D. says there are eighteen phonemes in the Hawaiian language. She says one incredibly boring way to spend a date is to go on a walk and read street signs aloud. In a diner in Volcano where the waitress cannot stop singing - Guantanamera first in a high key, then in a low key, then another song, and another - D. tells me a horror story about the roommate who sang loungey adaptations of songs like "Zippity Doo Dah" morning to night. "I don't know what it is - I just love the sound of my own voice!" he said when she confronted him.
Then D. spends car rides singing and pronouncing street signs using only Hawaiian phonemes. "Walmart" becomes "wa ma" which becomes "gna ma," and then "gna gna," and eventually D. is just making babbling noises. She pronounces "snorkeling" with a pirate accent so that it becomes "snarrrkeling." She says "island lava java" with an accent that is an indeterminate hybrid of Jamaican and - Irish? She particularly likes the sound of herself saying "I wanna banana" while keeping her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
The day I land, I get a terrible cough. Must be all the stress leading up to the vacation, the crush at work, the hysterical collection of time with new friends, the lack of sleep. I clean the pharmacy out of medicines with the word "mucus" portmanteaued into their names. By day two I've lost my voice completely. Neither of us can sleep at night because of my death rattle. First, D. expresses sympathy. By day four, she is mocking me. She coughs theatrically whenever I cough. "A-hwuh hwuh hwuh," she says. "Hwuh hwuh hwuhhhhh."
I give her my extra rash guard. A rash guard is a spandex shirt you can wear while swimming so UV rays don't permanently destroy the elasticity of your skin's collagen. D. insists on calling these nipple guards. "It's not guarding my rash," she says.
This is how a day goes. We wake up when we wake up. I get up and turn off the white noise machine D. has brought with her to the Big Island. I put contacts in, brush teeth, wash face, and I am dressed and ready to go in ten minutes. D. is still in bed, wearing the eye bra that blocks out the harsh, low-latitude sunlight. I do push-ups and sit-ups while she gets ready and I cut a mango for us. She apologizes profusely for making me wait, but I don't care. We drive ten feet to eat breakfast somewhere. Me egg whites plus fatty meat, her vegetarian and healthy. We drive to a beach. Nipple guards go on. Drop in the water face down. Float for an hour looking at coral reef five feet from our faces, teeming with shining fish. Burn backsides. Return to car. Drive to lunch. Drive to new hotel. Drive to scenic spot: volcano, beach cliff, amphiteather valley, mountaintop, museum, inside of a yoga studio. Snap a million glamour shots, many of us pretending to eat or hold or hug the scenic spot. Talk about boyfriends and girlfriends. Talk about our on-the-job leadership lessons. Talk about that annoying boy with no life experience to share who would respond to stories by talking about Nietzsche. Talk about the 100 essential wardrobe items every woman should have. Argue about whether I could find black knee high boots suitable for my gender presentation. Get into a horrible argument involving crying about whether "person of color" is a useful demographic category. Drive to dinner. Buzz on half a drink. Drive to hotel. Lay in bed eating mac nuts from a jar, reading maps. Write postcards. Make fun of postcard images. Sleep. Cough. Make fun of coughing.
D. loves plants and birds. She makes me pull over on the road to Kohala so she can investigate wild morning glories by the shoulder. I sit in the car and eat carrot sticks while she does this. She explains the experiment she and A. ran on their morning glories to see whether they actually bloomed only once. They did.
That's a flirty little hibiscus, not a morning glory.
On day seven, in Hilo, termites descend upon our room while we are out for the day. First I spot one on my bed. "Yuck!" I say, and swat it away. Then I notice the floor is moving. The bottoms of my flip flops look like a fly strip after I walk across the room. Termites everywhere. We had left our bags open. Termites on my contact lens solution, in my shoes, in my bikini bottom. I revise my opinion and prefer the dry, sunny Kona-side of the Island to the seamy, jungley, termitey Hilo-side. The hotel owner gasps and says we can take another room. We get to work and don't talk to one another. My method of coping: shake out article, stomp on floor until all termites shaken out of article are flattened. D. says, "It's so against my religion to be killing these things." I say fuck that, we dominated Termocalypse 2011. Wish I had photos, but we were so focused on cleaning house we couldn't pause for the disgusting photo op.
While snorkeling, we catch each others gazes underwater and gesticulate toward cool things. Big ass fish! Sea turtle! We hold hands and flipper-kick out to where the reef drops off and the ocean becomes an imperceptibly deep, profoundly terrifying blue nothingness. Our grips tighten. It's the kind of scene where in the movies a shark suddenly materializes out of the blue (is that where that phrase comes from?) five feet from your face and gnaws off your arm. But no shark materializes, and we float around like otters holding hands for a few minutes, circling the bottomless depth, looking wide-eyed at each other through our snorkel masks, before kicking back over to the safe known world of the reef.
We look at the world underwater. We look at the world's volcanic insides. We go to a 14,000 foot mountain and look for Arcturus, Hawaii's most important star. At the observatory, a video tells us Earth will one day lose its magnetosphere and we will all be broiled to death by a solar flare. D. and I split a bag of mangosteens while watching this video. I eat a teriyaki chicken musubi.
D. says I enable her. She doesn't want to jump off the cliff at South Point, but I do it, so she does it too. She doesn't want to put on her wet swimsuit, but I want to go snorkeling, so she does it too. She says it's good, because she would tend toward passivity without me.
