(use your imagination to fill in the preceding conversation. needless to say, it was unspeakable.)
ME: Ugh! Matt! Do you want me to be a REDNECK?
MATT: Fuck yeah! That would be awesome! I love rednecks!
Yesterday one of the guys in the House whipped up an excellent late-December communal feast: seared shrimp, broccoli and corn, potatoes. There was CC Lemon (70 lemons worth of Vitamin C in one bottle!) and Coke to drink, plus a dessert of ice cream cone cookies. Sugoy!
Matt and I took the train to Yokohama afterwards, where we have never been. It's the closest major city to Tokyo, and apparently one of Japan's oldest foreign-trade ports. We got off the train at Sakuragicho and beheld THE WORLD'S BIGGEST FERRIS WHEEL shimmering like a neon pink mirage in the flawless sky! I had a powerful, almost primal urge to BE ON THIS FERRIS WHEEL, NOW. Ferris wheels have long been my favourite amusement park ride, which always confused my mother -- as an 8-yr-old I overheard her calling me "weird" to one of her friends ("She's so weird -- she wanted to go on the ferris wheel three times in a row, didn't look at any of the other rides at all ...."). So we went. There were 60 gondolas, and a clock in the middle, and the 60 gondolas somehow made the time go, like one gondola per second, I don't know, it was confusing. But very beautiful. From the very top of the ascent we could see Mt. Fuji, and also some sort of municipal building that is purported to be the tallest in all of Japan and looked exactly how I imagined the Tower of Babel to look when I first read of it as a child.
Next we walked to Chinatown, which was beautiful: orange lanterns hung from the streetlights and every few steps you could buy freshly roasted chestnuts from little roadside stands. The place was also littered with palm readers at small wooden tables in the sidewalk, with pimp-like men standing near them and gesturing excitedly -- drat the language barrier! I suddenly wanted my palm read very badly.
We bought cans of chu-hi at a shop and were drinking them as we walked, but we got a lot of stares -- I guess public drinking isn't so common in Yokohama -- so we finished quickly and looked for a place to eat. There were literally hundreds of restaurants, all offering the same Chinese food, displayed in wax casts in the windows, so we walked up to a random one. I looked in: the place was completely empty except for the waitstaff who were SITTING AT A TABLE, DRUNK, and at another table was an entire clear plastic garbage bag filled with CABBAGES. So we went elsewhere.
I enjoyed this new place (Shin Shin) cuz the food was delicious and the owner spoke excellent English ("Should you have any further questions please don't hesitate to inquire"), but Matt grew surly and withdrawn because he sliced his arm open on the side of the table, and also received a dish with pork in it when he had asked for one without pork. He has terrible luck at restaurants.
For a while I was miffed that Matt and I aren't going anywhere exciting for our vacation, but it's actually been a supercool and chillaxed couple of days. We went to Shimokitizawa for dinner at a French restaurant, which is a new experience for me: dined on snootily presented cheeses, crusty bread, and a steamed white fish with clams and vegetables. Tasty food, tiny portions, and a large bottle of red wine -- the nicest thing was Matt's French is a billion times better than either his or my Japanese, so I was able to know exactly what I was ordering. A treat! Matt had to taste the wine to ensure it was acceptable, which was fascinating to me and a ritual I have only seen before in films. Matt played the part perfectly: a cautious swirl of liquid, a delicate sniff, brief taste, and then a faintly condescending nod to indicate the waiter could proceed to fill our glasses. I was disappointed on two counts: one, it is always the man who does this thing, plus Matt had ordered so it only made sense, but I had wild and vivid hopes that *I* would get to judge the wine. I would have done it perfectly, I think, though self-consciously. And two, I had secretly hoped that Matt would spit the wine out onto the floor and declare it vile, demand a different vintage. This never happens in films. Also not in real life, it seems.
Been spending a lot of time hanging out with people in the House, sleepily pouring Baileys into our morning coffees and watching trashy TV, including Miss Teen USA 2006. Is this what I've become? Been to karaoke (a new favourite is Alanis Morisette's You Oughtta Know), and went to a revolving sushi restaurant with Becky. Once we were finished eating and had our collection of empty plates, we pushed them through a slot in the wall. Every five plates would activate this kind of slot-machine-y device and if you got three identical images in a row, you won a prize. Becky won a leggo man. Keep it fun; keep it fun.
