expat alkie

The Letter, Revisited

The other night, I arrived at a Meeting a couple minutes late.  Claiming the last seat left in the room, I noticed that there was a middle-aged woman sitting two seats away from me whom I'd never met before in the Tokyo chapter.  This was rare, since we are a smaller community than most, with, as you may imagine, even fewer female members.   From her interactions with others, I could tell that this woman wasn't a newcomer.

It was her.  I jumped to conclusions, which I do whenever I see a woman in a meeting with whom I am not yet acquainted, presuming her guilty until proven innocent.  She wrote the anonymous letter.

I had gotten this scandal (which I allude to vaguely in Pictures That Are Mine) out of my head in more recent months, but mostly because I had run out of suspects.  According to what was disclosed in her letter to the Tokyo magazine, I knew that the letter writer was a woman.  Thinking that I may have just found the culprit, I realized that I am still very resentful about this.

Stop it. I rebuked myself. I'm not going to get anything out of this meeting if I don't stop reveling in my resentments and pay attention to what is going on.  And the least I could do is learn something today, because I so, so don't want to be here right now.

As for what was going on, we were reading the Chapter to the Agnostic.  In the stories that people began to tell after the reading ended, there arose a recurring theme of divine intervention. There was much to do with the idea of a higher power who has lifted the desire to drink from right off of our shoulders.

There is no doubt in my mind that a higher power got me into this program.  At the same time, I would be misleading myself to jump on that wagon and proclaim that my desire to completely fuck up my body and my life via alcohol has gone away.  It hasn't.  I still miss drinking and it still stings to be bombarded with all things alcohol in what feels like every aspect of popular culture.

So if I don't feel as if the desire to drink has been lifted from me by a divine power, I wondered, then what is keeping me from giving in lately?

I already knew the answer to that: I just wouldn't be able to live with myself!  To be perfectly honest, I am a rather guilt-driven organism.  And if I became weak and screwed everything up at this point in my recovery, I am scared to death of what I might do to punish myself. 

I boss myself around a lot.  Just moments earlier at this meeting, I had scolded myself into paying attention to the stories instead of staring down this mysterious new woman whom I was suddenly sure wrote the letter.

All this makes me wonder if I might be taking some of the right steps here, for all the wrong reasons.

Weapons of guilt and fear cannot hold up indefinitely in a struggle against addiction.  The program has taught me that instead,  I should be praying to a higher power that I might be lifted out of this battle entirely.  (I've been hurt enough already, to say the least.)  I need to pray for serenity.  And I need to pray that one day, I will actually believe that I deserve better than the screwed-up life of an active alcoholic.

And maybe then, I won't feel a curious sense of envy whenever I pass people on the streets of Tokyo who are so drunk they can barely walk.

   

Insight via Elvis

My eikaiwa-weary T usually has to go into work on Sundays.  Today, however, he got an unexpected day off.  We were trying to figure out what we should do to celebrate, when it hit me: T had never seen "the Harajuku Elvises" before.  To be living here in Tokyo, yet to have never seen the Elvises, is a rare thing indeed.  Still, T-the-overworked usually spends much of the weekend in a classroom while the Elvises only come out on Sundays. 

During the other days of the week, these guys likely masquerade as 'normal,' non-freak-like Japanese men who are getting on in their years.  On Sundays though, at the entrance to Yoyogi Park, they become. . .well. . .break dancing, hair gelling, air-guitar rocking Elvis impersonators:

Unlike the Japanese imperial army soldier over at Yasukuni shrine the other day, the Harajuku elvises tend to prefer beer over chu-hi.

 

In all the free time I suddenly have since I quit drinking, I sometimes contemplate the significance of drinking cultures within different societies.  This scene, in particular, makes me think about the public consumption of alcohol.  Back in America, it would be illegal to drink beer in the open like this.

And with good reason. 

When I was growing up in the States, it seemed like whenever alcohol was served out in the open and people were permitted to drink wherever they wished, it lead to violence and sex crimes.  I am reminded specifically of Woodstock '99 and the Puerto Rican Day parade in 2000 (but perhaps my memory is dated, as I refer to events that occurred around the time I left New York for college in Montreal.) 

In Japan though, the public consumption of alcohol does NOT tend to end in violence to the same extent that it does in other countries.  I have no idea why this is true; it is something I'll have to look into.  And in this case at least, the Japanese seem to be channeling their energy out into a much more healthy, if bizarre, outlet. 

