Day in the Life of an Idiot

As some of you already know, I have a Japanese pen pal.

Since the pandemic, we have exchanged emails in case of emergency or when we want to dash off a quick heads-up. The mail has been very wonky here, so I made the mistake of thinking that it might be nice to send along a note to her as things came up in the New York Times about Japan. So, this last month, I did not wait for her reply, but clipped a few articles of interest and sent them along. I was AWARE this might cause her some stress, but tried to make it clear in my letter that she was under no obligation to reply to each letter separately.

I got a sternly worded email the other day telling me to cease and desist.

To be fair, that's not at all what she ACTUALLY said or how she said it. But, culturally, I am aware that 'I appreciate your letters so much! There's a big pile of them to be answered on my desk now along with all the other work I must do (emphasis mine), I hope you will be patient with my replies," is actually HOLY SHIT, GIRL, STOP, I AM FEELING DEEPLY OVERWHELMED.  So, I wrote back a very, very apologetic reply. I told her that I was sincerely sorry if my extra letters stressed her out and I will sit on my hands now until I receive something from her. This was punctuated by some of the few words I can write in Japanese which are, すめません and ごめんなさい (excuse me and I'm sorry.) 

She wrote back the expected, "Oh, no, no, it's nothing, please don't worry," which means: GOOD, GLAD YOU GOT THE MESSAGE, DIP WAD, and a phrase I had never seen before. おこころづかいありがとうございます (o-kokorodsukai arigato gozaimasu).  I obviously recognize the polite thank you (the bit that begins with arigato,) but despite studying for several years now that beginning part was completely unknown to me. Google translate tells me that it means something like, "Thank you for your support." and it is obvious to this Japanese student that this is said in a very polite form.  

So, I guess I navigated our first fight okay? Or does the super-polite tag line mean that I'm still on her list?? 

Thoughts?

Likewise, I haven't felt much like watching anime as I do the dishes and having finished the live-action TV show, "Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories," (all five seasons,) I started listening to my Pimsleur tapes again. If you have followed my language learning for any amount of time you know that I take some issue with how SKEEVY Pimsleur is, or, as I like to call them, PIMPsleur. 

Actual series of exercises follows:

Skeevy Pimp-sleur: "Say, 'Where is your wife?'" 
Me (doing the dishes): Oksan wa doko desu ka?"
Skeevy Pimp-sleur: :Say, 'My wife? I don't know.'"
Me (already getting a bad feeling,) "Konnai? Wakarimassen."
Skeevy Pimp-sleur: "Now ask the young lady if she would like to have dinner with you."
Me: (shouting at the tape) "HOLY SH*T, Pimp-sleur, I WILL NOT."

This is NOT the first time I have had to have this kind of conversation with these language tapes, either.

As I have discussed here before, it is POSSIBLE that Pimsleur is trying to warn women of conversations that could be problematic, but I just don't know, you know? They have not taken the time on these tapes to explain that if someone says, "Mmmm, that's a little...." (So desu, chotto....") they are saying, NO, I AM NOT INTERESTED. Instead, the tapes keep going with "ask her, 'how about later then?' which is just rude and not to mention very skeevy in a culture that does not tend to like conflict or saying no directly. 

But this isn't what's making me feel like I'll never learn this language. Pimpsleur just tried to teach me how to say, "My wife would like to drink coffee" in a polite form and it's so f*cking complicated that my tongue trips over it every time. 

I will probably actually be able to check in more than once a week. This week, in particular, is going to be busy with stuff I'm sure I'm going to want to journal about. I'll get to all that in a second. Most important announcement! Our family has welcomed a new member: Willow.



Picture: Shawn holding a tiny black, short-haired cat, who basically all ears and bright yellow eyes at this point in her life, whom we have named Willow.

The story of how Willow came to us is a nice one. It was one of those cases where we said, "We're ready, but not in a hurry for a new cat. Maybe the universe will provide." And it did.

We had started looking around, even put in an application for a pair of siblings we saw on a website called "Kitty Revolution." But, someone else had gotten there first, so we thought, "Ah, well, those weren't the cats for us, then." Then, my barista (Molly) said to me, "So, um, are you guys still looking for a cat? Only a friend of mine has picked up a stray and can't keep her."

Shawn and I went to see this cat that the family had named Nightmare (a good name, honestly, but reminds me when we first got Kirk who had initially been named Vicious and he was the furthest thing from.) Shawn and I walked in the door (Mason was at his St. Paul College class or he would have been with us) and the kitty literally ran up to Shawn, Shawn scooped her up into her arms, and I was like, "I see we have found our cat. Let me go get the kitty carrier."

