Closed Eye Comfort

Closed Eye Comfort
The train is crowded. Everything is crowded. I have to close my eyes. I have to shut it out, too many people too many people. You might ask how I live in this country where everything is so full of so many people. It’s not so bad walking, it’s easy to think that it’s a means to an end, to get away form people. I would rather drive but it’s so expensive and my apartment has no parking.
At least it’s quiet. My headphones are working. I hate it when school girls get on. They chat, prattling on and on. They grow up to do just the same when they become office workers. I wonder it they do this to annoy me? But if it’s quiet like this I can close my eyes and drift away.
It’s like the song says, “I am a rock, I am an island” that’s really the only part of the song where the English is so easy to understand and feel that it radiates through me. If I could have an island with just me, it would have everything I needed. Someone would drop down supplies once a month by plane so I’d never have to talk to them. I’d have the fastest internet in existence so I can order books or movies or music. I can just click and there it goes. I would have a large house with many rooms and I would spend a new day in each room. Or I would have a room for every activity. I would have a western door with a lock on every door. Not a screen so that the whole family can see everything and people are running but don’t seem to get that not everyone needs or wants to be around people.
But I can’t have an island. I must forever be around people. I cannot truly select my own society which is myself, alone. I really hate it on streetcars. One day my sisters and mom and I went to Miyajima. It was my first time and I was so excited. I wanted to wear my new elementary school uniform but my sisters laughed and said I shouldn’t do that. It must have been a holiday because everyone was on the roman densha. Somehow in the rush of people I got lost. I couldn’t see my mom, my sisters, no one. Just a forest of feet. I felt so afraid, like I couldn’t move so I closed my eyes. If I didn’t open my eyes it was easy to pretend that there were no people. Easy to pretend that I was still next to my mother and she was holding my hand.
Of course she found me. She naturally wasn’t too far off and was unable to understand my feeling of fear, of budding heishokyoufushou. I didn’t have the words for it the. I know it could have been more terrifying. I know if I were anywhere else but Japan I would have been kidnapped. But closing my eyes helped me to ganbaru, helped me not to cry. Ever since then I’ve wished for a lock and a key and an island but I’ve never gotten it.
The train blessedly stops and I get off, glad to be feeling again like I’m moving away from people. I get through it, bear it, ganbaru, but I need my solitude so much, and on some days I need my closed eyed comfort even more.
Roman densha-street car, we don’t have subways in Hiroshima but our streetcar system isn’t that bad.
Heishokyoufushou- claustrophobia, the last part kyoufushou is the word for phobia in Japanese. The depths of my psych nerdity are now apparent.
Ganbaru- better known as ganbatte, to persevere
I saw this guy on the train from Mitaki to Hiroshima. He had his eyes squeezed shut, almost as if he was really focused on his sleep. Most people look very relaxed, almost like rag dolls when they sleep on public transit but this guy was not actually asleep I suspect. I started to wonder why he would concentrate so hard, what he was so focused on.

Listen and Speak, Give and Take

It’s a bit chilly for spring but that may be because it’s still a bit early. Many of the stores are only starting to open. The sales are calling to us. It’s such a nice day and I thought the fresh air would do him some good.
It’s not yet summer, the rainy season, when a damp stiffness seeps into your joints, making movement feel like annoyance. It’s also not winter anymore when it’s so cold everything in our bodies freeze and movement becomes beyond impossible. I’m holding the grips on his chair as tightly as I can. But even my grip isn’t so good these days. Even that seems to be deteriorating. Who will push us? Will they even allow us to wander the Hondori, me chattering away, him listening and inclining his head to show his opinion?
Oh, I’m sorry. He is my grandson, my first grandchild. And he is disabled. He specifically has Down’s shoukougun, the doctors said when his hands wouldn’t unlock. No grasping reflex that could be easily displayed. I was there when he was born early. His mother, my daughter, passed out, a difficult birth. I saw him and was shocked, put off even. I harangued my daughter about what she had done to cause this. I’m embarrassed now by my almost reflexive disgust. But in my day no one saw that. No one talked about it. You’d catch a glimpse in a screen on your way to school or there would be gossip but, sadly, people with disabilities like my grandson were unseen. Spoken of, but not seen. None of us knew what to do. My son-in-law’s mother joined me in asking what my daughter had done. I can’t imagine how she felt. How she still feels. We were ignorant. In these cases, the blame always falls on the woman. Even when doctors say it isn’t her fault you can still hear it in their voice. I wonder how she bore it?
Or you can see it in the eyes of people as we walk past. Some stare and some try aggressively not to see. I can imagine they have a million questions, but we don’t feel like devoting too much of our attention to them. Let them think. If they bothered to learn, they’d see him as I see him.
No one listens to me anymore in my family. I like to talk and tell stories but everyone seems so put off by this. It’s always “hai hai okasan” not even able to repeat what I said. But I noticed one day from his chair that he was looking at me with an intensity in his eyes that he understood me. Until then, I’d been embarrassingly like most people. I’d figured he couldn’t understand language so I talked over him, about him, like he wasn’t even there. I’d assumed that because he couldn’t speak he couldn’t understand. He must have been about 3. I started to sing to him, watching his face react to mine, to my music. I’d tell him stories my mother told me. I would try to hold him. I would smile at him. My daughter, still heartbroken, still blaming herself was more than happy to let me take him. She was worried she would break him if she touched him and I think she feels him reproaching her for “making” him this way when she looks at him. But he has no such malice for her, for anyone. He’d place his usable hand on my chest and feel the vibrations. He still does when we laugh together. He was a happy and quiet baby who has grown into a happy and somewhat quiet child. It would make me, and still does, angry when we get on a streetcar and mothers with children screaming their heads off glare at us, sitting quietly and respectfully in our allotted space as though we were the ones creating a disturbance.
I know these looks embarrass my daughter and her husband and they will try to “correct” some perceived offense. As parents they feel disapproval very keenly. I get mad. If these people bothered they wouldn’t see some “ugly child in a wheelchair who is probably an idiot who has to wear a diaper! (at least when we go out. I can’t toilet him alone)”. They could educate themselves, they don’t have to live in ignorance but they want to. If they really looked, saw my speaking and his listening, the give and take, the real communication that we have, they would understand. If they saw the boy who will look at old lady’s clothes and tell me if blue is really my color, who treasures our interactions, then maybe, they would not stare. Maybe then my daughter would be proud of her son. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to my grandson when I leave this world.
Shoukougun- The syndrome part of Down's Syndrome. Down's is written in katakana.
Hai hai okasan- “yeah yeah mom” hai hai can be a way of fobbing someone off.

