California Screamin'

Wow, it's so nice to be back in beautiful California where the weather is idyllic, the language understandable and everything makes sense again. Ahh...
Oh, wait...

It's hellishly hot in the smoggy San Fernando Valley. Even the palm trees are trying to go underground in an attempt to become tubors and avoid the scalding sun.

The language understandable? So far, I've only heard a few people speaking English and, based on what I eaves dropped on, I'd much prefer to NOT understand the banal chatter.

Everything makes sense? This morning I went into a 7-11. Thought I'd get me a coffee and maybe a banana for breakfast. The place was packed with early-risers, filling 40 oz. cups with florescent slurpees and piling their cradled arms with family-sized Dorito bags and dozen packs of fake chocolate donuts. Did I miss something? Did Arnold Muscleman outlaw proper consumption proportions while I was gone? Was there some kind of genetic change in the population that would necessitate the institution of such absurd eating habits?
Will I be left in the wake of my state's progression if I do not adhere to this new diet of over-consumption?
If so, I think I'll take my chances...
I have a developing theory that someone high up is slipping some kind of brainwashing elixir into those MountainDew Splash Slurpees. Who's to say, I won't wake up tomorrow to find everyone around me waddling around like ducks, howling at the moon, plastering red, white and blue stripes across our forests and backing up their arguments with reality T.V. references...

I'll take a small, stale black coffee, thank you very much.

Getting tongue at the bus stop

You know those horrifyingly happy couples you sometimes see beside you on the subway, lovingly pecking at each other, sharing saliva like it were the last bit of oxygen in a drowning Pontiac, licking cheese-dripping sweet nothings into each others' ears and linguistically regressing into baby-talk..?
Well, there's a name for those in Japanese. They're called 'Baccapuru' which translates to 'stupid couple' and means loosely Inappropriate-Maker-Outer-in-Public couple.

I've spent most of my life staunchly advocating the eradication of such defilers of personal space, relying on my omnipotent interpretations of the Constitution to protect those of us citizens in no (or less-than-ideal) relationships from these disgusting Baccapurus.

How, then, can I justify having spent my last month in Japan, involved in such criminal indecency? What do I have to say for having made old Japanese women bump into walls because they couldn't scrape their eyeballs from the foreign sex-ed course at the stoplight? What tasks is Lucifer creating for me for having forced a family to move to the other side of the train to shelter the eyes of the innocent? What can I say to the Lonely who, upon seeing us, plunged deeper into loneliness?
I'm tempted to say "I'm sorry. I'll keep it behind closed doors from now on." But - no - I say
F*ck it!

*Warning: The following statement is not suitable for those accustomed to the jaded humour characteristic of Up the Creek without a Platypus:

Life is too short and love too precious to waste even a moment.

Ooohh. Just typing such a cliche sent shivers through me. Someone toss me a mop for the sappiness and then a rope. I've fallen and I can't get up!

Vampire Mosquito

You know that feeling when you're swimming vulnerable, unclothed in a dark lake?
The breath of the Unknown licks at your ankles and you fear that the horny trout beneath will head for the amusement park between your legs...?
The depth seems more incalculable than Pi and
fright's red-crotched step brother holds a machete in one hand and a samurai sword in the other...?

and yet...

You can't help but feel more exhilarated than a blood-logged mosquito, sipping beside a Mediterranean sunset...
and everything feels more alive, and beautiful and real...

Well, anyway, that's what I've been touching tongues with recently...

Every night camping and every stop along the hike have trapped me in this transient yet eternal Moment; A Moment fatter than a bloated blowfish, mis-cut and blowing its load... Fatter even than an award-winning pumpkin on defense during the final determining point of the Super Bowl...
Probably fatter even than Pooh Bear honey-hugged and stuck inside the doorway...

But

now it's time to leave Japan.

I'll be diving from one lake of gnarly, uncharted water into the next
in two days.

Just glad I learned the breast stroke as a child...

