Boys’ Club at Ugly Mugs

More freewriting. I’m giving you more freewriting. I’m giving me more freedom to freewrite.

I woke up today at 6 am. And I don’t feel terrible. That’s pretty good, except I did feel sleepy still, and I sat on the floor and meditated for a while, and then moved to the more comfortable place, the bed, and then I was feeling so peaceful and comfortable, and I just touched the edge of blissful sleep —

I forced myself to get back up again.

Why am I doing this? I ask myself as I get out of bed, throw on clothes, head to the coffee shop, Ugly Mugs. If I’m tired, why not sleep in? Why am I battling my sleep schedule like it owes me money? Why am I not just living my life freely and comfortably and doing whatever I want whenever I want it?

Parker, in his infinite wisdom, said the other night, “Why don’t you just use your energy when you have it and rest when you don’t?” That was the most profound thing I had ever heard in that moment, and I told him so, to which he said, “Isn’t it obvious?” That just made it all the more profound.

The coffee at Ugly Mugs is gas this morning. As in, it’s really good. It’s hitting me like gasoline in a tank. And it tastes great. Really good coffee.

This is the earliest I’ve ever made it here, by far. 7 am I was at the shop. I wanted to get something done, I wanted to get started on whatever it is that I’ll do, and I knew that the chances were much higher if I escaped my freezing cave, and made it out here, out into the world.

I wondered what would be going on here at 7 am, I really did. It’s a local neighborhood coffee shop. The day is full of remote workers, college students, friends meeting for a chit-chat, coworkers or acquaintances talking business. What would be happening at 7 am?

A shocking thing. As I stumbled in, there was a guy, my age, different vibe, shorts and sunglasses, sandals (I’m wearing full black with running shoes, black hoodie in July because my roommate blasts the AC in the house, and it keeps me safe from the mosquitoes anyway, that love to feast on my precious blood), and I knew that we were on track to be reaching the door at the exact same moment.

Sometimes in this situation, when my brain has accurately calculated that I am on a collision course with another human, I will slow down or speed up. But I didn’t feel like doing either of those things, and he didn’t either.

I could tell he knew that we were both going to reach this door at the same time. Well, I reached it just a second before he did, and I opened the door and held it open for him. And he said, “Oh, you go ahead,” and I said, with a grandiose, sweeping gesture, “No, after you,” to which he replied, with a small nod, “Thank you,” and walked through the door.

Now, that wasn’t awkward at all. Just two humans being polite to one another. That was nice.

I did end up then walking right past him to order, as he stopped to look at something on the wall.

That was some foreshadowing. The fact that I was holding the door for a MAN, then. As I took my first sip of coffee I surveyed the scene, scanning the crowd. Who were the 7 am folk on a Wednesday morning at Ugly Mugs? And I was shocked.

All men.

Yes, in a place where the crowd is at least HALF women, I’ve never noticed a ratio skewed one way or the other, this morning, Ugly Mugs was a total boys’ club.

There was (and still is) one group of four lads having a great time at the long slab of wood table. They seem to be discussing some business, wearing smart business casual attire. I just stole a glance at them. Then, you have two more gentleman having a conversation at a table behind them… There’s a bro in sunglasses sitting outside in the sun. There is a refined-looking gentleman with well-maintained hair, glasses, comfortably but tastefully dressed, reading something on his phone. Probably the news. He is giving major dad vibes.

There is a guy behind me doing remote work. He was typing up a storm when I sat down.

There were about four guys in the back of the room, that seemed to all have moved on already. There’s one guy left way back in that corner, who is with high probability working. That’s the workers’ corner.

Since my arrival, somehow it’s already 7:45, several ladyfolk have entered the store, one is walking in right now. But none have stayed.

Who will be the first to break the boys’ club?

Will it be this woman in a blue and white summer dress?

Holy s***. It is!

But wait a minute. She may just be taking a temporary seat as she waits for her coffee.

She’s going to pick it up now.

What happens next?

She’s put a lid on it. It’s in a plastic cup. She could take that thing right out the door.

She’s added some cream. We are all waiting on tenterhooks.

She’s taking a sip. She seems pleased.

And now?

Another sip.

And… she’s gone to a table in the back!

She’s sitting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the club!!!!!!!!!!

(One minute later)

Oh my god. She just left.

She had just been waiting for a sandwich.

The boys’ club continues…

Han Jan

I love my morning coffee.

It’s 8:11 am. I’m still adjusting to my early wakeup times. You would think that my body would not wake itself up before it had had enough sleep. That it would just keep sleeping. There is no reason for me to get up so early if I don’t have to. My brain knows that.

The body responds to its own cues. That’s why I get up at 5:23 am yesterday, even if I wasn’t asleep until midnight. And today, 7:20 am.

I did better falling asleep last night, I think I was out before midnight, but there was a long period of undesired wakefulness. I had turned off the AC at some point, and it turned out that that was a mistake, as I was uncomfortably hot. It was 80 degrees in the house, if our thermostat is to be trusted, which I sometimes doubt. That was my excuse anyway, for being stuck in bed, awake, when I just wanted to enter the sweet dream world of sleep, so that I could get started on the next day.

The morning is a precious time. Special things happen in the morning. Yesterday morning I decided to try a new experiment. This morning I am thinking about a butterfly that I had raised, and a Go Pro, and a past love, and its sad end. (This is all one story.)

On another morning not too long ago, I began a story that I have finished, that I am supposed to be working on right now.

Does anyone else… do you wake up with songs in your head? I do. Almost every morning, I wake up “listening” to a song in my head.

It always seems random. Often the song comes deep out of left field. A song that I haven’t heard since middle school. Yesterday I think it was a Nickleback song, Far Away. Today it was Han Jan, by Peggy Gou.

Why? I haven’t been listening to these songs.

I want to be here for the mornings. If I sleep in too much, especially if I sleep in to a horrific hour like 10 am, I feel like I’ve committed a crime. But, I don’t know if I am exactly a morning person. It’s just that I know the morning is such a precious time, and magical things can happen.

