Scribbler's Cafe

even MORE photobooth fun

Kiomye and Kelsye hit the Umeda arcades with predictable results...

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, July 23, 2006 3 comments

Beautiful death

Look at this gorgeous picture that my friend Diana took! She took this when she was visiting me in New Orleans six years ago. That's me in the picture. I was 21. We thought that the graveyards would be a wonderful place to spend a sweltering afternoon. We were so right. Diana sent me this picture a few months ago, but I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. I just found it again today.

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 17, 2006 2 comments

taking the reigns

Lately, I’ve found my way into the lines of a bohemian poet. He is stealing one of my memories to warm the verse of prose. (Although, I must admit he has onwership of that memory as well.) But it shocked me to see those lines, so when darkness fell, I sat on the balcony with the city lights and the passing trains and cried buckets of cold tears into my tiny cup of lukewarm tea. Old sensations I cannot control, that creep up on me and run their rough finger tips up my spine and into my brain, cause me such unfettered grief.

Please let me forget this thing I want so badly.

Moving on. AFTER JAPAN, WHAT WILL COME?

It is time once more – to sweep and dump and plan and daydream. All my life, I have been naturally skilled in this act – the decisive choosing of the “next” and the dramatic embarkment onto my new path. But this time, for the first time, I don’t even know where to begin. I falter. I can’t seem to find in my weary body a single spark of interest.

Grad school or a job? Teaching or editing? Seattle or New York. South Africa or America? Celibate or coupled? Near family or far from the familiar?

I don’t know what is best for me, but worse, I can’t even feel the pull of my own desire.

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 17, 2006 2 comments

The Queen of Sumo

Two days ago, I became the first woman in the 100+ year history of my school to referee in the sumo tournament. I felt quite a rush when I slipped off my sneakers and stepped my bare feet onto the cool packed dirt of the dojo. Being gioji was great fun. I didn't do the whole procedure exactly right, but none of the teachers do. I did call all of the matches correctly and that's what's important. Here I am in the dojo starting a match between two first years:

The day was horribly hot and humid. No breeze blew through the dojo, so I quickly became covered with sweat and dirt. So pretty. After the tournament, I ran home to towel off and change into something not convered in grime and then hurried back to meet some of the teachers. A small group of us were treated to dinner at a very nice French restaurant. It was the kind of place where each course warranted the waiters to give us a new set of cutlery and china, even though each consisted of only about 1 square inch of decidedly decadent food lost in the center of a plate the size of a hubcap. We all drank wine and laughed and talked about our school and each other's feeble private lives. So civilized. Such a contrast from the yelling, screaming sweaty sumo tournament earlier in the day.

After dinner, We all headed over to a karaoke snack bar. The "snack" part means that it's a hostess bar, which means that there were four lovely and pleasant women refilling our drinks, twisting the stems off our cherries and yelling bravo when we finished our karaoke numbers. I love hostesses. I really do. The PE teacher had been practicing Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" so that he could duet with me. His voice is amazing, mine is just passable, but I love to sing with him. The hostesses made us all dance with each other, very funny stiff backed formal dancing. We laughed the whole time. In my honor, the teachers sang English songs - Bob Dylan and Celine Dion. I have no particular connection to these songs, but they were in English and therefore what they chose to sing for me. Very sweet.

Around midnight we split taxis home. Nice happy chatter in the back seat of the car while being driven through the lit city. None of the teachers I went out with have a very good command of English, but all can speak just a little bit. I was forced to use all my feeble Tarzan Japanese, but was surprised that we could actually maintain decent conversations. I was not isolated and I was not nervous about communicating. There were definitely some jokes that flew right past my comprehension, but otherwise I was able to do just fine. The day was long and exhausting, but highly satisfying.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, July 16, 2006 2 comments

Gettin' down with Black Eyed Peas

I went to the Black Eyed Peas concert last night with my friend from work. It was great, fabulous, tush shakin' fun. These two kawaii girlies were sitting next to us. They had the same miniscule denim skirts and wiggle clap wiggle clap move that they did through the whole show. When I asked for their picture, they hapily agreed, but then took five minutes before they let me snap to add another layer of make-up. So adorable and hilarious.

