Buttocks

It was a public holiday here in Japan, so Beast and I got up at 5.00 am to go see these guys training. Perhaps a bit early in the day for so much wobbling flesh.

Chastened

I get a kind of natural high from brushing my teeth, and spend so long enjoying the experience that Timorous Beast often has to call from the bedroom, “That’s enough now. Come to bloody bed!”

I was hurt and surprised, then, to be told off by my new dentist for not flossing properly. After an extended period of digging and scraping, some squealing and a bit of whining, I have rediscovered the gap between my bottom two front teeth and been sent away with my tail between my legs and a packet of painkillers.

Cynical

Amazing, but true: I have met someone more bitter than me. The first time I encountered her she sat in sulky silence, avoiding eye contact while the other teachers and I bantered and got to know each other. She neither introduced herself nor joined in the conversation. I assumed she had been there for years and had long ago stopped being interested in new staff. The next teaching day, she decided to communicate, and so we chatted about life in Japan, what had brought us here and so on. It turned out that, just like the rest of us, she was new to this university. As the conversation progressed, one of the teachers mentioned his Japanese wife. Rather than showing polite interest, Acerbic Annie’s jaw dropped in faux shock, “You are a gaijin (foreign) man, with a Japanese wife?? My God, I’ve never, in my 30 years in Japan, come across such a situation. That’s so interesting and unusual!!” By the third day of teaching, her first words upon entering the staffroom were, “I fucking hate this job.” Hats off to that.

Like tears in the rain

I hope that LC was after the Bladerunner effect. It’s been pissing it down in Tokyo ever since he wrote the fated words, “tomorrow I’m heading into Tokyo.”

Wet pyjamas

You know how it is. You drink some wine, then you drink some water so you don’t wake up dehydrated, then you wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee. Timorous Beast was first, and then me, face screwed up like an old dishrag in an effort to see where I was going without actually opening my eyes. As I shimmied my ass onto the toilet in the darkness, my feet shimmied, unseen, into the puddle of piss Beast had left behind him. This might not come as a surprise to you, but Beast normally sits down to pee so tends not to sprinkle when he tinkles. So what went down? Not much. “I had a hard on” he confessed, “couldn’t point downwards.”

Thomas

The Beastie family enjoyed a wee weekend away, where we sat in the sunshine, cooked ourselves in the onsen, ate a seventeen-course Japanese feast for dinner and breakfast, and slept in a posh room with a view of Mount Fuji. Coming back, we purchased tickets, boarded the bus and got our books out. Two minutes later, the conductor threw us off the bus. “Bus number 2” he said. “Wait”. Having ejected us, bus number 1 tootled off, half-full, in the direction of Tokyo, leaving us busless and bewildered on the platform. Beast was none too happy. “Cunt” he said. “That was our fucking bus. We’ll be waiting here for fucking ages now.” A couple of minutes later, a huge blue bus drew into the station, with Thomas the Tank Engine painted on the sides. “Bus number 2” it proclaimed on the windscreen. It had legroom, cupholders, and Thomas the Tank Engine curtains and antimacassars. Beast’s mood quickly lifted.

Seasonal photo

Everyone's going on and on about it over here. I don't get it. It's just some flowers.