You might recall that I had originally intended to be in Paris this week, but as things never quite developed for that — I got engaged instead. I'm sitting in Niigata, enjoying the worst late snowfall of the year. Yoko and I went into the apartment last night at about 7 and then at 9, heard something falling outside, looked out the window and saw that about a half a foot of snow had accumulated while we were, uh, enjoying each other's company. Now, with snow on the ground, I can't really enjoy my riding my bike or, really, doing anything productive. Snow has that effect on me, I guess. This morning I redid my business card and thought about all the things I probably should be doing.
I had a shitty weekend for the most part. It all started with a trip to the optometrist which was going really well, I thought, until they were having trouble finding contacts that would work well for me. Apparently, this is due to my astigmatism.which is Ran-shi in Japanese, by the way and no, repeating the word again and again doesn't help me understand what you're saying. The result was me having to buy these ridiculously expensive contacts that will correct the problem. Having to spend three times as much as I had originally thought put me in kind of a shitty mood.
It wasn't that so much as this weekend I've been unable to speak in Japanese to save my life. Every so often I have weeks like this where I make a serious speaking mistake or misunderstand something important and then feel insecure about my speaking which only adds to the problem. This weekend was the worst because I was super-frustrated and unable to explain why which just led to more frustration. It's like being in a Japanese box that you can't get out of. Maybe this is why children cry so much — because they can't express themselves. Given that I feel like a child anyway as I am preparing to get married and feeling woefully inadequate and coupled with being unable to express myself fully in my mother tongue, I am suddenly very small again. I feel like I'm five.
For what it's worth, it's becoming more and more clear to me that Yoko will be the perfect woman for me to marry because she, when I am frustrated, doesn't get angry or tell me to go fuck myself. She is patient, super-naturally so. I can't really believe it. She will be an excellent mother, I think. Given my tendency to try to do things that are over my head, I think we will make a good team. Plus, she's hot. I'm not quite sure what she sees in me, exactly, and everytime I ask her, she just laughs and kisses me.
And I think inadequacy is actually a good thing, provided it's not crippling. I'm going to have a chapter about it in my book, "Men are Women too." Maybe that chapter will be called, "Feel like you can't do it? Well, take an effing number." The chapter on sex will be called, "I think I care: What's wrong with me?"
We put together a damn good invitation card for the wedding which is fabulous because the English side of it basically says, "You're invited to the wedding" and the Japanese side says the same thing in 5 times as much space with all this ridiculous useless information because the Japanese are (apparently) frightened by lack of information. We printed our picture really lightly on this very light tissue paper that makes us look like ghosts. It's fabulous. I told Yoko that I wanted to look like Edgar Allan Poe at the wedding which seems really cool until you actually see a picture of Edgar Allan Poe. This is sort of what I wanted, but I guess I imagined him in a top hat, you know, and a black haunting tie. Haunting, that's a good word. Haunting. Maybe I should have said that I wanted to look like one of Edgar Allan Poe's poems.