The Even Greater Tokyo Region

Biographers Wanted:

I keep a diary. I have for almost 6 years. So long, that I used to be a closet diary writer for fear of persecution from friends. I have not missed out one day in over 4 1/2 years. Some people say this might be excessive, the rest might call me a psycho. It seems to work out for me. There is always the balance of 'doing stuff' vs. 'writing about doing stuff'. Lately, it has been the latter. I'm seriously considering hiring a biographer, on a trial basis at first, naturally. It would save me so much time. This here is a list of things I did in just weekend from friday after school:

basketball practice.
going out on the town- as much as someone can go out in Tonami.
a school festival (not my school).
probably my last beach day this year. A quiet beach in the next prefecture. Swimming and stuff...
a relatively famous festival with semi-traditional dance competition.
going out on the town- as much as someone can go out in Tonami.
playing a basketball game at the opposite side of the prefecture. My 4th quater heriocs saved the game.
driving through the mountains and over frogs to a small mountain village.

It was still only Sunday night. The reason I went to this mountain village was noodles. More on that later. For the time being, we had a party to attend. Deep in the midle of nowhere, there lives a man called Kawasaki. From what I can tell, he is a full-part-time pro-bono party host. His house is a bar. It is decorated with retro posters, trinkets from around the world, delicious food, various musical instruments, and many interesting people. Two of them were semi-professional "shamisen" players. A shamisen is clumsily translated into English as a "Japanese Banjo". This is one more example why I hate translations. People, just take the time out of your lives to learn a new word! The Shamisen is a traditional Japanese stringed intrument, that, despite never being in tune, can make very beautiful music. And these two were incredibly good.

Three more guests were "Chindon", (clumsily: "Japanese street performers who don't really play on streets and usually have crossdressing tendancies"). We actually saw these guys play at the small snow festival, and I really mean it when I say that these guys were truly terrible. A lady on a sax, a guy on small electric guitar and a guy with a portable drum-kit made out of pots and pans and other noisy things. It was hilarious, especially since they were the butt of many jokes I had made since the snow festival. And now we wedre getting a private concert. But in a non-biased way, I honestly think they were very loud.

Kawasaki-san also joined in, busting out some funk on a Bass guitar, and going over to the piano for a very good Jerry Lee Lewis impersonation- assuming Jerry Lee Lewis was Japanese and deaf. I mean, he was very good, but I have never heard somebody hum that loudly. He also taught me some ukulele, and then we all picked up some drums and bongo'd. It was incredible fun. Suddenly the party was over, and we went to bed. A lot of us guests had to get up early to team up with "soba" (Japanese Spaghetti) Masters from all over Japan and make Japanese Spaghetti infront of a large audience and stern judges.

These sort of things, no matter how much free time I get, I could never write about them to do it justice...
But maybe an autobiographer could. Willing applicants will be willing to begin immediately.