Appetizers

• Unexpected win of moving countries: no DST!!

• Unexpected L of moving countries: Our keyboard layouts are different. Typing between work and home is pain.

• The nuts here hit different (there’s kind of a more bouncy kind of crunch??)

• Not Instagram starting to recommend me videos showing how to massage out shoulder rocks?? And me clicking on them unironically because I need them????

• I’m now at the age where I watch a reality show and think the people who are 29 are much older and wiser than I am, only to realize that is going be me in only two years, maybe minus the wisdom ability score improvement

Main Course: Life is a Bunch of Blocks

At last we are approaching weather where I don’t have to immediately strip my clothes upon entering the house to hang dry. No longer do I have to hastily put my damp work slacks back on when the delivery oji-san rings the doorbell. I have an irrational fear that my doorway monitor is two way and they can see me frantically hopping into my pant legs, but now I can be free of this curse.

At least, that’s what I thought until we got some 30C highs and I was back to sitting under the AC in my undies.

I’ve recently had the thought that moving is like one of these puzzles I had in 2nd grade where you have geometrical block that slot together snugly into a square tray. Each block is one of two colors, and you can rearrange the blocks in different configurations so that the colors form recognizable shapes, like simple pentagonal houses or chickens. The key of the puzzle is that with each new configuration, they still fit perfectly together back into that square tray.

Moving is like if you take one meticulously crafted configuration, dump all the blocks onto the floor, throw out the cute little square, shove as much blocks as you can fit into your pockets, fly ten and a half hours, do government paperwork for three days, endured continuous psychic damage from stress, roll up to the used shapes store, and at last buy yourself a decent tray to put your very much square-oriented blocks to fit into, only to discover it’s a perfect circle.

I had a lot of anxieties about life post-move, so I kept thinking it’s ok, some blocks do not make it into the new tray, but I can still finagle it and I will make it work. I had completely overlooked the fact that I would also be gaining more appropriately shaped blocks for my new tray along the way.

Forgive the analogy. All that is to say, I’ve put both old and new blocks in and I am pleased to find that every day my puzzle is looking more and more cohesive.

I’ve recovered from the feral survival mode of post-move and have now entered the next stage of settling in: standard survival mode. I gathered enough brain cells to slot in my last important foundational block. I have finally worked regular exercise back into my life!

The sun here rises early. Getting up for a morning jog is less a race against time before work and more a race against the sun cooking me into a hot juicy crisp. In the interest of beating the heat, I planned out my first (and thus far, only) route the night before. A quick 2mi loop around my neighbor the Sakanai river leaves me just the right amount of time to swiftly degrodify before heading to the office.

The first time running a route is never a continuous run for me because I get so distracted by the views. This works out perfectly since I’m out of shape and likely need breaks anyways.

I love noting street design and peeking into people’s gardens and homes to see how they shaped their spaces to fit their lives. I’ve always said that it’s a right shame I can’t just walk into somebody’s house to observe a lived-in space and say what’s up like it’s a lawless jrpg. Japan offers much detail to pore over in a lovely mix of old and new constructions lining narrow, winding roads that make hell for cars.

One of my small joys is a string of fairy lights I got back in college that has come with me to every new home since. The dim lighting they emit is perfect for winding down, especially when paired with some video game jazz covers and a foam roller.

They look lovely, but because I fear piercing the textured wallpaper on the paper thin walls, they’re held up by washi tape and prayers. My prayers must be weak af because every day some part of the delicate load-bearing tape structure comes loose from the walls and I have to go back in with more tape. The upkeep is as tiresome as it sounds, but the lights are non-negotiable. (I’m gonna need some stickier tape.)

Actually, it was during one of these tedious tape reconstruction jobs that I realized that I feel.. happy .?

.. . Happy ??¿

I distinguish this feeling from the usual “I accomplished a lot today,” “I’m having a good day,” or “I had a lot of fun.” I don’t usually get a general approval of my life situation from my inner critic. I’m not sure how engaging in the modern-day sisyphus with my poorly installed lights triggered this, but I realized that I felt somewhat not-so-bad.