This story gets even more amazing, because I was expecting to have to do that several weeks long, slow introduction to the other cats. But, no, she just slotted right in. Once we made sure she was feline leukemia and other dread communicable diseases free, I was still keeping her separate but letting the cats see her (carrying her in my arms, switching rooms so they could smell her, etc.) But, when Buttercup scratched at the bedroom door, I thought, "I don't want him to think he can't come in." So I picked her up and let him in. It became very clear that there wasn't going to be any hissing so I let her down. Buttercup (who is a thousand times her size) very much carefully deferred to her and followed her around. She was so at ease that he relaxed. Our eldest cat, of course, is done giving f*cks so she just gave the newest edition the stink eye and went back to sleep. It's been happy cat harmony ever since.



Picture: Buttercup (big orange) and Willow (the black void with ears) on the same bed.

So, that's been amazing. Buttercup really needed a companion. As mentioned, our eldest, who is NINETEEN, is done with all your nonsense, and so is not at all interested in being jumped at or played with. Willow totally chases Buttercup's tail and they play like siblings (as opposed to the hissing, REAL fighting that will happen if someone DARES to touch the eldest.)

For those who are curious, I did NOT make it to the Dump Trump rally last Thursday when the Traitor-in-Chief was in town. Mason's school schedule is such that I was picking him up at St. Paul College right as the protest was officially scheduled to start. I came home and made dinner and still COULD have gone (the light rail would have gotten me into downtown in fifteen minutes) but, after checking in with social media, it looked like enough of the rest of you came out that one more body would not have made that much difference. So, I wimped out and stayed warm and dry. I feel a tiny bit guilty about this, because protesting is one of the ways I've been resisting this presidency and there aren't a LOT of them being organized these days, and this was, in many ways, The Big One. On the flip side it sounds like the protestors who stayed on after eight were more prone to civil disobedience and it was probably just as well for me to stay out of that. The pictures of some of the signs were amazing and heartwarming as always. I'm proud of the people who were there.

In other news, beside writing like crazy on Unjust Cause, I've continued to find fun ways to study Japanese. I came across a podcast called "Anime - Japanese Immersion." It has the audio-only of several episodes of popular anime. I listened to the first six episodes of DeathNote and thought, "Wow, I can really follow this story!" and then I started up one I had never seen called Kimi no na wa and I'm sitting there last night saying to Shawn, "Is he dead? Are there aliens?Time travel?? WTF is going on in this thing???" The only thing I think I know is that it's important to know people's names. There's some kind of mystical bond that has to do with names?? I'm going to go to Wikipedia in a second to see how wrong I am...

Oh, I'm not wrong.

But I feel insanely stupid. I should have recognized the title. This is Your Name, the wildly popular anime movie I never saw... but everyone has been talking about. There is totally a mystical bond regarding names, as the two characters are body swapping. Okay, no aliens, but definitely a space-related event: a comet... and there is a time gap between the two characters. Huh, okay, so here I was thinking that I was getting absolutely nothing out of this exercise, but I wasn't nearly as far off as all that. It's just that the plot is THAT weird.

Now I'm kind of disappointed that I've read the last anime in the series so far, 5 Centimeters. It's kind of fun to see what, if anything, I can get from listening to Japanese with no translation. I hope the podcaster keeps doing these. Though I suppose I could recreate the experience by just listening to a show on Crunchyroll and not looking at the subtitles. Thing is, with this, it's impossible to cheat. There's no subtitles to read, no pictures to help with context. I could start buying Drama CDs, which are a thing in Japan. They are studio recordings of popular manga, some of which never get an anime, so it's sort of like a radio play.

Continuing with the immersion theme, I've also been listening to Japanese radio while I write. I just googled Japanese language radio and found a bunch of things I can stream to have in the background as I write. I've been keeping up with Duolingo and Memrise, too, so perhaps some day I will have a small command of this language.

Oh, the other more important thing is that I got my schedule for this weekend's Gaylaxicon. Here's where you can find me, if you go:

FRIDAY: SATURDAY:

SUNDAY:
All of the paneling looks amazing, but I have to admit that I am the MOST excited to play the Tingleverse RPG. 

But, let's be real, what we all care the MOST about is more cat pictures:

Those of you who have been following me for awhile might remember my story about listening to cassette tapes of "John Learner" and his trip to Japan to do business with his old college friend in the 1980s.

