You know when you have one of those perfect days, or set of days? That was yesterday, for me. I`ll write about it later, but I will sum it up with keywords now: presentation, coffee, kanji, shinjuku, yuta, shimokitazawa, vegetables, yumi, harajuku, omotesando, vegan, 3rd floor, karaoke, takayuki, kyohei, picasso, love.

Sorry that I haven`t been writing much lately, but I`ve just been incredibly busy... hopefully I can crank some more out before I come back (December 4th, if you`re counting the days).

Just lampin' ten stories above Shinjuku scanning a mag--6:30, Tower Records, auburn sunset--staring down scarecrow hardcore wannabe thugs, my face scowl peering at the bodies of these letters, various styles...

Hat cocked low, suddenly aware--what's this? DJ Krush, Liquid Room, doors at 7:30? Lying magazines, always a moment late--shit--always a moment too late, but whatever. I treat it like the life it is, something that can't be knocked, rapidly dodging pedestrians and passerby, headphones draped around my neck like the crown fucking jewels.

I'll dip to this little show, I'll dip.

Because I'm one in a million, here, light skin and tangled hair.

Whoosh, first floor, second, third, somewhere in the world, walking with the bent leg as red Ferrari's roll by on Yasukuni-dori; you know, thousands of people died here during World War 2--on this hot asphalt now strangled with cars, people, etc. Forgotten, forgotten, Shinjuku it is--now. Blaze a 50...

Using my TV phone I see girls in they thongs, fantasizing while they home alone. Momentarily use technology, get my ends, move on.

That was only a brief stop, now back to the head rock.

Face with an upside down smile I jet down the escalator, heart of the city hustle, step one, two, three, quickly. Slurp some udon--served hot with mentsu--some basement bordello-looking dimly lit shit. Quickly now, take my ticket, thank you, "gochisosama" and all that talk.

Burp.

Pack my bags, hand me my platinum suitcases--next stop: Ebisu, 5 minutes by the green line. Yamanotesen.

DJ Krush and Mr. Lif are waiting.

Living that life, again, I am.

Let that shit roll of my tongue, converse quickly on the platform. Two school-girls, sign my autograph and step into oblivion. Disappearing in a blur, speeding away, away... away. Peace young ladies, peace.

Red carpet on the sidewalk, I gotta step on it.

It's that kind of day, one where my addictions are fed and I walk sated, place to place, a bulbous, greedy thing. Full of coffee, melon-pan, udon, life, etc.

Liquid room,

Liquid room,

Liquid room,

DJ Krush and traditional japanese instrumentation, that kind of feeling, four hours long with my arm tied up, inject that juice directly into my left eardrum please--boom, boom, boom goes the Taiko, the DJ spins.

An unreal combination, like viagra and heroin--a shamisen solo by a long bearded kimono wearing man that you are supposed to respect, ending with Krush dropping the heaviest beat I've felt since that November at 26th and Dudley streets.

Blue lights popping my face, then green and red, yellow now, time drips onward, onward, the record spins, the girl next to me winds to the melody.

One eye slanted, always, head nod and feet bob.

Never end.

Apologies for all the nonsense... but I like various styles, experimentation, boys & girls, and also horrible writing.

This girl reminds me of Megan.

It could be the way she pulls her hair back into a short ponytail, or the way she presses her lips tight together as she leans against the wall in her black and white striped shirt. Maybe it's her confidence--dripping from every pore on her face--perhaps just the shape of her head, the way her skin wraps itself around the skull like canvas pulled taught waiting for the first drops of ink to spill; but no...

It's her eyes, slanted a bit, tilted maybe--relaxed and calculated for sure. Lazily gazing around, gazily lazing abound... thinking about nothing and everything, devouring me with her completely unfocused pupils: dilating that part of my body that probably shouldn't be going blind.

There's those eyes.

There she sits.

