« April 2004 | Main | June 2004 »
God, I thought I was a busy bee... this chap seems to have so much going on that he has to shave on the trot.
[Man using an electric shaver, while walking downstairs towards the wickets in Shibuya station, 8:30 pm on Friday.]
Friend and old colleague, Ems has been in town this week, primarily on a secret PR mission which culminated in an announcement on Tuesday. Since then she has slowly been trying to extricate herself from bankers, lawyers and PR consultants to the point where she could hook up with the old gang on Friday evening. We made the unanimous and easy decision to go to Kaikaya, everyone's old favorite. It was inevitable that we would spend the best part of the evening, recalling various incidents of ridiculousness from the office, and I, being the only one that still works there, of course spoke the loudest.
It was great to be together again. Such evenings have the weird effect of making me want to stay here longer but equally making me want to follow Ems home (dragging PG, AA, EN and others with me).
I had a press conference this week, always a time of great anxiety as so much can go wrong. So I spent most of Thursday at work acting the oracle to the project team - they ask questions, I think about it, I tell them what to do, they do it, feeling better that they are no longer responsible for the result, they come back and ask a whole lot of new questions and so it goes on. At the end of a day like that, I was more than eager to wind down.
So I meet Mr. Sussed for kimchi. Now, as time has gone by, I've realized that perhaps I have created a misnomer... I've realized that in fact, possibly the only thing that Mr. Sussed is sussed about is what he is not actually sussed about... You follow? No? Well basically, Mr. Sussed is very charming because he can tell you exactly why things are not right in his life, with a kind of clarity and lucidity that even I can only dream about. He is in no way deluded, a quality I find rare in men (and, indeed, some women) here. However, Mr. Sussed remains largely discontent and unhappy, perhaps even more so than most because he knows, more than most, exactly what's wrong with him. Anyway, I decided that he was a "project man" in the making... and, as is my way, I told him so. He took it well and seemed to accept his new label, at least he did not quite dispute it.
Now I think I'm an excellent project manager, God knows I've had enough experience but it occurred to me during the evening, that just for once, maybe I would like to be the "project" that needs to be managed...
The kimchi was consumed by the way, at a new place (at least relatively and to me), called the Kimchi bar in Ebisu, a bar which specializes in Korean shochu and - you guessed it - kimchi. And that's it. Alcohol and kimchi. Amazing kimchi however, almost creamy, and the perfect complement to shochu.
Wednesday evening was play reading, the last for John, a regular attendee since the group was revived last September and who is heading back to Blighty and the great unknown, this week. As it was his swan song performance, he was given the "directorial" position. He chose the Jack, or the Submission by lonesco -
An absurdist study of a wildly dysfunctional family in the Never Never Land of playwright lonesco’s unfettered imagination. Ionesco’s eccentric Jack family, exaggerated and preposterous, might be called the mother of all dysfams
Apt choice given he was leaving the absurdity that is Japan and good choice because I think it is the only script that almost everyone in the room immediately wanted to read again... partly because we didn't understand half of it. It had its funny moments - "lied, lied, lied, like alkali" - but think it's one of those "I guess you had to be there" things.
As we said our goodbyes, John said a particularly sweet thing to me - I had a beautiful accent, not unlike that of Maggie Smith and that it was enhanced further by my unusual and charming turn of phrase.
John is one of life's gentlemen, and I do wish him all the best on the other side.
I'm directing next time and so we are going to be doing a farce (what else would you expect from me?) by Tom Stoppard.
Bizarre Roppongi evening last night. Began with relative sophistication, degenerated into soul destroying pub crawl...
I was helping PG celebrate his b-day - his girlfriend A had a arranged dinner at an excellent French place in Nishi Azabu. PG had generously invited four male friends along and me. As the novelty Western woman at the table, I was not short of attention of a sort and even if I do say so myself, I was on pretty good form - wit and resultant laughter flowed as freely as the wine. However, as we Western women know wit, intellect or even cheekbones are not the way to a lot of Western men's hearts over here - for many it's either complete idolization or, as in the case of these chaps, good old fashioned t & a. After dinner they headed to a strip joint. Happy B-day PG!
I on the other hand had fortuitously double-booked myself and hooked up with more wholesome friends, P and B and some others in the Hobgoblin. This time the footie was the main attraction and I had the feeling that no amount of t & a would have distracted most of the testoster-drones watching the TV screen.
Tired of the Roppongi scene, P and I decided to head back to the relative calm of the 'burbs and managed to persuade B to join us. P took us to her local Aussie hangout - the Blue Dingo in my old neighborhood, Gakugeidaigaku. This time the vibe was chilled and B played guitar for us. A nice way to end a somewhat frustrating evening.
Recent Comments