I've now hit that moment in Pimsleur (which I often call "Pimp's leur" since they seem VERY INSISTENT on teaching me how to ask a woman out) where I'm like, geez, Pimpsleur, you're not even hiding it any more. I have steadily been asking this nice young Japanese lady what she thinks of the weather, would she like to go back to my place, what time she wants to go to dinner, what she's doing today, even learning how to push it when she says that "Nine o'clock is a little...." (DUDE, SHE IS JAPANESE. SHE IS SAYING NO THANK YOU, HOW ABOUT NEVER??) ....and now, they're just straight up teaching me to ask, "How much money do you have?"

Wow, after all this build up, I thought for SURE I was at least paying for this meal at Nanbantei. (They legit teach you the name of this restaurant).

Apparently, not.

Apparently, I only have fifteen bucks in my pocket. (Actual content.)

What the hell, Pimpsleur. 

I am the worst. I think I liked hapless John Learner better.

Meanwhile, today is Wednesday so I should report on my consumption of various media. Monday, as I said, was anime night, and we watched:

Episodes 3 and 4 of Good Omens
The first episode of The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II
more of Shounen Onmyouji

On my own, I caught up with Given, which is the one of these (besides Good Omens, which I assume you all have already watched a hundred times) I would whole-heartedly recommend. Given is a boys' love manga, but don't let that put you off. There are no yaoi hands in this anime. More importantly, despite some major angst, this is mostly a story about loving music, learning to be good at a thing, and what it means to be labeled as "talented" or a "prodigy." Like often happens, I'm personally invested in some of the side characters, but the main character, Uenoyama, amuses the heck out of me, too. It's also just lovely--very pretty, visually. I have been told the music isn't half bad, either.

I also just started watching A Certain Magical Index on the recommendation of a friend. I can't say much about that one yet, as I'm only two episodes in.

The only thing I've read was catching up on chapters of Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist.

What about you?

 ...and yet, I have to leave in about twenty minutes.

Normally, I would treat myself to a fancy latte at Claddaugh on a day like today, but we're out of money until payday for everything except necessities.  Mason's Chinese teacher (or, probably more likely, Washington's administrative office) decided to cash all the checks we've been slowly giving her over the last few months.  So, instead of a nice steady, planned _depletion_ of our account, a whole HUGE wad came out at once.  Luckily, Shawn had moved money over to cover Bearskin (our semi-annual trip to the BWCA) or we would have been in even bigger trouble. As it is, I have go without lattes for a few more days and watch what I spend. Not a crisis, just annoying.

Mason heads off to New York with his Chinese class on Monday, April 2.  The itinerary that the Chinese teacher has planned is... ambitious.  I hope they get to see everything.  I've only been to New York once (discounting stops at airports, heading overseas).  I was about Mason's age, and I won a trip there for some Peace speech project or other.  As Mason's Chinese teacher was talking about things they'd see in Manhattan, I had a huge wave of nostalgia.  I suddenly remembered our trip to the UN, for instance. Something I hadn't thought about for decades.  We were given a lot of freedom, too. I remember that after our group trip to Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty, three of us decided we wanted to walk back to the hotel, up Broadway.  Somehow, miraculously, we were allowed to do so, COMPLETELY by ourselves. It was probably my favorite part of that trip. We walked through Greenwich Village and Chinatown and all of that... I mean, some of it is a blur, and who knows what we missed that was "scheduled," but I think we were told it was fine since it was "free time" and most of the other kids were going to spend it prepping for speeches in the hotel. I did not advance.  The other things I remember about that trip was seeing "La Cage aux Follies" on Broadway and using my French to help a German couple that were locked out of their rooms....or maybe it was the other way around, and they helped us... (Anyway, the doors were tricky, you had to wiggle the key left, then right before it would go.)  The only language we had in common was French. It was probably the one time in my life language study was practically useful.

I hope Mason has a good a time in New York as I did. I hope he gets more opportunities than I did to go BACK.

It was funny, speaking both of money and traveling, Mason was telling us about his reaction to a friend's story about how their brother and dad took off for a car show in Florida this weekend.  Mason told us, at first, he couldn't even entirely comprehend how a trip like that could happen spontaneously.  He said, "I opened my mouth to say, 'What? How do you even?' and then I remembered other people don't have to plan for months in advance. They just BUY plane tickets and go places whenever they want."

Yeah.

And, yet, if next year, Mason decides he wants to go to China with his Chinese class, he has the money saved to do it.  We started an account for him when he was very small with all the little bits of money that Shawn's dad would slip us for "something nice for Mason." We've used that money for things like his changing table when he was an infant, but Shawn's dad was totally the sort that would slip both Shawn and I twenties throughout a weekend and we'd come home with a couple hundred dollars, discovered amongst our things.  So, we saved it all.  Maybe if Shawn's dad had lived longer, it would be a college fund.  As it stands, it's enough for a trip to China.

