I had a polar bear shared dream space dream last night after I got back from APT while I was sleeping with the window open to listen to the rain. It's been a little while since I've had a polar bear dream, a little while since I've had any dreams worth remembering upon waking. 

It was a good polar bear dream. It wasn't one of separation or distraction or an adventure or old gods/goddesses or fée Seelie Court or mythical creatures in the mix. It was just the polar bear and me and it was cozy peaceful and snuggly and full of love. We were on our way to somewhere and decided to stay in the moment of togetherness while we had it and just be. It wasn't anything paradigm shattering or epiphany realizing or a foresight into troubles ahead -- it was just cozy in the isness and togetherness. That was it. 

I might not share this. I don't really have anything to say and the dream was cozy bright but private not for everyone's eyes of n'importe qui... I just wanted to say that I had it.... And with nothing more, this is a rather banal nothing of a post. 

I dunno. I could write about the play, it was quite good, but it doesn't fit with my cozy warm fuzzies from the dream or my still a bit snuggly in the blankets sunrise watching. So I'll probably just stop this post now to go watch the sunrise. And if you ever read this, then... I guess... I will have decided that even without telling the dream, simply acknowledging the dream HAPPENED is reason enough for a post. Even if the post is lackluster and I'm just laying in bed thinking and remembering and watching the sunrise.

P. S. I read recently that on current climate trajectories, sea ice will be so thin that current midels expect all Hudson Bay polar bears to have migrated or been forced into extinction by the 2030s.... 😭 It doesn't have to do with the dream and it isn't about my polar bear, but it makes me so sad and heartbroken over the wild bears.... I've always wanted to go up to Churchill to see them but I've never figured out how to pay for it and never had anyone crazy enough to want to go up to Churchill Manitoba with me just to go see wild polar bears. But time is running out for the bears due to the dwindling sea ice so I guess maybe I'll have to figure it out and go alone not share the experience with anyone. Otherwise I may never get it at all....

“The worth of a thing is best known by the want of it.” -James Kelly

 O!!!!!

I just found an answer I've been seeking since I was like 17 or 18 on the longest of my novel manuscripts that my ADHD has let me work on. (In addition to getting distracted by the shiny joyous moments in being alive, I also get distracted by my new shiny ideas for new projects compulsion to start on them without finishing old projects because once I figure out how a story goes, I don't feel the compulsion to finish writing it out unless someone is asking me for next chapters actively or having to knuckle down doing the practical work to publish/market a finished manuscript. (I'm really terrible at selling myself this life and it's  huge part of why I really just don't get influencer culture and everything about it gives me intense icks at a soul deep level --  I just want to do me and be loved by those who align with and can love that. Selling myself FEELS like curating what I show of myself so as to best make others admire me or buy what I'm selling (and I got a surfeit in my last life of being adored on a pedestal but never truly SEEN) rather than what I desire to do this life where I just want to put my energy into being as stripped to the bone honest as I can be and being seen and loved for that bare bones honesty and realness of my isness in this life and this body.)  Anyway, this novel is like 250+ pgs single spaced manuscript and it started as me wanting to write a novel in defense of the fairy tale and its purpose because it wasn't what sold or worked in the publishing literary world at the time I started writing it. And that's no longer true, fairy tale and myth retellings are one of the best selling types of fantasy and ya in recent years -- sometimes I just have to find what needs correcting and the Universe pushes it into being after I identify it.  And I ADORE these characters and the story of it. But it had some flaws that made it feel unpublishable  (and not just because it's a three step quest fairy tale format and I'm not even halfway through the first quest where I last was working on it -- AND I already have like half dozen FOLLOWUP novels within the world building that I want to do as companion novels/series) BUT my structure had some very major feeling pacing issues that I didn't have solved that I just told myself "I'll solve this before I get to the second novel/quest" vagueness. And recently I've been feeling this intense urge to go back into it and work on this novel that is already SUCH a deep passion project commitment without any plan for finishing/publishing, just wanting to write it because I love it that I made me set aside and I've been fighting this inner battle of, "No, that's unpublishable in its current form, you DO need to work on your real writing because time is passing and you're not getting anywhere in it and it's your life purpose this life -- go work on your post-apocalyptic dystopian vampire novel first in a trilogy that you love working on and KNOW is publishable if you finish the damn manuscript!" And yet... And yet.... I love that dystopian vampire novel and the world I've built for it, and I WANT to finish it, I want it to exist, I want people to have it -- and yet I've been staring at the blank page and just no words will come and cussing myself out over it (and being not very nice to myself if I'm honest for being a failure even at making progress in the thing I love and WANT to be doing with my spare hours of life and that I know is what I'm meant to do with my life this lifetime) because for the last while since March, the only REAL writing I've been wanting to do at a soul impulse level in any of my various manuscripts is in the loooong novel/trilogy manuscript that I felt unpublishable but which everyone who has ever read gets sucked into has theories about where I'm going and demand chapters of me..... 

Anyway, just now tonight, I FINALLY structurally solved the worst of my pacing issues (in the second quest/novel) I felt the long form fairy tale manuscript had that forced me to pause EVEN THOUGH I hadn't yet finished the first quest/novel.... 

And I have SUCH a rush of joy about it!!!!!!! Because I found the answer and my overly practical bullying perfectionist aspect in me that hasn't been letting me work on it FINALLY admitted, "O that would work... if you do that, this is ABSOLUTELY publishable and the current bookstagram-booktok publishing world will eat it up and you won't be able to write the novels in this series/world building fast enough...." And having found the answer, I FINALLY gave myself the inner permission to work some more on the manuscript I WANT to be working on since like March-ish but haven't let me and so haven't been able to do any real writing which has made me feel really down and shitting on myself and short on words for not doing what I KNOW I'm supposed to be doing... AND I've been so money stressed, somehow I'm just barely squeaking by all the time since I stopped my real writing and I KNOW it's the Universe trying to kick my arse into gear make me uncomfortable to prod me into doing what I'm meant to be doing with my life -- money flow always gets hard for me when I ignore my calling/life purpose no matter how hard I try and how little I let me spend and how frugal I force myself to be in every possible aspect of my life.... But then the stressing about that has had me spinning out spinning my gears getting nowhere on the financial tightness and eating up so much of my time/energy/attention of the anxieties of not knowing how to make things work that I can't do the ONE single thing that I KNOW makes the Universe ease up on me let money wander and find me to be able to comfortably wander along.... And like, my solution was literally the illogic of, "I have no money so I can't afford to buy groceries or food and I lost everything stored up in the freezer when my old fridge died and so I need to not eat much at all stretch my resources thin hardly eating anything at all except rice and beans and whatever I can scrounge" which has just had me tired and feeling worthless and headachey/light headed and hangry not my most patient or kindest self.... Being at my sister's family, they made sure I ate and slept, regularly, and took care of all my meals like they always do when I'm there and I started to feel enough better to feel I can tackle the practical and make me have the energy to real writing... And then also, feeling shitty about myself and that I can't make anything work or do anything right is part of me being so down on myself telling myself to move on from the bond because I'm not anything he wants anyway and I HAVE been guilty of that sort of self-sabotage self-speaking, even if I didn't share about it.... I've not been nice to myself or feeling I'm being a good worthwhile version of me as a result of the financial tightness and one thing after another in recent months which is entirely due to the Universe screwing the thumbnails on me for not doing anything with my real writing even though I know better..... And it's been a shitty feedback loop cycle recently...

And that might be TOO honest sharing, even for this space, on verra.

All I want to do right now is go home and immerse myself back into that novel/world right NOW because I have my solution but I can't let me because I'm at work need to get hours in AND since I can't right this moment, I just want to write when I get home BUT I'll need to make me sleep because of driving to Spring Green for the play and then back tomorrow (today now) evening.... So I need to figure out how to balance this and tap into the time/drive I have right now after figuring this out without putting myself or anyone else at risk.... 

Maybe the current rain/thunderstorms in the forecast for Friday will materialize so we decide not to drive to Milwaukee and go to outdoor Summerfest grounds because the winds/tornadoes and heavy rains would make that an unsafe drive and a miserable outdoor fest experience.... And then I can have Friday for real writing..... 

