I set off for Hiroshima in about 30 minutes! Night bus. There will be no toilets on this bus. Fuck. Won't be bringing any booze aboard ......
Meeting up with Prince Harry and Dawn tomorrow, and we'll flail around Kyushu for a while. Nagasaki, Fukuoka. Must find a mystical stone to post to my eldest brother in Calgary. And the week after that .... I'm going to another country! Stay tuned.
I've been watching a lot of the men's Olympic swimming events on TV. The reasons for this are varied but un-important. Two thoughts:
1. I don't really like Michael Phelps.
The guy irritates me. I don't like his perfect physique. I don't like how INVINCIBLE he is. He's won something like 4 gold medals now, and is expected to win 4 more, and he's beginning to look BORED with winning, which strikes me as narcissistic somehow. At the start of a relay race yesterday he rocked up to the platform LISTENING TO HIS iPOD. God. I've never liked heroes. I prefer anti-heroes, hardened and embittered by fate. If he fucks up and doesn't win the eighth gold, it would transform his entire character, make him more complex, and believable I guess. (Note, in case his mom is reading this: I'm not bashing Michael Phelps the MAN here but rather Michael Phelps the MYTH, the MACHINE. I've read interviews with him and he seems quite nice. I like the positive things he had to say about carbs.)
2. On the other hand ..... Japan's Kosuke Kitajima is an athlete I have only recently become aware of and whom I'm quite prepared to wed.
When he won his first gold medal a few days ago, he SCREAMED. Bear in mind this is a shy, reserved Japanese man. He immediately caught himself and was the picture of subdued at the medals ceremony, hardly even smiling, and I love the fact that he seems to have this volatile -- and rich -- inner life to him. He screamed at the end of the race, he cried during the post-race interview, he glared during the medals ceremony ..... Which are masks? Which is the true face of Kosuke Kitajima? Apparently he lives near here, at the same station as my friend Hiro. This awesome Australian girl I drank with on Tuesday night once approached him at an area Family Mart and they exchanged pleasantries.
In related news: Canada has not won a SINGLE MEDAL at the Olympics yet!! Not that I care. It's only the summer Olympics, after all.
My boyfriend, trying not to look like a dangerous criminal:
I walked for 3 hours earlier this week. Down a river in central Tokyo. At an intersection somewhere (Mejiro?) I observed a 4-storey business complex, and on each of the balconies an identically dressed salaryman (black pants, white shirt, black tie) smoked an identical cigarette. All solitary. Four of them, all alone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sage, Jude, Prince Harry, and I were on Japanese TV talking about the G8 Summit! Sweet times. Why did they even approach us? It was like 3 in the afternoon and we all held cans of beer and half of us smoked cigarettes. It was the Tanabata Festival (Festival of Wishes) and we were asked what we wished we could ask our countries' leaders, who were currently doing God knows what at the G8 up north.
ME: I would ask Harper to withdraw troops from Afghanistan immediately.
SAGE: I'm Australian so [note: WHY is Australia not in the G8? WHY? It makes no sense] I would wish for the American president George Bush to resign.
PRINCE HARRY: What she said.
JUDE: For Mr. Bush to be tried as a war criminal.
Given our responses I was certain our clip wouldn't be aired, but it did .....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Last week my awesome boyfriend came over and installed an air-con unit in my bedroom. It was plus-40 degrees in said bedroom at the time, even with my pitiful fan, so the awesome (and gorgeous) boyfriend immediately stripped off his jeans and t-shirt and then GOT OUT HIS TOOLS AND STARTED TO MESS ABOUT WITH MACHINERY HALF-NAKED. I had some self-control issues, which I resolved by lighting a cigarette and resigning myself to only watching. It was like a porno from the 80s: "Yeah, like, I came to fix the shower?" "Um, yeah, okay. So .... Can I get you a drink?" Etc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple days ago I learned that one of my students, whom I coached for her English Speech Contest during a couple days of my vacation, has passed the preliminary round and will proceed to the finals. W00t! Ganbatte, ne!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A Tuesday evening excursion to Nichome, the gay part of town. Prince Harry and I befriend a couple of fashion designers from Paris and take the poor things to *that club*. Much hilarity and cranberry-vodkas ensue. We get tangled up with a table full of 20-year-olds. Hats are swapped, briefly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I buy a skull-and-crossbones sarong from an Indian shop.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Blades of Glory" is viewed and appreciated. As is the Sex and the City movie.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jude the Obscure and I have an awful disagreement which eventually gets resolved in a Shinjuku izakaya. He talks of his new roommates and says one is a DJ from L.A.
ME: He sounds like a total asshole.
JUDE: He LOOKS like a total asshole too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I realize I haven't had any contact -- neither phone nor email -- with my parents in about 4 months.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The kittens grow larger and more expensive to feed. Does anybody want a kitten?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The boyfriend and I go to the Hub and get drunk and mock the Olympics and speculate about the prostitute and the white guy at the next table.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I make preparations for my southern Japan journeys.