Check out Cansei De Ser Sexy -- they're from Brazil and rule. Best song is "Alala." Band name is Portugese for "I'm sick of being sexy!"
There are important things I need to say about French food and the French dining experience in general, bu they will have to wait until later.
By the way: "Little Miss Sunshine" isn't ALL THAT, which I had mistakenly hoped it would be.
Makes me want to play the Seventh Heaven drinking game, really. Drink every time someone forgives someone! Drink every time a blonde and a brunette appear in the same scene (rare)!
The lightening crashes outside the window so vividly I can't see for three seconds after. Reminds me of Keto, superdog, whose bravery and valor was bested only by thunderstorms, and vacuum cleaners.
Considering I had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, it's been festive!
Christmas Eve Matt and I went to a standing bar called Cookie Bar, which is a tiny, cheerful hole in the wall with one beautiful woman (Cookie) behind the counter slinging drinks, whipping up seafood chowder, and chattering in a mix of English and Japanese. Fellow patrons included an ancient old man with brown teeth and full Santa regalia including hat, who drank and ate steadily and never spoke but often laughed at Matt and I; a middle-aged woman and her twenty-something son, who drank like pros and kept buying us "winter gifts" (food, beer); "Elvis," a man I had previously met at the Antique 'n' Junk who enjoys singing "Hound Dog" with me and who actually does look like Elvis; a strange, confused man who came in once or twice and gave me flowers; and a various stream of people coming in and giving gifts to Cookie. Sugoy!
Christmas Day was work, and then we headed to the Antique 'n' Junk with James and D. Beer, gin and tonic, JD and soda. C., whose English is excellent, manned the bar and translated my awful Japanese to various patrons. Ate takuyaki, which is a deep-fried octopus ball -- also had some pickled vegetables. Lusted again after the antique German typewriter for sale. Far too much beer, way too many cigarettes. Singing along to old World's Fattest Racehorse tunes. A couple of co-workers arrived, A and R, and it somehow became a good idea to play I Never (now everyone knows my horrible Vegetable secret) and tell R exactly what my first impressions of him were, plus write them down. I looked at it the next day -- beer-smudged scribbles along the lines of "mysterious," "manipulative," and "extremely good-looking" (though I think he wrote that last one). At one point I glanced around at the chaos and realized, This is how you celebrate Christmas in Japan. This is it. Became incoherently drunk quite suddenly, at about 11:30, and stumbled home alone only to spill peanuts all over myself and fall asleep facing the wrong way on the futon ....
Listening to: the Dandy Warhols
Drinkin: beer ("brewed for good times")
And all I can think about is that I used to have a Dandy Warhol's t-shirt, courtesy of Darren: two faceless men in a convertible, above the caption: YOU DRIVE FAST. I'LL DO THE DRUGS. I used to like to wear it grocery shopping.
May I draw your attention to the latest negativespace constellation, James -- see his blog now. As Juan P would say, this man is both a scholar and a gentleman. Or was that a bus driver? You are here.
The chickens are restless. The cultural isolation stronger, the chu-hi sweeter. Yokohama beckons: bright lights and the promise of Chinatown. I received an excellent Christmas present from Juan, a collection of comics by Magic Teeth mogul Gareth Gaudin -- the most perfect of gifts, good sir! I read it on the train, as people leaned over my shoulder and leaned back again sharply, appalled by images of Hamburglar raping whomever. In answer to your urgent question in the card regarding sex-on-a-stick identity: It's the hot one who's not selling cars. :P
(warning: this entry is very boring and pointless and might get deleted soon so don't even bother reading it. It would be like reading someone else's grocery list, seriously, only they've bought nothing interesting at all, just some white bread and maybe milk and some apples and a spinach filo from the deli section)
Sick today, a horrible raging cold. Five more days till my vacation, which kind of sucks, because up until two minutes ago I thought it was four days. Sigh.
But! I made breakfast earlier, always an event of note. Today I lightly fried green onions, yellow onions, tomato, and red pepper in olive oil, then added three -- yes three -- stirred-up eggs and fried some more, and then sprinkled cheese over everything. Semi-healthy depending on your point of view, and tasty. Served with coffee and British commentary from the cavern of the kitchen beyond the little peek-hole at the edge of the lounge. Whatever.
I prepared two postcards today and a Package, which are waiting for the post. I still have to do one more postcard, two letters, and two Packages. Off to work soon.
