SPRUNG.
(spring is)
The freaks are out tonight.

I rode the Marunouchi from Ginza to Nishi-Shinjuku. Two stops before I got off, the man got on. I noticed right away, as he entered the train, that his fly was unzipped and down, and even though his belt was buckled, his button was undone.

He stood directly facing me and the two girls next to me. It was quite apparent that they noticed his "problem" too, as they both put their heads down almost immediately and "went to sleep." I took a minute to analyze the situation.

His trouser button was not missing even if the zipper was broken. Yet his fly was agape and askew, flapped out to where he could surely see it in his peripheral vision, jutting a good three centimeters from his crotch. Indeed, I saw him take a few long looks at his belt, as if to check that everything was in place. But he kept standing there, facing us, not even holding on to any of the handles. When the train pulled to a stop at the next station, he shifted, lurching round in a circle, far too precisely to be off-balanced. I saw the eyes of the women on the side opposite me shift to avoid looking at his waist. I saw a man look once and then look again before glancing away. I almost laughed.

He turned back toward us. I thought for sure he had to be a pervert of some sort but he showed no real signs of agitation or arousal. I started to wonder if he was showing something off, but the flap on the inside of his zipper was covering any part that would tell whether or not he was wearing underwear. I tried not to stare but he was hilariously fascinating. Why was he consciously showing off his open fly at the eye-level of female passengers?

I thought better of taking out my camera, even to get back at an exhibitionist, but even then it was too late. The train lurched out of a station and the man, again not holding onto any of the subway rings, lost his balance and hurtled down the car ten feet, where he pulled himself together next to the train door and stood there silently until I got off at the next stop.

I'm scared.

This freakish ad was coupled with another that describes the new alpha-numeric system of labeling subway stations. What I gather from the ad is that this confusing and nonsensical system is designed to help foreigners who are not only retarded but also too illiterate to read either a subway map or the english signs in all the stations. WTF?

I have so much to write. Too much, in fact. Enough that I'll probably forget most of it and what I do write will come out seeming cheap and unreal. The second problem is an unfortunate byproduct of my current state of happiness� and all starving artists know that good works come best when emotional energy is dark.

Spring has softened everything around me. With the lingering feeling of normalcy instilled by Spring Break, I can honestly say that Tokyo feels like home now. That's irony, isn�t it? This feeling of belonging was given to me by a temporary visit from the very people I�ve left behind. Of course, I don't miss them any less� and I want to be with them even more� but I feel that Tokyo is the place I need to be at this moment.

I know, however, that I will go when the time comes, and I will go fully satisfied and completed by my experience. It's funny to think that two-and-a-half months ago I was wondering why I ever came here and what I could ever gain from it. Now I can say with some certainty that this is the most amazing and successful venture I've ever made in my life. Far more has come to me here than I ever could have imagined. Though I may not have improved in terms of my anxiousness, I've grown by leaps in terms of balance, stability, maturity and self-confidence. I talk to strangers� in TWO languages. It's occurred to me more than once that coming here has actually tipped the pendulum that was swinging between "adult" and "child" over to the grown-up side but I'm hesitant to label myself as a true "wo-man" in terms of mentality because a) I don't really know what that means b) I've never thought of being "grown up" as a good thing, so I'm loathe to apply it to myself strictly speaking and c) I think it's the job of an outsider to tell me how I've changed� not my own.

But I do know that now, at this moment, I see my path laid before me, shining and clearer than I ever have before in my life. My heart is filled with a sense of quietude and openness. Where before I had to block the noise of the city streets with music while I walked, I now find myself without headphones and humming my own tunes. I know where I want to go and I know whom I want to go with. I wouldn't be at all surprised, though, if life threw some changes my way. I know to expect that much now.

I learned in the last few days that a classmate of mine was married over Spring Break. The guy, a Canuck, got hitched to another exchange student, an Israeli, whom he met here at Waseda during my friend's birthday party. The newlyweds had known each other less than six months but they knew they wanted to be together. They also knew that because of their nationalities and their home countries' relative marriage policies, that Japan would be the best place to tie the knot. So they did it� and now they only have to work out the kinks between who is coming to live where first; Canada or Israel? That's a big change in life plans� I really haven�t seen anything like THAT yet.

It really is a shame. I've met all these awesome people at Waseda and in this city and only learned to appreciate them recently. As expected, I'm becoming the closest with my Waseda friends and meeting the best new people now, so shortly before leaving. The friends to whom I am closest will be scattered to the four corners and I'll be back in the center of my own ex-universe with people who I still love but who are also one year distant. I'm quite aware that I will be culture-shocked to the extreme when I get home. I can�t anticipate WHAT exactly will get me but I know that something (Everything?) will. When I came here, what bothered me was that Japan seemed so NORMAL but so utterly WRONG in subtle and terrifyingly hostile ways. Now life in Tokyo is a passive existence that irks me only in the same way life in the states did. I can walk easily down the streets without feeling like Japan is going to assault me at any second. My surroundings are quaint and if not peaceful, utterly unsurprising. This very unexpected and unsettling development leads me to believe that upon my return home, I should expect to feel the exact same way as when I came to Tokyo. Except maybe worse because I�ll be in Montana. Hah.

Where do I go from here? Upward and outward, I suppose. It�s completely plausible that in a month, a week or a day, I may find myself irritated with this city and being dumped on by frustratingly Japanese circumstance but I think it utterly unlikely that I�ll wake up to find myself in the exact same hole as before. Something has changed inside me, concretely and completely.

I�m so glad I decided to stay on exchange for the whole year. Spring here is going to be wonderful, I can feel it. Fall has always been my favorite season in America� but this year in Tokyo may cause me to re-evaluate that choice.

Oh, and I've totally fallen in love with this four-year-old that I tought at work today. Aside from being cute-as-a-button, she's absolutely unbelievably smart. Her English pronunciation is perfect and she already knows colors, numbers to twenty, body parts, foods, clothing items, animals, animal sounds, what animals eat, how animals move (crawl, hop, etc) and on top of that she understands the alphabet and can read simple English really well. Everything I tried to teach her she already knew and every question I asked her she understood (or faked understanding) and answered quite cheerfully. I want to take her home!!!!!

Spring makes Kat love babies.