I’ve only read a bit about the changing state of special education in Japan. Modern Japan seems to be fairly accessible from some of the disability websites I read while writing this story. So rather than focus on the reaction of society as a whole I chose to look at the individual experience of a grandmother and her grandson (I guess). I saw them from the 2nd floor of the Hondori Tully’s and it made me smile because it did look like they had a great give and take. I also got to see people stopping and looking when their back was turned. I worked with people with developmental disabilities in my undergrad days and I think the reaction is the same everywhere. There are always people who will act that way no matter how “normal” your consumer/relative is acting. They seem offended by the existence of a developmental disability. I say to these two: Shop on! I’d really like to see them again.

Dancing Robin Hood

Does no one know where I’m going, I hope no one knows where I’m going. I know no one knows what’s on my ipod and that’s good. No one knows or even guess that this mild mannered company man is actually…THE DANCING OUTLAW *theme music that is of course suitably danceable.* Yes! It’s shocking to think that you too could be riding the train and that man you’re sitting next to could be…THE DANCING OUTLAW! And you would never know it. You can’t see my sparkling costume cleverly concealed under my suit. You can’t feel the techno or trans or classical or rock or hip hop or jazz or whatever pumping though my headphones. The source of my power. That’s a secret, dear readers, please don’t tell my arch nemesis The Keisatsukan!!!!!

Dance, my one true love and passion, the way to liberate all of Japan from the cares and worries and uniforms and obligations is illegal, forbidden in parts of our beloved country. In clubs and bars the music plays but people stand and at most dare to sway a little. But in some daring, underground locations, my Sherwood forest if you will, people dance with abandon! Led of course by me, THE DANCING OUTLAW!!! One moment we are leading carefully choreographed gyrations to Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” and the next moment we may chose to perfectly execute only the most glorious of Viennese Waltzes. And in that moment of dance there are no gaijin, no sarariman, no parasite signals, they are all my dancing merry men and we dance until the Keisatsukan come to disperse our merry band and fine the owner an exorbitant sum. Come the dance revolution I will put the Keisatsu on trial and fine them for not dancing.

You may ask, my gentle readers, how I became THE DANCING OUTLAW. The question itself is laughable. One does not become THE DANCING OUTLAW. One is born that way. It’s like being in the imperial family. No one would think to ask the Emperor how he became Emperor. The answer would simply be the just is and so I am. I do not have blood in my veins but pure music. My pulse is rhythm and my voice is a melody so that if need be I can be and feel my own music. Music is everywhere and anywhere there is music there is dance. So dance should be everywhere. Think of how much better the world could be if instead of sitting in meetings bowing and exchanging business cards, we started the meeting off with some break dancing and then the kenchos would begin an intricate pas de deux. And then I would no longer be THE DANCING OUTLAW but the Dancing King. And then maybe someone will write a song about me. Instead of ABBA I would like a collaboration between musicians from every continent and I would like dancers from every school and even those who simply dance around their apartment to pay me tribute monthly with a dance.

But I must keep it all inside now. No, the train is not the right place yet. As of now the train is just a collection of bodies. But oh, lovely indulgent readers, how I long ot take the bodies standing close together and encourage them to touch, to dance. I want to pull the obaa-chan up from her priority seat and send her tango-ing with that middle school student who looks like he’s trying to crawl inside his backpack. Or maybe have that gaggle of school girls imitate the back up dancers from a Backstreet Boys video. As for me I would like to do something experimental, Cunningham-ish maybe. Of couse I know who he is, I am THE DANCING OUTLAW, and I know all of dance and the dance of the future too. I am not who you think I am Hiroshima, and I am coming for you…once I get off this train! *end theme music*
Keisatsukan-policemen
Gaijin- outsider/nonJapanese person
Sarariman- salary man, those guys in suits on trains who work crazy hours
Obaa-chan- grandma/older woman

This story takes a turn for the silly but is a bit more reminiscent of what I love about this project. A part of this project is to realize that people’s lives and struggles are both unique and similar to our own at the same time. The other half is the pure fun of speculating about someone’s life, particularly in a rather absurd way. The man who inspired this story was on the Kabe line with me one night on my way back from Mitaki. He was tapping his feet and to me it looked like he was really into the music. He also looked like a Japanese version of Gaius Baltar so I took some notes. But the story about him didn’t come to me until 3 months later in the middle of the teachers meeting. I know it keeps me up at night knowing that THE DANCING OUTLAW is somewhere in Hiroshima city…DANCING!?!?!?! And yes, dancing is technically illegal due to a loophole in Japanese law from what I’ve read. Hiroshima seems to be one of the few places that enforces it. Clubs get raided because people are dancing. Lack of dance saddens me.

The Language of Flowers

I just finished the big arrangement. It took me a while because the woman who made it was very specific about what she wanted and wasn’t the kind of customer who could be told “This flower will look horrific next to that one”. It’s for her daughter’s first baby so what can you do? There’s no telling some people. They think choosing the right flower is easy, but every flower and arrangement can say something. Sometimes it feels like the mood I’m in transfers into the flowers as I arrange them. Maybe that woman’s arrangement seems off to me because she put me off. Flowers are, I think in some ways, more sensitive to how others feel than people.

When people are handled poorly they may try to hide it, they may lash out, or they’ll just retreat quietly into a flower shop. It wasn’t ijime or anything like that. It wasn’t anything so obvious. I just didn’t feel like I fit in some ways. That I was separate from my classmates but I had no idea really why and neither did they. They’d sometimes tlak about me like I wasn’t even there. I didn’t really factor in to their language or how they think about the world. We were high school students then and I should have been used to it but one day it just broke. I didn’t go home right after school. I wandered the main drag of Hiroshima city feeling separate from everything. I know what the teachers say about me. I’m quiet. I keep to myself. I don’t have many friends. But I get good grades at least so I don’t raise too many questions. My school is big anyway, 8 classes per grade so it’s easy for me to blend in. I was walking past this store and I noticed an older man in the window. He didn’t say anything to me but I sat, transfixed, watching him arrange flowers. He had the most serene expression, like he was above it all but because he chose to be rather than just being outed. I must have stayed there for an hour or so just watching him. When we both finally came out of our trances he asked me if I was going to buy something and I ran away. I thought maybe if I could do that then maybe I could feel that measure of peace that he had.

