Lockdown: What do you do for the money, honey?

I don’t want to write about it, but it’s 2:30 in the morning Saturday night and I planned to go to bed at nine. I’m not exactly wide awake, but neither do I really want to go to bed, even though I know I would probably get right to sleep.

I’ll try to keep this short. Which shouldn’t be difficult since I’m writing about Monday, which was like a month ago.

I remember it was mostly a quiet day at work. I’d posted (but not published) a web story about a Hawaii CC program, the one I started in December and didn’t get finished until March for various reasons, some of which are mine and some of which are others’. It came out pretty good. So Monday all I had to do was write the social media copy, which I sent out. It was quickly shared on different platforms and the whole thing worked out well.

That story I rewrote from a bio someone else put together was picked up by one of the Kauai newspapers. That was nice to see too.

I had the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day from Monday to Thursday. Lazy burritos for breakfast. Hot dogs for lunch. It reminded me of early in the pandemic (except I was having overnight oats for breakfast and hot dogs for lunch). The simplicity, ease, and routine really suited me well for a week, and I may try it again next week, perhaps with different stuff. Overnight oats for sure, I think. I miss having them but I keep forgetting to prepare them.

I actually already picked up the stuff for lazy burritos again next week, but not the stuff for hot dogs. There’s this bakery that kind of supplies all the supermarkets and drugstores with bread, a local brand that’s about as local an institution, as much a part of our lives as any other single brand. It’s closing up after a hundred and twenty years or something like that.

I meant to get some hot dog buns (since I still have hot dogs) but the grocery store was clean out. It’s a holiday weekend, so I’m guessing that’s part of it.

I cannot for the life of me remember what I had for dinner. It might have been tortilla chips and fresh salsa.

I know I was exhausted. Took a long nap after work and I think I read a little bit. Then I picked up Cobra Kai season one from where I left off. Episode three, I think. And I stayed up far too late watching it until I passed out. Unhealthy!

Crush Girl texted me first, to ask how my Monday was going. I responded that my day was going pretty well. I was in pretty good spirits about that Hawaii CC story and the response it received. She was having a less positive day, which we chatted about for a little while. She also told me about this bad dining experience she had over the weekend. I really liked the interaction.

I texted my coworker Lauren to ask if the honey thing went through. She said yes, and my Big Island beekeeper friend was sending her the honey midweek. I was so glad it worked out. Later, the beekeeper messaged me on FB to thank me for hooking them up. I thanked HER, saying she was the one blessing us.

Truth is, it’s a mutually beneficial thing and it really makes me feel good to have been part of it. I’m stoked, actually.

JB texted to ask how much it would cost to make the Six Million Dollar Man today. I actually have read articles about this so I pointed him in their direction. I feel like all the expounding people have done on the topic is inaccurate, though. That show was set in its own present. We probably have more technology in our smartphones than was in Steve Austin’s entire body, and setting him up with those bionics using late 70s tech would probably cost nothing.

I actually texted Ali. Just a few words to offer clarification on very brief exchanges we’ve made about ten days apart. I think this friendship is over, and it makes me sad.

Monday really does feel like an aeon ago. Too bad, because as I replay it, I’m remembering how positive it was. I’m not sure the rest of the week played out similarly. I do know I’m moody as heck right now for reasons escaping me, and it influences the way I remember feelings about things.

This may be one of the unconsidered values of these recaps. Although I remembered the facts of Monday, it wasn’t until I looked at my texts with Crush Girl and Lauren I remembered how good I felt. Does it matter how I remember the feelings? Or does it only matter I had them? I can’t decide, and I’m certainly in no emotional state right now to make a ruling.

3:13 in the morning now. I may do an immediate lockdown recap of Tuesday since I’m still up and still writing.

You know what to do. Leave a comment if you’re feeling disconnected. I know I just wrote this, but I am very grateful for the interactions with my friends via text. I can look at them and remember that Monday, the 22nd of March, was a pretty good day and I felt good, even if early Sunday, the 28th, I don’t feel quite as good. Smash the comments.

Lockdown: The sum of our ambition

An island lost at sea, oh

It’s just past midnight Friday night. I was supposed to have a fantasy baseball draft at twelve, but the league was cancelled because not enough teams signed up. It’s fine. It was a money league and it would have been against strangers, and the season doesn’t begin until April 1. Plenty of time to get in other leagues, which is my intention.

It’s another weekend, and I’m once again behond on lockdown journaling by nearly a week. Silly. But today was a holiday, and I spent most of it vegging, so chances are good I get caught up by weekend’s end.

Sting has a new compilation album out, released last weekend. It’s a collection of his duets, almost all of which I haven’t heard. I was looking forward to spinning it this evening, but Spotify doesn’t seem to have it. Instead, I’m just listening to this live album called My Songs: Live. It’s pretty dang terrific, one track in.

