Halloween, the new school, and brewing animosity

Boo. yes, halloween has come and gone and no, my roommates and i didn't get to dress up like the taliban. turns out i wazs way too busy with the party prepping to do any of that shit. i don't even know if i changed out of my work clothes. how scary! i was a nova teqacher for halloween! ha ha.

the dinner went well. 23 people crammed into my tiny ass apartment and we had lots of gumbo, garlic bread, stick salad, punpkin fritters, and various other goodies. cory's friend Alfonzo (the fonz) who is here shooting a movie also came over which was nice. all in all, a nice halloween party. i look forward to doing it again next year.

The new school is BIZEEE! damn, i am busting my ass like no other and yet i can't catch up yet. i had a sit down with the head teacher today and we went over a bunch of stuff. it's hard because no one really has the time to show me all the happenings; so basiocally i gotta get it in bursts when peeps have the time. it is exhausting. but i remade a necessary spreadsheet for work last week so i felt pretty good about that. i guess i need to look at my small accomplishments. i'm teaching a lot more now and with more variety which is good but i'm just wrecked at the end of the day.

so i realized that i forgot to write about the mormon wedding (which wasn't a mormon wedding by the way). turns out it was just dinner which would have been cool but it turns out i was sitting just 2 seats opposite of someone who is brewing seething hatred my way which sucked ass. i didn't get to sit with my friends so there was no commisseration going on. kind of a yucky night.

well, that's all that's fit to print at the moment since (yes, you guessed it) i'm exhausted from work. need to cure the insomnia.

new chapter

yes, it's true! i am finally leaving the small school comforts of my branch (ikebukuro seibu guchi) and traveling about 100meters to the east to Ikebukuro Honko; one of the biggest and busiest schools in the tokyo area. i am also getting moved one notch higher on the food chain; i'll be going there as an assistant trainer. i'm not sure that this really means anythig at all. basically, i help make the schedule and give people papers to sign. but hey, it'll look decent on the resume and it'll give me a change of scenery which is also good.

so i've been making a big photo album to take to work (my own year book if you will) of all my students and of shots of me and my friends at work. it's a pretty funny album and i find that i have tons more stuff to put in it than my last album from the last school. i'm really going to miss some of them, they are fabulous students.

i am currently on day 8 of a 15 day stretch of working. yeah, it sucks. but i'm home early every nighth which makes it fairly decent. i hate working nights. if a student asks me a grammar question after about 4 in the afternoon, i tend to stare at them with my "duuuuuhhhhh . . . . i dunno" look on my face and have to ask them to ask me again in the morning.

this weekend is halloween and i'm having my annual (well, it's really only the second time i'm doing this) gumbo and smore-a-thon complete with scary movies and garlic bread. i'm thinking of doing pumpkin fritters as well (no oven so no pumkin pie, cake or cookies -- damn you no-oven Japan!) but we will have to see how ambitious i am.

mom and grandpa are in town and are supposed to come as well but we will have to see hoqw grandpa's mood is; he hasn't been very happy since he got back to tokyo and now he is vowing not to go back to the states which could be problematic. but we'll have to see what happens.

on another halloween note, my roommates and i will be wrapping towels around our heads and getting water guns to be the taliban. we realized that hollywood just recycles the same 3 middle eastern names: muhammed, sayid, and habieb. we don't care who's who. photos to follow . . .

Kyoto, Weddings, Etc

On my way back from a five day stretch in Kyoto visiting with my dad and seeing my uncle and the rest of the family. It’s been a while since the last update so let me fill you in. The big H (Helen) has left Japan and did a mini world trip before heading to honk kong where she transferred for her job. As happy as I am for her, I still miss her like crazy and am thinking of visiting over there perhaps for the holidays. So farewell to the big h and in her place we get the train! Leilani (as most of you probably know as the train) is here for a very short stint with nova before heading back to the US where they are keeping her job for her. We have completely different schedules so I actually don’t see her very much despite the fact that we live together. Oh well, I guess it’s not that important. Anyways, the welcome leilani/farewell big H party was held in tsukishima (the land of monja) and we got to go see the big H’s massive hotel room at the park hyatt in roppongi hills. Sidebar: roppongi hills is the infamous place where that kid died cuz he got his head stuck in the revolving door. It’s also where they are showing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Smell-O-Vision, which is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever heard of.

This past Saturday, I went to Kyoto cuz it was the anniversary of my uncle’s death, so the whole family gathered for a big party. My “normal wear” was acceptable so said on the phone so I showed up in shorts and a t-shirt. Of course it’s not ok (another family faux pax under my belt) and I have to change. The only problem is, Kyoto is still stinking hot as balls, which means I have to wear my warm weather clothes. Arrrrgh! So for the next five days I basically boil because I only packed warmish clothing. Yes, I checked the weather before I packed. Yes, it called for cooler temperatures. No, it didn’t say anything about it going to rain. Fuck. I actually had to get my dad to drive me to the uniqlo just to pick up a t-shirt. My one other t-shirt I wore got shitted on my bird during a morning walk. Asshole pigeons. Besides the clothes fuck up, it was all pretty good. Got to spend some time with the cousins and the crazy aunt and see the rest of the peeps that I basically only see once a year. My sort of uncle Aotani made ox tail stew one nite and we had hammo (a special Kyoto fish) for dinner the next nite. All in all, I ate pretty damn well in Kyoto. I sit on the shinkansen now eating a granola bar and drinking vending machine tea so I think I made out pretty well in the end.

