**Disclaimer**
I have no idea where this post is going to go. I'm just starting a quick one, in the hopes that it may be read by a few people and maybe even appreciated by one. We'll see...
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If you've been looking at your calendars lately, you'd know that today is March 29th. This means that tomorrow, March 30th, I'm headed to Japan. For a year. Without coming back. Yep.
The reactions I've gotten from people have all been very positive on this, which is nice. However, the reactions
I've been having to this whole idea are, shall we say, varied.
Basically, I've realized that I don't want to go. I don't want to do this, it's a crazy idea, it's going to be scary and uncomfortable and taxing. Furthermore, I dislike airplane flights, which only notches up the severity of this experience as the ride from Detroit to Tokyo is around 20 hours of airtime. Ouch.
I've been awake for almost all of the last 4 days, getting so nervous about this damned trip that I've actually given myself a case of hives. I can't sleep well, I'm not talking at length to the people I care about, and I've gained about 10 lbs.
And these are all the reasons why, like it or not, I
have to go. Because this is scary and challenging and totally out of character for me, I've got to do this. If I'm going to continue to have any respect for myself at all, I'm going to have to make myself buckle down, shut up, and just fucking do it. I've always prided myself on being incredibly tough and able to handle anything, and I guess that it's now time to pay the piper.
The twist of the knife on this all is that I haven't spoken to the architect of this crazy scheme for about a month. And before that we hadn't chatted for 2 months. I wish I could tell her thank you, that I know she doesn't think she needs me in her life right now, and that I love her everyday. But that's not for me to decide, and I cannot be pushy. Suffice to say, life without her is still cold and hard.
I know that eventually I'll have fun there, that I'll fall into a rhythm, that I'll meet people I enjoy. But that's when the adventure part of my trip will end, because I'll be somewhat comfortable. As
Richard Wilber once wrote, in every aspect of this trip, "I wish it harder"
New Info:
Rob Lisy
#403 Green Hill Inariyama
1-7-10 Tsuruma
Fujimi-Shi
Saitama-Ken 354-0021, Japan
Email: roblisy@gmail.com
AOL IM: rplisy
Note Bene: I'll eventually have internet access, somehow.
A very large part of me feels as if I have been
spinning my wheels now for years. David Byrne summed up my predicament concisely, "same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was..."
I couldn't have said it better myself. To honor that fact, I figure that, once again, it's family story time.
As a general rule when I was younger, my mother was very anti-violence and progressive. I was never allowed to have toy guns, fake 'shoot' my brother or sister, or even regularly watch G.I. Joe. She kept watch over me and my brother over this whole issue at home, and ironically enforced the rule of law with a very violent tendency to smack us in the back of the head. Somehow the humor of that was lost on her, but I digress...
Anyways, to rebel on the sly
and satisfy my urge for "a little bit of the ole ultra-violence", I used to head over to Paul's house. Paul was and still is an only child, and his parents had much less of a problem with toy gun ownership, rock and roll music, and R rated movies than Mama Lisy had.
So, for a while, Paul and I just used to grab semi-realistic-yet-miniature 'guns', run around in the back yard and shoot at each other, neighborhood dogs, windows, birds, squirrels, and blades of grass that were a bit too tall. This kept us amused until the "age of innocence" ended for us, somewhere around 7 years old. It was at that time that we discovered that the father of our elementary school principal lived 2 doors down from Paul, and furthermore lived alone. It didn't really occur to us that, since our principal (Ms. Nobel, as it was) was at least in her late 50's, her father was most likely around 80. No, such humanitarian hang-ups are of absolutely no concern to 7 year old warlords...
That realization lead to the start of what I like to call the "Nobel Wars". We started with simply running back and forth in his backyard, pointing our fake guns at this poor old guy’s window, but soon escalated to advanced knock-and-run assaults. Even at the very first stages of things, this guy played right into our hands. He'd open windows in his backyard to yell at us for running over his grass, all the while keeping himself semi-hidden enough to make it interesting. We'd check to see if his TV or lights were on, and bravely try and harass the window closest to whatever activity we could see.
