Greyface's Journal

Time:

4:00 pm.

I guess we're at 25-26 hours since symptoms started.

I wouldn't say I feel good again, but... I can stand up with less than 2 minutes notice. I'm not sure if eating would make me feel better or worse, and I'm not really ready to risk it. (Aside from the general aching and exhaustion, most of my discomfort was abdominal)

This means I won't have to cancel my English lessons today... strange thing about my life in Japan, on the balance it's more annoying to cancel something than to do it, even to do whatever it is while under the weather. Of course, the way I felt 20 hours ago, I would have cancelled everything. It's almost pathetic how strong the urge to get better SO I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CALL IN SICK was.

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Subject:	Sick.
Time:	8:40 pm.

Is it a Flu? A Cold? Who gives a crap? It feels like crap.
Somehow, the timing is about as good as I can ask for these days. My Wednesday night (English) lesson was moved to Thursday, and I don't have school tomorrow because of term-end exams. So, I've got like 20ish more hours to return to human.
BTW, I turn into a crybaby when I'm sick. I mean, literally, I cry readily... something about my brain mistaking the generalized trauma of disease for emotional response. I remember something long ago in university about all major emotional responses being the same from the nose down, and it's the brain which assigns meaning to the feeling. I wonder if the flu (or whatever) is physiologically similar too.

Back to sleep!

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Time:

11:06 am.

I have tickets. In fact, I have twice as many tickets as I need, due to a fear that I wouldn't get them, and then enlisting

queuebert to try also (he is also going).

So, if you happen to know people in Japan who are interested in seeing Kishidan, let me know soon!

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Subject:	KISHIDAN!
Time:	12:13 am.
Mood:	spasmotic.

I'm... psychotic with excitement right now.

Kishidan is doing a new song for Naruto. (Or rather, Naruto is using a new song from Kishidan) The single will be released on Nov 11th. That enough makes me happy. But... THEY'RE PLAYING A SHOW on Nov 7th! *spurt*

I'm not sure anybody out there really understands how happy I am about this. I'm going to have trouble sleeping for a few hours. I... am happy. I... better get tickets.

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Subject:	Didn't even have to use my AK
Time:	1:58 am.
Mood:	drunk.

I gotta say, it was a pretty good day:

Was reassured that I didn't offend a boss-like-type a few weeks ago when I vomitted from excessive wine-drinking, at his table, by being invited out to drink with him again tonight. He even paid for my beer.
Finally tried using a plunger on my chronically slow bathroom drain. To good effect, I'm 99% sure I can take a shower now without water backing up onto my bathroom floor! I had been meaning to try a plunger on that drain for a few months, but got around to it today.
Massive success on the big pot'o'curry I'll be eating for the next several days. Very delicious

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Subject:	Always the last to know
Time:	9:45 pm.

It took me a SECOND read through The Jungle Books to figure out that there's a reason that the title The Graveyard Book mirrors it.

Also, can somebody who's watched the Disney movie more recently tell me whether or not the movie snake was a goodguy or badguy? Also, if you happen to remember it's name, that'd be swell.

[Update: FWIW, the reason I asked about the snake's name, was to make sure that we were talking about the same snake. Kaa the Rock Python is one of Mowgli's allies in the book, but there are an assortment of cobras, who are not good-guys (one in a treasure-trove and 2 more who never met Mowgli, but got killed by heroic Rikki-tikki-tavi the mongoose, and several others that Mowgli steered clear of or domineered with his outstanding MANness). So, if my vague memory of a snake bad-guy was one of the cobras, rather than the python, I'd have caught that in the name. Thanks!]

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Time:

4:03 pm.

I was getting scared there for a bit... I thought that the Japanese phone company actually WANTED my business. Their CSRs are actually pretty persistent in maintaining and progressing the communication setting up service. But, of course, the linemen can't be arsed. The 3 hour appointment window has passed. Does that mean they're not coming today? Or they're coming late? Should I stay home? Or am I allowed to leave?

Who knows! But it's relieving that NTT sucks too. Otherwise I might get a national inferiority complex...