I’ll always be king of pain

I saw him in concert here, the last time he played here solo. It was like 1990 or 1991, Valentine’s Day. It was something of a weird night. I was living in the BSU dorm. My roomie Henry was a business major. We got along fine but we had very, very little in common.

As many of us did, when he had group assignments, he often met his partners at the dorm to work. I was rather taken with one of them. I think he name was Glenda but it may have been Wendy or something similar.

Boy did I turn on the charm when she was around. By which I mean I mostly ignored her the first time she was there, then flirted very casually the second.

I got in line to buy Sting tickets without a date in mind. I got pretty good seats, too. The first row after the first section break, about seven o’clock from center stage. On paper, it looks like a great seat, because even if you’re seated, you can see the stage terrifically even if the last row of the first section is on its feet.

On the other hand, there’s a nonstop stream of people walking right in front of you. Who goes to a concert to walk around? Lots of people, which of course I observed at my very first show in tenth grade. I just never thought of it that early morning standing in line. Dang it.

Not long after the purchase, I thought my classmate Jolene would be fun to take. We really disliked each other from the first day of school in seventh grade until sometime in our senior year. Actually, this isn’t true. I disliked her. She hated me. We tolerated each other because we had the same group of friends, but yikes. It was a chilly relationship.

Then something clicked and we started getting along great, right near the end of our senior year. We don’t know what happened, but we were in the same van for our senior trip to the Big Island (I told you we had the same group of friends) and it was sometime then.

And then, the super uptight annoying Jolene who I was sure was going to be a business major went to USC and she majored in art history. Art history! She didn’t see it coming and neither did I, and when she moved back home and I was still four years from graduating, we called each other a few times and even hung out once or twice.

As friends.

But I thought she would be great to take to Sting, and I’m still sure we would have a great time. However, while she was totally going to accompany me, her parents said she couldn’t go. Yeah, I’m not going to delve into this except to say when we were in high school school, the only friend I had whose parents genuinely liked me was Reid, whose parents loved me. So it wasn’t crazy that Jolene’s parents didn’t want her to go to ao concert with me except that she was a college graduate and I was a fifth-year college sophomore (or something).

Jolene, me, and Sting never did converge.

She didn’t have to put on the red light but she did anyway

Then I did something I would never do today, and it embarrasses me more than a little when I remember it now. Someone asked me to sub a jazz radio show at the campus station. I always said yes when people asked me to sub a show, whenever it was and in whatever format. I wanted to be known by as many people at the station as possible as the guy they could call to fill in. It was how I got to know people, and I got to know a ton of music I would otherwise never have been familiar with. I didn’t yet have my own show, and the way to get your show is to be the ultimate team player.

The other reason I said yes to every sub request was that deejaying was soooooo fun. It’s like in the top ten funest things I ever did. I still have on cassette almost every show I ever did. It’s a lot of cassettes.

I was allowed to have two guests in the studio with me. So a few weeks before the Sting show, when I was subbing that jazz program, I brought Kirk and JB with me. And we spent the three hours of the program offering reasons Glenda or Wendy or Brenda should go to the Sting concert with me.

I’d play four songs, get back on the air and say, “Here’s Kirk with our number six reason Glenda or Wendy or Sandy should go to the Sting concert with Mitchell: Because Sting is awesome!” Then I would spin four more songs.

The joke was JB and Kirk gave every great reason they could think of, as long as the reason had nothing to do me or with being in my company. Pretty hilarious. I didn’t even think of it. They did it on their own without telling me it’s what they had in mind.

I don’t remember if I asked Henry to tell Glenda or Wendy or Kendra to listen to the program or if I gave him a tape to deliver to her. However I did it, I called her on the phone and asked her and she said she would think about it, and then she told Henry to tell me she was in.

It was awkward. We didn’t have much to talk about. The show was great but I wa so self-conscious I had great difficulty just absorbing the moment.

Glenda or Wendy or Tandi said she had a nice time. I kind of hoped we might chat a little in my truck as I drove her home, but conversation was pretty one-sided. And when I pulled into her driveway, she was out the passenger door and in her house like she had desperately to go to the bathroom. I mean, she said thank you and she had a nice time but then she was gone.

I wasn’t going to do anything, but she was cleeeeeeaarrrly not going to leave that to chance.

These aren’t the Seoul cages

Sunday I slept in. Did the usual Sunday stuff: crossword, news, Spelling Bee, nap. I ate clementines and dried apricots mostly to tide myself over until I decided what to eat. Then of course I didn’t eat anything. This is actually also part of the Sunday routine lately.

I went to the office, thinking I’d get Korean food at Choi’s, which I tired for the first time a couple of months ago and really liked. Got the computers set up, downloading software updates. Called Choi’s to order takeout. The nice Korean lady took my order and when I said I’d be over in about ten minutes, she asked if I knew where the new location was.

Um.

Yeah. Choi’s shut down on King Street and moved to McCully Street. That’s too far for me, I said. I’ll come by another time.

