Birthday

   Yesterday was my birthday.

   Quarter of a century, yep.

   I had a simple plan; wake up around 5 to shower/clean the apartment a little, catch a ride at 6:40ish to go to the judo tournament and cheer for my judo girls in the prefecturals, then come home and do laundry or something. Nothing spectacular; I don't really celebrate birthdays. Not that there's anything to do out here. Or anyone to do it with.

   So I woke up around five, showered, cleaned, worked on the HTPC a bit more...

   Come 7, my ride hasn't shown up.

   Hmm, maybe he meant 7:40.

   Come 8, my ride hasn't shown up.

   I gave him another fifteen minutes before biking down to the arena myself -- it was only a 10-15-minute bike ride away, but the trip back up would have been a pain. Sure enough, everyone's there and surprised to see me. All of the kids were down in the tournament area helping manage one of the rings; there wasn't really anyone for me to talk to unless some of the ones on break came up to the seating.

   Apparently my driver had forgotten he was going to pick me up. He treated me to lunch; we both got chilled noodles at the convenience store and took them back to the tournament to eat.

   All three girls who were in the tournament won their first match and lost the second. I couldn't really talk to or comfort them afterwards because the tournament area was locked down, which was a bummer. I spent a lot of time alone or taking pictures. And since the girls lost, they weren't really in much of a talking mood after that... I'd been looking forward to being able to talk to everyone, even if they didn't remember it was my birthday.

   Toward the end of the tournament, the younger sister of one of the girls came by and I spent a while playing games with her. She's really friendly and cute; I've played with her before at other events. Too bad she doesn't go to the elementary school I teach at.

   I got home and was looking for a dinner partner. I figured I might as well do something and the diner just down the road has a fabulous set dinner for only 640 yen. Certainly affordable, even if I only have 1500 yen. Grant was tired/broke, David told me to go to a little concert his band was putting on. I figured I might as well, since these kinds of things don't usually go on for more than an hour at the very most. Plus he said he would pay for me and give me a ride back up the mountain.

   Well, I went.

   It was terrible.

   His group wasn't really all that great, but I sat through it since he was paying. Everything was held in a tiny bar with terrible ventilation and too many amps. So it was loud and smoky -- a great combination for driving me away, which it did.

   I sat in the hall alone for about four hours before everything wrapped up and David was ready to give me a ride back in the rain. But first he had to drive a girl back. And her bike. But he didn't have cash for the parking meter, so I spent 600 yen to get it out. Down to 900.

   The car was a bit crowded.

   We dropped her off and I bought some crap at 7-11. Overpriced crap. Down to 200.

   I got back home at midnight, completely exhausted and bummed out.

   I was too tired to eat and just fell asleep to wake up 7 hours later. Woke up exhausted from the day before (and the lack of sleep the night before that), took a shower, brushed my teeth, and of course the pipe from my drain decided to break, spilling nasty water all over my floor just before I had to leave.

   I left, went to work -- it was an average day -- and came home.

   Cleaned up the floor, ate the dinner I'd bought the night before, which was terrible.

   Happy birthday.