Holy smokes

It's a whole news realm of cat collaging. Cats! Flowers! Cats and flowers! I found these amazing images over at youcanmakeiteasy.  You can find more amazing work over at Stephen Eichhorn.

PS. I woke up yesterday morning to discover a winter wonderland. Everything is lightly dusted in snow and it is utterly breathtaking. I have been walking around in total awe. Photos up soon!

To be

I was grappling with thoughts on trueness to self and turning away from all the self consciousness and social climbing bullshit (or at least trying to). I want every action I make to be because I truly mean it. I want to have clearer ideas about the person I am and what I strive for. Alas my discombobulated thoughts came out awkward, fumbly and jumbled. Then I stumbled across this list in my drafts inbox. It seemed to sum up everything I wanted to say, and far more eloquently. If you know who wrote it please email me, I would love to credit whoever did. 

• Never depend on your eternal surroundings for happiness, nor another person
• With every act you carry out, whether it be washing your hands, feeding your cat, holding someone's hand; have passion
• Now is all that matters, you can always deal with the present moment. Don't be crippled by pasts events/future
• Be open minded about everything. Let go, go with the flow. Life is really interesting and constantly stimulating this way
• Respect all living creatures.
• Adore your own company
• Embrace strangers, smile with them
• Be grateful for everything
• Embrace relativity
• Humans are incredibly intricate yet simultaneously, very simple. Keep this in mind
• Everyone is having a different experience, don't expect others to reciprocate your own frame of mind
• You will never love another until you love yourself
• Everything you can imagine is real
• Everything is the force of life, you are the force of life
• Cook meals naked, embrace nudity
• Never, ever settle for mediocrity
• Don't pollute your mind
• Love your job, give it your heart and soul. Never do a job just for loot. Have passion for it
• Always expect the unexpected, Always!
• Share baths
• Keep a tape recorder by your bed to record spontaneous epiphanies and dreams
• Don't obsess over the nature of time, you will lose your mind
• If you want someone attention, bite them
• Chill the fuck out, keep it real

Lists for December

Top 5 things I really should do, but don't

1. Finish memorising katakana and hiragana

2. Complete chrismas card craft bee 

3. Develop the growing stack of film sitting in shoe box

4. Brush my hair in the morning

5. Stop being a grinch

Top 5 people I have been dreaming about

1. Mum

2. Bill Murray

3. My koto teacher

4. Boyfriend

5. Best friend

Top 5 books on the xmas wishlist

1. Luella's guide to English style by Luella Bartley

2. Ignorance by Milan Kundera

3. Being and nothingness by John Paul Satre

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

5.  Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Top 5 things I am obsessed with

1. Come away with ESG - an amazing album

2. Koto

3. Seeing Black Swan

4. The affection crazed cat that lurks opposite my work

5. Themed skype dates 

O strange world

Cradle stories

Commenting on the self destruction and debauchery of our 'troubled youth' Lucas Soi shys away from nothing. Intensely detailed with pen and ink it's probably not something you want to buy your mum for Christmas. At first it seems like your standard 'bored teenagers looking for fun' until images slowly take a turn towards downright scary and reminiscent of something from the Salem witch trials. Depicting the restlessness of teens and a bored suburban upbringing Soi pinpoints the warped reality of youth.

If you're lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company

 My new koto fingernails (I have weird fingers I know, the kids at school used to call me E.T)

Two images from Rinko Kawauchi's Cui Cui

My owl/recorder. My boyfriend puts me on mute when we skype.

New salt and pepper shakers. Smitten.

 Mum and Dad

Enthusiastic young Japanese boy about to eat a biscuit

Inspiration boards

My brother spent one summer out in the middle of nowhere roaming the land, hunting and living in a small shack. I always romanticised the idea of heavy duty 'alone time' but never indulged in it. I pictured myself in a deserted cottage in the quaint countryside with nothing but a camera, a stack of books and enough food to last me a few weeks. Of course, such a fantasy never eventuated as I was too busy spending holidays and down time with friends and family. My brother and I are polar opposites and I find he is shy around everyone, even me, his own sister. What it took me a while to understand is that he truly enjoys his own company and is a bonafide master of alone time. When I first arrived in Japan I freaked out. I was all alone, rattling around in my apartment and totally uncertain about what to do with myself. I had no friends to call up for a coffee, no one to party with, no boyfriend to fall asleep next to at night. My loneliness was all consuming. It made me feel uneasy. I spent the first night crying in front of Japanese game show television while sipping on beer and eating a banana. There might have even been a panic attack. While I was supposed to be feeling elation that my plans had finally came to fruition I woke up in the mornings and felt nervous. Bit by bit I'm starting to enjoy my own company and happily embarking on adventures by myself with no degree of self consciousness. Even though it's a bit dorky I have to come to realise I am okay company and there are so many things around me that inspire. Lately I have been making image boards for inspiration, devouring photography books, practicing on my koto with my politically incorrect ivory and leather fingernails, creating horrendous tunes on my owl recorder, rifling through old pictures of mum and dad and collecting weird and wonderful Japanese confectionary packaging.

Heartache

I am friends with some of my exes. Some, not so much. You never picture the end at the beginning and if you did, well, I doubt you’d start anything. I’ve only ever had one ex boyfriend whose break up deeply affected me. When we ended I was still very dearly in love with him but I knew it could never ever work. Instead I turned into a crazy lovesick person who couldn’t eat or sleep, checked Facebook obsessively and wept quietly on public transport.  

The world became a muted tone of grey and I sought solace beneath an excess of duvet covers and flannel pajamas, scrunching my face in despair and wishing things were otherwise.  I started going to bed at 7.30pm, compiled mournful emotional playlists and stopped washing my hair.

The thing is, I didn’t want to get over him. I didn’t want things to become easier. He was the only person I had ever felt slightly in awe of. Friends urged me to see the light and look beyond him, to see life after heartbreak. But that would be an even greater tragedy because I’d have to admit it was over. I turned away from sympathetic looks and well intentioned cups of tea.  Instead I retreated deeper into my world of denial,  dreaming of him, thinking of ways we could meet again, concocting bogus reasons to ring him and remembering the times we had. I clung to my sadness because if I let go of mourning I would let go of everything we had.

I still think about him sometimes, that one person who was capable of breaking my heart. He wasn’t a bad person, he just failed to feel something that I felt. We were looking for different things in each other and it floundered miserably. In hindsight I know he wasn’t as amazing as I imagined him to be and I only say this because I thought he was, quite literally, perfect.

It may be one of the greatest tragedies, unrequited love. Hindsight has taught me I can always come out the other side and that makes me feel bolder. The heart may be a little wary, wrapped tentatively in cotton wool, but beneath its protective layers it is ready to risk consuming undeniable heartbreak all over again if there is a shot at love.