Now that is a strange sound. For the first time in probably a very long time I hear a dog barking. I of course have heard dogs barking since I've been in Japan, but this doesn't sound like the annoying yap of one of the more beloved species here. Its a DOG, not a dog.

oh. he stopped. I guess my moment of not being in Japan is over.

I've been feeling too melancholy lately. I think I need a vacation... a proper vacation. Like away from this city. Maybe even away from this island. You know, I just ain't right for island living. I feel like I'm trapped here.

the cutest little condom ever

Man Rag

Last night, in one of the few moments that he was not singing bad karaoke, I shared with Stuart that I have been feeling really frustrated lately. Well not so much frustrated as just on edge. Like all I need is for the right or wrong person to come along and set me off.

Stuart suggested that I was on the "man rag." (ew.)

Doesn't that just sound disgusting. I'm not gonna go into a long rant about how periods are disgusting, even though they are, but... but.... ew.

Anyway, I've been turning that over (as well as the revelation that I am not American) in my head all day. As far as I can tell I just haven't been feeling fulfilled lately.

I don't really have anything to say at the moment. My roommate is here right now and some pretty weird stuff has been happening between us. So right now things on my end are not awkward, but she is the queen of picking an emotion and wallowing in it. Particularly the ones that make you unhappy. SO she is wandering around looking sad. But then again I could just be placing to much importance on myself. She moped before and made stupid whiny noises with her mouth and sometimes asked dumb questions about boys.

Boys are stupid. Girls are even more stupid for letting themselves get caught up. My roommate might be the stupidest girl of them all.

Do I hate my roommate?

No.

Am I finding that I may not be strong enough to take her personality with a smile on my face constantly?

YES!

She is gonna fuck around and get the family treatment. You know getting screamed at for doing stupid shit. I already ignore her freely.

Frustration in Japan and Gifts of Africa

Last night I bought tequila with the understanding that Jun and I would be drinking it while studying Japanese. Of course, as is the case with all of my plans, that was not the case. Before I could even make it home from work (actually before I could make it out of my last class) my roommate had called my phone four times and left a message wondering if I wanted to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3, because her happy ass was in line at that very moment buying tickets. I told her about my plans with Jun and then she all but cried while whining something about how I promised to go with her to the movie like 2 months ago. It was true.

So I told her to give me a second so that I could call Jun and see if he wanted to see that movie. This is when she started to piss me off. I hadn't realized that she was standing at the counter, but she chose that moment to tell me and explain to me in a really shitty way that made me want to throw some thing that she needed a yes or no...now. I don't like being forced to make spur of the moment decisions. I avoid them at all costs. So naturally I told her that she would have to wait. She was like I can't so I was like fine. Fuck it. Jun and I are not gonna see the damn movie then. She was all sad then but I didn't give a shit.

So I'm trying to wrap my shit up at work. (Yeah, that whole conversation took place in the teacher's lounge while I was trying to fill out my roll book, which I'm sure I did horribly wrong because she destroyed my concentration with her nonsense.) While finishing my shit my really cute coworker who, I can't believe is 32, decided to engage me in a long conversation about how him being bald kinda guarantees him no play from girls in Japan. I only listened because I was waiting for a massive hole to show itself in his story, because I have a theory about him. My theory is that he is incredibly gay. He has this whole Mr. Rogers/ that-white-man-with-an-Afro-who-paints-on-PBS, look you deep and lovingly in your eyes while talking to you thing going. It is easy to become flustered around him. He is so cute. He says he enjoys hearing me ramble. Only gay dudes say that to each other. But whatever. I pulled myself away from him just in time to catch my train.

While on the train my roommate called my phone 3 more times trying to ask if I had gotten in contact with Jun, cause she was still int he area and could easily go back to buy us tickets. (she was really on my nerves at that point.) I called him and he wanted to see it, so I called her back and then she is like, "I'm back at the apartment now. Can you buy them?" In my head I just screamed. Here I was wanting nothing more than to eat a crappy lunch/dinner and just unwind for a moment, but, no, that was not her plan. She wanted me to go running all around the damn world to watch a movie that I really have no desire to see. Especially if it ain't on DVD and a very cheap rent. I went the damn theater and was told by the staff that there were no seats together so for the second time that day I said FUCK IT! We are not seeing the DAMN MOVIE!

