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?

Turns out I had written a post with almost the exact themes of my previous post way back in late 2013. Well, at least there were similarities, but there were enough differences that alarm bells didn't go off indicating that I was repeating a pattern.

That's one of the stories of my life, repeating patterns; mostly patterns of indecision and not doing anything. If it's a pattern, it's likely something psychological or pathological. Recognizing that, I have to call myself out and state that I'm not immediately dying. I'm not ruining my health. Feeling so bad that I suspect that I'll likely die in the near future is simply alcohol-related hypochondria.

Alcohol is another pattern. I have a theory which prevents me from complaining about any of the things I complain about: Any complaint I have is probably alcohol related. To put an end to whatever it is I'm kvetching about, all I have to do is cut back on drinking. Since I know that, if I don't voluntarily cut back on drinking, then I can't complain. I'm purposely perpetuating a problem.

As I mentioned, I did cut down on drinking. Continuing to keep track, I haven't cut back all that much. I have days where I have 12 drinks. Average, though, is around 10 drinks, which means I've only been cutting back around 3 drinks per day. But apparently it makes a difference.

Important, though, is distribution. A drinking day starts from after morning sitting and is spread out until I wash my shot glass and brush my teeth and lights out. I think something that has made a difference is not drinking too much too early. Resist early drinking and I'm alright. 

And simultaneously with cutting back on drinking, I've pushed to be more active and I've finally been getting to the gym and on my bike, after having believed I was done with both. It doesn't hurt that spring has arrived after a pretty brutal winter. 

It was a mild winter until later in January. It was only a two month period from late January to late March, but I think there was a record number of days that temperatures in Taipei didn't get out of the 50s. Snowflakes even fell in Taipei proper, perhaps for the first time ever. But I saw them. It wasn't a lot, it wasn't a snowfall, just lone snowflakes falling from the sky on one grey Sunday afternoon. 

And around the time I wrote my last post, little niggling things annoyed me to form a cloud of negativity around my head. The remote control for my cable TV box broke. Then my laptop's cooling fan started fritzing out. Things fall apart. By Chinua Achebe. Totally demoralizing winter. I thought I was dying. That was the hope.

The turn-around from just cutting back drinking has been marked. Even my sleeping has been pretty stable. But all of this is a work in progress. I've been getting to the gym, but my endurance and strength are way down. Pathetic even. I've been getting on my bike and immediately went for 30+ mile rides including modest hill training, but I can feel how weak I am. 

I've been turning the broken TV remote into a positive. I had been letting my daily life schedule be ruled by TV. But without the convenience of the remote, my TV habits have been stymied by the limited control buttons on the cable box, I'm using this as an opportunity to break that habit, even dependency, on the TV distraction.

The computer fan problem is ongoing. If my laptop is on long enough, the fan settles and stops making noise. Some days it functions fine from start-up. But even so, it is ailing and needs replacing. Until I figure out how to get that done, it's a practice in patience and not getting annoyed.

So how am I moving forward? I'm not dying. I'm eating. I'm riding and getting to the gym. Positive, it seems. And yet, positive isn't necessarily good or proper for me. Things are still heading into only one direction. These "positive" developments may force me to be more pro-active towards what is proper for me. Take things into my own hands. And when the bank account hits zero, that's it.

I hit a breaking point last week. I had gotten to a point where my appetite was pretty much gone. Even the littlest amount of nibbling or snacking – just because I felt I had to eat something – put me into a near catatonic nausea for hours. I have found indications on the internet that this isn't inconsistent with symptoms of alcohol-related liver disease.

You know, even if I don't mind dying from some alcohol-related disease, I would prefer not to feel like shit getting there. Let death come, but if it's misery without any certainty of death, nein, I say, nyet. Non, non, mon père.

I decided to cut back on drinking and see what happens.

Keeping track over the past month, I've been drinking between 5 and 6 bottles of liquor per week. Also keeping track of how many drinks per day, I consume between 13 and 16. This is likely my life peak. My consumption has progressively increased over the decades since college. There were points where I couldn't imagine my consumption increasing, but apparently I've always underestimated myself.

Just a few days in of cutting back, I'm consuming less than 10 drinks per day. Ten drinks a day is still considered a serious health risk. Whatever, I just don't want to feel like death daily. I'm not saying this can be maintained. I am aware of how insidious alcoholism is and that this scheme can crumble like a house of cards any day.

My technique is pretty simple. If I don't feel like a drink, I pass. If I don't feel all that good (about it), I pass. If I think about it and think I can pass, I pass. It just creates a longer space of time between drinks and that decreases consumption. On the other hand, at the end of days when I'm winding down and looking towards lights out, I can go three sheets to the wind and easily go over 10 drinks.

Already I feel better. Even without a major resumption of appetite, I have been able to eat without feeling too terrible. And yesterday I finally got out to the gym for the first time since early last summer to test my cardio doing the lightest of exercise. If not hunger, I did feel the need for fuel.

But even pushing back against not feeling like crap, I can't deny the direction things are heading. I still face eventual blindness from glaucoma since I'm still not going for treatment. And nothing's stopping my bank account from sinking lower and lower. And that's always something I've accepted as endgame.

And bottom line, just because I'm not drinking so much that I feel like crap any time I try to eat, I'm still probably drinking enough to make my liver eventually crawl up in a little scar-pocked ball of ineffectual tissue. Yay?

So my father had a stroke recently. And my sister-in-law's mother died recently. Illness, old age, death are naturally occurring sufferings in life, all becoming expected if not inevitable by the big bang of birth.

What attachment do I have left with people over there? My sister-in-law at least told me of her mother's death in a mass email. Nothing after that. I've already summed up the state of my relations with my brothers and mother. There's nothing to say about my father. He might die soon, he might recover. I hope he recovers, but that's a generic sentiment; there's no emotion involved in saying that.

I was being literal when I said that I'm just waiting to die, and they know nothing about my health and they're not asking, nor would I tell. I'm still not carrying my ID with me so if I die outside my apartment, no one's going to notice for months, probably long after the authorities require my John Doe (or whatever is the equivalent here) remains be disposed of.

Personally, I just can't bring myself to care about that or any effect my not caring might have on anyone. Part of me feels this exhibits a severe lack in compassion, but even wanting to develop compassion, this isn't something I can force. It's just not there.

There's no reason for me to ever go back to New Jersey. I can't imagine them asking me to come back for some vacation and my agreeing to it.

In fact, recently I've been wondering why I never pulled a Cindy on my parents. Cindy is my sister-in-law's oldest sister. Cindy is a medical doctor, has a supportive and present husband and two sons who seem to be turning out well in a normative way.

As the story goes, several years ago the mother made a comment on Cindy's weight and something just snapped. Mind you, from what I've seen there is no issue regarding Cindy's weight. But at that point, Cindy cut off all ties and communication with her mother. It was over, done. It wasn't about her weight, that was just a trigger for something long built up between them.

My sister-in-law hasn't always been able to stay out of the cross-fire. Not too long ago, there was some celebration for one of her children and she naively invited both her mother and Cindy, who baked a cake (on top of being a doctor, she's amazing in the kitchen). Apparently she was hoping for some rapprochement without any basis for that hope, and it ended badly. Cindy simply left and my sister-in-law went on her shit list.

When my sister-in-law told me the story, I sided with Cindy. What was she thinking? Since then, I've been open about my support for Cindy. Apparently I understood Cindy in a way that the other sisters struggled with. That aforementioned incident was a matter of respect, and my sister-in-law didn't show respect for either her feelings or experience. Cindy did not go to their mother's funeral.

I, however, had my own relationship with their mother, enough to perform a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead for her after I got the news. It's not a reflection of what I think about their relationship. I don't think anything about their relationship, except that I accept Cindy's subjective view of it. I understand Cindy, but I had my own connection with their mother.

I absolutely don't know anything about the relationship between Cindy and her mother or how my relationship with my parents might be parallel or analogous. One thing I would like to point out is that Cindy did owe her education and career, even possibly any social or family status, to her parents' support.

My parents cannot claim even that. The previous blowout over the phone with my parents was partly about that. I had to spell it out to them that going to law school was the worst thing that ever happened to me. In their ultra-materialistic view of the world, they couldn't even grasp that concept.

I did make a principled decision not to blame them for my going to law school and I emphasized that it was the worst decision I ever made. I don't want that blame towards them in my karma. I want it cut if possible. I take full responsibility for my own life and decisions.

I didn't put any responsibility on them that it was something they pushed on me, even though without them I would never have even thought of going to law school. If they want to accept their role, it's up to them, I couldn't care less whether they do or not. It just is what it is.

The trade off is that whatever decisions I make about my own life now, including ever visiting them again or committing suicide, I really couldn't care less about their opinion or feelings about it. People do what they do, and there are always consequences.

Anyway, with no substantive, meaningful relations with people over there, I also have to let go of my relations with myself and my past. I've left my "relics" over there, but what would they care about any of that?

I guess I previously thought of my parents' house as a repository for my past. All the stuff that meant something to me or represented something of me is there. Photographs, CDs, instruments, books. I always assumed I would die before them and what happens to my stuff is not my issue. If they felt anything about me, they could do what they please with what I left behind.

But with my father's stroke, it becomes clear that they are also nearing death, and something is going to have to be done with my "stuff". And if I outlive them, then people are going to ask me what I want to do with my stuff.

Bottom line, it's all headed for the garbage. No legacy, no future influence. No one would care about what I left behind, or wonder what it meant. The instruments wouldn't be something available to the nieces and nephews if they take up any interest in music. No one there cares about my music collection or the books that were my education about the world. And actually, neither do I.

mix CD 2015, part one

The track list for the first 2015 mix CD fell into place ridiculously quick and easily (it was done by year's end). It still may change depending on how the second CD comes together, but this collection is pretty solid. Same as before, 2015 is set to be a double CD collection of predominantly K-pop girl groups.

Compiling the second CD looks like it's going to be a pain. Out of the candidates for the second CD mix, there are very few obvious segues (actually none), and key tracks like opening and closer or even where a lot of the tracks belong on a mix are elusive. Hey, I put a lot of thought into mix CD track order!

At least all but one track of the first CD has a YouTube video that's likely not going to be deleted (no dead links). I'll upload all the audio tracks to the cloud once the second mix is finished.

2015, part one
1. So Crazy (T-ara)
2. Crazy (4minute)
3. Um Oh Ah Yeh (Mamamoo) (adlib compilation)
4. Heart Attack (AoA)
5. Apple (Ga In (Brown Eyed Girls))
6. Like (CLC) (live full stage camcorder)
7. Celepretty (Park Bo Ram)
8. Phone Number (Tahiti)
9. Wiggle Wiggle (Hello Venus)
10. I'm a Woman, Too (Minah (Girl's Day))
11. Yes or No (Nine Muses)
12. You're Pitiful (Fiestar)
13. Into You (Hyosung (Secret)) (unofficial upload) (2020 new choreography)
14. Sugar Sugar (Laboum)
15. Don't Be Shy (feat Choa (AoA), Iron) (Primary)
16. Seductive (feat Jimin (AoA)) (Kang Min Hee)
17. Red Queen (feat Zion T) (IU)
18. Ah Yeah (EXID)
19. Bang Diggy Bang Bang (MFBTY)
20. Touch (Anda)
21. Broken Doll (Miwoo)
22. Get (feat Beenzino) (Urban Zakapa)
23. To.Mom (feat. Insooni) (Kisum) (unofficial upload)
24. Girl Crush (Mamamoo)

2014 mix CDs

I had another odd dream that may suggest that my brothers and I have been siblings in past lives and that I may have been the eldest. The odd part is that instead of a random, unfamiliar setting, this dream was set in this lifetime during the 80s at my parents' house.

Of course, we had our established places at the dinner table. I came down to the dinner table as me, the youngest, and I sat at my oldest brother's place and started eating. Then realizing I was eating my oldest brother's dinner, I felt guilty, faux pas, and slightly panicked at what I should do.

Also interesting about the dream is that there was only one other dinner at the table, not two others. So even though the setting was familiar, it might have been a past life resonance of just two brothers and I was the older one. I was actually eating the right dinner.

My brothers, either one or the other or both, have been appearing in my dreams frequently as of late. Not necessarily with any specific impression that they have anything to do with past lives. However, just that they've been appearing in my dreams may suggest that these dreams may be past life resonances.

Of course, in this lifetime we have no particular affinity towards each other. We grew up fighting like dogs, and when the fighting stopped, the detente has mostly been only cordial, albeit kind and supportive when called for. Not much that can be called close. There has never been any going out of our way to meet up, nor any interaction just because we like each other. Truth to tell, I don't even know if we do.

It might support the suggestion that there is an aspect of karma that is out of our hands. Karmic attachments aren't necessarily a matter of choice, but a matter of course, driven by cause and effect. And in this case, if we are connected by karma, it's not necessarily positive karma. Negative karma often can connect people to each other. Even as little as habit can connect people by karma. Even if the habit is hating each other.

Other than that, something about my dreams I've started to notice, going back for quite a while, is that a subtle focus of a vast majority of them is a domestic scene; my residence, where I'm living. The characters change, the actual domiciles are totally different, and the action in the dreams vary widely, but on a subtle level, there is a focus on the living quarters.

There's always an awareness of the physical space, the rooms, the layout, the construction, the style, the decor. No opinion about them, just awareness of what they are. I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe it's a reflection of the lack of home in my life.

I've never considered Taiwan home. Nor New Jersey, which if it was "home" when I was younger, it was always a hostile place. No people I consider home. I tried for home in San Francisco, but it was always undermined by dissatisfaction and the impulse towards suicide. 

My father apparently suffered a stroke while vacationing in Paris over the New Year. He was hospitalized for several weeks there, and scant information was relayed stateside until he was able to return to the U.S. in January.

It was my second oldest brother who filled me in on his condition; the brother who apparently decided on the cruise last summer that he wanted nothing to do with any distress I might be undergoing, even if it was right next to him.

Not that I want to involve him in any distress I might encounter, but instead of letting me disavow him of any concern, he made the affirmative point himself that no, he didn't give a shit. I don't know the reason he needed to express that so clearly, I don't know if it was the result of something I did or am that offends him. The facts just stand as they are with no analysis or examination.

So it was a surprise to hear the news from him. Our exchange was brief but substantive. I don't know why he took it upon himself to inform me. Someone may have asked him to. That actually makes more sense.

Usually I don't know about "situations" until after they're resolved and my mother calls to tell me and then it's just a discussion of what had happened. It's never a matter of keeping me in the loop of what's going on. My brother writing to me to "keep me in the loop" is not normal.

Him, January 20:

Sorry I haven’t emailed you in a while but I did want to make sure that you were aware of what is going on with dad.

Around Christmas time he and mom went on a trip to France but on their first day there he fell and wound up in the hospital in Paris. They diagnosed a stroke from bleeding in his brain (likely due to high blood pressure). During that time we didn’t have much information because mom’s phone didn’t work in France (I didn’t even hear about it until a week later when Uncle Aki called me). He was in the hospital for almost three weeks and eventually came back to NJ last Friday. He is still weak on his right side. He could walk on his own but was not very steady and his memory/thinking were still impaired. At one point within the first 24-48hrs of being home, he fell off his bed and they had to get Tom to come over to get him back up – so not very functional.

Last week Mom arranged for him to be admitted to a rehabilitation facility in Saddle Brook but after a few days he was admitted to Hackensack Hospital with a urinary tract infection and low blood pressure (urosepsis probably). Hopefully once the infection is under control and his blood pressure improves he will be able to go back to the rehab facility. Although I hope that he improves with his ability to walk/think, I don’t think that he will ever fully get back to his prior state of functioning – though hopefully I will be wrong.

I’ll let you know if there are any changes in the situation.

Take care,

My response, January 22:

Thanks for the update. Mom usually calls about these things after they've resolved, but this sounds a little more serious. It's possible he'll be alright, taking each issue one step at a time, medical issues first and then rehabilitation. It might take mom "bullying" him to both get better and more importantly to want to get things back to normal. He may have had hints of depression or melancholy in the past regarding his physical state. I've always pushed mom to engage his mind and emphasize things that stimulate him mentally. No idea what those things may be.

I expect mom maybe to be somewhat distressed by all this, but she's also a fighter in these situations. And if she can push him to fight, she's the one to do it. I hope everyone else is staying strong and positive. It's all natural, these things happen. It's in the nature of things. Freaking out and getting stressed or despondent doesn't really help. I've been pushing that on Grace regarding her mom for a while. Nature has a course and takes it. 

I guess you've heard about David Bowie. That hit me unusually harder than I would expect of any number of aging rock stars kicking the bucket. Most of the time, including Glen Frey, it's a little sad intellectually, but more of a send off of a great career and contribution, raise a glass, cheers. But Bowie ate at me for a few days. Now I kind of think that's what he wanted. The way it all unfolded was that he sort of made his death into performance art. He knew he was dying but he kept it a secret, then he works on his swan song final album and releases it on his 69th birthday, and then dies two days later. Art is aesthetic and some of the best is meant to jar people, and he did both! "Bowie releases new surprise album on 69th birthday". Two days later, "Bowie Dead". If you think of it as performance art, I'd expect no less from Bowie.

From him, Feb 5:

Just wanted to give you another update or two...

Dad recovered from his urosepsis and has been back at rehab for about a week. He is apparently doing okay although is still not very verbal - they aren't sure (as per mom) if this is because of damage to the language centers of his brain, cognitive issues, or that he is depressed. I think it will be a long road to recovery with persistent limitations. I'm trying to ease mom into the idea that dad will probably not fully recover but still let her have hope that he will improve.

And on another sad note, I don't know if you heard from Grace, but her mother passed away on Tuesday in hospice. She never really recovered from her heart surgery and subsequent multiple hospitalizations for various things. She had recently started dialysis for renal failure and had been progressively dwindling. In the end, she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and the family decided against continued aggressive medical care. Her funeral is going to be this Saturday.

And my last, Feb 7:

I suppose the tricky part is to "ease mom into the idea that dad will probably not fully recover but still let her have hope he will improve", but that's probably also the best and wisest approach to take. It's the hardest thing to get people to face that most obvious aspect of life, which is that nature takes its course (once it's accepted and understood, it becomes one of the most comforting aspects). 

On the other hand, I think mom isn't oblivious or hoping against hope, and realizes what his age means and what these medical problems mean. She certainly isn't stupid and has shown great adaptability and even wisdom in recent years (in contrast, as smart as dad is, I haven't seen much evidence of either adaptability or wisdom; more stubbornness and selfishness (that's not judgment, just observation)). Mom may just be afraid of any changes and how she's going to get through it. I still think he can improve and be functional, but no one can be certain or over-optimistic.

The verbal issues may be a logical result of the stroke and any cognitive damage. It's positive that he recovered from urosepsis and is back in rehab. Whether the verbal impairment is medical or psychological is anybody's guess. Both should be addressed. I'm sure the medical aspect is, but for the mental aspect, stimulation should be targeted; things that interest him mentally. This may be my own personal projection, but his personal story and recording it might be something to engage him mentally. Mom says he's not interested in his past, but I don't know. It may be a matter of how and who. But if mom's right, so be it.

Grace has kept me in the loop about her mother, and as she was professed Buddhist, I've offered to offer up a ritual afterlife prayer recitation for her (Tibetan Book of the Dead). It isn't lost on me that I can't imagine what Grace and Peggy must be going through emotionally, nor that we might need to be preparing ourselves about dad, regardless of what we are hoping for him. I think I've noticed human mortality has been an interest of yours, and the death experience is something I've gone to lengths to familiarize myself with, but I also know that there's no bracing or preparing for it. When the news comes, it's a sucker punch in the gut. 

I've never quite understood why these topics are so hard to broach. I remember when grandfather got sick a few months after grandmother died in 1993, my first thought was "this is it, he's about to die". So I was shocked when I asked mom whether they would be going to Taiwan and she said no and that he'd be alright. Then of course he died and she wasn't there. That was the whole of our interaction, by the way, as we weren't exactly on conversational terms back then. If our interactions were like they are now, I would have spelled it out just like that, "Go, he's about to die!"

Anyway, thanks for handling whatever you can for them. Tom must be taking the brunt of it, but like I said, I usually only find out about things after mom contacts me after things have settled one way or another. I can't think of a single instance I've contacted mom; that's just how it's always been, the nature and symbol of our relationship. That said, I'll send Tom an email in the next few days and check up on him.

You're probably hearing news about the earthquake in Tainan. It was bad because it was so shallow, but didn't affect Taipei at all and I haven't heard of any impact on Kaohsiung. 

Monday is the start of Lunar New Year, are the kids' schools recognizing it like before? I hear it's the year the of fire-breathing monkey. Tough image to get out of my head.

My mother did call shortly after. It would make sense that she might have asked my brother to email me. It was so by the time we talked, I already knew. It wasn't breaking news, but just something to discuss.

Since that conversation, she called again and got a bug in her about my future, and the one thing that will set me off is if she starts suggesting things about my future. She has simply, as a parent, lost any right to make any suggestion about my future. The call ended badly and I won't be taking her calls for a while. Unless my father dies, then I'll take a call.

I hadn't heard anything from my oldest brother, the one whose mother-in-law died. He also lives in the same town as my parents, so I presumed he was in the thick of two emotional shit storms, on top of raising four kids and maintaining his medical practice.

As my birthday approached, I presumed he'd send me an email as he always does, but I thought I'd take any weight off whether to send a happy or concerned email by sending a preemptive email letting him know I knew what was going on and empathizing with his position. He did send back a message on my birthday, but it was the email equivalent of wet, cold spaghetti. In my hands, no gravy.

My email was to give him space to let me know his space without having to go through what I already knew, and his response was basically "meh". I don't know any other way to put it:

Happy Birthday,

Dad's stroke may be slowly improving or it might be mom's wishful thinking. It's hard to say. I'm not as optimistic as mom. We'll see. Next vacation won't be too far away. Grace is taking things better than Tessa. Hope all is well. Hope to see you later this year.
T

These are the bonds of this family. I'm affixing a tag of "negativity" to this post, but even though it may seem I'm being negative, I don't feel it that way. It's just the way it is. Maybe negative is unfortunately "just the way it is", but I have to let it be as it is.

I see no way to affect change, nor feel any impetus to do so. What do I have to do with any of these people?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm at the end of my life. I'm just waiting to die. I'm waiting to go blind from glaucoma or waiting for my bank account to run out or waiting for my hair to fall out or waiting for liver failure from years of drinking that now equates to just about drinking a bottle a day. Of liquor I mean, not beer.

Last year had that hilarious incident whereby I came across a teaching that implied my parents get credit for supporting a spiritual aspirant's endeavors by dumping all that money in my bank account. That was the only reason I agreed to go on that cruise.

Then between giving them credit and the actual cruise, they took the money back. I still haven't calculated how much I have left to live on, but it's immediately finite. So exactly what credit do they get? What do I owe them? Easily nothing. And I don't expect to go back to visit them this year or ever at all. Why would I? The circumstances will have to be very specific.

I certainly don't owe any of them continuing to live my life. OK, that earns the negativity tag, lol!

I guess I have written quite a bit about the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. So much so that sometimes I'll think of a new idea during a recitation only to find that I've thought about it before and already written about it.

Something that may really be new is an idea that when doing a recitation, whatever is being recited wouldn't be "heard" in the death betweens like a person sitting next to you hearing you read something. Already I've come across suggestions that in the betweens there aren't barriers of form or language.

Traditionally in Tibet, as I understand, it was ideal if a trained lama did the recitation by the deceased's bedside and it would be recited in Tibetan. But as Tibetan teachings have spread beyond Tibet, ironically spurred by the Red China invasion of Tibet and the ongoing destruction of its culture, there has been recognition that the subtleties of the teachings go beyond "form or language".

Traditionally, these are things that may not have necessarily been considered. But with the spread of Tibetan teachings it's more recognized that the clarity of consciousness in the death betweens transcends language. Language understanding is a trait of concrete human existence, but not of the subtle existence in the betweens as a so-called mental body. And this interpretation is not sourced in the dispersion of Tibetan teachings, but in the work itself.

I'm thinking it's not a matter of language at all. It's not that a recitation can be performed in English and those words can be understood in whatever language the deceased knew. It's not the words that a between being "hears", but impressions, even intentions. It's a mental or emotional communication that is sent as human language, but is "heard" as energy of the intention of the words, not the literal translation of the words.

I don't know what I'm sending out with a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead into an unknown dimension, it might be nothing, it might be fantasy, it might be fiction; or it might just redeem a person that we call a soul.

This idea came about from various specific descriptions of what a between-being may be experiencing, but it's actually a very lightly veiled example of a teaching. I would be wondering why a passage was being presented in this very specific way, clearly a basic teaching.

That led me to think it's not the words that necessarily matter, but reciting the words is sending the teaching as emotion or energy into the unknown and hoping it resonates and leads to something positive. The constant repetition of the deceased's name may attract the consciousness to the recitation, but what's being recited may be received as the deceased's own consciousness, instinct, impression or awareness.

I think maybe the work was composed in a certain culture, whereby the intent was that practitioners could be exposed to the images and guidance as part of practice, and after death when the recitation is done, they would be open to the guidance and recognize the images and remember the teachings and attain liberation.

I think maybe what makes this a sacred work is the template of guidance in the betweens. It doesn't matter that it uses Buddhist/Hindu imagery. If the book is studied and meditated upon, the insights come through and a recitation of it for a between-being may be of benefit.

My sister-in-law's mother died early this month. I've been reciting the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Natural Liberation Through Hearing) for her. It's been almost a year and a half since I've done a recitation, and that's kinda too long.

Not a big deal, but I feel I "got it wrong" by "starting too late". There are preliminary portions that probably should be begun immediately, and there are various prayers that are suggested in the book for this purpose. Which ones get used depends upon the reciter and the deceased. That's not an official teaching, just going on instinct.

I also like to include a description of the "dissolution of elements" that supposedly occurs during the death point between (the first of three death betweens). I'm not sure why it's not included in the Liberation Through Hearing recitation. It seems important.

The description is in a chapter entitled "Signs of Death", which I don't read because it seems heavily based on superstition in light of modern medical perspectives. The difference in the superstition aspect of that chapter and the entire book is that modern medicine has little insight into the after-death experience itself.

There's also a good general point in time to get into the thick of the recitation, about 3-4 days after death. That's in the book and I have no instinct on that matter. When I say maybe there is no real "getting it wrong" or "starting too late", it's because those are just . . . concepts.

The recitation itself is a matter of faith. Being of scientific bent, I'm not putting any great meaning into the recitation. Maybe it's something, maybe it's not. But whatever is occurring to a person after death according to Tibetan Buddhism (science has nothing), it's still something very amorphous and inexact and the living's strictures on time may not apply. Whether someone is receptive to someone doing a recitation on their behalf is probably a shot in the dark. But if there is even a moment of recognition, the benefits may be great, so might as well.

Something different about this recitation is that it's for someone I actually knew and who knew me, and someone who professed herself as being Buddhist and knew at one point I was considering becoming a monk.

Perhaps at a theoretical worst, she won't recognize the recitation, but will be reborn open to it in her next life. Maybe that's what happened to me (or maybe I was well-versed in it, I don't have to be modest about what I can't know).

The last time I read through it, I recognized parts that seemed out of place. I had taken on an analytical perspective that some human being, a person, compiled this work in a social, cultural, historical context and so it is fair game to be analyzed and critiqued.

So I am reading through the work and rearranging portions to make more chronological sense to me. I'm keeping an eye on things that don't make sense where they are, and even written in a tense that doesn't make sense where it is. If something feels wrong or is facially inconsistent, it may have been human error.

I'm also going through both translations I have with me here. I'm only using the 2005 Gyurme Dorje translation for the recitation. The earlier Robert Thurman translation was the first one I was exposed to, and I think I did read/study it fairly intently and got a lot of great ideas from it.

The 2005 complete translation is clearly the superior translation. I think Robert Thurman was doing something specific in his translation. It's more academic and ecumenical and still a very valuable piece of scholarship that would interest people who might not necessarily get hooked by the 2005 translation.

There are various tweaks in the recitation I put in of my own. Like terminology for the six classes of beings. There is a class that Thurman calls "titans" and the 2005 translation calls "anti-gods", but those terms don't quite describe anything. My own term is "aggressive gods", meaning they are elevated beings, but they are driven by strong ambition and desire for power (politicians, military leaders, CEOs).

And another class that Thurman calls "pretans" and the 2005 calls "anguished spirits"; neither of those are descriptively as helpful as "hungry ghosts". Thurman does explain why he doesn't like to call them ghosts, because ghosts are a completely different thing, but I think it captures the concept well. Beings who have insatiable hungers for something they constantly pursue in futility. I believe my parents, or at least my mother was born in this realm. Her insatiable hunger is for money and material wealth. Even in retirement, she's still chasing how to get more out of what she has.

The 2005 translation also assumes only Buddhists are reading the book because it mentions things like the "three precious jewels" and the "six syllables" without clarifying that they are the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha; and om mani padme hum, respectively.

I suppose the important thing is that it's not taboo to change things around. It's a sacred work, but not in the Western sense that it's perfect and can't be messed with (which to me is more an imposition of power). With something so varied, important and personal as human experience, spirituality should be flexible and accommodating.

I had a second dream about my brothers and I having been siblings before in a past life. The first dream was a while ago, I can't remember when or whether I mentioned it, but in that dream, I felt I was the oldest and had the most power, and may not have been particularly liked because of that.

The dream I had this morning was more impressionistic. It required post-wakem interpretation to think it had anything to do with a past life. What was happening in the dream was more about how I was feeling, rather than any visuals.

My interpretation was that I was very sick, possibly about to die. I was on medication. Walking was very difficult and precarious. And I was on a ventilator.

The on medication part I got from an early part of the dream where I was floating. This part may have been a semi-conscious dream that I had some control of and was struggling not to come out of. Actually, it may have started as a full dream.

The dream started in what felt like San Francisco, Richmond District, and might have involved a police car chase coming right off the Golden Gate Bridge and turning left. It didn't look like any of that (except the left turn), it just felt like that.

And there wasn't any real chase, it was rushing down a straight, grey, concrete, fluorescent-lit industrial corridor that felt like Clement or California Street, one of those long streets that run the length of the Richmond.

I was hanging off the side of the car, or it may have been a medical cart, hoping not to get slammed against the wall or by the swinging doors it was crashing through. When it stopped, that's when the semi-conscious floating part began, me trying to navigate back up through the corridor without waking up.

The next part was full dream. There was an image, perhaps a still image, of me and my brothers as children sitting in the back seat of our parents' car back in the 70s. There was some panning and recognition of who would be who of these children. The outside of the car looked like New York City.

The dream then switched to like a construction or demolition site (a pile of rubble) that was in the side of a building. It wasn't a restricted site as other people were making their way through and there were construction workers. My brothers and I were navigating our way through, I was having difficulty with my footing. This is the metaphor of a medical patient having difficulty walking.

My brothers were simultaneously helping me and getting frustrated at my inability. I remember a huge gloop of snot dripping out of my nose and trying to maintain my dignity. That's the first suggestion that I was ill.

The dream ended with me noticing a package of tissue on some rubble and trying to get a tissue to wipe my nose, but for some reason I couldn't do it. I kept getting thwarted or the tissue turned into something else and I actually got frustrated. All through this later part of the dream, and this was something I noticed semi-consciously, that my breathing was heavily labored and loud like trying to breathe through mucous, and that's where I get the ventilator part from.

When I woke up, I could still hear that raspy, labored breathing.

It's all interpretation. None of the imagery was about sickness, but after I woke up, that's the first thing that came to mind and that's how I put it together and tied it to my previous dream that suggested that my brothers and I were siblings in a past life.

Originally posted in April:
A new article on David Bowie reminded me I never posted something I wrote in January. I'll put it where it belongs later:

David Bowie released a surprise new album on his 69th birthday earlier this month. Entertainment headlines announced: "David Bowie Releases Surprise New Album on 69th Birthday".

Two days later, international headlines declared: "Bowie Dead".

Just take a frying pan and smack me on the forehead with it as hard as you can. That's what it felt like. In fact, that would have been preferable.

News of aging rock musicians dying generally doesn't faze me. That's what happens. People get old, and the older they get the higher the likelihood that they will die. It's not a surprise when they die. It's more of a surprise that some of them haven't kicked the bucket long ago.

When I hear of rock stars who have made it to old age dying, I salute them. I smile and thank them and raise a glass for their great contribution to entertainment, art and culture and my enjoyment. What's to be sad about as a fan? We haven't "lost" them. They'll live on as legends through their records. It's not like they were still releasing quality new material or were going to.

Oh, and then there's Bowie.

Bowie's death really bothered me. It ate at me for days. You're not supposed to release a new album and then die two days later. It's not done that way. Releasing a new album that got great reviews from day one means you're still vital and . . . hunky dory.

Then the details came out that he had been secretly fighting cancer. He knew he was dying and he spent the last seventeen months or so of his life writing and recording his swan song.

Then it dawned on me: he turned his death into performance art. Explaining it that way at least made me feel better.

I think above all the identities and personas he has accumulated through the years is that he is a true artist through and through. I bet he never read the morning paper, munchy-wunching lomticks of toast without thinking about how something around him could be re-interpreted or transformed.

And if you're that kind of artist and learn that you're dying, what do you do? You keep it a secret and secretly write and record an album and release it on your 69th birthday. I actually think the artist in him wanted to die on the same day the record was released to make it even more dramatic, but there are some things he couldn't control. He dies two days later, OK, close enough.

Of course, if he died the day it was released, the record might have gotten sympathy good reviews instead of the actual good reviews that it got.

Art is often about aesthetics, but great art also challenges and shocks. And that's what he did. I should have expected no less from him. Maybe he couldn't choose how he went out, but he could do it in his own way. It would have been far worse if his death was just a news headline, a smile, thanks and a raised glass.

My cousin called me the other night and we talked for an hour and a half. We hadn't connected since she last called sometime earlier in the year, maybe March when she was living in Arizona.

My landlord is her uncle, and a few weeks ago he needed to come into my room for some work to be done and I asked him about Audrey. He surprised me with news that she had moved to Switzerland.

I was duly surprised. Maybe part of me was a little disappointed that she made such a major life decision to move from Sedona to Switzerland and never once was I on her mind to tell me about it. But to be truly disappointed, I would have to presume that I had some importance to her, and being important to anyone is antithetical to my being, so it was easy to just let it go.

Apparently I would have known about the move if we were connected on Facebook, but in the interim of our connections, I had unfriended both her and my old friend Madoka. I unfriended them as a reaction to people with whom I wanted more substantial communications. If they wanted to communicate with me, then communicate with me.

As far as I'm concerned, Facebook is for superficial contact with people with whom I would otherwise not be in contact. It's not for people from whom I expect more personal, direct communications. I realize no one thinks like this.

Facebook is a primary contact for many people. It doesn't matter if posts, likes and replies become a matter of committee between total strangers. It doesn't matter that a post wasn't meant personally for you and any number of replies are also not meant for you or by people who know absolutely nothing about you, and any reply you make goes to everyone who weren't intended as recipients.

It took about six months for Madoka to realize we were no longer friends and she sent me a message and I duly re-friended her. She didn't get it, but I felt re-friending was the only course of action to make my initial unfriending her not be passive-aggressive. It wasn't. It was hoping for something, and it didn't happen.

I still don't read her FB posts and our communications continue to be superficial and not at all a dialogue. Positive, but not dialogue. Theoretically, we continue to profess being important to each other; practically it's lip service. Well, no, we mean it, but the manifestation in our interaction doesn't live up to it. It's like going to church on Sundays and that being all for spiritual commitment.

Audrey never realized we were no longer friends on Facebook. After her uncle told me she moved to Switzerland, I sent a one-sentence e-mail to her telling her that I learned from her uncle about the move and wished her the best.

She sent a short (but longer than mine) email back saying it's all on Facebook. She still didn't realize we were no longer friends on FB, and I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't and decided to just let it go. Whatever.

Then she called the other night, a couple weeks after I didn't respond, and we talked for an hour and a half.

What's the take away? Well, we don't matter to each other in an attached sense. We're not keeping tabs on each other, concerned for what's happening in each other's daily lives. It's Buddhistic non-attachment perhaps. It doesn't mean we don't care. We care, we just don't matter.

For her, things matter. Her kids, her father, whoever or whatever else matter. I don't, which is great. I don't want to matter.

And nothing matters much to me. That's also great, I don't want things to matter. I don't have kids, I don't have family who matter. I don't keep tabs on them, they don't keep tabs on me. Whatever happens to them and whatever happens to me is just news to each other. There's no involvement. There's nothing we could do if either side knew any more than we do about each other.

I don't know what issues they're dealing with and there's no indication they want my input on anything. That would be mattering.

And they don't know I'm an alcoholic and ignore how big of a problem insomnia is, but regardless, I don't want their input on those things. That would be mattering.

If you want to matter, you have to stick your nose in someone else's business. If you want other people to matter, you have let them stick their nose into your business. Caring is fine, but caring without action isn't mattering.

Me, my cousin, my family, we all care for each other. We just don't matter. There's no judgment in this, it's just fact.

I finished reading two books by Bart Ehrman that I bought in New Jersey last time I was there, Lost Christianities and How Jesus Became God.

He's not the only author I've read regarding the history of early Christianity, but I seem to have an affinity for his scholarship. To me, his appeal on the topic is similar to that of Carl Sagan to astronomy; an effective communicator of the basics.

I don't get the sense that he's necessarily trying to be controversial. Certainly he has an agenda but a lot of it is trying to push the boundaries of how people think about Christianity. And scholarship is just scholarship. Sure, there's good scholarship and bad scholarship, and with a controversial topic as Christianity in fact is, a lot comes down to opinion.

There may be a progression to Bart Ehrman's books. These two books I bought may be more his branching out beyond the basics. The basics are in his earlier books like "Misquoting Jesus" and "Jesus Interrupted" among others.

I might even suggest that his books seem to reflect the progression of his own personal discovery that his initial beliefs as a young, totally converted, Bible-thumping evangelical Christian were wrought with contradictions and inconsistencies. For God's telling of the ultimate truths of the universe, that shouldn't be so. It should be a neat little package that was incontrovertible, and the only people who could possibly disagree were certainly accursed heathen. 

As his studies into Christianity continued with an intent to enter the ministry, he was introduced to the scholarly historical reality of Christianity beyond dogma and blind faith. He did what most Christians don't do. He thought for himself and found the package wasn't so neat.

His early books are straight-forward. You can follow what he's saying because you can verify with your own Bibles (yes, even without a Christian bone in my body, I have two of my own copies of the Bible in New Jersey) what he considers problems. From there you can accept or reject his thesis, but it's pretty solid scholarship and logic as far as I'm concerned.

"Lost Christianities" and "How Jesus Became God" are more his branching out beyond the basics. They probe into areas that are necessarily more speculative. The former investigates the extant evidence of what "other" Christians believed before the Roman takeover of the religion. The power of the Roman Empire makes it easily credible that other understandings of Christianity would be effectively and efficiently suppressed and disposed of.

The latter looks at the development of early Christology and how it may have been influenced by existing or contemporary myths of the interplay between humans and gods. The idea of Jesus becoming God or being God wasn't wholly unique based on the wholly unique circumstances of the stories being told about him. They were formed within a context to explain what they didn't understand.

One point that Ehrman likes to pick at is how ultimately the Romans, in creating an orthodoxy, synthesized various contradictory ideas without explaining them. A big one is the assertion that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine; separate views originally held by different groups of Christians.

My personal snark on that contradiction boils down to whether Jesus shat and peed like the rest of us. Since he was fully human, of course he shat and peed. That's what humans do. And would Jesus's pee qualify as holy water? But the Romans also insisted Jesus was fully divine. So that must mean God shits and pees, too. Wonder what it smells like. I imagine floral bouquets, but that doesn't make sense. It must just smell like shit.

I don't know why I'm at all fascinated by the truth of Christianity; that it is largely based on myth and has only a little to do with the actual teachings of Jesus. Maybe I've always felt threatened by U.S. Christian hegemony which I didn't buy into, and it feels good to debunk it and knock it off its ideological throne.

Part of me wonders whether it's a past-life resonance where maybe I was Christian. Maybe it harkens all the way back to the few centuries after Jesus when the debates about his message were passionate and diverse.

So by my estimation I've been more or less useless and/or worthless to anyone in any meaningful manner for at least a good five years. Anyone who theoretically may make a claim against that, my response is that I haven't tried to be of use or worth to anyone. It wasn't my effort that made that so. I haven't made any effort for anyone else.

But even with suicide as my intended end, I'm still here now wasting space, creating waste, still contributing nominally to the economy by consuming. So selfish as I've established I am, what's in it for me?

The one unadulterated enjoyment I maintain is listening to music. With everything else falling away, I still listen to music almost obsessively. And it's so appropriate that my one last admitted attachment is to something so necessarily ephemeral. Whether it's a 3-minute pop song, a 10-minute prog rock or jazz song, a 30-minute album side, or 15-minute classical movement, the song ends, the enjoyment passes.

As such, it's easy. If you take it away, I have no problem giving it up. But if it isn't taken away, I indulge in it in all its harmless glory. Listening to and enjoying music never hurt anyone. It's still karma, I'm aware, and if I don't cut off the attachment aspect of it, it's something I'll still have to deal with in future lives in any one or many of innumerable possible ways.

Aside from that, I suppose I've just been reading to add to my selected understanding of the human experience on this planet through its history.

I may have reached the limits of Buddhist readings available in English through libraries and bookstores. I've bought available books that I've deemed important and I constantly re-read those. I maintain my personal mindfulness/dharma practice. Despite being of no worth to anyone else, that has been of worth to myself.

Early Christianity has been of interest, how it was formed and how it came to be what it is today. Looking at the history of early Christianity, it's surprising how it became what it is today, and not. Reading academic and scholarly studies of early Christianity, it's clear that modern Christianity is based on artificial mythologies; nothing or little based on teachings of an itinerant, apocalyptic Jewish preacher and probable miracle worker named Jesus.

But if it's all myth, how could it have become hardwired, literal fact of the truths of the universe for so many people? No one takes Greek or Roman or other cultural myths as literal. Of course it's far more complicated than anyone can sum up, but the brilliant stroke of having the Roman Fucking Empire take up the cause is probably of no little consequence.

I'm under the impression that Europe as a whole doesn't take Christianity as fanatically literal as the U.S. does. Many are very sincere about their faith, but there are also many who assume the supposed truths of Christianity because it's woven into the fabric of their culture. They don't question it because it's not important to do so. If they delved into the scholarship, they would probably be able to look at it critically, admit ignorance and agree with much of it.

I don't suppose scholarship will affect faith for at least another 500 years. It may be more than a 1,000 years before the scholarship is common knowledge and human beings can process it for what it is. I don't think the scholarship showing that Christianity has little to do with Jesus is any threat to Christianity.

Just because it's based on myth doesn't mean it's worthless. It has become its own institution and as much harm as it has caused, it has done a lot of good on the profoundest levels. It's just admitting that it's based on myth will be a hard pill to swallow for many, many generations.

Other histories I've read up on include Auschwitz, the arrival of the so-called Pilgrims, religious extremists possibly, on the Mayflower, the U.S. treatment of Lakota Native Americans and how their land was stolen, and the assassination of Julius Caesar.

The Auschwitz book focused specifically on that camp in the context of the Holocaust and embodies all the horrors one might expect. Poorly edited, though. The Mayflower book seemed pretty comprehensive and balanced. It doesn't seem to play politics and realizes that self-interest is the driving force in dire circumstances.

As for the Lakota and the Black Hills, it's impossible to stay away from the impassioned politics of the issues. As an American I sympathize with Native Americans, but certain white people will defend their actions to the end. My main beef about the book is that although it seems to sympathize with the Native American cause, it constantly refers to white people as "Americans" as opposed to the Indians, who aren't American?

I don't know why I got interested in the Julius Caesar book as soon as I saw it. Probably because it is such a famous historical event, and as much as the Roman Empire played in the development of Christianity, I was looking for insight into it.

I don't remember exactly when I stopped carrying my ID with me even though I know it's illegal to not have it with me. If I were to die outside my apartment there would be no identifying me. I presume I'd get sent to a morgue and there would be no one to contact. There's no one who would notice me missing so I'd just be an unclaimed body. I guess maybe after a while the morgue would have to dispose of my body after taking pictures and fingerprints, maybe an autopsy, but then I'd have to be cremated and stored.

The first person to notice me missing would be my landlord and he wouldn't get suspicious for, I estimate, two or three months of missed rent payments. He is my cousin's uncle and I've never been a problem paying rent. He'd give some leeway, but then he'd notice something wrong. He might call my cousin, not concerned about the rent necessarily, but to alert her of the unusual circumstance and to ask if she knew if I was alright. She wouldn't and then she would call her father, who would then call my mother. 

I don't know what would happen then. In time it would become clear no one knows where I am and no one can get in touch with me. I don't know how far down the line it would occur to someone to "check the morgues" or if that even happens in Taiwan. My body would long be gone, but if they keep records, and I don't know that they do, maybe the mystery would come to light.

I'm still contemplating what I think of my computer. If my disappearance is a mystery, my computer is the first thing that will be looked at and it's probably not that difficult to find this blog.

However, it is statistically unlikely that I'll die outside of my apartment. I only spend about four hours a day out, and whenever I start feeling bad my impulse is to get back home. So unless I get hit by a bus while on my bike or if I have a medical decline too fast to get back home, then it'll be here where the first indication of my demise will be the stench that my neighbors will have to deal with.

I do have two actual time bombs ticking, aside from my amorphous attestations towards suicide (no current concrete intention) or hope that my liver is on its last legs (most eggs in that basket).

Right before I left for the U.S., I got a preliminary diagnosis that I probably have glaucoma and I was referred to a specialist. I was given the option to start a course of eye drops by the doctor who couldn't definitively say I had glaucoma. With good intentions I opted to take the drops, but since then I still haven't gotten out to see the specialist for a more specific diagnosis and I've fallen off the regimen of taking the drops regularly; three different drops three times a day!

So loss of vision is possible if I keep on living. With no one pushing me to go see the specialist, I'm not sure when I'll motivate myself to go. Next month? Next year? Ever? Not to put too fine a point on the possibility of going blind, a likely possibility if I don't get this thing treated, is that my vision has been noticeably getting worse. It's probably a naturally occurring development called presbyopia, meaning "old eyes" (I learned that from Northern Exposure). Even though I'm still fine riding my clunker bike at night just to get around, it's been a while since I stopped going on road rides in the wee hours like I used to because I just don't trust my vision in low light anymore. And I always have to look over the rim of my glasses to read smaller print. Just reading, sometimes I just take my glasses off.

And of course my bank account is running down now. I haven't calculated how much time I have left according to how much money I have left, but it can't be much more than a couple years. Appropriately enough, capital(ism) is a much more relentless time bomb than the vagaries of biology.

It does remind me that my quickly dropping bank account is what precipitated my leaving San Francisco after a failed attempt. My current situation is quite different. I figure it's much more motivating now to succeed in an attempt should I run out of money. I created an escape back then, running back to New Jersey, trying out the monastery, and finally coming to Taiwan. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm curious to how I'll react this time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twenty-four hours later, I'm doing much better; still a little wobbly. It ended up being a 60-hour bout of hiccups and when that ended a lot of pressure was alleviated, both on my gut and in my mind. I still couldn't get to sleep at all, not a wink. Watched the Blue Jays avoid elimination in the ALCS and then the Mets sweep the Cubs in the NLCS.

Me, I'm thrilled that the Mets are going to the World Series, but I sympathized for all those sad puppy dog faces on Chicago fans. I don't hate the Cubs and their fans seem like a civil lot. Both teams' fans are familiar with disappointment, but better them than us. When the Cubs do make it to the World Series, I'll be rooting for them.

I'm starting to tentatively eat bits and scraps despite having no appetite and my gut is tentatively accepting them. I mean, whatever non-appetite I have, my body needs nutrients or it begins to starve. And whatever my intentions or hopes are, even if I wanted to die by hunger strike, I expect my body to protest and get hungry. Feed me, Seymour! OK, I'm game! Stop feeling like crap when I eat, and I'll give you food!

And despite the sleepless night, I was able to fade out a little better in the afternoon and that's a good sign for sleep getting normal. Even if just for short periods of time, fading out means the brain can turn off.

Different from yesterday when nothing turned off. Then in the evening, everything shut down very suddenly. Any more dramatic would have been passing out. It was a controlled passing out. I was only out for about 15-20 minutes and when I woke up I was so disoriented that I didn't know when or where I was for a fraction of a second. And that was enough to keep my brain on for over another 12 hours :p

Brutal couple of days. Low-grade physical issues since I came back from New Jersey have come in succession and psychological issues have probably exacerbated them and led to continued dysfunction. Dysfunction in my life is par for the course, so I really can't be bothered by that.

The past couple of days have been insomnia compounded by persistent hiccups. Why I have these screwball ailments, I don't know. When they come together, I can't help but remind myself of my proverbial end of the line, punctuated by suspicions of imminent liver failure.

For the past few years, I've been rolling with the punches with insomnia; same with persistent hiccups. I've established before that persistent hiccups I consider being sick. They stopped being just hiccups for long periods of time while going about my business, and they started being debilitating; unable to go about my business, unable to concentrate, unable to function.

Prolonged hiccups eventually inevitably start to hurt, and can cause nausea and queasiness, but this was the first time they led to vomiting. Not that I had anything to vomit since my appetite is pretty much gone. All I vomited up was liquid, mostly water and tea, still cold.

I'm currently approaching 60 hours of hiccups. I was hoping they'd abate after around 48 hours, and they did go away for a few hours, but during that time I regularly felt an uncomfortable pressure and tightening in my chest, which is something new, and maybe that should have clued me they weren't over yet.

At the first sign of insomnia tonight, I'm gonna take a pill. I haven't taken a sleeping pill in years.

mix CD: 2014

The ups and downs of 2014.

2013 set the precedent of a double disc mix of all K-pop girl groups and . . . shamelessly not even trying to fit anything else in for 2014.

2014 certainly had its downs. The Sewol ferry tragedy in April had the Korean entertainment industry go dark for about three weeks, and K-pop fans around the world sympathized and felt the national mourning for all those young lives lost.

Then there was the car crash I blogged about at the time that killed two members of Ladies' Code in September. When compiling the second disc, it became a no-brainer that Ladies' Code's last song would open it. Turns out it's a perfect opening song.

A 2014 up was Mamamoo's debut. They actually had a pre-debut release called Peppermint Chocolate. There were a bunch of times I'd have the TV on in the background and this video would come on, and it always got my attention.

I'd be wondering who they were and why I didn't recognize them since they couldn't be rookies. Everything about them indicated they were seasoned performers. The song was funky and cool and the execution was sophisticated and confident with poise and swagger. A long version of the video had an array of cameos by people no rookie group could get (that was another pre-debut video that I saw and confused it with this track).

But rookies they were and the press started referring to them as super-rookies, whatever that means. I think they did really well at the end-of-year awards in the rookie of the year category. As did Ladies' Code the year before.

AoA is another up. Not rookies, but I started noticing them in 2013 and in 2014 they owned the sexy concept. I think Sistar is the girl group most associated with the sexy concept, and no slight to them, but AoA owned even them, with great songs to back them up.

The 2013 mix also set the precedent of three tracks by one act (Girl's Day). In 2014, both Mamamoo and AoA had at least three worthy tracks, but ultimately Mamamoo won out with a track that wasn't promoted, over an AoA track that was. I'm not sure what the logic is, but as great as AoA was in 2014, maybe I throw my hat in for Mamamoo for being more than just an agency trained girl group. Something about them was, and continues to be, actual talent, creativity and . . . soul.

That all made the second disc difficult to compile, but adding to that were three established girl groups (Kara, Secret and T-ara) releasing songs they promoted that were pretty good but didn't bowl me over, but with b-side tracks that did catch my attention and were included. Maybe the promoted tracks were getting a bit cliched. They were the kind of tracks that they'd typically promote; upbeat tracks that were easy to choreograph. Not bad at all, but other tracks I thought were better songs.

I did like ending up the whole collection with a song called "1999". Prince's "1999" ended my 1982 mix. That was 18 years before the millennium and was kind of a pre-apocalyptic, Cold War party song. Koyote's "1999" is 15 years after and is more of a nostalgia party song, recalling the fashions and music and how cold the winter was and wanting to go back. Turns out it's a perfect closing song.

2014, part one
1. Mr. Ambiguous (Mamamoo)
2. You Don't Know Women (Hyosung (Secret)) (audio only)
3. Miniskirt (AOA)
4. Monday Blues (Sunny Hill)
5. Marionette (Stellar)
6. B.B.B. (Big Baby Baby) (Dal Shabet)
7. Uh-ee! (Crayon Pop)
8. Pretty Lingerie (G.NA)
9. Ice Baby (Tiny-G)
10. My Copycat (Orange Caramel (After School))
11. Darling (Girl's Day)
12. Marionette (Jiyeon (T-ara)) (lyric video) (audio only)
13. Hello Baby (NC.A)
14. Beautiful (Park Bo Ram)
15. Goodbye My Love (feat. Tiger JK, Bizzy) (Kim Wan Sun) (unofficial upload) (music video)
16. Cha Cha (Rainbow Blaxx)
17. I Swear (SISTAR)
18. What Cha' Doin' Today (4minute)
19. So Wonderful (Ladies' Code)
20. Full Moon (Sunmi (Wonder Girls))
21. Yasisi (NS Yoon-G)
22. Inner Space (Park Ji Yoon)
23. Goodbye (SNSD)

2014, part two:
1. Kiss Kiss (Ladies' Code)
2. Pretty Age 25 (Jieun (Secret))
3. What About You? (ver. 2) (Laboum)
4. Red (Hyuna (4minute))
5. Boy Jump (feat. Hwasa (Mamamoo)) (Baechigi) (audio only)
6. Up & Down (EXID)
7. Short Hair (AOA)
8. Baton Touch (Mamamoo) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
9. Here I Am (Sunny Hill)
10. Beep (Park Ji Yoon)
11. You Don't Love Me (Spica)
12. Guilty (Stellar) (official audio)
13. I Don't Want You (T-ara)
14. Don't Fall Asleep (Pascol) (official audio)
15. Crazy You (NC.A)
16. Whisky (Hello Venus) (lyric video) (audio only)
17. Singing Got Better (Ailee)
18. I Would Do Well (Secret)
19. If I See Her (T-ara) (lyric video) (audio only)
20. The Story (Kara) (lyric video) (official audio)
21. Half the World Are Men (Sunny Days)
22. Piano Man (Mamamoo) (live version)
23. Catallena (Orange Caramel (After School))
24. 1999 (Koyote)

2013 mix CDs