The Bostonian Abroad

The grades have been turned in. The papers too. The finals have been taken. The twicth has returned. As has the headache. I'm done, but I don't feel relieved. Such is the way when the work was unworthy.

I hate the library. Needed some books today for upcoming projects where the due date looms ever larger, so I traipse on in to pick up those books that I had already found on the computerized database so lovingly provided by the techno-wizzards of our esteemed third-tier institution. Upon my arrival to the appropriate floor, ( kept at a book-preserving, chilly -3 degrees) I cannot find the book I am seeking. Every other manner of book along the lines of my subject matter (i.e., Hindi) is easily found, but my particular book is nowhere to be seen. I check the print-out once more to see if I mis-read the thing. Nope. It has not already been taken out. Just not here. I am 0 for 1. Next, I trek on up to the 5th floor to get another book which is in a "special" section. This section is for the "rare" and "valuable" books, somehow all concerend with only the Pacific. Why books on this area of the world should be treated differently from say, South Am...

People are just dumb. Who cares where whoever was born? Ain't we all human in the end? So you were born a Hawaiian/something else, so what? "Oh, I'm poor because my native Pacific culture isn't being respected!" "Baloney". What of those non-Waianae-born Hawaiians from Hawaii Kai? They have no trouble "adapting" to the "dominant ideology" of the dreaded Haole. (And just who is this anyway? Me? But I am the result of 800 long years of English oppression of my ancestral home island of Eire! Surely I, an oppressed Irishman whose native language was murdered, whose native culture was crushed out of existence, whose religion was made anathema, whose ethnic identity, for what it is, is continually ridiculed and insulted, and whose native island is still, to this very day, divided by a foreign power, can't be included in this group!) It isn't so much a culture stomping on the neck of another culture, as it is a higher class...

First, An Observation On Options: I don't like fancy options like power windows or cruise control. I think they are nice and all, but not for a vehicle I own. If I am driving a rental car, then, I always take advantage of the extra features it may have, but in the long run, I don't want to have to go through the pain in the ass it is going to be when these things break down and start costing me time, money and agravation. Besides, what the heck is wrong with rolling the damned windows down yourself? Since when have we become so lazy as to balk at the mere thought of reaching over and working for some ventilation. And do I really need to save the muscle strain of pressing a gas pedal? I suppose if I lived on the mainland and drove for fifteen hour stretches, I might come to need that little added bonus, but on this tiny island, a fifteen hour trip would take me around the entire area two or three times, most of it sitting still in traffic, where cruise control would...

Soon, the children will move about in the half-light of early evening. Most of them will not even be dressed in costumes. In their "slippahs" they will scuff-scuff-scuff up my driveway, ring my bell, make my dogs freak out and very unexcitedly mumble something about candy. I'll give them some, wishing they cared even a little. Across the street, through the overgrown trees, a group of "locals" will be playing volleyball. Whooping and shouting and booming their ball to and fro, the haunting sound of their clinking bottles and ukulele strumming will add an other-worldy air. Later, the cool trades will blow in, moving the wind chimes into song. Soundtrack for the ice addicts who punch in at midnight.

It's time for my favorite season, month and holiday! In Boston. The days get shorter, the air gets that crispness that bites at your cheeks, and the smell of wood-burning stoves permeates the atmosphere. But here, it looks the same, smells the same - is the same. All year. The temperature drops three degrees, the day gets shorter by twenty minutes, and the air is permeated with the sweet perfume of the many flowers growing everywhere. I haven't decorated my house or even gotten into the feeling of the season. I have lost the habit. This year will pass as so many before in this tropical paradise: with little change and constant, unremitting beauty. At least November won't suck.

FUCKIN' YANKEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Umpteen Fuckin' rings ahn't good enuff fuh you?!!! What the FUCK!!!!!!!!! Ahmanna staht rootin' fawranuthah team I sweah-da-gawd! Nah, FUCK them. It's too painfully fun to root fuh my Red Sox. Next year is THE FUCKIN' YEAH!! 2004: "Red Sox Win!!!!" (Unless Pedro leaves, in which case we're fucked.)

Truth, Justice, Love? Are these the main philosophical ends of human strivings? Been reading a book about this - "Psychoanalysis and Religion". Fromm says that these are the main aims, and that religion should serve these aims to be a "good", non-"neurotic" religion. I am not that deep. I seek a full belly, a comfortable chair, an easily accessible remote control. Basic cable. Sure love is in there, but it is in the category of, "duh!" What is the main aim of human striving? Comfort, at best, survival, at worst. This is served very well by religion, when religion isn't messing with people's minds, causing people to be gult-ridden, judgemental, fearful, paranoid, controlling, and hate-filled. Being happy, well fed, comfortable physically, psychologically and emotionally, these are my aims; low though some may say. What of genius? What of struggling to make things better? What of passion? These all have their place, but ...

