2006: The Year in Liquor

2006 was a year like no other for me. I had ups and I had downs. I've had 4 jobs (I'm still working at number 4). I've lived at 4 different addresses in 2 countries, experienced 3 earthquakes, watched gleefully as my sex life actually became a life and not just a little glimmer in my eyes. I have finally succeeded in getting a boyfriend, and now feel comfortable enough in my self to not feel that I have to monitor every moment of my life for any actions that might appear gay.

2006 was a year that for the most part can be summed up in different bottles of alcohol. The first part of the year was very uneventful. I was working at a large cell phone company in the U.S. awaiting the day that i cojld quit and come to the Japan to start my teaching gig here. While at that company I met many characters. I say characters because often in my life, I don't know about yours... who am i talking to, I meet people who I honestly have no desire to get to know better because the person that project to me is so distinctly one way that I'm often just left in awe.

Like at the cell phone company there was this guy, Jeri. ( Jeri on acount of the evil Jericurl thing on his head.) He sat at a desk behind mine at the cell phone company, we were both in customer service, and quickly became enamored with me or something. He would ask me stupid questions about what i was wearing, how I talk, things I like to do and other things. He always made me uncomfortable. I just laughed him off most times though. He had this whole "What you doing over there boy" attitude about him. You know the eyes that you can feel crawling over your whole body like and army of perverted ants, the greasy skin thats gives you instant nausea as you imagine it creeping all over your body. He was so feminine and so scary and he just made me nervous.

Jeri was a character with all of that he had going on I couldn't find reason to really want to explore him any further.


While at the cell phone company I met other characters. Of course i didn't want to drink with them and I allowed them to call me friend but in my mind they were always characters. Like Erin. She was the dingy character. She advertised herself as being smart and what not but it really seemed like she was experiencing life through a haze. Like when talking about something abstract you would have to pause for about 15 seconds so that she can divine the shape of whatever the hell you were saying. Very dingy.



Let me stop there I am not going to start breaking down the staff at C_____ and all their flaws. Even thought that girl really was not bright.

So down to the liquor. This year I manage to stumble upon the best beer in the world. Kirin Green Label. It is a Japanese beer and it is actually suppose to be good for you or some shit. Basically like Miller Light or some shit. It is the best tasting beer in Japan to me. Most beers just end up being really bitter here. Like the best beer if you asked a Japanese business man would either be from Asahi or Yasuda, but then again they measure quality around this country by how much it can make your nose crinkle. Food is really no different. At virtually any time of the day you can flip on your TV and see some one writhing in pain as they eat some thing that looks delicious. Or they scream "Oishi!" and go a little cross eyed. I admit it is scary, but eventually you find yourself screaming oishi in your head or doing a little of your on floor rolling in your head when eatig something new.

Anyway Kirin Green Label is my beer of choice. When I get stressed out, which is often, I get three or four of these things and just curl up as the not-to-bitter elixer goes cascading down my throat.... maybe that was a little to reverent or something.

This year has been all about new jobs and shit for me. I managed to lose the job that I came to Japan for in about two months (some of the people in my training group quit in two days so I think I'm a winner in some ways.) After losing that job and finding myself homeless because the company owned my apartment I fled to Osaka to stay with my friend Eddie. It was there in his care that I was first introduced to the Black Nikka.

I honestly don't know how something as dreadfully named as Black Nikka manages to be produced on such a large scale. Nikka sounds to close to nigger for me. This alcohol is dreadful. Simply dreadful. It taste bad, but then again aftder about 6 serious sips you start to forget that.

The first time I drank this stuff I was deep into my post-job depression. I had cried the day before and i needed something to losen me up or at least Eddie thought that. At any rate I became extremely happy on this and I think i may have even hit on him. Actually I did. We started the night by going to some clubs and by the tie we finished we ended back at his place taking shots of the Nikka. He started to get all philosophical and I started to get horny. I always get horny when I drink. I know i could never actually do anything because my motor skills are seriously down when I drink. My big thing really is just cuddling. I wanted to cuddle with Eddie but he was not down.

Actually I think the biggest thing was that 15 minutes prior to wanting to cuddle I had tried to look down his pants. Eventually I started to get really cold. Maybe it was the alcohol and I started to communicate this to my friend and tried to make him understand, urgently, that I needed to cuddle with him to solve this problem. He solved the problem by dumping me in his bed, shutting the door, and turning up the radio while I screamed that I was cold and needed him. It was such a strange night.
Tbis bottle of something is a my way of remembering when Eddie came to live with me for a month. It was in August of 2006. Eddie had finished his time with JET and had been going around Japan having a series of relationship and job misadventures and had finally landed on my doorstep chanting the words, "Save money. Save Money." So the month of August was marked, could say by our futile attempts to save money. In the midst of all this saving we managed to down about three more bottles of the Nikka and a wide assortment of other alcohols.

Now the last bottle of alcohol that Eddie and I managed to do away with was this bottle of green tea shochu. Death. They should call it death. The bottle seems pretty and unchallenging. But the poison lurking inside it is anything but. On Eddie's last night in Japan and my apartment we managed to eventually banish the cloud of groupie girls (Eddie arrived in my building and it immediatley turned to Real World Nagoya complete with random hookups, messy neighbors, and girls crying in the halls.) from my apartment and proceeded to drink to our death.

The shochu tasted like battery acid mixed with spoiled ass. Dreadful. But we persisted. We took shot after shot until we wer down to abot two or three shots. It was at this point that I began to beg Eddie to not make me drink any more. I was very drunk. I don't get to declare myself drunk very often, but on this occasion I just knew that I couldn't do anymore. Eddie wasn't hearing it. He demanded that i help him finish the bottle. I knew I had to. Drinking the entire bottle had been my idea anyway, but I still wanted to get out of it. So I tried to think of the most outrageous thing to make him do in order to make me drink. I ended up daring him to get naked. I knew. Just knew that he wouldn't do it. I don't have to many straight friends that are that open.

but the bastard did it anyway.

He got completely naked and sat there for about 45 minutes with al of his bits and pieces on display. Of course I looked. He was sitting like 3 feet from me. So I took the last three shots and basically passed out in my bed while he ran off to make up with my neighbor... that of course involved fucking her.

Also while he was out I found that I could not get up off of my futon and had to throw up. I ended up hanging my head out of my window and throwing up three times onto my balcony.

Ah, Early Times. My newest and subsequently most deadly friend. This whiskey is less ass like than the shochu and more potent than the Nikka. Once in October I took a bottle of Early Times to a company Halloween party. I succeened in makig my students drink some and even got my boss to down a bit. I then drank half of the bottle all by my damn self. I was fucked up and once again I realized it. I bid my coworkers farewell and made my way for the door before I did anything embarassing.

As I was waiting for the train home a friend of mine appeared. He's like, "Hi Tommie! I'm going to a party. Do you want to come?" By this point the E.T. is working on me. My ability to stand was being seriously impaired not to mention my ability to say no. Well my friend drug me onto the train and let me stumbling all around Nagoya in search of this izukaiya where his school party was being held. When we finally found it I at down and introduced myself to a woman sitting beside me.

Then I started throwing up. I grabbed the nearest receptacle I could reach, a glass beer mug, and watched helplessly as the Early Times came flowing up. My friend started screaming that I should go to the bathroom and so I did. I took my mug with me and began a short search for the bathroom. Basically I screamed for the bathroom in broken japanese. The waitresses kinda poited and screamed. When I made it to the bathroom I vomited some more, emptied my mug, and took a quick inventory of how fucked I looked. I wasn't that bad so I wandered back over to the table and told my friend that I was going home. He then watched as I tried to put my shoe back on. I stepped wrong and nearly broke my left foot. It was horrible and that bastard just laughed.

I learned a lesson though. The Early Times are not for heavy consumption.

I'm tired of writing for now. I'll write more about how liquor is failing me in 2007 later.

bro rape... lol

Cold and Crazy

I believe in coincidences. Actually i think they believe in me, but that is another story. Today, coincidentally, is cold. So cold in fact that I can't seem to will myself out of my bed. normally lying in bed all day would be a good thing. Well not really. I hate lying in bed. Luckily, I don't do it often because there is always a reason to drag myself out of bed. Not today though. Most of my friends are on vacation, with there now ex-significant others, or simply working their lives away. I fall into the on vacation group. But on vacation in my apartment, which i haven't left for more than 30 minutes in 5 days. I'm lonely. Maybe more bored than lonely.


I think I might be going a little crazy. I just realized that i was taking this whole winter being cold thing like a crazy girlfriend or something. I mean like "How dare he have to go check on his sick mother!!!"

