Since this website’s inception, I’ve been using the Orvis theme, which is intended to be used to display photography portfolios. It’s a sleek, classic theme with a navigation configuration that I like. However, since the beginning, the Orvis theme has had one major issue: while you can enable a comment submission form on your posts and pages, the theme itself (at least using a white background the way that I do) makes the comment box and submission button invisible. Luckily, you can add your own custom CSS to the theme.
I have some experience with HTML/CSS, enough to be able to modify code to a degree, so I scrutinized the code on a page with a comment submission box enabled and tried to fix the issue. The strange thing was that the comment box, any text entered, and submission button were displayed all in white, which you could see if you highlighted everything, but which appeared invisible otherwise.
Aha!, I thought.
And added CSS to make the textarea’s background and the text within it a colour other than white. I made the submission button a colour other than white too.
It worked!
Well, sort of.
At that point, I could finally see the comment text box, but as soon as I clicked inside it and started typing, it would all disappear. When I clicked outside of the box again, both the comment text box and the text itself would magically appear! What the hell?
No matter how much I scrutinized the theme’s original code, I couldn’t figure out where the issue was coming from. There was nothing that I could see that would cause the issue. Google did end up having the answer (…eventually, after a lot of failed queries).
Focus.
Even though there was nothing related to it that I could find in the CSS on the page of my site that I had been combing through, the right query finally led me to finding out how to modify an input area that has been selected (that is, which is in focus). I’ve been coding webpages casually for years, and I’d never come across that before. I am not embarrassed to admit that I threw my arms up in triumph when that finally worked.
So now anyone can see the comment box to reply, not just spammers and bots!
If anyone else is using the Orvis theme, wants to enable comments, and runs into a similar issue, add the following to the Additional CSS for your site and change the colours to whatever suits your site:
After work, I dashed home to give Scout his supper, and found to both my amusement and dismay, that he had ripped apart his second treat bag in less than a month and helped himself to a mid-afternoon snack. I asked him who the culprit was, but he wouldn’t say, just kept rubbing my legs affectionately, clearly very pleased with himself and ready for his evening meal.
Alas. That little scallywag. I transferred the remaining treats into another container, gave him his supper, changed into concert-appropriate attire, and then (finally) dashed over to the NAC to see Mother Mother and their opening act MONOWHALES.
I’d never heard anything by MONOWHALES before, and I decided not to listen to anything or look them up in preparation so I could go in to their set without any expectations. Mother Mother, meanwhile, has been one of my favourite bands for a number of years, and I’ve been to every show they’ve played in Ottawa since their performance at Bluesfest in 2013 (…except one, I think).
You could say I was excited.
The NAC’s Southam Hall is a venue that I am intimately familiar with, as I go there often, usually to see classical concerts, so I had no trouble getting there and finding my seat. As I waited, other slowly filing in, the anticipation mounted.
Then–
The auditorium lights were turned off, and MONOWHALES made their stage entrance.
They hyped up the hall with some hard-hitting songs and great power vocals, even playing a brand new track for us to celebrate their final stop as the opening act on the tour, and the final Canadian show on the tour. The main phrase I remember from the chorus was caught in the middle. I also remember CTRL^^^ in particular. I really liked what I heard, and how fired up Sally was on vocals, dancing all over the stage, and at one point even leaping down into the main floor seating area and singing her way through the main aisles in an arc until she could leap back up onto the stage again. She led us in a handful of call-and-responses, and also encouraged us turn on our phone flashlights for one of their slower songs, the hall lighting up on all four levels.
I should have taken a photo of that; it was quite pretty to see.
They ended their set by asking us to stand up while they played their crazy-good cover of The Hand That Feeds by NIN. I loved it. We gave them a long, well-deserved round of applause and they left the stage, professing how grateful they were to have been able to join Mother Mother on tour and that, being fans as well, they were just as excited as we all were to see the upcoming performance. And, indeed, they went up to a Mezzanine-level box to join the rest of the crowd in watching the rest of the show.
Fun fact: With Teeth was the first NIN album I ever bought. On a less-fun note, I no longer have that particular CD, as it was one of dozens that I donated or gave away over the course of several moves in the past few years. I regret parting with it a little (I did keep The Downward Spiral), but it is now in the hands of one of my good friends from high school, who I know has been enjoying it. That’s something.
Back to the story at hand.
During the brief interlude in which the crew re-arranged the stage setup for Mother Mother, I took to my phone to work on a translation of the beautiful name by ALICE NINE., one of my favourite Saga compositions off VANDALIZE that takes deep inspiration from U2’s song Where The Streets Have No Name. It’s nowhere near done, but one of the lines of the song has the phrase 音速を越えてcross the speed of sound in it, and when I translated that, the melody for Speed of Sound by Coldplay immediately popped into my head and I queued it in my playlist for after the performance. I hadn’t heard that song in what felt like forever, though when it first came out, I played it on repeat over and over again.
Finally, the lights went out again, the stage, lit dimly, was filled with smoke, and Seven, the ethereal and vaguely eerie opening track from their latest album Inside, began to play.
Mother Mother took to the stage.
As I mentioned above, I have gone to see Mother Mother many times, but each time I do they sound better than before with all their accumulated experience. And if you’ve never seen them live in concert, I can assure you: they sound really good live. I love their interesting rhythms and the complementary, wide-ranging tones of all of their voices. Their rhythm-heavy, melodic vocal harmonies are extremely cool. But then they also each take the lead in singing certain tracks. The drumming, bass phrases, and guitar work was all really good and right from the get-go Ryan called all of us to get up on our feet for the performance, which I was really glad of. It’s hard to dance in your seat.
But on my feet? Boy, did I ever dance.
Their setlist included tons of staples (like Ghosting, The Stand, and O My Heart), included a few older songs that I wasn’t familiar with (some song-research for the near future!) and a few of their newest songs (like Life and Girl Alone).
It wasn’t any surprise that they played Hayloft and Hayloft II, considering the fact that Hayloft went viral months ago… which was much-deserved, because that’s been a favourite track of mine for years. The rhythm in it is completely addictive. I don’t think they’d included that one in many of the setlists for the shows I’d been to in the past, so I was genuinely ecstatic to hear those opening notes.
