1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

What a shitty year.

In my heart, I think Ritu committed suicide. I didn't know for the longest time, but now I'm convinced that she killed herself. That's the only thing that makes sense.

I failed Ritu, a friend in need. If not a friend, someone, anyone, in need who was reaching out for help. There is no excuse for it, she was in pain and I brushed it off, tough love, she's got to get out of it by herself and that's what will make her stronger. Idiot! Where was my compassion, where was my patience, where was my empathy? Instead, I put up a wall, defenses, protected myself at her expense. I was a snob. I think of how Ritu was starting on August 1st, and I can only amaze myself at how callously I treated her.

I'm not a good person. I need to work on that. It's not like I'll never forgive myself, I have to, but I feel sad about how I treated Ritu and I need to always remember her. I don't think I could have stopped her from killing herself, I don't think I would have, but the very least I had to do was be there for her, to let her know that she wasn't alone and that someone feels for her. When someone is in that much pain, just be there for them. Don't write them off and hope for the best. It wasn't my burden to stop her from killing herself, but it was my responsibility to not abandon her. Ritu, I'm so sorry.

As this year ends, I name no one as special in my life. Madoka and I have drifted and we're trying to force our friendship to fit. Our first calendar year not having seen each other.

So what from this year do I take into the next? What continuity should there be?

Doubts about being here only grow. I don't want to grow old. I don't want to grow old, but each year is another year older. How long am I going to put up with this? The older I get, the more real it becomes that if I'm going to leave, I need to do it sooner, rather than later.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

All my life I thought there was a spirit that followed me around and protected me. I thought that in some way I was special. Then it hit me today that it’s the total opposite. I go about my life like I’m holy, but the truth is I am one among the damned. My life is a total mess, I’m a wreck, I want to die, I can’t stand being here anymore. If I’m so holy, then what is this all about? This is about being damned and going through a stage of hell, and not one of the upper layers, either. The paradigm with which I view my life needs to completely change.

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

China Basin, San Francisco: Under Rte. 280


Frame 2 - Under the 280 freeway

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

My life is falling out of control. I don’t know what I’m still doing here and I can’t stand being here. I want to give the band a chance, but how smart is that? How realistic is that? Music is not necessarily something to live for. It’s stupid.

If I’m going to kill myself sooner or later, what does it matter if music goes anywhere or not? Music is just an excuse to keep going, and if things go somewhere...I won’t kill myself? How stupid is that. That’s not what I want to live my life for. All that matters is that if I’m going to kill myself anyway, then it makes no difference whether I do it sooner or later.

I’ve totally lost the path I was on. My life use to be a journey; an exploration, a search and discovery; it used to mean something. Now it is just living day to day to the next paycheck doing something I really don’t care about.

The Tempest Gig, Soma, San Francisco

Lisa on bass.


I swear I don't usually look like that when I'm playing.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

What else is my life now? Fiction had our first gig and we played another gig since then, and we have three more lined up between now and the middle of January. It’s going good, but we need to record again with the new guitarist and figure out what this band is in this configuration.

Rosalie is moving to Southern California. The movers come tomorrow and I immediately start moving my stuff into her room. I’m moving into her room, and Denise’s friend Jen is moving into my old room.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I’m emotionally drained and I’ve hit a wall. I’ve been drinking like never before and I don’t know how much more I can take it. Getting over Ritu’s death has been hard.

What is my life? None of this is real, none of this has been real; just stupid clouds passing through my life. I need to land and I can’t find an island. All of my feelings have been stupid, and none of it has been real. There has to be more than this.

I’ll make it to the end of the year. I’ll make it into several months of next year. Music is the only thing sustaining me and getting me to that point, but if it looks like a dead-end after that point, I’m not going to bother. It’s not the only option I have, I know that, but it’s the option I’m going to choose. I need to shut off emotionally to get me there. If I keep feeling I won’t make it.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

Shiho turned 32 today. It seems so young, but Shiho gaining a year has always signaled to me that I would soon follow. I will soon be 32 and I don't like it, even with my end-age set at 34. Why not 32? Why not 31? What am I living for? Why do I continue? I have not a single good reason. All I'm doing at this point is giving music a try, but there's a limit to how long I'll give it a chance. And I'm not talking about years. I don't fancy turning 32, it's too old. I can't bear this existence anymore, I don't like being in this skin, I don't like the energy in the emotions, I don't like the feel of reality, I never have. I need to get out of this. No one here gets out alive. I don't want to get out alive, I just want to get out.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

I have no room in my life for relationships and no desire to be in one. I don't want to be caged and trapped or attached to someone. I don't want anyone to know me or find out about me or learn about me. What I want is to die. And I can't very well hold to that if I'm going out with someone. I'm living to give music a run for the money. If that doesn't work, what's the point of living. I’m done, I'm through. I’m not going to live a meaningless life just to live it, and I can't find any meaningful reason to continue living my life. A relationship, attaching myself to another person, is not meaning. It does not make a life meaningful.

Oh God, the last time there was color in my life was with Amina. Am I still slogging through that? It's so old, but it's true, my life hasn't been the same without Amina. This has nothing to do with Amina anymore, I think it's pretty safe to say that she's pretty much completely gone from my life and my heart, but nothing has come to my life that compares to what she was to me. It's not about her, but what she symbolized, what she meant, and nothing has come close to that. I still want to die and I will die and I will keep reminding me of that fact until I achieve it and hope it keeps me out of relationships at the same time!

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

This Friday, friends of Ritu in New York are having a gathering to remember her and celebrate Diwali, the Indian festival of lights. I've been collecting candles from people who wanted to send candles and have them lit at the gathering.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

There is a certain dynamic in the interaction between Josefa and me, and it's a dynamic that is suitable for co-workers, maybe a superficial friendship, but nothing more. In practice, it's actually more of a harmless, low-level lust. Hey, I'm a guy, she's hot. End of story.

Josefa and I were just crutches for each other to get through Ritu's death, but Ritu is gone and we have to go on with our lives. Our own lives, and we weren't in each other's lives before Ritu died, there's no reason that we should be in each other's lives now.

1557 Noe Street, San Francisco

"Hi friends,

You might decide to not read this or save it until after hours or an appropriate time.

Saturday was the one month mark of Ritu’s passing. When Ritu died, I was jealous of her, and the next day I got a horoscope telling me not to be jealous of other people's accomplishments and to write thank you notes instead. So this is the note I wrote to her. I took it to Land's End on Saturday with the candle container of the candle I'd been burning for her for the last month and burned the letter in the candle container and set it off into the ocean.

Dear Ritu,
This is a thank you note, the intentions of which I hope will reach you in some form wherever you are.

I want to thank you for being who you were, as you were, and for entering my life. That is all. That is all that is needed for me to thank you and to be thankful to you.

I didn't know you that long or that well or that deeply, nevertheless your presence through your absence is deeply felt. And that, perhaps, is the value of having been alive, having lived.

Having touched my life by having been in it, I miss you. I miss your presence, I miss knowing that you are somewhere out there in a form I would recognise, a form in which I could say, "Ritu?" and you could say, "what?"

I will remember your face, your love of orchids, your love of orange, of Eddie Vedder's voice, your passion for the music that touched you, your tactile appreciation; you loved life more than I ever will and you touched it more deeply than I ever will.

