Feeling ____________

The weekend passed in a blur. Yesterday, I got a package in the mail from my amazing friend-since-second-grade Junette Teng who sent me a boot-legged copy of Team America all the way from the dirty streets of New York. It wasn't as funny as I expected it to be, but it was written just as well as I had heard. It has one of the best social metaphors based on dirty parts of the body I've ever witnessed (okay, there aren't many social metaphors based on dirty party of the body - but this one was really good! Really!). Thanks Junette - you're the best.

Australian Heath's girlfriend Amy was in town from Tokyo (where she's studying) for the weekend, and they were all going out with this other Australian girl Helen and invited me along. We started off with bowling in Ichibancho, and I almost felt like I was back in the U.S. again - I was with white people, and the bowling alley had the same cigarettes-mingled-with-human-sleaze smell of the bowling alleys back home. We then went to play pool down the street, and finished with dinner at Yoshinoya. It was the first time in a couple months that I really hung out with native English speakers, and it was really refreshing. And I realized Australians say a lot of funny words I don't understand. Anyway, it was a nice warm-up for this coming weekend in Kyoto for our Fulbright Reunion/Thanksgiving.

Speaking of the Fulbrighters, I've been in Japan now for three months, and I submitted my second monthly report tonight. I'm beginning to get worried that my progress is not as fast as the other Fulbrighters, and my pathetic whining made up the majority of my report.

Oh, and my cell phone is getting pounded with Spam e-mails. I don't know how I ended up on all these spam lists since I've literally never used the internet on my phone, never replied to or clicked through one of the Spam e-mails, and have never used my phone address for anything. I'm thinking that I might have to change my e-mail address soon if it doesn't get better. To add to that, my right ring finger has a cut along the nail that got infected and now my finger is swollen. Shit.

Just for the hell of it here are excerpts from three songs that have been instrumental in my days and nights for the last week:

Theologians by Wilco from A Ghost is Born:
They thin my heart with little things
And my life with change
Oh in so many ways
I find more missing every day
Theologians
I'm going away
Where you will look for me
Where I'm going you cannot come

Counting Down the Hours Ted Leo + the Pharmacists from Shake the Sheets:
As I'm walking toward tomorrow with a rifle in my hand
And I'm thinking about New England and I'm missing old Japan
And a mountain in California where a spring runs hot and cold
And if I told you I felt ageless, would you tell me I'm not old?

正夢　by Spitz
どうか正夢　君と会えたら
なにから話そう　笑って欲しい
小さな幸せつなぎ合わせよう
浅いプールでじゃれるような