There IS a soundtrack for Mildred Pierce!!!!!!!!!!!

I will DEFINITELY be picking that up!!!!!!

Also, the new Dustbowl Revival album is out today!!!! I'll be picking that up as well!!!!

Also also, tickets for The Coronas show in April go on sale today -- including a show in Chicago!!!!!!!  I'm so giddy!!!!!!

I fell in love with their sound after hearing Heroes or Ghosts on an RTE station I streamed in college for new music, and just fell in adoration!!! but then they went ages and ages NOT touring the States while on a label. For like, 7 YEARS I kept waiting for them to come play in the States but could only see them overseas and couldn't afford their ticket prices there. Because they're a big fucking deal Irish rock band. They sell out MASSIVE ballrooms/halls and stadiums in the UK and EU but then they come to the States and play the tiniest little club shows.  Anyway, everyone has heard my excited proselytizing of them by this point, lol.

But they're coming back!!!!!! And Chicago is the only date anywhere near me!!!!

Also, in the "it's a small world" column, the lead singer Danny is actually Aoife Scott's first cousin. So we saw her right before going to see The Coronas in St. Louis and she insisted we tell him she said hi. They played The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill and there were maybe 35 people there - which they told us was humbling but exciting like when the band first formed.  Anyway. Post show, Danny hopped down from the stage to have a beer and chat with people who were hanging around and we greeted him, "Your cousin Aoife told us to tell you hi and give you hugs from her." he laughed and said, "That is the most Irish thing that has ever happened to me in America." Then after another round of hugs "for Aoife" he asked us how we knew her.

Also, Mikaela has THE most adorable teenybopper "I'm going to melt in the ground and hide right now because he sees me" crush on Danny EVER!!!

I watched parts 3 & 4 of Mildred Pierce tonight -- but I'll wait on Part 5. Still need to find the novel. And the original film noir movie of it.

Also, remember me saying how 2011/2012 was a great year in film scores? It's also when We Banjo 3 got together as a band formally and 2012 Irishfest was their first gig in the States, at Milwaukee Irishfest, and what launched their entire career. And I was there for 2 of their 3 shows that weekend.

Anyway, all of this gives me the giddies!!!!!  As do Dave's Insta stories full of inside jokes again.

~*~*~*~*~

Unrelated but important:
I have internally decided that I am not going to allow myself to write anything further here whatsoever about Delta Rae or about Eric. Not receiving that email (not the most recent one which I did get, but the one before that which Britt wrote and sent out about "The Woman & The Bull Part II" but which I somehow never received even though I'm on the mailing list and diehards list and kickstarter) was my final straw of putting up with the bullshit that has been thrown my way by the girls associated with Delta Rae since Fall of 2018. I have not unfollowed or unliked or removed myself from any lists, I had decided I would not until after the release of The Light and I intend to stand by that.

That being said, there is absolutely NO MEANS OF REPAIRING anything with me or gaining me back as a fan or Eric having any chances of even reaching me again in this life WITHOUT addressing the way I have been and still am being treated, the blocking on the band Instagram page, and making right the wrongs that Britt & Jessie & Liz have been guilty of on the official band accounts since Jessie came onboard got involved with the band.  If you don't acknowledge and heal this damage, then it's over. That's my final word.

I am using all social media and emails that I see from the band or any member of it to calm myself from being reactionary and work to train myself in the indifference of having no emotional reactions whatsoever no matter what they say, do, or create. I am attempting to train myself to make my heart un-fuck-with-able by them as a collective and by each of the members individually. I refuse to be any further manipulated by the bullying behaviors I have been dealing with from the official band accounts. I am teaching myself not to have any emotional responses to anything from anyone involved with the band -- I am refusing to let them have space within my head or my heart at this point. Which is why no more writing about any of it here for me.

And that stance is NOT going to be altered without directly confronting and acknowledging and working to repair how fucked up the choices of actions made in the name of the band have been toward me since the Fall of 2018.

That's my final word on the matter unless you take the necessary actions to change my mind. You're out of chances and you're out of being able to charm me by making things I ought to love if you don't address this and fix it. And if you don't, I am walking away with every single piece of my heart intact and leaving none of them behind with the band or with any member thereof.  Because if you DON'T acknowledge and fix this, if you're too chicken shit to face the wrongs you've done (or that were done in your name) and  the facts of reality of the choices/actions pursued on official band accounts, then you don't fucking deserve any of my love or any pieces of my heart.

I finished the second part of the HBO 5 part miniseries Mildred Pierce late last night/early this morning.

(It's from 2011, but I'm currently in the middle of going through and watching everything they have to stream on HBO that I've never watched and catching up on series that i considered watching but never did while I'm inputting, alphabetizing, and filing at work. I'm skipping over things with subtitles since I can't multitask watch them on split screen and anything that just doesn't sound that great to me/has terrible reviews.. Also, I tried to watch The Leftovers, but really couldn't get into it so gave it a pass.)

Mildred Pierce though is golden. The acting,  the cinematography, the score, the costuming, the sets, the cars.... It's all just so brilliant!

Damn...

It's so fucking good.

But damn....

Part two took you on such an emotional ride...and tore your heart right out.....but honestly I think it only gets darker from here... I know it's a remake of a classic film noir from the 40s which I've never seen, starring Joan Crawford, which I'll have to try to find after i finish the 5+ hour version of it I'm currently in the middle of watching.... Where does one even FIND classic film noir these days so you can bring it home to watch it?! Never mind, I'll figure that out after I finish it... It's so fucking good!

It's about a Depression era middle class mom, played by Kate Winslet, and her very fractured relationship with her narcisisstic manipulative ego-driven selfish daughter. It's so incredibly good!

Also, the scoring is exquisite!!! Some of the piano pieces and string arrangements in particular are just....I don't even have words for how well it's scored! It's so incredibly beautiful!!! The piano piece at the end of the second part made me tear up and cry though.  It was so full of pathos in the expression of the pianist and the song is so beautiful, but so broken in its melancholy.....And such a perfect song for where your heart is at the end of Part Two.....

I need to figure out if there's any means of getting the score from it. If it was ever released. It's so beautiful!

I'm also going to have to get the book to read it. But first the soundtrack, because the scoring is just gorgeous!

(if it exists -- I haven't checked yet because I actually still haven't slept and I'd rather fall asleep with hope than disappointment. I know I could have excitement and joy if I just checked, but I might also have the pit of the stomach fall of disappointment.... And I'd rather have the hope, and not the excitement if it does exist, to be certain not to have the disappointment. I hate the crash of disappointment finding out something you wanted is just not to be yours.... I'd rather go to bed with hope and check tonight after I'm back from Riverdance and let myself have whatever the checking into the truth will bring me. But before bed, I'll choose hope rather than going to bed hollow from yet another disappointment and hurt over what I can't have. But still. I'm really HOPING the soundtrack of Mildred Pierce was released in some form of audio recordings so i can have it!!!  It's so exquisitely beautiful!!!)

Honestly, so far, i can't recommend enough watching this miniseries -- it's so well done!! And I'm actually rather grateful that I never saw it before this so I get to discover it right now! It's so fucking good!!

And, I really REALLY hope the soundtrack is something I can acquire when I look into it later tonight -- this scoring is so well done! So far, I rank it right up there with the scoring of the most recent adaptations of Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina (two of my favorite scores composed in the last 10 years. Apparently 2011/2012 was an incredible year for film scores.)  And, it'd be nice to have my hopes turn to gold not ashes on this, y'know?

I turned off notifications for comments or reactions to my comment about not receiving the most recent Delta Rae email from Britt despite having been on the diehards mailing list since July. Based on the last time I said anything about unresponsiveness and communication issues over the last two years and the victim blaming claiming I must have done something wrong because nobody in the band or who's ever represented the band would EVER block someone on the account unless I had been abusive. (I wasn't. And someone did.)  I should check the comments from other fans in response to that hard truth about the band they worship at some point. But that point is not tonight. tonight I don't feel that need and I'm in a happy internal place..

I didn't want to deal with that sort of fan initiated behavior, tbh. So I haven't even looked. I do know that nobody from the band has reached out to me, however. Anywhere. And that just makes me want to be done with them given the way they have continuously ignored and treated me like shit since the day Britt blocked me for being honest the country music was going to stop me attending future shows. At this point, it's the way that I have been treated from the band official accounts that makes me not want to ever attend another show of theirs or spend another cent on, well, anything any of them create.....And I see no reason not to be honest with any/everyone who ever brings them up about this behavior that was exhibited by Britt in the name of the entire band.

