January 1st, 2007
Life, cut.
Originally recorded December 16, 2006
My finger is rather tender, I accidentally put it in the revolving wheel of my bike while trying to turn on my headlight last night. It bled pretty bad.
Right now I’m in front of the Manboo manga kissa (internet cafe) next to Don Quixote on Yasukuni dori, and it’s harder to type than thought. Sambo Master is keeping me company, but today I’m really supposed to be looking for a new place to live. My trusty bicycle is laden with the most important elements I could take from my blessed rotting apartment last night, stuffed with hard disks and clothes that have sentimental value.
I could go to Yotsuya, I could live in Ueno. I dwell in the seat of fashion at Gaien or Jingumae, but I hope to avoid the humdrum of so many commuters migrating daily in a nondescript surburban malise.
It is just after eleven, though I already have more than a litre of beer in me. I’m not sure how many “rules” I’m breaking with this, but I think the fact I’m sitting at the top of the stairs leading into Subnade while typing on a Targus Stowaway more than makes up for it. Any time I think that I’m doing something slightly weird, consider how many of the twelve to twenty million people in the Tokyo area must be doing the exact same thing at the exact same instant. Yes, people are having orgams; yes, beer is being spilt on some municipal sidewalk; yes, someone is about to make a mistake that will change their life forever. If you think about it that way, there’s really not that much in the way of moral firewalls to keep you from doing whatever you feel like. “Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we?” Yeah, maybe.
Normally, this would really piss me off, begin virtually homeless and wandering around Tokyo in the cold with two heavy rucksacks containing all the memories of my life. But actually, this is quite reminiscient of when I first came to Tokyo. Then it was the summer, incredibly hot, but I was wandering, with no schedule or particular place to go. Yes, I’m going to see James Bond tonight at seven, but other than that, I have only vague goals in mind. Having to move is still surreal, so I don’t think that I’ve really accepted it, but once I get really tired and want to just go home and watch an episode of TNG and find that I can’t, then it will sink in.
I want to do something warm and comforting, but I know it will ruin everything I have now. Ruin it in a wonderful, briefly fulfilling, but ultimately defeating way. Will I show better judgement, or bury myself in deference to umeshu? What do you think?
