Stuff and things. Been spending some time with my new tarot cards, been making hemp necklaces. (Prince Harry, darkly: "DO NOT make one for me. I will not wear it.") Losing myself in strangers' eyes on the train. Drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee. A meeting with Sage to set deadlines for our book project; drank loads of wine at Saizeria and thought perhaps "You Had Me at Konnichiwa" is a title we wish to change ..... Bantered around some ideas, my personal favorite being "Kimochi" ("Feels so good") while Sage is partial to "Sen-yen" ("1000 yen"). Perhaps compromise with "Sen-yen Kimochi"? I like the ring to it, but as Sage said, "Hmmm, it's very Thailand ..." ;)
Monday Night Dinner Feast was neat: me, Sage, Jude the Obscure, SuperHiro, and Japhy. This is the first night all five of us were together in my kitchen since the night I first met SuperHiro and Japhy, over 8 months ago. At the time those two were just a couple of guys who were nice enough but didn't make a huge impression, although I liked that they both wore second-hand clothes and didn't shave; it's neat to see how the universe writes way different stories for you than the ones you would have expected.
Was thinking the other day about Life Paths and how so many people I know have embarked on the "university / wedding / new condo / baby / new car / another baby" mode. I don't mean to diss this lifestyle at all, and I particularly admire people who are capable of becoming parents, but the more I think about it the more I realize this is not the kind of thing I can participate in. When I was younger and living in Canada I half-assumed that I and my partner at the time would abruptly embrace Respectability some time in our early 30s and wind up with a little house by the ocean and a couple of kids and stable jobs; even though I assumed it, I had difficulty actually getting a mental picture of it in my head and as such it never felt wholly plausible. Seems even less so now. I don't think I'll ever be a homeowner or a middle-class type or a yuppie; I love Tokyo but I avoid the glitzier, more commercial places and look at my salary as nothing more than a means to pay bills/debt and buy food and books and the occasional plane ticket. That said, I have this weird interest in Family Life of late .... I blame reading Zadie Smith's "White Teeth," which has a lot of awesome dysfunctional family scenes under-cut with the most beautiful and complicated atmosphere of love you can imagine.
I was raised in what I don't consider to be the healthiest emotional environment, but one thing I can say about our Family Life is, well fuck, it was INTERESTING. We always made a point to eat dinner together every night, which is an awesome idea I think, and our conversations were fascinating ..... You had my little brother J. high as a kite explaining in detail his plans for building a time machine; me wondering aloud about the personal lives of my favorite dead communists; my mother, a master storyteller, spinning complete mini-narratives out of the scrap of mundane and surreal she had seen that day; my father deconstructing the nepotism and in-fighting he observed at the local chapter of his trade union. If my brother L. was there he always looked haunted, hunted -- if pressed, he would share his latest horrific experience with the Law; if my brother C. was there he would deliver exciting stories of life in the big city (Calgary) while quietly playing one family member's aggression off another's, resulting in fireworks that were appreciated by all. Lots of .... I don't know, conversation and life and PEOPLE. Today, 2009, my favorite room in my house is the kitchen, because that's where the housemates and our friends gather. So I guess if I ever DID decide to go the husband-and-kids route, it would be so all of us could go hang out in a kitchen somewhere.
But I don't want a fucking CAROL SHIELDS kind of domestic scene. God, I read one of her short story collections a few months ago and it depressed me so much, probably because it's the kind of life I would have ended up with if I'd stayed in Canada: comfortably middle-class, with a bland yet gentle white husband, a couple of kids with mild fuck-ups that we discuss with caustic humor over organic coffee in the breakfast nook; long ruminating walks on Saturdays as we try to figure out why we feel so empty, empty, empty, and then we go to the book club and feel better than everybody else because we pretend to appreciate post-post-post-feminist pseudo-autobiographical poetry collections.
I have an idea of the kind of set-up I want, but it's in the planning stages and I'm so prone to changing my mind that it would be pointless to write it here. But you know what's cool, is that lately I've been learning to not give a fuck about controlling all the things in my life and instead watch with interest at the way things unfold WITHOUT INTERFERENCE FROM ME, and it's kind of neat, kind of a break, almost as fun as watching a movie and not having to write a paper on it or anything after you're done.
I've been a religious fan of Savage Love, the creation of sex advice columnist extraordinaire Dan Savage, since I was a wee lass, and this week's column is as awesome as ever, for all the usual reasons, not least being: the votes are in! Saddlebacking officially has a new definition. Word to the max.
