Me Talk Pretty One Day

After ukulele practice a few weeks ago I was looking to go get something to eat and called up my friend Mayu chan. She's a girl who I am an alternate-universe away from happily dating; had we only met a day earlier, rather than the day after I started seeing Sayo chan. It's one of those things I guess. But Sayo chan's really sweet, really matter-of-fact-but-crazy in a very warm, likable way, and it's not like I wish I were dating this other girl instead. It's just one of those things you think about. You wonder if this other girl would somehow be a match for you in the ways you've already realized that the current girl isn't ever going to be (at least, you think you've realized this). Or else you think, 'boy, if I were just less busy, I could see them both in secret! If Mayu chan came over at six she could be gone by the time Sayo got here at eight, and maybe she'd clean the place up before she left...'

I don't actually think it through this way a lot, but you know, the possibilities are funny. Logistics would be on my side, since Sayo lives in Matsuyama over the mountains and Mayu lives next to the gym where I do aikido and works just down the road from my house. Anyway, it's not going to go anywhere with her, but the other week I called her out to go for a bite with me after uke practice and we end up going to this place called Marco, an upclass bar overlooking the harbor and the castle. I know the owner Kenichi through Judo-man, and though I haven't seen him in a while he's really happy to have me there and we all start talking together at the bar while he makes our drinks. We're getting on really well, excepting a moment where Kenichi says, "so Joshuu, do you have another girlfriend yet?" That jerk. But we are getting on really great, all three of us. Kenichi tells us about his next gig at a music studio over the river, Jamsounds, where it turns out is the same place I got my ukulele; so we all talk about music, playing it and listening to it, and the CD that Mayu gave me; and he and Mayu start talking about cooking; and they talk about teaching, which she and I both do, he asks some questions about martial arts stuff, we talk about the radio show. And then Kenichi says the damndest, damndest thing. He says, and the whole bar just kind of stops like you do waiting for the punchline of a joke, "Joshuu," he says, "you know why you've got so much going on, and so many people you know? I know why: it's cause you're so easy to talk to!"

Now, think about this. We all did, sitting there a bit dumb in the mouth while the harbor wind breezed in through the chinks in the windows, and coming up dry. I had a lot I wanted to say back actually, but I couldn't think of how to say any of it in a way Kenichi would understand. Not because we don't communicate well, but because he doesn't speak English. And I don't speak Japanese, or not enough to say any of this to him in it. He doesn't speak English. He doesn't speak English...and I don't speak Japanese. Think about this now, and then try to come up with, "easy to talk to" as a first-off description for me...this is a strange and awesome land. It delights me that someone would come up with "easy to talk to" as a way to describe me. I really must be doing something right; I guarantee it's not the speaking. But it's got to be something; with no tongue to speak with and no ears to hear, I can still be a friendly, easy-going conversationalist; how cool is that?

Gay Men's Chorus

Gay Men's Chorus
Originally uploaded by sneakypeteiii.

It's like this is too amazing to have actually happened, but lo, here it is.

YATTA!!!!!!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!
I MADE IT 1 MORE!!!!
I'M 23!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd like to take a chance to review the year's foibles and fares, triumphs and traumas, achievements and idiocies, BUT I really haven't the time right now. I'm still rather frenziedly working on my assignment for Fodor's, due Friday. Back to work, I'll still be 23 next week...

I Got Flowers!

