Things I Need

A haircut
My hair is getting out of control at this point. They never did the, 'How you would like your hair cut' lesson in Japanese classes I took.

A paycheck
Bet you didn't see that one coming.

A vacation
At least on Monday I'm going to Hakone with Ash and Bryan, hot springs here I come. Volcanic activity, here I come.

A girlfriend
Any volunteers?

A 6 month stretch of warm sunny days
This on again off again warm/cold bullshit is starting to really piss me off. Summer. Now. Go. Even the sweltering hot and humid of summer is welcome in my book.

A more clever way to write entries than bulleted lists.

Days Off

Ahh....relaxing. I plan to do, well, nothing today. And I look foward to that.
The other night (Friday) I went to Shin Matsudo to meet up with Ty and Christina at a bar cause Christina was having some friends visit her and wanted some company. That was fun, we just had a few beers and told stories.
Saturday, I don't think I did anything speical, but Sunday night I got off work early and then I went to Ash's house party. Same gig as the other week, and once again I feel like I might get sick, which would make me intensely angry. The party was fine I guess, Bryan, Rob, Eleni and Quinn + weird Quinn's girlfriend all came a little later than I, so I had to endure Art's very very gayishness and Alana's awkward and (not so)subtle attempts to get close to me. At one point I put my iPod on and turned it up as loud as I could, just to detach myself from the surroundings.

Once they got there though things lightened up a bit. Gabe showed up and Masters did too, so did Walter and his j-girl. We played guitar, Bryan sang way too loud way too long, and I tried to go to bed early, but when Eleni came to check up on me, Alana followed her in, probably feeling like her 'territory' was being invaded, and they both layed down next to me and Alana just wouldn't leave. Even after I left the room she wouldn't. When she finally popped her head out I saw that she was getting a pillow and her phone, Eleni gave me the, 'she wants you' look and I gagged a little before telling her/physicall restraining her from sleeping in my room.

Long story short, I'm really glad that door has a lock.
Apparently, something far, far more creepy happened after I was asleep, but, no one will tell me what it is. All I know is that there were unopened condoms in the bathroom when I woke up.

Yesterday I met with Yuki for lunch at Mallage. It wasn't exactly the bathroom sex I had hoped for, but, I told her I'd get her in touch with my friends back in the Euge to help show her around the town .i.e. get her drunk.

Ya Know?

You know that feeling you get when you unwittingly find out that the girl you like back home that is, in no small part, the reason you've been single all this time, has a boyfriend now and there's really absolutely nothing you can say because well, you moved to Japan and it was your choice and that's how things work out sometimes, and not even the thought that you've got another year and a half for life to twist and change before it's even really an issue but that doesn't make you feel any better?

Yea, probably not, huh. Well, it sucks a little bit.

Time to go numb for a bit I guess.

Nagging Thoughts

I can't escape this feeling like my life in the last two months is now somehow completely different than it was before while living here.

I can't remember being new here anymore, I can't remember being stressed out about work and my performance. I can't remember some of the lessons I taught when I first started or even the ones I started teaching after that when I started to get comfortable. I'm in a third phase now, and the first seems all but lost to time and the second is rapidly approaching black and white rather than color images.

I lived in Minami Kashiwa for 4 months prior to moving here, but, for how much I held my breath, it feels like I've lived in my new place longer. There were several things which I think contributed to this.

First, I never thought of my old place as home. I knew I was going to leave, and the stress of being in a new place put me into super get shit done mode, which basically means I don't let anything under my skin, at all, period. This also results in a feeling shortly afterward like nothing that happened actually did. My memories have no reality, no depth, for the 4 months prior to my being in this new place.
Secondly, my moving here coincided with, well, a rather cathartic letter to Liesl which in all honesty put an end to a chapter in my life which had dragged out far, far too long. Aside from letting go of my past with Liesl, I also let go of my past with my former fraternity, two things after moving here I used to dream and daydream about nightly and daily.

