On the spot, it can be hard for me to cheer someone up. I can be very spontaneous and thoughtful— but I sometimes come off as more overly inundated with thoughts and ideas and not articulated as well as my emotions intend.

Anyway… a good friend of mine was in distress today when she told me that a man she was dating told her on his exit she was an “old, fat, bitch”. I hope she doesn’t mind me writing about it protecting her identity. I was going to write her an email after my ride home while I was thinking about this further, but I thought… maybe a lot of people can relate with.

I, personally have never had a guy tell me this (to my face or knowledge) when we broke up or fought or whatever or try to use it as a verbal weapon so it was hard for me to say anything other than “what an a-hole”. It’s an obvious way for someone to draw up cheap shots because they are desperate to find a fault. For a woman, maybe people think that being called one or all of those aforementioned things are the MOST offensive and hurtful. But is it really true?

How can it be true? This friend is successful in her work and socially engaging. She has beauty and brains. This will be a slight blip in her dating life that I know she will move on from. It’s just a bit heartbreaking for me to hear about my friend getting hurt or upset by someone who thinks they can.

I don’t know about what the equivalent would be for a man, straight or gay etc. Attraction is one thing… people who are at an age where or a place where they don’t want to be alone or depend on only themselves, or who are just vain are very concerned with being attractive. As a younger woman/girl you have less marks of age, physically-emotionally etc. and that virginal, youthful quality I think, it misinterpreted, misused or gives a false sense of security and power in our post-modern societies.

Everyone wants to be the preferred general choice OR for those who want to get married or find the one-true-love soul-mate heart-of-hearts love-of-your-life friend-till-the-end forever and ever etc, they want to be the preferred very specific meant-to-be choice.

When you want to be preferred by everyone… there is a lot to live up to. For some, it’s easier than others. If you just want to be “hot”, then you do what all the magazines instruct you to do say and hope you can survive it and maintain the ever changing rules of the game. Go nuts.

If you want people to treat you how you want and love you for you are effortlessly, then you have to do as it’s said, love yourself for who you are and draw upon the powers that be. Change because you want to. Be healthy. Shake what your mama gave you. Take pride in your work. Learn as much as you can. Be generous. Love and be loved.

Stay strong singles! :)

It’s funny how social media/networking sites have become part of many of our daily routines and yet I still have friends who don’t have accounts and don’t even have internet access at home. Really! I still talk with them, see them and have met up with them. They did not fall off the earth or ever disappear.

Last night I watched Being John Malkovich for the first time since it first came out when I was a kid and it was so much better watching it now, comparing it to the average developed countries online social user-ship and self-obsessed world.

Imagine Zuckerberg as John Cusack’s character.
JM: “I have been to the dark side I have seen a world that no man should see”.
Zuck: “Really, for most people it’s a rather pleasant experience”.
JM: “That portal is mine and it must be sealed forever for the love of God”.
Zuck: “…with all do respect, I discovered that portal. I mean, it’s my livelihood you understand that?”.
JM: “It’s MY HEAD!… It’s MY HEAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!”

The idea that these sites encourage narcissism is the general opinion. I joined myspace possibly much later than most and it was used for my music. I can’t say that any other site has been good for music as myspace once was. I use twitter for news. Facebook is for friends? This is where I hear about the narcissism the most. Facebook and zuck- was a genius in exploiting narcissism.

Recently, I’ve been feeling like the more active user you become on fb, the more recognizable the self-promotion is, to the point where you see how many people do the same or feel the same or think the same as you. You feel less original, special, different… your obsession with your own identity becomes annoying because someone has been where you’ve been, liked what you liked, ate what you ate, seen what you’ve seen. There is less attraction and less to be drawn to. I think this is how fb is going to fall down. Everyone is going to start turning off the feeds and notifications and have to leave facebook in order to like themselves again.

oh hey! I was reminded today how lucky I am to have the family I was born into and the family I have chosen. Both! Remember… it can be both, or it can be one-love.

Oldie but Goodie:
Mason Jennings – Family Tree

As much as I love the concept of “action speaks louder than words”… and showing love through what you do and not what you say, some actions need subtitles! Especially when it comes to communication between men and women!

I have gone to more appointments the past 4 months than probably my whole entire life due to my health.

I can fulfill obligations. I can show show up early, on-time, whatever. I’m willing to do it, but I’m not a creature of regularity and careful planning. I prefer changing things up and spontaneity and at the same time, being practical with my time when it comes to tasks. Get it done, get it done quick, get it done good so I don’t have to think about it any longer. Get it done! Waiting room are very impractical for the person waiting. I don’t like to wait.

Maybe it’s just this time in life, but recently… I’ve had people making appointments to apologize. It’s really weird, or maybe not. I think that when I was a bit younger… I used to fight for my thoughts. I used to fight people for my words. I used to fight to the death of the relationship. I can be really stab-y with my words. It’s a gemini thing.

One day I just stopped. I let them be them and me be me and learned to find a common ground. At a certain point in any relationship… any, meaning friendship or role in a family, when you get to a place that you don’t like, it’s usually because your expectation or hope or standard wasn’t met. Sometimes I have to let go of everything in order to keep a human being around and then it just becomes sort of silly and there’s a big re-evaluation of WHY the hell do I like this person so much that I have to let go of EVERYTHING just to keep them around? And then… the letting go become forgetting and the easing of this person weight on your heart and soul.

