Maia Nebula!

Facebook would like to kindly remind me that today is somebody’s birthday. I know that person. We worked together. We didn’t talk much, but still, we added each other on Facebook, because that’s what people do. I’d like to say I’ve watched his life unfold before my eyes, but that isn’t true. He does what he does, sometimes I see pictures of that, and it’s pretty cool. But I’m not one to wish someone else happy birthday just because we worked together for a little while. I mean, it’s weird. Facebook is this huge collection of old acquaintances you don’t care about anymore, but still you’re reminded to wish them happy birthday, even if you won’t write a single word to them for the rest of the year. I’d rather not. I’d feel like such a hypocrite doing that.

The problem with social networks is that they add so many unnecessary people into one’s life. Who do we know? Who do we know for real? Who would we really talk to, given the chance? I’ve had real life friends tell me I must be so popular because of the replies and favorites I get on social networks. But almost none of those exchanges translate into real-life interaction. Besides, I somehow keep getting all these updates on people I’d rather not hear from again.

Life in the 2.0 era is quite lonely. I should’ve finished that story I was writing when I was like 14 years old where everyone was connected to this thriving virtual reality but in real life they all lived isolated in the desert, perpetually seated on comfy chairs in front of desks with big screens. We’re currently isolated in crowded cities, which might be even worse than the desert. Me, the teenage sci-fi prophet. Ha.

At some point this year I took it upon myself to read one page of a book in Japanese every day. We’re still in February, which means not much has been read so far. I’m reading an anthology of short stories by Haruki Murakami. When I finish, or even before that, I want another Murakami book—one with a piece of flash fiction that truly spoke to me the first time I read it, back in Tsukuba. The story’s called 「ドーナツ化」(“Donutification”).

I’m excited about all this reading to come, but at the same time, the slow pace that my unaccustomed brain demands is ennervating. I feel like one of those people who must learn to walk again and it’s super painful and they must do it very slowly, investing all their strength in trying to take one or two clumsy steps. Sometimes I feel that I’m never going to make it, that the universe of any given language is too vast to grasp, that it’s too late for me to try to grasp it. Being a translator is not nice because it makes you aware of all the words you don’t know. And there’s never a time when there’s nothing to look up in the dictionary. Even your native language is too immense to comprehend fully.

Yet, it doesn’t make sense to give up. For once, the story I’m reading is too good to put down—or maybe not so much the story as all the little lights that have started appearing in a space that used to be utter darkness. Words. Images. Printed squiggles set in motion by my mind. It’s an exciting process, actually.

If I manage to keep on, by the end of the year I will have read… a book. Or maybe more. I might pick up speed at some point. The good thing is letting go of the fear and just doing it for the sake of doing it. I’m not at all satisfied with my current level, but I’m satisfied with myself for not giving up.

Many years ago, I was given a tube of lipstick by my mother. I wore it sparingly. The color was perfect for me and I never sought a new one for years. All I needed, whenever I wanted to wear more than just a little makeup, was that berry-colored lipstick.

But alas, all things must come to an end, and my berry-colored lipstick got lost when I moved back from Japan. I never wrote down the reference, so I’ve been looking for that stupid color ever since. I’m not great at distinguishing hues, so based on a few old pictures where I’m wearing it, I’ve collected several tubes of lipstick from different brands that are exactly the same color—the wrong color.

It’s funny to be so obsessed over something that I don’t use so often. Maybe I’m not looking for an old color but for an old self. Ah, who am I kidding, trying to sound all nostalgic. My current self is fabulous, and I just want to play with colors on my face. I cannot, for the life of me, make this sound deeper than it is.

So let’s take this lament for what it’s really worth: trying to find excuses to wear more makeup. It could be fun, so why not. Besides, I have a whole lot of it to use up, and I shouldn’t let it go to waste.

Long silence.

I’m reading a book that’s making me nervous because it had so many bad reviews but I still felt the inexplicable urge to buy it. Now I’m loving it but at the same time I’m fearing the arrival of the moment I’ve been warned about by countless strangers—the moment when the book becomes as annoying and fake and unreadable as they say. But no, not yet, not at all.

So yeah, I’m back in long form. Or at least I hope I am. I’ve spent months and months and months believing I have nothing to say, convinced that nothing ever happens in my life. I’m back here because I got tired of watching people’s carefully curated lives, endless strands of thirty-something-year-old smug glamour I just cannot identify with. I’d been so enthralled by this world of instant gratification that I neglected one of my all-time favorite pastimes: reading books. It’s important to say “books” after “reading” because nowadays it’s easy to spend your whole day reading clickbait and tweets and Facebook posts. But it’s sort of like stuffing yourself with junk food and then feeling like crap and wondering why because you thought you were satisfying your hunger but of course there was nothing nutritious in all those mouthfuls of sugar-salt-and-oil and if you go on like that you are going to end up really sick. So I feel like I’ve stuffed my brain with junk information for far too long and I can’t take it anymore.

In light of this problem, it becomes obvious that books are sure more fulfilling than pictures of dinner parties and clever little puns.

(By the way, progress in reading books is beautiful, isn’t it? Watching the bookmark bite further into the pages. I like to stop reading for a while and just observe the thickness of the pages I’ve already left behind. )

The other reason that was keeping me away from here was the fear of sounding too boastful and becoming like all those people out there whose edited lives are made to be the stuff of envy. Which is stupid, now that think about it, as I’ve just said that I felt nothing ever happened to me. So what the hell would I be boasting about. Anyway, I was scared of becoming another pile of clickable Internet crap on top of the mountains upon mountains of crap that are already out there. But then again, am I promoting this content? Am I looking after clicks and views and likes and soaring statistics? Of course not. After all, I’m pretty much the only person who reads this.

Perhaps acknowledging my disinterest in improving my social life has influenced my decision to return to blogging and books. I’ve never been popular and never will be. People who meet me once seldom wish to meet me twice. That makes for a lot of free time. So, once again, here I am.