Well now I strongly associate the song No One Will Miss Me with the smell of fish. And scent memories are the hardest to get out once they burrow into your brain. (it's true, any memory you form with a scent association is the strongest memories that even those with cognitive decline and dementia don't lose.  Scent-emotion is the strongest form of memory creation.)  Luckily, of all the scents to associate with the song and of all songs to associate with the smell of cooking up oily fish skin, this scent-song association actually works particularly well. I mean, what else would you be eating on the sea or along the coast of sea if not a lot of fish? But now every time I smell fish skin cooking I'll hear the song in my head and every time I ever hear the song again, my brain will get hungry for fish cooking in olive oil.I'm sorry if that's not the association you might want, it's indelible now. You're stuck with it. Or rather, I'm stuck with it.

Specifically the association of the smell of frying up in olive oil salmon skin and the scraps of fish that clung to it more tenaciously than I felt like battling so I could feed the cooked salmon skin to the dogs. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with salmon skin. I really love crispy salmon skin in small amounts, like splitting a sushi roll that has crispy salmon skin in it, but it needs to be freshly cooked and crisped and there's a point at which I'm over it and my body says enough.  When I pan sear salmon, I leave the skin on and eat as much of it as I want and then split the rest between the dog and the cat. In this case, however, I didn't think the fish skin would get crispy or taste very good in the curry (mushroom, carrot, chickpea, onion in a Goa fish curry spice blend.) I know that I dislike fish skin in fish tacos (I actually don't particularly like fish tacos....There are better ways to make tacos and better ways to prepare and eat fish.) So when I was cutting up the fish, I cut off the skin to cook up in plain olive oil for me to eat a little, as much as I desired, and feed the rest to the dogs. Which made the dogs super happy, lol. This is my first time trying fish in a curry and I wasn't certain how I'd feel about it but it actually worked really well and is incredibly tasty!! The fish stays tender and gets nice and flaky and not overly fishy tasting.  I'll definitely do it again.

Anyway, I really enjoyed having the dance performance livestream tonight -- that definitely counts as an unexpected happy surprise!! And I adore happy surprises!!!! (As a precog, happy surprises I don't se coming are one of my forever favorite things in the world!) Some of the choreography was not my favorite (I'm a firm believer in the school of dance philosophy that dance is an attempt to express the emotional soul in the music through the medium of movement -- so I don't like transferring choreography between songs or choreography that is cerebral and not connected to the music. If the choreography can be switched to another song with the same time signature or if it's going through motions marking time until another portion of the song, then I consider it bad choreography. That's not the dancer's fault, it's the choreographers.) I did enjoy all the song choices and most of the choreography was really good and the dancers did a good job of extending their energetic reach through the movements instead of doing connect the dots style dancing.  (Dance is about the movement, it's not a connect the dot. There are positions it's important you hit and hold, but it's HOW you get there and the expressions of getting there that matters most as you move through the music.) It was rather disconcerting to me when I happened to glance up and see him and his companion stand up and move and then he sat right in the front where the spotlight would hit him and his silhouette was visible no matter how zoomed in the livestream was.. Wasn't thinking or expecting that. Maybe I should have given the circumstances, but I didn't. C'est la vie. I didn't mind, it just surprised me.

 I was definitely dancing in the kitchen watching it while doing mise en place and cooking the curry, lol. (My parents have an opening into the living room and when they rennovated the kitchen they set it up so that the stove is right next to that opening which means people can always watch anything on the TV while cooking. And then I used the computer hooked up to the TV to watch the stream.) Fun fact about me and my kitchen witch gifts: My cooking always tastes like my mood while I'm cooking. Most of the flavor profiles I end up cooking are aromatic and herbaceous and complex layered balanced across each bite with unexpected spiciness and/or sweetness to it. It always always ALWAYS tastes the best when I'm singing and dancing while cooking. If I get stressed while cooking, things start to unravel and things cook unevenly-- sometimes literally the sauce will break down in the pain, lol.  If I try to cook while I'm sad, everything tastes salty and brackish even if I didn't put any salt or anything fish/seaweed in it. And the more you reheat it later on, the saltier it tstes and you feel sad when you try to eat it later.... If I'm frustrated or angry, everything burns or catches on fire. It's awful. Literally can set on fire a bag of popcorn in a microwave or melt kettless and shatter the glass of the French press just trying to boil water to make tea or coffee. It's terrifying whenever I try to cook while I'm angry, legitimately terrifying and usually ends with someone getting hurt and the food being rendered inedible -- if I'm ever in a bad mood just don't let me anywhere near the kitchen until I recenter.  Either you cook or we go out to eat or get carryout/delivery but me cooking while even mildly irked is not going to be a pleasant experience. For anyone. If you ever experience me having to cook while in a foul mood, you know.

Luckily, I'm generally a very happy sunshiney soul optimist this life, unless I'm sleep deprived I usually wake up smiling and chirpy and full of life. So it's rare that I enter the kitchen not in a happy mood.  But all the best things I cook are cooked with joy in my heart and me physically singing and dancing while I'm in the kitchen. Always. And I was definitely dancing while cooking and watching that dance performance!

As for why I'm always a sucker for a dance performance opportunity, whether working up a choreography for a performance or watching from the audience.... I. Well. In this life, dance is the first hing I ever loved that I tried to give up and stoic through that I could keep going without it.  I've mentioned that martyring and giving up things I love for what I consider a good reason is something I do that my karmic lessons this life are about unlearning the stoicism and instead learning to choose and claim what makes my soul sing.  And in this life, dance was the first thing I loved dearly that I tried to give up....and the first thing I love that I tried to sacrifice before reclaiming it.

When I was 8.5 years old, in pre-pointe and advanced jazz dance classes, I got taken aside by my instructors for a very serious discussion about why I needed to understand that due to my phenotype I could never ever ever consider dance as a professional career. it wasn't about me being too large, I was a gangly long limbed coltish puppy until puberty rounded me out into curves. The thing was that at 8.5 years old I was already 5'5 (I've been just shy of 5'8 since I stopped growing in the 5th grade.) And so they wanted to have a very sincere discussion about how I was already too tall for any pas de deux partnering  because visually the ballerina en pointe should never be taller than her dance partner and 5'5 + the extra 5-6" of my foot length + the extra 2" of the pointe box would require that I only ever partnered with a male dancer 6'1 or taller otherwise I'd be taller than him while up en pointe (now I'm full grown me up en pointe would require someone 6'4 or taller) and they needed me to understand that most male dancers would never be enough taller than me ALREADY at 8 years old to be partnered en pointe.  Additionally, for lifts, dancers should ideally weigh 115lbs or less, ideally under 100lbs, and while I wasn't over 100lbs at that point, they warned me that when taller it's significantly harder to stay healthily under that weight for lifts and almost impossible once over 5'5 EVEN IF once puberty hit I had almost no boobs to take into consideration (which affect spins and jumps because of how centripetal force works -- bobs make spins and jumps take more force just to get the same rotation and height.) And post-puberty me is sitting over here with a 28G bra size which I think my cup size has grown since I last got a proper bra fitting over a decade ago, lol. My boobs get bigger whenever I put on weight but never decrease when I lose weight. (General rule is that medically speaking, each cup size you go up adds 5lbs of weight in mammary tissue even in an A cup. G cup is upwards 7 cup sizes, so it's about 35lbs of weight strapped onto my chest and post puberty me DEFINITELY has a harder time with jumps and spins than pre-puberty me.)  

And my well loved and trusted dance instructors I'd known for half my life weren't WRONG in telling me this when I was 8 and getting me used to it that young that my body type is all wrong for a professional dancer, especially in ballet. Because it is, and me denying that would have caused me physical harm trying to make my body conform to boxes it never could fit into.  In many ways I'm lucky that I didn't have dance in my life through puberty because everyone I know who did has severe body dysmorhia and eating disorder issues as a result of trying to maintain body type/size through their physical changes of puberty. And I skipped out on that head-body ptsd that all young dancers feel the pressure of even more intensely than other pubescent girls, though I have many friends who I try to help through how they're still working through these food and body image related trauma issues as adults.  But it stung to be told this when I was 8 that I was already too tall to be a ballerina no matter how hard I worked at becoming the best dancer I could be and I had to come to terms with the fact that dance could only be in my life as a source of joy but never as a professional career center focal point of my life.  Dance, using my body to express music and emotions and energy can only be as a source of personal joy never as a career for me. 

