Hidemi’s Rambling No.506

After two and a half years of training and backstage work in the drama club at junior high, I was close to getting a role in a school play. Casting was done strictly by seniority, not by acting skill. A leading role automatically went to the club captain and the higher grade at school a member was in, the better role she got. The club was a joint activity of the high school and the junior high. I was already in the ninth grade and many senior members at high school either graduated or quit. As a result, I rose to a candidate for the last bit part that had only two lines. The part was normally to go to Miss Fujiwara who was a freshman at high school and so one year senior to me. But since she joined the club at the same time as I did and our careers were equal, the bit part came down to either her, or me. It was put to a vote. Everyone knew my acting skill was much better than hers, and the choice was actually between seniority and skill. All members including she and I sat with a face hiding in the arms on the desk and eyes closed. The club captain stood in front of the blackboard on which our names were written. When she read out a name, we raised a hand for the name of our choice, and she counted the vote. Although I craved the role, I raised my hand when Miss Fujiwara’s name was called out for two reasons. While we wouldn’t know who voted whom, the club captain would know. I wanted her to recognize how much I respected seniority and I was thus a good member. And also, I had a trauma that my mother never allowed to vote someone else but myself and people laughed at me when I got one vote by myself in every election at elementary school. The result was exactly tied. The captain declared the second vote, which meant the part would be mine if I voted for myself this time. Switching a vote seemed so shameless, though. I had never been in a tight corner like that. I raised my trembling hand for Miss Fujiwara. I heard one of the names being erased on the blackboard and when I opened my eyes, I saw my name gone. Miss Fujiwara got the role. Right away, an enormous feeling of regret came over me. I went home shivering, realizing I had made a huge, irretrievable mistake. And it really was. From then on, she was acknowledged officially senior to me and I was always left one step behind her. One year after that, she got a leading role and I was her sidekick. Two years later, she became a club captain. If I had voted for myself, I would have been a captain. Instead, I quit. I couldn’t stand to be a sidekick of her bad acting and her way of managing the club. I didn’t quit for any hardship all those years, but I did for my mistake that still makes my heart throb today…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.505

From January of last year to October, I’d had terrible skin trouble on my face. I had eczema mainly on my cheeks that were itchy and peeling. The condition was too bad to be covered up with makeup and I was in a mess. Since I’d never had that kind of problem before, I couldn’t figure out the cause. Eventually I attributed it to an allergy to basil pasta sauce. But I recently ascertained the true culprit and need to clear the basil sauce’s name. My apartment building has a spa which fee is included in the monthly maintenance fee from the resident. The privilege of using it with no holds barred and the fact I’m cheap send me to the spa every morning and evening. Not using it is a big waste of money for me. At the spa, a hot tub, a Jacuzzi, a sauna and a cold water tub are regularly available. And during the busy time such as the summer holidays and the winter skiing season, an extra hot tub is operated. When I looked for the solution for my skin trouble, I tried everything including shortening my spa time a little. After the trouble went away in October, it reappeared as soon as I started taking an extra hot tub at the spa in December. The cause wasn’t the basil sauce. I took a bath too much and too long every day. Sweating too excessively and having too much metabolism seemed to cause skin trouble. I knew moderation in all things, but had never known it was also true for a spa and metabolism. I thought they were good for health and the more the better. I’ve read or heard everywhere that metabolism is essential to health, and had never thought it also required moderation. It amounts to this, that I was too healthy. I reduced time and the frequency for the spa drastically and my skin trouble quickly disappeared. The free spa was my favorite relaxation. Now spending less time at the spa every day, I feel as if I leave an all-you-can-eat buffet after only a few bites each time. My good old days of sweating in a sauna as much as I want and relaxing in a Jacuzzi as long as I want are over. And to make matters worse, now that I’m careful not to sweat too much, I’ve gained a few pounds…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.504

When my role in a drama club at junior high was still lower backstage work, I was assigned to give the cast members a cue on one school play. I needed to cue them in the dressing room when the show before us was about to end. I counted down from forty minutes before the cue to make their preparation easier by watching the show in the wings. The stage was far from the dressing room and I had to go back and forth between them to tell them the time left. On that play, the heroin put on makeup and got dressed so slowly, and I felt sure our play couldn’t start on time. I rushed her while reporting the progress of the show before us by running laps between the stage and the dressing room. But as I had thought, she couldn’t make it. The previous show had ended, the audience was waiting, and she remained wigless. Those who helped her dress got hysterical and began to take it out on me who kept on cueing. Back in the wings, the teacher in charge of the school event stormed at me. We had to start without her and I asked other cast members to prolong the opening scene by improvising. They got panicky and complained to me. Eventually, everyone yelled at me who was just a cue person. While they were desperately improvising the play, I took her from the dressing room plowing through the people on the crowded hallway for her. Then I had gradually promoted to the higher backstage work play by play. As the curtain drawer, I needed to learn how to draw the heavy main curtain smoothly. If it opened or closed in several separate movements according to my tugging, I would get reproved. The curtain was used frequently to shift scenes and drawing it seamlessly was such a tough job. As a prompter, I was pointed out that my prompts were too loud. Then as the stage lighting, I needed to get the knack to create a blackout on the stage by turning numerous switches off in one quick sweep by my hands. The switches were too many and big, so I had to hold my breath and put my whole weight on my stretched hands to slide them all. All those years, I didn’t quit because I really wanted to be cast and play on the stage some day. It must have been a strong aspiration as I spent a good three years just training and working backstage…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.503