Anyway, whether you agree with me or not, pictures!

Also: homoerotic tendencies.  Damned if I know what that's about.

pinky, the ghetto care bear

I had to go to the doctor today in Shibuya, to get a new prescription for birth control.  Here in Japan, my prescription for the pill has to be renewed every month.  As a result, I've never made so many meaningless trips to the doctor's office in my life.  It's become like a ritual.  First I wait for an hour in the waiting room, then when my number is finally called I walk into his office and say "same as last month."  He says "ok," checks some boxes on the computer screen at his desk then clicks his mouse on "enter," and I am out in less than a minute.  Seriously, I think we spoke for less than 30 seconds today.  Birth control is not covered by my national health insurance, but in a country where the health minister has referred to women as "birth-giving-machines," on record, what can you really expect.

At least I got through the process more quickly than I usually do.  The waiting room was not nearly as crowded as usual, seeing as a lot of people are on holiday this week.  I was running pretty far ahead of schedule, with two whole hours to kill before I had to be at my AA meeting this evening in Roppongi.  I had my camera with me, so I thought I might lurk around Shibuya and take pictures of weird things.  But I decided against it, because everyone else had the same idea.  Everyone takes pictures in Shibuya.  And I swear, every other person in Shibuya was holding a camera today.

So instead of staying in Shibuya for a good hour of random street photography, I hopped the Yamanote line and got off a few stops over in Shinjuku.  Heading out the East exit, I emerged in Kabukicho.  Not too many people go around snapping photos on the streets of Kabukicho.  Maybe they're scared to.  Kabukicho after all, is considered to be the most dangerous neighborhood in Tokyo.  And yet, to be "the most dangerous" neighborhood in a city where virtually nobody (but senior gang members) owns a gun, says basically nothing.   

Still, it is more or less a red light district that is overrun with yakuza.  "Kabuki" refers to the traditional Japanese theater, while "cho" means town.  That said, the district's name evokes referrences to a time in the nation's history when theater actors were synonymous with prostitutes.

And now, you are about to witness the heart of the Tokyo Ghetto.  You have been warned.

Can you find Winnie-the-Pooh hiding in the enterance to this sex shop??

And here we have the back of a host. 

                  

Hosts can easily be spotted in the area.  Just look for their giant, overstyled hair. 

The building at the end of the road that looks like an enchanted castle is a love hotel.  Kabukicho is known for those, too.

I can't decide which job would be worse: a Kabukicho host, or that pink bear.  That suit's gotta be hot in this heat wave.  And I thought the salarymen had it bad. . .

Ok, that's enough for today.  Byebye from Tokyo Ghettoland!!

      

      

Yasukuni, Interrupted

Yasukuni. . .enshrines roughly 2.5 million soldiers, airmen, and seamen, many of whom were inspired by the belief that their spirit be enshrined should they die in battle fighting heroically for the Emperor. More importantly to Korea and China, two countries that suffered the wrath of Japan's military might over a half-century ago, it also memorializes 14 Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

-From the unfortunately titled yet grudgingly informative website "sake-drenched postcards"

Wherever I went, people asked me what I was doing there.  And honestly, I didn't really know what I was doing there either.  I had the day off, and going to see that controversial war shrine everyone's talking about on the anniversary of Japan's surrender, seemed like the thing to do.

People kept asking me questions.  People with big cameras and long fuzzy microphones.  They wanted to know why I came to Yasukuni shrine on that day specifically.

The same reason as you, I wanted to say, I'm here to disengage from the tragedies of man's inhumanity to man during the Second World War by taking many, many pictures.  Besides, did they think I didn't watch the news?

But I didn't say any of that.  I didn't say anything of substance at all, really.    At 40 degrees Celsius, it was too hot to think.  I sounded stupid; I'm sure I sounded stupid.  Even if I didn't sound stupid, they will make me sound stupid.  I've done enough interviews already (although usually about my hostess work) to realize that much.

But whatever.  Those are their stories, and this is mine.

Coming out of Kudanshita station and walking towards the shrine, I saw the first riot cops I'd ever encountered on my long tour here.  There weren't any disturbances, yet I was surrounded by right-wing zealots in army uniforms. 

To be fair, most Japanese people I know denounce their own militaristic past and are not xenophobic with respect to foreign nationals.  And yet, there are also guys like this:

I don't get this dude.  He is holding up a sign that says "No Suffrage for Foreigners," and is collecting signatures to what is presumably the same end.  And yet, who said we wanted to vote in Japanese elections??  I've not heard anything of non-Japanese passport holders making such demands before.  Me, I'd be happy just to walk down the street without being gawked at.  Dude seems to be feeling overly threatened by anything that is Different from him today.

There were also lots of Yakuza about, gangsters who are well known to be affiliated with right-wing groups.  Yakuza are highly recognizable anywhere, mostly because they walk around like they own the streets, perm their hair, and dress like this:

Getting closer to the shrine, though, I encountered more and more people who seem to have come for more legitimate reasons.  They tended to be quite a bit older, and could conceivably be coming to pay their respects to fallen friends and relatives.

 

Yet at the same time, i could not get far without bumping into far younger visitors of the ultra-right wing nationalist variety, dressed in full military regalia.  In short, these are the kids who grew up reading those compulsory history textbooks which are still criticized for their stark omissions.  As a result, they tend to confuse the word "invasion" with "liberation," "massacre" with "incident," and "institutionalized mass rape" with "prostitution".

This particular soldier is openly drinking a can of lemon chu-hi.  I'm guessing that the strong alcoholic beverage can hit a soldier pretty hard  in this heat.

I used to love chu-hi, mainly because it could get me very, very drunk.  Some friends used to nickname me chu-hi-chan, even, because I was always holding one of those cans. 

 

And yet, guess which one of us is sober. . .

Please note that my smile in the above photo is far more nervous than mocking.  Dude's got a sword, after all. 

my former self & me

In my heaviest drinking days, I used to love watching my illegally downloaded episodes of South Park- over and over again.  I rationalized this practice by telling myself that I could discover something new each time I watched the same episode.  I guess that was true enough, since I was too drunk and stoned to remember shit all anyway. 

So when I saw this link to create your own South Park character over on Sober Chick, I couldn't help but create an ode to my former self.

                             IN MEMORIAM:

make it stop

I woke up this morning in a pool of bad memories.  I was assaulted by thoughts of a truly awful fight I had with my family- while drunk beyond recognition- over the holidays of 2004.  Yes, it was that bad.

“Make it stop!” I accidentally said out loud, forgetting the pillowlike-T was right beside me.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Munya munya” I answered in Japanese, with the onomatopoeic expression for “just mumbling.”  It is an expression I have to utilize quite often during those cringe moments, although no one –myself included- ever believes that I’m just mumbling.

T-pillow seemed concerned, so I pretended to sleep.  Soon I fell asleep again.  Later on I woke up alone, and commenced my translation work for the day, escaping into the world of winged cats.  I can work in bed.  I like that about this job.

I am taking a break from that work now (though I’m still in bed; I like that about blogging). 

What really sucks about returning to my pre-alcoholic state of mind, is that I can be so, so hard on myself.  Oppressively hard on myself, even.  The only way I’ve gotten that voice to go away in the past, is by conjuring up a feeling of extreme indifference.  I mean, what better defense is there against a control freak than to shout: “I don’t fucking care!”  And once I realized how to pretend I didn’t care, I took it- like everything else I do really- to the utmost extremes.  “I don’t fucking care,” I said this to myself over and over again, as I broke rules and laws, screamed at strangers, hurt (if not traumatized) the people who loved me, hurt myself the most, and made a general fool out of myself while I was at it. 

Looking back, indifference was the only way I could cope with someone as uptight and perfectionistic as myself. And so it was I made a big ass mess of my life.  In the process of cleaning up the wreckage, I realize now that I really do care about all of the things I tried so hard to be indifferent about while I was drinking.  I care very deeply, and that is why this hurts so much.

The painful memories show up in waves.  Like they did this morning. 

Yet when these waves hit, I do not let them pull me back out to sea anymore. I used to give into so easily to the undertow while I was still drinking: I’d get drunk immediately after waking up with a hangover, in order to numb the pain of whatever transpired the night before.

But I don’t do that anymore.  Instead, I have a strong pillar to hang onto whenever the tidal waves hit unannounced.  I have the program, I have my sponsor, I have God, I have T, and I have all of you.  With all these things in my favor, I hold my ground and beat the undertow every time.

I am grateful for that today.

wind-up toys on crack

Speaking of insects, the cicadas have also started coming back to town this week.  As they always do this time of year, hoards of these bugs emerge from underground to fly about the city, scream bloody hell, and then die.  It always happens like this.  And they don't seem to care that my ears are still recovering from all the screeching that went on last August.

