I (don't) like to move it move it

I moved to Osaka last weekend.

Doing so was a labor of love born of a bitter dispassion for everything the eikaiwa circuit still offered (nothing) and a desire to get away for a fresh start.  That, and there's only so long one can force themselves to live under the world's only tap-dancing sumo wrestler.

Great act, though.

Life in transition is a difficult one, as is coming to terms with the fact that all of one's worldly possessions can fit in five cardboard boxes with ample room left over for the missus' delicates (protip: stockings and boxers make a great substitute for bubble wrap in a pinch).

The first hurdle of the move was getting everything packed up and ready for the movers, and holy shit, let me tell you something: non-union employees in Japan haul fucking ass to get the job done.  Seriously.  From ringing the doorbell to the moving truck turning down the road and vanishing from sight, the whole packing and moving job took a total of 40 minutes.  We took the cheap two-week delivery option and until yesterday when we finally got our stuff back I was seriously starting to think we got robbed.  These guys were good.

But, rather than doing what experts generally agree sane people do, the nice possible burglars came and took our boxed stuff away almost a full week before our departure.  Suddenly we had a roof over our heads and running water, but nothing else.  It was like being bizarro-homeless.  There we sat in a mostly-empty apartment, save for a couple of boxes of personal effects yet to be mailed to the US.  And no clean underwear.  I'm not fucking joking.  We were seriously packing up a coffee maker or something and ran out of bubble wrap and tissue paper and thought "oh, hey, Merican, why not just pack your boxers in here?  They're soft and spunk mostly comes out in the wash anyway, it'll be perfect!"

It was perfect.  The coffee maker arrived perfectly intact yesterday.  And I spent nearly two weeks feeling like the disgusting pig I am, gasping big, womanly sobs as I tried to scrub the lingering residue of swamp-ass off of me every night in the shower.

The final preparation came last Saturday, when, running on approximately zero hours and zero minutes of sleep, we put the last of the clothes and hot sauce into our remaining suitcases, bags, backpacks, and any other container we could carry and brought them with us in a courageous re-enactment of the Bataan Death March to the bus terminal some 40 minutes away.

If you've ever been to Japan, you know that, for some Japanese people, being in the same room or train car as a foreigner is kind of oogy.  That's cool.  I came to terms with that a long, long time ago.  A homogeneous society on an island nation, with perhaps not the happiest collective racial memory of guys who look like me... I get it.  I'm sensitive to that fact, and with a little bit of awareness, developed skin thick enough that the staring no longer gets to me.

But when the train doors opened at my station and I prepared to board, dragging two suitcases behind me, a bag slung over one arm and a backpack on my shoulder... well, Biblical lepers were regarded with less disdain.  Seriously, it was like the '89 cootie outbreak in Ms. Wood's class all over again.

That night, as we relinquished our burdens to the bus station staff and clambered aboard, we sighed contentedly, knowing that, for a while at least, the work was done.  We found our seats and settled in, nestling knee-deep in bags of going-away presents and summer clothes.

It was a moment of transcendence.  Our earthly burdens suddenly lifted, and, reclining back in our seats, we closed our eyes and locked fingers.  United in our struggles and in our moments of victory, we prepared for our well-earned respite.

Or she did, anyway.  Some dumb motherfucker kept kicking my seat all night.

(Next: Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten... from a couple of sociopaths)