There I was, just minding my own business reading a book and sipping tea and not sleeping all night because of the aforementioned reading a book, and then the sunrise starts to peek over the horizon turning everything golden when suddenly bam! out of nowhere my subconscious starts singing, "If you love me you’ll know, And you’ll come back home. The way’s not dark, The feeling’s still that same old spark. We’ve never felt alone. So come back home." Just that part is in my head this morning and whenever it starts up again I keep smiling and spontaneously singing it out loud.

And honestly, I'm not even the least bit mad, it actually made me laugh and think to myself, "dang boy, you really are more stubbornly persistent than even I am." And right after thinking that acknowledgement of how it be, while the song was singing to me inside my head as I watched the sunrise, I felt my third eye open and an inrush full of light and love to accompany the song echoing inside me. 

Also. This means that I'm now chopping up the garlic for my breakfast while singing it and waiting for my French press of coffee to steep enough I can soon drink it. Hopefully this song cooks up something tasty given that everything I cook tastes like my mood while I was making it. 

Also also. I had a polar bear dream two nights ago, too. The sleep right after I got so tired I could hardly stay awake. I don't really remember all of it, except that it was cozy "all is right with the world" feeling permeating it. It was somewhere in the vision dream lands and we'd stopped wandering for a bit to sleep and we had a fire with banked coals in front of us and I was curled up between the forepaws of the bear with his head tucked over me and I fell asleep in the vision dream just feeling safe and loved and that this was finally the right path we were on. And then I woke up and watched yesterday's sunrise and only after it was done painting the skies did I go back to sleep. 

O, and i remember also in the dream, while snuggled there cozy and feeling of being at home where I belonged, before sleeping I remember asking, "How did we get here? The last I remember seeing you in vision dream was in the cave, with the sheet of glacial ice forming between us and then us cracking it by putting our hands either side of it in longing so strong that the ice between us cracked and then you bursting through it immediately when the ice shattered. How are we here and where is here?" 

And my polar bear replied, "Does it matter? Here is where we are now. Right here like this is good and I didn't know when this would happen next until we found ourselves here. And so the being here, together, that's what matters. Get some rest now, you're tired. I'll still be right here with you when you awaken."

I do remember that part before finally falling asleep in the vision dream all snuggled up feeling safe and loved in the polar bear's arms to wake up in the real world for the sunrise.

Okay. More garlic chopping and singing, less typing all these words up on the phone. Breakfast doesn't prep and cook itself after all, and until I develop telekinesis skills cooking requires the use of my hands, lol. 

P. S. I went on Facebook for a bit while waiting on potatoes to crisp up, and this was the first thing I saw when I started singing those same lines again: 

I doubled over howling with laughter at the ridiculous improbability and serendipity of that timing. I was laughing so hard I had to plop on the kitchen floor for a bit til I stopped laughing and could stand up go back to attending to my breakfast potatoes. 

Thank goodness it happened during the early stage of potato cooking and not while frying up the eggs or I would have been royally fucked out of my anticipated over easy eggs and likely ruined my breakfast with the smell of burning protein and wasting the last of the eggs in my fridge... (I do actually know better than to let me get distracted by cheap dopamine boost time wasters while cooking eggs. Eggs be finicky attention seeking drama queens and require your undivided attention while working with them.)

 I had something I was going to say, but now I can't remember because I am a very tired Dani and I need to sleep. I do actually do that sometimes you know. I'm not the best at doing it on a regular schedule, but also I can set my own hours at work so long as I get them done and I have no kids (just fur babies and green babies) and I've been single not looking for a long while because I don't think it's right or fair of me to entangle the hearts of men who I like well enough but where I can see the end before the beginning. Since deciding it's cruel and leading people on to let them invest in a relationship when I've seen the end before the beginning and the only men I'll consider anything other than platonic or random makeout never see them again will only be under the (extremely rare) circumstance that I can't see the end before the beginning in the fatelines. (I mean, like, all things end because death is the inevitable last date for all mortal bodies -- but I mean the end of the relationship parting ways nad breaking hearts those are the contingent precogs that I'm choosing not to bring into reality. The ones where I see me eventually hurting them when things fall apart -- because it's different if you're not a precog to take your chances roll the dice and hope you get a good match even if only for a time. But when you're a precog and you can see the entire ending and how they hurt and you still willfully choose "yes, I want to do this knowing the hurt I will cause you" it's just not a set of behaviors that current me wants on my conscience. And I have to make my life choices to be able to look into my own eyes in the mirror and not hate what I see there when I look into my own soul -- and that means that if I don't like the way it strikes my ethical compass to go into something knowing the hurt I will create when we separate, even if I warn them that it's for a time but not forever which is how I used to try to square the circle in college and fresh out of college.) Anyway. That's my personal code of ethics take, I don't ask anyone else to adhere to it it's what I choose given my gifts and the unshakeable bond that's always pulling at my heart like a lodestone drawn to the north pole -- me staying single isn't for lack of opportunities, it's an ethical choice based on not wanting to start relationships where I can foresee the end before the beginning and it shows me knowingly causing someone else pain. But being single so much definitely does leave me more prone to the "eh, who needs to sleep or work on normal society schedule anyways?" life choices. 

Speaking of ethics, at some point I need to circle back better explain something I said in passing in the now private draft post. When I said that I fundamentally distrust people with moral codes based on the theological idea that sins are transferable. I'm too sleepy right now to explain the way I want to say it why and how I arrived at this conclusion for my own philosophical code, but it has to do with cognitive dissonance and moral bypassing and issues of never taking accountability for your own actions/words that caused harm. It's logically solid and even just those hints at it should be able to guide you through the logic of ethics and metaphysics that makes me classify "transferrance of sin" as one of the two foundational bad premises that are the root source of the corrupting selfish ego-driven mess that modern society is. The other is what I call the "tumor expansion theory of colonialism as growth" and that I blame Rome for -- because our entire society's definition of success and valuation is built on a model of continuous growth and expansion, but in the natural world the only thing that replicates that way are cancers (and some viruses) and everything else grows and strengthens to its natural limits based on resource availability and it's genetic plan and then the goal is a healthy homeostasis of the entire system as opposed to continuous growth for growth's sake.  I don't know which is more evil, modeling success in the world's view by cancerous growth patterns of expansion or the moral bypassing of believing sins are transferrable so it's not on you to take accountability of making right the harm you personally have done, knowingly or accidentally, once the consequences and damages are made known to you. (I recognize that my view that transferrance of sin is a theological basic premise that promotes and spreads the greatest evils in human society is a philosophical take that puts me at odds with most forms of Christianity given the whole Redeemer, died for your sins, etc -- I have no issues with those who revere and seek to emulate the preaching of Jesus, it's the idea that sins are transferable that I have fundamental philosophical issues with people using as foundational to their codes of conduct.) 

I have spent a long time analyzing where things went so wrong to get to where we are in the modern world -- because you can't fix anything by lying to yourself just managing symptoms rather than dealing with root causes. You can scrub the mold and replace rotting floorboards every time you find them, but ain't nothing going to stop the mold and rot from returning til you find the leak(s) and patch it. And those are the two core philosophical basic premises that I continuously found at the root of all evils of human actions/inactions/greed/irresponsibility that have brought humanity so dangerously close to annihilating itself and creating another mass extinction era for all life on this planet.  I should write it out more fully explain better, but not tonight. Too tired tonight to words in English the way the subject deserves. But that should be enough of the basics of my thinking that if you've any philosophical bent at all you can trace the outlines from what I said already.

O I did want to say, my hair's still curly despite the lie some of my recent pictures might give since I cut it off at the nape of my neck to bury my braid with my dog when she died. (Past lives as pagan/shaman of varying types -- your hair connects you to the divine as well as your own past but when you mourn the death of beloved family members, you ritually shear your hair short and then you bury it with them or ritually burn it.... To signify the time that is now cut off separating past energy from future growth, and also so others can know that you are in the hollows of grieving.) It's just. My hair IS naturally fine and curly, just as it's got a seven year cycle of shifting hues sometimes darker sometimes more prominent red and gold streaks in it (my mom is blonde with a strawberry blonde mother, my da has dark chestnut-auburn almost black -- so redhead gene expressing down both sides in me and golden strands naturally mixed through it, but it's definitely in the auburn-chestnut range of red genes. That said, technically, if I ever had kids with a blond/ginger dad, each of them would have a greater than 50% chance of having blonde or red hair since I carry the blonde recessive and redhead genes on both the blonde and auburn-chestnut-brown genes.)  Anyway. the thing with my hair is that whenever I am physically or mentally or emotionally exhausted, my hait gets flat like even it doesn't have the energy to curl. So me being in mourning has me easily emotionally exhausted right now and winter air being drier there's no humidity to recueil it once I bounce back from the grief hitting me unexpectedly.

