187th day sober. I got some laundry done overnight but it was a really hard push. I was just not motivated but I really was out of clean clothes. I stayed up overnight and had packed a lot of things, and close to noon I decided to take the things to the post office and FedEx and also see what food trucks were around since I hadn't gotten anything from a food truck for a long time.
So I headed out at almost noon, and got the things to the post office and FedEx all right, but wow was traffic ever hectic. It was, I felt, much more dangerous than doing my deliveries at 6PM on.
On my way back I stopped at two food trucks, and $8 got me a freshly made taco with freshly fried tortilla chips, a taquito with the same fillings you usually find in an egg roll, and some chicken wings. I ate this stuff when I got back here and it was all pretty good. I did the final rinse and fabric softening stage of the load of laundry and hung it up upstairs with a fan blowing on it. I considered just staying up but decided I needed to get some sleep and went to bed around 3PM.
I woke up close to 11PM. And I mean, I woke up, it was dark of course, and I felt really awake and ready to do things.
Oh and last night Ken came by and dropped off some things to list, wrote out my pay check, etc. We ended up talking about a somewhat grim subject, that of what to do if something happens to him. I said I'd help his wife liquidate what's here of course, but then I'd want to jet back to Hawaii to keep from becoming stuck here. I ended up showing him on Craig's List how rents there are about 1/2 what they are here. Given the same amount of money on Social Security either here or there, naturally I'd be more secure there.
Although I have been having some other thinking. Returning to Hawaii is not a slam-dunk. I could simply finagle a way to stay here - I've mentioned to Ken a place I know of where I can rent a small office for $350 a month and they're cool with people living in there. There are options like that.
I'm watching Reddit threads like a hawk, and it does not look good for 2022 and 2024. The Orange Bloviating Bloated Balloon might actually run for President again in 2024, and this time around might be able to win or steal the election or stage a successful coup. The Republican machine seems to be learning - this has been pointed out on the radio and on Reddit - from its past mistakes and our democracy is not going to be saved the next time by a few Republicans with conscience this time around as they're being purged from the party, or other measures as Biden has not gone full-on FDR as we expected him to do, and as he should do.
Moving to Hawaii is not going provide any defense from a Trumpist regime. Social Security and a lot of rights and programs for the poor are Federal programs. Hawaii is absolutely rotten with Christianity, the Religion Of Hate(tm). I saw on Reddit how there were convoys of Trumpists parading all through downtown and Waikiki and holding traffic up, just itching to beat the crap out of anyone normal who dared get too close. I'm not sure how this was different from Munich in 1922 other than the coconut trees.
Yes I have two sisters there but one is an absolute gonzo googly-eyed Jesus freak, who's be all onboard with burning infidels at the stake and the other is married to a Catholic and a full member of the Religion of Wealth (his wealth, naturally) which views the non-wealthy as the damned. So being in the same state as either of them is not going to do me any good.
And what about my plan of busking in Waikiki and picking shells. Picking shells was hard work when I was a kid and would be harder now. I'd hate to depend on it for a living. Plus the locals (anyone brown-skinned who declares themselves such) are getting a lot more political and protective and may not appreciate seeing someone on the beach, always picking shells. Busking in Waikiki's a solid plan except that it's an area noted for hostile encounters so even that isn't a perfect plan. It might be OK, it might not.
I mean, it's nice to have the option to busk or to pick shells, but I remember those old days living around the University which is the best place to live to be near things, but while it's only somewhat a pain to get to/from Waikiki to play some music, visiting any beach other than Waikiki (no shells) or Diamond Head is a major pain in the ass.
Frankly, the Hawaii I grew up in is gone. It's no longer scruffy and scroungy and full of little mom and pop shops. There also used to be a sort of a social contract that said if you worked at all, you slept under a roof. This is no longer the case in any part of the US but it's especially bad in Hawaii and a guy I know who visits fairly regularly says the homeless issue has become much, much worse even since 2003 when I was there last. I've been assuming that if I move back I might have a period of homelessness just like I might have that happen here once I'm no longer working for Ken, but there might actually be worse.
I'd joined the local Buddhist temple with the idea that they, being Japanese-American, are the ones in power back in Hawaii too, so I'd be best off integrating into that group but who am I fooling? Those with money, those are the ones who are in power. Not some humble Buddhists. And I feel like I'm butting in, anyway. Yes, Caucasians are accepted, sort of, but you have to have married in or one of those rare few who become serious scholars of Buddhism - neither's going to happen here. I'm not marrying anyone, and there's not a lot to study about Buddhism, it's all pretty cut and dried.
And it doesn't matter even if I *did* become a scholar of Buddhism, it still doesn't mean I'm safe at a bus stop, or walking down the street. My older sister may have all that money, but back in 2003 I went around with her and the level of fear she lived with was surprising. She didn't know the people down the hall in the building she lived in at the time, and was terrified the time I took her to a restaurant in a semi-industrial part of town that had good mahi-mahi sandwiches. She never went to the North Shore, or just about anywhere except a very restricted circuit of places, and would not take public transit. She was always looking over her shoulder. I'm not like that; I like to get out and circulate around.
The last times I was at one of my beloved childhood beaches in Punalu'u, one time I was berated loudly, and followed, by a large white guy speaking what he probably thought was Pidgin and the beach was just about covered with people. The other time it was actually getting dark and I was picking shells and a Hawaiian(?) gal who came up and sat there and just about stared into my soul. I tried talking to her and ... nothing. Whether she was acting as a distraction/lookout while someone else snuck up and caved my head in with a rock I'll never know - I got out of there.
