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

One cable channel I gained at the turn of New Year is called "Eurosport". It seems to be covering almost every major pro cycling event. In all my years of cycling, I've never been able to watch a broadcast of an actual pro cycling event. At most, if lucky I've been able to catch July weekend, half-hour round-ups of the past week of the Tour de France on network TV.

My feelings are divided about this new access to what pro cycling looks like. I've been cycling for about 15 years, and I'm in my twilight. I don't have the drive I had before or any goals that I want to accomplish. I just go on rides and do what I'm able to do. When I was younger, this access to cycling might have been highly inspirational, I shouldn't wonder.

But even now, it's inspirational in its way. I mentioned earlier that I've recently gotten back on my bike and went immediately to 30 mile rides without easing up to that from shorter, easier rides. And I immediately included rudimentary hills, and when you go up, you have to come down.

On the downhills, I noticed an unusual confidence that I usually have to develop into. I attribute all of this to watching these pro cycling events. You watch the pros do it, and then you get on your bike and you go for it to the best of your abilities and limits. You've dealt with fear and doubt vicariously by watching it done on TV.

However, you watch pro cycling and you can be inspired, but you also witness the cost, i.e., crashes. You can never discount hitting the deck, and in fact you should probably expect it to happen at some point. I hit the deck yesterday. Fortunately, it was pretty minor.

It was a low-speed slip of the front tire as I was riding off a bridge onto a ramp to a riverside bikeway, and there was some goo that had been applied at the connecting point for some reason and it was slippery in those conditions and I went over. Not a mistake, not my fault, but one of those unforeseeable factors that, in fact, you should expect to happen at some point.

The immediate noticeable damage was a scraped and bloodied knee. My shoulder also impacted the ground, but there was no breaking of skin. I was already towards the end of the ride, so I decided to abandon and head home, stopping off at a pharmacy to buy necessary first aid I knew I didn't have at home.

My attitude about it was: I've been inspired to ride by watching pro events, I can't be discouraged by downturns that are expected by riding inspired by watching pro events.

However, I didn't look forward to the pain involved with the injury and tending and dressing it. Somewhere along the line, I've become a wimp about pain.

Which is ironic since I used to be a cutter. Pain wasn't an issue when I sliced through my skin, but in the past few years pain has become something to fear and avoid. Suddenly blood arouses fear of infection. Infection?! When the fuck did I start being concerned about infection?!!

But it happened, I hit the deck and had an open wound. I had to deal with it. And actually, my experience as a cutter had to kick in. It's gonna hurt, fucking deal with it. And that's what I did. I got involved in the pain, prepared to embrace the pain. And it's not that bad.

(Ah, it all comes back to me. It was a meditation. Pain, to a certain extent, is just a sensation. It's basically a judgment to dislike it or call it bad or be averse to it. When pain occurs, it's automatic to think "don't want", but it's possible to mentally examine the pain and the negative reaction to it. The pain is a natural consequence of injury, but the reaction can be controlled).

I was exaggerating to myself the extent of the injury, bemoaning the pain of an open wound and the time it would take to heal. I've been babying the wound.

If this happened when I was younger, I would have just ignored it and let it clot over and scrape off the hardened scabs (I used to love to do that) and let it heal by itself. I would have considered this just a scratch.

You wouldn't see me walking down the street with a gleaming white bandage, a dressed wound which makes it look worse than it is. You'd see the raw open wound or the ugly maroon evidence of a recent scrape, and it wouldn't look like anything. What the fuck happened to me?

That incident after the six mile run was interesting enough, although ultimately easily dismissible. Worst case scenario, that was about stressing my body almost to a breaking point, coupled with lack of rest from insomnia and alcohol.

I got sent home from work tonight. I think the month of insomnia finally caught up, but I'm not 100% certain that was it. I'm at least 90% sure it is.

It hasn't improved any, and the band had a gig last night, and before the second set, I was like, "this is gonna be the hardest set of my life." Strangely, it went alright after a shaky start. But maybe pulling it together for the gig, maxxed out what little reserves I might have had left.

After the gig, declining hanging out with Amy, I went home and eventually got 3 hours of sleep. I went to sleep after 3:00 and woke up at 6:00. Instead of puttering around like I usually do when I can't sleep, I eventually went out. I came back after noon, and managed to fall back to sleep until after 4:00. I then headed to work, got something to eat, but when I got to work, that's when it happened.