In honor of Mr. Savage, and as per request of Clifford the Big, Dirty, Drunken, White Trash Dog, here are 2 stories of public masturbation I've been indirectly involved with around Tokyo in the past year.
(1)
The more indirect encounter: a pleasant spring afternoon, in the heart of cherry blossom season. I'm walking around somewhere and get an appalled , too-drunk-for-2pm call from Sage, who was at a Hanami party in Yoyogi Koen:
"You will not believe! What just! Happened to me! Just now! So we have to pee, right? And there's like, 50 girls in line for the toilets, right? So we just go pee in the bushes, right? Cuz like it's HANAMI!!!!!! [scattered cheers in the background] So we go, and we're all SECLUDED, and I'm wearing a SKIRT and everything like you can't even see anything I just crouch down, and this GUY is suddenly there, by the flowers, and he WHIPS IT OUT AND STARTS WANKING!!! Joy! IT WAS SUNNY OUT!! Like this seriously happened 2 minutes ago and the beautiful thing was all I could think was that I wish you could have been here, you would have LOVED it."
(2)
A preface to this one: my housemate Sage and I are quite often mistaken for a lesbian couple, for reasons unknown. At the supermarket, at parties, in various bars gay and straight, and even, come to think of it, at our current house -- when we first moved in, there was some initial confusion among the new housemates when we MOVED INTO SEPARATE BEDROOMS. "Did you guys have a fight?" one of them asked. I looked bewildered and said, "Um .... What?" "Oh, oh --" backpedaling -- "we thought you two were, um, TOGETHER -- Never mind --"
Anyway, the one place this assumption is not unexpected is in Nichome, Shinjuku's gay district, so when we're there and we're drunk enough, we're by no means above playing up to it. So this one particular night, perhaps 3 a.m., we were drinking beers outside a conbini and made friends with a nice gay couple who asked how long we'd been together.
"Three years," Sage said.
"Holy shit," said one of them.
"I know," I said. "That's like at least 15 in gay years."
"How did you come out?" Etc.
And we were massive drunk and it wasn't like we've never kissed before, so suddenly we were in this huge, passionate French kiss / make-out thing. When I came up for air, the one dude said, "Aww, that's so beautiful." The other dude ...... Said nothing. He looked a little odd.
"Um," I said. "Um. Why ...... Okay I hate to ask you this, but ..... Do you have a hand down your pants?"
"No," he said.
"You do," said Sage, pointing.
He was wearing these tacky warm-up pants with clasps down the side so you could tear away the bottom half, which he did, just in time for us to see him cum down his goddamn leg. He took off.
"You didn't say your boyfriend was STRAIGHT," I said, upset. "Or we wouldn't have kissed like that."
"That wasn't my boyfriend," our new friend said. "Actually I just met the guy in the conbini."
He's looking at everything except his book.
People around the TV altar start shuffling, adjusting their ritualistic t-shirts, muttering to each other. "What's taking him so long?" says one. "Some fucking seer," says another.
Alec sweats even more, KNOWS he's failing, KNOWS he's embarrassing his mentors, the whole human race, his destiny even -- he was born for this, groomed for this -- he is the Seer of the End of the World -- destiny written among stars and sand before he was even CONCEIVED -- but he's choking, the Lamb's Book of Life heavy in his hands, BURNING them; the millions of TV cameras are too much, the live feeds and the instant bloggers and the vicious secularist protesters -- a whole mob of them -- dimly audible outside the press room -- he's looking at everything except his Book -- trains his eyes on Clara, calm at the front row of journalists, virginal and whore-ish in her clip-on mic -- "Clara," he murmurs, "Clara, without you, I am nothing;" -- he falters -- "Hack!" somebody shouts -- Clara frowns briefly -- in Paradise, the Heavenly Hosts raise their collective eyebrow and shrug, say, "Well, Apocalypse then? Kid obviously ain't gonna get this right."
"Yeah, fuck 'em," says Gabriel. Allows himself a private smile. "Bring on the Plagues."
Listening to: DJ Krush
Drinkin: Kirin Gold Label
Dear Prince Harry: Update your blog, whoreface. I mean really.
