can't you trip like i do?

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1 september 1997

10:56 p.m.

With the first week of school safely behind me, Derek and I spent a simple and much-needed day together on Sunday. Now, for the last couple of weeks, I had placed a restriction on our outings -- mainly due to my tendency of not making it home afterward. Although it seemed reasonable -- surely I needed time to get my mind back into student mode -- it didn't quite work. I never got around to buying my books or memorizing my schedule, and spent the majority of the break wishing we were together anyway. By the time classes started, I felt the same way I did last year... hating myself for wasting my last moments of freedom before getting sucked into the collegiate maelstrom. I woke up to the sound of Derek knocking on my door, as my alarm clock -- wrongly set for 6:30 a.m. -- had been murdered earlier that morning. He immediately set about tidying up my apartment... always the best incentive to get me awake and dressed quickly. Deciding out of the blue that I wanted Chinese food -- char siu manapua, specifically -- we headed out to discover it wasn't the easiest thing to find on a Sunday. It finally dawned on us that Chinatown might be a good place to look. We ended up at a hole-in-the-wall, cleverly called "The Manapua Shop," on Bishop Street. The hot mustard was properly hot, the pork hash had generous hunks of pork, and the two of us got stuffed for under eight bucks. It's amazing the gems you find in this town when you're not looking. Picking a direction at random, we found ourselves headed up the Pali and decided to stop at the lookout for the hell of it. The tourists were unusually sparse, and we just stood at the railing and took in the unparalleled view, from Kane`ohe Bay to the curtain-like cliffs of the Ko`olau range. It felt like I hadn't been there for years, since some grade-school field trip. We walked part of the way down what used to be the Old Pali Road, looking down on the traffic racing through the tunnels that replaced it. The wind did things to my dress that made Derek's day. It started to rain, so we continued on into Kailua, drove a short stretch of the infamous H-3 freeway, and headed back into town via Likelike. I found to my delight that I could still hold my breath through the extended tunnel. We stopped at Subway for our gourmet dinner and headed next door to rent some videos. We picked up the four-hour "Hamlet" and "Seconds" -- a Rock Hudson classic I was always curious about. Unfortunately, I could only take the first forty minutes of "Seconds," after which the dancing hippies became unbearable. With a deep breath, we plunged headlong into "Hamlet." Despite his assurances to the contrary, Derek was ready to pass out by the time Laertes left for France. It was my turn to wake him up. We never made it to the second tape. I should find out tomorrow if I got the campus webmaster ("plus light clerical") job. I forgot to mention, however, one thing that's been giving me second thoughts. When I went in for my interview, I was left to sit in a cubicle for several minutes. It was cluttered enough to convince me actual work took place there, and I was encouraged by the absence of "Adobe PageMill" and "Claris Home Page" on the sagging shelves. The computer was a PowerMac with all the amenities, including a scanner. On the scanner, I discovered a little Post-It note. The note read: "Steph -- when you go home, don't forget to turn off Mr. Scanner!" A cheeky happy face, carefully colored with a yellow highlighter, completed the message. I'm not sure how long I could take working with anyone who would refer to computer peripherals as "mister" anything. At best, it's awfully unoriginal. If I do get the job, my first task will be to give those devices proper names. Names like Moon Unit, Elvis, Basil, Elisa, Zaphod... and Kenny. Sometimes I don't mind the ban on keeping pets in this apartment. Who needs hamsters when random tourists provide equally satisfying giggles? As Derek and I were first headed out yesterday, we walked past a young Japanese visitor in a garish yellow bikini crouching before a newspaper stand. She was trying to read the paper -- its huge headline, "Diana killed in Paris crash," readable from across the street -- through the hazy plastic window. Apart from a few rude remarks about the general lack of fashion sense among tourists, we thought nothing more of it. We saw her again several minutes later, however, as we circled the block. (Waikiki is a labyrinth of one-way streets -- to go in the Diamond Head direction from my street, you have make a complete loop around the block.) Stopped at the long light, we watched as the woman puzzled over how to operate the mysterious yellow contraption. She figured out the basics -- that the machine wanted coins. She couldn't quite grasp the particulars, though, and seemed determined to figure it out by trial and error. (For best effect, you have to imagine each attempt being punctuated by none-too-discreet wedgie adjustments.) She'd plop in a few coins, pull at the door, bend over to scrutinize the instructions, and pull harder at the door. She succeeded only in noisily rocking the machine and attracting the attention of the thirty or so people waiting at the adjacent bus stop. After repeating this process a couple of times, its futility eventually registered. She put her face right up to the coin slot, perhaps hoping the Japanese instructions were mounted somewhere inside. Then she spotted the coin return button. Sadly, she failed to surmise its purpose. She confidently punched the button and -- unaware that all her money had now been dumped out -- again yanked at the door. This spilled assorted coinage all over the sidewalk, to the merriment of some youths at the aforementioned bus stop. Undaunted, she retrieved her money and fed it back into the machine. She stepped back to size it up for a moment, and again pushed the coin return button. Again she found the stubborn door locked. Finally, a light bulb seemed to flash above the woman's head. She grabbed the door handle with one hand, and depressed the big black button with the other. Making sure she was holding it down, and adjusting her stance, she pulled yet again at the door... and nearly lost her balance. "Should I help her?" Derek asked. But then the light turned green. Guilt prompted us to come around a second time to render aid... but by then she was gone. Gone also was the paper in the machine's window, although there were many more stacked within. "I guess she didn't just want a paper," Derek said. "She wanted that paper."