Sigh

Frustrated and depressed today. For the past couple weeks I've been looking forward to going to taiko, and today we finally got to the new space and I was all happy and excited because we were working on slant stand kata, hitting big lefts and rights, paying attention to the little things like knees and knuckles and how to plant our feet. And I look up and there's this guy scowing at us through the fence, and at first I try to ignore him but I know he's trouble. When we stop for a minute, he starts yelling at us through the fence. He's all mad because we're violating his right to wake up and drink coffee and read a book in peace because our playing is so loud and invasive and, I quote, "random." Ugh, there were a million other things he said, but thinking about them makes me angry. Janet handled it much better, listening to the guy and trying to hold a civil conversation with him, whereas I would have pulled him through the chain link fence by the collar and shook him, because that's what I want to do to people who so blatantly push their entitlement around, going wah wah wah, you're violating my rights as a citizen! A citizen of Alameda!

Sigh. Do taiko players really have to banish themselves to remote islands in order to play their music? We muted the drums (remember that from before? We played a whole year on rubber and elastic covered drums, and then finished that off with the big November concert? We didn't even get to hear what we sounded like till, literally, the day before the concert.) and got through the rest of the rehearsal, but geez, it sucks.

The CHASM

I haven't yet told you about the best part of my new apartment. In one of the bedrooms is a strange cabinet-like opening. When we were first looking at the place, I was like, what's this?
I thought maybe it was just going to be a little opening big enough to fit books or maybe if we were lucky a tv, or something. But to my surprise, it's a chasm. I call it that because once I read a book called House of Leaves that was about this house that just opened up into incredibly vacuous chasms and I think the chasms eventually swallowed people up. Anyhow. You could literally fit a twin sized bed in there. It's an ideal storage place, and on the one hand it scares me to have such a vast storage area because I know we're just going to throw stuff in there that we're never going to use again and should really throw out.

Then I had this wonderful idea. Instead of turning it into a horrible mess of clutter, why not carve out my own little space in there? As the British would say, Brilliant! I've put some of my trusty milk-crates and a little rug and some holiday lights and brought up goodies like my practice pad and some bachi and metronome. When I settle in more, it's going to be my little solace from the world. It's a little messy right now, but just wait.
I think the chasm is actually a void over the apartment complex's laundry room, so I don't think the sound of me tapping on my practice pad is going to bother anyone. I was in there tonight, working on my counting drill, a little paranoid that someone was going to pound on the wall to complain, when all of a sudden I heard a very loud thud, and then the whole chasm shuttered violently, and for a split second I was thinking, oh, I've really pissed someone off now, but then I realized that instead we were having a little earthquake, and you've never seen me jump out of anything so quick. I'm a native Californian and I've lived my way through several earthquakes and all their after shocks, but I think I'm going to stay out here for a while. Wouldn't want the chasm to swallow me up, afterall.

Sushi Ya

I don't usually post links like this, but this was so hilarious I cried. Sushi-eating etiquette. Take notes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYlcgq-U5js

Time

Where in the world has the time gone? Since when did it start being December? I have had NO time in the past few weeks. The holidays snuck up on me and I'm not done with shopping yet. There are still a few boxes left on the floor of my new apartment that need unpacking. I need to learn the sequence of a new version of a song we're working on. I need to develop a logo for Maze Taiko. I need to schedule taiko classes for next year and figure out what we're going to teach. And for the love of gravity I still need to learn how to spin in place without falling over.

I miss being able to putter around. Maybe after all the holiday mayhem I'll be able to do that.

That's AUNTY Kiko to You

Got a call last Tuesday saying that it was time for me to come down to LA to be there for the birth of my first niece. I did what I could at work to make it happen, and I bought myself a plane ticket for the same day to fly down and catch a few winks of shut-eye before making my way to the hospital. Births are strange events. On the one hand you kind of have a window in knowing when it's gonna happen, but then again, we're dealing with nature here, so it's not like you can say that I need such and such day off and buy your ticket 14 days in advance and be there. Anyhow. It worked out.