I get attached so easy because I love people. When I’m really interested in someone, I really want to know everything. I think, artists are naturally addicts. Obsessive. etcetera.

Anyway… it’s strange because I no longer let go just thinking I’m right, you’re wrong, good-bye. I let go thinking… well, I did my best, I don’t think I did anything wrong, but maybe the timing was not good. And somehow, it has brought me into situations where people want to come back and apologize but, they don’t really do it. They make an appointment.

So, once again… I’m in a waiting room, which I personally… do not enjoy.

The problem I have with these appointments for apologies… are that they prolong the transgression with the good intention. I’ve waited for good actions before… and most of the time, I just sat in that waiting room.

If you were to enter my room, you’d see that it’s quite tiny and nothing is stuck. I could probably pack it up in 20 minutes or less. I guess my original intention was to make it easy for me to move to the next place after this. Transient. It connotes poor homeless person up to no good. But it just means… on-the-move.

One of my friends suggested today for me to join some online community where I create an avatar for myself and do virtual concerts for other avatar people and I got really depressed hearing this. This may sound exciting for some people, but it doesn’t turn me on. I like performing live actually, in-person and connecting face to face. Maybe this has or will become the way of the world in globalization through technology, but I’m not ready for it. I don’t want to be able to do everything from this room. I want to keep moving.

I just found out that one of my family friends is ailing and I was discussing it with my mother and she mentioned how she viewed her friend as always working and always on the move and it almost seemed like, people feel sorry for others who seem like they just work and work. I am guilty of this also. I have parents and one particular parent that works and works and I can only refer to the life I’ve witnessed. I guess we all wish for the people who seem to have no choice but to work, to have a life full of idle wealth. We don’t want anyone we love to have to struggle or go through pain. I think we tend to forget that the value and happiness quotient of a person’s life it not equated to what other people perceive of it. This goes for all walks of life.

Sometimes a bleeding heart is just a bleeding heart. Pity and sorrows for other people does not help anyone. Enjoy your time w/the ones you enjoy and enjoy your time here on earth because you are here to enjoy it and experience it in whatever ways you know how and live without regret. Keep moving and don’t give up your hope for what you want.

I started to play piano when I was around 4 years old.
I’ve had 3 teachers until I was 16 when I finally stopped taking lessons not including my mother who taught me ‘neko funjatta’ on a tiny casio.

And I don’t know, I never really asked myself if I was good at it. I never got to a level where I cared about being good or felt really confident with it, I didn’t like to practice and I always felt like I was forced to play when I really wanted to play my dad’s guitar that he hid in his bedroom closet.

I’m not good at playing other people’s compositions… I compare the way I make music, to the way I cook or maybe the way I prefer to do everything. I’m horrible at preparing frozen food. It’s either frozen on the inside, burnt on the outside or doesn’t resemble food anymore when I’m finished with it. I gave up on that. I cook from scratch.

I’m also not a very good baker. Because baking is an exact science… the measurements, the temperature, how much of this and that, if you want it taste like a true replication, you have to get it down to the formula. I can’t do music that way either. I have to do it freely and in my own way, or I don’t want to do it… it becomes a task rather than a masterpiece.

Anyway, I guess I never felt really like I loved the piano until I learned to play the guitar. I don’t think I would have been able to pick up guitar and learn from ear if I wasn’t already classically trained on the piano and I wouldn’t have been able to do nearly as much composition without being able to read music and hear notes and beats and most importantly, dynamics. It all comes together and works together. It wasn’t until I started playing guitar, that I could play things in my head on the piano and I learned that it’s just another language and beautiful it can be.

I used to think I had knack in life to attract chatty strangers, not only that, have them reveal their deep dark secrets to me. Well, this is what I used to think… that it was me, that I was drawing them in because I look friendly or I seem like I’m going to listen.

But now I sort of know better. If you’ve ever wondered why strangers tell you their secrets or suddenly say things they would have a hard time telling even a close friend, it’s because it’s easy to tell someone who doesn’t know you, all your secrets. It’s the same way with sharing music. I remember so many times I would tell friends who have known me a very long time to please don’t show up to performances because it would make me very nervous. I’d rather play for strangers then have to explain myself to people who have pre conceived notions. Or I realized that I had adjusted myself and personalized how much of myself and what sides of myself were revealed with certain people and performances are a sort of nexus for all kinds of people to come together and examine you. Scary and overwhelming at times.

I think it’s important when you are growing into the person that you are to surround yourself with people who let you air-out, who don’t hold you to unimportant details and let you grow into whatever you want and if they aren’t these sorts of people, to not take it too hard. Stop explaining yourself. You are who you are and the important people in your life will either understand or catch up with you when the time is right.

If you have time to mull over identity issues, then you are very lucky aren’t you? Some people have real problems… like how to pay for things, how to eat, how to get over illness, where to sleep and how to not get killed.

I have to remind myself of this, anytime I get silly.

 

I remember this conversation I had w/one of my friends who used to be in a band a generation before mine that didn’t “make it” or that they could have and one thing or another broke up. We discussed music and mtv and somehow it eventually gets to money.

His perspective was that of that the rich guy over there does not have problems and, as much as I am not rich, I believe everyone has problems and things that are painful to them and the question always arises to me, how we measure someone’s pain and more relevant in my mind and life recently is how you measure one’s strength.

