Thursday, March 22, 2007

Life on the Streets

Today I randomly purchased two small bags of fruit for Y20. Included were strawberries and loganberry/mulberry-ish things, and they smelled so good that I just let myself get ripped off.

Alice had a day off today, so we went shopping! I found a pair of running shoes last night that cost only Y86 (the cheapest ones in WFJ were like 200+, with Adidas running about 600-1000), so like... I bought those. Also, I bought some really awesome zipper shoes... hard to explain, but they're really awesome, even though they will probably make my feet bleed a lot. Uh... also I got a shirt. And CDs.

In a shoe store, I found some awkwardly wingtipped sneakers, and realized that I would ultimately like to own a pair of slick, wingtipped ballet flats. If I had me a pair of those, I don't know what else I would ask for. I mean... well... figuratively.

Also, I realized something. All those random splashes of liquid that I thought were people emptying tea mugs on the street-- not that at all. So, diapers aren't really *in* here, most babies just wear pants with the seam split open in the back, so when they squat it's like one of those coin purses that pops open to reveal familiar excretory orifices. So I knew that parents coax their babies into peeing in the shrubberies and along the curbs and on the cobblestones near the playground, but I sort of convinced myself that I was skirting baby puddles pretty well. Today, outside the bank, we saw a family walking their baby along, encouraging it to leave this astonishingly long streak of baby pee in its wake. I mean, I avoid all street puddles on principle, but to be shown so vividly that the ratio of pee-to-actual water is actually much greater than I thought, that I run a high risk of stomping into *that* kind of puddle should my vigilance fail just once... well, it was humbling.

Yeah, shopping here isn't something I opt to do much on my own. Too much sales pressure. Like, I've never really been "pee-shy" (as Ryan called it) in public restrooms or anything, but I imagine that it's something comparable to what I feel when I walk into a store here. For example, I went into an outdoor gear shop last night and immediately there was a girl on my left and another on my right, intently following my gaze so that they could describe (as if I wasn't already looking at it) every object it landed on. So like "that's a t-shirt... those are swiss army knives... shoes... belts..." aaaargh! I just can't go about my business while under so much scrutiny. There is really no store where this does not occur, and it really gets me so... hulihutu that I no longer trust my own taste or judgement and feel so beleaguered and vulnerable that I eventually just have to get the hell out, abandon ship, mayday mayday! And so I do. So if I ever do elect to go shopping, I also elect to have Alice with me, because, strategically played, the presence of a second warm body increases the amount of personal territory we have between us.

I have learned that I have a new class on Saturday afternoon. I did find out just a few hours ago. I am going to lose my mind lesson planning tonight and tomorrow (mostly tonight, I suppose, dammit... or according to the people who subtitled the Friends DVD we have, TMD!). Glad I brought that coffee with me.

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