So, yesterday was my birthday, potentially the only one I am ever going to celebrate in Japan... and it was great. I haven't updated for a few days though, so I'm gonna back-track a bit before I get to the day itself...

The weekend was huge, starting with a dinner with work folks in Friday night to welcome our newest foreign staff member... which causes havoc in (among other things) my pseudonyms because the CoWorker is no longer the only one... but I think I'm going to stick with CoWorker (CW) for the original one, and the new one I'll call the Jazz Singer, or JS. Anyway, JS arrived on Wednesday and we took her out on that night to meet a few folks and CW and I have both found it a little unsettling the way that she has slotted right in, both in work and social circles. Sure, there's probably some pressure on her part to fit in, but CW and I have taken three months to get where we are... it's nothing bad, just disconcerting.

So anyway, back to Friday night... which was dinner with work folks ending somewhere in the vicinity of midnight, at which point CW, JS and I headed out to the bar and the night was pretty alright.

Saturday night was huge. Our bar had organised a beach party for Sunday, with the bus leaving at 5am in the morning, so a few folks (us included) never went home on Saturday night, simply got changed and hopped on the bus. Saturday night was a bit weird though... the Writer left early and a few of the other usuals had opted out of the evening and couldn't make it on Sunday because of work... it felt strange. The Writer and I do our own thing most of the time when we're out but I missed his presence just the same.

People watching on Saturday and Sunday was interesting, a few elements of the equation had been altered... some subtractions, an addition... the end product looked quite different as a result. I guess this is something I have to get used to because it is the nature of being here, the people are always coming and going. I wasn't the only one who felt it, CW was as close to unsettled as I had ever seen her... at the end of the day as we mused about where the dust might settle I felt reassured that even though our two is now a three, she and I are going to remain as close as we have been.

I remember having a conversation on Sunday afternoon out in the ocean... perhaps because we were drifting out to sea, I was rambling about water, how it represents how I would like to live my life... strong, yet flexible. Water is something I have always felt an affinity with, being near water is something that has a calming effect on me and even with my dancing it held something I aspired to, the fluidity was something I did well... I remember the Greek telling me in a nightclub that my dancing was 'like water'; I remember colleagues at uni telling me the same (words like 'fluid' or 'organic' always ended up in my feedback, it was what I was known for). Weird, I know, but there's a lot of water in me, and it is the best example of what I want to be that I can think of... strong, yet flexible, adaptable, changeable... something you can touch but not really hold or shape.

A day at the beach was therapy. However, my sunburn was severe, even though I was good with sunblock and such all day, and I'm still recovering from that :)

Monday was back to work, it was a public holiday even though we still had classes but because of that many of my kids were away so the day was kind of cruisey and relaxed... I spent the night with the Writer and it was one of the best nights in recent memory. I got my birthday presents when the clock had ticked past midnight and I have to hand it to him, they hit the mark. The first made me laugh until my sides ached, the second was just perfect - it's a silver pendant of a feather on a silver chain. To find a piece of jewellery that I will wear is a difficult task, I don't wear much... I actually got three items of jewellery for my birthday from different people; this is the only one I am actually going to wear.

Besides the fact that I liked the look of it, I liked the symbolism... was it intentional? Probably, though he left that to me. The feather reminded me of the Egyptian afterlife myth - they believed that after you died your heart was weighed against the feather of truth; if it was lighter than the feather then you were pure of heart and went on to heaven, if not your heart was fed to some kind of monster (that's the basic gist of it anyway). Given that the pendant sits atop my heart just about, I'm feeling very mindful right now.

My actual birthday was pretty cool... lots of emails from folks back home which made me smile. I had one of my better schools to teach at and it was a good day. I had lunch with the girls from work at a French restaurant, and dinner plans with the Writer... which turned out to be attended by a group of ten or so friends. It was a kind of surprise, I think it was supposed to be more of a surprise but CW is a crappy lier and I had an inkling a couple of days ago that something was up. It was a fantastic night though, organised by her and the Writer... both of whom have birthdays next month and are probably going to be sorely disappointed by anything I can cook up for them because I'm never going to out-do it... it really was a great night.

Today I am on coffee, which is an indication of just how tired I am... it's not just last night, but more a cumulative effect of having very little sleep since last Friday... I've spent every night in recent memory with the Writer, I can't actually remember the last night we spent alone... and we are probably tiring each other out far too much but I don't feel like I could spend enough time with him at the moment... last Thursday we acknowledged the fact that things between us have gone from like to love and while I know in the back of my mind that this is only going to be problematic down the track, for now I am just enjoying the ride.

I have no words to do it justice, so I think I'll leave it there. Suffice to say, life is good right now.

Before After

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