It's been years since I've written anything to completion. My latest drive is to work ideas and work them to some, however inadequate, completion. The only way I'm able to take that approach at all is by conditioning it on never letting anyone hear what I've done. It's now about the process, not the product.

I've been working on this 2 and a half minute ditty, and already I'm thinking how this could be longer, could have a guitar solo, could have more "intro" sections leading into verses. But no, I have this two and a half minute structure recorded, and that is the final structure.

Lyrics are still a struggle, but the assumption that no one will ever hear this has helped. I find myself searching, if not agonizing over, for single words that need to be right. I'll have a line, but this one word needs to be changed.

It's sort of a craft. It's not so much songwriting (i.e., that I have something to say) it's more of a subconscious process where I'm digging up words and phrases and images that only make sense or mean anything on a subconscious level.

I'll read over a finished verse and I'll have no idea what it means, it doesn't make any sense, but it's what came out. So that's what I'm trying to do, but each word has to be right. If a single word doesn't feel right, I'll embark on a search for the right word.

----- Original Message -----
From: Delphine
To: K
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: brave combo june 20th

I think you'd like to think that you've achieved total indifference to your family. Sometimes I just wish you admitted how true that isn't. Don't ever write off your family like that; you will see maybe not sooner but later that burying everything 2000 feet under isn't gonna solve any problems for you; they will surface in some way shape or form in the most important ways that seem completely unrelated when you get older and have your own family. You just watch... Sorry to be so harsh, but it's true, and I have this secret yearning to "save" you and show you the light because I've been there to some extent. You don't have to embrace them with warm fuzzy sunshine (the way I embrace my mom...and my bear) but just admit the truth about things, even if it means saying that you have really been hurt by your family and are living in its aftermath. You just have this huge wall and I really shake my head at it. Sorry to be so narrow-minded, but I guess I'm so the opposite that anything I hate that much, I confront (not very much to the liking of whatever is being confronted), and you run away? Would that be fair to say? I don't know. I just don't understand I guess. And I also believe that we are very much to blame for how we interpret things; we choose our own bitterness and denial of it.

Delfinator

----- Original Message -----
From: K
To: Delphine
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:59 AM
Subject: Getting here from there #5

Delfita!
No reason to be sorry about being "narrow-minded", not that I think that you are, we all have different experiences and come from different places, especially regarding touchy issues like family. But it is indifference. Lack of positive or negative; I'm not happy my brother's getting married, nor would I care if he told me not to come to the wedding. All my family's interactions are about "good form", and with our family's history, the only way to reach that dynamic is by rendering the whole shebang irrelevant. I honestly don't think my brother cares whether or not I'm at the wedding either, but it's "good form" for him not to say that, and it's "good form" for me to assume I go. It's unspoken.

When I was considering driving across the country to the wedding, I was thinking of taking my spare acoustic guitar that's at Sadie's apartment for my father, who had mentioned interest in taking up guitar to complement his mad karaoke-way. Sadie went, "Aw, you do love your family" (overly sweet, semi-sarcastic, ever-joking-as-everything-between-us-is). And me, knowing my history with my family, recognized a huge range of possible responses to Sadie, albeit innocently, saying that. In worse years I might have blanket rejected her complete misunderstanding of the situation and left immediately without a word. I would have been offended. In looser times, I might have tried to explain how it had nothing to do with "loving my family" and let her continue to joke about it. But as it was, I think I blinked a couple times, smirked, and that was that.

It's also interesting to me that my reaction didn't impress Sadie as much as someone who knew me years ago; another by-product of recycling friends every few years. Years ago, I don't think my friends could get the words "Aw, you love your parents" out of their mouths at me, even in jest. I don't mind the way it is now or that people I know now don't know this foundation of my identity. I've actually already dealt with people who tried to "save" me, pushing me to plummet for more substance in the relationship, and I went along with it; it was uncharted territory and I don't consider myself closed-minded. One woman got me to get a Fiction CD to my parents, which at first was so unthinkable I couldn't even consider it. Considering it would have been like thinking about playing an 8-track tape in a cassette player. Months later, I did and they were supportive (good form), but in the end there was no point or meaning in that act. I wouldn't do anything like that again, but not as closing them out as it once was, but it's a 'there's simply no point'. They got what they got out of the act and I got what I got. And flatter myself not, I can't think of anything as exposing or brave as doing what I did. As for the person who urged me to give the CD to my parents, if I ever saw her again, I'd probably just walk away.

