At the Monkey Park

 Arashiyama is a beautiful place in the west of Kyoto. It has a wide, pretty river, and hills stuffed with trees. It also has a monkey park. I went there this week. And I saw monkeys. 

To get to it, you have to climb up a steep hill path, where you will be met by many signs pleading with you not to show those monkeys any food. Do not let those monkeys see bananas. Do not look them in the eye. They could get angry.

This creates a slightly foreboding atmosphere, and will tire you out physically, if not mentally. But once you reach the summit, you'll be greeted by a simple, delightful view. The monkeys stroll freely here, and you can look out over Kyoto. It's really something. You can go inside a small building to safely feed the monkeys, which I did (there was a choice between apples and peanuts, and it seemed like most monkeys were more interested in those juicy apple slices).

It's a pretty small park, but a satisfying one. The monkeys are very cute, and there's quite a few babies swinging around.

After that, I went to Kyoto Gyoen National Park, and the blossoms were out!

 

On the way, I found a poor abandoned Baikinman, Anpanman's little nemesis. I love his insane grin. Hopefully his owner will find him again. 

All in all, a good outing. May the monkeys rest well, and receive many apple slices tomorrow.

One Must Get Conclaved

 A good while ago I watched the glorious pope-type epic, Conclave. And what a movie it was! Ralph Fiennes has long been an object of fear and distrust to me, since I watched him in The Duchess and he was cruel and hard and mean to dear Keira Knightley, and since he did all that Voldemorting. It's hard to forgive such acts. But in Conclave he is a gentle, thoughtful little cardinal who is always on the verge of doing that sad eyebrow thing that is mostly the domain of Dreamworks characters and Ariana Grande. He's literally a bit concerned. And that's truly the movie.

 I've yet to read the book (although it is on my TBR list - that's To Be Read for any readers who aren't Goodreadspilled), but there is a palpable pulpiness to this film that really delights. There's a delicious pace, and the whole thing is furtive, probing dialogue. Stanley Tucci is here, and he's the best little guy in the house. Isabella Rossellini is here, gazing across the room, the spirit of womanhood come to stand strangely on the horizon. Love her.

And, of course, the little rollercoaster world of the conclave is exhilarating. Twelve Angry Men, but colourful and secretive and cigarette-stained. This is true dark academia in that it is salacious and obsessed with ritual. Hands and smoke the most important things in this furtive limbo. Rustling paper and the swish of cardinal's robes a close second. And the colour! Oh my god, the colour. The berry red of the boys, the blue of the clearest Italian sky for silent or chuckling women, and of course the pristine white of popely things and the pretty clear smoke of decisions and futures.

Conclave is, quite frankly, cute. Once we get past the detectives and the strange beautiful enclosure at the heart of the conclave, we get pure, joyful, dumb brilliance. One of the most fun endings I've seen in a movie. There's a smile on my face, and a thousand screenshots on my computer.

 Good movie. Get Conclaved.

The light of the scan

 Light is, more often than not, what really makes a photograph. And one thing that makes the scanner such a fascinating and wondrous machine is its great line of light, making its way across the pane slowly like a monk marching steadily alongside a river. I don't know. It has a beauty to it. That slow crawl that's almost too slow for the eyes. The line that darts about when you look elsewhere. Just like those RGB projectors that show you all three colours in wiggles when you move your eyes. I love those.

 Anyway here I am. These scans are actually from, I think, November last year. And don't I look the same as ever? The scanner bed has a way of equalising the skin. I look older in person than I did thirteen years ago, but here it hardly looks different. Same flesh as always. Same hair, more sandy on the screen, maybe.

But I do have, here, my orange journal and the clear pink glasses that leave semi-permanent dents either side of my nose. How rude of them. 

Entering Deer World

 Okay so, number one: blogging is over - blogging is dead - blogging is over. We all collectively decided one day that blogging was not what we were going to do anymore. Sad.

 Number two: I can't remember what I did two days ago. If you were to ask me this question, many times I would say, 'uhhh....". Sad.

Number three: girl, the storage on my phone is always threatening me. It's always saying "hello my dear, I am only 15gb. I'm weak". Sad.

***

So the obvious and righteous conclusion is that I have to do something here. I have to once again bravely blog. So here we are, and here I will begin.

 Today I went to Nara. I've been staying in Osaka for a solid and delicious three weeks, and finally it became my turn. To see all those deer.

It was a beautiful day - strangely humid - and rain only poured down ragefully for about ten seconds of it. An angelic sort of day, and so I made the forty-five minute trip over to Nara and immediately saw that they were serious about the branding. Deer type stuff, everywhere. After a small walk to a nearby Buddhist temple (inside which lives a massive golden Buddha with a dainty little moustache - you are not permitted to photograph him), I spotted a small pen of deer. Some people were feeding them crackers. It was a modest sight, but the deer did appear to be ravenously hungry.

Nearby, there was a beautiful little lake, and I searched for deer crackers (the crackers to serve up to the deer). After finding some at the local Daily Yamazaki, I was finally in business and could perform my duty as a deer-feeder. Humble. Important.