But anyway, I've solved a plot structural issue plaguing me for literally a decade making me feel that my favorite manuscript to write in wasn't publishable.... And I LIKE the answer and it solved another questionable issue in pacing that surprised me but felt right as I was writing it to make the seeming detour have a narrative plot structure purpose down the line that will feel natural to the reader but also makes me go, "O! That's why this episode and new characters insisted on unfolding and taking so many pages complicating this without advancing the main plot narrative!" 

I'll get back into the dystopian vampire novel when my heart is invested once more in writing it, but I have to let me fix up this long manuscript and work in it while it's calling me before I can force me to make progress in the other manuscript world building. I can wish all I want that I was more plodding less impulsive and more regimented in how I approached things, but I'm not like that. I'm not a slow and steady habit forming planning type person, I'm an enthusiastic impulsive ADHD curiosity/joy driven soul and I know it about myself. (I'm a bit of a fey creature of chaos who does most everything by intuition rather than planning... your best laid plans oft will go aglay with me if you try to make a plan involving or for me rather than letting me know about it or letting flow dictate create magical isness of what unfolds. Not that you can't make plans or try to create happy surprises for me, I ADORE happy surprises more than just about anything else in the world, but just know that if you try that route then the Universe may redirect frustrate your plans without me even knowing how/why random seeming choices of mine based on opportunities I know to be available to me in the unfolding near future have just destroyed the carefully laid out plan you had but never made sure I knew about.) Don't ever lie to yourself about your own truths or you'll spend a long time having to undo all the work you've done when you realize why it all took you wrong and awry from where you wanted to be....Another truth about my nature: I've never been a methodical step by step linear progression person -- I've always been a jump in the deep end trust the waters and "let's find out if I'll sink or swim" person. It applies to how I go about anything I get it into my head I want to do, not just about swimming -- but it's also a literal truth about how I treated water/swimming even when I was still not able to swim better than dog paddle and knowing to hold my breath when my head was under water. Jump in the deep end, do it with the whole heart committed or not at all is my way -- I'm not a step by step easing into it person. Never have been and I'm not in this lifetime either.

Anyway, I would be denying my own nature and lying to myself (and you) if I pretended I could get me to work on even my own most exciting passion project loves when my enthusiasm spark of inspiration muse is distracted by a shiny manuscript project... And so as I KNOW myself, I must allow me to work on POGL and get that moving along before I can stare at the blank pages in FFV and feel the words flowing into me and through me exactly right to keep the dystopian vampire novel manuscript growing. 

Also, I'm so happy and excited I FINALLY found the answer to that pacing/structural block and feel I can let me work on POGL once more!!! And I love the answer and it's so elegant and was staring me in the face this whole time all these years and I just couldn't see it.... Sometimes I be fallible like that, can't see the obvious even when I'm seeking it because it's so obvious I don't even see that the blindspot is the answer..... But then when I DO see it, the epiphany is just gorgeous and elegant and lights me up.  This is one of those for me! And I just can't stop grinning over it and wanting to dance like a star twinkles for my joy in finding this answer and the elegance and loveliness and "feels just exactly rightness" of it!!!!!! 

Also. My July has some things in the calendar but is (relatively) light and wanting to do my REAL writing will help me knuckle down get the adulting done and done right the first time so I can have time/energy for real writing.

P.S. Also. I'm sorry. I owe an apology. To Eric and myself and the Universe and the bond -- but most especially to Eric. For the way my inner self has been too often during these recent months. So I'm sorry. For being a stoic perfectionist with ADHD who is too hard on herself and asks too much of herself and gets down on herself for failing her own created unrealistic expectations and then projects them onto other people tells me they're only seeing me through that lens. It leads me to self-sabotaging what i want and what I KNOW I want in the name of telling myself until I believe it that it can't possibly be what he wants.... I don't want to go into it all right this moment, but I should do so at some point soonerish and dig into myself do some more shadow work and stop trying to believe that he sees me through the lens I see me when I am the hardest on myself and therefore he can do better and has enough other options he doesn't want/need me and wouldn't even miss me or feel my absence. Anyway. I'm sorry for the sabotaging self-talk I was engaging in that bled into projection telling me he must see me the same way and I should build my life and choices accordingly. I will try to be better. And I will try to listen for his truth from him without assumptions (positive or negative) about what I think it might be but instead truly listening for what it is he is saying and has to communicate..... I don't promise immediate success, but I can promise to work on it the best I can and to actively strive to be better than I have been about listening for his ISNESS truths instead of assuming/projecting either what I want or what I don't want.

P.P.S. Yes of COURSE my fairy tale is a love story with a happy ending -- how else could it be a fairy tale without a happily ever after on the other side of the quests/tribulations? I've told you before and I'll tell you again, I am a completely hopeless optimist and hopeful romantic and even my own head can't keep me down for long from believing in true love winning out in the end. Even my post-apocalyptic dystopian vampire series has love story(ies) woven through it that have happy endings and hope for the future. Even my most pessimistic stories/novels are love stories in their own broken-hearted "chance/fate destroyed this coming real" ways.

P. P. P. S. This was the post from Leah Whitehouse on the astrology of the coming day and it aligns so well with everything that clicked into place inside me tonight" 

"Mercury in Cancer trine Pallas retrograde in Scorpio. Moon in Pisces trine Mercury and Pallas – A quick moving Grand Trine is in play today, connecting mind, emotions and creative intelligence. Here is a way through, says Pallas. With some willpower, you can change things. With a willingness to investigate, you’ll find the truths required to transform your life. Trust your instincts, the little line of a song that comes to you upon awakening, the repeated symbol or name that echoes from seemingly every avenue. Pay attention because life is giving you a clue as to the next step. 

Dream yourself a dream. Let yourself be filled with wonder. Imagine the possibilities. Talk about your feelings with those who matter to you. Explore patterns around fear and intimate bonds, the attachments you claim yet hold yourself one step away from. Maybe it’s time to go all in, dive deep, trust. Open your inner eye. Let there be miracles and magic on a quiet afternoon."

It made me smile feel the synchronicity and alignment of my inner world and her horoscope for today (Thurs.)

P.P.P.P.S. I really really really really want to wrap my arms around Eric and say, "Let's finally choose to make this real and try to build together a shared path from here. Please can we do that?" And just have us both be on the same page wanting that and choosing to make that fateline into reality for ourselves. To want it together at the same time and to both be ready/willing/needing to choose it at the same time.  I don't KNOW that it's the timing for it, I just know I WANT it more than I want anything else the world and this society as it is in this portion of space/time has to offer me.

I took my love, I took it down. Climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills, 'Til the landslide brought me down. Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Mmm. Well, I've been afraid of changing, 'Cause I've built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, Even children get older. And I'm getting older, too.

 There was the most incredible and surreal and gorgeous sunrise I've ever seen in my life this morning as I left work and headed home!!! (I've been working through the wee hours til sunrise the last couple nights as I'm trying to cram all my hours in before everything gets crazy busy end of the week. This week has plans every night Thurs thru Sunday, but once July starts, it slows down to only 1 or 2 things per week and nothing at all next week til the 5th for APT tickets for Much Ado About Nothing. Including the paid holiday in there on the 4th so I only have to get 32 hours in across the other days and no reason to come in on the 4th except to water the plants if they seem like they will need it.) 

Anyway. The sunrise was gorgeous!!! The entire sky and the very air was this incredible electric neon red-pink with orangey-gold along the northeastern horizon. And it just kept getting more intensely watermelon, the humid air like the golden hour viscous but in intense red-pink like grenadine. And then suddenly there was this huge double rainbow nearly vertical splashed across the western part of the neon watermelon skies. And moment by moment the sun inched higher burnishing brighter and brighter and the skies got more intensely scarlet until you could just start to see the edge of the sun over the horizon and then BAM! It was like a light went out and all the red-pink fairyland cotton candy watermelon coloring disappeared without warning as the sun disappeared behind thick clouds and it was suddenly a deeply greyed morning behind low clouds and just a little later the skies started spitting an unexpected not in the forecast light drizzle. 

It was beautiful and surreal and fey and I've never seen a sky that magical a color let alone a rainbow blazing across watermelon cotton candy colored skies.... And then it just disappeared in an eye blink like it never was and back into the regular quotidian gray skies.... 

