Whirlwind Tour

Friday night after spending so much of the day sleeping, I finally did make it out of the house. Amanda did a little juggling of her schedule to accomodate me and we went to see Night at the Museum, which turned out to be pretty hillarious, despite being ever so predictable Ben Stiller style comedy. After the movie, we went and grabbed some Taco Bell, which was as amazing and delicious as I remembered it, and Amanda was as cute and absurdly sociopathic as I remembered her.

Amanda dropped me off cause she had to work early in the morning, and I got a hold of Jennee and hopped in my car to meet up with her at Sam's billiards in the Hollywood district, where she, Robert her brother, and I played some pool and caught up with each other. I haven't seen Robert since high school, so that was nice, and it's always fun hanging out with Jennee cause she's always got some absolutely ridiculous story to tell me about her life. Some people just have more interesting lives, I guess.

Yesterday however, was on par with Jennee style interesting, at least in terms of staying busy. I slept in a bit, for some reason that eludes me given how much sleep I've gotten of late, but finally around noon I started making phone calls knowing that if I didn't start then it wasn't gonna happen. So, I called Becky, who was supposed to call me by then, and we decided to meet up around 4 in Tualatin for coffee, which neither of us drink. Then, I called Marty and told her I was gonna head out there and give her her Christmas present. As soon as I was getting ready to walk out the door, Nicole called me and I told her I would go to her house as soon as I got done at Marty's, since they live minutes away from each other, and hit the road.

On the way I got a call from Erik, and made plans to see him at around 5, and called Justin back and told him I'd be down to see a movie with him around 8.

I got over to Marty's house, and little Pete was off at a friend's house, so it was just us two and Bobby, her youngest son, and was therefore much less hectic. I gave Marty her pink bow lined black socks and discovered that she doesn't shave her legs. Lol. It's weird once you have kids, as I've discovered with Erin and Marty both, how conversations just kinda don't touch on the past anymore. They're about the kids. I kind of have to accept that Erin and Marty are, well, moms now, they're not Erin and Marty anymore.

I took off and headed to Nicole's parents' house off 82nd. Nicole came to the door looking very much 6 months pregnant. She loved her present, though it wasn't the panty dropper I had hoped for since she and the father are back together. Oh well. She put the little gloves into her closet which is now overflowing with baby outfits. Lol. Shoulda seen that coming. We hung out for a bit and talked about her life, where things are going, that sorta stuff. It wasn't a terribly long visit.

Then it was back to Tualatin for coffee with Becky. She was a little late because she had misplaced her keys but failed to inform me of her impending tardiness. Once she arrived, we talked a bit about our daily lives, and mostly discussed the logicstics of her spinal stimulator which she has as a result of a car accident that shattered both her feet and has left her with permanent semi-debilitating pain in her legs that the stimulator works to suppress. We discussed the logistics of acquiring medicinal marijuana or, in her case, being on low level morphine doses and finding a job, given that you could never pass a drug test, and your sobriety at any given moment would be questionable. Kind of a rough situation to be in.

After coffee I cruised to Erik's apartment and watched them play Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for a couple of hours and made small talk. Erik's put on some weight, which, though kinda sad cause it's extra weight, is good because it means his metabolism is adjusting back to a normal adult place.

I took off then into Portland around 8 to pick up Justin, though it turns out Whitney came back yesterday from New York so Justin had to go to the airport to pick her up, so they were late, and they both came out. I took them to the Bridgeport mall to watch a movie, mostly because I wanted to get away from PDX for a night and to avoid drinking. Justin tried to sneak two beers with him, and Whitney called him out on it. I watched him put one back. Whitney patted him down by the elevator on the way out and discovered the other one, which she confiscated. We watched the new Bond movie, Casino Royale. It was long. And I wasn't particularly impressed, except the main chick reminded me a bit of Amanda. I know it was supposed to be a young Bond, but, it was a little too rough, not nearly classy enough, and I dunno, just kinda left me feeling really blah. It felt like the whole movie revolved around two scenes, the chase in the beginning and the poker scene, which was clearly only there to pay homage to Texas Hold 'Em fans out there. The villains weren't particularly diabolical, and the plot twists weren't really so twisty. Meh. I guess I'm just hard to impress.

Throughout the day I called Neil Christy Carly and MiA, and made arrangements to see Neil, have dinner with Carly and fam, stay the night with MiA and maybe see Christy when she gets back from her Search of Sunshine roadtrip.

Made it home by 2. We'll see what kind of unimagineable fun tonight holds.

Yay For Alcoholism!

I was talkin to J today who mentioned that she can't come to my house anymore. And then she said it was because my roommate just told her if he ever called her again he would punch her in the face.

I knew something was fishy but it was confirmed when she told me that he was perfectly fine moments before, and that she had called him at about 9:45 am and that he was in Roppongi. That proved it.

Justin called me this afternoon and told me that he got suspended from work because he drank too much last night and came into work drunk. He then proceeded to ask me if, since he now had the day free, I wanted to go get a few drinks.

He called me a few more times and told me that tomorrow night we need to go out and get shitty like we used to (we didn't) and that I didn't need to worry about getting home because I could stay at Whitney's. Cause Whitney isn't around, and that's where Justin's staying.

I don't know how to explain to him that I don't want to drink with him. And that I think it's pathetic how much he drinks. How can a person live with Andrea of all people, and go through what we did, and then sink so deep into their own alcoholism? Pretty easily, I guess.

I have no sympathy anymore.

Last Night

So I parked my car on 2nd and Davis and walked on over to Kells, where down in the Cigar Room waited Shane, Cam, Caitlin, and her friends Shar, Jessica, Chad, boyfriend Jerry, one of Shane's coworkers, and some other fat girl whose name I can't remember. This was yet another instance of skinny, skinny, trash guys liking fat, unattractive but horny women. How does this WORK? It doesn't make ANY sense, except in some kind of genetic balancing act kinda way, but that's really not how it works so much. *sigh*

Anyway, I arrived at the bar feeling great. We went upstairs to order Caitlin some abusive 21er drinks, but found out they don't serve them at Kells because, well, they're abusive. So I got myself a double vodka Redbull for some energy and that was that. We decided not to stick around Kells for too long, so I finished off my drink after some chit chat with Cam and Shane about Japanese women, and hopped in the limo. Yes, the limo. Yay for my first limo ride. We are now officially pimp birthday status.

Our next stop was Henry's, to play some pool. As we were driving up, sipping none other than *sigh* Mike's Hard Berry in champagne glasses (thanks you classy birthday plannners) I saw J-Bear sitting outside in his cook's outfit, so I gave him a call and harassed him. Turns out he was pissed at his coworkers. We tried to stay the hour till he finished, but, Shane's coworker friend well, was already drunk when I saw her at Kells, and was getting pretty sloshy by this point, and as soon as I took a sip of my Greyhound and signed up for a pool table, I felt like I got hit by a train. Three straight days of being up late and drinking and doing so much all the time caught up to me and pounced on me and then proceeded to jump up and down on me strangle me and otherwise make it perfectly clear that my energy loan payments had become past due. I tried to maintain conversations with people, but, it was an effort.

