16 hours after the fact, and I still remember the dream. Two snippets, actually.

In the first, I was riding to my brother and his wife's place for a party (in reality, he's not married, he's divorced from his first marriage and is currently engaged). They were living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, right about where my parents' office is.

Cut to inside their home, no one else was there, and I was in a candle-lit room, and it dawned on me that he was married to Amina, ex-love-of-my-life from college. This didn't shock me, because I must have known about it, so I shouldn't have been shocked by it. If it was a shock, it would have happened before, so I wasn't shocked, I thought to myself.

But it was hard looking at the pictures of her on the wall and wondered if any were ones that I had taken of her. I thought, "of course not", and of course none of them were.

In reality, I have only two extant photos of her. My advice is that if you know someone is the love of your life, don't go throwing photos away in a fit of passion. I've done it twice. Regret both. I might have some negatives, though.

In the second snippet, we were just lying in a bed together, in a white room, lit by daylight, with white sheets, just as friends, flirting a little maybe, happy, comfortable, but it was clear that was all. The snippet ended with the room glowing golden.

Maybe I remember the snippets because I couldn't get back to sleep right away. I've been having trouble with my sleep patterns. At one point, slideshowing memories of Amina, I thought, "well, that was all over and done with 10 years ago".

Then I realized late December 1992? That was when it began. In fact, it might have been exactly 10 years ago that we decided to kill our perfect friendship, and engage in a relationship which we would continue to beat to a pulp for a whole fucking 'nother year. Why do people do this to each other? I don't think I've instigated a fight in a relationship since Amina.

"Adaptation":
I know I've written before how I carried Amina around with me for years after she cut contact, until I realized that if I met her now, she would be a completely different person than the one I knew and was in love with. I know I'm a completely different person than she knew.

The chemistry that fueled that love in that friendship didn't exist anymore. We hadn't maintained it. What I still loved about her had nothing to do with the reality of her existing on this planet somewhere now, but what she brought out in me. She had changed my life and how I look at the world. Which I admit in college is not hard to do, but this isn't about that.

And that's how I knew that love was real. And I hate when Hollywood co-opts my ideas. Bastards. What Hollywood didn't co-opt is that 10 years later, you realize it is/was a lot more complex than that.

OK, how much does this suck:

"Results of your Goldberg Depression Questionnaire
You scored a total of 64.

You appear to be suffering from severe depressive symptoms commonly associated with serious depressive disorders, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder or dysthymia. These symptoms appear to be causing you some serious impairment and distress in your normal, everyday functioning. You would likely benefit from the immediate attention of your physician or a trained mental health professional for further evaluation and a more accurate diagnosis and treatment.

You should not take this score to represent a mental disorder diagnosis or any type of behavioral healthcare treatment recommendation. Always consult with a trained mental health professional if you are experiencing depressive feelings and/or difficulties in your daily functioning that cause you anxiety or worry".

Friggin' A. That all is just wrong, yo. Let's see what it says next week.

I tell myself I'm not going to do this again, I'm not going to go through this again next year. Not another year.

But I'm doing it this year, I'm going through it this year, and why? It doesn't matter why, I am. That's all that matters, whether I am or am not. And I am. Next year, I will, no doubt, do it again and go through it again.

Inshah'allah, it will be in the deserts of Tucson, where maybe I will be wearing short sleeves watching a sunset, and anyone I might see or be with is someone I didn't know existed a year ago. I will need a sweatshirt soon, as night temps in the desert go pretty low.

San Francisco and its rain and weeks of drear and mean pretension will be far away. New Jersey and its family and empty meaninglessness and dead of Winter will be far away.

In college, I used to tell myself that a suicide attempt (gesture really) was necessary every once in a while. Push myself so far down that the only way to go is up.

Perhaps the new paradigm is to pick up and move to a new city every once in a while. But Tucson is for some reason very specific. It has the same population as San Jose, so I'm not going to a smaller city. San Diego is desert, why not San Diego? Maybe because I'm romanticizing Tucson? I need to go visit Tucson. It might be just another crummy U.S. city.

Funny. I watched the sitcom "Greetings from Tucson" last night and Tucson looks like every other U.S. city. Imagine that. But with a misogynistic, abusive, Latino father figure. Yea, that's funny.

current soundtrack: Tara Jane O'Neil - "Peregrine"

idealistic

Move through life.

In the end, it's not about what anybody else has done or what anybody else has done to you. In the end, it's only about what you have done, and what you have done to the people who have crossed your path.

On the micro level, justice is not about courts and laws and society, it's about one's own actions. If someone wrongs you and doesn't make it right, that's about them. If someone wrongs you and you wish harm or retaliation upon them, that's about you.

If you wrong someone, it is your responsibility to make them right. If someone wrongs you, it is still your responsibility to not make it difficult for them to make things right. If they continue to wrong you, then it is their karma, and their karma does not concern you.

This applies to each and every person who crosses one's path. This, I believe, is part of basic human law. Social law, where courts come in, is when two parties cannot agree, and both believe that they are right.

Passion should never overcome compassion.

A rights-based society without responsibility leads to rampant self-righteousness.

And my vulnerability has nothing to do with anyone else.

"We've played this game of just imagine long enough" 

Last month, I bought some cycling magazine and there was a blurb about a mountain in Tucson, AZ, where Lance Armstrong used to train in Winter, and my first thought was, "hm, I'd like to try that mountain", and I thought about roadtripping. 

Then today I got a magazine which had an article about Tucson. And now I'm thinking, "Tucson?" 

<daydream>So now I'm doing mad research on Tucson to see what kind of place it is and whether I can live there, maybe go for the MLK long weekend to check out the vibe.  

It just seems like it might be the perfect place to live next. Somewhere that never even registered on my radar screen, somewhere I wouldn't seem to fit in and might stick out like a sore thumb, somewhere totally unfamiliar and didn't know a soul, somewhere where I'd have to check my entire prior life at the city limits for all the relevance it would have, somewhere not so intense or pretentious, somewhere from where I couldn't fly anywhere without having to change flights (yup, no direct flights from San Francisco, I just checked). 

As far as Arizona cities seem, it looks pretty artsy. University of Arizona. And, holy cow, desert? I went to Joshua Tree last year and I was all Drusilla with delight just at the feel of the desert air. Arizona is known to be pretty conservative, but it's not like my political ideology is pouring out of my sleeves. </daydream> 

Let's see how I feel about this tomorrow. I'm even spelling it right!! (although I wasn't when I started writing this) 

current soundtrack: Hajime Chitose - "Hainumikaze"

"Computer, end program" 

As I stepped into the shower, the words "strength to live" went through my mind, and like a faint glowing ember awakening, I understood what it meant to have "strength to live" and that I do have that strength. 

But we all know what happens when a glowing ember gets stuck under a shower.

"Strength to live" is already a bias, a judgment, implying to not live is weak. To live is brave, to leave is cowardly. And a wooden plank struck the metal core of my being and resonated that I do not believe that. 

I do believe that we have a soul that is beyond our physical manifestations of who we are. I do believe in reincarnation. I do believe that our souls exist in a pure, albeit unenlightened, form between one death and another rebirth. 

I do believe this soul is of an existence that we in our physical manifestations do not comprehend. Not a conscious form, but a form that is just fact. And that pure form of our soul "decides", going into a new life, what challenges await and need to be overcome. 

Yes, my friends, I believe that our my lives life on earth are is basically . . . a Star Trek holodeck. It is something I entered to experience what I otherwise could not, live out a fantasy, experience being, test one's mettle, to challenge one's constitution, to dream, to live, to test out ideas and theories, to play . . . and most importantly, to program. 

I do think that I am an eternal optimist, and not because of what I like to say, <dopey voice>"because if I were a pessimist I'd be dead already"</dopey voice>, but because ultimately I do not believe that the life experience, the highest level of hell, the lowest level of heaven, the nexus between the two where individuals have the opportunity to choose "good" and "evil", is negative. 

I exited the shower with the words "strength to leave", and that understanding of "strength to live" evacuated. But an option.