AND. DURING ALL THESE MAGIC CANDY SKIES, LANDSLIDE WAS PLAYING ON THE RADIO FOR A CAR KARAOKE SINGALONG SOUNDTRACK!!!  The song started as I shifted the car into drive started moving forward into the thick incarnadine air and the rainbow suddenly appeared in the impossible colored skies right as the instrumental interlude bridge ended and it started in, "take my love, take it down, o climb a mountain and turn around" and it was right as Landslide ended and the intro to Beyonce's Halo started that the skies winked out from surreal magical fairyland into the everyday greys (and it was right at the opening lyrics, "Remember those walls I built? Well, baby, they're tumbling down, And they didn't even put up a fight, They didn't even make a sound" that the raindrops started and fell right in tempo to the piano part of Halo. Which was also memorable in a very different way woven through this sunrise this morning.

Anyway. I know I've not been writing much here, but other than my wonder at the beauty of this morning's sky painting I don't really have anything to say here now any more than I've had these recent days. In aure it will change and there will be words inside me needing form that I will share here again in the not too distant future -- but not right now. Right now if you want my words, you need to come spend time with me in person. 

So since I already described my strawberry jam sunrise and I've nothing else inside me to say here right now, I'm going to head to bed now get some sleep with my window open listening to the rain drops and bird song in the unexpected rain pattering down right now.  I'm taking my grandma to an appointment in the afternoon and I need to sleep some now so I  can be bright eyed bushy tailed chipper chirpy happy sunshine smiling me and won't be an overtired grouchy or worse version of myself when I head over to her place around 2 or 2:30ish. (3pm appointment.) And then to work to hang out with the doggos (until my parents get back from their work event in Chi to pickup Sophie and then I will be hanging out with doggo singular, my Waffles O'Whoofigans) into the wee hours or until sunrise to get hours in for the week. Though there's a non zero possibility we opt not to Summerfest on Friday night given it's all outdoors and it's supposed to be rainy/thunderstorms all day/night for Madison/Milwaukee and this year storms = tornadoes and derecho winds. So we may decide it wouldn't be safe to drive and/or fun to be at outdoor fest grounds depending on how the weatehr forecasts shape up as we get closer to Fri.

But those were the most surreal watermelon skies and strawberry syrup viscous looking colored air and then with the rainbow splashes across the none red heavens?! I've seen red dawns (the sailor's bane) before this, but nothing nearly so magical in luminous crimsons as this sunrise... 

P. S. O yeah, this is also your notice my flights all got in a little early and I made it home safe and my animals are still in the both of them glued to me at all times phase of homecoming. 

[Post title: lyrics to the Fleetwood Mac song Landslide, now forever linked in my brain to the memory of impossible fairyland red-pink skies and rainbows. Which is why I chose it for the lyrics of this post, even though Halo is the song currently still playing stuck inside my head and I'm falling asleep to piano playing inside my head singing at me behind closed eyelids,  "It's like I've been awakened, Every rule I had you breakin' -- The risk that I'm takin'. I'm never gonna shut you out.  Everywhere I'm lookin' now, I'm surrounded by your embrace. Baby, I can see your halo, You know you're my saving grace. You're everything I need and more, It's written all over your face. Baby, I can feel your halo, Pray it won't fade away." But Landslide won out for the post title because now I have it cross linked in my brain with the magical red-pink skies and berry jam air and rainbows bright against glowing watermelon clouds.]

 Hi hi! 

Still alive, still in Kirkland visiting my sister's family. I have lots of stories and maybe tomorrow I will try to tell more here. But also maybe not, on verra. Growing up, my da's family were all tight knit lived nearby (except the half of the year Aunt Linda was always in Thailand) and I saw them at least once a week but most of the time I saw many of them more like 3-6 days out of the week until like middle school while my mum's family (except my great-great-aunt Rene and my step-aunt Cathy C and my step-cousin Jake and my grandparents before they retired to Hawaii and then became part of the scattered all over the globe) have always been scattered all over the world so I'm lucky if I see them once every year, realistically it was more like once in every 2-5 years I would see them. And so both my sister and I grew up with the idea that when you have loved ones who live far from you or who wander far away, the times you DO have together you make the focus of all your time and energy because it's all you may have for a long while. Being ADHD probably helps because hyper focus and time blindness. But also it's learned from having both types of family nearby and globally scattered family and learning to love deeply and intensely and connect/reconnect no matter how much distance/time has been between you since you last crossed paths. So really while I'm here, I'm just super immersed in their lives and focused on being present to share the moments make the memories with all five of them (and their cat) while I can because it will be a long stretch before I can next see them.  And that's what you should always expect of me any time I have a chance to share time/space in person with people I love dearly but who I spend much of my life without seeing in person. Honestly, I don't think I've really been on social media much at all while here, though I have been texting with people.... So I may write here to catch up tomorrow while my sister and brother-in-law are working from home and the kids are last full day at school (Fri is a half day) but also I may not. On verra.

But anyway.

Closing in on the end of this visit since Sunday night is my drop off at SeaTac and then the red-eye back home via Minne. My sister has already begun the, "so when are you coming next? Are you coming for Christmas again? Huh huh huh?" game and even started thinking/planning setting up for Christmas tree, lol. And, it IS much brighter in the heart to celebrate Christmas with littles running about -- because decorations and gifts are fine and all as an adult but there's something about getting to make the magic and watch the joy in a child as they open gifts that is just the best and most magical!! Kirkland rather lacks snow for my midwinter tastes, but it compensates me in the presence of my 3 niblings and getting to watch them unwrap and open everything. (Also it's fun that I actually really enjoy wrapping gifts, always have, and my sister only enjoys it when it's a shape puzzle or trying to use minimal paper wrap something in scraps by breaking the conventions of wrapping. So whenever I visit around holidays she likes to bring out the goodies and let me see them and then have me wrap them. This visit I wrapped Elliot's birthday gifts she opened last week and Monroe's gifts that are already here for her birthday in August.) 

Also, my sister is sick and my nephew Jack has a touch of it (the joint pain) and Elliot we think may have as well at the start of my visit but being 2 she lacked words to express what was wrong. It seems like it's most likely parvo given 1) toddler in the home 2) their house cleaner didn't come the week before my visit due to her arthritis being bad enough for over a week she couldn't handle stairs and 3) my sister's symptoms are pretty much just intense joint aching like arthritis and a rash on her lower legs/feet. She asked me tonight why she always seems to get her sickest then I come visit even though she gets sick other times but never as badly. And I told her, "Honestly? It's probably the same reason people often get sick when they finally get a break in their schedule or take vacation. When I'm here, you have an extra set of adult hands to help with the kids and chores like the dishes, so your body feels it's okay to be as sick as it needs." She nodded, "because when you're here it's safe to be sick." I nodded, "pretty much. It sucks, but I guess maybe it's a compliment to me somehow." But like, her joints aching are REALLY bad like rheumatoid arthritis bad and while yesterday was worse on her today wasn't great.... So I'm glad that I'm here to help make things easier on her and Jon and to give a hand with entertaining the kiddos while she is hurting so badly.

While waiting for Jon to finish setting up the new TV in their room, my sister and I were downstairs in the rumpus room and we decided that while I am definitely a chaos muppet (she has a theory that everyone is intrinsically either an order muppet or a chaos muppet; she is an order muppet, Kermit to be precise, and I am a chaos muppet and we both know this about ourselves and each other) we finally identified which one of the muppets my chaos muppetiness is and landed on me being Rowlf but Jon added that when my ADHD is wilding too much I'm like the random pink doot-doo-da-doot-doot muppets in the Mahna Mahna song. (Which incidentally is one of my random happy hyper songs I break into for nothing more than bubbly joie de vivre putting it on in my internal jukebox.) We considered Animal because none of them read but decided I'm really not that wild in my all the time behavior patterns or driven by primal urges and I was just like, "Honestly, of all the main muppet characters, Rowlf was always my favorite muppet and the one I feel the most kinship to." And she was like, "but what's his personality other than playing the piano? I mean, you've always loved piano music, but it's not like your identity." And I was like, "True. Though I do HAVE a piano and while I never learned to play properly I always love playing out my random songs in me." She nodded, "Well that's more than halfway there. And you do break out into songs a lot. But what is Rowlf's personality?" And I was like, "Well, he's kind of a happy go lucky loner doesn't join in the backstage shenanigans but always shows up at the right time he's needed to be there to commiserate help make people feel better. He tells lots of puns. And, let me look him up for you." So then the youtube vidéo playlist I find, I start with a Rowlf and Kermit video in which Rowlf explains how he likes to spend his evenings quiet at home by the fire reading his books and drinking his beers and going on long walks by himself. And my sister is just like, "well that all checks out" and then the next one is Rowlf at a cabin in the woods with a band of raccoons and other woodland critters and my sister goes, "Yep. You've always wanted to run away to live in a cabin in the woods AND you befriend woodland creatures easily would get them to play music with you." And then Jon added the bit about how my happy shiny ADHD side is the random one off  happy bopping pink muppets in Mahna Mahna.

