"Ain't got no rainbow, ain't got no cellar door but we’ll be jolly friends forever more."

First things first, thank you all for the birthday wishes! You're all wonderful! \o/

I spent a truly lovely birthday with Tati. She made me all kinds of tasty food, we watched cartoons, played music together, and in the evening we went to a new Japanese restaurant in Treviso, and ate a bowl each of delicious ramen. Just like the ramen I used to eat in Tokyo!



And here's my birthday gift to me. Yes, I'm still going through a heavily obsessed Kingdom Hearts phase, and it's not going away. :D In the meanwhile I'm still organizing the book shelves, and it's finally showing. I'll post pictures when I'm done. ^^

Yesterday I woke up early in the morning with a terrible stomachache, and spent the day hugging the toilet. According to the doctor it was a virus, one of those 24 hours things, coupled with the first day of my period. I finally felt better in the afternoon, but I had to postpone all my appointments to next week. Today I feel better, but I've lost a lot of blood. The first thing I did upon waking up was eating a raw egg. Not pleasant, but very effective.

And now I should really lie down again, my blood pressure is still quite low.

"Sora ni akogarete, sora wo kakete yuku ano ko no inochi wa hikoukigumo."

And a new entry for the Reading Bingo!



For the "A Book Your Friend Loves" square, I chose Richard Parks' Yamada Monogatari - Demon Hunter, as I first learned of this book thanks to the lovely entangled_now. It's a collection of short stories set in the Heian period in Japan, told from the perspective of a demon hunter. In a way, it reminded me of the Dresden Files, with its marriage of supernatural setting and hard-boiled detective stories. Sadly, it lacks what the Dresden Files have in abundance: a compelling main character. Lord Yamada has no soul. He's good at his job, he drinks to forget, he has a reprobate priest for a friend. This is literally all we know about him. And while the world around him feels real and alive, bursting with creatures and stories and driven characters, Yamada feels no more than a puppet moved around by the writer. In a way, he's merely a shikigami. Which is truly a pity, because Mr Parks obviously knows a lot about Japan, and he's very respectful of the mythology he's writing about. And while I found it a bit annoying when the characters would take time to explain to each other things that are common knowledge in Japan, with dialogue that was obviously meant for Western readers, it was just a minor flaw. The soullessness of the main character is quite the unforgivable sin, though. I struggled to finish the book, even while I was enjoying the various plot twists, and I scoffed loudly more than once at Yamada's frequent self-pity sessions.

Anyway, twenty down, only five left to go!