Making Tough Decisions

For the most part, there are really only 2 Japans: Tokyo and everywhere else. Tokyo, as we all know is that resplendent Mecca of neon and maid cafes and girls in clothes that don't match and vast oceans of people trying just to cross the damn street and trains packed with people who all wear the same suit and karaoke bars and so forth. Tokyo is clean and beautiful; you know it's both, because in Japanese they're the same word (きれい).

The other Japan is bucolic, serene, a vast temple to nature in which all seems to make sense, and the world is at peace. Ancient women perfectly L-shaped for the task of planting and picking rice by hand balance baskets of exotic fresh vegetableｓ on their backs. As you wander up the mountain at whose base sits a quaint, quiet little village, you notice little shrines and nooks where people have set offerings of mikan and sake seemingly to nothing. The sunlight sifts through the trees and dapples the ground with just enough light to see by and not enough to reveal any subtle flaws.

For better or for worse, I don't live in either of these Japans, the ones the guidebooks proclaim as simultaneously mysterious and marvelous. I live where most people drive minivans, down the street from a gas station operated by a woman who sells me kerosene in the kind of tobacco thrashed voice you thought only belonged to people in high school health class videos. I live next to a Chinese restaurant and belong to a culture circle (um, that's a difficult one to explain) in Toyokawa. My friend Yasuko introduces me as a 主夫 (a homemaker) for lack of something better to call one in my position, a position in Japanese society most don't even know exists.

And lately I've been ripping my insides out trying to determine whether I should stay. The best part is I basically need to decide by tomorrow night. So, it's time for a little audience participation, people. Why should I stay? ("because you're an annoying jackass!") Why should I leave? ("because you're 160 lbs. of graduate school beefcake [you have to scroll down a bit]!") You decide; I'm sick of thinking about this.

N.B. If you look really closely, you'll notice that I'm wearing a t-shirt that says kichiku beihei and that my hair was already starting to thin on top.

Edit: there seems to be some confusion about what I mean. The "stay" would only be another academic year, after which the Japanese gove-mint would officiously kick us out. Besides, overstaying your visa is a really bad idea here.

A Little Chewy is the Day

Reading Scott Fitzgerald (I used to just call him Gerry, but nobody ever knew what I was talking about) has put something of an icy chill on my confidence as a writer. His judo grip on the English language terrifies me at times.

There were other letters among whose helpless caesuras lurked darker rhythms.

or even

Mountain-climbing cars are built on a slant similar to the angle of a hat-brim of a man who doesn't want to be recognized.

My own efforts at the old take hold of words end up coming of as snarky or often as little more than a dainty fop plucking expensive swiss chocolates out of a faux velvet box, or oddly enough sometimes both (I reread this paragraph a few minutes ago and thought to myself, "what the fuck was that shit!").

I shall write as though what I was saying were both a little more and a little less than common sense: a little more because it will endeavor to know the sorts of things no one really wants to and a little less because it will ignore the kinds of things obviously everyone knows; for as much as it pains me, I absolutely must surpress the urge to identify "the little chap with warts, second from the left in the front row."

That last quote is a reference to an article by Kenneth Quinn in which he indirectly chastises classicists for their tendency to ignore much of the text they're reading in a vain attempt to solidly identify some person who is only mentioned in passing.

And it's nice to see the Japanese actually reporting on a probelm they largely ignore besides covering something absolutely ridiculous. Many a night I sit with baited breath hoping I'll see something on the 7 o'clock news besides the latest celeb divorce rumors.

Slang for "Cunt"

Yes, I was one of those people when I was a kid, the kind of person who bought scale models of trains and set them up in elaborate displays in my parents' basement, the remnants of which linger to this day. I've always been fascinated by trains, but mostly of the outdoor variety. It's no secret I pretty much loath undergrounds; whether they be subway or El or Metro or Tube or 地下鉄, I pretty much hate waiting for trains underground.
With one exception, of course. Summer, as most of you may already know, is really hot; I mean damn hot. One day I was standing in the station by MeiDai (名大, N.B. not pictured above), or Nagoya University for all you lamers out there, when just before the train was to enter the station a sudden rush of wind nearly knocked me on my ass. I gave the phenomenon a name: 地下鉄風, pronounced chikateffū. It took me awhile to figure out a pronunciation, because of the peculiar way the pronunciation of Chinese characters changes in Japanese. For example, the full name of the aformentioned institution of higher learning is actually Nagoya Daigaku (名古屋大学) but is often shortened to MeiDai for whatever reason. You see the first character in Nagoya can also be read as mei. Thus that last character in my neologism is usually pronounced kaze, but here is pronounced fū, because it's being attached to a word with a Sino-japanese pronunciation. Interestingly, though, most of these "Chinese" words were in fact coined by the Japanese and later became thought of as Chinese.