Now, I've never seen a birth before. The only real birth that I've been semi-a-part-of was the birth of little bro. All I remember was that we went out trick-or-treating one night in 1979, and when we got home, Mom and Dad were gone and our Aunty was there. I remember waking up and my Aunty yelled at me for eating candy for breakfast, and then later my dad snuck me and my older brother to look at Mom through a side window at the hospital. Then we made a sign saying "Welcome home Alex!" and the rest was history. Oh, and before we could come near him, we had to wash our hands. And then the rest was history.

But this time it was different. My sister-in-law wanted me to be there--be there in the same room with her while the actual event was happening. Have you ever seen a birth before? I haven't. As I was trying to find where to park at the hospital I was thinking, I should have looked on the internet or something to see what happens during childbirth so that I could brace myself and be more prepared for the big event. Unfortunately with the whole moving thing and work-catastrophes and whatnot, I had neglected to do any research. I know from watching movies and tv, there is moaning, and yelling at the father, and blood and push! push! But here's what really happened:

Her labor was induced, meaning that the due date had come and gone and everyone was impatient and the doctors decided, eh, let's just give her a shot of the good stuff so the baby comes out. That was 7am. Then everyone got there and she was in a nice little hospital room. It was warm with nice little wooden shutters over the windows and a TV with VCR and a bureau and cabinets and private bathroom and a little sink and a sofa that folded out into a bed. It almost looked like a hotel room, almost. I counted how many of us were there and there were 9, and it wasn't that crowded. My dad was sitting on a chair reading Haruki Murakami and nodding off and we were sitting around talking and joking, and she was hooked up to a monitor that gauged the levels of her contractions and the baby's heartbeat and you could hear the heartbeats, and there was a machine that spit out the different readings on a long piece of paper like you see when they record earthquakes. My little brother suggested that we keep the paper and use it as a border to wallpaper the baby's room with. Unfortunately when we asked they said we couldn't keep the paper because it had to go into the records department for safekeeping (for lawsuits, I'm assuming). Everyone was very calm. Mom was in good spirits. She cringed a little when she had a contraction, but swore that she was not going to get an epidural because she didn't want her baby to be born on drugs and she had gotten through her first birth without them.

At one point, my nephew asked me to take him to the cafeteria. He had been there since before midnight, since that's when they wanted to start monitoring Mom in order to give her the baby-inducing shot. So I took him to get something to eat. I tried to tell him when he was eating that the baby was going to be very lucky to have a big brother, and I told him how I always felt safe to have my own big brother out there to protect me, and how it was harder for girls in this world. I don't think I actually ever had to play the big brother card, but still. Last weekend after we got stuff thrown at us when we were playing taiko I was telling my teacher how if my big brother were there he would have taken care of things.

Anyhow, we were only gone for maybe half an hour, but when we go back, the whole room had gone very quiet, and mom was lying on the bed, in obvious pain. She was asking when the anesthesiologist was coming, and had opted for the epidural. Good choice. In a little bit, the pain doc came in and inserted the good stuff right into her spine. There was a tube hooked up to a lock box that distributed the medication right where we needed it. My own mom had had a lock box except hers had morphine, so we knew exactly what the box was all about. In a little bit, mom's spirits were lifted again, and after a while the nurse came in to measure and before we knew it, there were 10 good centimeters of dilation, and in baby talk, that means it's time.

We kicked out all the boys, except for my big bro, the Dad, and then there were me, mom's friend, mom's mom, and the medical team. They didn't make us wear any outfits or gloves or masks, but I figured I needed to do something, so I reverted back to the only other birth experience I knew, so I went and washed my hands. If little bro turned out ok, then handwashing it was. Oh, and I ate cake (almost like candy) for breakfast, so it was all ok. And the room transformed. The bureau turned into baby station complete with oxygen, medical gadgets, and baby-receiving bed:Spotlights appeared out of the ceiling with the flick of a switch. And in the blink of an eye, a nurse had mom put her feet up on some stirrup contraptions and then pulled a lever which removed half of the bed so that what was left was half a bed and a place for the doc to come in and do his job. It was like magic. There was a special birthing garbage bag that fit right where it needed to be so that there was no mess, and there was a whole team there, at hand, ready for anything. I'm telling you, they made it look easy. There was no screaming involved. The nurse said you need to push like this, and mom pushed like that, and I tell no lie, in the 15 minutes between when the nurse said we were at 10 cm, we had a baby. I think she pushed for no more than 5 minutes. Maybe through 2 main contractions, and there was a head, and then there was more head, and in no time, the baby came out, and the moment the baby came out, the doctor thrust it, crying and completely healthy, right at mom. It was so fast, so unbelievable. Miraculous really. The dad was the calmest person in the room. He cut the cord, and Mom held the baby and rocked her in her arms, exclaiming, hello beautiful! Hello baby! You really need to see a baby born to understand.

