Uh, yes I made it. Hmm. Probably should have mage that more obvious, sooner.

The plane story ends like this: I lay on the bed in the hotel room we had been put up in until about 9:30 PM, at which time I decided that I would ask the front desk at the hotel about how our collective futures as transpacific passengers was looking, instead of "waiting for further information," as advised. (side note: it looks stupid with the comma inside the quotes. I'm not doing it anymore.) The guy on the phone said, "Oh yeah, they got a new plane, departure time is at around 11, and they want everyone to get on a bus at the back of the hotel at 945." "9:45 ... PM?" "Yes... so actually, that would be right now." Fortunately, I hadn't unpacked much. Just the purple laptop and support cabling. After a short ride back to the airport, I was pleased to see that we had a shiny NEW plane waiting to take us on the grueling, engine-robustness-testing flight to Honolulu International Airport. Not much else was interesting about the flight, except that everyone clapped on takeoff AND upon landing. Yay, we aren't dead yet, clap clap clap.

It is now 630 am Christmas morning, and I'm not tired. WHen I was in my early 10's, I wouldn't be able to sleep because of excitement and anticipation. Now, I can't sleep merely because as far as my body is concerned, it's 4 in the afternoon. The smells of Christmas are still the same, though. The strongest scent memory I have of Christmas isn't tree or candle or mint whatever. It's scotch tape. Christmas morning absolutely reeks of it, especially the stocking part.

Being in Hawaii has been good. I never thought I'd actually miss the sun, but it was beautiful, in a hard-to-look-at way. Warm, too, especially compared to probably-icy Seattle. The people are beautiful, too. I said this to a woman who provoked me into conversing at a bus stop near windward mall, and she contended that there were so many fat folks here. "Yes, and the fat ones are also beautiful", I said. "They're smooth." I hadn't realized this until I saw the really lumpy fat people on the mainland.

During my one phone conversation with Le'a, who is also here, somewhere, I learned that her new years resolution was to floss her teeth every day (which she kept until the middle of 2000). Of course, I have truckloads of sympathy for flossers. It just sucks. Having your hands in your mouth sucks, bleeding from your gums sucks, and you can accidentally yank out your fillings, too. Mega-suck.

Well, it is Christmas now. I had always thought that Christmas marked the birth of Jesus Christ, an interesting man about whom much has been written. Well I guess Christmas is actually a holiday celebrating a feast commemorating the birth of Christ, a period extending from dec 24 to jan 6, a place in Florida, and a place in Michigan (according to dictionary.com). What does it mean? It means mega-commerce and gift-exchanging, friendship-reinforcement and hatred-clarifying, contempt-expressing and understanding evaluation. Yay for all that. I hope Caroline likes her TV.