around the world in thirty minutes.

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12 may 1997

9:05 p.m.

Dear diary, I've been watching CNN's "Headline News" network for the last couple of hours while working on my final paper for Hawaiian -- or rather, avoiding it. Why stare at an empty "Untitled1" when I can open a fresh slice of HTML and babble at you for a while? Since everything on this station repeats every half hour (and I'm too lazy to change the channel), I pretty much have the top news of the day memorized. Four times now I've seen the story about the woman who swam from Cuba to Florida. Four times I've seen her stagger ashore, gasping for breath -- probably thinking, "I really need to find a blanket and lie down" -- before disappearing under a swarm of news cameras and shiny happy reporters asking how it felt. And four times now the anchor has said, "She arrived yesterday on the southernmost point of the U.S." No wonder the woman's pooped. For crying out loud, it's 5,143 miles from Cuba to Hawai`i. That's right, Mr. Turner, the city of Ka`u on the Big Island dips a good couple of thousand miles below the tippy-tip of Florida. And though it's a relatively recent development (what was it, 1959?), I think you should start acknowledging that Hawai`i is a state. I mean, it's bad enough we get relegated to little boxes in the corners of weather maps and posters. Sometimes we don't even get that. That's why I've always had a bizarre empathy with people in Alaska. People there and people in Hawai`i share a common bond: The Fellowship of Fine Print. You know what I mean. It's right up there with "batteries not included" in the collective consciousness of the American marketplace. If a multimillion-dollar ad campaign includes a blinking neon price tag, it also includes the afterthought, "Prices may vary in Hawai`i and Alaska." Even if the chummy-voiced announcer bubbles, "The same great food, the same great price, anywhere in the country," there's still the 1-point subtitle, "Excludes HI & AK." And "coast to coast"? I'm presuming they don't mean Ka`anapali Beach. Sure, people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands get honorary membership in our club of non-contiguous malcontents, but let's face it... neither of them are states, and fifty-one stars on the flag would look dumb. I guess when you get right down to it, we're a pseudo-state. If you can't drive there in a motor home (and I didn't know what a motor home was for the longest time), it doesn't really count. Good enough for federal taxes, sure... but when I want to see if it's going to be hotter here or in California at a glance? Hmph. (Bitter? Who me?) Still, the Fellowship of Fine Print does come with a couple of odd benefits. For example, BMG -- one of those "ten CDs for the price of one" music clubs -- figured it was too expensive to ship its "Featured Selection" to us rockbugs every month only for us to mail it back. So, we get to browse the catalog and pick whatever... with no commitment to re-wrap and race to the post office, ever! And "spring forward, fall back"? Bah, humbug. Geez that Kasparov is one sore loser. A reclusive geek loses a chess game to a computer and suddenly its the end of modern civilization? I don't seem to be able to make the connection. I haven't been able to talk to Derek since he left. At least I've got three short "sorry I missed you" messages on my machine to play back if I want to hear his voice. I never thought to ask what hotel he was staying at, so I can't exactly call him... Despite his protestations, it's a good thing I didn't spend every waking moment with him this past week. I might've gotten used to having him around, and would be spending nights like these climbing the walls. Keeping my distance, though, not seeing him off at the airport... this way I don't miss him much at all. Well, maybe a little.