Giving Ms. Write again soon more to parady

So, I'm back. Actually, I was "back" to civilization a week or so ago. I just didn't feel the need or desire to revive the site. To tell you the truth, I was very very seriously contemplating scrapping the whole bastish blog.

After only three days in Tokyo however, I see how I need an outlet, a savior, from the boredom of apartment life. I may go into it in more detail later, but there is something so great about hiking 10-12 hours each day in the middle of seldom seen (relatively speaking) wilderness that makes one see life in a different light.

What I learned is that I blog because I am bored. I drink because I am bored (I didn't touch even a beer for 52 days, which is a new record for me since I was 20). Boredom makes us do things that we then come to think of as "normal" or part of our role as a member of society. I had access to a computer for 8 days of the 52 while I was taking a course in Wilderness First Response medical care. In those 8 days I wrote less than 10 emails - most of them regarding paperwork for my new spousal visa which I was applying for. I hated every minute of it.

Simply being away from a computer for so long, combined with having something to do each day that actually stimulated my mind and body, caused me to not even want to write an email. I surely didn't think about blogging. I have come to wonder if the purpose of blogging is not simply to convince myself that my life has meaning... in the absence of any other daily activities that would fulfill that craving.

But now I am (temporarily) back in the big city, in my little apartment, where I have little to do other than stare at web sites of people who are doing what I would rather be doing, and write emails and blog posts read by people who are trying to kill time as they sit at their office desk, telling themselves how lucky they are that they have a job that allows them to surf the web.

Tomoe is currently (Saturday, 11am) at her first "real" day (post-training) of her latest job venture. Having dropped her high-paying, high-power position at GE in order to work at something more meaningful and in line with her own values and beliefs (a job at the very Sustainability Consulting company I am contracting with, and where clients sign contracts based on the stipulation that she is a part of the project team) she has since moved to a contract basis herself in order to make time to pursue some of her own personal dreams.

Today is her first day as a barrister at Starbucks. She rarely even drinks coffee (once in three months?), let alone Starbucks coffee, but unlike myself and most of the people I know, she never had the teenage experience of working in the food/hospitality industry (Burger King and various bus-boy/waitor jobs in my case).

Her personal dream, however, centers around food and health and helping people realize health through food, and I have never been so proud of her as the day she wrote me a letter (while I was in the wilderness of Washington) telling me that she quit her consulting job to work at Starbucks.

She purposely chose the Starbucks nearest to her old GE office in the hopes that she would meet some of her old co-workers, bosses, or underlings as they come in for a cup of coffee on their lunch breaks.

This is an old photo. The photos from the trip will be ready soon?