Earlier today, Sage and I went to Doutor to drink coffee and write down our New Years Vague Plans. Mine:
1. Get a haircut. Seriously. My last haircut was almost exactly one year ago, in Vernon. Hairdresser in question said I "didn't look the type" to go clubbing in Tokyo. FUCK HER.
2. Wander around in Hokkaido and Kyoto. And at least one new country.
3. Secure new employment: a stimulating job that challenges me. Ideally: teaching high school level English literature to native speakers.
4. Write, solicit, publish, and promote "You Had Me at Konnichiwa" with Sage.
5. Write freelance travel pieces, non-fiction for area magazines, memoir, etc., with an aim to be earning at least part of my income from freelancing by 2010.
6. Fuck somebody who knows more about Allen Ginsberg than I do.
7. Work for a month at Japhy's farm in Nagoya.
8. Deliberately exercise. Ugh, not at a gym, though. Maybe roller-blading? Hiking?
9. Fully understand Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam.
10. Understand chakrahs and meditation. Use them for my benefit and the benefit of others.
11. Keep up a regular correspondence with those I know and love in Canada (especially my nieces and Ben).
High drama, as usual.
Chilling out in the kitchen earlier today, with Sage and Menu-chan. I was in dismal spirits and asked, "Why is my life so consistently filled with despair and meaninglessness?" Then, in an abrupt about-face, blasted "Get Happy" by Happy Thought Hall and danced vigorously to it. Menu washed her bowl and made herself scarce. I felt awful again. There's lot of sobering things in the newspaper today. Mixed a vodka-and-juice, telling Sage, "Hey, don't let me drink another one of these until tonight, okay?" But then, she went to have a shower and wasn't around to prevent me from mixing the next one, so I was justified, and then she came back, took in the scene, and fucking POURED MY DRINK DOWN THE SINK. !!
"The only person who's ever done that to me before was my mum!" I said. "She told me she didn't want sin in the house."
A heated argument ensued, and eventually I had another vodka, but Sage drew the line at actually mixing it for me.
And tonight is New Year's Eve! Have an awesome one ya'll, wish I could stop by Canada for a bit tonight. :)
Fantastic night!
4pm saw the Urban Sage and I boarding a SUBWAY -- shudder -- to go to CHIBA -- double shudder. We like never go to Chiba. However, tonight was a very special occasion: we were invited to dinner at Prince Harry's former host-mum's house: he stayed with her when he was a Nihongo student way back in the day. I was expecting a 50-something Japanese housewife. We got ..... a 50-something Japanese divorcee with fucking TOM WAITS on her iTunes, as well as Smashing Pumpkins, who could match me pretty well drink-for-drink, and openly slandered Prince Harry, and, when she found out I was Canadian, presented me with the program guide of a recent Cirque de Soleil evening she'd attended (Zed), and grilled me re: who the hottest Japanese acrobats were. Word. We totally agreed on this one guy too, I forget his name, and then later agreed that Kitajima Kosuke is basically the hottest athlete Japan has ever KNOWN. Anyway, she made an awesome impression, I'm not surprised Harry knows someone as cool as her.
Night before a fucking gong show: Gem was in town, staying at our house, so we decided to take her out for celebratory karaoke. Wound up with a whole slew of people, sang show tunes etc. (one of the guys was from Vegas, natch -- beautiful Fillipiono boy), then back to ours, where we promised everyone dinner, cuz it was Monday night, and that's our thing, every Monday night we cook dinner for our friends, for like the last 6 months. This night was the FIRST and ONLY exception. We got too trashed. Which is un-heard of. Sage and I are NEVER too trashed to cook. We just always find a way. But not this time. We put awful songs from high school on our iPods, pushed the kitchen table to the wall, and dirty danced with everybody. This one dude, Jock, got ahold of my guitar and played Rage Against the Machine and Vanilla Ice, which we all sang along to -- complaints to the police via our neighbours pending. Awesome sho-chu from Kyushu, which is where Gem is from.
I went to bed around midnight, and awoke at 6 a.m. to Gem and Li'l John stumbling into my room, begging a blanket. I took them downstairs and made them coffee. We drank a couple cups each and got to talking about the universe. Around 9, we stumbled into Sage's room, where she was passed out in her bed with Jock -- all five of us wound up in that bed, curled into each other and utterly blissful.
One more day of 2008.
Merry Festivus!
It's been pretty cool -- on Christmas Eve I went out to the Pink Cow with Jude, Prince Harry, and Klein for the Christmas dinner buffet. Way too fucking expensive, but the food was awesome: tofurkey, mashed potatoes, avocado-and-lox salad, loads of vegetables and pies, etc. But no egg nog. :( "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was screened, to my delight! Klein was in fine form, best quotes being, "I always thought before I just wanted a boyfriend, but no, now I realize, I want a boyfriend who has access to the Base, so I can get Taco Bell," and "Hi, I'm a single gay white man, and I like nice walks along your cock." Brilliant. We went to the standing bar after and bumped into J, a dude I'd befriended in Nichome a couple months earlier, and who has since then consistently spotted Prince Harry in random places and greeted him with hugs and kisses, to Harry's terror and confusion. Got it all sorted out. Met up with Butterfly later near Hachiko, and she had brought gravy (from the Base) for the meat-eaters, and candy canes for me. Nice! Another drink and then home.
