Creative Melancholy

I have been dreaming about writing this blog all day.

I don’t know what it is, but depressing weather always makes me more creative. I’m more of a homebody when it rains, and I want to write or color or bake or… whatever.

There have been warnings about the upcoming weather for days. The hurricane that’s hitting Mexico is manifesting as a very wet weekend in Central Texas. They predicted fatal floods and 100-year events.

All last night I was imagining the rain to come. The fat drops that fall from the sky with such velocity that they bounce off the ground whole before shattering into solid fractions, as opposed to splashing on the ground in fluid orbs. Sheets of water rushing through the streets and the gutters in the courtyard running over capacity and flooding the gravel swale in front of our patio until I worry that it’s going to creep into our living room before the flood drains can catch up to speed and suck it all into the storm system and dump it into Shoal Creek.

Alas, that is not the case. It was rainy overnight. Rainy enough that we woke to headlines of a car being washed away in west Austin, and enough that the umbrella on our patio knocked into the window a few times. And enough that when I let the dogs out this morning I was frustrated to see that the shoji screen separating their “comfort boxes” from the rest of the patio had blown over in the night, which meant that I actually had to put on PANTS and go out and set it upright, instead of just letting them out and then crawling back into bed.

But it has been solid rain all day. The kind of rain that’s strong enough that it makes you think twice about going out and makes you trot from the car to the door, but not the kind that makes you wary of your own safety. Not a repeat of the May/June deluge.

The water still thunders down the gutters in the courtyard, the sheet metal tubes amplifying the sound and making the generous rain sound like a flooding sheet instead. Sirens wail in the distance, but this is a city and there are always sirens. It probably has nothing to do with the rain. Soccer fields are flooded out and I’m sure the creeks are high and people living or working on the banks are crossing their fingers. So far, though, the rain is providing us merely a welcome respite from the heat and a touch of creative melancholy.

Right now, right this minute, I’m in a pleasantly inebriated state. I’m a couple of stages before drunk, in the kind of buzzed haze that a couple of glasses of wine will give you. Happy enough to let your guard down a little, but still in control and nowhere near drunk. It’s a difficult balancing act. I enjoy the buzz but I don’t enjoy the drunk, so I’m nursing a glass of wine next to me to keep it going but not put me over the edge.

It’s been a long week for us. Sean’s work is sucking him dry. He slept 9 hours last night, which is probably more than he slept for the whole rest of the week combined. That might be a little bit of hyperbole, but he didn’t come to bed before 2 AM Monday through Thursday, and he was up until after 4 AM Friday. Grad school and a sucky job are taking their toll. Watching him be so stressed and knowing that there’s nothing I can do for it almost causes me physical pain. I would do anything for him, but there’s nothing I CAN do.

I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis last week. It’s an auto-immune thyroid disease that causes a host of issues, not least among them the propensity to gain weight and the inability to lose it. So that explains a lot. It also is causing me anger and anxiety and excitement. Anger, because I’ve asked three doctors in the last five years if I might have a thyroid disorder, and they all looked at one marker on my blood panel (ONE!) and said no. Anxiety because I have a lot of life changes ahead of me (food sensitivities, anyone?). Excitement because I have a clear path forward, and instead of feeling like the failure who can’t lose weight and is somehow doing everything wrong even though I’m doing everything I’m told, I feel like the victor who’s lost 43 pounds in spite of the fact that I shouldn’t be able to have much success.

I also feel vindicated because Hashimoto’s is autoimmune. It’s not something that I can develop because of lifestyle… it’s not a symptom of lifestyle (being fat), but rather is the cause of it. There’s nothing I could have done to prevent it. Likewise, there’s nothing I can do to cure it.

I’m on hormones and a lot of supplements now, in addition to staying away from foods to which I am sensitive and cause abnormal inflammation. They don’t cause the Hashimoto’s, but they do exacerbate it. So I spend my days avoiding all dairy, egg whites, wheat, yeast, and almonds (goodbye, everything that make life worth living), and I spend my nights filling my designer pillbox (thank you, Amazon!) with the 20 or so pills a day that I have to take, in addition to my regular multivitamins, probiotic powder, and vitamin D drops.

I’m frustrated with myself, too, because though I asked doctors if I had a thyroid problem, I always assumed that they were right and things were just difficult because I was lazy or that was “the way things were.” I never took it upon myself to research things and figure out that hey, I have 10 of the 12 symptoms of Hashimoto’s! I didn’t know enough to be my own advocate and press for the blood tests that would have diagnosed me years ago.

But I know now, and I have the benefit of being in the best physical shape of my life, even if I’m still fat. I’m a freaking bad ass coated in cuddly layers of cushion. Hopefully now that I know what’s going on I can address it and start melting that cushion away.

It is unusual for me to be so open in a blog that I know many read, but I do so with purpose. Hashimoto’s and similar disorders go undiagnosed in a huge population of people because many doctors won’t test for it, or don’t take the time to diagnose it. This isn’t necessarily their fault, because these problems can be very sneaky. The symptoms are wide and varied, and your “root” hormone levels and other numbers can appear absolutely normal…until you test for antibodies and other markers that make you realize that oops… there’s a huge issue here. In my case, one of my antibodies measured 22 times normal. TWENTY TWO TIMES NORMAL. The other was merely 8 times the normal range. I wouldn’t have even bothered trying to track this down again except for my sister, who was sick of listening to me bitch about how much work I was putting into losing weight versus the actual return on effort. “You need to go see a functional medicine doctor,” she chided me. “Promise me you will.”

I found a good one in Austin that had amazing reviews but a huge wait list. I made an appointment for three months out, and nearly canceled it. I am so glad that I didn’t. She gave me the power to be my own advocate and is helping me move forward.

In the meantime, life goes on for us. We’re moving in just under a month, so I need to get my rear-end in gear and get things prepped before the movers come. In under a week we’re headed to NYC, where Sean will run the marathon for the second time, and we’ll celebrate his birthday (and my cousin’s, who lives there and is also running the marathon). It should be a fun time. This is the umpteenth time that we’ve visited the city, but I love it and am excited to go. Sean loves it even more than me, and I can only imagine that he’s excited to get away and into the high-energy city situation that he thrives on.

For now, however, I’ll keep nursing my glass of wine, post this blog without proof-reading, and listen to the rain coursing through our gutters… and enjoy the creative melancholy coming my way this weekend.

