The rhythm of this
is either Bukowski
or Dante I can't decide
which --
I guess we
all think we're
immortal
Age a metaphor
that's written
when we're older
Death a kind
of quaint Hollywood
film our father
might have wanted
us to watch
Last Sunday I awoke, rather dazed, at 5pm, drank awe-inspiring amounts of water, and walked down to meet the Urban Sage at Noborito Station.
She's interested in taking a Reiki course, and that night there was a 'Reiki-share' thing at the teacher's house. I came along because I'm curious about everything, particularly things of a spiritual nature, and I know next to nothing about Reiki.
She had bought me a soyjoy bar, having hazarded a guess -- correctly -- that I hadn't eaten that day, and I ate it whilst drinking more water and having a marvelous catch-up chat on the train.
We eventually found the guy's apartment. It was gorgeous. ("Ohh! You have a kitchen!") He had two Reiki tables set up in the living room. There was a white guy on one of them, and the teacher -- Hari Kahil -- was sitting beside him, eyes closed, with his hands hovering over his body. It was completely silent.
Sage and I sat on the couch and watched. There was a very peaceful, very powerful energy in the room. It smelled like wisdom and sex and ocean.
When they were finished the four of us chatted for a while and then the dude -- John? -- left, and I'd told Hari I'd never had Reiki done on me before, so now he said, "Want to give it a try?"
I laid down flat on my back on the table. That beautiful, silent, buzzing atmosphere again. He held my feet and over the course of the next five minutes moved them about a fraction of an inch, by degrees that were so subtle I couldn't detect them until after they were completed. He worked over my body and then spent a lot of time on my head, moving it imperceptibly from side to side, placing his fist at the base of my neck, or his hands alongside my cheeks, etc. I was a little tense because it was so silent and silence always puts me on edge -- reminds me of Silver Star Mountain -- but I also felt more peaceful than I have in a long time, and very safe, too.
When he was finished -- 30 minutes? -- he brushed at the air above me, and then crossed the living room to sit on the couch and talk to the Sage. I laid there for a couple of more minutes. I heard Hari explaining to her, "I was reading her body with my hands." Fascinating!
I sat up and smiled. Hari said, "How was it?"
I said, "Womb-like."
He said, "Pardon?"
"Womb-like."
"I thought that's what you said ...."
He told me that I was blocked in my stomach -- likely related to family tensions -- and that I was extremely tense around my neck, which could explain -- partly -- my dental problems.
"Did you have an accident when you were a child?" he asked. "Resulting in a broken bone near your neck?"
Which was interesting because I broke my left collarbone when I was two -- the only time I have ever broken a bone. He said the trauma from that injury is probably lingering in my neck to this day, and showed me some exercises to do. Then he looked in my mouth and said the teeth on the right side are fine but on the left they're misaligned -- same side as the collarbone. Neat!
Then he gave the Urban Sage a session. She was so cute -- she sat up after and said to Hari, "How was it for you?" and without missing a beat he said, "I've had better." :)
More chat, we both thanked him profusely, and left.
The Urban Sage is definitely taking the course, and I'm thinking about it. It's 25000 yen, which I think is reasonable yet considerable, but there might be other things I'd like to learn other than Reiki .... For example, iridology or hypnotism. So we'll see.
Hari made a great impression on me, though! So gentle, so intelligent, and just a very calming presence. Anyone in Tokyo who's interested should definitely check out his site.
On my way to meet up, for the first time, with an American I met at the standing bar last week. He says he admires my vices. This ought to be good .....
The Wig yet again. I think I didn't even go out, this is just tomfoolery in my room:
Lots of people desperately ignoring me on the train. Guess which one is my friend! If you picked the one giving me the finger, you're right.
My room:
I look really consternated about something but I can't remember what it was:
Okay, scene! You've just fucked and then discovered you're related. Discuss!
