claritin), but man, I have become a booger factory. Not snot, mind you - my nose isn't really runny so much as it's… well, boogery. Is it that I actually should be snotty (after all, the allergy commercials usually say "itchy eyes, runny nose", not "itchy eyes, dried up snot", right?), but I am dehydrated from the Claritin, thus booger here, booger there, booger booger everywhere? I guess that's about all I have to say on that topic.

I've been on a bit of a (window-) shopping bender, and at the moment would really like to have a money tree. If not a money tree, though, I would settle for this - in pink, and yellow, and navy blue, and oh yes the wooden one, ooh and the red brick is cute, as is the emerald, and well, why don't I save myself the typing and you the time and just say Yes please, one of each. But again, only if the money tree is not an option.

Yoga Toes - I also want. Now, I am not such a slave to fashion that I'll spend hours in discomfort for the sake of looking hot; however, I am also not such a putz that I'll wear orthopedic-looking shoes to work either. Thus, I spend my weekends in sneakers or flip-flops, but most of my daily work (and night-on-the-town) shoes walk (pun totally intended!) that thin line in between - so they are ok, but only if I don’t need to do a lot of walking or standing (drunken dancing, though - totally ok). Enter Yoga Toes! I've heard, though not from anyone I personally know (but also from sources more reliable than advertising), that these little tootsie stretchers really do help achy breaky feet; and the website even claims that they "increase circulation, straighten bent toes, and can even realign the bones"!! Who here is not yet sold?? But wait, lest you think that I have (or am on my way to) goblin feet and gnarled toes, let me just nip that in the bud and say that I do not! They are perfectly decent looking, no corns, not dry or scaly, second toe proportionate to and shorter than big toe and all that. Except we won't talk about my one early-stage foot affliction, which shall accordingly remain unnamed but which rhymes with onion.

Speaking of feet. It's very common in Japan for people to wear their nice professional shoes on their commute to/from work, and to wear absolutely hideous orthopedic-looking sandals while in the office - pretty much same same but different from the way we wear sneakers or flip flops on the commute, and nice shoes in the office. Different priorities as to who you want to look cute for, I guess. Like so:

I've actually never seen the colored kind; they're usually like the
black ones in the center. Even the filename of this picture, which I found on a
Japanese online shopping site, was "ol_sandal03" - ol as in office lady.

So today on my way back to the office after lunch, I passed a girl leaving the building wearing the standard-issue office lady black suit, black stockings (the kind with the extra material to reinforce the toe part - I cannot stress enough how that is a fashion DON'T), and… I almost can't say it… Birkenstocks. Beige Birkenstocks. Just… honey, no.

where's my foot scrubby when i need it?

So help me god (and I am not a religious person), somebody somewhere in this office, within earshot, at this very moment, is CLIPPING THEIR NAILS. I can't begin to tell you how much this disgusts me, makes me want to crawl out of my skin and over to said clipper of nails and ask if I could maybe slough off my foot calluses into their desk drawer, because to me, that is the same thing.

While we're at it, I will confess that I almost throttled a kid on the train the other day, for comitting the second worst living-amongst-society sin ever, the first being coughing or sneezing with mouth wide open and thus spewing bits of snot and spittle everywhere. This kid was maybe 14 or 15, and the entire time we were on the train together he could not stop scratching his DISGUSTING ITCHY HEAD. It wasn't like it was just the one itchy spot he may have missed while shampooing. It was his ENTIRE HEAD, as if there were wee little goblin creatures having a party on his head, causing itchiness everywhere their little goblin athlete's feet landed. Visions of the toe fungus mascot for that athlete's foot commercial are now dancing in my head, do you see why this is a problem?

And here, my visual for sin number one. Do you really want any chance of Mr. Snot and Mrs. Spittle, and all their little loogie babies, flying at projectile speed in airspace near you?

still giggling

Best TV line in recent memory, courtesy of Lost: "Taller? You mean, like a giant?"

As in, Locke talking about Walt and saying he looked the same, except taller, and Sawyer going -

"Taller? You mean, like a giant?"

Hee!

sleeping with the lights on

So another issue I've encountered in moving to a foreign country is being completely out of touch with pop culture (that includes movies, yes? Let's say that it does, because I’m going to talk about a movie). There are movie theaters here in Japan, and they do occasionally play American movies, but due to the extremely high prices for movie tickets - about $17 - and our general unwillingness to get out of our pajamas, P and I have only seen one movie here (we do not recommend Happy Feet). Anyway, the point is that I know pretty much nothing about what's in theaters, and in most cases will respond "what's that?" if you mention a movie title to me.

Now, on to my story. We were in the states for the holidays, and having nothing better to do after gorging ourselves on pho one night, decided to watch a movie. Drove to the movie theater, browsed what was playing, decided on I Am Legend, thinking "Will Smith, love him, can't go wrong with the Fresh Prince". Well, shit. I almost peed my pants when I finally realized what that movie is all about. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out (am I slow? Would seeing commercials and trailers have prepared me?) but it was at least a full hour in, when he and the dog go running into the deep dark warehouse and I wondered why it was so deep and dark in there and why Will Smith was so freaked out and then, all of a sudden, HOLY SHIT WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE THAT WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS????

Let me just say, for those of you who don't know, that I do NOT do horror movies. I am chicken poop when it comes to things like that - I can't even watch those Freddie movies that are supposedly just silliness. And one time at the gym (back when I was living somewhere I understood the language… and also went to the gym), a commercial came on for one of those scary movies, and the little possessed kid popped up onscreen and I swear to you I almost fell off the treadmill.

