Mrs. Elizabeth Muffin

Happy V-Day, boys and ghouls. Special shout-out to my kick-a$$ boyf: holla! Yeah-yuh! Raise tha roof witchyo bad self!

...And that's enough of that.

I got a few little V-day treats from students, all female, as only the ladies give gifts to the opposite gender, which I guess means I'm a boy. One of my students even brought me a treat in a bag from the company she works for, and it happens to be the most amazingly-named company ever:


I got a bag from MRS. ELIZABETH MUFFIN. Apparently I think this is the funniest thing that's ever happened.

Let's take a closer look:


Repeated giggle fits throughout the night have ensued and show no signs of slowing.

In other news, it's 2:30 in the morning but I'm running myself a bath because I'm so unbelievably cold since Japan was built sans central heating and my dinky little heater does jack diddly. So myself and MRS. ELIZABETH MUFFIN must say ta-ta since the cold is in my bones and must be banished...BANISHED I say!

On the train, most of the time, I cannot distinguish one train conductor's voice from another as they make announcements of the approaching stop, or the current stop, or the estimated time of arrival at the final destination. They all sound relatively the same, save for the one time the conductor who makes announcements (they're the ones at the back of the train, not driving) was a woman.

But in the last few months, every once in a while, there is one train conductor's voice that I have continually recognized, and for one practical reason: he sounds like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

Well, I've never actually seen The Godfather, so I guess he more sounds like the impressions of Brando I've heard through the years -- that strained, throaty tone that's has always seemed one-part calming, one-part terrifying, and two-parts "dude, a Ricola would clear that right up!"

I always get excited when I hear Brando Conductor's voice -- I imagine that instead of giving waaaaayyy too much information at and between each stop* he's giving us sage advice about making offers one can't refuse.

*Seriously, the back conductor will start talking as soon as the train starts moving and yammer on until you're practically halfway to the next station, there's a minute or two of silence, and then they pick right back up again with the same information. They announce the name of the next stop three times: when pulling away from the last one, and on the way to AND pulling in at the next one, along with other, at-least-thrice-repeated-but-largely-unneeded information. But what really really makes me go into Lauren-rage (LAUREN ANGRY! LAUREN SMASH!) is that there are still - STILL - those Jhags who have to nervously peer out of the window or block the entire doorway to stick their heads out at every single station to check the station name, and never stop fretting about missing their stop and won't settle down, even though they've probably been taking this same train line for their entire lives, and always - ALWAYS - get off at Hakata, the most obvious and gigantic train station that is impossible - IMPOSSIBLE - to miss AND do you know what happens when you GET to each station? The STATION, AGAIN announces where you are and you can hear it from inside the train, like so:

"HA-KA-TAAAAA! HAKATA desu!"
(Hakataaaaa! It's Hakata!")

Oh, how I loathe the Jhags. I gotta get in cahoots with Brando Conductor so he can "take care of it." Wink wink, nudge nudge, Ricola Ricola.

I never drank Fanta before coming to Japan. I think you know why:



Guh. It's not even one of those annoying commercials that sells a product because it's so annoying you go ahead and buy the product based on the advertising that was effectively bashed into your skull juuuuusst enough to make you remember it, but not completely hate it ("one Chia Pet, please.") Instead it's one of those annoying commercials that cross the hate line where you're all "wow, I'm never, never, never, never supporting that product based on the advertising alone."

HOWEVER. When I moved here, my carbonated beverages options were severely limited. I could have Pepsi, Pepsi NEX (like Diet Pepsi but tastes worse), Coca-Cola, No Calorie Coca-Cola (like Diet Coke but tastes worse) or...Fanta. That's it. No 7-Up, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Sprite, or any flavored or diet variation of those. And don't even think about searching for root beer or Sunkist (SOON-KEIST)...you'd be laughed (or confusedly stared at) out of your prefecture. So I eventually caved. And I started drinking Fanta. AND OH, THE SHAME.

...Luckily, I've recently found vindication in the following Japanese Fanta Commercials:



FANTA SWEETY FLAVA! Thanks, Japan.

I’ve been hankering for a concert and there’s a show (called “lives” here, which at first I thought was stupid but have since accepted into regular speech, probably because I’m just used to using it by now) tonight in Tenjin but I’m debating whether to go or not. Let’s make Yes Go/No Go lists! Ok!

