Hello Dolly

Today ventured forth into the great unknown. Specifically, went on tour of kokeshi doll factory in Gunma Prefecture (along with brief stop at a glass-making factory).

Had hoped for something educational – perhaps learning about the history of kokeshi dolls, how they are made, etc., but alas! Found experience to be 4-½ hour one-way bus ride to go shopping at souvenir stores. Ah well. Me no can drive (please don’t report me: am convinced that not driving helps to maintain illusion of youth!) And me no wanna pay highway tolls while someone less neurotic than I commandeers the wheel...

So…I sucked it up. And ate it up: large amounts of incredibly starchy food, that is. In future, will make sure to have very low expectations of actually learning anything by taking this kind of tour. Perhaps, will also pack own lunch (portable veggie patch maybe…the kind that grows in soil, not the kind you slap on your arm or your inner thigh, although if such a patch has been invented, I’ll invest my measly savings from teaching/whoring ESL to buy stock).

Did however, take advantage of opportunity to paint my very own kokeshi doll!! Resisted the urge to paint my least favourite politician as I truly see him (horns, fangs, swastika’s, puppet strings, etc.). Instead bought phallic, blank slate kokeshi doll to take home, where I can indulge in elaborating this depiction without having fellow tour-riders/kokeshi doll factory employees react with shock and horror…kind of like writing (or masturbation): an act of ecstatic creation best done alone.

It's fun painting your own kokeshi doll. So many colours! So many brushes! Started out all gung ho and then quickly experienced onset of flash-Parkinsons or perhaps cerebral palsy...At any rate, after about 30 minutes cared less about "staying within" my shakily executed lines and more about just getting the thing done. Lesson learned/lesson reaffirmed: I am not awash in patience as a virtue. Would love to post picture of finished doll, but first have to take sledgehammer to computer and/or digital camera in order to figure out why--despite (methinks) loading up all the appropriate software--fucking computer thing (aka my otherwise faithful laptop) does not want to wrangle pictures from camera.

Anyhow, back to field trip...Luckily, brought book along for ride there and back: Haruki Murakami’s "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World." Halfway through book and in love with this writer! Thank you Catherynne Valente http://www.livejournal.com/users/yuki_onna for mentioning his work as worth reading! Had planned to boycott books for a while, in the interests of perhaps doing a little writing of my own but…will wait till I’ve read ALL of his work! Okay, not all, but will punctuate my own musings by delving into his. (Somehow, excuses not to write just keep on poppin’).

On the ride home, was introduced to one of the many fantastic “standards” that come with owning a mobile phone in Japan: the ability to take pics and then edit them with goofy graphics and text to your heart's content. Now I know why—when riding the trains here—so many people seem to be just obsessed with their bloody phones. Heard a rumour that AU (popular mobile phone co. in Japan) will soon be available in the States and fear that when/if I return, will encounter similar scenes of Americans deftly clutching train poles and railings while busily photographing crotches of happily-seated passengers to embellish and email to friends. Oh come ye happy days…

Signing off now: time to tend to my kerosene heater, else fingers will freeze--after all, this is Japan and central heating is something literally unheard of. Figure that if I learn how to feed heater on regular basis, will soon qualify to own a pet; after that...who knows? Maybe even children!!!