I was also genuinely ecstatic to hear the opening notes for The Drugs, Let’s Fall In Love, and Bit By Bit, two songs during which I danced my little heart out.
When Molly started singing Pure Love, everyone in the hall quietly took out their phones, turned on their lights, and swayed to the sweet melody. I can’t remember whether we turned on our lights for It’s Alright, but that performance utterly moved me. It was so heartfelt and raw, and those lyrics truly capture the experience of having mental illness, of making mistakes that you regret, with honesty, and such humanity.
At the time the song came out (on their Dance and Cry album in late 2018), I was in a complicated situation, in a bad place mentally, and that song really spoke to me. A lot of the songs on that album did.
Mother Mother’s lyrics can have such a down to earth, conversational style, and are written with a raw honesty that doesn’t feel tired or overused; I love their lyrics. Having three people on vocals also provides ample opportunity for a lot of very good harmonies and call-and-response moments.
During Sick of the Silence, the band and the audience all let out cathartic yells.
The silence during the worst of the pandemic was hard to bear, but the stillness was worse. I attended so many concert livestreams, and the music sounded great through my headphones or through the sound system attached to my TV. When you’re watching a livestream, though, you don’t get to feel the sound buzzing and thrumming through the hall; you don’t get to sense the energy of the band and the concert-attendees around you–a palpable, visceral thing.
On the way home from the venue the air was warm but a strong breeze was sweeping through the streets, so with Coldplay’s Speed of Sound on repeat, I let my long coat trail behind me and floated home on a music high.
Today is the day when, 18 years ago, 5 musicians first took the the stage together to play a set as a newly-formed band. Their name?
アリス九號
The period came later, in August, when they made things official — and the rest is a long, storied history. One that is still being written. As both アリス九號. and ALICE NINE.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that my life changed for the better when I started listening to their music and following them. They’ve inspired me so much over the years and have carried me to so many emotional heights and depths. アリス九號.の世界は居場所ですよ。これからもずっと応援してます。
To mark the incredible achievement that is continuing a band for 18 years, they held a livestream open for all fans to watch, and then surprised us all with the unveiling of their newest song and its decadent music video.
Funeral
A song and music video that glorifies visual kei, and a return their roots.
I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times already today and it gets better every time.
I love it.
When I first listened to it, what I loved most about it was how natural it looks and sounds. The music feels complex and layered, but it flows so smoothly. The melody drew me in right away. It’s dynamic. The visuals are (in good visual kei fashion) over the top, but still feel so decadent and tasteful. It doesn’t feel like anyone is putting on airs or trying too hard to look or sound cool. They just ARE cool.
You can hear Saga’s melodic bass line threading through the song… softly and firmly tying the song together. But for the bass solo, Saga stands out, takes centre stage on a throne of an armchair. Regal and enthralling.
I love Saga’s shiny, wet-look outfit, those half-gloves, and the eye makeup. In the past, Saga would always wear a butterfly patch, and now we see the sleeker, raw version of that visual touch. The elongated white lines make me think of a spell glyph — something powerful and mysterious. Saga, I’m under your spell… ♡
Having read all of the album-related official note entries leading up to this, I had an idea of what I might be able to expect, but this is far better than I had imagined. Such a familiar style of sound, but distilled into a form that is an absolute pleasure for the ears. You’re not being hit with a wall of sound, you’re being led into a full-bodied song that you have to listen to over and over again in order to appreciate all its layers of detail.
Nao’s drumming made me think of M.C. Escher’s drawing, Relativity, of a room of impossible dimensions, filled with staircases. With long hair and a hood, Nao fully got into Visual Kei mode, and it was reminiscent of his serious performance in SAGA SEA (Saga’s birthday concert in 2021).
Tora and Hiroto’s guitar teamwork is so crisp in this song, each taking turns to leap out of the musical fray with sliding, bursting phrases.
From Shou we get a RUMWOLF-style initial gasp, a TESTAMENT-style groan, and truly great vocals throughout. I feel like we got to see a fully-realized version of Shou’s bloody Zettai Koku Ryouiki visuals and it says something that Shou seems entirely at home wearing a blood-red cross that drips from his mouth, as though the lyrics formed that shape.
Saga explained a lot of the impetus for their decision to make a purely visual kei style album in note 134, through an interview. Though the sound in the visual kei genre was fairly distinctive in the 90s and early 2000s, in recent years a lot of bands in the genre have been shying away from true visual kei sounds and blending genres instead, taking ideas and tones here and there, watering down what was once a very recognizable genre.
Drawing on the example of a “back to basics” trend in hip hop, Saga thought that they should vie for the same in Visual Kei, and with this upcoming album make something that would draw on all the markers of true Visual Kei while also updating it and making it their own with their unique sound. Saga is taking the helm as producer for this album (as a Saga-fan this news made me ecstatic), and Funeral is his composition (Kai, which we only have the lyrics for at present, is a Tora composition). When asking the others to work on compositions for the album, Saga’s request was straightforward: “Raw pieces formed simply, just with our five sounds“. Saga also told them to remember what music they themselves thought sounded cool and to try composing music from there.
Simple, yet fantastic advice.
For any sort of art-making, actually, not only music.
Based on Funeral alone, which drags us to decadent depths, I know already that I am going to have this album on repeat, and that I am going love diving into all of the lyrics as well. You can feel the way they’re building not so much a storyline but an atmosphere with this, drawing on all of the things that they think are cool and inviting us to join them in this deep new world of sound.
I needed to clear my head yesterday afternoon, so I got ready and went out for a walk downtown, intent on eating my first gelato of the year. We’ve only just barely started spring in earnest, but it was already 30 degrees with the humidity, and the streets were filled with people in sandals, pushing strollers, eating out on restaurant patios, and admiring all the tulips blooming in the parks and city planters.
With mint chocolate and rosewater flavoured gelato in-hand, I wandered up the streets towards the park, deep in thought. I spied a chipmunk dashing through an expanse of tulips and wondered what it must feel like to be that little creature, to live that exciting little life in this comparatively huge city.
