I’ve always had a pretty poor impression of coorporations, and I know that’s not singular to me.  Loads of people probably resent the idea (and the practice) of having to wear clunky shoes - and a suit that makes moving your arms constraining.  Why do we all have to waste the better parts of the day indoors - hustling forms?  Working for a coorporation on the other side of the Earth can push the issue of desk work out of the forefront of the mind, …but I do work for a corpooration.   What I used to like about this corpooration, was that they mostly forgot about me.  I did my job, and they never had reason to show any concern but, … This corpooration has recently tripled the number of its middle managers. A metaphor that  approximates the situation:      ” Fat kids (crowding) around a pizza’.” I skipped a part of my company training and I’m glad that I did.I console myself with the thought that there is a reason for everything that I do, and finding that there was no reason for me to go to training - I didn’t. Now these (metaphorically) chubby chocolateers are waddling their way around me. A metaphor that better approximates the situation: “Fat kids crowd around a pinata’.” 

The nice lady from the Nagano branch of my company said that the head office was trying to call me on Friday and Saturday nights. Why would you call a guy on a Friday or a Saturday night? I’m glad that they never got through. Some guy called looking for: 佐藤　愛/ Ai Sato.  I might’ve assumed too much from that call; It could have been a wrong number, but Japanese girls are known to give people alternate phone numbers rather than simply rejecting a fellow.  He sounded really disappointed that I didn’t know Ai Sato. My company might have my number from 2 years ago, but I’m not sure… There were all kinds of rumors going around that my company would soon be bankrupt.  Those rumors might’ve just been a tactic to get people to defect to other companies.  I never actually heard any of the rumors form anyone other than a friend of mine who did switch companies said it was so. Perhaps they really can’t afford to call me… 

 They told the head of the Nagano branch to ask me to call the main office between 6 and 7pm.  I have the kind of cell phone service plan that costs me a whole lot of money if I make any call over a couple of minutes.  I’m also a cheap-ass.  If I have to talk to idiots I would like it to be on their dime/ and during working hours, but I did call them. In the interests of berevity I called them several minutes before 7, but I got a message saying that that isn’t a real phone number.  It was 2 years ago that I last used that number…  Maybe they change them periodically so that their employees will unwittingly answer - not knowing who it is.   That happened a number of times a number of years ago - Oh Man! I hate when you’re relaxing at home and you answer the phone, and it’s some clueless supervisor! The 1st company that I worked for in Japan didn’t get my number for the first 3 months.  I thought I did well with that.  The cool guy that worked there asked if he could have it, and I forgot to specify that he ought not give it out, ..but once he had it, people from all over Saitama were calling me asking me to forsake my few days off for extra work. If insulin grew on trees I would not need to work for a corpooration/ participate in Society like I do now; I doubt I would.   I have come to like my new city better anyway -  Better than the unending concrete of Saitama. - Not quite as well as my last city, …but it is catching up.    When my girlfriend came over the holidays we drove to the  park near the top of the volcano and went hiking 3 times.  The last day we thought we heard a bear, …but it didn’t really sound so much like a bear…  She got the idea that the volcano was stirring, which felt right to me, but how would I know.There are no volcanos in New Jersey. We played frisbee with little kids another time. We went to the orange water hotspring halfway up the volcano another time.  That was neat.  You get in the nice hot orange water, and your skin turns orange. There was a cheerleader with orange skin in New Jersey, we called her; “the orange cheerleader”, but  she used funny tanning lotions - not Iron enriched volcanically heated water. 

 I dug my old glow in the dark Spiderman underpants out of  the closet to wear to the movies (under my pants though/ underpants) (It was Spiderman 3 of course). She liked it too  …the movie more than my underpants. Before she came I went to a hospital and another doctor’s office.People don’t go to doctor’s offices like they do in America;  When they have a snuffly nose they go to the hospital.     I went to the hospital, and I went to the counter that said 1st time patients, and I said “Hello this is my first time.” and “Could I please see a doctor to get my prescription refilled”.  I said that 1st bit, and that other bit both - in Japanese.  The Japanese woman behind the counter laughed and said - in Japanese: “You don’t speak any Japanese at all do you?!!!”  I replied along the lines of: “What language do you suppose I’ve been speaking?!” - only I said it slightly more politely (and in Japanese).  She looked “unhappy” to hear me say this.  I said again, in Japanese, again,; “This       is   my   1st    time   at   this   hospital.”      “I   need    to   get   a   prescription   refilled.  What do I need to do to see a doctor”.    Then she said, in a tentative beaurocratic way:  “Well, …this hospital doesn’t have any doctors.” I left and went to the clinic that the nurse at my school recomended.  It was farther away, a lot smaller, kinda’ hard to find, and probably really only for children.  There were toys on the shelves and puppets hanging from the ceiling.  There were 2 toddlers in a crib, and 5 or 6 mothers reading story books to 7 or 8 children (with snuffly noses).  I got through about 2 pages of “My Neighbor Totoro” before they called me in.  The doctor said that the nurse of my school had mentioned that I might be coming, but he wasn’t sure what I needed.  “Insulin” I said.             (All of this conversation took place in Japanese as well, but he wasn’t a d*^@$ead.)  He was reluctant to prescribe a lot of insulin/ syringes without seeing some of my medical history.  I gave him the number to the clinic I used to go to in my old city, but they had already closed for the holidays.  A nurse that worked for him called a couple other hospitals/ clinics looking to see if there wasn’t someplace which could do the necessary (unnecessary from my perspective) blood tests before prescribing me any insulin.  One hospital said that they would see me, This was of course the hospital where that daft *&^% said there were no doctors.  I told the nurse that I had already gone there, so she called back and looked a little confused when she told me that she spoke to a lady who said that some man had come in over an hour ago talking crazy. When I do take it upon myself to speak, very few people ever have trouble understanding me, but some imbiciles see that a person is not Japanese and can’t be swayed of the opinion that only Japanese people can speak Japanese.  (This is will repeat - It alarms me.) Sometimes you can speak with someone in Japanese for ten or twenty minutes …and then they ask you if you can speak Japanese. Sometimes you have dinner with someone, and they ask you at the end if you can use chopsticks. I’ve been here a long time, and I believe I’ve put up with a LOT of crap,  

I love my girlfriend, the scenery (away from the cities) is good, and I like the low cost tofu, but a person can only be asked whether he knows how to bow so many times a day before he becomes reluctant to communicate with anyone new.(Bend at the waist - Yes?) I was at that clinic from about 3:45 to 6:30, because that nurse had borrowed my blood monitor kit to call other clinics and ask them if they knew about it/ used the same kind.  I would think a lot of them were closing at that time, …and indeed - some of them were likely afraid to agree to admit anyone who wasn’t Japanese.  I would have just gone home, but she had the last of my test strips and she just kept telephoning. I told my girlfriend all of that when she arrived the next day.  I told her about the lady at the 1st hospital and she said: “F*&% that B*%*!”  (She studied English in Australia, so she knows how to communicate. I’m proud of her.) The next Monday I went to another clinic.  Some nurse interviewed me - in Japanese - again with no problem.    Then I talked to a doctor.  Then they took blood and made me pee in a cup.  Then I had to talk to the doctor again and he said that my pee was good, but my blood was a little high.  I told him that I ran out of my other kind of insulin - the kind I’ve been asking doctors to prescribe to me for 8 years, but they never have;  They always say my blood isn’t very good, but they’re generally content that I haven’t died or gone blind yet.  But I have died, and on some occassions I do go blind. After talking to another nurse for another 20 minutes about how much of everything I would need month by month, I waited a long time to be called up for my turn to pay and finally got to leave!  I’ve been asking for that fast acting insulin for sooooo long!! No one ever wanted to risk putting me on it.   I just told all those new nurses and the new Doctor at my new clinic that I used to use it, but ran out, so they prescribed me “more”.   Then I went to the pharmacy where they didn’t have my usual insulin - just the fast acting stuff (which I did get for the first time finally!). 

The people at the pharmacy explained in Japanese that they would have to have my usual insulin delivered - within 2 days at the very latest.  (They said the number 2 in English - many many times for some reason (probably because I am not Japanese, and although I understood the greater part of everything else that they said in Japanese, they were happy that they knew how to say “2″ in English.  Maybe they wanted to show off)). I was not impressed for 2 reasons: There’s nothing impressive about that +It took 4 days. My girlfriend went to a pair of weddings over the weekend.  I guess you don’t bring a date to weddings in Japan;  I wouldn’t have wanted to fly to Kyushu for one night anyhow.  She wrote to say that she caught the bouquet, which made me nervous.  I went painting near the orange water onsen we went to the week before.  There had been buds on a tree right near the orange river.  I thought they would be in full bloom ( a little over a week later), but they were only just starting to open.  At any rate that painting turned out pretty well.   I wasn’t able to finish the other picture that I started.  I might have - there seemed to be just enough daylight left, but 2 people came down the hiking path well over an hour after anyone else.  They asked me where they were - It was not where they wanted to be.  I found myself driving them (about 30 minutes) to the station in my city.  (It was about 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop, but if this city is like any other place I’ve lived before, there would only be around 3 or 4 busses a day.)   They asked me if I spoke Japanese, and I said that I was able to, but rarely ever bothered to say very much.  The girl seemed really suprised to hear me say that; It turns out that she’s only been here for a few months.     You could talk to a group of Japanese people for hours/ days/ or longer and never shake some of them of the presumption that Americans can never speak Japanese.  (This I have repeated. - It alarms me.) What I told her is that there just isn’t much that I want to say. What I didn’t tell her was that: I only ever ask a question - if I can not get the answer on my own.   There was a yellow tubelike thing near my seat in the teacher’s room.  At the next week’s teachers’ meeting I picked it up and saw that it had my name on it.  What could it be? There was a cylinder inside of it, which had an opening at one end with a hole cut into the side - giving it the appearance of a whistle.  I forgot that I was in a teachers’ meeting and tried to get the whistle looking thing to produce a sound …to no avail (for the best I suppose).  I put it in my pocket to ask Ms. M.  Ms. M would know what it was.  I asked Ms. M, and Ms. M knew what it was.  She told me that it is a thing which is used to collect pee …so the doctors can check it.  I told her I had thought it was a whistle.  She said it was funny watching me blow into it during the teachers’ meeting, but that is was okay, because they probably don’t recycle them. I am an advocate of recycling - whenever possible, with, possibly, this exception. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/1b8ng1-Oa4c

I had this long long  meandering story about me being moved to a little Ho-dink town in the mountains.  It was pages and pages long + for the most part very amusing, …if unfortunate. 

  It’s still too soon to tell if this will be an adequate sequel. 

If I had known that that one dumb-ass would get me transferred, I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time doing my work as well as I did,

and I did do it well.

Indeed,  If some of the many disappointed people here knew who she was, she would likely come to prefer being transferred herself.

At any rate, as much as I did like Suzaka, I never intended to stay forever;

A little longer might’ve been nice, but “someplace else” has its appeals as well.

   The principle at the one school I worked for always seemed really stern, and I was most often too reluctant to try to say anything to him, but he made the nicest going away speech for me in front of the whole school.  

A girl I helped with the speech contest there got on the stage after him and also made a speech for me in front of the whole school;

 I didn’t help her with that speech,

but she did a very good job of it and gave me a big bouquet of flowers that I would love to have more time to try and paint a picture of, but I find myself having to tie up loose ends/ pack up all my stuff instead.

 The principle at the other school always seemed to be a little afraid of me, and that didn’t change very much to be honest, but he also gave me a quick going away speech and managed to “plug” my website several times. 

   They let me out of that school for about 3 hours that afternoon.   I went to file a report with the police for the passport that I’m still missing.  

  I don’t know why the American Embassy requires an official “missing article” police report to apply for a new passport.

 I don’t know why they would need to know an exact time of day that a missing article went missing (in the report)  - If you knew exactly when something disappeared you would likely know how/ perhaps where it disappeared to.

  I also don’t know why you would have to go to a different police station to get a copy of the same “missing article report”  that they write right in front of you at the first police station.

