Over the past month I've read the first twelve Wheel of Time books and it's all Kyle's fault. (Dammit Kyle!) He was excited about them at BYU for reasons that, having read the series, I don't understand. Nevertheless, pretty much every free minute for weeks has gone into finishing that series, which came after finishing the first couple fistfuls of the Desden Files books, which Kirk recommended. Which came after the Tru Blood marathon, which Mark recommended. Which came after the Big Bang Theory marathon, which Christian recommended. Which . . . you get the idea.

Following recommendations is what I do, apparently. Something that can enrich an existing relationship gets precedence. All other things appearing equal, a friend's recommendation makes a thing pop--and yeah, most things appear equally appealing, or unappealing.

***

I have a red shirt I bought in New York just before I came to Japan. It feels like it's hugging me and whispering compliments to my soul when I wear it.

***

I went to Mormon church today. (No one ever recommends this.) 

This morning I woke up two hours before my alarm, laid in bed for two hours watching Youtube videos, and then went to the chapel. Sunday school was taught by the missionaries, in English, to me and a visiting girl and a guy who either wants to improve his decent English or is a ward missionary or both. 

The lesson was on the plan of salvation. Made me think of things I hadn't thought about in a long time, like Adam and Eve, and the veil of forgetfulness between this life and the one before. All the way through SS and sacrament meeting and no panic attacks. 

***

No one ever recommends that I do massage school, either. In fact, several people have said they think it's a weird idea and they can't see me enjoying it. My family thinks it'll be a waste of my brain yet also says "Hey, it's your life." But I want it, so when I'm done being in Japan, I'll be a student again. I'll find some way to not feel sheepish when I tell people I want to do massage school.

***

In my BYU freshman dorm, I sat on the super comfy brown fuzzy front room couches with my marked up Book of Mormon and thought sadly to myself that the book's advice was a little far away. "Even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you," Alma said. I couldn't even desire to believe. Too much hurt. (This was my problem with so much of scripture and also that douche C.S. Lewis: it assumes too much. Why would little miserable seventeen-year-old me even want to believe in this religion? Believing Christianity is not a happy prospect, at least for the gay of us, and if you try to represent Christianity as a religion of pure and obvious joy to me, I will feel like you are invalidating what I've been through, and I will sock you.)

Somewhere along the line I started wanting to believe. Not believing, but wanting to. So I went to Mormon church today. Maybe this will be a gradually permanent thing, or maybe not, but right now if I want to go that's okay. Maybe it will decide the course of my life and maybe it won't.

***

I want to go to massage school, so I will. Maybe it will be like editing and I'll realize after a few years that it was the idea I was in love with and I really loathe the reality of it. Maybe it will decide the course of my life and maybe it won't.

***

I despair of finding a calling in my life, or even stability.

***

Red shirt.

.

I'd say "Holy crap don't touch my forearm, it's bruised all over."

I went to a martial arts dojo today with a fellow teacher and her sons. It was a painful blast. They grappled the heck out of my wrist. It was odd to be punching and yet not be boxing. It was odd to kick.

My default when someone speaks to me here is to nod and smile and make little affirmative grunting noises, and generally this works. Sometimes I understand what people are saying, but mostly I watch what's going on and guess. The people bent over backwards to help me out, with the sensei or undersensei chilling with me the whole time, as well as a few other people. There was much praise for my punches (they are pretty awesome these days) and much good-natured ribbing for how my hands kept floating up into a boxing-style guard. They threw me around and let me throw them, and then the sensei told me to lay down and gave me a massage in the middle of the dojo.

That was a little weird.

Not unpleasant, though. No one touches me here, except in my violent sports and sometimes my students. I'm not sure what to do when it's my students. Sometimes they grab my balls and my instinct is to hit their faces. Sometimes they take my hand or wrap my arm around them and I feel like someone's gonna call me a pedophile. I was pleasantly surprised to be touched so much, with such good intentions, by the man who'd thrown me across the floor a few minutes earlier. In the rest of the room, people kept practicing. Next to us, a kendo club started hitting each other with sticks.

I don't know what adult relationships are supposed to look like, but apparently sometimes they look like gentle hands pressing into my back in the middle of a dojo.

I'm learning so much here.

Today I think I'd have to sit by you quietly for a while before saying anything. I'm listening to "Alejate" by Josh Groban, which just now is the most beautiful and heartbreaking song I know of. I'm not heartbroken, but I just finished a book that involved an opera singer and Spanish, so it's appropriate.

I broke up with my ikebana teacher today. I have a bad habit of making people think I'm interested in things I'm not interested in, or I'm bad at communicating when my interest wanes. In this case it waned two months ago, but she kept doing nice things for me and smiling and talking like we'd be together forever and I didn't know how to end it. But I did, today, over coffee at Starbucks, after a flower exhibition in Tokyo. It was awkward and ugly to me although she probably is just irritated I didn't tell her sooner. She had just introduced me to three of her fellow teachers, and I could see the pride ooze out of her when she said, "Yes, this is my American student. He comes all the way from Kanagawa (two hours away by train)." I was burning up with embarrassment as she said this because I'd already planned to tell her today that, yeah, two hours each way is really too much and I'm not coming anymore.

There's more to it, but the story bores me, so I imagine you're not enthralled either.

My students had a chorus festival yesterday, and when the first group of third graders (U.S. high school freshmen) began singing a Capella, I got big time shivers. They were spectacular. I watched from the teachers' row of chairs, and I tell you what, when I was in college I couldn't have imagined myself watching these awkwardly adolescent people belt out these shocking notes. It makes me think that there's absolutely no point in planning more than a year or so into the future. In the past few months, I've been seriously considering joining the Navy when I finish up here, now that DADT isn't there anymore. I'd never contemplated that before, just like I'd never contemplated the vigor of a fourteen year old conductor leading his class through a set of ominous and slightly anime-sounding vibrations. I guess my vision is broken.

Yeah, the Navy. As a cryptology officer. It's safe to assume that I'll be trilingual by the time I finish up here. I can see myself translating, and I can't see myself doing much else. But it's just an idea, and there are eighteen months between then and now. I have one other goal I'm requiring of myself before I apply, too: I want to finish massage school. That idea's been dogging me for too long (since I was seventeen) and if I keep putting it off I'll always wonder why it keeps popping into my mind and whether I would have taken to the reality as readily as the idea.

Probably I should focus more on life here and now instead of projecting. I will. I'll work harder on here and now. Now that ikebana's not in the way.

Well, hugs. It's bedtime.

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