October 9th through 20th in 2015

Friday the ninth, I remember nothing specific happening of any interest or value. I went to the Doctor, and they decided to keep me on meds for another week. Oh, right, then, I had tea ceremony. I had to pay for this one. I’m an official student now, and I have to come half an hour early to practices to try to pick up on everything that I need to learn. I spent a lot of time washing linen wash rags. And just . . . looking at stuff and learning names. I still need to memorize these. After that, I went home, probably internetted for a while, and went to bed.
Saturday night I had planned to go to a party at Klever’s, but I was rather surprised when he decided to pick me up and to take me there early himself. So, I ended up in Tomarino early in the afternoon. The whole area is just amazingly beautiful. Well, we got on a tractor and went all around to the neighbors to try and invite all of them to a barbecue. I like Klever, but he makes me somewhat uncomfortable, and it’s obvious that he’s making everybody else uncomfortable as well. Showing up, unannounced, to somebody’s house to invite them to an impromptu barbecue is not the Japanese way. He’s half Japanese half Uruguayan. He very much shows the fact that he was raised in South America. Well, at any rate, he is well meaning. The barbecue was fun, but he got me drinking. I didn’t want to, but he’s rather pushy. I also smoked a few cigarettes, something I don’t normally do, but had been curious about. You know, I still don’t like them. Don’t like them one bit. Don’t like them at all. The smoke felt nice, the pull felt nice, but it’s too hot, and the taste isn’t good, and it just hurts and burns. Don’t know why people like them. Man I miss vaping. Well, anyway, we played guitar, and I was a definitely a ways into my drink and I sang well, but betraying too much emotional. It rather ruined the effect as Sachiko, his mother in law and my Eikaiwa student, seemed concerned. I’ve always kept up my “teacher Oz” face. I explained that I’ve got more than one. I regret that now. I think that, to an American audience, who spoke fluent English and who shared similar cultural values, what I said was rather reasonable. It wasn’t until I thought about what I had said to Sachiko that I realized how bad it sounded.
Klever decided that we should start a band. This will come more into play in the morning.
Sam had been supposed to come with us, but he hadn’t. So, we were in something of a pinch. See, Klever had picked me up assuming Sam would be by later. But Klever doesn’t have his own car, he’d borrowed one (his wife totaled theirs on a deer). So, I had to get up early and get a ride with Sachiko. On the way, she kind of lectured me, kind of warned me. She said that what Klever and I wanted to do was too fast, too much, too soon, and certainly all of these things doubly so because we were in the deep country. I had to agree with her. I also felt a bit . . . duplicitous? Hypocritical? Dishonest? Insincere? I don’t know. All of those, none of those, and a lot more. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Lately, I haven’t enjoyed drinking, and I’m not enjoying the mornings after. I think I’m going to make it a point of drinking less. I mostly do it either as an excuse for Karaoke, as a way to sleep, or because it’s supposed to be fun. It’s weird.
Sunday was spent not feeling well. I dragged myself to the sports day for Satsuma Town for a bit at the end, but it was mostly over. I only managed a few minutes. Then I went home and continued to do nothing. I believe I was playing a lot of Civ III that day.
I seem to remember Monday being something of a waste. We had the day off of school. I did get a good deal of cleaning done, though. I sorted all of my garbage into the appropriate piles. As the night progressed, I felt gradually worse. Well, how terrible I felt made more sense soon.
