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One angry man's resolution to change his life. |
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AN APOLOGY I experienced a revelation. I will change my life. I will shine, as my wife told me to. I will have my revenge. |
| Friday's lunch with Meiku was both awkward and invigorating. We met at a cafe in another town. It was fun talking and eating together, and there was some light flirtation. It is obvious there is attraction between us--and after so long that felt SO very good. But it also was obvious that neither of us were sure how we should handle the conversation, or what we could talk about. My wife is her friend, and Meiku wants to keep it that way, perhaps. I want Meiku to understand the situation between wife and I so that Meiku can see that she is not ruining a marriage--that there is, in fact, nothing like a marriage to ruin--but Meiku did not want to hear details. Perhaps. When I found myself getting into the topic, she would say, "You don't have to tell me everything." I am not sure what she meant by that, now that I think about it. We hugged at the beginning and end of our meeting. God, she felt good against me. No kiss--not yet, I think--but the hug lasted much longer than it needed. Felt so good to be hugged by someone, to be touched by someone. You have no idea...especially as Meiku was dressed in a thin, summer dress of yellow and green, which showed off her delicious, soft curves. I haven't been able to stop thinking of her since then. It's crazy, and stupid, I know, but just the fantasy of not being so alone, of having someone out there, even if she is my wife's friend, who cares for me and desires me is so invigorating it's intoxicating. Caution. I've got to keep my head clear. |
| "You are a man. You should not be weak. Why do you care if I hit you?" "You are much bigger than me. You must be weak if you say I hurt you." "You never had a father, so you don't know how to be a man." "You never had a father, so you don't know father's role." "You don't make enough money." "You do wife's role." "You are retarded." "You are an idiot." "You should die." "I want a divorce." "I will divorce you." "I want to die." "I will kill myself." "I am tired." "I hate you." "You should get a sex friend." "You should take our son and move back to America." "You are staying only for our son." "You just want to have sex with other women." "You want a younger woman." "You should not defend yourself." "You should not bring up what I said before." "You should speak only English." "You should shut up." "You should not use your advantage of native English speaker." "I am old." "I am not beautiful anymore." "I will kill myself." "I will kill myself." "You are weak." "You are not a man." "You can have the insurance money after I kill myself." "You can have lots of young girlfriends." "You should forget what I said. Don't bring up the past. It causes fights." And my new recent favorite, from last night: "You should have taken that squeeze bottle out of the trash before taking out the trash. You should have known I didn't really mean to throw it away, even though I said I wanted to, and I threw it across the room in anger, and threw it in the trash and left it there for two days. It is your mistake. I will not apologize." To which I can only now reply, "You are not my ice cream truck." |
| 1) Microwave a wet towel for one minute and apply to face before shaving. 2) After shaving, rub face with liberal amounts of moisturizer. 3) Level moisturizer out on counter. Steps 1 and 2 will give you a closer shave and softer skin. Step 3 will make your wife paranoid at first. "What made you change?" Well, let's consider some possible reasons: How about: Being left alone for seven years now despite being married to a beautiful, intelligent woman? How about: Having felt no love or affection from anyone in more than seven years? How about: Sleeping alone for twelve years? How about: Being told on an at least monthly basis that someone wants to divorce you, and feeling the panic this induces because you're an immigrant? How about: Being accused of wanting a divorce though I never asked for one, and knowing that if we do divorce, you will make it as difficult as possible for me to spend time with my son? How about: Knowing all of this, and knowing the pain and loneliness I feel, on a daily basis--so much so that I walk around talking to myself about this all the time these days--but pushing it aside when I think of the difficulties divorce would cause you and our son? How about: Feeling worthless, undesirable, and trapped--but also somehow honor-bound to support the mother of my first child, a woman who I have been through so much with? It's your myopia that makes you think I am now using moisturizer because I want to get a girlfriend. If you can't see why I've changed, then you truly aren't aware of the game that is afoot. Better question yet is: How the hell did we come to this, and is it truly too late to turn back? |
