Rainbow V 22mm ultra-wide angle toy camera, generic color film:

I'm looking at taking a break and going to N.J. for three weeks in January. Other plans notwithstanding. If work wants to retain me, they have to figure out how they will fill the full-functioning English editor position without me for three weeks.

I will also not train anyone in the position. Either I put out a newspaper or I train, not both. If they wanted someone trained, they should've gotten someone in when there were two full-functioning English editors.

If they can't abide my leaving for three weeks, tough cookies, I'm out. And even if they can abide my leaving, I'm leaving it open to quit. By the time I get back from my contemplated trip, I'll be counting down one year to leaving Taiwan – one year that I want dedicated to language study. Other plans notwithstanding.

I admit I'm confounded, if not confused. I'm in a holding pattern. I feel like I've entered a reality that doesn't make any sense, while at the same time feeling perfectly comfortable wasting my life in my apartment, staving off the inevitable, maintaining holding patterns.

Holding pattern; there's nothing left to figure out. Confounded, because there's nothing left to figure out.

Am I really not going to kill myself? Why am I still here? Has all this just been the biggest sham that I've perpetuated upon my now useless life? Do I not realize I have to do this? Did I sabotage the very fabric of this existence for nothing?

Who would possibly wish this upon me?

If I don't kill myself ... fine, I don't expect anyone to want me to kill myself, but what would that mean?

Fine, theoretical "other people" would want me to not only not kill myself, but also build something constructive and fulfilling for myself. But that's not going to happen. And no one can be bothered to, say, "contribute" to that effect. Naturally, because I've already discounted the possibility of anyone else's contribution to my rehabilitation.

How conveeeenient.

And if they would've done something if they'd known my suicide was the other option, well, that's a crock o' shit. That isn't real. No, those people are cowards acting just to spare themselves from a difficult experience.

My life is where it is because that's where I brought it, whether I'm willing to admit I didn't want it to be this way or not; and I'm not going to comment either way on that. I know what I have to do, but ... there's still a but. And there should be no but. But is a way out, and I don't want there to be a way out. But is like I'm still trying to convince myself.

I'm not confused. This is not an emotional post. I am trying to get clear. I have to do this. I'm navigating day-by-day just on curiosity. Basically I'm waiting to get bored.

Facts are facts. If I decide I'm not going to do it, and then I look at my life ahead of me, . . . fuck, I thought I knew the answer to that and it just slipped away. No, the word 'unbearable' is in the mix. Isolation is the norm. And suicide would still be the reality; I would just go around this again eventually.

In fact, that's exactly what happened last time. I said I'd suck it up and never think about it again. Haven't we had enough?

And no time is "good" for the people around me. If shit hits the fan, it doesn't matter when it happens, it'll suck.

I'm gonna have to chalk this one up to "just follow where the world takes me". Part of the perfect situation totally fell apart, and I just can't feel OK with how my suddenly disappearing would really mess things up for my co-workers. I know, how conveeeenient.

It's only for these co-workers that I'm gonna let the next date pass. It's certainly not for the paper or the unfathomable brain-deadedness of the management.

To recap, my co-copy editor gave notice a month and a half ago. That should've been a major alert for management to get on the ball and get someone in quick to fill the position and get trained. But for almost a month and a half, I'm looking over at management in disbelief as nothing happens and nothing's going on.

Then finally at the end of last week, I hear someone is coming in to try-out. The situation finally dawns on management and I hear this week that they're going to offer him the position, even without trying out. Then today, I hear this guy is not interested in even trying out (this is not an attractive position, despite upper management's delusion that "everyone wants to work for The China Post" – maybe when print journalism meant something).

They had a big meeting tonight, to which I was happily not asked to join. It would have been logical, but the one thing the manager has gotten right is to involve me as less as possible. They worked on who's going to fill in shifts next week after my co-copy editor – who was pulled into the meeting because he's a sucka a really nice, good person – leaves, without effecting my workload.

I'm probably going to let this next date pass, but I'm not standing down. I'm doing this out of mercy for my co-workers, but there is a tight limit on how much I'm going to "be responsible" for the management's fuck-ups. The timing is uncanny, though. God is a cat and I'm apparently a ball of yarn. And some other things to look into . . .

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 8:46 p.m. - Last bunny day. Even in just a week they've grown so fast.

9:08 p.m. - Fiona ended up taking one of the bunnies.

10:19 p.m. - "(We) have a rabbit"

I've started having the biggest pangs yet of doubt and even fear. That's new. Maybe because this time it's more of a reality forming, whereas, like I mentioned, before it may have been more vanity; or at least that's what it feels like now in retrospect. Where I end up if I fail this time will be a very dark place, and picking up the pieces will be far more depressing.

I may even be sliding down the slippery slope of passing this time around. I locate dates and situations that just feel comfortable for me to leave. Several have already passed this cycle of intent. One coming up. One perfect one coming up. I think I have to at least go through the motions and not psych myself out about it. Keep the emotions out of it.

If I pass, it's not the end of the world and I'll keep on locating dates. I've done this before, so that's depressing. The hardest evidence that I'm not going to do it is that I'm still here now. After a while, momentum would fizzle out and the cycle ended.

Even if I miss this coming date, I have to maintain the cycle, and actually I don't think that will be hard. Before, I always went by feeling. And it's not about what I feel anymore. I look at my life and these are facts. Some of which I can't control, some of which I'm choosing to be unwilling to control.

I'm starting to annoy myself now.

