Faraway stories that don’t make the paper

Yesterday three men came to my apartment and removed my bed, my sofa, my desk chair, two-thirds of my clothing, and all kitchen belongings except for a coffee maker and a cereal box. It’s ...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-bed-for-next-two-weeks.html

Last Friday I had what could be the scariest moment of my life. The scariest moment happened at a Chinese restaurant — or rather, in a back alley behind a Chinese restaurant, past the two met...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-first-even-remotely-negative.html

OK, time for something different. I’m telling a road trip story with photos . The photos are arranged more or less in chronological order, and lest you think this is some transparent abdication...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-post.html

So I just spent 12 days in China, my first visit, and I can say now that China is fairly hilarious — ill-mannered, loud, just a tad detached from morality, like a customer at Denny’s at 3 a.m...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2011/01/blog-post.html

Somewhere around age 8 or 9, I developed a keen affection for impersonations, an avocation that kept me in front of the television during commercial breaks awaiting a particular 15-second Skin Br...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/12/mannerisms.html

So let's start with the facts, blameless and final. Let’s start with a road, almost entirely dark, but for the lights of five vehicles: In order, a bulletproof Humvee, a Hyundai SUV, a white mi...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/10/similarity-between-copperhead-snakes.html

Weeks before I left Washington, D.C., my then-editor, Kevin Sullivan, advised me to use the direct flights connecting Tokyo and Seoul with the frequency that others might use a “commuter bus.�...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/10/comparison-of-east-asian-metropolises.html

So two days ago I met a girl. I met the girl because I walked into a furniture store called Francfranc. And I walked into Francfranc because I needed a bookshelf. And I needed a bookshelf because...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/08/story-about-girl-who-sold-me-bookshelf.html

Last Sunday, after 16 days in South Korea, I returned to Tokyo. And it felt good to be back in the city that, with the help of two quotation marks, feels sometimes like home. Now let’s be clear...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/08/home.html

I begin today with a confession, and in turn, an explanation of what you’re about to read. I realize that this blog, ‘til now, has given a misleading sketch of my life, filled as it is with a...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/08/control-or-lack-thereof.html

It's been a while since the last blog entry, and just to make up for the inactivity, I figure I’ll use the first sentence here to satisfy the July quota for adverb use, by saying that I’m jus...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/07/vietnam.html

In this blog's one-month lifespan (estimated), I’ve carefully cultivated its reputation as a provider of sporadic, arguably worthwhile content and, foremost, vast periods of silence. Trust me, ...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/06/agreement.html

I really like the Japanese term for hangover. Futsukayoi (二日酔) — that’s the word. It’s an amalgamation of three characters, which, combined, translate literally to Two-Day Sickness. T...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/06/friday-night.html

Monday morning, I took a trip to the gym. This story, like most trip-to-the-gym-stories — an understandably small subgenre of the expository form — actually begins a day prior, when I spent f...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/06/monday-morning-i-took-trip-to-gym.html

This is the sort of blog entry that I write with dread, and I say that only because I’ve been in Tokyo for 22 hours now, and I have nothing even close to a full thought or a final answer — ju...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/06/first-full-day-in-tokyo_03.html

Dear reader, welcome to my blog. It’s about me. I hope you like it. Please, have a look around; take the grand tour. In the last few weeks, with misguided desires to launch this forum, I concei...

http://chicoharlan.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-launches-for-reason-one-always_30.html