I chatted for a bit on Facebook with someone I met a few years back at Deer Park Monastery. He was an Olympic speed skater and he blew me away by his arrival at Deer Park, having ridden his bike from Oceanside to the monastery in Escondido, California.

After many, many moons, when he friended me on Facebook, I felt a little apprehensive since I ended up not ordaining and I'm just doing this ordinary selfish, self-absorbed thing, rather than making that final push towards enlightenment.

Enlightenment has its time. If it's not time, don't bother making the push for it. And both Dustin and I are simply on our own spiritual paths and we'll support each other when we can. The way we met was the connection and we are brothers. We don't judge each other, just give support and remind each other of our connection through the Plum Village monastic system.

I remember Dustin clearly at Deer Park. We were there with Joost and Brother Lai and those connections are solid and clear. They are my anchor if I go astray, but I don't think my path of exploring suicide is going astray.

December 3, 2004 - Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA. Me, Dustin and Joost (a doctor from Holland who volunteers his services whenever he could around the world, while also trying to elevate his spiritual level. great guy)

I'm staying in Taiwan. I already found an apartment to move to.

Already my allergies have significantly abated. They were psychological. My sub-conscious is passive-aggressive.

I'm moving to Hsindian, the city just south of Taipei, but I'll be right across the city line, across the Jingmei River (景美溪). When I ride to school, I'll be taking the riverside bikeway for most of the journey, and when I get on my bike, I will be in Taipei in less than a minute.

The neighborhood is no improvement. The building is above a bunch of motorscooter repair shops, so it's pretty industrial. I'm hoping having the riverside bikeways right there will make up for the loss of being right across the street from Daan Park.

There's a rooftop area which I'm hoping will be nice. I can check the weather up there in the morning. And if I'm not practicing shakuhachi along the riverside, maybe I can up there.

I'm just trying to keep calm day-to-day. I'm starting to admit that I'm not as laid-back as I think I am, and that I do create a lot of stress for myself.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 3:49 p.m. - North side of the Taida Sports Center building shooting east with the Jianguo Elevated Expressway at the left before it turns left over Jianguo S. Rd.

MONDAY, JANUARY 15,  12:46 p.m. - Taida main library.

4:31 p.m. - Kick him in the balls and take the shot!!

5:40 p.m. - Guting/Gongguan (still don't know which it's called) riverside park with construction coming on nicely.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 10:57 a.m. - My ride in Da'an Park.

10:59 a.m.

4:17 p.m. - Close your mouth, kitteh, we are not codfish.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17,  3:47 p.m. - Player rehearsal studio on Heping E. Rd.

JANUARY 18, 5:22 p.m. - default shot.

At the forefront of my thoughts these days is packing up and heading back to New Jersey. Here we go again.

But it's not real.

But I'm not learning the language and the frustration of being here is huge. Is that not real?

The final nail in the coffin is probably these allergies that have not subsided with the air purifier. At its worst, it'll knock me out for the entire day, even if I get out of the apartment. I think the word is "debilitating".

In the apartment, I sweep every day, wear a mask, even while sleeping, run the purifier all the time, sometimes turning on the air conditioner and opening the windows for even more circulation, as if it isn't cold enough in Taipei. Well, to keep it in perspective, albeit uncomfortable and chilly, it's possible to open windows and turn on the air conditioner and be able to stand it.

I've resorted to eating more fruit and allowing myself to eat more red meat to see if that alteration to my diet can change something. That's a new low for me. The inspiration for the fruit is my mother always nagging me to eat more fruit. The red meat is from my chiropractor who once told me I needed specifically more red meat in my diet. Nothing to do with allergies, though.

This is absolutely my last month in this apartment. I absolutely can't live here any longer because of the allergies. If I move, I'm basically committing to stay here even longer, and I'm asking myself if it's time to cut my losses, if it's time to move on.

The momentum is growing to decide by the end of this month to quit classes, start packing up, and get out of Dodge before my visa expires on the 18th of next month.

I keep counting my blessings whenever shit gets miserable. I'm getting sick of even that. "Winners never quit. Quitters never win. But people who never win and never quit are idiots!" - Demotivators.