It's a little weird interacting with people like normal, and having this annoying little secret that they're going to end up with some confounding news. I'm quickly getting used to it, though. It was not long ago I would interact with people and in the moment think I won't do it. But that would quickly fade once I got on my own, and realized the feeling was natural and normal, as well as fleeting and illusory.

It may be a betrayal, it may be felt as a betrayal, I've heard of people feeling betrayed, but I don't think it's betrayal at all. To betray someone, there has to be something to betray, and my existence is no one else's business, and my "role in their lives" is nothing anyone can hang over me.

I think I've reflected on this enough. I'm running out of things to say.

I'm good.

Don't get me wrong, I go through moments where I . . . well, I'll be honest they're worrying moments . . . that I wonder how can I go through with this; that I get pulled into feeling I want to see how things develop, how things change. That I look at the people around me and wonder how I can do this to them.

I wonder if things might change at work for the better when I'm told that certain things are going to be happening soon. I also wonder about what the Large Hadron Collider will find. Seriously.

But no, I've been through this before, and it's different this time. I go through the moments, but then I get out of the moment and I realize my truth – separate from the illusory world that presents itself around me.

Nothing's going to change, where I've landed myself is pretty much it. If I go on, I'll have good moments, I'll learn, I'll appreciate, I'll do all the things I've been doing that have value, but it's different this time.

I just don't want to anymore. And not in a defeatist, nihilistic way, but that some things just are. It just is. I keep telling myself this is not an emotional issue anymore, and it's partly something I have to remind myself, but whenever I tell myself that, it's true. This is not an emotional issue anymore. Negative or positive, they just fall away and I'm faced with my own truth. What I've been coming to terms with my entire life.

I may get together with people this coming week. I'm scheduled in to work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and I'll go. But I'm not under any illusion that anything's going to make anything any different.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 5:45 p.m. - Another bring-your-bunny-to-work day.

6:09 p.m. - Cute co-worker and his Fender P-Bass. He's in a punk band called Awesome Shit. 

11:16 p.m. - Baby bunny break during crunch hour.

This is not an emotional issue. Therefore any of the negative niggling that I perceive to be adding onto the justifications are actually moot.

What I've been documenting and writing about is not all there is to it. There is a lot being unsaid; a lot being unexplained. But a lot of those things are on the human level, and therefore not what I would necessarily consider valid justification.

Life is hard, there is a lot of shit everybody has to pull through and just deal with. A lot of shit that doesn't necessarily justify the pain suicide affects on other people and society.

Still, there is a basic instinct in me that informs me that I'm done. Someone take me out of the oven. It is above and beyond these little human things, which might otherwise counteract and balance that lemming instinct.

Everything is just compounding now, along with my pre-established time limit, to make things happen now. Now. The week-to-week is pretty much over.

What a surprise it's going to be for most people, I shouldn't wonder. There was a time in my life that I was projecting signs like a Crip. But now, it's no longer news to me, so there's no need for me to express anything.

My external signs show nothing like this was about to happen. Caveat: if it happens. There's just such a huge disconnect from what I want to do, rooted in what I was and had projected before, and how I present myself in real life. Maybe it won't be funny for them, but I get a little chuckle out of it. Some sort of ironic chuckle, I guess.

This is not an emotional issue, but I trace emotions from moment to moment to figure out what may be going on inside. I spotlight the moments when I'm not thinking about leaving or don't want to leave, and then trace the meaning of those feelings to the inevitable of being done.

I trace them to this not being an emotional issue anymore. It's more than words can convey. Reality falls apart at the scenes.

My co-worker asks me about the coming weeks' schedules and each week I tell him I'm alright with it, when at a subtle level I'm letting him rely on me coming in tomorrow while fully leaving open the option for myself that I

won't

show.

Eva's as . . . I don't know how to describe it accurately . . . magnetic as ever? We're not friends, but we have our thing at work and that's all. The reality scenes of her rip apart. Amber scenes rip apart. Am I really there? Will my not being there make any difference? It doesn't matter. How they may react to my not showing up one day is not reality. Not my reality.

If I consider their reality, well suicide fucks things up. It fucks everything up. A lot of things in life get fucked up. In the big picture, in the long run, my leaving is nothing. People deal. In the big picture, Ritu's suicide hasn't affected the course of my life. I've carried her around all these years, but what big impact has that had on my life that I couldn't deal with? People will deal.

Suicide fucks things up for people. I just have to accept that. I accept it. Sorry, guys. Well, some of you. Not all of you. Not most of you. If you know how sorry I am, then you.

I don't have a history of drug usage, but if I'm around people who are doing them and they encourage me, I have proven to be amenable to taking them. But drugs don't impress me, I realized recently while on ecstasy someone had given me. I'm so not about drugs I was once ridiculed for pronouncing it like the band XTC.

I mess with my perceptions and reality all the time on my own. Taking drugs is just a variation on that theme, another perspective and reality to explore and mull over. I never get taken over by them or lose myself in them. While other people are high, I think I might be annoying to them because to me I'm still analyzing and mulling over the experience.

Alcohol is, of course, my drug of choice in that sort of exploration, but music also probably falls in that category of artificial emotional manipulation.

I'm going day to day now. Each day wondering why not today, each day pushing for today. When it feels right, I'll do it. I may never do it, too. But most important is that it is not an emotional issue, and it is a fact. I've reached my expiration date and things aren't going to turn around, and I don't want things to turn around, that's just not a concept to me. Even if things "turn around", it only lays bare the fact that it's my time and I'm done.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 12:43 a.m. - Underground crosswalk connecting all four corners of the Dunhua N. and Minsheng E. Rds. intersection. Artwork by local elementary school students is displayed along the walls. Good place to practice shakuhachi late at night, too. I love the not-over-the-top perplexed look on the mermaids face at all the human garbage in her home. That's some high-quality expressive student artwork.