What’s to come:

I can’t go home this year for Christmas which sucks but I am hoping to go elsewhere like to see the big h in honk kong or maybe see other peeps. I haven’t seen my self-proclaimed goddaughter mew mew (Duang’s kid) yet (duang was still preggers when I went to Thailand last year) so I am thinking of doing that too. We will see. The holidays are also a good time to pick up overtime which pays fairly well so that’s something to consider too. I gots to save up the dinero so I can have a kicking time in Jamaica in January. I am going to Montego Bay to see sabs get hitched so I am pretty damn excited about that. I am also considering a pit stop in California on the way back for a week or so to surprise my folks (so if any of you who read this speak to my parents, don’t mention anything about this – they have no clue). It’ll be nice to get some decent Mexican food in my belly as well as find some clothes that don’t cost me a kidney and actually fit my fat ass. That’ll be fun. It’ll be my late holiday. In June, I will be back in America, this time to the east coast (yes, back to north Carolina) to see my dear friend Katherine get married (jeez why is everyone getting married?!) so I am excited about that too. I guess this means I have to start dieting now!!!!! (I know I keep saying this) so I can look crash hot at the wedding (they’re great opportunities to pick up). I like how I’m all set to go to these weddings though I have yet to get an invitation.

Sidebar: I’m sorry but this fucking kid is SCREAMING his head off on the train and I am ready to lose it!!!!!!!!! God, get it under control for fuck sake! My folks would have kicked my ass if I behaved like that!

Ok, sorry about that. Anyways, on the wedding front, my friend Marino is also getting married later this month so that’s another wedding I gotta go to. That one I actually got invited to. Japanese weddings (well, the one I went to) tend to be really boring so I’m not exactly looking forward to it yet. Combine that with it being a Mormon wedding, which means no booze, no chocolate. Bummer. But rumor has it that it won’t live up to my expectations so that might be good. I’m gonna try to have fun.

a season, a reason, or a lifetime

so my friend the big H forwarded a friendship email around that said that there are 3 types of friendships out there: friends who come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. lifetime friends are easy to decipher. seasonal friends are people who come into your life for a particular span of time, usually brought together by geography or something like that. a reason friend is a person who is in your life to fulfill a particular purpose and then is gone. i read this email and then promptly erased it due to the forwarded nature of it and my thinking forwards are pretty much bullshit most of the time anyways. but my friend Julie brought the email up in conversation a couple of weeks ago and i thought about it again. the words ring true, but i feel like it's missing something. the forward makes it sound like these friends are all over the place and perhaps they are, but certainly not in proportion. and friendship changes a lot and there are often time when i think i have one of those lifetime friends and it turns out that it's nothing more than an ephemeral fart in the wind.

this year has been particularly tough and there's a part of me that knows i couldn't have gotten this far without some of my so called "friends". however, i've lost quite a few friends this year (lost in that we are no longer friends, or they have passed away, or the dynamic has completely changed to where the friendship is no longer recognizable) and the one lesson i keep coming back to is that i need to be more guarded. i like to wear my heart on my sleeve; i'm bad at hiding my emotions, but i find that whenever i'm honest, i find myself getting kicked in the proverbial nuts. and i feel like all of this is culminating to a huge god-like sign or intervention where a greater power than myself will kick the shit out of me to teach me a lesson about letting people in. now, i know a lot of this has to do with the fact that i'm feeling hurt, disappointed, lonely, and for the fact that i have a bottle of very cheap tokyo wine in me but i still felt this way before the wine earlier today and will probably feel this way in the morning. why are the lifetime friends so hard to find? why do so many friendships seem like more than they are? is it because i want them to be? could it be that i'm a lot needier than i imagine myself to be?

my other rant has to do with friends who compartmentalize their lives. i had a bit of a fight/argument with my japanese friend the other night because he is a huge fan of compartmentalizing his lie. i'd asked him why none of us hadn't met his girlfriend before despite the fact that they had been seeing each other for at least four years and known each other since they were children. he said it was because he didn't want to blend different aspects of his life together. so i said that it seems to me that people who feel the need to compartmentalize their lives that way tend to be limited friends, or that i see them as limited friends. he got very upset with this and demanded to know why he had to share his entire life with me. now, this is certainly blowing the whole issue out of proportion. i don't think that people need to share all aspects of their lives with their friends but i do think that friends who feel the need to create strict bifurcations in their lives tend to be limited friends. if a person compartmentalizes me into one aspect of their lives not to bleed into the other aspects, then i'm not sure that i want that person in the other aspects of my life. this friend has already bled into other part of my life. he used to be my student, now he's my friend, and he knows things about me that i other people don't know. but upon inspection of his contribution to this friendship (after my realization that i am simply just one part of his compartmentalized lifestyle), i've come to see that he shares very little of himself compared to me and that makes me wholly uncomfortable. i am a firm believer in the grade school tit-for-tat dynamic which is why i do not confide in friends who don't confide in me. a balance needs to be kept. and i don't believe in the double standard. given this new information, does that mean my friend really isn't my friend? was he a season that is now over?