Of course you and Sadie don't know what happened in the past, and, not having any facts, don't have a template of what things are like in the present. That's fair, and bring it on, it keeps the issues turning in my hand. But it would be wrong to think that there is something there, when there isn't. I'm not proud of it, if people feel sorry for me, I understand that, I consider attaining indifference one of my character flaws. Indifference is arguably as low as it can get (although people who watch daytime court TV might disagree), it's empty, and the ocean of hate is so wide to cross to get to indifference that it's alright by me when people assume I couldn't have possibly crossed it. After all, most people drown in their hate first. Personally, I prefer being indifferent to them than hating them, where "loving" them isn't a possible or conceivable reality.
Really, the suckiest part of being indifferent is that I can't even blame them for anything anymore, and I don't. There's no more attention to why I'm like this. It's just finding yourself in your skin and dealing with 'I am this'. But it's also refreshing and liberating to know that my personal growth no longer has anything to do with them.

k

It's been 11 days since I've seen anyone I know. I think it messes with my mind, but it also might be the hot-cold weather. Mostly the cold part of it. I've surprisingly reverted to a streak of an old habit, but I'm not sure if it's related. It could just be coincidence. The habit had just become habit, not related to any particular mood, and I've recently gone on long spans of time avoiding it.

In general, I think everything is just fine. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go wrong anymore. I feel my slate is being cleaned and my existence is being erased from the inside out.

My mind is most characterized by impulsiveness, and I just do whatever I want moment to ADD moment, but that's OK. That's the way it should be.

If I don't get out of the apartment all day, or if I don't work on anything constructive and watch DVDs all day, I don't feel bad about wasting a day. What is this wasting a day? There is no wasting days, they are my days, and I don't consider them a waste. Anymore.

Default shot. Corner of 19th and Hampshire out my front door.

I've already passed the three month mark of this six month period I've arbitrarily given myself; unemployed. I have less than three months left ticking on the clock, or at least that is my mindset, before I have to decide exactly how I'm going to avoid spending another Winter in the Bay Area.

It's different this time. It makes sense this time. I don't need to do anything anymore. I've proven I could hold a job and support myself. And now? I don't want another job, certainly not another office job, similar but different desk, similar but different computer, similar but different copy machines, similar but different office supplies, similar but different office people. Why? Do I want to be one of those clockwatchers? Do I want to be one of those people who just floats through life? I can't do that. I don't know why.

But it's not like there's something else I want to do, that I'm ambitious about, that I care about. So I'm more like one of those people who try to break out of the normative matrix of life, only to find nothing there.

But that's only one way to look at it, one way people might look at me. The truth is that there always has been nothing there, and that's what I've been striving for all these years, to get to that realization.

I remember reading the book The Outsiders when I was a kid, and I was blown away by the way S.E. Hinton ended the book the same way the book started. Then one of the seminal of books of my life was Illusions by Richard Bach, and that book also used that same storytelling technique, wrapping the end with the beginning in a nice narrative circle.

I feel that I've been floating and skipping over pages turning in my life and I'm going to find that the last words of the story are the same as the first words.

My conclusion was stated on the first page, but it took going through the entire story to reach the same conclusion again on the last page, but with a deeper understanding of it, having gone through the story. It all finally makes sense.

Personally, I wish I had gotten here of my own accord, according to my own decisions and realizations, and not by the turns of fate dealt out to me. I'm not in bands because no one has wanted me since Fiction. I'm not in a relationship because anyone I've been interested hasn't reciprocated. And anyone who showed interest in me were complete idiots. OK, they weren't complete idiots, that's harsh. They were complete idiots to me. OK, they weren't even that, nobody has shown interest in me.