I will also remember your pain and your struggle for compassion. I had very little good to say about you in the last month, but now that you're gone, it has all been placed into perspective. We all have our pain, we all have our struggle, and we all deal with and express them in our own individual ways that may be perceived differently by other people. I didn't understand your struggle, but now I recognise it for what it was, and that it was just yours, not for me to understand or solve or resolve or cure.

So thank you and godspeed. Go on your journey and always come as you are. In whatever time or place I meet you again, if I recognise you on some level, know that I will welcome you.

On behalf of Josefa, Barb, Cass, Wayne, Angela, Lorena, Zenaida, Jeptha, and anyone else who shares the sentiment but I don't know about, thank you. Take this burned candle, this incense, and this song for you and go. If we are to meet again, insha'allah, in this I believe."

Today was the month anniversary of Ritu's death. The day after we got the news, I drove Josefa home to Vallejo and there was a candle in a glass cylinder in the kitchen. I mentioned that I wanted to get one of those and burn it constantly for Ritu. On Monday, Josefa brought the candle in and said her mother gave it to me. I haven't been burning it constantly for obvious fire hazard reasons, but I've been burning it all day at work for the past month, which is in itself still a fire code violation, I shouldn't wonder. It finally burned out this past Thursday just before I left work.

So tonight, I wrote a thank you note to Ritu, took the glass cylinder and incense and went to Sea Cliff to burn the letter and the incense and throw the cylinder and the ashes into the ocean.

It took a long time to burn the letter because it wasn't catching and the long-tip lighter I was using was just about exhausted. I didn't burn the letter completely, there was a piece of it that I finally gave up on, and I shoved the lighter into the cylinder and chucked it all into the ocean. If Ritu wants to read it, she can burn the rest of it herself. Of course, it doesn't work that way and she probably won't get the part that didn't burn. I played a tune on shakuhachi until the incense burned out and left.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I slept for 10 hours last night and went to work feeling rejuvenated. I felt for the first time that I'm really getting back to how I was like before Ritu died. I don't know how accurate that is, but I felt I was more cheery, for lack of a better word, than I've been in weeks.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I’ve been occasionally having trouble sleeping these past few weeks. I woke up several times last night, but managed to get back to sleep. But then I woke up at six and didn't want to bother trying anymore, so I got up and got ready for work and got there 45 minutes early. After work I decided to continue and stay and put in overtime and it was Josefa and I working late, just like we did on the 13th floor, and then I walked out with her after 8:00 and walked her to the ferry.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

It's been just over two weeks since we got the news of Ritu's death, and my whole life feels different now. Work is completely different with Theresa and Josefa and having moved to the 18th floor. No more 13th floor.

In these past two weeks, Fiction hired a new guitarist and got a gig booked. Anita and I have cut communications. Our friendship was at its end, Ritu's death finalized it.

These past two weeks have been trying times; Ritu's death was just an undercurrent. The impact was considerable, but with everything else going on, her death now feels like it is far in the past.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

The past week has been a roller-coaster, both emotionally and at work, since hearing the news about Ritu. It seems so long ago that we dealt with the impact of the news. So many emotions, so many phases of dealing with it. Then our team was displaced at work, making a big temporary move up to the 18th floor. Josefa and I were physically removed from the daily reminder of the context of Ritu at work.

Now we're dealing with our problems as a legal team. Theresa is stressed and exasperated. Josefa and I are buried in our workloads. We talk about Ritu, but we don't discuss her anymore. We hang out a lot. There is some attraction, but no chemistry. We might just float in it for a while and then it will fade.

Fiction hired a new guitarist and we have a gig booked for October 20. Things are picking up and we're taking things on with a new attitude. This is how it should have always been. Just go for it. You get no where if you're bogged down trying to be 100% prepared for a gig and having found The Perfect Part for a song. You don't grow without challenges to stumble over, so it's perfect that we only have three and a half weeks before our first gig in this line-up.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Aquarius: Look at all that's right about your life. Stop feeling jealous of what other people have and what they've accomplished. You are making yourself crazy making such comparisons. There will always be people who have accomplished more than you, and those who've done less than you as well. You must count your blessings. You have much to be grateful for. With your friends, practice being happy for them, not jealous. Compliment, praise and rejoice in their achievements. Send thank you cards. Your heart will become involved with practice.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Hi friends,

Please take a moment and give a thought to my former boss and friend, Ritu, who died this past week of kidney failure. As tortured a soul she was, she deserves all positive thoughts, even though she's in a better place and wouldn't trade places with me or any of us to be back here. In fact, she's probably personally gloating at me from wherever she is.

It's my belief that this is what she wanted. She went through a crisis during the month of August which culminated in her taking a leave of absence from work, returning to her family in New York, and entering rehab for two weeks to kick alcohol.

I believe that she had reached a point that she realized what she had to do to get her life back on track and to progress, but felt deep inside that she didn't have the tools to accomplish it. So she hit 'restart', hit the abort switch, and with luck and whatever good karma she developed in this life, that realization will be a seed within her in her next life, without the experience baggage that disenabled her in this life.

I've been dealing with this with my co-workers who were also close to her and we're moving on. We all have our separate memories to preserve, we're going through this in our own separate ways and supporting each other, and we're going to stop talking about it real soon, I shouldn't wonder. We'll just drink to her as often as we drink together and let it be . –koji

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Back in the Bay Area, welcome to September. My back is pretty much up to 100%. I’m trying to be careful with it. I started riding to work on Friday and so far, so good. I'm striving to get some normalcy at work. Theresa is in a flurry trying to get up to speed. Josefa and I are hanging out more, and it's hard not to be attracted to her. We've been training a temp that we're hoping to hire, Joyce, and she seems cool, too. I hope she takes the job. Auditions continue for a new guitarist for Fiction.

So everything is just fine, right? Peachy keen, faboo, right? And then boom, Josephine e-mailed me yesterday. She was just checking to see if my address was still active. I haven't responded yet. Why now? What does she want?

Why can’t Josephine just stay away? It has been almost exactly one year since our last communication. It was right after the earthquake in Taiwan, and letting me know that she was alright was the last thing on her mind. Another earthquake just hit Taiwan, almost one year later. This one wasn't as big, so it wasn't as big news. Was she e-mailing me to let me know that she's alright? Doubtful.

Why doesn't she just stay away? I wouldn't go out with her again, our relationship was too hard and there are too many bad memories. I'm still madly attracted to her which would make it hard for me to keep my hands off of her. And if she wants me back, she wouldn't resist. I just don't have time for her in my life.

Josephine. Josefa? It’s totally stupid. Josephine and Josefa are miles apart. They are nothing alike and what attracts me to Josefa is completely different from what attracted me to Josephine. Josephine was a lot of fun and I truly loved her. Josefa, I just want to fuck her brains out.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

In the end, when the 'rents are shoving cash into my face, it's hard to resist and refuse. But at least I made my principled stance that I don't need their money. The interesting thing is that Tom gave me money, too, and I consider that a gift. That's because Tom totally doesn't have to in order to maintain our relationship. He's showing love by giving me money because that's what he has learned, but giving me money or not has no bearing on our relationship. Nothing happens as a result of him giving me or not giving me money. I accept that expression of love from him.

But if the 'rents don't give me money, I don't visit them. I would put down my own money to visit Tom, but not the 'rents. The 'rents made it hard because they used, abused, manipulated, and controlled with money, and tried to call it love. I still don't accept their money as love, except on paper. The reality is that they've always wanted something back for all the money they've invested in me. Not entirely unreasonable if you think about it, but I'm not a business. I'm not an asset.