all of this over-analyzing gives me a headache. so much of how i deal with people comes from my gut instinct but i find my gut failing me in the long run these days. but perhaps i shouldn't blame it on my GI system. maybe it's just that i ignore the signs even when they're there. i know i ignored quite a bit with the recent loss of a person i considered to be a good friend. i know there are times when denial really is my best friend. it just sucks that it has to hurt so badly. i wish it was easier. but i know that is an overly-simplistic view of life. that's life my compartmentalizing friends outlook. life isn't a neat, easily divisible pie that you can store into different ziplock containers. life is messy and painful and disproportionate and dramatic and sad and wonderful and frightening. it's not supposed to be simple and manageable. that's not life. and i know that's not what i want. and perhaps i just need to grow a thicker skin to realize that a season or reason friend is just as important as a lifetime one, their impact is just for a much shorter amount of time. and by taking these relationships and integrating them into my life (even if it's just for the past or some memories), i value and cherish them in the only way that's important, my way. it's time to cue the sinatra.

Jews, Jackasses, and Tacos

having grown up in southern California, i have had the priviledge of coming in contact with people of all races, creeds, and backgrounds. and where i'm from, there are plenty of Jews so i never thought anything about it. afterall, the media is saturated with them. Seinfeld, Spielberg, Adam Sandler: all Jews. To hear about passover and Chanukah and study them was part of our curriculum. so you can imagine my surprise on Sunday when i found out that two people i know (both of them Australian, mind you) said that they had never seen or known one jew in their entire lives! as the japanese would say, "Eeeeehhhh?!" i found it astaunding that in this day and age (not to mention how small the world keeps getting) that there are people out there who still haven't met any jews. but at the same time, i suppose i've never met a native antarctican so that makes me a bit of a weirdo in some circles as well. i guess i wasn't prepared for such a shock.

now if it just ended there, that would be one thing but now that this asshole has met the only jew he's ever known, he's making all kinds of jew jokes which is making this poor girl very uncomfortable. it reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where that dentist converted to judaism just for the jokes. what an asshole.

this same asshole came to Taco nite (one of the most expensive dinners to host) despite the fact that he invited himself and no one wanted him there. i don't mind putting forth the time and money for my FRIENDS but for other assholes? no thanks.

and even more on the asshole front and Taco Nite, so it wasn't just the one guy but there were some others who weren't invited who came as well. and they invited other undesirables! where does it say that a party at yoko's is a free for all? that's balls not to mention very rude. i thought we coveredx this in the lesson about party invitations . . . .

Summer in Japan

It sucks. it's hot, sticky, wet, and miserable. but all the agony makes us appreciate the small reprives from the heat as we step into (gulp!) work, a department store, or anywhere else that uses air conditioning. it is also the time for summer festivals as you can see here. this is a picture of me and my friends on sunday when we went to the Ueno Park Summer Festival after work. i was so impressed and proud that everyone wore their japanese garb (i personnally dressed all but one of the girls and the boys). and despite the heat and the confininf nature of the yukatas, we still had a great time. Ueno park has a beautiful lake which we walked around after consuming some terrible festival food from the concessions stand (sidebar: festival food is actually quite bad. it's grilled corn on a stick, octopus balls, giant wieners on sticks, yakisoba, etc which is food that is actually good when it doesn't come from a festival stand. but the awful nature of the festival food is part of what makes the festival, the festival. bad festival food reminds me of my dad for some reason. consequences of a warped mind.) the walk way was lined with antique dealers and other vendors which made the stroll around the park fun.

my friends and i always end up at some dodgy izakaya and i get plastered and it makes for an embarassing nite for me (albeit a funny one for them). so when i read about this festival, i thought it would be great to actually get a bunch of us together to do something together rather than just get drunk. my friends and i do things when we're one on one (see movies, make dinner, go shopping, bowling, etc.) but it's tough when we're in a group. so we decided that it would be good to try to hit a festival every week if we can (no sense in letting our yukatas go to waste) and certainly we can wear them in september when the obon festivals start! now that will be fun (and hopefully a bit cooler . . . .)

summer also means fireworks. last year i went to the very famous Sumida River fireworks display. it was hands down, the WORST fireworks show i'd ever been to. the sheer number of people, the way it took me 2 hours to get home, the way we all got separated from each other, the madness! AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!! so never again. i'd rather watch it on TV or go to a smaller show. that would be better. maybe we can go to the park and do our own fireworks this year. that would be fun too! picnic and fireworks!

hopefully, that wasn't too boring. i'm trying this thing where i'm attempting to be less negative (i just read on the internet that pessimists die a lot earlier than optimists. not that i want to live forever or even too long, especially at the rate i'm going now but it can't hurt to try new stuff from time to time). we'll see how long this lasts.

Friends Who Marry

damn it! people are getting married again. don't get me wrong, it's all happiness and flowers and romance and crap but geez! does everyone have to be getting hitched? ok, so that's an exaggeration. my dear friends Joel and Rika and getting married (thank god cuz i love them both and i love them together and when i first heard that they had news, i thought they were breaking up). well, they've already gotten married (on paper) but there will be a wedding in Guam come september and if yokes can swing the money and the time, she's going (and hopefully she will be invited as well).

