Not a problem.
Though, ask me again when I realize that I really can’t go into any bookstore and pick up volume two of Library War. Also, unlike all of the other times I was in Japan, I’m not certain of when I’ll be back. I doubt it’ll be any time before I graduate from college.
I told my dad that the whole trip to Japan felt like another life, that it should have been August 29, the day after I left the US, rather than December 20. Since then, my brain has been slowly filling in the events that I missed while I was gone. Shops have closed due to the economy, or have changed their hours, leaving me to sit outside their closed doors wondering if I am insane. Gas prices have dropped so precipitously that this afternoon I paid for a whole tank of gas by myself, without worrying too much about the cost, for the first time since I got my license.
It has been crazy inconvenient in some cases – I haven’t received any construction notices in months and I spend frightening amounts of time finding detours around closed roads and merging out of lanes that are blocked. Driving to get anywhere is no picnic either. I spent a bit of time banging my head against the steering wheel a few days ago after a trip took 40 minutes to go to a place that was the equivalent of a shop just down the street from the dorm.
But otherwise, it’s a relief to be surrounded by people who look like me, or at least, don’t look at me so closely. I can read all of the English-language books I have been dreaming about for months, knit something that isn’t one of the four projects I brought to Japan, and eat honest-to-goodness sour cream and cheddar potato chips.
In other words, I’ll miss Japan later, right now I’m too busy playing with my cats.
This will be the last entry for this blog. Expect the first entry in the new blog, Call Me Mauri, to be up tomorrow (there’s nothing there right now).
Mauri in the World 