Okay.

This is for the wanderers-over.

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My 72 year-old student in Japan was in the hospital fighting cancer. His wife of around 50 years made a beautiful charcoal drawing of their garden for him to hang on his hospital wall. He'd been away from home too long to see it bloom in person. That's LOVE. Know any other good examples??

A conversation with D. about the upcoming Spike Jonze film Where the Wild Things Are eventually led to a conversation about the children's book The Giving Tree. Which led to this:

M: I read a poem today that I loved. Wait. I'm going to try to remember it. Hold on... Okay. It's by Hafiz, you know? No? Some Middle Eastern poet from thousands of years ago or something. He's great. Okay, but it's something like... [and then I gave a rough paraphrase of the real poem, which is called "The Sun Never Says" and was written by Hafiz of whom not much is actually known]:

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

And afterwards, M: See? It's like The Giving Tree

D., after a moment of consideration: It is like The Giving Tree. Except in this case the sun doesn't end up a stump.

M: True.

One reason I've stayed in the House of Squalor so long is that the price is impossible to beat. Last night I was confronted with the fact that I might have to keep toughing it out a bit longer.

Business at the restaurant has been BAD. Like seriously DIRE.

E. started a great little place. Excellent food, great atmosphere, good service (thankyouverymuch). But it's just not the time to be starting businesses. No one's taking vacations to Maui. Locals aren't going out. It's looking like disaster for all of us depending on this business to get off the ground.

We did okay for a few months there. Got great write-ups in all the local papers, had people raving and recommending it to their friends. People would come straight off the plane having heard about us at the airport. Even got a celebrity here and there. But even when it was the trendy new place to check out, we were bleeding hundreds of dollars every day. These days it's just completely unsustainable. I feel bad for me, but I feel even more bad for E. He's there twelve hours a day, helplessly witnessing his dream fail. (Yeah, he's the creepy boss with the crush on me, but just as I'd hoped, as we've gotten to be better friends, he's laid off that a bit.)

School starts soon, and then hopefully HOPEFULLY I'll get enough substitute teaching work to pay my bills. But at the rate things are going, I don't think I can count on this waitressing gig for much longer. It's getting to the point where it's not worth the gas it takes to drive there.

I keep dreaming of getting my own place, but I think even $800/month would be a pretty lucky find for a studio on Maui (nearly double what I'm paying now). At this point I can't count on having that much extra scratch every month.

I thought D. and I would be ready to move in together by this point, but I really don't think it's going to happen any time soon. Once again he's looking for work, so it's hard to ask him to suddenly come up with hundreds of dollars each month when he's living for free at home. Plus, he's constantly worried about his dad's emotional well-being when he's left alone for extended periods of time. Sometimes I think that D. shouldn't feel so responsible for his dad's day-to-day happiness and companionship, but then I immediately have to remind myself that I shouldn't be expecting him to make me happy in that way either.

When I can get work worked out, I can get a better home worked out. When I can get a home worked out, I can get more of my day-to-day happiness worked out. (Hobbies, friends, routines.) When that's all worked out, I can work D. into it all as much or as little as he wants. I'll tweak as I go.

I have about an hour before I have to run off to my going-nowhere job. I think I'll spend it googling directions/names of administrators/start dates for area schools. School will start soon and when it does, I want to be ready.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but one of the first things there is to find out about D. once you start finding out things about him is that he is a blue jeans connoisseur. I don't even want to start imitating all the technical terms he effortlessly throws into conversations about jeans, because I'll never become as effortless with them, and if he ever comes across this entry, he'll just laugh and be embarrassed. But it's a passion of his that I've always sat back and observed with a sort of stupid fascination.

When he first arrived in Colombia and we were sharing a computer I was surprised to find he'd first check his email, then maybe the news, and then he'd go straight to these denim forums in the same way that I'd go to LJ. It was weird.