My life has been drained, all the important elements deserted, and even though it's what I've wanted, it hasn't been my doing. I wasn't the agent of my doing, I was just the vessel.

And worst of all about babbling on about all this:

I'm fucking sober!!

Happy birthday to Madoka (no, she doesn't come here)! I didn't send her anything by mail and only finally managed to shoot off a brief, pathetic email, even though it's well into tomorrow wherever she is, either Thailand or Japan.

I had been struggling with sending her a birthday greeting since yesterday, but I couldn't think of anything to say to her otherwise. I was considering not sending anything at all, but then I thought she wouldn't care about the quality of any email, just as long as I'm always open with her.

So I decided it would be better to send a pathetic, brief email just saying happy birthday, than to want to say happy birthday and not say anything at all.

I need to get off my ass and:
* get a Peter Gabriel ticket for the June 7 show;
* remember to go to the Fillmore tomorrow and get tix for Blonde Redhead and Supergrass;
* buy a plane ticket to go to my brother's wedding on June 21st; and
* go to a tux place on Monday to get measured and wait until my brother provides me with the fax number to where I need to send the info.

All this committment makes me queasy.

Today,:
* the sun never burned off the fog so it was overcast all day;
* I walked through the pre-Carnival fair on Harrison St., despite the wind and the cold;
* I received the latest Oberlin Alumni Magazine featuring recent rock bands with Oberlin pedigree, including the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Rye Coalition, Oneida, Songs: Ohia, and even mentions my contemporaries Liz Phair and Sooyoung Park (Bitch Magnet, Seam). It made me depressed.

At least I have coffee. But why can't I have coffee and be in a band? Because I've wasted the last ten years being too lazy to make the necessary connections, and not working hard enough at it to be good at it. That's why.

I don't want a funeral. I don't want to leave a body. I just want to disappear, a mystery, no body ever found. I can't think of a greater indignity to my being than a funeral.

I've made a dubious peace with my parents, but, without malice, I feel that they don't deserve to 'say goodbye' to me. How uncomfortable would that be? Probably more uncomfortable than the time they picked me up from the mental hospital after having committed me. They pretended nothing had happened. Seriously, no malice. Believe it or not.

I no longer believe in this material world, the people, the places, the experiences. They are to be appreciated, but only in the moment. In the big picture, they pass as clouds. But as far as the material world goes, in the end, if there's anybody who would thank me, that would make it all worth it.

Half Dome, Yosemite National Park


Yosemite Valley

quotes:
- "Fortune smiles at some and laughs at others" (from "13 Conversations About One Thing")

No kidding. Sometimes I wonder about the cards the universe has dealt me. Sometimes I don't because it's just too laughable; too sad; too perfect; nothing to wonder about. It's not that my life gets seriously crapped on incident upon incident, it's all in the teases. Year after year of cumulative teases.

I believe in karma, but not as a restricted moral system. Karma isn't something for humans to really understand, rather it's cosmic law of cause and effect where we really cannot predict the effect of whatever we cause.

It's too complex and amorphous for humans with their normative and linear thinking to unravel. But for everything we do, something else is affected. This is a key characteristic of samsara, the world of suffering we live in. To attain enlightenment and transcend samsara is to remove oneself from the law of karma and the cycle of rebirth.

I accept my karma. So the universe laughs at me, my life is one big joke, OK. After all, that is what has made me what I am. And if I die, it's all in accordance with it. OK. Should I struggle against it? I'll let my karma and instinct decide that. Even though my bad instincts is a hallmark of the big joke.

Bay to Breakers was fabulous! Absolutely lovely, gorgeous day, albeit a little warm at the end for a 7.46 mile run. I haven't done Bay to Breakers in four years, and I didn't start running again until this past fall, so I was anxious about how well I could do it because I wanted to do well. I was even prepared for a Bay to Breakers disaster. Bonking. Knees failing.

