Party Hardy 2

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.