Series IX, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X):

West Indian Carnaval, New York: In September 2005, I found an old roll of film in my Fujica. The Fujica's light meter wasn't working anymore, so I transferred the film out and put it into the Pentax K2 and finished shooting the roll, anxious to get it done so I could develop it and see when the roll of film was from.

It turns out that it was from this day, when I went into New York with an old high school friend, Liz, who I have since lost touch with, and we went to the West Indian Carnaval in Brooklyn. I was able to pinpoint the exact date because I often keep notes of what I do on any particular day in my appointment book, usually for photography reasons, but sometimes just to make a note about a day to try to remember it in the future. I think these notes were taken for photography reasons.

This roll of black and white spans the longest amount of time of any roll of B&W film I have, from September 2000 to September 2005!


Frame 1 - This shot isn't West Indian Carnaval. It looks like mid-town Manhattan, but I don't remember it or what we were doing there. Come to think of it, there's no evidence that this was the same day as the Carnaval excursion. It may be from a different trip into the city on a different day.


Frame 9 - I wanted to go to West Indian Carnaval to maybe catch some real steel drumming - orchestras 50 to 100 people strong. Unfortunately, there were only a few smaller groups present. The main steel drum event, Panorama, occurs on the Saturday night of Carnaval weekend. I didn't make it to a Panorama until September 2004. It was incredible.


Frame 10


Frame 15

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

We visited Bob in Philadelphia this evening. Waste of time. I had a bit of a breakthrough, though. I'm not accepting money from the 'rents anymore. They were getting on my nerves about what I should have done when I hurt my back. I just wanted them to shut up and made the point that they don't have to pay for it. They're not the ones paying for it, so shut up. The bitch responded, "No, we're not going to pay for it".

They give money as an expression of love, they admit it, they've said as much. So an issue about money is an issue about love. It's all or nothing, and if they're going to make an issue about it, fuck it, I don't want their love/money. I never wanted or needed their love in the true sense of the word, but if they decide to withhold what is their expression of it, fuck it. If they ran out of money, that means they run out of love. Conversely, if I don’t need their money, I don’t need their love.

I made the evening tense after that. Driving home they tried to make amends, inquiring about the price of my plane ticket. When they told me they would pay for the ticket, I told them no, don't bother, I could afford it. Right at that point, police lights start flashing behind us. They got a ticket for making an illegal left turn. Years ago I would have snidely told them that they need the money more than I do. And they do need the money more than I do. They make ten times more than I do and they need the money more than I do.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

My back was well enough today for me to go out. I pointlessly went out, and for some reason I decided to check out some mall action at Garden State Plaza. I walked in and walked around a bit but then I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Consumerism. Year round Christmas consumerism. I was amazed by the meaninglessness of it all. Everyone seemed so empty and shallow. Probably by virtue of being in a mall. Has it always been like this? I grew up on this. It must have been different fifteen years ago. It must have.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

The month is finally over. All the things that happened, all of it connected. From the convergence of all those things running down at the end of July, to Ritu's meltdown, to Chris's departure from Fiction, to the office politics about which team I would be on and the subsequent transition of cases and attorneys, to the trip to Tahoe and the ride around the lake, to my back injury and recovery with Dr. Wonson.

Dr. Wonson knew that there was more to my back injury than the physical aspect. If she only knew the whole thing. Now I exit the month in New Jersey, away from all that in the Bay Area, symbolizing a passing or a passageway into what's next. What's next? What is awaiting me when I return. Do I dare guess? New boss, I know. What about Josefa? The work environment will change. The band is changing. It all happens in September.

Every time I visit New Jersey, I come here feeling like a stranger, like a completely different person than these people know. I feel like I've gone through so many changes and that I have grown so that being here has no relevance. They have no idea who or what I am or what I'm about. These people are the same, no growth, no progress, still mired in their petty, predictable, ordinary existences.

But it's inevitable that the longer I stay here, the more I revert into seeing myself the way they see me, even though it's totally inaccurate. Deep family grooves, you think you can run away from them, but it's so hard to shake them.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Dr. Wonson started me on acupuncture and it was really good. I left her office on a calm and focused high, not focusing on anything, just serene. The same feeling as I used to have after Tae Kwon Do or other martial arts, walking home like an open channel with whatever thoughts and external stimuli coming to me and flowing through me.

So my back is much better now, I'm almost back to normal. There's still just a little bit of stiffness and it's still hard to stand up. Going to New Jersey will be good, and when I get back I hope to be able to ride again. The month is almost over. Ritu, work, Fiction, Tahoe, back problems, it was all connected. We'd like to think that we have control over these independent things. I disagree. I think of all of it as one thing and I hope I'm almost out of it. Work will stabilize soon. Things are nuts for Theresa, but I think by the time I get back, things will be more under control and she will be able to take over my caseload, instead of having it spread out between three attorneys. My back is almost better. Fiction has started auditioning guitarists and we should have one by the end of September. If Ritu returns? I don't know yet. I don't know if I'd be willing to work for her again.

The barrier between our relationship as friends and co-workers was completely artificial and superficial. No matter what I said or led her to believe. She was above all, my boss, an authority figure, and that never went away while we were "friends". So in the end, while she was entreating me as a friend, she was still nevertheless abusing her work authority.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Last weekend I went to Lake Tahoe for the first time. I was just tagging along with some folks I had met who were going there for a wedding.

On Saturday when they went to the wedding, I decided to rent a bike and ride around the Lake. I figured it couldn't be that hard. The shoreline measured about 71 miles, but since it's around a lake, it must be flat, right? Right?! And 71 miles was just a little more than twice the length of the Tour de Peninsula. No problem, right? Right?!

I started in South Lake Tahoe and started going counter-clockwise around the Lake on Route 50. It wasn't easy, it was very, very hard.

The shoreline of Lake Tahoe being mostly private property, the only way around is to stay on the paved roads, minor highways really, certainly not flat. For some reason, this discovery did not deter my original justification for why it shouldn't be a problem riding around the Lake.

I encountered a considerable hill after not long, but I was pretty fresh so it wasn't too bad. I was actually psyched going up it, like I was conquering it. Il Pirata eat your heart out (not!).

The hill peaked at the intersection of Rte 50 and Rte 28, and I went down the hill of Rte 28, and as I was going down I started questioning whether I could make it all the way around. Hill descended, I stopped to rest at a place called Sand Harbor which was at Lake level. It had taken me two hours to get there and it was only one third the way around. If I wanted to turn around and go back, I would have to tackle that hill again, not an attractive prospect. Maybe the rest of the way around the lake was fairly flat. I decided to push on, relying on that unfounded belief, and accepting the fact that this was not going to be an easy ride.

An easy ride it was not - I continued but I realized that I was losing my legs. I stopped to get something to eat at a bagel shop, but it didn't help much. Eventually, even small upgrades became a challenge and slowed me down. I started getting cramps in my legs and had to stop and stretch every once in a while. At least I was right about it being fairly flat. Well, mostly right. After a while, I had no legs left, but I pushed on by sheer will. I gained some energy as I made it to the two-thirds mark and had a feeling I could really accomplish this.

The last third started off OK; bike lanes and paths made for a less harrowing ride. And then I hit what I feared – a large hill. I had no legs, I had no water and was dehydrating, but all I could do was put the bike in lowest gear and crawl up the hill. But the hill went on and on, it seemed like it would never end. I put my mind in a zone and just kept the gears cranking, but it was too much. As the hill continued with no end in sight, I cursed and yelled. I was cursing at God. I couldn't believe that there was this huge hill at the very end of the ride. This was surely some cruel joke God was having fun with.

