George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
The trip to the states was mostly uneventful, but I will document it here for posterity and to get my own head around it.
My wife and I decided to visit my hometown briefly to see my parents’ graves, and to let our boys experience a bit of where I am from, before there is no longer any reason to go back there. There barely is now, but that is another story. We left Japan on a mild but chilly Christmas day, arriving on Christmas night, and returned via Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, though our arrival was such that in Japan on touchdown it was already January 2nd. So the day of January 1st we lost somewhere in the air. This is an account of that journey and the impressions that I got. Please opt out now if this sort of post is not your thing.
People don’t seem as fat as in previous visits. Admittedly we did not get out to Wal Mart, though Target still has the bizarre posters in the women’s clothing section that have women who are not just fairly overweight (at least by my standards), but deformed. By that I mean that at least one model had visible stretch marks and even scars from what appeared to be poorly healed abdominal injuries, possibly from a stab or bullet wound. I’m not kidding. I will admit that I just don’t get it. Compare that to your typical similar ad in Japan. In any case, apart from the advertisements, in the few restaurants we visited, people just weren’t as obese as I remember. Maybe semaglutide is doing its thing. All hail Ozempic.
So the fatness seemed reduced. Trimmed. My southern home state was overcast and gray and the trees dun-colored the whole time we were there. Not even southern gothic, more like something out of Steinbeck, enough to drive any sane person in-. Generally the weather was not as warm as I remember this time of year, though by no means freezing, with temperatures in the 50s (F). All in all it felt like something out of the film version of The Road, without the roving bands of cannibals. Maybe if I had driven to Gadsden.
Drivers drove fast. I was given a big black Chevy Tahoe by Hertz because they had no SUVs. The Chevrolet Tahoe is a large vehicle with controls in the form of a dial you twist from R to P to D to N. There is no gearshift on the column or floor. Is this a normal thing now? Dials and buttons. At least there was a steering wheel and the gas and brake pedals were as expected. It is also a large vehicle, at least for me. I felt like I was driving a computerized and de-weaponized tank. But drive it I did.
From the airport I drove us a half hour or so to my aunt’s. She scolded me for not phoning her from the airport. At her home were pictures from my past, and baubles on the shelf that I remember having been at my grandmother’s house when I was a boy. My aunt is old and frail and said she fell and can’t lift her arm above around here. She had some devilled eggs and cold ham for us, both dishes that I hate and would rather be shot than eat. I said we weren’t hungry, which was a lie. I dislike lying but apparently I am willing to do it. The next morning I made us all pancakes from some batter my aunt had, to which you just add water—no milk or eggs or anything, just water then you pour it onto butter on a hot skillet and flip, and there are your pancakes. I felt like I was eating something Captain Kirk might eat on the Enterprise. She put bacon into her oven on some sort of special grease-catching pan. “It’s healthier this way,” she said, though I have never wanted or expected bacon to have any health benefits, nor have I cared if it did. Because it’s bacon, ffs. She cooked it to hell and back and if you held up a piece it stood erect like a long, fried pig crackling instead of the floppy bacon I am now familiar with in Japan. I crunched and swallowed it down anyway. Her coffee machine had no filter. “I ran out,” she said. Somehow we made coffee anyway, but it was decaf, because of her heart. Outside she has a dog, a rescue mutt that will bite you if you offer it your hand. I heard but did not see it. Somehow she feeds it. It dislikes her boyfriend, whom her crazy daughter dislikes. I want to shake the daughter, my cousin, until, as they say, she comes to her senses. My aunt is 82 and has a boyfriend. What sort of derangement would want to deprive her of this?
The next day we said bye to my aunt and hugged her, and I drove an hour to my hometown through the overcast gray depressing weather. “Is that a dead deer?” asked my wife. It was, on the side of the road. There would be more than one, as well as other, less identifiable roadkill, but she stopped asking after the first time. Some of the road signs on the way were different, the towns having shrunk or others grown so that the relevant placenames people presumably want to turn off the exit to had changed. Once I arrived, the roads that I used to know well seem to have been diverted at key points. In one instance I was going in the opposite direction from where I had intended, on a road I thought I was familiar with. The best restaurants of my youth were all closed forever, but there seemed to be more Mexican places. The indoor mall from my childhood looked as if it had been bombed out. The new indoor mall from my teenage years we did not visit. But there is an outdoor area with lots of shops and a Planet Fitness and a large Barnes & Noble and Panera and some ramen shop called FUKU ramen, a name which amuses me. This outdoor mall-type place seems to be the new place people go. I had a poor meal at a diner there, though the mashed potatoes were good. I used my phone’s GPS to find at least one address in my own hometown, something I never used to have to do. The university is still quite striking, and the stadium has reached gargantuan proportions, though, from what I understand, college football is now fucked.
