But bacon is versatile, not only is it perfect next to my two over easy eggs and two slices of toasts. It’s perfect in my split-pea soup. Sprinkled all over my salad. Above my hamburger meat. In my clam chowder. My corn chowder. Any chowder for that matter. It’s even divine in my sushi rolls.

Oh just to be near bacon! I’d be L or T at the drop of a dime. I love bacon for what bacon is. Despite all the fancy things that dress it up; mayo, eggs, lettuce, tomato, etc., essentially, like Shakira said in her song:

“Underneath Your Clothes There’s an endless story There’s the bacon I chose There’s my territory And all the things I deserve For being such a good girl honey…”

Except, I think she said “man” instead of “bacon.” But who’s paying attention? I love bacon for how it makes me feel. I long for mornings that have promises of breakfast buffets that include my true love. As far as I know, pigs can fly, because every single sweet and salty crunch sounds like an angelic choir of cherubs to my ears and every chewy nibble is like pure bliss to my palate.

Like recessions, boyfriends come and boyfriends go. Postage stamp rates go up and keep going up. Viruses are named and renamed. One thing remains constant and certain— and it has nothing to do with death or taxes. It’s simply my bacon-love.

…

I imagined them saying to each other as they touched fists because it was cooler to do so than exchange Vulcan salutes: Live long and prosper… Ugh huh huh… Ugh huh huh— followed by snorts here and there.

They crossed paths and the lanky one continued to walk toward me. The lanky one and I approached each other on the 3-foot wide walkway, walking toward opposite directions and into our separate lives. We were 15 feet away from each other, then nine… then eight… five… three… then two. That’s when the pathway tango took place.

He moved left, I moved right. He moved right, I moved left. Face to face, we both stop, but instead of intense passion associated with tango, I start to feel hot brewing irritation.

After the pause, another dance followed. Then he says, in the most nasal and whiny Star Trek conventional kinda way: You’re invading my space!

The dance finally ended and we moved on with our lives. I walked away annoyed. Then I couldn’t help but to smile after I let what just happened sink in. Then I chuckled in my head. Then I totally LOLed, as in hysterically, with no one to hear me but the early morning finches and the crazy cat licking himself away in content. I stopped and I stared at it and remembered a conversation I had with some of my old college buddies about them wishing to be more cat-like. The cat stopped licking itself and stared back at me as if to say: Whaaaat?!!! I laughed so hard it hurt to breathe.

It seems sometimes life is a walking comedy or poetry— And that allowing ourselves to be amused by and connected to the simplest things in our surroundings without feeling ridiculous is simply enjoying one of the best free shows on the planet.

…

There was this cute chubby Chinese boy who wasn’t exactly a Kelly Slater, but he was able to catch some and trim ok, and seem to just really enjoy himself. He would be out there almost as much as me. Anyway, he shortboards, wears a red/black rashguard, and sports a comical smile with his eyes.

In between sets, he told me about the other day— well… telling does no justice and is not the right word to describe his storytelling because he not only spoke with his mouth, but he somehow incorporated his entire body in his retelling.

With his hands, head, shoulders, torso, and submerged legs he told me how Saturday was “THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFEEEEE! IT WAS SOOO GOOOD.”

I haven’t heard that much stoke in such a long time that instead of laughing at him for being so exaggerated, I just smiled because I knew exactly what he was feeling and talking about.

“…yeah, so it was like the best day of my life!,” he half-screamed again.

“The best day of your life… so far,” I said. But he didn’t hear me. He was still drowning in his own private flashbacks.

That winter, the weather began to flex his muscles and gave us a free show by pissing rain and huffing ungodly wind conditions. So for lack of nothing better to do since there wasn’t any wood to play with (as in old furniture and my new found interest in refinishing them) I resorted to something I stopped doing once I was no longer being graded for it— reading.

Anyway, I came across an old coffee table surf book I bought from The Contemporary Museum above Makiki, which was signed (he had a photo in the book) by Shaun Tomson and his lovely South African accent, who happened be right behind me at the cash register (true story).