And I've been blocking out Eric from reaching me via the bond and it's actually made me so much happier to not feel that ought to given the level of antagonistic and cruel behavior that has come at me from everything Britt touches in the name of the band.

Also, now it seems I might be heading down to Portland while I'm in Seattle for that We Banjo 3 show. Since that's when Nancy is available and she's still excited to take me to Portland since I've never been. Now if I can just figure out the Wintergrass Festival in Bellevue and me getting there and picking up tickets......

You have to understand,  that while it may seem I have a rather blasé response to letting go my twin flame for this lifetime due to the continuous manipulative and cruel actions of his sister, the truth is I didn't get here easily....

I've been working on accepting the necessity of it since Oct.  28, 2018 (the day after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting - my intense desire to turn to Morning Comes and All Good People to soothe my pain and my inability to do so because of Britt's actions have burned the precise timing of it in my memory indelibly) when someone blocked me on the band Instagram account for being honest that I loved Hands Dirty but was sad that the level of pain the country music caused me due to my color-timbre synesthesia meant I'd not see it live because I could no longer go to shows while the country music was any part of who the band was trying to be.  (Yes,  that is the content of the post that made someone block me,  without warning or anything said to me,  that set us on this trajectory of me renouncing all claims on Eric in this life.)

I also know that after nearly 600 years of our lives only crossing paths at the end of mine, his wallowing in his guilt over his part in that death of mine has taught me how to live my lives accepting he doesn't want to be a part of them,  looking for love and joy and meaning elsewhere. So in that grander arc,  what is waiting out one more life because of the malice of one life's blood sister and me finding happiness outside a relationship with Eric?  He's the one forced me to learn how to do it - and I refuse to make myself a source of tension and misery in his life due to his sister's inexplicable cruelty and jealousy in her actions toward me. There have been and will be more lives he and I get to share where her intentional sabotage and cruelty is no part of either of our lives and love story.... I can wait rather than breed unnecessary pain into this life.

It wasn't easy getting to that point of acceptance,  but it's where her choices and actions have brought me.

As for Britt,  she and I have our own karma.  Many many centuries ago, it was my choice as a high priestess to accept her request to bind her to the Goddess and initiate her into that path.  In that sense,  I stand as a mother figure and teacher to her soul as well as her superior in the spiritual realms (where she thinks herself powerfully deep but really she only dabbles in tidal pools.) That said,  several hundred years ago,  in a life that didn't cross mine,  she was tested and failed and put on probation by The Goddess for turning down some very dark paths in pursuit of vengeance. She has learned and grown somewhat back to the light and I was sent to her to see if she could be redeemed brought back to The Goddess' path.  I was her opportunity to come home.  But she sees me and is torn between wanting to be loved again, her fear of rejection,  and her shame over what she did when she lost her soul's way - acts she is now ashamed of and wishes to hide from me and The Goddess.  I remind her of her betrayal,  and everything she sold out.  And this is at the root of her behaviors, she'd rather push me away than be rejected by me and thus The Goddess, deep in her subconscious and soul path. (I didn't say her sabotage and cruelty was conscious in her, and I never claimed she doesn't do more damage to herself than anyone else whenever she gives in to it.)  And it's stupid and causing to manifest everything she fears because she won't face this in honesty and humility.  But I can't force her choices - and if she rejects me,  I can let her go her own way instead of helping and teaching her.

As for my karmic ties to Dave,  I cursed him at my death in 1430 that he was bound to stay in that life til he saw me sainted and everything he thought he believed in crumble to nothing around him.  I just meant in life,  but he took me a little too seriously stayed a ghost til I discovered him trapped between lives during the French Revolution....  I recognized him,  felt guilty,  and freed him brought him back to the light of creation and his place in the cycle of souls.  So his soul is karmically bound to mine by death,  rebirth,  guilt, gratitude,  and love. And I don't think that bond will be released til he feels my love for who he IS and the path he has chosen for his soul. He is very much a pacifist and creature of order,  but forcibly tempered by me to include loving acceptance and kindness into that Catholic rigidity. It's an unusual pairing for a very ancient pagan warrior soul who functions as a chaotic good hand of Fate bringing everything into the light so it can be healed - but it does make a type of sense.  And honestly,  who/what his soul has become and the compassionate honesty woven through his soul light is beautiful in its own right. There's something really darling in him and the way he is opening up again to light and love and trust and forgiveness - and for his soul,  mine is wrapped up in his journey through all those things. And I know this is hard to hear,  but the light kindled inside him toward me and his delighted wonder at finding me and realizing I could love him, in its own way is brighter than Eric's soul light when he sees me and I notice him. And in this life,  Dave has never done me any wrong or knowingly caused me pain or allowed anyone to be cruel to me once he saw/heard about it - and I cannot say the same for Eric's choices in this life.

But you should never think it a happiness or acceptance that was easy for me to reach.... Letting go of anyone you still love never is, even when you realize you must due to the sanctity of free will for determining every soul's karmic paths.

*sigh* Sometimes, it really sucks being a Libra sun with Capricorn moon and Mars in Sagittarius this life..... usually I'm a Gemini sun (or just the other side of the cusp around Gemini.) For a hand of fate karmic soul seed of chaotic good, it can make me give more opportunities and chances  than I'd naturally be inclined to give being bound to such stringent concepts of honesty, justice, and right versus wrong as the backbone of my ethical core. It rules my conscience so strictly that it's much more controlling of my wildfire fey nature than I'm accustomed to in my lives.....

*sigh* Still,  I miss the freedom from restraints on my conscience of being the air sign I've spent more lives in....  I KNOW i'm generally a Gemini in warrioress lives,  a Libra in reward lives,  and an Aquarius in punishment/lessons to be learned lives and a high priestess of The Goddess in all lives.....  But I've gotten comfortable in battle mode after so many lives in it,  damnit!

Still.  Actually responding with clarity and honesty (and the receipts from July) to Delta Rae's facebook post about that email of Britt's and how to get on the rideordiehard list was the mature and just thing to do in case it was a mistake they choose to acknowledge/fix. In case it genuinely was an accident/mistake, they deserve to be given full honesty and a chance if they choose to right this....

Ah well. At least I can live with my conscience now,  even if tapping that out on my phone took ages....

I don't expect any response,  but it was the right thing to do to at least give them one final opportunity of addressing it and fixing it....

But I genuinely expect it will get ignored,  if not just deleted by someone on admin on their facebook page.  Still,  my conscience and karma is clear, the ball is in their court,  and whatever they do I'll accept as their choice and a true reflection of their authentic character - and thus they shall receive their karma they call down upon themselves by their actions and choices.

P. S.  And yes,  I saw that Eric immediately shared the band post from the official band account I was blocked from for being honest the country music caused me enough pain I wouldn't go to any further Delta Rae shows while it was an issue.  I can tell because his name has the red circle of an unwatched story but clicking on it or going to his account there's none for me to click on or watch.  It's the same way he's been a bully before with blatant ostracism as a result of the unjust system of ostracism created on the official account.

Funny thing? Today, it doesn't make me feel anything anymore.  No anger,  no hurt,  no disappointment....just acceptance that's his choice.

Curiously, the strongest emotion it evokes in me is love for David and how genuinely good and caring he is.  Because see,  there's a fan in Crew who befriends other Crew members then blocks them without warning or explanation. And it's wreaked emotional and mental health and rejection issue havoc in the community of people hurt who don't understand what they did wrong. I talked to Ash about it privately back in June of 2018, explained why it was hurtful caused mental health damage and she fixed it,  said she understood, wouldn't do it again.  Then she saw how Dave is toward me,  put together puzzle pieces of his song lyrics and even though he was dating Diana so I was staying elusively distant from him,  Ash got jealous.  Then last January,  there was a kerfuffle of Dave promising a live feed then it ending up on her account (not his) and her ostracism within Crew coming to light.  (Martin,  Dave's brother,  knew about Ash's behavior from email/texts with me AND all the boys had seen her venomous jealous animosity toward me in person two nights before - most angry I'd ever seen Dave til Diana chose to be cruel to me in front of him due to her jealousy in Milwaukee.  (but legit,  Di flew in JUST to see him that day,  was standing sidestage after joining fiddle for a song and he STILL was hungrily watching my reactions ignoring Diana directly behind him for the entirety of the super sweet slow dance of two huge fans of the band to Marry Me Monday followed by onstage proposal - so I don't blame Diana acting out of jealousy as she did Sunday night seeing me talking to him when he stopped me to say goodbye. I did nothing wrong besides existing and him falling in love with me at first sight getting awkward anxious tongue tied forgetting lyrics for nine years now - starting five years before he ever met Di and they had drunk rebound sex in Dayton and she fought tooth and claw with every Scorpio trick in the book to make him love her - but I don't blame her reactions that night,  I understand them, even if they were unjustly rude and his final straw why he broke up with her....)  Anyway, back to Ash.  She left Crew when told the band wouldn't tolerate that behavior as it directly contradicted everything they stood for.  But after the breakup with Di,  she asked to come back due to her obsessive teenybopper jealousy driven crush on Dave but has had people blocked since returning in October despite claiming she wouldn't.  I didn't know,  I was blocked.  She's trying to build a graphic design/marketing/photog portfolio as she wants to move to Nashville get involved in the industry... So the band gave her a trial press pass and tried to share her photos for her at which point I told Dave privately she had lied to them still had Crew members blocked and was thus putting him in the unfair position of ostracizing/excluding fans he never would.  He sent me a heart emoji just said Thank you!,  unshared the story and within 10 hours she magically unblocked everyone on insta/fb she'd blocked in Crew....)