Surreal moments: When WillIam would call out to the audience for a response and only me and five other people (out of about 10,000) understood his English and would yell out. Also, when Fergie asked everyone to sing along to Guns and Rose's Sweet Child of Mine and me and my friend were the only people who knew the words. Ahhh, Japan.

I love the end of the term. I had a so much fun with Toru last week (who is now in Europe just to see a concert!). I got to go to the baseball game, then yesterday I got to go the BEP show. Tomorrow the sumo tournament starts at my school and then on Friday a group of the old guys I work with are taking me out to a steak dinner. Sweet. Good times. Good times.

posted by Scribbler @ Wednesday, July 12, 2006 2 comments

pop my baseball cherry

Toru came down from Tokyo to chase my loneliness away for a couple days. He brings me such peace. I am so grateful for his friendship. We did many fun things. I took him to the trippy pseudo-catholic-goth restaurant in Umeda and showed him one of my favorite jazz hideouts. It was very enjoyable for me to dress up and play adult for a night. But, the highlight was easily the baseball game.

We went to my FIRST BASEBALL GAME EVER!!! The Yokohama Baystars were playing the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium. Toru was cheering for the Baystars (with about three other people). The Tigers are my local team, so I joined in with the massive hoards in yelling for them. Japanese baseball fans have a reputation around the world for being crazy and over the top. In Japan, it’s the Tigers fans that are thought of as the most extreme. Yep, they were pretty crazy. Everyone had sticks to bang together and knew the special cheers and clapping patterns for each player and special play. My favorite moments were when all ten gazillion people (me included, Toru refused) blew up giant sperm-shaped balloons and then released them at the bottom the seventh to rally the team. Amazing sight. We got to do it again at the end of the game because the Tigers won. There was tons of beer, just like in America, but I couldn’t find hotdogs. There was sticky squid on a stick and that looked pretty good. The baseball game itself was fairly interesting as well. Yet, it was very easy to forget about the game with all the action in the stands.

AND not only did we get to see this great game, we got in for FREE! We got to the stadium late (delayed by dinner in Namba’s Noodle World). When we started to approach the ticket booth, a couple came up to us and offered us their tickets. They didn’t even ask to be paid. We happily took them and went in to figure out where the heck our seats were. We were even more surprised to find that they were AMAZING box seats – second row, on the baseline. No one even sat in front of me so it was like being in the first row. We were feeling pretty lucky that night.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, July 09, 2006 1 comments

eh?

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 03, 2006 1 comments

Dekita!

Look at what Kiomye and I did to our wall! We can't paint our walls because we live in an apartment. But, we found these cool vinyl stickers by a company called DOMESTIC in a shop in Okamoto. They are just sticky enough to stay up, but you can take them off and move them around however you want. They're pricey, but oh so design-a-riffic! I want more. This is the set I want next:

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 03, 2006 0 comments

Recent Media Favorites

New band: Feist. My fabulous friend Christy sent me a burned copy of this via post. I really love getting mail. Even more, I love hearing excellent new music. Maybe this isn't new, I don't really know, but it's new to me. Moody and gorgeous and flowy. She sent other good CDs, but this is the one I've been playing the most.

New Book: Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld. So, it's taking me forever to read this book. The content is enthralling, but it's written with a heavy academic style that does match well with my late-night reading brain. One of the surprising side-effects of reading this book was to learn so much more about my own governement and how exactly we develop "alternative governing bodies" in countries we are trying to guide (or control).

