First of the Season

It's official, fall is here. How do I know?

Well, it's not the rain. The occasional torrential downpour isn't enough to convince me that my most loathed of seasons rapidly approaches.

It's not the fact that I had to sleep with the heater on in my room last night, after having stowed my portable a/c and fan back in my spacious closet. I still had that thing out in June, and I have faith in the possibility of a fluke cold spell, suspicious though I may be.

It's not the fact that the clothing stores have long since started selling jackets and advertising fall sales. It's not that the beers have red and golden colored leaves adorning their cans (beer marks the changing of seasons here with even more anticipatory fervor than clothing retailers).

It IS, however, the sniffle you hear coming from the person next to you on the train. But no, that could be allergies. It could be the sneeze you hear across the room, but nah. It could be my friends passing the same cold around between themselves and their odd love triangles, but even then I can ignore that. No, I'm afraid my proof that fall has truly come is the sore throat I have now. The queasiness in my stomach, the constant need to hauk and spit in the morning, these things mean winter is not far off. This is why I hate winter.

People who hate humidity can suck me off. People who hate mosquitos can eat a dick. A/c fixes one, bug spray another. No amount of climate control or topical spray is going to prevent either of the two highly communicable winter illnesses that make fall and winter a hellish nightmare. I fucking HATE being sick.

Rain Rain Go Away but don't come back cause I hate you and I'm sleeping with your girlfriend Sunny.

So I'm sitting there on my computer yesterday talking to J, and she mentions that it's a beautiful day out and that it's a shame I'm going to spend it locked inside playing WoW and not doing anything. Actually, she was the second person to tell me that already that day. About the day being beautiful, that is.
So I told her that I was considering doing something tomorrow, which is today now, if the weather were nice, and we made plans to meet to go to Yoyogi Park together to walk around.

And of course it rained. And I had already been where she was thinking of going with me. What started as a drizzle as I left my house deteriorated into a pull on downpour by the time I decided it was time to head home, apparently to J's chagrin. Stupid weather. By the time I got back to my home station is was full on typhoon, and my bag was soaked through and through.

Wait, David, don't you have a book and a phone and an iPod and a digital camera and a pack of gift cigarettes for Joy back home that J brought you back from Korea in your bag? Why yes, yes I do, but no matter, because I also happened to have won a small Sol (R) beer cooler while at lunch at El Torito today in Shibuya, thanks to the "Drink Mexican Beer" campaign going on currently at the aforementioned restaurant chain. All my essentials tucked away nicely in my newly acquired layer of waterproof (and temperature stable) beer carrying goodness and all was well. I mean, aside from the fact I was completely soaked by the time I got home, but, whatever.

September, for those of you who didn't know, is Campaign Month. It's when every single company regardless of how little sense it makes, has a Campaign of some sort, and not just like an ad campaign, or a sale or a promotion, I'm talking a full on capital C Campaign. For example, El Torito's "Drink Mexican Beer" Campaign, accompanied by what seems like MORE expensive Mexican beers, and ads EVERYWHERE, and a chance to win a variety of prizes upon purchasing said beer, as per my case, where I won the book/phone/iPod/camera saving beer cooler.

Nova's Campaign, for those of you who thought of it, is a red patch on the J-Staff's shoulders that says "Supporting Your Dream". That's it. No free beer coolers. They don't even hand out the patches. Actually come to think of it you basically don't get anything at all. But I mean, come on. It's Nova we're talking about here.

Glad To Have Days Off

All nighter. Roppongi. Yeeesh, I gotta knock this off.

Saturday after work I went home and changed, and headed out to Matsudo for the International Party to which I got invited earlier in the week. The little trip my roommates wanted to go on kind of evolved into going to this party and maybe pulling and all nighter. All things considered, I think I spent the same amount of money.