But as you can see from pictures of this morning, my hair is growing fast and it's still curly as its natural state of existence, lol. Just as my eyes are still shifting sea colored hues of green-grey-blue-aquamarine and I still have ridiculous Jessica Rabbit curves of a 28G bra size and my transparent fair skin burns and freckles and scars but doesn't tan.... Not all the grief in the world trying to drown me in it can change the physical nature of this body I'm incarnating in this life. Fine curly hair is still curly. And I have pics to prove it. (My current fb picture is a very old one of me with Audrey that I switched to when she died and me smiling didn't suit who I've been these recent months. But the picture is a throwback from like 6 or 8 years ago so recently whenever I feel cute even without makeup on, I keep trying to selfie see if I can find something to represent me as I am right now in these moments of passing time that I like. Thus all the recent selfies.)

*yawns* See. Woke up happy with inner sparkle this morning and hair was definitely still curly after washing it. I'm just easily emo in the hollows as I process my grief over Audrey's death so my hair is reacting to my inner state by naturally being darker than usual and being wavy/straighter when my energy and joie de vivre get clouded over diminished by a sad upon me.... especially every time I cry, all the curls just sort of straighten out of my hair.... Same when I was a kid and coping with deaths of older family members or beloved pets. But this morning my heart was sparkly with irrepressible joie de vivre and so my hair stayed curly after washing it. 

Ok. My chamomile tea to knock me out is now cool enough to sip without scalding my tongue. So I'm going to read some Rumi poems and sip my Serene blend tea until I go curl up in bed to sleep and rest til sunrise. (I can get 1 rem cycle in before sunrise, I'll go back to sleep get the other in after greeting the dawn.)

 For the record, Spock also really loves Come Back Home. It started playing in my head while I was post breakfast zen nirvana meditating while sipping coffee and watching the birds in the choke cherry tree against the snow and bright blue skies. As expected, when I quieted my thoughts and sat in contemplative food nirvana, the chorus is what surfaced to fill my inner silence so I decided to make it fill my outer silence as well. Was not expecting such a strongly inquisitive happy respond from my cat!  As in, he loved it so much when I played it on my phone just now that he got up from his chair where he was asleep in the sun came over to me on the couch and sat by my leg and chirped in curiosity at just the intro -- then when the lyrics started, Spock began to purr and stood on his hind legs to rub his cheeks/forehead against my phone during every singing portion of the song. When the song stopped, Spock stopped purring and he tapped at the phone but when I didn't repeat it or play any other songs, he turned away in disdain and left me to go lay in the patch of sunlight again. 😆 

And you have to understand that from Spock this is the absolute highest praise. He is generally strictly a piano loving cat and George Winston is his favorite of favorites above and beyond all other music. He does prefer acoustic guitar/classical guitar next best after piano with strings arrangements in distant third, but it's rare for him to be so interested in a song with vocals. And his primary interest and love has always been and will always be piano music. He sprawls on the piano bench and reached for you with his paws to play for him as a fairly regular occurrence -- and if he hooks his claws in your clothes instead of soft paw reaches, he only lets you go if you play something or put on a recording of someone playing piano songs.  The fastest surest way into my cat's affection is to sit down at the piano and play a George Winston song for him. That's not even a joke.

I should have gotten picture or video of his reaction to hearing Come Back Home this morning, but I left my laptop at work and my phone won't play in a browser and take pictures/video simultaneously. 

But for the record, Come Back Home completely enthralled the George Winston adoring feline even more than a sunshine snoozle in a flat that only gets morning light because all the windows/balcony face the sunrise. Ranking above sunlight, especially when using nylon stringed guitar not even piano, is the highest honor from this feline.

Okay. I'm going to read and drink the rest of my coffee now and I may or may not replay the song to hear with my ears not just inside my head. My grandma's appointment isn't til 2 and she isn't done with lunch til 1:15, so I don't have to go anywhere til 1ish. But ADHD being what it is and me having no sense of the passage of time except when music is playing to help me count the passing beats, I have multiple alarms set starting at noon and I don't trust myself to exit my hyperfocus state of flow and set aside any writing or sketching I could do to pass the time and i don't really have the executive function to motivate me to cleaning even though I need to. So reading nonfiction I can set aside when the alarms go off is my best bet. Better than mindless games or doom scrolling on my phone seeking dopamine hits.

I talked (well, texted after the kiddos bedtime) with my sister and brother-in-law to let them know that Maddie had flaked out and for now to once again just expect me in May and that I didn't know my exact plans for the drive back but as long as they weren't waffling about Waffles I was still planning to come even if it's just me. They reassured me they hadn't changed their mind and then my sister sent me these two pictures, the first after telling Waffles I was having difficulties with the plan for me to come visit and take her home with me so it might take longer, the second after telling her that I was still coming for her in just a month and a half as planned.

I promised Waffles on my very first visit after they adopted her that she is family pack and to keep being a good girl even when the rules seem strange and hard and that if she's ever not wanted in her current primary pack, I would come get her and bring her home to live with me. I have been working hard ever since it became clear that things were headed that way with my sister during her last pregnancy and last summer my parents planned 3 separate drives out there and executed 2 of them planned around rehoming Waffles and both times my sister's family decided RIGHT beforehand by family vote that they actually wanted to keep the dog. And then changed their minds later. My da wanted to steal her their first visit because he didn't feel my sister (who is NOT a dog person) deserved the love of Waffles.  But the clincher is how upset Waffles got right after I left in December and how sad she still is over my absence -- the picture is actually in the daybed where I sleep when I'm there and is currently the place where Waffles spends most of her time. She tried so hard to come with me to the airport and got so upset when I told her that I had flown and she couldn't easily come with me on the plane, I'd have to come back with a car to bring her home with me. Then when I left in December, that very night, Waffles took her bed out of her kennel and destroyed it then stayed up all night howling and keeping the entire house awake (including the then 6 month old baby and the 4 year old who gets night terrors easily.)  Waffles repeated this EVERY night, with EVERY bed they tried to buy her, until they decided to put the blanket I had slept with and that still smelled like me into the kennel for the dog to use as a bed. (The reason it still smelled of me is because my sister felt it was getting too worn and should go to Goodwill and so hadn't bothered to wash it, just put it in the give away box to wash before taking over.)  Immediately they gave her the blanket that smelled of me, she settled to sleep and stopped keeping the entire household awake all night and hasn't destroyed the blanket at all -- but she's still been mopey and spends most of her time waiting for me to come back.

This is why me waiting til June and pushing my sister's "I'm done" any later could end up with a sudden decision to rehome her locally and breaking my promise to the pupper.and break her heart and make true those contingent precogs I have spent 2+ years battling  And it's why regardless any other contingent precogs about that drive and the permutations it could take, I'm not willing to do anything that doesn't involve me bringing Waffles home to Wisconsin in May.

I'll figure it out. My anger was about being lied to and feeling betrayed and what had been prioritized above me by someone I counted a close friend, but I can't say I was entirely blindsided by it because I never could precog Maddie in my sister's house or interacting with my family in Seattle area...and so it wasn't the fact that the precogs didn't exist because those fatelines were truncated by her free will choice, it was the lying to me and the reasons for it and the excuse she used to make it more palatable to me rather than giving me the truth. And. I'm actually really calm and not worried at all that every set of plans  keeps falling apart for someone to do that drive back with me and Waffles and I keep returning to not having anyone but me and the dog for it. It FEELS like one of those "sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together" situations. (that's a Marilyn Monroe quotation, one of my favorites; the full quote is: "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.") Do I have any idea what the better thing is or how it falls together? Nope. But I have that inner bright flame of faith that that's just how it is about this and not to stress, that the answer will unfold organically in its own time as long as I don't do anything stupid and don't lose faith in Divine Timing.

Faith be like that. It's that stupidly stubborn thing in your heart that calmly defies all logic to the contrary and just keeps right on believing in its own dreams and that they're still possible. You haven't truly fucked up til you give up on believing that somehow there's still a path to reach whatever you set your heart on.

