If I knew how to work Excel I might graph my posting dates; charting the bell curve of mood driven slumps and creative humps against the ever stretching blogging timeline. And so now, chartless, I can only imagine lying uninspired in that familiar torpid valley.
This entry has no anecdotes or creative recollections, just a few facts and updates.
It will not become a trend.
I am officially on for a vacation in the Phillipines from April 29- May 6. I`m lucky enough to be tagging along with a couple far more organized than myself. They`re nice, British and well-traveled. We have two cottages on the beach which sounds too quaint to be true but gets karmically righted by an overnight stay in Manilla which is carry-a-gun dangerous. We`ll be staying the one night there at Chez L`airport which boasts a spacious dining area and a plastic seat bedding option. The flight and cottage cost about 1k total but apparently the day to day expenses are cheap there. It`s expensive. There`s a survivors guilt on spending so much on a vacation while other Americans are struggling in a very real way with their families. This is what I am traveling for though so...(insert moral rationalization).
That`s the big update. The stone causing waves in my still pond of daily teaching.
Though, I`d like to wrap up with a rare, teaching highlight.
- A desk, four chairs and a wide window along both walls of a corner room. Naoko is in her 20`s, shy, attractive, dressed in a dark blue suit the color of rumbling clouds outside. Across from her is a teacher, Nate. He is in his 20`s.-
`What did you do this weekend Naoko?`
`I went with family to south Japan.`
`My family...`
`Ah so desu, I went with MY family to south Japan.`
`Cool, what did you do?`
`We went shopping, sightseeing and we saw a show?`
`So, who all went with you?`
`...?`
`Who did you go with?`
`Ah, my mother, my father and my brother.`
`Oh really, what show did you see?`
`We saw a dogfight.`
Beat.
`Like two dogs fighting.`
`Yes.`
`Isn`t that illegal?`
`...?`
`Isn`t that... bad?`
`Oh yes, it was scary.`
`How did you see a dogfight?`
`They are very popular in places.`
`Oh. Could you please open your book to page 17 and read the title at the top.`
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
In the Night of the Heat
On the coldest days when the rain drives down quietly against the sound of traffic, with salarymen trodding past in their black suits and somber faces, it seems as if the city were mourning: how I imagine Britain on a shitty day. Nothing about Japan in February has stirred in me the slightest passion for sex so it is difficult to imagine what is inspiring the cats outside to screw so savagely loud. They are bangin` in my hallway and below in the street, slamming about in the building next door and twisting along the train tracks in town.
It started with the haunted cries. A deep, sorrowful sobbing and then the aggravated wails. They`ll stare at one another by the corners of buildings, face to face and screaming. Daring their would-be lovers to make a move. The moon has nothing to do with it, but it was full the first night I was scared awake. The squeals were so pained and childish. Like toddlers all over the city were being stabbed a little. An awful, awful screeching that crashes easily through the thin walls and glass of my apartment: something so horrific tied up in passion.
Now, they`re in the third week of the marathon and the games are scheduled for 3am until ? I`ve got a front row seat but I`d prefer a nose bleed.
It started with the haunted cries. A deep, sorrowful sobbing and then the aggravated wails. They`ll stare at one another by the corners of buildings, face to face and screaming. Daring their would-be lovers to make a move. The moon has nothing to do with it, but it was full the first night I was scared awake. The squeals were so pained and childish. Like toddlers all over the city were being stabbed a little. An awful, awful screeching that crashes easily through the thin walls and glass of my apartment: something so horrific tied up in passion.
Now, they`re in the third week of the marathon and the games are scheduled for 3am until ? I`ve got a front row seat but I`d prefer a nose bleed.
Friday, January 23, 2009
The Horror (Part 2)
My shower is non-traditional by western standards. On a good morning I'm 6'2" and can sit in the tub with my knees pulled up to my shoulders. The water head is connected by hose to a spigot-switch on the bathroom sink: 12 o'clock for shaving, 6 o'clock for bathing. Now the tub itself rests above the plastic floor by a half hand or so and what I hadn't ever wondered was "How'd they run a drain pipe under there?"
They didn't. Not in the design. Rather, the sink and shower terminate into a narrow trough beneath the tub and run without benefit of a slope to a covered drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.
Enter the gnats. It's a perfect food-filled cave that will never, never see light: exposed hair tangles, mushy flesh, fingernail clippings, spreads of gooey mold and all the damp, festering rot. You can't clean it. There's no access door or angle to breach the narrow gap by the floor. To run bleach down the pipe only routes a thin line to the drain like a clean stream amidst sprawling, rotten banks.
I called the landlord: "Are the gnats seasonal?", "Do you have a special kit to clean this out?", "Is this the same mold that condemns buildings?"
"You should be fine. The gnats will die off when it gets colder and the molds not a problem because it's always there."
I hung up the phone, forgetting to ask if he wanted to check his science on that last one, and turned to the bathroom. Now, standing at the sink, I'm afraid that my foot will slip underneath the lip and I'll toe a mold slick. I would retch and, even after the foot was cleaned, think back to that gooey rot and scrub at it again like a MacBeth, "It just won't come off. It won't come off."
On those nightly toilet trips I'll pause at the door and check the tub first before going all the way in. It's ridiculous but sometimes I imagine that what's been growing underneath has slowly backed up and filled the tub. I think of Ghostbusters. When Dana was undressing Baby Oscar for a bath and behind her the tap quickened to a slime. It grew while they weren't looking and reared up in a slick mouth-arm, sucking after them. It was supposed to be a safe place. A place where things were made better by washing all the bad down a drain.