I can't even describe it, I can't even relate to what happened, but my body pretty much shut down. I was able to do my work, albeit probably very slowly. I could feel my heart beating. I was sweating. My eyes kept tearing up, so I probably looked like I was crying. I went to the bathroom several times to splash water on my face and at least one of those times I began hyperventilating.

Although I was able to do the work in front of me, I'm pretty sure my reactions and interactions with people made it really obvious something was seriously wrong. Eventually my boss told me he told the person who was supposed to be my second tonight to come early, and he called the new hire who wasn't scheduled to come in to also come in tonight, and that I should go home.

They now know how serious this is. I came home and it's not like I went to sleep right away. I still can't sleep. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep.

I started cutting again during the past few weeks, for the first time in perhaps maybe a year but probably not that long, just to alleviate some of the feeling. Although I want to note that cutting is just a thing that I do because I can because it's in my history. It doesn't mean anything and doesn't point to any major underlying whatever.

One thing I've done to take advantage of the insomnia is to make sure I don't stop sitting. After I wake up after 2-3 hours, I sit. I've also begun a new cycle of reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

It's bad. It might be really, really "bad", but I don't want to lose focus that this existence is unbearable, and if this kills me, I really, really wouldn't mind. I don't want to attach to living. I don't want to attach to dying. I don't want to be averse to living, I don't want to be averse to dying.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28 - My neighborhood. Pentax ZX-5n, Kodak BW400CN.

Banners protesting something about the new MRT line that's being built. I shot from behind the banner so when I flipped the negative the words wouldn't draw attention.

MRT construction means traffic lanes changing every several weeks, including the movable bus platforms.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial House, near Taipei Main Station.

Taipei Main Station.

Experiments in cropping details. 

Cropping detail experiment.

Danshui township on the way to Le Mer for a gig.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I'm in a relatively calm space these days, having taken a leave of absence and visiting family in Kaohsiung.

I went on a bus tour in Central Taiwan for 3 days with my aunt and a tour group related to my uncle's business, and was supposed to leave tomorrow for another 3-day trip to Kinmen Island in the Taiwan Straits tomorrow, but I managed to cancel on that trip.

It's a family thing. Travelling with my uncle is never a smooth affair, and I really need to learn what I already know – never travel with him. I came down to Kaohsiung with a mild cold, so I went to bed early, and a little while later, my uncle comes in and tells me he's not going on the Central Taiwan trip. OK, it's not changing anything major, and he does tend to nag, so there are tangible pros to his not going, balancing out the cons.

The next morning I find out the Kinmen Island trip is postponed because of certain of his responsibilities, which makes me happy because I'm already foreseeing becoming batty by these travels. I start re-adjusting my plans. Then during the trip, I'm told the Kinmen trip is back on, my uncle doesn't have to stay in Kaohsiung during that time, and I almost plotz. Not happy. Fortunately, one of my aunt's friends who was on the trip decided she would like to visit Kinmen, so she took my spot, and I'm free to head back up to Taipei tomorrow to prepare to go to the U.S. next Tuesday.

During that bus trip, I had Amina dreams both nights, which I've already noted is an unusual occurrence. I didn't have a recording device with me so I have absolutely no details about the dreams aside from that they were Amina dreams.

One thing about one of the dreams I do remember was that there was another woman involved. It was someone I didn't recognize, but it was someone I was apparently possibly getting involved with while Amina was still a presence. But just as a friend, and I remember in the dream thinking that regardless of how I felt about Amina, priority goes to this other person with whom something might actually be happening. The only image in the dream I remember is lying on a bed with this mystery woman for the first time, and at one point my head coming to rest on her arm. Her not pulling away was an indication that there was something forming between us.

Later in the day, recalling the dream, it was with a bit of horror that I realized the mystery woman might have been a younger version of my aunt's friend, the one taking my place on the Kinmen trip. She speaks pretty good English and we did have a bit of a bonding moment in a discussion the first night. And on the second night at dinner, she came over to our table a few times to get food, and inappropriately pressed up against me while leaning over. At one time it was the front of her hip pushing against my arm, and I was thinking, "um, this is definitely inappropriate touching", but I didn't pull away from it.