There's a whole subculture out there who obsess over indigo dyes and what some company in Sweden is going to do with denim next year, and I actually think that guys are more into this kind of fashion than girls. There are some guys out there who would never dream of buying denim that's been treated or manipulated in any way to appear "worn" because they take great pride in breaking them in themselves. Literally these guys wear untreated denim for six months straight without ever washing them, and I'll admit it, they get them to look way better than any pair I've ever bought off the rack. Then they go and sell them on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Girls would never do this, would they? I've asked D. and the idea intrigues him, but he hasn't found a girl yet who matches his freakiness for jeans, in real life or in the freaky forums.

It's funny that D. got so into jeans, because Maui isn't exactly the best place to wear jeans.

He's calming down about it these days, and has moved on to classic movies.

D. is one of those people that has made a small fortune on eBay because of his unusual interests. Jeans, tennis rackets, now rare special edition DVDs and CDs. He knows when to spot a great deal on these sorts of things and turns them over for a quick and easy profit.

Recently I've been exploring a different kind of subculture. Perfume lovers. It all started when I sat down to write a list of my favorite smells, and in my brainstorming I stumbled into all these perfume blogs. I'm telling you, these people are the most interesting kinds of freaks.

I never knew there were base notes and top notes and so many other things to it! I started pulling out my own neglected bottles more often, and feeling a little happier during the day. I decided to treat myself to a new fragrance, and spent a heady morning at the Macy's perfume counter picking the saleslady's brain.

Then I came to discover that there's a whole D.-like subculture on eBay devoted to perfume, and decided that I'd rather pay a perfume freak dealing from her home in Oregon than the perfume lady at Macy's. I wonder if this is the start of something for me. Will I soon find myself scouring message boards and betting on unused bottles of Gucci that I don't even like just because I know I can make a quick $30. I kind of doubt I have the patience for that kind of dedication, but it is an industry I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by. What's cooler than bottling up the world's best fragrances to be enjoyed any time? The only thing cooler would be bottling up feelings.

So many things, so many things!!

I've been waiting a month to get my results on the English Content PRAXIS exam. It tested my knowledge of English literature, English grammar and composition, and teaching methods and theory, and I have to pass it in order to be qualified to teach in the state of Hawaii. I was fairly confident I didn't bomb it, but then again, I'd guessed blindly on several of the literature questions. Plus I didn't manage my time very well and had to fly through the final third of the exam. Also, it's designed to be taken by people with four-year degrees in English Education. My only preparation was four years teaching EFL (which turned out to be great for the grammar/composition and teaching methods portions of the exam) and a hobby of reading classics (which pretty much fizzled out around 2004).

Well, guys, apparently the other prospective teachers in the state of Hawaii are pretty lame, because I scored in the 98th percentile. Passed with flying colors. Huge relief!

*

So that part's good. The bad part these days is my living situation. My roommates are COMPLETE SLOBS and it's getting to the point that I'd rather not be at home. I find myself going directly to the refuge of my room, which gets swept regularly and has no nests of exotic pests. Of course I could just bite the bullet and clean up after people more, but I've done it a few times, and resent it more and more each time, and now I just refuse. It is the most disgusting feeling to wake up in the morning and wander sleepily into the kitchen to find a sinkful of dirty dishes with flies buzzing around, bits of food (like slices of green pepper and egg shells) all over the floor, counter tops completely unwiped all from the night before, and the people who made the mess have left for a camping trip for the weekend. It's absolute squalor in our house.

I know I should just be like, 'Dudes, do your fucking dishes and clean up after yourself.' But I feel like they might take it as hypocritical as I rarely do much cleaning of the common areas myself. I don't clean because I almost literally never use anything - I stopped keeping any food in the house when I realized it just got eaten by others, and so I don't cook. I don't use the TV so I'm never in the living room. I clean the bathroom and occasionally take the garbage out when it's overflowing (even though I throw all my garbage away in the basket in my room), and that's about it. Can you tell I'm bitter?

