Ex-coworker and friend, Amy. Self-portrait with my camera at Beale St. Bar and Grill, San Francisco.

Those blue consoles on the next table are for trivia games played on a national (+Canada) network of bars. Basically a competition between bars to score the highest. We had some seriously smart cookies at Beale St. and we did pretty well. We won at least once in my recall.

The idea was to get as many people to come, log on on as many consoles possible and score the most amount of answers right, so if someone knew an answer, he or she would call it out along with a certainty rating so that everyone could enter the correct answer or a best guess depending on the degree of doubt or disagreement.

I was the resident expert on rock music, music terms and astronomy trivia. Even when someone else answered a rock question first, if it was obscure they'd give me a quick glance to confirm or veto. Usually confirm, barflies know rock music.

geek shit:
Yesterday, after I read that Peter Gabriel released "Secret World Live" on DVD, I hopped on my bike and went down to Best Buy to pick it up, getting rained on in the process. It's excellent, re-mastered and re-formatted, Peter Gabriel fans should go buy it NOW. But I've already noticed two incidents of tinkering in the sound. The first tinkering is good, they turned up David Rhodes' guitar on "Steam" right after the "Everybody nose dive . . ." break, and it's a cool, rockin', wah pedal part. The part is on the VHS video, but buried in the mix so I never noticed it. The second tinkering is on "Shaking the Tree" during the David Rhodes intro section when PG does the happy little synchronized dance with the guitarist. They added a PG vocal that is definitely not on the video, and it doesn't even look like he's singing it. That bugs me.

Oig! Peter Gabriel is swinging through the U.S. again in June and I already missed the pre-sale. bleah. What kind of fan am I? He'll be starting in the Bay Area, but he'll be in New Jersey the day before and the day of my brother's wedding. Granted, it might fall into the realm of tactless to run off to a PG concert the night of his wedding, but the night before might be a nice send off for him.

Some times. It's a wonder that words can emerge from the cloud that is my thoughts and feelings, and take coherent form on this page. Some times. When I'm aware of the cloud, when I look at it from the outside, I wonder if the final words are anything near accurate. They can't be, can they? But they must be. The primordial cloud that is my thoughts and feelings is just there. The ideas that I can verbalize are just comets that accumulate and plunge into an orbit in our solar system.

Is a lifetime long enough to make a change for anyone 

- "Death of a Minor TV Celebrity" (The Candyskins)

pair of dimes:
I see no incongruity in spending hours on the phone helping a friend through a problem, trying to come up with solutions or resolutions, and then not allowing anyone to do the same with me. I've been through enough of the gamut of psychiatry and therapy and counseling (giving and receiving) to be able to want to take on another person's problems and not give up until all the hard questions have been placed on the table. I'm willing to suggest a plan, and if it doesn't work, pick at it some more until we can come up with some other plan.

It doesn't mean that I want the same done for me. I don't see how I am as a problem. I understand how other people see what I am as a problem, but I want to take a baseball bat to the paradigms that those people assume.

I have no problem with how I am or my attitude towards my life. I realize that I can make an effort to make my life into something productive, socially acceptable and responsible, and longevitidinous (I expect to see that word in the next edition of dictionaries), but . . . gimme a break. Those aren't my priorities.

I've got my plans, and they're frightening to you all:
I don't have many friends, not many confidantes or intimates. But in extreme moments, all you need is one to screw up plans, to mess up the balance.

I hate interventions. I find them insulting and stupid. There's a reason I got to whatever point, a superficial "intervention" now isn't going to change anything. It's not that I don't care about the people who care about me, it's not that I don't recognize that they should feel something or want to do something. It's just that they can't. And if it's not that they can't, then it's because I don't want them to. An intervention at this point would just cause me to close up and shut them out. Meddling kids. An intervention would be a betrayal against the understanding that I say what I say and do what I do.

So just say what I say
And do what I do.

The Sea Watches:
Through the window of public transportation, I see a cross-section of life and humanity that I don't see otherwise. Why can't I just live a normal life so I can be like that someday? Elderly. Hobbling along with a cane. Perhaps with my wife of 40 or 50 odd years. Wrinkled face. Thick glasses. Why can't I wish that upon myself someday?

It's the rituals and community that make the hardships of life bearable year after year after year. Those are the glue. Moments of joy and togetherness that make up for the tragedies that pull us apart.

There are no seasonal rituals in modern American life that haven't been commercialized. There is no community that exists for survival purposes. No, we've replaced the need for meaningful ritual and community with our small circle of friends, social status, trendiness, social competition . . . It's alright. Whatever gets you through to the next day is alright. As long as it has meaning.

