2: cats, lots of cats (one will not do)

one of things i fell in love with in japan is kitty mangas-monthly magazines devoted to 4-column (mostly) comic strips of kitties and their pet human. there are so many publications of the same type of magazine it’s hard to stop myself from buying them all. but luckily for me, i have a few favourite titles so with a little self control, i can pick out the one i want and escape from the bookshop. i already have a shelf full of them, which means a shelf full of kitty reference.

this is the lineart for item 2: cats (lots of cats, one will not do). i initially started designing for a wall paper but ended up with a tree instead. it’s been coloured digitally but i’ll keep that for a little later. hurray for kitties!

edit: and this is the coloured version.

 

and the jouney begins

i’ve been destination-less for the longest time, content, or at least resigned to taking a step at a time. but somehow, somewhere, something in a distance is taking the shape of what he would prefer to call a goal, though i am just happy to call it a wuzzy fuzzy dream. with me, things change despite my best efforts to stay on track, so yes, i can’t help but feel a little frightened.

but it’s also true that i’m feeling more inspired and secure than ever before.

i think i’m finally ready to rest the life of the fool and make some magic.

erm, but maybe a bit of the fool will always remain in me. (笑）

 

a post full of colours

pictures from the design festa* gotta love the things they wear.

i couldn’t resist the namecards. i mean who can resist pandas with twinkly eyes and pigs in briefs. aliceandthecat.com if you are interested. oh, and he’s not the artist but the agent. and italian too. but for a split second, when the flashes of cameras that suddenly appeared behind me went off, he broke into a j-worthy pose.

gotta love the things they wear part II. the cutie with the blonde hair and big white bow is a HE! he knew that i knew and was looking away, all uncomfortable, the whole time. how kawaii <3 love the CD hat too. and lots of bondage-animal sightings.

too cute. what more can i say!

one of my favourite installations. for the sake of art, she was stuck there in that awkward sitting position pretending to read a book under really dim orange light. and all i can think of is pins and needles. ouch.

another nice booth and installation with cool models thrown in for good measure: the ever photogenic cynthia,

and meriel and jason. i love their spontaneity! the picture would have been so blah without them.

it was a good weekend trip despite having been on an energy low for the past week. i met up with my ex-housemate, her hubby and sister too. if there’s one thing i’m blessed with, it is that i’m surrounded by really kind people. there are lots of things that i’m leaving unwritten, but i just want to say that i’m always counting my blessings.

and now, to break out of this inertia i have been feeling for so long.

 

kabutomushi

been listening to aiko. this is quite an old song, but one of my favourites.

悩んでる身体が熱くて 指先は凍える程冷たい
「どうした はやく言ってしまえ」 そう言われてもあたしは弱い
あなたが死んでしまって あたしもどんどん年老いて
想像つかないくらいよ そう 今が何より大切で…

スピード落としたメリーゴーランド 白馬のたてがみが揺れる

少し背の高いあなたの耳に寄せたおでこ
甘い匂いに誘われたあたしはかぶとむし
流れ星ながれる 苦しうれし胸の痛み
生涯忘れることはないでしょう
生涯忘れることはないでしょう

鼻先をくすぐる春 リンと立つのは空の青い夏
袖を風が過ぎるは秋中 そう 気が付けば真横を通る冬
強い悲しいこと全部 心に残ってしまうとしたら
それもあなたと過ごしたしるし そう 幸せに思えるだろう

息を止めて見つめる先には長いまつげが揺れてる

少し癖のあるあなたの声 耳を傾け
深い安らぎ酔いしれるあたしはかぶとむし
琥珀の弓張り月 息切れすら覚える鼓動
生涯忘れることはないでしょう
生涯忘れることはないでしょう

 

and the spider comes ploping down from the ceiling

if our souls lived outside of our bodies, mine had better not be a spider. i could definitely try to see the beauty of a spider-at least from a distance-but it would literally make it quite difficult to live with myself.

i just finished Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. i love The Golden Compass, the first volume of the series, but the other two didn’t quite do it for me.

in the world of The Golden Compass, the soul lives outside the body in the shape of an animal or a bird or an insect, you know, spiders, flies, bees, spiders… and they are called daemons. of course, there are many different worlds, and in a boring world like ours, we are still unable to see the animal, or insect, in us. well, at least that makes for better classroom management. i wouldn’t want to deal with 40 students and a zoo.

anyway, The Golden Compass has been made into a movie and the site is really pretty. there is a section where you can go find yourself a daemon. i can’t embed the flash file on this site so the picture should do.

