I found my mind, I'm feelin' sane. It's been a while, but I'm finding my faith. If everything's good and it's great, Why do I sit and wait 'til it's gone? Oh, I'll tell ya, I know I've got enough I've got peace and I've got love -- But I'm up at night thinkin' I just might lose it all. Please stay. I want you, I need you, oh God. Don't take These beautiful things that I've got. Oh-oh-oh-oh Ooh. Please stay I want you, I need you, oh God. I need These beautiful things that I've got

 Honestly, it just makes me so happy every time I open the door to let the dog out while at work and I see the plants already out for the summer as well as the planters/pots just ready and waiting for me to get their green babies in the dirt (once I buy more soil for them and once the overnight lows warm up -- I HAVE the green babies, but I'm short on soil and under 50 is cold enough to stunt growth and productivity on young tomato, basil, and pepper plants so they all have to wait til Sunday to get their roots into their summer digs.) I can't really explain the lift in the heart other than it exists and every time I see them on the other side of the open door, I just light up grinning and can't help impulsively saying, "why hello my lovelies!!!" Every time. Not just when I go out to tend to them and when they will be ready to harvest them in a month or two -- quite literally every time I open the back door to let the dog(s) out or just walk by able to see them. 

The funny thing is, I don't know that I would get so much joy out of the growing season without having a proper fall and snow covered winter. I'm very much a creature who finds joy in all the seasons and the changing of seasons and wouldn't feel them all so intensely if I lived where summer stayed too long. My friend Erin moved from Michigan to Hawaii and she's loving it and it IS great to visit but she was texting me her zinnias and four o'clocks coming up almost ready to be separated telling me her excitement for year round seasons of them and I asked her what they died of without the frosts and she said "they just eventually give up the ghost" but she then confirmed she can start them in staggered plantings to always have some blooming. And. I can see where some would like that.... I'm curious for science with the plants what they do without a hard frost to tell them it's time to die off now. I have so many questions and so much curiosity to find out how they'll fare for her raising temperate plants in a tropical biome.  But If it were me.... I'd grow tired of that sameness, would come to feel like a purgatory to me. Something in me comes alive with a different joy when the air crisps up and the leaves change color, and another type of joy rises up in me with fresh falling snow in a bright white world and a fourth when the baby plants and earliest flowers (crocuses and snowdrops) come smiling up through the slushy late snow muck. It's the predictable but constant change and the newness of the changing seasons and the greeting of beloved good friends I haven't seen in far too long that brings me the joy even more than the things qua themselves -- so even though the seasons are predictable as the sun and moon cycles, I find joy in greeting everything anew in each part of the cycle. I think I would hate to live where that is broken and even now Wisconsin has not enough true sparkling white winter cold to suit me with climate change... 

Erin said it always made her sad to see the plants dying but even though I sometimes lose the battle with fruiting/flowering annual babies begging me to bring them in for the winter not let them die quite yet so I promise them they can come inside for as long as they keep producing fruits/flowers, I always have seen fall as the time when the plants get to rest after so much activity and get ready for their long nap dreaming of the summers to come so they can wake up rejuvenated for a new burst of greening flowering fruiting growth. I never saw it as sad because all things mortal die and if they don't then there's nowhere for new life to grow into. And also, so much of the green aliveness in the plants isn't dead at all it just curls up down in the roots or is safe stowed away in seeds/nuts to dream away under the blanket of snow and rest after all that work for so long. And that never seemed sad to me, fall and harvest is a celebration of the goodness given by the plants/trees and then after we celebrate them they enter their dreaming time til they're reborn afresh in the next greening. That's how I've always seen it. It wasn't til she texted me about how the dying off of the flowers when weather got cold made her sad for them that I considered it anything other than a well earned rest after giving so much beauty and goodness to the world for so long.

 (She IS very Christian, though unlike her family she does believe in reincarnation sees the biblical references to it at a linguistics level in both testaments but she is fundamentally Christian in her world views. Whereas my soul is pagan shamanic witchy paths and while this life I'm nominally Jewish by blood, it's a very ish form of Judaism when we look at my da and his siblings though the extended family is more religiously monotheistic reform and orthodox Jewish, and my mum's side of the family is all sort of faiths intermixed. Nature worshippers, atheists, Buddhist, Hindu, all different forms of Christianity -- basically everything but Muslim and Sikh in my family when we look at both sides. Still I myself am at root fundamentally pantheist nature/seasons based mind set in my spirituality. And this Christian versus pantheist world view may be part of the huge difference between sorrow over what is dying versus celebrating what has been given, and what is to come, in our views on entering into fall and winter.) 

Anyway right now it is my garden bed and all my planters and pots of my plant babies outside and watching them grow and thrive that brings me intensity of joy. It's funny because I don't NEED to put down roots places, and I am easily uprooted if I have a reason for it, but I like knowing beautiful things are cared for and cherished while they have a window for existence, if that makes sense. As long as I am in one given place, I will collect and nourish whatever is in my circle of care. And right now feels like a season for investing my energy into cherishing and loving those who choose to be within my life while we are sharing this finite portion of time and space. Family and friends and fur babies and feather babies and green babies and wise tree friends.

Speaking of circle of care. Not to jinx anything, but part of me not writing so much lately about me overthinking is I'm not doing it right now. Not since the last wobble I shared about that was bigger than a wobble but came back to center so we'll call it a big wobble. I've mostly been in a very balanced place of resting observation about Eric. I wouldn't say I lack hope or currently doubt him, but that I am awaiting further evidence before extending renewed hope or any effort from my side. I need proofs and reasons to trust after having my faith crushed as brutally and repeatedly as it has been since 2018 -- without that you shouldn't expect much from me. It wouldn't take much from him to start it back full flame growing, but it does need to be something concrete tangible real and incontrovertible not open to interpretation. Without that, I won't reach for him but also I won't push him away. I won't go out of my way to see him but I wouldn't be upset if I did, I would actually be very happy if I did see him but I won't put effort into trying to make that happen at this point, certainly not without good tangible reasons beyond just intuitive and what he tells me soul to soul. 

Curiously. Every time I'm in the car or somewhere with pop music playing in background, whenever I'm reminded of him or I focus on thinking about him wondering how he's doing right then, clairaudient synchronicity kicks in and the Benson Boone song Beautiful Things comes on. EVERY TIME. All I have to do is wonder how Eric is doing and then it's the next song plays or on the station I flip to when the one I had on goes to commercials or a song I dislike. I know it's on the radio a lot right now, but this has happened so consistently over the last couple months now that whenever I hear the chorus of it, I immediately think of Eric because the two have been so linked by synchronicity recently. And weirdly, that message gives me some peace and the ache in it makes me reassure him down the bond with the promise, "don't worry, I won't take away from you the beautiful things you need." And it's funny because it's in no way his song and I've never heard him even try a cover of it, but synchronicity and my clairaudient gifts have just indelibly linked for me thinking of Eric wondering how he's doing with the message of that song. And like, if my head gets too full of overthinking and doubts, just hearing that song come on, now that my brain associates it with the question "how is Eric doing right now?" can be enough to calm me back into inaction instead of overthinking. 

And I do think inaction is the best course for me still as far as any movements toward or away are concerned. To focus on the good within my life as I live it but to keep a door open for him if he wants it and chooses me. There's still the bond to consider and there's more I don't know or understand from his perspective and desires than I do know at this time. I don't even know the how or why of him stripping out the lamprey lady's energy woven and hooked all through him so he could reach me again via the bond after I decided not to allow anyone/anything with her energy signature to reach me.... I know he did it back in late August/early September and afterward he could reach me again via the bond as strongly as ever and that it took a lot of effort on his part for him to do that and to reach me again through the glacial ice formed between us -- but I still don't know WHY he did or how he set about it or what he learned along the way to being able to clear that block keeping the connection from being open to me. I know less about his side of the story than I am comfortable knowing or would like to be able to take into consideration when it comes to my own actions or reactions, so I'm trying to stay in the place of inaction non-reactionary openness to observation/new data to give him the space to tell me his side in his own time and way. 

Which is part of why I haven't written as much here other than the very banal overthinking worrying about Spock t'other week. (He's doing better, still showing minor signs of early kidney disease but not yet a stage diagnosable, and the inside of my lip I kept biting worrying about him has healed fully.) Not because I'm keeping my overthinking from you, but because I've not been allowing myself too much overthinking in circles, instead focusing on the state of non-action until something with enough reassurance of his side of things and his wants/needs/desires can set me in motion. (Hey, look at me trying to sit in the zen equivalent of Newtonian physics where a body at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.) I mean, if you want to hear more of my thoughts about literature, art, music, theater/film, philosophizing, and seasons of life I have all those I could share beyond my quotidian. But I don't really have anything new to share for insights to the bond while I'm sitting in inaction waiting to better understand his story and needs and if he believes there's a place for me in his life and if that's even a thing he would desire.

[Post title: lyrics to the Benson Boone song Beautiful Things. Because even just thinking about Eric enough to write that bit right now gets that chorus stuck in my head this last month or so.]

Anecdote time from these recent wee hours

My body: "Okay. We are at a completed end of REM cycle! FULLLY ENERGIZED! To ensure we don't oversleep or wake up at the wrong time, it's time to get up now!" 

Me (wide awake): "are you sure? We went to bed early so we could hit two rem cycles before sunrise wakeup. It still looks super dark out there and none of my alarms have gone off...." 

My body: "That's because your alarms are for AFTER sunrise. I promise you, this is just predawn and we are at the end of a REM cycle. Good stopping point for sleep. Best rested brain function." 

My brain: "Awww hey! You called? I have an idea guys!"

Me: "Okay. Let's hear your idea." 

My brain (enters jukebox mode; I have never understood people who don't have running interior music and who aren't easily earwormed by phrases that are also lyrics; even if it's just random melodies not full songs playing inside my brain, if I'm conscious there's always music playing in my head unless I'm listening to music with my ears or watching a movie/show that has intermittent scoring): *starts playing Texas Hold Em, completely apropos of nothing whatsoever* 

Me (waiting): "Okay brain. That's, um, nice. But what's the idea?" 

My brain (still singing Texas Hold Em while thinking): "O no. That was it. That was the whole idea. before bed we were talking to Amanda about the tornadoes near her in Iowa. So I was still thinking about wind and tornadoes damage in the city. Thus this song. From the line. There's a tornado in my city. Mostly though it was just too quiet. Because it's witching hour quiet. Had to give you some music to fill the quiet and help you metronome the moments passing." 

Me: "Um. Gee. Thanks brain. But body, back to what you said. It's been a lot of Beyonce now since you woke up feeling wide awake fully rested and the sky has not lightened. At all. And I don't hear the birds yet. Maybe we could consider another round of REM?...." 

My body: "no! No more sleep! End of REM cycle and it's pre dawn so now it's time to get up so we don't over sleep."

Me: "okay. I'm going to get up and cross the room to check what time it is, mkay?" (Does so) "Body! Look at this phone screen! It's not quite 2am. You got ONE of our REM cycles in. Just one. We have time for another Rem Cycle before first light if we do it now!"

 (My REM cycle is right around 3h not 4h; so I sleep in multiples of three hour segments not multiples of 4hrs if I want to wake up well rested not groggy from waking up mid REM cycle)

My body (still very wide awake): "No! No more sleep!! REM cycle completed!"

