Spring is here, and April is around the corner—which makes me think of the opening line of The Canterbury Tales: “Whan that aprille with hise shoures soote…”. One day, I’d like to read that work again—but aside from the plum blossoms (ume in Japanese), today was your average gray, wet day in “Raincouver.”

Work is going pretty well. I’m happy to be working for Scotiabank. It’s nice to be part of a big organization with some good employee benefits. Employees of the bank are treated quite well and I’m doing something I enjoy doing. Plus I’m learning a lot. In my last job as an English teacher, I felt I had come to a cognitive dead end. Of course, there were always things to learn from my students, and I could have been more conscientious in trying to ameliorate my teaching skills, but I wasn’t really growing mentally or otherwise exercising my brain. I do miss teaching little kiddies, though. Gosh those first-grade girls I used to teach were cute.

One thing: I’m sure glad I don’t drive to work anymore. I take the bus downtown every day, and it’s a real relief. Of course, the “loser cruiser” suffers from more than its fair share of annoyances–the often overheated, stuffy atmosphere, heat on full blast with the windows shut up tighter than a nun’s corset; the commingled odors of not-so-surreptitious farts, perfume, and B.O. (which is definitely a function of the ethnicity of the passenger in question, isn’t that right curry-eaters? hint hint); and the experience of being sardines in a tin. But if you’re in a car, it’s a different kind of hell. It’s a Sartrean existentialist hell, one in which every other driver is the bane of your existence.

Plus, my bus pass lets the whole family ride free on Sundays, I can write it off against my taxes, and they have employer-discounted bus passes available. I’m thinking that the money we save not having to maintain a car means we can take a really nice vacation once a year, like somewhere tropical.

Mom’s old car, which she handed down to me a few months ago, went and gave up the ghost quite recently (the brakes died when we were a few blocks from home, and we managed to limp home using the handbrake). The 1987 Bimmer now sits derelict in the driveway. If I were a redneck, I’d have half a mind to remove the wheels and put it up on blocks, leaving it to oxidize in the drizzle. But even if I had a functioning car, you couldn’t pay me to drive downtown.

In my last job, I was always rushing from place to place in the company car. I was on tight schedules going from school to company to university and so on, and had to drive–or felt I had to drive—very aggressively in order to arrive early, allow myself to eat, brush my teeth, prepare for my lessons, and what have you. I had these great shortcuts, taking side streets across the whole of Utsunomiya. I often paralleled the Shinkansen tracks, which was a great little route with very little traffic. A route I thought of as my route, and I got annoyed whenever I encountered somebody in front of me who didn’t know how to drive (which pretty much meant everyone else). I would cross major roads from my little side streets. And I wouldn’t do things the standard, meek Utsunomiya way, which is to wait until the road was completely clear. I would dash across, finding gaps between oncoming cars. I had it so well timed, I once came within a hair’s breadth of T-boning another car, just gunning it across the intersection as he passed to my left. Fortunately, and thanks once or twice to my wife for spotting things I didn’t see, I never had an accident in Japan (which is good because if you hurt someone, they have a special prison for traffic offenders), but I came close once or twice, and I knew it was just a matter of time. It was just a matter of time if I did something stupid, or if someone else did something stupid, like a cyclist or pedestrian carelessly dashing out in front of me.

And I knew if I killed a pedestrian, even if it wasn’t technically my fault, I would have had that on my conscience. It’s just too much of a mental burden to bear. I’m fine with taking the kids and wife somewhere on the weekends. But I am through with the daily car commute under time pressure. Been there, done that. And there have been plenty of warning signs along the way.

I saw more than my fair share of accidents while driving in Japan, some of them very scary incidents. A couple years ago on a rainy night, I saw a car knock a cyclist flying off his bike, with the cyclist immediately getting up, running over to the car and bowing, even though it was 100% the driver’s fault. Another time, in a torrential downpour, I saw a motorcyclist wipe out bad about a hundred meters in front of my car.

And then a few weeks ago, my mom hit a cyclist in her new car, and just yesterday, a few feet in front of me, I saw a cyclist plow right into a car that made an illegal right-hand turn. Like I said: stick a fork in me, I’m done with driving.

Will post a few family pics to wind up this post. Take care.

I’m waxing all sentimental after revisiting a few pictures of little William, who turned two on the fifteenth of October. Life really is a great gift and we shouldn’t take it for granted. Well, I’ll qualify that statement. If you’re in good health and are lucky enough to live under decent conditions, then life can be great. But if you’re a quadriplegic or you’re a young woman living in the honor-killing-prone hinterlands of Pakistan, then I don’t think life would be all that great for you.

Mickey and Milo have started attending elementary school; they are now in Grade 1. They seem to enjoy school quite a bit. They just started school last Thursday and already seem pretty well adjusted. There’s still show-and-tell in Grade 1, which I think is uber-cool. Tomorrow is their first show-and-tell session. Mickey will bring a preserved bee to class. This is a bee that I must have found about 20-odd years ago, which I had kept on a bed of surgical cotton in a small plastic case. Mickey accidentally tore the bee in two tonight, which was OK because Shiho was able to mend it with school glue. But how gruesome, eh? Milo is going to bring a bunch of peelings from a young birch tree. That was my suggestion because it’s pretty cool how birch bark can double as writing paper. I also suggested Milo hand out a little bit of birch paper to each class member, so that they can write down their names on the papers and bring them home as souvenirs.

