Some Things I Do With My Time

• Let's start with anime. I find Japanese animation -- specifically things in the shoujo (girls) genre -- absolutely enthralling. A list of everything I've seen would be silly (and take up so much space that if I'm going to make one anyway it'll have to be on its own page) but there are a few series I'm so addicted to that they deserve mention. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon is where I started, and is still a favourite, but I'm also very fond of Shoujo Kakumei Utena (probably the best anime series I've ever seen), Tenkuu no Escaflowne, Tenshi ni Narumon, Kodomo no Omocha, and Hana Yori Dango. All of these series were manga either before or after they were animated, but most of the manga isn't available in English yet. This leads me inevitably to...
• Learning spoken Japanese. Earl got me a set of Pimsleur Japanese tapes for my birthday in 1999, and I worked almost all the way through them before I ran out of time. I then turned my attention to written Japanese, and taught myself hiragana, which made finding manga for my favourite series much easier. Last fall I started taking a Japanese class at the UCSC Extension in Cupertino, and it's been fabulous. I did three quarters and then took a break for the summer, during which I likely forgot about half of what I knew. I'm contemplating taking Japanese IV this fall, but am a bit worried about needing my attention for my new job & raising kittens. Still, I really would like to be able to read some of my ever-growing pile of manga.
• Reading is important. I really love books, as anyone who has seen my house can attest. I read voraciously -- sf, fantasy, historical fiction, YA novels, plays, various Asian novels/plays/poetry in translation, lots of other poetry, history (focusing mostly on Japan and China right now), biography, essays, literary criticism, letters, diaries, popular science and technology, theology, feminist bible studies, mysteries... and I'm sure I could continue. Pretty much the only things I don't read are non-genre fiction (ie: the sorts of things Oprah has in her book club), books about animals (fiction or non-fiction), and anything horrific which would give me nightmares. I also read a lot of translated manga -- Viz, Dark Horse, and Mixx all put out monthly manga anthologies -- and a few American comics comics (mostly just Strangers in Paradise and Kabuki at this point, although I am pretty fond of Planetary).
• A few years ago I started documenting my reading. I like to keep lists of things; anime I've seen, books I've read, CDs I own... I did this more when I was in school, and had lots of dead time to scribble things down. I like websites where you get to fill out forms and make lists, such as AlexLit, or the recommendation feature at Amazon, where they suggest books and you give them feedback. This is also a huge part of the appeal of I Would Love for me; making lists of things I like and don't like. Amusingly, this list-making thing is what originally got me into Asian literature; The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is a Japanese diary from the 10th century CE, and it includes lists of things Shonagon loved and hated. I ran across it in 7th grade English and was completely hooked.
• Music is another important part of my life. Back during adolescence I played various instruments (viola, piano, a tiny bit of violin and cello), and sang in school choirs, but I haven't played or sang in an organised fashion in years. These days all my singing occurs in the car or shower, to things such as folk music, 80's songs, anime soundtracks, and (most recently) stuff on the radio. I've discovered in the last few months that I really like some current music, such as Matchbox Twenty, Train, and Natalie Merchant. I'm not exactly sure what genre any of it is -- perhaps pseudo-alternative -- but I've gone so far as to join a music club so I can get lots of recent CDs cheaply.
• I really like soap and candles. I'm not sure why, but there's something very pleasant about them; they're tactile, sensual, interesting, and also practical. I tend to go to Illuminations to get my candles, but soap I pick up anywhere they have something interesting. Earthsake at Valley Fair mall is a good place, as is WaterCourse Way in Palo Alto. They tend to have soaps made from palm oil with nice non-invasive scents like pine and ocean. The expensive hand-milled French soaps are usually too floral and sticky for me to really like them. With candle scents I'm the same way; I like fruit/tree smells over flower smells, although I tend to like everything Illuminations does except for the disgusting orange cream.
• I really hate fake orange flavours (like orange candy, popsicles, etc.), and I really hate cilantro, but other than that there's a lot of food I adore. Indian and Mexican both used to be off-limits, but I seem to have overcome my aversion to the former, and so long as I avoid the cilantro in the latter life is very good. I also love Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc etc., plus good solid American food, plus fancy French and Italian, plus that bizarre thing known as 'fusion' cuisine, which seems to involve a lot of wasabi mashed potatoes. I really enjoy going out to dinner, so I've organised a group of people to try exciting new restaurants once a month. We've managed to meet eight or nine times so far, and eventually I will document our adventures.
