Name any place in the world

My sister has the same initials as me but is better at running than me, better at making scrambled eggs than me, and probably smells better than me, and she’s getting an envelope in the mail any Wednesday now that says where she will live for the next year and half while she’s on a mission. 

For some reason the envelope will definitely arrive on a Wednesday. We know that, but we don't know where she'll be going.

She could go anywhere in the world! Except North Korea. And a few other places. But other than that, anywhere in the world. It makes me so excited I can’t eat, but then every few hours it makes me so excited I eat lots, so it evens out.

Can you imagine my sister being gone for a year and a half? I guess first you have to imagine me having a sister. If you already know my sister, you have a head start on imagining this. My sister’s name is Bryn.

A year and a half is a long time. Sometimes I think of a good joke and am about to say it to my sister, but then I think, I’ll save that joke and tell it to her when she’s gone. That way the joke can cheer her up after a hard day in Botswana or Iowa or Iceland or the Maldives, or anywhere, anywhere in the world. Except North Korea. And a few other places. 

Here are ten of the thousands of places Bryn could possibly go:

Neft Dashlari a city built on some boats floating off the coast of Russia or something.

Somewhere with tapeworms I want to hear more about them.

A 21-Jump-Street-style mission where she goes to high schools every day and pretends to be a student.

Florence, Italy This is my grandmother’s vote. My grandmother has it on good authority that girls usually go where their dads go, and my dad went to Italy. This sounds about as reasonable as the theory that men only go bald if their mom’s dad went bald, but I think some scientists proved that recently, so this one might actually be pretty accurate. 

One of those states no one can remember when they’re trying to name all 50 states.

Tokyo, Japan If my sister goes to Japan I will be as excited as that dog in the YouTube video that sees his owner for the first time in 2 years and gets so excited he passes out. I’m not posting a link because the video itself was pretty underwhelming.

Marseille, France

Just the rainforest Is that a thing? I hope so.

Canada Everyone in my family has dual Canadian-American citizenship and we all talk a big game about being Canadian but if my sister spent a year and a half there she would honestly know infinitely more about Canada than the rest of us combined.

Portland, Oregon I would get to see her every day.

I miss you already Bryn. Mostly because you already live in another time zone but also because I love you a ton.

Japanese werewolf book club

Reading more wasn’t even one of my New Year’s resolutions but I’ve already read a ton of books this year. One of them was called 1Q84. It's by Haruki Murakami who is not only a great author but a four-time winner of the "Best Name" award.

It’s 1157 pages long, but if you take out all the parts that are just very specific descriptions of healthy foods it’s a quick 200-pager. The characters in this book may be fictional, but the foods they eat are very real. These meals are simple, homemade, nutritions, and need to be carefully explained, I’m confident no one ate even a snack without the author telling me about it. Rice, pickled ginger, three slices of radish, a cup of tea, an apple, papaya.

But the non-food parts are an awesome story - scary and beautiful and there’s a ton of really weird sex. Really weird sex followed up by a light lunch of cucumber, shrimp, sesame oil, parsley, edamame, and little bit of green onion and lemon juice.

This book had so many great sentences. One of them goes something like “He looked at his eyes like he was seeing if a piece of furniture could fit in a room.” I’m not a professional writer, but I’ve convinced my employer that I am, and I think that’s a great sentence. Another one is "He drank some tomato juice from the fridge, boiled water, ground coffee beans and made coffee, toasted a slice of bread. He set the timer and cooked a soft-boiled egg." Oh wait, that’s another food description. What about "He made rice pilaf using ham and mushrooms and brown rice, and miso soup with tofu and wakame. He boiled cauliflower and flavored it with curry sauce he had prepared. He made a green bean and onion salad."

It's really hard to find sentences that aren't food descriptions.

Anyway, if you want to read a book and you have a sturdy suitcase or wheelbarrow to carry that book around in, you should read 1Q84. Even if it’s not your New Year’s Resolution, but especially if it is.

This is a picture to illustrate that I have two moons hanging in my apartment, which if you've read the book you would know is an insane coincidence. Can you see them? I think my sister has the best smile in the world and this isn't even a real smile.

I don't know Dennis Gilstad but he's also incredibly interested in food in 1Q84. You can see his diagrams of all the food in 1Q84 here, or if you know him he can probably show you in person.