Nyotaimori

i sit upon my throne so cold and lonely

i sit upon my throne and cast stones

into the river

i sit upon my throne until someone comes

i sit upon my throne till budged

into the river

“i am the king of the rock! of this rock i am the king!”

this weekend, i went to boulder, colorado to present a paper on banana yoshimoto. i stayed with john and katherine (my cousins) and had a lovely time getting lost, being sick, and dancing on rocks in the middle of frozen streams.

the presentation part was fine to all those who have asked. i talked too fast and was the only person on the panel to not read their entire paper directly from the pages. it was surreal.

on sunday we went to rocky mountain national park which makes up the bulk of my pictures from this trip. it was cold and lovely. i adapted Butt Dancing For Children into Butt Dancing For Crowns on top of my very own rock. this statement makes more sense if you watch the video. i don’t think katherine was quite expecting the rabid disregard i displayed towards decent behavior when i handed her the camera and asked her to film me. which is silly since i know she saw the cattle guard video and probably the mountain lion one.

RAWR, good times.

other fave pictures from this weekend:

katherine and rachel on the boulder campus

mostly frozen river and mountains

katherine and rachel in the park

me and rachel in the park

katherine and i sitting on the bridge

snowy , boulder-filled river for climbing on

katherine, rachel, and i at lily lake

john and i at lily lake

st. catherine of siena stained glass window at the church of same

church

katherine is cute

mini-rapids

john climbs rocks

i climb trees

lovely landscape (katherine took this one)

me contemplating being rapunzel at the church

me taking pictures of the mini-rapids

just in case anyone is bored out there and wants to sweetly help me: Download file

here is my powerpoint presentation for the conference i am going to tomorrow. you could say to me things like: ‘michele, that color is bad!’ or ‘michele, you have horrible spelling!’ things like that. and in addition you can maybe glean some information and escalate your own knowledge about banana yoshimoto, noh, and androgynous incest.

kristen retained information about the children’s crusade thanks to me and the artbook i did senior year of high school and managed to jump her teacher on the punchline yesterday: ‘they’re all sold into slavery! silly children, crusades aren’t for midgets.’ so here’s your chance to learn something valuable from me and jump a teacher in a hallway: ‘silly teacher, you need to be de-phallicized.’

this will be a many parted entry. be forewarned.

lately i have been spending time staring in the mirror attempting to copy the japanese adoption and transfiguration of pursed lips. it’s impossible. they do something with the bottom lip which makes it go in and …in. like in sideways and then in under the top while at the same time the top lip doesn’t seem to move at all. impossible i tell you. and yet i persist in doing it. if every single one of those damn girls can do it on live action sailor moon, why can’t i? cursed show. is there some wretched muscle that only japanese girls have that makes it possible to scrunch the lower lip horizantally? i don’t understand.

more importantly, i don’t understand how it is that i’ve become addicted to live action sailor moon to the point where i have now watched 21 episodes in the last 48 hours. you know what this means? 28 to go, that’s what it means. tuxedo kamen-sama!

why am i watching live action sailor moon? pure escapism. because in TWO DAYS i’m flying to colorado to present my paper on ‘literary tropes and familial incest in banana yoshimoto’s kitchen‘. and i’m terrified. with good reason. 1) i have to get on a plane and 2) i have to talk in public. i’m finding it hard to look past those two things to the fun that will be inherent in hanging out with john and katherine, my most favorite married couple in the world. i don’t think i really know too many other married people, so possibly this is not the compliment i mean it to be.

though not married, they did recently celebrate the first birthday of their delightfully adorable kid (photos here). jason and i went to mickey and ellie’s house to watch tyler tug at his own hair out of sheer grumpy sleepyness. also there was j. lilja from high school. with whom i shared a moment of pure shame as he asked me if i was looking forward to serenity and i attempted to cover for my lame avoidance of him at wondercon by asking if he had been there too. i suppose that shame wasn’t really ‘shared’ per se. he had nothing to feel bad about. it was kristen and me being horridly anti-social and terrified of talking to him and s. mcguire (at seperate times–they were not together.) i’m such a recluse. (i couldn’t help that link. jason is too adorable).