As many of you don't know, although friends in San Francisco might, I have this thing about attracting older woman. I'm sort of a Granny Whisperer. Perhaps a future Max Bialystock in "The Producers", schtuping the old ladies on the Upper East Side for investment money.

To her credit, although in her 50's, looking past the facade of age, she did have a light of life in her that attracts me. A liveliness, a zest, a passion. And in the dream, it was definitely a 20's or 30's version of her. I emphasize I do not have a granny fetish. Yuck. I don't even like using my granny gear on my bike.

The memorable feeling from the dream scene on the bed was how nice it was to fall in love or be in love, which is totally counter my feeling in waking life. The idea of meeting someone and being mutually interested and falling in love fills me with dread. I think of the one thing leading to another and what do you end up with?

Not to brush aside the value of all the good things involved, but my emphasis ends up on the aging, getting sick, dying, loss, suffering.

Last night I met up with 姿慧 and found that she has scars and burns on her arm. I'm not thinking there are any deep parallels in our lives, I don't think her scars mean to her what mine mean to me, even though I don't know what hers mean to her, but I do think it's uncanny.

These scars are a point of connection between people who have them. I remember a co-worker at the law firm I worked at in San Francisco noticing my scars once, and then pulling me into her cube and showing me hers. We didn't say anything, we just grasped each others hands and smiled knowingly at each other. What we knew, I don't know, we just did.

I have a fantasy that's both a little violent and very intimate. Internally violent in ourselves, not a violence that is conveyed between two people. I want to coerce, pressure 姿慧 into showing me her scars, all of them, wherever they are. Pin her down lightly even, but always maintaining a safe atmosphere, and keeping a pulse on not pushing too hard, or going too far. Violent because the violence is already there. She could do the same to me if she wants.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2:47 p.m. - Cingjing sheep farm, Nantou County, in the central mountains of Taiwan

3:26-3:29 p.m. - Plenty of sheep and other wildlife.

3:36 p.m. - Euro-forming the mountains for tourists.

Sheep. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. 

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 7:41 a.m. - Day 2, Aowanda forest recreational area and Sun Moon Lake.

9:57 a.m.

12:25 p.m. - Very hairy driving on mountain roads. Inches to spare.

4:41 p.m. - Shooting out of my comfort zone in terms of subject matter. I also learned I can't do black and white landscape.

4:49 p.m. - Photos don't lie, this actually happened!

5:11-5:14 p.m.

Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County.

Wenwu Temple

My comfort zone is easy small life snapshots.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 12:11-12:14 p.m. - Last day. A Euro-style resort.

Ripples.

My mantra these days walking around in public is, "Don't be an asshole". Of course, the implication is that I am an asshole. If I'm not being an asshole, I wouldn't be telling myself not to be one.

It's a perpetually regenerating manifestation of my negativity. And, of course, there's no one telling me I'm not an asshole, so that can't be helping matters. But all in all, aside from psychological, self-estemical repercussions, I think it's been working toward its intended goal – the cultivation of not being an asshole.

Karmically speaking, being a supreme asshole was cultivated before, probably in a past life. I don't think I've been that much of an asshole in this life for it to be this big of an issue. So no matter what my understanding is, knowing between asshole-dom and non-asshole-dom, that cultivation is coming out and is hard to stop. Ergo, negative assholistic thoughts and attitudes.

The only thing I can do or hope for is cultivating not being an asshole. I don't necessarily hope for achieving it in this lifetime, although it is possible. But I do think I'm getting results. I think I'm being less of an asshole, or feeling less of an asshole, meaning more patient and forebearing towards random foot traffic.

It's not necessarily a sea change in my personality or karmic imprint, rather, but it's working towards one. It's how I'd prefer to be, and it does feel like an accomplish when I notice I'm not being an asshole. That says something – I notice not being an asshole.

In general, I think my actions don't coincide with the negativity. Like constantly running negative scenarios through my mind, but when actually confronted with an incident or interaction, I'll act tolerantly, or patiently, or compassionately, or sympathetically. I think.

Yea, that's nice, you may say from an outside perspective, but it's not good enough. I still have to live with me. Have you ever lived with an asshole before?

Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole. Not in New York.  – Modern Lovers

I'm working on it, too, during morning sitting. I'm finding my method has been too distracted and free-floating, and sometimes negativity runs wild. In general, I need to work on concentration more, that even affects my language learning.

Lately I've gone back to the very basic method everyone first learns of focusing on breathing to work on this, imagining my breathing as a thing floating in front of me and concentrating on it. When my concentration wavers, this thing starts floating away and I have to bring it back in front of me and hold it floating there.

I also think I need to try a new method of very brief periods, five minutes or less, of just concentration.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1:38 p.m. - Shots from my window, Xindian. 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 5:14 p.m. - whatever

I've lost the plot again. What am I even doing on these pages anyway? Do I really think I'm explaining something? Do I really think what I'm expressing is even vaguely comprehensible?

What was that crap in my last post? We all, more or less, think our lives are meaningful whatever we're doing. For people who don't think of those things, such judgments are irrelevant. Who am I to judge? Shut up, me. Who sits around thinking their lives are meaningless and then just continue that way?

I've been immersing myself too much in Tibetan stuff. There's a lot of good stuff, but I'm getting sucked into the dogma. When writings start getting too forceful about concepts that are counter-intuitive and assume conclusions in the arguments, my dogma alert goes off. This is hardcore Buddhism, requiring a Buddhist to really get into it the way it's presented. I don't want to be a "Buddhist". I'm looking for what's true to me.

I've started cutting again after two years. Now there's something that will never be understood properly. Whatever anyone thinks upon reading that is wrong. I started again because I can without harming myself, without thinking of it as harm. There was a point in time when it stopped being harm and became habit. Then I stopped to break the habit. And now, my ability to do it without harm is too much of an opportunity to waste. It's confounding, it's an investigation, it's a, yes, meditation.

What I'm not so sure about is when old feelings associated with leading up to cutting occur afterwards. The connection is obvious and it might just be simple memory association, but I won't write off that it might mean something.

In contrast, I'm not so delusional to believe that suicide is not harm. Cutting is not harm if it's just physical, lines. If there's a mental, emotional component, then it is harmful, and most kids involved in cutting are harming themselves, for better or worse. In my conception of suicide, the bar is much higher. It needs to transcend mental and physical and become spiritual to not be harm, and I make no claims of being there yet, even though that's my main motivation.

God, who the hell cares.

because I can:

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

With all the denial, selective memory, and revising the (hi)story between my cousin and me, whenever we get together and talk about our past and what happened in what particular year, surprises come up, along with incredulity that we don't remember something or another.

She knows about my scars, we talked about it back in 1995, but she's blocked it out. The funny thing is she asked me the exact same question she asked back then: why are they all on my left arm? I told her she already asked me that question. She managed to figure it out this time. Hello? Right-handed!

We discussed it anew, and she put me through the usual questions and reactions, and I gave my well-rehearsed answers and responses; albeit different from 1995, I shouldn't wonder. Cutting was more helpful than harming. I chose not to see it as harming. It was expression, it was getting something out. If it weren't for that outlet, things might have built up to something much more drastic. Blah, blah, blah.

She said it still bothered her and made her sad and she wished she could have been around for me. I told her it was definitely better that she wasn't around. She probably couldn't have changed anything. The issues are too deep and convoluted to be dealt with in a casual conversation. So she asked what I would do if the situation was reversed and she was the one doing it.

I said I would first have to make a committment to really engage the issues and deal with any consequences of delving into that emotional space. I would really have to care, and I really do care for her, so I would have been able to make that committment.

From there I would deal with the issues on her level. The starting point of everything she says would be that it was valid, and not something for me to pick apart and refute.

So if she used my same explanation that it did more good than harm, I wouldn't refute it. I would accept it and really try to understand it. But I would add that even though she felt it was more helpful than harmful, my support and encouragement for her to stop doing it was for me and not her, because it hurt me to know she was doing it.

She liked that part of my answer and said, yea, that's what she would do. I told her to go get her own answer.

Leaving San Francisco completed my disconnection. No, that was only the first half of completing the disconnection. Coming to New Jersey completes the disconnection. All of my life in San Francisco has been rendered unreal. New Jersey was rendered unreal a long time ago, yet here I am – is it not real? How much more of a fool am I going to prove to myself to be?

