Welcome everyone! I am Lea, your Interrupted Geisha, and this is my sobriety blog. I am 26-year-old American expat, living in Tokyo. Here in Japan, I have worked as an English teacher, a bar hostess, a Japanese-English translator, and a street performer. I also wrote a book.
Four-and-a-half months without a drink, and I am already sick of people asking me why I gave up alcohol. But I suppose a brief explanation is in order, so I will just say that It was quite an experience to write a memoir about my misadventures in Tokyo, then read back over it only to see that I am not who I think I am, but instead, that I am borderline psychotic drama-freak with a death wish and a serious drinking problem.
So that's that. This website is the latest in a series of distractions that a part of me hopes will prevent my other, more evil half, from convincing me to screw this sober bullshit and get back to the liquor stores, hostess bars and train station bathroom floors where she feels I belong. (She's kind of a bitch like that.)
Tokyo is not, by any means, an easy place to begin one's sobriety. To illustrate, allow me to introduce you to an old friend: Asahi Super Dry. It is important to understand that Asahi Super Dry is basically the best beer ever. Billboards featuring him are common attractions on many a Tokyo subway platform, such as the one below. 
It may be impossible to reckon from a mere photograph, but this is no normal billboard. That is to say, when a commuter views it from a distance this can of beer appears to be two-dimensional. As she gradually approaches, however, the hologram becomes more and more three dimensional until the can is literally jumping out over the subway tracks. The effect is much like that of a 3D movie, a spiritual experience or a psychotic episode.
Yet of course, the advertisement hangs on the wall that faces my platform from across the tracks, so the hologram extends just over where the trains will run, but no nearer. So give into the illusion and reach out for the can, but it would be a literal suicide mission.
Fitting, isn't it?
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