masters of the universe™

today smells like high summer. not exhausted, wilted summer, but the beginning of the real thing. the cicadas are still practicing, winding up and winding down, but the quiet will soon be destroyed by their endless piercing song, making the trees scream evilly. that's one of my first memories of my new home: angry, inpenetrable forest hanging over the road. now i know the forests become friendlier as the year wears on, and i see them as beautiful in their own unfamiliar way.
this was a notable week because i finally got my little engine-powered rollerskate, my car. i drove it back from a city two hours to the north, through the winding mountain roads that make me sick when i'm not driving, but guess what, i was! we arrived in kumano about ten, and i was beat but satisfied. it's actually really surreal to have my freedom again. i can go to the 24 hour market, i can pick up anything or anyone, and i can do it with air conditioning! yesterday i took my first drive alone, just to the bank, and it was like being a new driver all over again, but it was oh-so-amazing too. i flew by my students on bikes and smiled to myself. they can't see me, and yes, it's a relief. i drove kara and i to shingu for yakiniku, and we went shopping. like He-Man and She-Ra, I HAVE THE POWER!
as a final celebration of this year, kara, allison, and i went to osaka last weekend. it was the first time i had been there since my first visit to japan in 2001! we had planned on staying at a nice capsule hotel, but sadly all the ones we know that take women were full. i'll have to return in order to experience (and share about) that. we went to den-den town (den is short for denki, meaning electronic), the gamer nerd's paradise with old school/new school nintendo, busty manga heroines, and lots of glazed stares. yep, i'm a little bit of a nerd, so i enjoyed all the toys. there was even a sucker dispenser that's like gambling: you put your money in and then push a button to stop at the number of suckers you win. i got four!
for lunch we had, sweet deprivation, mexican food! every one of us was speechless in the presence of cheese and sour cream.
kara retired for the evening with her new super mario game, and allison and i got dolled up for a night on the town. do you know how long it's been since i really danced? at least a year! simply unacceptable. i wore a tube top as a skirt and a top made of shirt fiber that dissolves more and more each time i wash it. we were barely a block down the street before a cute japanese guy told us, "it's on me!" he wasn't creepy, so i harassed him back, and he laughed and stumbled on. a girl in his group noticed we were looking at a map and pointed us in the right direction of the bar we were looking for. the bar was cinquecentos, my heart's delight, a martini bar! the whole menu is 500 yen (only about $4.15), and as soon as we walked in, i felt welcomed and comfortable. it was a good mix of locals and foreigners, and the drinks were delicious. the cute bilingual boys behind the bar (one with an attractive brogue) were dancing and chatting, they seemed fun and real, and there wasn't a leering creep in sight. i wanted to be a local just so i could go back there more often.


we finally slipped off our stools and headed to the club, joule, a maze of stairwells with a dark mass of people heaving to the house music. in seconds we had wound our way near the front and joined in the sweaty, flashing light and motion. i danced to be young again. i danced to forget i'm a teacher. i danced to remember who i am in the context of the world. i danced for sheer exhileration. we spent our drink tickets wisely on water and stuck closely together. eventually we were manhandled by some forward japanese chaps (there's a first time for everything), but we shoved them away and they didn't return. finally at the brazen hour of 4:30 (even i was shocked!) we tripped home. only in japan can two ladies walk home undisturbed before dawn on the city streets. yes mama, i was still keeping an eye out. needless to say, we had a very quiet trip home the next day.
osaka is also home to this eye-catching love hotel, rose lips. euphemistic? you decide.

一年 (ichinen: one year)

i woke in a small bit of terror last night when i could have sworn i heard someone whisper, "now!"
now what? i tensed for something to happen, but nothing did.
i think it was actually some wierd sound escaping from my own mouth, but i lay plastered to my bed for a few moments until i felt safe, then i got up and had myself a drink of water. lately i haven't had the same beautiful sleep i was enjoying here for so long, and as a result, i'm a slave to my afternoon nap. i don't mean i take a nap; a nap takes me. i wake up and realize i fell for it again. yesterday i was reading after school and was fighting really hard because i had to meet with my supervisor a little bit later in the evening. it was all i could do not to drop the book and pass out before it hit the floor. today i was lucky enough to finish the book before i went under.
it's shocking, but i'm heading home for a little visit in under two weeks, in fact, it's only 11 days away. last time, i surprised even myself by bowing to other drivers whilst in my car (typical in japan but absolutely hilarious to my mother), bowing to someone who let me cross the street in front of their car (quizzical looks), and feeling completely incapable of walking on my mom's white carpet without taking off my shoes.
on august first, i'll have been in japan for a full, round year. this morning i looked through kate t. williamson's A Year In Japan, which i haven't gone through in some time, and i realized i knew personally about each of the little topics she artfully presents. it's the same old story: seriously!? a whole year has passed since i threw up in the bathroom of a posh hotel because i was so scared of my total life change? a whole year of firsts. four seasons of crafting a home from the remembered and the fresh, eating weird things like squid crackers and shaved ice with azuki beans and condensed milk, getting naked with my fellow teachers as a matter of course, and falling head over heels for my students.
i'm just glad i have another.