In the movie, Dana and Oscar escaped and Bill Murray made everything okay again. Maison Jeunesse #303's going to be okay too. But now I know where the trash really goes.
They didn't. Not in the design. Rather, the sink and shower terminate into a narrow trough beneath the tub and run without benefit of a slope to a covered drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.
Enter the gnats. It's a perfect food-filled cave that will never, never see light: exposed hair tangles, mushy flesh, fingernail clippings, spreads of gooey mold and all the damp, festering rot. You can't clean it. There's no access door or angle to breach the narrow gap by the floor. To run bleach down the pipe only routes a thin line to the drain like a clean stream amidst sprawling, rotten banks.
I called the landlord: "Are the gnats seasonal?", "Do you have a special kit to clean this out?", "Is this the same mold that condemns buildings?"
"You should be fine. The gnats will die off when it gets colder and the molds not a problem because it's always there."
I hung up the phone, forgetting to ask if he wanted to check his science on that last one, and turned to the bathroom. Now, standing at the sink, I'm afraid that my foot will slip underneath the lip and I'll toe a mold slick. I would retch and, even after the foot was cleaned, think back to that gooey rot and scrub at it again like a MacBeth, "It just won't come off. It won't come off."
On those nightly toilet trips I'll pause at the door and check the tub first before going all the way in. It's ridiculous but sometimes I imagine that what's been growing underneath has slowly backed up and filled the tub. I think of Ghostbusters. When Dana was undressing Baby Oscar for a bath and behind her the tap quickened to a slime. It grew while they weren't looking and reared up in a slick mouth-arm, sucking after them. It was supposed to be a safe place. A place where things were made better by washing all the bad down a drain.
In the movie, Dana and Oscar escaped and Bill Murray made everything okay again. Maison Jeunesse #303's going to be okay too. But now I know where the trash really goes.
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Horror (Part 1)
I saw the first gnat in my bedroom. It stood still and bold against the ivory ceiling like a chip in the paint, fluttering about only when the partition shakily rumbled along its track, jostling the walls. It would be in different places throughout a week: the stove`s exhaust hood, the bulb on the bathroom light, clinging to an empty waterbottle as if stuck to ice. He was there in the tub too, right on the soap shelf while I showered. It was there that I accidentally killed him with a stray jet from the shower nozzle.
The next day he had mourners. Two gnats walked along the tub rim as if retracing their friend`s last moments. `Right here, man. I just can`t believe it. Right here.` Another couple consoled each other along a seam in the walls while a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grazed about the tub floor. I`ve grown use to the Carolina, pre-winter, lady bug infestations but these gnats had neither there personality or charm and I became concerned when their number grew casually into the uncountables.
I washed the few dishes soaking in the sink, took out the trash and checked my bags to route out any breeding grounds. The bags wouldn`t normally be procedure had I not discovered a rotting kumquat in my bookbag last month. It was a forgotten gift, stewed down to a pulp, mysteriously perfuming my apartment for weeks. The scent was pleasant, thickly sweet, and I was kind of sorry I found it. After the apartment was scrubbed down I turned to the bathroom. The tub gnats were given a biblical drowning; those daring enough to fly up were caught in a scalding sideways rain and the swirl about the drain was peppered with bodies.
I slept well.
Before work the next day I was fixing my hair in the mirror. I decided after the first few weeks in Japan not to cut my hair and it is getting shaggy. I`m partly afraid of negotiating with a barber in broken Japanese but mostly I want to see if I can pull off that artistic image I have always associated with long hair. Though now, it is too hot and I look like a sweating Beattle most times. It was then that I saw a gnat moving along my reflection in the mirror like a rogue mole. Turning to the shower curtain, I pulled it back revealing another insect horde built up on the tub walls and floor. I reeled, knocking my toothbrush off the sink onto the floor, and stepped out into the kitchen.
Out of ideas and disgusted, I hadn`t even a clear problem to solve... until I picked up my toothbrush.
The next day he had mourners. Two gnats walked along the tub rim as if retracing their friend`s last moments. `Right here, man. I just can`t believe it. Right here.` Another couple consoled each other along a seam in the walls while a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grazed about the tub floor. I`ve grown use to the Carolina, pre-winter, lady bug infestations but these gnats had neither there personality or charm and I became concerned when their number grew casually into the uncountables.
I washed the few dishes soaking in the sink, took out the trash and checked my bags to route out any breeding grounds. The bags wouldn`t normally be procedure had I not discovered a rotting kumquat in my bookbag last month. It was a forgotten gift, stewed down to a pulp, mysteriously perfuming my apartment for weeks. The scent was pleasant, thickly sweet, and I was kind of sorry I found it. After the apartment was scrubbed down I turned to the bathroom. The tub gnats were given a biblical drowning; those daring enough to fly up were caught in a scalding sideways rain and the swirl about the drain was peppered with bodies.
I slept well.
Before work the next day I was fixing my hair in the mirror. I decided after the first few weeks in Japan not to cut my hair and it is getting shaggy. I`m partly afraid of negotiating with a barber in broken Japanese but mostly I want to see if I can pull off that artistic image I have always associated with long hair. Though now, it is too hot and I look like a sweating Beattle most times. It was then that I saw a gnat moving along my reflection in the mirror like a rogue mole. Turning to the shower curtain, I pulled it back revealing another insect horde built up on the tub walls and floor. I reeled, knocking my toothbrush off the sink onto the floor, and stepped out into the kitchen.
Out of ideas and disgusted, I hadn`t even a clear problem to solve... until I picked up my toothbrush.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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