1347 La Loma, Berkeley

November 1995

How exactly should I feel about making it to the oral argument semi-finals for Appellate Advocacy? Crap! Big fucking deal, but my stress level has shot up double because of it. I was so much looking forward to getting oral arguments done with and having Madoka's boyfriend visit and go so that I could spend time catching up in all my other courses I've been neglecting for the oral argument for App Ad.

It has only been several months, but my patience has been wearing thin at home and I now consider Nobuko and Vikki just as detached housemates. Our friendships end at the front door. Lisa was out of the loop pretty much from day one, she just changed so much and she wasn't cooperating with any of us. You know a friendship is at an end when jokes aren't funny anymore and they become interpreted as attacks.

Ana Claire
It was beyond weird that while I was visiting Shiho in Japan this Summer, I ran into Ana Claire in Harajuku. We had just done a SHAG performance right before I went to Japan and neither of us knew the other was going to be there. Then on Sunday, Shiho took me to Harajuku, a park where a bunch of bands and performance artists just set up and play. A hip young scene, and we were walking down the sidewalk and watching the people doing their thing, and my eye catches this woman who is vaguely familiar. Then we make eye contact and I think, "Wow, looks just like Ana Claire". It took about three seconds to realize it was Ana Claire.

Then earlier this month, I drove Tetsuya, Madoka's boyfriend, to San Francisco airport to go back to Japan. That worked out for me because I was going to see Belly at the Fillmore and I wanted to have my car in the city. So after the airport, I needed to park where I wouldn't get a ticket during the day but could get to BART to go to school. I tried parking around the 16th St. BART vicinity, but after I parked, I realized there was a 2 hour limit. So I got back into the car and drove up to 24th St. and found parking and proceeded to the 24th St. BART.

While walking to the BART station, I arbitrarily decided to cross the street. I was going to cross at some point, but it was totally arbitrary where I crossed, not even at an intersection. So there is no wonder about my surprise when I crossed the street and Ana Claire was right there. There must be some meaning attached to Ana Claire. These "coincidences" can't be just coincidences. There is supposed to be something there; if not her, then some connection of hers. But if I'm reading the signs correctly, Ana Claire must be in my life at this point for some reason.

If I hadn't crossed the street at that arbitrary point, Ana Claire would have been on one side of the street and I would have been on the other and we would have totally missed each other. Has that happened before? What if we had not met through SHAG? Would the non-existence of SHAG in either of our lives altered our lives so much that either of us would not have been in Harajuku on that Sunday, or on 24th St. that morning? If we had never met, would we not have been in Harajuku in Tokyo in Japan on that day? That's possible, maybe SHAG changed our schedules. But if it didn't, we would have passed each other right by, maybe making eye contact, assuming each other was Japanese.

How about if we never met and both of those events occurred? We would have passed each other in Harajuku and then on 24th St. On what level would we have recognized each other? At all? Probably not. If we had never met, we would have been two random people who randomly ran into each other at two random places in two different countries at two random times and didn't recognize each other.

Shiho
Shiho was predictable to the last; it was pathetic. I didn't need to use half the tact that I ended up using, and I didn't use much. She didn't offer a single objection to breaking up. I handed it to her on a silver platter and she probably feels like the luckiest girl in the world. She didn't have to do anything, she just went right along with it. I made it clear that she had no say in it, though. Why did I do that? Because she had nothing to say about it.

It hurts, but I'm so glad to be out of that relationship. It was twisted and staying in it...I found out something about her character; I'm glad I got out. I knew nothing about her and she told me nothing. She didn't communicate anything to me. I put in so much and she gave nothing. We were substanceless in the end, and that's what hurts the most. The best sex, though, too bad the relationship was nothing.

I didn't show any of the resentment that has grown towards her. Maybe that's a good thing. It shows what this relationship was - she had no clue what I was feeling; never tried to participate or figure out the other side. It shouldn't be hard getting her out of my life. I just have to remember she was never really in it.

I was hoping that my trust would somehow survive all this. The thought occurred to me that maybe the reason why I've been so quick to trust people I've been interested in is because of good experiences with people in past lives. I was hoping not to taint my trust in future lives, but if it happens, it can't be helped.

At least one ancient, nagging question got answered. If I had tried to hold on to Shiho the second time we started going out, could I have? I didn't try because of Amina. The answer, I know now, is no. I know that when Amina and I started going out, she was also at the very least interested in someone else. I have no proof of it, but I know it. She would have been in a similar situation as we were just in, and she would have chosen the other person then, too.

I will never be anyone's second choice. Once there is anyone else in the picture, I'm gone.

Beginning Photography Roll 4 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 10 - Nobuko. Blurry, but I think she would have wanted it that way.

Susan, Frames 12, 13. I got better darkroom prints of both of these shots. Couldn't anything with them digitally:




Frame 22 - Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.


Frame 27 - Berkeley Marina at sunset.