It was in a tiny little bar and there were exactly who I thought would be there, a bunch of weird western guys and less than attractive Japanese. But, when we got there, we got our complimentary drink token and bingo sheets, complete with lucky win numbers. I saw 53 and went for it. Cole would have been proud. He'd be even more proud cause my number was pulled twice and I won a little bottle of, oh yea, Carlo Rossi white wine which I promptly drank cause drinks were all 500 yen that night. I saw a disposable camera on the bar, and I wanted Dave to take a few pics with it, so I distracted the J-girls sitting there with some casual conversation which turned out to be me talking to them for a good half hour and getting felt up as soon as they discovered my nipple piercings. Lol the novelty of those things never wears off in this country. Almost worth them being irritated CONSTANTLY.

Dave and Kieran wanted to pull the all nighter, so Ty and I gave ourselves hesitant looks and finally agreed. Oh Lord.

So we went to Roppongi, to this bar called The Heartland. This bar is totally the same scene from PDX. The people there were all late 20s early 30s new businessmen, new money, the place reeked of coke and smarmy artsy types. I was tired at that point, and pretty well drunk, but more tired. I dropped my beer. It shattered. People scattered. Including my company, leaving my to my embarassment alone, which was deep, with the number of VERY dirty looks I got. But some Canadians started talking to me, and I came and chatted with them, and thanks to some thick skin and daft self depricating humor I managed to ignore the looks long enough for people to get back to drinking and make some new conversation buddies. Typical people. After long conversation, a few people leaving, and me finally managing to piss off the girl I didn't really feel like talking to anymore (an entirely different situation, you) we left to go somewhere else.

We went to one bar, which wasn't the best, and then went out to the Tokyo Sports Cafe. They have a craps table there, where you can play for drink tickets. Haha. Fools. I won a lot, and we drank for free while we were there. I started talkin to thig guy in the bathroom about women and crap, and I sat down next to him a little later to continue our conversation, but apparently he was talking to some girl pretty intently and his buddy gave me the "no offense, but, take a hike" cause I was probably inadvertently cockblocking. Fair enough. Ty got shot the eff down by some girl he wanted to talk to. We all decided that leaving was a good idea at this point.

We walked around not knowing where we wanted to go, so I went to some random black guy on the street and said "we wanna go to a bar, and we want our first drink free." He looked at me for a minute then called his friend over, who led us downstairs where we got our first drink half off and a free shot of rum. The drinks were STRONG as well. Much better. 4 Japanese girls sat down near us and then we were all paired off for the rest of the evening. I talked to Rie, the only real cute one, and we got along pretty well. Then again, we only spoke in Japanese, which was pretty amazing, and it was pretty fun.

Finally, around 6 or so I was ready to go home, and Kieran and I left Dave and Ty to their own devices and headed back. I crashed at about 8am. All in all, not a bad night. Not terribly expensive either. But I get this weird feeling when I think about that night like something was wrong, something was off, or something was terribly too close to going very very bad at any given point. But nothing bad happened, so, hey. Good night.

Official Notice

This is my notice to all readers that this blog reflects my thoughts, and I can and will say whatever the hell I want. I don't particularly care if what I say in here is rude or mean or anything else, it's what's in my head, and I can say it if I damn well please. I apologize if what I say refers to you, or in a potentially rude way, but I have not only the right to be completely frank but an obligation to be, because this is my journal and will be one of the only records I have of my life and feelings as I look back on my past.

As one person told me once, the person who I am referring to with this entry, I won't allow my relations to someone or my awareness of their reading my journal to any longer affect the contents of what goes in here. I must stay true to my thoughts, and as such it is up to the READER to decide what they read, not me to censor what I write. If you're a part of my private life and you read this, don't be surprised to see your name, and don't be surprised if I say things you might not like.

If you want to hold my thoughts as written here against me, go ahead, but it's a cheap shot. I won't stop you, but don't expect me to respect it.