Can I swear that my isness is the reason I'm Rowlf as opposed to it being the way the polar bear and I mirror each other and bleed into each other's energies at all times via the bond? No, I can't swear it. But also, of all the muppets, except when you see me in extroverted ADHD mode, my character is more Rowlf than any other recurring muppet character. (Side note: I learned tonight that originally, Rowlf was almost named Beowolf, which made my literature loving heart so very happy!! On my life of someday pets, I wanna get a giant Irish wolfhound and name him Beowolf, Bae for short. As well as having a mischievous thieving ginger cat named Grace O'Meowly after the real life historical Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley from the Elizabethan era.) In general, both our natures have evolved around and with that bond and everything that is exchanged via it -- so my character wouldn't be what it is without the soul deep influence of him in me and vice versa. Whatever you want to define the bond as being, it is transformatively central to both our identities and our soul growth and all the paths we do and don't take across our lifetimes. 

Thinking of which: not entirely certain why, but yesterday/last night something shifted within me (the astrologically minded would say it was Mercury and Venus moving into Cancer pretty much together during the day) and last night as I closed my eyes to sleep my heart just sort of went, "O but I miss Eric, I miss my polar bear" and my sleepy falling into subconscious reaction to feeling that was to acknowledge it was true and just reach down the bond like a hug and to let him know I love him and miss him. And there was just an initial surprise from him (it's been a little while since I've done that) followed immediately by just this absolute flood of love and sense of being held and cherished rushing down the bond and I slept wrapped up in that flow of love between us all night woke up to it as well. It was there all day and then just now while writing this he started flooding my third eye with his love down the bond again. And it's making me feel like I'm being a stubborn idiot for choosing not to give him the opportunities to reach me of me following him again on insta, even given my reasons for not liking the negativity it was adding into my life and emotions toward him whenever he shared content I couldn't see as "content unavailable right now" because it originated from an account that had me blocked.... So there's a non zero possibility of me listening to that feeling and going to change that tonight or at least going to see if he has anything there I might be missing and wishing would reach me somehow. Is it the best idea? Hell if I know. But tonight, tonight right now my heart says it's the right choice and action. And generally, listening to my heart leads me to experiences that add joy and love in my life -- and at their worst listening to my heart teaches me lessons. Now listening to my head.... Well, let's just say a thick streak of stoicism and an even thicker sense of justice can take you a long way down incredibly painful paths when you listen to good logic built on faulty bad premisses.... So right now, I'm in a place inside where I'm inclined to listen to my heart. And that's what my heart is saying, to at least choose to at bare minimum give him that path to reaching me if it's an opportunity he wants. 

Also. I really should be asleep already. So I'm going to set my alarm(s) for the morning and finish my Yogi Bedtime blend tea then read more Plutarch until my eyes are heavy slowly closing and I keep rereading the same sentences over and over. (I do enjoy the ancient history/myths/biographies -- it's just a very dry(den) translation and the kerning is super tight and the paragraphs are dense so it can make me sleepy reading too much of it at a time) And then lights out and bedtime for yours truly. 

Bonne nuit. And sweet dreams. Until next time (whenever that is.)

P. S. Happy summer solstice!!! Past midnight means officially into solstice territory now! And this year, it's the solstice followed almost immediately by the full moon the next day! 

 O right. I never did get to the epiphany I wanted to share about that I had. I guess I can now, though I should sleep soon. 

What it was was a very simple one. Because. I had said I should sit in non-action because I didn't know how Eric reached me again last August/September. But, that isn't quite what I meant -- because I do know how. Or at least, while I don't know the part of the story that is the exact methodology and step by step of how he figured out or found a spiritual guide to teach him to arrive at it, still I knew the what he must have done to achieve it. Because I knew the block wasn't him per se, I knew that the work around to block him from reaching me via  the bond without blocking the bond that the Morrigan pointed out to me for working smarter not harder was to block the lamprey's energy and anyone who had her energy twined around/through them is blocked from reaching me. I know that's what I did and thus the knot of what had to be either undone or rendered immaterial by detaching all the hooks of her energy into him. And then I also knew the how/what of the reconnection when it would happen from my recurring shamanic spirit dream with the polar bear and the ice and the way we broke through it for him to reach me again. That it would take me genuinely completely giving up on him and turning to walk another path without him AND him realizing he couldn't reach me and fighting trying to claw his way through it AND that it was when he gave up fighting and accepted the weight and the sorrow of the consequences of him being so enthralled by the lamprey and put his hand up to say goodbye and I put mine up in farewell that the power gathered between us spiraling outward between our palms that shattered the ice for him to come barreling through into the cave and rejoin me for the paths we would walk into the future. 

So I've been phrasing the wrong question. It's not that I need to understand HOW he did it to feel I have enough information for me to move from inaction to action, what I need to understand is WHY he did it. The why is the question(s) I want answered before I impulsively act, not just the minutiae of how he managed it. I mean, that interests me as a story of his personal growth experiences and my general curiosity about the techniques of inner spiritual growth tracks and philosophy building. But the part I fail to wrap my head around is WHY he chose to cut out the lamprey's energy and find his way back to reaching me....I don't understand his why that led him to those choices. And that's a missing piece of information I consider very important to me having full enough information to switch from inaction to action. 

Anyway, things are going well here and days are passing too fast. Jack did get promoted up to level 2 on skills at his soccer try out tonight and Mo is moving from Little Kickers to Micro (fun games vs soccer rules/skills development.) So we were at the indoor soccer arenas today and will be on Saturday morning when their new classes are. Tomorrow (today now) we have a fiesta party at Jon's work in the evening. Friday Elliot and I will wear the same shirt my sister ordered us in different kids sizes (it's pink sparkly with an owl and books says, Owl Be Reading.) Monroe doesn't enjoy reading very much, but she is my shadow attached to me at all times and she has stated I am her style icon (nothing like a Leo and a Libra friendship when they're getting along, lol; usually where difficulties occur is the clash between wounded pride in a Leo and a Libra's sense of fairness/justice; and that doesn't end well unless the Leo can learn to swallow their pride to apologize and/or the Libra is willing to compromise justice for harmony) and Monroe said she wished she had one to match shirts with me. So might need to figure that out. Sunday Cath Cath is coming over to steal me for a short adventure while the kids have a birthday party to go to and then she will be here for dinner. No idea what all is going on next week except Jon and the kiddos are off school Juneteenth and so my sister is putting up an out of office and Jon made a lunch reservation for us all somewhere. 

