There's a baby grand piano in the outer seating area of the radiology department of UW hospital,  and I'm sitting right next to it while waiting for grandma's MRI. I really wish someone were playing it.  That said, at least I'm starting a Haruki Murakami novel I've not yet read as my purse book! (Killing Commendatore; written in 2017, translated into English from the Japanese in 2018.) Murakami is my absolute favorite contemporary magical realism philosophical author - his imagery is so evocative, the phrasing so beautifully rendered into English,  and his uncanny surrealist realism is so delightful!  I save books by authors I love for specific times - you can reread a book as many times as you want,  but you only get the joy of discovery of the first time reading it once! 

"I sat back down on the sofa,  ready to draw a picture of the man with no face.  But I had no idea where to begin, or how to get started.  There was only a void, and how are you supposed to give form to something that does not exist? " (p.  4)

"It all seemed like a short dream.  But I knew very well that it wasn't. If this was a dream,  then the world I'm living in itself must all be a dream." (p.  5)

Now if I had piano music to go with my Murakami,  it would be perfection! Especially if I had piano music with my Murakami first read AND this weren't a hospital during a pandemic with a highly infectious variant mutation with a high breakthrough rate even among the vaccinated, so my blueberry green tea waiting for me in the car could be in my hand to be sipped while reading!

 ~Mom had them come in to (re) steam clean the carpets at MCW as they did not do a good enough job before.  I like that they also have a found turkey feather on the dash of their van, but last time it took 8.5 days of airing out til the fumes stopped giving me instant migraines and pre-syncope "everything fades to black" dizziness spells...  Soooo I may not be able to get all my hours in this week or even next because she didn't tell me until today.  I also needed to water all my indoor plants tonight,  but clearly that didn't happen either....  I warned her that because of her choice in timing to schedule it,  I may not even be able to get to the end of month deposit til next weekend based on my past reaction to the chemicals of this cleaning service.  On verra. But tonight I came home just as they were starting and exposure to the chemicals caused me to pass out go to be at like 6pm without dinner (woke up for sunset then went back to sleep) so here I am wide awake again during the witching hour. Gonna make some tea then light some candles to keep me and my fur baby familiars company while I read til breakfast o'clock. 

~my Uncle Steve has not responded in any way to me (or anyone else) thus far.  My mum is now joking about how when you need to tell someone something difficult to swallow hard truths the best way to say it is to "say it with eggplant."  I also saw this meme on a snarky witchy facebook group today: 

it made me laugh so hard! but when I double checked with Crissy,  she said that hilarious as it is it was far too soon to share to facebook given I'm fb friends with so many family members who would take it personally. She's right,  which is why I asked her instead of just sharing it.  But it is objectively funny because it's true for a "kill them with kindness" Libra sun/Mercury with a Cap moon like me.  😂 

~I'm actually really happy about Randall Cobb coming home.  I never liked the timing or way he was released (very few Sconnies approved of it) and I think he'll be a brilliant mentor relation with Amari Rodgers even if Cobb gets injured can't play many games.  Also, Packers have a tradition of letting beloved players who did well by us for long years come home to retire a Packer.  Which is important and however many seasons Cobb has, I do hope he gets to retire on the Pack.  💚💛 I've heard bringing Cobb back was a part of Aaron Rodger's most recent diva fits and Adams agreeing to sit out talks if this fell through clinched it. while it doesn't make the way that was handled okay,  if its true then A-Rod regains some of my respect he lost this off-season.  I'm also pretty fucking excited David Bakhtiari's younger brother is announced as signed - they'll be trouble teaming up together,  but good trouble on the field. And at Bucks games chugging beers with papa bear Bakhti 😂

~it was decided that since APT opened up 4 packs for Rough Crossing for Aug 4 (a Weds)  with available seats still and weeknight tickets are cheaper than weekend evenings and Sarah (w Mikaela)  is headed north to a time share to visit her mom on Sat morning,  the 8 of us are going on the 4th instead.  (Denis is coming along to use the 8th ticket.) So next Weds,  not next Fri, is when I'm headed back for another play in the woods! 

~I keep getting random intense waves of longing and deep sorrow down the bond from Eric.... They just hit me suddenly out of nowhere,  especially at night. Which I'll admit doesn't make much sense to me as his band has upcoming shows for the ego boost addictive high of the mindless worship from fans of performing onstage again and logic says he should be busy with rehearsal for the last day or so after so long not touring.... So he should be self distracted from over-thinking/over-feeling and objectively doing well emotionally since he's anticipating being able to get his chosen form of dopamine high doing the things he's chosen to build this life around as his foundational center.  And yet, still there's those intense waves of sorrow and longing down the bond.   And then when I hear/feel that from him, all I want to do is hug him and reassure him that it'll all come out right in the end for him to have whatever he chooses for his own happiness this life - that it's only so fucked up because we're in the middle not the end - and I have faith in that optimism because I have faith in the part of him that never gives up on anything he sets his heart on,  not even when it means starting over, going back to the drawing board, and trying again a different way.  I might be of more help if I knew exactly what he's set his heart on for this life of his, but I've never once in all these lifetimes doubted him once he knows his own mind.  Why would I?  He's given me every reason,  across multiple millennia of lifetimes, to know that when he makes up his mind sets his heart on something there is no power on heaven or earth or anywhere in between that can stop him from eventually getting his desires.  Still.  I suppose that even if he had as much faith in himself as I have in him to achieve anything he sets himself to strive for, that faith doesn't stop the longing and the sorrow from hurting inside him in the time before he gets from where he is to where he wants to be... 

I can't do anything about that for him other than believe in him and trust that if he's clear with himself about his desires that he'll get there by whatever path he can - it's his life to live and thus his free will choices to steer his ship after all.  Still,  when I know he's hurting like that full of longing and sorrow, my every instinct is to comfort him and surround his soul with my love even if I can't physically wrap my arms around him in this moment and ask him what needs to be done to heal this hurt in him. Because even if I can't do it for him or in some lives be of any help due to distance/circumstances/other peoples choices, still by asking him from a place in me non-judgemental undemanding love what he needs to do to heal the hurting in him,  it's helped him see his way before. And sometimes,  that's all a girl can do....  

Now for me and my own current life choices, I'm gonna make myself that cuppa tea and read a novel before making breakfast and getting ready then heading to grandma's in 5 hours to help her get ready for her morning MRI and afternoon glaucoma appointment. And then we'll see after that if I can get any hours in at work tomorrow night with the petro chemical fumes from the carpet drying at work... 

 P. S.  Spock's shit is freaked out by the intensity of this summer storm and he kindly requests piano music to soothe him....  

Audrey Pupburn is also pretty upset by this storm, so I'll indulge my wee feline's request before reading the fourth part of Derrida's The Gift of Death. 

And yes,  my cat's favorite music is the piano.  And yes he lays on the piano bench to request it. At least he's not laying on it while pitifully caterwauling his attempt at Night: Snow,  Midnight,  Minstrels or the arrangement of Carol of the Bells on December tonight.  😂 I'd be lying if I claimed feline caterwauling attempts at George Winston  songs as a demand for piano serenades are not a part of my life....  

 I'm too woefully out of practice to consider myself any good as a pianist, but I'm able to play the random  melodies tangled up inside me and play them out to help calm my cat. (That said,  if you ever desire to become my cat's new favorite person in the entire world,  ranking even higher than me, come to my flat and play him some George Winston or some of your own melodies that are in the style of George Winston.)

This production of Stoppard's Rough Crossing was so good that all 4 of us said we wanted to go again and next time bring my dad and Mikaela!!  💖 It's the best I've seen from APT since pre-covid.  Of course we still need 2 more people to round out a 2nd 4 pack for next Friday (Aug 6) since that makes the individual tickets cheapest... $25 or $30, like a concert ticket, if you can find people in multiples of 4 who can go at the same time.  But I'm working on it!  I think Karissa is in "unless someone else wants to go more than me" so just one more needs a home.

Also, I freaked mum's shit when on the drive home from APT I casually mentioned some ghosts of kids stopped by last night before I left work for directions back to the light for their next incarnation - they knocked on the glass and when my dog came out barking they started giggling.  They also audibly said "thank you" which started my dog barking again made them giggle before they returned to the light by the doorway I opened.  Creeped my mum out,  even after I told her they didn't come in the building - I keep it warded/gridded but anyone looking for my energy can find me there.  (part of why I work nights so much.)  I keep my home warded/gridded from entry AND energetically cloaked/guarded by my protective deities so I have somewhere I can sleep peacefully and fully rest by letting down my shields for a bit which I do nowhere unless I have personally warded/gridded a place. (only way to energetically reach me when I'm at home is by an inner empath/soul bond.) 

