As Seen On The Bathroom Wall

The best ideas come while sitting on the pot.

Why we feel for Sandra Bullock

The celebrity tabloids have been bombarded with stories of Sandra Bullock's philandering husband and his tattooed (and mustachioed) mistress, Michelle McGee.  (Sorry, honey, but you're no "bombshell".)  While most tales of man cheating on woman get passed over without so much as a shake of the head, this tale of infidelity has shaken many, many women to the core.

Why?  Because we ARE Sandra Bullock.  She's not this cosmically out of reach beauty that so many of the other Hollywood starlets are.  She's always represented herself as average, normal (in all relativity), the woman we all would be if we could pull off wearing red lipstick and a gold, form-fitting gown on the Oscar red carpet.  It's easier seeing ourselves as her, and because of that, when something good happens, WE feel good, and when something terrible happens...well, we feel every single ounce of her pain.

And for those of us who know, who still feel the sharp sting of betrayal, the betrayal that has been cast against her is all too real.  She's the Sally Field of our time.  We like her, we really like her, and she's been brought down by a man she trusted, a man she loved, a man whom she stood by, despite the choices he'd made in the past, and the consequences that brought forth later.  (e.g. the custody battle he had with his former wife, Janine Somethingmiller.)

Sandra is me, she's you, she's your sister, your mother, your daughter, your best friend.  She's every single one of us women who've struggled with mediocrity and everything that comes before and after it.  Whether we're drop dead gorgeous, or look like we've dropped dead, we've all been able to see ourselves in her, and now we see our own pain in hers.  We see our own ire in what she's feeling towards her husband.  We all ask ourselves why?  Why would a man who had everything do something like that?  We question whether or not it could have been prevented, but we all know deep down - though we probably can't admit it out loud - that there was nothing that would have prevented such a thing from happening.

You can't make a tiger stop eating meat any more than you can stop a dog from sniffing at another dog's hind quarters.  And yet, as is most likely the case, we all still want to try.  And that might have been Sandra's biggest flaw, a flaw far too many of us share: we all think we can change another person for the better.  Or, to be more honest, for OUR better.  Unfortunately, for those of us who have tried, we know the failure that lies in that line of thinking, and the painful reality of it all is that eventually, we will be disappointed.  What separates us from Sandra Bullock is that when we finally come face to face with our disappointment, it isn't splashed all over grocery aisles and celebrity blogs.  And in that, we feel even more for Sandra, and now stand in her corner, willing to take the brunt of that exposure if it means saving her from it, even if only a little.


Aloha!

Fading to Black (Poem Blog)

Glass cutting flesh
tearing pieces of my heart
out from the soles of my feet

I walk to the end
where everything disappears
into unending and beautiful misery

Forgotten body
long abused and left wanting
desiring pain

I'm always watching
looking for the someone
who will hurt me again and again

Listen to my cries
Listen to my memories fading to black
Listen to my tomorrow and yesterday and never and forever die

Listen to my whispered wish
Listen to my mumbled pleasure
Listen to the way I say your name with mine and how they turn romance into wine

Give me your heart
and I'll tear it to pieces
I shall tear it to pieces with my kisses

Always waiting
you will never be behind me
anymore

Aloha!

Ass Backwards Hawaii

I love Hawai'i. As a locale, it's beautiful. The diverse cultural spectrum of people that live here is rare elsewhere and it's something that, as someone from multiple heritages, with children from multiple heritages, I find priceless. Yes, it's expensive to live here. Yes, the diaspora has diluted the heart of what once was a wonderful and precious culture, but the essence remains the same...for the most part.

But when it comes to the people here...sometimes I have to wonder why we all don't just sink into the ocean with the suffocating weight of the stupidity that resides amongst them.

Today's gripe stems from the Superferry debacle. It's been almost a year since the Superferry was voted off the island by a small group of NIMBYs whose self-interest made them blind to their own hypocrisy and double standards. And now that so many of them have set their sights on the rail, I have to ask myself how do these people remember to breathe, let alone string more than two words together to form an opinion?

You see, these people complain about the aesthetics of the rail, saying that any rail - both street level and raised - will be an eyesore. I mean hey, why do we want to block the pristine views of all the industrial and retail businesses in Pearl City, or the condominiums in Salt Lake? And let's not dare try to block anyone from being able to see the new Trump Tower from their thrice-mortgaged studio apartment in Makiki, because that would be an eyesore.

Perhaps I should also mention that, while arguing that the rail isn't necessary to the people of Hawai'i, they also argue about traffic here, and how there are too many cars on the island, too large a carbon footprint, too much pollution. Their solution to the problem? WIDEN THE FREEWAY.

Yes. That's right. There are too many cars on the road so to alleviate that, let's make the road BIGGER.

When the Superferry was in operation, the complaints against it were numerous, mainly in favor of the whales because, as we all know, the only ones that can hit the whales are the whale preservationists! It didn't matter that the Superferry, in its short time operating in the state, had no accidents when it came to whales, but the PWF (Pacific Whale Foundation) did. It didn't matter that the screening system to keep foreign, inter-island transfer of plants and rocks succeeded in stopping people from bringing things that weren't allowed but the coqui frog was transferred from the big island to Oahu via a Hawaiian Airlines cargo flight.

The excuses were, of course, numerous. Grandfathered companies, familiarity with brand, my uncle's aunty's sister's brother's husband's nephew's girlfriend's baby daddy's new girlfriend works there... And not a single one of them pertained to the Superferry. Because of the Superferry going out of business, over 100 people lost their jobs, businesses had to raise costs, cut jobs, and so on. Reaganites love using the term "trickle-down effect"...well, there was a "trickle-down effect" here, only it wasn't Reaganites who had implemented it.

And now that the rail is so close to the start of construction, those very same NIMBYs are going to cost this state time, money, and jobs. So that they can keep their view of the Honolulu skyline free of anything that doesn't look like a foreign owned condominium. And as they do so, their neighbors leave, unable to afford the transportation and living costs anymore. $5 a gallon of milk? $3 for a loaf of bread? $3.80 for a gallon of gas? $590k for a house on a 3200sqf piece of property that's so close to your neighbor's house you can feel them flush the toilet?

Cultural melting pot or not, before you know it this state is going to smell of only one thing: ASS. Because if we keep this up, that's how we'll look and how we'll end up.
Aloha!