I woke up at midnight when my alarm went off. It looked like I was going to have a bad sleep, because I kept waking up and lying in bed wondering if I would be able to get back to sleep, or if I should just bag it and get out of bed because I felt wide awake, and then suddenly I'd wake up again.

That happened in the 8 o'clock hour and then in the 10 o'clock hour, and then my alarm went off, so I considered it a full night sleep. I sat for 45 minutes, and then since I'm on a week break between classes, I've been reciting the entire cycle of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead, to keep my practice on life-support. It's still good stuff, so the inspiration isn't completely dead (and going through the bardos).

I headed out for a run at 5:30, but it was drizzling, and after the soaking I got the last time I went running and it started raining, I headed back in and watched "The Spitfire Grill" on cable. After that, it wasn't raining and I thought I was clear for the run.

I was thinking about adding another 2K to my distance by going around Daan Park 4 times for the first time, but during the second time around I felt a twinge in my left calf which told me that I was heading for the same injury as two weeks ago if I didn't stop. Two weeks ago I kept running until the muscle totally cramped and I was limping badly for two days. This time I completed twice around, ran a further 200 meters, and called it. Good thing. SMART thing (for once). It's aching and sore now, but it would be worse if I kept running until it seized up again.

I want to buy the Lomo Fisheye 2 at the Eslite up the road from Taipei 101. I decided that if I have a blog devoted entirely to lomo fisheye shots, and I just posted a shot where I was complaining about how poorly the original lomo fisheye performs in low light, then it's worth the outlay. I also feel like the temptation to buy it is always going to be here if I don't, and that would be annoying, so what the hell. Who knows what the future holds?

With my luck, the Eslite won't have it anymore.

1:48 p.m. - Taipei 101, Xinyi District, Drear.

3:58 p.m. - Lomo Fisheye 2

I swear by that sun earlier, it was going to be sunny and clear at least until tomorrow. But by the time I got back in after 3:00, it was overcast again with the look of imminent rain. Again. This is the Taipei I know.

I found my pizza. I didn't go to the one right down the street because it was too crowded with elementary school kids. So I rode around till I found another one that I thought I saw once while riding home.

Afterwards, I went to the rehearsal studio and played drums for an hour, then I went to the eyeglass place to have my glasses adjusted, since they kept slipping down my face. I thought I could deal with it because I kinda liked it. When the glasses slip down my nose, I could either look at people over the glasses, which is interesting for me because I can't see anything, or I could tilt my head back to look through the glasses down my nose. Looks like I'm snobbishly looking down my nose at people. Either way.

October 30, 2:17 p.m. - drum practice room

But no. In the end I spend too much time pushing the glasses back up, only to have them annoyingly fall back down. Anyone else would have known this right away. The pretty woman who spoke a little English was there again to help again. I also got a rope for the glasses to hang around my neck. I like walking around without my glasses, not being able to see anything, and this makes it easy.

It's almost time for me to go to sleep. I think I'll watch an episode of "Northern Exposure" Season 4 first.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Misty Mountain Hop (Led Zeppelin)
2. Broke (Modest Mouse)
3. Speed of Life (David Bowie)
4. Passing Strangers (Marillion)
5. Cousin Mary (alternate take) (John Coltrane)
6. I Remember the Sun (XTC)
7. I Zimbra (Talking Heads)
8. La Guerre est Finie (Pizzicato Five)
9. Untitled and Unsung (Belly)
10. Winterlong (Neil Young)

I want to be dramatic and say things are bleak. They are pretty bleak, but I have access to a bank account, and I make good coffee every morning. God I hate my livejournal and flickr friends who go on about what cool thing they did or what they love, all the while ignoring my brilliantly fabulous life, when what they're doing is mundane as a piece of ...holy shit, the sun just burst out! It's been raining for the past 48 hours and I expected today to be another rainy day, but I just looked over out my window at the brick wall in the alley and that is bright sunny sunshine!

I think I really want to have pizza today. I refuse to stoop so low as to eat Domino or Pizza Hut. There's a boutique pizza place on Shida Road, but it's overrated/priced. I like the local Napoli chain, which is the best imitation West Coast pizza in Taiwan. Best is relative.

I got new glasses yesterday. They came almost a week early, so that was nice. I've had the same frames for over five years. The transition lenses stopped working a long time ago. My new frames are more befitting someone my age, so now people can stop thinking I'm younger than 30. Bastards.

