Noding drunk after a night drinking in Rural Japan

A story told by a blind woman:

"It was a special high school - the cheerleading squad had 4 blind people and 4 deaf people. It was really hard to teach the blind people the motions and the deaf people the words."


I heard this tonight when I was out drinking with this blind girl who works as an english teacher in a school for the blind in kochi. She's the first blind person I've ever met. She is very good with words and is a confident speaker.

We were in a bar where I bumped into a guy I'd met before. He had been on shrooms last time, in the same bar. (Shrooms are legal in Japan). He was nice, so I had given him one of the burned cds I was carrying. He was happy to see me again, and taught me some japanese. I told him about the cd i am making now, and said something about "the pure heart of children" and how I was mixing random sound clips of children learning english with other music. He seemed enthusiastic about it. He is a cool japanese hairdresser with blond hair around the edges and black in the middle.

I've spent the past nine hours reading bland American history and reviewing physics for my two exams tomorrow, but I don't think I've absorbed any of it. I can't stop thinking about my recent ex-SO, and the fact that I've actually SEEN her a few times in the past two days doesn't help (we live in the same building, but she rarely leaves her room - sightings are uncommon).

I fear failing my history test. During Friday's lecture, my teacher discussed "they" and "them" for a full 40 minutes without specifying who they and them were. Some girl finally piped up... "Miss? None of us knows who the hell you're talking about." I nearly died from laughter. She said she was talking about the Populists, most people thought she was discussing Andrew Johnson. Needless to say, much confusion was cleared up - though not enough, that's a mild mistake compared to her usual lectures. I have read all there is to read, yet I still don't feel prepared.

Odds are, I'll fail the physics test too, but since that seems to be the thought of most everyone in the class, I'm not too worried (bell curve! WHEEE!).

On a slightly brighter note, UTD (the University of Texas at Dallas) has offered to pay my way fully from now through grad school (I'll be a junior at the end of this year) plus a few grand spending cash yearly. I can't really pass that up, unless I get accepted by MIT, then I don't know what I'll do. All that, and all I can think about is how much it will suck, because she won't be there...

This won't be the first time I've been alone on Valentine's day (Hallmark Holiday #1 I believe), but it's the first time that I don't understand why I will be...

Insomnia....

...5 hours of sleep. Bollocks. Everytime I go boozing on Saturday I end up sleeping 5 hours or less Sunday night. Deja vu, a glitch in the matrix. I'd better get dressed and go to work. I wonder if I'll get fired for looking like a piece of shit on a Monday morning one day. Oh well, at least Liverpool won...

My 4 year old niece refers to herself as Emily Frances (last name omitted).com. I don't know where she picked it up from, but she had us all cracking up over it. I guess she'll need to start on her web designs now so she has something to put up on the web once she can afford the domain name.

Went to visit my Mum and my niece today. Mum fed us steaks, which was really nice, since we never eat T-bones at home, just the occasional pan fry steak, which really doesn't compare. My sister wasn't there, to the relief of my girlfriend (my sister can be.... moody). Also visited my girlfriends parents, who fed us roast beef and French onion soup (I am a French onion soup virgin no longer, with various regrets; an acquired taste (texture) perhaps).

I finished the book I was reading this evening, a comic novel entitled "Emotionally weird," which in this case may apply to the reader as much as to the protagonist and her nonmother (read the book for an explanation of that one). It was enjoyable, much different than my normal fare. Sci-fi and fantasy pale somewhat to what can be done when the reader can assumed to be familiar with the setting and terminology. Sci-fi sometimes focuses too much on developing a setting and neat things to go in it, rather than interesting characters. Oh well.

On Saturday, we went downtown to the Globe Cinema to see The Shipping News. It was very good, very funny in places, and also very dark, but done in such a way so as not to be schizophrenic about it. I really liked it, but I have read that others do not. I haven't read the book, but it's going on my reading list. I'm almost glad I didn't read the book before seeing the film, as I usually prefer too. This movie stands well by itself; having read the book first would probably have me nitpicking it to death, which would have taken all of the fun out if it. I certainly think there have been worse movie adaptations (Congo, Sphere, not to pick on Michael Crichton or anything). Favorite quote: "dog on fire!", said by Bunny when Quoyle's hot dog catches fire as he is roasting it over an open flame. I've never seen a hot dog so completely consumed as that one, but that's what you get for not paying attention to your cooking I suppose.

We walked out of The Shipping News at about 9:00 pm, looked across the street at the Uptown, and saw that Amelie was playing at 9:30. I had heard that it was good, but I really didn't know much more about it than that, but I wanted to see it anyway. Yup, Amelie is a really good movie.