2:28 p.m. - Xinjiang N. Rd. bridge over the Keelung River in Xizhi township. The bridge marks the current end of the bikeways eastward and further on requires riding on surface roads.

2:32 p.m. - Cemetery along the river.

2:54 p.m. - A new footbridge over the canal that divides Taipei and Xizhi, making the bikeways more seamless. Crossing the canal before required riding about 100 meters further to a road bridge, which was inconvenient at best, dangerous at worst because the shoulder is very small.

3:20 p.m. - Crossing the Keelung River on the Dajia Bridge north to south to go home.

NOVEMBER 17, 5:24-5:25 p.m. - Cute co-workers and baby bunnies.

8:31 p.m. - Someone brought in the baby bunnies hoping to find homes for them. They were very useful as stress relief, too.

This is not an emotional issue anymore. The sun rises, the sun sets. We can attribute emotions to such natural phenomena, but basically the sun rising and the sun setting just happen, and they happen whether we see them or not, or whether we feel anything about them or not.

This is not an emotional issue anymore. If I bring emotions into it, I'm not going to do it. At this point, it's just something happening in its time. Why is it time? Well, that's personal, and no one else's business. It's fact as far as I'm concerned.

This is not an emotional issue. Go, don't feel anything about it, it's just fact that it's time. It's just fact that it's time. I gave myself many, many years, I gave myself a time limit, and here I am. This isn't rocket science.

Quite honestly, I've given the world around me more of my presence than it has appreciated, and I have no qualms about removing myself from it. And I'll admit maybe I haven't explored the breadth of it that I have the potential to. I know my worth. It's just that my worth apparently doesn't have any application in the lives around me.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10 - MRT construction, Nanjing E. Rd. Sec. 5. Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN.

Xinyi District.

I inadvertently ended up going on a 45 mile ride this afternoon, after not making it out the door to go to Yeliu in the morning. After I woke up, I just felt I needed to take the bike out. I got out pretty late, after 4 p.m., and it was starting to cloud over a bit. I headed east towards Keelung. If I could make it to Yeliu, I thought it might still be light, but if at any point I thought I had to abandon, I was prepared to. Riding out to Keelung was pretty miserable. Mind you, I haven't gone on a ride in the daytime for quite a long time, and the traffic and pollution was truly disgusting.

I got to Keelung fine, and I turned left to go up the coast before hitting downtown Keelung, but I didn't get too far before I realized it was dark already at 5:30 because of the clouds. It was basically nighttime, and that's the most dangerous time to be riding in Taiwan. In the daytime, people can see you clearly; after midnight, traffic thins out. But between nightfall and midnight, I don't trust Taiwanese motorists.

So I turned around and headed back towards Rte. 5, which is the road I always take between Keelung and Taipei, although I've explored a few deviations off that road. There was no choice, I was out during the dangerous time, so I just prepared to deal with it and hope for the best to get back.

But at one intersection where I was waiting for a red light to turn green, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was another person on a bike behind me. I didn't pay him any mind, I just assumed I was faster than him and wouldn't see him again. But then the light turned green, and he took off. Turned out to be a punk-ass high school student. I was like, "alright, whatever". There wasn't anything going on, he just looked like he was rushing to get somewhere, and I didn't think anything of it and just went at my own pace, but as I got up to speed, he didn't get too far in front.

Then at an intersection I had crossed and was planning to cross back to get to Rte. 5, he turned right. I didn't know what that right turn was, but at the last minute, after I was already starting through the intersection, I veered right to follow, curious where that road went. Eventually he slowed down and I could've overtaken him, but I had no idea where this was going, so I decided just to follow and laid back so as to not freak him out. The road went on for just a bit until it reached a bridge I recognized from traveling on Rte. 5, I was just on the other side of it. I was like, "cool, here's an alternate route I can take". But instead of crossing the bridge and getting back on Rte. 5, the road continued and I decided to take that, maybe finding more alternate routes back to Taipei on the backroads, safer than Rte. 5.

And lo and behold, that road also took me to another landmark I recognized off Rte. 5. And there I found roads that continued off Rte. 5 which I had seen before and thought of exploring in the future. No time better than the present. That's when the ride got surreal. Eventually, I ended up in the mountainous countryside. This was no alternate route on the backroads back to Taipei. These were roads leading to off the beaten path. I was using Jupiter high in the southern sky (at the time I thought it was Venus, but I later realized that it's impossible for Venus to get that high in the sky, since its orbit is inside of Earth's) to guide me west to Taipei. As long as I could keep it on my left, I was heading west.

I came to an intersection that I had to ponder which way to go. It looked like straight would keep Jupiter on my left, but more cars were turning right. I headed right following the cars and that was a mistake. For several miles, Jupiter being on my left wasn't happening. In fact, at some point it was on my right, meaning I was heading towards Keelung, but mostly it was behind me, meaning I was heading north. Another odd thing was that all the cars disappeared. Don't know what was up with that. Anyway, I backtracked the several miles, something I hate doing, but it didn't look like that road was going to turn left at any point. I had forgotten about the intersection, but was glad for it because I didn't want to backtrack all the way to familiar territory. So I took that other way.