Waking up hungover as fuck in Yumiko's parents' bedroom:
Dear Diary: last Saturday I got tangled up with a Dutch guy who writes. ;)
A great weekend all around, actually --
Thursday night (I'm still trying to figure out a way to get the weekend started by Wednesday -- keep ya posted) the Urban Sage and I joined Kim at the Antique n Junk and proceeded to charm the locals. Met a hairdresser who worshipped my hair for five minutes before sniffing into his drink, "The layers are a mistake, though." A few older ladies who grilled us about our relationships and personal habits. Masta smirking and hovering at the periphery .... Sage and Kim hit the Mukogaokayuen host bars after, but I went home, wrote about hands for a while, and passed out. Damnable 6 a.m. wake-up call! Interferes with everything!
Friday evening I met up with Bookstore Guy for the second -- and last -- time: I'll leave it to your imagination but the best quote of the evening was definitely: "You think I'm just another perverted salaryman, don't you?" Well .... Anyway: all in the name of complete present-tense awareness, desho!
Saturday I cooked and cleaned and wrote heaps and in the afternoon Jude the Obscure and Bjorn swung by with a grocery bag full of beer and rice cakes, so we worked through that and read tarot and talked about books and texted a bunch of people re: evening plans, then picked up Kim and headed out for Italian and a WOODY ALLEN DINNER SCENE! Beyond awesome! Four pretty much equally pretentious people discussing and arguing and smoking and gesturing angrily yet demurely with their glasses!
Then it was off to Shibuya to meet up with the Urban Sage, Amsterdam (of Atom adventures a couple weeks previous), the Russian-Canadian, and a couple of J. dudes, then to the standing bar for mayhem, a few Americans, and chugging contests. Sigh. Not yet midnight and Jude the Obscure in fine form, rape-kissing (his term) a) me b) the Urban Sage, and c) J. dude #1 ....
Picked up a couple of Brits and stumbled through Shibuya on the way to a club for Indie Rock Night. Jude dropped one of the Brits on his head. I just want to remind you that we're all in our mid-to-late-20s and would make uniformly terrible parents ...
The club was cool, and, with what is likely the smoothest pick-up line in history, I said to Amsterdam, "Um, so like, my friend dared me to kiss you! Um, well, do you want to?" God! But a pretty cool kiss actually. Followed by taking him back to sweet home Noborito -- getting lost on the trains en route, needless to say -- and then a panicked moment trying to sneak both the man and the six-foot-long traffic post he had stolen past the Landlady -- worth it though, very fun Sunday. :) The traffic post -- with its aggressive yellow and black stripes -- remains propped against the wall near the door, a relic of the weekend, and a source of vague despair to me -- how to dispose of it? Will have to do something epic and/or artistic. Suggestions welcome!
Setting
A bar in Shimokitazawa. Arabian-themed.
Cast
S: Male, 26. Good-looking but unfortunately aware of it and therefore insufferable. American.
J: Female, 26. Good-looking also but prone to attacks of insecurity which makes her looks more endearing than S's. Canadian.
S: Oh, by the way, you and I are going out for drinks with Chicako on Wednesday. I already told her you could come.
J: Why don't you ask me about this shit beforehand? Sometimes I have plans, you know.
S: Yeah, but they're always really boring.
J: You only think that because you don't appreciate anything cultural.
S: "You only think that because you don't appreciate anything cultural."
J: One day I'm going to throw a drink in your face. A red one.
S: Ah, I'm really scared.
J: My whole life I've wanted to throw a drink in someone's face but I was waiting for a person who deserved it enough and now I've finally found him, actually you deserve a dozen drinks in the face, but I'm only going to do it once and it's going to be spectacular.
S: I hate to break it you but that's really not a very original idea.
J: It's going to be at your wedding --
S: Ha.
J: -- and you have to invite me, no matter where I am in the world I'll come, and you'll be in a white tuxedo -- I think you would look awesome in white -- and everything will be really Christian --
S: You know, you think you're so intelligent and witty and everything but really you aren't --
J: And that bit at the end where the priest goes, "If any of those assembled here have any reason," you know, to prevent the wedded bliss-thing, yadda yadda, "then speak now or forever hold your peace" --
S: I am losing interest. I am staring at your mouth moving but I've actually stopped listening long ago. This happens often, by the way.
J: That is where I stand up and say, "How's this for a reason, he's a goddamn washed-up asshole," and then I throw the drink and your tux is ruined but secretly you're relieved because ever since you left Japan -- and my influence -- your life has been a dreary, predictable husk and me wrecking your wedding is the most exciting thing that's happened to you in years.