Guanyin Mt. in Bali township across the mouth of the Danshui River, shrouded in low-hanging clouds. Or just "Smoke on the Water".

MONDAY, JANUARY 1 - New Year's Day in Danshui. All Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. 

Giant cement jacks, possibly a Japanese innovation but don't quote me on that, to protect shorelines or prevent erosion.

This area is called Fisherman's Wharf at the very tip of the right bank of Danshui River which drains into the Taiwan Strait.

Low tide?

1:27 p.m. - Aftermath. Peaceful afternoon photostroll at the beach on New Year's Day is not to forget it's New Year's Day.

1:44 p.m.

So much on my mind. Not getting any of it down. Par for the course. Internet down in my building, I'm at the public library.

The term ended yesterday, and I have one week before next term starts. There was no joy in class for the last three weeks of this term. The three hours of class each day became three hours to dread each day.

I think it started when we divided into groups for our final project. I was sitting next to a woman I've grown a little attached to this term, and I should have turned to her right away and proposed we form a group. Selfish. Instead, I thought it should be done democratically with everyone choosing their groups at once.

I ended up with the two annoying people that no one else wanted to be in a group with. Which translated into meaning I was an annoying person that no one else wanted to be in a group with. Interesting, or not, all the people in our group are leaving the class for next term, while everyone else is continuing with the same teacher in an intensive class.

On top of that, we started in on more difficult chapters and I got quickly lost. When I switch to a regular class next term, I get to choose which chapter to start on, and I plan on going back and doing those chapters again.

Truth to tell, I wasn't doing that badly. It turns out other people (of the four staying with the class/teacher), were also lost. And I ended up doing reasonably well on the final exam. Still, the grade doesn't matter to me. What matters is that I can't comfortably form the most basic of complex sentences. And I don't like the feeling in class that I have no idea what's going on and have no idea what's coming out of the teachers mouth. Ergo, switch to regular class.

I'm glad it's over. The visualization that got me through the last few days was being in a car, sliding on a huge sheet of ice, no worries, nothing I can do about it. Time is what would get me through the final exam and final project. Just do the best in the moment and not worry about what I wasn't fitting in, because there was no way I could possibly fit everything in. I told this to classmates and it turned into a helpful joke, I think. Just sliding on the ice.

End of semester shots (everyone looks so relaxed):

May 19, 5:21 p.m. - me and Hyun Ae chilling after class. Mystery: It looks like I'm holding my Sony Cybershot P9, with it's distinct rounded edge on one side, at the bottom left. So whose camera took this picture?!!! 

5:22 p.m. - classmates. Not the woman in blue. I think she was French, maybe a friend of the Canadian guy.

At The Huntington Botanical Gardens, Los Angeles.


Phap Khoi got immediately creative with the self-portrait idea.

Xinbeitou, Taipei, Taiwan.

November 1, 2004; 5:03 P.M.

October 27, 2004; 12:26 P.M.

I've been in New Jersey for a little over a month now. San Francisco is a distant memory whose reality is mine alone. I can close my eyes and still see it in vivid detail, all the streets I know by heart; no one knows, no one can relate. There's no drama associated with the thought that I'll never live there again, that it's not my city anymore.

It's sinking in what a bad decision it was to move back to my parents' place in New Jersey. Even assuming it was going to be temporary, knowing my high degree of entropy made it a very, very bad decision. Family will always be family, and nothing will change family. Not even killing myself would change anything here.

I've been in contact with one of the monks at Deer Park Monastery, angling only for indirect guidance, trying to work out my issues for myself. Why am I balking? Why am I not there now? Why don't I have a train ticket back West yet? It's a no-brainer, there's nothing else for me to do in material life.

The idea of entering a monastery has been with me since college. Through the years, there has always been something else distracting, something else to pursue. I've chased down all those paths and found nothing. This is all that's left, this is all I'm motivated to do, the only thing that I feel.

The problem is the same as it's always been. I don't even want to live, how do I get motivated to do anything with my life? The suicide thing is tired now, now I just don't care to live or be motivated. I'm sort of waiting for my parents to start driving me nuts enough to buy that train ticket, and that's a poor motivation. Or is it? I told them I'd be out of here by the end of this month anyway.

