My Never Ending Summer

Apparently, it is this hot on Kikai almost all the way up to November. And it's just so consistent! High of 33 every...single...day. It's going to be high of 32 on Monday.

Tears of joy, tears of joy.

I quite literally slipped on a puddle of my own sweat while making dinner tonight, as I turned my little living room into the set of a bad romantic comedy, or perhaps a tastefully done porno, the line between the two is thin. From work clothes, to shirtless, to crumpled pants on the floor while my sad little towel just got wetter and wetter. Follow the line of clothes, past the pot of hayashi raisu in the kitchen, rice cooker set to "warm", to the room in the back of the house and throw open the door. Find a panting, still slightly sunburned gaijin passed out on the floor, flooding his tatami. Anti-climax? Logical progression of surrealist events.

I biked up the hill to my place of employment three times today. It's not a long hill, but whilst attired in khakis and seated astride a bike with the temprament and design of an ancient Japanese grandmother, clunking and sputtering but for good goddamn still working as it claws its way up that hill, well, it got increasingly less fun. It also gets hotter later in the day so...quick tip: if you have body hair of any kind, and I do mean any kind, stay as far away from anywhere hotter than say, Iowa. Pretty much forever. Or get very used to being soggy. On the plus side though, it fixes my hair in the morning, and irons my clothes! F'Gross, right?

I did produce ONE viable Japanese bank account however, for my efforts. I wonder how much it must suck to not look Japanese, and grow up in Japan. Every time you walk into a bank, city office...ice cream stand, probably? Every single person goes into "OH SHIT GAIJIN GAIJIN!!!!" mode. "Do you need me to hold your hand, or perhaps just do it for you?" She says with her posture. "Please, just don't make me speak English." scream her eyes. "No. It's quite alright. I can speak Japanese. And read it as well my good bank wench! For you see I was born here, in the Japans. Now please, stop having an elaborate series of fear-induced heart episodes."

Bank wench is appropriate. Ask anyone in Japan.

Just don't ask too hard.