Anyway, I think if I get vocally bitchy about it, people will just think of me as more of a bitch than they already do, and it won't actually accomplish anything for any extended period of time. So instead I keep fantasizing about leaving. I'll have to find someone to sublet before I can leave if I want to get my security deposit back. Some random friend of someone has been crashing on our couch for over a week (racking up water and electricity bills, I'm sure) and I asked if she wanted to rent my room (only $425/mo. which is SUPER cheap here) and she was like, 'Maybe, I don't have a job though.'

Ughhh! I am SO SICK of living with early twenty-somethings.

*

Okay. Enough of that. I'm going to start Craigslist-hunting, and if I find something great I'll probably just leave without notice and let them keep my security deposit.

Yesterday I had a day off, and it was SO NICE. D. is done with his emergency hire situation at the national park. Because it's a government job, there's a limit to how many weeks you can be hired in that capacity (I suppose to avoid corruption and favoritism). It's too bad, though, because the work is far from done, so that means they just have to keep hiring new batches of laborers and wasting time re-training every couple months.

So he has this week off, and he's spending it doing a lot of yard work at his dad's house and tailoring his resume to some specific park jobs that have recently been posted. But yesterday we spent the day together, and it was perfect.

Things are really good between us. They always have been, but it's just nice to spend a whole day and realize, Wow, we're starting to get into long-term territory and it's better than ever.

The day in a nutshell:

Drive down Hana Highway to meet up at Border's.

On the way I passed a man (early forties and SUPER BUFF) walking shirtless through the sugar cane fields. He looked that way that maturing actors look when they have to get in shape for a movie. (Think Brad Pitt in Troy or something.) And I had for the first time ever in my life a twinge of JEALOUSY that I'm not a man. The feeling obviously wasn't articulated as such immediately, just a kind of vague wistfulness. There was something sort of romantic and storybook about the scene with the sun high in the sky beating down on the crops and his muscles, and I thought, Men always get to be the heroes of the very best stories.

Maybe this guy's story's not as great as it looked in that one snapshot, but for the tiniest moment I was jealous he got to be the muscular hero of some life that involves walking through sun-lit cane fields, and I'm just some soft flabby girl driving to Borders.

Then I laughed at myself for having the thought.

Met D. at Borders. Was interested in an edition of Newsweek magazine, because it listed 50 relevant books for our time (and I'm a sucker for lists). I've been good about reading a book a week, and I thought, Hmmm, I could tackle this list in a year. And most of the recommendations looked really interesting to me, but not necessarily things I would immediately find on my own.

D. and I had coffee and talked. It was the first of several really good conversations we had yesterday. I remarked afterward that recently it's been a struggle to think of anything interesting to say in an LJ entry, but I could've come up with several entries from our one little conversation over coffee. Of course now I don't really remember any, and anyway, this is getting long and you might not be with me anymore, and even if so, I'm winding down.

More stuff happened and then more. Boring for you, boring, blah, blah.

It was J.'s birthday (D.'s longtime girl buddy who's become a good girl buddy of mine). We picked out a bottle of wine for her and met up with her in Paia. More good conversation, some with the three of us, and some with just me and D. after she left.

Somehow before long it was approaching evening. Trip to Haiku Town Center to pick up ingredients for dinner. Cleaning a messy kitchen, cooking, cleaning again. (Surprise, messy again this morning! >_<) Watched the film El Norte. More good talking, stuff, stuff. Wake up together. Fun! Great!

Now it's another working day, day of opportunities, finding a new home.

I've finally done it! I've finally watched ten films and can rank them.

If you've been reading this blog awhile, you might remember that I used to rank movies once I'd watched ten. Well, because life's gotten in the way it's taken me awhile to watch ten movies, but I've finally done it!

So, here we go! Let the comparing apples to oranges begin.

Keep in mind, each of the last ten movies I've seen is actually pretty decent. Even the film I put in tenth place is not too bad. It's just the nature of the exercise. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've seen any of these films!

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I'd been trying to write at least a little something every day, but yet again, I fell behind.

