Bounty hunter

Today, after returning from the caves in Kanameta, I saw the spider web of the giant spider we once saw at night before group a few nights ago. Well, it wasn’t out on the web, so I thought I would bring it something to come out for. I found a largish beetle over by the apartments and I said to it as I was carrying it to its doom, “It’s really kind of morbid of me, but I’m really interested in seeing you get eaten.” I tossed it under-handed a few times and the beetle just went up and not into the web. So finally I threw over-handed and it landed in about the middle of the web. As the beetle struggled futilely, I saw other much smaller spiders start to descend away from the web, like they wanted to get out of the way of something. Then from a crack in the old building it was living in, the giant freaking spider crawled out and shuffled quickly to the beetle. At last I saw it in daylight. Freaked me OUT. It wrapped the beetle and then after a few moments, carried the thing about 3/4 its size back to the building and up into its crack to eat. Wow. Not only do I feed meat to Chau, the starving dog, but also live creatures to starving spiders. I’m a vegetarian?

English conversation class - eikaiwa

Tonight, the eikaiwa (英会話) went swimmingly, because of God. I was so tired today, and granted, last night I went to bed around 12:30 am and got up around 6:00. But it was cool when I was lying in bed, praying: “God there’s no way I can do this without you. Please give me inspiration at least some kind of topic for what to teach and… okay, there it is. Thank you. Now I can go to bed and don’t have to worry about it because you gave me the inspiration I just asked for. You are awesome. That was awesome. Thank you, so much. Good night. I love you.” Or something along those lines. So, yeah, the idea with which God struck me was to emphasize the topic of family and use the tools I have with me. Thus, I thought about pictures, photos, movie files, and examples of every kind of relative that exists (since I have a big family, all the bases are covered).

During the “class” we finished up last week’s worksheet, asking likes and dislikes and what each person thinks of different activities. Then we moved on to the family by filling out a little worksheet I modeled after the workbook. It had a list of either one or the other sex (daughter or son but not both, aunt but not uncle, etc.) and they had to fill them out while I drew a family tree on the board. It was pretty cool. I love it when they say “Ahhh!” all together, like they all came to realize something at once. Aha moments are generally my favorite moments anywhere they happen. I passed out pictures of my family and then explained in-laws and step-relatives etc. Someone actually asked about the name “King Moody” as I had it written on the board. I explained about middle names and then later on the lesson I explained about why he was “King” Moody. I shared a scene from Teenagers from Outer Space and everyone thought it was really cool. I stopped the scene a couple times to explain some things and also to say “鼻を見て！” (Look at the nose!) and they enjoyed that. I probably should have said it in English, but… spilled milk. I then showed the video of Jeff at the wedding and I think they could see how alike Moody and Jeff looked. I showed the whole clip of the Space Odyssey theme music introducing everyone in the bridal party (they all knew the song) and explained my step-relatives. By then I had already run over time.

So, woohoo. That was delightful. And here’s the preemptive prayer of absolute necessity: same time next week, God? Maybe sooner? Maybe now? I love Thee.

Independence day: when puppets go too far

Tonight we had the going away party for Carrie. It was held at Bethany and Jimmy's. They had a Lambchop puppet, which I proceeded to manipulate for my own entertainment as well as Kayla’s (their three/four-year-old daughter). Happily, I was able to entertain others as well. Funny, Adam H. was like, “You must have watched that show a lot, because you’re doing that awfully well.” I wasn’t using Lambchop’s voice, I was kind of using a frumpy, middle-aged-woman voice, which had some implemented high parts.