And that's why Eric engaging in relational bullying this morning by sharing that band account post (I presume) made me love Dave even more and think how good and lovingly genuinely kind he is.  Because of the contrast in how they behaved when told of girl drama bullying they were accidentally dragged into.

Like I said, Dave is playing his hands perfectly showing such goodness in his soul I can't help loving him for it.  And Eric is fucking up his own hands right alongside his sister's continuous sabotaging of him.   My love of Dave is something he earned through constantly reaffirmed choices and actions.  as is my letting go of any ties to Eric indifference toward him due to his choices and the manipulative games the Hölljes siblings have been playing over the last more than a year....

You can't say I've been anything but transparently honest and unfailingly empathetic but just in how we ended up on this karmic fateline.  Everyone has earned the karma that has brought us to this place.....

Fyi,  in case you didn't believe me.....  Here are some receipts as to the petty vengeance seeking defensive games of Britt/Jess undermining every single effort Eric makes EVEN WHILE HE'S MAKING THEM.

Yesterday, there was a lengthy email that Britt wrote sent out to the band mailing list. I didn't receive it. I checked my trash, spam, and all various inboxes. It wasn't there. Not anywhere. Yet I knew it was sent ebcause there was a Ride Or Diehards retweet referencing it. Which means somebody, most likely Britt (but I suppose potentially Jessie, Ali, or any one who went in to the Delta Rae mailing List) decided to purge me out of the mailing list.  Sure there may be an explanation, but hoenstly, my money's on Britt. Because when Jessie was in there I received the email and when whoever sent the one on the 16th was in there, I received the email. It was only when Britt went to go send her email that suddenly I didn't receive it.

Anyway, I went to go check with a friend about it tonight. And my friend confirmed that indeed there WAS an email sent and she'd forward it to me. (That is the most idiotic thing about the vindictive cruel bullying behaviors of Britt toward me, both on the band's Instagram and now their mailing lsit -- it won't stop me from getting the content, it just shows the ugliness hidden in her character and how willing she is to hurt others and to spite her brother tog et her petty vengeance try to control a narrative that is now out of her control DUE TO HER DEFENSIVE BULLYING BEHAVIORS. I'd never have outed this part of her nature or continuously been so openly honest about it if she hadn't acted out on it toward me.)

This was my most recent gmail search for Delta Rae. (note that I DID make an end of year order, despite everything, as I wanted the posters I never picked up AND Mikaela wanted the magnolia shirt onsale. The 14 year old Taurus does NOT know about any of this drama with Britt and I will never tell her. She doesn't forgive bullying, from anyone. And she would never forgive anyone in the band for standing by and LETTING this sort of behavior and treatment happen. And she would tell EVERYONE, as opposed to me telling one person, writing about it here, and seeking to get the block fixed on various band accounts but otherwise not having spoken/written about it anywhere thus far. It may feel like I've outed her, but actually, so far I haven't at all. Push me and try to bully me further and I will.)

Anyway. THAT is why I didn't respond the way Eric hoped I would with his genuine Twitter attempts at trying to find out WHAT he can/should talk about in his stage banter this coming tour AND his very honest description of how he's feeling about never even getting his chance after getting the encouragement he so desperately needed and how bright then dark that made his heart..... And the REASON he didn't get the reaction he expected form me last night is because literally just a little below his posts was the retweet from Ride Or Diehards account referencing Britt's email and thus I already knew before reading his two followup tweets that she'd made sure I didn't receive her email.... She had already undermined his every effort HOURS BEFORE he even made them.... And LOOOOONG before I ever posted my post early this morning.

Because he was trying. He was trying so fucking hard. And so fucking pointedly.... And it should have worked for him. And he was baffled and hurt and I've heard his hurt all day today even through my joyousness of every good thing the Universe has strewn across my path today... Because it should have worked. It should have. And the only reason it sank like a stone was because I did NOT receive that Delta Rae mailing list email -- a mailing list I never did any damn thing to take myself off of and had NOWHERE in any part of my e-mail. I was just purge off the list by someone with access to it and a personal vendetta and viciousness she didn't think she'd get called out on or caught at if she acted out on it there. But that singular act of hers is what made Eric's desperate attempts to try to regain some small part of all he's lost fail so completely.

Because it's not about his past choices or his attempts to fix them of showing me how much I could/should  love him -- it's his sister's cruelty and vindictiveness and her continuous harassment and bullying and manipulating of the official band accounts that have cost him everything with me at this point. It's her poisons that have destroyed everything the band was and could have been to me. And it's what makes it impossible for me to allow him to be any part of my life while she's a part of his....and for this lifetime, she IS a part of his life.....

So there are the most recent receipts. That's why I made the choice I have to throw all my energy and opportunities to Dave and not give Eric any more chances. Because his sister is DELIBERATELY sabotaging him out of petty vindictiveness and bullying cruelty even while he is TRYING to make something out of so little (and I admire his determination and how desperately he's trying even as his options are nearly run out and he's lost the only war that mattered to him this life...... And it's not fair to him for me to give up on him when he's trying so fucking hard..... But she's his sister, and she matters dearly to him, and he has defended and been there for her no matter what she did her entire life -- and she has made up her mind to be a petty vindictive bullying bitch to me because she can't control me or manipulate me and she can't stand that as an agent of karma and fate I bring all truths to the light, especially those you most want hidden. And she will destroy his life and every bit of happiness he has ever sought for himself in this life and literally THOUSANDS of years of life rather than allow ANYONE expose the truth of the ugliest parts of her nature that she doesn't want brought into the light but she's the one who exposes in her every act of trying to bully and try to hide the parts of herself she hates most.....

And honestly, Eric is the one hurt the worst by this. He's the one she's destroying by these choices of hers.

But I can't be anything good to him in this life with her behaving and feeling this way and INTENTIONALLY poisoning everything before he can even try to fix a damn thing. And I REFUSE to put him in the middle of it, ask him to reject his sister, or ask him to choose between us. I will choose for him that this is toxic and thus he and I coming together again after so long is not a magic he can have this life. I won't stay beyond expecting what I have paid for and asked to receive -- but beyond that I will sever him from me so he cannot find/reach me again this life and I will pursue another path this life for me to live always surrounded by love so any seeking me may find me and I can live as long a a life as possible meeting these conditions I set for this my reward life between battles. And I will leave his sister and him and the band to PRECISELY the karmic fate that they earn for themselves and never think on them again. He will find me in a future life, when he has learned his proper lessons and the timing is right -- and until then I will love him but know it is impossible for me to be in his life due to his choices and I will find every bit of joy and fight every battle in the name of truth and justice I find along the way.

And both he and she will have to live with the knowledge of how/why this happened. And they can face it or not face it as they want. But nothing can change the facts of the choices she has made and the bullying behavior he (and everyone else in the band) have allowed and condoned from her.

Yeah. Dave is definitively NOT dating Diana and hasn't been for a solid 4-5 months months -- as everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) felt the need to tell me over the weekend. Nobody would tell me how it happened,  but even people who didn't have any idea seemed to think I knew or I'm part of it...  Even when there was completely no context for telling it to me, EVERYONE just sort of felt the need to be certain I knew....

My opinion still stands: his relationships past,  present,  or future are none of my fucking business unless/until Dave makes them my business - I just hope for his sake that his choices always bring him the happiness,  healing,  and lessons he needs.

