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Well hey what do you know? I think fall is finally here! The weather this morning was a brisk 75-ish degrees Fahrenheit, with relatively low humidity and a nice breeze. Compare that to the usual summer weather conditions of over 9000* degrees with 1000% humidity and constant sandstorms. OK I guess that’s a slight exaggeration – the sandstorms subside every afternoon for a 4 hour acid rain shower. But at least this morning I got to come to work without smelling salaryman BO all the way into Tokyo. Ding dong, the summer is dead! (I hope.)

More on Japanese seasons in my next post.

* IT’S OVER 9000!!

It’s already September (say do you remember)!? Time seems like it’s been going by pretty fast recently, almost entirely due to working every day then having a pretty full schedule every weekend. A week goes by like nothing, but I haven’t decided if that’s good or bad.

I’m enjoying work a lot more than I guess I originally thought I would, with the worst part still being the long hours. I technically work a normal 8 hour day (or less), but with the hour+ long commute it feels like I’m working 12 hour shifts. I usually get home after work, relax just a little, then have to go to bed soon after so as to not sacrifice precious hours of sleep. Then I wake up and head back to the trains to go to work. But enough about that.

I saw a movie over the weekend, 20th Century Boys (２０世紀少年). It’s based on this super popular mystery/sci-fi comic book which I had never read. I’m not going to go into any of the plot details, but it was a pretty sweet movie spanning several decades focusing on a creepy cult leader intertwined with a group of people who went to elementary school together. Yet somehow the movie makes sense. This is the first of a trilogy, and even still it was 2.5 hours long. It was entertaining, but still, this is getting ridiculous. Why are movies these days so long?? Even Dark Knight, which I loved, was way too long. I’d rather directors cut out some of the unnecessary action scenes or some of the retarded CG sequences and leave the movie at an hour and a half. 2 hours is acceptable, but anything longer than that is painful. Come on!

I’m still waiting for fall to fully kick in and cool this country off.

We’ve had a few days recently of not-totally-balls-hot weather, and I’m getting hopeful. Is summer just about over? Seriously that would make things absolutely amazing. If I had to choose between sweltering heat and cool rain/overcast, I’d have to go with the latter. Mainly that’s because I’m tired of riding on hot, gross trains to and from work. Right now in Tokyo it’s 73 degrees F, slightly windy, and feels great outside. I know that this is mainly just because of all the rain we’ve been having, but if summer is wearing down I’m all for it.

Since I’m blogging already I might as well diverge into other random babbling. Nothing super interesting during the weeks following Obon Vacation, just working and not getting enough sleep at night due to watching TV and playing on the internet. On Saturday there was a Farewell Party for John who’s leaving Chiba after about a year. It was pretty good; a huge party of mostly people I didn’t know, but at least I commandeered a table for the few that I did. It doesn’t feel like it’s been a year since John got here. I think time is passing pretty quickly, which in a way is bad because I need to figure out exactly what I’m going to do with my life (been thinking about this a lot recently).

I know I don’t want to live in Japan forever, but the question of the moment is how long will I actually be here? And while I realize that a job isn’t the most important thing in life, in reality that’s going to be the deciding factor of where end up living. I guess if I could find a good job in the US I could move back, but I don’t know where in the US I would want to live. St. Louis would be good because my family and a lot of friends are there, but overall I feel like there’s not much else there for me. Japan/Tokyo is very comfortable right now, but I think it’s still different enough for me to have a slight sense of adventure living here. Maybe I’ve been living in too much of a dream world and need to get back to reality. Whether or not reality lies in the US I don’t know, but I need to kind of think what my next job will be. I suppose it’s time to start thinking of a career and some long-term goals, neither of which I have at the moment.

Mindfart.

Time for one of the obligatory “oh my god Japanese summer is so hot” posts. Because it is so (expletive deleted) hot! Seriously, summer here is probably one of the worst experiences a foreigner can have on this little island. I guess the heat is fairly comparable to everywhere else I’ve lived, but the humidity really does you in. On top of that, you walk a lot more here than in the US, and even trains and stations aren’t always that great on the climate control. This, of course, means that when you arrive at work in the morning, you already have the sweat and stench of someone who just ran the Boston Marathon. That is, if the Boston Marathon took place on the sun.

The humid conditions outside make commuting or even just stepping outside a chore, and with my new hour+ long journey to get to work in the morning, the first leg of my day is usually the worst. I’ve quickly adapted to the Japanese salaryman routine of wearing a short-sleeve business shirt and carrying my jacket folded over my arm/briefcase. On the train I alternate between sleeping and using a fan while looking like I could pass out at any moment. I also have gotten really good at hurriedly putting on my tie either right before my stop on the train or in the bathroom of my office lobby. There is also the constant search for a seat on the crowded trains, which I was going to write about when I realized I already have.

Mornings suck.

Thankfully my office is nice and air-conditioned, meaning once I actually get to work and cool off with my Dragonball fan, I’m good to go. It’s just the coming and going that’s a pain, because the sun and humidity turn the Tokyo streets into a wavy, brightly-lit wasteland that I try to avoid as much as possible. At night, the temperature goes down considerably (maybe a whole degree even), but the humidity remains. With any luck, summer should start transitioning into fall by mid-September, meaning life will be about 50% less painful, and I’ll just have the constant lack of sleep left to worry about.

