So to sum up the last week, I moved to a new apartment. My old apartment was just outside the southern Taipei border in Xindian, and I moved to Songshan District in Taipei, off Nanjing East Road, Section 5 – way eastward, but not as far east as Taipei goes.

I live less than half a mile from the Key Lime River, where it bends east and heads out of town. Well, where it flows into town, actually. Across the river is Neihu District, which everyone considers "far" (even people who live in Neihu (this is before the MRT brown line extension into and through Neihu -fut. ed.)).

I like it here in my new place, verging on loving it. I wonder how long this honeymoon will last. So far, after a week, no nasty realizations, surprises or regrets, no dead rats like in the second place I lived. Quite the opposite.

Even the lack of internet and TV isn’t bothering me. Quite the opposite. I was thinking that internet is necessary, and I would probably crack and get internet service installed, but if a nearby café has free wireless, I’m gonna see how much longer I can hold out. I really like an apartment without internet. I was wasting so much time.

I thought I loved my old apartment, but maybe after a year of living in a place, I was stagnating. I needed this move and I didn’t even know it. Now I feel like I’m discovering Taipei anew. It helps that the sun came out for my move, and was out for a week before it started raining again today.

I even started running and riding after moving. I just couldn’t get the motivation to start my season before. I started with a measured 3 mile that I pushed, and established an average 7:25 mile. The idea being that now 7:25 miles are my goal as I extend my distances.

My second run was a measured 4 mile easy, and running easy I did it averaging 8:22 miles. The idea is that as I extend my distances, the average goal will be still be 7:25 miles, not easy for me once I’m doing 6 or more miles.

And then this ache in my gut. I want to blame it on the sit-ups I did as a part of my warm-up, but I think the ache started before I started running. My gut feels like a rock. I even played with the idea that it was alcohol related, and it’s getting serious now.

No joke, no game. If I don’t want to die soon, I need to stop drinking now. Immediately, and even that’s no guarantee I can turn things around. But don’t I want to die soon? That’s what I’m playing with.

Diem said her alcoholic uncle died when he was 34. Ritu died when she was 34, and even though it was a suicide, she was definitely alcoholic. There’s no way I can have been drinking the way that I have for the past 10 years, and not have a major problem looming. Girlfriends did curb my drinking, and it’s been that long since my drinking has been curbed. Like any practice, my drinking has improved.

Josephine was my last girlfriend. She actually found one of my fotologs a few months ago and started leaving me comments. Then she just as abruptly stopped. I think she’s gone for good now.

She hinted at meeting up, but I neutralized that. And it was after I mentioned that I never want to have kids and was principally opposed to it that she stopped leaving comments. She had an 18 month old son.

I actually didn’t get her current situation clear. She said she had married after we broke up and she returned to Taiwan (our relationship was in San Francisco), but her husband was killed in an accident. That happened long before the 18 months ago when she had this baby, so I don’t know if she re-married or what.

Anyway, we were able to express some things leading towards the closure we never had. She said she’s at peace, and that said a lot to me. If she said she was happy, that would say she was great and things were going well, and I wouldn’t want anything to do with her anyway. Why rain on her parade?

But she said she was at peace, and you only get to peace after going through an ordeal, a trial, and it sounds like she did that. I really loved her, and cared for her. It makes me think of the other people I loved and cared for, and who went on with their lives without me.

I assume they went on with their lives happily without me. I never considered whether they went through an ordeal like Josephine did. I assumed Amina and Shiho were perfectly happily married with careers and popping out babies. That always pissed me off. But what if they weren’t? What if they went through ordeals, what if their husbands died?

I would much rather be pissed off and they be happy, than them having to go through what darling Josephine went through. The pitfalls of losing contact with people you love, even exes.

I was reminded of Amina when I moved. Once when I moved in Oberlin, when we were still “just friends”, she came over and helped me clean my new place. From that, I got it in my head that a new place isn’t home until it’s given a proper cleaning, until I’ve put my hands over all the surfaces. So I came a day in advance to clean before I moved.

It seems my apartment was designed for a left-handed midget. Everything seems to be on the wrong side of where I want it. And low surface areas. Or maybe the surfaces in my old place were unusually high. I stoop to make coffee.

random memory:
Amina: Do you want some coffee?
Me: Um, sure.
Amina: Great, can you make me a cup, too?

I'm glad that just about the only thing I remember Amina saying still cracks me up.

SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 5:20-5:21 p.m. - Farewell old apartment.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 10:09 a.m. - Hello new.

1:30 p.m. - Taida main library stitch.

2:24 p.m. - Maishuai Bridge #1 and Taipei 101.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 9:43 p.m. - Just what Taiwan needs. Hyper-caffeinated white men as role models for our kids.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9 - Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. New neighborhood riverside park photostroll:

MARCH 10, 6:09 p.m.