Not a good example. It is just fucking cold. And my apartment is cold. And my heater is playing fucking games with me. And I'm angry and lonely cuz my fucking christmas gift isn't here yet. And I just keep thinking that maybe I was bad this year. and i know that is nonsense. Christmas doesn't work that way... or does it.

I think the reason that i feel so lonely is because all my friends are busy. You know the mail man barely brings me anything now. Like the post office in the states is lookiung for my fucking gift and they are supposed to be doing the same with the japanese post but it seems like the post office is just shunning me. I check my mail like 8 times a day. really 8 times. AND THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING THERE! not even bills. Is this how I'm suppose to end my year? Alone. Not wanting to drink by myself because that will only accentuate the crappiness of my life.

I need to talk to someone. but all the people i bitch to are either doing there thing on vacation or in the US. why is it so cold?

55 pounds and 3 ounces. That is how much my mother's box that she sent me weighed. But it isn't here. She mailed on december 7. Where is my shit? Where is the box that says we haven't forgot you? Oh god I think i'm going crazy.


Do I miss my boyfriend? He said I wouldn't, but I don't know. Is our relationship stalled? I want to know more about him but I don't know what to ask. am I a good boyfriend? I feel like I'm not doing a good job. Like I need to do something else but I don't know what. Like my mind is a blank. I don't think i really no what to do any more. He seems so happy. and i feel so peaceful when i'm with him. Like my mind is clear and easy. We seem to only have sex though
we have to do something together. I've been thinking about breaking it off, but i think i should put more effort in. I sound like i'm trying to save a marriage..... why is that?

So fucking cold.

I'm supposed to be teaching myself hiragana and jogging, but i'm too scatter brained for one and too fat for the other. i'm also supposed to be reading a book, Satanic Verses, but it is being blocked by the scatter brained thing.

I should take some pictures. With my real camera. The digital camera is nice but I think I just like the refreshing hard click of my film camera. CLICK!


It is like sex. Over in a moment but so satisfying

Is my boyfriend even thinking about me. I haven't sent him an email so I suck. But I have thought about him everyday. Thinking doesn't count for much does it. It should... it doesn't. I think I miss him.

I'm crazy today.

This trip home for him was important though he had lots of things to do. So if he doesn't think about me its ok. Is it?

AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!

So cold....

worst christmas?

sad: adjective: 1 a : affected with or expressive of grief or unhappiness : DOWNCAST

...depressed... me. this may be the wost christmas ever. i'm am listening to my family open gifts 1000 miles away and trying to fight back tears because i really miss them and the christmas morning headaches and shivers.


I hate christmas. Japan sucks right now. bad. big balls. well not big balls cuz the bitches can't handle anything larger than a quail... the fucking egg bitches! keep up.

this is mostly lowercase because i am mostly one handing it... typing that is.

i hate christmas. perhaps i should take to drinking a bit. i have half a bottle of whiskey calling my name.

Is it even Christmas. Only TV and little bits like this manage to remind me.

Do I even miss the hysteria?


This is just cute.

At long last winter vacation has started. Most of my friends have goe home (back to their respective countries) or have vacation plans. I am poor. So I am able to only stay in my little cold apartment and drink with whomever decides to grace me with their precense. So far there have been no takers.

Actually my vacation started yesterday. My boyfriend is going back to america. My neighbors boyfriend is too. So we are gonna chill on Christmas Eve and try to get really drunk. Like really drunk. Like shoot a gun in the air and hope it lands on your enemies head drunk. This japanese boy is gonna be here too. My neighbor and I both get really flirty when we are drunk and that boy like looks at you with these take me now eyes. I'll have to be on good behavior. I'll just tell myself that he is a moron... laying ass up on my bed.

I really don't feel like writing. I just feel bored. I hate vacations. They just seem to go and go and go and go some more. With no end in sight. I don't have to work again until January 6. I'm not a work-a-holic. I just don't like to be bored. You can only masturbate so much.

pretty garden

Questions while cleaning my apartment

1. Why exactly is my floor covered with rice and ashes?
2. What is that weird smell in my kitchen?
3. Am I an alcoholic?
4. Does the average american have this many sets of earphones?
5. How did Doraemon infiltrate my apartment?
6. Am I opposed to taking out the trash?

Cute

Wednesday 3:46 pm

It feels as though my throat is on a fire. well maybe not fire yet, but what started as a smal spark yesterday has grown overnight into a white hot ember that threatens to engulf my mouth and throat in flames at any moment.

This is bad.

"Why," you ask.

Because I have someone I want to see this weekend... my boyfriend.

Yes BITCHES. At long last, almost 4 years, I have a boyfriend and he is so sweet and cute and nice and MINE!!!! and I guess I'm his too and that is good. very good. (doing the sacred happy dance. join me if you know the steps.)

****they are showing "towel exercise" on tv. japanese people are weird. They all have big kool-aid grins on their faces. hmm... the models... err.. athletes speak excellent english. but they are japanese.****

But my throat is acting truly funky and I don't want to make him sick. But I really want to see him this weekend.

Thanksgiving was last week. It was nice. It makes the second Thanksgiving that I have not been with my family. I spent it with my friends, last year I was just by myself. We went to Outback Steakhouse. It was nice. Robert came (that is my boyfriend's name) and four of my other friends and we gorged ourselves on things that we should not and simply can not eat everyday. I had a steak, a few cheese fries, part of a blooming onion and a piece of chocolate cake that I am sure made me cum all over myself. It was so good and so big and so warm. It was the first slice of chocolate cake I've had in about ten or twelve years. Why so long? Because I don't like most chocolate baked goods. Brownies are okay, but cookies and cakes usually recieve a huge NO GO. This cake though has somehow slipped passed my chocolate defenses. Which is wy I am considering going back to Outback for a nother slice on New Year's Day.

****I wonder. Will the trains be running on New Year's?****

Are you incredibly gay if you start wondering how much better a room would look with new light fixtures and a few tasteful wall hangings? Maybe not.

Okay. I have class now. Peace

November 13, 2006

Well it's been a while. A long while. Not that anyone is waiting with bated breath for me to write something.

*sigh*

I guess I could recap what has been going on with me.

1) Back on October 28 I got incredibly drunk and threw up in a restaraunt. Actually at the table... into a glass bear mug. I then carried my mug with on me on a brief search for the toilet. Now this search was punctuated by me throwing up repeatedly into my mug (yes, there was overflow) and screaming in slurred japanese, "Toire?!?!?" That means toilet. Afterfinding the toilet and emptying my mug and myself a little bit I returned to the table and told my friend I should go home. He agreed and watched with what I imagine was an evil grin as I tried to put my shoe on while balancing on one foot. I damn near broke my foot while doing that. My foot has only now recovered from the trauma.

2) I pireced my ear. Actually, my neighbore pierced it because I almost cried when I tried to do it. Seriously I felt a sob coming on. (I just took it out and put it back in. It bled a little. I guess it is too soon.)

3) I haven't been able to save any money and I'm very afraid that my lack of money will affect my ability to by my family Christmas gifts. I really want to get them something though. Even if i do it will have to be very cheap because shipping is a bitch. A real bitch.

4) My cell phone will get turned off soon. If you don't pay your bill for three months people tend to get pissy. I'll have to get a new cell phone soon. I was gona pay them next month but if they want to turn me off I guess I can wait a little. Muah ahahahahahah!!!!

The end.

but what of the future

Yesterday, as is my habit, I did some thinking on the train. I started thinking about my future. I seems that many of the people in my life are all getting married or just finding that dream career. I am not.

I think my life my be stalling a little. I'm kinda ok with my job now and I'm not really worried about getting married... that's a lie. I want to get married. But I want to be happy too and I don't really see myself as being happy with a woman. Not for long anyway. I can't be happy if I think my happiness is making someone sad.

how long can I stay in japan really. I've spoken with many people and they make it seems like staying in japan is basically putting the rest of their life on hold. They say things like I have to get back to real life. I've heard that so many times. Am I living in a dream here? Am I strange for not really being able to imagine a life to run back to? I have a few friends back home, but the way I see it they are all slowly getting into fly away mode. If I return home they may not be there. So should I run back to bid them farewell? I don't have a potnetial mate waiting for me. Work doesn't really make me happy. I can't really think of a career that I want. Work does not do it for me. Am I lazy? Maybe, but I just want to live. Living, doing things, being out and about the world makes me happy. I think I'll have to create my career myself. Should I go back home to do that. I'm not close to my family... well I'm close and being far away is a bit of a strain, but that strain is easily done away with by making a simple phone call.

