Entries this day: Dream Imagined_conflicts Work bullet_train

Dream

8:46am JST Thursday 1 May 2003

I had come back to the US and was at Maggie's house. She lived in a set of condominiums and the pizza guy who was her friend came to deliver a pizza to some people at the pool, but the pool was closed and he had no way to know who had been there, nor where they were now. So he asked if Maggie would take the pizza, which she did, but she wrote a note with her umbrella in the cheese, like she drew a pictogram of the people at the pizza place telling him "Go take this pizza to the pool" and then him at the pool encountering a "POOL CLOSED" sign. Pretty effective for a cheese drawing.

Maggie and I were chillin' on the bed and were beginning to be affectionate and then were like "whoops! can't do that!" and I went home.

I came home to a big house and needed to throw away parts of a sandwich. I went outside to throw it out and I saw a half dazed crow outside the back porch kinda leaning against the wall like it was sick. It turned out to be a half cat half crow. Like cat body and face but little wing nubs and a beak. Very weird.

The back yard sloped downward steeply away from the house, so when I looked out into the forest, it was into the forest of branches with tree trunks below my line of vision, not into a forest of tree trunks with branches above. At my eye level, discarded and caught by the trees and beginning to rust and merge with the environment was an entire passenger train. I could only imagine the previous owners of this house we were in would be surprised to see this new addition to the back yard.

I was living with Rie (or was it Koko) and I asked her if she had a camera so I could take a picture of the crow-cat. She did and I gave her a one armed hug from behind.

Imagined conflicts

10:18am JST Thursday 1 May 2003

Sometimes I run scenarios through my head, imagined conflicts that I think might happen and get my brain fully "prepared" to engage - practicing what I'll say if s/he says this, or if he says that... how I can defend myself and prove that I've done the right thing.

I just recently got a phone call from work saying that Tsurumi school thinks I'm scheduled to work there today in the early shift. The woman who called is from Kawasaki (I think) and couldn't find a shift swap form. I know one reason she can't find it is that it doesn't exist. Or that I never saw it.

Suddenly I was going through scenarios of them falsifying the document to fake like I had signed it and I prepared myself to basically quit my job. And then I'm arguing with a mental version of Steve about riding my bike to work.

On a non-bizarre note, I've just done laundry. Actually, some might think that is bizarre for me.

Okay I'm going to hang up this laundry, and roll to work.

Work

10:33am JST Thursday 1 May 2003

Work was aight today. Had some man to mans (usually good) and some level 7Cs (lowest level (often bad)) and one level 3 class (pretty great English skills (almost always good unless they are better at grammar than I)) and one level 4 class (good skillz (good))

Whatever.

I rode my bike to work for the first time in a real life situation and I felt pretty confident I was going the right way at each intersection; it basically takes two turns to get there, but many vaguely similar intersections and landmarks, so it's still a bit tricky. What I mostly end up doing is watching for big road signs that point me toward different cities. I intentionally rode mostly slowly so I wouldn't be coated in sweat when I arrived. I was a tad sweaty in the pits and on my back (from my back pack), but otherwise no worries. Oh and my footses were quite hot. I might wear sandals??????? to ride and then put on shoes at work so I won't impregnate these leather shoes with sweat.

- - - -

Rode home and similarly didn't get lost. But the coooooolest thing was the bullet train.

bullet train

10:43pm JST Thursday 1 May 2003

The bullet trains are *so* fast. Shit they're just amazingly fast and when I ride to work along the river, I go underneath a bullet train track.

Tonight, as I approached the tracks... it's just like whhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmm and then it's gone. Always 16 white cars with a pointy snout and pointy tail. Maybe I'll take an mpeg of it with my camera sometime. It's just sooo fucking fast!

The vantage point I have from the river doesn't put me right beside the tracks, but about five feet below the actual track level.. BUT there's a wall that nearly blocks the whole thing from my view when I'm close to the tracks. I look forward to having a clear close view of those trains screaming by like aircraft.

That's how fast it seems. It might as well fly.

comments

Name: Steve Avery

Email: avery@ *redacted*

Subject: Thinking about you...

Comment:
Hi Rob,

I was working on a letter to Judy Bayley and starting thinking about you.I went to your website (for the first time) and read the last 3 days--you've gone through a lot! I hope in the future you have a month of happiness for each day of frustration.

Everyone is different, of course, but your journal helps me guess what my wife must have gone through her first couple of months in the U.S.

Hope you have many breakthroughs in learning Japanese!

Your friend,
Steve

Name: j

Email: dreamon@ *redacted*

Subject: bullet trains

Comment:
i want to ride on one with you. permalink