We Are All Useless Smile Every Day

This morning, I woke up after sleeping way in.  We stayed out late on Saturday night on a 15-mile walking journey through Shibuya, Ebisu and Shinjuku and I’m not too old for that shit, but I’m like really close to being too old for that shit.  I need to seriously start taking some fish oil and snorting kale because when I woke up, my right ankle felt like it had gravel in it and I literally, actually said the words “oh my god, my hip” while getting out of bed.

I wander downstairs, and head to the kitchen to grab a glass of water to hydrate my apparently decomposing joints.  Right there in the middle of the kitchen, I found our fuzzy grey-and-white blanket that my mother-in-law bought us, which our cat Gibson has adopted as his personal snuggle palace.  It normally resides on our bed upstairs, where he sleeps between our heads every night.  But there it was.  In our kitchen.  With him on it, purring like a goddamn attack helicopter.

“Babe!”  I shouted incredulously to my husband, who was streaming the 

12 hours of Bathurst race in our living room.  “Why did you put Gibson’s blanket in the middle of our kitchen?”  

“What are you talking about, I didn’t put his blanket in the kitchen.”

That goddamn cat had dragged his huge, heavy blanket from our bed, through the upstairs hallway, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.  And he was just purring on top of it like and staring at me like “yeah what hooman, this my blanket and it goes where I want it to go.”  I was asleep in bed, and Jan was watching racing in the living room downstairs, and apparently the kitchen was the only appropriate place for him to slumber to ensure maximum access to each of his two hoomans.

We had a good laugh about it because Gibson is both too smart and too stupid for his own good and provides us with endless entertainment.  But I started to really think about it… while Jan and I usually sleep in bed with him in between our heads, last night Jan was downstairs and I was upstairs.  Gibson could not figure out where to sleep, so he picked the one place in the house that was directly between us.  He acts super adventurous but when it comes down to it, he needs his security blanket.

I feel you, buddy.  My security blanket is on the other side of the ocean.

On Saturday, we decided to venture to Shibuya, then walked to Ebisu and finished off our day in Shinjuku in hopes that logging that many walking miles would burn off some of the calories that we would consume via Strong Zeros and Lawson’s egg salad sandwiches.  Along the way, we started talking about how different the “suburban” “residential” neighborhoods were between Japan and Portland.  In Japan, there are no yards.  There are no garages.  There are no open windows.  As an American, it feels almost reclusive to me.  I’m used to neighborhoods with kids playing in the yards and open windows and people washing their cars in the driveway.  In Japan, I would be pressed to say whether or not any house was occupied or unoccupied.  I miss the openness. 

We’ve been here a few months now, and that is just one of the many things that you start to miss about Home.  There is one thing that really jumps out as well.

Japan is VERY clean.  People do not litter here, or flick their cigarette butts on the ground.  There is not graffiti.  Bless Portland’s heart but in most areas it is gross and dirty in comparison.  I routinely stepped over vomit and half-eaten food cart containers and passed out homeless people on my way to work.  One time while living downtown I walked past a pair of high-heeled shoes in a corner with projectile vomit all over the wall behind it, and an empty pack of Marbs and a Red Bull.  Where is my security blanket of graffiti and grime and the aftermath of a Chinatown night out for a 20-something girl??  I love that shit!  I miss that Portland honesty!  KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD, amiright?

Well the walking route we took through the back alleys of Shibuya, Ebisu and Shinjuku did not disappoint. 

I found so much graffiti, but it was different than what I’m used to.  It was thoughtful and beautiful.  It was weird and quirky.  It was so… Japan.  The one that struck me first was a beautiful painting of a woman, aside a more careless graffiti that said “GODZ-ILLA!”  I thought it looked cool and then noticed what it said.

“We Are Useless”

Well that is a fucking downer.  Then I turn the corner and find adorable little cartoon creatures with writing all over them.  I saw a giant advertisement that just said “SMILE EVERY DAY”.  Entire giant pedestrian tunnels with awesome mixed media art.  It was everywhere.  It wasn’t Portland but it wasn’t Japan… it was close to both.  It was my fuzzy blanket in the kitchen.

Once I started looking, I saw beautiful graffiti everywhere.  I started to notice the little indications of grime in the shadows of the bright-lights-big-city.  I started to see perhaps not where the other half lives, but where the other half creates.  

For Gibson, he has two hoomans.  One is more nurturing and snuggly, and one is more rambunctious and borderline nuts.  He loves us both, and when we’re apart from each other – he takes him home to the one place he can find that is in between us.  Where he has a chance to experience both ends of the spectrum, depending upon who walks into the room.

Today, we took the day off from exploring and stayed home.  We were sitting on the couch and noticed that it was raining outside.  It has rained maybe 5 or 6 times since we moved here in October, in stark contrast to our home in Portland where rain is just a fact of life.  I was actually giddy.  “Oh my god it’s raining!!”  I stood outside of our front porch and just relished in every rain drop that I would have cursed back home.

The grass is always greener on the other side.  You just have to embrace  the “WE ARE USELESS” and embrace the “SMILE EVERY DAY” and find your fuzzy blanket in the middle of the kitchen and purr like an attack helicopter because you are just so happy in the awkward center between two wonderful and yet flawed realities.

We are useless.  Smile every day.  Could you ask for a better dichotomy?