O. And speaking of faith of that sort. The stubbornly illogical faith that keeps itself burning regardless of everything that happens before you reach the desire! I listened to the most recent of the songs Eric has been posting for his 100 Songs By The End of the year challenge. Come Back Home is really beautiful, it's my favorite so far. It cracked my heart open, in the good way, made me feel that weak in the knees soft "awwwww" love the way that the line "but you know I'll be there waiting, with my arms outstretched to reach for you my love" has always made me feel when I listen to The Meaning of It All. Just that overwhelming softness and brightness of inner light and the surge of love where you feel cherished. And it made me smile the sort of smile you just can't stop from shining out of you and it made me desperately want one of those really long "this is what I choose and I'm never letting go" type hugs. Wasn't expecting that. But there you are. It's not logical, but that's how I react to the song and what it makes me feel. Every time I've listened to it. It's definitely one I'll be singing and that will stick in my head, it'll stay in my head exactly as it is in this form with just his voice and the nylon string guitar. And I can tell, my brain will replay it for me from memory at the most unexpected times. And it will crack my heart open that same way every time I hear Come Back Home, ain't no point in me denying that truth,

I need to clock out and head home now. It's past bar time getting into rape o'clock questionable life choice to be a single woman out by yourself and Spock misses me. My cat turns 13 in May and he's having a really hard time missing our Pisces pup luck dragon emo girl since Audrey died -- I had adopted my dog before rescuing Spock from the situation he was in so until her death he'd never known life here with me without her. Soft heart is how I rescued Spock, I like having both a dog and a cat for a place to feel home to me but hadn't planned on getting a cat. Not until the friend of friend roommate vet tech was having her other male cat attack Spock (it's why part of his nose is scarred missing) and she needed to separate them and i told her I loved Spock from the pictures would take him in if nobody else wanted him. And that's how he ended up moving in with us even though nobody knew how he would react to a dog only that he was now terrified of other cats including his own reflection, lol. There's a reason I don't volunteer at rescue centers and I would be a foster fail every time if I tried and I know that if I owned a house instead of a 2 bedroom condo so I had space for more fur babies, my home would be even more of a menagerie as well as a library and garden and greenhouse and art gallery then the current scaled down to a just me size version of that, lol.

 I said things in that last post I shouldn't have said but I said them because I was still angry though not so angry I was frying electrical devices. They're all true things, when I get angry I have a tendency to say harsh truths not caring about the consequences - and when you set off my cold anger, I say them to you to break you or force you to confront yourself but I say them deadly calm matter of fact as if every single person knows the truths you're not ready/able to face about yourself..... Not that anger does any damn thing that's useful unless your goal is to Carrie/Carrington Effect everything you touch or in a certain radius that your energy fueled can reach. I'm not angry and it won't stop me playing nicely as friends, but my trust in Maddie is broken from this and I won't ask her for help in the future or rely on her for what she says she'll do unless she proves to me she deserves another chance at me trusting her -- but like everyone she has to make her own life choices by her own priorities since she's the one must walk the path of consequences those choices created.  And while all the things I said were true, that didn't make them my stories to share. I carry a lot of heavy troubling stories that aren't mine to tell, and stories of infidelities fall into the category of "not mine to share." They're still true, and when karma comes calling on those past due choices in rationalized morals, well, I'm just glad it's not me built that house of cards of those truths I ranted about that weren't my stories to tell.... But they weren't my stories to tell so I set that post to private draft.

I do still have to deal with the fallout from Maddie backing out leaving me a month and a half to figure out what the hell I'm doing now.... I would like to avoid the worst potential fatelines if possible, and I really think my sister's patience is pushed as far as possible with me waiting until May but I simply couldn't make earlier work unless it was literally to fly out there and not visit them but drive their dog back to Wisconsin..... I had already planned that after I have the rental car I need to stop at a sporting goods store and buy a good hunting knife or utility pocket knife for the drive back. I suppose I could pack it in the checked bag, but also my sister has mentioned she thinks even owning swords or knives is irresponsible around kids except for kitchen knives that are out of reach they're not to touch. So I'd just as soon not deal with what happens if she finds out I packed a knife and brought it to her house where the kids get to it.... Better to buy it once I have the car and keep it in the car until heading out of town. I will probably pack my glass breaker/seatbelt cutter though -- that's an important thing for long car trips in your "o shit" situation supplies. I can probably cobble together a make shift first aid kit don't need to pack that or my suture kit -- pretty sure sutures and scalpels would fall in the same category as knives and swords to my sister. I don't like the thought of driving that far by myself without a battery starter kit, but I don't need a second one and that would count as batteries not to pack in checked luggage for risk of fire hazard.... If I meet my parents at their cabin in Whitefish I can have them bring one for the long haul part of the drive and hope there isn't a need in the mountains or eastern wa or Idaho. (I do have AAA and know how to jump a car from another car as long as there's cables, but the battery pack jumpers are way easier.) It's not necessary and for a very long portion of my life's roadtrips I never had it with me, including the two times I drove straight through between Chicago and Quebec City. It's just nice to have, especially in highway sections that are deserted far from cities. More important I have a flashlight and some rope other than dog leash....

 I'm actually not that worried about the o shit situation supplies for a solo drive because Capricorn moon raised by a Capricorn sun, preparing for what you reasonably can then relying on practical survival skills combined with slowed time calm decisiveness are what I do in emergencies. What I'm really REALLY not looking forward to is a 21hr drive with a dog and nobody else to be able to do dog hand off take turns with for things like bathrooms. Food and drinks can drive thru and gas can roll windows down stay by the pump, but even a lot of rest stops and travel plazas don't allow dogs in the buildings/bathrooms unless service dogs and late May can get hot enough Waffles can't be left in the car... I'll have to look up dog friendly rest rooms where you can bring them in not just sit outside with the dog, even if it means detouring to parks or something to figure out. The not being able to leave her in the car so long as it's just me is my biggest concern, unless I'm unconscious I can handle myself -- but the dog is the unknown variable changing situational awareness if there's nobody to watch my back or hold her for me. For the entirety of the 21hr drive. Ufgh. Even with a hotel break in Fargo, that's going to suck not to have anyone to take turns watching the dog for pee breaks or navigating (it's a pretty straight shot just stay on the highway except to refuel or pee breaks) or to run inside places to buy things without leaving a dog alone in a car.

As for the other part. Precogs gonna precog. And while they're contingent precogs, not immutable, I'm not worried because I can fight like a hellcat to find the paths through to avoid the worst fatelines. And I have been and I will and I always do. Immutable precogs are the ones that kick you in the gut to rail against the fates -- those are the ones that no actions you do can alter no matter how hard you try. And when contingent precogs turn to immutable precogs and I can no longer alter the course of fate lines, even when I keep fighting despite knowing I won't win.... That moment when the shift from contingent precogs to immutable precogs is when my heart breaks and everything shatters and there's nothing but acceptance and "where do we go from here?" As long as the precogs are contingent, there's agency and there's free will to alter the course of fate lines and land in a better future -- and while there's hope there ain't no damn reason to give up the fight for the better future paths that get you what you want. And ain't none of my precogs about all the different ways that drive from Kirkland to Madison might look have been immutable precogs. Every one of those fate lines are contingent precogs glimpses -- and forewarned is forearmed.  So I'm not that concerned about the worst of them yet, I just prefer to stack a deck so those can't happen if I can, y'know? Sometimes as a precog you operate by aiming true for the fate line you want most, sometimes you have to operate by guarding against the absolute worst possible ones being able to manifest and hope you wind up with something that's not too bad because at least it's not the worst ones you saw.

Do I have any idea how the hell the potential fate lines think the best possible outcomes where there's no issues of attacks at all could manifest? No. No fucking clue.... The most annoying thing with contingent precogs is that you see the fate lines of what you don't want to happen, but you can't see how the hell they happened and/or what you need to do to choose or avoid them. You still have to figure it out on your own and live by your choices, you just have a bit fuller knowledge about consequences to choices. 

And you may be wondering why not just ask my bff Crissy. (A lot of people I know can't be considered due to them having kids/families or jobs that don't allow for them to accompany me on a 31hr drive.) Well, third weekend of May is and always has been DI Global Finals -- and Crissy has been attending it since she competed in it in high school and volunteering heavily with the organization as an alumni and is a head appraiser. So May is the one time she's completely unavailable to drop everything and help me drive a long distance, even to help with a dog rescue. She would be available in June, but I really don't think my sister can wait that long, waiting til May was pushing it for her and she preferred as early as possible in May rather than a later May visit so my drive home could be in June.... If I could do June, Nancy (a godmother auntie unrelated to me) would also be available and she has resale properties in Tacoma area and her daughter still there as reasons to visit the area before the drive back. BUT, in May Nancy will be recording demos with her fellow songwriter in Austin then in England to record the remainder of her musical at Abbey Rd studios. So my two "would drop anything to help me out with this and have the flexibility of job/kids to do it" possibilities are unavailable in May. And my April was too impossibly busy to even consider. And pushing it into June was stressing the Virgo the fuck out and a stressed Virgo means ain't nobody happy.... So May is when my Seattle trip is and May is when I will be making that long drive with Waffles, with or without anyone else as driving companion.

I have faith it will all somehow work out just the way it's supposed to, or at least on the best possible fate lines there's any possibility I can actually achieve. And weather allowing, I have the Bailen show in Milwaukee on Friday night! And I am seriously considering going to Chicago for their show on April 1 because I adore them and have since 2019 when I first heard I Believe That I Was Wrong but between COVID and their shows here being whenever I was out of town, it took me until last year when Bailen was opening for Lone Bellow to FINALLY see them live. (And yes, Bailen opening for Lone Bellow was even more fucking amazing than your jealousy is imagining, lol.) So after 3 years of missed opportunities, I feel like I've earned going to see them twice on my own, lol.  Then on April 3rd, my parents are headed to Panama if their passport renewal can happen for them -- so I'll be dog sitting Sophie and chilling at the house I grew up in and my own condo whenever I'm not working. Except the 4th when Skerryvore show in Milwaukee is. Then after they're back from Panama (if they can go) is Stars concert in Milwaukee on the 12th and symphony on the 14th and then the craziness of end of April and then flying to Seattle at the start of May. It will disappear fast....but honestly, unless it's mixed precipitation ice on the highways, I do think I have earned for myself both Bailen shows, lol. 

