I did go see George Winston last night -- and it was so magical!!!! he played the Summer Show and I haven't hear the current Summer Show set list! And it included both Pachelbel's Canon and Woods!!! (And a lot of other lovely pieces.) AND!!!!! AND AND AND!!!!!!!!! I GOT TO GO FOR FREE!!!!!!! AND A WAY WAY WAY BETTER SEAT THAN WHAT WAS STILL AVAILABLE!

So I was kind of continuously delayed by little things that added up to a significant annoyance and lapse of time, but rather than letting me get upset I just shrugged about it and said to myself, 'This is all just to get me on the timeline I'm meant to be on. For some reason. hell if I know why, But I accept the Universe guiding me to Divine Timing right now. And no matter when I get there, I can get a balcony ticket sneak in upstairs or something." So I accepted and went to my $3 on nights/weekends heated parking lot with security guard over by the Majestic (I'm happy with a walk around the Capitol and $3 vs hunting for street parking with drunk college students from all over trying to parallel park or just taking off mirrors in hit and runs because yolo or $8 event parking near Overture Hall with no security cameras or security guards and it's cold?... Yeah no, I'll take the extra walk and go to a known lot that is well lit and secure and warm and only $3....) Right so I finish my short walk to Overture Center and I go to the box office and go up to the ticket lady who was knitting something a beautiful emerald green and she smiles says, "How can I help you?" And I already have my wallet in my hand as I tell her, "One ticket for tonight please." And then rather than turning to the computer to see what's available, she grins even wider at me and says, "O! It's your lucky night!" And she gestures to the other box office window guy and he hands her a ticket and she says, "Here you go!" And as I look confused start fiddling with my wallet to pay as I'm grabbing the ticket with my other hand, she laughs and says, "No no. It's completely free. Like I said, it's your lucky night -- you have perfect timing for this show." So I was terribly confused, but really happy because especially when I looked down at the ticket, I see it's in the orchestra (not balcony) in row F. So in bemusement and happy confusion, I go to my seat, which is in the first row where the orchestra is raised (traditional circle underneath the balcony) at eye height with seated pianist and nobody blocking my line of sight and about two seats left of center so i can see his hands while playing but being in the direct path for the fullness and richness of sound from the Steinway.  and these people I had never seen in my life before start grinning and say, "Yay! You made it!" At which point I am incredibly and visibly confused and they gesture to the grandmotherly lady with Triskella earrings knitting something white and fluffy who I had just walked past introduced her as Cindy and start thanking ME for being able to use the ticket. It was all very Wonderlandy and I was highly entertained by it all. The complete story after I asked was that their son and his wife couldn't make it so they brought the tickets and were looking for a couple or two singles coming to buy tickets to make sure someone would enjoy them. And Cindy came over while they were waiting and they gifted her a ticket and then they kept waiting until the box office workers offered if the family wanted to go get a drink or get seated, the box office staff could gift the ticket for the family if any single last minute ticket purchaser came in.

 

 And they were so happy to find out how much I adore George Winston but hadn't bought the ticket ahead of time because for some reason I had in my head I couldn't make it and how excited I was that I could make the show. They wouldn't even let me pay them anything or even buy them a drink, said my gratitude and happiness and the fact someone was getting the ticket was better than anything else.  And when I first sat down they commented on my Packers hat and green and gold, said that the game was definitely a conflict, and I laughed said "Maybe other seasons. but the way  we're playing so far this year? and with all our injuries and no Lazard tonight? And the Bills being 5-1? yeah no, this will give me joy not holding my head in my hands. Besides, my mom records the game said she would save it for me to watch it afterward." We checked in on the score at intermission and discussed it, and then I watched the entire game with my mom at like 10pm when I got back from the concert, and had some chili for late dinner because she had made too much and told me to eat it. And then we watched the short programs from Skate America -- so I didn't get home until like 3am and only got about 4 hours of sleep before having to get up to take my dog to her blood draw appointment ad then my 10:30 optometrist appointment.

But the George Winston concert was so beautiful and lovely!!!!!!!!! It made me heart so full of incandescent joy!!!!!! My soul needed the healing of just being in the moment listening to the piano melodies roll over and through me!!!!! And I got an upgraded seat for free and made new concert buddies!!!!!!! His new album was sold out by the time I remembered to check merch (everything always sells out for him at his shows because at every show he partners with a local food bank and all the proceeds go to that food bank; he also encourages people to bring canned foods for the food bank. Second Harvest in Madison) but I did pick up the $5 poster for the album I don't have yet! And they were signed !!! AND it's literally Orion in the night sky above pine trees!!!! And I love it so much! Even without having listened to the new album yet, I love the image of the poster!!

(Audrey was very depressed when I told her that I had been to a George Winston concert without her, lol. As you can see in the picture. Little Bear Luck Dragon LOVES getting to go to concerts, but most venues don't allow dogs unless they're service dogs which she's not... So she's mostly only ever gotten to go to outdoor shows unless I'm friends with the band and they explicitly bring me in with her, lol. And I don't know George Winston personally, though I made his day once when I told him that he is my cat's favorite music of anyone ever. He got the biggest goofiest little kid grin on his face and told me it was the highest compliment and award he'd ever won knowing that, and given his sincerity in that moment and his well documented intensely obsessive love of cats I actually believe him. And then he promptly asked me to show him pictures of Spock if I didn't mind so he could have the visuals to go with the memory.)

This is precisely what I mean when I claim that I'm incredibly spoiled by the Universe and this is a reward life for me.  Whenever I make up my mind, 'I want this. This will add joy to my life." and then move forward with that as my guiding light, the Universe smiles like a proud happy indulgent parent on me and goes "O sweet child, this will light you up with happiness and love? Of course we'll make this happen! And we'll make it even better than you hoped when you asked for it. If you're certain this is something you want, then this will happen in a way that's even brighter than you ever dreamed."  It's been that way my entire life. Whenever I ask for something and let my own happiness be my compass to choose my path, no matter how unexpected and wandering and seemingly impulsive, ti turns out brilliantly amazing and even more magickal than my expectations. It only works when what brigns true light and joy into my heart as my guiding compass and star to follow on my wandering way, but it ALWAYS turns out in Divine Timing in the most unexpectedly beautiful way, better than how I could have ever dreamed or planned for it to unfold.

Always drove my sister nuts when we were kids how it worked for me that way. She is after all an atheist type A planner of a Virgo sun and it is so NOT the way she does things, lol. As adults she's fascinated by it and loves watching the dance of it and how it works, but she could never live that way and it still scares her sometimes because it's so illogical and lackadaisical... But here's the thing, I've lived so many lives and right now I'm not the one changing fatelines being the face of the fight and it's a reward life rest between battles and so there's nothing the world offers me other than knowing my polar bear is happy (preferably in (re)union with me, but to know that h e is reaching the happiness he seeks for his life is all I ask -- because I could never be happy if my desire to have him in my life was what kept him from reaching his own chosen happiness) and rejoicing in the beautiful things that light me up with joy and wonder in creation that these things EXIST and I am lucky enough to get to experience them.

*yawns* I'm so sleepy but I have to finish this end of month deposit and some other things.... And then in the morning take my grandma to her dentist appointment (probably afternoon nap tbh) before heading to Spring Green with my maman and my best friend birthday twin to have chili and red wine picnic in the woods then 7pm start time for Stones In His Pockets. I was very much hoping to be home earlier tonight but so it goes.... At least I'm still in my spooky kitsch Halloween chic cuteness form today, y'know? 

But for now, time to drink my tea and knuckle down finish some things then head home to sleeeeeep...

I hope you've had a happy Samhain, celebrating your love and joie de vivre across all the thin veils between the living and the dead and the path into Faerie and down soul bonds to those you cherish and whose existence has ever kindled brightness in your life. And if you didn't, you still have time. Just reach with the full intensity of you love and a wish for good things for those you cherish and miss and want to bridge the spaces between tonight. You'd be surprised how well that simple faith and intention from a place of love works. Without and need for ritual or overthinking. Just reach with love, no demands just the power of your love. Love and happiness and enthusiasm are the fulcrum to move the Universe. Trust me on it -- or better yet don't trust me and instead simply try it and see for yourself. I promise it's the root secret of all magic -- belief and desire are all you need, if it comes from a place of love (rather than fear or revenge) you don't even need rituals or spoken words. Just reach out unconditional love in the intention and the desire for good things for those you cherish and the Universe will destroy all obstacles and open every door to give you what you ask.