But, the Chinese teacher is a little... laissez faire? So, part of this New York trip is for Mason to decide if traveling with her is something he's comfortable with.  It's one thing to go to New York; another to go to China.  For myself, I'd go.  I mean, my old French teacher was a LOT laissez faire, and I don't regret a second of our high school trip to France.  That's another trip where, even though I've forgotten 9/10th of high school, I still remember vividly.  It also changed the way I travel, but that's another story, perhaps.  (We had an insane itinerary.  If it was the ONLY trip I ever made overseas, it would have probably been my preference... maybe? But.. as it was, I still have nightmares of being told I have an HOUR to spend at the Louvre.)

Right, okay. That's the time. I need to head out.  See you all on the flip side.

 ...where I'm skeevily trying to pick people up.  

I don't know why this always seems to happen in the language CDs I'm learning from, but here I am on lesson seven and I am already asking:

Me: Nani ka nomumassen ka? (Wouldn't you like something to drink?)
Her: ii desu ne (Sure / it's okay) Doko de? (Where at? Basically: where should we go?)
Me: Watashi no tokoro de.  (my place.)

What the hell, language tape!  I am NOT THIS KIND OF GIRL.  

And I am not kidding you. Pimsluer is teaching me to ask, "At my place?" BEFORE TEACHING ME HOW TO ASK "at the restaurant?" Restaurant is literally "restaurant" in Japanese. It's a borrow word. Sure, you have to kind of say it in a Japanese accent, but C'MON!  Also, I'm apparently a little rapey, because the next conversation goes:

Me: Nani o nomumasu ka? (What would you like to drink?)
Her: Ah... so desu ne... wakarimassen. (Hmmm, let me see.... I don't know.)
Me: Wakarimassen ka? (You don't know?) O-sake? Biiru? (Sake? Beer?)

I can not believe I'm like, "You don't know?" What kind of jerk am I? Am I really shaming this nice woman about her being hesitant and indecisive? Then, I'm pushing the alcohol!??!  Why not kouhi? (coffee) Or o-cha? (Green tea, which, like sake, gets an honorific 'o' in front of it.)

On the other hand, I'm certainly learning all the super casual interactions and, because this method really seems to works for me in terms of how I'm learning and the amount of repetition, I'm remembering everything.  I was talking to a friend of mine who is also studying Japanese and she told me her flashcards are all very "Your company is very efficient!" and other such business-like transactions. I told her that I'm clearly studying to be a frat boy to her salaryman.  Suddenly I had this wonderful image of the two of us in Japan: me, trying to hustle the women on the train, and her, brokering the deal with Nissan.  She can get us reduced rates at the hotel; meanwhile, I'm making small talk with the receptionist at the hotel.... 

Weirdly sort of suits my personality. I mean, I hope I'm not rapey, but you know the sort of super-pushy aggressively overly friendly sort.. that's me.  As I told my friend, I already talk to strangers on the train. This isn't that far off. :-)

So what do you say? Watashi no tokoro de nani ka nomumassen ka?  (Wanna have drinks at my place?) 

Yesterday, Mason and I managed to "hit the slopes" for a little while in the afternoon. It actually snowed (and stayed,) so we had to venture out to attempt a little sledding. The hill at the Country Club is awesome because it's steep enough that I'm not sure how necessary snow really is... a slick piece of cardboard would probably work just was well in the summer time, if you know what I'm saying.

In the evening, we went to Kuk Sool Wan. That, as usual, was a lot of fun. I'm setting a couple of goals this year, and one of them is to finally really GET the tornado kick. Luckily, we worked on it last night. Then a couple of friends and I went out for coffee, which was a real treat. Grown-ups! Granted, they were the sort of grown-ups with which I could fannishly go on about Bleach with, but hey, that actually works for me.

Speaking of which, I'm planning on attending Anime Detour for the first time this year. Listen, when I jump into a fandom it's with both feet, damn it! Sadly, Bleach is really kind of old school for a lot of people, so I'm not sure what I'll have to talk to anyone about. Still, it should be fun to go. Perhaps I can try out my rude Japanese.

So, yeah, I've been meaning to post about the further adventures of "John Learner" the hero of my language tapes. I picked up these Japanese language tapes at Half Price Books, and started trying to learn polite Japanese while driving in the car (they're cassette tapes). The author of the tapes decided that it would be a good hook to have a kind of story happening in the background. John is in Toyko to meet up with his college chum Toro and to negotiate a business deal with his company. (This is 1984, everyone is in Japan on business). John has the sort of adventures you might expect on a language tape. He has to go through customs, take a taxi to the hotel, check in, etc. A long the way, he learns to say "hello (polite form)" and count to ten.