It didn't help that I didn't sleep much, and yesterday was stressful doing a gig in Stockton with Han and Sadie's band. In retrospect I shouldn't have agreed to do an out-of-town gig right before Bay to Breakers, just another of the famously fabulously bad decisions I tend to make.

Not sleeping well Friday night, Saturday saw a full day in Stockton for a poorly organized, podunk indie-fest. Instead of getting home around 6:00 or 7:00, we ended up getting back past midnight, much to all of our frustration, as we were all registered for the B2B. At least the company was good, and having done it, I don't regret it, but if I could do it again, I wouldn't, and feel that more conservative decision making is called for in the future.

In truth, the ordeal was probably better for me. I didn't get to rest and relax at home as planned, but it did keep me from being tempted to sneak a drink, with one leading to another. We also stopped off at "The Olive Garden" in Tracy to carbo-load, which was in the cards anyway.

As for rest, I used to never be able to sleep before races anyway, so no loss there. I had a shot of bourbon at 2:30 in the morning, which I thought was fine. I think the constant drinking is what would have been a problem, and having a single shot wouldn't have been bad because it's what my system is used to.

I woke up at 5:30 having gotten maybe two hours of sleep, and was at the starting line by 6:30. Bay to Breakers fetches up to 70,000 people, so getting there early is key to getting a good position if you're running it for serious. As the crowd grows, it amuses itself by bringing tortillas and beach balls and flinging and bouncing them through the air. Lots of tortillas, accurately described as a barrage. Everyone gets smacked by tortillas a dozen times, each time picking it up and flinging it back. Good times.

I was anxious up to the starting gun, but the weather was gorgeous, the vibe was alright, and I finished the first mile in 8:22. I was expecting not being able to do better than a 10 minute first mile because of the size of the crowd and the jostling and maneuvering required, but I guess I was close enough to the front that the crowd wasn't as dense as it is for people further back from the starting line.

I did the second mile in 7:38, which is surprisingly quick since the crowd still required maneuvering and included a water stop through which I tend to take my time. I wonder about the mile measurement. The third mile included the Hayes St. hill, a 200 ft. climb over five blocks and then a quick downhill that I did in another surprising 7:48. Hills are my forte, but I felt like I was struggling up it.

After the Hayes St. hill, mile four was flat. It was largely recovering from the hill and included a water stop, and I did it in 7:43 with no threat of bonking, although the sunlight was starting to make its presence felt. The water "stop" included dousing my feet, back and head with water.

Miles five, six, and seven are through Golden Gate Park and got progressively faster. By mile five, the crowd has dissipated, and although there are people around, there is no maneuvering or jostling, and I did it in 7:46.

Mile six starts the downhill to the ocean and the finish, and I did it in another surprising 7:00, but I can't explain mile seven, also a fast downhill, that I did in a startling 6:35. Finally, there was the .46 mile sprint to the finish line that I did in 2:53. Total time: 55:48.

I beat my goal of finishing within an hour. My other goal was to finish within the top 1000 runners and I just squeaked in under 500 *squeak*. Maybe it was endorphins, but I felt OK after finishing. My knees didn't hurt at all and I was . . . OK. But no more pushing myself running. I'm gonna start riding again this week, and running is just gonna be for fun from now on. I didn't have to prove anything, but no I really have nothing left to prove.


#499 - the discrepancy in my stopwatch time and the official time is the time it took me to get to the starting line, which is when I started my stopwatch.

Love, love, love, love, love. Yes, love is good. Love is great. It's great to love, it's great to be loved. It's great to appreciate the one you love and be appreciated by the one you love. Connection is great, tenderness and sweetness is what it should be about.

Never yell at the one you love. Never curse at the one you love. Human feelings are natural, but be mindful of that moment when you're about to snap and do something you might regret to the one you love, and stop and remind yourself that this is the person you love. And back off.

These things I understand, these things I'm capable of. But only in concept. I don't want to participate in it anymore.