Stressful Blessings

After I published my last post and then went to the blog to view it as any readers would, I realized that my last three posts have started in roughly the same way. It’s always some variation of, “it’s been so long since I’ve posted, I don’t even know where to start.”

This time, at least, I can say that it hasn’t been so long. I suppose I DO know where to start, though only in comparison to the last few posts. Finding a good starting point is never easy. To paraphrase the Princess Bride, anyone who tells you different is selling something.

Sean and I are sitting in the same coffee shop as the last post, across from Willie Nelson’s statue at the Austin City Limits theater. We got 20 percent off our food because Sean has a student ID for grad school which is good for ten percent, and we both knew the trivia answer to the Star Wars question, which gave us another ten percent. Sometimes being nerds pays off.  

There are no lines across the street for any performances today, which kind of surprises me since the major Austin City Limits festival is going on right now. I would have figured they’d be having some live tapings this week. Maybe they will, and I’m just really out of touch. I’m usually out of touch, so I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that were the case.

Unlike last weekend, we’re sitting inside. We started out on the patio, but the noise and the inquisitive bees and flies drove us inside. Sean was starting to twitch every time a bug landed on him—which, for some strange reason, is way more often than they land on me. He’s just naturally sweeter than me, I guess.

It’s almost a pity we’re indoors now, because it’s a gorgeous day. For the first time in months and months it’s not even in the 90s. It feels almost chilly at 83 degrees.  I guess that’s a sign that I’ve acclimated to the southern heat.

It’s been a hell of a week, my friends. Just one hell of a week. Sean was driving home from the airport late last week, when out of nowhere a high-speed police chase overtook him on the highway. The suspect’s vehicle ran into three or four cars, forcing motorists across multiple lanes of traffic and into medians and shoulders—but luckily no one crossed into opposing traffic. Sean’s car was one of the ones that was hit. No one was hurt, and Sean’s airbags didn’t even go off. I suppose that’s a demonstration that it definitely earned its Consumer Reports rating, which made news the other day for breaking the rating scale. It’s frustrating  because it’s brand new, it’s his dream car, and it’s expensive—but it’s very much a first world problem and we have good insurance. It will take a while to get it into the shop because there’s only one we really feel comfortable taking it to, but it should be done by the end of the month. For now, he’s bopping around town in a rental car.

On top of that there was some serious drama with his work, which I won’t really go into here, but suffice it to say that it made us both sick to our stomachs for a couple days and I was on the verge of tears at any given moment and I think he got even grayer. As a result of what we THOUGHT was going to happen but didn’t end up happening, we broke our lease at the apartment and found somewhere new to live… and we’ve made the decision to go ahead and move anyway, which is never fun but is probably a good idea in this case. It’s funny, because just a month ago I was mopping the floors and chuckling a little to myself as I thought (facetiously) that it might be time to look for a new place because we’ve been in this apartment for nearly a year. I should have knocked on wood.

This means, among other things, that our Christmas letter (assuming I write one) will once again be sent from a new address.

Aside from the stress of moving, I’m excited to get into the new space. I think it suits us better. And it’s about 50 yards away from a nice open dog park, which is a major selling point for us.

Sean and I went to a fundraising dinner for the American Heart Association last night. One of his classmates was instrumental in putting it on, and she invited some of her fellow grad students. It was neat for me to go and meet some of the people that are becoming his friends. It also made me a little smug with pride to hear how much they respect and look up to him. Two of them used to be on his team in class, but they just ended one course and started another and are not on the same team anymore. Both of them lamented the fact that he wasn’t there to be team leader. Sean fell into the leadership role because he just has too much $#@& to do, and doesn’t want to waste time with lollygagging on assignments. Apparently lots of other people feel the same way.

The dress code for the soiree was “Texas Tuxedo.” I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but since I don’t have cowboy boots I settled on a teal skirt, flats, and a gauzy black top with diamonds studded into it that my mom convinced me to buy from Nordstrom Rack before we moved to Texas in case we ever attended fancy work dinners or something. It was the first time I’d worn it here, and it seemed to be exactly the right choice to fit in with the jeans and boots and cowboy hats and cocktail dresses.

They had a live band which was too loud for the space, but they played some good music. Sean and I both have a history of enjoying dancing, and we both are ok at simple West Coast or Country Swing. We know a few simple moves, but when you string them together they look pretty good. They played Boot Scootin’ Boogie, and we paused our conversation at the table and went up to dance. We assumed that other couples would join us as we began the dance, but we went the whole song without anyone else coming up; everyone just watched us from their seats. It began to feel a whole lot like a performance and not as much cutting a rug for the heck of it. I guess the bonus is that we got applause when we were done. The ironic thing is that the floor was full of two-steppers during some of the slower songs, but as simple as it is Sean and I don’t really know how to do the two-step—Texas-style or otherwise. It’s simple enough, though, and I’m sure we could have fit in had we wanted. We were pretty engrossed in conversation with new friends, though, so now I have visions of a cocktail-based housewarming party in November or December. I’m kind of looking forward to it! It’s been a while since we’ve had a lot of friends/companions to choose from. Jobs and school are good places for meeting people.

I just finished week three on the new job. It’s going pretty well… so well, in fact, that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. The recruiting process for jobs there is pretty intense, regardless of position. They require a CCAT test, which is sort of like an IQ/behavioral test that measures your strengths and traits like competitiveness, attention to deal, ability to think creatively, etc. On top of that, they have a personality questionnaire that also compiles your responses against the CCAT. Apparently less than 20 percent of applicants pass the test. This is actually the second time I’ve had to go through this process and I passed both times. It never occurred to me that it was so difficult for people.  That sounds REALLY arrogant, but I don’t mean it that way. I just took it as a matter of course that nearly everyone passed and they just used the cross-section of results to shepherd people towards applicable open positions based on their scores. It’s probably good I didn’t know it was a pass/fail thing or test anxiety might have tanked me.

But one of the things at work that feels almost a little Stepford-ish is that people really seem to get along. And the company really seems to live up to its self-proclaimed values of Transparency, Ownership, and Continuous Improvement. I’m used to core values like that being buzzwords and nothing more. And I’m also perfectly confident of my ability to do this job, which tends to make me comfortable from the get-go. And my whole team seems utterly confident in my ability to do my job, which is a HUGE change from the last place I was at. I’m hoping the honeymoon doesn’t fade too painfully.

Right now I’m just in a whole lot of training. It’s simultaneously engaging and mind-numbing. There’s a lot to learn, but I think I’m absorbing it quickly.