Tonight I had a birthday party! I know it's early (only by a week!) but tonight a bunch of people I know from the radio station had this big birthday dinner for me and three others, Aoi-chan, Maahk-san and To-kun who all have September birthdays and lots of nice people gave us presents! Yay party! I also got to sit next to Hazuki-chan, who, although she's apparently just been recently engaged to be married, is one of those "I will forever hold a candle in the window for you" kind of girls, and always makes my night feel special when I see her. And it was my birthday! Yaaay! AND SOMEONE GAVE ME FLOWERS!!!!!!!! I think this is the first time I have ever gotten flowers. I FEEL SO SPECIAL! They are pink roses with little green squiggly flowers all arranged around them. I know it's the silliest thing in the world, but it seriously makes me feel almost giggly with happiness. I got flowers! Yay Japan, where men can get flowers. Tonight when I was buying gifts for the others (flowers for Aoi chan and plants for Mark-san and To-kun) and the ladies were wrapping up the bouquet for Aoi chan I reminded them that the flowers were for boys and they said they'd wrap them appropriately...this apparently involved pink and peach colored paper and a lot of lacey ribbons that they made all curly with scissors. What?? The party was very laid back and super fun, and I'm happy to be in with these people again; we all had kind of a drifting apart over the summer. Anyway, here's my pictures of MY PRESENTS AND MY FLOWERS! YAAAAAAAY!
I got super nice smelling bath soap, hair gel gooey stuff that smells like grapefruits, a set of incredibly nice cups for Japanese tea, a reDICulous Pringles picture frame from someone who knew how funny it was, a really pretty candle holder with sea-glass sides to refract the light AND, BEST OF ALL (besides the flowers), a HAPPY MONKEY FM RADIO!
HAPPY MONKEY FM RADIO! HAPPY MONKEY FM RADIO!
I spent a great deal of the party saying IGOTAHAPPYMONKEYFMRADIO very excitedly. Some people were like, "wow, you must have really been hoping to get that Happy Monkey FM Radio." It is pretty amazing. It took me about thirty minutes of fiddling around with it at home to realize how to change the station, since there's not only no instructions, but also no discernable controls whatsoever. "So what," you think, "obviously, you just turn its arms around!" Oh touche; actually, you have to PUSH ITS EYES IN. So, so weird. O Japan, where men can receive hair curling products that smell like grapefruits and monkeys get poked in the eyes.

With the Fishes

Today I got a phone call from my friend Daisuke at the kaiten-sushi place next door, saying that everyone there was worried about me because no one had seen me in so long, and was I OK and would I come in to see them all soon?

I need to remember that things like this happen, especially at those times when I get frustrated about being here in the Twilight Zone; this place can be pretty amazing for all its strangeness. So I went to the sushi place and I brought omiyage that I had bought for all the staff on my trip to Ishikawa-ken (chopsticks from the morning market in a city called Wajima on the Japan Sea, famous from bygone days for its laquerware, and some beautiful watercolor postcards on thick rice paper from Kanazawa's kenrokuen, one of the Three Best Gardens in Japan according to canon). I ate lots of sushi, I chatted with everybody, I enjoyed me some life. And then tonight I get this email from Daisuke...I think it is perhaps the best single piece of correspondance I have ever received in my life, despite an indecipherable part in the middle. It goes:

おみあげをどうもありがとう。Ｔｈａｎｋ ｙｏｕ ｓｏ ｍｕｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｓｏｕｖｅｎｉｒ ｆｏｒ ｍｅ。 Ｙｏｕ ａｒｅ ｓｕｃｈ ａｎｉｃｅ ｆｒｉｅｎｄ。Ｗｅ ａｌｌ ｌｏｖｅ ｙｏｕ ｅｖｅｎ ｓｏｍｅ ｗｏｒｋｓ ｗｈｏ ｗｏｒｋｓ ｂｅｈｉｎｄ ｔｈｅｃａｕｎｔｅｒ。 Ｗｈｅｎ ｙｏｕ ｃｏｍｅ ｉｎ ｏｕｒ ｒｅｓｔａｕｒａｎｔ、 ｅｖｅｒｙｂｏｄｙ ｌｏｏｋｓ ｈａｐｐｙ。Ａｎｄ ｔｈｅｍｏｏｄ ｈａｓ ｇｏｔｔｅｎ ｂｅｔｔｅｒ。Ｗｅ ｌｏｖｅ ｔｈａｔ。Ｔｈａｎｋ ｙｏｕ ｆｏｒ ｃｏｍｉｎｇ ｔｏｎｉｇｈｔ。おやすみ。

I love Japan? I love Japan.

