vowels

today was my first full day in honolulu. i am writing this on the stairwell of the hostel, at 120am HST, exiled from the room i am sharing with d so that he can sleep. he snores like i have never heard anyone snore before; it's louder and more disturbing than the garbage truck that idled under the window at 7am. it's a phlegmy, evil sound that he emits even when laying on his chest. the four people in the next room doubtless had trouble sleeping also. my own fucking insomnia, related this time to our residual tension and dread from last week as well as his horrible noise, has allowed me 6 hours of sleep since 9am sunday. i feel exhausted but not tired. but the trip has been an emotional drain thus far. d and i have been sniping at each other a lot. there were many times today when the thought "i don't even like you as a human" crossed my mind. so these photos shall remind me that there was much fantasticness gleaned from today as well... my bitchiness-calibrator.
these trees are everywhere. they are huge, about 50' tall, and the strandy branch-things hang to and sometimes root underground.

i do believe i am the palest person in oahu.

honolulu is embarrassingly picturesque. "what came first, the skyline or the strategically placed palms?" i asked d. as usual, he merely grunted. or perhaps i am less hilarious than i think i am.

i don't really like this town overall, though. waikiki is a fucking shithole, in the way that downtown is nothing but high-rise hotels and sprawling malls and cacophonic gift-shop-including chain restaurants and thumping dance music and cheesy plastic shit and people handing out flyers for the indoor shooting range.
however, the people here, the locals, are amazing... uniformly gregarious, friendly, enthusiastic about their home. the only rude folks i've encountered are the aforementioned tourists... a universal lament.
from the past 24hrs:
-a man fanning warm air from the bus exhaust vent as it pulled away from the curb.
-elderly asian women in orthopedic sandals and ankle socks.
-a group of stoners playing backgammon.
-being bitten by a cockatoo and bleeding for the next five minutes.
-a blue crab scuttling along the outside of the bulkhead at the beach.
-getting splashed by a wave as i was standing in the water and exclaiming, before realizing i was within earshot of several preteen boys, "ooh! that went all up in my business!"
-taking a random bus tonight, by myself, and listening to neil young, then bobby hebb, then gogol bordello. the lights inside the bus make people look dead.
-cigarette butts littering the adjacent rooftop.
-johnny, a falling-down drunk who'll be "fifty next year, bra!", telling about how he's going to make love to his woman for the first time on valentine's day.
-every clerk i've encountered greeting people with "aloha."
-learning about the haitian earthquake from fucking facebook.
-video-screen trivia at an irish pub. other patrons chain-smoked under the "no smoking" signs.
-humidity but no dew.
the climate is stunning. it was about 80 today, cloudless, no breeze. i would get incredibly fucking bored if i had to be in it all the time, but after three months of the seattle sky vomiting its misery down the back of my neck, it's a very pleasant change.


i am that girl.
now i must try to sleep. mind first, then body.