That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too.
People go surfing before work and paddling afterward. My husband is from Wisconsin, and he goes to work in his Hawaiian shirt.
My seven-year-old daughter knows old songs and how the neighborhoods got their names. There are little things: Businesses receive blessings from Hawaiian priests before opening, and everyone's kids have their debut luau. You can't really get through a day without doing something Hawaiian.
I've never gone back to the stacks after my book's expiration at the front of the store. Not because I'm above it or anything, but I'd be mortified if someone caught me looking for my own book.
I just try to write what I think would really happen, and with grief and tragedy, there are these naturally occurring moments of levity and humor and absurdity. I think that's what life is really like. Sadness gets interrupted, and happiness gets interrupted.
What's great about teen fiction is that it's all mixed up - there's highbrow and lowbrow!