4:45 p.m., Saturday

taking a nap at present. tired from being out all day. will weblog later. but for now, these random hypnagogic notes:

the Buddhist priest's young son across the street has a new pet, a golden retriever puppy they've named Taro.

a woman with bleach-highlighted brown hair walked past earlier, stopped by the gate, bent down to the narrow grassy verge and let her pet chameleon walk down her hand and to a dry pile of dogshit, over which flies were hovering. the chameleon feasted. (on the flies. haha.)

earlier, reading Shelby Foote's classic book on the Gettysburg campaign, at the wharf near where the lighthouse stands. the sea-breeze smelling of salt mingling with sweet pakalolo. it is saturday. local folks are taking it easy. very easy.

a short tree in the yard, with long, darkgreen leaves, and bursting with snow-white plumeria blossoms. i can smell its perfume from up here.

This is what the sunset outside the study's east window looks like right now (digital camera zoomed to the maximum), the image cropped on a peak-fragment of the West Maui Mountains, which I'm getting fit for (to scale, that is. wish me luck.):

9:30 p.m.

Hmm... this ol' burb has a nightlife! ^_^ But alas, my carousing years are past and I am not nearly as excitable or thrilled as all these tourists and kids who are whooping it up and it isn't even New Year's Eve yet. Live music blares down to Front Street from various 2nd story bars and stages, and it's all kinda incongruous: e.g., a Peter Paul and Mary song is being crooned on one block, Eminem's shady lyrics from another (no, not the real one, just a wannabe, but doing a good job of the imitation). Some people are literally dancing in the streets, others just hanging out underneath brilliant lampposts, kissing or not kissing.

I sit on the seasidewalk's wood-and-concrete railing, munching a hamburger, watching people walk past (or get dragged past--two cops are manhandling a youth who seems to have been caught in the act of lifting some jewelry from a store)... hear the sea plashing behind me in its random rhythms, and as I glance back seaward from time to time i see the scimitar moon's reflection broken into a million pieces by tiny, obsidian-dark waves. Old Lahaina at night is a trip, and I am quickly getting used to it, considering it a new and interesting hometown, and am now making new friends. After tossing my half-eaten burger I go over to hang out at Tutu Talofa's native handicrafts shack, right under a huge banyan tree beside the ocean, and listen to her talk story. (Talk story is the local, pidgin way of saying "tell stories.") I shall relay some of her tales here, at some other time...

{ net.casting }
^