Workaholic Hostess

Mom's cats

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:03:51 +0900

Doesn't he look like he's got dumplings for hands? That's why I call Osamu Mr. Manju Hands.

These two don't get along for some reason. They're sharing my bed right here, but notice they have their backs turned. They'd be lonely without each other though.

Noribaby

Here's Little Miss Dumpling herself, noribaby. She's got an attitude problem, but she's so cute.

Lap-kitty

And another shot of Sam on my lap. I'm noticing that I wear that stripy shirt a lot lately.

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Garden, Cats at my Second Oldest Aunt's

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:45:06 +0900

My mother and my aunts all love gardening and cats. Maybe they're witches?

My second oldest aunt's got a crazy garden. I think the soil around her house is super fertile because she'll put things out for compost, and next thing you know it's taken root and is growing. I was delighted to find some beets growing.

Beet-growing

Unfortunately, when I dug it up, it was really tiny, and it didn't taste as good as the ones from the store.

Tiny-Beet

These tomatoes were really good. They were a deep wine color when you cut them, and they were so yummy. Forget those watery, store-bought tomatoes.

Brandy-Tomatoes

My aunt sells clothes, bags, accessories and stuff at shows all over the west coast. Here are some of the bags.

Silk-bags

Pouches

She designs them and works with a seamstress to make them. Before a show (usually on the wekend), she's going crazy and her stuff is all over the house.

Here's her new kitten Jiji, sitting in front of some of her designs.

Jiji

This guy's name is Ikkyu. He is missing one of his back legs, so he pulls himself around a lot. When he wants to, he can run pretty fast though.

Ikkyu

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the felines

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:48:05 +0900

This is Osamu. He's only 12 years old, but I think he's dying. He's lost a lot of weight, his fur has lost its glossiness, and he throws up almost every day. When I pick him up he feels like paper. But he's still got the handsomest little face, and he's as friendly as he's always been. He's colored like baked bread and his little head always smells like sunshine. He lives at my mother's house, and I miss him.

Samkins

This is Nori. She lives with Sam at my mother's house. She's chubby and stubby and even though she's only two years younger than samsonite, she still acts like a little baby.

Norinori

This one is Seiji. He belongs to my little sister and he lives in my dad's house right now. He's a young man, he's rough and tough and loves to attack things.

Seijikat

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lemons, seafood, dark hair

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:30:01 +0900

Here's the lemon tree.

Lemontree

*****

Hung out with our good friend Kosuke, his sister Yuka and their dad last night.

I'm not lying, Kosuke has a brother named Keisuke, and they even had a dog named Mosuke. Enough with the -suke already!

Kosuke and my twin sister went to college together and they're weird best friends. Since Kosuke was the youngest when his family moved to America from Japan (he was six or seven), he's the most American. The oldest brother Keisuke moved back to Japan right after graduating university (just like me!), and is still there. Yuka is in the middle, and being a woman, I guess she finds America more comfortable.

Their dad now works in Ohio, and he was in town visiting Kosuke and Yuka-chan. He offered to take me and my twin sister out for dinner in Monterey Park, which is the Chinese part of town. It also happens to be where we went to high school, strangely enough. There were like five Japanese people, a few mixed race peeps, and the rest were Taiwanese. My best friend was from Hong Kong and we bonded over our inability to speak Mandarin.

Anyway look at all this food! It was really good. Their dad said that because he lives in Ohio, he really misses good sea food. He went crazy over the clams. I drank too much shokoshu and couldn't sleep very well. I used to love that stuff! I guess I still do.

Seafood

Plus I had a tea leaf standing up, which is good luck.

Goodluck

*****

Had my hair fixed by my dad's friend Leila too. She dyed it dark again and then put red streaks in it. She said the color will fade and get bright red later. I feel more like myself with dark hair again.

Darkcat

Leila was a pretty blond woman with a British accent. She was thin with sad eyes. She really reminded me of my step-grandmother (who is also a blonde british woman who married my Eastern European immigrant grandpa when he moved to London from his native New York). When my dad came to pick me up, Leila had an intense discussion with him. She was telling him all her problems and he was listening again. Everyone just loves to talk to my dad about their problems, and he always listens.

I couldn't tell, but Leila was a quarter Chinese, and she grewup in a Chinese takeaway in Brighton. Who would have thought?

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awake with seiji

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:23:09 +0900

So right now I'm wide awake. I'm as wide awake as Seiji (the cat).

Seiji was a wild thing when my little sister adopted him a year or two ago. I think she adopted him because she didn't want to live with my dad anymore, but she didn't want my dad to be all alone.

Anyway, Seiji turned out to be wild. He couldn't hold himself back from attacking everyone, and my sister and dad had to constantly discipline him. I swear my little sister would sometimes sit on him. He was really attached to his little babies though, and he'd chew on his little Turtley's head all the time. The bath tub was his comfort area, and he used to pick up Turtley and keep him in the bath tub. They eventually started giving Seiji medication to keep him from going out of his mind.