And then my grandfather died on Christmas Day when I was 9. And I was in the hollows for a long time after his death.  I take grief and loss incredibly deeply to heart. I don't show it because I don't like to burden others with my heavy emotions, but internally it hits me incredibly hard and takes a long time to heal and make my way through the hollows.  One of the things my grandfather made me promise him while he was sick in the process of dying was that no matter what I would fight to hang onto my ability to see the joy and experience the wonder of being alive and the world I encounter -- because he told me I was so overflowing with that magic in a way nobody else he ever met has been and that it was the most beautiful and precious thing he'd ever encountered and it was what turned him from a cynical atheist all his life into someone able to see the wonder and beauty in the things that exist.I only never knew him as able to see that, but my da and his siblings have told me that it's true that it wasn't until he was a grandfather and saw the delight and sparkle and wonder through my eyes that he changed so much from who he had been before.  And I promised him that I'd fight tooth and nail to hold onto my ability to see/find the beauty and wonder and joy in existence in me no matter what the world threw at me or how sad I got or what I gave up or lost in life. (Which may seem like a heavy topic to discuss with a 9 year old -- but he never shied away from discussing heavy topics of human inter-politics or philosophical questioning and he had seen how hard I grieved over lost/dead pets and one of his proudest moments with me was when I took his maxim he instilled in all his kids and grandkids, "Question everything, even what I tell, until you've fully considered it and made it make sense to you" and then had a really hard afternoon sitting under their dining room table refusing to play as I attempted to apply this maxim unto itself and got stuck in the paradox loop wondering how to apply it to itself.  He laughed so hard and told me that none of his 4 kids and my cousin 1 year older than me had never done that and we talked about it and me questioning even the idea of questioning everything was the mot perfect response he'd ever encountered in any child he'd ever taught it to. You should probably be glad you didn't know little me -- constant kinetic motion and curiosity and asking questions curious about literally everything then randomly disappearing into nooks/crannies under stairs or tables or running off into a flower garden or inside/up a tree or wandering in the woods to get away from humans and just exist in the natural world.)  Anyway. I was incredibly close to my Grandpa Ted, he was a co-owner in the family business with my parents and in my early childhood I saw him probably 6 days out of every 7 days of the week.  He's the one who taught me to read, how to swim, how to ride a bike. And he was the one who stayed punched in to work used his lunch break to pick up me and my sister after school took us to choose and buy our own afternoon snack and if it was a nice day we'd go to the park for a bit before he took us back to work.  He's also the one who walk me to and from my dance classes (which were right next door to the family computer store.)  After my grandfather's death when I was 9, I was in the hollows for a very long time and nothing made me feel anything. I didn't smile that touched my eyes for 3 months (first thing that made me smile was a Sheltie puppy we ended up adopting) and I didn't laugh a real laugh for about 9 months and it took me 5 years until I was finally able to cry for my grandfather's death. 

Following my grandfather's death, I was in the hollows for a long time and nothing made me feel anything at all with the state of grief I was in. Even dance didn't make me happy. And if I had stayed in dance, I probably would have pushed through the hollows felt joy sooner. But my dance studio moved while my grandpa was sick and on chemo and dying.  So my parents and aunt and uncle (family owned business with 6 owners throughout my childhood, one of my uncles and one of my aunts and two of my cousins were like extra parents and extra siblings to me when I was a kid) would take me to dance class while he was dying instead of him -- but it wasn't something I could walk myself to anymore after the studio moved.  And then after my grandfather died, while I was in the hollows, there was one afternoon my parents were both busy and started fighting over how neither could break away to take me so the other one had to do it. And I sad wide eyed stood there with my dance bag over my shoulder ready to go and told them quite seriously, "It's alright if you can't take me to dance today. It doesn't make me happy right now anyway."  And then my dad dropped everything to take me right then because he recognized that that was my grief speaking and a reminder why I needed to be taken to dance while grieving. But when that season was over and it came time to decide if we should enroll me for the next season, my mom remembered me saying that and asked me if dance was bringing me joy because they were trying to budget and figure out schedules. And we ended up deciding that if it wasn't making me happy and I couldn't consider it professionally even if I wanted to thanks to my height so I was only doing it for the joy it brought me and it was going to cause them to fight trying to get me there now that my grandpa couldn't just take me, then the cost was higher than what anyone was getting out of it. It was a logic based decision and you shouldn't ever push kids to do things they stop enjoying, but in my case it was just the stage of grief in the hollows where nothing makes you feel  joy. And so I stopped dance lessons the summer before I turned 10.

Which is rather a heavy story.... But you didn't actually expect any story about the first time in this life that I fell into my old patter of sacrificing something I love in the name of something "greater"or to be practical to actually be a HAPPY story, did you? Dance isn't the only thing I've done this with, as I've said my self-martyring stoic streak to continue on and find joy/delight on the other side of the current pain is something I'm meant to unlearn this life. The lesson I'm working on this lifetime is that it's okay to claim as your own and to prioritize what makes your heart light up with joy BECAUSE it makes your soul happy. That things that light up your soul are a reason unto themselves they can be a goal and a priority for you simply BECAUSE they make your soul sparkle.  And you shouldn't too easily sacrifice these things no matter what the world says or even if your cause for doing so seems important. 

And in the name of that karmic soul lesson I'm working on in this life and the promise I made my dying grandfather that no matter how long I was in the hollows I'd fight to hold onto my ability to see beauty and wonder in the creation and to rejoice in it, I decided in college that with my single credit holes in my schedule, after I had attended all the fencing classes I could take for credit, I started re-embracing dance in my life. I took 6 semesters of ballet courses, 4 of modern jazz, 2 of ballroom dance, and 1 modern dance all for credit.  And then in my free time not as University coursework I took further ballet classes with Vivian Tomlinson until he retired, Irish step dance, ceilli social Irish dance, Luigi style jazz dance, and belly dance for many many years until covid made in person impossible. And in college I learned that ballet barre work at 7am before breakfast or coffee to start my day and center me is one of my all time favorite things in the entire world. Barre work and ballet floor exrcises to start the day is a wonderful habit I need to get back into....

There's other things as well that I've fallen into this ego trap masquerading as spirituality of martyr stoicism in sacrificing things I love in the name of something else.  Not just dance and not just Eric -- I've also done it with my writing and my sketching/painting and my interest in healing to a certain extent by saying that those are only things for free time not to make time for... When I was considering at the start of this year what my own personal growth required of me, I decided that this year for me needed to be about reclaiming the things that give my soul joy and choosing to prioritize them in my life for no reason other than they give me joy. 

Sparking and feeding the light in the soul is a reason unto itself and I decided that I wan to consciously prioritize that this year I want to reclaim those things and make them central in the foundational structure of my life solely for my joy of their existence. 

It was a conscious choice that I'm in the wrong any time that I try to rationalize sacrificing what brings light and joy to my soul and that starting this year I wanted to use my energy to fight to make these things central core to my life rather than as a lower priority. And a promise to myself that I was going to try to weed out that stoic martyring sacrificial streak in me by calling me out on it whenever I do it, even if it's just back burnering things I love.  It was that conscious realization and choice and examining my choices through those lenses is why I had that recognition on Wednesday night that seeing the pictures of Eric and reading his philosophical questioning email itself brought joy and light to my heart  BECAUSE seeing him knowing he IS brings me that sort of light in the heart soul joy and the application of my decision to be ruthless about calling myself out for patterns of stoic sacrifice of things I love is why I decided (so seemingly abruptly) Thurs morning that I was in the wrong denying myself to see him when seeing him gives me joy and I should go back to follow his socials again for as long as following him brings light and joy into my heart and life.

