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.