Mele Kalikimotherfucker Means 'Merry Fucking Christmas, Gizzwad'

I'm thinking about moving to Hawaii. No, I'm not even kidding. I'm talking about the Kona region on the west side of the Big Island.

A friend of my family owns a candy company in Hawaii. He makes chocolate covered macadamia nuts and coffee beans. Attached to his business is an apartment. The dude that's living there is leaving. He and my father talked about this, and then my father called me and said, "Hey, you might be able to score that apartment."

I called the friend, and we discussed. He sort of groaned and said, "It's really boring here, Ryan. You'll get bored. It's an island for Chrissake." But I want to write--I need to be bored to write, right? So he said, "Before you decide to move here, come out and check it out. See if this is a place you'd want to live."

I just booked a flight on Aloha Air for the 24th to the 30th of July. It's pretty exciting. I haven't had an actual vacation where I actually packed my bags and went somewhere out-of-the-ordinary since I was about 12. Sure, I went on trips, but no vacations.

Jesus. What am I getting myself into? It took so long to make friends, and I'm considering leaving everything to fuck around for 6-12 months. Considering. Bad idea? Good idea?

How can I leave, though? There are engaged women that need my help planning their weddings! There are people who may want me to watch their dog while they're out of town! There are people who need me to...Okay, I guess nobody really needs me.

But free rent and utilities in a small apartment in Hawaii. There's other costs involved. I'd have to ship my car over and that's $2,000 round-trip. In America, we have to provide our own health insurance if our employer doesn't do it for us; that's about $100 a month. Car insurance would be about $110 a month for Hawaii (I checked). Groceries would probably run around $250 per month (more expensive than on the mainland). Incidentals about another $250. So far, I'm in the hole about $710 per month. Hmm. I guess I could swing that with a part-time job. I never foresaw the difficulties of trying to pull together $710 a month in grad school; I thought my days of part-time employment were over.

Maybe I'll just come back and decide to stay in sunny California. I don't know.

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmmm..."

I'll make my decision on my vacation, I guess. But...should I stay or should I go? Shit. I just moved here a year ago, and am already thinking of moving again. I hadn't even thought about moving until I found out about this apartment.

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmmm..."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...