so a traditional set up for a ceremony would look like this, with the audience lined up in front of the couple, and divided in the middle to make a path for the bride to come down and be given away by her father to the groom

instead, i propose (ohhh puns) a set up more like this:

where the audience is on either side (which halves the distance that the farthest person is from the action) and at the same time you can have each half of the couple come down aisles on opposite sides and both be given away by their parents to each other (which takes away all the gross sexist and hetero-normative crap)

- tiny little organic grocery shops

- chatting with the owners at said shops

- filling the ofuro with water

- turning on the gas

- waiting for it to warm up

- sitting on the hammock

- washing in the ofuro,

- with the birds chirping or

- with cicadas humming, and then

- standing naked in the garden outside

- spending hours in a temple

- muraya

- people i love coming in through the doors at muraya

- “otsukareeeeee!”

- musubi sake

- smoking in bars

- izakaya foods

- highballs that aren’t sweet

- fresh mint from the garden

- going to kyoto cinema

- spinning records quietly at night

- art shops

- fans blowing on my face

- toilets at BAL 

- all the floors at movix

- yoga in japanese

- raku raku do

- the women running apelila bakery

- manne ciel bread

- 20% off fresco foods at night

- finding a 100¥ apple

- all the different soymilk flavours !!!!!

- premarche gelateria’s vegan icecream

- gochisosamadeshita

- bookstores, and

- silently flipping through the magazines beside every one else

- cycling everywhere

- except in teramachi 

- kombu onigiri

- set meals

- painting in watercolour

- drinking beers by the kamogawa

- the kamogawa delta

- catching fireflies

- finding random vegan yoghurt and cookies

- flea markets in the mornings at temples and shrines

- people not honking at me

- bowing all the time because finally i can without being weird

- the screwed up bike lane system (so … street? or sidewalk?)

- sento culture

- waking up to children getting ready for school

- bare feet on tatami

- toilet slippers

- boiling water in a copper kettle

Hong Kong looking like a videogame that night

The Invisible Orientation is out in Japan, by the way.

This is my first foreign-language edition. I’m not sure why it happened exactly–I found out about its Japanese publication in a funny roundabout way when the translator contacted me with questions and info requests and my response was basically “wait, why is someone translating it? is this legit?” But yes, a Japanese edition exists and is now available. I’ve already collected some royalties on this thing but I haven’t seen a copy in my hand yet.

People have been posting reviews on the book’s Japanese Amazon page for a couple months.

And!! As an interesting personal aside, some of my family is Japanese; my sister lived in Japan for eight years and met her husband there, so I have a Japanese brother-in-law and a half-Japanese nephew, and their family goes to Japan sometimes to visit friends and the in-laws. My sister found a STACK of my book in a book shop and sent me pics! A couple of these are from my sister’s Insta and she said I could put them in a post.

Happy birthday Apollo Animal Crossing!!!

Phases of the “mewn”

If you do it right. It’s about doing he best you can, not doing the ultimate best.

Minimalism is about not buying more than you need.

Zero waste is about trying to reduce waste as much as possible.

Veganism is about reducing cruelty as much as possible.

That means takig meds, no matter how they’re packaged. That means buying food- and if the cheapest version for you is frozen in a plastic bag it doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s about reevaluating your morals and your things.

It’s not about winning or showing off how many new mason jars you have. It’s about reusing your stuff- like pickle jars to freeze extra food in etc.

It’s about being your best self and being supportive of others in the community. Helping each other out, educating people.