I've had a lovely (albeit busy) time while not writing here. Lots of people and music and musicians who I adore -- and a wedding and a lot of drinking at an Oktoberfest as well!  My parents leave for Denver for a few days tomorrow before heading on to their cabin in Montana. They're taking their dog Sophie with them, so I'll have to stop by the house for the mail and to water the plants next week, but I won't be living in two places at once house sitting til they're back. And I have no plans whatsoever (other than working  and getting gardening things done and watching Packers football games and hanging out with my dog and cat and tidying up around my flat and reading and writing) I actually have nothing in my calendar til heading to Minneapolis on the 27th for Hawktail concert, Penny & Sparrow on the 28th, then back to Madison for symphony on the 29th.  Then APT tickets to A Doll's House on Oct. 2, Macbeth on Oct. 4, and Book of Will on Oct. 5.  Then I don't think anything else in the calendar til seeing the banjo boys again on Oct. 13 in Skokie.

But for the next week and a half, no claims on my time but my own!!! And I'm very much looking forward to it!!!!

As for the last post.... I still don't want Eric to be hurting. But honestly, right now there is nothing I could do to alleviate that. Not given his choices. I'm so terribly disappointed in him for being such a follower and going along with the ostracism and bullying til he normalized it and rationalized it that I genuinely don't see things as fixable any longer..... The one thing I've never been able to abide is intentional cruelty, from anyone, and to be guilty of it because another rationalized it to you and you believed them followed their lead? Then either you yourself desire to be cruel or you lack a moral center and ethical core....

 You see, as I said before, it wasn't the content qua content, it was the principle of the matter, the ethical issues of blocking fans on the official band account and then posting content exclusively on the band's instagram -- it makes EVERYONE who then posts any of the content on the band's instagram guilty of relational bullying by ostracism. By saying, "Everyone come hang out , we love you -- except YOU. You may buy our music and support us and come to shows and gain us new fans and you may have been doing all of this for eight years now BUT because you were honest about the country music choice WE made causing YOU physical pain due to your neurological condition of synesthesia, WE don't want YOU to sit with us and hang out with us. This is for our REAL fans -- not YOU and your honesty the girls didn't want to hear."

That's been the issue since last October. Since someone with access to the band's official account decided to block me. And THEN, when other members of the band found out, rather than doing the right thing and saying, "We're so sorry, this is clearly a mistake and you should never have been blocked for this -- let me just unblock you" (it's easy, you just go to the profile settings --> Privacy --> Blocked Accounts and you'll find a list of all the profiles that the account had blocked and you click on the account and then just click the unblock button. It's about as easy as possible to have fixed.) Now if you don't think it was wrong, if you think the block should stand, you still ADDRESS the fact it happened and own up to it and explain your reasons for doing it and standing by it while owning up to the hurt it caused.  Instead, NOBODY ever responded to it, they just ignored it as if ignoring the truth makes the truth go away AND recently Brittany and Eric decided together to start putting things EXCLUSIVELY on Instagram DESPITE me stating quite publicly as well as to Eric (both publicly and privately) that I was blocked on the official band account and EVERY time any band member posted on the delta rae official instagram account it was a form of relational bullying same as inviting everyone to do something but telling someone, 'not you. Everyone else, but not you." It's mean girls bullshit.And it's absolutely the WORST way you could EVER have handled such a situation. it's not just bad pr behavior, it's shit ethics and being a cruel human being who shows lack of empathy, complete indifference to the hurt you have caused another living being.

I rolled my eyes at Liz and Britt doing it, but it didn't surprise me as they both have the petty vindictive bullying streak in them to begin with if you refuse to follow their lead. They're both more than a little catty. They have their good qualities, but it didn't surprise me they chose to engage in that form of bullying.

but Eric doing it, even with Britt and at her obvious instigation? Well that made me disappointed in him. But tonight, he decided to do it all on his own, to go live and play some songs ON THE BAND INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT same as he used to do on his own account. It was an absolute smack in the face of cruelty, intentional cruelty, from him. And disappointment is too mild a word for the volumes that choice of his tonight spoke of his character..... (Yes of course I know. Don't be an idiot. I have friends who follow them still on insta as well as facebook and the diehard groupies obsessively post about how wonderful the post was every damn time that anyone sneezes on the band insta. Of course I can watch it on someone else's account if I so desire -- I told you the content qua content is NOT the issue, the relational bullying and ostracism and intentional cruelty is the problem.)