Then I went home. When I got home she was leaving, and my deep southern roots prevented me from being extremely rude, even though I was pissed, and just ignoring her as I got in the elevator. I quickly... maybe to quickly explained to her what happened and declared myself hungry and walked away. I think I fulfilled my daily nice quota with that enormous act of kindness.

Anyway later last night Jun came over and said that he had been communicating with Yousuke all day, and that he wanted to go to Outback. Naturally I resisted Outback for a good bit. Then he said he would pay and all the fight went out of me. We ate at Outback after waiting the requisite 2 hours for a table on a Saturday night. While eating Jun constantly sent messages to Yousuke, trying to organize some outing to a new and horribly unknown to me gay bar.

The messages and phone calls went on for the better part of 2 hours. Then his job started to call him. Jun job requires that he constantly be on call for little nit-picky shit all day. Everyday. I do mean everyday. This morning, Sunday, he had already received three calls by the time it was 10 am. I understand that he can't change that aspect of his job. But it seems like his job owns his soul. He can't get a full night of sleep. He can't go to a full movie. He can't take full part in anything without his damn phone ringing. It is tragic.

Last night between the message and phone calls to Yousuke and the calls from his job I spent a long time just standing around waiting for Jun to tell me what we were going to do. I hate to 1) not be informed and 2) to wait around for no obvious reason. I guess I get that from my parents. Or maybe I developed it because of them. When I was young they never liked to tell me where we were going. I hated that shit.

Anyway I spent the better part of the night being horribly aggravated by that shit. Eventually though, after an unexpected and unwanted costume change, we ended up at this little hole in the wall gay bar. The clientele were mostly young twink-ish Japanese guys. Actually the vast majority of Japanese guys are twink-ish and at the very least look far younger than they actually are.

The bar was crowded and not much to look at, butt he staff was nice and the drinks were good, and once again I wasn't paying. So now... Yousuke's boyfriend, Stuart, is an asshole. We were at the bar for no less than 6 hours. He was the only person there who spoke English on a native level, he is from Australia. jun was enjoying speaking freely with Yousuke and Yousuke's boyfriend insisted on speaking Japanese only or singing karaoke... badly. I was bored, and as time carried on frustrated. I tried to talk to everyone using my three words of Japanese. I tried talking to Stuart. I tried to break up Jun and Yousuke, but felt bad about it because they were really hitting it off. (This was their second time meeting.) So I left them alone. I was bored and getting angry. I didn't want to go to the damn bar in the first place, but Jun convinced me and although I had fun for a little while, I spent the majority of the time watching kanji fly across a screen and trying to read people's lips for something similar to an English word so that I could have a moment of understanding.

I got no relief and without realizing it I kinda pitched a fit. I was singing Fergalicious and no one was listening to me or even acknowledging that I was there. They were all involved in some Japanese bullshit and so I threw the mic down and all but screamed that I am fucking bored and that I don't know what the fuck is going on and that I want to fucking go home.

I think those were my words and, come to think of it, I did scream.

Suddenly Jun and Yousuke were trying to calm me down but I was just like fuck it lets leave. I even suggested that they stay if they were having a good time. But I was miserable. It was close to closing time anyway so 30 minutes later we left.

Jun doesn't like Yousuke's boyfriend he says he is inconsiderate. I think Jun can be sometimes too, but that is a different entry.

While waiting for the train back to my station I was approached by an African man named, Gift. Gift told me that I was not American. "You're African," he said. Then he said that he wanted to meet and thank my mother. I said, "OK." Then my train came away and I was whisked safely away from Gift and was finally able to go home. And sleep. ....kinda. When I got home Jun and I spent roughly ten minutes eating a light breakfast and telling stories of all the ways we would like to express our hate of Yousuke's boyfriend.

After the ten minutes were up we passed out.

It was good sleep if you ignore the fact that Jun is instinctively drawn to the center of the bed and that I am so docile when i'm tired or sleeping that I easily end up sleeping on an 8 inch strip while he has miles of space. I've gotten used to it though. There is so much that I can do in 8 inches now.

Lately I've been finding myself involved in some strange discussions. Discussions about evil kids, about family, about the future, about people from my past and about raising children. It is fairly safe to say that I enjoyed most of the conversations. Some of them led into different... activities that I am trying to strike from my mind on account of their highly traumatic and life affirming values. (If that last sentence meant nothing to you count yourself lucky. It means far too much to me.)

