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.