Japan

After settling down in our new home and inaugurating it with Joe's drunken antics, I left for Japan again. I got back on Sunday and it is only through miracles that my schedule is not a hot mess. For the past two nights, I've become unfunctionally sleepy around 8PM, make it to about 10PM, and then fall asleep until my phone alarm goes off around 7:15 the next morning. To be jetlagged for me is to live on a normal schedule. Who knew mornings could be so useful?

I love Japan so much. Sometimes I think that I can live without going to Japan for a while, especially with my own home here in Chicago. But then I talk to my grandma until the sun is about to come up (this is an easy accomplishment when your grandmother is mine), I blend in with everyone else everywhere, I take the JR and subway trains, I buy Japanese clothes, I use Japanese cosmetics, and I nearly cry tears of joy when I eat Toraya sweets or Katsuretsuan's katsu bento, and I realize that I can't live without going to Japan at least once a year. I used to try to think of ways to find some way to partially work in Japan so I can come up with a legitimate excuse to be there frequently, but I've given up on trying to create a reason because I already have them. Just as much as Chicago is my life, Yokohama is my life too!

I brought my Rebel and G9 with me to Japan, but I made very little use of them. Instead, I used my iPhone to take pictures. Since Apple updated the camera, the pictures are not as shameful as they used to be. I'm going to try to update with some of those photos, and maybe I'll throw in some May photos as well.

House

Mordecai and I moved into our house this past weekend. I'm wary of my enthusiasm; I'm afraid that it'll dissipate once I realize how much actual work is required of owning a single family home (rather than for instance a condo). But I'm hopeful. As part of my excitement (and general envy of tumblr-ers), I started a tumblr that features unedited iPhone photos and minimal text about the house:  keipophouse.tumblr.com

I'll be back here though with non-house related posts, and better pictures that are sized just the way I want them. Werd.

I guess I didn't get the memo

There is so much I want to post: Japan, nails, shopping, iPhone 4, moving...and more Japan. There's never enough about Japan. But all I can offer to the Internet right now are some photos from my recent quick trip to Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.

Needless to say, it was hot. After nearly dying in the heat from walking around their garden for like, five minutes, here I am inside the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas with a Jeff Koons piece. The guard could tell I wanted a picture of it, so he kindly offered to take one of me with it. Thank you, kind guard!

My grandmother invited me to go to Dallas with her for the weekend. One of the things she wanted to do was to see Idina Menzel, who was set to perform with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. My aunt is the assistant conductor there (her left arm is in the picture below behind Idina Menzel), so she hooked it up with 6th row tickets. And by Idina Menzel, I mean, RACHEL BERRY'S BIRTH MOTHER. Here are some Dallasian (?) ladies, all dressed up to go to the symphony! This was quite a different crowd from my previous night at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Idina Menzel is so lovely, so humble, so beautiful in person. I didn't recognize some of her earlier Broadway songs, but she sang Glee songs--"Funny," "Poker Face," and "Defying Gravity." She also sang a lovely lullaby she made up for her son, Walker. My aunt continued the stellar hook-up with a backstage greeting and photo! I will keep the photo to myself because I look way too giddy in it. I mean, this is Rachel Berry's mother, everyone. I met Rachel Berry's mother. She made out with Mr. Shuester. She sang "Poker Face" with Rachel. WTF? My life is too sweet.

The first night, we stayed at the Ritz Carlton (a.k.a. Ritz Carleton Popperstein). That was the good life; I was most impressed by their bathroom and breakfast. The second night, a family friend, Teddy, generously let us stay at his house in Fort Worth. It was basically an upgrade from the Ritz (surround sound in every room, including bathrooms?), and I made breakfast with his fresh ingredients and top-of-the-line cookware. There was even a Totoro coffee cup!

Teddy lives down the street from Fort Worth's Museum of Modern Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. I like to think that he's neighbors with Ando Tadao and Louis Kahn. I love Ando's buildings. Here is a famous Anselm Kiefer piece in its own Ando enclave.

After cycling 63 miles (!!!) in Italy, Texas (last week he rode in Dublin, Texas, lol) Teddy took us to Fort Worth's stockyard district. Our trip would have been so dull without him. He took us to a delicious burger joint, and one store that had amazing cowboy boots. Like, the Chanel of cowboy boots. You can custom pick your leather; I liked the purple ridgeback alligator and turquoise stingray leathers (above; blurry closeup of the bubble-y side here).