I went to bed that night with a sore throat. I assumed it was due to having smoked two days before and having belted a lot of music (though my throat had been fine then). As the night progressed, my throat got worse and worse. By the time I woke up in the morning, my uvula had enlarged and kept sticking to my swollen throat. It was red and massive and painful all throughout that general area. I woke up at 5:30, as was the plan, and realized that, rather than walking, maybe I’d best try to treat my symptoms. So, I went to 7-11, but I had no money. And the 7-11 ATM wouldn’t recognize my Japanese bank card, so I had to use my American BOE card, and pull out $100, which will be more like $130 after fees. Which pisses me the fuck off. But I needed cough drops. I had cough drops and tea and throat spray and Vicks from about 6 until 8, but I never really improved much. Still, I dragged myself to school, when the teachers, hearing my voice, told me to go to a doctor right away. I figured that, as I didn’t have a fever, I
would be fine to teach. At least by Japanese standards. They disagreed. Well, I went to Kyoko’s office, and she wasn’t there, but her husband (I believe) was. Apparently I have a viral throat infection of the pharynx and some kind of gut bacteria imbalance. So, I had to miss school that day. I asked for a note (three copies, one for Miyachuu, one for the BOE, and one for me), and apparently the doctor suggested two days off because Hirayama Sensei came by that afternoon to check on me and told me that I wasn’t to teach tomorrow (Wednesday).
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent sleeping, eating, periodically going to 7-11 for food and cough drops, and watching The Tick. For whatever reason, computer games weren’t doing it for me.
Sam, thankfully, contacted me to let me know that I had a paperwork deadline that my school hadn’t told me about (joy of joys). Also, I had to finish the unit 1 test THAT NIGHT for the Japanese course we are in online. So . . . yeah. A month of work that night. Thankfully it was review. Still, it meant that I didn’t out for food. More 7-11. Then, last night, joy of joys, my computer randomly decided to spaz out on me. It had been acting strangely for a while, but I had attributed that to running Cookie Clicker for too long. Well, finally, I decided that I’d restart it. It made nine updates, and when it turned back on, it was slower and buggier than ever and now none of my web browsers will turn on. Yeah. Just what I freaking need.
So, it’s Thursday morning. I still feel sick. I have to go to the doctor after class. My computer is not working. I feel awful. I’ve gained weight during this. I have to cancel tea ceremony (which I’m actually paying for now) and . . . yeah. Not a great couple of days. (Thursday October 15, 2015)
Friday the 16th I went to school and dealt with it. I felt terrible, but that was to be expected. I somehow got through it. I don’t remember what I did Friday night. Probably not very much. I didn’t go to the dotor on Friday as had become my custom because I’d gone on Thursday. The Doctor decided not to up my sleeping meds until next Friday (the 23rd) because we couldn’t be sure the effects of them when I was sleeping. Saturday I felt nominally human, and I decided to somewhat make the most of it. Waking up, I played a bit of computer, then got really bored with that and headed off to Kagoshima to pick up my ukulele. Finally called the guy, and it was ready. So, I drove to Sendai and got on the local train to Kagoshima. It was about US$8, which wasn’t terrible. But it took around an hour and I was getting nervous. Getting used to living in the countryside, I’m forgetting that places stay open . . . ever. Yeah. Cities, man. How do they work? Well, I Googled where to go from the station. Turns out it was easy. You hop on the tram, and then it takes you to within five minutes of the store. Picked up the uke and paid a bit under US$100 for it. I’m looking at buying a new one for US$400 or so, but I can’t decide. In the meantime, it was worth it to fix this one. Walking back from that store to the big music store in town, I heard some beautiful music coming from the distance. Investigating, I found a big party at a temple. There were local bands playing, and various hipsterish people hawking their home made wares (I naturally loved it). But it turns out the whole thing was a big community outreach program for the local Buddhist temple. They wanted more young people, so they held an awesome party to attract them. Pretty good plan, if you ask me. Well, I got to try on priest’s vestments, and I got my picture taken with prayer beads by the altar. Pretty freaking spiffy if you ask me. Then I went to Jujiya Cross, the big music store in town. They had nothing that interested me, really, so, I went back to the tram, went back to the train station, and decided that I’d best head back to Satsuma. I was feeling exhausted, and, frankly, I just didn’t feel like driving home in pitch blackness. This time, to save time, I took the shinkansen back, which was around US$20, but which got me there in . . . twenty-ish minutes? It was also super comfy. The view was nicer, too, but not by much. Neither train had a lot of good scenery. That was disappointing. Well, back to Sendai and my car, then back to Satsuma. Then a lot of uke playing and bed. I’m realizing more and more that I’m going to have to learn to play this thing like the damned hippies who play them. It seems that books for guitar and ukulele and what not don’t follow the simple, logical, progression that woodwind instrument books, or even piano books, use. Instead of focusing on various skills, putting in exercises for these skills, and then gradually increasing difficulty, going back to review and reinforce, and then reapply the skills in new contexts wherein you learn new skills, uke and guitar books seem to introduce a bunch of stuff and assume you’ll pick it up eventually. That’s why Mike, my old guitar teacher in the states, physically wrote me out every exercise by hand. Well, I’m finding that if I want to get better at ukulele, I need to just watch Youtube tutorials. I have a book of pretty songs, but the learning curve between the pieces is astonishing. There’s no idea of level appropriateness that I can find in guitar/uke books. Well, anyway, I’ve said my piece on that.
