Confessions of a Grade School Role Model

Today's business/product name picks:
Cars: Mazda Scrum, Toyota Saloon, Toyota Super Saloon
Beverages: Calpis, Pocari Sweat
Businesses: Tit Collection (clothing boutique), Hair Make Pee (beauty salon), Hard Off (new and used electronics and applicances), Book Off (bookstore)

Sometimes this place makes me laugh like a 12-year old boy, heh, heh.

Today's lessons. 1) Incinerating, while fun, is dangerous. I actually singed an eyebrow a little on my last trash run. I need to buy one of those really long lighters from the 100-yen shop that I thought were for novelty purposes. One man's novelty item is another man's necessary household appliance. 2) Even if my washing machine is really only a glorified spinning bucket, one half of most of my sock pairs will still tend to mysteriously vanish from the laundry.

Reading over all this, I feel as if I'm creating some sort of new Seinfeld, the show where nothing ever happens. I do my laundry, and I write about it. I drive to the grocery store, I write about it. I take out the trash, and here that is too. It's these little things though, that really fill out my experience here, and they are the reasons I feel I really live in Japan, that I'm not just a tourist. Sure you climbed Mt. Fuji, Mr. World Traveler, but did you ever try to shop for laundry soap in a Japanese pharmacy? Did you ever try to pay a phone bill in a foreign language? Did you ever order food by walking into the street with the waiter and pointing at what you want in the window? It's wonderful to walk through a temple in Kyoto, to be jostled on the streets of Tokyo, to swoon at a festival in Tejikarao. But the things that have really changed me are these little everyday experiences. It is terribly humbling to suddenly find that, at the age of 28, you suddenly know absolutely nothing, not even how to take care of yourself or your home, and that much of what you've learned so far about the world is useless. It is also exhilirating, and very very freeing. I'd found that the more I learned about the world, the more I felt restricted by it. Knowing the exact names of possibilities in my little world made them see more finite. In the process of trying to come to grips with a new world, I have rediscovered infinity. If something as benign as grocery shopping now is so filled with possibility, what are the new possibilities for the rest of my life - for work, for leisure, for lifestyle, for friendships, for love, for me? As frustrating and even maddening as all these shifted lines can be, it is wonderful to recapture what, as a child, I didn't even know I had. Bad point: When I require only one simple answer, I get only that Anything Is Possible. Good point, there is again more than one answer, and anything is possible.

I finally took out my trash. I've been living in my apartment almost three weeks now, and this was the first time I've had the courage to face it. This wasn't the usual lazy suburban American aversion to taking out the trash. This wasn't a case of, the anonymous men with the big clean city truck will be driving by my house at their regularly-scheduled weekly interval to take away the pizza boxes and beer cans I've been collecting so I never have to think about them again if only I can get off my butt for two minutes and drag them out to the curb. This was more a woman-versus-fire thing.

In the parking lot on the side of my apartment building is a large rusty free-standing incinerator. It's shaped like one of those big pot-belly stoves from the Ingalls-Wilder cabin, twice as big. I squeeze through a narrow gap between the fence and the building and toss my bags over the top rather than going around. I approach the incinerator with caution, heel-toe-heel-toe, recalling that this thing has been intimidating me for three weeks. My kitchen is too small to be putting this off this long. Here goes.

I eye my opponent carefully. It looks dangerous and hungry. A long barhandle with a counterweight on one end protrudes from its belly, and assuming this to be Step One, I pull it down. An iron-lipped, ash-breathed mouth gapes open in response, and I pour my trash inside. Trash separation here is serious business. Staples are plied from boxes, plastic wrap is scraped from cardboard backings, all refuse is separated into its material components. When you live next to the incinerator, what you burn is what you breathe. Step Three, light a fire. I fish a lighter out of my pocket and search for the least soggy coffee filter. Puff, puff, smolder, whoof! I stare down at three weeks' worth of junk mail and banana peels and food wrappers on fire, until the floating ashes start to collect on my T-shirt. Trusting everything has gone as it should, I swing the heavy door shut. Flames lick out of the rust-eaten smokestack. There is a long-handled fire poker on the ground beside the incinerator, and I am happy to have a reason to peek in every few minutes and stir around the big stew of flames and garbage. When the fire settles into a mellow smolder, I hop the fence back home, glowing with accomplishment. Now I sit at my desk, the smoke from the incinerator trailing past my window, looking around the apartment in vain for some overlooked trash to burn. Incinerating is fun!

The bank clerk looked really excited handing me my thanks-for-opening-a-new-account-with-us gift bag emblazoned with the cartoon figures of Tom and Jerry, the bank mascots. Inside was a plain green box of tissue paper. My co-worker said that was a really good present in Japan, because tissue paper is so expensive. I wonder what I`d have to do to get a toaster.

Nina Simone died yesterday. I feel a loss that is inappropriately personal, considering I didn`t know her, although she did make me late for work once, the first time I ever heard her voice. I was driving to work on Halloween day several years ago, listening to the college radio station. They were doing their best to play Halloween music, although after a few cuts by Alice Cooper and Ozzy, they were starting to stretch for material to fill the show. Just as I pulled into the employee parking lot, they started a new song. I recognized the song itself, "I Put A Spell On You," a Screaming Jay Hawkins classic, but the singer was new. The voice coming out of my speakers had the effect of a stun gun, or a Mesmer`s tool. Although music has always been one of my life`s focal points, this new voice had a power I had never encountered. I was trapped, hands on the steering wheel, motor running, idling in a parking space, unable to leave the car until the voice stopped. The DJ innocently revealed the name behind this voice, Nina Simone, not knowing in his little campus DJ booth that he had just changed my world.

I was lucky enough to see her a few years ago when she did a short tour of some university campuses. I remember staring in disbelief at the ad announcing her impending appearance. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she was someone who could be seen in person, certainly not by me. She lived in France, had for years, word had it she hated America, that she left it behind in body and heart during the turbulence of the 1960`s Civil Rights wars, and understandably so. She had wanted to be a classical pianist, but black women in those times weren`t allowed, and so she started singing. The audience, mostly older, nearly all black, looked as disbelieving as me. A legend was about to ascend the stage. It was as if the goddess of the moon herself suddenly announced she`d be coming by for tea.

And she appeared as promised. She was frail, and her voice was mostly gone, and she had certain strict rules about audience conduct, but she was there, in person, with us.

I once said that if I could wish any person in the world to sing me to sleep every night, I would want her. Rest in peace, Nina Simone. And thank you, more than you know.

Random observations. Beer is sold in packs of four. Bread, usually white, is sold in packages of four slices, and each slice is one inch thick. Kindergarteners tend to draw their noses in self-portraits as rather large bright orange triangles. I have yet to see a bumpersticker on a car, nor for sale in a shop. There are less varieties of dogs. There is always a seasonal decoration for something (right now it`s fish banners for Boys` Day). Drivers flash their hazard lights in thanks when they are let in to traffic, they do not wave. A public trash can is a rare thing, and strangely also is litter. Body lotion and toothpaste are sold in the same size containers, but body lotion costs ten times more. The "go" portion of a traffic light is usually described as blue, and not green. It is green. There is no Japanese word for "bless you" when someone sneezes. Most people back into parking spaces, rather than pulling forward. People generally do not hold open doors for others. No one at the table may drink until everyone has toasted. No one at the table may refill his or her own drink. Indoor shoes are sold, but they are different from slippers. They look just like outdoor shoes, but they must be changed out of when going outdoors. Items at the dollar store are usually of good quality. Cars are rarely more than three years old. It is acceptable for fashionable people to wear their collars standing up. Fanny packs are OK too. Most young people express fashion through their socks. The people who work at the gas stations are nice. School bus drivers are highly respected people. Apples are enormous. Good sushi is readily available at the convenience store.

It`s now 10:15 on a Saturday night (just like the song) back in Texas, the land where things still mostly make sense to me. My friends right now are probably drinking Lone Star beer on someone`s porch, or maybe something better if they`ve scored a good job. They`re changing into their second or third evening outfits, and ringing each other`s cell phones to finalize plans, even though they`re still uncomfortable with having cell phones. They`re discussing which band they`re most likely to get in to see free, and later they`ll decide on a party. Tomorrow they`ll wake up late and gather somewhere to eat too much food and talk about how there`s nothing to do.