Ketchup note to self

Things to write about:
Movie Night
Ramen with Tascha
The phone call
Kung Fu Hustle Movie review
Crown of Swords Book review
Ramen, Korea, and Hokkaido
Credit
Lonely party and freelance karaoke
Lazy day with Greg
The Return of Shirai
Two rogue hairs
Calling it quits

My game server is down for an extended time due to some retrofitting upgrading expanding somethingorother crap, so here I am, with my lat start Wednesday, fully prepared to not leave my room until the last minute, and come to find out I got up early for nothing. Guess I'll update my journal, yea?
I'm not exactly hungover, but it's not like I wasn't drunk last night when I went to sleep. Jersey had a bad day yesterday, she got literally yelled at by Clare, the soulless one, after work, so I told her I'd buy her a drink and we went to the hub. For future reference, you CAN'T keep up with her. It doesn't matter who you are. After casually finishing our 5th double Jack and coke, I decided it was time for me to call it a night, as she was getting another one. We shot the shit and that was nice, she got to vent and relax a little, and when Rob and Kieran showed up around 11 things picked up. I didn't feel so bad leaving, and there was no awkward drunken pressure to provide other forms of comfort.

K, so, the catch up.

Two Rogue Hairs

I was at Natascha's place the other week, just chillen out on her couch talking, with my head in her lap, and she was playing with my hair when she let out a giggle. The kind of giggle that only comes when a woman has discovered something on a man that's amusing and he won't like hearing. Thank God we weren't fooling around.

I inquired about the nature of her amusement, and she told me, in a smug little voice, that she had found to entirely grey hairs to match the one she pulled out of my head the night of The All Nighter.

Rather than pulling them out, I asked her to escort me to a mirror for me to see them for myself, in action, in my head. So she did. I saw an old man when I looked in the mirror. I was petrified. I still am. So not cool.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the many ways in which I've changed and grown up since moving here, and this is only further proof. I mean, I don't mind cause I'm gonna be a hot grey haired guy, but man, that it's starting now is sad. I can only hope I have a full head of grey hair before I go bald, if I go bald. I'd like to at least be that hot guy with peppered grey hair for a while. My dad went grey early, and I knew it was gonna happen early, but you never really think it's gonna happen till it does. And even then it's always too soon.

So anyway, I'll monitor their progress. I know leaving them in will only encourage their friends to do the same, but fuck it. Whatever. I have to start getting older sometime.

Calling It Quits

For the record, on Sunday, Sept. 10 I quit smoking. I was at Nijyu Maru with Natascha after work and I mentioned that I hate being tired all the time, cause when we get together after work I'm always tired, and so is she, and I always feel bad that I'm so drained hanging out with her instead of being my normal, er, sort of, peppy occasionally manic self. I said I ought to quit smoking. She said why don't you, and I said I dunno. She said, "so quit." And I said ok. I quit. And that was that.

This has been a long time coming I guess in my ongoing quest to reclaim having any energy at all ever. For what must be 5 or 6 years I've been drained and have had no energy to really do anything. My vitamin supplements helped a little, and my mineral supplements helped even more, which reminds me I need to buy more of, but smoking I know has been the primary insidious factor leeching my energy/will to live for the 4 years I've been doing it.

I haven't kicked nicotine entirely, I have a tin of chew for occasional use, which has helped. I'll work on weening myself off that entirely soon, since poison is poison regardless of method of intake. But that once a day is better than half a pack of cigarettes.

I miss smoking though, I really like it. Not for the nicotine so much as that I actually just enjoy the act of smoking. The places I always go to smoke are meaningless to me now, and that makes me sad. And bored. I read a lot more now though. But there are so many times when i would normally be smoking and it's a constant reminder of how much smoking was a part of my everyday routine. Oh well. I can go up stairs without being winded. I don't constantly feel like I need to lay down and rest. I can drink a LOT more without feeling sick to my stomach.

Quitting was a good thing, and I'll keep it up. It won't be the last cigarette I ever smoke, but it'll be a long time before I have another. I went 6 months without a line, and it was hard not to let myself get back into it, I know cigarettes will be the same way. But I will prevail. My goal though is not to develop a hatred of smoking or resentment towards those that do. I can already feel it brewing as I develop psychological barriers to justify quitting, and I want to avoid that. It's just something I don't want to do anymore. That'll be the hard part, I think.

Book Review: A Crown of Swords

740 pages of book I've already read.

That's the jist of it really, I'd already read the book, turns out it was the last book I had read in the series, book 7, for the record, of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, all of which are approx. 750 pages.

It was good though, because it was really like reading it for the first time, but with the pleasure of having half an idea of what's going to happen, only not how and when. It was funny remembering quotes or certain events and waiting to see when they would happen.

I actually read the book pretty fast too, and I've started book 8 now and am 220 pages into it.

It's a good series, with time and age I have come to see more things in it than I did when I first started years ago. For example, political commentary. As well, how cheesy some of the ideas in the book are. For instance, well, the Dragon. I dunno, for me, the idea of Dragons as all powerful magical beings is really, well, played out. It just seems like an attempt to appeal to something which is distinctly not Western and ancient and something something, but whatever. I'm the reader and I can choose to ignore what I want to make the story better, so I will. I try not to equate the title Dragon with anything other than a character and his previous incarnation.

I like that the book shifts perspective. You get inside the head of so many characters throughout the course of the story, that you need 740 pages to cover just about anything, and when I think about it, not a lot actually HAPPENS in the course of a book, because it covers many of the same things from different perspectives, or things that are happening at the same time in different places. That, and Jordan is an incredibly environmentally descriptive writer. he creates entire worlds everytime any scene is introduced, and though it is at times verbose and somewhat unneccessary, it creates a sort of realism and depth that allows you to feel a lot more a part of this world, or at least the situation.

(K) The Phone Call

So I called her, and she picks up, and says, "you didn't listen to the message did you?"
"What, the one where you said, 'don't call me back?' "
"Yea, that one."

Lemme give you some backstory here. That morning, she calls me and says, "we need to talk."
Let me tell you how much guys LOVE to hear that first thing in a conversation. By love I mean hate more than anything in the entire universe. It immediately puts us on the defensive. Especially when it's a conversation we don't wanna have. I asked her about what. She said, "about this. It's killing me."
"What the fuck is THIS?"
"Don't play stupid, David."
"No really, I don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do."
"You mean, whatever this is between you and me?"
"Yes David, and it's killing me."
So I told her I'd call her when I got off work.

When I asked her what she wanted to talk to me about, this is what she said:
"I've been thinking about what I want to say to you all day, and to be honest I can't think of anything."
Nothing better that demanding a serious conversation then not having any clue what to say.
So then she just kinda sits there on the phone, not saying anything, and I'm kinda glad she did that cause it gave me the momentum to start in on what I wanted to say. I asked her if she wanted to lead the conversation or me, and she said she just didn't know how she felt and how I felt and it was confusing. I offered to clear up my end for her.

So I let her know again, exactly how I feel, in no uncertain terms. This time it seemed to sink in a little, and I was happy for that. Even disregarding our ages, we have a difference in perspective that just isn't functional for a relationship. That, and we just don't get along really. We constantly argue. She's a pain in the ass for my personality type, and she can't handle being with someone like me either, cause someone like me doesn't wanna be with someone at all. Anyway, it was more long winded and well worded, and I wish I had a transcript, but oh well. The point is I set the record straight and that's that.

For the record, don't ever pull a confrontation on a guy in an aggressive angry tone of voice when you want to clear things up and you're hoping they tell you they like you. If you have to ask, and you feel like you have to take that tone to get the conversation, the answer's already as clear as what he's going to tell you when you push him far enough into that corner to fight back.

(K) Ramen with Tascha

Trying to decide what about this I want to actually write.

I went to the Chinese ramen shop next to Natascha's house on Thursday, which was to be the last day I hung out with her before she left for Korea. We had some ramen, it was delicious, we laughed about stuff, and I mentioned that I didn't like her hair the way she had it styled. She kind got all buttsore about it, and told me that I had no right to tell her things like that. I'm not her boyfriend, so, just keep it to myself. I told her it didn't matter if I'm her boyfriend or not, it's my opinion, but that got us onto the topic of you know, US.

