I retract things in my last post regarding my cousin. They were immediate impressions and observations, perhaps frustration, but they miss our long-standing past and connection.

She came up to Taipei again without her kids and we got together just she and I, and everything was different. She ended up shaking the foundation of my existence in a way few have done before. She didn't mean to, she wasn't trying to. It's a specific chord that she managed to hit by accident.

She still doesn't know what chord she hit. I don't know if she saw my hand shaking or if she knew I sat back in my chair and froze because if I didn't I wouldn't be able to hold back tears. Or a tear. There may have been only one. But she noticed something and stopped and let me get composed.

We were talking about our relationship through the years and how I'd always been there for her when she needed me. But when her husband admitted he was having an affair, she didn't come to me. She didn't call, she didn't tell me.

I knew that when she finally did tell me, I had asked her why she didn't call me and I remember that she gave me a satisfactory answer, but I couldn't remember it this time and planned to ask her again. Fortunately I didn't need to admit that I forgot what she said before because she brought it up herself. 

She said she didn't want to depend on me as she had in the past. She knew she could always depend on me for support and to be on her side, but she felt that was not what she needed. She needed to get through it without me for her own strength and independence. 

She outlined all the times before when she went through problems and came to me and I was always there for her. During her good times, we fell out of contact because she didn't need me, and I was fine with that. I didn't need to always be in her life. I didn't even go to her wedding. But if she needed me, I was always there.

But she noticed that I never needed her. I never went to her when I was in crisis. She was never there when I needed help. And that was it. She touched something she wasn't supposed to. She noticed. I couldn't articulate what it was, but the conversation stopped and she sensed to stop.

She doesn't know that if anything, my life is one big crisis, basically all the time. She doesn't know how conflicted I am about needing help or accepting help. Even defining what it means to need help or to even want it.

Even just the suggestion of recognizing I may have needed help sent me into emotional shock. You have no idea. You're not supposed to have any idea. But to even indirectly suggest that she might have been someone I might have gone to in times of need was . . . too much.

She placed a loving hand on a wall that is built with bricks of silence and suicide. But what she touched was a breach. No one goes there. No one wants to go there. No one wants me to depend on them. It would be a disaster. And I told her as much.

It occurs to me that she has never seen me vulnerable. This was the first time she ever even scratched the surface, and she got in accidentally through the back door. It's not like I have to be "strong" for her. In our spiritual relationship, we are not only equal but I posit myself below her in many respects. Respect, gratitude, love, intimacy.

But, wow, the things she doesn't know. She doesn't know about suicide; she freely talked about contemplating suicide when she found out about her husband, but in passing she tossed out the assumption that suicide is impossible for me. She assumed it, she didn't even pause and ask, "right?" (I had admitted that in my current life, I'm pretty much just waiting to die).

She doesn't know about the alcoholism, even though every time we meet she mentions that I've been drinking because she can smell it (she's one of those annoying people who can smell alcohol on someone hours and hours later). She doesn't know about the insomnia.

She knows about the past cutting, but she went into denial about it before and that's probably the status quo. I haven't done that in years, but she hasn't followed up or checked that I still do or don't, even as a joke. I understand it's hard. Even Sadie, who had noticed scars and assumed it was cutting, was surprised at the extent of it when she saw it all. I've long stopped trying to hide it.

So Audrey hit an emotional chord. And then she backed off. As she should have as far as I was concerned. She mentioned several times over the rest of the evening how I would hit her emotional chords and keep poking at them. Maybe she was pointing out how I wasn't letting her keep poking. And maybe that's so, but that's what I'm imposing on her. She doesn't want me to depend on her, trust me, it would be ruinous, disaster.

Suicide has been a part of my resonant mental fabric since an early age, and I've learned through the years that I can't trust to tell anything I consider my truth to other people. Layers and layers have been laid so that when my cousin lovingly suggests that maybe I can tell her? Not a chance. Thank you, but no way.

People trying to get to know me, getting under my skin. Remnants of people trying to care. But these are my issues alone. As Audrey tried to grasp what had happened, I even invoked why I ultimately didn't ordain as a monk at Plum Village.

She had previously hijacked my attempt to explain it during her prior visit, but I was finally able to impose it on her this time. One of the reasons I didn't ordain (or more specifically engineered my aspirancy to be questioned), was partly because of one important discussion with the monks about having to deal with issues.

It was suggested to me that personal issues would have to be dealt with as part of the spiritual path. And for me, mine is not a path that anyone else has to deal with whether they want to help or not. If the monks saw I needed help, they would be available to help. Audrey, I'm sure, would be willing to "help" if I asked for it and explained how.

But it's not "help" I want or need. It's the howling abyss I need to face and plunge into willingly and fearlessly to see what it is and put it into my karmic experience.

Walking with her back to Taipei Main Station where she was going to meet her brother to go back to Kaohsiung, she started to flirt with me (she had a glass of plum wine). She thought it was hilarious that when she would hook her arm into mine, I would stiffen and become visibly uncomfortable.

My reactions were purely visceral. I also review them as funny, but . . . different places, different progressions. And I don't see that sort of reticence as permanent. She can flirt, she can be intimate in the future and, well, we have long-standing past and connection.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

Zero hits to this blog since I changed the url! That's success in my book. All of the usual web searches from before still go to the old url, dead blog. It's kinda liberating. I've been feeling this blog has lost the plot, that it's come off the rails, that its wheels have left the road. It's like a conversation with myself that's been lost.

Acquaintances, friends are ongoing conversations. What and how you communicate with different people is sourced in previous conversations and interactions. It's hard to be motivated to instigate contact with people when that conversation is gone or has been disrupted: I think of trying to write to Sadie, Madoka or Delphine, but the conversation between us is just not there. The last thing they said to me doesn't inspire response and any contact would have to be a cold start.