Christmas morning my housemates were all gone and I woke up alone on Christmas morning for the first time IN MY LIFE. Thought it would be lonely, but it wasn't at all: I wandered around and bought Japanese oranges and cafe latte mix and Kahlua, then went home and made a special Christmas breakfast: an English muffin topped with eggs, avocado, tomato and onion. Drank a bunch of coffee-Kahluas and read "Switch Bitch." Went to Doutor to write, then came back home and cooked up a Christmas dinner for Prince Harry, Japhy, and 2 of the housemates, who wandered confusedly into the kitchen and then got caught up in a whiskey-fueled evening of dirty dancing amid the spilled drinks, sing-a-longs, chocolate, and overall fantastic times. Everyone left and Japhy and I, in a move that has been building for six months, lunged for each other and locked ourselves in my bedroom for sexy adventures that didn't end until 2pm the following day (today). But! I did NOT do the sex -- briefly (an entire update really needs to be devoted to it), Tokyo is a fairly easy place to get laid in and that's awesome of course but 3 months ago, when I broke things off with my Korean boyfriend, it hit me that monogamy and commitment actually SUIT me (I had forgotten for much of the previous year), and resolved that I would put a HALT to random hook-ups and not fuck again unless it was a boyfriend. Close to 3 months of celibacy have ensued, and it's actually not as awful as I thought it would be, except of course when you have to say No to someone as awesome as Japhy, who probably now thinks I am either a lesbian or a cocktease. Actually an entire update also needs to be dedicated to this incredible guy, and how we met, and a beautiful moment we shared in June, drinking wine on the top of a skyscraper in downtown Tokyo. Another time. But anyway it was a very cool close to Christmas, and for someone I share very little language in common with, he's a man I've had some of the best discussions of my life with.
Today after he left I got a package from the Transport Analyst -- a mix CD called Angst, which I've been listening to non-stop since. It rules and so does he and I wanna go visit him in the UK, asap. But not tonight cuz in about 20 minutes I'm meeting Horizon in Okubo and we are going to DRINK COFFEE and hopefully act responsible. I love Boxing Day. :) Hope everybody had a good one.
It's interesting the blessings you can receive when you're selfish. Today, for example, I went out shopping for a birthday present for Jude, only to buy a bunch of stuff for myself at the Indian shop instead, and then be presented with a calendar featuring Ganesh, printed on rice paper, cuz it was the shop's anniversary. Sweet.
Went to the Blue Parrot and bought 4 books:
1. "3" by Flannery O'Connor. (I've only read like two of her stories and she's been highly recommended to me since university days.)
2. "Switch Bitch" by Roald Dahl. (That title traumatized me when I was 12 or so cuz until then I'd thought he only wrote wholesome children's books. Do you know, he's also written a cookbook! Co-authored by his wife!)
3. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot. (Because it felt like the right time.)
4. "The Qur'an" translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. (Cuz I've never read it and I was browsing the religion section looking for something 'new' and then I was holding it and I started laughing and thought, "Wow, well yeah this would be new," anyway it's all right so far but the Old Testament has a way better narrative.)
On my way out I stopped to look at the noticeboard, and some black handwriting on a white scrap of paper caught my eye, and I thought, "That looks like Horizon's handwriting," (forgetting that I have never seen his handwriting before) and then I read the note and it WAS his, looking for jam buddies and mentioning that he loves swing. Awesome. A lot of cool things have happened to me in that alcove by the notice board -- most noteworthy being the time a stranger swept out of the elevator and locked eyes on me, blatantly picked me up (it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon), and proceeded to show me just how trashy Internet cafes can be. Weird thing! I bumped into him last month at the gay bar, after not talking for 10 months, and he tried to convince me he wasn't bisexual.
Jude's birthday party was last weekend, held in the penthouse party room of a swank Shinagawa apartment complex (where Daisaku lives, the lucky bastard). You could see both Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge plain from the balcony. Ra and I catered the evening (junk food, sliced vegetables), and I got to be a bartender, introducing my wine-gin-pineapple cocktail to an initially skeptical but ultimately blown away group of party-goers. Jude got appropriately trashed, culminating in the evening's best quote, delivered in a slur on the balcony while clutching the side of my face: "You're lucky you're my little sister, cuz otherwise I'd be fucking you right now." Prince Harry and I left at 8:30 to attend a party at Japhy's place, and JUST as the train arrived and the door opened, Jude called and said, "Uh, do you have the key to the party room?" Fuck! Had to go all the way back and then it took ages to deliver the key cuz we were too inebriated to coordinate directions and such, ugh. But was not TOO late for Japhy's thing. It was a wild hippie party, full of drugs and philosophy and candles and free drinks. I don't remember too much of it actually, although a Chinese girl that Sage befriended actually KNOWS the Afghani ambassador to Japan and we're going to hear him speak in a couple weeks. Somehow caught the last train back with Prince Harry.
Went to karaoke last night for the first time in ages. Killers, Feist, the Carpenters (purely to piss Jude off), Radiohead, John Lennon, the Stone Roses.
An awesome night in Shimokitazawa on Wednesday with Horizon and his hoodlum best friend -- they are the boy-version of Sage and I. They stole 2 expensive bottles of wine from a supermarket where I knew the cashier (I paid for MY goddamn drinks), and although I disapproved I was not above sharing the wine with them, problem being they had no corkscrew. So it fell to me to venture into a silent ramen shop, wave the bottle, and ask sweetly if the wait staff could open it for me. They did, with raised eyebrows ...
More later. I want to start blogging again. I'm writing a lot in my personal journal, which is part of the reason for my radio silence on the Internets, but I like this format and I love the aliases and the distillation of adventure, so I really will do my best to get back to the daily updates. Peace and love, bitches. :) I'm off to Shibuya.