One general point of interest was that we did not have any particularly bad interactions with service personnel, which is usually something that happens almost immediately upon landing, if not in the cabin of the plane, once we have switched to an American carrier. No, this time everyone was pleasant and even efficient. Possibly because of the time of year. I was called “baby” by the first woman I interacted with at a coffee shop, but this possibly because I put on my friendly affect in my southern accent (though this was in LAX), which seemed to cause her to warm to me. I don’t mind this familiarity and in fact I welcome it. In Japan I’m treated with smiles and fawning courtesy, but as often as not this is complete tatemae and can give one a feeling of being in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Assuming anyone here knows what the hell that even means. It can be weird, that’s my point. In the US there’s more of an authenticity—I don’t expect the woman behind the counter to lend me money or ask me to dinner at her house, but I know that should I say something off-script, her reaction will be genuine. I do not know if I am getting my point across clearly. My southern cadence is also coming out.
At one point my youngest son, who had seen something on Youtube about Papa John’s (the pizza place), asked if we could get a pizza there. I said sure. It was raining and I was already tired of driving us everywhere, but there on the corner was a Papa John’s so I pulled over. I walked in and immediately saw the sign: “No walk-in orders. Online or phone only.” I asked the bespectacled, tired-looking dishwater blonde woman if that meant I could not order there. She affirmed that this was true. Playing along with this bizarre policy, I walked outside and tried to make a call. For some reason my phone wasn’t working, so my oldest son got out of the car with his iPhone, which was, and I tried to go online and order through the website. Due to the Japanese phone settings possibly, the phone would not take us to the web location we wanted. I tried calling again, and this time was met with a computerized voice instructing me to press 3. Which I did. Then it hung up on me. This story is far longer but the gist is we did not get the Papa John’s pizza.
We stayed at a friend’s house, which he now rents. Back in the day he lived in the house, and in fact it is the house in which he (a priest) married my wife and me. Now the house is professionally decorated, with original art, and, on some flat surfaces, three stacked books upon which fake plants sit. I did not like this touch—books are for reading or for being on shelves, not for supporting fake plants. But the beds were nice, and it was of course generous of him to offer us the stay.
We visited my best friend, and his father and large family for their Christmas to-do. His father is 92, and far more jovial than I remember from my youth. “Take your boys in there to my trophy room,” he suggested. I did. There were many deer antlers on the wall--racks, he called them--and a scoped rifle in a glass case. I do not know what kind of rifle. There was a bunch of food including a tray of buttered corn kernels and what I seem to remember being a tray of meatballs, which seems odd, but none of us ate because our times were all messed up still. I was offered a Miller Lite in a can and drank it gratefully even though I was about to drive us all to the airport. Because hey, such behavior is legal there. My friend’s son showed us pictures on his phone of various dead animals that he had killed over the years. In one there was a giant wild boar on the back of a truckbed, which he kept calling a pig. I was told there was a wild black bear somewhere in Alabama that was caught on some security camera in city limits. “What happened to it?” I asked. No one seemed to know.
In Houston on layover, we were stuck on the tarmac. For eight hours. Again, I am not kidding. Apparently, there was lightning in the vicinity and every time there is a lightning strike, takeoff is delayed 8 minutes. Or something like that. There was a very pretty Mexican girl in a red sweater and jeans next to me who apparently also spoke French. We talked several times over the eight hours, though I did not try to pursue extended conversation. In my younger, unmarried years, I would have. They deplaned us once, then re-planed us. They kept delaying us with excuses, and apologies. At one point the crew was replaced with a new crew, who were mildly more smiley. A very tattooed man with his cat in a cat carrier sat a few rows in front of me, but opted out of the flight when they offered, and left the plane, delaying us further. One woman was forcibly ejected for acting out, and we watched her storm out the plane door, to a fate I can only guess (staying in Houston is a good bet). Eight hours is a damn long time to sit in a plane that isn’t moving, especially when there isn’t even a terrorist with a gun or bomb keeping you there. Anyway we eventually took off (to applause, which I led) and got to LA. When I disembarked, the Mexican girl had gone ahead of me and was standing at the gate waiting for her boyfriend, and when I tried to catch her eye in hopes that maybe there would be a smile of recognition, she did not look at me. Women are interesting creatures and I love them.