Things are being rearranged, stopping drinking and getting a new brain. I can't even get enthused about watching the videos by PhotoLuke Hawaii and it's forever since I followed Andy Bumatai. I'm like, "Oh, OK, that's nice... meh". There are tons of places I spent a tone of time in growing up in Hawaii and I could go back there and they'd be interesting for about 15 minutes and then I'd just feel like I was back in those times growing up when I was on the beach for hours at Kualoa because there was nothing else to do but be at the beach for hours at Kualoa.
So I've started watching Israel videos again, like those by Corey Gil-Shuster. I'm really surprised how much of the little Hebrew I learned has stayed with me. Now, with a new brain, it's striking me that it might be a fairly easy language to learn after all. And I'm not going anywhere if I can't hack the language. But for instance, there about 26 ton of ways to say "No" in English and in a standard conversation just about all 26 will be used. It's gotta drive English learners nuts. But in everyday Hebrew, good old "lo" seems to do all the duty. Lots of other words keep popping up; verbal handholds and footholds.
I'm sure there are plenty of other sarcastic/snarky ways to say "no" in Hebrew, but you don't need 'em to understand what's being said right off. That's another thing - mainland Americans barely get sarcasm or snark, forget about 'em in Hawaii. They're just no-nos in Asian/Pacific culture, and as the US becomes less literate and more Fascist, they can get you into real trouble.
In fact, to give an idea of how touchy things can be in Hawaii, I once took a math class from Paul Halmos, yes *that* Paul Halmos. I have no idea why he was teaching a night class in "pre-calculus" or whatever it was, but there he was, and there I was. Well, one night he said something completely innocent, along the lines of how cute his kid's teacher, who happened to be of Japanese ancestry, was. This got him reported, and reprimanded, and the next class session he stood there and told the class what had happened and that it reminded him of when an authoritarian government takes over or something along that line (he was a Hungarian Jew) and my memory is unclear whether he declared he was leaving ASAP and had someone else take over the class, or whether he said he was staying just long enough to finish teaching the class and then he was outta there. I know from Wikipedia that his final living place was Los Gatos, and now that I think about it, I think there's a large Jewish temple there that's part of the "circuit" you attend as part of the conversion process in this area.
In any case, the thing he'd said was small and innocent and well-meant, and when he told us about it I could tell he was scared. Scared the way no doubt many were scared when they were in Hungary in 1956 and the USSR tightens the screws. Halmos came to the US in 1929 so he'd have the example of how Germany went also - I'm sure that was chilling. Our dear Paul learned that in Hawaii, it's not so much what you say, it's who is allowed to say it and if you are the dreaded "haole" you are not allowed to say much at all.
Ahh, conversion ... of course the virus has made everything 10X as hard now, but presumably we'll be doing things in person again in another year or two. It takes at least a couple of years because there are classes to go to, and observance of a full year of holidays/observances and a lot of these are in places like Los Gatos that are not that easy to get to. But now that I'm not drinking, I've got enough money to afford to go around to the things, and to afford membership fees to the temple etc.
I packed everything that needed to be shipped and got out of here at 1 in the afternoon, did my post office, FedEx, and one UPS drop off, and got my usual 2 thighs from "Krispy Krunchy Chicken" which at $6.50 is cheaper than any food truck these days. The traffic was a lot lighter once it was past everyone's lunch hour, although still heavier than it is at 6 in the evening.
After eating my chicken I cleaned myself up a bit and left for downtown at a quarter to 4. I left again at 4, as I'd forgotten a bag of trash I wanted to get rid of and had to go back for. No matter, though, as I was at the bank in plenty of time. While I was just starting my business, a weird guy came in and just stood around, with no mask. The tellers told him he needs to have one, and he said he doesn't have one, etc., and the tall male teller told him to go outside and he'll talk with him out there. That solved it, although the teller who helped me was kind of miffed "I just don't 'get' people like that, we've been doing this (she meant wearing masks) for two years!"
I went over to the Amazon place for bubble mailers and only got two but it's still something, and thought maybe I'd go over and check out the First Friday thing because downtown was really dead. Even San Pedro Square had zero musicians, zero beggars, zero anything but a smattering of yuppies starting on their yuppie evening with yuppie food and yuppie drinks.
I rode as far as Philz Coffee, where I stopped to ask them if they'd seen "the violin player" recently and they said they haven't for a while. I saw they had some pastries, Koign Amann I think they're called, sitting in the display case and asked about them and that's what they were. So I got one and ordered a coffee too. The pastry was pretty much what I expected; a sort of calorie bomb of layers of butter and sugar, but the coffee was awful. It had a strong bitter note and had some kind of horrible hazelnut flavoring in it. Just pure "gack".
One of the people in there, a young guy, said he's learning guitar so he can go out and play, and I mentioned being the last busker in San Jose and even I'm not out playing these days, and they're always going to associate me with "the violin player" (Gabriel) so I didn't dare say anything about the coffee, but wow I'm not getting that again. I wonder if they got their wires crossed and put in some kind of weird sugar-free hazelnut shot in there, although that still doesn't account for that strong bitter note so basically their coffee is just crap compared to the wonderful $5 chicory coffee in the orange can I get at the Vietnamese market.
After that cup'o'gack I didn't feel like checking out the First Friday thing after all and went over to Nijiya for some shopping, then stopped by the juniper bushes to pick some berries, then stopped at TAK Market for some near-beer, then got back here. There were tons of police sirens as I was riding back along 10th, and I saw some of the police cars going north on the freeway and now that I'm back in here I saw on Reddit that there's been a shooting at the Great Mall in Milpitas which is not that far from here, because why not? It's Friday night; might as well shoot up the mall.
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