Recently, I was confronted with a situation which I knew was coming, but was totally unprepared to handle. For the past few months, the tension had been building as the moment approached when the bomb would be dropped, everyone would know everything, and the huge, horrible secret would be out. That moment came two days ago. After a long, exhausting day of work and study, I returned home on choked roadways, (there was a bus strike, causing massive traffic tie-ups) to find, waiting on my voice mail, a terrible message full of yelling, oaths of violent vengence and unmeasurable fury. The atomic bomb had been dropped. All hell was breaking loose. What to do!? Where to turn for aid, advice, solace!? Nowhere. Nothing to do but pick up that phone and jump into the fray. I was horrified, dumbfounded, utterly unsure of what to say or do. On the other end of the phone came a deluge of invective, threats of murderous violence, moments of utter despondency and despair coupled with cri...

Random assortments of various natures meandering meaninglessly across pages, screens, minds and inner eyelids. I sit here still in the sunny haze of powerful discourses, thoughts to tune and be listened to. There is hardly ever anyone who makes the differents. Old and new and the same always, but without joy, without want. Nothing left to do but burn in our own language, form it and hurl it at the passersby, monkey-dunging. Time this newness to be borne! :)

What makes someone a Hawaiian? If you are born here? What about if you are the third generation born here? The fourth generation? What's the point anyway? It comes down to our ape attitude toward anything "different" than us. "Localism", "Ethnocentrism", "Racism" - all are just we humans being our animal selves. We kill each other over differences of accent: "The Shibboleth", religion: Israel, N. Ireland, India, Pakistan, race: white on non, black on non, brown on non, yellow on non, red on non, etc. We are so sensitive to difference, I am sure we humans have found justifications for all kinds of ridiculousness. OOOk! Kamehameha schools is fighting letting in a kid who is not "Hawaiian"? That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard! But it doesn't surprise me. He is not "Hawaiian", even if he is the umpteenth generation born here. Who decides? People who themselves can not claim birthrig...

Recently I have begun to feel the emptiness that comes from not having any friends. No, I'm not so anti-social that I have no friends at all. I am without friends for a couple of reasons. First, I live in the middle of palmy nowhere, a place where people move, try to live, then realize what a hole it actually is and escape back to any place that matters. Another reason is that this isolated locale has effectively cut me off from the goings-on of all my friends back home. (Boo-hoo, I'm the one that left, so I shouldn't cry over spilled coconut milk.) Yet another reason is marriage. Yes, it is being married that kills friendships the most. Spousally-banned, friendships end faster than a frat party once the keg's gone dry. Then there is the maturity thing. Friends that were way-cool back in the day become evil clingers-on as time progresses, and they don't. Getting shit-faced and screaming your undying love for an ex was socially tolerated at 20, maybe ev...

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD goes the booming bass of the stereos parked out across the street and down the hill from my home. From more than a football field's length away, the hip-hop, reggae or Jawaiian music assaults the very fabric of my being. Turn up the tv, but still it thuds so loud, you can't think of anything else but running over there and setting fire to all of them in their suped-up little rice racers. These ignorant assholes drink in the park, smash bottles, scream and yell, vandalize, and basically act like complete fools. They have no consideration for the more than thirty families living in victimized ear-shot of their assholery. Last night, I called the cops - again, and after two hours HPD's Finest came and got them out. I just had to yell, had to go to the edge of the fence and scream my protest. "Welcome to Palisades, " yells back one of these cowards while sulking into his mommy-financed car, with his baggy pants down around his thi...

At the local "Y", I have found it enjoyable to exercise in an environment free from the type of nonsense I experience at the university gym. I have been to this meet-market a couple of times, and I realize just how much I don't fit in to the "young" scene anymore. (Not that I ever did, being that I was a geek in H.S. and went to the weight room to sit around talking till the teacher came in for his yearly inspection - prompting those reclining on the sit-up boards to jerk heavily upward while huffing, "a hunderd and one! . . .") You pick up a weight, say, a twenty-pounder, and some big mountain comes over and snickers at you while hefting half the room's weight. You set the machine to seventy pounds, and when you're done some super-dude comes over and sticks the pin under the machine and hurls it through the ceiling 25 times - grunting like he's nailing a manatee! At my favorite "Y", the folks are older, near or aft...