Basically, I told her I don't care if I'm not her boyfriend, I'm still going to treat her like someone I want to be with, and she said that's fine as long as I know it's not going to change anything. Eventually her mood improved and joked around more and by the end of the night we were happy and giggly again.

The point of this entry is to say that I'm going to reneg on my comment to her about trying anyway. I'm done with it. Apparently that week her friend Jeremy was here, apparently they made out the whole time, and though it was just making out, it kinda put things in perspective. That's why I didn't meet him. That's why I haven't seen the pics. That's why she can say she's firm in where she stands, she basically ended what there was between us and was telling me so without explaining the reasons, and letting me fill in the blanks with my actions and not hers. Clever girl.

So we parted ways for me to catch my last train home, and I looked down at my phone to see it was ringing. Janel. Time for The Phone Call.

Movie Review: Kung Fu Hustle

I guess I don't really know what to say about this movie seeing as I was pretty distracted during most of it. But, here's what I can remember:

This movie has the great traditional weird translation and dubbing that I expect from great Chinese movies. The word choice is just fantastic, and makes for great listening, and makes me wonder if that's an accurate translation from what is actually said in Chinese. What gets me is the ridiculous amount of idioms they use, many of which I've never heard but make sense, so I wonder if they're just clever phrases or if they actually say that in Chinese.

The special effects were less than fantastic. I wanted them to be, but they weren't. I'm starting to really lose respect for fight scenes that no longer use people, but CG versions of them. The last Matrix movie was my frist prime example of this. People, you can tell it's not the real person. It's cheesy.

But what I liked more about this movie than anything else was the social commentary. After watching the only other Chinese-American movie crossover in recent memory, Shaolin Soccer, I remember thinking if, aside from the silly story, the society presented in the movie is close to normal everyday life in China. It would certainly be interesting. Both movies, Kung Fu Hustle in particular, have reallllly strong throwbacks to old school Hollywood, and I appreciate the somewhat artsy feel the movies have, at least in their grace. I mean, they're cheesy to the core, but, graceful in a way movies haven't been in decades.

Both movies take place in dirty, run down shitholes of places, at least to my eyes. There are cities and nice enough looking places in both, but, the world you're a part of in the movie is dirty and run down and dusty and impoverished, but functional. So I wanna see China now, I want to understand what life is like in this part of the world that the US has worked so hard to make its citizens want to avoid like the commie plague.

But then again, I have to realize that both movies revolve around Kung Fu and special effects, and were probably only brought to the US because someone thought stupid US audiences would pay to watch it regardless of content, and I shouldn't use them as a basis for cultural analysis, rather a statement about what either China thinks America wants to see or what America thinks China produces that's worth paying attention to.

(K) Movie Night

Movie Night. Janel is in Korea now for a few days, as her tourist visa expired. As she was getting ready to leave, she insisted that we get together beforehand on the offchance she got thrown into immigrant jail or something. So I told her she could come over and we'd watch a movie or something, but that I'd sleep on the couch since I had previously mentioned I only wanted to be friends, and I didn't want to encourage any hankey pankey. Right. So I go and pick her up at Kashiwa station and straight away, the only think I can see is this just fucking atrocious dress she's wearing. The kinda thing that has shoulderpads but no waist. So she's wearing this belt, but of course it's on her waist and not her hips, and she has absolutely no body mass, so this dress is just hanging off her bones basically, and it was this deep blue, and well, anyway, it was ridiculous. Like there was occasion to wear a dress in the first place, but I really hope it wasn't an attempt to impress me. If so, I really hope she's removed that dress from her choice list for those occasions. The only thing it impressed upon me was her complete inability to dress herself appropriately. I'm amazed I don't tie her shoes.

She cooked dinner, which, despite her protests to the contrary, I thanked her for at least 12 times, and which, despite my comments to the contrary, was bland and mostly flavorless. But I did appreciate the gesture. And that by that time she had changed out of that dress. She made some kind of breaded chicken. Needed salt. We of course had wine. So of course there was sexual tension.

