It rained all the way home from work.  Inside the shops, the workers were busy with their end-of-the-day tasks, from the old lady who sits in a pool of light in the back of her fruit stand to the bakery, which looks warm and inviting and wholesome inside.  I wonder if being a baker is more fun than being a bureaucrat because they all seem to be laughing and then I remember I once worked in a bakery and hated it.

My coworkers seemed to pose in odd vignettes today, as if for an informational brochure.  One sits at the desk with the phone perched expectantly at his ear while another shows him at list of papers and points at it.  They could be pretending to work except I know that they aren’t.

My Japanese teacher nearly collapses in giggles today when I tried to lamely recount my recent hiking trip in the mountains.  What did you eat at the top?  she asks, and I explain we bought some eggs and cheese and bread at the gift shop and munched it en plein air.  For some reason this is hilarious, because Japanese people eat soba or noodles at some out-of-the-way food stand and she thought our meal was very fancy.  I said it was European style which also apparently is a comical utterance.  I catch her hiding smiles sometimes, like when my classmate says “pervert” instead of “hour” but occasionally she just can’t deal with the absurdity of teaching grown adults her mother tongue.

Absurd.  That pretty much sums it up.