roll for initiative

Japan, Day 1.

So I’m back in Japan for the first time in about 12 years. My Japanese grandma is in ill health and it’s her 90th birthday on Tuesday, so my mom and dad, older bro, his wife, their baby girl and I are doing the Filial Piety Tour 2007.

I haven’t seen obaachan in a while, so long I can’t remember the last time. That’s one of the drawbacks of being an immigrant; with all of my relatives (save immediate family) continents away, it’s hard getting close to your relatives. Throw in a language barrier or two, just for fun, and things really start to get interesting.

Like last night’s dinner. Older Bro, SiL, Baby G, and I arrived in Tokyo around 3pm, local time. After long train and cab rides, we reached our uncle’s house, where we are staying. Uncle Teiji and Aunt Satoko are in Hiroshima for the weekend, so we were met by our two cousins, Hiroto and Megumi, and their friend Stephan (a friend of theirs from Taiwan). Now Older Bro and SiL both speak Japanese, having lived in Osaka for two years. Me, not so much. Not beign able to speak the langue of half my family is something of a personal disappointment for me. But there are ways to get around that, it just makes for very awkward conversations.

Luckily, I speak English. Realistically speaking, if you’re only going to speak one language, you’re better off if it’s English; It’s today’s Lingua Franca (ironically enough). Legend has it that there are more English speakers in China than in the US. If a Thai meets an Argentine while traveling in Switzerland, it’s English they are going to be speaking. So if you’re going to be a monoglot, consider yourself lucky that English is your only glot.

So last night, I could speak with Megumi and Stephan, both of whom speak English. And I could somewhat communicate with Hiroto, as he speaks Spanish and I speak Portuguese (hah, I ain’t no culturally stunted monoglot!). So the conversation last night drifted between Japanese (which I understood 0%), Spanish/Portuguese (40% comprehension), and English (100% comprehension).

It might have been the jetlag, but dinner did start to feel like a GRE question: Hiroto speaks Japanese and Spanish. Megumi speaks Japanese and English. Stephan speaks Japanese, Cantonese, English, and Spanish. Older Bro speaks English, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish. SiL speaks English and Japanese. And I speak English and Portuguese. We are all sitting down for dinner (delivery from Shanghai Express). What is the ideal sitting arrangement at the table so that each person can speak to the people on either side and across the table. Assume a rectangular table with 2 people sitting on the long sides and 1 person on each end.

Hmm… I have no idea what the proper order is. If you’re feeling bored, drop me a line with your solution. Me, I’m going back to bed.

You should definitely file this under too much information. In fact, if you’re a bit squeamish you might file it under “don’t wanna puke on my keyboard”.

For the past week and a half I’ve been struggling with a cold. I don’t often get colds but when I do I get whinny and this time was no different. I’m a big fan of the whole oxygen thing and spending a week living like a mouthbreather is no fun.

Luckily, I rediscovered the joys of the Neti Pot. I hadn’t used one in ages and I don’t remember having a good time with it in the past. Maybe I didn’t have the salinity of the water right. Maybe I didn’t like it back then because my ex was pushing me to do it. Like any invasive procedure, you can’t really force someone into Neti Pot-ism. They have to embrace the concept themselves.

I’m getting ahead of myself a bit. What is a Neti Pot, you may be asking. A Neti Pot is a ceramic pot, shaped much like a genie lamp, that you fill up with salt water, stick it up one nostril, tilt your head, and let the water flow in your nose through one nostril and out the other. That’s pretty much it, but wikipedia, as usual, has a much more informative article.

What that article (or any article on Neti Pot) won’t tell you is the sheer amount of stuff that lives inside your head, especially if you’ve got any kind of sinus infection. Yes, I supposed that it makes sense that if you put warm salt water up your nose stuff is going to come out. I expected that. What I didn’t expect is that amount and … uh … consistency and color of the stuff.

I’m in awe of the shit that came of my head after using the Neti Pot during this cold. I guess I never knew how much space there is in my head for snot. I figured that much of the space in my head was allocated for functional organs, like the brain, eyes, ear canals and … crap, I don’t know … just head-stuff.

