I. Right. So. I know it's probably stupid of me and I don't have much of anything to go on for it, just the fact that the bond is back full strength and some curious timing lineups and just an internal resonance/knowing/how I hear the new songs.... And it's all so subjective and not concrete and maybe it's all just wishing and wanting and lying to myself... But.... Here's the thing. I. Since accepting that I can once again let the love of the bond flow between us and to embrace it and turn to it, and since I started the questioning of maybe I was wrong in my assumptions thinking that what he wanted for his happiness doesn't include me and I need to let him go, I've just had this gorgeous bubbling up brightness and joy and light and hope shining in me that I haven't felt in a long while.  And it's so cozy and beautiful and wondrous.... And I just don't want to lose it. Again. I don't want to find out it wasn't real, And I'm rather afraid of investing trust in it because the more trust you put in a false premiss, the harder it hurts when the actual truth slaps you upside the head. 

It's probably stupid of me. But I can't help the joy bubbling up inside me and all the sparkles and hope that maybe there is a way through after all. 

And it's the most tenacious infectious upwelling of joy and light and love inside me. Absolutely irrepressible and stubborn and insistent. And defiant as regards logic rather than intuitive knowing -- complete certainty that the intuition heart guided is the actual truth and the logic and overthinking is all just unnecessary complications getting in the way of the simple and obvious.

And. I want it to be true and right so bad. I can't say my head BELIEVES it is true and won't keep questioning trying to find a lie in it, but I can say my heart WANTS it to be true in a very whole hearted laser focused clarity sort of way.

Is that good enough? Can that be enough and more than enough, at least for right now? And hopefully maybe more and better later, but can that just be good enough for this moment right here right now given the distance between where things have been these recent months and this place now? Because, good enough or not, that's what I've got. Bit of a mess, but also an honest mess. And sometimes an honest mess is the best I got, lol. 

Okay, getting some work things done now between Farmer's Market/brunch/spending time with Amy and then I think heading to APT tonight to see Anton's Shorts at 50% off rush price to make sure Crissy does get to see it in case anything goes awry with having tickets only for closing night.

P.S. Also!!!! In addition to buying myself flowers at Farmer's Market, this morning when I went to take the dog out, I found someone had thrown out the live plants remaining in their floral arrangement they were gifted!!! Just set by the fence of our dumpsters at my condo building! They don't look buggy, the monstera in particular looks super healthy! My guess is the gift recipient is just not a plant person and after the carnations in florist vials shoved into the soil/sphagnum moss ground cover had completely died, they just decided to throw it away. At least four of the five will survive when I transplant them all into separate pots tomorrow, and I think I can heal up the palm type plant and get it healthy! After I pulled the 1) empty card holder 2) very very dead carnations in florist vials 3) dead leaves 4) the smelly moss ground cover to check for soil bug issues, they look super healthy and still have very separate root complexes so I can easily separate them (since they have VERY different water/light needs! I need to double check which of them might be toxic to Spock if he eats it (sometimes my cat is an asshole and he chews on my plants just to tell me he's unhappy that I haven't been home enough recently) before determining which will come back home and which will be at my work. But yay for four probably five new to me orphaned houseplants!!!

A monstera, an African violet, a cyclamen 9I think? need to look that one up to verify), a pilea (I think? also need to check that one), and a potential dying palm of some sort. Can't wait to get them into their own new pots and then find them their new homes!

 Yes we stayed for some private party session in the back pub, yes I flirted with Andrea after the show or rather he flirted with me, but no it wasn't much more than chatting up and letting him buy me a beer (because the wine in the Irish pub at the back of the old church converted into a music venue made us both raise eyebrows at it judgey.) I did warn you I would and that you should expect I would behave that way since I'm single and I see no reason for me not to. 

Honestly, session with the guys was pretty short tonight, maybe half dozen songs between chatting and drinking, because they were just hanging out til they needed to catch an Uber to the airport (they fly to West Coast for the next leg of their American tour dates) and after that it was just more of a private party with open bar of us and Amy and Sara Lou and Rory and Molly and some other people in the Milwaukee Irish music community who I know but whose names I can't recall.  

I did say it was LIGHT flirtation I didn't expect to go anywhere given timelines and the number of people around. Having dated international long distance before, I wouldn't do it casually especially in the Irish music scene where chances of continuously running into each other having mutuals is VERY high. It's not the biggest music community and also it's very much like extended family or small town where once anybody knows your business EVERYONE knows your business. Keith is a bit of an exception for me to even consider dating if/when there isn't an ocean between us - we have a LOT of mutuals and it would very much be a thing to go there at all and so light flirtation is one thing but dating would be something else entirely.  It's not off the table as far as I'm concerned, we'd just have to both be serious in agreement about wanting it. Keith from Ireland is a far more likely development into dating situation than Andrea from Italy.

Also. And there's no nice way to say this. But I preferred  their sub they had in Waterloo, Gabriel, for banjos and vocals while Lorenzo was playing with another band. Which is a hard thing to say given Lorenzo is founding member the band is his baby. But Lorenzo is a good banjo player, not a great one and can't keep up with how great the others play instrumentally AND he didn't have a very good singing voice especially not to be lead on some songs. Maybe he had laryngitis or recovering from a cold or something, but his voice was not great and didn't suit the songs or harmonize well with Andrea or Giacomo (the guitarist.) I'm still glad went to go see them and had great craic tonight and they still sounded amazing, just not as good as when they played with Gabriel in Iowa. 

O!!!!! 

And!!! I almost forgot!!!!! Did you see the moon tonight???? 😍 It was rising over Milwaukee directly in front of us as we were driving mostly easterly to the venue and it was the biggest most luminous beautiful red-colored hunter's full moon in Aries that I have ever seen in my life!!!!! I mean, I knew beforehand it was the last super moon of the year, but with the hazy fog, it was so huge and so red and the mares/craters so detailed tonight that it didn't even look like it could possibly be real! Fucking gorgeous!!!! 😍 it was beautiful upon leaving the venue and also for the drive back to Madison and to pickup my dog from my parents, but by then it was high in the sky and normal sized and lambent white in color -- it was during moonrise it was so mind blowingly stunning tonight, at least here in Wisconsin! 

Gotta run -- unclear yet if I intend to sleep, but I need to meet Crissy and Amy downtown at 7:30 and before that will have to drop off Waffles at work and get some cash and such. So whether I sleep for like 4hrs or less or more likely don't sleep at all, I'm going to stop writing here now and go make some tea and read for a bit or something. 

 Yeah no, I don't actually want Andrea, nor Keith neither. (Though the pull of Keith and figuring out our past life ties and curiosity to see where a relationship might lead is stronger than any other karmic has been for me in many many years...) Not really. Not if pulling the bond tighter and actually being together with Eric in real life is on the table. I just didn't think it was anymore. And I've spent a long while trying to swallow that bitter truth make me accept it and move on look elsewhere. And a part of that move on look elsewhere is being open to guys I like well enough they pique my interests to open up a flirtation and a more than flirtation. I don't date often and I don't bother with dating apps because I really can't be bothered with another cheap dopamine hit slot machine style social media waiting for you to hit something appeals to you. I don't have enough time/energy as is for everyone I care about and everything I want to do -- you have to be real fucking special for me to even think about it you deserve enough of my time/energy to spend on getting to know you. 

I'm not particularly invested in a flirtation with Andrea or anything more. I just think he's cute and I clearly make him tongue tied with desire/interest and I wasn't averse to giving him more of my time/energy. And in the start of August when I was introduced to Andrea, I was very much in the head space of accepting that I was no part of the happiness Eric sought to build his life around this lifetime so it was for me to look elsewhere to choose another path. It's only been like 36hrs that I've even had the question of a thought that maybe Eric isn't off the table and he had never intended for me to draw that conclusion and act on it. It's not something that feels tangible or real or evidence based, it's just that voice inside you asks you to evaluate because maybe you were wrong in your first analysis.

It's been a long while since I last held any hope or faith inside me that I might actually be an integral part of the happiness Eric seeks for his life in this lifetime. And it's a faith that hurt deeply when reality tells you they were a false hope, a pretty lie you told yourself with no foundations in reality.  You can't expect even the question that maybe my assumptions he wouldn't miss me or the bond to suddenly flower into full blown belief that he did miss it and wants to (re)claim having me and those fate lines for his path. It just doesn't work that way. Especially with nothing solid to base such a belief and hope on -- it just feels like a temptation to be hurt again when the pretty lie you want to be true proves to be just another pretty lie. Again.