S: See, look, you always give yourself way too much credit. I could sabotage my own wedding in a thousand different ways and I certainly wouldn't need any help from a short Canadian wannabe who can't hold her goddamn liquor.
J: And then your little bride-to-be would burst into tears -- ha, it would totally be K. --
S: Oh, God!
J: -- and start demanding to know who I was and what the fuck I was doing at her wedding -- only she wouldn't call it a wedding, she would call it her day --
S: She totally would, actually --
J: And then you could say, "It was just 2 weeks in Tangiers, it meant nothing! She's practically dead to me!"
S [to waiter]: Sumimasen! Nama biru, futatsu, onegaishimasu.
J: What? No red wine? See, your problem is you never take risks.
S: See, your problem is you never shut up.
J: Anyway I don't have plans on Wednesday so you can tell Chicako that's fine.
S: Dude! You're not listening! I already did!
J: Anyway. I better be entertained, that's all.
(1) Last month I was smoking a cigarette in front of my school and staring into the distance in a daze, as I do -- thinking about garlic cheese on rice crackers, and the perfectly formed eyebrows I sometimes see on the train, and the cavernous lower level of Womb, how comforting it is but also how dangerous, how prone to Trouble -- when a car driving past skidded to a halt and a woman poked her head out the window and said, "Joy?"
I knew the face but couldn't even begin to place it; after a few seconds I deduced she must be a former student from the Conversational English School of Doom and Destruction I worked at last year. I smiled, tapped my cigarette, and said, "Well, hello."
She nodded contemplatively, the traffic backing up -- politely, in a restrained way -- behind her, and then said, "What are you doing here?"
"Well," I said. It was very cold. I was blowing out constant streams of mist as I exhaled, half of it from my Marlboro and half of it goddamned vapouirized ice. "Well. I work here."
"Huh," she said, and drove on. It haunted me for the rest of the day. What was I doing here? What are any of us doing here? Etc.
(2) A couple of weeks ago Prince Harry and I sat on the stone stoop of Hello House at around 10 o'clock on a Thursday evening, smoking cigarettes and drinking cans of chu-hi, discussing our disastrous and intriguing sexual escapades of the weekend before, when a couple of Japanese girls walked by and glared at us. For smoking I guess, or maybe just for being white in that neighbourhood. Prince Harry took a drag and said in English, with great satisfaction, "You know. We're fucking your men."
Anyway.
On Sunday, when I'd had my new phone for exactly one week, I checked my text history and discovered I had sent 84 and received 86. In one week! What! Joy. What are you doing here? A sample:
(sent)
- "You know, we really need to deconstruct this."
- "No, I will not look for Son! It's sleeting!"
- "Oh. I thought you meant masturbation."
- "Black ice everywhere! Pedestrians dropping like flies!"
- "Fucking alcohol! Elixer of the damned!"
- "Yeah, but nerdy hair."
- "J dude @ a bookstore just asked me out!"
- "Do u have an onion?"
- "Either, 'every woman adores a fascist,' or, 'Hot damn, I never rode in a convertible before!"
(received)
- "Can u help me write a cover letter? I have no idea what this is."
- "If u get laid I hate u!"
- "All hope is gone, I'm eating MacDonald's."
- "Will buy something special for you in Monaco."
- "Perv!"
- "Last chance to come with me to the 99 yen shop!!"
- "Damn work getting in the way of culinary delights!"
- "2 love is nothing."
The night started innocently enough, with Jude the Obscure and I meeting up with a few people for Thai food in Shibuya and then progressing on to karaoke. Midnight came, and that question that doesn't even need to be asked anymore: do we catch the last train home, or do we stay? Club Atom it is!
This club has many stories of its own to tell, but the almost-broken nose scene occurred at around 5:30 a.m., Jude and I unsteadily navigating the steps to the train platform on our way back to his house. It was bitterly cold and the happy, dancey glow the whiskey shots and draft beer had given us was replaced with a more aggressive, competitive kind of drunk. It was me who initiated the pissing contest re: who can kick higher?