I think people in general are pressured to always be strong and suck it up especially if you do have those basic things like food, water and shelter. I guess the more you are known to have, the more pressure you have to be emotionally strong and take care of yourself.

You’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There is no way to measure your pain or your strength. You can’t control everything with money but, you can control how you feel about things and how you express those emotions. And there’s this fear that if you’re not strong, the ones you reach out to will reject you, tell you they can’t help you or mock you for being pitiful finding in the end that you truly are helpless because no one understands.

I don’t know…. I have friends and I have family so, I guess I have felt okay about sharing my struggles with them because I can’t stand to have people who are close to me in life, think that I’m going through it like a breeze. It’s not real.

But there are people in my life who refuse to believe that I have weaknesses and that at times I validly feel helpless in situations because they see only what they want to see and are close to incapable of comparing what they have to what I don’t have. It’s one thing to be viewed as strong and capable… it’s another to be seen as someone who complains when they have so much to be grateful for. I often feel people judging me for complaining rather than telling me to stay strong like they know I am.

I hope I can always be good to people who reach out to me… in any circumstance and remind them of their strengths as I see them.

 

Last night I went to the annual obon odori that my family goes to every year and or to the Spring hanamatsuri. I never really questioned what Obon is because whether I was in Japan or here for the summer, I always attended one.

When I was a kid, I would be dressed in a kimono which wasn’t that comfortable because my mom would wrap my obi and my hair too tight but,  my favorite part was wearing geta which are the traditional shoes that to me, were like flip-flops which were not popular sandals in Japan and it wasn’t really polite to even wear sandals outside of your house or the beach then so, it was like…. yay, I get to wear flip flops tonight!

Well anyway, Obon to me always meant a family and community gathering at night where there would be Japanese treats, taiko music, and everyone would dance. I would meet with family friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. I kinda knew it was something to do with buddhism because it’s held at a buddhist temple and it had to do with celebrating life. I related it to it being more Japanese rather than religious.

But, I read over the program from the other night and found it interesting that Obon is derived from the Ullambana Sutra and the sanskrit word urabon, which means to suffer as if you were hanging upside down. I guess according to the sutra, the suffering is the suffering one experiences when someone they love passes away and Obon is there to ease your suffering and live the life the deceased can no longer live so that you can transfer the merit of your life towards the people that have passed. At least, that’s what I got out of it with extremely limited study.

I suppose I’ve never thought of suffering as hanging upside down but I like the idea of living your best life and having it transcend and become a testament to all the people who are no longer living. This idea seems quite across-the-board in terms of all that has been said about what should guide you into the light.

 

 

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Well, summer is in swing and we had our 2-week heat wave and now the weather has been absolutely right-on for the last week. I’m back into a good regime of exercise and eating well and feeling much better as I’ve been going through a slow recovery from a spinal injury that has rendered me in physical pain the last few months.

I am so grateful that that my body still responds well to diet and exercise to heal itself after much abuse. I guess I’m not exactly a western medicine girl so much because even through extreme emotional and physical pain, I’ve learned that if you focus enough energy towards healing before it gets too bad and give yourself time to do so, then you can overcome more than you ever thought was possible.

Consistency is so difficult for me, but when it comes to your body and if you think of it as a machine, it is expected to do so many things consistently for you, you really have to be consistently good to it, do whatever it needs to function properly and figure out the things you can do for it that will help you thrive in all aspects.

My parents were both athletes in their prime and genetically, my body was made to be in constant strenuous motion. Unfortunately, music and art and creative work is not very physical.

If you think of the body as a machine, in order to be really accurate, you have to realize it’s a highly inter-functioning machine where when one thing goes wrong, the rest goes with it, physical, mental and emotional and in our modern world, there are a lot of strings pulling us and wanting our full devotion.

I can say I’m fully devoted to my well-being and hope that I can continue to get stronger and feel better and I hope I always remember to put time towards keeping things in balance.

 

ラッキョウ　食べたい　！！！！！

The old facebook page and account is gone.

Please “like” the new one and I’ll be using that from now on….

add the address below or click on the Facebook link to your right—->

https://www.facebook.com/reinaboone

 

 

I’m pretty liberal. I might be on the socialism side of a democrat. I keep on top of world issues, local issues and read books, watch films that document research on how the world works, is working and where I am in the middle of it. I care a lot about it and try to be a responsible and ethical person.

Around the time of the last presidential election, my friend had mentioned that “our” parents were all liberal at one point and against vietnam war but now they are old and have money and don’t care anymore and are republicans.

I can’t really generalize too much, but I can say that I notice a lot of older parents or older people act like they’ve outgrown their notions of caring about the future of their family when they go, community, their country, their world. And they aren’t grasping the fact that their children and younger generations are growing in an abused and deteriorating world. Even with an optimistic, liberal, new age yoga love and light attitude, our resources are dwindling. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

In California there are many places to go. You have a choice of being in an urban, suburban, rural and anywhere in between area. There are also protected “natural” lands where we can pay to enter so the government can continue to “protect” it until the government can’t do it anymore or wants more money so they sell it to a corporation and they do whatever they want with it. “pave paradise, put up a parking lot”.

