My Current Insanities

IMG_0652 on Flickr.

Testing out the Tumblr/ Flickr link. I can’t see any problems arising unless I try to stick an “e” in where it belongs.

I view this image as evergreen.

I may or may not have mentioned: My external hard drive died last week. It was holding my digital images from Japan. I might be able to pay someone to pull the data off of it. But until then, all I have are my remaining films and what’s on Flickr.

My fault for not double backing it all up and leaving it on one device.

My music was all on there too. If my old iPod goes, I’ll be forced into piracy. That would be shameful.

In my dream last night, I was interviewing for an ESL teaching job.

This school was somewhere in East Asia, the dream wasn’t clear on it, and was famous for being very good to it’s teachers. I arrived to find the teacher’s room set up like a kindergarten class. The teachers got free, calorie balanced meals. Nap times, play times, and a story time. By the time I excused myself to sneak out through the bathroom window, they had moved on to singalong time.

Given the infantile teaching staff odds are good that was set in South Korea. 

Oh, burn!

Anyway, the picture was a Hipstamatic thing of some kindy students in Japan wearing their Oni masks for Setsubun. It was the closest picture I had.

Hello Internet. How you been? Here is a kitten. Have a nice day.

Halp! My mother’s baking keeps falling into my tummy somehow. I think the milk is chasing it there!

A table away from my farewell meat-eating party was another farewell meat-eating party.

This is the HalfCamera app. It does diptychs in the style of a half frame camera.

While I wait for my medical oriented probings, I’m enjoying the country life.

And by “enjoying” I mean, “Christ, I wish I was in Tokyo. Or Seoul. Hell, I’d even settle for Toronto right now.”

My life in a nutshell right now.

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.

At lunch I walked out my front door for the last time. Now I’m in Kagoshima for what may be the last visit ever. This time tomorrow I’ll be in Tokyo where I’ll hopefully be making good use of the time I have left in this country.

“Tumpty tum. Don’t mind me. I’ll be out of your way in an hour or so. Tumpty tum.”

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.

You’re in Japan and you need a taxi. No one is stopping. The lanes at the malls are empty. No one is in front if the train station.

Find the nearest park. The driver will be in the toilet there. Stalk until he comes out.

He might charge you extra for weirding him out while he pees. But you’ll be driving and that’s all that matters.