THE SUICIDE OF A STAR

From a luminous shore into an ocean of darkness
leaped a star
like a madman.
They stared at him, the innumerable stars,
astonished
that the speck of light, their erstwhile neighbour, could
vanish in an instant.
He's gone
to the bottom of that ocean
where lie the corpses of
hundreds of dead stars,
whom anguish of mind has driven to suicide
and the eternal extinction of light.
O why? What was the matter with him?
Not once did anyone ask
why he abandoned his life!
But I know what he would have said in reply
had anyone posed the question.
I know what burned him
as long as he was alive.
It was the torment of laughter,
nothing else!
A burning lump of coal, to hide its dark heart,
maintains a continuous laughter.
The more it laughs, the more it burns.
So, even so did laughter's
fierce fire
burn, burn him without end.
That's why today he's run off in sheer despair
from a brilliant solitude full of stars
to the starless solitude of darkness.
Why, stars, why do you
mock him and laugh like that?
You've not been harmed.
You shine as you did before.
He'd never meant
(he wasn't that arrogant)
to darken you by quenching himself.
Drowned! A star has drowned
in the ocean of darkness -
in the deep midnight
in the abysmal sky.
Heart, my heart, do you wish
to sleep beside that dead star
in that ocean of darkness
in this deep midnight
in that abysmal sky?
--Rabindranath Tagore (1882)

I'm back and publishing again. It was only two months that I had stopped publishing. It felt longer.

Blind Date:
Woman on 'Blind Date': "I don't understand why men are so obsessed with breasts".

That's fine if women don't see in breasts what men see in breasts, but never, never, never date a woman who questions it. And for women who insist on it, if this explanation doesn't do it, don't even try:

deer in headlights.

hint: men are the deer.

I swear, you want an invincible army? Just recruit topless women and charge, the men of the opposing army won't know what hit them. And you will never see an army more grateful to be defeated.

I'm just telling it like it is.

How my blogging habits have changed since I quit my job and split my personality into two weblogs and chased everyone who came here over there. This weblog had reached a nice level of . . . regularity? It was nice. But I don't regret doing what I did, taking it apart, making this weblog darker than it was, trying to be more honest (read: darker), having my other one being hideously bo-ring.

No, what blogging has become fits what's been happening, increased isolation, less fun and frivolity (yay!), even my weblog reading habits are in search of something of substance, something real, something being said, not just entertaining or vapid. Not that I'm creating what I'm looking for . . . but that's why I'm looking for it. Writings that just go a bit deeper into life, not meaning philosophical, but even just an appreciation for one's experience. But making me laugh still doesn't hurt.

Grand Canyon. Riding out on Hermit Road.

Grand Canyon

Rte 180 between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon

My ghost like to travel. Traveling alone, is that weird? I think most people like to vacation or take road trips with other people. Me, I'm solitary. I really should be more social in my solo travels, strike up conversations whenever possible. I've missed a few opportunities already. I'm just not good at it.

I fantasize about striking up a conversation with a stranger, and being tempted to tell them that I'm unemployed and I'm just traveling because, well, I'm dying. I have until about August. Holy shit, why? how? what are you dying of? I have a mental illness. How do you die of a mental illness? It's something I've had for a while, never got it treated, and I'm gonna kill myself in August. It's just fact now. It's untreatable. It's like cancer, if you don't get it treated, you die. Same basic idea, just a lot more complicated because it's dealing with something as squishy as the mind.

Cancer spreads and at some point it can't be stopped. If I had cancer, I probably would have died a long time ago. With this mental illness, it took a lot longer. And I mean a lot longer. I could take drugs like I could undergo chemo, but both do the same basic thing, they block an underlying truth.

With chemo you're blocking the consumption of whatever organ is being attacked by the cancer. With drugs, I'd be blocking the underlying truth that I don't want to be here anymore in the profoundest sense.

To a certain extent chemo works. Likewise, to a certain extent drugs work. I've bypassed that extent, and taking drugs now would just be a cynical and cruel betrayal of my core reality. Sounds crazy? It should, well it's an illness. At this point, people telling me to get help, to get it treated, they already missed the point.

I'd be asking someone to take a leap of faith, putting mental illness in the same light as tumors, leukemia, and cancer. With mental illness, people have this prejudice that on some level, what you do is your choice. People have this prejudice that treatment for mental illness is effective. If you get treatment, you will get through it. No.

Sabino Canyon, Tucson, AZ.


Giant Saguaro Cacti and moon.

Tucson - Walking back to my motel from 4th Ave.

Warm nights are absolutely glorious.

I arrived in Tucson less than 12 hours ago. 12 hours ago, I had no idea what this place would look like, and here I am, the place, the people, the lives going on.

