On nice days I go to the beach, and those jelly fish!!!! You never even see them, but they Sting!

There have been 3, …maybe 4 nice days in the last month. The whole rest of the time it rained. We’ve had lots of promising looking blue patches in the sky but the grey keeps on beating them out.

Half the time I drive around with my backpack full of paint and brushes - hoping there’ll be a good sunny hour or two.

Maybe 30 minutes at 大鳥峡 and the blue patch I was pulling for gave up. It drizzled as I packed up my paints, and poured as I hiked back to my car.

30 minutes at Sakurajima - and the top of the mountain got swallowed by a cloud, which waited a few more minutes before raining, stopping, and raining and stopping again. I’ll assume that some of the people who stopped there in the rain to watch me were art enthusiasts, but some of them probably just wondered what the mountain they’d traveled to see - looked like.

One day it poured and it shined 6 times in rapid succession.

It was only rainy then sunny 3 times so far today; Raining now.

Rain and paint just don’t mix well.

Paint outside on cloudy days and you wind up with dismal dark paintings…, so I haven’t been as productive as when I 1st arrived here.

Mind you, 2 paintings a day, 4 days a week is difficult to maintain - even if the weather is nice.

I make it a point to go down to the beach any day that I have off. The water there is so warm, it has to be at least partly heated by the volcano (Mt. Sakurajima) up the road. It is of course cooler in the rainier times. And you’ll probably get stung once an hour. (Jellyfish)

When I lived in Saitama, my girlfriend would visit me most every day.

My new best friend, is a giant driftwood log. Every time I go to the beach I go find my log, roll it down into the water, then swim around it/ hang off it like an otter. Ask it how it’s been, tell it about the 1 yen coin I found, …It’s a good log.

2 sunny days this weekend, so I painted 4 pictures on the beach - and got stung 2 times.

Jelly fish!!

I used to bring my goggles to the beach, but there’re no fish and no plants to see. Long ago I was throwing the jelly fish I found washed up on the beach - back into the sea. No I don’t see them on the shore anymore. Maybe they’ve learned?

I don’t know if I would repeat my kindness to them if I saw any more washed up on the shore. I hate those damn jelly fish.

Anyway, I like the beach.

Despite the Damn Jellyfish!

Something/ not painting - that I have accomplished lately:

I cleaned my house.

Also, I moved into a newer nicer, much much much cleaner house. (That is the one I cleaned.)

New house video:

[youtube=http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=K3W__aF-_8A]

For some reason there was no mailbox at this house. All the other houses have little metal boxes nailed to the sides of them - mine just has a number of nail sized holes. I thought it odd that somebody would take a mailbox with them when they move, but then I went to a hardware store + saw how much they were charging for those little metal boxes.

When I went to the beach later that day I found a large plastic jug + thought I might be able to make it into something like a mailbox.

I did that “successfully”, though it nearly cost me the tip of my pointer finger. I only have a folding/ swiss army knife - which folded itself about a fifth of the way through my finger and nail when I was trying to cut through the plastic.

I’d like to say I learned from that mistake. I couldn’t use that one finger for a few days./ I gave it up for 2 weeks, then got 2 more bloody gashes, before I finished the job.

I’m happy with it/ and mostly healed now, …although I never get any mail.

My job here, I’m not wildly pleased with.

The 2 and 3 year olds just sit there with their hands in their mouths/ their friends mouth/ their drool spilling out of their mouths. The older kids have learned how to punch, and they often seem to want to practice on me. This one little bastard took a running swing between my legs (which is just the right height for a little kid’s arms). That hurt for hours, but I can only twist their little arms for a few seconds.

“It’s not English class unless somebody cries”.

Some of them think I’m gym equipment, some of them think I’m a petting zoo, some of them think I’m an Un-dress up doll, some of them just sit there and drool.

We played a game today where I had to chase some kids. I lunged at a little fat kid, and my pants ripped, and they all laughed at me. I missed him too. He was slow, but slippery.

The place where I once had to spend 20 minutes trying to get 2 mentally handicapped children off of me, so I could try to quiet down their 50 otherwise unsupervised classmates,…

It had improved significantly.

Hardly anyone ever tried to take my shirt off of me anymore, and they hadn’t given each other any serious injuries in a month. One time (within that 2 month period), the school’s principle looked in, and everyone behaved until she had gone (almost a whole minute). She canceled my company’s contract a few weeks later saying: “the kids aren’t having fun”. I was astounded! Those damn kids had soooooo much fun. I was only ever able to keep them from breaking bones/ shedding blood. I could understand if she’d said they weren’t learning anything. I could hardly hear myself over the din a lot of the time I was there (…they

This ticked my boss off.

I like money, you like money, he’s really really concerned with getting and keeping as much money as possible. He’s also pretty stressed out. I was hired to replace 2 people, and I think he had employed even more before I came.

Everything is, of course, my fault though.

The day before those people canceled that contract I had been talking with the only other foreign teacher he has. One of the reasons I switched to this company was so I could go back home for Christmas. This other guy too, seems to want to not be stuck having little kids try to stick their fingers up his ass on the most celebrated day of the year.

My Boss said only one of us could go home for Christmas. The other guy here really wants to go, and I value going -more than I value my job certainly, so it’s an easy decision for me - as to what I should do. Fa-La-La-La-LA!

Unfortunate about the timing though really. I don’t know what the deal was with them canceling, but I know why I’m not going to work through Christmas.

This other guy had to go and do my last 2 afternoon classes at the place that canceled. Because he and I are the only teachers, I got sent to do his 2 afternoon classes, plus his 2 night classes. I still had to do my own night class on top of that. Canceled classes means a short term increase in classes.

His anniversary was a week ago, so he asked me to switch one of his later night classes for one of my earlier night classes. It’s a pain for me to have to sit around for an extra hour, but it was his anniversary. The part that irks me, is the student I was supposed to teach called a few minutes before his class to say he forgot he had to come that night. So, the other guy got to leave 2 hours early, I had to stay 2 hours late, AND make up for the extra class the other guy didn’t have to teach the next day.

That was the day my girlfriend flew down from Saitama to see me. I hadn’t seen her in over 2 months, so my boss, who likes money, looked upset that I didn’t want to leave her outside for an extra hour and 10 minutes ,in the perpetually raining weather, in an unfamiliar area, with a heavy suitcase to drag behind her, so he could let somebody else come in and bore me a little later on a Saturday night. I’ll take care of your girlfriend he said. “She doesn’t like creepy old men” I thought, but decided to just stick to: “No Way”, and “You don’t know what she looks like.”

