Not that I don’t miss some things about D.C. and all …

… but last year the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, which oversees the entire 12-million-people metropolis of Tokyo, reported 143 homicides. Washington, with a population of about 563,000 people, had 198.

But right now I’ll take the higher murder rate just to catch some shows at the 9:30 and Black Cat.

Sorry (again) for the disappearance (again).

Stress, exhaustion and general scatterbrainedness conspire to hinder any sort of mental, spiritual or physical development on my part. I pondered drinking more to deal with things, but I’ve decided that black tar heroin is a more expedient option. Maybe I’ll go into all the ick stuff at some point, but right now I’m too tired for a long-ass ramble. I’m limiting my time spent on this post to only a few Duran Duran songs, inspired by me just getting an e-mail from the rightful heiress to the kingdom of Afghanistan.

Fortunately, there is a productive part to the past few weeks — well, the last week anyway. I finally decided to get serious about studying Japanese, feeling restricted by the fact that 50% of my ability in the language is giving shoddy cab directions. I got a supposedly great book for learning Japanese a year ago, and took the advice of my friend to get the kana version, which means everything is either in English or hiragana and katakana, the two easier alphabets to learn. In the long run, it’s helpful to have no romaji (Japanese words spelled using English characters), but it also means you have to learn two fucking alphabets before you begin.

Never one to procrastinate, a year later I have just learned hiragana (err, I mean: ひらがな) in one week. I did a 30-minute lesson every day for six days, so technically I learned hiragana in less than three hours, which feels kinda cool. Now when I walk around town and see (there are a few) signs in hiragana I can actually read them … sometimes I even know what the words mean! My revelation was seeing a restaurant sign and realizing it said “ramen.” My Japanese coworkers think it’s cute to see my homework because I got a notebook with big squares in it to practice the characters — basically, this kind of notebook is used by very young Japanese schoolchildren … and me. But it helps.

The amazing-ass book I use to teach myself hiragana also has katakana lessons, so tomorrow I flip the book over and begin a few days of 30-minute lessons in that, totaling three hours or less of study. Then I can start my textbook to learn words, phrases, grammar, etc. And I can read even more!

It’s kinda like that part in “Conan: The Barbarian” where after proving himself as a mighty fighter, Conan gets introduced to high-falutin’ stuff such as reading and writing and his world begins to expand. Except that I never was sold into slavery by James Earl Jones, never have proven myself as a mighty fighter and I would die in about one minute in a swordfight. But I am fond of saying that what is best in life is to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of the women.

Tonight (Thursday) will be the swine show and heaps of fun on the carnival rides! I hope to see you all at the beef show Friday, and make sure you check out the celebrity milking contest and barbecue.

For all my friends who are also Straight Outta Joplin, here’s a little reminder of what we escaped. For all you outsiders, the above quote is not from a porn convention but rather the Fair Queen Blog, detailing the wreckless, sin-filled week of the Jasper County Fair queen.

Thanks to fellow JoMo escapee (& my business guru) Roger for the link.