Long ass post

So uh, I went out last night after work to the Hub to meet up with the co-workers for a drink. It was the monthly, just after payday, get together and get to know one another kinda thing. Greg joined me, and brought his friend Taka. I got to Kashiwa, and stood around for a bit with Gabriel and Ethan and James and one other guy, drinking outside, and when Greg got there with Taka we decided to head on out to the bar. Actually, one of the J-Staff found us and told us they were already in the bar.

Anyway, Greg and Taka and I got our own little table, which was alright with me since I was more interested in hanging out with them anyway. The other, much more not really my style but I work with them so I’ll talk to them kinda people were at the other table along with the staff, so I wasn’t worried about it too much. People would migrate over and say hi to us now and again when they realized that we were having a much, much better time at out table.

So, let’s see, how much did I drink last night? Had a pint before going in, then a 1-liter beer tower, then Taka’s friend Tomonori bought us all a shot of tequila…then some more beer, and then another pint before leaving. Yea. I got pretty drunk. Greg and I were sloshed by the time we left. We had a great time talking to people though and I got to meet Taka’s Japanese friends, and practice my drinking Japanese, which is oddly just as good as it was when I was here last. Huh.

Gaijin have a sort of magnetism for one another, and soon enough there were other white folks from the bar sitting at my table. Turns out that all three of them were from not only Oregon but Eugene. One was a martial arts instructor, the other on vacation, the other a manager of another English school like where I work. All from Eugene. I also found out that the Ducks absolutely obliterated the Beavers in the civil war game, about which I was very pleased. GO DUCKS. Anyway, like I said in an entry previous to this, it’s amazing that even though I’m THIS far away from home, I still get drunk with people from my hometown. There were 5 people in that bar from Eugene last night, all by chance, on a Sunday.

When Greg and I left, we stumbled our way to the station, where we joked around and jumped up and down. During a jump though, the contents of Greg’s pockets managed to evacuate their previous homes and his cell phone fell onto the tracks. Eek. So here we are, three sheets to the wind, train station platform, and Greg’s jumping down onto the tracks to retrieve his phone and I’m laughing as hard as I ever have while looking to make sure neither a train nor the rail police are coming, and oh man. Good night. Fuck was I drunk. Don’t let me do that again any time too soon.

When I had managed to make the room stop spinning, and actually fell asleep, I had a rather strange dream, which thankfully broke the chain of commonly themed dreams I’ve been having lately. I was at a house, I think I had been there before in a previous and creepy dream. The backyard was familiar, but they always are in dreams. Anyway, there was a greenhouse, and a toolshed in the yard, along with a firepit where in my previous dream I had seen a woman who was some sort of witch or gypsy performing rites and odd but definitely not happy spells/incantations. Anyway, something had happened and she was no longer there, and people were investigating the property.
I went into the greenhouse and there was a man examining the various artifacts which remained in there. (The end of that sentence was word count 666, and I just happened to look. This will get weirder as you read.) There was a worn paper grocery bag that the man was looking at, and peered into to see what was inside. As he did this, a voice spoke to me from my consciousness. It said, “Know that to look inside these things is to know your fate.” I knew it was the woman who I had seen there before.
As he looked inside the bag, a burst of dust shot out of the bag and covered his face. As the man opened his eyes, he no longer saw the world around him but stood facing a wall with a set of sinister eyes. The wall seemed to suck in on itself and a small black crack opened up and widened, and I watched from his eyes as his life, his soul was ripped out of his body and ceased to exist. I knew somehow it had happened because his life was so bitter and cold, and the void inside him had been made real, and consumed him.
When I came back to my own sight, the man was no longer there. I looked around the room for some other artifact. Being a dream, I found something that maybe should have been a spyglass, but was instead a Dorito that had curled over into a cone kinda tube shape. As I picked it up I heard the same voice, telling me what it meant to look into it. “To have now what was meant for you later.” Kind of a crapshoot given the fate I had just seen unfold, but I looked anyway.
I set down the tasty looking chip, and looked around, nothing seeming different. I was worried some crazy Indiana Jones shit was gonna happen, and as I was turning around to make sure nothing insane was going on, a woman brushed into my shoulder walking past. My mouth opened after she said excuse me to pass by and “You are, incredibly beautiful” was all that I could come up with. She seemed amused by my inability to speak, and launched into a clever set of responses, which I quickly returned as soon as I was no longer compelled to compliment her. We knew that we were a couple as soon as we started talking. I woke up after some things that involved no words at all.

I’m still thinking about what exactly that vision means. Liesl and I used to say that about our relationship. That we were meant for each other, but met each other too young for it to be forever. I don’t think either of us were ready or mature enough to handle it. I know I wasn’t. Had we met when we broke up, we’d be engaged, I suppose. Huh, I bet she says that to Hayes now, that my relationship with her prepared her to know how to make theirs work. Gag.