To be more precise, I feel content in existing. I have things to look forward to and people I enjoy seeing. I feel like part of a community where I am making contributions, unlike before when I felt like I was constantly struggling to keep up, or always lacking. I have an endless list of things to explore and try, purely for my own joy. I am helping people around me when I can. I savor my ups and I remain confident that I can handle the downs. Things are pleasantly busy, and I am finding ways to fit most everything I want in my life. I think this is all I need at the moment. This may be all that I will need, ever.

Work Thoughts

The Auntie Lunch Squad

One of my goals last month was to find a lunch group at the underground dining hall since school has restarted and the ALTs (the English teachers, some with JET and some not) now eat at their schools instead of at the Board of Education by the office. Well, the perfect opportunity came when my desk neighbor, a sweet mom who always helps me with my projects and bonded with me over watching climbing at the olympics, asked what I was going to do about lunch without the ALTs around. This is how I got adopted into the Auntie Lunch Squad.

I don’t know how but I became the type of young person who enjoys the company of aunties. It might be because my favorite conversation topic happens to be where you can find the cheapest shine muskat grapes. When they asked the age old question I get from all aunties about how tall I am, I whipped out my height in cm without hesitation, a skill I have honed from years of Asian auntie exposure.

Procedurally Generated Bathrooms

Me and the bathroom are bffs. I’ve even been known to take quick stretch breaks there before other bathroom business because stretching and ergonomics in general isn’t very popular in the office. Me and the bathroom are tight. I even have my preferred stall (the middle stall. Least spacious, but also lacks the toddler seat in the stall near the door, which should have priority for people with toddlers). It was only a matter of time before I made a trip to my home base bathroom on the fourth floor only to be spurned by the telltale yellow cleaning sign. It was time to visit the other floor’s bathrooms.

I’ve sometimes even had to skip the third floor to the second floor during busy hours, and in all my experiences on other floors thus far, I have learned about the subtle, unsettling differences of each bathroom. These difference aren’t that noticeable until muscle memory kicks in and you realize the bidet panel is on your left and not your right, or is set six inches below the standard eye level with the buttons shuffled around (why?), or the toilet lid sensor is especially aggressive and opens and closes the lid like an angry muppet while you’re trying to shuffle sideways out of the narrow stall. It’s like if somebody reused a meager three assets for a sloppy procedurally generated dungeon in a fever dream.

Like most humans, I grasp for the familiar in new situations, so I gravitate towards the middle stalls of the other floors’ bathrooms. I found that the third floor middle stall has a door that is just slightly askew so that you have to fenagle the lock with violent yanking, and for some ungodly reason, the second floor middle stall door opens out instead of into the stall (and is labeled aggressively with neon signs to signal this oddity). As far as I know, it is the only stall in the entire building that does that. I am hoping it’s for accessibility, but it’s unlikely since there are no bars, so one can only assume it was a very permanent, very horrible mistake.

Not to mention the bathrooms on the ground floor are switched so that the men’s bathroom is located where the women’s bathroom would be on every other floor in the entire building. (Again, why?)

I do love my home bathroom on the fourth floor, which is perfect and has no issues, but I have come to enjoy the minigame of “guess what’s wrong with this floor’s bathroom” every so often.

Matsuzaka with a ‘Z’

When I asked about what I thought was a typo in my translation project, my section chief handed me this ancient red leather-bound handbook that used to be given to all city employees. She told me that Matsusaka (松阪) used to be Matsuzaka (松坂) (notice the change in the second character) and showed me this little section in the handbook that describes the meaning behind the name and the reason it changed.

In ye olden days, a mildly important military guy named Gamo Ujisato came here to build Matsusaka Castle and the castle town around it (which is where my office is located now). The name Matsusaka itself was a combination of 松 matsu, which was taken from the name of a forest in Ujisato’s hometown of Hino, and 坂 zaka, which was taken from 大坂 Ozaka, where Ujisato’s boss (Toyotomi Hideyoshi, very important historical figure) lived. Ozaka ended up changing their name first, switching from 坂 to 阪 in their current name of Osaka, and Matsusaka followed suit.