But after a Neti Pot or two of nasal lavage I’d get handfuls of snot. Well, maybe palmfuls. In any case, the sheer volume of snot that came out makes me re-evaluate what my head is really for. I’m going to revise my previous estimates and say that about 75% of it is functional and/or structural. The other 25% is hollow space used for the secretion and accumulation of various fluids of differing viscosity.

And that leads me to the other “thing” … the “various fluids of differing viscosity”. It’s like the snot hat comes out your nose after Neti Pot is a version of self-secreted gelatinous diamond-like material. After each expulsion I’d find myself rating the new arrival on color, consistency, clarity, and carots. Sometimes the specimen was small and clear, with a lightly gelatinous consistency, almost like frothy Karo Syrup. I think of these as the industrial diamond equivalent in snot… unremarkable yet abundant.

Occasionally I’d find a slightly cloudy, pale nugget, perhaps a bit more viscous that the clear samples. These were a bit rarer, but still not awe inspiring.

The truly awe inspiring specimens were very rare indeed. Only twice during my cold did I find something I considered especially noteworthy. I’m not claiming that these were Hope Diamond-like in their snotish grandeur, but they would definitely merit a spot in my own personal Museum of Natural History.

Like most discoveries of this significance, both took me by surprise. I’d finished my Neti routine and spent a few minutes blowing out the low-quality, industrial snot. And both times I figured I was almost done with the process and was just doing a final blow to make sure.

That first time I plugged my left nostril, blew gently out my right, and felt a little resistance. I took another breath and blew a little harder, hoping I wasn’t getting congested again. I felt my breath snag a little … and then things get a little hazy. I felt a sudden pop and out comes this … pellet, a little larger than a quarter, the color and consistency of slimy pumpkin pie filling. My first thoughts were “What the fuck is that thing and how long has it been living inside my head?!”. It looked a bit dazed, clinging to the side of the sink, like some kind of shell-less mollusk that had been roused from its hiding place. I wished I’d taken pictures of it now, but I panicked and quickly washed it down the drain before it could come to and attempt to reclaim its lair.

The 2nd great discovery happened last Saturday. I was feeling a bit stuffed up and decided to have another go. Same situation as last time. The Neti process went smoothly. I’d perfected the salt:water ratio so there was no stinging. After a pot in each nostril I was blowing out each nostril a final time when a huge yellowish mass suddenly splatted against my hand. This time there was no warning like with the pumpkin pie mollusk incident. One second there was nothing bit a little clear snot and some salt water and the second I’m looking at about 2 tablespoons of lemon curd slapped against the palm of my hand and the side of the sink. I blow again - another slap of curd. As with the first time I am so shocked that I immediately wash it down the sink. I try not to blame myself for my rashness … really, both instances were so unexpected that I wasn’t really thinking about the photo-journalistic possibilities here.

I may be experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance here, but having gone through these traumatic moments of nasal self-discovery, I think I’m a slight bit addicted to the Neti Pot. I can’t help but to think about what else may be inhabiting my head … and that I need to do the Neti Pot again to dislodge these sinus invaders.

I keep thinking back to that scene in the Wrath of Kahn where Kahn puts that grubby Ceti Eel thing in Checkoff’s ear. I know there’s one of those up my nose someplace and I’ll be damned if I let it breed up there.

Not quite sure if that’s the quolloquialism or not. I’m pretty sure that’s right, but if not, well, at least it’s close.

Took a couple of Tylenol knock-offs of NyQuil and am waiting for them to hit. Been in a fog all day. And most of the day yesterday. Got me a wee bit of a cold and it feels like I’ve lost about 15 IQ points.

Well, so far I feel perfectly lucid so let’s see how this post progresses, shall we?

As the three of you who read this will note, I took a sabbatical over the holidays. Not that I was doing anything that kept me away from the computer or that prevented me from writing. I just needed a bit of a break from technology. Though this is all post-hoc rationalization - I didn’t set out intending not to write , it just happened sorta happened.

Just as I’m sorta making a resolution to post semi-regularly. I figure consistency is better than sporadic volume, so I’m aiming for the barely-ambitious goal of having a new post on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Let’s agree to consider posts that appear on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday as bonus posts. Think of them as that $10 bill you found in that old suit jacket you hadn’t worn since your friend’s wedding last summer.