I woke up at the crack of dawn for the first time in what seemed like years, probably a month ago. I couldn’t believe that I was awake. I didn’t know what to do. That’s what happens when you’re used to getting up late, and you wake up at 5 am. You’re early to the party by five hours. What the hell are you supposed to do now? You’ve got so much time on your hands.

That morning, I went outside, and sat in my yard. I was meditating. That was all I really wanted to do, then. About twenty minutes in, I heard some crunching sounds, on our gravel driveway. I didn’t think much of them, but I kept hearing them, getting closer, soft crunching, and I had the feeling that something was moving around on the driveway. I opened my eyes, and there, between my roommate’s black Nissan Altima, and the fence, was a small deer, staring at me.

I was shocked, of course. A deer, in our yard? What? There’s never been a deer in our neighborhood, let alone my yard. This is the city. We’re right off of Gallatin. What are you doing here?

It was the last thing I expected to see that morning, or ever, in our yard.

That morning, I also spied several neighborhood cats, sneaking around, in our yard right under our noses, living their secret cat lives. I felt like I was seeing a whole new world.

I think that the morning, like late night, is a liberating time. That might be the secret of the morning.

It’s time that at least I can feel like, it’s totally mine. I somehow have a free pass to do absolutely anything I want with this time. And so I can enjoy myself and live to the fullest, untethered by responsibilities or expectations. That’s great for the spirit, and for creativity.

These recent nights, I have spent in Harry Potter world, reading by candlelight. At 3 am, I exist in the wizarding world, I read about Snape’s past, I learn the secrets…

Morning is also the best time because you get to have your first cup of coffee for the day.

I was thinking about the butterfly that I had mentioned earlier, this morning, staring out of the window… I’m sure it’s on my mind because yesterday, I noticed that I had a green caterpillar, possibly mid-transformation into a cocoon or chrysalis, on my blue plastic tarp that I use to cover my bike in the yard. It seemed to have adhered itself to the plastic and was sluggish, hardly conscious. And if it does decide to settle down there, it kind of becomes my caterpillar, my cocoon or chrysalis, my project. I will have to watch over it.

I’m going to go check on it now…

And there you have it, folks.

Overnight it has become a chrysalis.

I will watch over you, my child!

500 Word Experiment and No Artificial Light

The 500 Word Experiment

I like the phrase freewrite.

I’ve been using that recently. In thinking about what I will be writing about. Often, most of the time I have something specific in mind, that I want to share. Even right now, there are several things that I am thinking about, that I would like to write about. And yet, I’ve noticed that when I just… freewrite, the writing… well, things come up that I wouldn’t have expected, sometimes, and the way I write about them is natural, as a flow of thought, and that’s often even more interesting than me just writing about a specific topic.

It’s good to just have a topic in mind, and something to write a whole piece around. There doesn’t have to be any specific way that you go about writing things for your blog, anyways. You still can do whatever you want.

I was having a good time trying to meet that 500 word cutoff, for a while. Did I even make it a week with that? It’s not my style. I’m simply too meandering and loquacious. I simply have too much to unload, in most cases, that I sit down at the computer, or with my pen and paper, and start going crazy. 500 words is a sneeze.

However, the 500 word experiment was very interesting. I hacked and slashed some of my pieces to death, to near death. I didn’t allow anything to die, and that’s why I ended up mostly being unable to reach the 500 word cutoff. There’s only so much you can say in 500 words. But, if you can say something in 500 words, but you’re saying the same thing in 700, or 1000, then you should really consider cutting that down, think carefully about those extra 300 or 500 words.

That’s how I felt about the experiment. I did feel that everything I posted benefitted from at least some degree of serious pruning, and often, even ruthless cutting helped the piece. But when pushing it to the limit, you see what is too much, when you’ve overcut and done damage, what can’t be cut away. Where to draw the line.

I really thought about Hemingway when writing like this, and editing in such a manner. I do use a lot of fluff. Even in that sentence, I realized it as I wrote it. I do use a lot of fluff. Now, do you see the fluff there? It immediately stands out. And I’m in the habit of using immediately as a filler word, as I just did again. Immediately can often be cut.

I just like to add words, and in conversation we do add a lot of words and use a lot of filler, and especially in a piece like what I’m writing now, a freewrite, where I’m writing as I’m thinking, that’s fine, even important. For the tone and voice. But there are cases where you don’t want that, and where it would be better not to have it. The point is that you are choosing to be terse, or fluffy, loose with your wordage and writing, intentionally. As Hemingway chose.

The fluff in that sentence was the do. Why do we need do in that sentence? We don’t need it. But if I were speaking, I would probably add the do, and say, “I do use a lot of fluff.”

How many words have we got here?

577, so far.

New Experiment: No (BAD) Artificial Light

The 500 word experiment was fun and useful. This is why we like to do experiments. They show you things. And, they are fun. Usually. I don’t know what experiment I’ve done that wasn’t fun.

I’m currently on a new one, that y’all don’t even know about yet, which is that I’m trying my best to avoid artificial light at night. I am shocked that it took me so long to get around to this one.

I’ve known that blue light was bad for the eyes, and screentime is a problem for the circadian rhythm, tricking your body into thinking it’s still daytime, throwing off your cortisol production. But I wasn’t taking it that seriously. Well, Rachel offhandedly made a comment about artificial light being a problem, the other week, and it stuck with me. It sat in my brain, it hit me at the right time. It was something I had been meaning to research.

I only had to read about three articles full of facts and data, to sufficiently shock and horrify me, and outrage me, and put me on the right and true path. I could share that data with you, possibly in another post. I’m freewriting, not writing an inspirational piece or anything here. You might not need all that data anyways, but data is what gets me to take action. Data, fact, reports, they are all what move me. And they are what convinced me of the bane on our existence that is artificial light.

Now, fire is also artificial light. I had to Google that after my first night by the candle. I spent the night thinking, “Is this artificial light?” Having an internal debate. The answer is yes, but it’s nothing like LED light, or light from screens. I am tempted to look some things up here — I won’t do it. But fire is low on the spectrum, the wavelengths are longer, and carry less energy. (Something like this.) It is not so intense on your eyes. I just read that firelight mimics sunlight, which is telling your brain that it’s time to wind down. So at least if you are burning a candle until 3 am, binging on Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire, your body and mind are basically already primed to go to bed whenever you decide that it’s best if you finally put the book down now, or you become so absolutely exhausted that you’re dropping the book on yourself or rereading the same page seven times in a row.

