Renai☆Project

Aichan…

Love, Charmy

2005 was an eventful year, particularly the last few months. Hurricane Katrina was my first major hurricane experience. (Since I no longer live in that area, I can mention that.) Fortunately, the house I was living in at the time suffered little damage, but there were eventually other (personal) events that resulted in my need to move. Then, a little over a month after Katrina, my knee mysteriously began to cause me trouble. Going to the emergency room wasn’t helpful, since the doctors were unable to find any problems, but I wore a knee brace for several weeks. Eventually, it seemed to improve, but it would periodically cause pain again. Because of this, I eventually had to stop my daily morning runs.

A few years earlier, one of the fandoms I became involved in was Doctor Who. I made several online friends in that fandom. Two of those friends introduced me to my next fandom around the start of 2006. This new fandom: PGSM (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, a live action version of the anime). I resisted at first. Usually, it’s easier for me to drift into a fandom on my own than for someone to coax me into fandom. One of them gave me a set of DVDs with subtitled episodes. I watched the first episode, and then set it aside. Later, I decided to watch the second episode, and quickly started to get drawn into the series. At first, I thought I would watch one episode a week, but it evolved into watching an episode a day, then several a day.

At first, my favorite character in the series was Sailor Mars. But early on, I began to identify with Mercury. The timing of watching her in the early episodes coincided with what I was going through at the time. I had started noticing many of my friends drifting away for reasons I’m not sure of. I wondered if it was a result of coming out as a lesbian the year before. That, and the inactivity as a result of my knee problems, caused me to go into a deep depression. I also began to suffer from low self-esteem. I started to wonder if something was wrong with me, figuring that was why people avoided me.

Once I finished watching PGSM, I slowly drifted out of that fandom, but it still held a place in my heart. When summer arrived, I discovered a new fandom. Little did I know this fandom would change my outlook on life.

(to be concluded…)

Love, Charmy

New iTunes goodies today. Only two Hello! Project purchases in the mix this time. Most of the other music, most of you probably never heard of, but here they are.;)

All the Strange, Strange Creatures (The Trailer Music) // The BBC National Orchestra of Wales
The Futurekind // The BBC National Orchestra of Wales (These first two are from Doctor Who)
Anataboshi // Milky Way (This song made me a Kikka fan. Kikka<3 )
You Look Marvelous // Billy Crystal
Howard Cosell, Right There! // Billy Crystal (I like Eggs.)
Batida de Soca // Soca Stars
Day O // Harry Belafonte (This song is for you, JunJun.;)
Route 66 // Buckwheat Zydeco
Tokyo Kirigirisu // Yuki Maeda
Flower // Tomiko Van
Sakitama // Rin’
Chant Down Babylon // Bob Marley
ID: Peace B // BoA (Peace B is my network ID)
Mr. Roboto // Styx

I told you I have a wide variety of music tastes.;)

One thing I’m unhappy about: Puffy AmiYumi’s Splurge album, once on iTunes, seems to have been removed. The only album there now is the TV series soundtrack, which I already have on cd. Fortunately, I managed to buy two tracks some time ago while it was still listed.

Love, Charmy

I’m not sure yet if this is accurate, but Wiki.ThePPN is listing an upcoming album by Morning Musume titled Chapter 9, to be released July 2.

False alarm. Apparently this is a fake.

Love, Charmy

P.S. To Pex and JMol: Perhaps it was written with a felt tip marker.*giggle*

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while, but I’ve been procrastinating on it. I intend to explain my journey which eventually led to H!P fandom. It will be in either two or three parts. This first part will focus on my journey prior to discovering Hello! Project. Some of it will be difficult for me to write, and some bits I won’t go into detail, since it still makes me uncomfortable. A few of you already know bits and pieces of this. But it may explain some of my behavior.

My journey starts around age 15. I had just discovered the online world, and it fascinated me. I was quickly drawn into chat rooms, and I made many friends. It wasn’t long before I became interested in a guy online. He was around 30. Things progressed quickly (too quickly) and soon I thought I was in love. I was young, naive, and foolish. Then we decided to meet in real life. That was a big mistake. When we met, it was clear that he was interested in only one thing. It was something I didn’t want to do, so he tried to pressure me, then force me. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful and I managed to get away from him. But the next few months were terrifying. Stalking, strange phone calls, things like that. We (my parents and I) had to move twice because of this. Eventually, he was arrested for something else and went to prison for a long time. I don’t know the details of that.

After that incident, I became withdrawn. I also suppressed my feelings for many years. I avoided the online world for a while. I completely lost interest in guys.

Also during this time, I started becoming bored with the latest American music. To me, it all sounded the same. So my music listening diminished. Other things quickly filled the void. One of them was my discovery of old time radio. Old time radio (OTR) is radio programs from the early days of radio up to around the 1950s. That lasted for a few years. Also during that time, I started enjoying music from that period (big band, swing, and others). I also briefly went through an 80s music obsession.

Then I started feeling drawn back to the online world again. But I decided if I would return, I would set a few rules for myself. I decided to keep my online activities separate from offline. Anyone I meet online, I would not meet offline. I decided not to say where I lived, or my real name. A few other details about myself I also wouldn’t reveal. This may be a bit extreme, but it makes me feel a little more comfortable and safe. There have been a small handful of people who refused to accept that, but that’s their problem.

One positive result of returning online is I began to discover music outside of the U.S. First, it was European bands and singers, and soon I discovered artists in other countries. I quickly absorbed much of this music, since most of it was completely different from anything I’ve heard. Much of it was in a foreign language, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. Soon, my journey led me to discover Japanese (and other Asian) pop. I’ll continue my journey in the next part.

Love, Charmy