bye 2008

i am thinking of taking a vow this year. people take vows all the time, for marriage, medicine, secrecy, silence, or devotion, but i never have. i have to think it over for the next day or so, then i'll let you know. unless of course i take a vow to disappear....oh, i won't.
the rain has been constant, and there's just more on the way, a huge tropical storm in the south pacific is making for the rainiest weather i've ever experienced. and it's only been a week! folks tell me it can go on like this for 30 days or more. crazy. but it's giving me a sense of winter, i feel ok about staying in, reading, and sleeping late. the seeds of my discontent lay more in the cycle of seasons i've become accustomed to than the actual temperature. we all need time to die and mourn and get ugly, fertile soil is not made by ease. what i hoped to escape was the bone chilling cold that bit me over and over for years with no sign of relenting. i have accomplished that.
i have been invited to a party for new years. though my hermit self wants to decline, my sense of adventure won't allow it. my mission here can't be accomplished all alone in a pity party. i must go out and join in the revelry.
my low spirits have opened up doors. i am still disappointed in myself, but i am determined too. each day is a gift, each person i meet, a universe. how can i not be in love with life? i relearned this.
you know what i'm starting to miss? you know where i think my earthly home is?
i'll tell you later.

ecstatic dunce

i went to a beautiful dance party today which lifted my spirits. the best 5 dollars i've spent on this island, the room filled with whirling tattooed torsos bearing very little clothes, a vintage toy themed altar, and the persistent beat of jungle/house/latin/country/all-one type music. there's nothing much for fun for someone like me. i'm a simple creature who just wants to be in a room with people who are having an honest experience. my place as a human in this wild and intriguing lava pile is with those people. it's a place i've found many times in many locations. where the freaks call home.
it may be hormonal, but i've been feeling so self-loathing for the past few days. my blog's not interesting, my body has too much fat on it, i'm not smart enough, i don't make enough money, and it seems like i can't even concentrate long enough to finish a book. this is not like me. i am not scared of meeting life head on, but i've been hiding from people, feeling ashamed of myself for not being cooler. i look to my past and i don't recognize the person i am right now, or i don't recognize the person i was, either way it's odd. i don't consider myself a depressed person, and i don't act depressed when i'm around people, just when i'm alone. i always like being alone, despite this. or i think i do. maybe i'm all turned around in this labryinth. maybe i'm just incubating, getting close to being born and being frustrated that i can't break the shell yet. at the bottom of this heart, i think i'm just lonely. i wish i had you here, and i wish i knew you.

a wet one

i'm living inside water. my envelopes stuck themselves, my dirty clothes discovered a horrible perfume, and nothing ever dies unless you viciously bludgeon it.
last night the cockroaches must've thought i'd be nice because it's 'christmas', one, sounding very much like a mouse, crawled out of my garbage can and i could almost hear it's white flag waving, it just wanted to reason with me, but no mercy was shown. murder. a few moments later i went to the bathroom and must've caught two huge ones in the act--one was overturned and the other was running for cover. never again, adulterers. then, as if they thought i'd be over my rage, one sauntered across the hall with a skip in her step, probably on her way to play the virgin mary in the live nativity scene under the futon. hope she had an understudy.
the water continues today, torrents, buckets, drips and mists. i guess i was crossing the line to think i could dry my clothes on the line on christmas day, let's be real.
i hope freyja didn't drown. she hates that.

my landing pad

hooray, i got a job! i am now the produce girl at the local natural foods market--abundant life. there are pros--healthy work environment, no dress code/no uniforms, employee discount, potential to meet cool people, mom and pop owned business, handling beautiful fruits and vegetables all day, full-time steady work with health care benefits. there are cons--not much money=don't think i can exist on it for long unless i get some big raises, they keep you real busy and expect alot, no free coffee, no free food, no cute boys (yet).
i don't know how it will work out in the long run, but at least i am working and generating some income. if my past is any indicator, this may just be the first in a series of jobs that leads to the good one. as much as i like the pros this job has, none of them hold water against a job that pays double.
i'm totally spent from a long day learning the ropes as the veggie vixen.

