This morning on the 6:40a.m. train to work I was innocently staring out the window listening to Justice and pretending I was an ice dancer revolutionizing the form with mad-mod re-mixes when a wild-looking man with tangled dreadlocks down to his waist fell heavily onto the seat beside me. I paused. I was trying to figure out a way to introduce myself. There were so many details (the hour, his defeated nature, the scent of cigarettes and sake swirling around him) that screamed MAKE FRIENDS WITH THIS MAN, INVITE HIM TO YOUR PARTIES, STROLL THROUGH YOYOGI PARK WITH HIM FUCKED ON WHATEVER YOU CAN FIND ON DISMAL WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, but after a moment he slumped gracelessly onto my shoulder, asleep or passed out or worse.
While strangers falling asleep on your shoulder is quite common on Tokyo trains, this stranger was exceptional in that he was nearly CRUSHING me, and with every jerk of the train crushed harder into my shoulder and eventually slumped down close to my lap. I elbowed him but it did no good. All the old salarymen, who stare at me anyway, were staring with twice the intensity. I couldn't concentrate on my ice dancing fantasies anymore. He was SWEATING onto my psuedo-professional work shirt. I got up and moved across the aisle.
And now that I could get a proper look at him, wanted to be his friend even more. He was an amazingly sharp dresser -- a retro tuxedo in a gorgeous tan shade; two-toned tennis shoes, a crisp white shirt that looked like it might have been LINEN, enormous aviators. All in all he reminded me a lot of Mr. Vice, though his dread locks were much longer.
After I (and the guy on his other side) moved away, he collapsed, still asleep, until he was sprawled over about four seats. A crime nearly punishable by death on these early-morning commuter trains, but no one dared try to wake him.
I stared at him for about 10 minutes, and then he awoke. His whole body suddenly became very tense. He looked in shock out the window of the train. He absently folded himself inward until he was taking up only two seats. He lowered his aviators, glanced briefly around the train. Something inside him seemed to relinquish briefly, to give up, to refuse to try. He slumbered once again, mouth open, hands hanging below the edge of his seat.
I've been there, honey, and worse. But not at 6:40 on a weekday morning. Props.
Super-awesome lyrics from Of Montreal! Picture it being sung all pop-ly and like you're bopping around and such:
Eva /
I'm sorry /
But you will never have me /
To me you're just some faggy girl /
And I need a lover /
With soul power /
And you ain't got no soul power /
Mint!
Spoke to my father on the phone this morning. His best quote: "But Joy! I am NOT ornery!" Sounding pleased though that I had accused him of that. :) My dad is the best. He's just returned, along with my mum, from a mission trip to India, and complained about the food. It reminded me of a conversation between him and Mum after their first trip to India a couple years ago:
DAD: And that FOOD they gave us! It was awful! I couldn't eat it!
MUM: But it was RICE. And MEAT. You LIKE rice. You LIKE meat.
DAD: It was different.
MUM: No it wasn't!
DAD: It was too spicy.
I dunno; I get a huge kick out of conversations like that.
Had an awesome night with Korea last night, the only downside being I didn't leave his place till 3 and then sadly slept through my alarm this morning. It was my first time at his place, and when he showed me the living room all I did was notice the half dozen computers and TV's -- he is a software developer -- before he rushed to say, extremely seriously, "Joy. It is very, very important to me that you understand I am NOT a geek. This is for work ..." He gave me a bunch of music for my iPod, we had sexy adventures (including a disastrous new Most Embarrassing Moment for me, it's hilarious but maybe too graphic for the blog), watched Takadanobaba swarm past the living room window, ate kiwis, and generally chilled out. Super-fun. I was going to spend the night but had to be up at 5:30 and was concerned about getting up in time, so he put me in a taxi, and it's stupid of me cuz I shouldn't have insisted as I slept in anyway. The taxi driver got lost and did the most amazing thing: he stopped the meter once he realized he had to backtrack! I got home and was completely untired and then I realized I'd left my cigarettes at Korea's place and had to venture out into the Witching Hour streets to buy a new packet, then came home and listened to the Party Monster soundtrack and got all nostalgic about subText.
The biggest story in the news this week is the Akihabara stabbings. Crazy stuff. The crime rate in Japan is extremely low, but it seems when something hits, it hits hard .... Seven dead -- in a lunch-time knife attack that lasted under two minutes! I've only been to Akihabara twice but it's close to my place, relatively speaking -- and the husband of one of my Korean students was there at the time of the attack, fleeing the scene when he saw the knife. A big city but very close-knit details. My sympathy to the victims' families, especially those of the two kids (only 19) and the older guy (74). Gah.
So not only do we have a cat, now we've got her four kittens as well! (Kafka, Takao, Seijo, and Victoria.) Pierre-Louis is basically throwing hysterical fits about it every three seconds and Sage and I are kept busy feeding them all the time cuz these guys are like dogs, they're always hungry, and they're not particular either, as most cats are. This morning, for example, I'd run out of tuna so I gave Fuji some scrambled eggs with broccoli and mushrooms, seasoned with oregano and basil, and she was a huge fan. Menu-san cooks her spicy curry sometimes and she likes that, too. And tonight they all got pizza. Weird cats.