Vote Newton for Resurrection!

I've always really liked the saying:
"Where ever you go, there you are."

There's something very comforting about it. It makes me feel secure in my skin, and in my place on this big spinning planet.

Yup. It feels good to know that I came here to Japan, and - low-and-behold - I'm in Japan. And, as I sit here on the porch, I sit here on the porch. And, as I hold this pen, I hold this pen.
That's why I'm starting my new religion: Seventh Day Newtonian Physics Resurrectionism.
I desperately hope (and, therefore must blindly and faithfully believe) that Newton will be reborn to us and save us from the evils created by mankind's sinful quantum physicists. For, these monsters of Satan have polluted our reality and robbed us of our Security of Self.
My religion's core premise will be:
Don't trust anyone with a living dead cat in a box, a flashlight that spits out surfable waves AND partyable particles, a pet electron that simultaneously hangs out in multiple atomic shells, or who has an Uncertainty Principle on their bedside table.

We can't afford to fall victim to such heretics!
If we do, it might come to be that
I came to Japan, and find myself in Uzbekistan. And, as I sit here on the porch, I sit here on an antelope in heat. And as I hold this pen, I hold a four-foot tapeworm.
Rather disconcerting if you ask me...

"Where ever you go, there you might be... but, then again, maybe not."

Does the suit suit?

When I was a kid in the '80s, I used to wear florescent stretch pants (usually hideous shades of pink and lime green), topped with three layers of different-colored socks, bunched to perfection.
It was a truly frightening sight, I'm sure.
...In fact, if I saw someone dressed like that today, I might just alert the Amnesty International Branch of Aesthetic Rights to come and canvass and collect petition signatures against abominable fashion abuses...
Because, really, those things and colors just don't go together...

But... here are a few things I think DO suit each other well:

1) the salivation-inspiring scent of Japanese festival foods like tako-yaki (octopus balls), tori-karage (fried-up chicken), and grilled bad pick-up lines ("Where are you from? Let's enjoying together!")

2) Fireworks accompanied by irascible lightning

3) laughter, smiles, and sleep

4) a quick blog entry and bed

'Night!

Schlong Shrine

Have you ever been in a dimly-lit, dank room crammed with penis statues?
***

You know that "cooking rut" phenomenon...?
It's that inexplicable phenomenon that rears its slanted head every once in a while and grunts:
"Tarzan, you must cook and eat the same meal for a week!"
For me, it usually achieves its orgasmic zenith when I decide to buy a dozen eggs.
Once the purchase is made, it's all over..
I'm in for a marathon eight days of Spanish omelettes, sunny-side-up surprises, scrambled sarcasm and tabasco-spiked over-easiness...

I only mention this because it's somewhat reminiscent of the surreal, drugless trip phase that currently powders my hours.(I just can't excape fantastical experiences until I finish the whole dozen...)

My friends and I just went camping and hiking in parts of Gunma, Japan more invigorating and beautiful than the most memorable Himalayan sexual ascent.
And, on our way home, we stopped for what we thought would be a quick bite at an old-school Japanese noodle restaurant.
But then
my old friend, Magical Realism, took front stage...
Just behind the restaurant's bathroom was a

Penis Room!

I'm not kidding.

This room was a shrine filled with thousands of penis sculptures!

Most were wooden; carved sticks that smiled in all shapes and sizes. Some were ceramic and attached to characters birthed in Japanese folklore..Others were phallic stone-carvings worthy of adorning Zeus.
Or Goliath...

Anyway, traumatized and intrigued, we paid the sweet old grandfather for our soba noodles and left with a photocopy of Kama-Sutric positions and a container of nipple-shaped chocolates...

Man... Just when I thought Japan was getting boring...!

Surrealism in the Spa

I think I've caught something pretty severe.
Luckily, though,
I can't pass it on to anyone through naked spanking in the sack.

