日本は終了しました。

First thing that surprised me about being back in america: daylight savings time. Should it be dark at 6 in the morning in the middle of September? Evidently, yes it should.
It's about 6:30 as I write this (in textedit, because I still haven't arranged getting online), and the sun is on it's way up. In a few minutes, I think I'm going to set out for the "shopping center", in the hopes of finding a decent bagel. Japan, while having little lumps of dough that they call "bagel" does not have anything approaching the minimum standard of quality here.
The other product that Americans take for granted that can't be readily had in Japan, Mexican food is also on the agenda. I found time to get a $4 burrito yesterday, but it was "vegetarian" at a place that doesnt much care about vegetarians, so it was just beans, rice, cheese, and so on... not so different from a taco bell 7 layer burrito. I should be able to find something better than that next time I go into town.

Where I'm living now, by the way, is not "town". It's northern California subrurbia, on the perfectly regular sense. The street in front of the house looks 100 meters wide, and the yard is expansive. There are tons of trees of all different stripes, and lots of grass, but everything feels quite cultivated and discreet. The trees aren't a part of a former forest or, what would naturally sprout up in the local soil. Each is a conscious decision from 5 or more years ago that this specific brand of tree would look nice here.
It's really really hard not to be aware of your neighbors here, in the sense that there is nothing here but boring little box houses. Someone has to be turning the lights on and off, right?
But it feels like a shame that I'll never have to squeeze past on of them in a hall. They'll never need to keep it down a little in respect of their neighbors. We're all quite inviolate, and have nothing at all to do with one another.

I'm quite in the throes of reverse culture shock to be sure. Still let me run down why this all makes me sad. God died. The people came to appreciate this world as the only one that counts, and adjusted their lives accordingly. Mammonism was a given. Money, nor the love thereof, is especially evil.
But in america, the regular money-grubbing tendency of developed countries got swirled into deep-seeded mistrust of the community and a touch of atomic individualism, so that people started spending extravagant sums of money, not on pleasure or glory, but on fortresses.
The American reading on christs teachings say that "flossing" is sinful, but don't seem to speak of gigantic entertainment centers (!) filled with electronics that manage to alienate not only the view from the community, but from the other viewers as well. At least when the average Japanese woman blows her cash on Louis Vuitton, she's directing her money (and thereby her labor) toward a participatory community, and not selfish fulfillment of desires, and seclusion.

I'll stop there, and get out after that bagel.

(wrote that not long after getting back, have been back a few days)