But anyway. All of that is a long winded storytelling wandering tying together disparate threads tangled in my mind around WHY my reclaimed love of dance as important to me IS important to me and why I'm a sucker for any dance performance rarely miss them if given an opportunity to see a good dance performance.  And why it seemed such a serendipitous synchronicity of a happy surprise that of all things he could have shared about with me deciding to go back and follow his socials once more, it was about a dance performance and the potential I could watch a livestream of it tonight AND since I was going to be at my parents house anyway to spend time with their dog the timing to stream it on their TV tonight was perfect.  It just felt like and still feels like a perfect confluence of seemingly random but deeply interwoven strands of the Universe affirming right path free will choices. 

The synchronicity of it all FEELS right and good and fated to me. And while I remain science minded evidence seeking skeptical toward astrology but my spiritual side and pagan past lives knows a damn lot about it find the synchornicities in it eerie, I recognize for those astrologically minded, the timing of this occurring that I saw his stories right during the eclipse this afternoon (not visible the solar eclipse path here, also it was rainy thunderstorm under a tornado watch here) with eclipses being about bringing into alignment fated changes/paths (which is why you shouldn't try to manifest your will/intention during eclipses) and right after Venus and Jupiter conjunction in Pisces during the witching hours last night while he sun and moon are in conjunction in Taurus. Which if you look into

Now, after the happy surprise of the dance performance tonight and a delicious dinner and writing out these thoughts/feelings I had inside my head, I'm going to take the dogs  outside and stand barefoot in the grass hugging my birch tree I grew up with in the front yard, staring up at the sky hoping to see some stars peek through the thick clouds. Then I'm going to go make me another cuppa tea and find something to put on in the background and curl up with the dogs to read some more in my re-read of The Lord of the Rings books.  My plans for Beltane tomorrow are to plant some seeds and plant the new summer bulbs that came in (ranunculus and gladioluses) and tidy up some of the dead I left s habitat for wild critters and bugs over the winter. (I leave the small branches and leaves broken into manageable sizes and as mulch under the "dwarf" 15ft tall pine tree my grandma planted in the work garden so that birds and anyone else seeking to build nests this Spring will have the material available still while I talk to my waking up plants and put new bulbs and seeds in the ground.) Spring is very late in Wisconsin this year due to an up and down freezing/thawing March/April, leaf buds barely growing on trees with even the daffodils and tulips stunted and only just starting to bloom this week. May is going to be baller Spring on steroids here though as everything bursts forth life, lol. ALL the flowers everywhere for May and June in Wisconsin. So tomorrow I will be in the garden and then working on pulling/purging old files hanging out with the dogs until whenever I head back to my parents house with the dogs. Then Monday I'll bring the dogs in first thing in the morning to hang out at work all day while I spend some time at home with my cat then back to work at 5 to get some hours in and then taking the dogs to my parents house.  Which will be my weekday schedule all of this week and next week trying to balance time at both my condo now with the lonely cat and the house I grew up in with my parents' lonely dog.

I hope your night has whatever your soul most needs tonight to ill it with light and love and that sense of rightness in your life. Or at least, as much of what brings light to your soul as you can bring into your life tonight with wherever you are in your life path.  Turns out that creating hygge and finding joy in what you have right now doesn't mean you can't work towards a future where you bring more of what creates/feeds light in your heart.  You're allowed to have gratitude for now while still working toward creating/manifesting more into your future. So I hope that tonight has as much as possible of what brings joy to your heart, as much of it as you can have in your tonight wherever you are.

I'm over at my parents house hanging out with the dogs, listening to the rain, drinking tea, and watching a mini marathon on the Science channel of the series Mythical Beasts.Sophie is very upset at my parents "forgetting" her when they packed up the car, but Audrey and I are her heroes for coming to stay with her, lol.

The couch at my parents house gives my skin a dermatitis reaction (polyester fabric -- all poly/acrylic fabrics do) if I touch it with my bare skin and my hair always gets extra staticky when I sit on the couch.

 

 

Figured out yet why I call Audrey my little bear? I mean, she's such a 30lb teddy bear tomboy, lol.

I've been enjoying this mini marathon of "documentaries" because it's basically the archaeology and mythology and literature and history that modern researchers believe led to the creation of the mythical beasts. Most of it is rehash of things I already know, but sometimes there are manuscripts or archaeological digs that are new to me and it's better than the news for background noise. (at home I don't have cable, or even internet, so I mostly just listen to music but over here I'll often have the TV on if there's anything interesting because that's what their dog Sophie is used to.)  Muting the commercials though. Can't stand listening to commercials and between not having TV at home and adblockers on my work computers, ads rarely exist in my world. The mini marathon ends at 7pm CT, just finished one on the sphinx and after this next episode on dragons there's one on cyclops and then it's done for a but which is serendipitously when there's a livestream from the Broadway Dance Center of their professional semester showcase happening tonight that Eric happened to share in his stories since one of the pieces i choreographed to the song No One Will Miss Me. Which I wouldn't have seen or known if I hadn't decided the other day I was being stupid and stubborn for zero reason in having unfollowed his socials and I'd be happier if I just let me see him and follow him again.  And that I should make my choices on what brings the most joy and delight into my life, especially when it comes to thins to do with him. And then this had to be one of the first things he shared and not only am I sucker for dance performances, but also I saw that they do livestreams of a lot of the classes and I've been trying to find somewhere with good livestreams of classes (I tend to prefer in person for dance and yoga but covid means I've been out of the habit of both for about 2 years now.) None of which he knew, but it was actively helpful rabbithole for me to go down because this actually looks like a good option for me for dance not in person. Once my dang toe heals. I'm still shaking my head at myself over doing that to myself the other day because I got frusttrated and used too much force when the wheels were stuck on the threshhold between the carpet and bamboo floors....

Speaking of my toe, in case you were concerned still. Toenail is still attached but there's still a lot of bruising and blood underneath it and it hurts to touch the top or side of the toe that is where the worst of the bruising is. Thus why no giving any dance a try just yet because even just kneeling so that the injured toe touches the ground hurts -- and it's not like an actual in person class or training or practicing for a performance where other people depend on me so I don't have a good reason to power through the pain ignore it and keep dancing on it rather than letting it rest and heal. (I can still walk and hike on it just fine.)  The subungual hematoma isn't continuing to bleed, it doesn't need stitches and I've trimmed it cleansed out as much of the blood as possible without further detaching it but the underside of the nail is definitely stained and there's pretty extensive bruising under most of the toenail. I can't tell yet if there's damage to the nail bed or nail matrix that might affect future growth.  I've been washing it and soaking it and putting both Neosporin and antimicrobial herbs on it and keeping it open to the air as much as possible except when outside or around other people and telemedicine interview told me I'm doing everything right and nothing they could do to help if I went in -- as I expected. but damn it looks like shit and while I don't think I'm going to lose the toenail, I think I've definitely detached it from the nail bed and that could mean a long term heal if best case scenario the nail bed itself isn't damaged but I won't know that for another 6 months or so as the nail grows out.  Will definitely be keeping my toes with a dark polish all summer because otherwise no open toed shoes for me this summer. Which honestly just sounds awful. And as much as I love fun socks, I tend to wander about barefoot as much as possible unless it's cold outside or I'm hiking/walking in places that might injure my feet or re just icky like downtown sidewalks.

But if you want to see my injured toe to know just what I mean by, "It looks like shit though I'm doing everything I can to keep it clean and help it heal" here you go. (Sorry in advance if injured feet and toes give you the heebs. Bu then you're clearly not a dancer or former dancer because other than the obvious issue of my subungual hematoma on my big toe, my feet are in remarkably uncallused, not beat up condition compared to how they've been most of my life.... Irish hard shoe is actually even harder on my feet than pointe shoes were, having danced in both.)

