Self harm

One of Kiyono's friends tried to commit suicide last week and Kiyono was unsurprisingly, rather sad. Unfortunately, the first time I saw her after she told me, I was roaring drunk and hence completely incapable of mustering the required level of seriousness for the situation. I woke up the next morning with a mouth that tasted like it had been inhabited by a colony of sparrows with bowel problems and thankfully, no memory of the night before. All I remembered was being briskly packed off on the last train home. Over the day, my memory gently filled me in on the details, one embarassment at a time. Oh, that's right. I kissed Kiyono's rather reserved male friend on the cheek. Where did these photos of random commuters come from? I see. Oh. I forgot to pay for my dinner and drinks. Erm. Oh. And yeah, F. tried to die and was in hospital as I crashed the solemn occasion and I was in a unabashedly good alcohol-fueled mood and that wasn't such a good look. Fuck a duck. I lashed myself with recriminations for the rest of the day, with the help of my hangover.

But I was forgiven and made amends and managed to find out a bit more about what had happened. It turned out as a story of unrequited love and desperate measures; there were fresh burn marks tracking up the arms of T, the guy she loves, and it's the third time she's tried and I wonder whether perhaps she has made him into her personal saviour, her solution to life.

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I hadn't planned on being drunk but after work I collected two Australians and an American workmate and we found an izakaya and then a local bar filled with old men who commented on our entry until Jeremy revealed he could speak Nihongo and won their respect and so they bought us a large bottle of shochu (a disgustingly lovely drink, smooth and easy-drinking at 25% alcohol - it produces surprise drunkenness and large hangovers) and forced it upon us and we were grateful and then we were all remarkably drunk. God, there was such familiarity to drinking with Australians - we fell into it with an easy grace and spontaneously began gushing forth; T revealed he came to Japan to ease off on his drinking and then confessed to being too drunk to be good in bed the first time he slept with his girlfriend to be; J told of her affair with a fellow workmate which precipitated a crisis with her long-term boyfriend (Indonesian, in Japan to make money with which to buy a house in Java) and I suspect I must have gushed something or other. Not that it's hard to squeeze candour out of me. But it was immensely satisfying to be able to make jokes and know that their nuances will be entirely understood; to make reference to home-grown celebs and peculiarities and see knowing smiles and complete understanding. God, but culture is important. Any cultural cringe I ever possessed had has vanished and will remain dormant until I encounter some first-class bogans back home.