Fear the Crab

I joined Maile in her exercise routine, and afterward I immediately felt my head lighten. Maile said it was because I was doing it too fast, but the exercise routine that I was trying to follow was already going fast. I’m not saying Maile is wrong, however, because really I was pushing it. The problem I have is that when I’m learning something for the first time I tend to go at the pace of the instructor, then adjust the standard to my own level. Regardless of whether it’s a physical activity or mental, I can’t just go my own pace from the very beginning.

I think it started from sports, playing little league and attending the dojo. These were activities that I couldn’t go my own pace from the get-go, because there wasn’t any room for it. In a team sport, you have to keep up, otherwise you’re a detriment to the team and to the game. In the dojo, you had to keep up because you’d get yelled at if you didn’t. Of course, normally one goes through days of practice before game time, so there is the opportunity to bring yourself up to speed. Still, I remember from the first day, I’d try to keep up, run fast, throw hard, swing for the fences… maybe it was to prove myself, or perhaps prove to the coaches that I’m capable.

Granted, when you’re a little kid, you’ve got a lot of energy for such things. I’m older and far less coordinated, now.

On Saturday Maile and I went to Sea Life Park. The last time I went there I was a little kid in elementary school. I honestly can’t tell if it’s changed much, since I don’t remember anything of my last trip (except for the big three-story reef tank near the entrance). For starters, I don’t recall sea lions being so noisy. I think it’s because they have public feedings, where the crowd can pay $2 for a tray of fish to feed the sea lions. So my guess is that whenever there are people by the fence, the sea lions all make their feed-me noises.

We watched the dolphins practice for their show, doing minor jumps and poking their heads out to see when they were supposed to perform. At least, that’s what it looked like.

There wasn’t much else of interest, though we ate shave ice until our mouths were numb and our brains were non-functional. I fell asleep on the drive back.

We’re taking walkies more often now, and using places like my neighborhood and the elementary school near Maile’s house. They’re quiet places, but not so quiet that we couldn’t call for help if need be.

Maile made me a beaded necklace. Well, it’s only got 7 beads, but it’s on a hemp braid topped off with one of those.. crap, I forgot the name of the clasp. It’s basically a hoop and a stick-type thing. Anyway, I think it’s über cool. It was Maile’s first attempt at beadwork, and the success of it is inspiration for more. When I get my camera back from Richard, I plan to take a picture and post it.

Today I’m going to eat at Red Lobster. It’s a far cry from the new diet (oh, sorry, alternate food lifestyle), but we’re going to meet up with James and Mary, so it’s for a good cause.

Happy Birthday to Me!Maile took me out to dinner at the Prince Court. We had some Inniskilin, which was only our second sampling of that label. The first time we drank, it had a lychee taste to it. This time it had an apple juice taste. Both were good.

The buffet was pretty good. We both took from the salad bar, and “oysters in luau sauce.” Maile had some “crispy baked chicken with white sauce,” potatoes au gratin, some bbq meat that looked like something you’d find on a grill. I had some prime rib in addition to the bbq meat. It doesn’t seem like much, but past experience with buffets teaches us that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. This way, we had room for dessert, which consisted of bread pudding, chocolate cream pie, and some strawberry cake.

Then we walked it off by cruising the DFS, and saying hi to old friends. Needless to say, nobody recognized me at first. Granted, the weight gain, long hair, and general scruffiness probably led them to think I was a criminal. A well-dressed, but scruffy, criminal. Too bad the Georges and Irene weren’t there. I haven’t spoken to them in ages.

I think tomorrow after work I’m going to wash the car. And if time permits, I’m going to wash Maile’s car, too.

After a decent night’s rest, and a vivid dream that I’ve already forgotten, I feel better about last night. I’m still going to support Maile, I just won’t impose it. And if she needs her “private time” then I will let her have it.

I still wish I could spend more time with her, but it’s a compromise towards a better goal.

I just realized that I haven’t had anything to eat except a sandwich.

I love Maile. I always will.

Yet I think I lost a part of her today, or perhaps I lost a part of myself that I thought I could give to her.

Maile has always been independent, from the elementary school days. She learned to be self-sufficient, to not have to rely on someone and be pigeon-holed into a role she did not want. I came to this realization recently, although I think I’ve always known, just never really thought about it. This also makes me realize that I cannot be the person that supports her, that gives her a shoulder to cry on or an ear that listens, because she will not accept it. She feels that if she has a problem, she will take care of it herself.

That is a commendable spirit, and I hold a lot of respect for her, and her ability to take care of matters. However, it makes me feel.. useless. Like nothing more than a meat-puppet she can parade to her friends. I know she loves me, she’s said as much and done way more to show it. I just wish I could be her complement, that part of her she can rely on that just so happens to be a man who thinks of her as his complement.

Maile does not ask for help in matters that are “important” to her. Homework? Important, yes, but nothing compared to real-life issues. Sometimes she tells me about them, the problems, and sometimes, though rarely, she will ask me what she should do. I offer my advice, my parables, my logic, my wisdom, my experience, to help her assess the situation and make a decision or take a course of action that will turn that problem into a beneficial convenience, or at least a life lesson. Unfortunately, my words are met with I can’t, I won’t, or I don’t want to. All this does is make me feel like my words don’t matter, which brings back images of dangling meat puppets on strings.