In other news: pretty chillaxed weekend. Friday after work I did a bunch of reading. Simultaneously: Murakami Haruki, Banana Yoshimoto (not that great) and a non-fiction thing about fetal alcohol syndrome. Got on the Sobu Line going *away* from Shinjuku, headed for Tokyo Unknown, to meet people for a couple street beers and then to a bar for Mike's show. He's in a new band, Mootekkis, with original material and sounding better than ever. Met some interesting characters in the bar, but no grand stories, and was back home in bed by 2.
Early Saturday afternoon I was in the kitchen, doing the crossword and sipping my hangover wine, when Frenchy burst theatrically through the door to fix the computer. His eyes were wild and difficult to penetrate. Sensing a need, I offered him a glass, which he gratefully accepted. I didn't tell him it was cheap stuff from the Lawson. He took a couple of sips, then discretely dumped it down the sink.
At 3 Jude the Obscure and I met up in Shibuya and bought each other tarot cards. He got me the Thoth deck, and I got him one called "Revelation Tarot," featuring dramatic illustrations with various scenes of the Apocalypse. Intense -- skeletons on horses and what-not. Wandered around Tokyu Hands for a while, cuz Jude wanted to buy a house-warming present for Hiroki. A typical scene that went nowhere:
ME: Stop, stop, we have to watch this guy doing magic tricks.
[We watch a guy demonstrating magic tricks to naive and fascinated children and 20-something women.]
JUDE: [violently grabbing my shoulders] We know that guy!
ME: No we don't.
JUDE: Yes we do! You remember that International party? At the Butler cafe? With that guy wandering around doing lame magic tricks?
ME: That's him?
[We watch for a while.]
JUDE: Actually, I think that guy was Korean.
ME: [losing interest]
JUDE: Do you see that girl's teeth? She looks like a shark. Ugh. Let's go.
Went henceforth to the Hub, for jumbo gin and tonics. I'm up to 3300 points on my Hub card. We presented each other the tarot cards, me saying something sweet like, "I know you'll be a natural and I'll teach you all I can," and him saying something along the lines of, "I hope you'll finally realize that these things come from the Devil." We opened them up to look at the pictures amid the reek of gin and the swirl of cigarette smoke. The Thoth deck is quite different from the Mythic tarot, which is what I started out with a few years back, so I'll have to re-learn a few things, but they're gorgeous and I can't wait.
Jude took off for Yokohama, and I went to Freshness Burger to write. I'd bought a new Kerouac-sized notebook and experimented with one-sentence stories. Horizon came in at 7, and he talked about philosophy while I told him a few stories of public masturbation I've observed in Tokyo. "Nothing people do surprises me," he said mildly.
Then I went on a mission Jude had given me earlier, super-embarrassing, involved approaching strangers and asking an awful question, maybe details later.
Went home, talked to Sage, and because it was cold and neither of us felt like going to Womb, which was one of the few options that quiet Saturday night, we stayed in and watched British tv.
And today .... Pretty mild also. Breakfast with Sage, then we went writing at Doutor. I wrote about the giraffes, Ben! They've made a re-appearance! Then out to Nichome for dinner with Prince Harry, the Indian place by the gay bar. Later, street beers on a bridge. He asked me to describe him in one word, so I said, "Caustic." He thought about me, then said, "I don't know. Intelligent? Non-judgmental? Bubbly?"
"I'm not BUBBLY," I said, hurt.
A few minutes later I told him a story and in response to his reaction I jumped up on the guard-rail of the bridge and chortled to hide my delight at making him laugh, and he said, "There! There! You were bubbly! And all it takes is a funny story about yeast infections!"
I don't usually transcribe stuff from my personal journal onto this blog, for a variety of reasons, main ones being the writing in my journal generally comes out quite a bit darker than the public offerings, and also by turns it can be much more immature. I'm posting up this following bit though, because all January I've been in a strange sort of head-space, feeling a lot more harmonious than usual -- read, CALM on at least 2 days -- doing some major self-evaluations and what-not, starting a slow process of removing some things from my life, and introducing others. I think it's a concrete result -- or the beginning of a result -- of an experience I had on New Year's Day. Next year I'll scroll back on the Intranets to this entry, read it again, and with any amount of grace, I'll have kept the momentum going. Skip if you're not in the mood for some over-sensitive. An excerpt:
"On New Year's Day, Sage and I went to the little shrine in Okubo. It was the morning after that incredibly difficult night, when I hurt a few people by accident, and a few people hurt me by accident, even some complete strangers. I wasn't happy with what I was projecting into the universe and didn't want to go to the shrine -- shrines are too pure -- but Sage made me.