These people are not my family. Any number of descriptives might apply, but they certainly shouldn't be considered family. I have nothing against them, I don't criticize them, I harbor no resentment, they just have absolutely nothing to do with me. Except that I'm now living under their roof. :/

It occurs to me that they have been doing basically the same thing, day in and day out, for the past 30 or so years (although in the past several years they've started going on vacation twice a year, always organized tours)! And they enjoy it. They enjoy their work. They enjoy work. They enjoy their routine. I can't hold that against them, but it is confounding. They have nothing in their lives, nothing to their lives other than work, and then spending money as the manifestation of the fruits of their labor. No passion, no deeper inquiry. Good for them.

I don't know if they have any religious inclinations, but they just might be atheists, and if so, they would be Zen atheists! And I am convinced that if I killed myself, the impact would be visceral at first, but it would fade and pass, and they would get through it largely unaffected. They love me in their own way, but what a bizarre way it is, and it's the result of their world view. I feel like I've just discovered a new philosophical species. And I thought I was way out there!

Coming to New Jersey completes the disconnection because it forces me back into the situation that started this whole horrible mess that is my life. It was horrible, I hated it here. This is why I cut, this is why I'm suicidal. I don't get depressed, I get angry, and I take it out only on myself. It's unconscionable to take it out on someone else directly. I had almost forgotten. I had forgotten. But the situation is completely different now, and while surrounded by the memories and the demons, it's just not real, I have to float up, I have to float on, I have to float down, I have to float away, I have to not exist.

I can't move on because I can't admit anymore that I hate these people. I hate these people and it's total bullshit that they love me. I've only been humoring people by acknowledging they love me. They don't because they can't, they don't know the meaning of the word. They can't be affected by my death if they can't be affected by my life. I'm a fool for still being alive. To the extent of who I am to me, but also for even thinking of them as a consideration.

Well, one big difference between now and a month ago is that no one will have to deal with the stuff I left behind. If I kill myself now, there are no other parties that would have to deal with anything. My parents can save face and not deal with anyone else, and they can shortly resume their routine of 30 or so years.

The final plan, deviating only slightly from the plan of the attempts, was to leave my apartment with a bottle of sleeping pills by 7:30 P.M. I'd take the 9 San Bruno bus about a mile to the transfer point for the 23 Monterey bus. At that point, if I didn't have one already, I could cross the street and get a bottle of Jack Daniels from Beverages & More. I'd take the 23 Monterey bus to Sloat Avenue, and I'd get off at the small mall way out in the Avenues. I would go to the Big 5 sports store at the mall and get a toy boogie board for $15, where I'd gotten one before and lost during the last attempt. From there I would either walk or take the 18 Parkside bus to John Muir Drive where there is coast access, and I'd walk to the beach, and unlike before, I wouldn't allow any waiting time. I'd immediately take all the sleeping pills, wash them down with Jack Daniels, and dive into the surf on the boogie board and paddle as hard as I could for as long as I could. The boogie board has a line you can tie to your wrist or ankle so you don't lose it. I'd hang on to it loosely in my hand so that I didn't lose the board, but once the sleeping pills took effect, I could let go of it. The alcohol would affect me immediately, but it's effect would be countered by adrenaline. It would take about 20 minutes to really start feeling the sleeping pills, and I would either drown or die of hypothermia. Ideally, this would be done at or just after high tide. There's no guarantee that whatever's left wouldn't wash up somewhere, but the hope would be that there would be no remains.

There would be considerable differences trying this on the East Coast.

I guess believing I'd change was naive.

