[ Been out drinkin with Hayashi sensei tonight. I'll put all my drunk remarks in brackets. The rest of the stuff I wrote earlier today. I just heard the saddest story, which I will now relate.

So, we were out drinking, and what with drinking comes but love and regret? Natural as peanuts and a coaster. We started speaking of ours, and being but men we have many. And then comes this: "When I was in middle school" he bagan, "I had a crush on this girl. To me she was everything. This was a long time ago. I'm fifty now so maybe 40 years ago. She was everything." His hands reach over his head to a measure he cannot reach. "She was on the swim team, you know? and academically. Very smart. I still remember the day. I sent her a new year's card and she wrote me back!" His face is so expressive. His eyes carry so much life, they search the air above him and I percieve he has allowed a part of himself to travel. "I was so happy!"

"So what happened?" I ask in my best greek chorus.

"I never asked her out. I was, you know, a geek. With my GLASSES, and so on. I could never... but still sometimes when I'm on my motorcycle I ride through the area where she used to live. I ride by her old house, but she doesn't live there anymore, you know." He looks away.

Forty years. I think Hayashi sensei has the heart of an elephant. He never saw Citizen Cane. I asked him.]


Graduation today. Even in a language I can understand, ceremonious speeches are a serious soporific. But in Japanese? No apothacary could produce a potion so potent (have at you matt!). I felt I was drowning in warm milk. My childlike grip on my mind loosened, and it bobbled to the ceiling and lodged itself in the farthest corner. There it thought about the following things: 1. court reporters, 2. tests, 3. estrucians, flags and other symbols of identity and our ability to reify said symbols, 4. Jenny Holzer, 5. Vitto Acconci and his architecture, 6. People who have no patience for John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 7. food. Then the slide show came on and I listened to SMAP.

Here's why the symbol-thoughts: There's a big debate here as to whether the Japanese flag should be shown at ceremonies such as graduation. To many, it represents an age of mistakes and rampant militaristic imperialism, having been invented after the Meiji restoration and used primarily during WWII (is that right?). Some of those opposed to its use are the teacher's unions, who have their roots in early post-war communism and who still keep their left-like leanings. Many teachers in this union decided to protest the use of the flag by not rising for the national anthem.

I was left to decide for myself what I would do. Although essentialy inconsequential, I felt the burden was not without symbolic meaning, and spent some time deciding the best action for me to take. In the end I decided to stand. It's not my place even to say, is it? And standing with the status quo was the closest I could come to silence. [Man, I hope that's the last time I ever write anything like that. That sounds horrible.]

Hey, I just learned that Belle and Sebastian got their name from this anime: "Meiken Jolie"