the girl vs. the elements--round one *clang*

last year, all typhoons turned before they reached our "hang loose" hand-shaped prefecture, but this year we're starting off the season with a bang. or more of a "BANG BANG BANG."


friday i was in for my first typhoon. not keen on spending it alone in my palace, i crossed my fingers that i'd be able to make it up to tsu to hang with my soon-to-be-missed marina. taking a cue from my neighbors, i pulled the metal window armor over my windows for the first time...truly creepy. i have a decent view of the tracks, and trains seemed to still be passing pretty much on time, in spite of torrential rain, so i bundled up my backpack and headed out on my bicycle for my second bath of the day. without a raincoat (i refuse to buy one that's not cute), i was drenched in seconds but not cold. it just looked like i had taken a dip with all my clothes on, and even i had difficulty pretending nothing was awry as i bought my ticket. i'm still not capable of riding a bike and holding a backpack, purse, and umbrella, but soon i will have the must-have accessory of the season: a car. i pulled out a towel and dried myself off a little, so at least my pants weren't dripping on the bench. the woman i sat next to smiled kindly when i sat down (somewhat rare), so i relaxed. we sat in silence for a while, until a pigeon all fluffed up started taking a bath in the water between train tracks. it made us laugh, and that seemed a good time to strike up a conversation. the woman and her husband inquired comfortably about my trip and my family.
*aside* being in japan has enhanced my expectation of modesty. that means, though i remain modest as i have always been, the lack of skin i see among the general population has heightened my sensitivity to it. when my male students are literally standing in their boxers changing from their PE clothes in the classroom! after class has started!, i am much more shocked than i would have been in ol' sexy america. this carries over to physical contact. good, real hugs are not common after high school, i'd say, and once when i went to hug a friend goodbye she literally asked me why! so for better or worse, i generally don't expect much human contact on a daily basis.
older women seem less prudish and space conscious, but i was still surprised when this darling lady sitting next to me, after only a few sentenced exchanged, reached over and warmly patted my wet leg, asking if i was cold. she and her husband (mr. and mrs. murata, i learned) kept me appraised of how many minutes late the train was going to be: 24, 27, 30...we kept waiting. she opened her purse and took out some tiny mandarins and a few crackers and gave them to me. her husband, upon learning that i was an only child, far from my family, said earnestly with a pantomime to enhance his words, "your parents' heart break."
when it seemed our time was getting short, i asked them if i could take a picture, my parkbench angels. right before we went our separate ways on the train, the woman clasped my hand fervently like she wanted very much to communicate her care and protectiveness to me; i was touched.


after two wet, air-conditioned hours on the train, i was properly cold--truly surprising in the middle of july, so i hobbled through the rain to marina's house to dry out. as we tucked into bed later, we heard creepy air raid-sounding sirens, warning of the oncoming cloud of doom, but we woke the next morning disappointed by the general lack of storm. we didn't even hear a strong gust, thought my girls in the south said the storm was loud and pummeled their apartment with wind.

book bender

on my traipse down the hill this morning, i saw a snake. it was big--probably the biggest one i've ever seen in "the wild." luckily for my Rad Teacher Image, i saw it in plenty of time so as not to squeal and/or throw myself inadvertently into the rushing water of the ditch. i don't hate snakes, especially harmless ones, but they do startle. being unfamiliar with the flora and fauna of this country, i wasn't certain of its poisonous-ness, so i watched sharply from my vantage point as it swam a bit, and then came to rest directly in my path. in an effort to hurry it along, i stomped my feet noisily in parceltongue with the message, "move your skinny butt so i can get to school." i'm sure i look like a crazed mime every morning with all the weird waving, ducking and now stomping i do, but it's all in an effort to avoid walking face-first into spiderwebs. i keep my hand up, arm out like i'm keeping the sun out of my eyes but it's really my Scout Arm, cutting through cobwebs like the prow of a boat. when the sun's not out, it's a useless masquerade, but then my slow, deliberate web-chopping motions probably defeat that anyway.
once at school (and now free of classes), i settled into a reading bender. the girl who's mother once said, "sometimes i wish you would just watch tv because it's so impossible to get your attention when you're reading," has been deprived of english books for almost a year now, and i recently learned that the english selection at the Mie public library is admirable in both quantity and breadth. today i've been stuck in a book like a burr in fur, almost physically unable to separate myself from the pages. i still write every morning, but i've noticed my vocabulary slipping as i lose my english to make room for japanese. that's what they call it, losing your english. i hope, for the sake of my future as a writer, we're only playing hide and seek.

