Another Netflix coincidence:
I think I missed one earlier. I noticed it but it was so minor and they weren't forthcoming, so I just wrote it off. But my two latest rentals, "Blue in the Face" and "8 Women", one has a character named "Augustus", referred to as "Auggie", and the other has a character named "Augustine", referred to once as "Auggie". That one reference got my attention. I think this is pretty minor, too, I'm not going to read anything into it. Just noting the August.

August!

Whoa! Both coincidences I've noticed so far might not mean anything on their own, but in conjunction with each other? The death card, and August. I might be unconsciously selective about what I notice though.

Critical Mass going through the Broadway Tunnel.

Just Do It:
Nike commercials are probably bad for the suicidal. Reading my journal entries from way back, for someone who claims he has always been suicidal, I sure didn't act like it. But that makes sense, it can still always be in the background as physical life goes on.

What am I gonna write? "Today I went to the supermarket and got milk, chicken, chips, and pizza, and I'm gonna kill myself next September. T-minus 9 months"? Of course not, but I think it's there.

It's a little strange writing about this so forthrightly here, but I've seen blogs that are worse where everything is doom, gloom, torture, and teenage angst. Here it's just thinly veiled doom, gloom, torture, and teenage angst.

But seriously, for me it's just fact, and maybe that's what's so strange about it? I'm not pouring my heart down my shirt sleeve, bleeding about how unbearable it all is or why I'm thinking of doing it. For me it's just time, it's perfect, I could stay, but I just need to leave. It doesn't make sense to me to stay, given who I am and what I believe and don't believe in. All my goals are behind me, I don't want anything else, what can another 10, 20, 50 be?

But then there's that old voice asking, "well then what the hell are you waiting for?", "brother's getting married in June, I don't want to ruin that", "oh give me a fucking break, if you're not doing it now, you're not gonna do it then". I don't know, it's possible. I'll just have to wait and see.

I had this dream last night. It was the most amazing dream I'd ever had. It had mystery and a beautiful sadness. It had good people. It had good feeling, film, sound, a story. It had home. When I came out of it, I was going to reach for the microcassette recorder I keep on my nightstand, but then decided not to recite what I remembered about the dream because there was no way that my words could recollect how amazing a dream it was. Of course, they totally would have. Now I have no recollection of even the feeling that made it such an amazing dream. All I remember aside from a few vague images is the fact that it was an amazing dream.

The sun has my complete reverence. To the sun, we owe everything. It is a fiery ball of burning hydrogen and helium, 93 million miles away, and we can stand on Earth and still feel its radiation, its power, its life-giving force. It is a star, just like so many other stars in the sky. But this one is ours, this one is up close and personal.

A benefit of being intrigued by astronomy from an early age is getting the idea early that some day the sun will die and consume the Earth as it grows into a red giant.

I used to imagine what that day might look like 4 billion years from now. What will our planet's landscape look like when the sun starts showing differences, perhaps differences in strength, in warmth, in color, in size? How fast will the sun take to consume itself and lose its gravitational ability to hold its gases, how fast will it grow in our sky, filling our sky, burning away our atmosphere?

Four billion years from now. The likelihood that humanity will survive that long is astronomically remote. It was only 65 million years ago that dinosaurs roamed the earth. Humans have maybe 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history.

We've survived no more than a century of having the capability of destroying ourselves either directly through nuclear war, or indirectly through ruining our planet. And the way things are going, it would be a miracle if we survived even another hundred years.

It would take an enlightenment greater than humanity has ever seen to survive longer than that. Sometimes I want to live as long as possible just to see as much of humanity's changes as possible.

So much is happening in astronomy now, it's intriguing. The universe shaped like a doughnut? That is just so cool! The possibilities boggle the mind! I used to have trouble getting my mind around the concept of the Big Bang, when all matter in our current universe was contained in an infinitely dense point. Does Euclidean geometry exist when there is no universe? Or to quote Carl Sagan, "To make apple pie, you must first create the universe".

What we think of as a "point" may only be an abstract concept when referring to the Big Bang. It didn't exist in space or time, because space and time didn't exist. It may have "existed" in a completely different dimension. With our three dimensional minds, it is virtually impossible to visualize what the Big Bang occurred in. It certainly was not something like the period at the end of this sentence.