He was starting to get mad at me refusing it, when I suggested, as calmly as always, that he could just have to guy come earlier in the afternoon. Which was no problem for him.

As for the Christmas thing, he has wisely resolved to allow me to take off. As I had said, I would have taken off anyhow. He’s decided that he will let me use my vacation time to go, but all of my classes from now until then will have to be 15 minutes longer each, …so he doesn’t have to refund anybody any money.

That I’m going, is of course, the most important thing, that I’m using up all of my paid vacation time, when I’m being forced to do most of that work beforehand - is less than ideal.

I complain, but then I took a peak at the other guy’s schedule + it’s a lot busier/ he has more to complain about than me.

I took a look at my new monthly schedule too, and found I had one extra class. My boss never wrote where that class is… I asked him that morning, and he said it was there in the office. He moved the time of my next class back 20 minutes - I thought - so I would have just the time I needed to make it there.

I finished my new class + hurried the 30 minutes distance to my usual class - to find my boss there. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

He hadn’t written a location for that class for me, nor had he given any indication that I wouldn’t be going there the same as always, + I assumed it was the same place as always. But it wasn’t.

He was/ is mad because I didn’t read the empty spaces the way he didn’t write them.

The funny part was that I left the stuff I need to teach at the school I wasn’t supposed to go to, while I was cleaning it.

This morning I went in the office, …because I have to go in the office every morning - in case he needs anything. He never actually does need anything, but he gets mad when I don’t go and tell him that I’m going now. He wasn’t there today, but his wife was. His wife asked me where I was supposed to work today + I told her + she got mad.

“Oh no, That’s 20 minutes away” she said.

“It’s 15″ I said.

“Can you really make it there on time?” she said.

“Absolutely” I said.

“Can You really?” she said.

“Yes.” I said.

“You can make it there on time?” she said - again!

“It’s 20 minutes away.” she repeated.

“It’s 15 minutes away, and the clock you’re looking at is 5 minutes fast.” I said …slowly.

“I don’t think you can get there on time.” was what she said next.

+ these are the times that I wish my Japanese was better.

If someone you knew was running late - do you think it would help them, …or, perhaps, make them later - to ask them the same dumbass question over and over and over.

I got there 4 minutes early, and I wanted to call her in the office to ask her where I was and what time it is.

It was nice to have my girlfriend over for a few days anyway.

She thought it smelled awful here too, but she has no idea how bad it can be.

She doesn’t often stay up ’til 12am!

We went to where the 1st Emperor’s grandparents are interred. It started pouring as soon as I parked the car. We went to the waterfall + saw lots of those weird orange cave crabs. We went to the beach and swam out to the shrine on the rocks. We went to the Indian place in town, and both felt sick the next day.

We went to Kagoshima city, bought a few art supplies, souvenirs for her mom and coworkers, then hurried back to the volcano side, to get in my mini car and drive like mad to the airport.

I was pretty mad too. We had to stop and ask directions twice, because there were/ are no airport signs at 2 of the intersections you have to turn at.

I drove for just under 2 hours - which should have been about an hour and 10 minutes. We got to the airport about 10 minutes before her flight. The people at the check in counter told her that she needed to be there 15 minutes before the flight, but they gave her a ticket for the 1st plane the next day, and I bought a map at a gift shop. We found another Indian restaurant and a hotel a few minutes away. I was glad to get to see her a little more, + dropped her off the next morning before my 2 and a half hour drive back to my city before I had to start work.

It rained again while I was getting ready to go out painting.

The next day looked nicer, but I decided I would just go for a swim instead. The Jellyfish stung me 2 times!

Without knowing much of anything about monkeys, I’d have to say that it’s probably monkeys chattering and squealing outside my window now and then
- and every nightfall and dawn.
All I can ever see from my window is bamboo, a lot of it.
Though I’ve tried to spot them at nightfall, it’s too thick and dark to make anything out.
At dawn I’m a lot less interested in catching a glimpse of …probably monkeys, more interested in getting back to sleep.
Damn monkeys! …probably.

Things like that are difficult to foresee, when you figure you’ll figure it all out when you get there.

The guy/ my new boss was waiting at the airport for me when I got there. He said he left his house at 4pm.
I had also left my last apartment in Saitama at 4pm. All the trains to the other train to the train to the airport were delayed. It might’ve been a problem for me, but the guy who took over my last job showed up at his new/ my old apartment early, so I didn’t feel much like sticking around for the extra hour and a half anyway.
My new boss said there was a faster way to my new city, but he didn’t know it, so we went the way that he did know.

It took longer than the flight, and was a bit awkward, being that I didn’t/ don’t ever have a whole lot to say, but I liked it better than the conversation on the train to the train to the airport with some other foreign guy who spotted me with my 4 bags.
It seems that his wife is Japanese, they have 3 kids, no money, and he is reluctantly being forced to buy a house in Tokyo. He teaches English at kid’s birthday parties on weekends for a little extra money. He smelled a little odd + had nothing else of any consequence to say; He said it anyway.
A lonely Nepali guy saw us/ 2 other foreign people speaking in English, so he politely joined in.
They changed to another train together + I hope everything works out for them.

I remembered that you’re not supposed to take shaving razors on an airplane, so I packed mine in a box I’d arranged to have shipped to my new apartment. Then I couldn’t shave for a few days.
I remembered that - to my disadvantage, …but forgot to move my mini Swiss-Army scissors out of my backpack, so I had to open things/ show things to the airport security staff.
I’d filled every bit of space in all my bags + it took a bit of time to get it all back in.
Guess it’s lucky the guy who took over my old job and apartment and his wife showed up early - so that I would leave a little earlier.

I went so far as to pack all my towels, soap, + razor together (so I could find them easily later), …and like I already said, the box didn’t show up for a few days.
I had to borrow hand towels to take a shower. The hand towels were only hand towel sized, but they smelled like the mold of many larger towels.
I got a few sticks of incense at a store - which did not make the towels any cleaner, but they did smell better.
+ having packed all my soap away, I had to buy some more cheap stuff at a store. I’d heard that the scent of geraniums makes insects less interested in biting you. + was lucky enough to find some geranium scented soap, which somehow makes my hands itch
- though, in its favor, I will attest to the fact that my hands have no insect bites on them.

