Countdown to Tokyo

Jeremy leaves tomorrow and I haven't had a chance to really talk to him about it. I call around noon every day to check in, but tonight will be our last opportunity to tie up all loose ends before he gets on the plane. I think we're pretty much set though, after we buy him some hot weather clothes.

In the evenings I've been working on photo stuff, but there's always more to do. I'm trying to build a backlog of photo posts so I don't run out while I'm away. This involves mostly touching up old slide and negative film, which is time consuming. Monday's post, for example, will be a dusk scene from Rosarito Beach, Mexico, taken around 2002. The negative was trashed, but it's one of my favorites so what could I do? I'll tell you what... two nights broken into chunks of rubber stamping and Gaussian Blur in PhotoShop.

I'm reading a book called "Underground" by Haruki Murakami. It's about the 2005 gas attacks in the Tokyo subway. It's non-fiction and contains interviews of the survivors. It's very interesting and handled with respect -- probably an odd choice to read right before I'm going there but I thought it might give me some insights. With each book I read by Murakami, I am more impressed.

Every day I try to learn a few new words in Japanese. I do okay with the short ones, but the longer ones swim inside my head and come out funky. A couple of other things I've learned: don't eat in public and don't blow your nose in public.

Since language is such a big part of my life, both work and home, it's strange to think I'm going to a place where I will be illiterate. I can't wrap my head around what that'll be like, but I'll find out soon enough. The only thing I expect is that it will be a big adventure.