How is it that an entire city can stink of piggy poo?
When it’s hot, as it generally is all through the summer in a semi-tropical area, …a person wants to open a window - Let in a breeze. - Not choke on those awful fumes - Yes?
I don’t want my home to stink of pig, but short of packing up and leaving already, there’s really nothing to be done about it.

I had hoped to be able to organize a little free time between jobs, but that didn’t work out in my favor.
They needed someone to come quickly, and they never mentioned the odor, the tarantula that guards the toilet, the ankle deep murky water where the dis-functional washing machine sits….
Not a big deal really.

I had to work on my birthday - again.
Last year I was locked in a “supply closet” napping and reading comic books until I snuck out. This year I really had to do something other than just sit there, but I was able to leave freely when I was finished. It’s good to try to do something a little special for your birthday so, after my morning class I followed some road signs to a nice place - where the 1st Emperor of Japan’s parents are said to be buried. I wandered around there and at a nearby park for a few hours, I watched the fish + found a huge snake, then drove back to the center of the city to work more.
After work I went for a short cycle to a spot that would have had fireflies if there were any fireflies around.

I’ve been wanting to see fireflies since my 1st summer in Japan, when I realized that not all places have fireflies like they ought.
It soon became clear that there weren’t any fireflies, so just went to the Indian restaurant in town.
I would have gone there earlier in the week, but I wanted to try and do something fun on my birthday.
I ordered a vegetable curry + nan.
The guy asked me how hot I wanted the curry “from 1/not hot - to 50”/ I can’t even imagine how hot that would be.
I said 9/ the low end of the scale (yes?) and I don’t know how the hell he worked out what number means what because I drank a whole pitcher of water + ordered extra nan + all of my insides were still burning all night and late into the next day - Hot!

I woke up late the next day because, I could, and because my parents had another birthday party for me / without me in New Jersey. I went to an internet café that night with my web camera + talked to a lot of the people there and talked to my girlfriend elsewhere. There is a time difference between here + New Jersey, so I was up until the sun started to rise the next day.

The next day I went back and painted 2 pictures of the place I’d found the day before. It was, after all, the 1st and only nice place I could find then. There were few people there on my birthday, and there were as many people the next day. I hadn’t seen anyone at all pass by for more than an hour when, of all things, I saw a black guy with curly hair.

The guy who’d decided we would go swimming at the waterfall had told me a few days before that there’s a super friendly black guy with curly hair in town. I had only seen 2 people who were not Japanese in as many weeks, and thought it safe to assume that there were not 2 black guys with curly hair.
+ he was really nice. He said he would be leaving town shortly - for greener or more fragrant pastures, I know not. Good for him

Given that I have to drive up to an hour out, several times a day, for classes here and there, I have managed to find some better places than what you see (and smell) in the center of town.

Two days after my birthday I spent almost 3 hours driving around looking for a beach that isn’t made of concrete. I did get 2 more paintings done when I did finally come across a beach. An old guy with a fishing pole stood and watched me for about 30 minutes, then he went off fishing.
I asked him if he knew of any pretty/ prettier places around + he was stumped. I live on a peninsula, on an island - and shouldn‘t have this problem. The sea is on every side of me, but all the roads just seem to connect one pig factory to another.
I forgot how to get back to the waterfall I slid down naked, but during a 4 hour break I drove around near another city I have to work in twice a week. I get 4 hours free time before starting there each Tuesday, so I was glad to find some nice looking mountain peaks not too too far from where the classes are. The 1st week I went up a one lane mountain road to a campsite + hiked around with all my heaviest paint on my back looking for the best vantage point. After about 2 hours of walking I realized I’d had the best view when I was still in the parking lot.

“Up the one lane road near another “city” that I have to drive a long way to.”

I went straight back there the next week and painted a large picture very leisurely. When I was all finished, I looked at my watch to see how much time I had left to do another painting, + I had to check and recheck my watch - because I was 25 minutes away + only had 15 minutes to get to class.
I drove quickly and changed shirts at a red light, and only got there a few minutes late, only a few seconds after the 1st students.

Another time I got to another class 5 minutes early, only to learn that 5 minutes early is really 25 minutes late if you have the starting time wrong.

I had another set of classes in a really small town, really far away, with an hour and a half break between sets. I found a super cool river there where a campsite had been - all covered in vines now. The rocks along the river are all oddly eroded - like green water running deep down in grey swiss cheese.

[youtube=http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=oFUt9NN7fGM]

I don’t love teaching those kids there, but I like that I have a couple hours of daylight after my last class there + I’ve managed to paint 2 pictures there in 2 trips.

I ran low on paint thinner really very quickly, but there was none to be found in my new town, so I had to drive to the capital of the region on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I saw the volcano that always spits ash into the sky sit peacefully/ not erupt, …but it was still impressive. The city itself was also surprisingly nice. There was green grass there. Green grass is even rare on the golf courses here, but it was right there in the middle of their big roads, manicured, with street cars running along side it all. I got one bottle of paint thinner, directions to a branch of my bank, which was of course closed on Sundays, but why do the ATMs need to take the day off?

I had a good walk around - for 5 hours, then got dizzy + needed to eat. I thought I might be able to find a vegetarian restaurant, but I got interested in the menu of an Indian restaurant. I’d gone back to the ridiculously spicy Indian place in my town just the night before, and had a much easier time with a level 6 vegetable curry. The level 6 potato and garbonzo bean curry was just right.
While walking down the street, I heard someone politely ask - in English, if they could talk to me, and he looked like a Jesus hound when I turned around and saw him, but it was just a nice guy from Tennessee trying to get people to go see his band play. I don’t know how successful he getting anyone else to go. I didn’t go to find out. I was mostly glad and relieved that I didn’t have to fend off another: Mormon, Jehova’s witness, or door to door newspaper salesman.

The day after, I finally found the kind of beach that I expected to find everywhere. It was just 20 minutes away. I saw all of 9 people there the whole day. There may’ve been one or 2 more people there in the morning, but I was then busy wading through the murky standing water on my balcony - as I had thought it proper to try and wash some clothes.

It took about 40 minutes to walk from one end of the beach to another. I got tired and painted a picture from the midway point + went swimming. It was warm like bath water + you had a great view of the whole bay + the mountains across the way. There was a shrine built on some rocks at the opposite end of the beach. I swam out to it when I got there. My 1st painting blew over while I was swimming, but not seriously damaged. I smoothed out the scratches in the paint with my fingers, which resulted in larges patches of both my arms, shoulders, and feet turning a Smurf-ish blue (for several days - baked on paint!).
I painted another picture of the shrine on the rocks, the sea surrounding it, and the mountains off in the background.

“Shrine on the rocks in the bay”    

Actually I think it was carrying 2 big blue paintings 40 minutes down the beach at sunset that somehow turned large parts of me blue.

I got back to the center of town around 8:30 + tried out a revolving sushi place I had passed and wondered about. They had fewer vegetarian dishes than the Kaiten-sushi where I’d lived in times past, but they put roughly the same amount of mayonaise on what vegetable dishes they could make.
Everyone was looking at me over their shoulders as if they had never seen a foreign sunburnt man with warpaint drinking lots of water.
I tried to discreetly wipe my blue fingerprints off the counter + think I got it all taken care off.
The inside, door handles, and roof of the car at the mechanic’s is another story.

————————————————

We get time between classes: An hour, two, or five.
+ I’ve noticed… that the time between classes, however long it is, it goes by quicker than the limited time I spend in class and driving long distances to class.

Today, for instance, my car wouldn’t start right away, so I was 5 minutes late for class,

it took about 5 minutes to get them all to come in the classroom,

and I let them leave a bit early,

…and I let them talk amongst themselves for another however many minutes (It wasn‘t enough).

That left about 40 minutes of them kicking, slide tackling, wrestling, pinching, and climbing all over each other (mostly kicking). When I say each other I mean myself as well. You twist a kid’s arm up and he acts all repentant, …but that doesn’t last 15 seconds. The other kids, don’t stop kicking him for 5 of those seconds either.
One kid had like 50 rubber bands on his arm that he kept snapping at the others, I grabbed the lot of them, pulled back and threatened to let them snap at him - which I did do when he tried to kick me. I suspended a pair of them, a leg in each arm to get them to stop kicking each other, and some other little monster jumps on my back. I tripped up a pair of them (lifted their feet) while they were trying to kick me, and that was funny, but the one pretended to cry so that the others would come within rubber band range, and I had to spend another several minutes confiscating them then.
You try and tell a kid that slide tackling someone is a good way to get punched in the face, but stupid kids don’t listen.
It was easier last week when 3 of the 5 of them refused to get out of the mini pool + come in the classroom. I saw/ heard through the window that the little girl took all her clothes off and was yelling at the principle to look at her ass. I didn’t initially know she was the one who was supposed to be in my class.

She had no nametag!
Ha!

I hadn’t thought reading 1 page (5 short sentences with lots of colorful pictures), doing 1 workbook page (trace less than 10 words), then playing a game was a lofty ideal, but you see how quickly it degrades into “No kicking anyone who is down on the floor.”

Like I said, my free time goes so much quicker.

But the driving part is what really concerns me now.
The car is as un-inspected as it was when I was given the key and the “it’s your problem now” from my boss two weeks ago. It seems not to have been inspected for quite some time now, but (perhaps?) only very recently has it started squealing - …like a donkey would squeal, if it were in hell.
When there was a little drizzle of rain for the 1st time, I turned the windshield wipers on, + instead of wiping the windshield (like windshield wipers do), they stuck together. That is to say: they collided and would not work out their differences ( maybe passions?). I had to stop the car, turn my hazard lights on, pry them apart, and repeat the process. Luckily it was not raining hard and it soon cleared up.

I told my boss about it. He said it’s good that it isn’t raining anymore.

Now I don’t want to have to pay upwards of $1,000 plus some hundred dollars to have his old spare car fixed up enough to pass the stringent (costly) Japanese inspection standards, but I also don’t want to get pulled over driving an un-inspected car + paying whatever awful fee that likely entails.
For his part, he didn’t want me to drive around uninsured (or he has a friend that sells insurance), so he called a friendly insurance agent, who came bearing a form with all my information already filled in. Some of the information was wrong. People don’t often get any of my names right, this guy had me down as Shinda Raian. If you translate that 1st part, …it actually means: “He’s Dead”.
Funny mistake from an insurance agent.

I wondered how interested the insurance agent would be to hear that my windshield wipers don’t work, but he still wanted to sell me the auto insurance…

The day after I first/ second/ and third tried to use the windshield wipers - It rained. It rained really hard and, of course, my windshield wipers would not wipe. I tried calling my boss to remind him I couldn’t drive 15 kilometers in a typhoon unless I could see, but he was out of town all morning and I only had his office number - Which nobody was around to answer - Which, I imagine, must have peeved the people at the school I didn’t show up to too.
Although I did show up, (a mere) 25 minutes late + saw a whole bunch of teachers gathered around a telephone looking angry. I don‘t know if they were upset because I hadn‘t died, or because nobody had answered any of their calls to the office.

I bet my insurance agent is happy I‘m not dead though. I pay by the month after all.

When I went out in the typhoon to make sure the wipers still didn’t work, to reassure myself it was safe to go back to sleep, they almost did work, and after a little bit of readjusting them (in the typhoon) - they did seem to work like you‘d expect windshield wipers to work. Somewhat reluctantly, I went back inside and made something to eat, + put dry clothes on, + left my scuzzy apartment when I should have already been there.)

So my boss called me back around lunchtime + suggested we take his/ my car to a mechanic + have the things he’s tired of hearing me remind him about looked at, + I’ll have no reason to not go to work on time.

The mechanic’s wife came out - looked at the wipers and realized that one was much longer than the other. She switched them + it was all fixed within 3 minutes. I told her all the other things that seem to be wrong with the car. She got her husband, who was surprised that a car with so many flaws had been able to pass inspection. My boss said he didn’t remember how much time was left until it needed to be inspected again, but he knew it was okay. I told him yet again that there was no sign of it having ever been inspected. The mechanic asked how much longer it had. My boss looked all over the car (in the rain) for the inspection sticker (which is always in the same spot ( where my windshield has a circle of sticky residue). The mechanic’s wife looked though the papers in the glove compartment and declared it almost 10 months overdue. He was surprised. He said the police would throw me in jail if they caught me driving it; Which is the same thing I had told him 4 or 5 times before.
I guess he realized I shouldn’t be expected to pay to fix up his old car/ or more importantly, realized that I wouldn’t, so he’s said that he’ll pay the mechanic’s inspection fees/ get it up to specs.

I was relieved to hear it. Sort of wished I hadn’t filled the car up just an hour before, but it was on empty. The loner car they gave me drives so much easier than his car, but it was even emptier than mine had been when I filled it up out of necessity.