I sent most of my clothes in my 2 big suitcases by delivery truck - because the airline dropped its luggage weight limit way way down. I packed everything to save on shipping costs/ airline fines, which led to me having only had 2 shirts/ 2 pairs of socks/ 2 pairs of shorts to last however long it took for the boxes to show up.
It did not take too long for everything to arrive, but I did buy some detergent + try to wash what I had (+ the hand towels I borrowed); That’s funny because the washing machine that came with the apartment will wash things very well, …though it will neither rinse nor spin dry anything you’d have it soak and soap up.

Turning the washing machine on also floods the entire balcony with water. I tried and tried to have it, wash, rinse, and spin my clothes, + eventually wound up with slightly sudsy mud water up to my ankles.

The apartment that came with the washing machine ….Egad!

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=6MktsfzjOTM]
There are thick grey cobwebs all over.
There are a number of doors off their hinges, and leaning against a wall.
The doors leaning against the wall have holes in them, as do all the walls.
There is only 1 futon for me to sleep on.
It is yellowed- like badly kept teeth, and there are no sheets, nor pillowcases for either of the pillows - which are browned - like very badly kept teeth.
There is a small table with a regular sized tire sitting on top of it. Why? - I do not know.
The toilet never stops running/ The fan above the stove never stops running.
- They are both heavily stained with grease
All of the screens on all of the windows each have holes large enough for birds (of varying sizes) to come inside + eat what bugs or mice there may be within.
I found at least 20 cockroach traps under the sink - which made the whole kitchen stink of sticky sweet poison.
That is why I had to go out to buy the incense.
There were several frozen cockroaches in the freezer and about 30 (intact) baby cockroaches stuck to the scrubbing side of a sponge.
+ I already mentioned the damn monkies (probably) that keep waking me up.

I was happy when my bike, my clothes and towels, tea and incense collection showed up here. Previously I had been walking far too far, in what I am told is now just a warm up to the real heat ahead. (4 hours walk the other day - that hurt my old man hips.)
Cycling is a good way to see a new town and to keep cool (the breeze), but certain patches of this city stink of cow or pig poo, and the stink comes and goes where it will. (It is not something I like to have hit me when I am breathing heavy - indeed …breathing at all.)

Rice fields, cow or pig farms (and their odors) aside, there is not the nature I was looking forward to meeting here. I’ve since seen signs and brochures that call this area “the Florida of Japan”.
It is an apt comparison in that it is hot and boring here. All the things you want to see and do are a long drive away, and many of the people drive like idiots.

I drive very carefully now because I’m not perfectly sure my international license is totally valid here, and I just realized today that the car I was given to use has not been inspected for a considerable time.
Also, as I mentioned, there’s nothing to see or do in the immediate area, so need to hurry there.

The lady who told me Kagoshima is cooler than where I used to live - She used to live in the big city on the water across the bay, in sight of the volcano I was so interested to come and see. The city I live in is not on the water, not in sight of that volcano I’d always wanted to see smoking away.

It’s damn hot.
I’ve sweat so much in just the past week, that the metal buckle on my watch has rusted.
- I didn’t notice this until my wrist started bleeding in several places - something of an inconvenience…

My new co-workers are both married Canadians. I was taken to watch the one at work - so I could copy what he did during my first week. He was good enough to take me an additional long way down a long road to a pretty nice beach that nobody is allowed to swim on. (Riptide)

He had a few hours before he had to be back in the office, it was technically my day off and it was, of course, hot, so he decided we should go swimming at a waterfall he knew of. If my bathing suit were not packed up in a box somewhere in transit, I would not have thought to bring it to a one hour pre-school English class.
He, likewise, just had the underpants he was wearing, but he had many more spare pairs than me. He jumped in, swam around a bit while I waded. I wanted to see the top of the falls. There was a rope you could climb up the cliff face, which we did - in our underpants. He said there was more cool stuff up there, which there was, but the only safe way back down was to go down the falls in the water.
He told me about some elaborate safety tests he had done + went down before me.
I didn’t want to walk around all day in wet underpants (with just my 2 day old/ sweat soaked other pair to change into, so I took off the ones I was wearing + tossed them onto a rock at the bottom of the falls + slid down the waterfall on my bare ass.

I like the idea of that.

It was cold in the water, but the sun was strong enough to dry me in a few minutes. I retrieved my underpants, shorts, shirt and got dressed again. Then as we were walking back to his car, I slipped on a slimy rock and fell in the water with all my clothes on.

That waterfall is about an hour away from my house. I can paint a couple pictures of it.
I found a “temple” without any buildings after work this afternoon, which could be good for one, …

maybe 2 more paintings. The beach and the water I was shown were both grey. The bay I drive by on my way to several of the places I’m to be working at have ugly grey concrete walls along the road, and beyond the sand - in the water. They’re also about an hour away/ not really worth visiting.

My new boss, and the one co-worker who is not going back to Canada for good at the end of the month are both quite nice. The guy who is leaving is also very good to me. He showed me an Indian restaurant, just a block away from my new company and a good bakery. I’ve found 2 internet cafes which won’t let my web-camera work.
I’ll have to explore the far off areas, but here is not what I had hoped it would be.
It is better for me than where I’ve just left, but I’ve also left my fiance a long long way behind. She said she would join me here in 6 months time If I thought I’d like to stay here longer than that, …but it doesn’t seem so.

Why they call this “city“: “Deer, something, city” of: “Deer, something, Island” prefecture - when there are no deer whatsoever anywhere near or far from here, is the only thing I have since thought to add to my list of things to: “find out or do” before I move on once again.

The End - this time

I have not written anything for a long time, because - truth be told, I have not done anything altogether interesting (for all that time). Except:

My girlfriend and I went to the Emperor’s Palace. It turns out that they have free bike rentals thereabouts, and I’ve always wanted to try a tandem bike.
My parents told me oft and again - all through my childhood, that they went for a tandem bike ride on their 1st date. There was something about a big hill, and on or the other of them was tired. (It’s not a story/ with a beginning and an end, and meaningful conflict - It’s just something they said over and over again).
I thought it’d be neat to take a 2 person bike for a spin around the Emperor’s place and see if we could see him hanging out his laundry, or peek through a window to see what he was watching on TV, …but they got a big wall all around the place.
Still it was nice and romantic, albeit insanely hot.
That was early August, …I haven’t written anything for a LONG time.

I moved back to the concrete piles that stretch unbroken from Tokyo, and far further off.
I dislike it - for reasons I spent my 1st 3 years here detailing. But living here saves my girlfriend from having to drive 5 hours to and from Nagano every weekend to see me. And I don’t fall asleep on my feet from boredom at my old job anymore.

She thought she’d do me a favor and drive us somewhere we could see some real trees. I had never been to Hakone, and it is geographically close to where we live, so we got in her car.
She only has 2 CDs in her car; I didn’t realize it until we had been sitting stuck in traffic for 3 hours - which was half way through what should have been a 2 hour drive. (That’s 6 hours!)
Since we were stopped and stationary so very very often, she managed to find a nice Indian restaurant with a program in her phone. It took some extra time to figure out exactly where it was (as the roads in Japan usually don’t have names). The food there was really really good. They had 2 vegetarian options, so we went with one of each. + They played Indian dance music. I would have loved any music that wasn’t one of her 2 CDs at that point (Except of course for Country music - which is always truly terrible).
It was dark, the moon was nearly full, and we were (geographically) close to the shore at that point, so I suggested we stop at a beach and look over the ocean for a little while.
We couldn’t find a beach there though. It had all been covered with concrete, with a wall along the edge of the road.

Finding a place to spend the night was a little tricky too. I won’t make an episode of that - or the time it took, but we got a room at a love hotel with huge spiders. The cool electronic horse in the room would have balanced out my misgivings with the spiders (The spiders that seemed to watch from the walls around the bed, …and in the shower), but who would ever return to a cheap old hotel that had no Tea? …Granted, I brought my own, but it’s the principle…

We were up late looking for a love hotel/ cheap hotel with any vacancies, so we slept a bit late the next morning. I noticed several itchy welts (from the spiders) when we woke up.

Hours later, while sitting in traffic, waiting to get up the mountain - to the park where we intended to go hiking/ where I had hoped to paint, hours later we were sitting in her car near the top, listening to one of her 2 CDs and reading a magazine she left in her glove compartment in 2004. She was as bored as I, and asked me if I would turn into Spiderman from my Spider bites, but I figured it would have had taken affect already if it was going to happen. (We did a lot of sitting in traffic).

Much later we did manage to get a wee bit of hiking in, but it was too grey/ cloudy/ crowded to paint anything. We saw some volcanic steam vents, and a little shop which sold volcanically hard boiled eggs - black on the outside/ dark grey on the inside. They looked interesting, but I didn’t think they would have used free range eggs to serve crowds as big as those.

My girlfriend knew I was vegetarian and she likes my cooking, but she didn’t really seem to understand why people would swear off any thing as inoffensive as meat

( lots of laughing here if you’ve seen ANY of the data ( http://www.peta.org ),
I found a few videos some kind person had subtitled with Japanese - so I could show my girlfriend - foster a better understanding…
She stopped eating meat that same week, and I lost all interest in eggs and dairy products.

(It would seem that my plan had backfired,
…but we’ve both gone happily forward.)

Progress IS a wonderful thing.

It took us another 6 hours to make it back to our city.
(But we stopped at that same Indian restaurant for an hour on our way home and had the same 2 things we’d ordered the night before; We just switched bowls.  That was the best part of our whole trip.)

Since we spent nearly the entirety of that trip sitting in a car not seeing much of any nature, we tried to go someplace else a few weeks later.  There had been some famous waterfalls near where I used to live in Nagano, but my $1. road map didn’t have them or indeed, half the roads in the region marked.  We headed out that way one afternoon thinking we’d spend the night nearby and visit them in the morning.  Traffic was much better along the way there, and we would have made excellent time, if we had not stopped for an hour waiting for an Indian buffet along the road to open up for dinner.

The waterfall the next morning WAS very nice, and very packed with people who had also driven and waited in a line of cars to get there and see it.  I’d wanted to paint a picture of it but:
- It would have been hard to get a good impression of the colors with all the camera flashes     going off,
-  And there really wasn’t anyway I could set an easel up where I could see the waterfall through     all the people/ where all the people wouldn’t knock into me and my easel trying to get closer to     the waterfall,
-  And my girlfriend would have been bored waiting for me.  (It was okay on the beach in the summer, ‘cause she could sleep in the sun.)

We stopped at that Indian buffet on our way home again - because there aren’t any near where we live (and lots of Indian food/ Indian people are vegetarian).

Chinese food I very rarely ever eat, because all the Chinese places in Japan only have meat dishes/ vegetables soaked in meat goo.  The nice lady who had the Christmas party years ago, where I 1st met my girlfriend, who takes me/ us out all the time, she found a Chinese restaurant in a city very near ours, which could make an all vegan 5 course dinner.  She had wanted to take a small group of people along, but one was sick, and my girlfriend had to work, so it turned out that just 3 of us were able to go that afternoon.  I was very impressed with all of the food and the atmosphere.  She knows lot’s of good places like that, and she does often take me along.

She got to talking, and said that she had found a really nice place which, if we booked now, we could have a nice engagement party for me there in the spring.  Then she and the other lady with us carried on for a bit as to how things could be organized/ arranged for my engagement party.
I only bothered to mention that  I’m not engaged (not altogether eager to be) a few times through all of that, …as it didn‘t seem to matter too much to them.

Over the last month of summer, and the 1st of the fall my girlfriend and I kept getting red itchy bites here and there.  We knew they weren’t mosquito bites, and I knew that they weren’t flea bites (having had some experience/ experiences in that matter some time prior), but we never did find out what was causing it - before whatever it was finally stopped.
Likewise, I suddenly developed an allergy to something which made all of my arms and some of my back and chest  itch like mad.  I really wanted to know what might have caused it, but the doctor I was sent to didn’t seem to think it the slightest bit interesting/ important.  It took about 5 days to clear up, and hasn’t happened again since (quite thankfully).

The next weekend/ the last weekend I took everything else from my old apartment to my friend’s old apartment, …where I live now. I went to his farewell party and came back to Nagano to drop my old company’s car off.

——7/5—————–

What makes me think it’s a good idea to sit and write
one of those sappy reflections on the general state of
living…
  It’s not just that I turn 30 today,
  - It’s the fact that I’ve spent the last few days
locked in a dingy little room, in some part of Asia,
with nothing “important” to do,
+  Yes, some amount of sentiment.

“What is important?”.

If I didn’t really need the 2 shots of insulin every
day I could have made different decisions down the
line. 