Candles are fun. We all know that, right? We are all in agreement of this fact. So, having more reasons to use candles is always great. I think that half of me is adhering to my no artificial light policy (I’m excluding candles from inclusion in my artificial light definition, here, because it’s really not a bad one) because it gives me an excuse to use candles.

It’s a good thing to be doing, a no artificial light (after sunset) policy, because it is like a soft ban on lots of bad things. Things that you aren’t supposed to be doing at night, that keep you up late. Phone, computer, gaming, TV. Even just getting up to shennanigans in your room, even reading, it will be easier to stay up later when you bask in your artificial light glow in your room, in your kitchen. However, when that sun goes down, FIRE UP THE CANDLES. It’s creepin’ time. There’s not much you can do then, or you have to really want it. You have to want it so badly that you’ll do it under conditions of severe low light, and possibly risk an injury, and experience frustration.

That’s how the reading has been. My candle barely casts enough light to illuminate the pages. It’s probably terrible for my eyes, having to squint so hard, but my eyes are already so terrible that at this point… they can get worse. I mean, if it comes to it, I’ll use a magnifying glass if I have to. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes. But this reading, you would be amazed to see all the various positions that I have come up with, the seatings and arrangements, the tactical candle placements, the ingenious schemes to angle the book so that it receives more light.

It took me three nights to come up with my second best idea, which was to place the candle in a drawer in my desk. I have an old wooden desk, and it sits right next to my bed. Reading from bed is more comfortable, especially at night, although I like to also sit at the desk and read. I have been starting at the desk, and then moving to the bed. Sometimes I’ll switch between them, and actually I have been doing that, to give my body a break from being stuck in a single position for too long. So, sitting at the desk could be tiring, as I have to prop the book up in my hands, on my elbows. That has to be done to ensure enough light hits the page.

The angle of the light is very important, and unfortunately most of my candle light is shooting straight up, and is wasted. So, wherever my book is in relation to the candle, it must be above the candle. I have to get that light. That’s why, after two nights, my genius was not to raise the book up, but to lower the candle, by putting it in an open drawer. That makes it lower than the surface of the desk, putting it on the right level for me and my book. It also allowed me to read from the bed, while sitting propped up against the pillows, because my bed height is slightly lower than the desk height.

I thought that this was a good lesson in how time can reveal solutions and solve your problems. You do not immediately see all the improvements, you do not strike on all the best methods at once. You inevitably get tired of the problem, you get so tired of the problem, and you constantly scheme ways to solve it, until you do.

It took me about five nights before I found the best, most comfortable solution yet. It was also, however, the most fraught with risk, as I found out. By placing the candle at the side of my hip, directly on my bed with me in my bed, I was able to have the light so close, and receive a majority of the beaming photons, wonderfully lighting up the pages of my book. They would shoot right up into the book, that I could hold in a natural position, right on my lap, as I lay there in the bed, and I could see every word, on both pages, clearly, from a perfectly comfortable position. How wonderful!

Yet, the problem as you can imagine, is that I am laying down, sharing my bed with a precariously placed flame, and a basin of hot, liquid wax.

It was some night where I was reading the Order of the Phoenix, deep into the trials and tribulations, and I just wanted it to be over, I wanted to get through it, but the book was defeating me, all 900-something pages of it. This was no Chamber of Secrets, this was no Prisoner of Azkaban. I was pushing it up to my limit, playing with fire, literally (yes I had to write that)…! And I was falling asleep at the wheel, and the third or fourth time I nodded off on the page, I was jolted awake, feeling my side suddenly become wet and hot, and saw that the candle flame was now sideways, and the hot wax was spilling out everywhere. That’ll wake you up.

You know what? I just remembered. I wasn’t falling asleep. I remember that, I was just deeply engrossed, and forgot about the candle, and adjusted myself. I know I wasn’t falling asleep, because I remember what I did afterward: I took off my pajama pants, now covered in hot wax, I changed my undies (had a little hot wax on ’em too), and then I promptly sat down at my desk and kept reading. When I went back to bed, I checked to see if the wax had cooled, and it had. There was a hard, waxy patch now on the side of my comforter and bedsheet.

That patch lasted for about five days, by the way. I just washed the sheets today.

One week of no artificial light: Results

I was just tempted to let that be the last line, but I should tell you about the big reason to avoid bad artificial light, which is quality of sleep. And I have found that since I’ve started doing this no artificial light thing, I have really been getting great sleep, and I have been enjoying these evening, reading-by-candlelight sessions. It’s got me waking up at the crack of dawn again. I find that even if I stay up late, as I have been, because I have been gripped by a sickness of Harry Potter fever, it’s not as punishing to stay up reading by candlelight, than by browsing the internet on the laptop, watching YouTube or whatever it is that I’m doing with that thing.

It also removes all temptation, and pressure. Maybe I’m pressured to take care of some business? Do it tomorrow. Have to message someone? Nope. Check email, bank accounts, Google something that I absolutely need to get to the bottom of, such as “Is fire artificial light?” It can wait. (It took all of my self-control not to look this one up, that first candlelit night.)

It makes it easier to say no to all of these things because of the clear rule. When the goes down, artificial light is BANNED. That’s it. Simple.

I would recommend anyone to try this out.

(Shoutout to Parker for discovering the unscented $1.99 candles hidden on the very bottom rack in the candle aisle at Kroger, that comes with no plastic except the tiny sticker, that looks exactly like a large glass of milk, and makes this foray into candlelight living much more economically bearable.)

“Rest Day” // Japanese Pokemon

The Celebration That Wasn’t

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day, and it kind of was. But I “worked”. I dog sat. It wasn’t a full rest day.