We live in three dimensions of space, and one of time, in a universe with 10 dimensions theorized. But maybe the third dimension is the most advanced? No, maybe not advanced, perhaps most cohesive, the most physical, the most "complete". Dimensional space is hard to get my mind around. I'm fine with the three dimensional universe existing within a four dimensional matrix, but the theory is that most of the other dimensions are microscopic. Does size matter or doesn't it?

It's hard to grasp the idea of microscopic dimensions because as we think of microscopic as being very, very small, and how can something like a dimension be so small, a single microscopic point? What is it, a virus? Can you squash it like a bug?

And yet. We concern ourselves with the economy, with bombs falling on Baghdad, with innocent people dying, with world politics, with paying for education, with quality of living.

We don't concern ourselves with the sky above us and the earth below us, and our neighbors, as human beings, around us. So who cares what the landscape of the Earth will look like 4 billion years from now? Maybe humanity will decimate itself and a new life form will evolve. A lot can happen in 4 billion years. A lot can happen in a hundred years. A lot can happen in a month.

I hate morning. It's the most depressing and mentally oppressive time of day.

I do not have the foundation to support the weight of emotions.

Last night, even though it was past 4:30, it took a while for me to fall asleep. While I was drifting off, I experienced one of those horrific feelings I occasionally get when I imagine dying and feeling that I don't want to die.

In the warmth and comfort of my bed, I think of how lucky I am to have a warm and comfortable bed. I think of sunlight on my face and air on my skin and being in this world, and I don't want to leave it.

It's alright. I don't mind having those feelings occasionally to keep things in perspective. It's good to be simplistic about existence every once in a while.

The surreality of having uploaded my previous journals since 1989 and the supposition of who would be interested in them hit me today.

I've always referred to my journals as my "suicide note", because they were to explain how I got to where I did to people who would be affected. But back then, there were people, special people, who I thought I would owe an explanation. None of those people are in my life anymore. And no one I currently know would be haunted for an explanation and peruse the record.

How things change. Back then, the hardest part of leaving was the people I knew and thought loved me. My friends now are perfect. No one is too close to me to really be affected by my leaving. Everyone I know now will treat my leaving the way I treated Ritu's death. There is an impact, disbelief, temporary emptiness, but it wears off, and the long term effect is more of reflection than a visceral, deep feeling of loss.

The cruel irony of all this is that if I had left way back when, they probably would have treated my leaving the same way, they wouldn't have been fundamentally bothered by my leaving, as I thought. I should have left back then.

So why bother with all this? The paradigm has completely changed. I guess I'm just doing it for myself, to follow through with the original concept.

Really, I don't feel a need to explain anything. But if this record can somehow be preserved in family archives and be of interest to a descendent 200 years from now, it's worth it. Whatever.

for someone's art project:
"I left San Francisco on August 17, 2003, six months after I reached my target age to leave. I left from Ocean Beach, with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of sleeping pills, and a kickboard. I took a photo of myself and left the camera on the sand. I am probably residing in Tucson, Arizona now."

(NB: The art project was a short film for which the artist wanted people talking about their departure from San Francisco as the audio. She asked people to call her answering machine and leave a message telling about their departure.)

There's probably a range from 1 to 10 gauging how serious I am about leaving at any given moment, for any given plan. In the early days, the range probably mostly fell between 6 and 8. I seriously thought I would do it. Later on as it became more apparent that I wouldn't leave despite my plans, the range lowered to a more realistic 3 to 5. Once or twice it did hit 10.

I'm holding steady at 9 now, expecting to get to 10, 100% commitment, closer to my target date. I'm hoping this time it's for real, that I've gotten serious enough about my life to really face reality and leave.

I've reached my target age and I've found no answers to this existence. This really has become a dead end, whereas before there was always some potential for discovering something, either through meeting the right person or finding the right thing to do that I can learn something. I'm mostly convinced that it's not going to happen, that I've learned all I want to learn in this lifetime, and now it is time to leave and start over in different circumstances.

I'm not afraid of different circumstances. I'm no longer afraid of not having what I have in this life. We are born and we get used to what we're given. Even given shittier circumstances, and I must admit the circumstances in this lifetime are pretty cushy, I expect my core being to adjust and accommodate, and handle them with the core values that is my being.

I quit my job. That was 100% commitment. The free time I have over the next five months is for wrapping things up. Getting the record of my existence together for whoever's benefit. Photos, songs, journals, clues to the anthropologists of who I was and what I was doing. Hopefully it'll be a good study for someone.