手紙を書きました！

よし！日本語で手紙を書きました！はじめて日本語の手紙ですよ。すごく変なかんじかもしらないやけど、できました。この手紙は前の彼女、長谷部由ちゃんへ。最近由ちゃんと話ししたくなりましたから先週電話でかけてみて、嬉しかった。さ、読んでみてね！

こんにちは！この間話してくれて嬉しかったよ。由ちゃんは８月にも９月にもずっとや休みがありまが？学校へ全然行っていないですか？うらやましいぞ！昨日から仕事しおる。火曜日は鴨部小へ行きましたけどあまり何もしなかった。お昼まではぜったいひまだった、少しじゅんびをしたけど。給食が終わってから１年生と５年生授業しました。５年生は携帯電話ゲームをした：音楽をかけているところに、子どもたちが二つの携帯電話を回せて、音楽が止めたら持っている人は会話をする。"Hello,　what's your name?" "Hello, my name is Yumiko. How are you today?"　そんなかんじだ。１年生は伝言ゲームと鬼ゲームしました。子どもたちと会って、子どもと私もすごくよろこんでいますよ。

今日は玉中に行っている。今１０時４５分ですが、授業もう終わりました；今日は１時間目と２時間目だけ。おかしいね、この仕事。２時間働いたら、何で８時間務める？たまにおかしいね、ここの生活は。

由ちゃんは休みのとき何しおる？だいたい暇だったら、合気道はよく練習しますか？僕最近あまり練習ｓていないよ。。。よくないけどしかったがない、ぜったい忙しかったけん。
でも今頃何してるの？まだ前のそば屋で、とかご両親のラーメン屋でバイトしていますか？どこか旅行に行きましたか？よく、飲みに行きますか？

でわ、また時間あったらメールしてね？bye bye------

Bed Time

So I'm breaking my 12 o'clock bedtime rule (it's more like guidelines) but today was a good day, and a web post is a nice way to finish it. Right now I'm drinking kabo-cha, the delicious savory tea which mysteriously tastes exactly of very good chicken soup, and eating a small helping of two dried apricots, three prunes and some cashews off a very nice black triangular dish I bought the other day for a delightful 150 yen; the domesticity of all this produces really a very calming, tranquil effect for me; even though my apartment has devolved to a shambles from the relatively well-ordered pad it was only a few days ago, I've got a little corner of refined sanity to keep me stable. Sanity, thy name be dried apricots and tea.

Today was the first day of school for me, and although I did remember on an intellectual level how much I love my kids, I didn't remember how truly amazing and lovely and loving they all are. All they wanted to do today was play with me and dance with me and pick me up and get picked up by me and smile at me, and at the end of the day I was petitioned to walk about a million of them home; they were great in the games (a Pirates game and a song-and-dance with the 6th graders, a Hellos relay with the little little ones, a thump-the-desks rythm chanting game with the third graders, all as fun for them as for me, the mark of a good game). I was nearly overcome today with how wonderful they all are. They wanted to talk and talk to me, they wanted to have piggy-back rides, they wanted to teach me how to whistle like an owl...I just couldn't be luckier. Yay school! I was so apprehensive about returning, too! Yay for kids, the wonderfullest people ever. Here's a picture from a while ago, albiet of a different school than today's, but full of lovely little ones all the same. I'm actually in this picture if you can find me. It's like Where's Waldo, except with Josh. Where's Josh? He's in JAPAN.

Photo Update

Lots of new photos up on Flickr: www.flickr.com/people/jbisker including some more highlights from my trip to Takamatsu last weekend. You can also see me turn into a Samurai at the totally awesome Kagawa Prefectural History Museum and watch as I try on an array of rediculous hats at same; also a wander through a Japanese garden park, some good wining and dining, fun with monkeys on an island and an Indiana Jones style adventure through an archeological forest park. Not a bad life I guess.


Sadly no photos up of my recent foray to Kochi-ken; I just got back and I'm BEAT tired, and feel gross and in need of a shower and some good TV. Not that I can come up with the second one, but the first seems more or less do-able. I need to shave too; tomorrow I'm at SCHOOL again, a working man once more. Summer vacation is officially over for me in about 7 hours when I start biking to work. Sigh. Fun while it lasted...very fun actually. Summer in Japan is a pretty great thing; festivals, parties, beaches, travel. But tomorrow it's a working world once more, so I'm off to bed. NIGHT!

Luck in Waking, Less in Sleep

Who didn't have to sleep in an internet cafe in Kochi City last night because he got to crash with a sexy girl named Ayumi instead? And then also had a city guide and sexy escort through the new-to-him city all day today? Today I Am Awesome, is the answer to both of those questions.

