I pass moments in my days when my reality around me is like looking at a three dimensional mirror. A reflection of something real, but not real. And the moment that I'm looking at, and each one of them, I swear has all happened before.

I've been spending money with no reservations. I've been spending money with no attachments. I've been spending money like I don't have long to live. And I (wishfully) think I don't. I'm thinking within a year because of health reasons. I'm not thinking of suicide at all anymore. Zilch. Not a mote, not a speck. I mean, I am, but . . . you know what I mean.

No?

Good, you're not supposed to. I don't know what you were thinking when you thought you knew what I meant.

I got back from the U.S. on Wednesday, and I felt like something has changed, but something always feels like it's changed. It's probably really just all made up. Being sick of learning a language with no results has reached a new level.

Going to the U.S. broke the habits I had fallen into, and when I got back, I tried not to fall back into those habits. And then I found myself automatically forming new habits.

These habits are like trying to make life predictable. And life is neither predictable nor permanent. So what I'm trying to do to make life more comfortable by creating habits is going against the very nature of living, which is spontaneous in its formation, creation and destruction.

Slaves of habit, following the clock, and I turn my head and everything is different.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 6:25 a.m. - Right bank of the Xindian River between the Huacui and Wanban bridges with ongoing construction of an elevated freeway in Taipei County.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 6:27 a.m. - Rode up to the Maokong tea growing region in the mountains south of Taipei. Zhinan temple at the right and Taipei 101 at the left (in the same frame!)

6:29 a.m. - Zhinan temple, I did my best to pull this image out of the haze of the morning sun.

6:367 a.m. - On my new bike with a new Cateye computer and old Timex Helix altimeter watch. I was looking for the highest point on these roads. 1,430 ft. for the record.

6:38 a.m. - Tea plantation.

6:59 a.m. - Directory for the various tea houses and places of interest in Maokong. These are new and made in anticipation of an influx of tourists brought by the new cable car. My bike now with an air stick pump and under-seat bag.

7:04 a.m. - Starting my descent on the road east of the Maokong cable car gondola station with the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi building and Yangmingshan in the distance at the left.

7:36 a.m. - Looking back up at the Maokong gondola station. The descending road doubles back under the gondola line. I was taking my time going down.

AUGUST 5, 5:47 a.m. - Actually . . . I have NO IDEA where this was taken so early in the morning. There is nothing recognizable. There are words on the left suggesting that may be Xindian on the left. The sun suggests this is shooting west/north-ish as a wide range. I'm on a fairly high bridge. It looks more like the Xindian River rather than the Jingmei; could be either but I'm pressed to pinpoint where the Jingmei is this wide. Nothing else was shot on any camera to indicate where I was or went. It's obviously not a place I frequented but I rarely shoot so little in a new place. No bridge on Google Maps matches this scene. I hate unsolved mysteries in my own photographic record.