sheep in wolf's clothing: July 2005

FIRE!! heheh...heheh...FIREFIRE!!!

Last weekend the band was invited to perform in Nabari at Jeff's teacher's house. It was our totally final last show. We had a great time and a great show. Our opening act was these 2 kids who played violin. They were so adorable I wanted to eat them. The little girl was pretty good, as was her little brother--he was squeakin' all over the place. It was great.
After our show we got dressed up in costume and headed down to the festivities at the Nabari Hanabi (fireworks) festival. We were asked to participate in the fire wielding procession. I had no idea what this entailed. I imagined it was something Olympic-ish where I'd be running around town in my hapi (traditional summer jacket) and tabi (those socks with the split between the big toe and second toe) carrying a torch. Thank God I was wrong. I was going to be WALKING around town in my hapi and tabi carrying a torch--(more like a bundle of sticks on the end of a bamboo pole). My hapi had been used in previous hanabi festivals and there were burn holes. BURN HOLES!!! And they told us they had bought insurance for us just in case anything happened. Let me tell you, I was AFEARED for my life!!! They poured propane (Hank!) on our torches and then we stuck them in the fire. Us and like, 30 other old Japanese drunk men. I was one of 3 girls participating. The old dude behind me was carrying his torch angled forward, so that when embers fell, they were falling on me. I got out of there quick and made Mike trade spaces with me. Walking around was pretty fun though. The festival was packed and people were totally afraid of the fire, screaming because of falling embers. The procession included walking over a bridge and then crossing a river. A RIVER. WITH A STICK ON FIRE. They had tied straw rope around our tabi to make sure we didn't slip, but that didn't help. I've never felt so primitive--knee deep, holding fire and fearing for my life as others crossing the river with fire also tried not to slip. I made it across OK, thanks to Ben, Chelsea's man.
At the end, we threw our torches in the bonfire at the temple and enjoyed chilled sake while watching fireworks. Ahh, Japan. Only you could provide an ending so fit for insanity.

reading: Stitch N' Bitch by Debbie Stoller
listening: Evil by Interpol
knitting: my new obsession

Our Homebase

a temple banner in Nabari.

No shame.

Check out homeboy in the middle.

Check out my camel toe.

She's into that sort of thing.

Chelsea getting tied up. This was our anti-slip protection while crossing the river.

The blessage of the fire

Shinto priest blessing the fire.

BURN BABY BURN!

Getting ready....

GO!!!

Bungle and procession.

Our destination.

fin.

Japanese baseball is AWESOME.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I still love MLB, but Japanese baseball is different. Right now it's the all Mie-ken High School baseball tournament, so all the baseball teams in my prefecture are competing. Actually, all the prefectures in Japan are having sudden death tournaments--once you lose, you're OUT! The top 2 teams will play at Koshien Stadium in Osaka, the coveted glorious gold-medal Wrigley Field of baseball stadiums in Japan. And high school games are SO DRAMATIC (or as they say, "gekiteki"). These are scrawny Japanese 16 and 17 year olds playing what could be the final game of their lives. If they lose one game, that's it. No more games for an entire frickin' year! They spend their entire school year eating, breathing and shitting baseball all for one game. I'm talkin blood, sweat and tears. Oh, the tears. These boys cry. They cry when they win, and boy, do they cry when they lose. The shame. The agony. Did I mention the shame? And the camerapeople LUUURVE zooming in on those tears. Makes for good TV ne?
But that's just the gekiteki part. I also enjoy the technical aspects of Japanese baseball. It's much more defensively strategic than hit-the-damn-ball-out-of-the-park-with-your-giant-steroid-pumped-muscles baseball (yes Barry, I'm talking about you...asshole). I've never seen so many bunts and stolen bases and that thing that pitchers do to psych out the man on 1st. It just seems so much more calculated than American Baseball. The fields are different...the space between the foul line and the crowd is much larger which makes for more outs than fouls. And maybe the outfield's larger but don't quote me on that. It's very formal as well. At the end of the game the players line up and bow to eachother, and then to the crowd. Sometimes the Umpire scolds the boys if they're being disrespectful.
My high school boys? Lost in the first round. They lost real bad. I stopped watching in the 4th inning it was so bad. 12-0 bad. They were a mess. The first pitcher hit 3 batters--in a row! Wild pitches everywhere. Oh man. Just thinking about it is making my hangover worse.

reading: The Money Book for the Young, Fab & Broke by Suze Orman and Yasashii Shuwa, a Japanese sign language manual.
listening to: Interpol
feeling: like shit warmed over.

