De-odor Rant
Let me start by saying that I learned soon after moving to Japan that Japanese deodorant is absolute crap. It's either this spray on stuff that burns like hell for about 5 minutes until it evaporates completely, or some odd liquid that burns slightly less and disappears just as fast. A former co-worker once said that he realized halfway through a workout(!) that he'd forgotten to put on any of his Japanese deodorant... and there wasn't any difference.
This is why, when I get back to the US on those infrequent short visits, I stock up on the stuff that works. I used the last of one stick this morning, and grabbed the next stick from my dwindling stash when I realized I must've bought the wrong stuff last time. I opened up the package to find, not my familiar and expected Right Guard with power stripe that I found worked quite well back during my martial arts training days (which, with the shoulder better, will resume once I find a training place here. I've visited a few, and one I might join, but still looking), but right guard gel deodorant. Gel. Deodorant. Gel. Gel? Gel? Fragging fracking smegging gorram slimy unfossilized coprolite gel?!! A nice, big 3 pack of the crap.
What's wrong with gel? Well, it doesn't go on dry and stay dry. It goes on wet and slimy, making it feel like you've squished a frog in your armpit until it dries, which in the Tokyo heat and humidity (and that's barely even started yet...) means that you're going to have squished frog armpits until you finally give up on waiting, throw your shirt on, and head out the door for work, at which point the gel soaks nicely into your shirt's armpits, making it look like you've already run a few laps around the block in your work shirt, just in time to get onto that nicely crowded morning train.
Gel.
At least I'll be going to San Diego for work soon, so I'll only have to use this gunk for about a month. Sigh.
And what's up with me that I haven't written anything for a month, and the first thing I write is about gel deodorant? Seriously, I've got way cooler stories than that. I just don't have the inclination to write when I have the time, I guess. Most of my spare time has been going into more Japanese study work, because it's so much more relevant to what I'm doing now. But it's not like the only things I do are work and study- and there are a ton of cool little things I could say about work. How many jobs are there where you not only get to, but need to spend part of your day researching things like comic book characters and which characters use which lightsaber colors in non-movie sources? Not every day, but still... Or for non-work stuff, the lightsaber practice meet-up Yoyogi park on the 12th? Or the exploration of the new city and environs, Japanese TV, beginning to actually read kanji... Yeah, tons of stuff I could type about. But not now, my time here is almost up for the moment. Those other things will have to wait until I get around to it.
This is why, when I get back to the US on those infrequent short visits, I stock up on the stuff that works. I used the last of one stick this morning, and grabbed the next stick from my dwindling stash when I realized I must've bought the wrong stuff last time. I opened up the package to find, not my familiar and expected Right Guard with power stripe that I found worked quite well back during my martial arts training days (which, with the shoulder better, will resume once I find a training place here. I've visited a few, and one I might join, but still looking), but right guard gel deodorant. Gel. Deodorant. Gel. Gel? Gel? Fragging fracking smegging gorram slimy unfossilized coprolite gel?!! A nice, big 3 pack of the crap.
What's wrong with gel? Well, it doesn't go on dry and stay dry. It goes on wet and slimy, making it feel like you've squished a frog in your armpit until it dries, which in the Tokyo heat and humidity (and that's barely even started yet...) means that you're going to have squished frog armpits until you finally give up on waiting, throw your shirt on, and head out the door for work, at which point the gel soaks nicely into your shirt's armpits, making it look like you've already run a few laps around the block in your work shirt, just in time to get onto that nicely crowded morning train.
Gel.
At least I'll be going to San Diego for work soon, so I'll only have to use this gunk for about a month. Sigh.
And what's up with me that I haven't written anything for a month, and the first thing I write is about gel deodorant? Seriously, I've got way cooler stories than that. I just don't have the inclination to write when I have the time, I guess. Most of my spare time has been going into more Japanese study work, because it's so much more relevant to what I'm doing now. But it's not like the only things I do are work and study- and there are a ton of cool little things I could say about work. How many jobs are there where you not only get to, but need to spend part of your day researching things like comic book characters and which characters use which lightsaber colors in non-movie sources? Not every day, but still... Or for non-work stuff, the lightsaber practice meet-up Yoyogi park on the 12th? Or the exploration of the new city and environs, Japanese TV, beginning to actually read kanji... Yeah, tons of stuff I could type about. But not now, my time here is almost up for the moment. Those other things will have to wait until I get around to it.