Hatagaya

Day 82: Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I was going to make a pot of curry for dinner as an excuse to tell the girl I like that there would be plenty left over, so she could stop by after her work if she was hungry(because I knew she often skipped dinner since she worked late every night). Also the other day, she mentioned that she wanted to try and take a stab at designing God Only Knows (my photo series about an imaginary animal farm) into a book for the competition that I am applying to next month, so I was hoping that we could discuss that as well. I sent her the text around 8:00, but didn’t hear back from her until 1:00, which by then I had already given up and was in my pajamas about to go to bed. In her message, she said that she was at a bar in our neighborhood with friends and asked if I wanted to come join. Even though I was tired, I wanted to see her so I said okay and then made a cup of strong tea while I waited for her reply about directions. It turned out that one of the judges from the competition that we were applying to was also there hanging out, so now I was twice as nervous.

I skated over while adjusting my penis in my pants because I got dressed in a rush. She met me on her bike. She said she hadn’t slept for more than 30 minutes last night because she didn’t get off work until 7:30 A.M. Today she went home early and was going to rest, but ran into a friend at the local vegetable stand. They ended up drinking in the neighborhood, and eventually the judge, who is a famous photographer in Japan, joined them. The guy turned out to be really nice and friendly. He had also seen My Little Dead Dick before and really liked it. I told him that I was doing a new diary now (T.B.) about Hatagaya- the neighborhood that we were in- and he laughed and said it was probably going to be really boring(man, he had no idea…). He then reminisced about how Takashi Homma, one of the top photographers here in Japan, and him had shared a darkroom in the neighborhood in the 90s, which was the glory years for photography in Japan. Anyone who had won the competition that decade (the same one that I am applying to now) became super famous and a legend. Unfortunately, the competition is rather lame now, but still, if I could win, the prize money would help a lot... The judge and the friend ended up leaving around 3:30. I assumed that the girl would want to go home and sleep as well then, but she didn’t and we stayed for another drink talking about how her work. It sounded hard, but she seemed to enjoy it… Anyways our lives were completely opposite. She worked too much wishing she had time to do her own projects while I was doing the best personal work of my life, but felt like a bum because I didn’t have enough money coming in. I told her that even though we were both struggling in a sense, I think this was our time just like Homma and the judge back in the 90s before they had everything. I bet they look back now at that time in their lives when they actually tried and cared and were passionate… and remembered it as the good old days.

The sun came out and we left the bar at 4:30. She looked cold, so I gave her my jacket (does that mean anything if she accepted it?) and pretended not to be cold myself while I walked her home.