My Own Biggest Fan

“Now I know that if I ever need any cheering up, any cheering up at all, all I have to do is think about Gamera, a giant fucking turtle, shooting his arm off, absorbing fucking fireballs in his eyes, regenerating said arm by means of fucking plasma and then flying off into the sky.”

Yesterday I got asked to submit some work to a group show. The invitation was put forward to me based on the merits of my photo work. I’m pretty excited at the prospect of putting something on a wall again. I haven’t done so in seven years. Now I just have to get the wheels turning.

I woke up today not thinking about the little drama I have made for myself. I got up and got myself a coffee. I had no agenda, no meeting times and no reason to stress. At the coffee shop I listened to friends that were going to China to adopt a baby, and another confided in me problems with her relationship that were complicating other areas of her life. I went to the magazine shop and looked at some that should have made me think of the woman that I have built my drama around, but for some reason didn’t. Or maybe they did, but at least they didn’t make me sad. I bought a magazine, written in Portuguese, but with translations in English beside, and many beautiful pictures. I bought it because it’s been a long time since I developed my ability to think abstractly and I think this magazine is full of people that think abstractly. I went to the bike shop; it’s called The Bike Shop. Maybe they named it that so when you say, “I’m going to the bike shop” with no capital letters, there will be the assumption that you meant that one. I bought valve adapters and a pump. Then I walked up to 17th and I saw her.

She was maybe ten feet away. It was alarming how quickly my body reacted. She had her back to me and her face was obstructed by a mobile phone pressed up against her face. Her image must be imprinted on my medulla oblongata because my heart raced and I felt the nervous twitch before my eyes even focused or my frontal lobe could react. Fight or flight? No question about it, I am a coward. I didn’t take my eyes off of her as I passed. Deep down, I wanted her to finish her call and accidentally look my way. I wanted her to hear the squeak of my comically noisy shoes and turn around. I wanted her to acknowledge my presence at that very moment. As I walked past, I held my breath, emotions mixing and stirring in my guts like I ate something rotten.

I felt strange. I knew it could have easily been I that didn’t notice; that she could have rounded the corner behind me while I waited to cross. I know coincidences don’t mean anything, but it doesn’t stop me from investing them with meaning. I texted a friend, to get rid of some of the itch left by my close encounter. “I just passed within three feet of XXXX and avoided her. I feel weird” I stopped in to grab some things from the place I am staying this weekend. I change my status on Facebook to something suitably cryptic, and I leave. Thoughts about this and thoughts about that. No, I won’t lie, thoughts about her, and why she has such an effect. I walk down 4th. I look up. There she is again. Again I can’t look away. I want her to see me. I want validation. I want her to miss me so I can remain invisible. She doesn’t see me, or she pretends too not. Same result.

On the train home there are 15 year olds experimenting with public sexuality. They are the cast of “Kids”.

From the moment I saw her the first time, I have been writing this. I was writing it as I texted my “sponsor”. (She used the analogy of quiting smoking to describe what I have to do with XXXX.) I was writing it as two of the girls on the train felt each other’s breasts. I was writing it as I went home, put on the valves and pumped up the tires on my bike. It’s a wimpy but cool looking thing, sort of equivalent to a human powered Smart Car. I was writing this as I biked back to Mission, to look after a cat that either doesn’t remember me or hates me. Same result.

As I bike, I wonder why I am planning out this little anecdote. The only reason I can come up with is the fact that I want her attention. I can’t send this to her in an email though. I have promised myself I wouldn’t. I have already given her too many words. Most of them she never asked for, most of them, despite her attesting to the contrary, thrown down a well.

As I bike I think about how I am getting somewhere on my own power. I think about the fact that I made the bike roadworthy the same way. I think to myself that’s a tidy little metaphor and consider that as clichéd as it is; it probably has a place in whatever this is.

Up ahead, a man is unloading some things from his truck, to his driveway. His path crosses mine, and I can tell he will be turning around to get more, so I slow down. My breaks make a squeaking sound and he stops and looks up immediately.

“Thanks.” I say and pedal past him.

“You should have used the bell. I would have gotten out of your way.”

“I had lots of time to stop, no need to stress.”

Same result.

“Yeah, but you could hurt somebody.”

Yeah, he’s probably right.

