Spring Break

Walking past the Green Line Cafe on 45th and Locust today, I passed by a small group of kids. I would've been wearing sneakers, but I was coming back from a last-minute job interview and lunch in Center City, and was wearing the most formal-looking shoes I could walk in.

Girl #1: She's got Sketchers on.
Girl #2: That's so dumb!
Girl #1: What's so dumb?

But I never did find out.

Awake

Once in a great while I'll have one of those dreams of song and light that help me understand how it is to be full of life and the universe—my eyes wide open, laughter dancing at the back of my throat. And when I wake and feel the last of the sand slipping through the hourglass, I grab for it, desperately hoping that a few grains might stick to my fingertips, to carry that delicious feeling through the day—all the while trying not to scream for something that never happened, for wanting to keep something that isn't real.

I'm awake now. And it's still real.

Still Waters

Some years ago, I think I was in middle school, I visited a reservoir in Upstate New York with Aunt Beth. We followed the path to the dam, where we could see the lake as well as the cascade. Water was gushing from halfway up the dam down to the river below, but at the top, behind the dam, the lake was still as glass. Beth pointed out to me the tiny stirrings, little whorls flirting, dancing, disappearing and reemerging on the water's surface. They were barely visible, lost in the noise and the presence of the waterfall. "You see those ripples?" she said. "That means that the current here is very strong."

Later, in high school, my English teacher read a story I'd submitted to the school's art and literary magazine. It was a stab at humor, and she read it with the right kind of amusement. "Wow, still waters run deep with you, kid."
I'd never heard that phrase before, "Still waters run deep," and I regarded it as a compliment of the highest order, as I do to this day. It surprises me, though, how often I fail to remember that the same applies to many other people as well.

I'm sorry for judging you too soon. You may not have realized it (or I hope you didn't), but all the same I wish I hadn't.

This one's for my memoirs

Some months after our dad moved out, and got his own place, my brother and I would visit him on Sundays. Our visits in those days often began with instructions to inquire about the child support check, possibly followed by a heated exchange between our parents. After this, we'd wait for Dad to get ready, and then we'd go to church. I never really liked that church, though I didn't realize it at the time. Our parents were going through a divorce, and I felt a certain shame in that. I also sensed that Dad wasn't exactly an upstanding member of the congregation, and that some of the adults allowed their feelings toward him to be transmitted to Tucker and me, too. I can't even remember a single person my age I felt I could be friends with. I don't know how Tuck felt about going there; I didn't really make an effort to tune myself in to his feelings.

In the afternoon we'd return to Dad's apartment. Dad had his own things he was working through, and wasn't used to having children running underfoot, so often he'd keep to himself, leaving Tuck and I to generate our own entertainment. If we got tired of watching Sunday afternoon television on the tiny black-and-white TV, we'd look through Dad's small record collection. All we really had to go on were the jacket designs, so we assumed that most of them weren't worth listening to. The West Side Story score, however, that had a photo of a young man and woman looking happy, holding hands and running down the street. The music, it turned out, was to our liking, and the album became a perennial favorite. "Officer Krupke" was a great sing-a-long.

We're distoibed, We're distoibed,
We're the most distoibed.
Like, we're psychologically distoibed!

Hm. I'm going to have to think up a better punchline if I want to be published.

A different attitude

I've decided to take a less laissez-faire attitude toward developing friendships here in Philadelphia. Which basically means I've been asking people out for lunch recently. It's just baby steps for me at this point, but it's a little strange to be participating in this extroverted behavior all of a sudden. It's probably not so all-of-a-sudden, though, but more the result of spending New Year's Eve alone, and then finding out I didn't have to, if only I'd sent that e-mail I was wondering if I should have sent.

Lingers

Some of my clothes still smell like tatami.

On a Whim

Philadelphia is the kind of place where you can find an Emily Street nine blocks south of a Watkins Street.


I think I'll move there someday.

Moon

Every time I see the full moon, it reminds me of Japan, cos I left Japan on a full moon.

Oh Emily, how maudlin can you get?

Yeah, I know. But it's true. Both the leaving and the remembering.

Sister-in-Law

There have been a number of changes in my life in recent months, and chief among them is my ascendancy to in-lawhood. My brother got married April 12th in a beautiful wedding in Dover, Delaware. His beloved, Kim, had asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, so I got myself all gussied up (even painted my face) and crammed my feet into pretty little three-inch heels and watched my brother become a husband. Talk about a head trip. But she seems to love him, despite his being my younger brother, and I know he adores her, so I wish them all the best.

I got myself a seat in the limo between the church and the reception hall with Chris and Kim and a few other members of the wedding party, including the flower girl and ring bearer, both four years old. For Aubrey, being a flower girl is a position she wears easily, but Devon took some convincing. The two of them became fast friends at the rehearsal the night before, and continued to entertain each other all the way to the reception hall.

