We're in a small, unimpressive, room; I'm standing behind the RZA, now a man with thinning hair and sagging features, who is sitting down at a desk facing the wall. The other members are to RZA's right, I stand behind him on his left.
I'm wearing jogging bottoms and sweatshirt—both soft cotton. The pants are black, and the top a washed out yellow; but still, the Wu Tang colors.
RZA has some kind of sticker on him - like a "hello my name is" sticker - just a plain white rectangle, onto which he writes something. Coveting this RZA sticker, I, or he, peels it off and slaps it on my chest. But, as always happens with these stickers, the adhesive side, once used, is covered in tiny fibres and has lost much of its sticking powers. It doesn't stick very well to my sweatshirt.
I'm in the English school (for instructing non-natives in the langauge—not a proper school). I'm a newbie again; my first class will be a meeting with the head-instructor: Heidi (the real head-instructor from the language school I once worked in). I'm waiting in the teachers room with another, and seem to be unprepared or recovering from a heavy night out—I'm, in some way, winging it. But glancing at the schedule and seeing Heidi's name in my first lesson hour snaps me out of it, and I'm rushing to prepare and look ready.
There is an interlude and I'm looking back at a magazine shoot I once did (I did model for Japanese magazines a long time ago, though the pictures I'm looking at are not a shoot that happened in waking life). I'm running with a girl on the beach, or at the seaside, we're both young—she seems to be, a then, up and coming b-actress or c-idol. I'd always thought I was super-good in these shoots, but looking back at the pages now, I see I wasn't good: I was uncomfortable, and wooden. I notice my silhouette particularly (the shots were backlighted, and light rays come through the fabric of the clothes—showing an outline of the body beneath), it's very effeminate - wide hips, gaunt shoulders - it's almost the same shape as the female model's.
It's lesson time. Looking at the schedule again, it's no longer Heidi I must see; another name has replaced hers. I don't know him, but he must be senior—presumably more important than Heidi. Scrabbling for books and material - to look more professional and prepared - as I walk out, the other person is talking to me, though I remember nothing of his words.
I walk out into the instruction area—it's open plan (not like the language school was in real life). I see a bearded man, skinny, a little scruffy, sitting behind a plastic topped desk—this is the man I must meet with.
I go to sit, and find the seat is tiny, for a toddler, my eyeline barely lines up with the desktop. Laughing I go to swap my chair, for the one next to it. Switching them, I get a good look at the chair I just sat in. It was tiny; it had a brown fabric seat, and stood on thin steel-piped legs; the seat was laid back and angled slightly upward, there were no arms or rests—it was open. And it was tiny: barely the width of one of my thighs.
The seat next to it was more adult size. It looked old, second hand, ragged. Rushing to get sat down and begin, I pulled it hastily and sat down without thinking. The seat was brown again, this time, wood or faux-leather, not especially soft looking. And it had high arm rests, like a wall, all around the seat—like a spinning tea-cup you see at fairgrounds.
After sitting down I notice my suit is fouled a little. I'd worn my best grey suit - a Saville Row suit - to impress the Boss. The seat had been covered in a caramel colored sticky substance; now all over my best suit. As the interview is proceeding, my left fingers are quietly inspecting the gunk and trying to ascertain what it is. I quickly realize it's all over the chair. I hadn't checked for anything like this before sitting—I didn't want to hold up the Boss, or make a worse first impression than already made. I have to break eye-contact and look at the sticky crap all over my suit. I see a patch of the yellowy substance on on the left jacket pocket, notice it elsewhere on my pants, etc. And am thoroughly depressed by it. I wake.