I did meet up with both my cousin Audrey and my old Mandarin teacher recently within a two week period. It's much easier to reestablish a conversation in person. Audrey recently went through a crisis with an end result that she is separating from her husband and taking her kids and moving to California. When she first called to tell me what happened, we couldn't establish a conversation. We couldn't close the distance that way.

My Mandarin teacher also contacted me with an emergency regarding a situation with her Master's program and asked to get together. Although I don't think the urgency was essential to the conversation as was it being in-person to discuss a situation.

I guess the pattern suggests the long-distance conversation is out. The nature of my relationship with people is that there is too much to "not get" over distance. On the "getting" part, Sadie, Madoka and Delphine all don't. And I don't give a crap. That's not a negative not giving a crap, I'm not judging nor have any feeling about it. That's just observation of the way it is.

I guess it's possible to meet up with someone in person and still miss successfully having a "conversation", but my relationship with my cousin and teacher are substantive enough that if we're sitting across from another, it's pretty easy.

Fortunately, I'd say, too.

I'm still considering the effect Sadie has had by coming here. Really, there should be none. Really, there inevitably is.

So far we've been maintaining communications more frequently than before, but her way of communicating has become totally foreign to me. Before, we had normal email communications, albeit at times a lot of time would pass between them. Not abnormal.

"Normal" communications being something letter like. You write about something, they respond and bring up some other thing, you respond. Her communications are more often a barrage of scattershot, in-the-moment snippets that I can't even tell if I'm supposed to respond or not. A lot of questions I ask go unanswered. We do not communicate in the same way over long-distance.

It's not the connection like we had when together, either here or over nine years ago in San Francisco. But this all makes sense, because we're not supposed to be trying to "connect" any more than we just generally do. We had a moment, and it was a special moment, but certain fundamentals remain the same. Striving for some connection or even substance between us different from what we always have been is silly.

And as my lifestyle has sunk back into its morass (unfortunately not more ass (sorry, bad obvious joke)), it's gotten even worse, possibly even getting to my physical health. It's hard to tell because my physical health isn't supposed to be that good as I've been trying to sabotage it for years. More and more symptoms to match alcoholic liver disease.

And I find I'm not just cruising in a bearable, hazy ennui as I have been for the past two or three years. I'm starting to get tired of it, irritated by it, but still zero motivation or ambition to do anything. I still maintain that nothing is going to change without a next sincere attempt. A lot of indicators that I should be angling towards that.

So Sadie came and went. I'm still processing her visit. I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle about any subtexts, or not subtle enough. Or whether I should be subtle or not. There's a certain word without which you can't spell "subtext". Real subtle there.

She initially came to visit for three weeks and then extended her stay for another three weeks, sex weeks total, until she really needed to go back. That means she was having a good enough time after three weeks to extend as long as possible.

All in all, I think it was a brilliant visit. We had a lot of fun, lots of laughs and definite connection. On the other hand there were tensions that can be expected from six weeks of near daily exposure. There were things I wish I did better.

I suppose the thing I don't want to downplay is how well we connected. We got each other. Even in our worst moments, there was always movement towards or with each other, and rarely, if not none, where we encountered a negative situation or mindset and mentally or emotionally headed off in divergent directions.

And 97% of her visit wasn't even near those worst moments. Mostly it was brilliant, hilarious, unabashed, affectionate connection. We challenged each other, just about anything went, and it still mostly ended up hilarious. Not all, but mostly.

Some lines were crossed and quickly forgiven (I knew I'd pay for any gender stereotyping, even in jest), some lines weren't allowed to be crossed until control was established (she didn't get to see my apartment until her last day here, on the way to the airport).

On the other hand, I don't want to over-emphasize any meaning to this visit. It was assumed to be for a limited time only. In fact, I realized and brought up the discrepancy between my attitude about her visiting before she arrived and my behavior towards her after she was here.

Where did that previous attitude, basically warning her not to visit, go? She arrived and I welcomed her with open arms and spent as much time with her as possible and we talked openly about just about everything. It was for a limited time only. No strings attached.

I think the hardest time for us was when we discussed my not wanting to be here and not wanting to do anything. Communication did break down, although we still stuck together through it. But in that discussion, we didn't even have a common frame of reference or a common language.

I can't even convey what she was trying to convey, because we weren't even speaking the same language. To my ears, she sounded like someone trying to convince a gay person not to be gay. Or a Christian trying to convince someone of the absolute truth of Jesus. She totally refused to get these analogies, nor the significance that I was using analogies of intolerance. 

And she called me stubborn for refusing to even consider something that I feel I have to deal with every moment of my existence. That was pretty damn near offensive, but I sucked it up because I do love her. Always have.

That can't be understated. Even though in the nine years since I left San Francisco, our communications have been friendly and familiar at best with long periods of silence, we almost always had as great of a time together in S.F. as someone could have with someone with a boyfriend (her not me), and saying I've always loved her is easy now, if not a given, now that she doesn't have a boyfriend.

The only reason for the subtexts that easily unfolded between us is because I loved her all along. I wasn't like, "oh, yuck".

Still processing. As I'm sure she is, too. I think the reality of it may be that we affirmed we have a very loving friendship. But maybe not much of anything else will or should change. If we lived in the same city, things may turn out to be very different.

And it also shouldn't be ignored that we both likely sacrificed and endured a lot to make her visit a pleasant one for both of us. At the end of willingness to sacrifice and endure, it probably gets less pleasant.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

Sadie decided during her third week here that she will extend her stay. Now she's going to be here for another three weeks to the limit that she can stay (she has to go back to be at someone's wedding). Most importantly, she booked her stay for the next three weeks at a single airbnb, so no more moving around like in the first three weeks in what were essentially hostels or hotels.

From my point of view, it's been wonderful that she's here. Even if she wishes that I wanted something from life and wanted to live, I've drawn certain lines in the sand that if she were to cross wouldn't make any difference. What and who I am now is deeply ingrained and her hopes otherwise are unlikely to change them.