in order to rectify this, is anyone interested in any of the upcoming international asian american film festival showings? i need to see monkey dance (3/12, 5pm, kabuki) and people of angkor (3/13, 2:30pm, kabuki) for a paper i have to do. i want to see cutie honey (3/12, 9:15pm, castro), house of flying pancakes (3/11, 9:15pm, kabuki), turtles can fly (3/13, 6pm, pacific film archive in berkeley), butterfly (3/13, 12pm, castro), dumplings (3/13, 9:45pm, castro), and slow jam king (3/12, 9:30pm, kabuki). some of those have conflicting times though. anyone? anyone? i can tell you that i’ve seen the first five minutes of cutie honey and it is pretty incredible cheesy goodness.

i hope it is a day of fun and laughter times 26! and possibly also inappropriate touching.

i’m sorry i can’t attend any of your party events, but when i get back i’ll bring your present to you and there can be much ripping and rending of tissue paper.

this weekend i acquired an aggressive piggy antenna whoppy ball. he goes, “grrrr” and my car goes, “vrrrrrr(oom)”.

where did i get this angry, angry porcine, you might ask? at wondercon. yes, this weekend i went (for a change) to a comics convention. not for comics, not even for little porkers, but for joss whedon. the man, the myth, the legend, the wonder. also there were 3 of the cast members from the tv show firefly/the movie serenity. this was pretty fricking sweet as firefly is quite possibly my most favoritest show ever, (after all i did get the word tattooed on my body). i took pictures. of course i did. sadly my batteries were on the downward slide and thus the flash didn’t work all too well. crappy flash. crappy dark pictures. but you get the idea. the idea that it was an hour of brilliance and they showed us a whole awesome clip from the upcoming serenity movie and then made laughy-cracky jokes.

also, my name in lights.

(driving home from seeing Bride and Prejudice—best Bollywood adaptation of Austen EVER.)

Michele (obviously delirious): Look at that, it’s like midnight and they’re just working now. That could be fun, right? Hosing down sidewalks.

Kristen: Uh, you know some of the stuff that is on those sidewalks, right?

Michele: Yeah, that’s why you hose it down. And you hang out with all those men. And maybe they wear tool belts.

Kristen (desperate to change the subject): Naveen Andrews! Naveen Andrews!

Michele: He’s so cute!

Kristen: Do you think he got a nose job? Because his nose is totally different in Lost from what it was in Bride and Prejudice.

Michele: Um, I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at his nose.

Kristen: Oh, yeah? You were looking at his manly carpet of chest hair, weren’t you?

Michele: AHHH! Ha ha ha ha ha ha, NO.

Kristen: I wouldn’t mind getting some of that hair stuck on my tongue, (leer), know what I mean, eh? Eh?

Michele: Ew! Time to hose you down. On the sidewalk, you! Oooh Naveen Andrews on the sidewalk! Hosing down Naveen Andrews!

Kristen: My tongue will be the brillo pad of love scouring his furry chest.

Michele: While he wears a tool belt!

1. tax season. seriously. not only am i getting back enough for a whole month of rent ($1040), but ALSO enough back for the whole coachella trip including however many lemonade slushies i choose to drink. (tickets=$180, lemonade slushies=$3/per, gas=i don’t care, i’ve got plenty of money!)

breakdown: $1207 (federal) + $102 (CA) = $1309

2. The Ironed Panties (happosai)

(1.5, 5 minutes later). after some serious consideration and actual math, i estimate gas to cost about $80. which actually leaves me with only $9 and thus a finite number of slushies. being 3. sadness! only 3 slushies! i need to whore myself out for spare change now so i can have all the slushies my little heart desires.

grumble grumble, goddamn expensive rent.