When Road Runner bonks Wile Coyote on the head with a giant mallet we laugh.  Why?  Blue stars, a halo of them, circle Coyote's head, while his eyes roll back in their sockets, his canine head lolling.  Or, in another scenario, Road Runner, wielding a mallet 10 times his size, pounds Coyote into the ground, only a few strokes required.  His situation now compounded, Coyote is well beyond incapacitated, half buried as well as semicomatose.  Trapped and incapable of action, Read more [...]

The mostly blind woman, all 90 years of her, wanders into the concrete expanse shared by four apartment buildings.  While I watch and row.  It's good to be rowing.  I am returned from Hawaii in parts.  The latter must be reassembled, and there is no hurry.  Sleep is poor.  Perhaps it would help if I turned up the heat at night.  My body does not believe rest is possible under such frigid conditions.  And where are the waves, rarely lapping, generally pounding, Read more [...]

Strange what happens when one slows down. Although this hardly does the Hawaiian experience justice. The cumulative impact of...whatever it is, and one is never certain...renders the subject immobile, defenseless and more than a little bewildered. There may be humor in the phrase Polynesian Paralysis, but not much. As a descriptor, it will do. In fact, it will have to do, for there isn't sufficient energy to find another. Everything being paralyzed. That is the point. If one still believes there Read more [...]

There is an axis to this day, a point around which the rest revolves. And it is just outside the bar of the Ilikai Hotel. Being Honolulu, don't think 'bar' in the sense of anything with walls. Having just come from the Hilton Hawaiian Village a block away, I can testify to this principle. Take the lobby. Nothing separates the carpet-and-tile Hilton interior from the sidewalk outside except an arbitrary point at which the ceiling begins and the sky stops. Protection from sun and rain, that's what Read more [...]

It's the contrast, the fear, the trip.  And so it goes, departure.  For me, things slow down on the eve of a trip.  I give myself the luxury of poring over details.  Giving myself...not a familiar phrase for a person who does not readily cut himself loads of slack.  But so it goes, the hotel reservation.  The communiqué from Messrs. SuperShuttle.  The wheelchair-accessible taxi number.  One document at a time.  Slow.Slow enough to take a long, lingering Read more [...]

It is a gray day and cold for these parts.  It is a day of Paul, the weekly volunteer.  Who fortunately likes gardening.  He has come to the right place, and at the right time.  The cover crop has been turned under, steer manure spread atop, the spring garden in the ground.  I have had abundant help.  Not that this has been easy.  I missed something in having my highly efficient brother stick lettuce and spinach seedlings in the ground.  Not to mention build Read more [...]