It was a tiny, inner-city sort of place. I got in line with Sage and when it was my turn I walked up to the hai-den and took off my hat. Bowed, clapped my hands together twice, rang the bell, and threw eleven yen into the wooden box. Bowed my head and closed my eyes to pray.
The gist of what I prayed was, "Please. I want to be a good person. I want to be a fully loving person, for love to radiate out of me and touch other people, and I want their love to touch me also."
As we left the shrine, feeling solemn, we passed an old drunk man weaving his way in, SMOKING A CIGARETTE in this sacred place. He flashed us a naughty, mega-watt smile, and we couldn't stop laughing at the sheer delight of it -- he basked in the laughter, a showman: he knew he'd made us happy -- and I realized that there is always, every single second, love around me.
A few days later, Japhy and I went to the same shrine. We purified our hands in the water by the entrance, then walked up the stairs to the hai-den together. He prayed, but I didn't.
When we left, on the look-out for cheap sushi, he asked me, "Why didn't you pray?"
"I prayed on New Year's," I said.
"What did you pray for?"
I paused. My prayers are very private; I hadn't even told Sage. But Japhy was radiating serenity, as he always does: it hangs in the air around him so tangibly that you feel calm just to stand beside him. So I told him: "I prayed that I would become a good person."
He looked a little distressed, smiled at me, and said, "But you ARE a good person."
"I know," I said, and lit a cigarette. "But I want to be better."
I remember, shortly after arriving in Japan, telling my students some anecdote from back in Canada that was set in a 7-11, and being surprised when they all look startled. One of them finally asked, "You have 7-11s in Canada?"
Much later, on a visit to Canada, I told my family some anecdote from back in Japan that was set in a 7-11 (it probably had something to do with the night that Lithuanian cunt dumped a bucket of water over my head and kicked me out of her house, drunk and sobbing, just in time to see the last train sail by), and they reacted in an almost identical way: "They have 7-11s in Japan?" Neat.
--------------
One of the weird challenges of my job is making English grammar forms a topic of interest to young teenagers, a task that is obviously difficult and thankless enough even BEFORE you factor in the sad reality that I myself, a lover of the English language and a hopeless chain-smoker of words, also do not give a rat's ass about grammar. A lot of the time I fail miserably, and compensate by providing the students with mildly interesting "listening quizzes" that involve heavily edited yet exciting discussions of my weekend activities. Other times, it works, and I get a kick out of it and the kids do too. This week's example: the simple future tense or whatever it is, I don't even know, I've got it written down in my class notes, anyway the one where you say "I will .... [bla bla bla]." I was stumped on this for most of my Monday afternoon planning session; the sample sentence in the textbook was something like, "I will sing you a song," and I was at a complete and hungover loss as to what to do with it. Eventually I got the idea to change it to "YOU will .... [bla bla bla]" (consequences be damned), and thought, Well, it's high time they were introduced to Divination.
I brought my tarot cards in to class, gave a bit of a speech on the history of divination, and asked for volunteers to come to the front of the class for a one-card spread. I wasn't quite sure how this would turn out; I was horrified that somebody would select the Death card or the Satan card or whatever and there would be trauma and parent complaints, but fortunately there was none of that, the worst one drawn was "The Tower," which denotes deviant sexual practices or impulses about to come horribly and publicly to light; after some thought, I interpreted to the class, "You will reveal a dark secret." I tried to make it sound exciting; the students reacted with derision and glee, and the innocent 14-year-old boy who had drawn the card looked shaken, but that was the worst of it. Step 2: Design your own tarot cards and practice divination yourselves, using "You will" sentences of course.
Wanting to avoid any kind of negativity, I encouraged the students to design cards with such themes as Love, Travel, Good Grades, Cute Boy, Cute Girl, Money, etc. Many of them took my advice and deigned some pretty beautiful cards. Some of them went the darker route -- as I'd secretly hoped -- resulting in such dire prophecies as: YOU WILL DIE AND BE FAT! YOU WILL BE POOR! [accompanied by an illustration of a thin man wandering desolately under a bridge as leaves swirl around his bowed head.] YOU WILL DIE TOMORROW AND EVERYBODY WILL BE HAPPY! [accompanied by a corpse and a throng of cheering classmates.] YOU WILL LOSE AT JANKEN! YOU WILL BE AN OTAKU! ["Otaku" = electronics nerd, scorned by all.] YOU WILL BREAK YOUR WRIST! YOU WILL FAIL!