A couple of relationship vignettes:
1) Matt and I work for different branches of the same company, and as such have different co-workers and therefore a different Secret Santa gift exchange. The person Matt bought a gift for was a Japanese woman I had never met, and I flew into a jealous rage when he wrapped the present: sexy gloves with fake-fur trim and a goddamn romantic comedy on dvd. I shouted the usual things, accusations and witty predictions of the eventual rubble of our relationship, and he said irritably, "Well, what did you get YOUR Secret Santa?"
Mine had been a gentleman named K, and I was forced to admit that I'd given him a personal massager, a scented candle, and a martini glass. Never mind I barely know the man, that's he's gay to boot, and that the gift was a rash spur-of-the-moment inspiration from the same vague dregs that had produced Nora's vibrator wedding gift, for which her husband still distrusts me. There was no way I was winning this argument.
2) It was cold today and I put on a bunch of layers plus Matt's bulky winter jacket. "I look fat!" I said (I did, it added like 50 pounds). "If I was this fat, would you still love me?"
"No," said Matt, and the horrible thing is he is telling the truth -- consistently, at that: he said the same thing when we were teenagers. I grew strident and logical, something or other about love not having conditions, and Matt smirked his horrible Comox-honed smirk and counter-argued that if he was no longer attracted to me it would be hypocritical of him to stay with me, and I stalked off into Noborito in search of potato chips and wine, and also golden thumb tacks, to rig up this neat hanging bead curtain thing I now have.
The Wry Dentist Who Rules met me in the waiting room and nodded frostily to my nervous, "How's it going?"
He got right to the point: "Are you here for a cleaning or an extraction?" (this is what he had recommended to me on my first visit)
I said, "Neither." His eyebrows shot up in disapproval. "Actually, I have a crack. In my front tooth. The one with the root canal."
He looked me up and down, appraising. Finally he said, "You get in a fight?"
Later, in the chair, he told me he was going to drill into my tooth and remove the filling, which was half out anyway, and replace it with a new one. "Of course," he said, "the tooth has no root. A dead tooth. So, you won't need any anesthesia."
What he said was true and indeed expected, but laying prone in the chair jittery from an empty stomach and too much iced coffee and cigarettes, too much sensory overload from downtown Roppongi motif of teenage girls wearing short shorts with fishnets in December and miserable housewives clutching fur -- fur -- handbags as they bolt across six-lane highways on a blinking green light was suddenly too much for me and I started shaking.
Not only did I shake, I clenched my entire body. I have clenched my fingers before; I have clenched my jaw. Never my whole body. And it stayed that way, rigid, for 40 minutes as he drilled and muttered and let out terrifying sighs and what I was positive was Japanese for "Ooops." I prayed in tongues in my head, which is not something I normally do; I spoke to God also, not really a conversation, just a "Please God please God please God" over and over as the drill whined dangerously close to my other, alive, un-anesthized teeth. Twenty minutes in I thought it was over because he leaned back for a moment. Then he said darkly, "So far so good," which made me think this was a dangerous undertaking we were engaged in, a risky one, one that might fail, might be going good and then suddenly and irretrievably go bad. Twenty more minutes.
Then it was over: an aide handed me a mirror and I weakly smiled -- feral, a wolf -- to look. The man is an artist: it looked better than it did even before the root canal. And this isn't even the cap yet, just a new filling. I said, "Sir, it is a masterpiece," and he scowled and told me, just before stalking off, to come again soon for a cleaning.
A fun night yesterday. Met up with Ryan in Meguro, and spent an inordinate amount of time being turned away from full restaurants, unsuccessfully attempting to buy champagne at KFC (there is complicated back story to this -- it IS possible but there is a lot of organization involved), and finally meeting up with Aya and heading to a spectacular restaurant for nabe. Nabe is a kind of hot pot, sort of like shabu shabu but more complex: ingredients must be added to a boiling pot in the centre of the table at precise intervals, starting with tofu and then progressing to vegetables (mushrooms, onion, peppers, watercress, more), and then on to udon noodles and more vegetables. It's the best meal I've had in a couple of months -- sadly, I seem to subsist on pre-packaged salads and store-bought egg sandwiches more days than not .... Also at this incredible dinner was a green salad served in a scooped-out papaya, and a kind of deep-fried pumpkin. Wow. We headed to the liquor store later to buy modest tall-boys of beer, noticing only after we had paid and were about to leave a 5-litre bottle of whiskey for $26! Thank God I'm so poor I couldn't buy it, because I'm sure the course of my life would have been unalterably, and negatively, changed had I done so.
