it's usually a great idea to have a drink with an old friend
with lots of balmy pics of the week (overwhelming amount of food) and some amazing veggies recipes I've been loving!
Can you believe we are at the tail end of May? I still have zero plans for the summer and my social media is already serving me “EuroSummer” content. While the content itself is annoying, I am jealous. What I would do! to have a icy cold white or rosè on the balcony of a house I rented in some countryside, reading and writing, and maybe corresponding to some emails here and there, then head to the local grocery store, get some heirloom tomatoes or something unattainable in Japan, buy a pasta shape that’s unusual, get some fresh bunches of herbs and cook up a meal for myself and call it a night by 9:00. I’ll just dream about this balmy evening for myself while Japan is unfortunately entering the rainy season. Far from balmy, but a sticky one. (To be fair, it’s actually been a bit chilly! I found this post through
newsletter and was like sounds about right!)
Speaking of a balmy evening though, last Wednesday was indeed that. I saw my best friend from college and we had dinner together. (Roman style Italian place called trattoria dal birbante giocondo. Amazing pasta selection, wowee) We haven’t seen each other in over two years, which is pretty wild knowing that we’ve been inseparable when we were in college. She got married at 25, and now lives with her husband and her doggie a little bit out of the city. Once she moved to her grown up house, I saw her less and we sort of naturally lost touch.
Our catch up session happened very organically in a very us way. I probably manifested the night and it really got me thinking about setting intentions and letting it play out in real life. If I put my mind to something —well it usually happens one way or the other.
I am a firm believer in manifestation: “the act of bringing something into existence.” I heard about it years ago on a random podcast and the podcaster said she wrote her dreams on a piece of paper and thought about them frequently. Once they come true, she will set it on fire to release it back to the spirits. After hearing that, I started to write a list of things I wanted for a partner. At the time, I was struggling with my dating life and I was in an unattractive woe-is-me kind of time. I jotted down a couple things that came to mind first, then wrote down things that I don’t ever want from a partner after I’ve experienced it the night before. Things like “he doesn’t make me cry” was a big one. There are also things that are pretty specific on there like “he likes drinking wine at home.” Or things that I immediately wrote down after I had a terrible date who wasn’t at all a great listener or an observer. I wrote “Please, be engaging and observant.” (The “please,” is telling.) I still have it up on my wall and never set it on fire or anything like that. I like to read it every once in a while to believe in myself that what I wanted wasn’t unreasonable.
Out of the 20 things I wrote, I will say every bit of it speaks true with my now-boyfriend Sam. This is a side note, but I find it very convincing that Sam noticed the piece of paper right away when he came to my house. I think I was longing for someone to notice my cry for help in a sense, hence always had it up on the wall in the most obvious place. For Sam to not only notice it immediately but to show interest in it meant a lot. The rest of the bunch I ever brought home never had the skillset to find the piece of paper that was right there. In hindsight, I wanted them to notice it and ask the things that were on there, but none of them had it in them to bear witness of my honesty.
I digress. Manifesting something into real life is not a foreign concept for me. I basically manifested Sam so that’s one (of course there are other elements, blah blah blah), my now freelance lifestyle is something I envisioned for myself when I was working in corporate, building a sacred womancave (my apartment) is another. Going to Europe alone, walking to a boulangerie in the morning, ordering my pain au chocolat and a cafè is absolutely something I imagined for myself once, and I have done those things, multiple times might I add. If I really want it, I can usually manage to find a way to bring things into life.
In the beginning of May, I was speaking with Sam about my friendships. At times, I feel very guilty when I don’t reach out to my friends or when I feel like I haven’t spoken to them in a while, like I dropped the ball on them or something. Sam brought up a good point that I unusually don't have a lot of old-timey friends in my friend circle. Sam has a “thread” with his friends since forever ago that’s quite active, but I don’t have a group chat that’s active from the old times. Granted, I was the one who sort of deliberately cut ties with a lot of them, subtly though, like not going to their wedding and stuff. (As an afterthought, maybe that’s not so subtle. ) Some of my close friends have known me for a decade or so now, but we are all connected in a non-school and non-work related way, which in retrospect, maybe a little rare. Most friendships, at least in Japan, are very much compartmentalized. You have your junior high/high school friends, you have your college friends, you have your first corporate job friends and you have your second corporate job friend. I think most people stop making “good friends” after their second or third job, but in most cases, they will sustain their friendships from each sector of their lives. I guess it’s my fault in a way that I don’t have those types of friends now, I’ve never made an effort to keep in touch with them.
This one friend from college was on my mind a lot recently. We were really close and I believed that we still have a lot to talk about and even though I dropped the ball by not reaching out to her, I still actually wanted to be friends with her. The way leading up to the dinner felt very kismet.