So we enjoy each others' company and intimacies and share just about everything, including every embarrassing thing from our pasts.

She moved to the airbnb today and I have a set of keys to the apartment, and I don't know why I'm not there now. She decided to stay another three weeks, and I should be taking advantage of and relishing each extra day that she's decided to be here. I'm slow like that.

Maybe just this first day, I wanted her to establish the apartment as her space. And perhaps insomnia being a fear and an issue, as I haven't been able to get much sleep anywhere but my own apartment. Although that hasn't stopped insomnia being an issue at home, either. Generally it's been good, but when it hits, it wipes me out and is a chronic fear.

Well that escalated quickly.

Sadie arrove. Her time in Taipei was planned to be three weeks. The first week was a lot of orientation and navigating Taipei and each others' intimacies. The second week had us ironing out some . . . inconsistencies?

Amongst our having fun spending time with each other, I met up with her one time with alcohol not quite having dissipated from my system, and she took issue with that and, from my point of view, projected some behaviors on me that to me were not at all inconsistent with how I just am. She brought it up as a problem and we discussed it.

If she has back issues with alcohol, I'm willing to accommodate them. But it is patronizing in a way. I don't think I ever show up perceived "drunk", but if I do show up with the smell of alcohol, I give her the option of postponing our meeting a couple hours until she's comfortable. I take no offense.

Personally, I don't give a shit. Generally I'll allocate a drying out period, but those times we met when she knew I had alcohol in my system were specific circumstances. If she wants me to dry out first, I have no problem with that. But under no circumstance, and I think she knows this, am I going to hide that constant drinking, if not alcoholism, call it alcoholism if you want, I don't care, is part of my being.

It seemed that the issue was big enough for her to state that she would be bailing and returning to San Francisco as planned on the 31st. That was a few days ago. I think now she's reconsidering. Makes little difference to me, truth to tell. If she goes home, that's fine, if she decides to extend, glad to have her around.

None of this is to suggest that there are any problems between us or in our friendship/acquaintance/relationship. I told her if she decided to visit, she should come with no expectations, and she has heeded that. She sometimes pushes me towards something she would prefer me to be, but she's very patient and accommodating when I gently suggest nothing of that sort is going to happen.

I do feel I'm too far gone, and any next step I take will be after a next attempt. But short of that, there's still nothing I want to do, and so far there is nothing life can offer that will make me want to "live out my life". That's not the point of my life, I believe.

It's not despondence, I feel vaguely liberated and free. Definitely not in the realm of enlightenment, but I do feel light being the way I am. Not weighed down by mundane concerns of job, making a living, creating a family and all that bullshit.

But there definitely is a path ahead.

We held hands. All the way back to her hostel from Danshui.

Sadie took the day off from work and she woke me up in the morning. I bought some time to get myself collected and suggested some things for her to do, to which she was amenable, basically exploring her surrounding area.

She said I was a good teacher, which I like to think I am. A disadvantage of knowing someone on the ground when visiting a foreign country is that when they guide you around, you miss the figuring out where to go on your own.

For me, when learning about a new place, I like to think navigation is an important part of the memory. So when she first arrived, I gave her a paper map orientation, which I assumed wouldn't stick, but I think it's useful for some people to get it in their mind to go between the map and the experience, and they start putting it all together themselves.

Having sent her solo on the MRT yesterday, I suggested that after she did the local exploring that we meet at Taipei Main Station at a certain exit at a certain time, which is generally how it's done in Taipei, and she took the challenge and we met up no problem (she was duly impressed at the effectiveness of using the MRT stations' numbered exits as meeting places).

We walked around and explored the Taipei Main Station area, which is the original downtown area of Taipei and seat of the national government, and is right next to Ximending where we were last night to help conceptualize how Taipei is oriented.

Afterwards, we headed north on the red MRT line with the idea of being at the end of the line in Danshui to watch the sunset and the off-possibility of catching sight of a comet that might possibly be visible.

We stopped in Xinbeitou on the way, about halfway to Danshui, and spent a pleasant afternoon in that area famous for hot springs, and she mentioned that she heard about the hot springs and had brought a bathing suit should that opportunity arise.

Then we headed up to Danshui, but unfortunately even though it was sunny in Taipei and Xinbeitou, by the time we got to the end of the line, the area was socked in by fog. I walked her through Danshui anyway and we settled in for dinner at Alleycats pizza for several hours (she humored my constant craving for western food even though she's eager to try all things local).

Sadie and I have great chemistry. We rarely ever have bad feelings about each other and our dynamics are generally playful, and we range from dead serious conversations about love, life, work, politics, etc., to cracking ourselves up so much that everyone around us looks at us.

Or perhaps another example of our interaction is that if we have nothing to say, we don't. We just look at each other in the eyes. We don't get uncomfortable or awkward. We just know we don't need to say anything. If it looks like we're getting awkward, we make a joke about it getting awkward, and then go right back doing it.

So perhaps I'd describe our dynamics as a mix of serious intensity and rip-roaring laughter. Which in itself creates a certain dynamic. And by the time we were leaving Alleycats, all I did was say something completely silly and arbitrary that had Sadie laughing hysterically and us suddenly holding hands.

It was generally comfortable all the way back down, both of us having a pretty clear idea where each other stands. Although personally the human contact was perplexing. Like when the Borg Queen attaches the human skin, complete with sensation, onto Data in "Star Trek: First Contact".

I put no emotional attachment to the sensation. It's the same with pain or unpleasant things. Like last night was pretty chilly in Ximending and Sadie asked me if I was cold, and I said yes, but it doesn't bother me. Perhaps for other people, they feel cold and they associate it with unpleasant and associate it with an emotional dislike reaction.

I don't do that last step of making a sensation emotional. A sensation of our physical bodies is in general to me just a sensation to be experienced, and not something on which to put an emotional attachment. Nothing whatsoever should be attached to is the philosophic path to enlightenment with which I agree.

