This morning I awoke to hear the girl who lives down the hall moaning, "Ohhhh, my God, fuck, shit," etc. as she stumbled down the stairs on her way to work. The Habi Habi show last night claimed many victims ...
1. At Shinjuku Station. A rather plump man in his mid-60s, dressed to kill in a three-piece suit and a leather fedora. He somehow looked exactly like a cross between my maternal grandfather and Johnny Cash, and I couldn't stop grinning with pleasure and sneaking looks at him out of the corner of my eye. Eventually, he looked back, and smiled, which people don't do in Shinjuku Station, only the smile said this: Uh, look honey, I"m really flattered, but, yeah. Not this time.
2. In the nightmare alleys of Noborito. A young couple lugging two five-packs of jumbo-sized Kleenex boxes, and a 12-pack of toilet paper, through the murky heat. I would have given anything to find out what their story was ...
Wow! Before noon today I managed to (1) shower; (2) design, create, and consume a healthy breakfast; (3) go to the dentist for more light-hearted root canal work; and (4) go to the post office to wire scads of cash to my dad. A British gentlemen of my acquaintance helped me with the last bit, and it was all quite filmic -- he in a business suit, fretfully looking at the clock and speaking confident Japanese; the clerk, harried, sweating, flipping through massive binders to find a page marked CANADA and zig-zagging his finger among the various graphs and charts thereon; and me, breezily filling in official paperwork with my syringe-pen and saying things like, "Yeah, sort of, I guess you could call my family dysfunctional." Anyway, I wired my dad close to a thousand dollars, the only catch being it will take A MONTH to reach him. I will follow the developments with interest.
Last night was a cocktail with Joe at April Fool Bar, followed by karaoke, and as I walked home I randomly passed J. and N., who sat smoking and drinking on the stoop of an apartment that was not their own. I joined them, we got more beer, and N. read my palm.
I've never had my palm read before, for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that I am uninterested in the date of my death and do not under any circumstances wish to know it, or receive hints about it. N. promised she wouldn't say anything, and proceeded to give me a rather remarkable reading. This is only the third time we've hung out, so she hardly knows me, and the first thing she said was, "Did you and Matt ever break up? Maybe two years ago?" (Note: she didn't hear about this from anybody else.) I was fairly impressed. She went on to say I would have three children, probably biological (!), that I was creatively blocked, that Matt's and my relationship would do well although I would have a serious "temptation" in my 50s (sounds hot!), and that for the first time in my life I am becoming the sort of person I wish to be (this was jarring). The only thing she said that didn't make sense was something about a major shift, or breakage, that had occurred when I was 16 or 17, likely having to do with my family. I can't figure out what that might be. I moved out of home when I was 17, but I don't recall there being any major emotional turmoils involved with this, aside from the usual guilt trips ... I'll have to think about it.
(This looks best in a larger size -- see it on flickr.)
It's an extraordinarily sunny day on the Tokyo-Kanagawa border, and I'm embittered toward Facebook for keeping me inside for the better part of an hour. On the horizon: breakfast (technically lunch), then writing on either the shores of the Tama River or the vast sands of the beach at Enoshima. No plans as yet for the evening, but I have a suspicion I'll wind up at the Antique N Junk raging and musing with the regulars ....
Went to a Quiz Night last week -- heaps of fun, although crushing in the sense that I seem to be not nearly so smart as I thought I was. This is a Quiz night, you understand, and I assumed I would win it handily. I was on a team with three other people and assured them the night was ours; then, the first category: The Eighties. Ten questions, nine of which regarded TV shows I had never seen. Other categories: Sports, Japanese Culture, Music. Alas. If the categories had been more like Post-Feminist Canadian Fiction, Municipal Politics, and Pretentious Films 1940 - Present, we may have had a shot .... Anyway, our team didn't win, BUT, between every round there was a bonus question and if you answered first, the whole team got a free shot, and we wound up winning three or four of them. Sweet!
Ryan took us to an awesome Chinese restaurant in Shinjuku, detailed in a rare update by Matt. Afterwards we had drinks at a rooftop bar that reminded me, urgently, of places like Armstrong -- wobbly wooden benches, rust, etc. -- only it overlooked a vista of Tokyo neon and wail. Later, we search for Loft Plus One, and find it, aided by three people: the dangerous-looking head-shaven bartender; a muscle-bound Nigerian handing out promotional literature for a nearby strip club; and a short, waddling Chinese man who took us directly to Loft Plus One's doors, before stalking off and saying that next time we should come to -- guess -- his strip club.
I've got no new music! Please: recommend some stuff in the comments. Preferably old school punk or country, or cutting edge new stuff with an activist edge. Or, shucks, anything. Something I might feel like dancing, or fighting, to. Thanks!
I bought a ball point pen today that is shaped like a syringe! It has fake blood inside!
Also today -- a root canal! Japan is chock-full of new experiences, let me tell you.
The following is a highly disturbing and cynical excerpt from a Robot Chicken episode. Calvin and Hobbes fans: view at your own risk!
