by Mayumi-H | May 17, 2015 | From Hell (A Love Story), Uncategorized
I’ve been away from blogger land for a while, but I’m getting better. Thanks to everyone for your emails, messages, and support. It’s meant a lot just to know I’m not alone.
Just a brief update to assure those of my followers who are still with me that I’m not dead.
As friends who follow me on my Twitter and tumblr (warning: some NSFW there) have probably seen, I’ve been writing a lot in recent weeks. I challenged myself to a 30-day writing challenge, where I write a story vignette every day this month, and that has been helping me get back on track with my creative energies, which had dipped to depressing levels. I hadn’t quite realized how much I love writing until I hadn’t been doing it for a while. But, now that I’ve been writing every day again, I’m feeling a lot better about just about everything in my life.
I also “published” – and got the hardcopies for – From Hell (A Love Story), my homoerotic space opera. 
It felt fantastic to hold in my hands a physical representation of my work, even if it was just an experiment in the CreateSpace venue, for a book nobody’s going to read. I still got multiple copies, though I’m not sure why. One I kept, and one went to my friend Carmen McLaughlin, whom I also commissioned to paint the book’s gorgeous cover. I guess I’ll keep the rest for doorstops or something.
I hope to get back to all of you soon. We’re busy at work with Alumni Weekend and Commencement activities, and I have a video series project I’m editing. I should have more time after this month, though. I also won’t have my writing challenge hanging over my head any longer, so maybe I will get into writing something new.
by Mayumi-H | Jan 1, 2015 | Finding Mister Wright, It's My Life, Writing Projects
Apparently, WordPress has monkeys working for them, to calculate my 2014 statistics. That sounds about right, I think.
This was a weird year for me. I wouldn’t want to repeat it, but I definitely learned a lot. The one thing this recap post doesn’t recognize is that I actually did a lot of writing this year. In fact, all of my “Finding Mister Wright” vignettes were written in this year alone! That’s eight little stories, in all!
Thank you to everyone who stayed with me through this year. I won’t name names because that’s not very fair, but please know that I’m grateful for every look, like, and comment you’ve sent my way, because those little gestures have always made me feel not so alone.
I hope to be more productive in the year to come, and I hope that you’ll join me for it!
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
by Mayumi-H | Nov 1, 2014 | It's My Life
Okay, so I didn’t actually go to the Yucatan. But, I did go to Japan recently!
The last time I’d been to Japan was back in 2012. I’d gone with my family and my parents. We wanted to do that again, but my dad passed away earlier this year. Both my mom and I decided it would be a nice way to honor my dad’s memory by making the trip he would have done. And, when you lose someone close to you in your life, you realize that the joys of life shouldn’t be put off. So, off to Japan we went!
I’ve been to Tokyo, but I went to university in New York City and I’ve traveled extensively across the country, and I’ve learned that every big city is pretty much like any other. I much prefer my mom’s quieter hometown of Kyoto.
Kyoto is the old capital of Japan. It was spared bombing during World War II, so there are many castles, shrines, temples, and other historical buildings that were eft intact through the last several centuries. The Japanese people are very aware of their history, and one will, on any given day, find many national tourists flocking to those castles, shrines, and temples. Of course, that doesn’t mean Kyoto is stuck in the past. There are many parts of it that are very modern.
Modernity in Kyoto (the roof of Kyoto Station)
I said, modern. I didn’t say it’s necessarily pretty.
Shrine up the street from our house
As opposed to this quiet little shrine, which was located up the street from our house in Ōtani, just one stone stairway off of a fairly major thoroughfare. The village of Ōtani is located Yamashina ward, essentially a suburb of Kyoto. There isn’t much to do in Ōtani proper, but that’s okay, because it’s always nice to get back to a quiet home base. Plus, we had this view outside our balcony:
Sunrise in Ōtani
For any kind of bustling action, we went first into Yamashina proper, only three stops away on the Keihan Keishin train line. One of the very first nights we were there, in fact, Yamashina had its festival of lights and street vendor fair! You can’t see it very well, but there were lots of people there, from all over Kyoto and the surrounding wards, sampling huge cooked kaki (oysters), takoyaki (fried octopus balls – that’s octopus, vegetables, and eggs fried into little balls, not octopus scrotum), okonomiyaki (vegetable or pork pancake), kara age (fried chicken), “bifu-and-chizu” (beef and cheese), sake, and beer. (Just so you know, drinking alcohol on the street is generally not allowed. Especially not at those prices! This was a special occasion.) Most options were under 300 yen, too, which made for a very nice opportunity to try something different.
Yamashina street fair
Actually a restaurant oyster. But they were this big even at the street fair.
Yamashina is also home to the pancake house (okonomiyaki house?) where we stop for our first night every time we arrive. I don’t know whether their taps are phenomenal or we’re always so relieved to be in Japan after that 11-hour flight, but the Yebisu beer there always tastes like the best beer ever!
One of the best things about Japan is their ultra-reliable public transportation systems. The trains run like clockwork over there. They have to, with billions of passengers using them every single day! Since we were living out in the suburbs, we had an 8-minute walk to our local train stop, where we took the train to Yamashina, or Kyoto Shiyakushomae, or any number of locations. Yeah. We rode a lot of trains. More often than not, as a way to get something to eat. 🙂
The Kintetsu Limited, one of the more luxurious train lines in Japan.
We eat a lot when we’re in Japan. Every stop, eating. Always something different, always something scrumptious. I’m going to be posting a lot of food pictures for the next few weeks as I cover our Japan trip, so if you’d rather be spared all the sumptuous details, you may want to look away for a while. (Like I am, as I keep my head down with this year’s NaNoWriMo project.)
Next time, I’ll talk about undokai, Japanese Health Awareness and Sports Day. Until then, happy writing, happy reading, and happy eating!
by Mayumi-H | Sep 27, 2014 | It's My Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsoQ945fqkY
I came to a hard decision this week. I walked away from someone I’d considered a friend for half my life. But I’d realized: this so-called friend had no idea who I was.
A few weeks ago, this friend- or, rather, this person was telling me about someone in their family who had started to write an epic fantasy story. He’d step away from the table after dinner, my peer informed me, and say, “I haven’t written today, and I need to sit down for a few hours.” I commended that dedication, because it sounded so familiar to me. Upon being questioned regarding his desire to write a story, the young man informed this person that he wanted to become a rich and famous writer. Then, my long-time acquaintance said, “He’s the only person I know who’s ever been really dedicated to writing.”
I have never been struck so speechless as I’d been at that moment.
I couldn’t believe it: here was someone who’d known me since we were basically kids. I’ve been writing stories through that whole time. But because my end goal isn’t to be rich and famous, I didn’t even register on this person’s radar as a writer, or even a storyteller. That’s when I knew: I might have been a friend to this person for all those years – I’d listened to the school and job and relationship trials and lent the sympathetic ear – but they hadn’t been a friend to me. I’d been merely a project to them, a person to mold in similar image. When I’d gone my own path, when I wasn’t interested in being something they could fix, I wasn’t anything to them any longer.
I don’t have a lot of friends. I’ll miss having one I thought was so close. But, I’ve felt a lot of love around me, especially through this past year. Why waste time on someone who doesn’t have my back?
by Mayumi-H | Aug 30, 2014 | Persona 4 Fan Fiction, Uncategorized
Artist unknown
I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster, lately.
Students are back, which makes my work days both easier and more difficult. It’s great to be around that enthusiasm and excitement, especially at the start of a new semester, but they come with a set of headaches, too: technical issues, personal issues, conflicts, conundrums, and an air of chaos that’s been missing during the summer months. I know as soon as they settle into classes, the craziness will die down. I just need to make it that far.
Family-wise, I did some traveling over the summer. Mostly up to the old family homestead, which was fun, but the journey is tiring. Especially when work follows the next day. I’m back to Japan again in October, which I’m definitely looking forward to, though I could do without the minutiae involved in planning three different people’s schedules.
My stories are what truly keep me going day to day. Wednesdays and Thursdays tend to be my best days of the week, because I post new chapters on Wednesdays, and the feedback always gives me a jolt. I’m no longer so insecure that no feedback will make me drop a story mid-stream, but I fully admit seeing a new comment appear in my email inbox gives me a short adrenaline rush. Of course, that doesn’t last, but I go back every day or so to re-read some of the more thoughtful comments and questions to restore my confidence.
The other day, on my commute to work, I passed the painting above. It was just sitting there, alone, on the sidewalk by the station. No name on it, and nobody around. I knew it probably wouldn’t be there on my return walk, so I snapped a photo of it. I’m glad I did. That painting reminds me there are other people out there struggling, many in much greater ways than I am, but some in ways very similar to me. It also reminds me that there are really only four things in any person’s existence that truly matter: learning, laughing, loving, and living. We can all do those, no matter where we are in our lives, our careers, or our relationships.
I’ll keep working, naturally. I’ll keep spending time with my family. And, of course, I’ll keep writing. But when the ups and downs of my rollercoaster days start to wear me down, I’ll do my best to remember what I learned from seeing this painting on the street. Will you do, too?
It felt fantastic to hold in my hands a physical representation of my work, even if it was just an experiment in the CreateSpace venue, for a book nobody’s going to read. I still got multiple copies, though I’m not sure why. One I kept, and one went to my friend Carmen McLaughlin, whom I also commissioned to paint the book’s gorgeous cover. I guess I’ll keep the rest for doorstops or something.
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