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I have no internet at home for the time being. If you have anything urgent to tell me, phone me please. My number is on my Facebook profile. (visible only if you are my friend there) I will check emails at work, and whenever I am lucky enough to be able to log into my neighbour’s wireless.

From the Brooklyn Museum Website:

This scene depicts the area known as Yamashita (“Below the Mountain”) in Ueno Park. The abstract band of pink and yellow represents the famous cherry blossoms of Kan’eiji Temple (“The Mountain”). The small shrine hidden in the woods is Gōjō Tenjin, and the adjacent restaurant is Iseya, which advertises a rice dish blended with pickled shiso, a minty herb. The procession of parasol-covered women in the lower left corner may be a group of ladies-in-waiting. Stopping to gaze at them is a group of commoners, somewhat awkwardly diminished in size.

They have a great thing there, where you can zoom in on the print to see the detail. Give it a shot. I just noticed as I published this blog entry, the prints are the same aspect ratio as modern cameras. I guess 2:3 is pretty common, but it’s still kind of neat.

Ueno park and the shopping district near it is one of my favourite places in Tokyo. When anyone came out for a visit, or I got new room-mates it was the first place I took them. All were suitably impressed. I have some photos of Ueno on Flickr.

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I am employed, in my old job, which I was so tired of I moved to Japan, only at a different location, so I am not as good as I was.

I had an interview today, it went well, a friend at the company said the interviewer was “pretty impressed” with me.

I bought a comic yesterday, on borrowed money, all the money I have is borrowed at the moment, the comic was used, so it didn’t cost that much money.

Also using borrowed money, I will be at the Hot Little Rocket CD release party on Saturday, I will not however be going to Sled Island though, I guess I can live without seeing Spoon or The Walkman, although I would like to.

I can’t stop the plugin that synchs my Facebook comments to this site from leaving comment after comment on this post I’m not sure what I am going to do. Maybe delete it?

Shane comes back into town on Saturday, I hope I don’t forget that he is home and walk out of my room naked.
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Day 17 of my 365 Days.

Another one for the "Build your own Mason kit". I got this tattoo when I was nineteen. I had originally intended for it to go down my torso, but the tattooist said that because it was my first tattoo, I would squirm too much and the lines wouldn’t be as straight as I would want them. I sometimes forget that it’s even there. I never wear shorts and it isn’t in plain site, even for me. Getting this photo was really tough.

Look at those sock indentations. Hot.
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The past week or so have been pretty stressful. For those of you that didn’t know, and that is almost everybody, I had to go to leave the country for a little while to renew my visa. It sort of came down to the wire because my work visa is in the mail and we waited until the last day for mail to find out if it would arrive on time or not. So Friday afternoon I got a ticket to Seoul for Saturday afternoon, which was the last day I could legally stay in Japan. I had a particularly crappy day last week when my boss said “You are going to have to pay for this, of course.” As if they had done everything by the book on this and it was all my fault. I had a wee argument with them and they sheepishly agreed that they should pay for part of the ticket. Whether this has any further repercussions or not, I don’t really care. There were other stressful things going on last week, but I don’t really feel like getting into that here.

Seoul was very nice. It isn’t as good looking of a city as Tokyo, and I think the people might be a little ruder, but that is somewhat refreshing. Dave and Erin were wonderful and gave me as good of a tour as they could in the short amount of time I was there. I repaid them with tales of Calgary and dumping my iPod onto their computer. What else? I bought some new shoes in Seoul. I am not sure of what occasion I can get away with Tron Adidas, but I intend to find out. I also bought a $4 tie and some fake Armani socks for $2 a pair. They are so thin I can see my feet through them.

Then as fast as I was there, I left. An hour spent trying to get a taxi in rush hour in the rain, then drove to the hotel. An hour and a half on the bus. An hour and a half waiting for my plane. Two hours on the plane. An hour and a half on the train. I would rather have been at work. Regardless of that, when I get home I have this waiting for me:

My roomates are pretty good to me.