I came back everyday, of course. I would usually hide behind some bigger displays and run when he would catch me. But I started hearing him talk to himself, explaining what he was doing. One day said if I kept coming in here he was going ot put me to work. He offered me a baito for the spring and summer. I was mostly on the register but he would teach me about different flowers during breaks. I find flowers easier and more responsive than people. People can change easily but flowers are very upfront about their natures. A delicate flower looks delicate and instantly lets you know if you offend it. A stubborn flower will consistently refuse to bend to your will. They make sense to me in a way that people don’t. I’m older now. I’m not part time. I work in the shop and it’s understood I’ll inherit it when the owner finally dies. My parents don’t like it. They want something more stable, I mean what if he leaves me in debt and I’m foced to pay it off. But I trust the owner. He’s shrewd and does good business. To him, it is all about the flowers and the business of flowers. I ownder if the cycle will repeat itself, if one day I’ll be arranging flowers and I’ll see a young boy and I’ll slowly start drawing him out, teaching him, becoming his pseudo father. In my head I have a story of this being how the flower shop has carried on for decades. I know it’s not the truth but I kind of wish it was.

Ijime- bullying
Baito- the shortened form of “arubaito” which is the Japanese word (borrowed from German) for part time job.
There’s a flower shop near the hotel I like to stay at in Hiroshima. I’ve passed it many times but I’m always in too much of a hurry to stop in and I don’t know if it’s bad manners to go in and buy flowers instead of ordering an arrangement. But when I walk past I always see the same youngish man in the window. He is looking very intently at something or he always seems very busy even if no one is in the store at the moment. I’ve never seen the old man I mention in the story. Now that I’ve written the story I’m too afraid to go in because I feel bad printing stories of people I actually know something about.

Become

He looked past me and said to become a good woman. I’ve been turning the words over in my head all day. I’ve been trying to piece it together even as I’m out kareokeing on what should be a school night. If I wasn’t carrying a bouquet of flowers I’m sure of the older people walking past would give me reproachful looks. Staying out late would mean I had become a bad student.

But now I am not a student, I’m an adult. Whatever that means. What do you think he meant, saying “become a good woman”? I don’t know because while there’s a general idea of a good woman, maybe my idea of a good woman and his idea of a good woman are different. I spent three years getting to know sensei, my homeroom teacher. We’ve gone on school trips, run so fast in takusai that he had to drag me to keep up, prepared a budget for the classroom exhibit in the bunkasai. That’s good right? Or rather that’s good for as student. A good student is what I know how to be. It’s easy to figure out how to be a good student. Teachers are very transparent in what they think is good. Good grades in all subjects, involved in clubs and the student council, never sleeping or reading or texting during lessons. While staying awake is tricky, it’s not so hard to live up to expectations, at least for me. I know some of my classmates, even some of my friends who struggle to be good students. Some of them just gave up after their first year when things were harder than they expected.

I’m almost mad at his response. Without a hint of sadness at me, his good student, leaving. He just smiles that same smile he’s been giving everyone today and said to me “become a good woman”. Was that what I worked so hard to get? Beyond my diploma and entrance into college, that’s all I get, and “Osotsugyo Omedeto Gozaimasu”. No “I always liked you. You were my favorite student. You always tried your best to be a good student. I know how you stayed up late studying, came to school when you had a high fever, and never cut class with fake stomach pains.” All I could say to him, stunned and pulled away by my friends was “ganbaremasu”.

How does one go about persisting to become a good woman. What is a good woman? Is a good woman one who gets married and has babies right out of high school? I can’t do that, boys think I’m too serious. Is a good woman one who graduates university? My grandmother says I shouldn’t work too hard, that I should try to find a boyfriend at university. Don’t want to wait too long, you see, and I’ve already “wasted” high school without a boyfriend. Is a good woman one who dyes her hair and wears the latest fashions? What is the acceptable skirt length for a good woman? What is her job? Is she a wife, a mother, an office lady, a teacher, a lawyer (haha, yeah right!), a farmer? What!?! What did sensei mean? And why did he say it to me and not to the other girls clamoring to say good bye. Why is it up to me to be a good woman? Haven’t I worked hard enough being a good student?

I just wish he’d given me some guidelines, a school handbook, a life handbook, so that when I see him out in the world he will look at me and finally tell me what I want to hear “You have become a good woman. You were always a good student, my best student, and now you are a good woman, the best woman.”

Taikusai- sports festival, think American field day
Bunkasai- cultural festivals, students make really elaborate booths in their classrooms
Osotsugyo Omedeto Gozaimasu- Congratulations on your graduation
Ganbaremasu!- I’ll do my best! (from the verb ganbaru meaning to persist or persevere)
My third year students graduated on Monday, March 1st. I was sitting in the teachers room and I heard one of the teachers say “become a good woman” to one of the third year students. She smiled and I figured it’s a cultural compliment that I’m missing out on by being American. When I was walking to the bus center from the graduation party for teachers I saw large groups of students walking with bouquets and various graduation presents. One girl I stood next to at a stop light was looking mournfully at her bouquet. I wondered what words her teachers had sent her off with. A side note on the lawyer parenthesis: It’s extremely difficult to pass the Japanese bar exam so being a lawyer in Japan is a HUGE deal. And from what I’ve heard it’s not particularly hospitable to women.