Joel enlisted my help to find his bride a ring (he reckons that i wanted her to have one as much as she wanted one) but i haven't the first clue about rings. i've never been shopping for one and have never really considered what i would want (never been close enough to a situation where anyone wopuld propose). you may recall that i had this ring dilemma a while back when i surveyed a bunch of people about rings. is it really that important? joel and rika will be apart for a month or more for the first part of their marriage and the ring shows their commitment to each other so i suppose that's ok. i question though, is the ring idea ok now beacause the issue at hand is a wedding ring instead of an engagement one? i feel like yes, it is different. my question now is, why is an engagement ring more expensive and more of a serious undertaking than a wedding ring? should not the actual marriage be more important than the promise of marriage? afterall, promises are broken all the time. sometimes they're not broken intentionally but they just are. people can promise a lot but making a promise is different from delivering on it. being engaged is different from being married. BIG DIFFERENT. GIANOURMOUS DIFFERENT. i think being married means putting your partner first, even when you have kids. and that's why i think getting married is such a huge deal. as a single parent, i'd have no problem putting my kid first. but putting my husband first and knowing he'd have to do the same for me? that's huge. and i don't think i could marry someone that wasn't prepared to do the same for me.

At the same time, i wonder though, am i placing too much importance on an institution that most people regard as not that sacred anymore? am i not changing with the times? is my thinking too old fashioned? perhaps. marriage seems like sport these days. women seem to chase strong, rich, handsome men. men chase skinny, pretty things that will cook their meals, wash their clothes, raise their kids and clean their houses. and if you look at a person and think, "hmmm, i bet i could live very comfortably with this person for a good few years," what's wrong with that? am i looking for permanancy in a temporary world? isn't that illogical if not downright moronic?

but i think that's the part of myself that i can't part with. the stupid side of me that i don't want to compromise. we all cling to our dreams, our fantasies. and perhaps this one's mine. i want to get married. i want to have kids. i want the whole nine yards. and if it doesn't happen, it will be but one bead in a string of dissapointments that i am to experience during my time on this planet. but if it does happen, it will be on my terms; not on the terms dictated by a transient, faceless, and jaded society.

So with that, i toast to my dear friends who i have lost to marital abyss. Joel and Rika, may you love with all abandon.

Rainy Rainy Rainy Okinawa

Knowing that we would be headed out to okinawa, i started tracking the weather out there for at least a week before i went. the forecasts got worse and worse so i knew there would be rain while we were there. little did i know how much.

getting to the airport was no problem but once we were there, the flight was delayed for at least an hour. this gave us a slow start to the day. the flight took about 2 hours during which time the Brits (adam and clare) sitting behind me and julie kept complaining about how the crossword in the paper was catered to Americans while stealing our answers. we got revenge by taking bad photos of them while they slept.

finally got to okinawa and picked up our rental car. of course the car navigator is all in japanese (although we could change the "voice" so she "spoke" in english. weird) which despite adam's level two japanese and my years of not studying japanese, we found a bit difficult to use.

the hotel was nice but damp (this becomes a running theme throughout this trip), the four of us got our own little bed in each corner of the room, and we headed out to Kokusai Dori where there are lots of shops and restaurants.

we met up with julie's cousin who lives out there and we had some lunner (lunch/dinner)and did a bit of window shopping. this was pretty much all we had time for the first day as most of us were quite tired from the flight. we had a couple drinks up in the revolving restaurant/bar on the top of our hotel where julie and clare tried to figure out adam's riddles (being uninterested in activities that require me to flex my brain muscles after 3 pm, i contributed by sitting back and asking stupid questions).

the next day, it was raining (and i mean raining HARD. buckets and buckets of pelting rain) so we headed out to the top of the main island to get to the Ocean Park Expo that has the Churaumi aquarium which houses the largest single tank in the world. This was super cool. the aquarium is massive with tons of different exhibitions and cool fish and animals. we took tons of photos! the big ass tank had 3 whale sharks and manta rays and whole bunch of other stuff. the park also had a sea turtle house, a manatee house, and a dolphin studio. very cool. afterwards we drove by some old castle ruins but there wasn't much to see. the problem with all the damn rain is that it made it very difficult to do a lot of things. Okinawa is like Los Angeles in that way. when the weather is good, there is plenty to see and do. when it rains, it sucks.

later that night, we met up with john and david on what john calls "cocks eye" dori for dinner and drinks. then we went back to the hotel and passed out.

our last day. we checked out after breakfast and went down to the bottom of the island to Okinawa World which is supposed to show us all things okinawa. Again with the downpour so we didn't get to see much of the stalagtite/mite caves. we only got to go into 1/3 of it cuz the rest of it was flooded! saw the habu snakes and the snake show and the snake alcohol brewing factory complete with the vats of sake with the snakes inside. saw some pottery and glass blowing. interesting but somehow expected more. came back and did a bit more shopping and then just headed back to the airport early. i think we were all a bit tired. AN HOUR before we head back, the rain lets up!!!! can you believe it?! aaaarrrggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

the flight home was delayed as well for 2 hours which meant that when we got back to haneda, there were no more trains left for us to take to our various destinations. i complained like the mad woman i am and got us vouchers for taxis instead of having to fillout reimbursment forms for later which is a pain in the ass.

all in all, a fun but tiring and RAINY vacation. had a great time with my friends though, which reminds me why i love them so much. despite our snoring, sleeptalking disclaimers, we all seemed to sleep well and we had fun in our own way though we would've liked to have done more stuff outside like laying on the beach and seeing shuri castle and stuff. maybe next time!