Tired, exhausted, a real college student. Flesh and blood and little Japanese bones that rattle around in their flesh casket as she trots from class to class, eventually ending up in front of me with a few of her classmates, and her professor, Yuji.

Unlike the other disposable students around here, Miyuki is real, and she screams of that freshmen determination, of that senior exhaustion--of that American college feeling that has become completely foreign since entering this university.

It's in her eyes, I can see it. I've seen those eyes before.

"Nueral linguistic programming," says Takeya, ending some kind of sentence that I wasn't paying attention to because I was staring at Miyuki.

Holy shit.

These are some astoundingly bright students--the ones in Yugi's seminar class, now lecturing in English to our little group of exchange students--some are frighteningly good at English, confident too. These are the real college students, I suppose, the ones who I thought didn't exist here, in a world populated with English and Business majors constantly insisting that high-school was for study, and college only determines where you'll work.

Just plug your college into that little hole on the resume, add a diploma, and welcome to the company, kiddo... grades? What are those? You went to Tou-dai? It's all good, hop aboard...

I missed the research classes, the sleepless nights slaving over papers, contemplating each word, sentence, period, etc...

I missed sleeping in because you were exhausted from class, not from riding trains.

I missed real college.

Her eyes brought it all back.

What is going on inside that mind of hers?

Preparation for her little bit of lecture, I'm sure.

So Megan-esque, right down to the way she walks and the way her jeans fit her hips. A rebel from the waist down.

"Let's calculate our 24-hour life time."

Just divide your age by three... 7:00 a.m.

"It's still early in the morning for you."

Hiroshima isn't real.

Hiroshima is a word attached to a place that exists thousands of miles away; and though it does occupy some tangible spot in the world, for so many of us it is only a mental construction.

Hiroshima isn't real.

We talk about Hiroshima.

We debate about what happened at Hiroshima.

We learn about Hiroshima in our schools.

We think we know.

But today I stood upon the exact spot where the first atomic bomb was detonated.

I can tell you, we don't know.

Cruising along in the smoky cabin of the Shinkansen--train car number 3, non-reserved, from Osaka to Tokyo departing at 9:52 p.m. precisely--he lets his head droop down to his chest just as the speedometer passes 160 kilometers per hour, unlit cigarette still sagging from a small opening in his heavy, hardened face. His suit is a bit wrinkled and the stars outside shine bright, but not bright enough.

That Shinkansen cuts through the fucking darkness like a bullet cuts up flesh, I tell you. Loaded with people, motionless and snoring, it slices down the tracks at a ripping pace; shark-nosed, aerodynamic. But just erase it, for a moment--the train not the people--and look at them, just levitating barely above those rails the reach from sea to sea. Zoom, there they go, the flying people.

His cigarette finally drops, carrying a thread of saliva with it.

On his tie it will stay, until he wakes up in Tokyo; maybe at midnight. He'll light it, then.

Meanwhile, life in America-Mura is buzzing, well, as much as overpriced thrift stores and graffiti'd love hotels buzz on a Thursday night. (Which is actually a startlingly loud buzz. Think moth in the screen door or dragonfly with wing caught. ZZZzzz ZZZzzz Zzzzz.)

That little borough of Osaka, "Tokyo's Number 2 City" (according to Kyohei's broken English), is absolutely stuffed with kitschy clothing stores where the prices definitely don't match the second-hand feel the owners have worked so hard to perpetuate. $48 dollars for some torn up Levi's exhumed from their stinky, smelly, acid-washed early 90's coffin--for that kind of money you can get some great, authentic (and sexy!) school uniforms in Kabukicho.

Role playing anyone?

"Osaka has many sex shops," Kyohei writes in a text received while en-route.

I ponder it over some coffee.

The school uniform, that is, not the sex shops. I suppose I could find at least one of my friends who would enjoy wearing one of those around campus. College is still school, right? It's just that, well, uniforms aren't mandated. I guess.

