Aug 18, 2005 | Uncategorized
I have a split writing personality, a Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. Hyde thing, that insists on manifesting itself with every book. Dr. Jekyll can write at the speed of light. Her drafts are clean, clear, and fast. If left to her own devices, she could write 400 pages in a month or so (she once did 115 in a week, and 350 in a month). I like her a lot.
Mrs. Hyde, however, usually shows up when Dr. Jekyll is on a break. Mrs. Hyde insists that pages written that fast can't be any good. Mrs. Hyde convinces me to change things, to add things, to subtract things, to entirely rewrite from a new perspective the same scene I just wrote. I don't like her much at all. In fact, she bogs the book down in endless revision. A book that Dr. Jekyll completed in a couple of months can occupy Mrs. Hyde for a year. She is evil. She must be stopped.
Aug 17, 2005 | Uncategorized
The cold is finally better, thankfully. A lingering cough, but that's it. Sunday, we awoke late but still made it to church. It was my turn to provide refreshments for coffee hour, but someone forgot to inform me that the parish hall is undergoing serious cleaning and there would be no coffee hour due to lack of space. Glad I bought the coffee cake instead of made it.
Afterwards, hubby and I headed for Sam Snead's and had a divine Sunday brunch on the lanai. Sam Snead's is a restaurant in the clubhouse over at the Pearl Harbor Navy golfcourse. I love the omelette bar. I had a crab, shrimp, mushroom, spinach, garlic, cheese omelette. Yum. Mike ordered everything on his. Too funny. I didn't think there'd be room for the eggs in the pan, but the chef managed it.
We sat outside and watched the golfers putting below us. In the distance, you could see the ocean. Funny how it looks higher than the land you're sitting on. It looks like it should just spill over the island when you sit and look at it from a distance that isn't too high above sea level. I think we were at 20 feet above, and that's because of the lanai.
In spite of the idyllic setting, however, we still managed to have an argument. We don't argue much after almost 19 years of marriage, but some things still cause it. This one had to do with Mike wanting to withdraw from a class. I was not pleased at this. I think, however, that we've solved the problem and he will continue with the class as scheduled.
I'll be the first to admit I don't understand this. I have never withdrawn from a class. Never, not once. Lose money or work my ass off to finish? No question which one gets my vote, no matter how hard or how exhausting the work. I never give up when money's on the line. I am learning to apply this thinking to my fiction writing too. Never give up because money IS on the line. Every day I sit home and write is a day I don't earn money elsewhere.
I'm not saying money is important to me as a writer. If it was, I wouldn't be writing. But I'd like an income, something that pays the bills and keeps me in Reef slippahs.
Sunday ended pleasantly enough, though. I didn't get any writing done, but I did read the Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume One. It's amazing how much into her life you can get just by reading those short burst diary entries. Though she certainly had her issues with her own husband, she needed him. In spite of her affair with Vita Sackville-West, I believe she loved Leonard Woolf more than anyone else in her life.
From 2 Nov 1917:
[…] one's personality seems to echo out across space, when he's not there to enclose all one's vibrations. […] the feeling itself is a strange one–as if marriage were a completing of the instrument, & the sound of one alone penetrates as if it were a violin robbed of its orchestra or piano.
Oh I may get irritated with him, but I need my orchestra too.
Aug 14, 2005 | Uncategorized
I slept in later than I like, but I've been doing that with the cold anyway. It's almost gone, I hope. Hubby and I had coffee, then goofed off on separate computers for a while. Thank heavens for wireless.
And then we got hungry. I don't know why, but the whole breakfast thing seems to escape us on weekends. We drove down to the Ward Center with the intention of going to D&B's. Not local, but hey. Except they had a twenty minute wait.
“Let's go downstairs,” says Mike.
“Buca's had a line too.”
So we end up going to Wolfgang Puck Express. Not bad at all. After that, a trip to Borders was in order. I bought Prince Joe by Suzanne Brockmann, The Master by Colm Toibin, Lolita by Nabokov, and The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. As if I don't have enough to read.
As we were leaving Borders, I pointed toward Manoa and said, “Look at those houses way up there on the mountain. Where's the road up?”
“Let's find out.” 
“Okay.”
We found it pretty easily. Go to Makiki and head for Round Top. Takes you up, up, up, twisting and turning until you are high above Honolulu. The place where we stopped isn't even the top, but there is a lookout point.
A couple of small tour groups came up while we were there. One group was British, another Japanese. “Oooh, aaahhhh,” they said. “Ooooh, wow.”
As we drove down the other side of the mountain, I was in a panic. Every now and then, when we went around a hairpin turn, the setting sun glared off the windshield in such a way that you were absolutely friggin blind.
Great big ropey vines grew down the sides of the mountain, hugging the trees and shading most of the road (thank God). And at the top, I forgot to say, bamboo grows wild. There are actually houses up there, some 2000 feet above Honolulu. They have great big steep driveways, either up or down from the road. Good thing it doesn't ever snow or get icy here.
