Category Archives: Life and Stuff

Remember, Remember the 26th to 27th of January(er)

Leave a reply

Any careful consideration of the facts will indicate that I am mostly likely cursed in 2017.

Not doomed, mind you. Cursed. Or maybe I’m just getting the cursiness out of my system early.

In the past 24 hours I’ve lost a job along with a couple thousand dollars and our oldest has been diagnosed with the flu.

Then, this morning, my long suffering Epson printer died (it has been promising this death for a few weeks but today it was really REALLY serious about dying). (Note: the printer is older than our youngest.) My computer has been acting up and our car has both been acting up and been recalled. (Well, actually parts of it were recalled a long time ago, but, well, She Who Must Be Obeyed.)

I then had to sit down and finish one last assignment for my fourth job, but discovered that my memory stick had been corrupted and that the only thing that had been corrupted was the folder I needed to work on. Luckily I didn’t need the past grades and was able to download the students’ paragraphs again. (My procrastination actually worked in my favor as I hadn’t actually done any marking yet which meant I didn’t have to mark anything twice.)

Oh, then I got a migraine. Now it’s bedtime. Luckily we sleep on a futon on the tatami floor so I can’t fall out of bed.

Lots of stuff to step on and trip over, though.

 

 

Revolving Sushi and Birthday Girls

1 Reply

We went to a sushi restaurant tonight, but not because the birthday girl wanted to. In fact, she technically wasn’t invited.

Last week our oldest managed to get herself grounded. Grounding however, is not as easy to do as it sounds as going to school requires her to go out and her club often keeps her late which makes a fixed early curfew difficult to enforce; the public transportation system makes it easy for her to get around without a vehicle; and because of the Japanese New Year’s money tradition, combined with being one of only two grand kids/nieces, she has a shockingly large slush fund at her disposal.

Now, in a different world, we’d force her to stay home from club, but that would cause both her and us problems with the school. The slush fund has cost her an allowance until she turns over a chunk of the money to be saved. We tried to get the family to play along with a plan to save most of the money but “oldest of only two grandchildren” ensued.

All this has led to frequent arguments between our oldest and She Who Must Be Obeyed. (Argument, in this case meaning: SWMBO rants whilst our oldest listens to music via headphones.)

Adding further complications, our oldest declared she wanted neither presents nor cake nor a special dinner for her birthday. She only wanted cash. SWMBO obliged her by doing nothing for her birthday. Instead, she let our youngest choose the restaurant.

I invited our oldest along and paid for everything. We all managed to have a good time, even if it, technically, wasn’t a proper birthday dinner.

Our oldest is doing dishes for a month and I’ve set a hard curfew. I’ve been putting off the nuclear option: seizing her smartphone and holding it hostage in a bank bag and/or just cancelling the plan. (The latter is problematic, as it is nice to be able to spam her phone with texts and calls when she’s out.)

Now we have six months to prepare for our youngest’s birthday. She’s perfecting her backtalk techniques. Actually, she’s perfected them, so our oldest may get to choose the restaurant next time.

Sweet Sixteen, indeed.

 

A Pleasant Day, with Pain

Leave a reply

By all accounts, it was a perfect day, then it wasn’t, but it wasn’t that bad.

First I got a proper eight hours of sleep and woke up do gorgeous weather. (The Tokyo area, in general, has the Season of Static this time of year, but it’s still pretty awesome.)

Then, I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in two years and we immediately fell into old habits as if he hadn’t been away. Then I went down to Tokyo for my evening class and had a coffee before heading to the school.

On the way to the school I bought supper. Something didn’t feel right but I figured it was because I hadn’t had my traditional Train Nap (more on that in another post). Then, right as I say down to eat I got my migraine spot.

I popped a couple extra-strength something-or-other (the medicine’s scientific name) and drank more coffee. After pondering a short nap, I started class and as the medicine set in things went well. I was pleased to see my two shyest students rock their speeches, but that may have been a migraine medicine induced hallucination.

Luckily I caught the faster train home. Now it’s time for bed.

Papa’s Got a Brand New Mixed Bag

Leave a reply

Every now and then I couldn’t come up with a single coherent topic and I would instead resort to random aphorisms, observations and questions. — Your Humble Blatherer in Editorials and Litigious Leisure

Random bits today as lots of random stuff happened.

–Spent the morning watching a student write a make-up exam. The exam was three writing questions that, if done perfectly, would force him to write over 600 words. In the end, he only wrote 300 words, but by colossal coincidence, that equals the lengths of the two speeches he didn’t write or do last term. This, of course, means the test worked perfectly.

