Note on November

I sat at the cash register and the store was almost empty -- Monday night. I looked at my watch, 4 minutes had gone by since the last night I checked. I should just tape it like Emilia Fox did in the movie "Cash Back". After seeing that film with a friend of mine, we both got a supermarket job a few weeks later. But it seems so long ago now. I scanned through products mechanically, then suddenly someone pointing at a small six-pack funky milk and asked me :" It is healthy right? You are Japanese, this is healthy right?"

"Eh... sorry... what? I am not Japanese." Maybe I didn't meet an artist like Fox did, but there are certainly plenty of materials scattered around.

"Which brand is better for my sweater?"
"I don't know."
"Oh God, you know nothing!" A customer stormed away angrily. Some people can neither take honest answers, nor read.

"I want that frying pan on your special offer list. Can't you go and get it for me?" An old woman threw the ad on the counter. I had the urge to tell her that I was not her butler, and not suppose to leave the cash register. But I left and looked for the drying pan. Just because you are old, you don't have to boss around others. I fancied throwing the pan at her face:" Here is that fucking special frying pan!" But at the same time, I get paid by the hour.

Humid and chilly air appears to be tapping everyone's nerves. Twice had we almost an accident on the bus. An old lady fell as the driver braked abruptly. I was late for school. A professor of mine had a break-down in the middle of class because something triggered her. A passage that we read reminded her the misfortune happened this summer, she almost cancel the class and always felt a ghost following her. Lunch at the Mensa around noon is war. I decided to put 2 kg of risotto on my plate and checked out. A girl sat across from me had a big suitcase under the table, she put both of her hands on her ears, head down. I couldn't see her face. I wondered if she had been waiting for someone, who might eventually stand her up. If she was looking for a quite place to block out the world, Mensa is a bad choice. Maybe the person she had been waiting for was caught up in a series of strange events (Patrick Wilson in "Little Children"?) I had wanted to ask her if everything was alright, but I picked up my tray and headed for the dish washer.

There are more than a docent of leave letters at school, I am hardly ever bothered. I look foreign.

I love to dine near our huge aquarium under candle light. These moments remind me of everything what my distant biological family was and is not. Change is good, breaking a vicious circle is good, a full-of-love-prepared meal is good; life is good.