Anyway, as the evening was getting on, Kayla was getting more and more violent with the puppet as my hand was in it, giving it life. She would hug it really hard, and shove fake food in its mouth, grab its face and arms and pull hard and would laugh whenever I had the puppet say, “Ow! OW! That hurts! Please stop pulling my head/face/arms!” At one point, she was bearing her teeth, she was hugging so hard or holding on so hard, often only addressing the puppet. At one point I (the puppet) said, “I don’t want to play anymore if you’re going to be mean to me.” And Kayla got this very stern look on her face like she was trying to control her temper. She was holding on to the puppet’s arms and staring into its face as I was having it speak. She said, “I’m serious.” And the puppet said, “So am I. I don’t like it when you pull me so hard.” And when I wouldn’t make it move anymore, Kayla looked at me, with that face. This whole time we had been in the middle of a game with the group and Kayla was on the same team as her mom. I said as I had every other round, “Okay, Kayla, go tell your mom your answer. Go help your mom.” She just looked at me and shook her head (by now she was pretty much sitting in my lap) with that stern look. I asked her honestly, “You don’t want to play anymore?” And she shook her head. There was something in her look that made me look her straight on, “Kayla, what’s going on? Are you okay?” She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, thinking for a second, and then started to climb off me, saying, “I’m going to go tell Mommy.” Meaning, go tell Bethany Kayla’s answer to the next question.

It was strangely familiar, that feeling. That built up frustration that seemed to be coming out with her very overly smothering hugs and pulls and just taking everything to the extreme with this “inanimate” object; it all reminded me of me for some reason. Like something or some things that I did when I was younger: laugh at another’s pain and squeeze so hard in a hug and force food into something and telling objects (or sometimes real animals) to do something, and if it didn’t do it, or they didn’t respond, just getting SO frustrated and so angry and not knowing where all that anger was coming from. In some ways, it was a little scary, but at the same time revealing. Like Kayla in my life is reminding me of me, how I pretended to be animals and always wanted someone to pretend with me, or just to PLAY with. Someone who wouldn’t judge me or make fun of me, but do the same thing I did, or always enjoy doing what I wanted to do. Control issues, of course, seem to be what surface. So Kayla’s in my life right now. What will God teach me through her?

Today I spent some time with Chau, the starving dog in Segawa, just outside the school. I brought him all the meat I’ve acquired since Tuesday when I saw him last. And after school I gave him the kiwi I packed. Seriously that poor baby is boney as hell. Every time I see it, the dog dish is empty (the owner never gives him so much that he has abundance). After feeding him, he barked at me for a while, tried to chew my fingers (which had kiwi juices on them) and just yelped and whimpered. I was waiting for the bus and had left school a little early so that I could spend time with him (on the Fridays, the bus always comes a little later because Toshinobu-san picks up Sebastian from his middle school first. So, while I was waiting, I knelt down and spread out my jean skirt for Chau to lie on. He finally did. It was a sunny day, a bit warm. Probably a little miserable to a dog with a body full of fur. But he lay with his belly exposed and just let me pet him for a while. He’s really sweet, and his fur smells musky and it’s sticky (he’s probably never gotten a bath) and the stickiness is probably miserable to live with. It just makes me hate people. Just want to fucking kill them. I wish I could set him free, but he’s right by a road and I fear him getting run over. If there was some place he could live freely on farmland. There’s so much farmland around here, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t train dogs to hang within the borders and chase away pests or something, but to just let them have some fucking land, you know? Not a three-foot chain on their necks their whole lives. It’s fucking sad and I want to murder people. Not really, but you know what I mean? No one would want to live like that. And I see Chau on this chain all the time, and yes, I bring him food, and that’s great and all, but what is he living for? What great purpose has he? Life could be worse, yes, but how is it worth living in the current state? God, I just hurt so much and want to cry when I see him. I pray for him every time I with him, hanging out. I think of Jesus calming the storm every time Chau starts crying, barking when I’ve already giving him food and he’s begging for more when I’ve got nothing (today he started digging into my bag, where I’ve pulled out food before). I say, “Peace, be still.” And I pray that God bless him and protect him and give him a better life, etc. I see the effects of my actions in little pieces. Like today, the bus driver was talking with the Japanese kindergarten teacher (one always accompanies us on the bus ride out) Sanpei---

(By the way, this whole time I’ve been drinking what I think is a Chinese quince [whatever fruit that is] wine and have nearly finished the bottle. According to Yukari, I’m "very strong for alcohol." And she is too. It’s a game I like to play to see how well I can fake being sober. I spend four times the energy trying to pay attention. I think I’m better at paying attention when I’m drunk. Now, I’m not drunk yet, but I’m working on it. Why? Because I think it will help me sleep, and also, I just felt like becoming hammered. Does that make me an alcoholic? It’s weird but it helps me focus on just doing something. Like just typing a journal entry. And typing is a lot faster than writing. Unfortunately, it’s digital, so it could disappear into a puff of megabyte smoke and I’d never see it again. Oh, but I live life on the edge!)