What will I be doing in five years? Five years ago I was chilling in Moss Point, going to the local community college, trying to convince my friend that the guy she was trying to set me up with had horrifying baby teeth and no I'm sitting in a room in fucking Japan trying to fight whatever the hell this demon in me is. I have a cold... a japanese cold. I can't handle this. I don't know how. Maybe I'll go to the doctor. As of yesterday I am officially insured. Yay me.

random pics

hairy arms

I have been told that in Japan women often shave their forearms and legs, but let the other parts of their body grow into dense jungles. If you look at their porn the whole jungle thing is totally obvious. I had until recently not really bought the whole shaving the arm thin because I naturally don't have that much hair on my arms and so didn't pay attention to theirs, but yesterday I was forced to see the truth.

I was at work and I was talking to one of my students when this sub-teacher walks up. She was pretty stocky chick and since I wasn't really looking at her when she walked up I assumed she was a man out of the corner of my eyes. Just because of her build and the fact that she stomped like she was out to destroy every living thing that might even considering falling under her feet. I think stomping is very unladylike and just stupid. I don't stomp. Stomping is for neanderthals and this woman was very neanderthal-ish.
I didn't really llok at her until she got beside me. Yea she wasn't the cutest thing, but I don't imagine neandethals are exactly ugly, so I won't say that. She had dark hair, big eyes, a sloping forehead, dark, feral looking eyes, and glasses... ugly rims, and the hairiest forearms I have ever seen on a woman. They were hideous. Frightening. Just dark and thick. I'm sure she coul brush and braid the stuff. The moment I saw it I started to wonder what her vagina looks like, and then I fainted.

really.

I fell down and my student started trying to do cpr. Her breast started to touch me as she did cpr and then I just died. I'm writing this from beyond the grave in hopes that hairy armed women and men around the world will be kind enough to either cover or shave their forearms.

Sugar induced rambling

I read, maybe recently, that when you are depressed you start to crave sweet things. Today I can't stop eating candy. For me this is really rare. I like candy, but can "forget" for months at a time that it even exists. I don't think I'm depressed I just haven't been doing anything strenous in a while. I have lots of built up energy. You would think this would manifest itself as me being antsy. It does. I can barely sleep lately and today I looked up and found myself wandering around random parts of the city. I need to do something.


Tomorrow is national sports day. I'm going to the movies. I'll be going with some friends. We're gonna see Lady In the Water. I want to see it, but I was told today, by a very adamate source that I should not see the movie because its crap or something to that effect. This source was very convinvicing and now I'm thinking of mnot seeing the movie. Since tomorrow is national sports day and all I think iI should go bowling. I like bowling. But I don't think it would be very easy to convince my friends to go. Maybe one of them would like it. He's this cute Japanese-Portuguese guy. He would be down. But my other friend just doesn't seem like the bowling... runiing.. moving quickly type. She'll require some work. Or I could go to this kickboxing dojo that I saw on the other side of town. King Muay. Thailand kickboxing. It just maks my face and shins tingle thinking about it. I want to do something that is a little painful. I think I'm getting to soft. I don't consider myself a realy tough person, but I know that I'm not a push over either. I want to take kickboxing so I can feel my edge again. Like I'm an athlete or somethign cool.


hmm... I was gonna say something else, but I forgot.

At work yesterday I tried to get my students to talk about Brokeback Mountain. Not to advance my personal gay agenda (I don't have one. At least not one that extends to changing the minds of the rest of the world.) I was curious about why the movie was never shown in the theaters here. It got so much priase in our country and I think in a few others, but here it was quietly slipped onto the shelves of my local movie rental store. They advertise everything here, but I haven't seen a single adertisement for Brokeback. At any rate, I was only able to get my students to say that it is embarrassing to have a gay person in your family and that Japan just isn't ready for something so controversial and then they shut down. Like completely. They were silent and looking down and then I switched the conversation to scary movies and they popped right ot life. I am so tired of talking about fucking scary movies. I would like to talk to a foreign person, hell, a japanese person about something more substantial than my ability or inability to eat natto. Natto is gross. Why don't they understand that?

Anyway, I guess the way they just shut down made me think of my parents. I imagine them doign that when I tell them I'm gay or maybe they'll scream and curse (my mother) and try to beat me up (my father) before praying loudly and then shutting down. At any rate, I was unsettling. Once when I was about to tell my parents my older sister, she knows I'm gay but pretends its a phase and won't metion it unless I do, told me that my parents wouldn't want to hear about that. I think that is the attitude that Japan takes on it. Its too controversial for them, but near public prostitution is ok. Strange, neh?

Anpanman

This is Anpanman. Yes, as you assumed, he is evil. Anapanman is a redbean bun that has some how been given magical powers. Unlike Doraemon, who is merely a puppet, I believe Anpanman to be possessed. He is bread. BREAD, DAMMIT!! and the kids here love him.

Now I must admit, red bean buns are bretty damn good. I may eat one like 2 or 3 times a month, but when my bread gets up and makes a vain attempt at saving the world that is when I call my priest or baker. Whoever I feel is better suited to handle the problem of living bread. Anpanman's friends(in the background) are also possessed bread or other things.

I really don't know what you call an army of demon possessed bread... a bakery. The devil's bakery? Its frightening.

some random questions... and me talking to much... about nothing

I like random questions. I'm considering making a collection of random questions, but to do that I supppose I would have to set out parameters for what is random.

I really don't know. For something to be random there has to be some... um... consistency? I don't know. Perhaps this is one string of thought that I should abandon.

Anyway, this is Doraemon. Yes. He is evil. He is one of several beloved creatures here in Japan. From what the locals say he is a cat. Yes, a cat. I do not believe this. And I will tell you why.

Doraemon has no ears. Why, you ask. Because sometime in the future (Doraemon is a special breed fo evil time traveling "cat") his ears were eaten off by a mouse. because of this Doraemon has an irrational fear of mice. Doraemon also has a pouch through which he is able to any number of "useful" things, which actually always end up causing some form of discomfort for his owner. Doraemon is also Japanese which just makes him evil. Well he may not be evil, but he is not a cat.

I wonder what kind of underwear drag queens wear. Boxers, briefs, panites, thongs, some kind of weird joskstrap. I wish someone were here to shed light on that little mystery. (how's that for random?)

Doraemon is not a cat. He is a koala. This is the only way by which I can explain his peculiarites. Koala's are on the whole not plagued by mice. So if a rogue mouse were to attack a koala I believe that the koala may be so surprised that he would not be able to maintain possesion of his ears. Also koalas are marsupials. They like kangaroos, opposums and other marsupial-y animals that I can't think of are subject to a strange birth defect that makes them produce a pouch. Its for holding their kids but Doraemon pulls things from the future to hurt people. Doraemon is an evil koala, but even his status as living being is debatable.

I have ben told recently that Doraemon is a robot. Yes, a robot. Apparently a film or some evil Doraemon broadcast has made it known that Doraemon is not even alive. I actually don't believe the whole robot thing. He is some type of lifeless koala puppet being controlled by some unknown group. An so Doraemon is evil... by default and all of the people who love him are evil too, or at least under the influence of evil and are therefore rendered... evil. Its a transitive property. It is true. I assure you.

Denki? and tight shoes

Calling today uneventful would almost be a sin. I think this might actually be the most eventful day i've had in nagoya thus far. I assure you that is not a good thing.

I have found that the easiest way to insure a bad day is to start off by wearing small shoes. Yes, although wearing small shoes seems easy to avoid, almost second nature to some, is my first crime of the day... maybe even my only crime. I was forced to wear the small shoes because my favorite pair of shoes (which I have not laced since removing them fromt he box 7 months ago) has developed a rather large hole in the sole of the left shoe. Today it rained. Actually al weekend it rained. The danger to my socks should be apparent. Anyway, I felt that wearing my other pair of dress shoes was my only option. Now these shoes are gorgeous. They are a beautiful shade of brown, the soul is rubber but still gorgeous and they were a christmas gift from my older sister. Their only flaw is that they are too damn small. I've put off wearing them for ten months. Even though I love them I forced myself to not wear them... until today. I should have heeded the first warning. My blue shoes tried to prevent me from opening the door to the brown shoes. (they had wedged themselves in the door) I could not be stopped though. I got the brown ones and struggled for five minutes to put them on. That was the second sign. The third sign should have been the simple fact that although they were on my feet effectively cutting off circulation they still were struggling to get off. I shojuld have freed them and my feet, but i was determined. So for the majority of the day my feet bore the brunt of my stupidity and the curse of the brown shoes.

