Japanese women kick serious ass...when their stilletos aren't stuck in sidewalk grates.

An open letter to the Gentleman Sending Me Soft-Core Porn as if Written by a Kindergartner Via Email

Dear Gentleman Sending Me Soft-Core Porn as if Written by a Kindergartner Via Email,

Wow…just wow! You have read my mind. I have always wanted to be seduced by a five year old, ever since I was, ironically, five years old myself. Return to innocence, ignorance, all that. And this couldn’t have come at a better time…the middle of my work day is the perfect time for random strangers to send me porn, so that I may read while being interrupted by the twelve year old boy that likes to tug on my shirt daily and offer a ‘nice to meet you’, even though I see him every day, and have oddly enough, never met him.

I especially love that you throw in my name, randomly, as if to reiterate that you are, in fact, stalking me, in the area, and in route to my house to watch me sleep through the tiny cracks in my walls which are really just imitation plaster sure to crumble at the next onslaught of typhoons. That’s good. Really good, even. An impact. However, the rest of your writing could be improved. I’d like to recite a paragraph, if you don’t mind.

“we can do slowly dont be in hurry. u told u have to go inside soon, i said ok then u go now. want to stay with me and enjoy with me more. then i hold u cuddle with u . kiss u r cheeks lips nose, eyes ears nose. now u slowly take off ur shirt. and u take me too. now i can see u r bra. now i am kissing u r chest too. now u r soft breast become hard. it is trying to come out from the bra. so i want to make it free. i take of ur bra now. now my hand running on u r smooth stomach. before i come down u take off u r pant and now my hand touch u. u lift ur hip and feel the current shock spread all ur body now. u told i am shy so pls close ur eyes. so i close my eye. u stand now. then u ask me to open my eyes. when i open i see 1st u r pussy is it clean shaved and shining in the moon light. it make me feel happy. wow it is wonder Honey. it make me great mood too.”

First, your characters are poorly developed. I'm pretty sure the collective whole of Lifetime Television tops the depths of your actors. What are the driving factors behind the lives of ‘us’? Our motivation. Are you the pool boy who has shamelessly flirted all summer and I the restless, young girl of the house willing to do anything to defy her parents? Are you the older professor seduced by my puerile charms and curiosity despite the illegal nature of a relationship? Are you the boy next door that has tried endlessly to find his way into my heart and will have to simply settle for my bedroom? This, I feel, deserves some revision. I mean, even low budget porn has some semblance of a plot. Grammar, however, spot on my newfound friend, spot on.

Now, I imagine you’re the kind of guy the ladies flock to, and I don’t want to criticize your style, but some girls might find offense in your usage of the word ‘clit’ seven times. Or your premature assumptions and misogynistic behavior. But you know what? Screw them! You have far too much intrinsic novelty to settle for someone who won’t respect you for the failed Harlequin romance novelist that you are. The uneducated, cavity riddled, baggy pants-wearing, two-dollars-to-your-name, living-above-the-garage-from-your-mother, son of a plumber that you are.

I’m not for one minute going to accept this as a final draft, or even, accept it as a proposal of some sort.
A) You can do better.
B) Why do I feel as though you’ve seen me naked?
C) I'm starting to feel like a cracked-out whore.
D) Why do you increasingly resemble every guy I’ve ever dated?

I’m not so sure you will understand these words I’m about to say, but WE HAVE NOT, NOR WILL WE EVER, SLEEP TOGETHER.

So…call me sometime. I’m available for long-term torture.

Lauren

Dangerous minds of first year English students

Recap of question and answer session in my third hour English class.

Do you have a boyfriend?
You're serious? That's the first question? Fine, no. I don't.

Why not?
Were not going to go there. I don't ask why you don't brush your teeth or cook your food. So shut it.

Do you have any pets?
Besides the brother?

What are your favorite Japanese foods?
HAHA.

Do you prefer sun or rain?
Uh, fog.

You should watch Japanese television programs.
I don't get it. Where's the question?

What kind of boys do you like?
Illiterate, racist fuckwits that send me watered-down porn via email. Or, blue eyed guitar players. (That's the way to piss off a classroom full of brown eyed twelve-year old boys.)

Can you speak Japanese?
Scoshi.
Shabete kudasai. (Speak, please.)
Fuck off...er, gomen. Ohayo gozaimasu. Densha wa doko desu ka? Watashi wa Lauren desu. Watashi wa ni jun san sie desu. (I never said I spoke well.)

What can you speak besides English and Japanese?
Ha, you said I speak Japanese. Spanish, minimal French, waning Russian.
Shabete, kudasai.
Hola. Oida mi trabajo con una passion que solo el diablo puede entender en su oida del Dios, aunque no creo que existe un dios, pero no vos importe, pero sois estupidos, y me alegre que puedo os decirlo en frente de la clase, porque nadie entiende nada.

Je vraiment ne peux pas parler français, je feins juste. Mais vous ne savez pas cela.Que vous attendez-vous à ce que je dise ? J'ai un mal de tête.

Когда я сказал я смогло поговорить русского я лежал. (Actually, this is all I have memorized in Russian. Language tapes suck!)

What's your favourite town?
In Japan?
Anywhere.
Kaiserslautern, Germany. (Did they expect to understand. They negate the existence of Croatia, like they've heard of ANYWHERE other than Japan.)

What surprised you most about Japan?
How much I hate it. New question.