He's also VERY clear right now about what he wants, and not willing to let himself be distracted again. (He is intensely relieved,  grateful,  and overjoyed that his rebound turned into an impossible to leave trap didn't lose him what he wanted.  And he's lucky it didn't - if not for Britt's constant sabotage and burning all his bridges,  Eric would have had nothing in his way once the country music causing me pain had been dealt with.  Dave ONLY has his current opportunities due to Britt sabotaging everything Eric or the band as a whole has done for the last year and a half and continues to do without fixing what the girls broke.) For Dave at this point,  there is no other answer to his seeking except to love and be loved by me.  He wants and needs that and he recognizes there is no substitute or alternative for him he knows of at this time.   He just wants to make sure he gets it right, so he wants to make sure he's done his own inner work so he won't be the one who fucks it up. And he feels like he's looking for certainty I'm certain, that I'm willing to trust him. And he also seems like...he knows he's impatient but that he has the time to be patient enough to be sure he gets it right.

And he's done a LOT of inner work. He has more than earned his place in my heart and if he asks for it, his place in my life.  I do have karmic bonds to him too, not as old as some of my other karmic bonds, like what ties me to Eric,  but still there are karmic bonds there that are quite strong.

As for Eric... I dunno... I can't really hear him on the inner bond right now. Maybe I'm just not wanting to tune in to listen to him because all it will do is hurt at this time and it wont get us any closer to healing or bring us anything good at this point unless he drastically alters his way of dealing with things and confronts what is truly poisoning everything for him. But what I hear, he's hurt, demoralized, didn't expect to end up so far behind no matter what he tries to create for the band - that's despite me having been warning him for over a year that the mess of his sister's making was only going to get worse til it destroyed any chances he had if he didn't deal with it. And so he's kind of giving up trying, though not giving up wanting, and thinking that he can "other fish in the sea" approach it via dating apps and trawling bars. Which to me means he doesn't really want ME, he currently just wants someone (anyone) to stop him from hurting and feeling so empty hollow inside. It won't fix the hole in him, but he might find someone he likes well enough to pretend with for a time. He might even find someone longer term than that if I can figure out how to successfully put the bond to sleep for this life.

At this time, Dave and his band have done everything right within their power to listen to me and foster a truly loving caring environment and build an honest authentic relationship. And it's darling, they do nothing but make my heart shine and make me transcendentally glowingly happy about seeing them or seeing anything to do with them.

Eric and his band have spent years doing the exact opposite, and even now trying to build something that's genuine they still are approaching it the same way they did then and still expect the same unthinking slavish sycophancy they desired before when they were selling out everything they ever stood for and they're doing nothing to make right the bridges Britt deliberately burned trying to defend that selling out. They would do it over again in a heartbeat if they thought country radio would take them and get them famous. There's nothing genuine whatsoever in any way that Jessie and Britt are handling the diehards just to pimp numbers not foster a community, it's not organic -- it's false and contrived and manipulative (like everything Jessie does or touches) and I don't see a way for it to thrive without something genuine at the core of it.

I don't feel any joy when I see anything from Eric or from his band anymore, I cringe like I expect there's at least a 50:50 chance I'm going to be smacked where I look for something good from him and it makes me hesitant to even open it -- because that's what the behavior of the girls has taught me to expect any time I see anything from them now. And that's not a healthy response. That's a trauma response. And that's reason enough for me not to wait to give The Light the chance I promised myself I'd give it. (and that I deep down genuinely believe it deserves in its own right.)  I still will, but deep down I know that I really shouldn't and I should just let go walk away due to everything that has been done in the band's name these last years. It's not what I want to be, but that's a brutally honest assessment of the result of Britt's behaviors over the last several years and the damage it's done. None of which has even been acknowledged, let alone any attempts to purge or heal it.

And in contrast, everything in my response to Dave and We Banjo 3 IS healthy, it is bright and shining and joyous and full of light and love.  I just want to snuggle up into him and everything the band has grown to stand for like they're a cozy fire and they make me feel warm and safe and loved and right where I should be when I'm with him and surrounded by his band brothers (one of which is his actual brother.)

And that's an honest assessment of my current inner state. If you asked me to pick right now today, I wouldn't hesitate even a moment before choosing Dave.

I'm pretty close internally to the point of acceptance of letting go of Eric this life, and most of that is because his sister IS his sister and there's no getting around that and she's the one who has literally destroyed everything and is actively getting in the way of any chance of healing it or making it right. And I'm not going to put him in the middle of that or ask him to choose or anything like that. I'll just let him go until another lifetime when she's no part of the equation.

And I've been quite close to the acceptance of that as the best possible outcome I can manage for everyone in light of her choices over the last 15 months.

And I've also made up my mind that if I can't have Eric, then I'm not going to turn down Dave if/when he finds the courage he needs to ask me. And once he does, I will find a way to put to sleep or shut out the bond completely so I can give Dave a real chance.

And I'll be seeing Dave again in under 24 hours. And right now, it's all I can do NOT to unfollow Eric and be done with him every time I see the notification up that there's a story he JUST posted tonight that I can't watch -- meaning it's another one from the band account and he's actively taking part in the bullying via ostracism system created on the band account. And I'm just done with those games. Him playing them once again, and tonight, makes me want to wash my hands be done with him for this life.....

I'm going to focus on working now, and then I'll be driving to Cincinnati.... But if it's still showing up like that once I get there, I make no promises I won't decide in a fit of pique, "Fuck this. I'm done with all of your stupid power games and bullying." and just unfollow Eric. My patience is worn so thin by nearly 15 months of this bullying bullshit from Brittany on the official Delta Rae instagram account and the rippling effect of bullying it has created on the boys' accounts whenever they share anything from the band account that I'm near ready to snap and just be done with them all over this.

And don't expect anything from me to discourage Dave if he's made up his mind about me. (And he's made it very clear he's made up his mind about me. if only he can get his anxiety under control when he sees me....)

Also. I'm really REALLY excited for 2 We Banjo 3 shows the next two nights!!! And tea shopping! And book shopping with Erin & Rebecca (friends I know because of the band) in a 32 room bookstore in Columbus!!!!!

Today Eric is sad. Deeply,  intensely sad. It started last night,  but was very strong this morning    Whatever that state he was in of defeatist acceptance,  it cracked and fell like dried mud. And now in my inner stillness, what I hear in him is that deep sorrow in him.

And I can't blame him for being sad....  I can't....

Because.....

He's finally free to do what he wants and loves for his career and make art with the people he is closest to in the entire world and they can finally make beautiful thing they are passionate about and they're free to make it fearlessly with nobody telling them what they can/can't do.  And he wants that so much and it's so exciting and he's so proud and impatient to share it with everyone he loves.....

And yet.  One of the people he wants to share it with the most and who he KNOWS would love it if he could only reach her with it won't give him that chance because his own sister betrayed him and fucked everything up because she got defensive,  proud,  hurt,  and scared that she'd found someone who refused to follow her lead or do what she told them to do.  And because his sister is too proud to ever admit she did wrong,  he allowed her to manipulate him and convince him that if he just ignored the mess she made and focused on the excitement and joy of creating whatever they wanted,  the girl would come around because she couldn't stay mad at him. And he listened to her and it REALLY fucked everything up even worse by him not only condoning by his silence but ACTIVELY taking part in the bullying system she created that makes hypocrites of the band he built and loves, her actions selling out EVERYTHING they as a band and everyone in it as individuals ever claimed they stood for her.

And STILL his sister won't admit that she was wrong or do the only thing that will fix the mess SHE created by her choosing to axt out of a place of cruelty,  spite,  malice,  abd pride. And her pride won't even allow her to let anyone ELSE in the band fix it because to do so they need to start by acknowledging that Britt did wrong and fucked up.  And she won't let that be done.

And yet.  She's his sister,  she's been in his life almost his entire life,  and as much as she angers and frustrates him and he KNOWS she is to blame for this mess,  still he loves her. Because she's his sister.

Meanwhile,  the woman who he loves and has shared dream space with since he was born and can hear in his inner space via the bond between them and who he has at least fragmentary memories of their past lives together abd who he spent 23+ years of emo sorrow despairing he'd never find her in real life so she'd only be his in memories and dreams is the one his sister has spent the last 15 months treating like absolute shit and bullying at EVERY opportunity under the mistaken belief she can force this woman to obey what she wants.  (she won't.  I'm far more stubborn than Britt.  Especially on anything to do with ethical lines of right and wrong.)

