The Savage Muse

“Hey, Ana-sensei did you know that OO-sensei wanted to be a bus guide when she was young?”

The other students peered over their shoulders at OO-sensei who was blithely unaware of the little curious eyes. Little Shouhei beamed over the trivia that caused much side-way glances from each of the students. We all looked at each other while we ate our lunch, nodding at our shared general knowledge for possible future teacher heckling. It was like Fight Club. First rule of Kid Club is You do not talk about Kid Club. Poor OO-sensei.

The girl next to me nudged me with her shoulder, not wanting to let go of her chopsticks as she managed to simultaneously nudge me while inhaling her portion of jya- jya-men. “What did you want to be when you were like us, Ana-sensei? You’re very pretty. I bet you wanted to be a model.”

I hugged the child. “You are my favorite now.”

The students were expected to write a few sentences about their summer vacation stating the date, with whom, and where.

Something like the following the model:
In August 11, I went to Kochi with my sister. I saw the yosakoi festival. It was very fun.

I read this from a male student:
In August, I stayed at home. I went to the bathroom alone. It was great.

The tiny brown globes rested in a tiny mountain pile on top of steaming rice, almost appearing if they were steaming themselves. I leaned over and the pungent smell of ripe old age cheese seized my senses. Overwhelmed, I stumbled backwards, fingers grappling on the table to regain balance. I peered cautiously at the innocent ceramic bowl before me and then at the smiling, encouraging face of my host mother.

So this is natto, I thought to myself. I stirred the sticky mounds. The pile mushed and gossamer strings stretched, sticky on the chopsticks.

Looks and smells like a pile of steaming crap. Eww.

– circa. 2001-2002

Do you like natto on rice the most?
I do not like them, mom-the-host
I do not like natto on rice the most.

Would you like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.

I do not like natto on rice the most.
I loathe natto on rice the most.

Would you share them with a lark?
Would you like them with a Marc?

I would share them with a lark.
Nor will I like them with a Marc.
He hates them, mom-the-host
Like me, he hates natto on rice the most.

Not with a lark.
Not with a Marc.
I would not eat them here or there.
I would not eat them anywhere.
I do not like natto on rice the most.
I loathe natto on rice the most.

The second part of the Trio’s Atami trip involved spending time at the beach, wading around in rocks while we tried to catch tiny speedy crabs. We also ate udon and soba at a nearby restaurant before we walked around MOA or The Museum of Art, founded by religious leader Mokichi Okada.

Did I mention that a Beijing Olympic Silver Medalist was my neighbour for the past two months? Check out the video.

I like indulging in childish antics, be it gorging on ice cream breakfasts, playing pranks on each other, and being financially irresponsible. Going to the Atami Adult Museum is no different.

Here, the three of us – Forrest, Marc, and I — edged one another into exclaiming “Penis!” as loud as we could, pointed and laughed at the block prints of ye olde sexual positions, shrieked in glee at the perverted version of The Tale of Urashimatarou, and played “Whack-A-Penis”.

Among other things, life has been a constant stream of work, events, and play which has hijacked me away from the interwebs. I find myself deep in adventures during the weekend while I attempt to maintain a sane regular work week during the week days.

Unfortunately, this means unnaturally long breaks away from my blog. My blog queue and video footage queue has been building higher and higher since the arrival of Marc and has only been made worse by the short 2 week visit from Forrest. For that I apologize to my dear readers and beg for your forgiveness with the promise that my absence only means that all the following blog posts – planting rice, visiting an elementary school, and Atami – are worth the wait.

However, Mount Fuji does not wait.

Marc waltzed into my favorite bakery, Danke, began a conversation with the owner of the bakery. After bonding over their mutual interest in cameras and audio equipment, Marc charmed himself into a personal tour of the bakery and an invitation to a BBQ that upcoming weekend.

Lots of boar, yakisoba, and turban snails to be had.

… because Marc in Japan just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

2 weeks or so has passed since Marc landed in Japan and joined me here in my wee little town of Izunokuni. I could romanticize the whole excursion, but in short he is here:

a) eating my food,
b) using my internet,
c) dirtying my towels,
d) charming my friends,
e) eating my food.

It hasn’t been completely terrible. I still laugh when he hits his head on the shower rod.

There’s an old saying that goes, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. I’m convinced this saying was also meant for me. The pile above was lovingly picked and lovingly traded by a class of grade three children. The jam was also made by the children and they presented it to me. The gesture tugged my heart.

****

“I will trade you this big strawberry,” I waved the strawberry by its stem in front of the little boys. One of them scrunched his face in contemplation. “I will trade it for three of those medium sized ones.”

“Deal!” I made the exchange with the little boy Kou who grabbed the strawberry and greedily stuffed it in his mouth. With little red sticky fingers he gingerly took three strawberries from his plastic container and placed them gently on my pile. “Shank chooooo!” He and the other boys ran off, squealing, one of them tripping over and smearing red stains of fruit pulp on his cargos.

It was only moments before I was just sitting on my desk, ostensibly occupied with important matters when all I really was doing was pushing paper, doodling, or attempting to balance a pencil on the space between the nose and the upper lip.

“Do you like strawberries?” The sudden English question struck me as odd. I looked up from the paper and pushed it aside when I realized the voice belonged to the vice-principal.

“Yes, I do.” I answered. “I like them very much.” He looked pleased with himself with his obvious success in communication, waved me along and said, “Good. Get coat and be in the front. Five minutes.”

Now I found myself in the middle of the madhouse of strawberry fueled children and I saw myself turning into a similar red sticky fingered madwoman. I loved it.

Comedians, clever comedians, are not only articulate, but are incredibly smart people. I am blessed to have friends who are smart so they’re also very articulate and very funny.

I recently posted a whiny complaint on one of my bestest’s wall how the rainy season in Japan has prevented me from running for the past two weeks but has encouraged me to stay home and eat anko-filled pastries instead. As a reply she wrote this haiku:

rain traps me inside
scarfing down anko pastries
two weeks since I ran

(I love her. She read this:

spring is passing by!
…birds are weeping and the eyes
of fish fill with tears

yuku haru ya
tori naki uo no
me wa namida
- The Narrow Road to Oku – Basho (1689)

And her initial response is to say, “[...] Is this just some elegant way of expressing the fact that everything gets f*cking DRENCHED during the rainy season?” LOVE HER!)

Then another friend of mine saw the pastry haiku and took it up another notch and replied with a 5-7-5-7-7 haiku rendition of the above, but in Japanese. Here it is in romaji:

Ame furite
Uchi yadoru koto
2 shuukan
Soto hashirezuni
Anpann shokusu

Today a friend of mine jokingly mentioned how he would love to write Horton Hears a Who … and a Zombie, but fears the lawyers who will come knocking on his door anxious to sue. This began a tirade of mash-up suggestions like Cat in the Hat: Vampire Hunter; One Fish, Two Fish and Sea Serpents; and Green Eggs and Ham and Zombies. etc.

My suggestion was Yertle the Turtle meets Bobby the Zombie. I wrote the following example:

“And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he
met Bobby the Zombie, who hung from a tree.

He hung limply, swung swiftly with arms full of dread.
No wait! Not dread, just a big rotten head.”

And look, I even wrote it in anapestic tetrameter just like Seuss.

Nerd out!