Like the word "pussy." Any good etymological dictionary will tell you that pussy is in fact slang for cunt and that the word "cunt" wasn't even considered obscene until the 17th century. All of this goes to show that digging around in word nerd type things is far more salacious than you ever realized.

The Curses and Blessings of Desiccants

Basically everyday in winter is a struggle; even sitting beneath the kotatsu is little comfort. I mean how am I supposed to produce the amazing proses and versifications that are my trademark when I can barely move my fingers, they're so numb! Usually I just huddle by the kerosene heater or wrap myself in several electric blankets. Nothing really helps though, as the electric blankets just put me to sleep, and the fumes from the heater give me a headache. There are instructions on the top indicating you should air out the room for an hour 1-2 times a day, but no one in their right mind opens up the house in the dead of winter.

I nearly bit into the dessicant in my little bag of snacks. I was pulling them out so absentmindedly, I barely noticed. You'd think that in the middle of winter you wouldn't have to worry about things like humidity. Au contraire! I did a load of laundry a few days ago, hung them immediately after, and they're still not entirely dry. There have been times in the summer where I put perfectly dry clothes into the closet only to find them slightly damp when I come back later. The problem is so bad, you can buy these special desiccant bags that are attached to clothes hangers. I can remember my horror the first few times when day by day it swelled to near pregnant proportions.

And to make you all better people:

夜の帳にささめき盡きし星の今を下界の人の鬢のほつれよ (みだれ髪 1)

in night's canopy the stars have ceased their whispering, while now
in the world below her forelocks loosen and fray

Japan Rentacar (etc.)

I've been to Japan Rentacar several times now, but I've actually nevered rented a car in my whole life. Yes, this is a riddle and one you can solve with more than a little investigation. Go ahead, I've got time.


a hint

do you need another hint?


give up yet?

So, I went out last night with a mixed group of foreign and native homies with the intention of boozing it up at a yakiniku restaurant, that is a korean style bbq where you drink a lot more beer than eat meat. Still, it's tasty and quite entertaining as a group experience, because you have to grill your own food. But the place was packed, so we ended up going to an American style steakhouse instead, and by American I mean a perverse mix of Texas roadhouse, California surfer, and distinctly Japanese cuts of beef. I tried to ask the server what cut the Bronco Billy special was, and his reply, "American, of course." Grr...

Afterwards, we went to a karaoke box for a couple of hours. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of how Japanese karaoke is different (and it is), but suffice it to say, the best deal in town is at the Japan Rentacar, 1500 yen per hour and you pay by room instead of per person. We stuffed 11 people into that little thing.

Something Like the Capillary Effect

Colleen spilled some coffee on her pants yesterday, and I, being the dutiful housewife I am, set the pants aside to soak so the stain wouldn't set. At first I only put in the water the part of the pant leg on which she had spilled not realizing that through the wonderful magic of diffusion--that law governing fluid motion that can defy even the almighty law of gravity--the pants would carry soapy water up out of the bowl onto the kitchen floor. When I awoke this morning, the floor was absolutely covered.

an old-fashioned alexandrian book-burnin

all the good politicos, even the salad guy,
know the books to keep, which bundles of paper
to feed the holocaust; how to find
the most efficient wife willing to withdraw
to a red bedchamber, delicate and dark,
full of cheap lovers, cheaper casks of liquor;

how to avoid crowds creeping carelessly
towards changing tastes and opposed opinions.

dry leaves sizzle in the initial drops of a rainstorm
that catches her notice and fades into hissing

in old alexandria the lexicographers
steal the finest tomes, give back duplicates.

and old Caesar Salad was tossed and embossed
his egyptian whore by the wine-dark sea;
he had nervous fits hardly contained by
the soothsayers, the priests and augurs
who translate the signs of burning passions
unable to surmount the poisonous asp.

The funny thing about translating poetry so much is that you start to think you can actually write some yourself. You spend so much time converting verse into something resembling (or often not-so-resembling) verse that you convince yourself that you no longer need to lean on the crutch of a foreign original upon which your art, if you can call it that, usually relies. Arrogance is the only thing that can truly overcome the natural grounding force of good old-fashioned common sense.

Becoming One of Them

I have a tendency to make life altering decisions, or at least decisions of immense importance in donut shops. Believe it or not, people, it's where I do my best thinking and for the most part all the work I don't consider to be complete crap fifteen minutes after I write it. I decided to go to Michigan in a Donutland on First Ave. in Cedar Rapids and set the date for my wedding in a Krispy Kreme. The latter involved weighing the pros and cons of particular dates on the reverse of a paper tray mat.