You can’t throw a dol sot in the neighborhood without hitting a Korean restaurant, but it was Sunday and a lot of Korean places don’t open on Sunday, even in that neighborhood. I walked down King and just settled on Panda’s, figuring that would take care of my veggie craving. They have the supergreens now, which I really like.

Took it back to the office and devoured it while I did some work. I was super let down but it was still a good meal. Just not what I’d had my heart set on.

Sending out an SOS?

I think I had lazy quesadillas for dinner. Stayed up too late but I don’t remember why.

There was some texting in the Suzanne-Julie-Cindy group text about some stuff someone saw in a thrift store, and Cindy admitting she didn’t feel well after her shot. Also some trash-texting in our NCAA Tourney group chat. And I sent individual updates to everyone to keep people current on scores and placement.

That was it for texting. Typical Sunday.

I’m going to defrost my fridge now. If I still have some mental energy, I’ll write about Monday before I turn in.

Leave a comment if you need someone to connect with, to get you through these rough days. My number six reason you should feel free to reach out? Because Sting is awesome!

Friday 5: Obstacle course

From here.

  1. What did you most recently leap over (or past)?
    I tried to purchase my first pack of NBA Top Shot moments. Leapt ahead to position 57,000 (I’m rounding) in queue of 300,000 eager buyers. With 67,500 packs available, I was definitely going to get one! But I got distracted by work and forgot to click back to the tab for about forty-five minutes and I missed my turn! Ack.
  2. When were you most recently forced to crawl?
    I got a new Rush Blu-Ray, a concert video from their R40 tour. I dropped the stupid disc while trying to load the player, and had to get down on my hands and knees to retrieve it from beneath my TV stand. I think it was last Thursday.
  3. What are you sprinting from?
    Debt. For several reasons mostly related to the lockdown, I’ve got more money to apply to some debt. I’m doing my darndest to pay it down as quickly as possible, this past year. It feels pretty good to see the numbers going down more and more quickly. It’s like I’ve gained some kind of momentum.
  4. What has recently required you to step carefully?
    The Asian hate issue in the continental US is very real, but Asians in Hawaii don’t feel it the same way. I’m definitely privileged and I know it, but I can’t pretend to feel what my Asian friends are feeling elsewhere. I feel something profound. It’s just not what they’re feeling, and I am doing my best to respect it.
  5. Where is your next finish line?
    I get my second shot Monday. Two weeks from then, I’ll be about as immune as I’m going to be after a year of staying away from friends, coworkers, and loved ones. It will be a huge relief, but I am doing my best not to get complacent until I’m actually over the line. I may cry.

Lockdown: Munchkins in the parking lot

Saturday was uncharacteristically nice. I got up after not enough sleep for reasons I don’t remember. Something online or something. Drove to Young’s for a Hawaiian combo plate, which was breakfast and lunch. On the way, I took money out of the ATM and purchased a money order for the rent.

Went back to bed and took a nice long nap. Got up at three, took care of a few chores, and drove to Mapunapuna for my other Saturday task. I needed a new chair.

For a year, I’ve been lounging and working in a dining room chair. As dining room chairs go, it’s pretty comfy, but it certainly wasn’t meant for hours and hours and hours of occupancy each day. My posture and my back are not happy.

I have a friend who writes about video games for the Washington Post. Like an actual friend. Once upon a time, he wrote a traffic column for the Star-Bulletin. Now he writes about video games for the WaPo. It’s kind of amazing, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

So yeah. Several months ago, he wrote that he bought a racing-style gamer chair for his work at home and it’s been great for him. He said he just bought a cheap one on Amazon. I tried to get the same thing but with demand so high at the height of the lockdown and with supply lines so out of whack, it was tough to get one. The company was out of stock and didn’t know when more would be available. When, months later, they were available, when I tried to order one I was informed I live outside the delivery area.

You know, that might have been a nice thing to know right up front. Thanks.

So I went to Fisher, thinking I’d grab something office-like from the clearance room. Fisher’s got tons of office furniture and they’re always marking stuff down. They did have some good-looking stuff, but they also had a racing-style gamer chair on sale. It was like $20 or $30 off; not a clearance but just a sale.

I sat in it and liked it. Rang it up and loaded it into my car. It’s some cheapo made-in-China chair, but I decided it would work for me, for now. I paid $180 for it, which is pretty steep, but I went in planning to spend around there. I need to work and live in this thing and I’m tired of being uncomfortable.

Don’t get me started on how overpriced furniture always is.

I’m 52 and this is the first piece of furniture I’ve ever purchased new, I’m quite sure, not counting a couple of assemble-and-paint-yourself particleboard book shelves. Everything else I either purchased used, inherited from a friend, or received as a gift. I’m talking ever.

