What would you do

if there were two other people out there with very similar e-mail addresses to yours, and you sometimes received e-mails intended for one of those two other people, and your attempts to communicate the error to the senders of the e-mails were sometimes met with gratitude, sometimes with rudeness, but usually wholly ignored?

I don't even know what the real e-mail addresses of these people are, else I'd go to them directly and say, "Hey, you might want to emphasize that minor difference between your address and, say, somebody else's, when you share it with others."

Some of the people I notify continue to make the same mistake (and sometimes with important things to say, like, "I've bought the tickets; meet us at the station at 3"), and I've already been yelled at for being insensitive (by replying bluntly to everyone on the CC list). In the last four years, two, maybe three people have written back thanking me for catching their mistake. I'm getting pretty tired of setting myself up for disappointment, but I worry that ignoring these e-mails could create conflict and misunderstanding in the lives of others.

What responsibility do I have to any of them?

My New Job

A few weeks ago I scored a full-time position in the jewelry department at Departo.* This is somewhat different work from my previous part-time position in Customer Service. I'd been kind of hoping I'd have to deal with fewer frustrating customers, but this isn't so much the case.

Customer: Is it okay if I try on these earrings?
Me: We prefer that you don't.
Customer: You prefer. So that means I have a choice?
Me: Mm... no.


*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

おしりかじり虫

I saw this on national television the other night.
"Oshirikajirimushi" means "butt-biting bug."

Edit 2007-09-13: Dumb NHK had it pulled. (-_-)*

Edit 2008-02-02: I took down the ugly non-functional YouTube screen. To hear the song, you can visit the website for the upcoming Nintendo DS game.

What I can't tell you

I wanted to tell you that when I came here, I was on a large ship full of strangers in the middle of the ocean. But over time I realized they were my family, and it had just taken me some time to recognize them.

And then the people I loved held a small ceremony, disowned me, set me on a raft and pushed me away, out to the empty sea, where the dark, hungry waters stretched beyond my comprehension. I wished I'd gone to heaven with the rest of them, and I wished they'd go to hell for leaving me.

I made a horrible mistake in thinking that you were my sister.

But I can't tell you that.

A month ago

I'm not sure why I said she'd stumbled blindly. The truth is, her face was buried in her hand, but she walked in a straight line toward the exit, moving quickly, crying quietly, determined to get out of the godforsaken building where nonsense had exploded in her hands, her face, her heart. The teachers all ran to the window to watch her leave, and later to watch her older brother leave. I wanted so much to join them, gaping at whatever sight there was to see, but the whole thing felt so intensely private, and the thought of watching it so voyeuristic, that I couldn't bring myself to leave my desk. What that means is that two of my students have suffered, and are suffering, one of the most traumatic things life can crack over your head, and I don't even know who they are.

They told them separately. I was so angry about that. With the principal, the vice-principal, and their respective homeroom teachers, they were completely alone when they each learned that their father was not only dead, but had wanted to die, and hadn't cared enough about them to stay alive. The younger girl, I heard her shrieking sob through the closed door, from the opposite end of the staff room. Couldn't she have had her brother with her?

The other teachers were back to business as usual after a couple of hours. I suppose it had to be that way. I was jealous that they had things to distract themselves with. I could only stare at the origami on my desk. There was actually a moment, when I returned home that evening, when I thought I'd just imagined the whole thing, the way my morbid brain cooks up so many other crazy stories, because believing that it really happened forces me to... I don't know. Accept that it really happened.

What now. Mom, who survived her younger brother's suicide, says I should find those students and tell them that I care about them, because they need to know that what their father chose to do wasn't their fault. My friend Kay, who survived her close friend's suicide, says I shouldn't treat them any differently than before, because the worst thing they can do is to dwell on it. And I, who hope never to have to survive the suicide of someone I love, don't know what I should do.