Oh, I forgot to tell you. I came back.

I suppose I should say something one of these days, to squelch the very reasonable conclusion that a reader might have had, until now, that I never returned from my Maui vacation.

Oh, I wish.

There is a lot to say about Maui, most of which, due to time and my poor memory and my aversion to sitting in a hotel room typing while there are so many waves outside to bounce around in, I have forgotten or at least cannot relate now with the gusto with which I should have related them last month, when I returned to Saskatoon.

Here is a photo* of a Lahaina store I found endlessly amusing, for obvious reasons.

I am panties!

Here is a photo of one of Maui’s famous sunsets.

It used to be best friends with Rachel Bilson, but it’s been out of the media in recent months, in preparation for its Vegas show.

The weird thing about Maui is that lots of things that you’ve never heard of before, and that don’t seem all that compelling on their own, are apparently famous. A grocery store, for example, was said to be famous. And a tree that looks like several trees.

Oh, you don’t recognize famous tree? Perhaps you been asleep in back of famous grocery store.

A really fun thing to do, if you have the time, is sit up late at night in your hotel room that you’re sharing with your parents, and watch VH1 when they’re actually playing videos, with closed captioning on. I fully realize that not everyone has the stomach for it, but if you can, Gavin Rossdale’s “Love Remains the Same” comes across as a modern revision of Prufrock, I think:

“Don’t you trick me out
We shall overcome
‘Cause our love stays ablaze

“But we should have had the sun
Could have been inside
Instead we’re over here”

A less seasoned poet would have shied away from such trite phrases as “trick me out” and “we shall overcome” and might have felt compelled to spell out where “over here” is in order to fully differentiate it from “inside.” Mr. Rossdale, however, is confident in his genius, and rightly so, sir. Of course, to fully partake of the sun, usually one would want to be outside, not inside. Perhaps Gavin and his pimpin' firebug actually could have been inside a rocket pointed toward the sun? And if so, how can we get them to leave over here and go back into that rocket like they had planned?

So that was Hawaii. Back in Saskatoon here, the thugs and the Rich Bachelor and I had a pretty nice holiday season, filled with meat and booze and lovely guests, as I kind of thought he had said on his blog, but upon further investigation, find he did not.

And now, after minutes of preparation and hours of anxiety, I am a schoolgirl again. A paralegal-certificate-course schoolgirl, which doesn’t sound very sexy, unfortunately. So far I can’t say very much about it, given that I’ve been to only one class, and that that one class was chosen as a class that I might want to sleep (or drink!) through and still receive an A plus plus plus plus plus plus. It is a very silly class. Additional classes that I have signed up for might want to step the fuck up if they believe paralegaling should hold any interest for me.

So, I guess that’s all I had to say. Gavin Rossdale, do you have anything to add?

“I find a place where we escape
Take me with you for a space
A city bus that sounds just like a fridge”

You guys, I think Gavin’s given us all a lot to think about**. Thanks a lot, man. That was awesome.

*I should point out that my father took the photo of the sunset. The other photos I found on the flickr pages of complete strangers, due to my not bringing along a camera, due to my lack of interest in having pictures taken of myself, or making my parents pose for photos, combined with my very deep interest in not having pictures taken of myself and not wasting time on photo-taking in general. It is comforting to note, however, that in this modern age, even without a camera of your own, and without having wasted any money in the airport on coffee-table books or postcards, you can pretty much re-create your vacation using photos stolen from assholes who took the exact same vacation as you, and found the exact same things kind of interesting.

**Things that Gavin Rossdale was thinking about when he wrote that verse include: "Space" and "escape" are kind of the same word, when you think about it. But "escape" has an extra e. And: If a bus sounds like a fridge, does that mean we're all meat? Think about it. And: I'm so high.