Got a huge bang out of it.
Listening to: Guitar Wolf
Drinkin: coffee
I listened to the Transport Analyst's Angst cd three times yesterday, then went out for a walk. I intended to follow the river, TO THE END ideally -- I don't know where the end is -- I have been 3 hours down it, but on it goes, on -- walked for a while, and the neat thing was all the other people, walking their dogs and what-not, how a lot of them had these little private smiles, like they were remembering something wonderful that had happened to them. I got a huge kick out of it. I was listening to Elliot Smith and walking slower than usual, stopping to look at the river, wishing I could be friends with the homeless men who sat contemplatively on their huge piles of futons, smoking cigarettes that smelled like chocolate.
I randomly took a left, leaving the river behind me, and saw I was in Shinjuku's skyscraper district. Suddenly everybody was better dressed, and better looking, and the dogs were little ones, carried around in the front of people's coats. Cat Power was playing. It was still light out and the sun flashed off the millions of windows stuck in the sides of skyscrapers. I thought about the town I was born in, which is quite small in comparison. Passed a certain conbini and remembered with horror the last time I had been there: it was over a year and a half ago, with an old co-worker from the English Conversation School of Doom and Destruction where I used to work, on the day of my goodbye party from that place, and it did not go well: I had quit the job with rancor, and no one was sad to see me go, and Joe and I had decided to arrive pissed, which hadn't helped things: anyway, this conbini was where we had gotten our third or fourth bottle of wine that afternoon before the party. Hm. Walked on. Arrived at one of the big intersections near Shinjuku station, where people swarm through the sidewalks like a huge roiling Japanese monster and each individual person has beautiful black hair and flashing eyes and look at me with curiosity and hold shopping bags, briefcases, phones, people's hands. I stood at the intersection for a long time, observing all of this, and remembering things, both beautific and sad, that have happened to me within a one-block radius of this spot.
Turned back towards Okubo, heading home. Stopped at the 24-hour supermarket to look at the spices. Absently bought some vodka. Remembered orange juice. The Flaming Lips were playing. Walked home, drank a screwdriver, brushed my teeth, and headed out for a night of mayhem in Shimokitazawa.
------------------------------------------------------------
Best quote while writing this entry: Me, to Menu-chan: "Are you eating your sandwich with a spoon?"
Can't type. Just wanted to say: saw a lot of beautiful people today, old ladies in supermarkets and young kids getting trashed on all-u-can-drink screwdrivers. Salarymen smoking solitary cigarettes. You know. Also I got trashed on the screwdrivers, being why I can't type. Um. Why is sex so important? Also: you're nobody, kiddo, til ya got an intense stare on the train, Gawd, everybody must have been a spy.
So I've slept through my alarm and missed work for the first time since last spring, and for no good reason, too -- wasn't drunk / sick / out late / sexing / etc. A whole responsibility-free Friday looms before me, and I haven't got even a clue what to do with it ....
Yesterday on the train a huge Japanese man marched up and down the aisle, shrieking, "Yes, your Majesty! I will obey, Christ!" in perfectly un-accented English.
On Tuesday night Sage and I, reeling from a bout of the Fear that had built up following the long weekend and its attendant excesses, sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor doing a Mysticism swap, 2009 style: she read my palm with an emphasis on the coming year, and I read her tarot in the same vein. Seems we both have an interesting year ahead of us, though my palm still shows signs of a creative block. "The quality is there," Sage said. "Just not the quantity you're looking for." She also says I show signs of becoming more responsible this year, more goal-oriented and forward-thinking, which would be a much-needed change, and that I'll continue (for the rest of my life actually) to always have at least one person at my side to take care of me, and learning this did a lot to quell my Fear .... I can take care of train schedules, 3-year-plans, airport confusions, complex dinner parties, international moves, education development, etc., but when it comes of looking after MYSELF, I'm an absolute mess, particularly when it comes to the emotional side. And I'm pretty lucky that ever since I was 18, there always has been at least one beautiful person in my life to see to it that I'm all right. On a related note -- there are two lines on the right side of the palm that start off connected and then gradually separate -- this indicates your relationship and dependence on your parents. Sage first looked shocked and then laughed when she saw mine -- those lines on my palm were NEVER connected -- there's a space between them at least a centimeter apart -- and they veer even farther apart quite dramatically a little ways on. "So you're independent," she finally said.
