The Brothers Size production currently running at American Players Theatre was absolutely phenomenal!!! Best I've seen in The Touchstone since The Island (about prisoners in apartheid South Africa.)  Gavin, one of my absolute favorite actors (specifically when he plays roles about the difficulties of the living while Black experience) decided to take on directing this and it was brilliantly acted, emoted, staged.... It was so dynamic and the use of song/rhythm/music throughout added power to the narrative and brought in African American heritage rather than being a gimmick or distraction.  It was gorgeously well done (and just because the actors were fucking cut and spent most of it shirtless or in white tanks so you could appreciate their arms/chests/backs/abs/shoulders so the visual eye candy was yum) -- heavy subject matter and a journey of deep raw emotions and times where your choices are between bad and worse.  But this production of it is stand out amazing. 

Frankly, if you're a theatre fan at all or find the telling of hard to hear but important to keep sharing the lived experiences of Black Americans, it's worth finding your way to Wisconsin to see this current production in Spring Green. it just is. They're a world class classic Shakespearean core company and while they're incredible there are few that I would say are worth a long drive or flight just for that production if no other reason to be in Wisconsin. This play is worth coming to the play in the woods theatre company outside of small town between fields/barns on a single lane highway somewhere northeast of Madison middle of nowhere JUST for this production. Because in addition to classics of the cannon and 2-3 Shakespeare plays every year, they hire incredible actors/directors to tell important (and hard) stories in the Touchstone and every season they have at least one play about the truths of being Black in America. (This year they also have A Raisin in the Sun in the outdoor theatre, so they have two.) And they're not afraid to get political about BLM and human rights in the booklets and in the productions even when the audience is primarily white.

 My thoughts on this historic moment:

If you are only fighting to regain Roe v Wade or to codify abortion rights, than you are at least 50 steps and battles behind the dark money evangelical oligarchs working longer than I have been alive to turn this country into a Christian fundamentalist theocracy. If you're not tackling the imbalance of power in having a corrupted Supreme Court (which was designed to be the check on legislative and executive overreach but there is no constitutional framework to check them.... The founders assumed judges would be impartial or balance each other's biases believing they would be (hu)men of honor to their oaths and the only check on them is that they can't alter any policy or precedent until a case comes before them.). Things are going to continue to descend into darker and darker timelines if you don't redress and balance out the corrupted on the court with fair impartial justices (of any party -- and there ARE conservatives of integrity not owned by the federalist society.). 

And if you're using this moment to campaign finance or cherry pick just the abortion issue to legislate on, you're missing the most important moves on the chessboard..... 

And don't even get me started on how idiotic it is as a party strategy to have been running campaign finance ads for the most despicably ultra-maga zealots and expect those loyal to a demagogue won't vote for them simply because of the letter after their name. Stop expecting those who choose to drink the Kool aid to make logical rational choices. Tribal group think isn't rational. It's tribe trump's all and all you're going to do is get more boeberts and mtgs by this idiotic funding decision. When it comes to voting, republicans aren't logical at this point, they are full of fears and so they are rabidly loyal to their own team and all outsiders are a non-starter. If you wanted to fund anyone for primaries, you should have gotten centrist Dems or libertarians to run as Republican who would talk the talk then vote with Dems on individual rights issues after they were elected. If you're going to fund your enemies, that's how you do it, by subversion not by supporting the extremists hoping the followers will realize they're batshit Followers of demagogues and cults won't see the bat shit, they'll only see the R.... 

Anyway. Need to run. Have rush tickets to APT production of The Brothers Size in the Touchstone for tonight. Ciao bella. 

Also though. Look at the whole chess board, not just this most recent outrage, if you hope for any chance to turn these defeats into a win.....

I had a curious vision dream while I was sleeping this afternoon (look, sometimes when I don't have plans with other humans or need to do things like water my garden at work which is best done in daylight hours, it's just easier on me energetically to sleep during the day and avoid all the noise of so many people thinking/feeling because even if I put up shielding so I'm not always accidentally eavesdropping it's still energy draining to maintain my shields but if I don't have them, people just think/feel so fucking loud. And then when I sleep through the noisy parts of the 24 hours, I flip my nights to be my waking hours.)  I dreamt about a massive volcano explosion. Not past life, the people in it were modern not ancient. And not a volcano I've set my foot upon to know the energy (so not Mt. Rainier, Hawaii, or Yellowstone) in this life. It's one that I haven't personally visited, though I can't swear I haven't seen it at a distance in person if that distinction makes sense. i wasn't ME in the dream either, so it's not like a vision of me going to be in the path of a volcanic eruption. I was floating as an disembodied spirit and chatting with both Gabriel and Michael as it happened and Michael was explaining to me why it was time for this particular one and all the destruction it was causing in the lives of the humans in the city directly in the flow of it. It was a LOT of people....  And there was a lot of suffering as a result of it. But I wasn't close enough to see what culture or ethnicity they were, I was a floating spirit form above the volcano watching it happening and just chilling with Gabriel and Michael. So I knew how hot and smoke and awful it would be if I were incarnated there, but I was just a floating soul so what I felt was the power of it as opposed to the visceral of it. 

I wish I could say more about where or even when (other than everyone is in modern-ish clothing with modern-ish cars and tech and phones and buildings) this volcano is but I don't know that. My vision dreams don't give me information like that. They recur if there's an urgent message in them I didn't get or that I ignored, but they don't give me a distinct when because they occur in the place beyond time's passage. My intuition thinking about it upon waking is that the volcano is/was/will be in Japan.... Maybe China?...  it wasn't in Europe or the Americas or Africa.... But that wasn't something I knew for certain in the dream. Just something my waking intuition is telling me when I think on the dream.

All I know is when it happens, it's going to be major and important and one of those before the volcano and after the volcano time markers for millions if not billions of people....

I don't talk or write about my vision dreams often. (They're distinct from my precogs. And often there are archangels or old gods/goddesses/fée in them.)  But this one I felt I needed to share about. Because it's going to be a massive big deal. Bigger than the earthquake/tsunami that took out Fukashima.

Only I don't know precisely when or where. Only that it disrupts global money/tech/supply chains even further than the mess of things these recent years. And that the disruption to end this old paradigm to create space for the new being born is the why of the volcano and the extensive loss of lives it causes.

 O I'm settling in now to the extra weight of the empath overload from such tides of strong emotions everywhere in the collective and playing Cassandra with all the shifting fatelines and recent cascade of precogs -- I'm steadying out less reckless than I was over the last week of knowing it was coming on Friday because precogs and then experiencing the smack of it when the news broke to the rest of the world. Not the first time this has happened to me this life. 

And to be fully honest about something, the cascade of returning/new contingent precogs that had been truncated while driving and listening to Billy Joel on Wednesday were all about Eric. The return of truncated contingent precogs involving David didn't happen until after Friday night when he saw me shining THAT level of Maenad starshine blindingly soul bright close to burning this body out but still with my internal barrier quite firm to not connect to him any deeper than acquaintance-friend zone as long as he has any connection to Siobhan. (Look, you do not allow empathy bonds to people who have bonds that feed and energy vampire or allow an energy vampire to feed through them. He has her hooks in him and either she's an energy vampire or allows an energy vampire spirit to feed through her suck life force from the living. And that's a problem with me.) Sure I had a return of contingent precogs that I had thought lost involving both of them when I brought up in a fey mood not to make assumptions about my visions. But also, they were not the same quality or quantity or intensity and they were not both on Wednesday. The intense ones on Wednesday were all surrounding Eric. 

Also thinking of which: I will NOT be heading out to Seattle in July to fetch back my sister's dog Waffles. My mom finally reached the point of understanding the necessity of doing it before September (that's a bit of a story, but not for here) and wanting to meet the new baby sooner and so my parents are heading out roadtripping westward to Montana and Seattle area end of July. So while I'll have both dogs for the last third of the month or so until they get back (and then I'm integral to the introduction of Waffles into the pack and we'll see how Waffles and Sophie get on or Waffles may come live with me for a bit since Audrey is far more chill with other dogs has no resource guarding defensive behaviors and Spock will cope. (Waffles is used to cats.) We'll see how the introductions go on the 31st and what seems best for all animals and humans involved. But anyway, that means that in July, the furthest from Madison I plan to go is to Spring Green for APT theatre performances. Now August, August is another beast entirely for my availability because in my world Leo season is synonymous with all my Irish music scene friends and while will be three weekends in a row of Irish fests shenanigans and my Irish musician friends. (Crissy and I decided Iowa not Dublin Ohio due to the extra costs for Dublin, splitting LaCrosse and Minneapolis fest, and then all 4 days of Milwaukee craziness.)  But for the rest of Cancer season, and actually all of July, I'll be staying near home in all my usual haunts in the Madison area.

