Only one week between insomnia, this time back-end after getting to sleep normally and sleeping for about two hours. At first I did lay there hoping to fade out while listening to the CD that led me to sleep, but after that played out, I got up and sitting up listened to one of my mix CDs, not even hoping for sleep.

And I started drinking. After the CD, I switched on the TV to watch live LPGA coverage (day 3, Portland) and continued drinking and started to fade during that, and some time after that I put on a Tokyo Jihen concert DVD and definitely faded out shortly.

I slept through most of the DVD, fading in a few times, but afterwards felt fine and rested. Go fig. Even with the drinking I don't feel fucked up like other times. I got enough sleep, albeit it was 2 in the afternoon when I got up.

Geeking out:
I got up during one of the Tokyo Jihen concert's closers. I've had this DVD since 2012 when Tokyo Jihen broke up, and I never knew what this particular song was. It wasn't in their catalog that I knew of.

Then recently, late last year and earlier this year, Shiina Ringo released a bunch of discs to celebrate 15 years since her debut in the business. She released a compilation CD of songs over the years in which she collaborated with other artists; she released a live compilation CD; a live DVD of a post-Tokyo Jihen show which may or may not hint at a new direction for her; and finally a "self-cover" album.

The self-cover album is her versions of songs that she wrote for other people. They're covers because the other people are the original artists. It's like when Carole King co-wrote "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" for Aretha Franklin, the original artist. When Carole King recorded it later, that's what's being called a self-cover in this case.

On one hand, I wonder if she informed those artists that she was going to do this, kinda as a courtesy warning because her versions were going to blow theirs out of the water. Even on paper, anyone would know that because it's Shiina Ringo essentially recording her own songs, even if written for other people.

On the other hand, the original songs are all in the past and her release of her versions are not going to affect sales of the originals in any way (only the integrity). Maybe even boost them. And indeed, in my opinion, her versions for most part blow the originals out of the water. And indeed, I know this because I hunted down the originals online to hear what they were like (more scrupulous people would have bought them, boosting their sales).

Anyway, the song towards the end of Tokyo Jihen's final concert was one of those songs she wrote for someone else (Chiaki Kuriyama, better known in the West as an actress who played Gogo in "Kill Bill, vol. 2") and was like a hibernating Easter egg for me, since I didn't find out what it was until two years later.
/geeking out

The injury to my hand is not nearly as bad as I feared. Nothing broken, no need for a doctor. Basically a bruised pinky that I'm keeping taped for stability until it heals. Should immediately be able to go to the gym, just lay off anything that requires that hand. I suspect I can ride in a day or two as well.

I had a slow-speed crash on my bike today. I was on my way home in not-so-great shape. The hell heat of summer may be over, but it's still pretty hot.

Anyway, the primary cause of the crash was Taipei's poorly maintained roads being a hazard for cyclists. I'll take part credit for being impulsive and not being careful enough. What I remember is hitting an uneven piece of concrete in the drainage lane and going over into a line of motor scooters parked on the curb

The first thing I did is what I usually do when I go down, which is get me and my bike out of traffic. I had knocked over a motor scooter in the fall, which actually created a space to pull my bike onto the sidewalk. I indicated to the motor scooter drivers who witnessed the fall that I was OK. Then proceeded to put upright the motor scooter that I had knocked over.

So the order of events was going over crashing into a parked motor scooter, indicating I was OK, pulling my bike out of traffic, uprighting the motor scooter and then looking at my hand which absorbed the impact of the fall. 

My pinky at the second joint was pointing almost 90 degrees in a direction it wasn't supposed to bend. There was a fleeting thought of "wrong", then a fleeting thought of "doctor", and then a non-thought action of grabbing the pinky and sickeningly yoinking it back into place where it belonged.

The sensation was gross, but it didn't hurt at all, not until later.

This all took place in a fraction of a second. I didn't notice whether anyone was still looking at me, but if anyone was, it probably looked like a badass, manly display of noticing a body part not being in the right position and dispassionately yanking it into the right position. It would've looked disgusting.

And it was grotesque looking at a part of my own body, albeit minor, in a disfigured position. I continued home in a slight state of shock. It was a minor incident, but I knew that it would take a few hours to learn the full extent of the damage or whether I'd need to see a doctor.

I also knew that I'd probably have to deal with an onset of depression that often accompanies these things. Even minor, it forces me to look at various things resulting from the impact of the fall. Even if minor, there's always the possibility of something major.

