So the rain is extended through the entire morning and returning this evening - so no bulb planting til tomorrow. But that's alright. Audrey and I still had breakfast, got dressed for the day to go on our walk, snuggled together and with the cat, and came into work for lunch so my dog could scrounge for scraps.  And now I'm really cold so I curled up with a blanket and a hot cup of coffee and my dual language copy of Beowulf I decided it's time to re-read. (I always get super chilled after I eat while all the blood is in my stomach to digest. It doesn't matter what temperature it is, I always get goosebumps and start shivering after I eat. I can comfortably curl up under a long leather trench coat on a hammock in the summer sun when it's 100F while in my post-prandial chill while most of my blood is in my stomach digesting. It lasts between 1-2 hours after eating depending on what I ate - and the chills are the worst and last the longest the more meat/protein was in my meal. This is greatly to the benefit of anyone, human or fur baby who really loves hugs and cuddles with me. I get super snuggly after eating.  This afternoon is definitely augmented made worse by me having beef & shrimp from Sarku and it being upper 40s/low 50s rainy damp most of this week.)

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... and the dogs keep visiting for snuggles but not staying for snuggles.... Maybe I need a third blanket instead.... I wish my cat was here to curl up on me - he's like a little space heater that purrs and gives kneading massages!

Also. I shouldn't assume that he's smiling because of playing live shows again -- that's the most probable explanation but I can only conclude that he is smiling in that picture WHILE at a live show. Technically, the angle looks like it's his piano setup making him smile right then, not the audience or anyone else onstage. Or, if not the keyboard itself, something on his piano stand that he can see. I guess I should be clear about that not assume that the show is the cause of that smile, I can only truly conclude that the smile happened at one of the shows, while apparently looking at his piano setup.

Also. I definitely should NOT be concluding from me being glad that he's happy that it will make it easier for me to give up and let him go for this life. That's the sort of wrong headedness false martyring rationalizations I'm supposed to be weeding out of me, that I swore not that long ago I'd work on digging out of me rather than letting me keep repeating to make me believe it. Damnit.... I really deserve to be bopped on the nose told, "Bad Dani! Bad!" like I failed my puppy training yet again..... I'm going to keep working to get this right until I  eventually do, regardless how we end up choosing for our story to go from here. I need to fix this type of martyring rationalizations I've fallen into -- they're me lying to myself and thus to others. But mostly lying to myself....

What I should say is that it makes me really glad to see him smiling with inner light in him - and that I'd like to make sure that his life path choices keep him that shiny or shine his light even brighter in the future.  That he's able to have whatever it is makes him shiny inside and to keep it in his life as long as it brings him joy.  That's what I should conclude from my bubbly instinctive "O but I'm glad to see him smiling happy" reaction.

Because I am always glad to see him, especially to see him smiling and shiny inside. It may be a bit of a battle to convince me to look at him when I get stubborn that it's better/easier if I don't, but whenever I do see him it makes me light up with joy that he IS, that he EXISTS. And then if he's smiling with soul shine light, it makes me even brighter full of joy in seeing him. It's a joie de lui voir, like joie de vivre but rather than being a joy in living it's a joy in seeing him. But it's that same sort of effervescence of starlight in my soul. 

In case you were wondering how it's going for me trying not to think about Eric, let's just say this is what my Insta algorithm recommendations showed up after the Packers win when i went to go look up a Bookstagram account to find the name of a book they'd recently recommended:

Which, I'll be honest, I raised my eyebrow when I saw that front and center, then I read the shirt and I laughed really really hard because he's literally wearing a shirt that's a re-write of the close of my favorite Epicurus quote which has been my email signature for literally as long as I've had any email account. (the full quote is, "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that which you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.")  And I found that fucking hilarious and perfect. Not only that an algorithm decided in absolutely improbable odds (literally everything else in these suggestions are at least related to accounts I currently follow) that I'm not allowed to forget/ignore him, but also that of all things it would be with that message. It made me laugh, because it's so ludicrously improbable, and yet there it was. "You're going to be reminded of him, whether you like it or not. Even if it doesn't make any sense, you must remember and be made to see him."  I can't fathom how improbable the odds of that happening were....

I didn't click on it, but I am glad to know that he's happy with his life and being back on tour and all that. Just because I won't spend my money on Delta Rae shows because of what happened in Oct 2018 and when I've tried bringing it up to them they've never acknowledged when it's been brought up to them doesn't mean I wish any of them ill. It's not my way to wish ill for others. Unless they destroy my library.... So I'm glad to know that he's doing alright and smiling happy with the moments of which his life is constructed -- it makes it easier for me to do what I must as far as making myself accept there's no place for me in his life at this time and for me to let him go this life if I know that he's happy in the life he has built and chosen for himself.

I'm going to finish this cuppa rooibos tea and then head home -- I have a lot to do in the garden and outside with my work plants tomorrow after the morning rains are done. Also, there's currently a possibility of some light snow in the forecast next Tuesday, and I'm so here for that!!!!!!.

"She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important - you know?”~Marilyn Monroe

 I don't like the choice of trying not to think about Eric and instead focusing on other things that bring me joy.  I'd much rather be reminded of him and have his path intersect with mine as many times as possible.  

It's just that being reminded him in the present isn't just a reminder of him, it's a reminder of why the music that I once cared so deeply about no longer touches my soul with joy, it's the reminder that I don't see how I can have any place in his life given the choices of his sister and in the name of the entire band from 3 years ago. And if I can't find joy in the beauty he creates and chooses to give to the world, then how can I be any part of the meaning he finds in his life? If I have no place in his personal sphere of people he cares most about because I'm excluded from the band, and by his own sister's hand, them what place could I ever have within his personal life? What hope then does a girl have in the present or the future for a true reunion within this lifetime if she's asked to accept these truths, these harsh realities? 

I can't answer those questions or face the only answers I can find to them given the data I have. Not yet....

Focusing on other things that bring me joy in this life isn't about forgetting him or erasing him from my heart/soul yearning (I couldn't do that if I tried without making the bond go entirely dormant once more.) it's about putting myself back into the mental space I occupied before our paths crossed in this life. It's choosing to try to put myself back into the headspace of entertaining myself while waiting on him to figure out his course to find me so our paths could cross - before I knew his name or anything about his family or band, back when all I knew about him was soul energy signatures and past lives memories and shared dream space between us. 

It's because facing what's asked of me in accepting that I let him go so I don't detract from his happiness he has chosen for himself or be a source of strife in his life, me giving up hope and my dogged faith in the improbable miracle that this will be a reunion life for us, breaks me in ways I can't even begin to explain to anyone who doesn't have a soul bond like ours.... It shatters me deeper than words and in ways I don't know how to repair..... In all our lifetimes of separation, even when I doubted he wanted me because he'd found something/someone that appealed to him more, I never stopped believing that he would choose me if he could just see me again and he was fighting his damnedest to find his way back to our soul paths aligning from life to life. And now I'm being asked to accept that particular pillar of my own personal faith across lifetimes isn't true, that he not only wouldn't choose me once finding me but that he doesn't even give a fucking damn about the ethics of exclusion/bullying systems of inequality when he's a part of the structural maintenance of the inequalities and worse on a personal level he doesn't care about him knowingly taking part in choices and actions of deliberate cruelty designed to cause hurt. 

