1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I got a new apartment, I’m moving this month. After three years here, might as well be three years wasted, I’m getting my own place, getting my own life back; having a place of my own, a home. Isn't that what I said when I moved here?

Will my life turn around amidst my insistent overture that I don’t want it to?

I sense a joy these days, like I feel that there is someone out there who loves me. A feeling that is usually limited to when I know that there is someone out there who loves me. Is there someone who loves me that I’m sensing, that I don’t know about yet? Doubt it.

For now, I’m caught up in the anxiety of the actual move. I have so much shit that I have no idea how to organize the move. I can’t make it haphazard like I’ve done before, making multiple trips as I was able to. If I did that this time, it would take a frustratingly long amount of time.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

The strangest thing. I had a vivid dream of Amina. I’ve had other dreams of her that were vivid, but there was something different about the way I remember this one. There was something complete and rich about it, like a complete conversation as opposed to cryptic phrases. I don’t remember anything about it. Except that I still, still, still love her. That and that she was pregnant. I don’t think this was the first pregnant Amina dream, though. In this one she wasn’t very pregnant. She let me touch her stomach and it wasn’t obvious. The feelings were good between us, I would venture to say that they were joyous.

I keep wracking my brain about my life. I consider how other people might see me, and I wonder what the hell am I doing with my life? I ponder what various people would think if I killed myself. No one knows that is in my mental health history. No one knows that I never stopped being suicidal. But I have no immediate plans short of February 17, 2003. Maybe a few reminders here and there to keep me in the mood, but nothing serious.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I drove down to the Santa Cruz Mountains after practicing at the studio to catch the Leonid meteor shower. It was spectacular. I saw several on the drive down, just past midnight. When I got up into the mountains, I knew when to stop when I saw cars lining the side of the road. I stayed until past 3 a.m., and I saw more than 600 meteorites in that time. Hardly a minute or two passed without seeing one. There were probably hundreds of people up there to see them. I was probably the only one up there alone.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

The utter contradiction.

Fooling myself into thinking I’m planning to end my life at 34 and still living life now like I’m not.

How much longer can I do this? I’m bored with this existence. I’m tired of this existence. I don’t see the point in this existence. I’ve been here so long feeling this same way. When am I going to do something about it?

Even if it is still more than a year away, why isn’t there any sense of conclusion. Of closure. Am I still discovering anything? Am I still discovering anything that is important?

How do I conclude? How do I close? How do I wrap up everything that I’ve lived, done, been, believed? How do I leave and leave my essence somewhere here in this physical reality that I know is a sliver of the Real. Did Ritu leave a mark? Did she leave her essence somewhere, or with someone, in someone. Did Ritu leave some legacy? Do we all have to leave some legacy?

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I went on that trip last week. I drove down to Southern California last Friday, went to Joshua Tree on Saturday, hung out with Rosalie on Sunday, drove to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon on Monday, and drove home on Tuesday, sweeping through Yosemite. There were good points and bad points. Joshua Tree was amazing, I love the desert, it was warm and exciting. A major bad point was Daylight Savings Time ending during the trip, so by the time I was heading to Sequoia National Park, I knew I would have an hour less of daylight.

The Giant Redwoods in Sequoia weren’t spectacular, I think I’m more awed by the tall coastal Redwoods. It was a nice drive through the park, though, and Kings Canyon was incredible, even though I got there after dark. It started raining during the night and it didn’t let up, so that ruined my plans to do some hikes before heading back to San Francisco. But since I was leaving so early, I decided to divert through Yosemite. Even in the rain and fog and mist, Yosemite was quite beautiful. I would like to go to Yosemite and Kings Canyon next Spring or Summer. Mono Lake, too. I also want to drive up the North Coast to see the coastal Redwoods and do a bike ride I’ve read about.

I started cutting again. It felt good. I felt whole again. Maybe not “whole”, but I felt like I was myself again. Nothing serious, just scratches with a utility knife. Lines that heal within a few days.

No more daylight savings. It’s dark by the time I get out of work. Another Winter to get through. A Bay Area “Winter”. I can get through it. February 17, 2003.

Color archive, 2001-2004

Kings Canyon:

Driving out of the canyon in the morning after it had rained all night.

Sequoia National Park:


Yosemite:

Series IX, Roll 3 (Pentax ZX-5n, T400CN):

Joshua Tree National Monument:


Frame 24


Frame 25


Frame 26


Frame 28


Frame 29


Frame 30


Frame 31


Frame 32

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I think I’ve reached the point once again that I am thoroughly sick of my life. I’m trying to reach 34, but it seems so long away. I think of the end of my life right now, but I think of things that I want to do before I leave. It’s a contradiction. Which is closer to real? Neither. Leaving is closer to real in respect to attachment to being here, but “leaving” is already an attachment. These are the contradictory paradigms that comprise my life.

No one gets me. I had a talk with Josefa this past week which made it clear that no one gets me; she certainly doesn’t. She couldn’t emphasize more that I am different. I’m incomprehensible. And it makes it hard for the people around me. And she’s right.

I’m taking a few days off for vacation. I’m heading down to Southern California for the first time and I’m visiting Rosalie, taking in some sites – Joshua Tree, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, maybe Manzanar, maybe Yosemite. I doubt I’ll hit them all.

I’m filled with anxiety about this trip. I don’t know why, I just have been on edge all day because of this trip. I hate my life, I hate living it, I hate being here, I hate existing. I don’t know how I’m going to survive. But why am I distressed? Why do I care? Why can’t I break through? This is so maddening and I’m so confused. I want to leave but...I’m not.

In My Cube at Work

Taken with my new digital camera. Photo by Joyce.

11:56 A.M.

Visible in my cube: Poster from the Southern All-Stars CD "Young Love", lyrics to Modest Mouse's "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset", poster of Akira Jimbo playing Yamaha Beech Customs in the same color as mine, Buddhist mandala calendar.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

Am I true to myself?

That has been the litmus test of my spirituality since I formulated the connection. If god is part of us, within us, a reflection of us, then being true to oneself is the foremost duty to god, above and beyond materialistic morality and devotion to a god that is other than us – a means of avoiding responsibility by placing judgment in the hands of a higher authority rather than in ourselves. It is a paradigm that breeds hypocrisy.

The realization strikes in full colors of glory and irony that, no, I do not. In fact, could I live my life farther from my true self? It is a deluded life I lead, keeping myself hidden, avoiding the truth, not letting people see me.

But it gets complicated if I separate me in respect to the world around me and me to myself. Me in respect to the world around me is a complete lie, and no one in the world around me has any idea what I’m about. On the other hand, me to myself isn’t quite that bad. I don’t lie to myself. Even when my own mind is playing games with me, I admit it even if I can’t figure the game out.

But is there really that separation between me to the world around me and me to myself? Or is that something I’m creating so that I can isolate the me to myself and say that I am true to myself, and the me to the world around me is insignificant?

I don’t have an answer to that, but as long as the doubt is there, I assume that there is no separation. If I’m not true to myself in respect to the world around me, then I’m also not being true to myself to me. So now what? How do I approach this so late in my life? Do I need to? No, that’s not my style. I’ll keep the question in my mind and go about my daily life.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

So what are my thoughts these days? What is my life these days? Am I resigned to dying on my 34th birthday?

I don’t care about much. My life doesn’t mean very much. It really isn’t going anywhere worth living past 34. I’ve said it all before already. I’m not here for the same reason as most people – to live this life, to ascribe to some normative matrix that defines what we’re supposed to do between birth and death.

Career doesn’t mean anything to me. Friends, I don’t feel I really have any friends. Love, love is insignificant at this point. Music, it’s just a distraction. The family website is worth while, it’s not for me, it’s for descendants, and I think I can lay the appropriate groundwork for the website by the time I’m 34 and done.

I don’t need to move out of this apartment, I don’t need to move out of this city. I don’t need to change jobs, I don’t need to find the perfect band, I don’t need to write songs, I don’t need to figure out all the loose ends. I just need to make it to my 34th birthday and know what I want to accomplish by then.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

Dear Mimi,
It's been a harrowing week that brought me to call my parents this past Sunday, a gesture that I think may have shocked my mom. I was walking around today at lunch, realizing that I still haven't come to terms with what happened in New York last week.

I'm still grappling with it; and even more of a revelation was that I was trying to come to terms with something and grappling with it. We are not just by-standers, witnesses to a historical event. This is an event that is affecting all Americans deeply; we can't just watch and then go on with our daily lives; we're trying, as a nation and as individuals, to absorb and understand what happened and all the ramifications of what happened.

As images continue to pour out of New York, they are getting etched in our collective memories and are demanding some kind of explanation or resolution that we may never be satisfied with. We did not just passively watch, given in horror, the images of the planes hitting the towers and of the Twin Towers collapsing, but we watch the images and replay the images and something in us, whether we are aware of it or not, I think, is trying to actively find some resolution.

The latest image that stuck in my mind is from a bystander with a video camera as the first tower came down. She was reluctantly pulled into a cafe as someone, maybe the owner of the cafe, forced her in and wouldn't let her out and blocked the door as she continued to shoot out the store window. As the debris rushed past the store, she finally obeyed the shouts to stay away from the window and as she continued to shoot, you can see how the dust and debris completely shrouds the daylight and it looks like they are in the cafe at night.

It's hard to come to terms with the reality that these things happened. That there were moments in the lives of the innocent people on board the planes when they realized that this was no ordinary hijacking that they had heard about in the news, happening to other people. Perhaps there were moments at the end of their lives when they realized they were on someone else's suicide mission, and this was the end of their lives. There would be no landing and negotiation of demands, no storming by commandoes to save them, no protracted ordeal. It's hard because their tragedy affects us so deeply, and we'll never know what they experienced.

But we do have go on, and ruminations do need to be kept in the background to whatever extent possible as they tend to be more philosophical than practical, even giving blood is difficult at this point. The foreground of our lives need to continue.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

It is August 29, 2001. I am 32 years old. I will be 33 in February 2002. I’ve always said that I want to die when I’m 34. I’ll be 34 in February 2003. It’s less than a year and a half until I turn 34.

I think I want to die on my 34th birthday! I thought of that and I felt immediately happy! I think I will dedicate my time until then to getting the groundwork for the family website, and just continue doing whatever else I’m doing, knowing that my 34th birthday is my end-date. I can keep doing music, I can keep hanging out with friends with a relationship totally out of the question, and I don’t need to cut anymore. Focus it all on February 17, 2003.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

The band has auditioned a drummer and she wants to join. So she’s pretty much hired. We just have to go through the steps of having her learn the material, come in for a call-back, bringing in her drums, and at that time we’ll ask her to join, I shouldn’t wonder.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

Fiction played a gig last night at the Voodoo Lounge. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. We had our share of people coming up afterwards and raving. We always do and they sign our mailing list, and we never see them ever again. That's the story of the music scene here.

We have a gig at El Rio in September. After that, I want us to find another drummer, and I want to move back to bass.

Voodoo Lounge

They were a cool all-girl band. I liked them, but never heard anything about them again. We played after them.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

Since Madoka’s visit, I’ve been strangely emotionally stable. Things have been calm. Things have gone back to normal and things have been calm.

Fiction is the same, it can’t go on like this. Things are coming to a head.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

"Dear Madoka,
I can't tell you how wonderful it was to have you around after so much time. Maybe it's the time and distance that set it up to be so precious, but it was just what I needed at this point. I love you dearly and I'm glad I've been consistent in your life and you in mine. To me, it means I can really trust you, not that there has been any real doubt about that. Any question (doubt?) of trust simply doesn't exist any more. I feel like I've been getting through a pretty dark period of my life and your visit finalized the end of it. It's a good feeling knowing you're out there and on my side.
love always, koji"

Madoka. Am I in love with Madoka?

Madoka visited this past weekend. I hadn’t seen her in over two years. Last year was the only calendar year since we’ve met that we didn’t see each other. I had started feeling that we were losing touch with each other’s lives and realities; and it’s true, we aren’t really compatible, our lives are very different. But that wouldn’t stop me from being in love with her.

If I’m not in love with her, why can’t I get her out of my mind? If I’m in love with her, why don’t I want to be with her for the rest of my life? That I love her is more than clear, but am I in love with her? I’m not sure. The love I have for her is so great that it obscures things, and my love for her is so deep that it evades the classification of being in love with her. It’s just an assumption that she’s arms-length away. Even if we did love each other independently, or if we did fall in love, nothing would ever come out of it. Neither of us would ever act on it because our lives are too different.

Madoka’s visit has changed things. For the first time in over two years, someone has entered my private space; forced me to accept someone in it. I was very anxious last week, I was apprehensive about her coming and being in my space. I think I needed her to come. Now I feel a little more open to having someone in my life, of physical intimacy – we slept in close quarters on a camping trip with Nobuko and Kate and held hands one night, and again on her last night here in my room, we were openly affectionate, holding hands, making physical contact. We could very easily have kissed.

Butano State Park

Madoka visited and we went car-camping and hiking with Nobuko and her girlfriend:

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

My laptop died at the end of June. I didn’t permanently lose a lot; it was mostly an inconvenience. I lost whatever I wrote in the month of June. I think the only thing of significance in June was realizing that entries from like 1996 already articulated what I feel now. Writing in here about my “feelings” is stupid; I’ve already written it down sometime before.

So what’s going on in my life? I don't care about the band. There is just no passion, no connection, and no chemistry. I don't care about these people, I don't care what happens. I auditioned for another band today. I don’t think I’ll get it, and I’m not sure I want it, but I’ve taken the crucial step of starting to audition again.

I’m looking more closely at my cutting. I’m reading a book on the subject, Bright Red Scream, by Marilee Strong. I tried going to therapy, but it was just stupid. The doctor was an idiot, but the experience, for some reason, made me focus on cutting. At first I couldn’t even identify that as a problem to focus on.

Why am I still doing it? I don’t fit the profile of people doing it anymore. Or at least I don’t think I do. The book I’m reading accurately describes what was going on when I was doing it before, but things have changed and it has just become habit. It doesn’t give me the relief that it may have before. Now I just do it for the hell of it. It’s not because of feelings, it’s not a way of dealing or coping, it’s not an expression of pain that I can’t express another way. I just do it because I’ve always done it. I guess I’ve grown out of it, but the act is still there. Most of the time it’s no big deal, I can cut or not cut, I just decide to cut rather than not cut.

I know it connects me to my past, it provides proof of what happened before, but the scars are there, they aren’t going away, why create more? Perhaps a similar question is why am I still hoping to kill myself eventually and soon. And why I still abuse alcohol. It’s all related.