(2016 revised version)
I am thinking of Miro, who once began a painting with a blackberry stain on a canvas, and from there his imagination extended -- but he needed that stain, that irregularity, to begin.
I thought of that when I got your note that you’d spent the night jacking off to porn on the Internet, that there was nothing to eat except strawberry jam and no money coming through until tomorrow. You wrote you’d had a big fight with your roommates over bills – indeed, that seems inevitable when the sum of one’s assets is a nearly full jar of strawberry jam and a train pass.
Please don’t bother apologizing for your English mistakes anymore. You won’t see me apologizing for mine.
And I am sorry – you obviously have not been informed of my rules for friendship. By now I should have prepared some document, which acquaintances graduating to friendship could sign and have notarized.
The requirement is this: although I am perfectly willing to have poor friends, I am not willing to have friends who do not eat. You are free to broadcast or disguise your poverty in any way you choose. However, actual non-eating is not permissible and is, in fact, grounds for dismissal.
Since you were not aware of the rules, your offense will be overlooked, just this once.
Strawberry jam does not qualify as food. Even with bread and peanut butter it barely qualifies. I prefer my friends to combine lean meats with dark leafy greens and whole grains. It is very important for my friends to eat well. Especially considering the mass of self-destructive habits nearly all of us are carting around.
This requirement for friendship is strict and will be enforced and there is no room whatsoever for negotiation. Happily, a delivery service is available. Within the local area and also internationally to the best of my ability. Call me in other words. You dumbass. I will show up with food.
If the thought of receiving charity is humiliating, please, don’t think of it that way. Think of it as prostitution. You need only say, when I arrive, “Sorry, buddy, I’m going to need to charge you 5000 yen to suck my cock today.”
Isn’t that reasonable? Considering that there are masses of people who would seek and enjoy this privilege and there are, presumably, only several dozen people actually currently enjoying it. Therefore it is natural to request a modest fee for admission.
Is this reasonable? Of course it is perfectly reasonable.
I hope I’m not embarrassing you. Am I embarrassing you? I embarrass some people. There are some people, specifically some spiritual homosexuals, whose entire spiritual practice, so far as I can tell, consists of avoiding me.
Evidently they feel that I interfere with their disembodied lifestyle. And I would never want to interfere with anyone’s lifestyle, however disembodied, unless they were a friend of mine, and not eating.
If you perceive in yourself any discomfiture, it is because you cannot conceive of your own worth, and that may be because you are incapable of seeing the line of your back as it extends down across your furry ass. I could take a photograph, I suppose, but still -- you wouldn’t see it, not the way I do.
__________
After saying all this, did I invite you to dinner?
No. You invited me.
"I have only one plate," you said. "I'm pretty sure I have two forks." I would have shared a plate with you, of course.
We stopped by the 100 yen shop. You bought a plate and bowl. The plates and bowls all had smiling tomatoes on them. Which is not a bad thing. Personally, I am extremely, even strenuously, grateful to receive encouragement from any quarter. Especially here in Tokyo -- even a tomato that smiles is most welcome.
In your tiny kitchen you made pasta with eggplants. You had to bend over so far to chop the eggplants on the counter. Aren't these counters low even for Japanese? Everyone is getting taller now and the counters cower still down by the floor, afraid of big people with knives.
I've never known what to do with an eggplant. Of course not. I am American. Actually, I honestly thought I was supposed to blacken them.
Your eggplant became translucent cubes of gold. You added Parmesan cheese you'd smuggled in your suitcase.
Just four things: pasta, oil, eggplant, cheese. And yet it was extraordinarily delicious. I praised you and your eggplant skills.
"Don't overdo it," you said.
Indeed I would never want to overdo it. And I will do my best to not overdo it henceforth. Whether it is praise or eggplant.
After all, it is also true that lovemaking proceeds this way, with what appear to be simple and earthy ingredients.
I am thinking of Miro, who once began a painting with a blackberry stain on a canvas, and from there his imagination extended -- but he needed that stain, that irregularity, to begin.
I thought of that when I got your note that you’d spent the night jacking off to porn on the Internet, that there was nothing to eat except strawberry jam and no money coming through until tomorrow. You wrote you’d had a big fight with your roommates over bills – indeed, that seems inevitable when the sum of one’s assets is a nearly full jar of strawberry jam and a train pass.
Please don’t bother apologizing for your English mistakes anymore. You won’t see me apologizing for mine.
And I am sorry – you obviously have not been informed of my rules for friendship. By now I should have prepared some document, which acquaintances graduating to friendship could sign and have notarized.
The requirement is this: although I am perfectly willing to have poor friends, I am not willing to have friends who do not eat. You are free to broadcast or disguise your poverty in any way you choose. However, actual non-eating is not permissible and is, in fact, grounds for dismissal.
Since you were not aware of the rules, your offense will be overlooked, just this once.
Strawberry jam does not qualify as food. Even with bread and peanut butter it barely qualifies. I prefer my friends to combine lean meats with dark leafy greens and whole grains. It is very important for my friends to eat well. Especially considering the mass of self-destructive habits nearly all of us are carting around.
This requirement for friendship is strict and will be enforced and there is no room whatsoever for negotiation. Happily, a delivery service is available. Within the local area and also internationally to the best of my ability. Call me in other words. You dumbass. I will show up with food.
If the thought of receiving charity is humiliating, please, don’t think of it that way. Think of it as prostitution. You need only say, when I arrive, “Sorry, buddy, I’m going to need to charge you 5000 yen to suck my cock today.”
Isn’t that reasonable? Considering that there are masses of people who would seek and enjoy this privilege and there are, presumably, only several dozen people actually currently enjoying it. Therefore it is natural to request a modest fee for admission.
Is this reasonable? Of course it is perfectly reasonable.
I hope I’m not embarrassing you. Am I embarrassing you? I embarrass some people. There are some people, specifically some spiritual homosexuals, whose entire spiritual practice, so far as I can tell, consists of avoiding me.
Evidently they feel that I interfere with their disembodied lifestyle. And I would never want to interfere with anyone’s lifestyle, however disembodied, unless they were a friend of mine, and not eating.
If you perceive in yourself any discomfiture, it is because you cannot conceive of your own worth, and that may be because you are incapable of seeing the line of your back as it extends down across your furry ass. I could take a photograph, I suppose, but still -- you wouldn’t see it, not the way I do.
__________
After saying all this, did I invite you to dinner?
No. You invited me.
"I have only one plate," you said. "I'm pretty sure I have two forks." I would have shared a plate with you, of course.
We stopped by the 100 yen shop. You bought a plate and bowl. The plates and bowls all had smiling tomatoes on them. Which is not a bad thing. Personally, I am extremely, even strenuously, grateful to receive encouragement from any quarter. Especially here in Tokyo -- even a tomato that smiles is most welcome.
In your tiny kitchen you made pasta with eggplants. You had to bend over so far to chop the eggplants on the counter. Aren't these counters low even for Japanese? Everyone is getting taller now and the counters cower still down by the floor, afraid of big people with knives.
I've never known what to do with an eggplant. Of course not. I am American. Actually, I honestly thought I was supposed to blacken them.
Your eggplant became translucent cubes of gold. You added Parmesan cheese you'd smuggled in your suitcase.
Just four things: pasta, oil, eggplant, cheese. And yet it was extraordinarily delicious. I praised you and your eggplant skills.
"Don't overdo it," you said.
Indeed I would never want to overdo it. And I will do my best to not overdo it henceforth. Whether it is praise or eggplant.
After all, it is also true that lovemaking proceeds this way, with what appear to be simple and earthy ingredients.
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