Thirteen Hours in the Future!: September 2008

New Pad in Murky Waters

First I'd like to thank everyone who sent some advice on the apartment hunt. I think I was just looking for a good push in the direction I wanted to go, and everybody seemed on the same page as me too. So, here it is, my soon-to-be apartment!

I'll be living very close to Osaka's oldest red-light district, Tobita Shinchi. According to a Japan Times article, it's been in operation since 1912. Maybe not a good place to tour with the folks, but honestly it's really fascinating. Let me clear it up here though, I've never paid for sex, nor will I; I'm personally over the moral dilemma of it, but I really don't see the point in paying for something, that's so much more fun, and safer, when it's free. But the setup is really fascinating. it's basically a district of storefronts, and at each store there is one woman sitting in a kimono on display in a very bright, nicely decorated room. Near the front of the store sits the oba-chan (Eng. trans. "grandmother," or "old lady") with a mirror at both sides of the storefront, giving her a good view of who's coming and going. The oba-chan, is kind of the pimp of the situation, though I imagine there's muscle around somewhere if needed. She invites guys in based on what the girl approves; in alot of cases they might say no foreigners, so the oba-chan will be ready and waiting with her forearms making an "X" in front of her (the Japanese gesture for "no"). On the other hand, the girl might be okay with foreigners, so when I guy like me walks by the oba-chan will say hello and welcome me to her store, usually making me irrupt in a fit of giggles and walking away with my head down like a schoolboy. Anyway, I bit of history you won't get in the classroom.

As for the less seedy side of my new place, I'll be a short bike ride to Namba and Tennoji--the big downtown spots here in Osaka--and just a few blocks form Den Den Town and Geek Street. Yes, all the electronics, maids, and animae I can handle. Don't worry, I won't be there too often. Though it will be nice to geekout here and there. (Pictures of the pad below! Notice, I gotta supply everything!)

Sleeping Together on Trains

As for sleeping on trains, I'm not sure if I posted on this before, but it really is a phenomonon worth mentioning again and again. Everybody here flatout sleeps on the train. Think of your commute as naptime. Folks will just passout on whoever might be next to them. It really makes for some interesting people watching. Once I saw a young girl, maybe 20, passed-out on an old salary man's (i.e. businessman) shoulder, and the salaryman was passed out on her head. It was something you could imagine young siblings doing, but I think these two were going to wake up to a lot of apologys and bowing. You'll see alot of folks sway, as well. Trying to stay awake, or at least up right, they'll move like trees in the breeze of our fishbowl subway car moving and stopping, moving and stopping. Here's some good documentation on it from Youtube. Don't be freaked out by the girl wearing here hat on her face, she's using it to block the sun for her Zs. #1 and #2. Sometimes young guys (well, old guys too) who've partied too hard will take off their shoes and just lie down.

Well, talking about sleep is really taking it out of me. So I'm outta here. Be in touch.

Labels: apartment, red-light, sleep

(My birthday cake! My poetry students kicked ass this summer! I turned 29, which is really really old to teenagers, and to most of us around 29 too. The cake says "Happy Birthday" in Japanese.)

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been more than a year since my last post. I really should have kept up with this better, but so much was going on. So much, I really don't know where to begin. But enough good friends (K.Ro and my students to name a few) gave me a good nudge, so here it goes.

So let's start up with a one year sum up. Not long after my last post, I came out of my writing slump (euphemism for depression/verge of killing my computer) and had a string of publications. You can still find them if you google me, but here are a few of my prouder moments: Night Train, Softblow, Thieves Jargon and 42Opus . (I got another one coming up in 42Opus this October, so keep an eye out.)

In the middle of all of this the company I worked for, well, collapsed. (You'll might have to do some digging to get to the goods; things reached their peak flavor around September/October 2007.) So there I was, living in Japan without a job, along with just about all of my friends (not to mention 3000 other folks out here teaching English for Nova). There were some great stories--none of them mine, but many directly from friends: landlords coming into apartments, yelling in comprehensible things (since our behemoth of a company had the leases for most of our apartments and took the rent out of our paychecks, no paycheck no rent) and (in at least one, very tough-guy exception) keys being broken with bare, Hulk-like hands.

Me and my roommates, enjoyed our unemployment and the depression that came along with it in relative silence, well from our landlord at least. Thankfully, nobody even bothered us for rent, well for a long time at least. But back to the collapse. So, company collapses, I plan to come back to the US with 3 months salary owed to me when suddenly (we're in November 2007 here) another company (G.Communications) buys up what's left of Nova and promises to hire all of us back so we can be a big happy family again. Only problem was, the CEO of G.Comm was drunk (either with power or sake or both) when he said these things, because after giving me (and many others) 300,000¥ (about $3000.00) to promise our services after the New Year he sends out an email saying he regrets that about 1000 of us were up for adoption, a euphemism for still unemployed. This might not have been terrible news, had I not just returned from a vacation to the US (hey, I had a job now!) and gotten the news (did I mention it was via email?) on December 22nd. Yes, 12/22. And, yes, many people out here aren't Christian, but I'm sure this detail was overlooked by many a bitter upper-management, who (after destroying the company that was) all got their old jobs back.

So. Back in Japan, no job, I start collecting my unemployment insurance. I figured I could chill out for a few months, collect and go home with a story or two. Only in order to collect, I had to apply for jobs (damn Fascists) and it so happened that I found one that paid the bills, didn't ask a lot of hours from me and I actually enjoyed quite a lot. Don't laugh, but I teach kids now. Most of my students are between 6 and 12, but I have a few that range from 2 to 16. I spend a good part of my day doing silly dances (similar to my drunken attempts at clubs, but sober) singing the classics like Old McDonald, Head-Shoulders-Knees and Toes, etc. To tell the truth, I really get a kick out of it. And the kids really dig me! I mean, there is the whole thing that I'm an adult and a foreigner and all that, but they can tell I'm really cool outside of all of that. But really, I we have a lot of fun, when they're not driving me crazy.

So, I started this job back in April and soon after I got an offer to come back to Boston to teach a summer class at Emerson. (Thank you publications, teaching experience, and Tori!) So the plan was to let these folks at my new wonderful company down easy, but they wanted back, they told me Go have fun in Boston, do whatever you want, just please come back to us! Well, not quite like that, but really really close. So I left, taught my amazingly brilliant students the fundamentals of poetry (in the aptly named Fundamentals of Poetry) and the loathsome art of revision (in the aptly vague Writers Seminar) this summer, saw many of you--but not all of you, for which I'm truly sorry: I barely had time to sleep for the first 4 weeks--and high-tailed it back to Japan the day after classes ended.

So that gets me to now. Here I am trying to decide where to live and for how long. I really missed Japan while I was away; it really has become a home to me. But I know I can't stay here for life. And as 30 approaches (less than a year now, I can hear it in the distance like the drums of Mordor...) I know I really need to make up a new Exit Stratagy for season 3, when Steven actually gets off--and stays off--the island. But first I need to find an apartment. So far, the front runners are a place in the sticks that's really cheap and near my old digs, or a reasonably expensive place in Osaka's ghetto, a safe area but crawling with prostitutes. Yes, that's a bad thing. Hmm, town or country: even in Japan I can't escape this dillema.

Well, any advice--if there's anyone still out there--is welcome. I hope to get this blog going at a click again. A Click being a post about once-a-month or so. And of course, just like the olden days, here's some pictures that will not line up correctly with their intended taglines.

The poets and the cake

My Revision class, as usual, losing focus. ;) That's blurry me on the right, trying to explain Steven Millhauser by my apparent inability to keep it together.