I went out on the balcony / With your photograph
Mark Alger says that summer has begun its slow glide toward fall in Cincinnati. Tokyo had its moment last week, too. I walked out the door, and–uh, if you’ve ever had an inner-ear infection, you know how the doctor gives you anti-biotics and pain-killers and you go home and go to bed and you wake up and it doesn’t hurt and the relief is so overwhelming you almost cry? It was like that. You felt air–real, lovely, moving air that actually felt as if it contained some oxygen along with the water vapor. Suddenly, you knew you could walk down the street without expecting to run into Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego around every corner.
Fine, so the city turned back into a kiln within twelve hours, but the brief moment of relief was enough to give hope. Today, we had a rain that was actually kind of refreshing. I think I’ve been compulsively downing less iced tea, at least by a little. It won’t be long before guys are no longer walking around in shorts (boo!), but not long after that they’ll be wearing sweaters (yum!), so it all works out.
Mmmmmm. Kirin Milk Tea. My own talisman against Tokyo summers. My wife dragged me to every Hanabi Taikai in Tokyo one summer so that she could perfect the art of firework photography (which she did). Did you know that there is a Hanabi Taikai every freaking weekend somewhere in Tokyo from late June until the Sumidagawa one in late August / Early September? There is, take my word for it.
Sitting on a tarp for 6 hours (so that we could secure a good picture-taking spot, dontchaknow) in the Tokyo heat made me give thanks for one thing: we weren’t living in Taipei.
I liked the OT reference. Took me back to listening to an old black preacher on a hot Sunday afternoon down South.
I will take your word for it.
I’ve heard Taipei is worse, though when I went, it wasn’t summer, so thankfully I can’t verify that. Atsushi and I went to see the fireworks here along the Tama-gawa a few years ago. We got there early enough to get a pretty good seat, and I didn’t really mind the sitting. I was with Atsushi, after all.
What I minded was the leaving–at the exact same time as the combined population of three wards of Tokyo. That was not fun.
I actually enjoyed sitting outside in the sun each week after playing the salaryman for five days – I caught up on Japanese people watching and reading.
I agree that wears on you is the after-show slow procession to get squeezed into railway cars that are crowded even by rush hour standards. In a couple of instances, I was actually hoping someone would grab my wife’s ass so she could castrate him right there, and in the melee give us a little breathing room.
Oh yes, Taipei is worse in the summer, and that black jungle-funk that makes all the concrete turn black smells like a huge, dank basement at 38 C and 95% humidity.
So, your ideal guy wears that veddy Bwitish uniform of sweater and shorts?
Not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that.
Sorry — I didn’t mean to be snippety on thread above. Just bad joke. I’m in a WEIRD mood today.
Yay on weather getting more bearable. Here too.
P.
I don’t trust anyone who isn’t snippety on occasion, my dear. No worries.
And no, I’m not into the combination of sweater and shorts. The proportions are all off–unless you choose either a very snug sweater or balloon-y shorts, neither of which is all that flattering. If I had to choose summer or fall clothes as sexier, I’d choose fall. The unwrapping is part of the fun.
Sean, dear Sean;
While Dolly and I deeply appreciate the link and mention, and I understand that the cities may look the same from 10,000 miles away, BTB posts from Cincinnati, not Cleveland. Kind of like the difference between San Francisco and the OC. ::grin::
M
Oh, damn. Sorry! I knew I was going to do that someday. I mixed up Kyoto and Kobe a few months back–I have this real alliterative-city problem, apparently. I’ll fix it.
Hey, no big. But thanks.
M