In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.

Coming home is always bittersweet. I’m gotten so used to writing new stories wherever I go it’s a new feeling to meet faces and places I have history with. I grew up in this house. The gravel road to the boot. The hills that chiseled my thighs. The barbed wire fences I prided myself on my ability to weasel through. Everything I pick up has a story. Except for the bullets on the table-- those are new. My little sister joined the trapshooting team. That's definitely new. I just found an old backpack from middle school with the side pocket stuffed full of peppermints swiped from Carlos O’ Kelley’s, half-finished friendship bracelets, beaded lizards. The dogs we raised from puppies are getting grey hair. Dad watches Dancing With the Stars now. I just finished reading Kafka on the Shore this morning so I'm thinking about this library I have inside me where I make new reference cards, dust things off, and change the water in the fish bowl.

Yesterday, Jane and I wandered through downtown Omaha. Omaha is a great town, I'd think about living here if I didn't grow up here. I have to go somewhere new where I won't have any help to start my own life. It's important that I leave but it's still hard. I love this place. I asked the man smoking behind the desk at Jackson Street Booksellers where to go after Murakami. He said I should try Mishima. That's the only other Japanese author he's read. So I bought After the Banquet. I also bought a book for a friend about making bento boxes. The same author made a book about weird and crazy restaurants in Tokyo. Naturally, I had to buy that too. I'm sending my parents to a restaurant where monkeys are your waiters. They bring you beer ( and even ganbei and drink with you!), your sushi etc..



I can't wait to take my parents to Zhongguo! Oh, Zhongguo wo xiang ni!!