Tonight we watched Lost in Translation, which is the first time I’ve seen it since it came out in theatres back in October 2003. Needless to say, it was just as good as it was the first time, and made me cry just as much as it did back then….that is to say, I swallowed hard rocks down my throat all through the ending, then took a shower with the intention of crying in privacy, but when the hot water hit I forgot I had come in there to cry and instead became so overwhelmed by the warmth of the water and the awareness that I had only seven minutes to enjoy it before the water heater pooped out that I forfeited the entire crying endeavor.

It’s just such a sad scene, you know? Where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson say goodbye in the streets of Tokyo one last time, and you know they’re both going back to unhappy marriages, and you can’t help them but you want to; specifically, you want them to help each other. But there’s no better ending — I mean, it’s realistic, ending like that –but it still makes you cry, you know what I mean?

You totally know what I mean.

KWID-nuhngk, (noun)
One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a busybody.

Oh my lord, it’s so freezing in Northern California. Since no one turns heat on here, or even knows where their furnaces are located, houses are even colder inside. Such is the case tonight. I’m huddled under a down comforter in the living room, wearing two shirts, one sweater and one sweatshirt. I might as well be back home. The only difference is that here, the sun is still strong enough to give you a sunburn during the day, and there’s no snow at night. But at least at home we have heat.

Today we drove up to San Jose for J.’s ice hockey game. Lots of women slamming other women into walls. It made me want to skate. Or at least pick up a stick and smack something 70 yards across a room.

I’m just about ready to go home now.

Beacause the cinematography was cool.
Because the plot was great.
Because it’s yet another brilliant coming-of-age movie, since, as C. stated so accurately, “they’re all so sexualy frustrated now and going through puberty.” And the love story subplots don’t end like proper fairy tales, or Hollywood films — they end realistically, with adolescent confusion and heartache.

Needless to say, I loooooved it.

So go see Harry Potter with your friend from college who you haven’t seen in a few years because she lives several thousand miles away, and who you know will be pregnant or already a mother the next time you do see her. (We’re all so adult now, it’s frightening.)

PS — I finally thought of an idea for a film, but due to intellectual copyright issues, I can’t state it here. MUAH-HA-HA!!!

i’ve ceased being tired long ago.
now it’s just me and the midnight airplanes over this hollow house.
while everyone’s out enjoying everyone else,
i’m clutching my solitude like a long lost brother, but that’s another story.
on the floor, calm silence, thin dust.
the black dog with me dreams for both of us.

– because it’s blasphemous. When you gamble on Thanksgiving instead of giving thanks, you lose. You lose twenty dollars, actually. To your friends’ downstairs neighbor’s visiting mother.

I’m glad they invited us for dinner, though. J. and I were passively resigned to finding Jamaican food, but the turkey and cranberry sauce and potatos and beans and pies downstairs were way better. There were two moms, two daughters, the two daughters’ husbands, us two neighbors, and seven dogs in the house. SEVEN. Yeah, I’m not even kidding. The evening would have been perfect had I just abstained from playing poker with everyone after the meal. Oh well, serves me right. I’m going to bet with rubber band booty from now on.

Cluck cluck, turkeys are we…

crepuscular krih-PUS-kyuh-luhr, (adj.):
1. Of, pertaining to, or resembling twilight; dim.
2. (Zoology) Appearing or active at twilight.

I think of the Word of the Days like horoscopes: each has something to portend. Crepuscular was yesterday’s word; today’s word is repast, a meal, which is appropriate for this day of thanks.

Berkeley is cold today — only 61 degrees. Beats the winter storms at home, though. I sat in Bernard Maybeck’s gorgeously designed church this morning as everyone around me stood up and talked about what they’re grateful for. I did the same, but silently.

Enjoy your pie today, good people, while I eat take-out Jamaican food in Alameda. California’s a weird place, and I do miss my family right now (despite the fact that there’s only three of us) but I’m happy to still be on vacation. Cheers.

69

My gracious hosts have made the most of my last few days in Kona, despite my lack of energy resulting from food poisoning, or psychosymatic gastrointestinal problems, whatever. Yesterday C. and I went down to 69 (I don’t remember what it’s really called, but 69 refers to some aspect of the highway or mile marking) where the waves are calmer, to go swimming at sunset. It was rather awesome to float on soft waves for an hour. Made me forget my body entirely. (E., remember watching the clouds from the hill at the Arboretum in July? I noticed a spot on my retina, a black spot that followed my line of vision wherever I looked in the sky. It bothered me then, but you said I’d stop noticing after time. I did stop noticing — until now, lying face-up on the waves, watching the clouds again. It’s like having a ghost beside me all the time.)

After swimming, we climbed on these funky tree limbs while the sun set.

Then we took trippy photos with my slow-synch flash.

Babies are cool

Fast-forward to this morning. C. & G.’s nice Swedish neighbor came over, bringing her baby whom we’ve been playing with all week. She mirrored C.’s hand gestures with the concentrated effort most 5-month-olds don’t have. It was pretty cute. There are so many nice people here.

Later, we went to a sacred ground. Back in the day, if someone committed a crime, they could run for this place. If they made it without getting caught first, they’d be forgiven. If caught before reaching the sacred site, they’d probably be killed. Fun, eh? So there were lots of statues to the gods here, surrounded by hard black lava, palm trees and tidepools with black crabs that I had previously sworn were scorpions. We found a bench, on which people had placed offerings to the gods. Flowers, coconuts, palm leaves, etc.

The search for sea turtles

Next, and after much encouragement, I agreed to go snorkeling with G. — minus the snorkel. There were sea turtles in this water, and we were determined to find them. We had to leap in the water over the coral reef, so as not to kill it. G. jumped first, then I jumped.

Swimming over coral reefs was just like those double spreads in National Geographic make it out to be: pretty awesome. Lots of black and yellow fish. It was like climbing into one of those fishtanks in the lobby of your local Chinese restaurant — only cooler, because just as the sun was about to set, G. spotted a baby sea turtle on the ocean bottom. We let it swim up for air, and G. swam over to pet it. I wasn’t as bold, content enough to watch the adorable thing swim around underwater, two feet from me.

The moral of the story is Hawaii is awesome, and my friends are cooler than most other people who exist. Amen.

James and I sat around the house all day. ALL DAY. We did nothing. NOTHING. It was pretty awesome.

My stomach is still recuperating from either the oreo-berry-mousse or the steak from last night. I don’t think it remembers how to process meat very well. The afternoon was full of naps and finishing Murakami’s “Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world”, which I didn’t like at all. Nica, I like you, but I don’t like Murakami. I don’t care how popular he is. His books depress me, and that’s the last thing I need on a tropical island.

Started painting — G. has graciously shared his gesso’d wood and oil pastels. I’m not finished yet, but will be tomorrow. I forgot how much I enjoy painting.

Another 85 degree day, another cheese and avocado sandwich. I could just sleep and sleep and sleep. I honestly don’t even know what day it is.

i wake up ill, but it passes. inside, everything is still:
canvasses cling to the walls. sharp pink flowers in a glass vase sway.

you think i can’t hear you but i know you’re home,
and it’s cold and you’re sitting in the dark. scream to the world
long enough and you’ll be heard. it doesn’t mean i have any words

to give you, or can bend this light so many thousand miles
into your bedroom, or would even want to, even though i do.
regardless, i know you

well enough by now to understand you could use a piece of
this white heat, this black earth, this collossal sky full
of our disgarded thoughts and a few yellow birds.

on a lump of cooled lava i’m feeling a perfect salt breeze
that is mine alone. there will be time to share some warmth – in clouds, in snow -
when i get home.