Born in the USA

Truly, nothing tests the strength of a marriage more than filling out forms together.  In fact, five out of every three divorces are the result of filling out tax forms, mostly stemming from arguments about calculation errors.

Alas, one cannot make a living on eikaiwa work.  And the faint buzz of life's obligations from behind the horizon has become a furious, stinging miasma of hornets.  It's time to go home.

And I'm taking the best part of Japan with me: her.

Not that that's easy, or anything.  Over the past weekend we spend dozens of hours pouring over a fat stack of forms, assuring the US government that yes, we are actually married and, no, Mrs. Merican has no intention of overthrowing the capitalist dogs in Washington in a bloody coup and, yes, Aloysius is my real middle name.

And as I sat there across the table, gazing at her through the column of haze ebbing free from her Hello Kitty coffee mug, every bit as beautiful and enchanting as the day I first laid eyes on her, I looked into her eyes.  Weary with sleep deprivation and yet a perfect, placid hazel, sparkling with youth and beauty and hope.  I longed for the next step in our lifelong adventure together, hopping across the ocean and starting anew--a golden treasure of new experiences glistening on the horizon if only she'd just put the papers in the right order and no, no honey, sign and date it right there.  No, today's date, no toda- look, I'll do it.

And the next night, we were whisked away aboard the night bus to the US Embassy in Tokyo.

I've heard it said that Asian people's sweat doesn't smell.  The reason for this being some biological thing and evolution or something and they believe in fairies and so now their sweat glands do or don't secrete some chemical.  I have since discovered that, in spite of the compelling scientific evidence I just presented, this isn't true.  Or if it is true, I have no idea which Asian country's people they're referring to, because that bus smelled like a locker room full of hundreds of sentient elephant scrotums.

The US Embassy itself was... actually not that bad.  On our previous trip to obtain some papers necessary for an international marriage, we ran into a fat, blond Nick Burns.  But this time, the people working the desk at the visa department weren't just civil--they were actually nice.  So for all of you Americans who are wondering why government employees in the US are such assholes, it's because the good ones are all get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

So now, we play the waiting game.  In two weeks, we'll know if we've been approved for the next step in the visa process, which includes proving you have $60,000 cash in assets available in the US (I don't), proving you're healthy (we'll see), and proving you have a clean criminal record of in Japan (depends on your definition, I suppose).

Either way, I'm glad it's over.  Just one last hurdle between now and an August return to the land of 89 cent Big Gulps.  The tension of the past weekend is only more potential energy for the imminent summer blast.

And in accordance with the forms we just filed with the embassy, I am obligated to clarify that the "blast" in question was used only as a figure of speech and is not, nor has it ever been, indicative of the actions of a violent political agenda.