I’m ready for all of you.

Where does all the anger come from? My anger, your anger, their anger.

People just seem to have loads of unfiltered, unadulterated rage. ( For many it manifests in the driver seat.) I get angry all of a sudden, out of nowhere. I can wake up mad, be made mad, discover I am mad, be mad and not know I am mad, and I can make others mad. I use the excuse of mad to rationalize irrational behaviour.

I/we get the maddest at those we do not know. I get full-on murder you in cold blood mad at complete strangers. “Did you see that asshole? He just cut me off? Did you see that son of a bitch? He just took my seat at the coffee shop? “I HATE YOU AND HOPE YOU DIE!” Did you see that? Oh the injustice! I think most of this anger we have stems from our strong sense of entitlement. (Either that or troubled and disturbing childhoods.) Our parents have caused us a lot of anger. I think all of those no’s, don’ts, stop-its, sit-downs and shut-ups over the years of our childhoods have all cumulated into large seething cauldrons of displaced anger.

Since I have been back I seem to get much more angry when I go out in public

Enough time has passed now that things are starting to feel like normal again. At least in the sense of what one might expect. Things are getting back to being “the same” as they were prior to our trip. Without the excitement, anticipation, and nervousness attached to taking such a far-away journey. We have both been feeling somewhat melancholy. I have spent some time in isolated stillness wondering what to do with myself, all the while having a massive menu of options and commitments before me.

A week after the trip I found myself standing in the middle of Union Station during rush hour fantasizing about mowing everyone down with one of those long-bladed lumberjack chainsaws. I think it was throwback from the organized chaos of Japan. The chaotic nature of Union Station was infuriating. It was a pushing, yelling, writhing pit of sour, white, greasy, Canadian hogs rampaging and screeching as if off to the slaughter house with only seconds to live or find escape, slip-sliding their cloven hooves on excrement-smeared runways and ramps leading them to destruction.

It made me appreciate and yearn for the elegance of what a controlled, organized, self-respecting crowd can be. It made me embarrassed and furious at the same time. It made me hate everyone. Poor baby, trips over, time to get back into the real world.

It is dark and cold here today and I am sitting in a coffee shop at early evening on a Wednesday in November. I remembered this week that I don’t like November. It’s incessantly cold, rainy weather with the pre-mature glare of Christmas ornaments and wishes of good tidings way before any seed of merriment or cheer has manifested in any of us. It just aids and abets my frustration.

So as everything falls back into place and time begins to evaporate at a break-neck speed. I keep pulling myself out of the routine and hope to find change of some sort. Hope to find a way to not just park the trip and go back to business as usual. All I want to do is eat, and watch TV. Does this mean I am depressed? No. I am just lazy. A big white sloth hanging all over the furniture with a raging case of entitlement and want.

It’s hard to figure things out on a good day, and when I sat down to write this post I was sure I knew what I had to say. Something to the effect of: “why do things always seem to be the same, or go back to ‘the same’ “. Now it’s not coming out that way. Not sure what it is that is coming out.

T-Rex chimes tinny in my head plugged with overpriced earbuds. Life could not be better really, but I still feel disgruntled. I still want to whine. Don’t want to work. Wish I had more money. Get frustrated because I can’t seem to figure out what to buy myself next to appease my vampiric thirst for consumer-bliss.

I cook and clean. Take the dog for a walk. Get lost in my work. Scour the internet for the next best free download. I think about cleaning my office and then put myself in front of the TV instead.

I concede that I am just a spoiled little brat. Not content for the sake of not being content. Am I making any sense? Does anyone else feel like this? No, no, just me again.

I watch a couple more Godzilla movies, some anime called: Kill a Killa, Fate Zero, and Sword Art Online. Take the dog for a walk again. Daniela and I go shopping. We go out to eat. We go to bed early and get up early. Lather, rinse and repeat.

I get frustrated because I ask myself: “What am I going to write about now?” “What’s left to say?” “Didn’t I make this point in a post just last week?” No one will want to read anymore because I don’t have anything to show them, tell them, discover with them.

I shake it off and feel a little embarrassed for getting so pretentious. Sorry.

People come and go with their laptops in coffee shops. In Japan there are more people with books than computers; they seem to leave them at home. Mostly students hang out in coffee shops, not homeless, or hipsters out for a free wifi poach. (How do they wear those knit hats inside all the time, those hipsters? I would sweat to the point of passing out.) You see them in the middle of summer with their knit hats on in the blazing urban heat of the city. The temperature of their heads must induce some sort of prolonged brain damage. Maybe it is vision-impairment because they usually have those big glasses on. I digress.

So Japan is gone, slowly slipping off the radar and the impending thought of winter is replacing it. The dog is more and more apprehensive to go outside, much more interested in sleeping deep under blankets, buried between my legs or tucked snuggly under my hoodie.

Somehow and suddenly my anger and urge for self-loathing evaporates. Optimism sets in, and I start to feel great again. (Maybe there will be a happy ending to this entry after all.) I start to think of all the things I want to do. How lucky I am. It doesn’t mean that I wasn’t disgusted by my subway ride here. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wish I could move Japan here and keep it close, a place I could safely wander through, and take in all it has to offer over and over again. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think North Americans are lower on the evolutionary ladder in some ways.

It does mean that I sure am happy I was able to find all of this shit out for myself.

The anger will come and go – it always does with me. It’s great being married to a therapist – you get free treatment and they get to practice on you to see how things work.

Don’t be angry with me. My next post will have a real topic I promise.