And Eric has had to deal with 6 months of this woman deciding that she would push him out so he couldn't even reach her or hear her via the bond because she refused to have him stuck in the middle being used in his sister's power tripping head games - the woman would rather give him up than put him in the middle,  ask him to choose,  or allow herself to be used by ANYONE as a mean of hurting or controlling him.  Then he FINALLY breaks through reaches the woman via the bond (okay,  Eric probably IS more stubborn than me) and then he's FINALLY able to announce that he has found a way to solve the actual original problem of "the country thing causes me physical pain sue to my synesthesia and I'm done of trying to hang on despite the pain to me  for the sake of who this band used to be and how much I have loved them - I will attend no further shows so long as the country radio scene is any part of this."

And it was solved and the woman came back to him and there was that same joy and love dazzlingly bright and for 8 shows and 2 months he had it and thought he could really keep it.

Only then,  his sister AGAIN convinced him,  "see the girl loves you,  she can't be mad if YOU do the bullying" right at the very end of the kickstarter.  And his sister ignored the proffered olive branch of saying,  "somebody did this while you were on Big Machine,  but I can't say for certain who" and instead decided to gaslight and ignore the warnings that this action would be an act of INTENTIONAL cruelty and bullying and Eric taking active part in Britt's system of ostracism that Britt created in the band's name and defensively refused to acknowledge or fix. Abd not only did she (and Eric and evetyone else in the band)  refuse to even acknowledge being told,  "this happened and if you go live without fixing it,  it will be unfair and intentionally cruel ostracism" but EVERY member of the band stood by silent when other fans decided to victim blame and actively attack the woman for daring to say that someone representing the band had done this wrong.

And he trusted his sister and listened to her and as a result all but lost the woman he loved across LIFETIMES and had spent his entire life trying to find.  To the extent that when the woman showed up to the shows she'd bought tickets to while excited and trying to trust he really had fixed things, he realized that the music (even songs he KNEW she loved and had always loved) couldn't reach her (just as she warned him would be the result if he took ANY active role in the bullying his sister had created) and she refused to even look at him. And then the next day,  somehow,  his older brother reached the woman and she listened to him to at least LOOK at Eric and he felt and saw her thaw and crack and her love for him still shining in her once sge allowed herself to give him that chance.  And then he had it almost the entire next night - until his sister intentionally and cruelly broke it by insisting "find us on Instagram" (where she had blocked the womand and still had her blocked) and brought up once more the wall of EVERYTHING that his sister's pride and cruelty had created and spent over a year defending.  And as soon as Britt said it and Britt's cruelty brought back that wall her pride an defensive had created,  the music no longer could reach the woman nor would she again so much as look at Eric or let him reach her via the bond that night.

And now,  all he wants is that sparkling joy and love and wonder and to be proud and see her pride and delight in what he's made and making.  And his sister,  who he loves,  keeps telling him to trust her that if they create something wonderful enough he can win back that woman.  (This is another one of Britt's lies trying to manipulate him. He can't reach the woman without first acknowledging and fixing the mess that Britg made and the divide that her pride created so no music and nothing from the band can impress or reach the heart of the woman so long as the band stands behind the cruelty,  bullying,  and use of ostracism in the name of the band and as what the band ACTUALLY stands for regardless what they have claimed to stand for.) And the woman says she loves him still as bright as ever BUT nothing his band or he does for/with the band can reach her so long as the band is officially allowing its accounts to be a vehicle of intentional cruelty and bullying AND she wants him to be happy so she's going to let him go to do what he loves has chosen for his life/career. She's gping to remove herself from the picture so nothing his sister does in her power tripping can make things worse,  try to put the bond to sleep so the woman won't be a source of pain to him,  and that she would give up on the dream they both wanted so desperately of FINALLY bringing their lives together after so many lifetimes separated so he could have as much happiness as possible from the choices he made for his life.

And ALL of this hurt,  past and present and future,  is created by his sister responding to being told,  "when you do this it causes me pain so I won't put myself in situations to be hurt anymore" by cruelty instead of empathy and defensive pride refusing to admit she had done wrong and was causing hurt so sge chose bullying and ostracism and gaslighting as how to deal with it.

And ALL of this unnecessary pain and sorrow his sister created for him and the woman,  can start to be healed and a brighter future path chosen by just acknowledging the wrong that his sister did and fixing the problem so that the band account is no longer a vehicle for acts of cruelty,  bullying,  ostracism, injustice,  and inequality.

But she won't do it,  she's too proud to allow it.  She'd rather destroy her brother's joy for the rest of his life than admit she was wrong and has been behaving as a power tripping bully. Instead she's lying to herself and to him that if they just make something wonderful,  the woman will love it and thus them again.  And deep down he knows it's a lie,  but he'd rather believe the lie and lose the woman who he loves and who loves him than have the confrontation with his sister to force the real problem poisoning everything to be fixed.

So yeah,  I understand why his sorrow is as intense and deep as it is.  Especially after me acknowledging how much I love him and have always loved him and will always love him - but that this wrong of his sister's creation and everyone else's enabling in their silent complicity means nothing he creates with the band can reach me and I'm going to give him up this life so he can be as happy as possible with the band he loves but I can no longer love or respect due to the band's refusal to acknowledge or fix this fuckup and bullying that Britt created.

I mean,  if it were me,  I'd be angry.  But it's not my sister who did this, and I don't love her. And rather than hurt his sister's ego by making her swallow her pride to face the truth of what she has done,  he's buying into her manipulative lie as it offers false hope and an action HE can do AND keeps him too busy and too exhausted to feel anything deeply. And under that is the deep sorrow that will never heal in this life is how he feels, because he knows he's going to lose that woman he loves despite lifetimes of fighting his way back to the hope of a chance to have her in his life. A sorrow made worse,  not better,  by realizing how brightly the woman's love for him shines in her across every lifetime ever,  no matter what choices may keep them apart in any individual life.  At least,  that's what he feels when he lets himself stop being busy long enough to feel anything at all beyond defeated desperation and a dogged determined focus to finish whatever task he currently has in front of him.

So I can't blame him for the depth and intensity of his sorrow inside him.  All I can do is not leave him alone with it at this time and try not to let me drown in it because this isn't something I can make right for him,  it's not my choices that have broken it to a point it's almost (but not quite) beyond repairing in this life.

Eric isn't happy.  He was,  a week or so ago.  He was the sort of incandescent soul happy that dazzles you with the brightness of it.  And he's not anymore, his spark of joy has dimmed and gone out like a candle when the wick burns down to nothing.....

He's also not sad.  His sad gets fathomless, and when it's strong it feels like it will drown me in it and I can't breathe.  His sorrow is like jumping in deep water you can't measure and sinking and sinking, hoping you'll eventually touch bottom so you can kick back up to the surface before you run out of air. And this isn't that....

This is....  Resigned. Scared, but the sort of scared like a kid who did wrong they feel bad about, knowing they deserve whatever consequences are meted out. Penitent.  Defeated. Hollow. It's like these things. None of those is quite the word I want, but getting close.

I don't know exactly why,  I just know is....

And he hasn't been reaching for me on the bond recently....  Not because his love isn't there but because.... It's like....  He's scared of  what it would do to him to not feel the rush of returned love, but he doesn't feel he deserves that love if he were to receive it. He still wants it,  quite desperately, but he's very afraid if he reaches for my love he won't feel it reaching back to him because he doesn't feel he deserves it.

Silly boy.  Love isn't created or destroyed based on deserving it - love is just....  The joy and wonder and delight that something IS,  that it exists.  The only way you destroy love is by destroying/negating that isness, or by realizing it never existed outside your imagined belief in it (and even then,  you'll still love the IDEA of that isness existing,  you'll just feel sad/hurt/betrayed from your mistaken belief it resided somewhere it didn't.)  And souls don't get mistaken about isness,  only lust/desire blinding you to reality leads to mistakes about isness.  Never soul meeting soul.

My soul has no more idea how not to react with joy and delight and light that his soul IS than it knows how to deny its own esse.

Of all the things for him to worry about, that's not one of them.  I may have to come to terms with hard truths about the circumstances of any given life and/or the consequences of choices from lessons someone refuses to learn, but that will never quench or dim my love and delight that he IS.  It just means that for the time,  I need to let him go,  no matter the pain in that, so he (or I) can find the way back to our clearest brightest burning truths and by doing so find our souls way back to the place where we can both feel the intensity of joy in the other EXISTING and being lucky/good enough to get to have that goodness coexist.