Solitude is my new obsession. Life as a recluse?

the sky is grey 

the sand is grey 

and the ocean is grey 

and i feel right at home 

in this stunning monochrome 

alone in my way 

i smoke and i drink 

and every time i blink 

i have a tiny dream 

but as bad as i am 

i'm proud of the fact 

that i'm worse than i seem 

what kind of paradise am i looking for? 

i've got everything i want and still i want more 

maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore

 - "grey" (Ani DiFranco)

Tony Levin, bassist extraordinaire, posted pictures from the Peter Gabriel tour on his website. They include a shot of PG doing the upside down "Downside Up" performance, and the giant hamster ball. Me and Meghan probably would not be in the Oakland picture because Tony was set up on the other side of the circular stage :(

I've always gotten the impression that if you're working with Peter Gabriel, you're part of a team and you work hard, but the experience is a lot of fun, magical maybe even. There's a camaraderie and love onstage which comes from offstage, and, I don't know if this explains it, but like they know something you don't. Tony confirms this:

"Ever wonder what a band does on its days off?
Usually they're travel days, but in my experience, when there is a whole day free in one place, nothing particularly exciting goes on. In King Crimson we'd each stay in, often practicing, and maybe a few guys would meet for dinner or a movie. On Seals tour there was more going out to see other bands.
But Peter Gabriel tours are different. In the past, we've bicycled through the Alps, rode Harleys across the Arizona desert to the Grand Canyon, gone white water rafting... and a lot more excursions that didn't work out to be what we'd planned!
Well yesterday we went dog sledding up in the mountains of Colorado!"

*drooling with envy to be part of something*

life carries on in the people i meet
in everyone that's out on the street
in all the dogs and cats
in the flies and rats
in the rot and the rust
in the ashes and the dust
life carries on and on and on and on
life carries on and on and on
"I Grieve" - (Peter Gabriel)

It's been a week since I've supposed to have been "cultivating my mellow". Not easy. Incidents of clawing at my soul trying to get out (dramatique, no?), mixed in with removing myself from myself and looking at myself from the outside and seeing a functional, enabled person. 

I have to admit that whatever strength I'm getting out of me is largely sourced in religious/spiritual/metaphysical excursions from college days. Mind exercises, open channel, and the value of mindful breathing should not be underestimated. 

Mind you, none of that back then had anything to do with survival, and survival is still not my goal. I stole down that path because it looked real and attractive to me. It didn't matter that my "leaving" one of these days was inevitable, there was something objective, away from my subjective, lucid and clear, and regardless of where my subjective might eventually go or not, I had to pursue this clarity, this lucidity. This isn't making any sense, is it? 

My modest goal in life is to touch a bit of clarity, to come to terms with what I really, really deep down think life and reality is. And I'm not doing that clawing at my soul trying to get out. Since I've started working, I've become too much of this world, when I really just need to go mad. So the plan now is to continue this cultivation of mellow, and to extinct craving.

I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat 

so close it feels like mine, all mine... 

I remember the feeling my hands in your hair 

I remember the feeling of the rhythm we made 

I need to land sometime

"Heartbeat" - (King Crimson)

And sent to me:

FURTHER NOTICE (Philip Whalen)

I can't live in this world
And I refuse to kill myself
Or let you kill me.

The dill plant lives, the airplane
My alarm clock, this ink
I won't go away

I shall be myself -
Free, a genius, an embarrassment
Like the Indian, the buffalo

Like Yellowstone National Park

Sadie came over a couple nights ago, ostensibly to do music, but she didn't bring anything and we had nothing planned.

Eventually the witty banter died down and we were full of pretzel and Bailey's-laced hot chocolate, stuck with nothing left to say, so we stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for some time . . .

Then she noticed Cool Edit Pro open on my computer screen and she pointed and said, "What's that?".

It happened to be a song snippet I had, just three minutes of a bass groove over an up-tempo drum loop. I suggested she put a guitar track on it and she agreed. She strapped on my guitar, put on headphones, went through it a couple times and slapped down a guitar part.

I liked what she did and heard a second part in my head so I took a crack at it and put down a second guitar. Then we agreed to separately come up with vocal tracks and pool them together before she left for vacation on Thursday.


Undated and original lost in computer crash - 20th St. and Potrero

And a post for seeing Peter Gabriel at Oakland Arena with Meghan.

Walking through the undergrowth to the house in the woods 

The deeper I go, the darker it gets 

I peer through the window, knock at the door 

And the monster I was so afraid of 

Lies curled up on the floor 

Is curled up on the floor just like a baby boy 

I cry until I laugh

"Darkness"

Digging in the dirt, stay with me I need support 

I'm digging in the dirt to find the places I got hurt 

Open up the places I got hurt

"Digging In the Dirt"

My ghost like to travel so far in the unknown 

My ghost likes to travel so deep into your space

"Growing Up"

When illusion spin her net 

I'm never where I want to be 

And liberty she pirouette 

When I think that I am free 

Watched by empty silhouettes 

Who close their eyes but still can see 

No one taught them etiquette 

I will show another me

"Solsbury Hill"

When the flood calls 

You have no home, you have no walls 

In the thunder crash 

You're a thousand minds, within a flash 

Don't be afraid to cry at what you see 

The actor's gone, there's only you and me 

And if we break before the dawn 

They'll use up what we used to be

"Here Comes the Flood"

I'm trying to remember the last time I went on a ride, or a run, or a hike, or a drive, or some whatever thing I'd decided to do and realized I did not have the strength, motivation or desire to continue much further.

Rainy day outside my apartment door.

December 14, 2002; 1:24 P.M. - standing at the front door of my apartment on a rainy day in San Francisco.

It is a gray, gloomy, rainy, "Winter" morning in San Francisco.

Today has the personality of a small gray room with one small window too high to look out of, a metal frame institution bed, maybe a sink, and sitting on the floor in the corner singing, "Bum, bum, bumble-bee, bumble-bee tuna/I love bumble-bee, bumble-bee tuna".

Staring out the 12th floor office window at work at the rainsoaked sidewalk below, watching all the people rushing by with their umbrellas, I thought to myself isn't my life exactly where I want it to be at this point?

It is absolutely nowhere and, yes, that is exactly where I want it to be. I don't want far future responsibility or committment to this life, so whatever is getting me down, I just need to stop. For the next several weeks, I'm going to cultivate my mellow.

Because I'm easy come, easy go/Little high, little low/Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me

The irony of it all, I got hit by an SUV in front of the UPS dispatch center, where I'd always assumed I'd get hit by a UPS truck.

I'm fine, just a few cuts and scratches. My left thigh is pretty sore but I told the paramedics I felt no pain since I didn't want them looking at my left thigh. He saw enough when he asked me to roll up my sleeve to take my blood pressure. I saw him pause when he saw my arm, but he was professional about it and didn't say anything about it once he discerned it wasn't related to the accident. An even bigger irony is the UPS workers asking if I was OK.

The last time I went down was almost exactly a year ago. That was my fault, slipping on wet Muni tracks, and it was potentially far worse because I hit my head. This time, I went limp, rolled, and protected my head. I remember everything.

Last year's crash, I remember feeling my back wheel slip, I remember the sharp impact of the back of my head hitting the ground, and then the next thing I remember was struggling to push myself off the ground, facing down, and hearing voices.

Which probably means I blacked out and rolled. Which would also explain the PG&E guy who saw me go down saying that I went down pretty hard, because at that time I didn't feel like I went down hard. But from the point of impact to hearing people running to me to see if I was OK, I estimate I was out for 30 seconds to maybe a minute. Not long.

It's December. The darkness and the season has been getting to me. My job has been getting to me, my social life has been getting to me. And this doesn't help.

Why is it that I feel this . . . this, I don't know . . . anger? This does not matter. Physically, I'm fine. A few cuts, scratches and bruises, I've done worse to myself. Even if I got nothing in return for my damaged bike, I'd be fine – new cranks, new rims maybe, at most. The rims just might need to be trued. It was a broadside, and there was no structural impact to the frame.

But still this feeling. Why? I don't feel violated, I don't feel assaulted, I don't feel wronged. On a purely karmic level, I should just let this go. On a social level, the driver should feel some sting because he was negligent and dangerous, and if he feels like he got away with something and continues to drive negligently, that's my bad. Socially.

But no, that's not it. So I got hit, nothing about it really matters, but I still have this feeling and it's not directed at the driver, it's not directed at me, it just exists, and the closest thing I can identify to it is anger. What the hell am I angry about?

Anger is the emotion I feel most comfortable with. I don't express it, I don't show it, I just have it and hold it.

Growing up, I never got depressed. The feeling that other people may have had which could be identified as depression, I may have had, but I always channeled it into something else. Mostly anger, mostly anger towards my parents, but I never got depressed.

I never felt depressed until I was committed, and that's when I learned depression, because I would have that feeling, but locked up I wasn't able to channel or direct it into anger.