I don’t know why the one policeman that drew/ gave me a map to the other police station pointed in the wrong direction when explaining the map.

I didn’t / don’t know a lot of Japanese words: “Embassy“,  “official report“, and “primary police station”,  but I do know how to say “erotic fantasy” …

   Mine is Nurses!

  I got back to that other school just in time for all the teachers there to applaud and give me a nice little clock for all the work I did there. 

  They told me exactly what time I had to come back and said that they were planning something…

 I think it would have been funny if I showed up late and said it due to my not having any idea what time it was.

Despite what I consider a staggering cost, I had agreed to go to the other school’s end of the year finale’ because my favorite teacher told me he would be leaving it.

  As it turns out, I had to leave too, so I got one of the special seats at the front of the room with all the other transferees, and there were loads more speeches about the lot of us.

   I didn’t understand most of them, but I wasn‘t trying too hard to listen to most of them,

 most of mine included.

   We stayed up only slightly late, but woke up more than just a little too early (in my opinion).  We got a bus back to town.  I walked home from school and tried my best to stay awake until it was time to go and get my girlfriend from the station. 

She had been in Australia for a month.

We had planned to use my spring vacation/ the time before she got a new job at a new pharmacy  - to take a little trip somewhere in Japan.

I would have liked to have gone to the Grand Canyon, but I can’t go home without my passport, and my passport is still not anywhere it should be/ lost!

As I would, by all reckoning,  have to leave Nagano in the near future, we decided that it would be better to try and do all the cool things a person in Nagano can do, in Nagano, while we were …still in Nagano.

The first night that she came we finally made it to the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano.

The 1^st time I tried to go there - I got lost.

The 2^nd time I tried to go there - they were closed.

The 3^rd time I tried to go there - I arrived 2 minutes before closing (which they thought inadequate).

The 4^th time I tried to go there - the girl I was with didn’t want to (she said it was because the ice cream there was really bad, which seemed an odd reason not to go - She didn’t order any Ice-cream where we did end up after all).

The 5^th time was Fantastic!!!! 

Well, absolutely adequate, but entirely vegetarian anything is exceptionally nice as far as I am concerned.

 People who aren’t vegetarian often wonder what it is that we vegetarians eat, and the definitive answer that I have come to is:

 Food.

Most vegetarian places use wheat or soy based proteins, as well as mixtures of different vegetables.  This place used millet seed in a lot of their dishes.  I liked it, she liked it - we were both surprised to see that  they even had ice cream that was made without any milk or eggs! (Scream)  Actually, everything except for that was really good; That was, in truth (like the other girl had warned me long long ago) decidedly: Un-good.  I would like to be able to go again.

The next day my girlfriend and I were going to go snowboarding at the super cool place I went the last time, …but she and I have this waking up early disability, and consequentially we didn’t make it out of my house until 3pm.

I had always wanted to take a bath with wild monkeys, but it turns out that you can’t do that.

I’ve also always wanted to do anything with several sexy - scantly clad Nurses,

 …perhaps if I took an ad out?

Anyway,  there’s a place not too far off where you can go watch wild monkeys forage in the snow and warm up in the open hot springs, but it closes at 5pm.

  We got there well before 5, but it turns out that that place closes at 3pm on Sundays.

There were still plenty of monkeys running around and digging in the snow, but the park staff had cut off the hot water flow to their pool, so they were no longer interested in splashing around in it.   As cool as it would have been to see them all wearing shower caps and touting “soap on a rope”, I still got to see a whole mess of monkeys without having to pay the entrance fee, so I wasn’t at all upset.

The next day we drove to a castle a little over an hour away.  Castles, I’m told, are always cold.  This castle was very nice, but it was winter, and it was cold.   This castle had no heat.  It had lots and lots of open gun and arrow holes as well as large panoramic openings in the upper floors, and no glass to cover any of these openings.  You also had to take your shoes off when you went in, so it was really chilly.

We thought we’d save ourselves the toll money by not taking the expressway back, which would have been fine if I hadn’t also decided to save myself the $20 cost of  a book of maps that had more than half the roads printed in it.  I bought a map for 100 yen - less than a dollar, that did get us home - eventually.

The next day we went to an indoor hot spring with a pool/ hot tub and a waterslide.  I raced a couple of kids up the steps to the slide 3 or 4 times, but then they got tired of it.

   Later, the English teachers from one of my old schools had a little end of the year English party.   2 of them picked us up in a car and took us there.  5 minutes before they arrived I got an e-mail from my company telling me to be ready to go for an interview in a placed called Maebashi, …which I had heard of, but knew nothing  about.  I was just about to ask the 3 of them (the English teachers and my girlfriend) what Maebashi was like, when I got a phone call from my company telling me to be ready for an interview on Thursday in a place called Komoro.  I had never “heard“ of Komoro, but I remember seeing the name on many of the signs we passed in the road while we were lost the night before.

  The party was good, except that I could hardly hear anything out of one ear the whole time ( + the next day. ( I think I got water in there one of the many times I went down the waterslide).)

 I made due with my usual “dining out in Japan” fare of:

 French Fries,

 “salad with no bacon bits please”,

 and “Tofu with no fish flakes on top please”. 

Oh, and lots of Booze.

Can’t forget the booze…

They gave me a funny paperclip dispenser, and a little egg shaped refrigerator basket magnet.  I understand the paperclip dispenser - because it’s a funny paperclip dispenser.   The basket magnet seemed too small to put anything in at first, so I had to think about it, and I informed them not too too long after that it would be perfect for me to store syringes in.

  The English teacher I once tried to take to the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano showed up and gave me a little bouquet of flowers.  She’s engaged now it seems, which is nice to know.  A woman I had never met before also turned up with a little bouquet of flowers for me.  I think she was transferred into my old school to replace one of the English teachers transferred out.  My replacement was decided when it was decided to replace me and his vacancy will in turn be replaced with someone as yet unknown.   ….maybe Greg?

(He’s a guy I met later.)

  My most immediate replacement was also good enough to drive my girlfriend and I home …’cause he didn’t have any of the booze.

 The booze…

 The booze!

The next day we woke up Early!

Then we went back to sleep a few times, but did at least manage to make it to the ski park before 2pm.  We got to go down the old “Olympic Course”.

I did it in “non-Olympic time”!

 There was also this one super steep hill that I went down head first on my back, and when I was finally able to stand up again at the bottom of the hill, my jacket was full of snow.

We went to an onsen (/volcanic water bath) after that.

Sometimes little kids go in those with their parents,

sometimes really young girls go in the men’s bath with their fathers,

….for some reason a girl that I had taught, that had just graduated the 6^th grade was in the men’s locker room with her father, and was clearly - if not intently, watching me undress. 

  She wanted to be sure that I would be one of her English teachers the next year, so she came over to ask, and I had to explain nakedly/ ackwardly that I was supposed to have been, but that someone had decided to replace me.  Every bit of that was uncomfortable.

My girlfriend and I were supposed to go to some shopping outlet the next day/ Thursday, but I’d been scheduled to attend an interview in a town we had gotten lost in the vicinity of  3 days before.  As the town was fairly close to the shopping outlet, and as interviews of this kind never take more than a few minutes, we decided to drive down there together so that I could take her shopping as soon as it was over.

  The interview was scheduled for 3pm, so my company asked me to meet some of their representatives there at 12 to pick out an apartment nearby in case I did get the job. 

That killed a little time….

 We went into the Board of Education at 3pm, and some nervous looking guy stepped out to say that they were having a meeting/ couldn’t meet with us then.

 I was told not to go too far away, as they’d call us back within an hour (or 2), so my girlfriend and I wandered around the center of that city for an hour - We got extravagantly bored, and waited in the car for another hour - Then we got a call from the other people at the company, who were also  deathly bored of waiting around in that city, so we all got together to wait around some more (in a supermarket lounge.  Nearly 2 and a half hours later/ Late Greg and I were called in for a him or me - both together - choose one - 15 minute interview.

   Neither of us had any interest in that city at that point I dare say, so it’s fair to say that he was the lucky one. 

The more and more I think about it actually, the luckier he seems.  Lord knows I put no effort into making myself seem any more charming.  They asked me how I felt at school when I was young, and I really had to think hard to come up with anything other than “sleepy”.  I was prompted for an answer, so I said that my brother went to the same school as me, and he used to beat me up a lot.  They asked me if I had any friends that did drugs and I said that I didn’t.  They seemed to like that answer, so I thought I better strike down my bonus points and point out that it was more because they usually seemed inclined to beat me up too.

They asked me what kinds of things - other than English I could teach the kids in their city. 

In the past I have taught kids different ways to rudely arouse sleeping classmates, how to give/ get out of strangle holds, …  I wanted to say that I could teach everyone how to make a really fantastic salad - because one rude old bastard told everyone there that vegetarians like me have a “weird religion”, and he “didn’t want me teaching it to the kids”, but after a wee bit of thought I just said “art”.

I wore sneakers with my wrinkled $30 suit, but nobody noticed either.  I spoke Japanese better than Greg, I’m afraid and they did notice that, and I got stuck with the job. 

3 cheers for Komoro(!!!!),  later, …when I leave it.

My girlfriend was kind enough to wait in the car for those 20 minutes (the whole interview + walking time).   She would have waited in a café or anywhere, but we had already walked around the city and found no cafés or anything of any value to do, so she just fell asleep in the car.  I had to wake her up and give her the bad news.

We finally got to the shopping center that she likes just as they were closing up the last few shops.  I don’t mind not going shopping at all, but she waited around politely all day just to do that and in the end we couldn‘t even find an open restaurant, so she just took a train back home and I drove a little over 2 hours back to mine.

 I brought the car I borrowed back to my company the next day.  It’s cheaper than parking it in my town/ my old town.  While I was there we discussed: my new contract, some training thing I’m supposed to go to over the weekend, how we ought to go about moving me, … We got it all settled nice and neat, but they never received my new contract by fax from the head office, the dates of the training changed, and the  truck they thought they had free wasn’t…

I made a mental list of places I’d like to paint pictures of while I am here/ able to.  I went out on Saturday morning and it looked like a real bad rain was coming, so I stayed in for a few hours: straightening things up/ waiting for it to rain.  After about 3 hours I decided to just go outside and give painting a try.  About a quarter of a mile from my building it started to rain. 

As I was walking back, I remembered making a mental list of places to paint pictures of on rainy days.   It was never a very long list; It was 1 place.  I wound up painting the eves of an old fashioned house from the inside of my building’s parking garage.  I would be moving within a week, so I used acrylic paint, which dries quickly, instead of oil paint, which can take a month or more to dry - depending on how it’s used.  I’m not nearly as fond of acrylic paint, but that picture came out pretty well.  I came in quite cold.

On Sunday it rained all afternoon, so I continued cleaning up my apartment/ getting ready to move.  In the evening I met the Hawaiian guy who worked at all the schools in my town that I didn’t (who is replacing me at some), and an elementary school teacher that I liked, who I threw many snowballs at a few weeks earlier. 

They asked me where I’d like to have dinner, and I,

of course,

Said: the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano.

The 6^th time I tried to go there, it was - again - closed.

But the Hawaiian guy knew of a cool cheap little Tai/Indonesian place not far off, where they can make things without meat.  That was Great!  + Cheap! + in my case Vegetarian!

On the way back we stopped at a bar where the owner would play songs on his guitar for you to sing along  to.  Me and the vodka I made friends with decided to try and sing a song my parents used to have a record/ LP of in our house when I was 10.  I’m not sure if the owner had ever even heard the song , but it did, in the end, …finally end.

  That was fun anyway., and luckily we were the only people in there.

On Monday the nice manager lady of the Nagano branch of my company and I drove another hour down and one back to look at one more apartment in the city I have to move to.   I would have liked to have looked at more, but that’s the one I’ll be living in now. 

 We saw 3 on the day of the interview:

one was expensive,  and right next to the train tracks

one was expensive, old, yellow from tobacco , the shower had something that looked like a diesel engine attached to it, and it was sticky in places

one was more expensive, nice, but a long long way from where I would have to work.

