My life has been a complete non-starter since getting back from the U.S. in mid-September. Injury and illness were the excuses for about a month. Almost a month later, I . . . I was going to say that I've been able to get back to the gym, but what useless shite crap that is.

Truth is I don't really care. And that's great. I don't want to care, and that's great. It's liberating. It makes me breathe, relax and feel alright with myself. My life has always had suicide at its core, so my ideals, values and goals are not the usual ones people have. When my life starts to really plow into the muck and the mire, that's a good thing. My ideal age to die was 34 and I've blown waaaay past that. Even Ritu managed to die at 34. Albeit her reasons, if she in fact committed suicide, wouldn't be reasons that I would consider valid for me. Not judging her. Her reasons were good enough for her.

I wonder how long I've been living such a useless, worthless life. How far back can I go to determine when if I died, I would have had no impact by my own estimation? I'm glad about my time and efforts at Deer Park. I left there in spring 2005, so if I committed suicide then, what have I done afterwards that might have been missed?

My oldest brother got married that summer. Through the years, maybe I gave him and his wife a certain amount of support and encouragement, maybe? It's dubious, but possible, and giving benefit of doubt, I'll allow a few years of value to my continuing living. That said, my non-abstract value to them has long since ended. They have four children now ranging from 9 to 3 so their daily concerns have long superseded any theoretical support I've offered. To put a value on it, I think I can safely say my value to them has been zero since 2009 or 2010. And I think that's being generous. As for my other brother, I think our recent interaction is an indication of negation of any value I've had to him and his family. If I had committed suicide in 2005, I don't think there would have been any loss to him or his family. It would have just been an experience to go through.

What value has any of my time in Taiwan, since February 2006, had? Not extended family, that's all gone, including my cousin Audrey. Friends don't matter. No one feels the loss of someone they never meet, so even if I did add value to anyone, that's still arbitrary. I refute anyone suggesting I was at all significant to them. Anyone thinking I was significant to them is just ridiculous. Seriously, if I thought I was significant to someone, I'd know.

I stopped working in January 2010 and some may argue that if you're working, you're contributing to society. I don't think my time at the China Post was worthless. If no one else, the editor-in-chief Paul Chen seemed to appreciate me. I'd say that's significant enough.

So for five years, I've only been living selfishly for myself. Insignificant to anyone else. And my lack of interaction with other people is proof of said insignificance. I realize all this is a flawed assessment, and maybe says more what I feel towards other people than they towards me. But it's probably not that far off.

I have no tag for "friends"

Delphine was a good friend.

Sadie was a close friend.

The person who just visited is not a friend, but an acquaintance from back home.

Blah, blah, blah. I was legally trained, so everything has to be defined and categorized. These aren't meant to be judgments on the people, just a defining of who they are in relation to me in an overly anal manner that no one else does.

Intended to define how far away I keep people beyond "arm's length".

Actually, my defining of friends was largely inspired by a song by Stephen Sondheim, "Old Friends", from his musical "Merrily We Roll Along", which although is now a fan favorite, it was a commercial disaster, running on Broadway for only 2 weeks. 

Part of the brilliance of the musical, although perhaps also a contributing point towards its failure by confusing the audience, is that it moves backwards in time. And by moving backwards in time, that's how the musical arrives at its happy ending, because the musical starts with the friendship of the three principal characters in tatters. But moving backwards in time, we get warm and fuzzies with the youthful characters looking forward to their lives and all the potential they had having just graduated.

And earlier in the musical is the song "Old Friends", which juxtaposes "old friends" with "good friends" (Good friends point out your lies/Whereas old friends live and let live/Good friends like and advise/Whereas old friends love and forgive), whereas later in the musical when they are younger, there's a song with a reprise of "Old Friends" (preprise?), but they exclusively refer to each other as "good friends" that they're "still good friends/nothing can kill good friends".