I like big cities. I like mass transit. It’s interesting. It’s fun at times, it’s fast-paced. I also like to have the choice of going somewhere where I can hear animals, I can breathe fresh air, I can jump in the water without worrying about chemicals being dumped there or coming out of the water with a rash or sick.

I was lucky to have been able to experience a bit of a country bumpkin life my summers in rural Japan. Swimming in local rivers, fishing in them, eating the fish caught from them. Eating veg and fruit from the land that was irrigated by the local rivers in the area. Only to find shortly after childhood that you can no longer swim in those rivers because a golf course started dumping chemicals there and corporations got word and decided also to start dumping. So, the river water is contaminated and cannot safely support the agriculture.

I feel lucky to experience it in a way that many have in the United States of America. Maybe not so much my generation, but older generations who have forgotten because they are either dead or dead in what they care about. It’s hard to imagine or remember what we used to have access to. I get to have old school memories. If I have kids, and raise them here, I know most likely they won’t have memories of being able to swim in a local river or lake or maybe even the ocean at this point without some technologically advanced full body wetsuit and oxygen mask.

I hope people will be reminded that we used to be able to grow our own food without having to ship it in from developing countries, we used to be able to swim in the river that is now a sewer or something that you can just pay an entry fee and drive and look at or not notice at all.

It used to all be state parks, reserves, beaches, lakes, rivers. I don’t know how many times an old person would tell me, “did you know that when I moved here… it used to all be orange groves?”. That is only one generation away from my own. It’s scary to think what is next.

I’m trying to eat more garlic… mostly raw kinds. I brushed my teeth 3 times tonight and I can’t get the taste out. TMI?
My best friend really loves garlic. She doesn’t smell like it though….

it goes back to this story… when I was a kid my mom worked with a designer and his name was “DRAGON” and he ate a ball of garlic every day. Not a clove… a whole plant of garlic… is that a clove? I don’t know… anyway, you know what I mean… not just a segment piece… like several pieces and raw! And she told me that he smells like garlic and it comes out of his pores because he’s been eating so much of it for so long. And I didn’t believe her and then one day they had a company picnic thing or something and I met him. He stank!

But, it tastes good and it’s good for your health dangit!

had to share… my bestie, jaws, and me.

I just thought of this, because I notice too often from people I know about grudges they are still holding on to or I re-visit w/them and am surprised that they are still holding on to times where they were slighted or felt betrayed by someone they loved and I’m like…. dude, are you really still holding on to this?

When I really first start liking a person… the first thing I notice is how they express their love and when I decide that I really like that expression, I love them back.
Sometimes it s personality thing… people who really listen well, people who really have moments where they get exactly what you say or meant and articulate it back to you even better than you say, people who show up when you really needed them to, maybe they made you dinner, maybe they picked you up from the airport, maybe they stuck up for you when you felt humiliated, maybe they made you laugh…. and I also have many creative friends and athletes who express their love by cultivating their talents and ideas and they share that with me and it clicks in my head… that’s how they do it.

I have a trick. I seriously do this and it ALWAYS works for me. When I’m really feeling angry or disappointed in someone…. I think of that one thing that I first noticed about them… that made me love them in the first place and I can usually, quickly snap out of feeling mad or overcome. This is different than finding the one good thing about a person that you can remember so you can stand to be in the room with them (“we’re all human blah blah blah let’s all get along blah blah”, it’s really thinking about how this person operates their figurative heart. I realize as I write this, some people have got this down already with their “love and light” and whatever God and guidance from their heavenly father… but, I’m just saying… to people who really know how to hold a grudge, or constantly slam doors to those who have disappointed them… TRY IT. (this also works when you’re mad at yourself… but it may take longer to figure out how to embrace the way you express love or acknowledge it)

Sometimes, if you take too long to use my trick, someone will get mad that you were mad, and then it’s a big fat mess. You may just have to duke it out… but I suggest holding tight to trick ;)

–reina

So, this is me, trying to quickly compile what I’ve learned in France…

1) If you talk to someone and don’t look them in the eye, they’ll think it’s weird and rude.

2) People who’ve never spoken french say au revoir, hopefully “oh-reh-vwah” not “oh-reh-vwarrrrh”. People who have never spoken french in Paris say ‘oh-vwah’. Parisiennes bid you good-bye saying “ah-vwah”

3) The suburbs in Paris does not mean cul-de-sacs, tract-housing and the “safer”, “quieter”, “boring” areas. It’s complex. It means the townships surrounding Paris within the region of Ile-de-France. Some neighborhoods are more urban than Paris, the city. Some are new-er, wealth-ier, safe-er. I wasn’t there long enough to understand if there is a stigma or sense of pride that comes from … being from the suburbs. But I visited 7 Paris suburbs and felt fine and safe in all of them. I noticed much more middle eastern and africans in most of the suburbs I visited. I don’t know, I guess it’s relative. I’m nearly 6ft2 w/boots on, I grew up with a lot of exposure to super urban life with a dad that taught me to be street smart. My great grandma lived in her house a couple blocks from the la riots in south central la till she died. She was over 100 years old and maybe the only white person in her neighborhood. I think, from what I experienced…. there was no place I visited in france that was nearly as “dangerous” as areas in Los Angeles. I think I heard someone say that there is much more socialism and political activism in the suburbs. I don’t know why. Money? Historically many were communes.

