 She calls me Liar.She smiles as she says it with a devilish sparkle in her eye. She'll pull a fast one on me with no warning and burn me with unsettling ease. She hates mornings with a passion I've never seen. She'll climb on me as I work and demand a piggyback ride. She falls asleep on my lap at a moment's notice. She sings to herself as she walks down the street. She corrects my Japanese with wink and a laugh. She'll throw a pop quiz three days later. She's free of spirit, easy-going and full of fire.And for some reason or another, she's with me.
september first, 2k
So here it is. The Kaori page. I wonder if I'm up for this - she's a pretty damn remarkable girl and I don't know if I have the all vocabulary I need to express that. Luckily I have the humdrum details of our daily existence to flesh this puppy up a bit. I suppose I really should translate it into Japanese for her sake, but I don't think I can do that yet, either.
I'm a huge fan of the picture of us in Nagasaki - it just seems a lot older than it actually is. I get all nostalgic looking at it for some reason. As far as the picture below goes, I still say I'm cuter - but don't tell her I said that, she'll agree with you just to annoy me.
We ended up in Machiko (her mom's place) last night after meeting up with Satoru and co. at Mecca. Her father was there practicing karaoke while her mom was cleaning up around the shop. Her folks are a decidedly interesting pair. Truth be told, I was a little bit nervous meeting her father for the first time - he has the ability to look very unfriendly when he wants to. It's kind of a funny story: he apparently spotted me as I was hanging around outside the front gate waiting for Kaori to come downstairs. Not wearing his glasses, he was only able to make out very tall figure lurking in front of his house. He told me last night that at first he thought I was some sort of yakuza tough looking for trouble. So he came outside to see what I was up to and I thought the very same thing. "Uh-oh," I said to myself. "Who is this nasty-looking fellow, and why is he carrying that dog?" He said that I as I came into focus he realized who I was, but thought about chasing me off just to irk Kaori. Yay. It runs in the family.
Anyway, we came in and sat down and sure enough, I've got a request to sing. Sigh. This time I didn't even get to pick the song - "Yesterday" it is. Kaori nearly fell out of her chair she was laughing so hard.
Kaori tells me that her folks have been cramming English ever since she told them about me - guess I'm cut out for this 'internationalization at the grassroots level' thing after all. Eat your heart out Monbusho! I asked her how she felt about me not really speaking Japanese and her not really speaking English; she lit a cigarette and put it in my mouth. "It's ok," she said. End of subject. Back to teasing her father about really only studying English so he can pick up prostitutes in the Philippines. And people ask me why I like her.
september fourth, 2k
Here I am at school knowing full well that Kaori is still sleeping like a babe. I don't think there's anything she enjoys more than sort of half-waking up to say goodbye as I head to school. Either that or I'll say goodbye and she'll just grunt. She also likes to point out that Monday is her day off and that means she can hang out and do nothing all day - which is soon to change to playing Dragon Quest II on the Playstation all day. Yup - she's into video games. Her whole family is. They're all currently playing Final Fantasy VIII(?) - and her folks have named their character 'JJ'. I wasn't kidding when I said they were an interesting bunch!
Spent all day Sunday with Kaori and her family; we went up to Fukuoka to catch a baseball game. Ended up caught in traffic for an hour right outside the stadium - Kaori and I were going crazy in the seat, having nothing to do but smoke. Finally got into the game, our team won, we left. Shopping in Tenjin for her mother's birthday present and then dinner (okonomiyaki - mmm!) before another episode in the back seat of the car - less smoking and more sleeping on the way back. Watched Scream 3 with her folks and then took off for home.
All that is just the usual, though. I showed Kaori some of my poems last night - she said that she had a hard time deciphering them, so I tried to help out and explain things to her. I'd mentioned the fact that I write to her before, but this was the first time she'd read anything - she's seen me type away before, but she never really asked to read anything. I think she liked what she saw - laughing and crying are good signs, right? I also showed her this page - she said I should change the "She calls me liar" part to "She calls me Fucking Geri Player" - 'geri' means diahhroea in Japanese.
I know that is just begging for an explanation. Last week Kaori sent me a shortmail accusing me of giving her all sorts of bad dreams - I thought she was really mad at me, but it turns out she was just messing with me. She basically dreamt that I was a player and was fooling around with all sorts of women behind her back; she said she woke up and thought it was true for a few minutes - and then decided to play a little joke on yours truly. Anyways, a few days ago, I showed her the story I wrote in Akita chronicling the Fukuoka Diarrhoea Incident in my first year. We were talking about it and laughing and the next thing we knew, the two had combined to become the 'Fucking Geri Player' - which is me. I think I'll leave things they way they are though.
september sixth, 2k
Kaori was supposed to come over after re-bleaching her hair last night. I gave up waiting and crashed out, figuring she'd probably gone out with Chika and Yajin afterwards. Got a shortmail at 6 o'clock this morning saying that she had fallen asleep in her car and had only just woken up. I called her back and she said that she had planned on taking a 15 minute nap just to make sure she wouldn't be dozy for the drive over. Silly girl.
september seventh, 2k
Up at Just Fit (Kaori's workplace) last night. Like this photo? Yajin slipped it to me when Kaori wasn't looking.september twelfth, 2k
Whoops. Got distracted by a horde of students and was unable to finish that last entry. So - about this here picture... bascally Kaori and Yajin got drunk after work a while back and started gluing hair to various parts of their bodies. You know how it is, right?
