I'd bet good money that none of it would have happened if I'd gone to bed at a reasonable hour.

It was the day I'd first gone to Akihabara, which I'm pretty sure was also the same day I had the pig's head at Big, the yakitori place near my train station. I always ordered iced oolong tea with my meals at that place—I still don't drink alcohol, and the only other soft drink on the menu is a milky-sweet drink called Calpis, which tastes fine as long as you can forget you're drinking something whose name sounds almost exactly like "Cow Piss."

I guess I must've had one too many oolong teas, though, because I wasn't the least bit tired, even after 3:00 in the morning. I didn't mind, really. Craig and I stayed up talking about Australian politics and making fun of the insane Japanese commercials on TV. Craig could afford to. He had a late shift the next day. I, on the other hand, had an early shift. I finally stumbled into bed around 3:30, set my alarm for four hours later, turned on my fan to combat the muggy June night air, jammed in my earplugs to combat the noise of the fan, and eventually dozed off.

I learned a very valuable lesson when I woke up the next morning at 10:15—that's one hell of a pair of earplugs.

My alarm (in actuality, my Clié's BugMe application, a sticky-note program onto which I had dutifully scrawled the Japanese kanji for okiro, 'wake up') had gone off almost three hours earlier, and despite its 27 straight minutes of chirpy insistences, I had slept through the whole thing.

This was bad. Really bad. I'd already been severely late for my Thursday shift just one week earlier (I'd misinterpreted a one-day shift swap for a permanent switch to late-shift), and now, after having promised I'd never do it again, well... I'd already done it again.

The subsequent panic-spawned adrenaline rush enabled me to shower, shave and dress in 15 minutes, but there's no rushing a 35-minute train ride. I'd only missed two classes by the time I arrived, rumpled and sweating, at the office, but the damage had been done. Since Nova had been unable to contact me (you know why), they'd been forced to assume I simply wasn't coming in that day, and had reassigned most of my classes to other teachers. They suggested I go home and come back at 2:05 for my first scheduled class, but all I could manage was to sit around the company break room for three hours, apologizing to everyone who walked in.

The next morning is when things got really bad.

Now, due to my not having an Alien Registration card yet (it takes about a month to get one), I was required to carry my passport with me at all times while in Japan. I didn't mind this too much, although it's a bit of an awkward size. But whatever, I complied. Every night, I'd pull it out of whatever jacket pocket it was in, and deposit it on my closet shelf, alongside my wallet and keys. Every morning, on my way out the door, I'd pick up all three items and route them to their appropriate pockets. It was a decent system, and it hadn't failed me yet.

You've probably already guessed what happened next. On Friday morning, the wallet and keys were right where they were supposed to be. The passport was not.

I quickly worked backwards. The passport, I noted, should be in my black suit-jacket pocket, since that's what I wore to work yesterday. It wasn't. Was I sure I'd put the passport into the jacket? No. Frankly, I couldn't even remember getting dressed yesterday at all. The whole morning had been a frantic blur. Well, I thought, then it's probably still on the shelf. Except it wasn't. I kept working backwards. Okay then, I said to myself, I must not have pulled it out of my pants pocket from the day before, when I went to Akihabara. No dice. The pants were empty. And I started to get a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I'd had to carry my passport in the back pocket of my burgundy Wranglers that day, because it was too hot to wear a jacket. I knew for certain that I'd been carrying it, since I remembered jamming it into my pocket in Ikebukuro station while trying to figure out what I was going to do with my umbrella. (Summer is the rainy season here in Tokyo.)

I thought harder. I remembered putting it into my pocket. Did I remember taking it out?

I couldn't. It was possible that I had, but I had no memory of doing so, only of collapsing into bed at 3:30am. I didn't even really remember getting undressed.

(I did search my room thoroughly, of course, but my room is a six-by-ten-foot box with no furniture, so that didn't take too terribly long.)

I couldn't trust my memories, so I went crazy with logic.

1. If the passport was put into my pocket, then it should still be there.

2. If it's not there, then I must've taken it out and put it on the shelf.

3. If I put it on the shelf, then I would have taken it to work in my suit pocket like I do every morning.

4. It I took it to work yesterday morning, then it should be in my suit pocket now.

5. It's not in my suit pocket now.

6. But then, I don't actually remember bringing it to work.

7. In fact, I don't actually remember taking it out of my pants pocket the night before.

8. Yet, it couldn't have fallen out of my pants pocket (or been pickpocketed), since those pockets are pretty snug.

9. But I know I had my passport with me that day.

10. There's only one conclusion: I didn't jam my passport into my pants pocket. Somehow I must've screwed up and dropped it on the ground.

11. I just lost my passport in the second-busiest train station on earth.

I didn't like this conclusion at all. This was my passport, not some convenience-store receipt that you absent-mindedly stuff into your pocket because you can't find a trash can. There's no way I could've just dropped it. I would have noticed. I would have felt my hand not sliding into my pocket, wouldn't I?

That was the problem. According to my sense-memory, my passport was put into my back pocket, then transferred to my shelf and later my suit jacket (after all, my wallet and keys were still where they were supposed to be, and I didn't remember handling them, either). But then, according to my sense-memory, my passport should be in my suit pocket, which it just... wasn't. Only logic could offer an explanation. I just couldn't believe it.

In case you were wondering, I did look for my passport in the office the next morning. I knew it wouldn't be there, but I am nothing if not thorough.

"Pleasepleaseplease," I remember pleading to no one in particular as I yanked open the company armoire and shoved my way through a forest of indistinguishable black suit jackets, scanning the floor for a passport I knew I wouldn't find.

No dice.

"What's up?", my coworkers asked, as they drifted into the break room. "Oh my god I lost my passport and now I can't claim my Alien Registration card and I have no ID now and I can't find it anywhere and this is awful and this morning was my last possible chance to find it but I can't so it's really gone and I'm totally, totally FUCKED!"

That's what I felt like saying. But as I mentioned before, I decided to see if I could restrict myself to being a crybaby only on the inside. I said nothing.

The voice in my head was relentless. "You LOST your PASSPORT?", it screamed. "HOW STUPID ARE YOU?" Losing my passport was bad enough, but dealing with that voice all day was the worst. I felt like an eight-year-old who'd just broken the biggest window in the house.

I pulled myself together over the next day or so and headed off to Ikebukuro station after work. It was 9:30pm. The station's information kiosk was closed. I'd have to wait for an early shift and try again. Two days later, at 6:00pm, the information kiosk was closed again, and I realized I'd have to try harder. I headed over to a nearby station agent and in my best, most polite Japanese, I did my best to ask: "Excuse me, but as for the lost-item-place, where is it located?" The agent said something I didn't understand and gestured over my shoulder. Was he indicating the information kiosk? "Um, is it open?", I asked, just to make sure. He said it was. I wandered around for a while, asking random uniformed people. Eventually I ended up at a department-store information kiosk, where I was (I think) told that unless I lost my passport in that department store, I was in the wrong place. I went back to the station and asked a different station agent. This one said something I couldn't understand and gestured towards the other side of the turnstiles. What? I thought. I don't even have a ticket for that train line. How can the lost and found be over there? I thanked him, bowed, and backed away. It was obvious I'd need to come back during my next day off, during the info kiosk's apparently very brief operating hours, so I could ask the English-speaking kiosk staff what to do.

And so, six days after Akihabara, that's what I did. The information ladies were nothing if not efficient. "You lost your passport six days ago? Then it will already have been sent to the koban (police station). Please have a Japanese-speaking friend call this number and ask them if they've seen your passport."

I didn't have any Japanese friends, you understand, but I needed my passport. So I headed into work on my day off and asked the Japanese staff if they could help me.

At Nova, there're the English-speaking instructors (e.g. me), and then there's the Japanese staff who do all the intra-office work. They usually speak some English, and while their workplace demeanor is pretty no-nonsense, one of them agreed to intercede on my behalf.

Thank god.

It took about ten minutes before I realized that she was calling way too many numbers. "What's going on?", I asked. She glanced up from her phone and said, "Every train line has its own lost-and-found. Which train did you lose passport on?" "Uh, I wasn't on the train. I was in Ikebukuro station. Did you call the koban? The kiosk lady said they would know." "They're checking their computers. What day did you lose it?" "Uh, last Wednesday," I said, "but what difference does that make? Either they have it or they don't, right? I'm assuming they don't, at this point." She smiles at me and says, "The koban handles 5000 lost passports a day. They're checking their computers right now. But you should probably call the American embassy and ask what you need to do to get a new passport."

Just then, Carl wandered by. He's the only other American instructor at my office. "What're you doing here on your day off?", he asked.

"Lost my passport last week," I said. "Today's the first day I've been able to do anything about it."

"Bummer," he said, and headed into the classroom.

And I gotta tell ya, I felt a little bit better after that.

And if I hadn't gotten my passport back, this would be the end of the story. But I did. And in my next entry I'll tell you how.

But here's the deal. I've already given you enough clues to figure it out yourselves. How did I lose my passport? And how did I get it back? If you feel up to it, read over the entry again, and post your theories in the Comments area. First correct guess wins a free dinner. (But the plane fare to Tokyo's up to you.)

It's probably contrary to the blogger's code of ethics or something, but I deleted the previous post ("Plastic Bubble").

It's been bothering me since I wrote it. That post was a complete lie. The fact is, my life's been a mess since last week, when I lost my passport. Without it, I have no ID, no work Visa, and if the police ever stopped me for some reason, I could be deported. That may seem like the sort of thing I could have mentioned, but I really didn't want to become one of those people who posts endless "woe-is-me" cries for sympathy on their own blog.

This is a bit of a sore point with me, actually. I fall into the cry-for-help trap way too easily. That first morning, when I came into work, every time someone asked me "How are ya, Mike?" all I wanted to say was, "Awful! I lost my passport! I might get deported!" Not cool. So instead I just gritted my teeth and mumbled, "I've been better. How 'bout you?"

And then, a day or two later, I posted that entry on The Account, trying to make it sound like I'm just having a bad hair day or something.

This blogging thing is harder than it looks. There's this weird emotional feedback loop that develops. You have to be just honest enough that your readers feel like they're connecting with you, but not so honest that you drive people away with your neediness. (People who aren't needy tend not to have blogs.)

So, I blew it. In an effort to avoid turning last week's entry into the ending of every I Love Lucy episode, where Lucy screams "Waaaaa!", I just lied about how I was doing, which did not, in hindsight, make me feel better. Well, this'll make me feel better. I've deleted "Plastic Bubble" and will now proceed to tell you the whole sordid tale.

(And from now on, I promise, no more bitching about how I don't have a phone.)

I managed to explore a little more of Tokyo today, namely Akihabara, also known as Electric City. Imagine, if you will, a city-within-a-city whose entire economy is based on the sale of electronic goods. As far as the eye can see, in every direction (including up) nothing but stores for computers, or stereos, or cell phones, video games, calculators, lamps, air conditioners, DVDs, children's toys... Not to mention all manner of wires, batteries, motherboards, soldering irons, LEDs and extension cords. Lots of extension cords.

Well, I suppose you'll have to imagine it, since I still haven't bought a camera. They're built-in on all cell phones over here, so I guess it won't be too much longer. But still. If I don't start adding some pizzazz to this blog soon, I'll have to change the name from "The Account" to "I Guess You Had To Be There."

In the meantime, here's a non-visual anecdote to tide you over: I took my two roommates to my favorite yakitori place last night, and since I can only read about a quarter of the menu, I relied on my usual "what's good tonight?" routine.

ME: Hey, what do you recommend tonight?

WAITER: You should try the Kashira. It's great.

ME: Sounds good.

*half an hour later*

ROOMATE #1: Hey, this is pretty tasty. But I think it's beef.

ROOMATE #2: What? Nah, this is definitely lamb.

ME: Hey, waiter, what is Kashira, anyway?

WAITER: It's uh... How do I say in English? Pig, uh... Head.

ME: I'm eating pig head?

WAITER: Yes. The, uh... the temples part of the head.

ME: Ah. Um... Arigato.

Whoever suggested that living in Japan would be a great source of screenwriting inspiration (okay, it was Jess) was right. At least, for the types of themes I like to write about—alienation, culture clash, future technology. I'm a bit mystified about where I'm going to find the time to write all this down—Nova works its teachers pretty hard, and I've got a lot of sightseeing I want to do—but I'll figure it out. Like Ridley Scott and William Gibson already discovered many years ago, Tokyo is a bottomless wellspring of creative ideas. But what inspires me isn't so much the lights, the colors, the traffic and the noise, it's the feelings and rhythms to which any foreigner would be sensitive.

It's the eerie, communal quiet on the train, punctuated by the dramatic "kwuh-SHUUSH" of the other train speeding by in the opposite direction.

It's the way the strange, misty Japanese rain falls in slow motion, like snow.

It's the way Tokyo has transformed the 26 letters of my alphabet into a new language of ultra-modern hieroglyphs.

Feeling inspired yet?

Whether it was it the four hours of drunken karaoke or the $3000 I won in pachinko, I dunno, but I was in no shape to catch the last train to Shinjuku last night, and wound up spending the night on Mayumi's floor, which left me almost too sore to rehearse for the first performance of "Strenj-Love," that Depeche Mode cover band that Kenji and I decided to start last weekend, and...

...well, that's what I hoped this blog would be sounding like by now. I know I'd read it. Isn't that what's supposed to happen when you move to Tokyo? You're drawn into a frenzied world of drunken businessmen, purple-haired actress/bartenders, and non-stop, multilingual techno-revelry beneath a neon sky?

Right?

Right. Christ almighty, I've been here three weeks and I haven't even bought a phone yet. Or made any new friends. Or even spoken to a single Japanese person who wasn't handing me my change.

Am I the only one who thought I was going to be spending my time grooving with gaijin-curious hipsters over green tea and sushi every night of the week? 'Cause most of my time lately seems to be spent at the 7-11 near my house, trying to figure out what's in the frozen dinners by squinting at the pictures on the back of the box.

Yeah, I know. These things take time. At least my job doesn't suck, and that's what I'd been dreading the most.

But all the same. Tokyo's as cool as I expected—it's just me that's not.

Things you won't find in Japan:

Sidewalks
I'm not sure what the rationale is for entirely omitting sidewalks from even the most modern cities here, but I'm sure it's related to the Japanese obsession with saving space, even when they don't have to. So where does everybody walk? Right out on the street, alongside the boxy cars, mopeds, and bicycles. Fortunately, this being Japan, everybody pretty much cooperatively mingles with everybody else, and nobody gets hurt. (Maybe this is why seemingly no biker in the entire country wears a helmet.)

Driers
Washers, they got. Tiny, boxy, washing machines the size of a hotel mini-fridge. But driers are apparently considered an outrageous extravagance over here. So every apartment has a tiny balcony, which is used solely for hanging one's clothes out to dry. Not for barbecuing. Not for socializing. Drying. Far be it from me to criticize air-drying—it saves energy and keeps clothes from getting fuzzy. But man, all those balconies, festooned from top to bottom with all manner of towels, baby clothes, parkas and socks... It makes even the swankiest Tokyo high-rise look like some sort of giant vertical trailer park.

Garbage Cans
What's that? You thought Tokyo was one of the cleanest cities on earth? Well, it's no Singapore, but yeah, Tokyo (and everywhere else I've been around here) is near-spotless. So how do they pull it off when there's nowhere to throw out your damn trash? The answer may be too horrifying for a gaijin to contemplate: in Japan, it's considered grossly inappropriate to eat or drink or unwrap that new CD while walking around outside. In other words, they don't put garbage cans in public places because good Japanese citizens only generate garbage in the privacy of their own homes. Yes, they sell candy bars and bags of chips here. No, I have no idea what you're supposed to do with them.

Orthodontics
People often refer to Japan as a "Land of Contradictions." This is apparently code for "These people built the world's fastest train, so why can't they handle even basic dental hygiene?" The dental conditions I've seen in my short time here are the stuff of nightmares. Teeth the color of asphalt. Shark-like rows of jagged yellow slivers. Exploding molar grenades, frozen in time. I just can't figure it out. If they can afford to live in Tokyo, they can afford braces. At least now you know why nobody ever smiles in Japanese porn.

Whoever said it was easy to stay vegetarian in Tokyo (okay, it was Rachel) obviously never tried it while holding down a job that gives you 39-minute lunchbreaks. In a city where you can't read menus.

Stay tuned for next month's entry, in which I just give up and start chain-smoking.