I'm working toward accepting it. I'm trying. But even 2 years after his personal choice in August 2019 to ghost and not respond when I personally reached out to him to set right the wrongs done in October 2018, I'm still drowning in the sorrow and hurt and broken pieces of forcing myself to accept these bitter truths.... The only way I've found to get though it is slow habituation with the truth and accepting it as facts and feeling the depths of these feelings in waves but otherwise using the mindset of my past patience, my past waiting for him to find me, to cover the times between the tsunami waves with as much that is solidly rooting me in other joys and loves in this reward life.  If I lose what roots me in it, I don't trust me not to be personally reckless with this body, call this reward life complete, and move on to throw myself into yet another life with a fight I can incarnate to win and die for.... When I lose the hope that reunion could be our shared life path this life, it seems at such times that's a better purpose as far as I can see to my incarnations than staying in a selfish reward life without our souls reuniting again.... 

Trying not to think on him or be reminded of him at this time isn't about me no longer loving him or because I don't want every single smallest scrap I can have of his living self - it's about me returning myself to a state where my hope in reunion in this lifetime isn't destroyed so thoroughly by the choices made 3 years ago in October 2018. It's about me making a conscious choice of rooting myself in this lifetime instead of being reckless of this body's survival just in case I've been wrong these last 3 years and he does still desire/seek me and he has a way through this mess and a plan for how to heal things make it so I can be a part of his life. 

And some days, like today, I fail and I feel like I'm drowning in the deepest fathoms of the ocean of my lost hope, lost faith, and intensity of emotions over giving up on him being in a shared life path with me this life.... And then I curl up and sleep until I wake up in a better mood or I grab a book to get lost in or I make me take my dog on a walk to force me to see the beauty in the creation again and rekindle my eternal spark for wonder that beautiful improbable things EXIST at all - because they so easily could not, yet they do in defiance to all that would destroy or corrupt it. 

It's not a permanent answer to this mess, me focusing on all the other things that bring me joy...I know I must face this hard truth eventually....my only reprieve is if there's no truth in it, just mistakes and misunderstandings and egos in the driver's seat rather than actions coming from a place of love..... Frankly, I can't promise I won't drown in one of these tsunamis one of these days -- all I have to bring me back to the surface is that maybe my conclusions from what I observed are incorrect or maybe he's learned and come to realize what happened and more importantly what he doesn't want for his happiness this life.....  but I mean, his life and his lessons and his choices -- all I can do is accept at face value his actions, his inactions, and to a lesser extent his words/songs and his intentions. But actions have to be held as the greater truth about choices than mere words/intentions. For it is the actions that set us on the course of our life path and it is actions that dictate karmic fallout and future opportunities. So I can't lie to myself about what happened, about the past choices and actions made -- all I can hope is that other choices/actions will show me the lie in this set of bitter pill truth and deep emotional consequences. 

But I don't know that he will make such choices..... I don't even know what he actually desires and needs for his own happiness and soul path this lifetime. So I'll keep me distracted by other joys rather than acting out recklessly and stupidly because I'm drowning in an ocean of hopelessness.

Anyway. I'm going to bed now. Mikaela had stomach troubles and headaches at school today (Weds) so she may stay home.  And then I'll stay home enjoy my rainy day at home with my snuggly fur babies until I go in to work to make butternut squash soup from the soup I pre-cooked Tues morning and then work until at least the end of the Packers game. And soak the crocus bulbs so I can plant them all across Friday/Saturday. 

 My heart is heavy and sad and I just want to curl up to cry defeated ever since I brought up my fatalistic view I've held in my head since October 2018 and have spent all but 3 months of the last 3 years trying to force my heart to accept.... And this time it's not just my own broken heart weighing heavy in me, it's his down the bond as well. Mirroring each other amplifying when we feel the same thing is definitely making this worse right now. It's hard to separate my emotions from hai right now they're so interwoven....

I didn't mean to do that. I was recapitulating facts as I see it which includes the bitter pill of acceptance that these are his choices this life which I've been trying to force on myself to accept.  I only brought it up as reassurance that it was nothing new, nothing altered, on that matter of the heart. I didn't mean to bring down this weight heavy on the heart.... It's why it hurts less not to think about him, not to be reminded, not to remember - reminders just brings crashing onto me the full weight of the pain of this path we've ended up on.... It's not that I don't want to be reminded of him qua him, it's just that reminders of him are also reminders of the choices that got us to this point of separation and exclusion and all the pain those choices created. And that still weighs heavy on me and hurts and feels like I can't breathe when I try to face it and accept all of the consequences to him and to me if it doesn't get altered from this current path. And I don't have the strength in me to want to keep going without any hope that we can find each other this life - I keep myself hanging on by not killing the irrational hope in me, and I do that by not facing the weight of this path their choices brought us to but instead doing my best not to think about him by focusing on all the magic and the bright goodness in my life.  

I didn't say that it was the best or the healthiest way of trying to cope with the weight of the fatalism about others choices and the consequences of it - I just claimed it's the only way I know how to keep that weight from making it so I don't see any point in continuing on from here. Which is how I feel whenever I look too closely at the path chosen and where it's leading if nothing is chosen to change course to brighter paths.

I need to find a way to lift this heaviness and repress it away again and go back to being a beacon of light. Otherwise, if I try to plant the bulbs without emotionally recalibrating, far too many fo them will come up dead. Which would be easier if I didn't want to just curl up in bed hugging my dog until my heart stopped hurting so badly. I may just head to Spring Green for some book shopping therapy before the play and decide to plant the bulbs tomorrow, even if it means planting in the rain and I'm not sure sitting the extra day after soaking to encourage root growth is a good idea. *Le sigh* what a fucking unnecessary mess.... Not just today, I mean all of it over the last 3 years. 

Gah! My phone is at 2% so I'd best do something about that before it does as I'm leaving town. Luckily, recharging the phone is an easy fix. Of all the things, it's by far the easiest to address right now.

 O I set this to private yesterday due to overthinking. Not overthinking about Eric - I've probably over thought in so many circles on any/everything related to him that I've gotten completely lost, close back to the start, and I have decision paralysis no idea where we go from here. That is what it is and will be what it will be, and if I had any fucking idea what I personally could do to help untangle the mess that was made of what should have been easy, I would. But I don't see anything I could do, so I'm still in the headspace of trying not to think about any of it because it's not in my power or my choices to fix what the girls broke and without addressing that and making right the wrong, I genuinely don't see how I could fit into his life. Which just makes it hurt every time I think about him or I'm reminded of him and about what I've spent so long desiring and hoping for and believing was in our some days this life.... The mess of it all hurts far more than any reminders of him brings joy right now with the way things are and I see nothing within my own choices to alter that truth.  So it's better to at least hurt as little as possible. This why I'm focusing on what's in my life, what is within my choices to heal and make brighter for myself and other people I love and I'm deliberately doing my best to not let me think on him or his band or anything to do with him besides an equilibrium that at this point he's no part of my actual life, his life choices aren't bringing him closer into my life, and I currently don't see how we could possibly get from here to a path of us being together in this life on current trajectories. But, I mean, that's my general state of isness I've arrived at over the last 3 years of choices made in the band's name except for the brief span of months in 2019 when I had the blind faith hope that now their pr/management was back in their own hands they'd address and correct the system of exclusion and bullying created on their band Instagram account. This forcing myself to numbed acceptance of their choices and the consequences thereof is nothing new in my heart. Doesn't make it any easier for me to do, doesn't make it a healthy coping mechanism for being hurt by the choices/actions other people made, but it's certainly not a new state of things....

