Let me take some time out to tell you about the three coldest times of my life:
Time the first: December 27th, 2005. Tamara and I decided we would skip San Fran for the day and take the BART out to Berkeley, to stroll around the UC campus and check out the bookstores and record stores along Telegraph Avenue. I was wearing a jacket grandma told me was ‘probably waterproof’, my heart on my sleeve, and not enough else. Unfortunately, all the BARTs from San Bruno take a right turn at West Oakland and head down the East Bay. Instead of changing at the warm, covered Embarcadero subway station (we could’ve even gone and had a bagel at that place I found on Market St) we decided to change at West Oakland (my idea, for which I apologize) an elevated station in the middle of a low lying industrial area, with no protection from the wind and the driving rain. We huddled in between two bike lockers for about ten minutes trying to keep warm. After Berkeley we went back to San Francisco to check out the Castro, and coming out of the Muni tunnel and seeing all the rainbow flags in the sunlight streaming through the clouds was almost as heavenly as the hot noodle soup we had, and all the Starbucks coffee.
Time the second: Belmont Park, Adachi-ku, Tokyo, January 15th 2007. I needed to go to the toilet and didn’t want to wait until after our walk to the local high school, which for all I knew could’ve been hours. It was a three or so degree day, but I was used to it and was more than fully clothed, but stepping into the toilet block was like stepping into the ninth circle of hell (for all those unfamiliar with La Commedia Divina, the ninth circle of hell is the innermost circle, reserved for the most vicious of traitors, its prominent water feature being the frozen lake Cocytus, in which the bodies of traitors are entombed at various depths, depending on their crimes. Judging by the cold I was in, I was a traitor to my lords or benefactors) And, to make matters worse, I have a fear of squat toilets, especially when my legs are numb from cold. So I made my way to the western toilet. The one at the far end. Away from the door from the building in to the toilets, towards the flimsy wooden door, rife with gaps and holes, leading to the outside world. By this time I was debating whether or not it was too late. I had already decided it was too late by the time I pushed open the door marked 洋式 and saw, to my absolute horror, a metallic seat.
I need go no further.
Time the third: Last Saturday. Woke up at Six to start work at Seven Thirty, did I mention that Tamara and I live in the coldest house in the world? And I have a cold. That is all. It made me remember the coldest times in my life, which in turn made me even colder. Which in turn made me wish that a letter comes this week from a prefecture in Okinawa or Kyushu, asking me to appreciate their sunny, humid summers and apparently the most attractive women in Japan (yes, apparently women from Fukuoka and Okinawa are more attractive. Don’t remember where I heard that though, possibly Wikipedia. Is there anything that guy doesn’t know/provide a biased and grammatically incorrect representation of?)