In LA because of the 8-hour arrival delay when we were dropped at the Remote Rental Car place it was dark and there was no one there. Metro buses and cars whizzed by dispassionately. When I called the company I got a machine. My wife kept saying it was cold. I called our hotel, and they suggested an Uber, which we ordered, and took us about 30 minutes. The driver, a guy named Marvin, did not speak except in low murmurs but he got us where we wanted to go. We ate at Denny’s beside the hotel and I had the best burger I have had in years there. The waitress brought me a small carafe of coffee and I had four servings in a very satisfying heavy white mug, despite the hour (it was now 11:15 pm). The hotel itself was shabbier than in the photos when I had booked it, and you could look at the carpets and tell thousands of people had trod over them, probably with dirty ass shoes. But the room was roomy and the beds comfortable and the shower powerful and hot. The staff were all very friendly and helpful and female.
The next day across the street to the hotel we saw our first crazy homeless person, a man in what appeared to be velvet overalls who kept screaming at something. My sons were very interested, like whale-watchers who see their first sounding. I managed a refund from the rental and got yet another Uber (driver: Luis, born in Portugal, spent many years on fishing boats) to drive us to a new agency, where we were given a mini-Van, with more dials and buttons.
In LA we did Universal Studios. The backlot tour featured lots of old movies my sons had never seen, and the driver touted television shows I have never watched. The Harry Potter ride is the same as the one in Universal Studios Japan, but Hermione speaks English in the Hollywood version. The Jurassic World ride is splashy and made me colder than I already was. In the provided photo I have my hoodie up and am looking off camera. The lines were painfully long. I ate a hot dog and my sons had tacos with carne asada where the meat to my taste was rather gamey. When I considered buying a Griffindor necktie my wife made several comments that caused me to reconsider not only buying the tie (I did not) but also my maturity level and general life choices. We ate at Bubba Gump shrimp where the gumbo was good though my wife found it overly salty. The table next to us celebrated the birthday of a boy who had long frilly hair and whose brother was extremely ugly and also had poofy hair. Someday perhaps they will identify as female, though perhaps by then the world will refuse to acknowledge this. We were not assigned one waiter but several, which seemed odd. They all introduced themselves by name so I called them by these names, which my son thought was rude of me. My wife had a margarita at every restaurant that served them. The best, she announced, was the pineapple jalapeño one, which I tasted and it was cold and strong.
I drove us by El Coyote, the last restaurant Sharon Tate visited before she was brutally murdered in 1969 by Tex Watson and his crazy cohort. I had planned to go in and eat there, but it seemed ghoulish and I suddenly had a change of heart. I’ve always had a thing for Sharon Tate. We drove up to the Griffith Observatory which reminded me but no one else of Rebel Without a Cause. Natalie Wood died before she reached the age I am now. I remember the morning when I discovered she died—Good Morning America or whatever was announcing it as I got ready for school. I was 13, and it rattled me greatly that she was gone. I still suspect Wagner had something to do with it, that fucker. We had, at last, In and Out burgers, which I had always wanted to try. The fries were underwhelming but the burgers were fine. We walked on the Santa Monica pier which was full of foreigners speaking non-English but was otherwise exactly how I remembered it. I taught my sons the smell of marijuana, which we smelled on a continual basis the entire time we were in LA. I took a photo of Mark Hamill’s star on the walk of fame, a photo I will probably never look at again. Some guy in a terribly put together Chewbacca get-up walked past us. I bought a bright red MAGA hat off a guy on the street for my Harris-supporting friend back in Japan, because I am an asshole. When I told the guy selling the hats this, he threw in a flag of Kamala Harris for free. The man selling the hats was black, and fist-bumped me as I left. Sometimes I love America to the point I feel like weeping. I wish other Americans did. Or maybe my testosterone is waning in my age.
We heard many languages in LA. Many women had far too much plastic surgery, which, for me, is any at all. In one of many lines we stood in, a girl behind us was probably one of the most exquisitely beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen in person. Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect teeth, a natural, unaffected beauty. She wore some sort of sweater and black yoga pants and sneakers and was with her aunt, probably. I am sometimes reminded in moments like this that really pretty blonde women have an amazing power at that age (mid-20s probably) that will fade eventually, but is mighty when and while they have it. A gift from God. What must it be like in Scandinavia, where blondes are a dime a dozen? Anyway they’d all be taller than me there. On the KTLA news the announcers were also strikingly pretty, but in a too done-up way. Like if you saw them in reality you’d think Wow you spent a lot of time getting ready. At the Lakers/Cavaliers game the Lakers lost, but Austin Reaves sunk 32 points. He looked average height from our seat but is 6’5”. My sons were happy to watch Lebron James and Rui Hachimura. Beers cost 22 dollars. Damn right I bought one.