Me: "Yes we've had one REM cycle, but what about second REM cycle?" 

My brain (snarky while still playing the earworm): "I don't think this body knows about second REM cycle."

My body: "REM cycle completed, so awake now! Now is 2am IS before dawn! That makes it pre dawn! Let's get up and start doing all the things" 

Me: "But the goal is typically supposed to be two to three REM cycles per night body. Optimally. We can still get a second one in and wake up in ACTUAL predawn at the end of a REM cycle. Brain, please help me here..." 

My brain: "So park your Lexus and throw your keys up . Stick around, 'round, 'round, 'round, 'round. And I'll be damned if I can't slow dance with you, Come pour some sugar on me, honey too. It's a real life boogie and a real life hoedown -- Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor now."

Me: "oh. My. Gods. You are useless... Okay, body listen to me. I know you completed the REM cycle and are wide awake, but maybe let's lay back down and just see what happens, k? I promise you, you can do one more complete REM cycle if we start it in the next 15 mins. The math works. Right brain?" 

My brain: "This ain't Texas. It ain't no hold em. So lay your cards down down down down." 

(11 minutes later, brain humming to itself the earworm but quieter and body relaxing) 

My body: "O hey! I have an idea!" 

Me (eyes closed trying to sleep) "M'yeah? Wassdat?"

My body: "Let's relax and loosen BOTH shoulders to dislocate right now!" (Subluxates the shoulder I'm laying on then as I'm rolling over to relieve it, subluxates further both shoulders simultaneously; my hypermobility and joint instability has been a bit worse again recently, I don't know what makes it sometimes worse than others... if it's dietary maybe given I've been craving radishes and milk/cheese a lot lately or hormonal cycles or the weather since it started just before the severe weather of this last week moved in to the midwest or what, but all week my shoulders have been subluxating even more than usual and my elbows and knees have been randomly hyper flexing backwards then giving out when I'm just standing somewhere not even locked knees or anything (they don't do it while squatting/sitting/crouching or actively moving/dancing; just when straightened standing or on stairs)  like they did when I used to run more than half mile on pavement or 1 mile on soft grass; but i havent been running at all because it makes my knees give out randomly because I have 2/3 or less the cartilage I should in all my joints so no idea why my knees are randomly hyper extending backwards then giving out while standing so only the other leg is supporting my weight. They're not hurting at all, they're just unstable overextending  backwards hypermobile which causes them to give out rather than snap the joint while it's got instability issues But doing it for no reason, especially my left knee but still both doing it.)

Me (wide awake): "o dear gods no!!! No no no no!!! That fucking hurts!!! Just because we're hypermobile flexible doesn't mean relaxing into sleep so far you subluxate the joints!!" 

My body: "You. Said. Relax. To. Sleep." 

Me (trying to manually get my shoulder back in place with the socket without getting out of bed): "not  relax to the point we subluxate the ball joints! Help me get this back where it was now..." 

My body: "No can do." 

Me: "seriously?!?! We have a LOT of plant shopping and gardening and hauling around planter boxes and pots and dirt planned for today!" 

My body: "o, we'll be fine by then. I'm just not going to stop relaxing that right subluxated shoulder so it will stay in the socket unless you stand up let gravity assist me."

Me: "Fine. Fucking fine. Just let's make the burning pain in these overstretched tendons of the dislocated joint stop firing pain signals by getting them back where they go, k?" 

My body (after shoulders no longer subluxated): "Hey. So. We're at a completed REM cycle now. Let's just get up now you're vertical!" 

My brain: "Hey guys! You're awake! So I have this idea here!" (Turns up the inner earworm volume starts singing, "Ooh, one step to the right. We headin' to the dive bar we always thought was nice. Ooh, run me to the left. Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can't read your mind."

Me: "Y'know what. I give up. Y'all are fucking crazy. I FINALLY try to get us to bed at a reasonable enough time for adequate REM cycles before first light and this is how you thank me?!?! Witching hour wide awake Beyonce two step earworm karaoke and relaxing so far the hypermobile joints displace. Y'all don't deserve any more sleep! I'm going to get up and make me some green tea and then read until it's time to make breakfast then get ready to drop the dog off at work so I can go to Fitchburg Farms to meet up with Sarah and Mikaela when they open at 9." 

If we go this morning, I can get the less sensitive/fragile plants in today and finish getting all the soils prepped since there's a nice day with a break in the multi day derechos and tornadoes across the upper Midwest. (Not planting any of the nightshades just yet even though it's already almost June by the time I will get them in because after tomorrow's severe weather and hail comes through, temps are dropping with highs in the 60s and lows back down into mid to low 40s -- nightshades will be happier waiting til Weds/Thurs to get in when temps go back up again to overnights in the 50s and daytime in the upper 70s.) 

anyway. Do you see what I have to put with from myself?!?!?! This sort of shenanigans from my own damn self making me hard to live with is what you've been missing. Also lots of crazy storms and MASSIVE amounts of downed trees and power lines and switching between working and quiet days reading while drinking tea and spending time cuddling with cats (both Spock and checking in on Henry cat sitting) and playing fetch/walkies/snuggling sleeping dogs (just Waffles and Sophie time) are all you've really missed out on in my world while I wasn't writing here. O, and on Weds/Thurs evenings my da and I (with some small assist from Brandon before he headed home the couple days da and I were working on it; not my ex Brandon, this is a different Brandon, our newest service tech who is super helpful and kind and enjoys power tool projects; he and his wife moved up here from North Carolina last year) fixed one of the planter boxes  that was falling apart including one of the wheels we put on it had fallen off with some power tools and ply wood and one run to Menards for some 2x4s (rather than trying to brace the broken board that couldn't be removed to replace it for structural reasons which they were discussing the best options for doing it that way, I suggested if we were planning on buying new 2x4 anyway to cut down, since the height of the finished box didn't matter except that all three support beams the wheels are mounted into be the same height so the box is level, why don't we just remove all the wheels we added to the original boxes and put full length 2x4 under each of the bottom support lengths with nails long enough to go through the 2x4 and old boards and posts because it would make them all 3 stronger from any rot or splitting not just the broken/split one and still be level. My da and Brandon just sort of blinked and were like, "Actually, that would be far easier and sturdier then trying to build up around this broken piece hold just that in place.") and to get 4 replacement screws/washers for the missing ones of the wheel that broke off when the wood it was attached to splintered.) Which the work on the bottom bracing and the interior reinforcing with new plywood had to be done before they left for Montana and needed to be done with the box empty before I could finish the redistributing of old soil from last year and adding egg shells and plant food and new soil mixing it all together for the new herbs/veggies. We still are going to cut down the 2x4 and reinforce the corner posts from the outside in case there's more rot in the old palette boards the planters were made from, but that can be done later, after the soil and plants are in it. Later in the fall or next spring, I'll have to empty out the planter box in better condition for repairs, but that one has all the wheels attached and the support boards aren't cracking on the bottom and the sides can make it another summer before repairs. 

Anyway. Now it's ACTUAL predawn, so I'm going to finish this second cuppa and read another chapter then start considering coffee/breakfast ideas and timing. I'm not hungry yet which makes it hard to think about breakfast making, but if I don't eat something in my open span of time before 8:30, I will be famished getting the hangries before we finish plant shopping at like 10:30ish which is the earliest I could then next consider food. 

P. S. Why yes I DO still have Texas Hold Em stuck in my head. Going on 3+ hours of that earworm playing inside my brain.  Hopefully you're earwormed now too after reading this post and we can be earwormed with the same song together this fine morning. 

I don't remember anymore why I clicked the little plus button and sat down to write this.  I'm sure I had a reason, but coming back to find this screen open and blank page on my phone, I have no fucking idea what prompted it in me ... 

And. I don't know if it's the hour or the strong breath of the winds in the trees (and who said "everything can start the move into Gemini, the first of the air signs, and twelcome the coming full moon by ushering in tonight in the Midwest with tornadoes and 80mph wind gusts and rain bursts with hail like the times I've lived through tropical storms in visits to Florida, Texas, and Hawaii" tonight? I spent several hours tonight in my car in the underground garage with the cat in the passenger seat and the dog in the back seat reading my book with my phone battery dwindling and no cell signal, intermittently turning on the car for am radio weather updates or opening the door to perk into outside chaos get some cell signal to check Doppler radar visuals waiting for the storms to pass) or the whiskey (well scotch, Highland Park Spirit of the Bear) or something turning in my heart like a key and turning over soil for new seeds.

But all I know right now, at 4am having just finished my fantasy novel and both my cuppa tea and my tuath of whiskey empty and listening to the rush of the wind in the trees, is that all I want is all I've ever wanted and that is to wrap my arms around Eric and ask him if he would build this life with me regardless any damn thing else and it's okay if we figure it out as we go but all I want and ever have wanted of it is to build it with him, together the both of us. 

Because. I may not know HOW we get there and I may betimes doubt him in the uncertainty of not knowing what it is he would choose for himself, but I know crystal clear that it's WHAT I want and there's very little else the world as it is now has to offer my soul that tempts it to stay in the incarnations and the battles for it which my souls desires other then my desire to build a life with him in it, if that's what he would choose. I'll be honest, I do t much care what that life looks like (though obvs I have my preferences) so long as he's in it and we build it together. 

Imma go pee and put this book in the stack for reshelving and the. Make another cuppa tea. At some point I'll make breakfast with the sunrise (of visible) and then drop the dog off to go meet Sarah and Mikaela at Fitchburg Farms for flowers (or we can do it another day) now that these hazardous storms have passed through hat and me too worried to put in new seeds or seedlings over the weekend as I had initially planned. I do need to text Sarah to tell her FF opens at 9am not 8am ask her if she still wants to join us or if I should pickup Mikaela go without Sarah so she can get to work for when it opens. On verra. I'll wait til 7ish though to text her. Because 4am remains too early on normal people ideas of time. 

But also. Unrelated to shopping for flowers and herbs, be it in a handful of hours or on some other day, I would very much like to wrap my arms around him and tell him, "I love you. I'm so glad you're here. Can we build a home together now?" And sometimes, especially late at night in the predawn, I wonder why the fuck it's been so hard to get there... And this is one of those witching hours turning to predawns where I don't understand how and why this has been so very hard to get to from where we are to that point.... 

All the words inside me are chaotic af and I'm so ADHD. Sorry. Moon in Libra as the sun moved into Gemini has got my natal Mercury in Libra all flighty airy bird like flitting about everywhere never really settling at all... So many thoughts and words I want to say but they're all crashing into each other so they can't come out in any sensible order. I'm hard to follow right now today, definitely a lot of Wonderland rambling in the way my words are coming out of me these recent days. They're all over the place. 

