From South Korea.

Jun and I are presently at a hostel in South Korea.  The lounge is small, but cozy and comfortable, and it's from here that I am writing a quick blog post. 

 

Yesterday was Christmas, and it was still depressing to be away from my friends and family.  Jun and I bickered for a solid percentage of the day, which was not helpful.  It happens.  We had a crab and cake on Christmas Eve, but we didn't particularly *celebrate* Christmas.  However, this year was still massively better than last year, as followers of this blog will be aware.  Holy God, it was horrible.

 

We hiked and rode rented bikes around this small town that we're staying in, and I got some pictures that I'm feeling hopeful about.  I'll need to see them in a large size to tell for sure...the tiny little camera screen doesn't reveal much.

 

South Korea is nice and it's interesting and I'll post more about it later, but right now I just miss my brother and sister-in-law's nice warm kitchen, and the warm love of my family.  Maybe next year.

The Last Week.

This is my last week before vacation...I have two more days at the junior high and 2 days at the elementary school.  The elementary school has missed a bunch of classes, due to swine flu, so, naturally, I get to make up those classes.  It's less than ideal...I spend a lot of my canceled class-time doing prep-work, but there's also a fair amount of thumb-twiddling.  The thumb-twiddling time can be spent in some productive ways, such as learning Japanese or writing blogs, but I'd trade it for a balance...teaching 6 classes a day at the ES is very specifically  *not* fun.

I have some new DJ gear on the way, which is good because I've been slowly losing my mind over the course of the last year.  I like making music, but the spontaneity is definitely lacking when it takes me 3 or 4 hours to make a tiny beat loop that my perfectionistic-ass brain is still mildly dissatisfied with.  Just loading up some tracks on the turntables and rocking out is massively more satisfying, and, more importantly, I need the damn practice so I can start DJing out again in Tokyo.  I'm tired to trying to do it in electronics stores...it's funny, but it's shitty practice.

Anyway...next week, KOREA!  Yay.  Jun and I are excited, although I'm currently harboring a healthy paranoia about getting sick.  Yeah, we'll see what happens on that front.  After we get back, it's off to her parents for New Year's.  I'll definitely have some healthy blogging to do when I get back, so keep your eyes on this here space.

Thanksgiving 2009.

I spent Thanksgiving in Tokyo again this year.  It was my second.  This year, like last year, I had to work on the big day.  Depressing at best.  However, the work week ended and then I got in a quick phone call to the family as it was all winding down over at my my brother and sister-in-law's place.  So, that was nice, although it was definitely a sorry-ass substitute for eating and drinking with my family. 

Over the weekend, Jun and I celebrated properly.  We (rather, she) managed to find whole chickens at one of our local butcher shops.  They are awesome.  The evening before, we also picked up some bread and herbs for the stuffing, and a few nice microbrews and wine.  I looked for pumpkin pie, but failed terribly.  I think I'll probably just have to make one from scratch, if I can find the ingredients.  On Saturday, while I assembled our new storage box out on the porch, Jun skillfully whipped up the stuffing and threw the bird in the oven.  It's funny how we easily slipped into the stereotypical gender roles, although that's not always (or even usually) the case.  Later, as bird-eating time approached, I peeled up some potatoes and mashed them mercilessly and Jun completed the meal with a gravy, her first attempt.

Everything turned out great, except the gravy...although it tasted fine, it ended up looking like greasy, brown cottage cheese.  My potatoes were a bit on the dry side.  Next time, I'll be using more milk, I think. 

This year, I am thankful:  That my father is still alive.  That I have a wonderful and caring girlfriend.  That I have a fantastic family and friends.  That I have a stable job.  That my health is reasonably good.  That I can get up out of bed and walk, every day.

Assorted things.

For the last week and a half, I've been adding a single new Japanese word to my vocabulary every day.  I call it The Word of The Day, or Kyo No Tango (今日の単語) in Japanese.  In order to increase the impact of The Word of The Day, I'm thinking about starting a new blog called...this is creative, now...The Word of The Day.  See what I did there?  Creative, huh?  Today's word is kitsuen (喫煙), which is a noun that means "smoking."  It's relevant because I caught some junior high kids smoking last week (先週、中学生を喫煙して見たから、その単語は大切です。）

Yeah, well, we'll see how it goes.  I have to set it up from home, and I have some other things keeping me occupied at the moment.  I'll update in this space later.

One of those things that will be keeping me busy is that I recently discovered that I have the ability to mix with my laptop and keyboard, using the keyboard as my external controller (instead of CDs or turntables).  The upshot of that is that I can compose and practice sets from home in advance of shows, and I can practice my little heart out and train up my ears.  I had been going out to various electronics stores and hijacking their systems for practice, which is amusing but not very practical. 

Finally, Jun and I got some bad news on Friday.  It wasn't unexpected, but it's pretty personal, so I'm not going to post it here.  Anybody who wants to check in should feel free...otherwise, my good friends will probably hear about it sooner or later.  We'll just chalk it up to one of life's little challenges, but I'm a strong believer that those things make us stronger and better people.  I've made a point of leading an interesting life, and it wouldn't be very interesting if it were always easy, now would it?

Gonna be a long day.

I'm at the junior high right at the moment.  In about 50 minutes, I'm scheduled to start the first of my classes for the day.  The teacher I'm with tends to be a little bit difficult in the classroom, so it's always interesting. 

On Saturday, Jun and I went to Asakusa to meet her parents.  Asakusa is really freaking cool.  So much of Tokyo looks exactly the same, and it has this tendency to just kind of melt all together, visually, but Asakusa has this old-school noir vibe that I haven't felt anywhere else.  The streets are wider and the buildings are older, and it has this beautiful, enormous shrine, complete with pagoda, at the end of a long, outdoor market, carefully lit up with rows of the most beautiful lamps.  Around the shrine are a number of open-air restaurants, one of which we went to and had beer and sake and lots of Japanese snacks, which I can't currently remember the name of.

So, first we met up at the Kamiya Bar, a famous bar housed in an extremely rare pre-war building in Tokyo.  It's fair to say that most Americans aren't aware of this anymore, but Tokyo was firebombed viciously during WW2, and very, very little architecture survives as most of the city was burned to the ground.  More people died in that single firebombing than at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.  So, old architecture just basically doesn't exist here, which is incredibly tragic just on humanitarian grounds and also personally problematic, since I am a known and epic architecture-phile (thanks Dad).  The good news is that many shrines were rebuilt in the classic style, but most of Tokyo's western influenced architecture, of which there was *a lot*, is simply gone forever.  Kamiya Bar is one of those old buildings, though.

So, we met at Kamiya Bar and had a couple of drinks and then headed out to explore Asakusa.  First stop was the shrine and outdoor market.  The market is sandwiched between a couple of massive gates, which are particularly popular in Japanese and Korean tradition, and probably Chinese, as well, although I'm not familiar enough with China to say definitively.  Asakusa is really popular with tourists, so there were lots and lots of foreigners (but mostly Japanese, per usual).  Second stop was at the outdoor bars and more beer, snacks, and some sake.  Last stop: a really nice little soba shop, and then back to her parents' place.

Sunday night was shabu shabu, which is kind of like fondu, but with more veggies and a very light broth instead of oil.  Somebody sent Jun's dad a bottle of really freaking expensive sake, which we cracked and imbibed freely.  We're talking Dom-priced sake here.  God help me, I'm going to be a massive sake snob when I get back to the states.  Guess I can add that to beer and coffee and my other little proclivities.  *sigh*

As usual, the trip was great for my Japanese, since Jun and I speak English about 70% of the time, and her parents were really nice to me.  As usual, listening is the big problem...I can generally communicate more or less what I want to, but understanding the answer is usually a nightmare.  I'm doing my best (頑張っているよ).

Interesting thing about language acquisition.

So, obviously, I've been working on my Japanese since I got here, and there's been definite improvement.  I've noticed, though, that most of the foreigners who speak solid conversational Japanese have either spent a minimum of a 3-4 years in Tokyo or work in a field that requires them to use Japanese almost constantly.  Part of the reason why I'm here is, indeed, to develop a solid command of the Japanese language, but I hadn't really fully considered the amount of time that it will take.  I thought maybe a year or two would do the trick, but I've realized that, in fact, it'd take a year or two of nearly constant study to achieve fluency in that amount of time.  I study, but not constantly.  I have to at least maintain the thin illusion that I'm working, and it's just not possible.

Anyway, I'm learning.  I don't know where I'll be in the year and a half or so that I have left here, but I'll be working on it.  We'll see.  Who knows, maybe the States will explode in a further shitstorm of economic meltdown and I'm forced to stay longer.  Anything is possible, right?

