Penis.
Good, now that I've got your attention, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to postpone the post about the Kanamara Matsuri until tomorrow. I spent most of the afternoon after the festival walking around tired and hungry in the cold, cruel rain so I kinda crashed early. I didn't have the energy to upload the pictures and they're really, really necessary to illustrate the post. Let's just say there was a lot of cock (penis lollies, penis snacks, penis jewelry, penis charms, sacred penises, peter-totters, veggi-penises, etc., etc.) and a lot of luvvin the cock. Girls loved the cock, guys loved the cock, a group of extremely crass Navy guys loved the cock (you KNOW it), some surprisingly secure Japanese loved the cock, some insecure Japanese pretended not to love the cock, and a huge number of gaijin grinned quite smugly and cracked bad jokes... full well knowing we might later relive the whole thing on US National cable TV. But I'll say no more until later.

Pictures. I promise. I took about 350 of 'em and they're all PRICELESS.

I told you.

April 1st is the Japanese equivalent of a new fiscal year. Companies roll over their calendars, students start school anew, and novel policies and changes are executed all over the city. For example, the Eidan subway line is now called the Tokyo Metro, and in stores everywhere, tax is now included in the written price of commodities. In my house, my family replaced a long-broken light, bought new bathroom slippers (with cats on them) and replaced the fuzzy toilet seat covers and foot mats with newer, gaudier, more embarrasing varieties.

I enjoy the toilet seat slipcovers for their ability to keep my ass from freezing to the porcelain in the dead of winter... especially given that the house has no insulation and the bathroom windows are always open. But I'd much rather that my family would opt for a newer Japanese future-toilet with a built in seat warmer because the toilet seat covers seem like they are a really, really dumb idea sanitarily speaking. Dry porcelain holds very little bacteria and people still shy away from wuzzling their bottoms on it. But put a cloth slipcover over it and I'm sure the toilet seat becomes a nesting ground for nastiness. I'm not entirely comfortable with this. But so far nothing's crawled... yeah. So far I'm ok.

This evening my host dad told me I had "flava." He was searching for a translation of a word to describe why so many weird coincidences occur around me and why they think that's so cool. He first came up with "aura" but decided that was incorrect, so then switched to "flavor." I said "I have flava?" and he replied "yes, flava... sou desu." So... Just call me Flava-Flav, please. WORD UP G-HOMES, WHO'S YO DADDY?!?!

I had a moment of supreme hilarious epiphany earlier today. I was watching an anime, Full Metal Panic to be precise, and a group of guerilla vigilanties were battling it out with a huge mech in what looked like the Tokyo harbor. I saw a dock, boats and a ferris wheel so my brain immediately said this must be Odaiba even though I wasn't sure. A bit later, one of the tacticians was deciding where to land their retaliatory mech attack. She wanted somewhere dark, secluded, open, and away from the city. The Tokyo Big Sight is PERFECT! I thought, Oh, just how hilarious would it be if they were actually to... And, you guessed it; though she never called the place name, in the next screen pan, there it was. I laughed my ass off. I mean, heck, I was just there for an anime expo last weekend! I guess I've been here long enough to think like a real, live anime character. It just goes to show you that real life in Tokyo must not be *that* different from a cartoon.