In this state, the secretary holds all the power. She may be poor, may be low on the totem pole in terms of professional respect, but, nonetheless, she is the locus of power in any organization. Please her, and doors open, piss her off and you are so much more than fucked. I had previously spoken with an underling secretary in my department, let's call it "the Department of Something Nondescript", and she had informed me that I could not take the "prelim" because I had not filled out "the form". (-Even though she said I didn't have to sign up!) I called again, for another reason, and found the master of the Nondescript universe! We got to chatting, which meant that I bowed and scraped verbally while she grunted and groaned of disapproval. In the end, she allowed me the unattainable sacred access to the vaunted and feared exam, despite the "rule" that requires all supplicants to "fill out the form". (Perhaps in triplicate,...

Went to the local version of Dn'D today, one owned by a sushi restaurant chain. Hey, at least they have one. "You get a free ball of SPAM with every third purchase!" So anyway, I am in this place and I order a medium coffee with room for cream and sugar. (You see, I learned early on not to use the standard order accepted back in Boston, "Gimme a medium regulah," since they look at you totally dumbfounded.) The lady says, "What kine you want, decaf, vanilla or hazelnut?" I say, "Do you have any coffee flavored coffee?" And she replies like its a ridiculous question, "No!" No coffee flavored coffee. At a Dunkin' Donuts. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????????? My wife, terrified and confused, said, "isn't this one of the seven signs of the apocalypse?" I agreed. Get ready folks, the end is nigh! I'll watch it as I sip my vanilla hazelnut coffee.

It just keeps getting better! This weekend was another example of what it is like to be in this place. We decided to go to a party on the other side of the island. I didn't want to go because the crowd was not, shall we say, my kind of people. This place is overpopulated with the poseur-hippy, the quasi-intellectual, the politically correct issue-mongerer. "It's the turtle's ocean, man." "Native cultures must be preserved!" "Women's rights!" "Out and proud!" - These are just of a few of the types of token slogans I have heard recently and repeatedly. What is neglected is the utter hypocracy demonstrated by these following cows. Political activism is the new religion; its followers flock to meetings like so many fools before them - dumb, repetitive, shallow, ruled by the weak-minded and the tyrant alike. This place is just like everywhere else - corrupt to the core, yet everyone says this place is different, unique! UN...

GRNSTRGLITTFSSTTDDD! Hit by a plethora of whammies, I reel like a boxer knocked upside the head. Wife struggling, sister in unbelievable pain, brother on the verge of homelessness! And in this atmosphere of utter uncertainty and despair, I suffer through the following exchange: "hello, I am calling to find out how to sign up for the prelim. Do you have to sign up to take the exam?" -"No, you don't need to sign up." "Oh, really?" -"No." "Ok, so I just come in and take it?" -"Oh, no, you can't take it until next year." "Really, why is that?" -"Well, you have to fill out a form - but the deadline is passed, so you can't take the exam." 'o' 'o' 'o' 'o' Now, forgive me for sounding elitist or condescending, but isn't signing up for a thing, the same as filling out a form before a deadline? Am I retarded or is she? What the fuck planet d...

What's the point, I mean, really? Fighting, worrying, struggling, for a tenth of an acre, an hour-long commute each way, a dangling hope for a ticket to a better job - with more frustrations. The reasons for doing all of the above escape me right now. The economy is in shambles, but "economists" say to ignore it, and that it is just the data fooling us. "No, the island is not sinking, it is just the humidity!" Inflation is low? To whom? Gas is on Pluto, housing is so damned expensive, you have to move 150 miles out and into a cave just to pay a rent that takes only 33.5 percent of your piddly income. Every moment, we are bombarded by urges to buy, to eat, to CONSUME! Debts mount, tensions increase, and we continue in it like lemmings to the cliff. Personally and professionally, I feel bereft of hope, disdainful of it really. Too many people, too much stuff, not enough intelligence - we humans are a species unworthy of pity.

Enough is enough! Living where I do is getting to be enfuriating - again! This place hates me and my wife. Not enough, the car accident, the months of pain, the total lack of justice, the fight with our own insurer, the no work for L, the finding work at the most evil place ever, the getting fired from same for absolutely no other reason than she was not a heartless see-you-next-Tuesday like they were, the ensuing months of unemployment, the total lack of intelligence in the VAST majority of people with whom we have the misfortune to interact, the getting a job - finally - with another evil place at a SLASH in pay, the months of agonizing stress at bad management, and now, being all but fired again - and for absolutely no good reason!! This place defies logic! Nothing will please me more than talking about this place in the past tense! I hate what it has done to L, I hate what it is doing to her now, again, and I hate the fact that there is not one damned thing I can do about...