Immaculate

I brush the dust off of my jacket. I love black but it shows every spec of dust and debris to the point it is almost not worth it. Many people think black is a dirty color because it is the opposite of white. But really the inky crispness of black is clean in a way that the fragile cleanliness of white cannot be. But they are both clean, immaculate colors. Kirei. It is grey that I think is unclean, ugly. It is neither black nor white. Then again I hate color in general.
I know I live and work in world of loud color. Billboards seek to catch everyone’s eyes with neon. Moe blobs dance on a screen to entice the otkau into their world. Even in the ties my coworkers wear to express their “individuality” or “personal style” (which they have none of) are brightly colored but it’s so easy to see a stain. And I do not know who they are trying to fool. Everyone knows their mothers and girlfriends chose their ties for them anyway. I sometimes wish life was like Casablanca, black and white. I could permit maybe a little grey if that were the case. I love old movies for their soft understatements. Using color feels like cheating and it clutters the film.
And yes, my apartment is black and white. I like it that way. I, unlike some of my acquaintances, have my own place and I clean it myself. I hate, abhor, daikirai, mess. Messy house, messy mind, messy life. Tokyo is messy but my corner is clean, immaculate even. If my apartment was not immaculate than it means I should just let myself go and become Not In Education Employment or Training.
Being on the train feels messy. Ueno is one stop from Akihabara and there’s always at least three grown slovenly men playing their Playstaion Portables or Nintendo with some animated “moe moe” star. I sometimes get stared at by women or men on the train too. Today is one of those days. I look good I suppose, though unusual. My nose looks untidy, like it doesn’t fit my face. It makes me look foreign. In school someone pointed out it looked like one of the Roman busts we painfully attempted to sketch in art class. I both love and hate my messy nose. But maybe that’s what they like. Or they are attracted to my impeccable, meticulous grooming. Perhaps while they look they are imagining doing lascivious things to me or with me. That makes my skin crawl. She looks at me and I look back at her in the reflection in the train door. I attempt to convey with my eyes that not only am I not interested. Not in women, not in men, not in animated things. I do not see the point of sex, particularly from a hygiene perspective the whole idea seems almost laughable and utterly pointless to me. If I even try to picture having sex I just get annoyed. Sweaty sheets, sharing a bed with another person, exchanging fluids…them mussing my hair. Where would I put my nose? The idea of sex, which most days feels everywhere, is just tiresome to me. Why bother? I find many other things pleasurable. Like seeing the train clear out at Akihabara, like the sonata on my music player, like my immaculate apartment. I see the woman get off their too. She looks back at me. I wipe my coat of what would appear to some imaginary dust and her from a metaphoric point of view. I think about cleaning out my closet. The ordering is soothing, relaxing, possibly akin to the feeling I’ve unwillingly heard others describe as orgasm. I can’t waste my time with that half of the thought process. My stop is next and the train gets messier, along with my coat.
I got on the same train as this rather striking man on the Yamanote line. I was sitting next to my husband trying to figure out his story and what his job was. I thought “fashion?” but why be in Ueno and not Shibuya? So I just gave him an unspecified job and focused on how meticulously groomed he was.

Juxtaposition is a funny word.

I really like spending time with Mayumi! She’s such a good friend and a really good listener. I don’t really have a lot of friends and I never have but she is always there and she is always willing to hang out with me. I’m so happy because I really feel like for once I have a friend. My mother said I would have more friends if I didn’t talk so much but there’s so much silence everywere else. Silence on the train, silence in my house, silence ever surrounds me in a loud classroom when Mayumi isn’t there because no oe wants to tlak to me. It didn’t used to be so quiet but things have gotten so much quieter now. My dad is never home and my mom is working a part time job. It’s ever so hard to be in a silent house. Every noise or stir could be something bad waiting to happen. I go home and I turn on the TV really loud so that I almost can’t hear anything else. I listen to my music so loud as I walk home because I don’t live at the same stop as Mayumi which is really sad because I would like to talk to her so much. No one talks at home. We all live in our own little places with our own noise but no one talks anymore… I wish they would just get divorce but I don’t. There’s a girl in my class whose parents are divorced and they alternate between her and me. If I didn’t have Mayumi I think I would have taken a good way out of a bad situation this year. But I know I bother her. Deep down I know she doesn’t want me. She told me so outside the station once in the fall. I try and put it out of my head as best I can but it always comes back when I get off the train and walk home with no one to talk to. It was raining that day and we’d forgotten out umbrellas. I heard some girls talking about how I smelled and if Mayumi didn’t leave me alone she’d start to smell too. I’m so used to “gusai” and “busu” that it sounds as normal as train noise.
“I didn’t want attention” she yelled as I tried to bike to keep you “They always left me alone! You’re annoying! I can see why your parents don’t want to be around you! I wish you would quit bugging me!” She sped away and I feel off my bike, skinning my knee. I started crying loudly, like a small child cries when they lose their mommy in a store. Crying this way is so familiar to me. In the rain and tears I make it to the station and I see her standing there in our usual spot under the shelter. She sighs and I run towards her, child still crying and she hugs me. People stare at us because I’m childishly crying and she’s comforting me. We are so different but in that hug all is forgiven.

Heichi-suru is a funny word. Juxtaposition. It sounds odd but it’s a big word and is fun to read. It’s one of my College study words in English. No matter how much my ALT helps me with it, I can’t say it./ I can say position but not the first part. Side by side, opposed, contrasting, all words for my sort of kind of not really friend. I hate talking and she won’t shut up. She’s always bullied and I’m ignored. Even her parents hate her. Mine love me. She has long hair that’s straight. I have curly short hair and glasses. I had a strategy to get through high school, but it was ruined because I had to absentmindedly answer her hello one day. She clings to me like a barnicale. I think the only reason why the other kids don’t bully me is they get that I’m not really her friend. They see how different we are so we can’t really be friends. I’m safe, mostly. She’s like a puppy you know, no matter how many times you curse at it or throw rocks at it, it keeps coming back because you fed it once. I know that’s not nice but it feels that way sometimes. I just don’t like people talking to me. I want to be left alone but most people mistake that for being a good listener. I know deep down no one listens to her and that’s why she talks so much. Or does she talk so much which causes no one to listen to her. Chicken or egg I suppose.
I got annoyed with her one day. Actually I was flat out enraged. The pretty girls said I was starting to smell or I would become a saikin (bacteria) too if I hung around with her. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. On the bike she kept trying to get me to talk, to comfort me. I didn’t want to be comforted. I wanted her, everyone out of my life. I didn’t stop when I heard her bike fall. I only waited for her because I thought she might kill herself and I didn’t want it to be my fault. Not like I think anyone would really care. Well I would, maybe. I stayed waiting for her. She ran towards me, soaking and bloody and crying like a brat. She threw her arms around me and I didn’t really complain. I guess she’s my friend. But I’m still always happy when she gets off the train before me. We’re too different, juxtaposed to last much longer.

I saw these two girls twice. I couldn’t foirget their faces because the first time I saw them the ywere huddled together under an awning in Hiroshima station and one of them was unabashedly bawling her eyes out. I saw them months later putting their bikes away and it reminded me I hadn’t written their story yet. I had to race to my train and who should come racing behind me but the two girls. It gave me a better chance to observe their dynamic and come up with a clearer narrative. I like seeing people I’ve written about again. So far, they are the only people I’ve seen again.