I'm hungry...

How about some delicious asse? Chocolate wafers to quell every hunger. Freshly made, all natural.
They sell this every winter in Japan. Which is why I'm posting about it in summer. I miss snow. It's hot. Muh.

Way to waste time, dude.

or, How To Spend Muggy Summer Days in the Air Conditioned Office.

My acrid celebrity fashion bashing fix: www.gofugyourself.com
brilliant brilliant brilliant!!!! Up yours US Weekly magazine!

I'm also reading The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke by Suze Orman. She is very scary looking and very brilliant. www.suzeorman.com I've already consolidated my student loans and requested my three credit reports. After I get those, I'm off to FICO land to figure out where I stand. And then I'm actually going to start planning what I have to do after JET.

Isn't this AWESOME??? Aren't you jealous? I'm getting paid to sit here in the office and do NOTHING. I get to surf the net, read books, listen to music and if I'm really adventurous, pop in a DVD. For the next month and a half. I don't know why other JETs complain about this. This is the life...enjoy it while it lasts!

I would've made a good prostitute.

Have you ever wondered what would've happened to you had you been born, say, 200 years ago? Before the advent of modern technology? Before modern medicine? Before women's rights? I would probably be dead. I'm such a weakling right now, there's no way I would have survived back then. Even if I managed to escape childhood bouts of whooping cough and/or yellow fever, my myopia and shitty skin would've made me a child of the devil. Haha, can you imagine? I don't even know what country I would have been in since my dad's Polish and my mom's Japanese. A bastard half-breed child, shunned from society, I would have run away from home...no, the orphanage, searching for peace and acceptance. And I would find it at the local brothel. Cuz guys'll fuck anything, right? Hey, gotta eat somehow. I wonder what they used for birth control...

So I would've had three options: death, whore or baby machine. Hmmm. Sounds kinda similar if you ask me. (Also sounds like a good band name). As much as Republicans trash 'n' bash Feminism, I gotta say, it's made my life a helluva lot more interesting, (not to mention confusing). Thank you Gloria Steinem. Thank you to all those who came before and all those to come. Thank you for giving me options.

check out my cape dude.

in honor of Star Wars finally friggin' opening in Japan, (even though i've heard it sucks), a snow sculpture of the Man. i should really post my pictures from Sapporo. according to my pix that place was fucked up. perhaps that had something to do with our stay in the red light district.

check out www.storewars.org i *heart* chewbroccoli

Sayonara Suckas!

This past weekend was our Sayonara party. We made it a white t-shirt party (ahhh, college) so everyone could write on everyone else's shirts. I'm always worrying that something'll go wrong at our events, (I'm 1/2 of the AJET events coordinating team) but I'm glad I always do all that worrying for nothing, cuz the party ended up being a huge success. My friend Canadian Sean played, I got Maverick Troop, this crazy J-punk band to play and my band played as well. It was one of our last shows and an awesome one at that. I totally full on cried. Jeff and Chels are both leaving. It won't be the same with out 'em.
I don't have other pix yet but I will, as soon as I remember to bring my camera to work. In the meantime, enjoy some more pix of the band. Too bad there aren't any hot pix of the bass player this time around. But I do have pix of 2 love hotels that we got rejected from that night. They were FULL. Can you believe it? I couldn't believe it. You guys'll have to wait yet AGAIN for me to both remember my camera AND get inside a love hotel for the real scoop. Stay tuned...

Reading: 2 books on Shuwa (Japanese Sign Language)
Listening to: nothing. Mike has my iPod.
Watching: the clock

oh my god. Star Wars comes out this weekend and I'm going camping! Damn the wilderness!!!