A sensation of pain is not necessarily undesirable, sometimes to me it's fascinating and I'll explore it or meditate on it. A sensation of sensuous human touch is, to me, not something that leads to desire.

I'm not sure what the next few weeks will hold. A lot of unknowns. But I'm confident it will be a positive experience without compromising the general state my life is in, which is I just don't want to do anything. Even Sadie brings up things I could do and I try to remind her of the profundity of I just don't want to do anything. There is no desire here.

I am even aware of the implications of our holding hands so soon after her landing. I don't know where things are going to lead, but I have had the thought that Sadie didn't come all this way just to work and hang out.

So Sadie arrived Saturday night and I met her at the airport. She had booked a hotel room for that night, and I navigated her there.

After the one night at a hotel, her plan was to spend some time in hostels to gauge her experience in them here, or opt for short-term private living spaces that can be found online (called airbnb's). Working spaces are apparently an option for people around the globe who work over the internet.

She arrived without a hitch late Saturday. After we took a bus from the Taoyuan International Airport into Taipei, we walked the entire distance from Taipei's regional airport to her hotel, and everything was fine and dandy and great.

She had no expectations and she knew I was wary of her visit and my ability to interact socially, but interacting socially isn't really my problem. It's processing the social interaction.

On Sunday, I helped get her settled in at a hostel and we located a working space she had found online, and I got her oriented with transportation and the general area in which she was staying, which is around Shida, the first general area in which I stayed when I first arrived.

I got her oriented with the Heping East Road corridor and at the end of the day I gave her an easy task – get us back to the hostel from where we were in the Shida night market (I knew it would be easy for her to make sense of even if she made a mistake).

It wasn't meant to torment her, of course, but to be able to navigate independently. If she was right I'd tell her right away, if she was totally wrong I'd tell her right away, but if she was a little wrong and could figure out that it was wrong, I let her figure out it was wrong on her own, maybe pointing out a hint if there was something that would make things clear in her mind.

Today she tried out the working space but got there in the afternoon. We agreed to meet up in the early evening and get some dinner, and afterwards she could try to put some more hours of work in.

Having gotten her comfortable with her immediate surroundings, I suggested venturing further out and getting her to navigate the MRT. She had heard about the toilet bowl restaurant in Ximending and we decided it was a worthy novelty tourist experience, so we decided to go there, a short trip on MRT, and again I tasked her with getting us there, and she managed it just fine.

After we wandered around Ximending and she felt she should go back and try to work, I asked her if she thought she could make it back solo and she was confident and comfortable that she could, so I sent her on her way and hopped on a bus home.

Sadie arrived in town. Sadie from San Francisco. Sadie who I haven't seen in almost 9 years. Sadie the last person I saw in San Francisco. She hung out with me the night before I left, after my apartment was empty and all my stuff was sitting in a Ryder truck outside.

I think she asked me at some point back then if there wasn't anything she could've said that could have made me stay. I said no, but she could have, but it was just that the time was wrong.

She asked me recently if it was alright if she visited, and I distinctly, resoundingly didn't say yes.

She has a job where she telecommutes, and she realized she could telecommute from anywhere. So she realized she could travel to places and all she had to do was maintain the discipline to work a 40 hour work week and everything was cool and she could experience living in different places.

I didn't say it would be cool to visit me. I didn't say I wanted her to visit me. I did say she couldn't stay with me, as my apartment is inadequate for that. I did remind her of my current state of social isolation and that there were a lot of unknowns involving me suddenly interacting with people.

I did say that if she happened to decide to come to Taipei as a destination to do her work thing, I would make sure she landed on her feet to do her work thing, and that I would make myself available at every possibility to hang out with her and show her my Taipei.

I honestly didn't think she'd come here. All the signs I was giving should have been construed as warnings. I told her she could come but to have no expectations. And she came with no expectations.

She'll be here for three weeks figuring out her own living situation and work situation, and I'll make myself available for her to have a good experience.

She's an old friend now. I love her like I loved her back in San Francisco, and I'm sure she loves me like she loved me back in San Francisco, but we were only good friends then. Now we're old friends, with that much more comfort and weight to our interactions.

I think we'll generally have a great time. I think she'll generally have a great experience. But I really, really, really want to tell her at some point before she leaves that all I want from life now is to experience death, and bringing faith into the picture, to not come back at all (Buddhism is the faith, but the actual "faith" is in the unknowing whether it's a reasonable projection of what else there is beyond our physical lives and reality).

I really feel done with the human experience (for now, perhaps), and nothing is as disheartening as the idea of reincarnation and going through all of something like this again and hoping to be exposed to and re-learn all the stuff (due to karma) that was so inspiring before to get me on the path.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I've been in the U.S. for a week and I'm here for the entire month of April. Where exactly is this journey of mine taking me? 

If I had succeeded in my first attempt last summer, shit would have hit the fan through the second half of the year. If I managed to not leave a body, the mystery may have lingered, but by now the impact would have died down. Someone would have disposed of my material possessions, daily lives would all have resumed.

And when I say "impact", that's a bit of an unwarranted conceit. I don't mean any substantial impact. There isn't anyone substantial in my life to really be impacted. It would only be an obligatory or superficial impact – family, the result of the accident of having been born into their particular family; people who had a physical awareness of my existence.

I don't think anyone could be substantially impacted if they didn't know anything about me or my thoughts or thinking or ideas. If they didn't have any curiosity or inquiry, I feel justified in writing them off. They likely viewed me in a normative way, so they can deal with it in whatever normative way people do. It's not my concern.

Some people might puzzle, but no one knew me or the intricacies of the long-standing reasons that led me to finally do what I had always considered inevitable. Anyone who thought that I had linearly come to a decision for tangible reasons and then carried it out would miss the point entirely.

If not for this trip to the U.S. now, would I have made my second attempt when the window of opportunity opened in late March? Now with the second attempt in limbo, I'm at a loss at what to expect of myself.