Good God, under starless skies, We are lost, and into the breach, we got tossed, And the water is coming in fast. And, ah, my love remind me, what was it that I said? I can't help but pull the earth around me to make my bed. And, ah, my love remind me, what was it that I did? Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build a ship to wreck? To wreck, to wreck, to wreck. Did I build this ship to wreck? To wreck, to wreck, to wreck. Did I build this ship to wreck?

 Ufgh. Audrey Pupburn was tired and wanted to go to bedtime snuggles and my body was tired so I figured why not. Only after snuggle time was over and Audrey asked I put her on the floor to sleep (ever since she tore her CCL, jumping off the bed isn't something she or I want her doing) I've just been laying here in the dark listening to the piano music and not able to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see and hear are the conversations I want to someday have and had hoped to have with Eric down different fatelines than the ones we're on.... And the me in them isn't even always the me right now and he's not always the him right now, many of them are future versions of us, are futures that could be of us. All they have in common are that they're conversations while holding each other. And they all feel so real because they ARE real down other fatelines, they still could be if we just choose a path to get to them. And tonight they feel so much closer to manifesting into the real than they have in years....yet I don't see the way to make them real, I don't see anything I can do to flip the odds into the favor of those future versions of us, and while I'd choose them without any hesitation if I could and tonight they feel so tantalizingly close to becoming real, I have no idea what I can say or do so they don't disappear again into all the fate lines that could have been but were never chosen..... And I don't see a way for me to make them mine but I ache so much to not lose them again. And every time I close my eyes try to relax I to sleep, there's another one of them there in the liminal space between waking and dreaming. 

And they all feel so tantalizingly close tonight. Like if I can just find the right thing to say or do, I can bring them into complete focused manifestation and sooner than I ever dreamed of....only I don't know how to do that or what I can say to get past the obstacles created that shifted is down this set of fatelines instead of those. 

*sigh* it's the witching hour as the veil (all veils, not just between living and dead, but all the barriers) is thinnest and it's between eclipses so fated rapid changes are de rigueur until after the full moon eclipse next Weds. But.... it's just.... It's so real right now and those futures are so much brighter and clearer and closer than they've been in years and I just don't know what I can do to hold on to them or help bring them closer and closer until they're the only fatelines there are..... And I'm so frustrated between the wanting and the not knowing how to make real those shared futures.

I wish I knew why they're suddenly so much more probable and closer to becoming real right now tonight..... And I wish I knew what I could do or say to help make it truer and truer until those paths are the most inevitable ones. (or at a bare minimum what I shouldn't do or say, I get myself in much trouble this life more often than not by speaking hard truths whose time hasn't yet arrived) But I don't know what I could do to bring them brighter and close enough we can keep them make them real memories of the future that will be instead of glimpses into futures that could be. 

They're beautiful but maddening because they're elusive and illusory, not solid and real. And I can't get past them into the true dreaming right now. Maybe I should go make some tea and re-light the candles and read for a bit if sleep insists on being so allusive and the fatelines I desire insist on taunting me that they can almost be brought back into the probable if we just actively choose them and do.... Something... But I don't know what that something is. I'm missing that piece. I'm missing the piece that explains to me why tonight they're clearer and brighter and more real as possible futures than they've been in years. And I'm missing the piece that tells me what needs to be done to keep them, to choose them as the only set of fatelines we will walk this life..... And no matter how I wrack my brain or search my heart, I don't know what those pieces look like or even the shape of them -- but I know they're needed as part of the choices that will lock down these fate lines and make these futures the most probable for me and for him. 

And. I'm so scared, with how dim and improbable those fatelines became these last years that if I can't find those pieces, these fatelines could get lost completely if we move beyond the nexus points where we could choose them but we never fell we have the choice to make. But how can I find those pieces if I can't even figure out what they are? What they even look like? What if I don't recognize them or because of my own blinders and subjective views don't see them even though they're right fucking there if I'd just see them for what they are.... And I'm so afraid of us both falling into choices that make it so those futures that could be never become real... Of completely losing any path to make those fatelines real. There's very little in this life or any other that scares me, but somehow the thought of missing all the chances and just erasing those fatelines out of ever being scares me more than anything else. Because of the emptiness that will be there where those should be and should have been.  

How is it I can be more scared of something that doesn't yet exist never coming into existence than of all the myriad real and present dangers to me in this all too real world falling into the self-destruction of late stage capitalism? Why is it the loss of futures that never yet we're that scares me more than all the precogs I have of what's coming on the societal and global world shaking stage? Is that fucked up? Wait, should probably rewind and ask if the precogs and my ability to sometimes see fatelines and shift choices to avert ones I don't want or bring into reality ones I do want is fucked up..... Because that basic premise is all I know this life, but also it's a subjective lens most people don't have. And certainly don't have as a basic premise to existence that certain futures are like memories and others you can choose between and find the place to shift to get you down the better futures..... 

But it does scare me. Deeply terrifies me to think of the loss and disappearance of those personal futures that still have not been made real.....

[Post title: lyrics to the Florence & The Machine song Ship to Wreck.]

She rings like a bell through the night, And wouldn't you love to love her? She rules her life like a bird in flight, And who will be her lover? All your life you've never seen, Woman taken by the wind. Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win? Will you ever win?

 OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!! 

EITHER I SLIPPED UNIVERSES BECAUSE ALL MY POUTING MADE THE COSMOS FEEL BADLY FOR ME OR I'M THE LUCKIEST LITTLE IDOT THAT EVER WAS!!!!!!! (I did get very sleepy trying to read some John Locke this afternoon, for fun, despite being halfway through a pot of coffee and everything felt majorly in flux making me dizzy so I opted to nap. also though, I really am one of the most spoiled and luckiest little idiots ever when it comes to the Universe orchestrating happy surprises for me and giving me what I want at just the right time in just the right way. So could be both.) BECAUSE!!!! BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE!!!!!  Remember me saying I had a sad the other night about missing George Winston's Milwaukee show because it was the same night as my theater tickets to APT and not thinking midweek solo drives to Eau Claire or Green Bay next week my smartest choices?! Well, I was also majorly pouting there were no Madison shows I could make work because he does love Madison very much and says so every time, even when he plays other cities. So today, my feeling sorry for myself dumbass decided to check HIS website instead of the Ticketmaster dates from the email I got Thursday night reminding me of the Milwaukee date I couldn't go to. AND!!!!!! AND AND AND!!!!!!! ON HIS WEBSITE!!!!! HE'S PLAYING MADISON!!! AT ONE OF THE SMALLER THEATRES IN OVERTURE HALL!!!!!! AND! IT'S TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!! 

Tomorrow night!!!!! I caught it in the nick of time!!!!!I didn't just barely miss it find out a day too late or anything stupid!!!!!!! I can still go so long as there are still tickets available!!!!!! 💖😍💖. OMG YOU HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW HAPPY IT MAKES ME TO FIND OUT I CAN FULFILL MY SELFISH WHIM OF A WISH TO GET TO SEE GEORGE WINSTON THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!! 

Squeeee!!!!! I need to double check tickets first though.... But omg yas!!!!!!! Yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!! The show starts at 7pm and Packers kickoff is at 7:20pm, but we've been playing poorly and both my heart and soul are in NEED of the healing of beautiful live piano music!!! Wait! What if! I should call my maman! And see if 1) she would go with me (otherwise I can go by my own dang self, wouldn't be the first time) if she wants and 2) since she dvrs the game if she could either wait to watch it with me OR save it for me and I could watch it Mon afternoon after my appointments and running to the east side for some skull shaped chocolates and other goodies from Gail Ambrosius.

O!!!! And!!! Also!!! 

My magical mystical spoiled by the Universe dumbass who always gets what she asks for as long as she asks for it was also pouting that he was here at Halloween time not Christmas time because his Christmas compositions are so gorgeous and NORMALLY he's got his 3-7 Wisconsin shows between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Yes I'm spoiled. George Winston used to live in Wisconsin and he loves it still has family here so he comes to play here for me every holiday season multiple opportunities for me to see him even though he only plays a limited number of shows every year.)and when I checked the dates!!! Somehow!! Magically!!! The Eau Claire date is now in December AFTER I get back from Seattle and not conflicting with anything else!!! And there are also Brookfield, Wausau, Minocqua dates now too in December after I'm back from the PAC Northwest!!!! So I will have four very drive ably close opportunities for George Winston Christmas time concerts!!!! O I'm such a luminously joyous soul about all of this right now over all these happy surprises of exquisite piano music all aligning for me!!!! 💖

SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I'm so happy right now that I just started happy crying at this realization and the promise of beautiful piano music in my future!!! And like, if you know me, it takes a lot of strong emotions for me to happy cry.