As the twins get bigger, I can’t help but notice their increasing tendency for independence and individuation, their growing challenges to our authority, and the gradual decay of their innocence. Regarding this last item, sometimes I can only watch and sigh. At one school we visited when we were registering the kids into the provincial education system, recess was starting just as we were entering the building. The twins saw one kid who, upon exiting the building, unceremoniously tossed his perfect, uneaten banana into the trash can.

The twins were somewhat taken aback by this tragic incident, as was I. For one, I got from it that this was something that the kid did on a daily basis: A kid’s capacity to fool his parents would seem to know no ends, and Mom’s efforts to ensure proper nutrition might simply end up being fruitless. However, more to the point is that not only was the banana-tossing a needless, unfruitful waste of food, but to me that little event seemed to be a microcosm of all that is wrong with the human condition in particular and the universe in general. Finally, after coming from food-revering Japan, such an act is simply unthinkable. Which shows you how much I have changed after my forays into East Asia. Twenty years ago, I would have laughed to see a food fight in the high school cafeteria. Now, even watching a food fight in a movie would repulse me. There is much that is unacceptably wanton about our culture; not only will I have a hard time readjusting to it, but I really wish my kids would not have to be exposed to such gratuitousness.

Oh well, you just can’t shelter ‘em forever.

In closing, I know that I do tend to fetishize parsimony. And I definitely abhor waste of all kinds. But I think that these are pretty healthy, life-affirming convictions. The challenge is not to let your convictions become compulsions or obsessions.

Moving back will definitely prove to be something of a mind bender—I was tempted to use a foulmouthed term, but, because I am job hunting, I have to be careful with my reputation—not least because I will have to deal with “re-entry syndrome” or “counter culture shock,” or whatever term you deem most appropriate.

Yeah, going back is always a big shock: “Wow! Big open spaces! Wow! Big people! White people! Fat people! And lots of them!” Me being about 170cm, I feel like a complete midget over there. I remember heading to the local Choices grocery store a couple of year ago and saw this really tall Finnish couple, with a baby on one of their backs. The lady had to have been about 182 or 183cm. Man.

And now that Vancouver has changed so much, I feel even more like a stranger in a strange land. Here’s a sampling of what has changed:

- Security guards at banks. Check.

- A babel of languages being spoken at the airport—by the staff! Check. (When I bought a bottle of water at the Tim Hortons donut shop, the cashier turned around to banter with her co-worker in Tagalog.)

- A whole new light rail network. Check.

- A booming (ridiculously overpriced) real estate market which basically means unaffordable homes for all the hoi polloi. Check.

- Even more petty (and not so petty) crime, which just serves to add to the mountain of evidence that the war on drugs is a lost cause. Check.

Don’t believe that horsepucky about Vancouver being the best city in the world to live in. It ain’t. Want some proof?

1. Theft galore

Where I worked at Utsunomiya University, people can and do leave their cell phones and wallets lying around (in the often empty gym, for instance). On the other hand, when I was attending Langara College in Vancouver, one girl entered the ladies room, put her textbooks next to the sink, and returned from the stall a minute or two later to find her books gone for good.

People in Vancouver will steal anything that isn’t nailed down. Oh, and also there is a huge number of losers who enjoy smashing glass bus shelters just for the hell of it. Vandalism in Japan, by contrast, is a helluva rare thing.

2. Super crappy weather

Yes, the winters are mild, I will hand that to Van. But that’s only a bonus if you can deal with an extreme lack of sunshine. Once, I counted only six or seven cloud free days from the beginning of November until the end of February.

3. Overpriced out the yin yang

How can a place be the best place to live if it is so darn expensive. Nuff said.

Well, I needed to write something after such a long absence. Hope this suffices. Wish me luck! More later.

We have had fun this winter going to various hot springs (for some reason, a lot of my students call them “spas,” which doesn’t quite seem to ring true, so I usually call them on it). Places like Yunishigawa and Yashionoyu. Note, on our visits to the latter, we boys weren’t rewarded with the sight of beautiful, unclad ladies bathing in a hot pool. That’s just what you see on the website. These exotic-sounding names aren’t actually so difficult to understand once you know a bit of Japanese.

For example, 湯西川, or Yunishigawa, is simply a string of three kanji (the Japanese version of Chinese characters) meaning “1. hot water 2. west 3. river.” So you can more or less figure out what it means for yourself. Tonight we went to Yashionoyu and the twins had a lot of fun melting snow and ice in the hot water. I took a couple of plastic basins and filled them with snow from the little yard just outside the pool.  Last time we did this, one of the old men in the hot pool, grumbling to the air, muttered something like, “You’re going to cool down the water!” and I don’t know if he was being serious or just being sarcastic. Anyway, I just ignored him and he didn’t repeat himself. But I mean, was the geezer’s comment worth responding to anyway? The pool is open to the winter air and is continually under attack by the forces of cold. Obviously, there is a powerful heater keeping all that water hot. One or two little basins of snow, in addition to all that cold winter air, ain’t gonna matter a whole helluva lot.