I don't ever let him go out of my lives because of a dimming of my love that his soul IS. I let him go so whichever of us has fallen away from the best and brightest in us can follow the soul's karmic path back to our own truth.  Because we can't hurt each other when we're true to our own soul's esse,  we only can hurt each other when we fall away from our truths.  And only by coming back to the brightest best expression of our soul's truth, the isness that is the source of love and joy and wonder that that isness EXISTS,  do we heal those hurts in each other.

But as long as that esse that defines him IS,  there could never be a time his soul could reach for me without hearing back from my soul all my delight and wonder he IS.  nothing else,  in any lifetime, can get in the way of that - they're all just choices and lessons we need to take us further from or closest to the clearest brightest isness of the soul.

And yes.  I was wrong all these centuries to doubt and start thinking he'd ceased wanting me or loving my soul for existing just because our life paths weren't crossing. His soul could no more fall out of that joy/delight my soul IS than mine can stop delighting that his soul IS.

It doesn't fix mistakes that have been made or choices that are being allowed to come between us this life. Only our choices to actively do better and to put in the hard work of healing to grow new trust can do that.

We can make ourselves as miserable as we want in choices that require temporary separation across however long the lesson(s) take. Or we can make ourselves as deliriously happy as we want to be if we both commit ourselves to choices that bring us back to our truest selves and thus back to each other.  And if we get damn lucky, we can get the timing right to both be making choices in our lessons to bring us together...

But still it helps to know that the love itself that forged the bond between our souls,  that it will always exist so long as each of our souls exists because it is created solely of that joy in knowing the other soul exists.

And that's not something anyone can take from us. No deliberate malice or accidental ignorance of any other soul can take that bright shining soul to soul love from us.   They can get in the way, like storms blocking out the sun or being made captive in a room with no windows, but they cannot ever destroy or take away that light.  It's like that.  That's how a love shines that's born from the soul's joy/wonder another soul IS. The things in between can't destroy it or touch it, they just get in the way of you receiving it for the time they stand between.

Of all the things for him to fear, in any life, he never needs to fear losing my love not feeling it shine from my soul back at him if he reaches me with his love.

And knowing/remembering that truth about it...  That's also a bit of a miracle of light and joy and wonder that it's true. Y'know? Like holding in your hand a bit of starlight turned to crystal, so it can't burn you, that will light you through the dark parts back to the brighter light of that love itself.

Book List

I haven't done one of these in a really long while. Not since setting to private my old blog and then restarting a new one under this name at the same location.

I started this list back in late October or early November at some point. I don't remember when exactly.... yes, I have bought a ridiculous amount of books, and not read as many as I'd like to have read in the interim. I've only read some 40 or 50 over the last couple months...

I've been unhappy and stressed and book shopping makes me happy for all the new books I'll have on hand. O I know I absolutely already own more books than I can likely read in my lifetime -- even with how fast and voraciously I read. I am very much a follower of tsundoku. Some of it is that I have incredibly eclectic tastes and so I buy things I know I'll want to read in the right mod even if that mood is not right NOW.  It gives me something in hand to look forward to after a spate of mediocre or downright shitty books.  But it's also because there's something I find comforting about buying new books. It's like a promise to myself, a promise of hope that i shall live long enough to ever run out of books I own.  As a soul that is already older than in most of my lives in recent centuries because I have died young for so many of my recent lives, that's a big promise and a big hope to imagine I could ever live long enough to read all the books I own (and I'm a re-reader, books I love I go back to reread, lol) in this lifetime, y'know?

 So anyway. Mikaela and I have been book shopping a lot lately. We've both spent too much and bought too many books -- but the 14 year old and I are both incredibly happy for our new acquisitions!!!


Books Acquired:
~Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
~The Alexiad of Anna Comnena
~Jean Anouilh, Antigone
~Piers Anthony, The Dastard
~Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch
~A.A. Attanasio, Kingdom of the Grail
~Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars
~ Pat Barker,  The Silence of the Girls
~J. M.  Barrie, The Admirable Crichton
~Robert Beatty, Serafina & The Twisted Staff
~Robert Beatty, Serafina and the Splintered Heart
~George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowldge & Three Dialogues
~Mikhail Bulgarov, The Master & Margarita
~Willa Cather, A Lost Lady
~Rin Chupeco, The Never Tilting World
~Cassandra Clare, Queen of Air & Darkness
~Cassandra Clare, Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy
~Genevieve Cogman, The Invisible Library
~Genevieve Cogman, Masked City
~Genevieve Cogman, The Burning Page
~Genevieve Cogman, The Lost Plot
~Genevieve Cogman, The Mortal Word
~Laurence Cossé, A Novel Bookstore
~Alison Croggon, The Singing
~Julie E. Czerneda, Riders of the Storm
~Roald Dahl, Lamb to the Slaughter
~Roald Dahl, Over to Ya
~Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (ed.), Snow White, Blood Red
 ~Lope de Vega, Three Major Plays
~Philip K. Dick, Minority Report
~Philip K. Dick, UBIK
~Charles Dickens, A House to Let
~Chitra Banerjee Divakarumi, The Mistress of Spices
~David & Leigh Eddings, The Redemption of Althalus
~Michael Farquhar, Secret Lives of the Tsars
~Raymond E. Feist, Shadow of a Dark Queen
~Raymond E. Feist, Rage of a Demon King
~Flametree (pub), African Myths & Tales
~Flametree (pub), Agents & Spies Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Alien Invasion Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), American Gothic Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Bram Stoker Horror Stories
~Flametree (pub), Celtic Myths & Tales
~Flametree (pub), Cosy Crime Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Dystopia Utopia
~Flametree (pub), Edgar Allan Poe Collection
~Flametree (pub), Endless Apocalypse Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Greek Myths & Tales
~Flametree (pub), H.G. Wells Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Haunted House Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Heroic Fantasy Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Murder Mayhem Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Norse Myths & Tales
~Flametree (pub), Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Robots & Artificial Intelligence Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Short Stories from the Age of Queen Victoria
~Flametree (pub), Sword & Steam Short Stories
~Flametree (pub), Tales of King Arthur & The knights of the Round Table
~Flametree (pub), Time Travel Short Stories
~Neil Gaiman, M Is For Magic
~Ben Galley, The Written
~Ghost Stories (Scholastic Books)
~Gilbert & Sullivan, Complete Plays
~Alison Goodman, Eon
~Alison Goodman, Eona
~Phyllis Graden (ed.), The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories
~Euripedes IV (Greenblatt translation)
~Lisa Halliday, Asymmetry
 ~Katherine Howe, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
~Nancy Hathaway, The Unicorn
~Alexander Holt, Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions
~Robert Hutchinson, House of Treason: The Rise & Fall of a Tudor Dynasty
~Eugène Ionesco,  Exit the King, The Killer, Macbett
~Jake Jackson (ed), Myths of Babylon
~Henry James, The Lesson of the Master
~Japanese No Dramas
~Najla Jraissaty Khoury, Pearls on a String
~Amy Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings
~Stephen King, The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
~Stephen King, The Dark Towaer II: The Drawing of the Three
~Stephen King, The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
~Stephen King, The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
~Stephen King, Four Past Midnight
~Marie Kohler, A Girl of the Limberlost (play version)
~Glenda Larke, The Last Stormlord
~Glenda Larke, Stormlord Rising
~Glenda Larke, Stormlord's Exile
~Lang Leav, Love Looks Pretty On You
~Lang Leav, Poemsia