I should make some tea since I'm not yet hungry for breakfast/brunch after waiting til nearly midnight to eat my chili that took all day due to the getting angered right before needing to do the part I would fuck up if I cooked while angry. (Didn't fuck it up, quite tasty! Made my entire flat smell amazing when I walked back in after taking the garbage out.) I'll eventually make brunch. And head in to work get some hours in probably. Tomorrow I'm taking my grandma to an appointment and didn't sleep at all last night so we'll see if I make it in today. I did try to sleep. And every time I tried and was approaching dream space, there was this rushing in down the bond of comfort and love and quite literally felt like having my hair stroked. Which was really sweet and loves it and wanted to just relax into it, but ethically I don't think I can let me while he's with someone else -- especially because doing anything to strengthen the bond causes increased frequency and intensity of overlays of all strong intense moments as if living it with the other person -- and that is just invasively voyeuristic and wrong to do to a third party either Eric or I romantically attach to. It's one of the reasons I chose prolonged singleness rather than dating guys I like well enough but I can see the end before the beginning. And it's why I do my damnedest to shut him out from reaching me via the bond or doing anything to strengthen the bond whenever he chooses to date other women -- it gave me the icks that I was doing something wrong where I didn't belong to suddenly get overlays from him while he was dating the scorpion chick he was long term live in with in Raleigh. Quickest way to make me fight him try to shut him out and silence the bond as much as possible even though I can't ever cut that chain between us is for him to fall for someone else or date other women. That's just not something I want to be party to but strong emotions resonate so intensely down the bond that overlays happen and just....yeah...strong emotions. Only way I know not to be guilty of that voyeurism by overlays is to try to weaken the bond as much as I can and not let the energy flow between him and me the way it naturally wants to through the bond. So as much as I adored that comfort and love pouring in and WANTED to curl into it, I couldn't let me and so I just lay in bed from like 4am or so when I set aside the Chomsky-Foucault Debate I was reading to try to make me sleepy until predawn started when I gave up trying because I never can sleep during sunrises. Even as a child I couldn't.  

But you know what I can do? I can make me some herbal tea and get back to The Chomsky-Foucault Debate or the next chapter in Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales 1, whichever will be less stimulating, see if maybe I can put myself to sleep for at least a few hours now the sun is fully up. 

 So on Tuesday, I was wearing my hair swords because 1) they make Mikaela happy when I wear them (she also has a pair, but her love of swords and knives is my fault) 2) at Iowa Irishfest last year, I mentioned how excited Mikaela was to see Macbeth and Hamlet even though her mom wasn't and I said, "Because Mikaela loves her stabby stabby plays best, and that's my fault, but also I'm okay with that" at which point Aoife got excited I call blades stabby stabbies because that's how she has always referred to her own knife collection and I started talking blades and 3) house concerts don't have rules about weapons or metal detectors on entry for concert goers. Anyway, so also on Tuesday, Crissy, Amy, and I stayed til near midnight at the house after the show catching up chatting with Aoife, Andy, and Katie who was playing the Milwaukee and Chicago shows with them. (Chicago based fiddle player and teacher, she played with Garlic Storm for a bit after Kiana quit, but the fit was never great and now she's back to more trad Celtic and teaching lessons.)  Aoife asked Amy to message her when she got home because it was a longer drive back to Chicago and then I said, "true. Also she's by herself for the late drive." at which point Aoife winked at me said, "Eh, I ain't worried about you love, even by yourself" at the exact same time as Crissy says, "Also if there were a situation, you could take them Dani." Simultaneous to me adding on, "Also, Amy doesn't carry a knife with her just in case like I do." At which point drunk Aoife goes, "Stabby Stabby!" we all three started laughing (Aoife, Andy, and Amy are all chosen family -- so we all talk at once like siblings or cousins.) After the laughing ended Amy goes, "You mean like in your car?" And I say, "O yes. I always have my favorite stabby stabby where I can grab it quickly when in the car. But I mean, like, even right now." And I pull out one of the hair swords as Amy starts losing it goes, "I did not realize those were anything but hair sticks. Those are so cool!" And she took that one over to go look at under the table lamp and I pulled out the other to hand Aoife to look at as she knew about them but hadn't seen them yet. Andy, who had only recently rejoined us come back downstairs carrying the last slice of pizza from earlier walked in during Aoife's stabby stabby comment and after I pulled the swords out of my half ponytail to hand one to Amy and the other to Aoife, Andy just says, "That is the most superhero thing I have ever seen in real life." 

Which highly entertained me because while I've been compared to Gal Gadot due to phenotype, and to Wonder Woman since I developed boobs, I had never really put myself into real life superhero main character energy before.  But, I suppose Andy was absolutely right and pulling swords out of your hair then sticking them back in afterward counts as badass superhero vibes. 😆 

Then last night, at the Chicago show, she dedicated Gypsy Warrior to "my dear friends in the front row who came all the way up nort to see us last night. Well not up nort Wisconsin, but nort of Milwaukee." And then when she started the bodhran intro to Gypsy Warrior and Andy started the guitar part I got excited giddy bright and she winked at me said, "I know how youse loves this one!" She also dedicated Tangled specifically to Amy (who loves the song deeply and is going through a very tough patch because her mom just died in the last month, and Amy is only child with no dad in the picture and no cousins near her in age or who live close by.) Aoife doesn't often played Tangled, because it's a song written in the dark times she's struggled with and it's about not listening to the mean cruel voices in your head but to love yourself no matter what awful things your head says to make you lose sight of yourself. We'd been talking the night before about getting lost in thought forgetting where she is in a song and we all said we'd prompt her repeat back her own lines to her if ever needed and then I derailed it into joking about needing a pint of something though to disguise it as drunk cheering for something in the verse and so now we have inside joke raising fake pint glasses shouting, "Shipwreck!" or "skinny dipping!" or "Cycling!" Well, tonight, she was nervous from not having sung Tangled for over a year and she starts the opening line, "I have always been--" and then she pauses longer than the melodic phrasing goes, "I forgot me own line! Sorry Amy! Help?" and looks at all of us panicky and I just shout out to her, "so awkwardly honest" with a big smile of comfort to try to tell her "it's your awkwardly honest we love about you" and she grins all sunshine bright, "Tanks a million! Right. Let's start that again Andy." This is actually really common with songwriters, and the theory I came up with to explain it when one of my ex-boyfriends who is a touring singer-songwriter complained that I can remember his own lyrics better than him was that for him, the words are changeable and like clay to tweak and mold and alter until he has the art how he wants it whereas to me they're something set specific to the melody once I've heard it repeated thrice. As I've told everyone, set any words to music and if i hear the song three times i will remember the words forever. I may not know what you were trying to say with them, but the words you set to melody will stay with me indelibly forever. It's a great memory hack for me to set things to melodies, even as parodies of the real words, because it makes it so I can never forget it. It's how I learned my French verb tenses and how I memorized the Krebs cycle steps, set both of them to music. 

I also gifted Aoife a dozen mini Cadbury caramel eggs tonight because a couple weeks ago when reminding people in a story about her tour dates, she'd been teasing her family to buy her Easter candy because they would be home by Easter and last year they didn't and all the stores in Ireland were sold out of Easter chocolate. So I had decided to bring her early Easter candy when I saw her and though I had it with me at the Milwaukee area show, it was a house show with plenty of sweets out and I decided the caramel eggs would be better for her to have for the long car ride of their drive to New York. She squeed and started jumping up and down when Andy went to go pack up gear and I told her, "Wait, I have something for you!" and pulled the caramel eggs out from my purse. It was priceless and perfect and the best and apparently caramel eggs are her favorite favorite Easter candy ever. And she was so excited that they were minis because the big ones are too rich all in one season and I nodded said, "Right. I didn't want to sugar coma you for any shows or drives. The minis I figure you could eat as much or little as you want on your own timeline. Also the packaging and size protects them better from getting smashed by accident while you're touring." She was so giddy about it and had it all planned out she could eat one an hour for the drive and then Amy laughed said, "Maybe give Andy one?" And she said, "No! These are mine!!" And then when Katie saw them asked where she got them and wanted one, Aoife just point at me goes, "She gifted me early Easter candy for the road tomorrow!!" And Katie (who is a teacher) starts in teasing about opening them now to share and Aoife just goes, "No they're mine! I'm not even sharing with Andy and he's me fellow these last 10 years" and then she puts the plastic container of caramel eggs in the garter band of her Spanx because it's the only pocket she had and nobody would steal them from her there. 😆 We all got a good laugh over that before she took them back out to hold them so she wouldn't melt the candy.