And here it is next to my thumbnail for scale:

As you can see, the subungual hematoma bruising is most of the toe, especially on the right side of it, but I have hope that the nail matrix itself is fine because even though there's light yellowing bruising there, it's not as bad at the base of the nail. And it's not fully detached, attempting to trim it further or clean out further causes pain.  So I have hope that in time that nail might heal properly in time. But it will do better if I refrain from floor work in dance or yoga or pilates and no martial arts kicks against the punching bag in my parents basement. Not until it no longer hurts to put pressure on the top of the nail while kneeling, lol. So for at least a week. (Says the girl who went back to advanced ballet 2 days after breaking three toes (including the currently injured one) and decided never to go back becaue after apologizing to the instructor for falling out of 3 pirouettes at the bar and having to to do 2 of the grande jeté piqué arabesques across the floor as not piqué whenever the fractured toes couldn't support her AND refractured her shin (originally fractured due to a short slippery zebra print skirt making me slip off side saddle riding the carousel ride at the zoo at an orchestra benefit concert and yeah I know) because she refused to be in a boot and decided to absent mindedly do grande pliés en seconde while waiting on her tea to steep when her shin was only 3 weeks healed.  Pliés are a LOT of corkscrew torque on the shin bone, and it's most in grande pliés en seconde. I refractured it in a spiral pattern up and down the bone from the original break. It was really stupid of me.) So I mean, me babying this toe instead of dancing on it while it's still healing is something new to me that I'm trying.

Y'know what, I'll take some selfies to put at the top of this post so I don't have to look at that first image as my thumbnail moving forward, lol. Because like I said, that toenail looks like shit right now.

 I'll be starting on making dinner soon -- my plan is a Goan fish curry. I drink a lot of tea, right now it's Barry's Gold Blend black tea. It started with me not liking the flavor of most water as a kid, I still don't like the taste of most water whether it's tap or bottled or well water. And I admit that I have a weird past life taboo that you don't drink water unless it's mixed with wine or alcohol or boiled. As a young child I drank a lot of juice and soda and milk  but since I was constantly growing and starving my body just converted those extra calories into growing two inches overnight while I slept.  But I stopped growing in 5th grade so then in middle school I wanted something with less sugars than juice and soda because once I was my full height, the excess sugars made me super unfocused scatterbrained impossible to sit still to finish my homework. As an adult, I drink all different types of black, purple, oolong, white, green, and herbal teas. Different teas for different moods. I don't particularly like yerba mate or pu-erh teas, because they smell like stinky feet the way kombucha does, though there are a small handful of exceptions to that general dislike of both yerba mate and pu-erh teas. There are no exceptions to my active dislike of kombucha. The smell of kombucha makes me want to vomit and I don't care how beneficial it is for gi health, for me it is only good as an emetic....

Anyway, I slept in today with the windows open wide to the sound/smell of the rain and the reason I was so sleepy is because I only slept 2.5 hours the night before. Couldn't fall asleep until almost 1am and then my dog woke me up at 3:30am with an urgent need to go poop. After we came back inside, I was wide awake in the witching hour nothing worked for me to fall back asleep so at 4:45am I gave up rather than get the absolute worst amount of sleep that's more than a nap but less than a REM and decided to reshelf some books before making breakfast and being ready waiting by 8:30 as I instructed. My dog was exhausted though after not sleeping in the middle of the night giving off the happiest sleepy vibes ever. We had Billy Joel on (my dog was conflicted where to sleep until I brought the music into my bedroom rather than leaving it in the living room) and then yesterday morning I switched it to Chopin all day for calming down the cat before potential hallway noises and a stranger coming into the flat. (In Spock's opinion, Chopin is second only to George Winston. Also Spock is a scaredy cat sometimes terrified of his own reflection. He hasn't come out of hiding since the maintenance guy came in, even with Chopin still playing.) Then I went into work in the evening for a handful of hours to get the end of month deposit done and finish out my hours for the week.  Then I went home and read while drinking tea and listening to the rain with flickering candles and listened to some George Winston until bedtime. (which the dog once again insisted I bring the music into the bedroom for sleep.)

So. I was thinking. I haven't mentioned it before, but one of the things that always makes me smile in his emails is that he always includes philosophy quotes. I own and read a lot of philosophy, for fun. (I attended lectures in college but my schedule was too overloaded to actually enroll and when one of them I was in was taught by the head of the department he yelled at me said it didn't matter how much I enjoyed it or that I was one of the most thoughtful knowledgeable in his class, if I didn't enroll properly in the class it was like stealing because enrollment determined departmental budget so he didn't want to see or hear of me sitting in any more philosophy lectures unless I was properly enrolled. I did not like him. At all. I found him pompous and sanctimonious and his ethics were flawed given that I was a full time student and his behavior made me never want to take a philosophy course that would benefit his tenure as department head so when I finally had a 3 credit hole to fill I chose a Dostoevsky lit in translation course. Because everyone takes Dostoevsky for fun while also in a grad level French class, analytical chemistry, a Shakespeare class, and filling out your remaining 2 credits with a morning ballet and midday jazz class (and attending both sabre fencing and historical fencing not for credit because you already took it for credit but you were a favorite of your fencing master so he told you to go ahead and attend if schedule allowed as long as a student.)  but then, the head of the philosophy department he was a lover of Kant as his area of expertise. So ugh. No surprise actually his ethical take on kicking our his best/favorite student after realizing she wasn't actually enrolled in the class.... But anyway, I've been loving the random philosophy quotes at the top of his emails and the fact he said in the most recent one he's a philosophy major made me grin and realize, "Well at least that's something about me won't confuse or irritate him about me and my unending questioning of everything.". I have somewhere over 150 philosophy books, though I've only read about half of them at this point because always buying more, not counting those I deemed theology or political theory rather than philosophy. And also not counting the texts that I have in French (all my Sartre and Camus are in the original only) or dual language (I aspire to own every volume in the Loeb Library Greek texts, those pretty little green books! I get excited whenever I find any used that I don't already have -- they're pricey new!) *shrugs* I Red a lot and I like trying to understand how/why people think the way they do and I like things that teach me new things teach me to think in ways that I haven't thought before.

Anyway. What I'm saying is I like the philosophy in his emails. Both the quotes and the trying to explain his own personal philosophical approach to his life and the world. The inclusion of all the philosophy in the emails makes me really happy. Makes me grin every time I see his name in my inbox with another new email newsletter to read.

Now I'm gonna go make Goan fish curry. Because I have some fish to use up and I have a premixed Goa fish curry spice blend.  But I'll be making it with Greek yogurt and whole milk in it instead of coconut milk. Because of the recent allergic reactions to both coconut oil and coconut slivers.

 So I got everything major moved around as much as I'm going to today to make it easy as possible for them to get to the fire alarm for the repairs tomorrow starting at 8:30am (uncertain when they'll be in my condo.) Piano is not accessible atm without moving the dining table and only one side of the table is accessible and none of this is final how I want it to be...... but I have no plans to desperately need to play the piano tonight. I mostly have it because I've always had a keyboard around to get songs stuck in my head out of my head (sorry in retrospect if that was someone else's melody being stored in my silences and you lost it after I played it out to release it lol) and when my grandma was getting rid of her old digital piano it was nicer than any I then had. So there's a piano in my living room and has been since I moved here even though I rarely play it. I've considered putting it in Spare Oom but something inside me rebels at that insists pianos belong in living room areas so here it remains in defiance of logic and usage. And that intuitive insistence is definitely not worth fighting on this one. Pianos belong in the living room and my books belong in dedicated library nooks of cozy bookshelves like walls and in my bedroom until I live in my someday house where the library can be its own room -- but damnit neither the books nor the piano go in the spare room where other people might stay over and you might not be able to middle of the night get what you need to find to make your brain hush up. 😂. That's the best I can explain the intuitive imperative of having a spare room that neither the piano nor the thousands of books I own can go in. It's illogical when I live by myself most of the time and only rarely have house guests and roommates - but the insistence on this inside me is absolutely implacable and not to be meddled with.  I don't fight me when I dig my heels in and you'd be a right fool to fight me when I get stubborn. Especially when something inside me is rebelling against logic in my stubbornness. And I will admit that having the piano in the living room, the vaulted cathedral ceilings (all my ceilings are 8ft but in the main living room they're angled up to twice that height) do make it have a nice acoustic resonance when you play in here. but I'd not recommend trying to move a real piano up the stairs then right hand turn in a narrow hallway at the top of the stairs.... Some things have definitely been a bit of a wiggle and Tetris to move in and I put my bed frame together in my bedroom and I don't know if it  this is mid process to get the fire pull more easily accessible for them. I have some cleaning/organizing/more rearranging things between rooms to get to the next stage of the living room that I precogged back in November or so.