Today I woke up and felt like, yes, today needs to be a rest day. And today is actually becoming a rest day. Even me writing this, we’ll call it a restful thing, because I’m just having fun with it. There’s no expectation. This is purely for enjoyment. There’s a big difference, between having to do something out of obligation or requirement, versus just for fun. And this writing here is just for fun.

Two days ago I finished the first draft of a story idea that I had hatched. I carried it all the way to completion and that took about ten days. Ten days of tenacity, of sticking to it, of staying on it, and not letting it escape me, but getting through the whole thing, through the ups and downs, the struggle and joy. When I finished the draft two days ago, I felt euphoric, and yet, lost. It had consumed me and stayed in my mind for ten whole days. I couldn’t believe that much time had actually passed. For ten days I contemplated the story and worked on it, held it in my mind, stayed tethered to that fantasy world. And when I was done, I felt strange. It was over. Except, it wasn’t over, and it’s not over. That was just the first part. But that’s probably the hardest part, I feel. Who knows. I’m new to all of this.

It’s the longest story I’ve ever written, possibly ever. Probably ever. And I still haven’t recovered from the writing of it yet, I think.

I knew that the first thing I had to do upon finishing was celebrate. I couldn’t move on to anything else without celebrating the accomplishment. Even from a work perspective, if you are trying to accomplish more, you have to celebrate. It’s part of the job, it’s a necessary thing.

I racked my brain on what to do for my celebration. I tried to walk through the great suburban desert of East Nashville to go to Woodland Wine Merchant and buy a bottle of wine, to crack open with my lads tonight, but I only made it halfway through the great suburban desert before dying in the sun and throwing in the towel. I thought about going to Waffle House or getting some donuts at East Park Donut, but I didn’t really to spend money on that. I wanted to have an experience, and I knew that I had wanted to go swimming. I keep thinking about surfing. I guess I miss surfing, and I miss swimming, and I really want to do it again. So, I decided I would go swimming, even though it meant work, because I had to figure out where I would go, and drive there, which I really didn’t want to do. But I had to celebrate, and it was all I could think of.

I found that Percy Priest Lake seemed to be the closest place to me that I could swim in the wild. In freshwater. I had to drive on the highway…. blah blah blah. Long story short, the highway was a nightmare, the “beach” was a strip of grass next to the highway, covered in trash, there was a homeless guy there with swollen, rotting elephantitis ankles, the water was scummy, and made my eyes sting, and yet I did enjoying frolicking in the water like an otter. It was exactly the feeling I was looking for. Then I returned on the nightmare highway, and had angry visions of bombing everyone on the highway, and of having a giant plow affixed to the front of my car that would allow me to drive through the highway unimpeded and plow everyone out of my way. I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in the 90 degree July sun and moved 0.2 miles in 10 minutes. Not a good feeling.

Climbing Conquest

So, I still haven’t recovered, and still need to rest, before entering work mode again. I did go climbing at the gym, and if you had read my recent post “Perseverance”, I talk about my “nemesis” climb, the V1-3 that was stopping me from becoming a V2-4 man. Well, I walked into the gym yesterday with Parker, and I had actually forgotten about that climb for a minute, as I was really just there to have fun, and chill, but my man Ryan, a #1 One Piece fan, and a chill high school kid, he told me when I walked in, “Bro you gotta get that climb today, they’re taking it down soon!” And I was like.. Oh, god dammit. The pressure is on. Great. I was supposed to be here for fun.

You know what happened? I was fully charged, and I was strong, and I did some warmups, and then Ryan came out from the behind the counter, and Parker said, “Well, are you gonna do it now? Ryan’s here to watch.” And I said okay. And I walked up to the wall, and I screamed, “THIS ONE’S FOR RYAN!!!!!” And I took that sucker down. It was euphoric. I laid on the ground after the conquest, not moving, eyes closed, basking in the glow of victory. Parker gave me knucks, and Ryan clapped, and then he said, “Now you have to find another project-” But I cut him off, and said, “CHILL. Ryan, chill!!!!” I had just beaten this climb. I didn’t need another project (new challenging climb to be working on) just yet. Chill, bro. Let me savor this.

Well, today, it’s a million degrees, and I was not going to try and go swimming again. Nope. I’m not going anywhere, and not driving on the Nashville highway ever again in my life if I can help it. So.. what else could I do for my rest day?

When I was back in Ozu Machi, way back when, in the depths of the pandemic, when we were all bound to the home and desperate for things to do… I bought a 3DS and got Ultra Moon, in Japanese, and played through the whole thing. I hadn’t played Pokemon for like, ten years, so I had no idea what they had been cooking up, but I knew they had been cooking. I remember that time fondly, exploring the new world of Pokemon, and learning so much Japanese I thought my head would explode. These days, I’ve been feeling a pull to Japanese again, and I’ve been thinking about that playthrough, and so as a treat, and for my rest days, I thought I would try to recreate the magic.

After debating on which new Pokemon game I would buy, I ended up settling on Pokemon Violet, for the Switch, an open world Pokemon game from 2022. And now, if you can stand it, here’s what I want to share with you.

Return To Japanese

Note: I think that even if you are not a Japanese language learner you might just be interested to see some of my notes, and a breakdown of some recent Japanese study. If you are not, this part might not be so interesting for you.

I played for about three hours between yesterday and today, and I haven’t even made it to the first town. Parker was watching my slow, crawling progress, as I sat there with my notebook, scribbling my 20th Japanese study note, and he said, “People would love to see this.” I think I had played for over an hour before I even caught my first Pokemon, which is something you can do, if you skip the dialouge and get straight to business, in about ten minutes.

When it comes to studying language, Pokemon is a great mix of everything. Right out of the gate, we had the sensei speaking in keigo (honorific, polite Japanese), especially when talking with the main character’s mom (called in game, ママ, Mama), modeling a real conversation between a Mama-san and her daughter’s school’s sensei.. you have the kids jabbering casually, and then you have the instructive Japanese of the in-game instructions. Between game prompts, in-game signboards, character dialogue, etc… there’s a lot of variety in the Japanese being used. There’s a wide range of characters of all ages and backgrounds as well, and they all have different styles of speaking, so you can see what language is used by an old fisherman, an honorable sensei, a Mama-san, or a young bug catcher child, or an insolent breakdancer gangster lackey, a mob boss, a scientific genius..