There's nothing really to discuss with anyone anymore. Now it's just a matter of a kick in the pants, someone telling me definitively to just go, and there's no one who can do that except me. That sucks.

Oradell Avenue pedestrian overpass over the Garden State Parkway

August 10, 2004; 4:52 P.M.

That was one hard discussion Meghan and I had on Saturday night, while at the same time I felt it was a sort of "exposition" of various ideas and thoughts that have been cropping up and bouncing around in my head recently.

I don't get many chances to glue the pieces together in front of another person, and that's what it felt like I was given an opportunity to try to do. Not for her necessarily, mind you, or at least not to convince her of anything. More for me to get my explanations and understandings straight, and if some residue rubs off on her, great. I couldn't ask for a better sounding-board than Meghan. But it's always hard, since my views are pretty unorthodox.

With this weblog, it feels like there was a sudden left turn from suicide to monastic possibility, but for me, the underlying motivations towards either are very closely aligned. If anything, they're complementary. It's with horror that I realize that they look contradictory!

The important thing is that both of those "options" have been inside me for quite a long time, but whereas suicide has been constant and recurring, the idea of entering a monastery went underground for long stretches, which is why it had to kick me in the butt this time around to realize its possibility.

And as the possibility has taken serious root, I'm giving it a lot of attention and energy to figure out if it's something I can consider "real", or if it's a cop-out. It's funny, though, how I never need to explain the monastery thing very much to people. Either they accept it or it's . . . quirky. People don't take me very seriously, and that's fine, great, faboo. But suicide, there's more chance that people take it seriously and demand my explanation.

An important linchpin in my explanation is that it's something that's always been around, something that's been mulled and contemplated, and turned around and inside out in every direction and dimension I can think of. Before this recent monasteric binge, I had already been saying that my reason was just my being, the way I am, that what I consider a "good reason" to go is having no reason at all. Once I have a reason, it's not a good enough reason to go. Fabulously zen! So suicide rolled into spiritual quite smoothly.

But then the reminder that I have been dealing with this for such a long time like a disease, like a mental illness, and that instantly blew away the calm veneer that I've been trying to cultivate under the banner of non-form/non-attachment, and yes, suicide has always been in me like a primal calling, but also yes, it has been maintained and reinforced through the years by actual events and experience, of failures and frustrations and fragility.

It doesn't change a thing. Not yet, at least. It's just a mix in the pot, and what a mix! But even mixing in actual events and experience, which might clearly put the whole shebang into the mental health field, which is precisely what I had been doing here by considering this, above all, a mental health blog, non-form/non-attachment trumps all of that. The Dharma is pretty powerful shit. Just an eye-dropper full dilutes an ocean of mental health attachment.

We talked until almost five in the morning. How did that happen?


November 30, 2003; 12:54 P.M. - Alexandria, VA.

November 25, 2003; 4:13 P.M. - A soul named Kristin. I was driving east, she was going west by bus and we met at Carlsbad Caverns, NM, and we spent the day together and talked about everything. In the end, I dropped her off somewhere and headed to Texas.

Perhaps the biggest fallacy I create about myself to the people around me is that I know what I want and I know what I'm doing, and I'm dogmatic and stubborn about doing it. Good.

In Muir Woods.

September 19, 2003; 3:44 P.M.

These days merrily rolling along, quite well mind you, fine to go on in perpetuity; I still consider myself in crisis mode. Red alert, where the claxon has been turned off, but the red lights are still flashing on the Enterprise bridge.

I'm still alive, maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing, but it doesn't mean I'm out of the woods; I still refuse to revert to status quo. I'm still here for a very specific reason, and that needs to be at the leading edge of my thoughts throughout each day, and if that reason doesn't pan out, I need to revert immediately to plan A.

Nothing solved, nothing changed, I'm taking this very seriously, and no mere superficial, material "opportunity" that comes up will change anything. I've fallen for that one too many times before.

Speaking of the Enterprise, I have an idea for a new Star Trek series!

Actually, it's not a great idea and it probably wouldn't fly in the geek fan inner circles. I propose a new series of Original Series episodes, with the NCC-1701 Enterprise and our favorite characters of Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. re-cast.