Sunday I had a lazy day, but in a good way. I was feeling weak still, but I was really starting to feel healthy. The weather was just lovely. I did some basic cleaning around the apartment (which had gotten to be disgusting) and tried to keep windows open. Now, unfortunately, my two biggest windows are the door walls on the front of my house. I don’t like to keep them open when the place is a mess, for obvious reasons. Also, for less obvious reasons. Ever since that one giant spider got in, I’ve really noticed that the screen doors are in serious need of fitting into their . . . fittings? The point is, they’re loose, and apparently gigantic freaking spiders can just waltz on through them. Well, anyway, I aired the place out and cleaned somewhat. A lot more uke. Then, bed.
Monday I decided against getting up early or a walk as I’m still feeling the aftereffects of getting sick. Throat isn’t great yet, nose is still a bit runny, a bit of a cough, and just a general feeling of weakness. It was fine, though, because I ended up getting 12K in anyway. How, you ask? Well, you see, I reply, Monday was my day to teach at Eshin. I went to the board of education a bit early, because, you see, I have schedules going out for weeks regarding all of the various classes I’m going to be teaching at all of the various schools. But not for Eshin on the 19th. For whatever reason. Well, it’s a good thing I was there early because, as it turns out, I had five courses of elementary there from, allegedly, 9 something until 3:10. I say allegedly because the schedule I got was not the schedule that actually existed. Classes were in a different order, they started and ended at different times, and, in one case, I ended up teaching a completely different lesson. It was fine, though, because Eshin has a great policy. The gaijin sits in the office and waits for students to come down and guide him to where he goes next. Also, I can pull lesson plans and activities out of my ass any day. So, there’s that. Hooray for China.
The kids were fun, for the most part. Some classes were better than others. There are a few kids that I felt that the teachers should have smacked, and there were a few teachers who I felt should have been a bit more engaged, but, really, it was enjoyable. Well, the great part was recess. At first I was excited because I thought we were going to play dodgeball. Well, we did. Japanese dodgeball. It’s . . . different. It’s weird. As far as I can tell, there are two lines. The guy with the ball throws a ball at you, and you have to be the one to catch it. If you do, you get to throw the ball. If nobody catches it, I think he throws again? And if you’re hit, you have to join him on his side of the line and do nothing. I believe that you’re freed when somebody catches the ball? Needless to say, I’m going to maintain that the American version is better as it involves a lot more doing stuff and a lot less standing around while other people do stuff. But, this is the country that loves baseball, so maybe that’s just their thing? Individual contests between opponents where the other players mostly watch seems to tap into that ancient samurai dueling spirit. Suddenly it all makes sense that when the mulleted, tank top wearing, high top sporting, hero is attacked by ninjas in a parking structure, they surround him and attack one at a time while the others watch. If you think about it, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, the ninjas were all American (well, other than two) and they attacked en masse, for the most part. Yep. They knew what they were doing.