So old friends are the best that there is. They've been in your life so long that they tend to become old habit. And everything else keeps changing, but old friends get continued next week. They're the ones you don't have to explain yourself to and who you forgive more easily than family.

Madoka is an old friend. I still haven't replied to her email, but she friended me on Facebook and I accepted, but we haven't made any contact there, either. But once we start making contact, all should be more or less fine. If we don't, it's still fine.

Nobuko is an old friend. Unlike with Madoka, we've had a big falling out, but then got reconnected after a few years and since then we haven't been in constant contact, but we're always there if the other calls, I shouldn't wonder.

Old friends take each other as they are. There aren't expectations anymore.

Sadie is not an old friend. She was a close friend. We're currently not talking because we still have expectations and get pissed off when they aren't met. We've had at least one breakage before because of that.

She once used this blog as ammunition against me and I chased her away from this blog, and I still use that as ammunition against her. That was years ago.

But she graduated from being a good friend and became a close friend because we really enjoyed each other's company, made each other laugh, helped each other out, casually called each other, called each other to come out and play, felt comfortable discussing all sorts of things – just about nothing was taboo.

We psychoanalyzed each other and still enjoyed each other's company.

And I miss her when we're not talking or even when we are talking. The problem with close friends is that you want more. I wanted more from her. I think she wanted more from me. And neither of us was giving it. It still gets complicated with close friends, not so much with old friends. You still love your close friends, though.

Delphine was a good friend. She didn't become a close friend because there were still points of contention in our conversations that we couldn't get through. Many of the criteria of a good friend are the same as close friends, but lacking the intimacy of when you connect well with someone else and just get them.

Lisa and Chris, band members in San Francisco, I think are old friends. Just from the band experience, they skip over the good friend/close friend stages, because we regularly spent so much time together, worked together, strove together, and through it all I got to know them really well.

Then after the band broke up, I didn't think much of them. I didn't think much of the band. It was only after reconnecting years later I realized that I appreciated what I had gotten to know about them so well, that they are very caring human beings.

I realize now I would really love it if I were back in the Bay Area hanging out with them. I don't know if they hang out with each other much, but I would be trying to get us all together whenever possible. Maybe. I would be a much better friend to them now, and they never turned their backs on me or judged me when I wasn't such a good friend; I was very standoffish. Stealth old friends.

Anita was a friend I met early in my time in San Francisco, but despite the amount of time we knew each other, she only got as far as close friend.

We met in a theater group and eventually determined that I knew her brother from college. I remember she was wearing an Oberlin shirt one day and I said, surprised, "Hey, where did you get that shirt?!" "My brother went to Oberlin". Then after retrieving her last name from my memory banks, I said, ". . . You're Neal's sister?!" (Indian last names tended to stand out back then). That was a great starting moment for us.

November 3, 1996 - Anita with her Oberlin "People Becoming Fish" t-shirt. Negative unflipped so the words are discernable.

Anita was great, I loved hanging out with her. She was a pot-smoking, howl-at-the-moon, rogue attorney who was doing everything she could to not practice law. She had a killer CD collection that I would have totally raided doggy-style had the iPod been invented back then.

She was the one who got me my job at the law firm when her best friend Ritu moved to the Bay Area. I don't think our friendship lasted much longer after Ritu melted down and killed herself. We never got our old rhythm back. Sometimes people change their ways. And sometimes stories end that way.

But Most friends fade or they don't make the grade/New ones are quickly made/And in a pinch, sure, they'll do, or Some of them worth something, too. I've had friends in Taiwan. Hyun Ae was just a friend. Pierre's a friend. They are moments. They don't span time. Then there are acquaintances. Co-workers. Ex-coworkers. Internet friends (you never know when they're gonna disappear). Language exchanges. Family . . .

Hey, old friend, how do we stay "old friends"

Who is to say, old friends, how an old friendship survives?

One day chums having a laugh a minute

One day comes and they're a part of your lives

Trying to get to the core of these feelings. I thought today that maybe it was work, the idea of work, that was getting oppressive, but I don't think so. I think work exacerbates the underlying feelings, so it's easy to think they're the cause.

Isolation is a big part of it, along with the increased unbearableness of meaningless daily routine, doing the same things day in and day out.

And then the inevitable consequence of years of heavy drinking, with more and more symptoms of something seriously going wrong cropping up.

The more I think I'm going to die soon from the natural consequence of alcoholism makes me realize that I have something I want to say from suicide.

I don't want to die a medical death, with the message that I was suicidal being lost. I don't want people mistaking my death as an unfortunate accident, a mere matter of consequence, when it was really my intentional decision; what I wanted.

I want people who know me to know that I chose this; that I specifically wanted them to feel or react to my decision. And not as a revenge thing or consequence thing, but just that these things happen. That we have to care for the people around us.

I think my family, who are in denial about my alcoholism – they've indicated they're aware of the signs – think they care for me, but they don't even know what that means because they don't even know me, they don't have a clue, they're not even trying, they don't know how, and how do you care for someone you don't even know?

Ritu's suicide taught me that lesson. Compassion eluded me when she was spiraling downward, and I should have cared for the people around me.

I hope I've practiced that more since Ritu died, but the message has to keep on going. Or not. Whatever. There's no way to control other people's reaction to suicide. You can't expect them to get a message. I just need to focus on what I feel and reconcile it with what I want to do.

He died yesterday, unexpectedly. I got the text while I was in Ximending yesterday. It was just a fact. I stared at the message for a few seconds, then went back to what I was doing. I later mentioned it to someone and even laughed during that exchange. I mean, not heartily. Ironically, maybe.

It wasn't like Ritu, who I wouldn't have expected the news to have such an impact on me, but I broke down at work for a good 20-25 minutes, and my cube neighbor assisted me out the building to compose myself before I had to break the news to the rest of Ritu's team.

But this guy was still an acquaintance. He was a person who had been in my physical presence in the recent past. I have actual images of him alive in my recent memory. It's hard not to give it a little thought, a little consideration. Even on a ride last night after work to Keelung, I thought about him.

Prior to this, the last I heard about him was after our last gig at Le Mer. He invested a lot of money into Le Mer, and he had a falling out with the proprietress, the actual owner. They got in an argument that led to her calling up some gangsters who subsequently put him in the hospital. What he could have done to warrant such a response can only be speculated upon, but the suggestion was floated that it wasn't beyond conception that he hit her.

She threatened that if he called the police, he could kiss his entire investment in Le Mer goodbye. His eventual liver failure might be related to the beating, but he did leave the hospital after that.

In the whole time I was aware of him, I wonder if he thought he might die this year. When 2008 came around, did he think he might die this year? When he came to Taiwan, did he think he might die here? Wherever he was, whoever he was with, did he think he might die here, now, in this way?

Maybe, maybe not. Who asks that sort of question, though, anyway, aside from me?

Riding to Keelung was pretty glorious last night. It was exciting because it was completely out of the territory that I'd already covered in the greater Taipei area. It was exciting because Keelung is a port of old, so it has a sort of mystique, the way Hong Kong has. It was barely 14 hours after he died, and I was savoring my being, my existence at Keelung Harbor with a sliver of the waning crescent moon linger over the docked ships.

There has only been one person who was even vaguely close to me who has died. She was my boss, but she was also a friend of a friend, and we went out for drinks after work almost regularly. She was an alcoholic, pretty fucked up, and emotionally abusive. She was also drop-dead gorgeous and brilliantly smart. We liked a lot of the same things in popular culture and she intimidated me.

She died in 2000 after an emotional meltdown triggered by her boyfriend breaking up with her. Her family said her kidneys and liver failed, but I know that she caused her kidneys and liver to fail. I wrote about my perspective of the events leading up to her death, and I was less than sympathetic. I was callous.

It's hard reading what I wrote. I was no friend. All I can do now is whisper "I'm sorry, Ritu," as I read. I read back, and I see signs that look like guidance, things that happened, that make me think I was supposed to be more active in helping her out.

Once I was avoiding her, but another friend had to call me. So I told the friend a signal so I would know it was her calling and not Ritu. Later in the day, I got the signal and picked up the phone. It was Ritu. I think that call ended in frustration and her hanging up on me, and then trying to call me back for the next 20 minutes.

That was a long time ago. I can't regret how I treated her. But I still think about it. But it's not about her anymore, she's moved on, it's only about me and what I've learned about my behaviors, my habit energies, and what I want to do to transform them.

Her death is still reaching me, and I wasn't even that close to her. Our deaths, any deaths may have far reaching effects. It doesn't matter if it was a suicide or not. If she chose to go is not a consideration at all, just that she's gone. That she's still affecting me means to me that she is a part of me. The reality of her is gone, whatever reality of her that is left is me, my reality.

That's why we live. Maybe my suicide will have far reaching effects that I'm not anticipating. I am expecting of anyone who knows me that they will not be affected by my suicide. My death, sure, fine, OK, whatever, but not my suicide. Hey, we all die. Don't single me out because I chose it. People never did live up to my expectations.

So I say, "I'm sorry, Ritu," but I'm saying that to myself. I'm not saying it to Ritu "out there" somewhere. I think back to what I did and think what I would do different, but that's not reality. How I treated her was me, my habit energies, my karma. And I will never treat anyone that way again.

just for the record:
I know that if I killed myself, there would be a considerable impact on certain people. I know my worth to the people around me, and yes I would still go ahead and do it if that was my choice, and I would leave it to them to deal with it and move on. I think of all the times before I could have done it, and I imagine the sorrow or shock it would have caused, and then I think of now, October 2003; life would have gone on.

I don't think many people would be too surprised by the news. Most people know at least something is up, if only because of my arms. No one asks anymore, I don't really hide it anymore. Anyone who is completely surprised didn't know me at all and don't really matter maybe. For everyone else, the shock of the news would be somewhat abstract. They hear the news, they're shocked, they're saddened, maybe shaken, but it's abstract; there's no fundamental impact or shift to their lives.

Ritu was my boss, but we were chummy and hung out after work a lot. When she killed herself, it was a shock and a surprise. I always imagined myself as being able to keep emotionally detached from things like that, but you can't prepare yourself for something like that. It's impossible to imagine what it feels like when someone dies. And having gone through it, I can't even bring myself back to feel that feeling again.

I had spoken to her on the phone just days before and she sounded upbeat and was looking forward to returning to the firm. I got the news from one of the attorneys that was close to her. She knew we were kinda close and was putting it to me to tell the rest of the team. I immediately got into responsibility mode and sucked it up and accepted what I had to do. Then I went back to my cube to send an email for the team to meet up, and as soon as I got there, I lost it. My cube neighbor had to take me outside and it took 15 minutes sitting on the curb before I could collect myself to even tell her what happened.

So there was the immediate impact and shock, but quite honestly, in the big picture, her suicide was fairly abstract to me. She had already dismissed herself from the firm, she was back home in New York getting treated, I was already re-assigned to another team, we were as chummy as a boss and an underling could be in the year we knew each other, but we weren't great friends. There was no material change in my life, except knowing that Ritu was gone. I don't consider the future possibility of meeting up again a material change. Losing that is too bad, but the future is always uncertain, so I don't consider it material.

Do I miss her? Yes. Do I wish she were still around? Yes. Would she have enriched my life? Probably. Do I hold it against her that she left? No. I also missed my chance in the days she was spiraling out of control to proactively help her. I kept my distance. I don't blame myself, but I can't blame her either then. I made my choice, she made hers. If society condemns her, it should condemn me and all of us who were close to her.

