June 2010
4 posts
The Nose Knows But I Don't Know That
I like to think of myself as a daisy. Daises don’t smell and neither do I. When people look at me, they’d never suspect rancid odors would emit from my flouncy feminine shell. Fresh and dainty, I am. Inconspicuous and unthreatening among an arrangement of more obtrusive flowers and unruly weeds.
Even wilted and soggy in the depths of New York City’s subway system, I think no...
The Sun Marks its Victory
Wearing sunblock in Hawaii is the equivalent of using an umbrella in Portland, Oregon—though sensical, something only an unconditioned non-native would do. Or a complete pussy.
In high school, I’d oil myself up a thick coconut tanning spray, praying it would turn my pale haole skin into that of a golden Polynesian goddess, or at least like the exotic temptress on the tanning...
You One Portagee If...
My dad and I once concocted a scheme to be the first Portagee restaurateurs in Hawaii. We thought, every other ethnicity has dozens of their own restaurants (the Korean have their BBQs, the Vietnamese their pho shops), hell, even ethnicities that don’t represent Hawaii’s population have some kind of eatery (taco shops, pasta by the pound), why not the Portuguese?
We both agreed this...
Five-dollar Chardonnay, Chicken of the Sea, and...
I would like to think I’ve become more environmentally conscious over the years. I spent about a month studying the breakdown of how to recycle in NYC. I even played recycling cop at my parents’ house in Hawaii, monitoring the trash bag for things like milk cartons and jugs of orange juice—giant objects I could easily pick up from the top of the pile and place in the adjacent...
