Category Archives: Personal

Absence Makes the Heart Go Paranoid

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She Who Must Be Obeyed, being a mother, talks a pretty mean game: she doesn’t care about our oldest; she doesn’t care what our oldest does; she doesn’t care if our oldest eats or not; our oldest absolutely 100% does not need a phone.

Then our oldest goes to Tokyo for a concert and, She Who Must Be Obeyed being a mother, changes attitude.

Yesterday I wrote about how I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing today. Then, finally, today I learned what I’d be doing today. Our oldest’s friend didn’t cancel which meant my job amounted to going down to the Ex Theater Roppongi at about eight o’clock and escorting the two girls home.

However, this meant the two girls would be going to heart of the largest city in the world by themselves. I was like “That’s cool. As long as I don’t have to actually attend the concert.”

She Who Must Be Obeyed, however, suddenly was concerned about everything and even gave our oldest her phone in case of emergencies. I entered Standard Daddy Crisis Mode which translates roughly to “Don’t worry about it.” However, that was met with things like: “What if there’s an earthquake? There have been three this week.” “What if they get lost?” “What if they join a cult?” (Note: that last one was mentioned sometime today but I’m still not sure of the context.)

It was suggested that I escort them down (I suggested otherwise). It was suggested I follow and spy on them (Once again, I suggested otherwise). SWMBO then noticed the tickets required those under 18 to have adult permission (I suggested that an hour after the girls left was too late to worry about such things. I also suggested she call the theater and check on that).

Eventually I made it down to Roppongi and did some window shopping. (Shopping in Roppongi sucks and what doesn’t suck is expensive. It’s an entertainment district on a shopping district.) It was a pleasant evening and I ended up sitting on a bench and doing some writing and some people watching.

At eight I joined several parents who were also waiting for kids. At first I was concerned as several men about my age walked out but they seemed to have some sort of official status. Then droves of girls walked out and met the group of serious looking parents.

In the end everyone got home safely and, as near as I can tell, no one joined a cult.

Finding Out What You Know is Not What’s Known

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There are unkown knowns, known unknowns, unknown unkowns and the information dad gets. In many cases when you’re a dad the unknowns become known long after you thought you knew what was going on.

In my case, I still don’t know what’s going on. Many of the knowns are unknown and the knowns don’t make any sense.

I thought that tomorrow I would be escorting a pair of teenaged girls to the concert of some animated tv program theme song singer. My job, as I understood it, was to be on guard if the audience turned out to be a bunch of geeky men about my age. I was eventually informed that, no, the man was actually popular with teenage girls and other young women which meant I’d be leading two teenage girls to a concert where I was most likely going to be either barred from entering (Sir, someone your age clearly has no legal reason to be here so we’re walking you out) or arrested for trying to enter (Sir, someone your age clearly has no legal reason to be here so we’re walking you out.)

At best a lot of people would be playing “Daughter or Date?”.

Now, if I understand it correctly, my job is to go down to Roppongi, one of the main party areas of Tokyo and fetch the two teenage girls at the end of the concert ( 8-9 p.m.) and escort them home. This job, for the record, still doesn’t seem to keep me out of legal trouble.

Cop–What are you doing standing here foreign guy?
Me–Waiting for the concert to let out so I can pick up a couple junior high school girls.
Cop–Why don’t you take seat right over there?

That said, I still might be going to the concert. If our oldest’s friend cancels, I’ll be responsible for taking our oldest to the concert and bringing her home safely.

My job, though, is still unknown. The only thing I know is, I’m not a big fan of concerts.

 

Out of Habits and Back in Again

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I don’t know if it’s stress or the weather, but lately I’ve been falling out of habits.

I’m not falling back into  bad habits (although I do catch myself chewing my eponychium every now and then) I’m just suddenly not doing old ones. I’m also suddenly unable to start new ones.

For example, for over a year now I’ve been writing 10 ideas a day as part of daily practice to keep myself writing and, on occasion, come up with some good ideas. However, this week, and maybe because it’s June, I suddenly find myself three days behind my entries. What’s odd is this hasn’t been a result of procrastination–Look at notebook; I need to write my 10 ideas; I don’t feel like it right now; don’t write 10 ideas. Instead I haven’t been thinking about them at all. I only think about them when I see the notebook in the morning.

Similarly, this past week my daily log became a diary, which is exactly what I wanted to avoid when I started the project. Rather than make entries during the day I suddenly find myself making all the entries in the evening in one made rush. In fact, I’ll do that after I finish this post. I haven’t been checking the weather during the day and, by not making entries as I go, I find I use the same non-useful language for my entries. (Okay classes; Lazy evening; Etc.)

