April 27-28 Party, School, Thoughts in 2017

Last night, I dreamed that I made my way down to Florida, and I kept lingering around Amanda and her place on a dirt bike, which I kept riding to various degrees of fancifulness. At one point, going through a side walk trail that looked like the forest moon of Endor, I hurt my back coming down a few times and decided to calm things down a bit. The dream escalated. Somehow my cousin Matthew was there, but things kept progressing. Eventually she and I were in some kind of proxy argument with our various backers, some wanting me to leave and some wanting me to stay. The whole place turned into a dream landscape which I now remember from previous dreams (I don’t know if other people have those). The affair turned into something resembling an end-of-the-world scenario. But I kept sticking to her and kept sticking with here. There was eventually some interaction, though it may have been indirect, or it could have been that the person was both her and not her, or possibly a different her (it’s a dream, after all). The details were more vivid at the time, of course, and I’ve lost a lot of nuance. I knew that if I wrote it when I first woke up with leg pain (at around midnight or 1 AM) that I’d never get back to sleep, and so, a dream is lost forever. Until I remember odd aspects of it when it’s referenced by another dream. That landscape was like a kind of fictional Royal Oak that I’ve been to a few times in my dreams. I even seem to remember recommending bars/restaurants there in third dreams involving the place. Which is odd as I don’t remember remembering any of this. Maybe Courtney and Tristan are right and I just tend to have vivid dreams.
I’m interested in the idea of state recall. The fact that I imagined a livid 17 year old Courtney getting annoyed at me talking about that (and/or cognitive dissonance: this was my Gatsby era of getting her to renounce her past/present and be my Daisy for real this time) kind of indicates that I may be on to something. It also fits in with my big new mental theory.
All of my dreams, my thoughts, my memories, etc., in the last week or so are straying far, FAR, away from where they normally end up. In an odd way, a lot of stuff that happened more than a decade ago feels more real than stuff which is recent, but, stuff even farther back is coming to me with more force. Whether it was the dream of Lee’s death, or my need to insert PG graphic details of her attempts to seduce me, or the sudden fixation on Joel, or the flurry of Amanda dreams (I wish that I could contact her), or the fact that when I’m thinking about Kat and Courtney, my perception of them is markedly different from even two weeks ago: everything seems to indicate that my manner of thinking is very VERY different. That I’m picking up where I left off, partly anyway, in a mental sense. This is a very limited amount of information, and I’m extrapolating and guessing quite a bit, but I think that I may be on to something. My brain, quite possibly, is activating old circuits, long dormant, as I worked myself into my mental, and neurological, rut. It’s still an idea, but it’s an interesting one.
It’s a refreshing, and lovely, notion that getting back “to my old self” is not an temporal impossibility. It’s, rather, a neurological adjustment. This is odd because the goal, while identical, becomes suddenly possible by changing the means. Of course, I don’t want to go back to me at twenty. Or younger. And, even if I did, I couldn’t. Each night, the day dies, and the rising sun is comprised of the stars, ripped out one by one, to constitute a new one. There’s no moving back. I have missed the cherries this year, and I will never see them. But, for the new sun, the new stars, the new blossoms, the new river, there is a chance. It’s to new people, to new experiences, to new memories that I have to turn my attention. Even old people turned new.
What is a person but a trajectory? You cannot enter the same river. Can you enter the same woman? I doubt it. And what sadness if a person remains unchanging. Unless I’m wrong about that, and I may be. I don’t really know.

I wrote all of that this morning, before heading to work. It’s not nearly nine, and I’ve got the rest of a rather dull day to reflect on, as well as last night.

Yesterday, after work, I had very little time before I was ready to head out to the going away party for Higashi. I grabbed my seiza stool and headed out the door at quarter past, chugging a soda water from 7-11 on the way to fill my stomach up a bit. When I arrived, it took forever before we were ready to go. I nearly greeted Higashi, whom I saw walking out of the building, but, as he was alone, I thought that maybe I wasn’t supposed to talk to him. So I didn’t. This may have been the case, regardless, as he didn’t see me, I didn’t mess up. I took the elevator to the third level where I waited with the rest of the BOE before we went down. Kazumi was there when I went outside and we chatted for a bit. The bus then drove for some time, we picked up Higashi, and then we made our way to the Abirukan. The place where I electrified myself, to some effect back in September, you may recal.
The reception hall was pretty big, but, in Japanese fashion, the seats were randomized, so I sat near nobody whom I knew. That is to say, nobody whose name I knew and with whom I dealt regularly. Of course in a very technical sense I know everybody in that everybody knows me and we’ve been introduced. I just can’t remember the names of people I deal with regularly, let alone with people I met jet lagged out of my mind a year and a half ago.
At any rate, the mayor gave a huge speech, during which time I dreamed vague movie ideas. Then the other departing official, a woman who I vaguely recognized, gave her speech, then Higashi. Of course there were tears flowing like shochu. He was remarkably composed, though. He showed just enough emotion to make it real, but kept enough composure to remind everybody of why HE was the leader. It was beautiful. If sincere, it was perfection. If insincere, it was perfection.
Dinner was, as expected, about a dozen small courses, of which I nibbled at several. I didn’t drink, which was a bit sad, but it was a Thursday. Also empty calories. Well, after several hours of attempting to go back and forth between seiza sitting and Indian Style (I’m not sure that you’re supposed to say that anymore in the US), my back was shot. Utterly shot. So, I went downstairs and sat for a while, but, after about twenty minutes or so, it was clear that I wasn’t going to get any better. So, I had the Abirukan call a taxi. I made my way back upstairs to make my apologies (Kumei and Sam had already been downstairs to look for me). He was drunk, the first I’d ever seen it, and I wanted to join him. His face was adorable red, and adorably red. He truly is the epitome of what I imagine the perfect grandfather would look like. He didn’t seem to be entirely sure of my leaving, but that was fine. I made my way downstairs and waited for the cab, then enjoyed a $20 drive home. I then crawled into bed for the rough night wherein I dreamed the above.
I woke up with enough time for a short bath, and I went to the BOE. I spoke with Higashi a bit, which was decidedly pleasant, and of course I saw the usual gang. Kumei informed me that I had to pay my lunch bill that day, and unsure of what time I’d finish teaching, I took it right away. Having paid the bill, I went directly to Riusui.
It was my first time back there, and it’s my favorite school to teach. Making it better: The only students whom I disliked were the 6th graders who were now gone! My exciting fourth graders were going to inspire the decent (but timid) 5th graders (now 5th and 6th). It worked! It was a great day of teaching.
The new first graders were, obviously, adorable. There’s one troublesome boy, but, that’s really to be expected for the first month of first grade. He’ll come around. I knew some of the first graders (by which, of course, I mean that they know me), and I was impressed with how much English they’d learned in kindergarten. I was also impressed with how much the 2nd graders remembered! I adore these kids so much.
The third/fourth class was good, and would have been the best but for Nene, my adorable favorite student. She and her fourth grade senpai make up what is now the chief highlights of my existence. However, Nene looked sad and distracted a lot of class, nearly on the verge of tears. There was a boy next to her who kept giving her a hard time. I took him aside after and had a talk with him. I tried to be gentle but firm, explaining that sometimes girls are sensitive and that he has to be a bit careful. I asked him if he noticed how sad she looked, and he hadn’t. Which, I mean, third grade boy. Of course he didn’t. So, I told him to be careful, and he said he would be. I hope that he is. Anyway, other than that the class was amazing! I had so much fun.
The fifth/sixth grade class was also lovely. My least favorite student was still there (I thought that he was a 6th grader), but devoid of his terrible friends, the inherent goodness of everybody else made the class work. We got a decent amount done. I think it also helps that the former 5/6th and 2nd grade teachers switched classes (same with the 1st grade and 3/4th grade teachers) which meant that bad student had very new surroundings and didn’t pull the same dumb shit.
Things finished up, and I was in a decent chunk of pain. I’d pushed myself too hard. It was hard not to! I had so much fun, but my goodness did I feel it! By the time I made it back to the BOE, I was obviously struggling. Kumei, kindly, sent me home early to get some rest. I adore that man. Earlier that morning, he’d confirmed (with Eitoku) that I couldn’t make the party tonight. I still believe that this was the right decision. I was just not in any position to attempt to sit on a Japanese floor any more than I already had.
I meant to go to Kitchen Inoue for dinner, but it was closed. Then Wai-Wai had too long of a wait. I also couldn’t find anything in Plasse, and the random little place just didn’t sound very appealing. So, I went to 7-11. I think that my dinner was within reasonable bounds, but we’ll see. Gyoza and a little pasta thing. Also a chicken breast and a bit of cucumber. The goal is to stay around 1,500 calories, and so I think that, including breakfast and lunch, I’m somewhere between 1,400 and 1,700. Then, it was back here. I’m starting to feel better, but, dreading bed, I still decided to take it easy. I’ll try to get some cleaning in tomorrow rather than tonight.
Yesterday was mum’s birthday. I got her a bouquet of flowers with a teddy bear. I feel bad that I miss her birthdays. I’m thinking far, FAR too much about the deaths of loved ones lately. Still, I hope that she has a very happy birthday.

I thought about a movie, as I mentioned, and I thought about it in terms of the imaginary rivalry that I like to pretend exists between Higashi and the mayor. The mayor is very much what you’d expect a small town Japanese mayor to be. He’s very pleasant and avuncular with a bit of a used car salesman vibe. I’m sure that he must be a good man, but it’s hard for anybody to look very impressive next to the calm dignity that is Higashi. I suspect that he comes from an old family because the only other person whom I have met who is that perfect is Matsumoto. Well, I thought about maybe making a movie about the decline of a small town. I imagined scenes. A Higashi figure giving speeches at the closing of schools, and the clothing that he’s wearing changes and the makeup changes so that you can see he’s delivering the same speech across time, watching the town die. Then with slight variations added in to show the attempts to save things. I thought about a scene where he, smiling, tells his wife that they can fix the population decline, and then a cut to where she’s crying and he has some business. I imagined the fight to save the train line. I imagined some kind of confrontation with the not-quite-the-mayor figure. The eventually downfall of the Higashi figure, and the town, as the vice mayor, with Dorothy Catalonia/Leonard Brezhnev eyebrows, takes over the BOE. I imagined, also, maybe adding a parallel figure, reminiscent of my tea teacher. Somebody who has lost family, one by one, and is alone. I thought about using the schools and the family as a parallel to being in the dying down. It struck me as an interesting idea, and probably makes more sense in my head than it does as dream like ramblings here.

I find myself . . . lonely isn’t really the right word. I find myself longing for a kind of companionship which I don’t think exists. After the last entry, I excitedly messaged Courtney, imagining a brilliant conversation as though we were both sixteen and the world was new and exciting. I forgot that in a world where other people have lives, jobs, families, and responsibilities, those things tend to come first. It makes sense that they prioritize reality over what I’ve got. But . . . the young people look at me as a bizarre one, and, even if they didn’t, I doubt that they’d understand. I think that the only people who could are the people who were there, back then, in the old days. That leaves . . . two. But, you guys are teal people with real lives. And for this, I’m thankful to the diary. I’m desperately thankful for the diary.
I’m not just lonely, and if what I’m talking about sounds like loneliness, it’s not. It’s more . . . I’ve found something, and I want to share it. And I want, in sharing it, to go deeper into whatever this is. But then I want to find it, or something like it, in someone else. And I want to dig there. And I want to mine our hearts and alloy the findings. It’s just not a thing that I can see happening, and of course I can live without it, but my goodness, I WANT it! I want it as is hard to describe, not because I feel some empty loss, but because I can see the potential for such massive gain, and I want that! I’ve described love, before, as not so much the fear of a negative, but the desire for the positive that comes when two people make each other better. Rather than saying, “Good enough,” I thought that real love was saying, “Best together.” Well, what I have, then, is, in a way, some copy of love. I know that I would be a better person, at least I think so, if I had some way to share this, and to grow in some way with a person to talk to about all of this. Of course, it’s hard to get the chance. I’ve been so frustrated with Facebook lately that I barely use it, but I’ve left it on for a while today, hoping against hope that I’d see some person I could try to connect to. If Lindsey weren’t engaged, I’d look there. I thought about Caitlin, or even the old sparkly eyed girl Elise. Hell, anybody. I just feel as thought I’m overflowing, near the point of bursting, at times with things that I want to express and that I want to share. Not just with a passive audience, but with another person. I want to watch as self discovery spreads, and two people become more themselves by being with each other. Somehow, that diary, writing here, writing like this, is giving me this feeling.
That, I suppose, is why I’m writing all of this. That, I suppose, is why I’m writing more of personal merit these days than I have in a very long time. From Amanda to Amber, I always had somebody to talk to about any of my bizarre introspection, and, in those days, I stopped writing in my diary. Between Amber and Japan, I don’t quite know. I didn’t have anyone to share things with, and I had forgotten how to write. I’d forgotten a lot of important things. Somehow, in an odd way, I don’t feel like I’m going back, I feel like I’m picking up where I left off. Like I’m going into a house which has long since been boarded up, but which is still MINE. The couch is faded, there are spiders everywhere, a leaky roof ruined some carpet, but everything is, in an odd way, still there. It’s going to take work. Good heavens it’ll take work. I’ve got to rip out all of the boards that I nailed the place shut with. I’m probably going to damage a lot in that process, and I’ll have to patch that up. There’s cleaning to be done, and plenty of it. There are some vermin to root out, and it’s going to be frightening and unpleasant, but man will it be easier to rest here when I’m done. What’s more, things have to change. It’s not going to be the same house. Even if the couch stays, it’s got to be reupholstered. Water damage never really goes away. Some things have to be replaced. But that’s life. It’s not going to be what it was, but I decide if it’s going to be any better. Still, I’d love somebody to help me with this, even if all they do is keep me company while I tear this place apart and put it back together. I’ll be so energized, and so full of ideas, I’ll want to help them to do the same. And we can decorate and renovate and expand. That’s what I want. That’s what I really and desperately want, in a very naive and childish sort of way. The nostalgia of an ineffable homecoming back to oneself.
I want so much to gaze into a face while I tear things to pieces. I want to look at someone, in jeans and cheap cotton, sweating as the light rushes in through the cracks in the planking. I want to hear a voice as I pound each nail into place. I want to throw everything to the side and embrace another person on the dusty floor, nails and splinters be damned. And I want to laugh as we pull ourselves up, realizing that nails and splinters are probably bigger concerns that meeting other pressing needs.
I’ve been sucking the marrow from music lately, and I’ve been on a binge of it. The last time that I can remember this, or something like it, was when I discovered that Peter Gabriel album which Courtney disliked, or, at least, was unimpressed with. That was different, though. That was bringing me down. Into a kind of sweet dark down-ness, but down, nevertheless. This is different. This is bring me, if not up, certainly at least sideways. I’m somewhere else, and it’s some place that certainly seems to be better somehow or other, and that’s critical. I just wish that I were sharing it with somebody. Knowing that there is not likely a spring flower to be found in this season.

So, I’m alone, and, in some ways, more alone than ever because I now have something which I am on the verge of expressing, but lack a means, outside of this diary, to express it. But, I don’t feel lonely. Though I’m more isolated than I’ve been, and though this is all, in a way, further isolating, I still feel as though I’m less on my own than I’ve been in a very long time. Somehow or other, simply finding that there is something still inside of me is sufficient to give me a bit of strength and decency. I found myself saying, “You’re better than that,” today, and not meaning it as a criticism. It was a reminder, and it was encouragement. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve said something like that to myself and meant it as anything other than sarcastic criticism. I am better than . . . whatever dumb thing I was thinking about doing. Well, this entry has gone on longer than expected, it’s nearly ten, and I should get some sleep.
Goodnight.