thumbs out

I picked up my first Japan hitchhiker the other night. It was drenching rain and C. and I stopped at a country convenience store at 2a.m. for a soda run on the way to my apartment. There was a man asking the clerks for directions to an all-night restaurant. They gave him directions to Denny's, at least a mile away. I noticed they were giving bad directions, as per usual for conbini clerks in Japan. (Nobody ever knows how to get anywhere in Japan, especially workers at convenience stores. Because they're coming in from another station?) We approached the man outside, who was struggling with a broken umbrella. C. and I proceeded to give him better directions, C. mentioning that it would take him nearly an hour to walk there. After trying to explain how to get there for a little longer, I offered him a ride. We were going that way anyway.
In the car, we talked to him a little bit. I could very faintly detect a whiff of alcohol, but it wasn't strong, and he was very coherent and polite. He looked like a blue collar worker or an artist, not a salaryman - no suit, with facial hair. It never once occured to me that it was a bad idea. It seemed the natural thing to do.

We dropped him at the Denny's next to Tana station. It was still pouring.

impertinence

I saw the best thing at Rosen today. As I walked through the entrance, I saw a little girl making intent conversation with a tissue-distributing representative of Tepco or AU mobile or some such company. They looked entirely unrelated; she was about 3 or 4 and he was in his twenties and dressed in company uniform. She was waxing philosophic; he was crouched down, listening closely. As I passed, I noticed what appeared to be a mother browsing nearby.
I wonder what it was that she needed to tell him, and what it was that he so needed to hear.

ms. roy

"You can wake someone who's sleeping. But you can't wake someone who's pretending to be asleep." -Arundhati Roy

efficiency

I love the escalator system in japan. my favorite way to get up the stairs, especially at the train station, is to walk up the right-hand side of the escalator, free for just this purpose, passing all the static climbers on my left and all of the pure-exertion climbers on the staircase. it's the best of both worlds.

he's so metal

his name is preston but
he goes by 'malvar'.
which is the name that he uses when he plays
in magic tournaments.
he is often seen
in wife-beater shirts
and otherwise he wears black
and he has a goatee
and leather boots with four buckles
and wears a silver ring on his finger.
he mainly subsists
on pepsi by the caseload
and cigarettes
and i remember that
suicidal tendencies song.
but he is a nice guy
he has a girlfriend
her hair is dyed platinum
deadened by bleach
and i remember that
bleaching my hair in high school
and thrashing to the mosh part
and sometimes cutting patterns into my arm
or my leg
with a razor blade
and sometimes the initials
of thrashy boys
who played electric guitars in their bedrooms
and were sarcastic and funny in class
and did rock jumps in gym class
and once, one named billy
dedicated an air guitar solo to my in
the elevator of his apartment building.

reading

Moominpappa's Memiors, by Tove Jansson. A wonderful series that I remember from my childhood by a Finnish author. Her Moomins are very popular, at least in image, here in Japan. I don't know how widely read the stories are, but they are quite good, fantasies about these small creatures and their friends, but written in chapter book form and with lots of really great big words, like lugubrious and meerschaum.

scary

Scootering home on the highway the other night, I saw an accident with two motorcycles and a truck. There weren't any bloody corpses apparent, but there wern't any emergency vehicles at the scene yet either.
And yesterday, I was heading down a small, one-lane, blind-corner road when a truck came tearing around the turn. I was going pretty slow, and luckily, because we both slammed on our breaks and i jerked to the right to avoid hitting his truck. We were nose to nose, my bike a little askew of him, but yet there wasn't enough room on the road for me to get by.
The guy was young, and he looked shocked. I was grim, but reached up to tap the window and motioned for him to continue up the road, as I couldn't pass until he moved. He drove on. I hope that the encounter will encourage him to drive more carefully in general and to mind us little scooters, but who knows.

in the cold cold night

riding my motorbike home at 9pm, i keep seeing these guys around the neighborhood. there may be women too, but i've only seen men so far. they sit on the street corners on folding chairs, holding clipboards. I can't tell what they're doing, and they don't seem to be interviewing anyone.
it's really cold out these days, and especially at night. i wouldn't want to be outside for 30 seconds more than i had to, but these people are apparantly sitting around, doing... what?
-vigilantes, neighborhood watchdogs, scanning the scene for crime?
-carspotters, kind of like trainspotters but more boring?
-sociologists, monitoring the behavior of drivers vs. pedestrians?
who the hell are they?

ahh love

Teaching little kids is sometimes very hard, and often really awesome. I have big respect for real teachers, which I am not really. But this is my main job, and here in this country, we get away doing this with very little training. I've done it a bit before, so I'm not a total novice - but there's a lot more I could learn, and I'm certainly not the best teacher I could be.

I really love my kids, and that helps. There are very few who I don't love, and even them, I want to love them at least a little. My company doesn't provide much training or support, so I'm mostly winging this, going on instincts, and trying as much as I can to relate to the kids and teach them in a way that is fun and intuitive.

One of my most popular kids' songs right now is "Shake your sillies", a song with lots of body movement and dancing around. The little ones especially love it, in the 2-5 age group. Today, Mutsuki and Tomoka came into class grinning, and as their mom left, they ran toward the stereo, saying, cd! sing! I asked them - "do you want to sing a song?", and Tomoka threw her arms around my knees and looked up at me, shouting, "the wiggle one!" How could I refuse? So we shook our sillies and wiggled our wobbles away. Singing is great, and for the kids who don't have inhibitions about it, it's a wonderful way to learn, especially songs that are instructive.

Little kids age fast - right at the beginning of conciousness, it seems that they develop at lightning speed. On the other end, we have the elderly, people like my grandparents and the old fart musicians, fading with equally alarming rapidity. But I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle: slowly inching older, but not showing change day to day, hour to hour any more. Change feels almost imperceptible right now. I crave having these two kinds of people around me as a shock to the system, reminding me both of the potentiality of life and the fullness of life lived long. Show me the way, wee ones and grannies - I'm following you.