But I tell D. she is the ultimate enabler. She emailed a month ago to say, "I'm going to Hawaii. Come!" It was all her idea. I wasn't planning any vacations but I'm of the mind these days to say yes to every invitation. So I said yes.
And that is how I spent nine days on the Big Island, listening to D. say, "I wanna banana" over and over and over again.
Then D. spends car rides singing and pronouncing street signs using only Hawaiian phonemes. "Walmart" becomes "wa ma" which becomes "gna ma," and then "gna gna," and eventually D. is just making babbling noises. She pronounces "snorkeling" with a pirate accent so that it becomes "snarrrkeling." She says "island lava java" with an accent that is an indeterminate hybrid of Jamaican and - Irish? She particularly likes the sound of herself saying "I wanna banana" while keeping her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
The day I land, I get a terrible cough. Must be all the stress leading up to the vacation, the crush at work, the hysterical collection of time with new friends, the lack of sleep. I clean the pharmacy out of medicines with the word "mucus" portmanteaued into their names. By day two I've lost my voice completely. Neither of us can sleep at night because of my death rattle. First, D. expresses sympathy. By day four, she is mocking me. She coughs theatrically whenever I cough. "A-hwuh hwuh hwuh," she says. "Hwuh hwuh hwuhhhhh."
I give her my extra rash guard. A rash guard is a spandex shirt you can wear while swimming so UV rays don't permanently destroy the elasticity of your skin's collagen. D. insists on calling these nipple guards. "It's not guarding my rash," she says.
This is how a day goes. We wake up when we wake up. I get up and turn off the white noise machine D. has brought with her to the Big Island. I put contacts in, brush teeth, wash face, and I am dressed and ready to go in ten minutes. D. is still in bed, wearing the eye bra that blocks out the harsh, low-latitude sunlight. I do push-ups and sit-ups while she gets ready and I cut a mango for us. She apologizes profusely for making me wait, but I don't care. We drive ten feet to eat breakfast somewhere. Me egg whites plus fatty meat, her vegetarian and healthy. We drive to a beach. Nipple guards go on. Drop in the water face down. Float for an hour looking at coral reef five feet from our faces, teeming with shining fish. Burn backsides. Return to car. Drive to lunch. Drive to new hotel. Drive to scenic spot: volcano, beach cliff, amphiteather valley, mountaintop, museum, inside of a yoga studio. Snap a million glamour shots, many of us pretending to eat or hold or hug the scenic spot. Talk about boyfriends and girlfriends. Talk about our on-the-job leadership lessons. Talk about that annoying boy with no life experience to share who would respond to stories by talking about Nietzsche. Talk about the 100 essential wardrobe items every woman should have. Argue about whether I could find black knee high boots suitable for my gender presentation. Get into a horrible argument involving crying about whether "person of color" is a useful demographic category. Drive to dinner. Buzz on half a drink. Drive to hotel. Lay in bed eating mac nuts from a jar, reading maps. Write postcards. Make fun of postcard images. Sleep. Cough. Make fun of coughing.
D. loves plants and birds. She makes me pull over on the road to Kohala so she can investigate wild morning glories by the shoulder. I sit in the car and eat carrot sticks while she does this. She explains the experiment she and A. ran on their morning glories to see whether they actually bloomed only once. They did.
That's a flirty little hibiscus, not a morning glory.
On day seven, in Hilo, termites descend upon our room while we are out for the day. First I spot one on my bed. "Yuck!" I say, and swat it away. Then I notice the floor is moving. The bottoms of my flip flops look like a fly strip after I walk across the room. Termites everywhere. We had left our bags open. Termites on my contact lens solution, in my shoes, in my bikini bottom. I revise my opinion and prefer the dry, sunny Kona-side of the Island to the seamy, jungley, termitey Hilo-side. The hotel owner gasps and says we can take another room. We get to work and don't talk to one another. My method of coping: shake out article, stomp on floor until all termites shaken out of article are flattened. D. says, "It's so against my religion to be killing these things." I say fuck that, we dominated Termocalypse 2011. Wish I had photos, but we were so focused on cleaning house we couldn't pause for the disgusting photo op.
While snorkeling, we catch each others gazes underwater and gesticulate toward cool things. Big ass fish! Sea turtle! We hold hands and flipper-kick out to where the reef drops off and the ocean becomes an imperceptibly deep, profoundly terrifying blue nothingness. Our grips tighten. It's the kind of scene where in the movies a shark suddenly materializes out of the blue (is that where that phrase comes from?) five feet from your face and gnaws off your arm. But no shark materializes, and we float around like otters holding hands for a few minutes, circling the bottomless depth, looking wide-eyed at each other through our snorkel masks, before kicking back over to the safe known world of the reef.
We look at the world underwater. We look at the world's volcanic insides. We go to a 14,000 foot mountain and look for Arcturus, Hawaii's most important star. At the observatory, a video tells us Earth will one day lose its magnetosphere and we will all be broiled to death by a solar flare. D. and I split a bag of mangosteens while watching this video. I eat a teriyaki chicken musubi.
D. says I enable her. She doesn't want to jump off the cliff at South Point, but I do it, so she does it too. She doesn't want to put on her wet swimsuit, but I want to go snorkeling, so she does it too. She says it's good, because she would tend toward passivity without me.
But I tell D. she is the ultimate enabler. She emailed a month ago to say, "I'm going to Hawaii. Come!" It was all her idea. I wasn't planning any vacations but I'm of the mind these days to say yes to every invitation. So I said yes.
And that is how I spent nine days on the Big Island, listening to D. say, "I wanna banana" over and over and over again.
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