And what if it turned out I did need to see a doctor or get X-rays? I don't have the structures or support in my life to routinely pursue that. I've chosen a solitary lifestyle, which means I face any downturn alone. No one's going to turn up and say, "OK, let's get you to a doctor".

Anyway, I think there's no major damage or anything broken or requiring medical attention. Where the joint got bent has bruised and I wasn't able to use my right hand for much of anything for several hours, but I've stabilized it by taping to my ring finger. Whatever hurts will just heal on its own in its own time. 

A small detail. Black outs. I experience black outs from alcohol quite often. Even though every night I manage to get my teeth brushed, my dishes done and tucked into bed no problem, I often wake up the next morning having no recollection of any details.

There are mornings that I look at whatever bottle I'd been working on and think that alcohol was a quite reasonable explanation for the memory loss. Rarely, though, is it the case that I realize I will most likely finish off a bottle within a 24-hour period.

That happened for the first time, I think. 26, 27 hours OK. Some overlap between one day's buying a bottle and the next. But finishing off a bottle bought yesterday requiring buying a bottle today hasn't happened before.

Needless to say, today was pretty fucked. I got a reasonable amount of sleep, no insomnia, but morning sitting fell short, as did supplemental sitting. Then I cancelled going to the gym, which is not a problem as maybe I'm going too often. And the rest of the evening was nothing exceptional.

It started with Robin Williams dying and me saying I wasn't severely depressed and I didn't even consider myself depressed. Then I said saying those things were problematic, basically retracting those things, but positing mindfulness training as the control on any depression possibly affecting me.

Since then, depression has poofed up and loomed. Mindfulness training staring it down was a joke to the depression. "You think you can stare me down? Stare down this", and waves and clouds formed around me and it did take an effort to get things back in perspective.

And things aren't totally back in perspective. Things are still a bit of a mess, but that's what the wrong view on reality is. It's a mess. It can be a mess.

I do believe in the teachings, I do believe in the method of cutting through perceived reality to get to what is often called "ultimate" reality. My support is the teachings themselves. No support comes in human, perceived reality form.

I didn't go to the gym for a week. I did go for a couple of rides. I went to the gym today and felt pretty good. I completed a 5k last week at a decent 7:46 pace. Today I just went for 30 minutes at a slower pace without hint of injury.

It's still hot in Taipei, but the hell hot of summer seems to have broken. That's good for riding. I rode over 300 miles in July, but it was hard. I'm thinking summer months are not riding months. I didn't ride in August until this past week and I'll be lucky if I can get over 100 miles this month.

Hell hot over and just being hot now is kinda the equivalent of the hottest days of summer in New Jersey. I can live with it. Again, as long as rain isn't forecast, I'll ride.

It's convenient, isn't it? I'm philosophically suicidal. If I just succumbed to depression, suicide is a logical outcome. But I say any depression I have is tempered by mindfulness and I wouldn't commit suicide just out of depression. But I'm mindfully philosophically suicidal, which still allows for suicide.

It's problematic. Problematic maybe for you, bitches, not for me.

So much for that one-off insomnia. Front-end this time. Of course no one yet knows the source of chronic insomnia, but it's like a switch that doesn't turn off.

Normally when going to sleep, there is something like a switch in the brain that tells the body to stand down and go to sleep. In chronic insomniacs, that switch just doesn't flip. In back-end insomnia, the switch flips but then comes on again after a certain amount of time.

You lie there and sleep just doesn't come, the switch just doesn't flip.

As long as I couldn't sleep, I turned on the LPGA Canadian Open final round live and watched So Yeon Ryu win, beating Na Yeon Choi. I love both players, either of them winning is awesome to me. So Yeon Ryu has a charm and a smile that lights up a room. Na Yeon Choi is just the coolest ever.

Korea resonance.

Once again just about two weeks between insomnia. Back-end insomnia the night before yesterday, and as sleep was normal last night, it might again have been a one-off.

There were mornings in the interim when I questioned whether I was having back-end insomnia, but no, now I'm clear that it's something obvious. After a certain amount of hours of sleep (three this time), waking up and that's it. No going back to sleep.

Mornings of multiple wakings and fading in and out, I won't consider insomnia. At least for now. They're a bummer, but not really that disruptive, relatively speaking.

For the record, several days prior, sleep had been deep and long. No intermittent waking up and 8 hours plus and prying myself out of bed. I am anticipating none of that for the next few days. Rather full nights sleep but catching up on feeling rested.

