"Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way." -Frank Costanza

[EDIT 30 Nov.] Seinfeld and earthquakes aren't really related. I tried, and it just seemed ackward. Let Frank Constanza stand alone, I suppose.

But I still hate earthquakes, and poor choices that make them potentially more dangerous. As far as my inner ear indicates we haven't had much of a quake for about the past two or three months. I don't know if that pause indicates a coming era of peace and calm or one of growing geological tension and eventually doom. Let's hope for the first, for Japan's sake.

A friend of mine has the album "Grammy Nominated Songs of 2004" so I was forced, I mean I literally couldn't stop myself, to rip Cry Me A River. And I think that's ok. And I also think it's ok that I l've been listening to it at least once per train ride. And jumping off the train benches in slow motion while pitilessly singing about love lost. And wondering exactly where Justin Timberlake was able to find inspiration for his genius rhymes 'cause man, i'd be darned if it wasn't here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

True to the American tradition of holiday overlap, Christmas in Japan has hit with unbridled force once again, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. Happy? Heart-warmed? Nausea-ridden? Confused? Perhaps a combination of two or three of these things? For me it's really difficult to find beauty in department stores' gaudification and misinterpretation of all things relating to this season. It's probably the same commercialized way in the U.S. and I've simply forgotten, or maybe I'm sick of seeing the Asian version of western things (not necessarly always bad, but for me, now, bad) . . . or maybe I'm just anxious to hop on the plane home. Hm.

Naturally, though, others are not as icy-hearted as I, and they seem to enjoy these displays. For example in Kyoto's mammoth train station there is a huge illuminated Christmas tree, blaring Mariah Carey and Wham and being shrunken and two-dimentionalized and pixelated by the score, mostly onto the cell phone screens of Japanese lasses as the rode either up or down the eskareta right past it. Sigh.

Michelle and I were in Kyoto for a few reasons: 1) Replace the trip I was unable to take with my parents 2) Get her and I both out of Tokyo 3) See the fall foliage, 4) Travel somewhere not bathed in sweltering humidity and sweat. It was a great trip, marred by nearly nothing. The weather was beautiful, the green tea ice cream was being sold by the loaded coneful, the fall foliage was stunning, the deer in Nara were frisky and flea-ridden and the air was a melange of mountainy freshness and must and antiquity and incense.

All in all, 'twas a recipe for success augmented, I think, by the fact that I was forced (by the pages of my boring novel) to do some heavy Kyoto guide and map reading, thereby adding depth to my travels in a properly enlightened fashion. Enlightenment was also found, partially, during a stroll along The Path to Philosophy, where we looked at lots of shops and took lots of fall photos and generally felt nothing like Japanese literati. And maybe that's ok. I hear that when englightenment hits, you don't even know it. Bam! Like lightning.

[EDIT] I got tired of all those pictures. One is ok.

This morning I had the most boring kind of adventure possible: the Immigration Office Before 9:00 style of adventure. Amazingly, it was breezy and easy and beautiful -- so much so, in fact, that I decided to take a bike ride to Tachikawa, running errands the whole time. It was a lovely fall day and the western Tokyo suburbs were still wrapped up in the silence of morning; 10:00 a.m. is a magic weekday Japan time when everyone is either at work or school or doing the laundry and stores aren't open quite yet. It's quuuiiiiettttt. So I kind of had the streets to myself. And suprisingly my sense of direction has improved dramatically since the days of yore (thanks, I guess, to the necessity presented by the haphazard construction of Tokyo's urban and suburban infrastructure), so I failed to get lost even once. Amazing!

Yesterday my friend Aya and I went to Fuji-Q High Land, home of what was once upon a time the WORLD'S TALLEST COASTER, amongst other things. It was super super fun. And freeeezing. Brrr. Anyway, I've included a picture of us after riding FujiYama (not to be confused with FujiSan aka Mt. Fuji) for the fourth time and feeling like we were about to vomit generously. Nausea aside, we were glad we made it out to the enjoyable trappings of a rickety, rural (Yamanashi), earthquake-prone, Japanese style amusement park. Once in a lifetime, they say.

My house is plagued with soy products: tofu (acceptable), soy sauce (also ok), Powerade soy (sweet!), natto (not acceptable), Vegemite and Marmite. I don't want to talk about natto, it's gross. The mites both taste o.k. albeit kind of overly stimulating and sodium-packed. Sometimes when I am feeling anti-American I have a strong desire to fake an Aussie accent and try to eat them with crackers, but I can't get past their appearance. They look so suspect; non-flashy and understated, austral style, nestled in jars too big to naturally hold tangy condiments* but too small to hold liberally applicable spreadables**. To add to the intrigue the jars are made of tinted brown glass. The average human being can't really see inside. But I think the mite can see out. And I think it's looking. And waiting. To pounce. Like a wildcat . . . pccccoooow.

This weekend was pretty great. I wrote some awesome cover letters, celebrated my friend Haruki's birthday with a good crowd and events including flamenco and salsa dancing, Spanish food, sangria, ipai karaoke, my first daikon oden experience, and a trip to the horse track. I've been wanting to plan a racetrack excursion for forever, but tiredness overruled all so we went really late and were disappointed by the distinct lack of real live horses. But we got to watch some Kyoto races on a big screen and I picked the winner of this race. Number sixer. Wahoo!

My brother is coming to visit Tokyo in like three weeks. Hurrah. Since my parents couldn't visit I will consider Dave to be my Miss Congeniality sash, just as the Grand Canyon will be my parents'. And for that, I guess, we should all be grateful and congenial by association.

*horseradish, mustard, chili sauce, etc.
*Peanut Butter, Jam, Jelly,

This has been an exciting week. In reverse order: 7) I paid for my plane ticket home at Family Mart. Japanese convenience stores are amazingly resourceful. 6) My parents had some parasitic troubles, and so have been forced to choose the Grand Canyon over the Asia Wilderness, thereby trading a sackload of Communist Propaganda and stunning vistas featuring Kyoto's Fall Foliage (pictured to the right) for a trip to Utah (and maybe even a donkey ride?). But I understand, it's not their fault. It's totally not. And I know they're as disappointed about not coming (probably infinitely moreso) as I am about the fact that they can't come. Shoutout to Mom and Dad, they're the best. 5) I discovered that when Royal Tenenbaum says "Pagoda, where's my Javelina?" he references this animal. I didn't know. Should I have? 4) I finally managed to fill out my resignation paperwork, which gave me a lovely good feeling of closure. 3) I've gone for about two weeks on a budget of less than $5 a day. In Tokyo 'tis a feat worth mentioning. 2) I bruised a large portion of my right forearm and sprained my right ankle within 10 minutes during a glorious run a couple mornings ago. It was a good run, but it wasn't worth my ankle's current fruit-like qualities. 1) After some deep staff-room research our many minds came to the conclusion that we'd rather be a canker than a cyst, in accordance with a slightly unconventional interpretation of the lyrics of El Condor Pasa. Wouldn't you? If you only could?

We got a new housemate, hailing from New Zealand. Hurrah. So far she has been slowly eased into her Japanese adventure by being forced to listen to the New Voice of Japanese Hip Hop only once.

Well, I've started my realllllly creative story. It's pretty awesome. So far it's about how this girl was born while her mother was on a business trip to Hong Kong and her father was alseep on the couch in Michigan. I don't know what that means, and clearly the story is not influenced by my own life at all. If it were, I'd have involved some tapeworms somewhere -- maybe a plotline involving the fact that it's really difficult for parasites to be issued Chinese visas. I guess I still have about 95% of the word count left to cover, so there is definitely time for the border breaching bacterial thread. I can't wait.

On an unrelated alliterative or assonative or assoniterative note, did i mention that the unicyclists I saw the other day (likely unique but unified members of a university club) were uniformly uniclad in unitards and (perhaps) unintentionally united in their uniform seat clenching? Because I don't think I did. And they definitely were.

[ALSO] I hate WalMart. Even from across the sea. [AND] on this evening's run I saw a bunch of sweaty, panting, seat-clenching, heavily exercising unicyclists. It was unique.

Wow, so it's National Novel Writing Month and I have yet to find time to start my potentially epic feat of literary genius. Not that I've been overly busy; just the normal stuff, but I've been away from my computer for most of it. I'm off to a good start! Best way to kick it off? BLOGGING.

I haven't posted any pictures lately so I thought I'd do that. They are both from my mobile phone; one's a testament to the warm relationship my coworkers and I share; when they heard of my near-deportation two weeks ago they started a fund for my leaving party. So far it's garnered about eighty yen and some pocket lint. I also got a free dinner out of the deal. I am going to throw one hell of a bash. The other is a photo from the front of the Keio line today as I was traveling homeward toward what can only be called 3:30 p.m. pre-twilight. Actually I love travelling in the first car and watching the track unfold in front of me. It's like being on the Oregon Trail, in a way, except by Oregon I mean Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area and by Trail I mean Railway. But that pioneering spirit is still strong even if the resemblance is strained.

Today a couple friends and I went to one of our student's Jr. High school festivals. We watched her chick band perform some jpop and then saw her school's award-winning dance team. It was actually really great; the school is weathy and private so they were able to go all out. I particularly enjoyed having to wear slippers indoors (carrying shoes in a plastic bag) and getting to meet all of her myriad Jr. High School friends. Apparently she's a closet-english-speaker (she's fifteen and really high level), so it was a suprise for many of her friends to see her with a train of foreigners in tow. In conclusion and summary, a cute day.