ME: My brother Clint might be coming to Tokyo next month.
AYA: Ah! What will you do together?
ME: Probably get drunk. He's a big drinker.
AYA [nodding sagely]: Like you.
ME: Well, no, he's different, he gets very strange when he drinks, very bizarre and amusing.
AYA: Ah, like you.
Spent the night at their place, and in the morning Matt accompanied me to an unfamiliar bus stop so I could begin the needlessly complicated trek to Roppongi to see the dentist. An older Japanese lady adopted me from the moment I asked her for directions on the street corner to the end of the bus ride when she pulled the cord for me. She rocked. Also she seemed to know half the people on the bus. I think she is a Japanese female version of Jay Dunphy.
No, it is not the photographs, the pianos and monochrome glaze of lipstick on genius mouth, open, laugh, rhyme. It is pen on page and lonely of train station bathroom stall tears self-aware and dead-on-cheek saying how can we use this? For now. The photography later. This exile, for that is what it is, suddenly optimistic and literary. But: must read more, especially old stuff. Increase my vocabulary of symbols.
Listening to: Arcade Fire
Mood: dazed
Yes, dazed -- because I just made a dental appointment that will cost me $1300. Life has astonishing twists at times. The good news is that I can -- just -- afford this; the bad news is that the cool Christmas presents I had hoped to buy and some lingering Canadian debts I was planning to pay must be postponed. Gah.
A couple of weeks ago I made the ill-considered decision to teach a class on 'The Commercialization of Christmas.' Everyone else was doing things like 'The History of the Christmas Tree' and 'Karaoke Christmas Carols,' and I fell into a sudden panic, thinking my class would be doomed and depressing and un-Christmassy. The morning of, I spent frantic minutes on wikipedia, searching for cheerful Christmas 'alternatives,' and I came up with the greatest alternative of them all: Festivus. Greatly relieved, I went into the classroom with my reams of notes, and when the faces started to grow long at my natterings re: little children working in factories to make toys for other little children to open on Christmas Day, I said triumphantly, "And that is why many people celebrate FESTIVUS." The students looked a little happier, and I went on to tell them all the great, relished details of The Aluminum Pole, The Airing of Grievances, the Feats of Strength, etc. When I finished, there was a stunned silence.
"Joy," one of them said, perplexed, "why would anybody want to celebrate this Festivus?"
And to my horror, I just could not explain.
- Sunkus for on-sale strawberries
- Family Mart for Tokyo's mightiest English newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri
- The 99 Yen Shop for milk, orange juice, eggs, and Japanese oranges
- Venga Venga for whole wheat breakfast rolls
Breakfast is going to rock!
Listening to: Hot Hot Heat
Drinkin: red wine
Working on the Canadian mix cd -- kind of frustrating going. Can't find any Hardcore Logo to download. If anyone's got any, could you email it? (There's only one person I can think of who might actually have it, and that's Mike Little. Mike: I know you don't read this blog, but if you do ..... And if you don't, maybe now you'll start, by googling your own name, or my name. I haven't seen you in FOREVER! Last I heard, you were in a hotel bar in Cranbrook, making wild promises. Or hurting, indirectly, Morgan's liver. How's tricks? Have you got any Hardcore Logo?)
Staff Christmas party and Secret Santa gift exchange last night. The evening started with me luring a pack of co-workers out to the Antique and Junk for a drink, only to find the place CLOSED, as it was Sunday (?). Sucked hardcore cuz a couple of them hadn't even wanted to come out anyway, 'cept I told them all these yarns about the Antique and Junk. Embarassed station beers instead, shivering and taking pictures and offering long tubes of Pringles chips to passersby. Later, the bowling alley: I smoke and observe, drinking cans of beer, as a champagne cork goes flying into another lane and Co-Worker runs down the lane to retrieve it, traumatizing a bevy of locals in the process. A game of pool with one of the Japanese staff from work (it's his second time playing pool; I win, just barely); long, one-sided discussions about Patrick Lane with my boss. James was my Secret Santa and he bought me air mail envelopes, funky pens, and a cd wallet, all of which rock. Had to leave at about 9:30 as I was having difficulty seeing (fucking 5pm station beers).