That way, indeed, kept Jupiter on my left, and absolutely no cars. Very bizarre. And then the road started to climb, and then I realized that I was going up. This was a climb. I was going up a mountain. I was concerned because I haven't been riding very well and didn't know if I could handle a climb, but I just plugged at it and wasn't suffering. Eventually I went above the streetlamp line and was in darkness with just ambient light bouncing off the bottom of the clouds to light my way (my headlamp was failing). It was very surreal, especially the no-car part. When I ride late at night, I don't expect cars, but in the early evening, it made me feel like some alternative world. I eventually put my iPod shuffle on because it was giving me the creeps.

The road going up eventually led to road going down. When forks provided choices, I kept going down and eventually ended up in what looked like a valley that I hoped would suddenly become familiar. It didn't, and when I got to a T-intersection with a road that looked like I was close to civilization, I wasn't sure which way to go, until I saw a highway beyond the hedge, which was no doubt running between Taipei and Keelung, which meant a right turn was west.

Finally I reached recognizable landscape – downtown Xizhi – and approached it on a road that I had seen on the way I usually go, but never ventured down to explore. Neat. I like when that happens.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 6:23 p.m. - Freeway interchange, Xizhi township. Riding home after nightfall.

I'm going week to week now. I've done this before, and I know the result from before. I don't like repeating myself. I'm good for this week until the end of next Sunday. I'll see then what will keep me going through the next week. I'm sick of sweeping the floor. I'm sick of cleaning the bathroom. I'm sick of never being quite able to get my apartment clean. I'm sick of the increasing amount of my hair on the floor. I'm sick of doing the exact same thing over and over again. I'm sick of not being able to break out of uninspired routines. I'm still loving listening to music. I'm still loving breathing. And existing, as long as I'm hoping that comes to an end soon.

Discovery Channel already has a documentary about the airliner that ditched in the Hudson River earlier this year. I guess it was OK to do a doc about that so soon since no one died. If it was a tragedy, it would be tasteless to do one so soon. They covered how perfectly the pilot ditched the plane and how there really was very little margin of error in terms of angle and speed to keep the plane from breaking up, which would likely have led to fatalities.

It seems the experience changed many of the survivors' lives. Those interviewed spoke of how their perspective on life had completely changed – of all the things they wanted to do and how they couldn't waste their precious lives on unimportant things. They all thought they were going to die. When a plane goes down, people die – that's something we learn from plane crash after plane crash. Sometimes people survive, but when you're on a plane that is definitely about to go down, it doesn't cross the mind with any confidence that you'll somehow be one of the lucky ones.

Of course, I don't know, but I like to think that I've kept an even keel enough perspective on life and death that I wouldn't undergo a transformative perspective shift. I wonder if how they felt on that plane was anything like that dream I had when I was trapped in a cage and a killer was walking towards me to kill me in cold blood. That feeling that "this is it, my life is about to end". It was mind-alteringly surreal, it was a serious adrenaline rush, but waking up from that feeling, I didn't feel like I wanted to live and had so many things I wanted to do. No, I more woke up thinking, "That bastard! He was really going to kill me! Bastard!" I wonder if my dream was in any way a sufficient simulation of what they felt in reality. Probably not.

I'm awake at 6 in the morning because I was thinking of riding out to Yeliu on Taiwan's east coast, maybe an hour and a half ride. I was debating it all night, then slowly prepared to go. Then I was all set to go, dressed up, geared up, moved my bike into position to leave, then I abandoned. Part of it was a physical realization that I haven't been able to complete even a 30 mile ride recently. What made me think I could make it out to Yeliu? But I wonder if part of it wasn't mental. Unmotivated. Bogged down. Depressed?

These negative aspects cascade down on me, even though I try not to get swallowed in the emotions of negativity. Suicide fucks things up for people. It FUCKS with people. And I'm going to fuck with people. I've been thinking the best shift at work for me to not show up to is a Saturday night part-time shift, because Saturday night is easy and can actually be done by one full-time person. That's good and all, but there's no mitigating the fuck of my suicide. The worst days for me to not show up for work is when I'm the full-time person on Sundays to Wednesdays. And I probably wouldn't do that. But next bad is if I don't show up for part-time shifts on those days, because the full-time person does rely on the second person on those days. But what the fuck, suicide inevitably fucks things up for people. I'm coming to terms with the fact that people are going to be fucked. But people get by. The newspaper will go out the next day, not that I care about anything except the extra burden that gets placed on the people I like. But they'll get by. People die, people get by. We got by after Ritu.

And it's just time for me.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - Neighborhood shooting. Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN.

The Living Mall. The not-so-oft photographed non-sphere side.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 4:59 p.m. - Construction across the street from work, Datong District.

Maintaining or even monitoring "equilibrium" is emotional. By nature. If this is not an emotional issue anymore, then equilibrium has nothing to do with anything. And I think that's true at this point. Before, suicide by nature was an emotional issue and it was fair to monitor equilibrium.

But I don't think that's the case now. I've run my life into such a deep dead end that even though emotions still may be present, they just don't factor in. Whether positive elements emerge or negative drops accumulate, that's not what it's about.

I have certain facts now that are irrefutable. Before there was some wiggle room for 'let's see what happens'. They were always pointless, but now the pointlessness has an added poignancy; an added urgency.

At the same time, I am focusing more carefully at the positive elements in the equilibrium. The quiet moments. The calm moments. What I've mentioned before as the passive positive elements when things simply aren't going wrong or badly. They're here. They're often. But I don't know if that's the point.

