and the painted ponies go up and down
326-330
331-338
339-345
akiramemasu
346-349
350-355
356-359
the lion of the rabbit
360-366
367-377
the wheel spins
378-389
last month of the second year
390-396
397-404
405-413

326

The Sleeptalker posted a public message in Seventh Circle suggesting he had decided to stop playing altogether, and thanking me for having been one of the few people in there who has been kind to him. I was deeply touched by it, and extremely annoyed that the Bosses removed the message from the public bulletin board within hours.

Sigh.

But he didn't stick with his decision and was back in again the next day.

Although I have absolutely no idea what, and neither Cainer nor the I Ching are suggesting such a thing, I have the strongest presentiment that something major is going to happen in my life soon. I'm really not sure I want something major to happen ...

But then, I hadn't asked the I Ching about it. I did, and almost wished I hadn't.

It's a time to either be very very careful or to say to hell with it and get my tail wet.

Egbert's birthday. I spent some time the evening before searching the Web to see if any trace of him might be found, without success (although I was greatly surprised to see my own Tale about him turn up on two search machines). It has been more than twenty years since I've heard any news of him, so have no idea even if he's still alive. But with Harley turning up after a long absence, who knows, anything could happen.

I was greatly relieved to finish Crime and Punishment. Although I read it in my teens, I think it must have gone right over my head because I certainly wasn't touched deeply by it then. Now, though, it easily qualifies as one of the most difficult books I've ever read. I think I'll give the Russians a rest.

It's Finals Week on campus, a time of parties for the end of school and high stress over the upcoming tests. Hamilton Library will be open until midnight every night. And then we'll have a week of drought and famine, a deserted campus, the libraries closing at five every night and perhaps not open at all on the weekends, little tobacco and food. No problem. All I have to do to prepare for it is to make sure I acquire enough creamer packets to keep my treasured morning tea available until the summer session starts on the 24th (sugar I can always get at McD's).

Life goes on, within and without you, within and without the University being in full swing.

327

I must admit, the Sleeptalker does now and then manage to completely astound me, sometimes in a positive sense but, alas, far more often the opposite. As I was leaving campus just after ten-thirty on Thursday night, I saw him and a man I'd never seen before arriving. "Don't even talk to him," the Sleeptalker said with a grin and they kept walking. Weird, I thought, but then he had been weird in the game all day, starting out quite surly and then becoming very friendly later in the day. He had tried to pretend Wacky and I had some quarrel, but I told him I never had any problem with Wacky on his own and was later standing in the game chatting with Wacky when the Sleeptalker came across us, listened for a moment, said nothing and went on his way.

So I had no idea what the story was with the brief encounter Thursday night, but slept in a different-than-usual spot at the cloisters in case he arrived down there later, not wanting to be awakened. On Friday morning I was sitting on the sheltered ledge reading when the Sleeptalker walked up, alone, in his most charming mode, and he stayed that way all day. But as I told Kory K later in the morning, I had the feeling this might be a kind of finale to the Tale of the Reting and Lolo. I know I should just ignore everything else and enjoy the moments when it is fun to be with him, but even though I'm doing that more than I've ever managed to do it with a friendship before, it still can't be entirely rid of superfluous junk I don't want my mind to be bothered with. I'm willing to give it up altogether at this point and would, if he didn't keep seeking me out.

But since he did, I borrowed five dollars so we could have a lunchtime beer, spent more time than I otherwise would have searching for smokes and food, and then went downhill for a second beer in time for the live music at Manoa Garden in the evening. As before, he wasn't really interested in the music, wanted to get back to the game, so when the beer was finished, we went back to Hamilton and the game. Soon Wacky joined us, a grand gesture on his part, I suppose, ending an unusually long break between them. And around nine-thirty, I saw them get up and leave, neither saying a word. Now that, of course, is just the kind of thing which I shouldn't give a second thought, should get on with my life again until the Sleeptalker makes his next appearance. And about an hour later, back they both came, saying not a word again.

No, it's just too ... what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know, but I do know I don't want my mind to be wasting its time looking for it.

Earlier this week I read a few of the Tales from this time last year. I said about the interim week coming up "the off-line weekend, the short library hours during the week, and the even longer off-line weekend ahead, plus the comparatively deserted campus, makes for a time quite unlike anything in these almost-eight months of nomadic life", but I don't see an indication of the strange, slightly depressing melancholy (or is it nostalgia) which marks the end of this academic year. I wonder if the students, especially the Seniors, feel it, too?

This week they're too worried about those final tests to pay much attention to it, if they do.

The cleaning army are running around in a frenzy, constantly emptying cans and ashtrays, giving the place the empty wasteland aspect not expected until that week after the Finals. Not sure what their problem is.

And by mid-afternoon on the first day of tests, some of the students looked like they had just lost everything they owned and others were beaming and smiling. Not hard to tell who thought they'd done well and who was feeling very worried about the results. Another group were being constantly silly and near hysteria, probably with a tough test coming up early the next day.

A strange time in academia ...

The Philosophy Department threw out a box of books last week. I was tempted to take Sartre's Being and Nothingness but didn't want to lug it around or go back to stash it in my hiding place, thought I'd pick it up the next day. It was gone. I did get a small volume called Why India Lives which began as an exposition of Vedic philosophy but evolved into a comparative study of all the major religions. The author has a definite knack for throwing the spotlight on unusual points, as in the case of discussing the Old Testament vs Koran versions of The Creation. Whereas the O.T. has God "resting" at the end of it, the Koran makes the specific point that he was not tired and had no need to rest. Indeed, why should an omnipotent god have to rest?

So that has provided my predawn tea-time reading since the departure of Dostoyevsky and as I told a friend, only partly in jest, is "light reading" by comparison. And a little closer, perhaps, to genuine "light" reading, Dame Fortune left a copy of Tom Wolf's Bonfire of Vanities in my path on Friday, so I'm set for a few days.

She'll have to rev herself up to provide such finds more often. Both of the libraries on campus are going to be closed on Saturday throughout the summer, and Hamilton will only be open during the afternoon on Sunday. I don't mind. Spending less time on-line isn't at all a bad idea.

327a

Fickle. That's the word I was seeking (as though my mind would stop pondering it even if told to).

Many men are fond of the Sleeptalker. As I've said, and told him, he has more "best friends" than anyone I've ever known. Most of them don't want his body, or don't realize they do, but I'm not the only one who does. And they all, or perhaps I should say, we all, eventually get exasperated with him and abandon him for a time. In every instance, he manages to interpret it as him doing the abandoning and is secure in the experienced knowledge that, in time, they will return to his flock.

I think only Rocky and I do not eventually seek him out, but wait until he looks for us or until circumstances cause our paths to cross unintentionally.

I'm not sure why this time I feel more exasperated than before. Perhaps it was the set and setting of our recent encounters, that odd "ships that pass in the night" meeting on Thursday or, sitting in the dawn quiet reading on Friday and hearing his familiar voice ask, "what are you reading?"

"A book about God," I said.

"Jesus?" he asked. "No, God." "Oh. God."

An odd beginning to a day with the Sleeptalker, indeed, even more odd than its peculiar ending. The return of Wacky to the fold, the Sleeptalker knowing he had walked to the University from downtown (a heartwarming sensation I understand completely), freed him from needing me, so he flitted to Wacky as if our day together was already ancient history.

Now the better part of me understands that is exactly as it should be, but there is still a part that raises an eyebrow and says, with scorn, "fickle bitch".

327b

Mister Wolfe writes: "He liked to walk across to Central Park West on Seventy-Seventh Street and then walk up to Eighty-First, because that took him past the Museum of Natural History. It was a beautiful block, the most beautiful block on the West Side ..."

Having been fortunate enough to live on that block for two and a half years, I couldn't agree more.

I left the Sleeptalker and Wacky at Hamilton on Saturday morning and went to the mall. Tobacco is in such short supply on campus, as is food, and I only needed three shopping carts for a bottle of beer. Tobacco was in short supply at the mall, too, thanks to energetic cleaning persons and nomadic competitors, but I did find a salad and some curly fries for lunch, four shopping carts, with no problem. The supermarket there still sells Hurricane, so I got myself a bottle of that and returned to the secluded grove to enjoy it and Wolfe.

Back at Hamilton, the poor Sleeptalker was all on his own (his most dreaded circumstance) because Wacky had gone off "home" to shower. News to me that he has a "home", but I didn't ask and the Sleeptalker may have meant IHS. Wacky was supposed to return afterwards, though.

Yes, I can survive Hamilton being closed on Saturday during the summer, no problem.

328

Incredible. The I Ching once again gave the oracle Possession in Great Measure for the new week, even more favorably configured. I don't recall ever before having gotten that oracle in such quick succession. It made a beautiful Sunday morning even more beautiful.

"Finale"? No. End of Act 2, methinks. A shift, perhaps best symbolized by having obtained five dollars instead of twenty, by having hunted carts for a beer and drinking it on my own. The Sleeptalker, I think, sensed a shift had taken place and no doubt completely unconsciously resumed his once-upon-a-time so sweetly flirtatious mode. It worked even better because I didn't take it seriously.

Wacky did not return to the library from "home" (which was indeed IHS) as expected, but did go to the State Library and tried to persuade the Sleeptalker to join him at "home" for dinner. It didn't work, even though I'd told the Sleeptalker I was planning to leave around nine and go to Waikiki. He had complained bitterly, again, about Wacky and I told him how they reminded me of two gay lovers, constantly squabbling. He thought that very funny and said, "oh yes, Wacky's my bitch". I'm not sure which would be the biggest "bitch" if it really were a love affair, but I do think it would be good for them both if they just got on with it. Not going to happen, I fear.

So we played the game, taking occasional breaks together, and I found some sandwiches someone had discarded so we didn't go hungry, But the cumulative effect of the strange recent dance with him did have me feeling really very tired and I took a few long breaks by myself, just to sit and watch the birds and later the stars, and then decided I just didn't have the energy to tackle an expedition into Waikiki. So we stayed until almost midnight, walked downhill to the cloisters and he went over the fence to his spot, climbing back again in the morning just as I was preparing to leave. Since the library wasn't opening until noon, he had already decided to walk down to IHS for a shower and lunch, so we parted outside the cloisters.

I was happy he went on his way, was looking forward to the morning on the quiet, deserted campus, and to continuing Tom Wolfe's highly amusing novel.

Possession in Great Measure, Act 2. Reting and Lolo, Act 3.

329

I hope His Majesty the King of Nepal is enjoying good health. I dreamed on Monday night that he had died and, in yet another bizarre advisor-to-a-prince dream, I had been appointed as consultant to the Crown Prince and future King. This time it was not the Prince's love life I was asked to advise upon, but the actual running of the Kingdom! In a speech to the citizens gathered at a Kathmandu bazaar, I used a deck of cards as a prop. Some of the cards had been replaced with hand-drawn replicas, makeshift replacements for lost cards, and I was trying to explain how that represented Nepal at this point in time, that it was imperative in this modern world to "play with a full deck".

How very odd.

Bonfire of the Vanities is certainly a good read and often very amusing but it also has a decidedly depressing side for me. I know, or knew, too many of those people, participated in too many of the scenarios. I wonder how Arthur and Catharine, Bob and Abby regard the book. Arthur undoubtedly didn't read it at all, Catharine just as undoubtedly did. I'd bet for sure that she saw "friends" in some of the characters but not herself. Bob, being a writer himself, would probably have regarded it much as I do, a rather too facilely plotted divertissement, not sharp enough to really qualify as satire, but clever enough to make lots of money and ... it must be admitted ... provide some hours of entertainment. Abby? I'm not sure. I remember with a smile the first evening I was invited to dinner at their sumptuous new (old) mansion-like apartment on Sutton Place and gasping when shown the kitchen. "It's as big as the one at Hampton Court Palace," I said, and she took it well.

One of those dinner party scenes in the novel reminded me, not of that evening, but of one at a not quite so high-level mansion in Great Neck, the same kind of party, where commercially successful tycoons and their spoiled wives gathered to lionize artists, musicians (opera and concert, only, please) and poets. It was the only time in my life I have hit a woman. She was such a bitch I hauled off and slapped her without thinking. It made me a hero. I felt like a louse.

Meanwhile, back to Act 2 of Possession in Great Measure. I stayed at the mall and beach for most of Sunday. Not having spent much time at the mall recently, I quite enjoyed wandering around and looking at the people. The fellow I said sometime ago definitely was a match for the Sleeptalker in the lust department was sitting outside McD's eating lunch, reading a very thick book. He works somewhere at the mall in a place which is not on the casual level but also not at the black-suit Nieman-Marcus/Armani level either. Long sleeved white shirt, starched and uncreased, nice trousers, expensive shoes. Handsome devil he is. I'm sure most of my friends would consider him a "suitable lover" (because he is assuredly gay). Speaking purely on a physical level, I would agree completely, but reserve further judgment until I actually speak to him. It seems inevitable, but there's no hurry.

