198 Shakespeare St., San Francisco

Everything is a mess, my existence, my life, my well-being, my awareness, my perception are all crashing down around me and I don’t feel a thing. I can’t touch it. I have consciousness, that’s about it. Everything is so shaky. I’m not doing anything and I’m totally unmotivated and I’m finding little satisfaction in anything. Another cycle of self-destruction.

I love Josephine, but there is no doubt that the relationship was not working and would continue not working. And that’s what is hardest. The temptation is so great to get back in touch with her, the desire is fully there, but I have to resist, restrain, discipline.

But now I don’t think I could go back to the relationship even if I succumbed to the temptation. Upon her decision to end it once and for all, my life has completely jumped tracks. I’m on a completely different set of tracks, headed in a new direction, and the idea of getting back on the tracks I was on when I was with her is almost impossible now, it’s unthinkable.

But yea, that was it. That was the final decision and there is no going back on it. That was the point. The fights were the proof. The distrust was huge. The relationship was at its critical juncture, and we chose to end it instead of finding out a plan how to make it better and then executing it. Neither of us had any idea what sort of plan might have worked. Neither of us had the will to execute it, too much shit between us, too much distrust.

So maybe it isn’t my life that is a mess. Maybe this is what it feels like to be devastated over a relationship. Maybe all this is just about breaking up with Josephine and how that feels. And once I recover from the breakup, my life and feelings won’t be so tortured. So I’m growing. And I really love her and miss her. And the thought of the day that she leaves for Taiwan is unthinkable. Who will take her to the airport, who will be there to see her off? My heart will shatter when she leaves. Darling sweet Josephine. But that’s the way it has to be.

Series VIII, Roll 13 (Pentax ZX-5n, Tri-X):

Chinese Cemetery, Colma, CA: Maybe Hoysun Cemetery or Golden Hill Cemetery


Frame 31

198 Shakespeare St., San Francisco

I’m preparing for the next few weeks in which I will be recovering from the breakup. The breaking up is right and easy, the acceptance and recovery is not. I expect the next few weeks to be difficult, the wrenching separation, the pangs of love and sweet memories, the things we planned that will never happen. I have to find a way to strike a balance between the highs and lows and find some comfort, some reconciliation, of her presence in my life and her impact. I don’t want her to be a bad memory, I want to remember the good things, not just the stuff I’ve been typing in here, and to find peace in the pain of breaking up with her. There was no choice, we had to break up. But there is no doubt how deeply I loved her. We just weren’t right for each other or it wasn’t the time for us.

I don’t want to be numb anymore. That is the basic core of what I am now. That’s why I can’t write songs; if I’m numb, do I have anything to write about? That’s why I don’t have any close friends. I’m numb and I keep myself at arms distance, I don’t get involved in the emotional content of other people and more importantly, I don’t let them get involved in mine. Can’t have one without the other. I’m numb to other peoples’ suffering and that is why I’m miserable and not growing.

I don’t know how to feel pain. The numbness is debilitating. People need pain, people need suffering for their humanity. Life is suffering. The first noble truth of Buddhism. It's not some cosmic downer or horrible world perspective that's supposed to push us down the path of Buddhism. It's just a fact, a recognition we need on a path to enlightenment.

Existence itself is suffering and people who don’t even know that are the worst off. I’ve numbed myself off to a lot of it. I know life is suffering and it is inherent in existence, I know that well. The unbearable lightness of being. But I’ve turned it into something else so that I miss the point of the suffering.

Cutting is a way for me to create what I don’t have. But it’s artificial and contrived. It transforms it and channels it, so instead of torrents of unpredictable raging rapids, I have dams, water control, and nicely irrigated fields. Cutting is harming me because it is part of the numbing. I control the pain, I do. True pain is something that can’t be controlled.

198 Shakespeare St., San Francisco

Horoscopes are just for fun, they are written ambiguously to fit many different situations. Still, don't we love it when they seem to speak directly to us and our situations?

Aquarius: Either you or your partner is likely to force a relationship issue in the next few days. You may need to privately fix what has been publicly broken. An argument might be more about what something is called than about what it is. Look back one last time before moving ahead. You may have made the best decision, but you won’t know for sure until you commit to it. Restraint will play a starring role in your winning strategy. Call in a third party to mediate if reaching common ground seems like an impossible dream. Hang onto the option of taking your business elsewhere!

And here are our final break-up horoscopes from the Guardian and SF Weekly:

Aquarius: It’s not the size of your delusions; it’s how you use them. Still, competition over the immensity and number of delusions is an important feature of this week, as several of the people around you are determined to prove that their fantasy life is the most interesting one of all. Reality really hasn’t got much of a chance.

Gemini: Unconditional acceptance is for five-year olds. Anybody older than that generally has to prove themselves first. And you’ll spend a fair amount of time this week being challenged, and proving your worth, and earning acceptance from others. Blame it on the Mercury opposition.

Aquarius: I’ve got to be frank: You Aquarians no longer have the luxury of holding on to your adolescence, let alone your childhood. The same goes for your amateur status and Mickey Mouse approaches. In my astrological opinion, it’s time to take a step toward being on the verge of tiptoeing to the brink of preparing to accept mature professionalism into your heart with unconditional welcome. You could make the process less harrowing by hanging out with those rare wise guys and wise gals who’ve survived the transition to adulthood with their irreverence and curiosity intact.

Gemini: I recently had a serious disagreement with a friend. The fix we were in seemed intractable. Unable to concentrate on anything else, I decided to clean house. After a manic hour of scrubbing and straightening, I picked up the headphone of my pocket radio and worked on disentangling the snarled wires. Miraculously, my head began to clear. It was as if what I was doing with my hands was accomplishing a similar action in my brain circuits. By the time I’d finished the unscrambling, I knew exactly what I had to say to my friend to make things right again. This is the exact meditation I’d like to recommend to you, Gemini, as you confront your own mess. Find a gnarled mass of cords or wires, and undo it.

198 Shakespeare St., San Francisco

I re-arranged my room today. It was a minor re-arrangement, but a necessary one that changed everything. It’s part of my personality really. In high school, when I lived in New Jersey, I had to re-arrange my room on the average every six months or I would feel like I was stagnating, and that would affect all aspects of my life and how I saw it. I continued the pattern in college to a lesser extent, where the longest I lived in one situation was a semester and a half. Something had to change almost every semester.

And then to an even lesser extent it has continued here in the Bay Area where I’ve been moving every year until I moved here, and the only reason why I’ve been here over two years and haven’t moved is because the rental market in San Francisco is the pits. I can’t even say that I’ve settled here, first chance I get, I’ll move.

Series VIII, Roll 13 (Pentax ZX-5n, Tri-X):

Beach at Fort Funston:


Frame 12


Frame 13


Frame 21 - high tide and stormy conditions.