Okay. Check laundry and move it over if needed --> check overture tickets for tomorrow night ---> call my maman --> make dinner (yeah I know.  Early 10pm and i haven't even started making dinner....just consumed coffee and tea and Reese's Halloween candy and apples since my eggs at brunch... I'll slice up some veggies make me a yogurt curry to balance that out just as soon as I figure this out about me being able to get my wish to see George Winston fulfilled tomorrow night!) Will order tickets tomorrow when not on phone. Unless the seating is nearly sold out then I'll drive over to work to buy them tonight.

OMG OMG OMG!!!!! I'M SO FULL OF THE MOST GRATEFUL GIDDIES RIGHT NOW!!!!!!! GEORGE WINSTON CONCERT TOMORROW NIGHT HWRE IN MADISON!!!!!! 💖

Update: there are still a whole bunch of $45-55 tickets available up in the balcony of Capitol Theatre!!!! So even if I wait until tomorrow after I get my COVID vax in the afternoon, I should be okay to still get a seat even if it's just for me by myself! 

Update 2: just checked with my maman and she confirmed to me that she had looked at tickets to buy at the same time she bought the Hadestown tickets as a surprise for me, but didn't think it worth the price for her level of George Winston enjoyment to spend $45-55 per ticket. Which is fine. I told her my memory was that both her and Crissy were willing to commit to $25-35 in Madison or Milwaukee to go with me for George Winston, but not more per ticket and no further drive. But she said that she wasn't sure how late she'd be wanting to start the Packers game but even if she watched the game earlier she could leave it on the DVR for me to watch on Monday afternoon then delete it. Unless it was another game really not worth saving to watch later.... Been a not great year for Wisconsin sports teams so far and alazard is now confirmed out with a shoulder injury....I'm feeling rather dubious if Packers may even HAVE a post season in the playoffs at this rate.  So I currently have every intention of going to see George Winston all by myself tomorrow night at Capitol Theatre and I'll plan to order my ticket tomorrow have it at will call or head buy it when I get there given the number of remaining seats tonight. 

 YAY!!!!!! ALL MY WISHING WORKED AND I SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE GEORGE WINSTON TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!! 💖 TOMORROW!!!!! BEAUTIFUL PIANO MUSICS BY ONE OF MY FOREVER FAVORITE COMPOSERS/PIANISTS!!!!!! TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!! O WHAT A HAPPY HALLOWS EVE EVE TREAT!!!!!!! 💖 I'M JUST SO HAPPY HEART FULL OF GIDDIES RIGHT NOW!!!!! Okay. Right. Time to eat something more than Reese's Halloween candy and orchard apples. As promised, I'll go cut up some veggies and make me a veggie Tikka curry. Or maybe I'll cheat and make a premade bag of Tasty But Jodhpur Dal and bulk it up with some garlic and onions and spicy peppers.... I should probably do the latter if I want to eat before midnight at this rate, lol. 

And then after the dance party of one in the kitchen and eating some food, I'll put on some George Winston and curl up with a second steep of the Bombay Chai green tea and go back to reading these selections from The Empiricist Theory of Knowledge. Which, in all fairness is very interesting (it's the modern origin of the concept the mind is a tabula rasa and it is only what we experience and learned from how others define/explain those experiences for us that gives us knowledge, not intrinsic innate ideas from birth) and I've read it before but ages ago. Locke isn't nearly as tediously deadly boring as Hegel or Kant, it's just that I hadn't slept in over 24 hours at the time I was trying to reread it and when my body is overtired coffee actually makes me very sleepy. So the combination was too much and I wasn't really paying attention to the words on the page and my eyes kept closing on me so I chose an afternoon sleep and to go check on Henry after I woke up and moved the laundry along some more. But I wouldn't read Locke for fun if I didn't find merit in his writings and like the ways he stretches my own thoughts in new directions. Certainly would not be rereading him if I hadn't found his ideas good the first read through, lol.

[Post title: lyrics to the Fleetwood Mac song Rhiannon. Obvs.]

Do I think that it was Brittany's intentions to act on antisemitic behavior patterns? No. I can't actually speak to intentions, I can only speak to the facts of what occurred and to how I reacted and what it made me feel. but I don't think even with all the wrongs she's done me by her actions and her defensiveness over her past choices/actions that I would call her guilty of INTENTIONALLY behaving that way in the name of the entire band, but it's still what happened given the timing and the way she chose to handle things at that time. The TIMING is what gets it all mixed up together of her actions and who she did it to, but that doesn't mean her intentions included the antisemitic aspects of the acts of ostracism she initiated and made the entire band culpable for taking part in.  The very fact she didn't even think about the way that ostracizing ANYONE (but especially a Jewish woman) without ever replying or telling them in any manner that they should keep their own honesty about what would keep the fan from attending further shows is problematic. The fact she was ignorant of the timing after the single most deadly antisemitic attack and violent gun act and chose that moment to enact a policy of overt ostracism in the name of a band that had previously always stood for inclusion IS a problem and a blindspot even if it was never intentional. To claim that you stand for inclusiveness while actively using bullying exclusionary tactics "everyone can sit with us but you" towards a Jew at a time of highly heightened anti-semitsm is HIGHLY problematic. The history of Jews is one of exclusion and ostracism and bullying by ignoring you or excluding you -- of saying everyone's welcome EXCEPT you.  Would her behavior and that of the band be mixed up in my emotions with antisemitsm if the timing was different for her actions? No. It would still be bullying and exclusion and injustice and defensive refusal to admit that you've done wrong and hurt someone behaved cruelly toward them. it doesn't MATTER that it is currently a socially sanctioned form of bullying to block people on social media -- Jim Crow laws and laws excluding Jews have always been socially sanctioned as acceptable but it doesn't make the acts of bullying and intimidation and "you're not welcome to sit with us" ethically right. And it doesn't make defensiveness surrounding what you did or refusal to even acknowledged it ethically acceptable behaviors. It doesn't matter if you can find a group to justify your actions to you, it doesn't make the bullying and exclusion ETHICALLY right behaviors. I draw a distinction that doing it on your personal account is a personal boundary of stating "I do not wish to exist to you" even though it is often used in internet bullying behaviors especially among girls, but doing it on a professional or group collective account is a stance of exclusion and bullying and "you can' sit with us" POLICY in the name of the band/group/collective/company. There's a crucial difference there. To do it in the midst and aftermath of ANY racist/religious attack, especially against a member of the marginalized group, is to tie it into what is going in the larger society. It just is. 

I don't condemn her or her intentions (because I don't know her intentions) but that doesn't change the consequences of her actions and choices. And denying it and ghosting the issue and trying to bury it just makes her more guilty, not less, of acts of exclusion and ostracism and bullying in the name of the entire collective and in this case mixing it all into the antisemitic acts and attacks occurring at the time she chose to do it. It doesn't make her a bad person, it just means that she's guilty of acting in a way that is contrary to the stated ethics of the band and of dragging the entire band into acts of bullying and antisemitism and cruelty rather than facing and acknowledging and taking responsibility and ownership of her past actions and choices. And as long as the band stands behind acts of bullying, ostracism, and exclusion commited and still being acted on in their name, then they are hypocrites and don't stand behind the ethics they claim. They are nothing but a disappointment to those who have spent their entire lives being bullied and excluded and threatened by people who look like them. She is no witch if she doesn't stand with those who are attacked and excluded. And the Goddess knows. You can lie to your brothers, you can lie to your bandmates, you can lie to your friends, you can lie to your fans -- but you can't lie about the things you have done and continue to do to the Divine. Or to those who are here as hands and eyes of the Divine.

And you can't fix it by just moving forward ignoring the wrongs you've already committed. Nobody can heal this and fix it, unless and until you choose to acknowledge and make right the wrongs you were personally guilty of creating or taking an active part in. Especially when it comes to othering, exclusion, ostracizing. You're guilty until you make it right when you're part of the group that has ostracized and excluded anyone from being free to take part. You're free to choose whatever you want -- you're never free from the consequences of the choices you make and how you act out.