Yes Go
+I’ve been listening to the Blue Hearts all day, this Japanese punk band from like ’85 – ’95 that are so good and it makes me yearn for more music
+I haven’t been to a live for over two months
+I want to support my friend’s band playing tonight, cause they’re good and fun
+It’s an early show (starting at 7:30) so I could probably catch the last train home and not have to pay for a cab and even though I work tomorrow, I start at like 1:00 p.m. so going out wouldn’t hurt me sleep-wise
+It’s social, and I’ve been anti recently, and change is good

No Go
-I don’t know the style of the other bands playing, and I don’t know if I’m in the mood to suffer through potentially bad music, but eh
-I don’t know where in the lineup the band I want to see is playing, so if they’re last or close to last, it may actually be too late for me to catch the train, and TRIPLE ugh to that
-Cover will be expensive, China has me wiped for yen, and I’ve got two more weeks ‘til payday
-Me and my hair and my clothes and coat will smell like smoke because frickin’ everyone smokes and I hate it – so I’d have to wash my coat by tomorrow (it’s too cold to go without) and blah
-I think I’m hitting the apex of this weird almost-sickness, so my sinuses have taken to draining themselves every couple hours out of nowhere, and I keep getting these slight headaches that go in and out like waves – I don’t think loud music in an enclosed space is going to help that

Hmmm 5 and 5. Whine whine whine. I’m just going to see how it goes and make a decision later, of the split persuasion.

Here's the Blue Hearts SKINNIEST LEGS EVER:

To enact the "art" part of my 2008 "art, running, music, listening" motto I went got some cheap art supplies a couple weekends ago and got ready to doodle a bit. It'd been ages since I'd drawn anything though, so when I sat down to really produce somethingI was kind of lost to how to start going about it. (Please note that I use the term "produce" lightly, as I'm no artist, I just used to do art-y things a lot more than I do now[never], and was inspired to start up again during a late-night trip to the craft aisle over the holidays at home by some girlfriends buying paint supplies because they were inspired to do some art stuff again too. My trip to an amazing contemporary art museum in Tokyo helped as wellllll.)

So I started looking around the japartment and thought I'd get back into practice by just drawing other art. I like to call my results "interpretations" of the originals, because they're clearly just lame copies, but WHATEVER it was fun to do and felt good to be art-y again! I'm not just a monkey in a suit! I can make ART! Woooo-eeee!

Here's my colored-pencil interpretation of a liner-notes page of a Dredg album:


And the original:


And a pastel crayon uh, thing, of a postcard I got in Prague:


And that's it! Heh. A supreme artress such as myself needs her rest, you know. So help me decide what to do next!

a) the cover of my Japanese-English dictionary:


b) a live poster on my wall:


or c) the front of a postcard I got from Kate:


Which one which one which one!??! I'm not actually in a big hurry. I just like to pretend that art makes me crazy and frantic.

collections

These vlogs are far too long, so I don't blame you if you don't watch them. Plus, they're boring. AND because of this perpetual almost-cold, I'm sniffling through the entire thing(s). Oh, and I say "I don't know what that means" about ten jillion times.

Ooo the negativity is strong with this one!

Last night I spilled my grape juice about ten minutes after one of those moments where you're all "I totally shouldn't put my cup here, it's inevitable that I'm going to knock it over, seriously, what am I doing? Ohp, ohp, here I go, there it goes...it's down. Oh man, I'm so spilling that. I could still move it. Nahhhh, never mind, it'll be fine, as long as I don't forget that it's there."

Of course I forgot it was there, because that's what I get for resisting when my brain is trying to make me smarter. No biggie though. I have hardwood floors that've proved pretty good at handling my various spillage throughout the year. I got up to get some paper towels and when I turned around I gasped and recoiled a bit because the grape juice looked so much like a puddle of blood that for a second I thought I'd inadvertently lost an appendage. Damn you, eye trickery!

But all my appendages are in tact! And the knees are healing nicely. And there was no stain on the floor. So all in all, everything having to do with grape juice and blood is coming up Lauren. Can't say the same for this pesky brain, though. BRRRRAIIIINNNNSSSS.