Post office.

So, the post office here is incredibly horrible. My parents sent me a package weeks ago, and it has yet to arrive. The package contained, of course, my incredibly expensive turntable head shells and needle cartridges. The post office apparently tried to deliver the needles, but was confused by the fact that I hadn't notified them of my change of address. Notification followed, of course, but by this time the confusion had already occurred. Now, of course, the office is basically refusing to acknowledge the existence of any such package. Jun is on the case, however, we are both very...very...frustrated. Ugh.

Update from the belly of the beast (aka the junior high school)

So, last week I was really sick, which is unfortunate because it was my first full week living with Jun. Fortunately, it's not the first time she's seen me feverishly rolling around in my own sweat and was a good sport about the whole thing. She even made me soup.

I missed a couple of days of work, which wasn't ideal, and I spent Monday, a holiday, sick. That kinda sucked. Over the weekend, we had planned to meet one of Jun's many international stalkers to show him around parts of Tokyo, but it's hard to do that with a fever and horrible intestinal cramping. It's too bad, because a) he seems like a nice guy, and b) it's harder feel good about hitting on someone's girlfriend from abroad if you've met their boyfriend. The good news is that he sent us some cocktail sauce and wine from Canada, and we had a nice shrimp dinner with the cocktail sauce. It's apparently impossible to buy here, for reasons unknown. The Japanese market is strange in many ways.

So, tonight I'm headed off to the city office to officially change my address and get my new insurance card. I get off work at 4 and they close at five, which is going to make this complicated. I hate complicated. Also, Japanese paperwork is *not* multilingual. This is not the California DMV, where I have my choice of paperwork in 17 languages. This is Japan. I have my choice of Japanese...and Japanese, which is, incidentally, one of the most difficult written languages in the world. They really cotton to foreigners around these parts.

Ashes bio: still in progress. Actually, typing at home is kind of a pain, which is really slowing my progress...need to figure out a way around that.

Signing off. Must work.

*edit* Actually, the paperwork was in Japanese and English. I was a little unfair to the good people at the Foreign Registration desk, which is not cool. I don't want to become another incessantly whining 外人 (foreigner). There are a lot of them.

Working on it...

I'm still working on Ashes' biography...turns out that it's going to be a bit of a bigger project than I'd originally envisioned, but I think I can probably have it done within a week or two. It turns out that 10 years and multiple moves together ends up being a lot of history. A lot of her history and a lot of mine. To do it justice will take some time, but I'll take it. I want to remember her as completely as I can.

So it goes.

Jun and I are headed over to her folks place tonight for some sushi and really...really...nice sake. Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm soon going to have to add sake to my ever-growing list of snobberies.

So it also goes.

Bye Sara.

Well, I just put Sara on the train a few hours ago, and she is now somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. We had a really good time at the onsen and around Tokyo, and I'll be putting up some pics sometime soon. It's been a nice distraction from the loss of my kitty, but I still owe Ashes a full accounting of our time together, so I'll be working on that in the next few days.

I already miss Sara (eeenchhh).

The Sadness.

My cat, Ashes, passed away this week. I'm planning on writing a long blog about as many memories of her as I can dredge up, but I can't actually work up the willpower right at the moment.

I loved my sweet kitty. I'll miss her for the rest of my days.

Needing to get back in the habit...

I've gotten out of the habit of updating this thing since summer vacation and my trip to Oregon.  I don't really have a particularly good excuse, I've just been distracted by life back in Tokyo, I guess.

I started work last week, and everything went pretty smoothly.  The junior high is usually easy, and I think I'm hitting a pretty high level of comfort with the elementary school.  It's definitely more challenging, but practice goes a long way toward smoothing things out.

In other news, Jun and I will be moving in together soon.  I basically live at her apartment, as it is now, and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.  We have to work out some of the specifics in term of storing some of my stuff, since the place is not large, but I don't foresee any problem.  We'll either get a storage room somewhere else or buy a little storage cabinet to keep out on the balcony, which is actually bigger than the apartment...might as well put it to use.

I'm DJing on Friday at a party for a bartender...I need to practice up a little, but it should got pretty smoothly, I think.  I'll be heading to my local electronics store to hijack some of their gear a few times this week.  I'm seriously considering picking up more gear, but that seems like a bad idea, maybe.  I still have a lot of stuff back home, and it'd probably make more sense to just have it shipped over.

Anyway, I'm going to try to blog a bit more than I have, lately.  It's cathartic, and it lets people know what I've been up to.  It's easy to write when things are shitty, but it's a little harder to pull out the inspiration when things are going well...so I guess things have been going well.  Yay, me.

Long time coming.

Due to a surprise party for my dad back in the States, I had to stop the blogging for a while. When nearly your every thought is centered on an upcoming even, it makes it difficult to concentrate on others things.

In any case, the surprise party was a huge success. My sister, Sara, flew in from LA and I made the trip from Tokyo. Further adding to the surprise, my girlfriend, Jun, came along as well. The parents had no idea that we were in town, or, in my case, the freaking country. I think you, my dear reader, can imagine the shock.

Sara, Jun, and myself were sitting on the back porch at my brother's place in Oregon wine country. My brother, Jeff, had carefully set the trap, with the help of my aunt and uncle, also in town from California, and now all that remained was to spring it. My parents came out onto the back porch and around the side of the house where we were sitting.

My mom took one look at my sister, whom she had spoken to (in the airport) that morning and screamed and clapped her hands together. She then looked to her left and saw me, screamed a little louder, and clapped again. She then looked slightly further to the left and saw Jun, whose picture she had only seen, and screamed a final, third time...the loudest and perhaps most delighted scream of the three. She then promptly broke into tears. Meanwhile, my dad's jaw was very nearly literally on the ground...he was basically dumbfounded.

So, we had a nice round of hugs with everyone and proceeded to drink beer and eat barbecue and have a generally fine time. Jun took to my family like a fish to water and they took to her with great, great delight, which I think reflects very well on all parties involved. In addition to the intrinsic rewards of being home in Oregon, spending time in its natural beauty with my incredibly wonderful and loving friends and family, it was amazing to see it all through Jun's eyes. She absolutely fell in love with everyone she met, and was constantly awed by the Oregon scenery. One of the things that I think I'll never forget about the trip were her constantly murmured expressions of awe. She is a wonderful person.

So, I owe great, great thanks to my brother and sister, who sprung for my ticket, and especially to my brother for generously lending me my old car so that would could get around hassle free. Good god, what a time. Awesome.

Summer vaction and DJing!!

So, I taught my last classes today for the next six weeks! I am excited. I still have to work a bit, but it's all more or less silly training exercises...I literally have to be at work for about 3 hours a day. Following that, we're supposed to do some reading and possibly some worksheets, but I'm thinking that it will be pretty light. Nice. I also have 3 weeks off, paid, which is AWESOME! I'd like to do some traveling around Japan, but I have to do some research first. The summer months here are going to be hot as hell, but I should be OK. Maybe I can find a nice place in the mountains to go camping or something.

Tonight I am going to meet a friend of mine and discuss my DJ night at the new club in Aoyama. I'm really frickin' excited about hooking this up. I have a lot of work to do, though. I need to name the night, put out a flyer, and scare up at least one more DJ. I'm planning on playing a long set, though, so I think I can get away with just one more person DJing. The important thing is to get as many of my friends and their friends there as possible. I should be able to fill it up, and that's good for my friend's business and it's good for me. Assuming all goes well, I can start eventually charging a door cover and paying my DJs (and myself). However, above making money, the main goal is to have a fun party. If I can make that happen regularly, then money will follow. Guess we'll find out, won't we?

The Weirdness.

This week, I've had the joyous fortune to be struck down by yet another bout of horrible illness. Yay! Super-duper fun. I had a fever of 39 degrees and missed 3 days of school, which is totally awesome. My company probably won't fire me.

Jun and I went out for yakitori, tonight, and had a couple of beers. While we were in the tiny restaurant, we began discussing the start of the Iraq war, an emotional topic for both of us. The conversation grew quite heated, even though we were both in total agreement. It was just a high level of intensity. After we finished our food and beer, I suggested that we leave. It was around that time that we both noticed that the entire place had become deathly quiet. The other customers were giving us odd looks, and we simultaneously realized that they were under the assumption that we were having a pretty significant argument of some sort. Jun apparently picked up a lot of sympathetic looks, and I picked up a couple of really quick, not-very-friendly looks. She had been more overtly agitated than I had been, so we later drew the conclusion that they had surmised that I had committed some sort of grievance against her, which she was airing out.

It was a strange example of miscommunication, where the reaction to our conversation had nothing to do with our actual conversation. It was a really bizarre experience, overall.

