1347 La Loma, Berkeley

March 1996

Diem had been getting my postcards. I wasn't sure whether she had or not. I don't know how many had to be forwarded to her since I don't know when she moved from Oberlin to Cleveland. She didn't feel that it was important to tell me I suppose.

For the past year she hasn't been saying anything in her very brief and sketchy letters, which never gave details and never told what she felt. And when she did mention her feelings, they felt glossed over as if to make everything seem fine.

So I wrote to her and told her our friendship was over. I told her where my life was and where I was in my life. I told her that I thought she had a lot of issues and hoped that she was dealing with them. I told her that I found life sad and people disappointing. I told her I loved her and called it quits because I wanted to end the friendship before it deteriorated into nothingness, with nothing good to remember.

I cited how I felt Shiho and I had become pen-pals in 1991 and how I wanted to break off all communications. Shiho meant so much to me that becoming pen-pals was too degrading to the meaning she had to me. But we didn't cut communications because Shiho didn't want to and we ultimately lost everything. Including the friendship and whatever meaning we had to our few memories. I didn't want that to happen with Diem.

I never found out what it was like between Diem and Amina after we broke up.

Ana Claire was just as easy. She called and got a cold response from me, and when she asked if I didn't want to talk to her, I told her not particularly. But that wasn't sad, and Ana Claire wasn't a disappointment. She was everything I thought she was and hoped she’d be, and in the end, that's all she was.

Feelings don't matter anymore. Neither does trust.

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

Diem out, Ana Claire out, Luyen out. Luyen visited for five days because she's thinking of transferring to a college in the area. It did not go well. On her second night here, we got into a big discussion about “us” and “our” communication, and that discussion should never have happened. The assumptions, the gall, it was offensive and presumptuous. For someone who I hadn't seen for however long, she certainly took liberties about the things she felt she could say.

I can't even go into it, it was so appalling. I don't care about whatever she thought was a problem. It didn't deserve any discussion at all. If she has a problem with me, she can get the hell out, we're not that close anymore. What, is she living in a time warp? No one is going to have a problem with me and stay in my life anymore. I don't care about anyone's complaints about me. I am who I am and I'm not going to subject myself to criticism regarding who I am anymore. If anyone has a complaint, I'm the last person to whom they'd want to bring it.

It's almost laughable. I'm getting rid of people right and left, and she comes waltzing in accusing me of whatever and complaining about what is between us. Accusations? Get out. Complaints? Get out.

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

I hate all this. I hate my life and I hate myself. I hate people and dealing with them. I hate walking down the street and seeing them. I try my best to keep my line of sight above everyone's heads so I don't have to look at people. I haven't done anything with my life and I have absolutely nothing to show for it except a lot of material possessions.

I don't care about anything. No more deep or in-depth discussions about anything with anyone. I'm just not interested. Politics, race, religion, injustice, inequality, civil rights, international relations; it's all talk and the world goes on the way it goes, and I can't even pay attention to my own needs. I'm not even listening to myself.

It's not better to burn out than fade away. I kind of like fading, slowly disappearing from peoples' lives, then remove any significance or presence I may have to them, then remove myself physically from their reality.

I told myself that I never want to feel this way again, that I wouldn't let myself. Well, here I am feeling this way again and I resolutely do not want to continue, to wait until things change. But what am I doing about it? Waiting until I'm 34? I don't like people or dealing with them, I can't communicate with anyone and no one knows what I'm about or where I'm coming from or where I am. It's as if I don't exist.

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

I'm living week by week. I'm only living if there is something direct in the next week to live for. It started in February when I put an ad in the Express looking for musicians. Pathetic as it is, I only got one response - a Japanese-Filipino American drummer who's an ex-con. That's what I get? Is someone trying to tell me something? If someone's trying to tell me something, the message isn't being wasted. It's not even pathetic, it's genuinely funny!

That ad ran for three weeks, three weeks to endure. Then Luyen visited and I had to be here for that, then Madoka visited and that was another week. Then I put an ad in the Guardian to run three weeks, another three weeks bought. After that, let's see what keeps me here for another week. That will be the middle of April. On April 15, there will be a photo exhibit at school and I'm going to enter some photos. I can wait for that, too.

Mid-April? Amina's birthday? It's funny finally having a concrete plan. How long has this been coming? More than ten years?

As far back as I learned of a thing called suicide, it has meant something to me, a calling, a destiny. I've been suicidal all my life and never has it been completely gone. This isn't a recurring impulse that comes and goes, it is something that has always been here constantly as far back as I can remember.