We saw no celebrities, though my sons thought they saw a famous Japanese person in a donut shop. Speaking of doughnut shops my wife had her first “Hot Now” Krispy Kreme in my hometown. She said it was the best doughnut she had ever had and was outraged that they did not have these in Japan (the hot now versions). I remember a time before they had the Hot Now sign and you just sometimes got freshly made ones. I grew up with a Krispy Kreme next to my elementary school and used to go watch the doughnuts move on the conveyor belt through the glaze. They’re good with hot coffee and very, very sweet. I remember eating a few at a time when younger but couldn’t eat more than one now without feeling diabetes set in.
My parents graves were clean, and the gravestone legible and newish, with both their names and everything filled in. It was, again, an overcast day the day we went, but the small town had only changed slightly--many of the old two-story beautiful homes were still there, probably inherited and for some reason still maintained. I hadn’t bought any flowers as everywhere was still closed on December 26th. So I just stood there. I always wondered and dreaded, before they died, what it would be like when my parents were gone, and now I can’t help thinking that my own sons will have to lose their parents as well, meaning me, me and my wife, who hopefully will outlive me by many years. I wish for a quick death, sudden, shocking maybe but without the long drawn out heaving and gasping that was the fate of my own parents, whom I judge in my adult mind but unquestionably still loved. We are all so careless with one another, really.
There is more to this, but I’m not going to write it. Thanks for getting this far.
I made this list not out of snark or spite, but because it has rained all day, rained, even, on me as I took my walk, which I cut short, and because I have been making notes for months, and now seemed as good a time as any.
I had a long intro for this, hearkening back to grad school and people using terms they thought others knew and probably others did know but maybe not, and argots, and random musings, but I'll spare you.
These are words or terms I've seen in my many months here that I didn't know, or did know but didn't put together with their meaning. I am linking specific posts to where they were used, though these I found by doing a hard-search and are not necessarily the posts where I first saw the word/term. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are my fault. I hope this is helpful to others among us who are sometimes as confused as I am. Probably many of you know all these and must imagine me very old to post this. So be it.
If you recognize yourself as the author, I am not intending to be snide, or criticize your post. You just got lucky.
Edit: Many of these are probably going to need to be updated and tweaked. Feel free to add comments.
Let's start with the biggie:
asabiyyah: a concept of social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness, and a sense of shared purpose and social cohesion.
Bagdhad Bob: When war propaganda becomes so out of touch with reality it turns comedic and achieves the opposite of the desired effect. It is said such propaganda is "Baghdad Bobbed" exactly at the moment when this threshold is crossed. From Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraqi War Information Minister in 2003.
Baumol’s Cost Disease: From the late William Baumol, NYU’s Stern School of Business. used to explain why prices for the services offered by people-dependent professions with low productivity growth—such as (arguably) education, health care, and the arts—keep going up, even though the amount of goods and services each worker in those industries generates hasn’t necessarily done the same.
"This is Baumol's cost disease in a nutshell."
Note: @jeroboam helpfully linked a Wiki page in this instance.
Chesterton’s fence: rule of thumb that suggests that you should never destroy a fence, change a rule, or do away with a tradition until you understand why it's there in the first place
consent à outrance: From the French. Suggests an agreement or consent that is given fully and without reservation, sometimes to the point of being excessive or without consideration of the consequences.
CRT: Critical Race Theory.
DRM: (I saw it used as a verb but have no link because I can no longer find it). Digital Righs Management. Presumably restricting the ways in which content (music, whatever) can be used, copied, or distributed.
Dunbar-limited world: Reference to Robin Dunbar, biological anthropologist. The “Dunbar Number” is the upper limit on the number of social relationships a human can effectively manage. (I believe it is supposed to be 150.)
Einsatzgruppen: : From the German. Actually, a German word. These were “mobile killing units,” best known for their role in the murder of Jews in mass shooting operations during the Holocaust.
Euthyphro: : A “straight-thinker.” A combination of εὐθύς (euthys), which means straight or direct and φρονέω (phroneô) which means to think or to reason.
NB: Alternate definition here.
Frasurbane: portmanteau of the sitcom Frasier and urbane, is the wonderfully specific aesthetic of late '90s interiors of people who want to come across as sophisticated and worldly.
HBD: If you do not know what this means, that’s weird, because it is almost a theme here. Human Biodiversity. Some here swear by its truth, others do not swear by it but expect it’s real, others think it’s dubious. Too many instances to choose from.
lolcow : A person whose eccentric or foolish behaviour can be exploited to amuse onlookers.
idpol: abbreviation based on identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, etc.
If-by-whiskey: If-by-whiskey is a type of argument that supports both sides of a topic by employing terminology that is selectively emotionally sensitive. Originates from a speech given by Mississippi state representative Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr. in 1952.