DJing in Daikanyama.

Last night I spent another evening in the smoky, dimly lit bar that has become one of my semi-regular haunts. It's located in Daikanyama, a small, fashionable district near Shibuya, which is a major Tokyo hub. I have been playing there with my friend Andy and a few other acquaintances for a small, regular party, and I'd expected to arrive to the party just on time to start my set at 10pm. Well, I arrived on-site, properly in the nick of time, and discovered, to my chagrin, that my usual crew was not in attendance. Puzzled, I sought out the owner, who promptly informed me that, in fact, our usual get together had been the night before, a Friday. Whoops. Usually, it's on Saturday, but...whoops.

So, he then asked if I'd brought tracks, to which I replied in the affirmative, and he told me to take over the turntables, which I did. He likes what I do on the decks, and I found out that he's opening a new bar next weekend with a larger space with the potential for more noise. All in all, it ended up being a pretty pleasant screw up on my part, although I dislike be flaky as a general rule. I played for a little over 2 hours without worrying about the schedule or other DJs. Nice.

Today, Jun made some fish for brunner (breakfast/lunch/dinner) and it was really good, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because majority of the fish was delicious. However, I, being adventurous, had decided that the fish intestines might be quite delicious and promptly tried a nice little chunk.

Now, I don't mind being wrong, but it can be momentarily challenging to overcome the nagging disappointment in oneself in the immediate aftermath of being *that* fucking wrong. The flavor of the intestines was utterly, horrifically repulsive. I squashed the urge to light my tongue on fire, made a face at Jun that clearly said, "for the love of god, burn my tongue out of my head," and began groping desperately about for a beverage.

So, uh...be careful with fish guts.

Email updates, summer in Tokyo, and misc. crap.

I've set this bad boy up so that I can email blog updates.  It'll allow me to update from anywhere, but, more importantly, it'll allow me to securely update the blog from school via my encrypted gmail account while I'm killing time.  I don't necessarily want anyone at school stumbling across this thing.  I am a fan of the privacy.  If I go to the website, then it gets logged deep in the bowels of the school system's proxy server, and I'm not a fan of that.  Call me paranoid...it's OK, I admit it. However, if I email it...then it's just another email that they theoretically can't read without putting me under some serious observation. Then they have to translate it.

Today was the first day of summer in Tokyo, and, good lord, it felt like it.  It wasn't hot, really, at all...I think it was about 80 or so...but the humidity was a mere 94%.  Walking outside effectively felt like taking a shower without being anywhere near a shower.  It's going to be hellish when it actually gets hot, which may actually be as soon as tomorrow.  I don't really care at this point, although I think that the days of running my computer 24/7 are coming to a close until things cool down again in a few months. 

Other news:  I am moving again next week to another guesthouse in Mitaka.  I'm pretty happy about it since realizing that my current guesthouse is your basic shithole.  I didn't particularly have that opinion when I first moved in, but I was mainly just happy not to have to travel 1.5 hours to work every day.  That happiness and joy lasted about 3 or 5 weeks, when I started my new job, when I re-commenced traveling all the frickin' way across Tokyo.  Anyway.  Soon, I'll be about 20 minutes from work, the way God intended it.

Awright, I think I'm done for the day.  Let's try out this email thing...

Pops and the weekend.

First things first: my dad is back in the hospital. They apparently don't think it's serious, but that's what they said last time. So, I am concerned, but he's where he needs to be. He is *not* having a heart attack, so that's the main thing.

So, the weekend. Jun and I went to her parents place to have dinner with her folks, brother, sister-in-law, and niece and nephew, whom she refers to as "The Little Monsters." Well, shockingly, they pretty much fell in love with me at first sight, particularly her nephew, Koki, who is 5. They are both adorable.

We had sashimi (sushi without rice patties, just slices of fish), and I handrolled sushi rolls for the first time. We had beer and some really nice 日本酒 (sake) from Nigata prefecture, which is where Jun's father was born.

Her parents were great...really nice and very welcoming. We spoke almost entirely in Japanese, of course, and I did pretty well, overall. Jun had to step in and translate occasionally, but that's to be expected. It's getting easier and easier to have basic conversations, but I still have a long, long, long way to go. They seemed to like me a lot, which made both of us happy.

After dinner I played with the kids and, naturally, there was a lot of giggling and yelling. Koki ended up crying and bleeding, also naturally. I don't know what it is about children and bleeding, but I've seen enough bloody children to last a lifetime...

Anyway. It was really nice.

So, my health apparently really sucks.

I went back to the doctor today. He looked at my throat and immediately put me on IV antibiotics, which was pretty swell. I've been having tonsillitis, which is not normally really all that serious. However, I've been fighting it for about 6 weeks or so, which is maybe a bit abnormal. I'm working with a theory that I have destroyed my immune system with all of the cheerfulness and 6-hours-a-day train riding and epic poverty that I have enjoyed so immensely since I got here.

Well, whatever. Things have been pretty good, of late, aside from the constant exhaustion (see destroyed immune system theory above). I think if I can make a point of getting enough sleep, I might just turn a whole corner on this whole Tokyo thing. After only 8 months of constant struggle. Exciting!

Too long, dammit.

Awright...so much news to report. I have been a bad blogger again.

First, foremost: the old man is OK. He is recovering in an undisclosed location (OK...my brother's house) and seems to be in pretty good spirits. We talked on Saturday for a little while and he sounded really good. I would've liked to have talked longer, but I've been fighting a(nother) cold and my throat was not feeling so hot. In fact, I've been fighting what appears to be the same fucking cold for about 6 weeks or so, now, and I finally went to the doctor last night and got an industrial strength prescription of antibiotics.

In any case...I am super happy that Dad is OK, and I'm really looking forward to having a lot of conversations in the future about his plans for retirement. He should be back home either now or within the next day.

Next: I switched doctors. I went to a clinic in Roppongi, which is widely known as a den of sin and debauchery, with many foreigners unwittingly falling prey to its charms. Every person in Japan has heard the story of the guy who accidentally spent $2000 in a Tokyo club without knowing what he'd spent it on, exactly. These stories almost invariably originate from Roppongi hostess bars, which are clubs where Tokyo business men go to escape their wives in the company of women who pretend to find them interesting. Don't ask.

So, then. Here's the lowdown. Rather than pancreatitis, which I had already determined, correctly, that I do not have, the new and vastly improved physician told me, following a CT scan, that I have a calcified stone stuck in my abdomen. He wasn't totally clear on the location, but he is thinking somewhere in my colon. He's sending my radiology report to a specialist in Kyoto, and I'll go see him next week to see what the deal is.

The difference in competence and professionalism between this and my last clinic is so vast that it's difficult to believe that the two offer ostensibly similar services.

I could continue to blog, there's plenty of other shit going on, but I'm exhausted at the moment, so I think it's time to pack it in. Maybe I can squeeze in another one tomorrow. Goodnight, y'all.

time for a quick attitude adjustment.

I was on the phone with my friend B yesterday, and I was feeling pretty shitty. In fact, I think it'd be fair to say that I was feeling epically motherfucking shitty. Feeling sorry for myself. Feeling that I'd somehow been cheated out of or denied some well-deserved good fortune.

So, I was talking to B and bitching a regular blue streak, mostly about my financial situation....you may have noticed that my previous blog post was a love letter to my horrible financial situation, in a similar vein to my conversation with B. It's become a bit of an obsession, but I guess that's what happens when your student loan provider calls you every 8 hours to remind you that they need to get paid, despite the fact that you applied for a deferment weeks ago.

But I digress. Anyway, I was on the phone with B, and I realized that I was sounding pretty pathetic. Admittedly, it was a bit of a low point, but the fact remains that I do not enjoy being or sounding pathetic. So, it's time to get something straight: there are a lot of good things in my life, and I need to remember them.

1) And this really is Numero Fucking Uno: My father is still alive. He could teach a mule a thing (or three) about being stubborn and he's still kicking. It's very likely going to take a lot more than a heart attack or two to stop my old man. Did I mention that he worked all day after major heart attack? Yeah. That's stubborn.

Now, in no particular order:

2) I have an amazing, loving family, who supports me even when I do crazy shit like run off to foreign countries to live in poverty.
3) I am blessed by the company of a beautiful, intelligent woman who is crazy about me.
4) My friends really love and care for me more deeply than I could have imagined possible, or imagined that I deserved, once upon a time.
5) My financial situation will eventually improve here, and I will achieve my goals in Japan. That's not an assertion or an idle promise, it's a fucking fact. I will not ever...EVER...be stopped, by anything short of total, absolute catastrophe. When I set to do something...and you may take this to the bank...I will accomplish my goals. The goalposts may shift from time to time, because I am willing to adapt to events as they occur, but I will not be deterred in my mission once I truly make up my mind. I am my father's son, and I learned how to be fucking stubborn from the King, as did my sister and brother.