And then came the unilateral reconciliation with my parents, and I stopped directing anger towards them. I don't hate them anymore, I'm not angry at them anymore.

There is no object of my anger. In fact, the feeling may be nothing that anyone else would put in their hands, turn around and examine and call anger. It's just this thing, a resonant vibration that I have in me. It used to be hate, it used to be anger, it used to be harm.

But if you hate, you have to hate something, and I don't. If you're angry, you have to be angry at something, and I'm not. And to harm, you need to have intent, and I don't.

But it's still part of the basic energy of my being. When I ride, I ride hard, and the source is that energy, that vibration. Same when I run, same when I play guitar, same when I play bass, and definitely the same when I played drums because, well, OK, you'd have to see the pictures, but I look pretty darned mad at something. But that's why I consider running and riding a form of expression, not just an activity. It's also probably why I prefer to do them solo.

And this is probably why I need to be torn down, to have my self-control stripped away, to be exposed and forced to confront depression, hate, and anger, or otherwise I can continue with my smug satisfaction that I don't need or even want to be here. Personally, I prefer that latter.

So I don't know what compelled me. I'm not even sure how long it's been since I lost contact with Pasha – six? seven? ten years? If I had to line up the most significant people to me during college, it'd be Pasha, Myung Soo, and Amina, not in that order. 

He was incredibly intelligent, and he was always asking me questions. That's because he also had a wide open mind, and asking questions was his MO. He lived to soak in other people's perspectives, and he loved to debate and argue, but never to convince someone else of his perspective. 

Like I said, I don't know what compelled me, but after returning from visiting Madoka I asked someone for Pasha's address and two days later I had it in my inbox. I waited another couple days to write the carefully composed reconciliatory e-mail: 

 -----Original Message----- 

From: K 

Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 3:53 PM 

To: Ish P Mahmood 

Subject: 

Hello Pasha, 

I do not know if you remember me. My name is Fairud and I met you at Au Bon Pain in Boston at a meeting. I am just writing to remind you that you still owe me money. 

Sincerely, 

Fairud 

 ----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Ish P Mahmood" 

To: K 

Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 11:38 AM 

Subject: RE: 

Hi Fairud, 

I remember two Fairuds. I owed money to both. But which one are you? Are you the Fairud with the ponytale, or are you the Fairud with different snickers on different feet. 

Best, 

Pasha 

-----Original Message----- 

From: K 

Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 5:09 AM 

To: Ish P Mahmood 

Subject: Re: 

Woohoo!! Yes you remember, I am both! So you owe me double the money! I accept check, money order, major credit card or paypal. 

Sincerely, 

Fairud-d 

"Snickers?" Who does he think he is? A Bangladeshi Ricky Ricardo?

I woke up out of a dream where my luggage was being checked on the Japan side. The officer wasn't really doing anything. I moved a pair of shoes from one part of my luggage to another. Next I was in a car driving away from the counter. I wasn't driving. I looked at my luggage, which was a random assortment of shit lying in the back, and wondered whether I couldn't travel more compact. Then I realized I probably shouldn't be driving away from the counter, I should've been heading towards the gates.

I had slept an incredible 11 hours. I woke up feeling incredibly empty. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the season, maybe it's not having been in a relationship in four years, maybe it's post-visiting-great-friend depression, maybe it's post-sickie depression . . . empty.

I remembered that I have to go to a birthday party tonight and didn't want to. Empty.

I stumbled outside my front door and soaked in the afternoon sunlight for a few seconds and stumbled back into my kitchen to make coffee. Empty.

And then I paused and thought, "STOP!!". And I did. And I didn't feel empty anymore. It's that easy and it isn't. Story of my life.

current soundtrack: Smashing Pumpkins - "Siamese Dream"

Never thought you'd habit:
I think maybe I'm showing my first signs of physical addiction to alcohol. I don't addict easily. It took me 15 years to get addicted to caffeine. I won't say how much alcohol I drink lest I sound like bragging, but since I've been sick, I've been trying to sleep sober.

Saturday night required sleeping pills. Sunday night was no problem but I was pretty far gone as it was. Then Monday night I couldn't sleep and called in sick Tuesday. Tuesday night I couldn't sleep and stopped functioning the next day at work around 3:00. Then last night I went to sleep at 10:00, woke up after midnight and couldn't fall back to sleep, and then it dawned on me what might be going on.

So for the first time, I forced myself to drink even though I didn't want to, even though I knew it would taste really bitter, even though I knew that my cells would feel like bursting and I'd break out in a hot sweat and my lung passages would constrict more. I was right about all of that. My feelings were mixed when it was my alarm that awoke me in the morning.

It's not that I need alcohol to sleep. After I called in sick on Tuesday, I slept soundly until after 1:00. My problem is that I cannot sleep according to current habit without alcohol. It's conditioning. The solution, of course, is to quit my job so I don't have to sleep according to habit.

I'm sick. I've never had one before, but this sure feels like it might accurately be called a bronchial infection. I spent half the night coughing myself awake, woke up with my alarm just to call in sick and then slept until after 1:00 again. My mother used to clear-cut rainforests in a previous life. 

My parents, this is a dream, folks, had rented a vacation house somewhere in upstate New York, and we had all just arrived and we were cleaning it and the yard up. For some reason there was one of those big yellow Cat construction thingies . . . a backhoe, I think, and my mother got in it and went to work with it. It didn't occur to me to wonder how my mother knew how to operate one of those things. Of course, this is a dream, folks. Not before long, it started raining so we stopped, and me and one of my brothers were horrified to see that she had been stripping the trees of their branches, some halfway up the lengths of their trunks! We made her stop and began lecturing her about what she was doing, she was quietly indignant, but stopped. As it rained, they went under a tree for cover, I ran inside. 

I don't recommend lying awake all night sick if you can avoid it. Especially if your thoughts inevitably wander to how much your life has sucked and what a rotten person you've been and what a waste you've made of your life.

     

I do this thing where I think I'm real sick 

But I won't go to the doctor to find out about it 

Cause they make you stay real still in a real small space 

As they chart up your insides and put them on display 

They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it 

All of the good that won't come out of me 

And all the stupid lies I hide behind 

It's such a big mistake, lying here in your warm embrace 

"The Good That Won't Come Out" (Rilo Kiley)

I need to get out of the country more often. Whenever I have a window seat arriving in another country, I peer down at the lives going on as my plane lands.

I don't think of it as much when I see planes landing, but when I'm on the plane, I think of the people on the ground, whose lives have been going on, in a time zone when I'd normally be aslumbered, oblivious of my little life going on somewhere else. I'm arriving, I'm the outsider. They are the usual lives going on, and my arriving has absolutely no impact on them.

Madoka makes me feel like I should be doing more with my life, that I shouldn't just be this existential entity floating around going from reason to reason why not to kill myself. Especially when I ran out of them a long time ago and I'm obviously not going to do it.

And yes, she knows this about me. And it's true, I don't have to leave, I may never leave and live out my natural life, but I can't be caught dead ever living my life like that.

Why I've been blessed with someone like Madoka in my life, I don't know. She would say the same about me, but she has no idea. She has no clue.

Chunk of coal vs. refined diamond.

We may be made of the same stuff, but I'm still the chunk of coal, and she the diamond. I'm not putting myself down, it's just the way it is, and her diamond will always make me shine.

I may not do anything with my life, I may die next year, but having her in my life makes all the difference in the world, and I will make the most of what I have, I will continue appreciating every breath of air, the colors, the smells, the sounds, the feel of everything on this planet, and I won't leave unless I'm sure about it.

Feel free to remind me I said this when it's not 3:30 in the morning.

Madoka, I thought, was a person I would take a bullet for. But 10 more seconds of thought made me realize I wouldn't. I thought of how she would feel if I took a bullet for her, and I realized I couldn't do that to her.

There are plenty of people special enough to take a bullet for. How special does a person have to be to not take a bullet for? After I related all this to her, she said, "I would also not take a bullet for you". I appreciated that, but probably not for the same reason she said it. I don't think this is accurately conveying what an exceptional human being she is.

"Oh, tell me
Tell me you'll dance with me
Turn me around tonight
Up thru spiral staircase to the higher ground"
"Promenade" - U2

You can welcome me back anytime now. I need to take a nap. Get a haircut. E-mail Madoka and let her know Sadie picked me up and I got home just fine.


November 28, 2002; 12:46 P.M. - On the way to the airport.