Curious Photo

Beginning Photography Roll 4, Frame 1 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X) - I'm guessing this is Susan's apartment, but I don't know who that is. It's blurry. The negative is dirty. And I think one of my legs is shorter than the other because I have a bunch of photos with this same tilt.

Oakland, CA

Beginning Photography Roll 3 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X):


Frame 29 - Mountain View Cemetery


Frame 32 - Route 24 approach to the Caldecott Tunnel, Oakland Hills. Not a good photograph, I know. I didn't want to lose the shadow detail around the houses of the lower part of the photo, but then that becomes where the eye gets drawn to, since I couldn't find a way to darken and bump up the contrast of the rest of the photo. In a darkroom it's possible, but digitally I don't know how to dodge and burn. In 1995, reconstruction of houses was still underway after the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm.

Union Square, San Francisco

Beginning Photography Roll 3, Frame 15 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

880 construction, Oakland, CA

Beginning Photography Roll 3, Frame 12 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X) - Six years after the Loma Prieta quake, which took down the Cypress Freeway, Rte. 880, construction began on the new freeway.

Frame 14:

Bay Bridge

Beginning Photography, Roll 3, Frame 11 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Sunset View Cemetery, Kensington, CA

Beginning Photography Roll 2 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)


Frame 19


Frame 22


Frame 23


Frame 25 - Japanese!


Frame 26 - Chinese!


Frame 29 - This was a bit of a revelation, seeing Asian names in U.S. cemeteries. Growing up on the decidedly un-Asian East Coast, I don't know if I had ever seen them before. If I had, maybe only one anomalous name in a cemetery. It was like, "wow, Asians die in the U.S.?", as if we didn't have the right to.

Undated (Nov. 11-15)

Beginning Photography Roll 2 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)


Frame 15 - MacArther Maze, shot from the MacArthur BART station


Frame 16 - Blurry, but still beautiful Vikki.

Golden Gate University

Beginning Photography Roll 2, frame 9 (Tri-X) - shooting from the second floor balcony, down at the lower level open air lounge area.

Jack London Square, Oakland, CA

Beginning Photography Roll 2, (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)


Frame 2 - I love trains. In Jack London Square, there is a train track that goes right down the middle of the main street. I was framing a shot while the train was rolling past, and these three guys came into frame, and I shot.


Frame 4


Frame 5 - Oakland docks. Locals are aware that these cranes were George Lucas's inspiration for Imperial Walkers in "The Empire Strikes Back".


Frame 7 - tracks going right down the main street in Jack London Square.

St. Paulus

Beginning Photgraphy Roll 1, frame 32 (Tri-X)

This shot ended up being my first print in class. It was an all redwood church that burned down, and after I heard about it on the news, I went to shoot it. I think it was at the corner of Gough and Eddy in San Francisco.

"Diving"
Clean the slate, try to clear my mind
Find a way to start over from the star...the starting line
Leave behind what I've built thus far
Finally resolved to end this game of love charades
Back to the cave
And pull out the plug from the VCR and the TV screen

Leave my socks on the sand below the stars
And look around to see where the fires are
The sound of waves plead for me
The swim that never ends begins here on the beach

Clean the slate, clear my mind
Sound of waves, leave behind
Hold my breath, close my eyes
The shock of the first chill will only last until mourning

Opting out, cash in my dying deed
It's just a simple trade off between distinct realities
Body parts, functions and feelings
Everything reeling and fading out
From here and now and I know how
To pull out the plug watch the water go round
And down the drain

Don't look back, don't think of crying now
With a ziplock bag around my neck to weigh me down
All I love is here with me
The stars, the sound, a gun, and all my memories

Running start, take a dive
No one here gets out alive
Racing back my whole life
Flashing before my eyes for weeks
It's been driving me crazy

I want to find some way to trust another lie
Something romantic that could be believed
And I keep in the feeling that's rotting me from inside
She'll rest in peace with the newly deceased and cross my mind

Sometimes I think this is one big joke
And God knows that I've been at the end of my rope for
Seven years it took to figure this out
She's laughing at my train of doubt about
Being found and being unidentified
Still concerned with all the details left behind
When I leave to find you
You'll know me when you see me, you'll see the sign

Muir Woods

Beginning Photography Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)


Frame 19 - Bay Bridge


Frame 20 - Nobuko and Vikki


Frame 21 - Dipsea Trail, Muir Woods

Nobuko and Susan, Pinnacles National Monument

Beginning Photography Roll 1, frame 13 (Tri-X)

Nobuko and Tachi, 1347 La Loma Ave., Berkeley

Beginning Photography Roll 1, frame 5 (Tri-X)

Nobuko inspired me to start shooting over the Summer. I was also interested in it because it was Shiho's hobby. I didn't take a class until I broke up with Shiho. From the start, I kept track of when pictures were shot.

All commentary to black and white photos in this journal is supplementary.