Today's ending scene was me and Ayumi, the last two people on a rocky, rough, no-swimming beach a close drive from the city, snuggled up from the warm wind together high up on a fenced-lookout at the top of a rocky bluff, a lighthouse towering high and silent on the cliffs above us and lighting the unkind surf, a short splatter of scalding white from its mouth hitting the ancient Shinto shrine twenty feet beneath us. Today's ending was making out with a beautiful Japanese girl on a rocky bank overlooking the a churning and raging moonless sea, the bayed-in Pacific, with the sound of waves crashing and howling and spraying up like an army of souls bursting in fury against the jagged rocks beneath us. Today was a good day.

Of course, TONIGHT I'm sleeping in the goddamn internet cafe, because Ayumi's mom (the girl's 21, lives at home with sister, mom and grandpa, all of whom are very sweet and gave me many grapes this morning and a weird fruit I'd never eaten and forget the name of) decided aptly that one night was probably enough for me to crash there and that I could find my own way--and here I am, at the intenet cafe. 2000 yen for the night, I got a little couch. Y'know. It's not luxury, but it's living. NIGHT!

Back in Inaction

Back home from a fantastically lovely trip. Re-entry has had its down parts, but the trip was fantastic. Still making some notes, will tell some stories soon. For now, you can look at some photos on Flickr! Enjoy!

On the move

It goes like this:

Imabari to Toyo shi, by bicycle - I leave in ten minutes and my ETA at the Toyo Ferry Port is 9:15, give or take.

Overnight ferry to OOOOOOsaka. Arrive 6:30 AM, reach Shin-Osaka station by 7:30 (god willing) and board the first of a number of local trains to wend me up throught Honshu throughout the course of the day, arriving finally at Kanazawa city sometime in the afternoon. Unpack bicycle, affic baggage, look for shelter.

Explore Kanazawa and its surroundings by bike, two-three days.

Depart Kanazawa and head northwards, looping around the coastal highway that defines the edge of the idyllic Noto Han peninsula -- threeish days, all by bike. Sleeping in a tent.

Arrive back in OOOOOsaka on Saturday night in time to catch the return ferry, thus arriving back in Imabari in time to shower, straighten up, and meet a girl to watch the fireworks with on Sunday night, the 6th. I'ma see me some country.

And I'm off!

Happy (dead) Feet

Since my school kids are on summer vacation I am working at the town office, doing, as you may well be able to imagine, doing about as little as I can possibly get away with. Every day it seems I uncover new thresholds of acceptable non-work participation. Today I got to spend about three assorted hours practicing this year's dance of the dead, the bon odori for the upcoming festival, O-Bon. O-Bon is Japan's incarnation of Mexico's far more excitingly baccanalian Day of the Dead, and the bon odori means something like "the festival honoring our dead ancestors synchronized line dance." As was the case last year, I'm a member of the town office's dance team, which is exactly as lame as it is hilarious (in keeping with cultural tradition?). Aslo I may be in the captain's chair this year, or as I will refer to it, the Death Chair. I wonder if I can convince everyone to make Mexicish dia de los muertos masks for our team. Maybe I can force my students to make them for us--since, of course, summer vacation in Japan means they only have to be in school for half the day. If they're lucky.

These pictures are from O-Bon last year.
See, how cool would these suits be with big, paper-mache Mexican skull masks? The photo on the left here is the office team dancing the bon odori during the festival, while above you can see me expertly modeling a move from the dance some time earlier that day. Last year's dance had some great, "spin around and swing your arms about" business, and a really great Temptations shuffle in the middle of it (the shuffle was my favorite part). Had we worn sequined purple suits it would have fit right into the groove with that funky Temptations shuffle. Purple sequins, big paper-mache skull masks, honoring our dead ancestors...I'm sure it it all fits together somehow.

I love summer

Can't you see on their faces how much it's obvious to them that I completely love them?

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!

An entry for me.

Ellie says I should write about the things that have been bothering me being here in Japan. I kinda been going nuts lately. Just overwhelmed. It's systemic here, inescapable, this unbelievable idiocy that seems to govern everything you could ever hope would be slightly less than completely and totally retarded; here, all of the things on that list turn out to be, well, completely and totally 100% retarded. "Give examples," says my sister. "Talk about what you mean." Well.

I took some first steps in a number of different directions and failed to make any satisfying progress. Which story do I start telling to feel better? Troubles with time off? Troubles recieving medical attention? Troubles in school? Troubles with teachers? With friends? Troubles with xenophobia? With smallmindedness? With groupthink? With newspeak? Boy, I been having some trouble alright, trouble keeping my brain from shorting out my mind from snapping. This insane place.