 

 For me, this choice and behavior of Eric's (and solely of Eric's) makes him guilty solely on his own of being just as bad as the girls and whoever blocked me on the band's instagram. He is guilty of being a bully, and intentionally so, and he is guilty of being intentionally cruel and not giving a damn about the hurt he causes. For me, his actions and choices now leave me with no desire to give him another chance. before tonight, I had a faint desire to have it worked out somehow and have him explain to me how/why he didn't respond but it's not what I thought. But now? Knowing that he KNOWS precisely how I view this behavior and why?! I have no desire to make things right after what he did tonight....  After the November shows I already have tickets to, I have no desire to ever attend a Delta Rae show ever again after the way the girls AND Eric have behaved and treated me. I don't even desire to listen to their music -- I can't enjoy music no matter how good it is if the person(s) who made it prove that they are shitty people. that is what first the girls and now Eric have shown me over having blocked me for having been honest that the country music causes me physical pain and then having done NOTHING to acknowledge the pain they caused but instead to continuously and intentionally inflict further cruelty and pain upon the initial hurt by gaslightng as if they never did anything wrong. Despite the deep abiding wrongs they have spent nearly a year inflicting.

And no music, nothing they can do as artists will do anything whatsoever to improve things even the slightest bit. Not so long as the ethical wrong stands unaddressed and they continue to try and ignore it and pretend they never were guilty of that wrong.

And at this point, my opinion of Eric is so low that if it were in my power, I'd sever our karmic ties (and not just put the bond between us aslumber as it is now) so he'd never be able to find me again in any of his future lives. Ever.  Wrong is wrong is wrong.  And THIS tonight was his choice and actions and his alone. He destroyed the love that was and would have been by choosing to try to hide his sisters MAJOR fuckup for her rather than acknowledge it and make it right.

That's on him. And only him.

*shrugs*

"It is better to do nothing than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself."~The Dhammapada

In this case, doing nothing was an act of doing wrong since it was built upon a bad act already done and the lie that there was no wrong previously done that needed to be addressed and fixed.

His every choice not to deal with this but instead to continue down the path his sister created and double down on her cruelty and to perpetuate it is making this situation more more entrenched against him ever getting me to give him another chance,  more and more final. And the initial fuckup that was never cleaned up is the fault of his sister and her flaws - but it's him being the driving force diggimg his own grave now......

You don't heal hurts you've done or trauma you're guilty of inflicting by ignoring the pain or denying it or trying to pretend it didn't happen or victim blaming (as so many of their fans have done in response to my honesty about the previous honesty having caused them to block me) -- you heal hurts by listening to the person you hurt tell you of their hurt, by giving them space to be honest and acknowledging the truth they speak, then by doing what is within your powers to make amends and start setting right the wrongs you are guilty of.

Even a 3 year old is taught to say sorry, same as thank you. You'd think as an adult, you'd have the courage to do the right thing that your own nephew would advise you is the only right thing to do after having said/done something to hurt somebody. It makes Liz, Britt, and Eric not just bullies, but cowards. Complete and utter cowards.....

There are no options for me and my heart and my soul other than divesting myself of any emotional response to ANYTHING from the band, from Eric, and from the girls without them doing the right thing.  It is why i refuse to respond in any fashion to anything any of them post or share, no matter how happy it ought by rights to make me in the content qua content or how much it should have reminded me of all the reasons I love Eric. Quite simply, none of it can reach beyond the disappointment and dissociation from giving them any emotional leverage or power to further hurt me in this situation that the girls created, continue to perpetuate, and now Eric has made himself a party to being the bully for them.  Eric has once again failed his soul's path testing to see if he can manage NOT to intentionally inflict pain and harm to me. At least this time it was merely standing by the girls bullying behavior, not turning me over to his lord to be sold to the English so they could burn me at the stake. It's not like I didn't warn him any of the times he's failed to protect me or failed to not be the source of hurt to me -- he was warned and has been told of it all along. His failure at his testing is on him. And honestly, if he continues down this path he's chosen to be party to, I have no desire to give him any further chances. not in this life nor in any other.