the Fall

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!