I started a post on Saturday and Sunday night about how down on myself I was about being a horrible pet owner and how I'd have nothing left of Spock but the pictures and his shed claws and whiskers he gifts me because he never wears his collar, hasn't since I got him, so after his death I will have little to hold and keep to remember him. I dunno that I'm going to share it though because I was honest about how awful i was to me and I was very awful to myself and I'm trying to be kinder to myself.  Because like, I was crying about his potential death if he was having stage 3 or 4 kidney issues telling myself about how bad a pet parent I am letting it happen not being able to heal him at like 2am WHILE I was pouring healing energy into him and using the 15 year old cat as my pillow curled up next to my face with him purring happily and his tummy healthily rotund after all the food he'd eaten before I went to bed. And he hasn't thrown up since he was so ill on Wednesday and he's choosing to eat his hard kibble sometimes as well as soft food and softened kibble and the amount of water he's drinking is NOT over 1oz per 1lb of body weight which is what is considered excessive in a cat.... And also he's a 15 years old cat, the equivalent of a 73 year old human as far as the progression of his senescence and what I should be expecting for his weight/kidney function/eyesight and everything about his health.  I mean, he's a 15 year old cat and I've had him for like 13.5 of those 15 years being his primary caregiver pet parent -- so pretty sure that counts as NOT a bad pet parent. As a general rule. And Audrey Pupburn lived 14 years 10.5 months which is equivalent to about 80 years human lifespan.... And so I should be kinder on myself that they both have lived such long happy lives with little to no health problems until over 14 years old and grew older than any right I had for their life expectancy at the time I adopted them both.

But I was being so hard on me Sat night and Sunday til late afternoon/early evening. I just was. And that brutality to myself bled into telling myself to stop feeding the delusions that my Pisces rising WANT to be true regarding the bond and any hypothetical bond to Eric and to focus instead on the concrete real world nothingness between us and to stop lying to myself about could bes with no foundations under those castles in the air. And I was pretty brutal denying the bond pushing him away during that and deciding that I should be focusing on what IS in my life rather than what isn't.

I'm not sure if I want to share the post about how awful and brutal I was being to myself (and the bond and thus toward him) even as I had come out of it back to a better balance.... It's a part of my truth, but i was really cruel to myself during that... 

One of the best bits of advice I've received over the last year when it comes to self-love and self-care is to step back and objectively ask yourself, "Would you ever talk to anyone you love the way you talk to yourself? Would you ever let anyone you care about be talked to that way by ANYONE? If not, then why do you accept such toxic abusive self talk to yourself from yourself?" And it's helped me to step back and call myself on it when I get not nice to myself....

I AM still focusing my time/energy on what/who IS choosing to be in my life rather than those that aren't and may never be. But by Sunday evening after moving a lot of heavy plants/pots around (the act of physical labors and getting something done I need to do always helps ground and center me; it's why I clean to the point of OCD when something is bothering me I can't do anything to solve) I reached the inner knowing that I can call myself delulu for listening to intuitive knowing if I choose to, but through it all I need to trust that he knows best what he wants for himself and not try to push him away while telling myself he doesn't want me because he doesn't even know me and in the real world there's nothing tangible between us. There's an important line in there.

Another bit of advice I've been hearing a lot lately (specifically as we move into noisy busy chatty Gemini season) from completely unrelated people is, "You can only learn new truths when you stop talking and start listening." So I've been trying to listen more than talk and to infuse humor and insight with what interactions I do choose to engage in.

Alright, I have to finish this deposit and then finish unloading the work dishwasher which I started before going to $5 mystery movie Mondays (last week was Babes, today was Ezra; Babes was funny but fluffy and a bit millennial/gen z fear of doing the adulting wrong; Ezra was phenomenally great and would highly recommend to almost anybody and my critiques were minor nitpicky plot points) with my mum and then started back to finishing it after getting back after the movie at like 9ish and yet here I haven't even finished the unloading because I got distracted.... I'm sleepy because I've currently been up over 30 hours straight through and would like to go home to sleep, but I definitely need to finish both those things firsts.

But anyway, the last couple days there IS a rather brutalist side to me admonishing, "stop being so delulu about how you imagine the bond to be and put your focus on who IS in your actual life." 

Also, I was biting the inside of my lower lip so much on the right side while stressing and worrying about Spock since Wednesday and trying to figure out how sick he is/was if I should try to take him in unless he dies or if I was over-reacting helicopter pet parenting and now the inside of my lower lip on that side is currently all swollen and scarred and even just smiling is getting caught/scraped against the edges of my top teeth and is painful sometimes reopens it starts it bleeding... It's not an ulcer or cold sore or anything, it's just literally I've been biting and chewing on the inside of my lip to that extent since last Wednesday.  Usually I chew the inside of my left cheek or bite my left side lower lip when what is bedeviling me is a matter of the head and the right side when it's a matter of the heart. But yeah, that right lower lip hurts so badly where I've been biting it so much over the last almost a week and no idea how it's going to heal up at this rate. Not my favorite of my overthinking stims/fidgets that I bite my lip and/or chew on the inside of my cheek when I'm anxiety overthinking/overfeeling, but it's better than when I used to chew on the ends of my hair or bite my nails or chew on pen caps while overthinking because at least the inside of my mouth isn't (generally) full of foreign bacteria or germs. But also, the self injury rate is WAY higher from my anxiety/overthinking causing me to bite the inside of my lip than when I used to chew on other things while overthinking.  (I mean. The obvious answer is to stop overthinking. but have you met me?! How we gonna make THAT happen?!)

But until it heals up on the inside of that lower right lip, even smiling gonna hurt for a bit let alone any time I start chewing on it while overthinking. So try not to make me overthink about anything the rest of this week or so while that heals and the scarring/swelling goes down.

 O. I mean. I didn't say I WANT an "or better" just that I couldn't even phrase what that meant in such a case where what I want is a chance at reunion with Eric within this life but that I do acknowledge it's important to never limit an ask of the Universe to only one means of achieving it or to have the hubris to think you know better than the Universe what is the best growth path for you.  It's why when you ask for anything you should always ask for "all of this or better" rather than limiting yourself from receiving gifts the universe means for you. You have to let the Universe and individual free will choices play out in your best interests not in what you THINK is the best way. You get to write your own story, but each life is only one thread through the greater tapestry of your own soul path and all the incarnations throughout all of time that created this world as it is. So when you ask the Universe for anything, you ask for "all of this or better, for my own greatest good" to make sure you don't have the hubris to limit yourself or presume you know your own greatest good better than the force behind the Creation unfolding. Does that make sense?

It's the same reason that I didn't just straight up ask to be with Eric again this reward life because what if he wasn't ready or didn't want it or what if it wasn't the path for one or both of us having the best life for our soul's growth at this time? Instead, I set up the conditions to allow for it if it's what we both want and that I thought would create a brilliant reward life for myself and those who love me rather than a life lived for the world, but without the constraint of what I THINK I want and to still leave him the free will to pursue whatever he genuinely seeks for his own sake rather than him being forced to be stuck with me because it's what I asked from the Universe.  So that's why instead of demanding our lives be intertwined (which can happen in lots of ways, not always good, depending on the lessons you need to learn and I could have made us both miserable even if we were miserable together had I asked that) I asked 1) any soul seeking me be able to find me 2) I live this life always surrounded by the love of those who I love and who can love me qua me as I am and 3) as long as those first two conditions can be met, I'd like to grow old again because it's been so very long and so many lives since I last grew old. It leaves the room for the "or better" if I'm wrong thinking he's what I want but also leaves the room that as long as he is seeking me and can love me qua me as I am this life, then he will always be able to find me and we can have a chance to choose each other even if it takes us a damn long time in years. 

Which is why I needed to be clear why I feel it's important to say I want a fateline with reunion with him THIS lifetime if that's the happiness he seeks as well BUT I remain open to an "or better" if that's better for my own soul's journey or happiness in this lifetime even if I don't know how to phrase or imagine what that "or better" would be. You should never limit the Universe from the gifts it would give you by forgetting to ask for the "or better" in case the Universe has something better for you based on the soul needs and lessons and life paths and choices of everyone involved. I don't CURRENTLY have in mind an "or better" than what I want or even know what that would be, I just need to stay open to it and accept it if it crosses my path while he's continuing to choose not me. 

Because we can live as many times as we choose to incarnate and learn the lessons of individuated lives in physical bodies -- but we only get to live EACH life the one time. And I'm not going to fill any further lives full of sorrow in the emptiness where he isn't by thinking he's the only thing that can create with me the greatest happiness possible for my soul in THIS life and the options available to me. 

Does that make sense? I know that there are other souls could be good for my heart and soul and build a beautiful future full of love with me if I choose them even with that bond sitting in me pulling me always to missing Eric -- and I don't know that Eric wants me and would choose me and can provide that for me as something he wants this life. which is why I need to hold onto the idea that I want a fateline that brings our lives to reunion OR better if there is better than that the Universe would gift me on my life path in this life of my soul's journey. 

I don't HAVE anyone else specific I would consider choosing and making a real try with at this point, I haven't known of anyone since David chose to move in and adopt a dog and build a life with someone else -- the closest was me choosing last year and part of the year before that I needed to make myself open to new connections and render the bond dormant for my own safety and in the name of ethics given Eric choosing someone else who he thought the love of his life and was very vocal he believed that. I don't pretend I know what the or better for my life and my soul is, only that I need to remain open to it and not fixate on reunion with Eric as the ONLY greatest happiness available for me this life especially given I don't know what he would choose for himself and his greatest happiness or have any reason to believe I'm any part of that for him.... And I can't say "I choose Eric for myself and my happiness and for the rest of this life path we can create together" without knowing what he wants and what he would choose -- without knowing that I HAVE to keep the door open to an "or better" option for myself in romance. So as not to limit the blessings and gifts the Universe would give me in my life path by the limits of my own assumptions and blindered vision. 

But I mean, obviously if Eric would choose me, I'd gladly choose him and no one else for myself. Obviously. I just can't close that door to limit myself from the "or better" gifts the Universe might have for me without knowing his choices and the happiness he would choose for himself and his own life path. And he would have to choose me before I made any sort of promise or commitment tying THIS life of mine to another soul's life path, otherwise he would have to wait until an opportunity arose that I was free to choose again and hope he might be among my options at that time.

Not sure if that simplifies or complicates things, but it's the best I can explain it....

 So some things to clarify:

1) It's not that I wouldn't date anybody other than Eric or that I would say no to everyone else. It's just, I would need to do so being honest that there's a bond inside me that I would do my best to render dormant inaccessible and to focus on what I DO have in my life and the good in it but it's a bond that I can't sever and that pull will always be there. And I trust it less than i trust the way I feel when I stand gazing out across open water and the urge to go horizon chasing takes hold of me and I don't care where I go so long as I find out what's over the edge of the horizon and then over the next one and the next one forever. It's why I'm cautious how much time I let me spend by oceans because that call of the limitless horizon gets under my skin and I just want to steal a sailboat and find out even though I know logically it's only ocean and ever more ocean.  Until it's land. There are some things I only know how to fight the temptations by not letting me see/feel them -- and I would have to have good reasons to think Eric was never going to choose me be ready to choose me and/or a damn good other man who chose me and who I loved for his isness wanted to share my life path with this life for me to make the attempt. I would only ever trust me to be able to share my life with someone other than Eric by consistently choosing them and that would require of me that I make the bond as quiescent as I could for there to be trust the pull of it wouldn't be stronger than what held me to stay. And that would probably be easier with that trick the Morrigan taught me of blocking anyone with an energy attached to them from reaching me -- but only if he chose someone else. It's not that I couldn't build a different happiness with a different man, but that bond would always be there tugging at me and I don't know if that could be enough for anyone else to know it's there even if not acted upon and me doing my best to render it dormant not tugging at me all the time. And I'm not sure that qualifies as "all of this or better" in this very specific situation, y'know?

