For some reason I got it in my mind to go out on my own on foot on New Year's Eve and catch the Taipei 101 fireworks. It was a stupid, meaningless thing to do and will not be repeated.

10:34 p.m. - The neighborhood park at the end of my alley.

11:07 p.m. - Guangfu S. Rd. near Zhongxiao E. Rd. 

11:39 p.m. - Xinyi Rd.

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010, China/Hong Kong)

I'm not going to rate this film, I'm just going to recommend, perhaps controversially, highly against seeing it. It may be a competent martial arts/action film, but it is also an unabashed piece of anti-foreign/pro-China propaganda.

Of course, if I'm calling it propaganda, then it must have some aim. That, I would argue, is to inflame Chinese nationalism by angering the Chinese people regarding historical injustices, and further, as China currently is on the rise to become a dominant world power again, to create a feeling of patriotic righteousness that they deserve this prosperity against any challenge or criticism by foreign countries.

It is in particular virulently anti-Japanese, but that feeling is spread out to the humiliation China suffered under the Western powers in the 19th and 20th centuries, present in the film, all who colluded to control and keep China in the service of their own national benefits.

Quite honestly, I see no problem with that. I've seen plenty of Chinese films that have addressed the victimization of modern China by Western powers and which have blasted Japan's wartime aggression and subsequent lack of contrition, even denial, regarding atrocities on the Chinese mainland.

The Chinese have all the right in the world to constantly re-hash this history, especially against the Japanese, and I totally support it. It shouldn't be forgotten, but this film, I think, takes it to a whole new level. As a Westerner, it's a scary level, because the Chinese are a scary people when they get nationalistic.

Current China continues to flout international conventions on human rights. China could be congratulated on having one of its citizens, Liu Xiaobo, awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, except he's under arrest by the Chinese government for promoting fundamental human rights. After the announcement was made, his wife was placed under house arrest and had her cellphones confiscated. The Great Firewall of China made it impossible for ordinary citizens to even hear the news. Nice going, China!

My visit to Tibet really opened my eyes to the atrocities the Chinese have committed there and I am convinced the cultural genocide the Chinese are accused of trying to commit is real. Tibetans are becoming marginalized in their own country and their sacred monasteries tourist sites. The Chinese are trying to undermine and destroy Tibetan Buddhist institutions and then have the gall to call the Nobel Peace Prize award to Liu Xiaobo "blasphemous".

I do believe Chinese civilization will become dominant again. I do think its struggles in its early modern era were largely intentionally caused by more modernized foreign powers who took advantage of the weak Qing Dynasty government. I reluctantly admit that Chinese civilization has been the most enduring, continuous human culture on Earth – a point that is alluded to in the movie.

China has the potential to rise to that level again, but the thought of this current Communist Dynasty leading the rise is pretty scary. And with even the U.S. kow-towing to and drooling at the economic opportunities presented by Chinese markets, there is no one who dares go up against this arrogant and authoritarian government.

That said, I don't think any Westerner needs to be subjected to this kind of propaganda just to enjoy a decent martial arts/action film. Donnie Yen is great in this film, but I would recommend Ip Man instead. And for anyone familiar with the pedigree of this film, I also recommend just sticking with Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury" and the Jet Li re-make of that film, "Fist of Legend", from which one can see the pedigree of this film's title. If you haven't seen those films, I recommend seeing those instead.

In short, the Chen Zhen character was originated by Bruce Lee in "Fist of Fury", and Jet Li played the role in "Fist of Legend". Donnie Yen played the role in a 1995 Hong Kong TV series, and is reprising the role from that series in this film.

Ip Man 2 (2010, Hong Kong)

These comments on this film are actually a continuation of the above film. Both star Donnie Yen, both were filmed roughly at the same time – I think he filmed Ip Man 2 first – and released in 2010, and both are heavy-handed in the way they portray foreign subjugation and humiliation of China and Chinese people.

Actually, I rented this film because I was trusting it to be more even-handed, based on how good the first Ip Man movie was, and I wanted to make sure I could tell the difference. But watching this film, it was more of the same thing, except the Japanese are out of the picture, the Japanese having been atomic bombed and defeated in WWII and this film taking place in 1950.

The villain now, or continues to be, the British. Westerners. White people. Snarling, sneering, spitting, bellowing, arrogant, condescending, big-nosed White Devils. They are so one-dimensional that they are caricature.

Having been subjected to racism by white people growing up (thus learning how to be racist back at them in the process), I didn't mind this portrayal of the British. However, it was still hard to watch because of the impact of racism. It still felt real, these were accurate portrayals of the feelings racism, whether individual or national, evokes.

Times are different now (pull out the jumbo-size salt shaker, folks - future ed.), and even though racism in the U.S. still exists, it's not as prevalent, and U.S. society has diversified considerably so that people are much more aware of racial issues and sensitive to them, and are directly exposed to so many different cultures. And communities are much larger and stronger so that the impact of racism is more readily absorbed. There's more support, safety in numbers.

Back to the film, I had a hard time whether to label this another propaganda film and give it the short "don't see it" shrift I gave "Legend of the Fist". I don't want to do that because then I'm starting to cry wolf.

And it had all the elements I accused "Legend" of having that made it arguably propaganda and less so art (yes, I know I'm softening my stance by calling it "arguably propaganda", because I admit that it is arguable). But for me, what pushes a movie over the line is when there is a scene that is so unlikely, and has a clear propagandist message, that it distracts from the integrity of the film.

Now the portrayal of the British probably qualifies right there, because it is caricature and is distracting to the integrity of the film. It's unchallenging and is intended to inflame the passions of Chinese people over the injustices and humiliation they have suffered from the West.

But that's not enough, because it has no point. What's the use of anti-British propaganda now? England and China are nominally friends now. So for it to be propaganda now, there also needs to be a pro-China message, and this film has that, too, and it distracts from the integrity of the film.

The film is set in 1950. Ip Man has just arrived in Hong Kong and tries to set up a martial arts school, but encounters resistance from rival martial arts schools and he has to prove himself. That's the first half of the film, and the villain in the first half is Sammo Hung's character and the students of his school.

But the film morphs in the second half when we find Sammo Hung's school has been recruited to be workers for an event showcasing Western boxing. The go-between between their school and the British authorities is a spineless Chinese lackey who agrees to do the white devil's evil bidding, and convincing the Chinese to accept it. So in the second half of the film, Sammo Hung's character and Ip Man bury the hatchet and the villain becomes the British.

The distracting pro-China scene is when the lackey unpredictably goes against his British superiors and gets a backbone and eventually becomes a hero. In fact, even the students of Sammo Hung's school that the viewer despises for being cowardly and having no honor, also are included in the Chinese hero camp in the second half of the film. All the Chinese are heroes, just because they're Chinese.

The film does go too far for me and I consider it a propaganda film. However, an arguable element against that claim is the film ends with words of reconciliation by Ip Man himself, calling for respect between cultures, because Ip Man is a paragon of virtue (I'm not being sarcastic, it was established in the first film that is what he's supposed to be). It was thoroughly appropriate for Ip Man to say that at the end. Even though the film itself is a big diss of the British.

Oh, that's not the film's end. I've been waffling about whether to give this film a nominal fresh rating or a nominal rotten rating, but the film's last scene pushes the film down into a comfortable rotten rating. For "Ip Man 2", they were trying to get the rights from the Bruce Lee estate so that they could have a plotline that included him, but they couldn't get the rights.