I asked Madoka why she thought we might have been twins in a past life. She responded because we think so much alike. Oh yea, that, how could I forget that? I think I noticed it before she did.

We went to college together, but we really didn't hang out until after I graduated and was spending time in Osaka, and she was home in Kobe for the Summer.

There were times when we would be hanging out with other people, and I would say something and no one would know what I meant. When they asked what I meant, Madoka would chime in and explain exactly what I meant, and it never ceased to amaze me how precisely she explained what I meant.

I don't know how to describe it – we speak the same language, we're of the same mind? I know I don't know anyone like Madoka. I don't know if she can do the same thing with other people, she might just be really good at empathizing and understanding what other people intend to communicate.

As for me, that Summer marked Madoka as someone exceptionally special. Our subsequent meetings through the years only confirmed that she is exceptional and increased the love and adoration I have for her that I just can't describe or pinpoint.

November 27, 2002; 3:00 P.M. - The sweetness that is Madoka.


November 27, 2002; 2:27 P.M. - Madoka profile.


November 27, 2002; 2:22 P.M. - Out on a walk with Madoka.

kicking myself for not writing it down:
I was having a dream this morning that I've all but forgotten. I was in a town that looked surprisingly like Noe Valley up near 30th and Church, and Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt were there for some town celebration. Stevie was at a loss, wondering what he was doing there. He then spun off two lines about it, and the rhyme was so funny I laughed. Then I opened my eyes. Madoka, who's futon was next to mine, opened her eyes and said, "What's so funny?"

November 22, 2002 - 10:26 P.M. - Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan. Waiting for the train to meet up with Madoka. I'm a little confused about the time stamps, but I think this is right.

another self-absorbed post:
What I said a few postings ago about the "act", I guess it's not really an act. In everyday interactions with people, yes, I am always actively hiding something, but don't we all to some extent.

It's more of the degree of cover up my unconscious performs depending on how well or how long someone knows me.

More or less, all the people I know now, I've met in the past three years. They don't know me through the changes that really get you to know a person's character.

I feel one dimensional to most of the people I know now, and if I were to show more than that one dimension, they would start asking questions I don't want to answer (this is to be completely distinguished from people who do actually "get" me, but don't know and therefore ask, that I don't mind at all).

I do have a pretty checkered psychological profile, and so many people just don't "get" how I can go to law school and not become an attorney.

I "act" the same way to Madoka as I do to everyone else. I just feel like she knows much further into however she sees me, and therefore it is not an act. This is all misperception I'm sure.

ROWR!
Extra strong coffee this morning.

I went to check out the Leonid meteor shower last night. It was a wash. No storm, not really a shower. More like a drizzle.

But it was such a gorgeous night, I love being up and out at three in the morning. There was no wind, it was mild, the moon was bright (which certainly did not help the viewing), and it was quiet down by Crystal Springs Reservoir. My skin tingled it was so lovely. Shhh.

Jupiter was high in the sky above the radiant and I was able to see the Galilean moons easily through binos.

I need to find a way to be up all night. Conceivably I could flip my hours like I did in high school, and go to sleep immediately after work. Or I could quit. I should just keep talking about quitting until everyone is fed up and just tells me to shut up and friggin' quit already!! Yup, that might do it.

Or I could stop taking the emotional route about it and, true to my parents, make it a matter of numbers. Once I've saved double the amount of a year's rent, I give notice. I know I need to get out of this, I know I'm not gonna do it on my own accord, so an outside trigger seems just dandy.

Incoherent:
I'm packing ahead of time. I want to be prepared and leave feeling confident I haven't forgotten anything big. I'll be in Japan for just four full days, which I suppose is better than the three full days of the failed previously planned trip.

And in the throes of packing, I'm anxious about the anti-social and isolation I've wrapped myself in and grown accustomed to. I get antsy over four hours with just one person. Four days?

But it's Madoka, I don't need to be on, I don't need to act. Problem is, it's all an act. I don't know what the act is, but it's an act, trust me. If there's anyone I don't have to act for, it's Madoka, but if it's not an act, it's therapy, and I'm not visiting Madoka for therapy. Ergo anxiety.

. . . no, no, I can do this. We knew each other before this mythic "act" was perfected and implemented, and even since then I think I've always just been myself to her. Besides, friendship is therapeutic. I'm not worried.

I'm looking forward to jet-lag and my biorhythms going ape-shit.


November 19, 2002; 10:56 P.M. - In my kitchen.

Yay! I got my passport.
Boo! I forgot to wear a belt.
Yay! My pants keep falling down.
Boo! I screwed up my blog archives even more. Bah!

I was trying to explain to Sadie why my birthday means absolutely nothing to me. I'm practical about it. The earth is in the same relative position around the sun, but what else? My life started that day, but with my outlook on my life, its commencement is no reason to feel celebratory. I get to that anniversary and ask what am I supposed to feel, and . . . nothing.

I would rather celebrate markers that have some tangible meaning. For example, how about the day I started walking? I don't know the date I started walking, do you? Every year I would be celebrating a day that means something personal to me. I accomplished something that day. My birthday is my mother or my parents' accomplishment. That's the day I should have been grown up to celebrate and thank them.

Of course I grew up hating their guts, so I wonder what effect that would have had on the dynamic. Or vice versa.

In my family, maybe it would have been my uncle, our only other relative in New Jersey, who would come over for birthday parties to explain to us we are having a party for our parents because this is the day they had us. If that uncle wasn't there, maybe it would be father and we'd be celebrating for our mother.

As for our own markers, maybe the parents could choose what event to celebrate depending on what they want of you. If they want you to be an artist or someone who expresses or uses words, they celebrate the day you spoke your first word. If they want you to be a doer, then walking. If they want you to be a government worker, the day you were potty trained. The possibilities are endless.

November 15, 2002; 5:55 P.M. - Home commute. 16th Street and I-280, China Basin, San Francisco.

Directly after reading the You Are A Suspect article in the NY Times, I read about Jiang Zemin stepping down as Communist Party leader in China.

It seems that the press can't publish an article on China without mentioning "human rights", and no doubt, their record is dismal. But the "human rights" that the West generally condemns China for are civil and political rights.

With the direction that the Bush administration and the Republican Congress is taking with things like the Homeland Security Act, we will see government actions, and already have mind you, that are safely considered civil or political rights violations, read human rights violations.

Are they going to stand or respond to being accused of committing human rights violations? Of course not. They'll just stand behind duly passed laws by the "will of the people". Summary dismissal.

But if these violations are committed, regardless of how the laws are passed, it's basically the same as the Chinese government. They have their laws, and we have ours. I'm not comparing us with them (yet), but once our government starts justifying human rights violations with our laws, we certainly lose the moral high ground.


November 14, 2002; 5:00 P.M. - My cube. On the very rare occasion of still being at work this late.

anti-pep talk:
After three years of working here, the building is now going to accommodate bikes. I don't have much to say about that, this building is behind the times, what can you do? But the first thing I do is tell the building I'm interested. Mind you, if I'm really gonna quit at the end of the year, I have to give notice early next week.

These mental games I play with myself are sickening. So I'm not gonna quit now because I can lock my bike in the building? That's basically what the logic distills down to. Teeny tiny psychological pebble in the road. The reason why this is disturbing is that this is how I treat my life.

In April 1997, I was going day to day identifying why I would live to the next, and it just got really stupid, like well, Throwing Muses is playing, and I have to return this overdue library book and pay the fine, or I have to pick up photos from the darkroom. Mind you, none of these, except maybe seeing Throwing Muses, was good enough a reason.

So I'm not gonna quit? I'll stay until I get laid off, probably early next year as the economy tanks? I won't get the dignity of quitting, but I'll get unemployment.

I will also live a long life, and in my 80's I will be alone and destitute because of my inability to get into and/or maintain relationships, and because I didn't have a 401K and didn't invest wisely, and I won't have health insurance because I never cared to look into it, and I won't have teeth because I never go to a dentist, and I'll be in a wheelchair because of the numerous knee and back ailments that went untreated, and I'll be near blind because of the all the time I spent staring into the sights of the sun, not realizing that Bruce Springsteen was being figurative!!.


November 14, 2002; 8:39 A.M. - Bay Bridge while riding to work.

Blame this shameless post on Meghan and her post on music boxes and what tune would we like to have in a music box. Who doesn't love a music box?

As a result, I've been listening to this song all afternoon (the website is a collection of, like, every version of the song in existence), until I finally couldn't control myself and got up and did a little shuffling dance around my cube, hoping nobody walked by. The song just gets me and I just have to laugh at myself for falling for it. Little bit happy, little bit sad. Lotta bit nostalgic.