Because I’m having to do a whole lot of driving now where I basically had none to do before, I started thinking that I might need to change my V6 in for something a little more gas-friendly. I went to a dealership to test drive a used Ford Fusion hybrid, and I hated it. I’m a little bit of a gearhead, and there was just too much compromise involved with the hybrid. It handled well and had enough power, but it wasn’t fun, and the colors and interior options were best suited to someone much older than I feel.  But as we were walking back into the dealership after the test-drive, I saw a little blue Mini Cooper with Union Jacks on the mirrors that happened to be on Labor Day special within my price point… and before I knew it we were buzzing away in the little sub-compact. Sometimes I still miss the power and luxury of my Maxima, but the Mini is lots of fun.

There’s some other stuff going on in our lives that isn’t so much fun. Someone asked me the other day how we were handling it, and I just had to shrug my shoulders. When stuff like this keeps happening—and we’re no strangers to stress—at some point you just have to get your emotions out, let yourself be sick to your stomach for a while, and then you dry your eyes and shrug your shoulders and compartmentalize the best you can while you just look for the next best logical step forward… and you hope that by the time you get five steps down the road you don’t have to compartmentalize anymore, and the stress and pain of whatever you had locked away will fade. The world keeps turning, and if there’s anything the news coverage of those poor refugees half a world away demonstrates, we are incredibly, amazingly, astonishingly blessed.

Returning to the Interwebs

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I barely know where to start. I don’t even know if I have an audience anymore.

We’re in Austin, Texas now, in a move that I wasn’t excited about, but took in stride. Turns out it’s ok, because Austin is a pretty cool place to be.

Not cool in the literal term. It’s the middle of September and it’s finally only 90 degrees with a breeze, and I’m sitting outside reveling in how cool it feels—something my 16-year-old self could never imagine saying. I love the breeze… even a hot breeze on hot days stirs the air enough to make you feel like you’re not parked in some sort of giant cosmic minivan with all the windows up in the middle of July. But today it’s a cool breeze, so it’s a double-plus—even if I did have to chase the lid on my to-go cup of hot tea halfway down the block when it blew off my table.

My friends are talking about apple festivals and turning leaves and cool breezes and crisp air. I miss the smell that the northwest gets—and even the northeast, though it’s a bit different—when the weather starts to turn and the air gets crisp. In Boise it’s the sharp smell of sage as the night dew evaporates in the still-warm-but-getting-chilly morning sun. In Post Falls it’s a less definable scent. Pine sap and wood smoke and the hint of colder weather to come. In New York it’s sweeter, maple and birch trees gearing for the winter, sugaring up, while a few neighbors with wood-burning furnaces throw on their first cords of Applewood or alder or cedar to stay warm in the evenings. Sometimes the smoke from the barbecue joint next to our apartment wafts into the courtyard. In the evenings I’ll stand on our patio and lift my nose to the air, sniffing in imitation of our dogs. I’ll close my eyes and imagine it’s autumn … and it usually works for about 15 seconds, until I start sweating even though I’m doing nothing but standing still.

Right now we’re sitting at a table outside a local coffee shop downtown, Sean and I. Right across from the famous Austin City Limits venue, which has a larger-than-live bronze statue of Willie Nelson in front of it. Stevie Ray Vaughan stands permanent sentry duty down by the river.

Sean is finishing up a paper for grad school across from me, and I’m here, tippy-typing on my little computer which almost matches his—but not quite. They’re like something from Star Trek, these computers. A laptop, and a tablet, with a pen and a mouse and a keyboard, so almost a legal pad, too—all less than half an inch thick, including the keyboard. Something my 16-year-old self could perhaps imagine but not believe would happen so soon. In the original version of Star Trek they still use pen and paper on the bridge, and that’s supposed to be centuries into the future. The writers could imagine space travel but not computers that everyone carried in their pockets.

Behind us one of those amphibious truck-slash-boat duck tour vehicles drives by, the driver’s voice loud but illegible in the seconds it takes to cross the intersection. Another one follows two hundred yards back. I can’t understand that driver, either. Briefly I think what I always think—that I’d be a damn fine tour guide and I should look into it someday—and then I turn my attention back to my tiny screen.

A bee—a real one, with the little fuzzy body and a stinger—comes to investigate our drinks. I’m sure our sodas smell tempting, but since they’re diet I don’t think the aspartame and ace-k will make good honey. We try to shoe the little guy away—I have a soft spot for real bees, and don’t want to hurt him if I can help it—but he’s persistent. It leads to a couple of minutes of me flapping my leather folio in his general direction, alternating with Sean flapping his hat. I’m not worried about being stung… honeybees don’t sting that often, and hardly ever when they’re in “sugar mode.” Regardless, our antics were probably entertaining for those eating a late lunch inside, looking out at the people on the patio.

The patio is half-full, tables full of young people and families interspersed with two older men, both sitting alone, nursing cups of iced tea, backs to the wall, facing out and watching the world go by. With the exception of the family, they are the only two not buried deep in an electronic device. Then the family gets up to go—a dad with two daughters, or maybe a daughter and her friend—and they don’t even walk three feet before a swarm of pigeons and grackles descend on the plates they left behind, and crumbs start flying in all directions in a scene of carbohydrate carnage. A waitress comes and fearlessly shoes them away, stacking plates on top of plates on top of plates, before pacing back to the heavy exterior door and hauling it open one-handed in a motion that speaks of coordination, natural balance, and lots of practice.

I like Austin a lot, as long as I don’t think about the dream home we left behind.  Over the years I’ve become very good at compartmentalizing. I suppose some people would call it “focusing on the now” instead. Sounds healthier that way, I think. We have a little apartment that is smaller than we’re used to but big enough for our needs, with a large patio facing the pool courtyard. Because we’re lazy, I’ve trained my dogs to go potty on the porch in two little boxes filled with rubber mulch that drain onto puppy pads underneath. We bought a cheap shoji screen to partition it off from the rest of the patio. It makes it feel smaller, but we’re not looking into potty boxes when we’re out relaxing. In the spring I planted Morning Glories in small boxes on the porch, and they wasted no time climbing the railings and exploding into a profusion of vines, leaves, and blossoms. They’re on their second round of blooms now. They’re annuals, but I have no idea how long they’ll continue to thrive in this climate.