In these discussions I've often found myself defending people and ideas that I may not actually like or have any real opinion about. One conversation that really sticks out in my head is the conversation that I had with my roommate about her plans to raise her children. For the record, it is my sincerest hope that if she actually has kids, I want her to also have a very strong husband. Otherwise, I declare unfit for parenthood. She is too emotional and some traits just don't need to be passed on to the next generation.

My roommate says that when she has kids she doesn't want to raise them with any kind of religious base. That idea alone isn't that surprising to me. I've heard it before. Now when I asked her what her reasoning was she stated that [raising children with a set religion is similar to brainwashing.] I felt that was harsh, because I was raised with a religious background. Hell, my family, my extended family, is filled to the brim with preachers and deacons and choir members and trustees. I have been surrounded by religion my entire life. Christianity to be precise. Yet I don't feel brainwashed. I actually started to question my upbringing and come to embrace my own ideas as well as that of others.

When I mentioned that to her she says that I may be a special case. Or that I might be the norm. She couldn't say. But in her life she has met with a good amount of frequency the fanatics. The ones who would look at you and say with great sorrow in their eyes that are [truly sorry that you're a Jew, but you're gonna burn in the fires of Hell.] When she told me that one I felt a little sad for her.

We then moved on to other topics mostly because we had been talking on the subway and her inside voice doesn't really like to stay inside. She talks so loud. All the time. In Japan the goal of most people is to be as unobtrusive as possible. So on the subway it is generally polite to talk softly. I talk softly in public places automatically, but she just projects everything. Normally it wouldn't bother me but the train was full and people were starting to look at us.

Later during the night I thought more about the conversation and started to wonder, "What do parents teach their children? Wouldn't anything you teach your children be it politics, how to bake a pie, how to fix a car, where your faith lies be a form of brainwashing? Don't we indoctrinate our children as a way of life? How else are the lessons of the past passed on?

I've asked my roommate this and she doesn't have an answer. I also went on to defend Christians. Actually I didn't defend them so much as tried to explain why certain aspects of Christianity, namely a belief in the afterlife, are important to people. I explained that some people might feel that without and afterlife to work towards this life would be pointless. What is the point of being a good person or even living if at the end you're just gonna vanish in a flash of dying synapses?

To this she replied those people are sheep, there is no soul, and a few other things that I stopped listening too, because we were on the train and as I mentioned before she was loud and people were staring. At any rate I tried that line of conversation again but it was difficult and eventually we just agreed to disagree. Actually I declared that we had an unresolvable disagreement and further discussion would only prove aggravating.

I pray for her kids. But I'm not Christian...do my prayers work?

THE ALL-NEW 2006
GAY AGENDA

proudly brought to you by angry_biscuit

It is official. I am what they call a pussy. I was watching Texas chain saw Massacre: The Beginning and had to stop because my fragile little stomach could not take the stress of what i was seeing. I could sense graphic violence coming and had to just stop. And so I did.

Amidalah and I are currently playing together.

...interesting week

Well it is over. My week. My birthday, horribly uneventful, why are my five year olds performing a satanic ritual in the center of the classroom week is over.

Um, I said my birthday was this week and, just like my last birthday in Japan, the day of celebrations were lacking. How did that wonderful Tuesday the fifteenth go? Let's see.

My boss bought donuts to celebrate.I don't really like donuts, but I smiled and said arigato loudly and joyfully, and even pretended to be touched by her late night "gift" of sweet, powdered, cream filled, a heart attack in waiting goodness. Honestly I was happy. I thought it was very nice of her.

My roommate went out to dinner with other friends. Not that I wanted to hang out with er dramatic ass anyway.

Everyone I called in my address book was busy. Really they were all "busy." Bitches.


Wasn't that a wonderful Tuesday. My Wednesday went a little better. You see I worked on my birthday and then later realized the error of my ways. So on Wednesday I called in with "throat problems." It was TRUE! Lately when I wake up my throat has been really scratchy and dry. Wednesday I thought it had gotten really bad. So I called.

The day wasn't completely lost on being sick though. I managed to drag my scratchy tail over to a bookstore in the shopping area of town. Sakae, famous for bad Nagoya fashion at all ours of the day and until 3 o'clock at night.