I've caught
a Reoccurring Theme in my life.
It's the I'm-constantly-being-abducted-and-dropped-into-surreal-worlds-
and-then-spit-out-again-only-to-feel-like-I've-been-sucking-pipe-with-
Edgar-Allen-Poe-for-either-ten-minutes-or-ten-years Theme.

So, there we were...
three enormous, sweat-melting foreigners in the midst of grandfathers in yukatas at a village festival.
Out of ecological respect for the environment, we decided to dive into the free public bath house on the main square. You know... to prevent our bodies from releasing any more pungeant toxins into the clean, country air...

And that's when I realized I'd gotten the "Magically Unreal Experience Disease".

I bowed through the curtain with the kanji for 'woman' and passed through the gate into a psychadelic world worthy of an Asimov novel. Or a Tom Waitts song...
Before my eyes could adjust to the sulfur-scented haze, I was surrounded by a flock of nine Japanese women who cooed "little sister" at me and sang what I can only describe as a hip hop-cum-gospel Sirens' Song.
I undressed and floated over to the hotspring pool where women with multiple stomachs poured bowls of water over me.
Then, they led me into a cauldron of boiling water that no sentient being should ever enter
unless they plan on becoming stew...
or roasted foreigner on a stick
with lightly toasted rice balls on the side....

It was kind of like entering a Salvador Dali painting when you are expecting to go to the zoo and see panda bears and monkeys throwing feces...

But, anyway...
I've frequented Japanese public baths (onsens) for about three years now,
and this is the first time I have ever thought:
"Hey, maybe I'm not just some scraggly-haired girl from California... Maybe..just maybe... I'm the roast pig at the annual county fair..."

Rationality's minion strikes

Since am still in a state of skipping over transitionary bridges, I have no time to sit down, get drunk and stare at a computer screen and make a coherent post any more. So here's the M-16 Power Word Summary of what's been going on:

-got pulled over for going down a one-way street which (32 upstanding police officials later) was declared NOT actually a one-way street
-sat for seven hours against a wall in one of Tokyo's stations, making up life histories to fit every grandma wearing a Playboy shirt that passed before my eyes
-got lost in the hills and the cops took me to use the internet in a smoky, cacaphonous casino-style pachinko parlor (I mean, where else would you go to check email?)
-went camping and met a moderately deranged Irish expat whose leprechaun character has already inspired my next three novels
-hiked to a natural spring that was guarded by an S&M Buddha who held a paddle in his right hand and a whip made of lotus plants in his left
-got offered a job and actually started considering staying in Japan (that is, until Reality's horseman and Rationality's minion came and beat my brain back into shape)
-spent a week laughing with two of the most positive, witty and slightly off-center friend/artist/musician/writer(lunatics) in this half of the Milky Way galaxy
-passed out dreaming of the moment when I can check out all my buddies' blogs

-sigh

Under the bridge

Maybe I have a deeply repressed Japanese law enforcement agent fetish crammed somewhere in the recesses of my little toes. Maybe I secretly fantasize about inefficient, logic-devoid hotties in uniforms who forgot to pick up the bag of critical-thinking skills on their birthday at the hospital...
'Cuz, really, why else would I have shared two lovely encounters in the past week with the Japanese federales?
The most recent one involved two foreign dimwits who got lost in the mountains, strolling through rice fields, under bridges, and zig-zagging their way across hillsides.

In order to puff up their chromatically-colored Idiocy peacock feathers, our two protagonists decided to embark on this Odyssey without the address or telephone number of their home.
So, this left them with no choice but to put their future in the hands of uniformed officers with little more intelligence than a dung beetle testing Tim Leary's chemical cookies.

Yup... so we toured what had to be about seventeen counties in Japan in a kind man's taxi and a cop car. And, no less than 7 hours later, we were home.

Good times, new psychological playgrounds and new fetishes off the bargain rack...
Good stuff...

Moral of the story: Don't leave new homes without a map and at least a sliver of functioning cranium.