January 23-30

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 3:18 p.m. - Fort Lee, NJ. To go to New York, I drive the mile or two to Fort Lee, park near my parents' clinic, walk about a quarter mile to the George Washington Bridge bus stop, take the bus across the Hudson for a little more than a buck, and then Take the "A" Train from 175th Station to points south in Manhattan.

5:03-5:07 p.m. - Window shopping, the Village, NYC.

5:14 p.m.

5:41 p.m. - Washington Square Park and waxing gibbous moon (it waxes on the wight and wanes on the weft). Mawwaige. . . 

10:51 p.m. - NYC subway station.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1:09 p.m. - South Street Seaport.

1:19 p.m.

1:39 p.m. - What Kim Jong-il wants, Kim Jong-il gets.

1:40 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 1:13 p.m. - I just wanted to say that I've seen West Side Story on Broadway. This was the revival with Sondheim-approved Spanish lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

1:49 p.m. - Inside a Broadway theater. Sneak shooting since cameras out inside the theater is considered bad form.

JANUARY 30, 4:27 p.m. - Philadelphia, PA. My brother always generous with providing me beer. The very definition of a GOOD brother.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I've never paid attention to those cheap disposable cameras you can get in drug stores where you return the entire camera to get the film developed and pictures printed. But I found one loaded with black and white film and couldn't resist giving it a go.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22 - Eastern/Englewood Cliffs border of Flat Rock Brook nature preserve. Funny how you shoot something and at first wonder why. Trees? Why trees? Then later return to the frames and somehow they've become interesting to you.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 - Washington Square Park, NYC.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26 - East side story, NYC.

JANUARY 28 - Parents' house.

Fort Lee, the New Jersey approach to the George Washington Bridge.

January 14-16

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, generic color 400 film:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14 - Taipei's new YouBike bike share station in Xinyi District.

Xinyi District.

Eslite bookstore.

New bus station and 101.

Keelung Rd.

I have one last day at work. Friday – easy day.

For the past month and a half, the copy editing has basically been a one-man show – me. I've been sending pages on my own, and preventing the "help" from doing certain work because if they were doing things that I can do on my own, that was time wasted on things that I wasn't going to do because I was burning myself out getting the main pages out; things that took time, and the "help" were so slow, their pace matched the attention those tasks needed.

And I haven't been impressed by the work they did in editing. Since when is "flied" the past tense of "fly" except in baseball? That went to print.

The "help" I'm referring to are people recruited to do copy editing work, but they were brought on after the previous person left, so there was no time to train them. My ultimatum was that either I train someone or I put out a newspaper, not both. And I'm gonna come across as an asshole, but none of them are as smart as they think they are, none of them have been asking the right questions, and none of them have any idea of the pace they're going to have to work at.

And the management has been so clueless and negligent, I made no effort to make it easier for them when I drop the load in their laps. So much for my more compassion resolution. I have too many issues to be more compassionate.

I won't say never, but that newpaper is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth, and I'll have to be pretty desperate and pathetic to go back unless they do something about that position.

Not many people know that I'm not coming back. Hell, not many people know that I'm going away for three weeks (then not coming back). I generally don't think most people give a rats ass whether I'm there or not to let it be known that I'm basically leaving. Which is probably another good reason to leave.

January 4-11

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, generic color 400 film:

MONDAY, JANUARY 4 - Neighborhood park at the end of my alley.

Sanmin Rd.

Nanjing E. Rd., Sec. 5.

Jixiang Rd. - I didn't know that, I had to look it up. I have little memory for the names of minor roads, even in my own neighborhood. For me this is just the road that goes from Nanjing E. Rd. to the Living Mall.

Keelung Rd. where it ends at Nanjing E. Rd. The construction is probably MRT related.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9 - Being social, but to keep things in perspective I can't identify a single person in this photo.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 - Roundabout at Minsheng E. and Sanmin Rds.

Punch buggy white, Jiankang Rd.

MONDAY, JANUARY 11 - Bus stop on Minquan E. Rd. to go to work. I take the bus when I don't ride my bike, usually due to weather. From here the bus goes directly to work, but it's a kilometer walk to get here.

I'm still in my holding pattern, but I'm refusing to back down. Nothing new to say really. So I'm not going to say it.

I am committed to going to New Jersey for three weeks starting next Monday, acting like nothing's up, but I just have to face it that continuing on this path is – it's not unbearable, it's not pointless – it's simply not what I want. Which is interesting since that inherently conflicts with moment-to-moment . . . wants.

There may be a fundamental flaw in my metaphysical thesis that I may have to work the kinks out of.

I'm swinging from vine to vine. This N.J. trip is another vine.

But I told work that I'm not coming back after I come back to Taiwan. I want at least a two month break. So I effectively gave notice. I've set something in motion. I don't think I can tolerate listlessly going day-to-day in this isolation. So I'll see if there's some other vine after I get back.

MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 3:01 p.m. - Maishuai Bridge #2 from Maishuai Bridge #1.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 5:22 p.m. - My alley with a neighborhood park at the end.

New Year with Alex and Ginny. I think every time I hang out with Alex and Ginny is a night to remember. I was wary of how hanging out with them would be after Andy left, because, I don't know, it's good to have another male element in the mix in case I do something really dumb, but Andy was also a sort of social magnet, and it could get messy. With Alex and Ginny, we just riff and boogie our nights away.

But what were Ginny and me doing? It was actually really funny and ... sweet. We were making Alex feel like a third wheel. There's nothing going on between Ginny and me, but we were getting all touchy and snuggly just because we could and it was fun. We're both old enough and mature enough to not get all nutty about it.

It may've been a bit of an extension from the previous time – Halloween if I remember correctly – and we took some E, and were touching each other's skin going "oooh".

Anyway. Ginny and I have both been through a lot in our different ways. We're emotionally battle hardened. Wouldn't mind doing that again sometime, though.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2:33-2:37 a.m. - Alex's interpretive New Year's dance.

The band's "girls".

Alex apparently quite drunk.

Apparently Ginyi, too!