I like my new sleeping schedule. Waking up around midnight has been good, and it has helped get me back to sitting for 45 minutes after waking up, because with the vast expanse of early morning ahead, there's no pressure not to. I go running at around five in the morning. That's been good, too. Daan Park is a little over 2k around, so I've been building up my distance 2k at a time, and I'm up to 6k without much hint of my old knee or back injuries. My mile splits are pretty much where they should be, averaging 7:30.

November 5, 6:35-7:13 a.m. - Da'an Park scenes in the morning.

I think I've mentioned that I found a rehearsal studio right next to what is now my old school that I go to 2 or 3 times a week to practice drums. Even at my new school, I should be able to fit in practicing 2 or 3 times a week.

I've been drinking too much. The bags under my eyes are pretty clear to me, I don't know why no one else notices them. Maybe it's the glasses. I buy a bottle of this cheap 116 proof liquor on Thursday or Friday. I can drink it as fast as I want, and I usually finish it about Monday or Tuesday, but then I can't buy another bottle until Friday. This is a good thing because it forces me to be actually sober, as opposed to functionally sober, for most classes.

And plenty of riding and shooting going on whenever the sun is out. My brother gave me his Nikon N70, and it is such an incredible camera that I'm upset that I've been stuck on my Pentaxes for 10 years. The autofocus, metering, and lens are so much better that I developed one roll so far, and that's all I've been posting on my fotolog. I'm not going to be so impressed by people using fancy cameras from now on. It isn't necessarily the photographer. The camera plays a large part. I don't really think that, but the camera is important.

I'm going to delete this post. Or instead I'll just add some bonus pics:

November 5, 2:11-2:13 p.m. - Bade Rd, Section 2, between Xinsheng and Jianguo, but unfortunately this novelty dinosaur-themed establishment no longer exists.

Nov. 24-25

Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 - unknown locations. This pic is how sidewalks are re-paved on shop-lined streets. Wooden planks are laid over the wet concrete for access to stores.

Lordy do I hope I'm done with the Mandarin Training Center at Shida University.

I handed in my application for the language program at Taida University on November 1st, and by November 7th I had a very official looking letter in my mailbox telling me I was accepted and what I needed to do.

November 1, 2:17-2:19 p.m. - Taida campus.

I remind myself of the experience I had applying to Shida in February, and I just laugh now. It so fits my entire experience at Shida, the sheer ludicrosity of the school administration and incompetence of the teaching staff I was exposed to. Mind you, there are good teachers there, but it's a total crap shoot getting one, with apparent high probability of getting a crap one.

It would be funny if it wasn't so funny. When I applied to Shida, their application deadline was smack during Chinese New Year celebrations, when everything closes, including DHL, so my application didn't even get there until several days later, and the registration office, so I didn't hear about any action on my application until a few days before I would have had to leave to get there in time!

Taida is a real college campus. It makes Shida look like a community college. I can't wait. The big thing I'm afraid of is if the students are really diligent, serious, and smart, because I'm not. Maybe my so far perceived inability to learn this language will subject me to daily humiliation.

Speaking of humiliation, I finally cut things off with Hyun Ae. In the end, not a good friend. She has "friendship ADD". "Friendship ADD" = not a good friend. I thought we were better friends than casual acquaintances, but she's best friends with whoever is right in front of her, even people she doesn't like.

The last time we went out for lunch, I don't anticipate either of us making an effort to meet up after I switch schools, we were walking along and someone we don't like was coming the other way. She got hooked into talking to her, and I just walked on. She didn't even notice. If she had noticed, she could have used my walking away as an excuse to pull away from that person. If I hadn't gotten stopped by someone else a bit further on, that would have been the last of it, I wouldn't have waited for her. She probably thought I was waiting for her.

Weekend of light climbing and exploring:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 8:23 a.m. - Less than a mile riding east from my apartment is the start of Chongde Street which climbs up into Fudekeng (富德坑) Cemetery. This is a view a bit up the climb looking back northwest with the Dunhua Towers as the only visible landmark, if one can consider them that. 

8:13-8:20 a.m. - There is a considerable Muslim section of the cemetery! Who knew (aside from the Muslims)? Sure there's a Grand Mosque right near where I live, but it's hardly grand (should be named Quaint Mosque compared to structures in the greater Muslim world). But apparently there are enough resident Muslims to die here and want to stay here.

8:35 a.m. - Navigating the narrow stairs and paths of the cemetery.

8:40-8:59 a.m. - Itsa hyuge sprawling cemetery. Apparently Taiwanese want to give the dead the best views. In the lower pic as the road continues to climb, Dunhua Towers can still be seen at the mid-left, and now Taipei 101 also visible. The three buildings in the foreground, I think, are the funeral home and crematorium. 

