I’m insanely busy.

In fact, insane people would go to a level beyond insanity if they had to deal with what’s going on with me right now.

It’s all (mostly) good though.

I am weirdly hitting my stride and finding this strange sweet spot on this island that kind of stuns me a little bit.

I feel really blessed, honestly. There’s a belief here that “Maui” (as if she were a sentient being) embraces you or boots your ass out, or it could be Pele and the others. Regardless, somebody up there likes me and although the pay ain’t so impressive, I am getting (milk money) funded to write funny pieces a la this blog.
So yeah.

The money may suck (balls), but there is a notable audience involved and I get to do what I love (attempt to be funny) so I’m actually freakishly happy about it all.

Anywho, last night I was hanging out with some friends and someone went to a site that I write for to show someone else a piece I did. While there, a headline -

Woman Arrested After Falling Through Ceiling of Police Station -

to be exact, caught their eye.

At first I thought my editor was assigning satirical pieces to someone else and was kinda pissed, but when I realized this ACTUALLY HAPPENED I decided to attempt what a team of a dozen seasoned writers do daily and as a group and with the advantage of bouncing off others and for six figures for David Letterman by myself.

There are some changes here that aren’t mine and that wouldn’t have necessarily been my choice, but my editor was having a bad day – unrelated to me. I am a veritable ray of sunshine. Plus, I’m super grateful he lets me run this stuff at all…no less to such a broad audience – so I decided not to split hairs and here you go. As usual, linked before it’s over because I don’t honestly know if I have legal rights to reprint it.  (???)

Plus, then you can go and leave “fan” comments to counter the guy who called me a “whiny coward” three times over my in-jest Iao Valley hike piece.

Gah.

It’s called a sense of humor, dude.

Look into it.

Top 10 Excuses for Being in the Ceiling of a Police Station

**Editor’s note: This article is based on yesterday’s story about a woman who was arrested after falling through the ceiling of Kihei Police Station.**

Aloha!

(Or, if you’re being particularly obnoxious/”Hawaiian” about it) AlooooooooooHA!

My best friend lost her job – and the job provided housing so she is both jobless and homeless now – and is staying with me. Thus, millions of random pictures are being taken all the time whereas before I simply took pictures of the pets. Here I am being faux-outraged last night that the dog is attempting to lick my plate…as if this doesn’t happen daily.

First off, I have good news for you! I am going to do a better job about blogging. Like at least once a week. Scratch that. TWICE a week at least I will blog. Why’s that? you ask.

Well, because I freaking love it, that’s why!

I jest.

I mean, I don’t not love it, it’s just that it’s time-consuming and sometimes really hard to come up with something useful to tell you.

However, I attended this writing conference and kept getting hit over the head by all this “social media is more important than knowing how to spell” advice, and even though I’m exaggerating a bit on the spelling part, the one thing that’s clear is that I somehow have to build a “following” so that when my books are finally freaking published all of you will run out and buy them.

I was also told self-publishing is a bad joke (sorry self-published folks) even including Amazon or eBooks because

a) How do you know Amazon or whomever is being honest with you and really giving you your money? (Yikes! Don’t they already own the world? Do they really need to steal too?)

b) Unless you sell at least 10,000 copies it’s really more an embarrassment or proof that your parents love you (I know my dad is good for a solid 20 copies right off the cuff.) or a display of vanity and likely to be lost in a sea of garbage anyway. People were actually being encouraged to NOT ADMIT they’d self-published. You could sort of feel the shock and shame in the room. I’m too lazy to be self-published, so I just sat there and looked smug.

Anywho, it wasn’t all “you will probably never make it” and “you’re more likely to have sex with the Dalai Lama than see your book with a Penguin logo on it” (although there was a fair amount of that going on), I’m more determined than ever to write something worthy and that people are fighting over the right to publish, so in addition to these new-fangled efforts to build what one of my ex-boyfriends calls my “Legion of Followers” via this blog and I guess my Twitter and god help me, I suppose even Pinterest, I am also going to knuckle down on my fiction. Impossible odds, you say? I can’t help myself. I have a feeling…

In other news, I have been asked to start submitting one “fun” piece a week as part of my A&E writing gig here on Maui.

This is super freaking awesome, because basically it’s what I’d write for you guys…only less vulgar…and it has to be about Maui…and I’m not allowed to say “I” because my editor thinks that’s lazy. (???)

Too bad though, because one of my ideas REQUIRES that it be in first person and that’s how I’m writing it. So there.

Anywho, here is my first installment of the “fun” pieces which mocks all these people who keep trying this ridiculously dangerous four-day hike and getting themselves airlifted out of it.

I’m cutting it off halfway because I’m not entirely sure I have the rights to this even though I wrote it and because I happen to adore said editor and would never want to anger him. He can be quite the sharp-tongued serpent if you catch him on the wrong day.  ;)

Dear Would-Be Olowalu to Iao Hiker

sat·ire  

/ˈsaˌtī(ə)r/

Noun

A literary work in which human vice or folly is exposed or criticized through irony, derision, or wit. 

Dear Would-Be Olowalu to Iao Valley Hiker,

It has come to our attention that you keep trying this, despite the preponderance of words like “certain death,” “impossible,” “beyond stupid,” and “Darwin Awards.”