I drove to the post office for stamps, then mailed my rent and a couple of Netflix DVDs, then hit the Dunkin’ drive-through since I was in the area. Got an iced latte and a bag of Munchkins, then drove to Keehi Lagoon, where I thought I would read a book, drink some coffee, and eat doughnut holes.

Except the park is closed. I had no idea.

The parking lot in front, where the tennis courts are, is open, although the cement barriers that must have blocked the lot during the official lockdown are still nearby. So I parked there. A couple of other people in cars were doing the same thing, although whether they were drinking iced lattes and eating doughnut holes I couldn’t tell you.

The picnic table was wet. So I drank my latte and ate my doughnut holes in the car. One of the very, very rare times I’ve ever eaten in my car.

Then I put some shoes on, grabbed my Kindle, and walked around the park, reading. I walked for about an hour, enjoying A Pho Love Story. I got my fresh air, a little bit of sunshine, some movement, and book time. I got rained on too, but not much.

I could have walked another hour, but I didn’t want to push it. I knew my knee would ache later. How much? Would I wake up in tears again? I figure I’m not going to get it looked at for at least a few more months, so I should just experiment and see what the limits are.

I took another nap when I got home, then got up to assemble the chair.

I’ll spare you, gentle reader, the ridiculous details, but putting that thing together was freaking difficult. Everything went smoothly except attaching the chair back to the chair seat. Someone was drunk at the chair factory when my chair was manufactured, I tell you.

I eventually got past that part and the rest was a cruise. And my chair is definitely great for relaxing, for watching TV or reading or phone-vegging. It’s not quiiiiiite what I had in mind for working, but it’s still way better than what I was using before. I mostly have to sit forward in the seat, but the angle is good and it’s easy to sit upright with decent posture. I can raise the seat back if I want, and that’s okay sometimes, thanks to the lower back cushion. I’m still figuring out what works best for me.

This thing reclines. And my life has changed. I’ve already fallen asleep in it once.

Stayed up late writing. Ate a late snack of clementines and dried apricots. Went to bed around 4:30. Yikes.

I set up a group text for the NCAA tourney pool participants, so Saturday there was a little bit of trash talk. Nice. I think that was mostly it.

If you’re pandemicking alone and you need some connectivity, leave a comment. I’ll send you my contact info and we can text or whatever. I’m totally serious.

Lockdown: March gladness

Scroll down to “Not a lockdown entry” if you want to know Friday’s mindset. This will mostly just be about Friday’s events.

I actually emailed the coworkers who’d be reviewing that cancer center story. “Don’t anyone start their weekends yet!” I wrote. “I’m nearly done with this!”

An hour later I finally submitted it, and everyone liked it. Yay. I was rather unsure.

I also updated an already-published story. Someone was concerned that the group photo (one of those giant check photos) didn’t show the subjects wearing masks. Whoever shot the photo considered that possibility, though, so he or she also shot one with masks. I guess someone thought we should swap the photos. Not a big deal except the photo was show with all the faces in shadow, the image color-adjusted for exposure on the giant white check. That kind of editing’s beyond my skills, so I had to email the photo to our photographer.

Also made last (ha!) edits on a school of public health studies proposal. It went to the dean of the school for approval.

Most of the day, I also had the TV on mute so I could have the NCAA men’s tourney in sight. It’s one of the best sports days of the year, the first day of March Madness.

After work I took a long nap then just vegged. My brain was pulp. Wrote the thing I wrote and went to bed.

Breakfast was Taco Bell. Once a week is the sweet spot. Any more often and I get sick of it and sick with myself. Once a week it still feels like an indulgence but also not super disgusting.

For a late dinner (because there’s no lunch on Taco Bell breakfast days) I had a couple of my yummy leftover hamburgers. There was a slice of pie for dessert, too, and of course my daily clementines and dried apricots.

Lots of texting from coworkers about the tourney, which is exactly what I had in mind. Water cooler talk is crucial for a good office culture, and it’s hard to come by when everyone’s working at home. The tourney talk often leads to other kinds of talk, and that’s suuuuper useful. In one case it led to my connecting our alumni relations people with a beekeeper I know in Hilo for this upcoming online event.

In The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis spends a good bit of space talking about Building 20, this crazy space on the campus at M.I.T. where some great projects evolved, producing amazing science. It’s fascinating stuff, so if you don’t read the whole book (although why wouldn’t you? It’s Michael Lewis) read the Building 20 stuff, which I think is in the beginning.

Lewis’s point is that coincidental, casual conversation is the stuff that drives new ideas and creates excited, exciting new work. If you’re an engineer refilling your mug at the office coffee pot at the same time as Phyllis in accounting, you may strike up conversations about the latest episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or whatever bug is going around the office, and most of the time that would be that. But sometimes it leads to other stuff. Phyllis is having problems with the way the paper comes out of the copier. You’ve never had that problem because you don’t print from the same copier. You ask Phyllis to show you what’s wrong, and you each take your coffee mugs to the copy room on the other side of the office.