–While my student was working, I was doing my daily 10 Ideas, which has now been relegated to a smaller notebook, and then wrote extra ideas, and then switched notebooks where I wrote out notes for some upcoming posts on this site. They included my Sinclair Seven (now modified and including a plus one); my stationery  confessions; my Top Five pens (of various sorts) and my 2017 pen and stationery related resolutions. (More on all these, of course, in upcoming posts.)

–The afternoon was spent marking paragraphs from different students and deciding appropriate punishments for our oldest. (Long story involving grandparents, concerts, skipping school, bullet trains and Osaka.) The big fight was saved until after supper.

–Some where in there I took some pictures for future blog posts and sorted through a bunch of crap as part of some belated soot brushing. I have camera gear to trade and ink to sell. I also have a bunch of notebooks to dispose of somehow, someway. My long unused karate gear is still mocking me, even though I’ve somehow taught myself not to see it as little more than a ghost in the corners of my eyes.

–I also have work to worry about and more marking to do. I also have a grounded teenager to deal with, especially as I think she’s about to make the mistake of calling my bluff. (More on that in a future book…)

Breaking the Log But Maybe Not the Habit

Leave a reply

It was a good idea, I suspect, at the time, but now, I suspect, it’s not and have decided to stop.

Two years ago, in a fit of something-or-other (a technical term) I decided to keep daily log in which I tracked, at various points during the day, where I was, what I was doing, and how I was feeling. I drew pictures of key events as if I was looking over my own shoulder and also tracked the weather and, eventually, my meals by drawing pictures of them. It was an excuse to use up notebooks and ink and test pens.

The first year, I carried the log around with me which, quite frankly, is exactly the point of the log. Stopping to record what I was doing was fun, but it was a lot of dead weight. The second year I changed notebooks but left it at home, turning it into more of a diary.

The second year, I would fill out the morning weather and offer a summary of how I was feeling in the morning. When I got home after my day job I would summarize the day at that point and then record my lunch and the weather. Later, reasonably close to bed, I would summarize the evening and the day and, as I had in the first year, draw a few key events as if I was looking over my own shoulder.

After a couple weeks, I started adding color to the events and, a few days later, to the food and started keeping track of what I was wearing. Sort of.

The first color picture in the log.

A couple weeks later, I wore my Kansas State University sweatshirt and was still adding color to the events. Note: those are beans flying at my head, not bullets. Also, those are costume ogre horns, not my natural, undisguised appearance.

Although I kept up the daily habit of keeping up the log, I missed the immediacy of having it with me. I also felt as if my entire system had a lot of moving parts, even if one of those parts stayed on my desk. By the end of the year, the log felt more like the annoying paperwork in a job than a fun activity.

As such, I’ve started carrying a different kind of planner and, knowing me, will probably turn it into a portable mini-log. I did find it was interesting to see what I was wearing from day to day, especially on work days. A friend of mine used to plan out his entire wardrobe for the semester based on the theory that students change their opinion of you if they see you wearing the same outfit.

I’ll also probably keep track of the weather and maybe my wardrobe, but I’m more interested in recording what I accomplish during the day versus what I planned.

This will probably be ugly, though. Interesting, but ugly (more on all this in a future post).

Getting Home Eventually in Time

Leave a reply

We got home, but our bullet train was a lot slower than I was expecting. Somehow, though, we didn’t have a lot of time.

Because it was part of the bi-annual U-turn rush here in Japan, we ended up with some odd trains and little time to catch them, which meant we didn’t have time to buy snacks and drinks–which meant my girls stopped to buy snacks and drinks–but we made our one connection.

Unfortunately our bullet train was a “slow” one that stopped at every stop, including several at places that don’t seem to actually exist, and then lingered several minutes at each stop so the actual bullet trains could pass.

Then we exited the station at the wrong exit which meant we couldn’t find the treats we were looking for. (Note: one side of Omiya Station is awesome. The other side sucks.)

Then we got home and enjoyed the biannual tradition of She Who Must Be Obeyed being horrified by the state of the apartment. (Note: she does this even when we travel together.) (Note the Second: The bear wasn’t my fault.)

Now, we’re settling back into our normal patterns, for better and for worse, but at least we’re home.

 

Rudeness is as Rudeness Does

Leave a reply

It says a lot about Japan that the most uncivil things I saw today were actually quite minor. One shocked She Who Must Be Obeyed, and the other involved coffee.

Oddly, although I was also involved, I was not the biggest problem.

As is our tradition for each New Year’s holiday, we had a huge dinner with the entire clan of immediate in-laws and then, after the oldest brother ran away as fast as he could, the rest of us went shopping.

