Floating. Sinking. A little of both

One of the best memories I have of this past year is coming home from shows and HER shoes would be there, in the genkan of my apartment. She had got off work and surprised me and waited for me while I finished up doing the idol thing. It's these kind of things that really will never leave my memory, I think, even when I'm much older in life. Like, if I get to be about 80 years old, I will finally understand why 80 year olds move so slowly... it's because they are too paralyzed by the intensity of the feelings they had for another person in their life, or perhaps a memory too strong that it sucks out all their strength to even get out of bed properly in the morning.

Today was one of those days, I guess. I haven't slept in 48 hours, since I had a website job I needed to do, and moreover... I finally had a chance to talk to HER. I hadn't seen her in awhile, and then I saw her and we had a moment to really discuss things. Or rather, I gave her my final letter. I say final because I'm fairly sure she's not going to do what I asked her to do in the letter, which is to try one more time with me. So I asked her to give me my key back because there's no point in having it if we are never going to meet up again here, this apartment I'm in now, full of those strength-sucking memories. 

Recently, I have met up with a very old friend here in Japan. She's married and happy, I think, but I had an entire conversation with her in Japanese and we got along so well it was kind of scary. She's beautiful, in a way, super skinny, very kind, and totally was surprised at my level of Japanese. The last time I saw her, I literally had to use Google Translate to even say one sentence to her. So we enjoyed each other's company, and then she told me she liked me when we had first met but I was with somebody, and now here we are, the roles reversed? 

I don't think I like her in that way. I mean... she's married, and I'm not a fucking homewrecker. I think cheating is really fucking awful and people who do it should take stick a hot curling iron and choke on it. Cheating sucks. And yet... it was just nice to have female attention that wasn't from an idol who gives me attention I neither can't return even remotely back in a way that could lead to more between us... OR I don't want the attention at all from them. Not in THAT way, at least. I care about idols.... because that's what I do now in life. 

But who is caring about me? You know? I gave HER that letter and I have no idea if she read it or not. I don't know when I'll see her next... our schedules are so opposite, but I was kind of hoping that since I asked for my key back, she would've showed up tonight after my concert that she knew I had going on tonight. She asked me about it the last time we saw eachother, which was a few days ago. I was hoping for something that I have been hoping for since August... and it's not coming. The last time she was in my apartment, she had bought me a super expensive birthday cake and an incredible piece of clothing that was not cheap at all.. and... I wasn't here to receive any of it because I was out shopping in the pouring fucking rain in Akiba for birthday gifts for my brother, mother, and sister. So yeah... the last time she ever visited my place and used that key after she said she was done with me... and I wasn't around for that moment.

Not that it mattered. She hasn't waivered at all since August with thinking the things she thinks about me. So yeah, I don't think my letter is going to change jack shit with her, but... I needed to write it for some kind of closure. I just had to write it, but God Damn did it hurt to see her take the letter and then... disappear. I have no idea now. Maybe she's taking time to think about it. Maybe she hates my guts, though I don't know why she would... I told her exactly how I felt and exactly what I needed. I'm tired of playing around on this point. I put her in a position to either make a decision about loving me or do this whole... charade of bull shit she's doing now.

I don't know though, you know? My life got ten times more complicated in the past week, and once again, motherfucking comes all down to money. If I had it, I would be okay on all fronts and I mean ALL fronts. I could do things that right now threaten my whole existence. 

For example, recently, I lost my visa to stay here in Japan. Now I have NO idea how I'm going to live here. I met with an immigration lawyer and he said my only real option is to go to school on a student visa, which even that only gives me two years but hey.. that's at least something, and I want to learn Japanese on a basic level anyways. I think it would help me not sound like a fucking idiot when I use Japanese now. But... problem with this solution is that Japanese language schools all require full tuition up front. The cheapest school I found is 7,000 dollars for ONE YEAR. So now what I do I fucking do?

I'm not marrying anyone. Clearly. My heart is too wrong for marriage, I think. I couldn't make it work with the love of my life... twice. I can't make marriage work, as I think anyone who spends any real amount of time with me in life finds me to be somebody that they would rather not be around that much. I think the best type of girl for me would be the super obsessive type who has a mental problem with being too needy and thus, would never want to leave my side. That I actually night appreciate because what a lot of people don't realize is that obsession is BORN FROM PASSION. And I am super passionate myself, so... obsession is passion gone haywire. I like that in a way. As long as she was a cute, super skinny, beautiful girl who could top the love of my life in the looks department (which I'm not sure anyone can do that but still...), then yeah, maybe marriage would work in that sense. That, or I become he victim of a yandere in training, right? Or maybe just a yandere in hiding? Hmmm.