The way I sometimes go on and on in my blog, you would think I am having a horrible time. Really that isn’t the case. These blogs are mostly for the people that I don’t see and I want you all to know that things aren’t the same without you. It would be easy to pretend to be nonchalant in my blogs but I have to admit that I am sometimes kind of a mess from the move. Homesickness doesn’t come when I deal with the major changes. Language barriers and culture clash doesn’t make me pine for home. These are the reasons I came here. Nope, I feel most like being in Calgary when I am doing the things that I always did, but are now broken. I still watch downloaded television and drink way too much coffee on Sundays. Though now it’s a bit lonelier because I lack partners in crime for these “inactivites”.

I still eat out more often than I should. Now more than ever, because it’s easier to find a place where I can figure out what I am ordering than it is to buy things in the supermarket. Either I can’t figure out what the things are in the first place, or if I can tell what it is, I can’t read the directions. (It is actually not any cheaper to buy groceries most of the time because produce is crazy expensive) It is also pretty solitary experience most of the time. In Calgary I can usually find a diner companion within two phonecalls and meet within 15 minutes. That doesn’t really happen here most days.

I am making new friends though. The university students I mentioned in an earlier blog are quite fun to hang out with. About half of them are Italian so I call those four “Little Italy” Example:

Schdief: “We are going to karaoke tonight, want to come?”
Mason: “Who’s going; Little Italy?”
S: “Yeah, and the Icelandic guys and some Japanese people”

I have a whole Italian tour plotted by them for next year. They are all from different areas of Italy… Bologna, Milan, Sicily and some other place. One of Little Italy is moving into our house next week and another is dating Schdief, one of my roommates, so we have a little family going.

That’s all I guess for now.

Hello friendly readers. I am in an unnaturally genki mood today at school. I couldn’t fall asleep until 2 last night and I woke up late because my alarm didn’t go off today. So now I am high on an energy drink which are unofficially (and aptly) named Genki Drinks. They are much more potent here than at home. Today is first day of second semester though, and the kids had an assembly first thing. So I didn’t have to be alert this morning. But, I have been given an extra Ichinensei (first year) art class a week and this first one was strange.

I know this is really boring, but hell, some of you might be interested in hearing about this crap.

So, instead of first class, we had an assembly, instead of second class, we had an extended homeroom, that didn’t include us ALTs. Third class was that new art class that I have, which will normally happen during second period. Fourth and fifth period somehow are back to normal. So when the kids went to the gym for phys-ed instead of the art room today I wasn’t at all surprised. What did surprise me was the fact that the kids understood what Pointalism was in less than 3 minutes. The same kids that on Monday mornings are sleeping in class and generally “dropkicks” (a word used by the Australian music teacher) were absolute superstars today.

So now I have a bit of a free period to do a bit of work and more-so, write a blog entry. This weekend was a long one, with Thursday and Friday being fall break and Monday being Sports Day. I had big plans to go to Nikko but I wanted to go with Adam because he used to live in that area, and he could drive. Unfortunately Adam was unavailable, so Friday I went to a gaijin exchange student dorm party. That was pretty fun. I hung out with a bunch of people an average of 5 years younger than me. I met some Italians, Americans, Germans, Dutch, and Icelanders. That was the main reason I decided to go actually, some Icelanders had brought some Brennevin to Japan for their friend who was studying. I ended up drinking more than I had planned and feeling like crap the next day. Which was a shame because it was beautiful out. That evening I went to Karaoke with many of the same people. It was my first time since coming here. It was pretty fun, it was about half and half Japanese / gaijin so that was good. I want to try and not spend too much of my time with only foreigners here, I did that in Scotland quite a bit and I regret that now.

Monday I went to Yokohama, did a little shopping, and walked around. It’s a very pretty city. There are places there where you actually see the horizon. Of course, I didn’t take my camera. Whoops. The chinatown is apparently the main attraction, but I found it a little boring. Compared to Japanese streets there isn’t a whole lot of change in the amount of beauty or character. Of course the foods and sights are different, but no more or less interesting. Part of a chinatown’s appeal is sometimes the more seedy looking bits. It looked to me like this was pretty sanitized.

Everyone here asks how long I plan on staying and I can’t really tell yet. My visit to Yokohama showed me that there are places here that are close enough to Tokyo to visit a couple times a week, but are much less hectic. The stressful pace can really get you down if you don’t take a break. So, who knows maybe after this contract is up, I will look for a job in Yokohama or some other close city. Of course, it is still up in the air, I can’t make any decisions after the first month.