The blast furnace summer heat of Taipei ended in September with three typhoons in quick succession. It's still hot, just not intolerably so. Summer was just about going miserably from one air-conditioned space to the next.

Jogging, sometimes running, continues with times improving with ever-so-slightly cooler weather. Running over this summer, even in the evening, was still a bit crazy in retrospect. It was still quite hot.

I had 3-, 4-, 5-mile courses which all ended up near Rainbow Bridge, a footbridge over the Keelung River near Raohe Night Market, which usually had healthy breezes to help cool down. 30+ minute cool downs were not uncommon.

Jogging times have been upticking again lately, though, I think due to health matters; alcohol related I assume. It may be nothing, but I've just been feeling worse in general to the point that my usual activities like reading for hours have become untenable due to discomfort.

I've gone through episodes like this before, I suppose, and it'll probably pass. And it always feels bad enough that I wonder if maybe it really is finally getting out of control, which is fine and expected. I just kinda wish it would be more fast and dramatic, and not this languishing in ugh.

A current nasty bout of insomnia probably isn't helping my mood or outlook. I have terms for types of insomnia: "front end insomnia", "back end insomnia", "total insomnia". I've found ways to deal with each accordingly.

But I want to call this "devastating insomnia", which may be compounded by the health issues to make it extra hard to deal with and get through days with any semblance of homeostasis.

I have a maybe interesting anecdote about insomnia and memory in case some researcher wants to study me. Unfortunately it forces me to reveal how anal I am about my iTunes music collection and how I listen to music.

I sync and re-load my iPod Shuffle every three days, and the first thing I do is manually load three iTunes pages of the oldest last played songs; the 90 oldest songs that played to be exact. With an iTunes collection of over 19,300 files, this forces the oldest last played songs to be played and keeps files from not playing for years and years, as would naturally happen if at random. How's that for anal?

And an indication of what over 19,300 files means (I am trying to pare it down), the current oldest songs played are in March 2015. Anyway, every night, I don't know why, I like to go through those 90 songs and try to identify which of the songs played. Don't ask me why, I don't know why! I get a kick out of it.

It does become a memory thing. More songs are listened to before the next sync and I continue to try identifying songs. I'm usually pretty close. There are usually a few songs I missed or thought had played but hadn't. That's besides the point.

During insomnia this time, I listened to my iPod Shuffle for two hours lying on my bed in the dark. I always listen to music while trying to fall asleep, but only on devices that have a timer and will automatically shut off.

But my brain was so stuck in the "on" position, I was sure I wouldn't fall asleep while listening. In fact, I kept track of each song to make sure I wasn't falling asleep or else I would turn it off. Later when I reviewed the 90 songs, there were a few fuzzy ones, some "I think so", etc.

Finally when I synced the iPod and looked at the songs that actually played, I missed a whole bunch of them. But when I saw the songs, I do remember listening to them, I have the actual memory of lying there listening to them.

So I was fully conscious when I was listening, but the memory of listening to them failed when tested independently. I couldn't remember that they played, and still couldn't, but looking at the song names and the fact that they played, I have an actual memory listening to them.

I wasn't in any sleep state, but during insomnia the memory of my experience of listening to music became . . . an abstraction. Later experience wouldn't remember it. But when faced with factual data I had listened to certain songs during that time period, I had a concrete memory of the experience.

Well . . . fuck you, it blew my mind!