Anyway. Happy new moon! Plant seeds to bloom across the next month of hope and home and love and family and the maternal energies in your life (or that you desire in your life) and the moon and the ocean and the future you want to make manifest regardless the odds and to protect the things you will fight for if cornered or threatened. That is what Cancer season is all about. And don't be afraid to let yourself cry for the catharsis of your tears to rise up stronger and ready to fight to protect what you value deepest. I haven't made it home yet to light my candles and set my own intentions (still at work) but I will before sunrise. (also though, remember that this new moon has harsh aspects to Eris (paradigm shifts), Lilith (wounded feminine, the feminine no), Chiron (the wounded healer, where your greatest hurts and greatest healings can happen), and the Pluto return (painful and dramatic experiences in order to bring hidden truths into the light and force profound growth/change) of the US. So at a societal karmic level, the stars have been warning for all who could read them that it's gonna be a fucking shitshow and it will get far worse before it gets better....especially because Mars in Aries (which will be squaring the moon all too soon) AND Jupiter in Aries (and what can be more explosively volatile than both Mars and Jupiter in Aries?) which is going to be...just yeah... Today was the pause and the breath and the reset before more shit hits the fan and the volatility burns even hotter. on a collective karmic society level. 

But for the personal, o but there you can work magic in this lunar cycle if you choose!  That's where you can transmute and rise like a phoenix and make whole and beautiful and your own that which you thought lost or dead or out of reach. If you choose to. The conjunction of the moon and the sun with Eris and Chiron can mean wounds and demons of whatever you're avoiding or burying or denying, or it can mean acknowledging and sitting with your past self and your toxicities and using that honesty to transmute the wounds into healing. It's all about what you choose to let it be for your personal karma. But at this time, both paths are open to every individual -- it's up to you which path you'll choose. Whichever of the two paths you choose, the path of denial/burying and further wounding or the path of acknowledgement/honesty and rebirth of healing, it's going to be oceans of emotions to wade through. Because new moon of Cancer season.)

 I very nearly died again Friday night/early Saturday morning. Oops. Luckily I didn't, but it was close and definitely had to shove my soul back in my body multiple times and fight like hell for a solid 3.5 hours in order to keep it anchored there. In a camper in Kentucky of all places. 

There are three times I have drunk to the point of my soul leaving my body and severing the cord and me having to force of will keep it in the body as I struggles to keep the body alive. The first time was in college when I was drinking pints of Long Islands to forget something I had seen someone I cared about do and the man he was allowing himself to be. (Fun fact, I cannot drink to forget. Any time I have tried, I remember every moment of it with intense clarity of being that drunk and all the feels involved. My memory and my metabolism do not allow for me to drink to forget, ever.)  That night I walked a straight line home in 4" heels on every curb edge and I got everyone else water and food and sent to bed not on their backs before I let me be sick and then curled up in the fetal position with my soul floating above my body desperately trying to force it to stay inside the body keep it alive. The second time was in Chicago and it was really bad, bad enough I insisted we had to go in because I couldn't keep soul in body on my own, and the first time my blood alcohol got high enough to give me teeth chattering uncontrollable body wracking shivers from the hypoxia....This time was my second worst time ever with that cliff, borderline if should have gone in, had about 2-3 hours of body wracking chills couldn't stop shivering until sunrise when we got up and I had Crissy drive us back (still vasovagal enough movement was causing retching/dry heaving of bile.) But by the time I got up again at 9:30 after sleeping in the hotel bed for another 4hrs, I was absolutely fine no signs of it and no hangover -- just my normal hummingbird puppy energy. And the weight of all the precogs and the empath overlays of everyone's emotions ....

It was my own fault..... I drank WAY too much gin and whiskey/bourbon pretty much constantly from 4pm until like 12am. The gin in heavy pours of half gin half ginger beer and all the whiskey/bourbon neat.  Enough that the boys of We Banjo 3 were incredibly entertained and concerned and wanted to make sure we were alright would be taken care of (we were heading to Tara and Chris's camper with them to sober up -- otherwise all the guys offered to take the keys and drive us back make sure we safely got to the hotel room. They're good lads and we're incredibly important people to them -- both Crissy and me. But they'll let her help out at merch. They won't let me, not because I'm no good at it, but because they want me front and center doing my energy work filling the crowd with excited puppy happiness and beaming happy energy onstage to help fuel them to give in the performance. They have all directly said that if I could be there at every single show, they would prefer it and every show would be more amazing for it. Martin has also directly told Crissy about me, "We all need more tea drinking empaths in this world.") 

Anyway. What happened was. I was pissed off and gutted simultaneously in the morning and between the way my anger fries electronics and me  being certain that as an empath and telepath I could keep my mouth shut from what I heard people thinking/feeling while at a bluegrass festival. It was really the electronics frying from my anger that I was worried about -- music/festival equipment is expensive and I'd already been making cell signal disappear and tablets fritz the fuck out so Square wasn't working for vendors for the two days previous due to precog knowing it was coming on Friday....  But, we'd bought the tickets and between that and the hotel room it wasn't a cheap choice to stay introvert hermit in the hotel and I knew that if anything could get me to an emotional happy place on such a day, it would be a Rhiannon Giddens set followed by a We Banjo 3 set. The Punch Brothers set on Thursday night. When we got to the hotel on Thursday and I saw our room was right next door to the electric room I said to Crissy, "I'm going to need to do something about that tonight before we go. Otherwise tomorrow we'll have even worse problems and I can't guarantee there won't be an electric fire when I can't control my emotions in the morning." She just assumed I meant as a general precaution, she forgot that when the verdict was leaked I told her in all seriousness, "the verdict will drop for real while we're at ROMP. I'm actually grateful for this leak though because it means more people than me have foreknowledge. It means that those who are in positions of power and organizations can come up with plans for how best to help the women who will desperately need it." She remembered me telling that, she didn't remember until after she saw the news on Friday that I had told her when precisely it would happen. So anyway, when we checked in on Thursday, I put an energetic bubble protective shield around the electric room and the elevators just past them so that even if ai was angry in the halls their electrics would be safe from my energy fluctuations. And then in addition to my normal gridding/blessing the room I added a layer of inward reflecting bubble shield for all emotions and energy. (I can't sleep in any space I haven't gridded/blessed, it's a protective instinct because even in my sleep I shine brightly enough to call vampiric energies to where I am and while resting my defenses are lower than while I'm awake. So whenever I travel, I always grid the vehicles I travel in and every space that I expect I may sleep in. Even my friend's camper when we stopped by Thurs night. It's a self preservation thing, because gods and angels may be on call protecting you but you have to ask for them to intervene, and if you'd ever been hunted by nephilim, you would too.) It made it so everything felt, especially everything I felt, was extra strong within the space, but it kept my emotions from starting an electric fire so worth it. Probably going to cause some people to have extra intense sex in that room while it lasts, but that's not my business, the emotional amplification should wear off by the end of this week. The gridding will endure and endure and endure for as long as the energy stays aligned isn't disturbed by a living soul intentionally changing the alignment and I'm not sure how long my protective energetic shielding will last around the electric room and elevators.... I've never measured my bubble shields length of time, normally they last for as long as I need them and then I break them.... I don't know how long they last if I just leave them. 