4) Dinner is late and people are late… get used to it. I never had dinner earlier than 9pm in Paris. I’ve never had anyone show up on time or showed up on time either.

5) Public masturbation, making out, grabbing, stalking, shouting… all normal, apparently and was told not to worry, repeatedly. But, man…. I was disturbed.

6) If you look remotely asiatic, people will ask you if you’re “chinoise”… Chinese.

7) A katsu-don in Paris costs about 13 euros…. 20 bucks and you’ll have to wait 45 minutes in line before you get it. Dang!!!! Which means you should open a lunch plate/bento place in Paris and make a killing!

8) The metro is dirty. The metro is so dirty. Between the JR, Subway and Bart, the Metro is the smelliest. If you take the metro, get a Navigo pass and better yet, take the Velib (public bike system). It’s fun! Most of my friends in Paris don’t take the metro at all except with me when I visit. Why? Because it’s dirty and kind of expensive!

9) Don’t believe your friends. Paris has bugs. They don’t have window screens so bugs can crawl in through the windows. Beware of the bugs. Reina met the puce. The puce is the flea. The puces loved eating me and were quite aggressive.

10) French people don’t usually have large knives for cooking. Why!!!!??? I don’t know why, but they pretty much can all cook and cut up their food just fine. I cooked a lot while I was there.

11) French men… and maybe women have a societal pressure to be able to converse in any subject, all the time. If you don’t have something to say about it, apparently, it’s weird. I personally, love that about the French. Whether they like it or not, they can carry on a conversation and act interested. If there was more of that at home, I’d feel less needy for it and I probably would not be single.

12) I asked why the dudes from Mali that live in Paris get to wear their Mali dress and the Burka is illegal. Oh, it’s complicated. In France… it’s all about the “Laïcité”. It’s the law of secularism. You don’t talk about or express your religious beliefs in public. Keep it to yourself. Hey, I like that! It’s a relief. In the US there is supposed to be a separation of church and state, but that’s just the law. It’s not taboo enough to truly be enforced or we wouldn’t have “in God we trust”. Would we? But, it’s not simple… you’re going to have to do a google search on it.

13) Asians get play in Paris. Okay, don’t get offended, but I grew up in southern California and it’s uncommon to see a caucasian woman coupled romantically with a 1st gen asian man. I mean, it’s getting gradually more common… but not really. I’m not an anthropologist but, from what I observed in Paris, you don’t see as many super buff, tall, super strong looking guys like you will see any given moment in southern California. You also won’t see that in Japan…. maybe Korea. So… maybe that’s why? I don’t know why. It is what it is… french people have no prob commingling w/asians. Which means there are a lot of eurasian babies! yay!

14) Most people in Paris will have a lot to say about Americans and America and like I mentioned, everything… but, keep in mind that most of them have never been to the U.S. and if they have, have only been to New York City. Which, to me, is not nearly enough to have an informed opinion. Just like me being to Lyon, Paris and a few suburbs is not enough to give an informed opinion about France. So, try not to get offended by what people in Paris say about the U.S. But yes, we are fatter and don’t know our geography as well. Sorry! This IS true :)

15) Always try to speak french when you shop in Paris. The majority of the time, they will respond in french and understand you. Sometimes, they will respond in french very quickly and assume you understand because you used your french w/a good accent. Sometimes they will do this even if you speak poor french because they can’t speak any English at all. Sometimes, they want to practice their English and some clerks are jerks. I met 2 guys that worked at the Virgin store when I was recharging my french phone who spoke quickly, rudely and nearly shoed me away until they saw my driver’s license and saw I was from California and made a 180 in attitude and asked me a billion questions about living in California and told me how much they love it…. all in French, of course. It’s hard for me to get to practice my french while in france because my friends want to practice their english and young people…. speak english pretty well, better than I speak french.

16) If you’re from southern California…. do yourself a favor, bring hot sauce. Mexican. They don’t have it there. They have guacamole mix. They have flour tortillas, tortilla chips, cheddar cheese and raw cilantro “coriandre cru” at some larger chain markets. I’ve never been to an actual mexican restaurant there, nor do I want to. Expensive! Just forget about mexican food…. I know, it’s hard :(

17) Marais is gay. Fun and super gay. Like Hell’s Kitchen NYC gay, not West Hollywood gay. It’s also pretty clean and has good restaurants.

18) I love french pharmacies! Not for the drugs, for the skin products! Homeoplasmine, Avibon, and cortizone gel (for the puce bites) that smells like almond extract. Cheap, effective and can’t get it outside of france. My friend thinks the french over-medicate because most of it is available without a prescription. I really don’t think so. I think when you make things illegal, abuse is more prevalent… not to mention corruption from pharmaceutical companies. My first time in Paris I got really sick. Maybe I wasn’t immune to the new germs… but I got sick a few times. I looked up the generic names for drugs I used in the US and went to the pharmacie. Cheap and awesome.

19) People don’t really wear sunglasses in Paris. Unless they are Italian… or American… or trying to make a strange fashion statement. But, mostly they will know you are American if you wear sunglasses. I don’t really care though, I can’t see in the sun without them. Also, women do not expose their cleavage, wear much if any makeup, pluck eyebrows much and they don’t really look like they put as much tedious prep w/their hair. Clothing is not vibrant in general. Clothing, however, fits very well in general on men and women. There is style, but nothing truly inspiring. I was told because France is latin and if women dressed like they did in california, there would be too many sexual crimes. Um… like I said…. I don’t know why.

