Tired Of Waiting For You

It's barely Sunday, December 1, 1991 when I get up.

It's 4AM here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan when I wake up and have to take the whiz of all whizzes. I don't fully wake-up, but neither can I get back to sleep when I am done.

But I must... because I dream... a lot... and it all seems to revolve around a short, beautiful brunette... damn... I really should write these things down immediately.

I have no idea who it is - anymore - Kristine.. she's short - it could be her. Ashley's a half-foot taller, so I know it's not her....  but who?

Now I've forgotten. Crap. It felt really important as the dream went from scene to scene with my first-person point of view and this lovely mystery woman...

I finally get up at 8:30AM, but as expected - perhaps due to some seriously quick drinking - I don't feel like going to Nikko today. I was going to go there by myself - a first - to get Matthew and Ashley a Christmas present. But, maybe it's because Ashley seems to be missing inaction (that is actually spelled correctly!) or maybe because I am still kind of afraid to travel by myself in this country for fear of getting lost.

I haven't been lost in nearly a year - but that's because I always travel with someone who seems to know where we are going. I never know where I am going... I think I kind of just like being a plastic bag blowing in the wind.

I know... I should have used the more romantic 'leaf' blowing in the wind, but a non-biodegradable plastic bag seems about right for where I am in life at this moment.

I clean up a little and watch television, and crack open my first beer of the day at 11AM as I watch an episode of Magnum P.I. - this was my mom's favorite show, and while I do not have any homo-erotic tendencies, it does make me a tad homesick for the mountains and beaches of Toronto.

I kid. Toronto is like New York City-lite. No mountains, but the beaches are to die for - especially in December when it's frozen over.

Every five minutes, I call Ashley's place. If she is ignoring me, I'm not going to make it a pleasant experience.

Matthew calls me up and asks if I want to go down to the capital city of Utsunomiya-shi to watch T2 and some movie called Eve. Why not? Everybody loves Arnie!

After a quick bike ride and a 30-minute JR (Japan Rail) train ride, we arrive and quickly march towards the one theater I know here.

On the way, we run into Lisa, Stephanie and Cathy. I expect to see Ashley with them, but she's not there or has done an incredible job of blending into the scenery - which is actually possible owing to her quiet nature.

We also meet James and Steven and have a good laugh, as James Jimmy Jive Dalton is one of the funniest people on this planet.

After the great movies, Matt and I head home, arriving at 9:30PM.

I immediately call Ashley.

Holy crap! She's in! She's alive!

And is cranky because I have woken her up. Figures.

With no knowledge of her crappy behavior she tells me she spent the past three days in Utsunomiya - but in typical Ashley fashion, does not say with whom. If I really want to know, I would have to brow beat it out of her, and to be honest, I don't give a crap who she's been with - though I'm guessing it was those girls.

But... if it was a guy, she would not tell me for fear of pissing me off... not that it matters... she knows I've slept with other women since we broke up. At least 13 others, I think. And don't worry James... I know it wouldn't be you... you've never figured out my infatuation with Ashley. Heh. Me either.

Regardless of where she was, I decide to tell what she missed here in Ohtawara while she was away in Utsunomiya. I've been a pretty honest guy. Why lie to her now? Especially when I feel like I've got the upper hand as the wronged-party.

(Hey! Mike Rogers! Get ready!)

I tell her how I thought she was coming over to my place for a day-late Thanksgiving dinner on Friday as per what I asked, and what she agreed to do last Sunday. I also mentioned it on Thursday night - supposedly the night before she went away for three days. Hmmmm... must not have been with those three girls.

I told her right then and there how since we both knew she wasn't up for lasagne, and how she was homesick, and how it was US Thanksgiving and all (I'm Canadian and we celebrate a month earlier - only Matthew and Kristine cared enough to call and wish me that day!), I had planned for a week to do something special.

Just for her.

(Okay, probably for me, too!)

