89.

Japan. 11pm. There were no more flights going to New York and the only hotel near Norita airport was an hour away. The airline girl put me in a taxi and gave me a piece of paper with all the info I would need. I had been puking all day and it finally felt like I could hold down food, and I was hungry. Driving through all these small towns at night seeing only Japanese symbols felt like being in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive", but in Japanese. The hotel check-in was quick. The attendant knew English. Sort of. Well, at least she knew the "hotel check-in phrases" she needed to know. My room was as small as a Dell Computer office cubicle. It took me a few minutes to figure out that my pencil-shaped room key needed to be put in the door slot in order to get light in the room. I was hungry. I went downstairs and stood in front of the hotel. Fuck. Everything was closed. No wonder. It was midnight. People were coming out of the train station. I didn't even realize there was a train station right there. Surely one of these people knew how to speak English? Surely that cute Japanese girl with the silver heels, pigtails and black capri pants knew where I could find some food? Hello. I made eating gestures and pointed to a McDonalds advertisment. She motioned excitedly for me to follow her, and kept saying what sounded like "Family style... family style..." We got in front of a restaurant called "Jonathan's" and I showed her my credit card. No. They didn't take credit cards but she said I was "guest in Japan" so she would pay for me (at least I hoped that's what she meant or I'd be washing dishes in Japan). Her name was Akino and she was hungry too. We sat down at a booth. I ordered some weird chicken dish with potatoes. I didn't even know they had potatoes in Japan. She had a grilled cheese sandwich. Conversation didn't cover alot of ground but I learned that she worked as a dance teacher in this small town we were in, but she lived in Tokyo. Before every pained attempt to speak in English, she would preview the full sentence in Japanese, as if somehow I might get the energy of what she was saying. She thought that my reaction to everything was hilarious. Like, when what I thought were handwipes, actually turned out to be teabags. Hee, hee, hee... Like, how I freaked out when I learned that anytime we needed our waiter we could press a buzzer at our table, just like on a plane. Hee, hee, hee...

Akino means "bright field" in Japanese. Here she is showing me dance moves in my hotel cubicle in Japan.