| At work, staff member, Tomoko, came up to where I was sitting, gazing out at her, and said, "You're staring at me a lot." She looked at me quizzically. It was true. I had been, but mostly out of fun, just trying to get her to laugh or smile. Her job is stressful. Part of it was, to be honest, because now that the weather has warmed, she is wearing these short skirts that, when she leans over her desk to talk to a student, ride up her delicious, muscular legs, until I can just see the swell at the bottom of her butt. Yes, I was staring at that. Can you blame me? It's been years since anyone has paid me least sexual attention. Caught off guard, I replied: "It's because you look damn good these days." That stunned her. She covered her embarrassment with laughter and backed out of the room. I didn't move from my chair, my eyes on her, smiling, though inside I was cringing. I was afraid she would get angry and complain. But so far, nothing. She smiled at me as usual today. And today, she is wearing this tight, black skirt. This morning, I went to the immigration office and picked up the paperwork to get my permanent resident visa. A lot of paperwork and documents are required. This is going to take time, especially as the list of required documents is written in Japanese I can't read. Either I gotta get someone to translate this for me, or scan the sucker into my computer and use Google translate--which I've never tried before. Good idea! Why the hell didn't I think of that before? |
| Injured myself at the gym today, throwing my whole morning out of whack. Leg day today, doing single leg press (110kg), when I feel something on the side of my right knee go sprang. Very slowly and very deliberately lowered the weight to rest. Back in November, I blew my right calf muscle with a sound like snack! which rang out and turned every head in the gym as I collapsed to the floor. I didn’t want a repeat of that (or that pain), so I was very cautious this morning. I tried to move on to other exercises, but found I’d lost the focus due to nervousness, and went home. And the dude who watches the DVD (and I mean the DVD because he only watches the one) was there, and again that whole “whoooo!” was breaking my concentration. And I failed to shine through work last Sunday. The culprit: a thirtyish engineer for some local auto manufacturer, a bespeckled motherfucker with a nervous twitch and a squint creasing his face anytime he is asked an unexpected question such as “How are you?” I have a rough time getting through a lesson with him because, while this is a conversation school, he expresses not the slightest interest in conversing with others around him. His nerdy shyness and awkward inability to meet anyone’s eye, despite his age, tests my patience to the limit--and this Sunday was no exception. I was smiling all the way up to when he asked me: “What do you think of Japanese weather?” “How long have I lived in Japan?” I asked. He coughed up a nervous laugh. “Fourteen years,” I supplied, my smile melting. “And you know that. So, don’t you think the question is a bit silly?” Yep. I failed. But today I shone. No problems today. Which brings me to today’s lesson: the meaning, connotation and use of the Japanese word Hajimemashite. Translation: “Please treat me kindly.” However, a more literal translation, and more telling of Japanese culture, is: “So we begin.” This phrase is used as part of a formalized exchange when people first meet. Hajimemashite is redolent with the connotations that this relationship being entered into, no matter how insignificant it might seem at this initial stage, is only the first act in what will undoubtedly evolve into a long and convoluted drama from which there can be no exit stage left. From this, you might guess that the majority of Japanese people (and by this I mean those persons born and raised in Japan) enter into relationships with some caution and a certain amount of trepidation--and you’d be correct in this surmise. Another conclusion supported by observation would be Japanese people also do not end relationships easily. Take my wife for example. She has a yearly reunion with a few people she went to junior high school with. Why? Because they like to keep in touch. My wife has a whole web of people she keeps in contact with through a variety of yearly parties, reunions, and New Year’s cards. She keeps in close touch with only a few, though, and one of those is Meiku, a friend of hers from high school. We have dinner with Meiku about one every couple months. Meiku is single, arafo (around forty), quite attractive but single and childless. I like arafo because they typically do not display that vacuous innocence so revered in Japanese society, and they are a little desperate for attention given Japan’s prioritization of youth. This text conversation happened today: Me: Would you like to have lunch on Friday, just you and me? Meiku (one minute later): Yes. Where? That was easy. Why would I do this? Well, despite Meiku being my wife’s friend, my wife has been accusing us of having an affair for years now. She throws this in my face anytime she is angry and can’t think of anything else to criticize me for. And the truth is I have never met Meiku alone. We have run into each at a party once, but we kept our distance. Of course, I noticed some attraction there, some interest, but kept away because, hey, she’s my wife’s friend and I am a nice guy. Was. |
