This entry is an update. I told someone recently that I couldn't really write lately, said, it just comes and goes, you know? Just haven't been in the mood... I have no real way to predict its entrances or exits. Writing has always been improvisational to me. The inspiration is something that possess me rather than I it. It comes for me when it is ready and leaves me as it pleases. However, I enjoy writing and never worry much when it goes because it always comes back. And so I admit, I have been a little without words lately (no decent reason) but for the purpose of this blog and the virtue of exercise, I will attempt to extemporize here. 

Here in Shizuoka, Japan seems to have achieved an extended fall, just the thing I love in weather patterns! Its is perpetually 50 or so degrees during the day/in the 40's at night and though sometimes rainy, something is managing to keep winter at bay and also on the downside, the monkeys in the mountains. I have heard rumors that once it gets really cold, the monkeys who live in the surrounding mountains sometimes come into town and take what they please for food. The idea of errant monkeys looting markets and convenient stores sends my mind swimming. And although I have been asking everyone about it, almost no one cares to engage me. I sincerely cannot imagine why. They all act kind of blase about it. 

The weather is just enough for all my favorite layers but not so much that I cant still take long walks or have weekend beers in the park, where I take a blanket with me for my lap and imagine this is what it feels like to go to football games. Only lately I try my best not to talk to people.  Two weeks ago I met a Canadian in the park or rather a Canadian met me, and for all my resisting to speak to him, he wouldn't give it up with the chipper and cheerful anecdotes and questions so eventually I gave in and actually allowed myself to enjoy his company. We bought shochu from plastic jars at the convenient store and he showed me how he mixes it with juice, right in the box.  He bought me a 78 yen curry bun and told me where to find the cheapest food in town and also how to sneak past the guards at the train station if I'm short on cash. As we sat shivering on separate benches late at night in the park, feasting on convenient store food and drinking cheap liquor from a juice box I had this vision of myself as some little homeless girl or rather the outcast foreigner, the stranger in a strange land. It was like this guy was showing me the ropes. Sounds a little weird right. Maybe it was the fingerless gloves he was wearing or more than likely the alcohol because a few days later on our way home from work, Andrew and I ran into him. He chatted us both up for a little too long and after he left Andrew called him sticky. Andrew was certainly right but all in all the guy is harmless, just a little eager, maybe a little lonely but nonetheless quite knowledgeable about the city. Perhaps he's lived here too long. By the end of our evening together he only wanted talk about how awesome Bruce Springsteen is and which Pink Floyd album is my favorite. I finished my juice box and politely said goodnight. In his defense, he put me hip to a tiny little market which sells real coffee, real cheap and also pointed me in the direction of a bike shop where a girl speaks English. My bike is out of commission recently and I am meaning to get it fixed. I am totally on foot these days save for when I beg, borrow or steal Andrew's bike. After we ran into said Canadian again the very next night and he eagerly told us he usually takes that route into town, Andrew and I privately agreed we should start taking a new route home. 

I feel really lucky for Andrew because except for him and the German, every other foreigner I've met here is, well, frankly a little annoying. They are mostly just a little off, creepy, nerdy or smelly. Though to be fair, you could easily describe me in those terms, some days. Anyway, Andrew gets me and shares my sense of humor. Though we don't really have much in common save for making jokes about school, there is definitely plenty of material there. And even though we don't usually hang out outside of school, he is easily my best friend in Japan, I only have 3. Yuji is pretty amazing as well, he got me a thermos for my birthday!  "I'm picking out a thermos for you..." Last weekend it was my birthday and Andrew took me out to a lovely little place around the corner from our building. The place is called Cham and I guess it was one of the first places I inquired to him about when I got here. And while I don't remember that per se, I do know I have wanted to go there since basically day one. Dinner was wonderful and Cham might just be the best place we've discovered yet. All natural and everything house made, we were both really impressed. House made tofu and a salad of exotic steamed vegetables that I haven't stopped craving. A few weeks ago we also went out for Thai food and noticed a distinct flavor of mayonnaise in the pad thai. Japanese people love mayo for some reason. Eww, what is that? 

A few weeks ago I was really restless. Perhaps this has something to do with my writing. I was bored and felt guilty for being lazy, felt like I was slacking on all my goals. I guess I was preoccupied and lost sight a little of the big picture. I was in a slump. I had nothing going on and everyone around me seemed busy. After a week or so of this, I had a talk with myself. Grow up, pull yourself together, stop moping. If you are bored or restless, do something about it. I knew damn well it was no one's problem but my own. So after a refresh of perspective, I am back. I am studying Katakana. Now, I can recognize a few characters in the Katakana alphabet, though still not enough to read but I am on my way! If I practice a little each day--or each week I should be in good shape to read the menus in the airport by the time my contract is up. I am exaggerating. IF I study, I should be able to read Katakana in a few weeks. It's the easiest alphabet to decipher that the Japanese use. As a kid, I distinctly remember learning to read and how exciting it was as words came alive to me before my very eyes. Suddenly there was new meaning in everything I looked at. The world opened up to me. I remember reading everything and marveling that while I may not know the meaning of all words, at least I could read them! It didn't last long because pretty soon, reading was easy, second nature and there was no longer a trick to it And though reading fast became an obsession and more a life long compulsion, the novelty did not last. I want that again. I think Katakana will give that to me, it has already started to. Also I have made arrangements for a membership at the hot yoga studio in town (just in time for winter)! I am writing more letters, taking longer walks, waking up earlier.  I know it doesn't sound like much and truly it's not but more or less it was the perspective shift that was in order. I am a big fan of the perspective shift change game. It seems almost anything is possible there. And so currently, the little things are making me very happy all over again. I take super hot baths with fancy peppermint bath salts, read good books in the tub, wear my new big glasses with hair pinned up. I still visit the beach at least once a week and my time there is without question, invaluable. I feel a relationship with the water and have even made a few local friends who happen walk their dogs at the same time each week that I visit the sea. One old man in particular speaks to me every week and every week I re-establish with him that I cannot speak or understand Japanese. Still he chats at me and now I just agree with him wholeheartedly (whatever he is saying). I know enough Japanese to agree. I figure he is saying things like, "isn't it a lovely day" or "water's sure pretty today, eh..." Any rate, I look forward to seeing him there each Tuesday. Also on Tuesdays as I approach the Mochimune train station to head back to school from the company lesson there is a man who stands just outside the turn-style drinking a beer, near the vending machines. He clearly has some kind of mental disability. Each week as people enter the station to depart he waves at them and repeatedly yells a cheery, "bye-bye!" to all who pass him. Everyone ignores him and maybe even seems a little embarrassed by his presence but I have always returned his farewells with just as many chipper bye-byes as he gives me. Besides, who else is talking to me? In my mind he is the "bye-bye guy" and along with "dog walking guy," I also look forward to seeing him each week. Recently I made a breakthrough with the Bye-Bye guy. Before he was saying "bye-bye, bye-bye" over and over as I approached the station but once I entered my fare and was inside the station, I was some kind of defunct departure to him. I could still see and hear him clearly (the station is open air, no walls) but he would not turn to look towards me, never looking inside the station. Not that I really crave his attention, it was just something that I noticed. He never waved to people inside the station.  Inside is where it's at if you're trying to say farewell. That's what done there, people leave. Well. A few weeks ago, after returning his bye-byes outside the station for more than six months, we crossed over. And now even once I am inside the station, he'll bat a few "bye-byes" my way. He even waved to me last week once I was on the departing train and I could see him saying, "bye-bye!" 

I am over here making connections left and right.