It's not bad. I could float, couldn't I? Even if I could, why would I? To do the things I enjoy? To listen to music; get lost in the music? To push myself physically running and cycling. To cultivate myself mentally and spiritually? Bah! My heyday is behind me, I'm only going to get weaker. There are no more challenges for me to conquer, no more accolades to be earned. Unless you count earning a sustenance salary and living a mundane life as long as possible. Not.

November is the cage. This is where I (once more) come to grips with myself, and if I get out of November, I'll . . .

Giving myself until the end of November is a huge luxury. I won't project on what I'll do if I get out of November, because I . . .

So what happened last time? Last time was vanity. It seems now.

Was I really convinced last time? Kinda, but there is a difference between then and now.

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi shopping plaza, Xinyi District. Nikon N70 Kodak BW400CN.

It's November. Still no indication of any change at work and I emphasize there MUST be a change with my co-copy editor quitting. I'm sure not going to take up the slack on that end. Although a strange niggling prods me to just keep the job as long as possible, rather than as short as possible. Not sure what to make of that.

Sometimes I feel a backing off from suicide, like I write about it and think about it, but then I get back to living my life and there's this disconnect there. Why don't I just stop writing about it and thinking about it and then just get on with living my life?

And I have my answers, but instead of them being naturally there and being able to transition easily from question to answer, I have to take a leap from one lilypad to another. But I have my answers. But I have to leap to get to them.

This is not an emotional issue anymore. It's totally intellectual now, and it does make sense and it is logical to me. That tells me to work on shutting down the emotions.

Of course with suicide, there are reflections of death. I don't know if that dream was really a reflection of how I would react if some psychotic was about to kill me. But the feeling was really chilling.

I visualize suicides I've seen in movies. Putting a gun in the mouth, back of the skull blown off with brain matter flying, splattering. Animate, alive, one moment, then off; click...off...gone. Inanimate. Dead. A whole life came before that moment, and that's the culmination. What was Kurt Cobain feeling in his blood?

Or being executed. Archival film from WWII of Jews lined up, kneeling next to a mass grave as a Nazi officer one by one goes down the line shooting each in the head. What do you feel? You are a life, you had a whole life before this moment, and this is how it ends? This is the final value? Killed in cold blood. The killer with no regard about what he was doing.

What's the big deal about these thoughts? Well, I guess I am being overly dramatic, and most of us hope to go out peacefully at a wrinkly ripe old age after a long lingering disease.

As for me, I just want to keep it close. Focus on consciousness and the end of this particular existence. Focus on body and it being lifeless, preferably without anybody having to deal with it. Focus on brain, this incredible wonder of nature, nestled in this skull that I call mine, having no meaning.

I don't want to say I'm near my breaking point, because I think I'm already way beyond it. I feel I've made my decision and I'm just looking at execution. And if my liver isn't beyond the point of no return, I already am. I really don't want to just cruise on like this for much longer.

East of Raohe night market area. Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN, 1/250 sec.

ISO 200, red filter. Old subject matter.

You know, when I wrote before how we all need to care for the people around us, I kinda thought that was a crock. And even though Ritu's suicide taught me that, I'm under no delusion that my suicide will convey that to anyone.

I'm watching a National Geographic series called "Meet The Natives", where a primitive tribe of Pacific islanders are given video cameras and flown to England (the natives) to do a reverse documentary sorta thing, filming our contemporary society from their point of view. They do much of the commentary.

It pleased me that in one town, their message to the people they met was just that. Care for each other, take care of each other. So maybe I'm not that way off. It's a deep thought. I thought I got it before, but it took a friend's suicide for me to get it, and I still think I don't get it. I'm still trying to think deep what it means to care for each other, take care of each other, when that is not really at the top of the food chain of our values.

And strangely, on an aside, I think that was the center of Jesus' ministry, his message of love that has been largely lost by the organized church. When really the deepest spirituality is as simple as that.

I've managed to cut back on drinking a little bit. Instead of buying a bottle every other day, I'm buying a bottle every third day, and it may be making a difference. I don't know. It might be just a coincidence with other factors.

I've gotten back my equilibrium for now, as futile as I realize it is now. But it's good because I'm more comfortable that my decisions will be made with a clearer mind.

Funny thing at work is that nothing has changed since my co-copy editor gave notice, and it's impossible for nothing to change. It seems to me the boss is totally trying to ignore the consequences of his quitting. Inconceivable! I still see myself quitting when he realizes that he has to ask me to do more, and I won't. It's all in the future unknown, so I won't speculate anymore what's going on.

One thing that I won't speculate on, though, is that I am done. No best case scenario will change the fundamentals of what I really want to happen.

I had an ideal age I wanted to die, coincidentally it was the age Ritu died, and I steamrolled right past it. But then I had an absolute, ultimate age I didn't want to get past, and I'm there. Getting past this age would be the most devastating, life-questioning thing I can think of. And I don't want that. None of us want that, right?

Dampening emotional considerations, I go through an inventory of my life, and there isn't anything that can happen, anything someone can say that would make me say, "oh, I want to live". And everything tells me that suicide would accomplish what I would want to accomplish, from the good points to the bad, from what I can control to what I can't, from who would get it and who wouldn't.

I had a dream last night, and from that dream I think I know how it feels like to be just about to be murdered in cold blood. I admit I emotionally panicked, although outwardly I was keeping my cool ("Um, guys, a little help!"). The last thing I remember before waking up was feeling the blood in my veins literally feel like it was turning to ice.

I have no idea what the point of all this is. I've been here before, and I don't like how it has turned out before.

