I was in a grocery store walking down an aisle when I saw a baby shoe on the floor. A parent must have come into the store with an infant child and at some point the baby lost its satin shoe. I didn't know how long the shoe had been there, as far as I knew the parent was long gone. I wasn't about to go out of my way for something that could be nothing. 

But it was a small-medium sized grocery store, not a mega-mart or even a U.S.-size grocery store. I figured it wouldn't be going out of my way to do a scan of the aisles to look for any candidates for babies who may have lost a shoe. I noted what number aisle it was and went to the front of the store where the cashiers were and planned to walk the breadth of the store looking down the aisles to see if there were any parents with a small child.

But just as I got to the front of the store, I spotted a mother with a stroller who had already gone through the cashier and was heading out but was rummaging through the stroller looking for something. A quick glance at the baby's foot confirmed this was the baby with a missing shoe and the mother was looking for it. I got her attention somehow, mind you I was listening to music and was wearing a mask and a baseball cap so I hope I didn't look scary or crazy, and indicated for her to wait and quick-stepped down the aisle where the shoe was, retrieved it and handed it off to her and disappeared back to my browsing as quick as possible. 

I don't doubt for a second she was grateful, but didn't need to feel any personal gratitude from her. I wasn't doing her a favor, I wasn't doing any good deed. The way I saw it was here was this mother with a mystery, an unknown. It could have been my cousin at one point, it could've been my sister-in-law. Where is the shoe? The baby has one shoe, but it had another shoe, where was it? I on another hand knew the answer to the mystery. I knew where the shoe was, I had just seen it. She could backtrack her way through the store and eventually find it if it was important enough or just chalk it up as a loss (from my experience it's important enough), but I knew exactly where it was. All I did was put a mystery together with the solution in the most efficient way possible. I just shared information.

In what for me would be an ideal scenario is that she would've gone home and later that evening told her husband or other family member or friend what a great country we live in. Where people look out for each other and do selfless, considerate things out of nowhere. I don't want to gloss Taiwan over, we have our share of shit-fuck assholes and lord knows I've probably been one or felt like one or perceived as one at times, but I do know what I did wasn't an isolated incident. There is a lot more civic-mindedness than not here, which I feel has been emphasized lately by the successful response to the CCP pandemic.

Strange. Contrary to the theme of my relatives not wanting me to have anything to do with their kids, which I'm wondering whether it's all in my mind, my sister-in-law just sent me this pic. It killed me to crop out my niece's face, but my sister-in-law once upbraided me for uploading a pic when she was but a baby and she has since given no indication that injunction is no longer in force. She's almost 14 now, so if anything it's even more absolute that I would need specific permission to upload any picture of her. 

She said this puzzle was one of the first things Tessa pulled out to do when New Jersey went under lockdown for the CCP pandemic. I got this for Tessa's birthday no less than 5 years ago. At the time I knew she was too young for it, but as always, then as now, I couldn't say when I would have another opportunity to give it to her. I fully expected the pieces to be scattered far afield in the chaos of childhood with four siblings in total, only to be found years later in various rooms, closets and cupboards of their house or lost in vacuuming or cracks in the sideboard. 

I love the painting, Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, in no small part due to the Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George (which I've geeked out about long ago in the early days of this blog). I've been collecting pieces with the painting on it for years, but it's gotten quite pointless (hahaha! geddit? pointless? ugh *clunk*) given my life circumstances. When I saw the jigsaw puzzle in Taiwan, my first thought was "me want", followed quickly with "but vhy? (Transylvanian accent)". So then I thought to get it as a present and give it to one of my brothers' kids. I felt it would be passing something on even though they wouldn't know why or the meaning it has for me.

So I was moved and tickled pink to see that Tessa had kept the pieces intact all these years (with help from her mom, no doubt) and finally completed the puzzle and that she's growing into a mature young lady, about to enter high school in the fall, CCP virus willing.

Still, I wonder about my sister-in-law and other brother sending me something about their kids for the first time ever recently. Also the smattering of superficial contacts by random people. And meeting up with both of the people I know in Taipei (I met up with the French guy last week). I doubt it has anything to do with the CCP virus and people wanting to connect in a time of crisis. I'm no doubt the bottom of the barrel of people anyone would want to contact for connection. Maybe some confluence in the universe resonating into these occurrences. They don't mean anything, they just happen.

On a sidenote, Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday happened during the CCP pandemic and an online "concert" was organized amid the lockdown to celebrate it. Apparently even the critics who had doubts about it were impressed by the quality, and even people who don't like "show tunes" can appreciate the sheer brilliance of the songwriting in the way they are presented and described by the participants. Whenever participants described Sondheim's impact on their lives and career, I would think, "me too", even though it didn't become my life or career. From Broadway star to Hollywood celebrity to simple appreciative fan, Sondheim made us all equals in awe of greatness and the immeasurable gift he has given to American music and theater.

I had a big scare a few days ago that my laptop was about to die, but it turns out the malfunction was just a Windows 10 update forcing itself upon my laptop without consent. I thought updates were supposed to be benign, that they get remotely downloaded to your computer while it's on and you don't even notice until you shut down and you're informed of the update and it prepares to load it the next time you turn it on. It's not supposed to put your computer into what looks like critical condition with everything slowing down to pretty much non-functionality. I was afraid my laptop was having a stroke. 

