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For some reason, my back has been getting sorer and sorer for the past few days. I think it has to do with my chair at home… aghgh it’s really painful tonight. I can barely eat it hurts so much.

The weekend was busy. I had overtime work on Sunday, and afterwards a final goodbye party to my manager. On Monday I went to the hospital to see Hitomi. She’s in a room now and looking much better, though she’s still in a lot of pain. The swelling is down a lot, and her wires were replaced with rubberbands. Unfortunately, after just a couple days of being able to talk, she was re-rubberbanded with very strong ones that keep her mouth closed again. Something about the healing not going as well as hoped. So her hospital stay will be prolonged another week. How awful…

Wedding preparations are under as ever. I’ve been working on an illustration for the invitation, and I would be finishing up today, except for my sore back. I have a feeling that painting while sitting in the chair is one of the reasons by back started to hurt. Though I’m not sure why it’s been getting worse. Eargh it really hurts today.

I tried an Etsy showcase yesterday. Sadly, I didn’t get a single sale out of it, though I did get about 150 views. That’s nice I guess, but not nice enough. I’ll probably try one more showcase, but selling prints is not something I’m good at. I don’t know; I like my art, but it seems nobody really wants to own any of it. It doesn’t make my prospects for moving into freelance this summer look very good. It’s a scary thought.

Short update today. I can’t write any more in this much pain.

This whole month I’ve been waking up with a bloody nose. This hasn’t happened since I was in grade school. What is going on?

I don’t think I’m getting any fatter, but my belt is definitely shrinking.

My whole life I’ve felt natsukashii for memories I’ve never had. Why? Does this mean I’m insane?

Ahh man, things are so busy here I can’t keep my head on straight.

Like I wrote on Monday, I spent the weekend up in Uchinada at Hitomi’s hospital. I came home to find out that my bike, which had previously had its tires popped twice, the bell ripped off, and the basket weekly filled with trash by assholes who share the same parking garage with me, had been stolen. Great! It’s the ultimate insult to the injury that my overpriced crappy little bike had already recieved, and has pretty much put me off bikes 100%. This is my 4th or 5th bike to be stolen or deface — having had my tires popped in middle school by someone I thought was my best friend at the time, another bike stolen out of my basement, another bike stolen out of my backyard by some redneck who walked up and hopped on it as I was watching it! I hate bicycles, and even moreso now. I was never meant to ride a bike, and if I have any sense I will never waste my money on one ever again.

This week as busy, as every week has been since last fall when I became to only teacher at my school qualified to teach anything above the basic classes. I’ve a perpetual cold this month, along with absolutely no appetite (yet I’m gaining weight despite not eating anything). I managed to recover my ability to sleep this week, if nothing else due to the fact that I am tired as anything. Friday was a national holiday, being the vernal equinox, though Friday is my only relaxing day and I would have gladly taken the day off any other day of the week. However, I was able to visit Hitomi one more time that day, though I have to wake up at 6 am to catch the cheap train, or else pay twice as much and stay only half as long, so unfortunately I was groggy the whole time and had to take a nap on her hospital bed.

Sunday I was able to relax for a few hours. I watched Battlestar Galactica and painted some of my dwarf army models, did my laundry, and then at 5 went out to our staff and students goodbye party for our school’s manager. We went bowling and then to a restaurant, and it was a really nice time except that I had a headache that got worse and worse until I had to beg everyone for medicine by the end of the night. I sucked at bowling as expected, but so did everyone else, and we all had a lot of fun so it was a good evening. Dinner was ok, too, though I spent most of it spaced out due to my headache and complete lack of apetite. The farewell to the manager was nice but very emotional. It didn’t really hit me until last night, but I’ll miss her a lot. She was the first person I met here and basically my best friend in Japan (Hitomi excluded, of course). She helped me get settled in to my apartment, set up my bank account, get my cell phone, go to the hospital and basically taught me how to live over here. And since she and I were the only two full-time workers, she was the only person I saw regularly and actually talked to (my job having god-awful hours that make it impossible to make any friends outside of work), about ghosts, language, the students who were weirdos, etc. Fortunately, and on a totally selfish note, I know plenty of people now so I don’t have to worry about that. But she was a good manager and, more importantly, a good friend, so I’ll miss her. Anyway, she’s moving to Kanagawa to marry her boyfriend, so it’s not really an sad occasion at all.