And then Sunday the 23 they will drop me off at the airport either after dinner if everyone takes me or one of them will after the kiddos go to bed and in the wee hours of the early 24 I'll take the Delta red eye to Minneapolis and then a Monday morning flight from Minne back to Madison to get home at like 8 something on the 24

And then once I'm back, my schedule is rather a lot... Not right away, I have Mon/Tues free of anything besides getting work hours in and unpacking and being at home again. But Weds June 26 my grandma has an afternoon podiatry appointment and afterwards I will either be at work with both dogs (til my parents get back from a business meeting in Chi to pickup Sophie) or it's first Concerts on the Square of the year (but I think it's a meh program for the first one.) Then Thurs 27 is off to Spring Green for first APT tickets of the year to see Wolf at the Door in The Touchstone (indoor theatre) with Crissy, Sarah, and Karissa. Then Fri 28 it's off to Milwaukee for Summerfest for the first time in a while to see All-American Rejects. Then Sat 29 in the afternoon is my cousin Sabra's baby shower for her second kid so family time. And then the evening of the 29, since Skylar had emailed me back that there wasn't a place for me at the Wausau stop on the Too Late Tour, the only one I could really make work, I will be going with my parents and Crissy to attend the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy interactive theatre and cocktails event that night -- we were all excited about the event and my friends who went at other locations said it's amazing but then nobody was going because I said I didn't have any of the evenings free as it's only in town 27-29 and both the 27 and 28 are definitely unavailable. But once I got the rejection from Eric via Skylar speaking for him, it meant that as long as we didn't go to an earlier start time too close to Sabra's baby shower, we could make happy my inner goth tell tale heart and make the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy show happen! (The 10pm show.) And then Sat 30, my mum and I have tickets to see Ben Platt in Milwaukee. And then I have nothing really in my calendar for the first week of July until APT tickets on July 5 (though maybe Concerts on the Square July 3.) 

Stupidly busy right before this visit, stupidly busy afterward.  But I'm so happy and grateful for the unexpected bonus of two weeks woven into the family of my sister, brother-in-law, nephew Jack, niece Monroe, and niece Elliot!!! It pleases me!

Anyway, it got later than I meant to be up tonight, I was going to shower in the morning before breakfast. Though I suppose I can do it after we get back from dropping the kids off while Miche and Jon are working or something. Or put it off another day. On verra. 

But anyway, I'm happy and not super busy but also even my unclaimed time is mostly reading and drinking tea while they're working and interacting when their work schedules are allowing and literally every other moment from 7am til 10:30pm, I don't have alone time except for while reading during the school/work day hours til the walk to the bu stop at 3ish and even then still making/eating lunch with Miche & Jon and also interacting throughout the day when they're not in meetings or heads down working. 

Okay. Lemme finish this tepid chamomile tea, plug in my phone and set morning alarms and then bedtime. G'night and sweet dreams! 

 My flights were uneventful and turns out that American Airlines now offers Biscoffs as a snack AND has Dr. Pepper so I was quite pleased with that. I used to be a black coffee drinker on planes til I learned too much about how they make/clean the hot water systems on planes so then I went back to being a Dr. Pepper or Ginger Ale gal like when I was younger. I also packed myself a lunch because I had produce and eggs that wouldn't be good by my return -- so I hard boiled the remaining eggs and sliced two for the salad I made (lettuce, spinach, kale, cilantro, green garlic, radish, carrot, the aforementioned hard boiled eggs with a 50 cent ranch dressing packet picked up from Kwik Trip because dressing the salad when I made it with olive oil and balsamic would have been gross by lunch; I'm not always or even often a ranch dressing girl but it sounded good with this salad and I discovered I really like the flavor combo of fresh cilantro with a buttermilk ranch dressing) and packed the other two in shell for snack. That salad made me super happy to have for lunch!! Way better than airport food options! I'm always happiest on airport travel days if I plan ahead enough to bring me fresh food to eat while I'm there. Or if I don't plan ahead so I have fresh fruits/veggies that would spoil before I get back so I decided to just bringing them along. While I was eating at what was supposed to be my gate in 4 hours, I got the text notification they moved us from g gates to k gates which while all terminal 3 was still a long walk because O'Hare. But I found the free yoga room in the rotunda on the walk got to stretch out and meditate a bit and then while walking, right where g meets k meets h, suddenly there was the most gorgeous piano music being played on a pink baby grand in a very over priced wine bar, stopped me in my tracks it was so pretty. The wines were VERY overpriced, the cheapest low end was $26 per glass, or I would have bought myself a glass to sip and enjoy. Instead, I went to the gate across the hall found the acoustic sweet spot of the space for the piano and stood there in the curve of that column. The guy played selections from Chopin, George Winston, and Franck before he was done and let a little girl play while he talked to her dad a bit (she did a Mendelssohn piece from memory and practiced the piece she was currently working on in class for her upcoming summer recital.) so yeah, CSA fresh organic salad, time for the postprandial walk for the gate shift, some introvert yoga meditation time, then surprise piano concert!!! Not a bad way to spend a few hours at OHare tbh. AND I resisted the temptation of the 3 bookstores I passed on that walk, mostly because they were small and too crowded to easily browse the books between people and their carry-on suitcases....  But I DID buy a cozy fantasy book at the Madison airport when I stopped to get a pack of gum for takeoffs/landings and to try to find cow cheese for the niblings (it's mild cheddar, shaped like a cow in black wax with a cow sticker on it; it's a wisco touristy thing you can buy in the airports and for whatever reason Jack and Mo LOVE it more than any other cheddar cheese, lol.) the book is called Can't Spell Treason Without Tea, is a cozy fantasy mystery with turquoise colored edges.

But anyway, made it safely to Kirkland, everyone else has gone to bed so I am going to go brush my teeth then read some Plutarch til I start to fall asleep -- kiddos are released from their rooms at 7:15 which means I have to be up and dressed and had my introvert cuppa tea slow wakeup ready to be bright eyed bushy tailed for interactive playtime by then. Actually, tomorrow morning they might be a bit slow moving grouchy because getting home from picking me up at the airport went way past their bedtimes. On verra. They're still in school til the 21, which means that I'm sort of fitting back into the structure of my schooltime visits and should have a fair amount of introvert time during the weekdays this visit. (Miche & Jon work from home mostly and so we tend to have lunch and do stuff around their meetings but if the kids aren't off school I have most of the weekdays to myself.) 

Also, Mo last minute switched rooms with Eliot, which was her bedroom when she was younger as well.  They all love their new rooms and the layouts of them and the addition for the master bedroom suite upstairs is gorgeous! 

Anyway. Time for me to finish getting ready for bed, read some Plutarch til my eyes get heavy then bed for early morning getting up and breakfast and getting the kids to school. I think that Miche is hoping tomorrow I can wrap Elliot's birthday presents tomorrow (Ellie's birthday is on Tues) because I do enjoy gift wrapping. And it looks like it will be a nice day for being outside in the garden to read or maybe go on a walk or something. I have adulting I should do on my laptop or phone, but I might not.... Kids bus gets home at 3:30 or so, then about 45mins later go to get Elliot. And then evening stuff. 

Anyway. Am here at my sister's family in Kirkland WA. Is all good. May write more later while I'm here, may not. I dunno. On verra. For now, bonne nuit and sweet dreams! 

 Okay. So I paused at a good "rest but not really for long" point in the plot towards the end of the book because coffee after breakfast was making exhaustion hit me like a freight train this morning because didn't sleep last night while still up on post show dancing singing connection endorphins and then sunrise couldn't sleep and hungry so made early breakfast. And then I slept my six hours across the morning/early afternoon then was doing some other things then reheated coffee at like 3:15 and went back to book. And it's so fucking good and I need to go into work and do some plant stuff and see people before or near to close at 5 -- but I am right at the climax end of the novel. And for the last 15mins to half hour, my sister keeps texting me which is good and important and planning stuff -- but also leave me alone for just like half hour because I want to finish the book, damnit!! 

Also, I'm serious about the recommendation to read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Trust me. Just do it. Don't watch the show before you read the book. (Unless you already did.) Just read the book. And let the book form it's world and philosophical ethos for you and how you imagine the characters. Just read the book. Please. If you're any the right sort of person to get me, you'll understand why I actually really loved it and it's one of my favorite contemporary books I've read in a long while. And after you read it, me recommending it will also recommend some things about me and my nature to you. Just find a copy of the book and start it. Just trust me on this. You're in for a bit of a mind fuck of a journey, but in a good way. One that weirdly feels like coming home to the right place and time and knowing what/how to grow from here. 

And if you struggle with making choices and regrets and how one picks to collapse the wave form of infinite possibilities into the finite path you walk, read it and the last 25-50 pages will help you wrap your head around the fact that it is the choices and the path itself that defines the esse of you in a moment even in contrast to the versions of you that you could have been. 