Here are some of the snippets of Japanese I wrote down in my notebook today. Let’s break them down. Just for fun.

ご近所同士仲良くしよう！

The word I was wondering about was 同士, and in the context of 近所同士, which is something like neighborhood companion. This is probably a phrase that Japanese use, and is used for members of the neighborhood. Your neighbor friend was saying this to you in the game.

凄腕トレーナーなんですよ

This word is すごうで. I thought it was a more polite way to use 凄い, and actually it’s using the same kanji 凄腕、凄い.. So I was on to something there. 腕 is arm. So it’s saying “great arm”, literally. The dictionary says that 凄腕 means “1. remarkable ability, brilliant technique or 2.virtuoso, resourceful person”. It’s a compliment to someone’s ability. I like this word.

交流を深めてください

交流を深める seems to be a set phrase. It’s saying something like, “deepen our exchange” or “grow together in our relationship”.. Kind of a thing.

ポケモン勝負より放題

I wrote this down because I couldn’t remember at the time what 放題 was. It’s houdai, unlimited, as much as possible. Like 飲み放題, “all you can drink”. So this is “Let’s battle as much as possible.” I might need the whole sentence to perfectly translate it or to graph the entire meaning because I am a little confused about the より here, which seems to be in this case saying “less than”.

実りある勝負をしよう！

I had never seen the 実りある part here. Not hard to guess what this means. I take this to mean “fruitful”, so, “Let’s have a fruitful battle!” 実 is fruit.

勝負をしかける。

Noting that しかける is a verb used with 勝負. This sentence just means “To start a battle.”

Well.. what I have taken on here is unfeasable. I have about forty more notes in book, just from today.

I’ll do a few more. It’s good review for me, at least…!

へえー！きみやるね！

I was just suprised at this sentence. It’s so basic. The girl I had just beaten in a battle said this, which basically just means “you can do it!” as in, “You can fight!” That’s what I took it to mean. Natural English translation of this sentence might be: “Damn girl! You can really fight!”

Hermoine, Crookshanks, And Katakana

I was mysteriously drawn to choosing a young black girl as my protagonist in the game. I named my girl Hermione, trying to write that in Katakana (this took me about five minutes of debating and saying aloud how I thought a Japanese person would write it), and settled with ハーマィオニ. This turned out to be very close to correct, but not quite. The official Japanese translation of Hermione is ハーマイオ二ー。And then after naming my character ハーマィオニ, one of the starter Pokemon was a cat, and extremely cute, so I had to pick that.. because Crookshanks. (Hermione’s cat in Harry Potter world.) I couldn’t name my cat Pokemon Crookshanks though, because I was limited to 6 Japanese characters when naming in the game, which pissed me off. What the hell? 6 characters??????

Crookshanks in Katakana is a nightmare. I have to attempt writing it now, for you. For the blog.

クルックシャンクス.

I guess that wasn’t so bad.

But was it right?

Internet says: クルックシャンクス

Yatta!!!!!!!!

I do not know how much you are enjoying reading me thinking about Japanese and getting an insight into my Japanese study world, or if you are just confused. I imagine it would be interesting just to see some snippets of Japanese and look into the world of Japanese language. Japanese is really a fun and interesting language. (Profound statement.)

Chat GPT Sensei

疲れておいでですよ

This was interesting because of the おいで part, which seemed to me a kind of grammar conjugation going off of 疲れておく (spoiler: not true, it’s actually a form of 来る), but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it. The おいで, and then adding です at the end, which is a formal sentence finisher. This sentence is keigo (honorific Japanese) I think, which has interesting and lengthier conjugations. That’s my guess here.

This one actually is a puzzler. So let’s ask our master translator, Chat GPT.

(For all y’all who don’t already know about the power of Chat GPT.. you’re about to see it. I’m bouncing around here in this post. It’s my rest day, alright? Stream of consciousness. Below I have pasted the entire result of me asking: “Can you help with this sentence? I’m wondering about the conjugation.” to Chat GPT.)

(Chat GPT answer)

Yes, I can help with that! The sentence: 疲れておいでですよ is a polite and somewhat gentle expression in Japanese, but the conjugation is slightly unusual and worth unpacking.

Breakdown:

疲れて = the て-form of 疲れる (to be tired)
おいで = an honorific or polite imperative form of 来る (to come), but in this context, it is functioning differently
です = polite copula
よ = sentence-ending particle for emphasis or assertion

What’s going on here?

This is a respectful/polite way of saying “You look tired” or “You are tired,” using a classical or regional (often Kyoto-style or older) construction. It’s a softened, polite version, especially common in service industry or among people showing concern in a gentle way.

Key point:

おいでです is a polite respectful form of いらっしゃる, which itself is an honorific verb meaning “to be,” “to go,” or “to come,” depending on context.

So:

疲れておいでですよ

really means:

You are tired, or more literally, You are in a state of being tired, said politely and with care.

More “standard” equivalent:

お疲れですね (You’re tired, aren’t you?)
お疲れのようですね (It seems like you’re tired)

In summary:

The conjugation おいでですよ is a respectful and slightly old-fashioned or regional way to say “you are…”
It comes from おいでになる, a polite form of いらっしゃる
It’s perfectly natural in certain contexts, especially when someone wants to express gentle concern

(End Chat GPT answer.)

How incredible. Chat GPT just gave us a detailed explanation on the meaning of 疲れておいでです. This phrase seemed strange to me is because.. well, it is strange. It’s a set phrase, it’s keigo, and it looks like it comes from older Japanese, so the grammar is funky. It seems to be an older and more polite way of saying お疲れですよね！

That was an interesting one. Yes indeed…

興奮しやっって　ついつい…

しやっって is an interesting conjugation.. I didn’t even notice that so much when I wrote it down because I was thinking about the ついつい, and I understood it. I think it is another way to say しちゃって.. combining しちゃう and って. Now I can’t even remember exactly what って is used for in Japanese, in this context at least… But that gets used all the time. The ついつい seems to be “accidentally” or “unintentionally”.