I really identified with the title character, in a way I've never identified with a character before. I've always find myself picking out parts of myself in characters, but this is a character I identified with in a big way. I never had a heart condition to keep me away from the other kids; I just managed to keep myself away all on my own. Like Amelie I usually feel like more of an observer of life than a participant in it.

Anyway, Amelie has made me think about life and lots of stuff. It's good.

Together with Ghost World, which we saw last weekend, I guess I've been developing a taste for smaller scale art house type films, although I suppose you could argue that all three were pretty mainstream. Just as well too; we were able to see both The Shipping News and Amelie for about the same as we would have paid for one movie at say Famous Players. Mmmm, student discount baby.

I heard the Barenaked Ladies song "babyseat" a day or three ago. My girlfriend has owned the CD for ages, but I've never had the opportunity to listen to it until she put it in when we were in the car one day. Although we didn't get to the babyseat track, I though it was worthy of ripping and adding to heavy rotation in my playlists. I heard babyseat after stepping out of the shower one morning and though to myself, what the hell, I've never heard this song before... hey it's really good! Now I can't get it out of my head. I'm sure it will go away soon. I'll get sick of it soon I'm sure.


I want a banana.

Hmm, a snow storm seems to have developed. Didn't see that coming. I sometimes have a cup of decaf in the evening. Tonight I brewed up a cup, sat down and read my book, finished the cup, thought I'd have another, so I went to make it and I noticed that I had accidentally made a cup of real coffee. No wonder it tasted so good! So I'm up really late tonight. Good thing I don't have to get up until eight tomorrow.

Temporarily putting long distance into the balance of a long-term relationship can be fun. It can make weekends feel like a date again. It can allow the kind of decadent sloppiness only the temporarily “single” can truly enjoy Monday to Friday. It also plays havoc with my circadian rhythms. I find myself in a loop of staying up way too late, but having the same externally imposed up time I wind up taking naps and staying up way too late again.

I’ve discovered things that my partner paces for me, as noticed by their absence when he is gone:
Besides going to bed later I sleep on his side of the bed. I only cook on weekends. I watch MUCH less TV. I wash but don’t fold laundry. I work on long-term projects but let the dishes sit for days. I journal more. I stay longer hours at work. Dieting is easier.

We have finished 6 weeks of this weekend commuting now, with 2 left to go. The novelty is wearing off. Now he has left again - 5 am on Monday morning. This would not be fun long term.

We did this before when the children were little. It was much worse then. He was out of the country for months, not just in New York for the weekdays. Pity the military wife with young children. I don’t think I could take that; at least I didn’t have to worry about his life being in danger.

Back “in the day” (as my now college aged kids put it) we called potential long distance relationship partners “geographically undesirables) or GUs.

added 2/13/02


I was thinking about living with a SO as a form of external pacing yesterday at work as I helped a breastfeeding mother whose little premature son ate so eagerly that his oxygen saturation would drop and he would fall asleep exhausted before finishing his feeding. Just as he needed a reminder to stop and breath; I seem to need the presence of my SO to stay on a normal schedule.

added 2/14/03 Some things never change, again today I helped a mom with a baby whose ability to pace himself is dodgy. Again, I'm finding myself up at 2 to 3 am or later when SO travels. Again, I wonder where my self discipline was lost.

Its been a long time since I typed up a daylog here, in fact it has been a while since I noded here. Its not that there is nothing interesting in my life, its that I have other things that need to get done first. I also find it hard to come up with good stuff to write about, stuff that people actually care about.... I wonder the ratio of noders to noders with burnout are? Hmmm noder burnout is that such a thing, I think i suffer from it a lot.
So let me get all caught up from last daylog.....

My girlfriend's neck is all better after her car accident, she no longer has to wear a neck brace and in fact is no longer in pain. Which is an answer to prayer.

I'm back subing again after a week haitus from it. Not my choice really, just wasn't the demand fror substitutes which makes the income really scarce and me really poor.

I am getting so tired of waking up at the crack dawn every morning to just sit and wait to see if either my temp agency calls me with a job or if I hear back from one of the numerous employers I've applied at. This has been going on now for more than a month and a half. I am still jobless. February is a short month, so there is even less time to make rent before the end. It would look very bad if I could not make rent on only the second month of being here. I can't even be sure that if I did get a job that I'd get paid before the end of the month. Why is rent the same for shorter months? Shouldn't rent be divided by the day--by the hour?

I worked more on the Thanks' Thank Bobby Masters today, a story I've been working on for the past few months where as Bobby Masters becomes a Mary Poppins figure to two children. The story itself is great I think, but working down to a satisfying conclusion has been hard. I miss having my weekly workshop sessions at the Wikswo Home School.

