excerpts from emails with friends

seattle life is nice life.

it’s turning into summer here, so everything is a different shade of green and the sky goes from dark grey to bright blue as does the water in the sound. it’s pleasant, right now, sunny and brisk.

friends are good, the girl is good, the job is going well.

i keep asking why it took me so long to move back here, but in truth, i know that i was in some way afraid of this feeling good and comfortableness. that if only by continuing on in uncertainty, with the twinge of feeling bad, life would remain interesting and adventurous.

maybe that’s true, maybe it wasn’t, maybe i’ve just grown up a bit.

friday afternoon internet conversations at work

Me: i’m walking distance from oliver’s twist
the drinks there are so bad though
it’s really hard
Arielle:  they are pretty disgusting
and the bartenders are not even handsome.
it’s like, what’s the point? close already.

murakami on boston

This combination of sadness, disappointment, anger, and despair is not easy to dissipate. I understood this when I was researching my book “Underground,” about the 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and interviewing survivors of the attack and family members of those who died. You can overcome the hurt enough to live a “normal” life. But, internally, you’re still bleeding. Some of the pain goes away over time, but the passage of time also gives rise to new types of pain. You have to sort it all out, organize it, understand it, and accept it. You have to build a new life on top of the pain.

http://nyr.kr/12uvnks

conversations late at night

me: ow

her: what?

me: my stomach hurts. like badly.

her: where?

me: lower right. ow.

her: do you have an appendix?

me: i think so?

her: good to know.

me: why?

her: that’s where it is. the lower right. 

me: ow.

her: goodnight.