At points when functionality seemed better I did shut it down and turned it back on and there was never any indication that it was an update. It was so bad that at one point I started emergency back-up of music folders thinking it was about to die. And then during one shut-down, it froze and I decided to do a hard shut-down, convinced that was it and the screen had flickered its last. 

I contemplated the grand scheme of things. I contemplated whether I'd be getting a new computer that day. Laptop or desktop? This laptop hasn't left my apartment in the three years that I've had it. Are monitors required with the purchase of a desktop? I use my flatscreen TV as my monitor so why would I get a monitor if I don't have to. Nah, this flatscreen is a bit dodgy, definitely get the largest monitor possible. Really? New computer? That's a month of living. I live on a thou a month; a third of that is rent, most of the rest is alcohol and food. If I don't extend my funds in June, then I'd have until September instead of October. So I'd be buying a computer to live to September. But then I'd probably extend my funds just because I bought a computer. This is not any consideration.

What am I thinking about new computer and months of living and extending funds? The computer's dead, let my computer days rest in peace. For me, that's it, I'm done, this is the looming I've been waiting for. Fill out the May bi-monthly gas meter form that has already been posted downstairs, wait till the end of the month and pay June's rent, and finally go with Plan A. But wait, if my computer's dead and I disappear, then I won't even be leaving a computer to be investigated regarding my fate.

It's a total conceit to think anyone would bother, but at least leave the option for that one in a thousand dozen chance that months later someone, probably a cousin, will be looking around my apartment after my disappearance has been established as fact (and mystery) and my belongings need to be disposed of, and a flash question in his mind whether there may be any clue on my computer about what happened. Quite honestly, get on my internet browser and this blog is not hard to find unless you don't know what the Brave browser icon or the Blogger icon is or looks like. Actually, knowing my life, it wouldn't matter whether I left a working computer or not. This is just me over-thinking things.

I pressed the power button one last time without any confidence to see what would happen, and a few minutes later the update screen came on. No, it wasn't a stroke, my laptop wasn't dying or in critical condition. Instead it had been violated. It had been taken over by the Windows 10 update and done doggy-style right in front of me. But now it was being updated. I swear there's a lesson or metaphor here somewhere, and I swear it's probably going over my head. Story of my life.

It's already blazing hot in Taiwan. If it's this hot now, what's it gonna be like in July and August?! However, vloggers in Seoul are mentioning that it's also summer hot there, so it may just be a regional weather system that's nothing out of the norm. I haven't turned on my air-con yet, which I only do when I'm confident it's a daily necessity, so I'm counting on a few more 80 degree days or weeks before summer really hits in all its glorious 90s-feels-like-100s misery. Is it strange to consider 80-degree range temps as being cool and refreshing? Foreshadowing the future? New normal? I'm so glad I don't have kids whose future I would be worried about after I'm gone; preventable misery and suffering caused by humanity's stupidity, short-sightedness and greed.

I used to love hot weather when I was younger, so getting tapped out by this heat is . . . a change?, not unlike becoming a wimp about pain and blood becoming a cause for immediate attention with band-aids and ointment like a 6-year-old (again I ask what happened to me?). And a bottom-line consideration is how it affects quality of life and when and whether quality of life goes below the fack-fackitty-fackaroo level and makes continuing on not worth it. That can't be determined until I turn on the damn A/C, which might make things tolerable? It's so pathetic what my quality of life is dependent upon, but also emphasizes that my current quality of life standard is subjectively pretty bare bones. I'm flying right at the edge of what I think is tolerable, which is just getting day-to-day with as little turbulence as possible. On one hand I have no idea how low I can go, but on the other maybe just one little change will be determinate. I just don't know.

In March, I found out that the last injection into my bank account did actually go through, it just took a lot longer than expected. Usually it took a month, but this time they said it would take two months, but in actuality it took four months. And in that period of time when I thought it wasn't going to go through, I was able to get into a mindset to prepare for end-of-life looming. So when I found I have funds to last until October, I was already assuming I wouldn't be going to the bank anymore; good riddance to that always-sucky experience. Furthermore, if it's taking four months now, I would have to go to the bank in June to extend beyond October. Meaning I'd have to decide to do something soon to affect something that wouldn't matter until October.

None of any of this means anything; any future projection is just fortune-telling. The best assumption is that I'll just do what I do based on past pattern, meaning I will go to the bank in June and hope banks in the U.S. are functioning during the CCP pandemic. I'll keep merrily rolling along as long as I'm able until I'm unable, despite how stupid and pathetic my existence is. I still maintain, though, that it's not worthless. I have had hints that when the shit hits the fan, when I'm finally really faced with my personal end-game, that I will be able to let go and unravel my neurotic attachments, inhibitions and aversions and that it will be liberating, despite how much I seemed to cling to them while they were there here. Once they're gone, I'm out and don't hold on to anything because that's what I mentally cultivated, and that is the greatest comfort I could possibly hope for.