Aloha, Maui!

Here I am on the islands! Oh, Maui, how I love thy semi-tropical climate, and persistent rainbows, and continuous breeze! It was certainly worth the white-knuckled terror of the flight. But I’m just being a big ol’ drama queen now. As a matter of fact I’m in danger of becoming one of those people who doesn’t bat a lash about getting on an airplane. It’s only the takeoff and descent that suck, the entire middle part is fine, and even soothing, especially since I had earplugs in this time. Coming down on Maui was the only turbulent part – it’s windy here! Anthony met me by the baggage claim conveyor and wreathed me in a green tea leaf lai that he made along with a tuberose one, creamy white colored and fragrant of vanilla and honey. It made me want to quote aloud lines from Shakespeare. (I’m finishing “Wuthering Heights” finally and I think it’s influencing my writing style.)

Cousin Anthony (who I will henceforth refer to simply as “Cousin”) took me to his and J’s “project house” this morning (photo above) to get new smoke alarms installed for the people coming over to look at, and hopefully buy the house. It’s been on the market almost 2 years now, and the asking price is down to $1.8 million from well above $2 million. It has a steep paved driveway and exquisite decoration and a pool and three floors, the top two both with wide spacious patios sporting breathtaking panorama views of the town and lush foliage below, and beyond them the glowing azure ocean stretching to the horizon.

Afterwards Cousin took us to the only restaurant in town serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m. where he said he’d had such a bad experience last time that under TIP on the check he wrote “Find a new job,” but he gave it another chance for my sake, and he had florentine eggs benedict (florentine basically means “spinach”) and I had a stack of golden buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries, and everything was fine, the server was attentive, in fact almost overly servile, I thought, but Cousin is imperious and impatient in demanding compliance from people, whether it’s restaurant servers, the agent who has failed to sell their house so far, or the people in front of him on the road who purposely block him from driving as fast as he’d like in his giant F350 white pickup truck. (So big that he took up two parking spaces when we went to the restaurant.) We stopped and chatted with a couple exuberant older Hawaiian ladies who run an art gallery and are planning a Victor/Victoria themed party for a mutual friend.

Then we went to Secret Beach, which was clothing-optional, and Cousin lounged naked in the HOT sun (it's between 60 and 90 all the time here), while I body surfed and got too much sun (my head is turning bright lobster red – I put “Green Ice” aloe gel on it). He pointed to one house and said “That’s David Bowie and Iman’s house,” then pointed to another on the hill above us and said “That’s Sharon Stone’s house.” Bowie’s house has its own little point or spit of land jutting out onto the water, landscaped all the way up so people can’t climb into their yard and it’s semi-private while being also directly in view of a public beach – with naked people. Sharon Stone’s house looks like cheesecake – same color and consistency. Cousin thinks the water here is cold and was only in it for a few minutes, but I spent a solid hour or two body-surfing the waves, and the water is heaven to me - exactly what I dreamed of and longed for the whole time I kept trying to swim in those glacial 40-degree lakes in Glacier Park last summer. Cousin finally called me ashore after J warned him on the phone not to let me stay in the water too long or my scalp might burn. On the walk back from the beach to the parking lot I felt like a sensitive, pale water creature burning myself on hot coals. The soles of my feet felt soft as the underbelly of a reptile, scalded by hot rocks as I walked along barefoot.

Back at Hohani Place, Cousin had a nap while I organized and put away everything in my room, then took a dip in the pool. He has corned beef simmering in a pot on the stove for tomorrow night’s dinnner. They have a friendly, skinny, tan, blonde Russian girl roommate named K. who goes to a community college nearby, studying to be an IT person. She warned me not to go anywhere without suntan lotion, a rule I failed to observe today, but I didn’t know we’d be hitting the beach when we left. I did my regular exercise regimen this morning, then also did a 15-minute run on the exercise bike with the Resistance set to 7. It’s easy to sweat here with the high humidity. Cousin started to play “Brideshead Revisited” but I said “Let’s save that for another night” because I just can’t watch that movie without a commitment to fully experience it, such is the bond I’ve formed with it. I just read Benji is going to make a movie about the Beatniks next with Jesse Eisenberg from Adventureland. He’s going to play Lucien Carr, a less-well-known figure from the Beats’ early days who nonetheless played an integral role in bringing them together. So I have that and Bright Star to look forward to. Well, I’ve got to go try on some diaphanous gowns Cousin laid on my bed in preparation for our upcoming parties. Looks like I’ll be doing drag before San Francisco after all!

Cousin told me the first night that he and J both walk around the house naked from time to time. K. does, too, occasionally. That's how it goes here! Being the shy thing I am, I’ll probably keep my underwear on at least.