I'm currently floating on endorphin and watching the movie "Secretary".

endorphin:
I did a trial run of the Hayes Street hill for this Sunday's Bay to Breakers, and actually from my apartment to the start of the hill is about the same as the starting line to the hill, so it was a very accurate trial. I know, it's extremely geeky to be testing parts of the course, in my mind that's only for professionals to do, but I'm having doubts about hills, which used to be my strong point.

I'm trying to relax, but my goals are pretty high. This is my first B2B in several years and I only started running again this year. High goals are fine, but I need to relax and not stress about not meeting them. My goals are as follows: 1) complete the race in less than an hour; and 2) finish within the top 1000 runners.

I didn't exactly zoom up the hill today, but it isn't a killer hill, and I was fine afterwards running home through the Castro, adding some extra, steeper hills on 20th Street into the Mission. After the Hayes Street hill, the B2B course is flat or downhill, so I'm hoping to be able to push it after entering Golden Gate Park, when the crowd thins out.

"Secretary":
Recently I've seen two films which portrayed the behavior of cutting. I saw In My Skin by Marina de Van at the SF Int'l Film Festival, and I rented Secretary. I had issues with "In My Skin". The portrayal of cutters was wholly inaccurate, the director didn't even study up on the behavior or try get under the skin of people who cut, and I went away from it feeling she totally exploited the condition for whatever base reason she had. She portrayed cutters as all being seriously disturbed freaks.

"Secretary" was much more sympathetic. Instead of focusing on the gore of the behavior as "In My Skin" did, it focused on the mindset and the psychology, the mentality involved. It didn't portray the mindset or behavior as healthy, but I felt it definitely treated the condition humanely.

These are still people, they still live daily lives, they could be your neighbor, your co-worker, and the behavior may be deviant, but the basic human wants and needs are there. They still want to connect and feel and know that there are people out there with whom they can feel safe and build a relationship or community. "In My Skin" isolates cutters and sends a message that they would never be accepted or understood.

The last shot of "In My Skin" is of the main character's eyes just staring. That was brilliant because it made me think that all you need to know about a cutter is in their eyes. I don't know what I meant by that or even if it was accurate, but then "Secretary" ended the same way. Interesting, no?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: Sometimes, Ed, sometimes you just gotta do something bad just to know you're alive.

A couple weeks ago, she asked, I answered. Then she asked, "Do you still do it?". I said no, I thought I had stopped, it had been a couple months I think. A long time.

But the nature of a habit looms, and the temptation arises, but I know I can't. I'm already concerned about running a race this Sunday and meeting up with friends and ex-coworkers at the end. I haven't worn running shorts and t-shirt in four years, much less been seen in them, much less been seen in them by people I know. I'm still formulating the responses to their inquiries so that I don't have to answer them.

Must resist until after Sunday. Maybe by then the temptation will be gone. Either way.

More than this, more than this
So much more than this
There is something else there
When all that you had has all gone
And more than this, I stand feeling so connected
And I'm all there, right next to you
- "More Than This (Peter Gabriel)

I must say, I'm very satisfied with where the arc of my life has brought me. By any one else's standards, society's standards, I'm a loser slacker failure in need of serious help, and would continue in this vein if I continued on. 

But bollocks to those standards, I'm not living or dying for anyone else but me. Selfish? Well, I'm not Mother fucking Teresa. We're all selfish, we live our lives guided by what we think is right by our own estimation. If my expression of it is unorthodox and socially unacceptable and makes people want to lash out and point at me calling me selfish, I could just as quickly hold a mirror up to them.

Yes, looking back at where this arc of my life started, it's uncanny where I've landed at this age, with these circumstances. Given that, I can't say I'd want anything to be different. The past decade has brought distraction after distraction that kept me alive, but none of them panned out, none of them amounted to anything, but they got me to where I am now. Those distractions kept me going for another increment of time because of desire and potential; there were still possibilities then and the desire to explore them. 