Finally I reached the top. My legs were wasted and I just coasted on the downhill. And then I couldn't believe it, another hill looking even longer! I was cracking, I wasn't psychologically prepared for it, but I kept pushing up the hill. My mind was racing and I was trying to calm it. Why a hill at the very end of the ride? The end is where I needed it to be flat and be able to take it easy to the finish. Anywhere else a huge hill would have been better. When I reached the top, I didn't trust it. I coasted down the hills actively relaxing my legs waiting for the next hill.

The downhill didn't feel nearly as long as the uphill, but it finally leveled out without another uphill, but it still wasn't easy. I was crawling along until I finally saw the sign for South Lake Tahoe. It was an experience, and an accomplishment; an accomplishment I'd like to forget.

Seven hours on the saddle. Something NOT in my ability to do.

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

I thought I had wrecked my knees on the ride, but on Monday morning they felt fine, so I decided to ride into work. When I got to work, my back was starting to get sore.

The soreness continued through Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning, I woke up and I could barely move. It took all the effort I could muster to simply turn over. Then I had to climb down off my loft bed, and get ready for work. It took me forever to get to work because I had to walk slow step by slow, painful step. I took Muni because there was no way I could ride.

When I got to work, walking like a zombie, I immediately asked Zenaida, a co-worker, to get me a phone book and I called my chiropractor, Dr. Wonson, and got an appointment for 10:00. Aside from falling in love with her, her treatment got me through the rest of the day, but I was in pretty bad shape by the end of it. I made it to rehearsal that night, though. Sitting and playing drums wasn't too bad.

On Thursday morning, my back was just as bad. I had an appointment with Dr. Wonson at 2:15, so I had to get through the day until then. Afterwards, I was well enough to stay late at work. I hadn't been able to get much work done and I was falling way behind and I'm going on vacation next week.

Friday morning was a little better. It wasn't as hard getting out of bed, and I had an appointment for 9:30, so I went to work, turned on my computer and then went to see Dr. Wonson. It was still hard getting through the day, I was pretty stiff, but I could definitely feel I was getting better.

Dr. Wonson showed me my X-rays and showed me how bad it was. My spine was distinctly bent to the left. Barb, one of my co-workers who once was studying to go into physical therapy, reasoned that the 72 mile ride around Tahoe with monster hills, on a bike that was several inches too big, tweaked my muscles so hard that now they were wrenching my spine off center. Dr. Wonson was working to get my muscles and bones back to normal. The first thing she noted when she examined me was that my back muscles were really cold, indicating that my circulation was really bad.

Although I was much better on Friday, Dr. Wonson wasn't really satisfied with my progress. She had been heating my back muscles and adjusting me and I was still pretty bad off. She ran me through some acupressure exercises and decided she wanted to start me on acupuncture on Monday. After one exercise she asked me if I was going through any stress.

Was I going through stress?!! Let me tell you stress!

I didn't say that, but I told her about Ritu and work. Somehow, from the exercise, she felt there was some other external factors contributing to the problem.

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

My back really overshadowed my transition at work. The new attorney, Theresa, came in on Monday and she's learning the ropes at the firm, so we haven't had much interaction aside from introduction, but my cases are gradually going to be transferred to her. Angela apparently is not pleased that she didn't get me on her team, but there is no way that I can work for Angela.

This morning I had the easiest time getting out of bed since Wednesday. I had no problem turning over. I'm still stiff, but I'm much more mobile than I have been. It still hurts to stand up, but I'm feeling positive about recovering.

What a month it has been. Everything had been going so well until August 1st when Ritu hit the wall. That was the day I took off from work to take care of the psychic convergence that occurred at the end of July, when everything ran down. Somehow I must have sensed what was going to happen. If it hadn't happened? It had to have happened. It couldn't have gone on the way it was going. But if it didn't happen, things would have gone on normally.

Theresa would have joined the firm without affecting me at all, I wouldn't have had to deal with Angela and Stacey concerning my new assignment. But the cases I had that were floundering would still be floundering under Ritu. I had cases that had huge problems and Ritu wasn't doing anything to help me fix them. Would I have gone to Tahoe? I don't know, I may not have felt the need to get out of town. Considering the aftermath of going to Tahoe, I would bet that I wouldn't have gone.

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

We all have to die some time. I was thinking hard about that today on my way home from doing overtime at work. Passing all the people out on a Saturday night, old people who were walking like me, like they were in pain. I never thought that they might be in pain, I just thought of them as old. Young people searching for something to do, having fun, healthy, lives in front of them, going through their own dramas, taking for granted that they could walk. Homeless people, disfigured people, babies in strollers, tourists from out of town, taxi drivers at their jobs.

We all have to die some time. I thought really hard about that fact. We all have to die some time. We are all going to die some time. We will die as plainly as we are living. But we have no problem dealing with the issue that we are alive. We do have a problem, as a society, dealing with the fact that we will die, of our mortality. If we are so unhealthy about the way we treat and deal with death. We can't be very healthy about the way we treat and deal with life. Ain’t that the truth?

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu called from New York. Neeta and Rahul succeeded. She's going to a rehab center in Upstate that Somini knew about and arranged. Ritu's parents now know the full situation. Actually, I think they knew of the situation a few days ago, but Ritu now has faced them knowing they know the full situation. She has nothing more to fear about them anymore. She is in New York, her family is there, her social support network is there. She’s away from this awful, distant place for which she had nary a good word, for which she was only present for a boyfriend. The rehab program is a month long and she thinks she’s coming right back to work. I don’t think that’s a good idea and I don’t think that’s going to happen. She has no reason to come back out here.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu did make it in yesterday afternoon. Apparently Tina refuses to talk about what happened and refused to talk to Anita. She made it in yesterday, but she didn't last long. I think they kicked her out today. I was supposed to have a case meeting with Angela today, but we ended up dealing with Ritu and her cousin and brother, Neeta and Rahul, who were flying in. Neeta and Rahul came first to the office to be briefed by Angela and me, while apparently Ritu was sitting outside her apartment since she didn't have her keys.

We gave our opinions and recommendations. We believed that the most favorable course of action was for them to get Ritu and fly her back to New York immediately. We warned that Ritu might resist, and if she did, we recommended that Neeta's father fly out to get her. We strongly advised that her father not come out. Neeta and Rahul concurred with just about everything. They've known her for much longer.

Ritu is totally spiraling down. I recognize it. I even reflected upon my own experience to inform my recommendations on how Ritu should be handled. I even had some benign flashbacks of memories that I had forgotten. She's no where near rock bottom yet. Through these manic, psychotic weeks, the breakdowns, the drinking, the whimpering and whining, the thoughts of suicide, she was on the way down, but no where near.

That wasn't rock bottom. Trying to commit suicide is not rock bottom. She was resisting on Monday morning and delaying going to rehab. When she got there she was asking questions about whether she had her own room and the food and the cleanliness of the bathrooms. In her well-kempt psychotic state, I imagine. But you don't think of those things when you've hit rock bottom. You can think of those things when you're still on the way down.