~Anne Leckie, The Raven Tower
~Charles Leland, The Book of One Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria
~Gaston Leroux, Le Phantome de l'Opéra
~Gail Carson Levine, Ogre Enchanted
~Lives of the Later Caesars
~T. Y. Luo (ed.), The Lady in the Picture and Other Folktales From China
~Juliet Marillier, Dreamer's Pool
~Juliet Marillier, Tower of Thorns
~Melissa Marr, Wicked Lovely
~Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange
~Melissa Marr, Fragile Eternity
~John & Caitlin Matthews, The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures
~Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered America
~W.S. Merwin, The Shadow of Sirius
~Michelle Moran, The Heretic Queen
~Kate Morton,  The Clockmaker's Daughter
~Haruki Murakami, After the Quake
~Haruki Murakami, Killing Comendatorre
~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
~Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
~Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
~Garth Nix, Goldenhand
~Garth Nix, Mister Monday
~Garth Nix, Grim Tuesday
~Garth Nix, Drowned Wednesday
~Garth Nix, Sir Thursday
~Garth Nix, Lady Friday
~Garth Nix, Superior Saturday
~Garth Nix, Lord Sunday
~Joyce Carol Oates, BEASTS
~Lauren Oliver, Delirium
~Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium
~Lauren Oliver, Requiem
~Edith Pattou, West
~Christopher Paolini, The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm
~Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
~Sarah Perry, Melmoth
~Tamora Pierce, Tempests and Slaughter
~Frederik Pohl, Gateway
~Michael Poore, Reincarnation Blues
~Tom Reiss, The Black Count
~Mary Renault, The Praise Singer
~Ransom Riggs, A Map of Days
~Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems
~Veronica Roth, The Fates Divide
~Salman Rushdie, The Golden House
~Michael Scott, The Sorceress
~Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
~Anne Serre, The Fool
~Joan Silber, Ideas of Heaven
~Neil Simon, The Collected Plays of Neil Simon Volume 4
~Clark Ashton Smith, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies
~L.J. Smith, Night Visions
~L.J. Smith, Nightworlds No. 1
~L.J. Smith, Nightworlds, No. 2
~Zadie Smith, White Teeth
~Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
~Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing
~Iain S.  Thomas, Every Word You Cannot Say
~Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus
~C. M. Waggoner, Unnatural Magic
~David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
~Brent Weeks, Night Angel: The Complete Trilogy
~Laura Ingalls Wilder & William Anderson (ed.), The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder
~Tad Williams, Dragonbone Chair
~Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell
~Najwa Zebian, Sparks of Phoenix






Books Read:
~Frank Beddor,  The Looking Glass Wars
~W. B. Yeats,  A Poet to His Beloved
~Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities
~Hannah Arendt,  Eichmann in Jerusalem (re-read)

~Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
~Henrik Ibsen, A Dolls House (re-read)

~Lucas Hnath,  A Doll's House Part 2
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth (re-read)
~Sun Tzu,  The Art of War (Sadler translation) (re-read)
~Lauren Gunderson,  The Book of Will
~Sue Coleman, The Return of the Raven
~Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (re-read)
~Erika Johansen, The Queen of the Tearling
~Erika Johansen, The Invasion of the Tearling
~Erika Johansen, The Fate of the Tearling
~John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (the play,  not the book, I've read the novella several times - always makes me cry over the dang puppy) (re-read)
~Mervyn Jones,  Twilight of the Day
~E.  Nesbit The Railway Children
~Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales
~Edna St.  Vincent Millay,  Collected Sonnets
~E.  Nesbit,  The Treasure Seekers
~E.  Nesbit,  The Wouldbegoods
~Anton Chekhov,  Three Sisters (re-read)
~Sima Rangju,  The Precepts of War (Sadler translation)
~George Bernard Shaw,  My Dear Dorothea
~Arthur Miller,  Death of a Salesman (re-read)
~August Wilson,  Fences
~Gillian Flynn,  Gone Girl
~Neil Gaiman,  Anansi Boys
~Wu Zi,  On The Art Of War (Sadler translation)
~Tennessee Williams, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
~I never saw another butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp,  1942-1944
~Le Roman de Renart
~George Bernard Shaw,  The Man of Destiny
~Can You Guess My Name?  Traditional Tales Around The World
~Katherine Arden,  The Bear and The Nightingale
~Katherine Arden,  The Girl in the Tower
~Katherine Arden,  The Winter of the Witch
~Japanese Children's Favorite Stories
~Tom Stoppard,  Enter A Free Man
~Korean Childrens's Favorite Stories
~Isaac Asimov, Robot Visions (some of these short stories were re-reads, some new to me)
~Joyce Carol Oates, BEASTS
~Beowulf (re-read)

~Chinese Children's Favorite Stories

Some middle of the night thoughts:

1) Honestly,  more than anything else in the entire world,  I'd really just like to wrap my arms around Eric an hold him feeling his arms wrapped as tight as possible around me,  holding me against him so nothing can come between us.

2) His music and his band used to be a vehicle for him to find and reach me.  But honestly,  it hasn't been since the band decision to sign to Valory/Big Machine started causing issues due to the pain of the twangy vocalled country music on my color-timbre synestheia. (I genuinely dislike find painful EVERY single country cover they did to try and fit in that market and don't like the music of ANY country artist they covered.  It's all painfully bad to me.  And yes that includes Cam's song Diane. More than half of what they recorded and released on Big Machine is unlistenable to me and causes me pain.)  You'd think it'd be better now they're no longer signed there,  but the girls continued their defensiveness about the country music all throughout 2018 - starting with Liz blocking me on her personal page in May 2018, Briit on her personal page on Oct.  27, 2018, then Britt & Jessie in agreement on the band page on Oct.  28, 2018. All for me stating that due to my color-timbre synesthesia,  the country music caused me bad enough physical pain that it would stop me from attending Delta Rae shows in the future due to that physical pain from the country vocalists. As a result, of their choices, neither of the girls can ever hope for better than politely distant acquaintances from me while the boundaries THEY personally created and put in place stand but that doesn't bother me much as it's their personal choices on their own personal accounts. But doing that on the official band account....that's different. As a result of that choice to use the band account for bullying via ostracism, the band itself can do nothing creatively (as musicians or visual artists) to reach me at an emotional or aesthetic level. There is literally nothing that the band can do or create that will reach me or draw me in closer so long as ostracism for being honest is any part of the band's official behaviors on any official band account. I'm at a point that even music I have loved deeply for nearly a decade can no longer bring me joy as a result of this bullying via ostracism on the official band account.

3) I still desire to be with Eric,  same as I always have since long before the band existed.  The band is just not currently a means to reach me,  no matter what you create,  due to the bullying behaviors from the official band account. and that fact will not alter so long as the policy of ostracism as repayment for honesty is used on ANY official band account....

4) I still want Eric.  I just want nothing the band is offering as a result of how the girls behaved in 2018 on official band account(s) and that won't ever change without addressing and fixing the ostracism issues the girls created on the official band account(s).

5) Nothing he,  or anyone, creates for the band will reach me or make things better so long as ostracism is sanctioned by the band by ANY use of it on ANY official band account.

6) This cannot be countered or altered by anything except the removal and healing of damages caused by any/every use of ostracism on any official band account anywhere.

7) I still wish to wrap my arms and my love around Eric and feel his encircling me.  Nothing outside his choices and mine can ever alter that desire in me.  We may be unable to actualize it as a result of the choices his sister made in the name of the entire band,  but the desire is always there in me.

My heart hurts and my head aches - the levels of pain and terror coming from the burning of a continent are so loud and it takes so much energy to keep that screaming of souls quiet....  It's exhausting me,  even when I'm at home and everything I've done here that protects me from spiritual attack and muffles the noise of humans thinking/feeling. It's worse whenever I'm not home.  But even here I can't shut out those soul screams of so many dying and dying and dying in terror.  The animals and the trees, it's an unending wail of dying in pain and terror and the feel of burning alive is omnipresent even with all this fresh snow.  That screaming from their souls never ends and it's so much worse than any mass burnings/killings during this body's life....  Even at this distance,  it's deafening when I don't try to constantly shut it out.... And an energy drain on me to shut it out,  quiet it to a manageable volume.

Anyway.  That's just sort of a constant drain on me right now.  It saps joy from me as well as strength.  It's hard to be happy,  even about things that should delight you, when feeling so constantly so much pain and terror half the world away.

Also.  I realized last night,  I genuinely don't care about any of the new songs or tour or anything that Delta Rae (or the members of the band) create to promote the band.  On social media,  the only things I've liked related to the band or the release of The Light are things Eric shared and it's because I can hear his need for validation from me that I saw it and think he did good work.  For the band and anything they do though,  I can't feel anything anymore because I don't respect them as humans due to the acts of intentional relational bullying from their instagram account and the failure of anyone in the band to do anything to fix the injustice once they knew of it.  I'm the sort of person who loses the ability to enjoy art if the people who made it or are making it show they are cruel bullies of any variety. (this is why I actively have no desire to meet or even online interact with celebrities or artists. Touch of fame is lost on me.  Only who you are as an authentic human AND the caliber of the art itself matters to me for me to be able to appreciate what you create. But you have to have both to truly reach me, to claim any part of my heart and touch my soul.)