I need to die before my parents. This, once again, is not dramatics, just fact. I've reconciled with them to some extent, but it was a one-sided reconciliation. They are still the foundation of who I basically am now. And no reconciliation has addressed that.

Before the reconciliation, it was all about separating and getting as far away from them as possible. The reconciliation itself was about realizing I didn't need to get away anymore. I was out of their sphere of influence. However, my being is still rooted in them.

I don't want to go where they have gone before me. I don't know what happens after death. I only know what I believe. But the experience of death that we all must experience, I think is a profound one, perhaps the most profound experience we will have. And whatever is on the other side, I don't want to follow them into it. They can follow me, as one or the other must happen, but I don't want to follow them.

I talk about reconciliation, but how much is a one-sided reconciliation worth? The 'rents have started sending family photos of whichever was my most recent visit. I have found it increasingly disturbing that I do resemble my father.

Growing up, I was glad whenever people said I didn't look like either of my parents. But come adulthood, during one visit to Taiwan, my cousin Audrey had a photo of my father when he was young and she pointed out how much I look like him. I said, "No, I don't", but I noticed it before she said anything.

I don't want to look like them, looking like either of them fills me with self-loathing. We do not have a connection that allows them to claim me as a part of them through a physical resemblance.

Resembling them makes me want to die, it robs me of my identity, and whatever reconciliation I have unilaterally achieved, we are separate and we have nothing to do with each other. They never wanted to know me, they never made an effort to know me. I have no interest in knowing anything about them. I have no interest in looking like them.

Coincidences:
I used to say that I don't believe in coincidences. Well, actually, that I did believe in coincidences, but that they did not occur as often as we might think. Things happened for a reason, incidents of synchronicity were to be examined for meaning or learning or as clues. And more often than not, I would be able to get something out of occurrences that may have seemed like mere coincidence.

But then it faded, maybe because I kept telling the entity that I thought was always hanging around me and protecting and guiding me to go off and protect and guide someone else. Eventually coincidences just became empty, ordinary coincidences. Nothing special, nothing to notice, nothing to examine. They happened and then they were gone.

Several months ago, I wondered about that entity that I told to go away, could I ask it to come back? I have been, and I've started noticing coincidences again, like someone sending me messages and clues. I haven't been attaching any great meaning to them, but I haven't tried. I'm just noticing them more. At least I should keep track of them as I notice them.

This past Wednesday, I watched a movie called Now and Then, and in it there's a tarot card scene, and the card that comes up is "Death". Tonight, I watched a film called Walk On the Moon, and one of the characters using tarot cards, not only comes up with "Death", but it's the exact same tarot card as in "Now and Then". I don't know if the pictures on tarot cards are uniformly the same, I seem to recall a different "Death" card in "Live and Let Die", but maybe things have changed since then. No great meaning, something I just noticed, and I just happened to have watched both films within three days of each other.

Am I going anywhere with this? Absolutely not. In fact, watching "Walk On the Moon" and seeing depictions of the normative life, the idea of goals, and the ordinary journey that life is, or at least that mine faces, I'm more resolute that I'm done with this.

And the whole relationship theme that has been buzzing around me like a mosquito was also solidified. I don't want anyone else in my life, close to me, next to me, or the tragicomedy of human feelings. Even if I start to feel that angel around me again, I don't want anything changed. I just want her to be around for the end and watch and guide me.

OK, I can't do another today, either. I get tense around people. I feel my blood thickening, stiffening, coagulating. Is there any point left in maintaining social relationships? After they leave, I need to decompress. Alcohol doesn't help, we'd been drinking. I don't like drinking socially. It just made things worse. I downed three glasses of orange juice.

Now I'm really freezing. Don't touch anything, leave everything just as they left it. Eventually I'll get around to putting things where they belong. I don't need any more stuff in my apartment. But alas, more stuff. Whatever. I don't care. It's just one more thing someone will have to deal with.

I can't do another yesterday today. I didn't get out of my apartment at all yesterday, except for late in the evening to put out some recycling and check my mailbox. Empty.

At least I had some human contact when Delphine called in the afternoon. We didn't stay on the phone too long. She ostensibly called to tell me she couldn't come into the city tonight. We were thinking about going to the Great American Music Hall, but hadn't confirmed anything. She didn't have to call, but she did.

I only realized this morning that maybe that wasn't the only reason she called, maybe she wanted to chat. I shouldn't have gotten off the phone so quick. I thought she was just calling to tell me that and had other things to do, so I got off the phone. Did she want to chat? Does she want to move our friendship beyond the casual and into a more confidante? Did I just screw up? That's OK. I resisted responding to her most recent long email last night, because I don't want our friendship to get too deep. Flat-line where Sadie is would be good.