I can't square that circle for you as long as you're in denial or outright lying (to yourself or others) about rationalizing you past/present actions and choices. Nobody can square that circle for your unwillingnnes to take ownership and be accountable for your own choices. All they can do is get dragged down with your defending the indefensible out of love for you. All you do is cause them pain and suffering for making them guilty along with you for your act of exclusion and bullying. Collaborators with the source of exclusionary policies are still collaborators and still guilty of the harm they personally took part in. Even if it wasn't their idea and they didn't create the system in the collective's name that created the policies of exclusion and injustice. Your actions not only amplify your own guilt, they turn your family and friends and your bandmates and your diehard fans into victim blaming bullies alongside of you. And all because of your choices, your defensiveness, and your rationalizations. And you can't just move forward as if what you did never happened when the consequences of the actions remain and shape both the present and the future -- such as when you create a system of ostracism and exclusion that is allowed to continue and endure in your name and the name of the collective of "insiders" vs "excluded." Just because you want to move on and forget without fixing your past mistakes doesn't mean the consequences of your past actions and mistakes aren't still in existence and aren't still unfolding in ways that maybe you didn't intend but you're still responsible for creating and abetting and perpetuating.

No I don't hate Brittany and I'm not angry at her the way the Goddess is angry at her over the dissonance between who she claimed to be and the actions she's guilty of -- I mostly feel nothing as regards her but deep pity. My pity doesn't alter the damage of Britt's actions/choices, past and present, and what she has made others guilty of as collaborators. Still, I feel pity for her. Because I don't think she intended any of this. I think she just got hurt and defensive and lashed out and then felt so much shame (shame not being the same as guilt) at the thought of anyone in her family who she loves and respects seeing the truth of her past actions that she's done nothing but lie and rationalize and try to hide her mistakes she made 4 years ago. But the most dangerous animal is a cornered animal -- and running from accountability corners anyone who insists on running from responsibility of their choices and the consequences of their (past) actions. So while I don't feel anything but pity toward her, I also don't trust her whatsoever at this point because I recognize that the more she feels cornered in the accountability that she can't get away with her rationalizations and lies the more vicious and cruel and lashing out she will get toward anyone who asks for acknowledgement and responsibility taking and making things right so they can heal. 

As I told Mikaela, you can't expect someone to be different than who they have showed you they truly are and thus I don't expect or even hope anymore for any form of accountability or apology or even acknowledgement and quietly making right the wrong the band is guilty of because to do so would require honesty from Britt and her acknowledging the bad behavior patterns she engaged in four years ago. And you can't make choices for other people. But also, WITHOUT that acknowledgement and accountability and making right the wrong she did in the band's name, the band will continue to always be dead to me and their songs will bring me absolutely no joy whatsoever and I will feel nothing but disappointment and betrayal over who they could have been if they had actually stood behind the ethics of inclusion they claimed for themselves, as individuals and as a collective. And this isn't something I can alter -- the boundaries that made them dead to me were created by their own choices/actions and are maintained by their own actions/inactions. It has nothing to do with my choices or anything I can do. i can honor their boundaries that they wish not to exist to me and they wish to exclude me as a fan -- but I can't change their desires/choices/actions which have created the boundaries and the ostracism that is now intertwined with their very identity as a band/collective since it was instituted on their official band Instagram account. But it's not my boundaries, not  my block, not my ostracism, not my choices. It's not a set of circumstances I can choose on or that i can change. THEY chose an identity of exclusion and ostracism and bullying. Or at least, they allowed it to be chosen in their name and have done nothing to address sit or right it. Which is why mostly I feel sadness, no anger just sadness, over the joy that was destroyed and all that could have been if the collective had stayed true to their claims of inclusiveness and standing up for the marginalized. When I feel anything at all about them or toward them beyond the hollows of what was lost and should have been. 

Would I be happy and willing to try again and see if the joy and the love can grow again IF the boundaries of the ostracism were removed and acknowledged the harm of those actions done in the band's name? Yes. I would at least try and let them try to make things right and convince me the mistake was an accident and a fluke not who they really are. everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves a second chance once they acknowledge what happened before and seek to change for the present/future. But it wouldn't and couldn't be the same. You can repair things you can break once you acknowledge you broke them and put the intentions into fixing it -- but you can't replace the trust that was in the cracks of  how it was before it was broken. Not without the band (or any members of the band) acknowledging and making right the wrongs of the acts of ostracism on the band's official account? No, without that the band will be dead to me and all joy in their music and their video and belief in what they have claimed they stand for is just gone. Just dead and dust and all the joy and love that could have been if it hadn't been destroyed by this one action four years ago and the consequences it created. There is no healing and no second chances without acknowledging the wrongs of the past and trying to make right the wrongs it created in the present. Because otherwise how can I ever believe the same patterns won't just keep repeating in the future with me being the scapegoat and forced into the exclusion zone of an outsider and an undesirable?

I do not say any of this to be cruel, lord knows it's nothing I ever chose and I would change it if I could. I say it to be honest and transparent about where I see things now and how it happened and how it is allowed to continue. You can't change what you're not honest about, and you can't accept and heal and move on from hurtful things other people do if you're not honest about them. Repressing and burying and rationalizing and lying just means the damage continues and you don't know who will be hurt by it next.  The best way to clean out rot and infection is by lancing it and bringing it out into the light, the same is true for people's actions past and present. Only infections and cancers and rot thrive by being buried and ignored... You can choose that for yourself if you refuse to be honest and accountable for your behavior patterns, but it's not what I choose for myself.

Mama, dear mama, mama tell me more. I feel a trembling in my arms, I've never felt before. Daughter, dear daughter, listen what I say, Your granny always told me you'd feel that way some day. Every time she looked at you, she saw the old-time ways. When we could fly, we could fly. We could slip the bonds of earth and rise so high. We could fly across the mountains, Together, hand in hand. Searching, always searching for the promised land. Mama, dear mama, come and stand by me, I feel a lightness in my feet, a longing to be free. My heart it is a-shakin' with an old, old song. I hear the voices sayin', it's time for moving on.

 So this morning, Mikaela was cold while at work and I told her that if she wanted, she could come over to hang out with me and the animals and we could lay a fire in the hearth so she wouldn't be cold. (My plan was to get some laundry done today, and I did get some of it done, and because she came over we had lunch at my place instead of me going into work so I was able to get more loads in across the day.) And we had a lovely fire going all day long.

 

Yes, my fires always have sprites in them and the flames always seem to have beasts in them. As has been pointed out to me by many people, my magic is far more elemental and fée, doesn't require ritual the way it does for most people.

I had her bring my laptop home (I'd left it at work the night before so we could have music when I came in to spend some time with her) and when she got there and after I'd started a fire going I asked her what she wanted to listen to and we had the following conversation:

Mikaela: "Something witchy. Or pirate-y."

Dani (slowly): "Well. All i can think of for pirate is Pirates of the Caribbean. or sea shanties."

Mikaela (made a face): "No. not those. I mean something to suit the season. Witchy is more my mood."

Dani (sighing): "Sweetie. the only thing truly witchy I can think of is Delta Rae......"

Mikaela (quietly): "I know. That's what I want. But I'm still mad at them and they're still dead to me. Unless. have they apologized to you for the hurt and the wrong they did?"

Dani: "No."

Mikaela: "Have they even acknowledged it ever?"

Dani: "No. And. Love. It's been enough years that I don't expect they ever will. Not at this point. There are things that are impossible even for me."

Mikaela: "But you're the most magical and optimistic person I've ever met! You don't give up on what's right..."

Dani (sadly): "But even my magic can't make someone be a better version of themself than they choose to be. And at this point, it's been what, four years? They've made it clear who they are and what their true ethics and nature are. I no longer have any hope inside me that they will do the right thing or their music can com back alive to me to bring me joy again. Sometimes you just have to believe a person is who they show themselves to be by their actions and choices rather than by anything they say or claimed they were."

Mikaela: 'Then they are still dead to me. And they always will be until they apologize to you and make right what they did wrong. Only... I miss how it was when i was little and we could listen to them all the time and I would fall asleep to them. When their music was all joy and you didn't have that sadness in your eyes you try to hide but I still see, especially when they come up or you think about them. I can't forgive them for that sadness in your sparkle."

Dani (hugs her): 'I miss when their music was a source of joy and a soundtrack for our adventures too, sweetling. But they're not now, they're dead to you now, and there's no joy in any of the songs for me now. And that's their choices, it's their actions manifested that truth and nobody else's. So we'll not think on them anymore. How about some Rhiannon Giddens? We Could Fly is a very witchy spiritual song and I think most of her songs have the vibe you want even when they speak of heavy hard histories."

