Signs of Life

• While bagging groceries outside the store, a woman asked her husband about something when he returned to her side. The clearest (non-mumbled) part of his reply was when he began by blowing his nose.

• A young woman passed me on a bicycle with a half-Winehousey hairdo, a plaid button-down shirt, black pants with unshouldered suspenders, and white patent leather high heels.

• Masai, the show's giraffe, really likes people. Today started chewing on one of our visitor's hair.

More Shirtery

Here's the overdue list of shirt text that I was able to remember and copy down for the last two weeks. Or is it two-and-a-half?

• grow out
• Shout to ourselves/ourselves perfect
• Silly Rock World
• Recovery/Trip/Save/Dance
• I ♥ Baby Shopping
• F--- yen
• Heart Attack/Hype Fresh
• The world exists perfect
• Make an advance, enhance peace
• luffy pirates
• at every moment/ be brabe/step forward/never backward
• saucy cool
• let's rock again
• born to love/born to save/born to dead
• freedom smile beam peaceful
• my saucy love
• highest laugh
• hotbiscuits
• Philosophy: evolve my vision
• cut dirt
• BASH take the drop or take the pain
• nawty girls fiesta animal
• Share in wonder/I have a surprise for you

Lag

It's been just over a week, but that doesn't mean that nothing happened. I was just very procrastinatory and did nothing bloggish. Slacker!

Another welcome to Japan is happening right now. It's been raining for nearly two days straight now. The back lot is understandably muddy and the tent is understandably muggy inside. It's exactly like taking a shower in my clothes from the inside out, but minus any clean, refreshing feeling that come from having showered. Oook.

I'm flying home in a week for the break. I have a few things to take care of, one of which is getting to the doctor and dentist for checkups. I'm not feeling sick, but I always like to have regular checkups to make sure things are going south. This will be the first time doing either without insurance, so I'll find out how much it'll cost for a routine visit. This could be entertaining.

Housing Association

The neighbors down the way are being noisy, but I can't and won't do anything about it. They're lions, tigers, and ligers. Ligers are huge.

I've just been letting them do their thing.

Can It Be?

As of this weekend, we had our last four-show day of Nagoya. Whew! From here on out, it's all downhill, with three more weeks to go before I fly home for two weeks.

From where I stand, I could use the break. Juggling really has me frustrated. I'm still not a fan of the clubs we use, which are fat-bulbed, single pieces of molded plastic. They're a bit hard on the hands, which makes extended practice time – my preferred mode of practice – a little bit rough. My passing isn't as accurate as I'd like or as it has been. Still, my dislike for the clubs drives me to practice more. As much as the type of club is a valid excuse, I also don't like to be the sort of person who blames his difficulties solely on the instruments in hand. So to keep things on an upward trajectory, I practice as much as I can with my partner and then practice more on my own as I can. As far as I'm concerned, it all boils down to flight time. Since I don't have my Renegades here with me and there is obviously no mutual desire to switch the type of clubs being used, the more time I spend with my plastic nemeses, the better off I'll be.

Forget survive: I shall succeed!

On a T-shirt

Why didn't I start doing this earlier?!

I am going to make a weekly rundown of the English I see on t-shirts in Japan and especially in the audiences at shows. As I just had this brainstorm, I can only remember two from the past week, making for a very humble beginning:

• Echo is Garlic
• Large Boned skull rock

Done Done Done!

Days Four and Five brought me a bit of fatigue. I hit the wall and my knees have been hurting all week. I believe that the reason is my shoes are ready to be repaired. I need new insoles (which are on the way) and the heels are in need of replacement. I guess I'm taking my shoes home on break, seeing as how I think they're ready for a resoling as well.

The weather is definitely kicking into the warmer days of spring. I made the executive decision to dump the orange long sleeved shirts and don the short sleeved white shirt and the tie. I prefer that not only because it's cooler, but also because it looks a little cleaner. That should work for a while while I put together some other ideas and get something made. Pretty much every other clown before has gone with basic big pants, long sleeved short and vest, if not shirt and tie. I just need to figure out something that works with my body, looks good and is a fit.

But now? I'M DONE with the Golden Week marathon! ArooooOOOOOOO!

In Deep: Day 3 of Golden Week shows

I am writing from almost the middle of the seven-day, 21-show Golden Week run. The ninth show is under way as I compose this entry.

"What is Golden Week?" you may be asking. Golden Week is a week of holidays in Japan that encompasses three other holidays, two of which – according to a description given me by one of the Japanese – I can liken to President's Day. One of the holidays commemorates something imperial. To flesh in my limited understanding, I consulted the internet's foremost encyclopedic, completely error-free source (and I say that with sarcasm because one never truly knows if it's error-free, except on trust): Wikipedia. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Golden Week. It's much more informative than my breakdown.

In the last couple of days, the audience has brought me a man who, after his attempts to speak to me in Japanese that exceeds my level, I determined was asking if I was Maori. Then there were two young ladies who were obvious proponents of the skin darkening/fake baking fad in Japan, yet not entirely of the blackface variety. They were more of a possibly unintended orange hue.