the pen is mightier than the keyboard

A friend sent me a bookmark today, a real flower with five loose petals. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...you get the picture. It was sweet and slightly goofy. I like it. It came with a birthday card (I haven't mailed hers so we're about on par) and in an envelope made out of a map of Denver (which is where she lives).

I'm expecting a postcard soon from Ireland. I'm kinda hoping it has pictures on it, but not holding my breath as the sender was in a big hurry getting organised to leave for home. I'm really just wishing for art because he sent me another letter one time that was, letter and envelope, a fun, arty little one-off.

There's a guy I adored in high school ~ first love and all that. I still have every note he wrote me in class. Every five years or so I get nostalgic and read them. Most are completely random and very high school, but they're in his handwriting and although I left him behind a long time ago, I have no desire to throw the notes away. Too much lovely history in their small, folded pages. I don't have the one letter he wrote me (I suspect my mother found it!) O_O!

Handmade, hand-written, hand drawn. I light up when I get an email from someone I love or miss, but even if I print it out, it's not the paper they touched, penned, shaded. I think this holiday season the e-card is out. I'm sitting down with the big pile of blankness and writing some love.

i rock. yes i do.

My mother likes bright colours, so when I send her flowers I tend to ask for gerbers and that kind of flower. They're so vivid and happy-looking. But this birthday I decided I'd done the gerber thing to death, so I asked them to send her roses in various colours, none pale. Apparently the florist outdid herself, because Mum has spoken to me three times now about how beautiful they are. One variety is one colour in the middle and another on the tips, and got more beautiful as it opened. As soon as my mum figures out how to use her new digital camera and sends me pictures, I'll post one for you.

Then the package arrived. In it was a book she had told me about maybe six weeks ago. She'd wanted it, but it wasn't readily available in Australia. I said I'd look into it and then promptly pretended to forget all about it. She conveniently did forget about it, until she found it in her mailbox yesterday morning.

Part of the conversation:

Mum: Thanks! I'll love you forever!
Chosha: Was that not on the cards before the book arrived?
Mum: Oh, you know what I mean...

Yes Mum, I do know what you mean. That I rock!!! Woohoo! Sorry I have to end this post and go bask in my own glory now. :)

(PS...and what book had her in such paroxisms of estasy? No, I'm not kidding. My mum is so cute.)

mr genki

New boarder arrived last night and he's adorable. For the non-Japanophiles reading, genki means energetic, in a loose 'how are you?' 'I'm good. I'm genki. Let's go!' kind of way.

Mr genki is 20, plays bass guitar in an indies band in Nagoya and is here for three weeks to study English. He has a very sweet enthusiam about him and has already asked a hundred questions.

He even brought me the coolest omiage (technical souvenirs, but actually more in the line of a 'thanks for having me stay' present). I wanted to show you, but I can't find the cable that connects my camera (well technically my mum's camera, mine died) to the computer. I might post the photo later. There was a calendar, a keitai (mobile) strap, a pretty pink hanky and his mother sent me two little dolls for hinamatsuri, which is the first week of March. But I have to put them away before March 4 ends, or tradition has it that I won't get married before the next hinamatsuri. And we can't have that.

a small box of deep despair

...was waiting in my mailbox when I got back to Canberra today.

Now don't get me wrong. I will be reading The Rape of Nanking and Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia. I just won't be reading them in the same week...lest I off myself.

I'm guessing these are not the books Bob Thiele and George David Weiss were reading the week they penned:

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

but I may need to listen to that song afterwards just to remind myself that there is also beauty in the world.

Edit: Okay help me out people. I just had such a vivid flashback of that line, "there is also beauty in the world." Can anyone tell me which movie I'm deja vu-ing? Google is being uncooperative.

PS...thanks for the books jojo. ^_~