Today I woke up at 6 again and took the early train to Kanazawa, changed to another train to Uchinada, and then took the bus to the hospital. The long trip is of course worth it to see Hitomi, but I wish I could have been in a better and more cheerful/less exhausted mood for her. She’s really lonely and depressed, all alone in her hospital room, unable to speak, and with nobody to interact with. I remember how frustrating my hospital stay got at times, and I’m really good at being an antisocial loner. Plus, her stay is twice as long as mine was, and she visited me every single day I was in there. So her situation is unthinkably worse. Poor girl.

Spring came. Flowers are blooming, the air is warm, and that is very nice.

There’s still so much to do for the wedding, plus taxes are due, and I need to really take off on the job hunt. Writing on here is a bit therapeutic, as it helps take some of the stress off, but it’s not actually going to get things done. So I’d better sign off now and try to force-feed myself the rest of this dinner I bought an hour ago.

This week was rough… On Thursday and Friday night I was too anxious about the surgery to fall asleep, so I ended up going to bed at 4 am both nights. I ended up exhausting myself and I’ve been dog-tired all weekend, even now. Hitomi’s mom emailed me afterwards to tell me the surgery went OK, so that was a relief, but I was still anxious; and the picture of Hitomi she sent me looked so painful!

Finally on Sunday I was able to go all the way to Uchinada to see her. Hitomi’s mom and I drove up together, and we got there just before noon. Hitomi’s face was about twice it’s normal size and she was in a lot of pain, but she was glad to have company. Her mom left in the afternoon and I stayed. Besides being swollen, she had two tubes implanted in her skin under her jaw to drain the bleeding, and she had to carry a container on a strap around her neck for the tubes to empty all the blood into. Kind of morbid. And her teeth are wired shut and she has a plastic thingie cementing them in place for now so she doesn’t move her jaw muscles. I found out a bit more about the surgery: They cut two small holes under her jaw and cut the muscles off of her left jaw. Then they shaved the outer (hard) layer of bone off her left jaw, exposing the marrow, and re-attached the muscles to that. I’m not sure if they went in through her neck or her mouth, and neither is she actually. Anyway, that’s why she can’t move her mouth at all; she’s growing a new jaw.

She was on a morphine drip, though she said the only thing that helped were the butt rockets (I can attest to that from my surgery — butt rockets are the best painkillers). She wasn’t able to eat liquid food either so she had an IV drip as well. Today, however, she was able to eat a bit of blended jelly and soup, so she got the IV out, and in the afternoon she stopped the morphine drip and they doctors removed the blood tubes from her jaw and the blood bag from around her neck. So finally now she is looking more relaxed. We got some x-rays done as well, but mostly just had a relaxed day. She has a nice view of the ocean from her window. She’s still in pain, but she was doing a lot better today than she was yesterday. She can answer her emails now and walk around, and she tried really hard to mumble a few words today.

I stayed at my host parents’ house in Nishikanazawa. I hadn’t seen them since November ’07, so it was really good to visit them again. We had dinner at a small yakiniku shop where they also took me during my homestay in 2004. This was the first time I was able to really have a complete conversation with them, and it was really nice to be able to do that. Their health seemed to be a bit better than it was last time I visited, but they’re in their mid-80′s now. Hopefully I’ll get to see them at least one more time in the coming weeks as I go up to Uchinada again on the weekends.

Like I said, I worried myself sick over the weekend, and I have to start work again tomorrow with a crappy cold and still feeling exhausted. And it’s a really busy week too…

Hitomi’s surgery is today… She is really nervous about it and so am I. I wish I could go up there for the day to be with her.