theres a thing i do when im in a quiet moment, where i touch the pads of my fingers to eachother in rhythm, in a pattern- odds connect, waterfall then evens connect, repeat. its always a pattern i can repeat. i think ive been at it ever since piano lessons at age 7, or so. it helps me reason all my things through.

I used to ride the train to school in the morning, to the next valley over. plenty of time to tap my fingers while i waited, plenty of time to think as well. all in all, it was about 10 minute bike ride from my house to the station, a 25 minute train, then a 25 minute walk to my school. so, adding this all up, we get an hour commute, but luckily, a good portion of it was outdoors.

i walked out a few days ago and had to come back inside to grab a sweater, to put under my jacket. that day, I was a wizened old man, blowing smoke rings of my own breath as i waited for the train. its getting colder outside.

i trained and walked most of the time with a girl, initially introduced to me as my host sister’s friend, named Erina. She’s shorter than i am, slight and quiet but polite. very japanese, you might even say. she got on the train a few stops before me, and we walked alongside until school. I made the effort to talk to her, as its a long way to go. morning is a good time to ponder, and i am fresh so always wanted to attack it, once more. maybe through conversation, ill get a better look at why, i think, because tapping my fingers and wondering takes me only so far.

while we walked early that morning down the main avenue of Matsumoto, i mentioned seifuku- the uniforms we all wear to school. Matsushou Gakuens consist of a red, green and gold tie with black checkered (plaid? perpendicular stripes? not very good at this game…) pants and a coat. most girl uniforms are made out to look like a sailor might have at some point, or as the formal navy uniforms go these days- a square piece of cloth folded over the back, and a skirt. (im pretty sure that the navy omits the skirt, though, and maybe the tights.) i asked her what she thought about them, but it was hard to get an answer, so i told her how i felt. I am not such a fan.
this is a pretty standard debate, i think i even saw it on the example japanese AP exam last spring when i was surfing the web. she tells me it saves time and money, which is true, she always knows what she is wearing the next day. she doesnt waste time pondering it. I guess she doesnt worry about rejection, either… women.
I thought- told her she was welcome to wear the same thing every day, but im sure plenty of people had other ideas, other things they wanted so they might feel differentiated. didnt they?

in japan, if you have something you want to say, you dont quite say it directly. I asked her how she felt about not having this ability, and she didnt think it was bad. in fact, she liked it better than the way i described america… but having only travelled to taiwan, on a school trip, hard to get the picture. i asked her if she felt silenced, but, being without extensive individual identity from the time of her birth, kept mostly inside the boundaries of ‘normal,’ she doesnt have much new to say… and she agreed with me on this. and i felt logically defeated.

i find it funny that english books treat me like hard drugs; Its my way of escape from things i hear. I tell myself im going to go a day without thinking in english, and i always come crawling back. i feel isolated, on the outside of whatever it is that everyone here is in on, and i come crawling back. ill pick up and read, then find myself lost and clueless for the next hour, trying to catch up with nagano slang- my old host family told me i needed to stop, when i told them about the effects on my language skills… i started to hoard them in my room. the closest thing i can get to a real book in japanese is a book for elementary schoolers, because it has the pronunciation of the chinese characters written in the columns, trailing top-down, right-left, the way they read over here.

and lately, im thinking really hard about starting a big, fat, padded volume. funnily, its all about addiction, or so ive been told.

there are things i cant prove or reason because my way of logic doesnt reach them. but others, in an odd way, finally reason themselves to me, and then a sick feeling of what reality might be clouds my vision, and i might sit down and read until i feel like coming out. I cant tell you directly why people everyday restrain themselves from their own freedom because of unwritten rules for slight reasons… it seems sometimes like society here is a separate plane, held up on stilts which we all support. i dont know why one would want to create a fake reality of rules and padded human experience. but then again, reality is full of pain, eh?

I planned on taking a shower tonight, so went in and stripped down to the greasy skin. it was cold like a bitch! i couldnt figure how to turn the hot water on, so i ended up washing my legs down with freezing water, then my hair and walking out because im sure this has been explained numerous times before and was too embarassed to ask. so now, my head is still recovering, middle is still greasy and feet are under the heated blanket we keep in the middle of the living room. I can only laugh, and i think naohiro might get the joke.
now, i have moved into my new host family and new environment. a senior friend from the weight room told me hed love to have me after i talked to him one night, and i have been here since that friday. my jolly, round mother and ex-sumo wrestler turned shy badass little brother were also glad to have me, welcomed me in. in 5 days, 3 trips to onsen hot springs; every night we talk about something, like jazz music, (the mom is a jazz vocalist, the passed away father was a drummer) origins of music, india, indian cuisine, the difference between american ‘indians’ and real, legit indians. i explained that columbus thought that america was india and therefore the scantily clad civilization he saw was full of indians… i always thought this was ridiculous, but they nodded and seemed to think it was a reasonable explanation. like that explained it all. ruined the damn punch line.

My new house is in the city of matsumoto, at the top of a hill on the outer edge of the valley, a 12 minute bikeride downhill with friggin freezing air pushing back my tufted hair. (i got a japanese hair cut, and naohiro showed me how to wax it up like a man.) its cold in the mornings, but at home with the heat turned on, naohiro, ryouhei and i walk around the house without shirts until bedtime.