The one I’ve wound up in isn’t as nice in the inside as that last one, but it’s closer , cheaper, and has the best view.

I spent the next 2 days painting as much of Suzaka as I could, …while it was still nearby.

This one older fellow saw me painting some old buildings, and he told me something like his brother owns them.  He walked by and invited me in for tea every 45 minutes or so, but he drove away on an errand just as I was finally finishing up.

I also met the friendly guy who runs the popular grilled meat shop near my old town.  He took pictures of me and put them up on his website. 

2 days later, I had to go say hello to the principle of my new school, so the “nice manager lady of the Nagano branch of my company”  came by in her car, which we packed  up with some of the small things that would fit inside, and drove all the way down to Komoro again.

When we got to that school the principle confessed that the first day of school would be:

 his last day (making a trip down there to meet him - Unnecessary).

 He also informed us that the first day was several days earlier than the board of Education had told us.

I was supposed to have until Thursday/ 1 week  to move into my new apartment and visit the American Embassy in far off Tokyo (to swear before an officer that I am an American, and try to get all the paperwork for my replacement passport submitted), now I have until Sunday but….

The Training thing the head of my company had planned for Friday/ Saturday also got switched to Saturday/ Sunday, so I’ll have no days off before starting work in a new city, and my plans to rendezvous with my girlfriend for a day or 2 while in her area are similarly canceled.

Just to give you the feeling - I will say:

In Japan there are soooo many vending machines!  They say it’s very convenient because you never have to walk more than a hundred yards to buy a drink. 

As sinks are also commonplace, I don’t see any great benefit to them, but people like to walk up to vending machines, and look through the plastic window at all the cans they can buy.

I’ve been telling people that this new city I have to move to is really dumpy, but I don’t think they understand.

 On the way to my new apartment I saw a vending machine and looked through the plastic window, and saw  that is filled with old cans.  How old?

 All of them are at least half orange with rust.  - Komoro.

When we got to my apartment we swept up all the emaciated dried up fly carcasses from the more than 1 year since anyone had lived there.

    I wondered whether the last fly “went crazy”: before eating the remains of his fallen comrades/ or after that last ditch survival trick had finally run out.

I didn’t yet have any city sanctified garbage bags to dispose of the remains, so I just swept them into a paper bag at hand.

I found out later that there are 8  kinds of garbage here with special times/ places and strict rules regarding the disposal of each.

If/ when I do ever find time enough to do so I will have to look up “dried up bug exoskeletons” in my city garbage dictionary to check their “proper disposal procedure”, or I’ll just have to fill my pockets with dead flies and make sure no one is looking when I take a walk.

 I tried out the toilet in my apartment and noticed for the 1^st time that it wasn’t a regular toilet.  It has a flap at the bottom where the water should be.  When you “flush”, the flap goes down, and it makes a noise that makes me think that water would drip down to rinse it off - if I had any water service connected there yet.

I would have stayed the night there, but  my nice supervisor friend from the Nagano branch of my company said we could load his much bigger car up with some more of my stuff and drop it off there on our way to our company training thing over the weekend, + I would need to be at the older apartment to facilitate that.

Then he called me the next afternoon to say that the training was canceled, …which is great, except that I still had to do a mock training with him that night, and no longer had any way to move anything larger than a large suitcase to my new apartment.

I always find it fascinating how quickly and entirely the information I am given changes.

I wasn’t sure how the manager lady would arrive that Thursday morning, so I packed everything securely away in boxes before she arrived.  Then I waited around all the next day, and the next day (with everything all ready to go/ inaccessible.  Waiting and waiting for days is nicer when you have something to play with.

I couldn’t cook without any pots/ pans, so I went to the little bar where they were always nice (in a weird way) to me - for the last night.  I had one of the 2 things on their menu that they could alter for me to be able to eat and I told them I wouldn’t be coming back.

I should have been gone before the next night, but instead I found myself buying a package of friend beans, and opening up the box I had packed my kettle in - so I could heat up a cup of vegetarian spinach soup.

The next day was the last day I had off before starting work.  I called my manager to ask if they’d come up with a way for me to move yet, but he didn’t answer his phone.

 He didn’t answer an hour later.

+  He said he would check with the other lady and call me back the next time I called, but he didn’t call back, so I called another time and at around 2pm I roused him from his hangover to get the company’s little dirty spare car.

I put my mini-fridge, work clothes, microwave, and heater inside and finally got on my way.

About 5 minutes from my old apartment I noticed that the kerosene from my ever problematic kerosene heater was toxifying the car, so I rolled down the window.

I got to my new apartment and unpacked the car.  Kerosene and soy sauce were all over the back of the car.  I managed to get to the home center before dark - a good thing because:

I was busy,

There were no light bulbs in my new apartment,

 I got dizzy from sitting in the car for more than 1 minute.

 I asked them if they had anything  which could clean a car full of spilt kerosene.

I speak Japanese well enough to explain most of my problems, but I always have trouble getting people to believe that these things really happen. 

 Apparently no one else has ever spilt a lot of kerosene inside of their subcompact car.

Hooray Me!

Work - the 1^st day was just me not listening to a lot of explanations that I also would not have listened to - were they in English.

I had 1 hour to go home and change before the school staff party: “to celebrate the beginning of the new school year”.  The “nice manager of the branch of my company lady” and a nice guy from another venture business of hers came by in the last few minutes of that hour in the truck that was free that afternoon with the rest of my stuff.

I got a ride to the party where the guy in charge said that they didn’t know what I would be able to eat, so I would just have to order something.  I tried to order something off of a waitress, but she said that she could only take orders from the guy in charge of the party.  I told this to the guy in charge of the party.  He asked me what I wanted.  I told him.  He said alright, just order that.  I told him that I was told that I wasn’t allowed to order anything.  A committee was formed to explore the problem of:

 the waitresses not being able to wait on anyone but the one guy that they could wait on, who couldn’t understand that anyone other than him couldn’t ask for anything.

  All it all it was pretty good.  The usual blend of: people who are afraid of me for not being Japanese, people who are interested in me for not being Japanese, people who don’t realize that I can speak/ understand Japanese, people who seem to think that I can speak/ understand really complicated Japanese, and the well toasted alcoholics. 

  They don’t seem nearly as dangerous as the last bunch of teachers that I worked with.  At the 2^nd party I was able to remember all the drinks that I ordered, and most of them got to me mostly full.

(sampling) …the booze

The booze.

Why did they schedule a big party for a Monday night?  I made it to work on time - Early the next day.  They sent me home early  because I had to meet someone from the gas company who came to do a safety inspection before turning my gas on.

The safety inspection was Unremarkable!!!!

Ha!  I love that.

Before getting my gas turned on I could only eat micro-waved potatoes with baked beans. 

That gets everyone’s gas going!

Ha!  (It’s a pun.)

I managed to slip in a few remarks about a missing passport now and again, so they let me out of work the next day as well, so that I might take the 4 hour trip to central Tokyo to get to the American Embassy - which closes early that day of the week, …but I made it in time.

  I actually woke up earlier than I ever had to when I was just going to work.  I rode my bike to Komoro station.  I waited for a local train and rode it to where I could get on a Shinkansen/ Super express train.  I waited for a Shinkansen and rode a long way to a part of Tokyo where I knew there was a subway station.  I was cut in line twice while waiting to consult with the guy at the subway gate as to which way down the line the station where the embassy was was.

The police patroling the outside of the embassy asked to see my passport, which being lost was the reason I was there, but I had my alien registration card.

 (I’m told it is illegal for anyone who isn’t a Japanese citizen to step foot outside their residence in Japan with out it/ or a valid foreign passport with a valid up to date visa.  You‘re probably not too likely to get caught by a random patrolman and arrested just for not having one, but I‘ve heard stories about people riding bikes - thought to be bicycle thieves being caught without them and having to pay huge fines.)

  A guy at the embassy said that they would mail me a new passport in 2-3 weeks.  He told me that I ought to keep my whereabouts  in the Department of State’s online database current - in case there was some kind of natural disaster.

  I told him that I just moved to an apartment that lies just below an active volcano.  I didn’t tell him that it’s in the area designated “very likely” to be subject to poisonous gasses.

Ha!  Beans! - That was the pun from before. 

 Mt. Asama does spew  molten rock + noxious gasses too though.

I also didn’t tell him that I get dizzy when I drive;  He seemed busy.

 I managed to get out right before they closed for the day/ early that day.

On my way back to the subway station I found an entirely vegan restaurant.

 I once would have likened finding an all vegan restaurant in Japan  - to stumbling across a living breathing magical unicorn on your way to work, but I am happy to stand corrected.  - all the wiser now.

It was a good place and I would go back, …if it wasn’t an 8 hour round trip.

I put 2 falafels in my pocket to share with my girlfriend - who is merely politely curious at my eating habits.

(People who are unaware of the effects meat farming has on:

their own health,

the well being of millions of starving people,

the earth’s environment as a whole…

… to name a …few reasons,    would do well to try something like:  http://peta.org)

My girlfriend was supposed to come over the weekend to see my new apartment, and finally go to that shopping center that she wanted to  2 weeks before, but her mother reminded her that she was going to be in Korea over that weekend, and that someone needed to stay at home and watch over their dog.

I repeated that same process of riding my bike to the station, waiting, taking a $4. train ride, waiting to take the $50. Shinkansen ride - not quite so far as Tokyo this time - to see her.

We met my old roommate at an Okinawan bar in his city the next day, + we went for a long drive to have a barbeque with some of her friends the day after that.

  Her friends didn’t have much that was meatless, but they were friendly, and brought lots of booze.

The booze

The booze.

 That barbeque ended at about 3pm, so she tried to drive us to that shopping center that she really seems to want to go to.  Again, we got there just as everything was closing, so she just took a look around my apartment and headed back.

I got to see her again the next weekend, because my company decided to reschedule the training that they had canceled 3 weeks ago - for that weekend - not too far from her.

I didn’t hear anything from anybody, so I sent my supervisor an e-mail inquiring as to whether the training had again, been canceled, but I didn’t check for replies because:

I couldn’t get to a computer,

The computer repair men were repairing all the computers,

And if it were a case of the training NOT being canceled - I didn’t want to know anything about it.

He called me at 9pm the night before training to be sure that I did know about it, which really was a let down.  He said it was in 2, 8 hour sessions, on Saturday and Sunday

- that was shocking!

  He said I had to wear a shirt and tie to it which was more of a let down.

I wanted to tell him that I had recently contracted: Avian Bird Flu, but instead, I merely mentioned that the puddle on the floor of my bathroom got bigger every time I flushed the toilet.

I woke up at 6am the next morning so that I could be in time for training: a bunch of jerk asses swaggering/ strutting,  and telling me what I already know - when I could be doing anything better.

I sat in bed for about a half hour, thinking about how much I really didn’t want to go to a totally unnecessary training session.

I took a shower then sat on the edge of the tub thinking about what kinds of things would be better than going to training.  (- In the meantime I dripped entirely dry.)

I made a pot of tea and drank it very slowly and thought of funny excuses to not go to training - other than Bird Flu.

(In this meantime, I missed my chance to catch the good train, …and I missed the back-up train.)

Then I wrote my girlfriend a message - summarizing my opinions on my company’s mandatory-unpaid-unnecessary- unhelpful- 9am-6pm, Saturday and Sunday - formal attire necessary, you work 12 days straight training that I would have to pay a lot of money to get myself to/ not be compensated for in any way.

Then I just didn’t go.

How mandatory is mandatory?

Not terribly mandatory.

The cherry trees in my new new city had just started to open up.  I didn’t know where the best spot to paint them would be, so I just drove down the hill to my new school, where there are lots of cherry trees.

  It was warm, but very windy, but all in all - far better than sitting in a little dark room with 50/ 60 other unfortunate people who’s weekends had been theived - being told what types of pants/shoes/ such are and aren’t suitable for work.  I was at first a little concerned about angry phone calls, but they were, perhaps, too busy to notice me missing.