[Update 5:45 -- Hey, they showed up. Only 105 minutes late, good work guys!]

[Update 5:55 -- Hey, they'd need to use a screw or something in the wall, so they're leaving without doing a damn thing. Glad I spent the last 6 hours waiting around my apartment, and I don't even know how many hours on the phone. Hopefully somebody will come get the fancy TV tuner back from me, because if they're expecting me to pay 4000Y for a piece of hardware I can't use, I'm going to be rather annoyed.]

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Subject:	Rat update
Time:	12:22 pm.
Mood:	annoyed.

As some of you may know... I'm engaged in a struggle against a resident rat.

In addition to putting down poison, I've been trying to keep it away from my food. (like, refrigerating bread, not because I need it preserved in cold, but because the rat can't open the fridge (yet?)) The food thing has 3 major reasons. Firstly, it means I throw away less stuff that the rat has half-eaten. Secondly, the less it eats, the less it shits. Thirdly, there's an outside chance that the rat will just go somewhere else to live, since I'm not feeding it well.

But, the fucking thing, the filthy jerkwater ass-hat-rat... is now eating the bar of soap I have at my kitchen sink. What the fuck? Is that nutritious to rats? How do I keep it away from food it likes, if it likes to EAT SOAP?

Also, as a side note... I've noticed rat poop in the over-head light in the kitchen. I don't know why it was climbing through my electrical conduits to sit in a florescent light fixture but it did... and then it shat there. When I'm reasonably confident that the rat no longer lives in my home, I'm going to have to take down the light fixture and clean rat shit out of it. I'm not altogether pleased about this discovery.

In (hopefully) unrelated news, after 5ish months of intermittent massive itching in my eye, last night it got ridiculous. On the way home from Sean's place, my eye was so itchy I stopped at a convenience store and bought cleaning solution and a contact case so I could take out my right lens immediately (right there in the 3-F bathroom). The rest of the way home, my eye still itched and sucked, but when I tried closing my good (which is to say, still lens-bearing) eye for a bit every now and then, my bad eye wasn't just blurry from being uncorrected, it was blurry, like covered in goop that I couldn't see through very well. Cloudy. And when I woke up today, my eye was glued shut with eye-mucus. Tomorrow, after-school, I'm going to a health-consultation-center, and seeing if I can muster enough Japanese to get an opinion on whether or not this is conjunctivitis (aka Pink Eye, aka Zombie Plague) or if I just need to live in glasses for a month (which would mean getting a pair with a prescription less than 10 years out of date) or both.

In other even less likely related news, I'm watching "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi" (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱) through the miracle of internet time shifting *coughcougha.f.k.fansubbers* It's pretty amusing. The misordering of the episodes is pretty annoying though.

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Subject:	WoW
Time:	9:34 pm.

Not playing World of Warcraft is treating me pretty well these days.

Now, I just need to man up and buy into the Japanese (language) schooling, or I need to start my home-studies again. Because dicking around on Facebook for 6 hours a night... not awesome. Even with how unexcited I am about how I've been spending my time, I don't really miss WoW.

I guess, when your time comes, your time comes.

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Subject:	Sport's Day, again
Time:	5:49 pm.
Mood:	empty.

Another Saturday at work, another Sport's Day survived.

No injuries (on me!) Minimal participation. A little wracking my brains for the names of graduated students who dropped by to watch in the afternoon.

And then, when it was time for me to go home, I showed 2 of the teachers my tattoo as an explanation for why I wasn't joining them at the onsen. Really, I would like to have gone with them. Really, I shouldn't spend that money anyway. So, I guess it works out alright in the end. I just need to fill the gaping hole in my chest, where food should go.

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Subject:	Stupid BOOK!
Time:	6:06 pm.
Mood:	annoyed.

Rereading House of Leaves.

My mouth is full of strange garlic flavor, left over from last night's poorly considered snack choice.

I got to the first part where the editor mentions the Whalestoe Letters, so I flipped through them briefly. Ugh.