 But I hadn't even reached Nara Park yet. I saw a large torii gate and headed towards it. This was the entrance to the park, and it was pretty exciting. Here were an astonishing number of deer. 

 I began to feed a small group of male deer, and I realised that there were warnings about the male deer around the park for a reason. Some of them tried to eat my skirt. Some of them gently headbutted me. Rude. 

The ladies were much more respectful, and there were also some very mellowed out old geezer deer who I liked. There were also some more impressive temples to find, but most importantly: masses of deer shit. I tried my best to clean my shoes on the way home, but it was hard to avoid picking up a special little souvenir.

The day felt like a wonderful dream, just walking around in a haze, occasionally being nudged and bowed to by the creatures, pockets of sunlight slipping through the trees. 

 What a true delight it was.

Digital Woman, Digital Wardrobe

I was watching Laini Ozark videos the other day, mostly about styling via digital wardrobe apps (my new obsession), and she's so funny and nonchalant and iconic, and her videos so straightforward, that it made me yearn for the old fashion blogspots of the '10s. Every so often I search around for fashion blogs of this general type and come up empty. Where is my girl Kayla Hadlington (she's here)? Where is the girl I forget the name of who used to fill blog posts with slightly moving gifs of her Hello Kitty halternecks? WHERE ARE THE ROOKIE MAG GIRLS?!

Laini Ozark. I love her.

 

I miss them. They are the little angels hovering above one shoulder, telling me, "yessssss, yessssssssss, wear your ladybird backpack for toddlers, make a collage, listen to Habibi". And like, ok I will, but where are you girl? I need you.

Sweet memories.

Whatever, let me tell you about the wardrobe app I use. So I actually downloaded two, because I love to survey and assess my options: Indyx and Whering. Sometimes I think the "normal word but mispelled" app/website naming convention has run its course, but it never, ever has. That sort of thing is eternal. I would name my app "clozet" I guess. I would name my app "wardroob".

Indyx, though, got dismissed immediately because it wanted me to sign up for an account before doing anything. I don't like signing up for an account before I really know if I want to use an app, so I tend to just uninstall apps that do this, and so the choice was made for me: I shall use Whering.

On reflection, having watched a few people talk about both apps, I think Whering is probably the one I would've liked better anyway. They seem pretty similar, but Whering reminds me a little more of Pinterest's Shuffles (which I love), where Indyx is a bit more classic-looking - reminds me of the kind of fashion blogs which do still exist and are plain and corporate and boring. It's a minor thing, but the point is just that I really like Whering.

One thing of note that I've seen people talking about is AI styling features in Whering. This is not something I'm interested in at all, and when an AI feature is suggested to me in any app I start gnashing my teeth, but I actually can't see a single AI thing in this app. So I don't know what's going on there, I don't know if I'm somehow missing what's right in front of me, but it doesn't exist to me, so I guess that's simply not real. Don't worry about it. It's not there.

The coolest feature of all time though, is the styling tab, which brings up this clothes slider that you can use to cycle through different pieces and build an outfit. You can choose to layer 2-4 garments from different categories, and there. is. a. shuffle. button. This is endless fun.

What really drew me to downloading this type of app was the prospect of delicious statistics. After uploading all of my clothes, shoes, and bags (barring a couple of things I'm sure are lurking in strange and foreign spots outside my wardrobe), I get to see this beautiful round number:

Wow, who is she? She has 80 items. Can you believe it?

I love seeing a breakdown of everything I have at a glance. The truth about me is that I have nine short-sleeved t-shirts. And I'm actually not ashamed of that.

 

Also, my favourite colour is black. Not shocking information, but nice to see a percentage. We need to raise that black higher. We need to reach 50%. This is my dark goal.

Umm so what are you gonna do with this sweet app, Lilly? What's your game?

Well, dear reader, I think it might help me to be reminded of things I don't wear as much but love. There's a delight in being able to see it all without opening the wardrobe, or rifling through the unhangables to see what's around. There's a smooth, easy visual to enjoy via just having a screen that can show you a top/bottoms/shoes combo. There's a power in knowing I have [exact number] of camisoles. I am emboldened to know what exactly is happening in my wardrobe.

Who knows what can come of this. Probably incredible pleasure.

 

Look at this bug:

Orange Journal, or: Yes, I started another journal

Once again I have succumbed to my innermost urges, the ceaseless indulgent need in me to start another journal. No, it's okay, stop screaming. I love them all. I really do. When I don't finish them, it's only because I believe they deserve blank pages. They deserve a future, a long life of limitless potential.

It can't be helped. A woman needs a new journal. And here is mine, for now. The orange thing. It is approaching Christmas, after all, and in the UK we are obsessed, in a rather perverse way, with orange-infused chocolate. Not least, the Terry's Chocolate Orange, which has always been, to me and many others, associated with Christmas. So this is my defence. This is why I believe it inherent to me on perhaps, some misty biological level. This thing really is very orange.

This last spread is a tribute to my time on Liberty Island with the big lady - something I've been wanting to do for a few years - which I finally did this month. And wow, she's good. Looking up inside her carapace and seeing this dark network of industrial beams - it's really cool. She's a woman of fortitude. Also these drawings are very funny, and possibly the most accurate representations of me ever made.