I told her how I got my bosses at  the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) help me out... to phone around for a Thanksgiving turkey... and how Ohtawara did not have one, but a restaurant in Yaita-shi (City of Yaita) could get one and cook it for me/us... and how they could deliver it or I could pick it up (which is what I did with my boss Hanazaki-san)... I told them I also needed stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes/yams, gravy and cranberries.

I even mention that it cost me a lot of money - but don't say how much.

And then I get a little louder - a controlled anger, if you will.

"And then you don't even bother to show up! Or a phone call! Leading me to wonder if you were dead, alive or hurt! Leaving me with a Y40,000 yen dinner for no one to friggin' (I used a different word here) eat!"

A short rant to be sure, but hopefully she could see how stupid or irresponsible she was in her treatment of me.

She apologizes between yawns - as I did wake her up at 9:30PM, after all. She doesn't know what else to say, because I think she is too sleepy to know how pissed off I really am. I mean, her apology was simply: "Sorry."

Does that sound adequate to you? Me either.

In response, I say: "I have to go now" and hang the phone up before she can say or yawn anything else.

I call up Matthew and chat with about what we are going to do in the future... probably another year, yeah... but how I think I would like to be a writer when I grow up. Matthew isn't sure, but he knows it should involve Japan somehow.

As a fitting end to my night, I watched the latest James Bond flick: Licensed To Kill.

And... when it is over... I march over to my miniature fridge, pull out Friday night's Thanksgiving dinner, put it in a large garbage bag and walk quickly down the three flights to the garbage area and deposit a small chunk of my life.

Somewhere feeling so tired...
Andrew Joseph
Today's song is by The Kinks - long one of my favorite songs, even years before I met Ashley... as it seemed to sum up my long-standing virginity up until a year ago.

 

One

It's Saturday, November 30, 1991.

The day after I spent a ton of money (¥40,000 or $520 US/Cdn) to impress my ex-girlfriend, but current friend-with-benefits with a Thanksgiving dinner. You ever eat a turkey in Japan? Near impossible... but I did it with the help of my boss Hanazaki-san (Mr. Hanazaki). Thank-you internationalization.

Ashley - who had said a week earlier that she would come by - did not.

I am concerned. Is she hurt. Dead? Sick? No clue... Out on a date? With friends? It could happen...

Am I worried? No. I have an alibi. Mr. Hanazaki helped me get the dinner and all the fixin's and helped me get it to my apartment from another city! Yes! We had to go to another city to make the damn dinner (Yaita) because my city (Ohtawara) had no restaurant that knew anyone that 1) could get a turkey, and 2) knew how to cook a turkey. Me? Apparently I knew 3) how to pine for a turkey.

Also, Matthew came by at 8:30PM and while I may not have been my usual chum bucket of pal, I was still a decent enough friend who made him eat left-over lasagne while the turkey dinner chilled in my fridge. I said I was sorry, buddy!!!!

I'm up at 10AM because Hanazaki-san is coming over to pick-up my 'fan-heater'... this is a gas heater. I don't want the damn thing as apparently after you start up the kerosene heater, you are supposed to open up a window or sliding door so that you don't die from the fumes... but doesn't opening up the door or window let in more cold? Yes. Sometimes Japan's insistence on things is a little wonky to this gaijin (foreigner) from Canada. I, of course, rather than freeze to death, chose the risk of dying from gas poisoning. It didn't work, but at least I felt warm. My extremities feel a little numb, though.

Still... Hanazaki-san can have it. I'm getting a new AC/Heating unit soon! And my poor boss - he says he always feels cold in Ohtawara's winter. I didn't want to correct him by saying it's not winter yet - after all, it's on his say-so that the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) is buying me money allotted for me via the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme). Though never confirmed, apparently the rumor is that one's board of education is allotted ¥100,000 (~Cdn/US $1294) a year to spent on their AET (assistant English teacher) any way they see fit.