OK, I'm trying to cut down. But why? Believe it or not, I don't like to feel bad, and this level of drinking is starting to get to that point. Or I've been at that point for a bit and I'm just coming out of denial. 

It's not because I'm panicking about my health keeling over and capsizing, although the thought did occur to me. It's only human. If I've already gone too far, then why not pull back and go out not feeling bad. If I'm not past the point of no return, then I'm just keeping my options open. 

The danger point for me is that first drink. If I lay off the sauce, eventually feeling sober starts feeling normal and even the appeal of the first drink goes down considerably. But then once I have that first drink, it's all downhill. 

Still, with this campaign, I'm pretty sure I can cut back at least a little; not buying a bottle every other day, but maybe every 2 or even 3 days. 

I should probably explore that danger point, though. If I last long enough to get to the point where I'm OK not having a drink, then what is it that leads to that first drink? hmm. 

Mind you, I'm not trying to quit. Whether I have a problem or not is irrelevant and I don't really care. Just exploring what's going on.

I just spent most of the last 12 hours in bed, initially trying to get to sleep impeded by insomnia, drinking each wake-up and watching music videos, finally succeeding for a decent chunk of time – maybe around 4 hours – but waking up later than I wanted because I was supposed to go to my bank (they close at 3 p.m. here) to take care of some business, but then also finding it raining, I abandoned that and stayed in bed, then tried to get up to do some other stuff, but then finding my body drained, flopped back down on the mattress just to rest. This happened several times. Viva la run-on sentence.

I went on a run last night. I wondered how bad could my health be if I can still run at what I think was a decent pace for 30 minutes (I'm not measuring yet, but I think it was about 4 miles)?

But now I'm wondering if today my body was reacting to that exertion and telling me it can't take it anymore. I'll find out on my next run after the rain rain goes away; and I'll make sure it's also on the night before my day off.

My co-worker has given notice at work. He's staying until the end of November. This means I will likely give notice soon, too, depending on what happens. And I can't imagine things happening that will make me stay.

I'll leave as soon as conditions get any more unfavorable than they are now. Anything that tips the equilibrium at which I'm staying now. Things pretty much have to remain as they are now for me to stay, and it doesn't look good for them.

So I should be out of work soon. Which is funny about what I just wrote about work being oppressive. I think I can push along until I leave, although that makes me wonder if it's just another diversion tactic.

I definitely don't want to do what I did in San Francisco after I quit my job and let my savings dwindle for the next year and a half. I don't want to do that again. That was rather pathetic.

I don't know how being out of work will affect the difficulty with which I push through each next day. I want to say it probably won't change a thing, but it's still in the future and I can't project on the future.

But it won't change a thing, I've been through this before and nothing's going to change. OK, then, nothing's different.

9:24 p.m. - No new subject matter.

Trying to get to the core of these feelings. I thought today that maybe it was work, the idea of work, that was getting oppressive, but I don't think so. I think work exacerbates the underlying feelings, so it's easy to think they're the cause.

Isolation is a big part of it, along with the increased unbearableness of meaningless daily routine, doing the same things day in and day out.

And then the inevitable consequence of years of heavy drinking, with more and more symptoms of something seriously going wrong cropping up.

The more I think I'm going to die soon from the natural consequence of alcoholism makes me realize that I have something I want to say from suicide.

I don't want to die a medical death, with the message that I was suicidal being lost. I don't want people mistaking my death as an unfortunate accident, a mere matter of consequence, when it was really my intentional decision; what I wanted.

I want people who know me to know that I chose this; that I specifically wanted them to feel or react to my decision. And not as a revenge thing or consequence thing, but just that these things happen. That we have to care for the people around us.

I think my family, who are in denial about my alcoholism – they've indicated they're aware of the signs – think they care for me, but they don't even know what that means because they don't even know me, they don't have a clue, they're not even trying, they don't know how, and how do you care for someone you don't even know?

Ritu's suicide taught me that lesson. Compassion eluded me when she was spiraling downward, and I should have cared for the people around me.

I hope I've practiced that more since Ritu died, but the message has to keep on going. Or not. Whatever. There's no way to control other people's reaction to suicide. You can't expect them to get a message. I just need to focus on what I feel and reconcile it with what I want to do.

When the thought of even one more day becomes unbearable. When the thought of even one more day becomes too painful. When?

Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN, ISO 800:

Now I know I'm re-treading subject matter. I know I posted this subject already.

I know that there's no such thing as an easy suicide. Suicides by nature are emotionally messy for everyone involved. I should not be trying to whitewash mine or think I'm taking consideration to "make it easier" for anyone.

It doesn't matter when I do it. There is no opportune time that's going to make it easier for other people. It should not be a consideration for me. It doesn't matter who I leave high and dry, who was relying on my dependability.

I was suicidal, ergo not dependable.

I miss John Lennon. I miss Freddie Mercury. But whether we are assassinated or die of AIDS, we all have to go. I miss Suzy Gonzalez having never met her (counter what her mother believed, if Suzy had lived on, she very possibly could have been me today). I miss Amina, I miss Shiho, but nothing's going to bring them back into my life. I miss Amber, I miss Eva, but they are never going to be part of my life.

Nothing's gonna change my world. Once I get that, I need to move on.

Breathe. Breathing. It's important.

Someone I know is having tension in his job. He asked me about relaxing. I said tension is in the body, relaxation is in the mind.

At the end of days, I need to be breathing.

My life is hinging upon equilibrium. Positive-negative. I've already established that there are no active positive elements in my life. The passive positive elements pale.

