Best Friends

You may get many friends in your live, but most people only count few of them amongst their "best friends". I seem to have a problem with keeping best friends. My best friends in school ... we started to go to different schools and simply lost sight of each other. Happens, I guess.



But later there came a point where I started having real misfortune with my best friends. When I think best friends - still today - I first think of Susann. Susann and I met at University and were separated when I went to a different University in another city. We still managed to stay in contact for a very long time, years really. But maybe it had already begun ... we started to be less connected, less informed about what was going on in the other ones life. And then it broke apart when she made a cruel remark to me in a very casual way at a time when I was too weak to handle it. I know she did not mean it badly. I gave up on her for the time being, when we re-started contact, maybe a year later, I had the best hope that we could go back to what we were. Stupid! You can't go back, of course. And we were so far apart from each other by that time already that we would have needed to start anew completely. But for some unknown reason that never happened. Should I have pushed more? I guess. But I was already feeling apprehensive of what she thought of the whole affair and guilty for having been the one to give up first. Maybe one day, I'll summon some courage and simply ask her. Some people think that it is never too late. On the other side we will both have changed tremendously in the last years (yes, that rip in our friendship is now already 7 or 8 years in the past) - we may have developed into such completely different directions that maybe we can't build it up again. I think that is the reason why I haven't pushed it ... I'm simply afraid to learn that it is already too late. To this day I count her amongst my best friends ... even though I don't even know her anymore.

The last years I had trouble finding any best friend material. When I finally connected with somebody it was a revelation. I met Ingrid maybe 5-6 years ago the first time at a barbecue party. Before that I had heard of her from friends, that she was living only a few houses away from me and had a boy roughly the same age as my twins. On that party we were sitting a bit apart from each other and I summoned all my courage (I felt so awkward being at a party where I knew hardly anyone apart from the hosts) and asked her if that was true. But at the exact same time someone else spoke to her and she never heard me. I felt slightly embarrassed. We did not meet again until one-and-a-half years later, when my son, one of the twins, changed into the same kindergarten group as her son and they became best friends (forming the famous mice-triumvirate with a third boy, they were a picture to behold in these days, three boys all of them with long or at least longer blond hair and up to no good). So when we met again I remembered that embarrassing first trial for contact I had started years ago and I held back. Despite holding back (or maybe because?) something grew between us and I can say that on my side it grew to almost a bit more than just friendship. I'm not sure if Ingrid would ever have called me her best friend, but in the last three years I know that she was mine. She died 5th of December 2009 at the age of 43, leaving behind a husband, two children and a woman who regretted to not have pushed that friendship more.

Firework of Quotable Sentences

There are books that are fountains of quotes. Jim Butcher writes like that. His Harry Dresden Series has so many good quotes, it makes you dizzy during reading. Every third sentence feels like it should be printed on a T-Shirt.
The book I'm reading right now is "Red Seas under Red Skies" by Scott Lynch. This is the second installment in an absolutely outstanding fantasy series. The first volume "The Lies of Locke Lamora" has stirred the fantasy world - it has by someone clever enough to see the obvious been called the "fantasy version of Oceans Eleven" and that comparison fits well. The author revels in mind games and built his plot layer over layer. To unveil every of these layers can leave the reador in an state of constant amazement. Also the characters are consistent. And then the quotability on top of that ... this is proof of more than just talent, that's more like genius.
Normally I gulp my books up in one go, but not this, you have to read it slowly, turn around every sentence three times in your mind, cause you wouldn't want to miss one of the layers. And savour it.
Let me give you some especially quoteworthy wisdom from Scott Lynch:

"Difficult and Impossible are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common." (Locke Lamora in RSuRS, p. 93)
"As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decissions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It's not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination." (Locke Lamora in RSuRS, p. 101)

All new ?

Yes, I know ... it's been a while.
So much happened, that I couldn't keep up. The first reason why I couldn't keep blogging here for such a long time was that I stalled myself by wanting to do everything in order. In July I went to Japan with my husband and after that started making a bit blog entry recounting our journey ... it just got too big too handle and is still not finished to this day.
Many other things happened in between one being that my twins started school. That definitely cuts into my time schedule. They are home earlier than before plus the come home hungry while at kindergarden they got a warm meal for lunch. And then I have to do homework with them. My son gave up his flute lessons and changed to Judo classes. Then they became seven. We got snow. My friend died. My gran died. And then christmas. New Year.

