I was supposed to work today- but it got cancelled. They pay me anyway.

I love my job.

So we spend the day doing housework and shopping and yardwork.

For some reason the girls were in a good mood and there wasn't very much fighting or yelling going on.

This past weekend was girl2's birthday, which we are celebrating next weekend, actually. Instead, we went to Beth's house for a "gaijin wife" party. I love those parties. It does my soul good to sit around with people to whom I do not have to explain a major part of my life.

And it does my heart good to see all those bicultural kids running around playing with eachother in different combinations.

I hope that we continue meetings these other kids for a long time, giving the girls a kind of basis for their lives that Naoto and I (as monocultural people) can't give them.

And today marks the day I am sending out my first query letters for Tokyo's Robin Hood.

Scary, but good. For quite a long time now I've sat down in the evening and thought "gotta work on the novel" or "gotta revise the novel."

Now I'm kind of up in the air. Guess I should start on the sequel, then.