Maybe I should try and take one photo every day. I always carry my camera with me, but I never think to pull it out and take a shot. Okay, that does it. I'll add it to my "list of things to do every day" along with floss my teeth and take my pill.

Maui made it through the Fourth of July holiday without being missiled by North Korea.

So that's good.

Independence Day is actually my favorite holiday (then Halloween, then New Years Eve, then maybe Thanksgiving, then Christmas). I like the no-pressure holidays. The Fourth is the best because there's beer and fresh strawberries and fireworks. You don't have to worry about what gift to get for so-and-so, because last year she got you this and would she really like that? It's just about friends and summertime.

I switched shifts with Melody and didn't have to go into work until 6pm. So in the afternoon I went to a BBQ with some of D.'s volleyball friends. (He plays volleyball on the beach every Saturday with a bunch of conservationists who work at various places on the island.) Sometimes I head to the beach on Saturdays for one beer before work, but I can never stay more than an hour, so I've still never really gotten to know everyone. In fact, it's almost becoming more awkward around them, because each time I see them, I feel worse and worse about forgetting a name, and feeling like I should feel more comfortable than I do right now. Again I had to leave prematurely, but at least I got a couple hours of name-learning in this time.

I thought this BBQ might be my first run-in with L., D.'s ex. She never goes to volleyball, but she works with some of these people. Plus, apparently, she'd just returned from a surfing trip to Bali with several of the party-goers.

It's going to happen sooner or later, us meeting each other. And I think when it does, she'll probably be cool about it. (I doubt we'll be making plans to go shoe shopping together or anything, but I have a feeling, at least, that she's not the type to resort to hair pulling.) But I was relieved that the encounter didn't go down at the BBQ. It's not the day for awkward introductions, and anyway, I didn't want to have to say a quick, perky "hi" and then airily excuse myself to run off to work.

D. wasn't surprised she wasn't there. I didn't ask specifically, but I get the feeling that maybe she gets overwhelmed in these sorts of social situations. She never went to volleyball, even before I intruded on her life.

So at 5 it was time to make the trek to Kihei for work, and when I got there it was like a ghost town. Kihei, where I work, is a sunny part of Maui close to (but not smack in the middle of) many of the major hotels on the island. So many of the restaurant's guests are tourists wandering away from their hotels for something different to try. But on the Fourth, they were all sticking to the comfort of their beachside hotels, barbecuing and waiting for the Wailea fireworks. Kihei was eerily deserted. By 7 we still hadn't gotten a single customer - not even a couple lazily strolling by, and checking out the menu. So Eric decided to close the restaurant.

And here comes my single greatest irritation about D. Homeboy doesn't have a cell phone. He proudly proclaims his aversion, just like some people do about Facebook, and everyone nods with admiration at his "strength" or something. But fuck! The Fourth of July is my Favorite Day of the Year. There's no one I'd rather spend it with than him, but because I can't get a hold of him, I'll just have to go out with my coworkers instead.

However, I do have to say, that my biggest irritation about myself also came into play, and that is my ATROCIOUS sense of direction. Even though I had JUST come from a BBQ where I was pretty sure D. would still be at, I knew I wouldn't be able to find my way back there.

I kicked myself for not having more of the cell numbers of other party-goers (all of whom have cell phones!), but I just don't. I tried two of them, but the party must've been raging, because none of them answered.

So I nursed two glasses of wine at a deserted Kihei bar, feeling a little restless, and then found a swingset on the beach to swing on for twenty minutes or so (which always takes a bit of the restless edge off for me), and finally headed home to Haiku, where I knew D. would eventually get to.

On the drive home I could not get there fast enough. I kept giving my car too much gas and having to lay off the accelerator and coast. The moon was getting full, and it was a nice night, and there had been no bombs yet, and I JUST WANTED TO BE HOME ALREADY in case they came. (I knew they wouldn't, not least of all because I had spent a good chunk of the night talking with a journalist and former Navy officer who assured me North Korea didn't have the capability - something about uranium or lead pipes or something - but still, it was just an eerie kind of Fourth.) When I got home he was drifting off to sleep in my bed, and I crawled on top of him and gave him a squeeze, and held it there for a minute. Before asking him to please get a cell phone, please.