9:23 a.m. - At the top of the climb, I opted for the left fork of the road down Yanjiuyuan Rd (named after the Academia Sinica that sits at the bottom of it), which on my paper map looked like a simple, straight-shot to eastern parts of Taipei where I'd never been. What I didn't know is that after all that climbing, it's a bit of a screaming downhill and lots of fun through hardly urban landscape. These pics, on the way down (I wasn't screaming down it on my clunker), are still considered Taipei!

10:13 a.m. - Ending up in far east Taipei, I found my way back along Zhongxiao East Rd to Xinyi District. Zhongxiao East Rd, running east to west, is along the right side of the pic and the yellow paint marks MRT City Hall Station. Those buildings ahead are along Keelung Rd. There is major construction going on in this area, and in a few years time the Hankyu Building, W Hotel and Taipei Bus Depot East will rise on this site. When I arrived in Taiwan, there was nothing here.

10:31 a.m. - It's hard not to shoot Taipei 101 from anywhere in Taipei, even directly under it.

Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super, CD-R:

Fudekeng Cemetery.

Weekend of light riding and casual exploring:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 9:31 a.m. - I went south on Xinhai Rd. which goes down to Muzha and goes through two tunnels to get there.

9:53 a.m. - Approaching the second tunnel, I noticed stairs on the other side of the road that didn't look private so I decided to reconnoiter. 

9:57 a.m. - Indeed, four minutes later the path crossed over the tunnel, this is the reverse of the previous shot with Taipei 101 visible to the north.

10:06 a.m. - Xianjiyan Trail. The tunnel was dug because the hill was significant enough for some decent hiking trails, nothing terribly challenging but good exercise. 

Xianjiyan Trail. I'm gonna own up to the crown of this shrine-like thing being cut off, not because of poor compositional skills, but because I had to rotate the picture digitally so it didn't look like one of my legs is shorter than the other, and it got cut off in the rotation of the photo. The need to rotate it, unfortunately, still points to poor compositional skills. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super, CD-R.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 9:11 a.m. - Continuing Saturday's excursion south on Xinhai Rd, but then turning right and heading west on  Rte. 106 crossing the Xindian River into Yonghe. Taipei 101 visible to the north.

11:52 a.m. - I'd seen the Museum of World Religions on the map and was curious to check it out since it's apparently one of my interests.

11:16-11:18 a.m. - What's in a museum of world religions? Lots of miniatures of iconic religious buildings. Fair 'nuff. I consider it worthy. Unfortunately the Ricoh Caplio R4's poor low-light capability resulted in a lot of pictures too blurry to post.

Both days naturally included strolls in Da'an Park across the street and the current floral exhibition. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. CD-R:

Default shot.

Practicing stillness. An underrated exercise.

Reviewing the Situation:
Running out of steam again. Hanging on by my fingernails. Panicking when I realize it's desperation slipping in. I don't ever want to get desperate. Nowhere to turn, no one to turn to. The platitudes ring in my ear of imagined people telling me what I should do to "get help". Shakes me out of my stupor. Don't want it. Not from fucking random people. Then what? Whine more? Wine more? Scrambling for my own solutions, and realize that scrambling for solutions means I'm desperate. And alone.

For the record, because I didn't commit suicide years ago, with the most recent, notable opportunity in 2004, it's only gotten worse. These are existential problems. They only get worse as existence not only continues to confound, but life morphs into a more ambiguous quagmire of concrete moral suggestion. That's what happens when you live in the world more because you failed to commit suicide.

This is the way it's gotten messier: I regret not having committed suicide at the 1996 window of opportunity. I don't regret not having done it in 2004, even though I wish I had and feel everyone would have been better off, assuming that everyone is better off already no matter what happens. It's just not as easy to say that I regret not doing it as it was after 1996.

My suicide would not have been a big tragedy in 1996, nor 2004. Life would have gone on. And no one would be able to claim that they have to carry the burden of my selfish act with them for the rest of their lives, because no one knew how much I weigh. What of me can they claim to carry? I'm an abstraction at best to everyone who knows me. Whatever burden they feel they have to live with is them themselves.

But I'm projecting onto them, and showing more about me than what can be objectively expected of them. I need to get out of my head. I need to get out of my body. I need to get out of me.

3:04 p.m.

Before I left New Jersey, I was searching for guidance and I opened up the 20th Anniversary book of the Plum Village monastery system (the root monastery of Deer Park) and read a story about a monk who came to an impasse in his practice and wanted to go to a retreat in Germany with his brother. The retreat was with a teacher he had studied with before he ordained at Plum Village, and for whom he still had a lot of respect. The monk asked for permission to leave, and was refused. The story continued on about how this monk was grateful for the teacher's insight in not allowing him to leave, and that the teacher knew what was best for him.

I read this on two levels.

I do believe in insight. I do believe in a teacher's insight. I'm fully willing to take this story at face value, and that there was harmony between the teacher and the monk, and that the teacher saw something in the monk and knew it was not right for him to leave. Under different circumstances, if the teacher saw it was right for him to leave, he would have accepted his leaving.

As an internal matter, I don't doubt it. But once it's published in a book, it becomes an external matter. You're telling this story why? You're trying to convince me of something?

No. Your experience is not my experience. And when this internal story is told to me, an outsider, it reeks of brainwashing, not compassionate guidance. If I come to an impasse in my practice and say I want to leave, I want to leave. I don't want someone telling me, "No, you don't want to leave. These are not the 'droids you're looking for. The boy can go on his business."

I like to think that the teacher would have the insight into my personality enough to know if I say "I want to leave", that means I want to leave, whether it is the right thing for me spiritually or not. But I don't know.

So instead of finding comforting guidance, I was given something that really bothered me. I almost entered this system. And I'm not ruling out that I won't in the future. It's still the place where I had more connection than anywhere else. But at this point in time, my interpretation of this story was telling me to continue on the outside.

11:28-11:50 a.m. - Floral exhibition in Da'an Park across the street from me.

It's been a week since I've been back, and I've been switching my sleeping hours to be up all night.

I'm tired of hanging out with Hyun Ae and will aim to put an end to it. It's not just that she's inaccessible, but it's what she represents. I'm not sure what she represents. Most of what she represents is about me, what she represents about me to myself. What I don't want. What I don't want out of life. What I don't want out of relationships. A little of what she represents is about her and has to do with my relationship to the outside world – no real connection, no loyalty, can't trust her.

I don't know how it got so ugly. The mix of desire and reality. Not desire for her, but desire for finding what I really want. Which is unrealistic at best. I really want connection. It's not in my karma – I just feel it. And if I can't get it, I don't want to desire it. God, what does that mean anyway? I desire I lot of things I can't get. Desiiiro un burriiito.

This thing with Hyun Ae is basically shutting down something that shouldn't need to be shut down. It should never have been "turned on" in the first place. And that something got turned on annoys me to no end. Even if she's just a friend, she needs to prove that she's a friend, and she hasn't proven she's any friend aside from what I've conjured in my own mind.

Just shut it down. Stop being stupid.

Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super, all CD-R:

Motor scooter culture.

Chinese style stone bridge at Bihu Lake (or Bi Lake), Neihu District.

Coming back to Taipei, I felt a driving need to shake things up. I need to get angry again, I need to rage. Razor out.

I have my limits, true, so it isn't pure anger, but it doesn't have to be "pure". The limits are that it doesn't get expressed directly towards other people. I don't directly hurt anyone by exercising and working through my karmic rage.

I need to get angry at myself, I need to self-destruct, razor's out, running shoes, drumsticks. I need to get wild in the head, I have to get crazy. I have to detach, I have to stop being so fucking nice, because I'm not so fucking nice.

I need to throw away my sleeping schedule. The strict-ish sleeping schedule I started when I became a working schlep and then continued afterwards out of habit is a bore; is making me boring to myself. I'm a language student in Taiwan. The only time I have to be awake is between 10 and noon.

I'm so sick of habit. I'm sick of the habits I develop and adhere to wherever I go, just because I'm old.

I'm sick of the idea of what I'm supposed to be doing as a language student. I don't give a fuck about learning this language, I don't feel I will ever master this language. Even though when I came back, I felt I wanted to be more diligent and study as hard as I can.

I want to study diligently and as hard as I can, but with no expectation that I will ever be able to actually communicate in this language, and without any conception of what I think I should be doing or being as a language student.

No habit with Hyun Ae is sacred, she's nothing. Say it again, nothing. Detach. I will drink before class, I will go running at three in the morning. I'll shower when I feel gross, I'll crash when I've exhausted myself. Fuckin' A.

Back in Taiwan.

7:09 a.m. - On the ground at Taoyuan Int'l Airport.

Trying to ward off jetlag by going shooting at the riverside in the sunlit daylight hours. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. My brother Rob went digital SLR and lent/gave me his Nikon film camera. I didn't scan any of these negatives, so they're all from the photo shop CD-R.

I call it "Busted-Ass Jalopy"

Shuiyuan Expressway and Zhongzheng Riverside Park near Guting, not far from where I live.

Guanghwa Temple from the same footbridge but turned 180 degrees

2:55 p.m. - in color