I can't remember if I've posted this song or if I just used lyrics from it as a header before. It's been playing in my head tonight.

"Tarantula" by Smashing Pumpkins.


Esther and I went kayaking today with my mom and my uncle's friend, who owns the kayaks and a waterfront property. We were out on the water for about two hours, and my shorts got pretty soaked... I realized afterwards that there were holes in the kayak right next to the seats (Esther and I were in a two person one), so the water was splashing up onto me. We kayaked over to an ancient Hawaiian fishing pond and walked along the wall, then climbed up onto some kind of signal tower or something... I suspect we weren't really supposed to, but there weren't any signs saying "do not climb" and the ladder wasn't blocked off... so... yeah. Esther and I just walked up to it and were half-jokingly talking about climbing up it... and then... we actually did it... I went first, and I only had slippers on so I just took them off since I thought my bare feet might have more grip. As it turns out, wet bare feet on thin steel rods don't feel great, nor do they have much grip. Still, I made it to the top, and then fought off anxiety as the tower gently swayed in the wind. Esther followed me up, and then my uncle's friend came up too. We got a few pictures and then went back down, because it was terrifying being up so high.

After kayaking we got a tour of my uncle's friend's house, which was cool. His house isn't completely finished yet, but it's very big and very nice. Esther had lots of questions about it, but I mostly enjoyed just looking at everything. Must be nice to be that rich. He gave us H�agen-Dazs ice cream bars, which was great after being outside kayaking. Very nice guy. I lost the lens cover to my camera, though. :\ I don't know if I lost it kayaking or in his house or what. Hopefully my lens doesn't get scratched up. If it does, though, I kinda needed a new camera anyway... This one seems like it's really reaching the end of its lifespan. It still works, but... not 100% of the time.

We had a late lunch from one of the copycats of Giovanni's shrimp truck. Despite it not actually being normal lunch time, Giovanni's had an obscenely long line, so we just went somewhere else. It tasted basically the same anyway, from what they told me. I just got garlic rice because I'm not that into shrimp. My uncle wanted to go eat our food in the fancy McDonald's next to the Polynesian Cultural Center because it had a waterfall and stuff inside, but we found out that they knocked that McDonald's down to build a hotel or something and just built a normal small McDonald's nearby instead. We still ate inside (and got drinks from McDonald's to justify our presence there), but it was nothing spectacular.

At some point I just started feeling really tired and wanted alone time. I felt kind of bad for wanting alone time when I'm hosting a friend, but like... I just didn't have the drive to hang out more at that point. Still had a Skype call with friends and talked to Fro on the phone a bit (if it's just the two of us it makes more sense, since the connection is better), and that was fine. I think it's just the in-person part that gets really draining.

Got to talk to the guy I like today, which made me happy. I guess he wasn't feeling great, but I was just glad to talk to him at all.

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"Up & Down" by Richard Dinsdale.


All these ups and downs... I feel better today than I did last night, which isn't saying much. Talked to my mom about changing my plans and she was fine with it.

There were some positive things yesterday I didn't really mention. For one, I made my uncle really happy when I mentioned that I'd taken his investing advice and had made a profit. He thought I had just been kind of humoring him or something, I guess. Anyway, he talked to me more about that and about the possibility of supplementing my (future) income nicely with some solid investments. I've said this a bunch of times, but I'd really like to get better at investing, haha...

Uncle: If you get good enough at investing, you can date whoever you want instead of marrying some rich old ugly guy! Then people will be marrying you for YOUR money!
Me: Oh... oh boy...!

I also mentioned to him that I'd been thinking about the possibility that I'll have to help manage renting out my grandparents' old house in Hawaii once my uncle gets older. He's planning on living in like the Philippines or something for a chunk of the year when he's old, and someone will need to manage the property. I might have to fly to Hawaii kind of frequently to do that, though, just to take care of problems and stuff. I wonder if once a quarter would be enough? I don't want to live in Hawaii, but I do want to help out with family matters. Would also be nice to have some extra income from that. And I just need to learn how to do these things sooner rather than later.

Today was pretty laid back, didn't do much for 4th of July. Got to talk to Fro on the phone for three hours! That was fun. I'm looking forward to hanging out with her more when I get back home.