Ue o muite arukou (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Omoidasu haru no hi (Remembering those happy spring days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Nijinda hoshi o kazoete (Counting the stars with tearful eyes)
Omoidasu natsu no hi (Remembering those happy summer days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Shiawase wa kumo no ue ni (Happiness lies beyond the clouds)
Shiawase wa sora no ue ni (Happiness lies above the sky)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Nakinagara aruku (Though my heart is filled with sorrow)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (For tonight I'm all alone)

Omoidasu aki no hi (Remembering those happy autumn days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Kanashimi wa hoshi no kage ni (Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars)
Kanashimi wa tsuki no kage ni (Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Nakinagara aruku (Though my heart is filled with sorrow)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (For tonight I'm all alone)

That's not my translation, I can't understand the lyrics. I can match up most of the words, but that's about the extent of my Japanese language ability :(

I'm serious, I must have listened to the song more than 10 times.

I am SOOOO boring 

Maybe I'm romanticizing it, but when you black out, aren't you supposed to wake up somewhere seedy, like a gutter, covered in vomit and filth? 

I black out and I wake up under my covers, cozy and warm, with the morning sky peeking through the blinds. Didn't get drunk and thrown out of a bar, no fights, no howling at the moon. No falling into a patch of poison oak. Lord god knows that I've been there. 

I guess last night wasn't too bad, I saw clues as to what happened and remembered some things vaguely. I did dishes! Party animal. Someone invite me to your party, I'll get drunk and do your dishes! 

Guitar was lying on the kitchen table so I must have been doing that. I do remember using the wrong rinse before brushing my teeth – no clue to that, I just remembered it, maybe because I've never done that before. And I burned Kateri a Deadweight CD, but that was earlier. And look! no drunken blogging. Yay me. That makes me wanna dance.

"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."

I missed the cite for that quote from the documentary "Lost Bird of Wounded Knee" on PBS. It is American Indian Heritage Month. I, in theory, believe that all U.S. treaties with Native American nations, unless abrogated, are valid.

The injustices perpetrated against native nations, the broken treaties, the lies, the deception, the legal distortions, obliteration of cultures and societies, and outright military assaults, are what this country is founded upon.

In theory, if I owned land, and the U.S. government told me that my land, under whatever treaty from a hundred years ago, belonged to a native nation and I would have to leave (with federal compensation, because that's how it works), in the name of justice, I would.

The U.S. did it to them in spite of treaties. The U.S. should be able to do it to us to respect those treaties. It will never happen considering what our country and government are really about. It's just something to think about.

And the media has to stop portraying native societies and cultures as being dead, gone, and past. They're not.

I need to have this scowl bronzed:

November 9, 2002; 1:24 P.M. - That's my apartment building in the background. The maroon building. This is Hampshire Street @ 19th Street in the Mission.

It's the old story of not looking ahead, not appreciating something until it's gone. They say there's nothing more depressing than being at home doing laundry on a Friday night. They're wrong. There is something worse. Being at home looking for your laundry room key on a Friday night. Believe me. It's worse. This isn't the first time, either.

I'm gonna burn a Versus mix for Liz at Liz's request, then I'm gonna turn my apartment upside down looking for that key, and then tomorrow I'm gonna make a copy of that key. Who said I was going to Japan on Thursday? I wouldn't have been able to do my laundry on Wednesday anyway!

I'm nervous about getting a new passport in time. The government website is vague in telling whether by going in person to the passport agency on the 15th, I will have a renewed passport by the time I leave on the 21st. But I have to relax, trust, and believe that it'll turn out alright.

I've had this whelming feeling of relief (not enough to be overwhelming) that I didn't go, like my original planned trip was all wrong. Just an unfounded intuitive dread of what would have happened if I had gone.

The path not taken. But as a result, the fabric of my current reality feels weird, fragile, transparent. Like because of this, the "wall" between illusory physical reality and actual Reality has thinned. And if I look hard enough I can see through it.

It's probably just my mind. One of these days physical reality will assert itself as Reality, and everything about me will fall apart and melt away and be torn down and I'll get committed. Nice. I can't wait.

Ever have the feeling that you want to die? I have. I remember the feeling, but I rarely get it anymore, mostly because I'm kinda like that all the time. It's grown through the years so that it's a pretty regular thing. I understand that it's difficult relating to someone who doesn't want to live. I even understand being mad at someone who doesn't want to live. But I have no problem with living. Living I can do. My beef is with existing.

"You need a noogie to get thru the day 

You need a noogie to make your troubles go away 

You never seem so heavenly 

When you're at home watching TV 

And if you feel like killing yourself I need to be there" 

"Noogie" (Versus)

New paradigm for personal interaction: arrogance reduction

Interact with people like my dog was run over this morning.

"Standing in the middle of nowhere
Wondering how to begin
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
Between now and then
So now I'm back where I started
Here we go 'round again
Day after day I get up and I say,
Come on, do it again"
-"Do It Again" (The Kinks)

Curse of Josephine?:

More like curse of me. Inopportune time to try to visit Madoka, what else was going against it? Aside from calling it quits with Josephine four years ago on November 11th, November 7th, the day I was supposed to leave, is Shiho's birthday. But Shiho has nothing to do with Madoka.

Josephine, on the other hand . . . what I know about Josephine, and what I know about Madoka, made me think that there was some connection between the three of us in a past life. And it wasn't a good connection. There was no reason for Josephine to react so violently about the thought of Madoka, but she did to my surprise.

Madoka was my best remaining friend from college, but she was just a friend, there was no threat to our relationship. Still, Josephine latched on to it and blew it up and never let it go.

And ironically, not to put too fine a point on it, the very last time I saw Josephine was months after we broke up for good. I was bringing Madoka to the airport to go back to Japan. She had been in the Bay Area visiting a sick relative.

That day happened to be the same day a group of Thais from our Master's program were returning to Thailand, and Josephine was there to send them off. Boy, was that an uncomfortable moment. It's been four years since Josephine.

In the throes of our relationship, I came close to giving up my friendship with Madoka. In retrospect, it's Madoka hands down. Not in terms of love, because they are different types of love, and I don't know how many types Madoka covers, but as for impact on my life and being in my life . . . the best I can do to describe it is Guinan and Picard.

And the evening was going so well.

Too well. Boss-lady pretty much ignored me all day. That means a lot. She has not been happy with my work or my attitude lately, and ignoring me on the day before I'm gone for four work days means something, yo.

I think maybe she's finally as fed up with my work as I've been fed up with this job for months. She dumped off a few things she had signed that I needed to send out, but she didn't hover around to assess the workload before I left as she should have. And I don't care. She can fire me or I can give notice, one of the two are inevitable.

I left work without having touched base with her at all. I went off to gather some last things I'd need for my trip. I ended up in the Mission, thinking of picking something up for Madoka. I ended up in a store called "Encantada" which had crafts from a region of Mexico related to the Day of the Dead which was last week.

I walked in, said hi to the person there, walked around and walked out. Halfway down the block, the images in the store were so bold in my mind that I turned back and went in again. I priced some of the art and struck up a conversation with the person there, Mia, and she talked about the Day of the Dead and some of the background of the art.

I told her about my trip to Japan and she was appalled that I was making such a journey for just three full days there, but then I explained Madoka and she understood and did a faboo wrapping job since she didn't have any boxes.

That wasn't the only thing, everyone seemed to be super-nice to me this evening. But then I check my passport which was issued 10 years ago, around the same time this "thing" with Madoka started, and it had expired.

One of the requirements to expedite passport renewal (through a private company) is: "prior passport is still in your possession & undamaged". I look over at my expired *fricka shrickin frazzle* passport, it is still in my possession, but is it undamaged? Yea, it's undamaged, it's a bit ragged around the edges and the gold embossed eagle is noticably faded, that's all.

That happened five years ago when Madoka and I traveled to a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. I can't write any more about that adventure/ordeal without going on for a while, but that's a mere cross-section of our history. Our lives are completely separate, but where they meet, they meet with a vengeance.

I think that I clarified my feelings about that "adventure/ordeal" to Madoka last year, but I forget. We confessed a lot to each other last year in a sleep-addled daze that I don't remember. At the time, I had joked about what an ordeal it was, but it really just reinforced my respect for her. And love.

