Insomnia's back with a vengeance, work may be mellowing out. Or maybe I'm mellowing out. I'm trying not to let the insomnia get to me like it did before. It became a nightmare last year. Or I let it become a nightmare. Well, I'm sure there's a better word, since sleep with nightmares is better than no or not enough sleep.
And I have had a few nightmares during the twilight sections of insomnia. One involving my apartment – particularly the floor – slowly dissolving, and one involving spiders, but I wasn't fearing them, just killing them. And they were big, stringy ones in the Taiwan wild, not the subtle slips of spiders that have actually been invading my apartment. And which I've been killing because there have just been too many of them. I tried letting them be.
I'm trying to have a better attitude towards it: I got 4 hours of sleep last night – Yay! OK, it doesn't really work. Afternoon naps before work are key to getting through shifts, but I don't know where things are going with the accumulated loss of sleep, since 2-3 hours of sleep at night and a couple hours nap in the afternoon in a 24 hour cycle is arguably not enough. Bring on the psychotic episodes, I haven't hallucinated in quite a while. Not since . . . last year. And zero jetlag coming back to Taiwan, btw. I forget if I had insomnia right away, but it couldn't have been more than a day or two.
Well, I got going to the U.S. out of my system.
My oldest brother and sister-in-law did an awful lot for me while I was there. They were gracious hosts to say the least and my brother did the whole switching out hard drives thing for my laptop, which doesn't take a genius to do, but I'm an idiot with zero computer know-how. But now I have zero compunction to go back there. They were too polite to me, and they refused my gestures of thanks. All they did was give to me and didn't take.
I decided to axe the idea of ever moving to Kaohsiung because I have nothing to do with the lives of my extended family down there. They wouldn't be taking me in and taking from me. I'd just be a burden of a guest that they think they would have to take care of. I don't blame them for that, it's mostly my own doing. I'm a porcupine and people approach me only when I let them. I project that I don't want to be imposed upon and I work on my own agenda.
And in New Jersey, if all I'm doing is taking and if I even try to give it's rejected, then I'm just a guest and will never be a part of their lives. This is a lesson in giving and taking, I suppose. Moralists expound the virtues of giving, but part of giving is knowing when to take, too. Taking is an important part of giving, because if you're not taking, you're not allowing giving. Arguably selfish.
The last time I went to Kaohsiung, ahead of my trip to the U.S., my aunt gave me something to give to my parents – dried fish egg or something I wouldn't ever eat. She gave it to me several weeks in advance of my trip, and I took several precautions to remember to bring it. Ultimately, I forgot it in the common refrigerator on the floor of my building, even though I reminded myself to pack it the day that I left. Ultimately, I'm just not in the habit of thinking of anyone else or doing anything for anyone else. Here in Taipei, all I've had to think about for the past year and a half was myself, and that's become ingrained habit.
I've been having karmic problems with giving.
On the other hand, when I came back to Taiwan, I brought a box of cookies I bought at the airport in Vancouver for my co-workers. I anonymously left them at the entrance with the pile of today's newspapers that everyone is supposed to pick up to review the previous day's work. I expected no one to be interested, but to my surprise, they were all gone way before the end of the shift, and people wanted to know where they came from and called out thanks to me to my embarrassment. Now that felt like home. And marks a shift in my attitude towards my workplace.
Also, I just heard from my mentor in high school. He was my Junior year physics teacher, but he was also a musician, and that was the way in which he mentored me. When we parted ways way back when, I gave him my elementary school trombone. I don't remember the circumstances in which I gave it to him, but he was a true musician to the core. It didn't matter what instrument he was playing, he could make music come out of it. I met up with him in Tucson in 2003 or 2004 and he gave me a CD of his that he made, on which he played all the instruments. It just blew me away. He's a professional astrophysicist, but I don't know if that gives or takes away from what an amazing musician he is.
Anyway, back when I was in high school, there was a time when I told him my first instrument was trombone and I pulled it out for him, and he just picked it up and just started blowing like he'd been playing for years. I think it was because of that I gave it to him. Anyway, I just found him on FaceBook recently, and he told me he had recently thought of me because he had given the trombone to an 11-year-old from Scotland who had come to Tucson, but had to leave his trombone behind. I told him nothing could please me better than to know that an act of giving I made years ago could still be giving now. Good giving karma all-around, as he put it.
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| SATURDAY, JULY 11, 5:57-6:33 p.m. - Taiwan supporting Tibet, Xinyi District. |
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| Keelung Road. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. |
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| Keelung Rd. and Zhongxiao E. Rd. intersection, Xinyi District. |
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| Xinyi District |
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| SUNDAY, JULY 12 - Xing Tian Kong temple. Minquan E. Rd, Sec. 2 and Songjiang Rd. Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, Kodak BW400CN. |
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| Fuxing S. Rd. and Ren Ai Rd. |