Look. I know what I want if every option is on the table, and that's as steadfast unwavering as a fixed star. But it's been a long while since I even accepted the premise that what I want COULD be on the table. I'm a very long way from having any reason to believe that what I want is the same as what he wants and so between us we can find a way to bring our waking lives together to walk the future fate lines together on a shared life path. I'm not saying it's impossible to get me there, I'm just not there right now and I don't feel like there's enough that's REAL enough to make me do more than start to whisper to myself the question if maybe it could be on the table at some point after all..... 

I don't expect that's what you want to hear, anymore than you want to hear that there are other musicians I find attractive have struck up flirtations with in the last almost two months.... but it's not my way to tell you what you want to hear, it's my way to tell you the truth as I experience it and to the best of my knowledge. 

Me even starting up any form of light flirtation with Andrea and thus the potential for me being trouble tonight would never have happened if I had believed a future life path together with Eric was one of the options on the table for me. But I still don't believe it to be on the table, though in the last 36hrs for the first time in a long time I've been questioning, "but is he off the table? Are you sure that's what he wants? Because if it isn't what he wants, if what he wants is to not just be AN option but to be THE option, then you thinking he's to be written off is a fucking ton of heartbreak for both of you...." 

I don't know what he wants. I truly don't. I know what I want but until 36hrs ago I never even questioned the belief I made me accept that I am no part of the happiness he seeks so I need to release him and look elsewhere for myself and my future life path. Because you can want something til the end of the world, but if it doesn't want you back then you're wasting your time on a dead end.... 

Rumi famously said in one of his poems, "what you seek is seeking you" -- but just because a poet claims something doesn't make it truth. And when all Eric's choices up til now have always proven false any faith in that truth, it's hard to have faith even as small as a mustard seed in the questions about maybe he did miss the bond and maybe he wants the connection back and has realized he needs it central to his life for his own happiness same as I know I need it for me at my shiniest version of me with the best and brightest future fate lines in front of me. I mean, I didn't give up turn to walk away without believing I was giving him what he chose and wanted for himself..... do you know how hard it is to freely give up with no ill will, just the blessing that you hope he find the happiness he seeks for himself, one of the only damn things this world has to offer you that your heart is set on wanting?! What the hell would make you think that was ever an easy thing? Or make you think that there was any damn thing I liked about giving up sacrificing the bond and the promise of the love in it, even in the name of giving him what I believed by his life choices he desired. I'm not a saint even if some of my past lives have been sainted and martyred. I did it in the name of his happiness rather than my own, because mine doesn't exist if bought at the price of him wanting something/someone else but being stuck with me because he can't escape the bond between us. My truest most luminous happiness only exists where he wants us to be together in this life for his life path just as intensely as I want it for my life path. And if that's not his choice, well, there's more happiness for me in making me let him go to seek whatever he DOES want for his life path than in trying to hold him tight make him mine despite what he chooses.... I'd rather do what I must to give up the love and comfort of our bond if I come to believe that's what he wants than to keep it for my own selfish reasons.  I don't like losing what feels most like home and where my soul turns for love/comfort..... but better to lose it than to make him be tied to it if it isn't something he wants or values. 

So just know. It isn't and has never been that I don't WANT Eric with every fibre of my being and want to choose him and have him choose me and to build a future together on a shared life path for as long as we can. I just have no faith and hardly any hope that that's something he also wants or might ever want. And it's that lack of faith coupled with insufficient knowledge of what he DOES want that leads me to try to give him up or in any way stifle the connection between our souls. If I knew he wanted it and it mattered and he is seeking me as I seek him, then nothing in the world could deter me from making it real. Finally. But I don't know that, and I don't believe it, and I don't have any faith inside me that when I say "I don't know what he wants for himself" that what I most want to be truth IS truth.... 

Questioning everything is a two edged sword. Especially when you lack anything tangible to back up your hypotheses to answer the questions....

And I don't know if it's easier or harder remembering our past selves and all the times we were able to find each other and choose each other -- and all the times we didn't. But it's just hard to want something so very much and to disbelieve (not even doubt, but disbelieve) that it wants you back. To have arrived at the conclusion that what you seek ISN'T seeking you so just let it go and try to find something else worth searching for..... 

And just. I dunno. I just. It's hard to want something so deeply and completely while at the same time truly believing that the best thing you can do for the happiness of what you want is to release it from you and you should look elsewhere. It's just really fucking hard to act so against everything you desire in your inmost while believing it to be the kindest best and most desired actions..... it's just really fucking hard to do. And it's really fucking hard to question, "what if you're wrong and creating as much heartache in him as you feel inside you over trying to give him up?" 

And. Sometimes I wonder..... Can you even give someone up if they're more stubborn than you and some part of them finds you to be their fixed star same as they are yours? Maybe it's just too much overthinking and assuming and all we both really needed all this time is the courage to be straight up honest, "this is what I want, this is what I choose." 

We don't do that, or at least we haven't so far. But maybe that's really all that's ever been needed to untangle all the mess of complicated and make the simple simple again.... and maybe me looking elsewhere, be it Keith or Andrea or some other guy, is just adding in more complicated rather than bringing it back down to the simple core truth..... 

I dunno. I didn't sleep last night (full moons make me restless too full of energy) and I'm not tired tired right now, but future me is supposed to drive to Milwaukee and back then get up early tomorrow for Farmer's Market with Amy in town for that.... so maybe I ought to try to sleep at least a little. Even if it does mess up my freshly washed curls after showering this morning by sleeping on them.  Future me deserves better than the overtired I will be if I don't at least try to nap a little. 

Honestly. You know what I want to do to help me sleep? To snuggle into the bond and to curl up in dream space with my polar bear and trust that as long as I'm there with him and we're together, then everything is right in our corner of the world. That's what I would like. That's what would help me sleep a restful sleep of the best possible dreams, and I know it would. So why does it feel like it's wrong and too much for me to ask for what I know I want? Am I just a damn fool for overthinking what is quite a simple conclusion if I'd only stop listening to false premises as if they were true? 

I dunno. But. I miss my bear and falling asleep snuggling into the love flowing both ways down the bond and then being with him in vision dream space. I just miss him and I miss embracing the strength of love in the bond. And I just want to be able to wrap my arms round him and pull tighter the bond making it stronger than ever and claim it and own it and make it ours for keeps.  Is that too much to ask?

 Oooft. That was not my favorite Packers game to watch..... the end score wasn't as bad as I feared given halftime it was 27-3, but yikes..... just a lot of stupid rookie mistakes. Because, well, most of the team are rookies and honestly they needed at least one more rest/recharge/practice day from a Sunday game to a Thurs night game ..... 

We also decided it might be my fault because I spent the second half of the Falcons game booking my Southwest leg of my December Seattle trip to see my sister's family and then I spent the first part of this game booking a Southwest leg out there (a day earlier, when my sister wanted me for a longer visit) and canceling my delta flight out there. See, southwest had been running a two day sale for 50% off base fare which made for like $65 ticket out there (the flight back is more expensive than when I got it) which is a ridiculously good deal. So when I saw the email and checked prices/dates to see if it was feasible and there was an 11:30 departure gets in at 5:40 with a 1.5hr layover in Vegas -- MUCH better than the 5am flights for like $109 last Southwest sale. (opted at that time for the $129 delta flight out of Madison (ended up being like $159 because they now charge you for you to be able to get a full refund, and the fee is $50-100 and you only get a partial credit back unless you go up a fare class to get a full refund) instead because asking someone to drive both ways in the dark wee hours during snow/ice season to/from MKE is a bigger ask than at least one leg of it being after sunrise. Even when you're asking family and friends who are family. So I brought it up to my mom yesterday but we didn't think it worth the hassle to move things so I didn't. But THEN late last night got an email and in app notification that Delta switched my flight. So instead of a 5:48a flight to Denver with a 1h12m layover, they would be flying me to Atlanta on a 5:28 flight (check-in desk for Delta doesn't open til 5am at Madison airport) and a 32min layover between when my plane is supposed to arrive and the next depart and because it was Atlanta, it made the flight several hours longer unnecessarily. I was annoyed and pre stressing about that tight a layover given how long deplaning can take so tonight I decided that given the delta change, if my rides on both ends were cool I would fly out the 11:30 southwest flight instead and save myself the extra money. Technically, I booked it before either got back to me, lol. But I figured it was fine I would fly in the day before because Weds is my nephew Jack's soccer night. Also, because delta changed my itinerary, I was eligible for them to just refund me the money to my card rather than a future flight credit. So I made back $90 by doing that and I won't have to pay to check my bags out there because southwest (which is good as I will be there for the end of Channukah and for Christmas so I best make sure to pack presents for everyone, but especially the kiddos.)