Aubrey: Knock knock.
Devon: Who's there?
Aubrey: Car.
Devon: Car who?
Aubrey: Car... BANANA!
Both [after one second of silence]: Hahahahahahahaha!!

Really, they entertained us all.

My New New Job

When I started working in the jewelry department, other people said, "Oh nice, no fitting rooms." I didn't understand why this was something to be relieved about, but I took their word for it.

Now... ahahahaha... ha hah ... aheh....

Attention Departo shoppers: If, at any time during your shopping experience, you look around and think, Why can't I find anyone to check me out? this is because we're in the fitting rooms cleaning up after you, and the piles of inside-out shirts left on the chair, and the Kix you ground into the carpet, and the senso tags you unsuccessfully tried to remove from those Tommy Hilfiger capris.

I keep telling myself that this is a step up, because now I'm a specialist for a particular line we carry, and I'm making a little bit more an hour. I keep reminding myself that I hated my first month in jewelry, too, because I didn't know anything about the merchandise or how to sell it.

But every day when I go home, I have more clothes that need to be put away than there were when I arrived, leaving someone else to essentially pick up after me. My brain was not made for spatial organization, and unfortunately that's exactly the skill this job requires, so I feel fairly overwhelmed every time I attempt to straighten things up.

And now my store manager would like me to start a training program to become a department manager. I have the personality for it, apparently. Out of the frying pan and into the fire?

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.

Edit 2009-02-03: Dailymotion is hosting the video now: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2yxtl_fun
Hooray for subtitles!

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.

An hour and a half ago

An hour and a half ago the father of two of my students killed himself.

Right now I don't give a damn about what sort of distress he was in when he did it. All I can think of is a twelve-year old girl, face buried in hand, sobbing as she stumbled blindly past the open door.

The Story of My Life

I'll just post this video to my blog, and then I'll be ready.

Okuizumo

Okuizumo
Okuizumo-cho
Nita
Nita-gun
Yokota
Shimane
Shimane-ken
Japan
Board of Education
Junior High School
ALT
Assistant Language Teacher
JET Program
JET Programme

There. That about covers all the search terms I can think of.
I mean, it worked last year.

Perspective

It often helps, when I'm confronted with something in Japan that I find silly or stupid or insane, if I can think of its American correlation. Like, when I heard that the national weather bureau tries to predict when the sakura (cherry blossoms) will bloom in different areas across the country, and tracks the sakura front across the country from south to north each year, I thought that was kind of obsessive. And then I remembered that the meteorologists in Syracuse also include a fall foliage map in their TV reports when the leaves begin to turn, and recommend areas to visit to see the trees at their peak color.

Sometimes the whole "group mentality" still boggles this mind, but maybe a year ago I remembered something from sixth grade.

We were doing a group writing assignment, maybe a dozen of us together. One person started off a story with one or two sentences. The next person added to the story however they wanted, the next person added more, and so on, until we'd all contributed and finished the story. I'd done stories like this at my old school in the gifted class I'd attended, and they were great fun. Our stories were really crazy and entertaining. This story, though, seemed kind of bland in comparison, so when it was my turn I threw in something wild... I think it was martians. Some of the kids thought it was odd, but nobody really complained, and we continued. A couple minutes later my mom came to pick me up for a dentist appointment, so I had to leave the class before the story was finished.

The next day my teacher approached me, looking guilty. "After you left yesterday... we decided to change your part. We hope you don't feel bad—everyone was really worried about hurting your feelings—but we all thought your part was just too weird."

I. Couldn't. Think. Clearly. Everyone had waited until I left, and then formed a coup against my contribution to the story? They hadn't had the guts to tell me in person that they didn't like my part. My teacher hadn't had the guts to support me in my absence. Nobody had had the sense of humor to appreciate something the slightest bit nonsensical, nor the creativity to move on with the story whether they liked it or not. And the rewrite—oh heavens, the abomination that causes desolation! No more martian intervention; now the grizzly bear just decides of its own volition not to eat the old man. I think I'm more upset about this now than I was then, but I definitely knew that a cardinal rule of Group Story had been broken.

America: Land of the free, home of the brave, amen.

This Is My Four-Leaf Clover

Augh! I've completely missed the month of April! My archives will be incomplete! Quick, what's something I was thinking about blogging in April but didn't?

Ah, here we go:

If you click on the photo, you can see that I actually took this photo on April 24th. Good enough for me! Change post date, doot do-doo, and done.

While running laps with the track and field team after school, I passed a couple of girls who were supposed to be practicing baton-passing. Instead they were crouched on the ground over one of the early patches of clover poking through the dirt track. I was about to tease them for goofing off, when they saw me and called me over. Between the two of them, they'd found three four-leaf clovers. All kidding forgot, I joined them and in less than thirty seconds found an almost four-leaf clover: it had four stems, but two of the leaves hadn't properly separated. Another two minutes of searching produced the clover above, and I ran to my jacket to hide my new prize. In the time it took me to run another lap and return to where the girls were still searching, they'd found two more. That patch was the motherlode!