| Went to the gym this morning. As the fake train pass gains me extra money, so going to the gym Monday morning gains me time—in this case, time to write. Until today, Monday’s schedule had me taking son to his athletics training (care of Japan’s Olympic Committee, nonetheless) at night and me using the gym there. Now, by hurrying to go to the my usual gym on Monday morning, and condensing my workout, I have two hours at night in which to write. A note on my schedule and workout routine for Monday: I wake up at 6 a.m., drink some coffee I prepared the night before, check my email, put away the futons, wake son (a Sisyphean task), eat breakfast, set out son’s school uniform, wash dishes, hang laundry, take out garbage, prepare son’s clothes for athletics training, select and print my lessons for the day’s private lessons, shave, brush teeth, put away dishes, and then get my out clothes ready for the gym which opens at 8:40 a.m. At the gym, Monday is my chest and shoulders day. I’m on a four-week cycle. This being week four, my bench press routine is a recovery workout: 10 reps at 55 kg, 10 reps at 70 kg, and then 2 sets of 10 reps at 85 kgs. After that, 4 sets of 10 reps of barbell shoulder presses at 22 kgs, 4 sets of 10 reps of incline delt raises at 18 kgs, 3 sets of 8 reps of flyes at 45 kgs, 4 sets of 12 reps of lat raises at 12 kgs, 4 sets of 10 reps of dumbbell shoulder shrugs at 40 kgs, 4 tricep circuits, and 2 sets of 12 reps of wide-grip pull-ups. This was the first Monday I’d been to Star Play gym. Star Play is the area’s more serious weight lifting gym. The clientele are almost exclusively male, with most of them being amateur or semi-professional body builders. Two are national competitors, even though they are in their fifties. One of these drives me bonkers. Every time he comes in, he puts on a DVD of some American bodybuilder going through his routine. The American is HUGE, but, possibly due to steroids, has a high-pitched voice, and when he finishes a set, he lets out this “WHOOO!” that sounds like a girl faking the world’s shortest orgasm. I’ve always got my headphones in while I work out, and so this reduces the annoyance to a bearable level, but today, the sight of this muscular freak and his mezzo soprano war whoop of masculinity entered my conscious with background music supplied by Tool’s “Part of Me”—and that’s just not good for one’s piece of mind. These guys pack in the protein shakes as well: the shelves above the sink are filled with various packages of protein and supplement powders. I use none of them. I just eat a shit load of chicken and salads, plus the usual Japanese food. I don’t want to be a muscular freak. I finished my workout at 10 a.m., drove home, changed clothes, and taught my first lesson at 10:30, ate lunch at home from 11:45 to 12:45, taught two more private lessons from 1 to 3 p.m., and then two kids English lessons from 3:30 to 4:40 p.m. Took son home (he’s part of one of the kids lessons), ate a quick dinner wife prepared, and then took son to training. In between times, I took down laundry and folded it, washed dishes again, prepared coffee for the next morning, sent emails, and went to the bank. It is good to have more time to write. But I will need more time. This is my usual Monday schedule. I am trying to do calf raises and squats while brushing my teeth—that might make me more time. A lot of my Facebook friends liked a tirade I went on concerning the pop group AKB48, so I would like to write a more coherent, less foul, expression of my thoughts on that. |
| This anger poisons me. Unable to purge myself of its destructive energies, I must divert them to other, various purposes. But so far, it has proven more difficult than I expected. My resolve weakens as my long habits assert themselves: be nice, be kind, don't fight. Forgive. And this smiling at everyone that I am attempting, this not showing the anger inside, makes my soul ache. How is it that you, dear wife, who haven't touched me in years, can coax the worst of me to the surface? I always thought physical contact was necessary for voodoo. During my lunch break yesterday, I gave the smile, the shine, a full and concerted try. I strolled about the mall, smiling at every woman I passed (men, too, but not the same). And it was not a fake smile. The