I've always felt this way about the world, life, and existence, floating existential, metaphysical, post-modern jargon across my eyes, but there was always, "well, maybe I'll think or feel differently if I pursue this path, give this thing a chance". Having pursued those paths and opportunities, I'm satisfied that none of this really matters. If I had left before, I would not have left empty. I needed to be emptied.

Didn't need to wallow in hopelessness and muted desperation. Didn't need to stress about the future. Didn't need crises of confidence in being able to do this. Didn't need to be miserable. Didn't need to extract blood. Didn't need to get rid of all my friends. Didn't need to lose the war with the parents. Didn't need to waste 10 years of my life in San Francisco and a useless law school education. Didn't need bouts with depression, alcoholism and psychosis. I just needed to be emptied. Drain my cup.

Of course no one stays in my life for any extended period of time. They cycle in, they cycle out, they cycle back in, they cycle back out. I think I have an idea why now.

When I met up with Jake and Eric and told them I was freelancing with Sadie's band, they assumed it was on drums.

One of the first things Mark Holdaway asked me in Tucson was, "Are you still playing bass?".

When I got back together with Nobuko and Vikki after several years and mentioned I stopped running, they seemed shocked.

When I pushed people this time around to do the Bay to Breakers, they asked, "You run?"

My online journals are split into at least three distinct personalities. People still ask me law related questions (gimme a break!). Some people still insist on thinking I'm of Japanese ancestry. People ask me about my scars because they don't know better, sometimes I give a straight answer, sometimes I'll give them the run around. Most people, I notice them notice, and they don't ask because they know better. And not a one of them will even acknowledge, much less accept, what I assume as a fundamental fact at the core of my being.

No one knows me.

And I intend to keep it that way. I'll abandon the meager community currently in my life and run off to Tucson if I have to in order to keep it that way. I'll run off the face of the earth to keep it that way. I'm glad Meghan ran off so that I'd never have to run away from her.

I'd never want to hurt Sadie, but friendships have their way of going in unexpected directions. I've run off from people I've loved more than Sadie, although I admit Sadie is qualitatively different. I ran off from Fiction, even Jen, who I really did feel a connection with. I ran off from Anita in extenuating circumstances. Anyone before that is ancient history until they cycle around again. If they cycle around again.

And tomorrow evening, I might meet up with the old Oberlin crowd, my first "community" when I moved out here. Cycle in, cycle out.

I read that Sylvia Plath never let an idea go to waste. If she had an idea, she would work it until it was thoroughly exhausted. If she couldn't get a table, she would make a chair. If she couldn't make the chair, she would make a stool, etc. Is that more art or is it more craft?

No matter, it sounded good to me. Being neither artist nor craftsperson, I decided to give it a go, and I'm going through a bunch of past 4-track snippets, and if something catches my ear, I'm gonna try working it until it's exhausted, working as many variations as possible on guitar, bass, and drum machine.

I don't need to do this. I don't need to write songs. I have nothing to say. I'm only doing this out of habit; it's just what I've been trying to do for god knows how long. At this point, it feels more important to go through the process of "writing" than to come up with anything written.

Reading a passage from a book by Shunryu Suzuki made me dig up something (I apologize in advance for the pretention, this is from almost ten years ago):

Rain drops form from water vapor in clouds. That's creation.
They fall from the clouds when they become liquid. That's birth.
The whole journey down, spiraling and falling, plummeting and screaming, that's living.

That's the exciting part - when the drop is an individual and experiences everything individually and is completely distinguishable from all the other drops falling in the storm.

The storm is life itself. It hurts to hit the ground from that height. That's death, jarring, painful and conclusive.
SPLATT!!

Wherever the raindrop meets the earth, it joins with other drops, it becomes one with the collective whole again. As water, it flows down gutters or into the earth or into streams and rivers. The drop doesn't exist anymore as it did while it was falling. The substance is there, but the form is gone. As a body of water, everything flows easily and there are no problems, no distinguishing between this drop and that drop.

Time comes eventually and inevitably that the water evaporates. It loses all form and its substance becomes too thin to discern. In this amorphous state, all memory is erased. All memory of the collective mind is lost. All memory of the previous journey is lost. All memory of the previous storm is lost.