I’m making this example up so don’t scrutinize it too closely. I’m just offering a gist of the concept. You see there’s a flaw in the design, so you put your project on hold while you think of ways to fix the flaw. Now you and Phyllis are collaborating on how accountants use the copier and why copiers don’t satisfy one specific need. And because you’re a good engineer, you make it work. Then you mention it to the copy machine maintenance guy, and now you have a little team of people who otherwise might never work together. And who knows where that leads?

The creators of the Basecamp software knew what Michael Lewis knows. Water cooler talk is important for a lot of reasons. It’s why the company, who has people working remotely all around the world, created Campfire. Campfire no longer really exists, as it was folded into Basecamp, but they got it too: create a place for sharing silly cat videos in the middle of the workday, and you’re building good company culture, which can lead to any number of unpredictable good things.

I feel very strongly about this. It’s why I run our office fantasy football league and why I do these silly NCAA tourney pools. And now I’m facilitating a book discussion group (prompted by someone else, not me — she had the idea and wanted someone to facilitate, and I volunteered).

If I could juuuuuuuuust get my stories done on time, it would be nearly a perfect situation. I’m always looking over my shoulder to see if people are watching whether or not I’m doing my actual job. I don’t blame them!

It should be someone’s job, I’m telling you. Invest in culture and watch it pay off. When we moved offices from the Manoa campus to this building on King Street, they put her (the coworker who asked if I would do the book discussion group) in charge of selecting and hanging artwork for the walls and selecting an indoor plant service. It’s the right idea, and it’s a good start. Now if we could create a position to cover these kinds of things plus stuff like the office pool and happy birthday things, we might be on to something.

Supermarket’s going to close soon and I need clementines. And maybe taro. And maybe beer. So leave a comment if you need someone to connect with or to share silly cat videos with. I already have one friend sending me otter videos, and there’s always room for a few more. Just don’t go through pandemic daze without someone to send that stuff to.

Lockdown: How now ground cow?

Still late Sunday night as I try to recap Thursday. I’m beginning to think the effort here is madness.

I banged out a quick story Thursday morning based on a bio someone else wrote, and it went over pretty well. Rewriting someone else’s work? I could do that all day, I think, pretty easily. I don’t mind saying I think I can do it better than most people. I’d get a little tired of it, and that’s where a major conflict in my professional life arises. I want to write, but writing is so difficult and so draining. Tasks like this donor story based on an existing bio are more like puzzles, and I like puzzles. They keep me engaged, they’re generally not very time-consuming (this took about two hours), and people applaud the work. If I actually had to do it all day, though, I know my fingers would get a little itchy.

We had our department meeting on Zoom, and I don’t know how it went. We’re trying to do some planning and I think we’re spending more talking about planning than actual planning, and I admit I’m a little frustrated. It is the nature of collaboration for all invested parties to be unsatisfied, I think, so I suspect this is leading to something good, because we’re good people who do good work. Just got to get past whatever is holding us in place.

At five, our alumni relations office held an online event, featuring flavored syrups made by a recent UH Manoa grad. There were about fifty of us in the call, and the people running the business presented a bit of their history and then led the group in a cocktail-mocktail mix-along. Many participants signed up early and ordered a little sampler box of the syrups, so they made some cool cocktails. I missed the early signup, which might have been okay anyway because I’m a coworker, but Sharon got a little busy and didn’t get me my samples in time for me to participate.

Still, it was pretty fun, and I was actually there to critique the event (thereby justifying my attendance on company time), and I think everyone involved did a really nice job. Definitely the kind of thing our alumni people should do more often.

After, I tied up a few things and called it a day. I (sing it with me) took a long nap. Then got up and made hamburgers.

Burgers used to be in my regular rotation, but it’d been years since I made them, and I was craving ground beef. I went simple this time: salt, pepper, Worcestershire, garlic powder. Simple and delicious. I went a little overboard and had three burgers as I went through everyone’s brackets to prepare an update for participants.

It wasn’t one of my better days because I’m pretty sure breakfast was tortilla chips and fresh salsa, followed by a slice of snickerdoodle pie.

Crush Girl and I texted a little during her lunch break, which was nice. The writing partner sent me a photo, asking for a little bit of editing help, which I was happy to do, even though it was a baby photo. I texted a bunch of people to remind them that the brackets were locking in Friday at six in the morning.

Short recap because although it was busy, most of what I have to say I already wrote, either recapping Wednesday or in my Friday non-lockdown writing. Also because I need to get some sleep!

Leave a comment if you need someone to connect with over the remaining days (whatever they may be) of this pandemic. Don’t pandemic in loneliness!

Lockdown: Faint Patrick’s Day

I was so tired all day Tuesday I had to get to bed at a decent hour Tuesday evening, and I did, and I got about six solid, good hours of sleep, and then another hour that wasn’t quite as good, but all together it was something of a win. I thought early to bed and early to rise was a good plan, letting me bang out that cancer center story before my 10:30 weekly call with the supervisor.

