Music is my Sanctuary

Music is my retreat, my sanctuary, my energizer, my revitalizer, my reviver, my relaxer. And Saturday night, it was my paycheque. At Steve and Tom's club in Tottori City, I got a chance to play DJ for a couple of hours, beginning the night, and then being sandwiched between a hip hop and a trance set. My sandwich set went fairly well despite the nearly complete and utter lack of bodies on the dance floor. God, can't wait to do it again...

Howler Monkeys

I have never actually encountered a howler monkey in real life, but I have a feeling I have heard what can be best described as a fairly accurate imitation of its call. A girl in one of my 6th grade classes can be heard on numerous occasions screeching around the school grounds. During class even, should she get a little too excited, she can be found trying to break glass using no tools other than her voice. And I think she believes I am joking when I start to cower and press my hands up against my ears.

I Got Bit by a Horse!

That is the email I sent to a friend, and it led her to worrying that I was in so much pain I was no longer capable of forming sentences with proper grammar. In a frenzy of concern, she wrote back asking if I was alright, or was I in the hospital? Was I in pain?

All I had intended to do was make her laugh.

You see, the night before I had gone out with my favourite waiter and two of his friends. (After getting a message utterly out of the blue last week that went something along the lines of, "I love your smile," I decided to take advantage and see if I couldn't convince him that we should hang out a little.) His friends both work out at the local stables where many of the racehorses are kept, and after having begged them for ages to bring him out to look around, they finally relented when they found out I was going to be coming along. After getting only mildly lost on the mountain, my chauffeur eventually got us to the stables, where his friends brought us in and gave us a bit of a tour around, as well as letting us into the stables where we were able to both look at, pet, and take photos with the horses.

Not so much into the photos, I did however enjoy rubbing the horses noses or letting them lick my hand. The last one we got close to was enjoying my hand a great deal -- so much so I started to get concerned and draw back a little bit. It was then one of the guys said, "oh, don't worry. He's not biting or using his teeth or anything." I think the horse understood, and in a moment of perverse pleasure chomped down on one of my fingers right then. And the boy standing closest to me heard it happen, while I refuted the previous blithe statement with, "Well, he is now" and yanked my finger out from the clenched teeth of a 500 kg animal. Great concern about the amount of pain I must be in, I shrugged it off, saying, "actually it doesn't hurt that much." And it didn't. It didn't actually hurt until about 10 minutes later when we were driving around the grounds before leaving, and it continued to hurt all the way down the mountain as I massaged and rubbed it.

It stopped hurting by the time we got to the yakuniku restaurant, but by then, to make up for my lack of pain, it began raining even more heavily than it had been. We sat down around a smoky shichirin and grilled up various bits of animals (livers, intestines, endocrine glands, as well as the regular muscle), chasing it down with heaping bowls of rice and chunks of raw cabbage. As the only non-smoker in the group, and therefore the only one who really wouldn't appreciate the smoke, it all gathered around me as I feebly attempted to blow it away. Although, according to my cute waiter, there is a Japanese saying that suggests the smoke only gathers around the most attractive person in the bunch, at which I laughed loudly and he and his friends all started trying to blow the smoke into their own faces. The drunken chef caught me slipping my escort for the evening nearly three quarters of my rice (as there was no way I was going to be able to eat that much plain rice on my own) and inquired as to whether I was his wife. It seemed to be the day for those kinds of questions, as not only was I asked by the chef, I was asked numerous times at school be several 1st year students, and later by my escorts friends whether or not I had a boyfriend.

After a delicious and filling dinner, it was my turn to take over behind the wheel of the car and cause panic in others, as I now knew where we were going. That, and it was my car. We carried on to DD's for a variety of activities.

It started with a 4 person game of ping-pong, on a round table divided into 4 sections. And had it remained merely a game of ping pong, I have no doubt I would have lost miserably as I am really, really not good at ping pong. My waiter, however, decided to make it more of a challenge by deciding that every time you hit the ball, you had to name a country -- and it could not be a country previously said by anyone at the table. We would go to minus ten points, and the loser would have to buy everyone else a soda. Now this, this I can do. It started off well, with Nobita rapidly getting to minus four points. On a stumble and a miss I wound up at minus one, with Daichi at minus three and my waiter at minus two. With a nod to each other, we decided we would do our level best to make sure it ended up with Nobita, but Daichi rapidly started losing ground in the game, and started taking longer and longer to return the ball. It got to the point where the ball was barely bouncing, and at one point, he even stood bouncing it on his own paddle until he could come up with a country's name. The breaks before services grew longer and longer as my cohorts for the night found it more and more difficult to come up with country names, while I was bouncing on my toes, pleading with them to just hit the ball. When it came down to it, Daichi ended up losing on a made up country, buying us all a soda to relax before we carried on to darts.