For the first time since quitting, I had trouble sleeping. That might kill the theory that work was the primary cause of my sleeping problems. But for almost three weeks, I've been sleeping beautifully, even having some very nice dreams. I need to start recording them.

My sleeping hours have reverted to their natural patterns, which is going to sleep around three or four and waking up any time between 10 and noon. But last night I went to sleep early, a little past two, and then I woke up at five and couldn't get back to sleep. Actually, the night before wasn't a great night either; I kept needing to get up for more and more water. Bit strange. But after waking up at five, drinking water and orange juice, and not getting back to sleep, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. I still don't know what that was about.

It might just be knowing where my life is headed, having quit my job, having reached my target age, having realized a target date. This time it's gotta be for real. Yea, right, real, that's why it's still more than five months down the line.

I don't understand the reason for the relationship-themed dreams I'd been having, when I've reached the point where falling in love doesn't mean anything anymore outside of myself. Falling in love has become something objective, not something to act on. Whether I can fall in love is not the question, I know I can. I have in the recent past to two inaccessible people.

What if they were accessible and reciprocated? Could I resist? I like to think so, because nothing would change about the underlying thesis that I have no desire to intermesh my life with someone else, I have no meaningful desire for intimacy. But in reality I probably could not resist. I'm counting on the likelihood of not falling in love with someone who both is accessible and reciprocates. Par for the course.

What about an accessible person that I didn't fall in love with from the start, but could eventually love if our paths took us in that direction? Mutual interest, hanging out, getting comfortable, feeling, falling.

I can't. Intimacy. Why intimacy? I'm not scared of intimacy, I just see no more reason for it. I can feel its power when confronted with it, but otherwise I have no desire for it. I've disconnected with the world, my life, and my future, so why be intimate, make a connection, with another person any more? If it's something I can stop, I must. I must stop this.

SF Museum of Modern Art

More on the relationship theme.

You fall out of the relationship loop. You get used to your independence and solitude. You get antsy when you spend too much time around other people. You tell yourself you can never be in a relationship again. You know you will never be in a relationship again.

And then reality hits. You're hanging out with someone. You're chatting into the night. You're going through her photos, and she's close. When your hand incidentally touches her hand, you feel the warmth, the softness, the skin. Just for a moment. You feel the power of being inches away from a person. You notice the fabric of her clothes. You trace the outlines of her hoodie. You look at a photo of her, and then look up, startled that the person in the photo is her(e). When you're leaving, you hug her, and when you release you give a quick extra rub on her back, hopefully to let her know that you really had a nice time hanging out with her.

You get into your car and tell yourself you can't go there. You're finished with relationships.

Still more relationship dreams. Last night it was an old ex from over ten years ago, Sakuko. I received something, a postcard maybe, telling me that she was now in Virginia and still wanted to be with me. My first thought was to visit her immediately. My second thought was 'why Virginia?'.

If Sakuko and I got together now, I think it would work. Back then, I was too emotionally and mentally screwed up to maintain a stable relationship. There was nothing wrong with her. She was a lovely, good person. All that was wrong was all me, and she didn't deserve that.

I'm much better now. The only thing that remains is the not wanting to live part. A pretty important part. How can you get into relationships when you fundamentally do not want to be here and are perpetually intending not to be?

Relationships, I guess, have been on my mind. The issue has intruded into my dreams lately. Last night, the part that I remember was set in my room in my parents house, and I was lying in bed with someone I had a crush on, but we had an understanding that we were just friends. I think the imprint of the person in the dream was Katie, who I used to have a crush on. We were there just as friends. She tossed the book that was lying on the bed off. She curled up to sleep, I just loved her.

Then there was another dream, and the imprint was my cousin Audrey. My cousin and I have a history of a very strange mystical love between us that goes back almost 20 years. I don't remember the dream, I just know that she had something to do with it.

It's human to want to be in a relationship. It's human to crave intimacy. I don't want anything to do with it, but I'm still human. But no, no, no, I will not even consider the possibility of getting into a relationship this late in the game. Even when I meet someone who catches my eye and makes good eye contact, no, no, no. It's too late. I'll just have to suffer through any unconscious suggestion or obsession that relationships are desirable.

At a fair in Oakland with Han's friends.