My brother offered me a slice of pizza.

My dreams are just going haywire! There is no consistency nor any indication of anything except total chaos; full metal subconscious implosion. After months of whenever my brothers appeared in dreams, it was confrontational, lukewarm or cold at best, and then one of them is offering me pizza?! The greatest offering of all?! Am I a king, a god?!

"Hey, you want a slice?", lifting a slice out of the pizza box for me.

I've been hampered by several days of full-blown insomnia which hasn't happened in a while. Insomnia has been recurrent, but not this bad. Mostly one- or two-offs and then a period of recovery. Even one night of insomnia hits hard and despite full nights of sleep following, waking up and days are still rough. This recent bout might be a real mess.

I try to force myself down into a dream state during insomnia, and when I do: a) it doesn't last long before I wake up again; and b) the dreams are nothing, they make no sense; they're like flipping through radio stations driving through a foreign country. If dreams are the antennae of our subconscious, I'm picking up random shit from wherever.

If that hasn't been brutal enough, Taipei's summer heat is out of control. Summer months used to be prime riding season despite summer heat. I like hot weather. I usually thrive in hot weather and San Francisco was lame for its cold summers.

Two summers ago, I still went riding during the summer, but I felt the heat and noted it. Then last year; I looked at my GPS records of riding last year and wondered why I stopped riding after a spring that looked like I was gearing up for the bigger climbs.

It took a while to figure out it was the heat that stopped me. About May or June, it came to pass that I would try to take my bike out and was met with a wave of heat that said, "hell no". Going outside was like stepping in front of a blast furnace, and if it felt like that just outside I figured any kind of ride would be nothing short of masochistic. Same thing happened this year.

The few people I've spoken to have agreed that Taipei has been getting hotter just these past few years. It's unbearable to stay outside for any extended period of time. Going outside means going from one air-conditioned space to another.

I have started jogging after my gym membership ran out in June. Looking back, what a useless thing that gym membership was. I'd never do anything like that again. Within a week, I was going out in the evening for jogs and I've been going for jogs about five days a week since then.

It's not running, I go too slow to call it running. I'd say to call it running, I'd have to be doing 8:30 miles at slowest, maybe 8:45, and I've touched on that, but mostly I've been going upward 9 minute miles, which is a solid jog. Anything slower than 10 minute miles is a plod. I've gone plodding a few times.

And short. Three miles is the usual, with four mile jogs thrown in one or two times a week. I've plodded five miles once and hope to do more of those, but only once it starts getting cooler. But I'm not going to be ambitious at all. My age prevents that, as well as bad nutrition and lots of alcohol.

Twenty years ago, my goal was 7:30 miles over 4 or 5 miles, with reality more like anything under 8 minute miles. These days going slow as comfortable is fine and preventing injury is priority, although since it's me, some problem is always going to come up.