There's a reason I've lived this long according to "chronic suicidal ideation" and I just got a reminder of it, albeit futile at this point. 

It was the most disturbing aspect of it as described in that video, which is that people with chronic suicidal ideation are chronically looking for reasons or excuses to keep living and keep taking them. It was disturbing because it's verifiably true in my case in the most ridiculous ways. 

I remember (if memory serves) back in San Francisco writing a journal entry why I wasn't going to end it all at one point because I had to pick up my photo prints from the Berkeley Extension that I had left at the darkroom to dry and also because Throwing Muses were coming to town and I definitely wanted to see them (they're a top five favorite band of mine). I'm sure I was being sarcastic in writing it down, mocking myself for such petty considerations. Theoretically, really anything could be an excuse.

A couple years back I posted something neurotic and nutty about not sending a birthday email to my older brother and why I wasn't going to send one, which then prompted me to send one at the last minute because I was getting so wrapped up in the concept of the birthday greeting and my reasons to not send one were so neurotic that it would just be dumb not to send one. Good grief.

I think the context was that we're not all that close and I hadn't sent him a birthday greeting in years, I don't quite remember. I didn't expect a reply and that would've been totally acceptable and normal for our relationship, but I also knew he just as well might reply because that would still be natural and just depended on how he felt. And he did send a polite and cordial reply. Last year I think I sent something that he didn't reply to and that was fine; it was year one of the CCP Wuhan pandavirus and as a doctor he was under a lot of stress and pressure. 

This year I forewent any nuttiness and planned on sending a birthday greeting as if it was a normal, routine, long-standing practice and without all that neurotic energy. And he replied that same day. I'm not sure what it was about his reply this time. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seemed unusually . . . attentive? engaged? thoughtful? But I don't want to suggest any of his other communications weren't those things if he feels he was just replying like normal. Often I can describe communications with family members with words like polite, cordial, obligatory or sincere, bare-minimum response. No response. This wasn't any of those and just felt a bit . . . more.

It could be my imagination or rather my chronically suicide-ideating mind that is constantly grasping for reasons to live on that's reading into it wot's not there. Unreasonable pangs of living a little longer and even visiting them as suggested? Check in with the kids and see if they remember me? Visit my aunt in New Jersey who has been warding off lung cancer for a number of years? Like my aunt in Kaohsiung she has always been kind to me and pleasant to visit. 

Back on planet earth the reality dawns that flying abroad probably requires a smartphone. I don't know, as useless as search engines have become (spearheaded by Google), I haven't been able to search if smartphones are required for international travel. The assumption of course is that everyone has a smartphone and search algorithms can't even conceive of that in returning results. 

That's why I haven't made any moves to get vaccinated. When measures were announced in English for virtually everyone to get vaccinated, the part involving a smartphone to schedule it put an end to my vaccination aspiration. Everyone has a smartphone, they don't need to provide alternative means. Yes, I do realize no one can relate to my outrage. Anyway I'll wait until enough people are vaccinated that it's simple enough to show up with ID and get a shot. I'll wait until they're waiting for me.

Ah, but futile. And wow I'm glad I don't have the money to do any of that. Mentally running through habit is one thing. Reality is another. Embracing reality sounds pretty good about now.