Obey Zolac!

Welp. Alex and I broke up. He felt that I wasn't spending enough time with him/making him a big enough priority in my life... which is valid. He thinks maybe I'm at a place in my life where I don't have time for that sort of relationship, which is also probably true. (Then again, it has pretty much always been true of me that I don't make time in my life for what most people would consider an ideal relationship... I like the idea of a boyfriend, and it's very nice to have one, but on the whole I'm happier without. I don't know why I keep thinking that having a boyfriend is a good idea. ...Doesn't anybody enjoy casual, no-strings relationships anymore?)

So anyway, it's a shame, because we both really like each other... but it wasn't fair to him, and I do feel kind of shitty about it, so... good on him for doing something about it, I guess.

...And I was so close to having a boyfriend of Valentine's Day for the first time ever. Not that we would've been able to spend it together anyway, with my moving to Volcano tomorrow.

Speaking of which... it's been a super fun weekend getting to dance with Thomas and Joaquin from Maui Party, and Eli from Maui Party A LOT, and taking Eli to the warm ponds in Puna and up to Kilauea to see the lava glow at night and taking him to Kealakekua Bay for kayaking and snorkeling. I devoted more of my weekend than I really should have to these sorts of pursuits, which meant I only had today to pack for Volcano and take care of all of my other shit (which mostly I didn't), and we had a Hepcats meeting in the afternoon that I knew I really couldn't miss, and I'd agreed to meet Alex at the beach in a last-ditch effort to salvage our relationship, but I'd sort of reached my physical and emotional limits after three weeks of never having a moment to just sit and breathe (or sleep), so I sort of spent a couple of hours in the morning having sobby panic attacks. So then I called Alex to cancel and he broke up with me, which... I would've handled better if my emotions weren't already completely out of control. As it was, I was almost completely useless right up until the Hepcats meeting, which took more of my day than I would've liked it to, but at least it distracted me and got my brain reset, so I was able to make progress with the packing this evening. I'm fucking exhausted now, though; it is, as I predicted, way past my bedtime, and crying always takes more out of me than anything.

(Alex, if you're reading this, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I really do think this is better for both of us, it's just been... a stressful day and I need to decompress. I still think you're fabulous, don't even worry.)

All of my love to look_alive for support and reassurance during my time of emotional fragility. This is why I will love you forever. I miss you.

We're getting to one of those times of the year where the ratio of Fun Stuff Filling My Life to Time I Have To Sit Down And Tell You About It tilts sharply toward the former. So, recap! I shall attempt to be brief. (HA. HA HA HA.)

So Ted's Blues workshop was super excellent and fun; first workshop I've taken as a lead... I feel accomplished! Having Ted and Lea as house guests was super excellent and fun, too. Seriously, best house guests ever, they were swift and sneaky about pouncing on things like dishes and laundry, aside from being polite and thoughtful and just nice people in general. I had a great time playing tour guide with them, too; we had a fun day at the National Park, and a fun day exploring lower Puna (and nice weather on both those days, too, which was a bleeding miracle), and I took them to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory and Rainbow Falls and around the Downtown Hilo shops. And their last two nights we invited Amy over and Ted put on some music (which is largely the same as my music, apparently), and we enjoyed tasty local brews and played Candyland and Apples To Apples and I just barely beat Ted in an excellent game of Stratego and I introduced everyone to the fabulousness that is Bananagrams.

I snuck away on Friday night to go to the HAVO Employee Christmas Party, which was fun. My boss, Mark, was one of the guys in charge of decorating the Volcano House, and he and his buddies chopped down a bunch of faya trees and stuck them in the corners and strung lights on them. ...Morella faya is, btw, an invasive alien species, and one of the top two worst problems in the Park. So. BEST USE OF FAYA EVER. There was also bamboo and monstera staplegunned to the walls and lights everywhere and live Hawaiian music and a roaring fire in the fireplace and small adorable children running around, this is important for the ambience, okay... it was very nice. And Caitlin and I arrived just as the last of twilight was fading, and the view over Kilauea Caldera with the light in the clouds and the silhouette of Mauna Loa and Venus setting over the orange glow of Halema‘uma‘u, and a huge, full moon rising behind us, clear and bright... GOD, SO BEAUTIFUL. ...Anyway, the food was traditional lu‘au fare, all the good stuff, kalua pig and rice and laulau and mac potato salad and chicken long rice and poi and haupia and THE MOST AMAZING TAKO LU‘AU EVER and it was delicious. And after Santa showed up (what a rockstar he is too, seriously, all the dude has to do is show up and wave at people and everyone cheers, everyone's happy to see him, for serious, what a pimp), Caitlin and I decided it was TOO GODDAMN COLD to hang around the main party, so we took our wine and plates of dessert over by the GIANT MOTHERFUCKING FIRE and sort of oooooozed across the couches and just talked for a while, which was nice. ^_^