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 03, 2006 0 comments

The gift of loneliness

My footsteps progress on autopilot and lead me back to the train station. A few blocks from the entrance, the bright lights of Umeda’s entertainment district catch my eyes and it dawns on me that I don’t have to go straight home. I still have three more hours of babysitting gifted to me tonight. I turn left and enter the throngs of people swarming the karaoke boxes, hostess bars and plink plunking paccinko parlors.

Everyone is smiling. Everyone is with someone. Everyone is Japanese. Everyone, except me.

I pause with the crowd at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn and take me wherever it is that I am going. I stand on a step and sweep the crowd with my eyes. Men in business suits, red-faced and laughing, handsome young punks with orange-haired lolitas on their arms, musician types gesturing with their hands and carelessly knocking their over-sized cases through the crowd.

I wish that I could speak Japanese. The desire solidifies within me, turns into a deep ache that expands to fill my entire body cavity.

I find myself on Sakurabashi, in Kitashinchi – a tightly packed section of Osaka filled with the highest priced hostess bars in all of Japan. I know that when I walk these streets alone, at this time of night, all around perceive me as a hostess, possibly even a prostitute. (Yes, there is a huge difference between the two. Can you guess what it is?) But, such is the decorum and good manners of Japan that no one will leer or approach me. I am safe as long as I stay on the streets and out of the bars and designated pick-up places.

So, of course, I head to a bar.

Yet, Pocket is no hostess bar, or dark cavernous beer hall. Pocket is tucked away 9 stories up. All the seating is low leather loungers, pushed near plate glass windows that looks out onto the action below, if you so trouble yourself to look. A large shining grand piano fills the center of the room. When no one is tapping its keys, Norah Jones’ sultry ballads drip from the overhead speakers.

There is one other party here tonight, a group of businessmen (I count 12) impeccably turned out in black suits and crisp white shirts. They drink and laugh together, but stay firmly planted in their set of loungers. One even takes a turn at the piano, plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” with a fair bit of flair and a slight jazz trill.

It is here that I pen these pages, sipping a bourbon on the rocks, entirely alone on my side of the room, still made up and beautiful from my tragic meeting with the artist earlier this evening.

I tire of this loneliness, but I also appreciate the new bravery it has birthed in me.

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 03, 2006 0 comments

Unintentional Partial Nudity -or- Cover yourself up, Woman!

The emerald green shirt I am wearing out tonight is held together across my chest by only four tiny pearlescent buttons. The threads that hold them to fabric are already stretched to their maximum load bearing weight. It’s Friday night. Everyone wants to go where I am going, apparently. I push my way onto the train, certain that I will be the last person to fit – yet a good five or six people push on behind me. Even with the air conditioner on high, it is hot and humid on the train. My bare arms are mashed up against those of the other glamour girls heading out tonight and it takes only a moment for a sticky wet film to gloss our touching skin.

My body is tightly compacted by the crowd, my arms pressed against my sides. We ride like sardines for 5.32 long minutes. Bump, jostle, bump, jostle. A grievous side effect develops in response to my shrunken frame. Those stretch loops relax in the bump and sway, expand and lift over my shiny pearlescent buttons. I don’t notice, of curse, because there is no great movement to draw my attention and I’m pressed so hard into the back of the person before me that his solid form holds me together nicely.

Then the ride comes to an end. The doors whoosh open the people pour out. That sticky hot air is blown away by a gorgeous gust of wind and space. Yet, it quickly dawns on me that my relief was too swift and too generous. My shirt has flown open in the wind, not a single button hanging on to preserve my modesty.

Oh, crap.

Luckily, I wore my lovely new blue satin bra, admittedly inappropriate for public wear, but if I have to be caught in my underwear, this is my best option. Luckily, my writing habit has trained my fingers to be nimble and quick. Luckily, the large group of my homebound students was one car back. I had just enough time to manipulate my buttons and get decent before they caught up with me.

When they saw me, they nodded their heads and mumbled solemn greetings of “sensei.” I nodded back with all the reserved grace I could manage, obasans gawking all around me.

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, July 03, 2006 2 comments