the road to autonomy

here's me walking the course before my test

i've been thinking lately about my experience in japan as a minority. i realize i'm a well-treated and celebrified minority, due to the current vogue of american culture, but i still get stared at and gasped at and treated like a child. in a country as monocultural (at least at first glance) as japan, i am part of the virtually illiterate minority. sure, i can buy groceries or a train ticket, but i can't do much of anything else without help. i still can't make a reservation at a restaurant, talk to my bank about a mysterious transaction, or take a driving lesson without it being a big ordeal. what would only be about driving for a japanese person is about overcoming everything else first (how to get there in the middle of a school day when the train stop is much too far and i can't read a bus schedule?) before i can even start trying to figure out what the instructor is saying enough to learn something. it feels like a battle. i've gained a much deeper appreciation of what you miss when you don't speak the native language. it makes me think of immigrants in america--all they're up against and how much courage that takes!--to be away from your homeland, missing your family and the familiar, speaking the language like a three-year-old, and hoping no one takes advantage of your ignorance.
but back to driving. i've been living a small-scale existence without a vehicle. i don't go many places after dark, i have to abide by the infrequent trains, and i can't buy more than one bottle of tea or juice at the grocery store unless i want to give myself a heart attack on the ride back. i had lots of fun last summer trying to get weird items home on my bike, but nothing rivals the comfort and convenience of a car when it's pouring outside, you're sick, and all you want is to buy some cold medicine and go to bed without riding for thirty minutes, getting soaked to the skin, and having a small emotional breakdown when the closest pharmacy is sold out of what you need...not that that's ever happened to me. but it would suck.
so maybe you don't realize why i'm still on about my new driver's license, but this is why. i endured three months of having other people make appointments for me at a facility three hours away ($100 round trip), taking three different vacation days to go there for 1. submitting documents 2. a 10-question true or false written test that you'd have to be dumb to fail 3. the final performance art piece that is called the "practical" test on a closed course with no other traffic. you fail if you chew gum. you fail if you wear sandals. you fail if you don't execute the 18 instances of using the blinker exactly at the right time every time. i bribed a japanese-speaking friend to go with me once, i stayed up till midnight once so i could call the colorado DMV and get the professional evasive-government run-around for an hour which nearly ended in me putting a hit out on each of the three unhelpful persons with which i had to speak. finally the truth came out--they don't even keep the records before seven years ago, so NO ONE has the record i needed, nor would they write anything to that effect on DMV paper. i got to deal with the worst of two countries' bureaucracies. but finally, finally, i jumped through all the rings and they found me worthy of my own freedom.
in two short weeks, i will own a little white piece of heaven car, and i'm hoping to once again feel more like the me i know, the autono-me.

independence day

well after months of preparation, well-wishes, self pep talks, and prayers...i got my japanese driver's license!


you are not supposed to smile, which i knew, but i didn't even realize she had taken the picture, which is why i look so unenthused. i had just been at the license office for 5 straight hours, so i was a little tired. but don't let the look fool you, i was INCREDIBLY HAPPY! and i still am.

(empty)

i just lost the entire post i've labored over for three hours.
i'm sad.

lassitude in my (lad)itude

termites are on the way out; the jolly exterminators (seriously, they were jolly! i've never heard grown men giggle like that) visited my house mere days after the problem was discovered. if you have the beginnings of a bug problem in japan, you've got the makings of a full-blown disaster. my entire house is made of wood! a few months and it might've fallen with a whhhump into a heap...only the tile roof, my scattered shoes, and a tangle of yarn remaining.
last year i got ants. unlike dopey, dim-witted colorado ants that take weeks to organize enough to pose a nuisance, i saw a few ants in my kitchen in the morning, and by nightfall, it was like a river. i couldn't even find what they were eating. i had everything with sugar (glucose, fructose, OR sucrose) in the freezer, but they were everywhere anyway! their cleverness was also their fatal flaw; when i put out ant poison, they were all over it in minutes and gone the next day.
happily, the termites went back in the closet for my party, so i was truly able to relax and hang with the north mie kids. we had a liesurely beach day which made me impossibly happy. atashika is supposedly one of the 100 most beautiful beaches in japan, and it's only a 20 minute drive from my house. since i will soon have a car of my very own, this will no longer be an obstacle worthy of note. yes, i've bought myself a flea with wheels. the main obstruction remaining is my driving test which is closing in. will independence day return my autonomy to me in the form of a driver's license, or will i have another month chained to my bike? my heart pounds at the thought. (aack!!)

here's our fabulous ad for mini-beers. i know, it's hard to see them in our hands! these are fun 'cause you can drink them before they get warm. public drinking is all systems go in japan.