Last, but not least:

6) I can walk. I'll have to explain this one another time, but let me assure you, it's something that I need to remember to be grateful for every single day. Sometimes I forget, but today I am grateful that I can walk, as you should be, as well.

Holy god.

So, my prolonged financial nightmare is just determined to make itself horrible for at least another day or two.

So, after about 7 weeks without a paycheck, I have finally run completely the fuck out of money here in Tokyo. I have about 600 yen to my name, which is about 6 dollars US. I get paid on the 28th, a few days from now, but I don't think I've actually been this broke in at least 10 years. To say that it is unpleasant is a massive understatement.

My bank account in the States is inexplicably frozen. I tried to pull out some money that my parents had deposited for me...let me just interject here...I really hate borrowing money. I really, really, really, hate borrowing money. But I did. So, today, I had this nice idea that I'd just pop into a 7-11 and withdraw some cash for...you know...food, and stuff. But, no. My account is frozen.

So. Let's wrap this up, I need some sleep: My father almost died last week and is still in the hospital. I am completely out of money, to the point where I'm going to have to stiff the turnstile at the train station tomorrow. I just called my bank to see what the fuck is wrong with my account, and...surprise...it's a national fucking holiday. Bank's closed.

I look forward to being able to look back at the utter financial disaster that coming here has been and laughing and laughing and laughing. That should only take about a decade.

Anyway. I called my company and they're going to give me an advance on my paycheck. I'll call my bank tomorrow and try not to completely lose my mind on some poor sap on the phone.

My dad.

My father had a heart attack this weekend, and am stuck in Tokyo, 5000 miles away from my friends and family. He's still in the hospital, but the prognosis is looking good.

The only thing keeping me sane here has been the support of my girlfriend, Jun. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd been here alone.

To be clear....

...I do not have pancreatitis, and the doctor who told me that I did is apparently an incompentent, lazy piece of shit. I have *slightly* elevated lipase levels. We're talking about 4 units above the maximum for my height/weight/age/etc. So, the max is 57 and my score was at about 61. Now...*drumroll*...cursory investigation by me, a layperson, reveals that pancreatitis typically causes elevated lipase levels of 5 to 10 times the normal maximum.

I fucking hate incompetence, and I'm not setting foot back into that goddamn clinic. They have utterly...utterly...failed to treat anything that I've seen them for in the last 6 months. Time for a switch.

So, what does this all mean, hmmm? Well, it means I need a new clinic, and I've found one. They're affiliated with Johns Hopkins, so I'm hoping (probably in vain) that I can find a doctor there who is: 1) capable of using diagnostic tools effectively, and 2) capable of correctly fucking interpreting what a drunk first-year fucking med student should be able to suss out with a minimum of effort. I found this lipase shit on Wikipedia and then confirmed it on another site after noticing that Dr. Douchebag's 47 prescriptions weren't doing a goddamn thing.

OK, I feel a little better. I'm make an appointment tomorrow. Jesus God.

*edit* it occurs to me that this post is really angry. It's the result of a lot of frustration. I'm not changing it, though, this is where I unload many of my innermost feelings, for good or bad.

Jun.

Jun: pronounced like June.

I talked to the family this weekend and there were a lot of questions floating around about this new girl I've been dating, so I'll try to resolve some of those questions here (I'm looking your way, Mom).

We met at a couchsurfing hanami party in Shinjuku. It was the first warm day of the year, really beautiful. I don't believe we actually talked at the party, but there was a small after-party party in another park in Shibuya with about 5 of us. Even here, we didn't talk directly to each other a lot, but I was definitely attracted to her right off the bat. However, I was still, at this point, in not-really-looking-for-dating mode, and I was quite detached from the opposite sex. Fortunately, about a week later, I had an incident that made me realize that it might not be such a good idea for me to remain closed in this way, and I asked her out shortly thereafter. She said yes, although she tells me that she wasn't particularly considering it a date. I'm apparently sneaky about the dating.

OK, so enough with the background. Here's the pertinent info...

She's Japanese. She lived in Canada for a number of years and reads, writes, and speaks English, and regularly asserts that she is more Canadian than Japanese, although she *is* quite Japanese in many ways, as well...just not her overall attitude and outlook on life, if there can be said to be a single "Japanese" perspective. I don't think that there can, personally, but she's definitely on the fringes of the bell curve.

She works for a TV company in Japan. She likes drinking and swearing inappropriately in English, despite the fact that she is stylish, cultured, well-read, very well-traveled, and self-possessed. Anyone who knows me is aware of my predilection for contradictions, so this habit of swearing that she has is particularly endearing. She apparently has an eye for contradiction as well, because I can hardly be described as stylish, although I am aware that there is something about my physical presence that makes up, to some extent, for my minimal attention to the fine art of dressing oneself appropriately.

She's older than I am. She's beautiful. When we go out, people stare and stare and stare. Even as used to being looked at as I am, now, it's still a little disconcerting to see how intently we provoke others' interest when we're together. I don't get the sense that it's particularly hostile, but it's weird, nonetheless. I don't have a real sense of what they're thinking. Perhaps we just make a striking couple. I'm big in the states, but I'm fucking huge here...she's not a tall woman, despite her constant cheating with tall shoes, so maybe it's the size difference or something. I don't know.

Anyway, it's been really nice. In fact, I think it's fair to say that our time together has been, by far, the most fun that I've had in Tokyo.

So...thank you, Jun. You've greatly enhanced my life in a very short time.

The date.

As previously noted, it is Golden Week in Japan, which means that I've had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off this week. Today is my last day of vacation, and I'm a bit sad about it. Fortunately, the weekend is only 2 days away.

I had a date on Monday with J...we'll just call her Jun. I think that's still anonymous enough. Anyway. Had a date with Jun. We went to Kamakura, which is a small town outside of Tokyo that is very famous for its many, many shrines and a 1000 year old gigantic Buddha. Jun and I went to a couple of shrines and then went to Chinatown in Yokohama. Normally, we'd probably have had a drink or two and then possibly some hanky-panky and then that'd probably be the end of the story, but it did not go according to the usual routine...

The date started 56 hours ago...it's still going.

golden week.

It's Golden Week here in Japan. What the hell is that, you ask? Well, the snarky answer would be to tell you to go to Wikipedia and look it the hell up, but I will save you the trouble.

Golden Week is a series of four Japanese holidays: April 29, Showa Day (aka Hirohito's B-day Par-tay). Then, May 3, Constitution Memorial Day. You should read the story of the Japanese Constitution sometime, it's quite interesting. Next we have May 4, Greenery Day. Technically, this holiday is supposed to be for the appreciation of nature, but is apparently mostly a filler holiday to round off Golden Week. It would be less Golden if everybody had to go back to work for a day in the middle of it. Last, May 5, or, as it is known in Japan, Cinco de Mayo. Japanese binge on sushi and tequila and projectile vomit in the streets. Actually, uhhh...wait. No, scratch that shit. May 5 is Children's Day, formerly Boy's Day. There's very little projectile vomiting or tequila drinking.

I have been having a nice weekend. Friday night I went to a friend's birthday party in Shibuya for about an hour, and then came back to Oimachi for a house party at the guesthouse down the street. It was pretty fun...still a little strange being the non-drinker at the party, but it *does* make other people's drinking that much more amusing. Yesterday I went to a picnic in a really nice park with a co-worker from my previous job, as well as his wife and another friend of theirs. Tomorrow I'm going to Kamakura with J...should be really fun.

Some recent changes.

Saturday was a fairly momentous day. I went to the doctor to hear about some lab test results, and he told me that I probably have a mild case of pancreatitis. Not so great. The condition is aggravated, and possibly caused by, the use of alcohol, so that means that I'm officially on the wagon. I haven't had a drink for a week and a half...I'm assuming that I'll be able to resume moderate consumption of alcohol at some point in the future, but I'm not sure when (or if) that will be the case.

I'm actually OK with it. I've definitely been drinking more since I got to Tokyo, but the results are, per usual, less than stellar. Unless I drink fairly impressively massive amounts of booze, alcohol doesn't have generally have a huge affect on me in terms of behavioral modification. If I've had enough that it does, then chances are pretty good that the behavior modification isn't going to be to my liking. So, if I drink the way that I usually do, which is to say, not to the point of being really fucking wasted, then it doesn't really alter my behavior or mindset particularly. What does that tell us? Well, it tells me that I've been wasting a lot of money on a drug that ultimately doesn't really effect me that much, other than to give me really shitty hangovers. Wheeeeee. The really stupid thing is that I don't need it to have fun in social situations and it's not a social lubricant for me any more. I'm fine without it, but you just get into these habits and then don't think about them much.