I guess maybe ghost kids knocking and giggling out loud might be objectively freaky for most people.... I just find it quotidian normal.  I presume most mediums do.  My guess is that Amber (or her house ghost) sent them to me because she's been having a really hard family time recently.  (Her stepfather died in early Gemini season and her brother-in-law died last week suddenly with no warning.)  She thinks of herself more as a Kwik Trip for the newly dead asking for directions before they move on whereas I tend to help troubled longer term stuck souls or forcing to leave malicious/malevolent unincarnated spirits that prey or harm the living.  But I've told her before that if she ever hits an emotional rough patch where she doesn't have the energy to help direct newly dead,  that she and/or her house ghost can send them to me to help with no questions asked. It's not that I can't help the newly dead, it doesn't take much time or energy after all,  technically any medium can choose to do it if they can also connect back to source as well as talk to the dead. It's just that very few mediums can channel the raw power I can or have guardian deities and fae surrounding them on standby for an assist to deal with the things I cleanse and fight. I can do what she does, but it doesn't mean she can do what I generally do.  Which is why I point blank offered her that she or her house guest can send them to me as part of her spiritual dnd if she doesn't have the emotional capacity or energy to help them. 

Anyway,  the girls who showed up at my door knocking all along the glass windows last night to ask for help were somewhere between 10 and 17.... Post pubescent but not yet adults. Car crash deaths. 

Is that objectively creepy, ghosts knocking and child-like giggling at midnight when you're alone with your dog?  Was my mom right to get freaked out from the story? (I should NOT tell her some of my other stories,  lol.  I don't even tell them to my da and he's also a medium can connect to source and has strong gifts for a spiritual energetic fight....) 

Also,  my Uncle Jeff sent a just to me reply to that email: " Hey Dani, I you do come across a good eggplant recipe, could you please send it my way? Maybe l'd learn to like eggplant?? "Chuckling" " 

I just about died from laughing so hard when I read that after I got home!!  I immediately emailed him back,  "O I will definitely include you if I feel the need to go hunting eggplant recipes.  Maybe I can learn to like them too! *laughing* "

Alright.  Time for tea and candles and reading the last of this Derrida and breathing in the wild rush of this summer thunderstorm rolling in!  Bonne nuit! And sweet dreams! (whether or not the ghosts come a-knocking,  lol) 

 I am exhausted and I'm going to bed.... I haven't slept in over 42 hours....

But I finally finished my edits (with some helpful suggestions from my birthday twin bff) for my response to this email from my Uncle Steve that he sent on Friday: 

"Hello everyone,

WTF Dani, don't thank all of us for being understanding. I am not and never said I was understanding about you withholding important information from us about our mother's appointment! On its face, it appears to be nothing more than a petty little game you are playing. Not Miche's visit nor anything else is an acceptable excuse for your lack of concern for the importance of sharing the information you received during our mother's appointment. And you've continued to withhold this important information. You may recall I asked you to also tell us all about those things that we didn't want to hear. You still have not done that. Thank you Lin for sharing the information you learned from social worker Mary and that which Dani decided not to divulge regarding Mom's neurocog test results. Her test results are quite alarming and we all should be concerned. Very good job Lin.

Also Dani, please don't include all that dribble about Miche coming to town or anything else in these emails, which we are doing only for discussions about our mother's healthcare. It's fair to say that only information and concerns directly related to our mother's condition and healthcare needs should be discussed in these emails. If you want to take pot shots at your aunts and uncles and throw your cousin under the bus, just make sure to do it directly in a separate email.

Steve"

It took me a long while to be able to say what i felt I had to say in response to that without stooping to his level, but I pared it down tonight and sent it:

"Steve, 

1) I am uncertain why you reacted with such intense hostility and defensiveness to this longer email that I wrote solely at your request, not the request of anyone else in the family. Your demand was not even made to me directly, as it should have been if you felt my summary was insufficient, I learned about it via the childish telephone game after you ranted about needing more information from me in emails to your siblings, emails from which I was excluded. I am sorry that you feel the need to look for attacks and games where none were ever intended and that you currently feel a need to lash out at others in response to your own misperceptions.  If you do not wish to be thanked for being understanding or compassionate, then simply do not consider yourself included amongst those thanked. 

2) I genuinely do not know what you are referring to when you state, "withholding important information from us about our mother's appointment" and "you've continued to withhold this important information. You may recall I asked you to also tell us all about those things that we didn't want to hear." I have no control over her medical records or the doctors' notes or what they choose to include in her charts -- I do not even have login information for viewing her medical records. In my short summary, I included everything that was discussed with Dr. Przybelski in my presence which is the only information I have had about her appointment.  The only further information in my longer email was the minutiae of my conversation with Mary, the social worker, and attaching documents that I was told would be available in RAL's online chart.  I have no idea what information you claim I am or was withholding.  How can I withhold information that I have never possessed? 

3) I am sorry if you find anything I write trivial or drivel you don't wish to read. Unfortunately for you, what I write is under the purview of MY free will. What you choose to read and how you respond is under YOUR free will. Do not confuse the two. My free will is mine alone, and I will not be bullied or given commands by ANYONE as regards actions of my own free will. I have never accepted dictatorial orders regarding my free will from anyone and I do not intend to start now. If I decide that I think the best way for me to convey any given information I have is to write up 25 pages of eggplant recipes and intersperse my own personal experiences as random lines woven throughout the recipes, that's MY prerogative of MY free will to communicate in that fashion.  I should make it clear that I have no desire to write in that fashion and I think it would be a very cumbersome form of communication. I don't even know 25 eggplant recipes let alone 25 pages of recipes -- but I'm quite certain that the internet does know at least that many recipes. If you ever again presume to command me how I should exercise MY free will and try to dictate how I write up my own personal experiences, I can promise you that the very next summary you receive from me will be in the form of 25 pages of eggplant recipes with the rest of the text sporadically woven through. 

4) I am not your brothers nor am I your sister. You should not expect your learned patterns of behavior with them to be effective patterns of behavior with me to get what you desire.  I will never respond to verbal abuse from a place of reactionary emotions because that is not my response to such modes of communication. I will not ALLOW another person's emotional bullying behaviors to disempower me of MY control over my own free will. Anyone who has ever fought with me knows that I go deadly calm analytical, non-emotional reactionary, when attacked to keep myself from saying things that cannot be unsaid.  Please know that ANY and EVERY time you verbally assault me with untrue, unfounded, and unmerited attacks my reaction will be to wait to respond until I have given you ample opportunity for self-reflection on your behaviors and given myself time to once more write from a place where I am in control of my own responses. This is how I personally react to anyone who makes such off-base attacks as those you exhibited in your email.  In person it would be an eyebrow raise and silent observation until the attacker runs out of steam, online it is simply silence as a time for self-reflection. We all are capable of misreading others, we all can be reactionary due to any number of external influences, and we all deserve an opportunity to own up to our fallible humanity so things can move forward more peacefully -- that is a grace I will always extend to others as I hope for it to be extended to me when I fall short of being the best version of myself.  I am not looking to fight with you or any other member of my family. That is stupid, pointless, and a waste of everyone's time. It diverts energy from the true intention of helping grandma navigate her declining mental and physical health. Fighting with you or any family member is no goal of mine. Whatever your past history or inter-sibling politics or desire to prove your own superiority are motivating you to lash out attack your would-be allies, it will not get a fight response from me. It will get a silent time to think about what you have done before receiving a calm fact based response when I decide I am ready to interact once more.

5) I have never in my life thrown anyone under the bus for their actions - least of all any of my aunts, uncles, or cousins.  Whatever guilt you or anyone else feels about your choices (past, present, or future) is YOUR guilt. Do not project it onto me. 

6) A last word of advice that I first learned from Grandpa Ted when I was very little: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  If you want to get people to see the merit of your opinions, you will achieve your desires better by taking an approach of cooperation such as Lin advocates than by attacking others to try to force them to comply with your demands. It is  an act of your own free will how you choose to interact with people, and so you can take Grandpa Ted's advice or not take it as you desire.  But it is a time tested proverb for a reason.

Dani"

 

So there's that. On verra ce qu'il repond....

In other recent news:

~finished season 12 of Big Bang Theory over the weekend thus ending that binge watch.  Currently about 2/3 of the way through season 1 of Young Sheldon (because I'm a completionist) and it's mediocre but enjoyable. And I intend to finish it. I've developed a Texan accent though since starting it on Sunday. Eww. I hate it when I pick up southern accents from shows or visiting the south..... (I pick up whatever accents I'm hearing regularly. It's a byproduct of me having to see a speech therapist as a child for my broad vowels and my inability to say an English r in the middle of words, could only do a French r or drop them entirely like a Bostonian.)

