I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

I haven’t been too busy, just haven’t had anything nice to say lately so I figured I’d better not immortalize my negativity in cyberspace. When Gene’s free and clear of the Navy I’m not going to hold back.

I went to the second installment of kimono class yesterday and am one step closer to being able to dress myself in Japan’s traditional costume. Everyone freaks out over a gaijin in a kimono, but I think you really need to be Japanese to do justice to it. Somehow it just looks better with shiny black hair and a diminutive physique. Not the straw that sits atop my noggin which sits atop a busty Anglican body. 

As I’m learning to wear this complex thing I always wonder how on earth such a stylized garment came into being. I got a book and am now reading a little bit about the evolution of the kimono. But it’s getting close to bedtime here so I think I’ll write about that tomorrow. Here are a couple of photos for now. Keep in mind that we had guests over for dinner the night before so I was slightly hungover (which is what accounts for the pallor) and there was no air conditioning in the room (which is what accounts for the hair/straw pasted to my head).

 I went on my usual weekend insect outing here on the base today. It was a good day for beetles as you can see from the photos.

The first thing I found was a ghoulish scene; a large sinister Reduviid bug sucking the life out of a small beetle. Kind of an apt metaphor for this base and me.

I’ve got a good story brewing. On Wednesday I will attend the first of 4 weekly kimono-dressing classes. I bought a kimono a couple of months ago and it turns out I got quite a bargain. I paid around $100 for it. The woman I bought it from runs a secondhand clothing shop, but this kimono had never been worn. The sleeves were too long for most Japanese people, but they fit my long gaijin arms perfectly. Some of the undergarments needed altering, so I gave the kimono and all its accoutrements to my friend Atsuko for some tailoring. She’s somewhat of a kimono expert and upon inspecting the garment, found that it had had its flowers handpainted and that it was custom-made in Ginza in Tokyo. In other words, someone most likely paid several thousand dollars for it at one time. I think that it was rendered  unsaleable by its long sleeves and the woman at the clothing shop had a hard time getting rid of it.

You just don’t throw on a kimono. The last time I wore one it took 2 and 3 people almost an hour to dress me so I have no idea how I’m going to handle this when I get back to the States…if I ever end up wearing it. But, if I don’t at least I’ll know how and I don’t know too many people – including Japanese! – who can properly truss someone up in a kimono. You just never know when that kind of knowledge might come in handy.

I’m kind of coming unglued. I’ve had yet more run-ins with the security people on this base and it’s really bumming me out. Well, not really bumming me out…just making me really toxic and cantankerous. Gene maintains that it is partially my fault and that I bring it on myself. Which is not entirely untrue as much as I am loathe to admit it. I told him today that some people just aren’t meant to be caged and, unfortunately, I’m one of them. I’m thinking about moving off-base into a cardboard box out on Monkey Island.