Making it Up As I Go

Hi!

We’re back in Japan. It’s raining and windy today, which is lovely because it’s been hot for the last few days. I love the rain. It’s not currently raining- we are in a lull- which is good because we had to run down to the bakery and the girls couldn’t whine at me that it was raining because it wasn’t. Apparently they are witches, or at least believe themselves to be, and will melt if rain hits them. Who knew?

I read 5 magazines on the plane flight back to Tokyo, and the most important thing I got out of any of them was that Tommy Hilfiger has a son who is a rapper.  This man.

What could said rapper son look like? HAHAHAHAHAHA, I just looked him up and it’s so much better than anything you could imagine.

I may die.

Out of the 5 magazines, Oprah was the one I kept because it had articles I wanted to refer back to, and Shape was the most boring. I’ve never read Shape before, but I got it because it had an interview with Her Lady of Perpetual Pain, Jillian Michaels. The interview was interesting. The rest of the magazine wasn’t.

I also watched the 2012 version of Anna Karenina on the plane, and it is my new everything. I love it so much. The sheer choreography of it is stunning.  The costumes and sets are gorgeous, and Anna’s stupid decisions and then her complete trappedness are so believable. Jude Law as Karenin is a revelation.

I’m in the middle of reading The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler which I’ve been reading for weeks because I was distracted in CA. I’m excited to sink into it and binge read to the end now. Speaking of reading for weeks, I was telling my sister about Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and how it took me 6 months to read it and I stopped 3 different times, and that I thought she would really enjoy it, and her response was, “You want me to read a book that took YOU 6 months to read?” It made me laugh. But it is a great book. We just finished watching the BBC version of it last night, and I thought they did an incredible job. The book really does bog down a couple of times and they kept those sections light enough to keep things moving. The humor of the footnotes was missing, in that they didn’t cover the footnotes at all, but that makes sense. I thought the casting was exquisite and the sets were gorgeous.

Over our vacation the girls and I read The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker. It’s a truly lovely book, I really highly recommend it. It’s about a little girl who experiences tragedy and loss (skimmed over) and then finds new courage and family and magic when she uncovers a hotel that has been buried in the sand for 100 years. It’s such a great story. The girls loved it. Now we’re reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and even though the girls say it makes no sense, they also say that they love it. I’m not sure when the first time is that I heard the book (we used to listen to it on audio tape driving to Utah during the summer), but I know it made very little sense to me either, and that I loved it anyway. So the girls will get what they get from it. They’re laughing at all the right spots, so at least the humor is coming through.

I have had Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars stuck in my head for the last 3 days. I wouldn’t mind except that the line ” your sex takes me to paradise” grates on my last nerve. Number one, it’s too obvious. I love Bruno Mars, but there are times his lyrics are the equivalent of Steve Carrell’s character in The 40 Year Old Virgin describing breasts as feeling like “bags of sand”.  Number two, the “cks” sounds in “sex” and “takes” back to back just bugs. He could have gone with “your love takes me to paradise” and solved both of those problems. I don’t know why he didn’t consult me first. But there are moments in that song that are sublime, so I’ll listen to it anyway. I’m sure he’s relieved.

I am currently cooking hashbrowns to eat for lunch. Don’t judge.

We had a weird experience over our vacation that inadvertently gave me the murder I was looking for for a location I had in my mind for a book. The location was perfect, but I had no idea who died there or how. And now I at least kind of know. Once we move, one of my main goals for the rest of the year is to sit down and write. And write some more. And some more. Not s’more. Though eating those is also a goal.

I hate the phrase “baby bump”. Who came up with that?

The more I see about Scream Queens, the more interested I am. Change that, I wasn’t interested at all until I saw these videos today. Now I’m totally in. I love the Heathers vibe. Although it would probably be better for everyone if Ariana Grande didn’t speak. She really does not come off well in her video at all.

Time to read!