Deal With It: Japanese Jetlag
Woke up on a thin piece of cloth over a tatami mat. Sort of happy to be so close to the floor because I don’t have to worry about falling out of bed, even though I have never fallen out of bed. Even as a child. Put my laptop on my chest and opened a new Word document, opened iTunes, opened Firefox. Put on the song “Strange Fires” by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. At 1:24 I changed it to “Lovefool” by the Cardigans and Wikipedia’d the Cardigans. Scrolled through half of it, found out they played the graduation episode of Beverly Hills 90210 in 1997, found out some other things that I don’t remember. Clicked on Beverly Hills 90210. Read the phrase “the show also addressed numerous topical issues including date rape, alcoholism, domestic violence, gay rights, drug abuse, teenage suicide, AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and abortion.” Clicked on “teenage suicide,” wrote “woke up” in Word document, put on “Lost in the Supermarket” by the Clash, saw the phrase “self-immolation” in “teenage suicide” Wiki and read the rest of the sentence and then the preceding one. Pieced it together to say “Conversely, during the samurai era in Japan, seppuku was respected as a means of atonement for failure or as a form of protest. In the 20th century, suicide in the form of self-immolation has been used as a form of protest, and in the form of kamikaze and suicide bombing as a military or terrorist tactic.” Wanted to click on seppuku but hit ctrl+N and opened a new window first. Mistakenly typed “Alicia” into the URL for no apparent reason.
Deleted that and typed in “gmail.com” and hit enter. While that loaded I wrote “on a thin piece of cloth over a tatami mat” in Word and changed the song to “Hang Me Out to Dry” by Cold War Kids. Went back to teenage suicide and forgot why I was there but clicked on a painting of “English romantic poet Thomas Chatterdon, believed to have killed himself with arsenic in 1770.” Saved the picture to my desktop and logged into Gmail. Took a sip of some kind of bottled juice on the floor, thought it tasted warm but not bad. Got a Gchat from Lucien saying “hey.” I typed back “hey man” and minimized the window, then put on “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio even though the song before, whatever it was, hadn’t finished. Looked at the picture of dead Thomas Chatterton and decided to set is as my background regardless of already saving it to my desktop. Typed the words “sort of happy” into the Word document, sat up. Changed the song to “In the Belly” by Other Passengers. Realized that Lucien had been messaging me but thought the Gmail sound was just part of the song so I typed “sorry” after seeing his last line was “yo!” Didn’t read the rest but clicked on the link he sent. Muted iTunes and watched the video of “An Arab Brings a Lion to the Party.” Watched two more “Arab” videos from the YouTube sidebar and typed “to be so close to the floor” in Word then closed my computer. Stared at the floor perpetually for three hours and thirteen minutes until the sun came up. Realized there is no Daylight Savings in Japan. Finally fell asleep at sunrise and woke up at dusk . Put my laptop on my chest, opened Word, opened, iTunes, opened Firefox. Saw Thomas Chatterdon. Thought I was actively engaging in ‘yesterday’ and then realized it was fourteen hours ahead of New York time, making it already tomorrow. Wrote in Word document “Thought I was actively engaging in ‘yesterday’ and then realized it was fourteen hours ahead of New York time, making it already tomorrow.” Then changed the tense to present, then back to past, then to future, then closed my computer and tried desperately to fall back asleep.