Shinagawa Monkey
I was walking with such a smile on my face, things are so hard and real and I’m just happy to be free and kicking. I went to pick up sushi from the spot down the street, thinking ‘so what if he sees me, I feel good tonight’. On the way back, saw his car and I thought here we fucking go. Smiled still. He put it on hazards, got out and stepped towards me. I have your stuff can’t you talk to me for a second? I yelled back at him no leave me alone and no I won’t and kept walking. He didn’t come after me then but I sped up and made it into the house, locked the door and stood against the frame for a long time. I feel so happy even when I feel scared. I’m enjoying my life and am so grateful for what I have. That’s the difference this time around.
I want to write more from my imagination too instead of about things that actually happened. If I can write about real stories there’s no limit to what else I could write about. I love reading about people’s lives in short stories and novels with subtle plot twists. I would say women’s lives but one that comes to mind is Murakami’s Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey, and he is not known for his well developed female characters. I love Men Without Women too, the title of which sort of sums up what I mean. I keep harping on it I know, things about X. But I recall when he read the Shinagawa Monkey with me on an airplane. He did not pick up on the twist so I explained it to him. That’s the mask off moment with these boys when I’m shown that they are not smarter than me, despite what they want me to think. I want to make a Dunning-Kruger joke but it’s become so overdone that making the joke is too ironic, like in making it you’re showing that you are the person it’s describing.
My new thing is being condescendingly nice when a guy says something disrespectful. He said, I would never have guessed what you do for work! Like neeeeevvveeeerrr would have guessed!!! The bit is that I don’t seem like I would have a smart boring job. This was after he (correctly) guessed that another girl at the table does Only Fans for a living. I said oh my gooooosh thank you, you are so sweet. I smiled huge at him with a slightly evil look. He got what I meant and gave me an evil smile back and I thought it was all very funny. I like to do things for my own entertainment, and everything is an inside joke I have inside my head between the self in the world and the self of the internal monologue. So much about human interaction is comedy. Life is so funny. The smallest things make me laugh out loud, I walk down the street laughing and then laugh more at the thought of a person walking down the street laughing.