It is Monday, and this is my first day log. On friday I have orientation for Portland State University whereas they will look at my transcripts, remark at the good grades at my stupidity for not signing up for the honors program, and then tell me that I can't take the classes I want to take because they think I should actually graduate or something like that. What's the point though? Graduating will only quicken my descent into a debt-ridden life (already at $25,000+ in school loans)... Though I don't want to even think about having to have something to "fall back on" if this whole writing/media art/public archetype thing doesn't work out for me, I'm starting to think more seriously about becoming a teacher. Senior-level high school. But then I think about how much everyone hated me in school, and why would it be any different if I were the teacher? And it's not like I'd be allowed to tell children anything that'd actually be useful to them. I wouldn't be able to tell them the things I've learned, so I'd be just a useless as anyone else.

Still, I manage to look out and be happy. Portland is beautiful. I'm excited for school to start, but that is still not until April. Everything keeps me busy, but sometimes I feel like posting my stories here will end up damaging my ability later to publish them, but then--that's presumptous. I already know that most (if not all) of what I write wouldn't be published by any company thinking about that damned profit motive.

Friends would be nice. Maybe I'll pick some up while I'm out getting cigarettes.

today entitled SICK DAY slash CHANCE ENCOUNTERS

You're going to make me a sandwich? It's sandwich day!

I came home woozy and ill and tired tired tired 10:30a walked home I would not have wanted to drive so it is fortunate I use no car on a regular or shall we say normal basis. No; we shall say I live like a student in the student ghetto, with a whole houseful of student business student people Or How I Learned to Love the Bomb. Hello; hello this is a very strange day with items termed "rife" and "unsteady" and most of all painful. I came home from work in the cold outdoor, ate eight pieces soy bacon and got in my flipped out futon which provides daily walking room when unflipped. It flips out in a dramatic fashion FOOMP.

I woke up at 1:30   This was a bad idea   If only I could sleep for nine more hours   Nine is an interesting number being comprised of three threes   and hence triangular   I am not even a math student not hardly. Nine. Now I have an orange divided into greater than nine sections but I don't know exactly since I already have consumed a good 2/3 of it. Oranges orange. I forgot how they tasted it seems like although this is not true.

I got up from my going home from work to feel better nap and felt much much worse and could not deal with it and eventually went and got in the shower in a calming sort of way but it did not clear any nasal passage to speak of, no and I came back stayed in a lump on my bed for a bit trying to figure how to function again and the equilibrium which I had entirely lost.

There are three segments left. Now there are two. Two is not such an interesting number.

After a while I made onion soup and tea although caffeine hates cramps but it is late enough that it should be ok at this point, and tea turned out to be a correct operation to undertake. Kasa Sinharaja. And onion and butter and pepper in the water, with bread and so I drank my tonic.

This is a continuation of the terrible last night in which I collapsed entirely and could not say anything coherent it felt like for hours and this is possibly the actual interpretation. I regressed into highschool and lay in the dark in my room listening to toad the wet sprocket (yes you see highschool)   trying to figure. I started to read James Merrill and that set me off   this was Mirabell: Books of Number.

Now I have it open again and some other: one Sir Keith Thomas Religion and the Decline of Magic two David Cressy Birth Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England three Geray ed. Readings in Medieval History and four another James Merrill this one a more vague and less topic-oriented Selected Poems 1946-1985 but I like Mirabell better and so I have as yet hardly opened. I feel like James Merrill is a quality investment. James Merrill and the Virgin Mary and Ephraim talking at you in tandem and this is hardly past the third page. But then if it makes me one break down two fly into the keyboard like this then, well then you have made a serious investment.

.7

We hear from Matt that Mary's two weeks old
In Iceland. Better late than never, he is
Making strides: I HAVE 1000 EYES
DEAR SON FORGIVE ME   NEVER LET MONEY SOUR U
I PITY THE OLD ME   I AM AT LAST
AWAKE ALIVE & LEARNING IN A GREAT RUSH
DO NOT RUN YRSELF DOWN   MARY DID THAT
HER WHOLE LONG BEAUTIFUL STORY WAS ONE BLUSH
IN A WOMAN FINE   IN A MAN WEAKENING
DAVID I WANTED U TO BRING US BACK
TOGETHER   I STILL WANT IT   FIND HER   FIND ME
IN MY NEW LIFE   HER NAME IS

I don't watch out I'll be running headlong like Monica Furlong into the mystics. Around the corner in the corridor slap bang. This really is not something really to watch out for.

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