Waking up as early as I did (to ultimately NOT go to training), did give me the benefit of a good long Saturday’s worth of day light. 

 The wind, however, was a real hinderence to progress.  I had to choose a less optimal angle to paint both of those pictures from, because standing behind a thick tree gave me a little bit of protection from the really really strong gusts of wind.  Still, one picture got blown off of the easel just after I had finished it, and my palate got blown into an as yet - unused canvas (still in its wrapping - Luckily).

After  those 2 pictures I thought I’d go off and look for another - perhaps less windy place to paint.

I didn’t find it.

 I found places that were less windy, but I couldn’t find anyplace else worth painting.

  I tried a few more times on a few other days, and this really is not a nice looking city.

I went back to my 1^st city that evening to visit my girlfriend.  Her city is a wasteland.  Mine is an ugly  boring wasteland.

    The plan, was that I go to the training - near where she lives, meet up with her that night, then go to the other day of training in Tokyo (yes, on a Sunday).  Despite not going to the 1^st day of training, I went all that way to see her.  

  I was also expecting someone to call me - angrily about missing the 1^st day  + to insist I go to the next.

 That call came the next day, …but it wasn’t  really an angry call.  It was a: “The training just started a few minutes ago, are you lost? Oh, you’ll be about 2 hours late? Oh, ….you weren’t here yesterday?“ kind of a call.   They told me that they were meeting in a yellow building in a park by a station.

 I found the park after getting to the station, but could find no yellow buildings in it.

When they called again to ask if I’d found the place I explained the situation, and it turns out that there were several parks near that station. 

It took me until after the lunch break to make it all the way to where they were.

Then I had to sit there for 4 hours and learn such things as:

How to say  “Good Morning” in Japanese   (- I learned that on the plane ride over here 5 years ago).

How to play Hangman, and Pictionary…

Ummmmm,        ….Huuuuhhhh,     tck

Actually I didn’t learn any of that, because I already knew all of that. 

‘Glad I missed the 1^st day.’

I said that to the guy sitting next to me - who turned out to be Greg.

He said: “Yeah, but you have a good excuse to not come all the way down here.”

I said: “Yeah,  - I didn’t feel like it.”

He said: “Because you live in Nagano.”

I said: “Yeah, …. That too.”

An hour or 2 later, a girl sitting on the other side of me pulled out a book.

  I was waiting for one of the 2 managers stationed at the door to wander away - so I could sneak out, but they stood there in shifts.

    The closer and closer it got to 5 o’clock - the less they stood by the door, and the more they stood blocking the door.

I was the 1^st to escape - at 5:15.  That’s 15 minutes after “mandatory - no weekend for you - you learn nothing - waste your youth watching us poise - training “ was scheduled to end.

How can you turn 20/30 minutes worth of information into a 2 day fiasco?

Talent and shamelessness.

Talent and Shamelessness.

When I was walking from the station in my old city to where I parked my car it began pouring down rain.

 I was not 10 minutes from the car when this happened - I had an umbrella, but never the less - all of me - below the knees got soaked. 

    If only they had let us out of our mandatory unpaid Saturday/ Sunday formal wear necessary - but totally unnecessary training on time.

I got home  at 10:55.

My feet were wet for those 4 hours in between.

When I got home my toilet was fixed, …but broken.

Fixed in that: you could flush it without getting your feet wet (Although it didn‘t matter just then (Well, …depending on the consistency of the flush water)).

Broken in that: the flap at the bottom - that separates the body of the toilet from the “stink pipe” went down, with that first flush, and never came back up again.

It’s the later part of April, but my new new apartment is still really cold.  It turns out that the clock they gave me at one of my the schools in my old city also has a thermometer component.  This I find fascinating. I’ve been watching it, and although it seems to be getting warmer, it snowed an inch last night.

 The plastic pump I bought to refill the kerosene tank of my heater broke at my old apartment;  It sprayed kerosene here and there, …and on me.

 I didn’t want to buy another one of those wretched things, so I got a funnel to replace it.

 When I tried to refill the kerosene tank with the funnel on Monday, it went all over the floor.

     Luckily my toilet water towel had had some time to dry, so I used that to soak up the kerosene.

I’ve told my girlfriend that if we ever wind up living together, she will be the Queen of kerosene.  I would up and quit dealing with it right now, …if it wasn’t so cold.

The funniest part of my old long rambling story about being forced to move someplace, was when they took me to meet the mayor.

 An English teacher came in here yesterday + looking very determined - he shouted to me that I should wear a suit to school on Friday, because they’re taking me to meet the mayor here.

He told me the same thing - at the same volume today.

Let’s hope they mayor doesn’t ask me what I think of his town.

When I was visiting my girlfriend in my old city over the weekend I saw a travel poster with the name of my city on it, …and I laughed.

I was wrong about the garbage anyway….

 I thought that there were 8 very specific kinds of garbage, with different collection dates/ procedures, but there are in fact 12!

The toilets in this country have little sinks on top of them- to wash your hands or whatever. When you flush, water comes out of the little spout at the top.

I’ve always felt that pants – are towels that we wear on our legs; Some people even go so far as to wear those intriguingly textured terry cloth pants…,

but I thought I should perhaps splurge on a hand towel to hang over some of the exposed pipes that run across the wall to my toilet.

I wasn’t doing it to impress the guests I had coming, but to help keep anyone in a nylon track suit feel comfortable – if and when they decided to wash their hands from the top of my toilet.

There is a towel/ blanket shop under my apartment. I had gone there once before, but in the meantime, forgot why I never went back. I assumed it was because of my here to fore – limited towel/ blanket demand.

The hand towels were pretty cheap there. The face towels were larger, prettier, and cheaper than the hand towels. I grabbed a hand and a face towel, which – together – would have been 100 yen and took them to the register and I waited for anyone in the shop to notice I was there. When the guy did come and notice me he said I couldn’t buy those towels. “Why?” I asked. (It was a towel shop after all.)

He said that you can’t buy 1 face towel and 1 hand towel, you have to buy 5 of each, or none.
He folded them both up and walked away.

That was 2 weeks ago, and it still stirs me up to think about it,

Not least of all because I only have 1 face!

How do they stay in business? What does he expect me to do with the other 4 towels?

It’s a good place to shop if you like clerks who go out of their way to be unhelpful, …and you’re married and have 3 kids/5 people in your family, and you need precisely that many towels/ blankets, but who else would go there otherwise? What if you were going to the beach with 6 sexy girls?
Would you have to buy 10 beach towels/ or 35?

Japanese towels suck anyway – you can get more water off of you with a thick napkin,
but that could add up to several trees worth after a year or so.

I explained all of that to my guests when they came, and perhaps – not coincidentally, some of them forgot their bath towels when they left.

(You might be interested to know that bath towels here are nearly twice the size of a standard handkerchief.)

I didn’t, however, say anything about needing any toothbrushes, and now I have 5 of them, so it may’ve just been by accident that they left all that stuff.

When they were here we went snowboarding. They picked out a cool place to go, and we all got up early and waited for the girls to put their makeup on. I’ve been asking girls for years if they really need to pay such attention to the fine details of their eye-makeup, when they always wear ski goggles on top of it; They always say yes.

When they did, eventually - finish, we got into my old roommate’s friend’s brand new car. It was very impressive! It still had plastic on the seats, and a computer that counted down the distance to your destination. It must’ve had the wrong kind of tires though, because we couldn’t get up the hill.

I don’t suppose anyone would have wanted to leave it parked in the road 6 kilometers from the ski-park and walk that distance. At any rate, we didn’t. We found an adequately non-steep place to go not too far off; + the steeper slopes there were closed off due to lack of snow.

The next week some other guests came and we tried to go to the ski-park right next to the one we had to go to the previous week. There was no longer enough snow there though, so we wound up going to the one we couldn’t make it up the hill to, the week before.

That place was much much better. The snow wasn’t really ideal for skiing/ snowboarding, but you couldn’t ask for better snowball snow. No one asked me to stop throwing snowballs at them, but nobody threw them back at me as exuberantly either. (They wouldn’t have had to, my aim is pretty bad.) I had a great time, and would definitely make an effort to go there often, …if I still lived here.

You see, the manager of my company called me this morning. He was driving, someone else in the car with him was talking, and it was a long (often interrupted) story, but it seems that: all of the teachers at all of the schools here like me a lot, they think I’m doing a wonderful job, they think I have a good character / nice personality, and they prefer me to certain predecessors, but someone somewhere (who is completely mental and has a father - who works for the board of education) disagreed with the general assessment loudly enough that the head of the Board of Education decided they may as well try to see how someone else would do in my place, and I have to be put somewhere else.

That just goes to show that one person can make a difference, …though not necessarily to anyone else’s benefit.

I often felt it my responsibility, as a reasonably intelligent human being, to help this one sorry individual pull their head out of their own ### / “see the light of reason”, but thought it better to do it gradually

– and indeed, most people will resist change/ resist anything uncomfortable/ and pass blame wherever else they can.

I know I used to, but now I really try hard to get to the honest truth of things. It’s hard to see through “how you want things to be”, to appreciate “how they actually are”.

Anyway, I’m glad I won’t have to teach those ackward adult classes with the one cranky/ drooly old man here anymore. It’s nice to know that the articles which I had to write for the town paper will no longer be creatively: ”edited” to a degree that they come to mean something entirely different.

Otherwise I really liked this town/ this area a whole lot. My girlfriend was thinking/ and seemed to have decided to come to live up here – closer to me, so it’s good that I have to leave before she accepted any job in this area. The head of my company said that they can get me a job somewhere in the dead concrete city suburbs very easily, but I would hate to have to live someplace without lots of trees.

Really, what I’d like to do is stay in Nagano and not teach an adult class, but changes do keep things interesting.

So, as it was 2 years ago, when I had 2 weeks to pack up everything I own and move to someplace far off and away that I didn’t want to go to: I again have 2 weeks to pack up everything I own, and move someplace -?- ….

I had a girlfriend in High-School,
…just 1.

+ She once went to a fortune teller.

She didn’t say very much about it until she broke up with me.

It was something along the lines of: we had different things in store for us, and that she was planning to go on a trip with some guy named Steve.
She said, that the fortune teller told her: ‘That I would one day live in China, and have a weird religion, and eventually meet a girl “just like her”’.
It did strike me as bizarre and off the topic (of whoever that “Steve- d%&$(%!!” was) at the time, but:
Several times since I came to Japan, I remembered hearing that prediction and laughing…
Most recently when I took a picture of my new girlfriend and noticed something more than just a slight resemblance to that first one,
…but I don’t hold it against her.

I like it when all the little bits and pieces come together.

There were a few here and there, and in between;
Then I lived in Chichibu for a little while…
…
…
… Wow! (…stay the hell out!!)
…
…+ I finally moved someplace civilized, + got a girlfriend (from back where I began).

She’s a good girl! …
“…Loves her ma’ma…”

I don`t know how she feels about Elvis, Jesus, America, or Tom Petty

I am ambivalent.

… about Tom Petty that is.

(But whenever I think - to myself /or out loud, that she`s a good girl, …the rest of that song follows through.)

It cost’s a lot to go and fall down a mountain.

The girls that I went with had some kind of discount coupon which allowed us to go and fall down the mountain at nearly half price, but there is no “Free Falling”.

What a horrible pun! I don’t particularly like or dislike Tom Petty, so I wonder why I’m trying to work that song into everything.

I didn’t even fall all that much that day, unless you want to think of it as “I fell for a girl”,

which I did:
There was a girl lying in the snow, and I didn’t want to run over her head, so I fell down to avoid hitting her.
- Ha! You would like think I meant that by its idiomatic usage, not that I literally fell to help a girl. Oh! Humor!

Indeed, idiomatically as well, I did come to like a girl, but in ordinary circumstances I would prefer to express that without using the word “fall”. Fond perhaps…

At this one point I was going to go over a jump, + I got settled into a nice neat line of approach, + fell down.
I went over the jump on my back; It was a peculiar feeling to go through the air that way.

