we tried with this blog, but i'm pretty sure it's really dead.  i've moved to http://anne.tumblr.com

sunday, 10:22pm, shinjuku: a man wearing a shirt that simply says "LESBIAN" rides by me on a bike on my walk back to the station.

Dear Election Candidates,

Please stop driving around every neighborhood broadcasting your political views via megaphone from a minivan full of men wearing suits and women wearing Kentucky Derby-ish hats.  Perhaps you haven't realized that there are 60+ candidates for the upcoming election and most of you are doing the same thing-- interrupting my quiet neighborhood at least two times an hour.  Not that I'm legally allowed to vote anyway, but if I were, I wouldn't vote for you. 

Love,
Anne

there is the most ridiculous line for krispy kreme shinjuku (the only one in the city). people were waiting an hour and ten minutes (there was a sign) in the pouring rain. i thought that was ridiculous.. and then i turned the corner and saw another line that was just as big, bringing the total wait to at least a couple of hours.

for donuts.

don't get me wrong- krispy kreme is awesome. it is a thousand times better than dunken donuts... but no donut is worth that kind of wait, period.

will post pictures when i get home.

We got our worms today (we're starting a vermicomposting system)!  I just took down the window wrap from our windows so that I could let some fresh air in. 

Between the worms exploring their new home, the seventeen plants that line our west window, the breeze blowing through the apartment, and the million tiny little reflected circles from the mirrored wind chimes hanging in the window dancing around the room, our apartment feels absolutely alive.  Not more than an hour ago, I was wishing out loud to Jeff about living in the big apartments across the street (with balconies the size of our entire apartment), but I realize now that I never really want to leave the little world we've so carefully created here.

There is a girl who looks mortified as her grandmother and mother both load baskets filled to the brim onto the checkout counter of the 100 yen store.

arrggh. i just used my suica for the tobu instead of my teiki. this whole universal pass thing is quite the smart business decision- i'm sure they're making tons off of people who are transferring straight from the jr and tap their suica automatically. yay for convenience, boo for losing JPY160 due to reflex.

if you happen to see the sony "color is magic" ad -with the baby finger painting from the inside of the tv- in train stations, etc, check out its eyelashes. they're freakishly long. they either put mascara on that child or it's photoshopped.

"For some reason we Americans use the Spanish name "cilantro" when referring to the leaves of the coriander plant, while the seeds of the same plant are called 'coriander' seeds."

Nearly two years of complaining that Japan had no cilantro, and I discover that coriander-- almost a supermarket staple here-- is the same thing.

1. I have a new (very, very part-time) job at a kindergarten! I'll be teaching English every Tuesday morning to groups of 3, 4, and 5 year olds. It's one of the jobs that Jeff is giving up to take his job at LLT, and they took him up on his offer to find them a replacement.

2. We need a mattress solution. The apartment came with a really awful mattress (hard, but sagging in the middle) that we endured for nearly a year (year and a half for me). Then we got the grand idea to buy another mattress to put on top of it (click here to see it). It was comfy and very soft, and we were happy. Then we both started realizing how sore we were in the mornings and how poorly we had been sleeping. After a little bit of research (i.e. I watched Jeff lay down on the bed), we discovered that this was happening:



Yeah.  The top mattress isn't heavy enough to stay down when weight is applied to it.  It just ends up exaggerating the sag of the bottom mattress.  So now we have a very soft, cushy sagging bed.  Oy.

3. I found this and thought it could be useful: Jet Lag Advisor

4. Very busy weekend, in a good way.  Lots of people are in town (including the famous Ethan, belonging to cestovatela).  Am going to a fertility festival in Kawasaki this weekend where I will take lots of pictures that will probably embarrass my parents when I post them, so stay tuned!

Many people have e-mailed us in the past 36 hours asking if we're all right because of the big earthquake that hit Japan on Sunday morning. We appreciate everyone's concern, and want to let you all know that the earthquake was far enough away from us that we didn't even feel it at all-- we're fine!

Alright, I've been playing around with the layout of our livejournal for the past day or so, so please excuse the mess... To be honest, one of the things I really miss about Blogger is how easy it was to really customize your blog.  I know enough about web design and code-writing that I'm not happy just choosing a pre-defined layout and changing the colors/background image/etc.... but I'm not nearly advanced enough to understand livejournal's s2 coding.  I want to do fairly basic things that would be a breeze in, say, html, but trying to figure out how to do them here.... oy vey.  It's giving me a headache.

http://breastsnotbombs.blogspot.com/

Tough Talk for a Kid from the Bronx

Teacher: What country do we live in?
Very enthusiastic little boy: The United States of New York!
Teacher, a few minutes later: Can someone name a state outside of New York?
Very enthusiastic little boy: Brooklyn!

--First grade classroom, the Bronx

via Overheard in New York, Mar 18, 2007


Aww. When I was a kid, I thought that New York was another country and was worried that New Yorkers wouldn't speak English.

Slimming photos with HP digital cameras

this just isn't right.

...come from the flickr searches i had to do at work today.  we needed graphics pertaining to "lohas" (lifestyles of health and sustainability) and flickr delivered some pretty good (although not particularly relevant) photos based on my keyword searches. 

wow. found by searching for "golf"