Scot is now in Japan.

And thankfully, this time, someone else was paying. Kaneshiro-san made good on his promise to take me out for fine sake in thanks for helping him with his paper for Nature Biotech.

The place was...fabulous. There is something unerringly perfect about the setting of a traditional Japanese restaurant with a few modern touches and jazz playing in the background. The restaurant's name was Shaku-Shaku, in Ginza--an area well-known for the rich nightlife enjoyed by Tokyo glitterati.

With a vast menu of shochu (distilled grain alcohol) and sake, we wiled away the hours trying several different varieties of drink, but it was Kuroushi that broke through and left a permanent impression. Apparently Kaneshiro-san had first found this restaurant by combing the listings of restaurants with extensive drink menus until he finally found one that carried this one, rare sake. Though now it is not even listed on the menu, the waiter will bring a bottle if asked.

Forgive me for being completely impressed when people order items not on the menu, but there must be some elitist part of me that I don't usually acknowledge.

And Kuroishi is a terribly good sake. It had flavors I don't remember tasting in sake before. Sake normally runs from amakuchi (slightly sweet) to karakuchi (dry), just as wine does. But the essential flavors are usually fairly predictable. The fermentation process used to make sake, as in the case of that used to make soy, is very tightly controlled, so much so that most sake tastes more or less the same, with slight regional variations based on things like soil, climate, and other rich bits that I can only pretend to know about.

But I suspected that Kuroushi was outside of the normal stream of variation in flavors here. I asked Kaneshiro-san about it, and his best guess was that what made it different was the fact that it was a namazake (there was no process used to kill the fermenting culture before filtration). As such, Kuroushi and other sake like it must be refrigerated constantly and consumed within two weeks after bottling. Such sake are given the title shibori-tate ("freshly squeezed," ha-ha).

It has earned a place among my mental "hall of superlatives" for Japanese food.

I'm going to have to bring my dad here.

I was so sad for the state of sake in Louisiana when we all went to a local "Japanese" restaurant, and the only sake on the menu were those that are considered cooking-grade here. Well, that's not true. Winos drink them...

I must be an outright snob to say things like that.

Well, when the righteous revolutionaries open fire on me and my bourgeois compatriots, I can only hope that I have a glass of Kuroishi in hand.

of last night's festivities and whatever spontaneous ramblings I must have spit out, I was invited today to take part in a newly-formed research group within the department. Rather than have some 20 people each working on various projects that may cover the same ground, our professor has decided to put together a core team to work on collaborative research papers.

Why I was invited after a night of drinking and whether or not I would have been invited otherwise, I do not know.

But hanging out with Japanese people in informal settings and talking about all manner of subjects seems to be the best way I have found so far of opening unexpected opportunities.

If I wasn't so modest, I might suspect that people find me witty and charming.

I went out with the patent attorney who really likes me and is trying to get me a job. A bunch of other research center people came along, so it was nice.

The restaurant was in Omote-Sando, a big hipster scene with random tucked-away lofts and hidden rooms, spiral staircases, ultra-modern furniture, and never-ending trip-hop playing in the background. I might have been impressed by this kind of place once, but now I know that all of those artifacts just mean EXPENSIVE.

I like the people I was with, which is good because we spent 5 and a 1/2 hours there. But I was worried about the tab, which I didn't know if I would have to pay or not. It was hard to tell if this guy had invited me to dinner and others had tagged along (which meant he would pay for me), or if it was a group dinner party from the start (which would mean we all shared the tab). Why is it so hard to ask how it works BEFORE I end up in these situations? I don't know, but it is. It's almost like one of those nagging pragmatic rules of Japanese. If you haven't seen this kind of situation addressed in spoken Japanese in the four years you've lived here, then maybe it's because people DON'T ask such questions. Or they don't need to. Or they ask them in a way that I would never hear.

You can see the problems of profiling "ask" and "don't ask" kinds of situations for the foreigner trying to get by in another language, I hope. It's hard to know whether you're playing the game correctly, or whether your understanding of rules and tactics are just underdeveloped.

But I wouldn't care at all ( I wouldn't possibly even have gone out there at all) if I weren't trying to get a job out of this guy. It's a good Japanese patent firm, and I need the money pretty badly. I need to address debts at home, even though I'm just making it by here.

