8.24.04. I’m in a war zone of a kind, funny as it seems. (Though, it's not ironic or allegorical—experiences seem more limited than we would want to believe, it’s just their complexity that tricks us into believing all possibility.)

You see, I can’t tell who my enemy is. The fact that I have enemies at all is abhorrent. But there they are. Suddently. Just when I think I know where I stand, I discover an ally turned and, just as quickly, a determined enemy a comrade. So I devise a defensive position of one. Me against them all, wielding resentment; I’m my only ally; truth to myself the only imperative.

I say, if only I could be the same in every situation!

I will be the same across all situations.

But it never lasts. The psyche isn't yet flexible enough to make that constancy within the barrage of histrionics and spite. I alone can’t absorb the concomitant unsaid words.

What can you do?

It's the betrayal that gets me. That I feel betrayed at all, I mean. The feeling occurs on my end, and that's how I know I've relinquished control a little bit, tossed myself like ripe fruit into the crossfire.

8.28.04 I'm having a Hawaiian morning, I guess: Laid back and wearing the robe, the portable bed; green tea to the side; and the Hawaiian part: sunshine in the windows and reggae on KEXP. Always the reggae will remind me of Hawaii. In particular, one morning dash to Hilo in our weak-ass rental car, windows rolled down, locals blowing by in exaggerated 4x4s. I want to travel with my friend again.

++

I'll be in Beijing the last days of September and the first few of October. This is for another friend I miss; I'm traveling alone. I can't wait to be out of the country for real. My passport has gone ahead without me to the embassy for an entry visa. For now, the wait.