Well, I'm in kind of a weird mood right now. A diary entry writin' mood!

In fact some of my colleagues here have just been confronted with the "I just don't care anymore" me- a me many people never see. He's not a mean or bitter me- he's actually quite fun. He's friendly and talkative, but more than a little eccentric, and prone to saying whatever is on his mind. I imagine if I were ever to get drunk he would run fucking amuck.

How often have you said "run fucking amuck?" That was the first time for me. I don't think I'll make a habit of it.

I finally got to see one of those crazy Japanese wedding receptions tonight, the hirouen. See- I usually get done at 5:30 pm. Today, after tearing down the leftovers of one hirouen (I saw the end of it) and then setting everything up again, another hirouen started about 5:30. But my interest had been piqued and I decided I wanted to see one all the way through. So I stayed and somehow got sucked into serving drinks and changing ash trays and such. This made it hard to carefully observe what was going on, but I didn't mind too much. I was doing something, interacting with customer types, moving among the crowd. All too often my work around here consists of sitting and studying my kanji dictionary for hours on end. I always dig a chance to actually DO something or see something interesting, even if I have to stay late.

Then at 7:30 I get called downstairs. Manager asks me if I have an electric fan in my apartment. ... Okay. Then they're like, "You can leave now." And I was like, "Well, I can stay." And they're like, "No, it's fine. You can go." And I'm like, "Well, I kind of wanted to observe the hirouen a little more." And they're like, "No, there'll be plenty more. Go home." And I'm like, "But..." And they're like, doing something else and ignoring me now. So... whatever. Like. My what a likable paragraph this was.

I could burn this whole building down.

I offer to be a damn gokurousama, and I am denied. I offer to stay here till 11, working or even just watching, and I am denied. I wanna put in a 14 hour day like a good Jap, too! I don't get paid by the hour anyway, so what do you care?

Then I start thinking that they don't really even want me to do anything. I wonder why they even took me on here. Then I start feeling useless and dumb. Oh well. Just as long as the paycheck comes, right? I could write a manga about my experience here. It'd be called Greyarea Muyou! but no one would buy it because mostly it'd be pretty damn boring.

If I sound frustrated or angry right now, I'm really not. I'm actually feeling amusedly melodramatic. I find life flows along most easily when I can manage to be amused by it all. When amusement fails, that's when shit hits the fan.

I think it would hurt a lot to burn to death. Definitely go for the smoke inhalation, if you can.

nothing to get hung about,

grey

P.S. I went to a Japanese funeral the other day (my company also does funerals, but that's a cultural lesson I don't feel like getting into right now). Most Japanese funerals are Buddhist affairs, and this was no exception. I think they must have been doing those things almost exactly the same way every time for a thousand years. It was a trip, man.

P.P.S. Hey, are you guys expecting, like, descriptions of Japanese culture and stuff? Am I disappointing? Does anyone care? Is there such thing as a horse sock? Is anybody listening to me? (That just now was one of my periodic pleas for email, by the way.)

Diaryland