So in the spirit of investment, I plonked down more for dinner and drinks last night than I usually spend on food in a week. Ouch.

I had better get that job...

What with all that emo-rambling, I forgot to mention that Eugene Kelly, once of The Vaselines, opened for Belle and Sebastian tonight. He came out, I was wondering who he was, then he broke into "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam."

"Oh, right," I thought. I have to admit, I recognized it from the Nirvana "Unplugged" fiasco first.

For all those who just deducted 10 indie-cred points from my report card, you can blow me.

He played a nice set.

Is the way I'm feeling, so it was an interesting time to see Belle and Sebastian, big tearjerkers that they are.

It mostly reminded me of the last time I was in Japan, in Kumamoto. Then, as now, things were going badly with Alli, who had remained in Seattle. Then, too, it was madness and frustration meted out over numerous long-distance calls. I remember fleeing the house every weekend I could in that white station wagon, trying to make the time go faster, trying to escape that weird little pocket of Japan-life that was testing our relationship, testing my resolve.

I drove to volcanoes, mountains, gorges, beaches, all in that white station wagon. I slept in the back with the seats folded down. All I had to do was throw a futon and a change of clothes in the back, and I was ready to go. It happened almost every other weekend. It was glorious.

And when I was bouncing around on Japanese highways in that old white station wagon, I was often listening to Belle and Sebastian, especially "Tigermilk" and "If You're Feeling Sinister." Once or twice, I burst into tears on the highway. I didn't even know why I was crying at times like those. I just felt like a fool. It made sense when I teased it out. Things were going badly between Alli and I, but I wouldn't let myself cry about it. I just played the "be tough" loop over and over again in my head. Then some silly song would come along with a suckerpunch and catapault me into some much-needed emotional purgatory. I forgot about all of the bad things when I would wake up the next morning in the damp back of the wagon, throw open the trunk and look out to see waves crashing in front of me. The weekend trips were a necessary part of the process. I came back ready to face another week of being apart from her, of not being able to make things right, of facing the doubts about how worthwhile my time in Japan was.

And now, here I am doing it all again, but with no white station wagon and silly songs to jerk the tears out at the right moment.

So when Belle and Sebastian opened with "The State I'm In," the first track off of "Tigermilk," I felt a tug. "No, dammit," I thought to myself, "Please not right now." It passed. But that's the way I've been lately. And the way it sounds like Alli is too. Both hurt, both confused. Not knowing how to make it better. Fragile, walking a thin line.

I just keep struggling with the idea of whether this is something I'm doing to us, or whether it's something that is just happening. Not that I want to abdicate or shed responsibility. Just the opposite, in fact. I wish someone would punish me, I feel so guilty. I guess that's why I'm punishing myself.

I had a grim moment when I wondered today if I should feel thankful that my marriage is dissolving while I'm in another country, at a time when I have relatively few obligations to be disturbed by this incapacitating depression and the need to sleep 10 hours a day. Maybe I should be thankful. Who knows.

I got personal e-mails of support in response to yesterday's post from a few people. Thanks, it really does mean a lot.

Since I started writing this, I had actually noticed a drop in the levels of correspondence I was receiving from friends. I guess they were reading what I was up to and so didn't feel the need to write and ask what was going on. Hmm. But this is good, thank you.

I finished The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass today. Grass is a German author who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999, but this work was from the 50's. It was scattered, fantastic, and dark. Of course I liked it.

Anything narrated by a drumming dwarf with super-powers can't be half-bad.

And I had my last Patents class. My professor has such a crazy style. He almost seems to be brow-beating a student, but then switches to humor to lighten the mood. He's always been a total lamb with me, however, either because I am one of his grad law students, or because he doesn't want to be the guy who gives the foreign student (me! snicker...) a hard time.

I love the fact that I'm the "foreign student." Too bad I'm not "the hot foreign student." That would be even cooler.

I have such ridiculous ambitions.

Urrghh. Got up way too late again today.

I hope this week doesn't completely eat shit like last one did. I don't think it will. I've got my last Patents class on Tuesday, I'm going to see Belle & Sebastian on Wednesday, and Research Center people are going out on Thursday. That should spiff things up a bit.

Must focus. Must get things done.

