March 16, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Los Angeles

March 16, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Los Angeles

Night to night and from day-to-day I try to stay alerted to my surroundings.  We arrived from Tokyo a few days ago, and since then it has been a struggle for me to accept my brain is in my physical body.  We arrived at 1:00 PM, and due to the organization of Super Shuttle, we arrived at our home at 3:30 PM.  So overall, it takes one and a half hours on a bus to Tokyo to Narita airport, then three hours hanging out at the airport.  Then nine and a half hours on a plane.  Customs take around 30 minutes with the weirdest questions such as 'how much cash do you have,' with right after that, 'I spent time in Japan to see my cousin who's in the military.'   While there is a line of people waiting to be processed so they can get on with their lives to pick up their luggage.    A very long day that March 14. 

I get home to face a month full of mail.  Bills as well as invitations that are way past their acceptance.  The first thing I noticed when we walked into our house is the smell of someone not being there, except the odor of dust and no air, due that the windows were locked up.   I had to make a few phone calls, and then I looked at the ceiling for a few hours from our couch in the living room.   

The weather is warm, and we just came from a climate that's wet and cold.  Our clothing still expressed that part of the world, where in fact we should be wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  The heat made me feel not good, but out-of-existence.   I couldn't relate to the sweat that was building up on my chest and forehead.  I still have the traces of a cold that I caught in Tokyo, I think due to the cold rooms that I came upon from the cold outside to slightly warmer places.   Also, I kept on moving consistently for a month without rest or reflection.  There were so many things to see and do.  I didn't use the word 'no,' while I was in Japan.  

I can't sleep.  My body is fully active.  My brain is dead.  I maybe dead.  Just feel like the body is operating without a thought in my head.   Today's date or day is just a theory, and I'm aware of the deadlines that are in place in front of me.  I'm feeling sad, and I don't have the foggiest idea why.  My emotions are up front, and logic is somewhere buried deeply into a locked room.   I walked around the house in pitch darkness.  I go to bed, but my brain is in the daylight.   I look up the ceiling, and I can't make out the cracks which I think of the Nile River.  I used to follow it from one end to the other  - and by the time I reached there, I'm asleep.  This is not the case tonight.

I read the newspaper websites in the middle of the night, and I know life is going on, but I feel so not part of it.  Dick Clark, one-time America's oldest teenager, commented that "Jet lag is for amateurs."   I only wanted to be in that category, because I loathe professionalism that puts me down into a particular class or position.   I try to remind myself that I'm on a higher plane, but the truth is, I'm always crashing in the same car.   What do I know about knowing?  I'm going round and round in my house, and I only have these walls to keep me grounded.   When I do sleep, it's at 6 in the morning.  It's not sleeping; it's more like being in a coma.