At the bookstore I stumbled across a patch of gold. (Can gold even come in a patch?) I found comic books and not the cool manga shit. I love manga, but I found American comic books. AMERICAN COMIC BOOKS!!! I felt a joy that i had not felt in a long time when I saw them. I did my sacred happy dance. (It is a mix between the cabbage patch, electric slide, and a bit of river dance. It's hot. Kinda scary to children, which is why is is quite sacred.) The last time I found an American comic book it was a fucking lame issue of Wolverine. Just one. One lame issue about an even lamer mutant who should die... painfully. Anyway I was so outraged by seeing it that I picked it up and filed it away in the kiddie book section. (Children around the world, whether intentionally or not, are the single leading cause of death for books. And that issue of Wolverine didn't have the kiddie resistant binding that allows some of the kid books to live. I bet it was ripped to shreds in a puddle of saliva an feces.)

Back to Wednesday. I bought an issue of Captain America, only because it was there, an issue of The Fantastic Four, same reason as Captain (L)AMErica. I try to not even recognize the Fantastic Four as superheroes. They are just accident victims who develop strange complexes. Their inner self came out and now we call see how crazy they are. The sad thing though is that no one has locked those crazy Victims up. I also bought an issue of the X-men. I was happy with that one. I love the X-men.

Back to Tuesday. To make myself feel better about being abandoned by my friends. I treated myself to fried chicken at this cool restaurant near my apartment and a psp. Its blue. And named Amidalah the Destroyer. Not to be confused with that hussy Queen Amidallah.

Wednesday ended with my roommate coming home and sobbing for about five minutes because the guy she has been casually fooling with came to work and talked about how he wants to get a Japanese girlfriend cause he is single. She actually sobbed. I just played with Amidalah and then offered her a piece of cake. Oh yes I financed my own cake. Well my own two pieces of cake.

Thursday passed quickly. I used a few quiet moments to call an emergency session of karaoke in honor of my recent birthday. I sent a text message encouraging everyone to come on Saturday. Of course I received no replies.

Friday is my regular day off. Usually I spend it lying around naked and masturbating occasionally. Well my wonderful roommate decided that since her insomnia has prevented her from sleeping properly for the last month she was close to a nervous breakdown and simply could not go to work. She stayed home on my freaking day off. It was cool though. I lounged around in skimpy underwear (boxer briefs) and a sleazy t-shirt all day. Then I made her come out to dinner with me cause I had a coupon for a free birthday meal.

Saturday. I missed my train. I couldn't remember when my classes started. I got unbearably hungry 2 classes into my shift, and I had like three students come in one after the other who were too cute for words. I actually blatantly stared one up and down for a couple of minutes in class. It was private class and its my privilege as a "demanding" teacher.

Later on Saturday was karaoke. It was supposed to only be a couple of hours, but that quickly turned into an all night all you can drink event that saw me sitting on the floor outside the room declaring Japanese people kawaii or kawainai. Good times.

I also molested Jun's best friend. Gave one of my horribly straight friends the most uncomfortable lap dance of my life. It was worth it though because he turned bright red and had to like look away for a while. He may have cried. I drank too much. Lost my voice. Got a few bottles of wine as gifts. (I didn't drink wine before, but I just can't let alcohol go to waste so now I'm a wine drinker.) Oh yeah I had all that great fun and managed, through a slick bit of number manipulation at the beginning of the night, to never open my wallet once. The night was in my honor and dammit I ain't buying shit, and I will get drunk.

Sunday. Jun made my gag reflex kick into vomit mode. (I'll let you play with that one.) This CD of special songs that i need for my class tomorrow has vanished and so I am pissed and about to jump in bed and finally kiss this week good bye.

You Are 22 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Guy Shopping

I like this picture.

Phone Candy

See in this picture it is hard to see, but in the center of the bushes there is a japanese raccoon dying of the mange. He was moving so slowly and had so little fur that I assumed he would be dead in about 4 hours. This crab wa made out of play dough that my students and I had made for class. Cute isn't it.

If you wake up at 4:15 like I do sometimes you too can see the sunrise from my apartment window. Of course you have to sail pass the dead lock and my butcher's knife first.

Cleaning

I promised SemiSpecial that I would not let my pigeon warfare turn into a blog entry so I'll just briefly mention the pure and complete satisfaction I got out of destroying that pigeon nest, and I'll only touch on how my brow darken with a sinister light as I crushed that egg beneath my broom. I won't even speak of how insanely those pigeons flew after I tossed boiling water onto them.

