So, I've been away for three years. It's a strange feeling, coming back to America after three years in Japan. You notice a lot of strange little things, miss a lot of odd little things. And are glad to have other things back, or readily available. I miss okonomiyaki and sushi. Too much meat gives me stomachaches now. Walking through an American supermarket is like a strange adventure in marketing and shiny packages. Capitalism at it's finest. I no longer feel like an Amazon, capable of crushing little schoolgirls just by turning around. Now I'm the tiny one again, slipping from an L size to a S size just by crossing the Pacific. I'm no longer the exotic gaigokujin, but I can have privacy while I walk around, as no one finds me particularly interesting here on the edge of the cornfields.

As much as I loved living in Japan, as wonderful as it was, it wasn't very good for my writing. Which is, of course, the opposite reaction of what I wanted, but for some reason Japan just made the writer in me take a long, unwanted nap. I've been back for two weeks, and it feels like that part of my life is starting to stir again, like some little corner of my mind that just happened to doze off and forgot to set the alarm. Maybe it'll wake up. I hope so. I'll probably need it in the coming months.

Of course, now that I'm back home, I'm jobless and stuck living in my parents' house again. So begins the job search, and who knows where that will lead. Trying to get back on my feet, trying to get myself together again, trying to adjust to driving a car instad of walking and riding a cherry bike, trying to remember what it's like to be able to talk to people easily without stumbling and grasping for words.

There are no karate dojos of my style anywhere near where I live. I started yoga instead. Yes, it is different. I'm starting to realize exactly how much I wander aimlessly and follow my gut where it tells me to go. So I'm trying yoga and hoping for a job and hoping I get a job before I burn through too much of the money I saved in Japan. The bank gave me a credit card with a grown-up line of credit, not the crappy card I had leftover from college and didn't really need in Japan. I feel like a big girl now, but without a job. Life's weird that way, I suppose.

And I miss my boyfriend, who I'll never see again. I suppose I should call him my ex. Don't want to though. Breaking up because you'll get deported if you stay sucks. International boundaries...who needs them? Bah.

I want to write again. And read books. And have my own apartment with my own comfy couch to watch tv on, and geek out, and a job so that I can maintain all that, and have a little car with good mileage and enough money for gas to just drive down the highway again.

Back in America. Got a life to lead. Need to start moving again.