My last post was only 2 days ago!
I think I am writing more to establish habit but I do feel a bit of inspiration.
Something I did gave me a whopping headache this morning. I woke up with my alarm, somewhere around 7 1/2 hours of sleep, groggy and sedated but hopeful. I took a cold shower which didn't help much and decided zazen would put me to sleep instantly so I opted to make breakfast first, which is never as good as zazen first. As I made breakfast my mood declined rapidly as I lumbered around the narrow kitchen. When I had finally finished making breakfast at a record slow pace I just wrapped it in ceran wrap, placed it in my closet and fell back asleep. I had felt tired all of yesterday so I sensed something coming on. A cup of coffee or two after breakfast and I felt physically genki but the headache had worsened. I took a few aspirin and laid down for a few minutes. I tried zazen and within a minute or assuming the posture, I felt the center of the pain in my forehead come into sharp focus and get dramatically worse in just first minute. Abandoning ship, I took another aspirin, covered my eyes with a sleeping mask and laid down to a radio podcast, unable to move to much without further aggrivating it. Luckily it was 65degrees today so I opened the windows to get fresh cool air, cigarettes, and diesel.

Had a great tutoring session with a British friend I met here, who is level 7 in Japanese(I am 2 here). A long late lunch with two cups of coffee int he second floor f an oddly European cafe near Waseda.

I went to the convenience store(next to my house) and bought my favorite can coffee "zeitaku espresso". The Ojiisan working at the counter, who is always cheerful with a slightly senile smile always on his face, asked me how long I'd been growing my hair before I knew what hit me. This is strange because most convenience store staff fill the time you interact with them with rote polite expressions so there is no time to insert yourself or anything unique into the interaction(it's rather boring). But he sees me there quite a lot(it's next to my apartment) so it's not so surprising.
I got home, dimmed the lights, donned my bass, and played along with Curtis Mayfield. I had turned off the computer screen to maintain the low light, put on the Superly soundtrack(excellent bass tracks for every song), but then when an unexpected song came on, I realized my player was on random. I couldn't catch it very fast so I realized it was "Miss Black America" whose bassline allured me. I figured, I like this song too, I'll just figure it out by ear. It took 20 minutes or so because it's no easy song, but I felt my hands become light over the bass as I nailed the verse break and then the interlude bass solo. I miss playing music.

It's late evening now, I plan to make it down to the neighborhood sentou(public bath) where there is a hot tube with herbal waters which make my skin oh so nice. My rice should be ready and waiting in my suihanki(rice cooker) so now it's time for the exact same curry I made last night.