A promise is a promise.

Last Friday I cleaned my apartment. Well at least as much of it as I could. My roommate unlike me seems to have no problem with allowing her mess to spill out of her room into the apartment. Now I admit that her room is smaller than mine, but I really don't understand how that justifies using one of the tables in our little common area as an extended bookshelf. I also don't see why, after her mother's Japan visit ended a solid week ago, she hasn't removed her mother's mess from our kitchen table. Like the table is covered in maps and little receipts and stuff like that. I know the receipts aren't mine because I keep all of my receipts on the floor in my room. She also hasn't washed a dish since I've been here. I've been washing to keep away fruit flies and mosquitoes. I really don't have any desire to be responsible for culturing the newest strain of malaria in my apartment's kitchen sink.

At any rate I cleaned.

I cleaned the bird shit covered balcony. I washed every dish in that kitchen (all of which have mysteriously become dirty again.) Then I cleaned my room which seemed to defy cleaning. It looks the same now as it did before I cleaned it.

Cleaning isn't fun. While looking for things to spear the pigeons with I stumbled across a new closet in the apartment. Actually the closet wasn't new I had just never noticed it and my roommate never bothered to mention it. This closet is apparently the designated place for recyclables in the apartment. I've just been wrangling shit on the kitchen floor in plastic bags. My roommate never felt the need to mention that the shit had a home. I'm not mad though, because after examining the closet I realized why. My kitchen rodeo results in the trash and recyclable shit getting taken out. The closet does not. The floor of the closet was littered with no less than 30 glass bottles, ten cans, and six plastic bottles that had been partially filled with water and used as ash trays by my roommate. Sanitary? I think not. Their plastic cartons, random paper bags, stuff I couldn't recognize (but know should be recycled), and beautiful, if not small, net for the balcony. (The war continues.)

In short that closet was disgusting. I emptied out most of the trash but I think I'm gonna have to raise my voice at some point because I create a lot of trash, but I do not horde trash in my home. That is disgusting. I have to find some way to talk about this with my roommate. Also I think the apartment feels like a furniture store. There is too much stuff. It has this whole going to fall in on you feel and I don't like that feeling. I'm a little claustrophobic and I just keep imagining how this apartment (on the 10th floor) would suck during an earthquake.

Maybe an earthquake would do away with those damn pigeons.

Random Thoughts from a Kitchen Floor

Jun can cook really well... or he chops really well.


Wow. He has nice legs. Really Strong. Nice definition. That's hot. I bet I'm still stronger than him.

His haircut looks like shit. Be nice. Say that he looks like something cool. A policeman? No, too many sex scandals. A politician? No, comparing him to Abe would be tantamount to stabbing him to death with a cucumber. A soldier? Japanese? *uncontrollable laughter* American? Yeah, an American soldier. The japanese cling to anything American like cat hair on a wool sweater.

Does he always cook in his underwear or is this for my visual enjoyment?


Methinks I enjoy this too much.

Addictive

Co-habitation

When my time ended on JET, and I somehow decided not to go back to America, this meant that I would have to find a new apartment in Japan, as my JET successor would move into mine. ...This, actually, was not my first time moving in Japan.

My first apartment was a room. ...And that's about it. There was also a 3-foot hallway which lead to the door. On the left side of the three foot hallway, imagine stuffing a toilet, bathtub, and sink into your broom closet. On the right side, was a small kitchen sink and ONE burner. Literally, that's it. And while it was fun being able to shower and cook eggs for breakfast, at the same time, the apartment left much to be desired. Although the cramped size was a big issue, the apartment was located in the bad part of town (the Ghetto), and as it was right across from the train station, that wasn't fun either. Trains stopped running at midnight, but from that point I had to put up with the "REV-REV-REV" of the scooter punks trying to be cool. Yes, not even motherfuckin' motorcycles, but SCOOTERS. You will NEVER be cool on a SCOOTER. That's like an army of chiseled-abs Spartans riding into battle on their magnificent stallions, and here you come atop a fuckin' donkey. Turn your ass around and go the fuck home.

