Ode to my Little Black Notebook

"Look over there," my son quickly whispered to me. "No, wait. Don't look. OK. Look. No, wait, don't look. Look, now! No, don't look. OK, look, but please don't be obvious."
"What exactly am I looking at?" I whispered back at my son as I rubbed my sore neck.
"Mike Lowell, Mom," my son whispered. "It's Mike Lowell! Over there. You know, The Mike Lowell from the Boston Red Sox. Dad spotted him. Quick! Look now! Oh no. That was a little too obvious."

As a tall man in Tokyo, my husband enjoys a few extra height perks: he can quickly spot open seats on the subway, he can efficiently and confidently weave us through the crowds, he can get us a comfortable corner table at a favorite soba shop(named, to our delight, Soba Chafe)...and he can spot a major league baseball player at Easter Mass.

I really wish I had worn red stockings.

"Psst, Mom," my son whispered to me a few hymns later. "Do you have anything to write on? After mass, I think I will try to ask for his autograph."

Let's see...what do I have to write on? I've got receipts from the grocery store. I've got my paper point cards. I've got a pack of tissues. I've got Kit Kat candy wrappers. I've got a metro map. I've got a small box of tylenol. I've got yen. I've got it.

"My little black book," I said to my son and husband once mass ended. "I've got my little black book with me."

My little black notebook. Oh, how I love my little black book. This gift from a friend in the States has been with me since Day One in Tokyo. It may be a pocket sized journal, but this humble, discreet diary has got it all: my first very, very, very, very detailed train route in Tokyo when I was terrified I was going to get lost; the address of my first friend who I met the day I registered my family at the town office (actually called "alien registration"); the name of a favorite hamburger place that I heard from another mother while on a morning walk; directions to the nearest 100 Yen store where I purchased inexpensive glasses before our shipment of goods arrived; a scribbled map to my first Tokyo Starbucks; a starred subway exit number to get to the movie theatre; a circled note to find the nearest ATM; plus, many quirky translations, noteworthy numbers and subway stories.

And, so here it is, an Easter Sunday entry. Three pages away from the word "platypus" (don't ask); two pages away from the address to a favorite kimono store (haven't gone yet); one page away from my scribbled notes on some interesting cultural observations (what's the deal with the armless, legless tumbling doll?):

a slanted, a cursive, a very kind

Mike Lowell 25


Go Sox.
Go Little Black Book.