After Henry's we moved on to Hubert's? Hubens? Something with an H, for Mai Tais at the suggestion of Chad, one of Caitlin's friends, but not before meeting up with Becky M and her fiance, who I haven't seen in ages. Yet ANOTHER person I haven't seen in years and years. What a weird trip this has been. Anyway, we arrive at the bar to discover that it's actually a very small restraurant, and there is nowhere near enough room for all of us. The host informs us of this in no uncertain terms. Shane, Cam and I decide to wait outside in the hall with the rest of the older crowd while the young ones chill at the bar and do their thing. This goes on for a while. When they emerge again, it's clear a few of them, namely Chad, whose brilliant idea it was to come here in the first place, have done quite a bit of drinking.

We hop back in the limo, and cruise over to, oh yea, 7-11, to buy smokes and energy drinks etc, and Chad pukes in the limo. Just a little bit, just the tip of the iceburg, but, he pukes. You miserable little fuckhead. No one's supposed to puke at a 21er but the 21er. You're not there to get fucked up on a 21er, you're there to ritualistically abuse some poor birthday kid with booze until they're too fucked up to speak, not puke in their limo and add to their stress.

When we take off again, it's to go to Betty Ford, a cleverly named bar on 12th and Washington that Amanda has mentioned she frequents as her bar of choice. It's cool in there, I liked the setup, even though the motherfuckers have a trough urinal, which is death to me. The place, compared to the other bars we had been at, reeks of what I've come to see as the real PDX scene. This bar was clearly created to be a haven from places like Aqua, and the other big PDX scene bars. By scene I mean upwardly mobile recent college graduates who either have highly well paying jobs for being single and in their 20s still and as such throw money around in this ridiculous high life status contest, or are willing to spend money to look like that's their life. I mean, it's Portland Oregon for Christ's sake. I wouldn't mind people acting like they're super important if there were a chance that they actually MIGHT be important, but, come on. It's just a pissing contest at this point. And moreover, it's a bunch of overpaid cokeheads. I know this from experience. Betty Ford is owned by cokeheads, paid for with coke money, and frequented by cokeheads. The place reeks of it. As if the name weren't indication enough.

We hung out there for a while and the birthday girl did her party/dance etc stuff while Shane and a couple of us chilled at a table and chatted.

I'll make the rest short cause I'm running out of motivation to continue in any real detail. We got in the limo around 1am, and they drove me to my car. I called Nina and she told me to come to Mary's on Burnside and Broadway. Turns out to be the absolute classiest establishment I have ever been to in my life. Old school strip club. Complete with old school strippers. Nina was more or less wasted when I got there. Shortly after arriving, the RedBull I had earlier decided it wasn't down to hang out at a place like this and quit working. I was dead. Nina spilled a beer all over me, my gloves, my jeans, and my jacket. Sweet. Eventually I left with her and her friend, took him home, came back to Nina's place and crashed. I woke up this morning and came home. Went back to sleep. Stayed in bed all day.

I'm tired. I feel like I need to sleep for another week. In other news, the next time I live somewhere, anywhere, remind me to make sure that I don't live with an alcoholic. I'm so over it.

Yesterday

To finish out the night I met up with Lauren in the Haggen's parking lot (meeeemories) and then drove out to O'Brien's in Tigard near King City but not before she presented me with a single Mung bean, which is an incredibly inside joke. But I was ecstatic, and it really made my night. We had a couple of black and tans and chatted it up about what's been going on in the last year, who's gotten pregnant, who's getting married, who's passed away, all the stuff I've come to accept as what catching up is going to mean for the next, I dunno, 20 years, after which only the last one will remain prevalent. Sad. Seeing Lauren was great though, I've missed her a lot because, well, she's genuine, and we're straight with each other. No frill, no nonsense, and I like that. Made it home by 2am.

Yesterday I had a note written for myself regarding what I needed to do, it said three things:
Cole
Marty
Caitlin's 21er
Here's how they all went down.

I met up with Cole at his place in NE Portland and there was a lot of Cole'ing and Dave'ing and it was good. Cole was still pretty much in the act of packing all his worldly possessions, and appeared nowhere near done. Was largely the same with me, so, no complaints there. We went to get Cole a haricut, and the lady complimented me straight away on my hairstyle, and so we got to talking about Japan, etc, it was funny. After that we drove up to Vancouver to drop off Cole's car, which, sadly, he is selling finally, after all that work he's done to it. I think we've both kind of realized now that well, you can work on that mediocre car all you want, but that Nice Car over there, is better than any work you could ever do straight out of the factory, and it doesn't risk falling apart at any moment, as both of us have had happen now. The place Cole was staying in Vancouver for a while got flooded by vandals and sustained extensive damage.
After that we came back, met up with Ashley and Ed, Cole's sister and dad, picked up his sister's car, which is now his, and went back to Cole's place, but not before picking up Burger King for old times' sake. Back at the house, EMf'nC showed me his new book, and I agreed to look into marketing it in Japan, where golf is a big thing. Maybe we'll see something come of it. I took off a little after that, because I was going to need to meet up with Shane and that gang for the 21er soon, so Cole and Ed and I said our goodbyes. Cole's on his way, as we speak, to LA, to get started moving in to his new place, and opening up his very own Dutch Bros in Santa Clarita. I wish him the best of luck in this because I'll doubtlessly need a job of my own when I come back to the states.

After I got back on the road I gave Marty a call, and swung by her place in the Hollywood District. Marty has become a beautiful mother, and had two beautiful redheaded boys, Pete and Bobby. Rambunctious little guys too, but after meeting them and getting over the initial, 'who is this guy?', they moved on into the 'will he play with us?' phase and the fun started. So for a good little while there it was Marty watching as I ran around the house and played with her sons. Eventually though Pete wanted to do a puzzle so we got some quality sitting time.

Pete and I worked the edges while Marty and Bobby did the inside. It was good teamwork. It was also hard not to do the whole thing instantly, cause it was a 63 piece puzzle, and I could have done it with the pieces flipped. I was happy to get in some good practice for when they're my kids. It was kinda clear that Marty and I wanted some alone time to actually talk and catch up, but boys being boys there was no real way to get them to do anything by themselves long enough to really talk. We'll have to get together again before I leave to see if we can't actually have that chat. She also embroidered a nice black shirt for me with a sparrow on the chest, which is really sweet and a little off on the size, but oh well. I'll definitely wear it. With a phone call from Shane, I again made my goodbyes, and headed in towards Portland to meet up with the gang at Kells.

The Art of Naptime

Last night after falling asleep I think I must have gotten up to get water at least 4 times, and I waterlogged the heck out of myself in the process, which, when nursing the great potential for a hangover, is no great feeling. I finally really came to around 10am, when I got a call from Erin T. the instant I picked up my phone to call her. I hopped in the shower, put gas in the car, and made my way back to the part of Beaverton where she lives to pick her and her son Ben up and make our way to the Portland Art Museum.