--So, on the bus today we saw a tiny dog in the middle of the street. I was afraid it might get run over. I think it was full grown but it was so tiny that even though it was moving its legs very quickly, it wasn’t moving very fast. We saw it move into a store. It looked like a Scottish terrier. So then Sanpei asks me in Japanese if there are dogs that small in America. I affirmed it and also that there were dogs as large as so high (I demonstrated the height of a Great Dane, for example) and she was surprised. She asked me if I like dogs (this whole conversation is in Japanese, btw) and I affirmed that, too. Then the bus driver chimed in to say that the dog at Segawa (Chau) is always waiting for me. I think his point was to say that dogs like me too. She laughed happily. “So ka!” (“Is that so!”) And lo and behold, when we get to Segawa, Chau sees the bus and starts barking, running to the end of his three- foot leash, and jumping up on the metal rail. The bus driver and Sanpei start laughing at the adorable-ness of the situation.

I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m buzzed enough to admit that. I hear the song from South Pacific with the French guy and woman singing together and I want a fairytale story. “Some Enchanted Evening” reprise. I want so badly to sing in musicals and to live in those fantasy worlds of good always triumphing over evil and somehow everything turns out right. I want goodness to always win and for the righteous and loving people to escape the wrath of evil. “Once you have found him, never let him go,” the lyrics tell me. (Yeah I’m crying. I’ll blame that on the quince-酒, too). All right I’m off to finish the bottle. And by off, I mean two feet away to the fridge and maybe another fifteen feet to the toilet to piss.

Yukari was telling me how the boys in the ichi-nensei class were learning their numbers and how many of them where able to read the stuff already because of my lesson with the double and silent/magic “e,” i.e.: three, five, nine. She said it was all thanks to my teaching ( ☺ I’m so proud ^_^) . She and I had dinner last night. I made my Molten Not-Pele hot cocoa and then an imitation of sweets and beets while she made a whole Japanese-style meal for us and shared some fruit wines (similar to the stuff I’m on now) that her mother-in-law made from home. Really good stuff! And at the same time, we were listening to the Yoshida brothers in their Shamisen concert. It was awesome. They're so good, I want to get ジェッフ a DVD and hope he can play it on the PS2 since the DVD is region 2. I’m going to borrow Yukari’s DVD and try it out on my PS2 first. We had great conversations and I got to be the first person who’s seen her wedding pictures since they were published into this awesome book. She had pictures of their (honeymoon?) trip in France. They were there Christmas Eve and Day. They got some really sweet pictures of the Eiffel Tower with this misty, early-morning look with silhouettes of people in the foreground. REALLY cool pictures.

Okay, my hand’s bleeding, and I can’t figure out why (typing is much faster than writing). I just came back from the bathroom and tripped on the carpet on the way in here and gracefully stopped at the shoji, but maybe I caught it on something and just didn’t feel it until now. I don’t know.

She shared with me that when she wore a kimono during part of her wedding (she had three different outfit changes in the same day) that she had the sudden realization that it is because of the design of the kimono that women were not aloud or able to be as powerful as they are now with western clothing and behavior.--

(P.S. Someday, I will work with Danny Elfman, whose music I love with passion feelings. He KNOWS how to use the… saxophone, is it? That gentle wood-wind that is a little deep and sounds a little like a human voice. He used it in the nightmare before Christmas. His music is playing now in iTunes. That is why I think of it.)

--For example they aren't “allowed” to sit cross-legged (because technically you couldn’t when you wore a kimono) or walk with long strides because the kimono constricted/restricted that. One day, man. One day.... Power to the women people.

So this has been a very educational experience for me, at least, because when I’m sober I’ll be able to follow my track of mind and maybe even understand myself a little more by my tipsy rant. Admittedly, I wish I had some nice フェッロ to be drunk with. I think I officially finished the bottle just now. Kanpai. Banzai. And all that.