Sometimes I get Ridiculous…
Follow @gaijinassIt’s October uh…wait what’s the date today? 11th. Okay. So it’s October 11th and I have no job.
I have a nice shiny new visa but I’m jobless as it gets. What’s worse is that for some horrible reason, I’m effectively nonchalant about all of it. No job? Things could be worse.
The resumes have been sent and contacts have been made. What more can one man do? Turn to a life of crime? Nope. After all my years on this wacky planet I have learned a few lessons, one of which is that I am not suited to be a hardened criminal. Frankly speaking, it’s just too much work.
I am the proverbial gray man. A fantastic jack of all trades and bard extraordinaire. I have some things I do better than others, and although some might toss around phrases like “under achiever” I like to think of myself as a sort of modern day Rennaisance man. Well read, well rounded, a man of various passions and someone that can either punch you in the face, cook a soufle or quote Churchill as the moment demands.
I’m still unemployed though.
This leads me to the point of todays little outburst here: Satanic rituals.
Not really. That’s far too committed for my tastes. Actually I am going to complain and wax quasi-intellectually about half measures and how irritating that shit is.
Wait, no that won’t work either. Half measures, although disgusting, are reality. For 99.9% of the population anyway.
No I think all I can do right now is bitch and moan about how utterly ridiculous my life is. Two weeks ago, I was locked in the Japanese detention center watching other detainees lose hundreds, even thousands of dollars in an afternoon playing 21 in the back room casino the Filipino boys had set up in “I” wing. 30 people packed into the room, everyone screaming like lunatics as cash flew all over. People were losing all the money they had, becoming penniless, only to win back that and more when some other poor chump gambled away the cash for his plane ticket back to Ho Chi Minh. His plane ticket back to Ghuang Zhou. His plane ticket back to Bogota. His plane ticket back to Dhaka. Absolute mania.
Out in the hallway, more people lined up with noses pressed against the glass and bet amongst themselves regarding who they thought was going to win or lose any given hand. All the while a young fillipino lad stood in the hallway shouting “Irrashaimase!” at the top of his bloody lungs, all the while providing updates to the whole wing on how much time they had left to come and get some of the action: “Only 20 minutes left this morning!”
Then, only a month before that I was sitting on a tatami floor in Yamanashi watching three of my highschool students, Misa, Yuka and Kimiko, draw smiley faces and heart marks all over my feet and toes at the English Club summer camp I worked at for three days.
The next day, the next morning, I was under lock and key on the 10th floor in Shinagawa. Now, today, I’m sitting in my new room in Ikebukuro. Half my gear is still in boxes. I have no job and between sending resumes I’m going through all the handicap information I can find because Sunday I’m off to the horse races and hey- got to pay the rent somehow.
This all isn’t to say I’m not feeling good. That’s the point; I feel great. Just add some extra stupid-gravy on top of the steamy pile of nonsensical ridiculousness that is my life. I feel positively wonderful today. I just don’t get it. I can recognize the good things in my life, but those should only more starkly contrast with the problems I’m facing. But somehow, I’m not worried.
I read before that professional gamblers eventually become immune to bad luck. Well, I’m not much of a card player but I am one hell of a gambler when it comes to life. And I’ve been doing it so long, now I just feel immune to it all. Oh yeah I have no job? So what. Something good will come around. Oh my girlfriend (both of them; they both found out about each other) now hates me? (…and have become best friends with each other) Hey that’s OK! I’ll meet someone else or maybe it’s a signal that I need some “Me” time. The Government locks me up and tries to kick me out of the country? No big deal. I’m a refugee now. The woman that is the mother of my child and I have so little in common it’s like we’re filming a reality TV version of “The gods must be crazy”? So what; our kid is incredibly good looking, funny and an athlete. I’m so destitute I literally have to go gamble to pay for my rent? It’ll be a fun day out with the boys, and the park there at the racetrack is really quite pleasant.
It all feels totally normal, but when I re-frame it and look at it from any sort of logical view point, it’s absurd, and all this is just the tip of a big fantastically improbable iceberg which I call “My life”.