We finally made it home and then promptly went back out again. Mike was hungry again and I didn't feel like cooking. We drove to Pearl Harbor and ate at a dive. On the way home again, we stopped and picked up a bottle of champagne. I don't know why, but I have a serious hankering for it tonight. I'm usually a red wine gal. I suppose I feel the need to celebrate making it down that mountain in one piece.
Aug 13, 2005 | Uncategorized
Venice, Italy, 2001. Don't you love how the building looks like it's about to crumble? We even had a garden. Very unusual. Mom and me.
Aug 12, 2005 | Uncategorized
Edited to add: I first wrote this post in 2005, when I was living in Hawaii and noticing a lot of the same things that tourists did over and over. These days, 2012, I live in Alabama and I write books for a living. But I seem to get a lot of hits on this post, so I wanted to explain when it was written and why. Basically, it was a tongue-in-cheek look at the ways tourists stand out — with some real advice in there too. Do NOT turn your back on the ocean. And wear sunblock. Very important!
In no particular order:
1. Rent a Chrysler Sebring. Yep, it's a convertible, and yep, you're enjoying riding around with the top down, but I'm 99% certain you ain't from around here. Wanna go local? Rent a Jeep. You can still take the top off.
2. Wear matching Aloha outfits. In very loud prints. That say “Hawaii” on them. Locals don't usually wear his ‘n' hers duds. Aloha attire is gorgeous and yes, we wear it here, but if it comes from a hotel gift shop and it's really cheap, chances are it looks like something a tourist would wear. Want the real thing? Tony Bahama, Kahala, Tori Richards labels to name a few. They aren't cheap. They are gorgeous. Best deal on Aloha shirts for men? Goodwill, I kid you not. And yes, Hilo Hattie's has the real stuff.
3. Wear shoes. If you've got close-toed shoes on, you probably aren't from around here. We wear flip-flops, otherwise known as slippers (or slippahs in pidgin). Tennis shoes are for jogging. Men may wear shoes to the Symphony, but women will still wear open-toed heels. I avoid shoes at all costs. I have worn knee-high boots to Borders in the winter, but that place is COLD. I also wore a wool blazer and a long skirt. Which brings me to another point.
4. It's winter (roughly Nov-Mar), 70 degrees, windy, and it's raining. You're wearing shorts. You are NOT from around here. We get cold in winter. We wear jackets and jeans. We turn our AC off (if we have it; you'd be surprised at the amount of places that don't). We even wear sweat shirts. Brrr! If you are a true Hawaiian, as in an indigenous person and not a haole transplant like me, none of this applies to you.
5. Two words: white skin. If you're coming to Hawaii for a vacation, invest in a self-tanner first. Please. The glare off your white legs is killing my eyes. And, heck yes, I committed the same faux pas when I first arrived, which is why I am in a position to tell you this.
6. It's dusk, or dark, and you're splashing in the ocean in Waikiki. There's a reason it's called feeding time, you know. Strange creatures like to prowl the ocean in the dark and they are usually doing so because they are hungry. Remember this when you get that urge to plunge into the warm Hawaiian waters at night.
7. You turned your back on the ocean and now you're a) being dragged out to sea or b) you just got soaked by that massive wave. Never turn your back on the ocean. Never, ever. It does not behave the same here as in other places you may have been when you had Aunt Bessie take your picture on the beach. Especially don't do this in winter on the North Shore.
8. You just ordered a sno-cone from the nice ladies at Matsumoto's Grocery Store. It's not a sno-cone, it's a shave ice. And Matsumoto's really does have the best ones evah (Haleiwa, North Shore, Oahu). No sno-cone on earth looks like a real shave ice. Shave ice is fine, fine, fine.
9. You're lying on the beach and you're beet red. Locals know the sun is strong. Us lighter skinned locals wear sunblock (and maybe the dark-skinned ones too, but I can't speak for them). Notice when you go to the beach the people who have big canopies set up under shady trees. Locals. Notice how they stay in the shade, too.
10. That puzzled look on your face when you ask directions and someone tells you to go mauka three miles, makai for a block, and turn left. Aloha ain't the only word you need to know when you get here. Mahalo is a good one (thank you). Mauka and makai are pretty necessary too, especially if you plan to venture away from Waikiki and need to ask directions. On Oahu, we have two great big landmarks that you cannot miss. One is the mountains (mauka). Two is the ocean (makai). If someone tells you to go mauka, drive toward the mountains. If they tell you makai, go toward the ocean.
Okay, that's the ten I could think of off the top of my head. This is from the perspective of a transplant. I've lived here for a year and a half now and I'm still learning. 🙂 And I didn't mention taking pictures of everything because, heck, you're supposed to do that. I still do it, though not as much.
Aloha nui loa.