She’s not a huge social media person. She posts maybe once every quarter and rarely posts any instagram stories either. If I see her posting, it’s usually during Golden Week, Japan’s annual holiday for the corporate workers to take time off of work. She usually goes somewhere overseas and this year she posted on Instagram that she went to Hawaii. She posted a photo that led me to respond to her saying, “Girl…I can’t.” The photo in question was this tree that had a lot of berries on it but in an odd placement. It was on all ends of the tree trunk and in clumps, like a ton of it. It gave me the absolute shivers. (I actually found a reference online but I could never post it here. OMG)
We discovered that we both have a similar “fear” of stuff that’s clustered together a few years back. I guess it’s a form of trypophobia. Like when a bunch of small dots or shapes are stacked together in one thing. We saw a tree trunk on the street that had a very… certain kind of pattern to it: clumps of stripes. We screamed when we figured out our fears at the same time, and couldn’t look up that whole walk. Just a little strange memory that we both share and apparently think about a lot. When she posted that berry tree and I commented with disgust, she replied, “I posted this picture thinking if you will be okay about it.” And that was it. We interacted for a bit on Instagram and I texted her separately saying, “I was wanting to text you for a while actually.”
Maybe you’ll think, why did you need such a prompt? If you were best friends, just text her saying you want to have dinner with her? It was actually not that easy. I thought about texting her out of the blue, but I am an overthinker and can get anxious about nothing: what if she doesn’t text back? An Instagram story was a good enough reason for me to comment and cease my moment.
That night, it was all the feelings at once; strange, familiar, distant at times, unfamiliar, comforting, embarrassing, and delighted. I thought it would be something more straightforward, like the joys of reuniting with a best friend who you’ve been estranged from for years will give you a sense of relief I guess. But as all of our lives happen and not happen in the span of two years, both of our lives have changed so much in a way that it seemed like it also impacted the way we think at times. I have never seen her as this career driven woman, who uses her company credit card for a cab to go back home, wearing seemingly expensive clothes and a new Cartier watch perhaps? A few times, her commentary made me realize why I took a step back from my Japanese high school friends. Their look on life as a singular way of being made me feel too large to be in their presence —too large in a sense that I feel as though I stand out like a sore thumb instead of feeling like I belong there. But those moments weren’t as crucial. It didn’t make me want to stand up and leave the dinner. We lingered around the table even after all our food and drinks were gone and there was just water. I suggested we go to a second place and we talked non stop until 1am after deciding to meet up at 6pm because we would probably have so much to talk about. We were right and it honestly felt in the purest and simplest term, nice to reconnect with an old friend.
She’s a friend that I was once inseparable from. A friend that we both got toxically drunk from cheap nihonshu and we both could never drink it ever again. A friend who started dating boys before I had ever had the chance. A friend who I saw fell in love with her first love. That night, after knowing each other since we were 18, she saw me in love for the first time. She saw me as someone who has a boyfriend for the first time. She saw me as someone who once said offhandedly, I like to write, then turning it into a semi-career now. We both witnessed each other’s growth together. But we haven’t grown out of the fear of looking at weird dots and shapes stacked together, that is probably sticking around.
Things I read and stuff I enjoyed
very random, but I recently as a writing practice, submitted a writing contest and its prompt was “write an eulogy.” This Princess Diana’s eulogy by her brother Earl Spencer was stunning and tear jerker.
From The Times, Yehudis Fletcher wrote such a gripping piece on freedom and self journey. She was once an Orthodox Jewish wife —twice— and then learned that she likes women. A recommendation I found through
I forgot to mention this article last week that was making the rounds from The Cut, It must be nice to be a west village girl A follow up interview with the author by
was more interesting maybe. I have so many thoughts but I don’t know if I buy into the “community building” to justify a way that everyone dresses the same. Like surely, there should be some effect of the algorithm here as well.from the
, I’ve been very much enjoying this type of writing material that is hyper specific to her and she knows what she’s talking about. Not just a rec chain email basically. Her recent interview this is what 80 looks like was so delightful — I mean pasting a resto menu to your journal is so duh!!! but never thought of it really. Also, I saw her Elsa Peretti appreciation post and got me do some digging — immediately found a great condition one on mercari.
borrowed from The Molehill 
a rare self portrait sight here on Subby! My new favorite shirt by your local favorite artbook and knick knack shop @sailorsaibin Food highlight: This potato salad recipe made by
that I found through . My veggie intake has been very abundant thanks to ‘s gardening series and recipe’s like this spring salad by I don’t know why but suddenly on IG, this girl Faith Fresh has appearing in my algo, and while I honestly find her way of communicating a bit over the top, her salad recipes are amazing. I made her caesar salad. (to be afraid of raw meat … while you make food content is very skeptical to me.)
it’s really hard to get a ‘bunch’ of herbs for a reasonable price in Japan. You get 2 stems of a parsley for like $3. But snap peas and other spring vegetables are so good right now!!! 
a gorgeous homemade caeser salad with homemade croutons 
from top left: a zucchini spread! Tomato orzo with zucchini, zucchini roast from Alison Roman. Coffee cake made by the talented Kiera! I finally went to ? donut? but not but yes. It was called daco? near my parents house. The cream filled ones are the best. Recently, Japanese conbini’s are stocking up with some amazing chocolate chip mint ice cream options! Ok freaks, you got enough links to have some fun now. Go live your life x Thank you always Megumi x