The weather was great, the snow was also great, the girls that came by really really early on that Saturday morning to get me, were positively adequate. The one that I never liked so much, who for some strange reason also doesn’t like me so much, and a friend of hers drove us there and back. The one had plans for that evening in town, and the other lived several hours away, so we had to leave a little after 5pm. The pharmacist, of whom I am fond, whose house I stayed at over new years, was supposed to come that night to go snowboarding with me the next day as well, so it worked out for all of us. A good time was had by me, and probably by them too, but I was the only one who went over a jump on my back!!

I was obliged to go again the next day, but apprehensive as to how much fun it would be, stiff as I was, going 2 days in a row. I woke up that morning– sleepy and concerned. Sleepy: because it was still morning, and concerned: because I knew that that pharmacist, of whom I am fond, would be coming that evening, to stay over, and to somehow go to a ski-park with me the next day. I didn’t have a car, and had neglected to ensure that we would be able to get seats on the bus that goes to the ski-parks. The one girl that I went with that day, was kind enough to go with me to the park’s hotel’s information desk to ask about a bus that goes between the ski resort, and the station in the city.
The girl at the counter said in the most politely unintelligible Japanese, that there was a bus, but that it was only for people who were staying at the hotel. Luckily the other girl that took me that day found a brochure with information on another bus that goes to the ski-parks, that you didn’t need reservations for.

I had about an hour between getting home and having to go down to the train station to meet the pharmacist, of whom I am fond. I spent all of that time hanging my stuff up to be reasonably dry/ kempt for the same thing the next day.

I caught up with her alright.
We made spaghetti and stayed up late.

+ It turns out that she’s not really a morning person either, so despite her coming such a long way to go snowboarding, we never did go snowboarding.

We had breakfast at around 2pm, and finally left my apartment just after 7pm.

What a girl!

She’d been in Australia for the last year. Australia is considerably warmer than Nagano, and it’s currently summer there, and girls don’t really like the cold any which way, so I thought it best to buy a heater before she arrived.

I went to the only electronics shop in town once to look at heaters that might actually do some good – as opposed to the one that I bought some months earlier, which does not (heat/ do any good). The people in the electronics shop however, were not to be bothered with such trifling matters as “selling electronics”, so after looking around for someone to help me for 15/ 20 minutes I left.

I went to a recycle shop in the city near my town, and they had heaters, but the heaters were heavy, and would take 2 hands to carry, and it was a 35 minute long bike ride to get there, so I didn’t buy a heater there either. (The old man there did offer to have one delivered to me for free if I could wait until Sunday evening, but I knew that the Pharmacist, of whom I am fond, would be coming the day before, and leaving that night.)

I went back to the only electronics shop in town, midweek, and they were every bit as unhelpful as they were the last time, so I left again, after 15 minutes, again.

Come Friday I went back to the only store in town and waited them out.
I asked some guy if he was busy and he said he was.

He was still standing there on his own, “busy”, a half hour later.

I really really didn`t want to give those bastards any of my money, but I was again concerned that my apartment was far too cold for a nice looking girl to be comfortable. It wouldn’t be right to have her sleeping in her jacket and, indeed, It would be far preferable to have her not sleeping, and wearing very little…

For which it would be better to have a heater.

I found some jittery old guy to sell me the cheapest heater they had – an old looking battery powered kerosene one. I asked him where I`d be able to find a tank to keep/ carry kerosene in. He seemed to think that I was asking where to buy kerosene, then he seemed to think that I was suggesting that they give me a kerosene tank. He jumped to some peculiar conclusions, and totally disregarded my multiple inquiries into getting internet service. Man I hate that place! So much of my time was wasted there that night, that the home center (where it turns out they sell kerosene tanks) was closed.
A month or 2 before, I had seen several empty tanks at the expensive supermarket that I rarely go to, but they had been sold out the last time I went (a few weeks before).
After pushing my bike back home - across town, while carrying a heater, I went back to that supermarket. And wouldn’t you know: they did have the tanks, and not only that, but this time they had the same heater I just spent soooooo much time trying to get, …and it was about $20 cheaper, and I wouldn’t have had to deal with the dips%&s. from the electronics store nearly as much, or carry it across town.

It was worth the time and money - regardless. She sat on the floor next to the heater for a time, and it makes my apartment bearable when I am alone there as well.

She had to go back home, a city I lived in, not 10 minute’s walk from her, for the 1st 3 years I was in Japan. It might have been nice to have met her, when I did live there.

We decided to have dinner at the all vegetarian café in the city on her way to the Shinkansen/ express train, but it would be a little while before we got there, + all the snowboarding ( etc.) from the day before had affected my metabolism. We only had 6 minutes to spare, but we went to the Mr. Doughnuts under the station to get something to keep me from passing out.

There was a trainee there who was just learning to fold the paper bags properly, so we had to run up the stairs, through the station, and down another flight of stairs to catch the next train.

We got to the café later. Many many people had recommended it to me, and I always wanted to try it. The first time I tried to go I couldn’t find it. One time later, I tried to take a date there, but she wanted to go someplace else. Another time I went there alone, but it was just closing up for the night. And this time: it was a shop holiday/ closed for the day.
We went someplace else,
…which was nice enough.

She came back this last weekend, and brought her snowboard again, and we didn’t go snowboarding again, (or indeed leave my apartment until after dark the next day again), but this time neither of us had any intention of going. She brought the snowboard so that she could: tell her mom that she was going snowboarding (and make it appear so), and …so that she’d have a good excuse to come back again in another 2 weeks:
to get her snowboard.

We made soup one night, and went to a handmade noodle shop the next.

She makes my heart race, so I have to eat more to keep my blood sugar up.

I showed her a still life that I was working on, and she didn’t ask about the Auras surrounding the flowers.

She asked if I was religious, and I said that I didn’t have a religion (as such), but that I had a reason to think that certain things are…

She used some program on her cell-phone to check the train schedules, and find out what time the latest possible train she could take, to get the last Shinkansen back, to another train, + then her house would be. We didn’t have a whole 6 minutes to spare, so I said, jokingly, as we were jogging to the station, that: I didn’t think we had time to stop at Mr. Doughnuts this time. She said that she would love a doughnut. I said that we only had 3 minutes. She said that we would have to be fast. I said I would run in and get her something while she got her ticket. (That way she could still make it to her train if I didn’t make it with the doughnuts, …which of course I couldn’t have.

I ran in and ran past - a young couple deliberating on what kind of doughnuts they should get. I got a tray and a pair of doughnut tongs, and found myself, too, set back by the daunting task of choosing.

Given my usual pace, I think I chose very quickly on this occasion. – There was still no way I would have made it back to her in time mind you…
The guy at the counter asked me if I wanted them for there or to go. I hadn’t been alone in a fast food type of place for years and years, so I didn’t remember the exact concise Japanese phrase for: “Hurry up and put it in a bag, you Bastard!”,
…so in lieu of that, I just pointed to the door.

It turns out that the door is just beyond where all the seats are,

so that bastard went and got a new tray and a dish for me so I could sit down.

I explained that my girlfriend was waiting outside, and asked him if he didn’t have a paper bag.
He went and got a box.
I began to explain that I didn’t need a whole box for 3 doughnuts, but I stopped myself and left.

I figured she would have just got on the train, and I would be walking back home with 3 doughnuts in a large box that I would eventually eat by myself, but she had waited for me.
(The train hadn’t waited for her.)

Given that she had no way to get back (and I don’t think either of us was too upset by this), I asked her if she didn’t want to go back in Mr. Doughnut’s and pick out something maybe better suited to herself, but after all that, she really seem to even want a doughnut at all.

It was nice having her over for that extra night, even if I did have to wake up at 5:30 that next morning to see her off again – so that she could make it to work on time, …in another part of Japan.

The kerosene in the tank I bought ran out after she left that second (third) time, so I walked it to a gas station after work. I had a bit of trouble choosing what button to push on the all complicated – all Japanese menu screen on the pump. So it was good that another teacher from one of my schools came by after filling up his car to check on me.

He also observed – to my benefit – that I had dropped all my money on the ground.

But my ill luck was not entirely averted.
No.

The gas tank was heavy –
whatever 18 liters of kerosene weighs.

I thought I’d carry it back on my shoulder, and… after a time I became aware of a distinct kerosene scent, which was indeed: kerosene, dripping down the tank on my shoulder.
I resealed the tank, and carried it the rest of the way to my apartment before going to the store.
I tried not to stand still for very long at any time while in the store, because I got dizzy whenever the kerosene fumes from my jacket caught up to me.

Of course moving around all the time does tend to make you breathe heavier / inhale more fumes when you do stop. I got slightly nauseous and developed a bit of a lingering headache. When I got home again, I hung my jacket up outside + changed clothes.

When I wore the jacket, which I’d assumed would have aired out that next morning, the: shirt, pullover, and undershirt I was wearing all came to smell like kerosene within 5 minutes. That faded before too long, but I had to chain my jacket to my bike outside to keep everyone else from getting sick.

I thought I should take it to the cleaners after that, but the care tag inside said it was the kind of jacket that you wash in a washing machine.

Into the washing machine it went – Along with: some towels, socks and such…

I washed everything multiple times since then,
..with different blends of different soaps,
with splashes of perfume and rose oil mixed in,

…but I still find myself wearing a kerosene scented scarf,
And drying off with a kerosene scented towel whenever I get out of the shower.

This weekend I am going back to my 1st city, where my New girlfriend lives, where my old Japanese teachers are having a farewell party for some Korean people I’ve never met, and where my old roommate is having a 30th birthday party.

I’ll wear my kerosene soaked jacket in the hopes that all the cigarette smoke will dull / mask the odor.
I’ll do something akin to worrying about how I’ll be 30 in a few months myself, though I know it doesn’ make any difference really. Except perhaps that, I think it will feel entirely different to have to tell people that.

There was an end of the year party for all the teachers. It was held in the banquet hall of some hotel. I had a runny nose/ bit of a cold left over from a few days before Christmas, so when I got there, I hung up my jacket and ducked into the bathroom to get some tissues. When I came out, I saw some other teacher nervously running down the hall into the shower room. I asked him if he was going to take a shower, and he said: ‘No, he was looking for me’. When I asked why he was looking for me, he said that the lady that I gave my jacket to said ‘that it was “heavy”, and that she was worried’.

What a F&$#ing mystery that is…. !!!!!!

The teacher that I like, the one who tries to kill me with booze, the one who only speaks at parties, and only then about how much more we (I) could be drinking,… He had some sort of “problem” that required surgery/ He didn’t come to that party.

When wondering what was/ is wrong with my absent friend, I have to admit to the possibility that he might’ve had a heavy jacket (or perhaps an especially long scarf…) &%$%!!

I like that guy, but it was nice to be able to remember more than just the 1st 2 hours of a school party, …for a change.

This was a nice party, as parties should be, but not especially eventful.

On the next night:

One of my old Japanese teachers invited me to join her and a young girl (she knows I’m fond of), to have dinner and some drinks at a bar on the top of a building in a richer part of Tokyo.

I don’t really like Tokyo, but I like my old Japanese teacher, and I like young girls - young girls that I don’t have to go all the way to Tokyo to meet in particular.

This girl I met at this same old Japanese teacher’s Christmas party the year before. I invited her to my party the next day and someone else’s New Year’s party after that, and she came, and she moved to Australia a few days after that.

This place in Tokyo was really nice because: it was classy, I was not allowed to pay for any of it, I got to sit next to a young girl that I’m fond of, and when they told the Maitre’ d (= Head Waiter guy - I can’t spell that) …when they told him I was a vegetarian: he didn’t look at all worried (that always!! happens…), and he didn’t suggest they bring me a nice salad with beef cubes (…which has also happened).

There was a little creek running through the place, and a jazz quintet (with only 3 members - because I can‘t think of the right word for that just now, …but triplet seems …wrong), and they put fresh orchids in all the girly cocktails - so by the end of the night I had a pocket full of orchids. Hooray!

No one believed/ cared that you can eat orchids.

This nice former Japanese teacher of mine had arranged for me to stay at the home of a friend of her’s, on this occasion, and indeed whenever I went back to visit my old city. Her friend just happens to be the mother of the young girl, of which I am fond, who I met last year, who went to live in Australia, who came back to Japan for a few months, who was sitting beside me this night.

I laid awake in the futon in the spare room that they laid out for me, for a long long time wondering if/ + hoping that girl might stop in to wish me a good evening (in a French Maid’s outfit or something).
Perhaps it was at the cleaners.

On the next night:

I met my friend from England, his wife, and baby at a little restaurant. He and I started getting “warmed up/ drunk” for their party that evening at 5. Everyone else showed up at 8:30. My very previous ex-girlfriend also came. I asked how she’d been getting along and she said she had a wrinkle.

That’s where 2 years goes I suppose; She didn’t offer any other details except to announce loudly that I was getting a bald spot like a dirty old man she knows. I reminded her that I have larger boobs than her (and I don’t have any boobs at all - just to point a fact).

Other than that, and the fact that everyone went home at 11:15, it was a fairly nice party.

On my way back to that girl’s house that I was staying at, I stopped at the bar where I had my leaving Japan party the previous spring. I had bought a little souviner for the owner, who got to talking to me, and some other guy I’d met once before came in with 3 girls… + I didn’t wind up leaving until 5am.

12 hours is a lot of drinking in my opinion, and I never used to like drinking really.

I walked back to the girl’s house that I was staying at. I used the key that they gave me to get in - but they’d put the chain on the door as well; It’s the last thing you need an hour before dawn in the cold…

I thought about just sleeping on the front step, but then I figured that because I’m from New Jersey - I could work the damn thing loose.

I did eventually.

The practice came in very handy the next night, …when they put the chain on the door again…

I went to a party the next night:

That nice old (and when I say old I really mean it as former- much more than aged) Japanese teacher had thrown a Christmas party for me, which was a bit hit, and a great many people attended, but I was busy that day, so she did another one for me on this night. The girl and her mother whom I was staying with came, as did a few Nepali and Korean acquaintances, and my older drinking Canadian friend. They ordered everything that could be made meat/ fishless to be made, so I didn’t have a lot of time left over for drinking.

But after that party ended, ..and the girl and her mother, and most other people went home, my old Japanese roommate, my Canadian friend and I went out drinking. The staff at the bar smiled an awful awful lot!

After my older drinking Canadian friend wept comically for 20 minutes or so, my old Japanese roommate confessed that he’d given them (the staff) the hottest hot sauce in the world, which I’d brought for him from America some months before. We did “Rocks, Paper, Scissors” to see who could choose which of the cheese ball looking things they would eat. I wasn’t certain that they were all vegetarian, so I cheated and peaked, and it is well that I did so, …or I wouldn’t have a nice long funny video of my friend: talking about how strong he is, crying, …and asking for more ice-cream.

The ice-cream does help.

We had another party the next night . My English friend came along, and he drew the short straw but: I felt badly for him, I heard that hot sauce may cure Diabeties, and he paid me 830 yen to eat the hottest hot sauce in the world in his place.

There is a video of me crying and eating ice-cream as well, but I don’t think it is as funny…
It is true about my bald spot though…

We went to karaoke after. That night was the 31st, and we stayed up until 6:30ish. My old roommate tried to get me with a rolling kick one too many times (3 times), so I kicked part of the couch out of the way and he had a good solid fall to the floor. The year is young yet, but that is still the highlight, …thus far.

I stayed with my older drinking Canadian friend, because the girl whom I had been staying with was going to go to Korea with her mother early on the 1st. I was planning to take a train back to Nagano the day before the 1st, to make it in time for my favorite dance club’s closing forever party. I was told that that party went from 8pm to12 noon the next day. I was woken up just after noon by some boisterous drinking Canadians telephoning my friend via his computer/ web cam.

4 of the 6 of us from the night before drove to Nagano that evening. We got lost along the way, and everyone was later shocked at how cold my apartment is.

They have no gourmet vegetarian food at rest stops in Japan, but they have the cutest hello kitties in the gift shops.

I’m not really sure how I spent all the rest of my time off from work. I tried riding my bike to some of those famous sightseeing spots near my town, but I just wound up on an isolated road at the top of some far off mountain, at dusk, before I had to turn back. I mostly finished a painting I had all but given up on a little less than a year before: “the Other side” - coming soon! - though maybe not quite so so soon.

I cooked a nice soup.

I was invited to a party, than dis-invited mere minutes after accepting.

I was invited snowboarding (by the same girl), and heard no details whatsoever regarding the plans, so I excused myself from that excursion, and went with my newer drinking Canadian friend and his friends instead.

My neck and back still hurt.

My feet feel better.

For a time I thought I might turn into one of those human snowballs that keeps rolling down hill - getting bigger and bigger (like in those old cartoons).

The girl, whom I am fond of, whose home I stayed at while I was visiting my old city,

who I have not seen in a French Maid’s outfit,

whose mother kept “absent mindedly?“ putting the chain on the door,….

She wrote to say that Korea was nice, and that she intends to take me up on my offer of a place to stay/ to go snowboarding. This coming weekend. That’s something nice anyway.

I finally asked my landlord to have someone come and look at my sink. (It leaks and leaks persistently, but only when I am trying to sleep (It also leaked all the time I was in my old city.).) The plumber that came couldn’t make it leak (I was not trying to sleep at the time.). He suggested I put a sponge under the faucet when I get tired/ go on vacation.

Christmas in Japan is improving, but still very very weak.
Last year I went to a teeny tiny all vegetarian restaurant in Tokyo with a friend that doesn`t like Christmas, and another friend who doesn`t approve of vegetarian food. Afterwards we stopped at another place where we met my old roommate and his old girlfriend, and the 3 of them ordered/ ate a plate of whale. I had my eyes closed for about an hour.
This year I went to work, …and snuck out about 40 minutes early.
Then I went to City Hall to pay for my health insurance. In the evening there was a party with 10/15 other non-Japanese people, who also had to work that day. Everyone was slightly sullen, and continuously waiting for the 2 (poor) turkies they`d procured to be finished. I only brought 1 block of tofu, which was excellent, but there was only my 1 block of tofu, and several desserts for me to eat. It was of course better than sitting at home alone; My home is very cold.

On Christmas Eve there was a very good party. The only thing wrong with the party, was that I had to leave the Christmas Eve party early – to get up early to go to work on Christmas. I won at “Twister” again, …as I always do!

On Christmas Eve – Eve, I had a party at my house, and people seemed to have a good time at it. My Friend from Cornwall came to Japan to visit his wife`s family for Christmas + New Years. He came to see me that afternoon, + we started drinking later in the afternoon. I also invited the travel agent that always walks through my school, her friend from their travel company, and the 3 drinking friends of my Newer drinking Canadian friend. I invited a lot of other people as well, but those were the ones that came. They were loads of fun!

The day before that, I had a date with a girl who canceled at the last minute, because she`d gotten a boyfriend. I went to that little bar near my house to drink with the loud/ but congenial old lady that waits for me there. (It`s better than sitting at home alone, …and cold). The nice guy that works there gave me a little dish of noodles for free. They were meatless, but I don`t think they were entirely vegetarian `cause I started to feel sick when I got home, I was sicker on Christmas, and I am still sick now.

I am supposed to go back to my old city tomorrow to see my Cornish friend/ his wife/ and baby. – so it might perhaps be better to NOT be sick. I`m supposed to go to a party of one kind or another for the next 5 nights.

I`ll be staying at the home of a young pretty pharmacist, whose mother didn`t mind the company, while this girl was away in Australia for a year (even though the company was little “me”) – so perhaps it`s better that I am sick, …but probably not.

This girl I met last year, just before New Years day, about a week before she moved to Australia. She came back to Japan 2/ 3 days ago. I don`t know if she knows that I`m invited to come sleep on their floor for a few days. I`m still not sure what to do with myself when my Cornish friend and his family go back, …and the girl that went to Australia goes on to Korea but, I think it will entail some amount of shivering, and probably some dancing.

My father sent me some article about these scientists that had a funny idea about diabetes, …and cured it, (…in mice). They noticed that diabetics happen to have more nerve endings in their pancreases, so for “the scientific fun of it”, they took those diabetic mice and injected them with Capsicum (pepper extract). Those mice woke up the next day – not diabetic – and remained “not diabetic” for past several months. They intend to perform further studies.

Encouraged by this news I have decided to drink a bottle of hot sauce every night, until I run out of hot sauce (probably 2 nights later).

I`ll take this new wonder medicine: “Hot sauce” and rub it in the eyes of the thankful (once) blind. I`ll sprinkle it on burns, cuts, and bruises. I`ll use “Hot sauce” to cure the uncomfortable numb mouth, sweat, and dizziness caused by injesting too much hot sauce.
Will hot sauce heat my house?

One of the old ladies that sells bread at the bottom of the stairs under my apartment tells me that I was on T.V..
I wondered why they had those big ass cameras pointed at me, but I figured it was for some kind of video.
Those people, who had the 7 lengthy meetings as to how the party ought to be organized, …and what sized paper plates to distribute - they’re picky about details.
I imagined they would continue having meetings for all the months following the party, …looking for ways to improve next year’s deal, …and I‘m probably not wrong about that, but it turns out they showed it all on T.V..
I asked what channel it was on, which was silly of me, seeing that my T.V. doesn’t work.

This is the end of the year, …you may be aware of this, - or living in the future…,
regardless,
this is the season where there are a great many “End of the Year Parties”. It’s nice when I am invited.
I typically accept invitations when I am able to. Restaurants in Japan typically have very very little for a genuine vegetarian, such as myself. I appreciate the merriment, but I AM growing slightly weary of having nothing but French fries and salad for dinner every night.

I, of course, have continued to propose amusing excursions to a small selection of the pretty girls I know hereabouts and they, ….give me the weakest excuses!! Or slightly more frequently - never respond.
That girl that never met me to go dancing (twice!), she wrote - out of the hazy blue.
She suggested I have all my friends meet her and all of her friends at some restaurant in her town. I wrote back to remind her that I don’t have any friends, which is not true, but if I were to have them come with me way the hell out of the way to meet a bunch of girls that will never show up, …I would have fewer friends.

This girl that has no interest in me, nor I in her, - except that I find someone with no interest in me, well …
“fascinating” …

She wanted me to go to some dance recital of hers. She’s good to me, so I felt in no way eager, but rather obliged to go. After I said I would go, she tried to get me to take more than one ticket. It seemed like she had too many tickets, but I didn’t spend an awful lot of time reading her Japanese mail all too carefully. I thought I might as well ask that girl that stood me up twice…
I asked that girl that stood me up twice.

She gladly accepted, and stood me up a 3rd time!
I knew she would,
…but you know how doing all those push-ups is supposed to make you stronger.

I had already arranged to meet/ go dancing with the girl “that at least shows up, though rarely ever writes back“, - after the recital, but when I called after the recital, which she rightly had no interest in, she was asleep, and planning to continue to sleep.

I was going to just go dancing on my own after that, but I hadn’t had lunch, it was 9pm, and there were no vegetarian friendly establishments anywhere at all during the hour I walked around the city looking.
Truth be told, there was one, but it closes at 9:30, and they weren’t as pleased as I - that I managed to get there 2 minutes before they closed.

When I got home later - ashamed at my existence, I just cooked myself dinner. Some lady I met at that international party, where they filmed me singing on stage, wrote to say that she read that article I wrote for the newspaper about how I couldn’t get to the twin waterfalls. I wrote back to tell her that I bought a bottle of wine to cook with, but that I couldn’t open it until the corkscrew store opened up the next day. She must not have wanted to come by with a corkscrew and help me, though I assured her that the Cous Cous was entirely vegetarian.
Some people are just really weird!

My friend who works at the dance place that I didn’t go to that night, says it was full of beautiful girls that night. There was an old Crow saying that: rain falls equally on everyone’s head/ Every life has its challenges/ hardships,
…but I do maintain that I am a special case.
But I have met 2 other people this past week that have been hit by cars.
(Japanese drivers are worse than any New York Taxi!)
I met a kid with no fingers on one hand, a kid that must have some disorder, because he looks like an old man, and a pubescent Brazilian girl. - Mind you there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with being a pubescent Brazilian girl, but to be one in an Elementary school full of entirely flat-chested Japanese girls, that can speak Japanese - would certainly be difficult.
Perhaps I ought not complain that I seem to be going blind.
Recently, when I go from someplace cool/cold to anyplace warmer …I can’t see/ can’t see well for a half hour or so. Everyday when I go into school, all the other teachers sit at their desks like blurry cloud shapes.
Also, more and more often, when my blood sugar drops down, things and people disappear from my field of vision.
The 1st time I met that girl that has since stood me up 3 times, I had one of my school’s head English teacher take me to the table with the sugar packets. I could hear her laughing when it was explained that I was diabetic, but I could hardly see her for those first few minutes.
Mind you I never see her now either…

Last night, after the Nagano branch of the larger company’s: End of the Year Party, I went to the dance club where my friend works - to see if any of those beautiful girls from the previous week had returned, and they must have, but I figured I had all night to talk to any of them, and they all left early. Later I was introduced to a pair of good dancers, whom I may or may not find myself adding to the pool of poor excuses. One of them looks very much like a girl I had a dream about not so long ago.
I’ve been meaning to re-read my copy of “Psychic Development for the Beginner“, but it seems to be working on a limited basis on its own anyhow.
At some of these parties that I have been to recently, I have met some people, whom I have given this website’s address to. On the chance that any of them are, and are able to have read and understood this much (in my decidedly non-basic English), I would advise them to not read any of my previous Journal entries because:
- It’s a lot of hard work reading things. - Salutations!!
- If they were to find out about: my now reoccurring dreams of naked fat girls - I would be embarrassed!

I`m not too sure about what sorts of people read these. I`ve said that before, and I am saying it now, again. Chances are, if you`re using the internet you can handle the following, but you may want to take this as your warning:

This is “the Truth” after all….

You see, I had a dream that I was having sex with a fat girl, and she was making fun of me all the while. I remember thinking that it might be fun to flip her over and maybe smack her big soft abusive butt once or twice, but I didn`t seem to think it would work. She didn`t like the way I talk or something… I might have told her that she could stand to be a lot friendlier/ and a lot fitter, but you never think of things like that when you`re dreaming; I thought of it when I woke up though, and was ever so slightly perturbed.
I tried to go back to sleep to see if she had a better looking friend or sister roaming around in my head, but I was too awake at that point. - Peculiar.

So I lay in bed mourning the arrival of another morning – as is my custom, and eventually got up to go out painting again.
The day before was beautiful – a great day to go out painting, but I had to help set up for the City`s Annual International Party then. I especially had to be there, because I was scheduled to stand on stage alone and sing.
That I`ve done several times before, and the results are typically less than entirely good.
I`ve either gotten better in the last few years, or everyone in Japan is very polite, perhaps it is both. I actually had a very nice time there. I met a lot of good looking young ladies that I will certainly never hear from again. Oh, I`ve been waiting!
This is what I wrote to my Manager this morning:
“Thank-You! At this school, I can check my e-mail and print things - neither with any sort of hassle. Can`t say I`m too pleased about working on Christmas - I guess that means I`ll be stuck in the area - not that there was anything particularly special going on in Saitama on the 25th. No classes at all today, so I`m grading papers/ updating my webpage/ wondering why none of the semi-sexy ladies from the international party haven`t written to ask if they can come by for an erotic massage.
The lady that works in my building - whom I have to make water payments to, said to ask my “Oyasan” if I have an external water pipe heater installed or not. I thought she was the “Oyasan”. “Name withheld” said she would come by to look sometime but: I haven`t heard from her since our drunken Jenga game after the international party, and I doubt she knows anything about external water pipe heaters besides. She`s still more than welcome to come, as I`ve decided to open a “LADIES ONLY Erotic Massage Parlor” - and I may need some practice. - I may need the practice, but I`d absolutely make that up for that with Enthusiasim - I can assure you.”

This is what I wrote to my sister last month:
“ I don`t really want anything. Maybe some nice Oatmeal. If I`d have known 10 years ago that I was looking forwards to getting oatmeal for Christmas I would have cried.”.

This is what I wrote to myself last month:
“Don`t forget to write back to Mr. Fuji”

….but it`s not like I have to take orders from myself is it?!! (I forgot + just remembered today)

This is what I wrote to a friend of mine 3 years ago:
“I meant to write - to you, and other people, but I always forget whenever I’m actually near a computer. How was Christmas/ New-Years?
I came back to the US for about 2 weeks. My girlfriend bought a ticket to New York, so I had to go too, then after I got the extra day and a half off of work, paid for the ticket, and told everyone I was coming back, she canceled (’cause she needed the money to move out of her house? - no details available, I think she just changed her mind. I’m gonna look for a new girlfriend, but I always introduce all the girls I know to all the other girls I know, and they all talk to each other – collude to not go out with me.) I figure my grandparents are getting old and I should try to see them at least once a year anyway”.

I got rid of that old one about a half a year after writing that, but I still haven`t gotten a new girlfriend…
My Grandmother died last month, …some changes are easier to rely on – it would seem.

Last week I had a date with this girl that I had a date with maybe a month and a half before that. I had a great time both times, but she never writes back, except on the rare occasion to say that she`s too busy.
I still like her better than that girl that used to ask me to go out dancing with her and never showed; And I like her far far better than the fat girl that haunts my sleep.

I asked this other girl I didn`t/ don`t really like, if she`d like to come by for dinner one night, and she said okay, and later asked if she could bring her 3 friends along. I figured I may as well throw a party if that was what was going to happen anyway, so I invited the girl I had had the one date with and hadn`t heard back from in over a month. She wrote back to say that she was too busy then though.
The girl I don`t really like brought along some other girl, who I did like better, but didn`t have the chance to speak to then or ever afterwards.

It feels like I`m damn Rodney Dangerfield – if you remember him.

I had a dream that small groups of Aliens, Angels, and Spirit Demons were watching me to see how I would react when they revealed that despite all my efforts, I`ve been doing something confoundedly wrong for the past few years. What else can you do but change and hope it`s not a trick of some sort.

I met an angel kind of a thing once, but it just wanted me to stop what I was doing and go back inside of my body.
You never think to ask Angel seeming kinds of things about Rodney Dangerfield or any of that when you find yourself suddenly loose/ in spirit form.

the Fall

posted November 6, 2006

Do you ever look back on your past and wonder who you were then? What you must have been thinking/ Why you did the things you did….For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I am wearing such a gay shirt!

These are a few of the things which I can remember:

The monkey that taught me the true meaning of Christmas…

Dying - that last time,

Swinging a wet tea bag around my head and yelling: “I’m a Cowboy!!”

Swearing revenge - though the reason/ circumstances elude me,

Almost all of my address - probably all of my phone number,

How to make really nice Tofu burgers!

Dropping my lunch on the floor of the school. It filled in some of the cracks in the old wooden tiles. I didn’t eat very much that day - but because I’m diabetic I always have to have emergency food around.

I remember that a bird pooped on me on my way to school, and a bat flew smack into my chest on my way home from school,

I woke up at 4 in the morning because my sink began leaking – spontaneously - more than just a little. I was tired and at least 2 other feelings, so I checked my blood sugar, and sure enough it was too low to go back to sleep safely.

The one time that I died was when I couldn’t wake up because my blood sugar was too low…

I had another feeling, like there was something important about that moment just then. They told me later that day that my grandmother had just died, but I‘d be lying if I said I thought that that was what the feeling just then was. While I was awake then, I dreamt that an older lady teacher at one of my schools was going to try to make me drink something that would be bad for me. I ate something and went back to sleep.

I remember most of the first party. It was a PTA/ Board of Ed/ Mayor of the City/ various grandparents/ and all the teachers first party. The teacher that I dreamt was going to try and make me drink something that would be bad for me, was sitting right across from me, ….but SHE never did – not that I can recall. The teacher that single handedly poured me 3 bottles of sake’ (I was honor bound to drink) at the last school party, however, did the same thing again. He came running over to my seat 10 minutes into the party, and reminded me that it was an all you can drink deal, and that I had better drink as much as I could. We finished a bottle in 10 minutes. There was no food I could eat, so a small plate of vegetable sushi was brought out for me about 45 minutes later. I saw a salad about 30/ 40 minutes after that, but I don`t think I ever got the chance to eat any of it. All the while my new best friend kept swinging by with his 3 bottles, and running off after several shots, saying someone would die if this was kept up. Various Grandmothers, PTA members, teachers, and the head of the Board of Ed obliged me to drink a small drink with them. Wow!

I imagine this was kept up well into the second party, but I only have a few hazy ideas as to what went on then. Some friendly guy suggested I sing something, and I remember the first few words being okay, but then it seemed to get really fast, and I have no idea as to whether I finished the song/ got halfway through the song/ or sang lots of other songs… I remember someone telling me it was time to go home, but I don’t remember when, or how I got there, or where I got home from, or why I woke up all naked with the exception of my socks.

Everyone is trying to pickle my liver so they can eat it.

I remember going to this other school to get my picture taken with everyone, and the principle there said he heard from someone that I went to a party at my other school, and that I was all crazy there. I asked him if he knew that one teacher that loves pouring drinks, but he didn’t. I wanted to point out that I am, anyhow, always crazy, but I didn’t.

Case in Point: There was this one time, where I swung a wet tea bag around my head and yelled: “I’m a Cowboy!!”

I remember getting stuck in another meeting:
at all the other schools I’ve worked at - whenever they have a meeting they let me out of it/ simply never tell me about it. Nowadays I have to go to them. It’s nice that they try to include me - for five minutes or so …then I get bored.

I remember asking this one boring girl what she likes to do for fun, and that I can never remember how she answers because it’s too boring.

I remember that time (2 days ago) when I was abducted by Chinese hookers!

I remember saying that this one teacher at this one school had really good energy. I had to go back there for the school photo, and I was reminded that I am right about that.

There is another teacher at another school, who I tried not to be drawn to. She’s not as pretty, and does things differently - but something I am not aware of - is working for her.

I was doing - what I like to call “my homework” - and realized all of a sudden (the way realizations are), that the reason the girls that I do persue never want to come to: “the party in my pants”, is at least in part related to the fact that I would never do “my homework” if I had a strong/ and more physical alternative.

I remember one pile of apples in the store being much happier than the pile of apples next to them, and the things in the formaldehyde display case feeling upset, and Kaiun laughing because I wouldn’t let him kill the cockroach that ran across my floor - …years ago.

Those Chinese hookers will really screw with you if you’re not careful!

There’s a famous waterfall in this city. The reason it is famous, I think, is that it is/ they are actually 2 waterfalls/ twin waterfalls. I’m told that it’s taller than Niagra, which in and of itself is probably not so impressive (but I can’t validate that because I never did actually get there). The photos I’ve seen are good. Everybody tells me how nice it is. Somebody told me there is a bus that goes there. Nobody was around to read the bus schedule for me, but the first 2 or 3 characters on the one bus were the same 2 or 3 characters in the name of the waterfall. I woke up not as early as I planned to try to go there, but trying was the extent of it. I asked the bus driver if the bus went to the falls and he let me off at the next stop. He gave me the time for the bus that did go to the falls, and I waited around for that, but it turns out that he gave me the wrong time.

Then I asked some other people, and it turns out that there is no bus that goes there at all.

I tried riding my bike to the falls the week before, but the signs there are all in Japanese, and I didn`t remember the name/ recognize any of the distinguishing characters on the sign. Oddly enough, the signs on the way back to the city center were bilinguial. I had to go up hill in the rain for an hour and a half to find that out.

I remember giving that other teacher at that other school my e-mail address, and telling someone else in the meeting that I had nothing to do that Friday night, and her hearing it/ her asking me later if I wanted to come out drinking with her and her friend. I hoped her friend would be really pretty- and she was okay. I asked them about the waterfall, and suggested we 3 go there with more girls.