So now my Seattle area trip is Dec 12-27 (get home morning of the 28, because red-eye flight) and times are not absurdities on either end. 

My sister's family are actually moving to a rental on the 9 while the house renno they contracted to add another floor to their house happens. It's like a 6 month project and initially they had said no visitors at all during the renno. So she was on my case about my next visit just as soon as Irish fest season ended and I TOLD her that I didn't have any stretches longer than 5 days between concerts/theatre tickets and me dog sitting while our parents are out of town until second half of Nov which is during the renno so it would be physically impossible for me to visit before the renovations started. So then she texts me one night asking IF they rent the house instead of an apartment, would I PROMISE her to come visit to make it worthwhile they spring for the extra space. (I expect they were leaning that way because they both work from home and they have three kids ranging from just over 1 to soon to be 7, and they have a cat.) I texted her back, "yes of course! You just told me not to plan to visit during the renno so I was respecting that." And she told me calmly (because Virgo) "then we will make it so" and I was like, "That's super nice and all. But don't make space for me to visit you a priority. Bigger priorities are the kids school district and allowing the cat and garage space for both your cars." And she just goes, "Nope. I miss you, we all miss you, so you are equally priority rated in the house vs apartment rental options." So then the first Southwest sale was right after they signed the rental contract so she told me to go ahead and book as long as I didn't plan to stay more than 30 days to become a tenant. And then the cheap flight timing options were to have me across Thanksgiving again, have me early Dec or have me mid Dec across Christmas (caveat being I needed to be home again end of both months to do end of month deposits at work.)  She said her first choice was to have me across Christmas for the bonus of my visit aligning with the start of kids holiday break on the 18th, second choice was Thanksgiving for the long weekend, early Dec was last choice. 

And that's how it ended up I'll be at my sister's in Seattle area for Christmas this year, lol.  I was already told via zoom by my niece Monroe, "Um. Aunt Dani Elsa! Make sure you bring the snow with you from Wisconsin! Like last year!" And Jack chimed in, "Yeah! I love the snow! I want so much snow!!!! Use your Elsa magic and make sure you get us some Christmas snow to play in!!" I laughed told them I'd do my best but no promises this far ahead but I would do my best. It'll be fun to spend Christmas with happy kiddos and watch them open all their gifts instead of a quiet day at home with my dog and cat and a fire going in the hearth. (Pretty sure Packers games are Thanksgiving Day,  Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve this year....) My nephew and nieces are very excited I'm coming and extra excitement now for a bonus day, lol. Well, maybe it's a lot to presume Elliot is already excited since she's a bit young to understand, but she will be excited when she sees me! 

It will be the first time I'm gone for longer than a couple days since Waffles moved across country to live with me, but I'm sure she'll be happy staying with my parents and their dog Sophie for a couple weeks. Sophie might not love it, Sophs feels her age now and Waffles has an one-off switch that exists in only two states: sleep/snuggles and full on zoomies full body wiggles wagging her tail. Nothing between. She's a good dog and she listens extraordinarily well, but she is a full body wriggler zoomies with a tail that can bruise shins or break glassware sort of dog given her standard dachshund-beagle-Jack Russel terrier mix. 😂 and sometimes, old lady Sophie just wants to sleep at the end of the day and ain't got time or energy to put up with that sort of whipper snapper exuberance. Waffles is still very much in her imprinted glued to my side or must have me in line of sight mode unless I tell her I'm going to run errands or have a show to get to, so jury is still out over how she will handle me being gone that long. She may be just fine, she may get depressed and emo enough to stop eating like my Pisces pup Audrey used to do. Still unknown territory with her how she will handle me being gone longer than overnights or a weekend. 

O and as for the last post. There's probably a middle ground between listening to logic that I ought to assume he's most likely talking about his real life relationship he was in while still acknowledging the timing lining up for when I had put an energy block on the bond so the love between us couldn't flow and reach each other as it always has no matter how separated our real world 3d lives are. Somewhere between assuming it's not at all about me he doesn't care about me and assuming it's all about me just look at the timing. Like, the bond and the vision dreams and all of that are something wyrd and that are by definition outside what Occam's Razor style logic assumptions allow for, so having that in the mix automatically takes you outside the expectations of just normal logic. But also, that doesn't mean he isn't hurting working through his emotions about his romantic relationship ending. They can coexist. They're not the same, but my dating other guys doesn't mean I don't love them while dating them even though that bond is still there tugging at me telling me that the boyfriend is never going to live up to and fill the empty spaces of what the bond is and could be. So why would it be any different when he dates a karmic girlfriend than when I date karmic boyfriends, y'know? 

Speaking of karmics.... tomorrow night (well tonight now? Friday night) Gadan is playing at ICHC in Milwaukee, so it's the first time I'll be seeing Andrea (mandolin and clawhammer RN tho acc sometimes guitar player in Gadan) since Iowa Irishfest (first weekend of August) when I was splitting my flirting between him and Keith (who I then also saw the following weekend at LaCrosse Irishfest.) I don't expect much to come of it seeing Andrea again except a lot of eye flirting and teasing, especially since Amy will be at our table and Emily and Jeanne nearby and Rory, Molly, and Sara Lou will all be there as well which makes for a LOT of friends around to try to make anything happen. Even if Andrea is Italian and Italian men are even smoother than French men in my experience. But also, Sara Lou who works at the Ward music archives and is the one who discovered brought them to ICHC and Rory he manages the stage for ICHC is thr one properly introduced us to the members of Gadan in Iowa. But also it means there's a non zero possibility of staying to late night session with some beers at the pub in the back of the old converted church that is the Irish Cultural Heritage Center in Milwaukee. On verra. 

I don't currently intend to behave like I'm in my 20s again, but also I'm single and have been for a long while and Andrea is hot in a very intense way and so why not? Keith and I are open ended flirtation chatting with mutually acknowledged interest there but the distance factor is a big deal so no strings both open to other connections. And as for Eric, I mean the bond is there and it's heady and a lot right now especially after so long without it -- but he's still rebounding from his relationship with the lamprey and the first words that come to mind for me if I'm honest about any status between us would be: "he's not here because he's never chosen to ask me or prioritize the bond to grow into something else" so at this time I consider that a complicated can't ignore but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere so I don't consider it enough to count against me striking something up with another guy who piques my interest. And that includes tall dark and handsome mandolin/banjo/guitar players from Italy named Andrea.

I mean, a girl can't wait forever for you to maybe someday decide you want her. Especially when you free will choose other girls instead. Ain't nobody got time for that double standard. August brought me in a lot of options of men I'm actually interested enough to pursue. Granted the ones I'm most interested are very long distance so may never grow to much, but still. That's how things be right now. If you don't like that, change it. But for now, my free will is my own and if you don't want me enough to choose me even with the bond this white hot intense between us, then I consider myself free to look for another love elsewhere.

Ope! Kettle is ready! Time to make this cuppa tea then curl up to read for a bit. Ciao bella! 

 O. I was just now years old when I re-read that email after seeing the date when the gap in the songwriting began and realized that I made an assumption about what relationship was slipping through his fingers that made it so he stopped writing/sharing songs, the assumption he meant the dating relationship he was in. But that's not exactly what he said in that email there, now was it? I just assumed it was on first read through. Because that's the obvious assumption for what he'd be writing songs about, non? But, that's not what he said, it's just what I assumed and extrapolated based on most likely real world pragmatism type reading between the lines. But it's not what the email actually said...and, at the time he stopped writing songs for his project, that's also right about when I took the advice of the Morrigan and set up the energetic shield that nobody with the lamprey's energy twined around/through them could reach me. It was the same timing that he lost access to the bond and I was making myself accept his choices and let him go to pursue them and turning away from the connection to go walk my own path seek a future elsewhere with someone else. 