Yeah.. we can stop here. Let’s wrap up this brain dump.

Reflecting on this morning’s session, I was thinking: I already know so much Japanese, and yet there is so much Japanese I don’t know. It’s crazy. There’s just so much language out there. So many words. It’s wild how much we all really know.

Bart

Sometimes, the universe gives you exactly what you ask for, exactly when you ask for it.

(This just happened to me.)

It was noon. I had already done some writing on a story that I’ve been working on. I’m nearing the end of it, and it feels like I’m in the middle of a boss battle. I’m currently writing what seems to be the core emotional center or climax of the piece. It’s a difficult part. I can’t force it. But I can’t leave it alone.

However, after spending the better part of last night as well immersed in writing, I realized I was hitting a limit of time spent in fantasyland. I tried to write outside so that I wasn’t cooped up inside all day but was immediately beset by mosquitoes and angry about it.. I had an unshakeable feeling that I needed to get out into reality and connect with it, right now, during the day. I could come back to writing at night. Now was the time for reality.

With that solified in my mind, I decided to go out and walk, and do a bit of running, which I have wanted to do but am struggling with a calf strain. Just let my feet take me somewhere, and move my body in the sun. I changed clothes, threw on shoes, and out I went.

Immediately, as I turned right to go up the hill and into the depths of my East Nashville neighborhood, I saw a man on the ground in the grass across the street. He was about thirty feet down the way, rolling around near the sidewalk. I didn’t recognize him. I saw that he was old, had snow-white hair. And at first, I thought that he may have been doing yoga or something. I approached him with great curiosity and growing concern. I realized that he was not just doing some noonday stretches, but he trying to get up off the ground, and he was shaking and rocking rhythmically, like he was having a small seizure.

I walked up and studied him. There was no else around. I asked him if he was okay, and what had happened. I now noticed that his forehead was covered in a smear of blood. It was shining and deep red. It was the color of blood. He seemed confused, and I was trying to figure out what had happened to him. Was he having a stroke? Did he have a concussion? How conscious was he? Was he on drugs? He was not coherent at all. He only kept asking me to help him get up.

I could tell that if he did get up, it wouldn’t help him much. He was going to fall right over, and risk hurting himself again. I knew then that I needed to call an ambulance, and I looked around for anybody, but there was no one around. I didn’t have my phone on me and would have to go back and get it. I didn’t want to leave this man, but that was what I had to do. As I walked over to the man I had heard a siren, and I was hoping that maybe they were on the way for him, although there was no one around that I could see that would have called the police. Well, I hung around with this man, who was becoming angry at me, that I was not helping him stand up, which he couldn’t do anyways, and he started yelling at me, when I let go of his hands, “Help me, God Dammit!!” I grabbed his hands again, calming him, and then I saw turning the corner at the end of the street, a fire truck. That was a relief, and I waved to them. They pulled up, and three guys hopped out of the truck.

The lead guy was middle aged, shaved head. The two guys following behind were younger, wearing sunglasses. The shaved head firefighter walked up to the old man, and said to my surprise, in a friendly way, “Hi there Bart! Need some help?” The firefighter knew this guy. That was good. Bart said, not looking up at them, “I don’t want your help. Don’t help me.” He seemed to know them too. He was not happy to see them.

I backed off, and let the professionals take over. They talked to him, grabbed a plastic chair off the nearby porch and sat him down in it. As they picked him up, he collapsed again. The two other firefighters were sitting with him now. The lead firefighter now turned to me and gave me an explanation, in low tones. “He lives just over there,” he said, gesturing to the houses back behind. “He has Lou Gehrig’s disease and does crack, smokes weed.” He talked about it as if it were regrettable but common. All I could really thing to say to this was, “He’s having a tough time, I can tell.” The firefighter now walked over to Bart, and at that time an ambulance and a squad car showed up, everyone getting out of their vehicles. Six personnel were on the scene, and my role here in this small play was finished. I went off on my walk.

I thought briefly about this. I reflected on the plight of this old man, of the casual, matter-of-fact way of speaking about him, in his patheticness, of the firefighter.. This man, a man of my neighborhood, in such abysmal condition, and his story so natural and normal that I don’t even bat an eye at it. It’s not surprising to me at all to have encountered this situation. Especially after New York City, and from my time at the Cummins Station Starbucks, I am not shocked to see these things anymore.

Underneath the normal veil, the standard quietness of this suburban space, today, where I do my writing and my gardening, and things seem so normal, there was a rupture. I learned that my neighbor is doing crack. He is not okay. He is suffering.

Bart punctured the veil.

I am supposed to write something memorable and significant here, in conclusion. I know that. But I don’t really have anything to say.

I left my house seeking reality, and yet I was immediately met with a somewhat fantastical event. I guess it’s just that kind of day. The lines are blurred.

I hope Bart is okay.

A Flea, a Goose, and a Lollipop Walk Into a Bar.. (And They’re All Poems)

July 6th, 2025

Well I really have no idea what that title is all about but I have to keep coming up with these things.

My poetry brain was working overtime last night. I can’t tell you why. All I can tell you is that I settled snugly into bed, after a hard day’s work and a fun day’s enjoyment, tired and ready to get my rest, and then suddenly, relentlessly, I was seized with an attack of unabating poetic inspiration. I wrote a poem, then I wrote another poem, and another, still more, my brain twisting and turning, churning them out like an oven. I don’t know what was happening. After I spent twenty minutes on a monkey poem that I didn’t even want to be working on, I had started to feel possessed and unhealthy, and I had to stop myself, and get in bed and stay there. Something was coming over me last night, it’s clear.

This poem about fleas was inspired by the fact that my legs are covered in what I think are chigger bites, and I was laying there in bed with my incredibly itchy legs, twisting and turning, trying not to scratch.

Fleas

Fleas!
Fleas!
I’m up to my knees,
In 10,000 fleas!

I’m scratching, itching, jumping,
Jeez!

Somebody please—
Help me get rid of these
dastardly,
bastardly
Good-for-nothing,
fleas!