Another reason why I didn't blog was that I thought I needed to think about how I would go about it as I have accidentially ended up with two blogging sites now. That needs explaining. Did I ever mention I started this club on myanimelist.net, the AGUY Anti Girly Uke Yaoi Club? Well, it's growing along nicely and now just before its first birthday is nearing a member count of 500 members. That's by far not the biggest yaoi club on MAL, but then we are only specializing on a certain corner of yaoi, dealing with a certain taste of yaoi ... that which promotes either the strong uke or a relationship of equal rights between seme and uke. Anyway that club has started to feature some especially recommended manga series in its spotlight doing reviews and graphics about that, starting manga discussions about it. That's not me doing all that of course, it is the other admins and helpers and of course the members ... I'm just one wheel inside that machine now, but I really like what this club has grown up to. And on its birthday soon now it will open its first affiliate on the web.
Anyway, this had become very much of a manga blog. But now I review what mangas I especially like either at the club or in my other blog (more about that later). I might mention here what goes on at the other side from time to time.
But I have dedided that the "Letters" will be more a private blog from now on. And I start with something an online friend inspired me with ... pictures taken in/from the back garden of our house a week ago. Great weather again, isn't it?

Long-haired Dude

When my husband comes on every other weekend and sees his son, he says "Markie, when are going to get a haircut?" Do you feel with fathers who have unruly marihuana-smoking sons with motorcycles, tattoos, long hair and girlfriends with white shoes? Our situation is a bit different though, cause our son is only 6. My husband suspects that I encourage him to grow his hair long because of my manga obsession (and even my husband knows that many manga boys have long haircuts).





The truth is - I do support my son and his long haircut - because I really like men with long hair. Long hair often gives men a certain something, that makes them double attractive. A wildness, an image of sensuality, of taboo-breaking. Not every male face looks better with long hair, some men are meant for short haircuts. My son looks totally beautiful with his long shaggy, strawberry blond mane (I am just as biased as every mother, I guess). It took him quite some patience to have it grow so long (because he wants to become a rockstar ... or maybe if that doesn't work out he would like to own a pet shop). Surprisingly quite a few of his friends have a bit longer haircuts, too - so he seems to be going with the current fashion trend for 6-year-olds. I wonder how long it will hold and when he will give in to his father's complaints or society's pressure or the next fashion trend.

Mind the gap!

Life is a stairway. Continuously we reach new steps. That is especially true for children.
My twins have just reached a new step in the last two weeks - they both lost their first teeth. They don't look much a like, they don't act much a like, but certain things seem to be the same. They got their first teeth pretty much at the same time and it was for both of them the bottom middle ones first. And now they lost both their first tooth, middle bottom ones again. Sophie was first. First the teeth were slightly wobbly, then it became more wobbly and the same day it was out. Then she lost the second one two days later. And another week later Mark lost his first tooth. As with everything it was more difficult for him, he seemed afraid of what was happening in his mouth.



Of course the tooth fairy came to visit them as well. In Germany the tooth fairy is a newer invention, not a tradition. At least at the time when I lost my first teeth such a thing was not around. The german tooth fairies these days bring small toys to the children. My children have a book of the "Charlie and Lola"-Series by Lauren Child (just btw - I love these stories!) and one of the books ("My wobbly tooth must not ever fall out") covers how Lola gets her first wobbly tooth and what happens then. In that book the tooth fairy brings money. I have decided that it is a scottish fairy visiting my half-scottish children and that she will bring money as well. For the simple reason that Sophie lost her tooth at a time when I could not go out and get her toy in time for the magical fairy-exchange. She put her tooth in a little sachet underneath her pillow and the next morning - poof - there was some money for her.
When it was Mark's turn for the first tooth-fairy visit, I thought he could borrow the little sachet from her, but he flatly denied this on grounds that "not much would fit in there". He wanted to use a big plastic bag. I doubt that the tooth fairy would have found the tiny tooth in the giant bag. We agreed that he could use the case of his Nintendo DS.
I remember the times when I lost teeth and how my mom was horrified by watching me twist the loose teeth around in my mouth. And I remember that this encouraged me to do it even more. This time I was on the receiving end. I nearly lost the contents of my stomach watching Mark and Sophie's teeth doing the horizontal thing.

Tennis Time

Long time no read.
While I had no chance to write any blogs, I have continued to watch anime and manga. One anime series that has kept me surprisingly hooked for a long time is "Prince of Tennis".
This started when I wanted to try out a few shonen series. I did not seriously expect much, but you never know so I thought instead of carrying a prejudice against them about with me for the rest of my life I should rather just go and read a couple. I bought the first 8 or so volumes of the manga series at ebay and started reading. Nobody was more surprised than myself that I really enjoyed it - my belly hurt so much from laughing. Prince of Tennis is hilarious. Entertaining. Exciting. Inspiring. And simply lots of fun. Later I gave up on the mangas and simply watched the anime instead - and this is a case where I seriously even prefer the anime to the manga. Sports just come across a lot better in motion.



