un*snap* judgement
Kiomye and I are taking the train to Osaka. It's already 6pm and we're both tired out from our days at work and school, but we don't care. We want to get O-U-T.
The man standing on the platform behind us reeks of alcohol. The smell oozes from his rumpled clothes, from his hot breath on my ear, from his very pores. Kiomye steps forward to peer down the empty tracks.
"Abunai," he says. It's dangerous. I pull her back behind the yellow line and thank him for his concern.
Our train comes and we pile on. I know with a sickly certainty that he will sit next to us. I am right. I put an arm around Kiomye, pull her into me, then open an English book on my lap.
The man is mumbling at me. I can understand his words, but can't put them together to form sentences. So, I nod and turn the pages of my book. He thrusts a small wrapped bouquet of pink and red flowers at Kiomye. Her eyes are huge saucers of happiness.
"Arigatou," I say. Thanks. I look at him again. He carries two shopping bags. One holds another bouquet. All white. Exotics, giant, barely contained by the bag. The other bag is full of novels, stacked and packed tight. I burn with the shame of my judgment. I turn to face him properly, close my book.
"Hontoni arigatou." Really thanks a lot.
He rambles along in slurred Japanese and I catch that he is going to see a woman and then something about she either loves him a lot, or not at all. I can't figure out which it is, only that whatever direction her affections take it is surely to the extreme.
His stop is before ours. Juso. I thank him again for the flowers, apologize for not understanding Japanese better.
"It's OK," he says. "I drank too much anyway." Shockingly perfect English. Almost no accent at all.
He bows and I bow. He stumbles off the train. His bag of books knocks against his knees and he crashes into a wall. He regains himself and descends the platform stairs as smoothly as if he were riding an escalator. My train bumps forward. Kiomye sits beside me, her entire face buried in the blossoms.
 | Currently reading :
Buddha, Volume 8: Jetavana (Buddha)
By Osamu Tezuka
Release date: By 01 December, 2005 |
Naked dinner
Yesterday, I dined in the nude. I ate my dinner in the spa café, completely naked save for a bright orange towel wrapped around my brow to keep my sweat from dripping into my microwaved chicken nuggets. A few other women ate with me, all with feet dangling in the warm water river that ran beneath our chairs, all with bright orange towel atop their crowns and breasts hanging free. Chicken nuggets and chopsticks. Naked bottoms flat against wooden swivel chairs. I ate my dinner with a bemused smile.
Later, I took another lap around the bath circuit. 10 minutes under the waterfall in the Atlantis room, a dip in the wine bath, a dip in the mint bath. I spent a few minutes in the rooftop Grecian bath to ponder the stars above Osaka, and far longer than necessary in the jetted massage tubs. Then finally, I rubbed myself all over with a rough salt scrub, scooped by the handful from a giant roman urn, and took a sit in the dry sauna.
I passed over all the cold water treatments completely. I've been swimming in Glacier lakes. (Remember that day… Christy, Dan and the old crew?!) I felt no need to recreate the painful experience in a spa, regardless of the sparkling temptation of the golden tub.
A year has passed since I last fell in love. One. Year. At work, I retreated to the back room to weep. But then my work was done and I rushed to the city spa to melt my body and fuse my heart cracks in all that steamy unrelenting heat. I walked home in the darkness, sauntering and singing. My joy restored.
 | Currently reading :
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
By Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Release date: By 25 October, 2005 |
Time to wake up
At
the moment, Kiomye and I are dining at the florist's café.
There is running water, opera music played at a perfect level, and the overwhelming scent of flowers from the floral arrangement class taking place behind the paper screen. I love this place. I've had a crush on the waiter forever. He takes Kio by her hand and leads her around the shop. She always leaves with a pink rose or two tucked into her pockets.
These have been quiet months for me. I feel as though I've withdrawn into hiding and reprise. I am looking to rest and heal. My heart has been so smashed these past two years that I just wanted to stop and be still for awhile. I haven't even been able to write my own words as much as
I am too closed off for that kind of thinking and vulnerability.
My style of loving men has changed as well. I ponder commitment, but worry about yoking my raging ambitions to a calm and quiet man.
But then, raging ambitions don't seem to be much of a concern for me as of late.
This is what I do. I teach my classes with love and attention, but no great devotion or inspiration. I straighten my hair and pull on tall boots and go to the parties of all my marvelous friends. Kiomye and I spend afternoons in cafes or concrete bound animal sanctuaries. I read many good books. I am in bed by nine. I give very little thought to either my past or my future. I haven't even opened the novel files on my computer for three months.