I guess that I didn't notice the timing lined up like that because I was trying not to let me think on him, to close that chapter inside me and shelf it for this life path. And I guess if I did think about it at all, I  just assumed that whatever had stopped him putting up songs was unrelated to me doing what I did because I guess I just didn't think the bond meant much to him at that point in his life and the path he was choosing to walk so what would he care if he lost access to it and me? If the bond to me ever mattered to him, why would he always be choosing not me and be so certain that he'd fallen in love with his soul mate when he met the karmic lamprey he started dating and wound through his life/energy?  I never through all these months really thought he might be feeling that absence, I knew I was but I was in the hollows of grief after Audrey's death and what's giving up something you cherished having one more absence there where you're already forced into the heart space of learning to live with what you've lost and can't have back? (Or at least, not have back in the same way -- I guess I did promise Audrey that if we could get to a fateline where I have kids, she could be reborn as my son and be with me once more....) I just assumed he was happy and traveling with his lamprey and enjoying all the access to that world she's a part of and I wasn't even something he ever thought on or missed. What evidence would I have had to counter that assumption? It was only somewhere during Irishfest season right during the last day or so of Milwaukee Irishfest, which was in August after I'd set all these posts to private for a while, that I started to feel him trying to tug reach for me down the bond and I got confused by how that was happening. I didn't question my assumptions about his choices, I just stuck in them and thought that some way had been found around my energetic shielding so he was trying to reach me while still entangled with the lamprey's energy. Which is why in assuming that I pushed him away when he started reaching for me down the bond and instead I focused on Keith and other options open to me and even asked the Morrigan if something had gone wrong and I needed to be concerned about the strength of my energetic shields.... Because I never even considered that he could have missed me and the bond between us or that he would be reaching down it out of a genuine desire to reconnect because he had cut the cords to the lamprey and was trying to reach once more what he lost when I blocked out anyone/anything with the lamprey's energy attached to them. I assumed he had just stopped the songwriting process because he was lost in his infatuation with her and the lifestyle and types of people she brought to the table and was off traveling with her to who knows where. That was what I have assumed across all these months. Right or wrong assumption, it was the assumption I was believing and was guiding my choices and reactions.

I never even considered the possibility he wasn't with her anymore and that was part of how/why he was reaching down the bond trying to reconnect reach me again. That possibility never even entered my mind til tonight. And that's why I assumed in first reading it that the relationship slipping through his hand that he mentioned in the email was the one with her. because Occam's Razor. And because reading that email from him was the first time it crossed my mind to even question he might not be with her, that he might be able to reach me via the bond BECAUSE he did what had to be done for the shield to still be there and healthy but not to affect him or the bond at all. I'd never even considered that possibility, which is probably why the Morrigan called me a damn fool if I couldn't figure out how the shield could be intact and yet he could reach me via the bond again.

And... I'm not certain it's what the song says, not what it seems to me to promise. The song very much feels like the vision dream, the one with the lamprey and the ice. Not the one where the Goddess gives me a choice for what to do while I'm waiting for the time something can change about what's happening that isn't about my choices and never was, but the one where I see how it ends and how we break through the ice. The song FEELS like that moment of it right before I give up to walk away and it upsets the polar bear enough to break off from the lamprey feeding on him and race to the glacial ice and trying to break through it. That moment when he can't and puts his paw up against the ice and I come over expecting to tell him he'll have to find another path around to find me catch up later. That moment right before I put my hand up and the energy between our two hands shatters the ice so he can get through -- it FEELS like that moment when i saw the bear trying but the ice seemed too thick and it caught at my heart still to want to at least go back to say farewell from my side because I couldn't wait any longer... That moment where the bears paw is up but before I reach mine up across from it separated by the glacial ice -- that's how the song echoes in me. Like that moment of that vision dream. That's what I hear and feel in it now that I listened to it......

I'm not sure if what I hear is the voice of confirmation bias whispering to me what I would WANT it to be when I know damn well that the Occam's Razor simplest answer is the assumption I first made. And maybe it's just a little defiant whisper in me of questioning the assumptions I made and have made, maybe the simplest answer is the right answer because it normally is.... but something in the center of me is completely certain saying it isn't in this case, not in this song and not with what he actually said in the email, what words he could find for what he wanted to say. And also. With me everything always starts when something sparks in me the inflection point when you start to ask the questions you should have been asking all along....

Assumptions always seem to lead to heartaches and misunderstandings and dead ends in my life path whereas the act of questioning is what opens up doors where I never saw them before that lead to truth and better answers and healing paths through what looked impassable. So. For me. I think for tonight I'll be putting my faith in the whispers of questioning I have now. And Occam's Razor logic can fuck right the fuck off.

And without evidence to tell me otherwise, that's what I will be contemplating now after listening to the song.

 First thing Crissy said after getting in the car to head to APT last night to see Once Upon a Bridge, "I just want you to know, this new chapter makes me love Sig even more than I already did." 

Me while driving, "Half chapter, I ran out of time to finish it before I had to leave because I had to finish delving out back stories from memory archive and subconscious. But yeah. Sig is a darling. He's just such a giant teddy bear you can't help but love him as he charms the pants right off you." 

Crissy, "Right? He's just so refreshingly honest about who he is."

"He is not a particularly complicated man. Battles, sex, and beer. Sure he fucks shit up, mostly not thinking of consequences. But he's straightforward and his heart is in the right place."

"And I love that there's just all these kids who look suspiciously like Sig running around the base and that he loves all the kids equally whether they look like him or not.. He's just like warm sunshine in this bleak world. He just wants to make everyone happy."

Me, raising an eyebrow to say dryly, "Yes. Very happy. In whatever capacity he can." *pause* "But also, that's why he's hard not to love."

He's my favorite Viking himbo,  I mean, he's SUCH a Viking himbo dude bro, but in the most loveable teddy bear way. (yes a lot of how he behaves is based off  the behavior patterns of an actual person in my life, a Scottish bagpiper in a band that I've known for like a decade now, though the character and his motivations is of my own imagining.) And literally every reader so far adores this character.  I'm very glad that his character is a part of this story arc that started from me reading a really awful take on "potential solutions to climate change" that included someone thinking maybe things could be solved by injecting titanium dioxide (yes like the sunscreen) into the atmosphere or stratosphere and I just was dumbfounded at the sheer stupidity of reading that. Like, set down the article and just kept repeating, "What?! What?! What?! Do they not?! WHAT! Photosynthesis, ultraviolet rather critically important to that. Seriously what the fuck?!?! I hope you never never never get the fucking funding to try such a fucked up experiment on the ENTIRE fucking planet. For fuck's sake, you'll kill us all! Ain't shit can live on the planet if anyone ever did that.  I mean. What. The. Fuck?!?!"

She also told me she will never forgive me if Sig dies and I told her that I'm not currently at a point to know who lives and who dies to the end of the series so as an author I can make no promises, but that if Sig dies I'll make sure it's a good death not a meaningless death. 

I went through fine tooth comb editing things last night and need to type them up. And then get to work on what comes next. Probably tonight when I get home, unless my body says sleep and then I will write tomorrow.

Mostly right now, my life is writing in this series (because Crissy tried to read something else  so I could work on two projects progressing simultaneously and she just couldn't switch because as much as she loved the character and the very different writing style, she just wanted more of my vampire story) and theatre performances and concerts and playing with dogs/cats and taking care of the end of season plants and working. (also Ethan, one of my coworkers, has decided that I am his armchair therapist around some things going on in his life that are a lot; and like, he asked and i told him that I had time for it and this is a normal thing for me -- I tend to be the person that actually listens and is there to hold people together when they're breaking so they don't shatter when they hit bottom and can heal rather than give up. Apparently I'm good at listening and asking questions without assigning blame and trying to find a way through, so people feel comfortable letting themselves break down on me? I dunno, I'm someone who, as a Capricorn moon, hates crying in front of people and I have to trust you a damn lot in order to share my pain with you. But yeah, I carry a lot of hard stories that aren't my own and aren't mine to tell.... I just wish he weren't finally having his breakthrough and need to move out from his partner right NOW when I'm also juggling a friend whose life partner is dying of aggressive cancer in Kentucky, another in Chicago who's going through normal grief process of her mother dying but also she's only child with no close cousins or anything so she's very alone going through this other than friends, and a local friend who is deep in self-loathing depression survivor guilt "may never be able to trust herself to love another animal ever again" after the way her cat died over the summer blaming herself for it. It's just, y'know, I already had a lot of therapist friend energy needs on my plate before Ethan decided that I was the person to help talk things over with him just this week. At least Alana and Maddie are healed and not breaking down like I was carrying last year and the first several months of this year; that one was hard because they're both friends and both turned to me and I had to keep straight who had told me what and was telling them both they had to separate and no longer live together if they wanted any hope of repairing their friendship because sometimes even best friends fall into toxic patterns at too close proximity like living together and the only way for them to heal and regenerate the friendship is to allow each other to live separately and find out who they are as individuals. Like I said, I've always been the friend that my friends turn to when they're breaking and help them to pick up pieces and hold it together and find their way through to healing. It's just what I do, I wouldn't want them to suffer alone to a point they do something desperate stupid or feel hopeless just because where they are they can't see the light of a way out but me being what I am I can help them follow it. I don't really have anyone I turn to when I'm the one breaking.... I never really have... Capricorn moon, it's hard to get me to break or show my weaknesses to people unless I trust them deeply, even just crying in front of people feels like showing them where they can hurt me. I tend to turn inward and just stoic my way through the hollows of grieving and the most catharsis I get is writing things out and waiting until I'm through to the other side to find the sunshine in life again. It takes a lot of trust and a genuine belief that they mean it when they say "you hurt me when I know you're suffering alone" for me to be willing to open up and ask other people to help me carry my pain/sorrows. I'm much better at sharing my bubbly joie de vivre than sharing the heavy parts.)