This month in the U.S. already feels like it will be a month of great numbing. I'm not doing anything different or productive that's so different from anything I was doing in Taiwan. Just taking advantage of certain things available to me here. Value is still the same – just about nil.

I haven't been drinking constantly, and a week into being here, the times I've allowed a beer, it was like, "why am I drinking this?". My tolerance has been unpleasantly low. That might change as the month goes on, though.

My first week here, I've been double-whammied with jetlag and insomnia. I would crash hard late in the evening for about an hour. Then later when I'd go to sleep, I haven't been able to get more than 3 hours of sleep before I'd put a DVD on in the wee hours of morning. It's starting to let up now and I'm getting more sleep, not that the lack of sleep had any effect on me, though. 

It makes me wonder about a previous visit here where I remember having absolutely no jetlag, no insomnia for the duration I was here, and also sleeping pretty normal sleeping hours by an ordinary person's standard. Still haven't figure out what that might have been about.

I had a dream early on where the only thing I remember was having Shiho in my lap and kissing her. And another where there was someone "interested" in me and I was responding, but I have no idea who that was.

As long as I was back in the States and could call people here, I got back in touch with Sadie. Even though it looked like we had cut contact last year, it was as I thought. Either of us could make an overture at any time and we could go with it. And we'll go with it until the next minor falling out. 

No major falling outs for us, I shouldn't wonder. I want to value Sadie enough that if we have a major falling out, I would make an effort to resolve any issues. Minor falling outs are fine. They may be the result of feelings we don't know what to do with, but they don't affect the friendship, who she is to me.

Not sure I trust myself on that one, though. And don't want to test it. 

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

where I am (I: Isolation)

This is where I've landed my life. What I mentioned before as the result of decisions I've made, the experiences I've had and how I've processed them, the attitude with which I've lived my life, blah, blah, blah, naturally landed me where I am now.

I guess the biggest thing is the utter isolation, no friends, no loved ones, no family, no confidants, few acquaintances. I chase people away, I run away and hide myself. There is no one I consider a friend. I'm a notorious "unfriender" on Facebook. It hasn't always been this way.

Madoka's a mystery. Our relationship started losing steam actually quite a long while ago; towards the beginning of this blog it turns out. I always trusted that it was a momentary skid and it would recover to its former intimacy. It hasn't. It fell into years of no contact, then a recent re-kindling of contact, but no connection.

Then in response to her inquiry into what I described as my "next bold move" (cue Ani DiFranco), I told her what was up in as clear a way as possible without using the word "suicide" (I'll go into that soon and let you decide for yourself (whoops, nope, looks like that email got deleted)), and I got no reaction, no request for clarification, ignored.

Then she went silent again for the past several months, and I thought that was the end of that, but then she emailed recently and I just have no motivation to respond. It was a totally superficial email – hi, how are you? this is what I'm doing, this is what the next few weeks look like.

Sadie was my last friend in San Francisco. We fell out of touch for several years for some reason, then found each other again in email and Facebook contact, and then she told me she had Hepatitis C and might need a liver transplant. I responded with as much support and empathy as I could conjure, which apparently didn't impress and I never heard back from her. End.

Those were the last friendships that could be considered to have been anything. The people I know in Taiwan don't mean anything and are nothing. I can count 5 people right off who always say "Let's get together", but when it comes time to get together, nothing happens. All talk.

Edit: To be fair, an old French classmate who has returned to Taiwan is an exception, as is my old Mandarin teacher, with whom I've started to meet again for language exchange.

There's a ring of extended family who are useless to me and nothing. I'm polite to them, I get along with them, I even love my aunt and uncle, but I project nothing about anything underneath the politeness and formality.

The undercurrent in all this is that I have no more need for human relations. There's nothing anyone could do for me and I have nothing to ask of them. They show no interest in me, and I have no motivation to beg interest.

The idea of a romantic relationship is so gone out of my reality that I don't think of the people around me as romantic people, as people desiring and searching for romantic contact. It's simple fact that no one could possibly find anything attractive in me.

The most recent thing was Hyun Ae, and I read back what I wrote about her, and I'm willing to admit that I was in love with her. I did fall in love with her and enjoyed her presence and company like no one since perhaps Amina. But I would never have gotten into a relationship with her even if she reciprocated, and there were signs of possible reciprocation. But part of what I loved about her was her inaccessibility, and if she did become accessible, I would not have pursued that.

And here's the disclosure: I haven't gone out with anyone since Josephine. We broke up in November 1998. 12 years. More than an entire decade of my life. In my entire working history, in my entire band history, in the entire time most people have known me, I couldn't be associated romantically with someone else.

Can you even imagine that? It's not human to not be in a relationship for that length of time. That's not supposed to happen to a reasonably social being, which I was, without any major hangups or defects, which I was. At some point, someone to whom I send out signals should respond positively, or someone will send signals towards me to which I would respond.

This is not a drought. It's not natural and it's a personal fact. And karmically, it's one that I welcome. Romantic relationships are done. I don't even know what they are anymore and I hope that gets carried over karmically into my next life. No interest.

And where I am is no mistake, either. Isolated here in Taipei where no one has access to me. I run through scenarios in my mind of how things might unfold if I happened to disappear, and it could take months before it becomes clear that something's wrong.

My landlord would be the first to notice, and he would send out inquiries to my cousin, and she would ask her father, and he would ask my mother, but no one would have access to any information, no one would be able to do anything or get any concrete information and it would just get passed off for more weeks of people wondering, waiting to see if I turn up.

Months. You disappear and it's months before bells are ringing loud enough that anyone really tries to do anything or find out some actual information.

More later on where I am now. And where I've been.