Kihei at night. No matter who I'm with, not a bad place to spend a holiday.

I was parked at a light, as usual admiring where I live, when I noticed a lot of surfboards strapped to the roof of cars. It seemed odd, because although it seemed like a nice day, it wasn't the weekend. But then more afternoons came and went, and each day, I noticed a lot of surfboards strapped to the roof of cars. Sometimes something like one in every ten has a board. I asked D. if this is because one in ten people is surfing today or because some people just keep it permanently strapped on. He said maybe a little of both.

He's in Kipuhulu again this week, as it seems he'll be all summer. So I make lists for myself every day of things to do. Sometimes I wonder if the fact that I'm a list-maker means I'm kind of lazy. If I didn't make lists, I probably wouldn't get much of anything done in a day. But instead I'm guilted into getting everything crossed off. High-energy people probably don't make lists, because they're too busy getting down to it, washing dishes, planting vegetables, getting the oil changed...

One day when I'm an old lady I'd like to sit down and write a letter to every person I've ever known, one for each of them. I wonder how many letters there'd be. I wonder if all the names would fit on the side of a bus.

Recently I've been feeling a little like an old stick in the mud.

An old high school classmate posted some pictures on Facebook from a bachelor party he attended in which they kicked it off with paintball. They were all smiling and painty and boylike, but all I could think was, God, that would suck.

Which made me sad, because recently I've been feeling like a lot of things that once would have thrilled me to no end would now just...suck.

I remember coming home from school one day when I was in elementary school, and (with great animation) telling my mom about how much fun it was to sit at the back of the bus because there was a particular bump in the road and if you sat at the back of the bus, you'd go flying out of your seat over that bump. I was so excited and I remember my mom smiling with encouragement, but then saying something like, "That's such a great thing about being a kid. You get so excited about the littlest things." And I was kind of surprised at the idea that it was such a little thing, and actually thought to myself, Huh. Is it really too little to get excited about?

I avoided commentary on Michael Jackson, mostly because I wasn't a huge fan (though you can't get better karaoke classics than Ben and I would totally bust it up to Don't Stop Til You Get Enough). But I've been having more and more realizations these days of the distance I'm at from my childhood. And I wonder if MJ spent his whole adult life feeling a kind of desperation to get back there.

Something that traveling has elucidated about my own culture (among many things) is how little we value...children. And childhood. And the magic and wonder and joy of that stage of life.

Parents are either too concerned with making their kids little geniuses or they plop them in front of something that sedates them. If a man takes an interest in children other than his own, we automatically assume he wants to have sex with the child. Of course I am not so naive to think that some man lurking around a playground just wants to get in touch with his childlike side. But not everyone around the world is so quick to raise eyebrows. The pre-school I worked at in Vietnam was right on a busy street, so there were security guards to make sure the kids stayed safely inside. I remember being so IMPRESSED with the way one of them was playing one day with one of the kids, swinging him around and making the kid shriek with glee. Presumably the man was working as a security guard at a pre-school because he needed a job, and any job would pretty much do. But to see him take that time to really PLAY with a kid that's not his own and not because he's paid to do it, without any shame or even any notion that there would be anything at all inappropriate about it, was something I don't see enough of at home.

The other day we met Jill and her little Lily bug at the beach and there was another beach mama there, pregnant and with a fourteen-month old. Her little one was SO SO cute and I couldn't help wondering if D. and I ever had one, if she'd look like her. (She was half Japanese but with blonde hair.) There was a big red beach chair and every time the girl saw it, her face LIT UP and she'd lift up her little leg and climb in. Then once she looked at her mama and she got the lit up expression again and wrapped her arms around her for a hug.