Rock bottom is when you've survived suicide and realize that it isn't the solution that it had provided. Rock bottom is when you've had your freedom stripped away from you and suicide has faded as an option. Rock bottom is when you have to start looking up because there is no further to look down. Rock bottom is when you realize you have to start crawling back up out of the hole you've dug for yourself. And Ritu is no where near.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I took today off from work. Last Tuesday Ritu was committed by her boyfriend because he thought she was trying to kill herself. By law, apparently, she could only be committed for 72 hours. She wasn't even in for that long. Her friend Somini, a reporter for the New York Times, flew out and took her out of the hospital and placed Ritu on 24-hour watch.

Apparently Somini got her share of abuse, including being assaulted by her on the street and eventually being kicked out of the apartment, which led to her departure. The watch, however, continued with various friends and associates, including Angela who took a 14-hour watch Saturday into Sunday morning. No one was able to keep Ritu from drinking.

Anita took over watch on Sunday and she wanted me to help her out at some point. She was scared and knew that she couldn't handle her alone. I understood, I sure couldn't. I went over in the evening and we spent the evening drinking and smoking. We weren't going to fight her, knowing the futility. So we placated her to numbness. I knew when to stop smoking, then when to stop drinking, and then when to leave. Anita was to stay over all night and Ritu's friend, Tina, was to take her into rehab on Monday morning.

She didn't make it. She finished off a bottle of Jack Daniel's in the morning and the rehab center refused to admit her. Tina gave Anita a big lecture about enabling Ritu, but then Tina was going to watch her until today. That made me laugh, knowing what Tina was in for. I don't know if she made it in. I can't wait to hear what Tina went through.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu is officially gone. She's on a leave of absence, but I don't think she'll come back to the firm. I also don't think she's going to check into a mental ward even though she needs the 24 hour attention. I don't think she's going to deal with her substantive issues. She's going to run away and hide from them.

I'm being farmed out to Angela's team for the next week, and then I'm joining the team for the new attorney who's coming in on August 21st. I'll be on Josefa's team. Josefa will be the team leader. Josefa is currently on vacation, she has no idea what has happened.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu quit and she's going to check herself into a psychiatric ward. She called me in the morning asking me to drive her to work. No fucking way. Then after I got to work, she wanted me to take a cab to get her. I refused. I told her if she needed me to escort her to work, she shouldn't come in at all. She hung up on me.

She did make it in. She then announced that she was quitting. Good for her. Good riddance.

She is the most fucked up, manipulative, controlling, unrepentant, unremorseful, selfish, shameless, spineless, immature, undeveloped, unappreciative person I've ever met. All she does is put out bad energy. She has no substance. Her boyfriend moved out and so her entire personality is melting down? She has completely built a facade, a wall of delusion and deception around her. She has no soul, she has no self. I can't believe Anita has been friends with her for this long.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I did my second Tour de Peninsula this morning. It was great doing it on my Peugeot. I can't believe I did it last year on the Fuji, but it was a delight on the Peugeot. I rode the 33 miles in 1 hour and 57 minutes, averaging 16.6 miles per hour with a top speed of 40 miles an hour. It was absolutely exhilarating. The hills were so easy, I can't believe so many people had trouble on them. They were long, but not steep at all.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu called me at 10 in the morning to whine some more. Fortunately, I had rehearsal at 11, which was why I even answered the phone at all, so I got her off my back.

Later in the afternoon, she managed to catch me again. It was weird. Someone said she might call me to do something later, but I told her that I was avoiding Ritu, so I told her to use a code: ring once and then call again. So later in the afternoon, the phone rings once, stops, and then starts ringing again. I assume it's her. It's not, it's fucking Ritu! I was getting frustrated with her idiocy and started playing hardball with her and moralizing and she hung up on me. She tried calling back twice in the next 20 minutes, but I ignored it.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu’s pathetic streak continues. She called me at work from Peter’s friend’s house asking me to drive her home because she left her wallet at home and didn’t have money for Muni. She kept me on the phone all day to distract her. Her pathetic whimpering cries of “what do I do?” really got no sympathy from me. I refused to leave work to get my car to drive her home. She puts out a lot of negative energy into the world every day, it’s not for me to say, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if she deserves what she’s going through. Maybe not “deserves”, but she brings her situation onto herself.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Ritu is totally crumbling. She's really pathetic. She is so tough and hard on the outside, who would have guessed that she has absolutely no substance on the inside. Once her supports are kicked out from under her, she turns into a shameless, whining, babbling, pathetic, manipulative child. She keeps asking what to do, but she doesn't want to do anything, she wants comfort and ease handed to her on a silver platter. She's a spoiled brat.

Peter moved out to a friend's house. His friend is out of town for a while and let Peter stay at his place. Ritu wanted me to drive her over there. Pathetic. She couldn't walk, she couldn't take Muni, she claimed cabs don't come to her neighborhood at night. Whatever. I dragged it out as long as possible and then I took her there. I wasn't going to be her chauffeur. I made her prepare herself and know exactly why she was going and what she was going to do and not going to do when she got there. I didn’t want to take her there just to fuck things up. After I dropped her off, I knew she was going to fuck things up. Tomorrow I certainly won’t be in any rush to get to work.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Shit is hitting the fan for Ritu. Her boyfriend, Peter, is moving out. He doesn't want to renew their lease at the end of the month. She was totally dysfunctional at work and left early. Apparently it started yesterday, but I wasn't at work to experience it. More like take the brunt of it. Moving out sounds pretty serious, but I'm not sure what it means.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I took today off from work to take care of the phone and my car. Rosalie got back last night. We went for brunch down on 24th St., and then waited for the phone guy to come. PG&E were working outside, digging holes in my driveway, so I couldn't take care of my car until they were done.

PG&E were wrapping things up at around 3:00 and they came in to turn the gas back on. When they filled in the holes in the driveway, Rosalie called AAA to jump start my car. And then the phone guy came. The AAA guy jumped my car and said I should leave it running because the battery was totally dead. It wouldn't start again if I turned it off. So we waited until the phone guy was done, and then Rosalie came with me to buy a new car battery.

By the end of the day, things were pretty much back to normal.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Chris quit Fiction tonight. I think he came into rehearsal with his mind not made up, but once we started discussing it, it sounded more and more that Fiction wasn't his thing anymore, and as friends have to support friends no matter how painful, Lisa and I supported him to leave and pursue the music he really wants to play. With Lisa on bass and me on drums, our sound has become much more "indie", and Chris is a hard rock/metal guitarist and he's finding himself more and more at a loss in coming up with satisfying parts.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something. Yesterday, when I got home between Critical Mass and meeting Fiction, I found the phone was dead. Today, I was going to go out to buy CD shelves before going to the studio, so I was going to take my car. But when I tried to start my care, it was dead. Then after I got home, not to put too fine a point on it, the battery in the smoke detector was dying. Come to think of it, just a few days ago, a light bulb in the hallway died, too.

And why all this when both Mina and Rosalie are gone?

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I rode Critical Mass this evening. Fiction met at 8:00 for drinks and dinner to celebrate the completion of our CD. Lisa and Denise spent last weekend burning, printing and assembling the package and I was so impressed that I suggested we celebrate.

I also wanted to find out where everyone was at, and it turned into a pretty involved discussion and airing laundry. I told them how I was ready to quit in March; Chris expressed frustration and non-involvement with the band's sound now; and Lisa broke it off because she was feeling sick. A real downer for what was supposed to be a celebration, but it brought out our true faces.

Denise and Rosalie both got laid off from their .com jobs. Rosalie left for L.A. for the weekend. She's taking the month off.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

No one I know knows about my past. I mention to people how my goal is to not live past 34 and no one knows anything about that or where that comes from.