My role in the lives of all the people around me is at some level of abstraction. There is no one in my life who would experience a material change in their lives because of my leaving. I'm not saying there would be no or minimal impact, I'm just saying that it would be abstract and temporary. It would be news to receive, react to, process, but then move on.

For some people, I anticipate a huge emotional reaction, great sorrow, flatter myself not, and maybe it would last a long time, maybe it would create a hole in their lives, maybe they would never fully get over it and they'd be sad every time they thought of it. But none of those people are here in my life, direct, non-abstract.

The people who are here in direct contact in my life aren't close. They are abstract, very much like my relationship with Ritu. They'd feel the shock and have to go through their emotional response, but no material change in their lives. There's no one I hang out with regularly. They're all at arms length. And whenever we do hang out, it's nothing deep or meaningful; often annoying or aggravating.

These people don't even know me, so any lingering feelings, I'm sorry, are their own responsibility. I'm not responsible for them, just as they are not responsible for whatever led me to my decision. You can say that they're the ones who have to deal with the fallout, but gimme a break, I'm the one who's dead. Shut up. I don't think it's over when I die, and it is with apprehension that I find out what's next.

I don't want to diminish how my parents will feel, I expect that they will be devastated, but our relationship is still at some level of abstraction. They don't know me or anything that's going on in my life, and they don't play an active role in it. I hated them for most of my life, and we're only cordial now because I unilaterally decided it should be so.

None of the issues were ever addressed, allowing them to be complacent about them. I won't bring them up now to try to get to some resolution, because the war ended up as a no-win stand-off, and I have no reason to believe that bringing them up anew would not just lead to that same uncomfortable and tense stand-off.

I decided to cut my losses and heal in my own way, and this is it. I'm still suicidal as I've always been (or think I am or act like I am, after all I'm still alive), but I gave them years of feeling that I was behaving like a real son. I have conversations with them instead of making our phone calls strained, with me giving one word answers and little information. Years of visits where I wasn't cold and stiff, letting them know I was only there out of my feeling of obligation, returning my feeling that they only raised us out of obligation and social expectations.

And it's real. I didn't do that out of spite, to make it even worse for them when I die, gimme a break. In my old age, I give it to them that they did an OK job raising us, they didn't do a bad job. All families have issues. That doesn't diminish the abstract nature of our current relationship.

And I know that the "no material change" yardstick doesn't apply to parents or brothers. Raising me and growing up with each other are enough for my death to create a definite material change in their lives. But for my direct life now, our family bond is of blood, and of cold comfort and little solace to my soul. They can figure out the rest for themselves, I think they love me enough to do so.

There are many people who think I'm a special person, but I'm not special to anyone. By special, I mean that they want to know me and they want me to know them. I had a class of people who I was considering separately, people who aren't in my physical life, but were deep in my heart. But I just found out that my feeling of closeness with one of them was my own creation and not based in reality. I assumed it with her, and probably with the others, too. I don't doubt the love or the importance, but I no longer believe they are any less abstract than the people physically around me. Distance prevails to enhance the abstraction.

I have no partner or spouse, no kids or pets, no one I'm responsible for or co-existent with, no co-workers, roommates, or bandmates, no one is relying on me for anything, no best friend forever, no "best friend" for that matter. Again, I'm not saying I have or will have no impact, but these are the facts.

Next month I will be exactly how old Ritu was when she died. Either 5 or 6 days before September 14, depending on whether her birthday was February 22 or 23. I can look it up. Her life stopped short, I continued on my path, and next month I will cross a threshold and reach an age she never did. That gap between our ages closed.

I don't know why this comes to mind, it's not like we were close; we hadn't known each other for even a year. She was my boss, but we had a strange sympathetic resonance. She was so much what I wanted to be, down to what I believe was her suicide. I have no idea if I was anything she would have wanted to have been, including still alive. I guess that's the thing with most suicides, you never know.