I met Jude the Obscure's dad on Friday. An interesting guy, way mellower than I thought he'd be. Jude had given me a set of rules beforehand (no drinking, no talking about sex, no arguing, no talking about mysticism, no stories about drunken misadventures starring either me or him, no requests for childhood stories, try to smoke less than usual), and I more or less stuck to them. The only awkward moment came in a Mexican restaurant:
ME: So when you were in your 20s did you ever imagine yourself ending up with four sons?
HIM: [not looking at Jude] I always wanted a little girl.
!!!
The weekend was rather quiet because I'm poor for the next two weeks. Some illegal tomfoolery with the roommates that can't be blogged about; a broken washing machine; fun times with the Koreans; the Mexican place with Sage (270 yen cocktails! Unheard of!); Brokeback Mountain; catching up on emails.
At work on Thursday I was smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside my school, which generally attracts glares from passersby, and an old lady ambled past, paused, then said dreamily, "Ahhhhh .... Smoking in the rain."
Last week at work I taught a few special education classes, and enjoyed it loads! There's only four kids in the class and I'm not sure what their disabilities are but they fascinate me -- the kids I mean -- they are so detailed and genuine and above all very, very sweet. Some of their actions -- shouting, loudly smacking their hands together -- are considered socially unacceptable, and I get a big kick out of it because they're doing what I -- and lots of other people too, I think -- would love to do but are too conditioned (repressed) to even consider. It's refreshing.
Last year I taught a regular class of 40 students with one special needs student, and I'm not sure what set him off on this one particular day but he freaked the fuck out and grabbed his desk and hoisted it above his head -- all his books and pens went flying -- and he was yelling and sort of swinging the desk around, and on the one hand I was terrified cuz I'd had no idea he was that strong and thought he might throw the desk at my head -- but on the other hand I was filled with enormous admiration and almost envy of him. I wished I could threaten people with desks when I was upset. It was so ... completely logical, and clearly defined. Things like that are attractive to me. This student, by the way, is awesome, and this year we've been talking way more and he's practicing his English all the time, it's very cool to see. In the past, people with my job have been moved to a new school each year, I think to provide the students with variety in terms of nationality/gender/etc., but this year they're experimenting with keeping the teachers in the same school, and I think it's a great success, in one part because the students don't have to get to know a new foreigner so they're more relaxed and receptive to English communication from the very first day of school. More on this later.
The janitor at my school absolutely rocks. He wears a fedora that he does hat tricks with, and yesterday he rocked up to work in formal trousers paired with a purple tie-dyed COORS LITE t-shirt. Made me smile all day.
My hair, in the reflection of the window, falls in perfect spheres. It's like symmetry or something.
I bought an iPod!
Sage and I had our housewarming party last night. Our kitchen can cozily fit 10. We crammed 25 motherfuckers in there. Madness. We shaved Shigemitsu's mustache, brought out the guitar, were generally good hosts, spilled a few drinks, introduced the Cat to the masses, and were extremely ill-behaved. My Korean Physicist was in attendance and I've gotta say: there's nothing like taking a break from a party to have hot sex and then re-join everyone and be all SOCIAL! The next morning Sage had left for work (she is a machine) and Korea, the roommates, and I cleaned the kitchen. It took an hour. I RECOGNIZE that we should be using our talents for Peacekeeping or Diplomacy or some-such, but damn. We can clean a kitchen. Hung out with Korea for most of the afternoon. He rocks on a lot of levels. I'm fiercely guarding my singlehood at the moment cuz being single is perhaps the happiest state I have ever existed in and I don't want it to end any time soon, but fuck. He gets me. Unusual. That night Sage and Jude and I went out for Mexican and made friends with the owner of the restaurant, who gave us his business card and asked us to go partying with him at Womb sometime. Then Jude and I went shopping. And I contemplated Burroughs' reappropriation of English: LANGUAGE STRANGLES AND IS NOT NECESSARY. Or.
Well! Life a bit of a blur, it's like the middle of a 4-day weekend and stuff still needs to be ASSIMILATED, donchaknow! Feel as though I should be an artist and have CANVASES and such draped all over the periphery of what, my bedroom, my workaholic dream-fests, the bottles of wine down in the kitchen. Got tangled up with a Korean physicist on Saturday, very good times. He explained DNA to me. It rains. We have a cat named Fuji. She LOVES yakitori. This morning I woke up at 11, went down to the disaster of a kitchen and spent an hour cleaning it, then Sage stumbled in and I poured her a glass of wine. We cleaned some more and fed the Cat some more, then prepared another glass of wine and roused Jude the Obscure with it. He left around 3 to go to the GYM! What! Sage and I drank more, I passed out, awoke to a call from the Korean Physicist and then went down to drink with Sage and the roommates -- nicknames soon -- the boy from France and the girl from Nepal. It's still raining. I just came here to bounce.