When you put your arms around meI gat a fever that's so hard to bearYou give me fever

Four people were killed in a helicopter crash in Hawaii yesterday.

I'm not really sure what to say about that one.

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In other news, a mother coached her children to fake retardation for twenty years to collect social security benefits.

I mean, wow. Twenty years of pretending to be retarded. That is awesome.

When the wind blows and the rain feels coldWith a head full of snowIn the window, there's a face you knowDon't the nights pass slow?

I have a dream.




I have had this dream for quite some time, dating back into the 90's, when I was practicing law, making money and hating life.



(I took a helicopter ride with Lizzy, my dad, my former partner, Karla, and her husband, Tim.)

It is a lucid dream, and I am living part of it already.


((We flew around the west side of Maui, then checked out Molokai, the Forbidden Island. Molokai was called that because it had a leper colony. Even today, only 5000 people live there year-round, as opposed to 200,000 on Maui, just a few miles away.))

I used to dream, there at my desk, or driving to court, or listening to some client bitch and stomp his foot like a child because things weren't going the way he wanted.


(((I drew the coveted "shotgun" seat, and, honestly, when we took off, it felt like getting high. Or so I have read. The pilot lifted about two feet off the ground and did this slow swivel around the launch pad. Dude.)))

Starting in September each year, I would fantasize about snow and mountains while I sat in Wisconsin, wearing a fucking tie, going to court, arguing with douchebags, on behalf of douchebags trying to get over on other douchebags, all the while trying not to let any of the stink permeate my armor.




((((The views weren't very good. Especially when we swooped through the valley where they filmed part of Jurassic Park.))))

My legal pad, my pen, my haircut, my fancy suit, my fancy education, my fancy words, my fancy car, my bullshit, my fake smile, my handshake... all of it was my armor.




(((((That last picture is of a waterfall that comes out of a big hole in the cliff roughly a thousand feet from the top. I actually have a few videos for you. They aren't as meth-addict twitchy as my snow boarding videos, since I am a little less concerned with ripping my knee in half or spreading my brains in a festive fashion across some pine boughs.

I figured that was the pilot's problem.)))))

And that armor protected my spirit. My joie de vivre. My elan. My Force.




((((((^^Are words even necessary?))))))

All that time, ten years, plus the four years in law school (which should have taken three, but I did learn to surf and play beach volleyball, so it wasn't a total waste), I could retreat into my armor, my shell, and dream of another day.






(((((((That last picture is a valley cut through 2000 foot, shear cliffs on Molokai. Some Duder built a house down there, where the river hits that little bay. You can only get there by boat or helicopter.

I am fairly certain there isn't any cell reception, or a Wal McMart anywhere nearby.))))))

The dream had two parts, one of which has actualized, here in Montana. I get to rip down mountain chutes, choking on powder with my best friend since age 13, make incredible music with an even more incredible woman, kayak, hike and see grizzly bears, elk and eagles, and soak in some of the most gorgeous scenery you can imagine.



((((((The leper colony was on that little peninsula there, surrounded by 2000 foot cliffs. Even today, you take a boat or a two day mule ride to get there. Down a 2000 foot cliff.)))))))





The other part of that dream involves me living part of the year in a a foreign country. Maybe an island. Maybe Costa Rica.


((((((Those are humpback whales.))))))))




In any case, it involves me sitting on a stool, under a tiki hut with a chest-high counter. In back of me, there is a cheap pegboard with fifteen coffee cup hooks, each holding a small, numbered key, corresponding with one of my fifteen mopeds. You come and rent them. By the hour, by the day. Whatever.

There would be a cooler, and little kid named Pepe, who would fetch me fish tacos.

I would have a little radio with an antenna, which would play the beisbol.


I would say, "Here you go. It's the blue one."


And then I would go back to my book. Who knows? Maybe I would even write one.



Who knows?



Sometimes dreams come true.

And Mahalo for that.

P.S. Paulette, I definitely bought a ukelele. A nice one.

Somewhere, over the rainbowWay up high

I am back at my home station here. Starfleet headquarters.





Things got a bit.. a bit... I'd like to say "hectic," but it was a pretty much the opposite of hectic. Anyway, old friends, things got too chill amidst the ocean breezes on Maui.




I spent some time with the family.



I spent some time kayaking.




I spent some time in the sun, drinking a frozen drink with a hibiscus blossom.



(That is a humpback whale.)




I spent some time driving on small, one-lane roads, which reassured me that there are still people living in brown, sun-kissed isolation, with chickens wandering free and startlingly bright white smiles, offering hot-out-of-the-oven banana bread that warmed me far more deeply than the sun ever could.





Liz and I went on a whale-watching cruise, then we drove around the West/North side of the island for the banana-bread goodness.




She and I get on like a house on fire.



Maui is damned unsightly. Reminds me a bit of Kansas.




Occasionally, you run across a situation so odd that it makes you yearn to throw a dead, limp squid on it, tentacles splayed in a way that you can taste the calimari, which you love despite knowing that beneath that fried, circular, almost-onion ring-like-except-for-that-strange-rubbery-chewy-sensation goodness, you are eating something that has ten legs, a beak, and squirts ink out its ass whenever Jacques Cousteau gets too close.




It's times like those that make you grip your grapes and ask yourself, "Why shouldn't I buy a ukelele? Why?"



Times when you find yourself shrugging your shoulders and explaining to the TSA dude in rubber gloves that yes, you have a ukelele in your luggage, dammit, and I am happy to see you.



There are times when I wish I had more Words. For you, for me, for posterity. Yet, everytime I sit and try to write, it seems that I lack the skills to translate the experience adequately into the English language. I feel like just making stuff up, but that would be an injustice to the experience... yet, I read exclusively fiction. Twisted fiction (this week, I read the new Irvine Welsh book, The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs, and the new Chuck Palahniuk book, Haunted, both masterworks of depravity).




Ahhh, who cares, anyway?





So long as you escaped from the Man for ten minutes on a Monday, forgetting where you were, taking a mental dreamscape internet vacation, basking in the warm sunlight, I fulfilled my end of the bargain.





When are you going to fulfill yours?

Hmmm?