So after establishing a time for a 4-mile run pushing it, I decided to do the same 4-mile run, but not pushing it, which means running to the best of my ability, but laying off if it was getting hard. Final time was 30:48; 8 seconds slower than last time, and average 7:42 miles. I was surprised I wasn't slower, but actually it makes a lot of sense. I like it when things make sense. It was slower because I wasn't pushing it, but it wasn't drastically slower because I'm still at a stage where I'm improving my time each run, and the last time pushing it was part of the process.

I did get a nasty bit of news from an old friend. Turns out she has cirrhosis and has just begun treatment. It's not the kind of cirrhosis you get from alcoholism, but it's kinda weird that I know that's where I'm headed, and she gets a liver disease out of nowhere. I'm hoping they caught it in time. This isn't saying anything, but she mentioned her symptoms leading up to getting this diagnosis, and they matched many that I've experienced recently. More importantly, not all of them matched, and I've experienced health-related issues that she didn't mention.

Liver disease is a funny thing. You can have a set of symptoms and have liver disease, but someone else with the exact same symptoms might not have it. And another person might not have any of those symptoms, but have liver disease.

I don't know what was the symptom that made her go check it out. I know that under no conditions am I going to a doctor voluntarily. That's one of my hang-ups; one of my "things". I never go see a doctor. The last time I did was when we got health insurance at work in San Francisco, and it was a "what the hell" kinda thing. It turned out I had a condition that the doctor treating me previously had. After he heard my description of the symptoms and examined me, he said, "You don't seem to be particularly bothered by this. You probably figured it would just go away, but just came in out of curiosity".

I was startled, he was exactly right. I was feeling a pain, but it didn't feel at all that it was pain being caused by damage, that something was wrong. If it weren't for people urging me to take advantage of the firm's health plan, I would've ignored it. He then admitted he had it before and that was his reaction as well. He told me his went away after a short duration, and I should probably expect the same. A nerve was being impinged upon, but it would adjust itself in time and the pain would go away.

Anyway, I envision the path I would take for some serious liver issue very differently. No doctors, no treatment, no medication. Just let it take its course. I knowingly brought it on, why would I suddenly turn around and try to fight it? I would consider how I deal with it as part of my journey and I would treat it like all phenomena I encounter and examine it and try to understand it and my feelings and reactions. I wouldn't get sucked into it emotionally, I wouldn't be upset or despair over it. Any emotional episodes would also be viewed as part of the process and the journey. I wouldn't be numb about it, just mindful.

Wow! Hyun Ae is staying for at least another term! That was a surprise. There were a bunch of reasons why she decided to go back, one of which was her mother's bad health, but in the end, her mother told her to stay here for the same reasons I used to convince her to stay. But all of this is coming from her, so it might not be coincidence. What her mother said and what I said might have combined in her head, so that when she told me what her mother said, it sounded exactly like what I said.

Too bad, since I was getting used to the idea of her leaving and starting over again in Taipei, not knowing anyone here. And after all, has she really been that good of a friend? It's all mucked up.

Human relations are so mucked. I was reminded of this when Sadie got back in touch with me last month. We exchanged a few emails, and I was reminded that even as she was my best friend in San Francisco in the end, and I think of her fondly, there was muck in our human relations.

We met when I auditioned for her band. They rejected me but still wanted to be friends with me. The basis of our friendship was her rejecting me from her band. When our emails started talking about music, I was reminded about that, and it didn't feel good.

Especially when our last phone conversation before we cut off for almost two years was her telling me what a bad friend I was because I wasn't open enough. I don't think that was the substantive issue, though, and I don't hold anything against her from that conversation.

What I do hold against her is the idea that I've always been pretty low priority for her. Her value in my friendship has always been below her boyfriend, understandably, her band, her bandmate, all band related matters and people, and no doubt other things I don't even know about.

I don't feel like our friendship was separate and had its own value, I definitely feel that my value was below all those other things. The reason is because music is central to both of us, was central to our meeting, and was a component even within our friendship.

I should keep in mind that I was referring to Hyun Ae as a "Sadie" here. Both of them I consider in my mind as being really good friends. The reality of both is probably that they're not. Story of my life.

In the words of Nigel Tufnel, "mucky-muck".

I saw the movie Shortbus this past week. It opened in New York before I came to Taiwan, but I never got around to getting into New York to see it. Besides, with the press focusing so much on the explicit sex, it made me feel like I was going to see the movie just for the sex. In fact, all that everyone talks about the film is the sex.

For me the film wasn't about sex. Quite honestly, I didn't care about the sex one way or another. Was it necessary? Who cares? Do we now question everything about a filmmaker's choices and ask if it was necessary? It was there, it was part of the movie, deal with it.

I think people's viewing of the film will be affected by what they bring into it. For me, I focused on the emotional dysfunction, and to me, the film was about emptiness, fulfillment, and connection, and the role of physical intimacy, er, sex, in relation to those things.

But the big wow for me was the realization that I couldn't be in a contentious relationship ever again, and all I've been in before have been contentious relationships, for one reason or another. I think I've gotten to the point where, I wouldn't be the one to cause contention, but there were scenes in the movie when one partner would go off and dig into the other, and I wondered how I could handle that.

My attitude for keeping peace is to keep myself in check, and not let other people draw me into a contentious situation. But if someone is yelling at me or accusing me or getting really negative, that behavior looks like I'm cutting off and shutting down.

And coincidentally, my old friend Sadie tried calling my cell phone in New Jersey after almost two years. We cut contact then because I think that's exactly what happened. I was still at the monastery then, and we were on the phone and she started telling me why I was not a good friend.

I thought for a fact that some of the things she said were inaccurate, but to engage in that discourse would be entering into the contention. I don't care about being right anymore, and if someone is saying it, I don't want to respond by calling what they're saying invalid. So I just didn't say anything. I didn't think that would be our last contact, but afterwards I just didn't know how to respond, and she never called back.

That was pretty mild, too. Emotions never took control of that conversation. She just laid into me. If I look like I'm cutting off in a situation like that, I imagine that in a relationship when things are more intense and more "real", my methodology is wholly inadequate.