For all its wonder, for all the amazing innovations we’ve managed to make, human life feels, sometimes, so unnecessarily complicated. We so often long for things that we cannot actually have, or that were never for us to begin with. Our world isn’t just made up of a little territory, our home range, or a migratory path — it’s global. It takes practice to like and appreciate what you have when you are constantly shown all the other possibilities that exist. It takes practice to understand, as an adult, that slowness and quiet are luxuries, when the rest of your days are filled with packed schedules that don’t leave you any time to think. When you constantly think to yourself, how is it already insert-month-here?
It is Sunday, as I write this, and outside my desk window a light spring rain has been falling, making all the vegetation and brick buildings I can see look so much darker, more vibrant with the rain. After all the heat we’ve had this past week, the rain has been sorely needed. It is Sunday, which also means that I’m indulging in my weekly cups of coffee… meanwhile, Scout hunts birdie (his favourite toy, a red bird) on the bed.
Funny story about birdie…
That toy started off being attached, by a string, to a stick so that I could make the toy fly around and land for him to catch it. He enjoyed that well enough for a few days, but eventually started getting annoyed with me. At a certain point, he started catching birdie in his mouth, setting the toy aside, and then attacking both the string and the tip of the stick where the string was attached. Until finally… snap! He bit clean through the thick, springy string and liberated birdie!
Oh, was he ever pleased with himself! I cut the rest of the string off birdie afterwards, laughing, and he’s been carrying birdie around in his mouth ever since. He likes for me to throw birdie for him as well so he can catch it, tumble around with it, and then bring it back to me for another throw. The toy is starting to lose some of its stuffing, so I’ll have to sew it back up soon… I’ll also have to see if I can buy a backup, though I’m sure he’d realize it’s birdie-the-second, and be annoyed with me again.
Speaking of which, shortly after the birdie’s liberation day, I came home from work to find that Scout’s bag of insect-protein treats had been curiously torn open, the treats strewn across the living room floor. When I asked Scout what had happened, he gave me a look of practiced innocence and then went about snacking as I tried to remain stern and not laugh. I suppose the treat-fairy must have liberated the treats from their bagged oubliette. We may never know.
When Scout first came to live with me, he was very curious about the bathtub, and loved to get up on his hind legs to look into the tub (whether it was filled with water or not), but he wouldn’t jump into it. Brave as he is, he is nothing if not cautious. He had to carefully study the tub over the course of a couple of weeks before he finally jumped into it of his own accord. He absolutely loves it in there now. Whenever I go in to use the toilet, he’ll follow me (I’ve given up on shutting the door behind me) and then hop into the tub to play behind the shower curtain. He is not a fan of showers, because this means he has to wait outside while the water is running. Sometimes he will meow at me in protest. He prefers when I take baths so that he can stick his paw in the water and take a nap on the bathroom floor.
On my way back from my walk yesterday afternoon, I kept stopping to admire the cherry trees in bloom, the surest sign of spring that there is. The driveway of my childhood home has always been flanked by two dark pink cherry trees, so I grew up gauging the changing of the seasons by the way that those particular trees looked at any given time of year; I love their gnarled branches, and how both trees together used to form a canopy over the driveway, whether they were flowering, laden with leaves and cherries, or covered in snow and ice in the winter.
Before the pandemic started, I’d decided I was going to move to Japan and so in preparation had gotten rid of a lot of my things, taken a part-time sales job while I sent in applications and prepared for a JLPT exam (that, at least, I accomplished), and then… the momentum that societies worldwide had been functioning on changed or stopped entirely. Borders shut down. A lockdown was put in place in my city. The new job that I had started had to let me go because of lockdown-related shortages (thankfully, the government covered me and many others financially during those months). I had to cancel the trip I had planned and paid for to Japan for that month to go see THE ALTERNATIVE in concert (they had to postpone the concert, too). The last overseas teaching job I’d applied to turned me down shortly after, and I gave in to despair, my mental health deteriorating as the lockdown lengthened, the pandemic showing no sign of letting up.
It’s hard to think about that period of my life, for a lot of reasons. I feel shame at how I acted. I feel shame at the beliefs (not to say delusions) I came to hold. I don’t really want to revisit those here. But it took me far longer than it should have to understand that I had the ability to change and improve my immediate circumstances and wasn’t as “stuck” as I had come to believe; that started when I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment again and began living by myself. It was a relief to all of us. Even though it wasn’t what I had truly intended to do, it was a step towards the goal I’d originally had. That real subsequent isolation also allowed me to face a lot of things that I hadn’t allowed myself to face before then, and it allowed me the privacy to finally start online therapy which I hadn’t been willing to do in earshot of my family members.
The pandemic disrupted all of my plans, and I gave into despair and delusion instead of using the time I’d had while out of work to get my novel written… to get literally any of my short stories finished. To cultivate self-respect that would be worthy of respect from others. To use the financial support I’d been given while temporarily out of my new job to write fiction, to sharpen my translation skills, and to study for the final level of the JLPT so that I’d have even more job opportunities. I will always regret that. Even if the things I did, the private letters I wrote at the time comforted me in a way and did come from a genuine place, however warped they were by things I was dealing with in my home-life. But I can’t change the choices I freely made back then. All I can do now is reconsider what my goals are and how to get there from here.
After several months, I was welcomed back to my full-time position at the office and began life as one of the “essential workers” in the city that could go in to my physical workplace even when we entered more lockdowns. I carried a letter from my employer that would confirm I had the right to be out and use public transportation even during lockdown periods; that was an interesting experience that I may never (correction: that I hope never to) experience again.
And finally, in my own space, though I wasn’t past the sense of despair and certain bouts of delusional thinking, I began to write in earnest again. Though this had to be done around my work and commuting hours. Still does. I’ve gotten into the habit of spending my Sundays writing because I don’t normally have the energy to do any after work during the week (lately I like to do a bit of translating before work every morning, though, to wake my brain up).
Do I want to teach, do I want to write copy, or do I want to translate? Do I want to try again to live in Japan, or do I want to move to a city like Vancouver, where I can get a direct flight whenever I have the time and the means to visit? I don’t know. I don’t entirely know. Scout hasn’t given me a clue either, but he’s a little adventurer, and I feel certain he would be up to trying whatever I decide is best for us.