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

I wonder to myself what I would do if Amina called. I'd have an easier time if she sounded cheerful than if she sounded tentative or careful. I think I could tell her of the two loves I have for her. The human one, which is only a memory, which removed a good half of my trust. And the one that is beyond human, the one that would make it easy to be friends with her and to feel love towards her in that form. I don't know if I would decide to not kill myself if she called. I think it would depend on the circumstances. I would like to think that I would go right ahead with it regardless; having closed that gaping emotional wound she helped inflict.

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

I can't begin to express how frustrating it is being human, being alive. Alive? I don't even know what that means. A study appeared in today's paper that tea and fruits have something in them which encourages the production of some kind of blood cell which is beneficial in preventing strokes.

I don't think I understand that impulse to control what our bodies do by controlling what goes into them. I understand a healthy diet to feel good, but to consume something so that certain chemical reactions happen which affects that which in turn helps prevent something as attenuated as strokes? That's just way too high maintenance. That's not being alive. If it takes too much thought to be alive, it isn't being alive.

I hate having to eat. I hate having to shower. I hate dealing with whatever is wrong with my skin which gives me a rash nightly. I hate body functions. I hate anything I need to do. I hate being contained in this skin; these defined borders of my existence which in reality is leaking away. I hate things I enjoy. I hate living. Not because it's miserable being alive, I can see how it doesn't have to be, I just don't like it.

I hate humanity and what it has done to this planet, to its people and cultures. I hate its values and what it emphasizes as important.

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

I made contact sheets of two rolls of film that I shot from the end of February into March, and was discouraged by the results. None of the images grabbed me. It was all crap. I wondered if I should give up photography for a while, but I didn't want to join the line of people I've met who "used to do" photography. I don't want to feel like it's something I'm dabbling in and giving it up because it isn't making me feel good.

I only started doing photography a few months ago, what am I expecting of myself? That's no way to learn and grow if it's truly a way I want to express myself. There's so much more to photography than coming up with good prints. This was so basic when I started and was humble enough to not presume I could come up with good prints at all. I just need to go with these shots, pick the images I can remember why I shot them, and print those as best as I can.

1347 La Loma, Berkeley

December 1995

Ana Claire and I have been fucking. We're not in a relationship, we don't want to be. We just fuck. That's all it is - fucking. It's something I've never done before, I've never just fucked someone, so I'm savoring the word, its vulgarity and its brutal honesty. It's not completely cold, we're not completely unknown to each other so it's not purely carnal. She's a friend and we talk a lot, we just happen to fuck after we talk.

In some ways, it's a very twisted situation, but it's also perfect and probably what I need. When we first did it, I felt a wave of intimacy that just didn't feel right in the situation. It didn't last long; neither of us wanted this to become a relationship. It felt much more comfortable knowing that it was just fucking. We would get together, we would do something, then I would fuck her, she would fuck me. Amina, Shiho, I fuck Ana Claire, Ana Claire fucks me.

I wonder if I'm being naive through this. If anything, this is a rebound. I think she's on a rebound, too. From the start, all she wanted to do was fuck me to see what it was like to fuck me. That's totally fine with me. I’m in no position to make any emotional investment or outlay. This situation can't get messy. If things start going awry, it's thanks for the fuck, good-night. Wham-bam, thank you, ma'am. All the emotions in this are simply ambiguous.

Ana Claire has taken my relationships to another level. Her intelligence and raw ability are not to be questioned. There is an air of snobbishness to her. She doesn't give much credit to men as a gender and she makes no exception of me, so she makes plenty of assumptions about me which I wouldn't otherwise tolerate in a relationship. She looks down on me and doesn't know me at all. But she thinks she does. She'll never be able to appreciate me.

She balances her strength and her vulnerability pretty well. She's got problems and issues, but she's not neurotic or fucked up like so many other people I know. She's not scared or paranoid about anything I can see. She faces up to life and is therefore a breath of fresh air to me.

"Where did you get your name 'Ana Claire'?"
"From my grandmothers."
"They were both named 'Ana Claire'?"
"No, you fucking idiot," she laughed.

Ana Claire is a hormonal nightmare. She's very sexual and she knows what she likes. I find that intimidating, but I'm going along with it for whatever I can get. I don't know if I 'satisfy' her; I just do what I can and if she wants more, she can fuck around with other people to her heart's content.

It's funny that my motivation for getting to know Ana Claire is that she has a bass and has been interested in learning how to play it. I was interested in her learning how to play it so that I would know another Asian American person who plays an instrument.

But when I tried to teach her a part and get her to play it, it was like pulling teeth. I couldn't get her to pluck a note in my presence. She sent me out to get ice cream so she could work on the part alone. It's very telling. In our relationship and fucking thus far, she has been clearly dominant. She likes being dominant, or she wants to maintain dominance over any man. So then here I bring music, and music requires a degree of mutuality, and she can't do it.