So I wrote that I'm not suffering from severe depression like Robin Williams and that I don't even consider myself depressed. After I wrote that, I was out and about and realized how problematic those statements are. They're not untrue, but they're definitely not true. Part of me even thought those statements ridiculous.

Looking at the totality of my life (which only I can do) and my life philosophy (what I express), I'm OK with the idea of the possibility that I have severe depression.

Severe depression doesn't necessarily mean being always down, and includes meaning profoundly down. Robin Williams appeared to be up a lot in public, and I don't think he was hiding anything, but his depression was profound. It wasn't about being up or down, but the "depression", whatever it is, was a kind that was very deeply ingrained.

"Whatever it is". It's not necessarily depression, which implies down. Maybe it's more of some life trauma that affects a person's life but doesn't manifest all the time. The trauma could've been an early event that tainted one's ability to see the world any other way.

If you believe in reincarnation and karma, it can be something that had "carried over". That explanation would be, conveniently, for people who could absolutely not identify something in this life that would qualify as the trauma.

If this is in any way accurate, who knows what it was for Robin Williams? For me, parts may be karmic, but just in this lifetime it's very easy to point to my upbringing as a source of "lifetime trauma". Along with whatever karma, my childhood experience developed into a worldview whose bottom line was I didn't want to be here.

It affected everything. I evolved and developed and learned, but fundamentally that worldview or personal view affected everything. A lot of rolling with the punches went along with remembering I don't even want to be here. Even to not living a normative life or getting married or raising a family goes back to that. 

I attribute my ability to say I'm not depressed to mindfulness practice. It also contributes to my appreciating being here (non-depressed perspective), all the while not wanting to be here (ground state).

I think in some ways, mindfulness practice can erase a lot of psychological considerations. I admit I considered myself a head case for many years. Mindfulness practice is training to not get caught up in psychology and the games the mind can play with oneself.

It trains you to constantly watch and gauge yourself and catch yourself when something doesn't make sense. With the added teachings of wisdom and compassion, you try to assess things unselfishly and if other people are involved, with their viewpoint in mind.

So for me, a lot of psychologically based reactions have gotten thrown out the window because I realize they're not based on wisdom and ultimately not what I want for myself or others.

Like being angry at my parents. I still get angry at them (psychology), but I don't react to it and I just watch my own anger (mindfulness). I know that reacting based on anger is not going to bring results I want. I don't care how angry I am or have been at them, I don't want them to suffer now because of something I say. Making them suffer is not going to contribute to my happiness.

Same with depression; how I can say I'm not depressed and then realize that's a problematic thing to say? The feeling can come up, but then instead of "getting depressed", getting caught up in it, I watch it and point my finger at it and identify it as depression, and the depression gets a little embarrassed and slinks back a bit knowing I caught it.

Mindfulness practice also works against habitual behavior which also has a psychological basis. I watch family members acting out of habit, caught up in habitual behavior, and I apply that to myself, too. I watch what I do and if it's something I'm having a doubt about, like buying something for example, I'll ask myself if I'm just buying it out of habit or not. Unfortunately, that's just scratching the surface. Habitual behavior I'm caught up in goes so deep I probably can't even recognize I'm stuck within it.

The rhetorical question in my mind is how did Robin Williams know it was time? Not to be naive, I'm not thinking it was a rational decision. Although it's possible, I imagine a larger consensus would agree that a lot of emotions, what we often refer to as "demons", were likely involved in his room and in his head that night.

But also not to be naïve, given his history and struggles with depression and substance abuse, it's possible that he has tried to commit suicide numerous times before. What went on that night earlier this week, was quite possibly not the first time a similar scenario played out, and might not even have meant to be a definitive, decisive event. 

Some reports say he was found unconscious, but then couldn't be revived, in which case it was a matter that he wasn't found in time. But whether he was found dead or unconscious, his reported M.O. doesn't suggest a definitive commitment to the act, but was perhaps allowing for an aura of the possibility of surviving. He didn't go out like Kurt Cobain. Goddammit, do I have to draw a picture?

Anyway, my particular launch point is the rhetorical question how did he know it was time to go? He lived with depression and substance dependency all his life. He survived for decades. He was public about it and what he was going through. Why couldn't he get through another bad night as he had presumably many times before?

It's a selfish rhetorical question. I'm only asking it for myself. How will I know when it's time to go? What did he know that I don't but hope to? It's a ridiculous rhetorical question, like I'm looking up to him for inspiration. I'm not.