A friendship does not survive sitting in the cab of a truck, blocked on a rain-drenched, muddy, unpaved, mountain road, by another truck that was stuck in the mud and had lost its load of cattle, smelling to high hell of days-old clothing worn in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border, after walking some six or seven hours that day to a meeting point with the truck because the truck couldn't make it past the now rain-swollen rivers that we had to cross on foot more than 10 times I estimate, without a little love. Period.

Urgh!
I'm not going to Japan tomorrow. Might be able to reschedule. My passport expired in May and I didn't notice since I haven't traveled overseas in four years and I've never had my passport expire before. Got too comfortable about it.

Ooh, maybe it's the curse of Josephine. There is no curse of Josephine, I'm making it up as I go along, but coincidentally, we broke up four years ago on November 11! Josephine was wicked jealous of Madoka from the moment she heard about her, without ever having met her. More on that drama later, I'm surfing the web as I write this trying to find what I'm going to do . . .

So this says a lot about me. I'm careless and cavalier. I miss big important details. I'm certainly not practical. And perhaps worst of all, I take big nasty surprises like this in stride and roll with the punches.

No freaking out. Some people like freaking out. If there was someone more entrenched in my life, they might be yelling, "How could you let this happen, you stupid idiot?!", and I would hang my head in shame. Perhaps that's one reason why I don't have anyone entrenched in my life now. Who needs that?

Me, when my eyes bulged looking at my passport expiration date, I may have thought "shit", but any more than that wouldn't have made any sense to me. I just, by nature, can't beat myself up for things I've done. I already put myself through enough for things I have no idea about and no control over.

So expired passport is fact, a material fact, I screwed up and have to deal with this in the present, what do I do now? I can't say no biggie, because this is a biggie, but first thing is e-mail Madoka and let her know, and currently I'm seeing what needs to be done to renew my passport rightways so I can still visit her in the next few weeks anyway.

I'm leaving for Japan on Thursday to visit Madoka. I arrive on Friday. I return on Tuesday. That's like 10 hour flights for three full days there, hardly enough time to adjust for jetlag (I love fucking with my biorhythms).

Crap. I need find my passport. I'm not worried, though. I'm good about storing shit like that, so even if I can't say exactly where it is now, I should be able to locate it rightways. I need to print out Madoka's directions from the airport to her train station. She offered to meet me at the airport, but she'd have to leave work early, and I want to make sure I can do this myself. And get over this neurosis about the Japanese language, which I have all but forgotten.

I never got a handle on the language despite my parents speaking it to us in our infant years (they're not even Japanese, wtf?), tutoring growing up, 2 or 3 years of college classes, 4 months in Osaka after college, lots of self-study with cassettes and CD-ROM, and 3 Japanese speaking girlfriends. All to no avail. A clear sign I should just give up.

Why going solo from the Narita Airport to Tokyo fills me with fear, I don't know. I had absolutely . . . little problem going to Geneva solo to give an intervention at the U.N. (a Master's thesis thing) and I can't speak a sentence of French.

So seriously now, wtf, I'm going, I'm thrilled at seeing Madoka this year, I'm gonna find my way around, I'll try to dig up phrases from the cobwebs and use them, and make an ass out of myself as much as possible!!!

inspired by Joie: part 3, ghosts, pt. 2
I experienced something bizarre intermittently for several years when I was a teenager and into college and beyond that I could never explain. I described the experience to people, but I've never been able to find anyone who experienced anything like it.

Then I read the book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston, and there was a passage that described exactly my experience, but told it described in the context of ghosts!! It never occurred to me to interpret my experience in terms of ghosts. I still don't, but it was fascinating.

When I was 14 or 15 years old, one night I was lying in bed having trouble going to sleep. I looked over at my clock and it read 1:21. Suddenly, I saw a bright light like a comet shoot into me from a diagonal trajectory from the right. I was suddenly paralyzed and blinded, everything was just white light, the sound was like the roar of a jet engine in my bedroom. I tried to scream (for my mother of all things) but I couldn't get anything out of my throat.

I was frightened, I was panicking. It felt like it went on for a long time. And then as suddenly as it began, it ended, I was in my bed and bolted up fully awake and conscious, completely freaked out. I looked over at my clock. It read 1:22. That was the first time.

This happened intermittently over the course of the following years. One freaky time it hit me while I was sleeping on the floor in my closet (don't ask – it was a big closet and had a window). When it hit me, in my paralysis, I was able to struggle and force myself onto my stomach. I then pushed myself off the ground. Then it ended. I was lying on my back. I jumped up and ran out of the closet completely freaked out. That was the first time I was able to move myself.

As it recurred, I got to a point of comfort with it and stopped panicking when it happened. After more time, I stopped struggling with it. I would just relax and flow with it and let it happen. From prior experience, I knew it would end, nothing to be afraid of, can’t prevent it, so explore it.

By the time I was in college, it would happen, but then the state would fade into dream-like images. I knew it was happening by the gripping feeling and the conscious state, but it wasn't paralysis anymore, it wasn't just white light, white noise and white panic. I wish I could remember some of the dream scenarios that it faded into. It got fascinating after a while.

My interpretation of the experience has nothing to do with ghosts, though. And it can still happen. I don't remember the last time it happened, but it wasn't so far in the distant past that I'm sure it will never happen again. It still recurrs. It only occurs during the sleep cycle.

inspired by Joie: part 2, ghosts, pt. 1
I believe that ghosts are neither evil or good. To me, ghosts by definition are tortured souls that were so tormented by something in their physical lives that they can't move on in death. The trauma was so harmful that it shook the foundations of their psyche, their psychic being.

Ghosts haunt, but the definition of "haunt" is the same as "going back to my old haunts". It doesn't mean to scare, it's just means occupying where was once familiar. I believe ghosts occupy the same plane of existence as angels, except that angels act as intermediaries between humans and god (fully open to any and all interpretation), and ghosts are souls in stasis. Angels are self-aware, ghosts are tortured and fixated.

Personally, I believe in reincarnation and it crosses my mind that maybe I've killed myself in my past several consecutive lifetimes, including hanging, slashing wrists, jumping, and drowning. (sidebar: I also think at some point I was a Japanese prisoner of war and a horse, go figure).

I think that if I can't prevent myself from killing myself in this lifetime, I might be relegated to a ghost existence. Who knows? I don’t. Maybe if I can keep positive enough, I can do it and still come back human and have another shot at it.

I know that at some point I had some theory about how ghosts were released from that existence and were allowed an opportunity to be human again, but I can't recall it right now. Lame. :p

I need to be put on trial with everyone who has ever known me as prosecutor. Let the accusations fly. There will be no defense. Fortunately, I wouldn't need one since I would be the judge. Sadie pretty much got it right when she said my personal relationships hinge on their entertainment value to me (I take it she only figured that out because she's like that, too).

I think it's because I finally decided that I can't take conflict in relationships anymore. That explains the unilateral reconciliation with my parents (or maybe it's the result of that). Maybe that's why people come and go from my life like a revolving door – most people just don't get how I don't take reality seriously. I understand. Not everyone understands that they're just part of the entertainment. just kidding. or am i?

My friendship of several years with Anita started deteriorating when she started putting pressure on it on several fronts. Our friendship didn't survive Ritu dropping dead, even though the only nexus was that Anita and Ritu were like sibling rivals and Ritu was my boss.

In my last relationship, I had only one problem with it – she kept on finding problems with me. And she would get violent about it. OK, two problems. Nothing else put me off or got me mad or impatient or frustrated or judgmental or etc. otherwise. But after a while of putting heart and soul into the relationship and making it work, change wasn't happening fast enough and the violence didn't end, so I ended the cycle of breaking up and getting back together. I just wanted to be entertained.

So it's hard to get into a relationship now when my expectation is the myopic view that there will be no issues regarding the relationship. I have my issues, but I won't take them out on the relationship. But if the relationship has to deal with my issues, I won't prevent that, either. I don't mind the other person bringing their issues into the relationship, as long as it's realized that this is a collaborative effort. I hope I can take what I've developed in this life into my next life and be able to maintain a relationship. And hopefully I'll be monk.

Sadie: Friends are so hard to raise.

What else did we talk about? Oh yea, a friend of hers had a baby not long ago and he finds child-raising unnerving because it keeps changing personalities on him every few months. One month you're raising this kid, several months later you're raising a totally different kid. thought worthy.

current soundtrack: Seam - "The Problem With Me"


November 2, 2002; 12:04 P.M. - Default shot outside my front door. Hampshire and 19th Street.

wondering if Meghan knows how incredibly awesome she is!!