 

of balloons, pink men in roller skates, and clouds of shu cream

i promise myself a new printer/scanner when it is over, as a consolation for all the worrying i had unwittingly put myself through. i worry over the silliest things really. i guess i have always been that girl in the corner of the room, stressing and spacing out at the same time. then it dawned upon me that i’m actually a creative and imaginative individual. after all, it takes a serious amount of imagination to be as paranoid as i am.

according to a personality test from a japanese magazine, i am also masochistic. couple that with my blood type, i have now acquired a spanking new label that i can potentially be proud of. henceforth, let it be known that i am an OM, among all other things. personality typing based on your blood type is of course a cute thing japanese people do. but adding that information with your pain affliction preference is nothing short of japanese ingenuity. half the magazine is filled with information from which blood type is most prone to wearing revealing clothing to the compatibility of you and your boyfriend based on both your blood types and whether if he is the only child, has 1 sibling, or lives in a brood; and the other half of the magazine packed with useful advertisements for breast enhancement surgeries and more. what more could i possibly need to know in life?

i wasn’t really joking when i mentioned before that i think in balloons. there is a whole lot of nothing much in my mind all threatening to pop at the same time. and japanese tv isn’t helping me at all. just a few days ago, i was watching this man in pink-satin pyjamas with the same pink satin material wrapped round his forehead complete with a really puffy ribbon finish rolling-skating and singing an 80s hit pop song with a group of similarly clad roller-skating background dancers. i would have asked someone to save me except that i was moved to the point of sharing the nostalgia felt by those watching the performance. never mind that i knew neither the pink roller skating singer nor the very nice song he was singing.

so while i am trying very hard to let the excess air out of my head, i don’t quite mind this strange change in me.

だれを待っていたのだろう。
何を待っていたのだろう。
何のために、あんなに一途になっていたのだろう。
そしてオレはこれから、なにをすればいいのだろう
水色男は、ぼんやりしてしまった。

水色男は、考えるのがめんどくさくなった。
雲がふわふわしているので、シュークリームのようだった。
シュークリームの空気がぬけたようだった。
水色男は嬉しくなった。
椅子からぽんと、飛んでみた。
水色男はシュークリームの中にいた。
シュークリームの中にうかんでいるようだった。
うれしかった。
自分を素敵だと思った。–銀色夏生

 

oops i wrote THAT again >_<

saw quite a few embarrassing typo errors in my previous posts *blush*(if you caught THAT one, i swear it wasn’t freudian). sometimes i can be the worst proof reader ever. it’s not particularly in my nature to pay attention to details. i can make an effort to be extra careful, when the need calls. but under normal circumstances, i’m … easily distracted. i’m just so glad i didn’t try to pursue a career in editing, which i nearly did. it’d have been a quite a spectacular disaster.

i’ve been mulling over some things recently. but reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, it’s still about me feeling incompetent. but at least now i understand why i’d had those angry dreams when there was really nothing to be angry about then. and why i constantly sleep-talk, or more accurately sleep-scream. i think i’ve come a fair distance in overcoming my own hyper-sensitive nature and pent-up anger but there’s still more to learn. peace is not just an outward show of grace or serenity, nor is it attained by hiding away in a safe place where i’d be left unchallenged.

everything takes time. and when i stop heaping rocks on myself, i might be able to float just fine.

 

the said pants

and she made this herself! isn’t it amazing? my fabric is kinda brownish with blue threads running through it. jay bought two. a dark-grey-good-for-all-occasions piece, and a very japanese-dark-blue-hakama-lookalike one with subtle white stripes. nozomi’s was a really soft beige colour, perfect for tie pants.

i wish i knew where to start when it comes to being crafty and all. but according to the random wisdom that gmail sometimes generates, the very apt advice of this morning went something like “the best way to do something, is to do it.”

on another note, i think i am pretty much in a どうでもいい phase right now. i can only do what i can do, as best as i know how. and since the rest is really not within my control, i shouldn’t need to worry about it.

the photo above is courtesy of inas. you can see more of her works at rebites.blogspot.com