Day 1: Saturday, May 31, 2003, 6:50AM, HST
Aloha from Honolulu!!
I am writing this from the balcony of my hotel room. When I look up from my iBook’s screen, I can see Waikiki beach. To my left, I can see NAME OF BAY, which currently has about 30 surfers riding the beautiful Hawaiian waves.
Anne and I arrived here in Honolulu yesterday morning at 11AM local time, after a surprisingly comfortable and very pleasant flight from beautiful downtown Burbank. Thank you to everyone who sent me some of that “don’t be such a wuss and just enjoy the flight” mojo. The five hour and 24 minute flight was very smooth, and went by fairly quickly: I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit on my iBook, (I forgot how much I love that movie, and how truly amazing it was when I first saw it), took several naps, and then watched Chicago (hilariously edited for our safety) as the in-flight movie. We also ate some unexpectedly good airplane food: some warm apple crepes, and tasty Hawaiian sweet rolls.
When we got to our hotel, our room wasn’t ready, so we ate a nice lunch, drank lots of POG juice, and talked to lots of birds. When our room, which is on the 39th floor and has the most spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean you can imagine, was finally ready, we dropped off our bags, and took one of those quick 20-minute naps . . . that turned into nearly three hours. I guess the last few weeks of stress and anticipation finally caught up with us, well, that and the fact that we’d only gotten a total of six hours of sleep the previous two nights. When we woke up, we took a walk down the beach, where we enjoyed spectacular views of Diamond Head, and not-so-spectacular views of the gross over-development of the rest of Honolulu.
When we got back to our hotel, we went up to the special, super-secret, you-must-know-the-password concierge club level, where Anne sat with Chase Masterson and Lolita Fatjo, while I stood on the balcony with Randall Schwartz, talking about website design (practice and philosophy) with this guy Manu who was on Voyager.
We watched the sun set over the bay, and Anne and I returned to our room around 8 p.m. We ate a light dinner, and were both asleep by 9. Thank you jet lag.
So far, I’m having a wonderful time. When I stood on the balcony of the lounge last night, watching the sun set, I thought about how insanely lucky I am: I’m happier and more content than I’ve been in years, my book seems to be a success, and a much bigger success than I ever thought it would be, and I am in Hawaii with my beautiful wife, standing on the balcony of this amazing hotel, watching a the sun set the sky aflame as it vanishes into the sea.
Today, the organizers of Cruise Trek (the whole reason I’m here) have put together a small convention that I’m attending. I get about 45 minutes on stage, so I’m going to read “The Trade” and “Fireworks” from Just A Geek and an excerpt from “The Saga of SpongeBob Vegas Pants,” from Dancing Barefoot. Before that, I think Anne and I are going to pay our respects at the Arizona Memorial, and then ride some of those awesome waves I’ve been watching for the last hour.
Aloha, everyone!