And I promise you, it's a love story even though it's also a fast paced action/suspense, but about the love that is built together in the everyday not just the potential sparks of lightning flash honeymoon false fronts that fizzle out or you never followed up. It reminds me of the spiritual ideas that what you seek is seeking you and that what is meant for you, meant to be yours, will find you in the right time and right way and can never be taken from you. So you will always find your way back to what is meant for your greatest good if you just focus on being the truest version of yourself you can be in the moments you get to live. You still have to make choices, and every choice closes off the fatelines not chosen, but you also still get to choose what version of you will show up and what your core values are and how they will shape your path from the moment you find yourself in and the paths you will choose to walk.

Okay, sister stopped texting me. time to finish these  last pages to find out the very end ending (though I think I know it) then go to work. Fuck time is short though... But only 9pgs left.

But trust me. Do it. You can figure out how future you will thank future me after you get the book and read it. 😉 Only joking a little bit. Because it's the right book at exactly the right time and I can feel that certainty in my bones humming electrically. So trust me and just pick it up and give it a try and if I'm wrong about this then I'm wrong about a lot of things and I'd rather know a truth for certain than believe even a beautiful lie.  But I don't think I'm wrong. Not about this. Go get it. Read it. It's exactly right for what's needed in this moment of time. 

And I like the idea of reading/experiencing the characters growth/realizations and the idea of experiencing it nearish (curiously, autocorrect initially changed that to bearish) the same time with someone, somewhere out there (beneath the pale moonlight, someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight. -- okay sorry, not the point but after I wrote "somewhere out there" I got the song from American Tale stuck in my own damn head because ADHD with internal jukebox lyric association brain. But weirdly it kinda works...)

Damnit Dani. Shut up, 9 pgs to go then you have things to do before you run out of daylight today for them. 

Go find the book and read it. Dark Matter. By Blake Crouch. And we can discuss choices and how we become the versions of ourselves we want to be and walk the fatelines we want further down the fateline, whenever chance or choice next crosses our paths. Somewhen after we have both digested this book. It's the right book at the right time. Weird synchronicities for me and all. Promise. Trust me on this.

Welp. Whatever the potential fatelines could have been the next couple weeks, it's been decided by the Joncierge service (as my sister refers to my brother-in-law making things happen once she verbalizes what she wants) this evening. (Weirdly my mum kept thinking there was a reason I needed to be here sooner but the only actual thing I could come up with was the Billy Joel show in Chicago on the 21 and I never found anyone wanted to spend the money to go with me so didn't have tickets or plans for it.) Technically, what I told them was:  

So they went ahead and used their accrued miles and are flying me out there asap. Quite literally asap because they wanted earlier and I told them I had a concert on Sat night (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss) so the 9th was the soonest I could do. Soooo I guess I am heading to Seattle on Sunday (on American Airlines with an afternoon layover in O'Hare) and won't be getting back til the 24. (Technically, I'll be in the Seattle airport entertaining my own self for a while on the night of the 23, whenever my family drops me off, until a red-eye 12:25am departure on Delta from SeaTac to Minneapolis and then not even an hour and a half layover before the 7:15am Delta flight to Madison on the 24th.)

My sister is very determined and as I said, they do well in their jobs. Mo bear has already requested if I can sleep in her bedroom this visit because she has the bunkbeds (part of the renno is Miche and Jon have a separate bedroom suite up on the new floor, Jack gets the old master bedroom, Monroe keeps the bedroom she and Jack used to share, and Elliot keeps her room next to Mo's which was Mo's before it was Ellie's.) My response was to ask if she wanted me the whole visit or just sleepovers on the weekends (because kiddo bedtime is earlier than adults bedtime) and that I didn't think the top bunk was rated for adult weights. So she told me she would sleep in the top bunk and I could sleep in the bottom bunk and that she wants sleepover with Aunt Dani every night for the two weeks. (Not sure how well this plan will work for the entire visit given later bedtime for adults and wanting a well rested five (almost six) year old for my visit, mais on verra.) I wonder how much of it is she misses me and how much that she's an age to start loving the idea of sleepovers and how much of it is whatever room I sleep in will be the best gridded and protected space in the entire house following my visit.... Given she's aware of what I do and what she calls the stars I put up everywhere she can see with her gifts AND her having had lots of night terrors all through her short life so far, it wouldn't surprise me if she's excited to think she could have the extra protections of me present AND after I leave for any unincarnated spirits or attachments trying to get her in the night.

Guess I have a lot to do and little time to do it in then since I have plans for the afternoon and night of Saturday and I fly out midday on Sunday now and won't be getting back home to the midwest til early the 24. The main things I have to do are some garden work and also cat food is getting low for Spock so I should get him a new bag as well as picking up some soft food (kidney health friendly) in case he doesn't want to eat much kibble and then both Crissy and Mikaela can give him some soft food while they're there if they want to be sure he eats it instead of letting it sit out. I also need to make some more of my histamine relief tea for Crissy before I go because she's still in high allergy season and might run out before I get back if I don't make more.  And of course packing for the trip -- I don't even have the weather in my phone yet for Washington, lol. This is not the shortest notice of me buying tickets for a flight -- that would be the time I found an amazing deal to London that left out of Chicago 26 hours after I bought the tickets and so I went all by myself to a country I'd never been to to stay with a family friend and his wife that I hadn't seen in over a decade and had an absolutely fabulous time. So last minute "yeah sure, I'll go!!" flights for travel plans aren't surprising for me (Mars in Sagittarius after all) but in recent years it's been money that's stopped that aspect of me from being so obvious, lol.

I did tell Mikaela she is welcome to come spend daytimes with Spock those weeks and I asked my mum that if either Crissy or Mikaela got concerned enough about Spock, if she would take him with them to the vet to see Erin. I don't think that will be necessary but she said she would and I don't feel awkward asking my mum to do it and pay at the visit whatever is needed whereas Crissy would do it but I'd feel a little weird asking. 

So anyway, guess I'm headed out to Seattle area now for June 9-23 (though technically the flights back are all on the 24, but I'll be wandering around at SeaTac starting the night of the 23 whenever the Delta counter will let me check my bag, lol.)  

I'm JUST barely missing Coronas show (June 2) and Frank Turner with Bridge City Sinners (literally tonight, as in Friday, June 7) but also it means I don't have to be trying to figure out uber/lyft or renting a car to get from Kirkland into downtown Seattle if I don't have anyone wanting to go to the show(s) with me or worry about getting home super late/early waking up the whole household.

 FRANK ADDED MORE TOUR DATES!!! FRANK ADDED MORE TOUR DATES!! FRANK ADDED MORE TOUR DATES!!!! AND ONE OF THEM IS RIGHT HERE IN MADISON AT THE SYLVEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND BRIDGE CITY SINNERS ARE ON THE BILL FOR THAT ADDED LEG OF THE TOUR AS WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FRANK IS COMING TO MADISON IN SEPTEMBER AND BRINGING MY NEW FAVORITE DISCOVERY BAND WITH HIM!!!!!!!!!!

Presale is tomorrow (I guess today now since it's after midnight) regular sale on Friday. Gen ad. Because Sylvee.

And this is why my logic, "he's from England, who KNOWS when he'll be back in this area" is such a comedic line standing joke to this day, lol.

The show was announced today and it made me so happy!!!! Also, it helped me understand something that happened at the Minne show that had me puzzled enough that I've checked and rechecked the tour schedule more than once since Sunday.  See, right at the end of the encore, while thanking Minneapolis for such a great show, Frank made eye contact with me and dead ass said, "I will see you again real soon -- sooner than you think! Until then stay safe, take care of each other, and don't take anyone's shit." And that last line is his general closing after the gratitude last line before walking offstage, but the bit about seeing you soon and sooner than you think was targeted and unexpected and inexplicable. There were absolutely no shows in his upcoming dates even remotely near me, at all, and so I was absolutely baffled by what he was saying but my internal reaction was very much a wish that it prove true and that if possible he bring Bridge City Sinners along with him again. And then today (well yesterday now) the additional shows (including the show at The Sylvee) were announced!!!!!!!!!! With Bridge City Sinners and Bedouin Soundclash!!! (I also checked the tour schedule for Bridge City Sinners this week but after the touring with Frank, their only additional shows are in Europe later in the fall and the new dates with Frank weren't yet announced or on the calendar.)