I have no connection to my past. I don't have a past to connect to. I don't know where this thought is coming from. The only remnant I have from high school is Liz. Very odd. She's an old friend and acquaintance now. It's like we never went out. I don't think of her as an ex-girlfriend at all. The only emotional remnant I have of high school is Shiho and I lost that connection a long time ago.

I think back to the years in high school with Shiho. I think of her house in Fort Lee. I try to see what I remember. I remember the basement where we mostly hung out. The color of the room, watching MTV. The stairs that led upstairs. At the top of the stairs, turn left and it's the kitchen. Turn right and there's a hall, her room was just to the right, the living room was left from there. We were teenagers. There was one time that her mom came home and was furious that we were hanging out in her room. She shouldn't have been bringing boys into her private place. But that's where she wanted me. I didn't appreciate her until almost ten years later when it was too late.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I don't even know how to start digging into the source of my feelings on anything happening in my life. What are my feelings about Fiction? Deep frustration comes to mind. But what do I mean when I say I'm deeply frustrated? I don't know. Dead end. I can identify the words deep frustration to vaguely describe my feelings, but I don't really know what the feeling is.

How do I feel about Ritu and my job? Working with Ritu can be tense and stressful, she's a difficult person to deal with and her moods are unpredictable. But she's also really good to work for because she doesn't power trip and she doesn't micro-manage my work. So how do I feel about working with her? No idea. Dead end.

How do I feel about anything? I don’t think I feel anything anymore.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

What am I doing still alive? The question gets pondered every day. Life goes by as if in a dream, it's not reality, it's not real, all I see, perceive, and feel around me has a silken quality. Not solid.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I had another dream with Josephine, and this time it was clearly my idealized Josephine. The dream was a re-enactment of one of our typical mornings when I used to be up before her and then wake her up later. Those were always endearing times as they happened, but my feeling now about our entire relationship is that there was always tension and I was always self-conscious of my actions and trying not to set her off, basically walking on eggshells all the time. In the dream, there was none of that, it was just that pure feeling of endearment.

God, how I loved that woman. Why do I not think of her as one of the loves of my life? No, I don't, because she wasn't. The love of my life was Amina. Shiho also may have been a love of my life. But not Josephine. I'm not sure why, I'm sure it has nothing to do with anything that any of them were or are. Amina was a total creation, when I really dig down and look at the facts, Amina was nothing special. I have no idea why she holds such a special place in my heart. My only conclusion is that it has nothing to do with the person Amina, but my conception of her. Same with Shiho. But putting it that way, why not Josephine? I have retained more delightful, endearing memories of Josephine than Shiho and Amina combined.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I had a dream several weeks ago that I was in love with someone. Really, truly, deep down in love with someone. It didn't make enough of an impression back then to reflect on it, but when I think about it, the significance is pretty big. I remember what it is like to really be in love with someone and fall into that sea of love that has no shores and the rest of the world falls away. For someone else to have such an impact and evoke such wonderment in how I can feel about another human being.

I don't remember a lot about the dream. I remember being inside a nice, elegant building, kind of country club-ish (as if I knew what country clubs are like), with a dark wood interior. It could have been a house, but it felt public so it could have been an old house converted into something else, could have been a nice hotel lobby. There were probably chandeliers. It was daytime and lit by natural light. I remember there being a small crowd of people, like a tour group, and the person I loved being there and she was my only focus. I wanted to be alone with her, she wanted to be alone with me, we wanted to get out of there. But we couldn't for some reason. Maybe it was a family thing.

The woman was Josephine-esque, but I don't think it was Josephine. There was a lot of Josephine in her though. I think the woman was the person I wanted Josephine to be.

It brought me a lot of closure with Josephine. I loved her dearly and her impact and her memories are deep, but in no way would I ever want to be with her again, and in no way can I idealize our relationship and look at it fondly. All I loved about her was her, not us.

There was always tension in the relationship, and there always was a distance. I know she never trusted me and that prevented us from ever really getting close and emotionally intimate. I was always trying to prove something to her, I was never just me.

I totally missed her birthday earlier this month. A week later, I realized I missed it and it took me a few minutes to remember exactly what date it was. That's extremely telling. Who else's birthday do I not remember? Shiho, November 7, 1968; Amina, April 17, 1972; Luyen, June 14, 1973; Hiromi, January 30 (I think), 1969; Joy, sometime in March, I think; Josephine, after some thought, June 8, 1970.

I need to get out of the Bay Area. It's passionless, that's part of why I don't remember Josephine's birthday. No relationship I've had that was based in the Bay Area had any deep impact. I hate the weather here, I can't stand the weather. The weather in the Bay Area simply sucks.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I have no friends, no community. I'm listless and drifting. Work sucks, music is sucking, life sucks the most. It has totally stagnated, what I've always been afraid of happening. And things have been getting out of control, discipline is slipping away. I can't relax, I can't stop. I'm too tired and I can't get enough sleep. Cutting is a daily occurrence now. I'm surrounded by people who mean nothing, who I don't care about. I'm in a job that causes stress and I care nothing about. I couldn't give less of a shit whether these people get their Green Cards or not.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

New lows. I'm wasting so much money these days going drinking with Ritu after work. That really has to stop, there has to be more to life than that. The band is on extended hiatus. The other two are going on vacations that take up most of this month.

New lows. Life is so useless. I'm stuck between knowing that there is a truth to life and reality to pursue and being stuck living the life of someone who knows of no such truth.

New lows. I'm ready to leave San Francisco. I'm sick of it and its weather. If I'm still around by December, I'm moving somewhere else. I don't care where, I am out of San Francisco by next year. San Francisco has given nothing to me. I've lost the two loves of my life while living in the Bay Area. I've also floated through a lifeless, uninspired, and depressing relationship, and a relationship that was so traumatic that it destroyed my desire to be in one at all. I can't say that the Bay Area has been good to me.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

If my thoughts are filled with worldly concerns, that makes me a worldly person.

I'm getting sucked into worldly concerns. I stress about work and get angry and frustrated. That's no good. I get frustrated about the band and my inability to find another gig. That's no good. I'm starting to want to be in a relationship but there's no way that's going to happen. That's no good. I'm not particularly happy with my living situation. That's no good. I missed the Bay to Breakers today for the second time in the seven years I've been in the Bay Area and that does mean something, and that is no good.

This isn't how I want to be living my life. This is not the person I want to be. I need to let go and remember the important things. I need to focus on the nature of reality. I need to be prepared to leave at any moment. This isn't my life, this isn't me. Escape hatch.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

So what's it all about? A little over a month ago I was ready to go into the red financially because of a drumset. A month later I am comfortably nowhere near going into the red. I go to work in my cube everyday and then some. The highlight of my life is making money. For what?

I've been going to happy hours and getting drunk with Ritu. Why do I have to keep convincing myself that my life is over, when it's so obvious. What else is there? I already know that there is no more. But I keep living and I resent it and I deal with it the only way I know how, by constantly reminding myself that someday I’m going to simply kill myself.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

So April, this wretched month is almost over. It's always so hard to get through, I don't know why, maybe because Amina's birthday is in it. I bought my way through this April. I got my drumset which is sweet and I've just started getting it into tune. I bought a new Peugeot bike a week ago, that's also pretty sweet. I brought my Fuji in today so that it can act as a backup bike. I also got one of those desk fountains so that I can have the sound of water. If I didn’t have disposable money, I’d be dead.