Anyway, I was eventually kidnapped by some adorable tiny children (as tends to happen), and I was petted like a dog for a while. Everybody wanted to touch my hair and my skin (my wrists just fascinate people here). I was used as a jungle gym and impressed a gaggle of twenty pound children by lifting two at a time, one on each arm. My eyes fascinated the lot of them, but that’s even happened in the U.S.. Hooray for that, anyway. Well, one girl in particular claimed me and led me around by the hand all around the grounds to show me various things. One thing I’d never seen before was the animal enclosure. I’d never noticed it before (of course, I’ve only been there once). It seems that most Japanese schools keep animals in an outside enclosure for kids to take care of. At Eshin, I saw two white rabbits and a parakeet. There may have been more. I was sad when she had to go, but, such is life. Ichi-go ichi-e. Alternately, it is also true that with one strawberry there is one meeting.
Well, that finished and I had to teach one more class, after that it was time for Eikaiwa. Unfortunately, I was running late to Eikaiwa because it starts at 3 and my last class finished at ten to three (it was supposed to end at 3:10 so I was confused). I was in such a hurry to get to class that I didn’t notice the reminder I’d set for myself saying that it was at the culture center instead of the usual place. I’d also sent Sam ahead to the usual place because I realized that I’d be late. So . . . yeah. I ended up there the same time as he did and we started class late. We had a new student, and it was pretty fun. Then, Monday night, well Monday afternoon, really, I went home and mostly cleaned. I got my whole downstairs more or less cleaned (didn’t do bathroom or the . . . toilet room? I think the term W.C. applies here more than anything). The exception is my couch which has a lot of stuff to be put upstairs today when I clean the upstairs. Again, still feeling a bit weak so I didn’t go on my walk this morning and I won’t tonight. Instead, I’m just going to clean. It’s just as well. After all of my walking yesterday, I am actually pretty sore today.
As a side note, I just killed a (very) small spider with my bare hands. Getting used to massive spiders everywhere is gradually desensitizing me to them. I’m less scared of the giant huntsmen than I was, historically, of spiders half their size. Also, yesterday I was kancho’d for the first time. Thankfully the kid wasn’t very good at it. It just kind of felt like my butt getting poked.
Today I have class with Ebihara Sensei. She tends to use me the least, so we’ll see how that goes. I also haven’t seen her yet, so I’m a bit confused. Odds are I’ll end up checking notebooks for the other teachers again. I don’t much mind.
Mum says that Chris, in a drunken stupor, mentioned that he may marry his current girlfriend. This would be awesome. She probably wants kids. I’d be off the hook. Again, I realize that I go back and forth about family stuff all the time, but Chris having a son would make me feel a lot better about not having any kids of my own. Family name and all that. Of dad’s brothers, none had any sons who reproduced. And dad’s half-sister can’t have kids. Also, mom would stop bothering me about it, which would be nice.
Before getting sick, I was having amazing conversations with Courtney that pretty much ended when I didn’t have time for them anymore. Being sick takes up a lot of a man’s damned time. I had also been talking a bit with Tris, which was nice. I talked to Jordan on Sunday night, and she was happy/sad I called. Apparently she’d spent the week before dedicating herself to getting over me. Man I picked a bad time to call. I wanted to talk to her, because it’s fun to talk to her sometimes, but I want her to get over me. I just have no interest in romance with her again. I regret that I did it in the first place. I actually feel a bit gross and guilty about the whole thing. I was feeling unappealing, vulnerable, and rejected, and I made two mistakes in that time. Speaking of which, I should probably talk to Audrey.
I’ve sent out three letters, and I’m yet to get a reply. We’ll see if that alters this week. I actually contacted Lauren Andree to see if she’d gotten my letter, and she had, and she said that telling me she had would ruin a surprise, but, frankly, I was worried about the mail working or not. I’d never sent anything to that address. Now I’m worried that the address that I gave people for me doesn’t work. More likely nobody’s sent one.