My overthinking was about the two most recent posts as a birth chart is a lot of personal information and my mum may be find with her picture on my Facebook page posting on Sunday, but that's not the same as randomly online. So I set the whole dang blog to private to authors - it's not like it has a point or anyone reads it or would miss it. So why have it public? I dunno a reason to have it public instead of private to authors (which means just me), but the bond gets very agitated from him whenever I close myself off at all and it's extra hard for me not to think about him when his emotions pull strongly along the bond.... Including the last day since I set this private. So I just set those 2 posts to drafts instead in hopes it will calm at least some of his emo agitation. 

I don't really have anything new to write about here though.  APT tickets tonight and planning to head to Spring Green early (mid-afternoon-ish) to have some time for book shopping at Arcadia (an indie bookstore) which means heading to work for lunch just as soon as my hair finishes drying because I soaked some tulip and daffodil bulbs yesterday need to get them in the ground. (I still have a lot of crocus and hyacinth bulbs to soak and then plant, but tomorrow is rainy so don't want to do the 12-24hr soak until right before planting. Looking like either Friday or Saturday for more planting and such, weatherwise....) Mikaela is off school the next couple days so I expect to spend some time with her. And tomorrow afternoon I need to make soup with the butternut squash I pre cooked up early Tuesday morning. Saturday night I have tickets to see The Harp Twins at Stoughton Opera House (up in the balcony because I don't know much by them except their version of the worms crawl in song. That's not the actual song title, 99.9% certain the actual title is The Hearse Song for the opening lines: "Don't you ever laugh as the hearse goes by, or you may be the next to die..." Anyway, they do a creepy cover of it and have some other creepy songs so I decided that I "sit in the balcony, not right up front visible to stage" level desired it in my Halloween weekend plans.)  

Alright, I'm going to go reheat the last cup of coffee from my breakfast French Press and then curl up in my towels reading Hasan al-Basri in Les Mille et Une Nuits (nights 778-831 of 1,001 Nights in French; I took a bit of a break from reading the Arabian Nights in French at this story because it was like 200pgs long commitment I wasn't in the mood for just then) until my hair dries enough for me to get dressed. (Towel drying, using a hair dryer even with a diffuser, or pulling shirts on/off while curly hair is drying causes massive frizziness. After applying post shower curl cream, it's best to touch it as little as possible until it's dry to reduce frizz related issues. Unless you want to intentionally have a first year Hermione day....) 

 *yawns* Why am I this awake already?! 

Bollocks.... At least it means I should be tired enough to fall asleep early early tonight. I'm going to go shower then. One less thing for me to be trying to fit in later today or even tomorrow. 

Also. For the record. It's not just Packers football and random British punk-folk songwriters that I'm loyal to across decades of time. It's anyone or anything I give any piece of my heart to. Scorpio Venus - I do everything with my whole heart invested or not at all. I don't ever give my trust or affection lightly or frivolously.  Once you have it, I am intensely loyal and the only way to lose it is by your own choices/actions - and 99.99% of the time that's going to be a matter of broken trust around you selling out an ethics issue that you should have known better and then refusing to acknowledge it. And while I'm always in the corner or death and rebirth, the only way you will ever have  a second chance with me if you break my heart by showing me you weren't worth the faith and loyalty I gave you is by choosing honesty and accountability for the past fuckups and putting in genuine effort to make things right show me you learned why what you did was wrong and you can be trusted not to make that same mistake again. 

I can tell you this or not tell you this a million times in a million ways, but until you accept this is my truth and my honesty about my nature this life, no amount of pity or previously won affection can get you any closer to rebirth and renewal of love and warmth from me. I don't tell you this as an ultimatum or to be cruel or to scare you - I tell it to people forthrightly so they have the best chances of success in dealing with me. All I can do is be honest about my fixation on demanding justice, truth, free will, and honesty as the only foundations to ever create and have anything truly meaningful in any life - what you do with that knowledge is up to you.

But given I'm a Scorpio Venus, if you know anything about astrology or believe in anything about it, you would know to never expect you can pretend the truth didn't happen bury the secret or charm your way back into my affection if you refuse to take a path of honesty and accountability with me. You won't. If anything, you make my distrust grow by trying to pretend nothing happened and especially the longer you take to be honest and accountable over the truths about what happened. Nothing stays buried, no secrets remain hidden with Scorpio placements... And in addition to being a Libra sun/Mercury, Pisces rising, Capricorn moon/Jupiter - I'm an 8th house Scorpio stellium as well as a 10th house midheaven Sagittarius stellium.  Truth seeking, deep loyalty, digging up hidden secrets, and standing by Justice no matter how that breaks my own heart are exactly what you should expect from me based on my birth chart. 

Yeah an 8th house Scorpio stellium that includes both Venues and Pluto..... I know. Buried secrets and anything you try to hide is guaranteed to be dragged into the light around me.... Also, my psychic intuitive witch gifts are less surprising when you know this about my chart, lol.

But if you think there's any path besides the path of honesty and accountability that might lead back to my trust or love after you break either of those, you are in for a world of hurt and distant coldness while watching other people get showered with the warmth of my love and loyalty. How can I extend you any further warmth or affection or love if I can't trust you? And how can I trust you if you lack the most basic ethics of honesty and accountability? 

Everyone fucks up and everyone deserves second chance forgiveness when they're honest in recognizing they fucked up. Just don't expect either from me until you're ready to be honest and accountable about your past fuckups so I have some form of foundations you're not going to just keep repeating your injustices and bad ethics. 

Once you have my love, I'm loyal unto death or your choices breaking my trust in you. And only you can repair that if you break it. And only by choosing honesty and accountability rather than trying to bury the truth about what happened in the past.... Until then, there's nothing I have to extend you except painfully comme il faut civility in front of others with no warmth as long as I feel you cannot be trusted. And I'll feel you cannot be trusted until you choose honesty and accountability about the truth of what happened and how we got to where we are.

If you don't break my trust in you and/or your ethics, you shall have my undying loyalty as long as there's breath in my body and opportunities for you to ever be any part of my life. But if you do break it, no amount of rationalizing to yourself or anyone else about a course that isn't transparent honesty and accountability and acknowledgement of what happened  will get you anywhere with me. I'm sorry but it won't....

 This morning the first frost of the season was thick on everything. It was stunningly beautiful, especially after the sun peeked out and all the hoarfrost was strewn with diamond drops glistening along the white-limned green of each individual blade of grass. I should have taken pictures. I didn't, but I should have.