Anyway, it’s time to go to bed soon. My energy is beginning to flag. Here is a nice pic from our trip to Yunishigawa. Hmm, was that in December or January?

Man, why I am going on this bent? I made a promise to myself not to blog on such existential topics. Anyway, the only reason I am up now (it’s 10:56 p.m.) is that Milo fell asleep almost immediately after I tucked him in.

So much is going on in life and there is so much to talk about. The wife just woke up for her quotidian nighttime snack. She has shut the kitchen door so as to be alone with her carbs. She just loves to snarf down simple carbohydrates late at night. For women, this seems to be a form of stress relief.

Recently, I read The End of Faith by Sam someone or other. Let me Google it. Ah, yeah. Sam Harris. Great book, but perhaps a little unnecessarily despondent. I mean, life sucks, and that’s the conclusion many of us reach, one way or another. Which is why I simply avoid reading the daily news. I just don’t need to read about how husband ABC, in a fit of spite, murdered wife XYZ and infant son 123 and mother-in-law DEF, and has now been sentenced to death. I simply don’t need this information. Incidentally, I learned about the above story today while scanning the headlines in the office newspaper. This is why I tend not to read the regular news.

This is why I just like to read business news. Now business is something I have some control over. Granted, I can’t have any control over greedy CEOs who shamelessly pocket investors’ money. But when it comes to the stock market, I can at least control which company’s stock I’m buying. I say Fuck,  an end to this shit about person A murdering person B. I simply don’t need to read about it.

Speaking about carb attacks, I think it’s time to watch a movie and have some instant noodles (spicy Korean). The Wild Turkey in me is goading me towards that angle, I’m sure.

Goodnight.

The first walk was this morning, my usual stroll with Buddy, but I kept it a bit short because I don’t want to overdo things. The second walk was in the park with the kids and the wife. The twins kept their sandals off for much of the time, but I tried to stop them from running on the paved paths, and tried to keep them on the grass instead.* Being kids, they liked imitating their dad (mental note: kids copy what they see, good or bad—but of course, deciding what is good or bad can be a slippery slope), and they were happy to clamber over rocks, scamper across the lawns, and trudge along a wooden bridge. You really can feel—not just in the physical but also in the spiritual sense of the word—the ground better when you’re barefoot. The final walk was just an hour ago. Having had a long nap in the evening, Buddy was a little overexcited and couldn’t sleep even though it was after 10:30 p.m. Seeing that it was drizzling outside, I grabbed an umbrella and took him outside, enjoying the lukewarm wet cement underfoot and the occasional puddle sloshing through my toes.

I still want to keep the house clean so I make sure to rinse my feet off with the hose next to the sandpit outside before I come back in. But I can already see how this new barefoot thing—which, I can assure myself, is not a fad but a trend—is going to make an already against-the-grain me even more counterculture and maverick.

Sorry for the jerky writing (so many parenthetical asides), but I can’t seem to help it. This is just the creative process, neurons firing in all directions and my fingers struggling to lend my thoughts a logical flow, without omitting interesting ideas. I ought to keep writing more. This is really therapy for me. I guess for a long while I have really felt kind of paralyzed, unable to deal with the realities of life and often just wanting one day to bleed into the other, without trying to face or analyze my life too much. I was spending a lot of time engrossed in stocks and finance, often obsessing about these topics. My brain seems to have gotten board with this routine, however. There is only so much research I can do about stocks and finance. It’s too one-dimensional, and I don’t consider myself a one-dimensional person. I’m still interested in finance, but I should let my mind be more creative and write more.

I mean, for a long while, I often felt like life was living me, instead of the other way around. Perhaps this was partly because I haven’t had much mental/emotional down time. It was hard—emotionally speaking—for me to get on here and blog, send photos to friends, or think a lot about my kids’ development, the things our family has done together. I have avoided being too introspective. (This might explain how my new interest in alcohol fits in: booze can deaden the self-analytical thought processes. However, while I want to be more introspective than before, I still like drinking as it helps me relax, and mitigates overly obsessive thinking.) Now however, I feel I want to blog more, remember more, think about my life more. Of course this may change once my schedule gets busier in October. If this all sounds like verbal diarrhea and rambling, so be it. Like I’ve said before, this blog is mostly for myself.

* Dig the irony? Keep on the grass? By the way, me being the usual counterculture iconoclast that I am, whether shod or unshod, I often make an effort to avoid the paved path and walk on the grass instead. Even if that means going out of my way a few meters. This puts me at odds with most of Japan, since everyone seems to stick to the pavement and avoid stepping on the grass. But what’s the point of having grass if you can’t walk on it? Besides, in a nod to Robert Heinlein, I enjoy walking on “living things.”