"for k (in case you miss the note): a cd is wating for you at merrill's 1091 market street aisle 14b bottom shelf black soup pot very left".

inspired by Joie: part 1, angels
I do believe in angels. Growing up, I always felt a presence around me, following me, protecting me. Uncanny things happened to me that I couldn't explain, strange guidance, and I would often feel something like an energy on my shoulder, like someone putting a reassuring hand there. I won't even get into the how many times I've fallen asleep while driving, that's another story.

I related this to Hiromi back in college and she felt the same thing, but for her, the spirit or presence was one of her ancestors. That works for me. My model for angels is depicted in the Wim Wenders movie "Wings of Desire", that they are wanderers exerting their divine influence at random. And some do that. Others attach themselves to one person and follow them (mine). Others may attach themselves to significant people, ie, descendants, relatives. Others attach themselves to a concept, the angel equivalent of patron saints. There is not one model.

To be honest, I haven't felt this for quite some time. More times than I can count, there were occasions when I would see a random child who would touch me so much just from their being, that I would think to the presence that I always felt following me, "If you really exist, leave me and go with this child and protect and guide it as you have me. You've given me enough, I don't need any more, so go!" I haven’t done that in quite a long time. I haven't felt anything, any guidance, in quite a long time. Lately I've been wondering if I should try to recall that presence.

Armeen Mix: 

1. Birdhouse in Your Soul (They Might Be Giants) 

2. This is the Day (The The) 

3. Galileo (Indigo Girls) 

4. Never Again (Slumber Party) 

5. For What Reason (Death Cab for Cutie) 

6. So Long (Rilo Kiley) 

7. Blade of Grass (Versus) 

8. The Field (Throwing Muses) 

9. bbtone (Pinback) 

10. Long Division (Aisler's Set) 

11. Trash (Suede) 

12. Disposable Parts (Enon) 

13. Shrinkwrapped (Sleeper) 

14. Skylines (764-HERO) 

15. Watching the Wheels (John Lennon) 

16. Nobody Like You (Echobelly) 

17. Magic Fingers (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones) 

18. Flowers (Cibo Matto) 

19. Heartbreak Even (Ani DiFranco) 

20. Friendship Station (Le Tigre) 

21. Times Like This (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians) 

I'm diversifying my mixes, not relegating them just to recent listens.

   

Forever wishing someone near the goal 

Forever pushing, Sisyphus'd know 

Forever wasting promise as it goes 

For cynics shows a summer in the hole 

"bbtone" - Pinback 

 The field has melted snow in Summer 

Black with lousy rain 

One more star above the clouds 

Is not such a bad thing 

"The Field" - Throwing Muses 

 Everyone knows I've always craved 

And tried to feed the hunger of an empty grave 

You've shown me secrets I've not forgotten 

I'll give you all the love that I take 

Oh, that I'll take

"Nobody Like You" - Echobelly 

 I can still hear you 

Laugh at something I 

Say without a word 

Such a dirty world

"Skylines" - 764-HERO

Then we watch the spooks on the news 

Playing chess with the cynics 

Hope you die in the arms of your shrinks in your clinics 

Now it's gone 

5 A.M., we smile and plan our revenge 

By the end of the night has found its true friends 

Up all hours sketching a thousand great schemes 

Maybe I'm too tired to colour them in

"Shrinkwrapped" - Sleeper

Right now, now is not the time or the place 

To count each blade of grass for you, alright 

I'll never lose control, not there 

But everything else is gone

"Blade of Grass" - Versus

Bowling for Columbine:

Two thumbs up for this documentary exploring why Americans kill each other with guns more than any other country.

What I found ironic is that the audience never failed to laugh at what I considered inappropriate moments. I don't think it was coincidence that those moments, regardless of content, were the ones that made someone look crazy, or dumb . . . in short, the ones that made them feel superior.

It's one of the bases of American humor. Ha ha, we're down with Mike Moore, look at the stupid cop, look at the goofy militia people, look at the straight-laced corporate PR rep feeding lines, ha ha, look at the slick news sharks that don't give two craps about what they're reporting about, look at the loser delinquent Canadians cutting class (who ultimately get in the last incisive jab about Americans), ha ha.

Shit isn't funny, San Francisco. That insensitivity must be somewhere in the equation.

Anyway, I highly recommend the film. And I'm moving to Canada.

I remember there's a point in running races, maybe three quarters through that everything seems to get quiet. No hubbub or hullabaloo you get at the starting line and finish line. No jostling and maneuvering to get past the slower people or the faster people jostling and maneuvering around you. No more talking as people find themselves in "the zone". The zone cracks me up for some reason, but I think it's real. Also the talkers generally fall to the back, I gather.

You're just cruising along, people in front of you, people around you, people behind you. And the steady sound of footfalls is all you hear. You're on a journey and in the natural course of the race, you find yourself surrounded by people who run at your general pace. There's no talking or communication, but there's a feeling of connection with these random strangers, right here, in this calm and peace, on parallel courses.

Blogging is feeling like that. May be time to put comments back up. Maybe I'll do month on, month off. Wax on, wax off.

Anita's Revenge: Music Blind Date

So . . . I talked to this guy last week about jamming. He had my number, claimed to have met me before through Anita, fine. He talked on the phone about having percussion, timbales, congas, Brazilian rhythms, so my first thought was to think this was a chops heavy gig, I'd need to be diverse with rhythms and time signatures, groove, and be able to follow through changes. Riiiiiight.

On the other hand, if this was through Anita, he must have known I'm a rock bassist, not jazz or brazilian or latin. I decided to go jam and keep my expectations low. How low can you go?

Can you say "Spinal Tap Cliche Hell"? Oh my God-d!! Come to think of it, he kinda looked like the keyboardist of Spinal Tap. Really, think of the most painfully embarassing scene from Spinal Tap and imagine it real. There ya go.

And get this, he wasn't kidding about the percussion. That would be like Ozzy asking Ladysmith Black Mambazo to join him on stage. Suppressing the horrified look on my face was all I could do to keep from busting out laughing. Painful, painful, painful.

If he asked me out on a second date, I would have to say no.

bike geek shit:

Climbing Mt. Diablo kicked my ass, but it was a perfect day for a ride in the East Bay. Two people on the summit asked me if I rode all the way up and how long did it take? An hour and 45 minutes from Walnut Creek BART. One lady took my video, "here's a guy who rode up all the way". My hands were shaking as I was downing Gatorade.

On the summit looking around at the surrounding landscape was like being on top of the world. But it was like that on Mt. Tamalpais, only 1000' lower. The climb was over 3000', summitting at 3549'. I passed 8 or 9 people on the way up. I wouldn't pass as many people climbing Mt. Tam. Marin County has more serious riders.

From Walnut Creek BART going up the north side, it was 16 miles and took an hour and 45 minutes. From the summit going down the south side and swinging back around on flat roads up to Walnut Creek BART, it was 22 miles and took 47 minutes. It was as perfect a ride as I've gone on this season. The only downer was getting back to San Francisco and finding it frigid.

So yes, with Daylight Savings ending, I think today was the end of my riding season. I've improved my downhills quite a lot this, my first, season. I was pretty timid about downhills when I started these long rides. I still ride my brakes more than I should, but I've gotten better about being more horizontal on sharper turns. It's still scary for me to be leaning way over into turns to maintain speed, but I think it's something that experience takes care of.

Self-Evident:
Prior to the ride, I stopped by the anti-war rally at Justin Herman Plaza, and someone handed me some minor newspaper. I was reading it on the BART and it contained the entirety of a poem by Ani DiFranco called Self-Evident. I wanted to keep it, but then decided to leave it on the BART, hoping that someone else would pick it up and read it.

After last month's overwhelming Critical Mass, tonight's was awesome!!

It was the Halloween Critical Mass and a lot of people were in costumes, so that added to the fun. It was a good turn out but not overwhelming. None of the hostility of last month. There was a heavy police presence, but they were hands off. We just had a good time, it was one of the longest Masses I'd been in, I left after 15 miles.

There's this one guy who attaches a trailer to his bike with a PA on it and blares out music. When he started blasting '80's tunes on Polk St. it became a party, people getting off their bikes and dancing at re-grouping intersections. This continued into the Mission, into the Castro, and then back into the Mission, where the Mass stopped symbolically at 18th and Dolores where the big mess ended last month. "Funky Town" is the greatest song to blast out of a PA in public.