Speaking of which, we can’t help but wonder if the ancient Hawaiians started the tale of this “trail” or “pass” as a means of thinning the herd; a survival of the fittest snipe hunt, if you will.

But we don’t actually know that. All we know is that attempting this hike is a terrible idea. Even “Maui Revealed” doesn’t recommend anyone take a shot at this insanity.

Thus, we are left to draw one conclusion as to your motives, oh intrepid hiker: you are on a suicide mission.

That stated, we offer up some helpful tips.

Not that we want you to die – not at all; in fact, please seek counseling or at least hike something reasonable like Polipoli and get your head on straight – but because we realize it must be disappointing when you hear the chopper overhead and know you’ll live on to see your name featured on this very website.

Plus, we can’t imagine what all these airlift rescues are going to do to our tax rates.

Presuming this is what you seek, and in no particular order, here’s how to ensure you never return from your “mission” to the Iao Valley via the back road.

1. Water is for cowards. That’s right. We said it. Looking to meet your maker somewhere before the summit? Dehydration is the name of the game.
2. Wait for several days of intense rain. Nothing says “no body was recovered” like a flash flood.
3. Get the rest of the list by clicking this link which will take you to the original.

Well, Kids, we’re still here.

Can’t say I’m terribly surprised.

Not that I’m in charge of the world or anything, but I couldn’t really wrap my brain around how it was all supposed to “end,” and I have a general sense that if I can’t imagine it, it probably won’t come true.

I suppose there’s always the chance we’ll be nuked by an asteroid or solar flared into Kingdom Come, but I hope not. I need more time to recover from this latest blow and find my happily ever after.

So here’s hoping for at least another decade or two.

In conclusion – for tonight anyway – and in the words of Patty Griffin,
“May you dream you are dreaming, in a warm soft bed
And may the voices inside you that fill you with dread
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead
Tonight where you might be laying your head.”

I wish you well.

I had about three even-keeled days.

Okay, probably just two, but still. They were a welcome relief. I actually called some people and arranged some interviews and stuff I’m supposed to be doing but haven’t been doing. Oh, I clearly haven’t explained myself well over the last few months either. In addition to the food writing, I also do the Arts and Entertainment for Maui Now. Since there is no real “assignment” ever – it’s kind of the Seinfeld of jobs. You have to invent things to talk about. – I decided to try to interview the big names when they come to our little rock.

This is hit or miss, as mentioned, but it’s fun when it hits.

And – believe it or not – the big names are easier to gain access to than the local talent. There are some real divas on this little rock.

So anyway, I was doing okay. My false hope propels me and all that.

But then last night?

Totally devastated again as if it was a brand new wound.

This SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.

I have been working diligently on the new (anonymous) blog, so I won’t be torturing you with too much of my heartache and woe, but I ran across this quote again today and it makes even more sense now than it did a couple weeks ago:

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

~Pema Chodron

She’s right – obviously – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

In fact, the hardest part of Buddhism, let alone life, is accepting the fact that we’re not in control of anything and the more we attach ourselves or try to control, the more we suffer.

Still, there are days I take this REALLY personally.

It’s so unfathomable and there is no template for what this means or why it has happened or how to even understand it.

As a dear friend of mine wrote last night, “He is a paradox. I have never heard of someone who so clearly loved someone else just cut them out of their life. I understand how unbearable this must be.”

My dad perhaps put it best, “I’ve never heard of anything like this…and I’ve been alive a long time.”

Although my mind knows what Pema Chodron has written is true, my heart is taking this personally. Like if I was a better person or more lovable or worthwhile, he wouldn’t or couldn’t have done this to me. Or he would have at least sent a text cutting me loose and changed his Facebook and removed the “in a relationship”” and my false hope (which is all but lost at this point.)

Between you and me, it has truly made me feel deeply insignificant and even worthless: like I’m not even enough to say goodbye to.

As I’ve said before: super unfun times

I’ll try to channel all this angst and pain into my new blog moving forward and hopefully come up with something entertaining soon.

Again, I am sorry to have talked about this so much, but having a year and a half long relationship totally vanish into thin air (without so much as a spat or other fathomable precursor) has arguably been the most painful experience of my life.

If your own loved one is still around, give them a hug just for showing up.

Apparently it’s harder for some of us than I would have guessed.

I get to interview Gabriel Iglesias AND Bill Maher!

They’re both coming in the next few weeks and their people have happily said yes.

I’ve decided to go with clever and/or unexpected (hopefully funny) questions over anything useful (they’re comedians, right??? And if the answers can be found in their Wiki, why even ask?). If you have anything you’d like asked, speak now or forever hold your peace.

I also sent a request to Chicago’s management (the band. Their website is actually something like “Chicago the band dot com”) but musicians are more likely to snub me. John Prine’s people straight up said no within hours.

That’s okay. I still adore this song.

Otherwise?

I have come to terms with it all.

I can do nothing to change any of this.

My best bet is to put my head down, accept the pain, don’t try to fight it or question things or resist them. Somehow this is oddly comforting, albeit still awful.

***sigh***

Anyway, I bought the new blog url yesterday and will work on building it over the next few days. Hopefully soon I can go back to compartmentalizing and keeping these posts relatively amusing or at least heartache free.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring.

Such is life sometimes. Hard to understand and harder still to survive, but still worth it somehow.