Doomed Romance

I have a secret crush, a lot like most of the girls in my class. What’s different is who my crush is on. It’s not on the prince of the school (like we really have one here). It’s not on a boy I’ve known since elementary school. It’s not a coworker. I’ve only known this guy for almost a year. We haven’t been close for very long either. He’s very handsome and cool and fun and
He’s a teacher at my school. He’s a newish teacher and he’s one of the teachers in charge of my class. He doesn’t know. Well I think he doesn’t know anyway. I hope he doesn’t know because if he found out I would be completely mortified and never come to school again. I used to skip school a bit but I don’t mind coming now because I get to see him. I still skip classes, hang out in the nurses room with a stomach ache but I’m still at school and as long as I’m at school there’s a chance that I can see him and that makes it ok. It probably seems like I’m really scatterbrained to him, always messing up forms or something. But I really do it because it makes him speak to me. I don’t play sports and I’m a girl so if it weren’t for messing up my forms we wouldn’t get to talk as much as we do.
I’ve never been shy around him either, but I’m not a shy person and I think that goes a long way to disguising my feelings. If I suddenly got quiet around him it would be really obvious. So I just change how I act with everyone else. I stand a bit too close to everyone, touch everyone more. That way when I stand close to him it just seems like I’m disrespecting people’s personal space again and not that I’m showing my feelings.
It doesn’t hurt, because it’s not like I have any idea that I’ll actually get it, his love that is. Being close to him isn’t painful, seeing him talk with other girls doesn’t make me jealous. I have no expectations of ever having him look at me the way I try not to look at him. While this doesn’t mean I don’t think about how someday it would be nice to run into him and have him fall in love with me, it’s not an all consuming thought. I have many more all consuming thoughts like work tonight and how I’m going to pass my English test this week. It’s something fun that distracts me from the forms which are telling me exactly what I’ll be doing for a bit after graduation. While it’s true I should stick with one company I could see myself going other places. My crush on sensei* is kind of like that. I can see my eye shifting down the years. I’m not one of those heroines who will carry her first love with her for the rest of eternity. I’ll leave high school in April and I’m almost positive I’ll meet someone else. I make friends easily though people,e are sometimes put off by how loud I am. I think he’s a little put off too but he’s patient with me. He’s put off because he’s worried. I hope he’s not put off because he’s figured out that I like him. I don’t want him to find out because he wouldn’t understand. He would think I’m just so stupid loud girl in love with her teacher but that isn’t it and while I don’t know what it is, that isn’t it. This is why when we talk I deliberately shift my attention to everything else in the room. IN a way it prolongues how much time we get to spend. I don’t care if he thinks I’m flightly. I am and I’m sure someone will ike that even if he doesn’t.
Our time is ending. This crush has a clock on it. I’ve decided that my feelings for sensei will end when the school year ends. I’m not going to tell him on graduation day or anything so dramatic. I’ve just decided that when I leave school for the last time on that day I will leave my feelings in my desk for whoever wishes to occupy it next. I’ll just walk away from them. I think then, if he found them there, it would be okay and like I said, years later he can meet up with me and I can find my feelings again. But I’m a high school student so a little doomed romance is okay, ne?
Sensei- teacher
Ne- isn’t it, it’s a sentence ender.
I saw this girl outside a school I walked past in the city. She was really vibrant and definitely posessesd that “zest for living” MEXT is always saying its my job to instill. She was standing really close to the male teacher who looked both oblivious and utterly aware of what her body language was saying. He looked like he was picking up on her feelings subconsciously but consciously she was just standing obnoxiously close (I even thought so and I come from a huge family that has no concept of personal space).

Unlike a Comic

It’s getting darker earlier but at least there are less bugs now when I wait. The station is completely open so it’s boiling and mosquito infested in the summer and freezing in the winter. I just missed the train into the city so I have to wait. I take out my phone and email Nori-chan that I’ll be late. She sends me an email back full of emoji* and it makes me smile. We continue mailing each other while I wait for the train. She just makes my frustration evaporate. Even though I’m nervous around her, I’m still really at ease with her if that makes any sense.
That’s how I know I want to marry her. I mean, I know it’s a given as long as we continue to date without problems that I’ll ask her to marry me. The problem is I think I was ready to ask her after we’d been dating a week. We’d been friends for a bit longer but I’d always liked her. It didn’t feel like we’d only been dating a week. I even think about the wedding sometimes but I know it’s not really something a guy’s supposed to do. What can I say, I’m a young man in love. Though I’m self conscious about my love. I haven’t told her that I’m in love with her because I’m not in high school anymore. I also fdon’t live in a shojo manga comic but that’s blantantly clear to anyone who’s heard me try to be smooth. I really just want to know how to say the right thing. Everytime I think I’m going to finally say it, when she looks up at me so expectantly, my tongue feels like it takes up my whole mouth and I’ve suddenly forgotten how to speak Japanese. Maybe I need a phrasebook like the tourists at Starbucks have. I need a menu of phrases I can read off and point to and hope that she’ll know what I mean.
I’m pretty sure she does but that doesn’t make it any less annoying that I can’t bring my mouth to form the words “daisuki desu”*. It was hard enough to bring myself to say “suki ja”* Sometimes I practice in the mirror. I have a sticker of us on the mirror and I practice saying it over and over. It gets easier as I say it, puffing my chest out, trying different voices. But it still never quite sounds like me. Considering how hard it is to say it I suspect that if the characters in the managa were real people they must just spit it out. Or they’re a lot smoother than me. I wish I had a girl mangaka who would write my dialogue for me. I mean, if I can’t even say it how am I ever going to ask her to marry me?
I mean I can imagine that I do it in this smooth fashion on Christmas eve. I take her to her favorite restaurant. I have the ring, it’s perfect. It’s not too big, she doesn’t like really big jewelry. It’s just right for her hand. As we’re finishing the perfect course of the perfect meal I slide the ring over and ask her if she will stay with me forever. It all comes so easily in my head. It’s always easier to decide what words I want to say than to actually say them. I don’t think I could be that smooth in reality. Plus in my fantasy I use the word perfect too much which distracts from how perfect it would actually be.
But I want things to be perfect because to me, she is perfect. Even things she considers to be hideous flaws, like the freckle on her check or the fact that no matter how much cream she uses, she’s still tan. It’s not that I don’t see these things it’s that I don’t care about htem because they’re her, and…I love her. There, I said it. But it’s still just in my head to an imaginary audience while I wait for the Kabe line that goes towards Hiroshima City to come. So naturally it doesn’t count. I wonder if she likes the fact that I tumble over my words around her.
Nah, girls only want kakkoi* guys so I’m fairly confident in one thing: that she thinks I’m a doofus. But as I read her email I wonder, if maybe I’m lucky and she actually does find my clumsiness endearing. Maybe, she even loves me too.
Daisuki desu: Love. You can also use this for things you really like. It’s a less strong way of saying “I love you” (the strong way is aishiteru, in case you’re curious)
Suki ja: Like. Suki is the adjective for like and “ja” is subbed in for “da”(informal desu) in Hiroshima-ben. It makes you sound manly.
Manga- comics
Mangaka- the person who draws and writes manga
Kakkoi- cool.
On one of my visits to Mitaki I saw this guy waiting for the train into the city. He started off really tense but gradually relaxed and sank in his seat as he looked at something on his phone. I mean for all I know he could have been reading 2-chan but he looked a bit like a more Japanese version of Marten from Questionable Content. He also had a very relaxed expression on his face so he must have been reading something happy. So because I like Marten I decided he was looking at an email from his Japanese Dora. Though once I sat down to write his voice isn’t really Marten’s at all which is good because plagruism is bad.

