moonlighting

the act of holding two jobs, one your "real" job, the other an extra, often worked at night.

fushinsha

不審者:
a suspicious person. As in, "Get your fishy fushinsha-ass out of here!"

Last year, walking back from Naruse station, we passed as usual the little mom-and-pop drugstore, with its displays of multicolored toilet paper on sale. Out popped a guy from the recesses of the shop, wearing some kind of school uniform and carrying a gym bag. He looked like he was in his late teens to early 20s. Accosting us, he let loose a barrage of words, at the same time brandishing a sack of potatoes.

"Sorry - wakarimasen." We didn't understand him, not at the rate he was going.
He effortlessly switched to English.
"Right now, we are in the middle of a national campaign! It is a very important cause that allows me to offer you these potatoes for only 300 yen!"

300 yen? The bag held about 5 sad little potatoes. I could buy the same bag at the market across the street for 150.

We tried to brush him off, saying we weren't interested, but he dogged us down the street for about half a block more. Finally he gave up, trailing off behind us.

We thought we had seen the last of him. But, telling the story that night, it turned out he had also approached C. in our neighborhood with the same line.

sano, nikko-shi

Hit up Sano again to hang out with R. and K. Pretty low key this time, mostly looking at thrift stores (always on the lookout for Goccos; also currently seeking frivolous shoes) and walking around. We did hit an osenbei factory in Nikko city; we also checked out the foot-onsen outside of Kinugawa onsen station, but it was too crowded to go in; too bad.
Ume trees are in bloom about now, and there are lots of little temples and shrines near K's house in Imaichi. We walked around several; at one we found a stack of boxes marked with the Buddhist manji symbol, meaning harmony and balance. Better known in the West as the swastika, but in fact appropriated by the Nazis, the Buddhist incarnation usually faces left, not right.

hamamatsu

We went to Hamamatsu city on the weekend to see C. run in her very first 5K. After work on Saturday, I. and I hopped on the bullet train down to Shizuoka prefecture and were picked up at Hamamatsu station by C. and Mom.
C. had booked us into the Grand Hotel, which is pretty imposing. Ugly on the outside, but pretty nice on the inside, with all the bells and whistles. After checking in, we dropped off our bags and headed back downtown to check out the Indonesian restaurant they had peeped before we arrived, Surabaya. Good food, including tempe! and other yummy veggie things. The staff was pretty accommodating about making stuff veg, too.
The next day we went to the marathon area, a few stops from the center of town and then a bit of a walk from the station. Hundreds of people were present, milling around and getting ready to run in various incarnations of the race - a kid 3k, a 5k, a 10k, and a 10 mile run were all options for the participants.
C. ran in the 5k, and paced herself like a pro, going slow and steady. There were several crazily dressed runners, food booths, and dancers cavorting around to keep us busy while she was on the non-visible part of the course, though we stationed ourselves along the way to give her a hearty "GAMBARU!!" as she passed. She clocked in about 30 minutes later, beating her personal best and emerging victorious! Yay Cassass!

She and mom have been wearing pedometers and counting their steps over at WalkerTracker, and I have been inspired by them and jumped on the bandwagon. Called manpokei (万歩計）in Japanese, or "measuring 10,000 steps", the few people who have seen it clipped to my sock or my belt have felt it necessary to tell me that manpokei are for ojiisan. Lucky for me, I don't mind being compared to a grandpa. I am, after all, getting pretty old.

city of lost children

After a long day at work, I was out front loading all my crap onto my scooter. The area that my school is in is very residential - no houses, but tons of apartment buildings, or "mansions", most at least ten floors high. A couple of kids wandered by. Nothing unusual about that - this place is mobbed with kids. A perfect place for an English school/cram school, actually.

Except then I noticed that one of them, the elder, about six, was sniffling and crying. His little companion, about three, was trailing behind him uncertainly.

I looked after them in concern. The older one wouldn't look at me, but kept wandering along. The younger one, though, stopped and checked me out, an entreat on his face.

"Daijoubu?" I asked. Are you okay? He mumbled something incomprehensible but then started to follow what I assumed to be his brother. I watched them for a minute, but they stayed out of close range, so I resumed packing my bike.

A few moments later, though, as I was putting on my helmet, the little one came back. "Mama o sagashite kudasai" he said. Help me find my mom. I crouched down. "Do you know your mom's phone number?" He shook his head, crestfallen. The older one, several meters away, started yelling for his brother. "Techi!" he called. Techi (probably short for Testuya or something like that) replied but stayed by my side. Big brother came over. He had some kind of bandage on his hand. "Do you know your mom's phone number?" I asked. He fired a rapid stream of numbers. I got out my phone and made him repeat it more slowly, then handed the phone to him, who handed it to the three year old.

"Mama, come back! What? We're near the house. What? Yeah. Ok. Ok. Byebye." Older handed the phone back to me; "Arigatou gozaimasu," he mumbled. They wandered a few meters away. I stuck around, keeping an eye on them and packing very slowly.

A minute later, a woman came whizzing over the overpass on a bicycle. The kids ran over to her and she started gently scolding them. "Where did you go? What are you doing?" Reassured, I started to get my things together. "Thank you!" she called over to me. "Thanks for the phone! Sorry for the trouble!" "It's nothing," I replied.


Girl scout good deed for the day, I guess. Poor kids. Losing your mom is scary.

mukatsuku

work stinks. some people are imbeciles.

pissed off. a lot lately.　

むかつく = pissed off, angry, irritated, offended.

dragging our arses all over the Kanto plain

A busy, busy day.

First of all, the happyokai. "Happyokai" is a kind of ceremony where everyone makes speeches. This was the happyokai for Japanese class, and my teacher was really pressuring me to participate. I kept thinking up excuses of why I couldn't do it, but they kept changing the date and I couldn't demur any longer without looking like an a-hole. So I wrote a really short, half-assed speech, and went. Since I couldn't stay for the whole thing, the teachers billed me first. Mine was the shortest speech in history. So much for more than ten years of Japanese study. I suck.

But happier times lay ahead. I hightailed it to Saitama, or DaSaitama, as discussed earlier. C. had bought me tickets to see Stevie Wonder for my birthday. Entering the arena, we discovered we had floor seats... even better, they were in the first block! We were only ten rows back, which is amazing for an arena...

I have this to say. Mr. Steven Wonder is love. That's all there is to it. He's a legend. The whole stadium was so frickin happy. And we danced our asses off, especially to "Superstitious" and "So What the Fuss?" Mr. Little Stevie is king. King.

As if that weren't a busy enough day, the Moment the show ended, we beat it to the station and jumped on the first train back south, toward Kamakura. Yes, Mr. Matthew Electrician was in town for his first Japan tour, and since we had missed his Kanto shows while we were in Hokkaido, it was essential that we caught this, his last show on his last night on the island.


Matt really shreds on the ukelele (and banjolele), and he's also the nicest, coolest guy ever. We sang along to all the songs we knew in the tiny, 15-capacity Café Goatee, and the whole audience provided the tap-dance routine during "Little Hands", since Matt was solo acoustic and didn't have any band to do that part. Super awesome. Please, please go and see Matt "The Electrician" Sever if he ever comes to your town. He is folky and punky and bluesy and funny.

Also, this day I logged 15,000 steps.

perspicuity

Thanks to Lynne Truss and her wonderful book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". This means "clarity, lucidity". This also reminds me of Robyn Hitchcock's song "Birds in perspex", which, it turns out, is a kind of clear resin. So related to perspicuity, if not too closely.

I co-wrote this article about Davey D'Andrea's illustration over at Ping Magazine.