That’s all seemingly sorted out now. Thankfully.
The other gripe that I have now is his expecting me to work one of my days off each month.

I thought I should make the most of my 2 hour evening break, so I went into the clinic across from the mechanic.
The doctor, and later - the pharmacists were all afraid of me. Well educated medical professionals never want to admit that they’ve never had to deal in insulin and needles before, and they always try to cover up the fact that they’re having their staff telephone every other pharmacy in the area looking for insulin/ needles.

They always give me a form to fill out (all in Japanese), which I do fill in (in Japanese)

, and they always seem to read it over carefully before asking me if I speak Japanese.
Doctors and Detectives are separate professions after all.

>Your cartoon makes NO sense at all!!
>

—–It`s about Transformers.   (…..They turn into stuff…)

This (attached) is probably easier to understand.

I got your package yesterday.
The vice-principle let me out of school 2 1/2 hours early so I could go to the doctors + pay some stupid bill.
 You`re only able to pay that sort of bill at: city hall, or at the finance counter of the post office.  They both close at 4:30 (I finish work at 5), and you can`t pay it on Saturdays either.  I had gone to the post office at 5pm and tried to get the guy (who sits at that counter `til 6 or 7) to accept some cash for a payment stamp, but he always says that they finish at 4:30.
Anyway I got there at 3 + paid it, then went home to get the patient card I needed to see the doctor, + of course, in the door is the note that says I got a package from you. 
  I was at the doctor`s + the pharmacist`s for 2 hours.  They asked me all kinds of questions like:  Do you ever feel a numbness in your hands/ fingertips?  Do you sweat a lot? Do you ever have trouble seeing right?
  I kept saying: “Yes, all the time!”

but they just looked worried, ignored it, and continued down the list.

I went back to the post office when I was all through with all of that, + that guy was still sitting at the financial counter at 6pm - doing nothing `cept reminding people that they didn`t do any financial matters after 4:30.

I have to sit here from 8:15 to 5pm regardless of whether I have anything to do or not too.  It used to bother me, …and I went to meet some people from a friend`s company.  He works 2-5 hours a day.  I said it sounds good + they thought that meant that I would start working fo them on the 31st.

I like the country, but I don`t get much chance to appreciate it here.  When I do, I do, but seeing as I`m an old man: I need to slow down - sleep late…

I hate the city though.  This other company has a Nagano branch.  I`m gonna see if they can`t transfer me back here - which is really stupid, because I am here right now.

 I`ll be driving my company`s mini car down to my old city tonight.  The radio in the car only plays the sounds of the engine, so I may try out your i-pod under cover of dark - in route.
I like the color.  Some of your musical selections I`m not so sure about, but I haven`t heard any new music since college.

The card was really cool.

The movie looks to be good.
The gummi candy`s got all geletin in it, so I`ll give it to whoever.
(The cake that mom sent me 2 weeks ago has beef fat in it, so I gave it to Rie + her mom.)
It`s good that all the stuff made of chocolate is labeled as such, because I squeezed the packages a little, and I don`t think they retained their shapes.
It`s okay.
  Chocolate is chocolate, and I don`t discriminate!

——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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Suzaka posted September 4, 2006 Apparently my apartment has been secured + I`m being moved in tonight.
There`s no furniture/ dishes/ appliances or anything of that nature just yet. The electric and water are purported to be working as of now, + the
gas should come on sometime tomorrow. I have to start work tomorrow morning, but it`s just one day - then I have Saturday + Sunday + a bit of
help from the guy (who`s floor I`ve been sleeping on) to get things arranged.
The water at his house is the color of weak tea.
I hope I don`t wind up with that problem.
I`ve only seen one side of the building I`ll be moving into + that one side was pretty trashy, but the neighborhood is nice.
My “Green Card” expired while I was away + I can`t get any telephone service established until that`s ready. I think that takes a couple of weeks though…
———————————
Days later: It`d be nice if I had a phone, but I still don`t have a new foreigner`s card. To get a Foreigner`s card I have to go to the right counter at city
hall - before city hall closes - at 5:15. I left work at 5 on Friday + didn`t have a bike + didn`t know the way there, so I got there at around 6. I asked the guy watering the garden outside + he said it`s closed on weekends.
When I do eventually manage to get myself + all necessary documentation at the right counter of city hall before the city shuts down for the evening, it will most likely still take a few weeks to actually get the card back. Pain in the Ass.
I`m at my manager`s house again, using his computer, then his girlfriend is gonna take me to see the fireworks with her friends, then I`m going to go to his bar in Nagano city for an arm wrestling competition. I had to buy a bike, and a whole bunch of other crap today: dishes, forks, knives, spoons, a spatula, tupperware containers, an oven range, a futon, sheets, sponges, chopsticks…
I hate shopping.The water is okay/ drinkable, but the shower has an odd smell. I like to tell myself it`s from the way it`s heated, rather than consider the possibility of something small and unfortunate having died in a pipe somewhere. Honestly, I know nothing about heating – except that standing too close to a heater on a cold day can result in pain and scarring….
I don`t have a garbage can yet, so I have to hang a garbage bag from a nail in the wall. In this city/town you have to buy special bags – made by the city/ town, AND you have to go to city hall to get certificate stickers made out in your name to stick to the bags before putting them out for collection. (There`s still the matter of city hall closing 15 minutes after I leave work…)
———————————————————————————————————————-
Also:

I didn`t get your message until just after I bought a bunch of furniture. I forgot about Sayonara sales. I also forgot how cheap it is to get a bike at a home center - I just bought one for 30,000, + they have all tricked up /cooler looking ones there for 9,000.
I went yesterday to get a: garbage can, broom, pots, and pans. I put all the pots and pans in the garbage can, + carried it back with one hand on my bike. It was hot. There were uphills, downhills, bumps, overpasses… After a few miles, my arm got tired. I`d spent the morning carrying a washer and dryer upstairs to my apartment… I didn`t enjoy that overmuch either.
I also went to an electronics shop to get one of those fairly cheap/ easy internet cards, but wound up having a long difficult conversation with some girl who wants to sell me some sort of connection that needs to be installed by NTT. I don`t have a phone, so NTT can`t call to schedule a time for it, + so far as I know there is no time when I am not working that they are. They were going to give me a cell phone real cheap so that NTT could call me, but then they realized that they couldn`t give me one until I get a new foreigner`s card. I had told them that before, …but they think they know everything because they`re Japanese + it`s their country. It should work that way. While the girl at the store was trying to explain their internet options to me, an old woman “Passed by” and talked to me for a half hour/ 40 minutes or so. She seemed nice enough, but between her, the internet lady, + then later a supervisor of some sort, I came to feel I was trapped in an ever circling conversation of hopelessness, that I didn`t understand very well anyway.
They gave me a bunch of weird promotional crap: A grass pillow with the NTT logo on it, a mini thermos (that I can keep my insulin in until I get a fridge),… They asked me to come back next Friday.
I got to work today + one of the regular teachers managed to guess my predecessor`s password on the 1st go. It wasn`t: funkyMama, OhBoyIve, GotAnItch, or qwerty, …I tried all of those… Seeing that I seem to be able to use the internet here during free periods/ after class – I probably don`t need it at home.
Last year I asked the only good looking girl in the town I used to live in if she`d like to go out sometime + she said yes. I asked her for her number + she said something to the effect of: never in a million years. There was one other girl who was pretty chubby + she was too busy for me too. Circumstances have improved considerably.
I thought I would have trouble getting to work today. I`m surprised I remembered to set my alarm clock. I don`t have a refrigerator, or food to put in it – which I could – cook, so I stopped at a little place a block away that had a Tempura flag out. I had dinner then a fairly good looking girl came and sat down next to me. A friendly old guy behind the counter gave us both a bit of watermelon, then some spicy cucumbers, then some fried watermelon, then he gave me a big bag of cucumbers from his own garden. That was all free, so I thought it prudent to order a drink. The girl next to me was amiable/ really cool/ a clothing designer/ she looked 23ish – but is turning 31. She did indeed encourage me to have several more drinks after the 1st. I wound up talking to her for nearly 3 hours – In which time she had 3 or 4 HUGE beers – the size of her head. I can`t stand beer + I`m out of practice, so I most likely wound up drunker, but still not as drunk as I like to be, but there was work today.
I was practicing the night before – drinking I mean. I was at my manager`s house where I slept for the 1st week. He helped me buy + carry stuff for my apartment + took me back to his place afterwards. His girlfriend brought me out with a pair of her friends + we went to go see fireworks. They drove around for an hour and a half or so, but never found a good spot to park, so we all just gave up and went and had dinner. Me + 3 girls! I love that! I think they all had boyfriends, but I like to be surrounded by funky sex mammas – whenever the opportunity provides.
Some of them were concerned with how I would manage to meet my manager/ the one girl`s boyfriend at his bar later that night; I only have a bike, I don`t know the area, + when I do drink – it`s mostly to see how drunk I can get – or to forget about my problems…
They decided to come to the bar with me. It was a good bar. There was another girl sitting by herself + I went up and talked to her. That probably wouldn`t mean anything to most people – it`s just that I`ve never actually done it before. Some other girls I`d met the night I got in were trying to get me to dance – as I had done at the karaoke box. The girls that brought me wanted to see my nipples – but wouldn`t show me theirs – It`s funny how that isn`t the 1st time I`ve encountered that same exact situation.
As my luck has taken a wild turn for the better - It`s a shame I don`t have a phone or a phone number to give out. This place is a whooooole lot better than Chichibu.  