Since she officially doesn't read the blog anymore, I guess I can mention it here so the rest of you don't think I'm going nuts for no reason whatsoever:

Alli and I are going through a very, very rough patch.

I don't feel like blogging about it too publicly, but that's why I'm such a basketcase lately. That's all.

...That's all of the Oscar hopefuls that people will ask me to see for a while. I saw Cold Mountain back in the States, and I just saw Mystic River tonight.

I weep for the state of film when Cold Mountain and Mystic River are the best that we can think to honor with awards.

Mystic River scared the crap out of me. I am used to misguided vengeance in Westerns, but Clint Eastwood just brought it a little closer to home in a way that asked the viewer to justify the actions on screen. There was not enough viewing distance in the movie to separate yourself from the judgment of the characters within. It felt kind of like you had to ratify the decisions of the worst people in front of you. Like you were being dragged along against your will to a place you detested. I suppose this was accomplished deftly by that terrifying "King" speech at the end by a character that had seemed formerly sympathetic to the audience...

But this doesn't feel like craft so much as a parade of grotesquery. I suppose the film was well-made and competently acted, but... I don't like the way it felt. The moral assumptions of the characters seemed to be happening too close to the viewer.

This doesn't make any sense, perhaps even to people who have seen the film. I'll try and work these thoughts out and repost later.

Went out with Resan, Rafael, Tommy, and Kelly for dinner in Shimokitazawa.

Tommy and I then joined Samantha, Katherine, Ethan, Alice, Andrea, her Korean friend, Zoli, and Justin for drinks and dancing in Roppongi.

It was a little exhausting, but there were a few memorable moments.

Why don't we start with funny things I said, since those are usually filed away with greatest priority anyway:

Referring to my friends Andrea and Zoli: "Yes, in fact I've been very impressed by the quality of Hungarians in Japan."

Pointing to a pretty dilapidated apartment building outside the club we stumbled out of at 5AM: "If you lived here, you'd be home by now."

Roppongi bars are usually full of the most obnoxious people the U.S. military has ever recruited. And the people who find them charming. I don't know which is worse.

But I set aside my misgivings and I danced. And it was good.

Which is a clearer and more obvious sign of depression, sleeping too late every day, or going to the gym too much?

Can one go to the gym too much? I've gone six days this week.

Also, I'm on the "night plan," which means that I can only go after 9 pm on weekdays, after 5pm on Saturdays, and never on Sundays.

Did I mention that they have a small flat-screen TV in front of each treadmill?

Have you ever tried to jog while watching zany Japanese comedy shows? I think I am the only person there who laughs out loud while exercising.

Going on a Friday night and then going home and listening to people outside having a good time kind of sucks.

At least I have plans for tomorrow.

Some random security guy on a construction project outside the university stopped me on my way back from buying a pair of runners in Shibuya. He looked to be about in his 50s or so. He got real excited and approached me to ask (in English) if I was going to the university and what I studied.

He became even more excited when I said law, and he told me that he had graduated in law from Waseda university (one of the better private schools here) some 30 years ago. He said he could never pass the bar (the pass rate was about 1 to 2% in those days), but that he had studied so long and tried so many times, he eventually opened his own bar prep school.

Now he owns and operates a bar prep school by night and moonlights (daylights?) as a security guard during the day. Go figure.

Old Japanese men love to talk to me for some reason. I've never figured out exactly why. They just sniff me out and corner me for conversation.

Didn't mention it yesterday because I already had two posts up, but I went for lunch with Takahiro, a Sophomore in the undergraduate faculty of law at the University of Tokyo. He was one of the law students that came to Seattle as guests of the Asian Law Department, in fact, he was one of two students that I escorted to classes.

Such a shy guy, but I guess he's only 20 or so. Nice kid, though it was hard to find things to talk about after a while.

I felt very much the senior in a senior-junior (senpai-kouhai) type Japanese relationship. So much so, in fact, that I picked up the tab for coffee.

You don't see that too often, ladies and gentlemen.

I keep thinking about that body test... I, like most Americans, am overfed and undernourished. Well, maybe I haven't been so much overfed lately. That food poisoning thing has reduced my appetite.