Sean and I are still at the coffee shop, though as the sun shifted through the sky our little shady table became not-so-shady, so we moved. We’ve outlasted all the people who were here to begin with—even the two men who were watching the world go by. My writing is interspersed with texts from my sister and my friend. We’re lucky, us sisters. All of us tight, all of us friends, all of us happy to spend chunks of our days talking to each other, even it’s in bits and pieces throughout the day. A lot of families aren’t like that.

On Monday I start a new job. I’ve been jobless since November—although that’s not really the right term to use since I a) quit voluntarily (and quite happily), and b) haven’t really looked for anything recently. It was time, though, and in a sequence that stroked my ego I got two interviews off my first batch of 5 applications and a job offer off of one of the interviews. It normally doesn’t go that way. Job hunting is a soul-sucking endeavor that tries the self-confidence of even the most assured person.

I’m anxious. This last week, I was really, really anxious. Super stressed out, though it’s begun to fade a bit. Changes again. Lots of changes. I’ve been working from home for 5 years. The last almost-year I was a very part-time freelancer with plenty of time to focus on me, my husband, and creative pursuits—which of course I didn’t pursue as much as I should have because I had all the time in the world (right?). I’m super strong now. Lots of time in the gym with weights, which is nothing I’d ever thought I’d enjoy. Lots of time doing cardio, which I still don’t enjoy—a fact by which I’m utterly unsurprised. Now I’m in an office again, with a commute, around people in a cubicle. No ridiculously cute little pups to keep me company or a ready kitchen with snacks and leftovers.

It’s not all bad, though. The commute will probably be long because of traffic, but at least it’s really pretty. The company is something you’d find more of in Silicon Valley than Texas—foosball table and video games in the palatial break room, casual dress-code, company-sponsored happy hours once or twice a month. Open PTO and flexible schedules as long as you get your work done. The kind of place where the indigo highlights in my hair didn’t even merit a raised eyebrow and my boss competes in global moustache competitions when he’s not refereeing roller derby. I’ve haven’t made this little money-wise since 2009, but Texas is like that. No income tax, they argue. You don’t need as much money. Never mind that real estate values and rents in Austin are through the roof, so the actual cost of living isn’t that much different than anywhere else (besides D.C., San Francisco, and NYC of course). There’s a lot of chance for growth and raises, so I’m not too worried yet. And everyone from my old jobs is telling me that I shouldn’t be anxious, and how I broke the mold, and how great I am, and how lucky the new company is to have me, and how I need to be in an office instead of working from home so that I can spread my awesomeness around. Which is all kind of great to hear, but it inexplicably adds its own sort of new pressure, a new stress—kind of makes me feel like a fraud. What if I’m not great HERE? What if they expect greatness and I deliver averageness? All petty concerns, really. They’ve never had anyone in this role. They don’t really have any benchmark for what would be greatness and what would be averageness.  It should be easy for me to engineer greatness, with wide-open opportunity like that.

They send out emails to the whole company when someone new gets hired. Kind of an “introducing the newbie—and here are 6 random facts to know about her!” thing. They asked for a photo. I’m naturally photo averse, and the few that I have on my phone are generally me posing with Sean or a pup, and all but maybe 4 have sunglasses. None passed my “do I want 250 strangers to see this?” litmus test. So yesterday I put on makeup in the middle of the afternoon for no reason and walked around the apartment taking selfie after selfie after selfie looking for one I didn’t loathe. After grabbing a step stool from the kitchen and standing on it next to a window and determining which facial angle was flattering but didn’t make me look like I was trying as hard as a Kardashian, I have one that I actually really like—even if you can see lamp shades and pillows in the background. 250 strangers, here I come!

There’s talk of Sean getting a new job. More changes. Which is why I have my job—more financial flexibility as a couple. We’ll see what happens. If changing jobs is scary, quitting one before you have something lined up is terrifying. It’s probably the right thing to do, though. Short-term major changes resulting in long-term positive changes for a better life. And the number of positions that require an MBA are ridiculous. MBAs can be great, sure, but any person who went from being an Analyst to a Vice President in a large company in 7 years is not some pansy-ass idiot. He obviously knows what he’s doing, and his resume reflects it. And so far his MBA program is remedial for him, a parody of corporate life. Maybe it will be better next semester. More challenging. It’s a lot of money and time for what amounts to a key…in the end it will open more doors for him, regardless of whether he gets anything truly useful out of it or not. There’s always the networking this will give him, too.

The day still feels cool, even though my phone tells me it’s 91. It also tells me that it’s supposed to be 62 tonight, which fills me with an almost physical joy. It’s almost enough to change the butterflies of anxiety into little wings of excitement. The first touches of fall in Texas.

Where do I even start?

It's been so long I don't even know where to start. When life gets difficult, I tend to withdraw from the technology aspect. I don't want to reach out; I don't want to expend the energy to tell my story. My texts to friends are basic, non-committal. It will take me days to return an email, if I even remember, and sometimes texts that ask "how are you doing?" hang out on my phone, unanswered, for so long that it becomes almost rude to respond.

How am I doing? It depends on the day, I guess. I've become good at compartmentalizing, so even when people say, "it must be so stressful!" I kind of shrug and say, "well, not really." And I mean it. I don't stray too close to thoughts about what is actually happening in my life... I shove it away, into a mental corner, always to deal with it "later."

Later never really comes.

I think it is this compartmentalization that makes me hate answering those texts and those emails, and the phone calls. I don't want to answer the questions, I don't want to have any conversations that will force me to face the fact that I have no answers, no plan, no control. I don't want to face the fact that we're supposed to be moving a year after we finally moved "home," or that my husband is so burnt out at his job that I worry for his health, or that he works so many hours and travels so much that I've become a "work widow," or that I left a job that I liked for a job that I hate. I don't want to think about how we're trying to stay put, and everything is coming together in mis-matched pieces so that the timing is all wrong... the job interview the week after we have to sign a lease or else lose the apartment, the move that--if it goes through--takes us away from here just in time to miss some friends passing through, but if we don't move then, we miss friends passing through on the other side.

I wake in the morning to an alarm that I snooze three or four times, until the little white fur balls curled up against me--one on each side--finally stir restlessly and start nosing and nudging for pets and cuddles. On feistier days the pets and cuddles are traded for licks and ear-lobe nibbling, which generally forces me out of bed faster. I have to shoo and shepherd the dogs off the bed or shunt them to the other side so that I can swing my legs off the mattress and trudge to the bathroom. Then I'm dressed, and the dogs race each other down the stairs to get outside. The little one spins in circles in front of the door, the eagerness to get outside and go potty potty potty combining to make a cheerful morning dance.

