Saturday afternoon I worked. Now that I'm self-employed one of the many freedoms I enjoy is the freedom to work on weekends. For me, these little perks make it all worthwhile. I spend a few hours rebuilding a domain controller and setting up a VPN server for a client. I wrap up at around 18:30 and strike off on foot for Shinjuku. I ring up Monty the Naughty to ask if he'd like to join me for a party later that evening, but he responds with the vague simpering I've come to interpret as his way of saying, "No thanks, rather stay in and watch TV." I cut the connection, deciding to attend solo later.

I'm hungry, so I wander into 3-chome in search of some place where I can dine alone without feeling too awkward. Fast food and gyuu-don are plentiful, and would be perfect under the circumstances, but I can't manage to eat that crap without spending the next hour or so regretting it.

So I wander around for a while looking for a spot, thinking sushi sounds good. Sushi is nice because if you're alone you can grab an open spot at the counter and nobody gives you a second thought, unlike other restaurants where you'll likely end up sitting forlornly at a table for four while everyone in the room preoccupies themselves with divining your curious lack of companions.

"There, it's settled," I think to myself, the object of most of my inner monologue. "Sushi. Good."

After much walking about and even more self-directed rumination of such weighty matters as the nationally consistent price of cigarettes or public spitting, I'm pleased to find a nice-looking sushi restaurant which has much of the menu conveniently displayed in a glass case outside. With prices. The various set dinners are tastefully arranged like a kind of wax menagerie on standard wooden ita blocks. I decide on the "Kotobuki" set and walk in, ducking under the faded noren that hangs over the entrance. The sliding door closes with a familiar gara-gara-gara-BAN!

The room is full of boisterous, middle-aged Japanese men and women. The air is festive and filled with the chatter of forty or so customers, leaning forward over small wooden tables crowded with myriad cups, glasses and dishes. The diners jab the air with cigarettes held between thumb and forefinger and sip sake from tiny white cups. Conversation at most of the tables near the door pauses as people take note of the towering gaijin that has just wandered in, perhaps wondering whom I'll ask for directions to the nearest pub or massage parlor. I catch the attention of one of the waiters and raise a single finger.

He makes a slightly pained face as he scans the counter for a free space, not finding one. He shrugs and indicates a tiny, two-person table wedged between a short divider and another table, at that moment occupied--amazingly--by the second and third obese Japanese people I've seen so far this year. I'd have trouble getting a leg in there, much less my whole freakin' body. I look back at him and cringe. He shrugs again, indicating the table with his chin as if to say, "Take it or leave it, pal.".

I nod and move in. I'm starting to remove my shoulder bag when a fellow seated at one corner of the counter rises to leave, then looks my way and points to his chair with a "how about this instead" look on his face. I nod and head over. "Sumimasen," I offer by way of thanks as we squeeze past each other near the register.

I settle in at the counter and order. Two people are seated to my left, an older Japanese fellow wearing a cool knit hat and a Chinese woman with excellent Japanese. To my right the rest of the counter stretches off and away to the back of the room like a salaryman hall of mirrors. Three sushi chefs dressed in white and brandishing big blades are busy behind the counter preparing orders. They all look like they take their sushi seriously, eschewing idle chatter among themselves or even friendly banter with the customers at the counter.

I smoke and wait for the food to arrive, taking in the unremarkable surroundings and wishing I'd brought something to read. After a few minutes the chef nearest me--a fellow who looks disconcertingly like the evil ramen boss from Tampopo--brings over my order. I dig in, surprised by the excellent quality of the fish. The ohtoro is spectacular. Everything is good. Really good.

I notice the conversation on my left grow quieter, and tune in to what's being said. The Chinese woman leans closer to the friend on her right, asking, "Where do you think he's from?"

I trail off there, chopsticks inches from my lips, looking at both of them. I wait, expecting some recognition of the clear sarcasm before remembering for the 100th or so time that sarcasm and irony work in Japanese about as well as viagra on a drunken midget--not at all, or with so little impact you may as well not even bother.

We start down that all-too-familiar smalltalk road characteristic of first meetings such as this for about five minutes before, surprisingly, they turn the conversation back to their earlier discussion about China. We talk about that and many other things over the course of the next two hours, drinking sake and ordering from the sushi menu every few minutes.

The woman--we'll call her Jen--has an impressive appetite and orders dish after dish with both the frequency and charm of a Yamanote-line arrival. "Chu-toro fu-TA-tsu, FU-TA-TSU kudasa----i!!," she requests of the sushi chefs and, it seems, everyone else in the room. Kuwamura-san apparently pays for dinner during these monthly meetings with Jen, and she goes out of her way to get the most of his generosity. The Chinese are great that way.

Jen is trained as a lawyer (and certified to practice law in China), and in Japan works as an interpreter and translator specializing in legal material and courtroom interpreting. In addition to having a prodigious appetite, she strikes me as very, very smart. Kuwamura-san is an editor with a well-known Japanese magazine, and planning a trip to China as part of a travel piece he's putting together.

We're all starting to get a little silly from the sake Kuwamura-san has been relentlessly ordering and refilling our glasses with, so we decide on a change of scenery. We move to a coffee house on the way to Shinjuku Station, a large Blenz on Shinjuku-dori distinctive for its Starbucks-like No Smoking policy. We get upstairs and continue our conversation over hot java, looking over some photographs Kuwamura-san wanted to show me.

Now close to ten-thirty, I tell them I've got to get going to make another engagement in Ebisu. We pack up and head for the station. Halfway there Kuwamura-san climbs onto one of those stylish, fold-up bicylcles and rides off with a wave and a smile, immediately swallowed by the throng on the street. Jen and I part company at the station, making those promises you make to call or email someone you've only met hours ago when you're not actually sure if you will or not.

I jump on the Yamanote Line, bound for Ebisu. I've been invited to the birthday party of the Lovely and Vivacious Mario; she of the Sultry Pout and Bewitching Eyes, the Temptress, my Amaterasu from the days of Friday Bloody Friday and Vive la Vie.

Would I miss it? Not on your life.

The venue is a cozy basement joint called Bar Fab. It's run by a guy named Chikara who knows what a Manhattan should taste like and how cocktails should be served. In a city where the "Single Shot Cocktail" seems to be de rigueur and the shape of the ice matters more than the name on the bottle it's refreshing to meet a barman who has his priorities in order.

I'm late, and things are proceeding much as expected. Some people I was hoping to see have already left, and others haven't made it yet. I find Mario and wish her a happy birthday. She fixes me with those beautiful eyes and sidles up to me, one arm sliding around my lower back until her thumb locates a belt loop on the far side. She's wearing a pretty black and gold dress and her hair is up. As always, she looks stunning. We chat for a while and then I pry myself away from her before anything untoward happens.

Lots of friends from Friday Bloody Friday and other acquaintances are on hand for the event. We talk and dance for the next few hours, getting sillier and less dressed all the while. This goes on for an hour or two, and I take my leave of the group at around three a.m., deciding I'm not up for the full tetsuya course tonight.

I start walking in the general direction of Yoyogi, thinking to catch a cab along the way. None appear. I keep walking. Halfway to Shibuya I see a red lantern with the word Oden written on it. (Oden is a particular Japanese dish that you'll often find sold from outdoor yatai stalls in the evening throughout the city.) Peering through the small windows in the sliding front door I could see that the place could seat maybe ten people, and was currently seating about five. I'm hungry again, and it's either this or ramen, so I slide the door open and walk in.

All conversation stops. The guy behind the counter looks at me as I squeeze past the three people seated nearest the door, saying nothing. I take a seat and pick up a menu. Out of the corner of my eye I see them exchanging looks. Finally the "master" of the place asks in hesitant Japanese, "Where are you from?" Having been through this once already today I'm disinclined to play along, so I just say, "Outer space." That cracks him up, and he turns to the other folks in the room, repeating, "Outer space! Haha!" The others chuckle. "Seriously, where do you think he's from?," he asks them. They all make "I dunno" faces back at him, and one fellow points in my direction as if to say, "Hell, ask him."

I sit through the five minutes of "America!? Wow! Neat! America!" that always seem to follow that particular revelation. Finally it dies down and we can get on with regular conversation. There is a couple of my left, the guy in his mid-thirties and the girl a buxom 24. He talks like he's been drinking since November or so, and she seems tired and bored. We start talking, and shortly the boyfriend's head hits the wooden counter with a satisfying thunk.

The girlfriend, seeing this, looks at me, looks back at the boyfriend, then back at me with a mischievous grin. We start chatting, and shortly she rings up a friend of hers drinking somewhere nearby. "There's some gaijin here who speaks Japanese!," she gushes into the mouthpiece, then hands me the phone. I take the phone and, after a minute or so of inane smalltalk, invite her over for some oden and bad sake. She appears in moments.

Mieko is tall and dressed in a white one-piece and pink overcoat. The collar is a ring of thick gold fur that matches her hair perfectly. She squeezes in and takes a seat between Girl 1 and I. She's definitely been drinking, so we naturally hit it off right away.

The next hour or so passes in a kind of haze. We keep drinking sake, and before long Girl 1 moves around to my right side, leaving me happily sandwiched between them. One has her arm around my neck, while the other's is... not around my neck. Hmm. I've just begun entertaining the idea of some prolonged early morning acrobatics when Mieko's boyfriend walks in. He's also been drinking, only he doesn't seem very happy. "That's funny. Mieko didn't mention a boyfriend...," I think before he comes lurching haphazardly in our direction. I notice with no little regret that all arms have returned to the stowed position at the girls sides.

"What the hell is this? Who's the gaijin? Why didn't you answer the phone?!," growls The Boyfriend, giving me a hardcore hairy eyeball. The girls start making placating noises, and then the other fellow wakes up. He looks around blearily, sees Girl 1's chair empty beside him and scans the room. His gaze finds her, then me, then Mieko. Comprehension stumbles across his face and falls squarely on his right eye, causing him to squint painfully. "Wunh...?," he begins, his grip on the now-empty beer bottle in front of him tightening visibly.

I look at the owner. He's looking at me with a giddy kind of "you believe that shit?" smile on his face. He mouths the words three thousand yen and I fish the bills out of my pocket without looking down. I stand quickly and grab my jacket. Slapping the bills down on the counter as I go I make for the door, giving the room a cursory "Thanks! It's been great!" over one shoulder before sliding open the door and hitting the street.