~Both Mikaela and I finished Dealing with Dragons and have begun the sequel Searching for Dragons in our re-reading together of The Enchanted Forest quartet by Patricia C. Wrede

~Took my car in today to get the AC fixed but instead only got a diag. It's not a leak or a recharge need, it's the ac compressor needs replacing. It's a $560 part and a $1400 repair.... I thanked them and said I was fine driving with the windows down and as pre-covid I'd intended to sell it to move to a black Prius from the silver Scion and I still intend to do so before roadtrips for concerts and visiting friends/family resumes, I'd still sell it as is later this fall when ac is less a requirement. It's a sellers market in used cars and the black Prius is the oldest of our store fleet vehicles to get written off next and i called dibs on it already, lol. Once it's sold, all our work vehicles will be electric hybrid cars. Still, that wasn't great news, nor was the bill for the labor to diag what was up with my ac -- but it had to be done.

~Tomorrow night heading to APT to see the Tom Stoppard play Rough Crossing (an adaptation of a French play originally.)  but first, I plan to sleep in tomorrow and enjoy a day to myself before heading to the play....

~Friday grandma has an MRI in the morning and then her glaucoma appointment in the afternoon. 

But honestly right now. Finishing this cuppa tea, then taking my dog and heading home to bed. I'm so beyond exhausted right now....

 O.  Well.  I mean,  if you have a better answer than me self-martyring denying myself what I desire and making us both miserable,  I'd love to give it a try!  The only thing is, if honesty and accountability and integrity aren't foundational elements at the center of the answer,  I won't have it in my nature to take part in that answer... I don't mean to be difficult,  but I don't consider any of those 3 things as sacrificial. I'd sooner sacrifice myself and my own happiness than to sacrifice honesty or accountability or integrity. I know that because I have before and I will again.

But any way out, any answer that doesn't ask me to sacrifice any of those three things, would be preferable to my current fatalism and self-denial... I don't see another way with what's on the table, but that doesn't mean there is no other way.  Just means I don't see it. 

(and by open to a better answer, I mean a better answer regarding Eric.  At this point I don't actually feel anything at all about forever writing off the girls who created this toxic mess or Delta Rae as a collective that have chosen to enable it to perpetuate in their name. At this time,  they only matter to me insofar as they are important to Eric and I desire he have whatever happiness he seeks for himself.)

 I would just like to state,  I hate absolutely everything about me trying to make me let Eric be free to have the happiness he chooses for himself, refuse to allow me to follow or check on him via social media, and everything that is causing me to distrust him turn away from even his reaching out to me via the inner bond between our souls.  There's nothing good I see from this state of affairs,  I'm making myself fucking miserable from it til I question the point of anything at all like a fucking nihilist, I can't sleep unless completely physically exhausted from going as long as I can without sleep or I have a migraine to knock me out, and I hate it.  I hate it,  I hate it,  I hate it!  I HATE IT!!!!  

that's all. Because I don't see a way for me out of this choice because I can't fix what the girls broke and I can't heal the poisons created as consequences of the defensive choices that they made and I can't force anyone who can fix this to even acknowledge it and start the process....  So I'll just keep doing what I hate and making myself miserable and questioning what's even the point of anything then if I'm going to give up on the dreams and could have beens I held so dear to me for so fucking long.  

And I hate it!  

Now, go to bed and try to sleep instead of throwing tantrums over things outside your power to alter.  It's really fucking late in the witching hour.  

 So I recently started Derrida's The Gift of Death (I've read parts 1 and 2) -- not for any particular reason, just for fun because I hadn't ever before. Spoiler alert: I read and re-read philosophy for fun...  In college I attended philosophy lectures for fun/relaxation even though I wasn't in the class until I got yelled at by the professor who was head of the department while attending his lecture when he realized I wasn't in the classes because my schedule was too full of my hard science, French, classical humanities, dance, and one English class "for fun" so I was too maxed out on credits (even though I came in as technically a senior due to all my AP courses, French retro credits, and college courses I took in high school.)  He was really angry that one of his best "students" wasn't even in his class and was just auditing the philosophy courses.

Anyway, So the Derrida. Firstly, I have NOT read any Patocka and the first essay is a literary criticism of the obscure Polish philosopher/theologian. AND I have not actually read any Heidegger so I'm uncertain that I'm getting as much out of it as I would if I'd read either or both of them. (I own a translation of Being and Time and its basic views/influence on phenomenology and existentialist thinkers, but every time I think I ought to read it I get the icks about it having been written five years before Heidegger became a literal Nazi and started ruthlessly making his university run on pro-Nazi propaganda program. At some point I'll read Heidegger, as he is so important to modern and post-modern philosophers -- but i still haven't gotten past the ick factor yet to make me do it.) 

Derrida is also (much like Kierkegaard and Kant and Descartes) WAY too fucking Christian in his most basic fundamental premises approaching thoughts of death and responsibility for the way I think and view the world and it colors everything in his philosophy.  I understand that a person cannot ever completely let go of the framework in which their thoughts were formed (both linguistically and socially) however I find both Christians (of all types) and atheists who were raised Christian have really blindered narrow-minded ways of philosophizing that are very binary and about either accepting or rejecting the ideas of an external savior's forgiveness.  I personally start at the fact that I do not see sin or personal wrongs as something that is transferable -- you can no more pass your own sins/wrong actions on to another to expiate than another can voluntarily or involuntarily take them upon themselves to expiate.  I recognize that this breaks with Judaic scriptures as well as Christian scriptures (sin offerings and scapegoats as a way of expiating personal and communal sins being in the Torah, Leviticus I think) but I find the very concept of transferrability of sin to be morally abhorrent and to abnegate the process of one's own acknowledgement/accountability taking and seeking to atone for past wrongs and thus growing/healing both you and the person(s) who were wronged. I genuinely believe that a lot of America's foundational problems that still plague us today would not exist if Christianity weren't so deeply embedded in the beliefs of such a large percentage of Americans that they believe in savior-complexes and in getting a mulligan without consequences for their bad choices if they just truly believe they can be forgiven for the wrongs they have done.  

So my take on personal responsibility is radically different from those raised within a Christian framework (whether they accepted it or rejected the religion, the concepts of transferral of sin is a core foundational concept that they don't even realize they have embedded in their unexamined premises.) My take is closer to a classic Athenian (Socratic/Platonic/Aristotilean, most notably closest to that in The Nichomachean Ethics where you seek some ideal of a soul's perfection/goodeness in your behavior and life) and I personally ALWAYS have a clear distinction between how I use the term ethics (internally mediated concepts of justice and right versus wrong) and morality (externally mediated socially/community instilled virtues that change depending on when/where you happen to be born and who you surround yourself with) and I consider morality the best that can be done for those who lack self-reflection in their actions/choices but that a strong ethical compass is better than the dogma of following a moral compass since moral compasses have given us communal sanctioned ostracism, genocide, slavery, misogyny, and generally been used to rationalize all forms of othering (creating an external enemy, or other, and then your clique who you must always bond/side with or you can end up outcast as the other) and hierarchical master-slave dichotomy relations. Therefore, I personally think a constantly examined ethical code is inherently more inclined to justice than a rigid moral code, but it takes a level of intellectual honesty to examine your own actions/thoughts/assumptions/preconceptions and to admit when you have wrong to create and evolve a self-reflective ethical code that I just don't think many people are capable of rigorously and objectively doing and that I also don't think most people CARE to put the effort into it. Great artists and free thinkers and iconoclasts and social protestors do because they question what most people in society simply accept because it's what those surrounding them say is 'the right thing to do" -- but they are often outsiders from the group think by natural inclination/temperament or because they were forced out by the ostracism of others.

I find some of the sections in the Derrida fascinating and have been giving me a lot to think of.  One of them is his assertion (or agreement with Patocka's reasoning) that genuine responsibility for actions requires that one be a heretic, that one intentionally remove oneself from the group think of your church/society/family/peers because otherwise you'll fall back into fervent group think fanatacism justifying it by it being the way everyone you're surrounded sees it. I agree to a certain extent, that one must remove oneself from the thoughts/rationalizations of others and objectively view a situation/question to find ones own sense of ethical responsibility, but I hesitate to say being heretical is automatically how you arrive at the best ethics and responsibility.  Because, one gives up personal responsibility by automatically caving to the social external pressures of "right" versus "wrong" and that's how you end in la terreur and using the Bible to justify slavery/Jim Crow and that's clear enough. HOWEVER, if one gives up all mooring in social sanction of actions/choices then you will end up in "most good for the greatest number" like Mill which is pretty abject misery if extrapolated out or fervent belief in eugenics or truly reprehensibly cruel things justified by no code except for one's own whims of personal rationalizations. People who lose touch with what others think/feel tend to lose grasp on empathy and to be willing to rationalize some pretty horrific conclusions... 