Kolmogorov Complicity: Originated with Scott Alexander from his blog. Reference to the Soviet mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov. The idea of navigating or conforming to oppressive orthodoxies while still trying to contribute to the growth of knowledge and truth discreetly.
libfem: Stands for liberal feminist, also known as intersectional feminism or third wave feminism. A societal ideology focused on power dynamics and microlabels. a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy and informed by a human rights perspective.
“The far end of libfem, maybe.”
MGTOW: an acronym for Men Going Their Own Way, an online social movement and backlash to feminism where men renounce interactions with women and seek to define and live out their masculinity on their own terms.
Orbanization: : (maybe) the process of adopting political strategies and governance methods that are similar to those of Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary. Orbán's tenure has been characterized by a centralization of power, control over media, erosion of checks and balances within government structures, and a move towards what is sometimes called "illiberal democracy."
Overton window: an approach to identifying the ideas that define the spectrum of acceptability of governmental policies. It says politicians can act only within the acceptable range. Shifting the Overton window involves proponents of policies outside the window persuading the public to expand the window.
“Transgender politics wasn’t in the Overton window at this point.”
Pascal’s Wager: the argument that it is in one's rational self-interest to act as if God exists, since the infinite punishments of hell, provided they have a positive probability, however small, outweigh any countervailing advantage.
"Pascal's wager is terrible because infinite rewards break game theory."
Pill colors: Red, Blue, Black
- Red Pill: In the context of online communities, particularly those focused on gender and relationships, "Red Pill" refers to the belief that men have been socially disadvantaged and that conventional beliefs about gender, attraction, and social interaction are misleading or false. It often involves the idea that men need to become aware of and confront these supposed harsh realities to improve their own lives. The term is frequently used in men's rights and certain dating advice communities.
- lue Pill: The "Blue Pill" is often posited as the opposite of the "Red Pill." It represents adherence to conventional or mainstream beliefs about gender, relationships, and society. In communities that use these terms, taking the "Blue Pill" means accepting societal norms and beliefs without questioning them, often portrayed as living in blissful ignorance.
- lack Pill: The "Black Pill" takes a more fatalistic and often nihilistic viewpoint compared to the Red Pill. It's associated with a belief that certain unchangeable traits (like physical appearance, height, etc.) predominantly determine one's success in areas like dating and social interaction. Black Pill ideology is often linked with extreme pessimism, defeatism, and a belief that systemic changes or personal improvements are largely futile.
PMC : Professional/Managerial Class
purity spiral: a sociological theory which argues for the existence of a form of groupthink in which it becomes more beneficial to hold certain views than to not hold them, and more extreme views are rewarded while expressing doubt, nuance, or moderation is punished
quant: short for quantitative analyst.
A hard search for this term provided too many instances of other words using these five letters, e.g. quantify, etc. and I didn’t have the patience to keep looking. But I’ve seen this term used and you will, too, if you keep reading this forum.
quokka: I have no idea what this means except a small marsupial. Help. Thank you @naraburns. The origin is here. From what I can gather a quokka is a kind of gentle-dispositioned person, innocent of nature, who is a bit of a nerd and wants to discuss things in good faith. Often applicable to certain autists. It is not a pejorative term. Edit: Maybe it is.
"Can you imagine a bunch of quokkas going about EA and Skynet every two days on the forum?"
Russell conjugation: a rhetorical technique used to create an intrinsic bias towards or against a piece of information.
shape-rotator: Someone with high mathematical and technical skills, often portrayed as rivals to the wordcels (who have stronger language and verbal skills)
“I thought we were shape rotators?”
soyjak: (I still only vaguely understand this.) An online image of an emasculate man, often with an excited expression, with an art style based upon the original wojak.
"This looks more like an excuse to draw your enemies as the soyjak and yourself as the, uh, tiger." Edit: Despite repeated attempts, I cannot get this link to work.
stochastic: having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
technocrat: an adherent to technocracy, or the government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts as opposed to professional politicians.
thot: From “That Ho Over There.” A woman who has (or is presumed to have, for whatever reason) many casual sexual encounters or relationships. Likewise, e-thot is a woman who makes money online from male (or predominantly male) audiences, by doing whatever for cash.
"I've seen sponsored ads (with the "ad" tag) for individual OnlyFans thots."
Third World-ism: a political concept and ideology that emerged in the late 1940s or early 1950s during the Cold War and tried to generate unity among the nations that did not want to take sides between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Noe: various users question the meaning and use of this term.
tradfem: a portmanteau of "traditional feminism" in reference to belief that adherence traditional feminine gender roles are better or more correct, especially those held by conservative Christian Americans, especially WASPs. Edit: Also a play on "radfem" or radical feminist. Thank you again, @naraburns.
“The Harrington and the other tradfems are hard to place on the left-right axis.”