For those of you who haven't experienced this, or who lack perspective because of a difference in genetalia, I'll explain something that may or may not be unique to me and my genitals/brain combo. Guys can say no to sex. I can. I have. BUT, if you put your vagina on top of my crotch and rub yourself around, eventually the programming is going to kick in and something's gonna happen based on instinct alone. Now, one could argue if I didn't really want it I'd have removed her, and I did a few times, but this girl is more persistent than my cat, both redheads by the way. So anyway, after some closed lip kisses and grinding, her pants came off and we started to have sex. In one a rare fleeting moment of lucidity mid coitus (rare because I think I'm the only guy that would ever do this) I pulled out and told her I couldn't continue, cause it wasn't what I wanted. Clearly she disagreed with that.

So then the talk started, about how it's obvious I like her and why would I do that if I didn't want it, and I gave her the short explanation, which she hates. My dick and my brain are allowed to disagree.

We decided to watch our movie, Kung Fu Hustle, out in the living room. Janel just couldn't stand it, and was bored. She asked me to rub her back. At this point, I was admittedly horny from having started to have sex earlier, and I told her I would if she gave me a blowjob. So she did. I didn't really rub her back so much. After the movie I wanted to go to bed, but she didn't, she wanted hers. I told her no, she got pissy, I told her no, she got whiney, I told her no, she cried a little, I told her no, she got mad and I snapped. It was 2am at that point and I wanted to go to sleep. I stood up and told her I didn't have to put up with that shit, not in my house not in my room and that I was gonna go sleep in the other room. She got a little better. Neither of us slept. I never made it to the other room.

The next morning, she played with my morning wood and tried to get me to fool around with her, which I didn't. I just kinda layed there and let her touch me but nothing too heavy. Lots of closed lip kisses. Who doesn't figure out their attention isn't wanted when you try to kiss someone and they closed lip kiss you and turn their head away? Who keeps trying? For a LONG time? Ugh.

Eventually I escorted her back to the station and it was finished. Not a lot of movie involved in that story, you say? So do I. I never called it a movie night, I told her she could come over for dinner and a movie. She thought movie night. Sorry for the confusion.

Movie Review - Silent Hill

Eh.

Having played the game, I was impressed initially with its faithful rendition of the plot, but was quickly disappointed and in increasingly large increments as the story departed from the original in ways that I have come to recognize as standard when doing a game/comic to movie crossover.

The movie's gotta differ enough that it's not just the script of the video game, and parts have to be adapted that just wouldn't make sense otherwise. Like walking around with a katana, which in a video game makes sense, cause well, it's a fantastic unlockable secret weapon that allows you to make short work of random enemies, but well, there are no such things in a movie, cause the viewers aren't in control, and she's not gonna die if we stop watching for a minute.

But certain plot adaptions are just, though predictable, total crap. See, in the game you really are working to hold back the apocalypse, it's not just the incorrect fanatic ravings of some religious zealots who the horribly burned Alessa made a pact with some dark force to take revenge on by making her twisted hate a dream world reality the citizens of the town were trapped in. Alessa is the key to a secret cult of demon worshipper's summoning some ultimate evil, and the story really is pretty well fucked up.

The special effects were just amazing, as could have been expected, and you know it was done by a bunch of guys that played the games avidly in high school and college and wanted to take on the project once they got jobs in animation. I just wish they would have applied it to a purer form of the story.

But I guess I understand, seeing as Silent Hill is one of the few games that actually freaked me out during play. It's actually deeply creepy and disturbing, and to make a movie that accurately depicted that would, well, really push away the majority and make it a movie purely for those devoted to the game series, which, monetarily speaking, would be a bad idea. So then they gotta go and make it about split personalites/revenge/motherly love/struggles against blind faith and religious fanatacism which I guess I understand, but, I mean, well, ugh.

Anyway, as far as game/film crossovers go, I give this movie a 4 out of 5. Bonus points for creepy demon guy, minus points for not enough of him, or other creepy ass boss characters. They could have had more, but it would have completely destroyed what little realism the movie held on to, given that you can't give a live action film character weapons to fight bosses. Cause then it would have turned out like Doom, the movie, which I haven't seen but I've heard was just absurd. That one's also in my queue. For the record, the spelling of the word queue is completely counterintuitive.