20) People DO smile in Paris. But, there is a time and a place. The immediate welcoming smile from the get-go that is socially pressured on the US left coast is NOT normal in Paris. I tried to just mirror people when it came to the smile. If a woman smiled at me, I’d smile back. If a man smiled at me and I didn’t already know him, I assumed he was a perv and turned my head. I nervously smile a lot so, it was difficult at times not to. I learned pretty early that older women especially, do not appreciate you smiling at them… they pretty much look back at you like you’re the village idiot.

21) Greetings and salutations take a long-ass time. It takes a long time to say good-bye in social settings in Paris. And I’ve offended several people unintentionally because of the way I’ve left. If you don’t want to alienate people or piss them off, take your time to say good-bye. To the point where they are pushing you out the door. Not kidding.

okay, that’s all I can think of at the mo….

–reina

At the very end of February this year, I packed for 2 trips. I flew to Haneda Kukou (airport) first. The last time I went to this airport, I think I was 10…I stayed at the Haneda hotel and a Japanese baseball star signed my boarding pass. I’m not really a baseball fan, nor was I ever. But I would watch baseball with my grandpa, uncle and cousins and cheer for the Hiroshima Carps and watch the fans in the stadium chanting and eating steamy bowls of ramen on tv from my grandparent’s house. I used to also play Japanese teams on the fami-com w/my cousin. I was an avid fami-com player my childhood summers. My sister played fami-com before Nintendo systems in the US existed and had to buy converters to be able to play our fami-com games on the US system when it finally came out.

One of my best friends who is Japanese but has been living in Paris for a few years was coming through Tokyo and we were able to meet up. I got to see several friends and spend some q.t. w/my aunt and uncle. It was freezing weather and snowed. I wore my rubber duck snow joggers with 2 inch lifts inside and had to duck to get through the shinkansen doors. I went to my favorite neighborhood in Tokyo- Kichijoji, saw my friend perform in a cover band at an ex-pat bar and I documented and learned how to make hiroshima style okonomiyaki from my aunt.

The last few days there I was feeling major anxiety about going to my next stop which was Paris. I really wanted to stay in Japan but, I didn’t want to flake-out on my arrangements in France. I make few commitments in life, but I’ve always resented the stereotype that people from southern california are “such flakes”. The more I travel, the more I find how it’s more about the growing sense of self-importance that has come with our me-me-me culture. Who am I? It’s everywhere. I try very hard to honor my commitments. I try equally hard not to make them? It wasn’t always true.

I felt sad on the plane ride from Haneda to Los Angeles. I cried. It wasn’t enough time, maybe. I didn’t feel excited about Paris until I got on my flight from Minneapolis to CDG. I sat next to a nice, pudgy guy flying to Basque to pick up his mom and bring her back to Minnesota. We discussed our crazy flight attendant who must have been on amphetamines and shared our cursed inability to fall asleep on planes. I woke up 6 hours later w/the awkward sinking feeling that I farted in my sleep. First time ever to sleep on a plane and was maybe a little too comfortable. My parents are so proud. augh.

The last time I came to Paris, I was sleep deprived and inebriated. This time, I played it alert and well-rested and watched my step. My host/landlord/friend met me and helped me into my apartment in the suburbs where I spent the next few weeks. My first night I spent w/good friends and extinguished any sort of sobriety w/fully embracing that I was on vacation, damnit. But, don’t forget that you don’t want to miss that last train to the suburbs and you’re going to have to run and then you’re going to have to get up that hill and then those stairs. I don’t drink much when I’m home because I have to drive. Without a car, a bike, a skateboard… I was constantly thinking about moving my ass. “Okay, if I drink this much and eat this much and carry this much, how am I going to feel about moving my ass at the end of all that?” and “I’m going to have to move my ass FAST if I stay this late”, “Wow, why am I running sideways? “. Of course, this is why Parisiennes are rarely fat. After about the first week, moving my ass was a hell of a lot easier and the ski-method of climbing steep concrete hills helped mucho.

If weren’t living under a rock in March, then you know what happened in Japan. I missed it by 2 days. Was I lucky? I would have been stuck for a few days. I would have been picking up and cleaning the glass from all the crashed dishes in my aunt and uncle’s apt. I would be walking to the nearest store for them getting supplies, water, groceries. I would have been able to help my family there. I would have been scared. My family and friends in the US would have been freaked. I would have been okay. I was okay. I was scared and worried. I had no tv. I learned of the earthquake and tsunami from twitter. The time difference made it so I probably heard before anyone I knew in California.

Being in France during this time kept me away from a lot of the media blitz and if you have a drop of Japanese in you, I’m pretty sure anyone who knew it called their only connection to anything Japanese during that time to check on them. I had no family in the tsunami hit areas… I don’t know what I would have done then. The radiation makes me angry. It’s a big deal. It’s a bigger deal than most people know.

I tried to enjoy my stay in France. I worked many hours at a job that has nothing to do with music so I could get the time and funds to go. I have to get clear across the world for quiet time. I needed it. I refused to feel ruined and chose to stay positive. I did everything I wanted to do and I can say now, I’ve got Paris out of my system. All but one thing…. actually.