I find it so soothing to see 木漏れ日sunlight filtering in through trees; to be in partial shade where leaves are lit up a bright green wherever the sunlight is trying to pass through, shadowy everywhere else. The lens flare in the photo above has such incredible coloration, such a mysterious birdlike shape.
I got home and gave Scout his supper (which he was certainly delighted about — and he’s gotten very good at doing the food dance before I even start to do my answering pirouette), then set about making mine. Since I was able to get my hands on a very nice 長芋nagaimo at the asian grocery store (along with packets of 焼あごだしdashi, which they hadn’t stocked in forever) the week before, I was able to make my first batch of お好み焼きokonomiyaki in a long while (I make mine based off of this recipe). I can’t get any 青のりaonori here so I top it with parsley flakes instead. I used to buy お好みソースokonomi sauce but I stopped because I could never use all of it in time… I suppose I should hunt for a good recipe so that I can make it at home as needed. In any case, okonomiyaki is one of my ultimate comfort foods. And this time, I tried making it with a red cabbage! I prefer using thinner, softer cabbage for okonomiyaki and cabbage rolls, but this very thick variety was all I could get my hands on. Still, with extra nagaimo and steaming time in the pan, it turned out soft and delicious.
And gorgeous. Look at that mysterious purple hue.
And my maidenhair fern peeking out from the top of the right-hand photo… it really did bounce back from what had seemed at the time like death. The rain has entirely stopped now, and it’s turned into an afternoon just as sunny as yesterday’s. Scout has switched to enjoying the fresh air coming in through the open window in the kitchen… and I’ve now finished drinking all my coffee.
Yesterday, it wasn’t just the effects of the pandemic that had me ruminating, but also the grief I wrote about in the previous entry regarding how it had taken me such a long time to get the help I needed for my mix of mental illnesses. The event that initially caused PTSD in me as a pre-teen would not have had the prolonged, lasting effect on me, would not have snowballed into cPTSD if I’d received the treatment I needed back then. If someone had chosen to set my proverbial broken bone back then, I would not be trying to treat all the secondary effects now as an adult. I was a child when it happened, I was a pre-teen; there was no way that I could get the help I needed for myself the way that I am learning to now.
For this, and any other type of grief, it is true that there are really only two ways to make it better. You have to be able to face it honestly, to honour how you feel, and move through it, not bypass it. It takes time, and it heals in fits and starts. I felt so angry, such hurt yesterday, thinking about what might have been. And so I wrote up a storm in my private journal, and I let myself feel all of it, and then… I went for a walk to ground myself in what actually is. I can’t go back and change anything, though that fact alone didn’t and still doesn’t melt away my hurt as if it were nothing. I just let my thoughts take their course and stopped to find all the small details along my walk that reminded me of the beauty and mystery that there is still to be found here and now. The things that make my artist-brain light up.
I think it is the province of dreamers and romantics to constantly imagine what might have been and what could be; this is an incredible skill to have. But it can hurt just as easily as it soothes. It can motivate just as readily as it can demoralize. When your imagination is strong, making peace with reality and moving forward in a self-compassionate way isn’t always the easiest task.
It’s okay.
It’s okay to take your time. It’s okay. You need to.
I am repeating that reassurance to myself as much as I am writing it to you, reader.
Yesterday morning I went to visit my parents and help with an afternoon of errand-running. My father is still healing after a recent surgery, and while the healing is going very well, he’s still not able to do any heavy lifting. That’s where I came in. I went to help with pushing the shopping cart, loading some heavy and unwieldy purchases into it and then into the car… that sort of thing.
On the way to their house I encountered a few photo opportunities, as I’ve been working on lyric translations lately, and decided to start adding photos to each one. In particular, I took photos that made me think of the lyrics to Waterfall (in my parents’ neighbourhood) and PENDULUM (on the stairs of an Ottawa train station).
I got in some shopping while helping my parents run their errands, and once we were done with with those for the day, my parents drove me back home, along with a very unwieldy purchase of my own… a cat tree for Scout!
My studio apartment isn’t huge, but it’s the perfect size for one person, especially given that there are plenty of great walking spaces nearby. For an indoor cat, however, I figure it could get a little dull, which is why I invested in a fairly large cat tree so that Scout would have more vertical space through which to enjoy in the apartment.
This was also the first time my parents were to meet Scout, and they were the first people to come over for a visit since I’d brought him home, so we weren’t quite certain how he would take to new visitors in his territory.
Very well, as it turns out.
He was quite happy to brush up against both their legs and allowed them to pet him a little bit. He’s not social exactly, but he’s certainly not shy either. Given how anxious yet bold he was in his initial explorations of our apartment, I’ve taken to describing him as brave. That’s the core of his personality. He liked my parents and my parents liked him… I couldn’t have asked for a better first impression.
After they left, Scout got a late afternoon snack and so did I (a grilled eel onigiri and a curry bun… I had bought a taiyaki too, but I decided to save it for today), after which we got to work on building his cat tree. He mainly helped by inspecting the tree at each stage of the build for structural integrity. My fluffy foreman.
If you’re wondering…. yes, the cat tree is slightly taller than I am.
Only by a few centimetres, but still. It was a challenge to secure the final level of the tree without a proper stepladder, but I got it done on tiptoes, all the while chuckling at my own shortness.
Scout was ultimately pleased, not least because he got two presents: the cat tree and the box it came in.
流石だにゃ。
He’s been surprisingly good about respecting my things and not meddling with the altar of objects in the refinished fireplace’s old hearth. He also loves walking along the mantel of the fireplace and relaxing on his twinkly purple knit blanket. Or jumping onto the bed from the other edge.
He’s still a little unsure about the structure as of this morning and never stays in the tree for long, but as he continues to interact with it and understands that it is a space just for him, I’m sure he’ll spend more time in it. It’s not visible in the photo above, but I’ve placed it right next to my desk, in the hopes that he’ll start to snooze and hang out there whenever I’m home writing (or doing whatever at my desk).
Meanwhile, I restored the second bench to my kitchen table (I’d been using it, temporarily, as a way for him to access the fireplace mantel before we got the tree), and moved his food dishes out to the side of the kitchen table beside my usual bench… so that we can still eat side by side, but we can have a guest over, too. The reading chair is in as cozy a spot as ever, but now Scout sits up on the window ledge beside me (and Whiskers’ memorial box) and, well… scouts!