I've always assumed I'm going to commit suicide. It's a given. My definition of suicide has even morphed to where it didn't matter how I died, I'd still consider it a suicide because of the way I view my existence.

But the ideal is that my death would be my decision and as such executed. But when? What I said about Robin Williams perhaps having an "aura of the possibility of surviving" is a projection. As is the speculation that due to the nature of his condition, he has tried many times before.

Both of those are more my reality and experience. Suicide has always been with me. I've never in my life said I would never commit suicide, and conversely I've always said I would. Granted, mostly to myself, ergo the lack of attention and the virtual isolation in which I currently live.

Of course, a difference between Robin Williams and me is that I'm not suffering from severe depression. As far as I'm concerned I'm not even depressed. And as much as I abuse alcohol, well that's another discussion.

As much as I abuse alcohol, alcohol doesn't abuse me! Bam. No other discussion!

You can put me in a therapist's chair for however long you want and we could banter about various and sundry subjects and I would get a clean bill of mental health. Until the suicide thing is mentioned, at which point I would be immediately diagnosed as depressed and prescribed medication. I didn't even need to mention it if my mental health was just being assessed.

For me, there just comes times in my life where the totality of things converge pointing to an attempt. That's how I know when, and so far I've always failed. So if I failed, was I wrong about when? And if I was wrong, should I not even have tried? I don't know, I don't give a fuck, that's not my rhetorical question.

Maybe Robin Williams' death was an accident. Maybe it was an act of personal expression and he thought perhaps he'd pull through in the morning. There are, I gather, many details in his M.O. that could have allowed him to survive. As with me there are always numerous built-in details that allow me to fail. And maybe I'm waiting for an accident that will allow me to succeed.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt in my mind even if there were an aura of a possibility of survival, he didn't mind dying. He took into consideration the pain he would cause to his family and millions of fans and admirers, but in the end, I don't think he minded.

I'm sad for me that he's gone, not for him.

Hm, the night before yesterday I had a bout of total insomnia exactly two weeks after the last one. Two weeks ago I mentioned almost two weeks without reportable insomnia. Yesterday's also might be a one-off as last night I was able to get to sleep and nothing remarkable about the morning.

I think I want to be looking more closely at the fucked-upness that entails after even one night of total insomnia for a chronic insomniac. One night's loss of sleep for a non-insomniac might not mean much. You deal for a short bit and then you recover. For a chronic insomniac, the effects of even one night can last more than a week.

By "chronic insomnia", I mean insomnia that isn't attributable to psychological reasons, the worst of which has been most recently treated by psychiatrists with CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy.

When I turned on the TV news today, there was a news scroll item at the bottom of the screen that I thought read "Robin Williams found..." before it scrolled to another item. Of course, the obvious word to fill in was "dead", and that idea was shocking.

So I waited for the scrolls to cycle around again, and indeed it was news of Robin Williams' death and indeed it was shocking. Mind you, "The Crazy Ones", Robin Williams' return to the small screen is currently airing in Taiwan. It makes his passing that much more unbelievable.

Then the rest of the scroll sank in, "Robin Williams found dead in apparent suicide". I'm not sure what to make of my reaction, which was, "well, of course". His battles with internal demons is well-known. It made sense and was even comforting that if he had to go, that he went true to himself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sad. I've teared up. My thought was "this is the first day in a world without Robin Williams". That's how much of an impact on the world I felt he had. The world is a different place now. I felt it after 9/11, many people feel it after a loved one dies.

With Robin Williams, it was personal on a massive scale. Why? For me because he made me laugh. Every single time. Not only that gift he gave of making us laugh, but the kind of person he was. I wasn't like a die-hard fan that followed everything he did; a lot of things he did I ignored, a bunch of movies I didn't see. But whenever I paid attention, mostly not in acting roles but him as a person, there was never any indication that he wasn't genuine.

And because he was genuine and honest, we knew about his problems. He wasn't a celebrity train wreck that we can laugh at. He was really struggling with demons and he talked about them and he still made us laugh.

The shocking news that Robin Williams was found dead and the realization that even though he's a celebrity and has little to do with our daily lives, we as a culture for most part loved the man. He made us laugh from the gut. Laughter that was not only because of being clever, but primal laughter from not only from crazy talent but no doubt a reflection of his honesty to himself and his humanity.

An episode of "The Crazy Ones" aired soon after the news broke and I watched it. Robin Williams recently instagrammed a photo of him and his daughter when she was a child. I noticed that photo was on the set of "The Crazy Ones" in his office.