But Ip Man's fame is known in popular culture to the extent it is now because he was Bruce Lee's teacher. I think the producers thought how can they tell Ip Man's story without even a mention of Bruce Lee? Donnie Yen already said he wouldn't do a third Ip Man movie. So they tagged on this dumb little scene when a young Bruce Lee is introduced to Ip Man, sporting well-known Bruce Lee mannerisms. All they were missing was a children's-size yellow and black track suit.

Rotten 5 out of 10 tomatoes.

Insomnia came back with a vengeance last week and is persisting. I'm trying not to let it bother me and those sleep drowning episodes kinda helped me realize that sometimes I can't get out of bed until I'm damn good and ready to get out of bed. And that's OK. So don't force myself. Hey! Are you even listening?! It's OK to just stay in bed all day. Sorry, I got distracted. Geez.

I'm regularly waking up about 2 hours after going to sleep, and then lying in bed in various states of consciousness or sleep for hours and hours. Sometimes just lying there, sometimes I'll play a CD on sleep timer, and if I'm still awake when the timer shuts the damn thing off, I'll get up and re-set it and listen to the rest of the CD.

The insomnia bouts can last up to 8 hours, as it did last night, getting out of bed at 1 p.m. after initially waking up at 5:18 a.m., after going to sleep just before 3 a.m. I want to call the experience during the insomnia bouts interesting, but I really don't want to encourage them. Insomnia's still bad, m'kay?

There are dreams and since whatever sleep they occur in is so light, I remember them when I wake up, but they're totally meaningless and nonsensical. Even though I've put my micro-cassette recorder next to my pillow, the dreams are too incoherent for me to push record and recite any reflection or memory of the dreams.

Something about me being a back-up to a black cop and us going into a room after a suspect who is a big, black psychopath who becomes like a bull whenever he sees me and comes charging at me while the cop tries to fend him off. I'm scrambling to keep the cop between me and the goon and to get the hell out of the room. The cop gives me a weapon for protection – a grenade. Thanks a lot. Useless. I get out of the room just as I'm hearing shots fired and I don't stay to figure out what happened. The rest of that dream is trying to find my way out of the building, which is the Golden Gate University building in San Francisco, even though in the dream it looks nothing like it really does.

Something about a food gathering, which may have involved people from my first Mandarin language class in Taiwan. I've forgotten details that I remembered when I woke up, should've turned on the recorder. I do remember a huge Man vs. Food challenge type burger that was on the back of a . . . a flat-bed truck. Random.

But then I've also encountered something between waking and sleep, sort of a watery, metallic, plasma-like in-between. I've tried to see if it was lucid dreaming, but I don't think it was. I wasn't consciously navigating through a dream state, I was more conscious without knowing that I was in a dream-like state. Sometimes it would happen naturally and I would think I was lying there awake, but then I'd come to full consciousness and I'd be pretty sure that hadn't been quite awake. In fact, I knew I had been dreaming.

Sometimes I can induce it by sort of "falling asleep" during lying meditation, which is lying strictly in a specific pose – flat on back, arms at sides, hands facing down, head facing straight up, legs also straight out – and then going through the same mental processes as in sitting meditation.

This is very hard to do and not fall asleep, so I mostly do it in order to fall asleep. You know, I have insomnia so I might as well make the most of it and get some lying meditation in, but in doing so I manage to put myself to sleep. I love tricking my stupid brain.

There is one significant "dream" during one of these semi-conscious episodes. I was in the water. Then I realized I was in the water just off a shoreline, so I was in the ocean. The perspective was that of a camera just on the surface, sometimes above, sometimes going under – a little more under than above.

Then I realized this was my long-time-coming attempt #2, and if I was in the water, then I had already taken the sleeping pills and downed the bottle of alcohol, and I should've been clinging to an inflatable ring. Yup, it's here, and it all seemed very right, and I remembered the alcohol effect would be immediate, but I had about 20 minutes before the sleeping pills had any effect. And I thought, "To not leave a body, swim out as far as possible", over and over.

When I came out of it, for a few moments it didn't feel like I had been dreaming. It felt like I really had been there in the water and there was a huge disconnect between finding myself there in the water and everything else that came before it.

There was a threshold that I haven't been able to cross. I've traveled to shorelines, I've gotten to shorelines, I've been in the water, I've inflated the ring and held the pills, but I couldn't get past the threshold where I would've been in the position in that state.

And that threshold is the hardest thing, because everything before it is my life, all the things to which I'm accustomed and attached. To. And the reason I've never been successful is that attachment, and succeeding would mean letting go of myself.

If I could just transport myself across that threshold into the water, everything would be great and fine. But the whole point is that I cross that threshold on my own accord, according to a realization of my own understanding. And the whole point is that my mind achieve that will and destiny to do what's necessary to cross that threshold.

Hmph, there's a reason this has been one of my favorite songs ever since I heard it decades ago:

I'm woven in a fantasy, I can't believe the things I see

The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall

And with each passing day, I feel a little more like something dear was lost

It rises now before me, a dark and silent barrier

Between all I am, and all that I would ever want to be

It's just a travesty

Towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit would erase

To pass beyond is what I seek, I fear that I may be too weak

And those are few who've seen it through to glimpse the other side

The promised land is waiting, like a maiden that is soon to be a bride

The moment is a masterpiece, the weight of indecision's in the air

Standing there, the symbol and the sum of all that's me

It's just a travesty

Towering, blocking out the light and blinding me

I want to see

Gold and diamonds cast a spell, it's not for me I know it well

The riches that I seek are waiting on the other side

There's more than I can measure in the treasures of the love that I can find

And though it's always been with me, I must tear down the wall and let it be

All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be in harmony

Shining true, and smiling back at all who wait to cross

There is no loss

- The Wall (Livgren/Walsh)

I fear that I may be too weak. But what then? And the answer to that gives me encouragement.

where I am (II: physical)

What the hell is wrong with my liver?! Nothing! That's what's wrong. How can there be nothing wrong with my liver? There must be something wrong with my liver. There was even a period not too long ago when I felt unusual lower back pains that may have indicated something was going wrong internally in that region, and if so, I knew exactly what it must be. But even that pain disappeared in due course.

I'm not bragging, I'm no Keith Moon, but come on, I drink a fifth of liquor every 2 friggin' days. Isn't that too much? And I've been drinking more or less like this nigh on 20 years.

But alas, I'm not counting on alcohol anymore to do my evil bidding in case I can't do so myself. I think I just have to accept it that I'm not genetically pre-disposed to die of liver failure or alcohol poisoning. Otherwise, maybe I'm too physically active/healthy from running and cycling and maybe mentally from mindfulness training.

It's possible. Physically, I could be much worse off than I am if I really wanted to, but for some reason I need to run or I need to ride. I need to test and push myself physically and that keeps me from becoming a blob sitting in front of a computer. Physically, at least. I by no means have six-pack abs, but I just don't like it when I feel a keg developing.

And mentally, I don't like losing control of my mental facilities. Even when I'm physically affected, I draw on internal energies, what I think are the basis of Qi Gong practices, to not let alcohol affect my mental state. My body knows when to stop and tells my mind it cannot take in anymore. Stop.

I may be an alcoholic by volume, but not by identity. Similar to depression, alcoholic is not part of my identity. It's also just a natural consequence of my circumstances, and this may be the strongest argument, through me, that me and my brothers were emotionally and mentally abused as children (via neglect).

I started drinking as soon as I got out of the house. As soon as I was in college, first year, I was asking older students to pick me up cases of wine when they went on alcohol runs.