It was only later, after she left and I'd folded everything and my aunt had called to tell me she found the Highland Park scotch and was sipping it in Charlottesville thinking of me that I realized: today is the five year anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre. (Ironically, the shirt I put on today is the We Banjo 3 one of a tree of life under the stars that says "By Hardship We Rise" in a banner across the roots. It's a shirt they designed during the early first year of the pandemic when everything was still in lockdown and nobody knew when or if live music could return in the ways it had before; subconscious choices are strange but rarely wrong with me.) Which means tomorrow (today now since it's after midnight) marks four years since Britt made the choice to block me on the band's official Instagram account. It's an easy moment and date timestamp for me to remember because I was actively in my Instagram when their account disappeared form my unwatched stories while my parents were out of town and I was standing in the doorway waiting after letting the dogs out was about to head out the door to the interfaith solidarity unity sabbath shiva held at the Unitarian church hosted by three of the rabbis (one of them a trans Jew) and two of the black pastors/community leaders in town and the host lesbian Unitarian priest. And when I went to search the band up while Sophie ran back in past me and Audrey went to sniff the hydrant at the corner, it told me that no users could be found by searching Delta Rae. I was shocked and then angry but too hollow for the anger to catch anything and stay burning, so it just turned to ash and bitterness and I said, 'Of course she did that TODAY of all days to a Jewish fan who never gave them anything but admiration and honesty. Fuck that. Today is not a day that as a Jew I need any false allies who don't walk what they claim to stand for -- at least I can see their real colors now. I'm going to go where the real allies to fight this are."  And it didn't really hurt after that until I was back home and all alone with the dogs and all I wanted to do was curl up and listen to All Good People and Morning Comes and try to find some comfort there for my feeling of being all alone in a world where there are those who hate me for no reason other than the accidents of my birth as a Jewish woman born in Jerusalem to American parents. I'm reminded of it every time Israel and Palestine are in the news, I'm reminded of it every time that I don't know how to list my place of birth because it's changed so many times in my life that no two passports say the same thing, and to know how many countries in this world aren't safe for me to even visit because of the passport I travel on.... I've spent my whole life aware that though I hide in plain sight there are plenty in this world who would kill me for nothing more than the accidents of my birth but nothing to do with ME or my choices. And the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history reminded me that even here in the "free" country I wasn't free and following that synagogue attack I was just feeling so all alone.... 

Somewhere in me I still grieve for all the joy that was lost as a result of Britt's choices in the name of the entire band, which they have all continued to stand behind and allow to be perpetuated in their name, and that she chose to do it when I was already in a place of the hollows feeling all alone because of the shooting at the synagogue and took from me one of the places that had up til then been my comfort in the face of the white supremacist patriarchal hate and misogyny that is woven through America's identity and the fight to not let it win..... Somewhere inside me there is the sense of betrayal at the hypocrisy and the gap between all the rhetoric they claimed to stand for and the truth of their actions.... But even today it's not a sorrow that can find its way to be expressed in tears, it's the dry ashy sorrows of the hollows, where all you feel is the emptiness. The absence of what you loved dearly and is now lost and dead to you -- that's what the hollows are. The place of echoes that's too empty for tears. It's the nothing, the apathy, that is the opposite of love. That's the place inside me that I instantly enter whenever I try to listen to any Delta Rae songs or hear Britt's vocals or see any video or images with her in it. Because for me, since she's the one who caused this to happen, anything that involves her sends me straight to the hollows where I feel nothing at all in response to the songs I loved or anything she's involved in. 

So anyway. No Delta Rae songs today for Mikaela and the fur babies and me, even though it was the right season for it and both Mikaela and I were missing when that would have been the obvious and only choice of music for us for a day when the veil was thin and growing ever thinner as Samhain approaches. They are dead to her until they apologize for the wrong and the hurts and the sadness made by their collective choices, and for me there is no joy in their songs anymore. Not even the ones that I loved. And since late August 2019, I have given up hope that they even care or have any desire to make anything right and I have accepted that there is now only emptiness and deadness where once there was (and should still be) joy, even for the songs I used to love most dearly of all. Only the hollows of mourning the love and the joy that is now gone and lost to me..... 

Four years is a very long time to still be in mourning over someone else's choices... But then, in this life I'm always a long time in the hollows of mourning whenever I lose anyone or anything I have loved deeply. And my love for Delta Rae and their music and the ethical/social/philosophical causes they claimed to stand by ran so deep in me for so many years before the choice/actions of Oct 28, 2018 murdered it all for me into a state of non-reaction to everything they create or do as a collective. After all the shows I'd been to over so many years in so many states and all the hours the music carried me through, the loss hit me like losing a beloved family member unexpectedly and without warning. So yes it's been four years, but inside me, everything related to them or being reminded of them still hits me back into the hollows and the sorrowing of mourning an emptiness where once there was love in my life. The band may still be together, but as a result of Britt's choices in the name of the entire band and the band standing behind it never righting the ostracism or even acknowledging the bullying her choices created of the band's official Instagram account, the music is dead to me in a way that it wouldn't be if they had broken up or actually died... Their songs and the promises of the goodness in them as a collective for change is what died the day she made her choice and acted upon it... And as along as that choice is clung to and never made right, they and their music and the promises of goodness in them remain dead to me and my life and even if I hear their songs by chance, it can't even make me feel the smallest tiniest bit of remembered happiness to make me smile or bring a light to my eyes. The last time that happened was in 2019, when I held hope inside me that it had been a mistake and that now they were indie they would choose to right things once they were reminded of the mess and wrong that was done in the band's name. 2019 was also the last time i saw them, any of them, in person or attended any shows of theirs. 

Of course social media doesn't want me to give up like that....  Not a day goes by that my facebook sponsored content doesn't serve up the High Noon Show. And both Ticketmaster and Live Nation decided last week that rather than serve up all the tickets onsale they would only tell me about this one show at high Noon.

Which Crissy told me and showed me when we were at Viking Brew Pub before the Lone Bellow (with BAILEN opening) show at Stoughton Opera House was highly abnormal -- that hers were just upcoming shows and they were one recommendation down near the bottom of many....

But what do facebook and my inbox know about the choices people won't make because they think they did no wrong? What do algorithms understand about the death of joy that was and should have been when you're in the hollows of losing where once you loved? 

But that's not how a soul keeps going. That's not how you make it through the hollows. You have to keep your face to the light of everything that brings you joy, even in the deserts of the hollows. That's how you get back to where everything sparkles and shines and you don't lose yourself in the place where grief is too deeply pervasive to be purged in the catharsis of tears. So let us acknowledge where the emptiness is and the hurting that the hollows protects us from being consumed by, and let us turn toward the light and the sun of the people and things that gift joy light into ones life. Until the hollows dry up enough of the deep sorrows that you can cry out and purge what remains without drowning in it all. Because it will. In enough time, all things change. And until then, there are still sources of other joys not tied into the mourning and the loss that created these hollows.

At least today, on the actual anniversary of the Tree of Life massacre, I wasn't alone. I had a fire and my bonus little sister (who was one of my older sisters two lives ago) and my animals and Rhiannon Giddens music.  And tomorrow Mikaela is off school as well -- so even though my need to go check in on Crissy's cat Henry will preclude another fire in my hearth still I'll get to spend tomorrow with her and will make it back to work at the end of the day for cocktails and however many hours are left for me to get in before I head home again. And it's almost Samhain for real!

O! And!! The email from Cedar Cultural Center (in Minne) announced today that they will be having a show with Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas on April 19!!!! And their compositions and string parts (that's all they are, entirely instrumental, Scottish fiddle and cello) are so gorgeous!!!! I'm so excited about the promise of it for my life for April!!!! It's a beauty that's well worth the 4 hour drive each way! Tickets go on sale tomorrow (but Cedar is gen ad first come seating) so I'm just waiting on confirmation from Crissy that she wants to go enough to take off work for a Wednesday drive up to Minneapolis.

I am rather sad that the George Winston show in Milwaukee on Tuesday night Nov 1, which was the only night that my mom could make Stones In His Pockets work.... George Winston is also playing green Bay and Eau Claire next week, but I could only get either my mom or Crissy (both of whom have gone with me in the past to see George Winston) to agree to Madison or Milwaukee level humor me for his shows... They like George Winston songs, but not as much as I do -- and they both told me that midweek Eau Claire or Green bay was too far for them to want to go to see him.... Especially since he plays Wisconsin areas every fall into winter so I do get to see him on an annual basis. Which is more than most people get. Still. I would like to go to either the Eau Claire or green Bay shows next week -- though driving back alone that far/late isn't the smartest or safest thing for a girl to do by herself. But still. I do miss me a live George Winston show... I'll have to consider.

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Rhiannon Giddens song We Could Fly. Lordy do I love this song so much!!! Always and always and always love this song!