With the library open 24 hours a day until Friday there is the temptation to spend far too much time on-line, assisted by some adjustments to Seventh Circle making it more fun to play again. The Sleeptalker was playing for most of Monday (from the State Library) and muttered that he really should walk to UH. I said nothing. Wacky wasn't playing. Someone asked where he was and the Sleeptalker said he had no idea. Squabble again, I suppose.

The game is most amusing in the late evening, the State Library closed and most mainland American players going off to bed, leaving it to me, some Australians and a few Brits. Then it takes on more of the atmosphere of Bartle's MUD2, even including one player who played the version of that game known in America as "British Legends". Oddly enough, he's from Mililani, but is going to school somewhere in Colorado, has already suggested having a party when he returns home for the summer soon. I warned him that gathering all the State Library Brats together at one time could be quite a hand-full but he assured me his Samoan "cuzzes" could handle it with no problem.

And oh dear, oh dear, when was the last time I had a beer? It seems like weeks.

330

Must give credit where credit is due. Tom Wolfe is a rather affected young man (well, young only from my viewpoint now, I guess) who used to wear white suits and hats, seemed to have picked Truman Capote as his role model. Not such a bad one to pick, all things considered, since Audrey Hepburn was well beyond his reach, but even so, it made him somewhat suspect.

And then he wrote a book about LSD without having a clue.

But ...

The arrest and holding pen scenes from Vanities are delicious, even brilliant. I wonder how he managed to research it.

I am deeply grateful to Karma that I managed never to get arrested in Manhattan. I probably should have been, but was so close to dying they had to take me to Saint Luke's Hospital instead.

It seems to be the norm lately, feeling happy to be finished with a book, and I felt that way about Vanities, too, when reaching the final page on Wednesday morning.

Tuesday was an awful day, just plain awful, with little I can say to explain how that was so. I found myself annoyed with just about everything and everyone, with or without a real reason for it. The Sleeptalker was, in a way, quite silly but sweet, trying to make me jealous of Wacky (as if I'd believe their on-again buddydom would last more than a few hours). But I wasn't in the mood to play that game, either, or Seventh Circle for that matter, and when he said publicly, "hey, Reting, I'll be back in a few minutes, have to go smoke a joint with Wacky", I left and headed to the beach. The last thing I wanted at that point was to listen to the two of them stoned in the game. I gather it was something of the usual disaster and for the rest of the day, all access to the game from all Hawaii ISPs was blocked.

That appears to have been the Boss's demonstration that he did mean what he said about blocking access, but he opened it up again on Wednesday morning, with a whole new set of files dealing with the "laws" of the game with set punishments for violations, including total deletion of characters. As the more sensible (?) of us have told him all along, stop diddling around and just zap the troublemakers. It's no good trying to get the rest of us to put pressure on them, under threat of banishment. They tinkered around some more with the game structure, too, which irked all the "deadly" characters (those who choose to play in the mode where they attack other "deadly" players) and the game was almost empty on Wednesday evening. They'll all be back.

Two nights this week I've had a wooden bench at the cloisters, the first time that has happened in a very long time. Possession in Great Measure.

331

An offline weekend, from late Friday afternoon until early Monday morning, was an ironically amusing setting for seeing "The Matrix". Helen R suggested going into Waikiki on Saturday evening to see it, my first time in Waikiki in two weeks. I'm definitely a Keanu Reeves fan so would have enjoyed the film regardless, but in fact I enjoyed it much more than I had expected. I only wish they had dealt more seriously with the basic concept, the may-be-battle-to-come between AI creations and "real" people. If the battle comes, I don't think it will be won with karate and guns.

"The One". The Mahdi. Keanu is getting some strange opportunities in his career. I'd like to see his Buddha film again, and I wonder if someone will eventually cast him as Jesus ...

The I Ching is doing a better job of weekly forecasting than Jonathan Cainer, which is no surprise. The week of Possession in Great Measure was aptly predicted. As the final days of the school term arrived, many books were abandoned after the campus resellers refused to buy them, and I made several trips to my stash box to add more to the collection. The weekend's reading was an odd mixture of Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles, a collection of short stories by Kate Chopin, Wharton's Ethan Frome, and the as-told-to Narrative of Sojourner Truth, with in-between perusing of a too-generalized survey called A Narrative History of the United States.

And on Friday it was also moving-out-of-dorms day so the bonanza of books was joined by lots of clothes (tee shirts, especially) and assorted dorm-type "munchies" ... Power Bars, Pop Tarts, microwave popcorn and such. The oddest find in that category was a large bag of shelled walnuts. Yummy (and expensive!), a strange thing to abandon. I declined all the available clothing, have no need of any (and was, in fact, rather appalled recently when organizing my box of "bail-out" clothes to see how many things have been added to it since this trip began).

Someone has finally discovered my campus stash box after all this time, didn't take anything from it but left the box open as well as the plastic bag containing books. Stupid of them, but fortunately it's in a sheltered enough place that the rain didn't get to it. There's nothing in the box I'd be much bothered to lose, but it's annoying that someone finally found it.

Had it not been so sheltered, the book collection would have been rather soggy because it was not a dry weekend. It had rained much of the night on Friday, was still drizzling Saturday morning, then cleared and was a beautiful, sunny day. But Sunday morning was a soggy mess and I used my cardboard "mattress" as an umbrella for the walk uphill to campus. Then there was a period of clear skies and sunshine, but by early afternoon the clouds had returned and it rained quite steadily for the rest of the day and evening. This provided a most auspicious time for cart-hunting and was especially amusing in mid-evening when the light rain turned to absolutely torrential downpour and people seemed to panic, abandoned carts all over the place to jump into their cars and escape home. I'd already found enough for a 40oz bottle of brew but in just a few minutes found enough for an unexpected smaller nightcap to follow.

I suppose they thought we wouldn't notice but the Red Dog/MGD "dollar special" has shrunk from 20oz to 16oz. Humbug. After the film on Saturday, Helen went on to a second feature, so I had a nice late supper of a Jumbo Jack and a "dollar special" Red Dog, the first time I'd noticed the shrinkage.

And so the Week of Famine is here, the interim week on campus before the Summer Session begins, the library open only from eight-to-five and closed again next weekend. It certainly didn't begin as "famine" because there was more than ample food available at the mall, including a quite delicious four-course Mexican dinner from Cactus Jack's. It looked like some Japanese visitor had tasted the "Mexican rice", decided it was an outrage and left everything else untouched. Earlier someone had left a box of bread and stuff from Love's Bakery and I grabbed a dozen doughnuts. They weren't especially good doughnuts but went nicely with a senior coffee from McD's and the birds liked them very much. Another untouched plate lunch box was left on a ledge. Although it said "cooked vegetables (baked)", that was only a small portion of the contents, most of the space occupied by three large pieces of fried chicken and rice. So I guess Dame Fortune decided to fatten me up on Sunday in preparation for the campus ghost-town the rest of the week.

I interpret the I Ching's outlook for the week as suggesting it will begin somewhat murky but will clear and become more fortunate later in the week. It isn't a week I expect much from, all things considered, and I'm sure I'll be thoroughly weary of the mall by the time it is over.

As for those loves of my life, not a word or sign has been heard of them since last Wednesday. None of them showed up in the game on Thursday or Friday, nor did they appear at the mall over the weekend. I hope they haven't killed each other or gotten locked up.

332

Variety may be the spice of life but, for me, one of the greatest joys of life is synchronicity, "meaningful" coincidence. It needn't be meaningful in any profound sense, although those are certainly the most impressive. Sometimes they are merely interesting or amusing.

The former slave, Sojourner Truth, was unable to read. She was keen to ponder the words of the Bible on her own, without the interpretations of others, and discovered that young children were the best readers for her. They would happily repeat a sentence or passage as many times as she wanted to hear it, whereas an adult reader would be prone to "help her" understand something she didn't grasp on first hearing. Having so recently read that erudite tome on comparative religion, it was most interesting to learn that Sojourner Truth, without ever having heard of the Koran, came to the same conclusion over the Creation story. Why would God need to rest, she wondered.

Monday morning on campus I found a murder mystery, Lamb to the Slaughter, by Elizabeth Quinn and was happy to add it to my collection since Descartes can only be taken in small doses in the predawn quiet hour. One of the greatest pitfalls, perhaps the greatest, of keeping an online journal is the tendency to think of everything that happens in terms of whether it shall be written about and how. Even my favorite journal-keepers sometimes adopt an air of casual cynicism, affected wit, the Critic. So when I thought, "this is a good read but Agatha Christie she is not", I scolded myself for having turned Critic. Dame Fortune must have chuckled because not more than an hour later I found a massive paperback containing seven of Dame Agatha's splendid plays.

It was a cloudy, often wet day and I stayed in one or the other of the libraries much of the time. Wacky turned up in the game and a brief appearance by one of the other lads provided the evidence for what has been going on. That one, "Stoker" as he calls himself in there, has long been one of my least favorite local players, a patently spoiled brat who still lives at home and appears to have done little else with his life for more than a year except play the game. Anyone who has played one of these multi-player online games for a few months soon recognizes most of the "types" of players and Stoker is an utter cliche, the type who is constantly there and blames everything that has gone wrong with his life on his "addiction" to the game. From the start, the subject of Stoker has been one I have shunned when talking with the Sleeptalker after discovering his unwavering intention to defend Stoker. This was partly the result of Stoker, for a time, putting online his own (pirated) version of the software, making all of his friends instant high-level players and constantly nagging people in "Seventh Circle" to play his site instead. I steadfastly refused.

Stoker is one of the players who was permanently banned after the recent cheating episode, and in classic Sleeptalker style, he has managed to interpret that as having given up playing by choice! That alone, though, is not good enough. He pops into the game from time to time with differently-named, newly created characters and preaches about the evils of playing MUD (and particularly, of course, Seventh Circle). And I gather from what was said yesterday that he has even taken the extraordinary measure of leaving his bedroom and computer, traveling to the State Library to convince the lads in person of their folly. The Sleeptalker would fall hook, line and sinker for that act. Yesterday's sermonette from Stoker included hosannahs for the "life" they've found since "giving up MUD", they've got girlfriends now and MUD is no longer of any interest. All this since Thursday?! And all, of course, said while actually online in the MUD. Laughable, but pathetic. Wacky seems to have escaped but, alas, remains silenced in the game so only the fact that he played most of the afternoon provided evidence.

So I assume the Sleeptalker's "best friend" of the moment is Stoker, Wacky has been abandoned along with Seventh Circle, and I was left to recall what I said months ago, that the game itself would provide the release from my passion for the Sleeptalker.

Meanwhile, man does not live by rice or bean sprouts alone, perhaps, but in sufficient quantity I suppose those two would keep a man from starving. They were the diet on the Monday of Famine Week (more widely known on campus as "Interim Week"). And they were available in abundance. Three of the staff members appeared to have gotten off-campus plate lunches, large boxes, each with at least "two scoops" rice, a green vegetable and bean sprouts instead of the usual macaroni salad. Crumbs suggested that chicken may also have been part of the contents but none was left, just a pound or so of rice, the sprouts and the strange greenery. One had a spinach-like vegetable I thought repulsive, another some tiny green beans, and the third some chewy green stalks I'd not encountered before. Still, there was more than enough to eat and when I went to the mall later I had no desire to look for anything further.

I had a quarter left from Sunday's cart bonanza plus a few pennies, and had found two dimes and more pennies on campus. With fifty-seven cents in hand and an evening with nothing better to do, I thought it quite certain I'd find the two carts necessary to buy a small Red Dog brew for a nightcap. One turned up fairly soon. Sitting outside the supermarket, I spotted two women with small children and a heavy-laden cart head into the parking lot, saw them reach their car. One of my competitors noticed at that point, and began to move. Oh no, you don't, thought I, and moved even more quickly. Just before we both reached the car, one of the women started to wheel the cart back. I was so amused by the disappointed look on my competitor's face that I didn't mind the lost opportunity.

Later I'd just about given up, was heading over to the bus stop when I saw another cart sitting in the parking lot. A young black man was headed in the same direction so I again speeded up, getting there before him. Someone had put a note on the handle of the cart, "broken coin box". An understatement, the entire guts of the thing had been ripped out. Ah well, I give up, I thought, and walked on toward the bus stop. A voice called "hey!". I ignored it, then again it called from nearer, "hey!". I turned around, it was the young black man. He said "take this" and handed me a dollar bill.

The kindness of strangers ...

Walking back to the supermarket for that little Red Dog, I saw an older man heading to the bus stop with a cart. Ha! One more quarter and, thanks to that kind young man, financing for a 40oz Red Dog instead. Oh lucky man. With that in my backpack, I returned to campus and very much enjoyed the rest of the evening with the brew and the murder mystery.

At the cloisters later, I settled down to sleep and was soon immersed in a dream-filled night, the best of which was being on a film set, part of an audience watching a director who looked rather like Peter Weir set up a scene. The cameras started to roll, the rear door of the set opened, and the Sleeptalker walked in, all neat and tidy in an Lauren-like casual outfit. I and the other members of the audience broke into applause. My star, the Sleeptalker.

333

Absolute bedlam on campus Wednesday morning. The grounds people seemed in a frenzy, every possible grass-cutting or weed-whacking device in simultaneous operation, the Hamilton Annex construction (resumed after a lay-off during Finals Week) in full roar. So I postponed further ponderings with Descartes and enjoyed Christie's "The Mouse Trap" instead. Absurdly enough, I saw the play at least three or four times in London but still didn't remember whodunit.

Her plays read so well that it feels like I've spent several evenings at the theatre this week, and most enjoyable ones.

In that "real" life drama, this personal version of "All My Children", the lads all returned to the game on Tuesday. So much for the grandiose "we've found a life, no need for MUD" subplot. The Sleeptalker and Wacky still seem to be on the outs, a supposition further supported when on a bus later and spotting Wacky walking into Aala Park with two strangers. And the Sleeptalker was in full rage in the game, getting into an extended quarrel with the Mililani fellow, awkward for me since I've become quite good friends with him and didn't want to offend him by providing any obvious assistance to the Sleeptalker. I was quite happy to get an invitation from Helen R to meet up at HCC in the late afternoon, and to escape the game.

And then I realized at lunchtime on Wednesday, sitting in the secluded grove, greatly enjoying Dame Agatha's "Witness for the Prosecution", that there really is only one option for me right now, and a damned difficult one.

I should give very, very serious consideration to eliminating "Seventh Circle" from my life.

334

I sympathize with and admire the youthful Descartes when he realizes the only way to a path of self-knowledge is to consider invalid everything he knows and has been taught up to that point, start from scratch, accepting nothing. I admire his basic points for embarking on that path and, of course, his most famous utterance, "I think, therefore I am".

But his lengthy and elegant attempt to persuade himself that "God" exists leaves me cold. I do not believe in "God" and Descartes does nothing to suggest I should reconsider. I believe in Tao, "the Way". I believe in it so naturally I cannot understand how anyone could not, but that in no way implies the existence of some "supreme intelligence". The waffling of Descartes on the subject seems to me as much a futile attempt to convince himself as it is a futile attempt to convince his readers.

I'm too old to start from scratch. I don't know if I could discard "belief" (and it is more "acceptance" than "faith") in the Tao even if I wanted to. I have far lowlier goals to achieve right now.

Compassion for all living beings is a good place to start. I'm a long, long way from that goal.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous, I want to abstain from that game, "Seventh Circle", even though that means abstaining from communication with that sweet young man I have loved all these months. It's not easy. I stopped in briefly twice on Thursday, told him I was looking for another game to play and that's why I wasn't in there much. True, I do much enjoy these multi-player online fantasy worlds and I compiled a list of those based on the same basic premise as "Seventh Circle", spent some time on Thursday beginning to check them out, see if any look worth pursuing.

If I find one, will I tell the Sleeptalker about it?

Now there's a question.

On Wednesday evening, I met Mme de Crécy and Helen R at the Dole Cannery Complex (which I hadn't known until Tuesday no longer does any "canning" at all) and we saw the new film of "Midsummer Night's Dream". It was handsome to look at but a pathetic interpretation of that wonderful play, with some truly awful acting. I can't imagine how anyone could, as a director, obtain financing for the project, put it together, and yet be unable to see how inept his cast was. Dreadful. It should quickly disappear into the trash bin of Bad Movies.

Later a young man I'd never seen before at the cloisters was quite hostile, complained of a huge (judging by his a-fish-this-big exaggerated pose) centipede. I said I was from Texas, wasn't worried about centipedes. "Why don't you go back there," he snarled. "Why don't you go back where you came from?" I asked. He informed me he was from here. I told him I certainly wouldn't have thought so, given his attitude, and he suddenly melted, switched to a very gentle tone and said he was sorry, wished me a good night. I wished him pleasant dreams, and he went around the corner.

Love is strange, sang Mickey and Sylvia. Indeed, it is. Life is even stranger.

335

What a strange day Monday was, the first day of the Summer Session, inside and out, online and off. Cainer's bizarre omens for the week and the first two days of it suggested I was going to set off some avalanche with a "casual" remark, so I babbled my head off trying to get it over with. The I Ching, on the other hand, predicted an advantageous week so long as excessive regulations or restrictions were not applied. Me?! The epitome of no-self-discipline enforce excessive restrictions?

I spent most of the off-line weekend soaking up sun and immersed in American History. It had started, of course, with The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, then continued with the history textbook I'd found which covers the centuries from pre-colonization through the Civil War. This broad survey is being supplemented by an anthology of non-fiction writing which includes many essays directly relevant to the subject, providing more in-depth looks at certain moments of the country's history.

Certainly from as early as my pre-teen days I have been interested in American history and that interest continued through the years, reaching a kind of peak with the Dada News, where my contributions to that attempted Glass Bead Game took the life of George Washington as one main theme, and the preceding experiments with "performance art" at Washington, D.C. landmarks. That was my most eccentric period, I think, walking around dressed all in white with a little bronze bell on a chain around my neck, prepared to perform "exorcisms" at all necessary sites, whether art museums, presidential memorials or, of course, Watergate.

But returning to the present, I began each morning with the ritual of tea and reading on my sheltered ledge at Bilger Hall, and shortly after sunrise I left for the beach. After leaving campus on Friday evening, I had, much to my surprise, encountered Auntie Maria, in town for the Na Hoku Hanohano awards ceremony, and Helen R. at the mall. I was told Maria later said what a pleasure it had been to meet me when I was sober. Indeed, I was stone cold sober, but hey, I think it's the first time I've ever seen Maria outside a bar. Well, it was good to see her, too, drunk or sober, and I was glad Dame Fortune had guided my steps on what was not my usual path through the mall.

"Famine Week" had lived up to its name on Friday. There was absolutely nothing to eat all day but a bit of plain white rice (and much of that went to the birds). So Helen's invitation to dinner was most welcome and we had yummy (but far too expensive) sandwiches at the Food Court. She said she had decided to see something else on Saturday afternoon and asked if I'd like her ticket to the Star Wars film. Most certainly. Although I've found all the hype thoroughly repellent, I did want to see it.

So following a delightful Saturday morning on the beach, I set out for Waikiki after enjoying a bottle of Colt 45 while gazing fondly at the slender, brown lad who had sprawled on the sand a few feet away from me. What a tiny waist he had, and his body was so well proportioned and flawless it was a definite delight that he picked such a nearby spot. My intention to just enjoy the view, pushing lust into the background, suffered somewhat, though, when he went into the water and came walking back to his spot, the wet shorts making it very clear that he was exceptionally well endowed. Just as well it was time to go to the movies ...

I was thoroughly, utterly bored by the film, had to struggle to stay awake, and was several times tempted to just get up and leave. But I stayed to the end. I don't know why, but I had the feeling if I had actually paid for the ticket myself, I would have left. Somehow being given the ticket as a gift made me feel obligated to stick it out. Or since this has not always been the case (as was pointed out to me in later conversation about it), maybe I did have a little hope that something would happen in the film to redeem it, make it a worthy addition to the dazzling original Trilogy. Didn't happen. It was a bore.

I strolled along the beach, stopping to watch the dancers by the Duke's statue, checked to see if there was music at the Hawaiian Regent but there wasn't, so took a bus back to the mall, got another bottle of Colt and returned to the campus and my history lessons.

Sunday was a repeat of the early tea, soaking up sun on the beach, drinking a Colt and then a completely splendid encounter with a young man, probably mostly Filipino, who wanted an audience while he "spanked the monkey". He didn't want anything but an audience, and I was happy to oblige. It confirmed my long-held opinion that such a game is my favorite form of sexual play, just watching while a young man gives himself pleasure. Perhaps I should have, very early in my life, made it a point to absolutely limit my sex life to that pleasure. I would, admittedly, have missed some fine times, but I would also have missed a lot of self-torture, jealousy and heartaches.

The evening was dominated by the telecast of the Na Hoku Hanohano awards ceremony which was mostly tedious but more than justified by the delight of Pure Heart winning and their touchingly emotional acceptance of the awards plus Willie K's brief but delicious moments on stage accepting the award, with Amy H., for "Group of the Year". He seemed to think it as absurd as I did that he and Amy won it instead of Pure Heart, but since that was the only one they'd been nominated for and failed to win, any complaints are minor.

And so to Monday. The campus was full of little kids, or so it seemed, fresh from high school, many of them seemingly dazzled by having reached university. Many of them also seemed to have slept through their orientation sessions during the Interim Week and had little knowledge of map-reading, since I was frequently consulted. One young lady was standing by the Art Building, pondering the map in her hand, said, "excuse me, sir, can you tell me where the Art Building is?" Well, okay, in fairness to her, there is no sign on the building, but a glance up at the second floor windows with all the easels and canvases does provide something of a clue, even if one cannot read a map.

The weather switched rapidly between periods of drizzle to sunshine and I had to shift locations several times to avoid getting drenched. It's that time again in the secluded grove, the dropping of the berries. Every day I've taken a branch and swept one area clean only to find it thoroughly littered again the next morning. Prolific seed-producers, those trees. I was sitting there enjoying a Colt and my reading when Keali`i (whom I'd seen earlier in Kory K's office) came walking through, evidently delivering an envelope to the building at the end of the grove. When he came back through again, I put down my book and teased him by saying, "this is better than any book", and so it was. I wish he had to run errands through there more often.

336

It had already occurred to me, reading A Narrative History of the United States, that the study of "history" appeared to be almost synonymous with "economics" as a scholastic discipline. My peripheral, but related, reading initially led me into more telescopic focus on certain aspects of the nation's history, but then I found the current issue of the magazine, The Economist. I don't recall having seen that publication before, but there's no doubt now, if someone asked if I'd like a magazine subscription as a gift, I'd say yes, and without hesitation ask for that one. Thanks to it, my study of "history" has been brought right up into the last week, and on a global basis.

Into that atmosphere of mind strolled the Sleeptalker.

On Tuesday, I'd spent almost two hours mid-day at Campus Center. I was sitting in the secluded grove reading when Kory K shouted at me from up by the Post Office, and I went to join him and on to Campus Center for a lengthy Pure Heart gig. Kory was being unusually twitchy, constantly worried that I was going to be "too loud", picking a seat in the peanut gallery. I put up with it for about half an hour and then moved down front and center on my own. If, in my enthusiasm for musicians, I get "too loud" at one of their gigs, let them tell me ... otherwise, put on the CD of the Waimea Music Festival and hear what a real audience sounds like.

Anyway, the gig was wonderful, and there was no indication from the lads of Pure Heart that I was being "too loud". They even took my suggestion (when asking what they should sing next) to do "Island Style". Since they'd done several John Cruz numbers already, seemed silly to leave out his best song. And they did a fine job of it, as with everything else they performed.

Afterwards, in the game, Wacky was being quite obnoxious to me, I've no idea why, except that (and this is perhaps a case of takes one to know one), all these lads are incredibly schizoid. (Helping to prove my point, he was entirely pleasant the next day.) Puzzled on Wednesday, though, and in no mood to put up with it, I went off-line and continued my reading. Once I knew the State Library was closed, I went back to the game and had an enjoyable hour there, mostly chatting with Australians and helping out some new players.

I'd already decided the notion of "giving up" Seventh Circle was a red herring I'd painted for myself, a dead fish which was absurd for me to have created, much less spend any time contemplating. If I enjoy it, I'll play it. If I really cease to enjoy it, I won't. It's so simple I don't know why I make these things into matters to contemplate.

As I was leaving campus, headed for the cloisters, around ten, I ran into the Sleeptalker and Eazy. Eazy I only knew as a player in the game, had never met before. If it weren't an obsolete and generally unavailable substance these days, I would have thought he was on Mandrax. He makes "laidback" seem like "frenetic". The next day, the Sleeptalker told me he's just that way, he actually wasn't on drugs at all. They were under the impression Hamilton Library would be open until midnight, but I explained (yet again, at least for the Sleeptalker) that such late opening was only a Finals Week event at Hamilton, that it had closed at nine and would all summer. I did tell him the computer lab was open until midnight, that they could go there, and tried to explain to him how to use the set-up there. He wanted me to join them, I declined. I was tired and wanted to go to sleep.

Next morning I was sitting on my sheltered ledge reading just before dawn and the Sleeptalker walked up, alone. He'd already gotten impatient with Eazy who "walked too slow" and had parted company with him.

The times alone with the Sleeptalker are time out of time. I understood, after this latest episode, that it's most sensible of me to simply enjoy it when it happens, use whatever resources I have available or can muster to make it more luxurious for both of us, and to resist any effort to make it happen, prolong it when it does or, even more importantly, to integrate it into my "real life". Those times are no more "real" than the game, even if they may actually be the most "real" hours of my existence.

And certainly the sweetest.

So we spent Thursday together, he climbed over the fence to sleep in his secret spot, we stayed together again Friday morning on campus, much of the time in the game, but the best of it just talking, bantering, and yes, in my case, even lusting. He's such a sweetheart.

337

"My trouble is," said the Sleeptalker, "I want things but I don't want to work for them." One thing he wants is a high school diploma and I was encouraging him to try the GED again. He didn't pass it on his first attempt but thought he could if he studied for it and I offered my help. But that falls into the "working for it" category.

Friday was such a see-saw day. Despite a rather restless night filled with annoying dreams, I woke up in a good mood largely the result of feeling pleased with the adjustments in thinking about the Sleeptalker, the Game, and life in general. It was an especially good time with the Sleeptalker. Times alone with him are always a pleasure, but the latest episode was particularly valuable and productive for me. Later in the day, though, my mood shifted into gloom because I wish I could be a better influence on him, find some way to help him, even though I know he really can only help himself if he wants his life to be different. And neither he nor I am sure there's any reason to want it to be different. He's young, healthy, has many friends, and is enjoying life ... what's to worry about? An evening beer and several fascinating essays in the anthology of non-fiction raised my mood again. If you can't do something about it, don't even think about it.

There was a very special treat on Saturday. Pure Heart did a wonderful gig at the mall, made even more wonderful when Lopaka Colon's daddy sat in for a couple of numbers. After having heard Augie Colon for more than thirty years on those wonderful Martin Denny recordings, it was a great pleasure indeed to see him and even more of one to watch him and his son playing together. I shook his hand after the gig, told him I've long been a fan of his and told him he was a lucky man to have such a fine son. Later I thought how odd it is Pure Heart never does "Quiet Village".

I returned to campus, played the game for awhile. All the lads had been absent on Friday and weren't in on Saturday either, making me wonder what they were up to. Then I went downhill to Rainbow and bought Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Oh my.

338

When I first read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged I thought its main weakness was the impossibility that things could ever get as bad in the United States as they do in her epic. Now I'm not so sure.

I put aside any attempt to write about this week, dominated as it has been by the book. But the end will be reached today and maybe then I'll add Tale 338a.

338a

Oh, this is gay.

At the laundromat one evening this week, someone had left a stack of New Yorker magazines. I browsed the Table of Contents pages and decided to stick two of them in my backpack, returned to Ayn Rand.

One of those issues brings me the belated news that Dick Bellamy died in New York. He was one of the few art dealers I truly liked as a man and he was always very kind to me even if he wouldn't include me in any of his exhibitions ... until the Dada News.

In that same issue is an article about recent research avenues re: AIDS and the highly amusing notion that frequent oral sex may have provided some of us with the "milkmaids who never got smallpox" antidote.

I always did think of it as the Fountain of Youth.

339

The first week of June was dominated by Ayn Rand, more films than usual, and a strange, somewhat unsettling Friday with the Sleeptalker. He had asked in the game on Thursday afternoon if he should walk to campus and I said nothing. I didn't leave until a little after ten and he hadn't shown up, but as I was sitting with my morning tea on Friday, he walked in. He was wearing more clothes than I've ever seen him in, shoes instead of slippers, Levi's, a long-sleeved dark pullover. He didn't look at all comfortable and complained several times during the day of being too warm. I think that probably contributed to his odd and always on the verge of quarrelsome frame of mind.

As usual, we had extraordinarily wide-ranging conversations during breaks from playing the game. He had acquired a Bible and was planning to read it all, had gotten through Genesis and Exodus (the first question being what did "exodus" mean). He was greatly surprised I had read the Bible. "All the way through?" "Yes, more than once." I warned him that Leviticus was mainly a book of laws and he might find it a little harder going but would learn what to do if his neighbor's goat fell into his well.

He is very proud of his Cherokee blood (and I don't blame him, I would be, too) and was, in another conversation, fuming about someone who had told him the American Indians migrated from Asia. "Asian" is, for him, a thoroughly derogatory term, despite being part Filipino, and I saw that he in fact did not understand that Asia is a continent, that China, Japan, India, etc., and yes, even the Philippines, are "Asian". I think that was more difficult for him to grasp than his dismay when I said many people do, indeed, think the American Indians originated in Asia, but in the very distant past. He has no real sense of historic time. Noah could have been as recent as George Washington, the Cherokees' "migration" contemporary with the plantation workers' arrival in Hawaii.

It is extraordinary that someone could go through ten years of "education" in an American public school and emerge with such a strangle muddle of misinformation. And through it all, the Sleeptalker's perhaps most dominant character trait remains untouched: he is always right.

And that is never more certain than in the game. He has gotten involved in a continuing feud with a high level player who calls himself Morgueant. I don't agree with the way either side is acting and Morgueant's methods often make the game less pleasant and more hazardous, even deadly, for all the players. I've tried to play peacemaker, or at least get them to call a truce, give it a rest. No joy. And I made the mistake of bringing up the subject in my last chat of the day with the Sleeptalker. He flew into a rage about it, was shouting away with "fucking" every three words. I told him I just wasn't going to have that kind of exchange with him on campus, he said "I don't care what you do". "Okay, then," I said, "goodnight." And left. Leaving him on his own is, of course, the cardinal sin but I'm sure he managed to convince himself, in his usual fashion, that he abandoned me, not vice versa.

He was in the game on Saturday, presumably playing from the State Library, but said nothing to me at all. The feud again flared up and he was ranting away, so I quit for the day. What a very strange dance it is, this treasured but often puzzling and disturbing friendship.

There has been a 75th Anniversary festival of films from Columbia Pictures providing the chance to see some films I never thought I'd see again on a large screen. "Easy Rider", "Dr. Strangelove", "Bridge on the River Kwai" (in a beautifully restored print) and, best of all, "Close Encounters". But even better than those re-visits of long-time favorites was seeing the new Zeffirelli film, "Tea With Mussolini". That treat was followed by another first: a sandwich from Subway. Nope, I'd never eaten anything from there before. A most decent sandwich it was, too.

After the usual pension-check binge, the week turned dry and I put myself on a bottle-a-day ration until the Sleeptalker arrived on the scene and I spent the last of the money on two beers for us. The most noticeable affect of drinking less is decreased patience, both online and off. Friday would probably have been much different had the Sleeptalker been wearing shorts and slippers and had there been four beers instead of two.

340

Tale 340, and the oracle from the I Ching for the second week of June was Number 40. Deliverance. To the subject of the fourth line it is said, 'Remove your toes. Friends will then come, between you and whom there will be mutual confidence.' I know other translations say 'your Great Toe', rather than toes, but I have not seen an interpretation which suggests that what is lowest in one's life is the subject of that obscure statement. Most interpretations seem to regard it, though, as something unsuitable which must be removed, or as an obstruction since once it is removed, more suitable influences or attachments will come. A mysterious oracle.

Of course, given the circumstances of the moment it was impossible not to consider the Sleeptalker as a possible subject of the message, but there are many alternatives, including walking. Much of the time I spend walking, indeed most of it, is in pursuit of things which cannot be considered necessary or admirable.

Continuing my reading of American history on a frequently drizzling Monday, I realized how difficult it is, in a way, for any American to have an accurate grasp of historical time. The events I am reading about happened barely more than a hundred years ago but it was such a different world, the country was still so undeveloped, even still not totally explored or mapped. To the Sleeptalker and his cherished Cherokee heritage, the Trail of Tears would no doubt be of greater impact than the Book of Exodus but both so remote from our present existence that any placement in historical time is almost irrelevant.

Wacky was the only one of the State Library Boys who showed up in the game on Monday but silly young Stoker returned. Evidently the wonderful "life without MUD" he found turned out to be a rather brief one. He begged for reinstatement and the Boss gave him another chance. The Sleeptalker will be pleased.

As unreal as the game, perhaps even more so, Usenet storms rumbled on in their neverending fashion.

If the I Ching had advised getting rid of my fingers instead of my toes, I'd have no trouble at all understanding its message.

341

A reader wrote: "Lately I've been grieved by several friends with very long toes. No matter what a person does, can't help stepping on them." Now that suggests an approach to the I Ching's message that hadn't occurred to me.

The Ching has certainly been more on track than Jonathan Cainer recently. I know that an individual birth chart can produce wide variances from the "average" conditions for a particular sun sign, but the variance is wider now than it has been at any time since I began reading Cainer. He speaks of an urgency about deciding my "next major move" but I have no thought of making any kind of a major move and see no reason to consider it, not at least until winter approaches.

The lads remained absent from the game on Tuesday and in a rather ironic mirror of the current situation in the newsgroup alt.music.hawaiian, people couldn't stop talking about the Sleeptalker. Even his nemesis, Morgueant, asked if I had seen him. Can't live with him, can't live without him.

Except for a brief late morning trip to the beach for a shower, I stayed on campus all day and evening, much of the time either reading or in the game. Food was in unusually scarce supply, only a few scraps of leftover scrambled egg. There seems to be no pattern to it. Friday has generally been the most sparse weekday but Tuesdays are ordinarily abundant ones, and welcome especially since there isn't the "bail-out" of the Krishna truck. I'm really very reluctant to resort to IHS and its free meals, not only because it is so unpleasant there but also because it would mean contact with the entire Social Horror Club, so I just reconciled myself to a fast day and drank cups of tea.

No food, no beer, fifty-six cents in found coins. Oh lucky man.

And it was on that day all those years ago I first saw the Ganges at Rishikesh. I only had tea and two hard-boiled eggs to eat that day, too.

342

And on the Fourth Day, Dame Fortune said, "let there be Beer." And there was beer, and it was good. I'd found almost half the price of a 40oz bottle, abandoned coins in campus vending machines, but hadn't the inclination to hunt quarters at the mall to make up the difference so had a teetotalling week (only in my American history reading this week did I learn the origin of "teetotaller"). Friday, though, was Kamehameha Day, a State holiday, and everything was closed at the University, so I spent the day at the beach and mall. Without actively hunting for it, I soon had financing for a bottle of Colt 45 in my pocket.

I had begun with a shower and washing some clothes, then sat at a picnic table in the park while they dried. Two young Japanese ladies sat at a nearby table and when they left, one of them discarded a white bag with a small plate-lunch box inside it. It was full of big chunks of fruit including some yummy watermelon, a splendid late breakfast. When the clothes were dry I returned to the mall and enjoyed the performances at CenterStage, part of the annual Pan-Pacific Festival, including a rousing performance by Japanese drummers and some lovely Japanese ladies "of a certain age" doing the hula.

In the early afternoon I bought the bottle of Colt and returned to campus to enjoy it in the secluded grove, continuing the history lessons. Stripped of all its "romantic" aspects, as it is in this text, the Civil War emerges as a nightmare of the first order.

In between chapters, I stopped to ponder the online events of the week. All the lads had shown up in the game on Thursday and the Sleeptalker had forgiven me, was quite sweet. Both he and Wacky tried to get me to join them downtown for a smoke but I declined with thanks. Even the little brat Dafoe was behaving himself and was actually quite helpful in cooling down the feud between the Sleeptalker and Morgueant. It was an amusing and entertaining day in there and except for a brief trip to the beach for a shower, I stayed on campus and online for much of the day.

I ran into Rocky after the shower, making the day a total reunion of sorts except for Mondo whom no one has seen recently. Rocky was disappointed that I had no money for beer. For his sake, I was, too. It's ironic and quite amusing that the lad I would have thought the most unattainable sexually may in fact be the one who wouldn't object. He's still teasing me about the Sleeptalker but did it in a way that seemed to suggest I'd picked the wrong one for fun and games. He's no doubt right, but the "picking" isn't voluntary.

When I finished the beer on Friday and returned to the mall, I thought I'd be too late for the Krishna truck but they were still there getting ready to leave so I had a heaping plate of food from them, the most I'd had to eat all week. I had a ticket for a film in my pocket but wasn't really in the mood for one so just spent the evening wandering around the mall and sitting to watch the people pass by.

It was an odd week, more remarkable in dream life than waking life, a week without the Boys except on Thursday, a week of moving toward greater self-sufficiency on an inner level perhaps most evidenced by the lack of concern throughout the week about food or drink. All in all, not a bad week.

343

"I can't eat plain rice," said the Sleeptalker one afternoon when that's all there was to eat. It's a sentiment I sympathize with. Plain white boiled rice is such a boring remedy for hunger. But he has been spoiled by all the years of soup kitchen dining. Always in my mind is the memory of those final weeks of my first journey to India when a twenty-cent cup of tea and bowl of plain rice was the means to stay alive. So when a day comes along like Saturday and (extraordinarily, for a weekend) there was nothing to eat but plain rice, I ate it without grumbling.

Of course, the choice was mine. Dame Fortune was again most kind and there was sufficient money to supplement my supply of teabags and to buy a bottle of Hurricane, money which certainly could have been used for cheap burgers. The addition to the tea-chest was most important since on beer-less days I tend to drink more tea than usual and the supply in hand wouldn't have lasted for the rest of the month (and still may not).

After a brief time online in the early morning Saturday, I left for the beach and spent the rest of the day alternating between it and the mall. The Japanese festival was again thoroughly delightful and I saved that beer money until the sunset hour to precede the highlight of the day, a splendid Bon Dance on Magic Island. If there's anything I love more about the Japanese than their delightful young men, it's the Bon Dance.

But there were ample reasons to renew my delight in their young men, too, because the Japanese navy training ship is in port. Sweet!

The weather was wonderful throughout the three-day weekend and I woke very early on Sunday morning, walked up to campus and finished the American history text with my morning tea. I wished the student who abandoned the book had left the second volume as well. Volume one ends with Reconstruction. The book made the Civil War more horrendous than any account I've read of it but in contrast made the Reconstruction period sound considerably less awful than the Southern legends claim.

While pondering that I finally took needle-and-thread in hand and started the much-needed and postponed repairs to my backpack. This poor old backpack was with me when I set out on the walk from New York City and it has been around the world twice. Little surprise it finally started to come apart at the seams. My needlework wouldn't win any prizes but it does appear to have given the backpack a second lease on life.

Then I once again headed down to the beach, had a shower with a handsome Filipino fellow who was most generously endowed, then went over to the mall to listen to Kanilau who had just started singing "Makee Ailana" when I arrived, ensuring that song a place on the internal jukebox's playlist for the rest of the day. They were followed by another three hours of Japanese dancers and drummers, both traditional Japanese dancing and a rather absurd modern, almost-disco group which sent me off on a cart hunt, and more hula. Best of all, those Taiko drummers.

Dame Fortune, or the Goddess Lakshmi, smiled yet again and financing for a Hurricane was soon in hand. I had noticed a statue of Lakshmi earlier and thought she certainly is the Hindu version of Dame Fortune, so had her in mind throughout the day, thus give her equal credit with her Western counterpart for the abundance of food and the money for beer. Unlike Saturday, there was a continual supply of food. And a new addition to the mall, strollers for children, make the Dames' task much easier. They are rented for three dollars and a fifty-cent refund is given when returned to their corrals. People tend to abandon them in the parking lot when returning to their cars, and four strollers are much easier to find than eight shopping carts.

I had planned to go to Waikiki for the evening's parade but I'd had enough of crowds, decided instead to buy a Hurricane and return to campus for a quiet evening on my own. At the end of the last school term, I found a study guide for Hawaiian Studies, a xeroxed collection of chapters from various books, some magazine articles and a few otherwise unpublished items. It seems to give a broad history of the islands, the language and culture, and began with a chapter on the currently accepted ideas of Pacific island settlement followed by an account of the second Hokulea voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii written by the young navigator. Engrossing reading, and after very nearly ten years in these islands, about time. When I first arrived here I bought a book on the gods and mythology of the islands, and that ended any formal attempt to learn more about the history and language. Yes, about time.

344

While Cainer continues to speak of some major change yet to be made, the I Ching grumbled at me in its outlook for this week. The 16th Hexagram, Enthusiasm, is one of my favorites, but emphasis on the third line "shows one looking up (for favours), while he indulges the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction," not viewed as appropriate behavior. Ooops. And there I had been on Sunday strolling around with an impromptu mantra to Lakshmi before taking her bounty and buying tea and beer.

She and/or Dame Fortune didn't seem to be offended since they went overboard on Monday with food, cigarettes and a lighter, and coins for more tea and beer, the most bountiful day in a long time. As on the weekend, I'd walked to campus in the pre-dawn hour, continued reading the Hawaiian Studies workbook with my morning tea, spent a couple of hours on-line and then headed to the beach. It was another beautiful morning, so I washed my trousers (the most ambitious shower-laundry project of them all) and a tee shirt, then sat in a half-shaded area reading while they dried, enjoying a pint-flask full of Budweiser which had been left by a park bench and a plate-lunch box half-full with spaghetti found at the mall.

I had planned to return to campus once the clothes were dry, but noticed the stroller corral was almost empty meaning there were a lot of quarters floating around the mall somewhere. Although relatively few Japanese tourists come here with small children, it appears that all who do rent those strollers and they aren't in the least concerned with getting their fifty cent refund. With shopping carts there are a few general areas where they are most often abandoned. The exceptions are so rare it isn't worth hunting for them. But the strollers can be found just about anywhere. Fortunately, they are designed with a high metal pole at the back (probably to discourage people from walking off with them) and thus can be spotted at some distance. A walk through the parking lots quickly yielded enough money for a beer, but I decided I might as well stay for the Krishna feast in the late afternoon and consequently ended up with enough additional quarters to buy another packet of tea bags as well as the beer.

The Krishna plate was, as usual, loaded with food and about half an hour later I found an untouched large plate lunch box with chicken katsu, rice and macaroni salad, stashed it away for Tuesday's lunch.

I spotted Myra sitting at a table in the Food Court so surprised her by walking up and taking the chair across from her. I hadn't seen her for an unusually long time and she explained that her part-time job has been expanded so she is working much longer hours, less time to hang out at the mall. She looked very tired and I encouraged her to go home and get some sleep. Such a sweetheart, that lady.

The Hawaiian Studies workbook is fascinating stuff and leaps about from topic to topic in a somewhat dazzling way. Much of the otherwise unpublished material is designed to debunk established "authorities" and to present the latest consensus of scholars, particularly those at the Center for Hawaiian Studies at UH. Consequently an overview of the arrival of Cook and the early missionary period was interrupted with a lengthy essay casting serious doubt on the claimed infanticidal practices of pre-contact Hawaiians. It made me think of Usenet: repeat a lie often enough and people start to believe it.

A detailed account of the terraced, irrigated method of agriculture and construction of the fish ponds was especially interesting, sitting as I was on campus where no doubt in ages past a low-walled patch of taro had grown, irrigated by the Manoa Stream. Certainly that essay leaves no doubt that the pre-contact Hawaiians were far wiser in matters of food production than the population today, flying in most of its food from distant places and leaving much of the land barren and unused.

While I realize at least part of this workbook is "reverse propaganda" and perhaps goes too far in glorifying pre-contact life in the islands, it nonetheless certainly raises considerable question as to just whether or not "progress" has been made which equals the loss.

345

Tuesday was cloudy, gray and dreary with frequent light drizzle turning to heavier showers in the evening. When I'd told Myra I only needed one quarter to complete my shopping the day before, she'd said "and start all over again tomorrow". No. I'd had enough of mall-hunting. A beer would have been a pleasure but I wasn't willing to hunt for it so spent the day on campus, much of it reading in quiet, sheltered places since the secluded grove was too damp for most of the day.

The most effective writers in the Hawaiian Studies workbook are female even though they tend toward a more strident tone than the male writers. The essay on the hula would have been much more effective had its author allowed the facts to speak without the unnecessary, almost militant personal embellishment. Surprisingly, Haunani Kay-Trask's contribution was, unlike her speaking style and what I have seen of her contributions (mostly correspondence) to newspapers, very level-headed and objective. She compared the standard of living in England at the time of Cook's arrival in the islands to that of the Hawaiians. It took no editorializing for any sensible, sensitive reader to grasp which society had the better understanding of what life and living is really about.

It seems a perfectly natural progression to move from American history to the history and culture of the Hawaiian Islands to reading about that major "Pacific island", Japan, and from what I have read thus far, it seems Frank Gibney's Japan, the Fragile Super Power is going to be a very interesting encounter.

Wednesday was the Sleeptalker's 24th birthday. I told him on Tuesday he'd have to wait, I'd throw a huge party for him on his 27th. "That's a long way off," he said. "We'll make it," I replied. "Yep," he said.

He's had occasional work recently on a fishing boat which he seems to greatly enjoy and we both wish the work were more steady and frequent. He said he'd probably be going out on his birthday so when he didn't show up in the game, I abandoned plans to have lunch at IHS to wish him happiness in person and instead went to the beach for a shower. As I was walking back through the mall, I ran into Rocky and several young friends of his I hadn't met before. He's still the champion Pied Piper of the Oahu nomads, no doubt about it. They had enough money for a 40oz bottle of beer, but none of them had ID, so Rocky asked me to get it for them. I did, and took a sip from the cup to toast the Sleeptalker. Rocky followed it up and made me promise to invite him to that 27th year party.

Will I make it to June 2002? I've no idea, but it won't surprise me if I do.

346

Thursday was a thoroughly unsatisfactory day. The weather was again on the verge of dismal all day, inside and out, and most annoying of all, I was plagued by dissatisfaction at having no money. This is not something which ordinarily bothers me at all and when the feeling began on Wednesday, I told myself it was just a reaction caused by its being the Sleeptalker's birthday. But it got worse on Thursday, with no reasonable excuse whatsoever. Extremely annoying.

It wasn't so much that I wanted to buy anything in particular, it seemed to be more a situation of wanting to be able to buy. Knowing it was utter nonsense didn't help in the least, indeed even intensified the inner war over it.

What a piece of work is man ...

So I went to the mall and hunted until I had the price of a bottle of Colt 45, told myself that was quite enough reward for the stupid exercise. The competition was almost hilariously active. Tugboat Annie, a newcomer on the scene, has staked out one bus stop and anything which can be seen from it and is so greedy I have seen her rolling back as many as three linked carts at one time rather than risk losing out on any while returning one. A waddling chubby young man who seems to have been absent on the day they were passing out brains is perhaps the most irksome. He stays outside the supermarket and follows right behind someone with a cart. I watched him follow one poor lady to her car and then stand within inches of her while she transferred the contents from cart to car, felt like cheering "right on, lady!" when she then returned the cart herself, leaving Dumbo staring after her with open-mouthed bewilderment.

The only competitor I enjoy is my long-time nodding buddy, Bla, who always gives me a subtle shaka or a wink when we first see each other and shows no resentment at all when he spots me returning a cart, an attitude I return when I see him having captured a prize. Our relationship was neatly established one evening when I had the money I needed for a beer, we were both headed toward the same cart and I told him to take it, I had my beer money already and he laughed, thanked me.

Having bought the beer, I was about to leave the mall when a lady left a shopping cart right in my path. Cool. An extra quarter in my pocket. Maybe that will suffice to put an end to the absurd concern about whether or not there is anything in the pocket. (To say I was close to being angry with myself is an understatement.)

As happened once before, my reading has again been brought right up to date by finding a recent copy of The Economist magazine. That's an extraordinarily literate and interesting publication, even if it does leave a person with the feeling that mankind is rapidly going to hell in a basket, or perhaps even without the comfort of a basket. If I ever get myself organized enough to have sufficient funds, I'm going to subscribe.

Sufficient funds .... arrrrghhhhh. Write on the blackboard one thousand times: it does NOT matter, it does NOT matter. I was so irked with myself and this bizarre scenario I didn't even really enjoy the beer.

347

The only thing certain is change. And in the biggest change in my life since the hacienda was made off-limits, the public library system eliminated internet access on Thursday. While this doesn't affect me personally, it does mean that the Boys will have to travel to UH if they want to play Seventh Circle and it removes the almost-daily pleasure of contact with them on-line. Both changes, of course, are most important because of the Sleeptalker and I have to wonder if Dame Fortune is on the side of those who think our friendship "unsuitable". Hmmmph.

That absurd obsession with money continued on Friday and I said, all right, you silly man, go hunt. Hunt until your legs are tired. Hunt until your feet are sore. Hunt until you are so bored with it you won't give a damn whether you have money or not. And with twenty-nine cents in pocket, just how likely is it, during a Friday day-time, you'll find enough to even buy a beer?

As it turned out, very likely. In direct contrast to Thursday, there was absolutely no competition at all until very late afternoon and I had financing for a Colt 45 in hand by late morning. One part of me was, of course, quite willing to stop at that point and drink a beer, but the ruling part said no way, you're not getting off that easily. Just keep on hunting until it's time for the Krishna truck.

The scheme backfired, though. It was fun. I saw the lads I'd met with Rocky and they walked over to shake my hand and thank me again for having bought them beer, lamented the fact they had no money for another bottle. I didn't volunteer. Buying beer for teenagers isn't ordinarily my style and I only did it for Rocky the first time. One of the lads is such a sweetie.

An elderly local lady had left her purse in a shopping cart, it hadn't been turned in at the supermarket, so I helped her search through the corrals to see if we could find it. Some louse had apparently made off with it. I wondered what I would have done had I found it, without knowing it belonged to such a sweet old lady, and I thought, to my shame, that I probably would have kept any money and then would have given the purse to the customer service desk in the store. But I'm not sure. I am glad, though, I wasn't presented with the need to decide.

It was a sunny, warm day so I did take one break to have a shower and then continued strolling around the mall and parking lot. The Japanese more than make up for their annoying habit of hanging around ashtrays like vultures around a dying cow by abandoning those strollers all over the place. One was left only a few feet from a return station. Maybe it's a prestige thing, not bothering to collect the fifty cents?

There was a larger crowd than usual for the Krishna feast, including the Gypsy Boy and Cat. I've been sleeping in a different area at the cloisters so haven't had the chance to chat with him recently or to greet Cat. The Gypsy Boy walks around in a long black raincoat all the time, don't know how he can stand it in such warm weather.

As it drew near time for sunset I finally let myself off the hook, said okay, you can buy that beer now. I was one penny short for the tax money, didn't want to break into a quarter for it, so asked the Old Guitarist if he had a penny. "You'll have to write out an IOU," he teased. "I spend so much time on computers I've forgotten how to write," I said. "What do you plan to invest it in," he asked. "Tax!"

So I got my bottle of Colt, returned to campus and enjoyed it while finishing reading The Economist, puzzling over an article about the latest particle accelerators in the US and Japan and the bewildering details scientists hope to clarify with them. I do enjoy that magazine, but at $53 for a 30-week subscription fear it will be up to Dame Fortune to supply me with copies, at least for the immediate future.

The night was full of unusually extended dream scenarios, the most striking of which had to do with "points of convergence" as they were called. These seemed to be arranged by some extraterrestrials and provided unique opportunities for inner advancement. I was gifted with one such "point" when my childhood stuffed bunny was suddenly returned to me, having evidently been snatched out of past time. Acid dreams, indeed.

348

Body all aching and wracked with pain ...

My health, aside from a few minor chronic nags like the heel problem, the decaying molar and the mercifully absent-for-some-time chest pain, tends to be much better in this life style than it was as a householder. Colds are rare and very short-lived. Consequently when there is a variation it tends to hit rather hard. If I'd eaten anything suspect recently, I'd attribute the current condition to food poisoning but I am always extra cautious during the warm summer months and don't think that's the problem. Intestinal flu, more likely, although it's certainly an odd time of year to acquire such a nuisance. It made Sunday quite unpleasant, especially as evening arrived. Chills and fever, diarrhea, vomiting in the night. Bleugh. It certainly makes one appreciate a generally satisfactory state of health.

Aside from an enjoyable time at the Summer Onliners Picnic on Saturday, the weekend was not a good one and not just for reasons of physical discomfort. The Anti-Game League, not content with shutting out the lads at the State Library, put up signs in the quasi-computer-lab on campus announcing "NO GAME PLAYING". Without the Boys in the game, I am less bothered by it personally, but it annoys me greatly to see such short-sightedness. These text-only multiplayer games are far more valuable, I think, than the pointless bang-bang arcade diversions. They lead to improved reading and keyboard skills and, by being text-only, stimulate the powers of imagination. Certainly my nephew would not have the data-entry job he has now were it not for those years playing Richard Bartle's MUD2. He had never touched a keyboard, but to stay alive in the game, it's necessary to quickly find your way around and often to move those fingers faster than many secretaries would do.

Of course, it is partly the fault of the game players for dominating public facilities. On campus, I would not consider playing games if most terminals were occupied. But damned if I see why it matters late at night when most of the machines are not being used. It depresses me. Libraries are not for "having fun", computers can be used to spend time in the sexually repressive "chat lines" but not to play a "game". Humbug.

All week I had an odd craving for ice cream but I wouldn't spend my quarters to get it, so when some McD's certificates arrived I headed directly to the mall and ate one of their chocolate sundaes. A light in the gloom. Now if these microscopic life forms which are making me sweat and shiver would kindly go on their way ...

349

Despite its very nasty beginnings, this ailment now appears to be just a common cold, complete with constantly dripping nose. The internal plumbing got itself back in order on Monday. Thanks to a little melon falling from heaven, I was able to buy a yogurt cup which relieved a slight hunger without overtaxing the system and later ate a few pieces of chicken katsu and some rice. Appetite was low but even if it hadn't been I would have forced myself to go very lightly on the food intake.

The aches and pains which returned toward the end of each aspirin-every-four-hours cycle gave way to an immense physical weariness and it was an effort just to walk from one place on campus to another, no desire whatsoever to go to the mall or beach, even if spending the day in the sunshine and ocean probably would have been a wise move. By nine o'clock in the evening I was really dragging so headed to the cloisters, hoping there would be no meetings underway. Fortunately there weren't, so I quickly settled down to sleep, waking only once when some wretched bug decided to bite me on the ear. It was probably one of those nasty little black ants. They are so tiny but have a powerfully stinging bite, something which is even more inexplicable than a mosquito which is at least getting something to eat. Those little ants will walk all over you and then for no apparent reason attack. Bastids, never mind compassion for all living beings.

Much of the day was spent continuing the book on Japan, truly a fascinating account of its history and analysis of the cultural differences between, particularly, Japan and the United States. But I did do some exploring on one of the old data terminals and discovered a way, details which I shall certainly not mention, to get a straight telnet prompt, thus restoring the ability to play Seventh Circle without violating "no game playing" injunctions. Much to my surprise, the Sleeptalker was playing, so he too appears to have found a way around the State Library's attempts to block it.

He said he needed a "resume" and wanted it put on a web page. "Applying for some executive job?" I teased. No further details were forthcoming but he added, "I'm getting out of IHS!" I suppose I'll have to wait for him to make the trek to UH to find out what this latest brainstorm is about, but will certainly put up a web resume for him if that's what he wants. A few months at a Taco Bell, a month or so in the kitchen at Gordon Biersch, a sometime job helping on a fishing boat. Hmmmm.

So far as I can remember, this is the first time I ever "celebrated" the Summer Solstice by getting a cold. No complaint whatsoever if it's the last.

350

As I wrote on a mail-list Tuesday, I embarked upon a study of World History after completing the book on Japan:

Seems one accepted text at UH is "Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past" by Messrs. Bentley and Ziegler (both of whom have "University of Hawai'i" after their names on the McGraw-Hill title page).

They did make me laugh out loud on page 21 (already) by saying: "Anthropologists calculate that modern-day hunters and gatherers spend about four hours per day in providing themselves with food and the other necessities of life. They spend the remainder of their time in games, rest, leisure, and various social actitivities."

FOUR hours?!

That definitely qualifies as a BAD day.

I'd estimate that I spend about an hour a day providing myself with "food and the other necessities of life", probably even less. Even if the very non-necessary item, tobacco, is added, hunting time rarely exceeds two hours daily unless I'm in one of those periodic quarter-hunting crazes.

On the rare days when it appears to be taking longer than that to find food, I just don't eat. No one ever died from going a day without food.

Although the cold was less unpleasant on Tuesday than it had been, there was still the nuisance of frequent sneezing and an almost constantly dripping nose and a slight physical weariness which increased as evening arrived. So once again I spent the entire day on campus, with one trip downhill to acquire a bottle of beer which was enjoyed with the sagas of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, and headed off to the cloisters fairly early.

Still celebrating the discovery of the MUD-playing loophole, I spent more time in Seventh Circle than I have for awhile. The player who had been mainly responsible for the Morgueant/Sleeptalker feud was in and continually badmouthing the Sleeptalker (who didn't play all day), so I did a little badmouthing myself, shocking a few people who are used to me playing a more quiet, genteel role. Such funny social interaction in these entertainments ... and so many brats. Only Usenet has more on-line misfits than Muds.

As Wednesday went on, the sneezing and sniffling steadily decreased and by midday I was even feeling a little hungry. It seems to have been a day for strong appetites on campus, though. Never have I found so many abandoned plate lunch boxes which were totally empty. So I decided I'd just forget about it and go to the Krishna feast later although I had planned to forego the mall for one more day.

When I got there and crossed into the park, I heard a voice shout, "Albert!" The Sleeptalker. With Rocky and the Snorer. The Sleeptalker on his own I would have been happy to see, but that core gathering of the Rocky Horror Club was not really what I would have chosen for a day when I was still feeling well below par and had just planned to slip down there, eat a bit of Krishna food, and disappear back to campus.

The Sleeptalker was wearing just shorts and slippers, the most I have seen of his body since that evening sometime ago at the cloisters when he sprawled beside me to speak of India. Maybe it's just the aftermath of this wretched cold, (I don't think so since I was just as interested earlier as I have been in weeks in a handsome young black man who has recently become a regular on campus), but I really didn't feel any particular attraction. Wow. About time, after more than a year of lusting for that lad's body. I love him, and always shall, but it's him, not his body that I love. And I've known that all along and have been greatly irked by how much lust has occasionally interfered. If it's just the result of being physically depleted by the cold, then fine, give me a cold every week.

A lady, of a certain age, standing near us in line for the food, was eavesdropping on our conversation about the campaign to ban game players and said she was studying for a degree via some on-line arrangement. I said I had considered, if someone did challenge me about game playing, I'd say I was working on my doctoral thesis dealing with the effect on Western adolescents of multi-player computer games. She cheered and said she was sure it would fly. I suspect she is right.

351

If, when I woke on Friday morning, I had sat down and made a list of all the things I was not going to do on the Full Moon weekend, the list would have included just about everything I did do and quite a few other things it never would have occurred to me to list. And they were all things my better judgment tells me I'd be better off not doing.

I did do laundry first thing on Friday, the one sensible choice of the day. Then I went downtown to join other online folks for lunch at the Indigo restaurant. I had at first declined the invitation because that place is really too expensive but yielded to persuasion and then compounded my guilt by quaffing two mint juleps and an after-lunch Pernod.

Off and running ...

When I got back to campus, checked email and popped into Seventh Circle, the Sleeptalker was playing and said he really wanted to talk to me but it was too late to walk to campus. So I told him to wait for me at the State Library and I'd meet him there. When I arrived he was poring over a copy of "DOS For Dummies". Someone had convinced him he should learn more about computers, starting with DOS. He had gotten no further than studying the Table of Contents which had apparently been daunting enough for him to want reassurance that the effort was worthwhile. I didn't want to discourage him but could hardly endorse a study of DOS with much conviction.

More important, and probably more relevant to why he really wanted to see me, was his feeling more upset and distressed than I've ever seen him over being "a loser". He wished he could just get a gun and blow away all the people who think he's a loser. I told him not to go down that road even in thoughts, tried to reassure him that I'm not the only person in his life who doesn't think he is a "loser", and then had the ill-fated brainstorm of taking him to Waikiki to hear some music. I had thought it was a BB Shawn gig, but it was actually Guy Cruz's gig, with Shawn on drums. The Sleeptalker and I sat at a table near the front, which was a mistake since it made him feel people were looking at him ... and (sigh) thinking he was a "loser". Nancy Ishimoto joined us and was very kind to the Sleeptalker, said he was "adorable". So he is.

But not the music, nor Nancy's kindness, meeting the musicians or any of the rest of it pulled him out of his funk, even seemed to make it worse. Shawn would no doubt be an inspiration to most young people but I think made the Sleeptalker more acutely aware of his lack of success, as did the whole ambience of the hotel and bar. And there was probably also in his mind, as there was in mine, that such evenings could be a regular part of our lives if I'd give up this lifestyle and return to working life and if he'd provide the incentive, which he could.

He picked up his backpack and dashed out, I followed, and we had such a weird conversation at the bus stop with him getting more and more strange. When he started to rant about gay guys, how he "wouldn't even speak to them", I gave up, said "I'm taking the next bus to Ala Moana". I'd given him bus fare so he could bail out at any point during the evening, but he didn't join me when I got on the bus. What a strange, strange dance.

I went on to the Pier Bar to see Willie K. which helped get my own mood back on base. I'd had enough to drink by then so only had one beer, danced with a woman I know from somewhere but couldn't place, and shortly before midnight went to the hacienda and slept on an outside bench there.

Walking from there to the mall early on the beautiful Saturday morning brought back memories of the days when that walk was a regular part of my life after nights sleeping on benches next to Rocky, the Sleeptalker, Mondo ... and I had occasion to think of those days again many times during the day since I ended up spending most of it alone with Rocky.

But that's another Tale ...

352

Much to my surprise, I found out from separate second-hand sources that the Sleeptalker evidently enjoyed himself very much on Friday and our expedition to Waikiki was the "talk of the 'hood". One of the more difficult things about the friendship with the Sleeptalker is the almost total lack of direct feedback. I never know whether he has had a good time or an awful time. Even this second-hand information is a rarity.

For me, the evening had been a very difficult one and I was still feeling somewhat wrecked from it on Saturday morning. So after coffee at McD's, I crossed over to the beach, planning to just lay on the sand for a couple of hours and doze. I ran into the Snorer on the way through the park and in addition to chatting about the Sleeptalker, he said he was expecting Rocky to stop down later. I'd already decided I'd make it an offline day and not travel to campus so after listening to Dylan's "Not Dark Yet" and some off-and-on dozing I headed to the far other end of the beach, hopefully out of range of the Social Horror Club.

I crossed over to get a beer and as I was walking along the canal on the park side, there came Rocky strutting his strut along the other side. He spotted me, jumped down into the canal and came straight across to me. All through the day I kept remembering those early Tales, Rocky the silent, sullen guy who so intimidated me I was careful not to even look at him unless I was sure he was soundly asleep. The Sleeptalker had been puzzled, Rocky said, by why I'd left on Friday evening. When I told him it was because my patience ran out when the Sleeptalker started ranting about gay people, he laughed and said, "he didn't mean you," but added, "we told you he's crazy."

All through the day he kept returning to the fact that I think the Sleeptalker is cuter than he is. And Mondo? No, Mondo is not cute, I said, he's handsome. To give the poor lad at least a little ego stroke, I told him he had the best body and is definitely the best hung. "You want to see it?" he asked. Sure. So he pulled out the waistband of his shorts and let me have a look. Nope, I never would have expected it a year ago.

Unlike the Sleeptalker, who freely admits he has let men have his body in the past, Rocky is quite proud of never having done so but he promised I could be the first if he changes his mind. He talked a lot about his lady and his four-year-old son who are living in Hilo but otherwise very little about his past despite my subtle efforts to get him to.

BB Shawn was scheduled to play at a "Festival for Fathers" in McCoy Pavilion and I wanted to stop by to thank Nancy for having been so kind to the Sleeptalker on Friday. Poor Nancy! The Sleeptalker one day and Rocky the next. We didn't stay long and after leaving Rocky was fuming away because he thought he'd heard Nancy say "he's not cute at all"! I assured him I'd heard no such thing, that it just wasn't the kind of thing Nancy would do, and that if she had said someone wasn't cute she wouldn't have been referring to him. That started the whole thing going again about what I think, although why it matters to the young man is a mystery to me.

He seems so much more worldly and experienced than the Sleeptalker it's difficult to keep in mind that he's even younger and I have almost nothing in common with him which makes communication very much a hit-and-miss gamble. I'm not physically attracted to him despite his fine body and impressive equipment but teased him a little just to reassure him I do like him. Each time I'd pat him he'd go into a mock karate routine which was really quite funny since it was so clear he liked the attention, and all in all, it was an amusing day and somewhat easier than a similar session would have been with the Sleeptalker. He was heading down to IHS for dinner but I said I was going to campus, planned an early night. As one final demonstration of his physical prowess, he smashed an upright can flat with his fist. "Wow," I said, "I am definitely out of here!". "Just joking, just joking," he said. Sweet guy.

The Snorer and Rocky certainly had me feeling somewhat better about the evening with the Sleeptalker but only from the perspective of thinking about him and his reactions. For me it remained a muddle in my head and pretty much stayed that way despite hiding away on campus all day Sunday to think about it, about the extreme contradictions between my life with the Boys and what's left of the life I led before this trip began. I was so discouraged by it on Friday I felt like burning bridges to all of it, even leaving for somewhere else, starting over. But that's not really the answer I want.

353

"Gawd, I'm sick of seeing these people," I thought at the mall on Monday. The same dreary faces, overweight and often dirty bodies. They stay at the mall all the time, the same people. That's one of the reasons the Sleeptalker has his "loser" attacks, I think. Because he bases himself at IHS where the habitual crowd is even worse than the one at the mall, he's surrounded by many people who genuinely are losers. If you live with crazy people, you eventually start to doubt your own sanity (with or without their help). If you live with losers, you start to feel like a loser.

When strangers ask me what I "do", I say I'm retired. I'm old enough for that to be a legitimate explanation to everyone but my friends. The Sleeptalker doesn't have that advantage, poor fellow.

Monday was a terribly sane, sensible, no-beer day and consequently rather boring. But after the strangely challenging weekend (and especially, Friday) and with the arrival of the Fabled Pension Check on the near horizon, perhaps a routine, "boring" day wasn't such a bad idea.

I've continued my world history reading in the early morning hours, working through the Greek, Roman and Byzantine empires, the rise of the Islamic Empire, and then returning to the progress of China from disarray to re-unification and the Tang Dynasty. Thus far, I've thought the earlier period of Chinese history would be the time I'd most like to explore in greater detail, but I was also struck with an urge to read more about the Emperor Justinian. Overall, though, this kind of massive sweep through mankind's history is a little depressing. Rise, decline, and fall ... rise, decline, and fall.

Some lighter weight diversion fell in my path. A volume in a Harlequin Books series called "Avenging Angels" was amusing. It was so inconsequential I don't remember the exact title or the author's name, but the series is based on the notion that angels take human form temporarily and return to earth to correct injustices. Of course they are hunks and there are the scenes of passion obligatory to the romance genre, although this particular one was pretty tame in that respect. Perhaps one of the participants being an angel requires a little more discretion in this series. I found myself thinking I could write one of them if I really tried to.

But, hmmm, that would be peanuts compared to finding the secret of Harold Robbins and writing a potboiler like his The Piranhas, the next diversion to come my way. Despite the fact that it is blatantly an awful book, it's totally engrossing and quite carries the mind away from "reality", is as effective in that regard as Dostoyevsky but, please, don't anyone say I mentioned Dostoyevsky and Robbins in the same breath.

I spent little time online Monday, only looked in briefly at the two games I've been playing. None of the Boys were in and they weren't in the park when I crossed over later to eat Krishna food. I was happy about that, needed a break. But I reminded myself it's really quite easy to "get away from it all" for awhile anytime I feel like it. Stay out of the games, stay out of the mall, stay away from Ala Moana Beach, if necessary stay off-line altogether and hang out in Waikiki if I want familiar territory or even in another part of the island. When life with the Boys gets too heavy and the crowd at the mall too depressing, take a break. That's closer to the answer I want than burning bridges and starting over, I guess.

354

The Fabled Pension Check came and went, its speedy departure helped by half of it being in hock (and having been in hock for an extra month since I hadn't redeemed the loan at the beginning of June). Unlike the past couple of months, I didn't even do the responsible shopping expedition which was needed and planned. A few days of living like a "normal" person and then back to the life of a hunter/gatherer.

Those interludes of normality inevitably revive the debate, ask again the question, "can I really live like this for another two and a half years?" I don't know.

I did manage a stop at Rainbow Books to get Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza which has long been on my intended reading list. It's a depressingly wonderful book which almost immediately had me wondering if I could ever read cheap fiction again but knowing that I could and would.

Returning to the scene of the last time I saw the Sleeptalker, I went to BB Shawn's gig at the Regent's Ocean Terrace on Thursday evening, wished he were there again with me but was also happy he wasn't. None of the boys appeared in the game all week and I didn't see any of them at the mall. The sweet young man who is such a MUD addict and sits for hours at the Hamilton terminals filled the void, being unusually open and friendly. He's like a teddy bear and I'd love to hug him but limited it to pats on the shoulder and smiles.

Sometimes I really do wish physical desire would go away and bother me no more.

355

The highlight of the long holiday weekend came on Saturday evening. After joining Helen R for pizza from the newly-opened Papa John's I was feeling just too tired to tackle an expedition to Waikiki despite an invitation from mainland visitors, so I spent a quiet evening on campus reading. Earlier than usual, I walked through the lower campus complex (mostly devoted to sports) on my way to the cloisters. One of the studios has large windows on one side and a hula class was in session, the scene so fascinating I stopped to watch. In the foreground, sprawled on the floor, were four young men, two of them wearing only shorts and sitting very close to each other so their slim brown bodies were constantly brushing together. One of their companions was even more actively patting and stroking, at one point held down the young fellow next to him and put his hand over his victim's mouth. I wondered what the lad had been saying.

Charming as that tableau was, the scene really came to life when another young man walked over and began to dance. He wasn't exceptionally handsome, wouldn't particularly have attracted my attention elsewhere, but what an extraordinary dancer! One of the musicians, and I assume the instructor, then had him and a young lady do a delightful dance, unlike any hula I've seen before, a touching courtship ritual. The combination of the dancing and those young men sprawled in the foreground made it seem almost as though a time machine had transported me to the pre-missionary islands, despite the very modern architectural environment.

Another highlight of the long weekend, although certainly on an entirely different plane took place late on the night of July 4th. I'd gone to the concert which was being held at the mall, heard Pure Heart, and then wandered around awhile before crossing over to the beach for the fireworks. Public fireworks displays here are always very well executed but this was the best I've seen yet. I'd waited to let the huge crowd disperse somewhat, missed the last campus-bound bus from the mall, so had to walk up to catch a different one that runs later. An older man was staggering down the sidewalk, barely managing to make it from one pole to another, drunk as the proverbial skunk. He grinned at me as he only just managed to grab a pole, and I congratulated him on his success. "You're a nice guy," he said, "I want to buy you a beer." I told him it was very unlikely a bar would serve him and asked if I could help him make his way home instead. No, he wasn't ready to go home and he was sure he'd find a bar or club to serve us. So I walked along with him, trying to keep him from wobbling out into the street, and he was very jolly, kept stopping to give me a hug and "accidentally" letting his hand brush against my crotch. I wasn't sure if he was really trying to work up the nerve to make a pass but thought it more likely he was just drunk enough to override repression. The first club we walked into did, indeed, refuse to serve him. A doorman at the second one (Saigon Passion III) wouldn't even let us in, but the third try was successful, a Korean hostess took him in hand and led us to a table, brought two Budweisers. He handed her a twenty dollar bill. No change was volunteered. I told him he should ask for it but he refused. Oh well, no fool like an old fool, especially a drunk one. After the beer I again offered to help him get home but he wanted to stay and I left him, feeling fairly certain he'd be leaving the place with totally empty pockets.

The day set a new record for income from shopping carts and strollers. A large part of the mall parking structure was closed for the concert and the mall itself was as crowded with shoppers as it is during the pre-Christmas week. Many people were buying food to take over to the beach for the evening fireworks and abandoned their carts as they left the mall. Incredibly, there was no competition at all. That's no doubt partly because the first of the month brings welfare or social security checks, making quarters less alluring. Some of the most active competitors also often give up the hunt to watch entertainment at the mall's Center Stage and there was something going on there throughout the day. That factor also turned the following Tuesday into a unexpected two-Colt bonanza, but the Fourth set the record with seven dollars.

Since I had spent the last of my money on a belated purchase of tea bags, that was a most welcome surprise and let me at least partly keep up my tradition of getting plastered on the Fourth. Three Colts spread throughout the day was a fairly weak version of past celebrations, but a lot better than I had expected. Food was in abundant supply, too, on both the Fourth and the following day, also observed as a holiday, but then oddly was almost totally missing on Tuesday.

That flu bug, or whatever it was, went on its way very quickly but left a nasty legacy behind in the form of aggravated bronchitis (I suspect). That's usually not a problem in the summer, but it went into full swing on the morning of the Fourth and each morning starts with an hour or more of clearing the accumulated congestion from the night. It's a thoroughly unpleasant condition and causes a constant drain on overall energy levels.

It's always something ...

355a

As I wrote elsewhere:

Methinks I made a mis-diagnosis. Although highly unusual for such a thing to follow so close on the heels of that seeming flu-bug recently, this is just a common old ordinary cold in da head, complete with a running faucet of a nose.

Weird stuff for High Summer.

But then this is the Seventh Month of 1999, when Nostradamus said fire would rain from the sky, the War to End War would begin, and the Anti-Christ would arise.

Well, I suppose if India and Pakistan start lobbing nukes at each other, old Nostradamus's sales will skyrocket, too.

Meanwhile, I'll sniffle and snuffle ....

356

Wednesday was the worst. I walked around muttering "oh gawd" all day, not entirely sure which deity I was muttering to. In the days when I had jobs with an allowance of "sick days", I almost never used them except when feeling fine and just wanting to goof off. If I wasn't feeling well it seemed more sensible to just go ahead and work since I wasn't going to enjoy the time anyway. That philosophy held for the second half of this week. The overly chilled buildings on campus aggravated the physical discomfort, so aside from very brief on-line moments, I spent the days at the beach and the mall, much of it "working" at the Quarter Hunt game.

The game was quite successful except for Thursday. Wednesday and Friday were 2-Colt Days; on Thursday I was beginning to wonder if there'd even be one, was looking for one last quarter before retiring from the game for the day. I don't usually check coin return boxes on payphones unless the Dowser tingles. It did. I checked. $1.35. Wheee. That bettered Wednesday's major find, four quarters left in a stroller return station. Friday's version of the Dollar Miracle was the most weird, though. I hadn't noticed when retrieving it from a shopping cart, but when I was double-checking the stack of eight quarters I was about to spend on a Colt, I could feel one of the coins was slightly larger, thought it was probably some Asian coin and quite involuntarily said to Kiko, "what the hell is that?!" It was an Anthony dollar! That thing must have been wandering around mistaken as a quarter for quite some time now.

Kiko is the new local lad at the 7-Eleven. Local boys no ka oi.

As for the other boys ... well, Friday marked two weeks without seeing or hearing from the Sleeptalker. I saw the Snorer a couple of times but didn't stop to talk and spotted Rocky from a distance on Thursday when I was still not in the mood at all for company so took a long detour to avoid encountering him.

People talk too much. That's a conclusion I've been coming to for a long time. And urban nomads are probably the worst. Some of them simply never stop talking, even if there is no one for them to talk to (no one visible, in any case). A couple of the buddy teams can be seen endlessly yakking to each other all day and then they get to the cloisters and keep on yakking. One dreary man at the beach park never shuts up despite never having anyone to talk to. On Thursday I had washed a tee shirt and was waiting for it to dry, reading the book on the history of Asia which was the major find from the end of first Summer Session. He settled across the little canal from me. I shifted position slightly so a bush blocked him from view. I could hear him grumbling away to himself as usual but he gradually got louder and louder. Finally I shouted, "shut up! who's listening to you anyway?!" He shouted back something like "what's it to you" but went on his way. Yes, I think I could cope very well with a monastic order which observed strict silence.

356a

Competition in the Quarter Hunt game remained unusually light all week, much to my surprise. Tubby was on the hunt Friday, though. His method so annoys me that I give him no mercy whatever, was delighted once again to watch him waddle along behind some poor old lady and stand there gaping at her while she unloaded her cart into the trunk of her car. Delighted, because after taking quite some time at it, she then started to wheel the cart back herself, him waddling along behind her with his usual bewildered look. To complete the delight, as she passed by me with the cart, I gave her a big smile even if she couldn't have known why. "Would you like some oranges?" she asked, offering me a plastic bag. "I'd love some," I said, "thanks very much." "I bought too many," she explained. Four big oranges. Delicious, and given the state of my health, a welcome addition to the backpack, not to mention the added pleasure of the look on Tubby's face as he witnessed the exchange.

There was one more wickedly delightful episode with Tubby that day when I saw him go waddling off after yet another old lady. Ha! I knew her from past experience. She very, very slowly wheels her cart way off to the furtherest point of the parking lot, then crosses the street to a large apartment building, and takes the cart inside with her. Poor Tubby.

The Whore is another competitor I actively enjoy defeating. He's a grubby, bearded fellow with a potbelly who always carries a little clutch purse in one hand. He's never around in the mornings, but from late afternoon until mid-evening can be seen constantly prowling back and forth between the supermarket and the two bus stops where carts are often abandoned. It was the perfect topper for Saturday's game when I happened across a cart just as he was turning to explore that bus stop and wheeled it past him toward the return corral.

Saturday was a successful day. I've been retiring when reaching the Two Colt stage and got there by three on Saturday afternoon. No Dollar Miracle that day, but there was one of those special treats when all it takes is an extra shove on the line-up of returned strollers to push the last one past the trigger mechanism that returns two quarters. My guess is, a lot of the Japanese tourists simply don't understand two quarters are refunded when the strollers are returned. The lack of instructions in Japanese is a blessing.

I was especially happy to end the game early on Saturday because Gaelic Storm's concert in the evening at Andrews Amphitheatre promised the usual afternoon soundcheck rehearsal and so it happened. A bottle of Colt and that wonderful Irish music made the late afternoon in the secluded grove very special, as did a second bottle with the actual concert in the evening. There may have been conflict in some people's minds about the choice of entertainment on Saturday evening ... Gaelic Storm on campus or the annual Blue Hawaiian Moonlight concert at the Waikiki Shell ... but for me there was no conflict at all. I love Hawaiian music, but love traditional Irish music even more and the chances to hear it are too rare in these islands. Listening to Gaelic Storm once again reminded me how much I miss hearing Arthur Davey and the Fureys. If they came here, I'd spend the whole pension check on a ticket if necessary.

I found a copy of Irving Wallace's The Three Sirens so put aside the Asian history book to enjoy this yarn about a Polynesian island unknown to the modern world since an Englishman had cast up there in the eighteenth century. Amusing fluff.

I had been feeling somewhat puzzled by the fuss Jonathan Cainer has been making about the Jupiter/Mars opposition, then realized the last such event coincided with the start of this particular stage of my life. Yes, 1.8 years is about right, I think. Maybe not such a long trip, yet, but certainly often a strange one.

357

"You got beer?" I heard from behind me as someone gave me a pat on the back. I had spotted Rocky again on Saturday, once again had avoided meeting him, but on Sunday afternoon he came across me sitting on a planter ledge without my having seen him approach. I told him, no, I didn't have beer. I didn't mention that I had the financing for one already in place. Although in a way I admire his candor and sometimes enjoy his company sufficiently to put up with it, I'm just not willing to invest time in a relationship with someone who is only interested in me as the supplier of beer. I had been thinking about it, after deliberately avoiding him twice during the week, and considered saying, "Sorry, I'm tired of playing saint, not buying beer for some young dude again unless he's willing to put out." Trouble with that approach is, Rocky just might do it ... and I don't want it.

He asked, as always, if I'd seen the Sleeptalker. Not for two weeks, I told him. Rocky hadn't seen him either, wondered what has happened to him. I wonder, too. None of the boys have been in the online games, but then I have spent very little time in them as well, with about half an hour in Seventh Circle early on Monday morning the longest stay in over a week.

The Mall Game has replaced the online games. To call it the Quarter Hunt game is misleading, since the hunt for quarters is only one part of it. Finding enough quarters to finance a $2.07 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor is a fine prize, those rare days when two bottles are possible equal a most successful game, but there are many other aspects to it which make for a good, indifferent, or unsatisfactory game session. Food and tobacco are, of course, welcome prizes. Amusing encounters with strangers, interludes of observing the less transient occupants of the mall, the challenge of competitors ... all combine to make it a frequently amusing game.

Two new players have recently appeared. One I call the Zombie. He's a handsome young man, much in the Mondo style, who has an utterly blank look on his face which reads, though, as contentment. He walks with his arms at his side, motionless. He hunts cigarette butts and cups with Coke or Pepsi, never seems to take an interest in quarters. He speaks to no one.

The other, also a darkly attractive young man, I call the Fool. I mean that in the classic reine Tor sense, the Joker, the happy genius. Always smiling, with such a happy look on his face I wondered what drug he was on when I first saw him. He sits for hours beside an ashtray/trashcan, usually near the Disney Store, and thus supplied with a steady harvest of snipes, appears to happily smoke and watch the people. I've never seen him speak to anyone, either, nor does he take any interest in hunting for whatever isn't deposited in his immediate disposal unit.

I like both of them very much and admire their apparently contented adjustment, their mastery of the Mall Game. Like Mondo, they are better players than I am.

The Whore was frantic on Monday, rushing around in a frenzy trying not to lose any quarters. Fortunately the other major competitors were not playing and since he seemed so desperate I concentrated on other than the main hunting grounds, still managed to have the Colt financing in place by early afternoon. Sunday's most odd find: I noticed a young nomad sitting near a bus stop with one of those huge plastic jugs of milk and a box of cereal, thought the milk especially a sad waste of foodstamp buying power. A little later I again passed by the spot and saw he had abandoned both the milk and the cereal, so enjoyed some myself. Milk is a rarity, one of the things I wish I had more of, so it was a most welcome, and unusual, game prize.

Almost every day there is a plate lunch box from Patti's Chinese Kitchen. By far, most of my off-campus food comes from that place. That so much of it is abandoned doesn't speak very highly of it, I fear. Part of the reason, I think, is that they so lightly cook the vegetables they mix with their fried noodles and the mix is always heavy on broccoli. Cooked so briefly, it is always very tough. So the abandoned boxes usually contain a generous supply of vegetables and noodles, with only a few remnants of whatever the meat dish may have been. There was one most unusual plate lunch box from Zippy's on Monday, though. Someone had eaten all the rice and macaroni salad, left just enough to provide evidence of its one-time existence, but there were three large pieces of fried chicken untouched!

It's important not to play the game seriously or for too long a time, not to get greedy, not to let the number of found quarters determine the overall mood of the play. Que sera, sera. The fun comes from the playing, not the rewards.

358

The biggest pitfall in the Mall Game is eating too much. There are so many people who kindly leave their leftovers and unwanted purchases on benches or ledges and it's difficult not to peek inside a heavy plate lunch box or to taste it when the contents look interesting or to finish them when they're good. There's not much around in the morning (I should've won the recent McDonald's prize of "free breakfast for a year" and then I'd really be set), but from around eleven or eleven-thirty, food starts to appear and usually in over-abundance.

The Mall Game relates more to Bartle's MUD2 than to games like Seventh Circle. MUD2 "resets" periodically. You lose everything you have and must start over. Although you keep your rank and any skills or credits for special quests, objects have to be re-acquired. Echo Myra's "and start all over again in the morning." I should have had a fifty-cent start, though, on Thursday's game. Didn't, because a return mechanism for strollers cheated me and failed to produce the two quarters it was supposed to. I was rather annoyed because I was in a hurry, had to leave to get to a theatre, but couldn't resist returning the stroller which I found on a level above the return point and thus had to take down in an elevator. I was somewhat compensated the next morning when I shoved the line of strollers in a return-corral and the first one unexpectedly popped out. Returning it gave me two quarters. Victory!

One amusing aspect of the game, and of finding things anywhere, is speculating on the reason something has been abandoned. This week included a major mystery in that category. On Monday I noticed a discarded small brown paper bag. It was sufficiently open for me to see a Virginia Slims cigarette box inside. I needed a new stash box, so got it. The thing was almost a full pack, missing perhaps one or two smokes. Okay, I assumed someone bought it and decided they didn't like them, threw it away. Tuesday morning, same trash bin, another small brown paper bag. I got it out, looked inside. TWO packs of Virginia Slims, both opened, both missing only one or two smokes. Now if it had been just one such pack, I'd have thought, well, maybe someone is trying to quit smoking, can't resist, buys a pack, smokes two and throws the rest away. But TWO packs? No, I couldn't come up with any reasonable hypothesis. Wednesday morning, naturally I went to check that trashbin. Yet again, a pack of Virginia Slims with two smokes missing. Definitely a major mystery. Alas, the magic didn't continue on Thursday ...

Dame Fortune seems to have thought I should get more Vitamin C, followed-up the gift of oranges with an odd little plastic dispenser full of tiny yellow triangles containing the vitamin. Although smaller, they instantly reminded me of valium. Now that would be THE find of the year, a little tub of diazepam tablets.

358 insert: Perestroika

Subject: Manoa Valley Theatre's new production
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