Varg: I still don’t know what this means. I found various meanings of varg but none are satisfactory. Help.
Von Neumann: synonymous with “really big-brained person” as far as I can tell. Refers to John Von Neumann, a computer guy. Notably a “Von Neumann probe” would be a spacecraft capable of replicating itself. Edit: As I said above, misrepresentations are my fault.
Westphalian: the concept of state sovereignty and the idea that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, free from external interference. From a series of treaties in 1648. We also have a member with this as part of his username.
Wignat "wigger nationalist" and was originally used to describe lower class, violent, and unattractive neo Nazis that were willing to engage in street violence and unabashed Nazism with the use of swastikas and other symbols.
x
I was going to post this on my substack. But nothing is on it, and now this is not even on it, because I decided to post here, for better or worse. For those of you who have accidentally clicked on posts of mine before and recoiled, note that this is more of the same, and you’d best go ahead and scroll elsewhere now. There is no conclusion or point, and I certainly do not talk about Hamas or Jared Kushner or trans- (insert noun). No. The journey is the destination. Or however it goes. The destination is the journey. Whatever. This is the story of a colonoscopy. That should tell you enough.
I should play you some of that relaxing music that was in my head as I lay sideways on an examination table wearing my black nylon tear-away pants with the fly in the rear, gazing blankly at the video screen which was tilted down toward me as if to play the opening credits of Fantastic Voyage. I think I was humming in my head Billie Holiday's Embraceable You.
In order to not bury the lede, let me tell you what the doctor said at the end (there are many unintentional puns in this), so that you are not gripped by too much suspense and worry for my wellbeing. He said—and I felt he did not want to say this, that he would have preferred to say almost anything else—he said in what I imagined was a quieter voice than he normally used: “You’re fine.” Or that equivalent in Japanese. Actually what he said, clicking on his computer, the monitor of which now revealed neat squares of color slides depicting the interior of my colon: “綺麗.” That’s kirei, which means beautiful. It’s what you say about exceptionally attractive women, or sunsets, or flowers. It can also contextually mean clean, which in my case meant “There is no problem here with your colon.”
Two years ago, I went to my urologist because I had felt a pain in my lower abdomen that seemed wrong. It was not like any pain I had felt before. Probably. The urology clinic I go to is run by two older Japanese doctors who are there on alternating days, but my カルテ or file is the same for each, so they both have the same data on my PSA and creatinine and whatever else is measured in a urinalysis. The one doctor I seemed to keep getting on my appointment days is the more doubtful, less friendly one, and also the one who has the distinction of having done DRE on me more than any other doctor. DRE for those not aware means digital rectal examination. It is exactly what it sounds like, if you aren’t the type of person who assumes digital means something that might be shown on the readout of a G-Shock timepiece. No, digital means, in its barest sense here, finger.
He was stumped. Wherefore this pain? He asked me many questions in Japanese, and I tried to answer all of them as well as I could. It hurts here, yes. No I don’t have trouble urinating, no more than the usual with a prostate such as mine, at my age. On my insistence that I did in fact feel pain in the area I had indicated, he referred me to a research hospital up the road, writing a letter, enclosing a CD. He gave all this to me in a sealed envelope and sent me on my way. To the department of psychosomatic disorders.
The research hospital concerned is about ten years old, at least in its current incarnation in this set of buildings, and is still clean, has the requisite coffee shop on the second floor where one hears the reassuring and soothing clink of saucers and china cups, old people murmuring to one another as they take their morning repast of a “morning set”. Perceived as a whole the hospital as an institution would probably engender confidence even in the cynical. Clean carpets, working bright lights, purposeful movement, even the sick and probably dying blanketed and wheeled about on quiet gurneys seem to be in the best possible shape, considering. Like the Holidays Inn of my youth, before they became camp and moldy: All seems well-planned and expertly run. The nurses are more often attractive than not, at least from the bridge of the nose up (everyone is in masks in hospitals in Japan, all the time). The greeters and information desk personnel are female, lithe, and efficient, and give one a sense of being in the right hands.
The psychosomatic intake involved an interview of many minutes conducted by a nurse who seemed too young to be charged with adult crimes, should she commit any. I remember her as very pleasant and patient, and after about a half hour of interview as we were wrapping up I discovered via random throwaway phatic question that she spoke English rather well (the entire interview had been in Japanese, including my stumbling bumbling Japanese answers.) There was a time when this would have annoyed me. That time passed years ago. Now I just roll with it. People don’t like speaking English.
When I was finally allowed to sit in the presence of the doctor, who wheeled his chair the meter or so in and out from his desk expertly, and had the practiced look of a man who cares, and probably cares even about you, he told me, after a minute or two of speaking Japanese, to just say my whole spiel in English, to just get it out. Which I did, and briefly: I have pains here, and here, and I don’t know what is causing them and I would like to know. He then asked, in Japanese again: “What would be your ideal outcome here? What would you like us to say?”
