Japandamonium!!!

I've decided that the big hinderance to more frequent blogging is the nagging feeling that I need to maintain a continuity (thank you, years of faithful X-men reading). And I'm going to say the hell with it and just update things that have been happening to me. If I get good and smooth at this, then we can retry continuity. But for now, let me tell you (in super brief) about tonight--

Tonight I had my second ukulele performance, which went a brajillion times better than the first one for a number of reasons, and I've just come home good and happy and enormously full of lovely fish and soup and other tasty things from our celebratory after-concert dinner, and I'm feeling pretty loved and included in the place that I live, and happy about being here. And let me tell you, it has been a WHILE since I've been feeling that way. God bless the summer. This is so the best time of year. Hot as it is--ungodly hot as it is--bless the summer.

Tonight our band, which I have found out is called the New Aloha Echoes, which is the dumbest name in the world, played a big shipping company's summer party and then feasted on food and drink and glory for the rest of the evening. It was awesome. It went much better than the first time, which went absolutely terribly in almost every way, and although I still kind of sucked, I had a lot of fun and it felt pretty good. The real ukulele player Iwa-san refused to say that it was even a smidgen better than the last time, but the bassist Tsuki-chan said that I was relaxed and positive and that those were fine reasons to not have been playing exactly in time with the rest of the group, and that it was a sign of improvement. I tried to remind Iwa-san that I've had a two-month hiatus from playing while my body recovers from its painful dislocated collarbone (no, not from the bike accident, I was fine from that), and that my first time back from this long hiatus was on TUESDAY of THIS WEEK (that's four nights before our concert) and that it should be considered a miracle that I was even able to hold the ukulele aloft for an hour let alone play it. This conversation ended with a lot of hitting me on the top of the head, but we were all in good spirits: I played the ukulele at a company picnic in Japan with a Hawaiian group (and hula dancers!).

And afterwards we went out for a big fancy (super fancy) dinner and I had just a great time with everybody. The band leader Ya-chin is super sweet. He really likes me a lot, and seems to take care of me in very subtle and bizarre but somehow tender ways. Tonight we were joined for the dinner by the leaders of a Hawaiian group from Okayama ken and Ya-chin was just so super sweet, being really helpful in conversations when I didn't understand things, or leaving room for me to stutter out things when I thought I understood what people were talking about...it's hard to get across exactly, but he's really sweet and caring towards me.

And speaking of sweet and caring, my Japanese papa Murakami san is taking me for za-zen (zen meditation) in the morning, and I've got to be bright and chipper for it, so I'm going to bed.

NIGHT!