Adventures in the Looking Glass

I'm still completely exhausted from the weekend.  Lately, all I want to do is sleep.  I got 8 hours last night and I still feel rubbish.   Curiously, yesterday I came home from a little meeting with Peaceboat and sat down with a coffee and a cigarette, and magically felt much more alive than I had done all day.  I don't even smoke, but I had a craving for one so I gave in and bought some.  Weird.


Afterwards, I walked down to Shibuya to my friend's birthday party.  The bar manager had double booked what was meant to be a party with good DJs with a J-Pop video night, so until 11pm the music was unbearable.  Myself and a few friends defected to the nearby rock bar and had a great time listening to classic heavy metal.  We returned later, to hear the birthday day boy verbally rip the bar manager and the J-Pop DJ a new hole.  It was pretty funny.  Fortunately, my friend started a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" and successfully diffused the situation.  The I went home, met a few other friends and stayed up until 8am laughing, chatting, listening to music and generally having one of the best nights I've had in a very long time.  And I wonder why I'm tired all the time...

This Sunday I was shooting at the Asia Girls Explosion in Yoyogi Stadium.  I had been convinced for some reason that I was shooting the Tokyo Girls Collection, so hadn't been much excited about it, until I actually did some research and realized that X-Japan's Yoshiki had masterminded the whole thing and that it wasn't the TGC but the AGE.  So not only did I get to shoot Marilyn Manson modeling, but I also got to see Violet UK and X Japan perform.  It was pretty cool.  I'm slightly enamored with Sugizo, but alas, not a single clear picture of him playing.  The stage was 70 meters away and my zoom just couldn't cope.  Fortunately, for the fashion shots, a bit of cropping and enlarging saved the day, and most of the Yoshikimono collection look pretty good.

On my way out, I got lost.  I was trying to get back to the press room, but got dragged with the crowds to the Harajuku exit, had my press pass taken off me by one of the staff, and then missed the press conference with Marilyn Manson and Yoshiki.  I was a bit gutted, but on the other hand, I was exhausted and busting for a pee so making a speedy exit home was probably the best thing to have done.

And now, into my last three weeks at work.  This Thursday is my last day at elementary school.  I like the kids, but I do not like 5.45am much.  I will also be happy to stop teaching rich weirdos.  Long story...

Here's a picture of me from Sunday, as I can't show you any pics from AGE until they're cleared by da management. It says everything about how I felt waking up.

I've been awake since 5.30am. Not sure why I had to wake up at that time. I spent the morning thinking about the milipede I found crawling across my ceiling the other night. On account of it being so tiny, I decided we'd agree that it could leave through the top window during the night. Which I hope it did. I will however, be investing in a cockroach bomb some point soon. I haven't seen a cockroach since the one I saw a few months ago, hopefully due to the traps I put down, but I'm going to gas the place at some point, just to make sure all the creepy-crawlies aren't walking across my face during the night. I was also told that some millipedes in Japan are capable of a very nasty bite, but I think we're talking about creatures significantly bigger than the one I saw. The advice is that if I see one, I drop something heavy on it.

I downloaded a tonne of music the other night, thanks to Andy at work who had been trawling through his download site and kindly let me have his password so I could pinch stuff he'd already picked. So I've got Jonny Greenwood's "Ether", DJ Shadow's "Live: In Tune and In Time", some Mogwai, Brian Eno and a few other bits. Quite the revelation is an artist called Burial, whose "Untrue" album has been on my iPod for the past 36 hours, and which is currently playing on iTunes as I write this. This is most definitely not the kind of thing I would normally pick up. However, it's billed as Electronic (but then Jonny Greenwood's "Ether" is categorised as Reggae...) which gets my first thumbs up; has nice, darkly titled songs (Night Bus, Archangel, Ghost Hardware); and has an element of garage music to it which I do not find unappealing. It is perfect night music, perfect early-morning-watching-the-rain-smash-down music. I highly recommend it.

The dancing on Monday was good fun. Belly dancing works so many muscles. I can still feel most of them. It appears that belly dancing may be a new craze in Japan, a bit like Billy's Boot Camp last year. Belly dancing, however, is ten times more fun that circling your arms and doing those quite painful squats. Plus, belly dancing muscles look better than bootcamp muscles, which look totally wrong on a woman. We also took a Latin class and tried out salsa, cuban, rumba, merengue and samba. My favourite was samba, as it is possibly the craziest dance in the world. I signed up for some more classes, which cost me more money than I has predicted. I plan on doing some more bellydancing, and then switching to Latin once I get some dance shoes, and then maybe alternating classes.