Also, while on our very brisk morning walk down to and around the pond, I came to A Very Important Decision™. In addition to the thieving pirate queen of kittens Ms Grace O'Meowley, if at the time of rescuing her she should also have an orange and white brother available for adoption, then I intend to adopt him as well and name him Thomas O'Meowley in honor of the very wonderful Thomas O'Malley the alley cat of Aristocats fame. Please do not attempt to dissuade me on this. It was, after all, A Very Important Decision™. One doesn't ever arrive at any AVID™ lightly. And certainly never when it concerns punning pet names and their illustrious eponyms. 

Okay now. Bedtime for me. I am very le tired and tomorrow night will perforce be an early to bed night to be certain that I get up early enough Sunday for the drive up to Green Bay and game day traffic before a noon kickoff... It's normally a 2.5-3hr drive up to Green Bay from here, but on Packers home game days that can be upwards of 4 hours. And just trying to get near the stadium to park is a gridlock bitch if you're not there 1.5-2hrs before the game - the actual lot at Lambeau is sold out to season ticket holders and season tickets have been sold out since the 1960s and lengthy wait-list my entire life. People buy spots in the wait-list and bequeath their wait-list in the queue to relatives (you can inherit season tickets from a parent, spouse or blood relative upon their death - I have no blood relatives with season tickets nor even coveted placement in queue) and you can gift to family/friends for free to use your tickets if you can't make a game but you can't re-sell them for cash or you can have your season tickets revoked. So unless you inherit season Lambeau tickets, which the last I checked there was a 170,000+ long waiting list and there's maybe 600 seats that turn over per year, you're stuck trying to pay $20-60 to park on somebody's lawn or jammed in at a bar like a Cubs game. (This is why Sconnies embrace the pregame tailgate lifestyle...) Which means that without having overnight plans to get us closer, I intend to exchange my dog for my maman at 6am and get coffee on the way out of town to hope to be parked and through security in time for a noon kickoff. (If we get there early and are through security early, it's not a worry - atrium opens to ticket holders 4hrs early, including the 1919 restaurant which has reasonable prices for food and drinks IF we could get a seat, and you can get in to the arena to get to game seats 2hrs early. My mum was balking at even 6am tbh but for a noon game, leaving anything later than 7 and the odds are you won't be past security and in your seats in time for kickoff...) 

Lordy. Not looking forward to that early morning predawn drive in deer hunting season when they're most active along highways in the hours around dawn and at dusk.... especially now that sunrise isn't til 7:21..... Mostly white tail deer here, but there are elk in the area not just deer.... (Elk were made extinct in our state in the 1880s by over hunting, but since 2015 the WDNR and tribal leaders reintroduced 75 of them have been breeding them and the numbers of wild elk in WI are over 400 now and some of them are this far south this year.)  Ahhh well, is what it is and I'll just keep a good eye out for them. 

But that's not til Sunday. And tomorrow (today now) I'm planning to head to the orchard in New Berlin but other than that my day is completely empty at my discretion.  

P. S. Audrey Pupburn was so ready for bedtime when I suggested it.  😂 (My dog won't go to the bedroom unless I go to bed too - and she won't go on the bed unless invited or I lift her up put her there. She also won't leave the bedroom until I decide to leave it.)

As in she gave me the stink eye for rinsing my herbal tea mug in the kitchen on the way from the living room to bedroom after I queried, "Bedtime?" Then trotted down the hall to the bedroom as soon as I turned off the kitchen light. And when I told her that I was going to pee before bed, this was her reaction: 

That's a body language louder than words, "wake me up when you're serious about coming to bed then. And don't forget to turn off the light."

😂 Never get between a tired Pisces and their sleepy snuggle time... Even if they love you, Piscean babies need their beauty rest and will death glare you into submission if you delay it too long. 😂 

(I say that with all the love in the world to all my beloved Pisces in my life. As a Libra sun Pisces rising, I get it. When I'm exhausted, ain't no power on earth can get my lazy ass moving out of bed - not even the smell of coffee and French toast waiting for me in the other room.)

 Last night was the Frank Turner show at The Majestic and it made me so happy!!!! It was my first time back to The Majestic since covid shut down concerts in March 2020. The show sold out and so we decided to sit up in the balcony instead of in the masses of no distancing humans on the floor. On the one hand, I miss being down on the floor in the middle of a happy crowd right up by the stage close enough to hear directly the vocals/strings which have more intense color directly off the resonance than over the sound system and up front I can hear both to get the richness. If I'm not up front at shows to get the timbre resonance and more vibrant colors, I find an acoustic sweet spot where the sound system sounds best. Anyway, we were in early enough to be in the first several rows right up at the stage, but as much as I miss the synergy of being up close in the crowd, my knowledge of pandemics and virology make me not ready to be in the midst of the press of humans - even with the venue policy of checking proof of vax (or negative covid test from last 72hrs) and our county having one of the highest vaccination rates in the US (not our state, sadly, but our county is) and extending the county mask mandate for all indoor spaces through Nov 6. Even just looking down on it or passing through to the bathroom downstairs it was too crowded, too many people not distanced enough.  

It was good to be back though - I've been going to shows at The Majestic since I was 12 years old when I first got into the indie live music scene. I've been taking myself or going with friends since I was 26, lol. It's a venue that means a lot to me personally and holds a lot of great memories for me.  So I'm happy to get to go help it stay open now that it has weathered the year of covid closure. I'll be back at The Majestic Nov 5 for Lone Bellow, and I intend to sit up in the balcony again for that. I still haven't been given any reasons to go to the Delta Rae show there at the end of November - and while I miss what their shows were to me, I have no desire to go see them while I'm blocked on their official band Instagram account for having been honest in October 2018 that I loved the new song release and was sad that the country music at shows was stopping me attending further Delta Rae shows due to the pain of country vocalists on my color-timbre synesthesia. The country music at their shows phase while signed to a country label is no longer an issue - but their choice to block me for being honest and then never even acknowledge it when they chose to go live on the Instagram account to "celebrate with all our Kickstarter backers and fans" really disgusted me with their ethics of who they've chosen to be as humans now that they are in control of their own management and could have fixed it quite easily to ACTUALLY be inclusive of all their fans when the fact it wasn't was brought to their attention. So I do miss the joy I used to find in their music and shows - but I won't find any positive reactions there ever again unless/until they fix what they broke and reclaim the morals of genuine inclusivity that they used to stand for as a band. And why should I spend money on concerts for bands/shows that won't bring me joy to be there? But those are the only 3 shows at The Majestic this fall that I know the artists and have even considered going. Frank Turner was an immediate definitely yes regardless anything else, Lone Bellow was/is a probably yes unless there's a new variant that makes it unsafe, and Delta Rae was/is a probably not a chance I'll be there because I won't enjoy it unless they fix what they broke via their acts of bullying by ostracism on their band's Instagram account. 