wonderful thing about being forty-two is that every woman, from about 17 to 55, is attractive to me in some way--I can see the beauty in almost any woman (and man), and that beauty can make me warm inside. But I will never chase the young girls because they know nothing. I like mature women. Almost to a woman, they returned my smile, though less roguish and brighter than mine, or they blushed and looked away with the hint smile gracing their tender lips. But even this brightening of the day was not easy. I had your angry words still ringing in my ears, as I do this morning, and it is deafening sometimes, a clamor I want to share with others, to release the pressure that darkens my face and drags my head earthward. But I can be a charming bastard--or so it seems. This is new to me, and this is difficult. It takes practice, and the ability to trick myself into believing I can do it. I will try again today, even though I would rather not. What my insides scream to do is to tell other people what you said to me this morning. But that will help no one, I know this now. One reader of this blog has already said I should just ask you to stop, that no one deserves to be abused. He does not understand you as I do, and he does not understand me, or abuse. I know I don't deserve to be abused. I stay for other reasons, not the least of which is a belief in you as a good person. Twelve years you have been doing this to me, and I have been asking you to stop, have been writing you letters, have been fighting with you, talking to you, explaining to you how the things you do and say hurt me mentally--and for twelve years you have demanded that I change, and I have, but you haven't stopped. I have not been able to be good enough for you. I fucking hate you. Congratulations. That is quite the accomplishment. I have never hated anyone else in my life. But you--you bring out this passion in me, because only you I love, and you discard me weekly as if I were garbage, unimportant to you, of no use, not even really human (based on what you say). You told me to shine. I knew what that meant when you said it; I just couldn't believe you would say it to me. In Japanese, shine means "die." What did I do to deserve this? What have I done that was so damn bad? I DON'T KNOW! I have supported you in everything you wanted, have done everything you asked, and those things I couldn't do, at least I tried. You hate me because I don't agree with you about everything, and because we don't feel the same way about things. Life is not "fair." Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. I know this. I live this. You do not. The simple truth is: you don't love me, and I am beginning to suspect you never did. If I wasn't a nice guy, I would have left long ago. I know the society we live in, the culture that raised you. I know how difficult life is for women here, and ow much more difficult it would be for a single mother. That is one reason I have not walked out and given up. But I have given you twelve years of my life. I have given you love, kindness and affection in that time. You have not. You have taken so much from me. There is no balance. So I will give you more. I will shine. I will give you something you could not have imagined. I will keep you off balance. I will destroy your peace. I have already started. I changed my body. I look good now. For the first time in my life, I realize how handsome I can be if I just believe in myself (and this is no easy, given my past and the fact that the one woman in my life that I love, whose opinion really matters to me, you, never ever compliments me). The only thing that holds me back is my face. Do you know Steven Jesse Berstein, and his poem "My Face"? I hear it during university, and I felt what he was talking about. Irregardless of whatever reasons you believed justifying you, you shouldn't have done this. You really shouldn't have. And you suspect that already. It already drives you crazy, what I have done to my appearance, how I take care of it now. You accuse me of exercising to get a girlfriend, though I've told you the truth repeatedly: I do it because it makes me feel good. And the angrier you make me, the more resolve I get. That resolve already powered me through a year of intensive weight training and diet; just imagine what else I can do if I am properly motivated. And never forget, dear wife, the mind that floats around in this skull, the one you disparage as being "retarded" or an "idiot" has gotten more awards, recognition and publication than you--you who have none of those to boast of. And never forget: that same brain that was lulled to sleep by the soporific of love, it is awakening, and trained as it was in chess strategy, it is urging me, this anger, to never make a move for a single purpose. I am putting me pieces on the board. I don't think you've noticed the game is starting, and I have no desire to warn you. This morning, after spending three hours making it last night, I used my first fake train pass. A test. Ticket agent didn't even blink, perhaps because they've seen me so much, so often. Almost couldn't believe it. I gave him a friendly smile. |