I couldn’t help but feel so much gayness, as in exceptional happiness, when I stumbled upon a page that described exactly the same feeling that chubby boy had about his waves and best day. The stoked boy this time was no other than reigning super surfer of the universe, Kelly Slater. Everybody gets stoked.

…

It seems the surf god has been unkind to me. Is it to punish me for the ungratefulness I show when I complain and moan about the less-than-mediocre conditions he (I am beginning to think he, is in fact, a she in her 2-week long pms… What a bitch). I wish she would just get over her hormonal-tide changes and give me something good to cling on to again.

It’s been awhile and I really am getting just as bitchy— though I should reconsider picking a fight against her—I’m still very much at her mercy. Curses to the shitty feeling that one’s happiness depends on something or someone beyond one’s control! But I realize, sometimes I guess, it’s also this feeling of not having control that makes one’s happiness all that much sweeter. Life— what a fun, confusing, little puzzle.

…

The next thing I know I’m waking up… still in my clothes and on top of the comforter and blanket. My watch says 5AM.

I had no idea what happened until later that day when I looked in my medicine cabinet and saw two almost identical bottles next to each other. One was labeled Tylenol, the other Tylenol PM.

Two lessons learned:
1) Labels are important.
2) Read them.

On another notion:

Who would have thought that sewing notions and office supplies would have so much to do with relationship matters? As I’ve said once before, safety pins, buttons, hooks, Velcro, zippers… they provide closure, which everybody needs in order to move forward.

I’ve had my share of fastenating experiences. Some were neatly packaged and bow-tied with a perfect little ribbon and neatly stashed under the bed or in a closet shelf. Some were crumpled up, duct taped into a ball, Glad-wrapped, green-binned, and watched and observed every minute until picked up by the garbage collector. Case closed. Good-bye forever.

And then there are labels. If you were to dig into my file box five years ago, you’ll find three labeled file folders;

Work Stuff- had everything that had to do with work, duh.
Medical Stuff- had one thin subfolder, my medical record pre age-18.
Personal Stuff- Mostly empty… Because…

What else I had was the Other Stuff— though unlabeled, are the several multi-colored file folders; Some would have random receipts, probably for when I thought I would claim things for tax season. Others— maybe old photographs, love letters, article clippings, bills, seashells, basketball trading cards, recipes, menus, doodles, book-pressed flowers, menus, etc. etc…. I loved going through each folder and tripping out in pleasant surprise and down memory lane. Except for when I find a surprise unpaid bill. Doh!

I’ve gotten a little better with labeling these days, but not the same goes in my relationships. There are times when labels make me cringe and itch but there are also times when I feel a bit lost in translation and need less gray and more definition. But, knowing myself, the obscurity keeps me on my toes and adds a certain element of excitement from just-not-knowing. One moment, being a “friend” makes me feel like I’ve unknowingly taken a couple or more of Tylenol PM caps— confused, beaten, and too tired to make sense of it all, which often makes me want to flee. Other times, it makes me feel like an unaffected firefly— free and unworried that any moment now, some stupid kid is going to catch me in a jar and watch me flicker to oblivion. With that last notion, I leave you with a haiku.

A Fire Fly’s Life

On a blade of grass,
She flicks her butt on and off—
Bow chica bow wow.

With the 400,000 people living in Honolulu (a recent estimate released by the U.S. Census Bureau), about half of that is the male population. Now that’s a pool of about 200,000 boys, men, and old men. Now of course, I would only date men, though in the past, I think I may have dated some who, mentally, were 10 and 60. So 200,000 men is a lot of people, but for me, quality trumps quantity any day— unless we’re talking about bacon (yeah, I have a pork obsession).

And speaking of bacon, I feel like dating in Honolulu is like that concept behind that trivia game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where you can pretty much link actor Kevin Bacon to any actor based on the movies they both have acted on, in six steps or less.

I find myself trapped in these links a lot of times. I would meet someone, and later I would find out that he’s dated a friend of mine who has also dated someone else that I had dated in the past. It’s almost funny actually— if it wasn’t so sick. It’s not difficult to meet men. I’ve run into them everywhere— the beer aisle or floral sections of Safeway, at a jazz bar, at an art gallery, or through friends, to name a few. But again, quality trumps quantity any day.

