I probably should explain the last sentence of my last post, since only one person on my friends' list will get it (and I doubt he'll be amused by it). Back in the nineties, dark times that they were, hit country star Garth Brooks went insane and created a separate persona for himself called Chris Gaines. He released a separate album under this name, appeared on SNL as Chris Gaines, and planned to make a movie 'starring' Chris Gaines until he realized no one was buying it. Nonetheless, the idea of Chris Gaines always fascinated me. What if the Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines personalities warred for control of the body? What if one day Garth Brooks was no more and only Chris Gaines remained? I had visions of Fight Club recast with Garth Brooks as the narrator and Chris Gaines as Tyler Durden. Or what if Chris Gaines was some kind of self-aware mental virus that leaped from person to person. What if 'Chris Gaines' is still out there, possessing some random person? What if you wake tomorrow as Chris Gaines? Maybe Chris Gaines is the real-life inspiration for Quantum Leap and he travels time and space righting wrongs? Maybe he's an evil leaper, or a parapersonality like Spartacus Hughes in Grant Morrison's The Filth. Could Chris Gaines actually be Miroku, the Buddha of the future who will eventually descend from Tusita Heaven and end the age of the Decay of the Buddhist Law? Perhaps if we really understood who Chris Gaines is, we'd be better, wiser, more enlightened people. Or maybe I'm just obsessing over some really stupid idea Garth Brooks had when he was drunk.

This weekend was the last big sports tournament in Morioka for the year, so there were various games and matches all over the city. I biked to the far north-west of the city yesterday to see my school's baseball team play against Kuroishi Junior High School. It wasn't a proud day for Mirumai Minami Junior High School. We lost 5 to 1. Still, there were a few good plays by our side. The teacher who sits next to me has an uncle in the next town south who sometimes hosts foreign students. One of them was visiting, so I was invited to his party. Lots of good sashimi and sake. We were both Japan nerds, so we had a lot to talk about. And inevitably End of Evangelion came up. Today, I went to the International Exchange Center in the Aiina Building (the building...OF THE FUTURE!) which has become a popular weekend hangout for high schoolers. This is can be irritating because they often talk very loudly while studying, making it hard to concentrate. Still, studying there is easier than studying at home. I ate dinner at a soba restaurant near Morioka Station, and just as I finished, an old Japanese man sat down next to me and bought me a glass a beer. He was up sightseeing from Shikoku and he ended up paying for my whole meal. As frustrating as the typical Japanese reaction to foreigners can be, it sometimes gets you free drinks, which is pretty nice. On the way home, I biked alongside the Kitakami River in the cool evening breeze. And to top it all off, He has returned to us. The healing of the world begins now.