But I am undernourished. Calcium and protein... Who would've thought? I always believed I got plenty of those, but perhaps that was just in the states. I can certainly see how I might not get enough calcium in Japan, since I drink much less milk here. And protein...though people eat fish and soy products here often, the serving sizes are very small relative to the amount of rice.

I went out and bought tofu and fish the day I heard the news, and I've been trying to get plenty of those as I go along.

Another surprising result of my body test is that - get this - I apparently have a very rapid metabolism. Who knew? The gym guy said it was because I was big. I have to get the energy out to those big body parts, and they consume lots of energy and whatnot.

Weird. I keep thinking of myself as a factory now...

I had a good class last night. There were a few U.S. patent cases in the mix, discussing the experimental use exception, so my professor gave me lots of questions. I even had the opportunity to tell people about the issue of seniors going to Canada to buy meds, something that made a nice backdrop for a discussion we were having about whether certain policies favor pioneering drug makers or later generic drug makers. Canada and the States have different policies on this issue, of course. Canada's patent law is very favorable to generic (non-inventing) drug manufacturers.

The attorney from the Japanese firm that was toying with me for a while has finally set up a dinner for me to meet the partner that he works with most closely. I was asked to send in a resume in Japanese (last time English was fine...) and to consider what kind of work I would like to do, if not translation. Well, I'd certainly rather do something other than translation. This attorney from my class who's rooting for me seemed to imply that reviewing contracts and research tasks (drafting memos/briefs?) were two possibilities if I were to work for them.

I guess I already know that I will have to work 20 hours or less to stay within my visa limits. I also know that I would like them to think of me as a student associate, if at all possible. But the truth is, money is tight enough that I would need to take whatever they might offer, even if it was translation only. So that dinner will be on Feb 16. A long way from now, it seems.

We'll see. This one attorney has been very nice and supportive. I think he's been in classes and seminars with me enough times to notice that I can and do discuss serious legal issues (at least from an academic perspective) in Japanese. Who knows? I'm not sure what I did to impress him. It must have been something, because he has been very dedicated in pushing my cause, even though my interest in working at his firm dropped to nil when they told me it was only translation, and then turned me down for that, anyway.

I'm not putting anything on the line here. I'll go for my free dinner and networking opportunity and be myself. If something good comes out of it, I'll be happy. If not, that's fine too.

I can't figure out if I should care about the upcoming presidential election or not. I don't want Bush to win, of course, but I could give a damn as to who the Democratic candidate ends up being.

I am registered in WA, which will vote mostly democrat, as it does. So why bother? I could throw Nader another vote, for what it's worth. Or I could just sit tight with the knowledge that the electoral college will keep my vote from mattering so long as I maintain a residence in Seattle.

Meh.

I guess if I really cared, I would have moved to Iowa or New Hampshire.

The guy at the gym gave me the super-diagnostic once-over today.

In addition to needing to shed a few pounds, I am somehow lacking bone mass and skeletal muscle mass.

Apparently, I need more protein and calcium in my diet. Who knew?

I'll try and get more milk and eat sashimi more often.

Then again, I am slightly concerned that the parameters for his testing system are based on averages in the Japanese population. I have seen people my height in Japan, and I know that even with rigorous diet and exercise, I will not look like them. The body types are just too different.

If my body type is a very small part of the Japanese population at my height, then wouldn't their figures for interpreting my body data be also very skewed?

I think the guy at the gym admitted as much when he tried to correlate my stats with a sheet of patterns, and I didn't fit any of the patterns.

Yet, he seems pretty confident that if I just get back into shape and lose a few pounds, everything will be copacetic.

I feel like a giant here sometimes.

The gym guy also freaked out when he was introducing me to the weight machines and I did the leg press thing on the highest weight setting.

I am Garganto, king of the giants...

I got some cheap pots and pans today, so maybe I'll be able to stay out of the cafeteria for a while. I made a nice pasta primavera for din-dins.

Now I can eat vegetables! For some reason, Japanese food has more mayo than veggies by weight. Seriously.

I am so incredibly confused about my life right now.

I wish I could take a vacation from myself.

All of those Philip K. Dick stories about borrowed memories are seeming pretty attractive at the moment.

I just don't feel like the current blend of crises are leading anywhere momentous or significant. They're just wearing me out.