 Anyway. It was really good to see Aoife and Andy and spend some time with them, they're just darlings. Of all the musicians/songwriters I've ever known, and between friends and boyfriends and family and acquaintances and venues I've known a LOT of musicians/songwriters in my life, they are two of my absolute favorites!!!

I accidentally tore my left thumbnail yesterday. 

 

I had spent Sunday evening taking down the hundreds of snowflakes at work (I wait until the equinox to call an end to the last of my winter decorations, I took down the icicle lights with Ian today) which meant removing lots of suction cups from the windows. And one of them got caught under the edge of my nail polish and pulled slightly to chip off and then today the edge of the nail where the chip happened got caught pulled off on the grommet while I was lacing up my combat boots before heading out to work and meet up with people to figure out APT tickets with everyone. So then I trimmed the edges and put antibiotic ointment on it and a bandaid all day. I need to repaint them black again (still my mood, still in the hollows of grieving) but I wanted to let it heal at least a little before painting my nails. I trimmed all my nails down short because I don't have strong feelings about how long my nails are provided they are the same length across all of them so any time I break a nail, I trim them all down the same length. Although in this case, not quite the same length, just as close as I could without, y'know, cutting the rest down til they bleed. 

My thumbnail hasn't felt this bad since I used to bite them short while overthinking in middle school when the precogs were chronic, over petty stupid things as well as big deal world shifting events, and I hadn't yet learned to tell contingent precogs from immutable precogs so they all felt equally weighty and unchangeable fated...my gifts got even more intense and feral and hard to control from going all Carrie controlling me when puberty happened. Especially when I got angry like the time I got cold angry over injustice/bullying told off the new queen bee who had replaced my former best friend after Nikki moved -- Jesse was being unnecessarily bullying cruel to Paula who was new and so I told her that was an unacceptable way to treat other people and what her fate would be if she continued down the path she was on didn't change her behaviors. (Spoiler alert: everything came true; she actually contacted me in our.mid 20s to apologize and ask me to lift my curse and i had to tell her it was never a curse, just her fateline i read but that if she had learned her lesson chose to change and became kinder she could shift her own karma and fateline. She told me I sounded just the same, but this time she would take my advice with no threats and please not to tell her any glimpses of her future as long as she promised to change for the better and kinder.) But between calling her out in front of her inner circle and the guy she had a crush on asking me to the dance, she ended up elevating the girl she had been bullying to her second bestie (and Paula was actually even worse than Jesse for how treated people lower than her) telling all the other girls at my small middle school that I was a most bitch who though I was smarter and better than everyone else and after the first of my prophecies for her future came true she told them that I would curse anyone who angered me so if they wanted any social standing at all they weren't allowed to talk to me unless teachers made them. Thankfully, the guys all refused to play her mind control games and told her they liked me better and were my 6th and 7th grade friends and they all refused to date her or take her to dances so she had to always bring a guy from the bigger middle school. Middle school female bullying bullshit is stupid and cray, and the issues with Jesse would probably have blown over faster if the guys hadn't chosen to side with me and hang out with me and ostracize her over her freezing me out ostracizing me. It's probably why I'm over protective and reactionary quick to call out the bs about when girls play middle school girl bullying games of "you can't sit with us" and call it out whenever I see such behaviors even as an adult because I e seen how toxic it gets when you let female bullying get away with such behaviors. After I won the city spelling bee and came in the top 10 at state, I started getting picked for all the academic competitions and clubs so I had some crazy smart intellectual friends as well as my handful of outside the popularity heirarchy misfits who had been ostracized for pissing off Jesse and all my art class friends and the girls  from the Crestwood Girl Scout troop I joined after my grade school troop disbanded -- so 8th grade was better on the social front with a balance of eclecticly curated female friends as well as all my popular jock and musician male friends who had stood by me through the year and a half of ostracism by all the girls Jesse manipulated/controlled/dominated -- but the biting my nails got worse with some of my world event precogs I was having that year and me getting stomach flu 6 times in 6 months and migraine both from all the ascension sickness.... 

Luckily both my hair and my nails grow fast -- and if I eat a lot of eggs and nuts and cheese and other proteins they'll grow even faster and stronger. Guess I won't be having any citrus or anything and probably shouldn't cut up any extra spicy peppers until that thumbnail grows out further.

Why is it that stupid little not serious skin ouchies hurt so much worse than major things like accidentally putting a hole in your leg and bone breaks even when you fracture multiple ribs on one stair bannister? (Actually I know the biochem and biology of why it's like that and don't need it explained, it's just annoying.)

Ugh. I need to head home. I stayed at work all night because I was finishing up a deposit and lost track of time when it suddenly got to be rape o'clock so I figured I'd just stay put getting hours in until first light.I also got a lot of hours in over the weekend since I know that I won't be able to get any in this week on Tues, Weds, or Fri....(Tuesday is an Aoife Scott house show in Hartland -- I'm so excited for Aoife and Andy hugs tonight because I miss those Dublin darlings so much, Wednesday is Aoife again at Irish American heritage Center in Chicago, and Friday night I have plans for a 2 hour beer and chocolate pairing at Starkweather brewing over on the east side of town.) I was thinking about making and bringing puppy chow for the show tonight, but I should probably prioritize sleep and a shower before heading out of town at like 4ish. I'm also super excited to get to see Bailen again next Friday night in Milwaukee!!! They're playing at Colectivo Back Room, which has surprisingly nice acoustics for back room of a coffee shop -- last I saw there was last month Scott Mulvahill again with Ben Sollee.  I'm pretty dang excited to close out my March with a Bailen show!!!! They're soooo good!!! I've only seen them a couple of times, but I'm very excited for it even though that show is one I'm going to solo because everyone else is busy that night and that's never stopped me from going to a show I want to see just because I won't know anybody there.

Anyway. Right. Home now and some sleeps once the sun is fully up. because sleep is important to heal anything, major or minor, including accidentally torn to the quick til it bleeds thumbnails..... Laters.

Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon. I see the passion in your eyes. Sometimes it's all a big surprise. 'Cause there was a time when all I did was wish, You'd tell me this was love. It's not the way I hoped or how I planned, But somehow it's enough. And now we're standing face to face, Isn't this world a crazy place? Just when I thought our chance had passed, You go and save the best for last. All of the nights you came to me, When some silly girl had set you free. You wondered how you'd make it through, I wondered what was wrong with you. 'Cause how could you give your love to someone else, And share your dreams with me? Sometimes the very thing you're lookin' for, Is the one thing you can't see.

 I was thinking this morning, while watching the sunrise, about how funny it is that both Dave and Eric are going to be in the area around the same time end of April for shows (Dave is the week before) and both have reasons to expect to see me based on the past and yet I don't currently intend to see either. Technically, I do have a ticket for Dave's solo show in Milwaukee at ICHC and wrote it in my calendar after buying the ticket so I wouldn't forget I had bought it but that was to keep the option open if I want it and whether I want it will depend on how he sets up his solo tour and if he's going to play anything by Ajeet or Woven Kin or his solo album for pre/post show music because Siobhan's vocals are the color/texture of moldy mangoes to my color-timbre synesthesia and taint everything they're on. I just can't handle the physical nerve pain of her vocals and the color/texture of them..... My synesthesia isn't identical to the same as how I perceive the colors of auras of souls, I've never met an aura that causes me nerve pain and certain timbres of singing voices DO cause me physical pain and flinching, but they're usually complimentary and ANYONE who makes me feel soul sick with colors/textures of rot or decay or molds it's speaking to something deeper and sicker in them. But I don't have any tickets for any of the Delta Rae shows that are driveably close -- not even the one here in town at High Noon which is where the first show I ever saw of theirs was. (I have not forgotten that I once promised Liz in St. Louis outside of Old Rock House that I would come to any driveably close Delta Rae show as long as I was wanted there and they stayed true to their ethics when she asked it nor have I forgotten that Eric and Mike were in the trailer loading gear while Liz was talking to us. I just consider that promise broken by the band the day they made it clear to me I was undesirable as a fan by blocking me and their ethics were called into question by all standing behind the act of ostracism and ignoring/ghosting my every effort to bring it up once they were no longer on a label and we're indie artists in charge of their own social media. Both clauses I stated as conditions for me choosing to attend their driveably close concerts were broken in the name of the band by members of the band, and as such I do not consider myself bound by that promise. I am only bound by promises I make so long as the terms under which I made the promise are kept by the other party/parties. This promise of mine that I gave when Liza asked has been voided since I was blocked on the band's insta and they chose to double down on bullying rather than acknowledge and clean up the acts of ostracism from the past once they were completely under their own free will managing their band and its social media again. *shrugs* That's also the only thing that lost me as a fan, the choices made in the band's name to exclude fans from the band's instagram for honesty and to do nothing when that fact was brought to their attention once it was solely within their own power to fix.) It's funny because if you had talked to me even three years ago, it would have been utterly unthinkable to me that I would miss any shows of either Delta Rae or Dave (solo or with We Banjo 3) anywhere within a 4-8hr drive radius of me. Yet here we are today and both have burned bridges damaged my love for them to the point that they'll both be in the area end of April and despite all my other end of April concerts I could technically make the Minneapolis/Madison/Chicago shows and the Milwaukee/Green Bay shows but unless something happens to drastically alter the current dynamics I'm thinking I won't attend any of them in April, even Dave's show that I bought a ticket for to give me the option to go if I choose.