Wine was fine for starters, all sorts of cheap Riunite if I recall correctly, but it got more difficult when I moved up to liquor, as you couldn't buy 80 proof liquor in Oberlin and a bunch of townships in that area of Ohio.

But once I got a car out there, I think after my sophomore year, I did find townships where they did. I think a town called LaGrange had a real liquor store and I went there on my own on my 21st birthday. 100 proof Yukon Jack, I remember. And 100 proof Southern Comfort. I got into 100 proofs at the time. 

So what other inexplicable ailments have I had through the years?

- Within blog history, I've had rampant hiccups which could last up to 70 hours. I'm sure there's a psychological basis to them, but I don't know what that is. I think they started in my senior year of college.

- I've always had some unexplained skin sensitivity that may or may not still exist. Actually, I'm pretty sure it does. If I scratch my skin, it will welt up, and if I feel itchy all over and start to scratch, it gets seriously hideous. No idea what that is.

- I thought insomnia was just a Taiwan thing, but as I read through past records, I was an insomniac in San Francisco, too. Yay, me.

- Tendinitis. A repetitive stress injury that goes with the territory if you play bass or drums like I did. But only when I was in a band and competing with other instruments. It was particularly bad on bass because I really dug in with my right hand for the tone I wanted, and even my left (fretting) hand I treated like it was a part of what came out of the amp, and not just establishing the pitch of note.

- In high school I had nosebleeds that didn't stop. I don't think there were any events in college or afterwards, but in high school if I got a nosebleed, it wasn't just a matter of putting my head back until it stopped. I was basically lying forward, draining myself into a cup or a bucket or a sink for unusually long periods of time. I don't think anyone knows about this.

- When I was a kid I was asthmatic. There was no reason why, no trigger. My brother was allergic to ragweed and got asthma and his was relatively mild, but mine had no identifiable trigger and I had severe episodes. I remember one time being home from school alone (parents didn't take a day off from work for a sick child), and I literally couldn't turn my head without losing my breath and wheezing for dear life.

I don't remember how my asthma was during high school, I know I didn't run winter track because exertion in cold weather definitely led to asthmatic wheezing, but I do recall asthma returning late in college to the extent that I kept an inhaler on my night stand because I regularly woke up with asthma. It wasn't as severe by then, and drugstore inhalers were enough to keep it in check.

I got rid of asthma after college. After college, I was leaving for Japan for an indeterminate time, and when I was packing, I was mulling over whether to take my inhalers or not. For some reason I thought I wouldn't be able to get inhalers in Japan after I ran out, so I decided to leave them. I never got asthma again.

Now? It's just age. I'm old now. I didn't realize it back then, but even when I was contemplating the suicide option earlier, there were still options because I was physically more capable because of my age. I mean I'm not keeling over, but let's face it, the older you get, the older you get.

And it's vanity when you hit 21 and you think you're getting old. It's vanity when you hit 30 and you think you're getting old. From my experience, when you hit 30, you're just hitting your stride and you're looking at the best years of your life.

My "best years" of my life are behind me. If I don't have a wife, a career, a family . . . well, there still are options, but not ones I'm socially genetically pre-disposed towards. It's values. With the values my family pushed, my life is over. If I wasn't trapped by my family values, then I could be Ernest Hemingway. I could be the renegade, the bohemian, and enjoy whatever life I can soak the very essence of life out of. And then I could commit suicide.

But I'm not that. I don't have this drive to live, to break out of my own borders to quench a thirst for life. Life is ... whatever. Life is. Life is a cycle. Any one lifetime is no big thing, not to be attached to.

My parents, people, whoever may react to my disappearance in whatever way they do. So friggin' what? I disappeared partly because of what they were or were not to me. And it, I didn't matter. Or else they wouldn't have played so perfectly in my purpose. It's not that I wasn't looking for options or alternatives. I just didn't care to find them on my own.

where I am (I: Isolation)

This is where I've landed my life. What I mentioned before as the result of decisions I've made, the experiences I've had and how I've processed them, the attitude with which I've lived my life, blah, blah, blah, naturally landed me where I am now.

I guess the biggest thing is the utter isolation, no friends, no loved ones, no family, no confidants, few acquaintances. I chase people away, I run away and hide myself. There is no one I consider a friend. I'm a notorious "unfriender" on Facebook. It hasn't always been this way.

Madoka's a mystery. Our relationship started losing steam actually quite a long while ago; towards the beginning of this blog it turns out. I always trusted that it was a momentary skid and it would recover to its former intimacy. It hasn't. It fell into years of no contact, then a recent re-kindling of contact, but no connection.

Then in response to her inquiry into what I described as my "next bold move" (cue Ani DiFranco), I told her what was up in as clear a way as possible without using the word "suicide" (I'll go into that soon and let you decide for yourself (whoops, nope, looks like that email got deleted)), and I got no reaction, no request for clarification, ignored.

Then she went silent again for the past several months, and I thought that was the end of that, but then she emailed recently and I just have no motivation to respond. It was a totally superficial email – hi, how are you? this is what I'm doing, this is what the next few weeks look like.

Sadie was my last friend in San Francisco. We fell out of touch for several years for some reason, then found each other again in email and Facebook contact, and then she told me she had Hepatitis C and might need a liver transplant. I responded with as much support and empathy as I could conjure, which apparently didn't impress and I never heard back from her. End.

Those were the last friendships that could be considered to have been anything. The people I know in Taiwan don't mean anything and are nothing. I can count 5 people right off who always say "Let's get together", but when it comes time to get together, nothing happens. All talk.

Edit: To be fair, an old French classmate who has returned to Taiwan is an exception, as is my old Mandarin teacher, with whom I've started to meet again for language exchange.

There's a ring of extended family who are useless to me and nothing. I'm polite to them, I get along with them, I even love my aunt and uncle, but I project nothing about anything underneath the politeness and formality.

The undercurrent in all this is that I have no more need for human relations. There's nothing anyone could do for me and I have nothing to ask of them. They show no interest in me, and I have no motivation to beg interest.

The idea of a romantic relationship is so gone out of my reality that I don't think of the people around me as romantic people, as people desiring and searching for romantic contact. It's simple fact that no one could possibly find anything attractive in me.

The most recent thing was Hyun Ae, and I read back what I wrote about her, and I'm willing to admit that I was in love with her. I did fall in love with her and enjoyed her presence and company like no one since perhaps Amina. But I would never have gotten into a relationship with her even if she reciprocated, and there were signs of possible reciprocation. But part of what I loved about her was her inaccessibility, and if she did become accessible, I would not have pursued that.

And here's the disclosure: I haven't gone out with anyone since Josephine. We broke up in November 1998. 12 years. More than an entire decade of my life. In my entire working history, in my entire band history, in the entire time most people have known me, I couldn't be associated romantically with someone else.

Can you even imagine that? It's not human to not be in a relationship for that length of time. That's not supposed to happen to a reasonably social being, which I was, without any major hangups or defects, which I was. At some point, someone to whom I send out signals should respond positively, or someone will send signals towards me to which I would respond.

This is not a drought. It's not natural and it's a personal fact. And karmically, it's one that I welcome. Romantic relationships are done. I don't even know what they are anymore and I hope that gets carried over karmically into my next life. No interest.

And where I am is no mistake, either. Isolated here in Taipei where no one has access to me. I run through scenarios in my mind of how things might unfold if I happened to disappear, and it could take months before it becomes clear that something's wrong.

