Pros and cons of attempting to survive on maximum recommended dosage of Japanese cold medicine on a workday:
Pros: Finally answering the old nagging question of whether Vapnik–Chervonenkis dimension makes more sense on mushrooms (or any satisfyingly close approximation thereof).
Cons: The answer is: no, it definitely doesn’t.
I wasn’t exactly handed a winning ticket at the Genetic Lottery. As a kid, it would have taken less time to list the parts that did work as they should have. But things got under control and I am generally fine these days (beside that violent twitching on the left side of my face and the regular furball coughing, that is).
However, God personally hates me and wants to make sure I know it. Which is why I belong to the statistically improbable demographic of young people with recurring kidney stone problems despite relatively healthy dietary habits (people in their twenties who barely drink a can of coke a month aren’t supposed to get kidney stones, let alone chronic ones). On a nearly regular basis, about once every two years, I get to enjoy the pain of childbirth, minus naming process and postpartum hormones rush.
On the plus side, with the years, the routine has started to take the edge off (or I am developing a much higher tolerance to pain): when a stone episode strikes, nowadays, I just casually recoil in a fetal position for a couple hours at a time while waiting for it to pass; years ago: I would longingly stare at a kitchen knife while considering my options for self-surgery on the spot.
The other good thing is that I have learned to recognise early symptoms (as well as the time they are likely to occur: mine always happen in Winter, for no reason any specialist has ever been able to explain satisfyingly), which helps preventing me from making bad decisions… such as embarking on a 15 hour trip home to San Francisco from Paris via London (aka: the Story of my First Stone). Testament to the good old pre-911 days: when some security guy at Heathrow noticed the sweaty, grimacing guy waiting for his plane, went and asked “Sir, I must ask you: have you been consuming any drugs?” and got a near-hysterical answer of “No, but if you have any, I’ll take them!” through gritted teeth… he just walked away as he came.
These days, once the chest pain shows up, I would know better than trying to lob it with 2 aspirins and a cup of boiling hot tea purchased on the Eurostar for sole comfort.
Three days into the current episode, I finally went for a consultation at my nearby hospital: a CT scan confirmed the obvious and I was sent on my way with the usual advices and a couple prescription drugs.
Incidentally: I payed ¥5,000 (less than $50) for a full consultation and a CT scan, both of which took a grand total of 40 minutes, from the moment I stepped into my neighbourhood clinic. The actual cost, pre-universal-coverage, was ¥19,000, or about $200 (for that money, a US CT technician won’t even spit on you): dear US readers, aren’t you glad you live in a country gloriously free of such pesky Universal Healthcare and reasonable health costs.
Anyway, all that to say that I am slightly incapacitated at the moment, and lagging on communication (although oddly productive on whatever I manage to put my mind to, in between two bouts of holding my abdomen, wondering if downing a bottle of Draino might help). It will get better and I’ll catch up on email and everything, soon (i.e. anywhere from next week to next year).
That’s it for the immediate personal health update. Everybody with a normally working pair of kidneys and zero interest in the practice of hobbyist medicine at home can (and should) stop reading right now. Trust me, there’s nothing interesting under the fold.
When leaving the residence, this morning, I found a note in my mailbox.
Under a delightful MS-Word Clipart-esque depiction of what your mum’s 60′s medicine cabinet might have looked like, sat an ominous “Urgent Warning” about the evils of (illegal) drugs, in big bold red letters. Promising resident researchers somewhat decreased health and much decreased freedom of movement, should they choose to ignore said warning during their stay in Japan.
The thoughts going through my head were, in that order:
I am back.
Or more exactly: I am back closer to an internet connection. Still somewhere down south, albeit in a more family-oriented settings.
These five days in the boondocks were absolute paradise and helped reminding me that, was the choice to come down between: big city and the internets on one side, friends, sun, fresh veggies, cheap wine and homegrown on the other, I’d easily slide toward the latter as a permanent way of life.
During my blissful stay in the heart of French Aveyronais region, I:
Back in P-town this week-end.
When asked about what it is that they like most about Japan, the Japanese will often gladly inform you that one of the top reasons their country is so great is that it counts four distinct seasons in a year. Reaction upon learning that, indeed, most countries of the civilized world also do, ranges from genuinely surprised to incredulous. They also think the song you may know as Auld Lang Syne is an old Japanese ditty, so great at announcing the closing of public places that some smooth-voiced Italian-American singer decided to cover it in English…
Anyway, about the season part: I think they may have been onto something. Four seasons has become a rarity in our pre-apocalyptic, globally-warming world. As I recently discovered, places like Paris have already switched to a much easier to maintain two-season yearly schedule. Translated, they would be something like: Rainy, from September to May and Balls-Hot, from June to August.
If I might have some regrets over skipping Spring on the way, you will not hear one single complaint from me about finally leaving Winter behind. Instead, let me tell you how my first Summer evening of the year went.
Yesterday was the much anticipated downgrade from code red to code orange-ish yellow on the Deadline-o-meter. A moment eagerly awaited by my liver for the past two weeks.
All that was left between me and an entire evening of drunken debauchery were a couple paragraphs of cognitive linguistics rambling and a few chores to take care of. Of course, by the time I finally left my place with one errand still left to run, the clock was ticking 11pm. Hopeful nonetheless, I grabbed my trusty iPod, a half-empty pack of menthol cigarettes, some cash and dashed out, phoning my friends that I would be meeting them shortly thereafter. Note the cigarettes: they are important.
Does effervescent codeine taste like crap or what?
Having to stomach the incredibly bitter aftertaste nearly offsets the pleasure of absorbing pharmaceutical-grade mind-numbing painkillers.
What’s with French meds and bubbles? Can’t they just make them into tiny little pills you swallow, as the rest of the world does?
Must be the Champagne factor…
Do you feel it too?
This warm and fuzzy feeling of well being all over your body, the sensation you are constantly swimming through mellifluous pink cotton clouds, this uncanny inclination toward benevolence and understanding when confronted to the vast dumbness of this world…
It’s seasonal…
Yep: cough-syrup season is upon us!
Party tidbit from years ago…
dr Dave: – You know: Pandas…
About that whole “nearly-extinct-but-won’t-fuck-behind-bars” problem…
I wonder… What if you just fed the pandas a few E’s?Brian: – Bah… They’d probably just go into a corner and pet their own fur for hours.
Chalk it up to a simple equation involving roughly 2 weeks of time, 50 pages of yet-unwritten report and 500+ pages of reading material… Blogging just hasn’t been a priority round here lately.
What has been a priority, though, was the quest for any combination of chemical aides, likely to make the required 250 hours of studies in 10 days, a technical, if not quite reasonable health-wise, possibility.
Thus, in the spirit of killing two heart-attacks with one stone, and without further ado, the first episode of:
The definition of cruel is when your friends, over at your house for some lo-key, yet highly inebriated, bbq dinner, drunkenly (and unwittingly) opened that one very special bottle of Piper Heidsieck Special Millesime.
No. Hold on. Cruel is when it turns out they drank but a glass and left a full uncorked bottle sitting there for you to mourn in the morning.
Inhumanly cruel, is when all this takes place in the middle of your shot at reaching ascetic enlightenment, and subsequent self-imposed ban on all forms of alcohol consumption.
If I end up not drinking off that bottle today, I will personally write in a demand for a medal from the British National Temperance League.
Breaking with that old personal habit of favouring vices over addiction, I decided today that it was high time to resume heavy drug use for a while. And since methamphetamine is so damn expensive round here, I naturally turned to the second best option: Caffeine.
The deal is: I never drink coffee. Or hardly ever. Save for the odd cup or two when meeting people in a coffeeshop (and that’s only because the local Starbucks employees still refuses to this day to serve me Mojitos, even when I am ready to bring my own bottle of Rum). But coffee in the morning (i.e.: before 8pm) is a rarity.
Because of my complete non-addiction to caffeine, and since I still have my old hardcore coffee drinker habits, dosage-wise, those rare instances where I fix myself a cup usually result in uncontrollable twitching and borderline dizziness for most of the day.
Hunter S. Thomspon killed himself today.
Damn, it’s like the loss of a spiritual father.
Here is what he had to say about this poor excuse for a President.
As promised, here is a first update on the progress of the previously mentioned no-roommate project.
And I am ashamed to say that there isn’t much progress altogether.
You see, after briefly considering adult movie-making or experiments in urban anchoretical life as chief occupations for my week-end, I finally settled on a much more pedestrian — yet of proven entertainment value — plan. A plan essentially centered around a few easy concepts such as: alcohol (preferably cheap and plentiful), friend(s), cultural exploration of new neighbourhoods (through random sampling of bars and izakaia) as well as, potentially, use of substances and sex (on same requirements as alcohol).
In that case, you may ask, why am I sitting in front of my laptop on a friday night, typing this while most obviously not partaking in any of these activities. And that is a very legitimate question.
Is it Japanese way of saying “better living through chemistry“?
Because my last entry on Japan might have sounded overly negative, and also because the tone of the last few weeks is dangerously edging toward serious and mature stuff, here is something to bring back the balance on both counts.
Although on some level, this might read as yet another episode of Wretchedly Altered Dave’s Comical Adventures in Magic Tokyo, it is also a heartwarming testimony to a people’s confounding sense of honesty underlined by the epic struggle of a man with the evil power of pharmaceutical-grade narcoleptics. A modern tale of hope and pride, if you will.
This is what I will be solemnly citing in answer to the usual insipid inquiry regarding my inspirations for coming to this country. Of course, I couldn’t have cared less about this when I bought my plane ticket, but I sure ain’t telling people the truth about coming here to complete my lifelong collection of worn Japanese schoolgirls uniforms.
Anyway, this all happened about two weeks ago. I know this is no longer fresh news, but, as you might recall, I have been quite busy lately ensuring that I did not have to find a spot for my tent in Yoyogi koen. And after the move, NTT persisted in taking more than ten days to move an ADSL account that had been created in three days, thus ensuring my internet activities were limited to the most essential stuff (which oddly enough, does not include ranting on this page).
This actually happened right after we had found a place at the last minute and gotten approved by the owner: all that was left to do was bring the cash and sign the lease, on Saturday morning, and move in the following day.
On Friday evening, I had planned to go play a few records at Bar Tokyo with Miss Kate, which seemed like a great occasion to celebrate at the same time. Lease-signing meeting time was 10:30 in Ueno: that gave me ample time to get back home with the first train, take a quick shower, maybe even a post-disco nap and then head over to the agency with Nordine and Yoshiko (who had been enrolled as our personal scribe). NOTHING wrong with this plan, right?
Oh yea… one important detail: a conjunction of factors such as daily ATM withdrawal limit, the scarcity of ATM accepting foreign cards in this city and the presence of one such bank, open 24h, in Roppongi, had caused me to stop on the way there to withdraw the last leg of the rent/deposit/gift money we were supposed to bring in the day after.
So it was half past midnight, I had about 60,000 yens in cash on me, and I was heading toward some seedy bar for the night.