I don't have an answer to it other than "question everything that anyone tells you or that you believe until you have examined it against your subjective view of objective reality and made it make sense to you."  But the intellectual honesty of that approach relies on one's willingness to lie to themselves/others and how readily they can come to believe lies/rationalizations as truth. And that is unquantifiable and not objective and difficult to put into a uniform practice. Thus why we need to have such socially mediated morality as the Geneva Code and the Hippocratic Oath which must of necessity trump internally mediated ethics so long as the rules of the moral code are based upon basic concepts of individual rights/responsibilities. There is a higher code that needs to be invoked to curb the self-serving responsibility-evading rationalizations that all people can and sometimes are guilty of falling into within their own ethical codes, but codifying morality/ethics into something that is just and applicable and metes out responsibility on the guilty parties in a way that transcends any given moment or societal preconceptions is a really impossible thing to define.  Even something as simple as the golden rule gets into shades of greys because until you have experienced both sides of the situation, you will always justify you'd want done to you what you are advocating to choose be done to the other. So you must be a heretic to place the concept of responsibility on one's self, but you also need to recognize a higher code of conduct outside one's subjective self to check you when you're rationalizing the indefensible. And how does one define such a higher code without some concept of empathy, social responsibility, and/or a higher power greater than oneself -- all the things that compose externally mediated morality? And then how does one enforce and interpret such a higher code when even the best that societies are capable of at any given time are shown by the unfolding of human nature to be subject to greed/self-serving rationalizing interpretations and have flaws that require revisions to try to be more equitable and just than they were shown in practice?

So the questions of heretical versus orthodoxy in accepting or evading responsibility isn't as black and white as Derrida wants it to be in my reading thus far. And for me, they are not too distant between questions of authoritarianism versus mob rule democracy in ordering personal choices as well as social structures.

There is an answer in it, and it's neither blind adherence to dogma nor is it relativist because relativism by its nature is the most prone to devolving into any form of rationalizing ones vices desires. I just haven't been able to find it and put it fully into words.... And I've been thinking on this question for about 5,000 years of lifetimes now. Somewhere in that examination is where I decided that there is sanctity of free will in the unfolding purpose of incarnations and that's why personal choice/free will must always be respected and nobody can be "saved" from the consequences of their choices or their own responsibility for the choices they make as a part of my concept of karmic justice....  But that's not something codifiable or objective, not even anything I can demand of others to adhere to -- it's just a part of how I re-calibrate against subjectivity in my own internal ethical compass. (Even when that calibration setting causes me unhappiness or to not be able to achieve something I desire.) I don't expect to solve it tonight, but it's on my mind in recent days as I'm reading Derrida's The Gift of Death (in English translation) as an intellectual/ethical diversion from familial/personal drama and things that i dislike but can't do anything to change or alter course at this time. 

Anyway. If I think of it, I'll take snapshots of the Derrida passages I found most illuminating or helpful and my reactions to the passages. It probably wouldn't be interesting to most people, but putting my internal processing/reactions  into words helps me to look at it critically and objectively. So mostly it would be selfish indulgence and a good mental exercise because who really cares about that sort of philosophizing anyway in the modern world?  But I may not write it up here if I get distracted by life and lose track of the flow of time passing. I'll still be working on it in my head after I finish reading it, but I may not write it up here. If that happens then, well, I guess just ask me at some point in the future if it's actually of interest to you. But I don't expect anyone to be disappointed if I fail to do that. It's not the sort of thing to be of interest to most people, but then, also most people don't read Derrida for fun. So we're already well outside the realms of "most people" in this post.

#ReasonsWhyImSingle

 Well I didn't say I LIKE that I'm thinking/feeling that way in regards to authenticity vs performative morality from Delta Rae. I don't LIKE that I think/feel that way. I was saying HOW I think/feel right now and the reasons WHY that is where my thoughts/feelings are about their proclaimed morality vs their choices/actions.

I mean, I don't have to LIKE things to face the hard truths about them.... If you want someone who is going to lie to you or lie to themselves about you, then I'm not the one for you....But you probably ought to have figured that out by now. I mean, my refusal to lie to myself or others instead of facing hard truths isn't something I've ever tried to hide. 

And anyway, you never can and never will fix anything you don't acknowledge you broke or fucked up. Denying your mistakes or lying about the reality of the consequences of what happened only leads to making things worse.  So why lie to myself or anyone else about it? How would that help anything other than perpetuating the current state of toxicity?

Also, I'm not doing well with the wildfire smoke over the last couple weeks.  Even when it's in the upper atmosphere, I'm such a canary about pollutants that if it affects the UV index or the colors of the sun/moon, there's enough carbon monoxide and formaldehyde and benzene gases and heavy metals falling out of the smoke for me to have headaches, dizziness, nausea, and wake up with a scratchy voice EVEN IF officially there's no warning about the air quality index.  (air quality index is about the fine particles in the air, not the gases that are heavier than normal air.)  It makes me sleep a lot, like being anemic, and the dizziness/migraine auras mean I don't eat much which just makes me more tired and dizzy and sleep a lot. It's not anything like as bad right now as when I've been out west during fire season, but I'm in a pretty bad way from it... Especially after I take the dog out even just briefly (not even on a walk) or try to water my outdoor plants. I missed my dentist appointment today because the dizziness was so bad after taking the dog out that I had to lay down and then I slept for over 6hrs through all my alarms, the texts, and calls from my dentist office....  Yesterday, my mom actually called me in the afternoon once the air quality warning was announced to check in on me (she said I sounded like death with how hoarse my voice was) and told me not to even try coming in to work until after the AQI warning was over after midnight. I told her I hadn't even been able to get out of bed since like 9am (AQI warning wasn't called til noon) and thanked her for offering to water my plants outside for me because she knew otherwise I'd have made my dizzy nauseous headachey arse drive over to take care of my green babies....

*shrugs*

I've always been a canary for carcinogens and pollutants making me feel sick -- I've never been able to stay in certain areas long without getting very sick. My da used to say that you can take a plant from a polluted place like a big city/industrial area and it will thrive somewhere with fresh air -- but if you take a sensitive plant raised in clean air/soil and try to transplant it to dirty air/polluted soil it will wither and sicken and die. And that's what it's like with me. 

(My migraines and sensitivity to petrochemicals, including synthetic perfumes, combined with the infrequency of me ever getting colds or flus or even strep throat upper respiratory symptoms are why I've said that I consider myself someone very likely to be a completely asymptomatic carrier if exposed to covid and so I have taken care of myself as if I myself are immunocompromised for the sake of people I love who are most at risk so that I wouldn't be guilty of carrying it to others. I've never had any loss of smell or known exposure nor have I ever tested positive for it.  But then,  I've also always tested negative for strep and mono even after actively making out with exes who had them.... . And I intend to continue treating myself that way given my knowledge of virology and immunology and my knowledge of my own immune system, for the sake of people I care about who are at risk (such as all children under 12) or immunocompromised. I don't worry that me making irresponsible choices will harm me, I worry about how my irresponsible choices might affect others who I care about.  I have actually enjoyed the excuse to wear masks (in winter I wear multiple scarves across my mouth/nose outside) as it has helped reduce the instant headaches/nausea/dizziness from walking past or into environments with synthetic chemical perfumes/colognes/cleaning products in places.)

Honestly, over the last decade of ever worsening/lengthening fire seasons west of here and thus upwind, I've just accepted now that with the entire western seaboard (and pretty much of everything west of the Rockies) on fire from July through October, including most of Canada, so the jet stream always drags all that smoke right across the midwest and New England even unto the Atlantic itself now, I just expect that this will be my new normal the rest of my life in late summer months. Summers are intense sunburns and wildfire smoke migraines/exhaustion season and that's just how it will be. It's been going on for nearly a decade now getting ever worse. I mean, I could fly to the UK or Ireland or Norway/Sweden during that season I reckon, but that would presume that Iceland's volcanoes aren't going off.

But I can't say I like it.....