I would also be happy with the chance to check in at a rest home. I would kill for the chance to spend a week eating strained peas and watching Jeopardy while people in white suits restricted my visitors and only let me go out once per day.

That sounds wonderful right now...

I finally went out looking for a new pair of shoes, something I should have done when I was back in the states.

Buying shoes in Japan is a frustrating endeavor for me. It usually involves me telling the shoe guy my size and preferred style, then waiting to see if they have anything at all that matches. After a harried 15 minutes or so, the shop guy will return with no more than five pairs, from which it is generally very easy to choose.

My sister wanted me to get some super-duper hipster shoes at Camper, but it was not meant to be. They didn't have the style I wanted anywhere in Japan, and what they did have was not in my size.

I ended up with a reasonable pair of shoes, not my favorite, but they'll do.

I can't be looking for shoes all day, you know.

Yes, yes, yes. Went for all-you-can-eat Brazilian food in Harajuku today for lunch with Sidney and Kelly.

They had feijoada (nice black-bean dish), and although moqueca (my fave!) was on the menu, it was not all-you-can-eat. I'm on a budget. I restrained myself.

Mais good, cher!

Assorted Japanese people accompanying us today were from Sydney's department, the department of Logistics at the marine science university.

I can't believe I forgot such an easy one, too...

The bodysnatcher genre, including Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, The Puppet Masters, etc.

Bodysnatcher films are supposedly about the red scare. The first came out in 1956, well in time to capitalize on McCarthyism weirdness.

I don't know... I guess that one's so well known and boring I could have left it out on purpose.

It doesn't even bear much exposition...

<*sigh*>

Spent the day trotting between the bathroom and my bed. Thankfully, I had downloaded a few movies to watch on my PC.

I watched Elf, then Underworld, then the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Elf was imminently forgettable pap, save for a few genuine moments of physical comedy brought to you by the genius of Will Ferrell. Underworld had lots of promise but squandered it on confusing action sequences that lacked finesse. And The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, perhaps because I had the lowest expectations for it, was the one that really stood out.

Allow me to depart on a tangent for a second. I am criticized often for repeating a few monologues too frequently in the company of friends. One of these is my (mostly borrowed) explication of the underlying themes of horror movies. Perhaps if I write it all down here in the context of describing another horror movie, I will never feel the urge to say it out loud again... Perhaps.

It goes like this. I usually start by talking about how vampires are a criticism of elitist European nobility: sapping the lifeblood of the peasants, oblivious to the passage of time and therefore outdated, a twisted race (mock nobility) created from the decadence and lusts of ancestors past. There's a reason Count Dracula is a count, my friends.

From there it's an easy jump to how Zombies are a quick and dirty criticism of American consumerism and pop culture: they eat your what? your brain!, they wander with blank expressions through desolate cityscapes looking for things to CONSUME, their meaningless and insatiable hunger is infectious. That scene in Dawn of the Dead where all of the zombies wander around trapped in the shopping mall, looking around endlessly for bargains and brains, kind of sums it all up for me.

Then we're on to werewolves, which are a handy vehicle for anxiety about puberty: you get hair in weird places, your body parts shift and change, you begin to feel strange new desires, the cycle of the moon is somehow involved. I like the way many canonical werewolf movies (like American Werewolf in London and Teen Wolf) often show the first transformation in the bathroom, where many teens first notice their own changing bodies.

Now we're off to Japan to think about Godzilla, and the other giant monsters in the genre. I mostly read atomic weapons here. Godzilla is an uncontrollable destructive force once unleashed, his origin is related to radiation, and he likes to attack Japan, the only country to have ever suffered the instantaneous destruction of entire cities by atomic devices. But interestingly enough, Godzilla is almost always used in the later movies to balance the threat of other giant monsters. Godzilla is the poster-child for nuclear deterrence and balance in the arms race in these films.

Now back to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I think of this as a fairly representative example of how Americans fear and perceive the South. Other movies in the, ohh, let's call it "hicksploitation horror" genre would include, "The Hills Have Eyes," and "Deliverance." There is always a group of unsuspecting outsiders who wander into a remote part of the South (usually on vacation!), where they encounter mutant-like illiterate hicks who want to either kill them, eat them, violate them, or all three. The constant appeals of the outsiders in these situations to common human decency and legal rights are meant to underscore the depth of the mutant hicks' depravity.

