I guess things have been quiet now that New Years and the Lantern Festival are over, and now that the band is done (despite one off gigs now and then like this Friday), and work has settled into just being weekends again.

Real quiet. In my life, in my head. Much less interesting than January was.

Once the singer leaves, that'll definitely be it for the band for me. The newspaper had a retirement ceremony for my boss a couple weeks ago. He says he'll still be coming in until sometime in March, until the new guy takes over as editor-in-chief. I don't expect I'll stay there much longer after my boss retires for good.

I foresee quitting for good by the end of March, and around that time I expect to get my citizenship and being allowed to travel overseas again. If my parents offer their miles for me to go to the U.S., I'll visit for an extended period. Four weeks maybe, like last time. I have some things I would like to wrap up there.

So live until then. Float along until then. And who knows, maybe a trip abroad will give me the motivation and momentum to move out of Taipei and continue my (wretched) life. I don't know, I can't say anymore. Everyday I wake up in an existential quagmire. Why am I still here? Why not today? And then I sit.

Everyday needs an answer to 'why not today?', and the answers aren't very good. That doesn't indicate anything in the big picture, it just says how pathetic I am, because everyday it's "why not today?" Because I have one last trip to the U.S. to straighten out some last affairs, and after that I might have the momentum to move to Kaohsiung, and no, no, no, no, no, no, no (oh mama mia, mama mia).

That's right. Why not today?, but the answer isn't because of something in the future. 'Why not today?' has to be about today. If it's not today, it's just because it's not today. And the hope is on the one day it might.

Lately I've been feeling I've been making headway on my instinctive negativity; karmic negativity, if I may. It's still there, but I've been more successful in habituating it to automatically implode.

The goal is to condition myself out of instinctive negativity. I may not succeed right away. There may be an intervening stage – lifetimes where the negativity is still there, but there's a stronger doubting of the negativity, and less of a concrete reality of it. But I do get the sense that my efforts are having an effect. I just hope it's deep enough.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 5:31 p.m. - Xinyi District. Ricoh Caplio R4.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 4:00-4:16 p.m. - Ride up to Danshui. Canon IXUS 860 IS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 - Keelung Road. Pentax ZX-5n, Kodak BW400CN.

Lantern festival, Xinyi District.

Keelung Rd. at Yongji Rd.

6:44 p.m. - I guess I'll take the stairs.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1:29 p.m. - Back at'cha.

Tizzy Bac performing outside Eslite Bookstore, Xinyi District. I first heard them on the soundtrack for the local film "Candy Rain" and was intrigued enough to check them out live. They blew me away and I went and bought their CDs

 

3:14 p.m.

3:52 p.m.