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Gaijinass 
I admire your outlook on life, sir. I would suggest enjoying it while it lasts, before you get locked into something again.
Fingers crossed for a big one on the races.
So your visa issue resulted in you losing your previous job, is that right? Seems kind of counterproductive locking you up so you lose your job and then putting you back out there without a job or money.
Oh, boy. I’ve been there. Come to think of it, I’m still there right now! I’ve been out of a job since I moved from LA to Mumbai and that was a long time ago! I admire your positive outlook and your perseverance. Keep at it. Don’t just wait for opportunities; make ’em. Good luck.
S
Thanks man. I wish I could admire my outlook, but I think it is a sort of numbness in some ways. I’ve just been around the block too many times. But I agree! Have to be out in the dirt looking for the angles, then big things can happen.
When I feel the way you have described it tends to stop rather abruptly and hit me like a car wreck. Maybe it is some sort of defense mechanism, but the subconscious seems to take on all the crap during those times and only let a sick feverish optomism take hold.
This only last as long as it needs to, then the subconscious says “well I punched in and did the bare minimum days work, I’m off.” and I get hit with it all at once and feel about as bad as I should. Somehow I always pull through. I have come to realize that those happy, care free moments are my brain holding the crap back till I can handle it. So now I play it safe when I feel that way, cause I know it’s only temporary.
Enjoy that moment while gathering the supplies. Its just the fog of war, which will soon clear. There is a monster of an enemy force waiting, with your blood on their mind. If your supplies are readied when the fog clears then you can take ’em by suprise.
Don’t spend it all at the track. Keep enough for a back up plan. Good luck, my fingers are once again crossed and I am in your corner. Come out swingin like Boom Boom Mancini.
If you don’t know he is a famous boxer. He was huge, all muscle, no real technique. When the bell rang he would duck his head below his fists and start swinging like he meant to punch his way out of hell. He even killed an opponent this way. Watch one of his matches; he was an animal and didn’t seem to look, or care, or block. It was as if everything, but his muscle and the knowledge of how to punch ceased to exist. He became flying fists and nothing else, no humanity, empathy, or even remorse till the next bell rang and he snapped out of it.
Certainly not my favorite boxer, but one worthy of notice.
Right field again with the comments. I love it. Yeah man, this is not a fog of war situation, it’s just happened too many times before. You just realize that generally other stuff comes along and there’s no reason to feel sorry for yourself. One day I was teaching elementary school kids, the next I was at a suite in the Four Seasons planning an expedition to excavate Himalayan mountain crystals. That’s another post, but really, the swings have been so completely ludicrous now I just feel pretty immune to it all. Monkeys literally could fly out of my ass this evening and I’d probably just have a snack and fold up my laundry.
Ahhh the Himalayan mountain crystals. We really missed the boat there.
Times of our lives. That would have been tough though- they had to be collected by hand. No explosives allowed.
“This leads me to the point of todays little outburst here: Satanic rituals.”
Very smooth segway…VERY smooth 😉
And there are things much much worse than being jobless. Oh so so soooooo much worse!
I agree completely. For example; I could be a woman.
Not that this is bad. I love women. I just don’t think I would get very far in this zany world as a female.
Oh my god yes. The woman comment was great. That awkward situation you created for yourself actually got me to laugh, and good save by the way.
I would not make a very good woman. I have a lot of respect for them though. I also have a shrine to the godess Khali, as any man should. Face it nothing matches the destructive power of a woman.
I need a bit of that attitude. I’m back home and jobless and stressed. I actually the logical thing is to enjoy the free time while I have it instead of stressing out too much – and I don’t even need to gamble to pay my rent.
Shit you’ve got it made! Live it up, do some Yoga-whatever.
“Do some yoga-whatever”
HA! You know, some of that stuff you women folk do…whatever it is…
What? I don’t know. Yoga sounded about right.
Oh. Guess I’ve just been trained to expect sarcasm at this point. Never mind. Carry on.