Perhaps because I was born and raised in the South, I love this genre. It pleases me to no end to see such ridiculous stereotypes splattered all over the screen as the worst nightmare of some poor yank. The root of all evil, as it were, often translates to lack of socialization, inbreeding, or some lingering hurt and ache related to the loss of the Civil war and the years of suffering that followed in the South.

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, our poor yanks are just driving through town when they get pulled into a web of consummately warped appetites by some 10 or so locals, who all seem to be helpful at first, but are actually in league with each other and like to waylay travelers whenever possible. One of these, who is pretending to be a cop, scoffs at the states on the kids' drivers licenses, saving his loudest sneer for the one from New York. That's when you just want to point at the screen and yell, "There it is!"

I love it when that happens. And that's why I liked this one. The scenes with the chainsaw were terribly, terribly boring, but everything else was great, especially all of the scenes that set up the super-weirdness of this Southern community.

Let's face it, would you be scared of something like "The New Jersey Chainsaw Massacre"?

About halfway through my class last night, I started to feel pretty rough. By the end of it, I was feeling terrible. I bolted for the door, thinking only about getting home as quickly as possible. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and weak. The sidewalk was pitching back and forth, or at least it seemed that way.

I didn't remember that crowded subways are no place for the nauseous. In fact, I created a new and detailed mental catalogue of sick-making smells on the subway. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Old-man hair tonic
2. Body odor
3. Alcohol and Tobacco reek
4. Eau de homeless person
5. Women's strong perfume

I made it home, but barely. After a very intimate moment in the bathroom, I collapsed on the bed. Cue spinning sensation and auditory hallucinations. I kept getting up, because it sounded like people were knocking on my door. I slept fitfully, with several repeat performances in the bathroom.

And now, in the clear light of day, as I am regaining some strength, I am shocked by what I think made me sick. Cafeteria food. That's right. I only had one meal yesterday, and it was a cafeteria bento with a little hamburger steak inside. I thought at the time that it tasted a little ripe, but I didn't let that trouble me. Mistake, mistake, mistake.

I don't know if I can go back there. Ever. I guess it's time to start cooking.

Today was Seijinnohi, or coming-of-age day, for all those who have turned 20 in the past year. The girls all put on kimono and the boys wear suits. Then they go out and get drunk because they can finally do so legally. Not that they ever let that stop them before.

This year, a few young wastrels (in Shizuoka, I think) got tired of listening to the long-winded speaker at their ceremony, and set off a few firecrackers. This was sufficiently disgraceful to make the national news, believe it or not. In the U.S., if a few hundred 20-year olds were forced to spend the day on which they first earned the right to drink legally in a room with a boring old guy speaking for an hour about the responsibility of young adults, I think the old guy'd be lucky to make it out alive.

For me, it was fairly restful however, as I mostly just nursed my aching body, sore from my first time back at the gym in ages followed by a mountain climb the next day. Ouch.

I thought about going to see the weird human body/plastomics exhibit in Yurakucho, but I couldn't be arsed.

Besides, there's a sumo tournament on the telly...

I went to Mount Takao with Resan and Kelly and her labmate Ai. It was a steep trek up in the beginning, then it mellowed out, and there were actually restaurants and a zoo at the top, in addition to all of the temples and shrines and other sacred mountaintop stuff.

I didn't bring my camera...again. I'm such an idiot about remembering to. We made it to the top for a very nice view of snow-covered Fuji, later covered by haze.

On the bottom, we stopped for hand-made buckwheat noodles and salt-grilled char (a kind of fish). There was a guy outside the noodle shop plucking small trout out of a fish tank and skewering them on bamboo before roasting them over a charcoal brazier. He would then place the roasted fish in a cup made from split bamboo and fill it with hot sake. Looked fishy.

Kelly and Ai are in the same fisheries science department at the Marine Science University in Tokyo, so they were a good source of info about the day's eats and sea life in general. Ai had heard of an otolith before, and knew the word in Japanese. I remember that being one of my favorite new vocabulary words when I was working on the Technical Japanese Master's degree. It is literally "ear stone" in both Japanese (jiseki) and English (otolith). It's a little rock made from natural secretions in a fish's inner "ear" that rolls around in a sensory chamber. The fish can tell which way is down by which side of this chamber the otolith is resting on.