As previously noted, if it does effect me greatly, it's often detrimental. So...yeah.

Saturday night I DJed again in Daikanyama. Many of my friends came and we had a nice time at the bar, although the sound system really is terribly underpowered. It's not a nightclub. Afterward, however, we *did* go to a nightclub, and that was fantastic. The cover was pretty high, but the not-drinking definitely heavily subsidizes a night out on the town. A woman who I've been interested in pursued me to the club at the behest of her friends, and we ended up having a nice time together. I've really been closed off since I got here, for a variety of reasons, but my recent decision to open myself up has rather astonishingly quickly resulted in my finding myself in the delightful company of this beautiful, intelligent, quirky woman. Some of the closing off was simply due to my location, way out of the way in Ichikawa, but a lot of it was also fear of repeating my experience with my last girlfriend, and some other things that are maybe a little too deep for this venue.

In any case, I don't have any particular expectations, one way or the other, out of this situation, but it's been nice so far and I wouldn't mind more niceness in my life after the 6 months of shit sandwich that I've been choking down.

Work.

All right, here is my work update, as promised.

I started at the junior high on Monday. Naturally, I got off at the wrong bus stop and was about 15 minutes late for work. Fortunately, it's generally understood that public transportation can be a hellish experience, and no one is usually terribly surprised or offended if a foreigner is late on the first day. After the first day or two, though, you'd damn well better be on time.

I wouldn't call my job at the junior high "teaching" actually. My job is to parrot English in a native accent. I *was* thinking that the junior high level would be more challenging than the elementary teaching, but it's the exact opposite. In the elementary schools, I am responsible for the whole lesson. In the junior high, I'm more of the teachers' English slave...or something. I'm not complaining, everybody has been really nice.

The biggest difference, though, is the students. Elementary students have this vibrancy and curiosity and lack of self-consciousness that the vast majority of the junior high students have somehow lost. Something really special dies in children with the onset of puberty and the awareness of self and others that it brings. Once it's gone, it's gone.

All of the students are nice to me, so far, though, and when I see those students who are bored or suffering in some way, I totally and completely empathize. After all, did anyone hate school more than I? Was anyone more bored, or resentful? Could anyone have channeled more angst? Probably, on all counts, but not much.

I'm in the elementary school on Thursday and Friday, and thank the gods. They're so sweet, and they find me endlessly fascinating. The really small ones, in 1st and 2nd grade, want to touch my legs and my hands and my arms in the hallways all the time. It's fucking adorable. I left work on Friday in a really good mood, and it had nothing to do with not working the next day. Good stuff.

One of *those* days.

My day at work today was pretty boring...just getting into the new routine, I guess. 3 of my classes were effectively canceled, thanks to a test, so I had a lot of time for class prep. I only taught two classes. All in all, not very exciting.

I'll give a more full description of the actual classes here in a day or two.

It doesn't usually really bother me, but every so often I feel acutely aware of just how alien I am here. Between my height and my pasty white skin, I could probably have a foot-long pink mohawk and not attract more attention. Today was one of those days when I was just tired...really tired...of being stared at by every person I passed on the street.

Fuck it, maybe it's time for a pink mohawk.

Probably getting sick now....

All signs point to my catching a cold, which is swell. Per usual when I get sick, I have the accompanying low-grade depression, wherein I typically try to avoid all human contact so that I can properly wallow in my misery. I'm supposed to DJ this weekend, so I'm going to bed now, around 9, in the hopes of killing it overnight. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. I'm going to work no matter what happens, and I'm DJing if I have to do it remotely from my hospital bed, so that's that.

weekend.

I hosted another couchsurfer this weekend, a Parisian named Jay who is considering a move to Japan sometime around September. He was really mellow and we had some good conversations about language and the difficulties of learning a new one. He was impressed with my Japanese, but that doesn't mean much. I get excited when Japanese people are impressed with my Japanese, which is pretty rare if I talk to them for more than 5 minutes. Baby steps, though.

Last night I went to a birthday party in Shimokitazawa, a small, hip enclave where I'd previously had a pretty terrible time. I think I mentioned it in one of my earlier blog posts, actually. This particular trip more than made up for the last one...it was my friend's birthday party. Incidentally, it turns out that gay people are a blast in virtually every culture. Who knew? In any case, it's pretty close to my new job, so there's a decent chance that I'll start looking around for a new place somewhere in the neighborhood. Probably have to wait another month or two to move, though.

Tomorrow I start the new job, so today I went out and picked up some things that I will need for the job, and just for general use. I'll be at my junior high school for 3 days, and then the elementary for 2. I'll have a desk at the junior high, but it's looking like I'll only have a locker at the elementary school. The junior high is looking way more organized, which is good, since I'll be spending most of my time there.

Anyway. I'm going to do a few chores, now, and relax for a while. More later.

Grandma.

My grandma isn't doing very well, and I feel shitty about the situation because I haven't been able to go see her for a couple of years and I doubt that I'll be able to visit her for at least a couple more. She is exhibiting strong signs of dementia, and I'm really worried that she won't recognize me the next time I see her...and that I'll never see her again.

Fuck.

The biggest city in the world.

Considering that Tokyo is the largest city in the world, it's surprisingly homogeneous in terms of population. When I lived in Ichikawa and commuted all the way across Tokyo, it was a rare day to see more than 2 or 3 foreigners on the train in any given week.

Contradictorily, I've never spent so much time in the company of people from so many different places. Tonight I went to Akihabara in the company of 3 people: 1 from Australia, 1 from Scotland, and 1 from England. Despite the homogeneity of the population, the foreigners here are from *all* over the world, and in significant quantities. It's really interesting to learn, firsthand, about so many different places, and I often just shut the hell up and sit quietly and listen to the stories told in various, lovely different accents.

On a different subject...last night was interesting. I had a date with a nice Japanese woman, who we will call "J." She lived in Canada for 6 years, so we spoke effortlessly in English, which was nice. I like the fact that she has lived abroad, and, in point of fact, it's a requirement for any serious dating that I may or may not do in Japan.

I've largely avoided dating, thanks to the trauma of my previous relationship, which I have detailed in some depth in this blog. After a lot of reflection, I've concluded that it's not healthy to close myself off to the possibilities here. I'm not seeking anything, but it would be stupid to turn my back on positive situations that present themselves. I'm done closing myself off.

Quickly, now.

I'm waiting to use the bathroom. When you live with 18 (slight exaggeration) people, you wait for things.

Tomorrow I start training for my new job, so I need a shower, a quick trim, and to get my shave on. I'm excited, but the excitement is definitely tamped down a bit by waiting 87 hours to use the fucking bathroom sink. For the love of god, here, people.

Anyway. Shower...bed...full report tomorrow.

Lazy, bad blogger.

I've been super busy, and thus have been neglecting the blog...it's probably a good thing, ultimately.

Last weekend was the beginning of hanami party season, as discussed previously. Let's get down to it:

Here is my friend Hanako, her sister, and niece. Cuteness!


Here is a picture that I took in the park. I am told that it is beautiful, but draw your own conclusions:



This is me having some silly time with my J-friends:



Annnnd, here is the aftermath in an izakaya. I also like this picture:



There's actually a lot more, since I did the same thing on Sunday at a couchsurfing party...it was a really busy weekend. I also hosted a girl from Sweden at my house and that was time consuming as well. Furthermore, I have been working on a top secret music project, which is...again...time consuming. It's good to stay busy though. My social network here is kind of exploding in my face, but it's not a bad thing since I plan to pursue DJing as much as possible. If I can generate a following of friends here, then I can start moving events into larger clubs and perhaps making money. I do enjoy not living in poverty.

Speaking of which, I finally got fully paid for the month of February, and might actually get paid for March in about a week. We'll see, but I'm somewhat hopeful that it'll happen. I need to open a bank account next week, which promises to be a huge pain in the ass. Que sera, sera.

More later...I have another hanami to go to!!

Next weekend.

Next weekend promises to be fairly epic. In the spring, the cherry tree in Japan blossom, and the Japanese people go frickin' insane with the partying. On Saturday, I have two hanami (flower watching) parties, and another on Sunday. Saturday's will involve simply going to the park with food and booze and then drinking first with my friends and then with my new co-workers in the company of beautifully blooming cherry trees. We'll be located in Yoyogi Park...it's the biggest in Tokyo, and there will be a metric assload of people there. Later in the day and into the evening, soundsystems will be fired up around the park, and there will be bands and DJs and dancing and singing. In theory, it will be awesome. Big surreal events tend to remind me of Burning Man, so I'm wondering if I'll get that vibe in this case...guess we'll find out.