I was in a good place before the party at Klever’s. But I think indulging in songs like that kind of wrecked the Tuxedo Mirage mindset. I’m trying to remind myself that, no, it doesn’t have to. I don’t have to narrowly follow tropes. I like doing that. I want to do that. It’s easy, and it’s convenient, and it’s comforting, but it’s also slowly driving me crazy. I have to remember that I can be anything and everything, that that I don’t need to define myself by anything as silly as conforming to random expectations I built for myself based on weird associations. That having been said, I do think that I’ve got to alter my behavior. With Klever, it’s easy to get dragged into stuff, and a few times lately, I’ve been reminded that it’s easier to tell the truth all of the time if you never do anything worth lying about. I need to remember that.
Interestingly enough, and this is possibly indicative of something bigger happening inside of me that I can’t quite figure out, my attitudes towards sex are randomly shifting all of the place. Prior to going to Klever’s, I actually was thinking about how wonderful it would be to enjoy a slow moving, very gradual romance with someone. Not the whirlwind seduction I generally enjoy. I was also thinking how interesting it would be to just slowly cherish a person, then to repeat the process physically. No roughness. Just being gentle. I’ve only ever been gentle with one romance. Even then, not all the time, but still. Gentle. It was Rachael. The one romance that stayed in my heart the longest. Maybe it’s a sign of Japan that now, for the first time, at this moment, as I write this, I can look back on that time with a happy nostalgia. It is just under exactly seven years ago that it ended, and, finally, I can smile on the happy times she and I had. Wow. Getting over her wasn’t really a breakthrough. I mean, it was, but it didn’t feel like one. This? It’s better. It’s better than saying, “You’re insignificant.” It’s saying, “You were. You always will be, but not the you that’s you.” I can appreciate things. Anyway, I was really thinking that. Well, then Klever’s party, and drinking and singing and all that, and I started to think that maybe, meh, yeah, just finally give in and have sex with somebody. Just get it over with. Why not. And I’ve been gradually getting out of that mindset again, which is nice. I think it’s easier to be negative when, after having been emotionally vulnerable, you get sick. The other thing that’s interesting is how distasteful porn has become. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t do it like it used to. I just don’t have a lot of interest. There’s less enjoyment, there isn’t even generally a feeling of compulsion. I look and look to try to find something that really does it for me, but nothing does. It hasn’t in ages. Maybe I’ve burned out or overloaded after twelve years of consumption, but it’s not like I want something more or different or harder. I just feel kind of . . . done? It just seems silly, even the stuff that actually has aesthetic merit. I don’t understand. Still, these are some big changes.
I wonder about them. I really do. I found that I was less interested in porn the last time I was in Japan, too. I found that I was also a lot more keen on the idea of a happy, slow paced, monogamous relationship. I’m also finding that countryside peace that I can remember. There’s something healing in the tiny interactions of the day. Chatting with the owners of the stationary shop. Small talk with the cashier at Plasse who is amused by my love of Mikan. English practice with the cashier at Plasse who loved to use a new phrase on me every time I use her line. High fiving elementary students on the street. Just, random happy things like that. I like it. I don’t really even feel much like karaoke. I wonder if I’m giving something up, sometimes. There is something powerful and deep in that darkness that I could bring out at times, and in places, like at Klever’s party. But I wonder if one reason that I often feel upset is that I feel compelled to dig down into that. Maybe the best thing to do is to just let it sublimate into sublimity. Just, focus on happy things and let the rest disappear. Not to get rid of it, but I wonder if, rather than dealing with my problems, a lot of that darkness dwelling simply reinforced them. It seems to make sense based on what I know of psychology. Still, I don’t want to pass any serious judgement. There’s time for me to be who and what I need to be. Still, I don’t want to pass any serious judgement. There’s time for me to be who and what I need to be. Whoever and whatever that is.

Last updated October 19, 2015