Tree posted August 6, 2006

People say you need obstacles/ problems/ things to overcome. I don’t want to be on fire again.
I read a book about the evolution of consciousness - From mostly ignorant cavemen to Egotistical financiers - the breadth of perception experienced by humankind has altered. The guy who wrote the book (Ken Wilbur) said humanity couldn’t have stayed content in
Eden unless it was totally ignorant of everything. God would visit - walk and talk with man, who was secure and taken care of (he never understood death), but knew there was something else… ? The serpent helped strip away the security, + that was uncomfortable, but it was necessary; We couldn’t have stayed there forever with a nagging feeling in the backs of our minds - not with something so extravagant to realize…I’ve got nothing to follow that up with…..
Not just yet.

Some time - perhaps long ago, a tree fell down in my parents yard. It broke the fence. My dad fixed the fence, and he had someone help him roll the trunk aside. When I first came back to visit my parents I used some of my grandfather’s old carving tools to make a pair of totem poles from parts of the trunk. One day I got a newly sharpened chisel stuck deep in the wood. I might’ve knocked it loose with a hammer, but I had been carving something delicate and didn’t want to cut into the wood on either side. It seemed “smarter to give the stuck chisel a good yanking, and it did come loose, but it went right into my arm. Maybe that‘s what you get for carving a “serpent”.
I was only in the emergency room for a short time, but the bill came to $2,100.00, not including the $748.00 doctor’s bill. I think this is a good reason for me to expedite my return to
Japan, and the Japanese National Health Insurance Program.
I gave up carving for a time - given the inherent difficulties (it’s a 2 handed task) - and because my paint had finally arrived from
Japan (although a number of the tubes had disappeared, and others seem to have exploded - that took some time to clean).
I had intended to swear off carving for a lot longer, but my grandfather, saw the 2 totem poles I did manage to finish and asked me to make him one, so I got back to carving early this week. I set up a whole circle of citronella candles, as if it were some kind of arcane right, but it doesn’t seem to bother the mosquitoes at all.
I took an evening off one night, went for a bike ride, and saw a big black bear poking around in someone‘s garden. Someone was standing at the window of their house watching the bear in their garden. I wanted to stop and watch the bear as well, but I’d just come down a long steep hill and I was approaching a long steep hill, and it seemed far more prudent to use the momentum I’d built up, to not stop at the bottom of 2 hills with a big black bear a few feet away.
The next day, while I was making a nose for a wooden face - the sky got really dark really quickly, the wind picked up, and a huge tree fell over right near where I was standing. I was surprised. I went inside.
I tried to work on it more the day after that, but the wooden hammer I was using split 3/4ths of the way through. I glued the cracks and the piece that fell out as best I could and went for another bike ride. There was another bear - this one at a much safer distance.
Today there were mosquito bites on the insides of my hands, and the hammer all but fell apart - so it would seem that - if there were “higher forces” at work in the world - they don’t want me to be carving.
“Higher forces” - if you’re inclined to believe in them, also don’t want me to wake up amidst many/ any beautiful women. That’s why I sleep in whenever I can.

An Apache man said he was out on his horse when the storm came. There was a whole lotta’ rain. He was under a tree when lightening struck the ground. The energy ran 20 feet through the wet ground - straight at him, but stopped just short of where he was. The next lightening bolt did the same exact thing - from the other side. - Then he knew that the spirit energy wanted him and went straight back home to begin learning the songs and the dances.