I get dis nice blue tee-shirt says PAU? in w’ite lettahs on da front. Da back says NOT PAU YET! in w’ite lettahs. I get da tee-shirt from Mr. Lum. W’enevah I wear’em, I stay LUMped inside some cotton-kine LUMbo, Not he’a, not de’a. Not yet.

“Propinquity” is a word I learned in a junior college sociology class. It means something like proximity or physical closeness. Sociologists say that propinquity is the strongest factor determining human pairings. If my ex and I had not gone to the same high school, we would be unlikely lovers, spouses, parents, and exes. Propinquity could…

The energy of the stream was flowing directly into the base of a displaced coconut tree. Over time, it tipped diagonally, nearly washing away with the current. All it would take was one more downpour. We attempted to reduce the pressure around the bank where half the roots were exposed. We found a large boulder…

Third grade, da whole second semester, Andrew kept telling me, “I hope I no get Miss Sato. I hope I no get Miss Sato. I hope I no get Miss Sato. She da meanest teacha in da fourth grade, maybe da whole school.” Even da teachas know she real strick, so we bettah behave bumbye…

I’m eating dinner in Liliha Pizza hut last night. A guy, younger, comes in. I call out to him. I haven’t seen him in years. We say hello, he sits. I find out he’s got a degree in English too. From Michigan. His brother, also a Lab Schooler, went to Washington, majored in Anthropology. “Say,…

Saint Nesanet, Patron of Gratitude Every day, several times a day, I look upon the small porcelain figurine: me, sitting, leaning forward, a teensy book spread open on the altar of my tiny, supplicating hands. I am reading to her class, my son’s class, my class — high school English. Mixing business and pleasure, reading…

I’d just been in Shanghai a month earlier. There, most people know what decaffeinated coffee is. Here in Seoul, fewer seem to understand what it is, and those that do, I guess, only do if you can speak the language well enough to explain what you’re after. Having arrived at Incheon Airport near ten the…

Between us was a bottle of cheap vodka but not much else. We sat on the edge of Waikiki on an abandoned straw mat. We were in middle of a transient night in the intersection of our lives. Nothing else to do but drink and guess the amplitude of waves.