Anyway. Foreknowledge isn't the same as the day it happens. I have been warning since I was 12 that the day the Supreme Court balance is lost and it gets corrupted is the start of the darkest fatelines and nothing I can do can get me in a position of power to defend it. I have argued and pleaded since I was a child that the Supreme Court must be defended from the corruption spreading at all costs if we wanted drop avoid the darkest timelines. I have told people that they can't vote their conscience vite green party on any election where a Supreme Court Justice might be chosen within the 4 years because the Republican appointees would corrupt the courts and there is no legal recourse in the balance of powers as it was framed for a corrupted court. Since I was 12 I have known and seen the precogs this was coming. Everybody said once trump was beaten that the worst was past now and I would look at them tragic eyed and say, "No it's not. It's only just beginning. We lost the courts. They're corrupted now. And unless more justices are added NOW to balance the powers of it, we are all so fucked. That's the only pebble that can be moved to shift from the darkest timeline since Comey-Barret was in place and the corruption complete. It's the smallest faintest hope and it won't be taken in time. People are going to die now. And nothing I can say or do can mitigate it even though I already see it all unfolding." I have seen it and I have known and I have not been in a position of power to do a damn thing but funnel money and try to get people to understand the seriousness of it. I have racked my brains trying to figure out if there's anything I could do and all I can do is lighten the fatelines from the worst of the worst to get information to people who can get it to others to keep us from walking the darkest fatelines and to potentially shorten the time spent in dark fatelines. But I have spent this whole life playing Cassandra.... And anyone who tells you there is anyone more tragic than Cassandra in all of Greek mythology is wrong. To see and to foreknow the bad that is descending and to be unable to avert it or to defend against it or even to be taken seriously is the worst.... Mostly I keep my precogs to myself unless they can alter anything even in some small way or they slip out in the candor if speaking honestly to friends and family. But this cluster of timelines has weighed upon my foreknowledge since I was 12. And no amount of foreknowledge can prepare you for the slap of the wave hitting you being in the moment of it as it breaks.... So I have known since I bought my ROMP tickets and got the precog flash that this was when the fatelines would unfold in real time for everyone to see. If it had been anyone but Chris and Paul and the guys, Rhiannon Giddens whose heart breaks over the stories she carries but she knows it MATTERS to keep telling those hard truths to try to keep them from repeating, and my dear banjo boys who are all energy workers and empathy in their own way and due to stories not mine to tell couldn't have made it through that set without my radiating joy in the music and shared moment, I'd have considered not going. But I knew those three sets of musicians were going to be the best thing for me of the people/music that currently eases my heart and the musicians who are currently light bringers in my world. (Delta Rae is not a light bringer in my world any longer. They haven't been since Oct 28, 2018 and the choices made in the band's name at that time. In summer 2019 I held hope they might be able to repair it, but on Aug 31, 2019 when they chose to ignore the consequences of their past behaviors but claimed they were going live on their Instagram to celebrate "with all our friends and backers" was the day they ceased to provide any joy or light to me or anyone in my life who knows the story and once admired or loved their music and messages. They are nothing but hollow hypocrites now, no matter how right the things they say, so long as the band is a creator and perpetuator of systems of ostracism and injustice in their collective name. Choices have consequences, always. And when you won't acknowledge or make right evil you did, then you feed the darkness and destroy the light you could have shine and the consequences will keep unfolding until you face your past choices and make them right. Evil choices breed evil consequences. Always. And I can only warn you but cannot save you from the consequences of your own free will choices. Only you choosing to be better and make right what you marred can change a course once set by your choices. I just see them ahead and can sometimes convince people to make choices that avoid dark fatelines, but I can't choose for them and sometimes I can't stop the dark fatelines from being the path taken.) 

Anyway. We go to ROMP around 4ish because I said I would not be able to rein in my temper or hold my tongue if confronted with anyone celebratory EVEN IF the feelings/thoughts of celebration were internal not external. And bluegrass festival. And so Crissy decided that alcohol was how she got through it and I decided if I went maenad enough I could broadcast my joy in the music and my friends so loud it would drown out the noise of anyone else's smaller celebratory thoughts/feelings on the day. So even knowing there would be consequences for it, I chose to join her in drinking from 4pm on. We started with gin and ginger beers, 8oz pours of gin each. Then after meeting up with Chris, we had some 2.5 fingers in a solo cup sized pours of Eagle Rare bourbon. Then we went back to the car to make Chris a rhubarb gin and ginger because we had brought Tara some while she was volunteering but none for him since we didn't know when we would meet him -- Crissy topped her drink and mine at that point but I didn't see how much more gin went in. Also Chris looked at me and decided to dad us make sure we reapplied sunscreen, which I had needed. Then we went back to the camper to make some gin and tonics for two of their friends we had run into and Chris also made Gina and ginger's for us. Used up the half bottle already opened and opened a new one. Also used Ceabbie's ginger beer which is a hard ginger beer. And his pours were about 16oz of gin in those. And then I insisted we eat and I told Crissy she had to pound a water before finishing her newest gin and ginger then finish it then finish an electrolyte flavored water then could go back to her remaining gin and ginger. Then we whirlwind went to go greet the vendors (I wanted the crystal wire wrap sister witch to see it on me because she asked and the sister witch who she shared a booth with I wanted to buy a wood hair stick from because I loved them had coveted one the day before but my hair was in braids. I literally asked her just to go ahead and put my hair up with it for me please and gave them both huge glowing joy energy hugs. Then over to the tie dye lady from Florida to pay her the $5 we were short the day before running through all our cash when her square didn't work. She had told me not to worry but then her eyes teared up with gratitude when I came back and put the money in her hand. Her prices are already low because she wants to move her wares so she can paint and make more, and my goal hadn't been to haggle her down we just ran out of money and she wanted us to have the things I'd chosen because they made me happy. She got a hug too, lol. And she needed it. She didn't tell me her story in words but she told me in her reliving it and me taking it on in that hug she needed to keep her going. (Unless you've seen me in that state, which you likely have not, you have no idea how much raw power and healing light and divine love I can radiate and channel through me. And even if you've seen it, you've not seen it ever a brightly burning as I chose to be on Friday.)  Then back to the car to drop stuff off and to pick up the cask conditioned Jameson and Kentucky rye and the boards/shot glasses for our planned whiskey/bourbon flight during WB3. I sent Crissy ahead to find Chris and Tara and get in there for Rhiannon Giddens right after rinsing her glass (which Chris refilled with a bourbon pour) and I came afterward with the bags and more waters in my TradFest backpack and my cup refilled with about 4oz of rye whiskey neat. Stopped to greet a sweet pup who insisted while at the edge of the stage area and that's where Enda found me and we talked for bit and I gave him some coffee for all of them (but which he definitely kept for himself because they were all flying back to Ireland next day.) We both wanted to hang out longer but talking during Rhiannon Giddens felt wrong and Crissy and Tara were starting to worry about me enough I could hear them. So I gave Enda another hug and promised him they'd all get as many hugs as they wanted after the show to carry them through until when I saw them next in August but for tonight we'd still have the shared joy if the show. Then there was more bourbon pours throughout Rhiannon Giddens set and we did a mini flight of whiskey/bourbon shots (an Irish whiskey, a rye whiskey, an 8 yr aged bourbon, a 10ye aged bourbon - turns out part of my aversion to most bourbons is because the imprecision of the "aged in a new white oak barrel" means a lot of the big name distillers age less than a year so it's still clear white out of the barrel then add colors and synthetic flavors to standardize it. I always assumed that like Irish whiskey and Scotch it was a 5 years minimum in the barrels. Apparently 40 seasons with the heating/cooling expansion within the barrels and the wood release is my line for a really good whiskey, anything less than 20seasons is where I find it undrinkable and the texture syrupy. I've been blaming the 51% corn content for my "it's too sweet and cough syrup textured" for why I love Irish whiskeys but don't like most bourbons - but the lack of properly defined aging is definitely a huge part of it.). 

Anyway. So we had a ridiculous amount of gin and bourbon. And i sacrificed my own water bottle for Crissy because she needed it. She gets normal metabolism of alcohol tipsy drunk. Visibly can tell when she's had enough. I don't..... I metabolize the intermediaries into sugars and the sugars into ATP raw energy FASTER than I metabolize alcohol into the intermediaries. So I get a hummingbird amount of energy, but I'm rock steady stable hands, can walk a straight line no slurring, can hold incredibly deep intelligent conversations, hang onto my sense of responsibility and taking care of others and the planet EVEN WHEN my skin starts turning blue from the hypoxia of blood alcohol poisoning.  So I seem absolutely fine other than extra shiny can't hide or contain my own bright soul light or dampen my broadcasting of my exuberant joy even when I'm dancing on the edge of the cliff.... 

After we got back to Tara and Chris's camper, I went over the cliff into blood alcohol poisoning. Threw up all the contents of my stomach and enough bile to burn my entire esophagus (glass stomach, whenever my body decides "nope. This is bad for me" it has very dramatic rejection issues.... My pork allergy, sun poisoning, migraines, and any time I eat anything with bacteria/mold in it that would give food poisoning." I have only drunk enough to reach that point half a dozen times - usually when drinking to excess as a coping mechanism for emotions I can't let me face and process right then or that I'm trying not to drown in. Of those half dozen times, this was the second worst I've ever drunk myself into (the worst was an all you can drink wrist band at a friend's concert in Chicago and I insisted I would not survive the night if I wasn't taken in to the hospital. They gave me a saline IV, couldn't pump my stomach because I already had and piled hot towels on me to help with the hypoxia chills but my BAC was already lowering enough they could do nothing but hydrate me and keep me warm -- and when checking in, I read the whole damn waiver before signing, paused at the question of needing an interpreter because I'd been flicked into French mode as happens once a certain point to ask my friend who kinda remembered her high school French if that was needed, she laughed told me I wasn't so bad. And if I hadn't been bright blue skin toned and uncontrollable shivering from the hypoxia, it's true nobody could have told how bad I was by that point.) This was the second worst and borderline I should have gone in but none of us sober enough to take me in after I thanked the guys told them not to worry. (O, I have a history of reassuring people I'm fine when I'm not, both physical injuries and with bac poisoning. So if your instinct tells you to take care of me get me to safety or care, listen to your instinct not to me being too nice/polite not wanting to trouble you. I would have accepted any of the guys driving us back to the hotel and the band mates meeting them there - which is what they wanted to do, but I wouldn't ask for it. And when they questioned, I admitted neither of us could drive then, Crissy interjected we were going to go sober up at the camper of Chris and Tara, and then I looked Fergal straight in the eye and told him, "I'm not at my worst yet, I can still speak the English. I'll be sick later, or sooner, but mostly later. But unless it's wine which puts me in French mode sooner, you'll know I'm not in dangerous territory with hard liquor until I only speak French." The. His eyes lit up he asked, "Tu parles le français ?" And without hesitation I replied, "Oui oui. Bien sûr je parle le français ! La moitié de temps je pense en français aussi. Mais, vraiment, quand j'ai bu trop, ce n'est pas une situation dangereuse si je continue de parler et comprendre l'anglais. Quand j'oublie l'anglais, c'est le temps de t'inquiéter pour moi." Both the Howleys stopped dead in their tracks packing up when I responded to Fergal in my fast paced flawless Parisian French -- it's come up with them that I speak French but they've never heard me speaking it. And my voice sounds even more bird like trilling in French than English. Fergal had not been at the bar the times me speaking French have come up so this was genuinely his first time learning it about me and I hadn't known that he spoke it.  But before Fergal could reply Crissy said, "No. Fergal stop! No more! We can't with her in French mode right now. None of us speak French to understand her." Which made them laugh and was the only reason he and Enda didn't insist on seeing us back to the hotel. After all anyone that self aware and responsible and intelligent and not falling over their own feet can't be that much too drunk, right?