 Anyway.  Last night's Frank Turner shows was also an acoustic show without The Sleeping Souls of just Frank on guitar and Matt on mandolin, which Frank doesn't do to many of those anymore. It took me right back to when I first started going to Frank Turner shows, whatever his first Milwaukee show was following the release of Love, Ire, & Song. (He also played Love Ire & Song, as well as Sailor's Boots during Matt's mid set break when it was just Frank and his guitar.) There are not many dates they're playing, Frank opened a few shows for Counting Crows which is how he got a visa back to the states (Matt is the only one in the band who lives in the states) and then threw in a handful of dates at his favorite cities before meeting back up with Counting Crows. I was super happy Madison made his list!!!!  For all that I convinced Crissy to go see him the first time by saying, "I know you don't listen to punk like I do, but you'll love him! Also, he's British so who knows when he'll get be back touring the states" and Frank adores playing Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Milwaukee so I typically see him multiple times a year for the last 12 years now, I still never take for granted any chance I have for a Frank Turner show! I know he'll play shows near me as often as he can physically get to the upper Midwest, and he will try to do that every time he has a visa to come stateside (he's thrown in pop up shows in Chi announced 4hrs before the show when he's had flights delays or gotten in early, lol) but I still never take for granted getting to see a Frank show! 

And they opened with If Ever I Stray!!!!!!! Which is one of my favorite songs of all time ever, by anyone!!! And while I don't have a personal them song, it would probably be If Ever I Stray because it's so often how I feel about the wandering paths of my lives. Every fucking lyric of it.

(Also he's an atheist believes the only eternity is that matter is recycled lives on in new forms, but he and I have past lives crossing. And his lyrics often refer to past events - Sailor's Boots even is about the premise of if he'd been born 200 years ago. So it makes me happy to see him thriving and doing so well this life! His wife seems super sweet and they're well matched, but the color timbre of her voice doesn't work with his so I did tune out of the covid livestreams he did with her. But they're happy together and she named her, now their, black cat Boudiccat after the Celtic warrioress Boudicca. And I respect that wish I had thought of it. Some day, when I live somewhere I can have a garden, I intend to own a ginger and white colored long haired cat named Grace O'Meowley after the Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley because in the vision dream I first saw this cat, she was stealing koi out of the pond in the garden of my someday house then looked directly at me and winked before trotting off with her stolen fish. I also saw my current dog and cat in vision dreams before they were born. Especially Miss Audrey Pupburn liked to visit me in vision dream state before she was born.)

 I was over the moon happy about last night's concert and having Frank Turner shows once more in my life!!!!! And I really liked the opener Nathan Gray. I wasn't certain about him at first as his first two songs he had a veneer stage persona of defensive assholery that I didn't like, but then he publicly outed himself while saying how much he loves the bubble that is Madison and how rare it is to him to go somewhere that just accepts LGBTQIA enough to have a gay sports bar and when the audience and when the crowd accepted and supported him , he dropped it got very authentic real punk. Acoustic versions of his songs, but very real and vulnerable - and that appeals to me always. Being fake to impress people turns me off from wanting anything to do with a person, but honesty and integrity and vulnerability always draw me in. I'll keep an eye out on his tour schedule would go see him again. 

Also, I saw Tom today and got to meet Wookie the 4 month old puppy he and Viola got. (I knew they'd got one, I met Viola taking her out in passing and I've heard her barking as they work on training her.) Current CMA policy is open to dogs, at least in our building, as long as you clean up after them they don't ruin shared areas because there have never not been dogs in our building thanks to me and Audrey. Also all the people who used to harass me about having Audrey after the rule change have moved out and the younger current group of condo owners are all pro dogs. That means that officially, on my side of the building, there are dogs in 4 of the 8 units and 4 units with cats (I'm the only one with both) and 1 unit with no pets. He said they were very open accepting when he called and the fact she's a rescue would have been put down solidified it. She's very sweet and I'm happy they were able to work that out as I know they really wanted a dog and I didn't think it fair that I have Audrey who was grandfathered in before the policy change, Darnell (the blind man) has a seeing eye lab, and the girl downstairs got a corgi last year but they couldn't have one. So I'm happy for them it worked out so well! (And selfishly relieved for myself that if anything happens to Audrey, since she is 13.5 years old now, there are other dogs in the building and CMA is fine with us having dogs again. Presuming I'm still living here in my condo in Madison at the point Audrey passes away... But I've said since she was a puppy that she'd live to be 21.5 years old, so if I'm right on that she's still got another 8 years. And with how spry and energetic and full of joie de vivre she is, she's my little old lady pup now but she doesn't act like she's in pain or ready to move on. I do worry about her old lady fatty lumps, especially her anal fistula which is getting bigger again. I've had them all tested and none of them are cancerous, but their existence worries me. Especially the anal fistula growing larger. But it's not yet affecting her ability to poop and removing it might require removing sphincter muscles that would render her permanently incontinent )

Anyway. That's all I got for now. Back to eating apples, drinking tea, enjoying the flicker of candles, and finishing this Salman Rushdie novel I'm re-reading. My voice is rather hoarse today as I'm out of practice shout-singing at Frank shows. Most musicians I go see, I properly sing along at shows, but Frank and certain other punk rock artists I love I do shout sing even though I know it's bad for my voice. But I don't sing performatively, not even in a choir, so I have nobody I'd be letting down by damaging my voice by shout singing through the entirety of a very lengthy punk songwriter set. And anyway, it's only a little hoarse in the lower part of my range (which is actually what gets damaged most easily with me, I've wondered if I have nodes on the alto part of my range) and as long as I talk in my head voice and stick to singing soprano, nobody notices.

 So my sister's family and me finally decided to do a zoom watch partyof the packers game today (as we've been talking for years) because of how hard a time they're having to find outdoor bars playing the Packers games in the Kirkland/Seattle area. (technically they live in Kirkland) Plus, today was cold and rainy in the Pac northwest -- my nephew Jack is 5 (soon to be 6) can get vaccinated as soon as the kids Pfizer roll out, but my niece Monroe is still only 4. So they do still have to be cautious and thus only eat out when they can sit outside, never inside. Which, pretty much, is exactly what I do at this point even though I have no children, lol.

But the zoom watch party worked out really well for us today AND we got some bonus silly zoomies time!! It was fun getting to talk and react together in real time!! So we're tentatively planning to do this for all future games this season (except next week when I'll be at Lambeau with my maman. )

I'm really happy to at least have gotten to Zoom see them. As my afterglow of shiny eyes speaks clearly.  (I get really intensely glowy happy when I get to see people I love and miss. Like, because of the ADHD and my weird relationship to time, I'm sort of always missing people I love far away, but whether it's a week or months or years it all feels the same to me -- the missing is constant no matter the length of time I just get really excited and happy when I get to finally see them again. So I'm a bit of a stoic accepting however long people I love are absent from me and I'm an introvert with unmedicated ADHD so I can go a long while without seeing them but I'm a completely focused opportunist with whatever opportunities life gives me.  It's also why one of my exes broke up with me by telling me that dating me was like being in a long distance relationship with someone in the same city -- because I'd get confused when he wanted to hang out and ask him "why? I just saw you yesterday..." He was more into me than I was into him though, if I'm honest about that past relationship -- he's good now, married with a toddler, and we're still friends. And, he was ready to call me on the fact that you shouldn't be dating someone if your reaction to them wanting to see you is to ask why given you just recently saw them, lol. Anyway, I admit even though I'm an introvert and content to hermit for long spans of time, I do get super shiny eyed glowing light up full of love when I get to be with or see the people I love again. Every time.)

