May 2025, Lily's Amazing Life

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

I haven’t posted here in a while. Things have been alright. It’s spring here in Japan now, and the Sakura viewing (hanami) has come and gone. Yuki and I found a nice spot in the middle of a park with lots of sakura, and we had a picnic. She made us a bentou. She’s actually a pretty good Japanese cook. And she only got mobbed a little, so there’s that.

It’s the rainy season now, and I’m sitting here with the computer and a hot cocoa and… I don’t feel like going anywhere. I mean, there’s a konbini just down the road, but we have some snacks, and… it’s one of those days where you just sit inside and listen to the trains clattering by in the distance. It’s strangely beautiful, really. Such a big city, and all the street sounds are muffled by nature.

But why post here? Because, well.. I didn’t really have anything better to do, so I started going back through this diary and reading it again, with fresh eyes, and, well… it just kind of hits different, you know? I remember when I started the diary. Everything was just so… fresh, I guess. I was so sad sometimes, but I had a family – a better family than I could have ever hoped for. Everyone took care of me. Sabby, Dave, even Beth came around… the church… my best friend Liz… and later came Crystal, Diana, Emiko and her family, Robert and his family, The aidols (and Ai’s family), the After School Friends Idol Light Music Club (all ten of them, though I’m closer to some than others)… Yuki, the owner… baker, Anathema (cat-girl), Katie and her baby… of course Jack, and some I’m sure I forgot to mention. So many people, and all of them came into my life and made it so much better.

It wasn’t all good, though. Remember back when Crystal tried to off herself? That was awful! We didn’t know if she would pull through, and I didn’t know if Beth would slap her silly after (thankfully she didn’t). And so many of my sisters had this hidden and not-so-hidden sadness. Like Yuki, who was so tired of being an idol and having so many people say they loved her when she knew they didn’t, and worse, having to pretend that she loved them too when she didn’t even know their names most of the time. She held on to even the slightest moments of humanity, and when she met me and my family (remember that birthday party?) she was so overwhelmed she ran into the bathroom ugly-crying. And now she’s one of my best friends. I mean, we live together! And Minami, one of the Aidols, who was so hurt by her parents that she was ready to give up on them… but she turned all of that negativity into the most soul-rendingly emotional singing I’d ever heard, and that scored her a contract with the After School Friends Idol Light Music Club. And what about Miki, who was such a happy and cheerful idol, but there was this hidden sadness inside her, she was so lonely and all she wanted was a genuine friend.

All of my beautiful, wonderful sisters, who all came into my life and nothing was ever the same again. For them, too. Would they have been better off if they hadn’t met me? I don’t think any of the people I mentioned would ever feel that way. Even when I learned the true nature of what I am and my.. unique… method of transportation, and started hearing from “The Boss”… even then, it was only for good.

Like Jack and Rebecca and others said… I paid a high.. a very high… price for who I am and all the friends and family I have now. Like that first time I went to LA to visit Rebecca, and she said that she got her daddy for free, and I paid a high price for mine. she was right. My sisters sometimes had the most insightful things to say. Sometimes when all I could do was flop on my bed and cry my eyes out, there was always someone there to hold me and make it better. For all of the things in my life that I wish were different… I never cried alone. Never. Not once.

And I think that’s what made my life perfect. Even though it wasn’t sometimes… it really was. My life has been perfect. Everything I could have ever wanted or needed is mine.

And it’s all the imperfections that made it this way. What if Emiko had kept me? What if my first adopted parents hadn’t done something stupid and got themselves killed in a freak accident? I might have had a good life.. and I might not. But it wouldn’t be this life. With Emiko… would I have cried alone? Maybe not, but I know I would have with the Rittenhouses. I probably did cry alone. A lot. But then, this happened, and I never had to cry alone again. Someone was always there if I needed them. Sabby, Dave, Beth, Liz… so many people. And I love them all.