If you visit the area you’ll notice that the city itself uses the new character, but the castle ruins uses the original character, while still retaining the modern reading of Matsusaka (as opposed to the old reading, Matsuzaka). My guess is that the original character is more historically appropriate for the castle, while the rest of the world has moved on. Both names were used until the readings were standardized to Matsusaka in 2005 (Heisei 17).

Side Dishes

The Stationery Holy Land & Surprise Pikachu Parade

I went on my first day trip outside of the city to Nagoya. While notorious for not having much to see, Nagoya will always be famous to me because they have a Loft which is one of the biggest stationery store chains in Japan, my holy land, and my heaven.

I was pleased to discover that gel pen technology has vastly improved flow and consistency since my college days when I had turned to fountain pens to allow the light touch and low angle I needed to reduce chronic pain. If I had what we have today, I might not even have gotten into fountain pens. (Who would I even be without fountain pens…)

The best part of the day was hands down the Pokemon Center. I’m actually not super into Pokemon but went to snag some gifts. We knew something was up when people started gathering around this suspiciously empty corner of the store with their phones out ready to film something, and then everything fell into place when a massive pikachu stepped out of a nondescript grey metal door, wiggled over on the stubbiest of legs, and started jiggling its t-rex arms in an excited dance.

I don’t know who was in that suit but someone give them a raise.

This was the best day of my week until the announcers pointed behind us at four (4) more massive pikachus bouncing down the hallway to join its lone comrade. Then it became the best day of my life.

At one point, the announcer directed the pikachus to turn to their right for a pose similar to the sorority conga line, and one of the pikachus accidentally turned left. It’s hard being a giant pokemon.

Diabolical Friendship Plans

These days I find I have to be extremely intentional with planning out my free time. I had taken for granted the ease of living and liberal use of time during my two years of unemployment, and am getting used to scheduling out all of my waking hours again. I’m once again reminded that this is the “grind,” and it probably don’t stop until I drop.

Unemployment had many advantages (my body wasn’t constantly broken down by desk work and my stress levels were normal, among other things), but I do regret how the ease of unemployment and having wonderful roommates made me complacent to the point where it was rare for me to get out and try to make more friends. This is one of the things I’m learning to be extremely intentional with now that I have another chance to build connections from scratch.

Intentionality for me is not just saying hi and asking how someone’s weekend was. Neither is it going to bars and striking up conversations with strangers, which is just not my thing. I am talking about going home and literally scheming about how when I see my coworker who works in Commerce on my floor at the bike parking, I’m going to break the ice by asking them about their sick ride, and also ask where the bike shop is because the abomination my predecessors left me is crumbling into pieces as we speak. This is while I already have an American friend in the area who is an avid cyclist and has worked in a bike shop before. You gotta do what you gotta do to make new connections, and sometimes that means you gotta pretend you don’t already know a literal bike expert.

(My coworker ended up biking with me to the shop and helping me ask about repairs. I think the scheme was a great success!… but we’re still not bros yet. TBC.)

One of my other ongoing schemes is a periodically updated list of questions I want to ask the climbing gym receptionist that would hopefully lead to friendship. Questions include:

• Are there any group outdoor climbing events organized by the gym?

• I found one guidebook in the break area magazine rack, but are there more guidebooks? How do people find rocks without easily accessible online records like Mountain Project?

• Are there any hikes to swimmable lakes where I won’t collect a bunch of leeches on my butt?

• I know your name but what should I call you???

• Are you also one of those people who looks near my age but is actually seven years into marriage and has two kids?????

I’m only half kidding about the last one. My intuition on how old people are based on how they look has been pretty off, and Japanese social etiquette revolving around friendship across age gaps and genders and how to address people seems complicated. Better to be on the safe side.