On Wednesday I only had to work a half-day, and met up with Prince Harry for shopping around Harajuku. It was brilliantly sunny, frigidly cold, and we had a grand time. Harry fixed my phone. I bought a tie-dyed Thing to use as a curtain. Drank a few street beers. Went into the Gap -- not a shop I normally frequent -- and looked at on-sale jeans. "These only go up to size 2," I whispered. Prince Harry glared and said, "I hate Japan." Wound up at Wolfgang Puck for dinner, and then Japhy called so we finished up and walked over to meet him in Yoyogi Koen.
Great discussions by the fountain, and I got Japhy to agree to take me to Kamakura the following Saturday. Then:
J: Actually ..... You know, maybe we should wait til summer, that way we can go camping instead of staying in a hotel.
ME: Well ...... Huh. Okay, I guess.
J: Oh, no! You're angry!
ME: No, not angry. Dude, you've only seen me angry once, and that was on New Year's Eve.
J: [baffled] What? You were angry? On New Year's Eve? Why?
[Horrified looks are exchanged between myself and Prince Harry. NYE saw me at a club at 4:30 a.m., on a stage in front of lots of dancers who looked on with scandalized interest as I visibly restrained myself from slapping Japhy, who was DJ-ing, and then shouted something incoherent before stomping across the stage, jumping off of it, and running out the front door, which I slammed.)
ME: Uh ... Nothing .... Actually, I wasn't angry, no, um, just sleepy, that's why I went home.
J: I didn't know you were angry. I thought you were just a Hot Mess.
!!!!!!! That's the LAST time I teach him specialized English!
Anyway ...... Prince Harry went home, Japhy came to my place, he ate noodles and tofu and I had an apple, then we went up the fairy tale staircase to my room, which is so cold you can see your breath hovering like an icicle-ghost in the darkness, and I officially told Celibacy to fuck off.
Too many things happened last weekend to write a proper blog entry about it, but some snapshots:
Buying a carton of strawberries and eating them one by one in the frigid cold as Sage and I walked to the bowling alley. Where we played 6 games, with a good-looking crew of seven. Roughly 90 per cent of my rolls were gutters (I kid not), with the one notable exception being a STRIKE!
Doing a public reading for the first time in ages, at a bar near Shimokitazawa. There was no podium and I clutched my looseleaf pages with fingers that visibly shook from caffeine and beer.
Going to a taiko drum lesson, which was beyond awesome! Very primal and happy.
Inexplicably being driven around Shibuya in the backseat of a Mercedez Benz, helmed by a man in white jeans and earrings who has owned his own bar since he was 24.
Learning how to open a bottle of wine without getting splinters of glass in the bottle, thus eliminating the necessity of a tea strainer.
Going to a fantastic nabe party at Daisuke's house. A very awesome spread, the only terror occurring when he said, "Joy, you eat raw egg, don't you?" "Of course," I said, thinking he meant the dish where you crack a raw egg over hot rice and stir it in and it gets cooked by the rice. He gave me an egg and an *empty* bowl, which made me uneasy ... I cracked the egg into it, getting some yolk on my fingers, and automatically left to wash my hands with soap and hot water. Came back to the table ..... And found I was expected to DIP FOODS into the raw egg and then eat them! !!! And because the hypochondriac Virgo was a guest, she did as she was told ...... But it terrified me and I monitored my health closely for the next 48 hours.
Kidnapping a co-worker I've never spoken to before, circa midnight on a train, and dragging him to a nightclub in Shibuya.
Thai food. Thai always makes things better.
I can't get warm. Plus it's meant to snow tomorrow. I've been running away from snow since I was 17, and have been more or less successful -- should tomorrow's dire prophecies come to pass, it'll only be about the fifth snowfall I've had to go through in the last 10 years, barring visits to my parents' place.
I bought new bedding, a dramatic red colour. In the shop it looked prostitute-crimson, which intrigued me, but in my room with the books and Indian wall-hangings and rocks from around Asia, it looks more cherry. Huh. Still sussing out the symbolism.
Sage and I made dinner at Prince Harry's place the other night, and met a bunch of his house mates. One of them, on introduction, asked where we lived.
"Takadanobaba," we said in unison, a trait that is not intentional and annoys everyone. Dude started laughing hysterically -- really -- and said something in such rapid Japanese that neither of us could catch it.
"What did he say?" we asked.
Prince Harry looked thoughtful, then said, "He says he's heard of you."