( And so on and so on, BITCHES DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY TROPICAL RAINSTORMS, sekrit LJ is not so sekrit, plus enjoyable spam. )

Okay so it's past my bedtime already and as usual I am underslept (there is really not enough time in a day to work eight hours and commute and do all of the things I want/need to do), but I'm going to do a drive-by post of THINGS, because if anything I am about to get busier. When the fuck am I going to do my Christmas shopping oh my gaaaaaaaaaaawd!! T_T

First off, Ted Maddry is here with his girlfriend Lea... he's here to teach a Blues workshop this weekend. Mom's on O‘ahu for work, so I picked them up from the airport and fed them and showed them the ropes. It was instantly clear that they are both fabulous people, as I have come to expect from the traveling Swing/Blues instructor crowd; I'm really looking forward to learning from Ted and to hanging out with them and showing them around the island for the next week. Ted bought us beer (Maui Brewing Company Coconut Porter oh my gaaaaaaawwwwd~!) and said some really complimentary things about my mother (that he's been hearing her name from everyone on the circuit as a workshop coordinator who is supremely excellent to work with, and having corresponded with her for this workshop he can now see why) that I hope he will repeat in her presence, because awww~.

So, yeah, I'mma be busy playing tour guide and Blues dancing and having fun, and then next week I'm going on a Waipi‘o-Waimanu backpacking trip with some people, which I am super excited about; with this trip and the Labor Day Mauna Loa summit adventure that's two out of three crossed off of my Big Island Backpacking Bucket List... now if I can only get Pele to cooperate so I can camp at Nāpau-! ...Oh man, and then I've got the Haleakala backpacking trip coming up in January... SO MUCH AWESOME HIKING YAY.

And now a list of Things To Flail About:

- For those of you who enjoy Red vs. Blue, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, the sillier bits of Doctor Who, and/or THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME, I highly recommend The Visitor from the Future (Le Visiteur du Futur), a French science fiction/comedy web series (don't worry, it comes with subtitles). The show is, in general, much like its title character: adorable, frenetic, and slightly insane (oh my god I have such a crush on the Visitor and his crazyface, for serious, SO IN LOVE), and it's full of time-travel shenanigans and robots and zombies and silliness. So. WATCH IT.

( Continued under the cut: rock and roll, naked Fassbender, jet packs, lava, SPACE, and that guy I like. And Batman eats a pony. )

THAT TOOK WAY LONGER THAN I MEANT IT TO, OH GOD I'M SO TIRED, okay bye now!

It's two in the morning and tomorrow's going to be a looooong day, so I will be brief.

Chris and Campbell spent the day at the Orchid Show and the Panaewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens; I spent the day bloodying myself on sharp lava in Southwest Kahuku. ...Well, okay, there was only a little blood. And afterwards we stopped at Punalu‘u Bakery (the Southernmost Bakery in the United States!) and sampled their sweetbread, and I bought pineapple ice cream, iced Ka‘u coffee (I can vouch for Ka‘u coffee, it is FANTASTIC), kukui nut oil chapstick, and organic dark chocolate with pineapple, lime, curry, and KAVA in it. So, yes, I have now consumed kava. (How has it taken me 25 years of living in Hawai‘i to do so?)

After work I abruptly abducted my French coworker Laurèen; she'll be staying with us all weekend. She took one of the Blues classes this evening; had a blast. Then she, Chris, Campbell, Mom, and I piled into a rental car (the Previa's brakes are on the fritz) and drove up to Hale Pohaku, the astronomy dorms and visitor center at 9000 feet up Mauna Kea. We wrapped ourselves in fleece and down and wool and drank hot apple cider and hot chocolate, and climbed to the top of a nearby cinder cone to stargaze, forming a ring with our heads on each other's stomachs. We had a stunning view of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai in the moonlight, and the eruption was visible as an orange glow on the horizon. The moon sank into the vog and turned yellow, then red, and then the stars really came out. We identified a few constellations (and made up a few of our own– The Chris Dipper and The Skunk are favorites), and saw about a gazillion and a half meteors. Many of them had trails and were green or red in color; we would sometimes see several a minute, sometimes even three in ten seconds. We started to get cold/get tired/have to pee, and we left a little after midnight with Jupiter rising in the east.

Tomorrow: Hilo Farmer's Market, full afternoon of Blues classes, dance party at Don's.

Tonight: Not enough sleep.