I also have a couchsurfer from Sweden staying with me, which should be fun. She's coming from China and staying for a few nights. Probably couldn't have picked a better time to come to Tokyo...

My last post elicited a lot of supportive emails from my friends and family, and I really appreciate it. I couldn't do this without you all cheering me on. I love you all! Even the bitchy ones (you know who you are).

I'm tired....saturdays suck.

Saturdays at the eikaiwa (English school) are really weak. One of my co-workers was out, so I filled his shift for him. Last night, of course, I went to hang out with the old roommates, and there was a lot of drinking and not that much sleep. So, I am tired.

A friend of mine in Portland posted some pictures of my old favorite bar on Facebook. It is a few blocks walk from my old house and the atmosphere is eclectic, funky, and weird. I often felt more at home there than in my own living room, especially during some difficult periods at the old homestead with one especially horrible girlfriend, and I held my going away party there.

It was strange to see this lovely, special girl, who I had introduced to the bar and whose place in my life is still not entirely clear to me, with her friends in this place that I loved, and I felt so very, very far away. Today, low on cash yet again and fighting exhaustion, I wondered, I think maybe for the first time, what the hell am I doing here?

I don't know if there's a simple answer to that question, but my new job is going to need to be really pretty awesome or this thing probably just isn't going to work out. I've been making it by the skin of my teeth since I got here and it'll be a full 6 months of just barely...barely...skating by, and I really don't know how much more I can handle.

However, tomorrow is another day and the job looks to be pretty awesome.

Latest and greatest.

I've been spending some time walking around my new neighborhood and getting to know the joint. Sometimes Tokyo all looks the same...all grays and earth tones and strangly vertical buildings, largely devoid of any redeeming architectural qualities. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of interesting architecture here, but you typically have to look for it. Your average house/apartment building architecture is generally horrible, which is really kind of weird given the amazing beauty of traditional Japanese buildings. Fortunately, there are many temples about in *exactly* that ancient, beautiful style of architecture.

So there are lots of little parks and plants lining the streets here, which is a major shift from Ichikawa. The train station is also surprisingly interesting, architecturally, and I'm kind of dying to photograph it...that desire, however, is strongly dampened by the overall shittiness of my cheap-ass camera. On the other hand, I did manage to shoot an entire music video with the aforementioned crappy camera, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. In any case, the station has lots of interesting curves and angles...I really like it.

This weekend I was pretty naughty. I DJed again on Saturday night in Daikanyama, which is near Shibuya. My last train shoots out of there at 12:40, which is a definite improvement over Ichikawa, although it's still pretty early. Fortunately, it's not hard to find overnight activities in Shibuya if necessary. The main problem is the fact that you will spend insane quantities of money if you aren't careful. For example, last night I was delighted to find myself in a bar that had Red Hook in bottles. You have no idea how very, very happy I was to find decent beer in this god-forsaken city. The Japanese apparently hate good beer, they're apparently about a decade or more behind the States in this regard. Sadly, a single beer will usually run somewhere between 600 and 900 yen, which is the approximate equivalent of 6-9 dollars.

Sadly, my happiness about the beer was tempered by the meat market atmosphere. Also, let me point out that gaijin (foreigners) in Tokyo are often relentlessly fucking stupid. Obviously, I have many wonderful gaijin friends, but, when it comes to meeting new people, I'm quickly approaching the point where I'm more comfortable with Japanese than with foreigners, which is kind of a weird deal.

Let's wrap this up, people. I'm fooling around with some new software that makes remixing incredibly easy, so I spent most of the day working on something new. My compositions from scratch tend to get out of control pretty rapidly, so remixing gives me a definite structure and path to follow. I think it's a good way to develop my skills, and it's a natural extension of DJing so it seems to come more easily.

I have other stuff on my mind, but I can't get it all onto the internet. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Wow.

This post is going to be a little long...my mind is in about a million different places right now, and a lot of things have happened recently. Mostly good...some, not so much, but mostly pretty good.

The first one: I had a job interview on Friday, and they emailed less than one business day later to let me know that I got the gig. That means they liked me, I suppose. I start on April 9th. The salary is good, the vacation is spectacular at over 6 weeks (not including the ample national holidays) in a contract year, and the best part is the fact that the company seems to generally give a shit about the people who make them their money. I'm really happy about that. You know what? Screw happy, I'm ecstatic. This job is a rarity in Japan. I'm a little overwhelmed.

The job itself: I'll be teaching first through fourth graders at an elementary school. I'll be reading, speaking, and studying Japanese every single day at work. With this job, the possibility of achieving some real fluency in Japanese becomes a possibility. More than a possiblity. One of my goals here is to become conversant in Japanese, so this job is more than a paycheck and stability and good times with the cutest damn children you've ever seen...it'll help me to accomplish one of the things that I really wanted from my trip to Japan.

2nd thing. I just moved out of Ichikawa into Tokyo proper. My commute time is reduced by about...no joke...3 to 4 hours per day. Yeah. I've been going home in between my split shifts, where I need to kill about 6 to 7 hours, and it's been driving me inexorably over the cliff. Not any more.

My new place is nice. My room is bigger. The bed is more comfortable. My roommates are cool, although my old roommates were (with some exceptions) pretty awesome as well. However, most of my roommates here are Japanese, so, again, I'm presented with more opportunities to improve my Japanese skill. I'm noticing a trend.

The area is also nice, too. I'm currently about 20 minutes, by walking and train, from Shibuya, which is basically the heart of Tokyo. I can make it to my current job in about 25 minutes. I may have to move closer to future job at some point, but I'll worry about that later. I can handle up to an hour without going too insane. More than that might tip the scales, but we'll see how it goes.

3rd thing. I had my first couchsurfer, the girl who I stayed with in Korea. It was all right, but definitely a mistake to host while I was moving. I was just stressed and exhausted and it wasn't really ideal. I couldn't take her out and show her the town like I would have if I'd been operating at 100%. Anyway. Live and learn. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going a little nuts by the time she left this morning, but, hey. You need your space, especially when you've been moving and going to job interviews and watching your current company--lying-ass sack of crap company, that is--blow up in your face.

4th thing. The ex and I had the big drawn out email session last week, as previously noted, and it was good to get everything in the open. It's taken virtually all of my anger way, which is good, but the loss of the hurt and anger has let some of the sadness to float back to the top. Even that is different, though, because I've realized that some of my good memories weren't nearly as good as I'd thought. Not for her, anyway. So the sadness, while still sad, is muted from where it was before.

I brought a rock with me to Tokyo, a bit of red and gold sand-beaten glass or plastic or maybe even actual quartz or something, although I doubt it. It was a small memento from a trip last spring, which now feels like a million years ago. I found it, while moving, and I realized that it didn't mean what I thought it did. I thought that it was a tangible piece of beautiful moment that I wanted to hold onto, but the reality is that the moment just isn't what I thought it was. I can't make it something that it's not. It wasn't that it was bad...I just didn't have the whole story until now.

I put it into my pocket. Yesterday, while walking around my new neighborhood, I found a street that followed a canal, deep and green. I took the stone out of my pocket and climbed up the ledge and I leaned onto the rail protecting the canal from the people, or vice versa. I took it out and I looked at it for a moment, and then I gently tossed it out into the water and watched the pretty red and gold sink down into the green murk of the canal. I'm happy to let it go because it means that I can let go of other memories, too.

Regarding memories, I recommend a movie by Akira Kurosawa called Rashomon. It's an extremely dark film about a samurai's murder, but the film is ultimately not about violence, but about the deceptiveness of recollection and the tricks that our minds play on us. I have my memories, you all have yours, and somewhere in between lies the truth of the matter.

Super fucking busy.

The last few days have been a little bit crazy because of two factors, one of which I will discuss here directly. In my last post, I mentioned a "huge fucking distraction," which was an unkind way of saying that my ex-girlfriend had emailed me after 4 months of no communication between us. I put it into unkind terms because I'd been feeling bitter. OK, realistically, bitter is not really the correct emotion. Bitter is a 5'3", 98-pound, beach-bullied Everquest junkie...my emotion was the Incredible Hulk on steroids, crystal meth, and a 5 gallons of tequila (I may be slightly exaggerating). The whole thing had been more than significantly heartbreaking. Those of you who've followed the blog probably have a good idea of what I've been going through here, so I don't think I need to retell painful old tales.

