Getting Straightened Out

Back home for just over two weeks, and my cold is almost gone. I've been saying that for four days, however, so who knows how long it's going to linger. Whenever I get a cold or suffer from allergies, I always feel like I'm almost 100% better, and then I get worse. I can't tell if it's just the lingering effects of the previous cold, or if - because I've been touching my nose and face - I've picked up more germs and it's a new cold. Right now, I could be in either state. Ugh.

I just ordered a guidebook for Japan. When it arrives, I think I'll be able to retrace our steps during the trip, and hopefully I'll then be able to remember all the (crazy) things that happened.

Partner threw a party for my 40th birthday Friday night at the Fox & Hounds (though the party was almost a month after I turned 40 - that happened while I was in Japan). He decided it'd be fun to have a "pirate" theme, so he got decorations and a treasure chest of necklaces for everyone to share. He also got two large platters of sushi from an Asian restaurant in Vancouver. It was quite an event, and almost everyone who was invited showed up. Of course, it helped that the party was held at the same place as the Bears' usual happy hour, so even more friends/acquaintances just happened to be there. I had quite a few Capt & cokes, so you know I had a great night. I don't like to be the center of attention, but because the event was fairly diffused (people spread around the restaurant), it felt okay.

Doug had to fly to SF to visit his sister in the hospital last Saturday. She has ALS and has been dealing with it for a couple of years. Lately she's started to go downhill a bit more, so it was a big deal when she had to go in for a procedure. Doug's at her house now, and she seems to be improving, so he will fly back here tonight.

After I drove him to the airport on Saturday, I went by myself to the annual pool party hosted by Greg and Dave. They have a beautiful home with a pool and hot tub, and they always provide the most wonderful food. The party is clothing optional and most guys are naked, which automatically means it's a great event! Later that evening I fooled around with one of the hosts, and later on my way out, his partner walked me to the door and kissed me. Both occurrences were a surprise to me, especially because this was my fourth time attending the party, and this had never happened. I met these guys the year I moved to Portland at a Thanksgiving party, and it seemed to me that I pissed off Greg when Dave and I flirted quite heavily (the irony, of course, is that I'm actually more attracted to Greg). I thought that they were both cold to me over the last few years, despite the fact that Partner and I got invited to their parties. Now, I'm just confused. Hopefully we won't have to wait til next August before I can get "straightened" out.

Doug flies in tonight. We have no plans for the weekend, so it should be relaxing and fun...

Think Fast

Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Bodily, Spatial, Musical, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal.

In case you don't recognize the list, these are the theorized seven intelligences. I am a big fan of the idea that there are multiple intelligences. Without going too much into the details right now (I have errands to do), I'd like to offer one more: Improvisational.

I'm a firm believer that speaking-on-your-feet is not just a learned skill but a natural ability that some people are born with. These are the same people who wait until the last minute to do anything (they seemingly thrive under the pressure) because it's harder for them to think about something without a time limit. They think better when they're doing it fast probably because they are good at it and have had success doing it that way.

I've thought about this for a long time (I think I have a higher-than-average Improvisational intelligence) but I thought it about again the other day when Portland radio was talking about the 48-hour film fest. This is the competition where teams are given a genre and a line of dialogue, and they have 48 hours to make a short film. It sounds like a fun activity, especially for those of us who think best when we're thinking fast.

Dog Days of Being Sick as a Dog

Where did the expression "sick as a dog" come from? When dogs get sick, do they get very sick? I wonder if people from other countries use an animal to describe how sick they are and, if so, which animal is it? Do American dogs get very sick, but in Japan it's the tenuki that get sick? Someday I might look that up...

ANYWAY, I returned from my trip last Saturday morning. Despite my not sleeping on the plane*, I was determined to go through the whole day without a nap and go to bed at my usual time. In that way, I could get my body on to west coast time and minimize the jet lag (in the past I've always done this and never experienced much jet lag at all). In spite of my best efforts, I did take a short nap on Saturday afternoon and then managed to fall asleep quite easily at my usual time that night.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was congested with a head cold (it felt like a cold, not allergies). I don't remember Sunday being particularly bad, but that night at 1:05 am I was woken up by an extremely realistic slap to my face. I remember in my dream at that moment I was talking to two people, and a third person moved behind me, presumably to sit down (I was sitting on a train or plane, and there was very little space between the seats). Neither of the two people I was talking to hit me, and I have no recollection of the third wanting to slap me, nor do I know how they could have gotten their hand between the seats (I know dreams aren't that logical, but still...). So, that means I felt like I was slapped by a ghost that night. After thinking about that, combined with my time shifting, I was not able to get to sleep the rest of the night.