Also. I saw Eric's email and read it (haven't listened to the song yet.) That makes sense that he's been able to reach me again via the bond and has been reaching me that way if that's what he's been going through.... I feel bad now that my reaction was to push back and focus on "I'm looking elsewhere because you made yourself unavailable and I accepted that" but also how could I have known why it was that he could suddenly get past my block the Morrigan taught me as a work around to not being able to even mute the bond but she suggested to me I block anyone/anything with the lamprey's energy? It's a slick technique and way of looking at it, I'm keeping it in my back pocket. But also, not sure how useful it is for me personally given the only person with a bond so strong that I can't cut the cord or release them from feeling a pull toward me once the karma is cleared is to Eric. But still, it's a nice technique to be able to block cords/connections when a person has a toxic/vampiric energy twined around/through them but to allow the connection to return to full health normality once the toxic/energy draining element is removed. Still, I hope he finds his path to healing because it sounds like it was a hard hard thing on him to go through. And I'm glad that he's able to write songs again -- for a writer, whether it's songwriter or author, getting the emotions into the story form is crucial for healing. It just is. I know I need it and I miss it when I don't have it.  Even when I wasn't writing here, I was still journaling, just, on paper. Even if it was just to complain about everything screaming because of the drought and how hard it was to have no reprieve from it.... being in the hollows of grieving and all the green things screaming all summer and not letting myself turn to the bond for comfort because I had to block out anything with the lamprey's energy and cleaning up some spiritual vampiric rings I'd uncovered and incredible intense money stress because I put too much of Audrey's care over the last year or so on credit card and then rate hikes on interest are making it hard to fix that right now was not my favorite year. But hey, we're out the other side now, and I'm back to my real writing for the first time in a long while and I would be a liar if I said I wasn't glad to have the bond back and the sudden unexpected rushes of love down the bond. Now I better understand the why of that shift that it opened back up for him to reach me via it, I won't push away or react by second-guessing examining where I had somehow failed in how I had cast that energetic block to keep anyone/anything with the lamprey's energy attached to them from reaching me. It was bothering me so much that the block was still there but he was reaching me via the bond same as before I had put that block in for my own ethics sake, and the Morrigan TOLD me when I asked her in dream space that it was full strength and nothing was slipping through so the answer to how he could reach me suddenly again should be obvious and I was a damn fool if I couldn't figure that out for myself. The Morrigan doesn't pull punches, I'm grateful she's fond of me but also, she's pretty brutal honest sometimes. Anyway, confirmation is good in that it makes me feel bad over my past reaction but it means that I now know so I don't have to push away or reject what comes down the bond to him for fear of something sliding past my defenses from her attachments via him. I didn't like doing that and it wasn't any damn thing I WANTED to do, it was just the only reaction I COULD have to deal with it... Between my ethics and the shadow being that tracked from her through him and his bond to me, I didn't know what else to do other than to find a way to block him from reaching me and to find a way to do it without pouring energy into trying to put the bond to sleep again because he's figured out how to outflank that method when I tried it in the past to assuage my ethics about overlays I shouldn't be getting from him but of intimate moments that don't involve me and which I don't want to see/know... I still do like the Morrigan's solution for me though that I've been using since my May Seattle trip, it's elegant and slick and it gets to the core of the problem when it's cropped up -- that it's not the polar bear qua himself that's a problem to me, it's the other energies he attaches to himself that I don't want to touch my energy or reach me in visions. 

But I have missed him and I'm glad to have the love flooding down the bond back, even if he's hurting and healing his way out of however that happened for him. And I am selfishly glad he's back to writing songs and sharing them, not just for his sake but also I do love his songs and getting to hear his voice. All the mess of the rest of it aside, I always feel joy at hearing his voice and my reaction at the core is always happy recognition when I feel him reaching down the bond toward me, and for me those are just among those "sky is blue and the sun will rise on the new day and gravity exists on the planet" sort of truths of isness. Just is.  Can't write you out a scientific theory on it, though I have my own hypotheses, but the truth of it just IS. Doesn't matter the reasons either of us pushed the other away, there will always be a bubbling up of joy inside me when the reach back toward each other happens. And it always makes my heart happy to hear his voice again, even when it's been a while of me not letting me hear him.

I need to run, need to call Crissy back and then finish watering all my indoor plants while listening to British news at work. And then whenever I head home, I need to make the edits that I wrote out last night and hopefully finish the current chapter and maybe write the next one. Not entirely sure when next get to discuss new chapters though. (My rule for reading chapters of my real writing as I write them is I only give printouts, never digital copies, because of copyright issues and you have to repay me with reactions, critiques, edits, and general discussion with the author about the work in progress. That's it. That's the rules. Physical copies only and be prepared for serious discussion and edits you found and getting to talk to the author about your critiques as you read along the chapters. And as I've said, I write best and get least distracted by new shiny ideas for new novels/series/questions I want to answer when I have people hungry for the new chapters and invested in the world.) Friday night is Gadan (an Italian band who play Irish-americana folk music; met them at Iowa Irish fest as well) at ICHC on Friday night and then Amy is staying over for Farmer's Market downtown on Saturday morning and then maybe seeing Anton's Shorts (because it's a-fucking-mazing and Crissy missed seeing it the first time due to displacing a rib; we are going to see it next weekend with my mom and Sarah who NEVER sees plays twice but wanted to see this one a second round and I told Crissy I would $31.50 sale see it three times this autumn or be happy with just twice depending on if she wants to see it earlier. It closes next weekend when we have tickets with my mom and Sarah, so can't see it again AFTER that if she wanted to.) And then next week is Neon Trees in Chicago on my birthday (I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE when I get to see favorite musicians as birthday present!!! Don't know if it's birthday gifts from them or from the universe, but I always love it!) And then Raye Zaragoza is playing in Madison on Weds the 4th. Then Fri the 6th is Anton's Shorts group, then the 7th my parents fly to Vegas for a work thing so I'll be house sitting both dogs splitting my time between my cat at home and the dogs at my parents house and working) and also on the 7th Crissy and I are going to closing night of Romeo & Juliet because there's a lot of issues we had with this production (especially costuming choices and lack of cohesion in that) but the use of ASL and increased risk of miscommunication with having Romeo and Friar Lawrence be deaf with interpreters is actually quite brilliant so I wanted to see it again closer up for the use of ASL and the blocking and physical emoting of how they did this production before it closes -- and me explaining my reasons convinced Crissy she did as well for $31.50 sale dates with the AUTUMN23 code instead of $71-100. And then there were three seats in like the third row on the right side (balcony is up on the left) and so even though we only needed two of the three, those seats made us happy for our reasons wanting to see it again!

 As an author, it's quite satisfying when you sit down with a reader and the first words out of their mouth are, "I'm so angry and frustrated that I had to put this down and didn't have more chapters to read! And then I didn't want to read anything else, not even any of yours -- I just wanted to keep reading in THIS novel, this WORLD. And HOW could you leave me with one paragraph of this last chapter?! Like what? What! Not even where this chapter goes? Just this teaser and the complaint about the beer?"  and then end the discussions with, "Bitch, you better have more chapters for me when I see you next. On Sunday. For symphony." 