I'm not clucky, I'm not. I don't think so at least. I'm just missing childhood I guess, and okay, maybe wondering if the time might come for a different kind of childhood stage.

But then I had another thought. Every stage is something to be savored. I had a great (almost idyllic) kind of childhood. I had a pretty classic high school and college experience. I had a lifetime of adventures in my 20s (and isn't that what that decade is for?) And now I'm just starting a new, comfortable phase of life. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by the prospect of a game of paintball (which of course is ridiculous, because first of all, someone would have to INVITE me) I should just go to the beach and chill.

Mahalo!

Christmas lights that dim and gradually light up and then blink, anything that sparkles, a clear night with lots of stars, a balloon floating into the sky, hot air balloons, vibrant sunrises and sunsets, the sky in general, birds on a wire, a rocking chair on a porch, colorful Provencal houses with contrasting shutters, freshly fallen snow, people making use of lakes, mandalas, kimonos, bento boxes, traditional Japanese tattoos, good views while driving, red rock formations, ancient ruins, moss on stones, dogs playing catch, mosaics, rainbows!, David!, a guy in a suit who doesn't usually wear a suit), a guy dressed down when he doesn't usually dress down, haute couture, Japanese fashion, professionally decorated cakes, berries on the bush, little colorful flowers, single gerbera daisies, campfires, a fire in a fireplace, Henna designs on feet and hands, a nice pair of jeans, D.'s dimple, D. across a room at a party, aquariums, the world underwater while diving, fancy bathrooms in restaurants, 40s/50s pin-up models, elaborate Broadway sets, old country churches, lighthouses, Main Street of small towns, old opera houses, otherworldly trees (especially when isolated), those funny running lizards, a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers in a nice clean kitchen, peacocks and other colorful birds, a lot of contemporary art, any art with a bit of magic to it, Alice in Wonderland, Oscar dresses, very visual films (Jeunet, Ang Lee, many others), impressive window displays, English gardens, Zen temples and gardens, a clean sunny beach, Cartagena, Luang Prabang, Hoi An lanterns, lanterns being released to the sky, D. laughing full-out, my family in the living room, a dog happy to see me, kids riding bikes

corn on the cob (from Minnesota), movie theater popcorn, Vanilla Mint Crest toothpaste, panang curry, dim sum, shisha (smoke from a hookah), a tender choice-cut well-marinated medium rare steak, espresso-rubbed venison or lamb, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cheesecake, that lilikoi flan thing from Consuela's, pizza in Italy, good coffee, Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, Cold Stone Creamery cake batter ice cream, good wine, caramelized shrimp, panko-crusted ahi, phở, bruschetta with mozzarella basil and tomato, sauteed mushroom and garlic, scallops, tom yum soup, fresh crab with mixed salt pepper and lime for dipping, crêpes, asparagus, all kinds of cheese, guacamole, bagels and cream cheese, crisp fresh salads, olives, eclairs, celery and peanut butter, chilies rellenos, jalapeño peppers, fish cooked in clay pots, mangos, guava, soursop, feijoa, kiwis, passion fruit, broccoli, bread fresh from the oven, chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, chunky mashed potatoes, chicken korma, apple pie, gyoza, risotto, dosa, gỏi cuốn, tempura, crème brulée, Lindt chocolate, udon, onigiri, loquat, daifuku, beer cheese soup with popcorn, potato leek soup, gazpacho, bacon, Sunday roast with yorkshire pudding, chocolate pudding cake (British style, not American), authentic Mexican tacos with corn tortillas pico de gallo and lime, ravioli, beef satay with peanut sauce, beurre blanc, capers, artichoke, hearts of palm, ceviche, apple chai infusion from Starbucks, blueberry martini, mojito, coconut candy from Vietnam, anything family style, anything tapas style