Monday I felt horrible with a runny nose and bad cough. I called in sick for my volunteer job the next day and basically stayed in the house. That night I was still not getting a full night's sleep (and my dreams still involved Japan in some way, as they had every night and did up until last night), but by Tuesday afternoon I felt like I was getting better. Wednesday I woke up as bad as before, so I had to call in for my other volunteer job. Same thing for Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning I was feeling better and even went to the pool party we were invited to, although I played it smart and never went swimming. Yesterday I thought that my cold was making its 'last gasp,' that I was hacking up the last of the phlegm. Today, however, I'm in the same boat. I feel generally ok except that I've still got phlegm in my nose and throat that is making me cough and go through an inordinate amount of tissues. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be 100% and able to enjoy these dog days of summer...

*I was on a full flight from Tokyo to Portland. After I sat down, the old Asian woman in front of me put her seat back almost as far as it would go - leaving me about six inches from my nose to her head rest. Her seat was like that for most of the trip. (And of course, I was too much of a pussy to ask her to move. Not sure why except that I hated the idea of asking her and then her not doing it. Then what would I do?) On top of that, my reading light didn't work, so as soon as the sun was down and the other lights around me went out, I was left awake but unable to read or do any of the crosswords in the large book that I had carried with me around Japan. Finally, my iPod was dead, so I couldn't listen to my music. The only saving grace was that they played three different movies (on my trip out to Tokyo they only played one movie but showed it twice - I didn't watch it either time), and they gave away free wine. I think I ended up with four or five small bottles. Not enough to put me to sleep, but still a nice little buzz.

Advice for Traveling in Japan

I'll write more about my recent trip to Japan soon. In the meantime, I thought I'd write down some advice before I forgot it. This will help me the next time I go, because I'm sure by then I will have forgotten my experience and repeated the same mistakes.

In no particular order:

1) No need for a giant backpack. I brought a large backpack, a smaller (or "regular-sized") backpack and an over-the-shoulder insulated bag. Most of the time I kept the smaller backpack inside the larger one and just carried the insulated bag with me for a drink, a towel, the guidebook, suntan lotion and my passport. What I discovered is that, since the luggage really only went from the train to the hotel (or inn), a smaller bag with wheels would've been just fine. In fact, I think having the large backpack made me think I could bring more things, but ultimately they were unnecessary. Pack light, and plan on staying somewhere with laundry (or bring thin clothes which will dry overnight in your hotel room).

2) Plan ahead - but don't over-plan. My personal, romantic notion about traveling is that you can just hop on a plane/train, go somewhere, and then make all the necessary arrangements after you arrive. I also prefer the idea that "being on vacation" means that you should relax and not be stressed out about seeing every touristy site that a particular destination offers. However, this recent trip to Japan has taught me that it is good to have a general plan in mind before you go, even if it is for just one touristy thing a day. Also, it would've saved a lot of time if we had planned our route in advance and contacted those cities for maps, bus schedules and places to stay ahead of time.

3) Buy a JR Rail Pass. Because I hadn't planned my trip out in advance, I had a skewed notion of when and where I'd be traveling. I was going to be in country for 15 days, but I thought I wouldn't be traveling the whole time, so I bought a JR rail pass for 7 days instead of 14. Big mistake. Be sure to buy a rail pass for the entire time you are there, because you will be riding JR trains and busses a lot, and paying for each trip can get very expensive. Also, with a rail pass you can always choose to get a reserved seat and not have to stand in line on the platform and rush on to the train for an unreserved seat.

4) Bring enough money. Yes, you can use a Visa card for bigger purchases like tickets and hotels, but if you bring cash then you won't have to worry about running out. Without train fares, I'd say budgeting 6000 yen a day would be plenty. Having said that, there are ways to live/travel cheaply, and post office ATM's will allow you to use your bank card from back home to take out money.

