September 4th-7th in 2015

It’s now the 7th, and I’ve got internet, and I’ve got 5 more gigs on my phone, so I was able to post everything. That having been said, the best time to write in this thing is when I’m at work, so, I suppose that this is where I’ll do it. I’ve got my big ol’ file open, and I’ll keep writing in here until it’s time to copypasta this into Prosebox.
Tea Ceremony went relatively well. It was a bit more relaxed than I’ve been used to. Frequent giggles at mistakes, and a lot of switching things around as it went. I can’t complain too hard, though, as they were a lot more forgiving and understanding about my inability to sit seiza for very long. Sadly, I had managed to sit seiza for a good ten or fifteen minutes before class, thinking class would start any moment, and wanting to make a good impression. It was ineffective. I was kind of annoyed at the waste. We also don’t wear kimono there, which is also sad making. I rather like wearing kimono, and I look for any excuse to do so.
The whole thing ended at 9:30 or so with the agreement that I’d be taken on as a student next week (now this week) and that I’d become a paying student as of October. There is also a teacher in Satsuma Sendai (henceforth Sendai) that I’ll need to see sometimes as he’s a dude. I’ll also have to go to Kagoshima city to buy gear, which can’t be obtained locally. I’m kicking myself for having lost all of the stuff I’d had before. No idea where it could be at this point in time. Well, because I was due to get internet on Saturday morning, I couldn’t go out to the bar or anything. Instead, I went home and went pretty straight to bed.
Saturday morning, the 5th, the internet guy was due to get in at 10 AM, though it could have been anywhere between 9 and 12. I set about cleaning the downstairs, something that it sorely needed. Also, I believe it was Friday morning when I finally found a place taking non burnables. Well, regardless, I got rid of a lot of things from the kitchen which was great because I then flooded it. Yeah. I plugged the drain to fill the sink with soapy water, then forgot about it. I didn’t notice for, sadly, a good minute. Well, that took all of my towels. So, I dried as much as I could, then I shoved them in the washer along with several other loads of laundry. I knew I’d have to go to the laundromat to dry it all. A bit after 10, the guy got there, and a bit after 12, I had internet. Then, I dicked around in it a bit, then went off to do my laundry. I had to use the big dryer, which is 40% more expensive. 100 Yen per 6 minutes as opposed to 10. Still, it was that or do 2 loads. I could have used a regular dryer but for the towels. I then wasted a lot of time eating and wasting time. I ate a lot this weekend. In the end, I did a bit more cleaning and played a bit of music. I’d been invited to go to the Don restaurant and to bring my ukulele. I ended up leaving a bit late (7:10ish as opposed to 7) because I was just not feeling like much of anything. Got there, and it was busy, but not with people who wanted to hear me play. Such a waste! The last few times I’d gone and there’d been people, there were comments on how it would have been great if I’d had the thing with me. Such is life, though, I suppose. I ended up leaving before too long to try to get home at a reasonable time. See, tomorrow (Sunday the 6th) was the Regatta.
It was a good thing that I was dragged to the BOE on Friday, because I checked out the papers that Hirayama Sensei had given me and saw that I needed to go to the Kirishima International Regatta. Sounds a lot fancier than it was. So, a bit after 6:30, Sam and I got into his car and drove down. It was cloudy and looked increasingly foul as we got closer, though the views on the way down were amazing. Well, the weather didn’t hold, and it was raining before we ended up on the yachts. About 80 people, maybe 50, I really can’t estimate, grand total. About two or three foreigners as baggage on a boat with an all Japanese crew. I ended up with a Brit, a Korean, and a Japanese bilingual who’d lived in Scotland for a long time. We ended up winning. Also, interestingly enough, it suddenly became ragingly sunny. Then, once we were done, it was raining again. Of course, I got soaked at the start, and burned by the end. Because of course I did. Yeah. Anyway, we won, which was nice. I can now say that I was a winner in a yacht race, for all that’s worth.
