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.