1347 La Loma, Berkeley

April 1996

I've decided that Amina's birthday will do just fine.

I've reached the end of my rope. No hope left for anything. There are things that I guess I should sum up. There are probably things that are impossible to get other people to understand; I don't care about those things anymore, they don't matter.

Half of my trust left with Amina, the rest of it went with Shiho. I have no trust left. How can I live without trust? I can't imagine getting close to anyone, letting anyone get close to me, or being intimate with anyone in any way. Any defenses, precautions, or safeguards I can imagine to determine who I can trust or get close to, Amina and Shiho went right through them. I've gotten so desensitized that even if someone with potential appeared in my life, that wouldn't stop me. I won't keep living for hope, hoping that potential might be something substantive.

My life has no special value to me or anyone. My dying will pass like clouds and that is just the way I want it to be. I imagine how I would feel if certain people died, and I feel nothing. That's the kind of person I am - cold and unfeeling. Why should people extend feelings towards me that I wouldn't extend to them.

***********************************

I auditioned for a band. An Asian American band. What the fuck is wrong with me? They would be the perfect vehicle for me. I liked their vibe, the writing immediately caught my ear, I liked what they were doing and how they sounded and I thought I could add to their sound. But when they mentioned they want complete dedication, that they rehearse three or four times a week and are thinking in the long term of recording, marketing, and touring, what did I do? I balked.

Why did I hesitate? Am I dead? Am I real? If they want me to join, shouldn't they make me want to drop law school in a second if demanded? Yes! What is wrong with me? I'm too scared to deserve to live; too scared to go for life and living; too scared to chase dreams and therefore live. If I don't jump at an opportunity like this, then I'm not cut out for music. And if I'm not cut out for music, what am I doing alive?

***********************************

I told Vikki that I was going to kill myself and like an idiot, she went and told everybody. Fucking idiot. What incredible lows she has reached. It says so much of her character - like she has none. Fortunately, it was easy to use Vikki's own lack of credibility to cover my tracks.

What did she think she was doing? Did she think she was going up against me? Has she no conception that she doesn't stand a chance? That I will rip her to shreds? I can diffuse a suicide scare far more easily than she can drum one up and I can ravage her credibility in the process. Pitiful idiot.

I don't have to fuck with her mind anymore, the bare facts of this situation will fuck with it enough. I tell her I'm going to kill myself, she panics and tells everyone, I diffuse the situation and make her look like an idiot, and then I go do it anyway. That's pretty harsh.

Nobuko's reaction was actually pretty funny. She's been absent from my life for some months, and then all of a sudden she appears at my door dripping with concern. Then once I convince her that Vikki was twisting my words with her own neuroticism, she goes 'OK' and promptly disappears. I'm exaggerating, though. It wasn't quite like that and I appreciate Nobuko's concern. We're just not that close anymore. We're not close enough to care.

Actually, Vikki did me a big favor. She put everyone on notice that something is up. Even if I did diffuse the scare, the idea was pressed into peoples' minds. So when it does happen, it won't be a total surprise. The idea had been there. She has unwittingly turned this into an opportunity that I shouldn't pass up.

I can't wait to do it; to leave this existence behind; to find out what's next. I've tried. I've tried to be good, I've tried to find the truth, I've tried to live with integrity and be true to myself. I don't know if I've been successful, but I've tried. I've just come to the end of my rope and gone as far as I can with the limited tools I have.

Not that I think any future life is going to be any easier. By nature, it's going to be more difficult following a lifetime that ended in suicide. All I need is a lifetime in which every card in the deck isn't so perfectly stacked against me. I just need one fault in the challenges I will face to let my strength pull me through and not kill myself.

What could have happened to make me change my mind? So many things. None of them happened. No, things won't be any easier. But I need to clean this slate. I need to clear my mind and find a way to start over. I need help. I hope I can get it.

***********************************

I love Amina. I loved her from the moment I saw her and cherish all the memories I still have of us when we were together. If only she could have loved me back. But that love is gone. I still have it, the feelings are still here, but it's not alive anymore. I'm not void of love or unable to love, but Amina took a lot with her, more than she knows.

