Taipei

After being more social, April to July, than any other period of his life, Paul had returned to his default lifestyle, which varied, to some degree, but generally entailed (1) avoiding most social situations (2) not wanting to sleep most nights and not knowing why—he’d wanted since 2006 to title one of his books I Don’t Want to Sleep but I Don’t Know What I’m Waiting For

Paul intuited that if he were immortal, or believed he was, he might feel what he’d felt as a child

“Caroline was telling us she went to a Fuck Buttons concert tonight,” said Mitch.

Paul felt unsettled, imagining amounts of cocaine trickling between fingers and slipping off the sides of fingers and the curve of the palm and sticking as powder against Daniel’s hand and pocket interior.

One night, standing in the doorway of his parents’ bedroom, when his father was on a months-long business trip, crying while shouting at his mother, who was supine in bed, in the dark, Paul heard her softly and steadily crying, with her blanket up to her chin in a way that seemed child-like. Paul stopped shouting and stood sobbing quietly, dimly aware, as his face twitched and trembled, that he felt intensely embarrassed of himself from the perspective of any person, except his mother, he had ever met.

Paul was aware he felt mysteriously less interested in her after reading that she felt like she missed him

He felt confused, to some degree, by everything, but at a delay, as if continuously realizing past confusions, which could no longer be resolved, so were not problems.

for matters involving social interaction he shouldn’t trust himself, at this time, after being mostly alone for around four months

When Paul woke, the next afternoon, Laura, 28, had already friended and messaged him on Facebook.

Paul could see that Laura, who wasn’t looking at him, didn’t like his presence and was getting annoyed, but due to alcohol he felt unaffected by this information and kept asking questions