Identity Inventory
- I was born in a crossfire hurricane Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- I grew up in this town, New Jersey.
- I hated my parents until August 1996.
- I fought with my two older brothers constantly while growing up.
- Growing up, I followed my brothers' and their friends' lead and was into building plastic model kits of World War II aircraft and ships. People look at me funny when I can identify WWII aircraft.
- I think those same people got me into Astronomy. People ignore me when I muse what's going on in the night sky.
- I went to Oberlin College (studied East Asian religion and history).
- I have a law degree and a Masters of Law, neither of which I use.
- I used to be a runner, starting when I was 13 and stopping because of knee injury.
- I've been road cycling for 3 years, and I'm just starting mountain biking.
- I used to be a musician (rock). Bass, drums, guitar, and working knowledge of piano. I played string bass in pit orchestra and orchestra in high school. I was in a steel drum band in college.
- Music is the most important thing in life and most central to my identity, and I quit it. I was never really any good at it. But anyone who doesn't think of me as a musician may as well not know me (that's just about everybody now).
- I am philosophically suicidal. I won't know if I'm practically suicidal until I actually do it.
- Committing suicide is always in my future plans.
- Having it always planned in the future keeps me from doing it right now.
- I use suicide gestures to maintain an appreciation for life (although not living, obviously).
- I used to be a cutter, starting when I was 12 and stopping last year.
- I continued cutting even after the "need" was gone because it had become habit. I stopped because I got bored with it.
- I was suspended from high school (one week) and college (one semester) for cutting.
- I was committed twice during that semester.
- If you want to see me do it, just give me a razor. It's no big deal.
- Showing my scars is an act of intimacy.
- I may have been alcoholic, depending on definition. I cut way back last year because I got bored with being drunk all the time.
- List of all the women I've gone out with in reverse order: Josephine, Shiho, Joy, Amina, Luyen, Hiromi, Sakuko, Liz, Darcy, Sarah, Amanda, Nancy.
- Shiho should show up two other times in that list.
- Shiho is as close to a "high school sweetheart" as I had.
- Amanda has a famous older sister who won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in a Woody Allen film.
- I don't know who I lost my virginity to, it depends on how you define "sex" (yay Bill!).
- I got caught in bed with two of those girls by their parents (<- my deepest and darkest secret, this is my first ever disclosure of it and only casual sex and alcohol or drugs could get me to say any more about those incidents).
- List of all the men I've gone out with: ... ok, so I have no gay cred. Sue me.
- I don't do drugs, but I think I would be much better adjusted if I had done more drugs.
- My first of very few drug experiences was shrooms when I was a senior in high school. That night, I dove into a lit fireplace, apparently spoke in fluent Japanese, and people were afraid I was going to jump out a window.
- I took the shrooms because I was writing a paper on narcotics for Psychology class and felt like a hypocrite never having taken anything before.
- I feel I've wasted 10 years of my life in San Francisco.

Being in New Jersey in December is bringing back memories; the cold, the darkness, the angle of the sun, the leafless trees, the brittle ground. I feel like a drug-addict trying to get clean, but once back into the ol' hood, it's hard not to revert.

What and who I am now in San Francisco is different from what and who I am now in New Jersey, which is permeated by what and who I was all those years ago. I'm not crazy or screwed up as I was and I don't hate my parents anymore, but there is a dampener over what and who I really am now, which is what and who I am now in San Francisco. That and those decisions are reality. Being here is a womb; not reality.

Exactly 20 years ago, I was a freshman in high school. We were on a trimester system, so now would have been towards the end of one trimester or the beginning of the next. Just a few months prior, I was on the X-Country team, but had to quit after "passing out" during a race in a park somewhere in the Bronx.

No one knows what really happened, but I think it was emotional strain. Also in that first trimester of high school, I had been suspended for a week for psychiatric evaluation, and a prominent gash on my forearm was healing.

I don't think I was dating a Hong Kong girl named Nancy yet, I'm pretty sure that came later, and I also don't think I had actually met Shiho Nakai yet, although I had seen her 7th or 8th grade picture in my older brother's yearbook.

10 years ago I was completing my first semester of law school in San Francisco. I was living in Oakland, CA, and was about to experience my first Bay Area rainy season. It was cloudy and rainy for three weeks straight in December. By the end of the month, I would have seen the purported "love of my life", Amina, for the last time.

And today, I got an email from Madoka, who is now in the U.S. for two months, first in L.A., then in Salt Lake City. Email communications between us have been spotty at best, but I will trust that all the heart is still there. We will try to meet up at some point, I shouldn't wonder, but it's not a sure thing now that I won't have a car.

I know I still love her, even though our communication and information between us is spotty. Maybe I love her more now after realizing our communication and information is spotty. Go fig. It's the classic push and the pull.