 

 See? No conflicts except Dave's Chicago show is the same night as Fraser & Haas (Scottish fiddle and cello tunes) with other shows on any of those driveably close concerts, because the day I'm taking my grandma to the doctor is the day of the Madison Delta Rae show so I wouldn't be having to leave to drive to Minne or Chi on that day and could easily make all those shows work. If I felt I should go.

Anyway. What I was starting to say was that I was watching the sunrise and thinking about how strange it is that we've ended up on a fateline and in a time and space where both of them are coming here in the weeks before I fly out to Seattle. And honestly I was feeling a profound melancholy about the twists and turns of choices and fate that brought us to this point. I mean, it's not something I've ever LIKED or that has made me happy or that I would have chosen, it's always been something I've stoicly accepted because I hold free will sacrosanct because only that chosen/done in free will has any depth of meaning to it. But this early morning it made me deeply deeply sad inside over what had been lost to us that could have been so incredibly beautiful. And while I was feeling so sad and tragic emo about it, the sun burst over the horizon all golden bright and of a sudden I felt such a strong opening in my third eye and all this love and energy and light poured into me along with a giddiness at having reached me for the first time in a long time. And then strangely enough, the old Vanessa Williams song Save the best For Last was suddenly saying/playing in my head and I couldn't help laughing and shaking my head over that. Because I mean, that is not at all what this looks like from where I am, but somehow there's still a stubborn ass insistence echoing deep inside of me that actually that is what's going on here and if I have a little patience and faith while people learn their lessons to be ready for how things are unfolding, then time will tell to prove to me how wrong I am in my conclusions right now because I'm missing some of the dataset and thus working from false premises. And I have had Save the Best For Last stuck in my head ALLLLLLL fucking day since and every time it starts up again, it just feels like the nicest warmest hug. It makes me keep rolling my eyes wryly laughing at myself, though I'm not sure if I'm laughing at that part of me that refuses to give up never ending spring of hope and optimism and faith that I've never been able to destroy inside me or if I'm laughing at the part of me emo cynical ready to sacrifice everything acceptance of free will even if it leads to tragic fatelines.... Hasn't changed anything tangible to shift my plans or buy tickets, but in my inner self there's a thawing laughing eyes response to that morning serendipity and the song staying with me all day.

Weirdly, both Eric and Dave are working on/releasing new solo music every Friday recently. I actually didn't listen to Eric's one from last week yet, though I read the email and the lyrics. I meant to listen to the song itself, but I got busy and keep thinking about it at times that I've been driving or out and about. (I am so ridiculously busy with concerts and travel from now until I finish my drive back from Washington mid/end of May....) I did listen to his first song though and I will listen to the second -- it's not a matter of not wanting to, it's just a matter of not having time right when I got the email and always thinking of it when I'm driving or at a show or working in the other room. Dave's new album though, that's another thing -- I haven't listened to it and I won't listen to it and I had to turn it off just trying to listen to the first recording because he recorded it while he was living with Ajeet and he had Siobhan produce it and she's all over literally every track and even as background harmony vocals, her vocals making me experience moldy mangoes via my synesthesia makes me gag and feel ill and need to turn the songs off.... So by his choices, Dave literally created an entire album of solo recordings that i can't listen to because it's tainted all the way through with the moldy mangoes vocals on it and I have accepted that I will never be able to listen to any of those recordings ever and may never know those songs of his. Which, like, he has to make the music he believes in and that speaks to his soul's journey at this time, but also sucks for me because it is completely unlistenable without it causing me pain making me nauseous and start gagging every time Siobhan's vocals come in even in the background. I haven't told him this, I've chosen to not respond at all to every new release because I can't like it or share it when I can't even listen to it -- but I warned him once in August 2020 after he brought her on a livestream with him that there was nothing he could ever create or do that included Siobhan's vocals that I would ever be able to listen to or enjoy. And I warned him because I precogged this situation where all actions/inactions I could take are going to be hurtful to him based on the choices he has made and I would have to choose between the kindness of honesty or the niceness of silence but either way he would be hurt. And as a precog, I get so fucking tired of playing Cassandra and nobody listening that if I warned someone once and they ignored that warning, I don't feel the need to remind them when their fate befalls them because they didn't take my advice to try to shift fatelines.... But anyway, Eric hasn't fucked up anything in his recordings to the point that I physically can't even listen to them the way that Dave did, I just keep remembering I need to listen to Somewhere Somebody Sometime and download it when I'm like at the Pabst Theatre for the Gaelic Storm and High Kings show or something ridiculous like that. I should go listen to it instead of just having it sit in my inbox that I need to go listen to it still. It's an ambitious project, 100 songs by the end of the year, and I hope that for his sake he succeeds at it though I'm uncertain if he can giving his wyrd he placed on himself before entering into this incarnation. But I wish for him only the best of luck with it, I could never wish for him anything but that he reach the happiness he seeks, whatever that looks like for him at any given time. And as long as he doesn't put any moldy mangoes in the mix the way Dave did on his album recordings, I intend to listen to Eric's songs as he sends them out across the year.

O dang, there I go thinking about him again and the Lucinda Williams song is back in my head along with the images of this morning's sunrise as taken in my mind's eye.

 

 I really don't know which part of me it's making me laugh at. But even while still in the hollows grieving about Audrey the stubbornness of the song being in my head makes me laugh.  I am getting better, I haven't cried since I came back in from a midnight walk in last week's big snowstorm and my luck dragon wasn't there with me for me to take off her layers dry her off after a snow frolic.  It was a beautiful midnight walk in the snow and I'm glad I went, I hadn't been able to make it out the door to try to appreciate the beauty of snow falling since Audrey died on Jan 21 because I would get so sad she wasn't there to get her ready to go with me. The walk was lovely, and it only made me cry when trees I hadn't seen in months asked me about Audrey not being with me and I had to tell them the news and feel the sorrow of the trees over the shortness of mortal lives... But it was a beautiful peaceful soul healing walk.  And since that midnight walk with the fresh falling snow and the trees, I haven't cried over Audrey's absence where for nearly 15 years there was the presence of my Pisces pup familiar.  I am healing, I just take everything deeply to heart. Like, I accept what I can't change because Libra sun Capricorn moon but being a Pisces rising and Scorpio Venus I feel everything so much deeper and longer than most people do.... I can't help it, I just do..... Both sorrows and joys, the highs and lows are just extra intense with me. So I'm still in the hollows a bit, that's how I always am while grieving losses,  and I don't know how long they will last this time.

I suppose now that I'm at work, I could listen and download Somewhere Somebody Sometime. But first I have to get the Vanessa Williams song out of my head because it's been stubborn af today and there's just no fighting it. It's there inside me and it's stubborn and it will be until I accept and believe the message of it at a soul level. Which I've laughed at me over it all day, but I haven't accepted to believe there's truth in it. And that's not the same thing, y'know?

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Vanessa Williams song Save the Best For Last.]

Whenever the aurora dance so brightly, it makes me miss my polar bear even more keenly than at all the other times of always missing him. The aurora dancing brightly reminds me of the vision dream when I rode with the fée to discuss with the polar bears how to help them survive the coming crisis of sea ice melt and while I was part of the seelie ride I wasn't part of the negotiations so while wandering the camp between the snow/ice and the northern lights, I found him among the polar bears so sad and wanting me to choose to re-open the connection between us after I had it shut down so I would not receive graphic overlays of what he was doing while with the scorpion chick in Raleigh. So whenever the aurora dances, it makes me miss him and associate it with him wanting to bridge the disconnect and any blocks between his soul and mind. And the aurora have been dancing so bright and so intense the last two weeks....

I have resolved and ironed out what was bothering me most of the big things that I needed to focus my time/energy on figuring out. Not fully resolved, that won't be until I take it out which... I'm not currently sure I have a way to come back from no matter how I weaken it before confronting it... and for now all I've done is take care of a loophole niggling my conscience form what I'd already cleaned up by putting in place some unexpected new protections for innocent souls it would otherwise feed on. I didn't put timeframes on my request that shifted the rules of divine interventions and it definitely caused some timelines ripples through the past as well present/future... But no harm came of it, only good, and this is a better Unvierse with brighter fatelines than the ones before I placed my new loophole in the rules so power balance shift by laying my request  at the feet of divinities. You really need to be careful with me... I play within the rules to find the loopholes to change the rules and about the only thing that constrains my ethics is my fundamental core belief that all free will is sacrosanct because it is only in acts of free will that there is any meaning in anything an incarnating soul does. You are never free from the cause and effect consequences of your choices, cause and effect and karma are thermodynamic laws of how this Creation unfolds and so I can't save you from the cause and effect bad consequences of choosing harmful choices, but I always have and always will hold the right of free will to choose for itself as something utterly sacrosanct within the cycle of souls incarnating.