Today, I came to the somber realization that she does not want, nor does she need, my help. This realization was after an uncomfortable moment of figuring out why emotions were running high. So we had a talk. And I have to face the fact that I can only offer my support if she truly desires it. This I said to her, and it broke my heart. Perhaps that’s a little strong, but it felt like it. I can’t give her my support if she doesn’t need it, or maybe she doesn’t want it. If she feels that she needs her own private time, her own personal space, then the best thing for me to do is let her have it. Even if it means that I will not see her for five or six weeks.

Given our current work, and upcoming school, schedules, we rarely have time to see each other, much less spend some time together. At the Lab I only see her for about an hour, or half an hour. Then she gets home at around 1700 and exercises. Once that is done, I could visit and see her, but by that time it’s around 1930 and that means I can only spend about two hours with her. Basically and hi-and-bye sort of deal, to me. And since she doesn’t want me around when she exercises, it means that at a certain point in the morning and late afternoon, I shouldn’t be there. So to me, it seems that I will not see her, at all.

The thing is, she’s fine with that. It’s testament to her independence that she can do that. I, on the other hand, am almost opposite, where I need to have that “safety net” behind me that I can use if things get dicey.

I shared this bit of my life experience with her, that while I have lived independently for a time, it was only during college, and it was “sanitized.” By that I mean that I always had some place or someone to fall back on if things got rough. I was living in the dorms or in university-owned houses. If something required repair, the U would take care of it. Rent was part of the tuition. I had a meal plan, and if I cooked it was only for that day, and I would grocery shop only for those ingredients (or to buy alcohol). And during the summer and winter breaks, I came back to Hawai’i where my family was. So I have never been at a point in my life where the only person I could rely on was myself, and I don’t hide that, either. I had family, I had friends, and I had a roof over my head if things got rough.

Given that experience, I want to be a person that other people could rely on. I want to be a person that someone could know was available anytime to turn to for aid. I don’t do it because I want something in return; I do it because I think, I feel, it is the RIGHT thing to do. There’s a sense of security knowing that in a time of need, there is someone you can trust to help.

I want to be that security for Maile. I want to be that person she can rely on, to be that person that she knows would be available at any time. And I want her to know that no matter what she thinks of my advice, whether or not she will accept it, or whether or not she feels it’s important.. No matter what, I want her to know that I will be there.

I tried to tell her this once, but I got the impression that I was making a funny, so I didn’t push the matter. Actually, I think she was busy with something at the time, like cooking dinner, and couldn’t grant me her full attention. I’ll have to work on my timing for my next attempt.

This morning as I was walking to work (the Office), I saw a girl in front of me slip and fall. She landed on her tush, full leg extension parallel to the ground. She was too far away for me to catch her, unfortunately, and even if I were close enough I probably would have burned her with the cigarette in my hand.

The thing that struck me most, however, was the fact that none of the other twenty people around her didn’t stop. They just kept walking, some of them not even giving her a glance. It was rather sad.

When I got to her, I asked if she was all right. To which she replied that she was, thank you. She didn’t appear hurt, more embarrassed than anything. You could tell she was embarrassed because she kept trying to clean her hands.

Of course, she was wearing these stiletto heels whose points were no bigger than the diameter of a pen cap, so I suppose it would have been inevitable that she would fall sooner or later. The sad thing is that regardless of when she would fall, nobody would help her.

You’d think that in a place like Hawai`i, there’d be at least some sentiment to help.

Last night I found a small scorpion in my bathroom. It was just sitting on the floor.. well, perhaps sitting is not the right word, but it was simply there, and not moving much at all. At first I thought it was dead, but it made a little twitch in my direction. I showed my dad, and he mentioned that it’d been years since he saw a live scorpion.

Then he killed it with his slipper.

The smashed corpse was wrapped in a paper towel and stuffed into a glass bottle that was going out in the trash. In the end it was rather anti-climactic.

It reminded me of the other time I saw a scorpion, roughly that same size. It was at George’s house, and we found it in his sister’s closet. It was captured and put in a glass jar, and then someone mentioned that scorpions glow in black light. It just so happened that the sister had a black light lamp, so we pulled that out and turned off the lights and turned on the light. And it’s true, they do glow. It’s kind of weird, in a creepy sort of way.

George then figured that he should use the black light to check for more scorpions, so he pulled it over to the closet while the rest of us sat in the dark. I think we started discussing why there are scorpions here, and how much of an infestation there was in the islands.

That’s when George screamed and dropped the black light lamp. As he bolted up, the rest of us cleared the floor, thinking there was a massive invasion force nested in between the denim and cotton. I don’t think any of us have moved that fast, ever, and we probably mastered the art of levitation if only for a few seconds. What was worse was that when George dropped the lamp, the bulb fell out and so the room was plunged into darkness. Meaning we couldn’t see squat of what was going on.

So amidst the screaming and the jumping and the banging into furniture and other people, someone had the intelligent idea to turn on the lights.

And we see a cockroach scurrying away.

Turns out the roach was in the lamp hood, and when George started moving it around it tried to run, and ran up his arm. That’s what he felt, and that’s why he screamed. At least, that’s what he’s claiming to this day. I know I was freaked trying to avoid stepping on the little stinging bastards that I thought George had unwittingly unleashed upon our pink toes.

In the end we caught the roach, and threw it into the jar with the scorpion to watch them fight. Oddly, they both died.