It’s the mindlessness of it that I find fascinating. Something I’ve done for several months suddenly doesn’t enter my thoughts. This blog remains a habit, although it’s crept back into the personal and focuses less on my hobbies, but I haven’t been able to move my writing time to a more reasonable hour.

It’s almost as if my psyche and my physical system both suddenly decided to reject the new habits by completely ignoring them.

This means tomorrow’s challenge is 30 ideas. If I think of it.

 

Shaken and a Bit Stirred

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We got a two earthquakes this evening in rapid succession. The first was kind of humorous. The second started scaring us.

I’ve written before about how we used to get enough earthquakes that we got complacent, at least until the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, which made us get a lot more serious about our emergency plans and preps.

However, after several months, the aftershocks stopped and my sense is that we’ve had fewer earthquakes. We occasionally get a good shaker, but they don’t impress anymore. In fact, there was one last week when I walking to the station. I didn’t notice it and wondered why all the trains were running several minutes late. I didn’t learn about the quake until I got home.

Tonight, though, we had a small one that my oldest and I noticed. We felt a little shaking and noticed the pull strings on the ceiling lights swaying. She Who Must Be Obeyed and our youngest quickly turned on the news. This is a normal reaction. If I even notice the earthquake, I act as if it’s perfectly normal that everything is wiggling and SWMBO gets very serious.

A few minutes later, we got a bigger one. This one caused the ceiling lights themselves to rock. It went on long enough that SWMBO and our youngest got in the doorway and even I got serious and started eyeballing our emergency kits. After a minute or so it stopped but we are suddenly much more cautious.

Lately, even Kansas and Oklahoma have been going through a cycle of quakes. Although it’s fashionable to blame Fracking, the truth is much more ominous: earthquakes are more common in the Midwest than people like to admit (note, the data in the link ends around 1972).

The bright side is, at least you don’t have to deal with volcanoes. Well, at least not right now.

 

The Best Laid Plans Abandoned Again

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I had a plan. Actually, I have a plan, and it’s a good plan except I’ve never been able to put it into action.

The plan is to write these posts earlier in the evening when I’m still feeling the effects of afternoon coffee and have the energy to dedicate to writing and editing, and to taking and editing photos if necessary. It’s all very simple and would allow me more time to read in the evening and get me away from screens before bed.

Unfortunately, that’s not always how things work out; or, more specifically, that not always how I work things.

First there’s the problem of working after work which is a difficult thing to do. My normal habit is to plop down at the computer and do absolutely nothing useful for an hour or so.

(Note: according to my definition “or so” can last anywhere from two hours up to several hours.)

If I’m really looking to waste time and or get frustrated at nothing, I might play a few matches or so in an online game. If the matches go well the “or so” might only be a half hour. If they don’t well, “or so” happens and I either play longer or rage quit. After rage quitting I might actually get some writing done, but none toward these posts.

Eventually we have supper and that’s followed by the nightly ritual of “Arguing With the Genius Teenager Who Knows Everything but Hears Nothing.” The arguments typically involve proper use of an Asus Tablet during study time. (Note: for me there is no proper use.) This typically ends in a victory for me but it’s annoying enough that I need to read something and end up putting off these posts.

Eventually I sit down to write these posts. That process involves 20 minutes or so of staring at the screen going “okay, so now what?” Eventually something gets written.

Next week the goal is to implement a new habit to write these posts earlier and then post them early.

It’s a good plan. The trouble is, it’s lot like all the ones that have come before. Also, I might have  a new, for me at least, Asus Tablet to play with and that could complicate things.

Every Day is Vaguely the Same

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If you ever want to verify that you need to shake things up in your life, keep a diary. If you want to make the sameness even more horrifying, try keeping a log in different colored inks.

I’ve mentioned before how I’m not a big fan of keeping a diary (with apologies to all my history professors who consider such items to be an important part of history which is why I hope historians will some day find my diary and wonder if I could actually fly) but have decided to experiment with keeping a daily log, where I record events and my thoughts on them soon after they happen. To do so, I use different colored inks for different events. Weather is usually done in Noodler’s Midway Blue and Apache Sunset and my morning routing and morning pages are done in either purple or green.

This not only gives the log some visual flair but also lets me test different inks and pens on the Muji paper.

Now, at four months of making regular entries, I’ve begun to notice flaws in the plan.