It's still part of the collective mind, but without form and without substance. It's a transformation period, unknown and indescribable. It's an imporant part of the journey; the cycle to go back up into the sky, be created, born, live, and die again.

The storm is life. That much is known. Living is tears, that much is also known.

I guess reading Suzuki's passage was a sort of affirmation. If a master used a similar analogy, then this thought of mine from 10 years ago must have been sort of on.

I wish my life was like an ocean, constant with its waves, eddies, and tides. But instead, sometimes it's like a thunderstorm, sometimes it's like a fog, sometimes it's like a river or a lake, or a bay or a stream, or sewage.

At times, words like Suzuki's resonate, sometimes they don't make any sense at all, sometimes I don't even touch them for years, feeling like years wasted. But not wasted, everything has its purpose, everything has its time. I'm not striving for anything anymore, and this was just a sort of homecoming.

Who the hell takes a self-portrait when they're standing there trying to decide whether to go out on a foggy day? Apparently me.

Market Street and Valencia, after the freeway came down.

Things that let me know it's real this time:
Years ago, an interest in a person would have made me re-consider the future, give it a chance; see what could come out of it. But now, interest in a person doesn't change a thing. I'm not going to change my plans just because I think someone is "attractive" or "interested".

Physically, I'm affected by human contact, arms brushing up against each others' at dinner is not wasted on me. It's just different now. The bar for the test is much higher. Is being with this person worth wanting to live?

It used to be a matter of latching onto something, grabbing for a vine as I'm sliding off a cliff. But there's been a fundamental shift and I'm not grabbing for vines anymore. It's a matter of whether the cliff is there or not. Whether the appearance of a person, or this or that development in life, makes the cliff disappear in my mind. Before, I've always grabbed for vines that appeared, but nothing ever made the cliff go away.

positive negative

(Hey, haven't seen you around in a while)
(Hey, haven't seen you around in a while)
(Hey, haven't seen you around in a while)
I didn't go to work for a month
I didn't leave my bed for eight days straight
I haven't hung out with anyone
If I did I'd have nothing to say
I didn't feel angry or depressed
I didn't feel anything at all
I didn't want to go to bed
And I didn't wanna stay up late
When you're living your life, that's the price you pay
Whenever I breathe out, you're breathing it in
- "Whenever You Breathe Out, I Breathe In (Positive Negative)" - (Modest Mouse)

I woke up this morning after four hours of sleep with that gripping feeling that I want to be here and don't want to leave. It's the worst feeling in the world. It's the feeling of a nightmare, it's a feeling of despair; being trapped. It's fear. Hours of sleep later, I get up for real and the feeling is gone.

I don't get angry or depressed anymore. I don't get disappointed or upset anymore. I don't get disillusioned. I don't get let down anymore. I don't feel alone or lonely anymore. I just get verification that I'm done.

The people around me don't matter anymore. The stuff, the material possessions, and what's going to happen with it doesn't matter anymore. The fabric that is existence doesn't matter anymore. I reach out with my senses and touch things, see things, smell things, hear things, and it's all the same thing, the same fabric, and that's all existence is to me. The world is a mirror and I don't see my reflection in it.

Someone wrote about Leslie Cheung:
To take one's own life, one must feel so helpless to the point that he/she believes there is absolutely no solution to their problem, or that they cannot accept the reality of a situation. The only answer is to die. Everyone is probably asking, why?

This weblog is poorly named. Yes, blogging is a temporary "solution", but any suggestion that what is "permanent" is a problem is . . . problematic. I don't know why I have this compulsion to try to explain this ad nauseum, but the social bias against suicide is so institutionalized that maybe it's given me a complex about it.

It's even harder because I don't condone suicide as a solution to any problem. I can write until I'm blue in the face what it's about regarding me, but never would I take the issue lightly regarding anyone else.

The thing is that I don't automatically condemn it either. You give me a good enough reason why you're going to do it, and you have my blessing. I'll give you a long hug, I'll tell you that I'll always remember you, I might even cry because of what it means, but I won't try to stop you.

