Snoring Myself Awake

Saturday 24th October 2009 

AM

Least: Pretty close to 10:00am, I sat on the train facing a professional looking young woman who appeared to be doing something important on her laptop. After a few minutes, I couldn't help noticing her horrible nervous habit. Every few seconds, she picked or bit at her crumbling cuticles and fingertips. With each bite, a tiny piece of skin would disappear into her mouth. Rather than being embarrassed by this habit, she seemed to revel in it one tasty morsel after another.

Most: At about 9:30am, I opened Nostromo to chip away at a few pages. Even though it is a dificult read, it is amazing that the novels location, Sulaco is completely fictional, with almost nothing historical about it. This is in stark contrast to Conrad's other novels which are steeped in his personal experience. Although, I have read Nostromo before, I don't think I gave it the time it deserves - which it a lot.

PM

Least: Sometime between 5:37pm and 6:30pm, I snored myself awake on the train home from Wakayama. I must've been asleep for about ten minutes, but I'd slipped into a deepish sleep. The last couple of weeks with the flu and the knock to the head have exhausted me and it didn't take much of the train rocking to send me into a blissful sleep. The sleep was not quite deep enough though, to insulate me from my own snoring. I shudder to think what the expert sleeping Japanese thought

Most: At nearly 7:00pm, I watched the back of my train disappear north as I stumbled up the Mikunigaoka steps in a sleepy daze. For the next ten or so minutes, I sat on the platform. This time, unlike the past five or six months, I was shivering with cold. The wind racing down the tracks had a distinct chill that reminded me of the weeks after I arrived in Osaka. The chewing gum chipper had moved underground into a sea of blackened gum.

Never Watch TV While Poaching Eggs

AM

Least: Between precisely 9:40am and 9:52am and 10:14am and 10:34am I roasted on train platforms in Mikunigaoka and Hineno repectively. It was punishment for taking a slightly later train from Tezukayama. The ten extra minutes at home this morning was repaid three-fold by JR. As the sweat ran down my chins, I couldn't help but notice the condensed breath and sweat of luckier and cooler commuters pouring from the corner of each carriage as it flashed by the station. Another lesson.

Most: While I waited for my eggs to poach at around 8:30am, I watched an animated TV show that, as usual, involved massive monsters in combat. The interesting thing though, was the fact that the trading cards carried by every kid in Japan were built into the story. The cards were used as a means to pitch differently rated piles of steel against each other. I was thinking that this is what kids might imagine whilst doing battle for cards in the playground - cool. The poached eggs were ever so slightly over done.

PM

Least: Between 12:00pm and about 8:00pm my stomach was granted a lone onigiri, a few sugarless breathmints, a bite of weird cake and two kinds of mineral water. As soon as I arrived home, my brain told me to order a large american style pizza with a regular crust. According to the pizza-clock, I ate until 10:50pm - two slices left. Before I finished the second slice, I could feel something of a bile-rush in my stomach. After I finished the last slice of the evening, I knew I wouldn't sleep well. I didn't.

Most: Between about 8:40pm and 10ish deciding to shirk a school releated party in Sakaihigashi, I sat down for a night in to contunue my spaghetti western voyage. While the bile working overtime on the pizza, I sat for a couple of hours to watch 'A Fist Full of Dollars'. The massive body count and the cracking dialogue were just interesting enough for my brain to forget telling me that I'd eaten too much on an empty stomach.