I'm not so smart, but I hike real good. That is to say, I not only climbed to the top of Diamond Head, but walked to its base, as well. Funny things, mountains, the way they always look so close. The previous shot is from the ascent, which was not arduous compared to any number of other high places I like to regularly locomote myself up to, around the Bay Area, in times of more glowing health. I'm just coming to find that I seem to have poor skills for being sick.

The main drag here (Kalakaua Ave.) pretty much leads straight to the mountain, and presents a couple of nice landmarks on the way: the venerable Sheraton Moana Surfrider hotel, and the imposing bronze avatar of Duke Kahanamoku, "Father of International Surfing." I also passed an establishment billing itself as "Cheeseburger in Paradise," hammering home the notion I've been getting that Hawai'i is truly the place where the ideal is endeavored mightily to be made real.

Out of town, past the Honolulu Zoo, and another mile and a half or so to the trailhead. I'd already read that part of the ascent to the summit is through unlit tunnels and treacherous stairs. At the trailhead, an entrepreneurial type tried to sell me a flourescent shithouse plastic flashlight; I cackled dismissively in response, smugly patting my black steel mini-maglight in belt nylon. (God, I love gear.)

The climb took an hour, and running on 1.5 cylinders as I was, even the waif Japanese tourist chicks in glitter platform shoes were outpacing me, insouciantly swinging Hello Kitty bags and ignoring my awkward solicitations as they passed on the inside lane. Still, I got to the top and can prove it, and here's what it looked like from the backside and from the front.

It rains here sometimes; frequently, actually, in these pleasant little gentle unheralded misty sprinklings from nowhere, blowing in under lone clouds which are on their way out to sea, a local meteorological pecadillo which I'm surprising myself by finding endearing. One of them made this rainbow on my way down.

All out, I caught a cab back to Waikiki.

Monday night, I cashed in the little "Harbor Dinner Cruise" ticket part of my conference package, and got to see Honolulu at night from the water. Tuesday I got on with the gig (and by the way, I'm never again accepting one of these speaking slots where there are three guys in an hour, and you're third, and after the first two interminably insufferable bastards get off, you're left with six minutes to speak, thinking about your second calling as an auctioneer), and immediately took up residence by the poolside bar, sipping $6 non-alcoholic slushy drinks with big wedges of pineapple in them. Wednesday (today) I'm 28 for the last time ever. Tomorrow the conference ends. Friday is free, and I'm thinking about a snorkling jaunt to Hanauma Bay, on the East Coast; I should also probably check out downtown Honolulu. But I'm trying for once to not guilt myself into undue activity.

Tonight I feel better, and that feels really good. I miss my family; and I think with a really very humble gratitude about my friends; and in the miracle turn of the week, I find myself looking forward to next week being able to go back to doing what is historically my least favorite thing in life, namely working for a living. (Knock on wood, and 10mg prednisone tablets). There are all these little blessings hidden in these things for us.

Like, for instance, where I stop writing (read: turn off the sap spicket) now. 8^) Good night all.

Michael

P.S. In the "On-Cue Illustrations of God's Master Plans For Blessings" Department: as I proofread this dispatch, the phone chirped and on the other end was my Englishwoman friend Alison Henry. She has been in New York on holiday this week (each of us unfortunately heading ~4000 miles west at the exact same time), and called to say happy birthday–and to note that she succumbed to my exhortations that she get together with my sister Erin while in Manhattan. (Erin is a sophomore at Fordham, and she just had a birthday as well, and I was very keen to treat her and Ali to a night on the town together, if possible.) Tonight, the two went to a show, and out for cocktails, and got along famously, and it was just about the nicest birthday present to hear that they did. (Whence this gratification that comes from introducing world-beating, stupendously wonderful people to one another? I guess maybe it has something to do with sharing the gift of the acquaintance of each one, with the other; that is, you get to give each the great gift (in your mind at least) of knowing the other.) "Erin is so completely lovely, and we had a such a good time; I wish you had been there," noted Ali. "I feel utterly as if I were," smiled I in response.

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