Anyway, shortly after hobbling down the street to the station I realized that i missed my first train of the day. I missed the subway by a whole 1 minute. Maybe even seconds, but I've grown accustomed to missing the subway so i wasn't alarmed. I just waited my ten minutes for the next one. Anyway I made it to the main station and mad my requisite mad dash to the Kintetsu train station. (That mad dash is becoming a bit of a monday morning ritual for me.) Once I arrived at the station I was surprised to find that the line to buy a ticket was incredibly long. Like maybe four or five times its normal monday length. I still was not bothered. I even managed to overlook the bothered expressions of the people around me.

When I finally made it to the booth and asked for my ticket the little japanese man made a gesture with his hand (maybe for no, my feet were interferring with my ability to understand) and kept saying the word denki. I being an idiot when it comes to Japanese went asked as best i could what the hell do you mean "denki?" This attempt at understanding manifested itsef simply as "Denki wa?" I was quickly brushed away though. A foreigner not understanding simple japanese can't be dealt with apparently. I went to one of a thousand stressed out conductors and got the same handsigns. I eventually interpretted the signs as meaning some stupid bitch had walked willy nilly in front of a train and ceased to be with the living anymore. I was told later that an even stupider truck driver took out a wall of powerlines and redenred the trains unusable.

I eventually called my head office to report the problem with my train and was told to run (in my small shoes) over to a different train line and try to make it to buttfuck again. That's Tsu for ya'll who are not in the know. After hobbling the evil nail lined mile over to the new station I realized the ticket costs almost twice as much as the other ticket I would have bought, but I got it any damn way. While while waiting for my train this weird old man crept up beside me and basically did a full bow to my feet. Like knees and hands and forehead on the floor. TO say that I was weirded out was an understatement. Apparently my shoelace was untied and required a full bow to correct. At any rate I dashed through the ticket gate and waited on the freezing cold platform... well not freezing clod but still cold. (will winter here make me cry?)

Once I made it to work, 15 minutes late, I realized that my boss had a student waiting for me. So I had like a half second to get ready and teach class... TO AN OLD ALMOST DEAF WOMAN!!!!! Ok, saying she is almost deaf is a bit of a lie. She is a little hard of hearing, but I had to shout and talk slow the entire class and did I mention that I still had the tight ass shoes on!!!???!!!

I finished with the old lady and was immediately greeted with my boss, Mika, asking if I had managed to get the stuff for the crazy english conversation proficiency test. Of course I hadn't. The company had held some type of lame ass workshop behind my back. So I didn't have shit. Not even a clue. SO I had to make a ton of calls (four) to get someone at the head office to fax the crap over and then i delivered the test to my class whiel still in my tight shoes.

On the way home I think my toes started to bleed a little. I know they begged me in their cute we've been abused all day by your tight shoes way to not make them go back into that horrible place again.

Ok. I'm tired of typing. Maybe I'll fill in the details on this later. or at least spell check it.

Get up

I love the way ciara dances

Love the Sexy beam

Tis a couple of videos from this group called Morning Musume. Check out the beauty of the sexybeam.








THis video doesn't include the sexy beam but it is hilarious.

bunny

Love the bunny, fear the fluff

September 27, 2006 Another Wednesday

4:00pm
Day 2 of the worst headache I've had in a while. Someone is to blame for this. Perhaps me. Coming to Japan could have been a mistake. Maybe. Perhaps this is just the headache talking to me. Through me. For me. Shit my head hurts.

5:30pm
Recently I've been meeting guys. a few. One sticks out though. He is 35. I don't think he wants to date me but he'll make a nice friend. He cited our ages as a reason for us to not get together. He says I'm probably playing the field and I suppose that's true. I like him though. a lot. He like the first genuinely good guy I've met. Like documented good. He did something amazing....

8:00pm
We had been drinking for like two hours and I was feeling a little tipsy and easy. So I said that I wanted to "pull" his belt. He said I could but he would never see me again if I did. I was taken back. I was so amazed. I was pleased. To tears. He gained like 35000 cool points with me. I mean hella cool points. I mean there are cool, COOL, and hella cool. He bypassed the first two to line his pockets with hella. I was amazed and even more aroused, but held it in because I couldn't imagine not seeing him again. I was amazed. I am still amazed. I can't get him out of my mind.

Maybe he wants something more than sex and that excites me. Are all older men like him? If they are I think I will have to change my dating age limit. Maybe edge out the 20-somethings and start sampling the world of 40.

8:34pm
I just realized a new wednesday fact. If you avoid eye contact with your japanese coworkers as if were a cancerous element and completley refrain from anything beyond short two word answers they won't give you work. Also the J-guy working in the office has the most crazy hair I've seen in quite some time. Like it feathers out and shit. Its like a puffier, fligtier version of that whole Farraf Fawcett do. Occasionally he pauses to wrangle a piece that has become too enamored withthe idea of flight. Its really funny. His feather hair almost draws attention from the fact that he never closes his mouth. Ever. He sufferes from an extreme case of fat lip or open-jaw or whatever the hell you call it when the shit is always hanging open like a door with a broken hinge. At any rate I often consider lobbing paper clips into his open maw, but change my mind because I would hate to see his hair fly away with his head.

September 25, 2006 9:59pm (on the train, again)

Yokkaichi, the station for the overly styled and hideous, appeared out of nowhere tonight. The train stopped and the gorgeous boy in the brown pants exited without so much as a glance in my direction. I his place appeared "bony ass", the snake charmer. He's not very good. All that his swaying back and forth is doing is drawing my attention to his annoyingly pointy shoes and complete lack of ass. That's just a damn tragedy.
*
*
*
My prayers have been answered, he just found a seat. I don't like to write on the train, but I feel as if I have no choice (destiny?) because my mp3 player died on me and the book that I brough is total shite! I realy don't want to examine the passengers on tonights meat train (the train back to nagaya on weekdays at night time is always packed with men). Well I'm looking a little but not as much as I normally would.

I like Japanese guys in pink shirts. How's that for random? Not very I know.
This train takes for fucking ever to get back to the damn city and its fucking hard to wirte. Its bouncing so much that it looks like I'm writing arabic or something.

*grrrrr*

September 25, 2006 (from the train)

Today I go to a place called Tsu. I don't like it. I don't want to go there, but *sigh* I'm already on the damn train.

I don't really feel like talking about it though. Today, actually lately, my mind has been drawn to more meaty yet still totally pointless discussions. (this is your chance to stop reading before you get really aggravated.) Lately I think about things like destiny and bills. Yes, I know that that is a very odd pair, but I assure you they go together. I can't put my finger on the link, but like peanut butter and jelly they go together. Now that is a truly odd pair. Imagine if you will the nature of the twisted soul who delivered peanut butter and jelly to the unknowing masses. That soul, undoubtly a sugar crazed bi-polar six year old should be canonized and demonized in the same breath.

Destiny. Recently, not recently maybe a couple of weeks ago, my friend and I had a conversation about destiny. I honestly don't understand destiny (or the insane bouncing of this train) . Destiny to me is a horrible thought. When people speak of something as inevitable, or decided by a greater power, or as simply being their destiny I think of a prison sentence. For some people, I think my friend falls into this number (correct me if I'm wrong), destiny is comforting. Destiny does away with the sensation of floating helplessly in a whirlpool that simply can't or won't pull you down. Destiny changes the whirlpool into a river and gives a direction to life. That is comforting.... I suppose.

Whirlpools as a group are evil things, so I suppose having a direction is good. Circles bother me. Still though, I feel differently. To me destiny, is the oars being slapped from my hand and my raft being pushed along by the river. No matter how hard I kick, pray, rock the bloody boat I can't effect its direction. I have no way of preventing the river from smashing me against rocks or depositing me safely on the shore. Destiny is a lack of control and I need to feel control in my life.

******
ah, my stop

thought from the shower

Japan is supposed to be the Land of the Rising Sun, but honestly I'm not sure if they should even hold that title any longer. I have 1) never seen the sunrise here, or even set. The sun is just always there in the sky annoying you with its presence, or the evil bitch is hiding and allowing this insane wind to come and chill your bones. Yes, it gets cold here. 2) Why would Japan be the land of the rising sun if its not the place where time starts. Shouldn't Greenwhich be the land of the rising sun, and Japan be a little place where years and years of closed borders have resulted in inbreeding on a completely unheard of scale. Yes, I think they are inbred. Not insanely, but enough to ensure that a large amount of the population is dependant upon eyeglasses.

I'm not ranting. I'm just thinking. I like Japan... days.

Could it be.... me?

Could this one day be me? Probably not, but there is a small chance that on one cold saturday night in November I could be taking my first and probably only dip into the world of *gulp* drag.