They tried to get me as drunk as them, but I`d been riding my bike up hill in the rain for an hour and a half earlier in the evening, and I metabolized all my girly drinks too quickly (I like the colors).

Those Chinese hookers probably expected me to stay drunker longer than I did do too.

I tried riding my bike to the falls again, after missing the bus that I had the wrong time for, but the hill just got steeper and steeper, and a back pack full of paint/ canvas is heavy. I rode up hill for about an hour and gave up. I gave up in front of a quaint old house with a really nice flower garden, so I painted a picture of that, then went into Nagano to meet that same other teacher from that other school that asked me to come out drinking with her and some of her other pretty friends that previous weekend as well.

The train to Nagano takes 25 minutes. I rode my bike there in 35. I was delayed by a number of cars pulling onto/ blocking the sidewalk. This one old lady saw me coming – saw that she wasn`t going to be able to pull into traffic yet, and still put her car in every inch of room. Typically the idiots that do this will back up for you when they see that they aren`t going anywhere, but not that lady. I waited, and she didn`t move (forwards or backwards). I knocked on her windshield and she looked at me, then ignored me. I walked my bike onto the side of the highway in front of her car and waited for the oncoming traffic to clear up, …………..then I kept waiting. She honked and yelled, and turned bright red. She held her horn down and I gave her the finger very calmly. I had somewhere else to be though, so I wasn`t able to detain her progress even as long as she had mine.

I have to teach a bi-weekly class there, as a part of my contract. The first time I went there they didn`t have too much to say about what/ how I should teach – Instead, they asked me if I`d go to their international party in November. They said I didn`t have to, but they would like me to, and I said I would. They gave me a sheet of paper then with all the relevant information. Then they faxed that same sheet of paper to me a few weeks later. My friend who is also my manager, who is from Canada, and likes drinking a lot called me one night to ask if I knew about the party they were planning at my community center in November. I said I did, that they had: told me, given me a sheet of paper with all the information on it, faxed me the same piece of paper with all the same information on it, AND that they had called a teacher at my school, to ask them to read the fax to me! That`s when he told me that I had to go to a meeting there (at the community center). I asked him what it was about, and he said the party they were having at the community center in November – they just wanted to give me some information about it.

At the meeting at the community center they read that same sheet of paper – again! They argued for an hour about how much they should charge elementary school students to go. When they finished that they argued about how much to charge the “international contingent” of the international party. Only 2 of us went to the meeting; The poor German girl said she had been tricked into attending, I was forced. She said that she was supposed to be one her way back home at 7pm, and she said that after 9pm. Some old man kept taking the microphone – spiting and yelling into it in his excitement; It hurt my ears, and wasted nearly 3 hours of my life, but I`m better off than the German girl who was brought there 2 hours early. I was also allowed to leave a little after she did. We were both amazed that they would feel the need to call a committee to discuss where the tables should be placed, and at what temperature the tea should be served. Some people will never know the joys of running with scissors. If you can follow me? Indeed I doubt I would ever have known as much about Chinese hookers if all of the people I was with at the time hadn’t kept disappearing for hand-j%bs…

They just drag you in from the street. …In a remarkably similar fashion, I was once talked into taking some responsibility for an empoverished little kid in the Philippines. Then when checking to see if everything was settled in that regard, I came across an ad with a picture of a poor empoverished little Indian kid. It was the 4th time that I saw that same ad that I reasoned: As non-empoverished as I am, I may as well help make some one else’s childhood easier to bear.

This was nice: After I met this other teacher`s other friends, who were 5 girls to us 3 boys. I got most of them to come dancing. The dance place was just upstairs from the 2nd bar we stopped at. I`ve been trying to get a good looking girl to come dancing with me for a good long time, so I was very pleased to be “the filling” in a drunken girl sandwich. That other girl teacher would dance with me for about a minute then run away, or push one of her girl friends into her place, so… I think she may have the same feeling about it all as I seem to: A charged ambivalence. At some point between 2 and 2:30 she disappeared entirely, which I thought pretty peculiar, but she was pretty drunk then too. All the rest of her friends went home in a group a little before 3. I stayed and stuck it out until 3:30, when I remembered that I still had to ride my bike a long way home. On the way back to my city I got a message from her saying something I couldn’t read, but it mentioned a hospital. When I got home I looked that part I didn’t understand up, and it seems she somehow dislocated a shoulder while dancing, so she had to go off and have it put back in it’s socket.

I remember going to meet a girl to go dancing two months ago, and her never showing up.

I also remember going to meet that same girl to go dancing last month and her not showing up that time either. All in all I’m much better off with this one, though it’s something neither of us seem to want most of the rest of the time. - That’s why I like it; It’s Cheaper than those Chinese hookers too I tell you!

Something and its Opposite

posted October 15, 2006

They have several classes for the “special kids” here.

I was a special kid – up until I got too old to be called anything other than a weird old sack of man – but not as special as some.

My old classes usually consisted of someone telling me to listen to a recording of someone talking. “Try to pay attention to the person speaking, not the background noise” they`d say, and I`d say: “Oh!! – Sorry!? What?!”.
There`s this one kid here that has the same problem as me – though likely far worse because he has his own teacher to follow him around all the time, pull him off of things, and find him when he decides to initiate a game of hide and seek. I like that kid.

Anyway – the one class here cooks a lot. The other day they were selling bits of boiled pumpkin with grape Jello. Something that specially unique you just have to try – after verifying that the Jello is free of animal bones, of course.
It tastes like it sounds.

There`s a nice old man here who trips over a wastebasket every day. I would say it`s like that old old black and white t.v. show - where the father trips over that same piece of furniture every night, except that there are many wastebaskets here, and he usually trips over 2 or 3 of them.

His misfortune amuses me – slightly. This is for you:

There were all different kinds of clouds out when the weekend came. I waited around a bit and watched them, and eventually convinced myself that it wouldn`t rain on me if I went outside for a few hours. I hurried all the same
Verily – as I was leaving, it drizzled, and I thought of going back in, but then it stopped. So I started riding my bike up a mountain towards this nice temple I`d found when it rained on me the weekend before. The weather was nice enough for the 1st hour and I had a really good start to the picture I was painting. Then it rained again. Water and oil pant don`t mix well – I`ve tried painting through a storm before. The last time the backing I was using got warped from the water. This time I brought an umbrella. It`s hard to hold a small umbrella over yourself and a canvas - whilst holding a palette and operating a paintbrush, so I set the palette down. The picture, I thought, was looking an awful lot like something Edward Munch would have painted, but you`ll have to take my word for it.
I bent down to get a little more blue out of my bag, and a gust of wind blew my picture down; It fell right on top of my pallete. The palette was/ is smaller than the picture, so all the parts that didn`t get smeared in gobs of paint – including the blue I just squeezed out,….. all the rest of the painting had pine needles and gravel stuck to it.
Neither the wind nor rain showed any signs of stopping, I was wet and altogether dis-pleased with the state of things, so I headed back. On the way back the wind blew my poor disfigured painting free of the clip on my easel, and the car behind me very nearly ran over it.
I got home, and as it turns out, I had knocked a tube of green off of the shelf in the course of my hurrying out. I sealed it up, and cleaned up the mess, but there`s still a big green splatter on my floor. The tube sprung a leak as well – I know because when I put it back up on the shelf, it leaked down, and dripped on my nice pink suit.
I have a pink suit because my grandfather – who is partially colorblind, perhaps never understood what pink really is. He gave it to me.

Everybody always liked meeting my grandfather; He dressed like a dish of candy.

I wore a pink suit because it makes people happy to see a man in pink, and because my old company said that the people who wore suits to work were the ones who could expect to receive raises/ promotions. – the lying Ba%$ards!

I stopped wearing my pink suit when that joke wore off, and I stopped working at that company when they didn`t give me a raise.

(I`d like to stop wearing pants, but the winter is coming, and I worry about the consequences.)

I was having a fairly sucky day at that point, but I was expecting a complete turn around; I had a date in the evening.

This was the girl that didn`t meet me, that one time that that girl that I met said that she would meet me that one night - to go dancing.

In the intermittent period, she apologized for not showing up that time and suggested we meet up on this night instead,

….but she didn`t come this time either.

Apparently she went to the place with some friends of hers, but they didn`t have enough to pay the cover charge. My best friend hereabouts works there, - was in fact working the door there a good part of the evening: He got me in for free, I had money and a discount coupon in my pocket for her, and I got 6 or 7 of my 9 or 10 drinks for free while waiting for her to show. The last train back to my town was gone before she wrote to explain that she was back safely at home, not going to come this time either, …but she did suggest that we arrange to get together another time – to go dancing.

That was pretty funny of her.

My friend had a floor and some blankets for me to use, …after we got back from the place – which didn`t close until 5am. I don`t work there, but I swept the floor.

I`m a good sweeper, …and an adequate mopper.

I woke up alarmingly early + tried to sleep, but it just wasn`t taking. I got up, looked out the window, saw that it was a nice day out and started back to my small city. It would be a shame to waste a day as nice; It`ll be getting really cold here at some point, so I`d like to paint outside as much as I`m able before then. On my way to the station, however, I noticed the conglomeration of thick black - and imposing clouds hovering over the borders of my city.

I washed the stink of too many second hand cigarettes off of me and asked this other girl if she had any free time/ wanted to go out. This is the one that came to my 1st welcome party – that I didn`t have much opportunity to speak to. She gave me her address at the after sports day school party, where she used to work, where everyone poured drinks for me that I was obliged to drink and, … I can`t remember well, but don`t think I got to talk to her too much then either.

Anyway I waited around all of that day to see if it would rain or not, and finally went out and painted 2 pictures from the roof of my building`s parking garage in that last stretch of time before dark (”A Chill and a Mountain”, and “the Night - Suzaka”).
I think they`re good – if a little dark.

The next day was really nice!! I`d say it was ideal, but I didn`t wrestle any sexy girls in (vegetarian) Jello. The weather was nice. I fixed up that picture that had the gravel and pine needles stuck in it. I had a date with that other girl…

This was a long/ 3 day weekend, and she had to work through all of it, but still she suggested we meet up that night. It turns out that she only had a few hours off from work late in the evening – on a national holiday, and she brought an equally fazed co-worker along with her, but it was nice enough. I like it when they show up!

I suggested Indian food, because it`s generally safe for vegetarians, and it`s kind of ackward going some where with someone you hardly know and explaining to them why you aren`t eating anything.

They kept me pretty busy that week. I had to help another teacher practice a demonstration lesson she had to do, + I was at school until 8pm on Tuesday night, 7pm on Monday and Wednesday. I`m supposed to be at home/ goofing off come 4:30; I think I am turning Japanese. They had a little follow up meeting for an hour or 2 the one day that they wanted me to participate in. Typically I`m excluded from this sort of occurrence – with no resentment on my part, I can assure you! I – and perhaps everyone, were very surprised that I was able to understand everything – well not quite everything.

My older drinking Canadian friend was telling us one night (as we were drinking), how it hates it when people in the service industry always speak to him with honorific tenses; “Stop being polite!” he says, “I can`t understand you when you`re polite!”, and they chuckle… The girl I had the date with said we`d work out our plans for the next weekend after they were done with the big deal thing she was sorting out for that Friday. After the first meeting, I was made to go to that all day meeting she`d helped organize that day. It was – as I said ALLLLL day, + conducted almost exclusively in Japanese. I couldn`t tell you what anyone was saying at any point, or why they needed me – “the human paper weight” to be there, but during the one short break in the proceedings I asked her if she had anything going on that weekend,

…and she did,

…but not with me.

My newer drinking Canadian friend in Nagano city invited me along with him to his friend`s cabin deeper up in the mountains. It was something to do.

Then I painted 3 more pictures through the remainder of Saturday + Sunday`s daylight hours (”Fuganji Garden”, “Fuganji Falls”, + I forget just now).

- These are all really good pictures!

– But I`d still prefer to have a girlfriend – or someone sexy to wrestle in (all vegetarian) Jello with.
(And I`ve been saying that for years!)