But I did mean it when I said that if David had ever made a move chosen me I would have made the attempt because he deserves that from me if he had ever found the courage to choose me. He didn't, he took another path. But for the goodness I saw/see in him I would put the bond to Eric to sleep for as long as I could hold it that way and choose to build with David as long as he wanted me because he had the courage to choose me before Eric did and he's a good man to deserve the best I have to give him of my love if I made that choice. I'm not going to go through the whole list, but David would still be at the top of it if he hadn't chosen other paths and another woman for himself during covid. (I have very strict ethics and anytime a man dates another woman, especially seriously, no matter my previous feelings about him something in me instantly marks him as someone "not for me" for me to be aro/ace with unless that's a poly situation ship and I won't make the other person jealous and it's all some light fun where I fit in. But basically, I ain't a girl who will ever knowingly Jolene another woman's man. And frankly, if a man chooses to be with anybody else instead of me, then that man doesn't want me enough to deserve me at this time. And if he makes that choice, I'm gonna need to meet the version he is after he's healed from his failed romance before I decide if he's a man I think deserves me to invest my time and love into in a future hypothetical. The moment Dave started seeing Siobhan, it was the same as when he was with Di or Maya-Nika or anytime any man I've been interested in chooses to be with another woman -- I friend zone myself and zero out all sexual interest in him beyond continuing to thinking he's hot into aro/ace "not for me" territory.) And you shouldn't imagine he's the only one who might be good enough for me to choose him this life and try to shut down the bond, especially if Eric continues down paths of choosing everyone and everything except me. At the end of the day, how long do you expect me to wait in this lifetime before getting on with building a life without you in it because you never choose to be in it? I mean, we ain't getting any younger in these bodies. None of us are. And there's been a lot of mortality within my life and the sphere of those I love over the last several years, a lot of empty places where loved ones once were and a desire to cherish those I do have while I have them and while we can choose to share time/space together in these bodies we have. How can you ask me to keep waiting and shooting down people who just want to love and be loved by me when you're not even choosing to be a tangent or a promise in my life at this point? At some point, a girl has to put her focus on what she has and what she can grow within the scope of her life path she has in this body. 

And that could mean somebody else I choose to build my life with is the "or better" the Universe means for me if you keep choosing never to show up or choosing everyone and everything except me to have in your life. I won't discard that as an option, it's just complicated for me by knowing that I can't just sever the bond and how difficult I have found to keep it dormant when I have tried so far this life for various ethical reasons. But I would try again to put it to sleep and keep it that way if I found the right other man who loved me and I could love for the goodness in him and Eric showed no signs of rapprochement or wanting me enough to actually choose me. At the end of the day, we don't incarnate to limit ourselves close off form opportunities for love and growth and healing, and if Eric can't or won't be any of those things for me this life, the Universe will send me someone (or multiple someones) who can. And I will wish him all the joy he can find and all the happiness he seeks down the life path he chooses, but I won't let his choices close off alternate paths of joy and love for me. And it wouldn't be fair to expect or ask that of me. You have my promise I will always choose you as long as you want me and choose me and I'm free from other attachments -- but Eric you gotta choose me or you'll find yourself on the outside of that clause about previous attachments one of these days... So the "or better" is there, there just isn't anybody else I know for to consider right now and I don't know even know how to phrase that "or better" at this time given my realizations I can't sever and it costs me a lot to keep the bond dormant without VERY good ethical reasons and my honesty would require acknowledging the bond is there inside of me always no matter what but if I don't act on it or let it pull me to Eric, I could build a love and life elsewhere this lifetime. For that right "or better" man and choices people make to get us to that hypothetical.

2) I do think Spock is in at least early stage of kidney issues. But he was so unwell the other day I worried it was much later stage. I don't actually know for certain how bad it is or if/when I'll be needing to make choices. Haven't even made it home yet from dinner and seeing the Beatles tribute band RAIN at Overture Hall with my parents to find out how Spock is doing. We'll see how his health trajectories continue this week and hope that the other day was an anomaly of a hairball he couldn't get out.... But I dunno.  It remains a greater than 15% possibility in my estimation that Spock might not make it past this summer if his trajectory doesn't continue on the upward and/or he gets frail again. And then I'll be back in my all black emo goth girl while in the hollow again like I was after Audrey passed.  He could also have years of life ahead of him and his kidneys could be just fine he's just been thirsty and had a hairball deep in his craw yesterday and I'm overthinking and he lives to be one those nearly 30 year old cats before he passes. But it's hard to say right now, especially if he's early enough stage for proteins not to show up in bloodwork.. I've been wearing a LOT of black, mostly black with small pop of color, since I started to be concerned about Spock's health. I did let Mikaela know he gave me a scare these last couple days -- she's 19 now but he's the first cat she ever really interacted with and knew and he's been a constant for her all her life. But he seems significantly better today and is full of life and sass again and  has been holding down food just fine. (And later update: there was a poop waiting in his box for me.) I suppose it's also possible it wasn't a hairball and he picked up COVID from a neighbor in the building -- all cats are highly susceptible to covid and someone down the hall has picked up a wicked cough over the last week or so... I've actually never tested positive or had any symptoms, not even cold symptoms, since it started even after known exposures I should have had it. Closest I had was a mild histamine overproduction in me that made my body find coconut suss and I started reacting to coconut for a while making my throat and eustachian tubes in my ears itch which would negatively affected my love of curries and I decided that wasn't happening so I would take my own histamine reduction tea until I stopped reacting to random things as suss and once that chilled I could have coconut again. And I'm actually able to drink some IPAs again so my hops allergy has chilled as well! Seriously, my tea is magic if allergies or histamine production plague you. They don't even hardly plague me but it set me back right to not find coconut suss any longer. Anyway, my point was to my knowledge I've never had COVID, but the last few times bad variants were in the condo building, Spock got super sick for a couple days. So it could be that actually given the horrendous coffee one of my neighbors (I think Tony but maybe the boyfriend or a friend of the  girl with the white pitbull that lunges at Waffles.) as long as Spock stays better, he needn't affect me going to Seattle or anywhere else -- but I need to monitor him longer before I decide what was the outliers of the data set and what his current health trajectory ACTUALLY seems to be.

There was some other things I had to say but i was busy earlier. And now I'm tired and the dog is worn out of playing so we should head home. I'll post the other things later if I remember, and if I don't remember they weren't important. But now, I need to go home and go to bed.

Spock Update

So when I got home from work, he was acting like he was starving wanted treats or food but he had refused the day before. But because I'm not certain how long ago he had eaten (most likely Sunday or Monday as the last I had seen the food in his dishes go down while Waffle and I weren't home) I didn't know exactly how far into the countdown to organ failure that happens with mammals who go too long without eating. But I decided that, whether there was kidney failure or tooth pain involved, rather than start with richer wet food, I was going to try him on some water soaked kibble. (I did this for him before with a larger sized kibble when he seemed to be having a hard time with it and did it for Audrey when it was harder to get her to eat anything and growing up we would do it for older animals before a transition to soft food entirely as they aged.) My logic with water soaked kibble being that if it was his teeth are hurting him (cats can have their teeth demineralize and the body absorbs the minerals as they age and vets don't actually know why but it can be painful and lead to gingivitis and/or tooth loss) softened kibble he can eat and if it's his kidneys the extra water will help his body with flushing byproducts (this is why one of the early signs of renal damage in mammals is drinking more water) as well as keeping him hydrated and getting food into him after he was sick. I waited til I got home because if there's something an animal ate or irritable stomach causing them not to eat and/or vomit, you're supposed to remove all food for 24 hours make them fast until they're throwing up just bile and then reintroduce bland or softened food. I figured softened food was better for him because he's obligated carnivore but renal failure in cats requires a diet of less protein to be kinder to the kidneys but not below a certain level so it's not like with a dog where you give them small portions of plain rice and plain chicken as the blandest possible thing til they are keeping that down having regular bowel movements. 

Anyway. He went to it immediately, even before the food could have begun to soften, and started lapping up the water and seemed impatient for the food to soften. So I added more water to the softening food and then sprinkled catnip for him on all his scratchers. (He has only ever liked the curved scratching posts that look like sin/cos curves and only likes to scratch on the convex sides and use that as a pillow -- across his life have been periods when this shape is impossible to find and we tough it out with falling apart cardboard until I can find them again.) He ate up the catnip, scratched a bit, and then after a short nap on the catnip curve, he went and lapped up all the water then ate almost all the softened kibble. He sniffed at the hard kibble clearly wanted more, but after an upset tummy, it's important to have small amounts of food more often rather than too much all at once. (This is also true for humans and as someone with a super sensitive stomach gets stomach bug sick easily to not hold down food for several days including accidental pork cross contamination of my food (spoiler alert: if you ever want to kiss me, you will have to give up pork unless you ACTUALLY want me to throw up in your mouth from the proteins; we can't even play "you can kiss me anywhere but the mouth because you are bacon" anymore since I've developed skin sensitivity rashes from pork proteins on my skin) I find the best for humans recovering from a bout of glass stomach upset is rice with rosemary, you just mix the rosemary into the boiling water along with the rhce let them cook together. Works even better than plain rice to calm and restore an upset stomach to help you start holding down food again.)

Anyway. He's had a second small portion of soaked food and I put some of his greenies treats he didn't eat before I left for work yesterday in with some more kibble and a lot of water. I still intend to give him and the dog some soft food later today but I'm waiting to be sure he doesn't throw up the food he ate already. (it's technically the last can of soft dog food I have right now from when soft food was all I could entice Audrey to eat, but it has a best by date of May 2025. I've been told by the vet that it is fine as a treat as long as the cat eats enough of their own food and vice versa -- cat food has more antibiotics in it and dog food doesn't have high enough concentrations of some minerals cats need, but in small quantities as treats supplemental to food it's fine to cross breed share.) His energy is better and he feels less frail and the cord anchoring his soul into his body is brighter and thicker than the last couple days. Which is good. He's not yet ready to eat go, though if it's kidney disease, that doesn't improve in cats they just continuously lose greater functionality. Once past 2/3 functionality lost, there's little that can be done for them beyond dietary. I will probably pick up some of the kidney health soft food for him (because it doesn't hurt a healthy cat to have it, like if you have multiple cats,  but they may not get enough protein if they only have it for too long) and even if he does improve enough by having softened kibble that he doesn't need to go in earlier than his annual visit, when it's time to get him a new bag I might send Erin an email asking if she thinks I should switch his kibble to the kidney health formulas or if his current Fromm kibble is fine.