Eventually though, even these daring taunts grew stale. So, one day Paul had the bright idea that we take some of the quartz pebbles from another neighbor’s yard and toss them against the side of Mr. Nobel's house.
So, that day we faithfully stole 4 small handfuls of these pearl white quartz pebbles, ran down our secret path (making sure that, at the large pine tree, we started crawling), and stood defiantly ready to fire our armaments.
The first volley went off with success, hitting near a 2nd storey window on the side of the house. We were quite pleased with the effects too, until this woeful din rang into our ears. Paul and I had completely overlooked the fact that Mr. Nobel had aluminum siding, and we were fucked. See, on vinyl siding, the rocks would have just bounced off, making a small clash and doing no damage. Aluminum siding though both dents easily and clangs loudly when struck.
Once we actually heard the impact of our volley, we ran like crazy. I bolted across the street and away from Paul's, while Paul ran off in a totally different direction. I hid behind a neighbor’s woodpile for the better part of half an hour, only peeking my head out towards the last 10 minutes to check for Mr. Nobel. When I finally made it back to Paul’s though, I knew something wasn't quite right.
See, as both Paul and I were fleeing, Mr. Nobel actually had come out of his garage, and just followed Paul with his eyes. Paul was so shaken up by this whole thing that he actually ran back, to his house, a fact which did not escape Mr. Nobel. Instead of chasing Paul around his back yard, Mr. Nobel’s age and 'wisdom' lead him right to Paul's front door.
Needless to say, Paul's parents were PISSED. Paul got grounded for a few weeks, during this time we plotted our revenge. Being the good friend that he is, Paul didn't mention my involvement to his parents, which saved my ass.
As "revenge" for Mr. Nobel's victory, Paul and I mixed up a concoction of bleach, soap, food coloring, steel wool shavings, walnuts, spit, and powered mashed potatoes. We then poured that gross substance all over a tree which was in Mr. Nobel’s front yard. It smelled awful and bubbled quite a bit, so we figured "Mission Accomplished". Little did we know that the substance actually would chemically burn a hole through the tree bark, and eventually kill the tree.
Moral of the story?
Paul and Rob - 1
Mr. Nobel - 0
Booya.
Good news for people who love... well, news.
I found out my placement in Japan. I'll be living
in Saitama, aka the "Japanese New Jersey", if only because it's proximity to a large city. My city is actually on that map, Fujimi. Rent is (relatively) cheap and I'm roughly 30 minutes away from downtown Tokyo. All of these are pluses.
Vaala got me started on this little internet anagram generator. He literally spent like 3 hours searching though folks names for good anagrams. The best one for my name was "plausibly retro", which is sort of fitting.
Anyways, give it a go.While he was doing that, I found a few items of interest.
This is a niftey Java application that draws circles. And this is
a short history of the Irish. Thanks goes to Owen for the Irish bit.
Anyways, that's all I've got now.
I suggest you all, every one of you,
watch this. Some are calling it the greatest moment in sports of the year to this point.
It really makes me re-think my choice of sport...
Oh wait, no it doesn't.
Also, if you're the 5,000th person to vist,
drop me a message.
In honorarium of a
decent author and great journalist, myself, Dave, and Owen all partook of a classic debauch this past weekend. What a way to end February. The culprits involved were copious amounts of alcohol, cigars, amphetamines, and our favorite guest, Absinthe.
And to top it all
off, I
have evidence.Other than that, it was basically the three of us jamming to some music and eating greasy food. The high point of the weekend came early for me, when Saturday morning at 6 AM I started puking after imbibing as many substances as I could lay my hands on. In fact, I set a new personal record, as I ended up puking at
4:30 PM as a result of the previous night's festivities. Needless to say I was personally in self-destruct mode.
In a more positive category, I'm still enchanted with this lyric from Talking Heads,
This Must Be The Place:Home, is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already thereAt the same time I find that lyric reaffirming and hauntingly damning. It's kind of like what Robert Frost said, when asked what his take on the significance of life is. He said, simply that what he knew of life could be summed up in three words, "It goes on". That is both the gift and the curse of it though, isn't it? It's not as if that matters, since I guess I'm already there...