To continue the story from yesterday: condo management association sent an email at 8:30am this morning that there would be people onsite to clean dryer vents AFTER the workers were physically there had woken me up by being on a ladder outside my window banging around in the vents just above my head and AFTER my downstairs neighbor had already started some laundry she couldn't do all day then. I had also been planning to do laundry today but when I couldn't, I just shrugged and figured I would do it another day. We're in changeover weather season so I have a lot of laundry to wash but also a lot of things I can wear for the upcoming temperatures between now and whenever I do get laundry done. It was comical except for the ways that it inconvenienced everyone in the entire building to not get any warning whatsoever and to get the email as an afterthought..... And thankfully I hadn't been sleeping in the nude or anything.... Terrified the cat though who felt like the skies were falling. Still, it's ridiculous that Emily never even sent the email until AFTER they were physically onsite so nobody had any warning whatsoever. (There's supposed to be at least 24 hours warning so people can make plans PRIOR to suddenly not being able to do things like walk on hallways floors or dry their laundry....)

Then later, in the evening when I decided to head to work because I needed to take care of my plants, even through my kn95 mask, when I left my condo tonight and walked out into the hallway, the ammonia smell was stronger than it ever had been and this time mixed with new paint VOC odors. It was awful, but also it made me laugh really hard that yet another thing the Beans had insisted on doing had made things worse rather than better like when they insisted on tearing out the new carpet because they thought the brand new carpet might be holding/retaining the scent in our hallways even though it didn't in the stairway or the downstairs hallway. But they were loud and aggressive and finally when the condo management caved despite the illogic of it -- and once the carpet was removed, they started complaining about the smells getting worse AND the echoing in the hallway from every time anyone entered/left and from Wookie barking. The smell today was stronger than ever in the hallway, and it's strongest right by their door meaning it's coming form in their unit still, despite how they blame it on the disabled man across the hall who has cats. (since the pandemic started, I always wear in the halls of my building because small enclosed space with little moving air + neighbors who us synthetic fragrances that cause instant migraines for me = breeding ground for respiratory viruses and a migraine minefield for me; for me it's mostly to protect me from people's perfumes/chemical products that make me sick that I wear a mask rather than the viral load risks. Knock on wood, I've never yet had covid or symptoms, though I still test myself after known exposures, increased potential exposures (such as when I went to Lambeau Field), or when I'm around people who have covid symptoms but insist it isn't covid but don't test so I can't necessarily believe them it's just allergies.)  

So yeah. That entertained me a lot, miserable as the odors were. I expected it though, because NH3 is commonly released FROM the oxidation of VOC chemicals such as formaldehyde, especially on sunny days.  So everything new they replaced for flooring and repainting walls etc after they flooded their unit bursting a pipe by turning off their heat for an entire Wisconsin winter EVEN THOUGH their condo is on the northeast corner of the building, every time sun hits the chemicals off gassing, it creates ammonia as a byproduct. It's why certain types of home owner projects result in 6-21 months of a room smelling faintly like animal urine even if animals never go in there or never pee in there same as it smells slightly of formaledhyde.  So every time they try to tear out new things that are still off gassing to replace with new products off gassing or to repaint, it just increases the duration of time that the concentrated ammonia smells will occur. I tried to explain this to them one time when she was raging about how "toxic" the smells are and she just yelled at me told me it couldn't be anything they were doing because at least they were trying and it was obviously the disabled man not properly taking care of his cats. Even when I pulled out my organic chemistry textbook and quite literally showed her and her husband the reactions and how/why it occurs that gaseous ammonia is released whenever you repaint or lay down glues/adhesives in new carpet/pressed boards.... but they asked me what I know about it (as I'm standing there with an actual college textbook that explains it) because they're older than me and they know that ammonia is associated with cat pee even though they've never had cats themselves.  They're also maga trump supporters and trying to give them evidence just makes them get more angry soooooooo.... yeah.....

I miss the couple who lived there before the Beans but retired back to his hometown in southern France. They were so sweet and nice and I had someone to talk in French with while they lived there.

Another funny story about the Beans, from their first summer after moving in is the time that they went on a rampage about how unlivable it was that there was (what they alleged) to be cat poop but maybe dog poop in the hall and they went knocking on everyone's doors who owned pets (all three other condos on our floor) and the two of us who were home (the dog owners) were presented with a bit of dried brown something on a paper towel while she loudly bitched about dinging it in the hall when she came home and he sheepishly stood there behind her IN HIS BOXERS because she'd dragged him out because he's on the owner association board and she needed him there to threaten and browbeat us. I looked at it calmly and said, "Well it's unlikely it's from a cat since there's no litter attached to it and it's lighter in color than most cat poop. It could be dog if digested fast or excess bile produced. May I see it?" They handed over the paper towel and I sniffed it, "No odor, so it's unlikely poop." I then flipped it over in the paper towel and said, "It clearly has a shoe print mark on the other side -- this came in on someone's shoe not falling off an animal. May I see your shoes you most recently wore outside?" They brought them and I looked at them said, "Well, his shoe matches this print pattern, right here you see? And hers still have mud of the same color stuck to it on the side... Let me put them side by side for you." The Beans turned bright red and had nothing to say so as I handed them back their shoes I asked, "Right. So. Can I throw out this mud and towel now? Or did you want to keep it for some reason?" They said yes and went back to their condo and my other neighbors, the couple who own Wookie though this was before they adopted Wookie, just looked at me and I looked at them and we all just shrugged at the same time which made us laugh and then went back into our separate condo units to go back to what we had been doing before that interaction happened. Sometimes you just have to laugh because it's not worth the energy of tears of frustration or letting it make you angry. Because they're not worth giving them that sort of power over you to destabilize you into negative emotions or toxic behavior patterns.

It was after that failed attempt at claiming that the mud was some form of animal feces that they ruined their condo over the subsequent winter by turning off their heat completely in a Wisconsin winter to save on electricity while they were in California. And the ammonia smells in the hallway started immediately following the reclamation project to fix the flooding damage in their own unit....

But hey yeah sure, it's the disabled man who works early mornings at the hospital and has lived there longer than any of the rest of us not taking care of his cats who is the source of the problem..... Sure. not the anti-science MAGA trump voters who loudly rage at everyone about how the shared hallways of a condo is toxic and unlivable....They're retired and used to live in a house

Like I said, I much preferred college drunks when I lived downtown on campus near State Street and the bars over living with the Beans owning the other condo since they moved in...They are just so loud and full of misdirected anger and not interested in facts or logic just in blaming and punishing other people. Honestly nothing could make me happier than if they decided it was truly unlivable conditions and just sold their condo moved to L.A. permanently.... (I know I know, be careful what you wish for, I could end up with someone even worse... Or at least differently bad. Still. the Beans are the most horrifically awful neighbors I've ever had anywhere I've lived. And that includes when Nancy lived downstairs and had gotten used to not having neighbors and brought up a nasty acrylic rug because I had a friend living in my spare room who walked heavier than me because she weighed more than me....I wasn't there for it, my very embarrassed friend had to tell me about it and showed me the rug which I couldn't even touch without breaking out in a reaction from it. But as rude as it was, at least Nancy was polite and trying to be nice and provided a solution to attempt and after she saw how much larger/heavier my friend is than me, Nancy just accepted that there would be louder steps upstairs than when it was just me and a 30lb dog and an 18lb cat.....)

O but in happier news! we do have Hadestown tour tickets for Jan 26 now!! Which makes me happy! Excited and happy!

Every night when I go out on the prowl, And then I fly through the night, With the bats and the owls. Every time I meet somebody, I think you might be the one. I've been on my own for too long. When I pull them closer to me. Bloody sunrise comes again, Leaves me hungry and alone. Every time. Bloody sunrise comes again, And I'm nowhere to be found. Every time. And you're a memory and gone, Something else that I can blame on, Bloody sunrise.

 Right yeah. I know I know.... 

That last one was me in a foul temper of a snit over the ways that the Beans and Condo Management Association handled the mess of the Beans creation which they blame on everyone but their own cheapness when they first bought their condo. And me losing my temper not only causes energy fluctuations that can eff up electronics but also  tends to make me overly honest, particularly as regards the truths that will break people or they're not yet ready to hear/face -- get me truly furious and I will lay bare everything that you wish hidden can't face about yourself and everything I foresee and precog about your future fatelines unless you change your choices  -- and I won't care who sees/hears the truths I say. So be cautious about awakening me to full fury and not just minor annoyance. I never speak lightly when I'm angry and I never speak form a place of passion but just cold remorseless logic as if everyone can see the things I say, and I always speak truths, especially the hidden ones nobody wants to hear. I don't curse people, but I do speak aloud the truths about their past, present, and future they would prefer nobody knows and that they are not able to face....) Trust me, you'll always know when I'm angry. Always. Even if you can't see the lights flicker to warn you my control over my temper is waning....  And today, today I was incredibly angry.... You can only imagine what would have happened if I hadn't already had promises to keep to get my grandmother to her appointments and instead I had walked out onto the wet paint to take my old dog out for her first time of the day because she was aching from the cold rains and then I had an instant migraine while my dogs paws were damaged due to the paint full of deadly carcinogenic chemicals and insufficient warning for us to make our choices accordingly.....

