May 20, 2002
I have not been available to respond to reader email very much- why is this so? Because I have been benefitting from an extremely packed work and social schedule. My daylight hours are crammed with work... and my off-hours are crammed with going to bars and nightclubs, attending outdoor barbeques... and going to resturaunts with various women. Not only with Kaori and Fumiyo, but there have also been a number of new women who have showed interest in getting to know me in the last few weeks... They are: Rie, Haruna and Sayaka. Rie, Haruna and Sayaka have all been women I've met outside of work... I met Rie in Japanese class, Haruna in a nightclub and Sayaka on the subway. I barely know them so far, and I'll hopefully be able to tell you some details in a few more weeks. Don't be jealous at this point: all of them might yet get bored of me after the first few meetings.
According to my latest family-news
updates emailed to me from home, my
sister has rescinded her hen-pecked husband's
privilege to... (wait for it)... handle sharp objects. Apparently, he cut his
thumb-open on a brand-new paring knife and needed to get several stitches in order
to close the wound. So, sister now makes it clear that he is not to touch any
cutting edges in her kitchen, lest he clumsily injure himself again. So... is
she going to put corks on the end of all the shish-kebab skewers and butter-knives?
Oh, but why stop there? Why not sand-off all the corners on the kitchen counters
so he doesn't accidentally trip and crack his head-open? Maybe she'll put child-safety
covers over all the electrical outlets so her husband doesn't stick his fingers
into the sockets and get a nasty shock?
In sister's mind, her 33-year old
mate has officially crossed the line separating adulthood and kindergartner. 'The
poor idiot male needs me to save him from himself...' Oh yes- only condescension
of the leading quality is good enough for her husband!
In other news: My cell phone has revolutionized my social life, and it is a major
factor in piling-up the phone numbers of women whom I've met around town. I got
the phone a week ago, and already I've begun to appreciate it. Japan is home to
the world's largest concentration of mobile Internet users- over 50 million at
last count. Back in the U.S., I had a cell-phone, but it was comparatively primitive.
The LCD screen was clunky and two-tone... the gaps in network coverage copious...
the Internet services overpriced. But now, I have a color LCD screen. The
network connections are seamless (with the exception of subway tunnels... I can
walk through the vast underground malls of Japan and still get a strong
signal.) And best of all, I can send and receive text to phones on the Japanese
network, and write emails to my friends everywhere for the low, low price of 1
yen per message! This is wonderful... now, friends back in North America and around
Asia can send emails into my pocket- literally. I can send gossip from anywhere...
riding the trains, standing in line at an ATM machine, on the toilet... And I
can even view emailed pictures. Naturally, they'll be compressed to fit my cell-phone,
but I can still view them.
Truly, the user-friendliness and utility of the
Japanese cell-phone system is something to be awed.
Oh, and I know this next bit isn't relevant, but I wanted to type this-out while I still have it fresh in mind because I think it's darkly funny... In a bit of news I read today: the Oxford University Press has plans to release a newly-translated version of the Kama Sutra. (Of course, you already know that the Kama Sutra is a centuries-old Indian manual on sex and sexual positions.) Wendy Doniger, the co-interpreter of the new version, opined that the original 1883 translation by Richard Burton was too "boys-only" and too influenced by the male-oriented mores of Victorian thought of the day (or too 'censored', as she put it)... So this new version apparently includes certain female-oriented sections that were edited-out of the original translation. The additions are quite revealing... some of the new bits include advice on how to properly scream at your man in order to motivate him and ways to get him out of your life when you desire him gone. And indeed, one of the new chapters is called "Ways to Get Money From Him."
Heh, the more things change, the more they stay the same...
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