Why I didn't get an 'E' for "Participation"

This is our fourth tour to Japan; I've been on all of them. And, I've also been *sick* on all of them. Last year I got sick on the second day (in Fukuoka) and was sick for a good week; for the first few days, I only left the hotel room to rehearse, perform, or eat. I was determined that THIS YEAR would be different. So, I'm loaded up with Airborne(tm), "No Jet-Lag," and ibuprofen. I drank so much water I had to pee every hour or so. I even brought a cloth mask for my face to (hopefully) filter out the nasties that collect in gravity-defying metal tube's circulation system after 11 hours (closer to twelve). You'd be surprised how common it is in Japan for people to walk around with cloth masks on their face - sick people do it as a courtesy to limit the exposure of others to their illness.

We'll see if it does me any good. But, it's already got me in trouble (::sigh::).

You see, I have a hard time sleeping. Got that from my mom - my dad can practically sleep on command, but I can lie in bed for hours on a bad night. So, I tend to be anal about my sleep environmen: gotta have just the right sound (like none), just the right light (like none), just the right pillow etc.


This year I was prepared. I brought my own pillow, my custom musician's earplugs, and a sleep mask. Well, not exactly a sleep mask. I've used masks before, and I haven't found one that I liked, so I bought two *eyepatches* instead. Yeah, they're originally intended to protect eyes that are healing from the sun, but I thought they might remedy my main complaint about sleep masks; namely, that they shift on my face as I move around in bed. They're very low profile, and lying on my side doesn't cause them to ride up like a mask does.

Also, in an attempt to control my environment, I brought along my large headphones that look like gun-range ear protection (they do provide 25dB of isolation, without any active noise cancellation).

So, to summarize, here's what I have to satisfy my OCD tendencies:

1. Fancy earplugs.
2. Huge headphones.
3. Cloth mouth-and-nose mask.
4. Two eye-patches.

Yeah, I'm weird. I didn't get much sleep last night (all of four hours), so as soon as we got on the plane, I wanted to nap. Naturally, I wanted to try out all of my toys. Thus, I put in my earplugs... I put my eyepatches on... I put my facemask on... and I slapped the headphones over it all.

While I was doing this, I *knew* I must look ridiculous. I started giggling, and all of my neighbors followed suit (hence how I knew I looked goofy). This wouldn't be a big deal, except that the all-too-serious attendants were delivering their safety demonstration at exactly the same time. And, I guess I created enough of a commotion that a male attendant came over and gave me a dressing down for not paying attention and distracting those around me from the vital, national-security-important safety demo (OK, that last part I added).

::sigh::

Oh, well, it wouldn't be a Japanese tour if I didn't get busted for *something*. (Last year it was not obeying a security guard's direction - I got the "personal inspection" after that...) We'll see what mischief tomorrow brings!

---Jason