I just remember walking out of the theater and thinking, "There is no way I'll ever be in a relationship again." That was some raunchy sex, though.

January 24, 4:01 p.m.

It was a week ago that Hyun Ae uncharacteristically called on a Friday night, uncharacteristically asking if I could get together with her on Saturday. She then uncharacteristically didn't bail on those plans. Since then, this has been Hyun Ae Week. All Hyun Ae, all the time.

We had our "bad" day today. Not that we're allowed to have "bad days", there is nothing between us and there is no potential for anything. We're just friends, so there is no "good" or "bad" days, just days as friends. Variable days as friends.

But circumstances today had it so that we didn't stick with each other all the time. One person even noticed it. We noticed it. But we both denied that there was anything that should be construed in a way that we should be sticking with each other. Although I think we both would have preferred it.

I don't know if it was awkward. It may have been, but if it was we both knew it was necessary, so it was OK. When we parted ways after lunch, I (uncharacteristically) told her to call me if she wanted to do something this weekend, and our eye contact lingered for just a few crucial seconds as we walked away from each other to let each other know that today('s bad day) wasn't personal.

So.

So...

So?

So nothing.

I wonder if I could fall in love with her, just as a mental exercise, and I realize I don't know what love is. I think people who have really touched love realize that they don't know what it is. Although there are people who have really touched love who do know what it is. Both exist.

I don't know, and I don't think I could fall in love with her anyway. Falling in love stopped being an option for me. I don't know when it happened, it just did. Some time after Josephine. When I didn't recover from that relationship.

Oh, she just messaged me asking if I could get together with her tomorrow. This is real-time blogging. And of course, I'm tickled yes. Have I mentioned how stupid I've been lately? Being stupid is underrated.

But no, I'm keeping this in perspective and taking this in stride. She's just my best friend here. She is my Sadie here. I have no intention of letting her become my Amina here.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Bellyache (Echobelly)
2. Tomorrow Never Knows (Phil Collins)
3. Play My Music (Exodus Steel Orchestra)
4. I Shall Scream ("Oliver!")
5. Skin Tight (Ohio Players)
6. She Watch Channel Zero?! (Public Enemy)
7. In the Flesh? (Pink Floyd)
8. With Every Light (Smashing Pumpkins)
9. Y Tu Que Has Hecho? (Compay Segundo - "Buena Vista Social Club")
10. New Feeling (live) (Talking Heads)

WordsCharactersReading time

I think I've found my "Sadie" of Taiwan. More important than the discovery is the identification of a pattern that I'm calling "Sadies", whether it be real or imagined. Most likely imagined, or created by myself to be perpetuated.

So a Sadie is a person with whom I click, who I really like, and were it not for a pre-existing significant other, I might be "interested" in.

I was never really "interested" in the original Sadie because of my "red flag" system. Red flags indicate diminished interest in someone, and unlike other people who identify red flags and run right through them in pursuit of base attraction, no matter how unwise or destructive, I take my red flags seriously. Mostly because reciprocation has never been significant enough existent for me to ignore them, no matter how unwise or destructive.

Pre-existing significant others is as red as a red flag can get. They are simply not an option, not a consideration. I don't care what their relationship is like, if they're in a relationship, I won't meddle in it.

In addition to the red flag of the pre-existing significant other (S.O.), the original Sadie (O.S.) constantly laid her woes about her attraction to her bandmate on me, which if I were really interested in her would amount to insult to injury. The only distinguishing point about a Sadie is clicking and her being unavailable, but still clicking. And therefore creating "wondering".

Hyun Ae made things difficult by not making it clear to our circle of friends that there was a S.O. It was such that two of our group were betting on whether she did or did not. Previous to hearing about their bet, I had gotten into a line of discussion with her in which I unintentionally "forced" her to confess that, yes, there was a S.O. (maybe I should have been a lawyer).

So I knew the answer, but her concealment of this S.O. was so confounding that I didn't feel at liberty to settle their bet. If it didn't come out of her mouth to them, then I didn't know any better. In fact, I actually contributed an argument that she didn't have a S.O. based on her behavior, completely ignoring my actual knowledge that she did. I'm nutty like that.

But that's the backdrop to her. She has a S.O., but she behaves like she doesn't. Push and pull, if you know what I mean. And strangely, as she's been recently a little more explicit in referring to him as her "boyfriend" (as opposed to "friend"), to me at least, her pull has been a little more strong. Amongst our circle of friends, it's obvious we're closer to each other than with the others, and we have "rituals" more than "friends" should.

I do enjoy the pull. I enjoy the time we spend together, and her company has lasted beyond the point where I usually get antsy spending time with other people, which was characteristic of the original Sadie as well. I still get antsy and want to go off on my own, but it's not compelling enough to make it happen. Well, it does, but later; my tolerance level is much higher.

Bottom line, I'm comfortable with Sadies. I'm glad there is a S.O., and I wouldn't want it any other way. In any scenario that I can think of where something happens, it ends up with me realizing that it's better off that nothing happens. I'm fine being pulled with the pulls, and I'll provide the pushes myself if they're not forthcoming themselves.

As for the original Sadie, we lost touch while I was at Deer Park. We had one last conversation when she laid in me about what a bad friend I was. I was too busy applying the monastic practice of deep listening to respond, and thereby possibly maintaining contact. And in the end, her accusations didn't fit my reality enough for me to be able to respond anyway.

The bottom line of her tone was, "Why aren't you the way I want you to be?", and if that is accurate, then it enters my ears as "Why am I friends with you?". I'm sure not going to change drastically for someone else. And then there were inexplicable things like her accusing me of not being open to her, for example not telling her more about my scars, when I know we had discussions about my scars, and she knows more about them than anyone else. There was not much more to tell.

