You know something funny?

That was a rhetorical question. I'm sure you do, in fact, know something funny. That was a conversational gambit intended to allow me to tell you something I think is funny.

In the states, I used to have a great deal of trouble making small talk. That harmless, meaningless, pointless low level banter you're supposed to do with people you've just met was something I could not figure out how to do. If there was no point in the conversation, why should I bother?

Thanks to my last two jobs, I found a reason to make small talk.

Money, honey.

I get paid to make small talk with people who just want to practice speaking English. And as stupid as that sounds, someone else is getting paid even more for finding a way to schlep people like me over here to let other people talk to them. Making small talk for eight hours a day is what puts money in my pocket and beer in my belly.

Life is funny.

No Job, No Apartment.
Day 11

Tokyo or Bust. By Bus. Again.

Sunday, February 2 was my last day with no job. The week before I went to Tokyo (by night bus) again to sign a contract for a job with a clever young English Conversation School of the Ekimae variety.

Once again I'll be rejoining the ranks of the working. Just two weeks shy of my first chance to collect unemployment, dammit. Not that I really wanted to go on the welfare/dole just yet, but then my former employer would have had to pay for it. And that would have been nice.

So I repacked all my remaining stuff, waited for the shipping company for twice as long as they said I'd have to, and said my last goodbyes to Fukui. As it was snowing, it was all very dramatic and moody. Because I don't have a hatbox, I wound up having to wear my fedora, which made it even more cinematic-looking.

All things considered, it was a pretty decent finish to my time in Fukui. I had a couple of goodbye parties. I ate good food to the end. I was sorry, and not desperate and angry, to go. And there were actually a couple of females who were sort of sad to see me leave.

Yep, this was much better than the way I left LA.

Then I came down with a virus or something on the night bus, and spent the night sneezing, nauseous, feverish and unable to sleep. Which was convenient, since the bus arrived in Tokyo at 6:00 AM, and I had to get into my suit to start training at 9:00. And I know I wouldn't want to be groggy from sleeping too much on my first day on the job.

So I'm living in the suburbs of Tokyo now. Which means this page needs a new name. My heart may have stayed in Fukui, but I'm gonna be fouling things up somewhere else for a while.

Any suggestions?