News and Contemplation

Just a few days ago, I finished a short story called “As I Go Walking Through the Web.” It is written for a contest for a mental health magazine. Now, I am working on “The Blood of Angels,” another short story about mental health. “Women on the Camino del Norte” is in the process of being self published. I am hoping to self publish one more book of verse poems before the end of the Summer.

Windward offers a certificate in “Hawaiian Studies” and I am interested in seeing if this is a good program for me. It is supposed to be a decolonial account of Hawaii that challenges the narratives of traditional history taught on the mainland. I’m saving my best stories for future Kinsman Quarterly reviews, though I’d really like to win a publication with Hawaii Review one day, too. I’m hoping that, if I can complete this program, it can give me the credentials that I need to write more locally.

My updated plan is to skip Japanese speaking for now and take an Intro to Hawaiian Studies class in the Summer. In the Fall I want to do a poetry workshop. Then, if my Summer Hawaiian Studies class is passed, I will take another one after the workshop ends.

Jackie has been very angry towards me lately. She feels that I’m taking it easy while she is not doing well in Las Vegas. She says that she doesn’t like how I’m sharing too much good news from my end. What happened to her wasn’t fair or right at all. I just don’t know how to help her. The locals seem to be going back and forth on what they want to vote for. I don’t want to be “living good” while she is struggling since I know how she feels.

So, I’m going to try to avoid both Windward CC classes and volunteering, for now, by taking a Summer class in Japanese which starts in early May. In the mean time, I might attend the silent reading meetup and read this textbook there. The rest, I will try to figure it out later (after Summer).

Tomorrow I will be staying home and hopefully finishing “Women on the Camino del Norte” and starting another side project to hold time out for as long as possible. I am craving pancakes from Koa Pancake House. One of these days, I will go!

After six years of being banned from the forum, I was allowed to return today. This gives me mixed feelings, since I know not everyone there wants to hear from me right now, and there’s a chill there whereas, in the past, it had been more recovery oriented. I keep hoping that 2017-19 would return, and it is only now that I’ve come to terms with the fact that it is not a happy place.

I have finished a short story about the schizophrenia forum today, called “As I Go Walking Through the Web,” that I will be submitting to a mental health magazine. Back in the day, I was going out drinking boba and attending support groups, and I would post a lot of happy things. Now, I realize that life isn’t so easy for people on the other side of paradise. I know it’s weird, but I really like visiting the website on my China trips. This is because it isn’t banned so it’s easy to access when my VPN isn’t working.

In terms of projects, I am hoping to finish “Women on the Camino del Norte” this week. After that, I will hopefully be able to work on some short stories about my family. That should carry over into May, and I very much would prefer not to attend the Gotham class on poetry, or any class, so I can save up for the Japan/China trip.

Seeing what happened to Jackie really opened my eyes to the horrors of being marginalized on the mainland. I don’t want it anymore – to deal with the demands and setbacks. I really just want to know that everything will be ok, to return to serious writing, to visit Japan, and to complete three full length projects before the next election cycle.

I will spend less time on there than before. Though if I do win another publication offer, I will be excited to let the online forum know. I really hope that the rest of the year is quiet and free of drama. I would like to get dinner with mom at Waikiki again, and perhaps to write another longer story about mental health one day.

I don’t have a lot to share today, so this update will be brief. I am excited to enter some of my short story projects to local magazines. “Women on the Camino del Norte” is almost done. I intend to submit it to more contests instead of self publishing it.

My next set of interconnected stories about my family will be collectively titled “Fireflies in the Tides.” It will be six short stories – three on mom, dad and grandmother, two on my life, and one where all of us talk about how we got to where we are today. It definitely is aimed at national level publications.

I plan to start a Gotham poetry class in May and possibly start one more project that I haven’t decided on yet. After we visit Japan in September, I want to write a novelette called “The Men’s Travelogue” for local publications like Hawaii Pacific Review, Manoa, Bamboo Ridge Press, etc.

There is a growing feeling of doubt watching Jackie descend into desperation due to how her life has been changed by Las Vegas. I know she really wants an upstanding publisher to accept a mental health story. I think that it should be speculative, and not a tragicomedy like “The Men’s Travelogue.” I have lost faith in mainland America after how they treated Jackie. Even third world countries wouldn’t do things like that to people. The unjustified hatred has become unbearable.

I want to point out that those without an education often see things the way society wants them to see it, and believe things that the media, society, and leadership want them to believe. They very rarely go against the grain to think independently. For example, how being a certain personality type does not make you smart, that looking pretty does not make you mean, and the only people who can be trusted are those who they find relatable. They think designer products are worth having because society says so, that luxury and comfort are eternal, and that the things society imposed on the rat race are prized desires. So, to conclude my little social experiment, I see it as society’s fault that they are the way they are.

Deep down, a driving motivation is anxiety and fear. They are afraid that food stamps will run out at the end of the month, that their friend is eating better than them, of losing the things they want or accruing the things that they don’t. They often don’t like themselves, even, because society told them so. I don’t think they are sheep inside, they are mice. They bite you if they feel threatened, and people use them by manipulating their senses of fear and pleasure, not by getting them to think clearly or understand the truth.

They are not the real villains, though they imitate the kinds of indoctrination society instills in order to maintain the system. It’s like Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” where people are divided into A,B,C,D, and F. How could you keep the F group from retaliating except by reinforcing social values? The A group, on the other hand, are designed to lead. They see beyond these social norms, but end up reinforcing it by climbing to the top. It is like how guys without an education often chase after a pretty face, and the princes with good grades most often chase after a pretty heart. Mice are designed to oppress themselves. In other words, they are little predators inside, preyed on by those who keep them blind.