I felt he must have learned these phrases in the elementary level courses that one takes in dealing with neurotic patients, the same courses that cause one to end up practicing in the psychosomatic disorder department. I did not say this. I did say: “I want someone to say ‘Oh, we’ve seen these symptoms before; this is probably what you have, let’s do a test.’” I do not know how I expected him to react to this, but it seemed as if I had given exactly the right response. If he had looked down and checked off a box on a clipboard, he could not have given off a more reassuring vibe. At last, it seemed some kind of examination would begin, rather than the type of qualifying session I felt I had been subjected to.
Please lie on an examination table. Okay. He palpated me deeply in the lower abdomen asking repeatedly “Itai? Kore wa?” “Does it hurt? How about here?” I realized during this examination that one can actually push fairly deep down into the abdomen presumably without causing damage, but when I finally did say “Yes, that hurts” it seemed such an obvious statement (as in: Why wouldn’t it hurt when you push basically all the way through my body?”) that I couldn’t imagine how anyone could learn anything from it, any more than if he had jammed a knife into my leg and asked the same question.
He nodded. He seemed to be thinking very carefully. He typed a bit on his computer, mumbling that I could get up from the table and put my shoes back on. I sat up and waited. This was how I was scheduled to get my first colonoscopy two years ago.
Fast forward in time to last week. Now we are at colonoscopy Number Two, which has been ordered for me by my local doctor, who has written the referral letter, again with a CD, though this time I am sent to the gastroenterology department. The pains have returned, though the first colonoscopy (and endoscopy, which was another day and involved a tube down my nose) showed nothing out of the ordinary. One polyp (not a word one wants to imagine, though apparently polyps after a point are normal) but it was removed, and found to be benign.
This time, I have been scheduled to have the procedure on a Thursday, and have cleared my schedule and bowels for this purpose. The way one prepares for a colonoscopy may be well-known to some of you, but I will iterate it here for the uninformed. According to the internet one is supposed to consume only a liquid diet the day prior, and cease all medication such as aspirin which would increase the chance of bleeding. There are various dangers if the colon has not been completely voided and a colonoscopy is conducted, among them a term I recently learned: intracolonic explosion. I do not even want to know how this term was coined or in what circumstances. (That is not an image link.)
In Japan, however, there are little boxes they let you buy for about 10 bucks that contain what are called レトルトパウチ or retort pouches that contain MRE-like substances, and these are supposed to get you all set. Each box has five pouches, three meals and two that contain watery rice. You are supposed to pour the contents into a pot or bowl and either briefly boil or microwave them.
The box has on its cover the various meals you will be eating on the day before. It looks like this. You can see each “meal” such as it is on the box, plus some little pills are there that I was supposed to take. The first meal, the breakfast, is here in its pouch, and then looked like this when I poured it in the bowl. It looked better in the pouch. Rice and stewed chicken and some egg. The lunch was daikon radish, more chicken but minced this time, and, according to my youngest son, some potatoes. It looked like this.
There were also two packets of the watery rice I mentioned, similar to what is known here as お粥 or okayu, which is the Japanese equivalent to the traditional chicken soup, i.e. it’s what you eat when sick, but without the egg that is usually a part of that dish. I dumped one of these on the dinner, which, in a contest, would have to be called the best of all the meals, but so Spartan as to be disappointing, though by the time you get to eating dinner you are so hungry that you are imagining if maybe you can just forgo the procedure altogether and just go grab a goddam cheeseburger. I was too hungry to take a photo at that point but here is what the box claims the dinner looks like.
Anyway over the course of the day I warmed all these up and ate them and drank a bunch of water and took the two little pills at 9 pm. The instructions said to then drink a cup of water at 10 pm but by then I just wanted to lose consciousness, so I drank the water with the pills. I went to sleep early as my family ate stewed yellowtail, white rice, garlic scapes with sesame, and miso soup.
On the Day Of, you wake and unsurprisingly you’re hungry. You are not supposed to eat or drink coffee, so I did not. I did drink some water. I put on sweatpants, wore the kind of sandals that slip right off, got all my stuff, and took the bus in. The instructions also say not to drive, as you will be woozy from the drugs they give. I remember the first time I had one of these, the drugs were very effective. This time they would not be, but I did not know that going in.
I won’t bore you with the details of checking in and finding my way to the right department, but all went efficiently. Eventually I was cordoned off with a group of two men and three women who were also scheduled for the procedure. I am not young, but everyone looked much older than I feel I look or am. But who knows. Everyone was wearing a mask, including me. They sat us all down at tables and put in front of us these big jugs of fluid, which had our names written on them in black ink. That jug looks like this.(My name is on the side that is turned around.)