Weekend upon us. End of Daylight Savings Time weekend upon us. End of DST used to signal the end of my running season since I used to get asthma when I ran in the cold. Out here the rainy season is just kinda miserable.

But out of that habit, I have made it the end of my riding season, too, so tomorrow I'm gonna do the daunted Mt. Diablo in the East Bay. I read about the climb on someone's website and it doesn't quite sound like fun. Tomorrow evening maybe I'll go somewhere to watch the last sunset before it starts setting an hour earlier.

Sunday I'm supposed to jam with someone who called me earlier this week who said we had met before. I didn't remember him, but he mentioned meeting me through Anita maybe five years ago at her apartment or 111 Minna. I'm not psyched to do it, but I feel I should see where I'm at with bass playing.

There was a great documentary on PBS last night called "Presumed Guilty" about the San Francisco Public Defenders office. I think it was primarily made to give insight into the work of public defenders. They aren't just making sure drug addicts, criminals and social low-lifes don't go to jail. They are the most humanitarian cross-section of the court system. The documentary puts human faces, lives, and events on people that society is readily willing to throw away.

I used to think that there must be some moral wrangling within the PD's office regarding guilt or innocence. How do you morally (or effectively) defend someone when there's overwhelming evidence of guilt?

I still think that's valid, and it's an individual public defender's choice on how to pursue cases on those grounds. But much more importantly, the PD's office makes sure everyone not only gets their day in court and a fair trial, but that these human beings are treated humanely. Because no one else in the court/legal system is going to.

A nice subtext of the documentary addressed the corruption and cronyism of San Francisco political machines. The SF Public Defenders office is what it is today through the efforts of attorneys Jeff Brown and Jeff Adachi, the number one and two people in the office.

Last year, Jeff Brown resigned allowing his position to be appointed by the mayor of San Francisco. Jeff Adachi, a man of integrity who had earned the respect and reverence of the entire PD's office, was the logical choice to succeed as head of the office.

But! There was someone else who had aspirations for the job. Kimiko Burton, an inexperienced attorney who happened to be the daughter of John Burton, a strongarm of the Democratic Party Machine. John Burton is also close friends with corrupt fat-cat mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, the epitome of political smugness and arrogance.

Willie Brown, without any consideration, not a thought of Jeff Adachi's 15 years of successful service, (smugly) appoints Kimiko Burton to head of the PD's office. And her first move was a suicidal move – she fired Jeff Adachi, making it clear that it was all politics, and she was part of the political machinery.

When her term as appointee ended, to keep her position, she would have to win in an election. Jeff Adachi ran against her. Kimiko Burton had big money behind her. Her campaign for Public Defender received probably the only endorsement ever from the Police Department. Police don't like public defenders because they undermine their work.

Jeff Adachi's campaign was grassroots without a lot of money. He soundly defeated Burton. It was a feel-good moment in SF politics.

If I had seen this documentary when I was in law school, I would have leaned towards going into public defense. And if I were to grow up and take life seriously, I would look seriously at trying to become a public defender. But I'm not an attorney, I really can't even be considered a lawyer, and realistically I don't even have the background for it. And I'm not about to grow up and take life seriously.

current soundtrack: Deadweight - "Stroking the Moon"

Well, I got kicked in the butt at work. I screwed something up, nothing major, but some damage control was needed. If boss-lady was mad, she didn't show it. She was mellow about it, but it was a screw up and it was mine. 

I don't like screwing up, even if it's something I really don't give a rats ass about. I don't like that feeling that I've let go so far that a screw up can occur. It makes me feel slovenly and dull. My response was to sharpen up and I got my shit together and banged out more work than I have in a long, long time. It's a personal responsibility thing. I can't explain it. 

I still go through a daily ritual of asking why I don't give notice, what's paralyzing me? My diagnosed adjustment disorder? Reason and logic itself should overcome that. But I guess that's why it's called a disorder. 

If boss-lady came down on me for screwing up, I would definitely have given notice on Nov. 1. It's too undignified for me to stay where I'm not wanted. What she probably doesn't know is that if the screw up was bad enough, I would have given notice regardless.

   

Lay me place and bake me pie 

I'm starving for me gravy 

Leave my shoes and door unlocked 

I might just slip away 

Just for the day 

- David Bowie "The Bewlay Brothers"

I went to Sai's for pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) for the first time since chocoliz went San Francisco bye ta-ta. Sai's is my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in downtown San Francisco. I think it's the only Vietnamese restaurant in downtown San Francisco.

ancient conversation revisit:
Joycee: I'm in the mood for pho.
me: How 'bout Sai's?
Joycee: Medium!! (with appropriate hand gesture to indicate a medium size bowl)

Getting Here from There #4: Parents

I consider myself pretty well-adjusted. Yet, whenever I tell people about my upbringing, it sounds like it was pretty fucked up and that my parents were negligent, absent, bordering on abusive.

In elementary school, it’s not normal to be setting fires in the woods behind your school on your way to school. It’s not normal for school administration to wonder why you’re coming to school in short sleeve shirts in December or why the tongue of your sneaker is sticking out of a hole in it.

Both were my choice, it’s not that my parents weren’t providing, they just didn’t see what I was wearing when I walked out the door in the morning.

And in high school, it’s not normal to adjust sleeping hours from 6 at night to midnight to avoid simultaneous consciousness with your parents. We don't want to discuss anything else about high school.

I no longer speak of my parents with the invective that my acquaintances from 1996 and prior may have observed. I speak of them with understanding, pity even. But when I talk of how my father used to punish us, whipping us with plastic Hot Wheels tracks, shaved down for greater velocity and pain, I tend to get raised eyebrows in response.

The thing is that my father never went too far. He never lost control over his anger. It never crossed over into what I would consider “violence”. When he punished us physically, it is clear to me now that it was a matter of discipline, and not a matter of emotional lashing out at what personally displeased him.

There was one time with my oldest brother that he may have gone over the top, but he caught him having stolen money, and that was a pretty big deal. The strange irony was that he used the money to buy a really nice calculator, something my parents would have considered educational and glad to have bought for him.

I also stole money from my parents plenty later on, but it was only in small amounts to buy records. And a thought that occurs to me now is that as they caught him, I'm wondering if they knew about my pilfering all along. I think they did.

I can’t speak for my brothers, but I think it’s safe to say that we do not “love” our parents. We . . . whatever, but the word isn’t “love”. We've all wondered whether we'd go out of our way to attend their funerals. They wonder why they don’t have grandchildren, but it never crosses their mind that we don’t exactly have positive models regarding “family”.

Before my unilateral reconciliation with my parents, I moved 2919.56 miles away from them. It was a good decision, it was a survival instinct that I curse but have. There was a Taiwanese movie that came out last year called Yi yi. I loved it, it would be near the top of my list of desert island movies.

The movie gave such a sense of inter-generational continuity. Life is hard, life is full of scenes, glimpses, moments, that are hard and profound and intense, and through it all you have your past and your future through the generations of your family, some of it virtually unsaid (the grandmother, the past), some of it incisive and articulate (the boy, the future).

And that's what I gave up by running away. Maybe that's what my parents gave up by having the wrong priorities (you might torment your children, they might think you're shitty parents, they might resent you and carry issues, but at least be there – mean something to them).

So who knows if my parents will ever enjoy grandchildren. I reserve judgment on whether I think they deserve them or not. They won't from me. Although if I theoretically did, I would certainly let my parents have as much time as they wanted with them.

My mother's two brothers now have grandchildren. My cousin Audrey had her first daughter last month. My cousin Mimi's brother had his second child within the same week. I'm very proud of them both. But I wonder about the pain my mother feels. I sympathize. I empathize. But I'm in no position to do anything about it.

Oh, and my parents did not like "Yi yi".

I believe the position of the Native Americans. Modern, Western, technological society is inherently suicidal and cannot subsist in perpetuity. Native societies have existed for thousands of years in harmony with nature. Modern technological society has been around a little more than a century, and it seems to think this is status quo, this is the way it will always be.

I can't imagine how this will all collapse and disintegrate, but I believe it will. We've been destroying the Earth and removing ourselves and our reliance on nature for a little over a century and the process is only accelerating. We can take comfort in that it will continue for a while, but a few centuries is an infinitesimally small slice of Earth history.

I think technology can be used with nature, but if technology is being used against nature or in arrogant defiance of nature, which is how we're utilizing it, I don't think it has a chance in the long run. Whether indigenous/aboriginal ways and wisdom will reign again, who knows? I know I'm romanticizing them, but not really.