Not even mutual, she's not dominant anymore, I'm the teacher, she's the learner. When she picks up a bass, she's not dominant anymore. She can't even pluck a string in my presence because doing so would be an admission that she's not dominant. So she sends me away to stake her territory to make it clear that she wants to feel like she's doing it herself without anyone else's help. It could just be me. Maybe she could take lessons from a man she's not fucking or from a woman. But the dynamic between us is that she's the dominant one, I'm the fuck-toy; I'm never in the dominant position and never can be.

Ana Claire is a perfectionist. She has very high standards for herself. She also has the ability to meet those standards. Which makes me feel odd since my standards are quite low. Not that I care, I kinda find it amusing; like what is this woman doing with me?

I have no idea where or how far this friendship is going to go. She does make me feel uncomfortable most of the time. I don't trust her. I have trouble talking to her and our conversations don't feel quite natural. But with the dynamics we've set ourselves into, I think eventually we're going to have to get closer, as friends, or we're going to drift apart. Either way.

It doesn't help that I'm going through a pretty difficult period in my life. I don't feel very social these days, I don't feel like reaching out at all to anyone, and no one is reaching in. I keep to myself. That doesn't help conversations.

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

The betrayals. The callousness of Amina’s, the idiocy of Shiho's. Diem is also in that category of someone who has left my life with no good explanation. She doesn't write anymore and even when she wrote, she didn't communicate. She was once an intimate, now barely a pen-pal.

Truth to tell, I don't really care. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that a close friendship disappeared with no explanation; the fact that someone out there sees no value in me. Diem as a person, as someone who used to be a close friend, doesn't matter anymore. Amina, Shiho, Diem; it's all the same.

I'm not completely anti-social. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about people I've recently met, such as Ana Claire and Susan, but with people I've known for a while things are fine. Cat is just about my best friend now, I guess along with Nobuko, although it's hard to gauge a friendship when you're living with that person.

Things were great with Liz when I was back in New Jersey. I consider Liz my first real girlfriend since she was the first person I can say without a doubt that I slept with. Prior to her, I can only say it was experimentation. It was nice being with Liz. With Shiho gone, Liz is now the person I've known the longest. So different from Ana Claire. I probably could have fucked her if she wanted to.

It was so easy to let go of Amina when I was going out with Shiho. But now that they are in the same place, it is so clear that I loved Amina so much more than I ever loved Shiho. I told Amina that I would always love her first and most. It's still true.

I had a dream about Amina almost a week ago which is still affecting me. Amina and I were talking, I was asking her hard questions about what happened to us, not being warm at all. I have no idea what the questions were or what her answers were. The only thing I remember clearly is that at some point she moved behind me and put an arm over my shoulder and around my neck. I first reached up and held her arm against me, and then as I stood and turned, still holding her arm, I saw that she was crying and I started crying, too. And we both knew that we were crying for the same reason, because we once had something beautiful and we both let it go and it would never come back, and letting it go was the biggest mistake either of us could have made. I don't know if it's reality, it was the dream.

So yes, I still love Amina first and most and I probably always will. She can always have my heart and soul. I would never go out with her again, I'm not even sure I would let her back into my life as a friend, but I will always love her and she will always be all the wonderful things I saw in the three years I knew and loved her.

Series II, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Portsmouth Square, Chinatown, San Francisco:

Frame 7 - Again, don't know how to fix this shot digitally. Bottom needs burning from poor negative processing, and contrast could be boosted.


Frame 8 - Man, what poor composition.


Frame 10 - Again, I got a much better darkroom print out of this negative.


Frame 12 - Ana-Claire with Natsu's eyes. In her kitchen.

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frames 28, 29, 30 - Three of Ana-Claire:



At her place on 24th and Valencia.

And one of me:

Frame 33 - At home in Berkeley

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 13 - Ana-Claire, Mission St. near 3rd St.


Frame 14 - Ana-Claire in an art exhibit, SFMoma.


Frame 18 - Not something you see everyday. Shot from Mission St., the rooftop is probably off Market.

Frames 21, 22, 23, 25, 27 - Walk along and down the Seacliffs





(note the wee bit of Golden Gate Bridge peeking through the fog in the last one)

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 3, 4 - Construction of the new Rte. 880, Oakland, CA, shot from BART:




Frame 6 - Corner of Valencia and 16th.


Frame 7 - Camera misfire in the Mission.

Frames 9, 10 - Ana-Claire:

not-so-flattering, perhaps

much better.