My landlord would be the first to notice, and he would send out inquiries to my cousin, and she would ask her father, and he would ask my mother, but no one would have access to any information, no one would be able to do anything or get any concrete information and it would just get passed off for more weeks of people wondering, waiting to see if I turn up.

Months. You disappear and it's months before bells are ringing loud enough that anyone really tries to do anything or find out some actual information.

More later on where I am now. And where I've been.

Sitting at home in the dark. Nice weather outside the past two days, although chilly once the sun goes down. In my room, I have swapped out my floor fan for my space heater, but it hasn't gotten so uncomfortable that I've turned it on yet, just wearing more layers when it turns chilly. Nevertheless, entering the dark days of winter; but having reached them, don't care to make it through.

Disturbed sleep was disturbed this morning by an unexpected early morning phone call from my parents asking if I could meet them for lunch at 11:00 (this is a day after I woke up at 7 to meet them at 9), before they headed out of Taipei with their tour group in the afternoon. I thought we had parted ways yesterday and wouldn't see them again before they left to go back to the States on Wednesday. Maybe the last time I'd see them?

Nope, one more time. One last time? There's always gotta be a one last time, just we don't know when. It probably crosses my mind a little more often than most folk, just cause I'm nuts like this. It was a painless enough, even pleasant lunch and we parted ways again with awkward half hugs. What if it was the last time? No smarm. Not a touching, tear-jerking scene. Just "bye".

I took my time going home. Stopped off at a music store in the MRT station since I rode my bike to the nearest MRT station and took the subway to meet the parents. I bought the latest Namie Amuro live DVD.

I don't understand how I've gotten into some pop music since coming to Taiwan. No Taiwanese pop, I still hate Western pop. The only J-pop act I like is Namie Amuro, but I've liked individual songs by other pop singers. And the rash of K-pop girl groups I've gotten rabidly into is still totally inexplicable.

I insist it's because the basic songs are very good, and that's what I'm listening for, but for some reason I'm not repulsed by the pop sheen, which is usually the case. I sure hope it's not a middle-age man crisis and subconsciously lusting after girls half my age. After all, I'm not getting into boy bands. That would be ... odd. Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that's not it, it's gross, it was gross in "American Beauty".

And I still can't stand even the girl groups in Taiwanese and J-pop, so it is something specific about the K-pop writers and producers that's doing it for me. Maybe it's fate, and even though nothing about Korean culture has resonated with me in the past, this is part of a transformation, preparing me for what I'm expecting will be a re-birth in South Korea. What? Who? Where?

But I took my time going home. I even got off the MRT a stop before where my bike was locked. I even had my camera and snapped a few frames for the first time since travels two months ago...

...sleep deprived, I don't remember a whole lot after I got home, but likely much of the next 18 or more hours had something to do with my bed. Having no reason to get out of it probably a contributing factor. The cold also a factor.

From Nat'l Taiwan University Hospital guesthouse where my parents have been staying. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super, last roll of film photography.

Vacant city block south of The Living Mall and Civic Blvd. The smokestack is from the old tobacco factory, I think.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 8:47 p.m. - Walking home from the library.

I'm trying to ignore that as I was drowning in sleep just days ago, my sleep has become an angry ocean of unpredictability and drowning in sleep is mashing up against bouts of inexplicable insomnia now, leading to inevitable bouts of fatigue and ennui.

And maybe drowning in sleep, which ironically may be contributing to or causing the insomnia, isn't quite that bad to the extent that I'm preferring many days to just lie in bed listening to music instead of getting up and, you know, doing something. Anything.

It's depressive behavior, I know, and only one of many clear signs of clinical depression, if there were anyone to see the signs. However, I still deny that I'm a depressed person. Depression is not a part of my identity, it doesn't identify me.

These signs of depression, this depressive behavior is the natural consequences of how I've lived my life, the decisions I've made, the directions I've taken, and the experiences I've had. Just about anyone who would have lived my life would be clinically depressed, so no surprises there.

And a quick internet self-diagnosis: Loss of interest in daily activities, check; persistent sadness or feeling of emptiness, qualifiable but for this purpose, check; sleep disturbances, check, check, big, black, and bouncing friggin' check; significant weight loss or gain, nope; loss of concentration, a qualfiable nope; fatigue, qualifiable nope; suicidal thoughts or behavior, I'll give that a qualifiable check.

And this is not at all mentioning the fact that if I went to a therapist and expressed any sort of suicidal thoughts, I'd get a big "depressed" stamp on my forehead, pro forma. But I don't think that's accurate. I could go to a therapist and be declared depressed and put on a regimen of anti-depressants, it's all the same to me.

And the difference is between what is natural and obvious in the material, normative world and the way I am and interpret things. On one hand, my parents have all the reason in the world to be "concerned" and if and when I do commit suicide, it will all be evident and make sense to all.

But if that's the whole story on my suicide, that really would be pitiful and should be disregarded. Not that my suicide shouldn't be disregarded by others, but it shouldn't be disregarded by me. For me it's part of my journey, it's a huge step, it's my exploration and my faith. Like when Indiana Jones takes that big leap of faith in the 3rd movie.

This depressive behavior is separate from my identity and I go through the motions of depressive behavior, but it's only the natural consequences of a set of causes and conditions of this life lived, whoever lived or lives this life. These causes and conditions may seem to outline the arc of my life story, but they don't define who I am on a basic level.

On a basic level, as a human being, I'm a spiritual being on a journey. And on a spiritual journey, it's not worth it to be depressed. The journey is full of wonder and discovery. And not in a "good" way, just a descriptive way. It's not worth it to not be "happy", it's not worth it to be bogged down by the things by which people get bogged down.

I really hope I'm close to the end of my life, and I'm finding reasons to not mind extending things into January, same old story, but I'm still confident that this is the end game. I'm not looking for something to take off or miraculously enter my life to give it meaning or change anything to make me "want to live". Jai guru deva om. Nothing's gonna change my world, and that's perfectly fine with me.

Mother (South Korea, 2009)
Rating: 8.5 out of 10 fresh tomatoes

This is a great suspense/murder mystery directed by Bong Joon-Ho, who also did The Host (Korean: "Monster") several years ago. "The Host" was a hit in South Korea, and to me it was notable because it was a monster movie, but it showed a lot of intelligence and depth of emotion in the plot and characters.

This story is about a mother and her mentally challenged son. When a local teenage girl is found murdered, he becomes the prime suspect based on circumstantial evidence and is arrested. Convinced that her son is incapable of committing such a crime, his mother sets out to find the real killer.

Bong Joon-Ho is masterful in setting up plot points and manipulating information and doling it out to the viewer. He doesn't make it easy to figure the mystery out, and his pacing and progression deeper and deeper into the different layers of the film is really intelligent and thought out.

The irony is when the mystery is revealed, it's in the most simple, straight-forward way possible from a technical storytelling perspective. It's almost unsatisfying, but there are more layers to the film than solving the mystery that adds to the emotion and creepiness. It's a film I want to gush about to people who've seen it – the parallels, the reprises, the opening scene! – but don't want to give anything away to anyone who hasn't seen it, and I'm sure other people would point things out that would amaze me that I didn't notice.

Perhaps at the heart of this film is the title – mother. What mothers wouldn't do for their child, but they end up fucking them up anyway. Mothers are controversial characters in works of art and expression throughout the ages.

Even my own mother fucked her children up in so many ways, but do any of us think she was trying to? That she was a bad mother? No! Fucking up your children is part of the territory when it comes to motherhood. As a mother, you can do no right, but you will still always be the most important person in a child's life. (I don't think my mother was a bad mother, I think of my parents as bad parents – it was a team effort).