It was a rough month at work with lots to do, plenty of melodrama, Ritu freaking out at me several times, and me being prepared to give my two weeks notice at any moment. But Ritu and I have been hanging out, I don't blame her for freaking out and we go out for drinks after work a lot. That has been cool. Anita has been away and that has been hard for both of us. She's a friend and she has her presence and her intensity. But the month is almost over and I've got my cases almost clear. If things normalize, things will be very cool. The usual damage done for an April; new scars. Visible scars. They'll fade.

I've really gotten into a band called Versus these past two months. A video of theirs at the NAATA film festival got me buying their CDs and now they're one of my favorite groups. Coincidentally, they came into town this past Thursday and I saw them; they were incredible live.

Fiction mixed their demo and I didn’t really participate. I basically just goofed off. I stopped by their place last night and we discussed the recording and we couldn't agree on anything. I'm not recording anymore, I'm not mixing anymore, I expect gigs to be booked, and if gigs aren't booked, I'll bail with the next band I find.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I took a day off today. I was just completely burnt. A lot of it because of work, but it's also because of the fender bender on Saturday, and recording all day on Sunday. I got to work yesterday and I knew I needed a day off.

So last night I got completely smashed, drank until I collapsed, and recovered today, everything running in slo-mo and constantly on the brink of tears for no reason whatsoever. I recovered enough by the evening to meet Ritu to see "Ghost Dog" that we had planned on last week. She likes what Jim Jarmusch has done before and she's into rap, so she was anticipating this film. It was good.

Ritu is cool, she knew what was up. When I called in sick, she said, "Sure, so I'll meet you for the movie?"

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I need to start looking for a therapist right away. I need to find out what's going on inside me. I no longer believe that the way I am is healthy. No, that's not it. I don't care about "healthy", I don't subscribe to normative definitions of what's "healthy". I need to find out what's going on inside me. I need help understanding why I do what I do.

I am evasive, I do bury my feelings. I need to find out why I'm evasive and what are the feelings I'm burying and why.

I got into a fender bender today. I don't know whose fault it was, but the guy smelled the gin on my breath so I had to take the blame, no questions asked. I can't seem to figure out what my feelings are. I was with Rosalie and we were meeting my friends for dinner and my immediate reaction was to not let anything show. But I know that something was going on, I knew that cracks were forming in the foundation, even if I couldn't feel them.

I don't believe anything will stop me from eventually ending my own life, I think that's ingrained. I still want to, I still think that's the only way for me to go. But I don't want to in complete ignorance of who and what I am about.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I ordered my own drumset yesterday! Maybe my dream Yamaha kit. I'm getting a Beech Custom kit placing faith in Manu Katche. He currently plays a Beech Custom, which is a different set than what I've heard him play with Peter Gabriel in the early '90's. He says the Beech isn't as good as the earlier one, but it's what Yamaha is offering now and it still sounds very nice. Getting my own drumset guarantees I'll be doing something besides Fiction. It means that I will be playing bass and drums.

We're supposed to record next Sunday, but Lisa broke her finger this past weekend playing football. It looks like we're going to go ahead with recording, but it's all about symbolism. Chris broke his collarbone last August, definitively ending Fiction in the form that it was. We've done absolutely nothing since then. Lisa had eight months in which to break her stupid finger and not affect anything. Coincidence that she breaks her finger a week before recording? Definitely, definitely not.

Even if we do record, how I interpret the symbolism remains the same. Things with this band just don’t move forward. I will record, though, to take this recording as a reward, something tangible to show what I've been doing with these people for the last year and a half. I'm so done, but I want the recording.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Things are really, really, really, really bad, but I just can't seem to put my finger on what or why. Everything in my life is in shambles but I just can't seem to realize it to the point where I can feel it. Like I mentioned before, I don't really cut myself anymore. They're basically just scratches, they don't go deep enough to warrant being called cuts.

But the other day I was just playing with my knife, assessing how dull the blade was since I couldn't get anything more than scratches, and then whoops, a cut. It wasn't too bad, but it warranted putting something on it to block the bleeding. When I pulled the bandage off the next day, it was still bleeding but stopped soon after. It's not just a scratch, a mere line, but it's a cut because the skin split and has that vagina shape to it.

Maybe it wasn't a 'whoops'; an accident. But an expression that all is not well. And all is not well, everything is very precarious. I don't like my life, it has no prospects, I need to leave. I need to breakthrough to something else.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Well, nothing is happening in my life, I'd might as well look back at it and amaze myself at how I got here from there. I've been in California for more than six and a half years. How to quantify that six and a half years of experience and have it reach where I am now? How to draw the lines and connect the dots of who and where I am now with who and where I was then?

1993 was the hardest year of my life. It was the year that I was closest to the love of my life and made a mess of that relationship. I still read "Meatless Days" and think I'm hearing Amina. As far as I know, she's grown out of it and now hates the book. Like the two people I lent it to hated it. The way I see that, though, is that what Amina gave me is not transferable. Amina enriched my life but I can't pass what she gave to me on to anyone else. What she gave me was for me alone. But Amina herself doesn't even exist anymore. She exists no more than the me that existed then.

So from 1993, I drag myself around Lake Merritt and out of Oakland to a studio in San Francisco that used to be home to another Oberlin grad. From there to a house in the Berkeley Hills with more Oberlin grads. Lost a lot of friends and moved to another house in Daly City and it's been strangers since. From there to a flat in San Francisco.

I try, but it's not a continuous line. It's broken up too much. The fracture of Nobuko, the fracture of Cat. The incongruence of Josephine. The anti-matter of Joy. There is no connection between Amina and Anita. Kevin appeared out of nowhere and has just been there, outlasting all my Oberlin friends. And what the hell did Shiho have to do with anything? I don't know what I think of Madoka anymore, aside from "loving" her, whatever that means (but I do!).

And my now? Who the hell is Rosalie? Who the hell is Ritu? What the hell is Fiction? Where is home? That just about sums it up. Where is home? It sure ain't 1557 Noe Street between 29th and Valley. It sure ain't New Jersey or Taiwan. It sure ain't Amina or Shiho or Josephine. It sure ain't Fiction or Chris or Lisa. It ain't Rosalie, Ritu, or BAL. It's not so much about where home is anymore, it's where home isn't.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

At the center of my existence is anger. It's something I haven't really touched or dealt with in a while. It's not denial, I just haven't had the need to. And more importantly, dealing with it probably would have been a really bad idea. Not dealing with it was a safety mechanism. If I grappled with it, I would probably have killed myself. I don't think I'm suppressing or repressing anything in any extreme, unhealthy way. It's always there and it's getting expressed some way or another, but I just can't grab it with both hands and deal with it because that would be too overwhelming.

But it's certainly not benign, and it certainly is keeping me from...I don't know what. Something. It's a great unknown. I don't know what to do with it. For now it's alright to acknowledge it and that it is having an adverse effect on my living my life.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Not a single person I know speaks the same language that I do. Words come out of my mouth and people hear them, but they don't understand the words the way I mean them. When more than one person hears the words that come out of my mouth, they hear them in different ways, all with different meanings. None of them quite the same as I understand the words.

It has been years since anyone has understood my words in the same way as I understand and meant them. Madoka is probably the last person who did, and she doesn't anymore. We've grown apart and I don't consider her one of my closest friends anymore. Shiho is the last person I was in a relationship with who did, and that was five years ago. And it wasn't much of a relationship.