The drama club to which I belonged when I was a junior high school student had two school plays a year, for the homecoming entertainment and for the welcoming new students party. The casting would be done by a seniority system. A handful of senior members appeared on the stage and other members worked backstage. New members usually started from the stage props staff, then were promoted to the scene shifter, the spotlighting, the curtain drawer/prompter, the stage lighting, and finally, the cast member. My fellow five new comers had quit within a year because they couldn’t take this slow promotion toward cast members, and I was the only one left among those who joined that year. Since there were so many members who were one year my senior, it seemed the day I would be cast in a play would never come in this seniority system. But once I begin something, I don’t quit easily. When the twice-a-year school play came near, I would work eagerly backstage while seeing some senior cast members whose acting was much worse than mine rehearse on the stage. I started as the stage props staff. The first play I took part in was a Japanese drama. Some cast members had trouble putting Japanese sandals very quickly when they stormed out of the room in one scene and complained to us. From then on I had stretched their sandals carefully before the scene for the cast members to put them on quickly. As the spotlighting, I learned to move a spotlight just as the cast member moved on stage and to keep the light above her chest all the time. Every once in a while in rehearsal, I made a mistake to follow the cast’s quick movement and my light missed the position slightly. In that case, the play would come to an instant halt and everyone turned to me. I would stand straight beside the spotlight and yell “I’m so sorry!” to the whole production. Dreaming of standing on stage someday, I resigned myself to working for drearily trivial things so hard in the total shadow of the glittering stage glamor…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.502

I was a member of the drama club at junior high school. There were almost 100 new comers when I first joined it in the seventh grade, but only six remained including me after a month because of sober training that was far from the stage glamor. We did voice and physical exercises every day to develop our abdominal muscles. In the end of the exercises, the members would stand side by side and utter a loud and long tone one by one in front of the club captain. While we were squeezing ‘Ahhhh’, a senior member would put a hand on our shoulder to see if it rose. If we were doing abdominal breathing, our shoulders didn’t rise. The club captain would time the length of the tone and check whether it wavered or not. A loud, long, steady voice was good and I was the one who always uttered the loudest, longest, steadiest ‘Ahhhh’ without raising my shoulders. While the club captain corrected each member, in my turn she would say “Nothing to be corrected” to me. That made me so happy and I practiced diligently back at home too, to hear her say that every time. Gradually, I had tougher training at the club such as tongue twisters, short dialogues and pantomime. For some reason, I was good at those and had a good word from the captain each time. I began to think I might have a talent for acting. Secretly I took pleasure in picturing myself on the stage of a school play. A sad fact was, I was a fat and short girl. Even with the ability to act well, things wouldn’t go so smoothly for an ugly girl like me in the theater. But back then, I was too young and innocent to realize that. I just kept on striving and improving only my acting without caring about my bad looks…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.501

Last year, I spent fairly much time pondering whether I live in Japan for the rest of my life or settle in US for my music career. I used to live in the States for music and returned to Japan temporarily. This temporary homecoming turned out to become much longer than I had expected and have lasted to this day because of rapid advances in computer technology and the Internet. It’s now possible to work for the US music market while living in Japan through the Internet. Songs and books are easily released and promoted. More new tools and gadgets could be introduced, so that physically staying in US could be unnecessary. Above all, life in this small town of Japan, which is secluded from the city by the mountains, is suitable for creative work. It’s so hustle-free that I deeply concentrate on my work. Since I moved in here, my working pace has been good and steady. I feel I have finally found a perfect environment to work on music. On the other hand, I’m always afraid of settling down. Anyone who stops would die. I would lose motivation for writing a song unless I move forward even by a small step. For this year, I decided to visit the States for the first time in years. I know its cost is a prodigious sum of money for me and it requires mountainous troublesome arrangements. I also know too well that after those efforts, what awaits me are an excruciatingly long flight, murderous jet lag, and countless unpleasant incidents. Still, I need to breathe in California air. My anxieties for money, health and the future never go away but I think I can manage as long as I stay positive and look ahead. My mind was made up…
Filed under Life | Tags: Childhood, Famil

Hidemi’s Rambling No.500

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This incident happened one New Year’s at the end of the card game called ‘kabu’, in which my uncle acted as dealer for the yearly family casino at my grandparents’ house. He had lost quite a lot to my cousin, who was his son, as usual that night and my cousin had left the table as the morning dawned. My uncle, my mother and I were left at the table and the game was about to close. My mother asked for a few more deals because she had also lost a large sum and wanted to get it back. To recover her loss quickly, she bet by the $100. The game was played for high stakes every year, but I had never seen the stakes this high. She lost in succession and her loss swelled to $500 in a flash. “This is the last bet,” she claimed in desperation and put $500 on the table. She tried to offset her total loss on the last deal of the game. All at once the tension skyrocketed and strange silence filled the room. I held my breath and withdrew my usual small bet. The cards were dealt tensely and my mother and my uncle showed their hands of fate. Both hands were ridiculously bad but my mother’s was even worse. She lost $1000. Burying her head in her hands, she repeatedly uttered, “It can’t be! Can’t be true!” I saw tears in her widely opened bloodshot eyes. Then she repeated “Oh, my… Oh, my…” in a faint voice for ten times and staggered away. I clearly remember her state of stupor. A couple of days later back in our home, I enticed her into playing ‘kabu’ with me since I learned how poorly she played it and I knew I would win. I used to receive cash as a New Year’s gift from my relatives during New Year’s and it would amount to $1000. I dangled it in front of her and said that it would be her chance to get back her loss. She took it and we played for $1000. As I had thought, she lost another $1000 to me. She said she couldn’t pay, and I offered her the installment plan. I got $100 more to my monthly allowance of $30 for the next ten months. That was the richest year in my early teens. Many years later, she failed in real estate investment and lost most of our family fortune that had been inherited for generations. The amount she lost that time was well over $1 million. And that was the money I was supposed to inherit…

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