It didn’t happen. The early to rise thing happened, but I just went right back to bed. Then got up and instead of getting a head start on work, I made rice and fried up some canned corned beef hash, with red cabbage and onions. I’m Irish, so I’m expected to do Irish things on St. Patrick’s, but it’s never been a social day for me, and especially not now.

It was good. Corned beef hash, even the canned stuff, is my favorite breakfast meat, ‘though I try not to have it very often. I didn’t have fresh eggs or I would have topped it with some of that.

I mostly worked on proposal revisions. The phone call with the supervisor went pretty well. I shared my frustration with myself over losing my patience, and she was very sympathetic. She said the proposal situation last week was kind nearly out of hand, so she definitely got it. I suggested we start a multi-department conversation with the person who supervises most of the development officer, my supervisor (communications), and our compliance person to see if we could find a system that met all our needs.

It was a good talk.

I took a long nap after work, then goofed off online until it was time to go to bed.

Yeah, not much of a day, but all my work days had been like this lately (I’m writing this Sunday night).

Dinner was leftover canned corned beef hash and hapa rice.

I have this favorite former student whose birthday is St. Patrick’s day. She’s a nurse in Texas now, so I texted her a happy birthday greeting. I also texted this recent new friend I made while working on the first issue of Hawaii Stories. She was interested in giving Clubhouse a try, and you have to have a person’s number in your contacts in order to invite him or her. She’s a bit younger and very energetic, and based on her social media presence, I was pretty sure she’d be a hit on Clubhouse.

I don’t know if I wrote about this here, but Monday night while the bad kulolo was steaming in the Instant Pot, I finally opened a room on Clubhouse. I wrote for its description, “I read aloud Ray Bradbury’s ‘Another Fine Mess.'” Then I just read the short story, and anyone who wanted to could have dropped in and listened. I think I did a decent job of reading it aloud, too.

Nobody joined, and I was totally okay with it. I just loved the poetic act of reading it for anyone to hear. For ten mintues, someone on this planet was reading aloud a Ray Bradbury story for anyone to hear, and then the moment was gone. Pretty cool.

I shared this on FB, which is how the recent friend got my number and how I invited her.

There was more texting related to the NCAA tournament. Sharon texted me a work-related question that would have seemed weird without context. She wanted to know if the convenience store on the first floor of our office building has club soda. I wanted to say, “They don’t even have Cool Ranch Doritos; why would you think they’d have club soda?” I didn’t, though. She was planning this online alumni event and I knew what the club soda was for, and I didn’t want to add to her stress or make light of it, if she was stressed, which she probably was.

Sylvia texted to nominate her choice for the reading discussion group. I also got into some heavy work-related text with Lauren about some local honey and a beekeeper I know. Another online alumni event. I should follow up; I’m really curious about whether they were able to work things out.

In the Julie-Suzanne-Cindy group text, Julie asked for some recommendations for Asian American literature. I made a few, and picking up a vibe, I said I was recommending the books as good books, not as a prescription. You don’t need a prescription, I wrote, at least not any more than we all do. I get we’re her Asian friends and I know how she’s feeling these days. I appreciate her conscientiousness, but I’m not recommending anything to her for wokeness.

Actually, that’s only mostly true. As I’ve written in this space before (I think), when someone asked me what book I would make the U.S. president (any U.S. president; not specifically the crook in the White House that day) read if I could, I said, “Either Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata or Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston.”

And these are two of the books I recommended for Julie. The first is a novel; the second is an autobiography. They are both about the WWII Japanese internment camps. I honestly don’t know what people know about the internments, but they could stand to read both books anyway.

Americans. Were locked behind barbed wire for years. Treated like enemies without a trial. Their property was seized and sold. Houses, businesses, boats. Boats especially, I think. Land. We’re not talking ancient history; we’re talking recently enough that some who went through it are still alive.

I texted Crush Girl just to say Wednesday felt like Friday. She didn’t get back to me until the next day, and while she wasn’t getting back to me I figured out that Prince Kuhio Day was in fact next Friday, and not the Friday I was looking forward to. Suddently, Wednesday no longer felt like Friday. Felt like Tuesday. Ugh.

Kind of a busy Wednesday. It was definitely the hump for me.

Be like my new friend on Clubhouse. Reach out if you’re in need of some connection. Don’t pandemic alone.

Lockdown: All we need is just a little patience

I’m mostly doing this for the sake of completion now, but that’s not a small consideration. It’s late Saturday night (past 2:00 a.m.) and I’m sure the details are going to be hazy if not completely erroneous. It’s okay. These next few entries will probably lack the expounding my usual lockdown journals have. This is also okay.