For that I feel shame – and the horrible dread of eternal incompletion.
I have vague ideas about what I will do when I return to America (if I return), but none create sparks in me. I don't think I am lonely much, or even very lost. For a while, I think I am just less.
But ennui can not hold me for my lifetime. I have spent too much time in these doldrums. It's time to get out. Time to wake up.
 | Currently reading :
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
By Charles Bukowski
Release date: By June, 1983 |
Be patient (unlike me)
Life in Japan is suddenly jam-packed. The term has started with it's whirlwind of classes and events and little dramas. Upon exposure to my students (or, dirty little carriers, as I'm referring to them now), I came down with a wicked cold that I am still fighting. I was invited to the hyper-glam wedding of two internation super-models, which was surreal enough in itself. But attending while suffering a fever of 102 turned the whole thing into a real fear and loathing kind of experience. The bride draped me in her diamond chains and spun me around the room and I felt as though all of Osaka was twirling with us, and didn't bother to stop even after we sat down for fois gras and champagne sherbert.
But, no more diamonds for me. I'm back in the reality of gradebooks, wrinkled homework papers and cold cups of coffee. Now this is glam.
The longest lunch
Lunch at Megumi's parents house in the country took about five hours. We sat in their shaded carport, around hot little grills covered in juice dripping meats and vegetables.
Yakiniku. My favorite way to eat in Japan. As soon as the meat stops showing red, or as soon as the vegetables threaten to burn, you pluck them off the grill with your chopsticks, dip them in your bowl of sweet seaseme sauce and pop it in your mouth. Megumi's father also presented us with giant grapes the size of golf balls, which we peeled and ate like plums.
We ate so much. As soon as the food on the grills was getting low and I'd think we'd eaten all that we could, Megumi's mother would come outside with more platters of raw meat and chopped vegetables and cover the grills again. Our kids gave up on stuffing themselves and instead spent the rest of the afternoon using the garden hose to turn the dirt drive into a mud pen. The water rushed to the street and filled the deep gutters, which Kio and Masaki deemed their "pool" and jumped right in.
We sat in the shade eating and drinking tea and sipping beers and watching the kids run circles around us.
Eventually, we roused ourselves for a short walk to the kiwi vines to pluck some fruit, but returned quickly to the shady carport. By then the kids had discovered a new use for the rubber boots we gave them to keep their feet dry. They would fill them to the brim with hose water, then slide their feet and legs into the cold water. They chased each other around in those water-filled boots - squish squish squish!
Megumi's English is still at a very beginner level, and her parents don't speak any at all. Kiomye had no problem, but I had to strain my brain to use Japanese to communicate. I managed fairly well, but there were definitely moments when I had no clue what we were talking about.
Late in the afternoon, the flow of food finally stopped. We dried off our kids, took a couple group pictures, then stuffed ourselves into Megumi's little car. We drove back in the papercuts between the mountains listening to the kids sing nursery rhymes in their native tongue. Dreamy and beautiful.
Under the Japanese sun
Kiomye and I were treated to a trip to the country yesterday by my friend Megumi. Megumi was in the English class I used to teach at the local community center and has been wonderful about keeping in touch and acting as host to her country. She drove us (along with her two kids Masaki and Miki) out to Tanba to pick grapes and kiwis on her parent's land.
The day was very hot, but much cooler once we ducked under the vines and walked deep into the vineyard. The grapes were wrapped in white bags while still on the vines to keep the bugs and birds from eating them. Pre-packaged! We selected some bunches and held our kids up so they could cut the stems with rusted scissors. We laid out gray tarps on the ground and sat down right in the vineyard and ate grapes until we could burst. (tabe-hodai!)
Megumi's daughter, Miki, squealed in horror when she saw that Kiomye and I were popping the grapes into our mouths and eating them whole. Megumi explained that Japanese people NEVER eat grape skins. "
Why?" I asked and Megumi got that look I get when someone asks me something about my language that I have never noticed or thought about before, but used on a regular basis.
Why do words that are spelled exactly the same sound different?What is the difference between capitol and capital?Why can't I say the "blue big house" instead of "big blue house"?uhhhh...... blink blink blink
Finally Megumi said, "
Because we are Japanese." and nodded her head to show her pleasure with her logic and the resoluteness of her answer. Kiomye and I stopped eating the skins.