sweet hitchhikers

i was going to have some kava at the tiny kava shack at the end of the red road where the magic is known to happen when what to my wondering eyes should appear but two small hitchhikers and two backpacks of gear. i picked them up wanting company and the possibility of sharing some kava with the travelers. turns out we'd seen each other on the beach several days before, they recognized me and i remembered their ukulele playing. they were headed to kalani honua, a haven for all sorts of offbeat characters where i stayed last year when i was here on vacation. they joined me for kava since they'd never had it and we walked out to the black sand beyond the lava fields and viewed the lava exploding into the ocean (still several miles away). turns out they're minnesotans, and i love minnesotans. good folk from that land. they invited me to come to kalani with them and use the facilities--hot tub, pool, sauna. on the way there we listened to the rock n' roll station and that devil music convinced us to go get beer. we diverted our direction and rambled through a one lane twister lined with enormous leaves, trees who demanded we go around, and a feral pig who couldn't care less. we hit the beer store with only 10 minutes to spare before they closed (8pm mind you). success bred success and we arrived at kalani unscathed and ready to party. the night was on our side, cool enough to love the hot tub, but warm enough to make swimming feel like the most obvious thing ever. we met people, we drank beer and smoked pot and several hours later, i couldn't find my underwear, but went home happy nonetheless (i was sober by then).
today i meant to go to ecstatic dance and meet up with them at kalani, a paradise for dance freaks, but got up too late and only caught the very end. they were gone. i resigned myself to spending the day being productive, or maybe just going to the beach. as i headed that direction, i saw them on the side of the road, hitching again. 'what are you doing?' i laughed. 'what we do best' they said. they hopped in and we spent the whole day together, hitting lava tree state park, mackenzie state park, and ending up at volcano national park where we hiked, and drove down chain of craters road and back listening to rufus wainwright. i left them to camp there and took myself out to dinner at an overpriced but delicious pizza joint.
a contentment welled up in me, i felt good about being able to share what i have--a car and some time.

oh, whatever

my self-esteem has taken a hit, and though i intellectualize that it shouldn't be happening, i can't stop it. did i really forget that moving somewhere is painful and difficult? did i forget that my career track guarantees absolutely nothing, so i always start from ground zero? these things look like blessings when they're in the future, but now i don't want to be going through them. at least not every day, but there's no escaping the challenges i face here. the truth is, i love to travel because these experiences sharpen me, but the sharpening means i have to shed parts of myself, and i just keep getting smaller until when? until i'm a useless scrap of metal? i'm ready to recycle myself already. i want to start over, melt down my components into the sea of components, and become something new. transformation.
in many ways i feel just like a child, only it's not cute anymore, it's kind of sad. maybe that's why i like being around animals so much, they don't judge me and they don't allow me to judge myself unfairly. i know my life is no less fulfilling than alot of lives, but i catch glimpses of others who i perceive to have so much more. i wonder if the things i've given up to gain the things i have were worth it. a regret path that is fruitless, i know.
do i classify my life so far as a success or a failure? tonight, i just don't know.

a little let down

today was not my favorite. i didn't get the job at the fancy house, and i didn't get any other jobs either. the whole day was spent cleaning the house of my hosts because that's what i do instead of pay rent. i'm grateful that rent is not an immediate concern, of course, i never need to pay rent, i can live under a tarp for all i care. it is nice to have a safe haven from mosquitoes though. i'm in that nebulous phase of being in a new place where everything seems like it could be an opportunity, but there are alot of dead ends thrown in there.
i recall when i arrived in denver it took me a looooong time to find a job. i had to clean houses for a while to make ends meet, and then i ran through a few not so great jobs before i landed my cash-cow bartending gig. and that was when the economy wasn't feeling so ill. now here i am on an island with only 130,000 people and the tourist based economy is in the shitter, what do i expect, really? i'm going to a temp agency tomorrow, hopefully i can start making a few nickels to rub together.
that guy that i met who has a friend opening a bar emailed me asking for my resume, so that's encouraging. and i applied for a government job today, my first effort of the kind, it's for a plant quarantine inspector type job at the airport. might be cool, or horrible, but it would be steady and i'd have benefits for the first time ever.
i miss my brothers today. they'd make me laugh and say something awesome.