I went out last night and this cute little Japanese guy said that he could imagine me in drag and that he would love to photograph me in drag. At first I was insulted, because I normally don't like drag queens. There is just something about about the type of hyperfeminity that drag queens embody that I just can't vibe with. It is similar to my feelings about rappers. I guess they are on the other end of the spectrum in a little place called hypermasculinity. I can't feel them either. I am not about grabbing my dick and calling girls bitches and shit. Well I do call girls bitches sometimes. I also call guys bitches. I suppose that makes it ok. some people wouldn't agree but whatever.

Me in drag. I just can't see it. Well actually I can see it. After the cute Japanese guy said his little piece an actual drag queen popped up and agreed that I would look great in drag and demanded/encouraged me to come let him help me get in drag at his party in November.

I don't know about all this. I'm not into this. I've always been anti-drag... for me. Maybe it works for other people, but in my world it doesn't fit... but now I'm curious. I keep imagining myself walking in heels and a short skirt. (shortly after i picture that i stab myself with a needle.) I really want to let that guy take my picture. I saw some of his stuff and he does good work. Me in drag.

This is the drag queen who wants to help me get into drag. He... she... this person says they'l let me use their clothes and shit, and i can drink for free and basically act a damn fool at the club.

I don't know, but I do like to drink. That much I know.

more of the aquarium and a few other places

Aquarium

I recently went to the aquarium here in Nagoya. Here are a few pics.

Tuesday

Finally my apartment is starting to feel like a home. I have been able to slowly acquire things through new friends or people who were ust leaving the country. I have a bookshelf now, a bed, a little white fan, and a very temperamental iron, but I believe that I am making progress in develoing a relationship with it.

This past friday I began what I hope will be a quite fruitful study into the sexual and relationship (there should be a better word for this but i can't remember) habits of Japanese men. Basicaly I met a guy, invited him, back to my apartment and had sex with him. That ended my four year hiatus from the world of sexual activity. Do I feel any different? No, just a little more horny than I did before. This little episode, which I wanted badly to actually be a date, but fell miserably short and was only worthy of episode status, did not come with that many bells and whistle. Actually, it came with an "Oh shit!" alarm.

You see, this episode started about a week and a half ago with me breaking down and finally putting an ad on one of those online dating sites. I say break down because to me online dating has always been silly. I'm a people person. I like to examine a person, in person, and see their good points, bad points, and all those little points that blur the lines. You know things like talking with a mouth full of saliva (bad), but being able to say things in such a way that you find yourself unable to even breath (good). Those two things together makes for a gray. I like gray. I find gray to be a happy color. The color of uncertainty, the color of a storm, the color most of the strongest building materials in the world.

Anyway, I put the ad up and was immediately overwhelmed with responses. Keep in mind that my ad was basically about 15 words that included the headline, "Cool American Guy," and nothing more really. I guess too much ifo just makes things confusing. Eventually after responding to a few e-mails I slipped into a rythym of texting with this one cute Japanese guy, Yuji. We would send messages all day asking each other all kinds of mundane little questions: favorite movie?; can you cook?; dance?; etc. Eventualy we both grew tired of this and cooled to simply commenting on our days. He is in college and has a part-time job. I work full time all over the fair city of Nagoya. We are both boring. Basicaly. Eventually we also become really bored with this. One day I reported to him that I was watching Finding Nemo and he blurted... well texted in all caps that he wanted to "see Nimo" too. So we set a date which just happened to be this past friday.

Now I was thrilled. I knew this would turn into a sexual thing and I was thrilled. Like I said its been a crazy long time for me. Anyway, when firday came I agreed to meet him at the train station near my apartment. (I spent the better part ot three days cleaning my apartment. Just so you know.) When 5 came I went to meet him at the station and was greeted with a quite attractive guy. Nice ass, nice skin, nice face, nice clothes, etc. I said, hi. He said, hi. I then began to lead him to my apartment and that is when the package started to come undone a little. As he attmepted to speak I realized that his accent was a bit... horrible. I could barely understand him, and then he basically shot me with the most deadly question I have ever heard:"Do you speak Japanese?"

Okay! Yes, I am in Japan. It makes perfect sense for me to learn the bloody language, but when someone who has been sending you messages for the last ten days asks you can you speak Japanese it means that they fucking can't. That's what I realized almost immediately. As he waited for my answer my mind was overwhelmed with various conversations that I had in the past with Japanese and English speaking people in which we all agreed that in this damn country almost everyone can read and write in English a little, but they get almost triaing in speaking. So their written vocabulary can exceed their spoken by.... fucking powers. At any rate this is what I was now leading to my apartment. I of course answered, "only a little." And tried to string together a short sentence that basicaly said I can only speak a little. I plastered my best fake smile on my face at that point and carried on with leading. When we got to my apartment we watched fucking Nemo and then had about an hour and a half of us trying vainly to penetrate the differences in our languages and find some way for us to communicate.

Then we watched TV for like thirty minutes. I apologized for being a bad host. He didn't understand. I was very horny so eventually I asked to see his dick. He said sure an then I gave him the best blowjob of his life. I wouldv'e fucked him, but condoms here seem a little small and painful. No that is not a testament to the incredible length and girth of my penis. Its average. End of story. Anyway, I made him suck my dick and was pissed because he sucked at it (no pun intended)

Ok this little story is getting a bit long in the tooth. So to wrap up. The bastard hasn't contacted me at all since he left my apartment on friday. I don't know if I'm upset by that. I did meet him on a website called manhunt, we both speak different languages, and we were both really horny. So should I really expect more? Probably not, but one can hope.

hmmm... why should I hope?

I'm gonna stop writing now. If I continue I think I may just write myself into an early grave.

Oh and here is a totally unrelated photograph.

August 30, 2006 @ work... again

Once again doing the yes-i'm -busy song and dance. Today I'm at a different school, not one in the fucking boondocks of japan. I'm here as an extra teacher today. A kind of servant in waiting. my job today is to be availible for any class or work that they (the japanesesesesesessss) can dream up to dump on me. Usually they are on ly able to dream up some meaningless office work. So foar today I have:

1) spent about an hour stamping the company logo and this schools address to a pile of white envelopes. (truly a great way to fire up the old fun receptors.)

2) contemplated the meaning of life and a winter trip to Thailand while tearing the perforated edges off of a pile of about 400 pages. I was almost killed by the joy until my Australian coworker decided to regale me with tales of poorly reported shark attacks in Australia. Apparently, "drowned and never found" is Australian for "eaten by shark." Also he informed me that Thailand is just a great big brothel. I don't know if that makes me want to go more or what. You learn something new every day.

3) cringed at the crusty looking rash on my students arms and neck. I know its a skin condition and that she is probably doing all she can to control it, but these types of thins are like candy for my eyes; no, heroin. Out of a see of nearly perfect looking Japanese people comes this crumbling woman wanting to learn english. I have to stare. Don't worry though, I remained extremely friendly and appeared to make eye contact several times. I'm sure she never thought that i was screaming and pointing in my head.


Lie with your eyes, not your mouth.

August 28, 2006 @ work

Currently, I am testing a theory. As long as you appear to be busy people will assume you are and will not bother you. i have nothing to do right now. My day is planned. All I have to do now is greet my students when they arrive... in 10 minutes. If I appear unbusy my japanese coworkers will put me on fan detail. (basically I will be given a bottomless box filled to infinity with fans and either a stack of stick-to-your-fingers-and-clothes stickers or a slice-deep-into-your-fingers flyers to attach through prayer and staples to the fans.) I don't like fan detail. If you haven't noticed. It feels like a cruel punishment for being one of the few english speakers in the office. I've had a thought recently, fan detail could possibly be the key yo stopping violent crimes... in the whole world... and select portions of the universe


Yes. Fan detail is an unmatched force of control.

I work with an almost limitless number of beautiful japanese women. Its like beauty is a prerequisite for working for my company. All of the women are beautiful and if they lack it in the face they make up for it with their bodies. I've seen mothers of three who look like they just exited high school. If I were like most men i might be in Heaven, but all that i see is frustration. Why can't the number of beautiful women be matched by the number of beautiful men. Sure, we have some lookers, but to see them you must muscle your way past all of the women.

This is just wrong on so many levels.

august 7, 2006 2:04 am

I am afraid that tonight sleep will not come. For some reason I am worried about my sisters. My older sister primarily. I think she may get in a car accident soon. Not a bad one. She’ll be okay. But I still worry about it. Once, when we were younger, we were riding together in a go cart. I was driving. I remember driving quickly around a corner and my sister flying out the side of the cart and sliding along the ground. I keep seeing this in my mind. Every time I close my eyes it’s the same thing. It has been that way for the last few nights. Tonight Its even worse. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping today. I remember the same thing happened with my younger sister when I was driving the go cart. She fell on grass though… then I drove over her foot. She was okay.
I want to call home and check on them but I really can’t afford it and my cell phone isn’t letting me call internationally for some reason. I hope everything is ok. I guess that is al I can do. My mom would call me if there was a problem. It’s 12:10 pm in Houston right now. My sister will be leaving church shortly. She is an avid church goer. She’ll be riding on the Houston highways…. She’ll be ok.
My mind is just inventing things because I miss my family. that’s all. I do miss them. I really want to talk to them.