On the 2nd day - the day they gave the tests back to
the kids/ the other day that they didn’t need me to
come and sit here for 9 hours (with nothing
“important” to do), I wrote a letter to Micheal Moore
(who has just released a movie about health care.  I
thought he might be interested in my “solution” to the
health care problem in America. 

“Move to Japan.” - I said. It’s a humid, crowded, mess
of cracked greying concrete, but
Everyone in Japan is required to have health
insurance.  You can buy it from the city/ town that
you live in, or from a private company, and they can’t
refuse to cover you.
  The drawback to my “solution”, is that you have to
stay in Japan, and if you have any health problems
when you’re outside of Japan, they are your problem:

- Some obese Englishman drank half of his box of wine
and decided to join in our no hands sumo competition.
I had my arms tied behind my back when tackled me.
I was only in Australia for 3 weeks, but I had to
spend  that last week and a half carrying around my
backpack full of paint with however many
cracked/broken ribs (I never did find out for sure).

- And I cut my arm while I was visiting my family in
America.  I asked my dad to stitch me up with dental
floss, but he insisted on taking me to the emergency
room.  …Think of how many starving families we could
have saved with the more than $3,000 that they finally
reduced the bill to…
…    So now I’m back in Japan…

+ it’s my 30th birthday, and I’m locked in a dirty
little room that is stuffed full of beat up furniture
that was made in the early 60’s.

  I was born in ‘77 - Beat up all through the 80’s and
early 90’s.
  Just a few hours after his own wedding, my brother,
through shaky nerves or nostalgia, thought it’d be fun
to punch me awake from a nap.
  His previous best was the time I was in junior high
school and he snuck up behind me, and punched me in
the back of the head, as I was brushing my teeth. 

When I was in grade school he got me to crawl under
his bed to look for something he dropped, and when I
crawled back out he smeared his own s@%$ on my face.

There was another time where he repeatedly hit and
headlocked me, so that he could record me calling him
a $%#face, and play the tape to my mom and dad (who,
of course, were not interested in the circumstances
leading up to the name calling). 

 I have to confess, …this is another reason I took
to living in Japan.

It all gets beat up, and it all gets repaired (like so
many other things) with duct tape.  The desk tops here
were single pieces of wood, now split clear across
(from end to end).  , some of them in more than one
place, some of them wobbling more than others, some
bits of bent nails stick out here and there.

On the 1st day that they locked me in here, I finished
up some bits of cartoons that I’d been waiting to do.
It was a test day.  There’s never anything for me to
do here on test days, but they always want me to come
here and sit from 8am-5pm anyway.  Rat-Bastards!

There’re these 4 or 5 kids that never go to class
who, oddly enough, didn’t feel like taking any tests,
so they came in the little dingy room I have to occupy
on weekdays.  One of them went to sleep on the couch
for 2 periods.  The others did the best they could
with the beat up chairs.  Sometimes they got up and
looked around for something to play with. 
  I stayed to keep an eye on them for as long as I
could, but 4 big cups of tea will always win out over
time. (TOILET!)

There’s a lady here who gave herself a serious medical
condition by worrying over every stupid little detail
of everything. - Her chair got broken on that 1st day
that they locked me in here.  The back of the chair
was touching the ground - something I’ve never seen a
chair do - It was really pretty funny to look at.
But she gasped, and shrieked, and yelled, and moaned,
and whimpered, and cried, and whined… for almost an
hour.  She asked me who did it, + I said I didn’t
know, but I thought it might be: the one that was
asian, who had black hair.
She started crying again, and made some loud frantic
angry phone calls, then she muttered to herself about
her medical condition for a while.  Then she asked me
if students in America ever broke their teacher’s
chairs - To which I replied “they, in most cases,
probably don’t”., and she put her head in her hands
for about 10 minutes, then started all the wailing,
whimpering, and phone calls all over again.

Later that afternoon an art teacher wrapped a load of
wire around the back and the bottom of the chair - to
keep it together.  He said it’d hold, so long as
nobody leans back too hard (which would seem to make
it as good as it was before).  A couple of people
watched his wire wrapping technique.  Then they all
decided that the door to this room should be locked
not just when there is nobody here, but anytime anyone
isn’t actually passing through it.
  This is nice, because it keeps the distractions to a
minimum, but the people that ought to come in here to
consult with me over things - seem not to want to have
to bother to unlock the door, …
and they don’t.

On the 3rd day that they locked me in here, I hooked
the outdated scanner I bought up to the outdated
computer they keep.  I scanned in some of my smaller
cartoons.  I had lunch with the special class, and the
teacher there informed me that they would all be
weeding their garden in the rain after lunch.  I, of
course, volunteered to help.
It’s good to get outside, and it’s also nice to get
some good exercise occassionally.  This one kid just
kept walking around, so I made it his job to hold all
the potatoes I kept finding.  He got happier and
happier with each potato I came across.
After that, I sat here and read some Batman comics.

Batman is cool! 

When I was in Junior High School I liked Batman, and my father berated me for it: “When are you going to grow up?” he’d ask.
  Today I’m 30 years old …grown up by most accounts,
but I still like Batman - moreso in fact.

Yesterday/ the 4th day that they locked me in here/ my
birthday, I took a 4 hour nap, then I read Batman
comics, then I had some cold curry for lunch, then I
wrote part of this, then I left.

———–7/6———————
I went out this morning to find the lady who I have
class with now, but she said that because we didn’t
talk about a plan at least a day beforehand, she
doesn’t want to have to do anything with me now.  It’s
sort of a peculiar thing to say, because she gets the
same copies of all the schedules that I do, and I was
here all day yesterday with nothing to do (except read
Batman comics).  It would have been an opportune time
for us to discuss anything at all, but she was not at
school at all.

Perhaps she’s aware that I skipped out of school 2
hours and 5 minutes early, and she’s upset about this
- although, again, she wasn’t here herself yesterday.

Why does it always rain on my days off?  Yesterday was
a beautiful day/ my birthday, and I had nothing to do
here.  All the other teachers were gone, and most of
the students too…  After sitting quietly in this
little hole for 6 hours, I went downstairs to ask the
vice principle if I could go to the doctor’s, …but
the vice principle wasn’t there, nor was the
principal, or indeed anyone else.  I could have left a
note saying that I was heading out, but I thought it
unlikely they even notice me gone.

After escaping I thought better of going to the
doctors.  I don’t want frightened nurses sticking me
with needles and giving me dissapproving worried looks
because I won’t wear those slippers that are several sizes too small that they leave out for the patients. 
  I don’t need more of that crap,

 not when the weather’s so nice outside. 