Honestly, the sicker and more polluted the planet gets, the more sensitive my personal endocrine response system seems to be getting in response to petrol based and carbon chain pollutants. But I mean, that's a personal problem. And at the slow rate of mankind's failure to make better environmental choices, I don't expect it's going to get much better any time soon even with me not living in or visiting places where it's actively the worst, y'know? I won't lie to me about that either -- but I don't know how much I or anyone else can do to help me with it....  Maybe move all the way north into polar bear natural habitats, above the jet stream's flow. But not Alaska, not with so much of Russia and Siberia also on fire... Québec. Nova Scotia. Labrador. Greenland or western half of Iceland. Maybe Scandinavia.

 Thinking of which: What set me back off on the "Delta Rae are inauthentic hypocrites and bullies who only care about sycophants and money and fame and will sell out any ethical stance they ever claimed to hold" stance again? That's a valid question. because the truth is that even despite Eric's choices to take active continuous part in weekly acts of bullying via ostracism on the band's instagram account and the injection of new poisons down the bond that did on a weekly basis due to his choices, I had actually mellowed and was internally trending toward "one of the very few bands and concert experiences I miss and would like to see again would be Delta Rae if it isn't weird and there are no bullying behaviors involved in the band's words/actions" just this Spring. I was and I admit that. So what set me off again caused all my about face to feeling they'd only confirmed that they'd sell out any and every ethical thing just for a publicity stunt or money or the promise of fame? 

Honestly? There's a one word answer to that: Bulleit.

The moment they announced they had chosen a Bulleit bourbon barrel to age their dark beer and then all the cross promotion with Bulleit bourbon DURING Pride month and then announcing they'd be playing a Bulleit festival thing in Kentucky REALLY fucking pissed me off made me say that they were capitalizing on social issues rather than being actual allies.  That's what set me back on that mental track of their inauthenticity and hypocrisy and claiming morals that their actions/choices directly contradict.

Because, maybe you've forgotten but in 2017 there was a HUGE controversy surrounding Bulleit bourbon and their disinheritance kicking out of the company the lesbian daughter of the founder following a decade of refusing to ever include in promotional or in house photography any images of Hollis and Cher, her partner of 10 years.  Her openly homophobic family not only ceased inviting the lesbian couple to family holidays but the openly homophobic corporate owner Diageo pushed Hollis out of her role as a brand ambassador while claiming to corporate support LGBTQ+ equality issues.   It was such a huge slap in the face to the "first lady of bourbon" and the entire LGBTQ+ community that the community and allies of the community refused to drink or serve Bulleit products in their bars and it is still not drunk by anyone within the community or an active ally in the community. You simply do not buy it, drink it, or drink cocktails that support the brand that chose homophobia as their branding and kicked out the heiress for being a lesbian. 

In case you don't have an eidetic memory as I do or perhaps didn't drink whiskey/bourbon or care about LGBTQ+ issues in 2017, here are some links from various news sources published when it happened back in 2017:

~ Forbes

~ Washington Post

~ Out

It remains a taboo bourbon to everyone within the community and their allies and I know many LGBTQ+  bars that have refused to serve it and a few that have even refused to serve ANY product managed by Diageo.  I'm not LGBTQ+ myself, but 2 of my aunts are, 1 of my cousins is, and close to half of my friends are -- so for me allyship has always been a deeply personal fight and issue rather than a performative display. And you do not monetarily or public relations support homophobic families and companies that push out the heiress for being an outspoken lesbian.

So for a band that once wrote Chain on Love and has always claimed to be LGBTQ+ allies (with Grant going so far as to create his own clothing line Human Good Kind in support of all sexual and racial identities) to announce DURING Pride Month that they were partnering with Bulleit bourbon and then to splash advertisements and cross- promotions with the brand of bourbon that openly disinherited the heiress of the family for being a lesbian is performative allyship and rank hypocrisy of the morals the band has CLAIMED to be based on prior to their involvement in selling out to the country music scene.  

And that is what re-ignited in me my assessment that they are hypocrites and bullies who will sell out any ethics they claim to hold for a bit of money, fame, or attention. 

And it's not just me -- Crissy brought it up herself when we were discussing concert tickets for late fall/early winter and what we were going to buy versus wait based on our current expectations of the pandemic's progression so far and how we expect it to be unfolded by that time. And my friend Denis (who fell in love with their music because of their lyrics that I shared frequently to my facebook status throughout the Carry the Fire and Chasing Twisters and After It All eras, and he attended their November 2018 show in Madison that I did not attend) also brought it up privately to me following those posts about partnering with Bulleit.

I will forgive almost anyone of almost anything if I see the growth of someone learning from the past, acknowledging where they made mistakes, and righting the wrongs they did before they knew better. I have no forgiveness, no second/third/fourth/etc chances, to offer those who refuse to acknowledge/apologize for hurts they did and who continuously act in self-serving hypocritical ways and claim performative morals that their actions later show they will abandon in the name of money/fame/popularity/acclamation. Without acts of genuine accountability and evidence of changed behaviors moving forward,  don't ever expect for my eidetic memory to let go of your past choices/actions.... Real healing starts with honesty, accountability, changed behaviors - not lying to oneself or expecting changes without evidence. 

This was a set of choices ENTIRELY unrelated to me and the bullying activity from the band's official account(s) that began in 2018 that set me off reaffirmed for me that they are morally ambiguous hypocrites who are performative allies when an issue is popular but willing to sacrifice their claimed morals whenever they think they can get money or spread their name by doing so. 

So that choice of theirs to partner with Bulleit and link their name with Bulleit bourbon at this point really disgusted me with them as humans due to the difference of the facades of who they claim to be and the proof of their actions/choices showing who they really are. It reminded me of all the sound ethical foundations for why I decided the 2019 shows were my farewell to the nostalgia of my love for who they had been before they sold out their souls to the superficiality of the Nashville scene and a country radio bid for fame.  

So if you were wondering the reasons why my softening toward Delta Rae across the passing time had hardened once more into moral justice rigid red lines -- that's why. Because of their chosen associations and partnerships with the homophobic corporation of Bulleit bourbon.

Now. Time for me to head to bed! Spent the afternoon with my favorite 16 year old after my Pac Northwest family flew away. And then Crissy showed up for some catch up (since I haven't seen or spoken to her in about a week and a half or more) and we had dinner together. Tomorrow, my plan is to hang out with the 16 year old and she's going to re-read one of my fav fantasy novels since I was 8 yo about a stubborn intelligent princess who ran away to the dragons intentionally (Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing With Dragon; it's a quartet actually) and that i first read to Mikaela when she was 9 or so. And while she re-reads it, I'm going to draft out PRECISELY what I wish to say to my family members surrounding the grandma situation. And then before sending it, Crissy is going to come by after her code deployment/testing at work at 7pm, and we will have Thai food and I'm having her go through with an objective scrutinizing Libra sun Capricorn eye but emotionally more objectively removed eye my second to last draft version. And then after that's done, I'm going to punch in to work and to water all my thirsty indoor plant babies and work into the wee hours. That's my plan to get me through til Weds. (Weds I have to get a dental filling at 2:30. Because when I was a kid, my da told an awful Laffy Taffy wrapper level dad joke, "When is the best time to go to the dentist? Tooth-hurty." and for the life of me no matter what time i schedule dentist appointments ever since, I ALWAYS show up at 2:30 because it got so stuck in my brain. Which my dentist and former dental hygienist who just moved to a clinic closer to her home on the other side of town always found fucking hilarious about me.)  And then after my dentist appointment, just work and relaxing (and family drama) and my grandma has her PT appointment on Friday. That's the plan for the week. O and I need to pay the end of month bills and the last property taxes installment for my condo for 2021. Better write myself big notes even my ADHD can't miss about that tomorrow.  But anyway. That's the plan to round out this week. Ready? Go.

O right. I almost didn't mention.

Yes, I did see the Delta Rae tour announcement facebook posts and emails including the ones from the venue and FPC. (Nothing on instagram, but then, I'm blocked on the band's official instagram account  for having been honest in a comment on a post that I was sad the country music would keep me from attending further Delta Rae shows due to my color-timbre synesthesia -- and I refuse to follow or even check in on the personal instagram accounts of any member of the band so long as this petty bullying behavior of posting content on the official band instagram (such as going live there) and gaslighting by encouraging "all" your fans to find you on insta while refusing to respond or acknowledge any time I have brought up what happened and the injustice of the behaviors from the band's instagram account) is considered acceptable ethics that the band stands behind. I do not support liars, hypocrites, or bullies -- and that is the only thing that these behaviors and the justifications/rationalizations of them have shown individual members of the band and the band as a collective to be based on their choices since October 2018.)