Now Seiji is a house kitty. I'm shocked at how calm he is. He'll just sleep all day. At night he seems a little restless and his pupils are huge and he twitches at every little sound. But he won't move from his favorite night time spot. I swear if I go out to check right now he'll still be sitting there. He fits into our little household much more nicely now, and he does seem to enjoy NOT pissing everyone off. But I feel a little sad because we took his wildness away.

*****

I promise that tomorrow, I will start getting on with the rest of my life. I have some very very very clear dreams and goals. Working as a hostess in Roppongi was NOT getting me any closer to those dreams and goals.

Sometimes I feel kind of ashamed because I let my life get to be such a mess. Coming back to America is like coming back to a big pile of dirty dishes. I just want to close the kitchen door and never cook again. My US taxes are such a mess, I'm scared that once I try to sort it all out I'll get audited or something. But without proper tax returns, I'll never get any financial aid for university. Without financial aid, I won't ever be able to pay for grad school. Which won't happen anyway if I don't actually get the applications done. And if I hadn't let my driver's license expire, I wouldn't be in the mess I am right now. If I was on top of my credit card payments, my credit wouldn't have gone to crap and my credit cards wouldn't have gotten cancelled. If I hadn't had my wallet stolen I might still remember where I had a US bank account. God knows what money I have in there anyway, if any.

And yes, I am this much of a mess.

No wonder I just want to sit in a corner with Seiji.

*****

America is so big. Los Angeles is so big. the sky is endless. The streets go on forever. There's so much space here, nobody even cares. The gutters are so huge, a person could fall in if they tried. People shout and scream and laugh out loud and their voices just get lost. Maybe that's why Americans are so big, because they want to fill in the empty space around them.

Maybe that's why Chinese people are big too. Things get tall on vast continents. When you're on a cramped island, your whole world is limited, including your growth.

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^ ^

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:57:27 +0900

Dancer Girl sent me a quick update. Things haven't really changed much back in Roppongi. It's like a timeless vortex.

My dad went through a hair-dresser phase (where he dated/was interested in dating hair-dressers), so he asked me if I wanted one of his friends to fix my hair color. I said yeah, so I'm going to see his friend Leila on Sunday. I asked my dad if she's aware that my hair is actually a disaster. He said she'll be fine.

I need to stop lazing around all day. All I do is avoid my big fat list of shit I have to do (open a bank account, get my driver's license or at least a California ID, sort out my taxes, see if I can get a credit card, basically immigrate back into America). Instead I take pictures of the cat and sleep next to him. My sister wants me to transcribe some interviews for her because she's busy/lazy, and my dad wants me to go down to Tijuana to get my teeth fixed. And I should go visit my mother (she lives up north).

Lots of things to do, but I just want to sleep with the kitty...

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Rejection, Mama's failed marriage

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:44:10 +0900

I finally broke down and contacted a whole bunch of customers. Mama guilted me into it. "You haven't written down any customers names," she said, waving the notebook around (we have to write down all the customers we contact in this big notebook). I didn't contact Totoro because I feel bad for ignoring his calls.

I got two rejection texts already. Rejection means "I'm not wasting my time or money on you." I'm just sick of this constant rejection of ME. When I'm on a working roll it doesn't bother me, rejection is part of the job. But today I just felt like a weight was on my heart.

Something worse might happen though. Some of the other customers who haven't just ignored or rejected me MIGHT ACTUALLY COME.

*****

Mama talked about her one failed marriage early in life. Her husband was a little prince and he didn't make a whole lot of money. But he had to have the best of everything for himself -- imported suits, expensive steaks, you name it. She worked in an office to help pay for his expensive tastes and spent three hours every night cooking his dinner and a whole bunch of otsumami (little snacks) because he loved to nibble on things when he drank. And he loved to drink. She said she was exhausted at night when he finally finished enjoying all the food she cooked and all the beer she served, and she'd fall asleep during sex.

Then he cheated on her. He cheated because he was probably not exactly sexually fulfilled at home.

She felt so betrayed and she couldn't forgive him, and they divorced.

Then she started working as a hostess and adopting every stray cat she saw. She was barely 25. The rest is history.

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unmotivated

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:24:47 +0900

I'm sitting here getting ready for work and getting all made up and stuff while it's raining and thundering outside. I don't know why I'm even bothering. It's pouring rain and it's Monday. Nobody's coming to our ghetto club. I could go with my glasses on and my hair sticking up.

I'm not going to wear foundation. That's my one little act of rebellion.

Whoa, it's really thundering outside.

I'm quitting soon + rain + Monday = a very unmotivated hostess

Here's one of my mother's cats. She's kind of fat and timid

nori-chan

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Good morning!

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:21:45 +0900

Just cuz he's so cute

Sam

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Squished Kitty

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:07:25 +0900

Using Photo Booth. He was not amused...

SquishSmall

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