Side note: he rubs my legs and twirls excitedly whenever it’s meal time, so I’ve started twirling with him and exclaiming food dance, food dance! just before I set down his food-laden dish. Because I am very cool, you know. It’s kind of reminiscent of the magic spells that they put on your meals at maid cafés. The food dance yummifies Scout’s food. We are still in the early research stages of this hypothesis. The verification process thereof is both serious and what you might call “fun”.
Anyway, halfway through the build of the cat tree I started developing a migraine, but building furniture is so damn fun I managed to push through the pain and complete it before curling up in bed and calling it a night. I gave Scout his supper before that of course, but only had enough energy to make myself a bowl of cereal and sluggishly eat it before it was lights out for me.
This morning I did some more translating; I’m working on ユクエシレズ by VOLLAND GUMP… the solo project that 沙我 released quietly under said penname back in 2015. I started translating it a while back but didn’t feel quite able to finalize it because my Japanese wasn’t at a high enough level to handle the nuances. It’s a really great song, and the tone of the music and the lyrics is really complex and beautiful. Saga’s singing soars with the heightened emotion of the lyrics, searching for meaning in the pain of reality that is laid out through the lyrics. The project’s website and youtube have recently been taken down so I can no longer link to the video that enhanced the meaning of the lyrics even more, but the lyrics themselves with the music are more than enough to give you a sense of the song’s urgent search for meaning. It’s beautiful: listen for yourself, if you haven’t before.
Other than that, I’ve been getting this blog of mine organized. I went through a very long (recent) period of intense anxiety in which I started writing a lot of blog entries (and other sorts of posts), but ultimately couldn’t bring myself to push the post button. Many of those pieces of writing remained unfinished, after having lost the nerve to continue them halfway. Some of them I’ve since deleted, some of them I may end up finishing at a later time. One post in particular, which I wrote last August about my birthday, I finally backdated and posted this morning.
To say that Social Anxiety Disorder (along with the other diagnoses that I have) has negatively impacted my life would be a massive understatement.
In November of last year, after having suffered two successive, major panic attacks in a single evening, I finally filled a prescription from my doctor and started taking medication to treat my host of mood disorders.
While the stigma surrounding mental illness has eased considerably in recent years, and eases more with every passing day in Canada at least, the culture surrounding it was very different when I was a kid. For many reasons I didn’t think I “had it bad enough” to take medication (spoiler alert: I do have it bad enough), was discouraged from taking medication from the adults in my life, was told to keep my conditions private, and was told to just think positive when I originally brought my concerns forward to an adult I trusted as a pre-teen, barely more than a child. All of those experiences sunk into me on a subconscious level.
Not to mention, said adult I trusted insisted, all the way up into adulthood, that I shouldn’t medicate.
I finally went against their cautioning and trusted my own judgement.
In the months since taking medication, I have had no major panic attacks (these generally entail hyperventilation to the point of causing chest pain for weeks afterwards), and have had only a handful of minor anxiety attacks (these generally entail racing thoughts, pounding heart, rapid breathing, crying, a sense that my life is ruined, or that I’m in danger even though I’m not… etc).
I used to have what I called a “minor” anxiety attack just about daily, sometimes multiple times a day.
That was my reality for years, my sense of normalcy.
The medication that I take has sort of taken the edge off a little, so that I’m starting to experience what it feels like to live without constant anxiety attacks and depressive episodes that leave me completely drained and unmotivated. In the months since going on medication, I have had to sort of grieve all of the time that I spent living with anxiety that could have been treated with medication. Anxiety that prevented me from doing so many things. Anxiety that kept me exhausted and confined to my bedroom.
I am an introvert and a homebody, so I naturally enjoy being at home, doing things on my own, and socializing in close-knit settings… but there is a gulf of a difference between often choosing happily to stay home, and being too terrified to go out and do things, or meet like-minded people.
Who am I without constant anxiety distortingmy choices?
I grieved the life I might have lived through my teen years and twenties. I grieved the truer choices I might have made, and the abusive situations I might have avoided. I grieved my past, while also gearing up build a better future, while learning to live in the moment more… and trust my own judgement.
A tall order.
But one that I (and anyone else living with similar conditions) have the ability to fill.
I bought my maidenhair fern last year and it thrived for about a year until, for reasons I still don’t understand, it simply died. Or so I had thought. I kept sadly giving the dead fern water because I had loved the leafy plant on my windowsill so much. One day, I was astonished to see tiny green buds in the tangle of dead stems and leaves. I did some research, and sure enough, this dramatic plant has a tendency to return from the dead! I pruned away all the dead leaves, removed the planter from direct sunlight, and kept the soil moist. Finally, the biggest bud unfurled into a fuzzy little frond!
Well. The first night that I brought Scout home, I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night to a bit of a commotion going on in the kitchen. Sure enough, that little scoundrel had decided to prune the leaves off of not one but two of my plants. One of which was my poor little fern.
I despaired.
I laughed.
I sighed at the wheatgrass that I had started growing for Scout just a day earlier, not yet tall enough for him to eat.
Despite the interruption into the fern’s cycle of regrowth, though, it has continued, and is now a tiny collection of fuzzy little fronds. Not one of which Scout has decided to prune. He’s too busy enjoying his patch of wheatgrass on the living room window sill… success.
Scout and the maidenhair fern are not so dissimilar, actually.
When I was setting up the adoption appointment for him over the phone, the counsellor told me a little about his history (specific details for which had not been available on their website); that’s how I knew I was about to adopt the right cat. He was a stray that someone had found nearly frozen in a snowbank this past winter. No previous owner had come looking for him during his treatment and fostering period, so it is likely that he had been an outdoor or farm cat, perhaps regularly going to eat on some kind human(s) porch(es) and otherwise fending for himself. He isn’t feral, as he seems very comfortable around and friendly towards humans, though some “normal” household things have completely perplexed him (like mirrors, filled bathtubs, and water faucets). But for whatever reason, through a stroke of luck, he survived his near-death experience and bounced back with the help of the humans who found him.
I wanted to call him Phoenix or Ghost because of that story, but Scout fit his personality much better.