 Yeah no, I was. And while I'd not have asked for them to drive us back, I would have accepted it. And then been sick in the hotel shower where I could run hot water over me to keep me warm and the shivering manageable. Instead, we went back to their place, Tara did the proper and put out food but the smell of the food triggered my nausea and the cycle of my body realizing how hypoxic it was about to get. Tara cleaned up my sick, despite my apologies. Then once I was to the point of just bile, I curled up on the bench with a bowl and the shivering started. They covered me with clean towels (best they could do) and asked me around 2 and again at 3 if I thought I could move so they could convert the table and benches to the bed but I said if I moved it would start the vasovagal response of dry heaving again. So Crissy curled up on the other side of the bench, Chris slept outside in a chair and Tara slept those hours in the flat bed of the truck. All to the soundtrack of my intense uncontrollable shivering and trying to get enough oxygen into my cells starved for oxygen due to the alcohol bound onto the hemoglobin where oxygen should be and I fought to keep my soul inside that shivering body with a temperature so low it was having a hard time functioning. Then at 5:30, when the generators were allowed to start again we got up and collected out things said goodbye to Tara and walked to the car after I made sure Crissy was feeling sober enough to drive back to the hotel since me doing it would have involved a lot of pulling over for me to throw up bile because vasovagal response to movement. I pounded several bottles of water once back then slept to heal, knowing that by Saturday night and all of Sunday I'd feel very sore in every single muscle from all that oxygen deprived shivering. But I was able to eat oatmeal at like 10am and I also had a ginger beer and made us both my magical histamine relief tea. We checked out at noon and stopped at a Starbucks then started home. Had the most amazing Thai place in Champaign-Urbana (the single best veggie dumplings of my life) which Crissy found from my attempt to describe my precog of what I would eat and of their awesome carved wooden tree I loved. Would definitely do Thara Thai again!!! Made it to pick up my dog from my parents at 11pm Saturday night. 

I spent most of yesterday during the day reauing to recharge my body (and because in times of collective suffering, as an empathy daylight hours when everyone is awake and feeling/thinking loudly is an energetic drain on me) then worked overnight until heading home at sunrise. Not yet ready to human, have been at home sleeping most of the day and reading. Currently debating if I'm going into work or not now I can guarantee even my parents will have left. I have a lot to do, but also my grandma has a gerontology appointment at 10amand the family politics make everyone feel I'm the best to do it. EVEN THOUGH it was scheduled so soon after ROMP and I warned everyone I already had tickets for the festival would be making myself high risk exposure making choices I knew to make questionable around crowds and masking and eating indoors places. I have no COVID symptoms, not even my migraines which are similar enough to some symptoms to maybe be a concern. I tested right away when I got home and last night (both negative) current waiting on tonight's test, will take one in the morning. Zero symptoms and going to N95 mask around my grandma, in the place she lives, and at gerontology clinic because don't want to asymptomatic carry to elderly. *shrugs* I have extras of the free tests from the government, all 8 boxes I could request thus far. So now is the time to use them. Just in case. For the sake of others. 

Aaand another negative test. And no symptoms. Cool. Now. Should I go to work til midnight or 2 or should I stay home rest tonight? *Sigh* I should check in on the world with more than just my precogs .... fine. Work it is.

Also. Far worse is coming. And not what people expect. America's Pluto return is next week... I can't talk about the prcogs now, talking about them won't change anything or help anyone prepare. We're now in the midst of the waves and playing Cassandra won't help anyone navigate them. Just know, things are going to get worse than your gears (but not in the "omg it's handmaid's tale made real" way that people are running around like decapitated chickens shrieking about. No. That's not where we are, and no fatelines lead there. But the rest of this year will be a hard fight and hard stories to carry and unnecessary death and suffering. And choices in November and if executive/legislative can actually do anything to stem the corruption of judicial will determine just how deep down the dark fatelines we go.... I can precog where we're headed if things aren't shifted but I can't tell you right now what other people's future choices will be to tell you which among the darkest fatelines we collectively will be walking ... Just know it's worse than you think, some of it you won't see coming unless you're a precog because it's not linked to Roe related setbacks, but it's also not what fictional parables have made you irrationally fear.  

It will get better, there is lighter and brighter days on the other side of the dark fatelines. Brighter for the lessons learned. But I won't lie to you -- there are choices, both collective and individual, that could lead us down the fatelines where America doesn't exit the darkness until after the deaths of everyone currently living through this moment.... It could be that long living with the pain and unnecessary suffering in the fight to clean out this corruption and the consequences of bad choices. That is one of the fatelines that is untruncated still possible, and it remains far too probable for my personal comfort as a precog prophetess..... And I haven't felt that sort of heaviness for générations to come as a probable fateline since I gave up on the Roman-Christian patriarchal théologies of Europe and started incarnating among the tribes of the Americas to plant seeds to help win the long war.... There is potential that this darkness of this battle won't end until even the youngest now alive are dead and only future generations can see an America undarkened by a Christian patriarchal theocracy in power. Even if we all fight as hard as we can, those fatelines are still far far too probable. I would not choose to bear or raise children in the USA in this lifetime. I have always said that. When I've seen fatelines with me having children, they weren't in the US..... Regardless of the father, they were always born and raised overseas where I could fight from a distance while protecting my own innocent ones.

We are in a time if choosing sides and the fight being brought to you. Silence is complicity in the suffering that has not been experienced like this for generations. And it will get far far worse before it gets better. And you need to know that no matter how hard you and everyone fight, this is a long battle and the fight may outlast your lifetime to see the other side of this darkness. There is evil guiding evil guiding the corrupt guiding the opportunistic behind it, and they hold most of the power and money and the high value cards that can be played in the physical realm. The highest value cards in the spiritual realm they don't hold, but in the material world, they very much do. And even getting back to what freedoms to pursue life, liberty, and happiness there were (limited and incomplete as they have been) it will take generations to get back to on most of the fatelines currently available to the collective. Don't think you can fight hard and in 1 or 3 or 5 years regain what was lost to this corrupt SCOTUS. You will lose more before you gain a single freedom back and the suffering will be horrible. And you should be thinking out your tactics in terms of this will take 10 years of triage, 30 years of hard fighting, 50 years to see again the freedoms and the light that these last 30-50 years have allowed to flourish. The theological patriarchy will be diminished on the other side, but it will take far longer and be a far harder fight even with everyone enraged and in the fight, then people realize. Hollywood and Rowling have made us believe evil can be defeated in one decisive set of battles. This will take decades to undo the harm of it, and nothing will heal the scars of the suffering and unnecessary deaths it causes. You need a damped fire smoldering rage that will last through the fight and that you feed intelligently to keep it burning. Beware of quick burning anger that flares up then burns itself out before it can effect real change..... We're not yet at the turning point where that can change fates, we're in the start of the marathon of this long battle against the corruption and darkness. You need to bank your rage and your fires in ways that will keep you fighting for years and decades, not just days and weeks and months before you burn out on the fight.

 I have stories to tell but I'm exhausted. Safely back in the hotel room at The Cheshire, just exhausted. Been a long day and haven't slept much last two nights. I've slept less in the last 84 hours than the 8 hours recommended per 24hr day. So I mean, there's that going for me atm. Ufgh....... 

I had something I need to say about contingent precogs I thought truncated and lost (and some related ones) came flooding in while driving listening to Billy Joel. Specifically during If I Only Has the Words To Tell You on repeat. They were beautiful and made me super happy and a mix of scared/tragic at the thought they could disappear once more from potential fatelines. Today was the first they were among the potential fatelines in the last 3.5 years. They'd always been there, and then they were just gone, futures it was impossible to reach. It makes my soul sing and my heart dance to have seen them, have them back again. Even if only on the terms of possible.