My office likes me and often buys me stuff I want. I have a bilingual stereo TV so I can watch TV in Japanese or English. You need a bilingual TV as some stations will transmit two signals of the same show... so I can watch The Incredible Hulk (1970s), Knight Rider (1980s) all I want. Fortunately, they have the excellent Sherlock Holmes show on for me to wrap my murderous little hands around. I also now have a Queen-sized bed after complaining about how the futon was bothering my weak back. It's much better now, and I no longer get tatami (grass mat) burns on my knees when I have sex.
 
Before he comes over... I clean up and try calling Ashley's place. No answer. Still no call display as of 1991. Someone should invent it. Maybe I should and become a thousandaire!

Where the hell is she?

Hanazaki-san arrives, and immediately asks me how my surprise date with Ashley went. I tell him everything. He sucks a lot of air through his teeth in shock and dismay. He really wants me to be happy and wonders if we should call the police.

Oh god, no, I think, perhaps a tad out loud. Instead, he calls her bosses... who also know about my troubles with her. She mistakenly believes her lie that she and I have only always been friends. You know what impressed me? Hanazaki-san knew her bosses' phone number by heart.

They hadn't seen her either but promised to put out calls to others to see if they knew where she was. Oh god... what have I done? What if she's just out with some other guy? She can - we're supposed to be friends-with-benefits - though she should have canceled our Friday night together if she had other plans. It's stuff like this why I wasn't overly broken up when she broke up with me claiming I was smothering her - despite her being at my place 4-6 days a week. This is not an exaggeration. It is reality, despite my attempts at humor. 

I help Hanazaki-san take the heater to his white car. He smiles weakly and says he will let me know if he finds anything out about Ashley. Dammit! Now he has me concerned. A lot. Though I secretly wish she just forgot about her agreement to be at my place for dinner. It would finally drive home the point that I can do better and deserve better than her... and then I really can move on.

I go inside and call again. Nothing.

While  I am busy eating an 8-piece bacon sandwich at around 4:30PM,  Mr. Endo calls me up and asks if I want to teach an English class for ¥5000 (~Cdn/US $64.70). Sure what the hell. It will take my mind of Ashley, right?

I call her place every 15 minutes.

In my head, should she be all right, I plan on playing it cool... saying how I was expecting her to come over... gentle like... before casually saying that I had a dinner specially made for her... I play it over and over in my head until I am sure I have the coolness factor down pat.

At  the night school English class - it's advanced adults - so I talk about Canada and myself and my family... and then ask if I am so different from themselves. Thankfully they all say we are all quite similar. Thank-you internationalization.

I go home at 8:30PM and phone Matthew and then Ashley - no one answers.

Alone, I go to the 4C bar about a five minute stagger from my apartment. I have seven beers and some French fries in a little over an hour - obviously I have no plans for picking up a woman and screwing her brains out in anger or frustration.

I leave the 4C after giving the boss a ¥2000 (Cdn/US $25.90) tip... something that is never done in Japan - but I told him I needed to feel like I was home, and I needed to give him a tip. Humoring me, he allowed it - though I'm pretty sure he under-charged me by ¥2000 anyway. Everybody wins. Thank-you internationalization.

I go home and open my fridge and stare at the uneaten turkey dinner as I sway in drunken confusion about what the heck is going on with Ashley.

Somewhere feeling numb,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog is by Three Dog Night:

Respect

Today's blog entry still pisses me off some 20 years after I first lived it.

It's Friday, November 29, 1991. I'm a junior high school assistant English teacher on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme living in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan.

before arriving here from Toronto back in late July 1990, I was nearly 26 years old and a virgin... but within a day of arriving here, me - the man who seemed like Kryptonite to women first met Kristine who actually like me, and then the next day, Ashley who actually slept with me - though there was not much sleeping involved as it was around 4:45PM when we started. And before you start with the snide jokes, I lasted close to an hour for my first time, as I knew I had to picture something horrible while not concentrating on this amazing spectacle with Ashley.