Tuesday, March 16 was mostly uneventful. It was a normal day at work, and by normal I mean I was behind on stuff and stressed out from trying to finish the cancer center story, which you know I didn’t submit until Friday. This tells you what kind of week I had, really. Stressed about it Tuesday. Submitted Friday. Ugh!

It was not normal in one way. My supervisor was off for the second day in a row. I forgot that it was spring break, so a lot of the parents in our company took at least a couple of days off. This took some of the stress off, but honestly I wasn’t productive enough not to feel any at all. Bleah.

“Why are we here? Because we’re here. Roll the bones.”

Uncle Bezos delivered another Rush Blu-Ray this weekend and I’ve got it playing as I write this. It’s their concert video from the R40 tour in 2015 and it is killer. I think a lot of the footage was in the Cinema Strangiato theater film I saw two years ago but this is also okay. What a performance.

I also worked on a couple of proposals, already in progress. I keep thinking I’m done with them, and they keep coming back for more work. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong here, like if this is just the process at work or if I’m not communicating what I need from people in order to make them happy, but there seems to be some kind of disconnect.

I admit too that I’m finding my patience tested, and I haaaaate admitting I’m running out of patience. It’s a virtue in any life. In a teacher’s life it’s one of the things separating the right from the wrong, and I generally have it in abundance. This is not to say I’m virtuous; rather, it’s to say I chose the right profession when I chose the classroom. My job today doesn’t require nearly as much patience, so I should really never run out of it.

“All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted, not so coldly charted; it’s really just a question of your honesty.”

Oh. I also spent some of my day coordinating our office book discussion group’s first reading selection. That was actually kind of fun. Over the weekend, I emailed everyone (there are five of us) with a little survey: Is there a genre you won’t read? For our first book, would you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction? For our first book, if you had to choose, would you rather read a classic or something current? What are some books you fairly recently enjoyed? Will you most likely read a physical book or an e-book?

The responses were fun to read. It got me pretty amped to facilitate this group. So Tuesday I compiled the responses and asked participants to submit one or two titles of books they’d be interested in reading: fiction, published in 2020 or 2021, no fantasy or horror or erotica or psycho.

I texted the other Jennifer to say I was listening to Guns n’ Roses’s Chinese Democracy, and album I was surprised to learn has aged well. It was late so she didn’t get back. I texted a few friends (Jennifer, Sharon, Crush Girl) to ask if they got their stimulus checks yet. I was the only one who had. Mine went in late Monday.

My late breakfast was a boneless chicken plate from Rainbow. The leftovers were lunch. I thought I’d skip dinner because I wasn’t very hungry, but then I stayed up too late and had to eat a couple of quesadillas. The lazy, microwave oven kind. They were delicious.

I was so tired I actually turned in at a decent hour. Still stayed up too long playing Mario Kart 8. Honestly I felt like I deserved it.

Leave a comment if you need someone to connect with. Pandemic daze is not done. I know I’m still living in it!

Lockdown: Kulolo fail

I can’t lie. Sometimes when the supervisor is on vacation, the typing fingers they pay to put stories together behave like they’re on vacation too. Even when my brain commands them to focus.

Monday the 15th was a little different, though. I realllly wanted to have some work to show, since I feel like I’m behind on everything. I really tried, too, but some of it just wouldn’t come. I had enough non-creative work to keep me busy, and I did well on that stuff. It just wasn’t the stuff I’ve been mired in.

Such a crazy way to make a living, I tell you. And I can’t complain because it’s what I always wanted.

I even started with brain food. Two heads of broccoli, blanched for breakfast. It was yummy, but I was a bit peckish all day beginning the late morning. The broccoli just didn’t do it for me for some reason. So for lunch I had a bowl of angelhair pasta with some canned sauce.

I couldn’t force the work, so I didn’t drag it out. I clocked out (figuratively) and went to bed at the end of my scheduled work day, rather than stay at my desk and try to make something something come out.

I got up late. Like nine-thirty. And tried to make kulolo with my leftover ingredients and it came out terrible. Didn’t set as firmly, didn’t taste as good. Dang it. I kind of tried to wing it, but clearly I don’t quite have the concept down. I thought I might share it with some friends in the office, too. There was no way. This just wasn’t worthy of sharing. I’d have to try again, perhaps over the weekend.

I had lazy quesadillas for dinner. Mostly because I wanted to get the stupid kulolo going. It takes two hours in the Instant Pot.

Jennifer texted me photos of her birria lunch from that taco truck I went to on my birthday. And a link to some new orphan otter photos. Very cute.

That failed kulolo experiment got me to bed ridiculously late considering my recent sleep deprivation. It was terribly irresponsible. And it would lead to a very draining week. Because I am a doofus.

If you need to connect with someone, perhaps this doofus is the person you need. Leave a comment if you’re pandemicking alone. Don’t do that. Get my contact info.

Not a lockdown entry

My last lockdown journal was for Sunday, and here it is late Friday night. Wow. That’s a lot of remembering I’m sure I will fail at. But not tonight.