But enough of that. What was I talking about...Mountains?

I joined a gym in Shimokitazawa today. It's a fairly nice place, and I got a nice new year's discount. I was curious to see how people acted in Japanese gyms, but aside from a slightly heightened sense of courtesy, I could find no great differences.

Every treadmill has its own (smallish) flat-screen TV, though! Nice.

And as I was looking at the wall of staff pictures and profiles, I noticed that one of the aerobics instructor's hobbies is speaking with dolphins...

I just need to keep going to the gym now if I want to realize my dream of making an ab. Just one. A little ab. In the corner.

We'll see.

Kato-san borrowed a car (!) and took Arai-san and I out for lunch in Roppongi. We ended up at an Italian Trattoria called Bellini. Arai-san's choice. She must have thought it looked appropriately fancy.

It was really nice to stave off the inevitable first trip of the year to the research center cafeteria. I have only been eating there for two months, and yet, it feels like two years, if you know what I mean. I really should think about cooking soon. I just have to get over my revulsion at the sight and smell of the shared kitchen in the student house. Blearrgh.

Then again, it doesn't smell any worse than the hallway of Alli's apartment in Seattle, I've decided. I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what the individual odorous notes were in the hallway potpourri there. Herring, blood sausage, pickled onions, and preserved turtle meat are all possible contenders.

So yeah, maybe when I get a hold of my stipend in February I'll join the ranks of the culinarily self-sufficient.

For my first full day back.

I woke up early as my out-of-synch body demanded, web-puttered, then got a call from Rich, who is here in Tokyo with Maki, visiting her family. I met them in Kichijoji, went for okonomiyaki, had some coffee, wandered and talked.

Then I was back to the Research Center for weekly seminar and a New Year's party afterwards. I just sort of walked blindly into that one, in fact. But nice.

I learned that the Chinese Ph.D. student here, the only foreign student in this department besides myself, did one year of mandatory military service before enrolling at Beijing University. Apparently she was in the last of several years' worth of entering classes to be required to do a year in the military before starting school. This was a policy decided upon in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident. The government decided that a little bit of discipline and indoctrination would give them a more easily managed student body. I'm sure it did the trick. Apparently, she was trained in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and the teachings of Mao. She also claimed to have made a 100-mile hike in a single day while carrying a full pack, but I'm a little skeptical of that claim. She also says she has a picture of her in full military olive and red formal dress. Can't wait to see that.

Then around 7:30pm I nearly collapsed from jet-laggedy fatigue and went home.

From the Statistical Empire of Untidiness.

Where all manner of breakfast foods were enjoyed.

Where dramas both small and tragic unfolded.

Where Christmas was celebrated in the traditional style.

Where I learned that more people read my blog than I had previously imagined.

So now, here I am, back in Japan. I can't write about everything that happened at home. Some things are, despite the usually very personal nature of this weblog, still too personal. Ahem.

But I can write about what happened the second I set foot again on good old Nipponese soil.

I came back from the U.S. with a new passport, one which did not contain my student visa or my re-entry permit. My old passport had run out of pages and was water-damaged after that ill-advised encounter with a washing machine in Kumamoto some years ago. So when I hit immigration in Japan, I was shuffled off to the place for those poor souls who have been temporarily detained by immigration officials. That's right, they took me to the room with the disgruntled Chinese people. I sat there staring at the disgruntled Chinese people as they sat and stared back at me. I would like to say that we shared a moment, but there was little time and I was jetlagged. I suppose the most we shared was a mutual and unspoken curiosity. Then again, perhaps I should just speak for myself.

Before long, Mr. too-nice-to-be-an-immigration-official came back into the room, apologized to me for the wait, and started in on a lengthy diatribe about how many times U.S. passport agencies had made his job difficult in the past by disposing of other peoples' Japanese visas.

"Yes, it's just horrible," I said, really and actually meaning it, I think.

I shudder to think how the above scene might have played out if I was not an American law student at Japan's most prestigious public university. I don't think immigration officials are in the habit of apologizing to Chinese day laborers who come in on tourist visas.

But then again, I shouldn't sound surprised. I've spent how many years in Japan? White privilege has been on the menu for as long as I can remember...