Cupid is a Silly Being.

Using my incisors to tear into a yummy hummus, kabocha, lettuce, and grilled carrots and onion sandwich by myself in Yoyogi park.

ハッピーバースデー

Cooked tomatoes. While I celebrate the pressure from the juicy, tart, and acidic burst that my tongue and cheek insides feel when I bite into a raw tomato, I have trouble feeling as excited about them when they are hot and mushy. Don't get me wrong, I am a large fan of chunks of tomato in sauces, curries, etc, but you know when they're like, whole, served as an accompaniment off a grill or something? I just feel don't feel the magic. Oh well. Maybe some day I will learn to appreciate.

Today I am 21. I feel it in my fingers, and even in my toes! Kind of. Well I feel a sort of fluttery excitement, despite the fact that I am sitting on my bed alone in a messy dorm room, yet unsure of exactly what today's celebration plans are going to be. There is a mini bottle of cabernet sauvignon on my desk, a gift from a Christmas Secret Santa exchange that I have only first sipped from an hour ago. Waiting for the right moment, you see.

It is my birthday and I feel butterflies inside. Moths are surprisingly terrifying creatures. While I cannot say my last few weeks since school let out for spring break have been um, productive, I have been lucky enough to run into delightful, intriguing things and people. I'm going home to PA for a few weeks on Sunday, which comes at perfect timing I think. I have a new favorite Japanese word; "fua fua" （フワフワ）. It's an onomatopoeia that is used to describe fluffy, airy things like pillows or marshmallows.

I feel content and settled, finally, after what was sort of a mentally draining autumn season. I miss the crunchy red potato chip leaves. I also like cherry blossoms, or sakura though, and cannot believe they will be here soon. Spring Tiiiimmee for Hitlahhh in Germanyyyy.

Of course, being mid February, it's still chilly. To keep warm when I walk home from the train station, I eat warm things and stick カイロ (kairo, self-heating patches) down my shirt and on my back.

I hope to go to an all-vegan restaurant in Omotesando called 'Cafe Pure' this evening with a friend, and this makes me giddy!

Seaweedin'

I'm addicted to convenience store konbu onigiri (rice balls with a sweet-salty konbu seaweed filling wrapped in crisp nori) once again.

I've had a few weeks of off time since the fateful day that my onigiri fell apart, somehow leading me to inhale the ENTIRE glob of konbu at once. Traumatically salty! Consequentially that did turn me off a bit, but now I am back and hitting them hard.

To be honest, the convenience store ones are really not that good for you at all; they often contain some weird food dyes and chemicals that I just try not to think about while eating them. On the other hand, they are vegan, a quick hunger fix, and super cheap (100 yen=90 cents?), so I dabble in them a considerate amount.

Department stores in Japan often have a basement floor where you can find groceries, as well as Japanese and Western dishes, and when I have time I like to venture down there get fresh konbu onigiri. These are worlds better and phenomenal when warm! Yummy. When I eat them I kind of want to wrap myself in slippery konbu and slide around on hot rice.