October 10th, 2006
More lost days
Last weekend I finally got two days off in succession so I was able to get out to a party in Sagami Lake. I wish that I could average more than two raves a year, but ever since I’ve started working in Tokyo, I’ve had very few empty weekends. Rave culture seems to be just as warm and close-knit in Japan as the States, if not more so. Ravers often know most of the people at the party, and those that they don’t, friends are made quickly. Everything is shared, and intimate relationships blossom and grow like wildflowers. I was lucky enough to bear witness to a rave wedding this time. A young couple who originally met a rave and fell in love exchanged silent vows in front of the group, sharing a special cake while being serenaded by a tender vocalist.
 |
 |
 |
 |
[The first manga series I read, Dr. Slump, is having a revival this year, and reprints are being issued. It's a strange kind of nostalgia for me to see something that I cut my teeth on resurging in pop media.]
Despite my best attempts to keep warm, once again the bedding wasn’t thick enough, and I didn’t sleep so much as just shiver and turn through the few hours before dawn. There’s a blissful kind of discomfort that comes from the slapdash camping of amateur raving. So cold at first, those hours four to six: you pile on clothes, sweaters on shirts and extra pants; rolling over a blanket and a too small sleeping bag, the ground hard under a thin nylon tent bottom. You mutter to yourself that you really should have brought another ground roll before finally falling asleep, and the next thing you know fatigue is keeping tethered, out of the reach of consciousness that grows with the gradual discomfort of an incredibly hot tent from no fresh air and circulation.
 |
 |
 |
 |
I let things just go, this weekend was never my plan, but I was happy to help out. I was tired and gritty, just like always, but it was satisfying and a warming escape into humanity, like always.
Fuck machines.