The goose poem ended up being about the classic battle of my father versus the geese that terrorize and poop on his lawn. But it simply started with my brain wanting to rhyme goose with noose.

Goose

Goose,
Hey Goose!
Tell me when
was the last time you felt the noose
around your neck—
The cold kiss of Death?

And do you want to feel it now?
Because I have the power
to end all your fun
with my plastic air gun.

Stop pooping on my lawn.
Go away.
Don’t come back!

Or I’ll sic the attack
dog on your ass.
She’s faster than fast—
a great black beast
named Daisy.

On geese she feasts.
A goose is her treat.
She’s a fan of goose meat.
And she loves to eat beaks.

So I would advise,
You go find another lawn
to terrorize
with your crap!

The last good poem to pop out of my brain last night was inspired by The Jumblies by Edward Lear, where he writes “lollipop paws”. And I just loved that so much that I guess the word lollipop has been stuck in my brain.

Lollipop

Lollipop
Lollipop
Call it a Jollypop
It makes people happy
It’s better than taffy

You lick it and lick it
And make it all sticky
It can be tricky
To figure this one out—
How many licks does it take
To get to the center
Of a Lollipop
Jollypop
Pollywop

They come in many colors—
Pink, brown, and blue—
And many flavors:
Bubblegum, cinnamon,
Raspberry too

If you ever find yourself
In need of a treat,
Something sweet,
Take this:

A Lollipop
Pollywop
Jollybop
For you

Muses have mercy on me! Let me sleep tonight..!

Ode To Donuts

July 5th, 2025

Four days ago at the coffee shop, after handling some of my business, I had a wild and intense urge to feast on donuts. I immediately typed in “donut” on Google images, to feed my desire, and I gazed upon images and images of wonderful, colorful, round, chocolate, cake, glazed donuts. It was driving me wild, and I wanted to get donuts right then and there.

I was with my sister at the coffee shop. I was speaking out loud, vocalizing my internal struggle with wanting to immediately go and buy a large amount of donuts from Kroger, but not wanting to spend money nor gorge on such an unhealthy food, as I knew I would do. Yet about two months ago, I had this wild urge to eat an entire red velvet cake, an urge I have had many times but never given in to, and I thought, that night would be the night that I finally gave in, and feasted on red velvet cake. I had earned it. However, when I went to the store, I found that all of the cakes, the red velvet included, were encased in large plastic containers, and I had recently just started my anti-plastic campaign, and I wavered, but I knew that I could not commit a double sin, of gluttony and environmental crime, and so I didn’t get the red velvet cake.

But right next to the cakes, in the bakery corner, was the rack of Krispy Kreme donuts, and they caught my eye. Perhaps I could settle for a donut, or twelve. Checking out the stand, I thought that there were many satisfying donuts for my purchase, and then I looked at the boxes, and saw that they were all entirely made of paper. That was acceptable. So I bought a whole dozen, jelly, creme, glazed, cake, chocolate, mamma mia, and I took the whole dozen home and feasted. I personally ate six that night, five in a row, and then one more later at night. My roommates had two and three respectively. One was leftover for me, the next morning – proof that last night’s donut devouring was not just a dream.

I reflected on this prior donut gorging, as I debated whether or not I should immediately go to Kroger and do it all again, because it was actually a wonderful thing. It made me feel alive and brought me incredible joy, and my roommates too. And so I was thinking, at the coffee shop now having this wild urge again, that perhaps this could be a satisfactory donut feasting as well.

I tried to justify it as that I could make a blog post about it, and that’s exactly why I am making this post now. I said that I could write a poem, being inspired by the book of fancy and fun poetry, and my sister, in her wisdom and genius, said that I should write the poem right there on the spot, as I was at the time in the midst of the urge and desire. So I did, and this is what came out of me, born out of pure, unbridled donut lusting.

Ode To Donuts

Donut

Schmonut

Gronut

Wonut

I love a diddly dang donut

Munch, smunch, yummy yum yum

Chocolate, cream, glazed, crumb

Crumbly bumbly yummy donuts

Pink brown white yellow and green

Give me a donut right now

Please

My tummy!

My tongue!

Howls for donuts!!!

I ended up not getting the donuts for several more days. My intense desire had abated rapidly. We did end up going to Kroger but I didn’t want the Kroger donuts. I had to investigate some new donuts, and so we ended up going to East Park Donuts a few days later, and having a classier donut.

One donut plus the tip cost me $5.50, whereas a dozen Kroger donuts cost $16.50, but hey. It was a nice experience, and my sister was gracious enough to buy me the strawberry donut, which was actually amazing. It had a perfect texture, being one of the sour cream cake donuts, and then the strawberry glaze actually tasted like strawberries, and not the fake strawberry flavor (you know what I’m talking about). I was afraid to get it because I was worried about the fake strawberry flavor, but my sister knew better. She knew it had that real strawberry flavor.

There was a real difference between the quality of the donuts, the biggest thing being in the range of flavors present in the East Park Donuts, and in the quality of the donut batter. The cake part of the donut. There was a significant improvement in deliciousness and quality of the bread part of the donut. When it comes to quality, East Park Donuts wins. Good for a thoughtful donut enjoyment experience, with a friend, over coffee. Kroger’s Krispy Kreme has them beat on quantity. Good for an insane, hedonistic binge at midnight, with your two hungry roommates.

We have the Donut Distillery right down the street, apparently. Donuts and whiskey? We’ll have to write another poem for that.

Have you ever had a donut binge? Any other kind of treat binge or gorging session? Let me know!!!!

An Interview With Two Crabs

July 4th, 2025

Happy AMERICA Day!!!!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Interviewer: “What is your favorite food?”

Crab #1: “Seaweed.”

Interviewer: “What do you like to do – “

Crab #1: “But on a fancy day, a bubble filled with salmon oil.. no, no, not salmon, we don’t eat salmon. Just a bubble. From near a Dairy Queen. The air is from Dairy Queen. It has french-fried air. That’s very important.”

Crab #1, sewing intensely: “Sewing takes a long ass time. But it’s definitely easier than…”

Interviewer: “Than what?”

