I have a friend called Mike Potter. Up until recently he had a dog called Gypsy that was probably the sweetest-natured dog I have ever met. Mike found Gypsy at one of those abandoned dog places, I’m not sure which… She had been abused by her previous owners, quite badly apparently, but despite this was a truly loving, loyal, gentle-hearted pooch. Anyway, because of her mysterious origins he was never quite sure how old she was… just that she was getting older. I won’t go on. Just I wanted to say I got a message from Mike today saying he had had to have Gypsy put down and he was sad. I’m sad too. And this post is my little tribute to a wonderful little dog I met only a handful of times but I really took a shine to.
If your wondering why I haven’t been writing anything of late, it’s not because I’ve decided to give it all up, climb a mountain and become a hermit (I’m saving that for my retirement); I haven’t joined the French Foreign Legion in order to forget a disastrous love affair (I find it’s usually more fun just to launch yourself right back into yet another disastrous love affair); neither have I run away to join the circus as the Amazing Mikey and his Little Irish Jackhammer (“a-ha!”), - I haven’t been writing because Da Computa is poorly and everything has gone suuuuper slow and dysfunctional, (so slow that posting pictures from Sunday’s glorious hanami party is at present inconceivable - and you wouldn’t believe how long this post took to write), and I am tryin to fix Da Computa all by myself. I’ve been at it for a good week now and I am just about on the verge of giving up and taking Da Computa to the good ‘puta-doctors at Sofmap. But if I could just do this one thing by myself this time, it would be so very very cool and Rik Abel would never be able to call me an effin’ Luddite again. So I am going to try a wee bit longer. There are signs of progress and hopefully I’ll be uploading pictures , regaling with anecdotes and mis-translating poems again before the week is done. Bear with me.
Tomorrow, I teach my first class of the new school year at Kyojo. It’s hard to believe this will be my third year there… What’s scary is that I am actually starting to like it. It was only supposed to be a stop-gap! But whereas this job used to totally stress me out, I now find myself totally looking forward to teaching my new classes. We humans - we are capable of strange transformations… Like some of the worst students I taught over the last two years stopped me on the stairway today to tell me they missed me. Which was odd, in a nice sort of way (still glad I’m not teaching them anymore though - haha). More weirdness to follow. Just watch this __________