 My insulin supply is good for a little while longer too.

I went home, got my backpack full of paint, and I
drove down backroads - where I’d be less likely to be
spotted.  I stopped just past the bridge, on the way
to the temple that they built on the side of the
cliff, and I painted a pair of pictures - of cliffs,
the river, and mountains.  They’re good pictures - if
I may say.  Being that I was at work  until late
afternoon - it’s really suprising that I finished one,
let alone finish one, and get a good half of another
started.
The weather, as I remarked from the widow of the
little room they keep me locked in, was fantastic.
Better, perhaps, having been shut in for all the
earlier part of the day.
The bridge was not near my school, but the road that
runs over it is busy enough to make it likely that
somebody saw me painting from it.
I was concerned, but not worried really.  I tied a
bandanna over my head to hide my not-Asian colored
hair - I didn’t want anyone to get wise to the fact
that I wasn’t where there was no need for me to be.

Long ago, when I changed from my old company, to this
(slightly less evil) one, I had a bunch of job
interviews.
The interviews consisted of: someone looking me over
to be sure that I’m not Japanese (or dreadfully ugly),
and them pretending that there was anymore to the
interview than that.  3 or 4 questions seems to be the
average - before they offer you the job right then +
there.

I got lots of offers for jobs that it turns out I
didn’t want.
… Nowadays I sit in a dark little office all day for
no real reason, and indeed, do very little of value to
anyone else while I’m here. 
I don’t mean for it to sound like that bothers me at
all, it doesn’t. 

 What bothers me is that I could be earning as much money as I do now, and a prisioner for a lot less time.

I have a friend from Canada who has been offering me his job for about a year.  He’s going home - to Canada, next month, and his company wants me to take
over from him.

The psychic advisor whom I decided straight off to never pay for advice said that there would be a good financial opportunity coming to me soon.

There, I wouldn’t have to put up with the crap I do here,
but it would be naive to think that there wouldn’t be other crap…

250,000 yen a month - 45,000yen rent, -15,000 car rental fee for a minimum 45 hour work week (9 hours a day) Coworkers are alternately nice/ a huge drag
pretty mountains + lots of good places to paint nearby, + I know what to expect.
  V.S.
245,000 yen a month - 60,000yen rent, + whatever train fares add up to 15-20 hour work week (2 hours on Saturday - Sunday/Monday off)
It’s a concrete wasteland, but my girlfriend lives in the same city.  I could wear shorts and a T-shirt to work, and not work on Christmas.

It’d be a pain in the ass to move again…,       

  I like having Nature nearby…..

Dunno’.   I go back and forth. 
I might have to get the I-ching out of the closet.

——————————————–

I got offered a job where I would be working - on average: 3 hours a day -
for the same salary I make now.
I`d have to move back to my old city, + give up my 3 week summer vacation/
+ $1,500. bonus…

…but I could/ would!  wake up at 10:30, and be home by 3.
Free time in that city is nowhere near as valuable as free time here…
I could paint pictures of cockroaches/ trees that`ve had all their branches
cut off…

I had 2 classes all of last week, but I had to stay here in this stupid
little room for the requisite 45 hours regardless.
There are nice mountains here, but I can only play on them during non-rainy
weekends that my girlfriend isn`t around/ tired of mountain climbing.

They had a wee birthday party for me at a little vegan cafe in Tokyo on
Saturday.  Then we had tea in some lounge on the top floor of the most
expensive hotel in all of Japan (I was told).  You can see the emperor`s
palace out the window  + I suppose if you had a really good pair of those
opera-scopes, you might be able to see the emperor hanging out his laundry.

I had a $20 cup of tea, but somebody else paid for it.  They got ripped
off.

I checked my website just now to see if I made 10,000 visitors in the
course of the year. It was 9,600 or so last I checked, but It`s gone now! 
It`s suddenly a black single`s dating page! 

Can someone reasonably competent please make me a webpage?

—————————————–

7/12

The I-ching said not to go chasing after dragon’s
gold - which is easiest to interpret as: stay put…
but there’s something to be said for waking up at 9am
and coming back home before 4.

There’s something else to be said for living someplace
with trees and birds and plants.

But then what good is all that nature when you have no
time to go out and enjoy it?

But again and then and again…  What good is allllll
that beautiful wonderful time, if there is nothing
beautiful any closer than a 2 hour train ride back to
where I am now?
It’s a dilemma.

I had the interview on Saturday morning, before my
vegan birthday gathering.  My girlfriend got me to the
correct station at the right time, and was going to go
for a wander, when the lady from the other company
approached and said it would be perfectly fine if she
came along with us. 

They looked me over and asked maybe 3 questions:
Why did you come to Japan?
What kinds of students do you like best?
Can you start work on the 1st of August?

My girlfriend asked them about healthcare.  They said
it’s easier for everyone if I just buy it from the
city - easier to get a rebate if I quit and go home…

During the interview - people were calling/ writing to
my cell phone - presumably to ask about my vegan
birthday gathering.  The vibrations tickle me.  The
battery went dead.
A girl I knew from my old town in Nagano wrote to say
that she would be in that exact part of Tokyo, and
free in time to come, but of course I couldn’t get
that message until long after everybody had already left.

——-7/18——

I had to fax a letter to my company today to tell them that I’m leaving them for a younger sexier company, and that I never loved them.

  I don’t work very hard at my present job to be sure, but 45 hours a week versus 16…

 It’d involve me moving back to Saitama I’m afraid, but that’s better for the environment

I didn`t know you could do that…, then my very own long laboured work of a website just up and goned. 

It seems that somebody else liked the name of my site, and they bought the rights to it, while the company I paid to make/ host/publish it sat on their thumbs (and wished they were longer).

 …forgive me if I am bitter. 

 I was ticked off when my car was broken into, and understandably upset when my computer was stolen,… 

Now some chubby marketeer

(musket -> musketeer, Market ->     ) has hijacked the products of a year`s worth of time, money, and energy…

 ”The Galactic Truth” was something that would take time to explain the way I thought it should. 

 Now it`s just a list of links to other empty advertising sites.

I haven’t had much chance to write anything much lately.
You see, I used to be a person, and I used to accomplish things (…that never mattered),
but now I watch t.v.

On a couple of the days when my girldfriend and I went out hiking, we saw a man sitting in a car across from my apartment. When we came back he was still sitting there.
One day we were fixing up the paint on my girlfriend’s car, and we saw him drive away then come back after 20 minutes, and go back to sitting/ waiting in his car.
I suppose one thing I have done lately is solve that mystery.