Just don’t feel like chronicling. I had a sleep-deprived work week in which I did not get enough done, but I finished strong Friday, as used to be my wont but hasn’t been lately. So I’m heading into the weekend feeling good. The last thing I submitted, that cancer center story that’s been bugging me for weeks, was enthusiastically accepted by the first two people I needed to satisfy, so this is good.

I could spend the whole weekend not thinking about work at all, but I’ll probably do a few easy, low-stress things just to keep them off my Monday list. I have a couple of mentally straining things to focus on next week, some of them with deadlines.

My brain is pea soup. My body is the fat trimmed from a slice of prime rib. My mood is rainbow shave ice. My eyes are a glass of iced tea when you’ve stirred too much sugar into it and you can see the grains swirling around before they settle.

It’s the NCAA men’s basketball tourney, and I’m (ssssh don’t tell my employers) running an office pool. Suuuuper low stakes. But it brings people together and gives them something to talk about at a time when, especially this year, we can all really use it.

I suuuuuuck at picking brackets. My final four was busted before lunch. Oral Roberts beat Ohio State in a major upset (a 15 seed beating a 2 seed) and I had Ohio State going to the Final Four. And you know what? I only regret that I picked them to go that far because I will NEVER pick Oral Roberts to beat ANYone unless it’s Liberty.

Liberty is also in the tourney and I of course picked against them. Because screw you, Jerry Falwell, and your charlatan offspring. And the crap university you founded. And the ground upon which it sits. But not the people who work and study there. I know some lovely people who went there.

A million years ago when I shared those screen shots of my crossword puzzle obsession, I lamented the blue square on a Monday last March. I remembered later why it was blue. The yellow squares are correct solves completed within a day after the puzzle posts. I nailed that puzzle but I forgot to do it before Tuesday evening, so it’s blue. Still annoying, but not as maddening as if I couldn’t do the puzzle.

I offer this explanation in case some lovely female reader out there crossed me off her list for having a blue square on a Monday. Lovely female reader, there are many completely valid reasons for crossing me off the list, but please don’t let it be for that.

I’ve been meaning to issue a rant about the uselessness of laws but my thesis is long and I never have that kind of energy anymore, so I may offer it in smaller bites.

Here’s bite number one. Most of us have known 55 miles per hour as the default speed limit on major American highways for our whole lives. There are a few places where in the last couple of decades the limit’s gone up to 65 or even 75. Here on Oahu, there are no roads where you can legally drive faster than 55, and because our major highways are so curvy in town, the limit is actually 45 in some places and 50 in most.

I haven’t checked my sources (okay, my source is a young adult novel read in eighth grade; it’s either Slaughter by Auto or Under the Influence by W. E. Butterworth, a pen name for the writer better known as W. E. B. Griffin, also a pen name), but if they are to be believed (and the author isn’t known for making this stuff up; he writes detective procedural novels), the speed limit on most American highways was 65 mph for a long time. It was lowered in the late 70s to 55.

You know why? It had nothing to do with safety. Engineers decide speed limits for safety based on roads themselves. That’s why the limit on the freeway through Honolulu is 45 or 50. The engineers set that.

The limit was lowered nationwide because we were in the middle of a gasoline shortage. Car engines didn’t burn fuel as efficiently then at higher rates of speed. This is less true today, as engines are designed to run better and more efficiently at whatever speed, but it was absolutely true then (less absolutely if you drove a manual transmission).

The government lowered the speed limit in order to get us burning less fuel. Given the circumstances, it’s totally understandable. Rough times call for rough governmental measures. This is not a rant about masks or the president’s COVID relief bill, although if you want to apply it there, I’m cool with it.

Obeying the speed limits is kind of an arbitrary thing for most of us anyway. The truth is, most people drive as quickly as they feel safe. The limit may be 25 on Nuuanu Avenue, but if the road is covered in steel plates, as it has been for like a year, very few people will drive 25. And if you live here, you know how slowly people drive to work on weekdays when it rains.

I live in a neighborhood with lots of multi-generational homes, which means lots of cars parked on the street (instead of in carports). And since it’s an old neighborhood, the streets are narrow and there are no sidewalks. Very few people drive 25 through my area because it feels very unsafe. And it is!

That stretch of freeway between Waipahu and Makakilo, though, is long and straight, and the limit may be 55, but if you drive 55 there, everyone is passing you. Unless it’s at night, in which case you have mixed observations. There are no freeway lights there, or at least there weren’t when I grew up in Waipahu.

This is all to illustrate one point in my thesis: we are generally a people who respects laws, but in many cases, such as when we’re on the road, our behavior and attitudes are goverened by something else.

Okay it’s a few minutes past eleven and I’ve got the typing itch out of my fingers, so it’s time to eat some dried apricots and kiiiiinda think about what I want Saturday to look like. Then it’s early to bed because pea soup.