Houses Made of Paper Cause Death

Hundreds of years ago Japanese people lived in houses made of material not unlike, say, newspaper. A father would return home after a hard day sweating away in the rice fields to a house assembled from various sections of the New York Post held together by flimsy shoots of bamboo. Kids would walk five miles home from school then read the funnies that made up the “walls” next to their beds before they went to sleep. Housewives would do the crossword puzzle and read their horoscopes that lined the “walls” as they dutifully waited for their husbands to come home.

Hundreds of years later and not much has changed. Sure, a modern Japanese home doesn’t appear to be made of paper, but in the winter it might as well be exactly that. The Japanese have done a phenomenal job introducing the world to things like Pokemon, Naruto, anal-retentive trash receptacles, octopus porn, sushi and the marvel that is Nintendo, but they have a long way to go when it comes to housing.

My cell phone alarm sounds. It’s 6:15 AM and still dark outside. No rational person would ever get up. The tintinnabulation of Canon in D rings in my ears. I have grown to hate this song and therefore will probably boycott all weddings. It means I will be cold. I pry myself from my fluffy futon cloud nine. My feet bellow at me in protestation as I place them on the infernally cold tatami mats. A gust of wind blows outside. This means it blows inside as well, ignoring the glass doors and finding any possible chink or cranny to sneak through. I am a magnet for cold air. Central heating does not exist.

In my apartment there are four sources of heat. “FOUR?!” you say, “Good lord, why on earth are you complaining?! Suck it up, Cleary. Stop being such a pansy.” To you, who are basking in the glow of your multiple radiators, central heating systems and houses of gold I simply say, “Shut. Up.”

I will elaborate on them in order of effectiveness – the first being the most effective, the last being the one that might as well not exist:

The first is my imagination. I can imagine that I am warm. That I am sitting next to a warm, romantic fire with marshmellowy Godiva hot chocolate in my paws, with American central heating enveloping me in a delightfully hot mist. My chocolatey beverage drops a degree below how I like it, so I lazily get up and knock that thermostat up to 75.

The second is my little, gray, electric heater. It claims to be radiating between 400 and 800 watts of “heat” towards me. It does not breathe out hot air; instead it lights up bright orange, slowly twists back and forth and emits rays of light which I am positive are causing dormant cancer cells to spring to life. This change of weather has caused me to hate taking showers. As evening approaches I groan thinking of the frostbite that will nip me all over. The heater follows me dutifully into the bathroom and does a wonderful job of keeping my ankles warm as I dry off. Every other part of me must bear the cold as the heater stands about two feet high and only warms areas that it directly faces, my ankles.

The third is my computer. Some may complain that the MacBook gets too warm as it sits there looking pretty, happily editing photos and videos, chatting to friends all over the world, and surfing the web. To all those people I say: STFU. Like a faithful lapdog my MacBook lies on my lap keeping a good part of me toasty. Thank god for those terrible engineers.

The fourth is my kotatsu, or heated table. It’s a peculiar contraption. Basically it’s a low coffee table that has a removable surface. This table top comes off, a blanket is placed over the frame, the tabletop is replaced and it does a brilliant job of keeping your legs warm. Obviously the Japanese do not care about torsos in the least. Both the electric heater and the kotatsu aim at warming, drying out and inducing cancer of the ankles.

Schools are not heated either so I must rely on sweaters and laughter to keep me warm. The second one is easy to come by as students often say the most ridiculous things.

The other day we were doing a most innocuous lesson about hobbies. One girl who is very eager to talk to me whenever I’m there ran up before class to consult me about her important hobby.

“My hobby is… My hobby is…”
“Yes? Your hobby is…? Don’t keep me in such suspense!!!”
“My … hobby… is…. Loving people. My hobby is loving people.”
“Why you little slut. Does your mother know?”

Another girl who I have never seen before in my life attacked me in the hallway with a gaggle of her friends:

“NIKKI!!!”
“STRANGE GIRL!!!!”
“I saw you.” It sounded more like an accusation than anything else.
“You saw me, great. I see me everyday. Where did you see me?”
“At Fuji! I saw you at Fuji!” Fuji Grand is this “shopping center” (I use that term loosely) in our town. “I SAW YOU AT FUJI WITH TWO MEN!!!”
“…oh. Uh…. When was this?”
“TWO MEN. ONE MONTH AGO AT 9:32. TWO MEN. TWO MEN. TWO MEN.” She grins at me knowingly. Her friends grin at me and start cackling like hyenas.
“Okay. I get it. Two guys.” I’m racking my brains as to what on earth she’s talking about.

So apparently random students I’ve never met before are tracking my whereabouts and jotting down notes as to the basic 411 of the incident. Should I ever disappear, it will be easy to track my last known movements. Just take a survey of the students, and the teachers for that matter.

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Published:
11.15.06 / 6pm
Category:
classroom antics, what i call life