me and memento molly



since my house was damaged in the Great Termite Storm of '07, they got in there right away and replaced almost all of my nice, silky, weathered, golden tatami with new, green tatami. this would be fine with me except it smells like HAY. not romantic like faint sweet straw--like "i've been sitting in a barn for a year" HAY. it's overwhelming. here's the difference in color:


i do appreciate knowing that there are no hidden things wriggling around underfoot, though. i get to start fresh. the rainy season is delightfully dry this year so far, so i haven't been seeing any mukade yet, good news! i can't handle more than one bug problem at a time. here is the kanji for bug: 虫 doesn't convey any of the disgust i feel.
getting around to the title of this post, though, i've been feeling a japan low lately. not so much japan as work in japan. someone i know called working for the JET Programme "a velvet rut," and that's precisely what it is. we make plenty of money and live comfortably enough, but even with the responsibility i have here, i am not a Real Teacher, i am just an assistant who can be demanded of and undermined at will. most of my teachers are great, but a combination of my duties and the students' lack of motivation is so draining, and then there's the fun bag of cultural differences that can vacuum the energy right out of you. that's why i jumped at the chance to teach mr. m some english when he asked me. sure, it doesn't hurt that he's totally cute too. i was a little nervous for our first formal lesson--where do you begin? how do you know how to fill in the blanks for someone who knows a lot of vocabulary but little grammar? our first lesson was so much better than i was expecting! instead of not being willing to act out situations like my high school students, he totally humored my impulses. i indroduced myself as someone else, and we went over the small talk questions and answers like you would when meeting someone in a casual situation. it was fun! he shook my hand but didn't know when to let go (tee hee). he seemed actually eager to learn, which was so refreshing. i had him ask me questions, and he was off like a shot, communicating the hell out of everything. our next lesson is today, and we've agreed he'll pay me in kakigori which are snow cones, basically. i know, i'm cheap, but i love me some flavored ice.
yesterday i came home and just couldn't manufacture any more energy. i wanted to go for a walk or anything, but i didn't have it in me. instead i managed to get up and make one of those meals i grew up on...salmon croquettes. the smell of cooking onions overpowered the barn fetor and revived me, and though the tiny cans of salmon were expensive, the croquettes were tender and marvelous. here's the recipe:

1 can salmon (about 2 cups) or 4 mini cans in japan (that's got a ring to it)
1 small onion, chopped finely
1 egg
1/2 cup of bread or cracker crumbs, or, as i tried last night, crushed corn flakes

mix it all together (don't be startled by the cartilege in the salmon--it's totally edible) and shape into croquettes (about 1/4 cup each)
fry in oil for about 5 min on each side (till browned) and enjoy with ketchup

last friday i was at the home store with melissa, and we were chatting about and looking over all the flowers and herbs for sale. i looked up and saw a non-japanese man walking out of the store right by us. i was so stunned that my mouth was literally agape. he said something like, "good afternoon, ladies." i didn't recover in time to respond! what does this say about me!? on saturday, i was talking to my mom on skype (using my computer's ambient microphone, so she can hear everything, including the daily loudspeaker playing Edelweiss at noon) when my landlady stopped by to tell me that she couldn't find a place to have my key copied for a spare. when i got back on the phone, my mom said, "it sounded like you were understanding and responding in japanese!" i was like, yeah...she doesn't speak english. it was the first time someone i know has overheard me speak anything other than english. that's one of the reasons i really want someone to visit me here--i have no barometer of how much i've learned!

i have one more bug-related story. i woke one morning with a 1 inch diameter circle on my arm with a smaller circle inside. it looked like a bug bite--spider maybe. i began worrying about renegade populations of brown recluses or something equally ridiculous. everything is more of a big deal here since i don't have the greatest faith in the health system. it faded eventually, but the next day i woke up with a similar mark on my arm in a different place. what on earth could it be? i went over to my bed and what did i see? it was the impression of the button on my rilakkuma teddy bear that i must have been clutching tightly in my sleep!!

welcome to the infestation*

*this is a frowny-faced tribute to the R.E.M. song Welcome to the Occupation

nothing says "party" like termites falling out of every corner.
the termite problem of which i was completely unaware until two days ago was apparently just waiting to be announced; now they're coming out of the woodwork, har har. last night i was playing a rousing game of Stomp and Vacuum, but i finally gave up and went to bed, hoping desperately that i didn't wake to any wriggling or flying things on me. i didn't, but i was completely grossed out at the little piles of parasites in every room, and i can just imagine how fun my four guests for the weekend will find it. WHEE!

in happier news, this week is O-VER! the petunia i grew from seed has actually flourished and is finally blooming! they must have put a mix of colors in the pack because i've gotten both a purple and red bloom so far.







and by request, a few of my favorite pages of the hatchan book i mentioned last time:





finally, i'm taking my driving test on the 4th of July, so hopefully i will be showing my 'patriotism' by successfully acquiring a foreign driver's license...