Oh … let’s also agree to consider this is the first Wednesday post. Good? Cool.

Okay, that’s all I gots right now. The drugs may be kicking in…

Happy 2007. Hope you’re satisfied.

Ants are way cool.

When I was little, I used to play with ants in the backyard. I’d see a trail of ants running from someplace to someplace else and I’d wonder how they knew where they were going and why they were rushing so much. Ants rush all the time. They never walk. Hell, they never just jog or even run. They always sprint sprint sprint. (Well, I’m sure they walk when they’re foraging, but when they’re going some place they’re going there SPRINTING.)

I’d place stuff in their way to see if I could distract them. Little branches, leaves, maybe even a burning match or two. But nothing could tear them away from the task at hand.

Later I took to lighting a candle and dropping little beads of wax on the little guys. I felt a little guilty about it, but I was sure they were still alive - just suspended in the wax. If I could’ve figured out a way to melt the wax without hurting the ants I was sure they would come back and immediately head off to their original destination.

One summer my brothers and I went to visit one of my mom’s cousins in Parati, a few hours south of Rio. It’s where The Emerald Forest was filmed. Mom’s cousin lived in a ranch in the middle of a tropical forest. His backyard was full of paths through the forest, one of which led to a little creek.

We spent much time hiking and exploring, seeing all the jungly vegetation and animals. One day we hiked up the creek. It was part hiking, part bouldering, part slogging through the creek, and the occasional wading. After following the creek for a while we came up to a huge boulder that was over 30 feet across and about 10 feet high. It blocked the entire path and since the creek couldn’t go around it, it went over it, making a waterfall that splashed into a large lagoon.

We stopped for to play in the lagoon for a bit. After splashing around, we decided to continue. We worked our way around the lagoon and found a spot where we could climb up on some smaller (yet still amazingly huge) boulders to scale up to the lip of the waterfall.

I remember being the first one to come up onto the waterfall. I pulled myself up, looked over the edge and saw, about a foot in front of me, a river of red army ants. It was a swath of ants about a foot wide that came up one side of the boulder ran for about 10 feet and then disappeared on down the other side.

And it was solid. You couldn’t see the boulder below the ants. They’re must have been hundreds of thousands of them. We stood there and just watched them for a while. We couldn’t see where the trail began or where it ended but the army ants just kept on coming and coming and coming. After a while, we decided to turn back - nobody wanted to try to cross their path.

Why am I going on and on about ants today? Well, today I got to hear E.O. Wilson talk. Dr. Wilson is THE ant researcher and is one of my childhood heroes. He spent his entire career at Harvard studying ants and ant society. His theory of sociobiology is largely based on his work on ants. He’s already won the Pulitzer (twice, once for On Human Nature and again for The Ants). I imagine he’ll win a Nobel one of these years, too.

In any case, it was awesome seeing him in person. Maybe in my next post I’ll ramble more about ants, sociobiology, and why EO rocks.

Well … not much comes to mind as I sit down to post tonight … so you all get little taste of a new concept I’m beta-ing:  Spreading Activation Conversation Style.

Work’s going well.  I don’t feel like I’m being tossed to the wolves.  There’s a good gentle learning curve right now that’s allowing me to get my bearings relatively well.  We’ll see how that lasts though.  That’s all good too, as I’m ready to start contributing.

Going on day 5 or day 6 with out a cig.  Making mad willpower saves!  Cuz that’s how I roll.  It helps that I’m not around old coworkers.  Like I said before, so much of the entire smoking ritual is social that it’s difficult to quit when they keep pulling you back in.

More excitement in my world.  Went to Target today.  I swear, I can never leave that place with out ending up spending around $120.  Yes, $120 at Target.  One wouldn’t think it would be possible but it’s deceptively easy to get sucked into making impulse purchase after impulse purchase.

Crap.  Now I’m hungry and there’s nothing to eat.  Grrrr.

A quick shout-out to the 3 of your reading this from Makati.  Ikinagagalak kong makilala kayo.