Am I still looking for someone who speaks the same language as me? I feel like I wish I could find someone who does, so in that way yes, but if I'm trying to maintain this period of my life as the twilight of it and hope to die within the next few years, in that way no.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

This nagging feeling that I have to assess my entire life every time I start writing in here...that's what ordinary life is. Life merrily rolls along. Nothing is happening, nothing indicating that I should be doing something, that I am doing something, or should be here at all. Insignificant day moves into insignificant day. It's not life to me. I work now, I'm self-sufficient, I have no goals, no where my life is headed, and no desire for such direction.

It's ordinary life, and ordinary life is about assessing it's value at every moment or so. Ordinary life is about filling empty spaces. Deciding what to do next, wondering what is going on now and where this is headed, when all the while just floating through it and letting time take us through each day like a leaf on a stream.

After all this time, I finally realized when to end my life. It will be spontaneous. If there is any planning involved, it's not the end of my life. My life will end when I can let everything fall away and there are no thoughts of planning or circumstances or results. It will just happen with no fanfare, no drama, just as fact, simple as breathing, and I think that's as much enlightenment or clarity as I'll get in this lifetime. My life will end when I reach that moment and let go and go through with it. My life will end when I am free of attachments.

Truth to tell, ordinary life is really, really boring.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

My time in Fiction may be coming to an end. It's fading and frustrations are growing. I'm not invested in the band enough to stick with it when things start going south. If I leave the band at this point, I leave nothing and I take nothing. I haven't contributed anything substantive or material to the entity of Fiction.

Fiction is their band, not mine. The expression is all theirs, I contribute bass lines. I don't mind that role, but then they'd better do their part and produce something. I've been in the band longer without a drummer than I've been in it with a drummer. That story is so tired.

I think we're entering the stage where we have a final flare up of creativity and positive feeling before it all falls apart. We've been going into rehearsals kinda down and tense and then we'd have a terrific jam. I think it's just foreshadowing a breaking point, the oft told story. The jams are feel-good salves, they aren't curing any of the problems. They raise hope and when hopes can't be reached, everything will fall apart.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Cutting. My scars attach me to my past. I would be a completely different person if I didn't have these scars. The scars remind me of who I am at the core and the hurt that identifies me. The scars are the guarantee that I will kill myself. There are some things I will never forget, even if I can't quite put my finger on them, and they gently rest within the unnatural lines on my skin.

I would never have guessed that when I first started doing it, back when I was twelve or thirteen, that I was somehow writing an early end to my life. But back then, I would never have guessed that I would make it to 30. Back then, I started and then continued doing it under the assumption that I would kill myself soon. So I could have guessed that I was guaranteeing an early end to my life, but I never could have guessed entertaining the possibility that I wouldn't want to end my life anymore, except for these simple, but significant, constant reminders.

But I love my scars and I wouldn't want to get rid of them even if I could. They are part of my identity. I would be ordinary without them. There would be no proof of who I was before. Maybe that's why when the time came to stop the strife with the 'rents, it was so easy. Because I had a proof like no other about what had happened. What kind of childhood did I have? What kind of relationship did I have with my parents? I can just show my arms and legs. I didn't need to keep fighting the 'rents to prove that something was wrong, to maintain the identity of hate and resentment that they created.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

My friendship with Anita is now headed South. She put something on me. She put something on me based on indirect, circumstantial innuendo. She held me to an expectation. She made an assumption about me and lashed out at me when I didn’t live up to it. She put me in a position where I had to explain myself. No one puts anything on me. It is a sore spot which might be traceable to my relationship with Josephine.

The very reason why she is one of my closest friends is that she doesn't put anything on me. I don't have to explain myself to her. I'm taken as I am. But what it is, is distance and it says a lot. My closest friends are all arms distance away. They are not allowed to get close enough to me to put anything on me. They are not allowed to put me in a position where I have to explain myself. They are not allowed to impose their false impressions of me on me and make me explain them. If their impressions are supportable and verifiable, that's fine, but they can't pull a Josephine on me.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

That feeling that whenever I write in here I need to be assessing my entire existence and experience, I think it's because my life really isn't involved in anything. There's no drama in my life, there's only the big picture. No, not even. No big picture. Just lack of any little pictures. Occasionally, maybe a sketch on a napkin left on the table after the meal is done.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

I can't write in here without the feeling that I need to be wrapping things up. I have a lot of questions concerning what I'm doing here and what I should be doing. Not the big questions, the little specifics. I've established how I should go about my day to day life, the accomplishment of which will in itself be no easy task. Now it's a matter of considering how that affects the other elements that make up human life and deciding where I stand on them.

Relationships should be a no-brainer, but they are an embarrassingly prominent issue. Relationships should be 100% out for me. What relationships are to each of us is different, so I'm not saying that all people with pursuits similar to mine, pursuits to get a little bit of clarity on life and existence beyond material appearances, should avoid relationships. But for what relationships are to me, they should be avoided. They don't support my pursuits, they only distract.

But I struggle with desire and feeling. I still recognize the strength and allure of emotional intimacy. It's difficult to get past entertaining the possibility of getting into a relationship. It's difficult to up-front declare that I will no longer participate in the relationship culture.

I guess at the core of my being are echoes of a lot of pain and suffering and inability to cope. At the core, I'm still hurting from whatever and hoping for some miracle that will make me feel all better. There is still a lot that I want. There are things in my past that are long gone, but I long to recover and I haven't resolved that.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

It’s only three days into the new year/century/millennium. The new paradigm for how I should be living my life is that I ought to live my life like a person deaf, dumb, and blind, but with my eyes, ears, and mouth open. Now I have to figure out what that means.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

People don't matter. They're not really here. Their reality is dependent on the value we subjectively give them. All existence is symbolic, illusion.

The emphasis that people place on their existence, calling it life, apportioning it such great importance, that's their subjective reality. This that surrounds us is the consistency of their lives. Their existence is all that they know. But the existence that each of us knows is just a speck of what makes up the Real.

Each and every thing that we think or say is testament of what we don't know, of our ignorance. Because with each and every thing that we say, an infinity is unsaid. Every word of expression stands in stark contrast of what is not expressed. With every consideration there is a world not considered. Yet with each and every thing we say, express, or consider, we think we are making some mark, are of some significance. Our physical existences are scratch marks on desert sands.

It's the divine male and female. What gets said is the tiny male, what is unsaid is the huge female. The known, visible male, the elusive, intangible female. The insignificant, material human male. The Real, unknowable, divine female.

1557 Noe St., San Francisco

Happy Fucking Millennium! Again that urge to assess my entire life when I write in here. It hasn't changed from last month. There's no one really significant in my life and nothing really significant happening. I live a life none so significant.

What I'm doing still alive is still a mystery to me. I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing still alive, and if I don't find an answer, I see no reason for staying. Really! I'm more and more convinced that I'm done and I should start living my life like I'm wrapping it up, wrapping up loose ends. Yea right, when have I not felt that way?

I was out on my bike for the new year. It was actually quite uneventful and anti-climatic. I did Critical Mass in the evening. It was smaller than usual, but it was the only hint of a party in this city for most of the night. It was fun and a little more boisterous, but there wasn't a whole lotta traffic to disrupt, it being a holiday.

At midnight I was on Twin Peaks with hundreds of other people. So much for being alone. The fireworks were visible, but no big deal. July 4th displays are typically more...more. I was heading down before the fireworks ended and after that I just rode around the city. It was basically a big fat nothing. People were off the streets by 12:30.