Luckiest Man in Japan

Nice to meet you. Or should I say, it’s good for you to meet me because I’m special you see. I’m the luckiest man in Japan. Even better, I’m not the luckiest man because I’m good at pachinko* or I’ve cheated death so many times. It’s nothing as simple or material as that. No, I’m lucky for other reasons, many reasons. One of those reasons is sitting next to me on this train.
My girlfriend? No, but isn’t she cute? This is my daughter. I have three daughters. Would you like to see a picture? No? Ok, sorry, I’m just so proud of my daughters that I don’t care who sees. It’s probably unseemly for a man to be so bursting with joy but again, I’m about to retire so what do I care? Hisako, there are so few “ko”* names now, is my middle daughter though she’s the tallest so people often think she’s the oldest. She has two sisters, Naoko and Rie. Naoko is my oldest daughter and Rie is my youngest. Naoko is married with one baby. They’re coming to visit us for Obon* and my wife and I are very excited. Rie is married as well and very pregnant. She’s short so her belly just overwhelms her frame. She does look like she swallowed a beach ball every time I see her. They both have good husbands and I’m glad of it. A good match is important. I swear if I ever hear their husbands have made them cry I’d break every bone in their body. I’m not keen on getting arrested so I’m very glad they have loving husbands.
I am certain their husbands love them like I love my wife. I’ve always loved my wife. We met through family in our little town. She was very quiet which I didn’t like at first but as we’ve been married I’ve noticed she’s quiet because she’s listening, always taking things in. I often find my wife picks up on even the tinest change in my speech and seizes on that to ask about my welfare. She keeps a neat house and cooks well. I’ve made it a habit of telling her that I appreciate it. That I love her. She blushes like a first year high school student even still. I’ve been openly loving her for quite some time and it still makes her blush. Sometimes I tell just because I think she’s cute when she blushes.
Have I always loved my wife? Yes, but I haven’t always told her. No, I’m not a member of any clubs for men who can’t tell their wives they love them and are deathly afraid of divorce. As you get older, your priorities change. Soemtimes something happens and it makes you see what’s been going on around you.
It wasn’t a heart attack or a cancer diagnosis or losing my job. It wasn’t even something that really happened to me. It was seeing something that happened to someone else. It was the suicide man that gave me pause. I didn’t know this man, this man in a business suit who looked just like me. I figured he was standing close to the platform because he wanted a better seat on the train at a busy time. But that wasn’t it. When I look back I can’t help but wonder if I’d been as I am now if I would have saved him. He wasn’t big or dramatic about it. He jumped at the last minute, one second he was “waiting” for a seat the next he was on the tracks waiting to be cleaned up. There wasn’t much in the news about it, trains were delayed but that was it. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I’ve had trains delayed for “technical difficulties” before but I’ve never seen someone become a technical difficulty. More and more I was struck by how much this man looked like me, like all the other commuters. Did he have a family? Was he in debt? Was he fired? Did he have friends? Would someone put incense at his alter in the coming year or did he just vanish? Was all that was left of him a pension?
I didn’t think then “Ah, I’m going to let my family know I love them”. My life, as fantastic as it is, isn’t a movie. It was a change I didn’t realize until my wife pointed it out. It started that night. I came home late. Hisako was up studying for high school exams at the time. She never slept well even when she was a baby. She’s more like her mother, constantly taking in the world and worrying about it. Math, she was struggling with math. I don’t know why I did it, but I sat down beside her and we talked about math. Usually I just ate the dinner my wife left out but tonight I sat down with my middle daughter, the quiet daughter and shared a bit of her world of tests.
We still do that, today I’m visiting her after a doctors appointment. I’m still very healthy for a man my age. She explains to me about the reorganizing of her company and I tell her a little about mine. She’s a little jealous of her sisters, married with babies but she’s happy at her company. I’m happy she’s happy. I’ve told her before I’d rather she waited and found a good husband than just settled for the first one to come along. I confided in her that I’d like to stay out of jail for assault. She laughs at my jokes, as many times as she’s heard them. Her laugh is small where mine is big and I’m certain it fills up the whole train. As she gets off at her stop I say good bye to her and take my seat again.
If I am not the luckiest man in Japan, I don’t know who is.
Pachinko- Kind of like pinball and slot machines combined.
“Ko” names- A while ago most girls names had the kanji “Ko” attached to their names. As the years have gone on this has become less and less common.
Obon- the time in the summer when people go back home to tend their family shrines. It’s a bit like Memorial Day.
I had the privilege of sitting next to this guy on the train. Alas he didn’t talk to me but he kept looking over my shoulder while I was writing. He also had a big deep voice and made huge sweeping gestures. He reminded me a lot of my own father. He was with a younger woman who looked quiet but very interested in what he was saying. He smiled a lot and even dared to smile at me. Considering people are usually very put out by having to sit next to me, I was glad of a smile so I gave this guy a nice story.