Darts. I am not good at darts either. Throwing a ball and throwing a dart are two very different things for me, and in our game of Count-Up, I managed to only lose by a lot in the first game, and then come from way behind to surprise the heck out of everyone - including myself - and get a triple-20 and a bulls-eye in my last turn. Lucky me ended up winning the game, which led to a third and final attempt by those who wished to regain some of their pride.

We should have stopped the night after the darts. But we didn't. We decided to try the bowling as well. Now, I am not usually utterly horrendous at bowling, but this was not my night. In fact, it was no one's night, as not a one of us broke 100 in the first game (in fact, we were hanging around 60 and 70, with a 95 taking the game). The only strike of the night was in my last frame, where I shocked both myself and the boys by actually managing to throw the ball straight, and by following it up with a spare. We started the second game after that, against all our better judgement, and ended up quitting halfway through. Oddly enough, we did not ask for a print-out of our scores, as spectacular as they were. If we were being generous, we could blame the aborted second game on the fact that Taichi and Nobita had to get up at 4:30 the next morning for work, and by this point it was already 1am, but that would be a lie. A blatant lie intended to preserve self-respect.

I drove my waiter home, and got a handshake for my troubles (I remember the first time I went out with Dave, and I left him with a handshake at the end of the night; I made up for it on the second date, but I now understand how disappointed he probably was by that), as well as loads of enthusiastic waves and excited good nights, bending down again and again to wave good night through the side window, as well as waving while crossing the street, when he may have been wiser to be making sure there was no traffic coming.

All in all, an extremely fun night, despite getting bit by a horse.

The Honey

Having gone to Do!Do!Do! for dinner and some relaxation last night after a full day of work and a Japanese lesson, I was pleasantly surprised when who should come walking in but Tim and his brother-in-law! Moving over to their table from my comfortable chair at the bar, we ventured into discussions about diminishing and disintegrating brain power, Monbusho and the Japanese school system and its inherently flawed system of teaching English, music, insects, nuclear destruction, the presence of souls in various living things, New Jersey versus New York, and the various puzzle books Tim had just purchased. All this eventually devolved into a game of table honey hockey, wherein Tim sent the honey flying past me a couple times, to land at the foot of the table across from us. The two girls at the table didn't even turn their heads as I walked over to retrieve it from their area, nor did they even blink the second time, and again, no reaction at all when we sent Tim's brother-in-law the third time (it had gone off his side of the table that time, figured it was his turn). Osamu, the burly bartender, did notice however, and came over to scold us. Not for the honey hockey, but for our use of the tableware. Relinquishing our teacups and saucers to replace with oshibori, we carried on briefly until we realized it was just too easy to stop the honey by merely throwing the oshibori on top of it. This then gave way to discovering just how strong Tim's eye was. It all started with his holding an onion ring up to his eye and me poking him in the glasses. He then moved on to the honey and popped that in, holding it up with his brow and cheek. The next challenge was the small, empty milk container that had come with his tea. Having acchieved a modicum of success with that, he moved onto the lid from his teapot, and then proceeded to challenge himself by trying to do both eyes at once. All the while, T and I were carrying on laughing, Tim was being Tim, and not a single person around us turned or glanced in our direction to see what the hell we were doing.

And so, what have we learned from all of this?

Tim's right "eye" is stronger than his left.

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me, When I'm 55?

Junpei, the local Hi! High? master celebrated his 55th birthday on Monday night, and in a delayed celebration, Cian planned a dinner for him last night. Gathering in Spatula for delicious eats and treats, an assortment of Hi! High? party-goers and performers awaited the arrival of our willing party hoster. Junpei arrived in style, wearing sunglasses and an expression of surprise as he entered the restaurant and saw us all gathered around the table. His concern eased when he realized that, no, it wasn't a date for Cian and he, and so there was no longer any need for the disguise. He quickly doffed his hat and shades, taking a seat near the centre of the table to be feted and cheered by all.

In celebration of Junpei's fifty-fifth, we all ate too much and drank not enough. And conversation ran the gamut from Junpei's very suspicious demeanor, sidling into Cian's car as it were when he was picked up, to Junpei's first experience of Coca-Cola as a young boy (He was out as a young boy of 5 or so -- when the US military was occupying the country -- and recalls being called over by a group of soldiers who handed him a bottle of Coke and tried to get him to drink it. The colour and consistency were rather off-putting apparently, but he tried it anyways. Much to his surprise, it wasn't near as disgusting as the colour indicated it could be, and he really liked it.), giant cockroaches that bite, and anal sex gone horribly wrong and the secret belief that most men want to do it despite out and out public denials. To each his own, eh?