The other thing that bothered me about the previous apartment was that for its cramped, shitty location, I seemed to be paying at least double (if not more!) than most other JET's, who had significantly bigger living spaces. Quite a few were paying less for 3-room houses. One guy in a town not too far from me was paying $100 for a 10-room house. JET likes to hide under the "Every Situation is Different" banner, but in this case I feel a more appropriate slogan would be "Some of you will be given Chardonnay and the finest Scandinavian cheeses, while Japanese magazine models line up to give you oral sex, and some of you will be lead into a room, greased up, and thoroughly violated by Japanese professional wrestlers wielding steel chairs and pumpkins." As usual, guess which end of the stick I got.

So after sticking it out for awhile, I decided to move. I found out then just how challenging that is. Perhaps the biggest obstacle was finding somebody to co-sign. Co-signing is a big deal in Japan - there are Japanese people who would, without hesitation, take a bullet for you. Or push you out of the way of a speeding bullet train (with no time for them to get away unharmed). Or, shield you from a rampaging, horny Starr Jones (with no time for them to get away unharmed). But those same people would have to give the idea of co-signing for you a *lot* of serious thought. My higher-ups at the Board of Education finally did co-sign for me, but not without a lot of feet dragging and complaining. My boss made sure to tell me, at least three times, not to burn the new apartment down.

...Aw shucks. I guess I'm just going to have to cancel that Wicca Candlelight Welcoming Ritual I was planning on having. I'm probably going to have to tell my friends Johnny Storm and Puff, The Magic Dragon that they won't be able to hang out at my place anymore too.
Anyway, my experiences from my first move had taught me that this time around, more than anything else I was going to need a Japanese co-signer. After three years in Japan, I knew people who would have gladly sacrificed their lives for me. I knew fathers who would have, without hesitation, given me their daughters to me to do with as I pleased. I knew fathers who would have, without hesitation, given me their wives to do with as I pleased. But I didn't know anyone within this tiny island nation that would have willingly co-signed for me. My work had made it clear - since I was no longer working for them, they weren't morally obligated to co-sign for me. So they weren't going to. For all they cared, I could re-create the Darth Vader funeral pyre in my bedroom.

There was only one possible avenue I could venture down for a co-sign - my girlfriend.
By this point, we'd been dating for a year. Things had been going well. We had spent extended time together and never managed to irritate one another. And with me needing a Japanese co-signer, the choice was clear - I asked her to move in with me. She agreed, and with her name on the contract, as well as her parents co-signing power, we found a nice apartment in downtown Kyoto together.

Now, as a man, I had certain predisposed thoughts and expectations about living together about a girlfriend. Moreover, a Japanese girlfriend. Many guys who have had a Japanese girlfriend come over for the night have found that the next day, their apartments are magically cleaner than they were before. While dating my girlfriend for the past year, I simply never had to worry about laundry, or dishes. One of my friends brought a girl home for *one* night, and when he came home the next day from work, he found not only his entire apartment sparkling clean, but all the meds in his medicine cabinet had been arranged in alphabetical order. ...Who the fuck *does* that? Like, some girl woke up one morning and was like, "Ah, that was some good Gaijin Cock I got last night. Welp, better go say thanks by alphabetizing his medicine cabinet..."
So guys, if you ever find your apartment is in a great big mess, and you *just* don't wanna clean it...go bring home a Japanese girl for the night. You get laid, AND your apartment will be more sterile than a sperm bank. What a friggin' bargain! Girls, I'd love to say the same applies for you, but I really doubt it.* You might wake up to find that an entire year's supply of hair spray is suddenly just GONE.

*That is, unless you girls bring a Japanese girl home. In that case...FUCKIN'A, TAKE PICTURES!

I don't mean to be some kind of chauvinist pig or anything like that, but I rather enjoyed having the dishes and laundry taken care of for an entire year. I sort of assumed that when we moved in together, that sweet set-up would continue.

Nope, nuh-uh sucker, no.

Suddenly, now I had to pull my weight. And if I didn't, there was hell and high waters to pay. Granted, this is nothing more than fair share, but having gone from living the good life at the Playboy Mansion, to being whipped in the cotton fields, took a little getting used to. And as I've mentioned before, while any woman who unleashes The Furies is indeed scary, there's an extra-special "OH SHIT!" Factor when it comes to Japanese women. Maybe its because one day, you realize that she will become an indestructible little obasan, who would not hesitate to fucking kill you with her bare teeth.