• There's more to food than just eating out, however; I like to cook, and recently I've been getting myself organised enough to do so regularly. Also, it's fun just to think about food -- what's involved in it, what flavours go well together, how one assembles it... that sort of thing. Jon Singer has been a huge influence in this sort of thing; I had the pleasure of going to dinner with him and a bunch of other people during the last two OryCons, and listened to him talk about mushrooms was enchanting. My other hope for the food group is that I'll learn a lot more about food.
• Way back in 1999 I started growing some herbs in little pots on the patio, and since then things have just gotten more and more exciting. This year the garlic has already died and returned again, the apple mint has exploded into enormous blooming stalks, and the sorrel is being fairly quiet, never really having recovered from last year's ant invasion. This spring Jim & I added several types of tomatoes, some peppermint, a lone strawberry plant, and three jalapenos to the edible plant mix, and all of those have done very well; the strawberries are numerous and incredibly sweet, so I plan to get a proper strawberry pot or two next year and grow lots of them. There are only three jalapenos (one per plant), and the first one just got ripe, but I expect they'll be good and that I'll want to do more of those next year as well.
• Not only do I grow edible plants, but I have some cute inedible ones at all! Specifically, there's a pot of woolly betony (aka lamb's ear) which I like because it's soft and fuzzy and adorable, and the iris I planted a year ago (which then stubbornly refused to bloom) graced me this year with an amazing nine purple flowers. I also have three Japanese irises that my friend Moria gave me, but don't expect any flowering from them until next spring at the earliest. Along with this embrassment of riches my house has an entire backyard of interesting plants, such as mexican sage and more Japanese irises and star jasmine which is twining nicely around the side patio, and a plum tree which is maybe several plum trees all growing together.
• During high school I spent all my time mudding, which probably saved my sanity and definitely allowed me to move to California once I graduated. Once I moved to California I did less online stuff and more face-to-face gaming. This lasted for a time, but when I moved in with Jim and hardly gamed at all, partially because he didn't and partially because I wanted him all to myself. Then last year Chrisber decided to start an Amber game inspired by Utena, which Jim somehow decided to play in, and as often happens one thing has led to another, so now I game frequently and get to do it all with Jim. Along with Amber, we're playing in Al's theoretically revived Mage game, Harold's weekly original D&D nostalgia, and Chrisber's Sailor Moon style Champions game -- although Jim may never actually create a character for this last.
• For a long time Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the only American television I watched, and I took a certain pride in that fact. Then last year Jim and I kept missing episodes due to the food group and such things, and discovered that getting our VCR to tape them for us was a nightmare beyond belief. This combined with getting to play with Kirby's TiVo made me desperately want one of my own, and then to my great surprise Jim bought me one for my birthday. So now we still watch Buffy and its companion show Angel, but we also watch Pinky and the Brain (although we seem to have seen all of it that Nickelodeon is willing to show), and Animaniacs (ditto, except the offender in this case is the Cartoon Network), and Iron Chef, which is a work of twisted Japanese genius which has increased my desire to learn to cook well about a hundredfold. We were watching The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock, but the channel they were running on got bought by Hallmark and now they're no longer being shown, which would infuriate me enormously if I let it, so I'm carefully remaining calm and believing they'll return someday. At least I have almost two full seasons of Fraggle Rock on VHS at this point.
• BAMM should probably be close to the top of my list of interests, but as this makes no claim to be organised by priority (an impossible task) I shan't worry about it. BAMM is Bay Area Model Mugging, which is an organisation dedicated to teaching full-impact self defense to women (and men!). I took one of their classes in spring of 1999 and was just blown away by how much I learned and how intense and wonderful and transformative it was. Since then I've taken the training to assist classes, and have assisted two, which is very tiring and time-consuming and makes me prickly and is entirely worth it. There's something deeply magical about watching all these women come together, open up, make connections, and find out that they are never helpless. I really do think that everyone I know should take one of these classes and find out that they can and would defend themselves if necessary. Over Thanksgiving I showed the video tape of my graduation to my parents & sister, with the result that my sister is planning to take a class in the Chicago chapter at some point. I'm so thrilled. BAMM is probably the most societally meaningful thing I do in my life, but given how draining it is to help with the classes I haven't been doing so since last year. This spring I joined the scholarship committee, which is a great well to help without having to invest so much emotionally, and then in the summer I took the level 2 class (Intro to Weapons and Multiple Assailants), which was enormously keen. I do plan to continue taking classes, and to assist more, as time and money and energy all permit.

More things will doubtless appear as they occur to me.