Inexplicably and Inevitably True

Why is it nearly always true that when you decide that you are done with something, ready to give up and blow it off, ignore it forever, that things always ALWAYS turn around right at that moment? When you are looking for a job, you have a hard time finding one, and then when you do, suddenly you get offers on others. When you are looking for a car, same thing happens, you purchase one and then suddenly, you find something better. When you have decided to erase someone from your phone book, they suddenly contact you multiple times in one day -- entirely unbidden. What the hell? Not that I mind so much on the last one, but still, what the hell?

Ain't too Proud to Beg, Sweet Darlin'

But I guess it all depends on what exactly I might be begging for. For my life, for my job, for my friends, for my family -- in a heartbeat. For good good lovin', for fabulous conversation, for a dance floor, for intellectually stimulating conversation -- why wouldn't I? For beautifully written and enthralling novels, for a fast car that handles like it's on rails (which will undoubtedly lead to me begging off of a speeding ticket or many), for satisfaction, for a good laugh that leaves you with your stomach muscles aching -- I would never even hesitate.

And if you are looking back at the first line, saying, "really? You would beg for your job?" the truth is I would and I sort of did today. I have an excellent job that I am good at (and want to be better at) and there exists the possibility that I will be able to keep it for one more year, and as such, I decided to ask for it. It is not just the job that I am begging for, but the life it allows me to lead -- I do beleive firmly that, as much as possible, I want to work to live, rather than vice versa. Having had one of those jobs that works the other way, I know a good thing when I see it and would be loathe to let it slip through my fingers without even making a try for it.

So now, the waiting. We'll see how it goes. I have a little bit of hope -- not a lot, since there are so many things in the mix that I have no control over -- as I know there are several people who have some say in the matter and are pushing for it to happen. Who knows, but at least I have done my part.

Fecund Curb

Curb, two times written on one page. Who'd have thought it would ever come to pass. It is one of several random english phrases written on the shirt of the woman across from me. The other two phrases being, "Never failing ultimate humankind," and "passion our passion." The latter two I can quasi-grasp the meaning of, but the "fecund curb" has me at a loss. Just how fecund does a curb have to be? And to what purpose? Is it secretly mutliplying at night whilst everyone is sleeping, populating the sidewalk-less streets of J-land with curbs in a meagre attempt to give pedestrians an illusory feeling of safety from the oncoming traffic? Who knows what lurks in the hearts of curbs...

I used to claim that the Peace Arch border crossing was on wheels and while everyone was sleeping, it was moving an inch or so south every night, on our way to claiming such vital economic powerhouses as Birch Bay and Bellingham as our own...

I am rather enthralled with the whole idea of various ridiculous covert operations taking place under the cover of nightfall.

Peace, Pink, and Quiet

Friday, my sayonaras said to my last departing parent, I resumed my secret life as a rock star. After making a few purchases of outrageous sunglasses and scarves, painting my nails a harlot's red, polishing up my ass kicking black leather lace-up boots, donning the fuzzy leopard print hat, painting the scarlet lips, as well as the aforementioned scarf and sunglasses, I headed out on the town to have my way with the world, or at least kick it to the curbside should it decide to stand against me, and knock a few people on their asses on the way. An excellent night out was had despite the lack of rock star antics, but that was made up for with the fawning adoration I received from some of my fans (for lack of a better word).

Saturday and Sunday were spent out in the pink, and Saturday under the yellow haze that happened to fly in from China for the day. During the stroll about town, amidst many encounters with neighbours and students, I also managed to run into some friends who were rather far afield compared to their usual haunts. Under the full on blooming glory of the sakura and wandering amidst the crazy 一式飾 sculptures of Hoshoji, laughs were had by the dozen as I attempted to convince a variety of townsfolks that no, Pete is not my boyfriend. Those efforts all fell to naught when a student saw me chastely kiss Pete goodbye -- the rumours I shall have to counter tomorrow... I am thinking that perhaps I shall just run with it and boldly claim he is, as well as Michael, the rather Elvis-looking Frenchman who was also out that day with his girlfriend, as well as a few others maybe... Cian? Ted? Who knows where the trail of broken hearts shall end. I blame it on the boots.

Saturday night, I thoroughly enjoyed the reclaimed quiet of my apartment. Putting on some mellow music (Jane Siberry, Paul Ubana Jones, Norah Jones), I opened the windows to spill the music into the garden where, illuminated by Christmas lights and a dozen or so candles, I sketched the garden, read some poetry and relaxed with the gin in my own private 花見 celebration. Ferlinghetti can be fabulous.