The other day, I'm driving and half-listening to some simple phrases, "I want coffee" and "I would like tea." And, then out of the BLUE, John says, "I want to live." I nearly swirved off the road! John!!! What's going on???

I suspect he's preparing to say something like, "I want to live in Toyko," but he never goes there. He just WANTS to LIVE.

So, now on my list of things that I really want to have on a language tape is a whole series of misadventures, because really, when you're in another country, especially one where you don't speak the language, things NEVER GO SMOOTHLY. The time when you're really desperate to know how to speak the local tongue is usually when your bag is missing or the hotel has lost your registration. So, I'd like to record a sort of "flip-side" to the John Learner tape in which poor John arrives in Tokyo and the first thing he hears from the airport officials is, "Could you step out of line, sir?"

And things go badly from there.

I was thinking it would even be fun to have a scene where the taxi driver dumps poor John in the crappy neighborhood and demands extra money before taking John to hotel. John, having wasted his money bribing officials to let him in the country, decides to tell the taxi drive to stuff it... this is where the tape will introduce the listener to all sorts of rude Japanese while John tries to get back to the hotel in one piece.

"Don't shoot! I want to LIVE!!"

You'd listen to a tape like that, wouldn't you?

Hey, hey, it's release day.

Today is the day that ALMOST EVERYTHING is officially out. So run like headless chicken to your nearest bookstor and buy sixteen thousand copies. After all, you don't want to miss out on the exciting conculsion to the Vampire Princess of St. Paul series, am I right?

I have a feeling that the choice that Ana makes between all her various boy options is going to disappoint some fans. But, you know, I also (as usual) didn't REALLY expect this to be the final book, though at least this time I was more aware of the possibility while writing, so I'd hoped to let her bounce around a lot more before seeming to settle.

Anyway, if you've read the others and are following along, see what you think.

In other news, at HalfPrice Books the other day, along with Manga, I bought a "How to Speak Japanese" series to listen to in the car as I drive from place to place. I'm sure I'm one of a thousand Anime fans who thought this was a good idea, but it *is* startling how many question forms I already recognize. Not that I can repeat any of them yet... but if someone asks me "What is that?" in Japanese I would recognize the question at least, even if I had no response.

I'm actually always baffled by the fact that language courses don't start by teaching you how to say, "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you just said," or "Can you speak slower?" or even, "I need a translator. My Japanese is very bad."

I took French in high school for several years (as well as college) and the only thing I can say with any amount of accuracy after all that time is one of the first phrases we learned: "Open the window," (Ouvrez la fenêtre).

This is a ridiculously unuseful thing to know how to say. In the two times I have been to France I never ONCE had the opportunity to use it. I remember trying to brush up for my last visit and encountering textbooks which had me learning to say things like, "The cat is under the porch," and I remember thinking, "Oh, yeah, that'll be helpful for the week I'm in Paris. Because, you know, the first thing I'm going to do is lose my cat under the porch!"

But, at least during the 1980s people traveled to Japan a lot, so I'm learning how explain to Customs Officers that I'm in Toyoko on business (which I won't be) and how to have a pleasant conversation with the taxi driver about the weather and the popularity of certain Japanese cars in America. Honda! Toyota!

What I wish (and it probably exists somewhere in the universe) is that there were a fan guide to speaking Japanese. I want to know how to say, "Oh god! Look at the size of that monster rising out of the harbor! Is that Godzilla? We're all going to die!(polite form)"

One of the reasons I think that would be helpful is that there are certain things the language tapes are never going to teach. For instance, Mason and I started repeating a phrase that we heard a lot that had been translated as "damn" or, occassionally, "shoot." Shawn suggested that before we go shouting it in public maybe we ought to know EXACTLY what it meant. Well, a simple trip to "How to swear in Japanese," revealed that we were actually repeating the s-word. Which explains a LOT about the reaction I get when I tell people that Mason and I are watching Bleach together....

Unlike fan translated episodes, Netflix/Adult Swim has santizied Bleach to the point that...well, the FCC doesn't revoke their license, and an eight year old has nothing to fear -- even when encountering the rude folks in the 11th division barracks. Though even *we* recognized that probably "Screw you" wasn't PRECISELY what got said at one point.

What this means, however, is that when we run out of subtitled Bleach episodes, we won't be able (as I first thought) to go to the fan sites and pick up where we left off. Probably, we'll have to start reading the Manga.