I think I’ll have to call for money some how. I’m like really on my last dime. I got a credit card from my bank here but I’m scared to go over board using it. I actually have only bout some food, a pan, and, um…., that’s actually it. A pan and some food. I wanted to buy a TV or a play station 2 or a rice cooker, but since I have had very little food in my refrigerator or my stomach I easily ruled those three out. A rice cooker is starting to sound nice though. I know I commented once that I was starting to be sick of rice. I think I may have been wrong. Everything goes with rice; it’s the perfect filler food.
Ok I’m gonna try sleep again.

August 3, 2006

I have officially been living in Nagoya for a month… I have been in Japan for approximately 4 months. The time here seems to be creeping by at a steady pace. Not exactly fast, but definitely not slow. In 4 months I’ve had three jobs, owned two apartments, amassed a small fortune in credit card and student loan bills, and for some reason unknown to me managed to add a year to my life.
Its true. I’m 24, but recently I suffered under the belief that I was twenty five. I told countless students that I was 25. Often times they didn’t believe me. I believed me, but one day one of my students… actually a week ago today, asked my birthday and we realized that we shared the same birthday. He was 26 and I 25. We were thrilled until he started to do some very simple math and realized that I simply could not be 25. 24, he concluded and then proceeded to question if I was entirely sure of the year in which I was born. I took it all in stride, but could feel a considerable amount of my credibility as a teacher slipping through my fingers.
When I explained the situation to my mother she replied in her best motherly fashion that I have simply been under a lot of stress, a conclusion that I find quite easy to accept. While accepting her theory I have also created one of my own. Several of my students often comment that I look like I’m in my early thirties. For Japanese people that isn’t odd because every one here looks extremely young. SO telling the age of a foreigner is not a skill that I expect them to have developed in great detail. Still, I’ve been told I look thirty so many times that I think I subconsciously began to add days and months to my life to eventually get my age to match what people are seeing.

I look old… very old. I’m 24 but appear thirty. I’m starting to see how plastic surgery can appear appealing to people. I want to be young forever damn it or at least young when I should be. I think the difference in people’s actual age and the age they are perceived to be is what makes people lay willingly under the surgeons knife. Japan is gonna make me buy all kinds of look young creams and shit next time I go home. Which once again may be around Christmas. My friend who moved to Okinawa quit his job after a day and returned swiftly to the mainland. Eventually he will come to Nagoya for a while and then proceed back to the US. What will he do ? I don’t know, but I’m glad to help. He did let me crash his place for almost a month after I lost my job.
That’s one reason why I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to have to recount the details of me losing my job to my family repeatedly . Maybe they won’t ask… immediately . Eventually I know they will. Who am I fooling. I’m not going home at Christmas. It would simply be too expensive. The trip alone would probably drain my meager resources. I don’t even want to get into my innate desire to buy stuff.
Shit. Christmas would wreck my plastic surgery fund. I will of course do things to naturally regain my youth. Exercise and shit. But I think a happy bitch is gonna need a facelift.

April 4, 2006

My Microsoft Word demo has expired and so I had to dig around on my computer for this. Microsoft Works. I had no idea that my computer was harboring this little gem. Anyway. Lets see if I can bring the world up to speed on were I am. I am in Japan. There. Are we all on the same page. I still don’t have a cell phone. My apartment, though nice, is extremely boring. My desire, some might call it inherent, to decorate is rearing its ugly head. This isn’t the need to decorate out of sheer desire. If it was something as frivolous as desire I am certain I could club that bitch with a pole and shove it kicking and screaming back into the room that we will call submission. No, this desire to decorate comes from the simple realization that I fucking live in Japan and I can’t go visit my family and friends tomorrow… or even next week for that matter. My home like it or not is in Japan and I really need to make that realization be reflected in my living space.
Currently I don’t even have a table. The apartment came with a crappy computer desk. This desk comes complete with an equally crappy chair. I say crappy because my big ass or anyone who is not “Japanese-size” was never considered when this chair was being designed. It hurts my butt. Plain and simple. The floor or my bed… futon… pallet is far more comfortable than that chair. The point that I was trying to make is that the largest flat surface in my apartment is really shitty and not really useful for anything of substantial weight. My apartment also came with a small dresser, a book shelf and various household electronics. None of which makes this place feel like anything more than a glorified dorm room. I need to change that and I believe I’ll start this weekend by going to Nagoya to find a poster for me room.

july 30, 2006

Now that I think about it the really chill painter guy that used to come on pbs was fucking awesome. Sure his voice had a certain melody that could easily lull the most ADD cursed child and his should have been registered as a crime against humanity or at least good taste. The man was a freaking genius. I know nothing of true art, but I do no that making a picture appear in 45 minutes with cameras rolling and giving full narration must have been incredibly difficult. I don’t think I could do anything requiring a personal touch in 45 minutes.
How’s that for random.
I honestly don’t know why I’m writing. I guess in some ways I might just be a little bored… restless… hungry? I’m definitely getting back into the old swing of things here in Japan. I live in Nagoya now. I have an apartment. I recently bought a refrigerator and I am awaiting the day that I get paid. Sounds just like me before doesn’t it. Of course some things are different. I work for a different company doing basically the same job. I still find my coworkers attractive (curse the stupid bitch who thinks that wrong!) but now I don’t really bother with the tedious task of learning my coworkers names. Doesn’t matter how cute they are. This job has me bouncing all over the Aichi and Mie prefectures. This last week has had me reintroducing myself to a new group of people every day. If they can’t stay he same I see no point in memorizing their names. That’s silly isn’t it. I don’t care.
I’ve not been eating normally lately. At university I was famous for declaring ramen to not be a meal, but lately I find that I eat it, and often times nothing else, everyday. It goes without saying that I’m losing a great deal of weight. I just wonder how much longer I can keep this up. This doesn’t seem like a very healthy way to live. If I could substitute the ramen with something that I heavier in more nutrients than sodium I would be very happy. But for now my budget only makes room for ramen.
I will hopefully be starting judo soon. I figure that I have an unfathomable amount of anger and tension still built up in me, you can only drown so much in alcohol, that judo might be a good outlet for me. Sure I don’t really like being thrown around, but knowing that I can eventually throw someone too makes me very happy and willing to accept the pain. I may join a gym too. I would like to see how far proper exercise can take my new weight lose. My “skinny boy pants” are fitting me now. I don’t exactly feel cute in them, but I’m still happy that I can get the evil bitches on.
Recently I was made aware that a legend has been growing back home. My friends back at university have discovered that I lost my job and for some reason think that I have gone crying to Florida, the land of heat, humidity, and hurricanes. They are making me think of writing a story for the Int’l literary magazine here. They gave me a title. The Knight’s Legend. I think it would make an excellent story. Of course I know that almost all good stories don’t begin with a catchy title, but I would like to think that just this one time the laws of sense and sensibility would look the other way and let this story take wing. Even as I type this entry… this letter almost to an audience that I know is not there I can feel the wheels in the back of my head straining to break free of the vines and roots that have certainly taken root in their workings. I think I will write a story… a good one. I think that I have finally lived through a bout of shit so severe that it needs to be written about.
The Knight’s Tale will begin shortly.

i`m pissed

I`ve gone through the trouble recently of making two fucking entries on my computer. I lack the internet on my computer so i saved the magical things to my fucking flash drive. 　I walk down a hot sweaty ass street to a bloody internet cafe hoping that i`ll be able to load my entries to the net, but no. These evil hussies lack the proper software to read my freaking files. so i am checking my email on a computer that seems bound by some kinda sacred oath to freeze up completely any time i touch. 315 yen down the drain.

i have been living in conditions that would drive my mother to take an offering up at church for me.... to me its not that bad but if i relayed some of the details of what i have been doing she might freak a little. and i like her calm and willing to have philisophical debtes with me. oh yes. recently my mother and i have engaged in some very profound debates that for all my supposed debating skills are always dragged back to some religious picture. my mom is very religious i am not. I .llike her though. we seldom agree completly but i love to hear her opinions and i am sure she likes mine. i am working on a story. maybe i will post the a portion of it here. .........i had more to say. i have said most of it. in my other entires but they are trapped. grrrrrr

Today I'll Say

I don't write enough anymore. I think my ability to write at any random moment is tied into my ability to communicate with others. If i can get a word out to one of my friends, be it through the internet, telephone, or in person, I find that I won't have anything to write.

