the date

so, after a lot of emailing back and forth, i ended up meeting H tonight. i was really tired from work, and i'd warned him the timing was pretty awful, but we agreed just to meet up for a quick drink. so we ended up at la Terrasse, by the lake, which was nice cos i hadn't been there in ages.

we talked. first mostly me (answering his questions), then him, then both of us. it was nice. he's interesting. but when i'd been there an hour, i also wanted to go home. and the fleeting attraction i'd felt for him at the drinks last week wasn't there. hm... i don't know. i'd like to give him a chance, especially as he's N.'s friend, but i can't see this going anywhere. which is a real shame cos as i said, he's really nice, and tall, and not bad looking at all, and interesting. what am i doing wrong?

putting my foot in it

N. had invited us to dinner and had cooked couscous for us. as well as his great mash potato pancakes and a dessert couscous. it was the 4 musketeers back together, re-celebrating his birthday (i couldn't make it to the real one).

anyway, while we were eating, N. told me i'd put my foot in it on Tuesday, with H. and the girl. i'd told them everything, he said. that's when i understood that he'd been trying to set them up.

what really happened, though, was that N. had sent me an SMS where he'd said he'd be late but had invited two friends (H. and the girl) to my drinks (he hoped i didn't mind), but could i take care of them as they didn't know each other? which is what i did, once i figured out who they were. i just said something like 'oh yeah, you're both N.'s friends but you didn't know each other, right?' how was i supposed to guess, from his SMS, that there was more to it??

Mr. J. asked if something had come out of the set up, then. N. replied that while H. had walked the girl back to her place, he didn't seem more interested than that. in fact, he'd kind of fallen for... me!

he'd been nice, i remembered, so i actually told the others. T. immediately pounced on the information and asked N. to set something up so we could meet. he didn't seem entirely convinced (or maybe it was just the shock), but he said he'd organise something. so now all i have to do is wait and see...

daruma

my friend K. loves this picture i took in Azabu-juban. we were walking to the restaurant when we saw this daruma sitting on this cluttered table in a shop. still no eyes, so the owner obviously didn't have a wish to make yet (when one has a wish, one paints the pupil of one eye but leaves the other one unpainted until the wish has been fullfiled).

no Internet

ah, the joys of being part of the connected world! i can live without a mobile, but not without email. well, for a couple of days i can, but then things start to go wrong.

last Sunday, i had no connection. i thought there might be a bug or something, so left it at that. but come Monday evening, still nothing. and that's when i remembered it had happened to me last year, too - when my antivirus was renewed. last year, Mr. J. had come to fix it, and luckily, i'd made some notes. so i tried re-installing my Internet and when it asked me for my IP, i actually had something to fill in those blanks. except it didn't help.

in a bid to leave Mr. J. out of it, i called the helpline. 3 times. the first time, it cut me off after 20 mns of waiting, the second time, it said to call back later cos there were too many calls, and finally, just after i'd got hold of something, the line went dead. thankfully, the person called me back but then spent the next 25 mns or so railing against me for not doing what she wanted. not true, except that what she wanted me to do had no effect. she kept talking to me like i was a child who didn't press the 'turn on' button... the fact that my computer speaks English and hers French didn't help. in the end, she gave up and said she'd send someone and it would cost 30 euros. and i decided to call Mr. J.

he came by tonight and proved to me that i had, in fact, done exactly what the woman had asked but that it really didn't work. he was stumped. he was stumped for 20 mns, until i told him it was probably something to do with my antivirus. that did it. we uninstalled it and Internet was back! as simple as that. except i'd just paid 50 euros for the renewal. Mr. J. did his best to reinstall it, but truth be told, it was a nightmare, so we gave up. he was already late for 2 other appointments, so he installed another, completely free, antivirus instead. the one he uses. well, if he can live with it, so can i.

visit from Japan

after years of saying she was coming to visit me, my Japanese friend K. finally made it. she arrived Tuesday evening and was barely around 48 hours, but it was nice. she decided to come mid-week as it was her birthday, and she obviously wanted to spend it with me. we had a great time, despite really only being together for 4 meals. i managed to make her discover Swiss cuisine in the form of raclette, which she liked. it was my first time eating it in a restaurant, so it was a bit strange for me, too.

the only bad thing i can say about it is that it's a shame her visit was so close to my being in Japan...

lipstick ball

in Ginza, we walked past a make-up shop and they had this huge thing in the window. at first, we couldn't make out what the ball was made up, but it turned out to be lots and lots of lipsticks! you can't see it from the picture, but it was about 1.5m high... once again, one wonders how much time and energy was spent on so futile a task.

mental exhaustion

Tuesday was a mad day. the very short version is that my new client was basically driving me crazy. by 3 pm, i could barely string a logical sentence together. there had been so many emails, phone calls, changes, and i still had all the other work to do! a nightmare. i nearly cancelled my evening drinks, so tired i was.

anyway, what they wanted made so little sense that i'd gone in to talk to my boss about it and he ended up setting up a meeting with them yesterday. it went really well. he did all the talking, and got them to agree to everything. it was great. once out of there, the tension fell. one less thing to worry about before next week. but i was tired as hell, and went to be at 9.30. i woke up 13 hours later. i could have slept a lot longer, but i have things planned on this national holiday...

the mad week

yes, i should have know it was going to be mad. i knew, really. it's just that once in it, it just seemed madder. i really can't be bothered to go into details, but suffice it to say that i was the last person at the school 2 nights in a row and that i was in fact 'thrown out' on Friday - but only because my boss had paid people to come and clean the carpet, which he'd totally forgotten about. but had they not been there, i would probably have stayed late once more. still, i know i'm probably going to miss it when i go back to the 'normal' teaching/account managing of 60/40 (as opposed to the current 10/90) next week. still, it'll be nice to have students again. i could live without the preparation, though...

bioman

i have no idea what the show was called in English or Japanese, but in French, it was called Bioman. there were several versions, but all of them entailed 5 people who, after some weird and seemingly useless hand-choreography, went from being normal-looking citizens to colour coordinated saviours of the Earth (well, Tokyo), who all had their 'ship' which could all come together as a huge gundam, that would fight some bizarre other-dimensional creature (generally owning several tentacles, or heads, or tails...). anyway, this motorcyclist here was in full gear and looked very much like one of those people. or a robot. take your pick

chimes-flower

heading back home one night, i saw this flower made of wind-chimes, in Ginza. there was a slight breeze, so they all made their little sing-song. it was cute. and about 2 metres tall.