Happy New Year, to all a happy and healthy 2007!
(I almost wrote 2006. See how behind the times I am?)

A quick note for those interested in contemporary Japanese fiction – the non-autobiographical works of WW I and II era writer, Osamu Dazai, are tremendously underrated and underread here in America. He wrote a book of fairy tales – all, of course, with the satirical and dark twists that are the marks of his writing – that is not even completely available in English. Two of them, “Crackling Mountain” and and “Taking the Wen Away” appear in his Crackling Mountain and Other stories collection, but the best story in that book is “Undine,” a curiously familiar story of a girl who is transformed into a fish after her father attempts to rape her – reminded me of AS Byatt’s stories of female water spirits. His other book, Blue Bamboo, is a must-read. Dazai is very famous in Japan as a sort of Japanese-male-version of Sylvia Plath – he died of suicide at the age of 39 at the end of WW II, born from a rich family that disinherited him because of his radical leftist politics and tendency to sleep with – and have suicide-pacts with -“lower-class geisha.” But Blue Bamboo is a curious, lyrical collection, stories with the wit and irony of JD Salinger and the attitude of a writer who you might imagine living and writing today, not in the 1930s. One of the most arresting pieces of that book is when a family of siblings re-tells the story of Rapunzel with curious flourishes during a winter holiday, as their grandfather drinks Jack Daniels in the back room. I think Dazai got passed over here because American critics were not paying much attention to Japanese fiction during the 1930s and 40s, but this tremendously gifted author deserves as much literary attention as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and manages to out-do both of them in his unsparing sense of humor towards himself and his lifelong despair. Much is being made these days of Japanses surreal novelist Haruki Murikami, but without Dazai, Murikami would not have existed. His flip inclusions of pop cultural references and humorous, dreary evocations of modern Japanese youth recall quite strongly the best in Dazai’s work.
This is one thing I’m grateful for in 2006 – in doing research for my second book, “The Anime Version of My Life,” I have discovered a magnitude of amazing Japanese writers I would never have encountered otherwise. It’s like having a splendid blind date who whisks you off to Paris – better than you could have imagined.

Strep throat. Who knew adults even got this? On the road to recovery now. One side effect of not being able to talk on the phone (and spending nearly three hours in the doctor’s office the day after Christmas) was being able to get a whole novel read – Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Kind of a prep-school-expose/murder mystery, narrated by a brainy outcast/cool kid with lots of footnotes and little sketches by the author called “visual aids.” A little dark, a lot of fun. Amazing for a first-time novelist. The plot even reminds me a little of Atwood’s Blind Assassin. Also re-watched the original, un-retouched Star Wars: A New Hope, which was better than I remembered.
Christmas Day was miraculous here – nearly fifty degrees and sunny, followed by two days of bitter cold rain. Today is another sunny one – nearly tempting me and my antibiotic-ed-to-the-gills body outside again.
Got a copy of The Cincinnati Review with my review of Louise Gluck’s Averno in it the day before Christmas. I’m kind of proud of the review, since Gluck’s been one of my poetry heroines since I was about twenty. I wanted to write something un-gushy, even-handed.
Also looking forward to acquiring my contributor’s copy of The Pebble Lake Review, which will also feature poems by friends like Wendy Wisner, Shanna Compton, Anne Haines, Steve Schroeder, JP Dancing Bear and a review of Steve Mueske’s book. From what I’ve read of The Pebble Lake Review, I have very similar taste to the editor’s. I love when that happens.
Oh, and here’s a link to the review in the Winter 2006 issue of Rattle (I believe that’s issue 26) of Becoming the Villainess by Natasha K. Moni.
One of my little brother’s friends from high school, who signed up for the Navy after getting his engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon, is going to Iraq this year. I know he’s not a kid anymore, in fact he’s turned 30, but I still think of him as a kid and I don’t want him to be in danger. Good luck Will!