My friend Esther is coming here tomorrow! I'm not sure what to show her first... Maybe we'll take her to get shave ice, or go to Chinatown or something. There's a weird ice cream place somewhere in Chinatown here that sells flavors like Cheezus, which... as far as I can tell from Instagram... is Cheez-It flavor ice cream. -Hurk- Anyway, I'm sure we'll find stuff to do. I know she wants to go kayaking, at least.

Am looking forward to... talking with the guy I like again. :P The past few days went surprisingly fast actually, but I still felt a little antsy over the lack of contact we had.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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"No Sunlight" by Death Cab for Cutie.

I heard this in a store today.

Got up early to go to the beach today with my mom. I just walked around on the sand while she swam with a friend. There was a Hawaiian monk seal at one end of the beach with her pup, and that area was roped off so people wouldn't get too close, but there were a lot of people at the boundary just watching the seal, and volunteers there to educate people and answer their questions about monk seals. The monk seals are protected, so I guess they get special treatment.

I don't really feel like I have much to say at the moment. Just listening to music and imagining people moving to it. Maybe it's from watching so many music videos over the years, but I feel like I always imagine some kind of scene when I listen to any music that actually engages me on any level. There's some feeling or some imagery, and it's vivid and it feels meaningful somehow. Sometimes I describe these things to people, and I feel like the reaction they have to it is an indicator to me of how we mesh.

Writing is hard right now. It's pretty late, and I'm kind of at that point in the night where I can't really remember anything good that's ever happened to me and it's like my whole life has just been this one moment and nothing else has ever existed and this is everything, the darkness and the quiet and the solitude. I really shouldn't stay up late so much, I know how it affects me and it's rarely good. It's hard today, though... Since I got up so early, I ended up taking a long nap in the afternoon, during which I had a really intense nightmare. Since then I haven't really been tired enough to sleep more, which is unfortunate since I have to go to the beach again in the morning. In... like.. five hours. Oh frabjous day.

...Instead of sleeping I ended up watching this Jan Svankmajer film called "Jabberwocky", which was oddly soothing in a way. It's not nightmare fuel like his version of Alice in Wonderland, which was kind of nice. I think I felt mildly traumatized after watching that one...

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The next few days are going to be so long...

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Kyle graciously informed me that I should alert my bank as to my Australia trip plans. I guess this would have been an obvious thing to some people, but I've never traveled on my own like this before, and I haven't been out of the country since I had my own debit/credit cards, so... yeah. I didn't think to do it until he told me. Thank you Kyle!

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I went with my uncle and mom and visited the house my grandparents used to live in in Kaimuki today. My uncle has been remodeling it for a few years, but I think it's getting close to being done... Last year my dad flew over to do all the electrical wiring, which was a major part of the renovations. I guess the plan is to rent it out once it's finished. My grandpa built that house, and while it's not very big by modern standards, it's certainly livable, and I think it will be easy to find people who want to live there. Since my Uncle Reuben is the one who lives closest to it, I'm guessing he'll probably be managing the property mainly, but I wonder if I'll have to assume responsibility for it at some point. My parents and other relatives in that generation are all getting older, and I think I'll have to take over for certain things eventually. It's probably a ways off, but I hope they think to prepare me for things before then...

There's so much I don't know how to do in life, and I need to learn how to do it. Maybe it's an anxiety thing, but I can never figure out how other people just DO things without getting paralyzed over how to do them. I'm getting better at doing stuff and not pausing to think too much about it, but it's still something I definitely struggle with, and I know I let opportunities pass me by because I'm too hesitant. Just gotta keep trying I guess.

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So, I was in Foodland today with my mom and uncle, and this older guy VERY CONSPICUOUSLY checked me out, from the feet up. Like, whoa, dude. You gotta be real obvious for me to notice something like that. Also I thought it was kind of weird that he just did one pass from bottom to top instead of going from top to bottom and then back up, which I guess I think of as the archetypal checking-out maneuver.

I wonder if I look old enough now that guys will openly check me out without any reservations about me possibly being a teenager... I have no idea how old I look to other people. When I was flying back home earlier in June, the old dude next to me on the plane seemed surprised that I wasn't in undergrad.

