The Bostonian Abroad

- I look on my return as a tiresome ordeal, something to be endured, rather than enjoyed. I have had such a marvelous time, and I don't want to leave this, for fear it will be "discontinued". This has felt more like home than ever did my unfortunate place atop the sad slopes of the Ko'olaus. And so it is: back to the land of the kama 'aina, the short jean shorts, the bowed legs, the bad food, the stupid drivers, the anti-haole attitude, the lack of logic and hard work, the lack of understanding of anything but that selfish little enclave of unreality deep in the middle of the huge, uncaring ocean - and so I return, as sad to leave here as I was when I left there, but for entirely different reasons. Sigh. I shall remember this place, and vow to renew my solemn relationship with the reality I have rediscovered. May it warm me as I suffer the cruelly ironic chill of that increasingly despised guilded prison of sun and palm.

- To sit in open air - Not hot, Nor cold, But cool; To gaze upon trolley cars Lumbering along the cobblestones; To be engaged in stratospheric conversation Surrounded though, by the supposedly mundane - This place, this atmosphere, These people and their honest decency, All of it Feels like HOME. -Vinaka, Jone

--- So I have been doing the usual: Teaching Taking three classes Commuting Doing House Things Entertaining Guests Despairing Waiting Now, I'm in week ten of a ten week program of teaching. I'll have the next three weeks free, but two of those weeks, I'll still be obligated to come into town to take classes in the afternoon. The one week where I'll be totally free, L. bought me a RT ticket to Portland. It isn't Boston, but it'll do. Actually, I'd rather go to Paris, but there is little chance of that. I have very much needed to get the hell out of here. L. saw this need and I love her so much for it. It will be great to be someplace different for a change. And, "Anything different is good." This summer, I am hoping to be able to go to Fiji to collect data and catch up with family and friends. We'll see what happens. The semester goes on. . .