Also while moving things I got another precog flash of how it will be (different than it now is) and it's one of those absolutely frustrating and delightful things about the immutable precog flashes. Because I've seen furniture pieces I don't currently own involved in the setup but hell if I know when or where I'll find that piece or how it will cross my path, only that when it does I'll recognize it for where it's gone since before it entered my actual life. And sometimes, it's only a couple of months but sometimes it's fucking years. I've precogged entire places I'll move into eventually and how the furniture will be laid out long before I ever move there or know who the furniture belongs to or where it is.... Occasionally I'll get immutable precogs that mildly terrify me because I don't recognize anything or anyone in it and I have no idea if it's just me getting thrown into all new surroundings and people I've never yet met OR if I'm going to die and I'm precogging into my next life..... Because in my past lives, not only do I know when I might die and when I will die and nothing can stop it and see my death before it occurs, but before precogging my unavoidable death I'll get precog glimpses into my next life and everything is foreign and strangers to me. So it always rattles me a bit when my precogs are an entirely new to me space and the only person I see that I recognize from my life is my own. Fucking terrifying every single time..... And then when the randomness shakes out and I get there, I have the biggest relief of, "O thank all that's holy! That's all that precog was!" But sometimes I can exist with that dread in me of inexplicable strange precogs for up to two years at the longest.... And that is never fun even though I just try to keep going on and watching my steps and hoping this reward life didn't get truncated by choices that make my reward choice impossible to meet and enjoying all the moments I have while I have them, just in case. 

Also. While I didn't have to Tetris my metal queen size bed frame and mattress and box spring or attempt to move any bookshelves taller than me or move my solid wood liquor cabinet that has previously broken multiple toes on me all by myself as I have in the past, I did move the vintage record player console on wheels and manage to pull it toward me too hard when it stuck so it hit my right big toe just wrong and detached the toenail from the bed more than a little bit. More than halfway pulled it off. I definitely did my typical adrenaline fueled stoicism of "gah! How stupid of me! That's gonna bruise and I hope it didn't break.seriously" then just continuing on until I noticed the blood splatters all over the floor where I'd walked while moving the record player console around right angles of hallway and Spare Oom. And my Friday thought was definitely, "dear Lord is this record player console leaking some sort of red oil?!?! It's never done that before..." Followed by the, "Nope those are blood spatters. Both animals are curled up out of the way in the reading nook area. Must be my blood then. Awww fucking a, best figure out what I actually did to my toe then...." I cleaned it up with soap and water and then isopropyl alcohol and then put some Neosporin slather across it just in case and then a big bandaid but haven't checked on it since because it was my last super large bandaid. And then I cleaned up the blood splatters on the floor. (Isopropyl will get up most blood, but if it starts to coagulate and set, best way to get it up is the enzymes in spit. The trick however is it needs to be the spit of the person whose blood it is - even closely related enzymes won't work. Unless you're identical twins. But if you ever get blood in clothes or dried into wood grain or anything like that, rinse it, isopropyl alcohol it, then have the person whose blood it is spit on whatever remains. This hack only works if you know whose blood it is and have access to their spit. Random thing I learned in one of my premed biochem classes.) 

I'm going to take the dog out now and the garbage too. And then rest my toe a bit and make dinner as well as shower me and the dog (freshly washed linens and you think we'll be getting into bed unwashed and greasy?! No no. Clean sheets deserve clean bodies for at least the first heading to sleep in them.) and take a look at what that toe looks like and how salvageable the nail/nailbed is at that point. Adrenaline definitely worn off so it's hurting a bit now to stand on it....  Not the first time I've torn off a toenail this life, but in the past it was while dancing so I at least had a good story to tell... This was just stupid inattention. Ahhh well, it will heal. Maybe won't be pretty this summer, even disguised under nailpolish, but it will heal.  And right now, my dog needs to go out because she was patient all day while I was cleaning and moving things. 

Side-note: both Mikaela and Crissy have now thanked me profusely for how completely and instantaneously and magically my blue Antihistamine tea worked and that it didn't make them drowsy at all. Both have requested more and I told them I'll gladly make them more once they get those glass spice jars back to me from the sample for them to try because I currently have all my spare glass jars except ones for oils and vinegars are currently in use..... (Like all witches and herbalists and tea enthusiasts, I'm a magpie for keeping nice glass jars. And yet I somehow never have enough... I recycle the plastic spice jars but I definitely get excited for anything that comes in nice glass ones I can reuse, lol..) 

 There has been so much intense love flooding down the bond the last several hours. So much more than there has been in recent weeks/months! It's heady and overwhelming and intense and I love it and it makes me incredibly happy. I'm not entirely certain why, but if it has anything to do with my realization or actions as a result.... Well... I... I would have thought of this in this way long before this if I'd known I'd be rewarded for choosing what makes me happy by receiving more of what makes me happy. I mean, I know that sounds obvious phrased that way, that whatever you choose you get more of in your life. But also, this isn't necessarily a linear relationship or direct cause and effect sort of thing. Or maybe it is and I just complicate everything unnecessarily by overthinking and assuming and doubting. Whatever the cause, the effect was that it added more joy to my day by flooding me with love. 

Also I vacuumed until the point the filter needed to get washed and in washing partially disintegrated. So no more vacuuming until I order more HEPA filter for the vacuum. I'm just going to call this under the bed "good enough for now, but to be continued..." And keep moving with my day. (I actively loathe vacuuming, the sound of a vacuum makes me irrationally irritated, and while I understand there are times it's necessary I'd be much happier to tear out the carpet in the master bedroom and Spare Oom and replace them with hard wood or even fake hard wood floors so I could just sweep and mop everything always. Whenever I live with anyone, I try to get them to do the vacuuming and preferably when I'm not home. I usually offer to do all the dishes always if they will vacuum. I haven't tried a Roomba since the early models which made too much vacuum noise so they wouldn't irrationally irritated me. It's the randomest stupidest thing, but the sound of vacuums just gets under my skin makes me ornery AF and looking for a fight. Every damn time. I don't mean to and I know I react that way and I warn people but it's just like my last frayed fuse is full of bees after enduring the sound of a vacuum.....) 

Now if I weren't so flooded full of love light, I'd be irrationally irritated and hangry by this point. But I'm surprisingly chipper and happy and dancing around to Billy Joel mix. (Look, you're never going to get me to not love Billy Joel songs and squee "I love this song!" every dang time. This is not a battle you could ever win. He has been my favorite since I was like six years old and my all time forever favorite weak in the knees song is one of his songs. You know a battle you could win? Surprising me with Billy Joel tickets. I will move everything around to go to a Billy Joel concert at any opportuniry. Even if they're always in massive ballpark arenas and ridiculously pricey even from not very close seats. Still surprising me with Billy Joel tickets is always a tactic that will win whatever battle it is you're trying to make headway on. It is known.) Now. Linens in the laundry are still going round and round and round. I've made coffee and veggies are sautéeing for my very belated brunch that's really a breakfast for late lunch scenario at this point, lol. 

Also though. The constant flood of love down the bond is just non-stop since midmorning. And I'm trying to remember the last time it was this strong for this long a period without waning and I can't think of one. Certainly not recently. Curious. 

P. S. Also my empathic lil Pisces pup does this thing where she refuses to eat, even when her food bowl is full, unless I actually eat something. There are two schools of thought on this: one that it's a pack hierarchy thing and the other that it's her caring that I take care of myself and making sure of it because she knows I care if she goes hungry. I'm on team Why Not Both It on this one. But she's super excited that I'm FINALLY eating something. And not just so she can munch on mushroom pieces flung at her in the hallway. 😂 

 O right! 

A reminder worth stating about me! 