***********************************

Another piece of the puzzle emerged today. Well, first of all, these pieces aren't necessarily facts. I see them as signs, but I do not rule out the possibility that they are arbitrary factors that I'm reading into because I'm looking for them. Such as my parents pushing me to be a lawyer when lawyers have the highest rate of suicide among the professions. And my inexplicable attraction to Japan; a country that historically has been socially tolerant of suicide.

I was thinking back to eight years ago when I got stuck into a mental hospital because people thought I was suicidal. I wanted to do it back then, it's true. Through the years I haven't thought about it because after I got sent to the hospitals, my main goal was to get out. To get out, I had to convince people I wasn't suicidal. To convince people that I wasn't suicidal, I had to convince myself that I wasn't suicidal and argue my case. So I did. I talked and spun and made it perfectly logical how absurd it was to think I was truly suicidal. I covered my tracks and I covered my ass and it worked. I was convinced.

So what happened that cold night in February 1988 when they took me away? I had already cut my face open a few days prior, and I was already on notice that any expression of suicide would get me suspended. When I ran out of the dorm that night, it was my full intention to do it, I had reached, briefly, 100% commitment. The problem was that there was a time lapse between hitting 100% commitment and being able to execute my plan. The nature of the plan demanded that there be a time lapse.

I ran out of the dorm and set off north on Route 58 towards Lake Erie. Lake Erie, a several hours walk away is my guess. I don't know how long I walked, but eventually I stopped, turned around, and returned to Oberlin hours later; I couldn't go through with it. I vaguely remember the point where I turned around. The sky above me was pinkish-orange because the sky is always light when there is snow on the ground and clouds in the sky to reflect any light there may be. There were very few street lights, so the light was reflected from neighboring towns. I remember an empty house silhouetted, the sky wide and open reaching to all horizons. Ohio is flat.

I don't remember the walk back. I only remember that when I got back to Oberlin, I didn't go to the dorm, I went to Dascomb and called Darcy from the campus phone there. She told me it was safe to come back to the dorm. When I got there, they were waiting for me. I had been betrayed. They packed a few necessities and a few hours later I was driven by campus security to St. Joseph's hospital in Lorain, and admitted to Psychiatric Ward 4-D.

The piece of the puzzle? The piece of the puzzle is that I was heading towards Lake Erie. I don't remember ever really planning it in detail, that is just where I was headed - to the water. Today I have everything planned in detail, and it's still water, of course it's water! But the connection to that past time is something I'm reading into. Cat somehow knows that it will have something to do with the beach. I don't know where she got that from, but it was amazing.

***********************************

People don't seem to realize that my life or death is not up for discussion. If I want to discuss it, I don't want to in order to find a reason not to do it. I don't want anyone to talk me out of it. I just want to discuss it intelligently, to make sure I know what I'm doing. To make sure I've thought of everything I need to and be given the credit that I have. In the end, it's still my decision.

If there was a time to discuss it, it was eight years ago. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want therapy, I don't want people to assume that it's wrong and I shouldn't do it. My reality in this life has been formed the way it has and I don't make the same assumptions about life that everyone else makes. Especially about life.

It was smooth how I covered my tracks when Vikki shot her mouth off. It was a lot easier than it was eight years ago, when I was able to convince all the nurses in the hospital that the best thing for me was to go back to school. It was only because of Dean Cooper who, to the best of my figuring, made it clear to my doctor that I was not to come back that semester.

I learned early how to cover my tracks. Like in the ninth grade when I cut my arm so deep that I couldn't hide it and was suspended for a few days. A few weeks later, the family got a big laugh over the whole incident when I pointed out that if I was trying to kill myself, I would have cut along my veins and not across. Little did they know that I had just heard that day that the proper way to slash wrists was along the vein, and not across. I had no idea.

But I don't even know what was going through my mind that morning. It wasn't my first cut, I had been at it for several months at least. It was supposed to be a casual cut, but I didn't know that the knife I was using had been sharpened beyond what I had expected. It was before school. I remember my shock when I dropped the blade down on my arm and my skin split wide open and it took a moment for the blood to start flowing out. I still have the same reaction when I cut particularly deep: a moment of shock, a gasp, relax. I had to go to school, though, so I slapped a paper bandage on my arm and ran off to school.