I’m just so happy I get to be his human and keep him warm.
After over a year of trying to make conversation with my houseplants,
I finally made the happy decision (after careful consideration) to adopt a cat.
This is Scout ★
As soon as I met him, he brushed up against my legs and then anxiously set about examining every nook and cranny of the enclosure we were in. He did the same when I brought him home, nervously darting from his carrier to bravely scope out the terrain of our home. He’s as resourceful as a boy scout, and as inquisitive as Scout Finch. I had thought of so many names for this little 4-year old rescued stray before my adoption appointment, but when I experienced his personality firsthand, I knew he was a Scout.
He has already turned on the PS4 twice on his own by pressing the PS button on a controller. He was so hilariously matter-of-fact about it too!
During the month of August, I met up with Babs for the first time in a year in order to celebrate our birthdays, which are a few days apart, together. We spent the early afternoon in a museum, the early evening at a café, met up with another close friend for supper at a Japanese restaurant, and then the three of us hid away in a new bar for most of the rest of the night.
The Canadian Museum of Nature had a live owl exhibit set up on their back terrace, so that influenced our decision to visit quite heavily — that, and we both really love dinosaurs, and animals in general. This particular museum (which not that long ago underwent extensive renovations) has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid; I even slept in the museum overnight once when I was in Girl Guides!
We slept in the room with the rocks, stones, and minerals, in case you were wondering… it’s been a longtime tradition for groups of kids to sleep in the dinosaur room, but at the time, it was undergoing renovations, so we hadn’t been able to.
Anyway. The dinosaur room was predictably busy, so we set about seeing all of the other exhibits first, in the hopes that things would quiet down later on in the afternoon. Meeting all of the owls was a delightful experience; most of them were sleepy, or glared at us balefully from over one shoulder, but a few of them were very alert and interested. I got pictures of two in particular. Khaleesi was as regal as her name suggests and didn’t do much more than stare at us disapprovingly; she is the owl in the photo on the left. Rucker the barn owl, meanwhile, is in the photo on the right, and was incredibly quirky. He kept swinging his head from side to side so I swung my head in the same way, hoping to catch his attention… and I did! He flew closer to the bars and did some more curious staring and head-swinging and tilting (which I mimicked again).
Afterwards we did a tour of all of the permanent exhibits that we are well used to but still enjoy every time nonetheless. One of the new short stories I was working on for TSBA at the time had to do with seasons and animal transformations so I got a lot of inspiration from seeing specimens of some of the animals I’d been researching for the story. I’ve always liked how their arctic fox is partially hidden behind blocks of ice (that’s the photo on the left below). The birds’ permanent exhibit is utterly fascinating; the picture below on the right contains one of the sea birds I’d already done a bit of research about for the story so I was very excited to take a look at its powerful-looking wings through the glass with my own eyes.
One thing I find particularly cool about birds, is that some species have such huge differences in their plumage depending on their sex. There aren’t all that many species in Canada with such differences, but I see a lot of Red-winged Blackbirds in my neck of the woods, so I decided to take a photo of their specimens — the female has brown and tan feathers while the male is almost entirely clad in black with some bright shoulder pads for a little extra flair. Love it.
The insect exhibit is filled with just as many fascinating specimens (both taxidermized and live). On the left are spiders, scorpions, stick bugs, and dragonflies, while on the right are iridescent butterflies and beetles. I’m not saying I’d want these insects crawling all over me, but I do enjoy looking at their interesting forms.
Finally, we got to wander around the dinosaur exhibit and imagine what it might have been like to live among those enormous creatures. I took a photo of my own feet reflected in the glass in front of a triceratops’ hoof. I just love how the way that the bones curve makes them look almost dainty but that they would have supported an incredible amount of weight. My two feet put together are about the size of a single toe. Just fantastic.
After we’d finished at the museum, we headed to the Byward Market and made ourselves comfortable at a café in order to wait for our friend to join our party.
I mean that in both the woohoo sense and the questing sense.
Just to be clear.
Once our friend had indicated she was in the area, we made our way to the restaurant we’d picked to have supper at: Gyubee, a Japanese barbeque joint. After a good bit of wandering through a museum (a full day of work for our friend) and some walking through the Market, the huge all-you-can-eat meal really hit the spot. All three of us have known one another since high school (and earlier), and run missions together in Warframe with audio chat once in a while to catch up. Our friend hadn’t been able to join us for a birthday dinner the year before, so it was nice to sit down together this time!
Afterwards, we got a booth at a new bar in the Market called Apothecary. I am not joking when I say I made an unintelligible sound of excitement when we sat down because the decor and the vibe was so good. The outdoor lounge area is really cool, but the real bar is down in the basement, the stairway to which is tucked around a corner when you first walk in the door. Exposed brick, mirror windows, dried decor? Loved it.
My friends both tried out their cocktails (and they seemed pleased with the ones they tried), but those didn’t interest me all that much. I asked the server to ask the bartender to recommend a good scotch to go with the dessert that I’d ordered, and the bartender came over to ask whether I liked peaty flavours or not (the answer to that is yes: yes to smokiness). The dessert, meanwhile, was a very savory sort of strawberry shortcake (aptly named Strawberry ‘Shortcake’ — yes, with the quotation marks included). It was utterly unusual and delicious. I will definitely be ordering that again when I go back. The scotch I got was a Laphroaig Select, which I sipped with great enjoyment.
This dessert included herbs, sour cream, and delicate little edible flowers… dusted in silver sugar.
Just… so pretty.
On the sidewalk outside my apartment on the way home, I stared up at the sky, which was surprisingly clear, and managed to see one little shooting star. I didn’t make a wish — I just felt grateful that the sky was so clear and that the street was dark enough to let me see so many stars from where I was standing.
Also, being that I am a huge アリス九號. fan, the sight of the shooting star immediately made me think of several of their songs, chief among these being shooting star… hopefully the reason is obvious! But their discography is peppered with songs that make you think of space so there are plenty to choose from. Another favourite, lesser known astral-body track of mine is 天体アンブレラ (tentai UMBRELLA – ‘Celestial Umbrella’), which Saga apparently composed after watching a nature documentary featuring northern lights, the lyrics to which match that motif. Recently, they released the very gentle track 星降る夜には君を想う (hoshifuru yoru ni wa kimi wo omou – ‘I think of you on starry nights’).