That said, there have not been any major adventures of late .... The last few days of winter vacation were spent mainly writing, cooking, and milling about in an angst-filled rage softened only by coffee or hard liquor. Yesterday Sage and I went shopping in Noborito, and swung past the site where Hello House -- our old place of residence -- used to be. We stopped to smoke cigarettes and observe construction workers milling about, tearing things down and swinging across scaffolding and pounding things with hammers.
"Fuck. There's a porta-potty," I said.
"That's where my bedroom was," Sage said.
We attracted the attention of one of the hotter construction workers, who paused in his labours two storeys above us to stare and smile and look confused. [Why are they staring? he asked in Japanese. They're foreigners, said his colleague.]
Sage and I said, in unison, "Konnichiwa."
"Konnichiwa," he said.
We stared a little longer. Our whole house was gone.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," we said.
Then his boss came up to the front of the construction site, smiled tightly, and slammed the gate in our faces.
We walked on.
Drinkin: coffee
Listening to: Buzz
Awoke with Moloch again today. He told me horrible things about Japan, how I need to get out-out-out, how I need to move to Australia by April at the latest, how there is nothing but an emotional wasteland ahead of me if I stay in this place. The blood moved too quickly through my veins; I forgot to breathe for long seconds at a time; Moloch showed me his awful fingers -- the only ugly fingers I have ever seen -- a different portrait of death on every fingernail, the lines of my fucked-up destiny scribbled into his fingerprints. It was 4:30 in the morning.
I got up and stared at the sky. It took forever to get light. Til 6? Smoked a menthol cigarette. Cleaned my room. Got bundled up and went to the Lawson, bought gloves and a hot can of coffee. Drank it by the river. Garbage collection has resumed, after a 3-day pause: beautiful symmetrical piles of bags, neatly lined up. Wandered north to Okubo. Went to a 24-hour supermarket, and resolved to look at every piece of merchandise in the entire place, which took a long time. The spice aisle! It was incredible! Saffron, thyme, nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise, paprika! Walked home. Decided: fuck you, Moloch. There's no way I'm leaving Japan. And you're a dumber bastard than I thought if you figured I didn't know you'd follow me to Australia anyway.
Yesterday: riding around on the back of Japhy's bike, for hours. I showed him around the sleazebag parts of Okubo, as well as the brighter hippie-parts of Baba. Alcoholic coffees at Ben's cafe, a salmon dinner with sho-chu at a little place close to the station. Over dinner he asked me to explain the English words for various "types" of men and women to him, which he copied carefully onto a napkin. From what I can remember:
WOMEN
- Lolita ("Ohh! I like Lolitas! Sigh. I'm hentai.")
- Girl Next Door
- Vixen
- Homewrecker ("How many times have you been a homewrecker?")
- Bitchy-sweet ("That's you, right? Bitchy-sweet is my favourite.")
- Cocktease
- Hot Mess
MEN
- Playboy
- Sleazeball
- Eye Candy
- Dirty Old Man
- Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG)
- Mr. Right
J: What exactly is a Mr. Right?
ME: Hm. Well it's a bit difficult to explain. .... I guess, the sort of man that you look at and think, "I want to marry him."
J: Hm, so, like, rich, good CV?
ME: I guess so. [thinking about it] Yeah, like I guess rich, handsome, good job, committed .... [trailing off] You know, to tell you the truth, Mr. Right's not really my type.
J: Well, I'm Mr. Left.
All in all it was a pretty awesome day. I love riding around on the back of Japhy's bike. You're not supposed to ride around Tokyo two-to-a-bike -- we were stopped by the cops once in Harajuku last summer -- and I don't have a helmet and Japhy has this habit of veering between, say, a bus and a dump truck, while shouting something like, "Hey, do you like soup?" so it's a bit hair-raising but makes you feel, you know, present-moment-ish.
Yesterday Sage, Prince Harry, and I sat on a stone wall beside a river, eating subs and drinking berry tea. Many dogs walked by. We spoke of Hakone and Mt. Takao. Also the peculiar blissfulness than seems to befall Tokyoites between January 1-3 -- the banks are closed, many of the shops are closed or close early, and the whole pace of things slows by a few fractions. People walk in a softer way; there are occasional smiles. It's a different city, and a neat place to be.