She emailed to apologize for the gap in communication and I sent back a less than cheerful response, which kicked off a series of accusations and counter-accusations, both of which probably contained a lot of truth or at least truth through the lens of individual experience. We ended up rehashing some of the less pleasant details of our relationship and I learned some new things about our relationship that have haunted me to greater or lesser degrees in all of my long-term relationships. In any case, it was not particularly fun to go through recent, barely scabbed-over wounds with sandpaper, razor blades, and rubbing alcohol. However, the tone eventually shifted, and we both took responsibility for our various misdeeds and faults, which is the foundation of forgiveness and ultimately will give us to ability to fully move forward. I forgave a previous girlfriend for some pretty heinous behavior, but she never managed to show any remorse or real self-awareness, which is why any future relationship with her would be impossible and, ultimately, totally pointless. In her case, the act of forgiveness was solely for my own sanity, not out of any sense of great altruism, although I did recognize that she was simply a very sad, flawed person. My ex-ex-girlfriend, that is.

Jesus, I try not to use names on this fucking thing so that it's more or less anonymous unless you know me, but this ex-ex-girlfriend and ex-girlfriend shit is getting a little tedious. I digress.

Anyway, my most recent ex...can we just call her M? My most recent girlfriend took responsibility for her faults and I took responsibility for mine, and we ended our emails on a fairly positive note. I have forgiven her and (I think) vice versa. I think it's very possible that we'll have some semblance of a working friendship in the not-terribly-distant future, which would be a nice change from my previous girlfriends. I'm not ready for a resumption of full-on casual communication yet, but that'll probably happen with time. I'm open to the possibility.

I am moving this week, so with the combination of the recent emails and getting the fuck out of a place where I suffered a lot on several levels, I can finally close most of the chapter on my long, fucking thoroughly unpleasant beginning in Japan, and I'm really, really happy about that. Sprinkle a new job and adequate goddamn pay in the mix here, and things could actually be quite pleasant.

Factor #2 is going to have to wait a day or two. I have some resumes to email out.

Job situation.

I had a job interview this morning, and it went pretty well despite not a whole lot of sleep and a huge fucking distraction tossed in my lap yesterday. I'll probably write about the distraction in a day or two, but I'd like to process it for a bit and see if I can wrangle any more interesting conclusions out of it.

I'm most interested in a position teaching elementary schoolchildren as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). The job will allow me to interact with kids, which I like, and I'll be working in Japanese public schools, which will massively improve my Japanese. The work isn't difficult, and it sounds like I'll only be actually teaching for about 4 hours a day, while the rest of my time at work can be used to study Japanese and more or less relax. I'm also lining up work through a guy I know in western Tokyo (actually Kanagawa), and I may just ending up working for him full-time if he can get me enough work. It's looking more and more probable, though, that I'll have at least 2 or 3 jobs over the course of the next year. After my contract expires, in April 2010, I'm considering a move to Osaka, which is on the other side of the main island of Japan. I hear the people are more outgoing, which would be really nice. People in Tokyo often have a look on their face that I usually equate with having a 2x4 rammed painfully up the ass.

I have a Canadian friend coming to couchsurf with me for the next week or so. We met in S. Korea, and she's pretty cool, so it should be fun. I have to work a lot, but nothing new there...

Initiation.

Last weekend I had an experience that felt very oddly, and very precisely, like an initiation. I've been teaching at elementary schools through a guy who lives near my primary job. His name is D. On Saturday, I went to pick up my pay from the elementary work, and he invited me out for a drink. Then it got weird.

We went to his friend's house, whose name I cannot currently remember. Japanese names usually take at least two or three hearings for me to remember then, and it can be sketchy even then. Since he is an aikido master, I just ended up calling him sensei for most of the evening. Tragically, his girlfriend very recently killed herself and Duncan has been spending a lot of time with him, so part of our job there was to hang out with him. With a huge bottle of Japanese rice wine, or nihon-shu. You can call it sake, as well, if you'd like. There are many kinds, so nihon-shu is a general term.

We killed the bottle and then headed back into the city. We hit a sushi bar, where apparently sensei is well known. The wait-staff put on an epic ass-kissing, so I assume that he goes there a lot. We had more nihon-shu, served in traditional Japanese fashion. A shot glass of nihon-shu is placed on the corner of a bamboo drinking vessel, also full of booze, and sushi was served. This point felt particularly initiation-y, because Duncan and the sensei ordered sushi for me and didn't eat any themselves. When I tried to eat it with ohashi (chopsticks), the sensei rapped my knuckles and told me to eat it by hand. So, I did and it was frickin' sweet. I do love my sushi.

Anyway...things get a little fuzzy after that, thanks to all of the drinking, but it was a good time. Not the sort of thing you want to do every night, but...everything in moderation, including moderation. Especially moderation.

Did I mention that we barely spoke English all night? I didn't understand about 75% of what I was hearing, but that's down from 90% a couple of months ago. Things are moving along...

On the hunt again.

Well, it looks pretty clear that my boss isn't very competent, and I'm concerned about the school blowing up in my face. I'm sending out applications right at the moment, and we'll see where it takes me. I'm trying to line up something with a recruiter, and I have a few options with some local contacts, as well.

Sucks, but at least this job got me here and helped me float for a while.

The future and what the dang thing holds.

I have altered my plans a bit, I think. There is still a significant amount of time involved and I don't know exactly how everything will pan out here and back in the States, but I have decided to extend my visit here by a year.

My logic is this: I have certain financial goals here that I would like to achieve before I return and start school again. I'd like to get my credit card debt from college reduced. I'd like to make full payments on my student loan. I'd also like to save money for a motorcycle trip when I return to the U.S.

For a long time, now, I have dreamed of a motorcycle trip from Oregon back to Iowa, and maybe beyond. I wouldn't mind sharing some of the trip with some good friends, but I want to take the bulk of the trip by myself. Just me and some camping gear and the open road. I'd like to take a month or so, I think, when I get back, and just carve my way across the United States. The trip from Oregon to Iowa would be definite, but after that...who knows? I haven't seen the East Coast, and I haven't seen the South, and I have friends in both places who would probably be willing to show me around, if not host me outright. Combine that with camping and couchsurfing across the States and it could be the adventure of a lifetime...again.

I may have developed an addiction to these: Adventure and living my dreams. Why not?

uncertainty.

So, I should probably rename this blog to Incredibly Epic Tales of Uncertainty and Hardship in Tokyo, because that seems to be an unfortunately common state for me here. My dad noted that life is a roller coaster, and it is true, true, true.

Saturday is a prime example. On Saturday, I received my paycheck for the month of January. I knew that it would be light, thanks to the week and a half national holiday, during which I did not work, but my boss decided to retroactively give all the employees at our company a pay cut. Thanks, boss, and fuck you. I'll be finding a new job directly. The end result is that I have a well sub-poverty paycheck for the month of February and mounting debts from school, credit cards, and other assorted sources. I am very, very seriously considering staying here another year so that I can stabilize my financial situation. I only have about 15 months before I had previously scheduled my return to the states...it's not much time to complete my financial goals. Ultimately, it's not enough time, thanks to the apparently fucking endless financial setbacks that I must suffer here.

Saturday evening, however, I DJed at a swanky little bar in a wealthy part of Tokyo. It was packed, and I played a nice set. My new friends in Tokyo made up a very significant portion of the attendees and my network here is growing stronger, for which I am grateful.

I've DJed for over 11 years, so I'm not unused to being the center of attention at the various events at which I have performed over the years, but the minor celebrity status that I experienced on Saturday was far, far beyond anything I've dealt with before. To say that the Japanese women in attendance were "interested" in my performance would be an incredibly massive understatement. It would have almost been uncomfortable if it hadn't been so fucking fun.

So, anyway. The roller coaster goes up, and the roller coaster goes down. So it goes. I'll be finding a new job soon, and moving soon, and everything will change again, for better or worse. As it does.

So, about Ichikawa.

I live in Ichikawa, which is in Chiba. Chiba is on the east side of Tokyo, and I work on the west side of Tokyo. Tokyo, of course, is the largest city in the world.

If I am lucky, I can make it to work in about 1 hour and 10 minutes, door to door. However, 3 nights a week I also commute from work to other locations, usually about an additional half hour of travel, on the light side. On those 3 days, my commute approaches a total of 4 hours.

Additionally, I've just started working a second job, also on the west side of Tokyo, and that adds anywhere from 1 to 2.5 hours to the daily commute, depending on whether or not I am working at my other job on that day.

I am FUCKING moving. I'm on the verge of a major freakout. This shit is fucking ridiculous and I can't, I won't, do it any more. God. Damn. It. I have had it. I am outta here by March. Period.

the slacking.

