Come back, kid!

Last night I drank a souped up energy cocktail drink from the conbini (convenience store) full of ginseng and various extracts I couldn't recognize, most likely from the deepest regions of the congo and it seemed to do something good. I stopped taking the codeine and other prescription stuff this morning, I tried buying some over the counter cough medicine (Benadryl is illegal here) but the one that was the "least sleep-inducing" according to the pharmacist/cashier put me into nap mode after a few hours. I won't be taking any more of that too soon. I was at least able to come back to some semblance of a normal day, and although I'm not 100%, I'm back to functional, and that's good enough for right now.

I took the 15-minute train into town to meet some students for a lesson a popular cheap Italian place, ate some pizza and made 4000 yen (roughly $40) talking about dogs for an hour. Good racket. More important I made it through without feeling like trash, as it was a kind of test before going back into full on work. My week is busy and starts tomorrow.

1 week without the gym. First time since April. My muscles are pissed at me (especially my back) and my whole body feels really neglected. I'll try tomorrow morning.... we'll see. The physically drained feeling is still lingerning however.

I've been listening to a great reading of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney, and while it isn't the best book it's some fun, pulpy, character-driven sci fi that has helped get me through this rut of a sick week. I'm just starting "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai, a best-selling Japanese novel even today, by an author who killed himself in 1947. It's a lot like the first emo before there was a word for emo however. "Woe is me I can't relate to anyone my life is pain etc. etc." I'm reading through trying to find the appeal, and I want to stop but it's mysteriously addicting....

Thoughts: being sick and stuck on my own in this little room with too much free time led to my usual over-philosophizing about life and the universe and my mediocre position therein and about my prospective career and my childhood and my possible days as an old man and how we all have to die some time, it's just a matter of when. I'd rather go backwards, not forwards. Regress into a child, de-age until I was a sperm and an egg and subatomic particles and disappear. It'd be a really original way to go.

See, this is why I keep myself occupied. Can't think freely for too long.

Countdown to home: 34 days.