Back on the street, my head starts to hurt. Osaka is just pissing neon darts down upon me, little lightning bolts of blue, green, red, pink, and urine yellow drop like colored doo-doo, enveloping the thousands below--including me. Their glow is unavoidable, and my face is lit like a jack-o-lantern.

The Shinkansen roars by, somewhere, scaring some unsuspecting soul standing on the platform--that is, of course, if you are still imagining the train minus it's shell. People only. That's pretty startling.

In Kyoto the temples sleep, quietly.

In Kyoto, I sleep.

Back in America-mura there is a female clothing store closing it's doors right about now, turning off all the lights inside and all the illuminated lingerie wearing mannequins outside, the ones that have been lit up all day, teasing Osaka's young women to come inside and buy, buy, buy.

It's strange, but when a mannequin is lit up from the inside like a candle, its bra, if white, disappears. If she's wearing a black undergarments, on the other hand, the contrast is well, just so stark that the bra and panties float in the air as if modeled by a ghost.

Spooky, indeed, but an effect no woman can achieve.

I propose we put an end to these type of mannequins.

"Dame-dayo!"

Apparently dogs can understand Japanese now.

"Kochi-kochi, ne, ne, kochi kochi..."

I guess they aren't suppose to piss near temples.

"Bush won. Kerry called to concede this morning (Nov. 3). Stay in Japan. I am joining the French Foreign Legion. -Walker."

Good morning, Kyoto!

Beamed from America to Japan, received through a buzzing pink cellphone with a Hello Kitty charm--that's how I got the news. The creaky hostel futon didn't like my simple, silent response: rolling onto my back and sitting up. Squeak, squeak.

This room was quiet like my grandmothers home, and despite the fact that it was shared by four strangers, it seemed to posses the same potent calming medicine as that little house in the lost hamlet of Malcom, Nebraska.

I remember the drive to Malcom, when I was younger, typically taken in the back of my parents' car, up and down an unknown road, farmland scrolling lazily, endlessly to my left and right. We cut a bath through the grass until we arrived at that mysterious spot somewhere north of Lincoln, not to near, not too far.

There isn't much farmland here.

Though the bullet train was supposed to show me the Japanese countryside, after riding for two hours at 200 m.p.h., I'm still not sure I ever left the city of Tokyo.

The density here is amazing, and though I like it, I miss the feeling provided by that emptiness that characterizes Nebraska, and so much of America, that silent almost creepy lack of sound that makes days like Halloween seem just oh, so perfectly frightening.

You can hear the wind in Nebraska.

Of course, I'm nowhere near Malcom, Nebraska, I'm in Kyoto, a city famed for its plethora of temples hidden beneath that standard, cluttered urban landscape.

The sun peeked into my room.

Bzzz. Bzzz. Oh, my cellphone. Surprise, surprise. Kyoto is full of those stupid little things.

Surprises, I mean. A half-Pakistani half-Croation globetrotting tag-along named Zashi, a Japanese girl from Chiba named Hisano, a new late night conversation partner named Megumi. All byproducts of the truly unbelievably cheap hostel Heather and I have stumbled upon.

Sitting in the dining room with the BBC on mute I type, type, type. Last night I sat in the same spot, my tongue flipping out syllables I never thought myself capable of constructing. I'm waiting for a phone call from my mom, I'm waiting for Zashi and Heather to wake up. I'm waiting for another day to begin.

Bush is president.

Though I want to be mad, I can't do anything but stare out of this third floor window and just let all feeling evaporate. I'm in Japan. I'm an expat.

For now.

Could that monk I saw last night, on the bridge about 400 meters before the temple, could that monk still be meditating? Just standing there, head tilted slightly down, staring toward the pavement, murmuring to himself as cars passed within inches of his robes. What was he thinking about?

Nothing, of course. And that's how I am right now, empty in my mind. Just doting along here in Kyoto. Push me and pull me, please, point A to point B and off to C.

This trip to Kyoto isn't what I had planned for my five day break.

This trip is defying my expectations.

Japan isn't really real.

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...