This film may not make you want to appreciate your mother more, it may not make you want you to be a little more forgiving or understanding. But if you're in a position of contemplating becoming a mother, you may want to think twice. This is a great piece of film, definitely worth seeing.

I was drowning, so to speak, back there for a few days. My ideal time to go to sleep to get a full rest – and at this point a guarantee against insomnia – is about 5 in the morning. If I go to sleep at or around 5 in the morning, I'll get a full 8, 9, 10 hours of sleep. 10 hours of sleep!? Who, aside from one of my exes, needs 10 hours of sleep?!!

Drowning in sleep, unable to get up and out of bed and stay out. Waking up in mid-afternoon means no day left. All there is left is killing the evening, hopefully getting out for something to eat at some point, then sitting in front of the computer surfing YouTube videos, and I can do that for hours into the wee hours of morning you have no idea.

Well, if you're reading me, you likely do. I'm wasting what little of my life is left. Par for the course. Story of my life. If I had a lot of my life left, I'm sure I'd find a way to waste that, too.

Last night I forced myself off the computer, lights out, CD player on timer for 30 minutes at just past 3 o'clock. I did hear the CD player shut off, but I did fall asleep soon after and woke up just past 9, a good and godly reasonable time to wake up. Drifted a little but then came to still in the 9 o'clock hour – which is unlike when I'm drowning, where I may wake and look at the clock at 10:30, "drift a little" and then look at the clock again at 11:45. Then do it again and it's 1:35. Etc.

I guess nothing's gonna make what I'm once again projecting to be the last days of my life not a waste of time. That's not the point, though. Ending this life, going through that door is the point.

Morning sitting, or post-waking-up sitting rather, has largely been dedicated to that point. Schluffing off my immortality – this uncanny ability I have to selfishly stay alive while being or doing nothing of value to anyone – while trying not to be cavalier about my mortality.

It's also been a protracted effort into getting into that meditative state. A mental place. I read a while back about some scientists taking brain readings of Tibetan monks going into meditation, and there were discernible changes in the monks' brain activity. When I sit, I'm a little wishy-washy about what I think of it.

Most of the time thoughts and words wander and scatter and there's always some mental activity going on, I don't know if I'd call it a "meditative state", but I also do think that if you engage in this practice of sitting on a cushion for 45 minutes with one or both legs thrown across each other, you do go into a meditative state.

It's very difficult to do that otherwise, it's too boring. I don't think I could just sit in a chair without getting into the position, and do nothing for 45 minutes. So this sitting is not just doing nothing.

And lately I've been pushing the boundary even more, trying to find something like that meditative state that Tibetan monks go into, just in case the meditative state I do go into is not enough. In my mental imaging, it's a physical space, black-on-black. Outside of it it's all black, the boundary is black, and inside of it is black. And only breathing can take me through the portal through the boundary.

But I don't know if I'm succeeding, and I don't want to take credit for succeeding and feeling all proud of myself for reaching this state when I'm not, so the boundary is black velvet, and I'm going through the portal, but the black velvet is still a barrier there. It should disappear naturally without me knowing it if I'm doing this right. Until then, it's just a practice, and there's no goal involved.

After getting through that long stretch of bad weather just fine, I was hoping I was over my S.A.D. I didn't even count how long we had bad weather, which is what I started to do during my first two years in Taiwan. I had a little daily weather diary so I had evidence to point to of how bad Taipei's weather was.

But Taipei is not Seattle, it's not the norm. I'm guessing it only happens during La Niña years. I can live with that. I did live with that in San Francisco, but it was El Niño over there that brought the bad winters.

But after this stretch of rain and gloom, we had off-and-on days, enough good weather that I've taken my bike out several times. Not to go on extended rides, but just to sprint through a 20-mile course along the riverside bikeways near my home. Just to maintain, likely in vain, some modicum of fitness.

Then today, it was *boom* gloom and doom day. S.A.D., that tightening, gripping feeling around the base of my neck. Probably no small factor for this reaction was that I agreed to fill in a shift at the newspaper today. It's true. It probably wouldn't have been bad if I could just huddle under the covers all day with my "huggie" pillow listening to music, the only thing that brings me solace these days. Am I the picture of depressive or what?

Eva didn't ask me if I could work any shifts next week, so that's a good sign that I won't have to go through the pre-work, social-phobic anxiety like today. I'm fine once I get into a situation. I'm fine once I sober up and can stop wondering if people can smell alcohol. But prior to it, I'm a mess. Well, my version of a mess, which I think looks pretty much the same as I always am.

And I have to meet up with my Mandarin teacher tomorrow for the first time since spring for language exchange. My language study is effectively on hold, but she needs to keep working on English because she's applying for some academic program and needs to improve her English.

And it looked like I was going to meet up with Alex and Ginny for the first time in months, since I lashed out at them for not being real friends. And they aren't. They're acquaintances who call me every few months to come out for drinks and all we do is sit around drinking beer awkwardly asking superficial questions to figure out what each other has been doing for the past several months when there has been no contact.

It got boring, and they have to prove they really want to be friends or else I can't be bothered. Oh, and Alex had pushed our acquaintanceship by asking a huge favor which should only be asked of someone you treat like a real friend. It was rude. That's why I lashed out and dissed her for a while. I unfriended Ginny on Facebook but then she re-requested being friends. When I unfriend someone and they ask to be friended again, they have complete immunity and I won't ever unfriend them again. Just one of my nutty rules for myself. 

I think I'd rather just stay in bed all day.

This is it. It better be it. December 2010. The finish line. I entertain the idea of pushing the date a month further into January 2011 in order to create the greatest amount of time between the fact and the realization by people that something's not right.

I can't believe I've even gotten here from the August attempt. There was that mourning period of failure, then the Tibet trip announcement, then the Tibet trip. Then the parents' visit, and the Taiwan east coast trip to mitigate waiting for the parents' visit, and now waiting for the parents' December visit.

The wait is hard, the day-by-day is hard. I seriously think if not for this waiting, I would have made a second attempt already. Maybe even today. That would have been good. The "something's wrong" for other people, insignificant people, really, would be my "something's right".

The day-by-day hard is twisting my head around the lovely thought of ending my life and the explosion of loving life and all the little things that make life on this planet such a unique and wonderful thing.

And my parents continue to ruin it by calling more frequently since that fortune teller told them something was seriously wrong. Their inane phonecalls. While they were here expressing concern, I tried to tell them flat out that even if there was something wrong, they shouldn't worry about it because they were not the people who could do anything about it. They are unqualified to do anything positive in my life. They are disqualified.

The worst thing they could do is think they can have a positive effect, but as delusional as they are, as parents, they think they know it all, they think they know me, they think they can help. They don't and they can't.

Not long ago they kept ending phone calls with "...as long as you are happy", after which I noted they never asked if I was happy. And since then, they have, but they are not people I'm going to ruminate about happiness because they have no idea what happiness is. What they think is happiness is actually, to me, suffering in the profoundest sense.

Saying that, it also occurs to me that they have spent most of my life unintentionally making me unhappy, in effect guaranteeing that I would be unhappy. When I wanted to find a job during summer vacation while in high school, they said "Don't work, study". Thus robbing me of real life experience to engage in the world. Did I study by not working? No.

When I started getting into music as a teenager, they said, "If you want to do music, that's fine, but you have to be like Michael Jackson".

