Comfort food

I've been having a couple of low mood days, I don't feel homesick but at the same time I don't feel at home yet. I'm like a tree without roots, easy to move, unable to settle.

My best solution is, as always, to spoil myself.

Brunch with eggs Benedict at Valeries and some retail therapy might make things better.

 

In my head

The worst thing about me is that when I find something or someone I really want the fear of failing or rejection will keep me from attempting it while my heart still aches for unfulfilled dreams.

宝塚歌劇団

Takarazuka is a kind of lavish musical theater performed exlusivley by (and in 90% of the time for) women. They put on productions of Western musicals, stories adapted from shōjo manga and Japanese folktales.

It's acted a great influence on the shōjo genre, originaly inspiering works such as "Princess Knight", "Revolutionary Girl Utena" and "The Rose of Versailles" wich is also arguably Takarazuka's best known musical.

The male roles are played by actresses called otoko-yaku, who one Takarazuka instructor described to be "more suave, more affectionate, more courageous, more charming, more handsome and fascinating than a real male."

The otoko-yaku do everything that real men don't do: they tango, say sweet things, show understanding and kindness and never tire of expressing their undying love in the practiced baritones. Shinja Ueda, the president of the Takarazuka, told the Japan Times,

"The performances have an abundance of lines and acting that women want to hear and see from men, however unrealistic...but women are too embarrassed to say."

Explaining the mainly young female fanbase of the productions usualy takes one out of two routes, the one that seems to prevail in the west is that women are drawn to its inherent lesbian overtones. Lesbian themes occur in every Takarazuka performance, simply by virtue of the fact that women play every role.

The second theory is that women find escapism in the actresses performing free and empowered male parts. The subversion of stereotypical gender roles is something that's particurlarly appealing in a society like Japan with notoriously rigid conception of what is male and what is female.

For me personaly I think it's a lot simpler, it's about having something that's just for girls, by girls. Just like with Lolita fashion it's something generally doesn't really involve or appeal to men and it enables you to completley rejecting the notion that it's a man's world for just a moment. I don't really mind all the things I do for and with guys but that's probably due to the fact that I also have my escapism. I like "having my own thing".

Less is... More?

I'm really loving this new phone, it's simple design makes it so versitile! I love customizing before I go out every morning. It reminds me of something I saw from Japansese fashion gigant UNIQLO's website some time ago. I remeber that when I lived in Japan, everyone loved that store even though I always thought it was sort of plain. I couldn't belive how the founder of it could be one of the richest men in Japan! But then I read this:

Rather than dictate a look, UNIQLO provides people everywhere with the piece they need to create their own style. And style comes from within, wich is why the UNIQLO logo is nearly invisible, tucked away inside the garment. This concept, along with an unwavering focus on quality and value, has guided UNIQLO's actions since the establishment of its first store in 1984 Hiroshima, Japan.

I feel like I understand it now, the phone is the same, just a blank slate, great quality and a tousand options, so inspirational! I'm such a slave to labels that it's easy to loose yourself, I should probably take a shopping hiatus and think over future purchases.

For now here are my two favourite phone looks!

Nature is lovley

Real wood Iphone cover with a lovley flower strap. When I first saw this I thought no way that's actually wood, but it is! So smooth and light and such an unusual concept, I think I'm in love. This is my "mature" shelf, I use it at work and other places when I need to be a little more adult.

Sweet as Candy

Disneys Iphone series wich I belive is called Mupods, such a funny word, with a Rilakuma cookie strap.

This looks so good on the white model, I've only ever seen it on black ones before and the top part where the chocolate is melted looks gray, yuck. It's perfect on the white though, looks so much like Q-pot style!

Holy matrimony

I was talking to my mom on the phone today, it looks like my brother and Reiko has decided on a date for their wedding. I'm so exited, I haven't been to a wedding since I was little and Henrik is the first of my brothers to tie the knot. I'm so happy they decided to marry, having Reiko as a sister in law and a part of ouer family is really exiting. The official wedding will be in my hometime and the'll have a smaller cermony for family in Tokyo.Me beeing me I had two things in mind, first of all: Reikos ring is so beautiful! According to Japanese "tradition" the ring costs three months salary, I hope that when I wed my man will follow this too. My mom says she thinks it's an unneccesary amount of money but I think it's quite romantic and shows comittment to the marrige. Hopefully you'll wear that ring for the rest of your life.
Secondly: What will I wear? Many lolitas will tell you that this is one of the hardest occasions to dress for. You want to feel like feel pretty and like yourself but without outstageing the bride or turning it into a freakshow. Dressing down is the key, I had a quick look around some of my favourite brands and I think I found the perfect dress alredy. A lovley Victorian Maiden piece in a kamel cream chiffong with a simple silhouette and chocolate brown accents. I think it will look both beautiful and approriate with some lacy white tights and brown pumps.