So... it sounds like this is all ego blow, and to a certain extent it is, but I did wait longer than most readers here, and well, the following - it's not ego blow. It just blows my ego.

Ashley and I had broken up earlier this year - and in fact have been friends-with-benefits longer than we were actually boyfriend-girlfriend. I have certainly taken advantage of that fact, but I don't believe Ash has. Still, whenever she is lonely for physicality, she keeps coming back to a guy she trusts, whom she knows still loves her.

She isn't incorrect. I, who have slept with far more beautiful women than Ashley, still carry a torch for her. I don't know why. I just do. But she does often drive me crazy, which is why I am constantly sleeping with other women - to get her out of my head. It works for hours at a time. (I got stronger.)

Regardless... yesterday was US Thanksgiving and last week she had agreed to come over today so I could help celebrate with her.

She's been feeling lonely and homesick, and I've been trying to get over her, but I think when she smelled the sex of another woman all over myself and my apartment, I think a part of her died or at the very least realized I was probably over her.

She tried many a time to get me to spend the night, but I refused. Prior to this, she would start things over at my place and then get tired... it always ticked me off as I was unable to get off, and may have been why I was getting over her.

Just not today.

I wanted to show her a good time. I wanted to show her that there was no other man on this planet who would do what I am going to do for her. I wanted her to know she and I should be together. I wanted... ahhh, let's get on with the story.

Office work first at the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) office where I spend my Fridays. First I stop of at the post office and mail my Christmas presents home for ¥7000. Then Kanemaru-san, one of my bosses, takes me to City Hall so I can pay may City Tax I apparently owe. Then my other boss, Hanazaki-san, asks me what the office can do for me - so I tell him I want an A/C unit. He says he will think about it. Hmmm. No sucking of air through the teeth, so I think it's as good as mine. I tell him the OBOE still owes me some money for a trip to Nikko. We then go to Wakakusa Junior High School so I can meet Tomura-sensei so he can translate a survey for me about foreigner relations in Japan. Uh... number one, it should have been in any other language but Japanese. Afterwards, we go and pick up my bicycle from one of the hundreds of bicycle repair shop in the bicycle repair shop district of  Ohtawara. I got my light fixed, spokes tightened and wheel re-aligned. They wanted to charge me ¥200 (~Cdn/US $2.60). I gave him ¥500 (~Cdn/US $6.50) and said he was too kind but just because I am a foreigner, I didn't want to take advantage of him. It was translated and we all celebrated with a couple of beers and some snacks...  there goes his profit! I also go back to the OBOE office and three It's A Wonderful Rife columns at the office - they are either the best I have ever done, or they suck. Such is the power of booze. Oh, and then we do something cool.

 Hanazaki-san, knowing I wanted to do something special for Ashley, had a week ago arranged with a restaurant in Yaita-shi to do something special for me. I had asked him previously where I could get a turkey... and he searched high and low and discovered you couldn't get a turkey in our city... but he kept on a-looking because he never wanted to disappoint me. That's respect for me as a friend. I have no way of repaying his friendship except by being his friend.

We ordered in a turkey from some other place in Japan. The restaurant cooked it. Did some sweet potatoes (yams), cranberry sauce, stuffing, carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy. They cooked it all for Hanazaki-san. For me. For Ashley. They wrapped it up. All I had to do was pick-it up and pay for it.

Expecting a gaijin (foreigner) discount, I was only a little surprised when the price quoted to me was actually what I had to pay: ¥40,000 (~Cdn/US $520). A pittance, if it got me back my girlfriend.

Hanzaki-san, good friend and boss that he is, did not grumble at the audacity of his charge (me) wanting to drive to another city just so he could get some food to help him get laid. In fact, he was quite happy to do this huge favor for me, chatting that he hoped everything would go well tonight.