And then there’s Stargazer:, which is part of their album GEMINI, which they’re going to be playing in full, in concert at the end of this month for their big 17th anniversary. I love that album. It is a little universe, it has inspired a lot of art out of me, and this concert in its honor is going to be incredible and inspire me even more.
One of its influences is the band LUNA SEA, of course, a song from whom Saga recently did an epic cover of:
I’m getting delightfully off-track.
All of the above made for a nice, low-key birthday. Which is fitting, because I don’t really celebrate mine anymore. I kind of prefer to pretend that the day-of is any other day and then find reasons to celebrate it secretly in other ways on other days. See: the above concert.
See also: this cake that I made back at the end of June for Saga’s LUNA SEA themed birthday. It’s lavender chocolate sponge with a dark chocolate glaze, and a blueberry jam astral body… garnished with lavender flowers, rose petals, and silver sugar globes. It was inspired by certain themes in GEMINI, as well as the fact that there was a drum and bass “jam” in the concert I watched the day before I made it (Saga plays the bass). Obviously I couldn’t actually give the cake to Saga, so effectively it was a birthday cake for myself before my actual birthday. It was delicious, in case you’re wondering. I decided not to make a cake this week… though I may make some of my classic mint chocolate chip cookies instead!
All of that being said, I do share the same birthday as 圭 from BAROQUE, who played a concert that day, an excerpt from which is in the following video:
Finally, given that I am now in my dirty thirties and am supposed to be doing whatever the hell I want, I decided that for the first time in my adult life, I would don a knee-length dress and go out of the house with unshaven legs. Did I nearly run back inside after having taken two steps outside the apartment building? Yes. But I took a moment to psych myself up, put my keys resolutely in my purse, and started walking to the bus stop. I’d like to say I felt extremely empowered and liberated, but the reality is that I felt somewhat free while also feeling rather awkward. No one really paid much attention (as expected) except for two women who gave me dirty looks, and the sensation of the wind blowing the hairs made me feel ticklish, which I thought was pretty funny.
I felt awkward simply because I’m not sure I particularly like how I looked and felt in the dress with my legs exposed that way, but it could just be something I’d need to get used to. I might like the sight and the feeling better wearing shorts, for instance. But it was good to try it anyway. Now that I’ve done that, it feels like I truly have a choice. I can go out with hairy legs whenever the hell I want to. Or I can choose to make them smooth. The choice is freeing.
The last time I had hairy legs in public, I was a twelve year old in gym class. One of the so-called popular girls in my class pointed at me one day and yelled “EW!! You don’t shave?!”
I was mortified. Up until that point, I’d barely noticed the hair on my legs. It was like background noise. Just an inseparable part of the skin on my legs. Her disgust changed it into something I became hyper-aware of to the point where, for many years, I couldn’t bear to bare my legs in public even after shaving them.
So I’d like to go back in time to that fateful moment, right before the gym teacher walked in (good dude — he also taught music class… tried and failed to teach me guitar), lock him in his office, show up as the supply teacher, go up to my younger self, and be like “WHOA! You don’t shave?! That’s awesome! High five! Time to play ballon-chasseur ya little hooligans!”
I used to feel like my body hair was an inalienable weapon being implemented against me by biology and society at large. I deflected it by anxiously covering up or getting rid of it; even one visible hair on my legs was too much. My god, the shadow of shaved hair follicles under the surface of my skin was too much. I would shave myself to the point of bleeding, I would wax or epilate, and it was never enough. I could see it. I could see it.
I used to have nightmares about going outside unshaven.
But the reality of the experience was perfectly anticlimactic.
The fear is gone.
I’ve handed that decades-old anxiety back to society, and freed up emotional space for other things.
Give me a rainy day in the summer when it’s warm and I’ve got nowhere to be but home.
I love when the rain pours down at an angle, warm and pelting — that moment when you have to laugh in mock-despair, realizing that the umbrella you’re holding up is completely useless, because the downpour has figured out a workaround to soak you.
Put a point up on the scoreboard for nature, clutch your bag closer to the side of your chest;
Grimace, laugh, groan, roll your eyes, dash — whatever you do, you’re soaked.
Might as well laugh about it, enjoy it somehow.
I love when the rain coats the bark on the trees so heavily that it lights up the network of lichen that lives there, something you normally wouldn’t pay much attention to. With the cloud cover, with the coat of rain painting everything, it is both darker and lit up in a strange way that sunlight alone can’t manage; lichen and leaves more vibrant as they drink in the water, the light of shop signs soft and hazy through the falling rain.
I love the sound of rain starting to fall and then suddenly picking up in intensity.
I don’t remember ever feeling afraid of thunderstorms when I was little — just in awe of them, like all my senses were heightened, and I was experiencing something supernatural.
What a luxury, to be able to sit indoors, warm and dry, and watch through a window, as the rain falls.
I feel a small moment of camaraderie when I get in out of a storm, dripping slightly, to see others folding away umbrellas, wiping glasses clean, shaking droplets of water from the backs of their hands, the cuffs of their sleeves. Everyone grumbling, but ready to start a day of work, completely insulated from the weather outside.
Chalk one up for nature — hell, chalk one up for human ingenuity, too.
I love when the rain lets up and there are visible droplets sticking to the stems, leaves, and petals of plants, the way they reflect the light. The sound of water rushing into drains after a storm — and that particularly warm sort of sunlight that filters down when the cloud cover starts to part.
Who doesn’t do a double-take at a rainbow?
.
I woke up this morning to the soft rumble of an oncoming thunderstorm while buried under the covers of my bed, got caught in the rain out walking in the afternoon, floated under my umbrella all the way home.
I just had the pleasure of watching ALICE NINE.’s C/W LOVERS II concert via livestream in my living room and it was an incredible setlist packed with rare songs and some very cool new arrangements (or at least ones I’ve never heard before). I was completely enthralled from start to finish.
This was a two-session live, and only the second session was broadcast online. In the first session, they played 夢幻-electric eden- (I’m tearing up just imagining hearing that incredible song in person one day), and カルマ (an extremely cool composition by Saga from the GEMINI era with really fascinating lyrics).