They trot outside, and while the big one picks his way daintily through the grass to find just the right spot, the little one leaps across the lawn, pauses nearly mid-air to land in his "duty crouch," and then races onto the rock wall bordering the sidewalk, yipping at the world. It only takes him a few yips, and then he stands quiet, a miniature mountain goat perched on the rocks, nose raised to the wind. The breeze ruffles the shaggy hairs on his forehead that I really ought to trim soon, and catches at his tail as his nose quivers, trying to interpret the morning smells. Wet grass. Desert sage. A hint of smoke from a far-away wildfire. The undefinable smell of late summer.

I stand there for a bit, barefoot in the sun, yawning and watching the dogs, savoring the summer air as it slowly, nearly imperceptibly, turns to autumn. A hint of crispness in the air, hay instead of sage, the fuller, rounder scents of plants that have not been scorched by the sun for days on end.

I call the dogs inside with promises of treats and they sprint to me over the lawn, their little bellies barely clearing the grass. I shamble to the kitchen and make my coffee, and the dogs dutifully trot after me to the office, their tiny claws making little snicksnicksnicksnicksnicks across the hardwood. They settle into their beds or onto the floor almost immediately while I smother yawns and boot up my computer.

We spend the days like this, me on the phone talking loudly or listening to conferences on a muted speaker phone, or the radio playing in the background. Occasional breaks outside where the dogs play and sniff and potty while I inspect the zucchinis and the cucumbers, stretch and touch my toes. Then it's back to the office until we meander back outside again. On slow days when I leave work and there's still time before I feel like I have to make dinner, they boys and I will sit outside on the lawn. They'll run laps around me and wrestle until one of them makes a squeak of protest, and then the big one's tail will droop until it sweeps the lawn, and he'll come and sit so close to me that he's nearly on top of me, chastened. Often we'll walk, a strange juxtaposition with the two dogs on separate leashes--one who wants to walk so badly that you can barely get his leash on because he's spinning in excitement, the other who views the leash as a strange sort of torture and has to be quite literally dragged until the feel of grass hits his paws, and suddenly he can walk on his own.

Then there's the call from my husband as he's on his way to get dinner before he goes to the hotel, and we talk for a few minutes before he has to pay for his salad bar from Whole Foods and I have to scrounge something up to eat. It's far too much work to cook for just one.

It's TV, and dishes, and maybe some reading. It's thinking about everything that needs to be done, and then not doing it. Or it's starting a little bit of it, enough to get stressed out by it. Then it's back to TV, or the book, or whatever, because I just. don't. want. to. think. about. it. 

Me and the boys head out for one last potty break, them scampering across the lawn in the dark while I put my hands in my pockets and tilt my head back, back, back to look at the stars. Above the horizon are two stars that I think must be planets, because they wink at me with red light, and go in and out of alignment across the summer skies. Some evenings the coyotes are active. When they're across the valley it's not so bad, just eerie. When they're on the hillside behind us, it's pretty creepy and I get antsy, quietly urging the puppy to just gogogo so that we can get the HECK inside before they swoop down off the hillside and snap up my pooches straight off the front walk. An unlikely scenario, I know, but it happened to one of my neighbors in midwinter. When I hear the eerie yips, the story alway comes to mind.

Then I head up to bed, the two pooches sprinting and wrestling ahead of me, their little growls breaking the silence of the bedroom. I crawl into bed and read until I can't stay awake any more and I call Sean, or until he calls me, just now heading to bed in a timezone an hour ahead. I close the book, turn out the light, and roll onto my side. The dogs take their places, the little one curled into a half-moon and tucked right against my belly, the big one curled into his own half-moon and snugged up against my back. All the thoughts I've been avoiding all day come rushing in, even though I read myself bleary-eyed. I look at the sky through the bedroom window, counting stars, and then I roll onto my stomach, careful not to dislodge the little fur balls. Take a deep breath in, hold, exhale, hold, inhale, hold, exhale, hold, hold, hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, until I drift off and it happens all over again.

We're getting to the point now when I can't compartmentalize... I have to do. There's shopping and planning for the wedding cupcakes, the meeting with the moving surveyor, the calls and appointments and schedulings, the cleaning and the sorting and the organizing. My best intentions of not waiting until the last minute will fail, and the last week before the move to Texas I'll be in the same scramble that I'm always in.

Life goes on, though, and in a month things will be over and I'll be free to put it behind me and move on to the next adventure. I'm not merely as morose as this makes me sound, but if you send me a text, or an email, and I don't get back to you for days... well, at least now you know why!

I Was Never That Young

© 2013 Vernon Chan, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Sean and I just got back from a One Republic concert (also featuring The Script and opened by The American Authors). It was a ton of fun and they're incredibly talented (and multi-talented… who would expect the lead guitarist to bust out a classical acoustic Spanish guitar solo in the middle?), but the concert tonight has led me to one inescapable conclusion:

We are old fogies.

The thing about One Republic is that they have an appeal that crosses generational divides. There were kids younger than 10 there (though I really think there shouldn't have been), as well as a few definitely old enough to be grandma types. In fact, one of the women--who was 74 if she were a day--was lip-syncing and be-bopping along to a couple of their most popular songs while her husband suffered silently in the seat next to her. When I get to 74, I want to be that cool. And in front of us there was a dad with his daughter and her friend, and I just knew he was thinking, "this is SO much better than a Jonas Brothers concert."

Unfortunately, Sean and I found ourselves in front of two incredibly enthusiastic tween girls. I don't know, maybe they were actual teenagers. I would have guestimated them to be around 12-13.

In case you haven't been to a concert lately, let me tell you: they're LOUD. You can feel the bass beat against your sternum, and until you get used to it, you might suspect that you're having heart palpitations.

Trying to talk to anyone involves cupping your hand around the other person's ear and yelling. Or you can just really EMPHASIZE THE MOVEMENT OF YOUR LIPS so that they can try to lip-read while you pantomime whatever it is that you're trying to say. Nothing can drown out the music.

Nothing, that is, but the high-pitched SHRIEK of a tween. A tween so racked with excitement that she cheers when the lights go down. Screams when the Parrot Bay rum advertisement flashes across the screen. Squeals when the roadies set the stage for the set. Shrieks (and shrieks, and shrieks) when the band takes the stage... and after every song... and during every song, and at the beginning of every song. I am nearly positive that some of her shrieks went super-sonic, and somewhere dogs were twitching and chasing their tails in response.

