Friday July 12, 1991
01:32 I am asleep. There is a sharp pain in my thigh. I leap up, brushing wildly at my legs. Even in my sleep I know that I've been bitten by a centipede. I run into the kitchen to try to wake up in a safer place. The bite is swelling. My whole leg is burning from the pain. I put ice on the bite and grab the can of bug spray. I turn on the light cautiously, see nothing, shake out the sheets. A centipede wriggles out. I spray it to death.
08:30 Begin reading The World As I Found It which I received in my last order from Daedalus.
10:30 Go home and measure all the boxes. I'm relieved to discover that there is less than I thought. In fact there is so much less that without M2's boxes I might not have made the minimum shipment.
11:47 Go to Toyomi to buy lunch. Decide that I don't like any of the Technotronic songs enough to tape them.
12:31 Withdraw some cash on the way back to school.
13:00 Nagai-sensei has brought an expensive shodo brush and some liquid sumi for me. So I spend the afternoon practicing calligraphy. Washizuka-sensei talks to me as I am his only diversion. He explains that I'm copying a sutra and says that he is a Buddhist. "I hate Shinto."
"Really?" I ask. "Why?"
"The emperor." (He blames the emperor for involving Japan in WWII.)
"Ima nani o shitte imasu-ka?"
"Many yawns." Washizuka-sensei has nothing to do since there are no classes scheduled (Now in his seventies, he teaches only part time and doesn't have the duties of the homeroom or fulltime teachers.)
"Why don't you tell Kocho-sensei that you need to go to the byoin today?" I explain that in the US, employees often call in sick when they need a mental health day--to take a break.
He laughs. Then, to my surprise, when Kocho-sensei come in about an hour later, Washizuka-sensei does exactly that.
16:00 Read more of The World As I Found It.
17:00 Bicycle to Beppu. Return the CD. Go to the toy shop and buy another pack of hanafuda. Buy some blank postcards. Go to Uneed and get packing supplies and shoji supplies.
19:22 Home. Make a VHS copy of Tonari no Totoro for Rachel as well as clips from my 8mm video that she's in.
23:00 Take bath in the apartment onsen.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
July 13, 2002
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