Then I left school, and went to a drug store. Buying rat poison seemed oddly... loaded. As if I were in a work of fiction, and it was a foreshadowing moment.

And then, of course, when I get home, I'm seeing things move out of the corner of my eye.

Goddamn book.

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Subject:	Holding Onto Money
Time:	5:40 pm.

It appears I win! Or at least, I get cheap(er) internet. At least, they mailed me passwords and shit for the router (which I don't have yet, because nothing enters my home until (the earliest) the 17th) and they claim that I'm on the "Mansion type" payment plan, which is the name for the cheaper-thing (I don't feel like explaining why, but there is a kind of reason for it).

Yay me. Also, my mobile phone bill should drop another $15 or so either in October or November (because I finally paid off my handset...)

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Time:	12:38 am.
Mood:	broke.

Sure enough, the 3rd floor, assigned seating balcony is much less excited and exciting than the GA section down on the 1st floor. On the other hand, there's more air to breathe, so it's doubly less exhausting.

But it's even more sure that Go!Go! is a force of nature.
They kicked my ass so hard that it drove the money in my wallet into my body, and then right up my esophagus and out of my life.
3500Y in assorted goods (okay, a T-shirt and YetAnotherSportsTowel)
and then 10,000Y for 3 more concerts in October.

It's damn dirty tricks to sell super-pre-presale tickets to a future show at the current show. Damn dirty. But then again, I have tickets now, for then. As long as I can suvive until mid October, I can subsist on drooling desire to see them, instead of food. Which is fortunate, because those shows are like the last week before my next REAL paycheck...

Oh, school starts tomorrow, I better get my ass to sleep.

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Subject:	Mice
Time:	11:30 am.

I saw the not-rat. It was a mouse (I think). I also think I convinced it to jump out the bathroom window, by locking it in the bathroom...

My computer mouse got bad, the left-button was not so responsive anymore. So I bought a new mouse.

I also applied for fiber-optic internet. I can get something like a $15 dollar discount if the building manager does something or other (I think it costs them money?). If that goes okay, the ISP gives me about $150 in electronics-store credit. Actually they give me $200, but I have to buy a $30 fiber-optic TV-signal tuner, and sign up for a $5/mo TV service, and a $10/mo something or other service... and 2 other services that I get 2 months of free, and hopefully remember to cancel before I have to pay for them. Yes, trading $50 of actual money for $200 of pretend money isn't always smart. I don't think I can buy much, in the way of food, at the electronics store (it's not Fry's...). The real win is, the fiber internet is at least $15 cheaper/mo, or $30 if the manager OKs whatever they'd have to OK.

I think, thinking in Japanese, is harder exercise than jogging. Either that or my brain has very few mitochondria. Or, for some reason, I was lower on glucose than I thought (I was vaguely hungry, but my brunch was mostly starchy (plus milk)). Anyhow, the fiber-internet application and related discussions made me really, very tired.

As it stands... I'm finally considering joining Facebook. Because when people asked why I hadn't already, I sounded like an old man. I don't like sounding like an old man (it's bad enough looking like one).

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Subject:	Japan
Time:	6:20 am.

Welcome back to me.

My electricity turned itself off while I was gone, which didn't do wonders for my frozen foods. A rat (or possibly several) seem to enjoy pooping on my floor, which presumably means they're crawling around my home eating things. That's not so good.

Otherwise, it's nice to be back.

I think. Well, there is the bit about me waking up at 4am... I could do without that!

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Subject:	Reminder
Time:	2:42 pm.

I'll be in Los Angeles starting Sunday.

You should be too.

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Time:

6:19 pm.

I'm pretty sure I meant to make a post about how utterly, devestatingly shitty I've felt this week. BUt I guess when I feel that shitty, I can't actually be expected to do things.

On the upside, I feel better. Possibly even "good".

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Subject:	Exhausted
Time:	6:04 pm.

First of all, congratulations to Roger Federer on reclaiming his Wimbledon champion-osity.