Anyway. We're very lucky that wasn't the fateline and it didn't happen in that way. Angry as I was, as much as I needed to vent, it was a manageable anger and I was able to let it go and reset myself back once more my normal optimistic cheerful self. Thank you for putting up with my venting. I did need it. Sometimes controlling my temper is like trying to stop a herd of runaway horses before they stampeded and destroy something unfixable with all the raw power and force of it -- at least until I get my temper to chill and relax and settle again....

So in that vein, here are some happy things from the latter part of my day after my grandma's appointments, in the order that they came into my life!

1) Overture Hall announced today that the Hadestown tour is coming to Madison in January and it goes on presale tomorrow morning when my maman plans to buy tickets for my parents and me and Crissy (and perhaps Sarah, Mikaela and Karissa, though they were not certain yet tonight) for January 26!!!!!  It's not official plans until tickets are purchased, both my sister and I feel strongly that it's only intentions and talk until tickets are bought. But I'm very excited for the plans and potential of Hadestown tickets in January!!!!!!!! *happy dance*

2) Was able to get in on a cancellation to get my bivalent covid vax booster on Sunday (and the flu vax provided they're not using one with pork gelatin as a binding agent, though I'm pretty sure that's not only the nasal spray flu vax that still uses it.) Which means I can get those off my mental to do list before my trip to Seattle to visit my nephew and nieces, especially with how young Elliot is. I am mildly concerned if I were to accidentally carry the current RSV to them, but honestly Monroe is more likely to bring it home from her daycare or ballet than me since it circulates among younglings... but my sister and brother-in-law don't seem concerned about it so I won't be too worried other than my conscience overthinking my own culpability in an accident and what I could have done to not be a potential vector. Of course, it means I'll be getting my vaccine(s) Sunday afternoon  and on Saturday I have a vet appointment to get Audrey's CBC checked to make sure we're good to step down her prednisone AND my eye appointment so I can order more contacts AND on Tuesday I have to take my grandma to a dental appointment for her first time meeting her new dentist then that evening going up to APT with my maman and Crissy to see their production of Stones In His Pockets, last APT play for the 2022 season.) But y'know, why not? Knock on wood, the only shots I've ever had bad reactions to were all ones that used pork gelatin to bind the live virus -- and that was a reaction to the pork proteins not to the shots themselves. But hte most important part is that it will not be DURING the Packers game on Sunday because Packers are an evening game.

3) BLOODY SUNRISE!!!!!!!!!!  OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!! NEIL GAIMAN RELEASED A MUSIC VIDEO FOR A SONG HE WROTE AND THEN WORKED WITH FOURPLAY STRING QUARTET TO MAKE REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!  AND I LOVE IT SO FUCKING MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It's my newest music obsession (thanks Neil Gaiman) which has been stuck in my head on loop since I heard it earlier this evening. I love everything about the Goth aesthetic and the sound is so beautifully creepy and I am so effing excited for a forthcoming entire album of songs written by Neil and made real by FourPlay String Quintet!!!!!! 💖 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F5jkoPeoJM&t=20s

A new Spooky Season dark Goth video full of gorgeous strings parts and pretty dresses and lamps in the graveyard and supernatural beings who just want to be loved and sparkles of light and darkness!!!!!! And o all the campiness!!! And the horror story where you cheer for the traditional  "monster" who's misunderstood and mistreated by the world! the upbeat not a love song of disappointed love in it!!!! And the blurring of the lines between living and dead and undead and not truly living!!!! And the ways it all the mythic folklore symbolism and geeky Easter Eggs to make my nerd heart laugh in absolute delight!!!! Like the old 70s Doctor Who on the old TV saying the line form the show that prompted the titular line and the drinking grave diggers from Hamlet with their lanterns and every visual trope of the vampire genre!!!!!

I'm so happy and pleased with this song and this video!!!!!!  It has all the elements and things that I love and that suit my aesthetic and that make my heart and my head and my color-timbre synesthesia so very happy with both the song and the video!!!!!!!!!

And I can't WAIT for the rest of the songs they did together!!!!! Neil Gaiman is such a beautifully quirky wordsmith, but to my knowledge this is his first foray into song writing as opposed to fiction writing!!!!

O I'm so happy!!!! What a delightful Samhain treat!!!!!!!! It's just so perfectly my vibe and aesthetic in every possible way and I had absolutely no idea about it until I saw the tweet from NeilHimself about the song!!!!!!!

I'm so happy about everything about this song and this video and the promise of an entire album full of strings arrangements and harmonies over a 50s do-whop melody/rhythm and shimmery white-gold-copper spangled vocals and the storytelling of Neil Gaiman!!! It makes me grin so huge to have it stuck in my head and all night I've just been wandering about singing, "Bloody sunrise comes again, leaves me hungry and alone. Every time. Bloody sunrise comes again, and I'm nowhere to be found. Every time. And you're a memory and gone, something else I can blame on bloody sunrise. And you're a memory and gone, something else that I can blame on bloody sunrise."

O I have such a happy for this song and video release!!!! And you don't want to know how many of the 15k views in 15 hours since it's release are from me! 

I'm so happy that my cheeks hurt from all the smiling and my squeeing has definitely reached pitches only dogs can hear in between times of singing along with the song or singing it from it being stuck in my head!!!! Seriously, I am still THIS level of happy after having it for six hours now in my ears and my head and before my eyes and my future promise of more than just the single Bloody Sunrise:

Look, I'm a girl who knows what she likes and gets transcendentally happy and beaming gratitude  when she finds the things that make her happy and is allowed to have them to light up her life!!!!! Always have been. I try to control my anger because it's dangerous and I tend to keep my sorrows to myself rather than upset other people -- but o my joys do I shine bright as any star to share with everyone the light of my happiness and delight in the things that light me up with joy. I never overthink beaming my joy into this world -- the world has too much of heartache and darkness and everyone needs whatever light and joy they can find to lighten their life path. So my happiness is always shiny, and the happier something/someone makes me, the brighter and shinier I get. It's how I am this life with all my emotions and my honesty.. 

And this song and this video from one of my favorite favorite living authors ticks all the boxes of things to delight me!!!! I can't remember the last time I've been THIS level of happy shiny delighted by the discovery of a new to me artist whose video I stumbled across by chance!!! It's been so many years since a video and song release made me this happy!

 Omg I have been so fucking angry all morning and I just need to vent..... Because I'm so fucking angry......Not even hangry, just angry..... Luckily, I didn't discover the source of my anger until AFTER I'd made eggs and coffee and now it's nearly lunch and Ian just went to go pickup Firehouse subs for the office before I have to start my car next and I haven't (yet) seriously fried anything electrical that's important. Lights flickered and the fans he'd plugged in stopped working when he first told me and my phone apps all locked up until I calmed down again after venting to my mom about the situation once I showed up and my da told me he'd just made a fresh pot of coffee ready for me. Probably not ideal that I'm this angry and at a computer repair shop until I take my grandma to her appointments, but I'm hiding myself away in the conference room with my purse book (which is Steve Erickson's These Dreams of You which is supposed to be really important read good but so far is just post-capitalist housing crisis and racial tensions "damn modern society is pretty effed up and depressing" as a read and so I'm having a hard time making headway in it or wanting to read it so far.... I'm about ready to decide to put it on hold and read Mexican Gothic before I come back to this book....)

I have some time still to eat lunch and drink more coffee and tea and chill myself before I head over to my grandma's at 2 to take her for her covid and flu vaccinations and then her podiatry appointment. Because my 84 year old sparrow grandma (being a Scorpio) does not deserve to be riled up by my agitation and anger at other people..... Thus my need to vent....

So.Venting. 