It bled all day, then finally someone told the school nurse that someone was bleeding really bad. I got caught and was hauled off to the nurse's office. The 'rents were informed, I was suspended until a psychiatrist would sign off that I wasn't suicidal. Whatever.

***********************************

I've been so anti-social. I just have nothing to say to anyone anymore and conversations always run down because I don't feel like talking anymore. I'm just not good company to anyone these days. What I have to express, I don't want to or don't know how to, and otherwise I have nothing to express. I'm not special to anyone. I don't think I would even believe it if someone came across as convincing that I am.

A year ago I thought Nobuko was a really special friend, and I thought that if problems arose, we could confront and discuss them to an end. Now I don't care enough about our friendship to put the effort into a confrontation and discussion. Cat is special now.

It was less than a year ago that I was ready to kill myself and fully planning on it. Everything was winding down at the same time, the semester ended, I finished my demo, did Bay to Breakers, broke up with joy, and SHAG completed its performances. The timing was perfect, it would have been a clean break if I left at that point. But then I was offered to move into this house, and that was the only reason why I didn't go through with it. But being offered to move in with Lisa and Nobuko had its own symbolism - renewal, re-start.

There is no such convergence of events now, but the feeling is stronger than ever before. I desperately don't want to be here anymore, I want to leave and move on and find what's next. I've exhausted all my options. Family is not going to change. I've given family so many chances that I've officially attained idiot status. People are a major disappointment; Amina, Shiho, friends, nothing special, nothing real. And music? The band I auditioned for showed me what I'm made of. I'm not hungry enough.

What else is there that would keep me alive, that I should live for? Remove family, relationships, friends, and music, and all I'm left with is an ordinary life, not worth living. Nothing here. No one home.

***********************************

If I get into that band, I'll give it a shot and it will become priority over everything else, including law school. I will even move back to San Francisco to give it a chance. So I don't feel as disturbed at my balking at an opportunity. I'm not afraid about facing life and taking risks. What does this mean regarding killing myself? All this would have to assume I won't, but I don't know that I won't. It's just that I don't know that I will.

***********************************

The band asked me to join. I don't know if that's enough for me to say I want to live, I hope not, but I'll give this a try. I'll still do it someday, maybe sooner, maybe later, but it's not imminent. It's suspended. No more dates set, no more waiting periods.

There was something compelling about getting into the band. They sounded enthusiastic about having me aboard, and talked about gigging and doing tours and recording, and they are even willing to accommodate my schedule. I'm giving it a chance and if it doesn't work, I can still leave. If it does work, I'm willing to take a leave of absence or quit school altogether. I'm willing.

I look to the future and I'm thinking that I should move back to San Francisco after our lease is up at this house. The rehearsal space is in Bayview-Hunter's Point, and the commute from Berkeley is hell. I'll move in wherever I can, since I won't have to worry about noise since all my equipment will go into the rehearsal space. I can move in with other people. And my car, I can return it to New Jersey. I don't need it. If they want it, they can have it. They can come get it. As long as they are out of my life.

As for friends, I don't know about Cat, but once I move out of here, it's the end of my acquaintances with Nobuko and Vikki. When we stop being housemates, we won't go back to being friends. That's just the way it is.

***********************************

The band has rehearsed several times and I don't feel any better about my decision. I haven't lived a day that made me glad that I'm still alive. I'm not sure I'm fitting in with the band that well. They are a different culture. After my initial audition, they haven't been easily satisfied with what I've been playing, and neither have they been clear on what they want. So it's kind of frustrating. I'm over-trained for them. I'm more music, and they're more attitude. But what are we doing? Are we doing music, or are we posing? Good question.

As for killing myself, I'm still looking at the Summer, July or August. No more date-setting, though. Next time I decide that my life is over, I'm just going to do it without a waiting period. I still don't feel like getting out of bed every morning. It's not that I'm depressed about life, I just affirmatively want to leave it.

If my life actually does start getting better and I feel good about it overall, then that is a clear indication that I should go ahead and do it. Then I'll know for sure I'm not doing it out of depression and that I'm doing it as objectively as possible, because it is against my interest. It's just what I want to do.

Series II, Roll 11 (Fujica ST605n, Plus X Pan):

Frame 33 - I'm pretty sure this is from the Fisherman's Wharf area, but I'm not 100% sure.