But since I've been out here in Hiregasaki, I feel like, well, life is good. And you know, it really kind of is. I was in a funk for a good long while, not to mention living with a hard drug addiction (yes, Christy, that does make me cool cause I've recovered). But now, well, I'm better. I'm not bubbly happy or giddy or saccharine or anything, but, I'm content. And that rocks.

It also means that the last couple of years of my life are fading away rather quickly, right up until I moved here. So, I guess when I said I have this nagging feeling, I only meant that it's weird feeling good about my life. But I like it.

A Worthwhile Trade?

I've been forced into hermitage once again on account of my bank. Account. Bad pun, sorry.
See, I decided to treat myself to an iPod this paycheck, and once again I'm in the same financial position as I've been essentially since being here, and before that since I can remember.

Now, somehow I thought I would have enough money left over to, you know, eat, if I bought it, but it appears as if that was not the case. I have 20 days until payday, and 13,000 yen to my name. 650 a day for those who like math. That's do-able, actually quite so, but, all the same for all my rants about how nice it will be to have money, I sure don't have any again.

Now, the lesson here is to not go out and buy something the moment I have money, but, look at the tradeoff. I have an iPod now. I can listen to my music whenever I want, I can tune out the world, I can carry the entirety of all information on my laptop on my iPod were I to so desire, but the fact is I still have that nagging question running through the back of my head: "Did I really need this?"

See, it's not like there was a gap that needed filling, I merely added another layer to what was already ok. I've got something to occupy me now when I travel, I have access to select photos whenever occasion calls for them, I even have the best of the best iPods and the show-off value that carries, and that's fantastic, but, it's not like I was at a loss before.
I've fallen victim to the tragedy which has befallen most of society these days: I tried to fill a gap with a luxury. Circle holes and square pegs.

The hole of course, is that I have no money, and using pegs I have to buy certainly isn't gonna get me anywhere. But in the meantime, I have things I've always wanted, and the quality of my humble poor life is slowly but surely improving. With the exception of my diet, but that's ok cause when I was sick around payday I bought a large bottle of multivitamins which compensates for the utter lack of variety in my daily intake.

Anyway, the point here is to raise this question: is there ever a point where I/one could have all the little things I/one ever wanted such that I/they could actually start saving money or more likely enjoy the costly company of others in this country, i.e. going to bars, restaurants, movies, etc? As far back as I've had paychecks there's always been something more I couldn't afford, and come payday, that's where my money's gone. There's always a little project, there's always something I rationalize to buy. When does that end? When do I have enough to say I'm fine for now? I certainly say that after I buy things, so when do I start saying it before?

Catching Up

There's a lot to catch up on, it's been a busy, frantic couple of days.

Saturday the 18th after work, Greg and I got together after work and I was able to give him the 17,500 yen I owed him from the loan back at the start of the year. Good to be free of that. We went to Di's mexican restaurant in Shin-Matsudo and chatted over tequila and Sol and a particularly delicious plate of nachos, which promptly gave us both gas.
We went back to my place to get the surprise gift I had for Greg, and when he laid eyes upon that box of Girl Scout Thin Mints, he was all lit up with joy. It was cute.
Greg wound up kickin it at my place that night, we drank a few more beers and then a lot of silliness ensued. It was like we were in grade school, lying there pretending to go to sleep, and then giggling and busting out laughing about the tiniest things. Fantastic.

Sunday after work (now all the while here I'm still pretty much sick, still am even now almost a week later) Greg somehow convinced me to go to Nishi Nippori with him to Anton's going away party. Greg had been drinking all day with his friend Craig, so by the time I met him up in Nishi Nippori he was pretty much ready to blow chunks, which he did, shortly after arriving. Then we went and bought booze. I chose a bottle of red wine.
Party highlights:

Naomi and Carrie from my crazy night in Roppongi were there. I mostly ignored them, except for one good chat with both at one point in the evening. Neither have gotten prettier with time.

Yuji out of nowhere provided me with a bag of weed, which I have no use for.

I'm an arm wrestling champ. Against girls.

