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.