Though I absolutely enjoy and appreciate visiting other parts of the country, it just makes me love Chicago more. I'm so glad to be back, and not in insane heat all the time. The one place that will probably never have that kind of effect on me though is Yokohama. There are so many Japan photos to sift through; I haven't even finished uploading them onto Flickr. But hopefully some more of those are coming up next! See you all here in like, three weeks, unless I run into Miguel Cabrera again. lol.

My Miggy Moment

On Tuesday night, Mordecai and I attended the White Sox game. The promotion was a "Hawkisms" t-shirt to honor White Sox announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson. If you've never heard Hawk call a game, I suggest you tune in. His overt bias towards the White Sox is amusing, if not entirely endearing. This anti-Hawk site is actually really informative; it even has audio clips of the Hawkisms that are on the back of my new t-shirt. The Sox were also scheduled to play the Tigers, so Mordecai and I got tickets kind of spontaneously. Little did I know, not only would I get my awesome t-shirt, but I'd experience one of the greatest moments of my life. Read on!

I was anxious to get to U.S. Cellular Field early to secure our Hawkisms t-shirt (only 10,000 of them!). It had been raining all day, too, so I was afraid that the game would be postponed as well as the t-shirt giveaway. We were like, 20 boxes of Hawkism t-shirts away from not getting one. I saw Tigers fans using it to wipe their wet seats. Anyway, we got to the park around 5:30PM for a 7:10PM game. We were wandering around the 500 sections, upper deck, looking for food, when we remembered hearing about a new Wow Bao concession stand. Mordecai decided to ask Guest Relations since our memory kicked in right in front of their booth. They knew about Wow Bao and recommended Burger Barn as well, and they gave us an elevator pass to the field-level area. 

When we got down there, I noticed that no one was checking tickets for people who wanted to linger near the White Sox or Tigers dugouts. I remember Mordecai asking me if I wanted to go, and I said, "...nah, it's OK." But there weren't a lot of people, so I was like why not, and we trotted down to the front row seats. There were about ten other young boys dressed in navy and orange, waiting for Tigers players with baseballs, autograph books, and Sharpies in hand. No one was out in the field except for crew members pulling the tarp off of the field. But then I noticed a Jose Valverde-like person at the opposite end of the dugout, listening to music on earphones, all "in the zone." 

Then I saw catcher Alex Avila look out on the field briefly before going back into the dungeon.

Before I could start thinking about how long I'd have to stand around until someone from the Tigers hitting well below .200 or with an embarrassing ERA equivalent to my perceived or actual age would come around, my peripheral vision sensed movement from the White Sox dugout. It was none other than MIGUEL CABRERA. My most favorite baseball player was walking towards me (or his dugout) and he was smiling (or laughing at Valverde). 

Once he saw us asking for autographs, he stopped smiling. But he diligently signed baseballs, autograph books, and my card. When I was in Japan recently, I carried his and Felix Hernandez's card with me in my purse every day for two weeks. I almost brought my 2010 Finest red refractor of Miggy to the game, which I recently got in the mail, but I made a last minute switch and brought one of my favorites, Miggy's 2008 Stadium Club base card. I have many Miggy relic cards (jersey swatches and morsels of bats), but I don't have any autographed cards. This is my first one!

Mordecai kept egging me on to say something. What does a mere commoner like myself say to THE LORD MIGGY? Especially an idiot commoner decked out in White Sox gear? (I had briefly contemplated stacking my White Sox and Tigers hats to the game. For Mordecai's sake, I decided against it.) I had nothing to say except that I was totally starstruck, shaking, and fearful. When you're in the presence of someone you admire so much that you don't even think to soil their presence with your own pathetic existence, you tremble. Tremble I did, but mixed with a kind of rare, pure elation.

I believe it was Ryan Raburn who had also emerged from somewhere by the time Miggy signed my card, and then they started walking to their dugout. Mordecai said Miggy didn't sign very much after my card. On the way down the stairs, they stopped and started pointing at Valverde, laughing and making jokes (above). Then they disappeared. We went to Burger Barn, decided against Wow Bao, and returned the elevator pass to Guest Relations.

I AM SO BLESSED.

Japanese Food: Sweets

Haagen-Dazs's crispy ice cream sandwiches are now a little smaller and a little cheaper. I didn't buy any this time, but I liked the sign at Seven-Eleven.

Melon pan from Seven Eleven.

We went to "Sweets Paradise," an all-you-can-eat-in-80-minutes restaurant in the new Sakuragicho shopping center, Colette Maré. They mostly serve desserts, but they also had Japanese curry rice and various kinds of pasta. This green tea cheesecake was the best.  

These are donuts from Cafe Andoland, the fancier cousin to Mister Donut. That's a cassis-orange donut in front and a lemon tea n the back. Even the ice tea tastes better here.

I hear you call my name and it feels like home

I'm in Japan right now, also known as Heaven or The Future.

My mom and I are determined to find out who those two sumo wrestlers are; right now the only thing we know is that they train at Kasugayama-beya in Kawasaki. They're probably of meager ranks now, but FUTURE BEASTS. All of the sumo wrestlers remind me of Totoro. I want to take one home and let it live under a tree or down a path of bushes and grow plants with them at night.

In all seriousness though, sumo wrestling was so much fun and wonderful. Hakuho is holy. Kotooshu is handsome. Baruto...looks like someone you'd run into on Milwaukee north of Diversey. It's a beautiful, old sport, and I want to see them all again and again.

Happy Friday

Today I had one of my sections observed by faculty. Each semester, observation day causes me great anxiety despite the fact that things usually go fine, if not quite well. I was so happy when everything was over. My afternoon nap was very pleasant.

I picked up Mordecai after work and we went to the Grandstand. I wanted a Marlins hat, and since they have a wall of all sorts of hats, we thought there might be some selection, but I guess the one I want is only available on the New Era site. I noticed a nice seafoam green-ish White Sox hat that I'm eyeing now, too. Wanty, wanty.

The Grandstand is just west of U.S. Cellular Field on 35th Street.

Giant White Sox Lubie!

We were heading to Taqueria El Milagro in Pilsen but then we saw a bright green roof and red and yellow parasols. This could only mean: White Sox-approved Vienna beef hot dogs!

Read more »

Tu me manques

Walking towards the Seminary Co-op to get a book by Foucault that is difficult to find elsewhere in the city, I overheard a young man talk excitedly to his friend about an "altered reality." I thought to myself, Yes, I'm back in Hyde Park. As they walked past me, I wanted to smile and cringe at once.

After buying my book, I voluntarily entered the Regenstein, claimed a study space in the bookstacks, and got some much-needed work done. That I can get work done better at the Regenstein than anywhere else in the world also makes me want to smile and cringe at once.

Weekend Recap

This past weekend, I painted my nails a robin egg, turquoise-ish color. It matches my blog!

I picked up my macarons from Provenance. They're expensive! Four for $6.99. But they were good, and they were hearty, well-filled macarons.

The cassis did not disappoint.

And even though it was Easter, Mordecai made latkes at my mother's request. We didn't have them during the holidays. Real talk: latkes should be year-round foods, anyway.

OPENING DAY! BASEBALL IS HERE! We had to go to the gym to watch some of the Yankees vs. Red Sox game last night on ESPN2. Today I have been following and listening to games with the MLB At Bat app on the iPhone. This means that fantasy has also started. I'm still getting used to the rhythm of daily leagues; I have a feeling I'm going to be a little busy this season. I haven't even started on my team collages!!! The White Sox had a good outing, and some of my Rockies were busy with their bats, so here is a shot of my new Rockies hat on top of my White Sox hat. I should've been wearing my Tigers hat, to represent their imminent victory. All I need is a Marlins hat to represent my undying devotion to JORGE CANTU. I'm probably the only Cantu fan in the country outside of Florida. YEAH JORGIE!

Gratuitous Photo Friday

There isn't a whole lot of Beni-ness to my hair anymore, but as long as my head doesn't get all mushroom-like, that's OK.

It's been really warm the past couple of days in Chicago. Mordecai had the day off today and I finished teaching at noon. We walked to Provenance for macarons, but they were sold out. The guy promised me a box of four for tomorrow. Many people have been sending me articles about macarons--Jade, Naomi, my dad--and I'm pleased to read about more options in Chicago. Last year around this time, the only place I knew that provided macarons was Vanille. Hopefully I'll make my own oddly-shaped ones again soon!

It's late, I should go to bed. Most nights though, I have a hard time falling asleep because I'm so excited about baseball starting again.

Some highlights

Edible Arrangements

Jade's No6 clogboots

PURPLE!

Tracking our order of Domino's NEW pizza

FOR THE LOVE OF THE (SPILT) GOOSE

Accident

BACKHAND SLAP!

lol

Beni Hair // ベニ・ヘア

Today, I marched into my beloved Salon Moka and handed Masa-san a printout of this jpg I made of various views of Beni Arashiro's bob. I was getting tired of my long hair, just hanging there, heavy on my head. I am very satisfied and pleased with the results. I've forgotten how refreshing a new and different hairstyle can be.

Classic Combos

Birthday Bashers

Legendary Leaders

Lawrence's Fisheries

I swear Proposition Joe was eating something like clam strips when he meets up with Butchie in Season Three.

The Wire

So I'm going through one of those obsession phases of mine, except this time, it's an obsession I can only take so far. Since about the beginning of the year, Mordecai and I started watching "The Wire," first through Netflix. Around the second season, it became apparent that we/I needed the series on DVD, and Amazon was selling it for half the listed price. So now, we've got the whole series, have watched the whole series, and I'm watching it all over again right now. I'm back on season three.

I say I can only take my obsession so far because usually, when I become obsessed, there is something I can actively do to express my infatuation. For instance, with Nodame, I started piano, cut my hair like her's, and dressed like her. With baseball, I poured my soul into Photoshop collages, baseball cards, and fantasy. But "The Wire"? I don't want to sell drugs, chase after drug dealers or ring-leaders, legalize drugs, obey a chain of command, reform a wretched city, teach in a public elementary school, go after or be apart of a failing union, snitch, be murdered, be a lying journalist, and so on. I admit that there is something morbidly alluring about being a "deductive motherfucker" in a busy homicide unit, but I really am grateful for the naive and relatively carefree lifestyle I lead.

But Mordecai pointed out to me that 47th and Halsted, near where the stockyards used to be (I just refer to the area as "the jungle," like the book), there are a bunch of shipping cans, JUST LIKE THE ONES IN SEASON TWO! These are the shipping containers that were used to smuggle Eastern European women/prostitutes and Proposition Joe's heroin and cocaine. No one seems to care about this season of "The Wire" because the target is no longer on the street, and the street is more interesting than the docks, but I loved this season. Anyway, Mordecai told me about these cans when we went through season two the first time, but like with many his stories about Chicago's industrial tidbits, the information went in one ear and out the other. We just finished season two the second time around, and Mordecai mentioned the containers on 47th again, except this time, I made him take me there.

All of these containers looked like they were originally from the Barbados. There weren't any custom seals from what I could tell, but there's a reference to one, which Beadie would see if is broken!

These containers look like they are just stacked at 47th and Racine for storage purposes. They aren't guarded and they're no doubt empty, some of them with their doors hanging open. So we wandered around, wondering if there were going to be any German Shepherds or police coming after us out of nowhere. Nothing happened, except that my camera battery died earlier than I would've liked. And yes, those are Uggs, and yes, they are awesome.

Little League Lotto

For the first time in...ever? at Target, I grabbed Archer's Farm milk instead of Horizon, and Target-brand apricot scrub instead of St. Ives. Ordinarily, this would be a sign that you should keep a helmet nearby you at all times (is another Chicago earthquake on its way?), but there isn't much to fear. Not only do I still want things...I want expensive things! And so, I welcome a little bit of Illinois Lotto into my life.

Canon Rebel XSi

Givenchy platform clogs

Various haircare & makeup goods
Moroccan hair oil, Nars nailpolish in Orgasm, Givenchy Le Prisme eyeshadow in Modish Brown, Moroccan hydrating hair mask, Nars Orgasm Illuminator, Nars duo eyeshadow in Cordura (is it better to have two or four gradating eyeshadow shades?)

Economicus Stimulus Cipangu

I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to lotto, so I'm going to need some help from Joe. If I win, depending on the amount, I'll thank him for his help in the form of baseball card packs/boxes/cases. All I know is that there will be many more days of going to school with coffee instead of getting it at school. Even though he is unemployed, Conan O'Brien will be getting more action this semester in the form of my "Late Night with Conan" coffee container that I got from the NBC store in Manhattan when I first visited.