Adios and Happy Birthday

Riyoko and Cory left Japan this past saturday, both of them hung over and sick. i hated sending them home in such a condition but they assured me that they had a good time so i considered it a successful trip. hopefully they did too. on their last night in Tokyo i gathered a bunch of friends together and we went out to an izakaya for some major oolong hi drinking and karaoke. Cory got to sing karaoke for the first time (or so he said) and Riyoko, who of course doesn't sing at all, got to down my favorite japanese beverage, the oolong hi. now i've never gotten hung over on that shit before but it seemed to do a number on the both of them. the train ride to the airport was a rough one for them. but the friends really liked them and they liked quite of few of them so i think it all turned out well. i can't imagine that they want to take another trip out to japan for at least a solid decade.

OK, on to future matters. yes i know it's technically too early to be getting excited about my birthday but i really am! i'm going to okinawa with Clare, Julie and Adam from the 15th to the 17th. a short trip but it should be heaps of fun anyways. beachh, boys, and of course . . . TACO BELL for the first time in 2 years (i failed to have any when i was home for the holidays because there was so much better mexican food in cali)! anyways, i am very excited and hope it's relaxing and fun. i plan to stay away from the bikini though, don't want the children to try shoving me back in the water screaming "free willy!" damn children.

3piece suits, cards, and not bitching about work . . .

Ok, ok, ok, ok. i know. it's pathetic. one update in two months is not actually keeping a blog. i realize this and know that i must be better about it but it's hard to get me motivated. i've caught a cold right now which is why i'm catching up one my emails and stuff. clearly my head is screwed on a bit lopsided these days. i'm working on it.

I've discovered my big guy turn on: the three piece suit. even guys who i normally wouldn't catagorize as being anywhere near hot can be positively boiling in a three piece suit. you know what it is? it's when the jacket is off and they're wearing the waistcoat and maybe their sleeves are rolled up and they look fucking fantastic. case in point? today i worked with a guy who i'd never give a second look or anything. very not my type. except he was dressed exactly the way i described and i thought he looked amazing. the fresh haircut helped too. yeowza!

ok, another rant regarding boys: The big H is always going on about putting your "cards on the table." is this really a good thing? i've found that putting the cards on the table just make me feel like ass cuz clearly there is never any reciprocation when only one person is putting their cards on the table. but if you wear your heart on your sleeve (as i do most of the time) does that require a cards on the table moment. clearly he would know how i feel. is verbalization necessary or it is just an added humiliation? but whenever such a situation arises, the Big H is screaming "cards on the table! cards on the table!" meaning that i need to stick it out there and hope it doesn't get cut off. oi vey! don't know if i should be doing this.

ok, enough about boys and no more about work. all i do lately is bitch about work and i'm worried about becoming "that guy." i don't wanna be "that guy." "That guy" is an asshole. but when so much stress is generated from one place, it's tough not to bitch about it. but you know, my personal life, my work life, my family life, my love life, my home life, and he rest of the facets of my life can go to shit if it's one at a time. unfortunately, right now they all seem to be headed towards the shitter and i think i'm having a tough time coping with that. i know, i know; must breathe . . .

i happy news, my sister and brother in law are in town for a couple of weeks. i love taking them around and showing them everything but it's exhausting. they are in kyoto for a few days (they'll be back on tuesday) so it's a good time to rest up. i'd feel terrible if i was less than 100% while they are in tokyo. good thing i'm hitting the meds pretty hard core. thank god for nyquil.

Hay fever and Hanami

Ah the season is upon us. Drunken salarymen and women gather in the great outdoors (AKA concrete parks) to view the cherry blossoms so beloved by the samurais thousands of years ago. This is a hotbed of discussion amongst my students this season. Many of them arrive with their white surgical Michael Jackson masks on and blow their noses repeatedly into tissues during lessons. They apologize profusely as they deposit their snot into their free advertisement tissues and I can hardly disguise my disgust. One of my students explained the art of Haikus (very popular this season apparently because the cherry blossoms serve as inspiration for creativity) through his sniffles. Haikus are Japanese poems consisting of 3 lines comprised of 5,7, 5 syllables respectively. The theme can be anything but the haiku must have a connection to the season for which it is written. With this in mind, I bring you my first haiku:

Pollen attacks us,
They come with masks and tissues,
The snot flows always.

Pretty good, hun? Well, I like it. My office hanami party is going down tomorrow night after work in Oji at Askayama Park in my old stomping grounds of Oji. I go armed with chex mix and skittles (courtesy of Lani) and a bag full of cheap flavored canned shouchu drinks called chu-his. Ah, Japan. If it all goes well, perhaps it will inspire the next haiku! Stay tuned . . . .