Sports?
Well, Prince of Tennis is - don't be shocked - about Tennis. Basically it follows a middle school boy named Echizen Ryouma, who as the promising son of a former pro tennis player more or less grew up playing tennis and does not do much apart from swinging the racket back and forth. He lives with his parents, cousin and cat. And his father registered him at Seigaku Middle school, where he himself was training once. Ryouma becomes the first first-year student of the Seigaku to enter the schools team of regular players. Together as a team they want to win the national championship.
The AMV I have selected above for you gives a glimpse of the story and how the anime is made and shows some of my favourite characters

Surprisingly the anime is really mostly about tennis. There is the odd episode in between that covers a bit of personal stuff. Or the odd chibi episode. But mostly it is about two (or in case of doubles four) guys playing tennis.
Now, I have taken a class of tennis at university sports about 230 years ago. I wouldn't say that I can play, but I staggered over a court, played balls into the net or the out-area and learned the basic rules. I wasn't good, but it was fun. What is not fun - to me at least - is watching other people play tennis. I fail to see the point of watching tennis matches in TV or elsewhere. The constant plop... plop... sound and the lemming-like turning of heads to the left ... to the right ...to the left is just so ... boring. But not in an anime! Watching Ryouma and friends play tennis was exciting. Would he be able to return the smash? Was the injury too bad to continue playing? Who would win? I was really absolutely into it.

But not only the sportive excitement makes this anime a success. There's also the characters. You get to know Ryouma and his fellow team-mates very well over the time of 178 (!) episodes ( plus some specials). Each player has his own style, his own repertoire of tennis tricks, his own character. There is Ryouma. Shortie, youngest in the team, rookie. He shows no respect towards anyone, unless they earn it the hard way. He seems cold and detached, but isn't. There are his friends and team-mates Momoshiro, Kaidou, Fuji, Tezuka, Inu, Oishi, Kawamura and Kikimaru. And there are also many other teams and their numerous members - friend and foe alike.

I want to introduce you to my favourite Prince of Tennis characters.


Echizen Ryouma - the prince himself. The main hero. He's such a cheeky little punk with no respect but plenty of attitude - you just have to admire him.


Ibu Shinji - Ibu is one of Ryoumas first opponents, there is some rivalry amongst them, but also understanding. What I like about Ibu, apart from the half long black hair is mostly his character. He is an even more reserved character than Ryouma. He's also a muttering guy. Always quietly muttering some things to himself. I just love this kind of weirdness.


Sanada Genichirou - another opponent of Ryouma, but much later and the first guy to seriously crack Ryoumas cool exterior - but not for long. Another cool guy, relatively quiet, but out of self-assurance not lack there-of.


Atobe Keigo - Now HE is anything but reserved. How much so you can deduct from his favourite saying "Beware of my prowess!". Atobe comes from a unbelievably wealthy background, complete with butler bringing him his racket and everything. He's arrogant - unbelievably vain. And very entertaining.

Even my children have started to get into "Prince of Tennis" - totally ignoring the fact that they don't understand Japanese and can't read the english subtitles. My son has become a big admirer of Kikimaru Eiji - to the point of where he wanted to die his hair red and was running around with an elastoplast on his cheek. I believe that is mostly because Kikimaru plays athletic tennis with lots of daring jumps and sommersaults - to be athletic and flexible like this equals true greatness in my sons eyes.

Yaoi? Are you kidding me? This is a boys' tennis club. Plenty of young men getting sweaty together ... of course Yaoi fans have long ago claimed the Prince of Tennis guys for their perverted fantasies. There's lots of stuff out there. Fan stories. Doujinshi mangas and fanart.
Just to prove my case:

Graphic Content

One of the things that I find the most difficult at blogging is the pictures. I have no problems to find new topics to write about or to get my thoughts into written words, but I often have difficulties finding good pictures or videos to match my texts. And while I am fully a writing person, I think that the picture is what makes the first impression for the blog. So therefore it should be eyecatching and getting people interested - if these requirements are met, the chance to get people to read your blog will rise a lot.



So because I did not have a good base I thought I wanted to do my own pictures. I have a few times here used photographs that I took myself (like the pics of the horses or of my children). But I write a lot about mangas and anime, so of course I wanted good picture material for these themes as well. But mangas are usually black and white and while I think that works fine sometimes, I don't want to use too much black and white graphics. This is why I decided to try myself at colouring. Sounds easy, doesn't it? My children do it all the time, so I should be able to do it. But ... I have almost zero experience with graphic programs. Well, if you don't start, you'll never get the experience.
My very first real job of trying to colour in a black and white manga picture was the cut-out that makes my GeishaX avatar picture. It is taken from "akuma de sourou" (I have blogged this manga partially in my blog "Triangles and Tears" in August 2008) and I used Paint Shop Pro to colour in the hair.
My second trial at colouring in is the above picture of Goichi from the Manga "Invisible Love" by Honjou Rie (her family name is also written as Honjo or Honjoh). I dipped the eyes in a poisonous green, added a skin tone to all that glorious naked skin, dyed the lips, put a spark of red into the cigarette tip, coloured the cigarette end, gave the shirt a in-the-eye pink colour and added two shades of brown to the hair. The truth is, that I am not really satisfied. Especially once the picture was uploaded ... suddenly it looks nothing like the thing I worked on. The colours blur too much, one of the green eyes is hardly visible because it's covered by hair, the shirt lines don't come out enough through the pink colour. *GRRRR* Still, I guess it was worth doing this. I already thought about what I would change if I had to do it again.