Entries this day: Floating_in_the_stream Funny_Karen Lunch Work ami andrew home reading_Atlantean_Secrets zz zzz_email zzzz_bedtime zzzz_oops

Floating in the stream

9:49am JST Friday 29 February 2008 (day 13855)

This past weekend, after/during some surprisingly intense winds, the stream near my house was filled with more leaves and rubbish than normal. There's a particular point where three flat-topped rocks sit in a semi-random looking triangle, plus a slight widening of the stream around them. I bet these were placed as a bridge across the stream, although now the stream has been embanked and blocked with a fence so only fence climbers can get in.

On occasion, this triangle of rocks catches an errant stick, which catches a leaf, which catches something else, until, like a pyramid scheme, there's a whole slew of bits and pieces stuck behind these rocks.

I decided to take a picture each morning, and put them into some sort of ... something so they can be viewed like a slideshow or a movie. I've only got like 5 days worth so far, and after two days of clearish waters, today was a big cloggy day.

Funny Karen

9:56am JST Friday 29 February 2008 (day 13855)

Karen, who lives across the hall from me, seems to live by her own rules. She locks her door when she goes down to take a shower; she noisily checks the lock on her door when she leaves for the day; she almost never talks to anyone in the house, though she's quite proficient in English (so she could talk to me, Mario or Natalia), Japanese, and Portuguese (so I bet she could shift to Spanish and talk to Natalia); she often leaves her laundry for hours (often overnight) in our house's one washer; and I've never seen her using the kitchen except as a walkway to the shower.

Fair enough.

Today, while I was enjoying watching leaves and bits of trash collide with the rocks' collection of bits and bobs, Karen walked by on her way to work. I said HI and she said HI, then she said Bye and I said Bye, and that was fine and that was that.

I didn't expect (nor try) to catch her, but once I got to the station, the train was about to leave, so I zipped down the steps and just happened to see her as she was getting into the same door as me. She said, "HI Rob" and stepped out of that door and went down to a different door.... wow. I was secretly glad because I preferred to read my book than have our first conversation in 6(?) months (when I first moved in to the house, we talked and she showed me the short cut to the station, plus a couple of cleaners for my shirts, etc... but after that, nothing).

Lunch

2:44pm JST Friday 29 February 2008 (day 13855)

Went to Lawson's for lunch; gave my email and phone number to Tsunashima to try and get Akami's information. I think past this point I will let go of the idea of trying to contact her.

Work

5:45pm JST Friday 29 February 2008 (day 13855)

Today at work I

1. emailed Travis and scheduled a hang out on Monday and another on the 13th.

2. emailed Dave and thanked him for meeting last night and good wishes for getting his Yahoo! Small Business site upgraded with a shopping cart.

3. installed two shopping carts on my server to see how they work/look.. basically wanna put them on Dave's site if we can.

4. chatted with Fred a bit while I signed up for Google Site, which turns out to only work on their server, .. so it *works*, but ain't as cool as having their stuff work on my domain.

5. chatted with Calder about getting other people to start knock knock jokes

6. enjoyed setting up some dominoes on the physics toy that she found earlier this week or so

7. helped 丸山さん carry a box of raw oysters after まりえ took a picture of them with her cellphone camera.

8. am now going to work on ctbriefs.

ami

4:09am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

There was a party after work today, I guess celebrating the arrival of three new faces with a feast of raw oysters and, separately (thank gods), several semi cold and dry pizzas.

I chowed on pizzas after gagging down an oyster (and Ami's; she's disgusted by them as well).

We stayed for a lawfully decent amount of time while people shucked and slurped oysters, beer and wine, but basically headed home as soon as fashionably early arrived.

As planned, though unnoticed by me until too late, in Musashi Kosugi our train stopped and kicked everyone out. I said bye to Ami who went to Nambu line to get her bicycle and rendezvous at my apartment. Looked down at Nambu line platform and wondered if I could conceivably climb down from my line to Nambu line and surprise Ami on the platform. Although such an adventure would be against several rules, both explicit and implied by social custom, not to mention a bit dangerous, it would feel great to finally do, *and* have the added bonus of pleasantly surprising Ami into delightful laughter.

andrew

4:20am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

When the next train arrived, I turned around from my Spiderman dreams and met eyes with Andrew who used to live in Millennium House with me back a couple years ago. Down at the end of Bremen Dori, he's living with Yuki (who used to live across the hall from me in MH), and still doing "the same old thing as before," for work, which I don't remember, but assume is teaching English.

I told him about my upcoming Zeitgeist screenings (Pink Cow 15 March. Be sure to mention the movie when you make reservations for dinner at cowmail@thepinkcow.com.) He said he might be able to make it, and I'll be happy to see him if he does.

home

4:28am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

Arrived home around 9:30pm and set laundry in motion and then enjoyed a lovely romp with Ami and then talked for a bit about the possibility of going to Italy this summer to meet Fred, who will extend his stay there after some sort of conference involving his PhD material. I fell asleep during the discussion (I blame the horizontal positioning, which was Ami's suggestion), and woke up when Ami was hanging the laundry at 2am.

Awwww, so sweet!

Moved by her boundless love, I sat up in bed and grabbed the remaining two T-shirts... and held them up for her so she wouldn't have to bend down to pick them up.

Awwww, so sweet!

Smooches, and then she left for home.

reading Atlantean Secrets

4:32am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

I tried for a bit, but didn't fall back asleep, so I read several pages of Atlantean Secrets, which I *love*.. It's such a great great great series! I'm just near the end of Volume 4 (of 4), and the pace of awesomeness has kept up for the entire series. During a denouement, I finally was getting a bit sleepy and didn't want to miss a drop of the next climax so I decided to write these past few entries and go to bed.

zz

4:38am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

And now, bedtime again, right after I pee, right after I glance at my inbox. (what a bad idea this will be!!)

zzz email

4:56am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

Hmm, actually it was a good plan; I just emailed Brandt about business stuff and needed to see Petra's email to get me to set up my jaxtr account so she can call me in a few hours!

But now I've really got to P! and プ!

zzzz bedtime

5:00am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

That was -*!great!*-

Nighty night.

zzzz oops

5:39am JST Saturday 1 March 2008 (day 13856)

I just read an article about Lil' Hacker. Good luck to him in recovering from his situation.