Greg dropped and broke the LCD screen of his digicam.

Monday, I went out and bought a 60gig iPod, black. I'm very happy with it, especially cause I can load pictures on it and always have pictures of my friends close to me, and show you off cause some of you are pretty hot.

Tuesday I went to Mito with Bryan and was a guest on his radio show, and I played Walking Away and Brothers on the air, as well as picked all the songs for that day's show. Next week I'll get a CD of the show. Brothers I kinda played a truncated version for time, and my rythm guitar sucked because I've very rarely played it all the way through. My leg was shaking violently and it was kinda bad. But, walking away went well, so I think I might rip that part and make a track of it. Thanks to my new iPod the hour or so train ride either way was much more bearable.
Afterwards, we went to Shinjuku to meet two of Bryan's friends for drinks, but I accidentaly left my bag on the Yamanote, so all those Japanese lessons where you have to describe your bag to the stationmaster came in little handy, since the stress made it all go out the window. In the end though, I waited for the train to come all th eway back around the loop, and there it was waiting for me. I pulled the shadiest maneuver of all time when I walked onto the train, grabbed my bag, turned around and walked off. I had to pull the, hit myself on the forehead like I'm so stupid so people didn't think I was a terrorist. The rest of the night was fine.

Yesterday I worked with Dara all day, so yeeeefreakin haw. That's all for now. Sorry for the long post.

Taxes and Pants

One has, if one wishes, two choices regarding the influence and example of one's parents. One can either 1) Chose to act like them or 2) do everything possible to be the exact opposite and pretty much end up in the same place anyway.

My parents, you see, have this kind of, well, verbal diarrhea. It happens whenever they pick up a phone, or write an email. See, instead of one, normal, info filled conversation or email, I get a flurry of annoying, poorly timed, and scatterbrained emails and phone calls in rapid succession from them each containing about half an idea's worth of information, which I must then sift through and reply to painstakingly, and then get another eighteen emails from them outlining one half of the 9 more things they needed to say.

Needless to say, this really irritates me. Actually, it drives me fucking crazy. I woke up this morning to 3 emails from my mother regarding income taxes. I wrote her back with the info I had, and told her I would get back to her when I knew more. I came home today to 6, yes 6 more emails from her. I'm sure I will wake up tomorrow to another 12, cause the only thing that says email me excessively more than an email in reply is an 8 hour lack of response.

Both my parents do this, and I die a little inside every time. They have suppositories to help treat explosive diarrhea, and I'm thinking of shoving something up their asses in an attempt to get them to instate a mandatory 4 hour waiting period for emailing me, to let their ideas build up into a semi-coherent, single, manageable narrative. Fat chance though.

Oh, and I bought new pants today. Thanks, comme ca ism.

Wind and Windows

We're having something of a windstorm right now. It started last night shortly after I got home. See, it's been really nice and sunny lately, which, in springtime when the water cycle is at its most efficient (20 min sun 20 min rain consecutively), means that there was bound to be one natural disaster or another. The building felt like it was going to be uprooted. Today's not much better, but, the trains are all running late on account of the safety concern, especially after this winter when a train up in the north country weas derailed on account of blizzard force winds.

I got that old laptop working yesterday, after talking to my friend Morgan who is having a similar problem with one of her laptops. Inspired once more to bang my head against a wall futily, I took apart the laptop and examined the hard drive, where I discovered that perhaps maybe the drive wasn't securely connected to the motherboard. Turns out I was right and now I have my own little crappy Windows laptop I can use to dork out. Too bad it really is a crappy compie and I won't be using it to do any hardcore gaming, but, oh well. You take what you can get, for free, left conveniently in your room.

Umm...Japanese people don't know how to use stairs. They really don't. Everyone walks on the left on the sidewalk, no prob. Drive on the left, no prob. Stand to the left on escalators. No prob. But stairs, fuck it. It's a free-for-all. People goin in the middle, between both sides going the same direction, people weaving, shoulder checking, it's mahem. What the fuck?

Irony

Irony is taking ill the morning you wake up on your days off. It's also being sick the morning of payday, when you would otherwise being running around ecstaticly singing the praises of your life.

At least it's sunny, so I can contemplate how much today would have been the perfect day had my sinuses not been completely stuffed and were I not to sneeze every three minutes and be forced to expectorate.

Literary Preoccupation

I finished reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American yesterday night; I was pleased with it by the time I was done. At first, I dunno, it was a slow first 50 pages, but, coming to the end, I had really sunk my teeth into it and found I quite enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing Vietnam for myself someday, just hopefully not in the same way as Mr. Fowler or Mr. Pyle.

I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera today, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and 20 pages into it, it seems an interesting book. I've become all too familiar with the wording of good prose, thanks to a high school IB program which required not only the taking in but the appreciation of such literature. So, when I read a book now, I can tell almost within 2 pages if it's the kind of thing which belonged in my cirriculum, and as such, whether I'll be able to finish it in two days or two weeks. Perhaps, in some cases, not at all.

Both books have the effect of taking you back in time, and familiarizing the reader with a world that no longer exists, but moreover, taking place in other foreign countries, they make me feel a little less away from home. My life here, though lacking in the counterpoint of fictional masterpieces, is a story all its own, and perhaps some day looking back on this journal I will be taken to a similar world of the past, fictional in its own way for no longer being the world in which I live.

That aside, in 4 hours I will no longer be poor, constrained no longer to the confines of this apartment, waiting for the shackles of poverty to be lifted from my aching and bruised wrists and ankles. The interesting part though, is that, much like those freed from one form of servitute or another, I am faced with a psychological dilema. Do I continue, despite my freedom, to live as I have for the last three months, or do I, drunk with the exhilirating scent of money, live in wonton neglect for financial frugality, so as to in some way laugh in the face of my former encumberance?

Regardless of my choice, I really need to stop thinking in prose.

Pomp and Circumstance

I'm chuckling at how appropriately named this entry is.

Anyway, I went to a party last night at my old apartment, and it was a blast. Er, mostly a blast. Anyway, you can check out pics at LifeOfDave.

An old friend dropped me a line today, after a couple months of not talking.
Among other things, she called me pompous. Pompous. I don't think I've ever actually been called pompous before. Cocky, arrogant, condescending, Narcissistic, full of myself, egotistical, self-centered, etc etc but not pompous.

pom·pous (pŏm'pəs
adj.

1. Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious: pompous officials who enjoy giving orders.
2. Full of high-sounding phrases; bombastic: a pompous proclamation.
3. Chracterized by pomp or stately display; ceremonious: a pompous occasion.

Am I characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity? I dunno about that.

But I will tell you what, I am most DEFINITELY bombastic. Fuck ya. That's gonna be my word of the day.

But check out this ridiculous set of definitions you have to go through to get to the meaning of bombastic:
Bom·bas·tic
(bŏm*bȧs"tĭk or bŬm*bȧs"tĭk), Bom·bas·tic·al
a.Characterized by bombast; high-sounding; inflated.

What the fuck is bombast?
bom·bast
n.

Grandiloquent, pompous speech or writing.

[Alteration of obsolete bombace, cotton padding, from Old French, from Medieval Latin bombax, bombac-, cotton. See bombazine.]

Ah. Cotton padding. I'm full of padding. Wait. What the fuck does grandiloquent mean?

Gran·dil·o·quent
a.[L. grandis grand + logui to speak.]
Speaking in a lofty style; pompous; bombastic.

This definition is circular. What crap.

Basically, I'm full of padding.

Lazy Day

Today, whereas normally I would have been up to my waist in kids classes, I was at home, lounging, and writing music. Maybe even doing a little laundry. Maybe even vacuuming. A little playing with the cat. Ok anyway.

When I clocked out yesterday all I could think of was how waking up today was gonna suck, but then, in that instant, I have the most beautiful of all possible realizations. I realized I didn't have to work today, thanks to the shift swap I pulled with Ty so he could spend time with his mom when she was here. It's like finding a $50 bill in your pocket, only instead of $50 it's not having to wake up at fucking 8:30am, which is worth $50 in my book. I was a happy, happy kid. I went to bed early last night so today could come more quickly.

So I put some more words down to some songs I've been working on, recorded some stuff, had a momentary lapse of sanity/self consciousness and sent one of my songs over to Jacki for feedback which I immediately regretted, but oh well, and otherwise lounged around the house. I read 50 or so pages of The Quiet American while eating a rather interesting homemade ramen concoction which proved to be slightly less delicious than its pre-made counterparts, and otherwise meticulously calculated the hours until payday when food that doesn't require boiling will once again be within my reach.

Ty's makin me consider getting a gym membership. Having two meatheads as roommates isn't doing well for my narcissism. I was alright living with Ash and Tim, but here, pushups and anorexia just aren't cutting it.

Selfishness

I have a friend who is, well, selfish. Sorry, but it's true. Now, generally speaking this doens't bother me, cause, well, that's just who this person is and I've learned to stop thinking that's ever going to change.

But this story isn't really about this person, it's about how this person makes me feel when I hear the things they say.

See, what makes me feel bad is that when they tell me things I just kinda write it off as trivial, cause I hear so much of it, and a lot of the time it's poking, consciously or otherwise, to see if I'll react a certain way, so it's generally in my best interest not to get worked up about it.

But they had really exciting news for me today, something, though once again purely about themselves and really not for me to know but for them to have someone to tell (at least that's how I see it, I'm really sorry this is true most times), and I just couldn't be happy for them. I'm almost positive they just wanted to share their joy about it with someone, maybe, MAYBE me in particular but I doubt it, and I wanted to at least pretend to be excited, but I couldn't even do that. I did my best to maintain the conversation, respond at least somewhat appropriately for how incredible, in all honesty, this news was. But yea. Not a drop of real actual happy there.

Now that's just straight fucked up on my part and I knew this the whole time. What's worse, is that what was there instead of happy was, in fact, some resentment, anger, and a lot of competitive/defensiveness. I'm obviously still trying to figure out how to deal with these feelings, since they're irrational, and not how I want to go about viewing the world. But all the same, all I could think of was how I would someday acheive greater, or that it somehow wasn't all THAT special. Especially not compared to the things I see myself accomplishing in my mind. But how stupid is that? I'm sitting here shooting someone's reality down with my hypothetical future. And it's making me feel better.

I feel terrible about this. My friends should be able to brag and show off something they're proud of. Lord knows I ask the same of my friends. They should be able to do it without me or anyone else trying to steal their thunder, which without trying I was coming close to.

Maybe it's because a day or two ago this particular friend really kinda scratched me a little too deep with a couple passing comments in their unique but consistent manner, and I was still licking my wounds and brooding over it when they came to me with the news.

But it's no excuse. Maybe this person deserves my spite, but, they deserve my congratulations in a time of celebration regardless. Ugh.

Crossing the Line

Well, I did it. I didn't think it was gonna happen any time soon, but, it did.

I gave one of my students my email address, smack dab in the middle of a lesson, with two other students there to see it.

Yuki, one of my students, is leaving April 1st to go study at the UO, my college, for 5 months. So I told her I would answer any questions she had, and today during lesson we got to talking and she wanted to know if there were any Japanese restaurants there, so of course I had to tell her about Sakura, where Amanda and I went religiously to skip classes and get lunch, and Shoji's Ramen across the street from the quads where I used to live.

I got home from a night of drinking with Ty in Kashiwa to find she'd already emailed me, which I was happy about, cause her language implied she'd wanted to get in touch with me already. Mwahahaha.

I'm so gonna get canned. Oh well. Gotta look out for people goin to Eugene, I mean, that's pretty awesome, and what are the odds?

Grrrls

Well, today was interesting.

Matt (the person whose room I moved into) left today to go back to America, and he left behind some goodies in the closet which I immediately searched. I found his old laptop, which could have been the greatest treasure trove of porn of all time, but unfortunately there seem to be some hard drive issues, i.e. there's a bad connection or the drive is corrupt, and so I won't be able to use it as I had anticipated. That is, for playing games I can't on my Mac.

I talked to Christy today which was nice, because we kinda had a sappy convo about how we're grown up a lot since knowing each other, and it made me happy in a very contented kind of way. I told her she ought to come out and visit me, and she reminded me once agian that a lot of my friends are still in college, and that's just not financially possible. True. True.
Amanda, after a long conversation the other night which actually made me consider a little more seriously the rest of my life when I get back to the states, pulled an amazing full reversal in true Amanda style by not only implying that she's dating one of her exs again but then taking it upon herself to share her satisfaction in tracking down some related info with me. My ass cheeks and her lips have a date. The kind with kissing. Kissing my ass, that is.

After a pretty typical day at work, I came home and was sitting on the Nagareyama line when Natascha, my crush, comes outta nowhere and sits down next to me. This happens almost daily now for some reason. Last night on the way home from Ueno, she and I were on the same train. Today on the way home. Last week when I worked in Shin Matsudo, I ran into her on the train, then again later that day when I was on my lunch. The odds are preposterous, but I'm not complaining. As I was getting off the train, she invited me over for dinner some night, which I wholeheartedly intent to take her up on. She only lives one stop down from me, which has irony that only I understand.

Bryan doesn't like her cause she's really really curt, and kind of a coldhearted bitch sometimes. I happen to think that's really hot.

Ueno, Part 2

After a long and satisfying day sitting here at my computer doing absolutely nothing productive yesterday I got a phone call from Greg asking me if I wanted to meet up wtih him in Ueno, because a friend of his from high school that he hadn't seen or spoken to in ages happened to be here and wanted to get together for drinks.

So of course I say sure, but tell him that he has to pay for my train home since I have no money until the 15th cause I'm so cool. I got out there after a little bit and we chatted while waiting for his friend and his friend's friend to arrive. Apparently these guys are military personnel, on leave. Sweet, my first time hanging out with the armed forces. But they turned out to be pretty cool kids, Lorn is a 6'5" redheaded kid that looks and acts almost exactly like Icky minus tattoos and plus military, and used to work in radio. His friend whose name escapes me was a shorter black man wearing a purple Decepticon jersey, which made him instantly badass. Decepticons rock.

Anyway, we went to a Mexican restaurant in Ueno and shocked/amazed the locals when we ordered L size margaritas. To be honest they even impressed us. Apparently none of us had drank in a while, cause we were just about floored by the time we left. One giant margarita each. So then we walked around Ueno park with our freshly purchased beers and Lorn's friend got harassed on the crosswalk by Japanese businessmen trying out their English.

All in all not a bad night. I ran into Natascha on the train on the way home, we keep running into each other, but I think I might have been a little too candid about my inebriation. Eh, oh well.

WOOT!

It's official folks, I'm having guests.

Tyler called me today while I was at work, and just happened to have a break, to let me know that he is saving up and will be coming out at the end of June.

This is good news. I'm fucking stoked.

Capn' Ahab is apparently thinking of coming too, and if I'm lucky, Morgan and Liz will come visit. Actually, this is funny, the OTHER Morgan and Liz might come as well. Morgan and Liz from Texas and Morgan and Liz from L.A.

Let this be a message to you: you are welcome here. Come. Enjoy Japan. Make a memory you've got a golden opportunity to have. How many chances do you get to go to Japan and have a place to stay, and someone to show you around? I'll be here till the end of '07, so make the most of it.

In other news, I bought a gig of ram for my laptop which arrived today, much to my personal satisfaction. I worked 6 days a row this week, and ended today in Kanamachi doing a cover shift for Ty. Here's the quote of the day:
"You're like a machine."

I'll leave that out of context deliberately.

And for the record, yes, I do write songs.