Released and the Aftermath

I was released from the hospital the 15th with warnings from the doctor to take it easy and stay home. this proved easier thani thought because he sent me home with major head bandages which would make me an automatic eyesore in any public setting. so i ordered pizza and stayed home with a few visitors popping in to say Hi. the best things about being home? sleeping in my own bed, washing my hair, nobody sticking things up my butt in the name of medicine. i also find myself back in the company of candle light, much nicer than the harsh flourescents that flood the hospital. and of course internet access to read pointless articles and do stupid quizzes about my non-existent love life and what color my "aura" really is.

recovery is a bitch. having had a mostly horizontal lifestyle for the past 8 days, i find myself exhausted after a trip to the market. Julie and I went out for some sushi on thursday and my jaw was killing me afterwards. i'm trying to stay off the pain killers as much as possible and NOT having a nap in the middle of the say. i don't think i'd be able to make it through a full day of work at the rate i'm currently going. need to rebuild stamina.

the doctor got rid of the bandages and took out the stitches a couple of days ago but my head still hurt and the left side really feels weird. for starters, i've lost tactile feeling in my left ear. i can't feel it and the doctor thinks that this will be a permanent condition. several surface nerves were severed during the surgery and they won't grow back. the scarring will probably be minimal and my friends say i look pretty much like my old self but i definitely don't feel like my old self. i feel . . . damaged (i guess that's the closest word out there). so i guess i gotta play my own shrink (thank god i'm a gemini) and sort my head out as well. i gotta do it quick; i start back at work next thursday.

More Visitors and Hospital Food Rants

watched the rest of the 24s last night. Watched the last nine hours in real time so I was up for hours. But it was great!

Spoke to the doc today when he rebandaged me and he said that once my drainage duct was rendering less fluid from my wound, he would take it out and I could probably go home the next day. He says I would have to come back for regular checks of the wound but that I could go home so I am very much looking forward to that although I think I may need extra time off work. I’m still feeling pretty crappy but I know I’m looking much worse.

Masashi came in the afternoon and we got some drinks and sat downstairs and talked for a change of scenery. He’s a darling little fellow and every time we talk I am struck by how similar our personalities are.

Some of the work crew came today. Adam, Bella and Jennifer came by with flowers towards the end of visiting hours and of course Clare and Julie came too. We all sat around and chatted for a bit (I’m sure we were annoying the fuck out of my fellow hospital guests) until the nursed came and chucked them out. They brought me beautiful flowers which i had Clare take home because the olds in my room like to keep the heat cranked up which turns fresh flowers into dried ones in a matter of hours.

A Sidebar about Hospital Food: I’ve been in the hospital for 6 days now and the nicest thing I can say about the food here is that I was blessed not to be able to eat anything on the day of surgery. It’s fucking horrible. Aside from the fact that my mouth can’t open very much and my jaw hurts like a bitch, a lot of the food is hard, tough to chew and difficult to manage into small enough pieces. It tastes like shit too. It’s like they’ve purposely decided to live up to the clichés by making the food extra bad. Ugh.

The pain medication wears off during the evening so my jaw is killing me in the middle of the night to mid morning. However, the last time they offered me pain medication (this was the day of surgery) they shoved a fucking suppository up my ass so that put an end to my pain medication requests. Joel promised good drugs. I am a bit disappointed.

Recovery and Visitors

dad, grandpa, and makoto ojisan came this morning to say hi. Grandpa is back from California and dad left for Kyoto today. We talked for a bit then they took dad to the station.

It was a relatively uneventful day. Went outside to make some phone calls because the weather was good and watched a lot of 24.

Makie came by with some more prezzies (some body refreshing wipes and she brewed some coffee). We talked for a little while about work and lessons and what not. She has been really nice about coming to see me and yesterday was even her birthday so I felt bad that she was spending the day at the hospital.

At night, Clare, Helen and Julie came by with mashed potatoes and ice cream. We talked for a while in the room but we were disturbing the olds so we decided to go downstairs where we could talk freely. But the announcement for final bed check sounded and i had to go back. They say you really get to know the quality of your friends during times of need or crisis and I feel like I am truly discovering that now. the people who have come or made the effort to make contact have been remarkable and it is interesting to see the people you think would make the effort but haven’t. it has truly been an eye opening experience. I am just glad to have such good people in my life who have made such a tremendous effort.

Out Hole Violation

had surgery yesterday and wasn’t really up for writing. Was in a lot of pain. Surgery took about 3 hours and the tumor was the size of a golf ball. Was uncomfortable and in and out of sleep for most of the day. Dad was here, of course, and documented the whole thing with his camera. Julie and Clare stopped by at night and watched my moan and puke up bile. Not a pretty sight.

Complained about the pain to the nurse during a groggy pain filled moment so she asked me if i wanted something for it so i said yes. she returns and tells me to prop my legs up and i do but i don't get why she wants me to do this but i'm all groggy and confused. then i feel her stiick her entire finger up my butt with a fucking suppository! AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!! That just woke me up big time and i have not asked for furtehr pain medication since. I have huge issues with things going in the out holes. it's an OUT HOLE for a reason.