I have to add something to the end of a chapter (a scene I had thought about splitting into a later chapter but upon going through things the other night decided I wanted it at the end of an already existing chapter) and then finish out the Sig chapter and anything else I get written as achievable goal for Sunday. I've spent a lot of this week fleshing out outline and plot points and arcs across the series and when/where this one should stop and being like, "Ooft the readers gonna hate me for this, I hate me for this, but this is how this story unfolds...." But my general plan is that I will get those chapters finished out tonight at least (I can feel the words heavy in my head needing to get out on paper before I sleep and I lose them somewhere in the archive sections of my eidetic memory without knowing how to summon them back to me to transcribe them) before doing anything else. And I think I have the sketch ready inside of me for the next chapter if not the next two. 

I plan to take off my bra change out of my jeans into pyjamas, make tea, light a beeswax candle, and then sit down to write and write and write when I get home in a wee while. (Currently finishing up things at work to finish out my hours for this week then stopping by my parents house to bring in the mail (they're at their cabin in Montana til Tuesday) before heading home for the night.) And I'll just write until I either run out of words or my hands ache too much from typing/scribbling for me to continue. Whichever happens first. And then I'll curl up with more tea and a book to read until whenever I head to bed. But I have a lot of words in my head ready to be transferred onto the blank page(s) and that feels good. 

As a general rule with my first drafts of any REAL writing, the words just flow through me like a conduit and I know exactly what I want to say and how -- and whether it's a conduit from my subconscious already worked things out or from something bigger than me isn't an answer I have. I just spend a lot of time thinking through what I'm wanting to say and then I sit down with the blank page(s) and the words flow out of me in perfect arrangement for my current need and all I can do is hope that I can keep up with their flow-- the only time that doesn't happen is when something touches my emotions deeply, then all the words disappear. You'll know you've got my head/intellect/connection to the Divine when words flow easily but you'll know you've reached my heart/soul when I have no words at all. So usually, getting to read my first drafts of chapters is like finished drafts of published works and then the rest is just me nitpicking word choice and removing superfluous "that" usage and double checking if I have flow of consciousness ADHD run-ons rather than grammatically correct separated sentence. 

Anyway, so that's my plans for the equinox as summer gives way to autumn. 

And tomorrow I'm either going to write or come in and get some of my much needing gardening done in office for next week's hours. Because Sunday is brunch then symphony then meeting with Crissy at work so she can block a shawl to dry (her cat has been getting pissy about her blocking her knits on the spare bed so she asked if she can block them at MCW) and give her the new chapters/writings so we can discuss on Tuesday night up at APT before seeing Once Upon a Bridge and then go to my parents house to watch the Packers game DVRed and then depending on timing either go work some more or head home again. Monday will probably be sleeping/working and probably not writing unless I have chapters that need writing in any of the other various novels I'm working in. (The vampire one is the focus to get finished, but I have others that sometimes demand they get my focus -- the problem with ADHD is having more than half dozen manuscripts, none related or even in the same fictional worlds or even written in the same/similar styles, and having difficulty with the part you finish/publish/social media sell the art. And then every 3-6 months inspiration for a whole new novel/series that needs to be told pops up and it kills me not to start in on it and just instead jotting down the outline for it and hoping like hell that I can find it once more when I've finished other works in progress so I can ALLOW me to work on the other new ideas....

Busy week.... Busy busy week ahead, so Tuesday night up at APT may be the only time to actually discuss the chapters from this weekend and then I don't know when next to talk more chapters. 

But also, having people who need the next chapters written out for them is genuinely the best way to get my ADHD to write them out instead of getting distracted by life. because yeah, it's hard for me to finish what I'm working on rather than getting distracted by the new shiny novels ready to be written.

You dream of colors that have never been made. You imagine songs that have never been played. They will try to buy you and your mind, But only the curious have something to find. It's foreign on this side. And the truth is a bitter friend. But reasons few have I to go back again.

 One of the things that I meant to do this year is to have at least one of my real writing novels done by the end of the year AND to have setup a site for my shorter works, the poems (that I mostly only write when wrestling hard emotions or wrapping my head around wyrd vision dreams) and the short stories that I only write for contests to make some cash but still have to be up to my standards and the novella I wrote that is perfect as it is structurally balanced but not a length suited to publications..... and here we are nearing the end of the third quarter of this year and I got distracted by life couples with my ADHD time blindness living in constant state of flow and ain't done shit on either of those..... for fucks sake Dani, this is a time to be grounded and dig in get shit done. Granted my dog of nearly 15 years who I had from a 12 week puppy died so I spent months in the hollows where you feel nothing AND then since going to my sister's family in May to bring their dog back home with me to be my dog, I only had the adjustment time with Waffles and ever since my calendar has been booked solid with concerts/theatre/festivals/family and fitting work hours in around it and never longer than 3-5 day stretches without plans and that's how it is til mid/late October  but then I have some time without excessive amount of shows until my Dec visit to my sister's family AND I've been the incarnating conduit for the 5d chess of the ongoing battle between the nephilim that arrived here while I was still in college before burrowing backward to plant the seeds of this spiritual disasterscape and certain archangelic/deities I have allied with to keep humanity on a path that it's worth saving as a training ground for individuated souls to learn the lessons of incarnating. So I've been rather busy and preoccupied. But. There are ideas and stories that I will only put into fictions that I need to plant to make changes happen and I'm running out of time if I want those future stepping stones to be there that we need to make it across the fate lines where humanity is done for, not just this society but as a vehicle of incarnations...... which, is a lot. Yeah I know. And it's probably why I took the Morrigan up on her "work smarter not harder" solution of how to sidestep the fact the bond can't be cut or blocked but I want nothing to do with it or him while he's diddling around with the lamprey and her energy vampirism and attached shadow figures.  But She was right and it worked from May until just the last week or two....and me hitting it off with Keith enough to think it worth me investing my time/energy and that started with his brazen winking every time we made eye contact cuz I caught him staring started first weekend in August, all the way back in Cancer season, long before the polar bear started trying to reach for me through the bond again.

And so. Part of me deciding to not let me write here, well okay I had several reasons. One was I go in circles here stuck in the muck of not finding a better answer regarding the one subject that is best summed up by the U2 song With or Without You, two is I fritter away words here in my stream of consciousness rather than focusing on my real writing, three was needing to focus my energy into screaming defiance in spiritual battles and finding the pieces to move and the rules that need rewriting or loopholes while being extremely busy with plans, four was just feeling against the wall of time running out. Chat gpt and ai trawling even unlisted pages like this was an excuse for setting it all private, but the not writing out my thoughts/feelings was for other reasons, and not just because I had no feelings everything was numb while I was in the hollows of grieving -- that time for me was the winter/spring. But part of it was to force me to turn back toward my real writing as priority, not just for my own sake but because there are questions I explore and answers I have found that I need to get out into the world and I am running out of time.... 

So I am returning to my writing now. My real writing. Not this..... whatever the hell this is. Free flow unedited stream of consciousness, get the words out to try to see the shape of the emotions within the stories or overthinking in circles, so I can better understand them by freezing them into word pictures, and then maybe I can work through them and release them instead of having them all inchoate elemental storms inside me. Which is fine, definitely a genre unto itself, but it's not my REAL writing. It's like a songwriter whistling melody scraps and sing earwormed phrases into their notes for later, it's not that it isn't music, it just isn't their REAL polished writing. I mean, my stream of consciousness writing here is a hell of a lot wordier than songwriter memos to themselves, but you get the simile. The memos are rarely even an unpolished song, just the recorded seeds of the passing thoughts/emotions/feelings that sparked the ideas and keep you in good practice because you will fight how you train. 