And it made me laugh really hard because, the truth about me is, whenever Frank announces Madison/Milwaukee shows at the same time as Chi/Minne shows, I tend not to make the further drives if it's a busy time in my world or tickets are pricey, BUT whenever the Chi/Minne shows are announced first, I tend to go to both and then if a closer to home show gets added in late, I also go to that one. Which means I get more Frank Turner shows in my life when that happens and whatever the reasons he's been doing that for the last 5-10 years of my regular attendance at his shows, I'm so here for that set of decision making that brings more Frank shows in my life!  I mean like, it's not a bad hack with me that no matter how many of your shows I've already committed to seeing that year, if you hold off and wait to announce the ones closest to me for last, after the somewhat nearby "driveably close" ones are past, it means your chances are good you will get to see me far more times than if you include right near me in your initial set of tour dates, lol.  I don't know that Frank does it intentionally, but also, it works every time he does it and I'm so here for it.  More Frank shows in September!!!!!!!  He did add some in like Des Moines and Indy, but they're midweek shows either right during Irish season or just after and I don't know if I can make that work because Augusts have become just a lot in my world tbh.

Sorry if this is a lot too much excited love of Frank Turner for you, but also I've been a MASSIVE fan of his since 2008 and 16 years with his incorrigible optimism and punk rock honesty in my life soundtrack is a long time and a lot of water under the bridge for what it means to me having his songwriting and all his messages and watching him grow and thrive as a human and an artist and in his marriage. I've seen him at small venue shows where almost nobody was there, especially stateside, at tiny venues and now I've seen him sell out 5,000+ capacity venues and I've loved every moment of every show and every song and every experience of shared space/time with him and his fans. I think about the only other artist who felt like a peer (not somebody you grew up listening to as a kid like Billy Joel and George Winston, both of whom I have always adored but they make my inner child happy look up to them as an older generation as opposed to someone I feel I grew up alongside as a similar aged to my own life path) I have had consistently in my life across all those same years (and even longer) is Chris Thile (first in Nickel Creek back in high school then solo then Punch Brothers then all his new musical adventures over the years) who I feel much the same ways of growing up along with them and the same undying joy in seeing him thrive as an individual, in his career, and in his marriage.  For me, there is no such thing as too much squeeing excitement over new music from either of those men or from any tours that bring them near to me, there can never be too much excitement or too many exclamation marks to convey the lit up giddiness in my heart for the promise of new to me songs or a chance to see them live again. Frank Turner shows just make my heart so happy no matter the bruises from the pit/circle and the shin splints from jumping on cement floors for hours and the laryngitis for shouting too much over the music between sets and shout-singing as loud as I can throughout his set.

A NEW FRANK SHOW ANNOUNCED TO COME TO ME HERE IN MADISON IN SEPTEMBER AND HE'S BRINGING MY NEW FAVORITE MUSIC DISCOVERY BAND BRIDGE CITY SINNERS WITH HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway. 

I've been reading Dark Matter recently (not because of the show released on Apple TV, I don't have AppleTV and I only discovered it was made into a show which I'm sure should be quite good when I was checking to make sure it's a stand alone novel) and the book is ridiculously AMAZING read!! Highly recommend!!! Especially if you're super into ideas of quantum superposition, free will, the multiverse versions of you, where each decision may takes you, and choosing love against all odds love stories. It's ridiculously good!!! I started it as my purse book last Friday because I decided that the nearly 800pg tome of Plutarch's Lives part one (the Dryden translation) was too heavy even for me to be carting around for a punk rock show, lol. (That sounds like a weird joke somehow, but that's actually my current nonfiction purse book.) I've had the novel for many years, I picked it up in a bookstore somewhere in the Seattle area on one of my visits (area being a broad term as it may have been at a bookstore further afield with Cathy K while she was driving around all over the state as an organic supplements company sales rep for her job) but I hadn't decided to read it til trying to choose a new book on Friday then when I opened it and saw the T.S. Eliot quote at the start I decided it was the perfect purse book for Frank Turner shows. And with a paragraph like this on the very first page, I was absolutely right!

 

But then I very quickly set it aside couldn't hardly read it when on the second page I discovered that his wife's name is Daniela (and then paused it again later when a climactic scene involving her on one of the timelines happened on my birthday.) Because you see, I have a rather unusual name and so it messed with me to read a book with a central character and love interest across multiverse timelines had my name. Like, I remember being very upset as a primary school aged child that my sister has a fucking Beatles song entitled with her name (she actually hates the song, doesn't like any Beatles songs as far as I am aware) and I swore I didn't think I'd ever have any songs with my name as the title. And then of course within a short span of time I got a Red Hot Chili Peppers bandit song (with the history of rock music videos as the music video theme) with my nickname in the title and then a John Butler Trio song AND a Susan Tedeschi song with my actual name as the titles. (Side note: I am actually so grateful that John Butler Trio song got rather forgotten to no longer have every barista sing at me, "Daniella, be my Cinderella" every time I order a coffee or my order is ready for pickup...) Anyway, it's a more common name now than when I was a kid, when the only other person I'd ever known of with my nickname was the little sister in Hocus Pocus and I'd only ever known even one Danielle in real life in my whole life and then knew of the one actress on Boy Meets World also def named Danielle. But it wasn't til college that I first met two other women named Daniela/Daniella, one an Italian professor and the other like four years younger than me at a cafe, which made it too easy to stalk me on campus or via early Facebook if I used my actual name to introduce myself so I always used my nickname Dani or a pseudonym (usually Rachel or Rae from the anglicized version of my middle name; but also sometimes Samantha or Sam or Jennifer if I really didn't want them able to track me whatsoever because they gave me the icks.) So anyway, reading a book with a character with my ACTUAL (and still not very common) name and who behaves the way I would in that situation did a bit of a Bastian in Neverending Story type mindfuck on me reading it so I set it aside for a bit had to tell myself it was just a random weird coincidence and the book was too good not to get back into it asap. And I'm so glad I did!!!! It's SUCH a good book!!!!!!! It reads quickly once you get into it, especially if the subject matter is easy for you to follow (I know not everyone can follow multiple character arcs of the same persons and some people have a hard time with the hard science or the philosophy of free will in multiverse theories; but if you can handle that at an intellectual level, the writing style and pacing are quite easy and quick.) Highly HIGHLY recommend!!!! And it's the first book by Blake Crouch I've read so I'm going to have to look up more of his books after this!

I haven't finished it yet because I have two more shows this week and don't plan to bring the Plutarch in my purse to them either, but I may finish Dark Matter and start something else just because I can.... Michael Franti tomorrow night, well tonight now, Thurs night; and then Robert Plant and Allison Krauss on Sat night and I'm hoping my "shouting at punk shows" induced noncommunicable laryngitis is better by Sat to sing along with Allison -- though luckily I tend to keep my upper range whenever this happens. I'm pretty sure I gave myself nodes trying to change the color (i.e timbre) of my voice in middle school choir for solos because I didn't think my voice color suited the song and the thing is that without secondary distortion effects, you can't make a violin/viola sound like a flute in its actual production of timbre and the same is true for a voice color. I actually have a very pretty colored voice, it's velvety like a butterfly wing and rich clear wine colored reds of garnet and ruby in the mezzo part of the range and then a lightly pink edged fiery (but still velvety) orange flame colored in the upper parts of my range which can go quite high -- but it wasn't the color I felt it should be to do justice to some of the  solos I was given and so I gave myself a lot of self-inflicted anxiety (and probably vocal nodes) from trying to shift the timbre of my voice for solos I was assigned and given those parts by people who had heard my natural voice timbre chose it for the solos. So it means that when I stress my voice, especially trying to talk over music that's too loud between sets at fests/shows across multiple nights, I tend to get non-communicable laryngitis especially in the lower part of my voice and can take a while to heal -- basically any time I'm only using my head voice, it's because I've given myself laryngitis again and I don't want to start me coughing because I want to let it heal. I don't go in to see a doctor for it anymore, because it's never that I'm sick, and since I'm not on a stage acting and don't sing performatively, I just sing for the joy in singing whatever song is inside me or that I'm listening to, it doesn't bother me enough to go see an ENT or consider surgery to fix whatever younger me did that makes me get laryngitis so easily but only in the bottom part of my range. (When I lose the higher part of my range or that gets rough, THEN I'm probably sick or have COMPLETELY over done it and definitely need to vocal rest for a bit.) Mostly I just try to talk less to let it rest and heal and if it starts hurting or making me cough, I just eat a spoonful of honey to coat it make it better (and actually I can even sing from the diaphragm in the lower part of my range if I apply enough honey during one of my bouts of noncommunicable laryngitis.) also ice cream makes it feel temporarily better but then the dairy can be a bit mucogenic  so you're supposed to avoid it while on vocal rest or healing up laryngitis. But that doesn't stop me from eating ice cream or other dairy if I want it just because of a silly sore throat.  Anyway, I don't care enough about taking care of my voice to stop going to shows or stop making friends around me at shows, so I've just learned to expect it after multiple nights of shows or multiple weekends of fests where music between sets gets too loud.  I would say it tends to be worse after Frank and other emo-punk shows because hitting notes is less important than singing along whole heartedly at those types of shows. 