It's actually rather lucky I need to take my grandma to some appointments today because it meant that I had made breakfast early and was dressed for the day instead of sitting around in my pjs reading until eventually making brunch rather than breakfast. It meant I was dressed and could be easily ready to just leave for the day when I went to take the dog out around 10 (rainy cold day so she didn't want to go on a walk before  made us eggs) which is when I learned from the maintenance guy sweeping the halls that they had showed showed up to start painting that apparently they're painting my hall with Killz -- including the floors so nobody can walk on them where the newly put in 3 years ago carpet was removed earlier this year without any warning due to my neighbors from hell who had moved in AFTER that new carpet was installed but having been blaming the new carpets as a potential reason that the hallway odors on their end of the hall are so bad....  These are the neighbors who within 3 months of moving in turned their heat completely off while in California for the winter and burst their unit's pipes which flooded their own unit completely and was discovered by their downstairs neighbors complaining about ceiling leaks.... It's been ever since the reclamation project from that water damage that THEY did to try to save on energy bills while out of town (and NOBODY who lives where you have real winter is dumb enough to turn their heat off completely or to have external taps left on without the water constantly running because fucking physics that when water isn't moving an it freeze it expands and the pressure will burst the fucking pipes....and these are people who have lived in Wisconsin since I was in high school because before they were my neighbors, their son worked at out family computer store.)  Anyway, following them flooding their unit and destroying someone else's condo is when the odors started in their end of the hall. And I've owned my condo been living there for over a decade, since my last year of college and the neighbor across the hall from them whose cats they keep blaming for the smells has lived there longer than me....  Anyway, so the Beans constantly leave nasty accusatory notes on the hallway door about the smells being toxic and bitch to condo management over the hallway odors and have left the fire door on the stairs propped open prompting verbal warnings about fire code and potential fines from the fire department. They have been rude and awful to me since I'm the unit closest to the fire door and I refuse to leave the door open against fire code when I've been personally warned by condo management, security, and the fire department about it breaking fire code.... but they have been downright abusive verbally and in their notes on the doors to the disabled man down the hall whose cats they blame for the formaldehyde and ammonia offgassing smells... So the Beans JUST left town last week for the winter flying first class to go to L.A. where their son now lives (I know this because they are facebook friend with my parents and my aunt -- and it is because the wife knows my aunt that their son ended up working at the store like 15 years ago) and I was looking forward a rest from their complaints and abusiveness.... But no, they have spent the last week WHILE THEY ARE NOT EVEN IN THE BUILDING complaining yet again about the smell -- even though they won't even be here to deal with the migraines and nausea from the fumes while the paint cures and the new carpet replacement off gasses over the winter when I can't even have my windows open to air out my condo from fumes that come in under my door or when I'm in the hall.... And on top of that, because of the bitching from the Beans FROM CALIFORNIA now they have nothing to do with their retired asses free time except complain, they got maintenance to agree YESTERDAY afternoon to paint the floors an walls of my hallway with Killz without having notified anyone who IS in town and having to deal with this inconvenience until 9:06pm last night that we weren't going to be able to touch the walls or walk on the floors of the hall until it dries....including to let dogs out because the dogs will get paint on their paw pads.... When I talked to the maintenance guy (who was very nice and it wasn't his fault, he waited until 10 to start so people could get to work and everything -- and he genuinely thought that we'd been informed which technically we were but with only 12 hours warning before he was scheduled to come do this job) he was very apologetic and said he understood because he doesn't always check his emails after dinner either. And I told him that the neighbors down the hall often come home on their lunch break to let their dog out and I didn't know if they had been informed or checked their emails.... (Their dog Wookie was loudly barking throughout this because she's part dachshund as well as part lab and so barks CONSTANTLY -- all the dachshunds I know are almost as bad as beagles for barking at every noise they hear and every delivery person they ever meet and every time a stranger comes to visit and when their people come home and...they're cute and sweet and I love my cousins dog Cocoa who is one of the few dogs I know older than my Audrey Pupburn but 90% of dachshunds I've ever known or met are VERY noisy dogs. Love to be friends with them, would never want to own one. Also their back and hip problems if they're ever allowed to do any stairs or jump up or down off couches/chairs/beds/car seats are heartbreaking to watch. They're an always purse dog lifted in and out of everywhere or ramps but no stairs or you can cause permanent damage to them breed of dogs... Corgis are the same.  I would also never want to own a flat faced brachycephalic breed or mix because of their chronic breathing and overheating issues that can become deadly.  I have issues with inbreeding deformities that cause health problems for dogs that are otherwise wonderful animals. I'd also never want a chihuahua or chihuahua mix because they have teeth and jaw issues AND they high pitched yip bark constantly. So I would not choose to own or adopt any of the breeds with known inbreeding deformities that are painful and deadly  -- however if any dog of those breeds found its way into my life and chose me I would love it and care for it and welcome it into my home and my household as one of my own. I just wouldn't choose one of these breeds of my own volition because the needless suffering and pain is hard for me as an empath to have to watch.....) So with the neighbor's dog yelping and Audrey huffing at Wookie to try to reassure her, the maintenance man called the office to see if they had directly called them (or anyone else who would be home today) and then as I left he was yelling at the people at the office for only communicating via email sent that late and not finding out if the people who are actually in town would need to be home during the hours nobody was supposed to be walking on the floor if he repainted it....

I'm just so fucking pissed they pulled this bullshit when they're not even in town to have to live with the inconvenience and smells but were nasty enough putting pressure on condo management that they rushed this to make it extra inconvenient for the people who are physically living in the building right now.... The Beans are my least favorite neighbors I have ever had anywhere I have ever lived tbh - and that includes when I lived downtown right on campus and had noisy drunks walking by at all hours all the the time.  The Beans are just very selfish and entitled and never seem to think of consequences of their actions to anyone but themselves, they think the rules don't apply to them but go all HSA Karen on anyone else about breaking rules. And don't get me started about them using two parking stall in the garage when the second is for the rental unit in the other building and how they park their boat in the parking lot so as to block the driveway into the garage and people can't get around them and the dumpsters and the near accidents that their boat has caused....)

But now, this means that whenever I do finally go home, because of them painting the Killz (which may not even be dry tonight) I'm going to be suffering from migraines and nausea and fainting spells lightheadedness from the fumes (I'm highly sensitive to chemicals that are toxic to everyone over long term exposure but which make me immediately physically sick from small exposures) every time I come home until it airs out which now that it's winter who KNOWS when that will be?! And I'm just so angry at the rudeness of them pushing this with so little notice that they needed it done immediately when they left for the winter so don't even have to deal with any of the consequences and now I'm going to be so sick even when wearing my kn95 in the hallway.... and the fumes getting into my condo are going to make me unable to eat or possibly even sit up in bed without dry heaving let alone be good enough to drive.... 

And then in the ongoing drama of the eclipse, they messed up both my dad's and my sub (put his cold toppings on my hot toppings and vice versa) so now he's in an absolutely godawful mood because he didn't even notice that he was eating caramelized green peppers until after he had already eaten half his sub..... and then he's been pissy about how much he hates green peppers and everyone knows that and who eats or orders peppers on anything.... He didn't mind having my mushrooms (which are an extra $1.50) but lord did he have a conniption about the peppers AFTER he ate an entire half before noticing..... 🤣 (My da, dearly as I adore him, is a Capricorn sun, Leo moon, Taurus rising who gets the hangers -- so when people mess up his food it's extremely personal for him.) So I swapped him half of mine which meant no black olives for me and then I and to pick out his cucumber cubes he'd got on the one that had my peppers and mushrooms because they were too seedy and thick times for me. (I'm really picky about cucumbers.... I don't like the rind too thick and I don't like the seeds or when they're goopy soft in the center.... I only like the firm  part of cucumbers and only when they're nice and crisp and chilled. Never on like a hot sub like these.) Also there was corned beef/pastrami mixed in with the sliced brisket on both subs. Luckily it wasn't bacon or pork or I'd be violently I'll right now..... But it was unexpected for both of us. The dogs were pleased though at the extra gifts of meat, lol.

Anyway. I have to go now to my grandma's to get her ready for her appointments then get her to them and I'm a bit better after venting about how inconsiderate fucking assholes my neighbors are.... Better enough to smile and compartmentalize my anger to deal with later so I can be pleasant and upbeat cheerful and positive with my grandma.

Here's some pictures from earlier this morning (before I talked to the maintenance guy and checked to see if there had been an email late last night about them painting Killz in the hallways today) before I got angry. With the sparkly danse macabre pillow my mom bought me back in August when spooky season stuff first strated showing up in stores.

I do love this pillow so much!!! As does Spock, lol. It makes me very happy!

Lordy today has bee a fucking lot since the partial eclipse this early morning...... Eugh.....