So the rest of I Am Legend was spent barely breathing, eyes wide open, squeezing the life out of P's hand (because if one of those zombie things ever jumped out of the screen I was going to be damned if P was going to run away and not take me with him). It was all very exhausting, and now I'm exhausted from re-living the whole thing. I'm going to go find a cookie.

from the soapbox

Living outside the US, in a country whose language I can barely just get by with, has made it necessary for me to make an actual effort to keep up with current events and world news - I can't just soak it in haveint the tv on in the background. So, every few days, after I finish perusing my daily diet of blogs and celebrity news (hey, we all have priorities), I surf the wave of cnn.com to see what the world's been up to. Today was one of those days - and man, do I need a drink. A(nother!) shooting spree at a college; routine death and destruction in too many countries around the world, and suspicions that mentally disabled women were pimped out by staff in their psychiatric hospital to serve as possibly unknowing suicide bombers (??? can't make this shit up); penguins dying in the south pole and polar bears dying in the north pole (and the latter being waitlisted - WAITLISTED! - for the endangered species list) due to climate change - and all this is just this morning's news.

And then there's Beijing and the Olympics. That China was chosen to host the Olympics is exciting and great and all that, but - to be completely honest - for me, only a little bit. I just can't muster up that much of the warm and fuzzy in the face of all these other China-related issues that are a little difficult to kick under the rug. Things like human rights and mistreatment of animals and Darfur and the general bass-ackwardness of so many things about this country that is my motherland and fatherland (ok, not exactly, more like ancestorland). And the Chinese government's position that the Olympics should be purely about sport and not at all about politics and the state of the world - C'MON, PEOPLE, you've been given the honor of hosting an event that is supposed to represent the harmonious coming together of different countries around the world. It is not at all outrageous for people to want you, as representative of all this harmony and togetherness, to maybe consider bringing your policies and actions a little more in line with the more generally accepted (and acceptable) basic philosophies of the world.

And can anyone tell me why the IOC would choose, as the host of the mother of athletic competitions, such a badly-polluted city?

I fully appreciate that China has invested oodles of time and money and other resources to show the world how far it has come, and I hate that I am coming off as bashing China - but fireworks and fancy buildings can't take the place of actual meaningful reforms in the things that matter.

But those fancy buildings - especially to me as a former almost-architect - mama like.

firsts

On my way home from work last night, I saw two things that I had never seen before in Japan, and never thought I would see.

The first sight was on the subway ride. We pulled into a station, the doors opened, and in came a walking piece of MAN CANDY. I'm pretty sure my eyes involuntarily did that thing where they pop open for a second out of surprise and delight, then back to normal size because I'm suave and subtle like that. And then I silently gave thanks for peripheral vision so that I could stare without, you know, staring (ahem... hi P, you sexy beast, you!). There's no way he was native Japanese (sorry, no offense, but this guy looked nothing like a skinny girly-mon whose ass I could kick); he actually reminded me of Gabby's lawnboy-toy from Desperate Housewives. Allow me to illustrate:




Hellooooo nurse!

The second sight was, unfortunately, not so delightful. I came up the stairs from the subway, to the dead end of the street where my apartment is. There are usually a few cabs there, their drivers taking a break. And apparently, sometimes peeing. Because there, under a streetlamp, in the middle of the sidewalk a couple feet away from bushes that could have provided some cover, was a middle-aged man - perfectly sober as far as I could tell, and presumably the owner of one of the idling cabs - taking a leak. Gah!

come here often?

Obviously, I don't, at least not lately. My apologies.

First of all, a belated "Happy holidays!!" to everyone!


This wouldn't be a proper post without a cameo, if not starring-role, appearance by my little one, now would it? (I miss my dog, can you tell?)

So an exciting thing that's happened (one of many, I'm happy to report!) since I last held an audience here is that I started my new job this week. At my new firm, that, just to make clear, is awesome because it is NOT my old firm (see rant on some people's children's need to grow a pair). There are, of course, many other reasons it's a much better place for me, which I will not go into as I don't want to get into the habit of talking about work in this blog, and I also don't want to trash my old firm (because don't get me started...) (okay, no more, for serious now). So instead, I will just note these three things:

1. Gmail, and other general email websites, are blocked. BLOCKED! I do realize this is not a new concept and that I am not alone on this personal-email-less island of angst and misery (nor am I at all dramatic), but this is the first time it's happened to me. Thus, important. There is suddenly an even more severe shortage of hours in the day, and what, I'm supposed to WORK all day? ALL day?

2. There is a smoking room here. It's our very own, on our floor, and is not shared (I don't think) with other tenants in the building. Is this the result of [British firm (do the English smoke a lot?)] + [located in Japan (the Japanese were born with cigarettes in their mouths)]? I don't smoke, but I find this amazing because, well, see above - very own smoking room.

3. I get to listen to British accents ALL DAY LONG. *rawr*

So Japanese people love to carry around little containers and holders for their stuff. (Yes, this is a new topic). They buy change holders (I'd go ahead and call them change purses - a duck is a duck - but am being non-gender-specific... like many of the guys in Japan *badoom-chi!*), tissue-pack holders, holders for their plastic drink bottles, cigarette holders, personal containers to ash their cigarettes in (because it's rude to ash on the ground, I'm told). When they hit the slopes, they still love to carry around their little containers - so in any snowsports store, you can find these same little holders, but in versions designed specifically for use while in the snow - e.g., easy to open and handle with gloves on. Including personal ashers! So as not to ash on the mountain! Those guys.

And with that, happy almost-Friday!*

* Makes up for my belated holiday greeting, yes?