Me, I'm just a ghost floating through. No one knows I just arrived, no one knows I don't belong here. No one knows me, who I am, or what I'm about. I've never seen these streets before. It's surreal, it could be maddening.

I have this fear of completely detaching from reality without even noticing it. For example, maybe I'd be in my car and stopped at a red light. The light changes green, but I don't see it. As far as I'm concerned, I'm sitting at a red light, waiting for it to change. Cars honk, people curse, police come, and I'm just still there sitting in my car waiting for the light to change.

Why do I play these little games with myself? Coming to Tucson is a game. It was supposed to be this big deal to see if I want to move here, but moving here is just not part of my plans. August. No San Francisco. No Tucson. This mind game of intending one thing, but acting like I intend something totally different. What the hell am I doing here? Why? Why, why, why? What am I doing? What am I doing? What do I think I'm doing?

I came because that's what I was telling everyone. But I didn't have to. I could have reneged and said, "eh, I decided it was a bad idea". I mean, come on, Tucson, no one would have been surprised. No one cares what I do or whether I go or move to Tucson or not. But here I am. I did need the road trip.


Tucson, Arizona, from Sentinel Peak Park.

Tucson

I'm in love with this climate!!! Tucson is winning me over. I love the heat, I love this vibe, I love the desert! I'm not thrilled with the car culture and the not-necessarily-bicycle-friendly roads, although it tries, but I'm totally down with Tucson.

Why didn't anyone suggest Tucson and the University of Arizona ten years ago?! Instead, all my friends told me to go to San Francisco, I would love it there. None of them are friends anymore. Miserable, dead-end San Francisco. A true friend would have known me enough to tell me to check out Tucson, and if I went there for law school, I would have stayed and fallen in love and lived happily ever after amongst the saguaros. But who the hell thinks of Tucson?

As it is I'm in limbo, living in a place I want to leave, finding a place I have no reason to move to, unable to even think of the future until at least August, at which point I might not even need to. I think my philosophy now is going to have to be "one thing at a time". See what happens from moment to moment to decide what to do with my life. I could live here, I won't discount it, but who said anything about living? Of course I have two more days here to find the downsides of Tucson.

Rte 10 East, 1300', approaching Joshua Tree National Park

So I'm going to check out Tucson just because that's what I've been saying since December. It's not like I'm going to move there. What if I get there and it blows me away? It's weird, do I return to the Bay Area and tell people I'm definitely moving to Tucson? This is all just fancy and fantasy, not meant to happen. It's fascade. It's charade.

I'm not planning to stay in the Bay Area, such miserable weather, no job. I'm not moving to Tucson, there's nothing there, I know no one, no job, nothing concrete to bring me there. All negatives, no positives.

Just pretending I have this plan. I really don't. I can't.

I'm starting to feel it again. This time I submit willingly to let it swallow me.

But I don't really feel it. I'm too numb to feel it. I'm just aware of its presence, the black hole, the abyss. There's no tension or anxiety anymore with it. I've done everything I want to, I don't need to prove anything. There isn't anything new that could present itself that would make me say, yes, I want to stay to do that. Ain't gettin' any younger either, hon.

My entire past looms and overwhelms; all the people I've met, all the people who have been part of my life and no longer are. Looking back, I could have just assumed from the start that their role in my life would be temporary. And yes, the people in my life now, I met them and became friends knowing they were, one way or another, temporary. That's why I haven't gotten too close to any of them.

But the people from before I realized this, I let myself love them. I let them be special. So I look back with nostalgia and some nice sadness. It feels like anything real about me is in my past. But my entire past was unreal as it happened. What does that say about my present? Nothing, just that I'm par for the course. Wunderbar.

Bejeebus, how many times have I written something like this before? This sounds like one of my "old journal" entries, the kind that was written to be completely private. It may be time to start publishing this weblog again. Sooner than I thought.

current soundtrack: Radiohead - "OK Computer"

30 Something and Single:
When you make friends, you're not just making a friend. In your 30's, if you make a friend who has a partner, you just made friends with a couple. So don't complain a year into a friendship that you didn't sign up to be friends with this person's partner. It was pretty much automatic.

And if you're in a relationship and make friends with someone in a relationship, you've just entered a "couples relationship". You can make sure that your respective partners get along with each other, but it's not necessary, they have to. And they'll suck it up if they don't get along. Trust me.

30's are much better than 20's in terms of personal development and confidence, but in terms of social relationships, if you're not a couple, it's gross.

Embarcadero, San Francisco.


Bay Bridge at dusk.


Bay Bridge at dusk.

One of the funniest self-portraits I've taken.