I haven't yet admitted to experiencing culture shock, though if you take a moment to ask them, the other exchange students will tell you that lately my behavior has been a bit--well--peculiar. Not that life has surprised me with a dizzying 180 degree turn--but things have changed--and if we are going to use directional metaphors it might be better to describe the fallout from Saturday night at Club Pure as a head on collision with everything unknown to me about Tokyo and the girls who live here.

All things normal have disappeared, washed down the drain like bathwater, vanishing underground complete with that grating, obnoxious sucking sound that signals the end of what until now had been a warm, enveloping experience.

So now I'm at the part where you step out of that bath and learn the freezing truth: reality is actually a lot colder than the steamy, intoxicating illusions of the shower room.

Not that my relationship with Hisayo and Numa was all hot water.

But this is where culture shock makes its humble entrance.

Culture shock is like, you know, when you want to go use a toilet and realize you have to squat because the stupid thing isn't a toilet at all but actually just a little hole in the ground not fit for human use whatsoever. Then you have shit on your pants.

Culture shock is, you know man, like when you go to Shinjuku and they won't take your credit card but you really fucking want that jacket, and like, why the fuck won't they take the fucking credit card those fucking Japs, don't they know what the fuck credit is?

Before Saturday, that's how I defined culture shock, and that was completely wrong.

Losing your friends is culture shock.

But of course, that's not the beginning.

Flashing lights, a smoky dance floor and hundreds of people moving together in some ridiculous mass of drunken, endless, stupidity--perspiring from every available pore, breathing hard, heavy, deeply; the scent of sex floating in the air like exhaust--lingering. With every crashing, flashing strobe, the trashiest and classiest faces of Shibuya's Sentagai Ave were lit up briefly, those exhausted eyes visible beneath the now hours old makeup--It doesn't look so good anymore, honey. It's 4 a.m. and you're tired. Party on... Party on...

Club Pure was a proper club, packed with gaijin and, of course, gaijiin hunters. Take a bite of this place--All Hallows Eve--my taste buds say apple pie, American Apple Fucking Pie™ and it tastes sweet, not bitter, as did the strictly Japanese clubs I visited weeks prior.

I danced as part of that stupid sweaty mass. For hours and hours I danced.

And then for 40 minutes I sat and talked to Yumi. Forty minutes.

And that's the problem.

Culture shock is, you know man, when you spend all your time with that girl who you thought was just your friend and then you realize that because you spent a shitload of time with the girl she thinks you're fucking dating, even though it's completely the opposite--you know?--and then when you go to the club and talk to someone else she flips her shit on you and starts ignoring you.

That's a definition of culture shock that I hadn't even imagined before coming to Japan--the kind of definition you won't find in any Barnes & Noble paperback about the ups-and-downs and ins-and-outs of Tokyo.

Hisayo, I think, hates me now, simply for opening my mouth to another girl, simply for trying not to lead her on, simply for trying to be something, that in America, is so treasured; to be the best of friends, to have something where sexuality is not allowed, where a 5 a.m. chat can be about anything and everything, nothing at all.

You don't do that in Japan, oh no.

If you are spending time with a girl, you must want her to be your girlfriend, right?

Hisayo was not just a friend to me, she was my best friend, and now what we had has been reconciled into an e-mail only relationship, bickering in English, then in Japanese, then again in English, a tug of war where nothing is gained and my footing just keeps eroding.

"How did you manage to regress so quickly?"

Must just be my character, drama seems to follow me like flies follow a semi full of manure-covered cattle on their way to certain, yet unknown execution.

God damned goosebumps. It's freezing here now, absolutely freezing. A cold, cold wind has come over Tokyo, and I'm just going to let it sweep me away. Whoosh. There I go, up up and away into the clouds, where although it is lonely, a precious commodity is abundant: perspective. Nothing matters at all--we are made of the same electrons; from the dung caked onto those cows speeding down the interstate at 80 m.p.h to the bird poop on your windshield to the President of the United States, we are all made of the same electrons, and nothing matters.

You don't want to talk now?

You don't want to be my friend?

You don't want to go to Kyoto anymore?

Fine, I'll go with Heather.

I'll spend my time with Yumi.

I'll move on, easily.

Things can change as quick as day changes to night, sweet life... sweet life...