I ended up putting in earplugs not to deal with the loud music, but to deal with the ultra-sonic shrieking behind me. When The Script left the stage and the One Republic roadies were setting up, I leaned over to Sean and said, "I don't think either of us were ever that young." Sean gave me his trademark close-mouthed chuckle and half head-shake.

"I don't know how I'll handle all this excitement!" she exclaimed melodramatically behind us.

I have no idea how I'll handle your excitement either, young teeny bopper. I surely don't.

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 10: Of Toast and Telephones

Rice paddies near our neighborhood.

(Originally published September 18, 2007)

I set two pieces of toast on fire today.  Really.  I didn’t just burn them.  There were actual flames.  Twice. 

Before I left the states, I told many of you that we’d be living like college students.  We weren’t shipping any furniture, I ditched my cat at my sister’s house, and we were taking only what would fit in two carry-on bags and five suit cases of various sizes.  This means, however, in some aspects we are worse off than college students. 

We don’t have air conditioning.  In the winter, we don’t have heat.  We do have two fans and some space heaters.  We have a coffee table.  We have four cushions for the floor in nicely coordinated shades of sage green and brown.  We have two of those adjustable “banana chairs” that sit flat on the floor and have a back.  In the States, we didn’t have a “real” bed.  We had a king-sized Aerobed with a heated mattress pad and a featherbed on top.  Western beds here are very expensive, and for the average westerner, futons (not at all like the ones in the States) are uncomfortable.  So Sean lugged our air bed across the Pacific Ocean in his baggage.  What we didn’t lug across was our featherbed, considering it costs more than the rest of our bedroom furniture put together.  So, we have a bed.  Not as comfortable as it could be, but cheap and big. 

The garbage days here are complicated.  Recyclables go out only twice a month.  Garbage can go into the dumpsters any day.  But… garbage here is incinerated, so only the burnable garbage can go out whenever.  There is a separate once- or twice-monthly day for “unburnable” garbage.  Then there’s a once-a-month day for “big” garbage.  And it stinks (no pun intended), because you place your recyclables, unburnables, big garbage, etc, in a big fenced cage.  However, the cage is locked except for garbage days.  This means, of course, that everything accumulates all over the apartment until garbage day.  Sometimes this isn’t a bad thing.  On one of the big garbage days, Sean and I were walking past the unlocked cage and saw some bookshelves and other furniture.  We looked at each other, got an evil gleam in our collective eye, and went dumpster diving. 

Did we feel foolish?  Heck yes.  Were we ashamed?  Heck no.  So, in addition to our coffee table, bed, and two floor chairs, we also have a skinny and a wide bookshelf.  No books yet, but we have the shelves.  One is in the kitchen, holding our Costco supplies of black beans, chicken broth, tomatoes, and cereal.  The other one is a table for our phone and a landing place for our junk. 

In the kitchen, we have a decent set of dishes that we got from the “Hyaku Yen” (read: Dollar Store), a pan, and a pot.  A microwave, a mini-fridge, and a rice maker complete our additions.  We have a mini two-burner gas stove, but no oven.  And no toaster. 

To make toast, we use the mini-broiler in our mini-stove in our mini-kitchen.  The problem with this is that you have to be REALLY attentive.  The other problem is that wheat bread is rare, and it’s expensive.  So my timing, for white bread at least, is nearly perfect.  For some scientific reason, wheat bread toasts FAR faster than white bread.  Don’t believe me?  Try it at home.  Use the same toaster setting for white bread and wheat bread, and see which one comes out toastier. 

So today, I go to make myself some toast (wheat…it was on sale) for a snack before I start writing.  I put it in the broiler, walk into our “living room” to pull up my document, and then I smell smoke.  I dash the three steps into the kitchen, pull out the broiler, and once the smoke clears (we don’t have any smoke alarms, either), I have to blow out my toast.  Yes, I had to blow it out like a marshmallow that “accidentally” catches fire during the s’more roast. 

I looked sadly at my poor slice of wheat bread.  Normally, I would get the knife and scrape off the charred parts in the sink and figure it was good enough.  This poor bread, however, was unsalvageable.  Still smoking.  Charred a quarter of an inch deep.  The purest black.  So, with a sigh, I place it in the sink to cool down before I throw it away so that I don’t set the garbage on fire.  I get another slice of bread, put it in the broiler, turn around and throw the other bread away, turn back around, and the other piece is on fire!!

Again, I pull out toast, blow it out, and survey the damage.  This one isn’t as bad.  I whip out my knife, scrape it off in the sink, and flip the bread over to toast the other side.  This time I crouch down on my knees and watch it the whole time through the little window.  Yup.  Sure enough, it’s done in about 5.4 seconds.  When Sean asks why we went through bread so fast, I’ll tell him I made a sandwich. 

Sadly enough, that’s about as much excitement as my average day holds.  I have, for all intents and purposes, become a housewife.  Not a very good one, at that!  My days are quite dull and unadventurous.  Every other day or so, I’ll do laundry. We do have a laundry machine, but we don’t have a dryer.  For that matter, hardly anyone in Japan has a dryer.  Everyone, regardless of wealth, generally hangs their clothes out to dry.  In the closet, we don’t have a closet rod, so Sean went and bought a tension rod when he first got here.  However, the rod—no matter how much or how little we put on it, no matter how much strain we exert to tighten it beyond average human strength—won’t stay up. 

Therefore, when I hang the laundry, I take great pains to snap it out, shake it out, smooth it out, and hang it with as much care and consideration as I can so that it doesn’t wrinkle, pucker, or stretch…especially because I DON’T want to iron it!  However, the last time the tension rod fell down, we didn’t bother to put it back up.  Which means that whenever I take down the laundry, Sean takes all my carefully hung, lovingly caressed laundry and throws it in the closet.  He does take some care to lay it flat.  But more importantly, now I can appreciate my mom’s frustration when I did basically the same thing to her as a teenager.  Sorry, Mom.  I get it now. 

I usually shower and get dressed in the afternoon sometime before Sean gets home, so that he doesn’t think that I’ve been hanging around all day in my pajamas, which I usually have been.  I might do the dishes, or I might not.  I almost always make dinner and have it nearly ready by the time Sean’s home.  In the beginning, I would spend hours looking for and applying to jobs.  Not so much anymore.  About every four to seven days, I’ll make a batch of tortillas to last the week.  Every once in a while I’ll pick up or clean, but not often enough.  Plus, I feel like sometimes it’s a losing battle, and we don’t even have kids.  I might go to the store, or I might not. 