Setting aside my internal discomfort over any unmasked indoor events without any attempts at social distancing, particularly if all ages events, given the delta variant and the fact those under 12 are unable to be vaccinated and October-December is the 6 month window that all international data is pointing at the necessity of booster shots for retaining efficacy against delta and lambda variants.... Setting aside the pandemic related issues I have as a precog and an ethical philosopher and a Medical Microbiology & Immunology undergrad as one of my 3 majors, I still have some very serious difficulties about even considering the shows. 

I am not excited by the announcement nor have I bought any tickets nor do I feel a strong desire to go see the concert(s) or spend my money on it even though they're coming right here to Madison (as well as Chicago and Minneapolis which I would generally consider driveably close for concerts without a second thought  and Detroit which we've added as "driveable" as a place to visit good friends. AND they'll be out in Seattle around the time I've considered my next visit.) I will remind you that I didn't attend their last Madison show so coming here directly as well as multiple nearby opportunities isn't enough to fix what the girls broke. Because the very last time they came to Madison, I came as close as the Colectivo just up the block from The Majestic and literally watched band members and friends of mine who chose to go and was content to sip my cappuccino followed by a hot tea at the cafe until I felt at peace with turning on my heel and heading home to my dog. And the reason I did that was that show was less than 2 weeks after the late October 2018 incident and I was pissed af wanted nothing to do with any of them after their active choices of selling out their most basic ethics of inclusion in the name of trying to gain fame on country radio. (that was how I felt following that behavior and sets of choices they made surrounding what happened in October 2018 and the subsequent consequences/fallout of those choices. Right or wrong interpretation, whether the event itself happened in a moment of pique and was later rationalized by defensiveness doesn't matter. The consequences of the choice and it's fallout consequences are what matter to my emotional state then and now. And that is the emotional response at the root reaction to their behavior(s) of October 2018 and everything they've chosen since then is built upon that interpretation of where they were at while signed to Big Machine and the choices they made while there. EVERYTHING since then is colored by this and their failure to address or acknowledge it has only highlighted for me that going indie and the work done since then is as inauthentic as the work they did while selling out their ethics -- they're just taking the next best image-making things they can to "look good" after failing at country radio. because otherwise, they'd face the tough ethics of their past and make it right -- but their actions show that for them it's not about right and wrong, musically or ethically, it's still about looking as good as possible on the surface image. And that read of them still lies in the layers of all my emotions dealing with the band and all things related to them....)  So do not assume that coming to Madison (let alone Chi and Minne) will be enough to get me to show up. It isn't. 

The shows I attended in summer/fall of 2019 are tickets I bought under the false pretenses following them going indie and me assuming that they'd then be willing to acknowledge and clean up the messes made in October 2018 on their band Instagram account now that they were their own management and pr team. Those were my assumptions following their announcement. And my assumptions were proven false by their subsequent choices/actions/inactions. When they refused to ever even acknowledge and respond to me bringing it up in August 2019, my illusions/expectations were shattered and I saw that they were just the same bullies as ever and they didn't give a damn about anything but making as much money as possible from anyone who would be a sycophant but that truth and ethics and doing the right thing were no more a part of their ACTUAL integrity as a band than it was under the Big Machine era. I kept my Kickstarter and attended the shows I'd already purchased while under the delusion they were returning to their ethical core for the same reason my cousin and I sat at USA Pavilion after I told her she could go but i would sit out the punishment allotted BECAUSE it was undeserved after being falsely accused instead of riding rides and returning -- because other people doing wrong can't be made right by me also committing a wrong.  The money was promised and I was going to receive as much good as I could get from the transaction I'd willingly entered into, because that was the ethically correct thing to do. And also to give myself a closure and to feel I'd done what I must to say my in person goodbye if they were going to continue the defensive gaslighting and hypocritical bullying that their past and ongoing choices created for them. But at those three shows in late 2019, I received nothing positive from anything the girls did onstage and I refused to even look in the direction of Eric for the entirety of the show in Ann Arbor because I didn't trust my determination despite the fact he had willingly chosen to take part in the bullying via ostracism and lacked the moral integrity to even respond when it was brought to his personal attention why him posting about his excitement to go live and celebrate with "all our fans and Kickstarter backers over on our Instagram" was him taking part in the system of injustice created in the band's name.  Nothing done by ANYONE in the band has altered that -- in fact Eric himself spent an entire YEAR digging that hole deeper EVERY FUCKING WEEK on the band's instagram account. 

So at this point, if I were to spend the money, all I would musically or emotionally connect to in any positive from would be from Ian, Mike, and Grant as (to my knowledge) they did not take any active part in the system of injustice and bullying in the band's name. Seeing Eric would be a matter of pain and pleasure intermixed, happy to see that he's there in front of me existing and rejoicing that he is on the path to the happiness he seeks but feeling myself as no part of his choices or path and the end result is it would only worsen the hurt and broken trust I have toward him based on his choices and his moral cowardice over bullying and injustice on the band's Instagram account.  the temptation of the pull of him is there, it always will be in literally every life, every incarnation. But it would only be toxic and cause more damage for me to give into that temptation without any steps taken to begin healing this toxicity and the poisons that were sown into the relationship....

So. I mean. I have to talk to my bff (my birthday twin but she's a Sag rising and I'm a Pisces rising so all our planets are same signs but different houses) about our opinions on fall concerts (including the Delta Rae shows) and crowded indoor spaces moving forward after the first and second delta variant spikes coming up in the (near) future..... 

But even without the pandemic and without all my family related stress making me extra averse toward taking on any further pain... there's still everything unhealed and completely unacknowledged that makes me loathe to go to the band's shows despite my genuinely intense desire to see Eric. Because really, I don't give a damn about the band or their music under the circumstances of what their official Instagram account has made me see in how they allow themselves to be represented as a band -- the sole and only temptation for me to even consider going anywhere near a Delta Rae show is to see Eric and reassure myself that he's doing alright on the path he's chosen for himself and then to leave him to his choices after having that reassurance.... And that's the wrong reason, the wrong temptation, for me to even consider going to any show the band puts on, no matter where it is or the cost/lack of cost of the shows. If I'm going to be strong enough to let him go to follow the path his choices lead him down to whatever happiness he's choosing for himself, I need to be strong enough to let him go so completely I don't even let me peek in to make sure he's doing alright with the choices he's made/making.  Which is really fucking hard given the pull there and the intensity of my own selfish desire -- but easy or hard, how am I respecting his free will and the choices he has made and is making for his personal path and the happiness he seeks unless I'm strong enough to let him go down whatever path it is he chooses? Even though it be a path without me anywhere on it, if that's his free will choices then that's his choices to make....

So that's the main reason I had no response(s) to the announcement(s) about the Delta Rae tour, public or here, until now. It wasn't because I didn't see it with my family in town and my grandma related other familial dramas..... It was because of the ethics and the toxicity of the poisons of the choices made in the band's name and the choices he has made and my own choice that above all the temptations of my own desire, respecting his free will choices is the path I'll choose no matter what he chooses for his own happiness he seeks and the path he takes to reach his future.

 It's a matter of ethics. And until the matter of ethics is acknowledged and the healing of the poisons the past choices have created and made worse by trying to ignore/bury them, there is no other choice i can or will make in regards to anything related to Delta Rae. No matter how you try to tempt me by dangling opportunities right in front of me.  There are no opportunities for anything healthy to come of it without acknowledging the past and working to heal and draw out the poisons those past choices created. there just isn't. And I won't allow me to be complicit in feeding into the poisons by mixed messaging of my ethical stance or being party to making things even more toxic than they already are. I just won't, no matter what you try to do to tempt me to return without doing the actual hard shadow work required to change this repeating cycle.

It's not what he wants to hear. It's not what i want to be saying. But, in the end, I'd not be me if I were to tell you anything else but these hard truths and my choices based on them... if I were to say or do anything else, I'd be betraying my own nature and then what worth could I or anyone else see in me if I were willing to sell out my ethics and nature just to give in to my own desires and temptations? What worth would there be in my soul if I were willing to knowingly sell my integrity for satisfying my own short-term selfishness?

If you don't like my choices under these parameters, change the parameters. That's all the advice I have for this situation that was made by their ethics, their choices, and their (in)actions in the name of the entire band.... And my other bit of advice is that in any/all dealings with me, no matter how hard that feels, open honesty, integrity, and moral courage are going to be your best allies. Always.

