By the way, I finally got my July 4th pics from last year scanned, formatted and uploaded.

Mike, Karla, thanks for a damn good time last year.

Springtime in Tokyo can be pretty nice. Especially in the evenings. After you've been on a train that was jammed to maximum capacity with a bunch of stressed out office workers, half-drunk salarymen and inadequate ventilation, stepping out onto the platfom and walking home in the cool darkness is nice finish to the day.

Especially if you take advantage of public consumption laws and enjoy a beer on the walk home.

It's worth noting that tomorrow is Memorial Day, the official start of summer in America.

Summer in Tokyo can be a sweltering, fetid, endurance contest, where the prospect of blackouts, the heat-island effect, and being required to wear a black suit to work every day, often causes otherwise successful Tokyo dwellers to consider taking up sustenance farming in someplace less inhospitable.

Like Outer Mongolia.

I'm back in Japan now. The trip had no major surprises, and getting back was fairly uneventful. Except for one thing. Turns out that they don't send you a gas bill in Saitama (where I live) if you haven't filled out one of those auto-debit things. They just turn off your gas after a couple of months. Which wouldn't bother me in summer except that my water heater is the only thing in my apartment that runs on gas.

Really, cold showers ain't so bad. I almost wanna go on a date and get cockblocked just so I'll have a good reason to take cold showers.

On the up side, I was able to negotiate an appointment with a guy from the gas company to get them to turn it back on. Looks like I have actually learned some Japanese in the last year and a half. Hooray for me. I'll be able to have a hot shower by Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, though...brrr.

Tomorrow I will try to slip back into my hometown unnoticed for 3 days of catching up with family and friends, eating some god damnned real New Mexican food, and trying to avoid a lethal cocktail of jet-lag, reverse culture shock and poisonous levels of high-school reminiscing.

"Sounds dangerous. I recommend a strict regimen of the cheapest beer imaginable and one viewing of the Matrix Reloaded."
"Drunk or sober?"
"That's a foolish question, young man. It's my medical opinion that you stay drunk for the next 80 hours."
"You're a sick sonuvabitch, Doctor. I'm glad I came to you."

What do you believe in?

How deeply do you believe it?

This fellow wanted to know about his personal relationship with and responsibility to the government. He wanted an answer. And this is how far he's gone to get an answer.

Will he see it through? Will he get an answer? Your guess is as good as mine. But this guy seems to have made his stand and kept to it. So I ask again: What do you believe in? How deeply do you believe it?

A lot of people told me that medicine sold in Japan is ususally weaker than medicine in America. Whether this is because Japanese people tend to consume fewer chemicals and thus have a lower tolerance, or because American people tend to have more body mass (that is, "fat") and require a higher dose, I'm not sure. And honestly, I really couldn't tell you if it's true or not. I can't read Japanese well enough to buy medicine in the first place, so I haven't actually checked.

But one thing that is definitely stronger here is whatever is in the mosquitoes. I got a couple of bites and there's something in them that my system has no idea what to do with. They swelled up like purple-red easter eggs, itch like hell, and haven't gone down after four days. And bugs here don't respect the traditional no-bite zones.

Like the eyelid.

Yeah, one of the little bastards zapped me just over my right eye while I was taking a nap. I woke up and couldn't open my eye for half an hour. I'm lucky that no one at work felt they knew me well enough to ask who belted me.

Change Change Change

Just got back from a weekend in Fukui. Damn, but it was good to see everyone again.

But I suppose it needs to be said: a lot of things changed. A lot of things always change. Some people are dating other people, some buildings are missing, most folks changed their hair.

And everyone's lives went on, despite the huge, yawning void that my leaving Fukui must have caused.

No, wait, I meant to say "despite the huge, yawning void that my leaving Fukui caused my current life to become." Which isn't to say that I'm not totally satisfied, but I gotta wrap this up so I can ride a cramped train and go to work to make small talk for six hours. Damn it damn it damn it.