Right, more sometime. Today I will be eating the first tomato from my cherry tomato plant. I'm going to have half with some olive oil and pepper, and the other with some blue cheese. Yummy.

I was visited by an Incubus on Friday night, and no, it was, in fact, quite frightening.

So a week of disturbed sleep was compounded this morning but being awoken by the town sirens going at 6am. What they were alerting us to, I've no idea. I got out my dictionary to find out what was being said, but had no joy. Half and hour later as I was finally starting to to the edge of my resentful wakefulness the blasted thing went off again. So I gave up, made a cup of tea and read greygirlbeast's "Bradbury Weather" instead.

I blame the incubus invasion on red wine and watching Hugh Jackman in a dumbass movie. I had little in the way of expectations when I sat down to watch "Kate and Leopold" (it was showing on the Movie Plus channel and I was bored and not in the mood for anything cerebral). My only point in watching (aside from thinking Hugh Jackman is pretty, though particularly in Wolverine mode) was to see whether the film would tick all the plot boxes for a love story. Which it did. Shame that none of the science behind finding cracks in time wasn't explained, but I guess that's far too much for the target audience to take in.

So last night I went to my favourite bar. I had been requested to go out to karaoke with Joe and few others but have taken a thorough dislike to singing in snack bars lately, so headed for the comfort of Yongo Yongo. It's not that I don't enjoy the singing. I am just quite bored with the number of requests I get to sing songs. People always make suggestions and I feel obliged to acquiesce. In some cases, people don't even ask me, they just give me a microphone when a song comes on and say: "Dozo". My annoyance at this behaviour is furthered by the fact that this is most often done with songs I hate - Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", Mariah Carey's "Hero". I've come to an agreement with Joe that the next time this happens I will inform the bar of my hatred of these songs, and give the mic to Joe, who will go on to sing on my behalf. That'll learn 'em.

Joe and I went back to Yongo Yongo for a private "mini-mini-live" with Mi-chan, back from a gig last night in Roppongi. Kumi brought her son Koki, who is 9 years old, but not much past a year old in mental terms (I can never keep up with what the "PC" term for this is). He was utterly ecstatic to meet Joe and insisted on crawling across us to get a hug. He was mesmerised by the guitar and enjoyed banging away on the bongos too. He's a very happy, if slightly anxious, kid and is good fun, though I guess extremely tiring to look after as he needs constant attention. So Koki munched on kombu onigiri while Mama cooked up a huge feast - egg and eggplant pizza, nama-haru maki, bagels, salad, accompanied by beer and wine.

As a result I'm been feeling distinctly off-planet this afternoon. However, I'm going to correct the situation with more red wine and a viewing of "Before Sunset", one of my favourite films, which I had the joy of tracking down in Tsutaya today.

Maybe I might get to sleep properly tonight...

Oh yes, a very merry and belated Samhain to you all. I was going to post something on that theme yesterday but the internet connection was FUBAR. I've just rediscovered that word. Just five minutes ago in fact.

Well, I said I'd update on Saw III. It was... grisly. I must admit that there were bits which did make me wince and a one point I did actually notice that my toes were curled. What's the deal with the teeth on the posters though? There was no teeth pulling that I could see. Apart from the guy with the chains attached to him. So, it was gory and bloody, so big ticks in all the boxes there. However, whilst a lot of the back story to the trilogy was gone in to, at no point did I feel anything but mild ennui towards the characters in the film. In the first film one did feel some sort of horror at the situation to two characters found themselves in. In the second film, Donnie Wahlberg made a good effort at being a sympathetic but unlikeable character. But in this one, it was same-old same old. However, I did like the twist, and kicked myself thoroughly for not realising it until it was almost revealed to the audience.

BBC Breakfast News were discussing Saw this morning. Allegedly people have been 'fainting with fear' at some cinemas whilst watching it. Its' all rather reminiscent of the Chuck Palahniuk "Guts" 'furore' a year or two ago.

I feel like a bit of a zombie today. I haven't had good night of sleep since last Friday. Last night I actually managed to sleep throughout the entire night, but it seems to have made little difference. On Monday night I woke up crying, shouting, and talking in my sleep. At one point in the night I lashed out with my arm and sent the contents of my bedside 'table' (read, plastic box) all over the floor. Not good. And I also found out today that I have about £20 to my name. A good job the cinema was a bargain at £3.50.

Hurrah. Yawn.