Sounds that I love:

wind through D.'s favorite trees, waves pushing and pulling stones, windchimes, Miki's squeaky meow, Minnesota loons, flamenco guitar, accordian in a Parisian metro, flip flops, veggies being expertly chopped, choirs, the tide coming in, clarinet, piano, harp, camera shutters, D. laughing, D. talking, an old fashioned cash register opening, basketball being dribbled, golf swing, parents calling their children inside, parents using their children's first, middle, and last name in anger, thunderstorms, clicking stiletto heals, a soda can being opened, Billie Holiday, scissors cutting hair or paper, typewriter or computer keyboard, frogs croaking, my own voice singing in my car when no one's listening, turning pages, lots and lots of music, waterfalls, people writing their signatures, babies laughing, funny laughs, funny sneezes, birds chirping early in the morning, crickets at dusk, sizzling food, sprinklers, French, Japanese, Scottish accents, any accent, my good friends talking and laughing when I'm on my way to meet them and they don't realize I'm almost there, lawn mowers, diving or jumping into a pool, music spilling out from somewhere, music passing by and quickly fading (as from a car or building that I drive past), the crackle of a fire, rain on a rooftop, the sound under my feet when I'm running, late night TV in another room as I'm falling asleep, D. saying my name, D. saying he loves me, inside a stadium, baseball announcers over the radio on a lazy summer evening, dog's tags jangling, creaky floors, melodramatic Halloween sounds, contented sighs, horses clopping along (in Bogota), whale and dolphin sounds underwater.

This is in New York, and not Minnesota, but it very much could be home. The loon call:

Make sure you get your daily dose of laughter:



AND even funner:

A couple days ago I was taking my usual drive to work from upcountry - vast blue ocean spread out below me, tall palm trees jutting out from the cliffs like dozens of lighthouses. Summer here is perfect, like surfing movies from the 60s, simple and easy, and the air sweet and heady.

A song came on the iPod. Hiroshi Itsuki's, Furusato. Just like listening to flamenco from a motorbike in Saigon, the incongruity worked for me. In fact, enka music almost seems apt here, as Hawaii has a long history of Japanese, and Hawaiian Japanese culture is oddly rooted in time.

So I was listening to Itsuki and suddenly it wasn't summertime in Hawaii anymore, but springtime in Nagasaki, and I was hurrying down the busy street after work to catch up with friends at the izakaya. The tram was whizzing past, businessmen were bowing in greeting to each other outside restaurants, the smell of rice in the air, neon lights in the windows. I was wistful for those nights.

Then I noticed the truck in front of me was full of pineapples, the bed had a wooden gate with red paint peeling. How cool to be driving behind a truck of pineapples! This is where I live right NOW. And Now is where I returned.

Awesome. Was checking average teacher salaries by state, and I found a "Salary Comfort" ranking, which takes into consideration both salary and cost-of-living. Hawaii ranks 50th. :-/ Oh well. I might never be able to buy my own house or, you know, go to the doctor when I'm sick, but at least I can go to the beach after work!

Huh. After listing my favorite smells, I was curious to find out how Estee Lauder Pleasures (my favorite perfume) is made - I find it extremely floral and I wanted to know what floral extracts in particular are used. In my googling, I came across this blog by someone who writes perfume reviews. She seems to know perfumes and fragrances like a sommelier knows wine. She also writes things like instructions on how to grow fragrant flowers and interviews perfume makers. She's apparently a scent guru.

Inspired by anoisblue. Smells that I like:

gardenia, D. after a game of basketball, sea salt in the air, skin after an hour in the sun, suntan lotion, laundry fresh out of the dryer, fresh ground coffee, chocolate chip cookies from the oven, gasoline, campfire smoke, mini donuts at the state fair, grapefruit-scented soaps, vanilla, Estee Lauder Pleasures, fresh cut grass, pine trees, sauteed garlic, new car, freshly minted money, plumeria, tuberose, D.'s T-shirts, puppy breath, baby powder, roses, lilacs, fresh basil, grandma's house on Thanksgiving, old library books, roasting nuts, extinguished matches, hot chocolate, art supply stores or the office supply cabinet at work, lead pencils, hot tar, lemon Pledge, rich dark soil, bakeries, Easter lilies, after the rain, roasted pepper, bacon, paint, sandalwood, crayola crayons, pumpkin pie, cinnamon rolls, D.'s neck, good wine, autumn, bubblegum, babies, gingerbread, movie theatre popcorn

Personally I need every dollar I can get these days, but one Mark Wagner cuts his into little bits and makes cool pictures with them.



