over-under-sharing OR a bad blogger says what OR what happened to my blog? OR hey Rocky

And now I embark on a travel day: first flight an island hop, then a red eye and another connector before getting home 30 hours from now. Thus “double travel day.”  Wish me luck.

Got ahead of myself yesterday morning. Things got pretty bad after I started encountering more people.  So let's start this thing over, chalk up today as travel day part 2. Yesterday was not without it's rewards, though. This crater is awesome in every sense of the word. Pele has got it goin’ on.

We island-hopped yesterday: checked out of one place, returned one rental car, flew, got another rental car, checked in to a new place... Logistics, curve-balls (particularly surrounding both rental cars), not enough rest not blood sugar... In short, everyone felt hungry, angry, and tired which leads me to isolation, feeling lonely, thus competing the HALT bingo card. A bad night. And, once again, the morning after: Here comes the sun. Thank Pele.

While waiting in a rather ponderous line, I couldn't help but notice the people at the end of the line had fairly fancy-looking and presumably expensive computer workstations featuring floating keyboards.... which most of them had propped up with a small cardboard box.  Yeah, technology. Bitch. https://youtu.be/io-t-bUkfY8

We swam with some sea turtles today. Awesome. Truly, awe-inspiringly awesome. Magnificent creatures. And so chill. It makes sense how Hawaiians love them so much because they have absolutely the same vibe. “Can you just back off a bit? I'm gonna come up here and breathe. Mahalo.” The reefs have been honestly a little depressing, though. There are so many dead coral skeletons without any new growth replacing them. Not sure if that’s warming or just too much sun screen rained down on them. I suspect the latter because my understanding of the former is less sunlight due to rising sea levels and the dead spots do not seem directly correlatable to depth. Either is sad, though, and a poor reflection on us humans. Almost enough to make me feel guilty about being there, but definitely not enough to make me wish I hadn't come. I do hope for more wind- or renewable-electricity-powered tours in the future, though, and I'm glad I didn't use any sunscreen. From what I understand, th...

OR Vacation time settles in....  OR Today [I]s a good day [May]n’t even have to use my A.K. OR Maximum Derek My daughter pointed out we spent more time in the car yesterday than we did on planes getting here. And I drove that whole time. And there were plenty of other opportunities to see the dark side of my life. Yet somehow optimism prevails. I'm at peace this morning.  The rainbow this morning looked like it was ending at my feet and the colors were glorious. (Even better than the one pictured.) Depression seems further away than the horizon. Likewise mania. I'm in the sweet spot. Maximum stoke. 

I've grown accustomed to sleeping in the afternoons. At work at 7 most days, work without a break until 3, dinner at 3:30 and sleep until my family's dinner (my supper or just a snack before I'm off to ref hockey games). Not an ideal schedule for vacation in an island paradise, but one I dare not waver from too much because sleep affects mood and my mood is unstable enough as it is. So I may not asleep, but am going for some quiet time while family does now frolicking in the sun, sea, and sand.

    I think the title is from Buckaroo Bonzai or something like that... one of those movies all my friends thought was pure genius that I thought was, well, to use today’s terminology, meh .   Anyway, point being, you are who you are no matter where you are. I guess that doesn’t sound any deeper or less meh than Buckaroo’s version of it, but at least it's a different way to stay it, right?   What it really comes down to is that I've been depressed for a few weeks now, which is a bit unusual for me these days (usually there’s at least a day or two of hypomania in there), and here I am now, on vacation, and I got a bit of a reprieve while flying, a hint of stoke, but now that I’m here, the Big Black Dog is back. Was it a black dog? A blue bear? I can’t quite remember what my friend used to call his depression, but it was damn poetic.   Maybe I m just tired. I am definitely tired. Maybe I m a bit off because my circadian clock doesn...