the smallest glimmer disturbs them.

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22 april 1997

11:52 p.m.

Dear diary, I absolutely, positively had no problem with Derek's leaving next month for his traditional three-week conference. I know it's more slick packaging and catered dinners than actual content. I understand hard-core schmooze is the name of the game, and that if you're going to stay afloat in a bloated government bureaucracy these days, you've gotta press some serious flesh. Honestly. I didn't mind at all. That is until someone let it slip last night that week number three was not on the convention agenda, and was instead -- traditionally -- "play time" for the constantly growing Hawai`i delegation. So while I'm collapsing from the maelstrom that will be finals week (okay, so I'm only taking one class, but it's very important to me), he's going to be taking cheesy pictures with a gargantuan but mysteriously mute mouse. I'm not upset as a taxpayer. Though my very-swiftly-cashed $315 check is paying to get him there, it's also bringing him back. Besides... anything spent outside the $160-a-night hotel hosting the convention has to be paid out of pocket. What bugs me is the simple fact that he had six days of vacation time saved up, and he's spending it with the people with whom he already spends 50-plus hours a week. And not with me. I'm not sure what upsets me more. That he's going to be having lots of fun without me, or that I was apparently not supposed to know about the "fun part" of this trip. On the former, I'm probably just being a selfish bitch. He did expend some of his precious vacation time to run away with me -- on very short notice -- to Kaua`i. Then again, it was the first really substantial hunk of time we've spent together. Since then, I've found myself hungry for more. It's more likely the latter. He's right in saying it makes no real difference, and I truly was comfortable with the idea of his being away for the full three weeks. On the other hand, the simple fact that anything was consciously tagged as something I shouldn't know irks the hell out of me. No, I don't expect to know everything; I couldn't track every detail if I wanted to. But experience has taught me that the things people don't tell you are the very same things you really should hear. He knew I'd be upset. He knew I'd take it personally. And frankly, he's right. But hearing it from a teetering coworker in a noisy Waikiki bar rather than directly from him when the trip was first brought up is... insulting. I'll get over it. At least I guilted him into getting me a pair of custom mouse ears. I want it to be embroidered with the name "Ophelia." While the fascists at Disney Industries officially forbid such frivolity in their theme park merchandising, the peons in the stores can be bribed (Brant, my friend in Oregon, has a pair that reads, "Chimera"). Mysteriously, the mere thought of The Ears calms me... You know, it's shameful how easily I can be bought. Hell, I once forgave a malicious schoolyard taunting for a small box of stale Froot Loops. No doubt about it, I'm going through a clingy phase. At least I knew well enough to warn Derek ahead of time. On Sunday, I just had a huge, totally irrational need to see him. I probably paced a good two miles within the closet-sized confines of my apartment before I just surrendered to the insanity and picked up the phone. The next thing I knew, I was strolling down to Chili's, a bar on Kuhio just a few blocks away, to meet him and a few coworkers who were looking to celebrate the eleventh-hour completion of some super secret project. It was the first bar I'd set foot in for some time, and I immediately sensed why that might be. In my advancing age, I think I've become seriously claustrophobic. And boisterous, loud drunken revelry -- of which there was an ample supply -- isn't as fun when it's not emanating from your table. At one point, one of the goons in the rowdy party nearby (all smashed after watching the highly-touted Padres game at Aloha Stadium) started grinding his crotch against the wall. This garnered him the loudest cheer of all. A cheer, in fact, that eventually got the whole lot of them thrown out. The drinks were flying. Coronas and margaritas, mostly. After trying to be the good girl and ordering the unlisted but quite tasty homemade ginger ale, I took a strawberry margarita myself. All inhibitions were lost within half an hour. Intimate secrets and normally repressed opinions about each others' personal habits were shamelessly blurted out. In addition to the stunning revelation about the trip (which didn't actually stun me until the next morning), I was dragged into an unusually graphic discussion on the concept of "toe-gasms." Thanks to the someone-who-knew-someone-who-knew-someone clause in local social relation theory, we got a free round of beer and a plate of the most sinfully awesome nachos. Noisy though it was, I was beginning to enjoy the character of a noisy, dimly lit, spirited ol' tavern. Then the server said the place was closing. For good. In about a month. Goodbye, "Chili's." Hello, "Aloha Joe's." A "classier," more "upscale" place, said he... replete with cappuccino machine. And Mozart and a rotating black-and-white photography exhibit, no doubt. There oughtta be a law... I just finished my book for my Hawaiian class tonight. Eighteen pages, eight almost decent construction-paper cutout illustrations and a handmade, cloth-wrapped cover. I get to read it to everyone in class tomorrow. Four times. Pathetic though it may be, the majority of my free time in the last few days was spent on this contented, purring computer. Yet another mailing list, yet another "I'd be happy to do your web page" cashed in, more of the same ol' cybershit. I also started a glossary of sorts, but it still needs lots of work in order to look like it wasn't thrown together on a whim (which it was). It's supposed to help add context to my web diary, but sadly, it turned into more of a standalone source of occasional yucks. One thing that struck me in assembling my favorite catch-phrases in one place: I'm a lot more race conscious than I thought. As a geek of Japanese ancestry, though, I think it's okay for me to poke fun at Japanese people. It's one of the few remaining loopholes in federal Politically Correct statutes. Or something.