The standard setlist included two songs that they ordinarily reserve for fanclub-only lives (明治 and アゲハ)! And then the rest of the setlist was just pure coolness. If you tuned in to the Christmas live, for instance, it featured a lot of beautiful, emotional songs… but this setlist was made to show off how good they sound just rocking out as a band.
秘密 Neophilia 明治 アゲハ Solar Eclipse 虹彩ストライプ Scarlet SLEEPWALKER NEMESIS 戦場に花束を Ray FOLLOW ME
Show’s a really versatile vocalist, and seems game to try just about any genre; his tone and style have evolved so much over the years and with so much experience… there really is no one else that sounds like him. As the others have often said, Show’s voice is ALICE NINE.’s unique instrument, and the unifying factor in their very eclectic discography.
During the MC, Saga brought up the fact that Show’s singing voice alone on a recording can tell you the era of the recording you’re listening to. True–Show constantly transforms his singing style!
Hearing them play 虹彩ストライプ was really cool for exactly that reason; I’ve only ever heard that song via the studio recording from back in 2004. Hearing the way that Show sings it now was really amazing… and of course the updated instrumentals were just as cool. Saga’s little composition grew up!
秘密 is an incredibly stylish R&B Saga composition that appeared on the Daybreak single (one of Tora’s bright, uplifting compositions), and it really set the tone for the live in a great way. Cool, composed, mature.
Neophilia is one of my favourite songs (composed by Saga during the RAINBOWS era, demo dug up by Show during the PLANET NINE era) both because of the way that it sounds and for the intricate lyrics (translation & interpretation!). To me, the song has a pretty erotic air to it, but the lyrics are sort of intellectual and playful; I love that contrast. Saga’s murky bass solo in this song is off the charts seductive.
Scarlet, another Saga composition, was absolutely incredible. The atmosphere that that song creates during the intro is one of the strongest in their discography, to me. It’s dark and seductive. I first heard that song the first time I ever went to a live, the first time they ever played it, as-yet-unreleased, back in August 2012 at Zepp DiverCity. They played birth in the death at the time too, another song with an even deeper atmosphere. It was just an incredible experience.
So hearing Scarlet again, I got goosebumps. It definitely developed even more flavour over time. Saga’s heavy, grungy bass intro drew all of the other instruments in to set up an incredible atmosphere. He looked and sounded effortlessly cool.
This entire setlist truly did have an adult feel to it, and I loved that.
Solar Eclipse has been a longtime favourite song of mine, because it has a lot of interesting little flourishes, great band sound, and everyone’s part really stands out in it. I’m particularly fond of the way Nao’s drumming and Show’s singing complement each other in this song, as well as the bass-punctuation at 鳴らせ、鳴らせ; this song builds such high anticipation, and the guitar sounds are really reflective and shiny throughout.
SLEEPWALKER really lulls you into a strange trance, and NEMESIS is a Hiroto composition (arranged by Tora), tucked away on the 虹の雪 single… I’ve always really liked this song and so hearing the different-sounding live arrangement was very fun. The lyrics are very thought-provoking.
戦場に花束を’s live arrangement is SO. COOL. SO COOL. It was incredibly cool in their 16th Anniversary Live, and it was incredibly cool in this broadcast. The intro has such a heavy weight to it, it’s like they’re all standing, immovable, on their side of the battlefield (The title of the song in English is Bouquet on the Battlefield). Another great band sound song, a Saga composition, that showcased all of their individual parts!
Ray is one of my favourite Tora compositions, with some of my favourite lyrics about a love that are written in a way that make it feel both grounded and ethereal. Saga’s bass solo in this live performance was emotional and amazing to watch.
「リズムを奏でて君を見続けたい…」♡ “I want to play a rhythm and keep looking at you…”
After an extended MC discussing a lot of very serious things (including how, in the past, they were so incredibly busy all the time, there are songs in their discography they hardly remember recording), they ended the live with the incredibly bright Hiroto composition, FOLLOW ME, from the TSUBASA. era.
I started the New Year off with an unexpected urge to write again, which was a delight and a relief all at once. I’d tried several times since the last piece that I put up here, to complete a short story or even get back to writing a quick poem daily, but the blank page was proving to be an impossible adversary.
300 words.
It really isn’t a lot, but that was once my daily word goal. And it’s what I managed yesterday. From winter 2018 to spring 2019, I was between jobs, my 5-year job contract having ended, and so, while sending out applications for new ones, I figured — hey, why not dig into my novel more consistently? Thus the 300 word minimum was born. I resolved that, between waking and going to sleep every day, I would write at least 300 words; but I often wrote far more, if I was feeling particularly inspired. I stopped when I was hired at a new office and started putting more emphasis on reading and writing in Japanese (not that my use improved all that much!).
So. 300 words.
After so long struggling with writer’s block, yesterday’s 300 words felt like 3000.
It was also a lot more tiring to my brain than I had thought, because after laying down to read (The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith), I got through just 2-3 pages before I drifted off, mid-evening. Only to wake up just after 2AM.
ALICE NINE. have a song called RAINBOWS, and in it one of the lines is:
さあ行こう 2:00AMの革命 Yeah, let’s go to the 2:00AM revolution
That’s a slapdash translation, but you get the picture.
So for an ALICE NINE. fan, waking up at 2:00AM is always kind of a delight… It delights me, anyway! Everything was sort of thrown out of whack in 2020, and I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t handle things well. At all. In normal years, waking up early or going to sleep very late usually meant I had hit upon a well of internal productivity… this year it generally meant I was panicking about something.
Today? Hmm. The jury’s still out on that one. But here I sit, in my worn babydoll and fuzzy slippers (…seriously, my brother’s girlfriend gave me some for Christmas lol). And I am not only writing a blog entry, I’m waiting for my rice cooker to click so I can go sauté something up on the stove to go with it.
Instead of a 2:00AM revolution, I’m having a 2:00AM supper.
(It is actually past 3:30AM as I write this… shhhh)
The fuzzy slippers, by the way?
They’re pastel-rainbow colour.
So I thought to myself, “Excellent! I’ll be walking around on Mt. Fuji every day!”