5) Learn to play "Match the Kanji." If you don't know, the Japanese use four writing systems: Kanji (Chinese characters), Hiragana, Katakana and Roman letters (English). The middle two are simplified versions of the Kanji, where each character represents a letter or syllable; the Katakana alphabet is used for words that have been borrowed from foreign languages. (The word "ramen" is actually borrowed from the Chinese, so when you see it written outside of ramen shops, the characters are in Katakana.) Anyway, my point is that, if you can't read Kanji (or the other alphabets), then it helps to be able to memorize the way a character looks and then match it to something else. For example, many restaurants will have plastic displays of their food in the window with the name of that dish written in Kanji. Simply find a dish that looks good, memorize the Kanji, and match that word to the Japanese menu inside. When you find it, you can just point to the item in the menu and say please. Another example: many town maps are written only in Japanese. Find the Kanji of the place you want to go and memorize how it looks. Then when you're walking around town, you can look at street signs, match the Kanji and get to where you want to go.

6) Bring a hand towel. Fans of The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy will find this piece of advice funny, but you should always carry a small towel with you. Most public toilets in Japan do not have any way to dry your hands, so a towel is important if you don't want to dry your hands on your clothes. Also, Japan is a very humid country, so if you travel any time from spring to fall, you might want a small towel to wipe away the sweat.

7) Stay at a business hotel. You should go to Japan and plan on staying at least a few nights in a ryokan (Japanese inn) if you can't arrange a home-stay. You'll most likely have a great experience, and you'll get to see more of what Japan is really like. That said, a cheap business hotel like the Tokyu Inn is a great deal and very practical. We stayed at a few of them during our travels, and each one was of predictably good quality. The Tokyu Inns usually have refrigerators in the room, free internet and laundry machines in the lobby, not to mention breakfast included with the cost. Any time you're not staying at a ryokan, temple, or with a family, I'd recommend the Tokyu Inn.

8) Get gay advice before you go. OK, that sounds strange, but what I meant is that you should get all the info you need about gay destinations ahead of time. Unless you're bringing a laptop and can use it in your room, computer use is usually public (hotel lobbies), and looking at explicit sites is frowned upon. Also, most guidebooks hardly mention anything at all about gay bars or hotels, so you're not going to get any help from them. I found the website "utopia" to be particularly helpful. I was only able to make it to one gay destination in Osaka while I was there, but it was excellent, and I would never have found it if it weren't for utopia.

9) Don't lose you train tickets. When traveling by train, you have to show your ticket in order to get on the train, and then you have to show your ticket to get off the train. (In the case of a local ticket, you put the ticket in at one end of the machine, and it pops out the other. At the end of your trip, put the ticket in the machine and it stays in there.) This is true even when you are transferring from one train line to another. I wasted frantic minutes trying to figure out what the station master was asking for before I figured out that I had to show him my ticket from an earlier trip in addition to the ticket I had to show him to get on the next train.

10) It's not better or worse, it's just different. Much of Japanese culture seems so familiar to western eyes, yet most of it is very different. In fact, it's sometimes tempting to think of aspects of Japanese culture as being "backward" or impractical or silly. Please don't make that mistake. If you're in Japan and feeling contempt for the people or culture, it's time for you to go. Obviously this is good advice for traveling anywhere, but it seems that foreigners in Japan are particularly prone to this. Yes, they wear t-shirts with bad English written on them; that doesn't mean they are stupid. The person I traveled with had lived in Japan for five years, and every snide comment he made about the Japanese seemed contemptuous. I don't know if he even recognized what he was doing, but it was sure annoying to me.

11) Cover up the tattoos. Despite its history as an art form, tattooing in Japan is now frowned upon and mostly considered a sign of trouble (the Japanese gangsters, the yakuza, are notorious for the tattoos that cover their backs). If you plan on going to onsen (hot springs) or sento (public baths), then bring some bandages that will cover your tattoos. Generally I had no trouble at any of the onsen we visited, but at two of the sento there were clear rules that no tattoos of any size were allowed. I got away with it at Spa World (in Sendai, I believe) and was only asked to leave after I had finished. But at a wonderful public bath in Aomori, I didn't see the sign banning tattoos, and I was asked to leave before I was ready. Two bandages would've solved that problem.

12) Know your schedule before going to bed. This goes back to planning ahead, but you should know what you're going to do the next day before going to bed. Most importantly, if your plans involve any kind of public transportation, you should know the bus/train schedule before you go to bed. We generally had an idea of what we were going to do, but we rarely checked the schedule. There were many days when we got up, made our way to the station and discovered that the bus or train we needed had already left, or that the next one would be in an hour. A lot of time would've been saved if we had known our schedule in advance.

13) Get ready for some walking. Unless your vacation involves a tropical country and sitting on a beach for a week, no matter where you go you're probably going to do more walking than you do in your 'normal' life. Plan ahead. Exercise to get your legs more used to the work, and be sure to have at least one pair of shoes with good support. Oh yeah, and bring small band-aids. I followed my own advice and bought new shoes for my trip, I even broke them in. Despite that, I still got painful blisters on three of my toes (my traveling companion also had blisters, but he didn't have new shoes and he was also used to walking quite a bit) and had to buy bandages at a convenience store.

Four Acts 'n' Play

Finishing off the Cape trip: the first show we saw that week was Paula Poundstone at the "intimate" Vixen Club (where I had seen Margaret Cho perform - really, she was just testing out her new act - years ago). Partner and I sat along the wall but in the front corner; it's accurate to say we had front-row seats. Up front I have to reveal two things: one is that I LOVE Paula and think she is amazingly clever; I can't help but marvel at her ability to take in fresh information and turn it into something funny. Two is that Partner and I saw her in Portland a couple of years ago at a bigger venue, and wouldn't you know it but she picked me out of the crowd to ask questions and generally make fun of me. Of course it wasn't random - I had responded rather loudly to something she said, so she heard me and set her improv sights on me.

This time I was determined to just appreciate her act and let her pick on other people. Yeah, right. Literally within minutes I was 'heckling' her act (but in a good way) and she set her sights on me again - to which I loudly replied to Partner, "Oh, Jesus." Luckily I was able to deflect her away from asking too many questions, but periodically throughout the show I would respond to one of her jokes and she would obviously hear (and answer or laugh). I think it helped that, when I wasn't 'adding' to her act, I would be laughing my ass off. I think she appreciated such a great response from an audience during her first show on a Wednesday night. Later, she was in the lobby selling her book, so I bought a copy and got it autographed. In it she wrote, "Hope we work together again real soon." I hope she wasn't being ironic...

The next night, on Partner's suggestion, we saw Jimmy James. Currently he is famous for a popular dance song called "Fashionista." Since I am not up on dance music, I hadn't heard it before hearing it blasting out of the speakers on the street outside of the Post Office Cafe. When he started his act, that was the first song he sang to the backing track. Since I had never seen him before, I didn't know to be surprised at his short height and rather heavy frame. I figured that a female impersonator was usually thinner, but I guess he could get away with it since he was such a talented singer. He did wear makeup, but only a feminine scarf and jacket for drag. After "Fashionista" he proceeded to sing in the styles of Eartha Kitt, Diana Ross, Billie Holliday, Cher, Barbra, Liza and Judy, and many others. Amazing. What was most surprising was when he showed a film clip of when he impersonated Marilyn Monroe. From the video and still photographs, we could see that he was flawless. (It was then that I realized: boy had he let himself go!) Later he did Bette Davis, but he had left the stage while a video and the song "Feliz Navidad" was playing. That song I had heard before, and what was being played sounded exactly like the recording, so I was confused as to what was happening. Had he originally recorded that Bette Davis parody? Were they just playing that song, or was he backstage singing it to the backing track? Why wasn't he on the stage? The video was fun, but that was a disappointing part of the show.

The next night we got tickets for Varla Jean and the Mushroom Heads. As the name implies, the entire act was built around a kids' show theme but with double entendres and sexual innuendo. As with Paula, I LOVE Varla Jean, so anything she does is incredible to me. (And also like the Paula show, we sat against the wall down in front.) The skits/dialogue with her two assistants was a bit hokey at times, but the songs were amazing, and the execution of kids' show/sexual innuendo was spot-on. I had seen her a couple of times in the past, and this show was probably my favorite so far. As we were leaving after the show, I bought a t-shirt and wanted to chat with her, but she was busy taking a picture with Leslie Jordan...

...who we saw the following night. Unfortunately we could only get SRO tickets, so we had to stand at the back. Impressions: he is a tiny man; he is funnier than I expected - and also raunchier; he did a great job balancing humor and pathos (who knew he had been to jail?); and he likes butch men, which surprised me because he is so flaming. Since I only knew him from Will & Grace and Sordid Lives, I didn't know he had worked with and knew so many celebrities. He likes to dish, so watching his act is like watching Kathy Griffin on speed...if she were slightly more feminine.

Since I had never seen so many acts at one time, I thoroughly enjoyed our week in Ptown. What's amazing is that there were still a lot more good shows to see. Ptown may be expensive during the summer, but you don't lack for something to do.

I'm Baaack...

...but tired and not up for a post. Just wanted to get my head back into the idea of writing this. I'll try to get my thoughts together about the trip and try again tomorrow.