On a practical level, I sometimes wonder what all the haiku masters saw in these insects anyway.  Like, how could Basho could even concentrate on the ephemeral nature of existence, with all that screeching going on? 

In reality, the cicadas are noisy and ugly and when they all die together in the coming weeks, the dead insects will pile up in mutilated pieces, all over the streets.  And they will attract flies.  And it's gross.  In poetry they are beautiful, in reality they are gross.

For some reason, it's impossible for me to ever take haiku seriouly in my own attempts at the style.  Yet if I were a haiku master, I might write something like this:

wind-up toy on crack

squeeeeek-duk-duk-duk-duk-duk-duk

oh shut the hell up

Hmmm, I feel like I could use a bit more serenity here.  Let me try again:

welcome to the light

scream your heart out while you can 

seven days to live

Now that just feels morbid though.  People are always trying to create poetry, etc. on the transient nature of life and death, but who really understands death anyway?  What living thing would understand what it's like to die?  Even these cicadas, whose existence has more or less become a kind of 'living poetry' about death around here, can't even comprehend what's in store for them.   

my vicarious wings

I came across a pretty, sky-blue colored dragonfly on the street today. She was kind enough to let me take her photograph from a few different angles.

Some minutes ago, wikipedia informed me that although dragonflies are traditionally viewed as sinister in the West, in Japan they have always been thought to bring courage, strength and happiness. 

I could always use more courage, strength and happiness, so I'm going to go with the Eastern interpretation on this one.

And so I will name my new winged friend "Aomi-sama". I further propose that she become my blog's vicarious mascot.  In this, I hope that she might send us all some courage, strength and happiness from wherever she flew off to after crossing my path today.

Seven Months Sober!

Yes, seven whole months.  It's been trying at times, yet on the whole I have to say that my sober life totally kicks my drinking life's ass. Yeah! Moreover, with the help of the cardboard craftsman currently known as wonderboy-T, I now have enough sobriety coins to create my very own replica of Tokyo Tower. What do you think?

I've always wanted to create my very own phallic city-symbol out of recovery coins, and now I can do it!! 

Seriously though, I really want to thank everyone reading my blog for helping me get this far.  You've all had a part in this. 

愛してるよ !!

Tagged = Special

Wow, I've never been tagged by anyone ever before -- never ever in my three-month-long carreer as a sober blogger.  Thank you Judith!

EIGHT THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT GEISHA-INTERRUPTED (AND DIDN'T ASK)

1) I was a competitive figure skater for seven years.  When I stopped competing, I taught ice skating lessons for two years after that.  This was all before I graduated high school.  Skating was an artistic outlet and all, but I'm pretty sure that the competitive nature of the sport, etc., fucked with my little mind quite a bit.

2) I have a fake tooth.  It was an adult tooth that never grew in when all the baby teeth fell out.  Growing up, it resulted in years of braces, even more years of a retainer with a plastic tooth on it (which I used to freak out my friends), and finally a tooth implant when I turned 18.  Since then, I've experienced recurring nightmares that involve my fake tooth's getting loose and falling out.  This is especially the case when I am feeling insecure for whatever reason.

3) I was a socialist in college.

4) I am always breaking my glasses. I have a tendency to fall asleep reading then roll over onto them. This has resulted in the ample use of duct tape, krazy glue, and dental floss in order to put my glasses together until they break again.

5) I get my periodic dosage of American culture by watching Flavor of Love on Vh1.com. 

6) I suffer from on-again-off-again addiction to the evil computer game SNOOD. My SNOOD inventory tells me that my addiction flares up during periods when I have a lot of other work I should be doing on my computer instead.

7) I dedicated my book to two of my high school teachers. I am not in touch with them anymore, so they do not know this yet.

8) I have been painstakingly trying to hide the fact that I have a blog from everyone I know in the real world, with the exception of the ubiquitous-T, who lives with me after all. But even the obedient-T is not allowed to read it most of the time. Jade knows that I have a site where I've posted her pictures, but I told her that she could only have the address after she quit her job. 

That said, I'm in the infantile stages of making online friends.  This makes me
nervous about who to "tag" here. 

OK OK, I belatedly TAG: MM, poatpaleo, THW, and Mr. Salaryman (if he is done playing with his new "God-Jesus" fortune telling robot...) Now you have to post "eight things we don't know about you (and didn't ask)".