But today was infinitely better. Had a rough start to the morning but felt better and better as the day progressed. Watched some more 24 and had quite a few visitors today. Dad stayed for most of the day, and despite the shitty weather, Fumiko came with more flowers; Clare stopped by with trashy gossip magazines, chocolate, and a pillow; Helen came with some nice bread from Anderson’s; Yumiko and Noriko came with pound cake and ice cream. I felt pretty good by the end of the night so it was nice to have some company. My face it still sore on the left side and my jaw hurts if I work it too hard but I am doing so much better today. If I can make the same amount of progress tomorrow, I should be out of here soon. I hope.

The day before surgery

Escaped from the hospital again today with my dad and we went and had ramen for lunch. We walked all around a shopping arcade street and did some minor shopping. Another uneventful day waiting for surgery.

Got to take my first hospital shower today which was interesting. What you have to do is write your name on a board for the time slot that you want to shower then you have to pick up the key at the allotted time. You have 30 minutes. Interesting stuff.

Had a visit from Makie and Kimiko today. They arrived within minutes of each other. They brought me little presents and flowers. It was so nice. Julie came by later tonight with some chocolate and crunchy ramen snacks and conversation.

It’s technically lights out so I shouldn’t be doing this but I just can’t get to bed. My day starts at 6:00 tomorrow. No food or drink all day and night tomorrow so I’ll finally be able to tap into those fat stores I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Yeee haw!

Checking into Nichidai

Day one in the hospital.

Clare and I met dad for breakfast at 9 in the morning and then head off to the hospital on foot. It’s actually not that far from my apartment. A brisk 20 min walk or a slowish 30 min walk will get you there. I check in and get placed on the fifth floor. 5B08 to be exact. The bathrooms are communal and I only get to shower Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but it’s not like I’m doing anything to work up a sweat so I’m not that fussed. I get to spend most of my days in my pajamas or track suit which is great but I’m confined to the hospital grounds which sucks.

Dad hung out with us for a bit but went home cuz he had stuff to do but Clare and I talked and hung out all day. We even broke the rules and went off the property to this shopping arcade down the street where we ate a small bowl of pasta (much better than that nasty ass hospital food I tasted earlier). We saw the weirdest guy at the pasta place. He was obviously a nutjob. He was wearing white linen pants that had been cut off at the bottoms and a pink shirt and a BRIGHT YELLOW jacket on top. His feet were equally peculiar: white kimono tabi socks inside a pair of bright yellow duck shaped slippers. He was holding a doll and stroking its hair and talking to it. He must have made a run for it from the psyche ward of the hospital.

Other visitors today: Fumiko who brought me flowers, strawberries, dry shampoo, and cleansing wipes. We talked for a bit and then she left when dad and I had a meeting with the doctor about the surgery.

Kyoko and Sophie came to see me too which was so nice. They came towards the end of the evening around 7:00 when all the olds were getting ready for sleep. Our peals of laughter must have been distracting. I hadn’t seen Sophie for a really long time so it was great to catch up with her. Kyoko brought me boxes of sweets from Hokkaido and Sendai and a bunch of drinks. She is the sweetest person. We spoke at length about her upcoming “date” with this guy she was set up with who is a total loser. She said she’s considering checking into the hospital just to get away from him.

Well, that pretty much recaps my first day. I know I’m not supposed to be using my cell phone or my computer but I’m using them anyways. I gotta watch all 48 episodes of the second and third seasons of 24 my dad brought me courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law. I also brought some movies that the Train sent me so I got lots to do. I’ve got tons of books that friends have brought me along with the small library I brought with me which includes a kanji text book that I’ve threatened to start studying, so I’m pretty well set up. I still don’t like being here but there’s not much I can do about it at the moment so I might as well make the most of my time. 24 here I come!

Well, there goes another new year's resolution

i know, i know, i know. i said i would keep this updated a lot more and i haven't my bad. but with this whole i-have-a-tumor thing playing out, it's been tough to concentrate on anything. i know, you're rolling your eyes and thinking that it'a a lame excuse but hey, that's just the way it goes.

to start, my obsession with the engagement ring thing has ended. nothing resolved, no real research done, but i've let it go. should i ever be lucky to get a ring, i'll love it no matter what it is as long as it's not some gaudy ugly thing.

next up, my dad's in town. love my dad, hate the fact that he's here for my surgery. i don't know how to explain it but he and i get each other so it's comforting to have him here but at the same time i know he feels responsible for all this stuff and i hate to see him hurting. everyone's been great about this and i have no cause for complaint but at the moment, i'm just not feeling as settled as i probably should. there are always worries on the horizon.

work. work sucks. why? because things at work are changing and i don't like it. i thought for once i had a terrific crew and work wasn't the chore that i had always believed it to be but i think it's going to suck big donkey dicks when i get out of the hospital and back to work. i am not looking forward to this.

as for the rest of life, i suppose it could be a lot worse. i am waiting for the other shoe to drop (but we pessimists are always waiting for that to happen) but right now i think i need to play this thing out and see where i end up. will write again soon, possibly before the big day. but if i don't, don't hold it against me.

Engagement ring?