Jude put his hand beside his head and I did manage to kick it, though there was a strange, urgent tearing kind of feeling in my leg -- more on that later -- and the assembled Japanese pedestrians gave us a wide berth. I put my hand beside MY head, and the bastard kicked me in the nose! An accident of course, and he felt so horrible he began to threaten suicide, veer dangerously close to the tracks, and sob that I had "turned him into a misogynist" -- I was drunk plus I have a high pain tolerance but this pain was almost more than I could bear and I collapsed; anyway it's not broken but pretty bruised and the *crack* was one of the worst sounds I have ever heard. Dammit!
And then about 20 minutes later we were jumping off a fence and I fell -- yes, on my kicking leg -- a limp later on when I finally woke up.
All this wouldn't have been so bad except that evening we had a RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE concert to go to! And injuries be damned -- I was there in the thick of the mosh pit, desperately defending my teeth and nose with one hand and shoving tall, aggressive misfits away with the other. It was pretty cool, actually -- we'd lost Jude during the opening frenzy so it was just the Urban Sage and I in there -- she is an inch shorter than me -- we were in rough shape, getting flung everywhere -- but by the end of the concert we had a half dozen Japanese guys forming a ring around us and snarling viciously at anyone who clipped us. A great show but unfortunately I did not get to meet Zach de la Roca, which had been my primary goal ...
The Urban Sage held a can of chu-hi in one hand and my palm in the other -- spread my fingers wide to get the lines to show and traced each one with a hot fingertip -- it was July, nearly 40 degrees although it was evening, we were sitting on the stone steps in front of Hello House watching Mike skateboard on the pavement because we didn't have enough money to watch a movie down in Shinyurigaoka -- traced the lines with her fingertips -- said, "Three kids, first one definitely a boy," and "A European husband," and "You're creatively blocked, aren't you?" and "Something bad happened when you were 16," -- that electric whine of cicadas, that weird Noborito scent -- sewer and river and lily blossoms and cigarettes, Mike's sweat, the Urban Sage's warm chu-hi breath -- traced the lines with a fingertip like she was learning how to write, my hand an exercise book, all the cracks pieces of the alphabet, and then the sentences on my fingers -- that scar, there, from a knife when I was 13; and that yellow patch on my right middle finger, that's the Marlboro sentence -- sweat on our wrists and dripping down our arms -- and when she's finished and takes her hand away my palm is still hot, burning even -- it's gotten too close to some kind of fire.
copyright Joy Waller 2008
I have a new phone that I love -- it's green, and slimmer than Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish -- and it also has video conferencing! What! Who am I going to have a video conference call with? Putin? Well ....
Love hotels ..... A very cool one on Sunday. The whole place shrouded in secrecy: we selected the suite by touching a picture of it on a large TV screen; payment was slid under a small slot to an unseen woman behind a barrier, and when we left, a robot shrieked, "ARIGATO GOZAIMASTA!!" terrifying me out of my wits ...
The other day I was walking home from work and there was a limo outside the station and all these people milling about it and one of them caught my eye and then looked away and then looked at his friends and said, in halting English, "I .... can ... drive ... this ... vehicle," before glancing back at me to make sure I heard, and it struck me that no matter how preoccupied or quiet I am, in this country I am always visible and even if people say or do nothing to indicate it, they're aware of me and things play themselves out accordingly --
When I was in Canada this past Christmas I was reading the label on something in the supermarket and exclaiming to my mum how thrilled I was to actually understand everything that was written, and she snorted and said she "didn't know how I could stand it," you know, living in Japan and being so cut off from some of the basic cultural elements of a society -- granted, the reading bit is more laziness on my behalf but there are other sociological niches I can not even begin to penetrate, no matter how hard I (or any other Westerner) tries, and it was difficult to explain to her that there is a kind of FREEDOM inherent in isolation, in a sense of otherness: the drop-out culture in North America is imperfect due to the choice involved on behalf of the participant, so to have that choice REMOVED is refreshing, is fresh.
Over the same holiday Colin's mum asked me, over delicious homemade curry, if I'd experienced culture shock, and I answered No, and she said that was unusual, and I said that I always wander around in a bit of a daze anyway, so it doesn't really matter what country I'm in, and she nodded and said it was nice to know that there was someone in the world who was the same as her.