I have a many centuries of lives pattern of self-martyring and undervaluing my own worth and putting other people/causes ahead of me. If you know any of my past life stories or remember me from any of my past lives, you know that to be true about my nature and who I have been. That's actually one of the things I'm supposed to be working on this life, prioritizing and valuing myself as an individual with my own intrinsic worth and choosing self care and personal well-being and growth and the little joys in existence and having more of an ego and less self-sacrifice in my nature. It's a main reason why I'm a Taurus north node. (I mean also there's that whole being an international sex symbol and letting my soul light burn bright as possible last life as the means to make certain that anyone anywhere in the world could find me if they were looking to explain my Scorpio south node.) This life, I'm actually not allowed to put any cause or beliefs or person or nation ahead of my own well being same as I'm not allowed to seek wealth or fame or power as seeking those requires sacrificing the self and the goodness in one's own life. Luckily, I don't desire any of those things this life. Most of the things I desire in this life are fairly simple -- to be loved for me qua me just as I am, books, music, a garden, indoor plants, time to wander the woods and wilds, fur babies, to see the skies In all their colors and moods, to commune with the stars, art, delicious food that's nourishing for my body, art, curiosity and new ideas, to always find wonder in the beautiful and amazing things that EXIST.  Really that's it. That's the entire list of things I want. There are infinite permutations of those desires, but those are the desires themselves. They're small and even the things I do as creative outlets, my real writing and my sketching and painting and dance, I don't do them for the desire to make money from them but only for the joy in doing them. 

I'm really quite terrible at the whole selling myself or even trying to get published. Even my real writing which IS publishable and much better than most books I buy in bookstores (and I buy and read a LOT of books, lol. I basically live in a combination library art gallery. If you ever visit my home, you'll understand that statement. I'm actually running out of wall space for my bookshelves and artwork - I'm at a point where even a small version of my someday house would be better than my condo. Also, my neighbors have been making me incredibly I'll with their chemicals in hallways and seeping through shared walls and I would have fewer migraines and days I'm so light headed from synthetic perfumes used by neighbors that just trying to stand up makes me light headed enough to pass out. It's actually been a huge problem for me the last 6 months to a year since new neighbors moved into the units below me and right next to me and I've been trying to just deal but sometimes me going silent for days is due entirely to migraine issues from neighbors using products that made me too I'll to even take my dog outside. I'd be able to do much more and be sick less frequently if I had a house not a flat. Not a big house, I actually prefer small cozy homes over large empty rooms.) Do I know my fictional writing to be brilliant and people who read it get hooked and want more of it to support me in it? Yes. But I don't actually have a burning desire to publish, just to write out characters and scenarios that start with me asking a question. The chances of me being published are low without someone else stepping in to make it happen and push me to publish rather than just writing whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it.

And despite all my accumulated knowledge in so many disparate areas, I actually decided when I was a child in elementary school that the only place to put important truths is in fictions because once you're dead you have no say over how future followers twist your words from your intent to serve their own ends. And even if their intent was good, like Plato preserving the memory of His mentor Socrates as a character within his dialogues, we don't even have extant knowledge of anything directly attributable to Socrates. And we don't have any of Plato's own ideas, just fictitious dialogues of thinkers and famous people drinking and discussing deep ideas while drunk. Same with Aristotle - what we call Aristotle is believed to be the remnants of lecture notes from some unknown student at The Lyceum, not the writings of Aristotle himself. And yet we have entire schools of philosophic thought based on the "Socratic" method and "Platonic" and neo-Platonic ideals and Aristotilean logic/epistemology that have reshaped the Medieval and Renaissance social structures based on what their followers think was meant as The Truth when we don't have anything original from them of their own beliefs and ways of thinking. And literally, Socratic method is the questions the character of Socrates asks in Plato's dialogues, but everything Socrates expounds is Platonic ideal because he revered Socrates more than the other celebrities at his fictional drunken discussions and Aristotilean analytics are based on a student's notes summarizing what they found important in the dialogues that occurred in the Lyceum and this is supposed to be how we know their specific individual philosophic world views?! We don't know their views, we know only what their disciples and followers claim to be their views on how to find The Truth. And even if we had their words as they spoke them, look at what the disciples did to the words of Jesus and look at the even worse interpretations of the disciples words that have been used to justify every human atrocity of the last 1500 years. Or look at the way the Constitution is twisted to defend positions directly antithetical to other parts of the US Constitution or other writings by those who created the Constitution. Or look how early forms of evolution via natural selection were twisted into eugenics and from eugenics to The Final Solution in The Holocaust.  No, I remain firmly convinced that the only place important truths belong are in fictions rather than claiming them as The Truth with a capital t - because people can be inspired by fictions and find truths hidden in plain sight and grow from them but they'll never commit murder or genocide or enslave people and justify it by a work of fiction that calls itself fiction. Your followers are shite and no matter their intentions they will misunderstand and misrepresent you - especially once you're dead and can't possibly correct or contradict them. Great truths are safest in myths and stories and fairytales and plays and songs and paintings - but humanity cannot be trusted with great truths in any form they might make into an idol on a pedestal. Not even science. (which is actually a process of logic to try to discover truth from disparate data and conflicting theories, not a Truth with a capital t in itself - never should have been made the idol it is at this point in history. It's treated like Medieval saints relics by the masses who don't bother to learn the concepts of any given branch of study.) Anyway. My firm conviction stands that important truths only belong in fictions and works of art because after your death you can't control how people twist and misuse your words in the name of atrocities if they think it Truth. Disciples and sycophants will twist every Truth into the unrecognizable to rationalize what they want to do anyway, so posterity can only be trusted with great truths if you hide them in plain sight within fictions and art and music. 

Which is wandering so very far from my point I wanted to write about. Which is that I know I'm prone to self-martyring and stoicism in the name of putting others before my own needs and I know I constantly undervalue the worth others set on me. And I know that this life is a reward life but it's also about me learning the lessons not to sacrifice myself all the time and about me recognizing my own intrinsic worth as just me. And to experience the joy and wonder and curiosity of existing within this Universe.

I suppose though, technically, as long as I'm trying to sacrifice my own desires for him to be in my life and in my dream space I'm not learning my lessons about prioritizing myself and my own needs. Even as laudable a reason as respecting his free will and self determination is still me sacrificing what I want in the name of a cause/belief, isn't it? If I'm going to actually learn this lesson, I won't get there by putting "whatever it is he wants for himself" as a greater priority than what I want. It's still me falling into my many lives pattern of atomic self-martyring for a cause or an idea or a nation or another person. I should be focusing on what I want and what brings joy into my life rather than acting from a place of self-denial. Not just filling my life with books and music and puppies and flowers and trees and art. But also saying, "Seeing him gives me joy. Having him in my life in whatever capacity I can have him brings me joy. So what if his sister was an ego-driven defensive bitch toward me on the social media accounts she controlled from late 2017 through me severing ties to the band in late 2019 and she continuously refuses to take ownership or be accountable for her past actions or the present consequences of her actions -- HE makes me happy whenever I see him or have him in my life." The fact that his most recent email had portraits of just him in it made me so happy and made my heart do back flips just to see him again. Because I've been denying myself every opportunity of seeing him in the name of setting him free to pursue whatever his heart is set on for his happiness. But the person I'm hurting the most in not letting me see him and in unfollowing his socials is myself. He still has plenty of people to follow him and give him joy and ego boosts, it's myself who suffers from having unfollowed him. Nobody is making me suffer from this self-denial but me. And that's stupid and it's me not learning my lesson and as long as I'm denying my own desires for the sake of someone/something else I'm not learning my lesson here. Am I? I can't self martyr my joy in the name of wanting him to find his happiness and think that will get either of us anything we want. I'm making myself miserable and either I'm denying him what he wants in denying myself or my denial has no bearing whatsoever on what he wants - but there's no way me doing it is in anyway aiding him toward finding what he's seeking. So it's pointless and stupid and harms me and for absolutely no reason at all in terms of achieving anything I want. So it's stupid and pointless and if seeing him is going to make me happy, and it really does make me light up overflowing with joy, then I should let me see him. 

In conclusion: I'm going to go back and add him on my socials right now because it will make me happy whenever I see him there. The band is still dead to me and the songs still don't bring me joy as they used to because every time I hear or see anything with Liz or Britt I freeze up and everything turns to ash and all the joy disappears because I expect bullying and ostracism from them based on their past actions and that isn't going to change without them acknowledging and making right on their past behaviors. And it's hard to find joy in anything where half the vocals make you expect to be bullied by those vocalists because the bullying ostracism behaviors are your greatest association with them at this point. Abusive bullying behaviors and gaslighting and refusing to apologize or acknowledge you knowingly acted/spoke in ways to hurt another person mean everything associates with the person(s) guilty of the bullying make you expect further hurt and bullying. And nobody can stop me from freezing up being politely distant but not trusting the girls except the girls choosing to acknowledge and fix what they broke with their past behaviors. Which is how I am now anytime anything to do with Delta Rae comes up and why I refuse to spend money on shows or merch or anything new they create -- there is no joy for me in anything the band has created or creates now due to my constant expectation of getting mistreated and associations of being insulted and ostracized by the girls.  But. That's no reason for me not to let me follow him. I can just ignore or skip past the things involving the girls that make me expect I'll treatment because that's what they taught me to expect from them. And everything that's just him and about him gives me joy and it's stupid and counter productive to the lessons I'm working on this life to deny me the joy I feel whenever I see him. 

So I'm going to go follow his accounts then strip down the bed to wash the linens and clean under the bed and turn the box spring and mattress. (I glanced under the bed the other day Looking for something I dropped and the cat likes to sleep there and it's got tumbleweeds of shed cat hair. And it's been tweaking out my latent OCD ever since I saw it. So I need to deal with that to feel comfortable in my own flat again.) And after the laundering is started and the space under my bed cleaned, then breakfast. But first I'm going to go back and follow his personal accounts on Twitter and Instagram (never was Facebook friends, but I reckon I can check if his solo project has a Facebook page.) Because my self denial in the name of him choosing the happiness he seeks is decreasing my potential for joy and not doing any damn thing to further the stated desire of increasing his joy. AND it's regression on the one karmic lesson I'm supposed to be working on this life -- not sacrificing my own happiness/desires/self in the name of a cause I arbitrarily deem more important than me. (Paradoxically, by that logic, the best thing I can do to help him reach the happiness he seeks is by focusing on what brings me joy and happiness to my own life and using that to set my course. Wait, could that be true? Could me trying to set my course by sacrificing my desires in the name of his happiness he seeks actually be fucking up getting in the way of both my happiness and his? By refuting the temptation of self-denial and martyrdom path and instead focusing on what adds happiness to my own life, might that be the path to achieving the goals I genuinely seek here? I will have to consider this. Not right now though, I have cat fur tumbleweeds under my bed to go battle.... But I do need to examine this concept in further detail. The idea that the beat way to help him achieve the happiness he seeks is by me choosing to heed my karmic lesson of choosing what makes ME happy and is healthy/healing/joyous for me rather than falling into my old patterns of self-denial in the name of causes I seem greater than myself. My own delight can be an end in itself.) 

P. S. Same rule in the future though. If having his socials back in my life does NOT add to my happiness, then it will be time to unfollow them again.

 I set this to private to authors these recent couple days because.... Because I don't really know why if I'm honest. I just sort of did it because it seemed pointless to have it public and I set it back to public because there was something nagging my intuition that somehow that had been upsetting.... Which is a random and stupid intuitive thing because literally nobody knows this even exists, it's set not to be found in any google searches since they changed the settings so i could do that and I don't use it to any purpose. But it was prickling under my skin my intuition and it was hard to live in my own skin until I just admitted to myself, 'That makes sense but if it will make you hush up intuition, then damnit it really doesn't make any difference to me and I'd rather be able to live in my own skin again!" A lot of things I do because it doesn't make much difference to me either way except my intuition won't shut up about which way it thinks is better even if I don't understand the reasons why it should even matter. Which irritates the piss out of my logic trained brain, but again I have to live in my own skin so if it doesn't really affect me and even if it's inexplicable af why it should matter, I'll just cave to my intuition. Because you have no idea how much it will prod at me until I listen to it. Mostly I think it was just because I got to thinking (overthinking?) And it didn't seem to serve any purpose in it existing or me writing here. I mostly just treat it as a place to flow of consciousness put into words things on my mind or going on in my life because my emotions tend to feel very inchoate and ever changing to me and I can only really see them when I can momentarily freeze them into word sculptures. And only then can I see if they're fair or unfair, healthy or toxic, only then can I come to terms with the deep emotions and the storms and tsunamis they make in me.  Otherwise, without putting them into words, they just get overpowering and senseless. (The things that move me the most profoundly are the times when I lose words entirely. Every time. It's something worth knowing about me.) 

I started putting whatever thoughts/feelings i wanted to get a good look at here, on an unlisted unshared blogger because I felt like writing things out long hand was killing too many trees for no good reason. Although, given how environmentally harmful cloud computing (or anything that requires servers running constantly) maybe I should reassess that at some point. I mean, serious, the amount of carbon footprint from running servers for cloud storage and crypto is truly heartbreaking when you go down that rabbithole....

But see, if I write just for my own sake, then why have it public? I guess there's often an implied reader in many posts I write, but still mostly they're to help me get feelings and impressions and thoughts into more concrete word forms to examine them. 

And then there are times when what I write here is honest to my experiences but not tempered by the kindness of what I would say publicly because of how it could affect other people - complete unfiltered honesty is something a person must earn and show they have the courage to face. Most people can't take unfiltered honesty, they can't face the truths around them. You can't actually start dealing with root causes and making things better without facing facts as things are, rather than how you want them to be, but most people aren't able to face hard truths in their entirety. It breaks them in ways that are hard to heal. There's always a balance point of silence versus how much honesty, how much truth, how much hard to face facts, most people are able or willing to face. I have a policy with myself and with those I love who can face hard truths of complete honesty -- but most people are too defensive and ego driven to accept truths they don't want to hear.  So there are ways to say truth without speaking the whole truth and I can play nicely in front of and with others. I'm a Libra sun and Mercury this life, we're rather known for killing you with kindness if you fuck us over or do us wrong. We'll do our best to be fair by you and we'll play devil's advocate even if you did wrong by us, but the scales of justice never forget if you don't have the courage to apologize and acknowledge what you did. And I'll play nice in public settings and I will always be as fair as possible, but you'll never reach me or get me to admire anything you do until you face the truth about the versions of you that you were before. There is nothing you can do that will impress me or win me over without facing the wrongs you did in the past.  But it doesn't mean I will bad mouth or insult you to strangers or in public. And there are things that I have written here that cross that line of bad mouthing even though they're truthful about what occurred and my own reactions to those events. Still, sometimes I question if that should be floating about publicly instead of private to me.  

And then in recent weeks I've been working on releasing karmic bonds preparatory to the next eclipse season opening this Friday, right at Beltane. Full moon on Beltane = if you fuck around, high chance of birth control methods failing so you getting pregnant or if you're a man getting someone else pregnant. Just know that. Anyway. I've been working on letting go of karmic ties including trying to release any expectations related to the bond with Eric, to try to free him so he can pursue whatever it is he's seeking for himself this life without having attachments to me. I've been trying to release him from any sense of karmic obligation or expectation towards me when I realized that he's looking elsewhere for companionship in his life and the bond is in the way of that. So basically since his email #7 that I read while I was in Kirkland. And there's a lot that I've written here that speaks of that karma and the bond between us and it seems to me that I can't release him while also trying to hold on. And, if there was reciprocity and a reason for me to hold on I would, but I got to thinking that I'm in the way and it's past time for me to release him from obligations and being bound to me. And it seemed to me that included releasing the words about what it has been and what I hoped it would be. 

But then last night I realized that might not be what he wants. That releasing him to seek out what he wants in his life is right but that to assume I'm no part of it or the bond is in his way somehow is wrong headed. Which is a thought that I've had before, but thoughts without supporting evidence are as easy to change as they were to create. You need more than just thoughts and words to give an idea gravitas and reality and a reason to prefer it over the sophistry and logic of examining the opposite case. (And as a Jewish Libra sun with a Pisces rising, I'm always full of "on the other hands" and trying to see the other perspective. Worse than Tevya.  but I always want to be as fair as I can be, and that means examining all the possibilities/perspectives not leaving them unexamined.  Which is how I ended up constantly peeking down potential fate lines once I figured out how to see them -- it helped me make better more fair decisions to consider the outcomes and how they affected people and things. Also though, you have to have precog related gifts to even hope to glimpse that way and it's one of the rarer clairsentience gifts that I've encountered.)  Anyway. What I'm saying is that i feel I'm most in the right when I leave it for him to decide what matters to him and what he desires to have in his life and what his happiness he's seeking looks like. But that there's an important balance point (which I'm really really really really bad at) of maintaining myself within his options in case that's what he wants. Like, see, objectively, having the bond automatically makes me subjectively biased and I know that. But also it also affects him even if only at a subconscious level, and maybe if the bond wasn't there his choices would be entirely different than if it's there and maybe him being free to choose would have to not have the bond pulling at him.....and maybe that's true but then also, that doesn't mean he doesn't WANT the pull of the bond or the way it complicates things, maybe he doesn't want to be free of it he just wants to find a way to make it real bring it into his life. And I just have to be cautious, knowing I'm biased by what I want, not to overcompensate against what i want and think that he'd be more able to get what it is he's seeking if the bond didn't pull at him the way it does. I dunno, it's all a bit tangled and confused inside me and because it's so close and I have my own subjective desires woven through it all, I can't find anything like objectivity. Sometimes I think I just overthink myself into an absolute Gordian Knot tangle and I just need someone else to cut through it all and be like, "Stop. This is my truth. The rest is just you over-thinking." Especially when I deeply care.

Anyway. There wasn't really a reason for me setting it to private other than overthinking while trying to release what I'm uncertain if I should hang onto or release. And I set it back to public because it makes so little difference since this isn't really anywhere for anyone to find and read and my intuition wouldn't shut up at pricking me that I was somehow causing damage doing something amiss by having it to private.... And I just reached the point where living comfortably i my own skin meant more to me than any sort of logic or analytical provable reasons why it was bothering me so. And then honestly it doesn't much matter because I didn't even write anything here during that time it was private, lol. Nobody missed anything, or at least nothing that was here.

Which is a lot of words signifying nothing. (To paraphrase Shakespeare. technically the line is "sound and fury signifying nothing") And I mean, whatever. it's back here and I have no idea what I'll feel like writing about here in the future so I can make no promises when/what and I don't have any good practical reasons for having this set public vs. private and the changes both times this time were on a whim. So yeah. Anyway. Back to pulling and purging old files until whenever I head home.

Eclipse coming up on Friday at Beltane and my parents leave on Saturday morning so I'll have both dogs and trying to balance spending some time at home with my cat as well as time with the dogs and getting hours in at work until the 15th. But nothing else in the calendar. O, well, right before they leave, on Friday, Condo Management has some repairs for the fire alarm systems so I'll be doing some cleaning and such tomorrow and Friday I'll have to be home during the day and they'll need to come in. And then Friday night I'll have to come into work for a bit to get the end of month deposit done.And I think Saturday morning is going to be rainy/thunderstorms so don't actually know yet if heading to Farmer's Market. On verra.

 In case you were wondering how miraculous nettle is for destroying excess histamine, this was me this morning after drinking one cup of straight nettle tea with honey after waking up in a state as bad as the Thurs night pictures of me exhausted schmutzy machine faucet nose of clear phlegm.

And then this was me by 6:30 to meet up with Crissy: 

And this was me when we got back from Farmer's Market around 8am:

And then this is me sunburned again (despite wearing sunburn and keeping my back to the sun) after a pot of coffee with brunch and 2.5 beers across the 3 hours of the 2021 Vintage Beer Club party outside at their Sauk City location: 

You do NOT want to know how wind tousled rats nest of elf locks those curls are. 😂 You can't tell in the pictures, but they're in such knots from the wind this afternoon it's going to hurt like a mofo just to try to finger comb detangle them....

Besides being very red from sunburn and what for me is intense bags under my eyes, all the "miserable because nose is a hose and so full of histamine I itch abominably in my ears and under my skin" is just evaporated.Despite both coffee and beer being histamine producing foods/beverages, my histamine levels have been back down to normal existence all day after an entire week of allergy like misery due to excess histamine in my system. 

Aso, I was excitedly explicating the rabbit hole of biochemical pathways involving histamine to Crissy and why pharmaceutical antihistamines only mask symptoms (they bind to histamine receptors but the histamine remains in the body) without getting rid of the root cause of the excess histamine as opposed to the enzyme DAO and other naturopathic antihistamines that break down excess histamine. (I am absolute geek of all geeks when it comes to medical, biology, biochem, immunology, etc. I was premed with an undergrad in Medical Microbiology & Immunology as well as my French and English lit majors. The only reason I didn't go to med school as I'd planned was me realizing that the American health system doesn't allow me to do what I desire (fix people when broken and teach them how to preventive solve the root causes so they won't break) because it's currently a for profit maximization AI type diagnostic to maximize drugs that mask symptoms rather than dealing with root causes and then brute force surgeries once things are so broken they're not salvageable without surgery. I want to deal with root causes not prescribing away symptoms so that you can do as much as possible to keep things healthy before they completely break down. And med school was going to lead me down a path of burn out and heaps of debt to leave me choosing between being a computer to spit out a diagnosis in as little time as possible or to drug away the symptoms rather than seek out root causes, or surgically remove the mistakes/failures that the system created by not addressing before surgery was required. So I balked decided that was not the life path I desired. So now I still deep dive research kinesiology, metabolic chem reactions, biochemical pathways, study the protein foldings of pathogens and drugs and how things bind to cell receptors, and read a helluva lot of studies about everything biology/biochem/medical/immunological that I can find - but I don't have any sort of license nor do I practice medicine in any form. I did consider going into sports medicine for dancers as post grad because it's something I've spent a lot of time learning and is deeply personal with my dance background -- only 3 schools have programs specializing in it, in Minneapolis, in North Carolina, and in NYC. So those were the only places I was working on applications for any form of post grad med school or sports medicine masters/PhD program.   The only reason I didn't get those applications in to pursue sports medicine for dancers was because I got the death plague I'm pretty sure was MERS (my ex of the time was a grad student from Saudi Arabia and I got sick soon aftwr he came back from visiting his family) and which had me so exhausted I physically couldn't do much of anything that overtaxed me without brining on a physical collapse of exhaustion for several years after college. (As in, for a month and a half after getting so sick with an upper respirator, I was sleeping 20-22 hours of every 24 -- I just his that truth from people who only saw me in short time spans. Then one of my roommates came back and caught me out at it and made me go in and I learned all sorts of things that were not wrong with me from a lot of tests taken but not what was wrong with me. But it was another 6 months or so that I was sleeping 12-16 hours of every 24 and getting winded just walking up Bascom Hill and that fall I had cold induced asthma for the first time and could only breathe in air colder than 45F if it was warmed through multiple layers of scarves across my chest, throat, nose, and mouth. Fall 2019 was actually the first time in a very long time that my lungs were finally healed enough to just breathe in the cold crisp air of fall/winter/spring. So when COVID masks hit, it was a normal I'd grown used to as the only way to breathe during cold months. But yeah, that death plague convalescence was a long haul bitch for my body to heal. And I cheat use energy work and Angela and old gods to help me heal faster!

But anyway. By 9am this morning I had concocted my first version of Dani's Blue Antihistamine Herbal Tea Blend and then this afternoon I gave some to both Crissy and Mikaela who have both been showing histamine intolerance and histamine cascade symptoms. It's all things they don't have any allergic reactions to and they both have regularly in food and teas  (well except the nettles, which are the most medicinal antihistamine part but taste so herbaceous earthy astringent even I add honey to straight nettle tea, and the blue pea flower which is just to make it a beautiful deep midnight blue color because visual aesthetics affects taste receptors.) I'll tweak it as we go, but it's a game changer for excess histamine cascades. And it turned out more tasty than I expected. Especially if you put local honey in it to help with pollen allergies.

Time to take my pumpkin on a walk with the fading daylight and beautiful weather before the rains come and the temperature drops! I'll take a look at this pics not in miniature upload dialogue box later to see if I accidentally clicked the same ones multiple times, lol. 

P. S. Just double checked the forecast and currently the rain isn't arriving until after 11pm. And even Audrey and I will come home for late night dinner sooner than a 5 hour saunter in and around the neighborhood, lol.