Friday 9th May
Got up at 6:30 and watched the news as I gnawed on half a grapefruit and crunched a bowl of barn flakes, and that's a brand name, not a generic term for flakes of bran. Sorry, I meant "bran" flakes back there, not "barn" flakes. But barn flakes would have been good in The Onion's list of Top Selling Health Cereal I read on their web site the other day:
1. Frosted Flax
2. Count Carobula
3. High-Fiber Shitabrix
4. Forest Floories
5. Dried Froot Loops
6. Kale-O's
7. Breakfast Bales
I particular liked High-Fiber Shitabrix. I think Barn Flakes would fit in well there.
Five students at Ogawa Tec this morning. Itoh brought me a cup of coffee, which was nice of him.
After the class I went to Ebisu Tully's and was pleasantly surprised to find it not crowded; I even got a window wicker chair, for the first time in a couple of months. So why wasn't it crowded this morning, but every other week it's been standing room only in there? SARS? Al Quida threat? Or was I just lucky in finding a small window of quiet, a customer oasis of low volume turnover, or something.
I sat and sipped my double lattee and wrote a few lines in the notebook on the subject of change.
Yesterday I was complaining that my life was uneventful, and I even wrote be careful what you complain and wish for because you might just get it. So I have had two events since then, one unusual and one unwelcome.
Yesterday I was walking to the station to take the train to AXA. I was waiting for the lights to change near Beckers. An old man comes up to me and starts talking to me. Not in an aggressive way just talking. He was wearing an old baseball cap. I'm usually quite polite to people like this and listen as best I can to what they say, even though, as in this case, they are usually speaking Japanese. I think they expect me to understand. So he is chatting away, I'm catching a little, he Koizumi and North Korea, so I realise he was talking politics. I looked him in the eye and looked as if I was paying attention, a trick I've learned from years of teaching English. The lights were changing to green. He looked for something in his pocket and handed me \150 and said something about coffee. I asked him why, but he was already walking away.
At the station the price of my ticket was also \150. Strange but true.
This morning at the Marunouchi line Ikebukero station I was, as usual, waiting for the train. I like to wait one line to the side, and so catch the next train…if you see what I mean. When the first queue gets on the train the next queue (standing to the right) moves over. Everyone knows the system. So I'm moving over when some fat guy walks as if to get on the train but actually stops at the front of the line, in the place where I should be. I say to him "Are you getting on the train?" He grunts something. I stand in front of him and wait for the train. From being a bit sleepy I am now wide awake and shaking slightly, with anger and the anxiety of confrontation - my parents and upbringing never prepared me well for aggressive confrontation. I sometimes think I should go to boxing club or something to get experience in that direction.
Pushing in like that was an unusual thing to do, and I start to think that perhaps this guy is a bit strange. He is standing right behind me and the train is coming in… is he going to push me on to the tracks! He didn't. I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to forget about him. But when I got off the train at Otemachi I think I followed him up the stairs. But there are so many fat greasy salarimen in Japan and they all look the same, so it was hard to say.
So here we are gain, in the bloody Select office on a Friday afternoon with a few hours of dreariness ahead before I can go home, and watch the weekend melt before me like a mirage in a desert, and solidify into Monday morning…bugger!
And the answer is? Always make sure that the way you make your living is what you would want to do anyway! Painters paint, writers write, climbers climb, runners run. Are they working? No, not really, but they are getting money for what they want to do. Surely they have lives to be envied. Perhaps envied is the wrong word to use, perhaps I mean they show us how life could be. It doesn't have to be an uneventful daily slog leading nowhere and adding nothing to ones personal growth. If that is what your life is then surely you are badly missing the point. While we can't all be painters, writers, climbers or runners we can all lead meaningful lives. I seem to be coming back to logotherapy and the work of Victor Frankl. I think I should read his ideas more carefully. I would like to do some kind of practical logotherapy or therapy or workshop or something, not just reading books about it. But being here in Japan limits me. Or does it?

2:25pm. Outside the sun is shining and it's not as humid ass it was yesterday. It would be a good day for a hike today. Emil was here yesterday and told me that he was in considerable pain for three days after that hike. I know how he felt, I felt just the same after me and William went for a hike a few months ago - we got off the trail and had a lot of hard extra up hill slogging. The week after I could hardly walk down steps, so I know what Emil is talking about. We talked about a summer Fuji trip. Emil said it was something he would like to do but after his experience on the hike I described as medium, he thinks he is dangerously under prepared for such an undertaking. I tried to persuade him that it was as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge. After my experience last year when I felt sick going up and coming down and didn't enjoy and couldn't take advantage of my time on the summit (one of the reason I went was to take lots of digital pictures on the summit). That was my 12th time on the summit…or was it 13th? And it was the first time I had felt sick like that. I must have felt like Jake felt when we went upon 1999. I vowed then, I have vowed before, that it was my last time on the top. Last year I was pretty sure we were leaving Japan and that it really would be my last time, but here I am. But this summer the baby will be born. I don't really want to leave the Harumi alone for a night, and I'm pretty sure she would be too pleased either. So a trip to Fuji this summer is not very likely.
3:05pm. The afternoon drags on, but then again if I was at home I'd probably be just as bored. Although on Wednesday when I had the afternoon off I went for a nice walk around the base. Isn't it just typical though, when I do get the day off I invariably waste it, and when I'm in the office I plot how to get the day off. As I said earlier the role model should be the person who doesn't "work" but does what they do. I work and sometimes do what I want to do, but don't get paid for it.
3:56 pm. Outside the sun is shining, inside it's just me, Yuki and Ayumi, thankfully K is out at a client. A short while ago a new cabinet was delivered - a replacement glass fronted one for the steel fronted one. I like office furniture; it's strong and practical.
4:07 pm. and it looks like the time between times is getting shorter… I'm starting to get sleepy now, mid-afternoon, need a coffee and something to eat. It's starting to get too warm for coffee though.
Outside a fire engine or perhaps ambulance sirens its way through the afternoon traffic. A strident amplified voice tells people to get out of the way and thanks them. I wonder where the fire is?