Women do Yoga though…right?
I’m in the same jobless position too! High-five! I know exactly how you’re feeling, and like someone mentioned above, it might be a defense mechanism. Some days are good, some days are bad, even if the situation hasn’t changed. But fuck it, if it’s good it’s good. Tomorrow may be different, but the park is always nice and watching horses run around is always pleasant.
Have you declared unemployment with Hello Work? Can your freelance writing support you without a full-time job?
Anywho, make the best of it. There’s a lot to enjoy in Japan even with just a few hundred yen in your pocket. I may be naive, but I think it’ll all work out.
I’m sure I will figure it out. I have some little trickles of cash coming in here and there, so if I’m consistent it’ll be fine. It’s tough to stay out of work here if you can check a couple of boxes they look for. i can check them. Hello work? I’ve heard horror stories from there that impressed. I think I’d rather bar tend in Ni-gay-chome before I go the hello work route.
I signed up as a trial patient at a medical research facility in Glendale for three weeks once. Six blood draws a day. Bland food. My initials on a plastic piss container. But hey, it earned me $3,500! Ha ha ha
Actually I have been advised to go that route here as well. And if nothing comes up in a week or so I just might have to.
I meant Hello Work as the first step to getting unemployment checks. I think they do a percentage of what you used to earn at your last job, paid out once a month. I would probably never go there to look for work. I’ve heard they try to hook people up with regular jobs for Japanese people that don’t really take into account our skill sets as foreigners.
And don’t be hatin on nichome! If you ever felt like swinging by, I could give you a tour. Or if I land the bartending job I was looking at, you can see my ass in some sparkly costume at Dragon.
Hating? nope. I know a few people, all of them straight, that have made it through a rough patch slinging cocktails in two-town.
The bottom line here boss is that you COULD be scratchin’ yer ballz with the rest of us here in the Shtates. While fate gave you a time out, although unplanned, the possibility was not totally unexpected. You should just be happy you woke up this morning. Hey, maybe your two “exes”, now BFFs, and you could enjoy a menage a trois type relationship, or are Japanese girls just not wired that (bi)-way. From the great American poet Jackstick Voog (me)- “When the waves of shit knock down your sandcastles, just build a bigger breakwall!”….. I’m not a big gambler, but I DID pick the Preakness winner for a 12-1 win!! Best of luck with that, fuck it right? !!!!!
That entire threesome thing is not all it is cracked up to be. Yeah its every mans dream till you try it. It was really a lot more trouble than it was worth.
Off and on for an Autumn and the actual sex part was all you would expect (and has the added benefit of being able to sneak off and chug some Kool-aid when your mouth gets dry and you can sneak back with the action still going. Kinda like an awesome pause button, cause face it if your doing it with just one other person and you try to sneak off and get a drink the action tends to stop and die down abit), but all the other non sex stuff, the drama that comes with that sort of thing is hell. It tends to swallow up your personal life and really make it torture. I am definately a one woman man. God I hope a Japanese woman never asks me to do that, I can not say “NO” to a Japanese woman.
Know thy self. Know thy self.
Precisely. I don’t think my mental states a defense mechanism. I just think I naturally frame things in a positive way. Anyway there are a lot of options, and I can always go get certain jobs- I’m just being a snob. A friend jumped on me about that yesterday. So whatever. I’m enjoyin’ my coffee….
Big Lebowski reference? If so, kudos.
You, should apply for unemployment(insurance) at HelloWork.
Why?
One. by law unemployment comes out of your pay check every month. Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t! If they do it means that either they are lying, or they are breaking the law!
Two, I applied at HelloWork when the last company I worked for closed it’s branch last March and I was able to receive(or rather get back) some cash for about four months. I had to go to one lecture, and then two times each month return to HelloWork and search their database and then get a form stamped with their hanko to prove that I am looking for a job. It was easy or at least I thought it was and hey I am an average Gaikokujin. If, I can do it anyone can.
“Average Gaikokujin”. right. Your a political dissident!