Crab #1: “Easier than crocheting.”

Interviewer: “How do you spell croquet?”

Crab #1: “I don’t know. I’m a crab.”

Interviewer: “Crocheting. It’s crocheting.”

*A second crab appears.*

Crab #2: “Can I give my answer?”

Interviewer: “Sure.”

Crab #2: “Anything.”

Interviewer: “What? Oh, anything.”

(Interviewer realizes that Crab #2 is answering the favorite food question.)

Interviewer: “Okay, great. What do you like to do on your days off?”

Crab #1: “Umm.. I like to sit on a pile of gold doubloons, and rub my claws together, and go heh heh heh.”

Interviewer: “Crab #2?”

Crab #2: “Scuttle.”

(Interviewer nods approvingly.)

Interviewer: “What do you like most about being a crab?”

Crab #2: “Scuttling.”

Interviewer: “Sure. Makes sense.”

Crab #1: “I like.. clicking my claws.”

Interviewer: “Very nice.”

Interviewer: “What is your highest aspiration in life?”

Crab #2: “Thrive.”

Crab #1, to Crab #2: “Boring…”

Crab #1: “My greatest aspiration is to become the Swimness Book of World Records (the underwater version of the Guiness Book of World Records) for highest claw clacks per minute.”

Crab #2, to Crab #1: “That’s not what a crab would want. I’m detecting fake crab.”

Crab #1, sewing a sock puppet: “Could be true. How would I know what a crab would want? I was born here just like everybody else. Perhaps I was born a mollusk.”

Interviewer: “Let’s get back on track.”

Interviewer: “If you were going to be used as a food dish for humans, what dish would you like to be a part of?”

Crab #1: “Cake. Crab cake.”

Crab #2: “I morally object to the question.”

Crab #1: “Oooh, you are a real crab! You reject crab death.”

(Both crabs laugh.)

Interviewer: “Well.. umm.. You guys got any questions for me?”

Crab #1: “Is it true that you guys.. That…. Oh, I can’t think of a question.”

Crab #2: “Are we supposed to ask you a question?”

Interviewer: “You don’t have to.”

Crab #2: “Why do you love?”

Interviewer: “Why.. Why do I love..? Why not?”

Crab #1: “My question is, what store in the mall is your favorite? I wish I could go to the mall.”

Interviewer: “Red Lobster.”

Crab #1, sad: “No….!”

Interviewer: *Chuckling.*

Crab #1: “That’s not at the mall.”

Interviewer: “You know I went to Build-A-Bear once, and had a great time.”

*Crab #2 starts giving Crab #1 a crab massage. Crabs are now discussing playing DND.*

Interviewer: “Alright guys, let’s wrap this up.”

Crab #1: “Let’s scrab.. rab.. Let’s crab this up.”

Interviewer: “Any last words?”

Crab #2: “Finally! Freedom!”

Crab #1: “When I go up to heaven, I want to be a seahorse next time.”

Interviewer: “I hope that comes true for you.”

Crab #1, confident: “It will. I pray to Crab Buddha.”

Thank you to my crab interviewees who were real people channeling their inner crab for this interview. Crab #1 lines, written by: Rachel. Crab #2 has requested anonymity.

Flinkywisty Pomm

July 3rd, 2025

I’ve recently stumbled upon an incredible new genre of literature. The world of nonsense poetry, from a book titled Poems Of Fun And Fancy. It’s shocking that I didn’t know about any poems of fun and fancy, and my life has been this whole time entirely devoid of poems of fun and fancy, but thank god I’ve got them now. My favorites so have been the Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll poems. Today, my deserving reader, let me share some of these gems with you.

A Letter to Evelyn Baring, by Edward Lear.

A Letter to Evelyn Baring

Thrippsy pillivinx,

Inky tinky pobbleboskle abblesquabs? —

Flosky! beebul trimble flosky! — Okul

scratchabibblebongibo, viddle squibble tog-a-tog,

ferrymoyassity amsky flamsky ramsky damsky

crocklefether squiggs.

Flinkywisty pomm,

Slushypipp

Yep. Literally 100% nonsense and jibberish.

For me, this is straight gas. This is my kind of poetry.

Next we have The Jumblies, also by Edward Lear.

The Jumblies

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,

In a Sieve they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,

On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,

In a Sieve they went to sea!

And when the Sieve turned round and round,

And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’

They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,

But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!

In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

They sailed in a Sieve, they did,

In a Sieve they sailed so fast,

With only a beautiful pea-green veil

Tied with a riband by way of a sail,

To a small tobacco-pipe mast;

And every one said, who saw them go,

‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!

For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,

And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong

In a Sieve to sail so fast!’

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

III

The water it soon came in, it did,

The water it soon came in;

So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet

In a pinky paper all folded neat,

And they fastened it down with a pin.

And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,

And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!

Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,

Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,

While round in our Sieve we spin!’

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

And all night long they sailed away;

And when the sun went down,

They whistled and warbled a moony song

To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,

In the shade of the mountains brown.

‘O Timballo! How happy we are,

When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,

And all night long in the moonlight pale,

We sail away with a pea-green sail,

In the shade of the mountains brown!’

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,

To a land all covered with trees,

And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,

And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,

And a hive of silvery Bees.

And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,

And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,

And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,

And no end of Stilton Cheese.

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

And in twenty years they all came back,

In twenty years or more,

And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!

For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,

And the hills of the Chankly Bore’;

And they drank their health, and gave them a feast

Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;

And every one said, ‘If we only live,

We too will go to sea in a Sieve,—

To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Jack-daws and lollipop paws? The hills of the Chankly Bore? Come on man. How good is that??

Next time someone is annoying you with some bulls***, try that line: “I don’t care a button! I don’t care a fig!”

(Anybody happen to know what a “Ring-Bo-Ree” is?)

Now, these two alone are enough for you to meditate on today. They will suffice for an introductory foray into Nonsense Poetry. But, if you want to have one more, and I think you can handle it.. Here is The Mad Gardener’s Song, by Lewis Carroll (The Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland guy).

The Mad Gardener’s Song

He thought he saw an Elephant,

That practised on a fife: