A Drop In Class

 I practiced a little last night, had trouble "winding down" and didn't get to sleep until past 7 in the morning. 

The end result is, I didn't wake up until around 6! In the early evening! At least it was fairly sound sleep with one wake-up but since I remember at least two of the dreams it wasn't perfectly sound. The longer dream would make a pretty decent movie. 

After all, yesterday had been fairly energetic. Back on the bike after a week off. Two trips to the post office / FedEx in cold weather. Dealing with Ken and the intriguing conversations we get into. Putting a ton of stuff away that requires a fair amount of energy. 

I even gave my hair a good wash with hot water only, with the idea I'd cut it today. 

So now I'm up and on my 2nd mug of tea and am doing some of the hard thinking I'll have to do in preparation for my move back home. 

Back home, as one considered "haole", I considered myself to be on the bottom of the social scale. But really, I had friends who were doctors and engineers, had the run of the university and actually did a bit of work for it (those circuit boards for DUMAND) and had the founder of the last surviving electronics supply businesses try to recruit me. That doesn't sound like the bottom of any social scale. 

Meanwhile when I moved here to the mainland, now I was just a worker and a relatively low level one at that. Nothing against them but what became my social circle was a much lower grade of people. People who hung out at the pier. People who were lucky to have any job at all. At my work, I was gleefully told by my supervisor in a rare moment of indiscretion that as technicians left, the company intended to not replace them, until they were all gone. I believe now this was to be done by keeping wages low and waiting for techs to quit. But perhaps by forcing them out through various forms of harassment. 

I hung out with marginal people because those were the only people I *could* hang out with on the mainland. I was only saved from homelessness and despair by the one of my circle, a guy who owned a motorcycle accessories shop, and by getting into the sport I did and having a life-saving thread of support from him. 

The essence of this is that in leaving Hawaii for the mainland I didn't take a step up in class as I thought I would, but instead took a step down and into a much more class-stratified society. 

And my hang-up about being considered "haole" is a laugh too, as out of the five of us, myself and my siblings, I'm the least white-looking. But "haole" can not only be about appearance, but can also be about attitude, even body language. Being "stiff", being "up on your high horse" etc. And, frankly, I was this. 

I was deeply embarrassed by "local" culture and for years never said a word about my having grown up in Hawaii. I strove to eat "mainland" foods, taking things like black bread and Swiss cheese in my lunch to my job at Foodland. Later, at another job, I made a point of buying these frozen burritos shipped in from the mainland because they were superior, mainland, food. 

At a local motorcycle shop in Kaimuki, one of the guys was nicknamed "Yuppie" probably because he was given to going on about making money in the stock market or some such idiocy, "Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades" sort of attitude. And if so, as someone who really believed in that song, which was big at the time, it's natural I guess that I'd wear the tag "haole" and obviously so. 

It's all very idiotic. I was the one in the family who spent the most time in the ocean, by far. I was the one who fished and foraged and gathered. I was certainly the most devoted to crack seed, and who brought home things like pipi kaula and kulolo. I certainly know more of the Hawaiian legends, reading and re-reading Mary Kawena Pukui's book, than any of my siblings. 

What a strange thing! Does this happen with Indians, with the schizophrenic world of Indian and British culture so many of them grow up in? Or Japanese, especially in the Meiji period? Or First Nations Americans? 

I was the one who learned, from a throw net fisherman, how to throw a net. I was the one who got up at 4AM to look for Japanese glass floats, brought to Hawaii by the Kuroshio current, and washed up on my Windward Side beaches. I was the one who took great pride in making a really good bowl of saimin. 

How could I turn my back on all these things? But in the 80s, nostalgia and being folksy were not cool. 

Over the decade I've been here in San Jose, I've gone from shopping almost exclusively at Safeway, to gravitating more and more to Asian markets. When Whole Foods came in I shopped there a lot, but now I hardly buy anything there and about 95% of my shopping is in Asian markets although I have to give Walmart a nod because they have most of the things Whole Foods does, even the same brands, for a lot less. 

Mainly I've come more and more to avoid "white spaces" and the Walmart I go to is hardly that - like Hawaii, it's maybe 15% white and it's hard for anyone to be on their high horse when they're in a Walmart. 

And I just go there to save on some things. I'd be very happy if I could get everything I needed at Asian markets. Maybe as I get older I just want to cut out the bullshit and have gravitated more to places I feel more comfortable. 

But day to day here ... I feel like crap. When I was drinking, beer and sake, I was taking in a ton of calories and those in the form of sugars, carbs, and alcohol. Now I'm on a diet where I'm not even eating noodles. A keto diet. So I suspect I've got what the keto people call "keto flu".