Went back to our place to watch "The Darjeeling Limited" which is, without question, my new favourite of the five Wes Anderson films. Maybe I'll write a mini-review of it later, but some highlights for me were the colours (cobalt; a deep yellow), Adrien Brody, the mix of subtle and blatant in terms of the three brothers' relationships with each other, and perhaps the greatest Bill Murray cameo every filmed. I've watched it twice already and will do so again. The pacing was all wrong, and for the first time in a film, I *liked* that -- pacing is always wrong when you're travelling -- I thought it fit the tone of the movie perfectly.
We ate popcorn and then Frenchy arrived with some expensive cheese, so we ate that, then watched "Cloverfield," also an awesome movie, also a second viewing.
Now it's today.
Today is almost never what you expect it will be, and this current today is no exception, but I expect:
1. Coldness.
2. Putting my washing out to dry.
3. Walking to Doutor to write.
4. Finding an interesting birthday present for Japhy.
5. Total emotional breakdown at some point -- I've had a small one already -- awoke with Moloch again, and he told me that the string of my life which stretches from today to the day of my death -- which he insinuated would be early -- would be a tattered and decayed thing, an object of ridicule to more balanced associates, who all have beautiful glittering strings, with fucking GIFTS FROM THE UNIVERSE hanging off of them and such. That guy's getting on my nerves.
6. A rant-fest with Sage, should events warrant it.
7. An awkward encounter with one or several conbini guys, all of whom will make me blush.
8. Contemplative cigarettes.
9. Giving George Eliot another go, although I *really* can't seem to get into her.
10. Frying some eggs.
11. Listening to the Party Monster soundtrack.
12. Meeting Japhy at a vegetarian cafe at 5.
It's nearly one now, so I need to go do these things.
Listening to: the Presets
Drinkin: some kind of Korean apricot liqueur
Many years ago, while shopping for mugs, Carl told me I was an idiot for looking for perfection in dollar stores. Since that time, I've taken a quiet delight looking in dollar stores -- and now, 99-yen shops -- for perfect mugs. I've got 2 of them at the moment, one for each of my schools (swirled red lines, perfect size for coffee), but a couple days back, when Lennon and I lurched into Lawson drunk to the gills and on a mission for more red wine, the urge hit again ...
ME: Hey. Help me look for perfection in a 99-yen shop.
LENNON: What kind of perfection?
ME: I need the perfect mug.
LENNON: Well then.
[We kneel down in the kitchenware aisle and proceed to reject most of the mugs.]
ME: This one I like ......
LENNON: But it's definitely the wrong size. But what's wrong with this one?
ME: That shade of yellow. It's completely the wrong shade.
LENNON: [lip curling in hate] You're absolutely right.
ME: Huh. Well. Another failed mission.
LENNON: Except ..... I've just found the perfect teapot. [showing it to me] Look. There's boobs on it.
So we bought the teapot and a strainer and more bottles of wine and some sub-standard cheese and crackers.
Quotes that happened while I was writing this entry:
SAGE: Oh, noooo .... Joy-chan .... You're getting drunk.
ME: It's only 12 per cent.
SAGE: It's only 12 o'clock.
-----------------------------------------------
SAGE: Hey, advice. Never sew when you're still drunk.
ME: How'd it go?
SAGE: I'll let you know in a minute.
[a minute passes]
SAGE: I think I did the wrong sleeve.
[another minute passes]
SAGE: No, it's the right one. [looks shocked and a little frightened] And I think I did it WELL.
You get back home from the gay-bar and you reflect on men you have hurt in the past week (between 3 and 5, depending on how you count) and you read Wes Anderson interviews and read a wee bit of George Elliot and drink your take-home beer and ignore the flashing light on your cel that means someone's messaged you, and you smoke your ever-present Marlboro: all these things, then you read or write or masturbate or eat, and everything's cold, and you wonder how you got from there to here.
"In my experience, broads ALWAYS fall for Patsy Cline." (Li'l Jon)
"I was like, beam technique? What's a beam technique?" (Lennon)
"I've got Jesus jokes out of my ass." (Justin)
" .... This uptight hippie moron that we nicknamed Dread-chan." (Lennon)
[talking about some war-torn country he recently visited] "I mean, it was the kind of place where, you know, people were DISAPPEARING and shit. It was all sketchy. Even though, you know, there were like sushi restaurants and all." (Lennon)
[talking about an obscure French film from the 60s] "No, no, the men get executed somewhere else." (me)
[talking about a recent dream] "And I had like a magic spray and it would dissolve anything." (Jude the Obscure)
LENNON: I wonder what the world was like before the Big Bang.
ME: I think it was like a Prince video.