There are plenty of passive negative elements in my life, acting as the background radiation of my life, and the equilibrium I'm trying to maintain is a matter of keeping the active negative elements in check.

Basically I'm trying to maintain an equilibrium where the negative elements don't get the better of the positive. But it's impossible. The passive negative elements still drip drop by drop; they're always there. It's only inevitable that the passive negative elements will tip the scale. There is no equivalent effect on the positive side.

Is that right? I don't know if I'm conveying what I want to. I don't want to end my life with the negative prevailing. So I breathe. Breath is positive. Breath symbolizes life.

Part of me really thinks I'm near the end. I can feel it. Part of me thinks I'll Sisyphus it day to next unbearable day.

In my mind I'm saying my goodbyes. I'm mentally resigning myself that I already saw family members for the last time when I visited over the Summer. Since then I haven't heard from them anyway. My mother has called a few times, but that's about it. I've been ignoring all contact from extended family in Kaohsiung.

Notice is out.

The first wave of resignations at work has begun. Anna had her last day. Sweet girl. We never went deep, never had a substantial connection, but I think we enjoyed working with each other well enough. Still, it's the last time I'll see her.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 12:20 a.m. - Farewell Anna.

I think Frances is next. Her English was excellent and she came to me with several problems that we talked through after work several times – one with her family, another with her girlfriend – so we connected substantially. Our sessions made me realize that doing the counseling thing is probably what I do best, so if I wasn't so self-absorbed and really wanted to do good and make an impact, I should enter the monastery. But I still don't see it in my future, even though I have ten more years until the cut off age.

Han and Rosanne have given their notice and will be gone at the end of the month. Han's English is so good that I talk to him like a native speaker, and only once in a while he trips up on something obscure that I'm reminded English is his second language. And just because his English is so good, he's a major social point for me at work.

Rosanne is a writer of local news so I don't have a whole lot of contact, but I've always liked her because she seems very genuine.

All goodbyes, but truth to tell, I don't remember any hellos.

My disappearance will have little to do with any of them, neither those who are leaving nor those who are staying.

My co-copy editor also has expressed he is near his breaking point, and as soon as he gives notice, I'll give notice. I won't put up with any of what he's put up with. Oh, which is the new boss who came on earlier this year. Anyone who has to deal with him can't stand him, which is why I'm fine with him – he avoids me at all costs for some reason. He has no idea that he's the reason why people are leaving.

Once I quit, I'm not going to drift like I did before. Jobless and idle in my apartment is not an attractive option – not an option. So very soon after I'm out of the job, it'll be time to move on.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 - Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN. Bottom pic ISO 200.

It's my movie, but I don't know how long it's been since I've played lead in a scene. Instead, I'm mostly waiting in the wings – doing my loner things – and that's become most of my life. The only time I get screen time is when I'm in a supporting role or extra in other people's movies.

The loner things may be scenes of their own. But then they would be the final scenes in my movie. All the major action and events are done. All the points of my movie have been made. These last minor scenes are just a coda, a way to end the film. How the film will end.

Funny, but on my last bike ride, my iPod shuffle was playing a lot of moody indie movie-ending songs, I felt.

I remember reflecting on a film called "Auto Focus," about the Bob Crane ("Hogan's Heroes") murder, and how the end of my film might be modeled on what director Paul Schrader did. He portrayed the decline and things going out of control by washing scenes out and using shaky hand-held shots to convey the feeling.

The end of my film may not be so dramatic. No descent. OK, there still may be one final climax at the very end of my film, but these scenes leading up to that probably should have a feel of calm, reflective isolation, with maybe a few indication of cracks in the ice wall. Like how in neurotically keeping track of my expenses – if not obsessive-compulsive – I'm buying a bottle of liquor every other day, every two days at most.

I don't think I want to die of liver or kidney failure. Sounds too drawn out. But maybe it gets drawn out because people end up going to the hospital, trying to survive. Trying to survive? Then why were they alcoholics? Alcoholics run the likely risk of dying! I know cases are more complicated than that, I don't necessarily mean to sound unsympathetic.

I won't go to a hospital. I knew what I was doing. I already have one symptom of having frequent pressure in my lower back. But even this is probably just early stages, but possibly, depending on my individual health, already past the point of no return.

If I went to the doctor now, I may simply be advised to stop drinking if I want to live, or it may be so bad that I may be hospitalized to turn things around. Who knows? But I won't go to a hospital and I won't see a doctor. If something goes wrong, no one will know about it until I physically can't go on. That's still a while a way, I shouldn't wonder.

It also feels like the cowardly way to go. If I have a point, then I need to make the point. If the point of my life is to achieve a suicide, then I need to focus on that. But maybe I am a coward and will wait to let alcohol take its course, or worse, stop drinking.

Finally, I don't think I'll quit my job without a reason. Granted the simplest of reasons is enough to send me over. Although that feeling may change tomorrow when I go back to work. I just had two days off – what people normally get, called a "week end", I think – and that has eased my negativity towards work. And I have another two days off at the end of this week, which has been unheard of recently. I wonder who's been taking those shifts.

It is a ridiculous job. One and a half persons, the copy editors, are the gatekeeper and monitor of everyone else's work – people pulling stories from the international wires, the people coming with local news, and the page designers.

I learned recently that a copy editor at a legitimate newspaper only checks English – grammar, spelling, consistency – and by the time a news story reaches the copy editor, it has already been through several editors. And every story gets actually read.