The last time I saw Ben he was an infant, mabye 1 year old. It's been a long while since I've talked to Erin, longer since we saw each other, another reunion made possible by, guess what, MySpace. Now Ben is in Kindergarten. Man they grow up fast.

The art museum was really cool, we saw the Ancient Egypt exhibit, and got in poste haste thanks to Erin's handy dandy membership. There were two audio guides, one for adults nad one for kids, and of course the kids was way more fun, complete with adventure arhcaeologist/action hero narrator and sound effects including the overused and VERY loud falcon cry. It was pretty funny cause you could hear it when you were walking around and watch startled kids and adults a like pulling the thing away from their ears as fast as they could. Ben touched a sarcophagus, and instantly a disembodied voice says "Excuse me. Please don't touch the sarcophagus." We were looking around like, "WTF? Where did that come from? God? Is that you?" until Erin spotted a guard on an upstairs balcony. Note to self: leave the sarcophogi alone. Of course, I immediately touched it afterwards, cause well, after something like that you just kinda have to.

After we finished up there we went to McDonald's where I discovered yet again that my digestive track is NOT accustomed to American food. So much protein here. My body is having a really hard time adjusting. Funny, when I went to Japan I experienced no such abdominal turmoil, but here yea, man, it's bad. I won't get into the gory details, but, yea. Needless to say I was quieter than I would have normally been because I was concentrating my energy on not feeling sick. Needless as well to say, it was time to drop the girl and the kid off and sleep sleep sleep. And poop poop poop.

I called Jordan though before going to sleep, who I was supposed to go see this evening down in Corvallis, rent a hotel room, get shitty drunk on wine and catch up. Apparently there were lots of things she wanted to tell me that would require inebriation either to say or hear, so I called to double check that stuff was still on. When I called her though she said she couldn't do the hotel thing, so I told her that I'd be willing to reschedule it if it meant we could do what we originally planned to. Then passed the hell out. I woke up a little bit ago and texted her, to which she replied that, though she didn't want to make things awkward, she wasn't serious about the hotel thing, but still wanted to get together if that was ok with me. So I changed it to Friday afternoon, withholding my 'I could have seen that coming a mile away'. It was clear she was trying to find a way to back out of one thing or another, so I'm curious what she tells me when I get together with her. She's clearly emotionally conflicted about some things too, but given my recent streak of often brazen honesty (thank you J for making that possible, I respect you so much for teaching me it's better to be straight about my feelings regardless of if they might not like what I say), she might get an earful she's had coming for a long time. We'll see how that goes.

For now though, I've rescheduled my evening to go over to Shane's for pizza and hottubbing with his fam and Greg, his lady friend, a redhead lady friend of Shane's, and maybe Lauren when she gets off work at 11. Hopefully I can scrounge up some energy to not be dead the whole time I'm there. That nap was much needed, but naps are never enough. They're just teasers for real sleep, which one never has time for, and I wouldn't want, cause then there'd be no going to bed tonight. I'm trying to figure out how much of my tiredness is pure jetlag and how much is lifestyle. Meh.

So Far

Well here I am in America again. Huh. Sure is....American out here. Let's check out what I've been up to since being here.

After my first night, which ended with me going to bed at 9pm and waking up every two hours throughout the night, Christmas was pretty relaxed. I got absolutely nothing for Christmas, as could have been anticipated, though my brother did get me this kitsch little metal wall thing, which is about as good a present as I could have expected. My mom has commissioned herself to making me a scarf as part of her obligatory menopausal sewing frenzy (30+ scarves made so far), and my dad x-ferred $100 to me for my various underwear and sock buying needs, so maybe it's not SO bad after all. Later that day got my driving legs back (30 seconds, everything came back) and went to see Nina, since she's Jewish and I wasn't interrupting anything. We watched Talladega Nights, which was overall, not a very good movie. A couple of her coworker friends came over, and I took off to go have Christmas dinner with the fam and play video games for the rest of the night.

Yesterday was somewhat more eventful. I drove out to West Linn to swing by the Market of Choice they just opened there on the offchance Lauren or Ryan were working. I ran into Jenny, a girl whom I was a Pack Leader for back in high school, who completely didn't recognize me when I asked her for help. I ran into Lauren right as I was getting ready to leave in defeat, apparently she started work within minutes of my arrival, so that was pretty lucky. The look on her face was precious. Best double take ever. Moments later Ryan came out, and he was surprised, and we all had a nice chat. I got Lauren's new contact info since she moved, and I gave her mine since I've moved, and all was well.

Yesterday night I went out to Henry's to meet up with as many of my friends as possible. I went and picked up Megan E. who I haven't since since high school, like, her freshman year, when she was 14. She's 23 now. Yay for 9 years and still being able to track each other down and hang out finally. She lives out in Beaverton so I snagged her and met up with Cam Sarah and Mark when we got there, who were eating dinner, and Bix, who was upstairs having a drink since he got there on time and I was late. So we cruised upstairs, and then Shane arrived, followed shortly by Cole and Christian, and then Nina and her friend Mike. So there were actually quite a few people there, and crammed against a wall since the pool table adjacent to us was occupied by one couple or another the girls from which we all took turns joking with/making passes at with admittedly too much success in general.

After Henry's Shane and Bix, Cole and Christian split to go home because of work, etc, and the rest of us made our way to Kelly's, where as soon as I walked in the door, and walking to the group where we'd be sitting, I got jumped on but none other than Justin my old roommate from the quad. Literally, jumped on, fucker gave me a fat lip. Turns out Nina and Justin have been hanging out for weeks without recognizing one another. Lol. So Nina buys me a Jager bomb and Justin buys me a Black and Blue (shot of whiskey, pint of Pabst, my standard), and we all catch up and shoot the shit. Great stuff. Sarah actually drinks, which is just immense, and we're all having a great time. I meet Simone, Nina's 'sister' to my being her 'brother', which was cool as well.

Later we decide we wanna go shoot pool, so we walk over to the pool hall, the name of which I can't remember, and I give playing pool a shot, which is only marginally successful, but it's ok cause I can blame it on being used to Japanese tables, which are the size of business cards. I'm doing my best at this point not to drink, since I need to drive Megan home at some point, and it's kinda clear the little blonde thing is fond of my attention. Eventually, around 2:15, I decide it's time to get going, and we say our goodbyes.

Megan gets a call from her sister asking if we can pick her up and take her home, since she's too drunk to drive. Where is she? The Boom Boom Room. Why is she at such a highly respectable establishment? Oh, yea, cause she's a stripper. A very drunk, funny stripper. So we navigate Barbur Blvd. until we hone in on her location, and we make our way home, but not without first stopping at Subway, which was hillarious in and of itself. We get back to Megan's place, eat our sandwiches, and I finally say that I have to get going home. Megan walks me out, we say our goodbyes and all that, and I cruise home. In the door by 4am. Fantastic night.

Plane Trips

11:23pm

Time zones. This stuff is weird for me. I was talking with Amanda this morning before I took off for the airport, and she made the comment that it seemed like my flight would be unusually short. I thought about it for a minute and realized she’s right. The flight I’m on is only 8 hours or so. Jetstream stuff, or so I’m told.

Anyway, sadly enough it’s one of those flights where no matter how much I want to, or realize it’s a great idea, I’m not gonna get any sleep. That means that poor Manda is gonna have to deal with my super tired ass while she’s being super manic and happy to see me. Oh well. Won’t be the first time I’ve been indifferent in the face of someone’s excitement. Not to say I’m glad about it, but, shouganai, ne?

I still kind of have to figure out what all I’m gonna be doing once I’m back. I know that I’m gonna spend all day today with Manda, and then Christmas with the fam, but other than that nothing is nearly concrete enough to be counted on. Especially since people have had all of three months to make and subsequently forget about our plans. Again, oh well. What can you do.

****

Amanda picked me up from the airport, and we drove around listening to loud music. Customs were dicks, as usual, probably not so happy to be working on Christmas Eve, and understandably so, but I get the impression that workers in America just don't give a shit. Service in this country is atrocious compared to Japan. All my flights were on time or early though, so that was nice. Only downside is that I got zero sleep.

After Amanda picked me up, we went to a kaiten sushi restaurant (yea yea I know) which was mediocre, and staffed by Mexicans, who I suppose might fool the unsuspecting whitey now and then. We then went back to her place where I met her amazingly affectionate cat Armani, and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch in a nice snuggle while watching some Disney show or other about the spirit of Christmas. I got about 45 min. of sleep tops, which, though not enough, was much needed and helped me make it through the rest of the evening to this point.

The fam is the fam is the fam. We talked at great length about Japan for a bit, caught up on a few things, and enjoyed dinner. Owen's gained some of his weight back, but then again so have I so I can't really complain. The personalities are predictably still the same. The house is still the same, and being here, it's weird how instantaneously I can be used to being here again.

Having said that though, I hate to admit it, but I think I like Japan better. That's not to say my opinion isn't subject to change, but, at this point, I feel like I left more behind than have gained in coming. It feels like I never left, like the last year didn't exist, and I don't like that feeling. It's weird looking at my family and realizing I haven't seen them in 14 months, because when I look at them, it's like I never left.

This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm terrified that I'm gonna move back to America and immediately afterwards it will be as if my time in Japan never existed. It's odd thinking now that in ten days I have to go back to Japan, because I have to go to work. I think it's gonna take a little while to come to see being here as a vacation rather than being home.

I'm crashing now though, at 9:30 or so pm. Hopefully I won't wake up TOO terribly early tomorrow, though it WILL be Christmas, and we all know how waking up on Christmas goes.

Getting Out of Here

I had one of those realizations at work yesterday that if I didn't start planning and actually buying tickets for all the trips I have tenatively planned, that they would never happen. I was lucky enough to have Sam come out of nowhere and ask me about two trips I had already wanted to take and then do all the dirty work for me. But the rest of the 9 months I'm here and plan to take vacations, I really need to bust my ass and get things done.

So, yesterday during my phenomenally difficult day consisting of an unprecedented chibikko no-show, a predictable regular lesson no-show, a level up test which are more fun than work and only take 20 minutes, and my lunch right after that. So I had some time on my hands. Here's what I came up with:
Dec/Jan: Oregon (America)*
Feb: Hokkaido (Japan) *
Mar: Beijing (China)*
April: Kyoto (Japan)
May: Seoul (South Korea)*
June: Bangkok (Thailand)
July: Saigon (Vietnam)
Aug: Tokushima (Japan)
Sept: Chuuk (Micronesia)
Oct: Singapore (Malaysia)
Nov: Australia

Where * means I've put money down already.
The relevant news note here is that I bought my plane ticket to Korea last night for $290 when I got home from work. I found a nice deal, so I got it while it was still available/cheap. Funny that I could jump to spend that kind of money cause it's cheap to me now.

But more importantly regardless of the cost I booked it cause I had to. If I didn't, I'd never have done it. I have to get the ball rolling, it'll be easier from there. I'm sick of feeling like I haven't done anything significant since being here, and I promised that this year would be different. So I've got my plan, posted, and I'm gonna see to it it happens. I'm making enough money to do it, I just have to be willing to do what it takes.

So, having said that, for any of the trips without a star, do any of you wanna come with me? It'll be cheaper if we split hotel costs. Lemme know.

In Other News

Later that night I went to Rob's going away party. These are always the best parties, and there always seems to be one or another taking place at any given point throughout the year. The turnover rate here is pretty high, and pretty reliable too. Most everyone leaves at about the one year mark, thanks to the wonderfull episodic contract length. Though I chose to renew, I know most don't. That makes me a fossil, as far as this company goes.

Anyway, the party was good, as far as going away parties go. Rob and Eleni rented out Air, the same place I rented for my birthday party, and plenty of people came. It was the usual, students come and see their instructors in street clothes for the first time, and are shocked to see them as real people. Well, that and we're all drinking, so that's funny too. Saki was there, and so was her mom, which was funny, cause they're both fun in their own right, but then together, lol, you get this great, mom likes me so we talk, and Saki and I talk, and mom I think wants Saki to like me cause she likes me, and they're both drunk, but moreso mom cause she's older and doesn't drink all the time and ahhh haha it was great.

Natascha was there, of course, and it was more or less how J predicted. I was talking to some people, she came up and made a comment, I kinda tried not to look, she said "hey!" I looked over, she asked if we were ok, I said, ummm, she said, cause I think we're ok, everything's fine here, and I said, well, I guess that's up to you if we're ok, so, if you say we are, we are, and she said, ok good. we're cool. And that was that. We weren't exactly chatty after that, but, we were friendly and with that out of the way at least I know if nothing else we've paved a polite cheerful social bridge.

At midnight when the darts bar turned back into the proverbial pumpkin, a bunch of us cruised out to Warter, the dance club in Minami Kashiwa, for some afterparty. I think I made it all over 20 minutes there before my body just completely shut down. With as little sleep as I had gotten the night before, and the stress of it all, I was beat to shit, and my body wasn't about to let me owe it any more rest. I caught a taxi back to my place, which oddly enough, was only like 600 yen more than from Shin Matsudo, and called it a night.

Highlights from the night:
I couldn't lose at darts. Nothing I did prevented me from counting out. I was trying to lose for Saki, but I couldn't.
Toshimi hearing me speak Japanese. Haha what a crackup, he was so shocked.
Takuma and I playfighting in and outside of the bar. I.e. slapping each other. I have to teach these people now lol.
Got Saki's number, but I'm not gonna be able to hang out until I get back from America. *sigh*

Going

***Warning***
The following entry is a mix of both my desire to record historical events and vent my frustration so it doesn't eat away my insides and otherwise undermine my relationships with the people involved. My opinions and perspectives are openly biased. Try not to take it too personally, it's MY journal, and it's for my benefit alone that I'm writing. This is not me taking cheap semi-public cheapshots. I might also advise you just not to read this entry at all.
***Warning***

So. J and Sere and I made our way back home. Now keep in mind that this is Serena's last night in Japan, and well, I shouldn't have to say that it's not only the nice thing to do but basically my responsibility as her host to spend as much time with her as I can. Also keep in mind that J has basically been walking ahead of, away from, behind, etc. me for most all of the evening, and it's all too predictable where that's gonna lead.

So. We catch a taxi, Ty, J, Sere and Myself, and get in close to 1 am. I tell Sere that I'm going to bed, and she is too, cause we have to get up at 8am to go to the airport. But clearly, since I'm writing about it, this wasn't the end of my night, or even close.

J has, by now, stripped in front of Sere, which is just plain inconsiderate and a blatant cry for attention through intentionally ignoring social convention, and has walked into the kitchen in nothing but her t-shirt and panties, again, misbehaving, most likely entirely unconsciously, to get my focus back where she wants it. It works.

It gets to be that part of the evening where hanky panky goes on, and soon enough I'm in my boxers with her on my lap, and while she's checking her email, I begin phase two of hanky panky, which, well, admittedly I went about all wrong, but, was reacted to something on the order of 1000x differently and more than I would have expected, especially since she full on let me do what I was leading up to without so much as hinting at wanting me to stop until I was already in the act.

Things went from casual to typical in the most confusing and gut wrenching moment with her I've had in a blissfully long while. "You don't just ****." Oh God. Mentally, at this point, I check out. Fucking melodrama. I've got too much to do tomorrow to deal with this shit. I say this because of built up frustration based on previous encounters with overreaction and melodrama. She said this because of built up frustration about our situation and the way I treat her, which is incongruent with her feelings of how she treats me, and wants me to treat her.

But of course she goes about it like what has just happened is what's really frustrating her, and so I have to listen to an increasingly dramatic rendition of the same idea over and over for a long time after apologizing for being a little too forward and skipping the kissing, even though she basically told me explicitly she wanted me to be more aggressive and forward with her. Soon enough, she wretches. Literally. I touched her, and it made her puke, directly or otherwise. I think I've reached a new high, actually being able to make someone physically ill with my touch. Fanfuckingtastic. Makes you wonder what I did, doesn't it? Nothing near so bad as one might think. Just kinda, well, jumped the gun. Crocodile Mile is not something you wanna slide down when the hose hasn't been turned on yet.

After waking up Sere to get some cigarettes, which J has, between the taxi and my room, lost, she feels a bit better, and brushes her teeth. When she gets back to bed, she asks me if it would be gross to kiss her now, to which I politely said yea, kind of. Then she tells me that tonight isn't going how she wanted it too, and that she was really hoping to have sex tonight. We end up having sex, but not before asking if it's ok to enter her, because, well, J, if you didn't already know, the one thing I am deathly afraid of, more than anything in this world, is being accused of or making someone feel as if I've forced myself on them or done anything without their explicit blessing. She tells me twice after we being that she loves me. I say nothing. If she wants to say that it's fine with me, but I'm not going to lie, and even more than that I'm not going to tell her mid coitus that I'm not in Love with her, because that would trigger an even worse ordeal than was just gone through moments earlier.

It's the afterplay that gets me. Now she's wide awake, and I'm tired, and both of us have to get up what for me is early, and for her is sleeping in. The questions start rattling off, and my answers get rapidly more aggressive. I'm sorry that you feel like we don't spend enough time together, or hang out enough. I dunno, ARE you coming to the airport? I thought you said you didn't have the money to. Of course you can if you want, I told you that already. No, I didn't buy you a sweater for Christmas. No, I didn't cum inside you at all. I'm going to Rob's going away party. I have to run errands in the city. I have to go to the city office.* Listen, seriously, I NEED to sleep ok? We have to wake up early and the answers are gonna be the same in the morning, now PLEASE, can we go to sleep? SERIOUSLY? You've GOT to be kidding me.

*J does this thing where she asks me what my plans are, over and over, in an attempt to get me to say that I'm free, and then ask her if she wants to do something with me, or because she wants to do something with me but is going about it in a completely girl, indirect way, which, for the record, is complete shit and I hate. One has no right to get mad when they try to set someone up for something and they don't follow through, intentionally or otherwise. If you want something, ask for it. Say something. Don't play that fucking ridiculous game with me, I see through it and I hate it, and as such I deliberately go out of my way to shoot it down. Seriously. Every time. I'm not so stupid as to not see what's going on, and I hate to think you're so stupid as to think I wouldn't. With that having been said, if you think that you have to play that stupid game because if you just asked I'd say no, then you already know the outcome of the game and you're better of keeping your mouth shut and dropping it entirely.

At this point the room is hot, as is my temper, and my head itches from the heat in the room. J reacts poorly to this, which makes me sensitive and defensive, and I snap. I apologize, she cracks the door. I realize that all I'm doing is thinking about how pissed off I am instead of trying to get to sleep, and waiting for her to say something again so I can go off, which I know she will, and does. Eventually, we fall asleep.

The next morning we head to the airport. After Sere checks in, we decide to grab some lunch. We're talking about what we're doing from here, and I told her that we're gonna be heading different directions. She kinda gets quiet. She mentions that she wanted to go back to my place and have sex. I wonder to myself, why the hell after last night and the ridiculous argument we had on the train that morning, would I want to do that? I tell her that I don't think that would be a good idea, I'm not exactly happy about last night, and besides, I have to run my errands. She says we should go. It got easier from there.

On the train, I tell her what I'm thinking about being expected to treat her like my girlfriend that she's not, and how basically she's putting the weight of her emotional stability and happiness on my shoulders, where it does not belong. I tell her that what I like in her and my relationship has nothing to do with sex, which she was worried was all I thought of her as, on top of worrying that I think she's easy, neither of which are true. I tell her that us having sex is causing far more problems than it's worth, and she can't date other guys because of the emotional effect it has on her, and as such we can't do it anymore. At this point the train pulls up to Narita City, and I switch trains to head back to my place and her hers.

She calls me later in the afternoon when she gets home, and proceeds to repeat what I told her earlier, just in her words, like it was her idea. I spend some time thinking about how I told her not two days earlier how weird it is to watch people validate and try to own decisions that were beyond their control or against their wishes in order to feel like they're still in control of their lives and surroundings. I'm very calm during all this, which is alarming to her and me both, and after I hang up, I think for a moment about why it is I'm so calm about it. Well, for one, it's not gonna be the end of she and I talking, but, moreover, I had already long since checked out. I had checked out the night before. It was a decision I had already made, and came to grips with, and acted on. She basically just told me everything I said on the train back to me, in her own words, so, it wasn't really anything I could get worked up about.

There was some confusion about the 23rd, and that was basically the end of it.

In retrospect, it's just a crappy situation that couldn't have ended well no matter how much we tried to avoid it. She was pissed that I didn't Love her back, was probably convinced I did but wouldn't admit it, and expected me, consciously or otherwise, to treat her as if I did, or were her boyfriend, and got mad when reality was different from that. Then, in seeking an explanation that didn't involve her being in the wrong or accepting the reality that there was really nothing wrong except for the incongruence of our emotions, started putting me at fault for things I had absolutely no responsibility to do, and as such never did.

There are things at which I am at fault in this situation. I'm not denying that. K, I think I'm done venting now. Try to keep in mind I'm going to go about my life now as if these words existed only in the moment they were written.

Coming and Going

Well, now that all my shopping is done it's right back to normal I guess.

On Wednesday Sere and I met up with J in Asakusa for some shopping and the like, and that was nice, we got to walk around and eat delicious senbei and get rained on a bit. We tried, rather unsuccessfully, to find the Miyazaki shop we had been to before in 2003, but as you can guess we had no luck. Afterwards, Sere and I went up to Moriya to meet Greg, but of course, my phone way dying, and, Sere and I missed like every single train imagineable trying to get there. We got out of Ueno a bit late, then caught the Tsukuba Express, which was fast, but then we missed our train to Minami Moriya by a matter of seconds thanks to me going to the wrong platform and Sere not being able to move fast enough to make up for it. But we had delicious kaiten sushi, gorged ourselves, and I bought the most amazing fur jacket thingie ever, which is mega pimp and rocks.

We had a great time drinking shochu and listening to music and joking around. Sere really enjoyed it, and of course, we missed our train on the way home cause I had to go pee and I AGAIN went down the wrong escalator and as such missed our train by moments, thusly making us have to catch a taxi home from Shin Matsudo.

Friday was Rob's last day at Nova. For his last lesson he wore the beer costume he's wearing in my MySpace photo. Well, technically his last lesson was a free, so that was no big deal, and I imagine it was fun teaching like that. All the same again, it's weird that he came and went in the time I've been here, and that I will be here much longer now after he leaves. I'm trying to remember what I did after work on Friday...AH! I remember now.

On Wednesday, Sinhae called me cause she was in Japan on business, and by business I mean that she works for a theme park in Seoul and got to come here and go to all the major theme parks to see how they're different from hers. Such hard work, as you can imagine. Anyway, she called and we made plans to meet up in Shinjuku after I finished work on Friday and she finished spending the day at Disney Sea. How does she do it? I just couldn't handle the stress.

So I finish work, hop on the mass transit system, and make my way to the Shinjuku east exit, where, remarkably enough, Sere was already waiting for me. Sinhae arrived shortly afterwards, and we went to Wara Wara where we enjoyed many drinks, took many photos, and had an all around great time catching up. Sinhae is just the sweetest thing on Earth, so it was really good to see her. I'm definitely going to make plans to go see her in May as part of my nonstop travel extravaganza.

But, then, of course, on the way home, the Joban rapid is late, and then the local in Matsudo is of course late (thanks jumper, wheover you were), and then the taxi queue at Shin Matsudo is 40 meters long, so Sere and I try to walk up the street to hail a cab, and the fuckers slow down and point to the taxi queue. Ugh. So we get back in line, wait until 2am for a taxi and finally make it home for me to go to bed and get up early for work the next day. Sweet.

Saturday was Dave's birthday dinner in Ueno and Sere's last night here, so we all went to TGI Friday's and enjoyed wonderful traditional North American food, i.e. massive burgers and every conceivable form of fried potato. When we finished eating and the guys got ready to go to their allnighter, Ty, Sere, J and I made our way home.

This leads to an entire other set of stories, so I'll wrap this one up and start a new one.

A Veritable Yuletidal Wave

Shopping. Harajuku. Lots of it. Went yesterday before meeting up with Janel in Shibuya for dinner, went again today for an all day suare.

That is, of course, after Sere and I went to Wendy's in Shin Matsudo and wolfed down a Big Triple Combo Meal. And oddly enough, neither of us felt particularly full afterwards. We just weren't hungry at all again the entire rest of the day, even now, at 10pm, while the smells of Sere's in progress carbonara sauce waft into my room.

I did the math after getting home today and discovered that according to all the receipts I have, I've spent 23,000 yen on Christmas presents. Eek. At least for the first time in my LIFE I can actually do that. Go me.

******WARNING********
The Following Secion Contains Christmas Present Spoilers!!!!
******WARNING********
DO NOT READ if you don't wanna risk having your present revealed!!!!
******WARNING********
You have been warned. I'm not kidding I'm seriously gonna list presents here. So don't read it. Really. There's no shame in not reading it. It's my journal, I have every right to put it here. I'm not gonna go back after Christmas and re-write this entry, so just deal. Stop reading. Now.

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So I picked up a couple nice little items for J, including these really cool flower vases, a little rubber ducky calendar thing (inside joke) and a belt which I carefully selected to match my favorite pair of shoes of hers. It's not really a whole lot, but, I got a trifecta, again, of something useful for her new place when she moves, something with meaning between the two of us, and something that looks nice she can wear. I hope she likes them.

For Greg, I picked up a couple Gundam fighters that he can put together and pose. When I went out there last, he kinda pointed out a few that are more his taste, and I tried to pick ones that matched the style he likes. Hopefully he'll enjoy them.

I got Nina a little lacquered jewelry box from the Oriental Bazaar, which I think is really pretty, and matches her pretty well. With any luck it'll be stuffed with bits of jewelry and buried under a mountain of her life within a few months.

I snagged a Gloomy toy for Tyler, since we share an appreciation for his gaijin mauling ways, and this little guy is fantastic. He's posable, and he comes basically covered in blood, complete with blood literally dripping from his mouth. Amazing. I look forward to seeing Gloomy tatooed somewhere on him someday.

Neil of course, gets a couple of booster packs of Magic Cards from Japan.

For Nicole, I got a gift not for Nicole, but for the daughter she will give birth to shortly after my visit. I bought the cutest little baby gloves for her daughter, and they squeak when you squeeze them too. They're adorable. If there could be a faster way to get in the pants of a girl who's 8 months pregnant, they haven't invented it yet. And boy do I intend to do just that.

In continuing with my fashion gifts from Italy, I bought Amanda a couple pairs of leggings which I think she would like, and hopefully, maybe, in some parallel universe, she might wear. Unlike the pair of pants I bought her in Italy that fit perfectly. She DID wear the underwear I got her, but, eh, oh well. You can't win em all.

I got Shane and Stefan these cool puzzles, which'll hopefully give them something to fuck around with when they're drunk and get conversations going at parties. Kind of a copout gift, I know, but, well...I dunno, I really like them, would want one or all three that I bought, and as such figure they must like them too. I figure gifts I'd wanna keep for myself are good ones.

I still have some shopping to do, but I have to keep my eyes out between now and when I go home for them. Cole's gift especially, and Carly's, Jenn's, Jordan's, Pete's, MiA's, Christy's and Marty's.

For a great many of these though, heh, Serena and I have a trip to Asakusa planned tomorrow. The kitch gift capital of the universe. I'll have so many keychains and trinkets that I'll be able to cover my bases for anyone I may have forgotten. Gotta have a backup plan, ya know?

Scream A Little, Laugh A Lot

Yesterday I woke up to the sun in my room, a refreshing and welcome change from the cold and miserable rain of the previous two days, resulting in some awkward bicycle seat marks which I would rather not discuss. Work wasn't so hard, as it never is when I'm actually awake, aware, sentient and homeostatic at work. My last lesson of the day was a write in and a no show, and the write in was Saki, so I was happy to have her as a man to man, seeing as I would be more than happy to do dirty dirty things to her.

After work though, I cruised back to Shin Matsudo to meet Sere, then went to Kashiwa to get kaiten sushi, which was delicious and cheap. We topped it off with a McDonald's soft serve and made our way to Abiko for drinks at Eleni's and then a rowdy night of Karaoke at Wara Wara.

Here's a funny side note. There's a new guy, from Buuuuuurnley, UK, he's a tall white guy, bright blonde hair, very fair complexion to the point of having reddish pink skin, kinda like this guy Zach R. I know. Anyway, I have nicknamed him Pinky. Now, I know someone else who likes the name Pinky, or at least really likes the color pink. She's very blonde, has a very fair complexion, and her name is Christy. The new guy's name is Christian. I didn't realize the parallels until after I had nicknamed him.

Anyway, Karaoke was rowdy, a lot of fun, we all drank a ton, sang a TON, Sere had a great time, and I met Joe, another new guy, who is the more American kid I've ever met. And boy did he like singing Madonna and Beyonce hits. lol.

We caught last train by a hair's breadth, and called it a night. It was a good night, probably the best I've had in a long while.

A Bad Word To Mix Up

Have you ever wondered how the Japanese actually meet members of the opposite sex, date, and eventually marry? No, probably not, cause there are so damned many of them living in such a small place, you'd think all one would have to do is reach out their arm and it'd land on at least a decently attractive member of the opposite sex who's single and of marrying age. But no, it doesn't work like that. Even in the most populous city in Japan, with a phenomenally high population density, arranged marriages prevailed as the predominant method of matrimony until I dunno, maybe 20 years ago.

Why, you ask? Cause people are way too fucking busy working and ignoring the shit out of each other to actually get to know anyone they either didn't go to school with or don't work literally right next to, and even then the odds aren't that good. This is no rare thing in Asian countries, and Japan is no exception. Guys hang out with guys. Girls hang out with girls. So how do they actually meet one another?

The Gokkon. Go ahead, ask. Thank you. It's a 'Meeting Party' which comes in two forms, kid form and adult form. The kid form is for college students, groups like clubs, or groups of friends, just kinda get together and go out in a prearranged, reserved outing to get to know each other and expand their social circles. The adult form is what I went to on Saturday night with Ty and Dave. A couple grabs the guys and girls from each of their lives, sits them across a huge table from one another, get good and liquored up, and hope some people get to doing the horizontal mambo. So that they can host the next one after they get settled. This is basically how people meet here. It's perfectly acceptable, and without it, the birthrate would come to a grinding halt, given the rate of abortion here.

Careful how you say that word though, cause goukan means rape. This can create all kinds of awkard situations when you're explaining what you and 5 of your guy friends are gonna do tonight.

Anyway, we got to Shinjuku, walked around the Kabukicho for like 20 minutes trying to find the place, found it, then started drinking. My little table had Dave and Andy, and Newton, who I hardly recognized and was surprised to see, who still reads my blog (Heya) much to my surprise. We played some drinking games which were good, and I felt ill for a good hour for whatever reason, but I managed to wait it out, and was fine just in time to have to play some more games, and catch my train back home, cause I worked on Sunday for a swap with Richie.

The train ride home was profoundly crowded, and I couldn't help thinking about the irony of coming from a meeting party where I met basically no one, and shoving myself into a sardine can of a train where I had more contact in 20 minutes with the people around me than I did with anyone at the party.

Ty and Dave stayed for the all nighter. I know they're home now, but I haven't seen or spoken to them yet. I imagine the following happened: Ty successfully scored with Keiko, the semi-cute but Japanese girl he was running game on, probably with added determination after the previous night's failure, and Dave went gung-ho for the tall and admittedly attractive Korean girl sitting two down from me at our table. Dave has a soft spot for Korean chicks.

The Dating Scene

I've gone out now the last three nights in a row, all of which have had different, odd, but increasingly good ends. Allow me to regale you (i.e. myself) with the story.

Friday night I went out with Ty after work (only two more classes with those Friday junior hellions! wOOt!!!!), supposedly as Ty's wingman. See, he met a girl at the Hub a little while back, went out on a date with her, then before this last one, she asked if she could bring a friend with her, and Ty smartly decided to bring someone else along. I agreed.

Well, her friend of course turned out to be safety friend, kinda like safety stranger, but well, as more the girl equivalent of "girl that's there to make sure her slutty friend doesn't turn into a complete tramp" or, as a girl might be more apt to put it, "the second (sober) opinion".
We went to a Thai restaurant in Kashiwa, but neither girl could eat spicy food, so that was interesting to begin with. Silly weak pallated Japanese girls.

The guy, Tha Chang, who owns the place, is a 42 year old flamboyantly gay Thai man, who was just hillarious, and with whom Ty and I conversed far mroe than the girls sitting across from us. Yes you read that correctly, the seated themselves together, across from us, creating basically two completely different conversations in two completely different languages neither of which overlapped the other much at all the whole time. Ty and I immediately began drinking heavily, which safety friend, of course, did not. Here was our initial drink order:
"Beer Chang please."
"Ah, same here."
"あの、ライチサワー下さい。”
”Oolong Tea."
"Wait, what? You realize there's no alcohol in that, right?"
"はい。知っている。”
"*sigh*"

And of course these girls don't speak a lick of English, even though they understand it pretty well without letting on. Even in Japanese though, there was no getting a conversation started, no matter how we tried. It was over when: Ty's date asked safety friend if it was ok to get another drink, to which she replied "Hmm, well, ok. I think you can have another, but, wait a few. That should be ok." What are we 3? At this point, my job as wingman officially either just got harder or not worth it. Ty claims the former, I the latter.

The thing is these girls didn't realize we understood what they were saying between them privately. Ty and I just sat there becoming more and more appauled, till at the insanely early time of 10:40 I pulled the "I have to work early tomorrow morning, so, I kinda gotta go" card to bail. Since the cards were out on the table, safety friend revealed her aces too, saying that she as well was meeting a friend at 11 so she actually had to go too, which was the date equivalent of "you can't fire me cause I quit!" Additionally, revealed that they had a bailout plannned and were within minutes of using it anyway.

So we catch a taxi to Minami Kashiwa station, which none of us but safety friend need to go to, and on the way of course, the two are sitting next to each other whispering about Ty and me in some kind of last minute evaluation, since the next important decision of course is whether the girls will separate when we reached the station. Somewhere along the line though, I heard safety friend whisper "hentai" and I called her straight out on it. "What?! Excuse me? What did you just say??" For those of you who don't know, you generally don't call people out in this culture, they weren't really expecting to be heard, much less understood, much less called out on it. So The Date says, "Oh, she's tired, she's just tired," and I asked Ty, "Hey, when you're tired, do you accidentally call people perverts under your breath? I know I don't." The girls decided to pay for the cab ride.

At the station, the negotiations began, and Ty tried to paw out whether The Date and he should head back to Kashiwa for another drink, while safety friend and I went our seperate ways. Her answer, as it had been whenever presented one by Ty that evening was, "Dochidemo ii" (either way's fine). Which I guess I could understand, being coy Japanese girls, but, it wasn't coy, it was copout. This I guess is where I failed to uphold my duty as wingman by not distracting safety friend for long enough for Ty to run some serious last minute game and seal some alone time, but, in my professional opinion, it wasn't gonna happen in the first place, and before I could really do anything about it Ty made the decision for us when he told The Date "That's your fucking motto, isn't it? Dochidemo ii." Ty kinda has a habit of snapping. We parted ways.

"Dave (don't call me that you know I hate it), sorry, David, why didn't you jump on the grenade? You should have been talkin it up with safety friend from the get go. Poor form." You say. And I say, "Hey listen, as his wingman I'm also there to monitor the situation from an objective, 'I'm not trying to get my dick wet' POV, and it was clear Ty wasn't gonna reach his goal pretty early on. And, I did try to engage safety friend as much as possible, but in a conversation that was THAT dead from the get go, it was a daunting task, and hardly worth it. Additionally, well, I just kinda blanked and stopped really caring about it once I realized that The Date was acting like a 3 year old and clearly didn't wanna engage in a 'safety off' dating environment.
Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that personality just doesn't matter to some guys, or at least, not as long as they get laid. Not to say that's what Ty was after, but if it bothered him I didn't do more as wingman, it can't be because he was charmed by her personality and wanted to get to know her more on an emotional level. Either way, my bad, I guess."

At Least It's Kinda Sunny

I'm up early again, because my brilliant, lacking in foresight self signed up for overtime on the swap day I did with Richard just in time to have Serena tell me she'll be here. So now I have 6 days in a row, and one fewer off to spend with her. Additionally I have to be up at 8am, which is no great pleasure, even thought I normally wake up about this time anyway anymore.

It's cold at night now, officially. As in, Ican'tstandthisforChrist'ssakeI'mfreezingmyfuckingassoff cold. That kinda cold. But then again I'm sensitive to cold.

My dad informs me I'm officially uninsured back home to drive. As far as I can recall, that's a horrendously bad thing when acquiring insurance. Almost as bad as the speed racing ticket that would show up on my record were I to apply for it now, prior to turning 25. Hmm. Interesting.

Freedom

Those bastards raised my credit limit again. I hate when they do that, cause in some small way, I'm overjoyed that they did that. Nina will understand this, but it's akin to hating that you love the way something you should hate tastes. Recognizing it's bad, but liking it, and not liking that. Yea. I'm just repeating myself now.

Had a short day at work, kids lesson, free, kids man to man, no show, lesson. Sweet. Slept in till 12 today cause Serena wanted to, and cause the WoW patch hadn't updated/finished bug repair.

Had a little spat with J. Ended well enough.

The Dirt Under You Nails

Yesterday morning I woke and readied myself early and went out to Kashiwa station to meet Serena, who had just arrived from Florence, Italy, and will be my guest until the 17th. I'm excited to see her again. Her accent, and her way of speaking is just so happy, and, I dunno, quintessentially Italian. We made our way back to my place to drop off her stuff, which consists of her purse and the very smallest of suitcases, the rationale behind which is that it's meant to bring things back as opposed to the other way around. But, she brought me the very most amazing of all gifts, one I've looked for and pined for for what feels like years now, Acqua Di Gio. A gift set including aftershave lotion and body wash. Mwahaha. I could smell it on me all day yesterday, since my nostrils are again unaccustomed to the scent.

So after we dropped her stuff off at home, we headed back out, since she wanted to go to Shinjuku and I had to go to work. We got to the station, I charged my old Suica card for her convenience, and we went our seperate ways. When I got to work and looked at my schedule, I knew it was going to be a good day.

I had a level up test, a free, a couple lessons, then two frees to end my day. Wow. Fantastic. Now, of course, that all gets rearranged promptly to fill spaces and Richard gets sent at the end of the day to Kashiwa, and those two frees go away, but I still have practically nothing to do for the first two lessons of my day so I'm happy. But, it's what I have to do during that free that gets me.

I got to vacuum, which I really have no problem with but the fact is that vacuum cleaner just doesn't suck, and as such, really sucks. Richard commented on this before I started, so, being the junior fixer-upper that I am, I decided to fix it, i.e. clean the filter. When I popped that sucker open I'm pretty sure souls came out. The dust in there was ancient, and plentiful. The basin of our little shop vac was completely full, and the filter must have weighed 4 lbs just from the silt alone. So I got to the task of cleaning it, which coated me and all those around me in what felt like tomb dust. The Dust of Ages. The kind of thing that, knowing it's the silt vacuumed from the kids rooms for however long this branch has been open, is most likely every single ccold, flu, and latent bacterial infection known to mankind all in one ultra conentrated dried out, just use water form. By water I mean the moisture in your nose, mouth, hands, throat, etc where infections tend to like to lodge themselves before launching their full frontal assault on your immune system, comfort, ability to think clearly, etc.

So now I have all this silt, and every time I think, my nails are dirty again. I can't wait to shower. I have no idea how many times I washed my hands yesterday, but I know there's no getting it off shy of burning off a layer of my skin. J, thank you for the hand sanitizer, it was a blessing (hehe) to have yesterday.

I was supposed to meet Serena at Shin Matsudo at 10-ish, but it took her 45 min. longer because she went too far on accident and had to wait for another train. Go figure that I finally decided to go into McDonald's and get a cup of coffee to thaw my frozen self just in time to sit down and see her walk out of the station. It always works that way.

Last night we were up until near 2am because Ty and Dave were up watching a football game. I feel bad for Serena because she was up for SO long, but at the same time I kinda have to respect that it's their apartment too, and I can't exactly ask them to completely abandon their everyday lives just cause I have a guest. So, whatever. It works out how it does.

Greg tells me Interac is looking for teachers, starting in the spring. I have to consider, once again, if I would switch jobs. Could I do it, with all my travel plans? Would it be rewarding like I want it to be? We'll see I guess.