My Current Insanities

For my first two years and final month in Japan I was sleeping on a futon. Once you hit a certain age, the distance from the futon to a standing position gets a bit too far for first thing in the morning and you crave the intermediate sitting position a bed gives you.

And it’s embarrassing to have to crawl over to the wall and haul your creaking bones up like a drunk on a Sunday morning.

Down this street was a shitty little コポ. But it was mine. Name on the lease and everything. Now I got nothing but the bag on my back and the hat on my head.

*plays sad harmonica*

I was struck by how dedicated the would be cruiser was to following the contour of the stall’s lock. Shinjuku is a pretty busy station and I can’t imagine the line up of grimacing and sad-eyed salarymen he was causing while he dedicated himself to the task.

I suspect the stall graffiti will be a lot more aggressive now that I’m back in Canada. I have a lot to do here and a lot of photos and memories to process while I do it.

But let tell you one thing I learned while staying in Shinjuku: Pretty, young, and cool people are generally too wrapped up in being pretty, young, and cool to make for interesting street photography subjects. I think that’s why you typically only see photos of them standing around and showing off their clothing instead.

This was a Hipstamatic shot that got trimmed and straightened in Photoforge2.

In nine days I shall never walk down this road again. Hopefully there will be new ones in my future.

Hipstamatic on random via Photo Forge 2.

Abandoned homes tend to be left that way here. Capitalist society. No one pays to have the property cleared, property is left to the elements. Earthquakes seem to do the lions share of the cleanup work. The rest vanishes into the kudzu.

This is one of a number of post war homes in my neighborhood. Interestingly, several of them have been recently renovated to see use as cheap housing.

Hipstamatic app set to random.

Originally I was going to go off on certain Internet “communities” and the hypocrisies they spout on the subject of copyright.

Then I realized that was one of those telling an alcoholic they’re too drunk to drive situations and casual snark was a better way to get it off my chest. So instead of a rant here is a Hipstamatic shot of Aoshima in Miyazaki.

More baggage than you can see.

Since my current plan has me returning to Canada in the spring for some much needed doctoring, I’ve been thinking about writing some posts about my decade in east Asia, but I’m not sure about what.

The urge to let loose my negativity on aspects of my time here that made me unhappy is an easy route, but it’s exhausting and goes nowhere. And unfortunately, the web has a view of this part of the world so shaped by wishful thinking and internet memes that I’m pretty sure no one would be interested in the real deal…

Here is the real deal about this place, by the way;

1. Look at your boring fucking life.

2. Translate it to Japanese.

TAH-DAH!

Practical living stuff can be found in a lot of places if you look for it. So can warnings about the job situation.

Hrm… Anyone have any thoughts?