Breaking the Silence

Internet! And I discovered that Nita Town owns my phone line. No matter that my apartment is in Yokota, or that, strictly speaking, neither Nita nor Yokota exist any longer. All that matters is what's contained in some computer database somewhere.

I uploaded all of my Mt. Fuji photos from last month. Take a look at them—the view from almost-the-top is still pretty cool.

The typhoon that blew through the other day doesn't seem to have done much damage in Yokota. Classes were cancelled Tuesday, but teachers still had to show up. Classes were cancelled again yesterday, and rather than endure the same mind-numbing boredom as Tuesday, I took the day off. I took today off, too, but only because I slept through my alarm and woke up half an hour after school had started, then found out from my JTE that I didn't have any classes anyway.

I walked to Picco Picco for lunch, craving a hamburger. They have a stash of manga for customers to read, as well as several children's books. Today there was a book I'd never seen before about a cat who lives a million lives, each life full of adventure: sailing oceans, living in palaces in the company of kings, queens; he himself is a king among cats. Then in another lifetime he meets a lady cat, and they fall in love and have lots of little kittens, and they grow old together. And one day she dies... and the old cat cries and cries... clutching her limp body to his belly, huge tears, wet and frantic eyes to heaven, his mouth open wide, the roof of his mouth and his rough pink tongue, he wails... and he dies, too, and never lives again. And I could not look at that picture anymore, so I had to leave.