The other day, I decided to tackle cleaning our “living room” because it was getting a little bit disgusting.  We do all of our day-to-day living in this room and in the kitchen, so it gets the most abuse.  I had been avoiding trying to clean the floor, because I wasn’t quite sure how.

The actual rooms are all floored with tatami mats.  Tatami mats are tightly woven reed mats with black cloth borders—the quintessential Asian floor.  But how the HECK do you take care of them?  They have little swiffer-like pads, but those are for wet use.  I haven’t tried them, yet.  I think you can vacuum the mats, but like so much else in life, we don’t have a vacuum.  So I got out our mini-broom, and I started sweeping.  First, I went with the grain, then against the grain, then with the grain, then against the grain… and the whole time I was thinking, “Man, I shed a lot!”  I felt like for every forward sweep, the fanning motion of the broom would encourage the little hairballs and other debris to retreat half-a-sweep.  Forward one, back one-half.  The tatami mats are not laid out with the weave all in the same direction.  Nor are they all precisely the same size.  Thus, for this room which is not more than about eight feet by seven feet, I used nearly fifteen minutes just to sweep it.  I leave wet mopping for some other day. 

In midst of my domestic mundaneness, two days ago my life was turned briefly upside down.

The phone rang. 

It took me two rings to realize what was happening.  It took me one and a half rings to make it out of bed and to the phone.  It was taking me one and a half rings to decide to answer it or not, and then the machine picked up.  I stood there, heart beating fast, listening to our very polite and pre-recorded lady give our “we’re not home” message, my hand poised over the receiver, ready to snap it up should it prove necessary.

Alas… as the gentleman started speaking, it was, of course, all in Japanese.  I caught lots of the “-mashite” conjugations, and a series of numbers at the end.  But that’s all.  Disappointed, I shrugged and went back to bed until my alarm went off.  Sean has listened to the message.  He doesn’t know what it says, either, but at least he understands all the numbers. 

I make no secret of the fact that culture shock hit me quite hard, but I’m also not sure how much of it is “Japanese” culture shock and how much of it is just a giant change from my old life.  At home I had a job that—whether I liked it or not—kept me commonly occupied for 12 hours a day with an hour commute, total.  I had a cat to keep me company before I got married, and then later whenever Sean was out of town.  I had a car that I could use to jet off for errands or whatever.

All of that, of course, has changed.  We live in a beautiful area over the mountain from downtown, but it’s considered the boondocks, and thus there’s nothing here.  I can walk to a veggie stand or a miniature grocery store that is over-priced.  There is a French Boulangerie ten minutes away, but it is a pointless destination because I never buy anything.  It’s the same story with the optician, the dentist, and the liquor store.  We went to the ramen shop once.  I can walk 20 minutes to Tanigami station to a bigger, but still small, grocery store, or McDonald’s, if I really want it...and usually I don’t.  But I did use my broken Japanese, some sign-language, and lots of funny faces to order some french fries for the first time last week. 

But to go anywhere or to do anything like going into the Cultural Center to read the Spanish or American newspapers, or maybe to eventually get a free tutor, I walk a long distance and then pay $5 one way.  Because we live on the other side of the mountain, the train tunnel is fairly new, and thus fare is expensive until the tunnel is paid down.  With me not working regularly, it doesn’t make much financial sense for me to spend $10 (or more, if I want to come in to the station that’s close to our apartment) to go into downtown for a lark.  As a result, I lump my trips together, and normally I go with Sean on the weekends.  I did brave everything on my own to get my Visa adjusted to work part-time, and to my chagrin that necessitated two different trips.  So I hit the grocery store downtown while I was there, and traveled all the way into Shin-Osaka for a job interview that has so far yielded me no private students like they promised. 

I do, however, teach a few classes to children ranging in age from three to nine years old, and with varying degrees of English from none to basically fluent.  I teach these classes in a private school in Mondo-yakujin, which is a part of Nishinomiya, which means by the time I walk to the station on one end and the school on another, it takes me nearly an hour and a half to get there.  It also costs me nearly $15 U.S. for round-trip transportation.   On top of that, it’s basically exactly the hours that I didn’t want to work.  Eventually I will work some of Wednesday evening, and then work from 3:00-8:00 pm on Fridays.  Right now I work a couple of Saturday mornings a week, but once my Friday gets extended to 8:00 pm, I probably won’t work Saturday.  Normally, the proprietor only pays 600¥ in transportation… which doesn’t even cover half.  So… the whole thing is up in the air, but for now I enjoy teaching the kids. 

In the meantime, I’m shamelessly hawking myself.  If any of you know of any decent free-lance writing gigs that I might be qualified for (or can MAKE myself qualified for), keep me in mind! 

This last weekend, we did break down and buy some speakers for our iPods, which means that now, at least, I can have music during the day.  As a result, I’m in a slightly better mood by the time Sean gets home at night.  I can boogie down all I want in private during the day.

Today, I hope to pump out a lot of writing.  We have done and seen much since I have been here that I haven’t written about… but perhaps today is the day.  For now, though, it’s nearly three o’clock, which is generally my cue to rush about and be domestic so that Sean thinks I might have actually been moderately productive.  Plus, the kitchen has aired out now, so I can comfortably do dishes without inhaling toast-smoke.