Kaori was over last night reading over this page as I was making chili - I've got to say I'm surprised that she got through it all with very few questions. Or should I say I've got to say I'm pleased? I tend to forget that she understands a whole lot more English than she lets on. Hell, we were in Fukuoka on Monday and the word 'syncopation' came up - she knows it. "It was written on an electric organ," she says. Oh. Duh. Anyway, she approves of pretty much everything except this picture right here. Can't say I blame her, but there's no way I'm taking it down, not after the abuse I took at billiards on Sunday night. I still say that sinking the 8-ball yourself constitutes more of a victory than the other person losing on a foul.
I saw a photo album of pictures taken at Kaori's Coming of Age Ceremony as well on Sunday. Damn. I'd like to get my paws on some of those for this page! Basically a series of photos of Kaori in a kimono taken at professional studio. 'Yow' is all I have to say. Got to see if I can convince either she or her mom to relinquish the album for a day or so.
september nineteenth, 2k
About that photo album. Looks like I'm going to have to wait a little while; Kaori told me that the photographer is borrowing it to use some of the photos in an exhibition in Tokyo. So in the meanwhile, my own photos are going to have to do.
I kind of hit Kaori with a low blow the other night. My mom called up to check what time I was arriving in Vancouver while Kaori and I were watching a movie and I passed the phone to her with almost no warning. As far as I could tell, the conversation went fairly smoothly but Kaori denies it vehemently. There's no denying that telephone conversations are much more difficult than speaking face-to-face with a person - and if you consider that my mom probably isn't used to speaking at a slower pace than usual, then of course things aren't going to be 100%.
In a nutshell, I don't think my actions merited the amount of physical abuse I suffered.
The biggest piece of news recently was having to bring Kaori's mom to the hospital after a fight broke out in her bar on Friday night. I'm not completely sure of all the details - folks were speaking fairly quickly and in no mood to translate - but it seems that a bunch of drunken guys came into the bar and settled in for some serious drinking. Out-of-the-ice-buckets-kind-of-drinking. Needless to say, problems soon followed. One drunk guy offended another, who then took offense at the other's offense, leading to a third person (uninvolved in the original offense) being offended by the first two offenders... you get the idea. By the time Kaori and I arrived there was broken glass all over the bar, a man kowtowing next to her unconscious mother and her father on the phone with an unidentifed person.
Thankfully, Kaori and I had opted out of boozing that night and were playing pool when she received a call from her father asking us to head back ASAP. I ended up carrying her mom outside to the car and we drove her to the local health clinic. We left her and her father there and headed back to the bar to help clean up. We got another phone call from her father about a half an hour later saying that she still hadn't woken up and that they were taking her to the hospital. So off we went. Her mother finally regained some semblance of consciousness at about 3AM after being subjected to all kinds of tests; including some sort of nifty brain scan. I wish I could've understood the explanation the doctor gave. To wrap things up, we went home to bed shortly thereafter and by the time we awoke her mom was back home. Feeling far less than fine, as you can well imagine - but past the point of concern. As far as what happened goes, the bits and pieces that we got from various people suggest that her mom probably fainted while trying to break things up rather than someone punching her out (either on purpose or by accident).
Exciting times, indeed. We stopped by last night and everything was right back to normal. Mom hanging out behind the counter, tipsy customers singing (wailing?) enka at the top of their lungs and Kaori & I laughing away at the end of the bar.
september thirtieth, 2k
What an awfully strange-looking date. It must be the completely wrong hour of the day. That and I'm on the completely wrong side of the globe. It's been a week since I came back to Canada and I'm already going insane.
'Shouldn't all this be on the brain page?' you say? Not really - I'm going crazy because I'm missin' Kaori, that's all. I can handle all this other stuff without a second thought; it's not being able to touch her hair or see her smile that's killing me. Sure, I get emails from her almost every day. Yes, my friends send me updates on how she's doing after her operation. I know I'll see her in only 4 more days. All that doesn't really matter right now.
I don't know how it happened - it's only been 2 months and this is where I am. Completely head over heels. Damn. I'd be worried about this if she didn't keep telling me she feels the same way. Going to Kevin and Mandy's wedding yesterday and hearing that they'd been together for 8 years might have something to do with this. My track record as far as relationships go has been somewhat less than impressive. My personal best is what, 8 months? Yet still I feel that this might go the distance - or maybe I'm just desperately wishing that it will. What else can I say? I miss her. I can't wait to see her again. I'd fly back tomorrow if she asked me to. I'm whupped, pure and simple.
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