And then when I explored the monastic path, they said, "If you want to be a monk, that's fine, but you have to be like the Dalai Lama" (this didn't have any real effect on me because I was an adult and I could see their idiocy for what it was. I just mention it to point out their adherence to idiocy).

But when it came to law school, they said, "It doesn't matter if you go to the worst law school or get the lowest grades, just go to law school".

And law school is always a reminder that after college I went to Japan to try to find my way, and they stymied that to the best of their ability. There are so many things that if they hadn't done, I would be what they want me to be now, which is "happy".

They were rotten parents. It was unintentional, but all they had to do was look a little deeper into life than making money. They still don't. And I may still sound bitter about them. But there was that unilateral truce that I declared in August 1996, and I abide by it. But to some extent, when there's no closure, you have North and South Korea, you have an armistice, you have a cease-fire, but you don't have a peace treaty.

Their inane phonecalls now only serve to infuriate me to some extent. But actually they just bore me. They bore me by their sheer lack of knowledge of me, they bore me by their futile attempts to "help". They bore me because the obvious is right in front of their faces and still choose to ignore it.

I dig deep for compassion for them. I don't have to dig deep to believe my suicide will be good for them. To me, that's obvious, easy; and a terrible reason for suicide, but fortunately, it's not my reason. My reason is my own path, not theirs. If they can take something good out of it, good, fine, I'm glad. If they don't, c'est la vie. I didn't expect them to with their mundane, normative way of living this extraordinary life. But I hope.

I twist my head around the lovely things in life, the things that I'm currently loving. But even in that regard, I'm just an observer. Life is still just a spectator sport, and I don't need to be here for all the wonderfulness to go on, even with the negativity, the haters and the shit.

Nodame Cantabile: The Movie, Part 2 (Japan, 2010)

I'm really surprised and happy the DVD for part 2 of this movie came out so quickly after part 1, which was the last movie I rented and commented on.

To recap, the Nodame Cantabile story began as a Japanese manga and through its popularity was expanded into anime and live-action series. These movies are supposed to serve as the finale for the live-action series, but an effort is made for them to be a stand alone story without previous knowledge of the TV series plotline.

It helps that I saw part 1 so recently, and I gave that film a low fresh rating, but maybe it's because of that momentum that I really enjoyed this film. I thought this film stands on the shoulders of part 1, which introduced the style and quirks of the presentation, and surpasses it.

The first film establishes the setting and the characters, and as I mentioned in my comments about that film, was mostly Chiaki's story, and predicted this film would more address Nodame's journey after her experience in the first film. And it does just that, still tracing her ups and downs with both music and her relationship with Chiaki.

The film is lively and fun, but also has drama and depth and sweetness. Actress Juri Ueno in the title role is phenomenal and the director doesn't hold back on close-ups of her, taking advantage of her incredible range of expressions and emotions that she can morph in a matter of seconds. She's so good that she can even express hiding her emotions, where you see her face and have no idea what she's thinking or feeling.

The director draws on what must be shots and clips from the TV series to give a sense of the depth of the relationship between the people, especially Chiaki and Nodame.

And this is a movie about classical musicians and of course you have to have classical music performance sections, but to not alienate non-fans of classical music, historical background, interpretation and insight of the pieces are narrated over the performance sections. I'm no aficionado of classical music, but I listen to it, have a lot of it on my iPod, and found the information very helpful in my appreciation for classical music.

I have to take back what I said about the first film, whereby Japanese actors play European characters. In fact, the actors are caricaturing Europeans, and I dare say making fun of them. It took a while, but it did finally dawn on me. The character of the maestro is particularly interesting because the actor makes his Japanese sound like a foreigner with inflections in all the wrong exaggerated places. Perhaps a response to all of Hollywood's "Ah-sooooo, numba won son". Fuck Hollywood.

It's not a perfect film, it can't be. Obviously something is missing if you haven't followed the TV series, and all the threads can't be tied up, even in a 4-hour finale. There are references that are meaningful to a prior fan, but are just random to a fresh viewer.

And the mystery student upstairs is so thoroughly unnecessary that I'm not giving anything away by mentioning that character. I can imagine an audience that would find this film thoroughly annoying, but I thoroughly enjoyed and give it a fresh 8.5 out of 10 tomatoes.

Loosening things up ... this blog doesn't all have to be gloom and doom. Blog what I want. I don't want to attract any traffic here, which I know is a contradiction because, well, it's a fucking blog! I have a public blog on the internet to which I don't want people to come!

That's actually exactly right. I live in a thin, limbo space where I want to get things out, but I don't necessarily want them received.

I've been blog-surfing masochistically, finding myself on countless mind-numbing family blogs about Christians, kids and cooking, while also realizing the inordinate amount of incomparably boring running blogs on the web that make me want to put my fist through my laptop screen.

My blog isn't a running blog or a cycling blog, it's not a "theme" blog, but I run and ride, and I'll blog about runs and rides, knowing full well the subject matter might be incomparably boring to some.

One blog I found on its most recent pages looked like a running blog, detailing achievement and progress, but at first blush there were also posts that were frank, funny, and crude – instantly promising. I also found his running posts interesting, which gave me hope that maybe my running/cycling posts aren't total snoozers.

And ... I'm faster than him, hehe. At least over 3 miles, up to which we're comparable. Until I stopped running in May because of shin splints, I was pretty sure I could do a 10k at around 7:30 miles, or 45 minutes.

But reading back through his blog, he started it with a different and hilarious premise. It started with family memories based on quotes he and his two brothers remembered their father saying when they were growing up. Their father was no prince of the punks, either. He sounded like a foul-mouthed beer-swilling redneck Texas hick, but raised 3 incredibly sensible, observant and intelligent sons.

As he himself mentions, people seemed more interested in the back stories of the quotes, or his version of the back stories, than his own treatment of them, inserting them into Peanuts comics. And his brothers also offer their takes on his stories in the comments.

I guess the attraction for me is that I think it would be interesting to do that with my brothers. Or not. Because my parents weren't colorful characters, and many memories of growing up that we might have to share couldn't be spun in a humorous manner.

There wasn't anything between us and our parents, like "Don't get yerself killed, boy", that could later be interpreted as the best form of affectionate expression one's father could give. My father taught me to play pool, parallel park, and how to quickly memorize the 9s on the multiplication table. That's it.

And with me and my brothers, it would never be the three of us. I'll discuss the other brother with one of them, but that's it, and mostly to give some other third person a picture of what our upbringing was like, and rarely is there any hilarity involved.

That's also to be buffered by my oldest brother having turned out to be very good-natured, kind, conscientious and likable, and my older brother to previously have been the funniest among us. He could always find the funniest aspect of a story or find a funny way to express it. Not now so much, as he's become boring and complacent in normative family life, but he was naturally funny and that doesn't go away.

In the end, that's it for me. The stories we have, the stories we tell, our memories. Those are the blogs I'm looking for.

I just finished my second shift at work since leaving the newspaper in January. I went back for the first time last Tuesday after Eva – who through a bunch of circumstances over the past 10 months is pretty much the boss on the news floor now – explained to me that one of the full-time copy-editors just up and left one day. It sounded like an emergency.

Eva, mind you, is sick of this shit and recently handed in her resignation for the 3rd time this year, and after hearing that the response to it this time was, "Eva's stressed again, give her a few days off", she explained to them it was real this time and gave them her end date. The paper's management are still idiots.