Beth, Crystal, and Diana all graduated recently. They’re adults, or nearly so. Diana is going to a culinary school – I think she would rock that. Crystal’s going to music school. Beth’s going to a prestigious science school but is going to minor in music (Dave put his foot down and told her that if he’s going to pay for her education she has to get an education that will be useful… but she can minor in whatever she wants.) She wants to be a theoretical physicists. Everyone’s scattered over the country, and with me, the world, too. But it doesn’t matter. We’re sisters. We’ll always be sisters. Even now they call me up sometimes to tell me about things that happened to them… wonderful or not-so-wonderful… and I always listen. Sometimes I’ll even pop over if they need a hug or someone to cry on. They’re my sisters. I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

And the babies are getting so big now. I kept my promise to Katie, and I’m there for little Sabrina if she needs me. I’ll always be there.

This diary is called “Lily’s Amazing Life” – and my life is seriously amazing. And it’s amazing that I got – get – to share it all with you.

Soon it will be the hot season here in Japan. Thankfully my apartment has, what do they call it – a mini-split air conditioner, like many Japanese apartments do, so it’ll be fine. I might take a week and just hop around and visit everyone. I think that would be fun.

Love you all!!!

From the creator:

They say in writing that one of the worst things you can do is keep adding characters. They also say “show, don’t tell”. But the particular medium and method I chose to write this serial fiction actually proved to be something of an exception. Because this story was not told from the third person – it was told from the first – and in such a way that every evening she would recount things that happened to her, “tell” actually worked really well. And all the additional characters… well, I actually do think that worked. I think it worked because the story kept a core cast of characters (Lily, and her immediate family and close friends), and all the other characters just came in and out as the need for them arose. Kinda like real life, if I’m being honest.

I’ve actually been doing what Lily did and going back through this fiction to reread all of the old posts, and truth be told, it’s kind of a mixed bag. There are some things I’m not so proud of. The “subscriber only” content, for example. At the end of the day, it’s kinda fanservice and not really necessary. I’m not really too proud of the way some plot points tended to get introduced and fall flat. While there was an overarching story, some of the arcs were fanciful and unpredictable. And I think sometimes the fact that I’m a middle aged male did show through sometimes, as much as I tried very hard for that to not be the case. I regret many things.

But, on the flip side, there was some really good writing, to the point where I’d read through something, occasionally with wet eyes, and think “did I really write that?”. Like the arc where Crystal tried to off herself. I liked how I characterized her friends in that one. I also liked the story of Yuki and the idol group. I thought I did a really good job of humanizing the characters, and there were no one-dimensional characters. I took a lot of care to write them as real people, with emotions, aspirations, frustrations, jealousies, happinesses.. and I think that showed.

My favorite character (other than Lily)… is actually Crystal. She is such a strong girl… so strong. Had so many bad things happen to her, almost succumbed to it all.. but in spite of it all she rose past it and found her dream, and was single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Even when she first met Beth – who, lets be honest, was a pampered bully at the time, she stood up for herself and gave as good as she got. Beth respected her for that… even if it was hard to admit at the time, because Beth is a very stubborn girl.

My least favorite character is Jack. Not because he’s a foil or anything like that… but he was very hard to write, and I think the fact that Lily and Jack almost broke up towards the end was a failure in my writing. It’s not that I didn’t like him, it’s more that I couldn’t find any way to write him other than as Lily’s boyfriend. It’s true that the story was written through Lily’s eyes, so in some sense it’s a solipsistic story and that’s inevitable, but on the other hand, I could have treated him a little less as a side character that got introduced when a boyfriend character was needed.

On the other hand…he wasn’t one dimensional and some of his interactions with Beth cracked me up, so there’s that. I do think the story would probably have been better without him, even though he was the only character in the story that stopped it from being a straight “cute girls doing cute things” thing.

There are many things I could have done differently in this story, particularly in the beginning. As I mentioned elsewhere, I had in mind to make her a character that people could talk with and interact with. In hindsight, that was a terrible idea. But, it made sense at the time, I suppose. I’m kinda glad that didn’t work out. People don’t tend to react well when they find out someone is not what they thought.

Oh… and Grace was such a fun character to write. I’m proud of how she turned out. It’s hard to write a four year old… as a four year old. I somehow managed.

Anyway, guess that’s all. I got things to do. Lily will probably continue to post updates occasionally… until I get tired of the whole thing, I guess.

Chocolate Fixes Everything!

Month: May 2025

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

Love you all!!!