Remiss.

Ignore me! IGNORE ME!

...Onto other things. This is the first weekend since school really started that Monday hasn't been a national holiday, so at the moment I am trying to slog through my homework on time instead of letting everything slip until the five minutes before class actually starts. I am pretty terrible at this, it seems, since right now it's about 10:30pm and, even though I have been awake nearly 12 hours, and have not today left the apartment, I am still nowhere near done. Then again I am pretty sure the last five years of my higher education have gone exactly like this.

Autumn seems to have finally got its hold on Japan. The last two days have been cool and rainy, which, even though not most people's definition of "good weather", makes me happy after my season-less year in Los Angeles. I've been able to stop turning on the air conditioning (saving me some ￥), and a few nights ago I was leaving the window open while I slept. Even with the occasional truck sounds and loud drunks/loud early risers, nothing beats a cool breeze coming in while you're lying in bed.

I think my lifestyle has started to even out along with the season. As opposed to weekends past, which consisted of spending too much money on karaoke and drinking (and getting emotional, thank you for that beer), this weekend was a great deal more pleasant. Friday night, two guys from school came over to shoot the shit with me and my roommate. We ate peanuts and drank beer and attempted to turn a rug-beater and a trashcan into a giant bubble wand, but only succeeded in using up all my dish soap. Saturday the roommate and I spent a majority of the day in a gigantic electronics store trying to figure out a work-around for his broken laptop, then met up with a friend of mine from the summer for dinner and general hanging-outs. Somehow this hanging out also resulted in all of us going to Uniqlo and indulging in their super, super cheap clothing. Which makes for a pretty good outing actually, all things considered.

And then now, a lazy Sunday. I made french fries in my toaster oven (surprisingly delicious) and made broiled nasu (eggplant) and hiya-yakko for dinner. The roommate went out to get a beer with a friend, then came home and did odd things, such as backwards somersaults, for my amusement. The two of us get on better than I would have expected before he came to live with me, which I think is a significant part of the reason I'm happier in Japan this autumn than I was in the fall. It also makes me feel rather adult, learning how to live with a man.

Now it appears he's fallen asleep in his loft while reading the English language classifieds. Time to turn the lights down.

On parties.

In retrospect, there are a few interesting things I have learned about myself via drinking over the last weekend that I feel are worth putting to (imaginary) paper.

1) Feminism is a big deal to me.
1a) I am a very cheesy lady.
These two things might not seem to be connected, but trust me, they are. Case in point: Saturday evening, while drunk, I heatedly discussed, in terrible Japanese, the importance of women having self-pride and self-direction to two Japanese girls who I seemed to have decided needed to hear about the One True Way. Since, of course, their replies were in Japanese and I was (again) drunk, I'm not entirely sure I understood their viewpoints, but they nodded a lot and seemed encouraging when I spoke. Unbearable cheesiness of this: I may have told them that they could be President (or prime minister). Unbearable self-consciousness indicated by this conversation: I am pretty sure I got on the topic of feminism because one of the girls complimented my hair.

2) I like being dramatic.
2a) I hate being dramatic.
2b) Maybe what I really like is being dramatic with an excuse and a 50-75% chance no one is going to remember what I was doing the next day.
These deductions have come from the following realizations: I really enjoy karaoke while doing karaoke. Yet, every morning I wake up after having realized I was at karaoke the night before, I am embarrassed and uncomfortable. Also, I prefer to sing duets, to hide my shame behind the shame of someone else. This doesn't have quite enough of an effect when you're singing "Killing Me Softly" slouched halfway down onto the floor for emphasis.

3) Maybe I can't cook after all.
Evidence: My attempt to make marinated vegetable kebabs at the barbecue. I am pretty sure the marinade I made would have worked for something at some time, and people seemed moderately impressed by the amount of spice-adding I seemed to be doing, but the vegetables didn't cook all that well and at least one landed on the ground (and stayed there) during the grilling process. Also, when I got home the next day, my things were sticky with balsamic vinegar.

4) I want people to think I am cool.
Why else would I keep smoking every time I get drunk, and making such stupid faces at the camera? Whyyyy?

5) I hate shoes.
I really, really should not be taking off my shoes in a public area. Especially not the lobby of a karaoke joint, while smoking. If nothing else, it really undermines whatever small positive effects number 4 might have had. I wish the digital camera had never been invented.

Small revelations.

I feel like I've been transported back to college, both half the way I actually lived it and half the way college always seemed like it was "supposed" to be.
Right now I'm sitting in bed, wearing an old t-shirt that reads "Smaug" under a picture of a dragon and a pair of cut-off brown pants. Every so often, I can hear my roommate move in his bed while he reads. And, tellingly, the two of us didn't make it back home from our night out last night until after 12pm this afternoon.
So, while it might not actually be late, it feels like it is. I've spent most of today slowly transitioning out of "partying" phase with naps and reading, while my roomie uses hefty amounts of smoking and a few leftover beers to ease off his hangover. Luckily, it's a three day weekend, so I have tomorrow to conquer the serious amount of homework I've racked up over the last week. It's just too bad I won't be able to throw it all in my bag and march down to a local coffee shop to work until I hemorrhage french roast and have reread every news website available on the internet, twice.
But for now, to the backtracking. The first week of normal class after testing was hard. The students got shuffled around a lot, I found myself staying in the computer lab during lunch and after class to finish homework assignments and memorize kanji, and from Tuesday onward I also acquired a roommate who liked to talk much more than he liked to let me do my homework. One student in my class was planning to have many of us out to his (actual) house for a barbecue on Saturday, however, and somehow I also ended up inviting a few people over to my apartment for Friday evening. I don't know if I really need to stress how unusual it is for me to have weekend "plans"; just rest assured that I cannot remember any time in my life so far where I went 'out' two nights in a row, if it ever did actually happen before.