I miss them all -- I haven't seen them in person since they were here over the summer.  I also miss the Seattle area generally -- this is the longest I've been away from the Pac Northwest since my sister first moved out there for her Microsoft internship right out of college. I'm feeling really homesick for my sleepy volcano and the sound and my family/friends who live out there. We're talking about the possibility of me using some of my PTSO time to go visit them in December. (After my grandma's move in mid-Nov, after Jack can get his full vax course, and after my sister and I can get boosters. Due to the weird blood disorders in my family, like my da had the highest levels of recorded of high levels of anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome in which the immune system destroys the lipid bilayer of everything in the bloodstream -- the main side effect for health is it causes "sticky" blood which increases risk of blood clots.  It's basically like having an immune response able to create nukes that destroy everything foreign in the blood stream -- most people who can produce aplab do so right after a previously unknown or bad infection and women are more likely to produce it and then miscarry if their body sees the fetus as a foreign body. My da is unusual in the fact he ALWAYS produces aplab and has had to be on blood thinners and get his INR tested since his frist mini stroke from it back when I was in high school. Knowing he has it and that you'll always gets false negatives for aplab and lupus if you have both (AND lupus runs in my mum's side of the family) was a driving factor in the decision for me, my sister, and my parents all went with J&J adenovirus not one of the lipid-coated mRNA vaxxes.  In gene therapy work, people with lipid destroying auto-immune disorders tend to be unresponsive to mRNA therapies because their body breaks down the lipids destroys the mRNA prior to its replication in cells.) We'll see.

Alrighty. I'm going to go outside on this brisk but sunny autumnal afternoon and get some transplanting done while I have daylight!

 O bollocks! All this overthinking and second guessing and making things more difficult than they ever needed to be is a right fucking pain in the ass.... And I'd like to be done with it for good, please and thank you.

For now, I'm taking myself and my dog and my bestie and my psl and heading to an antique apple orchard on this perfectly autumnal sunshiny but low 50s afternoon!  And then tonight, I'm going to be very excitedly happy for symphony and especially the Rachmaninoff piece tonight (this particular piano soloist, Olga Kern, is really wonderful! She's soloed with our symphony like 5 different times before.) 

Ok bye!

P. S. LOOK AT THESE SPOOKY SEASON FINGERLESS GLOVES MY BFF KNIT FOR ME!!!!!! 

(I saw them mostly completed except the thumbs at the Aoife O'Donovan concert to test sizing. But now they're finished and blocked and washed and mine!!!)

 But also, to balance out that smack of ice water in the last post:  Just because I don't see a point in me trying because I can't actually effect the changes that need to happen, it doesn't mean I don't WANT change and healing, it doesn't mean I wouldn't welcome it if it were chosen and made manifest.  It just means I don't see anything I can do in this case other than accepting others actions and choices at the face value of what they have chosen. If you don't like where your choices have gotten you or are leading you, then you always have the possibility to choose differently and make the changes to do what your own heart/soul yearns for. The only time you can't is when you're relying on the free will of others -- you can't force anyone else's free will. All you can do is accept their free will choices. Which is where I'm at and have been at regarding the free will choices surrounding Delta Rae and their bullying on their social media accounts -- if that's not who you are or who you want to be, then use your free will to change it and fix it. But don't expect those you bullied and did wrong to put in the effort to make you change -- you'll grow and change when you choose to and until you do, I'll find other people and things to pour my love and affection into. 

I know that I want Eric in THIS life and not just waiting until future lives -- but I can't be happy in any situation if it's bought by selling out ethics.  If they can't or won't fix the ethics issues, then there's nothing for me that Delta Rae as a collective can create or do. Nor any collective that exists o terms of ostracism or creating and maintaining systems of inequality. It's that simple with me. 

And yet... Yesterday and today, there's been such a constant rush of love and joy and reassurance down the bond that it's hard not to believe in it. especially when it's so constant. I have to forcibly remind myself to ask the questions, "but what has actually changed? On what is this sense of renewal and hope founded? What is there that makes this anywhere outside of your own damn head girleen?"

And I don't see what I can do to improve this situation or square this circle.  It just makes me feel stuck. Because I know what I want, that has never changed or faltered -- I just don't see any damn way of getting it from here where we've ended up by choices that I never even made... I want to move forward and get us to a brighter place, but I don't know how we do that. How do we get here from there? I have no idea. It's easier not to think about it and to just focus on living my life and the good things within it.

So for now, here are pictures from today of my sweet impossibly adorable fur babies:

Also, my many ought tos already in the calendar actually extends through my grandma's birthday (which is also her move in date at Cardinal View.)

But once past Nov 13th, I have nothing at all in my calendar with ought to set times other than the ever present Packers schedule. At least for now. (The first thing I write in my calendar are the annual meteor showers (and the moon phases if it's a calendar that didn't include it automatically -- clearly the Llewellyn's goes even further than just moon phases, lol.) As soon as the Packers season is released, I write it in.) Sure I have things of flow that I have to do, but I'll have lots of time for whatever.  

I was also reminded yesterday that I have like 2 weeks of vacation to use before the end of the year because only 3 days can roll over in January. I should probably figure out what to do with those days, shouldn't I?  I have quite a bit of PTSO, I rarely ever get sick (other than migraines or stomach bugs) and then I set my own hours at work so often on my mini roadtrips for concerts and fests I'll front load the work hours in the time before the roadtrips and then back load the following week after the trips. so that I can run away for 5-6 days of a 14 day period and still get 80 hours of work in around it. That's the nice thing about working for my parents taking care of the plants/garden, graphic design work, and clerical work -- none of which requires I fit my hours in during normal business hours (and actually I get less done while other people are here because ADHD can't focus and spend my whole time talking to people socializing and being hyper happy uplifting the vibe.)  but I still have like 2.5 weeks or 3 week or so of PTSO to use up by January. I just haven't really even considered how to use it or where to go.

There's no need for anger. There's no need for blame. There's nothing to prove, Everything's still the same. Just a table standing empty, By the edge of the sea. Means farewell Angelina, The sky is trembling, And I must leave

 Before you go and build too much upon my last two posts, I should remind you that with me, if you put me between an ethics issue and my desires I will always choose the ethical high road no matter what it costs me personally. What I selfishly desire never weighs more with me than the ethics of right versus wrong.  So knowing what I want doesn't do me or anyone else much good if you don't heal what you poisoned. Nothing is materially any different than it has been since late October 2018 and end of 2019. I am no closer to showing up for a Delta Rae show or finding joy in listening to their music today than I was a week ago, a month ago, or a year ago. You just know now what's in my heart's desires, what's made this so difficult for me to navigate and why it's had me so distressed with heartache. 