What do you think? Has anyone been to a wedding or even gotten married recently?

新年あけましておめでとうございます

A slightly belated happy new year everyone!

Yesterday I found something really fun, my newyears resolutions from 2003, such a long time ago! I don't remember if I fullfilled my promise that year but as I look at it now I have for sure. It makes me think that maybe I should always write down my promises and goals and not be so hard on myself if I don't make it in one year when it's what you accomplish in the long run that really matters. I think it's a common mistake to not recognize your own success, however small it might be, so I probably should work against that.I'm both proud and thankful for the fact that I've managed to become both happy and healthy on my own.

I would also like to say thankyou to everyone for reading and following my blog, when I started writing I never thought I would see 200+ followers!

I can't quite belive it and I'm very flattered.

Unexpected insight

Christmas day is alwaya spent in the weird haze overeating creates, I spent most of my day infront of the television half asleep. One of the many shows I snoozed through was a french documentary about samer, I guess you could call them the native Swedish? I found it alot more interesting then I thought I would at first, it focused alot on the breeding and keeping of reindeer and doing ones best to survive on what nature provides.

Besides eating the meat from the animals and making shoes and clothing from the skin and fur, they also often used the bones and horns in their handicraft. This is where I got the most intriguing revelation, you often find theese kind of handicraft items at markets or tourist trap kind of shops and even though they are advertised as handmade I guess I always thought there was some element of mass production behind it. The man who was the main subject for the documentary spoke about how empty he felt once a year, just after a very famous market where he sold all his handmade things. He said he had to do it to make sure he and his family had enough money to survive since just keeping reindeers is not a very lucrative business, but it made him really unhappy to give up something he put so much time and love into to total strangers.

Right then I knew just how he felt, I'm the same whenever I sell paintings. I feel a kinda bad for never recognizing that the same amount of effort and care go into something that I've just about always considered to be nothing more than tourist trinkets and souvenirs.

Thoughts of hair

It's getting to be time to pay the hairdresser another visit and I'm thinking about what kind of style to get. Last time I basicly got Makis cut from the melty chocolate add although mine's a bit lighter brown so my caramel blond streaks don't really show all that well.I like the style on her but I don't really want to go that dark brown and since it is a little bit more expensive to get a two tone done at the salong I've been thinking about getting blunter strands of lighter hair so it really shows.Option number one, and my favourite at the moment, would be to go half and half. It might be a good idea since I always have a hard time deciding if I should be a blond or brunette and with the colour shades Kumiko has I strangley don't think it looks all that fake either. Options number two and three are basicly the same idea but just placed diffrently. Number two is broad streaks from the roots that frames the face and number three (Is Niki Minaj really the only example I could find of this style?) keeps the streaks in the neck and gives just a pop of lightness (or colour as is the case with the IRL example picture).

I havn't quite made up my mind just yet, I still need to find a good salong in my new city anyway but I'm thinking that two and three, although they would probably offer real fun styling options, might not be right for me. What do you guys think, a cute two tone do or maybe just stick with more classic one colour style?

Trying to devise a (closet) plan

I'm thinking I might need to buy another bookshelf to keep my shoes and bags in since my stuff is sort of scattered all over the place now. The downside is that it probably wouldn't fit inside my walk in closet without eating up alot of hanging space. I would feel kind of weird putting it in the living room so I was thinking about maybe divide my clothes in some way and put them in the small wardrobes in the bedroom aswell to make room but then again it's still not all in one place like I want it. I miss my old roomy closet, the build in shelf wall was particularly practical, when I get a better space I need to recreate that somehow.

Edit: Dear sweetie Maria is selling a couple of my dresses on my behalf on EGL, since I really need the money please have a look here! It's for international buyers, prices include worldwide shipping.

...But home is nowhere.

I imagine the feelings I'm experiencing upon my return ought to be close to the ones of Alice, when waking from Wonderland.
I'm back from the magical, whimsical world, I'm back from the rabbit hole.