Then we had linner. It was a fun barbecue affair with an overly long awards ceremony that was oddly fun. But for the pain of the sunburn being worsened by the hot coals I was facing, I would have had a great time. I met a few interesting people, but Sam was in a hurry to get home, so we went. I dropped by 7-11 to try to get some after burn cream, but they didn’t have any. The lady who worked there felt so bad for me that she sent me over to a pharmacy. The pharmacist was super helpful. There was stuff that really worked, but it was about $90, so I went with the cheaper stuff that seemed to be at least nominally helpful. Perhaps a placebo, but, maybe not. I then ate far too much at 7-11. I went to bed remarkably early, lying on my futon on my back to try to keep the ointment facing the air and not grinding into my bedding. I kept trying to listen to ASMR, but the wi-fi signal isn’t great for streaming in my bedroom sometimes (though it usually works) and Audrey called, interrupting me. Well, I gave up and just slept. I wish that I’d been able to wear my FitBit, because I may have slept for the better part of 10 hours, though I know that I was awake frequently. I awoke this morning to no alarm as my watch was downstairs and my phone’s 6:03 alarm was off. Thankfully I was up at 6:05. I decided not to go for a walk in favor of protecting my skin, and, instead, made sure I had a nice morning. I thought about shaving, but my skin’s reaction to even nominally hot water indicated to me, pretty strongly, that water hot enough to soften my beard would be a bad idea. So, I dallied about in the morning. I’m trying to keep with my new habit of not using the computer in the morning. It went pretty well.
Well, that’s it for now. Feeling kind of down and depressed lately for pretty dumb reasons. I keep thinking about just how honestly old I am. I feel it more and more all the time, and it bothers me. I’m nearly 30, and I just don’t know what to do about it. I know that I’ve written about it before, but I keep going back to what Beth from Little Women said. I just don’t feel like there’s a place for me in this living world of adults. I really don’t. Relationship wise, I don’t have any real desire for marriage any more than I had when I was younger. I’m just terrified that it won’t can’t happen. I kind of want meaningless flings, but I know how much happiness those bring. I feel like I’ve outgrown my childish pig pleasures, but I’m somehow not grown up enough to enjoy, or appreciate, or even to want, the pleasures that allegedly come with adulthood. I just feel trapped. I don’t know what to do or where to go or what to think. I don’t know what I want, and I’m not sure how to go about getting it.
That having been said, I keep reminding myself, multiple times a day, that I’m here, in Japan, and that I’ve only been in town for a month. It’s a rough transition, and I’ll be a lot happier, I assume, once I’m able to really feel a part of anything. I certainly had that when I was in Chengdu. Here? It’s a lot more difficult. It’s largely because of how sparse everything is. Still, once language gets better, I keep telling myself, everything else will improve.
I lament my lack of people to talk to, who understand me, and to whom I can express myself. In reality, though, aside from Tris and Courtney, who did I have like that back in the states anyway? I think maybe I’m mistaking talking with being understood in my weird idealization of back home? That makes it all sound too strong, I suppose. I just feel lonely and want to be understood. And to understand. At the same time, I’m as scared of that as ever.
I think maybe that’s what I miss about being younger? The stakes are lower. There’s a teacher, Matsumoto Sensei. She’s cute, and I like her, but she’s older than I am. I’d just be wasting her time. If I were 19 and she were 25, then we’d be in a very different situation. Even with the 26 year old Ebihara Sensei, she’s already a Christmas cake. There’s pressure. Meanwhile, I don’t really understand young people, and the notion of being with one is more unappealing than ever. Maybe it’s because in Japan, young people are just so . . . young! It’s refreshing, honestly. I love it. I’m doing stuff in classes that American 5th graders would find to be beneath them, but the students I have are 7th-9th graders (by US standards). Even in the states, though, the available girls were, largely, unappealing. I suppose that 16 year old Anna would, in another time and place, have been viable, but she’s more the exception than the rule as nobody who meets her believes that she’s not in college already. Even with Amber, who was 22, a lot of difficulties were caused by age. I can’t go young, and I can’t go old, because I AM old. Ten years after breaking up with Amanda so I could date more and thus figure out what I wanted, I have less idea now than then. More and more, I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have just stuck with her? No idea. The same things I read that make me question my faith in everything beyond me makes me further question my faith in myself. Can I trust what I feel? Can I trust what I perceive? If these things are so easily manipulate-able, can we be sure of anything? Can any of it be real? I don’t know, and I don’t know how to know. All I learn is that I can trust less and less of the experiences that I once held to be sacred. It’s no wonder that death is creeping so forcefully into my mind again. Knowing what I know, let’s suppose that in spite of it, love is possible. That possibility seems to be contingent on me ignoring everything I know, rather than compensating for it. Yet, that seems idiotic and terrible. I simply don’t know what to do. I’m losing my desire to fight and struggle. I need to hit some kind of conclusion, or, at the very least, a breaking point. Maybe I’ll find it here. I can certainly hope.