Want to hear a good one?

My ryokan, my inn, has a computer that guests can log onto.  It`s funny, see, because tonight`s my last night at the ryokan and I was paying my charges tonight rather than tomorrow in case my new VISA card had a problem so I could have a full 12hours to panic rather than just the two.  Anyway, the nice owner who`s a really neat guy got to talking and I mentioned I was going to go in to the station and get on the computer and he said, oh we have one here.

Ha ha. 

Oh well, if I had known this a week and a half ago Computer A and I and Computer B and I would never have met.  Anyway, being the slightly Japaneezy sort of person I am I would always be assuming I was holding someone else up, sumimasen, on this computer anyway.  I happen to know I`m the only guest in the Ryokan right now and I still feel as though I`m taking too much time.  For what?

I finished my book the Teahouse Fire last night and left my copy at the coffee house/literary thing called Cafe Bibliotheque HELLO or something unimaginably close to that.  I left it so someone would pick it up and start reading it.

Getting Rich Not Quite as Quick as I Thought

Pretty typical I think.

I have to amend my former statement about how many Japanese people wear face masks, at least on the street.  I don`t remember my previous estimate but I think I was guessing about 10-15%.  I took a closer look and I think it`s more like, uh, something substantially less than 1%.  It`s still way more than any place in the US other than, you know, a hospital operating room or something but it`s not going to get me rich quite as quick as I imagined, the idea of selling fashion masks.  Still, rich is rich.  I went into the One-S-One or S-One-S, I can`t remember, the local drug store, to get some plum candy (about which another time) and Deodorant (about which in a sec) and there at the face mask section was a gaggle of young women looking for all the world as if they were in a shoe store or its upper-body near equivalent.  So, fashion`s still a good idea.  Face-mask-wise, I mean.

Well, shoot, somebody already did it.

So, on to the BO thing, you seem curious.  If that`s not curiosity but disgust on your face that I`m mistaking for curiosity, please feel free to skip to the end.

I have been in some sort of angst, possibly a subform of gaijin angst, because every time I read a novel about Japan that has foreigners in it, the foreigners are said to smell bad.  That`s mostly two, I think, Shogun and the Teahouse Fire, and they`re both set before the days of serious indoor plumbing, but still.  It`s enough to make me paranoid.  So instead I`ve been bathing/showering hot and cold a couple of times a day sometimes.  Remember that I`m walking 15-20 miles in the hot June non-rain.  So today at 10:30 a.m. I came back for a second shower and I just thought, I can`t keep doing this although, you know, it`s only three more days.  I had gone into the S-one-S or whatever a couple of times before but I was too embarrassed to ask for deodorant, because partly I didn`t, don`t know the word and partly the impression I get from these books is that the Japanese, after running a 10K in mid-August, have underarms that smell like fresh baked bread or something. 

But my angst got the better of, what, my other angst.  I asked a petite little earnest Japanese store worker who of course didn`t know the word so I had to raise my arm and, uh, demonstrate.  I`d like to say I`m not easily embarrassed but if you know me, and, well, my photo`s in the dictionary next to the word "blush."  Yes, it DOES even come through in black and white.

Anyway, she luckily gets the idea relatively quickly (at least they`ve HEARD of it over here) and says "for men"?  Oh, yeah, some guy will be using this.  Remember, I walked like five blocks just to get to the store.   So, you know.  What kind do you want?  Just whatever you`re holding there in your hand, that will be great.  Because, you know, we have several brands and several kinds of each.  No,no, just that one you have in your hand, thank you.

See, it says "MEN" right there on the label, along with "Smart Citrus"

If it doesn't work, I really hope it's not the best one.

Well, it turns out to be smart citrus flavor.  That`s the name, smart citrus.  So, think of the average grapefruit.  Well, I smell as though I`m smarter than that.

So, here is my one post-6 pm. post from Japan.  unless Osaka has something later, which I don`t think I`m going to try to find out.  Tomorrow I`m writing from the station, and Friday, I already decided to come back and do my last post also from the station.  My Saturday is going to be 13 hours longer than yours, probably.  And feel like it, probably.

But that`s not today.  Tomorrow a word about plum candy maybe.