I will shamelessly admit that I saved the last few sprays of my favorite perfume, hoping to see someone I didn’t get to see while in Paris. Boo, me. Every day I’d reach for the bottle debating on whether I should just spray it, use it up.. it’s my favorite, but I held-out and it became a symbol of my sometimes stupid optimism. Oh well. I haven’t had the heart to use it up. From France to LA to my medicine cabinet I get to look at it and cringe when I brush my teeth over-thinking and over-romanticizing.

I learned a few things in France. I will have to share on another post though…. there’s a part two.

jah-mata ne! :) –reina

I just finished a very late breakfast of chorizo, eggs and cucumbers. I’m in France!
I’m up on my first week and feeling homesick and sad about the disasters in Japan.
I was just in Tokyo a couple days before the earthquake, so maybe I’m a little bit in shock?

Last night I went to a organic food co-op in Montreiul, France (suburb of Paris) called Les Nouveau Robinson.
I was checking it out because I heard it was expansive and I haven’t purchased any meat since I’ve
been here and wanted to see if I was interested in anything and there I found a spicy organic spanish chorizo.
My last trip to Paris was a year and a half ago and I was staying in the 17em and it was very difficult and
expensive to find products while I was also vegetarian then. Today, they carry many “BIO” products in regular
grocery stores in Paris. You won’t find the many options for mock-meats you’d find in the the US, but you will
find bulk bins and tons of beauty home care products.

The area of Montreiul reminded me of south Long Beach, California. Not kidding! There is a delicate and sometimes glaring juxtaposition between the African/Malinese population and the “yuppie” (quoting my french pal) hipster-granola, new-mom-no-makeup community in the area all hanging out at the bar/cafe close to the market. And since, Long Beach is probably the most comfortable place for me when I’m home… I felt pretty a-ok that was until I got followed down the street by 4 guys barking at me while I’m holding my chorizo getting into the metro tunnel. I’m told, this is the latin influence…. uh huh.

In Tokyo… they call organic “bio” (like someone’s armpit stank!) also but also anything having to do with being ecologically friendly…. “ECO” (pronounced “echo”). The common perception lying in Japan, France and the US is that organic is still considered upper-class, a pain in the ass and maybe unnecessary. I am not upper class but, I read a lot and I prefer purity and practicality. I learned that you are what you eat-eats-eats. So when I buy non organic, I soak it in vinegar-ed or lemon-ed water to remove pesticides etc. and when I buy organic, I stick to the basics like things that get in contact with my organs on a daily basis. I’m not really an environmentalist yet, I’m more of a hypochondriac and a socialist.

Later last night,
I just wanted to write something and or skype with my bestfriend in California but, my guitar
was locked in my friend’s apt below me and since I’ve never really used Skype, and time diff
logistically I was alone and assed-out. I finally got my guitar and my friend’s roommate and my
new friend who is a “part-time” model insisted I stay for some pasta.
He has spent a great amount of time in Italy and the influence has been the language and
the food. He boasts eating pasta everyday! “of course!”
I’ve been eating tofu noodles for 3 years in the US, so I have this apprehension for real pasta.
But let me tell you, it sort of cured my mood. Maybe the Italians know this already.
That being said, today I go for a long walk :)

à bientôt!

–reina

My first time at outdoor camp I was 10 or 11 and I had really bad asthma and it wasn’t diagnosed till I was 15. So every pine tree and plant at Ponderosa Pines choked me into submission so I hung out w/ the hippie camp counselor that played guitar in the back of a pickup when I went blue in the face. But what I remember was my dad writing me a letter to camp that was written on rectangular yellow post-it notes in rhyming verse. I really wish I could find that darn thing. Anyway, it was a hit! I remember one line… “Your room is a mess, that’s how it will stay, until you come home, in just a few days… ” ha!

I notice a lot of traits I must have gotten from my parents initially and they just over-developed. My obsession with doing things myself as much as I can, my unfiltered outbursts to strangers, my extreme curiosity, my unrestrained gestures of affection! Some days I wonder if they can be proud of such an anomaly. I hope when I have kids, they are a love letter. But, I’m ahead of myself, of course…. another trait… most likely from mom.

The way I was raised and nurtured, I really couldn’t be anything else than who I am. My parents let it happen. And now, some days I have to fight for it because they can’t take care of me, and other days, it’s easier.

When you scramble an egg, you can’t go back and make it sunny-side-up. There are so many ways to cook an egg. The way a lot of people live their lives… it seems they like it to be the same way every day. Same job, live in the same place, listen to the same genre of music, buy the same shoes because they are comfortable. I don’t like that. I’ve made a point to take time to de-program myself. When you find your center, you find yourself in the midst of all the things you think identify YOU.

You are a love letter.

well hello!
I’ve been prolonging my first blahg of the year. Not sure why. Maybe because I’ve been tweeting and fb-ing etc. There are so many ways to get words out, that it’s easy for me to get overloaded.

Instead of reflecting on the past year, I have fully embraced the turn and have been keeping it going. I’ve been making my strongest attempts to get back in touch with friends and let them know, “hey! I’m alive and I want to see your face!” basically. It’s not easy for me though. Like, I said, I get overloaded.

I was studying french again for a few months. I know how to speak Japanese, but I can step outside of myself and understand how difficult it must be to learn Japanese as an adult. They say that it’s much easier to learn and pick-up a language when you are young. I never really knew why, but “they” say that.