The humid air here in Hawaii feels nice when I breathe it in. It just comes into my body without any resistance, and there's no sticky or constricted feeling in my chest. Sometimes breathing dry air feels like breathing gravel, and it's really uncomfortable. The downside of the humidity is that it settles on me like a weight and makes me feel lazier.

In a couple weeks I'm going to Australia... I've never been there before, and I'm realizing there are all these little details that will be different. Like... I guess my phone probably won't work there, for one. I'll probably be with Becka the whole time anyway and won't need my phone, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Assuming I still have access to wifi, I should be able to keep in touch with people back home on a limited basis. I also have no idea how buying stuff works in a foreign country. >.> Can I just use my normal cards? I guess... I'll just wing it. Maybe ask my uncle, since he's traveled to foreign countries a lot and he probably knows how it works. Not sure if he's been to Australia, though. Then again, maybe that doesn't matter. This seems more like a general thing than a country-specific thing. I'm just gonna... not worry about it too much. Yeah.

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I'm in Hawaii! We flew in this morning, and the flight was just under five hours... I mostly slept through it, but there was this little girl who kept crying/screaming sporadically throughout the flight for no clear reason. She would just alternate between laughing and having a fine time and wailing. Thankfully the crying fits didn't last too long, but there were a lot of them.

My uncle always has some new place he's eating at a lot when we visit. He tends to find somewhere he really likes and just go there a ton until he gets tired of it, haha. This year he's all about the plate lunches at Times Supermarket. To be fair, they're a really good deal. I got a huge misoyaki salmon steak with mashed potatoes, brown rice, and steamed vegetables for a little over $9, including a beverage. My mom and my uncle both ate half of their plates for lunch and had the other half for dinner, but I ate my whole plate for lunch... Not the best idea, honestly, because according to the menu it was 1300+ calories, which is just under my entire daily caloric allowance. >_> I didn't really end up eating dinner, though. Still too full. We're gonna go back there a few times because of how much my uncle likes it (he said he goes at least twice a week), so next time I'll try not to eat everything... Man though... the mashed potatoes were so good. Gonna get so fat on this trip.

I really feel like I need to walk around or something. All that food is just sitting in me and it feels gross. Blehhhhh.

I'm trying to eat less sugar/refined carbs to see if it affects my hand eczema issues. I had a flareup awhile ago on another finger in addition to the one I normally get it on, and I've been kind of worried. I've read that usually people get it all over their hands, but I've only had it on one finger for years, and I'd really rather not have it everywhere. It's very physically uncomfortable, but at least I'm not as embarrassed about it as I used to be, I guess... For a long time I used to cross my affected finger behind another one because I didn't want anybody to see it, but my third ex always grabbed my hand and uncrossed my fingers whenever he saw me doing that. I can appreciate that about my otherwise pretty bad relationship with him, I guess.

People give my uncle gifts a lot because he lets them stay in his house for free, and he had this in his pantry, given to him by a friend...

He asked if we wanted to try any before he threw them out, because he didn't like them. My mom and I each took one. It was ah, it was pretty disgusting. Imagine a very very fishy thin wafer with a light cheese creme filling. The smell was nasty, too. So uh, yeah, basically I don't share Japanese taste in snacks.

It's nice to be here and all, but I keep thinking about what I'll do when I get back... Seems so far away. @_@

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[06/27/2017 12:51 AM] Me: I'm really grateful that we became friends.
[06/27/2017 12:52 AM] RD: I am too. Youve become important to me

We had a conversation tonight that felt really raw and open and honest and vulnerable, and I just wanted to hug him, but I couldn't.

I've been thinking about that desire to hug, and what it means. It's part sympathetic, part empathetic, part comforting, part protective. Words are something but they don't feel like enough. A hug conveys a fuller sense of "I'm here with you, right now, in this moment," and also just, "you're not alone." Sometimes when I hear about the pain that people are going through or have been through, I want to give them a hug, as if I could shield them from the world with my body. As if I could absorb some of it for them.

I haven't thought about this song in a long time, and it's not even something I'd normally listen to, but for some reason it feels fitting to me tonight.

"Sleep Inside" by Lilium.

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