16 posts tagged “friends”

I thought I might miss the club and the girls and just being a hostess in general. But I don't. Just thinking about working again kind of makes me feel tired and nauseous. It's tough working a job where you have to deal with rejection all the time. And it's tough when it's YOU that's getting rejected. How attractive you are and stuff.

So now I wear no makeup, barely brush my hair, and my eyebrows are free and wild. And I haven't had any alcohol. It's awesome.

I didn't know what to say. Besides the obvious, which is "well you guys are divorced."

I probably should have brought some leftovers over though. Oops.

jet-lagged and its messing me up. You know something's wrong when I'm waking up before 7am. That's the time I go to sleep, people!

I'm trying to be a housewife and cook and stuff for my dad. I think he's misguided in his vegan diet. He buys soy substitutes and they may be dairy-free, but they're processed to within an inch of their lives. Processed food is just never good.

Plus we went crazy and bought so much stuff at the grocery store, so now I have to figure out how to cook everything before it goes bad. When we went to the kosher market down the road, my dad said "don't be freaked out at how crowded and pushy everyone is." I thought "do you know where i've been living for the last seven years?"

Ate a fish burrito today and my dad had a steak one (he's allowed to be bad one day a week, plus he was celebrating because he passed his test). It was good.

He's a drummer, he's really into drums. And he unfortunately loves 80s stadium rock. LOVES it. "You're coming to my show on Saturday," he said to me. I hate guys that do that. Anyways his band is a little lame, and I wanted to see what my dad and sister were up to first.

Then he said, "I'm sure your dad will let you go if you tell him my band's supporting The Tubes!"

First of all, I'm 28 years old, I don't need PERMISSION from my father. Second of all, The Tubes!? Actually that's kind of funny/cool. I might have to go after all.

Dancer Girl is now 28. It was her birthday this morning.

So here is a quick tribute to her:
She works three jobs and wants to be a singer. Her father died and she likes boys with baby faces. She's a bulldozer and she frightens people. She spent too many years in London and it took away her Japanese soul, but she wouldn't trade it for the world. She's an emotional open book, and smiles and laughs and cries from the heart. She's my friend and I love her, even if I want to make her shut up half the time!

So happy birthday to her. I got really tired and sleepy sitting with the last customers, but once we were released I was fine.

We went to see her old friend Riese, a big guy from Africa. She's known him since she was 14. She used to try to get into clubs and he was the bouncer, and he'd tell her to get the hell out. That somehow turned into a friendship that lasted 14 years. At Riese's club, I looked over at the DJ booth and the DJ looked really familiar. Like really familiar. I swear to god he was one of the guys I used to hang out with when I lived in Saitama.

I went over to the DJ booth to see if it was, and he stared at me and I stared at him. "Is that Jade?" he asked. Jesus christ, it really was him. I haven't seen him in at least five years. Five years! Maybe six! He looked the same, maybe a little more tired. He's one of these lizard-like wiry guys. Maybe like a Japanese Willem Defoe, so he's got a tired look anyway.

Me and Dancer ended the night eating. Which is my favorite way to end any night. Good food, good company, and then a good sleep, that's my idea of heaven.

The group she sings with has made it into some big competition in Osaka later this year. Good luck on that.

Happy Birthday Dancer Girl!

It was weird hanging out with Marty the photographer in NY. We used to hang out together every single day, and I got really used to having my picture taken all the time. And it wasn't just me, she took pictures of EVERYTHING. At first I wasn't into having unflattering super close ups of my face while I busted a gut and stuff like that. But now i think it's kind of cool that the funnest years of my life so far are so well documented.

I found some old photos of us from those fun days in Marty's apartment. "Marty, we were so cute, and we didn't even know it!" was my reaction when I saw a picture of us looking tanned, young and happy. Youth is so wasted on the young.

She had a good time taking pictures of our hair dying disaster. When I woke up with pink and blond stripy hair, Marty started snapping away and laughing hysterically. When I glared at her through my tears/laughter and tried to tell her to cut it out, she looked at me, held back a burst of laughter, and took another picture.

Oh how I missed her.

For photo stories, I've seen her literally sit right next to people and take a close up of their face when they turned around to look at her. "Ahhhhh!" yelled one victim.

I love her. How can you not love someone that makes you laugh all the time?

Hung out with my Russian friend Sabrina yesterday, spent the night at her house. She lives in Manhattan with her Japanese pimping boyfriend. He's a Kyoto guy with a tattoo (I saw it this morning when he was half awake, ha!). He hates Tokyo. I called him on it and he didn't deny it. Kansai people always hate Tokyo.

Their apartment is really cool. You can see the water and Ellis Island and if you could see through the big building in the way, you'd be able to see the Statue of Liberty. Anyway it's very cool. And ridiculously expensive. She pays one third of the rent. He pays the rest, but it's unfortunately half his salary, so now he's living like a poor boy. Sabrina didn't find out until after they moved in that 2/3 of the rent = half his paycheck. She was like "he could say no, why he did not tell me?" I think he was scared to say no.

So I had to keep my mouth shut about the fact that I watched Sabrina spend almost the equivalent of her share of rent on clothes that very evening.

Sabrina brings new meaning to the term shopaholic. She's chronically under-paid, yet goes on shopping sprees buying dresses for hundreds and thousands of dollars. Yesterday I had to do my best to convince her NOT to buy a green, 400dollar dress that made her look like a big giant balloon. She bought it. She also bought 160dollar green shoes. She immediately returned them though. Then I went back to her place and she fed me chicken liver (ewwwwww) and cabbage, and showed me pictures from her Birthday, from New Years, etc. "That dress was 2,000dollars, and that dress was 500dollars" etc., it was insane. She's some kind of financial planning genius, because she always manages to survive. She always looks amazing though.

Her boyfriend said that when he takes her out and she's looking all sexy in heels, she's taller than him, and he feels like everyone's staring at them like "what's that little Asian guy doing with HER?!" I think he's cute, and he's fine. Who cares if other American guys are big and tall. Big and tall's not necessarily a good thing. Anyway, her boyfriend's bigger than mini Boxer.

Best Friend's getting married in less than two weeks! I'm going to New York in less than a week!!!!! I'm hyperventilating, so I can't even imagine what Best Friend's going through.

Even though Best Friend and I have a somewhat similar family situation background, she seems to have somehow gotten over her commitment/marriage-phobia. When she found an amazing guy that was perfect for her, she recognized how awesome they were for each other, and asked him to marry her. He said of course.

Wow.

I feel like I'm gonna cry already. I think I'm going to be one big puddle of tears for the next two weeks.

I'm nervous and panicked, and I'm not even sure why. SHE's the one getting married, but I feel like I'm the one that's gonna need a brown paper bag to breath into.

Had a serious blast from the past today. My phone rang just as I was lugging the last of my luggage from Shinjuku to Roppongi. "Hey Jadie, who do you think this is?" said the voice on the phone in Japanese. Since the voice was calling me by my hostess name, I thought it must be Dancer Girl. But no! It was my old mama!

The mama that taught me everything I know! The beautiful Mama Masako! She ran a club in Ginza, and she was wonderful to me. I feel bad about the half ass job I did for her. Right now I resent working hard for my current lazy old hag mama, but I really feel bad for short changing Mama Masako. I was often really lazy, and I really could have worked a lot harder.

Anyways, so Mama Masako calls me, and tells me Fabiana is with her. So I rush home, change out of my sweaty clothes and throw on a hat on my weird hair and go out to meet her. Of course there's a rich customer there that miraculously is also super generous with his money. You know, I have to bow at the feet of my master. Mama Masako is over 40, but she looks absolutely stunning. She could pass as younger than me. And she comes across as cute. Not only that, she can get customers to just part with so much cash without even trying. I truly have to bow at her feet.

Working under my old hag mama is making me lazy and stupid. She's nothing compared to masako.

I actually woke up at 7am. It's now after 10am, and I've done nothing. I lay in bed and listened to the latest KATG, then made some tea, and I'm still doing nothing.

I found this Charisma Man book in my friend's house and found endless amusement reading it. For those of you that don't know, this is a comic strip about a loser white guy who turns into Charisma Man when in front of Japanese people (especially Japanese women). I know that some of these strips were literally ten years old, but they were still spot on.

I stole the book from my friend and showed Cookie (I put up a Cast of Characters in my profile, so take a look for more info on who Cookie is). She tends to go out with Charisma Men. She can't read English, but she got the gist of it. It was kind of a revelation for her.

I also showed skater boy. He's not white, so his stock doesn't necessarily rise after he enters this country. In fact, he looked kind of like a homeless Japanese kid. But he has gone out with some Japanese girls in the past. Like Japanese girls from Japan, not Japanese Americans. He said they were all stupid, really indecisive, and reliant on the men around them. I told him that they probably just liked him and were acting stupid on purpose because they thought that would make them more attractive. It's cute to be stupid and indecisive here.

He still had some of the Charisma Man vibe though. A girl at the phone shop really liked him, probably because he was foreign. I told him that if he worked up his US passport, he could be a Charisma Man.

My best friend has lost her phone. This is a big deal because I can't talk to her. Good thing I accumulate phones like dust on a tv screen. I told her I'll give her one of mine.

Skater boy has one of my other ones, and he's now going to stay with little brother's mama (and little brother) in Osaka. Little brother expressed annoyance and envy at the fact that skater boy was lent my phone while he wasn't. I told him he could get himself his own phone, and I purposefully got this phone in a pink color so this type of thing wouldn't happen. He said "well I'll talk to skater boy about it." I told him the only discussion would be with me, and he can't have it.

What's with these younger boys that think that getting things off of girls is the same as earning things? The crazy thing is we hung out with Cookie last night, and Cookie started saying she'll give little brother one of her phones that she doesn't use. I told her that these kids need to earn their crap, they get given things all the time because they know how to trick girls and manipulate their mothering instinct.

I just can't believe it.

And Dancer Girl seriously owes me. I just went out into the hallway to transfer the pukey clothes from the washer into the dryer, and when I came back into my room it seriously STINKS! Like puke!

She can repay me by not drinking ever again.