These things, online journals and blogs, are just places where I sound off. Places where i can pretend that i am standing in crowded room and giving a crappy lecture on the state of my life. In truth no one cares. At least I thought no one cared until my company, may they suddenly go bankrupt, went searching across the net for blogs by their workers.

I realize now that I bear a large bit of animosity towards the company. I know I said this before, but they took my kids from me. That is what I miss most about the job. I'm gay. It has taken me years to accept that and sometimes I find that I still have a considerable amount of fight left in me. So much so that I'll find myself toying with the idea of just surpressing myself and getting a family and being "normal." Sometimes I even find myself eying women who I think might fit into my planned normalcy. Occasionally I even begin to work torwards making my lan work. I approach the woman with my truly dreadful "D" game. I don't really have that much experience when it comes to enticing women and it shows whenever i approach one.

I never really push my little plans because i know that it would not be fair to the woman. A life built on only giving a portion of yourself to a person can't be right.

Wow. I'm way off point. What I was trying to say is that I may never have children and the company inall of their benovolence has taken my children from me. I know that they were not really my children, but for a brief, very brief time every day they were mine. Their parents trusted them to me for a short time and I was always so happy because of that. But now that is gone. Fuck the Company. Company A can kiss my ass.

The guy who fired me says that he was shocked at what he read and angry. I couldn't really get a real reply going because he just appeared out of the blue. Like realy out of the blue. At the end of the busiest day of the week for us he just appeared on the street dragging a large suitcase and looking extremely sweaty and flushed. Then he requests that I join him in a classroom and begins to reveal the case against me that the company has been building against me.

Honestly, I believe that he played a large role in firing me. he declared himself the head of the north-american teacher recruitment branch or some shit, so i'm certain that at some point the option to fire me or not was placed in his hands, and i believe that because of whatever personal convictions he holds he felt that simply calling me or emailing me about the content on the blog was not a reasonable course of action... maybe he felt that i betrayed the company or something for picking a semi public forum as the place where i let my thoughts fly... fuck him. fuck the company. I haven't been as pissed about this as I should be.

I've been obssessing myself with finding a fucking joband i'm tired now. The mutherfucker laughed at my fucking blog after he checked to see if I took the pictures of the kids down. You know I proabably would have been fine if he had not laughed. That shows that he does get the point that the blog is for fun only. nine out of ten things that i say on my blog never ever make it past my lips.

I hate the fucking company. I would name them here but for some reason I think they might still be looking at my fucking blog and if they are those bitches can kiss my ass. The guy who fired me suggested on behalf of the company that i just go home so i can "get some space on this." What the fuck is there to get space on. They tried to fuck my life up a bit. They did too. They conviced me to come accross the fucking ocean to a place where i don't speak the fucking language and at the first fucking sign of a problem they cut me loose. They didn't apporoach me and disclose what they thought the problem was. Oh no. That would have been too close to right. They just moved in to save their fucking face. You know the bitches had to actually search, do a special blog search, to find my blog. Bitches. The guy kept saying that he was only trying to protect the children.

That is the part that bothered me the most. It was like he was calling me some type of child molester or something. "I draw the line when it comes to kids." What the fuck was I gonna do to the kids, besides worry that they play too rough with each other, or be frightened that in a moment of excitement that moist booger perched just inside the entrance to their nose will fly out and hit me in the face, or worse yet ask them simple questions about the clubs they are in or ask them about their homework or something. Why the fuck would I want to hurt those kids? They were my fucking kids. The first group of kids that I could actually call mine and those sorry bitches just came in and brushed me away. One of my coworkers called me the other day and said that they still don't have a replacement teacher. They just had to spread my classes between the teachers there and hope for the best. He said the kids are asking about me. I'm trying to keep myself from asking about them. Cause it makes me angry to know that i can't be there to ask them myself.

I miss my kids so much.

It has been awhile. Almost a month since I sat down to write a real entry. I haven't had the time. I've been busy with work... and all that jazz. But, *sigh* , not anymore. I've been fired. Let go. Canned.

Why you ask. Because of my blog. I put some pictures of the kids up last week and of course had the things that I think about my coworkers here. My bosses found them and now I'm fired. With no warning, no bloody phone call. No nothing. I believe I have been made into a martyr. BITCHES.

I don't care though. Actually I do care. I put simply to much work into coming to this fucking country to be like "Oh shit. I'm fired. Well I guess I'll go home." That is what my ex-employer would like for me to do. I can't do that. I can't go back home. Before i came here the guy who recruited me would always say that taking this job was a big decision... something that you shouldn't take lightly. Well just cuz I got fired doesn't mean I'm gonna tuck my tail and run back to butt-fuck Mississippi. I can't do that. I'm gonna try here in Japan. That was my decision when I first came here. To make myself successful here and then go home. no amount of setbacks is gonna stop me from that.

Besides. It would hurt even more to go back. I really like what I do here. I like teaching English. I like kids. Its best for me. One thing that made me sad though was the simple fact that I lost my kids. When they fired me they took me children. I'm gay. That's a given. There is a chance that I may never have kids... ever. That should be a given too. Losing this job hurt most because I was worried about how the kids would take it. All of the time I put into them will seem wasted. Some of the kids will really miss me.

I had one kid who had started to give me hugs in class. Real hugs. Little kid hugs. Those are special. Little kids will hug anything if they're not afraid of it. That little kid giving me a hug made my day. He made my week, but now some bastard is gonna be getting my hugs... it just ain't right.

Anyway. I've started searching for jobs. I'm in crisis mode. I have two weeks until i send myself back to the states. I have to find a job to prevent that.

the world has become a series of lighted wires that sucks the life away from those connected.

solution?

there is none. One may find solace in paper but even then the wires will find you.

i have been fired.

rest easy world. rest easy.

Hey Tommie! Happy Birthday to you! You are now 24 and it's time to start conductung yourself as an old man. Oh wait, you already do that. Well, keep doin it then. Anyways, since I can't give you a cake...I have a pic of one here to share with you...



This isn't the one you wanted? Wow, what a mistake. Oh well..happy b-day anyways!

Another rushed entry

when oh when will I get the internet in my apartment? Earlier this week I was advised that the library has free internet. So here I am.... typing... as quick as my little (giant to most japanese people) fingers can manage. I have exactly fifty minutes to play on the computer. Wait! Only forty-five. You see there is a timer ticking away on teh screen. This library is high tech. At any rate, come hell or high water this computer will shut down when my time is up. Lucky me.

anyway I`m trying to use this little bit of time as best I can. I`m not allowed to send email but I can do other things like try to better coordinate my personal initiative to pay bills.

I should give a quick update shouldn`t I. Um, I recently got paid. My paycheck wasn`t shit. I mean really nothing. I had like a cajillion deductions. This was my first paycheck so I had to pay 2 and a half months of rent, electricity, local tax and something else that I forget now. The point is that I will be trying to stretch my little rice rations slightly farther in the coming days.

hmmm. Here is a new one. My job is making me sick. Like really sick. I have had a child-induced cold for the last week. I`m just a little tired of seeing little clouds of germs rushing me... The kids are still cute though. So you can`t be to mad. I`ll try to sleep more and eat some fruit. y`know viatamin c and shit.

I finally got a cell phone, but only one person not in Japan has called me. Thank you Rasha. I officially feel important. Everyone else... $&%&%$&#%$#%#%#$%#%#$%#%"#!$'&'(( Call me dammit!!!!!

To put my phone number here or not to put my phone number here... that is the question.
if you want to calll me leave a note on the blog. I`ll drop you dem dere digits.



twenty minutes left. What can I add. Well hell. I was gonna try to load some pictures on here, but this fucking high tech library has locked, and I do mean physically locked the A: drive and both front facing usb ports. Bitches.

Oh shit this very creapy old man just walked up to my computer and stared at me. Not the stare of someone who is just curious. oh no. this was the wobbly I might be drunk and/or crazy at noon stare. I`ve grown very accustomed to the "OOOooooo, Big Gaijin" stare. I get it everywhere. Last night this guy stopped and shouted something like Sekiyara at me. My friend said it meant I was big. I thought it meant I`m drunk because that guy had definetly downed his weight in liquor.

These rushed entries are long.

How`s this for wrong. Today I am making spaghetti with tofu.