If you are thinking to yourself “That’s a lot of fluid” you are thinking the same thing I thought. And it is. It’s two liters.
The nurse at this point is going on and on in Japanese about what to do. She is very animated and friendly and you can tell she has done this lecture many times. It is like a performance, a routine, she hits certain points like punchlines, and we all breathe in a laughing-like way accordingly at these moments. Drink 250 ml in the first 15 minutes. Then another 250 ml in the next 15. By then you should have gone to the toilet at least once. If we have not, we are informed, we shall be given an enema. This seems a foreboding prospect, despite what awaits us. Somehow an enema seems worse than a colonoscopy. We are also given more little pills to take. This is the blister pack of mine. I had greedily swallowed them before I thought to take a photo for posterity.
The next photo you might not want to click on. It is a little laminated paper with six five photos that we are told are the stages of what our voiding will look like. The first is dark, then they get progressively lighter. Like a little picture book of defecation. Here is what that looks like. You will note the cute little bear in the top right, because everything in Japan must have a cute mascot associated with it, even the act of crapping.
If you did not click it’s fine, but the last pic of the stages is clearish, like very weak tea. At this stage, if this is what you are producing out your rear end, you are a Go for the colonoscopy and you are supposed to call the nurse into the john and have her inspect it to be sure.
I begin drinking. After 20 minutes I have had about 300 ml of the stuff, which tastes like poor quality Gatorade with no sugar and too much salt. I excuse myself and sure enough I will not be one of the enemized, which is good news. Time passes and the nurse has switched on the television. She has said we should not just sit there and watch it, but that is what everyone does—all except one old guy who prefers to stare at the corner in the opposite direction, as if mourning all the mistakes in his life that led him to this little squalid room. Instead of sitting there and watching TV the nurse encourages us to walk around, and even to push in on our abdomen to get the process rolling. I take a stroll, come back, and watch the TV again. On the television there is a show called ラビット which reads like “Rabbit” but I realize is supposed to be “Love It.” On the show three extremely homely guys who are probably comedians are visiting a racetrack and oohing and ahhing over it. With these guys is one extremely attractive woman, but before I can try and follow what it is they are all doing at the track I have to excuse myself again.
Eventually I’m ready, after about six trips to the restroom. The bowl looks so clear it is as if I haven’t even sat on it. I push the chime and the nurse very excitedly runs up, much in the same was if I were an elementary school child who just announced that he finished making some bit of artwork and she, my teacher, has come to admire it. “Ooh that’s perfect,” she says, gazing into the toilet bowl. “You’re ready,” she says.
She escorts me to another small locker room. I have left behind my cohorts, who are all quietly drinking and sitting and contemplating the television, except the one sad man. Two of the women have struck up a conversation. Their voices dim as I walk down the hall to the locker room. The nurse says to take off all my clothes and put on a little pair of black nylon pants, and then put on what looks like a blue pajama top thing, something like Luke Skywalker might wear on Tatooine. Then put my stuff in the locker. A beat or two passes and I am wondering if she is going to watch me do all this, but she leaves and closes the door behind her. There is no lock on the door, so I make haste. The fly, she has noted, is in the rear of the nylon trousers, for obvious reasons.
Clad in this getup, I step out. I am still wearing my athlete’s sandals. The nurse takes me past my cohort again, and they are all still drinking or sitting waiting to drink. Their Japanese politeness prevents them from acknowledging me, though my American friendliness feels somehow hurt by this, as if they might cheer me on. I go first, wish me luck sort of thing. Maybe they just don’t care at all. I go into a room where another nurse is busy with something. This room seems less clean than the rest of the hospital. Scuff marks, signs of wear. She wheels over a rolling upright pole with an IV bag on it and wipes my arm with alcohol. As she is inserting the needle I can’t think of anything to say so I say: “Your watch is nice.” It is, though my eyes are so bad at focusing on close things I cannot tell if it is a Jaeger-leCoultre or just some offbrand. Probably the latter if she’s a nurse in a research hospital, but you never know. She says thank you in a polite way but I imagine she thinks I am an idiot. Which, I think, I am at this moment.
(continued in reply post due to character limit.)
AI post. Never made a top-level post before, plz let me know what I'm doing wrong.
Quote from part of the article:
one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with a SEAD mission to identify and destroy SAM sites, with the final go/no go given by the human. However, having been ‘reinforced’ in training that destruction of the SAM was the preferred option, the AI then decided that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission – killing SAMs – and then attacked the operator in the simulation.