Is it just me, or does putting on a Band-Aid feel like one of the least-masculine things a guy can do? There are a few reasons for this. First, you’re giving in to the fact that you have a wound that won’t heal by itself. I don’t know if this is a universal man thing, but I’m sure I’m not the only man (or rough woman) who feels some kind of pride in having cuts, bruises, missing limbs, etc that are “no big deal.” You know, you get slashed on the arm with a butcher knife, everyone’s rushing around, freaking out, trying to call 911, and you just look at it, shrug, and say “eh, no problem” and continue eating your steak. With your hands. That’s right, baby. You’re a man. It will heal on its own. You don’t need no medical attention or first aid! You got this on lockdown. I think this is the main reason why Wolverine is so popular. Sure the cigar addiction, razor-sharp claws, and blue Ludwig von Koopa hair all help, but when you get down to it, he’s awesome because he can get hit in the chest by a bazooka point-blank and stand right back up to bone a super model.

Where was I? Oh yeah, putting on a band-aid feels really wussy for another reason, and that’s because the actual, physical act of putting the thing on looks totally retarded. I will admit it: I put a band-aid on tonight for the first time in a long while (years?), after ripping a gaping wound open on my arm region*. Even though I was alone in my apartment I could tell how ridiculous it must have looked. To start, you have this little box, then individually wrapped tiny plastic and wax packages that each holds a small strip of sticky fabric. Already this sounds lame, right?. Then you have to unpeel the band-aid and take off the white plastic tabs, which, thanks to static cling, will without fail, 100% of the time get stuck on your hand when you try to throw it away. Then you’re there fluttering your hand trying to get the thing off, adding more to the ridiculousness. Just think about it again: you’re putting a little sticker on your injury in hopes that it will heal you. It’s just a fancy sticker! It’s no substitute for mutant healing factor.

Yeah, putting on a Band-Aid makes you a total woman.

*blister on my thumb

You know how sometimes you have a dream that feels very real, and other times you have a real-life experience that seems very much like a dream? I had one of the latter today, at least I’m about 90% sure it actually happened. Either way it was pretty odd.

I was teaching classes in the evening down in Ichihara, which means I have to ride the trains about an hour and a half from Shinjuku back towards Chiba, then down south from there. Luckily if I time it right I can catch an express train from Tokyo station, meaning I don’t have to change trains mid-way. The train is usually fairly crowded, but after about 20 minutes a lot of people usually get off, yielding me around a 45-minute nap after grabbing a newly-vacated seat.

I wake up after around a half-hour and notice there’s a bit of a commotion going on in the train car. We had just left Soga station and I couldn’t imagine what was causing the usually lifeless train passengers to scoot around in such a still-silent panic. I sit up a bit and notice to my left that 3 pigeons are walking around. Yes, inside the moving train. They weren’t causing any problems, just walking and making that pigeon noise. Coo, maybe? Nonetheless, tons of people were freaking out as the pigeons just strutted about the floor, minding their business. Now, Japanese people do a lot of things that make no sense to me, but this next part really confused me. Instead of just letting the pigeons walk around and waiting until the next stop (less than 10 minutes), this one genius Japanese guy decides it would be a good idea to hit the ground near the pigeons with his umbrella.

ID. I. OT.

So of course the pigeons go flying, trying to avoid being hit with an umbrella. They head towards the windows, which of course are closed and have people sitting in front of them. The birds hit the windows and land on people, then jump around again as people try to swat at them or shake them off. The situation has just become much much worse because Mr. Wizard thought his magic umbrella would cause the 3 pigeons to vanish in a puff of smoke. So the panic level continues to rise as now you have people all over the long train car getting up and running to either the corners or to the next car. The pigeons are getting more excited now, just trying to figure out how to get off this train while avoiding getting hit by Moron of the Month’s umbrella. Then 1 or 2 more idiots start using their umbrellas (the situation might not have been as bad if it weren’t raining earlier today) to “protect themselves” from the pigeons, creating a vicious cycle or retardedness. I stand up, still slightly asleep having woken up less than a minute ago, and see one of my former co-workers running towards me. I think this was when I started to think I was still in a dream, because what in the world was she doing on this train?*

She jumps into action like she’d been specially trained to deal with pigeons on a train car, opening up a nearby window then running to catch one of the pigeons. She does, checks to make sure there are no trees or electrical poles next to the tracks, and releases pigeon #1 back outside. I get the message and run to open up the other windows on the train, while every other person on the train either 1) sits there as if nothing was going on, 2) quietly runs to the next train car to escape or 3) stare at me or my co-worker out of confusion, as if we were playing catch with a midget covered in peanut butter. Not a single person helped, opened a window, or even said anything. Japanese people love to act like nothing is going on around them. I’m pretty sure that if Godzilla really did attack this country, the reaction of the general public would be to continue walking as if nothing was happening. Or maybe they would try throwing their umbrellas.

So once she got the other 2 pigeons cleared off the train with her bare hands, we closed the windows, wiped our hands, and had a brief chat as the train pulled off at my stop. Needless to say I was pretty impressed. I definitely wouldn’t have done that myself. So that was probably the most exciting 5 minutes I’ve ever had immediately upon waking up. I’m pretty sure this actually happened.

*She was going to Goi to work, obviously.