We didn't say that was our last contact. When we hung up, I didn't assume it was our last contact. But as the weeks wore on and there was no contact, it just became reality that there was no way for me to respond, and that there would be no more contact. No bad blood, I still regard her fondly and miss her even. A lot even. I'm just fine with no more contact.

Hyun Ae is a Sadie, but I hope I can make sure nothing happens with her that happened with Sadie. Man, that was just weird.

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 10:10 a.m. - default shot

WordsCharactersReading time

intimacy:
I haven't responded to Madoka's email from over two months ago. With the loss of all my emails in the computer crash, it's even easier to just ignore it and be comfortable in our communications having been non-substantive and relatively superficial for more than a year now.

I wonder how things may have been different if I had made some effort to be closer to her through the years. Say, "Dammit, yer my best friend and I'll move to wherever you are if I can't coerce you to move where I am". But it was not meant to be, and truth to tell, I can't even imagine it. Still, I wonder if she might have been an anchor for me in some way. It would have been nice to have someone around who was more enlightened than me.

In a surprise move, however, I did finally call Sadie, who, as pathetic as it was, was my closest friend in my waning years in San Francisco. One of the last things she said before I left SF was wondering if she could have done anything to make me stay. In hindsight, I'm wondering, too. But no, there was nothing she could do, me being way down the totem pole of her friends; a principle reason for why it was so pathetic that she was one of my closest friends.

There is hope for my ability to give counsel!:

----- Original Message -----
From: S
To: me
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 4:48 PM

i did mean sitting practice, which i suck at to high heaven -- i'm already aware of the whole mindfulness thing and i keep trying to practice that regardless of what i'm doing.

----- Original Message -----
From: me
To: S
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 11:20 PM

that's great to be able to say you suck at something. In my experience, if you say you suck at something long enough, you find yourself not sucking at it at all! So keep at it, and keep sucking at it. I can even help if you fall into a lull and feel you're not sucking enough.

----- Original Message -----
From: S
To: me
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 12:47 AM

your sucking speach is the best most inspirational speach i've ever heard.

you rock. :)

s

I'm still waiting for the effects of the monastery to wear off. 

It was overall a great experience; like a fish in water was I, and the possibility that I might enter the monastery, rather than a cemetery, has increased greatly. But I'm still getting my bearings. 

The overall experience has left me very happy, but not as in "happy happy joy joy" happy. Happy as in appreciative happy, as in glad to be able to feel alive happy, as in I can still kill myself and be happy happy. That is to say maybe it's more an objective happy than a subjective happy, although there is some overlap. 

This week since I've been back has gone quickly, though, and I'm not sure what the changes are yet. I went to Beale Street and that was fine, but to the extent that I had been considering them my last social group, that's not entirely accurate, as if they meant something. We go to play NTN trivia, not to be chummy. 

I've also gotten together with Sadie, and that was fine, too. I was willing to let everything go, but not letting everything go is also fine. I did feel sensitive to the hard times she's going through these days, and I did my best to respond positively, but I'm not really qualified to counsel or give advice. I gave my responses, but I felt they suffered from what I criticized about the responses to that Craig's List suicide note, that I wasn't getting into her shoes and walking around; that I was speaking from some way out plane, removed from her suffering. 

I noted her language and negativity and the resounding, boldfaced word "can't" and the idea of "impossible", and I felt such violence in that. It's such a violent way of treating oneself, building unsurpassable brick walls of futility, but it's a genuine feeling that shouldn't be cavalierly negated. 

I've visited violence upon myself in many forms in the past, but I recognize that always, on some level, I wanted to. It served a purpose and I recognized it as such. That's probably why I can't really empathize with other people's suffering. 

I rarely did what I didn't want to do, and I think that's often the case with most us, but not realizing that, it's useless to be told that. Having lost control, desperate trying to gain control, it's useless to be told that maybe you want to be out of control or that there's something to learn from it, and you'll gain control when you deep down in your soul realize you want control. Even if it's because you need it. 

I came back from the monastery to find Sadie had gone through this weblog. I knew I should have told her what I was doing and I'd be gone for a week. She was actually the last thing I thought of as I left my apartment, and I mean that in the good way, but I was too lazy to turn the computer back on and send off the email, so I guess I was asking for it. But now I have to consider the conundrum of people you know having access to your inner thoughts. 

I gave her this URL when it was still public and generally light. But since then I chased my regulars away and this weblog went underground to be unself-conscious and uncensored. Basically, that comments from the peanut gallery were no longer welcome. 

I can't tell her not to come here anymore, although I expressed my extreme reservations about acquaintances having access to each others' inner thoughts. First of all, taking weblogs seriously as a form of personal expression, they are purely personal expression, i.e., not intended for anyone specific. When I talk to someone or send someone an email, that isn't purely personal expression, it's shared expression because I'm taking into account what I know about them, how I want to say something, and what I want them to know. So going to the weblog of uncensored inner thoughts of someone you know circumvents that. 

There's also the risk of being grossly misinterpreted and people holding you to something you wrote and thinking that was written in stone. I think that risk is heightened with personal acquaintances who might succumb to the temptation to imbue everything with unintended meaning. 

Bottom line, you just can't know someone through their weblog. You can only get impressions, which is fine for strangers, but for actual acquaintances it gets messy without having your own safeguard reservations when reading someone's weblog.

Apparently, Sadie has also started a weblog and she's given me the url. But I won't go there until I feel comfortable that I won't be putting anything on her from her writings, or that there is a reason to go there. I'm satisfied that she will tell me what she wants to tell me and I don't need to go to her weblog to get information or topics to grill her on. If I perceive her emotional well-being getting more complicated, that is also a reason to go there, because maybe there are things she wants to express that are easier to put into a weblog than telling someone face-to-face. Also if someone says "go to my weblog if you want to know more about it", then that's also obviously a reason to go. 

But this weblog is not for anyone present, which is not to say that I don't appreciate the people I tried to chase away who have come back (or never left) and remained tactful about it.