Instead, we have to supervise and monitor the international desk by being the ones responsible for there being no repeat stories in today's paper or from yesterday's paper. That's supposed to be their job. With one and a half copy editors, we don't read international stories. We only have time for a spell check and a format scan and then send them to the designers.

We have to supervise and monitor the designers and point out errors in the design elements. That should be their job. You don't need to know English to see that a line is wrong, or a byline font is wrong.

And don't get me started on the local news stories. Local news stories we have to read, but with one and a half copy editors, we still can't keep articles going to print that sound like they were written by English students. We can correct the English, but we don't have time to re-write the style, so there's a lot of stilted phrasings.

I don't sweat it anymore. I don't read our newspaper looking for mistakes that the copy editors missed. I read the local stories for amusement. Now, our newspaper is Taiwan's Leading Chinglish-Language Newspaper Since 1952.

I wrote on my Facebook page: "I'm wondering if I should stay at work because I have no reason to leave, or if I should leave work because I have no reason to stay."

It's normally something I would've written here; it was a bit risky putting it on Facebook because it reveals too much – too much for casual acquaintances. Whenever someone responds with "concern", I know I've gone too far, but fortunately this post was clean.

The quandary it poses is just a disguise for the key point: no reason, no point. But on the other hand, no reason to leave, no reason to stay – sounds like freedom to me, along with the option to either leave or stay.

The boss who came in earlier this year is totally oblivious to how he's about to lose key swaths of his workforce, and even more oblivious to the fact that he's the reason. There's a lot of grumbling, people sending out resumes, some who've already landed other jobs.

And here I am with the choice whether to leave or stay. And I'm one of the only people who doesn't complain about the boss because for some reason he's staying as far away from me as possible. I won't guess why, but in the few interactions I've had with him, he's been totally respectful. As have I.

I guess that's the "should I stay because I have no reason to leave part".

Although I do have reason to leave. Just none that relate directly to the job I'm supposed to be doing.

Today would have been a perfect day to just disappear, but something is stopping me. Nothing new there.

Today is my day off. Tomorrow, Saturday, I have a part-time shift on the easiest day of the week. If I didn't show up, it wouldn't be so dire – in my opinion, Saturday doesn't require 2 copy editors – and there may be someone there who could swing shift to replace me if I mysteriously didn't show up.

I think I've laid enough signals that if I didn't show up at one shift, they shouldn't expect me to show up at any future shifts. Well no, I haven't laid signals – I've said it outright.

But if I'm thinking that way, that's indicative in itself. Not showing up should mean I don't give a crap about these little details. So why am I thinking of these little details?

I shouldn't be. Or is my attention to these little details indicative of simple resonant responsibility, and maybe even compassion, to the fact that these other people still take their lives seriously, more seriously than I took mine, and I should try to minimize any disruption to their lives?

Hmph, am I so arrogant to think my "disruption to their lives" extends beyond just practical work considerations? That's easy: maybe. But not not enough to sway me either way.

This is all wrong. Suicide is suicide. It messes things up for other people. And there is no warning. If you're going to commit suicide, you don't project it and hope people are prepared for it. Nothing prepares people for it. And projecting it means it's a cry for help, not a genuine intention.

And what gets messed up in other people's lives by my suicide is actually quite minor. They'll deal, it'll pass.

Family? I want them to feel the effects of my suicide. Friends? What friends? Please.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 5:54 p.m. - 101 and waxing croissant moon.

When I got reinstated at my job in April, I thought I could do it. Maintain it. I thought I could just be satisfied and float indefinitely.

Now I'm realizing that's just not me.

I still do the meditations of just being satisfied, just being happy, and not let the niggling negative thoughts get the better of me, distress me, but something's been amplifying them. Probably me.

Work is getting unbearable. I go to work and I just want to die. I hate myself, I hate my life. Riding to work is madness in my head and riding home from work is serious decompression. The positive and negative sides of my personality in serious battle.

I don't know if I'm the only person at work under this kind of stress. I aim to put out newspapers with no facial errors. And the management still annoys me with nitpicking that makes me want to punch them in the nose. Why am I working there? This newspaper obviously doesn't have the wisdom or the resources to be the quality newspaper they think they are.

On days I don't work, I notice numerous things that I wouldn't have let pass. Why am I doing this to myself? Probably because when I leave, I want someone to notice it. But who am I kidding? No one's going to notice it.

And still I tell myself that this can't last much longer. From the usual mental distress to what should be fact that my liver can't last much longer, emphasized by more frequent lower back aches.

And the only thing that makes me happy is keeping death right in front of my face and realizing life is too worthwhile and beautiful to go through it distressed.

3:38 p.m. - Photostitch of Maishuai Bridge #1 and Rainbow Bridge over the Keelung River.

Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN, experimenting with ISO settings (400 unless otherwise indicated). Basically I don't think it matters unless you're developing the film yourself:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 - MRT line construction constantly shifting traffic patterns. ISO 200.

Brown Line MRT turning from Heping E. Rd. to Fuxing S. Rd. Or vice versa. ISO 200.

A fave fishball noodles hole in the wall on Heping E. Rd. ISO 800.

SEPTEMBER 19 - Xinyi Rd. under the Jianguo elevated expressway. On weekends, the parking lots under the expressway become a massive flower/jade/arts & crafts market.

Taipei experimented with the car-free zone idea, closing off a section of Zhongxiao E. Rd. along a busy shopping district for a few hours. The idea didn't take, it was a one-off. I think people were too bewildered and brain-washed to enjoy it and the disruption to the bus lines was probably not insignificant. Bottom pic ISO 200.