Vanity, the ugly side of beeing female

I stumbled upon, and got stuck, at the lolita secrets side of the Egl livejournal comunity and I was sad but not supprised that it's no different from how I remembered it. I myself have only briefly been the holder of an livejournal account many years ago, during what feelt like the early days of the internet, and as a bit of a lolita noob at the time I became rather intimidated by the catty attitudes of the not so lovley ladies of the comunity. I never dared to post anything and soon left again, never to return, and after that it took me a mind boggling seven years in the style before I even got something I would refer to as real lolita friends, peopel I could actually talk to.

I know we belong to a style that might be considered on the extreme side of shallowness as far as style goes because we share no music scene or political views, we just share ouer vanity. But why is it, despite this, so common that lolita girls obsess over the idea of "representing" lolita? You can't be too fat, too ugly, too old or too tall, you can't dressed in bodyline or god forbid you go out wearing a too short skirt or without a headdress and call yourself a lolita, because if you do, you will give all us lolitas a bad name. So you bitches better bring your A game. We seem to look at lolita as a great big family, and unless your perfect you'll end up beeing that black sheep, tainting ouer name by association. I'm well aware of the fact that I at times am guilty of this kind of behaviour and thoughts myself but I really don't want to live up to this negative stereotype of not just lolitas but women in general. It's only skinn deep so why so mean, girls?

お雛祭り

Today is the Hinamatsuri here in Japan, girls day and a festival of dolls. It's a day to pray for young girls growth and happiness.

When compared to all the celebrations I have experienced in the rather short time I have lived here I feel, more then ever, that I don't really have any cultural heritage of my own. I wish I had, something to cherish, something worth teaching my children and grandchildren if I ever have any.

Objects & emotions

Jag känner väldigt mycket på sistone, alldeles för mycket för att jag skall förstå det, kanske är det något att återkomma till vid senare tillfälle, kanske inte. En klarhet i kaoset är känslan av att jag är mycket starkare än vad jag någonsin trott att jag var. Det och glädjen över att jag vann Rose toile halsbandet på auktion.
Translation:
I'm feeling alot latley, too much for my brain to comprehend, I may or may not get back to that point later. The one feeling that I can make out for sure is that I'm way stronger then I ever gave myself credit to be. That and I'm happy I won the Rose toile necklace on auction.

さよなら友達！

Today was the last day for my most charming brazilian classmate, Roberto, who will be returning back home for work. I think it will feel quite empty in the classroom after he's gone and it brought me back to the reality of how fleeting the friendships I make here are. I will probably remember all of them for more or less all of my life due to the circumstances we got to know each other, alone, far away from ouer families in a country where we don't speak the language, extraordinary circumstances. But in little more then three months I will return back home, probably for good, and I wonder how many of the peopel I meet will I ever see again?

The cat's miaow

Det är tidig morgon, kallt och jag vill inte gå upp ur sängen så jag grubblar över sånadär viktiga saker som ifall jag borde köpa ETC's nya katt print. Jag älskar motivet och den lila färgen men vilken modell av klänningen ska köpa? Jag gillar babydoll men den är 2 cm kortare. Mitt liv är fullt av svåra och viktiga val.

Translation:
It's early morning, cold and I don't want to get out of bed so I'm thinking about getting the new ETC print, I like the motif and the colour of the lavender one, but wich style of dress? I like babydoll but it's about 2 cm shorter. My life is full of important and difficult choices.

Latley...

... it's really cold in Tokyo.
... I've been walking more and realised how much you miss out on by riding the JR everywhere.
... I have this urge to play Castlevania Symphony of the night.
... my creditcard is being troublesome.
... I'm learning that my gut feeling about who to trust is always accurate.
... I'm developing a crush on my japanese teacher.
... my room is getting too cluttered, even for me.
... I found out a swedish friend of mine came out of the closet in my absence.
... Royal Milk Tea have tiny cake shaped keychains on their bottles.
... I can't draw.
... I worry to much.

And then it sort of hits you...

Människan är en fantastisk maskin, det är helt surealistiskt hur snabbt man vänjer sig, hur snabbt man blir avtrubbad. Igår hade jag ingenting att göra så jag åkte till Shinjuku och promenerade runt, fönstershoppade på Maruione JR och köpte en ny skolväska från Angelic Pretty. När blev dethär livet min vardag? Jag antar att det bara är bevis på att man faktiskt aldrig kan leva sina drömmar då de ligger i deras definition att vara ouppnåeliga. Translation:
Humans are quite formidable in ther way of adapting. Yesterday I was feeling bored so I went to Shinjuku and walked around, did some window shopping in Maruione JR and bought a new Angelic Pretty school bag. When did this become my everyday life? I guess it's just a testament to the fact that you can never acctually live your dreams because they are, by definition, unattainable.