Part of the trouble is I only have a few inks. After several days, each page looks similar to the ones before and after and I even seem to dedicate the same amount of space to the same events, including meals and complaining about work. This means despite my efforts to make it interesting have instead made it kind of boring.

Also, because my work days don’t change much from week to week, it’s easy to fall into a foolish consistency in the way I describe them and complain about them. Classes are either crappy, ordinary bad, decent or better than normal. I’m wasting time, fretting over wasting time, writing about wasting time or, on occasion, actually doing something. It’s the same “Okay day” metronome click click click that made me stop keeping diaries in the first place.

Now, there are a few solutions to this:

A–Buy more ink.
B–Try different ways of keeping a log.
C–Both A and B.
D–A and B plus buy a new pen.
E–Abandon this and keep a calendar like a normal person.

As much as I should probably choose E and would like an excuse to choose D, I’m leaning toward C. I do like having a personal history on hand to occasionally peruse, but since the log is supposed to be an experiment, I’m feeling the need to shake it up a bit. No more descriptions of food, I’d rather draw what I ate. No more sloppy sketches of the weather, I’d rather make the sun into a character with regular expressions and a consistent look.

Hopefully, in four months, I won’t have chosen E, but there are days.

A Wedding with Bureaucracy but no Counselling

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Because of a wedding ceremony, my late grandmother left her church.

I’ve mentioned before how fifteen years ago She Who Must Be Obeyed and I had bureaucratic issues on the day we chose for our official wedding day. That was then followed by two more wedding ceremonies. The first ceremony, the one in the USA, had its own bureaucratic problems.

The original plan for the US wedding was reasonably simple. We’d play dress up and rather than a ceremony there’d be a reception, cake, presents, and sparkling wine of some sort. However, one relative or another insisted we be married in a church even though we were already married.

This seemed like a simple idea, and even I thought it was a good idea, but the Lutheran church involved wasn’t as impressed. They insisted we go through wedding counseling with representatives from the church. This counseling could be done in Japan with a local representative but SWMBO and I would be required to go through individual counseling not couple’s counseling. After my mom explained this my reaction was, and I believe this was a direct quote, “No fucking way.”

After washing my mouth out with soap at my mother’s insistence (as a requirement for continuing the conversation/remaining her son) I explained that all they were trying to do was convert SWMBO. I’ve been subjected to a religious “intervention” before (it’s part of the reason I’m more a supporter of religion than churches–more on that in another post.) and I wasn’t going to let that happen to SWMBO especially as we were already married.

After much negotiation on the US side of the issue, my grandmother threw her hands up and said “fuck this” (knowing her, she probably actually said that) and stopped going to that church.

Instead we went to a Methodist church where the pastor did everything she could (not a typo) to make sure we and She Who Must Be Obeyed’s family were taken care of.

No counseling was required, although there are days I think it might have been a good idea…

NOTE: Correction 5/27/2015. Originally stated we went to a Lutheran church when, in fact, it was a Methodist church.

There’s a First Time for Everything

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It’s very rare that I find myself feeling relaxed after a school event, but today was one of those rare days. Today was sports day at our youngest’s school and it was remarkable for a series of firsts.

First, I somehow managed to get through a sporting event without getting angry. This is partly because, for the first time ever, I didn’t encounter any aggressive jerks or assholes. I’m not sure why this was, but the weather was almost perfect. It was 27 Celsius (81 Fahrenheit) and not humid at all. This made people more relaxed and calm, I suspect.

Second, for the first time ever, at any school I’ve been to in Japan, the schedule ran on time. Lunch started when it was supposed to and ended when it was supposed to In fact, things were moving so swiftly, I almost didn’t make it back from lunch in time to see our youngest take part in the Typhoon Race (which involves four people carrying a pole around a couple cones and then under and over everyone else on the team. Long story.) I’d budgeted for the usual “Well get there eventually” schedule and arrived fashionably late only to find out I was actually late.

Third, our youngest was chosen to design the flag for her class. This is also the first year the classes had flags.

The flag our youngest designed.

The flag our youngest designed.

Fourth, it was a close contest. For those who don’t know, on sports day the school is divided into the Red Team and the White Team. (Our youngest was on the white team.) Everyone competes in the events and the teams earn points based on how they place in the events. (Some events are individual, some are team events.) The prize is a trophy and bragging rights. This year the white team won by only 20 points. This, I believe, is the closest contest I remember.

The final results at the top. Red 660. White 680. (Notice our youngest's flag on the left.)