But I'm far far too tired to words about it just now.... Pyjamas and teeth brushed in hotel bed. Good night. Sweet dreams. Maybe stories later on the other side of sleeps. But maybe not if I forget or get too busy driving then at ROMP festival. Now I'mma snuggle into the bond and sleep and hope that the precogs that came back after several years are true and come to be. I'd like that. It would make me happier than anything else.

So. Let's choose those fatelines. They're so beautiful and they sparkle so with light and love and goodness. Let's make those contingent precogs be the reality we walk. Yes? Yes. Awesome. Good talk. I love you. 🐻‍❄️ Don't do anything stupider than I would  Bonne nuit. 😘

What are you waiting for? You never seem to make it through the door And who are you hiding from? It ain't no life to live like you're on the run Have I ever asked for much? The only thing that I want is your love If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge

 Look, everything I wrote in the last post are all things I have said before. At no point since October 2018 has my story changed because there's nothing that has changed. They haven't changed because nobody's choices have changed anything so far from the way things have been since the choices made October 28, 2018. I have no expectations or illusions about what anybody else might choose to do at this juncture -- free will choices must be free or they become meaningless. And I personally hold free will as sacrosanct because only that which is freely chosen, freely given, can hold any meaning in the gift of it. So I have no expectations or illusions, and if nothing changes in anyone's choices then the path we have been on for nearly 4 years now will be the path we stay on. But even if I could dictate another soul's choices, I never would. Not even to get me what I want most. Because I hold free will sacrosanct -- if I told you what to do, it would render your actions meaningless. It only matters if it's your choice freely given.

Even my precogs don't happen until choice makes them inevitable. Before choice is made, I see only the potential fatelines and their likelihoods and then I do my best to steer either toward the fatelines I most desire or to find a way to avoid the most catastrophic ones. But no potential fateline becomes a precog until the choice of free will is made, neither a contingent one that some act of mine can still shift better nor an ossified immutable one where all the choices are beyond any influence to change and so they're fated inexorable. Potential fatelines don't get solidified into precogs until someone makes a choice that sets the direction of consequences to flow down that way only. Even precogs are subject to the vagaries of free will -- any future you desire is only some set of choices away from manifesting. 

I make no claims to infallibility or to knowing the reasons and other things motivating anyone else's choices. I can observe, I can come up with my own theories based on the data I have and my knowledge of how specific people or personality types work. But ultimately, I have to live in the world of the consequences of choices without always being able to know WHY a given set of choices were made. That's the human condition. I have told you that I can't tell you WHY we ended up on a path where I genuinely believe that there's no place for me in Eric's life and that nobody cares about that but me -- but I can tell you HOW it got to that point and what feeds/reinforces that belief.  To tell you why would require me knowing and understanding the motivations behind the choices/actions of other people. And I simply don't know that. I don't even known what justification or rationalizations they have that they'd be willing to speak aloud for their past behaviors/choices. That's the heart of the why for the planting of the seeds that became this thorny hedge of beliefs, but it's something that is within the purview of people other than me and it's knowledge I'm not privy to. So I can only tell you how it happened from my observations and what feeds the belief inside me so it flourishes no matter how I try to hack away at it.  That's a set of consequences that is within me, that I can observe and try to work on to alter but that ultimately will require acknowledging and dealing with the roots of the issue from which the belief sprung. And I know that. I just don't have the tools to deal with digging out those roots since they are predicated on my observations/assumptions of other people's choices given their past/present actions. I can describe to you the current state of things and I can explain the cause and the effect relationship as I experience it -- but the roots of it are about the choices of other people. And I can't tell you why or justify or explain the actions and choices of others -- I can only tell you what I experienced as it occurred.

The scientific method has its flaws and limitations, but as long as you are honest and realistic about those limitations it remains the best we've got as humans trying to understand complex systems in a rational way. So I have my own observations and the cause and effect relationships I have observed. And I have a personal ethical choice I made after my grandfather died when I was 9 to only speak the truth as far as I know it because lies render the liar untrustworthy and a breach of trust erodes the foundations of all relationships until a connection becomes meaningless. Only if there is mutual trust can there be meaning in any relationship -- and there can be no trust if it is known that I would willfully break trust for my own venal rationalizing of the moment. Because as I see it, only by choosing to speak truth to the best of ones knowledge and abilities can any person make a commitment to seeking out the real and authentic honest relationships built on real trust. And what's the point of it if it's not real and to be trusted in? So I don't lie. I can be wrong, I can be mistaken, I can be misinformed, I can choose silence instead of speaking my truth, but when I speak it is the truth as I have experienced and observed it to the best of my own subjective abilities. 

And that's all I can offer you to try to navigate from where we are now to something better moving forward. I can give to you my lived experiences and observations, I can give to you the cause and effect consequences of what happens based on choices that have been made or are recurring into the present. And I can give you what I believe I need in order to clean up the mess that was made of things (and where I need help recognize it's not something I can clean up on my life without observation that things have changed from the old patterns. But I can't give you anyone else's reasons or rationalizations for how they behaved or why they did what they did. That's not a part of my subjective experience or my objective (as possible while recognizing that I am a fallible human with limited observational skills) observations.

I wish I could give you a why. Because it would mean I had one. But I don't. The best I can do for you is how and causes/effects of what has already been tried and done within these parameters. 

Reality doesn't ask of any of us to like it. Subjective likes or dislikes ain't got shit to do with truth and reality as it is in the moment. Reality asks of us to accept the truth of how things are at present, it offers us the observed version of the events that led to the present, and it asks us "what are you going to do with this information for the future?" And. I can't tell you or me what any person is going to choose to do with this information to set the course they want to see for the future -- that's where free will comes into play. To chart the course of where we go from here. I can only start with acknowledging what IS in the present and the pieces of evidence I have observed that brought us to this present. And I would rather do that as openly and honestly as possible -- because as I see it any truth that I have that I withhold could be the vital piece that solves the puzzle finds the way through the tangled clusterfuck that resulted from the choices made in the band's name on October 28, 2018 and perpetuated/supported by their continued choices ever since. 

I'm sorry but that's the best I can do.... If I knew how to do better, I would already be doing it. But this is, and has been throughout, my absolute best I can do in this situation. I have given all I've got at my disposal as the best I can do. My honesty in my own experiences past/present and my unwavering unflinching preference to know the truth even if it's a hard truth and my desire to find as fair/just a way through as possible, for the sake of everyone involved. 

I'm sorry if my best is still not enough.... it's just all I've got to offer in a situation such as this.

Happy solstice! Do with the day of longest light the best you can with the light you have been given. That's all any of can ever do, y'know?

[Post title: lyrics to the Adele song Water Under the Bridge]

But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it. Where's the sense in that? I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder, Or return to where we were. But I will go down with this ship, And I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door. I'm in love and always will be. I know I left too much mess and destruction, To come back again. And I caused nothing but trouble. I understand if you can't talk to me again. And if you live by the rules of "it's over" Then I'm sure that that makes sense. I will go down with this ship, And I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door. I'm in love and always will be. And when we meet, Which I'm sure we will, All that was there, Will be there still. I'll let it pass. And hold my tongue. And you will think, That I've moved on.... I will go down with this ship. And I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door. I'm in love and always will be

Obviously that Loufest and all the memories surrounding it are from summer of 2015, right after the release of After It All. And I'd been bringing friends along going to their concerts for a bit over 2 years at that point -- first full concert I caught of theirs was the $5 show at High Noon Saloon that 105.5 hosted/promoted following their single of If I Loved You on the radio, even though stumbling across the video for Morning Comes the year before was my introduction to discovering them by name though I had stumbled across them filming a video for a radio station or something while I was wandering around Summerfest by myself in 2012 and I stayed to listen only ran off to meet my friend I was then late to me when it was clear they were done recording. So the first time I SAW them was at Summerfest in Milwaukee by complete serendipity, but the first time I knew who they were and intentionally sought their show out was at High Noon Saloon in Madison. Which makes Loufest in 2015 well before they signed to Big Machine and thus long before my honesty that the country music played at their shows was too painful to my synesthesia for me to attend any future Delta Rae shows as long as the country music was part of their shows and that honesty moved Liz to block me on her personal account in May 2018, Britt to block me on her personal account on Oct 27, 2018, and less than 24 hours later someone blocked me on the official band account for being honest that I loved the song Hands Dirty and was sad that the country music at shows was so painful to my synesthesia it would keep me from attending future shows to hear it. Which blocking me on the band account is what precipitated the entire mess of me believing the band neither wanted me nor considered me a fan no matter how many shows and how much I'd invested in merch/music over the many years beforehand so I needed to do my best to respect that boundary created in the band's name and find a way to make them non-exist to me as their actions clearly demonstrated the band as a collective desired.  There is no bringing the band back into existence to me or in my life or as a collective whose creations I have any desire to hear without acknowledging and addressing the elephant in the room of that choice created and perpetuated in the name of the entire band. 

It's also the root cause, that single action and all of the inactions of every moment that passes where they choose not to right the wrong of it, as the seed of my belief that there is no way for me to be any part of Eric's life given those choices made in the name of his band..... And. Quite frankly. Every time he shares anything from the band, especially like today and in recent days where his account shows up as having stories I can't watch in my Instagram feed, it reinforces that belief that there is no place for me in his life and makes it grow stronger, tougher, deeper rooted with nastier thorns. I can't help it, it just does. Because it means every time I go to my Instagram to see the DMS of cute animal reels that Mikaela sent me or to watch through other people's stories, I see his account in the mix as having a story but then whenever it gets to his to play it just says "this story is unavailable right now" and then I know it's something he shared from the band account, the band account from which I am ostracized for having been honest and the collective that have made it clear that they'll take my money but won't include me among their thank you to all their backers or among their fans. Every time he shares anything that originates on the official band account, it waters and feeds that belief. You know the original story of Briar Rose? The choices made and the actions taken over these last 3 years 10 months or so have fed and watered the belief until it's like the impassable hedge of rose thorns thicker and higher than the castle itself.  It's to that extent that the belief there is no place for me in his life as a result of the choices made and upheld in the name of the collective that his whole life is built around. And nothing has done anything to dispell that belief or prune it back, all that's been done, every instance of every time he posts anything about the band or especially shares anything posted from their account or when he would go live on the band account has only fed and watered and made this thorny belief that there's no place for me in his life now grow stronger more impenetrable...

And all of it is born of that one seed of an action chosen and the stubborn refusal to acknowledge or respond or alter what was done to exclude me from those they consider their fans. All of it is grown from making it clear that if I would be honest, then they would take my money but they didn't want me and would intentionally and knowingly ostracize me while verbally stating how they wanted everyone to join them over on their Instagram account.

And noxious beliefs are like any weeds but most especially like a thistle, if you don't dig it out at the root, no amount of trimming back or pulling the top off will stop it from growing back denser and stronger and more prevalent thicker than ever before.  Beliefs are tenacious motherfuckers if you don't dig them out and deal with them at the root. They just are.Both good beliefs and bad beliefs. All beliefs start as seeds based on observations of actions/choices and all of them grow deep rooted thorny the longer and more consistently they are watered and fed. The first thing to do is you decide a belief is a pernicious weed is to stop feeding/watering it and then you do the work to laboriously dig it out at the root where the initial seed(s) were sown. There is no other way. And nothing makes the removal of a bad belief harder to do than being forced to see and witness actions that reinforce and nurture and help grow the "bad" or toxic belief. *shrugs* I'm doing my damnedest to try to pull it out, but I'm only one person and I'm not the one watering them making them grow, I'm not the one who isn't willing to dig down face the root cause of it. But I'm only one me and it's fed faster than I can slowly cut it back -- ain't nobody but me has ever shown a single sign of giving a damn about dealing with the root of this belief but me and everyone else involved keeps feeding the damn thing so I've had a hell of a time just trying to keep the belief from growing deeper seated. Every time anything reminds and reinforces the act of ostracism and it still existing perpetuating into the present is an action that feeds the belief I am not desire or included or wanted and the desire is for the band not to even exist to me in my world. And even when it's not being actively fed, which it is right this moment and has been significantly these last several days, weeds keep growing though at a slower rate until you can gt down to dig them out at the root. It's just the insidious way weeds are. Both in the garden and in the belief systems of the mind.

I told you -- I know the how and i know what has/continues to feed it. I can't tell you the why. The why is in the seeds that were sown, the choices and actions that manifested the paths where this belief came into being. And... I can't tell you the why of those choices or actions, I can't tell you the why of me being the only one who has ever set hand to digging this out now that it's had years of growing from those seeds. i can't give you a personal why because the choices weren't mine other than my choice to be honest about my experiences and the reactions they would get from me. And I can't give you a karmic why or a more grand universal why because that's not an insight I have into this. To me, all I can see for a why is a mistake that instead of being acknowledged was defensively re-entrenched until it turned into an absolute clusterfuck and that I don't have the tools to dig out at the root on my own. But that ain't a why. It's just the facts of where we're at now, how we got here, and what feeds the belief to make it more intransigent dig the roots down deeper.

But the Loufest memories are all bright and unshadowed by any of that. The memories were created before the shadows of the seed that was down by one choice and choice of actions surrounding it. I can make someone or something cease to exist to me in the present and future if that is the boundary asked of me -- but even I can't alter or erase the brightness of the memories. I can't destroy the light that was then, not even in the name of respecting free will choices and boundaries that others have created and perpetuated since then. But the casual mention of the past, those memories still shine though I try not to let me look at or relive the things having to do with their set at Loufest (or any of their sets at athe 44+ concerts I attended that had once made my heart sing and my soul shine and brought joy into my life for getting to exist in and share those moments ) I can't stop them when they rise up in my memory unbidden, but I do not seek the memories of their concerts or the times listening to their albums gave me joy -- to do so is to call into being that which wishes not to exist in my world. To do that is to disrespect the free will boundary another imposed. Because the memories are mine, but they evoke back into existence a group whose choices in the name of the collective are to wish not to have me among their fans and to not even exist to me. So I respect that boundary to the beat I am able. I don't have to like it but I do have to respect it. Because it's not my boundary and it's not for me to disrespect the free will choices and boundaries of another. I don't have to like someone else's boundaries, but ai do have to respect them. To the letter and completely.

But that last post that derailed to Loufest because of historic hotels I've stayed at on St. Louis, was about how it was long before those events that fucked everything up. They're from the before time, back when seeing them was only a source of joy in my life not shadowed by anything, back that time we went and saw them play at Loufest and the rest of the day/evening following it was a lot. Very typically me, every step of the way. But just a lot, lol

[Post Title: Lyrics to the song White Flag by Dido. I heard it on the radio in the middle of the night earlier this week and it's been haunting me weaving in and out of my brain as an earworm ever since. It was on repeat in my head while I wrote this.]

He says, "Son can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure how it goes. But it's sad and it's sweet, and I knew it complete, When I wore a younger man's clothes." La, la-la, di-di-da La-la di-di-da da-dum. Sing us a song, you're the piano man. Sing us a song tonight. Well, we're all in the mood for a melody, And you've got us feelin' alright.

 So Miss Mikaela is currently still taking an afternoon nap (she got up early for her in order to join us for 7am strawberry picking, small quantity due to leaving town on Weds, if berries last into next week we plan to do our big haul of picking next week) and so Crissy and I are doing some logistics for all the things we want to do in St. Louis. (the Rooster, London Tea Merchant, Mission Tacos, 4 Hands Brewery....) Serendipitously, Weds night there's also a free Shakespeare in the park performance of Much Ado About Nothing at 8pm, with food carts and beer as well. Very excited about that!!!! 

Anyway. London Tea Merchant offers up afternoon tea or an afternoon tea to go, which got me very excited until I saw that it's only Thurs-Sun. *le sigh* I'm hoping we can still pickup or set aside some scones and clotted cream. (I adore British/Irish style REAL scones, especially with clotted cream and jam (strawberry or black currant) and the owner of London Tea Merchant is a British expat in the states for love. So the scones are phenomenal and it's one of the few places stateside that I know to get real authentic clotted cream.) And I am particularly keen to have scones and clotted cream and tea after we check in at our hotel because this time we're staying at The Cheshire which is entirely British themed. Sometimes you can find crazy deals on 4 star historic hotels in St. Louis that are cheaper than normal American hotels, even cheaper than the airport hotels betimes. That's how we randomly ended up staying in the historic train station that was renovated into a hotel when we drove to St. Louis to see Delta Rae at Loufest. (  The time we met the Avett Brothers and their girlfriends in the crowd while watching The Suffers together and we discovered you can fit an entire bottle of wine in the water bottles they were selling there and I mailed my dog a postcard at my work address to get to sample some more Cupcake wine for free (that postcard is still taped to the kennel at work) and some drunk guy was absolutely convinced I was Lorde and Crissy was my manager and even when I insisted I wasn't Lorde he said, "That's exactly what you would say if you were Lorde being incognito." and then when we parted ways he said, "Bye Lorde! Bye Lorde's manager!" and then later that night I was very wine drunk (which fills me with agape love for all humanity and life) so I called in to me all the ghosts from the entire park and helped them home to the white light in the middle of the park during the Billy Idol set and that part of the park still feels full of my energy and peace even all these years later. Like, I've visited it again and people will say they're drawn to the sense of peace there and as soon as you step inside the circle of energy I made, you can palpably FEEL the energy shift and serenity settle on you.... Look, I was wine drunk and full of music/dance endorphins and there were ghosts I could help - the rest was just splash over from me pulling through me as conduit too much energy while holding open the path back to the light to return to the cycle of incarnations. That's really not a situation you should leave me unsupervised without expecting me to do something like that. I mean, it definitely seemed like a great idea to me at the time.  It was an incredibly crazy afternoon/evening after the Delta Rae set ended and they booked out of St. Louis to head to Nashville. Wine and music and ghosts and making new musician friends hanging out in the crowd. 

Anyway. So. I was disappointed that London Tea Merchant doesn't have afternoon tea on Weds but had a moment realizing that maybe our British themed hotel might. So I tried to look it up and no it doesn't. But then this happened:

(Gah! Blogger is being stupid about uploading pictures, won't load the dialog box, so I'll just words it for now and add the screen cap later if I remember...)

So after finding out that there is complimentary coffee/tea at the hotel but no afternoon tea service, I decided to satisfy my curiosity about the auto complete on Google offering up "Cheshire Hotel St Louis haunted." Because ghosts always insist on saying hi to me everywhere I go and so I might as well discover something about my soon to be ghost friends. And you know what I discovered that the Cheshire Hotel's most famous ghost is?!?!

A GHOSTLY PIANO PLAYER!!!! 

wait what now? Yep  that's right. Multiple sites of famous ghosts in st. Louis confirmed it. We got ourselves a piano playing ghost in our hotel for a Weds night. 😂 When I asked Crissy if she had looked into the ghost situation at all, she told me no but figured it would have some and that would make me happy. She was as entertained as me when I told her. 

Yep. That's right. Wednesday night we're staying in a hotel that is apparently famous for its piano playing ghost even without a piano on premises. 😂😂😂 

And I find that bloody damn brilliant!!! And I had to share. Because that's the sort of thing that makes me wonder at who scripted my life with all its improbable synchronicities and I start looking for the hidden cameras. 

[Post title: lyrics to the Billy Joel song Piano Man. Obviously. If you didn't recognize that.... Well... Then I may have to disown you.... I mean. I once quite seriously threatened to leave my birthday twin bff somewhere on the Illinois side of the Great River Road when I discovered she didn't own any Billy Joel music.... Pulled the car over to the side of the road to stare at her in complete shock and dismay. I only allowed her to stay in the car and started driving again when she promised to fix her transgression first thing when she got home and at least buy a copy of Piano Man. I take my life long love of Billy Joel songs quite seriously.]

 I have so many mosquito bites from these last couple days after the rains.... and they are all of them in the most abominably devilish fucking places to itch like a mofo bad enough to wake me up from sleep because "omg the sheet just touched the one behind my knee!" Like, there's one right in the crook behind my left knee, one on my middle finger on my left hand just where the stone will rub it if my ring turns on my finger, one on the side of my right calf where my jeans keep brushing against it, another on the top of my right foot/ankle where the hem of my jeans hits today, one on my left foot right where the sandal strap rubs, one on my left wrist exactly where a sweater/cardigan rubs.... Every damn one of them in the most absolutely fiendishly impossible not to rub to start it itching places.... Driving me batty because it's keeping me from sleep... (O yeah sure I should probably be concerned about lyme and west nile and all the other mosquito borne diseases -- but honestly both yesterday and today it's the sheer fucking itchiness of existence that's getting to me....)

I'm a magnet for mosquitoes, pretty much all the time my entire life, but I only welt up if the bite gets rubbed or itched. The only time in my life that I wasn't a magnet for mosquito are the years that I make myself drink a cup of lemongrass tea EVERY day from like mid-April until frost. Lemongrass/citronella on my skin doesn't deter them but lemongrass taken daily so it's in my bloodstream DOES deter the mosquitoes from biting me. but if I miss more than like 2 days, they're back to feasting on me and it wakes a solid week and a half of consistently drinking lemongrass tea before they stop again.  Now this isn't a huge problem since I LIKE lemongrass tea (especially if I make lemongrass, ginger, turmeric tea) and can drink it every day. Which is kinda sorta exactly what I did and I've been out of dried lemongrass for tea making and I have consumed every type of tea I own that HAS lemongrass in it by like mid May and I keep forgetting to order more lemongrass and my lemongrass plant is currently too small to harvest without damaging it and it's not a Spring harvest thing at Farmer's market here..... 

And so, to conclude my tale of abominable welts and abject woe, I have been eaten alive by mosquitoes in recent days and I itch so abominably that just moving my leg in my sleep is enough to wake me up with the infernally inescapable itchiness as existence.

There are plenty of other things I could write about and say, like my emotional state/thoughts tonight or how much I enjoyed the play on Thursday night and why they did such a particularly great job with their staging of it or all the compliments my two teenage fur babies got at the vet (including Erin who has been seeing their vet for their entire life, since I adopted Audrey at 12 weeks old) or how excited I am to get to see Tara & Chris again at ROMP on Thursday and the story about how we met -- I most certainly have stories I could tell. But the thing is, my garnet and citrine ring just turned on my finger enough that the stone brushed against the mosquito bite on that left middle finger and so I find myself once more in a state of devilishly all consuming itchiness..... And since complaining didn't help with stopping/ignoring the itchiness on my hand, I'm going to go water some plants outside to take care of my thirsty flowers hopefully enough to do to distract me until my itchingness calms its shit (and probably get a mosquito bite on the arch of my foot or something stupid like that for my trouble -- because trust me, I have in the past and arch of your foot is another awful place to have mosquito bites and/or sunburns.  At least my mosquito bites aren't layered on a bad sunburn right now.... those are the most miserable of all... ) 

P.S. 10:30pm addendum: I'm actually fine now, the welts from the mosquito bites that got brushed against are still visibly an issue, but they're not actively itching atm. It was just a lot earlier this evening right then.  Like, when you're so itchy from a welt or bug bite (or something like chicken pox) that you quite literally can't think of any damn thing else because the itching dominated everything else experienced. And like, yeah, when my mosquito bites are still fresh enough that brushing them against anything causes them to itch and welt was bad enough to wake me up out of sleep the last two days/nights

 Somehow, when my mom ordered the tickets for tomorrow night's performance of The Rivals at APT, she managed to leave an open seat in the middle separate our group of 4 into two groups of two with an empty seat between, lol. And she didn't realize until tonight.

Also. before i forget, here are some of the promised pictures from today of my 14 year old baby luck dragon's transformation from shaggy bear to sleek emo child puppy cut. I mean, are you even a Pisces if you don't have your emo phases?  As a Pisces rising with a lot of really close Pisces placement friends/family throughout my life, the thing to remember about a Pisces is that however melodramatic they seem or how quickly their mood changes when you address the issue, their emotions are ALWAYS that deep and genuine whatever it is they're feeling. And they have a lot of intense feelings, all the time. it's one of the things I love most about Pisces placements -- whatever it is, it will be honest and genuine for who they are and what they're feeling in that moment. It's never going to be a false front mask or a lie or manipulative -- it's just whatever they're generally feeling right then in that moment. It may change like waves on water, but it's always authentic and honest of their truth they're experiencing/feeling in that moment.  And I admire and love that clarity and honesty of emoting. It's always honest, no matter how intense it is.  When my dog feels particularly emo, even when she just wants to go inside for her haircut not have me take pictures of her in the hot car, she will use her paws to scratch her bangs over her eyes or when short flick her ears over her eyes to stare out at you through the hair. 

Before: 

After: 

She definitely decided she needed to go outside during the heaviest monsoon like part of the storm after I came in soaking wet from helping my da with moving as much as possible of the tree that broke in the winds this evening and is still partially lying broken over a portion of the garden because it fell right before the rains started. My dog is a true Pisces bog dog loves getting soaked to the skin in rain, snow, swimming, swim fetch, rolling in puddles, flopping in mud... Everything with water except showers. There was a lot of flooding the year she was born, enough to close state parks and everything and on some of our hikes the lake had overflown the road and paths she had to swim while it was up to mid calf on me just to finish our hikes. Snow is her favorite, she is absolutely gleeful to play and be out in fresh snow, but rainy day walks where we both get soaked to the skin are also a favorite of hers. She quite literally has a command, "No bog!" if you see any puddle, especially mud puddles, that you have to tell her before she flops into it, lol.

Anyway, It's amazing how different she looks in her before/afters between her shaggy winter state and when she's shaved down for the summer. (She was born as a black and tan typical Yorkie coloring and at about a year or so old started to lighten up into her current platinum blonde/strawberry blonde in a black/grey tee shirt coloring.)  the first time I picked her up after getting her shorn for the summer I genuinely didn't recognize her thought she was a completely different dog until I looked into her eyes.

Last night was full of unexpected happy surprises from a distance for me while I was at work, just me and my dog, getting some alphabetizing and filing done. Anyone who's the source of said happy surprises has so much gratitude and thanks from me! It's in my heart right now with no way to share and give back joy for joy by expressing my gratitude, but still it's there! It made me very happy and it made me smile and it made my heart feel very full. Happy surprises are one of my favorite things! (Being a precog, most things in the world that will create waves or I have an emotional response are things I know in advance - so happy surprises I don't see coming and don't precog are one of the big delights in my life.) And last night were some very happy surprises for me! 

I definitely have had that last song from last night stuck in my head, especially since the sunrise and my early morning walk with the dog. (Audrey Pupburn gets her summer puppy cut today is currently at her appointment -- she's being shorn down shaved everywhere but her ears and face and tail. She has hair not fur so she has no undercoat thus I let it grow out all shaggy bear in the wintertime. But like human hair it just continuously grows if not cut so in the summer she gets too hot with all that hair plus it gets tangled around burrs/sticks. Thus why she gets shorn down to a summer puppy cut. Yesterday and today are super hot, mid 90s with heat index over 100 and sunny - at least until the summer thunderstorm expected tonight. So she has been anxious and matsu to go get her haircut since I told her yesterday, "Guess what love! You will be getting you puppy cut tomorrow!!" And then of course now it's been tomorrow since sunrise so she spent all day today like a five year old on a road trip, "Is it time yet? Is it time yet? Is it time yet?) Due to the heat, our 5:30am walk was the first walk we've been on since the derecho came through on Monday afternoon - so it's the first I've seen with my eyes the extent of the damage to the trees. I could hear their pain, but I hadn't seen it. Power went out at my place for about 2.5hrs on Monday, I was in a red circle affecting like 1,200 people which typically means trees on lines or downed lines or downed poles so they have to turn the section of the grid off until repairs are finished. Winds were even worse the further north and eastward -- on the east side there WAS a downed pole so some neighborhoods have been without any power since Monday night and aren't expected to get it back until later today since that's a time consuming job putting up new poles and then replacing the lines. 

Anyway, back to what I was saying before. The song in my head all this morning and whenever I don't have music on this afternoon is the one that goes, "I'll be the one to see you, be broken in my eyes, it's cracks that let the light shine through. We cannot waste the light." I don't know the name of the song, it's the first time I've heard it. But for better or worse I have a good head for lyrics and I'll remember any words anyone sets to a melody that I hear. Typically, after a first listen I'll know the melodic lines and the chorus and any lyrics that were repeated, after a second listen I'll know the more complicated instrumentation as well as 75-90% of the words (dependent on how clearly they're enunciated), and after the third listen the song will be indelibly imprinted in the jukebox inside my brain to be called up whenever I hear it with my ears or hear a similar melody/chord progression/rhythm or whenever someone says a word/phrase that's in the lyrics or whenever my brain decides it's subconscious earworm time and that's the song to do it with. 

Anyway.  if you ever want me to remember something forever, put the words to music. I can't promise I'll always fully understand what you're trying to say the way you meant it, but I'll remember every damn word of it if you put it to a melody and sing it to me. So today it's mainly been the repeating phrase "we cannot waste the light" but sometimes other parts as well. Even the part at the end which didn't sound like it was part of the actual song but  to me sounded like he was extemporaneous singing the things he needed to communicate because while in the flow of the music he could get them out when he didn't know how to say them for the overthinking. Which maybe wasn't what happened, but it's how the end of it sounded to me. But because it was words barely grafted onto the melody and mixed with the repetition from the chorus, even that part is in my brain still and I can replay it. 

It's one of the hacks into how my brain works that I'll remember anything set to music that I hear. My theory why is that for every mammal, the more senses that are engaged in memory formation, the stronger more permanent a memory is because it fires more neurons. With my color-timbre synesthesia, words set to music engage the auditory, visual, and language parts of my brain. Every time. So for my brain, songs stick in my memory as important because they're always activating multiple parts of my sensory inputs to process. 

And. Also. I do remember them with the timbre colors of how I've heard them. So like, I now have distinctly in the part of my brain that remembers songs I've heard his version of Lullabye (which is what he was playing when I happened to see he was live) as a separate thing in my brain from the Billy Joel version of it. Even though the words are the same, their voices have different timbres and thus are different colors so the notes are all as different as if different instruments had transposed it. My brain does allow me to play with melodies/lyrics as a direct transposition substituting one set of colors for another, so any voice I know well in my memory I can hear in my head how it would sound covering someone else's song and I can switch around a part of a composition to hear say a guitar part on piano or a woodwinds section transposed to strings - it's just like painting to do that. But, like his version of the song is distinct in my memory from the Billy Joel version because Billy Joel has a green colored voice that gets more golden in his higher end whereas Eric's voice is a silvery-blue-white moonlight/stars color with the slightest hint of gold iridescence in it, like when the moon is high in the sky not colored by the atmosphere when it's near the horizon to make it yellowish or reddish, I mean that pure bright high in the sky moonlight/starlight color; and whenever he hits a note a little flat his voice gets a bit grey-bluish like the nimbus around the moon. But it doesn't bother me with his voice when he hits notes slightly flat because the color of that works with the timbre of his voice the way the moon's light is still beautiful when it has a nimbus or a thin cloud in front of it diffraction the light. Not everyone's voice is pleasant to me both true and when slightly flat, his is one of the few exceptions because of the color of his voice to my synesthesia.  (In general with my color-timbre synesthesia, a bit flat off true gets pigeon toned greyish purple and going sharp off true gets blaze-orangey-brownish mixed into their pure timbre color. Which is why some people or instruments flat or sharp is more painful to me than others. It depends on how the muddiness of the grey or orange color blends with their natural timbre color on true notes.... Like when anyone has strong blue/green/purple colors in their voice, the orange brown of them hitting sharp is awful. But also if anyone has pinks or reds or oranges or yellows or even greens in their voice, the grey-purple of being flat is awful. Banjos don't bother me because they spangle in cyans and silvers so the flatness on them just dampens the metalic on the jewel tone. But a guitar string tuned flat is grey-purpling on emerald greens if metal strings or on golden honey tones if nylon strings and just a little flat on a guitar string is a lot worse than the significantly flat on a banjo that's there even when it's tuned properly...) But anyway, Eric and Billy Joel have different colored timbres of voices even when in the same part of the range. So it's like the same pattern of light and shadow moving but one is painted emerald jungle green tinged gold at the edges which is not at all the same as the same light-shadow pattern when it's the colors of the moon when it's high in the sky. Which is probably confusing to anyone without synesthesia, but for me it's just my normal experience with music as best I can put it in words.

So anyway, all morning it's been like hearing him repeating that chorus to me. And between that and what he had to say about listening even when disagreeing and how to love even when you don't agree with something a person says/does, it all felt very apropos to soothing much of my doubts and overthinking and bringing back to the idea that, "mistakes and misunderstandings happen, but it's in staying and working on understanding that the dissonance can find the resolution it seeks." I liked that metaphor of his, how dissonant notes seek resolution. It's all been sort of percolating through my brain, finding the ways things fit and showing me a new perspective. (I have a good memory for things I see and hear, especially the more it's of interest to me. It's the only reason I got As in all my classes -- Lord knows I never learned to study and any time I tried I'd just get bored and distractible.) All to the soundtrack of various iterations of "we cannot waste the light."

Not related to any of that but another one of the things that I saw last night that made my heart happy was that there's a synagogue in Boynton Beach (south Florida) taking up the legal case that the Florida abortion bans violate Jewish religious beliefs and religious freedom to set a legal precedence of government in the way of abortion as the woman's life choices is a long established religious rights issue. I don't know how or why that happened, but it makes me so happy that they stepped up to the plate on it EVEN KNOWING that anti-semites and anti-abortion people are willing to take a gun or a bomb or violence to impose their white supremacist will and this puts Jews in the cross hairs of the vitriolic hate. But it made me feel so happy and proud when I read their reason they gave and that someone stepped up to make this very real argument about actual Judeo values. 

Anyway. I have no idea how it happened or who made it happen, who put the legwork to the path I saw opened up -- but I'm so grateful and proud and just conscience at peace over that fact that somehow it was brought forward to a synagogue's rabbi/congregation and they chose to move forward with doing the right thing not the easy thing to avoid harassment. Because when the right thing is the hard thing and you know it will increase racist persecution but you choose to do it anyway, there's something very beautiful in that courage. And I loved the way it was explained the reasoning for why Jewish faith is pro-choice, out of reverence for all life.

 I intend to keep an eye on it as the case moves forward. But the fact someone stood up and said, "this is religious discrimination and I won't be silent about it" made me so happy! So happy!!!

O! Just got the text that Audrey is 5mins to ready for pickup!!!! 😍. Will share before/after puppy cut pictures in another post after I get back. If I remember. But I'll try to remember. Sorry in advance if I don't though.