Coming-of-Age Day

Today is Coming-of-Age Day here in Japan, a celebration of those who have turned 20. It’s a big dress-up chance for young women, who often go to salons to have their hair and make-up done and kimono put on. Putting a kimono on by oneself is pretty complicated and there are actually classes on getting dressed in traditional garb.

More significantly for us, today is the last day of winter vacation. Jio is especially looking forward to seeing his friends. A couple days ago he was outside by himself, tossing a football around (all those bowl games Grandpa and Great-Grandpa watched in the U.S. must have had their effect). He came in and told me that he’d been pretending to be playing with his friends. He’d been doing their voices and everything. I felt kind of sorry for him. He needs to make some friends in the neighborhood.

It looks like Lilia won’t be going to school tomorrow. She came down with the mumps last night.

Divas in Limbo

So my rock grrl novel, The Screaming Divas, has been officially abandoned by the agent who took it on something like six years ago - a rather inauspicious beginning to The Year of the Dog. When she first signed me up, she was bubbling with enthusiasm, saying that she was “passionate” about the book and that she would keep sending it out. I never figured out quite where she was sending it to, although she forwarded responses from Wendy Lamb and Dutton (who called the book “unusual and powerful.” Several months later, she wrote that she couldn’t sell the book as it was and asked for a revision. I duly revised it and sent it back in a timely manner, but never heard if she read it or what she thought of it. A couple years later, I queried by e-mail, thinking I’d send it out on my own. She wrote back saying that the market was really hot and that she’d try it again if I’d revise it again (”Make it tighter, add humor,” was all she said.) So I revised it again, sent it in, and heard…nothing. Finally, last summer I got an e-mail from one of her associate agents saying that she was enjoying it and wondering if it was still available. I wrote back that it was. Months passed. I e-mailed again in October. The associate replied, “We were just saying that we need to talk about The Divas at our next meeting!” She wrote that she’d get back to me at the end of the month. October passed, November passed, December… I returned from the States to find my reply: “I have now had three of my agents read your revised manuscript, hoping that one of them would love it enough to take it on [I thought she loved it]. Unfortunately, none feels that it is quite strong enough to take on. A few years ago, when I first saw it, I thought it had a lot of potential as edgy books were getting popular. But now, there are so many of them that this isn’t special enough.” Whatever. I wasn’t happy with the level of communication and I think I’m better off without them.

Mothers-in-law in Literature

Although I complain about my mother-in-law a lot, I have to say that she is nowhere near as trying as Mimi, the mother-in-law in Jennifer Weiner’s Little Earthquakes, the book I finished this morning. (Jet lag had the kids up at 2AM!) Mimi shows up at her only son’s wedding in a wedding gown and defies her daughter-in-law at every turn. Nor is she as bad as the Japanese mother-in-law in Meera Chand’s The Bonsai or the one in my own story, “Gan,” which appears in Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. And I suppose I should point out that she has served as my muse on more than one occasion. I guess a little conflict is good for the writing.

The Mother-in-law/Daughter-in-law Dilemma

After an arduous journey involving two planes and a bus, we returned home. Or to the house, rather. As we ambled through airports, my children were excited about being back in their native country. Jio immediately began talking about MushiKing and Lilia signed that she was looking forward to seeing her grandmother. Yoshi was very chipper, too. All I could think about in my sleep-deprived state was that I was going back to my mother-in-law’s house and a lack of privacy.

The good thing about living with my mother-in-law is that she turned on the ol’ kerosene heater ahead of our arrival so we wouldn’t have to walk into a cold house. She was very happy to see us, and immediately pointed out that she’d taken down and folded our laundry. This afternoon, however, she told me that she’d thrown away my favorite jean jacket and Lilia’s winter coat. Since we don’t have a coat rack or closet, I tend to leave coats hanging over the little-used high chair next to the back door, near where I pile up empty boxes before I prepare them for trash. She assumed that the coats were part of my trash pile and took the liberty of throwing them away. I told her that she should ask us before she throws something of ours away, and she replied, “But you weren’t here!” I understand that she was trying to be nice and doing that Japanese thing of anticipating someone’s needs before the thought of needing something even occurs, but from my American point of view, she crossed some serious boundaries.And it wasn’t like I hadn’t tidied up the room before we left for vacation. So a note to you mothers-in-law out there: Don’t go into your daughter-in-law’s living quarters when she’s not there unless you’re watering plants or dropping off mail or something that she’s asked you to do. And don’t ever throw away something that doesn’t belong to you!