So it's halfway through September, seven months I've been unemployed, one month more than planned. I've stopped thinking that I'm waiting to hear from the monastics about monastic opportunities, but it's still in my mind that I'm due to hear from them shortly. What has changed in the last month?

I still do not want to return to the status quo of living a normal life. Getting a job is not in my plans. Moving to Tucson or Portland is not in my plans. Not being in San Francisco come the end of daylight savings is still in my plans.

I think my mad existential rantings and posts have been exchanged with religion-inspired posts. I've seriously curbed my drinking and I've switched my sleeping hours to something more "normal" and disciplined. Regular reading, sitting, contemplating, generally less mad.

Weird. Weird that after 15 years I'm not addicted to or dependent on alcohol. Weird that madness is my own mind game to turn on and off at will. Although there are always the underlying reasons to turn it on or off. I've stopped cutting completely and don't even think about it. Weird that all of these developments reinforce and still point me to the exact same conclusion.

This reality is not real. I'm not real. I don't need to be here.

I sat in front of Amy and Lisa on the MUNI, my arm slung over the back of the seat so I could talk to them. Lisa reached over and ran a finger along a faint scar on the exposed part of my arm, but didn't say anything. Amy probably saw it but also didn't say anything. I looked at my arm and we just continued our conversation.

Nothing special except that was exactly the advice I had written somewhere recently on what you should do if you notice something suspicious like that on another person, but aren't close enough to inquire about it. The idiot reaction is typically, "What happened to your arm?"

My advice was, as a first step, just let them know that you notice it, don't ask any questions, don't make them uncomfortable. I didn't specify it, but what Lisa did was what I had in mind. It doesn't make the person uncomfortable, it communicates that you notice it and aren't ignoring it, and it's tactile, there's a level of intimacy, even tenderness, but not enough to invade their space.

Though no one will fault you for just ignoring it, that's totally acceptable.


Martini.

I'm currently floating on endorphin and watching the movie "Secretary".

endorphin:
I did a trial run of the Hayes Street hill for this Sunday's Bay to Breakers, and actually from my apartment to the start of the hill is about the same as the starting line to the hill, so it was a very accurate trial. I know, it's extremely geeky to be testing parts of the course, in my mind that's only for professionals to do, but I'm having doubts about hills, which used to be my strong point.

I'm trying to relax, but my goals are pretty high. This is my first B2B in several years and I only started running again this year. High goals are fine, but I need to relax and not stress about not meeting them. My goals are as follows: 1) complete the race in less than an hour; and 2) finish within the top 1000 runners.

I didn't exactly zoom up the hill today, but it isn't a killer hill, and I was fine afterwards running home through the Castro, adding some extra, steeper hills on 20th Street into the Mission. After the Hayes Street hill, the B2B course is flat or downhill, so I'm hoping to be able to push it after entering Golden Gate Park, when the crowd thins out.

"Secretary":
Recently I've seen two films which portrayed the behavior of cutting. I saw In My Skin by Marina de Van at the SF Int'l Film Festival, and I rented Secretary. I had issues with "In My Skin". The portrayal of cutters was wholly inaccurate, the director didn't even study up on the behavior or try get under the skin of people who cut, and I went away from it feeling she totally exploited the condition for whatever base reason she had. She portrayed cutters as all being seriously disturbed freaks.

"Secretary" was much more sympathetic. Instead of focusing on the gore of the behavior as "In My Skin" did, it focused on the mindset and the psychology, the mentality involved. It didn't portray the mindset or behavior as healthy, but I felt it definitely treated the condition humanely.

These are still people, they still live daily lives, they could be your neighbor, your co-worker, and the behavior may be deviant, but the basic human wants and needs are there. They still want to connect and feel and know that there are people out there with whom they can feel safe and build a relationship or community. "In My Skin" isolates cutters and sends a message that they would never be accepted or understood.

The last shot of "In My Skin" is of the main character's eyes just staring. That was brilliant because it made me think that all you need to know about a cutter is in their eyes. I don't know what I meant by that or even if it was accurate, but then "Secretary" ended the same way. Interesting, no?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: Sometimes, Ed, sometimes you just gotta do something bad just to know you're alive.

A couple weeks ago, she asked, I answered. Then she asked, "Do you still do it?". I said no, I thought I had stopped, it had been a couple months I think. A long time.

