I had a great thought the other day.

I had a great thought the other day.  It was pretty epic.

Not a Kim Kardashian inconsequential brainpop, but something great passed through my neural pathways.

Like something Einstein may have come up with if he hadn't spent all his time watching pink lady apples fall from trees. Where was that leisurely activity ever going to take him?

This shit happens to me often.  My brain did that thing where it cuts out like a hairdryer when you pull it away from the wall socket, sometimes mid-sentence. Actually more often that not mid-sentence.

Unfortunately the great thought eludes me to this day. Oh well. I might go and sit under my mum's lemon tree and see if the great thought returns.

Sequel to this post: Return of The Great Thought.

Dude, where's my holiday bubble wrap suit?

I’ve just spent ten nights on a tropical island. I shall call this island Hawaii. 

The place is horrible.  They should write that on signs everywhere in the world. Don’t go there. No-one go there. You’ll hate it. I guess the main point I'm trying to get across is STAY AWAY, IT’S MINE.

I know no-one wants to hear about someone else's summer holiday, so let me summarise:

• I did all the tropical things.
• I did not look at a watch. Mostly. There is a big  vintage clock on the Waikiki Beach strip, like anyone cares what time it is.  Most of the time I didn’t know what day it was.
  

To make you feel better about your non-tropical existence, I also conveniently captured a litany of issues from my travels. I shall call them Hawaii Problems. They are real problems:

• I ran out of my Australian Cadbury chocolate quite early on so I had to eat Hershey's. I can't untaste that.
• The drying of my favourite swimmers could not keep up with my thrice a day swimming schedule.
• The tiles in my hotel room were forever covered in sand. 
• I kept bumping into the same Americans in Waikiki and was compelled to start acknowledging their existence.

• I only know so much Russian and there's always the danger of bumping into an actual Russian-speaking Russian.
• They install some type of magnetic field in your brain when you arrive at Honolulu Airport so when you pass any of the three thousand ABC Stores in Waikiki you are forced to enter because of the electric charge emitting from their extensive souvenir magnet collection. Also, I'm not entirely sure this is how electromagnetism works, but it sounds like something an electromagnetist would say in a Hollywood movie.
• I was forever sunburnt because.... I'm from Australia and we don't really get access to sun so I'm not trained in the ways of the shade...
• The magical Waikiki salt water healed my reef rock wound like a boss in no time at all and I don't have a body of salt water in my street at home to heal all my future reef rock injuries.

So I’ve grown a little tired of talking incessantly about Hawaii this week, particularly given I’m not there anymore. I've returned to the glaciality of my frozen city, the mundanity of my livelihood, and the general unremarkableness of my existence.  Oh, that sentence isn't depressing at all. Hey, I'm a writer. We are depressing.

I'm going to write a comprehensive set of Frequently Asked Questions and hand them out to anyone who requests information on my what-and-whereabouts abroad.
 

See, every time someone asks about it the precious holiday bubble deflates just a little.  And you've got to protect that effervescent little blob that protects you from reality and all the people who want to pop it.  

I know the bubble won't last, but that’s okay, because I will take the soul-sucking fairy who pops it down with me into the chambers of hell. Terms and Conditions apply when you ask about my damn holiday.

The Curse of Hawaii

I'm off to Hawaii very very soon for a winter mini break. I last ventured to that horrible holiday destination in 2012. It's been a long time between mahalos. The first time I went I fell in love with it immediately in a very serious way. Now it's kind of a long distance thing. And before you ask, no, Honolulu never comes to visit me.

The reason I'm going to Hawaii in July is because my home town is thoughtlessly covered in gross wintery frozenness.  Also, I have a borderline pathological hatred of cold weather.

When I last returned to the beautiful, exciting, relaxing slice-of-heaven that is winter in Canberra, Australia, from the vastly boring, conservative public service mini-metropolis of Honolulu, I noticed something really strange - Canberra is nothing like Hawaii. It really needs to pull up its skinny hipster jeans and try a bit harder to be more like a tropical island and less like itself.

Canberra makes it really hard for me to like it most of the time.  It's the geographical equivalent of the so-called friend who reels you in but then keeps letting you down by being a cold-hearted biatch.  I don't know what I did to deserve ending up in a place that apparently doesn't do beaches, palm tress, pineapples or coconut water. 

Hawaii has screwed with my head.  At lunchtime I currently walk around depressing, cold, grey Canberra, full of depressing, cold, grey public servants when what I should be doing is hitting up Waikiki like Hawaiian surfer girl.

So I'm trying to remember all the hideous experiences I've had in Honolulu, like the time my suncream ran out and I had to buy emergency suncream, and the time I thought my donut lilo was deflating but it turned out to be a false alarm.

Remembering these horrible moments helps keep me strong during these dark days. Mahalo.