February 2nd and 3rd in 2016

Well, I got through the day. I, rather boldly, left work two whole minutes early so that I’d have time to rush into my house, change clothes, and go on my walk/job. I made it in quite good time (for me), then did the stretches after. I decided against weights. The pain got worse as the day wore on. Oddly. Anyway, I got most of my 10K steps done at school, and finished pretty well at the end of the day after the walk/jog. I had time to grab a decent dinner and then to run to tea ceremony. It went really, really well. I was expecting to be miserable. It was the best time I’d ever had at that class with that teacher. It’s good to be otemae (tea maker) for once. I don’t have the experience to do it for real in omotesenke class. However, it looks like this is urasenke seated tea, which is what I did in Hikone. Yay for experience. I got the good tea ceremony feeling again. I don’t get that often. It’s amazing when I do. It was partly feeling better, partly relaxing, partly change with me, and partly not having to sit seiza. I need more practice with that. Also, is there an English word for seiza? I don’t know of one. Sitting on your knees with your heels and ankles under your butt? Just doesn’t sound as elegant.
Well, afterwards, I had two people, both BOE workers, express interest in my pronunciation system. They will, of course, never actually take me up on it. Sam skipped out. He said that his ankle hurt. I’m sure it did because he injured it. However, I suspect he was rather happy for the excuse not to go. He’s never been that into tea, and he doesn’t like being volunteered for things. Even less than I do.
Well, went home and took a bath even though it was late. Everything just hurt so much. I found that Family Mart has rose bath salts. New favorite extravagance. Rose scent in Japan is a lot better than rose scent in the US. I think it’s a chicken and egg situation. Maybe we didn’t develop good rose synthetics because nobody wanted them, but maybe nobody wanted them because the synthetics sucked? No idea. At any rate, I felt slightly better and smelled of roses, and that’s not a bad combination in my opinion.
I attempted to play guitar, but my chest hurt too much to do much strumming and I was so exhausted that my fingers were useless. So, I nestled on my couch to Love Live, the genki and upbeat version of Sound! Euphonium, the wonderful series that I just finished. However, sleep would not come. It finally came at, according to FitBit, 3:27 AM. Of course, it was time to wake up at 7. I want to write about how meaningful the shows are to me. I want to write about tea ceremony. I want to write about a lot of things, but right now, I’m mostly focusing on staying alive. I just feel awful. And, of course, on a day when I’ve had no sleep, I’m teaching at Yamasaki, my favorite school of all. It is a tragedy of the highest order.
One thing that is worrying me these days is a PM I got on Facebook. There’s an annoying feminist who posts really outrageous things all the time. By which I mean factually untrue or completely outlandish and hyperbolic claims at least half a dozen times a day. I honestly do not understand her point of view. She believes things that are factually, and provably, wrong. I’ll grant that “The Patriarchy” is a concept that can’t be disproven (like a Flying Spaghetti Monster) in spite of the illogical basis for its alleged existence, but there are demonstrably provable things that she spouts constantly. The wage gap, false assault statistics, wild and baseless accusations against all men . . . If she replaced men with anybody else, she’d probably be charged with hate speech. I’m always civil in my rebuttals, and she said on a wall debate that she appreciates debate and that it’s the best way to figure out ideas. Until she got crushed in a debate. At any rate, she posted a gigantic thing written by a male feminist about how MRAs are all evil and how literally everything that men suffer is the result of misogyny. Here’s a lovely excerpt: “Men, can you even think of a single goddam way you have ever been mocked that wasn’t related to something that a misogynist society sees as feminizing?” I, for one, have certainly been called a lot of insults that had nothing to do with sex, or presumed sex. A very dear friend of mine once called me a toad. I’m not familiar with that being particularly associated with women. I’ve also been called a shameless playboy. Something not generally associated with women. At any rate, I wrote a big reply to it at the end. I got no response. I really, REALLY, wanted a response, though, because I literally cannot understand how any thinking individual can hold these beliefs. I want to understand this way of thinking. Well, anyway, I finally got a response from her that she’d respond in a bit, but she was at the police office filing a harassment report. She didn’t say against whom. I’m a bit worried. Although I stayed civil and have messages demonstrating that she invited debate, and despite the fact that I’ve gone out of my way to post nice things, encouragement, and agreement on her factually accurate posts, I am worried that I’m being complained about. A recent court case in Canada saw a man nearly lose everything (and lost quite a bit) from getting into a twitter argument with somebody. No threats, no anything. Just disagreed. If there’s a civil complaint against me, then I’d lose everything. I don’t like the thought of that. Not one bit. So, that’s worrisome.
I feel like writing again, which is nice. I don’t do it. I just don’t seem to be able to make myself sit down and write, but I want to. That in and of itself is a good sign. I’m getting story ideas and I’m wanting to tell stories. Hooray.
I got up this morning, on time, and zombied my way through the morning routine, made it to Miyachu, and found out I wasn’t on the schedule until tomorrow. So I rushed to the BOE and got here in time to not be late. Was devastated to learn that I’d be going to Yamasaki. Oh well. Shikata ga nai. Upon arrival, Hirayama Sensei helped me to find a bunch of stuff so that I can buy a kimono. I have one, but it’s not great. They want me to wear a kimono for the cultural festival that I’ll be serving tea at. So, I figure, why not buy one? Or . . . several if I like this one. The set will run me a bit over US$200. But it’ll be new, and it’s a color I like. It’s not formal, but, for a formal kimono, I really need to just hit up resale shops. After I’ve lost weight. However, generally you don’t wear formal kimono for the activities I’d wear one to.
I’m not going to accomplish much of anything today. I have decided that my focus needs to be sleeping. I’m going to get sick if I don’t sleep, and so that’s priority one.
I think that one reason why I’m having trouble sleeping is my exercise schedule and how much harder I’ve been pushing myself. Everything hurts. Quite a bit. I don’t understand why I’m sore in different upper body areas today than I was yesterday, or, rather, why the places where I’m sore increased. I think that, maybe, for the moment, I’d best focus almost exclusively on doing the upper body stuff as often as I can, which, for a while, may be once a week. I think that my pecs are so weak that anything I do to try to do is going to push them too hard. And you need your arms to do just about any bodyweight exercise that isn’t leg stuff, which I can’t do. It’s a frustrating setback, but I have to drastically cut my expectations for the speed at which I can start building muscle. Hopefully a long bath tonight will help. I wish there were a place I could get a massage. There probably is in Sendai or Izumi, but I just can’t bring myself to drive there. It’s just too far and I’m too likely to fall asleep behind the wheel. That’s one thing I miss about China: the ability to get a massage whenever I wanted one. Seeing as my legs are sore, I wouldn’t even mind the fact that legs are all they seem to be good at. There’s actually a store in town that says it has massages, but, it also says it has manicures and haircuts, and everything. But it appears to have been locked in a state of suspended animation. I’ve never seen it open. I’ve never seen anyone in it. But I can see in the window. The workstations are all ready. The stuff is out. It’s ready to open tomorrow morning for your 8 o’clock appointment. It just doesn’t. And it won’t.
Well, this has been a long entry about nothing. Time to ganbatte my way through another day.