(The receptionist recently showed me this sick guidebook one of the climbers at our gym published. It even has a link to the author’s blog, where I’m learning a lot about Japanese climbing slang (and I think Japanese bro slang?). Another scheme success!!… but again, we’re still not bros. My goal is to get invited to a climbing trip and I think that may never happen unless I get stronk. It’s hard being a climbing noob. Another TBC.)

My personality is conducive to locking crosshairs onto 3-4 people at a time and devising elaborate plans over the course of many months (possibly years) to establish a foothold for acquaintanceship. It seems seeking friendship in adulthood has forced my hand in taking advantage of this neurotic aspect of myself.

The Great Exorcism

One morning I woke up to find a copy of what looked like the local newspaper in my mailbox. I was especially hyped to read the section that features photos of all the local little white fluffy bichon-esque dogs that asian families always have. I sat down to eat my breakfast and spread out the newspaper for some morning reading, only for me to be assaulted by the untimely urge to exorcise my entire apartment and throw out all the “items” I inherited from my predecessors.

I love my predecessor and they seem wonderful, but the reality is that I got left a lot of random trash that I had to clean up. 1.5 months later after moving in, I finally got rid of it all. I always say you can learn a lot about a person by looking in their fridge, but the same is true by looking at their trash. I’ve had a fun time assembling the lives of my predessors and guessing what they were like by looking at what they left behind.

Among the trash were curious items like:

• Empty bottles of refillable body wash, with no refills to be seen

• Very flat tubes of 90% used, unrefillable face washes

• An empty carton of what should have contained laundry detergent powder

• Five (5) razors hoarded from the Tokyo hotel where we have post-arrival orientation

• A bottle of shampoo that is so old its contents solidified (likely from two predecessors ago)

• An extremely fucked up knife with a horrifyingly warped edge (Immediately trashed this and bought a proper knife after my first day) (A lot of evidence and hearsay points to my predecessor never having touched the kitchen, but this was the biggest sign) (What on earth was done to that knife??)

Most of it was stuff that made me wonder why it wasn’t thrown away sooner, but looking at the five trash guides I have makes me understand. Just a little bit.

Unfortunately for me and the newspaper, the internet recommended I soak up all the excess products from ancient leftover shampoos and toners and face washes with newsprint. It seems I will have to wait until next month to read about local dogs.

Goals update

Last months goals were:

• Find a way to lunch with the coworkers who don’t eat at their desks

• Visit the climbing gym in the next town and ask where the mythical local crags are (and get in on any climbing excursions??)

• Make ?? a new friend??? (possibly at the gym? ?)

• Find structured study material and schedule for Japanese that actually works for me

I am pleased to say I have achieved all of these, except for the last one which has been on my plate for many years, so what’s another month or twelve of procrastinating.

I have managed to befriend a grandpa who goes to the climbing gym the same time I do after getting on his warmup problem and struggling with one of the moves. He gave me some tips, and after I continued struggling, this other extremely strong man demonstrated a similar but easier move on some lower holds where I could practice the body tension and movement in isolation from the rest of the problem. I love getting tips, and I’m glad people seem to find me approachable!

What I’m Reading/Watching

I've been finding it hard to commit to one thing these days, so this list has some in-progress things that I’m bouncing between.

• Inside Out 2

• The Things We Leave Unfinished (audiobook) - Rebecca Yarros

• The Hurricane Wars (ebook & audiobook) - Thea Guanzon

• Cupid Parasite

I’ve taken up playing visual novels while eating because it’s the only time I can squeeze the Japanese reading practice in, and all I have to do is click a button to advance the text.

Next Month’s Menu

October is supposed to be cooler so I expect to do more outings. Hopefully, those outings will lead to friendship.

Goals for next month:

• Make progress on friendship schemes by asking the gym receptionist more questions from my list (because it’s finally outdoor climbing season, but not for long!!)

• Buy new glasses. I’m tired of being blind

• Eat and sleep on time by establishing cutoff times

• Find a fun seasonal ingredient to cook with (bonus if it’s in a soup)

• Exorcise the bathroom sink

Stay tuned for another helping.

Your pikachu worshipping, trash exorcising, chronically scheming befriender,

Alex