Life is .. something

You know how you can tell when a joke has gone too far? 1) When people start dying as a direct result, like in Foucault`s Pendulum, or 2) When you find yourself in some f$%&ing nowhere town on the northern coast of Honshu with nothing but a bicycle and a pack of (not nearly enough) supplies, riding from town to town flying a Japanese-style banner that says "Niigata Earthquake Victim RELIEF MISSION." It could be just that: a joke gone too far -- we`re sitting around in Osaka (where I have come to buy books and pursue women) last Tuesday morning, and I`m complaining about this e-mail my mother had sent, yelling at me to "pay attention to what`s going on around me" and "do something to help out." So everyone starts getting on me about how I have all this spare time, I should get off my ass and do something worthwhile, they`d all do it themselves but they have "jobs," blah blah .. thing is, before long it started to make sense to 2 of us, me being one of them (if they`d known me better, known how seriously I`d take any accusation of time-wasting, they wouldn`t have said a thing), and by that evening I had a bicycle, a destination, a vague plan, and no details whatsoever .. actually, 5 days into the trip, I`m still kind of blurry on the details -- I`m just kind of riding northeast, from town to town, with this big yellow banner, asking anyone stupid enough to come near me for a contribution (fyi - so far people either give me a thousand yen, or run away). When I get to Niigata, which should be in another week or so, I will do three things: 1) Give all collected money to the appropriate venue, once I figure out what that is, 2) Probably throw in a large handful of my own cash, since I`m really not good at the whole soliciting thing and would feel embarrassed showing up with like $100, and 3) Auction off the bicycle (which is very nice), give whatever I get for it to the aforementioned appropriate venue, and catch a bus back down to Osaka, where I don`t even live, but hey, there are girls waiting for me there. And my other friends too, of course.

So is it a joke turned against me? A cry for attention? An attempt to do something worthwhile, like the way my older sister is sponsoring a little girl in South America, only less tangibly effective? A vision quest?? My latest effort to become more like Kintaro Oe? Doesn`t matter what it is -- it`s poorly/barely planned, kind of ridiculous, maybe pointless, and exactly what I`m doing ... wish me not-death.