April 28th to May 2nd Testing My Limits in 2017

Friday night was over shortly after the entry. I slept a lot and had nothing of interesting to report. Evidently I had another of those dreams where I dream in music. With full scores. It was really quite lovely. I’ve got to learn to remember what I hear. I also kind of suspect that dreaming in symphonies probably indicates something about my brain or my mental state, but I’m not quite sure what that is.
Saturday morning, the 29th, I played Pathfinder. It was . . . pretty okay. Courtney says that my standards are too high. This explains many of the catastrophes in my life. However, lowering my standards explains the other ones. Either way, it wasn’t as bad as expected, and that’s very important. We’ve got decent character concepts, but it still feels like three distinct people playing games with Tris than a team of players playing with a DM. After that, in the afternoon, I went to a music lesson with Yuko. It was terrifying to see just how hard I sucked. I’d noticed, lately, that my vocal technique had been declining, but I was embarrassingly bad. Even Yuko agreed with me when I pointed it out (normally she’s a bit gentle, which I dislike). Then, I went home. And I cannot remember doing anything of interest before going to bed. I must have done something or other, but, presumably, it was either not worth sharing, or not shareable.
Sunday I got up and played some Civ. I did this until it was time to head for lunch. I actually did this until an hour after I’d intended on leaving for lunch. It was something of a problem. Next, I went to Rara for lunch, which was delicious. Of course. I had hoped that the spice would open up my throat, and it did to an extent, but not enough. Maybe I’ve strained my voice somehow? But I don’t know how I’d have pulled that off with a mere week of teaching under my belt. Anyway, I then headed up to rehearsal with Music Aira, the group I’ll be performing with on the 21st. I had misread the schedule and ended up getting there two hours early. This worked out, because I had intended to get there two hours early, but between Civ, a long meal, and an even longer drive, it took me much longer to get there than I’d expected.
Upon arriving, I set about helping people with their English pronunciation. I helped our accountant with the super fast intro to “On My Own”, then I helped an old man with, “Some Enchanted Evening,” and then his younger sister with, “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Finally, I helped our Phantom with “Music of the Night,” which stung less than it seemed like it would. After all, he didn’t beat me, he just called dibs first.
Then, we began rehearsal. I helped everybody to go over our spliced version of Masquerade. We shortened and simplified it. There are two people in our group who speak English, and I’m one of them. Everybody likes to sing in Italian because the pronunciation is easy, so, getting people to sing in English was very tricky. I think that my lesson went well. Hooray for that. Then, we did Masquerade with a dance, and during this time, my back gave up. I ended up leaving a bit early. Everybody was very understanding, though. Which surprised me as I merely have bone/nerve/tissue damage and not something more serious. Like a fever.
The drive home was surprisingly easy. It took as much time to get from the rehearsal space to my house as it had taken to get to the space from Rara. Which surprised me. I went to bed shortly after getting home.
At 3:13 in the morning, I got a phone call. It took me a while to wake up. Then it took me a moment to realize what was going on. Then, in the roughly three to four seconds spent between realizing that my phone was ringing at 3:13 AM and being able to fumble the damned thing on, I believe that every possible horror scenario for each and every one of my loved ones flashed before my eyes. I picked up, and it was American Airlines. Calling back in response to my complaint e-mail. At 3:13 in the morning. The girl apologized and said that she had hoped to find me in Michigan. Despite my ticket being to Japan. And the phone number she used being a Japanese number. I was not amused, but tried to be polite (she had to greet me twice because I wasn’t thinking in English yet). So, after waiting a week and a half for a call, I get one, and it’s at 3:13 AM. Way to go AA. I didn’t sleep well after that.
I had an interesting dream last night. Well, two that I can remember, and I’m certain that there are more than I don’t. Somehow or other I was an MP in Parliament. That was really cool, I was loving it. It felt more natural than my dreams of randomly being in Congress. What that says about me I hesitate to think. I also had some dream where the cast of Xena (Well, Xena, Gabrielle, and Bruce Campbell) had to reunite for some reason. I’m not sure if it was the actors, the characters, or both. They’d gotten older, but were still obviously themselves. Gabrielle’s middle aged ass wearing a Greek dental-floss thong is etched into my brain. Why oh why will that thought be forever etched into my brain . . .
Today (Monday the 1st) has been pretty uneventful. I had 3 classes today with Tateishi Sensei, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th periods, 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3. My back is a bit rough from yesterday, so I sat for most of it. Walking is relatively okay on me, but it’s the turning and weaving and twisting that’s required in the over packed Japanese classrooms that cause me issues. There’s no room to maneuver, and you just end up playing twister with yourself, the desks, the other teacher, and about forty students. I’d, frankly, like to ask to go home early, but that’s probably not a great idea. Though I did get to do so on Friday, which was really nice. My nerves really are getting to me (literal, physical, nerves; not a metaphor).
I’m struggling to not use the internet today. It’s only 3:17, I don’t think that I’ve got much more to write in here, and I am so tired and out-of-focus that I suspect that studying will be rough. I don’t feel the high that I was feeling before. Part of it may be overeating this weekend. However, I don’t have the low that I had well before that. It’s not like the “fog” that I’ve so often talked about. But it’s similar in description. It’s almost as though my eyes and the front of my head are wearing some kind of cheap mask, and I can’t quite get it off, but everything underneath is fine. There’s no dejection. I feel tired and weak, but I think that it’s because I am physically both of these things rather than due to any kind of emotional or metaphorical angle to all of this. (I keep clicking Chrome at the bottom of my screen out of habit before realizing that 1. I’m not supposed to use it and 2. I don’t have internet at the moment).

After typing that, I became so uncomfortable that I bounced around from chair to chair in the building trying to find a way to get/stay comfortable. It didn’t work very well. However, I did wait out the clock and not ask to go home early. Upon finishing my non-work, I went to the BOE and dropped off the free pass from Aira Music to the concert to Higashi. Or, rather, I gave it to Higashi’s right hand man as Higashi was busy (of course he was, it’s his last week). However, that charge fulfilled (Tsuji will be happy), I then headed out to Kazumi’s. On Sunday night, I discovered a place selling Japanese made Mead, which was a bit frustrating as I wanted Satsuma to get in on that action first. However, I was also happy because I could demonstrate the stuff to Kazumi, so, I bought her a bottle. That being late Sunday night (I found the stuff Sunday afternoon on my way to Satsuma Sendai, but bought it on the way back so that it wouldn’t bake in my car) Monday afternoon was my first chance to get it to her. She was very thankful. She also gave me omiyage from a trip to Nagasaki. She also gave me Sam’s share. I ate both . . . weird citrus fruit . . . things. I also ate 2 pieces (about 1/5th) of the Castella that she gave me. It’s sort of a Japanese twist on an old Portuguese pastry. Then, I played Civ for so long that I was very late for dinner. After dinner, I picked up my laundry, then went home, killed time, and went to sleep with the aid of Benedryl, after taking out six bags of garbage (I missed one, I realized this morning). I can now use Benedryl to knock me out as I’m on the RLS medication. Prior to RLS meds, Benedryl gave me crazy leg spasms. Now? Doin’ fine.

This morning, Tuesday the 2nd, I woke up with my alarm at 6:45. I need to try to get to sleep earlier as I really do prefer having the extra time to take it easy in the mornings. Heaven help me, I think that I may vaguely understand morning people.

Last night, I had two dreams of note, though I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. One dream involved Rachael. A sort of a rekindling of a romance. She was as I remembered her from years ago, not like the picture that I saw recently. She is always nineteen to me. Things were restarting and reconnecting and were going quite well. It felt good, however, it felt less like a /Rachael/ dream and more like a “dream girl” kind of dream. Which was odd, but it was still pleasant. None of the heartbreak which would come after the /Rachael/ dreams. I also had a dream involving Shayla. We went through weird dream permutations of various hangouts that we’ve done. I think that things also may have gone Anna Karenina for a bit (she was Kitty and I was Vronsky), but more in the sense of possibly being Russians in a beautiful forest. There was another dreamscape, based on my backyard, which I recognized from previous dreams.

There was more that I’d hoped to type, but seeing as this addendum is on May 15th, I should probably put the rest in a new entry.