This involves droves of people and traffic, but luckily we’ve missed most of the fukubukuro fighting so we were safe.

At lunch though, we chose the busiest restaurant, and as I was bringing my double espresso back from the drink bar, a woman decided to spread her wings and spun into my cup. This I could have forgiven but her attitude was less than apologetic, which is unusual for Japan, so I got grumpy for minute. Oddly, though, I was able to move on fairly quickly, which is unusual for me.

Then, after we all separated—our girls having been dumped off on the youngest in-law and her husband—She Who Must Be Obeyed and I did some shopping. As we were heading back to the car to head home, we witnessed one of the rudest things we’ve seen in Japan (at least that didn’t involve riding on the train).

An elevator full of parents and kids in carts began to empty while a young couple with a stroller and an older couple with a couple small bags waited. It took the parents and kids in carts a long time to exit, prompting the older man to push his way on the elevator. Then, when the last cart was gone, the old man closed the door in front of the young couple with the stroller. The young man tried to push the button, but it was too late. He and his wife both looked surprised, as they had, technically, been at the front of the line.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I both muttered something along the lines of “What an asshole” and it was our topic of conversation all the way back to the car. In the asshole’s defense, the young father should have pushed the button as soon as people started getting off the elevator. Also, as rude things go, it wasn’t that bad, but by Japan’s standards, it was rude.

The most shocking thing was that I didn’t do anything that could be considered rude. I even apologized for being bumped. And I didn’t swear. Much. At least not loudly.

New Year’s Planner Planning

1 Reply

Although it may seem crazy to so-called normal people, pen/stationery addicts understand the necessity of deciding your new year’s carry before New Year’s Day. They also understand the idea of “your carry”.

So-called normal people use a smart phone app or a portable calendar or, in a really risky stretch, they write in the squares on calendars that hang on the wall. They also have the crazy notion that “you should just use the system you used last year.”

Pen/stationery addicts, on the other hand, find this crazy. They have a lot of stuff they need to use, even as they acquire new stuff, and this inspires them to try different things each year. Variety. Spice of life. Etcetera.

In my case, I’ve decided to abandon the daily log that resides on my desk (more on that in a future post) for something more portable. I’ve also decided to abandon a scratch planner that I carry both as a justification for owning my Old Church Works Quad Cover and as a way to use up notebooks.

Instead I’ve acquired a smaller Hobonichi Techo that will serve as my planner and log and I am trying to figure out way to use the pages I didn’t use in its larger cousin (aptly named Cousin).

I’ve also decided to switch my daily 10 Ideas to a random Field Notes notebook or a similar sized notebook from a different maker. That will go in my OCW cover along with my food log, my random notes notebook, and the “book bible” for my latest project. This might give me four notebooks in the cover, which will make it fairly thick, but will give me something to write about in the future.

My other goal is to limit my goals in the new year. I have a couple projects to finish before I worry about other projects. Any attempts at multitasking have, of late, led to paralysis and that will change.”

Along the way I’m looking or ways to use up notebooks. I’ve already passed a few on to the girls whilst trying to encourage them to find ways to use them.

I’ll give specific details on all this in the future. Until then, there are notebooks to assemble.

There’s also a business to formalize or simplify. I’ll need a notebook to help me think about
that, though. I’ll have to decide if I’ll use one I have on hand or if I’ll have to buy a new one.

That makes sense to pen/stationery addicts but so-called normal people may find it crazy.

The Year That Was , for Better and for Worse

Leave a reply

The saddest part of 2016 was watching my friends and family lose their minds and not being able to do much to help them. Then there was that other thing.

One of the advantages of living overseas during a year like 2016, especially when you lack faith in government, is you don’t understand what the fuss is about. This is partly because you aren’t subject to the masterful emotional manipulation of the US press. Because of this, to me, 2016 wasn’t that bad of a year.

Granted, some celebrities I liked died, but that happens every year, especially as I get older, but they were hardly saints and the world will move on without them whilst their work remains available. I started getting worried, though, when a friend fretted that two singers had died but a politician he didn’t like was still living. (Note: not the president-elect. At that time.) That was the first time I got mad about it. At another point I had to defend one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons—who’s had movies made about him—after a colleague called him an idiot. I didn’t even support him; I just don’t like the name calling and snark that masquerades as political discussion now.

In fact, I’ve had more productive debates with Christian fundamentalists than I’ve had with political extremists of all stripes because the Christian fundamentalists never threatened to send me to hell and never called me names. They were more interested in winning recovering fundamentalist, agnostic me over to their side.