I can't fix what was broken between me and them, I can't make the ethics right. It's not anything in my powers to alter or change at this point. And when I tried to get anyone who could do something about it to acknowledge it, I was ignored, gaslit, and publicly victim blame attacked by their diehard fans that it must have been my fault since nobody involved with them would ever behave that way. I have a list of their fans I want nothing to do with, ever for any reason, as a result of that defensiveness and voluntarily defending the band by victim blaming that occurred in response to me just bringing up this issue. I've given up any efforts on my part to try to reach out to them to address this and fix it - it's not going to happen so why should I inflict upon myself the victim blaming attacks of their fans while being completely ignored by them and everyone involved with the band? Yet until it is healed, you shouldn't expect me to do as I most truly desire as regards Eric. You should expect me to do what is right even though it's hard and in this case directly opposes everything I ever desired for myself. Expecting anything else with me is just setting yourself up for heartache. 

I'll knowingly shatter my own heart sooner than choose to be on the dishonorable side of ethics. I don't have to like it, you don't have to like it, but it's the gods honest truth about me and what you should be expecting given the situation we're currently in. I'll not lie or sugarcoat the truth to pretend anything is how I want it or that you should expect of me to follow my heart's desires on anything related to Delta Rae. I won't. The choices made in the band's name in October 2018 and August 2019 guarantee that by making this about ethics, not my desires 

I'm going to go put my contacts in (before slicing up hot peppers) and make a breakfast quesadilla and some coffee before getting dressed and heading to hang out with Mikaela who's off school today. (How is she 16 already?!)

[Post title: lyrics to the song Farewell Angelina. It's written by Bob Dylan and there are many beautiful covers of it. My favorite is the Goat Rodeo cover from when they toured several years ago. Between Yo-Yo Ma's cello and Aoife O'Donovan's vocals, it's heart breakingly gorgeous.]

Sunrise. I've never been able to sleep across sunrises. Or sunsets. Though this morn I just stayed up across it working.

 I don't want this to be a life where we fail. I don't want this to be a life where we give up. I don't want this to be a life where anyone or anything is allowed to get in our fucking way. I don't want to accept defeat and try to quietly remove myself from his options.

I want THIS life to be one where we win.  Whatever our future lives hold, I want this one to be numbered among the ones that we won. I want this to be one of the ones that blazes so much warmth and joy and love that shines across all the lifetimes of separation to guide us back to better ways, better life paths we can choose to walk. 

I've always known that I don't want to give this life of mine to the world -- it's had enough of them marked in my blood and my heartache and my stoic sacrifices, and I damn well know it will claim more. But not this one. The world doesn't get this life. Society doesn't get this life. Fame and posterity can't have this one - I'm not living it for any of them. This life is a hearth fire for me and those I love and who love me just as I am -- and not a damn person else. 

And I want us to find the way through the current mess of things. A way through without making villains or martyrs of anyone. Because I want us to win this life. And it wouldn't feel like a win if it had to be paid for by any further hurts or loss of anyone or anything either of us care about. There's been enough hurt, and more than enough, it's past time for healing. 

I want this life to be an unambiguous win for us. A clear obvious blazing bright win.

That's what I want. I don't know exactly how we get from here to there. But I'm damn certain that that's what I want for this life. 

And it's long past time I put that into words and say it out loud instead of just keeping it hidden as a whisper inside my heart.

 I think....

I think I am an absolute idiot if I'm willing to sacrifice the opportunity of having something real this life on expecting to maybe hit the roulette wheel of us finding each other in the next life and there being nothing else in the way. (Or the next or the next or the next....) Sure he can always find me if he wants to, even across oceans and continents and against all odds stacked against him. I know he can because he has. But having our life paths align, in the right way at the right time, now that's a much more difficult thing than merely finding me.... That has not gone in our favor on that in many a century.  

So why throw away a chance on this life when there's no great distances between us and nothing bigger than stupid mistakes and miscommunication and stubborn pride too great to admit when it's done wrong. And none of that has substance. It's all just emptiness and air, the only substance in it is what we invest in maintaining it. None of it is worth throwing away something meaningful, throwing away all the could bes.

I think that giving up when this close (compared to other lives) and to throw it to a completely unknown set of future lives chances is the sort of gamble only an idiot makes, isn't it? Why would we do that? Why would I do that? 

And why choose? Why not demand, "Naw but I want THIS life and every single future life we can manage to stitch together." 

And anyway. After all. it's not like there's anyone or anything else I truly want this life. Everything else is just wandering among the people and things that delight me and bring me joy.There's nothing else i want for myself other than him.  I can always disappear to the woods with my books if he once and for all chooses someone else. The wilds will always be there waiting to welcome me.

What's the point in being such an idiot? Why the hell would we do that?!

*sigh* I'd much prefer to heal things and put this mess behind us and be done with it and move forward. Forward to brighter.

 I still don't have much to say here right now. I'm in pretty intense hermit mode right now. Probably because the next week and half (through the 24th?) has a lot more people-ing than I've grown accustomed to. I LIKE hermiting. I like letting the world do its thing without me and just getting lost in the seasons and the slow cycles of growth and rebirth that repeat but are never the same. But there are things I must do in the human world and there are people I care about and things that give me joy that humans create and do.  But if I ever do disappear, look in the wild spaces that remain, look for the cabin in the woods with books lining every wall, the cottage with the feral fée overgrown garden and all the wild birds and critters come for a visit. Somewhere with the peace of fresh fallen snow, with all the seasons in balance.  Somewhere i can look up at the stars and feel I'm home because I'm where they shine. If you ever can't find me, that's where to look for me. That's where I'll have gone for a rest and a healing of my energies. Give up the world if you can't find me in it, for I will have gone off in search of the places where I find peace and that's not in the busy ego driven world. or if you can, just follow the inner pull of the bond -- it will guide you to anywhere I might hide myself away from the world. I don't really care much for the world or society or fame, I care mostly for individuals and principles and for the beauty to be found in the unfolding of the creation. Then again, to follow the pull of the bond to find me, that's a "just Eric" thing. If you're not him, you'll have to trust in your luck to find me or you might just have to wait for me to come back down from taking time away to be the fool on the hill in the flow of time passing outside the flow of mankind's follies.