So which story do I tell? It's taken a while I suppose, but I've realized that I need to write something about breaking up with Yuu chan, because that's the big thing that's screwed and skewed everything else up. I want nothing more than to stop feeling sorry for myself about it, which is why, I think, I haven't written about it. I just want to stop wishing I were still with my substantially and for sometime now ex-girlfriend, but god damn it, I just don’t know what to do to make it stop feeling sad and broken and lonely. And I’m sick to death of feeling so awful. I have swallowed a piece of coal. It scraped and scratched me and now it’s stuck deep inside and I can’t move without feeling the weight, and I don’t know what to do to burn it out of my system.

It was just all so good. I think I had just what I wanted. How many times can you say that? And then she just stopped. It’s like her whole heart stopped, like she just cut a switch and then there were no more feelings for me. We were so close with each other and then she turned her heart off. And then dropped out of the world. A quick switch for her but a very drawn-out and confusing thing for me; it took me weeks to even realize we were finished. There I am, emailing and calling and she’s already cut her losses and quit; I'm talking to dead air and cyberspace, and she'd never say a word back. All this happened forever ago and I’m somehow still not over it.

It all went wrong very quickly but we'd had it so good before. Then one day we had a museum date and I was on my way to the station and got hit by a car. Flipped clean over the hood and landed on the other side of the thing, landed steady on my feet and landed holding my bicycle in both hands, steel frame now buckled just rearwards of the handle post. Holy thank you aikido ukemi: this was a straight up, textbook style aikido forward-roll, saving my life in a car crash. I called Yuu to cancel our date, spent a full day at the hospital with my supervisor, got more x-rays than I believed I had bones to look at, and finally made it home to call her again. By the way, there’s no led bib for your cajones here in Japan…and they all wonder about the declining national birthrate, the meshugahs.


Stay tuned, neh. I will finish this story.

Up, Up, and Down

Once I cliffjumped off of a 9 meter rock into a river because I am a goddamn superhero.

That's a Signpost up ahead...

WRHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the sound of the screaming inside of my brain. I am in the Twilight Zone. I must be in the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling should be standing in my school’s staff room, invisibly explaining to you that I’ve just departed from the ordinary world I knew.

“One Mr. Joshua Bisker, who knows he is a stranger in a strange land: a member of the other, set in a world of samenesses. He’s come here to sound a new note in a dry, old score, to shout surprise and solace above the sinister symphony of similarities. But Mr. Bisker may be in for a shock to his own system, for the music of this world plays to a slightly different tune. That’s because today the rising sun shouts its song to one new face, in the Twilight Zone."

Then you get to watch the thought provoking story unfold as I go slowly insane from the inexplicable and unassimilable shift in a basic reality I’d taken for granted.

More Discoveries

I have also discovered that you are supposed to clean out your trash cans regularly. There are very good reasons to do this.

Swimming with the Fishes

When it comes to cleaning my apartment, I have discovered that I am like a shark. This is of course not to imply that I'm either sleek, deadly, or violently efficient. It's rather that the second I stop, I'm dead in the water.

Bizarroverse

So when it's winter in Japan there's mever any way to escape the bitter, withering cold that bites at your fingers, face and feelings no matter where you go--there's no insulation, no indoor heating, and every window and door is habitually flung open to bring the old air in. We let the cold into our homes here like a cowardly Russian welcomes the ravaging Mongols. There is no hope of escape from the ferocious, relentless cold.

On the flip side it's now early summer in Japan, and I find myself with no way to enjoy the warmth. It's even legal to drink alcohol outside in Japan, but there's just nowhere to go drink it at; there is not a single place in my city where you can go get something to eat or drink and sit outside with it. No cafe with outdoor tables, no resteraunt with a patio, no picnic tables in the park. No ice cream truck. And all the places keep their windows shut to the breeze. In winter, indoors=outdoors, but in summer outdoors is all shut out. I don't get it. All I want is to go have a cup of coffee and a sandwich somewhere and sit outside in the shade with the cool breeze on me, then read a book and float away. Perhaps it is because this place does not have a lot of tolerance for "float away" that they do not enourage such locales. I think I want to be in Paris with cousin James.