Rushed... kinda

I really don`t have much time to get a decent "write" on. I`m actually paying for this time. I`m at this internet cafe... 400 ￥ an hour. The words highway robbery come to mind. Anyway, I`m fighting this japanese keyboard and just wanted to report that today has been my best day in Ogaki yet.
I honestly didn`t do much today. I went bowling, to the arcade, saw a movie, and ate lunch with a couple of my coworkers. I guess that counts as a lot.

anyway. My schedule at the school is hectic. I think my boss is pushing me off on the parents at a reduced rate and that is why I keep getting more and more students everyweek. right now I`m up to forty students. That doesn`t sound like a lot but at least fifteen of those students are private lessons. Private lessons are a pain because you have to prepare a complete different lesson plan for that little bastard.

I`m a little scatter brained right now. I`ll com back and fix this.






I want to get rehired though. I want to do this for about three years, so I have to put foward my good face. At all times.

My apartment is cool. I like it. I`ve said that before.

I have pictures. I always seem to end up at a computer with internet at awkward times though. I`m gonna have to start carrying my flash drive everywhere.

Day 5: Mystery Solved, Sleep Overwhelming

We have decoded the heater. Maybe decoded is the incorrect word. We, I, found the correct combination of buttons to press. Now we can sleep semi-comfortably in our small beds with their super thick sliding blankets. Rapture.

Day 4: Training Begins

Ok. That previous entry was destined for failure the moment it started. I was surrounded by my training peeps and could not really concentrate. This morning is really no better though. I’m sitting in my room waiting to get ready to go to training. The reason that I am waiting is because my roommate, Steven, and his wife, MeiLei, are copying some worksheet for our training. They were supposed to bring it when they came to training but they left it in their other suitcases. (We had to send the bulk of our luggage to our branch schools and only bring about a weeks worth of clothing to the training center in Okayama.) SO now I’m waiting for them to finish that.

I’m also waiting for someone to shed light on the secret of our heater. We have this gorgeous little heater attached to the wall that neither I nor Steven can figure out. The damn thing is entirely in Japanese and the crappy instructions that our first trainers (the ones who released us into Okayama with a bad map and a prayer) are horrible. The instructions give like a one word explanation of the heater. Actually it’s the Kanji symbol for heater followed by the English word “heater.” Truly a useless means of instruction when you are cold… ice cold… possibly on the verge of dying from hypothermia because this fucking building does not include central heating. Oh GAWD to be back in the U.S. were people understand that instructions for heat are best detailed in English. One word explanations should be the title for your instructions. NOT, the instructions themselves. Personally I for the most part can deal with being cold… most of the time, but today I find that I am craving a little heat and this heater mystery is proving to be to much for me and my needs.

I’m going to go take a shower now and frown at my wrinkled shirt that I refuse to iron. I’ll frown it into straightness.

DAY 3

I’m starting to think that I should have endeavored to maintain this thing daily. Well that was the original plan, but due to set-backs things were changed. The power situation here in Japan is pretty weird. I don’t think they use three prongs ever. They just let their electricity just flow willy nilly all over the damn place. At any rate I purchased a funky looking extension cord so that I could finally charge my computer up and get a few things done. I was finally able to chat with Rasha and assure her that country to popular belief I did make it across the ocean. I called my parents. They were worried. They tried to call my branch school, but were not able to get through.

We’ve been walking all over Okayama, which is the city in which I’m doing my training before I travel to my school in Ogaki. We went to a castle today. We, of course, is my training class. My trainers let us loose upon the city for like two days. IN my class there are about ten people: David, Rennel, Dayo, Tracy, Naho, Archie, Steven, Danielle, Meilei, and me. Ta-da.

Hour 11: Feeling Like a Caged Animal

To say that this day is not exciting would be a bit of a lie. I am so buzzed, kind of. At least I was. I feel like a caged animal. This “flight,” this torture seems determined to never end. !4 hours from Dallas to Osaka. I’ve been on long car trips, but in those situations I always knew someone. Today I know no one. I know that there are five other people on this flight who are going to Japan for the same reason as me. I also know that aside from the requisite Japanese people all the foreigners look normal. Normal may be the wrong word. They don’t look unusually remarkable. No one stands out as being one of the elect few.

Truth be told this type of job is common nowadays. So, the elect few is just a myth that exists only in my head. Kind of like W.E.B Dubois and the magnificent 10 or some shit like that. Anyway, I’m bored and I’m still reeling from the insult I was dealt today at the hands of this old…. GUY! This guy who is from Amarillo, Texas is a finance consultant. He talked my ear of during my flight from Mobile, AL to Dallas. Al 77 minutes of it. He would not shut up. He made me give him my sister’s phone number so that he could offer her some help with refinancing her shit. After he talked to me for about an hour, during which time I ran to the bathroom and tried to feign sleeping (he could not be shook), he says that I look older than what I really am, He says that he would have pegged me as thirty and not 23.

That old bastard my heart break. 30? Thirty? THIRTY FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never been so hurt. I mean thirty isn’t a bad age. I’m hearing more and more reports of people coming into their prime at thirty. I’m not near my prime though. I’m not even on that downward (or upward) spiral to 30 yet. Naturally I played off my hurt. I made it into a joke. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to knock those liver spots straight off his sorry ass. I know a poorly veiled insult when I see one. He was saying I looked bad, But who wouldn’t? I have only had two hours of sleep today. I’m tired and it freaking shows. He caught me at a down moment. But I’ll get him. I’ll show the world that I am only 23 and I look great!


Not really, but I’m gonna see if I can get some sleep in. I have this creeping feeling that the trainers are gonna try to take us out to eat tonight. To turn them down or not to urn them down? That is the question.

I hate packing.

Damn Cats Rejects

I'm 23 now and for the most part pretty well adjusted for someone coming from He... I mean Mississippi. I say for the most part because of this show. This show, Zoobilie Zoo, screwed me in the head when I was younger. When I was seven or something close to that my aunt used to babysit me. This show came on everyday right in the middle of her soaps. It was like General Hospital, Dallas, Zoobilie Zoo and then All My Children. The schedule was perfect. Everyday my favorite show came on, until one day things went horribly wrong. Zoobilie Zoo was my favorite show. On this horrible day things changed. The cute characters (which now appear freakish and just plain disgusting) sang their songs, did their dance, and proceeded to teach me something special. On this day the something special was about the solar system. The characters explained the way that gravity works on earth and in the solar system. They explained that the sun is our solar system's center of gravity and that all things are pulled towards it. They explained that all the planaets in our system are slowly being pulled towards the sun and that one day all of the planets will fall in.

That shit shocked me. I was seven, very impressionable, and very aware of how the sun worked. I watched the discovry channel. I knew that the sun was hot. I knew that nothing could live on the sun. Nothing dammit! Nothing. The little giggling happy character on Zoobilie Zoo made me leave my room. I almost cried after watching that show. I sat outside my aunt's trailer and refused to look up. I just sat there and sucked on my blue frozen cup and wonder just how soon we would all burn up. After that day I could never watch Zoobilie Zoo again. I just didn't feel right. My stomach churned and my heart grew weak.

They Basically told me that I was gonna die. That is never cool on a children's show. I just wanted to say that and let every one know about another one of the many 80's shows that contributed to my fucked up nature.

no focus

Dear God,


Blah blah blah something. I've always wanted to start an entry this way. Writing as though I were consulting God. Even if I don't really believe in any one religions stance on God. I should start all my entries like this:

Dear you or ya'll,

I like that.

Anyway its kinda late. About 12:35 to be exact. Yep, I'm staying up late and writing this entry with a sheet over my head so my parents can't see me. yeah bitches i'm bold! It is officially two days until I leave and I have nothing done. Nothing. No clothes packed. No decisions made. No final instructions given to my family. Nothing. I want to chicken out. I want to call that bastard who recruited me and say, "Hey! This shit ain't gon' work!"

Ja-fucking-pan. What the hell am I thinking. I'm not ready for this. I don't know how to speak. I don't even have faith in my abilty to teach english. Sure my job is to simply tell them how to speak and I'm sure I can do that. That much should be easy, but if any one asks me about the finer parts of sentence structure I will fix them with my best deer in the headlights stare. I never learned that crap. I declared it useless the moment my teachers started trying to bang it into my head and truly it is useless. Who worries about conjunctions when writing a paper? I don't. I learned to write by reading. Of course, after looking at my writing here that doesn't appear to be saying much. I assure you though, I am a good writer. But I digress. Who cares about grammar? I don't and I never will. I learn by doing. Not doing willy nilly. I need structure but I don't need concrete rules that make no sense to be the structure by which my learning is directed.

hmmm, am i talking myself into going. cause i really feel like I can handle it now.


I haven't packed a thing. Did I mention that? My room looks like a junkyard.