The first idea behind this is that with the latest, pre-Original Series "Enterprise" series, there's this pathetic technology discontinuity from "Enterprise" to the Original Series to "Star Trek: The Next Generation". The Original Series is just campy now, and the technology and the look of "Enterprise" is far superior to the Original Series. The new episodes would allow the writers to bridge the gap and make the technology and the look more continuous. Not to mention the Klingons.

The second idea behind the series is to make the Original Series crew more legendary. Instead of Captain Kirk being indelibly portrayed by William Shatner, Captain Kirk becomes more of an icon that can be re-played and re-interpreted by another actor. Not unlike Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes.

The original crew is what made the whole Star Trek phenomena legendary. It would be a shame to have the adventures of that crew passed off as laughable by future generations of fans due to the campiness of the 60s and 60s technology.

Writing new episodes for the original crew would be easier for the writers who don't have to worry about character development. They already know what works and what doesn't. The challenge is to add new dimensions to the old characters without straying too far from the familiar. Like you can't write Dr. McCoy's character without him saying things like, "I'm a doctor, not a refrigerator".

Unfamiliar with the legacy "Enterprise" is creating? Here is a pretty good (and hilarious) run-down of the characters. OK, OK, it gets a little out of hand at the end.


August 23, 2003; 9:24 P.M. - Tablas at Terry's party.


August 23, 2003; 9:03 P.M. - Drnk? We na frshn drnk.


August 23, 2003; 7:37 P.M. - Jammin' at Terry's party.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Shelley: What's "Dante"?
Ruth-Anne: It's a 'he', dear. Dante Alighieri, Italian poet. He wrote "The Divine Comedy", one of the great works of literature.
Shelley: It's that funny, huh?

I ended up at Ocean Beach last night, listening to the White Album in its entirety. That album is genius, man. Being there at that time of night wasn't supposed to mean anything, but I think it was pretty heady anyway because I got home after 1 o'clock and I was so out of it, near passed out on the couch, finally crawling into bed without brushing teeth. It's not like it was a rehearsal or anything . . .

The feelings have started in putting up a resistance. They're pretty intense, too. Waves of them piercing through me, like if you could feel neutrinos. I guess I could have expected them. Fascinating. Fascinating? What the hell is wrong with me? FEEL, goddamit!! Whatever.

I've been overwhelmed this past week with thoughts about what I should have been doing these past six months, books I should've been reading/studying, music, writing, something, anything, whatever I haven't been doing for the past six months.

It's at that point of desperation and regret, making me think I should postpone and run with these feelings and start doing those things now with renewed fervor. But that would be missing the point, wouldn't it?

The point is that I haven't been doing those things for the past six months. Wanting to do them with renewed fervor while standing on the threshold, the leading edge, is just an excuse, a distraction. Fuck. I don't know what I'm gonna do, while feeling what I need to do. This is the way it's supposed to be, it's not supposed to be easy.

What else? Get a job?


August 15, 2003; 12:48 P.M. - Geniuseses


August 14, 2003; 11:46 P.M. Ocean Beach. Just like the lyrics in the song.


August 14, 2003; 11:13 P.M. - a half-hearted dress rehearsal?

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

The rents' house, just outside my room.

In the room in New Jersey I grew up in, now.

Who the hell takes a self-portrait when they're standing there trying to decide whether to go out on a foggy day? Apparently me.

Ex-coworker and friend, Amy. Self-portrait with my camera at Beale St. Bar and Grill, San Francisco.

Those blue consoles on the next table are for trivia games played on a national (+Canada) network of bars. Basically a competition between bars to score the highest. We had some seriously smart cookies at Beale St. and we did pretty well. We won at least once in my recall.

The idea was to get as many people to come, log on on as many consoles possible and score the most amount of answers right, so if someone knew an answer, he or she would call it out along with a certainty rating so that everyone could enter the correct answer or a best guess depending on the degree of doubt or disagreement.

I was the resident expert on rock music, music terms and astronomy trivia. Even when someone else answered a rock question first, if it was obscure they'd give me a quick glance to confirm or veto. Usually confirm, barflies know rock music.