Side-note: Just caught up on these readings for Libra and Pisces from one of the readers I like. They both deeply resonated very strongly with me and my inner space and sense of things right now.....But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. Because from here, other than tour dates nearby (which don't deal with the core toxicity created in the relationships/interactions) I don't see any rapprochement or healing. And how could I trust there's anything other than the temptation of my selfishness to see him being better than not seeing him at all as motivating me rationalizing the delusion it would mean anything more? Given what I have as evidence to work with? How would it be anything more than castles in the air woven from rationalizations, delusions, selfishness, and temptation of me WANTING to believe in something that there's simply nothing concrete to back it up? And how can I sell out my integrity by choosing to compromise on an ethical issue with nothing more than a lie I tell myself and want to be true to build any faith or trust on?

 I had terrible migraine predrome Thursday morning, all day Friday and postdrome Saturday until 3ish -- and something in my Chinese food DEFINITELY triggered/worsened my weather/hormones mix migraine. And the thing is, if I don't completely baby my migraines (I'm light and motion sensitive while in the midst of migraines) I KNOW that they take longer to pass but then I wanted to spend time with my family I rarely get to see so instead of babying me by sleeping (which I couldn't sleep to heal because every time my thighs touched anything but the sheets laying on them it was hell so if I rolled over or moved in my sleep) until all pain/aura/dizziness passed, I kept trying to push me with pain meds to be semi-functional since I couldn't sleep deep enough to heal anyway and then I'd at least get to see family some each day. The only thing with it is, by doing that, I was only semi-functionally energetic and it took longer with more relapses....Also, often when I visit them I'll push through a short time morning/evening/night of migraine but sleep during the day and since they drive it's less of a big deal if I'm aura and/or dizzy/fainting spells -- but if I'm driving me places, I can't be aura or syncope at all or it's unsafe.  So that happened since my last post....

But, i still met them last night at Wisconsin Brewing Co for beers and live music and then dinner. Dinner was... unnecessarily stressful.... Basically, we stayed too long sitting by the water in the shade drinking beer and didn't get pizza from next door as my dad had hoped grandma could join us for dinner. So, the thing is that in Madison, because so much of the year it's impossible to sit outside to eat, during patio friendly weather demand is so high that you can only do reservations for inside and outside is first come first serve. And restaurants are all packed in Madison, we have more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the world and if your goal is brunch or dinner on weekends during normal hours, you're 1-2 hours wait without a reservation. from like 9am-1pm and from 5pm-8pm.  So knowing this, I headed straight to the restaurant with my mum to get the waiting moving along while my sister's family stopped by their hotel and my da went to get my grandma. We first put our name in at Ancho & Agave for outdoor seating but a party of 8 is a big party and it was "an hour and a half to 2 hours -- but really whenever the table of 8 that's been here just over an hour leaves" so my sister was getting angry and frustrated and she was projecting her own hanger onto "the kids can't wait that long to eat, they'll get squirrelly and tantrumy" but it was really my sister wanted an immediate solution not the kids being close to meltdowns.  So, next door to Ancho & Agave is Biaggi's, an Italian restaurant,which does have outdoor seating (also first come first serve) but couldn't do a table of 8 due to spacing/server areas/the tables are falling apart when moved around. BUT, they thought they could get us to two nearby-ish tables of 4. So my sister insisted we choose the Italian restaurant (my da doesn't like pasta. or rice dishes -- but he likes sushi. Just not rice except in sushi. But he doesn't like any pastas) AND she insisted that it made the most sense to have the 4 of them sit together at one table and my parents and me and my grandma at the other table. Which, for the sake of the bill made sense, but my mum got wounded bird hurt about her suggestion of putting one parent with a kid at each table and splitting up the grandparent and aunt/great-grandma across the tables to get more time with the littles. BUT, my mum projected her own anger/hurt not getting what she wanted onto my grandma would be upset. (Spoiler alert: grandma had fallen asleep by the time my da got there so she never even joined us...)  And while my mum was saying that and very clearly upset about it, my sister (who IS an empath receiver though she denies that exists) noticed my mum's mood (which i was the only one at the table couldn't spin her out of it especially as she was facing them) and my sister came over to talk about it with us but was condescending talking down trying to rationalize why her decision was the right one and that if we were going to be that upset and stare at them pouting "we" should have said something (my back was to their table, but whatever) and my mum told her, "don't walk to me like I'm five!" and then my sister went back after telling us it's hard to believe we weren't even talking about her (we weren't when she came over, I was trying to distract my mum with discussing the flowers and bees right next to me after trying to distract her with menu related options of conversation) but my sister INSISTED we'd been saying her name talking about her which is why she came over. And like, their food had arrived before my da even showed up (sans grandma) and he walked into the middle of the tension and anger (on his behalf and my grandma's, but actually my mum still being hurt/angry/upset) and he and I did our best. But it was awkward and awful and finally my mum came off it when she noticed my sister hadn't drunk any of her food or touched her sangria. And then my mum started rationalizing that the patio tables at the Mexican were too close together and as she unbended, I smiled at Miche and Monroe on their way back from the two year old's potty break and smoothed things over and invited them to sit with us after they'd finished eating closed out. And THEN my sister ate after it got smoothed over.  But I tell ya, a Virgo sun sister and a Scorpio sun mom and a Capricorn sun dad is a lot for even a Libra  sun Pisces rising to balance and spin bright sometimes.... 

My "favorite" story of that was when my sister and I were in high school and my cousin whose family had just moved down to Orlando area was in middle school and my cousin had come to Epcot with us. And my sister was absolutely stubbornly ADAMANT that my cousin and I were joking and laughing about her discluding her. We weren't, it was pure inanity and silliness (that cousin is a Pisces sun Libra rising and I'm a Libra sun Pisces rising -- it's a lot of goofiness when we're both in good moods) and when we tried to include my sister she thought we were mocking her. But like, literally, my cousin and I have this standing joke that when we get too silly, we need to "drink a cup of tea" before we get yelled at by the adults and it literally goes back to a time she was visiting when i was like 12 and she was like 7 and we were getting squirrelly so I primly said to her, "Cuppa tea?" and started pouring invisible tea into invisible cups/saucers and then sipping mine and when she didn't have her pinky up chiding her, "Pinky up dear. Pinky up. How will anyone ever know you're drinking tea if you don't keep your pinky up and elbows in?" and then later in the dinner simply miming it at her and making her laugh so hard she had chocolate milk come out her nose. And so ever since then, we've had this standing joke of saying "cuppa tea?" to mean "chill the fuck out now" but actually just starts us giggling and to this day she cna make me crack up from across the room by pantomiming a sipping from an invisible cup of tea at me and vice versa. So literally, that day at Epcot when my sister insisted we were mocking her, after my mum told us to include her, we TRIED to offer her invisible cups of eta to join us in our hilarity and joking about needing to buy some tea in England to calm us down but my sister thought we were making fun of her with trying to include her... And so she went to mey mum in TEARS over it sobbing over it insisting we'd been making fun of her and using her name and my mum ordered us to apologize and we both insisted we hadn't been laughing at her, just drinking invisible tea and we'd invited her to join us and then she went off sobbing that we were making fun of her and we couldn't apologize for something we never did but we were sorry she felt excluded and would she like a cup of tea with us?! And my mother didn't believe my cousin and I, told us we were done with world showcase, couldn't do any more rides, and had to go sit in front of US Hall and wait for them there on timeout and my cousin and I had a great time entertaining ourselves by the lagoon sitting and waiting on them, but I've hated the USA area of Epcot ever since as it reminds me of a burning sense of injustice... USA Pavilion remains my least favorite place in all of Disney World to this day as a result of that memory.  But my sister STILL insists we were making fun of her by name whereas my cousin and I remember it as one of the most unjust things either of us ever had to endure at Disney but we had a good time of it anyway even if we were on undeserved time out from rides and shows and characters and no money for foods/drinks. 

Anyway, what I'm saying is that when my sister is upset or thinks people are excluded/excluding her or thinks people are upset with her, she assumes that all conversations, pleasant or unpleasant, between the people she's emotionally at odds with is directly about her. And there's no convincing her otherwise when she's in that head space that you're talking about her... So that lade last night unnecessarily unpleasant, though we patched things up best as possible when they rejoined us at our table later) 

Today was a brilliant perfect day though!!!!!

