with the window open

[incandescens]

The weather forecast seems unable to make up its mind whether it's going to get hotter, cooler, or much hotter. (Apparently much cooler is not an option.) I am not looking forward to August.

I was rereading Liza Dalby's book Kimono earlier, and had got to the bit about Heian layered color robe combinations for different seasons of the year. Lovely images, even if common sense tells me they would have been hugely inconvenient, plus all the other problems of being a gentlewoman in the Heian period, etc.

Apparently sleep is an important element of weight loss, and if you don't sleep enough it won't happen. Perhaps I should be paying attention to this.

---

The Wheel

Through winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all;
And after that there's nothing good
Because the spring-time has not come --
Nor know that what disturbs our blood
Is but our longing for the tomb.

-- WB Yeats

Comments

[marith.livejournal.com]

Ooh, is the Kimono book good? I really enjoyed her _Tale of Murasaki_.

Now I'm thinking of the point in Genji where the guy shows up to see his ladylove and is told by her attendants, "Look, this is the only day for the next several months on which we can wash her hair. And it takes all day to do it." aie.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered how you pee with an 18-layer kimono on. Never mind the other stuff. This is why women went home to their parents' during their periods, I bet- lie about in deshabille and feel wretched but at least you're not worrying about staining the silk.

[incandescens]

Ick. Yes, indeed.

[incandescens]

I think it's very good, yes. She's a good writer.

(And yes, I remember that bit. Ick. There's a bit in her _Tale of Murasaki_ where she cross-references that, commenting on how the maidservants never got to wash their hair on auspicious days because they always had to help their mistresses do it.)