more than you think

i’m not sure exactly when my train stop became home, but that’s what i was thinking last night when i arrived there after a barbecue in owase (the site of last august’s Panic at the Fireworks). it was after eleven, and only one other woman had been nestled in the single car illuminated like a lantern, shooting through the lush japan darkness. we surrendered our tickets to a lonely station man sweeping up, and went our different ways. i unlocked my bicycle, easy to find but tough to disentangle from the hordes of other bikes shadowed by street lamps. once free, i glided into perfect smooth evening air deepened by all those smells i always go on about--dark flowers and the breath of sleeping children, late evening laundry, the ocean. i had been waiting all night to finally return to my stop, my home, and go to bed. not that the barbecue wasn’t fun, but the week was long and taxing (that’s a pun for my benefit--stayed up way too late the night before our business conference in tokyo working on my taxes. i nearly had a heart attack when it said i owed $5000, so i had to stay up figuring out where it all went wrong). the conference was so frustrating and useless, it temporarily set me back to my first rocky days in japan, plus my roommate snored (even through earplugs and a pillow over my head), so i didn’t have relief in sleep either. i was tempted to put a pillow over her head.
yes, there were good moments (shopping at american apparel, eating real mexican food and divine french cuisine, and finding a few japanese books i couldn't live without about a cat named hatchan.) but after that, i returned to mie, woke up early, took my written driving test, taught school in the afternoon, and then had several hours of meetings. so! taxing.


*aside* i would like to quote a japanese underground musician, shugo tokumaru, for the caption to this picture. brilliantly understated: "There's a lot of buildings and people in Tokyo, more than you think."

anyway, about the barbecue. i had been invited to the family home of a young student teacher. he is dark-eyed and quiet with a vaguely toady smile. i was afraid he might fancy me, but perhaps it's something else. i was to be the co-honored guest with jonathan, another english teacher from the area. he works with the student teacher’s father, who is also a teacher. i relaxed when i met his family; there was none of the awkward silence that can reign in situations with mixed languages and strangers. his mom was up-front about welcoming us to stay if we got wasted and didn’t want to make the trip home. ha! his dad was gleeful and interviewed us in both languages, thrilled to his toe tips and flushed cheeks when we understood his english. his sister (18) seemed real, no affected shyness, and his darling grandmother beamed like a beacon on my right. as is typical in these situations, they act as if feeding you enough will cure world hunger--i was stuffed with steak, roast, hot dogs, pumpkin slices, onions, shrimp, cow tongue, sushi, lettuce, beer, fried sweet potatoes, coffee, cheesecake, apple juice, chocolates, and that doesn’t include all the things i turned down! after six hours of food and company, they walked us to the train station and saw us off--making me promise i would dine with them again.
tonight i lost myself in my ironing. the steam was delicious with Downy and i felt quiet and calm with Loreena McKennit singing Dante's Prayer through my mind. i thought, this is home. i could be anywhere; i just happen to be here. and that was a good feeling.

lc-yaki

today was hot like an iron.
hot like a burn.
the first summer blaze day, so i wasn't very productive. my winter skin isn't ready for the sweatfactory. i did manage to finish powdering down the perimeter of my house to prevent mukade from crossing the line of death into my territory. the bottle looks exactly like a big yellow mustard bottle with a red squeeze cap, only it spews poison, not mustard. i've perfected my poison-applying technique, so it looks less like i was having a seizure with powdered sugar. before, it was coming out in fragrant poofs, leaving piles of white stuff all over the side of my house. i was secretly afraid the neighbor's cat would find it interesting and deadly, but he seems ok so far. the neighbor lady overcame her habit of saying only a word to me in greeting and actually told me she had just killed a mukade right then and that they come up over our back wall. she had to act a lot of it out so i understood. she went on speaking japanese and i agreed in english, and somehow we understood each other. i asked if it was ok i was using that stuff, and she said yeah.
mukade are japan's only poisonous insect, and i've been dreading the moment when i would see a full-grown one for the first time. i've seen a few small ones in my house which freaked me out plenty, but the big ones are more poisonous and move faster. and they're just BIGGER. saturday morning: after a wonderful dinner party in tsu with a perfect group of friends, marina and i had retired to her apartment. we woke later than i can usually sleep (hallelujah!) and were puttering around thinking tea and raisin toast thoughts. i lifted up my backpack and screamed--beneath it was a big mukade mofo. i threw the pack back over it and turned to break the news to marina. i remember i actually said it in a "we're going into battle" kind of voice. "there's a mukade under my backpack. get the bug tongs." when she handed them my way i responded, "oh no--it's your house. you have to pick it up." she did, like a rock star, and then powdered it exhaustively like a chapped baby's bum. i knew poison would take too long for the likes of me, and as it ran (i imagine screaming) from us, i employed the flip flop of doom and killed it until it was dead. i did feel a little sorry for it. marina had basically been sitting on the couch next to it. maybe it was just trying to enjoy her company like the rest of us do. of course i had to take a picture of its pulverized body.