| Frankly, this smiling business is more difficult to maintain than I'd assumed. Two lessons into work today, and I can feel it slipping. On the bright side, our staff member is wearing a tight-fitting gray suit that hugs her generous curves oh so nicely. My coworker can't stand her, but she is an intriguing puzzle to me: trained as a paralegal, she speaks pretty good English with a British accent, yet manages to communicate the wrong information to us two or three times and day, and is obsessively chipper. Perhaps she is shinning, too? We keep our distance, she and I. But there is a certain physical attraction there. I've felt it when we have to squeeze past each other in our closet-sized break room. Not only is she curvier than our usual staff members, she tends to wear low-cut blouses that show off her generous cleavage--and make this extremely horny and long-neglected man happier than she knows (perhaps). |
| A day or two before deciding on this course, I was having lunch with my coworker. We were watching TV in the mall's break room. The TV show focused on what Japanese women expect from men. At the time we were watching, they were focused on the fact that women expect men to agree with them whenever they say something is cute--the bottom line being that when the man agrees that something she said is is cute, then he is really saying that she is cute. Just agree with the woman. That seemed to be the message. My coworker knows my home situation. He is married to a Japanese woman, as well, but they have none of the problems we have (or at least not to the degree we do). When I started to complain that the message of the show was "just agree with whatever she says," he said something that made me pause. He didn't know for how long, but Japanese men have tended to agree with their wives about everything, just to avoid a fight. Any resentment they might have felt, they kept inside, even if the wife was verbally or mentally abusing the poor fuck. He never complained, and he certainly never talked about his problems outside the home--and even if he was one of the rare few who did, he never took any steps to change the situation. "We hear a lot about men who committed suicide from overwork, but I wonder how many of those actually did so because of their family frustrations." It was a good point. No one in Japan talks about mental health--well, a little bit recently, but not at all in the past. It was a taboo topic, and to complain about one's family was a sign of weakness and risked bringing shame on the whole family, which was something no one of good character and morals would do. You kept it in--until it turned into something ugly, and whatever that ugly thing was, you showed no one. That's the thing many Japanese women never realize when they think about marrying someone from a non-Japanese culture: those men are going to need to vent. Those men are going to see the mental health hazards of not venting, and they are not going to be so worried about family "honor" or appearing stoic. "You gotta stop being so nice to women," he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. "When I stopped that, it was like such a relief. And my wife likes it. She does all kinds of stuff for me now." I looked at him, incredulous. "It's true," he continued. "By being a jerk, I give my wife the chance to be the angel, and that's all she wants. She wants to look better than me. I let her. Think about it." I am. |
| Driving to work on the highway, I noticed through the thin spray of rain in the car next to me a driver texting, eyes darting up and down as we raced at a steady 70 kph. This is illegal in Japan. There are signs all over the place telling people not to do it. Japan is a "safety" country, and its people are proud of that, and will tell you time and again how they follow the rules. Most people do; but more people break the small rules, especially the rules of the road, when they think they can get away with it. Texting while driving is a big one, and it really pisses me off. You'll see these delivery drivers in these big truck races through tiny, residential roads tapping away with one hand, and nothing less from half the drivers on their way to work. So, I swerved toward him. Fuck, he jumped. Dropped his phone. I smiled at him. He got angry, sped up and passed me. I am still smiling. Perhaps the memory of his shocked face will keep me warm during these eight lessons of teaching today. Already, that smile has endeared me to a middle-aged female student in my first class who was not expecting a lesson with me. She walked out smiling, even though the lesson was difficult. |
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