bookish dreamer

My housemate rolled her eyes at me today because I asked her if she'd clear the entire dish drainer out more often than she has been doing.

You see, no apartment in Japan has a dishwasher. Or, ok, no student housing. Just like we don't have ovens. So you're hand washing all the dishes. I don't mind this - even my place in LA doesn't have a dishwasher (that's because it's cheap! yay cheap housing!).

Anyway, rules of the road in my LA place are (and this is living with two different people): if you're doing dishes, you try to clean out the dry dishes first. Of course it doesn't happen every time or anything. But if you start putting one dish away it's easy enough to put all the rest of 'em away (dish drainers aren't that big after all).

Current housemate wants to leave her dishes in the drainer and never put them away. For her it's a perfect system - from drainer to table and back again. EXCEPT, LO, I USE DISHES TOO.

And I realize what the fundamental problem is here: she's not used to living with other people. I know for a fact she's been living by herself since she's been in LA (which is two years or so), and she doesn't talk about past housemates, so I'm guessing that she lived by herself or with parents (a whole different set of compromises).

But eyerolls?

So, flist, give me your advice? Eyerolls really piss me off. I want to open my bedroom door and ask her to please refrain from rolling her eyes at me when I'm trying to calmly bring up something that bothers me. Even if she thinks the subject is closed, if it bothers me, I'd appreciate that she give me the courtesy of taking me seriously as her housemate. Even if she chooses not to compromise with me, I'd like her to acknowledge me in a mature way.

Actually, I can guess what you're going to say - I should ignore it, because confronting her isn't going to make it any better. But goddamn i hate it when I get made to feel absurd and like i'm an ass because I asked someone to do *exactly* what I'm doing every time I put away the damn dishes -- just meet me fucking halfway.

I've always liked the way ittadakimas （いただきます） sounds. It's a pretty word. Just like there's so much in this country that is pretty, even when its crowded and hot and stuffy. Cute kids, everywhere. You've never seen such cute kids.

So, looks like housemate crisis number one is averted. Although she was taking the hard line verbally, she apparently is willing to meet halfway, and so isn't going to send my life into a tailspin by trying to get out of our rental contract or anything. Yay. I'm sure I'll have more amusing tales on that front for the future, but for now things are fairly even steven - we even went to the 100en (pronounced hyaku-en) (the Japanese equivalent of the dollar store) today to buy home goods of a variety simply not found in most of your usual US dollar stores. It was reasonably fun.

I feel like I ought to start at the beginning, though, of this journey. And to do that I really have to start at the end - ( saying goodbye to Los Angeles )

I said any hello had to start with goodbye, and I meant it. And my first goodbyes in the city I live in was to the city I've mapped out with my own two feet (accompanied by my four legged accomplice). After that, for some reason, the good byes to the people I love who live in that city didn't seem so difficult to do - they seemed, instead, to be awesome.

Which is why I let my awesome housemate help talk me into inviting my friends out dancing, even though it was on one of the nights when my mom was going to be in town picking up the puppy. We did some tequila shots at the house, piled into one car, found heavenly parking, and then literally danced our booties off (or our muscles into submission, or something). I think people need to dance. Whether it's the dancing in your room, or dancing in the car, or going to a club that blows your ears out even when you're not standing near the speakers, turns your dress into a sweaty stinky thing at the end of the night, your shoes into weird water/booze soaked leather, and your smile into a grin, dancing is good for the soul.

And why I went over to my other friend's house for the last monthly cocktails night I'm going to attend for a while, and got to sit and talk with them just a little bit longer before I hopped on a plane. And why I went to spend my last night in the city with my other girlfriend M before getting dropped off at the airport shuttle - this is the third time I think I've left for Japan that way, and even though it was a rocky time for her (she had to take one of her dogs into the vet the night I spent over, and found out the next day that she had to put her to sleep - long story, but not a terrible surprise and the wisest decision to let her go), it still was good to be able to be there for her, even just a little bit, before I flew off for places known.

that, my friends, is how I went off for Japan. there's more to this story, but that's enough for one night, I think.