Her shoes and pant legs soaked up sheets of rain like a Brawny commercial. She ran to ward off the shivers, ran from the intrusive rain, ran to the protection of the carport - a carport that had been without something to shelter for far too long. She smoked her friend down to the filter, remaining drops clinging to her eyelashes, obscuring the grizzly afternoon sky. The senile, familiar sky. Her mascara trickled, mimicking the converging streams lazily decorating the window panes. Colin Hay played a private concert through the crackling headphones as she thought about measuring intelligence in ounces or watts. Thought about the bath she'd take and the letters left to write. Wondered how much wine was left. Wondered why things were so much simpler before an education.

Somehow I just know, this used to be me.

Old gym shirt

I have an addiction that forces me to take pictures of my t-shirt collection...oh, and buy t-shirts. Summer is my least favorite season. When I was little I pulled out my own eyelashes in hopes of finally seeing a wish come true. I was also in the gifted program. Disconnect much? At night I can hear my neighbours taking baths together and not only is it unacceptable behavior past the age of four, it makes me cringe. I want to spend next Christmas with orphans in Vietnam. I am, quite possibly, the worst ping pong player I've ever met. Which in fact doesn't really make me a player at all, but a failure. Senior year my best friend poured a glass of water down my dress at the prom. My mother once complimented my eyes, and in doing so, validated all those that came before and were tossed out as blatant lies or idle flattery.



I received a thank you card from Locks of Love last week...only three years after donating my hair. That's some kind of record!! My parents will believe anything I tell them, not because I'm a great liar (I'm not) but rather, because they are completely naive when it comes to all things pertaining to me. I keep my pointe shoes in a box in my closet at home, awaiting my return, when they will be dusted off and put back for another four years of disuse. My father thought I'd make a great pitcher, for the world was devoid of left-handed pitchers back in the eighties. I despie the fact that I can't wear jeans to work. The majority of my friends from home all have jobs that somehow sound more professional than mine, but at the same time, sound terribly boring. I don't ever want to surrender my personality to some job on the basis of necessity.

Pervading numbers

1st train in a day of public transportation
27 minute ride
1080 yen ticket
1 man yellow diesel car
comfortably seats 30
43 crammed in
16 female
19 visibly wearing watches, all 19 right handed
7 in t-shirts
6 of said t-shirts are in English (Engrish)
3 more passengers are wearing Playboy shirts, which I now deem international waters
1 guy on crutches
8 wearing Converse (1 wearing what looks to be knock-offs)
6 pairs of stillettos (to reiterate, of only 16 females-not a good ratio)
21 passengers caught in staring crossfire
13 sleepers (largely, I hypothesize, to avoid the guilt complex that comes with not politely moving over to allow others to sit beside you)
5 sleeping hunched forward
7 sleeping fallen to the side
1 sleeping so far to the side she's drooling on her neighbor (but I think he's her husband)
17 suits, but only 13 with briefcases
9 listening to music
1 bopping to the music (me) (Did I just say 'bopping'?)
222 of 4219 songs played on the iPod, though many skipped as clearly so not fall under the category of suitable 'train' tracks (no pun intended.....seriously....I don't do puns)
arrive platform 2
depart platform 3
arrive platform 7
depart platform 6
160 yen ticket
1more stop
arrive platform 2
walk 10 minutes

All for ONE fucking meeting.

Turn around and do it all again.

So there's one chicken foot, chillin' on the rim of the ramen. The photo's a little dark, but if you were to zoom in you'd see the individual toenails. Yeah, you're secretly thanking me it's a shitty photo. The best was the shot of Zoe being strangled by the leg. Too bad that one didn't come out...but trust me, it was highly entertaining.

So, do you remember Chrissy from Three's Company?

How to pass sixteen hours on an overnight train full of Chinese strangers:
a)Hand the Swiss guy a copy of Cosmo to read aloud to five native English speakers
b)Proposition some girl into buying a package of chicken feet just so you can photograph individual legs in awkward positions throughout the train compartment
c)Flick off the guy who keeps staring at you while you're 'sleeping.'
d)Decide whose bottle of nondescript janky alcohol tastes the worse by mixing with flat Sprite.

Should you ever find yourself in said position, I've made your day...now haven't !?

My conversation class paid me again last night. I'm under the impression they love to throw money my way. If only they were smaller bills I'd feel like a regular stripper...and not one of the trashy ones that negotiates backdoor deals behind the curtain in the VIP room - a good one, headliner even, with her name in lights and shitty backup dancers to disguise her waning choreographical skills and thinning hair. I just need a catchy name and I'll be in business.

My little China girl

Along the Great Wall in Beijing.


Seizure-inducing lights lining the Nanjing-Lu District of Shanghai.


A woman and her alley in Suzhou.


Guard outside the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Trip recap:

There is very little in China that isn't red. Just an observation.

In 2001 the Chinese Psychiatric Association no longer classified homosexuality as a mental disorder.....yeah...I don't know what to think either.

I think I had my picture taken with half of China - that's right - half a billion people served . I'm like my own veggie-friendly McDonalds.

Don't trust a city Lonely Planet deems the "Whore of the Orient." Because you know they meant to write "Syphillitic whore of the Orient"...and that's something you can only understand if you've seen Shanghai.

More lovely China photos here.

Reason number two hundred and forty-three (through nine) why Lauren wants out of Japan.