Secondly, Roger, couldn't you have done me a favor and put Roddick away much sooner? I stayed up until almost 3am watching you guys serve at each other. Jesus, I'm tired. I might even have gotten a bit sick in the process.

For those of you who don't know what happened, you probably don't care, but it went something like this.
Roddick broke Federer's serve (that's Tennis Speak for winning a game when you're not serving) 2 times in the first 4 sets, but Federer won 2 tie-breakers. The 5th set doesn't do tiebreakers... somebody HAS to go two-games-up to take the match (and, in last night's case, the championship). Their serves went unbroken for 27 games in a row. That is significantly more than 2 sets worth of games. (The "normal" sets top out at 12 games + the tiebreaker.) It's strange to watch the best tennis player in the world (by current rankings, and by a fairly wide swath of veteran super-champions) get tired and start to fuck up shots. It's also strange to watch Roddick serving under 100mph. But these are things that happen when emotionally intense matches (at the end of a relatively strenuous week of tennis) stretch past 4 hours.

Now, I'm going to hell to sleep. I hope I'm less tired tomorrow.

[Edit: Good lord... I got it wrong, it was in the -30th- game, not the 28th. There were 29 unbroken service games in the final set.]

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Subject:	Summer Music
Time:	11:41 pm.
Mood:	Full of Meat and Summer.

About half a year ago, I posted about how spot-on Covenant was for me. Being winter music, in winter.

Well, it's summer. Tonight is a gorgeous summer night. Warm, and just that slightest bit damp, to give the air some weight. I put 少年カミカゼ on the ipod on the way from the train station, to home... and really felt like riding somewhere for the next hour. I miss the Ashidagawa river rides I did in Fukuyama. Yes, this is

greyface lamenting that he needs more nature near him. I'm remarkably close to riding across town to the park by the smelly bay, so I have somewhere to ride. It's ridiculous that I'm going to be at home in weather like this, with music like this. It is good that I went home first though, because I needed to rip the new Shiina Ringo *wubwub* If this great music would just END I could get to that great music. Sometimes life is so good it sucks!

You need summer music like this in your life. Sadly, I don't think 少年カミカゼ will cut it for you since you don't get sentimental with Japanese lyrics. Nor, for that matter, are many of you even remotely interested in Pop-Punk-Rap in your own language to begin with.

In primarily unrelated news, I went to karaoke again. This is kind of becoming habitual. Anyway, a couple friends going to karaoke has a very different flavor than a big party-group. 2-3 people take each other through an arc of energy and such. As opposed to bigger groups where a lot of the issue is just keeping everything moving by giving everybody a turn and stuff like that. Anyway, the point was, during the "do silly, but really high energy songs" part, I through on Dragostea Tin Deo (you know... "Numa numa"...) and, it was totally ridiculous, but the thing which creams that corn is, it's easily the most faithful singing job I've ever done at karaoke. Thanks

queuebert

asparaguslady

dcwttaoo1 etc for endlessly playing versions of that on the Xbox, because the song is rooted in my brain the way very few songs are. (it helps that it's a relatively simple song, but still). I may sing it again too... But I do have to thank the karaoke company for having it transliterated in the Roman alphabet as well as katakana (wait, is Romanian naturally in the Roman alphabet? or is it Cyrillic?) because even though I basically know the song, it's much easier to read it in the alphabet... but it's not as if I have any idea what the words are.

This florid blog post brought to you by tons of red meat! (Mosburger for lunch, (Skylark group's) Gusto for dinner... Beef in the blood, woo!

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Subject:	Good Lyrics File
Time:	5:25 pm.
Mood:	moogi desu.

Covenant, United States of Mind, Still Life:

My ambition took me further than I'd imagined.
I don't even need a mirror anymore.

Thank you, good night.

Also, unrelated. It's now Japanese summer. 2 days ago wasn't, even though it was like 5 degrees hotter or something. Today the air is pregnant with water, which falls when it feels like it, and when it stops falling, it starts rising. You know it's summer when, upon returning home, I take off my pants, and don't put on other ones unless it becomes necessary for some reason.

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