There just aren’t that many quality men out there and those few good ones are probably dating a friend or another… Anyway, not to whine or anything, but being single and dating in Honolulu is exhausting, but some of us have that “breather”. That default-opposite sex— a platonic friendship that’s almost an illusion of dating. I’m not talking about your booty-call, I’m not talking about your gay friend. I’m talking about someone you have a relaxed and exciting conversations with over coffee, or a cocktail— Someone, after having your ego bruised in this roller derby called dating, dusts you off with reminders of how cool and wonderful you are. And you do the same for him or her.

Well, I don’t exactly have a person like that.

What I do have is this beautiful Pacific Ocean that hugs Honolulu. My default is surfing. When being single and the unwanted attachments that pounce at me at random times like loneliness and insecurities kick my butt, I go and whine to my default. He’s so good to me that while I’m with him, I can’t imagine being with someone else. Like last night, in Waikiki, he played the Blues for me while I surfed my blues away. He even painted me a beautiful sunset with strokes of peppermint pink— you know, that fluffy reddish color you see that bleeds into the sweet minty white after sucking on a peppermint candy— I’ve never seen that in the sky before. Simply cool.

After the surf therapy, I paddled in, my bruised ego healed with a magic kiss— My soul, once again, at ease.

…

It’s amazing how loudly a little, plastic-handled set of bristles used for dental hygiene laying silently in a garbage can screams “… it’s over!”

It’s also amazing how loudly a simple invitation to keep a toothbrush parked in one of those empty little holes on the ceramic holder screams “commitment,” on one level or another.

Suddenly, the toothbrush isn’t just a toothbrush anymore. It speaks. And it says I like you, you can stay. Or maybe it says I love you, please stay. Maybe it’s taken the persona of Lisa Loeb and it simply just says Stay. Not necessarily forever. Or not necessarily for the night. No strings of words attached. Just stay.

But when a woman offers a brand new toothbrush (even after several rejections), and follows it with …and seriously, you can even take it home.  The dental tool dialogue dramatically takes on a new meaning.

It’s not about commitment anymore, not that it really ever was. Perhaps, after a mellow take-out Italian dinner that’s heavy on garlic, followed by multiple trips to the bathroom for “toothpaste shots and finger brushing”… Perhaps, just perhaps, she just doesn’t want to smell puppy breath all night… So relax and just take the brush— please.

…

“Whats wrong,” I said, scared to hear what the answer might be.

“The cat expired.” Relief was quickly followed by a replay of the last sentence he exhaustedly said. The cat expired. Who says expired instead of the other ones: passed away, died, bit the dust??? If it hadn’t been for the pain behind my dads voice, I would have thought it was some kind of a joke and in reply, I would have said one or all of the following: “Are you sure?” “Did you smell it?”

“Why, is it moldy?”

“It should still be good for a week.” On the verge of a smirk, or worse, blatant outrageous laughter, which would have been followed by a painful strike of lighting through my body from the heavens, a split-second slideshow of past visits to the East to see the family played in my head— Waking up with a warm pressure on my head, my little sisters high-pitched voice giggling “get off, Elle’s head Shadow!”

Quick fade “Get your sister some water, Christina”. “I dont want any, thanks” “Its not for you, its for the cat.”

Quick fade “Hi Elle, wanna talk to Shadow?,” my sister says over the phone. Before I can utter “no”, I already hear a soft purr from the other end. “Say something, Elle” I almost hang up, instead I mumble “hi Shadow”.

Quick fade “Come here, pussy,” my dad says lovingly to the cat, as I nearly fall out of the kitchen chair in laughter. Its so hard to keep a straight face especially when I realize that there isnt a slight hint of maliciousness in his voice.

I was back on the phone with my dad again. I’m so sorry, I said. We exchanged a few more words. We hung up. I guess sometimes you just have to listen to the voice, rather than the noise words sometimes make. Other times, it really helps to have a dad who uses words the way the average person does.

But then again, that is one of the many things I love about my dad. Happy Father’s Day.

…