I just looked at my blog and noticed that I haven't posted for over a week. That's just not acceptable.

Sooooo...things have been going pretty well, for the most part. I'm still struggling to put all of the pieces together financially, but that situation should be decidedly improving in the weeks and months ahead. I picked up another part time job...it's temporary, but it should lead to other work that I hope will be as lucrative.

About the job: as of Friday, I'm teaching English to elementary public school kids. It's actually really interesting. The English part of the equation is, of course, ridiculously easy. The difficult part is putting yourself in front of 25 curious pairs of eyes and subjecting yourself to their scrutiny. Children can sense fear, of course...fortunately, I've handled much worse things than a classroom full of curious Japanese children in recent times. They seem to like me and they seem genuinely interested in American culture. I like kids, generally, so that probably helps...they can sense that, as well.

The teachers and staff are super friendly and my Japanese will definitely be getting a workout in the mornings and in between classes, which is what I want. No complaints on that, although, obviously, mastering a new language is a constant battle. I probably shouldn't use "mastering" and "my Japanese" in the same paragraph, however. It's going to take a while. On the other hand, I do seem to be assimilating new words a lot faster and more easily than I was when I first got here.

Socially, things are moving right along. Last night I went out to Shibuya with some Italian researcher friends, as well as my friends Hanako and Eri, and we went and caught a couple of bands and a DJ and did some dancing. It was fun, although, of course, I missed my last fucking train and stayed up all night in Shibuya. I met some interesting people, but would have preferred to go to bed.

Side note: you know, it's weird that I almost never went dancing while I was with Maria. Amusingly, she saw me joke-dancing spastically at a party one time, and assumed that I am generally dance-floor retarded, but the reality is that I can hoof it surprisingly well for a guy of my height, thickness, and generally lumberjack-ish appearance. People have actually made a number of comments over the years, especially more recently, and I usually don't quite know how to handle them, which sometimes leads to some social awkwardness. I'll work on it. In any case, I suppose that it's possible that over a decade of DJing might give you a good sense of rhythm.

Speaking of which, I'll be DJing in Daikanyama in 2 weekends. It's a trendy neighborhood in central Tokyo. Naturally, it's not a paid gig, but my hope is that it will lead to some of them. Or even just *more* unpaid gigs. I'll get free drinks out of the deal, so it could be worse, I supppose. Actually, there are a lot...a LOT...of opportunities in general in the expat network. We are a well-paid, fairly talented bunch of people, for the most part.

Anyway. Time for bed.

The Christmas, Part 2.

I never finished my Christmas story, and it relates to some other tales of woe that I'd like to put up on here, so I think that I should finish it.

After the vomiting, I felt that it would be prudent to go home, so I began my 1 hour journey back to Ichikawa Station and then on to my apartment. I went home and slept for about an hour, which was nice, but probably not entirely necessary. I felt fine after the projectile vomiting into the toilet.

I really, really...really...did not want to teach my night class, but it would be walking away from $100. Not a great idea, financially. So, I took the train back to Kawasaki (another hour and 20 minutes), and then went to Ofuna (30 minutes) and taught my class. On the way back to Kawasaki, I usually just jump on the Tokaido rapid line, but the Christmas train of total joy and wonderment decided to take me to Osaki instead. Oh, Happy Spirit of Christmas...thank you, Jesus. Thank you. I got off the train in Ebisu, and then went to Shinagawa, and then back to Kawasaki (total trip: over 1 hour). Keep in mind that I am, of course, starving because I rushed onto the train in Ofuna in order to make it to a Christmas party. At this point, I've officially been on the train for over 4.5 hours. And I'm starving. And super cheerful.

Anyway, let me wrap this up quickly. The party was nice, but I, naturally, missed my last train and nearly ended up spending the night in Shinagawa. I made it back to the party, however, and spent the night in a capsule hotel with a friend, who showed me the ropes. It was actually pretty nice, thanks to the public bath on the top floor. I sat in the bath (basically a huge hot tub) for a good half an hour and just absorbed my day for a while. I slept well...it was actually big enough for me...and I woke up feeling pretty good the next day, when I had another nice, long bath.

So. Yeah. Christmas in Tokyo sucked shit, but ended not-too-horribly.

Quick update...

I'll try to make this one quick, but I really need to get back on here and start blogging more regularly...I have a number of hilariously unfortunate stories about myself that should be archived for posterity, if nothing else.

OK, so, quickly. Things have been going well since my return from Korea. I hadn't realized how huge of a weight that the visa run had been on my shoulders, but, suffice it to say...it was huge. And now it's gone. I've succeeded at my goal of living in Japan, which is an amazing feeling.

Anyway. I'm typing this at work and I'd rather keep this thing private, so, for once, this will be quick. More later.

Seoul.

I got into Seoul yesterday and took various trains from the airport to meet my couchsurfing host, D. D picked me up from the train station at about 6:30 or so and we immediately met up with a few of her friends for a couple of beers. Afterward, we stopped by her place to drop off my stuff and then headed back out for Korean BBQ, which is insanely delicious, and, later, more drinks. There was a lot of drinking. The first bar we went to was called...no shit...The Ho Bar. Good times. The Ho Bar was pretty dead, being that it was Sunday night, so we had a few and then booked it out to another location. D's other spot was closed, but we heard some heavy bass invitingly being pumped out of a basement club. So, we dropped in. There were only a few people in there in addition to the DJs and the cute, head-bobbing bartenders. We ordered drinks and I hit the dance floor pretty quickly thereafter. I've been wanting to go clubbing in Tokyo for a while, but have been terrified of the expense...this was pretty much exactly what I'd been looking for. It was mellow, the music (mostly hip hop) was good, for the most part, and the drinks was reasonably cheap. Maybe expensive by Korean standards, a little expensive by American standards, but cheap as hell by Tokyo standards.

I drank a lot, I danced with a lot of girls, and I was hungover as hell this morning. D's friend wanted to do me, but I wasn't really interested and I really needed to get to the consulate today. Which I did. With a terrible hangover. It was satisfying to finally find the fucker after walking all over half of Jongno-gu, the neighborhood where it is located. It's kind of liberating to not speak any of the language, too. In Japan, I tend to torture myself trying to speak Japanese, and it's often frustrating and unrewarding. Maybe I should just be unrepentantly American all of the time in Japan, too.

Sooooo, anyway. My visa application is in, and I need to get back to the embassy by 9:30 tomorrow, which means that I need to leave by 8-ish with all of my stuff. I really, really hope that my visa will be ready, or tomorrow is going to be a long, undoubtedly frustrating day.

Tickets are purchased and I am ready to go.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Seoul, South Korea to pick up my new visa. My plane leaves from Narita International Airport at 12:55 tomorrow afternoon and I'll be touching down at Seoul Incheon International at about 3:30 or so. I will then navigate the Seoul train system to the home of my couchsurfing hostess, a nice Canadian girl named D. We'll go out for delicious Korean BBQ for dinner and then maybe a couple of drinks afterward.

Last night I went out in Tokyo and ended up, for some godforsaken reason, in Shimokitazawa. We started out at a nice bar in Ueno, and although it was nothing special, it at least had people in it...and a nice, non-cockroach infested ambiance (keep reading). One of my drinking partners for the evening decided that this scene was lame and that we should head out to Shimokita.

OK, big mistake. There is fuck-all in Shimokitazawa for nightlife. In fact, sadly, there's vastly more nightlife in my tiny hometown in Iowa than there is in this small Tokyo enclave. We ended up in a tiny, dingy, shitty little second floor bar. The big attraction, apparently, is the owner's record collection and the fact that he will take requests. OK, great. Fantastic. My new acquaintance, whose idea it was to go to Shimokita and the bar, neglected to tell us that the bar was also heavily infested with cockroaches. After I'd killed one with my beer glass and spotted another on the wall, I none-too-politely insisted that we get the fuck out of there. When the owner cheerfully brought the bill over, we were startled to notice that we'd apparently been screwed. I paid over $10US for one beer in a cockroach infested shithole.

Anyway, we then went to an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) and had a couple of beers and a lot of food. That cheered me up, but it still wasn't particularly stimulating. My roommate, Andrew, and I ended up on our own after the others went home and proceeded to stake out a room in a karaoke parlor. We sang bad karaoke for the next 2 hours, then caught the 5am train back to Ichikawa, and finally crashed around 7.

Soooo, anyway. Hopefully my exploits in Korea will be more amusing for me and less amusing for people who like hearing stories about me failing to have a good time. I do have an increasing stockpile of funny Tokyo stories, though, only a few of which are making it into this blog. I'll try to be more diligent. Korea update in a few days...