I was speaking with my friend V the other day about marriage and rings and what not. Now the chances of me getting married are pretty slim to begin with but i told her that i think i would feel very uncomfortable with someone giving me a $10,000.00 ring. She said that 2 months salary (gross) is not too much to spend on a ring but i think that's a lot. Apparently, it's not uncommon to get a 3 month salary ring! This assumes that the guy i marry will be making at least 5 grand a month before taxes so he would basically have to save up for like 6 months to a year (depending on what other stuff he's got going on) to buy a damn ring! does this make sense to people? it must be me. traditionally you'd have to wait a while before even thinking of getting married and then you'd have to wait until that guy saved his money to buy you a ring before he proposed. that just seems like a lot of time and energy. my mom never had an engagement ring and neither did my sister. the most expensive accessory i wear is my $12.99 watch from Sears. i can't imagine being responsible for something so valuable and so small. If someone ever gave me a ring so expensive, i'd go straight to the bank and chuck it into a vault! But is that the weight of being a committed and responsible adult? Is a ten grand ring necessary to feel secure in someone's love and commitment? I feel like i'm missing something here. i know my mom thinks i should be more girly and wear nicer clothes in softer colors but is this the mark of a woman? i think i need to find a place that offers classes in becoming a better girl.

The clapping thing . . .

what is up with the clapping? the Japanese clap their hands at everything, even when they aren't part of an audience. i was in Voice with some students and they asked me about my break so i tell them i went back to the US for a couple of weeks. Their response was, "sugooooiiiii!!!!" followed by a round of applause. Why are they clapping? i've not achieved anything, i've not passed any tests, i've not won any prizes. i just went home. but even stranger than the hands clapping thing that they do is the fact that it has rubbed off on me. i find my english has become slower, my gesticulations have become wilder and more overt, i over-enunciate words, and i clap now that i've acclimated myself to japan. somebody slap me.

Catching up with a side of heartbreak

Ok, so I know I said that I would be keeping better record of myself this year with this blog and I realize I haven’t yet so let me begin with my apologies. So here’s a brief recap to get you up to speed since the last entry:

Miranda and I went to LAX to get The Train (Leilani) and big huge surprise! The Captain (Marcy) was there too! So it was the four of us roaming around LA together which was fun. We went to all the touristy places like Hollywood and Highland, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, Pink’s, etc. The sucky thing was that the weather sucked ass while we were there cuz it was pretty much raining everyday. Los Angeles is a great place when you can do things outside which was not possible during this visit so I felt a bit bad for Marcy who had not been out here before. Hopefully she makes a return visit. We spent new year’s eve in LA and then dropped Miranda off at the airport and went back to Long Beach. Mom prepared a gianourmous new year’s day feast with all the things that a Japanese or an American person could possible want to eat and the next day, the parental units plus aunty were off to Las Vegas. The girls and I went back up to LA and then had to book it back down to have dinner with my white parents, Mark and Barbie Mayo. Then the girls had to go back to their respective lives and jobs back on the east coast and I was left to fester again alone for a bit. But I got to catch up with my buddy Rose that afternoon and then I spent my last couple days finishing up my shopping and saying my last good-byes to my family. Boooooo! I miss them.

But I am now back in Tokyo and back at work (although today is my day off). There are workers fixing the leaky wall in my building and the noise is making me mental so I have become one of those people whom I hate some much: a laptop carrying coffee house asshole who sits in her own world typing god knows what while she sips an overpriced caramel latte and listens to Dr. Dre. God, I hate myself at this very moment. But I can easily see how people would want to do this. It puts you in a social situation without actually being social at all. I am in a very crowded place and yet I am one of the most isolated people here. Weird. Except for maybe that guy. Yeah. He’s a loner too!

My hatred against the coffee house culture has mainly to do with its pretentiousness. At least in America, people seem to sit around for hours in a coffee house making pseudo-intellectual small talk, or posing as a “Friends” type wannabe with their giant cups of crappy coffee and their eight dollar biscotti. The problem with Japan is, that everyone does this here because it’s normal. People don’t stay home here (unless they are shut ins and of course society doesn’t really care about them); they will go out in even the shittiest weather to do what Seinfeld calls “nothing.” Perhaps it is a symptom of the pedestrian society. I wonder if New York has this problem.

And now for something completely different. . . .

Yes, on a different note, I had a bit of a heartbreak recently. I won’t specify who or what it was or even when but I’ve been wondering if I’ve been handling it better than my previous heartbreaks. Clare picked up that something was off yesterday but she didn’t push too hard which is good cuz I don’t think I can explain it well enough (is it ever really possible? Do they invent such words? I should know, I was once an English major . . . .). I’d like to think that I’ve grown as a person and I’m now feeling what I feel instead of manifesting it into anger (that is not to say that I don’t feel angry cuz that just wouldn’t be me!) Genuine anger is OK. But I’ve been sculpting myself to not change hurt, disappointment, frustration or sadness into anger. Anger is malleable, it’s empowering. I can take it, use it, and kick some ass. But those other ones are tougher to deal with, changing them anger the easy alternative. Maybe I’m not as healthy as I think I am.

On a tangential note, why is it that no matter how many times I rehearse what I’m going to say, it never NEVER comes out the way I planned? I do this thing where I want to say something so I lay in my bed (now futon) at night and rehearse over and over and over and over again until I think that it’s perfect but when the moment comes, it just gone like a fart in the wind. And the instant when the moment is gone I bang my head into a concrete wall until I concuss cuz I didn’t get it right. Why isn’t life scripted? I’ve written myself the coolest lines . . . .

Oh well. Let’s try again tomorrow.