Thanks to all of you for your words of encouragement regarding my journals… and remember, if you call, leave a message.  I’m probably standing there in my pajamas, holding a flaming piece of toast, trying to figure out whether I should answer the phone or not!

~~~~~~~

This post was one of my sister's favorites. She said she could just imagine me in my pajamas, leaning intently toward the phone while I waited to see if it was worth answering. 

We very seldom got phone calls, and we also very seldom got any visitors. Normally if a knock came on our door, it was a delivery we were expecting… no super Japanese skills required. However, one day much later than this post, a knock came to the door that I wasn't expecting. Normally I would just hide and ignore it, because what could I do? But instead I answered.

Standing on the stoop were two Japanese men, one probably in his mid-30s and one much older. Their eyes widened a bit when they saw a Gaijin answering the door, and they shared a quick glance before saying something to me. Of course I didn't understand a thing. 

"Sumimasen. Nihongo o hanasemasen!" (I'm so sorry! I don't speak Japanese!"

The younger man lifted his eyebrows quizzically and gestured towards me. "Eigo?" 

"Yes," I said. "English."

He lifted up a brochure, and said--very slowly and deliberately--"We… are… Jehovasu Witnessu."  

"Ah, so!" I said. "Jehovasu Witnessu waskarimashita. Eigo o hanasemasuka?" (Ah, so! Jehovah's Witness, I understand. Do you speak English?)

He took half a step back and shook his head somewhat wistfully. "Ie." Reaching into the pile of pamphlets he was carrying under his arm, he took one out and handed it to me.

"Dozo," he said. "For you." It was a Japanese-language edition of the Watchtower Magazine. 

Then, with short bows and slight smiles, the young man and the silent gray-haired man made their way up the stairs to knock on more doors. 

I shook my head. Across the vast Pacific Ocean, I never once imagined that I'd open my door to a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses. Smiling wryly, I told myself that I'd have quite a story to share with Sean when he got home. I went back inside, putting the copy of the Watchtower on the bookshelf…right next to the phone.

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 9: Laughter in Any Language (Part 2)

Train leaving Tanigami station

Once more, my recollections follow this original post.

(Originally published September 5, 2007)

I followed Dian into the house, made a quick stop at the “powder room”, and then joined her and her sons in the living room.

Dian’s newest son, Shan, was on her hip.  Her oldest son, Jay, was on her couch.  She plopped me down at the table, and in the way that only moms have, she managed to get a tray, two glasses full of iced tea, and two coasters over the kiddie-gate with Shan still on her hip and nothing hitting the floor.  Jay, who is about seven years old, wandered around behind us in the bored way that means summer vacation is almost over. 

             Dian speaks English in the house, and her husband uses about half and half.  As a result, Jay understands English quite well, speaks well enough, but now that he’s in school, prefers Japanese.  He played shy for awhile, picking up one game only to put it down, answering my questions with nods or shrugs.  Shan, on the other hand, was ready for a nap, so Dian pulled together two cushions on the floor and plop! Shan was asleep. 

                  After Shan started snoozing, Dian went into the kitchen to make lunch (she invites me to her house AND makes me lunch?  This woman is amazing!), and Jay made himself comfortable at the table.  His socks were just peeking out under his pants.

                  “Is that a cartoon on your socks, Jay?” I asked.  He smiled and nodded.

                  “Pokemon,” he said.

                  “Pokemon?  Like Pikachu?  Doesn’t Pikachu mean ‘lightning mouse’ in Japanese?”  He grinned and nodded, then got up to bring me his giant, stuffed, bright-yellow Pikachu. 

                  “Who’s your favorite character?”  He got up again and got an encyclopedia-sized book of Pokemon reference.  He flipped through it for so long I almost thought he forgot my question, but then he laid the book flat and said, “This one.” 

                  I had no idea what the little animal was supposed to be, but I nodded appreciatively with some “mm-hmms! and ohs!” and then started flipping though the book on my own.  Jeffrey (my nephew of roughly the same age) has become interested in Pokemon, and the last time he saw me he made the effort to show me every one of his Pokemon collector cards, complete with painstaking explanations.  I saw a character that I vaguely remembered from Jeffrey’s instruction and I said, “Here, this one is my nephew’s—my sister’s son—favorite character.”

                  Jay giggled as I continued, “And when my husband and I play video games, he chooses Pikachu and he always beats me!”  After he heard this, Jay dropped the book and ran off to find his Nintendo DS.  He played a Pokemon game while I watched over his shoulder and laughed when he laughed, pretending like I knew what was going on.  Dian gave me a commiserating smile over the kitchen counter.

                  After lunch, we chatted about how to find jobs (she offered to put me in touch with her HR manager), talked about import food stores, life in Japan, the geography of the Kansai area, and loads of other stuff that’s just good to talk about—especially when one is in the throes of culture shock.  Shan woke up and ate some lunch of his own, and when I offered to hold him so that Dian could eat her own lunch, she said, “No, that’s all right.  He’s a little shy, anyway.”

                 The doorbell rang, startling me, and Dian ran off to the front door.  Jay and I stared at each other across Pokemon.  Dian came back, removing Shan from her hip and putting him on the floor.

                  “The recycle-man is here,” she explained quickly.  “I called him to come pick up some things—I need to get it all together.  I’ll be about ten minutes.  Will you be okay?  Shan should be fine with Jay, anyway.”  I nodded, and she dashed back out the door. 

                  I looked at Jay.  He looked at me.  I looked at Shan.  He ignored me.  Jay started hanging off of the table and doing backflips.  I called him a little monkey.  And then it happened.  We bonded.  Suddenly, after the accusation that Jay was acting like a small primate, we were laughing and giggling together like old friends. 

                  I grabbed Shan and tossed him in the air while he giggled and kicked; Jay methodically laid out his Pokemon cards to display to me.  Shan inspected my necklace, then decided to try and strangle me with it; Jay grabbed his toys and ran around like he was shooting at me, at the wall, at the T.V., at anything that presented a target.  When Dian came back in, I tried to put Shan down, but he pulled himself up against my leg and made little demanding sounds until I picked him up again, and Jay was tugging on my arm to ask me to play Jenga with him. 

                  Dian looked at Shan, looked at me, and said, “Huh!  You’ve made a new friend!”  And then she pulled up a chair to play Jenga.

                  As I was riding the train home (again without mishap) staring straight ahead of me like any good Japanese citizen, I was thinking about how similar those two boys are to my nephews.  I made Jay laugh hysterically when I addressed him jokingly as “Jay-san,” a title of respect.  Shan giggled any time I tossed him in the air and waved goodbye to me, safely perched once more on his mother’s hip. 

                 Definitely different cultures, I thought—but laughter is the same in any language.  

~~~~~~

When I first re-read these two posts, I didn't have any particular memories of this whole incident. Thinking back on my year in Japan, I don't know that I would have remembered this and shared any of the anecdotes unless something in particular jogged my memory. That's why I'm so glad that I wrote it… reading it again made me recall it vividly, right down to Shan's navy blue onesie and the necklace that he was trying to strangle me with--a lime green "pineapple-ish" stone my niece picked out for my sister to give me for my birthday before I left the states. Photos are definitely a good way of keeping memories of a person or place, but they don't capture it all, do they? And you don't think to take photos when stopping in to meet someone for lunch at their house… and if you do, that just seems borderline rude, no? If anything, I'm disappointed in those small details that I never thought to record, because they were so mundane. Hopefully this exercise in re-posting can help me fill some of those gaps!