An actual thought I had today, circa 8:30 am: "The only thing that matters is writing. And I have to buy some shirts after work."
Another thought, a memory: when my brother J was little, he loved to write in his diary. He couldn't pronounce the word 'diary,' though. One day he announced to his entire classroom: "I'm excited about after school today cuz I'm going to write in my diarrhea." What a stir he created!
Today at work I fell up the stairs, in front of three colleagues. Memory: vaguely arguing with an American at my last job -- he insisted it was impossible to fall up stairs --
Got four and a half pages of the new story done -- about halfway there, I'd say. It's about the time Bernie met Christoph in Prague. Ben! I'll have to send it to you when I'm finished, as I need your expertise, for two specific reasons: 1) You're the best person to get edits from, and 2) There's going to be a tawdrily graphic man-on-man sex scene and I want to make sure the details are consistent. I've already written the tawdrily graphic man-on-man first-meeting kiss and grope scene, and have only this to ask: have you ever notched your finger through someone's belt loop while you're making out with them in order to pull them in closer?
The story is mainly in Bernie's voice -- he is literally telling it to Emma -- and I like how it sounds, there's an immediacy that was often lacking in my previous fiction. It's in present tense, which is usual, but also first person, which is an insane departure on my behalf. I shy away from first person because it tends to make things very brisk, and clear, whereas my fiction tends to be alienated and cerebral. Sean Virgo mentioned this to me in his notes from the fiction workshop I took with him, and said something about how my writing is witty and the observations are succinct, but they are observations, and tend to hold the subject matter at a very cool arm's length. He didn't go into whether this was a positive or negative thing (I assume it's both), but he expressed an interest in what would happen if I wrote in first person and truly engaged with my characters. I think I'm getting there with this one. It's a bit of a cheat, as the first person narrator is merely listening to Bernie's story, not telling it, but it's close to something I should be doing.
I'm still shy about giving them last names, though. Part of the reason I returned to Emma, Christoph, and Bernie is because I like what Salinger did with the Glass family -- giving them multiple stories in which to star -- and then it hit me that I have never given my characters last names (since I was 18 anyway), and in several cases they don't have any names at all. This is interesting to me, particular in regards to Virgo's comments -- I keep myself emotionally detached from my characters, and I don't even allow them names half the time. Huh.
If the cat outside doesn't stop crying soon I'm going to scream.
God! All I want to do is cook something healthy for the first time in ages but I can't cuz there's people down in the kitchen cooking something that smells like stewed corpses and I can't even go outside my room without gasping for air. THEY ARE PUTTING WHATEVER IT IS (BAKED PORK I THINK) INTO THEIR BODIES, PEOPLE. Fuck, there are limits. I'm going to the diner down the block to drink red tea and write a sequel to Do You Want to be an Old Maid, Emma?.
I'm in that slightly off-kilter emotional space I fall into whenever I read a disturbing book. The Catcher in the Rye has me smoking too many cigarettes and denouncing everything I see as being "goddamn phony" in these long, twisting internal monologues .... Books that have done this to me: Harriet the Spy. Written by Beverly Clearly, possibly. The Chocolate Wars, by Michael or Malcom somebody. Sylvia Plath's poem Daddy, and also her novel The Bell Jar. ee cumming's poem about Olaf (whose warmest heart recoiled at war). Lord of the Flies -- this one nearly killed me in high school, I was out of it for over two weeks.
It's raining outside and I've got a bottle of iced espresso au lait. Georgia brand. A good past week, highlights including some karaoke with Matt, a rooftop bar in Shimokitazawa with James and Hiromi, and another barbecue at Tama River, but I feel a need to drop out, in a sense: to focus myself fully on my job, writing, and eating properly. I've got a shcwack of books on deck: a couple biographies (Salinger, Ginsberg), The Celestine Prophecy, something new by Peter Mayle, a few more. I think somewhere in all of this I will finally find the golden ticket.
Barbecue at Tama River yesterday. I bought a rubber ball with a light-up core and not only participated in but instigated a sporting event! It involved throwing the ball around and shouting the name of a beer, wine, spirit, or cocktail when you caught it. We kept it going for like ten minutes at least. I ate potato salad and had long discussions about northern Alberta, my previous employer, fascism, and globalization. "I Never" was played. I told an Irish guy that I wanted to watch him fight one day. I think it would be fantastic! The moon was reflected in the river and it reminded me of Dallas Rd. More homeless fishermen and bats, but the same kind of scent in the air.
| Your Celebrity Boob Twin: |
 |
(Like, duh.)
| Your Inner Blood Type is Type A |
 You are highly driven and a perfectionist, but that's a side you keep to yourself. Creative and artistic, you are a very unique person who doesn't quite fit in. People accept you more than you realize, seeing you as trustworthy and loyal. You are most compatible with: A and AB Famous Type A's: Britney Spears and Hilter |
(Wow! Hitler and Britney Spears both! Today is basically like Christmas.)
| You Are Most Like John F. Kennedy |
 And while you may have a few dark secrets, few people know them. |
(??? Iie, chigaimasu!)