Week 60

I have a strange habit of doing some of my best writing while I'm riding public transit in a place not home to me. This is what I wrote sitting on the number 42 bus on the way to Pearl Harbor, Honolulu.

Everyone here is attractive, but all in the same kind of way: streaked blonde, hair beach-mussed, jean short shorts or sundress, dark makeup around their eyes. Yeah it looks good, but it all sort of blues out against the background.

I'm afraid of writing because I think I'll miss out on something going on around me.

Other people staying at the hostel w/ me: Japanese lady with really god English, 3 Russians, all topless and powerfully built and really unmistakably Russian in demeanor and facial expression.

"Is it like Macy's?" "No, because Macy's would take that hoodie &... It's more like Ross."

I think some shitty kid was just taking a picture of me. I don't know why else he would have been point his smashed-up iPhone at me like that, or why he would have thrown it down as if he had been caught when I turned and looked at him.

Chubby kids w anchorman singlets and backward peak hats. One has some crusty stuff around the corners of his lips. Their caps still have the stickers but they aren't the 59FIFTY stickers or whatever. 'Adjustable fit' and 'Monster,' as in the energy drinks.

I feel bad for making fun of them. It seems too easy & occupied with other people. Everything wrong with the world.

Big dog dad rules: 1. Dad is always right. 2. Refer to number 1. On a man who carries most of his weight on his hips.

The ladies up front are still talking Macy's.

It's only a dollar for seniors.

Oh, yes, we'll use that next time. We have our seniors' medical card from Australia.

You need a seniors' card.

We have one from Australia, yeah.

I just give a dollar. Don't even show my seniors card.

They take that?

Yeah, they take it.

& they think you're a senior?

Yeah, they take it. It pisses me off but they take it. Laughs.

A lady walks by with glitter on her arms, worn like body makeup. She's maybe in her fifties or sixties. Could be younger but has seen some rough times in her life.

I first I wonder whether Japanese people tend to avoid visiting the memorial at Pearl Harbor but then a group of some fifteen Japanese tourists board the bus. In fact, there's even a Japanese recording that tells us what's alright on the bus and what isn't.

We're not allowed to use cellphones or cameras because Pearl Harbor is an active military base.

The Missouri, which I was just aboard, fired on Muroran.

[Which by the way if you haven't been there I suggest you make a trip like posthaste because it's a really strange town, no offense to anyone reading this from Muroran.]

Elder lady sits down next to kid, get gets really offended/hurt look on his face, some impatience, boredom & annoyance at having to sit next to her, moving his bag grudgingly, looking out the window. I don't know if the look of annoyance is transitory or if that's the way his face is -- and if that's just the way, is it natal, like from birth, or has it been twisted into that shape by so many instances of annoyance?

Sunny hills w/ very ominous dark sky behind.

When I sit down the seat is warm with the person before me.

A man in a jean jacket and jeans that matched perfectly in color and age. A man with a tattoo badly done so it looks like gangrenous flesh. Every woman that gets off the bus gives the 'press to open' door bars a really violent shake, throwing all of their weight into it. A lady dressed as a prostitute except way older and more overweight than a prostitute has any business being. A man with a braided ponytail that dangles near the crease between thigh and ass. Another likely prostitute, this one at normal weight but making up for it in almost Methuselaic age.

The lady next to me met one of her friends on The Bus. Relates a story of a new boyfriend, who maybe I heard wrong but is a hustler. He has a quote-unquote Heart of Gold, & is taking dangerously good care of her, spoiling I think she said. Her friend thanks God for sending this (maybe-)hustler to her, and she, the be-boyfriended, gives a very very very ambivalent agreement.

Lady in University of Hawaii (UH) asleep on a camping chair alone on a grassy slope.

Scruffy man in torn Under Armor t-shirt w/ camping gear and smoking a cigarette.

A guy leaning on the window fanning himself with his iPhone.

Game to play here: fashionably elementary school student or Japanese tourist?

I keep taking out my phone as if to check for texts from Jordan but I know there will be none as I do not have any connection.

An obviously homeless guy in the disabled/elderly seats along up two seats eternal him and his enormous backpack, which altogether is half of all of the disabled seats on the bus.

Two men walking side by side in identical outfits, which outfits are all white & include short shorts, walking w/o moving their arms, looking like robots.

Don't mistake aloha for weakness -- defend Hawaii -- license plate cover decked with not one not two not three but four M16 rifles