Super Salary Man

I’m almost home. This trip is almost over. It’s not that I hate trips or that I have much to go home to. Just a goldfish, my small apartment, that’s all I’m coming home too. It’s fairly standard really, which I like for the most part. I’m not like a few of my classmates who insist that they are too good to go work at accompany. They look at me like there’s something wrong with me working for a company. Right now the only thing wrong with it is that I’m stuck wearing a jacket in 35 degree heat while my sempai wears short sleeves.
It’s really more that I’m hot than that my sempai* wears different clothes. I’m sure if I asked he’d let me take off my jacket. I’m really lucky to have such an understanding sempai. He’s certainly more understanding than my father was. Otosan*, always providing, working long hours. Only slithering out of the office for drinking parties, dinner, and special occasions. No, I don’t despise him, I get it. But he seems such a stark contrast to sempai. Sempai treats me more like a son on most days than a kohai*. He has a family, no sons but two daughters. I wonder if they feel the same way about him that I feel about my father? DO they think he’s a pathetic workaholic who they only see once in a while? I mena, I guess now that I’m older I understand, you know? I mean, I get it’s not how things are done in other places but working long hours is how he showed he cared. I’ve tried expaining it before to a few ryugakusee* at my college but they didn’t really try to get it. It’s the way it is. You fight it when you’re young but as you get older it makes sense. A lot of times the company, work, can be like a family. Your sempai can, if he’s good, become like a new father to you. Maybe that’s the issue with my generation. Our fathers aren’t our fathers in the sense that’s imported so instead our sempais become our fathers.
I don’t even know what I’m saying. I lost myself in thought again. At least talking to myself is good company. It’s always disheartening when you’re talking to yourself and you realize you don’t even know what you mean. But these thoughts are things I can’t imagine telling anyone, not sempai, not my parents, and certainly not a wife, if I had one. Maybe when I hit middle management I’ll get a wife, I wonder if it’s part of the promotion package. It’s not that I don’t like anyone. Yumi’s cute, really cute. She’s smart* and always dresses very well even in the company uniform. I’d talk to her, ask her out but you can’t sexually harass secretaries until you’re at least in middle management. Or they can’t sexually harass you until you’re in middle management. I always forget the order of when it’s no longer creepy to ask a girl at your office out.
But here, isn’t where I always pictured myself. Believe it or not until I was a 6th grader I firmly believed I was going to grow up and become Anpan-man*. Like, that was what I wanted to do. When mom would ask me what my plans for the future would be, I’d start singing the anpan man song. It was really funny until I was a 3rd grader. After that she’d admonish me and hastily tell all those assembled that I didn’t really mean it. Of course I wanted to work for the same company as my dad. And I mean, after a time I found I did. It’s a good company, I have a good fatherly sempai who doesn’t horribly abuse me. The secretaries are cute mostly, not that it’s important, but I know my father noticed them. No, I don’t know for certain that he had an affair, but it’s not uncommon that’s all I’ll say.
It’s time to go back to the goldfish. I see a little boy with an anpan-man t-shirt. It hurts, a little, to wonder about his super hero dreams, if they are the same as mine were. So clear and sharp, so easy to reach. I suppose now, as government literature says, I’m a super hero too. I’m the backbone of the Japanese economy. I’m a super salary man.
Or at least I will be.
Sempai- hard to convey the feeling behind it but it’s someone who has been doing something longer and is, ideally, supposed to be a mentor of sorts.
Kohai- like sempai hard to convey, it’s “junior”.
Otosan- Father
Ryugakusee- international students
Smart- usually refers to body, slender, svelt.
Anpan-man- A super hero made of red bean paste bread (anpan). It’s very old but an extremely popular children’s’ show. Even my high school students watch it.
I saw this guy in the Shinkansen terminal of Himeji. He was looking at the art display with an older man who wore short sleeves. He carried the bags and wore a full suit. That’s really all I went on, the rest of his story is just pure me going nuts after a ridiculously hot day.

Are you Japanese?!

Yeah, it hurt but I like roses. They’re very cute don’t you think. They’re on my arms, I’m very proud of them. By which I mean the tattoo and the arms. I don’t know why everyone seems nervous looking at them. Well I know but I think it’s stupid. Yeah, I’m a yakuza*. Clearly, anyone with a tattoo must be Yakuza, because getting a butterfly on your lower back is really something that the yakuza are known for.
People, well old people, traditional people, those I don’t really waste my time thinking about don’t like my roses. They click their tongues and think that young people are now dressing like gangsters. What’s happened to Japanese society? Won’t someone please think of the children!? Such people didn’t bother me when I died my hair blonde and they bother me even less now that I have my roses. I feel happy to have them. Roses are beautiful and really, how can you say a tattoo of something beautiful is ugly? It’s not like I got a sleeve of falling sakura* or something outrageous.
But I know what they’re thinking. It’s written all over their faces, far more prominent than my roses. They look at my blonde hair, my tan skin, my roses and think “Are you Japanese? Really? Uso!*” But who are they? What is being Japanese? Meh, it’s too complicated a question so it doesn’t really bother me. I’m happy, I’m happy with my life, with my hair, my roses, my boyfriend who I may no have children with.
Yeah, my mother used to be the same but one day she just stopped. If she’s disgusted with me it’s silent, like the strangers disgust. When they don’t say anything it’s easier to tune them out. People think that their silence around me speaks volumes but really, at the end of the day, all I hear is silence which suits me just fine. I can plug in my ipod and be surrounded by noise. Oh yeah, sorry off topic. You want to know why I got these tattoos? Well I already told you I like roses. Roses are pretty. I mean yeah, I could have gone for something more “traditional” but it wouldn’t be something I wanted them. I went with my friend Miki to get them. Her tattoo is bigger and takes up most of her arm. Miki always likes big elaborate themes, always wants to make a big statement. Me, just some roses on my shoulder says enough. I’m glad we went on the day we did, because if we hadn’t I wouldn’t have met my boyfirened. He’s not the kind of guy parents approve of but I like him. I was telling the tattoo artist what I wanted and he came in. Apparently he was friends with my tattoo artist. I liked his hair, that was the first thing I noticed. It was long, covering his eyes and a slick black like oil. He approached me and asked me what I was getting. I told him I was getting roses on my lower back. In a gesture I didn’t expect he touched my arm and said
“I think they’d look better here. Otherwise only you’re boyfriend’ll see them”
“I don’t have a boyfriend” I said
“well then no one will see them. Tattoos should be seen.”
It was the advice that set me free in a lot of ways. Before then, I was very conscious of my hair, my tan. I knew I was a part of a subculture and while it did bother me, my mother’s loud disapproval, I tried to ignore it. Miki said we all do things to piss off our mothers, like it’s only a phase. I wanted a tattoo on my lower back in case she was right and really I just wanted to die my hair black, put on a kimono and line up men for marriage interviews and pop out a few kids just because that’s what you do. But maybe it wasn’t what I wanted. I like roses and yeah, I wanted them to be seen. So I put them right on the spot where he touched my arm. He probably doesn’t think much about it, making less smooth gesture now that we’ve been dating a while. I feel stupid, thinking a touch of a total stranger changed me. He was probably just hitting on me. He may not even think this is a relationship but it’s good. It’s really good. I don’t care because I like it now and really isn’t that what’s important? I’ll have time to think about long term when I’m old. And I won’t make sour faces at blonde headed girls.
Also considering how many of my friends have red or blonde hair, don’t know how to tie a yukata, would rather read manga than Sei Shonagon, I feel like I could throw back at them that they aren’t Japanese. I’m sure years ago people used to say that those wearing western clothes weren’t Japanese and now anyone wearing a kimono looks a little out of place. I’m Japanese. I dye my hair blonde. I tan on a weekly basis and think skin whitening creams smell bad. I have a rose tattoo on my shoulder because it’s pretty and because I wanted it. And I’m still Japanese.