, …he was looking at dirty magazines and smoking.

Another thing I have done recently is paint some of the prettier parts of my new area.
I used to paint more frequently, but my girlfriend has been visiting me on my days off, so I haven’t spent nearly as much time outdoors on my own as I used to.
It’s good for the most part.

One day that I did have off and alone, I went to a little pond at the top of a mountain. There was nobody at all around my house (except for this one guy smoking and reading porn in his car), but it was really pretty busy at the top of that mountain.
It was partly cloudy at my house, but almost exclusively cloudy at the top of the mountain.
It was warm when I left my house, but chilly that much higher up the mountain (more so, due to the clouds).
It was windy when I left my house, but it was windier at the top of the mountain; The pond was in a basin, which I thought safe from the biggest gusts of wind, …but no. (Of course the wind made it colder still.)

I hiked my way past a group of slower hikers. I put my easel at the back edge of the walkway that ran past the pond. My easel blew over twice while I was getting my paint out, so I used my jacket to tie it to a railing.
It was warm at my house, …I don’t know why I even brought a jacket, but man, …it would have been really nice to have been able to wear that jacket. It was so cold and windy that I had to give up on my painting (after more than 3 hours of sticking it out).

I painted a pair of better pictures on a far nicer day, by the river at the base of my town.
And I sat inside playing video games on a few of the rainy afternoons.

The nice lady who’s in charge of the Nagano branch of my company took me to the department of immigrations (in Nagano) to get my old visa transferred into my new passport.
The mirthless beaurocreat who did that wanted us to leave his counter as immediately as we could, so I stuffed my Foreign ID card into my passport. Later I came to wonder where my foreign ID card was. The last time I remember seeing my old passport, is when I went to get my new foreign ID card, …so I thought it would be funny if I lost that card in the act of getting my replacement passport re-validated.

I found it before too much worry came to me though.

When that was finished we tried taking the snow tires off of the car that they lend me.

That was when we discovered that there was/ and is no jack in my car.
We borrowed a jack from my supervisor’s car, and with a bit of kicking, we got one of the wheels off my car (and some dirt on me in the process). When we tried to change to the far more gas efficient “summer” tires that they saved for me to use, we discovered that they were actually “summer” tires for a large truck/ we couldn’t put them on my little car.

That wasted some time, but left a few hours to spare before I had to meet one of the teachers from my old school.

I went to some recycle shops - because I like recycling, …and everyone knows that I’m cheap.
I found a Nintendo 64 there for $8!

I went to a store which purportedly had used videos and video games for sale, but what the sign outside said, was not what was inside the store.
It was half comic books and action figures - and half porn movies. What a weird combination!
Great for unpopular teenage boys!

I met a teacher who isn`t at the all vegan restaraunt in Nagano, which was again - closed (for the 8th time?), so we went back to the nice little Indonesian place that can make vegetarian food if you ask them to.

I like that place too because: it is cheap, they can make vegetarian food, the food that they do make you is interesting, and they have statues of brightly colored frogs having wild, fun-looking sex. I like those statues, because sex is something that frogs, however brightly colored, can not do.
I tried explaining that to my friend, later to my girlfriend, but they are apparently not as widely versed in the mating practices of amphibians as I am.

I’m not sure if she or her fiance’ like frogs, but I bought my little sister a wedding gift there.

Also, having bought the Nintendo (to compete with my girlfriend), I found myself in need of a t.v.
When I got those two things squared away I tried a couple of games that I also got cheap.

An old man who hides in a small room with a cross in his hand and a cross on his back told me that there was a large dangerous man in the garden. I already knew about the large dangerous man in the garden, because he had already killed me 6 or 7 times. I wanted to know if there was any way I could avoid being killed by him, but the old man speaks in Chinese + Japanese script, + that was all I can understand.

At any rate, I was able to beat my girlfriend squarely any number of times. Then she got bored and decided that she wanted to watch t.v., so we went out to get a wire to plug the t.v. into the cable box.
And that’s when I started watching t.v.

T.V. has some very interesting “pseudo-educational” things to show to the people of Japan.

There was a show which tested whether a team of 4 celebrities could beat one very able elementary school student in a number of sporting events.
They lost every time.

There was a show which let celebrities bet whether the world’s top Women’s 110 meter hurdler could beat a specially trained border collie - in a hurdle race. {It seems to depend on the height of the hurdles and the number of times that they ran it.}

There was a show where average looking Japanese ladies (and a couple uglies) told a panel of celebrities how hard it is for them to be ugly all the time. Then a panel of “expert beauticians” looked over them one by one, and wrote out their ugly points on posterboard.

One lady had a nose which was a bit too wide, so they put her on a diet, changed her hair, bought her new clothes, and gave her a nosejob, and a boob job. They repeated this procedure for basically everyone (minus the nosejob), and they all came out looking like Michael Jackson.

He’s such a scary bastard!

Here’s a thing which has been “unsettling” to me recently:
Twice in the past week and a half, after I had been tossing and turning in my bed late at night, I seem to have fallen asleep very suddenly.
That part wouldn’t bother me, …indeed I would’t be able to take any notice of that - if it were not for me again returning to full consciousness - very quickly, hearing a sound, and seeing a middle large size black dog walk across my room to the outer wall - and disappear.

I don’t have any pets or irregularly shaped pillows which can move, so I don’t know what to make of this. It’s more of a curiosity than anything else though.
Here’s a thing which bothered me more:

There was another show where Japanese people wore silly clothes/ hats/ blonde wigs and big rubber noses to pretend to be from other countries. One of the Japanese people not pretending to be from another country put some different foods on a sushi conveyor belt to see if “the foreigners” could pick them up with chopsticks or not.

Everyone laughed when the man “from India” couldn’t pick up a peanut with his chopsticks. “Ha, Ha! Indians can’t use chopsticks!” They clapped and laughed

but it was really just a Japanese guy with a turbin and a big brown rubber nose pretending not to be Japanese.

Is there something here that I am misunderstanding?

Honestly! It irked me somewhat that none of the celebrities on the other show would cheer for the American woman.
3 of them sat polite and quiet, while the rest cheered for the border collie.

I don’t know if things would be different in a country like Sweeden.

The Sweedish are amazing! City busses that run on atmospherically friendlier ethanol and bio gas.
(Although I think the bio gas is made with chicken fat, …so I can’t say I’m really pleased with that… but) They have toilets with compartments (compartment number one and compartment number two - to correspond with, ahem: “number one” and “number two“.
- It saves water),
recycling bins that issue store credits, super heavy engine idling fines, etc.
Hooray Sweeden!!!!

The teachers at my school have a refrigerator that they keep a single jar of very old marmalade in. I’ve never seen anyone open the fridge to look for the much too old marmalade, but all the same: When I first switched it off, I had to explain my reasons for turning off an old, and very nearly empty fridge at least 4 times. 2 months later somebody switched it back on.
That’s funny, because there is a freezer fridge combo that is larger and just as empty downstairs.

Refrigerators use a lot of energy, and when the only thing that’s at stake is a single jar of marmalade that would be just as expired warm as it is cold, …I switch it back off.

I switched it off on Tuesday, after the ruckus on Monday that was caused upon discovering the fridge (then the floor) was a mess of cold water. I am left to think that somebody filled the fridge full of ice - over the weekend.

I try to be almost as energy efficient as I possibly can, …but the part of Japan that I live in is much too mountainy to get very far on a bicycle.
Most of the time I do use my bike to get to and from school, but it wears me out, and tends to rain on me at inconvenient times: yesterday, and twice today for example.

I got permission to leave school early to go and get more medical supplies.
I can’t just go out and buy insulin for some reason… There’s no cure, and it doesn’t fix its self,
but I still have to go see a doctor every month so that he can make absolutely certain that I’m still diabetic.

It started pouring just as I was getting ready to go, and it stopped pouring just after I got there.

I was only a little wet; I used an umbrella despite the lightening. I am happy that I haven’t learnt that lesson the hard way yet.

I was a little worried when going to the doctor’s, because the doctor that I went to after the hospital turned me away - called my old doctor in my old town to find out about me, and my old doctor sent him some information about the kind of drugs I was taking. That doctor then decided that it would be too much trouble for him to see me, and passed that file on to the nurse at my school, who sent it to my current doctor, before I could tell her not to, because it would be inconvenient for me to have to explain that the insulin the old doctor used to give me didn’t include the type I assured this most recent doctor he did.

Ordinarily I would say that lying is bad, but the insulin I duped this new doctor into prescribing for me is really good - quick acting! No more waiting 4 or 5 hours for breakfast!

I saw a specialist about 12 years ago and she said that I ought to get on that new kind of insulin right away. She was gonna’ prescribe it for me the next time I went - when she had my test results back, but in that short stretch of time our insurance company/ policy changed, she became far too expensive, and all the other doctors I’ve seen have been very unimaginative./ afraid to maybe have to take some responsibility/ or any more risk.

This guy seemed not to want to bring up the point of me having him refill a prescription that I’d never had in the 1st place. I like that. His nurses are afraid of me. That’s typical; There’s no telling what a clearly non-Japanese guy like me might do next.

What I did next:
I went home. What kind of dumb ass would go back to work with just an hour left til closing and the sun shining.
I might’ve mentioned that it’s a long + somewhat difficult climb up to my apartment from the center of town…

I completed that climb - and my building was in sight when I got a call from my school. They said that someone had a question about a class for tomorrow. I’m sure I didn’t have to go alllllll the way back down the hill again, …but that’s what happened.
It also started raining again then. I didn’t mind it so much that time, because I had climbed all the way up, and I was pretty hot.

What I did mind was that the teacher that had the question wasn’t around, and when I did find him - he asked me to wait in the room they keep me in. And after I waited, the question that he had for me was: “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

That I had written + illustrated + put on his desk long before I went to the doctors. He went away and got it, looked at it, and said okay and I left again, and rode my bike all the way back up that bastard of a hill again.
We wound up not having time to do anymore than 5 mintues of the 30 minute thing he had me prepare anyhow.

He was the one who was good enough to give me half a day’s leave to go to Nagano city, to visit the immigration office, to get my replacement passport - replacement stamped.
If he was able to speak English better he might’ve said “but be here all the earlier the next day” - much like Ebaneezer Scrooge (and Scrooge MacDuck) had said.
The lady at my company who asked him if I could be excused was suprised that I got half of that day off, because there was absolutely no work for me to do on that day, and no good could be accomplished by keeping me there for the other half of the day.
For some reason I did make some papers that the kids could maybe work on in an upcoming class, and of course we’ve never used them either.

I think maybe everyone has to deal with little pesky inconveniences like that, but I have a friend who gets paid almost as much money as me, and he only works a few hours a day. Mind you I only work a few hours a day, but I have to remain on school grounds for 9 hours a day. He leaves his house around 10am and gets home at 4:30. He also says that he can wear whatever he feels like wearing, doesn’t have to sit at his desk for 9 hours for no reason on Christmas day, etc.
He’s leaving and he wants me to take over his job when he does.

I mentioned this to the people at my company who were responsible for only paying me $500 some odd dollars for all of March, … and they thought about it for a long time and said that they’d give me another $400 some odd dollars to not defect.

I’m kind of sick of moving so often, and I don’t really like where I would be moving to, …although it is in the same city that my girlfriend is in.
But I’m not terribly fond of having a stern old man who speaks very little English keep a close disapproving watch over me; Although one day he was checking up on me, very sternly, with chocolate around his mouth, and I couldn’t help but feel a little giggly.
He’s really not such a bad guy, he just tries to assert his “in charge of me status”, and I expect having to stay at school for 12/13 hours a day wears him out somewhat.

The kids here are known far and away for their “non-studiousness”. Not one minute ago, one of them was laying on the couch by the window, beating himself about the head with a squeaky rubber hammer which my predecessor left behind. I was happy that he seems to have wandered off with it, but some other kid has since been wandering in and out of here – singing like a drunken salaryman.

The 1st wanders back in and asks me where the other guy is.
“The guy who is singing down the hall?”, I ask.
That guy wanders back in and gets beat on the head with the squeaky hammer.
They wander off (for a longer period of time – I hope).
I hear a squeak of a rubber hammer, and a familiar teacher`s voice saying: “Owch! …Hurts!”

About an hour ago 3 of them were sleeping on the couch and on chairs they borrowed from various desks, while another was rifling through everyone`s stuff.
2 more came in and disrupted everyone – as there were no more prime spots for sleeping.

The fashion here is to wear a certain style of belt, with your pants around the middle of your thighs. It`s a hoot to see them all trying to chase each other down the hall.

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

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.