Out Back, Star-Gazing Standing out under the stars, I thought how wonderful they all were, how wonderful was the great cathedral of lights made visible by the lack of the same from my own star. It served as a reminder of my place, my tininess in the vastness of space. Then it hit me that in addition to reminding me of what is truly important (as well as unimportant) it also reminded me of a thought I've often taken up while star-gazing. In four billion years, we are the first species on this planet to look up and know what we see, know where we are in it all. We are the first to conceive of it all, to seek it out and appreciate it. This made me think that if god does exist, he/she/it/they must have made the conceivers so they could share in what was made. Maybe god just wants confirmation that it all exists? Maybe god just wanted to give some-thing the opportunity to experience the kind of profound awe only those who comprehend it all can feel? If so,...

Sorry for that last one I didn't smoke any pot on Maui, not that it would have been morally repugnant if I had, but I was offered and that openness was refreshing. Living here on O'ahu is ok, but when compared to Maui it is really lacking in beauty. Probably, this is due to all the development - Not that I am a tree-hugger, but I do like to get away from the herds of human cattle scuttling to and fro. Moo.

Another Idea I want to move to Maui. People don't suck in Maui. I was only there two days, but in that time, I lived a life-time with non-suck people. I got offered pot in literally 5 seconds, and that was Paia. I drove up and down the slope of Hale 'akala and fell deeply in love. Coming back to O'ahu was like going back to Lynn. Lynn sucks compared to O'ahu, and O'ahu is Lynn compared to Maui. I really think I'd like to get a job, buy a house, live life and drop dead in Maui. Screw New Hampshire. Too many of us Bostonians live there anyway. I have to infect Maui!

TV Watching TV. Brain empties out, and is filled with dreams of cheeseburgers, firmer abs and sex with the perfect people. We arrange our rooms in such a way as to make that box with the thick glass the center of attention. In the olden times, people faced each other. But isn't it grand! To watch and learn, be horrified, amused, aroused, bored, lulled -fattened. I avoid it, yet when it is in my field of view, I can't deny its power. I love it and fear it. It wastes me, and I know it, yet I return daily. Truth is, life is a responsibility I don't want to deal with sometimes, so on goes the box. Like a cheap bottle of booze, it "coats, soothes - relieves"! And why should I 'make use' of my time? Why do I need to read something important or study, or build something or change the world? Why is life supposed to be filled with activity? Maybe this is blasphemy, but it might be a good idea to just do nothing. Nothing is good, sometimes...

Flotsam and Jetsam So I live in Hawaii. There, now I have connected the title of this blog thingy to what I am writing. I am a Bostonian living abroad. I know that HI is not abroad in the political sense, the same way RI would not be, but for me, everything outside of Massachusetts is abroad, or maybe outside of New England. But "the New Englander abroad" sounds too pedantic. I like being from the greater Boston area, even if I was pretty miserable when I was actually living there. Miserable? Yes. That's the Bostonian way! It's fun and necessary to be miserable if you live in Boston. The weather sucks, the tourists suck, the economy sucks, the government sucks - basically everything. But it's oaky. It's Boston. I really miss it sometimes. Anyway, here I am in Hawaii. I love living here too, even though my Bostonian sense leads me to want to throttle the slow-as-molasses-in- January drivers! (How many "locals" could grasp the humor of tha...

Palpitations 32 years old is no time to be thinking you are dying of a heart attack - not even in the maybe. Flipping and flopping about like a pissed-off weasle in one of those flimsy plastic pet carriers, tossed to and fro in some wildly turbulence-ridden airliner, my heart declared its defiance of me, and sought to create its own exit. Sitting on the floor wondering if "this is the end", I was surprised by the very domesticity of my "final" thoughts: "How will the wife manage the expenses?" "I never got enough insurance to cover my debts!" I haven't finished BEING yet!!" Turns out it was most likely a reaction to some crappy asthma meds I was on. No longer, I can assure you. But this whole episode got me thinking that I spend entirely too much time doing stupid things. I know these are "necessary" for the kind of modern luxurious lifestyle I lead - of tv and chocolate, of compact car and commute - of pancakes on Wai...