Things have changed yet again. The person I couldn't stand to work with – the only person in the world I can spit bile and venom about – got fired. It appears the new boss wasn't about to put up with her bullshit. Apparently he's the only other person who saw her the way I did.

Which is odd, because I'm still undecided on the new boss, too. My initial vibe isn't necessarily a good one, but I might be able to work with him. If he's professional, I can work with him, but I'll know in my gut if he's someone I can't work with. At this point, it can go either way – that's how much I can't get a read on him.

So they asked me back to work more shifts, and fortunately I'm in a position to say that I only want to work 4 days a week. It's only 1 day less than before, but I got burned out doing that job 5 days a week, probably because I was doing band stuff on the other two evenings.

And it's only a day and a half more per week than I've been doing for the past half year, which didn't earn enough to live on (the salary simply buoyed my diminishing savings during that period), but it does add up over a month.

I might be able to just scrape by on 4 days a week, also taking into account that my old boss supposedly gave me a raise in January – that's something I should check with accounting (that's me – I'm told I'm getting a raise, but I don't check up or follow up on it, and it's entirely possible my old boss simply forgot).

It's still sinking in what this all may mean to me. Do I keep at my plan to leave Taipei? Do I stay in Taipei resolving to "just be satisfied". If I leave Taipei, what does that mean?, where to? No one's holding their breath for me to move to Kaohsiung.

I am maintaining my recent revelations in sitting, but also I ran a death meditation a short while ago and it has left me . . . perplexed. That's all I'll say about it for now, I'm still working it out. If death isn't the focus of my life, I'm wondering if I've lost my way, especially if a new direction hasn't made itself apparent, or whether I'm in a transition period where things start coming together.

I'm still thinking of visiting the U.S. in May, and by going, I still ostensibly will be aiming to "wrap things up" there. Wrapping things up is supposed to precede a sincere attempt within months after returning to Taipei. But even by putting it off to go to the U.S. to wrap things up is just a delay tactic meaning nothing's gonna happen. Why not today? Why not right now? If it's not right now, then really it's not even an intention.

addendum: There is a lot being left out of this blog. But to qualify specifically what happened with that co-worker:

I'm perpetually thinking of quitting my job, and that was the case last autumn. I don't want to say the newspaper's rehiring her was the sole reason for my decision to quit back then, although I was reeled back in to work weekends by my boss.

She was the trigger, though. She made it easy to go in one day and tell my boss I was quitting, and he subsequently asked me to stay on and promised that I would only work days when she wasn't. I don't know why I didn't react to that insult, probably because I'm neurotic and have trouble letting go of things. And money is always an issue.

The insult: although me and my boss seemed to have a pretty good relationship, he was rehiring someone he knew he had problems with, and when it was clear I wouldn't work with her, he was rehiring her to replace me. After rehiring her, he often expressed regret at rehiring her because of the trouble she continued to bring to him, but he still didn't contemplate firing her, and I still kept the insult to me on the inside.

In my opinion, she was unprofessional, combative and irresponsible. She was capable of copy editing, but she let a lot of mistakes make it to print, more than I did, and my impression was that she didn't give a rat's ass about mistakes. She didn't give a rat's ass about the newspaper.

Perhaps one of the main reasons my old boss rehired her was to write a "community" page on weekends, focused on the foreign community. But her page, and I emphasize "her", she had full editorial license, was unremarkable, unprofessional and, to me, insulting in ways I won't mention. I never read it in depth, and I refused to edit her work (which I realize is unprofessional on my part, but I stand by it, and no one expected me to edit her work). My boss, not versed in English, couldn't tell the difference. The community page was supposed to counter one that a competitor newspaper had developed, and he was just happy that we had it.

So I worked on weekends as copy editor, and she spent weekends working on the community page. This meant that we didn't have to work together directly editing copy, but it so happened that we were in the office together on weekends, and I had to tolerate her presence.

Over the past six months, I did my best to tolerate her, ignore her, but I still examined my reaction to her and started treating her as a meditation, transforming my negative reaction into positive thoughts towards her. There were even times where we exchanged respectful words between us. Nothing was going to fix this relationship, though.

On her last day, this past Wednesday before she was fired, I was at a museum when I received a phone call from an acquaintance of the band who I didn't recognize, but apparently he was with her. But from what he said, he verified that I did know him from the bar/band.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2:08 p.m. - National Museum of History

2:57 p.m. - Taipei Botanical Gardens adjacent to the National Museum of History. The Shin Kong Mitsukoshi landmark building near Taipei Main Station visible.

3:15 p.m.

3:40 p.m.

They were outside of Taipei, ostensibly conducting some interview for a story for her page, and couldn't make it back in time for her to do her copy editing shift. So he was calling me on her behalf to see if I could take the shift. I can only assume they went way out of their way to get my phone number from the band leader.

I agreed to take the shift, but then the shit hit the fan that night. In fact, this incident may have been the last straw for the new boss. When I walked in for her shift and he heard me say that she herself didn't call me to do the shift, but that someone else called, he expressed exasperation at that – as if she was that irresponsible – confirming his decision to fire her.

And right after she was fired Wednesday night, in saying her farewells, she was saying "he (his name) is firing me", as opposed to "I'm being fired" or "I got fired". She wasn't taking any responsibility that this was based on her work or her attitude, she was focusing blame just on this one person as if it were unreasonable and arbitrary, which I have no doubt is what she believes. In her being fired, he's the subject, not her.

But I'll repeat, it seems that me and the new boss were the only people to take issue with her. I don't know what was in anyone else's hearts, but I won't second-guess them and am willing say no one else had a problem with her. But I also won't say that people at the office don't have a problem with me and just don't bring it up.

Still, although I don't mind her being gone, I wish it could have happened on different terms. Someone being fired shouldn't be taken lightly, and it's not the ideal way to go. It may or may not have been an empty gesture, or otherwise emptily received, but I'm glad that as she was going out the door, I did express to her to take good care of herself. I don't wish ill upon her and never have. I just reacted to something I have no idea about, and never got to resolve.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8 - Liberty Plaza main gate. Rainbow V.

National Museum of History from the Botanical Gardens. Reverse of earlier shot. Rainbow V.

THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 4:59-5:02 p.m. - Experimental digital black & white, Keelung River. IXUS 860 IS.

APRIL 10 - Keelung riverside bikeway. Rainbow V.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11 - Grand Hotel Taipei. Rainbow V.