And it wasn't even just that I had to do these things now. I had to do them in a timely manner. Maybe I'm wrong, but us guys, we work on a "when absolutely necessary" basis. As far as laundry goes, as long as we have clean underwear...what laundry? I make sure to specifically have at least 21 pairs of boxers, so that I don't have to do the laundry for at least three weeks. Dishes weren't that much different. Maybe I'd decide to boil pasta in a pot on Monday. On Tuesday, since my pot was still dirty, I'd cook a stir-fry in the skillet. On Wednesday, with the pot and skillet still dirty...well, then it was time for Jack in the Box. In the same vein, if I wanted to eat pasta on Monday but all my forks were dirty...then it was time for a soup. Only when there were no combinations of cooking and dining utensils available that would allow me to eat, would I do the dishes. Although, a REAL Man's Man would just keep a supply of paper plates and sporks around the house.

But no, now I had to do the laundry no matter how many clean pairs of boxers I had left, and I had to do the dishes while the food was still traveling through my digestive tract. The laundry is one thing, but the dishes! I don't want to do the dishes immediately after eating. After meal time is a special time in a man's life, when he kicks back on the sofa, evacuates all thoughts from his brain, and drops a hand down his pants, Al Bundy style.

Well, sure, now I have to be responsible and all. That's not a bad thing, right? Besides, and this is again another guy expectation, with my girlfriend living right there with me, I now had 24/7 access to sex, anytime I wanted, right?

And I'm sure all you guys who have ever lived with a girlfriend are laughing heartily at me right now. Laughing heartily between the bitter, angry tears.
(To Be Continued...)

From GaijinSmash.com

Should be a Given

Sometimes I think I live my life to be surprised. Actually I think it might be my purpose; to be that person who screams, "WOW!", whenever something new and terribly mundane is shown to them.

Anyway, my roommates mother has come to visit. She is a nice lady who talks a lot. She tells some really interesting stories. Especially about my roommate. Basically my roommate was a fucking genius when she was a young child. Like she was really gifted. I'm sure that on some level she is now, but her gifts don't seem practical and her ability to use them seem limited. (Cause she is weird and overly emotional.)

So the three of us have been sharing this apartment since last friday. It has been "fun". I actually think I don't like this apartment. Its not too small. Its just too crowded with stuff that doesn't feel like mine. This apartment comes furnished and I don't think I like the furnishing.

This apartment ain't made for three people. With the furniture and us it is pretty crowded. Especially when my roommates mom starts talking.

All of this I knew before her mother arrived, but last night I realized something completely new. While walking into the bathroom I was suddenly siexed with an urge to throw newly lit matches (like that chick in Chicago), because the smell was over-powering. I realized at that moment that I hate the smell of other people's poo. Like it really makes me angry. I think that if I could convince the mother to leave quickly the bathroom might achieve something like peace. But for now it reeks.

The hate of poo is normal isn't it.

Incidently I've never smelled Jun's poo or seen signs of it. Actually I did but I'm sure he, I, and anyone reading this would die of shame if I discussed it at length. His bathroom is so deodorized and cleaned that I kinda think he doesn't poo in his toilet. Maybe he goes in a bag and then takes it out to the trash.

What does it mean?

Jun and I are friends. Lately he has been asking me rather frequently, about six times over a two day period, if I like him.

Why is he doing that?

He is the one who decided that we should just be friends. I, as I usually do, knew that he was gonna be making that decision soon so I didn't freak out. I just placed any ability to like him beyond a friend neatly in a box doused in a happy mixture of gasoline and kerosene and lit it while pushing it into the oncoming traffic of my mind. (I assure you my head can be an expressway at times.) At any rate I decided to not like him.

We are friends now... with benefits.

Even if I wanted to like him I don't think I can. I don't think I trust him. Well he hasn't proved himself to be untrustworthy. I just can't understand him that well. His English isn't that good so every time he says something I have to stop and wonder does he understands what he is saying. He lacks tact, but that just comes from his poor English skills.

And he seems to be rather skilled at losing his wallet. I don't know if he is lying or not. I'm not sure the Japanese share the same disdain for lying as Americans do. I mean they commit suicide like crazy.

He asked me recently why I came to Japan. He thinks I came to meet Japanese guys. Not true. I like all guys. The Japanese just happen to be a new flavor. Like Baskin Robbins.

I came to Japan to try being myself... or at least be more comfortable with being myself.

But I can't seem to make him understand that.