The Power of Pharmaceuticals

Energy drinks in the US are made by drink companies like Coca Cola and the like, and are pretty well crammed with vitamins and minerals (read: caffeine) to reach their desired level of potency. But never have I thought to drink one to pep me up when coping with a miserable hangover like the one I had yesterday morning after Ethan's going away party.

I didn't either, I drank a Japanese Genki drink, which, rather than being made by Asahi or Pokka or some other massive drink conglomerate, are manufactured by one of a few major pharmaceutical companies.

I didn't think it would do much, but, well, I went from zombie mode to fully functional normal mode to almost hyper damn near slice mode after consuming one of the second tier drinks. It was amazing, and lasted nearly 4 or 5 hours before I was back to being dead tired and desperately needing sleep.

Genki drinks here come in levels, though it's not really spoken about. There are price ranges for these things, and unlike wines, the price really is indicative of its potency. Instead of the standard 150 yen drinks, I bought one of the ~300 yen drinks, and there's a huge different in efficacy there. The stuff is an elixir really, usually less than 2 ounces per drink, often near around 1, non-carbonated and tasting as foul as anything you could possibly imagine. Typically, these drinks contain upwards of 30mg of liquid nicotine, which, as I have mentioned before, is the equivalent of 2 or so packs of cigarettes at once. They have drinks that cost 1000 yen or more, and I can only imagine what would happen if someone were to ingest one of them.

The All Nighter 08/28/06

Last Monday I worked overtime in Kashiwa, and while I was working there I talked to Eleni, whi invited me out to Warter, yes Warter, not Water, a dance club in Minami Kashiwa I wanted to go to a long time ago when I still lived there but couldn't afford to. I met up with Eleni, Sammy, Jersey (Jenn) and Natascha in M. Kash and we went out to the club. In keeping with my previous inability to enter, there was a wedding party there, and as such we couldn't come in. Fantastic.

Now, lemme preface this with the fact that Sammy is a light drinker. Not that she doesn't drink much, but she doesn't need much to become her ridiculous, drunkie silly LOUD ASS self. So she shows up having drank a mini bottle of champagne, and I knew we were in for a fun night. Eleni and Sammy decided we should go to The 'Pong, so off to Roppongi we went, in search of fun.

I sat on the train most of the time with my head against my knees trying not to look like I was proud of the girls' behavior, with Natascha's notable exception since she's the mom of the group anyway. Realistically, I didn't care so much, but, I dunno, I guess I have this thing where I only like trouble if I'm the one causing it. If I were being loud and obnoxious, I figure, it would be with good reason and in an acceptable situation. Must be that whole, I have no faith in anyone but myself or those I think are like me.

Anyway, we got to The 'Pong without a hitch, and made our way not to Vanilla but The good ol' Lexington Queen.
Really, most of the night once we got there was just fine, we ran into the other Eleni and Hallie, and there were cute Russians and dancing and lots of drinking and me sitting at my table lounging like I owned the place, which, for those of you who don't know, is all I ever do at bars or clubs, unless they're playing some really good techno.

I went out to see if I could find something to help keep me awake, but the ATMs were all closed since it was 1am by that time, and well, ATMs actually close in this country. What shit.

Then I met Oscar, when he was looking for a cigarette. Oscar is from Lithuania, part of their basketball team, who is here along with a bunch of other countries for the International something something something involving basketball. We chatted about his tens of millions of Euros and his Porsche Carrera 4S, and his Mercedes, and his blah blah blah, and how I should come visit him in Lithuania, because "zeese weeemen, here, zey are sheet. Rassian weeemen, zey are nahsing. Lithuanian weemen are like Oh my gawd. Ze most beauuutiful weemen on ze planet."

Right about that time, 4:15 or so, right when I was thinking it's time to start waiting imptiently for a train to comeOscar slaps my on the chest and points me towards Eleni, who is talking to some Indian guy who's rubbing his face, and the world shifted for a moment as I realized he had touched her, she has slapped him, and Oscar was already standing up when BAM. Oscar slams this guy in a choke hold and cocks back to deck him for mistreating the girl who he had only seem me talking to but assumed was my friend. He gets pushed back, and Oscar's huge ass other friend comes in from the other side and shoves him and then there were bouncers everywhere, straight bar fight styles.

The bouncers are trying to tell Oscar and company to get the fuck out of the bar and they're just like "Whaaaat?" and sit down to enjoy their drinks. I am SO going to Lithania.

Anyway, Eleni ends up getting picked up by the bouncer and hauled out of the club, and the rest of us slowly followed, to find Eleni yelling at the bar owner about how she shouldn't be kicked out without him having to leave too, since otherwise it's telling him that degrading and groping women in clubs is ok. Which, well, in this country it is, but, oh well. So the guy comes up and starts spouting off about how he's been in Roppingi for 12 years and is a bar owner and how he loves women and Indian guys LOVE women, but eventually he anger got the best of him and she started yelling about his $2000 watch when she said hers had gotten broken off her wrist when the fight broke out. My favorite quote was, "I been in Roppongi 12 years, you don't know, I don't talk but this watch is $2000, it's a MAN'S world, not a woman's, a MAN'S!"

I mark people down after lessons for not tying their ideas together coherently. He'd have failed.

After we finally got around to leaving, we met Ike, this 6'10" black guy from LA, a basketball player here for the j;sldkfjaiwherpionship thing and Sammy went bug eyed. They chatted since well, she's a big boned dirty blonde Jew from Miama who LOVES b-ball, and he seemed down, so he gave her the number he was at here in Japan and his hotel room number.

Sometime after that I think we made it home. I'm not really sure though, it was kind of a blur at that point. Natascha and I headed back in the same direction, made out on the train, and I went to bed around 7am. And I talk like I don't get enough done.

Going Away

Saturday was my last Saturday (maybe) working in Minami Kashiwa, where I was supposed to have like a million free lessons but have increasingly found myself with lessons in every block, which sucks, in the sense that I actually have to maybe do 8 hours' worth of work. Yuuka, one of my old Chibikko kids transferred here to join Kinder, and she's cried horribly every time, mostly never coming in the room except for last week and this, and it seems that she's starting to get better about being in there. I feel bad because now that she's getting used to being in there and starting a little to participate, I'm going to be gone, and it's gonna be heck all over again. She's the sweetest little thing though.

Anyway, after work I totally blanked that I was supposed to go meet Greg in Kashiwa after work, so I sent him a message that at some point we needed to go to Ethan's going away party, also in Kashiwa. We met up, and then met up with three of his friends, two Japanese and one of them's English boyfriend, and cruised out to this nice restaurant where we chatted it up for a bit. The one girl was pretty bitchy which was fun, and her b.f. was an asshole, which also worked well together. So we all got along great. My Japanese improved by leaps and bounds as the beers went down, so that was fun too. We had these black pepper coated chicken wings which were delightful, and we got to toss the bones in, you guessed it, "The Bone Jar" that was on our table.

Ok, I'm gonna shorten this significantly due to waning interest in writing. Greg and I left, after taking a picture of the bathroom sign that read, "Gentle Men" and went to Watami for the party, where we got pretty damn well sloshed, I flirted with some cute J-girls, and I'm pretty sure I asked one, Tomoko, to marry me on more than one occasion, and by her look I'm pretty sure she'd have said yes if she thought I were serious. Greg and I left in a rush cause I was trying to catch my last train, but, I missed it be a large margin. Fortunately he caught his. Janel called me while I was on the taxi ride, and I kinda feel bad cause I was completely shitfaced and I'm pretty sure I completely blew her off. I had bed on my mind. Sleep came quickly, unlike the previous night when she had kept me up until 2am or so calling me in a state of emergency regarding an ill-fated trip to The 'Pong.