I woke up for sunrise (which was a gorgeous one!)  Then I took my dog for a 2.5 hour morning walk, then quick breakfast of coffee and over easy eggs and slow morning changing and getting ready to head out. Then the dog and I came into work for a bit before I put Billy Joel on for her babysitter before heading to Olbrich Gardens to meet my sister, brother-in-law, neblings, parents, and grandma.  And we had a lovely (albeit slow at my grandma's walker pace) circling to visit the Thai pavilion then the rest of the way around the main walk. (the various gardens themselves are off the main walk are too uneven for my grandma to walk at this point, so we didn't really see them -- but the outdoor gardens at Olbrich botanical gardens are free.)  And then we all went to Buck & Honey for late lunch and drinks before parting ways -- my sister's crew to swim in the hotel pool, my parents to take my grandma home since she was exhausted, and me to get coffee (whole bean for at home and an afternoon cup of Dark Sumatran.)  Then I returned to my dog at the computer store and Billy Joel.  I changed into my painting clothes and did one last tie-dye (black and hot pink spiral) on a stained cami with the two remaining half-filled bottles of dye from when my sister decided on Thurs night to re-dye her two things she was most excited about dying that didn't turn out how she wanted. (Luckily, she likes the re-dyes better! She was waffling and i told her, "Look, if you're unhappy enough with them now that you won't like wearing them and will always change,out of them, then you can't make them worse with re-dying. Don't re-dye for tiny tweaks of 'I wish' as you'll likely eff up what you loved about it, but if you think it's unwearable for you as is, then you lose nothing by attempting a re-dye.")  

And after I dyed the cami that will be last of our tie-dyes from this visit, I started the process of watering my outdoor pots/planters/flower bed.  And then I realized, seeing the splatter of black dye on my feet and splashed across my hands, my heart did an absolute somersault inside me realizing just how desperately I have missed spending the vast majority of my days with my hands covered in graphite, ink, and various types of paints/markers. I spent most of my childhood dancing, drawing, writing, and gardening/science-ing.... Those are really the things that I love most.  After I was told that I'm too tall to be a prima ballerina given I'd be taller than male dancers in pointe shoes and that there was no way I could be a healthy weight under 125lbs given as tall as I already was in the 3rd grade (I was a lanky gangly coltish beanpole puppy with huge hands and feet throughout my childhood -- I've been the same height since the 5th grade) I gave up on being a professional dancer. And then I decided that what i wanted to be was an animator and I spent all my time sketching and painting, attended a Disney animation camp in middle school (yes that's a thing they used to have, with actual animators) until I found out that I'd have to have a degree from SCAD (which I was accepted to on academic scholarship -- academically smart kids don't go to art schools, not even the Harvard of art schools) the amount of time I'd have to spend as an in betweener making a salary barely minimum wage for 8-15 years living in L.A. or Orlando before I could even get to do any sort of character work or design work. So then I shifted my focus to the sciences and pre-med because I like understanding the ways things work and I like healing people and and animals and plants. And then I decided in college that the things I love about the scientific method and healing were all the things that modern American medical insurance system wouldn't allow me to do. So then i said, "Fine fuck it. Clearly nothing I choose is the right path for me. I'll just wander as a hand of Fate to cleanse and heal whatever I find until the right path finds me." And I've just been wandering my life without any goals or longterm plans as the wind blows me ever since....

Anyway. Where I was going with that. My hands and my feet covered in dye like ink speckles made my heart do a somersault over missing the place my love of making art used to have in my life but which my ADHD time management hasn't made room for in my life in the last several years. So I decided it was stupid of me to miss something I love so dearly just because I didn't make time for it -- it's stupid not to make time for things you genuinely love. So I decided it was time to fucking change that and put art time right back in the center of my life again. So I told Mikaela that I know I have to help my grandma with appointments and her grandparent's visit is start of August AND she has all her French homework to finish up AND she bought me one of her favorite books for me to read with her but I asked her how she felt about for the rest of the summer setting our Tuesday/Thursdays as art days and our Mon/Weds/Fri as homework/writing/reading days (I've been neglecting my real writing as well) for the rest of the summer until school starts again for her.  And she was super excited for the plan!!! I also told her we're allowed to go to the woods or gardens or the zoo on art days so long as we sketch wherever we go adventuring.  Which made her even more excited. We'll see how well we stick to it, lol. But for now we're both excited for our art/writing/French homework plan to get things done.

then around 7:30ish, I'd brought in the water after the plants at the exact time that the kids were done at the pool and snacking in the room. And we decided nobody was dinner hungry given how late we ate lunch and that we'd just go have ice cream for dinner. (the kids had coupons for free ice cream scoops from Chocolate Shoppe for searching for pollinators in the botanical gardens.  It's only for kids though, the pollinator search earning you free ice cream.  So the rest of us had to pay for our ice creams, lol.)  And after ice cream for dinner watching the firesmoke sunset (fire smoke from the Canada wildfires in the upper altitudes here) and glorious gibbous moon then we went to a playground for the kids to burn off their jet fuel til dusk settled in with the fireflies and the mosquitoes started biting ferociously.  And then I came back into work and my dog and Billy Joel. And I'm still here. 

Tomorrow's family plans are: let the kids swim in the hotel pool til checkout --> family lunch --> hangout --> then they have to return their rental car by 2:30 and then to the airport for their flight. And then I'll head to work and to garden or hang out with Mikaela if she comes in with her mom.

Also, my nephew and niece were super excited when they saw me in the gardens and said, "DANI! You look like Tinkerbell! But with dark hair that looks like fire in the sun and a red dress!" They'd never seen me with my hair up in a ballerina bun before today. (I didn't want to brush my hair after my long walk with the dog, so I just put it up in a bun with some bobby pins and stuck some color changing plumeria barrettes around the bun.  And then I went with the red and white dress instead of a darker colored dress as I like to wear bright cheerful outfits for my grandma, they make her happy like flowers do AND the bright colors are easier for her to follow with her glaucoma. So today I got to be "Aunt Dani-Belle!" and they kept asking me to sprinkle them with pixie dust (during which I'd tickle them and make magic sound effects) and then they'd go galloping off pretending they could fly, lol. 

The only thing with it is, unlike the actual Tinker Bell, I really don't have much of an ass at all, even when I work really hard at toning it... Ridiculous boobs on a tiny ribcage and hips, but no ass. so trying to get the classic Tinkerbelle pose is way less effective than I might wish...

Also, please don't judge me too harshly body type wise -- I'm as overweight and jiggly as I've ever been in all my life. Definitely have a bit of a tummy and love handles and can't fit into any of my size 2 pants/skirts/dresses (only my size 4s) and I'm feeling more than a little self-conscious about it and not loving all my clothes I own right now. (I don't own a scale though. On principle. I've known and cared about too many people who fell into eating disorders over the fluctuating numbers on a scale -- dance background and theatre just for fun.) So you see, I don't actually do much exercising unless it's things I enjoy -- dancing, yoga, fencing, martial arts, gardening, hiking, bouldering, rock climbing, canoeing, ice skating on ponds, snow shoeing/snow hiking, etc. (I actually do enjoy weight lifting, but not by myself -- and I only like running on wet sand beaches. Cement and treadmills cause my knees to lock up/give out after about half a mile in proper shoes, rack/field track rubber gives me headaches from the off-gassing, and people hate it when you run on their grass.  So soft wet sand on a shoreline is my favorite, but without living near an ocean or massive lake, it's not really feasible.) I've not been doing much dance or yoga other than occasional drills/barre routines since covid started, it's just not the same when not in person and in person isn't REALLY safe when I spend as much time as I do with my grandma who's 84, a 16 year old who couldn't get fully vaccinated til mid-June, then my neblings visit, and the new info on delta variant as it's coming out...I don't take care of myself in the pandemic, I take care of myself for the sake of people I love who are at risk and/or can't yet be vaccinated. And then, all my outdoor activities (including walking the dog at the ponds) got over-crowded by people who didn't used to outdoors but were now crowding all the places I like best to outdoors. My favorite thing about reopening isn't the potential return of concerts, it's the reduction in crowds in all my favorite outdoors spaces and haunts -- I've hated them so crowded and peopley!!

Also also. I'm not sunburned, you're sunburned. That's totally not a sunburn line across my boobs..... That's um, just skin that was in the sun after the sunscreen wore off and you failed to reapply it before it returns to alabaster pale -- aka my normal summer skin... My arms/face may look tanned compare to my boobs, but they're still red (under the bluish color of the zinc oxide sunscreen) and cheese grater against my skin raw to the touch painful and haven't peeled yet -- once they peel they'll go back to pale af. The redhead gene fair-skinned members of my family (my father, me, my sister, my cousins Teddy and Maddie, and my niece Monroe) burn so easily that we're not sunburned until our skin is redder than the shade of red we're wearing. (O this is definitely a 3 day sunburn and my arms/thighs are still not fully healed from the Tuesday 3 hours boating sunburn.)