Christmas Time is Here…
I am feeling wonderfully warm and calm now for no reason. The power is finally back on in the neighborhoods around me. Our kitten is sleeping under the decorated tree (only breaking one or two ornaments.) It is back to regular Seattle Christmas weather, after the fitful flooding and snowstorms in November, and the horrible windstorms of last week, (normal i.e. forties and rain.) I am thankful for the good things in 2006. I am thankful for the good news that a friend had today, for the couple of people who wanted copies of my book this week, for the book being published, for cards from friends and family, for my husband of twelve years who still cooks wonderful dinners for me (I think I fell in love with him when he cooked Christmas Eve dinner for me when I was 19 and he was 21.) Today we went out and explored a neighborhood we are thinking of renting in next year, one closer to downtown Seattle. We ate cupcakes and ginger tea at one place, grocery shopped at the friendly, independently-owned store, checked out the poetry section at the used bookstore, and wandered through shops playing with children’s stuffed animals, empire penguins and hedgehods and even a stuffed peacock puppet! It’s fun to imagine ourselves in a new place. We went through our yearly finances yesterday and though we’re leaving 2006 somewhat empty-pocketed, we’re feeling hopeful, not anxious. Good things will happen. Welcome, 2007.
Happy holidays Everyone!

Home safe with the power back on, thankfully, though 200,000 on my side of town, including businesses down the street and houses up the hill, are still without power. And we’re in a cold snap.
Thanks for all of your good wishes – I think I’ve recovered now, even done some laundry, though our fridge and freezer – and the local grocery stores – are practically empty.

It’s one of the last days to ship things by priority mail and have them arrive by Christmas. Remember, Becoming the Villainess makes an excellent Christmas/solstice/Festival of Lights/Beethoven’s Birthday present! (…end self promotion)

…Later that night…

With things back to normal, I got a chance to finally flip through a few books on my review pile, including Kate Greenstreet’s amazing Case Sensitive, and Ivy Alvarez’ touching twist on the Demeter and Persophone mythology in Mortal, as well as Rebecca Loudon’s unique take on the Amelia Earheart story, Navigate. So many blogger’s good works, so little time…I have to complete some Expedia freelance work by the 20th, and then help a friend with her web site, but after that, I’m free to settle down to reviewing. Plus reading two other students’ theses manuscripts so I’ll have useful things to say at their theses reviews. And making up a class handout for my talk. Sigh. At this rate I’m never going to have time to submit a set of poems, much less a manuscript. I’m hoping things settle down after January.
In other news, a couple of poems up at http://www.poemeleon.org/ along with poet bloggers Mary Agner, Rachel Dacus…and my publisher, Tom Hunley? I swear that guy is following me around!
And I just found out I’ll be reading at the 2007 Seattle Poetry Festival. So that should be fun!self promotion>

Posting this morning note from a hotel in downtown Seattle after the power on the East side of Seattle (including in our home) has been out since Thursday night. Bellevue, Redmond (yup, Microsoft was out of power,) Woodinville, Kirkland, Issaquah – everything was shut down, one of the two bridges to get us to downtown Seattle was shut down because of wind damage and half of the roads to get us to the highway were blocked by fallen trees, and there were a lot more trees leaning on wires. it wasn’t like we could drive five or ten minutes and find a restaurant, movie theater, grovery story – there was nothing for as far as we could see. Also, we were almost out of gas and there were no gas stations open except over the one working bridge, which was jammed with traffic. A little harrowing. When we got to the hotel, we flipped on the television and internet to find out what was going on. Power after the worst of the storm was out to 1.5 million people. The problem with wind storms here is there are so many trees – with none too strong roots – three people were killed by falling trees on cars and homes, and a woman was drowned from flood waters during the storm. Some of Boeing’s planes were shown stacked on top of each other. Sirens we had heard on the East side and downtown. And, of course, floating drawbridges which are creaky with age don’t do so well in 50-60 mile per hour winds and waves. We still don’t know if our power is back on, but the hotel (actually, all the downtown hotels) are booked up tonight, so we’re going back. At least when we got here yesterday afternoon we were able to take a hot shower, walk around outside in the little bit of sunshine we got, and we found a wonderful smelling bakery where we hung around drinking hot tea and coffee. Anyway, it reminded me of the hurricane we experienced when we lives in Virginia, the baromoter dropping to 20, those big swirls on the radar, the power going out and sleeping, under extra blankets, listening to things bang against our house and the wind howl. Worrying about our older neighbors in the cold (it was supposed to snow/ice last night) and trying to figure out how fast we had to throw out food.
Note to self: keep emergency gasoline can in garage.