I am in Japan. It`s just after noon on Sunday. I have spent the last two hours on my computer drinking coffee and listening to stolen mp3s. I am getting closer every day to discovering the magic combination of buttons that will make my rice cooker start without beeping loudly and shutting itself off, and I am optimistic that my now random guesses will one day resolve themselves into a replicable pattern. My laundry is air-drying on a wobbly rack under the heater. I need to take out the trash, but I am intimidated by the free-standing incinerator in the parking lot it must go into. I am running out of coffee and need to go to the store, but I can`t remember how to get there, and I am somewhat afraid to leave my apartment, because that`s when things stop making any sense.

On the bright side, I am wearing a fabulous Japanese T-shirt. On the front, there is a cartoon picture of a healthy-looking cheeseburger. It says, "Junk Food Paradise," and underneath, "It is as delicious as slaver comes out." On the back, "Junk Food Culture," followed by "The American culture where it stuck to the life."

Come to Japan to shop for T-shirts. Stay, and lose your mind.

"Something sleeps in us when there`s no change." One of my favorite people in the world just emailed me this quote from Dune, and it`s been rattling around in my head. Change and I this year have been inseparable. Certainly I believe in the necessity of change for any healthy growing human spirit, I am perhaps a bigger proponent of change than most, but I think my share this year has bordered on unhealthy. Aside from gender reassignment surgery, I can`t actually think of anything else I could do right now to further upset my equilibrium, if indeed I have any left.

A small anecdote. I inserted the quotation marks in the above movie line by using Copy and Paste to transfer punctuation from my web log template`s html because I still haven`t found the quotation marks on my Japanese keyboard. I had difficulty even identifying "Copy" and "Paste," because on my Japanese Edit menu, they look roughly like this: %'?$# (for Copy) and $@+!& (for Paste). That`s right, like cartoon swear words. My space bar is about one-third the size I am used to, and the key directly to its left turns all my letters into Kanji. I am a decently fast touch-typist thanks to high school typing class, and my semi-flying fingers tend to hit this key frequently. The first time this happened, it took about 10 minutes of frustrating trial and error to turn my email to my mother back into English. And this is just my computer keyboard. I have a whole apartment full of this stuff. Not to mention the greater world beyond my front door.

Many of the children I teach are still of temper tantrum age. I feel like I know where they`re coming from. When absolutely everything in your world presents a challenge and it seems impossible to catch a single moment`s respite, it`s comforting to know you can still count on the simple flat six-sidedness of blocks, or the forgiving squishiness of a stuffed bear. And failing that, sometimes it feels good just to scream.

In summary: Change is good. Moderation is good too.

I just drove myself to the grocery store. Then I bought groceries, all by myself. I am indeed a wondrous being.

It`s like I`m 4 years old, and someone gave me my own apartment and hasn`t caught on yet, tee hee hee. Feed myself, dress myself, I can drive myself too!

Driving in Japan is like American Driving Bizarro World. Steering wheel is on the wrong side, turn signal is on the wrong side, gear shift is on the wrong side, lane is on the wrong side, guess where the stereo and lights and passing lane are. Every time I try to do the polite thing and signal a turn, I make my windows even cleaner. And all the lanes are approximately three-quarters the width of my car. Try the math involved in sharing the road with oncoming vehicles. My overworked supervisor-slash-driving instructor is amused by all the little screams and wails I make every time I pass an oncoming car. I am not, because I know it to be the sound of my heart trying to escape from my body.

And then of course there`s the whole adventure of not being able to read the signs. Gifu-shi is a large, sprawling, Houston-10-or-15-years-ago type city. I drive to 5 different schools in the course of my teaching week, all off what I overheard somewhere is Route 77. Being kanji-functionally-illiterate, I have to rely on landmarks for directions, which I heard once women are better at anyway. Not so here. It is not just America that is afflicted with chain stores, and I seem to pass a neverending series of the same 5 or 6 stores on my route, often in similar combinations. So not only do I have to remember to turn left then right at the Uni Qlo, but that it`s the black Uni Qlo across from the purple Gigas by the yellow Gulliver`s, not the one next to the purple Gigas behind the blue Car Lots. I need to follow my kindergarteners` example and make up a little memory song. What rhymes with Gigas?

Grocery Shopping Adventure we`ll save for another day. I`m going to go look through my rhyming dictionary now. Good night.