Sublime

read the novel Memoirs of a Geisha –the Ichiriki ochaya is one of the places where much of the action is set.

when I was in high school (and still use on occasion). That was 1998. Ten years now. I seriously doubt at twenty that I saw myself, in my vague dreams for the future, still being in Tokyo at thirty.

Soon after the war, Japan’s most assertive novelist, Yukio Mishima, published a book whose title—Confessions of a Mask—was pure Wilde, as were its sentiments: “It is precisely what people regard as my true self that is a masquerade.”

What Mia was thinking about, however, was her own teenage years, memories she’d packed away long ago for safekeeping but now unfolded and dusted clean.

For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.

As with many beautiful teenage girls, her expression lacked any trace of everyday life.

Her speeches had two refrains: “I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna get big boobs,” and “Can I really go through with this?”