On Not Flying to Hawaii

I could be the waitress
in the airport restaurant
full of tired cigarette smoke and unseeing tourists.
I could turn into the never-noticed landscape
hanging identically in all the booths
or the customer behind the Chronicle
who has been giving advice
about stock portfolios for forty years. I could be his mortal weariness,
his discarded sports section, his smoldering ashtray.

I could be the 70-year-old woman who has never seen Hawaii,
touching her red lipstick and sprayed hair.
I could enter the linen dress
that poofs around her body like a bridesmaid,
or become her gay son
sitting opposite her, stirring another sugar
into his coffee for lack of something true to say.
I could be the reincarnated soul of the composer
of the Muzak that plays relentlessly overhead,
or the factory worker who wove this fake Oriental carpet,
or the hushed shoes of the busboy.

But I don't want to be the life of anything in this pitstop.
I want to go to Hawaii, the wet, hot
impossible place in my heart that knows just what it desires.
I want money, I want candy.
I want sweet ukelele music and birds who drop from the sky.
I want to be the volcano who lavishes
her boiling rock soup love on everyone,
and I want to be the lover
of volcanos, who loves best what burns her as it flows.

Alison Luterman

20.10.09


So last night was the OAR concert. I don't know much of their music, but the few songs I've heard, I enjoy. A fellow teacher at school was grateful to offer me some extra tickets he had. Of course, being the wonderful sister that I am, I asked my brother if he wanted to go with me. Being the typical brother that he is, he already had tickets and was going with friends. I ended up going with another friend of mine. While the concert was good and I don't have anything to complain about, it wasn't the concert that I found fun. But rather, the people that I observed throughout the night.
Things that made me smile:
1) Texting my brother to find out where was sitting, only to look up and find him at the end of my row with a goofy smile on his face.
2) Trying to figure out in the dark, with Nick, whether the twelve year olds sitting next to us were actually drinking Miller Lite. Going on about how we can't believe someone would have bought them an overpriced eight dollar beer, only to find out, it was only Sprite.
3) Watching a woman have terrible fits of excitement over the music where she would wave her arms in the air (almost hitting her husband) and shake her head violently so that her hair would swing back and forth. Only to moments later, relaxing and patting her son on his head.
4) Two little girls (about six and ten years old), stacked from neck to chin in glow in the dark necklaces, screaming, dancing, and singing along to all the songs. I have never in my life seen people so excited to watch a band play as these little girls were. They even had the gruff security guard chuckling.
5) Watching the pitiful attempts of the poor girl in front of us to communicate with her date who NEVER moved an inch the entire night. I'm calling a bad first date.
6) Admiring the swag on the security guard. He doesn't get paid $8 an hour to listen to bad music for nothing.

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