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I just cut out about three paragraphs of boring "party recap". Nothing really is as terrible as reading about a thing you didn't go to, involving people that you don't know, badly written to boot. If you like, I can send you some pictures. All I really want to say, anyway. is that I'm pretty happy here right now. I have had more fun than I usually do, and felt less cripplingly awkward than I usually do as well. I can't begin to tell you what a difference that makes.

A quickie.

In the last two days, I have received some of the best emails of perhaps my life. You warm my heart (心暖まる）, dear friends.
More on Japan, sweating, and being alive to follow soon.

From the Mid-west to the East.

Well, I am back in Japan. And I have a serious lot of backlog in terms of not posting for the last three weeks. Take pity on me; I have been in transit.
The week before I came back to Japan was very good. I stayed at an old friend's house and slept on her couch. We watched a lot of "Heroes" and I got to experience the warm and comfortable feeling of being around people who have known you almost as long as there has been a "you". As well as the almost-as-good warm and cozy feeling of eating a lot of seven-layer bean dip. Ending the relative isolation of my first stint in Japan was a very good thing, and I feel like I am still kind of riding on the wave of good-feeling and going-home a week later.

I even made new friends, to an extent, while visiting old ones. One of my dear-olds lives in one of the co-ops in Ann Arbor, and I spent an evening with his home crew during someone's going-away party. Coincidentally, the person moving away was going to L.A., so I was able to offer a bit of the hook-up on Angelino life. I also got to eat tons and tons of delicious vegetarian food, all of which was so amazing that my stomach still rumbles when I think about it. What was I doing all those college years, living in "apartments" and eating popcorn and raw tofu for dinner? In retrospect, I would definitely trade in on some of my privacy for a chore list and a crowd of awesome hippies, gays and weirdos to live amongst. But, you know, hindsight and all that.

So, thank you good people from home, for existing. I hope I can see you again soon, as well as all the people who have scattered to other places that I didn't get to see. I will save my ducats for all that future airfare.

But, right, now I'm back in Japan, and classes (mostly) have started, and I am living alone again. First-off, though, I will only be living here alone for another four days or so, until my houseguest makes it to Japan and sets up residence in the loft. I think I'll be glad to have a temporary roommate, even though it will cut down severely on some of the best parts of living alone: extended periods of no-pants time, dancing in front of the mirror when a really good song comes up on iTunes, not having to clean up the mess til I goddamned feel like it. But, seeing as this journal is a very good record of the negative effects isolation has on me, I think this will work out for the better rather than the worse. I have the extra space, I like company, and someone pitching in to help with things like rent and remembering to buy groceries will be a good thing.

Also, I have to say, this is the best apartment by far I have ever lived in. The kitchen is a little small and wonky, but the living space is huge, there is more than enough closet space for even the biggest hoarders, the windows are big and light comes in all day. I'm very close to my subway stop and even closer to the supermarket, and the neighborhood is quiet and residential. There's even a park nearby; out my window there's a sign reminding drivers to be careful because children are out playing. I wish I could take this apartment back with me to Los Angeles at the end of the year. I mean, I have a secret loft-cubbyhole room, with a ladder! Tell me with a straight face that you don't want to live in a place like that.

I think school is going to go better this time around as well, adding to the general "high on life" thing I have going on now. I have been put through the ringer the last couple of days over placement testing, which is especially cruel since I have no real problem with starting out again in the bottom class. Learning the basics right at last will be a lot more helpful than the ego boost of not being the dumbest person around would be. But other than that, I have introduced myself to a few people, all of whom seem like worthwhile folk and perhaps potential new friends. The ratio of men to women in the class this year is something like 3 to 1, which is odd, but sort of nice since I am used to my classes being female-dominated. Mixes things up a bit. And now that testing is over, I have a lot of down time for the next two days. This gives me the opportunity to do things like finish my alien registration, get a cell phone and a bank account, pay my new rent and pay off my old rent, and all sorts of other useful things. Or, to update my online journal! Both are obviously equally useful, right?

As a final thought, I have gotten ahold of a lot of new music lately. Thanks to my stepdad, I have an impressive chunk of post-Beatles solo work to listen to now, which I like even though it tends to display a lot of 70s-era overproduction. And thanks to the Guardian, I have some new British neo-folk artists to listen to (you all should try out Bat for Lashes; she's like Joanna Newsom but without a voice that makes your ears bleed). Mice Parade, which I acquired after seeing the CD in the "post-rock" section of a Japanese CD and DVD rental place, is also pretty amazing. Turns out, "post-rock" is a very good way to describe 90% of my musical taste. Thank you for that knowledge, Japan.