The final results at the top. Red 660. White 680. (Notice our youngest’s flag on the right, second from the top.)

Fifth, our youngest, for the first time ever, won her heat in the 80 meter dash. (Each class is divided into heats and the winners of each heat get a red ribbon and their team gets points.) Our youngest traditionally has not done well in the running. Last year she was second; this year she won, although she still has a bad habit of slowing down before the tape instead of running through it.

Our youngest crossing the tape. (After slowing down, of course.)

Our youngest (left) crossing the tape. (After slowing down, of course.) She just edged out a red team member.

After the Typhoon Race, our youngest watches the pole pass over everyone. You can see the red ribbon on her shoulder.

Our youngest in a later event. You can see the red ribbon of victory pinned to her shoulder.

Now we get five months to rest before our oldest’s school has her sports day. I usually don’t get angry during that one. (More on that in a future post.)

 

Vintage Things and the Dregs of Someone Else’s Past

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Someone, I think it was Brad Dowdy the Pen Addict, said he wasn’t particularly interested in vintage pens because there were too many new pens worth having and they didn’t require any special care.

I recently bought a vintage Pilot Capless and although I like it, I’m beginning to come around to the Pen Addict’s point of view. Sort of. I think there are a couple problems with vintage pens.

First, it bothers me that something only a couple years older than I am is considered vintage.

Second, unless they’ve been cleaned carefully, they come with problems that most new pens don’t have. (There are exceptions, but more on those in another post.) In the case of my Pilot Capless I gave it a good water flush right after I bought it and then inked it up with Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-Shikubu, a purple ink that’s reasonably safe for using in any and all fountain pens.

At first I was impressed with the pen. It has a Fine nib which is smaller than I’m used to, but it wrote well. In fact, it worked great right up until the moment it didn’t. Half way through a set of morning pages it suddenly went dry. I emptied it out and soaked it in cleaning solution for several hours and then tried inking it again.

Once again, it worked well until it didn’t. I also noticed the purple ink had developed a noticeable blue-black tinge. This led to me cleaning it out again and letting it soak for 24 hours in cleaning solution. The results were kind of gross. By morning a layer of crud from past owners had formed in the bottom of the ink bottle I use as a cleaning glass.

This is gross but I've been told drinking it will give me super powers.

This is gross but I’ve been told drinking it will give me super powers.

Now, it’s been dried and inked and seems to be writing well. The blue-black tinge is gone and it has better flow.

We’ll find out for sure tomorrow, though, when I attempt morning pages with it. If it goes dry halfway through, there will be swearing.

This has led me to be more skeptical of buying vintage pens. That said, I may leave a not with Mr. Fujii at Euro Box to let me know if any more vintage capless pens appear in this store.

 

 

Abandoning that Paper Thing and Hoping the Batteries Last

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Well, maybe it was a waste of time after all.

I’ve written before about my odd (to most normal people) habit/hobby of constructing my own analogue calendars, entering the dates by hand and then crossing off the days as I go along. It takes a couple hours of work (plus or minus several minutes of swearing at various complications) to get it more or less how I want it.

Have fun now, because your days are probably numbered. No pun intended.

Have fun now, because your days are probably numbered. No pun intended. (No, really, they are numbered.)

Normally I carry it around and scribble To Do lists and random daily tasks and record correspondence and then use it as reference to remind me where I was and when. In the past I also kept all my calendars as a reference.  For the record, on one occasion I actually had to refer to them to establish the most likely possible day the term would end and summer would begin allowing a colleague to make travel plans. (Therefore hoarding, for want of a better word, is good. Hoarding  works.)

I also mentioned, though, that I’d also started using Google Calendar as a back up.

The trouble is, this year, I’ve been using the back up more than the analogue version. I can use it on my phone and my tablet and can use it on different browsers. It’s easy to change and I can make corrections without having to track down some correction tape. and leave evidence of my mistakes everywhere.

Lately, the analogue calendar has been carried but not consulted. Every now and then I remind myself to look through it and cross off the days, but that doesn’t inspire me to use it.

I’m now at the point where I’m ready to pull it apart and salvage what I can. (I can also just turn it backwards and upside down and use it for morning pages.) I am, however, struggling with the sunk cost fallacy. which in my case can be summed up as “I made the thing and even though I don’t use it I have to carry it so that didn’t waste my time making it even though I don’t use it because carrying it is symbolic of me having made it to use even though I don’t use it.” Something like that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to enter the destruction date in my Google Calendar. I just hope the batteries last in my phone.