I'm trying to rediscover that old Zen disattachment as I sort my crap. Not only tons of books, but piles of connectors and mice and keyboards and old Macs... what a cluttered mess my life has become in only ten years! "Free of everything, bound by nothing." Maybe Sanzo with his gun and fan would be helpful in providing some discipline.

Gave notice to my landlady last week. Triage in my wrecked apartment continues; many books to be given to the library. Passport should arrive in 2 weeks. Rejoined AYH after too many years' absence; I plan to stay in hostels in Japan, always my favorite environment, with international and open-minded fellow travellers -- bikers, packers, students ( Read more... )

Trying to clear out 10 years accumulated junk. Major triage.

Sold some anime, and immediately spent the bucks on manga -- well, I HAD to get Tokyo Babylon 6, and I always buy more to get the free postage! (Yeah, free postage, that's it.) So I also got four more. Hopeless, I'm just hopeless ( Read more... )

I have two delicious new books!

A History of Japan 1615-1867 and
Kodahsha's Essential Kanji Dictionary, containing 20,000 kanji instead of 1,945.

I wish I had an eidetic memory.

OK, here's the deal. In spite of the fact that I've been unemployed for more than six months, my Credit Union has just increased the limit on my maxed out credit card, enough to balance out the hit by taxes on my savings for a trip to Japan ( Read more... )

Wow, there's a lot of ignorance among sellers of cels and genga. Far too many don't know how to handle or ship their cels and genga, or even how to communicate about them.

Four lovely genga/douga sets were damaged in mailing because they were not packaged correctly. The package was folded and crushed by the USPS.A cel was misrepresented; I wasn't ( Read more... )

Well, I've done my tax calculations, and the Japan vacation fund is trashed. Taxes are getting half of it. Ow, that hurts; I thought I'd be going to Japan in March ( Read more... )

Sad, I lost a lovely InuYasha. The set included two cel layers (Inuyasha and the swirling sakura petals) plus an ORIGINAL MATCHING background; you never see those! Check it out here. *sobbing* Damn. I expect to see it resold for hundreds of dollars. I should have foregone all the genga and douga, and just gone for this one instead. Ah, well, you ( Read more... )

Went to tabyk's place to see Miyazaki's latest, Howl's Moving Castle, still playing in Japanese theatres. Subarashii!! *sated smile*

We also viewed Appleseed, which came and went in a few dozen US theatres two weeks ago, none in the Pacific Northwest, the first four episodes of the new TV series and the movie made from the Ah! My Goddess manga, and a ( Read more... )

Feeling a bit worried, because I'm bidding on a number of cels and genga, and I just found out that I may have a hefty tax bill coming up because I didn't have taxes withheld from the unemployment checks, and they added up.

I'm scared taxes will take the savings I've managed not to touch, that have long been earmarked for a trip to Japan this ( Read more... )