Going Down

Things are getting busy here on the island and I won't be able to keep up regular posts. Since there is nothing sadder than an abandoned blog (nothing!), I am putting it on an indefinite hiatus. Thanks for any and all who have been following me so far. I'll get right back to blogging as soon as I get my life sorted.

Best,

RaginGaijin

Mary and Max

Watch Mary and Max! Knowing nothing about a movie can sometimes make the experience richer than it may have been otherwise. It's a curious thing but the surprises seem all the more full when not cut short by expectations set by trailers and the ever catchier ploys to 'hook' audiences. I'll say nothing else about the movie or attempt to review it where other people will surely do better, but... no buts; it's worth paying attention.

Liar

This week the first meeting of the so dubbed Kansai Independent Learners got together at a canadian owned pizza bar in Osaka. It was kind of a cool venue because there isn't many good, read western, pizza places in Osaka which boils down to slice sizes without corn toppings.

It was good fun but I ended up 45 minutes late to my own party which would have been disastrous were it not for the other more punctual organizer there to get things going. We did some preliminary stuff and while some took off others stayed around for a few drinks and it all might have gone on a bit longer than it should. One woman was perfectly nice, let's call her May, but she was quiet and I found myself trying to make her comfortable so talked with her for an hour while the others enjoyed the sound of their own voices.

But when it was time to go, half the group went on to another bar and it turned out that May and I were both headed to the same station. She remembered that I lived in Juso and she said that she was going through there herself, and here things took a turn. Again, May is a perfectly pleasant person but when figuring up the hour or so we would have to spend on the train together I panicked: I told her I was going to a friends house in Daikokocho, 20 minutes in the opposite direction. Here she may have picked up on the fib because the last trains would be running in another hour and so I offered another lie in my paranoia, volunteering that my friend was going to drive me back later.

I didn't need to keep protesting but in order to satisfy the lie I asked her if she knew how to drive and went on about how long it had been since I'd last drove and the probable differences between driving in Japan and the states. We got to the arcade and said goodnight, but then I had to walk south down to my false station and wait out at a corner for 20 minutes to ensure we wouldn't sync up somewhere down the line.

I can think of no other way to get out of those awkward, prolonged chats but wish that in each case my story were true that I wouldn't be cheating otherwise pleasant people. Lies are that though, ways of maintaining a world you wish instead of the one that is and is for others. At least I got to read my book.

Post Racial

Before getting up to make dinner I put on some background noise for me and Erbear. Rather than get into the long "What do you wanna watch?" that always accompanies our trip to Ninjavideo, I blindly scrolled down the sidepane and clicked... Dancing with the Stars.

It was kind of a happy accident. Not because either of us like the show but it's something equally upbeat and lame that we wouldn't watch otherwise and so we got to kind of slip into a hackneyed, twilight version of ourselves for about 20 minutes.

Erbear was calling out the B-listers to me in the kitchen and I was surprised at how out of touch I'd gotten. I knew Macy Gray and Donnie Osmond (who strikes me as a sad, smiley man) but that was it. Erbear knew a few more but she could also see them.

Then, as the curry was boiling, a woman started singing.

I was cooking and half listening then thought 'she sounds black'. Then I thought 'err, is that racist?' and then all my reasons for thinking it didn't sound racist sounded racist. So I just asked if the woman was black and Erbear said 'No, she's not'.

I could feel the little jury in my head staring. One of them mouthed "Guilty". "Alright," I thought. "I'm a bad human, but you all thought the same thing."

Self-served

Is the banner a little pretentious? Like, look-at-me-I-notice-Indian-children?