“I spend my days making myself smaller, more acceptable. ..And that’s okay because at night when I go on stage, I get to experience the world the way I feel it … with indescribable rage and unbearable sadness and huge passion. At night on stage, I get to kill the waiter and dance on his grave.  And if I can’t do that, If all I have left is a life of making myself smaller, then I don’t want to live.  I don’t.  And believe me, honey, you don’t want me to live.” Opera Singer, Grey’s Anatomy.

In the past year, I’ve finally felt (honestly) comfortable and confident with myself, so much so that more and more I’m finding it harder to accept the practice of making myself smaller and more acceptable to others.

I’m finally comforted by my life mantra of being fearless, of trying things, or attempting things simply because I’m curious without shame or self-consciousness.  The world, I’ve found, is my stage.  I have not one particular craft that lets me express myself better than the way I present myself through my story.  

My life is my best artwork, and I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that it will probably never fit into conventionality.  I can’t believe that I once felt so repressed and confined by those laws set by others in society.  I don’t know why it took me this long to honestly feel okay with breaking those laws.  Before, it was always just making a statement.  Now, it’s really me just being me.

And let me tell you, it feels really, really good.

(so good, I’m posting a photo of Me! in a Bikini! for all the world to see. Nice, France: Ooh La La!!!)

It’s all about getting (and staying) in touch!!!

Lately, I’ve been reaching out to very special people in my life that I have lost touch with in the last few years.  

My best friend in Kindergarten was a Japanese foreign student who spoke no English.  After that year, she returned to Tokyo, and until we were 18, we wrote letters to each other and sent care packages.  She learned English, and would visit her cousins in NY (and consequently, me) and I took Japanese in high school to eventually be able to visit her.

Well, after graduating high school, I moved around … a lot… and lost touch with tons of people.  Since I’m finally making it to Asia, I dropped her line.  When a few weeks passed of radio silence, I assumed she moved.  Alas! SHE WAS ON VACATION!

Shoreditch Festival!

Tis the season for festivals in the UK!

Best: Peter Hook of Joy Division!

Best Band: We Have Band.

Skill I Didn’t Think I Had: Sharp Reflexes and the ability to play a pseudo-game of Hackisac

St. Paul’s and the Wibbly Wobbly (Millenium Bridge)

Mansion House: With one month left, I’m looking at London with brand new eyes, again.

Southwark, London: good weather always brings out creativity — in any city.

I’m sitting on a big giant couch (arm) made of grass.

Ooooooh, London! You and your rainy days (& traffic).

This is me, eating Socca, which is a speciality of Nice, France. Its primary ingredients are chickpea flour and olive oil.  It’s kinda thought of as chickpea crepe, and it’s cooked in a cast iron pan more than a meter in diameter.  For us, in the open air market, it was set over a steel drum housing burning charcoal to keep it warm.  But don’t let the description fool you.  What it really tasted like was scrambled eggs and chicken soup in crepe form.  It was odd.  We devoured it, but it definitely tasted like chicken (fat).  You eat it while it’s basically still molten lava.  You’re supposed to eat it hot from the oven seasoned with pepper.  

I’ll never have it again, not liking the taste of chicken, but it was definitely an experience.

GPOYW: I’m in Nice, France; having a french dinner, speaking french Edition.

If you like my blog, can you recommend me for a Travel Blog?! Thanks, lovers!

Nice, France: Listen, okay, last night, whichreally deserves a proper blog… The girls and I used my spidey-sense to find a nightclub.

Yah, we found a gay club with a drag show.

And all the performers got a kick out of me. And danced me with me. An audience member kept pulling down my top to jiggle my breasticles, too.

All together, it was insanity but absolutely fun.