But this isn't that. Not quite yet. This is just a quiet of not seeing people and introvert recharging because I know that Saturday is orchard then orchestra, Sunday is the Packers-Bears game, next Wednesday is the full moon and the Frank Turner concert at Majestic, next Thursday my dog and I are heading to visit with Alana and Maddie and sit by the shores of Lake Michigan beneath the moon and watch for shooting stars during the peak of the Orionids, and then Sunday the 24th my maman and I are headed to Lambeau. (O yeah, I realize it's pandemic stupidity tempting delta -- stadium of thousands (including anti-vaxxer anti-maskers) and the NFL with no vax requirements or mask mandates. But I had an opportunity for tickets to great seats at Lambeau and I'm far toor eckless of my own mortality to say no to that! I'm more worried about my mum than me tbh, pretty sure she and my da had covid while I was in Seattle right before everything locked down -- he was sick for maybe 36 hours but she was so sick with an upper respiratory thing that my dad nearly took her to the hospital multiple times afraid she couldn't breath and then she had long covid like symptoms for a long span of time.  In my family, my da and I have the same immune systems, my mum and my sister have the same immune systems -- very few things can break into my da/me/my grandma/my Aunt Linda -- but if any of us get sick with something, we can get all the others quite sick with it. which is why I don't worry so much about me -- getting a bad cold for me is a once in 7-9 years event...but I do worry about other people I love getting it.  so after I make the life choice to go to Lambeau on the 24th, I'll be keeping my distance from all my immuno-compromised friends and everyone I know with children and continue to be extra cautious masking for the safety of others as opposed to myself. I still believe that given my knowledge of my own immune system, I am more likely to asymptomatically pass it along then to get sick from it. but as I said, I LIKE being a hermit -- I pretty much only get tempted out of hermitage this life by live music, theatre performances, adventuring in nature, and wandering to see people I love who are far from me. Those are your best ways to draw me out of hiding -- music, nature, (re)discovering beautiful places, and mutual love. Not much else works to pull me to you. Books, you could also reach me by writing -- poetry and myths and brilliant truths disguised as fictions.  Still it's a short list to draw me out of my happiness in hermitage, the pandemic really didn't change my life other than the caesura in the wanderings for concerts.)

Also yesterday's migraine has effed up my always capricious Circadian rhythm and I keep thinking it's a day behind the day it is. I haven't yet caught up to the day I lost while waiting out the migraine. Situating myself firmly in the present isn't my greatest strength, in case you never noticed. I use music to anchor me in the present and to be able to count the stream of passing moments -- whenever I don't have music on I exist wholly in a state of flow. I don't experience time teleologically as a sequence of nows -- I experience time as a rotating glowing sphere. What most people call the present is simply the event horizon of its spin -- but for those who know how, you can play with time and move over the surfaces surfing back and forth either side of the event horizon. The thing to remember with time manipulation fidgeting is that it's like a slinky, if you elongate it somewhere, it must contract elsewhere (and vice versa) which you can use to your advantage or forget the expansion-contraction must be equalized to your sorrow.  Mostly I fidget with it to make pleasurable moments last far longer than the clock gives and to make boring/annoying moments disappear quickly to get past them -- but I do sometimes use it for practical purposes like to make sure I get places precisely on the timeline I'm meant to, no matter the traffic conditions or how late a start I had.

That said, I DID finish most of the reorganizing of my coat closet! Well, I didn't take care of the scarves yet -- I want to go through them to get rid of ones I never wear or aren't great colors for me I just liked them.  But I HAD to get hours in since I hadn't gotten any in since Sunday -- so I left the disorganized part way through organizing piles on the floor to drive my OCD nuts until I finish it. Each of the piles is a different weight/season/type of cloth -- but not folded or color coded within the piles. (the infinity scarves are already in the closet organized.)

But it does look like quite a mess. Sure to drive my OCD crazy the moment I walk in the door, lol. If I shoved them all back in the closet, I'd probably procrastinate lose time until the next time it drives me nuts. And the beautiful organization of the rest of the closet doesn't deserve that.)  Come to think of it, I probably should have taken a picture of how nice the closet looks right now. That would have been the sensible thing to do. Whoops. I'll try to remember to do it when I get home. After I clean up the chaos taking over my reading area..

Also. Texting with me means you 1) get no response because I accidentally read it didn't respond immediately 2) Get lengthy/philosophical paragraphs 3) You get only gifs and emojis. 

If you're a good friend you get all of them in one texting experience. (Alana and Maddie are 2 of my Celtic Sisterhood. Erin is a very dear friend who I'm planning to go visit in Detroit in mid-January then hit up a Skerryvore show at The Ark on the way home -- but she has a pretty severe genetic autoimmune disorder so that's why visiting her before the Skerryvore concert.)

O yeah! After I finished Pretty Little Liars, I decided i wanted something light and fluffy and comfortable to have on while working and reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X got me thinking about all the references to Malcolm X and how much of the untaught struggles of Black Americans and the truths of Black history were introduced via comedy to the white kids of my generation by watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on random re-runs in the afternoons when you got home from school. So I decided that was what I'd be binge watching on next on HBOMax while working when not watching the news/John Oliver/astrological posts. It was a brilliant life choice!! 

(Life Hack Into My Emotional System This Life: Make me laugh and you can reset my emotions all back to my normal defaults. Doesn't matter what a state I got worked up to or what mood I was in -- the moment you make me laugh, you'll reset me back to my optimistic good natured solution seeking philosophical happy go lucky seeking the beauty and joy in this life.  Try it some time if you don't believe me. I promise you, you can break any ice and fix anything with me if you can just get me to laugh and get my eyes sparkling with amusement. It's the only key you'll ever need to defuse me no matter what mood I'm in. Make me laugh and then make whatever it was right again and it'll be like the sun coming out after the storms pass. Promise. It ALWAYS works. My sister didn't realize this until she was away at college so now she pre-emptive strikes to set me in the best possible frame of mind by sending me something random and silly designed to make me laugh before interacting with me. Because she's a Virgo, and they plan like that.)

P. S. Did I tell you about my downstairs neighbors morning glories? Or did I only post it on Facebook?  Her first planting died from frost so these were planted late. And she spent all summer sad they would never ever bloom for her.  Back in September I noticed they'd climbed up from her trellis to her lamp and then up onto my balcony and mentioned it to her while she was cleaning her balcony door after detaching it.  She told me she was sad they never bloomed and was planning to cut it down soon to stop having to water it and that next summer she'd just get another fern or something. Once the vines were twined all along on my balcony, the morning glory just went completely nuts trying to turn my balcony into a flowery elfin bower along with my strawberry shamrocks that are massive. Then a week or so ago, I noticed that the part that got the most sunlight was covered in buds so I wrote my neighbor a note asking her to give it just a bit longer, until the frost, because it was about to finally bloom!  Saturday it bloomed for the first time and she came out and brought her friend out to see them and told me how jealous she was that it was blooming all along up on my balcony but never did down on her patio. I told her that I'm trying to twine them back downward along the rails so they might hang blossoms along above her patio.  And then I told her I loved the look/feel of them so much I was contemplating potting some morning glories for next summer and then training them all along the balcony and trailing down onto hers if she didn't mind. She laughed and said that she'd be quite happy if i could gift her some next summer.

So I have October sky colored autumn morning glories! The blue part turn a beautiful purple as they fade and die before falling off -- but the flowers of this variety last for a full day!

They are a very happy unexpected surprise in my life!!! It's funny because as much as I love morning glory flowers for their beauty, I have spent so much time trying to weed them out from choking everything in my flower bed at work that they frustrated me too much to see the beauty in them. But like this, twined all along the balcony where they can't choke any other plants/trees.

But they're so pretty! And they insisted on climbing on up to find me. before they started blooming like mad.  There's literally hundred of buds all along on my balcony still to bloom if my neighbor downstairs leaves them til the frost kills them.(lows still aren't backdown into the 40s until tomorrow night or so.)