The biggest down side to giving him water soaked kibble is that if the animal doesn't eat it, it geta a bit funky and smells off and so there's more waste of you make too much. So I will keep his hard kibble out and just soak small amounts in water at a time. The main thing is to make sure he holds down this water softened kibble (he is smart and only eating small amounts at a time) AND that at some point soon he poops in his box or I may have to worry about an obstruction of some sort be it clogged hairball from shedding season grooming or something he ate he shouldn't have or the possibility of cancer or polyps in his gi which would be an expensive veterinary surgery fix.) I could give him fish oil (Omega 3 is actually shown to help cats who have kidney failure at all stages of it) if I think it's fur or buy him hairball reduction food/treats to help, ehrm, move things along.... But you still want to ultrasound if you suspect any sort of obstruction or growths in the gi. And that means pricey vet bills.... And between inflation and interest rates and condo association dues going up, I really don't have the buffer for affording that expense without asking family for help. So let's hope he can hold down the softened food and has a bowel movement other than pee either today or tomorrow.

Reasons I'm not (yet) too concerned about an obstruction: he doesn't have any obvious lumps or react in pain to me petting and massaging to check along his stomach, sides, and path of his gi tract -- he doesn't seem like he has a blockage...and as mentioned there are lots of other reasons cats stop eating, especially hard kibble, past the point they vomit up clear bile. Which is why you're supposed to wait til it's been more than a day or two of vomiting and not eating before you check with the vet. Which doesn't help when you're helicopter parenting your pet's habits all day, but also I do have. A lot of info what to watch for and older cats can have kidney function decline for years before it's serious enough for blood testing, special diets, phosphate binders, and vitamin supplements.

It has given a lift and a light to my heart to see him lap up the water eat the softened kibble, that he is not so clingy as he was the last few days, to see his soul light stop flickering and the cord to his body strengthen and brighten after eating, and to see him with one of his huge Cheshire grins smiling again in his sleep right now. 

It doesn't mean I shouldn't keep monitoring for the signs of slowly declining kidney function in him -- but knowing he's eating softened food to reset the clock on starving/other organ failure issues and to feel his hold on his body strengthened not so frail is a better place to be today than the heartsick helpless of yesterday when we had to let his tummy rest til I knew he had 24hr fasted and then try offering him the softened kibble.

O. Also I forgot to mention the most heart breakingly adorable thing about Spock being sick yesterday throwing up frothy bile three times throughout the day. (I know that doesn't sound like anything could be adorable about it, but there was.)

So, whenever I'm home and he has a hairball, I either move him or ask him to move to one of the rugs that are easy for me to clean by throwing in the washing machine. And so each time today he was throwing up (or trying to get up the hairball, still not sure which) he would patiently walk over to the throw rugs that I can wash and get sick there rather than on the large oriental rug or the carpets or my bedding which aren't as easy to clean. And then he would just give me the sweetest saddest look of love like, "That was gross and not fun at all. But. Did you see? I did like you asked when that happens mum. It was hard, but I did it." I gave him lots of love and snuggles and praised him for remembering even though he didn't feel good every time he did it, because what else could I do? 

I gave him most of yesterday for snuggles, didn't even go into work until late when his energy seemed better but still frail. And now that he's lapping up food flavored water and eating water softened food and his soul cord to his body is brighter and stronger, I'm less worried about him than I have been these last couple days. 

I will shower later, some point after 9:30, since we're already in the range of people showering before work. And at some point I will make some breakfast and coffee though not yet. I'm still in quiet slow relaxing into the morning tea with the sunrise to Greer the new day and reading mode. Waffles is still passed out asleep in her kennel didn't even wake up when I went to check on her ask if she needed out for some water or wanted to keep us company while I read so not taking her on a walk yet (and maybe not at all depending on when the rain arrives -- the Cancerian beagle-dachshund-terrier mix pup needs a lot of sleep self care time alone in her kennel even introverting away from those she loves best in the world, in addition to her need of snuggles and kisses and being told frequently just how much she is loved.) My other plans for the day besides shower and breakfast/coffee and keeping an eye on how Spock is doing are to finish reshelving the book stacks, make both types of histamine relief tea for my mum and Crissy who are both out, plant some water rooted photos, check if mine need haircuts to snip and start rooting long sections without any leaves and to water all the green babies, do some basic cleaning chores that I've been neglecting and don't want to do but if I don't do them nobody will. And somewhere around 4ish I will head to work with Waffles so she can visit everyone and then run some energy off and have dinner before being kennelled with her Billy Joel music while I go "run errands" for a bit. And by errands, I mean downtown to meet up with my parents for dinner at Tipsy Cow followed by seeing Rain The Beatles Tribute at Overture. But we tell the dogs we have to go run errands they can't come with and if it's me I give them a time frame to expect me and instructions on whether they're staying by themselves at work or who they're going with and how long til they should expect me back to pick them up. 

That's more or less the plan for the day. It may shift dramatically, but that's what I current have on my "the moon is in Virgo so have to get all the things done to tidy up my home" to do list for today. (I've said it before, but I am more impacted by the sign the moon is in than the phase as far as affecting my inner emotional tides and my will to action. Fire moons make me restless need to go do something, earth moons I am most grounded practical getting tasks done successful at adulting, air moons I am my most gregarious extroverted, and water moons I am the most introverted deepest in my feeling everything all at once.  I am the most centered grounded best for me for adulting are Virgo moons and Capricorn moons are my most productive, followed by Aries moons for starting tasks and Scorpio for deep diving tasks. I am most lazy least likely to get anything productive done during Taurus, Leo, and Libra moons, during those moons I mostly want to sleep a lot and enjoy all the good things in life and spend time with good people.  I am the most loving, dreamy, intuitive spiritually connected in Pisces, Libra, Scorpio, and Cancer moons though the water moons can make any/all feelings/anxieties overwhelming to me. I am the most scattered ADHD all over the place starting tasks I never finish during Gemini, Sagittarius, and Aquarius moons.... I didn't see and recognize the patterns of my energetic tides til I was in my 30s but once I did, I thought it random in my teens and twenties, I started keeping an eye on where the moon is beyond just the phases and it has helped me immensely in dealing with the otherwise random seeming shifts in energy flows.) 

Anyway. Virgo moon. I have plants and animals and self to care for today and magical herbal tea blends to make for the healing of loved ones and cleaning my home that won't get done unless I do it. So more doing less screen time, even if it's at least tapping out this update rather than doom scrolling social media.

P. S. 7:30ish addendum, maybe as late as 7:45: 

So while reshelving the last of the nonfiction, I made enough noise to wake up Waffles who then wanted to come out. She came, she asked for breakfast, she lapped up water, looked outside at the gray day huffed at it, tried to settle down in her bed by me reading, then stood looking down the hallway toward the bedroom plaintively asked to go back to her kennel unless I was planning to go sleep so she could pack snuggle sleep. But the funniest part was before the dog decided today wasn't yet worth being awake for so she would like some more sleep time and it was Spock having some of his usual spunk and sass back. Because the moment he saw Waffles, he came over meowing for a treat remembering that I had promised him they would both have some soft food later today once she was up. So I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Yes you're right she's up. But it's too soon for soft food for you sir. You'll get some later today, but you'll need to wait til it's been long enough I don't fear you have an obstruction will throw up everything you ate OR I need you to go poop in your box. As soon as you have pooped, I will gladly give you both a portion of soft food. Otherwise, you will just have to wait." He looked shocked that was no part of the promise as he had understood it and affronted by my coarseness speaking of such things as poop to a superior species such as himself -- and then he decided that he would lap up some of the food flavored water I had just refilled for him but just to show me and the dog he was fine and his bowels were fine and no reason not to have soft food sooner, he started in on eating his bowl of kibble just like usual. 😆 

It was the most bristlingly defiant I have ever seen an animal eat their own kibble from their own bowl. But if it helps him move his bowels sooner to prove to me there's no major obstruction, then we can all be pleased by the animals getting soft food earlier than expected. He's currently watching the birds flitting about the choke cherry tree out the balcony door wishing I would open it to add sound and smell-o-vision to his favorite show. Then from there it was right back up to my lap and kneading my leg before curling up for a purr and a snuggle once I sat down to read some more.  He's so torn between proving to me he's better now that I challenged him and milking the perks of illness/convalescence for all it's worth. 😂

 I'm concerned that Spock may be entering chronic kidney disease (it affects 81% of cats over 15, he is now over 15) which is eventually fatal, you can have months to years of life remaining after diagnosis, and there's not much you can do for it even after the blood test at the vet to confirm beyond change of diet to one easier for the kidneys and additional supplements for what their body easy not absorbing from the diet and phosphate binders if they have too much phosphorus remaining in their bloodstream. We talked about it in the fall at his last vet visit and he didn't have the blood screening markers at that time (we were more concerned he might be developing early glaucoma because he had uneven pupil dilation, but due to his loss of weight and him eating less after Audrey died, Erin and I discussed monitoring him for signs of kidney failure and discussed what my options look like when he develops it. (With cats over 15, it's really a matter of when not if, unless something else kills them first.)  He's been drinking a lot more water over this winter which is a coping mechanism of cats in early stages of kidney failure. He's been very snuggly, he's not hiding from me just the opposite he doesn't want me to leave or to be far from me, which means he isn't currently in pain. But today he started vomiting clear frothy bile and I haven't seen him eating much today and he hasn't pooped since Tuesday morning and he usually does once every day. I'm going to wait a little longer to reach out to Erin, mostly because I cant afford more vet bills right now especially since this is a property tax bills month (my county allows you to pay all at once or break it into four installments every other month across the start of the year) and I already expect the news I will get if I take him in to be tested and there's limits to how much the vet can help with older animals, and see if he does start eating and pooping again because it's not been very long and it's possible that the vomiting is just a hairball he hasn't got up yet. I'm also going to try giving both pets some wet food tonight because I have some cans that need to be eaten on the sooner side and that I was saving. It's possible that Spock is having tooth pain and not eating his kibble as a result and he's throwing up because he's hungry but can't chew the food he has right now. But most likely it's kidney disease, as vague as the symptoms are, he has them all like a checklist. (similar to me having everything as a checklist but the heart issues of hEDS without an official diagnosis but hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos makes a LOT more sense of my many never diagnosed no matter how many times I went in for it starting in elementary school of things varying from having 2/3 the cartilage I should in my joints, how easily my shoulders subluxate (including if I sleep on it wrong), how I can bend my fingers way backward at every joint but never get them to pop, my extreme double jointedness in my fingers/thumb/palm, how hypermobile I am in every joint but especially my arms/hands, my extremely translucent see through very stretchy skin that bruises easily, fainting for no reason (was literally diagnosed in high school after a very long New Year's Eve in the ER as a woman between 12 and 35 in perfect health who has fainting spells for no medically discernible reason), the migraines that come down the same sides of mum's family who have the hEDS issues, etc.etc. Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome has only had a genetic test for a handful of years and isn't that well understood and I got tired of going in with clear issues being told there's nothing wrong with me according to their tests even when they can clearly see there's something wrong with whatever I went in for and once healthcare got so expensive with copays and moops and having to pay thousands out of pocket before things are even fully covered, I just decided "fuck it, I'll live with it, I don't need a proper diagnosis name for that much money" and there isn't anyhing DONE for an hEDS diagnosis other than techniques to mitigate the symptoms of it which I've already learned in my coping mechanisms with the migraines and fainting spells and the shoulder instability issues if I overstrain it like if told to push my hypermobile flexibility in dance or hot yoga with teachers who emphasize competitive increased flexibility rather than knowing how to deal with people who are seeking balanced stability in strength training for the hypermobile. I've had to learn how to tell an instructor no or leave them if they can't recognize the difference between hypermobile joints and muscular flexibility that can/should be pushed to develop further. Because they're not the same thing and you will seriously damage someone with hypermobile joints if you keep trying to push their hypermobile joints to the edge of popping them out of the sockets.)