That deals in metaphysical things and how I have a habit of using my spark of chaos serving the order of Creation to find the loopholes and in the name of something that's an injustice shift the rules between the incarnating and the Divine. This wasn't the first I shifted the rules, though it was my first time going to Ganesh and Krishna with a favor to ask -- mostly because they are not allies of mine in my past nor are they any part of my self-appointed task in my wandering to clean up the messes of psychic scarring and lingering vampiric/malefic unincarnated spirit wherever I find them. My Goddess, best understood as Artemis Britomartis but that's only the aspect of her I knew best back in the time she was named that, many many lifetimes ago, is the one who I deal the most with while I'm here in the cycle of incarnations and who is always watching over me and who won't let any get near to me if they have any intentions of hurting me. She was the one whose permission I needed to make exception for my polar bear, so that as long as he's true in his intention of seeking me out in this life, he can always reach me along the bond no matter what protections she or I surround me with. Eric is the only incarnating soul who can always reach me you know through any and all protections he can always reach me through it, because of the bond between our souls and how it works -- the only time he can't reach me is when he betrays and is unfaithful to the burning desire in him to find me and reach me and to bring us together in our quotidian everyday life. And the price of his infidelity to the bond is that he can be happy in whatever other connections he makes, but he wills top hearing the resonance of how the bond sings and so the songs won't come to him to seek form. I don't know why because even then I can hear the songs echoing in my internal quiet space even when he's shut out by his choices from reaching me there still I can hear his songs and how they echo, but when he turns away from me and the bond he can't hear his own songs. I don't know why, I just know that it's his wyrd, his soul contracts as he wrote them for this life...I wouldn't keep that from him, if I could give him his songs Iwould you know... It's his own wyrd, his own soul's truth that keeps them from him now and nothing I can do  to give them to him except to tell him that he has to listen to his soul's truth and not the distractions and empty promises and energy sucking lampreys of this world trying to distract him from that. Even when I chose last Spring that the best thing I could do for him to be happy was to let go of any expectations I held that I had always held form childhood as my firmest faith that somehow he and I would find each other this life and get to be together after so many lifetimes apart, it wasn't to tr to make him see that the price of such choices was to lose his connection to his songs. I can't help that his songs are tied to the resonance between his soul and mine or that when he tries to deny that bond or seek happiness outside of seeking me he loses his ability to hear his own songs.... That's his wyrd, not mine. 

But it did break my heart a bit to read his emails this week and to listen to the first song. Broke it open in the ways that let the light in through the cracks -- which is a hard thing to do when I'm in the hollows of grieving. (And I am still in the hollows of grieving my dog's death and the absence in my life where there was presence. I grieve hard over loss. I always have. Even when you believe in reincarnation and remember past lives and promised the soul of your luck dragon Pisces pup that she can come back as your son or if those timelines don't manifest she can return as often as she wants as your familiar, still her absence hurts. As does my self blame for accepting her choice I not drain myself to keep healing her but would only let me take her pain from her those last months.) It cracked open my heart to know that he's so deeply afraid of his ongoing lack of connection to his own soul's music since he met his now girlfriend and chose to try to stop seeking me and stop making things right between us and stop trying to build a life where he and I are together... That wasn't my intention of trying to free hm from my expectations of away for us to be together being a mutual desire, I didn't know that the price of him looking elsewhere would be to disconnect him from his songs because he disconnected from the source of the resonance and music... But by his own wyrd, I can't reconnect him to the sound of his own soul's music so he can write songs again except by reconnecting him to his soul's purpose and quest of trying to reach me  and be with me this life. It's all bound together on the same chain, the same bond, the same resonating cord between his soul and mine that pulls us to yearn for each other when we're in separation. And I don't know a way for him to have the music of that connection without him choosing the soul path of his soul's purpose/quest to find me again.... I just don't know any other way. I didn't take it from him, it's not mine to take it's only mine to feed with the soul light of whatever I/we feel and hope and believe -- he separated himself from the resonance of the songs when he gave up seeking me and chose to be with someone else who can distract him make him happy in the life he built in separation from me. And those are his choices to make, not mine. And I don't know what's in his best interest, it's why I don't presume to make other people's choices for them and instead I only show them choices they didn't se or warn them of consequences they didn't expect or give them information to make better choices -- I just know in my bones that he can't have his music while he's attached to the lamprey lady and distracting himself letting her feed on his energy so he stops seeking to reach me. Even were I dead and thus unreachable, it is only in his soul's desire to reach my soul as it mourns for my body's death that he would be able to hear his own songs following my temporal death -- only in being true to our soul bond and how it pulls between our souls can he hear his songs. That is his wyrd. Just as part of my wyrd is to fight for brighter futures and fatelines with whatever weapons I can get my hands on when I see wrongs that only I can make right. We each have our wyrd. And the wyrd of his music and his songs is tied up bound to the pull of the bond between his soul and mine if he wants to have the resonance of his soul through his songs and not just the soulless mechanical aspects of songwriting by the book.

If he wants his song writing back, he has to give up the distractions of the lamprey and return to trying to seek me, even as the ice is forming between us. That's his wyrd. He can choose to be happily distracted by the materialism of the lamprey's promises from her daddy's money or he can choose to commit once more to his vow and his soul contract to seek me and find me by following the pull of the bond between our souls and try to be together again in this life after such long separation and in that re-commitment to his vows/wyrd/soul contracts the songs will resonate again inside him as well as inside me. It's his choice to make. But he can't have his songs and be distracted choosing to be with someone else give up on hoping/seeking to reach him. His songs only echo inside him while he's in alignment with his own soul and his own soul's purpose, and that requires fidelity to our bond and what runs between us and in seeking to bring us together instead of prolonging the separation created all those centuries ago when he betrayed me handed me over to be burned and then carried his own guilt across lifetimes to keep him from feeling he deserved me. I chose to enter the incarnations because there were things that could only be cleaned up from within and I said "if not me then who?" He chose to incarnate to help me in my self-chosen task and because he didn't want to be separated from me watch me lose my way if he wasn't there to remind me bring me back to myself. If he's not serving his purpose of choosing to enter the incarnations all those lifetimes ago, his gifts diminish -- same as mine have when I have lost my way.

Still. I do hope he can find his way back to his songs and hearing the music that resonates in the place between our souls connecting. It's beautiful the music that sings there and he's really good at finding the parts of the long song and reworking them into a form he can gift to the world and to other people outside the connection to help them heal and be less broken by this time/space in humanity. I don't say I wish it out of selfishness of wanting him to want me back -- it would be meaningless if it were given because I asked/demanded rather than freely given. I wish it for his sake if losing his connection  to it makes him feel fear and emptiness not to have his connection to the songs. And I wish it for everyone who he could help and heal and whose pain he could ease or whose joy he could rekindle with his songs. I tried to be unselfish and to sacrifice and to give him up for the sake of his happiness elsewhere. but if that price is more than he wants to pay, then the sacrifice is worthless and I'd just as soon reclaim my hope and belief that our souls will find each other this lifetime to heal the long separation and that I have a right to that faith that our souls are meant to seek each other out, across all of time/space and any other damn thing that would separate us. I gave up that faith accepted putting it to rest for his sake, in the belief that it would allow him to pursue a happiness in his own life choices even if it mean not having me among them. I can reawaken that faith that we belong on fatelines where we are together in reality despite anything anyone would choose to do to separate us and then his songs will return -- but he will lose his enchanted torpor he's been in to rest content within the distractions of the lamprey or anyone else because he will once again feel the pull between our souls and know he's not following the path that will bring him to the light he seeks or to achieve his soul's purpose for being in the incarnation.It will draw him to realize where I am and the thickness of the ice grown across the path between us -- and if spirit dreams are true between me and him we can break that ice once he discards the lamprey distraction of his own free will. But it has to be his free will choice before i will reawaken my faith in our connection, and it won't be until that is reawakened and the pull returns to him drawing him to seek me that his songs will sing again in his silences. That is his wyrd. Not mine. He wrote the wyrd of his soul contracts, I can only read them and when I choose to i can share what I read.