But the nature of a habit looms, and the temptation arises, but I know I can't. I'm already concerned about running a race this Sunday and meeting up with friends and ex-coworkers at the end. I haven't worn running shorts and t-shirt in four years, much less been seen in them, much less been seen in them by people I know. I'm still formulating the responses to their inquiries so that I don't have to answer them.

Must resist until after Sunday. Maybe by then the temptation will be gone. Either way.

More than this, more than this
So much more than this
There is something else there
When all that you had has all gone
And more than this, I stand feeling so connected
And I'm all there, right next to you
- "More Than This (Peter Gabriel)

I noticed that since I've stopped publishing these posts, it's harder to hold onto thoughts and ideas that occur to me to post. This absolute freedom to post anything, knowing no one will read this even after I publish it (who's gonna come back this far), or if they do, it'll probably be after I'm no longer around, can be stifling.

It's a weird private space I've created for myself. Like building forts out of blankets and sofa cushions when you were a kid. And you just end up reading a comic book in there.

I'm reading a book called House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. I got it after someone mentioned I reminded him of Johnny Truant. It's astounding, because he couldn't have had any idea!

I also think it's somewhat of a relief not to hear the true story. I mean you look at the horror sweeping all the way up from my wrists to my elbows, and you have to take a deep breath and ask yourself, do I really want to know what happened there? In my experience, most people don't. They usually look away. My stories actually help them look away. p. 20

I need to memorize that for next time someone asks about my arms, and execute it with appropriate Clint Eastwood menace. " . . . you have to take a deep breath and ask yourself, do I really want to know what happened there? Well, do ya? Punk."

Reflections on 2003:
This obsession with the change of year from 2002 to 2003 is probably the result of 2002 having sucked (can I put too fine a point on it?), although some may argue that most of it was just dull and annoying. The final nail in the coffin of 2002 was that ordeal getting out of San Francisco on New Years Eve.

So, what? I started 2003 with family. Very odd. Three full days there was just about my limit, perfect. There was a hint that getting out of New Jersey would be problematic, foreshadowing a sucky 2003, but my flight arrived in San Francisco on time. There was a hint that problems getting new tires on my car after getting a flat last month might also indicate a sucky year ahead, but that turned out alright, just delayed.

Hmm, maybe that's the theme for 2003 - delay. If I have the patience to make it to 2004, everything will be alright and start coming up roses. A) No, I'm tired (sorry, Madoka, but that is a good enough excuse in my book), 2004 is not even a twinkle on the horizon; B) Everything being alright and coming up roses is just not a goal I have.

I kid you not, this was the result:

What Self-Mutilation Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

What the hell is "cutting" anyway?


January 4, 2003; 11:42 A.M. - Cerritos Avenue, St. Francis Wood, San Francisco. Walking in the rich part of town waiting for new tires on my car and my bike to be repaired.

The Unbearable Lightness of Suckitude: 

If Joycee gives her two week notice, I will wait one week after she leaves and then give mine. And then spend the bulk of the remainder of my time here prodding Eric to do the same after I'm gone. 

How great would it be to scrimp and save for the rest of the year, doing whatever I want that doesn't cost money, dinking around with music, never changing guitar or bass strings, going on rides every nice day there is, and otherwise drinking away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away. Oh wait. I might have to stop drinking to save money. Eh, I'll jump off that bridge once I get to it. 

And then if I haven't tried to swim to Taiwan by December, the end of my lease, I'll pack up my stuff and move to Hoboken, New Jersey, and try my luck with the music scene there. I can use my parents' house as base of operations. I can even set up my drums there! Poor neglected drumset. 

The problem with moving back to New Jersey, and what I haven't had to think about in the nine years I've been in this cold city, is that in the Summers, people usually wear short-sleeve shirts and shorts. That might be a problem for me (er, "body modifications"). It occurred to me because I just read it hit 91 degrees in Newark today. It's a pretty serious consideration. 

But for now, I'm gonna just put butter on this roll and eat it. 

Joycee factoid of the day: Very riled up over the Ms. Case Manager situation, but is in cahoots with Eric to "resolve" the problem by "communicating". Count me out, I'm trying to get fired, preferably laid off.