There's quite literally nothing Eric can create or do with the band at this point that will reach me emotionally without first fixing the issue of the band instagram account being a tool of bullying and ostracism. There's literally nothing he or anyone in the band can create for the band that will shift me out of my indifference tempered by active disgust at the bullying of ostracism from blocking fans from the band account for having been honest.  Nothing short of owning the wrongs of the past,  fixing them,  and actively striving not to have anything officially representing the band engaged in relational bullying will crack this to reach my heart again.  It doesn't matter how much I ought to love the art created or how intensely it should resonate with me and my aesthetics - if it's related to Delta Rae it simply can't/won't move me at this point so long as any official band account is engaged in any ethical injustice such as the bullying via ostracism that the band Instagram account is guilty of doing the last 14.5 months.

Me liking things he shares isn't about those things,  it's about me reassuring him that I still love him DESPITE all the bullying done in the band's name from their Instagram account and his part in being an active bully by his sharing anything to that account or from that account to his own account.

And that's not at all the same thing.

It's also why I said that I don't believe anything he's working on will succeed at healing the breach between us even though I've said I'll wait and observe it since that's where he's putting his energy and hope.  None of it can heal a damn thing or even reach me so long as it's coming from a band I can no longer respect on the human level due to the acts of intentional cruelty and bullying now associated with the band by the way their official band instagram account has been handled.

And he should be smart enough to know he's lying to himself thinking anything can make this better bring me back without first addressing the elephant in the room and fixing the wrongs his sister did....

I just wish I could help him realize that.  Because lying to yourself about reality isn't the same thing as hope - it's just going to make the pain worse when you do finally run into the brick wall of reality.  Especially if you could have done something about it to curb the getting worse not better if you'd only been honest with yourself....

Things that happened today (well yesterday now):

1) I definitely informed Dave this morning (publicly) that his cover of Achey Breaky Heart was NOT my favorite because country music twang gives me physical pain AND that the mullet is definitely NOT his best look (the mullet and the teasing about it in Crew being the reason for the cover choice) and that if he loved it that mattered most but I thought he could do better with his hair. Did he react by blocking me à la Britt for Delta Rae when being told that the country music at their shows was causing me enough pain not to attend further shows while it was any part of the band? No. He's a guy, not a petty tyrant who engages in female relational bullying. He laughed and told me he knew and had been trying to see how far he could push it before I was honest instead of polite and it was my own fault for telling him when he asked if he should cut it short or grow it out again that he should do what he wants with it because his hair looks good any way I've seen it.

Because not everyone is a defensive bully who treat their social media like a petty tyrant of their own small kingdom. And some musicians actually know how to treat fans who are willing to be honest with them.

2) Grandma was FINALLY discharged from Home Health Services today so I don't have to be over there all the time. She still has some very noticeable cognitive issues and I don't know how much longer it's RIGHT to let her live by herself not in a senior living situation...... But, she's healed up back enough to her normal self for me to feel comfortable enough not to be here on call constantly.

After Doug (her pt) left, she and I went to Craftsman for lunch of celebratory brisket sandwiches (and both got the orange rosemary chicken and wild rice soup.

3) After that I ran home to get a coupon I'd forgotten, and it happened to be right as maintenance was replacing the light above my stall in the garage. (it's no longer a flickery pink-purple fluorescent barely hanging onto life -- that was my fault, I got angry and it was already close to dying. It's been purply-pink since before Christmas.)  One of them was the maintenance guy I've talked to and joked with a lot for the last like 7 years or so and so he came up and knocked on my door to ask about the sign on the door on our floor and why the door was propped open. So I invited him in rather than talk in the hall and told him all about the incident(s) with Pamela over the dried mud from a shoe/boot she presumed was animal feces and her tirades about the place being unlivable and my assumption it was going from a house to condos that were once apartments she wasn't used to shared spaces etc. AND how I'd told both her and her husband that those were fire doors and legally they were supposed to be kept shut except while moving things in/out for safety.  So he took it down, said CMA maintenance official was that it was to be shut for fire safety and if they wanted it propped open or a sign put up, they needed to contact CMA maintenance properly.

I never did get around to sending that email, but I'm happier having told someone I have a good relationship with in person rather than having it in writing with people I don't know at all.

4) When I got to work, my new phone case was in (I FINALLY replaced my extraordinarily beat up old dreamcatcher one) and it makes me ridiculously happy!!!! it's teal with tree branches of lightly pink cherry blossoms on it! It's the one I almost ordered last time, lol.

5) I got angry that the snow was barely gonna miss us and we were going to get rain then maybe an inch of snow. Then most of Weds afternoon/night I slept through the shifting pressures of migraine inducing before these storms so my subconscious had the reins of, well, all my gifts....I woke up to winter storm watch/warning and ever increasing amounts of snow. Currently like freezing rain and up to 5" of snow for Friday night and then 6-11" of snow (with 40mph wind gusts) across Saturday afternoon/night. Whoops. Sorry not sorry -- I'm fucking fed up with so much of my winter not having fucking snow on the ground...... I intend to hermit at home and have a fire in the fireplace and read and clean and do laundry and cook something tasty and enjoy my winter wonderland ice storm I summoned.

6) tonight I told Miche & Jon that grandma was done with all her pt appointments, so I could do late February or not til April. Jon found me a ridiculous deal (via Madison even) so I now ahve my tickets to be in Seattle (well, Kirkland) from Feb. 18-Mar. 3. I don't yet know if I'm ACTUALLY going to Bellevue Bluegrass fest and/or Portland We Banjo 3 show with Nancy (she put me in her calendar for it, but that was back in Oct and we haven't talked since -- I need to double check with her) but I will be right out there while they're playing out there. Soooooo.... yeah.....

I'll be home for Valentine's Day (though all my plans are symphony with my 2 symphony friends I buy season tickets with) but if you were hoping to have me during  end of February for any reason, you'll have to come to Seattle area AND convince my very stubborn and adores me 4 year old Scorpio nephew (and 1.5 year old Leo niece) that you have a good right to borrow me during the short time they get Aunt Dani.It's doable. But you'll have to be very convincing. Maybe teach him how to play guitar or something. (He's FASCINATED by guitars has wanted to learn for a year or two now -- but not a metal guitar, a REAL guitar, a wooden guitar.)

Also. I don't intend to have a car at my disposal.

7) I read the Joyce Carol Oates book BEASTS tonight. It was the ickiest creeps under the skin makes you feel like scrubbing your soul book I've read since reading Chuck Pahlaniuk's Haunted. But I loved the ending.  But ugh. eww.

Also. It obviously goes without saying, just because I believe a situation seems insoluble (at least with what I have to work with from my resources) and that nothing will change until a person CHOOSES to change and learn the lessons they're refusing to learn and until then I need to let them go down the paths they choose even when the letting go is hard on me...... Well, it doesn't mean I'm right. Especially if I'm missing crucial information or failed to notice a change in a person's choices, the lessons they've learned and been tested on and are working to learn thoroughly enough to move forward.

I'm an old soul with very strong unbending ethical lines around issues of justice/truth and a lot of psychic/spiritual/magic gifts and ancient powerful deities as friends/guardians -- but that doesn't make me infallible. Especially when I have good logic built on a bad premise. I get real shit conclusions when that happens. And you have every right to fight me and tell me I'm wrong and show me where I went wrong and why there are better options I need to consider or new data for me to tweak things. Also, you can just tell me straight out, "Naw bitch, you fucking this up!" and then make me see how/why there's a better answer.  If you've got evidence or a better answer or you're just fucking stubborn enough, you may even change my mind.

It also goes without saying that at the theater I got teased mercilessly by Crissy and Sabra while Karissa just laughed about me flirting with the high school boy at concessions who kept getting flustered messing up my order more than once forgot to ring in my red icee and took just as long getting me popcorn and an Icee as all three of them to sign up for Magic Movie Rewards AND get their popcorn and soda cups from someone else.  It was actually quite entertaining how distracted and flustered he was... I probably deserved their teasing. Finally I stamped my foot said, "But I wasn't flirting!! I was just asking. Nicely, but just asking. It wasn't me that was flirting -- it was my boobs." They all looked down at them, looked up at my face, looked down at them again and finally Crissy said, "I mean, they are ridiculous." Sabra, 'Bit Jessica Rabbit on you." and Karissa, "Can you imagine if we corset trained her?"

At which point I just gave a heavy sigh , turned on my heel and stalked off down the hallway to the theater -- at which all three of them started laughing REALLY hard.

I don't mean to flirt. I'm just nice with really big eyes and ridiculously distracting boobs. Because 28G is an actual bra size. Can't get cute bras in it, and I have to spend a LOT of money on ordering them from EU/UK -- but it's actually a size......