It's strange, though, the way her memory would occasionally haunt me like a ghost. Or is she a guide? We weren't that close, I was never "worthy" to be her friend. Not that being her friend was something to strive for. Being her friend was a dubious honor, as our mutual friend Anita would probably attest. She was an incredible person, but also tortured and seriously flawed. She had no qualms about letting her friends know how tortured and seriously flawed she was.

I, on the other hand, have a serious problem with letting people know how tortured and seriously flawed I was. Partly because I'm not sure I am. OK I am, but in some ways not.

Philadelphia, PA. My brother Rob's bachelor party. Nothing crazy, just eating meat and drinking a lot. Double Dewars on the rocks for me, in tribute to Ritu, as usual.

The rents' house, just outside my room.

This morning I woke up at 4:30 and I don't think I had been dreaming about her, but there was a very detailed and . . . deep? thick? rich? thought of Ritu, who died two years ago, in my mind. I don't remember the thought now. I did have a dubious time getting back to sleep. I don't know if it was my unconscious brain recalling the date, I have been aware of it all week, or if it was something else.

It's a thought and topic not to be belabored. I didn't spend any special time thinking about her today, I'm done with marking these dates as something that needs special thought. At some point, the goodbye was done, and when today came I didn't have to do or think anything like her family probably did. She didn't want to be here and that's OK with me, although if I could have my druthers I'd rather have her present. If I go, I hope I go like she did: tormenting everyone around me with complete irreverence.

"Well some guy comes in
looking a bit like everyone I ever seen
He moves just like crisco disco
breath one hundred percent Listerine
He says, looking at something else
but directing everything to me,
'Every time anyone gets on their knees and prays
well, it makes my telephone ring'
and I'll be damned"
- I. Brock (Modest Mouse)

I've been looking around at the desolate wasteland I call my life, in the affectionate of course, and I've been trying to draw lines from my past to figure out how I got here from there.

It's fascinating. Granted I fascinate myself pretty easily. Some things I go back to and look at where I am and it's totally unfamiliar, can't believe that was the same person. Then there are elements which have just reinforced and maintained the status quo on who I am now. Can we move on already? No, honey, we can't.

I think back to my old boss, Ritu, who died in September 2000. I still think of her and miss her. I wonder how she would have reacted to Sept. 11 and the corporate changes at the firm. I go to the New York Times website and I think of her whenever I see her friend Somini's name in a byline.

I think Somini came out here to help when Ritu was melting down. I think she was the one Ritu finally threw out of her apartment and locked her out and she had no choice but return to New York. And I think we chuckled about the incident later.

Ritu was somebody, something, to a lot of people. Her landscape was tormented and tortured, but it wasn't just some nameless wasteland. She was a participant, not just an observer, and she still excised herself from our realities. The rest of us go on, what can you do?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: You're not going to your own father's wedding?
Maggie: No, I wasn't invited.
Joel: What? Whew, boy that WASP blood, give you the shivers.

I look at the calendar and try to determine a date on which to give notice. Shouldn't I be the least bit disturbed that this is precisely how I treat dying?

In the same vein, my new paradigm for decorating and arranging my apartment is how it will look like when whichever family member has to come out here and gather my stuff. What I want whoever to see first, what I want them to find. Is that how it works? I thought that is what happened with Ritu, but I think maybe she was still alive when her brother came out to get her stuff.

current soundtrack: For Stars - "We Are All Beautiful People"

On Confluence: n. 1: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point.

It's always at the Asian American film festival that I run into old friends and acquaintances, people whose radar screens I've dropped off of, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. If I've fallen off with someone, no prob, I'll probably run into them at some AA film festival (not to be confused with the Al. Anon. film festival, in which I've probably starred in several films. j/k). Part of me dreads it because it is just as possible that I'll run into someone I'd be happier not knowing existed. The funny thing is . . . it's not always at the festival that I run into them.

Cianna:
Last night I went to see "Harmful Insect", from Japan, and I got to the theater, locked my bike, was groovin' along to Modest Mouse, ignoring my surroundings, and I get to the entrance and the person I'm passing pokes me in the gut.

"It's Cianna," she yells as I take my headphones off.

She is the beautiful kind of human being who is always modest and doesn't assume I remember or recognize her. I didn't recognize her for a few seconds, but I certainly remember her. She is one of the most remarkable people I've had the honor of knowing. People who are incredibly selfless, put their energy into doing work that helps other people, intelligent, brilliantly creative . . . people who enrich your life just because of the calibre of human being they are.

It's not like we're going to hang out or anything, but I got her card, telling her, "We aren't in constant contact, but I would like to know where you are." Told her she looked great, gave her a big hug.

She poked me in the stomach as I walked by, how cute is that?

Anita:
This afternoon, no film festival-going. Anita is the reason I have my job. Anita and I had been friends for several years here, but she was best friends with Ritu for a longer time, I don't even know if it's right to call them "friends". They were more like sisters; love-hate.

When Ritu got a job out here and was looking to hire assistants, Anita referred me. The firm didn't want to hire me because of my education, but Ritu threatened HR to hire me. Threatened? Well, if you knew Ritu . . . yea.

When Ritu died, Anita and I fell out of contact. There was tension, but it was an unsaid thing, nothing happened. Just a string of answering machine messages that didn't get answered and then silence.

Several months ago, around the anniversary of Ritu's death, Anita called and left a message, but I didn't feel comfortable answering. But it was enough of a gesture that when I moved in December, she was on the e-mail list telling people of my new contact info.

So today. Jordan called me to go on a bike ride and I decided to go since I hadn't seen him since the lay-offs. But I didn't want to go long since the weather reported rain in the afternoon and I hate, I HATE, I HATE riding in the rain (think wet cat).

But as we (Jordan, two other people, and me) rode and decided along the way where to go next, the weather just got better and better. We ended up going long, crossing the GG Bridge and riding into the Headlands.

By the time we were heading back, deciding to go to Clement St. to get some food, I was feeling that I needed to get home and working on music. So when we got to Clement St., I told them I was taking off.

The problem was among four bikes, we only had two locks. So I donated my lock and told them to get it back to me later. So I took off lockless, realizing that I also needed food, but I couldn't stop anywhere because I couldn't lock my bike. BUT, there's a burger stand on 18th and South Van Ness, right near where I live, that I've always noticed but never went to, where I wouldn't have to lock my bike.

So I go there, and I'm standing on line and see someone sitting at one of the outside tables and catch glances with her. I didn't recognize her, but it's one of those glances where you might not recognize the other person, but you just sense a familiarity. You know what I'm talking about, I know you do.

At the third glance, we're sure of who we are. It's Anita. So we chat a bit, she has to run to a belly dancing class, but she says, "You look great", which made me hold pause because that's exactly what I said to Cianna last night, I couldn't even respond to Anita, I just gave a puzzled look. It was odd.

Northern Exposure quote of the day:
Ed: Suicide's not the Indian way.
Shelley: It's not?
Ed: Don't go where you're not invited, you know what I mean?

current soundtrack: Rilo Kiley - "Take Offs and Landings"

{{{Happy Birthday, Ritu}}}, I wish. Kinda. I guess.

This might be a bit depressing, but more weird shit surrounding Ritu, which might be totally unrelated, and this might be showing my superstitious stripes that I didn't think I had.

A co-worker, who was also a member of Ritu's team, had some seriously shocking bad shit happen to her this past week. Now, she was a great worker, don't get me wrong, and Ritu had nothing bad to say about her in earnest, but from what I know about their two personalities, they could not have been more diametrically opposed.

When I say that maybe Ritu hasn't totally moved on, I don't mean she's a conscious, wandering ghost, haunting people she didn't like.

I think when you die, you are stripped of the materialistic forms and trappings that identified you while you were here. So whatever part of Ritu still remains because of an inability to move on, ghosthood, it's unfocused, blind, and not a conscious entity. Whatever remains, remains like magnetic attraction around what was familiar on this planet, the people she knew, the places she's been, all of them.

It's not like Ritu was out for revenge or anything, but it's the way the energy interacted that totally fucked with this co-worker's life. And it hit her in the worst way possible, not her, but the people around her. Hearts out to her.

Talking to Zenaida today, she mentioned something I wrote a month after Ritu died, and it occurred to me to post it here to put the sentiment onto the vast circulation of the internet. I wrote it because I got a horoscope the day after she died, telling me not to be jealous (which I was) of other people's accomplishments and write thank you notes instead. So, ladies and gentleman, positive vibes out to Ritu so she can get the hell out of here and on with her journey, here goes again, double Dewars on the rocks:

October 14, 2000
Dear Ritu,
This is a thank you note, the intentions of which I hope will reach you in some form wherever you are.

I want to thank you for being who you were, as you were, and for entering my life. That is all. That is all that is needed for me to thank you and to be thankful to you.

I didn't know you that long or that well or that deeply, nevertheless your presence through your absence is deeply felt. And that, perhaps, is the value of having been alive, having lived.

Having touched my life by having been in it, I miss you. I miss your presence, I miss knowing that you are somewhere out there in a form I would recognise, a form in which I could say, "Ritu?" and you could say, "what?"

I will remember your face, your love of orchids, your love of orange, of Eddie Vedder's voice, your passion for the music that touched you, your tactile appreciation; you loved life more than I ever will and you touched it more deeply than I ever will.

I will also remember your pain and your struggle for compassion. I had very little good to say about you in the last month, but now that you're gone, it has all been placed into perspective.

We all have our pain, we all have our struggle, and we all deal with and express them in our own individual ways that may be perceived differently by other people. I didn't understand your struggle, but now I recognise it for what it was, and that it was just yours, not for me to understand or solve or resolve or cure.

So thank you and godspeed. Go on your journey and always come as you are. In whatever time or place I meet you again, if I recognise you on some level, know that I will welcome you.

On behalf of Josefa, Barb, Cass, Wayne, Angela, Lorena, Zenaida, Jeptha, and anyone else who shares the sentiment but I don't know about, thank you. Take this burned candle, this incense, and this song for you and go. If we are to meet again, insha'allah, in this I believe.

I forget if this coming Friday would have been Ritu's 35th or 36th birthday. Oh, she died when she was 34, so it would be her 36th.

Something of her might still be lurking around. I was in a movie theater this afternoon, and I randomly thought of her, how troubled she was, how compassion completely vacated me, what I should have done, and when I imagine her, what a beautiful face she had.

After the movie, I was wondering where to ride next to eventually end up at Amoeba, and Turk St. was right there, so I decided to head up Turk. It didn't occur to me until I crossed Divisidero that it looked like the street Ritu's apartment was on, and, lo, a couple blocks later, there it was, no question about it.

Maybe it was my unconscious, knowing that her birthday is coming up, but maybe she still hasn't fully moved on after more than a year and was "influencing" me.

She may be a ghost. She was such a tortured soul. She was passionate about social injustice, and I regularly saw her give dollar bills to the homeless, but then I also heard how she treated her boyfriend, and I saw how she treated the other assistants on her team. She even went off on me once. She knew I was pissed after that, I wonder how she felt. And then there is the lingering question of how it happened . . .

For the rest of this week, I will concentrate on her, send good vibes or whatever, imagine trying to have helped her instead of abandoning her. I can't justify myself by the context, I was defensive and callous, and if I don't have any friends now, character faults like that probably have a huge part of it.