Mind you, depression and emotional extremes do not pass my criteria of what's a "good enough reason". Hm, actually I don't know what a good enough reason is (aside from my own, of course). I think a good enough reason is the state reached when you've talked my ears off until the break of dawn about it, and the final conclusion is that there is no reason.

If you're doing it for a reason, that's not good enough of a reason.

Ani Mix for Tristen:
1. Wherever (live)
2. Gravel (live)
3. Shameless
4. Your Next Bold Move
5. Shy
6. Heartbreak Even
7. Firedoor (live)
8. Jukebox
9. Self-Evident (live)
10. WhatHowWhenWhere (WhyWho)
11. Anticipate (live)
12. Napoleon
13. To The Teeth (live)
14. 32 Flavors (live)
15. Travel Tips (live)
16. Wrong With Me (live)
17. In or Out (live)

Yack! It's May. June. July. August. Why I always need these finite periods of time in my mind is beyond me. What can I fit into three and a half months. What do I need to fit into three and a half months? 

Holy cow! I just remembered that I dreamed about the final episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"! The last three episodes of the series are supposed to air in May. I forget now if I was writing it, living it, or if I was Buffy! *sigh* I don't remember most of it, but it was pretty fucking brilliant. I don't remember the fight scenes, of which there was at least one, and I don't remember what role Faith had in it. I do remember the apocalypse and how Buffy saves the world from it. 

In general, I've been pretty disappointed by the apocalypses on Buffy. They just haven't been very impressive. In my dream, the apocalypse comes with Caleb becoming pure evil, pure unstoppable darkness. Caleb is already too much for Buffy to handle, and in my dream he harnesses the evil of The First and grows as darkness and utter destruction befalls Sunnydale. Dark clouds and locusts, Sunnydale is consumed in darkness, everyone is killed. The last people alive are Willow, mortally injured, and Buffy. Buffy recites some small speech to Willow, determined to take this thing on once and for all, and runs into the darkness to fight it. Willow watches Buffy vanish and then dies. 

Buffy runs into the darkness, and I'm not sure how the art department and special effects would envision it, but it's an ordeal of a journey. Flashes of her life, of her friends' lives, of Sunnydale life, of all sorts of various components of life, growing in global scope come and go, they are increasingly brutal showing humanity's true evil potential. Then suddenly, Buffy is in darkness, the darkness is evil and she's ready to fight it, but there's nothing to fight. She hears a baby cry. The baby is supposed to represent light and hope, all that is needed to fight against evil. In the darkness she finds the baby and picks it up and carries it, moving forward into she does not know what. 

As she continues, she spots a pinpoint of light and heads towards it. It's a long journey, but eventually the pinpoint grows and becomes brighter. In my dream, she ends up in a movie theater of a college, an educational institution, and the light she saw is from the film that was showing on the screen. I forget what was on the screen, but I think it was significant. Buffy finds herself in the theater and finds her way out. Outside in the hall, she runs into Willow, now a university professor. Years have passed. 

In fact, Willow explains, they are now standing in Buffy Summers Hall of UC Summersdale, which Xander designed and built after the averted apocalypse. Whatever Buffy did however many years ago worked. Willow didn't die after she saw Buffy disappear into the darkness. After Buffy disappeared, the darkness was broken and eventually swallowed itself up until Sunnydale, albeit devastated, was saved and all the people survived. Hellmouth closed and having recovered and the story told, the citizens decided to rename the town from Sunnydale to Summersdale (I, too, in the bright sunlight of day, would not have voted for "Buffyville", given the opportunity). 

The rest of the dream was me back in college, having thought of all this, needing to get it all down. However it was me now, being back at an imaginary Oberlin College now. The difference is in the technology. And I was more than a student, like a senior student because of my age. All I remember is that there were no computers allowed in students' rooms, because that was anti-social. Laptops were fine because they were portable, but no PC's. You had to go to a computing center to use a PC.