So, the Japanese have put up a united front (something at which they truly excel) in an effort to get Colleen to stay on at least another year (because one more year can always be converted into additional years--remember, the Japanese are much better at thinking long term than we have-it-all-now Western types are) at her teaching job in Mito. The perversity of the whole thing even led to Colleen's supervisor securing a full time job for me at a company in Toyokawa, because, as a thorough misogynist, he assumes that if I have a good job of my own, I won't be threatened by my wife keeping her lowly teaching job for another year.

I'm not sure if you guys know this, but I used to smoke... a lot... but I quit shortly before meeting the darling woman I would later trick into marrying me (muwahahaha). I gave it up, because I realized the cancer sticks were my feeble attempt to cover the anxiety I felt as a result of my complete lack of direction in life. Japanese men, I do basically mean ALL Japanese men smoke like the damn things are going out of style. With 12 hour workdays, a wife you never see and probably don't like anyway, and no hope for anything but a life of slaving away at a thankless job wearing the same black suit you bought when you graduated college, I can see why.

Just Another Manic Monday


I have yet to understand why it is that Japanese people give me so much produce. Do I seem to lack a healthy balance of vitamins and minerals? I know I'm thinning a little on top, but I would like to think that people could just tell me I look sickly without resorting to produce insinuation. You know it's bad when you go to get kerosene at the gas station and the woman gives you a cabbage.

JD got me thinking about fascism today, and it struck me how completely disconnected we are from such concerns as fascism and rascism and barbarism and cubism and how lighly we take them anymore. Of course, what westerners complain of in passing Japan always manages to take to the Nth degree. The world turns, and the growing unrest in East Asia continues not to disturb us, so long as those crazy Chinese keep churning out the sneakers and plastic toys we love so much.

Just so today isn't a downer, I'll leave you with a little poetry care of Yosano Akiko (and to a lesser extent, me).

髪五尺ときなば水にやはらかき少女ごころは秘めて放たじ (みだれ髪 3)

as she loosens her 5-foot hair it becomes soft in the water,
though, her maiden's heart she keeps tied up

A Bladder the Size of a Walnut


The are numerous reasons why I don't do certain things on airplanes like take a window seat, because you probably want to get up and pee whenever you damn well feel like it; eat the food, because more often than not it will make you question why animals ingest for sustenance in the first place; or read the in flight shopping magazines they stuff into that tiny pocket beneath your tray table. I perhaps like the idea of an LED belt buckle a little too much, so much that I checked to see if various online outlets that sold them would ship internationally.

This is such a fucking great idea! Why didn't anyone think of a portable oxygen system sooner! I even have one of my own: it's called the Earth, for fuck's sake. Moreover, there's a reason why we don't breathe pure oxygen, as the Apollo 1 astronauts would tell us, that is if they hadn't burnt up in a fiery explosion. Pure oxygen is flammable. Did anyone stop to consider that maybe there's a reason why our atmosphere is nearly 80% nitrogen?

And as it turns out, there's even a reason not to take the aisle seat, you could be sitting next to a woman with a bladder the size of a small nut. I swear, every time that woman ordered something to drink I wanted to suggest to the flight attendant that he forget to bring it. And she kept rubbing all sorts of ointments on her skin. She had this little pink bag filled with little tubes and tubs of the most foul smelling ointments you could possibly imagine.

Thank god for free liquor on all international flights.

WTF FTW!

So, I spend quite a bit of time on internet forums, not so much because I need to feed the troll but because I'm absolutely fascinated by forum acronyms. Some are easy: I was able to pick up on OMG quite easily--I mean it isn't a minute or two in my daily life before I shriek in excitement, "Ovarian Musculo-Gastritis!" And at first I assumed ZOMG was simply a modification of ovarian musculo-gastritis, but later I realized that the ZOMG is in fact the local bishop of the Galactic Church of 1337.

What's most frustrating is the vast array of etymological myths floating around about forum acronyms. Take laughter, for instance. In an effort to make sense of or at least cluster many of the more inventive forum acronyms under the aegis of laughter: LOL, laughing out loud; ROFL, rolling on floor laughing; LMAO, laffin me arse oof; LMFAO, laffin me fuckin arse oof; and so forth. This is, of course, a complete fabrication. Everyone knows that geeks don't laugh, as that would indicate they have some kind of joy in their lives.

LOL is actually an abbreviation used by pervy middle aged guys to surruptitiously point out the objects of their desire, thus marking them as a "lolita." ROFL is in fact a kind of Finnish waffle made of lye-cured cod and bulgar wheat. LMAO is a tag used by the French Communist underground to denote membership. It stands for Le Mao. Though LMFAO is related to LMAO, it stands not for "laffin me fookin arse oof" but for "Les Mademoiselles Fighting Anarchist Oafs," the militant wing of the American Enterprise Institute. They are an elite squad of roller derby chicks trained in the ancient arts of ikebana, kung fu, and calligraphy.

So now you know; Happy New Year's, all! akemashite omedetou gozaimasu; kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu!