Happy 2013!

I’ve been quiet here for a while, I know – voice changing, priorities changing – but I come now with overdue film and finally some free time. This was my December, part of it; we went to Yufuin and pretty much ate everything they had. We left famine in our wake. We razed the fields bare. We rolled out of town – literally rolled – like chocolate roll cakes from expensive bakeries, with a seam of rich chocolate pudding in the centre. I now look much like a chocolate roll cake. You can imagine my dismay.

(Sometimes I suspect that the quality most important to me in a friend is the ability to eat. If someone can’t get excited about fresh figs or Italian hazelnut honey or pink rose petal jam with me, I’m just not sure we’re gonna have much to talk about.)

I’ve travelled around Japan quite a lot in the last couple of months, and one thing I’ve realized is that it’s time for me to leave Nagasaki. Which is not to say that I don’t love Nagasaki – but my restlessness is creeping up again, and although giving up a well-paid job – that I’m good at; with a great flat; with a settled life – kiiind of seems like a stupid thing to do… sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m twenty-two, and I don’t know that I actually want a settled life. Not now, anyway, possibly not ever. Maybe I want to live in a shoebox in the big city, channeling Holly Golightly with my ginger cat, finding the most ridiculous and unlikely jobs I can and, you know… doing stupid things. My contract here doesn’t end until the summer, but after that, there’s gonna be something new.

I hope the year brings you something new too.