Anyway, I just finished going through two different manuscript printouts, one for my money maker vampire novel, well series because you need the trilogy to format to hook booktok/bookstagram and get anywhere with it. And honestly, a series is preferably to modern audiences compared to a 2,500 pg single book saga. Because yeah, I swore I'd never write a typical vampire novel because they're too fucking cliché and then this opening chapter and these characters started writing themselves when I was philosophizing on humans as parasites and climate crisis mass extinction and some other ideas mixed in there. And the moment I wrote the opening two chapters, the sister-mirrors I started cussing because I recognized that THIS is the first of all my novels that might actually go best seller instead of sleeper until people hear about me start looking for what else I've written. And of course it was a fucking vampire novel.... 🤦‍♀️

The problem is. ADHD time blindness and excited by new shinies.... if I don't have anyone asking me for new chapters, once I know what happens it can all sit dormant in my head until a scene flashes in me completed to be scribbled out on whatever comes to hand but may not be chronological. So I have messy random scene fragments dumped into outlines and scattered papers everywhere but the manuscript form is the chronological chapters completed. And then the new idea distracts me and if nobody wants the one I was working on I just indefinitely pause it except the random scenes writing themselves. And. I have so many ideas and questions.... and then also. Part of my coping mechanism for the unmedicated ADHD is that if I have "want to have tos" and "have to have tos" I feel intense guilt at letting me do the "want to have tos" instead of execute function make me do the "have to have tos." So any messes, any lingering things I haven't taken care of, and honey do projects around the house, any chores.... all those "have to have tons" start to weigh heavy on me if I do too much writing or sketching or painting which are all "want to have tos." So I'm actually my most productive at writing when I'm traveling or in hotels or in cafes where the weight of my own intended chores doesn't weigh on me while I'm there. Airports, airplanes, cars/vans when I'm not driving, hotel rooms, cafes, seated venues (or any venue I can grab a corner and nobody talking to me.... it sounds stupid, but I am the most productive writing when traveling or when I joined some of my ex boyfriends on their tours and my only have to have to was helping out merch.... at home, I have chores I haven't done -- traveling and in hotel rooms and cafes and venues, unless I'm driving or have specific tasks to do, the chore have tos aren't my fucking responsibility so I can write and write and write guilt free, lol. Besides me accidentally cursing myself when I was 19 by saying I'm not the sort of girl a musician dates so ever since every man I've ever dated is a musician/singer/songwriter, I actually get more of my REAL writing done AND my self appointed task of cleaning up harmful hauntings/energetic scarring when I'm wandering for music related excuses to be traveling. 

Anyway. On Sunday I asked Crissy if she can please hold me accountable to getting writing done by onde or twice weekly meetings and then she started pushing we couldn't start this week because of all the things and I said no, we could plan to do it before/at the Socks in the Frying Pan concert at Bur Oak because that's seated and show at 8, doors at 7 and while it's Irish music scene friends, those who know me know that me scribbling is as expected as me reading a book to occupy myself if I'm not talking. I told her just to show up after she's done working and I would water my plants and harvest then after coworkers left we could go through the two manuscripts that are in the "need to finish these for stepping Stone reasons not just because I like telling this story and it chose me to be the voice of it" and discuss them and what we want me to work on next installments of as top priority for Friday meeting. (Sunday was Rhiannon Giddens and Charly Lowry in Chi, Weds (tonight) is Socks in the Frying Pan, this coming Sunday is brunch and first symphony performance of the year (I will stay off my phone not even look at notifications and watch the Packers game afterward on DVR at my parents house after symphony, my mama always records the games then watches on delay to fast-forward through ads and they are still at their cabin in Montana right now), and then next Tuesday night is tickets to APT to see Once Upon a Bridge inside at The Touchstone Theater. And then next Friday will be in Milwaukee for Gadan (an Italian band who play Irish trad fuses with Americana-bluegrass-folk; was introduce to them at Iowa Irishfest) and then next Saturday morning Amy will be in town for Farmer's Market..... and then Neon Trees in Chicago on Oct 2 and then Raye Zaragoza at North Street Cabaret on Oct 4  and then back to Spring Green for a second viewing of Anton's Shorts since Crissy had to miss it last time due to injuries her back and my mum decided she wanted to see it after my delight in it....and then and then and then and then.... see that's why I said concerts/theatre can't be excuses not to meet/discuss/keep me churning out my chapters if I can sit to scribble somewhere, lol. Standing room venues still get a pass as plans that preclude me writing and bag policies often limit me from how many books/notebooks I can carry, but anywhere I am to be seated is fair game for me as an opportunity to write in a space free of "have to have tos" between the time we get there and the time the show starts. Unless I'm chatty and talking with people, which definitely happens when I know people or haven't seen Crissy or other friends in a while.... 

Sunrise. I should go get the minor edits I wrote on the pages into the computer from the two manuscripts I was rereading to reorient myself in those novels that need to get published to be stepping stones (the vampire one and the inventor/corporate devils one.) 

I mean, I actually SHOULD sleep, because I haven't yet, I was working into the wee hours then rereading my own manuscripts for edits and to start writing. But instead, I'm going to make some tea then get the edits in then after that tea is steeped out switch to coffee and make me eat something. And shower after 9. And call to schedule Waffles for her vet visit I was supposed to schedule first thing this month and here we are nearly the equinox.... and and and.... somewhere, somewhen, I shall sleep. Just maybe not until after getting home from tonight's Irish music concert, lol.

And anyway. As long as I'm getting chapters done in my real writing, I don't need to feel guilty about my stream of consciousness journaling type writing here. Which means you don't have to miss me when I closed this window left any readers wondering what the hell I'm thinking/feeling these recent months. Keep me getting chapters written and you get to keep access to my stream of consciousness rambling here. Everybody wins!!! (If you call slogging through all my ADHD unedited word vomit posts here a win.....it's a lot of words. A LOT of words, lol. I type fast. Not as fast as I think, but like 160-180 wpm with minimal errors fast. My real writing is all state of flow as well, the words are just there ready composed in my head -- the biggest struggle of my real writing is getting me to forget about the have to have to a and just sit me down to write until my hands are too cramped to keep going without a rest.) Admit it, you missed me and all my fucking words while I closed access to this door into my mind/heart and all the mixed up thoughts/feelings/anecdotes I pour into these otherwise empty spaces. 😘. It's okay, I missed it too. Truly I did. Once I was on the road of returning from the hollows of my early stages of grieving, I missed writing here and all my words struggling to be released from the confines of my own brain. Ive missed this, so don't be ashamed to admit you also missed me and all my free flowing words.

[Post title: lyrics to the Nickel Creek song This Side. This song, specifically this verse, has been a core part of the soundtrack of my life and the message of it woven into my identity since I was in high school. And yeah, I am the forever loyal sort of fan unless you do something that affronts my synesthesia, ethics, or make it clear I am unwanted/unwelcome by you. Luckily, Nickel Creek light up adore me asich as I adore them so it's all just mutual love fest whenever they're making music touring together and so I can be as unwaveringly loyal in my love with them as my heart desires!]

In the name of honesty, I OUGHT to mention that whenever I think about Keith or talk with him (timezones allowing, because Dublin) I also get a flood of love down the empath bond from him, same as in person. It's not the same as the love reaching down the bond to the polar bear, and Keith has never yet appeared in my vision dreams, but there's still affection and desire and admiration and a sense of having sought for a long time that I get returned back when I think on Keith or talk to him. This happens as an empath thing with me, anyone I have any empath bonds or energetic cords to, I can tell when they think of me or when they hurt or are sick or in trouble or need me. I can't really explain it other than it's a bit like someone pulling at you or tapping your shoulder for attention. And when someone is just thinking how much they love you, it's just a rush of love straight through you with their energy signature and feels like an energetic hug. It IS very quick for Keith to be able to reach me that way, I mean we've known of each other for years and he has tried to talk with me and get introduced by mutual friends, but usually these have been busy crowded Irish music scene related times so one or the other of us always got pulled away or I didn't realize he actually wanted to chat me up. Also, his soul is very old and while I can't quite place where/when all we know each other from, we do have past life cross connections and I can see them sometimes in him when we look at each other. As well as m waking up lots of his past life selves as his general state of isness. And when I think on him, that empath bond reply back IS strong enough to quiet anyone else reaching me and even push away Eric reaching for me down the bond unless he's very forceful in his needing to try to reach me down the bond. That said, Dublin is an ocean away with neither of us having current plans to bridge that physical distance, so it's nothing more than a flirtation with Keith and talking to get to know each other better right now.

I don't intend to stop the flirtation with Keith or to see where it may go and what it could grow into, even with Eric somehow reaching down the bond for me again. I have been perfectly clear and honest that while the bond with Eric is something different from other karmic bonds/empath cords, he is free to make his own choices for his own happiness he seeks but as long as he chooses not me for his life I consider myself free to pursue any relationship of enough interest to me I want to put time/energy into seeing where it goes-- and I have also been clear and honest that if I'm seeing ANY other guy seriously, I won't drop them for Eric because he's had opportunities and could make more and has never yet chosen me. And I won't be hurting innocent others because he wanted to invest of himself elsewhere. 