Anyway. I'm very worried about my elderly cat, if you hadn't noticed. He's now the second oldest living house pet I know since Morgan died a week ago. The only cat/dog I know who is older than him is Mia, the 16 year old cat of one of my friends who used to live in Detroit area now lives in Gettysburg (one sister moved to Hawaii and the other moved to Gettysburg a year or two ago when their da needed to sell the house they were living in to help pay for their mum's medical bills; so I no longer have friends to stay with and visit in the Detroit area.)  But Mia is on meds for some serious conditions and has had some major kidney failure related scares over the last year. Most of the cats we've ever had, 21.5 and then 17-18 is the oldest they've lived and I tend to figure that with any pet, as hard as it is to face every year past a decade with them are bonus years. But anyway, I'm worrying about how much longer my sweet Spocky boy has... But just as Audrey was the oldest pet I knew for the last year or so of her life, Spock is now at the point that he is pretty near the oldest pet I know. He doesn't want as elaborate a burial as Audrey, he just wants to be buried with her. And when mum asked me last night at the wine bar, "practically speaking, when can we move the stumps off Audrey's grave?" I told her straight up and in the witchiest possible tone of voice and all the lights flicker in the building, "We can move the stumps when it's time to bury Spock with Audrey." and she was just mildly stunned finally said, "Wow. That was a lot darker answer than I expected. I just meant that the ash stumps aren't the most aesthetic there." The table next to us left almost immediately after that. They had finished their wine and were maybe just ready to leave generally, but oops. 

At least my hair has grown out enough since last year that I can cut off a braid to bury with Spock as well like I did with his canine sister. Though I'd rather have longer with him, but we shall see. He's just been feeling very frail over the last couple month or so.

If it comes to it, I don't know how long before I would get another cat once Spock passes. As you may have noticed, other than Audrey Pupburn my Pisces pup who visited me in dreams told me to start looking for her to be born before she was born and told me exactly what she'd look like and when/where to find her, most of my pets are ones who find me and need a home. Even Spock was an animal in need of rehoming from the roommate of an acquaintance friend because Colby (the other kitten she owned) started attacking Spock for no reason at all.

Also, I've continued to have vivid dreams/nightmares that are all lucid dreams in the modern world rather than shamanic dream space spirit realm walking dreams all week with all these x flares all week (I think something like 13 x flares this week) and going from fine to suddenly dizzy/lightheaded if I try to stand up and that ALWAYS lines up when I check the space weather sites for when the x flares reach earth -- it's made sleeping more exhausting than restful even though sleeping more than my usual this week.  Which hasn't helped me from being in my head and pouring too much of my healing energy into my cat and worrying about my piano loving book guarding Taurus kitty who is feeling very frail lately. Unless all that healing energy I poured into him can get a drastic turn around in the next 24-48 hours, if you want to play piano for him, you may be running out of time. On verra. Maybe he's just feeling the x flares as well -- cats are known for their sensitivity to energy shifts. But also, it's been a while since me petting him has static charged him.

I'm at work tonight to make sure I water the melodramatic plants and get all my hours in for the week but I'm not planning to stay super late. And then tomorrow night I'm headed downtown to see a Beatles cover band thing with my parents at Overture Hall that my mum decided to pickup tickets to. And I should have more than enough hours to not have to come in for long on Friday (other than coming in right after work closes since Crissy is stopping by after work to see the doggos and for me to give her some more of my magical histamine/bronchial inflammation relief tea. And it is a blend of my own making and it is VERY magical and it works when nothing else will for people -- I developed it after I noticed how many people were having mast cell dysregulation and excess histamine building up in their body after they were "recovered" from covid. The main thing to know is you can't take it as PREVENTATIVE because it isn't a histamine BLOCKER like antihistamine drugs that bind to histamine receptors to give you relief, it's using plants with enzymes that destroy excess histamine in your body when your own body is producing excess histamine OR failing to produce sufficient enzymes in your mast cells to break down your natural levels of histamine so it's building up in your system. Thus you can't take it proactively against allergy season, you take it when you recognize the symptoms of excess histamine in your body causing inflammation and you want to reduce the histamine in your system. That was my goal in making it -- because it doesn't do you much long-term good other than to keep you dependent on the drugs to function when you  block the receptors if the histamine is still bouncing about your body because your body can't break it down as fast as it's accumulating in your body. Anyway, it's a magical blend and even people who don't like hot drinks will make this tea when they have a stubborn cough or suddenly having too much histamine all the time or allergic reactions to things they never were allergic to before. I'm actually really happy when I get to come up with tea blends that help people with their issues -- even Mikaela has commented on it. I would be perfectly happy having a cottage in the woods with a big herb garden and mixing up tea blends and distilling botanical gins and whiskey (mostly because I like to drink whiskey) to pay the bills. I've considered selling my tea blends, but because I don't grow my own herbs at this time as I can only grow plants in containers or out in the flower bed, there's questions of certifying and where I make my tea for sale instead of just for friends/family and also I'm not sure there's that much profit margin in selling my tea blends once I've created them right now. Anyway, my magical blue histamine relief tea I make in two forms, my original recipe and then a second one I developed for my maman with linden flowers as an expectorant for when the lungs need to be cleared. I'm not sure how to EXPLAIN my process for it other than I need people to talk to me about what their problem is they need a tea for and I need to meditate on it and ask questions about when/how it started to get to the root causes not just the symptoms and then develop the herbal blend from my knowledge of biochemistry and medicinal plants (both of which are things I read for fun.)  My magical histamine relief tea is also just tasty in its own right, but my mum, Crissy, and Mikaela use it very frequently. It's also a very pretty color.)  I am planning to come in get a lot of plant work done over the weekend while it's beautiful outside including moving plants from inside to outside, but obviously if Spock continues to not be doing well over the next couple days, I will choose to spend time with him and some of the plants and garden work can wait a little longer. The weeds won't mind if I give them some extra days while I spend time with my old cat.

I'm gonna go water those plants that need it or they will get melodramatic drop leaves and then finish the inputting of what I scanned in earlier before checking my hours deciding how many more to put in tonight versus if I need to do any on Friday (when I need to come in anyway in the evening.)  I do hope it's not kidney failure with Spocky, but my gut instinct tells me it is and that he's closer to his finite time being up than I would like him to be. He is already over 15 after all... On verra. Maybe I'm borrowing trouble overthinking and watching closely for the signs because I know to be watching for him given his age so any little blip in his water/food habits seems like a bigger deal to me than if I weren't watching him so closely.

P.S. Ahh yes, just saw the news: a head of state in a small not well known nation in Europe is (attempted) assassination when tensions are high and there's already war by proxy between the allied forces and the aggrandizing despot(s) -- who has ever seen that script before in world geopolitics?..... *eyeroll*

 I. Want. A. Future. Of. Reunion. With. Eric.

That's it. That's my whole point and all I really want to say before I go shower. (Sunrise ain't gonna be much but a lightening of the grey today due to the Canadian wildfire smoke across MN/WI that moved in yesterday. So I plan to shower rather than watch the grey shift to another shade of grey.) 

I want that future. More than I want anything else. I want it in the present too, but I'd rather have it last so if that means waiting on the future, then I can be okay with it. (But preferably maybe not TOOOO long in the future, please and thank you and sprinkles on top ) 

And I think that we wrong ourselves when we get in the way of blocking our own paths that get us there. We've both been guilty of it and it's stupid and needs to stop. We both deserve better. 

That's what I think. And that's what I want, even if sometimes I try to sacrifice what I want for what I think to be right, it's still always what I want. 

And right now, I very much want to wrap my arms around him and tell him, "Hi. I love you. And I miss you. And can we try to find a path together from here?" And then kiss him until there's no other answer for either of us except yes. 

I can't do that right now, because the laws of physics and quantum entanglement allow for entangled energies (and what are souls if not energies) but doesn't extend to larger conglomerates of atoms being in two places simultaneously and there's physical separation between us right in this small section of space-time we are all in. So he's not here and I'm not there in this current passing moment of time. But we won't always be in this space-time quickly passing now. There doesn't always need to be physical separation between our bodies. And honestly, there shouldn't be so much separation in our bodies. I just am feeling that quantum entanglement between our souls ain't enough and we are idiots for not both choosing each other consistently enough to have solved this. 

That was it.

I just wanted to be very clear where I stand on the matter of what it is I want. 

I want a future of reunion between us. I understand I can't (yet) have it be my present, but can't the future come any sooner than a someday undefined and never quite reached? C'mon now. What is it gonna take to make that happen make it real? 

Okay. I'm gonna go shower now before the neighbors in the other condo units use up all the hot water in the building and I have to wait on the water heater to make more after people leave for work. But think about it. Get back to me on how we shorten the "future" gap time between this present now and the now where we can share our truths about what we actually want. There's too many nows in that gap, let's reduce the number of them if we can do so without jeopardizing the longevity of the reunion lasting, k? K! 

P. S. Um, so much for the showering idea.... Literally just as I finished that last thought Spock jumped up on my lap purring and kneading me and wanting to curl up for a snuggle. And he's already 15 so I don't take for granted any snuggles with my piano loving old cat with the softest fur I've ever felt on a cat and the most perfect natural eyeliner makes every woman jealous of it. I guess showering can wait til later in the morning. I don't actually HAVE to be anywhere til this evening meeting my mum and Crissy and going over to Grapewater for some wine and pizza to use up the money my mum has to spend there -- and the air quality is still bad enough that this canary really shouldn't take Waffles on a long walk or anything today given the Canadian wildfire smoke persisting. Guess I'll have to read some more and let the cat cuddle and love me right now. 

P. P. S. I am serious though about the clarity and bright shining certainty of what I want. I may get confused about how to get there and I may make a mess of things when I get it into my head doubting he wants me too which creates an ethics conflict in me I solve by giving him up to pursue what I get to thinking he wants..... But as to what I want, that's always been brilliantly clear to me. It's getting to it that's where the uncertainty and doubts happen. But never in what it is that I most truly WANT. The steadfastness in the wanting is the easy part, the finding the path to make it real is where we seem to struggle.... 

P. P. P. S. I mean, I know that you're supposed to tell the Universe, "I want an experience like this or better" and not get so caught up on one person or path as the means of getting it... But I don't even know how to include in asking the option for someone else or think they could be better because all this life he's the one in dream space and can reach down the bond reach me in even my inmost tranquility to make me feel his emotions hear his songs that echo through him and between us. Because how could I ethically build something true that doesn't have a lie in the foundations with anyone else when the pull of the bond to Eric exists in the core of me and can't be severed?

P. P. P. P. S. Frankly, it would be easier if we could skip to the part where we can wrap our arms around each other and say, "Hi. I love you. And I miss you. And can we try to find a path together from here?" and then just kiss each other until the only answer is yes and all the overthinking disappears.  That would be easier I think.

 O I have no idea what any of those dreams about. Maybe they make sense to someone else, but they made no sense to me... 