Then, the US election became a battle between, in my mind, two questionable Democrats, one disguised as a Republican and one with dozens of psychologists helping manipulate voter emotions, and things got really sad.

Because I’m both agnostic nationally and a “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” kind of guy at all times—every president since, and including, Ronald Reagan has expanded government, engaged in questionable wars and, with one exception, either signed or promised to sign anti-firearms legislation—I found the entire spectacle both amusing and disturbing.

The most interesting part was watching the so-called mainstream media collapse and desperately grasp at “fake news” accusations whilst praising self-identifying fake news purveyors such as John Stewart and John Oliver. It was sad to see emotion trump, er, um, dominate reason, on all sides. The hypocrisy was strong on all sides, too.

As always, we got the leaders we deserve, regardless of what we think we want. (Note the Second: I didn’t vote this year, as there were no suitable candidates, even in the Libertarian party, and I was pretty sure how my home state was going to vote. I was right, of course.)

As for me, it was a strange year. Turning 50 left more marks than I expected and I’m still feeling a bit rudderless. I’ve been distracted of late and have been caught in the “planning but not doing” phase of many projects (aka the Old Normal). I’ve also been stuck in the phase of knowing what to do but not doing it.

Our oldest turns sixteen in a couple weeks and chose physics as her general course which means the most help I can offer is “study harder”, “learn math gooder”, and “put your damned phone away”. Our youngest is a tween and almost as tall as She Who Must Be Obeyed and is working on improving her teen attitude/brain damage. I’m currently working four jobs, including one I can do at home. (This is a lucrative distraction, but is still a distraction.)

That said, I feel in pretty good shape as 2017 starts. I still floss regularly, and I’m still out of debt. The ink business is stagnant during the winter because of freezing temperatures and physics, but a friend has challenged me to pull the trigger on things I’ve been postponing. Not sure I will, but the challenge is there.

I’m still writing stuff. More or less. This bit of blather will face a few changes in the future, but more on that in a future post. I’m also going to be seeking out a few dependable beta readers.

All the best to everyone on 2017. Happy new year from Japan.

Travel on Trains With Men in White

Leave a reply

All things considered, I was surprisingly calm, even as I was kicking foreign tourists out of our seats.

Along the way I ate hot dogs (carbs) and saw a character who has to appear in a novel some day.

Today our oldest and I traveled to my in-laws. The prep for that involved denial, folding, washing, waiting, and several “where are you?” texts.

Our oldest had a “school related event” that didn’t involve her school uniform and She Who Must Be Obeyed didn’t know about it so that leaves me going “Hmmmm”. However, she did make it back in time for her to pack and for us to catch our train. (We even took a selfie, of sorts, modified with Prisma.)

S and I on the bullet train to Itoigawa. #fakeart #playswithcamera

A photo posted by DL (@d.e.lively) on

She Who Must Be Obeyed, for her part, made several calls confirming that we were packed and ready to travel and aware that today was the day we were supposed to travel. I, being in an oddly relaxed mood (more on that in a future post) resisted torturing her by saying things such as “I thought we were traveling tomorrow” and “what daughter?” and by not pretending I’m worried that I didn’t turn off the kerosene stove. Oh, and I paid that homeless guy and his friends a bunch of cheap booze to house sit.

Our trip was on the new Hokuriku Shinkansen which runs from Tokyo to Kanazawa with a stop at Itoigawa, which is now the township where I used to live (a long story involving government and mergers).

Because it was late in the New Year’s season, we ended up with an oddly complicated trip. Our train stopped at Nagano, but not at Itoigawa. This meant we had to change trains, which, luckily, merely meant a walk across the platform.

However, when we boarded our first bullet train, there were people in our seats. I politely pointed this out, and the people, who were Asian but spoke neither Japanese nor English gave us the seats, but seamed annoyed. (Note: the train was a very rare reserved seats only train.)

(Note the Second: By colossal coincidence, SWMBO and our youngest had people in their seats when they traveled, too.)

Luckily, one us remained awake so that we could change trains at Nagano. Then, at the end of our ticket, there was a mad rush through the suddenly large and confusing Itoigawa Station, but we managed to get tickets for the local train to Nou Machi (which, oddly, we had already passed in the bullet train) but we got tickets and got on the train.

On the train, a single car with only a driver, was man with gold hair. He was wearing a white suit, a white mask and blue Oakley sunglasses. If he’s mafia or a host, he’s very low class because he’s forced to take the train. Either way, he occupied four seats and seemed to be struggling to stay awake.

Now I’m at the in-laws sipping Japanese whisky and wondering how I remained calm through all this. I’m also wondering how to work the man in white into a story.