Yakuza- gangsters, the Japanese mob
Sakura- cherry blossoms, a sleeve tattoo with them on it can denote yakuza
Uso- “Lies!” it can be pretty strong or said jokingly. In this case it’s meant to convey rude disbelief
The woman in the story was the first Japanese woman I’d seen with a visable tattoo. They’re frowned upon in Japanese society though the trend is changing. For all I know these were temporary tattoos. She was in Hagendaaz talking at a boy with longish hair in his eyes. He was nodding occasionally while checking his cell phone. She struck me as someone with a lot to say who was used to people only vaguely listening.

Apologies

So while I don't think anyone keeps up with this except my husband, I thought I'd post an apology for not doing anything in October through January. November I had Nanowrimo so I expected to not write much (I won by the way for the 2nd year in a row! I'm quite pleased with myself and with Trajectories from a Summer). It's hard to crank out short stories for me when so much of my attention was taken up with my novel characters. I pushed to try and finish my novel in December but I just got burnt out on writing and I have 1 more chapter left. Plus I had Christmas/Hanukkah lessons and family coming to visit. There's no excuse for October other than me just being lax in loading in the stories I'd already written. I've pre-loaded them into the 2nd week of February but I now need to get back to writing more short stories. Anyway, that's what I've been up to.

Here's a bit of whimsy from a bus ride. I was coming back on the bus to Chiyoda and i turned my music on random shuffle. Gogol Bordello's "Your Country" came on and I closed my eyes. I started singing out loud and the band popped up in the seat behind me, instraments and all. I was running up and down the seats singing the song to people on the bus and pulling them up to dance. Soon everybody on the bus was dancing, from the older men with sour expressions to the middle school students who commute so far for reasons I don't know. Even the bus driver was grooving along. We turned the bus into a giant dance party that kept going and going even after the song ended on my iphone. The party didn't end until I got off the bus and everyone was sticking their heads out and waving at me. The second I turned around the bus went back to normal as if there never was a crazy dance party on the bus. Yeah it's silly but my mind goes odd places on those 45 minute bus rides.

School Girl Crush

I’m the only person from my school on this train. It’s late, not a usual time for the commuter students to be going home from school but I had to stay late. Soft tennis practice always runs late when we’re getting ready for a tournament. I have a long way to commute, there’s a streetcar ride after this. But I’m alone. I take out my keitai and pretend to be texting someone. I hate just sitting on the train not looking like I’m doing something. I try to take out my books but I don’t want to read. I’m so tired that it seeps into my bones, allowing the motion of the train to occasionally toss me around like a rag doll. At the next stop there are more students, a different school, different seifuku*. I don’t know any of them but they seem to take up all the space in the train. They’re noisy, clearly all friends. I can tell by their bags that they are in the same club, soccer or some sort. They don’t have rackets so I can’t ask them if they’re even in the same club with me. It suddenly feels like there is no room in the train for me. I just slump down in my seat and crush myself, making myself smaller to make room for the hordes of genki* girls.
I don’t until I’m safely in my room, alone. I eat dinner that’s a little cold, my mother is imploring my middle school brother to study so he can get into an exclusive all boys school. His school is closer, less of a commute. He could probably ride his bike there, surrounded by friends. I’m a little jealous. I think small, hoping that her ire won’t turn on me for not being home earlier to study. There are college exams, it’s always the press of exams. You take high school exams only to earn the privilege of taking college or company exams. You take college exams so that you can take company exams and not just be a temporary employee. And once you’re a permanent fixture, you don’t have to take formal exams but everyday feels like an exam.
More so now than ever, I feel crushed by everything around me. I have to do well in this tournament or all my practice will be useless. I have to do well on midterms or I won’t get to take college exams early. If I don’t take the exams early then I’ll be smothered by the agony of having to wait until February to take the exams. If I don’t do well on the exams, I’ll be a rounin. I have to be genki so my mother doesn’t hassle me about how my poor spirit will affect my grades.
I know I’m not the only one but I wonder if I’m the only one who feels crammed into a space that’s too small for her; who feels as if all the air is being squeezed from her lungs. Sometimes during cleaning time as I wring out the mop, I can’t help but feel sorry for it, having all it’s vitality wrung out of it. On days like that I am tempted not to ring out the mop in a display of solidarity, but I have to wring out the mop or Yamanaka-sensei will scold me.
But in my room no one will scold me. I give myself the 5 minute luxry of moving outside, of expanding to take up all the room, to make the universe exactly as I want it. It’s glorious but sad because I know it can’t last. I hear the footsteps of my mother’s slippers as they clomp up the stairs and the universe comes crashing down around me. The pressure starts again and I pour myself into my books, shutting my universe out.
Seifuku- school uniform
Genki- spirited, spunky, full of beans, upbeat, outgoing, healthy, you get the idea.
I was on my way back home on the train when I noticed a lone school girl standing apart from a crowd of other girls. At first I thought they were from the same school but there was a sublte difference in their uniform. The group was a bit noisy, as one would expect from teenage girls. The girl would occasionally look up from her phone with some vauge mix of annoyance and sadness.