In the personal trauma department: I have a crack in my front tooth, the one with the root canal. It fucking sucks so hard I can't even begin to get into it. My dentist told me, back in Canada, that I was ridiculous to think it might crack. Yes, you'll need a cap, she said, but not for about a year, when it starts to discolour. Fuck. It's just a little crack, only noticeable if I peer into the mirror at a sideways angle, but it terrifies me and I'm worried about it cracking more and my tooth falling out, fuck fuck fuck. One of my students told me that, without insurance, a cap costs only $100, but I looked into it and apparently the metal caps cost $100; for porcelain ya gotta pay $1000. This is my front tooth. Fuck. I mean, who gets cracked teeth? I know people with teeth way worse than mine, and they don't crack. Plus I've not even been using the fucking thing to bite for the past five months, so I don't get it. I will go to the dentist on Wednesday, hopefully, if he can fit me in, and discuss options.
Matty and I got a Skype microphone on Thursday. Does anyone have Skype? If so, we can talk for free.
Got a kick-ass letter from Clint the other day, in purple ink. It contained mystical secrets.
..... Not technically a poet .... But sex on a stick as far as I'm concerned.
A fairly typical morning: Get up; consider airing my futon, but this would require beating my futon and it makes me laugh too hard to take it seriously; look for the remote control for the heater, fail; look for my cigarettes, succeed, and smoke one on the condemned patio (old vcr's, broken fans, strife) as I watch the children in cram school two feet away in the YMCA window; look for the remote control for the heater again, fail; throw in a load of laundry; check the mail table (nothing); strike out for the 99-yen shop for breakfast materials (oranges, bottled coffee, a sandwich, cigs); return home and find the remote control for the heater; switch the laundry over; think about whether Mae West was a happy person or not.
Went to a New Place yesterday with Matt, as he had a business meeting. Some notes: "Just spent 45 minutes wandering around Yamonte -- which looks like Vernon, or even skid row Armstrong, on a very bad and economically unfruitful day -- looking for a coffeehouse. Passed block after block of pachinko parlors, hair salons, and 7-11's. Found an intriguing place with the words JAZZ IZAKAYA painted on the window, but it was closed. Withdrew money from a 7-11, and returned to the train station where I sat on a wooden bench with a cigarette, watching ridiculously groomed poodles get into fights with skinny dachshunds in red woolen sweaters. Wound up at Doutor sipping iced coffee through a straw and gazing at the on-sale cappuccino makers with a lecherous eye."
As I was writing that in Doutor, an old old man with few teeth and a lumberjack shirt came over to my table balancing a teacup on a saucer and asked if he could sit down. I introduced myself in Japanese but he insisted on practicing his English, and we spoke gravely of Mexico, the army, and coffee.
My students often ask me what my favourite thing about Japan is, and I invariably say, 'The food."
"Oh really?" they say, completely shocked. "What kind of food, exactly?"
"Sushi," I say. "Sushi is like my favourite food ever."
"Ah," they say, leaning back in their chairs and nodding wisely. "Sushi rolls."
"Well, yes," I say, "Rolls are great, but my number one favourite would have to be salmon sashimi."
"What?" Even greater shock. "Raw fish?"
"Yes," I admit, paranoid suddenly because they look offended and I try very hard not to offend Japanese people, especially my students.
"But ...." -- and here they exhibit great distress, leaning forward and frowning intently -- " ... foreigners can't eat raw fish."
"Well ...." And I go on to say that perhaps this is true, sometimes, but I come from Vancouver Island which is rather renowned for seafood, and most people love sushi, even sashimi.
The disappointment in their eyes is more than I can bear, and I desperately try to make amends. This is when I think of natto, perhaps the worst food on the planet -- it is made from fermented soybeans and the smell of it is so intense that I get a gag reflex before it even comes near my mouth. Matt's brother Ryan gave me some once as a kind of cruel joke and I couldn't even swallow one bean. People from Tokyo love natto because not only is it about the healthiest food invented, they have also acquired a fiercely loyal taste for it, and most people I speak to eat it daily, with rice for breakfast.
So I say slowly, wary of saying anything critical of Japanese culture but feeling I have no other option, "One thing I have to say I can't stand though, is natto," and the grins break out around the table -- all is forgiven! -- "Really?" they chortle, relieved and delighted, "you don't like natto? Ha! You see, foreign people can't eat natto, they hate it," and I agree, Yes, natto is vile, and everyone is friends again.