Grape flavored kisses
a haiku:
sunbeams sliced through vineslight upon my pale skin likegrape flavored kisses
Sex in Milwaukee
(Well, Waukesha actually, a little bit West.)
This is my lovely friend Jenny whom I visited during my visit back home. She will be rightly horrified to see her picture under the title I gave this post. I had a great time visiting her, partially because she introduced me to four new best friends: Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte.
Yes, I am now a believer. I had never see this show before, but Jenny and I staged a major "Sex in the City" marathon and now I'm an addict. We spent almost an entire day in our pajamas, splayed out on comforters thrown on the floor, drinking a pitcher's worth of cosmopolitans and watching the first two seasons. This show is brilliant. And yes, Jenny is SO Charlotte, despite her weak arguments to the contrary. And yes, I am SO Carrie, except for when she's whiny and I find her annoying. Now that I'm back in Japan, I have to find a video store that carries the DVDs so that I can get my fix.
Also in the exotic city in Milwaukee, I met up with the famed blogger Brettanicus for some walking and talking and memory making. Delightful, but so brief.
Sisters
OK, here begins the slow trickle of pictures from my vacation back home. I was gone a long time and took a lot of snaps, so the processing will take me awhile. These are from the day I visited my sister and niece. We took their
meccha genki dog "Roxy" on a little hike to the beach. Puget Sound in gorgeous in the summer - sparkling sapphire outlined by bleached pebble beaches. A wonderful place to spend the day.
My niece Evynne is frightfully adorable. We pretend that she's MY daughter when we go out in public. She's an amazing kid.
Peeking into secrets
I stole this book from my sister's collection to read on the plane back. This is a PERFECT airplane book. It's so engrossing and fast-paced that I actually was annoyed when the flight attendant would interrupt me to give me fruit snacks and drinks. Chuck Palahniuk also wrote "Fight Club" and this book is full of the same intensity and mystery. Except it is entirely different.
This book tells a story about a middle-aged woman (worn-down and exhausted with her dismal life) who may possibly be the greatest painter in history and the only person who can save her idyllic island community from throngs of tourists who destroy it. It covers stockholt Syndrome - a physical sickness one gets from witnessing extreme beauty. I don't know if something such as this really exists, but the concept is fascinating. Because this is a Palahniuk, it's full of twists and a satisfyingly unexpected ending.
Now I'm on to "Sex, Murder and a Double Latte." My sister had a great bookshelf. I wonder how long it will take her to notice that half a shelf has gone missing.
Foreign yet familiar
Kiomye and I made it back in one piece. The whole struggling through a foreign country on sleep deprivation, lugging suitcases that combined weigh 60 pounds more than I do and a toddler who hasn't had the energy to walk since we transferred in Korea is quite a.... strengthening exercise. Yep. I am a better person for it. I'm sure.
We're recovered now. I spent all of yesterday hanging up my pretty new clothes and reorganizing my bathroom cupboards to make room for the 30 pounds of lotions and gimmicky products I bought in America. That was actually fun. I love my things. I know that it is a horrible, materialistic thing to say, but I do. I I love my things.
Kio says the bubbles in her bath are over her head. This I have to see.
Extended disconnect
It's amazing how a month-long vacation can fly by in the blink of an eye.
We had some family drama. Just one day into our camping trip, we got a call on the cell that my grandfather had had a heart attack and was at the hospital in critical condition. My mom, Kio and I cut our trip short, jumped on a ferry to hurry to our family across the Sound and spent the next four days at the hospital.
My grandfather had a double bypass surgery. He made it through just fine, but is having a TERRIBLE time adjusting to life without bourbon. The doctors were worried about him going into toxic shock and they ended up having to restrain him because he kept pulling out his IVs and trying to leave. He didn't even know where he was.
An entire brigade of Aunts kept manning the post by his bedside. I had Kiomye with me and wasn't much help. Luckily, my sister lives nearby and so I was able to stay with her. I just got back to Olympia today. (My vacation base camp.) I only have three more days until I return to Japan and only about 10 more people I have yet to see.
I hate when I can't see everyone I promised to. Please forgive me, friends.
Out of service
I know I've been terrible keeping up with my email and blog lately anyway, but it's going to be a bit worse for a few more days. Today I'm heading into the Olympics for a camping trip with Kiomye and my mom. (Yea!) I am TOTALLY without internet/phone connection for a few days. I'll reconnect when I return.
