This isn’t going to be a post about Wacky Japanese Adventures ™, so if that’s what you’re reading for, you might want to skip this post. Hell, check out the `ubt` tag — I imported a lot of my old livejournal entries into this blog, so you can read all about my Uncanny Bus Tales from LA.

This entry took awhile to write, because I’ve been way more unforgiving of myself than I should be. More on that in a bit. First, the facts of what happened over the span of a couple days:

  1. Amy fainted and passed out into a nabe pot. She sustained second degree burns on her face, and had to be taken to the ER. Nobody could figure out what caused it, and we assumed it was a seizure, possibly the onset of epilepsy. She went to the doctor again and learned that, thankfully, it was merely low blood pressure. However, her parents still want to make her quit JET and fly her back home.
  2. Earlier that day I learned that three of my cats back home had died. One of old age; the other two, feline leukemia. The one who died of old age was the last cat left from my childhood. I witnessed his birth, I gave him his name, I grew up with the silly beast. He died unhappy and in pain.
  3. Keiko and Eric`s trip to visit me ended in one of the worst nights any of us have had here so far, which is the main cause for this post. It requires a bit of backstory, so here goes:
The day after I got back from Singapore, a bunch of us (me, Shawn, Daryle, Yukiko) went to Kamakura. It was fun, we saw some neat temples and acted like idiots. Most of the while Yukiko was grabbing my arm and playing around like I was her boyfriend, and on the train ride back fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. This set the stage for some major frustration.Keiko (who is American, speaks very little Japanese, and goes by Kiki) had been having issues with her social group back on Shikoku. Mostly the sort of I-can`t-escape-these-people jitters you get after awhile of being trapped in close proximity to other people.One of the few people she wasn’t frustrated with was Eric, whom she brought with her. Eric is your classic nice guy doormat. He`s like a cat who sits under a tree and waits for birds to fall into his mouth. Awesome guy, does very little for himself, always puts others in front of himself. Several of us suspected that he had a thing for Kiki.

So the last day Keiko and Eric are in town, we all decided to go to a club, as Kiki and Eric don`t often get the opportunity. We started off the night by getting a few drinks at RiRa`s, where I was able to introduce Yukiko to them. Kiki, appraising the situation, warned me that Yukiko, consciously or not, may be using me as a bit of a boyfriend substitute, while her real one isn`t here. This, of course, rang true, hit me at just the wrong moment, and I began to drink.

Here`s where it gets ugly.

It’s my opinion that people only drink for one of two reasons — social lubrication, and self-medication. So far, I`ve been trying to open myself up to drinking more, in attempts to be more social. So, usually I drink for the former. That night? I was drinking for the latter. I suspect that Kiki was as well, whether she realized it or not, because before long, we were both smashed, acting like loons, and the whole night started to go to hell.

You might think, at this point, that we hooked up. Oh no. Not at all. Even when I am blackout-level drunk, turns out, I`m still a prude. Here`s what happened:

  1. I turned into a raving asshole. I stared daggers at Amy and started speaking incomprehensible gibberish that may have been Hebrew curse words. Random Japanese guys were asking her if I was bothering her, and whether she wanted them to get rid of me. Later, when a friend-of-a-friend (a perfectly nice girl I’d just met) came to check up on me, I told her to fuck off. I don`t remember ANY of this. It`s the first — and believe me, last — time I drank to the point of memory loss.
  2. According to Ramy, Kiki started making out with Eric. She didn’t remember this either, until I notified her a couple of days after she got back to Shikoku. Not sure how it’ll play out. For right now, seems to be okay?
  3. Daryle`s boyfriend, Dondon, while dancing with Daryle, got randomly punched in the gut by some homophobe. Dondon fell to the ground and started vomiting. It`s at this point we found out that waifishly thin Dondon had been taking diet pills, and that it`s kind of messed up his digestive system. The majority of the people there tried to get him to go to a hospital, although he stubbornly refused, and slipped away when nobody was looking. Daryle couldn’t sleep all night.
  4. Amy got propositioned by several people, some of whom I believe even offered to pay her money, mistaking her for a prostitute.
  5. Katie got molested, became blackout drunk, and started making out with some random guys.
  6. Kiki passed out and was carried outside by Eric and the aforementioned “fuck off” friend-of-a-friend. I followed them out. The regular Ryugasaki crew lost track of me.
  7. Kiki, Eric, and I spent far too much time out in the freezing cold, with Eric looking after the two of us. I sobered up a bit, and managed to help get us back to my place.

There are no words to describe how mortified I was at the end of all this. It was like waking up and finding out that, a) you have multiple personality disorder, and b) the entire rest of the world has it too.

I spent about a week after all this just beating the crap out of myself for how I acted. Wrote roughly 5 pages on how I have anger management issues, and basically flailed my arms around as if it was the end of the world. I still think I do have a bit of a bitterness problem undercutting a lot of what I say and do, but… more than anything, it’s an unclench-your-buttocks problem. So, just going to chill a bit and try to be more laidback.

In the spirit of that, I found a very nice artist, Mirah. Listen to this song of hers, which I find relaxing and neat. I’ve been listening a lot to “The Sun,” another song of hers, which has these neat little relaxing lyrics:

You need a big wide space
You need light, you need grace
Disappointment in your skin
I’ll always let you in

Pull a feather from the nest
Fasten it to your chest
Shoot yourself up to me
Cut through the gravity

You don’t have to be scared
You hold yourself down there
You would like it here i know
You were meant to let it go

‘Cause i am the sun
I’m the only one
I’ll pull you to me
The moon and the sea

When the oxygen comes
And blows it all clean
Remember to breathe
Remember to breathe

And we are the ones
With the parts and the motion
We fill up the sky
And we burn with devotion

When our bodies are done
And hard times are over
Remember to breathe
Remember to breathe

Dunno, could be the mood I’m in right now, but that sounds about right to me.