But he can't choose to be with his lamprey he's been distracted by infatuated with AND have his songs resonating through his soul at the same time. He can finish work on songs that he heard echoing in him before he met her and chose to be distracted by what she offers, but new songs won't come to him even while he works on the other older ones except they come from him choosing to be faithful to the resonance in the bond between his soul and my soul. That's the rules of his own chosen wyrd. And it's because he doesn't want to fail repeating the same patterns of what he chose before instead of choosing our bond -- so he set the highest price on himself if he once again betrayed that yearning to end the separation.... he chose the wyrd when he wrote his soul contracts before he incarnated in this life. It's his wyrd, to try to force himself to face and fix what he broke all those centuries ago. His wyrd not mine. Just as it's his choices to make for his own life and his own present and his own future -- for it's his happiness and his life path(s) to walk. He made his wyrd before he chose this incarnation for himself, nobody can unmake it in this life -- not even him. He can write another wyrd next life while he's in soul review between lives so he can try to guide his next incarnation(s) down the path for the lessons his soul needs to learn. But once it's set in motion, not even he can change his wyrd, he can choose his path in defiance of his wyrd, but he can't change the wyrd he chose for himself that if he tries to choose anything/anyone else in lieu of the yearning, he will lose his greatest gifts born from the way the bond sings and resonates. He chose that consequence for himself if he once again chose the temptation of betrayal of the bond, of the yearning, yet again. He made his wyrd as a consequence of his potential future choices. I can't alter it, he wrote it for himself. 

Whatever he chooses for himself, I will always want for him that it brings him the happiness he seeks. All of it, every last bit of the happiness he seeks and chooses for himself. Love isn't a competition, and anyone who thinks it is doesn't understand the true nature of love -- I don't love him more or less for being willing to let him choose his own path. I love him to want his happiness to be of his choosing, whatever that may be, more than I want it to chain him enslave his will to my own will. And claiming I loved him more with me than loving him choosing what would give him his own greatest happiness is to use my love as a tool of enslaving his. To claim to love more is to be trying to frame love within the master-slave dialectic -- and that is something I refuse to do. For love is not between a master and a slave, a greater and a lesser, an "I love you more battle" is just another name for a competition to prove who is the master and who is the slave in the dynamic and thus it can never be the highest forms of love. Love deserving of that name can only be a bond of recognition and respect between equals who honor each other as equals for it to truly deserve to be called love. And by my definition of love, I could never wish for him anything else than to wish that he be able to have the happiness he seeks and chooses for himself in this life and in every life of his -- even if the price of my definition of love is me sacrificing what I want letting him go his own way without me in it because that's what he chooses for himself and me trying to navigate what the consequences of that mean to me. And if losing me is not anything of what he wants then it's me insisting he damn well best find a way to make room for me in his life. Whichever he prefers and chooses for his own happiness. But he can't choose both at once, because he can't not have me in his life and also have me in his life... Even quantum superposition can't solve that one. 

And whatever he chooses for his happiness, there ain't a damn thing I can do to change his wyrd -- all I can do for him is the same I can do for anyone incarnating within the cycle of souls: to illuminate their wyrd so they can make choices of their own free will with the clearest best knowledge and truth possible. And then let them make their own choice(s). Wyrd is the fate you create for yourself to force yourself to learn your own lessons, no matter what path you choose. As I understand it, wyrd is an expression of free will in the time you're free to pick anything to chart the course for your incarnation and the lessons it has to teach you. Wyrd is as sacrosanct to me as the active choices of free will made within the life. Sometimes I can read the wyrd of the soul contract the soul wrote before a given incarnation. Not always, not for everyone. But sometimes I can. Almost always when I'm wrapped up in it or when I've known the soul a very long time. He qualifies under both of those for reasons I can read the parts of his own wyrd that he wrote that relate to me and the bond between our souls, even if I couldn't hear it in teh echoes and under the words of every melody and every line and every song that sings through the bond and into both of our inner silences when we cut out the distractions and listen to the stillest places in our own souls. "It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world"~Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra

If he cut out all the distractions and sat within himself and really took stock of listening to his own stillest inner tranquility places, he'd know the truth of his own wyrd without needing to hear it from me. He'd know why it is that he fears his choices of the last year would lead him to lose his ability to be a great songwriter. And he'd know why only he can chart  his course by what matters most to him at this time in this life to get him to the happiness he seeks. He doesn't need me to read him his wyrd, deep inside him, in the stillest parts of his soul that can't be bought off by yachts and first class plane tickets and any other money purchased materialist soul sucking external distraction, he knows his wyrd and he knows the why of it. He doesn' need me to tell him or to verify it. he already knows. And because it's his WHY and a guide on his life path, he knows the reasons of it far better than even I ever could understand it. Because it's his wyrd and they're his choices, he wrote it for himself -- for the times he'd need to listen to the deepest truths of his own soul in the stillest places within him. The places where there is only his own greatest truths, the place beyond all external distractions that don't lead him to his truths.

He wrote his wyrd. Not me. I can free him of my expectations that he be enslaved by my desires rather than pursuing what he chooses for himself. If that's what he wants, I have the inner strength to make me do that and deal with the consequences that inflicts on me as well as on him. But I can't free him from the soul contracts he wrote for himself and the wyrd they made for his life based on what he chooses for himself. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" His wyrd is what he can't be free of within this life, it's what he always has to lose if he tries to be free of his soul contracts and the lessons he wanted to learn this life before he embarked into it. And it terrifies him because he knows that.

If I could advise him anything it would be to sit in his own stillness and listen to his own truths and chart his own course to reach the happiness he seeks foe himself in this life of his. Not to anyone else's pressures or opinions or distractions -- to listen only to himself and his innermost knowing and truth.

~*~*~*~*~

I also now have a plan in place now for my May drive back from my sister's place in Washington to bring their dog to live with me (or my parents) whichever is the better fit for her. The main thing is that she remain with pack and family since the fit isn't good for her at my sister's family. It's complicated and there's no blame from me, I just want to get everyone to places/situations where everyone can best love and be loved and thrive. And that means rehoming Waffles within the family where she already has pack love and loyalty but to be where she can feel loved and accepted member of the pack consistently as opposed to the current situation. . Maddie stepped up when I asked her and immediately booked her ticket to fly out and is excited for roadtrip adventure time with me on a 30 hour drive with a not as well socialized as she should be COVID puppy. before getting hired to her OT job (what she went to college for) Maddie also worked at a doggy daycare so she's used to helping dogs become better versions of themselves and dealing with barking/behavioral training with love and consistency but not bonding them to you. 

And that's good. Ever since setting that in motion, I've had precogs of that path as viable and the places we will visit on the way back include once again visiting the Badlands. 9It's always a stop on the drive to/from Montana from here -- you get to chosoe northern badlands or southern badlands, but all the routes between WI and Montana/Washington require flying over or driving through the badlands. Every time.) That trip won't be until May. May 2 I fly to Seattle to visit with my sister and her family and then Maddie flies out to Seattle on May 13 and we will do some drives/trips to see pretty Washington nature and bring waffles with for bonding get her used to happy hiking car time with me/us then we'll start the drive back with a first stop at my parents cabin in Montana for a day or two (depending on if leave Kirkland on May 15 or 16 determines how many days in Montana) with a stop in the Badlands to stretch out legs and admire the beauty of it and the goal to be home at some point on May 19 so Maddie can be back for Circus World opening weekend and I can return the rental car by noon on May 20. I've seen in precogs some other potential travel mates other than Maddie for that drive back, but they don't make sense so I'm kind of just ignoring those precogs sticking to the path I opened up by asking her if she was interested and her immediately saying yes and buying her southwest ticket once I cleared up with Alana that she could be honest with me as I had other people able/willing to make it work so she didn't have to feel guilty if she couldn't make it work after me waiting for her to get back to me for 3 weeks to ask her boss about it take pto.

I should consider sleeping soon. (Or make the choice not to sleep until Sunday night.) I need to be heading out by 7:30am to pick up coffee and then get Mikaela to drive us the two hours to a rock and mineral show in Appleton. I had a realization this week after seeing a picture of it that I needed duomortierite (preferably in a quartz matrix) for me to find the next places to go on the stepping stone path of shifting fatelines to get humanity through to one where there's a future as a vehicle of incarnation beyond self-destruction and taking this entire planet down with it....

And then I was trying to figure out where to wander my way yo find me some duomortierite that I can trust to be legit by encountering it in person (I distrust online crystal sellers as a general rule) and my first instinct was Burnie's rock Shop (the rock store in town that my grandfather took me to as a child when my love of gems/minerals became known) and then I decided they might be too limited since they're such a small rock store and what I needed was like, Burnie's but at an entire show of crystals. And within five minutes of me realizing that and seeing it in my precogs, Burnie's Rock Shop posted on their facebook about going through their collection of specimens they acquired at the Arizona shows for what they were bringing to Appleton this weekend for the big WI rock and mineral and fossil show. And when I immediately asked the almost 18 year old munchkin in my life if she was busy this weekend and wanted to go to a rock show with me in Appleton she got super excited and giddy and said yes immediately. 

So that's my Sunday plan -- to pick up coffees and the almost 18 year old, then drive two hours away to a rock show in Appleton, spend as much of the 6hrs it's open as we desire surrounded by rocks and crystals and fossils and jewelry and try not to break my budget on pretty shinies, then drive the two hours back from Appleton and drop Mikaela back off at her home before heading into work to get hours in until whenever I head home to my cat.