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Finished my regular contribution to Ploughshares and am now awaiting the second round of edits for a second piece from another editor. In this limbo I’m going to dive into one of the two books in this month’s @theboxwalla box. So excited for this as I’ve been into reading short stories lately (though my February research/reading list wouldn’t reflect that right now 😂). Happy to start Mu Xin’s An Empty Room! // #bookstagram #muxin

Celebrating another birthday with work and then continuing reading Eula Biss’s On Immunity: An Inoculation. Biss is a writer I hadn’t read before but whose nonfiction writing has been recommended to me multiple times so, thankfully, it was available as an eBook from my library! Its a nice break from seppuku and death, let me tell you. It’s an interesting topic and, not to be THAT person, but reading her experience giving birth and having a child and worrying about all the possible things that could go awry in their lives and tiny bodies is highly stressful. Thank god for all the moms out there because, lord knows, reading about mothering stresses only solidifies my decision on this landmark birthday to not have a child. I will happily coo over your vaccinated (unless they are immunocompromised and can’t be vaccinated, of course) baby but I’ll pass on my own 😂 Has anyone read Eula Biss before? Do you enjoy her other books, too? // #bookstagram #eulabiss

Reading 花ざかりの森 (Forest in Full Bloom?) by Mishima Yukio when I should be reading something else 😅 This is the first story Mishima published under his pen name (did you know Mishima’s name isn’t actually Mishima Yukio?) at the age of 16. 16! Mishima is a complex writer for me—on one hand I find him utterly tedious. Part of this is because he is such a slippery fish; everything is a mask and he is so good at narrativizing his own life to align with the Mishima persona. Even 仮面の告白 (Confessions of a Mask) is such a well thought out projection and narrativization that is presented as autobiography—so much in that text has been taken at face value in literary criticism of his work when it’s easy to show where he bends the truth under the guise of autobiography. A mask under the mask. And though his writing relates so much of the contradictions of postwar Japan, and still has resonance today, he is also the type of person whose neuroticism, obsession with image, and even his personality based on anecdotes are made tolerable only because he is indisputably stunning as a writer. It’s impossible for me to wholly hate on Mishima because whenever I think about how annoying his persona was, I read one of his short stories and I am engrossed. He can evoke such vivid imagery and bend Japanese in ways no one else does. He is someone who is ultimately fun to grapple with because even when you want to pin him down as X or Y, he is always a step ahead of you. But I still find him deeply annoying at times 🤣// #mishimayukio #mishima #花ざかりの森 #bookstagram

Snow day, food day, creepy hallway day.

Poor Pooh Bear was sick for the last few days and had us worried because he wouldn’t keep anything down. An anti-nausea shot and lots of tiny boiled chicken/overly cooked rice meals later he’s doing much better. So in honor of his healing, have a Pooh Bear appreciation post ❤️Popcorn has been a supportive brother by deigning to let Pooh Bear cuddle up beside him...occasionally 😆 // #longlivepoohbear #hediditfortheboiledchicken

January: commissioned and edited two fantastic personal essays and finished one feature for the next issue of the print magazine I work for, working on two pieces for myself to send out in the next few weeks, currently working on edits for an essay coming out in Feb/March that I am really excited about (and want to do justice—it is a thinking-through of another beloved Japanese writer), and I finished a new hat. My mother also gifted me a Kindle as a super early birthday gift (my birthday isn’t until February 😂) and I can’t believe how much I love it. For someone who goes through so many academic books, this has been such a cost effective gift. So far, a good start to 2020. // #bookstagram #myfriendgivesmethebestyarn

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