But unlike my life over the past 10 months, a lot has changed at the Post. They actually found competent copy editors, who if they had found a year ago, I wouldn't have quit. Back then, I had one part-timer trying out who had to say to me, "I'm not stupid". If you have to tell me you're not stupid . . . you obviously haven't convinced me otherwise.

I'm being mean, I don't think she was necessarily stupid, she was just British. Just kidding. And I don't think I necessarily treated her like I thought she was stupid, but rushing to get out a newspaper every night, I wasn't in a position to give her a chance nor to communicate that I acknowledged she was not stupid. She was a stop-gap measure who did just enough work for me not to walk out myself.

She was eventually fired after I left.

The other person was clueless about time and deadlines, and he wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. A nice enough bloke in Taiwan with his China doll, the usual stereotype, which is why he was there in the first place, but in the end he got fired, too.

He was also British, mind you, and they are pains in the ass for other reasons. The Post follows AP style and I always imagine these Brits seeing a British spelled word underlined in red by spell check and going, "that's not misspelled!" and ignoring it.

Actually, one of the current copy editors who is very good and professional and impressed me greatly when I worked with him last week is from Scotland, but his only fault is that I don't think he even knows what words are spelled differently between English and American. He had to ask about 'apologize', and I saw that 'defence' went to print this past week. Small fault, really. Definitely excusable. Unless he persists. 

However, I still don't want to go back to work. Still no reason to. Still have to get through my parents' visit in December, then attempt #2, and failing at that, then we'll see where I am.

I actually didn't even want to go in today. I contacted Eva yesterday ostensibly to confirm today (also to let her know I remembered so she wouldn't have to worry about that since she was off today), hoping she'd tell me they'd found a new hire and I didn't have to come in if I didn't want to. No such luck, and she got me to agree to at least one other shift later in the week.

Getting from day-to-day is hard. Moments are hard. Work is actually easy. The day ahead of a work shift is dread.

When I started blogging, it was so easy to find people who wrote about their lives and ideas and thoughts. They expressed themselves and found a voice in themselves. But apparently it's gotten too risky to do that, basically putting your diary online. But those blogs were also life stories people were writing. At least slices of life stories. It's telling that despite being interesting, that was too risky. But that's also why teenage girls' diaries had locks on them.

Now people just post family or trip pictures or family trip pictures and boring safe stuff to share only with close friends and family – the only people who might (barely) care about the most boring, superficial aspect of their lives.

Now the internet is full of "how to" blogs and theme blogs and the only time blogs are mentioned in media or conversation is when referring to the handful of "professional bloggers" – political commentators, mostly.

That's one reason I've kept this a heart-on-sleeve personal blog – just because everyone else has run away from doing this sort of thing. But everyone has to do their own risk assessment, and my risk is very low. Even people who've known me in the past who inadvertently find this get too freaked out to stay.

For some time now, this has been a pretty internal, navel-gazing blog. I do think that can be attributed to the loss of having a "community" of bloggers, just people doing the same thing that served as an inspiration. There's an analogy to life somewhere in here, I just know it.

I am waiting. I've decided. But I'm waiting for a reason. And while I'm waiting for my parents' December visit to Taiwan to come and go, I continue to ask myself what I would do if their visit wasn't forthcoming and there were no advantages to waiting.

In that case, I would be on a day-to-day basis as before, and I can't say that a second attempt wouldn't have already occurred. And I dare say that I couldn't anticipate lasting as long as until the time period of their visit. All conditions being what they are, the wait approaches excruciating levels.

There's still a little bit of element of my previous paradigm, which is that no matter what I'm planning, if I'm not doing it right now, I'm not going to do it. Putting suicide in the future is always a pattern of perpetual deferment. But it's less so this time; I'm being kinder to myself and not so cynical.

I'm certain another attempt is necessary at this time, and living a little while longer is not putting any doubt upon that necessity. And therefore there's nothing wrong with living a little while longer.

Weather has been horrible in Taipei, but it hasn't been getting to me like it has before. My first 2 years in Taipei it got to me because I thought that was the norm. But then for the following 2 years, the weather was . . . fine.

I hear it has something to do with La Niña patterns, and this year is a La Niña year, which is the reason for the near-constant drear with the few and far between appearances by the sun coming for mere hours at a stretch. Or a walk at night admiring the days-past-full moon and seeing Orion to remind me it's almost winter, and then hearing it pouring rain by the time I go to bed.

No, it's just not bothering me this time. In fact, if I wake up and there's not the slightest hint that the sky won't open up in short time, I'm perfectly happy just staying in bed. I'm pretty sure I'm clinically depressed, but this sort of terminology or definition doesn't mean anything to someone like me anymore. Years ago, that would be my way of saying it's bad, very, very bad. Now my meaning is that I'm way beyond it. In my world, I'm not depressed at all.

Tibet trip done and documented with nearly every damn detail; the two weeks waiting between the end of the Tibet trip and my parents' arrival was eased when my aunt called asking me to take her place on a bus tour of Taiwan's east coast with my uncle. She recently had surgery on her foot and couldn't go.

I agreed only because I wasn't thinking. Well, I was thinking that I had been thinking of going on a solo trip down the east coast, and that even though this was another package tour with a fixed schedule, the kind made for older folk and people who are lazy about traveling, it would at least give me the opportunity to scope things out and see where I could go on a solo excursion.

Where I wasn't thinking was that I had gone on one of these tour bus packages before with my aunt a couple of years ago (taking the place of my uncle that time who couldn't go), and I think I must have thought afterwards, "Never again".

Again.

I don't know if I had written about the previous bus tour in central Taiwan, but if I did, I wish I had re-read that entry before going on this tour, which was only 3 days, which didn't seem like a lot compared to 10 days in Tibet.

If I had to do the ordeal of 10 days in Tibet over again or the 3 days on the east coast of Taiwan, I would easily choose the 10 days in Tibet again. At least on that trip, everyone left me alone and I could listen to my iPod in peace.

Tour bus package in Taiwan means on-board karaoke, so there was no retreating to the comfort of my iPod as karaoke volumes are preventive. And there was my clueless, nagging uncle, who thinking I was bored or lonely tried to get other people, who knew as little English as he does, if that's possible, to talk to me.

I always try to be at least polite, but I had no problem being rude to these people and blowing them off, as I knew their efforts were coerced and artifice, and ultimately patronizing. I have no more patience for small talk with older people who don't speak English and mean nothing to me.

After those three days, we got back to Kaohsiung, and despite my uncle telling my aunt that I wasn't happy, I told her the trip was pretty cool, because I love my aunt and I didn't want her to feel bad if I had a bad experience, and she'll believe me before she believes her doofus husband. I did insist, however, on leaving immediately to return to Taipei, which I had determined on the trip because I just had to get away.

Then my parents visited the following week, also a bit of a disaster. But that was, at least, expected.

OK, it wasn't a disaster. It just wasn't anything.

What I didn't expect was that they had gotten a reference for a fortune teller in Taipei and I helped them go to him because, well, I didn't care, whatever they wanted to do, I'd help them. But they ended up getting my fortune told and I guess the guy actually did me a favor by putting them on notice, indicating that something was seriously wrong.

Now, I don't have a firm stance on fortune tellers. This blog started with an impromptu street fortune telling. I don't discount them in a wholesale way, but I'm highly suspicious of them. I do think there is some sort of science about what many of these people do, but I also think there are some people who really do have insight into the workings of things that aren't apparent.

Apparently this guy was totally accurate about me, but mind you everything was in Taiwanese, I didn't hear anything directly from him, but only through the filter of my parents, who don't know me nearly as much as they think they do – they're delusional like that, they also think their English is better than it is, so that's another filter.

