life

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There was a point in my college life (a point that lasted for 1,5 years, with breaks for going home on holidays), when I was in Oxford and, after a certain incident had left me rather butthurt disappointed in human relations, I was so comfortably left to my own devices…. that somewhere inside me I just can’t stop missing that time.
I could refuse going outside more than 2-3 short times in a week, and do so only if absolutely necessary or for things I enjoyed. Once a few weeks I would go to London, usually just to buy essential stuff in JapanShop and the big book store next to it, and visit Portobello and Electric Cinema (seriously, I’d fly to London once a few months just to visit it, if I could) and come back happy and content. Even if it was lonenly and I wished I could do it with someone who would enjoy doing it with me, I still enjoyed it very much, all the quiet walks in strange places and long rides on the OxfordTube bus. Most of the time though, I would spend most of my days at my desk from morning to evening, studying while watching recorded dramas and tv shows non-stop – which worked fantastically well with my brain for some reason. I didn’t eat much, and drunk delicious teas all day long, and lost 10kg I can’t lose now, and my bones felt so much better for it. And on some evenings I’d get some delicious dinner and watch heart-healing asian movies while drinking sweet wines. And the stories I watched every day made my soul fuller and more balanced. I could spend weeks not speaking to other human beings more then hello/thank you to a cashier in a supermarket, but I became fluent in another language in less than 6 months.

I’m coming back to these memories often now because right now I can’t even get my mind balanced enough to feel like starting to watch a movie without feeling too tired or anxious about something to concentrate… let alone actually getting through one.

(an old selfie from that time)

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Real piece of news from about 2 years ago:

A 70 year old man, who worked in a ticket office in Shinjuku gyoen–the big and very famous park and botanical garden in the middle of Tokyo, admission to which costs 200 yen (2$)–one day met some nasty foreigner, who yelled at him in english for some unknown reason. Likely, because, as most of japanese people of his age, the man didn’t understand what the foreigner was saying.
Anyhow, the experience was so traumatic, that he became afraid of foreigners and in order to avoid talking to the most scary-looking ones, begun to give out tickets for free to them out of fear. And then erasing the records of sold tickets to cover up. And then was arrested for fraud.

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What I like about writing books that are not based on out modern world is the things it makes you look up.
Like history of leather clothing. Or history of underwear. Or history of toilets. Or how oil lamps are made.

Fascinating history facts are fascinating.

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Some people just want to see the world burn.

And I just want to see the world get snowed in and freeze.

I’m aware that neither is healthy, you don’t need to tell me.

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Of course I’m not the only one who is trying to write this book. I’m trying to write it with all of me. With every me that got buried over the years and who’s memories I took so much care to burn every time. It is the only way to do right by them. Do right by me.

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there’s a kind of hyper buzz in my head these few weeks, a bad kind–the kind you would expect in your gut when you ate something real bad and feel all bloaty and can’t stop farting and wondering if you’re gonna throw up soon or not. But in my head. And instead of farting I panic and mess things up.  And feel like I wish I could just blow my brains out at least 3 out of 5 days on my way back home from work.

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What I really want to do when I get home at 7-8pm on Friday evening is get inside a blanket and write and read until I fall asleep.

What I really need to do when I get home at 7-8pm on Friday evening is start a major house cleaning operation, wash and clean until I drop, and then continue next morning.

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How my own idiocy turns around to save me:

Me: stuffing big hardcover book into my smaller bag (I really didn’t want to carry a bigger bag), being surprised that it actually fits, not realising that it only fits because my wallet is not there.
Me: hour later on the train, finally realising why the book was able to fit. Realising that no wallet means no coffee money and no lunch money. Trying to think if 900 yen ($9) I probably have on my train card will be enough to by something… somewhere.
Me: 5 mins later, sticking my hand in my pocket and finding my credit card, which I forgot there when I went out to convenience store 3 days ago.

I usually never carry cards in my pockets.
And now my one slip-up saves me from my another slip-up.

Medetashi-Medetashi.

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Secretly I’ve always known that my handwriting is so bad because deep inside I’d prefer that no one was able to read the stuff I wrote down.

Is what I think every time a page form an old diary falls out from somewhere.

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The tendency of japanese ‘positive tv dramas’ to send an anti-relationship message kind of gets on my nerves.

Just because they make them with a purpose to send a message, and that’s the message they choose to send.

The ‘I like you very much (and half of the drama was centred about how I much I like you), but you’ll get in the way of me working my work so lets not be in any kind of relationship’.
And the ‘I can’t love people and do my work simultaneously, so I have to choose one and I will choose my work’ message.

The more you watch the more you realise that they are pathologically afraid or incapable of portraying functional adult romantic/family relationships. It’s either ‘schoolgirl-level childish romance’ or ‘sociopathic screwups everywhere’ kind of deal.

 

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Usually, even if I think ‘I want to smoke’, I forget about it right away,
because I was never addicted, and I’m too tired to move anyway.
But I’m feeling like I’m reaching a point when I need to use smoking as an excuse
to stand on the balcony looking at the night lights of Tokyo
with a bummed out expression on my face. And do nothing.

I’m pretty sure that’s the whole point of smoking in modern world. An excuse to pretend that you can ‘take a break’ for few minutes, leave everything and just stand in one place.
Go outside. Leave the room. Pretend like you have to stop whatever you were doing to go for a smoke.