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01.27.07/14:34 a beautiful day in the neighborhood
This picture doesn't really do justice to just how nice it really is out there. I'm thinking I should stop outsourcing my photography to my keitai and start using my camera again, but this is SOOO much easier, even if the quality is a little worse and my hands are too shaky...
I really had nothing productive to add to the discussion today, just wanted to use my break from work to do a quick post while I get motivated to play a little guitar and skate right out the door and back into that thing called the world. 01.23.07/15:49 melancholy birthday to you
Or something.
So, every year, today is brought into perspective by the ominous presence of inevitable death. Every year, I have to ask myself: have I accomplished what I've wanted to accomplish? It's sometimes hard to gauge.
Last year, I really only had two goals: graduate from college and get to Japan. Since I did both of those things, I could view this last year as a success.
But there were some important things I didn't do, as well. I'm not a famous rock star yet, by any means. I didn't write new music last year. I'm not a published novelist, either; I didn't write one good short story. And, lastly, I have no armies. How am I going to take over the world with no armies? I'm not. Armies will be essential for my plans.
So, there's still a lot of work ahead. 01.21.07/16:29 can you celebrate?
In other news, I think I'm going to play some guitar at the Pink Chameleon on Tuesday. If you'd like to drop by and see it, that would be great. I expect to see you all there with shining faces and an excess of compliments and gifts to shower upon me. It's to commemorate a very important Japanese holiday, mecha taisetsu.
And though there's no fluoride in the water here, I think I detect a hint of chlorine. Unless it's my dish soap...something smells chlorinic on my hands. Perhaps I'll ask Dr. Sbaitso about it tomorrow. He's usually pretty spot-on when it comes to these kinds of things.
[can you celebrate? namie amuro cover] .mp3 file
I know it's been 10 days since our last session, but you'll have to forgive my busy schedule and my tendency to taisetsu ja nai koto o mushi suru. Not to say that you're all taisestsu ja nai, not at all, maybe just a little tsumaranai. 01.11.07/00:27 the iodine stings
You know, the record.
So, two weeks. In two weeks I'm going to be twenty-three years old. One year farther away from youth, one year closer to death, and pants up to my shoulders. *shudder* It's weird. My birthday has always been the best day of the year, and my birthday last year was probably the best ever, forever and ever.
Despite the nature of the mission I was on at the time, it was still めっちゃめっちゃ freaking excellent. I can't/won't get into the details, but this year's 誕生日 is destined to suck in comparison. I get 懐かしい on birthdays...
Cut and paste 漢字 words here for translations.
It's likely--nay, probable--that you don't care about that at all. Reading my bitching and moaning is not the highlight of your day. You wanted something insightful, something to make your brain chuckle and your expectations have been dashed to crumbles. So it's gone and so it goes. 01.04.07/22:20 the moon waxes full
It's just been a weird day. I spend all day practicing 'Can You Celebrate,' on guitar, and I walk into a bar and it's something that pops up on the music channel within ten minutes...
And I haven't written a new song in over a year, and I sit down and one plops out. Scary. And after my conversation with Quinn and the events that followed thereafter, I am not f*cking with the universe anymore. I am a sheep, the picture of docility. Lead me to my pen and I will eat grass there.
None of this has anything to do with Jezz in his inoshishi hat. Or does it? It's the hat that celebrates the year, this being the year of the wild boar. Tonight, for me, is a night when my animal nature comes alive, and I'm powerless to do anything in the face of it. Very strange.
Either way, the moon is a scary omen, a portent of fate. 01.02.07/22:30 let's a party time tonight
Fine. Why would anybody want money during a week where 98 million Japanese travel at least 50 miles from home and which includes the most cash-giving-based holiday of the year?! Of course nobody's going to drink all their money away during one of the partyingest weeks of the year.
And I get home to find out from my dad that someone is using my debit card in Japan, of all places, and that the PNC fraud department keeps calling my grandma and harassing her, trying to tell me about this grievous misdeed. It may even be that those bastards cancelled my card and that's why I couldn't use it today. Won't know for sure until the 4th.
This sentence is here mainly to assist with formatting. Ignore it.
Anyway, let's talk about the good times, of which there were plenty. My host family was awesome, as always, and Makino hasn't changed a bit. Going back to my old stomping grounds was a very natsukashii experience, especially everything in Umeda. Makino holds only good memories for me, while Umeda's a little more mixed.
So much happened, I can barely remember it all. Quinn got assaulted in a dance club and met Korean girls and remembers very little about it. I got hatted by a nurse, and at some point there was a bunny bar where Quinn acquired some new ears to match his purple scarf. |
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For once, it's just a
normal nice day. No rain, no wind, kind of warm. A day where
my clothes might actually dry. One of those kind of days. So,
3 days ago, I gave up smoking. Today, I took it back up again, and
it was glorious. These last few days, I've been completely unable to
sleep or defecate, and I was really irritable.
It was 11 years ago today
that my grandfather died. While I didn't cry much at the time, it
was really tough for me as a 12 year-old boy to understand the
significance of what had happened. I'd like to think I understand it
now. Had he lived to see me now, I'd like to think that we could be
fellow subversives in a topsy-turvy world.
I've had so many great
ideas for posts, but I never put them up, and now they're gone forever.
Unless they come back. For now, I've only got one new thing for you:
a very low-quality acoustic cover of Namie Amuro's 'Can you celebrate?'
If you're not into that, then I guess we've got nothing to talk about.
It's
an old wound. I was hoping it would heal, but it's still sore, and
if you poke and prod it, it might reopen. Keep that in mind.
That has nothing to do with anything good or important, but I'd like it to
be on the record.
You've
got to be careful. It seems the universe still has some unfinished
business with me, something that unless I deal with it, I can't move
forward. Okay, then, ikimashou. Seriously, though, you've got
to be careful when you want things so badly you buy them with your own
karma...it's always a 'monkey's paw' scenario.
I found myself at the
train station in Osaka early this morning, all set to use my beautiful
Visa card to buy a train ticket, only to be told it wouldn't work. I
knew Postal Savings was going to be useless, but Visa? And I went to
about six convenience stores only to find that NONE OF THE ATMs IN JAPAN
WORK FROM DEC. 28-JAN. 4.
Luckily, Quinn was
generous enough to lend me some cash, after I made the 25 minute trip back
to his place and then back again to Shin Osaka.
Quinn, as always, was
supremely entertaining. He's making phenomenal progress on guitar,
and he took me to the music store in Umeda so I could purchase a classical
guitar and we could jam together. Once we acquired Jezza, there were
drinking adventures every night until sunrise for a string of 3 or 4
nights, I can't even remember.