wow, was it only two days ago that i last wrote? it seems longer.
yesterday, i brought my prototype barrier to school. if school starts up again in the fall, we will likely need to set up some sort of physical barriers between students to prevent the spread of "the covid." but plexiglass, the material of choice, is both expensive and in short supply (probably expensive because in short supply). and to obtain it in the quantities needed to keep children safe is impossible. so i thought i would make a barrier out of cheap, accessible materials. i got a moldy trifold board from my classroom, and some sheet protectors (or report covers?). i cut two of the sheet protectors open so that they could spread out like a folder. i made two windows in the trifold that were slightly smaller than the sheet protectors, and just taped them down. later, upon hearing some suggestions, i covered one side with clear packing tape, to make it waterproof (after all, it needs to be periodically sterilized). and voila!
my principal seemed to like it. he kept downplaying the "cheap" reason (which, honestly, was the main reason i'd made it). he felt it was ideal because it could fold up and be stored. "how would you do the same thing with plexiglass?" he thought out loud... so, i don't know what's going to happen next. you never know with my principal. there's a huge distance between the inception of an idea, and what actually happens. i think that, in the course of traveling that distance, there are a lot of gatekeepers, i.e., "people with opinions." and i know for a fact that a lot of people are going to look at my cheap prototype and think, "heck, is that it?" and sort of downplay it. so we'll see...
anyway, after showing off the prototype at my school, i returned home and felt extremely unmotivated to do much of anything. i recall just lying on the sofa and half-sleeping...
...well, as my wife was "off" (technically, she isn't working; she's volunteering over at a friend's restaurant), she wanted to go out. so in the afternoon, we finally dragged our butts out of the house. i drove over to kaka'ako, to h-mart, to this new korean grocery store that had opened up. i wasn't really paying much attention to things. i did notice the yellow korean melons, which i thought looked interesting. i also noticed some peach donuts (that is, peaches that were grown to take on a donut shape). and i did see those boba popsicles that everyone in hawaii seems to be raging for...
we went upstairs to the second floor, where there was a food court. i ordered something very conventional: kal bi. it is probably like my favorite thing in the world. it's messy to eat, and occasionally it looks awkward, because i actually like to eat ALL the meat off the bone, but i LOVE it. the vegetable side dishes are also great: kim chee cucumber, and other stuff. it's all so rich in texture and flavor. the rice that goes along with the dish serves as a kind of neutral background to all the spicy, savory flavors...
my wife had some korean fried wings. they were okay, but a lot of it was just the breading...
anyway, after that, we drove over to kahala mall... now, we have a lot of history with kahala mall. actually, that was where lynn's first godiva store was. i used to head over to kahala mall a lot, just to sort of hang out. there USED to be barnes and noble over on the top floor, and i used to go there a lot. but beyond that, i would often go to the starbucks, and just hang out there, doing stuff on my computer. kahala mall is sort of in a richie rich area of the island, so i used to imagine everyone there was like some sort of snob (not true)...
lynn wanted to see what was still around (we hadn't been to kahala in, like, forever). after she had made her rounds, we drove over to kahala beach. i had never been there before, and was at first excited to see the little bridge over the little river. but when we got to the actual beach, well, it was kind of a disappointment, on many levels. first of all, the water was pretty dirty. there was a lot of detritus and floating debris in the water. second, we discovered that there were rocks not very far from the shore. i was okay with it, but lynn kind of got freaked out. i mean, the rocks felt smooth under my feet; they weren't the sharp and unpredictable kind... but lynn kept mentioning "vana" (sea urchins) and moray eels... and i guess it kind of freaked me out too. it didn't help that she kept jumping on my back... :P anyway, we got out of the water pretty quickly, and just decided to walk along the shoreline.
kahala's interesting. there are these HUGE mansions on the beachfront. they are usually fenced off, with a lot of hedges and such, but you can still see these magnificent mansions. there are actually quite a few empty lots as well. in one of them, there was a truck parked inside, most likely illegally, and some squatters, teenaged kids, were hanging out. they were skateboarding on the cement foundations, likely remnants of the houses that once stood in the lot. for a moment, i imagined that sort of life, to while away the time skateboarding, and perhaps having sex in some secluded corner of the lot... i don't know. i couldn't be happy with that sort of life. i'd just feel as though i were wasting my time.
so anyway, we walked back. i remember at one point, lynn said something funny. we were ankle deep in the water, and the waves kept bringing all of this debris into shore: little logs and such. so lynn mentioned how she felt like she was playing "frogger." and i had to laugh at that...
we stopped by kahala mall once more to get food for the kids (they hadn't come with us to the beach- imagine that!)... and that was it for the day...
***
i can't remember what i dreamed about this morning, but for some reason, i felt optimistic about things, and especially about writing... but, you know, these feelings come and go. i wish there were a way to remain inspired. but somehow, in getting to the nitty-gritty details of writing, well, the dead businessman copy editor takes over, and kills whatever little feeling comes with me to the table... and then, everything becomes forced. compulsory.
...but again, i did feel optimistic. we'll see if things pan out.
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