after several wonderful hours of breakfast and company, we stepped into the sun. i insisted on a picture, so marina, molly and chito made a place for me while i set up the camera.



















later marina and i got lots of corny pictures.









finally after a full day of really relaxing for the first time in several weeks--i had to go home.
tonight i christened the start of summer by popping open the bottle of barbecue sauce i've been saving for months and months. thick slices of melting butter and tarty swathes of barbecue sauce on boiled potatoes + iced tea = happy happy me.

as the evening overcomes the day, the hawks swirl like thin metal shavings in the sky, spinning in slow motion down an enormous drain; they wheel around the same invisible point in the air soundlessly, a feather and beak tornado.

am i a dork or what

there's a purikura arcade in my town--an entire room of machines to take fun photos of you and your friends. amazingly, it's always completely empty! i can scarcely resist the temptation every time i walk by, but it feels foolish doing it alone. however, feeling foolish rarely stops me for long, so i finally tried solo purikura. It was great! i did somewhat cover my face and duck out quickly, smirking to myself.

scylla and charybdis, or: and ode to an O

he understands mac love
he does some mad purikura
he's always happy to see me
he puts the T in alt (seriously)
he always buys me my first drink
he taught me about catching trains
he holds an umbrella like a gentleman
he gave me my first stranger hug in japan
he always knows what to tell the taxi driver
he patented the seismic-activity ramen stack
he's pretty much the authority on saucy banter
he talks to waiters for me when i'm feeling japan-shy
he gets obscure literary references like "Stygian gloom"
he doesn't like cheese, so he'll give you all of his *やった!*
he talked up my pancakes so even fiona and sam wanted to try them
he ran the whole way home with me so i could check my ebay status
he let me clean his apartment and didn't get too~um~offended that i did it
he quotes dante and mary j. blige in the same sentence without missing a beat
he's the first person who reads my blogs and (almost) the only person who comments
he'll tell you that when a certain cute japanese guy buys you dinner it's "tantamount to a proposal" and then that certain guy will turn out to be married
he doesn't like spicy curry and is happy when you don't either 'cause it means you won't make fun of him for it (but will make fun of him mercilessly for other things like, um, eating flower garnishes in restaurants "didn't you guys eat yours!?")







and most importantly...










he's bringin' sexy back!
YEAH!
happy birthday
s.f.x.o.

watermelon smells like nothingness

in spite of the record amount of blogging i've done (where are you o'neil?), i've actually felt like crap all day. no doubt due to the brain tumor. i've been ridiculously dizzy--standing, sitting, turning, doing the macarena...all make me want to hurl. lightheaded, woozy, spacy, cotton-headed. yes. this is complicated by the "tread lightly or i might bite back" state of my stomach. i eat something wrong (it seems to vary) and my stomach cramps up for two hours. so i want to eat to stave off the lightheadedness (is it really helping?), but i'm afraid to eat in case i anger the Stomach which may also end in me hurling. nevertheless, i've been eating constantly all day and the beast that is my appetite will not be appeased--right after i eat, i feel hungry. what is wrong with me?
after taking it easy for the entire day, i was still dizzy and running out of food. i decided i should try to walk to the store to replenish. it was a lovely, warm evening after all. i took it slow. if i couldn't make it to the bottom of the hill without keeling over, i was going to turn right around and crawl back up. i made it ok. actually walking outside in one direction felt nice and the dizziness wasn't so bad. this is what i saw and smelled:
that scent of pine forests again, stronger this time;
a rainbow-colored bird sitting on a wire above the canal holding a flapping fish in its beak;
deserted streets, full of smoke from the piles of weeds they're always burning;
the emerging clean smell of linden soap. it reminded me of a soap i gave mom once, and it reminded me again that it's mother's day. today i read a blog about a girl who is experiencing her first mother's day without a mom, and it made me even more thankful for mine.
after an entire day alone with my dizziness, i was strangely comforted by the grocery store. i shuffled along in my flip flops, noticing for the first time how uneven the floor is. i kept thinking, "is this just my brain fuzz, or is the floor warped?"
thank goodness, the only nice checker was working, so i left feeling encouraged by her cheer. i stepped back outside after being in the air conditioned store and was reminded, hey! it's spring. it smelled like warm evening flowers and barbecue smoke. i saw someone without shoes swinging their feet on a bench: carefree swinging, like a child. as i got closer, i was surprised to find it was an old woman. i'm gonna be that kind of old woman. i walked on, alternating the heavier bag back and forth between hands. i smelled watermelon, which has always smelled like emptiness to me. as i started up the hill to my house, i thought, "wow, i actually feel almost normal." the last scent before i went inside--my very own flowers permeating the night.

take that! and that! and that!