So, I started to think about what youth is all about and realized that youth is about making a lot of mistakes and the younger you are, the less fearful you are about making mistakes, because you are still learning what the mistakes are. So, yes, it’s easier to learn languages when you are younger because you aren’t as afraid of saying the WRONG thing or sounding stupid.

I think I absorb many things like a sponge because for the most part, I’m not afraid to be wrong, say I’m wrong, say stupid things and do stupid things in front of other people. It’s not that I don’t get embarrassed at times or have regrets, it’s just that I don’t like to hold on to my thoughts. I want someone else to hear it. I want reactions. Or I just simply want them to die and get out of my head so I can stop thinking or think about something else.

HOWEVER… as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that if I’m not afraid to say it, then I should also be able to stop
myself from saying things that aren’t necessarily valuable. Talk to talk when you are trying to learn something, don’t talk just to talk. Know your audience and state the context to people who can’t follow your flow…. sometimes, my best friends can’t even follow my flow. Words are a burden when you start learning the affect they can have.

Well, I can’t really teach everything I know. But, have you ever been in a conversation with someone that you know likes you and enjoys your company and they start talking superficial crap on someone not there. The worst is racist comments. Like someone who starts talking about “that asian” etc. and I’m like, “hey!” You know I’m asian right? You know I despise racist comments right?

I’ve gone through phases of this. I think I started off very mouse-like and not saying a damn thing in my school-aged years. Then I started avoiding any person, no matter how nice they were to me who would say things I did not agree with. I’d say presently, I have made less of a point to do the fight and flight. I accept people, even haters and shit-talkers. I just don’t keep them close to my heart and close to my love. I’ve noticed, the less I push the things I don’t like away, the less they get my attention and the less they try and get it.

There was a time a couple years ago I was sitting with the travel book MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME ON EARTH. It’s a beautiful pictorial guide to beautiful places and events in the world. An elderly acquaintance walks by and tells me that if I want to make the most of my time, that I should “go to church”. I had many run-ins w/this person regarding his evangelism and I decided not to fight him on it and eventually, he got bored.

It’s your life. The more you really know that, the less offended you’ll be by people who are not like you.

oh, and Happy New Year! It’s been a great year so far! I hope you’re feeling great about who you are.

love,

Reina

Shout-out to Betty Nguyen from CBS morning. I love her. I watch the news every morning around 4a-6a before I go to sleep.

The recurring theme of the last couple days is female assertiveness. I was reading the Goop Newsletter (I love g.palts and how it’s so easy to relate to her humanity even though she’s one of those super-humans) and it discusses how to be a strong woman that uses her voice, w/o coming-off “strident”.

As an artist…. you must assert your vision. Okay, scratch that…. as someone w/an ambition, the way to get it done, is to stick to it, and you persist, work and assert your vision. I view vision…. (doh, it’s 4am!) I perceive vision as forward motion. Many of the people who are the best at what they do or create, have tunnel-vision and they are very good at one thing and not so much at everything else. Life, as I’ve known it, hasn’t been moving through tunnels…. it’s more like trying to tunnel through the muck to get to where I think I want to go and end up somewhere quite surprising and then look at it later and connect the dots. I do have a point. I’m getting there. If you don’t look around, no matter how much you move closer towards what you want and what all your focused effort is moving toward, you’re going to hit a wall. Most of the time, it’s a fleshy wall that tries to eff-w/your self-assuredness. If you’re still in that tunnel, hey… you didn’t hear them, you didn’t see them and you don’t really care what so and so thinks and says.

As I think about this topic more… the more complicated it feels swirling in my brain. Maybe we should be asking ourselves as women, can we have it all and do it all well at the same time? In terms of Joseph Campbell-ites…. a woman has a purpose because they have a womb and a man lacking the womb must go out in the world and find his purpose. A female artist bounces back and forth between using her womb and using her art. One or the other darling… or one or the other suffers. Any person that does not follow their bliss becomes a neurotic. At this point I’d really like you to actually read works by Joseph Campbell because I’ve probably confused you.

Personally, I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t fighting for my bottom-line. That line has changed over the years… oh boy, has it. But my vision has become a lot clearer also and that’s when it gets more scary and there’s much more at stake because when you know what you want and you feel like you’re closer to getting it, you have more to lose. Mostly, it’s all that time you spent working towards what you thought you wanted.

I went that way….I went this way
and now I’m back. Well, the topic was something like, how to not come-off as a bitch when you state your opinion or assert your needs/demands and open your mouth while being female…. where everything in the world is a choice including your identity which has apparently become the most important topic in…. existence.

I find it funny that Gwyneth Paltrow would ever ponder coming-off too strongly to the point of busting some dude’s ego. Honestly and personally…. I feel this self-obligation to not grate the ego of those who don’t choose to speak up, don’t know how or don’t have anything good to say is…. outdated and not relevant. If you are strong enough, if you use your voice and have something good to say, then the last thing on your mind is how to upkeep the feminine grace. This gets a big “oh pleeeeeease” from me.

You might be saying.. “oh, well, I’m not an artist like you”. In the context of your own life, when you know what you want and are letting people know that they better work with you or move out of your way, people are not going to like it whether you are male or female. Most people don’t do what they want, not because they don’t know, but because they aren’t strong enough to move.