Getting Warmer Edition

30 March 2025

Although the weather has its ups and downs, we are definitely getting into a transitional stage where I have to rethink what clothes to wear, especially when I go out to walk the dog. How’s the weather where you are?

Monday

I participated in an interesting online workshop with the Mata Ashita Japanese Canadian writing group by two creators who are working with collections of haiku, written in Japanese by internees during the second World War, responding with their own artistic interpretations, rather than straightforward translations. Their process sounded quite intriguing. I had worked with Carolyn Nakagawa at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre, doing podcasts together on Japanese Canadian history and culture. I had met the Yoriko Gillard at the NNMCC when I volunteered to have her cut my hair as part of a performance art piece. It’s inspiring to be in the presence of creative people.

Tuesday

I later looked up the number and it was associated with a few different little post offices. This person had claimed they were in Ottawa and had intercepted a package from me on its way to the United States. Or something like that. I told them to call me back later but they never did. I hope I don’t get arrested now.

Wednesday

The sky is still light enough, and the weather was pleasant enough that I went for a walk after supper one day, without a particular task in mind. Although I guess it was to get a little bit of exercise to reach my daily step goal. I passed my daughter’s old elementary school, so I suppose it was also a stroll down memory lane.

Thursday

I may have mentioned before that my Mom used to point out that Japanese Canadians were not allowed to vote before, so we should never take it for granted. Voting reminds me a little of reading: if you don’t do it, it’s not much different from not being able to do it. And maybe it is not so good to have people who don’t know what they are doing choose people who want power, but so it goes. We are also now in the midst of a federal election, so I will have to look into who seems the most benign there.

Friday

I don’t want to know more about fictional characters than actual people I am supposed to care about. Anyhow, these are some speculative movies I am watching on Netflix, Electric State, Family Pack, and Appleseed Alpha. I don’t yet know if I’ll like them enough to actually make a comic on them or not.

Saturday

When I was at the dentist last week, another dentist told me that I should get parts of my teeth filled in. Then because of scheduling, I had a different dentist do the work. The dentist I’d been seeing for the last twenty years retired recently, and so I am still getting used to this set up in the same clinic, but they seem to be doing a good job.

Sunday

If you have been following, this is part of a series about when I moved to Japan in the 1980s. I’d been waiting at Narita airport for some time to meet Kikuchi sensei, the Director of the Lab where I would be studying. These memoir comics take a lot longer to do than my daily comics. Partly, it’s because I am using a program on my desktop Clip Studio Paint so that I can keep them together to make a book length thing. I have trouble drawing with the tablet I have connected to the desktop. Also, I have to think more about the content, which is from forty years ago.

So that was my week. I hope you had a good one with a better one to come.