home(?)
I don't think the feeling of displacement has really hit yet. I'm too tired, too sore and too crampy to feel anything but relief at being out of that hot, smelly and loudy city. The first thing I noticed on deplaning in Vancouver, B.C., was how clean the air smelled.

The flight itself was uneventful, though the moments leading up to it were quite possibly some of the most stressful since coming to Japan. My host family stayed until the last possible moment, keeping me outside of th security checkpoint until after my plane had started boarding. My Host Mom was still acting markedly cold, as she had been for two days prior, which I attribute to the fact that she's probably bad at goodbyes. I had to rescue myself several times from the teetering edge of a breakdown-- which I still haven't had yet but guess will come soon-- to settle for handshakes from everyone as the final goodbye for ten months living together. (Allow me to express my narrow-minded disgust at a culture that is afraid and ashamed of affection.)

I fully attribute that any disasters that might have occurred in the airport were averted by Totoro, whom I carried plumply under my arm. All three Kokusaibu students on Air Canada flight 04 seemed to have some sort of problem at the counter. Whatshisname was told that he had to check his carry-on, which they for some reason *weighed* and found to be 3kg "over" even though it fit perfectly into that silly little measurement system they have. They wanted him to pay $200 for the extra piece of luggage and insisted on it even when he said he'd never had a problem previously.

After watching him struggle with airport staff, I headed in fully expecting to be fee'd and fined up the wazoo for my overweight baggage and extra carry-ons. But... the check-in clerk, took one look at Totoro, told me how cute it was, called me "Miss" and I knew everything would be OK. My luggage WAS overweight... and they didn't charge. I was carrying FAR more than the standard per-person carry-on limit, and no one even blinked, despite that my backpackers bag is MUCH larger than their standard size limit. None of my carry-ons were weighed or examined by the counter staff. The only problem I had was that STA travel, being the hellspawn they are, failed to note in the computer that I'd already paid for my date change even though I was confirmed. Luckily I was carrying the reciept, so after twenty minutes of diddling around, the clerks waved me through unfined. Meanwhile, Whatshisname had just finished convincing the staff to let him reallocate the weight to other bags... and Keith was paying them $100 to look the other way because he'd lost his original ticket (not the one he needed for that day, mind you, but) from when he came to Japan.

They sat me on the aisle in an exit-row berth seat. I had quite possibly the most leg room on the plane. I watched Here Comes Polly, a movie I suggest you avoid with your life, before taking two NyQuil and a melatonin and sleeping restlessly on and off for five hours.

America isn't that weird, except that it seems strangely TRASHY and there are a lot of FAT PEOPLE everywhere. Canada, where we spent the day in Vancouver, seemed a lot stranger. The city itself was too new and strangely empty. Walking by the Amsterdam smoking cafes and stoners passed out on the street or harassing cops, I had the vague feeling that I was on an alien planet. I'm not sure whether it started or stopped being funny when one guy tried to sell us a six-dollar (Canadian even!) bag of bud. I felt a little "off" when we later passed a handcuffed junkie trying to pull his pants up while the cop waited for something. I dunno if I want to live in Canada more or less than I did before.

Around Justin I feel solid and grounded, if not a bit co-dependent. But here in my parents' house, I'm a bit suffocated, partially because it echoes with memories of the unhappiest years of my life and mostly because I can't just hop on a local train and get my ass out of here if I want. I'm unfit to drive at the moment, so I'll just settle to roll around on the floor for a bit and avoid like a plague that garish and nauseating bile of American television. Last night we went to see the late show of DodgeBall (with Ben Stiller) and my head almost exploded.

Like I said, so far my feeling of displacement is only vague and dreamlike in the background. I don't think I quite realize where I am or what has changed. But I do catch myself stopped and staring, frozen quite helplessly unpacking things from my bags or contemplating normalacy. It's not that I have the sense I'm waiting for the bomb to drop, just that I suspect it will when I am quite unawares.