stuff i did yesterday:

chuckled at my students' worksheets some more:




aired all my bedding and switched my flannel sheets with some new cooler ones:


went to allison's barbecue:
(whoa! tone it down melissa. kara looking non-chalant)


made some seriously good cooking coals:


ate a mother's day themed steak:

these walls are paper thin

just after 7am on sunday, mother's day. (hi mom!! i didn't forget!) i was woken by the little boy next door yelling to his grandma right outside my window. it sounded like the whole family was outside my window...building something. it's 7am!! but they've only disturbed me about three times in almost a year, so i didn't have the heart to go out and grouch at them. in japan the walls truly are paper thin--they're made of paper, so i've been incredibly lucky to have quiet neighbors.

usually i ride my bike to the store, but last week i decided to walk so i could listen to my ipod; i get really into my music. i was mulling over how safe i feel walking around japan, heedless of the people around me. i don't worry about lurkers waiting to rob me like i did in american cities. just then, an old woman emerged suddenly from a narrow passage between two houses and scared the crap out of me!! when i recovered, i laughed heartily imagining the look of terror that crossed my face because of a gentle old lady half my height!
speaking of ipods--i have the one on which you can watch movies or TV. if i'm going on a long train ride, i usually download something new to watch during the trip. last month i caught the cheaper local "stops at every station" train up to tsu, which is a 3 and a half hour ride. it was full to bursting with high schoolers riding home, but it quickly thinned out to the few students who live in farther away towns. i was in the midst of watching the latest episode of America's Next Top Model when i felt someone watching me. i met the eyes of a curious kid sitting on my left. he was inching closer and closer, craning his neck to see what i was looking at. without a word spoken, he reached my side and i tipped the screen so he could see it too. we sat in amicable silence watching the final few minutes of the show, after which he stood up and went back to his group of friends.

the weather is getting really gorgeous, so when i have the energy, i try to get out and walk in the remaining daylight after school. some evenings i hike partways up the little trail close to my house (where i first went with mr. M). the view is really incredible, and it doesn't take long to get up to a good vantage point. the smells along the way are also an interesting treat, since i pass people's houses on the way up. the first time i went, i smelled wax and bug spray, azaleas and cut grass. i paused to enjoy one of the last blooming cherry trees and shared a pleasant silence with another old woman watching the sun go down. she told me to watch my step as i continued up the trail alone. the first really good view is from a grove of plum trees, so i turned off the trail there. it was so wonderfully empty of other people and so quiet. even in a small town like kumano, it's difficult to feel truly away from people sometimes. everything is so close together.

finding my own goodbye

many people asked me about how i felt following the death of my student, and i wanted to return to that briefly so you can have some closure on that chapter. the days following the news, tears leaked from my eyes with zero provocation. i just couldn't believe it. for once in my life, i was perfectly connected to my sadness. sometimes i can't seem to make contact with how i really feel. i felt it was important for me to go to kaori's wake, in spite of how startling my presence might be for the community. i needed to show my support and grief to the people who loved and knew her best. i had never been to any sort of funeral ceremony in japan, so i felt trepidation about what to do, but naoko was there to guide me.
i wore black, but i don't have any black shoes (how do i not have black shoes!?) so i had to wear some bright white tennis shoes. we drove in mostly silence; it was pretty far away, at least an hour and a half. it was the height of cherry blossom time, a widely celebrated part of spring in japan. i remember thinking that without this event, i would never have seen the wild cherry trees blooming stunningly among the pines on the mountainsides around kumano. i also wondered if spring would be tainted for kaori's family from now on. finally we arrived and walked under a low sky to the temple. blooming cherries lined the path, but in front of that were enormous matching boquets from the community. it was a hall of flowers. we paid our respects to the family inside the temple, and i got to see one final picture of her before i was blinded my my own tears. naoko led me as i stumbled back outside. for the next hour, we stood in the cold and mosquitoes as people arrived and left. i saw classmates and family, but no one seemed to weep as hard as me. i wondered why. were they just more private with their feelings? after an hour, though, my tears came more slowly and i watched the sunset as the skies cleared. it was an incredible evening, solemn but more and more beautiful. my spirits lifted, and then we drove home.

go-go-gatsu

it's open season on spider real estate, resulting in a hundred fresh new high-rise web condos erected overnight which line my short walk down the hill to school. bug season has officially begun. happy birthday to the billion mosquitoes born last week too. i saw something yesterday that resembled a very young mukade, and i watched it crawling with its many legs across the cement, trying to decide if i should kill it now or let it get bigger, find it again, and then kill it. i wasn't certain certain it was a mukade. desicions, desicions. the shy little grandson of the woman next door spoke to me for the first time as i scrutinized this bug, and i imagine he asked "what are you looking at?" so i just answered "a bug." i hope that's what he said! he might have asked, "where do you come from?" and i gave him a pretty confounding answer.
i just got back from a one-week vacation to tokyo and kyoto for the japan-wide celebration of "golden week," a week where several holidays fall together. the weather was gorgeous but for one rainy day. i had the novel job of "senior japanese speaker" and ordered several of our meals in restaurants. usually i'm the person who knows the least, so it was really a thrill. to their credit, marina's andrea and alix (first time in japan) seemed to do just fine on their own too.
some highlights from the trip were:
meeting a life-size Doraemon!