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Work at the restaurant has been slooowwww, but since Saturday not even weak-ass tips are getting me down, because on Saturday a HUGE WEIGHT was lifted. I took the English Content Praxis test that (if passed) will grant me admission into the become-a-teacher program that I've been hoping for admission into.

I'm honestly not sure that I passed. If I had to guess the odds, I'd say I have an 80% chance of passing. That is, I feel I did a reasonably good job on the exam, but I'm not really sure what the requirement is for passing. As far as I know, it could be 50% correct answers or 90% correct answers. As far as I know, the passing requirement fluctuates each year based on demand.

Saturday morning it was nice to walk into a room full of teachers and teachers-in-training, a little Maui community who all seemed to know each other. I was reminded in a very concrete way of who it is I'm hoping to become on this island. In a way I'm glad business at the restaurant's not too promising these days, because it puts a little fire under me to wedge myself into this other, more desirable community.

The first question was along the lines of reading a random passage and stating which novel it was from. Uh oh. So it's going to be as factoid-based as I'd feared. No subtle interpretation required, you either know it or you don't.

Now it is my opinion that anything that can be wikipedia-ed should not be included on an exam aiming to separate good from bad English teachers. Whether or not I know in what decade Faulkner died (I don't) says little about how motivated I'd make my potential students to read him or whether I can make sense of The Sound and the Fury (I can't). But in the case of question Number One, it was something about Catherine and Heathcliff, who everybody knows are from Wuthering Heights, so I was off to a good start.

Unfortunately I wasn't familiar with all of the nitpicky questions. (I forgot which play Desdemona's from and I can't for the life of me figure out which novel has a plot about two sisters, one a missionary and one miserable in the Deep South.) But, overall (especially thanks to the more EFL-y grammar-type questions) I think I did okay.

Either way, I feel I can finally relax and get to living a bit more. I worked hard (enough) and I proved to myself that content-knowledge-wise at least, I wouldn't make a totally incompetent English teacher.

*

The boss is trying different, sweeter tactics with me. He brought me a bunch of gardenias from his yard (awww) and made me some poke (a Hawaiian-style sashimi dish). I much prefer that to the creepy innuendos, and I'm hoping we'll eventually ease into something both friendly and professional.

*

After probably five different and unrelated recommendations of Eat, Pray, Love I finally picked it up and started reading the introduction at Borders the other day. As I was getting into the first few paragraphs my internal dialogue went something like this:

Don't get too involved with this, Meg. Put it down after this page...or maybe this chapter. There are books for free at the library, or if you just hold out a bit you could probably find this at Savers for a few bucks.

30 pages later and I figured I should just buy it. A woman at Starbucks eagerly asked me if I'm enjoying it, and I assure her that I am and she seems to think of me immediately as a friend.

*

You know how you pick up certain things from boyfriends? An appreciation for Neil Young or a basic understanding of photoshop or breakdancing or something? Well, one thing that D. has left me with is a compulsion to floss my teeth. Today I finally invested in an electric toothbrush and I feel like it'll cut dental costs in the long-run significantly. I love my little super-cautious and practical geek.

*

Recently I've been inspired by a few of you on my flist for various reasons. One inspired me to send handwritten letters to D. (even though she wouldn't realize it because it's for a totally different reason than any handwritten letters on her part). Another has inspired me to amp it up in the bedroom (and she probably knows who she is). And another has re-inspired me to become a person I respect. I have a list of what that person looks like and I plan to read that list at the start of each day.

Thank you!!