Tokyo, dag två, tankar om...

DK house matsudo:
Maria påstod sig se fram emot mitt bortskämda gnäll om hur trångt och smuttsigt det är att bo i studentkorridor så låt mig dela mina tankar om min nuvarande levnadssituation. Ytan är inredd mycket spartanskt med en säng, en öppen halv garderob (minikyl i andra halvan) och ett skrivbord. Jag har inget trådlöst internett och har ännu inte funnit en LAN kabel. Tills tidigare i eftermiddags har jag sprungit två våningar ner för att gå på toaletten men fann att vi faktiskt har toalett och handfat även på min våning. På ingången till dushrummet finns det en lapp som ombeder gästerna att inte bajsa i dushen. Det finns såvitt jag vet fem till svenskar på boendet.

Tokyo:
Luftfuktigheten tycks bitvis driva Ylva lätt vansinnig men jag tycker inte att det är så illa som jag trott att det skulle vara. Metron är begripligare än jag vågat hoppas på men väldigt dyr och jag har fortfarande inte lyckats förstå vad för slags kort som är bäst och mest ekonomiskt.

Skolan:
Jag har min första skoldag i morgon, med inplaceringstest i Takadanobaba. Jag är sjukt nervös, jag hoppas allt löser sig med skolan eftersom det är det största orosmolnet just nu, om jag bara kan hänga med i lektionernas nivå och tempo så kommer det att bli skönt med lite struktur i vardagen igen. Ylvas schema ser livsfarligt ut och jag har en knut i magen.

Translation: My thoughts after the second day in tokyo.
DK Matsudo house (my home):
My friends where looking forward to hearing my spoiled ass whine about living in a dormitory so here are my thoughts. The room is small, I have no internet, it took me almost two days to find the bathroom on my floor and there is a sign on the shower room door asking guests not to shit in the shower.

Tokyo:
I can handle the heat but the metro passes still confuse me.

School:
Tomorrow is first day of school and I have a placement test, I don't feel redy and I have serious butterflies! If I only can keep up with the class then I think I will be fine but what if I can't?

Livslust

Jag vill....

...springa barfota över svalt gräs, så långt och fort jag kan.
...köpa en stor påse godis och äta så mycket jag orkar.
...känna smaken av tobak i en kyss.
...skrubba knäna och sätta på plåstrena i ett kryss.
...vandra hand i hand med någon jag älskar i ett kyligt London upplyst av stora skyltfönster och julbelysning.
...grilla marshmallows över en öppen eld.
...dansa och sjunga utan hämningar.
...slå kullerbyttor och klättra i träd.
...skratta tills jag får ont i magen.
...sitta på en hästrygg och luta mig framåt, känna doften av hö och damm i den sträva manen.
...kasta upp M&M's i luften och fånga dem i munnen.
...ligga på marken och se himmelen skifta från dag till natt.

Translation:
I want to...

...run barefot over cool grass as far and fast as I can.
...buy a huge bag of candy and eat untill I'm full.
...feel the taste of tobaco in a kiss.
...scrape my knees and put the band aids in an "X".
...walk hand in hand with someone dear to me in a chilly London, late one december night.
...roast marshmallows over an open fire.
...sing and dance like nobodys watching.
...do somersaults and climb trees.
...laugh untill my stomach hurts.
...sit on a horseback and lean over to feel the smell of hay and dust from the rough mane.
...throw M&M's in the air and catch them in my mouth.
...lay on the ground and watch the sky change from day to night.

Welcome morning sun, did you bring me some fun?

Återupptäckte lite gamla skivor när jag rensade ur min garderob, bland annat det mest indy min musiksmak har att erbjuda i form av Ingy. Så indy att de inte finns på youtube, herregud. Känner ni er musikaliskt öppensinnade skulle jag rekomendera Pilot och Barkboat från deras första och enda album Unlikley Heroes. Om ni kan få tag på dem någonstans. Nu ska jag ut i sommaren och spela lite badminton, jag är trött på att klampa runt i garderoben, jag kommer ändå inte på några bra idéer. Jag överväger att färga håret mörkt inför japan, åtminstonde en lite chokladigt brun, det tycks ju alltid finnas en viss självrisk med att vara blond utomlands. Vad säger ni, yay or nay?