Like, I have no reason to think he has colorful tattoos, I think it was more symbolic about my reaction to a behavior pattern of covering up the past and showing the ways you try to hide it isn't the same sort of honesty and vulnerability as doing the hard shadow work of acknowledging it as part of your truth that made you who you are and integrating it into who you are and who you are choosing to become. I don't even have any reason to think he's doing that (I mean, if he is, I hope he can recognize the difference between burying and facing the past selves, for his sake -- there's no healing in burying. Not ever. Healing comes from what you face and learn from, never what you run from or try to hide from sight) but what was really intense in the dream was my emotional reactions to it and my conclusion that I should lean into the things that are real and tangible. It wasn't a walking away so much as "this is disappointing and while he's in this energy I'm going to focus on investing my time/energy into what's real and good rather than into whatever this is." But I have NO idea why my subconscious decided to have a dream like that.

The house sitting mansion one that I kept returning into every time I fell back asleep I have even less idea what it meant. Like, it was a SAGA of a dream and I couldn't escape it by waking up and then going back to sleep -- I just kept returning to it like a paused save point in a game. And that was such a strange dream.... All I know is that the energies that kept checking in to make sure the mansion I was house sitting wouldn't fall on/under/around me were ready to pull me out the MOMENT this somehow got unsafe for me -- but I insisted I needed to find more information about what I was uncovering in the building next door.It was a pretty awesome mansion in dream space -- at least it was until everything shook and it started falling apart having parts of it just disappear into the chasms/abysses opened up by the "earthquake" that wasn't an actual earthquake. I also don't know what that quake symbolizes, though I have a decent idea as to what I'm house sitting and who the officials checking in on me and the cleaning staff are...

No idea what it was about, but I returned to the mansion house sitting dream AGAIN when I slept more last night.... (I haven't slept at all tonight. I was planning to go home whenever I finished with the plants, but I was giving all the pothos their Spring haircuts and rooting the new cuttings and planting the already rooted cuttings while watering alllll the plants and a stranger walked right up to the window and held up their phone or something and I just shook my head and they walked away around the end of the building. but it was unexpected and it made me slightly anxious edgy not wanting to head home without knowing where the random stranger disappeared to or who he was... So I decided that the dog and I would just stay at work and get stuff done until after sunrise so it will be safer for me leaving. And sunrise is 5:37 now (first light is 5:04) so it only added another three hours or so than if I'd left at 2am or so which is when I actually finished with the plants.  And surprisingly, Waffles has just been curled up asleep at work hasn't even asked about heading home. I'll trust the instinct not to go home til the sun is up.) 

Anyway, I have done a lot with plants over the weekend and my plan for today after I get home after sunrise is to take care of my plants at home and then see if I'm wanting to go to bed across the morning or if I'm going to make me some breakfast and then see how the day unfolds. (It's going to rain across the afternoon so won't get more done outside and the things I need to plant and move outside need to wait til Wednesday because it's going to get into low 40s across Tues night/Weds morning.) So I have nowhere to be until the evening if I so choose (especially since I got like 26 hours of my 40 in for the week across this weekend) when Mum and I are going to a mystery movie in the evening, she randomly decided it could be fun picked up tickets for this Monday and next to screen unreleased R rated movies that aren't horror but you don't know what it is until you show up for it. Also Tuesday night I think mum and Crissy and I are going to Grapewater (a wine bar) in the evening to use up some of her mad city groupon type money she has there and Tipsy Cow (that need to be used up by June 4 -- I think she also has some for Essen Haus for brunch) and then Thurs evening my mum decided to pickup tickets at overture Hall for my parents and me to go see Rain which is apparently a Beatles tribute band?... For someone stressing about not having time for all the things before the addition of a drive out to Montana and back for the last week of the month, she keeps adding random things to do.) And that means none of those three nights will I be working late to worry about the random guy... And the work I need to do outside (weeding in the bed, planting seedlings/seeds, moving plants outside for the summer, repairing vs discarding raised beds/planters, etc.) is all daytime work anyway.  I do still need to go flower shopping for the planters out front, but I won't do that until Sarah and Mikaela get back from Michigan where they are at a time share with Sarah's mom and step-dad. Sarah and Mikaela get back Saturday, which is when Crissy leaves for Kansas City for DI Globals (I start daily checking in on Henry cat sitting for her on Sunday through next Saturday since she leaves this Saturday and gets back Sunday the 26) and then my parents are out of town the 25-June 2. 

I haven't yet booked any flights to/from Seattle. I need to talk to my rides and figure out if it's actually a terrible idea to go so soon after their major house renovation giving the off gassing.  Though I do want to see how it turned out and how it looks... And I would like to make the place safe for the kiddos with gifts but no training in their own defenses. But the thing is, I recognize it will be like two years for the formaldehyde off gassing to finish, and I'm not going to wait THAT long -- but the first several months after construction and renovations have the highest VOC and they JUST finished the construction work end of April so it's very actively all still off gassing. And given my sensitivity to VOC causing me migraines, dizziness/syncope, and nausea/vomiting issues, I don't think going to visit within the two months window of having just finished the construction is a smart choice. I mean, it's probably a smarter choice than going out to the woods by myself in the middle of the night yelling into the void, "Come at me bro! Bring it!" when I know almost nothing about the entity in question or how powerful it is.... But like, that's a very VERY low bar of stupid plans for myself and just because having the canary visit a freshly off gassing renovated house is LESS stupid than being alone in the woods calling any spirit to come at me doesn't put it on the scale of GOOD ideas. Like, on a scale from bad ideas to good ideas of plans I should make for myself, BOTH potential plans are pretty close to the bad idea bottom end of the scale.  I just have to figure out how to tell my sister that actually the June gap won't work so best I can do for my next visit is the fall... That would be easier if I suddenly had plans in there. I don't, but it would make it easier to not lie but not have to give the actual reason I hesitate over timing so soon as much as I miss them all. Anyone want to suddenly need me and make plans with me mid to late June so I can tell my sister I'm sorry I just can't make it to visit her til fall at the earliest?

Also. I'm running low on my laundry strips but I've been reading recently that they actually do create some microplastic pollution, especially if you wash in cold water not hot. (I tend to use cold water for most things except socks and skivvies and household linens.) So even though it's LESS plastic waste than the jugs of liquid detergent I used to use, I don't like the thought of adding microplastics into the water systems.... I'm considering trying the laundry powder from etee (I've been using their beeswax wraps instead of plastics for over a decade as well as some of their other products.) I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about it, and I know Blueland makes a non plastic strip form of detergent but I'm thinking that etee powder might be the next route I go for laundry detergent. I also haven't yet found shampoo/conditioner/curl cream that ACTUALLY works for curly hair textures that don't come in plastic bottles/containers. I WANT to switch to something like bar shampoo/conditioner, but it just doesn't work well for longer curly hair from every curly girl reviews I've read who have tried it... There has to be something to help me reduce the plastic footprint of my haircare products for my arguably difficult hair type to find ANY products that work well with it (it's one of the few areas where I do still have to by my products in plastic.)

I'm a bit in my head right now aren't I? I'll get out of it, eventually, but it's where I am for now.

O, and. This week Astro Poets changed up the theme no longer seem linked between Libra and Pisces after having been so practically all year. Maybe they still are and I don't see it?... But they don't seem to be to my eye. Thought both still fit me. So I'll probably stop sharing them from here out. But here's last week (since I never shared it) and this week for both. Last week was still on the theme and seemed linked, but not so much this week....

"Week of 5/5 in Libra: Paths of understanding. That’s what you bring now with your grace. Purple and blue through time. That is the immensity of love. That’s how deeply you love now."

"Week of 5/5 in Pisces: You knew not what you felt. That’s entirely of service to the dream. You created an immense moment. Then you went in it. Then you went it in cause why not."

"Week of 5/12 in Libra: If it’s anything then it will be nothing. You can make the day this way. If it’s anything then why not make it be everything. You hardly have seen the blue. It goes on forever."

"Week of 5/12 in Pisces: The past is forgiven and so it goes. Everything that can be held. There’s nothing that you won’t know now. So much so that it falls backward. So much so that it makes words." 

 Anyway. See what I mean they don't really appear to be talking to each other or about the same themes this week? Though maybe they do and this is just a strange little bivouac and next week will be right back on track (in which case you'll go back to getting them.) 

Good news: skies are lightening and so after I finish this cuppa tea and clean up after it, the pups and I can head home relatively soon. 

 I slept like 18 hours yesterday because I was motion sensitive light headedness mild migraine every time I tried to get up earlier in the day so I decided just to let me rest so my body could deal with that -- because if I don't baby early migraine, it goes full blown dry heaving every time I move if I try to stoic push through it....  Yep, my own body turns renegade on me when I go too stoic "I can endure this" rather than basic self care listening to what I actually want/need. So y'know, maybe one of these days I will ACTUALLY learn to prioritize taking care of myself and my own needs higher than literally everything else I feel I ought to/have to rank higher. It also gets in the way of the creativity that keeps me sane and is my real work -- because living by myself and without the extra income to hire cleaning service, I have to do all the cleaning and chores myself which means that sometimes when I sit down to do a want to there's the guilt driven "ought tos" that descend on my brain asking for priority and then adhd executive dysfunction kicks in and I can't figure out how to get me to do ANYTHING because I can't make me do the ought tos but I feel guilty doing the want tos and procrastinating the shoulds.... It's like if I could re-code in my brain the "time doesn't exist anymore" creative needs as have tos not want tos, it would be easier because then AFTER I got it all out of my system THEN I could easily switch form the finished (for now) have to and do another have to task but as soon as it's a matter of prioritizing or feeling external judgement I've internalized "how dare you spend so much time on something frivolously selfish you could do later instead of doing the tasks and chores you need to get done" it completely derails my executive function to do anything other than play mindless games on my phone until I have enough dopamine to make me stop feeling like a shitty failure at independent humaning so I can make me get up to make tea and get some chores and cleaning done while waiting on the water to boil and the tea to steep.... I need to be better at prioritizing myself and what brings me joy rather than trying to stoicly accept "I can make do" and focusing on the ought tos rather than the desire tos.... I'm working on it, but also I've learned that my migraines will quite literally punish me if I don't coddle them when they're baby early prodrome symptoms and then whollop me physically incapacitate me if I ignore them try to keep doing what I "have to do before I can let me rest." (This life, my north node is actually in Taurus, slow growth sensual enjoyment of creativity and beauty and aliveness here on this fecund Earth.)  But anyway, bad sleep habits lead to migraines which lead to disregulated sleep habits, I know. Also solar weather can be a migraine trigger for me and lots of others with strong spiritual gifts, especially in the phase where the cme are hitting but the atmosphere isn't yet lit up ringing like a bell -- I get a surge of energy running through me, then exhausted, then when I wake up have motion sensitivity and auras feels like the migraines when I overuse my gifts, like an electrical storm inside my head that needs to dissipate. And I DID get that massive surge of power running through me so strong it locked up my machine only a hard reboot could get it working again. I did go see Lady Aurora in the middle of the night, but I didn't take any pictures. As someone who follows auroras and space weather all the time and has for decades, the hordes of people out trying to view last night were off putting. Also, during the peak of the colors, it was raining here. 

I did get up and take some pain meds to make sure I could be functional by 6am or so to make sure to meet up with Crissy for Farmer's Market. She is gone the next two Saturdays and the Saturday after that is the morning between getting home late from Frank Turner in Chicago on a Fri night then driving up to Minne for Frank Turner show on Saturday -- and there's no way that anyone will still be selling tomato plant starters in the second weekend of June.... We succeeded in getting all the types of tomatoes, sweeter peppers, AND nasturtiums at the three vendors I was hoping to find them. [There's a place that sells hot peppers and hot sauces and salsas, but their hot peppers are never as healthy or spicy as the death pepper varietals I get at Fitchburg Farms.

After I was back for a bit and had eaten  about half my double olive focaccia from Origin Breads, I got some gardening stuff done but then once again got surge of energy then exhausted then motion sensitive again this afternoon so I went inside to sit down work at my desk for a bit til it improved. I did have the wildest most vivid dreams sleeping during these solar storms...  When I meditated on the sun spot that's causing all the activity flinging energetic electron plasma ball goo at the Earth, I watched it burble heard in my head it singing what my subconscious translated into the Queen song Who Wants To Live Forever and it's been stuck in my head ever since. No clue if it's the feelings of the overheated area of the sun or a message for the planet in the direct line of fire from it. At another point, when I closed my eyes meditated on the sun itself generally, the song the sun was singing translated into my brain as the Journey song Wheel In The Sky. 

There were some other very very weird dreams. No angels or gods or fey, they're all too busy to visit with me in dream space right now. Not even in shamanic shared dream space, just in my internal lucid dreaming personal dream space dreams. Like one about me randomly house sitting an old mansion and on the morning while the maids were there, something happened that caused structural damage and we didn't know if it was safe to be there or had to evacuate but it wasn't an earthquake like had been reported, it was some sort of espionage sabotage attack in the building next door with the restaurant that was a front for the group that did it and I somehow Nancy Drew-ed uncovered the truth of it while not being sure if I was safer in the  mansion with the madis/servants stuck with me or if the foundations were so precarious we needed to flee and so shouting to the people assessing the structural integrity and giving them what I had uncovered about what was going on next door so they could pass it on to the appropriate authorities.... That one was very convoluted and I kept waking up out of it falling right back into that lucid dream so whatever it meant, it was a tenacious beast. Clearly symbolic but not shamanic dream space dreams -- very real world derived lucid dreaming type. 

The only one that definitively had to do with Eric was one where I was for some reason sitting at home in my own living room watching while he was doing like a social media video (which I was for some reason watching even though I don't have tiktok and do not follow him on insta anymore) in which he was rejoicing in his willingness to be so honest and real with his followers by showing the way he covers and hides and puts makeup over his tattoos that he had in the dream. Like, in this dream he had very vivid large colorful sleeves of tattoos of things he had once loved and believed in. But they were tattoos that were like Dorian Grey type but if his skin was the canvas in that, for whatever reason he couldn't remove them or alter them and they were all representative of choices made by past versions of himself that he no longer resonated with and that's why he didn't like showing or sharing them had to cover them up  And I just remember my dream self being so incredibly confused wondering, "But how are you being transparently honest and clear about who you ARE by covering up who you have BEEN? How is showing people how you camouflage your past showing them your bare skinned truth of self? I'm so confused how you think showing the ways you cover up who you have been is honesty about who you are now? What even sort of logic is this to talk about how proud you are about being so honest with people about how you cover up past choices rather than just owning the past and saying, 'athis is who I was and no longer who I am, but I'd never have become who I am if I hadn't gone through those past versions of me.' Like, how is this a standard of honesty to share how you cover up the past rather than do the work to accept and integrate it into your own current self so you can learn not to repeat it and grow into who you want to be?" And I got so confused and disappointed in the bypassing of it that I turned off whatever form of social media I had been watching to see it and decided to plug the phone in go outside feel the sun and breeze on my skin and sit by a tree and drink my coffee watch the birds and find the things that are truly sensory real to lean into -- and I woke up out of that dream as my dream self stepped out into the sunlight cradling the hot cup of coffee in my palm and inviting the dog to join me on my balcony before I closed the door again to keep the cat inside. Mostly I just remember being sooooo overwhelmingly confused and disappointed in him choosing bypassing instead of the shadow work and calling it the most honest he's ever been. And I get that it was my subconscious trying to use a physical metaphor for the spiritual/ethical bypassing that some people call progress of covering up the versions of themself they no longer are or that shame them... But I have no idea why my subconscious under the influence of the solar storms pouring in was giving me this metaphor about him and who he is and where he is right now. because I have no reasons to think that, my brain just created this lucid dream. 

Unrelated to my migraines or bad habits speaking unkindly to myself in the name of stoicism/internalized morality of society or my crazy solar storm generated dreams.... Because my parents are just doing their quick trip out to Montana not visiting my sister's family in Seattle area, my sister and brother-in-law are back to prodding me about when I am coming to visit them all next. (I had put them off me making solid decisions until after my parents booked their Spring Montana trip because I didn't want to "steal" her dates and have it be a thing....) Anyway, so I mentioned that because I had nobody to go to the Chicago Billy Joel concert with me on June 21, I actually had a TINY gap to consider between June 9-25 with the understanding that I have concert tickets June 8 AND June 25 I have to be back to take grandma to a podiatry appointment and for first Concerts on the Square on June 26. (Then APT tickets for Wolf at the Door on the 27, then All-American Rejects show in Milwaukee at Summerfest on the 28.)  It would be rather stressful to throw in going to see them then, but starting last night they began trying to find me flight deals and today are offering to use their Alaska credit to make that leg of the flight even cheaper. A direct on Alaska morning of June 11 out of Milwaukee (which is a Tuesday, because on the way taking me to the airport, my sister asked the kiddos when I should come back and Monroe told me when I flew out on Sunday night that I should come back Monday then paused said, "No. I have a play date with Joanna on Monday. Come back on Tuesday." And we all laughed really hard and finally I said, "I can't come back THIS Tuesday sweetling, I have tickets for a show that night, but I can try to fly back on A Tuesday for you." So now it's just a funny thing that I need to come back on a Tuesday my next visit for Mo's sake) and then a Southwest flight on the 24 with an overnight layover in Denver again to get me home morning of the 25. I've put them off for now that I need to check in with my potential rides to/from Milwaukee. It will make my June go from relaxing before the madness of all the shows in July and Irishfest season the first three weekends of August AND it would definitely shut down any possibility of even considering the "driveably close" house shows on the Too Late tour nearish me but week nights or a lot of hours to back and forth (the reasons they are currently not considered options) because I'd be on the other side of the continental divide just when his tour brings him anywhere close to within 100 miles or so of me.... But I think part of the unspoken isn't just missing me, but my atheist sister wants me to grid and bless and protect their house again now that they're back home after the third floor addition rennovation is complete -- which I WANT to do for the sake of the kids who have untrained gifts and no idea how to protect themselves other than Monroe being able to see my energy line grids I leave and tries to copy them from what she sees. But also, I'm hesitant to go so soon because I'm super busy right before and after AND new paint/adhesives curing release tons of voc and I'm SUPER sensitive to voc as a migraine trigger and causing me to faint. (Thus why when my neat freak new neighbor downstairs cleans with harsh chemicals/synthetic perfumes and uses her vent fan which just vents into the space between her ceiling and my floor rather than outside the building, it makes me have syncope spells just trying to stand up out of bed or the other day when she cleaned her master bathroom while the cat was stuck in the bedroom due to fridge door reversal that didn't work but caused us to find the smashed in back plate that required returning it and explained why the hinges wouldn't reverse and I fainted when I opened the door to let the cat out and narrowly missed smacking my head on the corner of my dresser by the door.... She insists that natural products don't clean as well and she's not going to live in an unclean home in her own condo unit to pander to someone who doesn't even live in her unit -- they're very nice and they're book people with a piano and we get along very well and they're super thoughtful EXCEPT about this one issue of her OCD neat freak making her use chemicals that cause me to pass out.... But the only solution (other than making do and opening windows when possible and all my plants and iar purifiers everywhere and running the vent fan whenever she runs her) is for me to sell my condo and move -- but I don't know where I would move to and housing has gotten super pricey and anywhere else shared hallways/hvac would eventually have the same problem and before I can sell I have some home repairs that I've been living with but need to be dealt with to sell it (especially in the master bathroom, which I solve by having a second bathroom living by myself.) but I don't personally have the skills for it and the voc release of what needs to be done would increase my migraines/syncope so needs to be done when windows can at least be open and preferably done by not me so I don't fall and faint from the offgassing sensitivity while resealing the top of the tub or repainting the walls in the master bathroom. It's been a joke ever since I was a kid that I AM the canary because I get symptoms that make me so headachey/dizzy/lightheaded/nauseous sick I can't function at quantities that most people would never notice so I avoid everything that long term exposure to it makes everyone sick....)  And so anyway, my sister's rennos, which are gorgeous, have not had ANY time to off gas at all so I do have a very real concern that visiting her so soon after they finished it might make me really sick the whole visit whenever I'm inside rather than hanging out in the backyard for fresher air -- and if Washington or Oregon or Canada get wildfires, wildfire smoke also causes me migraine/syncope/vomiting issues. Not wood fires, even forest and prairie fires I do fine with, it's when anything plastic or petrochemical ends up in the burn pile and so massive wildfires that burn through human areas include aerosolized burning plastics.... Anyway. I'm not sure it's a good idea to go so soon before the rennos have more time for off gassing, but I'd like to see them all and I'd LIKE to re-bless and protect the space for the littles.... But I can't tell my sister that I'm worried her home improvements will make me sick -- because Virgo sister and Taurus brother-in-law and that would be an insult to them to say their beautifully redesigned renovated home might make me ill if I come visit right now. Anyway, I kinda wish that I had an excuse for that window to disappear or that I had been less truthful hadn't told them I have that gap in June and just told them the soonest I can do is fall.... But I was truthful and now they want to claim that June gap and it's complicated because I'm like a fey changeling who pines away weakens gets incredibly sick from pollution and voc off gasing and synthetic perfumes but thrives on clean air and trees and flowers and the stars and wild animals/birds and open water and mountains and crystals/rocks and music and books and art..... I really don't fit well in the modern world you know, much of the modern world makes me incredibly ill from even short exposures to it. Or I make it stop functioning every time I lose my temper or slip in my control over my chi and the spirit energy/magic that flows through me even the tiniest little bit....

Also. How is it nearly midnight?! I swear it was just 8:00pm and I was going to do just a little more inputting before calling it a night.... Damn it  Dani...this is NOT how you fix your busted Circadian Rhythm girlie....and blaming the migraines and ADHD only get you so far as excuses go for that dysregulation you've created for yourself because it doesn't affect anyone but you. (I actually can have good sleep and meal schedules when I'm living with other people or have daytime scheduled plans, mostly because I take the best care of myself when it's taking care of other people I care baout and not JUST me. I just revert to dsyregulated time blindness habits when left by myself for too long to fit sleep and meals in wherever is most convenient for getting everything else done.) You've been at work for like 15 hours straight now and you have more plant stuff still to do tomorrow during daylight hours. Get your arse home (or at least go watch the skies dance overhead again until you're ready to go home go to sleep.)