I could get a work visa from some Japanese company, but how could I do that and do what i"m doing now? I barely have time to do anything even without doing a 40 hour a week job here in Japan. And I don't want to go sit in some cubicle and type code for a piece of shit company that profits off me... or go teach kids in English school, since that feels like a defeat for me at this time. Maybe it would be good though? I dunno... but I just have my goals right now, which you all know if you've read even two seconds of this Patreon... I want to work with idols, I want to sell idol goods, I want to make my documentary about idols, I want to finish writing all seven of my books, and I want to make an old school RPG videogame. 

Does that sound like the mindset of somebody who could sit in a cubicle or be in front of a class of first graders spouting off shit those first graders could give a fuck about? I mean, I want to LOVE what I'm doing, you know? But... everything I love is here in Japan, for the most part, so... how do I stay here? 

If I had 50,000 dollars in the bank, I could just apply for a business visa here. I have many other qualifications to get this particular powerful visa, but.. that would require me to have 50,000 dollars in the bank lol. You see the dilemma there? I barely have enough money to survive on a shit diet of family chicken and Dr. Pepper here in Tokyo. I don't have money for a haircut, I need a new computer, hard disk storage space, cloud storage for everything I've recorded, and now... money to stay here in Japan. How do I make this happen?

Maybe I found a way. Maybe. 

Himari finished her essay for the photobook. I plan to do a bunch of things with the book past what we've already done with it. And if I'm successful in this endeavor, I could possibly get enough money to breathe a little air in terms of finding the 7,000 for a visa (seriously, why couldn't I just make payments to the school every month? That's not a problem at all for me to do! Or why couldn't I have somebody in my life who could loan me that money and I just pay them back every month?). So I have this going on, plus the website stuff I got into here recently... it could help me get some funds but nowhere near enough what I need to do anything here properly. Idol Underworld is going good but I'm playing catch up because I have so many pre-orders that I recently could fulfill and that set me back on the current orders (though those are coming along just fine...just takes time). I also need to devote so much time and money meeting new idols and then those idols actually coming through with giving me merchandise and providing me access for taking chekis. And now a new problem... two actually... first, getting groups already on IU to restock in a fast enough fashion to keep them relevant on the site, and also finding a way to pay everybody since I use paypal for everything and the fees are killing me when I transfer from YEN TO USD to my American bank account and back out of the ATM. 

I need more time. More money. And more of a chance to really do something that I need to do, which is breathe and relax a little and also get over this painful memory of this girl who meant so much to me in this life. 

Oh, I did do two interviews recently, one of the idol bar owner (who, to her credit, this time was early for her interview, since last time she was an hour late and I had to cancel the interview at that time), and the other, a very pretty, tall, gothic-lolita fan of Necroma who if female and just... amazing to talk to and be around. I'm filming her tomorrow as well doing some stuff in Tokyo, then heading to Melon Batake's big one man live at Zepp Tokyo. I'm meeting with an immigration person to help me figure out what to do... see if I can get another opinion on my issue. And so on. 

Necroma played today with Black Sheep Syndrome... an all male idol group. It was their show, at Ebisu Liquid Room... very cool guys. We've played with them a few times now but this felt really good and closer, since the backstage had tons of idols there. Pikarin was there too, and more boy idols and more idol groups I have no idea who they were. It was cool but just a loooong day. Necroma was up second in the lineup and so we were there all day waiting to do Shuengo Buppan at the end of the night. Then we did the buppan for two hours nearly and the girls were out doing cheki for so long they switched into other clothes midway through the chekis. It was fun though... we didn't have that many fans there, but the ones that were there kept looping, and looping, and looping the lines until it was time to go. That's just... I dunno man... that's fucking idol dedication there. Necroma has some of the most loyal fans ever, and I really couldn't thank them enough tonight. At one point, Michelle, who was standing next to me doing cheki, had got some kind of film ink or something all over her hands? The camera was not working and spewed like black ink everywhere. On her fan too. I cleaned Michelle's hand and fingers and scrubbed her hand down and then did the same with her fan. It made me happy I could help but also kind of made me realize that there is a keen sense of trust with the fans and me now... like.. I could do that with Michelle and nobody would think anything weird is going on there. I just was being a caring staff member, nothing more. I remember first joining Necroma's camp and those fans didn't fucking trust me any more than they could pronounce my name properly (berkeur? Bereku? Dereku? Derek? See the evolution? Lol). Now, there is a trust there, I think, and I'm so happy to have that from them. And from the members too, of course, but with them it's like whatever... I've been all over the world with them. They know me and I know them and that's all there is to know about that lol. 

The day was so long and still, somehow lonely. In the middle of being there, I actually went to ANOTHER job in Shinjuku and then came back to do the buppan session. And all that did was make me feel somehow more... distant from everybody and everything. I mean, I just am by the very nature of my limited Japanese skill and the fact that I am only one of TWO white faces in the backstage at Liquid Room this evening, and there were SO many idols and staff there and all of them tend to do a double take when they see me. I STILL feel that, even now, after almost two years of being here doing this. 

Hima's book though... the layout is for the most part as complete as it can be for now. Waiting on the final edited shots from one of the day sequences. And the translation of the essay... and then my masterpiece will be complete and I will give to the world a collection of photographs done by a genius photographer lady, who was able to capture one of the most perfect looking humans God has ever made, in exactly the kind of moments I had envisioned and dreamt in my head so long ago when I decided to go forward with this photobook. The fantasy shots are way better than I thought they would be, and Izumi crushed it on the reality shots, especially since she's just the queen of black and white reality shots. That's why I wanted Izumi to do this... but again, what really gets me, is the trust. Himari really trusted me and went for these shots. She jumped in the ocean to get some amazing shots, she let me do things to her hair that no human being probably has ever done and ever will do that gorgeous long hair of hers... and the shot we got of it is just... holy fuck epic. And strange, and very much the idea I had in my head but better... all the shots I had in my head were done way better. Though some were dissected by Ricky and Hima to the point where it became more about what they wanted to see than what I wanted to see but you know what? I'm TOTALLY okay with that.. I'm not just saying this, but I know them both well enough to know they would do this, so I am not disappointed in the least. Both of them are super controlling when it comes to the art and the images they put out, of which I'm kind of in awe about, since they are such perfectionists about all the things they let the public see and know about them. Seriously, go look at all of Hima's tweets of herself... those pics... she has made me take 20 something pics of her before just to get one single image put up on Twitter, and that's NOT because I'm a shitty picture taker loool. It's cool though, I respect it, but the thing is... I now have a photobook where I think they'll be happy with the way it turns out, and I hope everybody who has waited forever for this thing to come out will be really okay with the long wait when they see what's inside the book, and myself.. well, it's the start of more photobooks, I hope. I want to do this with even more idols, since it was an absolute blast to do the actual photo shots. Hard as hell, but fun as hell too. 

And balloons. That's all I'm going to say. You'll understand when you see the photobook. Again, my artistic interpretation of Hima's extreme fame with her fans here in Japan and overseas, and how that relates to the symbolism of floating. Or sinking. Or both. 

Kind of like how it's what I'm doing right at this moment. And as it gets colder at night, and I'm reminded of all those nights sleeping next to HER and how cold she always was and how we kept each other warm under the twenty pounds of futon blankets on my bed in the winter months, especially, and these fall days when it pretends to be winter for a little while in the wee hours of the night... yeah.... I'm going delirious thinking about what I'm feeling now. And I feel so alive. And I feel so delirious from not sleeping in so long. And sick. And my head hurts, like I'm not going to make it another day, but I have to because I have a documentary to finish, which I might not get to do if something happens to all this footage because I couldn't afford fucking storage for the footage in the way of backup hard drives and the cloud.

And on and on. 

And on and on.

So I hope all of you are doing good. Enjoy what you have. And please know how much I appreciate all of you and what you're doing for me. I really hope that I can keep doing what I'm doing here in Japan. I need to stay here... so now, my real fight begins to simply breathe the right air in the right country. And maybe get a few hours of sleep too in the right country.

That would be nice RIGHT about now.