You see, except for Ashley, everyone in this city knew we were dating. Even her bosses, as they wee great friends my my bosses - and I really disliked telling lies since I turned 18. before that - whoo. I was a good one. Great even. A legend in my own mind.

Anyhow, Hanazaki-san drove me back to my apartment and helped me carry my Thanksgiving dinner up to my third-floor apartment. He even said screw convention and kept his Japanese outside shoes on while trying to heft the huge meal with me into the place.

Bidding me good bye, good luck, and smiling as he slapped me about the shoulders like my father, I got everything ready... microwaving some things and heating others up in the oven - awaiting the arrival of Ashley, who has never failed to show up at my apartment on a Friday night since we first met.

By 6:30PM, there's no Ashley. She has always been here by 5:30PM at the latest.

I call. No answer at her place.

I call again at 6:45PM. No answer.

7PM. Nothing.

I put stuff away so it doesn't spoil...

Ding-dong! 

I race to the door!

It's... Matthew. You know... any other time I would have been so happy to see him... but he's not who I expect or want to see right now (it's also why I posted that photo of us prior to this blog - so he knows I mean no ill will here).

Still... I pull out my left-over lasagne (don't tell him about the turkey - sorry, brother!). He has some beer. We cook and we eat. He leaves at 8:30PM.

Seconds later, I call Ashley's place. Nothing. I even let it ring 20 times pretending to be Japanese, but nothing. (There was no call display back in those days, folks.)
 
I call every 10 minutes until 11PM. I am worried sick. Or perhaps it was the four beers I drank after Matthew left.

I'm worried. Jealous. Pissed. And pissed off.

Seems like the perfect time to get on my bicycle and ride the route between my place and Ashley's 25 minutes away that has a lot of rice fields someone could fall in. Crap. She could be hurt! I have to check!

Riding and loudly calling her name, I make it to her place at midnight. I ring the doorbell. Nothing.

I then look at the bicycle rack. My bike is there. Maybe she's with me?

Wow. How drunk am I now?

No... her bicycle isn't there. Cripes! Now I am frantic! Did I miss her? Is she dead in a rice paddy?

I ride back calling more frantically and loudly, but hear only frogs croaking.

Back home...  it's just after midnight. Where is she? Did she go off an do something without telling me? After saying she would come over?

People - Ashley better be dead and lying in a rice paddy because I now have every single dark thought my evil little brain can come up with going through it at a million miles per hour. I'm not mentally ill. Just quick at processing a situation. The irony of that sentence has not escaped me.

I am suck an effin' dweeb!


I sit down and stare at the fridge door I have just opened.

How could I have done all of this for someone who has her own vagenda (agenda with a 'v")? She probably went out with some girlfriends or with some other guy. Screw that noise! Why can't I find a woman who simply likes me without wanting the world from me, but for whom I would gladly give the world?

Why must I always put myself in these stupid situations? Women who want as much as they can grab from me, but offer very little in return... at least very little that actually matters to me. You regular readers will know what I mean.

The telephone rings.

I run over to it and trip on a chair landing with a loud thud that probably woke the whole building!

I crawl to the telephone on my hands and knees, pick it up and breathlessly ask "Hello?

"Hi Andrew!"

It's Kristine. The only woman I know for whom I would gladly kill a yak for her supper if she wanted one. I have used that line before in these blogs - but dammit, it is so true.

We chat and flirt and flirt some more while we continue to flirt.

With the 30-foot telephone cord stretched to breaking, I walk over to the fridge and close it.

Kristine and I continue to chat and flirt and flirt some more while chatting about flirting. My mood lightens considerably.

Somewhere wondering who the real turkey is,
Andrew Joseph
Good Grief! I almost forgot! The image above is by Charles Schultz who drew the great Peanuts comic strip starring that good man, Andrew Charlie Brown.
Today's blog is powerfully crammed down my throat by the immortal Aretha Franklin: