These two pages from the book I’m reading speak to me.  One’s unexplainable love for New York City, one’s inability to reason why important decisions are made the way they are made, one’s insufferably racing mind that can rarely lock-in to the here and now.

“Hugh,” he said, “there’s something I was going to ask you.  You’ve got enough money put away you could live high if you wanted to.  Why in God’s name do you live in a little box of a room in a back-street hotel and hang out in the fish market when you could go down to Miami, Florida, and sit in the sun?”

Mr. Flood bit the end off one of his sixty-five-cent cigars and spat it into the scuttle.  He held a splinter in the stove until it caught fire, and then he lit the cigar. “Tommy, my boy,” he said, “I don’t know.  Nobody knows why they do anything  I could give you one dozen reasons why I prefer the Fulton Fish Market to Miami, Florida, and most likely none would be the right one.  The right reason is something obscure and way off and I probably don’t even know it myself.  It’s like the old farmer who wouldn’t tell the drummer the time of day.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mr. Maggiani.

“It’s an old, old story,” Mr. Flood said.  “I’ve heard it told sixteen different ways.  I even heard a muxed-up version one night years ago in a vaudeville show.  I’ll tell it the way my daddy used to tell it.  There was an old farmer lived beside a little branch-line railroad in south Jersey, and every so often he’d get on the train and go over to Trenton and buy himself a crock of applejack.  He’d buy it right at the distillery door, the old Bossert & Stockton Apple Brandy Distillery, and save himself a penny or two.  One morning he went to Trenton and bought his crock, and that afternoon he got on the train for the trip home.  Just as the train pulled out, he took his watch ofrm his vest pocket, a fine gold watch in a fancy hunting case, and he looked at it, and then he snapped it shut and put it back in his pocket.  And there was a drummer sitting across the aisle.  This drummer leaned over and said, ‘Friend, what time is it?’  The farmer took a look at him and said, ‘Won’t tell you.’ The drummer thought he was hard of hearing and spoke louder. ‘Friend,’ he shouted out, ‘what time is it?’  ‘Won’t tell you,’ said the farmer.  The drummer thought a moment and then he said, ‘Friend, all I asked was the time of day.  It don’t cost anything to tell the time of day.’ ‘Won’t tell you,’ said the farmer. ‘Well, look here, for the Lord’s sake,’ said the drummer, ‘why won’t you tell me the time of day?’

‘If I was to tell you the time of day,’ the farmer said, ‘we’d get into a conversation, and I got a crock of spirits down on the floor between my feet, and in a minute I’m going to take a drink, and if we were having a conversation I’d ask you to take a drink with me, and you would, and presently I’d take another, and I’d ask you to do the same, and you would, and we’d get to drinking, and by and by the train’d pull up to the stop where I get off, and I’d ask you why don’t you get off and spend the afternoon with me, and you would, and we’d walk up to my house and sit on the front porch and drink and sing, and along about dark my old lady would come out and ask you to take supper with us, and you would, and after supper I’d ask if you’d care to drink some more, and you would, and it’d get to be real late and I’d ask you to spend the night in the spare room, and you would, and along about two o’clock in the morning I’d get up to go to the pump, and I’d pass my daughter’s room, and there you’d be, in there with my daughter, and I’d have to turn the bureau upside down and get out my pistol, and my old lady would have to get dressed and hitch up the horse and go down the road to get the preacher, and I don’t want no God-damned son-in-law who don’t own a watch.’”

(1944)

Erin arrived today.  She’s the first visitor I’ve had since my 2 month excursion to New York, London and Edinburgh over the summer.  I only found out last week that she’d be fleeing the hustle and bustle of New York City to hang out here for a little bit.

I’ve almost been here a year (next month will be a full 12 months).  I still find myself stopping at random times of the day to say “I live in Hawaii” to myself.  I don’t think I ever won’t.  It’s not that it doesn’t feel like home, it’s just that home feels so good.  Home evokes a good feeling for most, because of the traditional associations of comfort, safety/protection, and familiarity.  But for me, home has changed so often, and sometimes so drastically, that home has always had a tinge of unfamiliarity that accompanied it.

Hawaii is no exception.  I learn something new everyday, I find a new beach, a new place to eat, a new type of plant, or species of reptile, or historical fact.  This happens in the greatest concentration when I have visitors.  Each visitor wants to do different things, see different places, has a different motivation/attitude to their visit, and Hawaii and I accommodate them personally.  One day in Waikiki, 3 days bumming around Maui, 7 days (extended to 10 because your airline went belly-up overnight) on Oahu, they all bring something different to the table.

But usually when I go to visit someone else at their home, they know it all.  They know the history of every store front in their town (the kids clothing store, that used to be a CD store, that used to be a candy store, that used to be a real estate office), find most of the faces walking around familiar, and ‘doing something new’ isn’t even an option.  Here that’s not the case.  Here I get to fall in love with the place I live every time someone comes to visit (and really, every day).  I get to see things for the first time (or the tenth time) through the eyes of someone who has never experienced it before.

In short, I love when my friends visit.  It’s not that I really need the reminders, but when I have visitors I am reminded of why I love my friends.  More importantly I am reminded of why I love Hawaii.

Tomorrow is Labor Day.  That means you are not working.  I am because I’m self-employed and I get paid by the hour, and if I don’t work for a day I don’t eat for a day.  Do you know why you don’t work on Labor Day? Probably not.  You probably don’t even know what Labor Day means.  You probably think the ‘Labor’ part is in reference to giving birth to a baby.  Yeah it’s national shoot your baby out day, that’s it Google.

No, I’m not telling you to google it.  I’m calling you Google.  What’s that?  You don’t understand?  I’m not surprised, your overall rating for the day so far is: Very Unimpressive. Let’s start with Labor Day.

work, esp. hard physical work

That is what the dictionary has to say about labor.  So why on a day whose name literally translates to Work Day, do you fuckers not have to work?  Cause 101 years before I was born, the Central Labor Union decided that all New York City laborers should get a day off from their work, to celebrate that they work.  A holiday to celebrate your work, by not working.  So pretty much it’s just a day to make fun of unemployed people, except that they blend in because no one works so you can’t even do that.  Great.  I hope you burn yourself on your grill.

Now Google, let me explain why I’m calling you Google.  When your parents were younger and still had friends (this is before you ruined their lives), when one of them did something moronic, their friends would say something to the effect of:

Way to go, Einstein!

If you don’t know who Einstein was, you can’t even read so I’m not worried about you reading this.  The humor in this insult relies on the receivers awareness of the sarcasm that’s being conveyed. Einstein was brilliant, the receiver did something dumb, the insulter calls the receiver by the name of a brilliant man to highlight how unbrilliant he or she is.  This was all great for half a century, until ‘your momma’ jokes came long, and then Internet happened.

See Einstein was the end-all be-all of knowledge until the Internet came along.  Now that we have the Internet, and better yet, a quick user-friendly clean interfaced index of said Internet that goes by the name of Google, Einstein isn’t worth his weight in atomic blast ash particles.  Google knows more in 10 minutes then Einstein knew his whole life.  The bottom line is Einstein is deprecated, and now to insult your friends who do something dumb you call them Google.

Get your pants off, get with the program, and get to work (tomorrow).