Yes, I know the last post is gone. No, I don't care. Yes, it will be back soon.

Big Wave 21 Community Kitchen

"Extra sugar, extra salt
Extra oil and msg

Shut up and eat!
Too bad, no bon appetit!
Shut up and eat!"

A bit ill at ease about my classes at Tamagawa being over, I sat around today strumming my guitar and chatting with Americans on Skype. Not wanting to dwell about the end of something so awesome that was snuffed out so quickly, I went to the grocery store and bought a ton of random shit to cook with--considering I'll be hanging around the apartment a lot more in the future to do my complete lack of any agenda at all, I'm probably going to need to, you know, eat. I wrote a few more verses to a really sappy confession-of-love-song before getting frustrated with my bad Japanese grammar, downing an entire carton of orange juice, and going downstairs to make some damn food. 

My cooking skills are basically limited to the following: spaghetti, miso soup in a packet, noodles in a styrofoam cup, chicken breasts, ground beef, eggs, and toast. Today was an eggs and toast day. I grabbed my eggs, toast, and fake spreadable butter in a plastic tub, as well as my new David Sedaris book "Me Talk Pretty One Day", and schlepped downstairs after making really awkward eye contact with a Chinese girl. I entered the kitchen, an explosion of pink walls with intricately painted trees winding up and down the sides, climbing up to the ceiling. There was a Japanese(?) girl in the kitchen already, cutting up some lemons and maybe putting them into alcohol or something. I don't know--she makes me feel really awkward. I see her every night, she's always here, hanging up laundry or handwashing some article of clothing, and she never says anything to me. She kind of makes me feel the way your mom would when you've done something bad, and she knows it, and you know she knows you know it, and she's giving you the silent treatment to emphasize her intense disappointment in you. In an effort to evade passive-agressive-mom-girl and her weird lemoney sangria, I started whistling, and went to turn on the stove.

The stove is a rather large issue in my day to day life. You don't just turn a knob. You have to like, turn the knob, wait for the flame to puff up with a little click, and you have to push the knob in in a certain way and keep it there in order to get the flame to keep burning. I don't really get it, at all, because I didn't grow up in the goddamn stone age, so cooking dinner is always kind of an exciting challenge. 

me: *puts down eggs, bread, fake butter* *deep breath* Okay. *turns knob* 

stove: *click* *fire puffs up* *goes out*

me: *deep breath* ....okay. *turns knob*

stove: *click* *fire puffs up, stays for a minute* *goes out*

me: *turns around*

mom-girl: *cutting lemons* *glares at me*

me: *turns back around* Ooookay then. *turns knob* 

stove: *click* *puff* *fire goes out*

me: *turns knob* 

stove: *click* *puff* *fire goes out*

mom-girl: *drops knife on table in frustration*

me: Okay--okay, okay. *turns knob*

stove: *click* *puff*

me: ....Okay?

stove: *fire still burning*

me: Hah! *turns around*

mom-girl: *gathers things and leaves*

I proudly melted some butter and cracked some eggs. After a few minutes, the Japanese dude whom I briefly spoke with before entered the kitchen with a basket of food and a stereotypical surgical mask on his face.

"Herro!!" he said, excitedly. Ecstatic to make human contact, I responded and asked how he had been. He said he had been well, and that he didn't mean to pry, but he had seen me playing my guitar in my room when my door was wide open...I purposely leave my door wide open while I'm in there in an attempt to draw people in so I can force them to be friends with me. We talked about music for a minute, and he asked if I knew Paramore. I lol'd, and said I did. "I play bass!" he exclaimed. "Do you know Rehacheepapa?" 

"....what?" I squinted at him. It was hard enough to figure out wtf he was saying, let alone through the surgical mask. "Rehacheepapa. Rehacheepapa? You know? Rehacheepapa." Fuck, I thought. Usually I can get through the Engrish. This was a tough one. 

"You play bass. You like the bass player. Rehacheepapa."

"Yes, Free. Free from Rehacheepapa." It suddenly made sense.

"Flea! Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers!"

"Yes! Yes!" We jumped for joy as my eggs popped and sizzled. Turns out he's 28, and played bass for about 4 years. I finished my eggs and slapped some bread onto the pan. You can make toast with pretty much any hot appliance. Did you know that? After my 'food' was finished, I sat in the adjoining lounge room as a bubbly Japanese game show sparkled with bobs and whistles and contestants were degraded for not passing some kind of sick challenge or other. The main door opened, and I saw a man with a guitar on his back walk past the kitchen door. I dropped the book in my hand and craned my neck to watch him walk by. I chewed anxiously as I wondered if he would come into the kitchen. Thankfully, he did, a few minutes later. 

Now guitar-less, the Japanese man shoved his long, black hair into a messy bun and started shuffling through the dishes. I pretended to be thoroughly absorbed in my eggs as I half-understood their rapid, mumbly Japanese. I heard my presence mentioned and pretended not to understand. Apparently I'm not the world's greatest actress.

"This is Masa. He plays guitar, too." 

"Oh, hi, I didn't see you there." I say something moronic like this, and get up to shake his hand. I found out that he's in a band called Die For City, (a play on the word 'diversity') a popular local band who plays (or used to play) around Shibuya. The band's name came from the idea that the members of the band are from different countries--apparently the drummer is American, and the singer is British. The other man busied himself making some crazy spaghetti dish as Masa and I talked about music. I pleaded with him to tell me about local clubs and live houses in Shibuya, asking him to hook me up with anyone who might want to jam sometime. He scratched his goatee and asked how old I was. I said I was 20, and they both laughed. I still don't know what that meant. I was reminded that the other man's name is Humi--I've met 497689876 Japanese people in the past three weeks, I can't feel guilty about not remembering names anymore--and Masa and I exchanged myspace urls before he left me to return to my yolky eggs.

Not five minutes later, a bald,  overweight white man in a polo shirt and glasses trots in through the sliding door to ask Humi something. In a heavy British accent, he introduces himself as John. John moved to Japan on a whim 4 years ago after being bored with his life in Liverpool, and currently teaches English on a rotation in different universities around Tokyo. After commenting that he must be fluent in Japanese, he replied, chuckling, that he could hardly understand any. Which was a bit disconcerting. But, then again, he didn't seem particularly motivated to attach himself to a particular place. John was a wandering vagabond. We talked about how lovely, sexist, and safe Japan is, before he wandered off to his room. 

Humi and I sat and watched Japanese game shows I couldn't understand for awhile before we eventually separated. He's probably in his room blogging right now, too.

Probably not.