And anyway, I'm not even sure WHY he's been reaching down the bond toward me again or how he's able to do it given my block on anyone with attachments to the lamprey lady or her energy wound through them. For all I know, it could be a soul level possessiveness that I'm actually seriously interested in someone else with no intention of doing anything to bring our lives together in the 3d or even stop seeing the lamprey he's been dating for over a year now. Without knowing or understanding why, I consider him reaching for me a curious anomaly but not enough weight for me to think it any manner indicative of his choices or desires or actions in the present or near future. And as such, if he's not ready to choose me and trying to bring our life paths together in the 3d, I'm done waiting and prioritizing him. I'm going to accept Eric's choices/actions/inactions as true indicators of his present desires and let him pursue where that takes him while I seek my own happiness elsewhere with whoever piques my interest enough for me to want to spend my time/energy developing a relationship together. 

Anyway. I'm not going to alter my path of flirtation with Keith and seeing where it may go just because you don't want anyone else playing with a toy you stopped caring about having in your life. That's not how this works. Choose me or don't for your life, you have free will and only you must walk your life path from start to end, but know that I don't consider you having any claim on my own choices or life path UNLESS you're ready to choose me at a time I also am free and desire to choose to twine our lives together on the same path.

P. S. Unrelated to any of the above, but related to this moment I'm in. Laying in bed with the windows open to listen to the rain is one of my forever favorite things. It's just so relaxing.... the only thing even better than windows open listening to the rain is listening to piano playing with windows open to listen to the rain. The combination is just magical, the most relaxing sweetest gentle soothing renewal of the soul. Windows open to the rain and weaving through it piano playing is just the coziest "this is home" soundscape, and I always just want to curl up into it and stay there for always.

 So. Tonight. In Chi. At the Rhiannon Giddens show with Charly Lowry opening. It's in the same damn theatre as Frank Turner played during his acoustic tour for No Man's Land (story songs about pioneering badass women throughout history.) So I've been there and the ghosts and I are old friends and they rushed on over to greet me right away and then the house lights kept going off as I was seated excited impatient and it made me giggle especially as where o was I could see the lighting techs bafflement over it happening. 

But that wasn't the point. Get to the row with the seats my birthday twin best friend bought for us when the tickets went onsale and the two people I have to walk past while Crissy goes to the loo have masks on so I make the decision to 1) put the mask in my purse on because I don't need their reasons, just basic human decency and 2) seat myself next to them closer to the aisle to make Crissy climb over me fully expecting she wouldn't have her mask on or think of it in the dark. But now. Here's the part that is why I broke my silence to write here again once more.... the girl I sat down next to, what Crissy noticed about her is that she didn't know what to do with the too cold too hot of the ghost presences coming to say hi and playing with my hair and swirling about my own strong emoting -- girl just didn't know what to do with me. But what Crissy didn't notice, and first thing I noticed walking past the girl was, she was wearing the Morning Comes tee from Delta Rae. And the girl noticed, looked at me wide eyed above her mask squeaked out, "You. You're dressed like my shirt. Like the embodiment of the song." I reassured her, "Under the leather coat I have on a Packers tee, and they took a hard loss today. But yeah, the rest of me is all yellowy sun shining against the blacks and white and grey -- and the sunflowers with skulls shoes." 

But, I. It hit me hard. Because. It's the first unexpected reminder for me in a long time. I mean, I saw the band had a post on FB not too terribly long ago but when I saw it was a pic of Britt, I didn't look beyond that and the reminding to myself, "She wishes not to exist to you, by her actions she has made that choice clear in her own name and the band's name. You keep scrolling past this don't even read it now girleen. You don't have to like other people's free will choices and imposed boundaries, but you will damn well respect them." So I didn't see what the post was about, just the name and some words I never clicked on read more and her picture which seemed as I scrolled past to be joyous...

But last night, the fact my neighbor seated next to me was wearing the Morning Comes tee, it was the first unexpected outside anything reminder since the post about George Winston's death cracked through to reach my heart. And. I didn't know what to think or feel about the Universe reminding me in this way. And, it disconcerted me more than it ought because.... the veil is thinning, and the crows are quieter as are their deities -- and these recent weeks there have been times and moments in recent weeks where it's like I can feel the bear trying to reach for me, reach me to reach for him and break the ice formed/forming between us. Not in sleep, my sleep has been so fucked nonexistent and full of vivid vision dreams and precise since the Pisces full moon -- and in all my vision dreams, there is always protective deities or archangels or fée beside me watching over me. I haven't wandered vision dream space without guardians accompanying me in weeks now. And then the Goddess decided that if I won't train into muscle memory my fencing skills in my waking hours, she would  hold me to the drills and practice shirked in my vision dream space. And I have been waking up so sore in places I haven't been sore since I was competitive sabre fencing and just for fun historic fencing (especially rapier and dagger techniques) in college.  I think I have figured out her point in making me spar and practice parries/feints but no attacks against a giant antlered deer. But her reason for making me train in my sleep is just that it's to make up for what I have shirked in waking hours and I will be grateful for her doing this when I need it drilled into me. 

But so. It's not been while sleeping that I can feel the bear trying to figure out a path to rapprochement. It's just, this last week or so, randomly, I feel him reach me and touch me and the love in the bond flowing full force between us. And I've been doing my best that when it happens to think on someone else, someone I've got my eye on and a bit of a flirtation with to try to move me onward from wishing I had one who didn't choose me and instead made choices/attachments that are active sources of potential harm to his connections like the bond between him and me. And, I can feel that my Morrigan advised ban on anyone/anything with the lamprey's energy reaching me still stands.... but still sometimes I feel him reaching toward me and connecting without her attachment woven through him, so he can reach me. And it just fills me with that image from my vision dream, of the bear raising his paw against the ice of him having to accept me walking away from his choices and the glacial ice formed between us blocking him from reaching where I was and that act of him giving up fighting trying to claw through the ice but just raising his paw against in sorrow to reach me so I put my palm on my side lined up to the bears and the power between our palms shattered the ice so he could get through to me.... that's the image I get inside me right now every time I feel his reaching for me down the bond and the reconnection moments before it goes back to the separation.... and I don't see know why, I just know is. And it's why seeing the shirt right next to me, it disconcerted me so much, that once more the universe is reminding me pushing me not to forget or give up on my polar bear and that soul bond that sings between us....

I can't explain it, I only know is..and is, that tells me that he's trying to claw his way back figure out how to reach me again. Even if that makes no sense at all to any definitive real world anything...

And I can't explain it, I don't know why, I just.....feel it as an is. And one growing stronger every time he reaches me, despite me trying to deflect and think on someone else I really only got interest in this August crossing paths at multiple Irishfests and have been thinking I could date now there's no place for me in Eric's life or choices. 

*yawns* sun is past up and I scribbled down all the words I had been holding in my head for a new novel idea that came to me from a back and forth in one of the songs tonight (last night?) off Rhiannon's newest album, the song written for the death of Khalif.  (The novel is yet another dystopia concept.) This was the first set of questions that were my reaction to the lyrics tonight -- all my real writing begins from a philosophical question I then answer bye getting up plots and character to see the cause and effects to answer what happens if the question is ignored not explored. My novels I never finish once I know the answers (unless I have a reader hooked needs the next installment) or have ever even tried to publish  even though what I'm supposed to be doing with this life is publishing the novels that make people's subconscious ask the questions because I swore when I was 8 that all great truths must be left to posterity only in fiction -- because after you die, nobody can be trusted with spiritual Truths given as True speak teachings that they won't twist and distort them to their own purpose and far from anything you ever intended.... so only in fictions will I ever bequeath my great truths, at least in this life, else I will let them disappear back into the sands of time til another discover them again.... 

But anyway. All my real writing, it starts with my questioning something. The seed of everything with me is always in the questions you ask and the story is the honesty of seeing where you must go to learn the answer to those questions. At least for me.  Questions like this first page of my scribbled notes to myself: 

Anyway. I can sleep now with no fear of losing the ideas/words into who knows where in the archives of my eidetic but ADHD associative recall photographic memory.

O!!!! Also!! Before I forget!! Since the polar bear started reaching for me again down the bond.and somehow actually reaching me, my head and inner space is full of melodies that I can't recognize or place.... not the words to them, just melodic lines and earworms I find myself singing apropos of nothing. And they are happy hopeful refusal to give up triumphal melodies. Sometimes playful lilting, but always full of hope and promises yet to be fulfilled but not forgotten... and they've been with me pretty well always this last week, there is no inner silence, just inner quiet to hear the song(s) resonate more clearly.