However, among all the "accurate" things he said, I didn't hear that he said anything about alcohol, and that's a big strike against him. Even my chiropractor in San Francisco, who was certified in Chinese holistic practices, tactfully told me to avoid alcohol, which is a polite way of saying I drink too much. Someone supposedly clairvoyant and able to pick up all these details about me should be able to figure out what a major part of my life alcohol is.

Anyway, he conveniently put my parents on notice that something's wrong, so when something does go wrong, they'll be able to go back to what this fortune teller said and feel some sort of affirmation. It will, I'm pretty sure, make them feel better because in their world it would at least make sense. It won't be a complete surprise that they can't figure out. The fortune teller said so.

They didn't listen to me when I was asking for help for my sleeping problems two years ago (I never ask anyone in my family for help, that's how bad it was). It's in remission now, but because the fortune teller pointed it out, suddenly I have to go see a doctor, I have to go to therapy to deal with the sleeping problem, because a sleeping problem is such a big problem. I'm being sarcastic, yo.

My parents are coming again in December and I can probably make it that long I shouldn't wonder. Another attempt is still definite, though. These days are getting harder and harder in the moments, but I'm working on happiness meditations and stabilizing my mindset into positive or neutral spaces.

Reminding myself of the value of nothing whatsoever should be clung to, and that I don't believe in the substance of physical reality as it is. All things by nature are conditional and impermanent. And the value of my life, although great, has run its course as far as I can discern. And it's my discernment that is important, no one else's.

First frames of the last roll of black & white film photography. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2 - Xindian River bikeway near Gongguan approaching twilight on an overcast day.

11:04 a.m. - altar

Nodame Cantabile - The Movie (I) (Japan, 2009)
Rating: Fresh 7 out of 10 tomatoes

I don't think someone like me was intended to be the target audience for this film, but the filmmaker took care to not leave me out. The film is based on a popular manga (Japanese comic book), serialized in a magazine, that was turned into both an anime and a live-action TV series, and this film, I gather, is the first of two films making up the finale for the TV series.

However, the creators of the film apparently did make an effort to try to make this a stand-alone piece, not requiring knowledge of previous events in the series or the anime or the manga. As such, it was pretty successful. The characters are introduced and the situation and background are set, and although my appreciation level was likely much different from a long-term fan, I needed no prior knowledge to understand what was going on.

The story is a light drama about two classical music students in Paris. Chiaki had come to prepare for a conductor's competition which begins the film, and the titular Nodame is studying piano at the Paris Conservatory.

Although Chiaki wins the competition, he is passed over as the new conductor for that orchestra, but is offered a position with another orchestra whose glory days have long passed. He doesn't know the orchestra is in decline, but accepts once he hears his mentor once conducted the orchestra.

Nodame is as delusional, as Chiaki puts it, as Chiaki is bone-dry serious. She's flighty and quirky and pretends to be Chiaki's wife and dreams of the day when she will rise to the same level as Chiaki and they will perform together.

Nodame is the life of the film. She's fun, big smiles, endearing, gets stepped on, gets angry, and with the madcap cast of surrounding characters, makes the film reasonably entertaining. But Chiaki's story is the main focus in this film, and I assume Nodame will become more of the focus in the second film.

The filmmaker draws attention to the fact that it was based on a manga by including quirky elements, possibly distracting, that may have been used to convey emotions and feelings on paper, but which are not necessary in live-action media. The filmmaker humorously keeps them in and makes those expressions live-action, and anyone familiar with manga would recognize the pedigree.

Also adding to the quirkiness is that the main European characters are played by Japanese actors and actresses, and are indicated as Europeans by wearing white-people-hair wigs – mostly blonde, but in some cases from the style.

Personally I found that a bit vindicating for Asians after decades of being degraded by Hollywood casting white actors as Asian characters. The portrayals here, however, are not the least bit humiliating to Europeans as what Hollywood did. Although the Japanese actors don't change their behavior or mannerisms to mimic Europeans. They still all seem pretty Japanese. All the white actors and actresses parts are dubbed into Japanese.

The film also spends time at the end setting up the second film, establishing a tension between Chiaki and Nodame, with Chiaki's triumph becoming Nodame's soul-crushing revelation, and introducing a host of new characters and cleverly tying them into the events in this film. It may become a mess in the second film, considering how many subplots are suggested, but it was likely necessary because they are probably characters in the TV series whose stories need to be resolved. If so, I appreciate the attention the filmmaker put in to avoid just dropping the new (old) characters in the second film.

I think I will look out for the second film. I saw another Japanese film earlier that was based on a manga which was the first of three (!) films, and I just never found it compelling to rent the other 2 films when they came out, even though I gave the first film a fresh rating. Hm, maybe I should check out those films.

Taipei Exchanges 第36個故事 (2010, Taiwan)
Rating: Fresh 7.5 out of 10 tomatoes.

This is a concept-driven film about the meaning and value we place on various elements in our lives, tangible and intangible, such as clutter, stuff, jobs, skills, aspirations, dreams, stories, experiences and memories. What is important? What has meaning? What has exchange value?

I was able to appreciate the film once I locked onto the concept. The film has several vox pop sections where ordinary Taipei citizens are asked philosophical questions about meaning and value about various things brought up in the film (I'm actually pretty sure I passed by one of the vox pop filming sites on a pedestrian walkway in Xinyi District a while ago because I remember making a mental note of it).

Another device used several times is when the mother character is talking to her 2 daughters and asking hypothetical questions while trying to make a point, and then a 3rd person worker (foot massager, hairdresser, shaved ice vendor, taxi driver) mistakenly answers, thinking the question was aimed at them, implying the questions are meant in general and for the viewer to think about.

The film doesn't really have a plot, it's about 2 sisters who start up a coffeeshop in Taipei (my neighborhood, actually, I'm pretty sure I found the actual coffeeshop), and after they get an influx of junk from their friends after they invite them to come for the grand opening and to "bring a gift", they start telling customers the stuff in the coffeeshop is available for exchange for something else. Thus the concept of what has value is probed.

Much of the film is in flashback, also well-done since that's a pet peeve of mine after one film did it really poorly and made me feel stupid for not catching it.

My problem with the film is that individual scenes just weren't that compelling. At 82 minutes short, I should've had no problem viewing it straight through, but I found myself getting distracted, and actually during the first viewing, I shut it off to do something else and didn't come back to it for a few days.

It's possible that the film is one that will grow on me. It was produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien whose films blow me away. He's one of my favorite filmmakers. His films are definitely non-mainstream and are almost meditations. So it may be that his influence and aesthetic is strongly imbued in this film, but not being a Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, it may take longer to sink in.

The flashback is bookended by the arrival and stay of American "sofa-surfers" at the coffeeshop. The sofa-surfer, or couch-surfer, website is a real social networking site which allows people to find people who are willing to offer their sofas for travelers to save on lodging expenses while traveling. It also ties into the concept of value and exchanges.

The Chinese title of the film is "The 36th Story", and the significance is that when the film returns from the flashback, where the 35 stories are explained, the final scenes are the springboard for the 36th story. And what are our lives if not stories? And if our lives aren't stories, what value do they have? And if the future isn't a story, is it worth living?

Dajia riverside park, Taipei. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Keelung riverside bikeway, Nangang District.

Taiwan east coast

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13 - Kaohsiung. Uncle's rooftop before departure on a group bus tour. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Unknown locations on the drive from Kaohsiung to the east coast.