on saturday (9/13?) i met up with a friend from mexico city who i really get along with - she is bilingual like me and is the only person in the world who seems to personally understand all the identity crises i've had over the years. anyway we got pleasantly drunk over shochu - which i had orginally bought for A & Y, but A said "you realize after hosting i've become pretty selective about my alcohol," so i didnt feel bad about drinking half the bottle - and caught up on the 2 or 3 years worth of history since the last time we had seen each other in Yokohama. It's hard to explain how much I appreciate J-chan, who can understand my elementary Japanese and my gringo-Spanish and my English in a pinch. She is like the older sister or cousin I never had who not only understands my ridiculously specific and unique suffering as an estranged nisei living on the opposite side of the world from Japan, but she also has lots of valuable advice on relevant topics like sex ...