visiting my old pal the Scary Rabbit of Love:


and getting two free hugs as part of the Free Hug Campaign
oh yeah and seeing mt. fuji in person wasn't bad either.


being from colorado, and having lived only there and washington state hasn't really afforded me the chance to spend much time riding subway trains. i have always had a pure, unadulturated love for them, though. the idea that you can get across a big city in minutes for two dollars and have the chance to stare at people and sit in an industrially-maufactured plastic seat in a variety of colors is pure joy in so many ways! this week, i had the chance to ride the metro alone for the very first time. and it was fine (considering that no matter how you look at it, travelling alone by subway in another language is, well, a little lonely). i figured it out on my own, purchased my ticket, and then had the dismay to get the old "turnstile in the knees" treatment, indicating i had made a mistake of some kind like not paying enough. actually, i guess they were having problems with the tickets that day, because they just let me go through. sigh. the turnstiles don't hurt. it's more like a soft pat to the knees telling you gently but firmly, "now let's think about this. did you ride farther than you planned? do you have the right ticket? let's try it again." at least, that's what it says to me.
i keep meaning to talk about public sleeping, which is incredibly acceptable and relatively safe in japan. when i returned from visiting home last christmas, i had many grueling hours of travel which terminated in a ferry ride from nagoya airport to tsu. settling down in my chair, sleep was determined to overtake me. feeling safe and completely comfortable with being unconscious on a boat full of strangers, i gave in and had a delicious nap. that being said, i love studying the beautiful strangers of japan when they slumber near me. ordinarily i don't photograph them, but by way of example:


i planted some flowers about a month ago because i've moved so many times in the last, oh, nine years, that it hasn't really been worth it to invest the time. before that i had many gardens: flowers, herbs, vegetables. i've really been longing for the sweetness that growing things brings my heart. i never cease to be awed by the miracle of growing things, the smell of good old dirt, and the little space of peace it creates in my mind. last night i went outside to see how my plants were doing, smelled each different bloom (pinks, nasturtiums, petunias, daisies, sweet alyssum, and marigolds), and listened to the evening...pretty quiet. it's the week before mid-terms, so the students aren't allowed to stay late at school practicing sports or instruments. it's one of the only quiet weeks the whole year long. the blue evening was warm and i suddenly sniffed the elusive pine forest scent that i keep thinking i've imagined. it reminds me strongly of a childhood vacation in taos and lazy mornings in colorado's dry summer.

i promise this one isn't depressing

OI!
how does any writer keep up with the volumes of things which happen every day? in the last month, i've experienced enough to make an entire TV movie with a music montage or ten.
just today, i woke up feeling almost euphoric from a dream in which i met my true love. his name was Jim. he's literally the man of my dreams, and he seemed more real and more tangible than most dream guys. i can still vividly remember what it felt like to throw my arms around him.
it was a gorgeous morning, too.
the day was great--great classes, i packed a great lunch (too bad it smelled like dog food), and great students!! (i actually got told "you're cute" by one of the girls. this is like the universe gone wrong, when a japanese high school girl (the epitome of cute, c'mon!) tells me i'm cute.) so i was tired but satisfied when i headed to the grocery store on foot. (haha--i just wrote "on food")
oddly enough, i then met the first random foreigner in my town that i've seen in, oh, seven months or so. forgot to ask if his name was Jim.

here are three of the best spelling guesses for the word "motorcycle" from my students' worksheets. it makes me laugh every time i read them.




























more coming soon.

kaori

last week i ran into one of my first year students in mos burger. it was the first time i had seen her wear something other than her school uniform. i was startled at how beautiful and grown-up she looked in little heels and spring colors. she was all enthusiasm when she saw me. she hooked my arm like an old friend and peppered me with questions. when i sat down near her table, she introduced me to both her older sister and her little sister. she was glowing.
i was disappointed in myself for not knowing her name--she was one of the 300 students i had only once per week, but i did remember she had asked me if she looked truly japanese. after some consideration, i decided, no, not entirely...she looked like she could be from spain, maybe. when i told her this, it clearly thrilled her to be considered exotic-looking.
the next week i discovered her name was kaori. i was looking forward to seeing her again so i could call her by name, so i could demonstrate that i knew who she was and cared about her too.
i just found out kaori was killed in an accident two days ago.



my grief is startling. i feel she was stolen from my very hands. she was just here! there are no words.