Here's one of the first pics of the little family:
And now I'm an aunty! Aunty Kiko!Not that I wasn't an aunty before. But an aunty again. Oh and I'm so proud. Proud of my sister in law who should be an advocate for why-you-don't-have-to-fear-childbirth. Proud of my brother who was so calm and collected.

I got to hold the baby, eventually, eventually after I got over my fear of dropping her or breaking her, and she opened her eyes and looked right at me. She's got grey eyes! So beautiful! And she scowled up at me like me and my brother scowl, and then she yawned at me, and she looks exactly like her big brother and she is such a wonderous miracle. I'm pretty amazed. Wow. A baby!

Cheating

On Sunday I was accused of "cheating." We were working on this really great, yet simple drill that involves counting and nothing but doko's. I wasn't really cheating. Instead, I was reverting back to a style of playing that I first learned on the taiko, and have been playing for years. Everyone has their own style, and we learned a particular style from the Miyama region of Japan that involves holding the bachi with primarily the thumb and forefinger. I think it's a way of playing taiko fast. You create a certain fulcrum point on the bachi and you can whip it up and down pretty fast. Yeah, I was good at that. But now I'm learning a new style of holding the bachi (maybe it's San Jose style???) that involves holding the bachi with primarily the pinky and ring fingers. It's new and still awkward, but I can already see its advantages. I think I blogged about it a while ago. I was doing solo stuff and there was some fast rolling stuff I was trying to do, and Janet was like, try holding the bachi like this, and my little rolls were just shooting off my bachi. It was a relevation. And now we're starting to work more on technique (which I just love! I love spending time on anal little things that make you a better player in the long run. Before, all we did was try to learn new songs as fast as we could so we could perform them, and that really bothered me since I didn't think we could really become good taiko players without solid foundations. I was having this thought like six weeks into first starting taiko and with a performance looming in the immediate future. I remember driving home from a class and telling my friend, I wish we could just do drills forever. We would be such better players if we just knew how to hold our sticks right and feel the things in our bodies). And now, years later, I'm getting my dream. Janet thought it would be a good idea if we started incorporating more drills into rehearsal, and I was like, yay! I love drills!

So anyway, I was doing the doko drill, and Janet said, hey you're cheating! And I didn't know what she meant, and she said your thumb is coming up on top of the bachi, and in my head I was thinking, well that's perfectly normal. What is she talking about? But then she said I needed to curl my thumb under and not rely on it for fulcrum action (my words) and more for support. So all night I've been trying to do that. I've actually been working on the drill all day. Mostly it's been desk-taiko, which is easier to play than real bachi-taiko on practice pad/pillow/try not to annoy the neighbors-taiko. It's new, but it actually feels better, and if I can just try to gain some more control over the bachi, I think it'll be all right. We'll see. No one actually comments on my blog, but if there are any taiko players with input, or just commentary, let me know, if only to make me feel less alone in bloglandia.

Weirdos!

Yesterday we were at the new space and we were playing in one of the downstairs, windowless units because the other units were inaccesable. Anyhow, we were warming up with oroshi, kind of being really dramatic and loud, and some guy comes out in his underwear and yells at us to shut up. We didn't, of course. We're in an industrial area and they can't do much to make us shut up, but anyhow, we kind of ignored him and kept working on different things. Then later, he comes out and starts throwing stuff in our direction--we didn't get hit, and I don't think he intended to cause any harm, but the thing that I thought was funny was that he was yelling "Shut up, you--you--- . . . weirdos!" See, we're in the city of Alameda. I've lived in the Bay Area for close to 10 years now, and though I'd never really been to Alameda before I started coming to this new space, my idea of Alameda was that it is a place where you go live in little victorian houses with picket fences and raise your nuclear families. Very small town cozy charming kitty-cat puppy dog friendly neighbor green grass doilies ice cream and sunshine kind of place. All this in contrast to the great city across the way, Oakland. As the angry guy in his underwear was yelling at us, calling us weirdos, I was like, oh that's so lame. You poor guy. You need to go across the way and learn real explatives.

Anyhow. If things work out, we've got a show coming up in March. It's not a big deal--just a gig, but we'd like to use it as an excuse to get a good solid set together, and to work on new versions of things and polishing up other things. I think it's exciting. I like the hard work. I just wish it were possible to meet more. I know that everyone has their schedules, but Janet was wanting to meet twice a week, and I'm all for that, but I don't know if the others can do it. We'll see I guess. In the meantime, I've got a new version of an old song to learn, plus a couple of drills that I could spend hours and hours working on. Yippee!!

Moving--Last Time

Ok, this will be the last post about moving. I have nothing else going on in my life right now except moving. I am so tired of moving. Moving sucks. I swear that I am never moving again. No way. Or if I do, I will hire people to do it for me. I mean look, I got all the junk out of my old place, and now my new place looks just like my old place did right before I moved. Things are a mess. I can't find anything. I feel so unsettled. What I'd really like to do is sit down with my metronome and work on drills, but where is my metronome, and where would I sit??

Anyhow. Time for a public service announcement: Do you ever walk into the kitchen only to find your housemate doing this?:
That's DANGEROUS people. Is she diving into the oven? Is she worshipping it? Whatever she is doing, it is very clear that she is about to tip the oven over. We can prevent this. You need to do your P.A.R.T.!! That is, you need to do your part to Protect Against Range Tipping. Apparantly this is a serious problem. Apparantly oven divers/worshippers are getting injured by flying pots of boiled peas. And it must be happening internationally since the user guide has it written in 3 languages. Unfortunately, the word part doesn't quite translate with the same immediacy as it does in English. In any case, please please be safe in your kitchens. Protect Against Range Tipping!

Moving Stage II

Oh don't you just love moving? Don't you love discovering all those delicate muscles in your back that you didn't know you had till you strain one? Or those leg muscles so vital to lifting? Or counting every stair that you've climbed up and down for years as you make your way treacherously down them while carrying 80 pounds of books in your arms (your babies)?

Sigh. Our lease officially begins today, and we took a couple carloads of stuff over there. My apartment still looks full even after hauling a bunch of my vital accumulation of treasures over there. But I'm telling you, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I've discovered that my faithful Jeep is great at hauling and had more square footage of cargo than I thought it had. He's strong, powerful and faithful, my Jeep.

But the truth is, I'm not sure how I'm going to get 2 futons, 2 bookshelves, and a trio of cd shelves down the stairs, into some waiting vehicle and up another flight of stairs. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm trying to think of it as an adventure, like eating scallops at a buffet.

I've already refused many kind and generous offers for help. It's pride. It's my Japanese side. It's complete foolhardy and goes against every concept of common sense out there. A friend of mine offered hours of help and a pickup truck, but I said no. Truth is, it's not that I don't want the help, it's just that I don't know how I could possibly pay it back. But the part that doesn't make sense is, is that I've helped countless people move. I used to drive a minivan. And it was a completely hollowed out minivan (my dad, who bought it used, was convinced it was used in drug trafficking, or was it the Jeep?), so it was basically a two-seater with a bunch of empty space in the back. I wouldn't give a second thought to helping someone move. But accept the help? No way. No. Moving is a hellish, unredemptive experience. You put yourself through hard labor with no benefit except the gratefulness of the movee. I would not put anyone I loved and held dear through that. I don't care if they even wanted to do it. No. Japanese. Pride. For shame, you know?

So tomorrow is the big moving day. That's when I really break out in sweat and haul boxes. That's when I create a jigsaw puzzle out of a futon bed and the bed of the Jeep. Oh, give me the strength.