Anyway, I have very far digressed. Gemini season man -- do you know hard it is to have laryngitis during the season of chatter and all the ideas and adhd?! I mean, it's my own fault but also, I have so many ideas and so many words to share right now! Not focused, but lots of them, lol. 

 My sister and brother-in-law are still trying to get me out to visit them -- literally considering flying me out on Sunday. But even with them using their miles for at least the trip to them (and offering me a $50 voucher for the return flight) I'm hesitating. Because... I'm still low key worrying about Spock -- he was hissing a lot the other day at his own reflection and that can be a sign of pain in a cat but also could just be his eyesight going and he's still not eating enough though he doesn't feel frail as he did several weeks ago. Also, I'm worried about my outdoor plants not getting enough water and energetic love/care in my absence, they're still pretty young for me to be leaving them for a couple weeks like that and three of the tomato plants are more sickly than I like to see them and those three didn't have as much root development as I expect when I transplanted them into their deeper dirt homes for the summer... And also I can't shake this sense that if I fly away out west right during that small gap I have of free time, I'm going to mess something up lose an opportunity that I can't see but under the surface I know to be unfolding... I can't explain it logically and so my sister would never understand, but I can't shake that sense that if I go visit them from the 9-24, I'm going to snarl up and complicate a possibility trying to unfold.  It makes no sense whatsoever, but something in my deeper knowing is unshakeable warning me of that -- that there's no promise of it at this point but if I head out to Seattle, I will close those possible fatelines completely and it's unclear when the next opportunities for them to open again might be....

I think .y sister wants me there to show off the new addition and to get me in her garden (we have an understanding that their house is like my secondary garden but one I can't stay around to maintain  where they buy everything my sister and I want for their massive yards and I'll do the manual labor but if it's too big a project for my body size I may need assistance. My sister likes to have flowers and plants and beautiful things but doesn't like getting her hands in the dirt whereas I like that part and they make good money with their jobs -- though they also have three kids now. Anyway, I'm sure she wants me for the garden to make repairs now that the reno to add the third floor is done. And also, while she would never admit it out loud because atheist, my sister has a lot of latent gifts and so subconsciously I think she's anxious to get me out there to re-grid and bless and protect the house for the kiddos sake. Also she probably misses me, but it's really to grid the place and to get me in the garden again that she's trying so hard to get me out there sooner not put it off til later in the year. Also, she wants me to visit in the summer time so we can all go cuddle with otters together at a place she found for that a couple years ago which is relatively near them.

I'm just hesitant for the sake of my old cat, my fragile seedlings that need me to pour energy into their growth for a bit, and that inner warning that if I make that choice I will complicate and close off some fatelines I can't now see but would make me happy and it's unclear when they would next open up again.... 

I don't have much time to figure it out though. I also have some actual and serious adulting to do that I should focus on instead... But the temptation to go out there let them take care of me and play in the dirt is pretty high.

O and I still didn't share about the epiphany the other morning, but it doesn't fit here (though it will work with the catching up on astro poets) so you'll just have to wait on it. Sorry not sorry. I wasn't focused enough to get there and it doesn't feel like it fits here with this post at all now. so it will keep. Now that I've made the realization, it's not going anywhere, it's just swimming around in the deep water seas of my heart

Okay. Back to working. I stayed til sunrise for Tues night/Weds morn and plan to do so again tonight/today because Mon I had horrible migraine between the weather fronts, the solar flares, and where I was in my menstrual cycle it perfect storm of migraine triggers whalloped me hard. (Mikaela was also non functional that day due to migraines.)  And as mentioned, shows on Thurs night and Sat night this week. And that was before I was considering the possibility of flying out to Seattle so if I want to get any hours in toward next week it would have to be Saturday during the day, after the concert and that's it if I fly out there on Sunday like they want. (My mum was joking it's because they want me out there to babysit for their anniversary, lol. Which might not be untrue.) Anyway, working til sunrise may sound like a lot, and in winter time it can be. But we're heading in toward midsummer so where I live, first light is currently 4:45am and sunrise is 5:20am and so staying til the sun is up isn't that much longer than staying til between 2 and 3am, y'know? And it's safer to leave work with the dog once the sun's up than in the wee hours of darkness.

Hiya!! Miss me much? (Of course you did, why else would you be here?) I didn't have much to say most of last week then I was down to Chi on Fri then up to Minne on Sat for Frank Turner shows and the LONGEST SLOWEST wee hours drive ever back from Minneapolis to Madison due to the dense fog advisory blanketing pretty well the entire route..... Definitely sections where fog was so thick you couldn't read the signs even when they were literally directly above you.... It was not my favorite highway driving ever.... Not the worst I've driven through, those stories involve ice and snow and spinning out off the highway or having a semi jack knife or go off the road in the lane next to me just a couple car lengths behind me or the time a car next to me auto ignited or the time a drunk driver who ended up wrecking himself and dying along with another car narrowly missed hitting me only because I had pulled over right before he went careening past me due to my passenger front tire shredded out randomly just outside Detroit as I was coming back from Quebec City. So not even in my top five worst highway drives, but still this most recent dense fog drive was not a drive I enjoyed. My hands ached after I got back from the Sun morning drive which never happens even on significantly longer drives through mountains, and after dropping Crissy off it, was late/early enough Sarah was up told me I could come pickup Miss Waffles in an hour at 8ish. 

But, here we are survived and no close encounters of the deer kind emerging suddenly out of the fog and most of the aches from the tension on that drive with almost no visibility AFTER  I had spent so many hours dancing and jumping on a cement floor are gone. All except the gods awful shin splints, weirdly the shin I didn't fracture on a carousel then spiral refracture doing grande pliés en seconde before it fully healed feels worse today than the one I would EXPECT to be achey full of shin splints from standing/dancing/jumping on cement for so long. Anyone who owns an indoor standing room gen ad venue and has cement for the floor instead of sprung wood floors is an absolute fucking sadist.... Especially if they book punk, hip hop, or any acts where fans are inclined to jump repeatedly as part of their joy in the music..... Seriously, at least put in laminate if not a properly sprung ballroom wood floor -- cement is just brutal AF on the audience.... Last time I had shin splints this painful was when the only practice room for an Irish hard shoe performance was a cement floor as was the performance itself.... Shin splints weren't an issue after the Aragon Ballroom show, but was DEFINITELY a problem after the Uptown Theatre show -- on Sunday I could hardly walk til I massaged them poured healing energy into my poor shins then slept for like 10 hours straight. They're still painful today, but I was still able to take the dog on a walk all the long way around the block this morning. (Recovering dancer problems -- as a rule, if we decide we're going to do something or it has to be done, we continue through the "it's only a flesh wound" physical pain no matter how extreme it is and how much a sane person would say, "actually, no. Don't go back to advanced ballet three days after fracturing three toes including your big toe because a solid wood liquor cabinet was accidentally dropped on it." Dancers are a different breed of masochists.... Even recovering dancers.)

Frank Turner shows will forever and always be one of my favorite happiest of happy places!!! I always feel my most joyously free unmasked at his shows with the mix of honesty and non judgement, no matter how difficult the truths most people don't want to hear or how lanky limbed exuberant the physical expression of joy. He's not a scene where anybody tries to play it cool, he literally had everyone in the punk rock circle pit who wanted to be then took a waltz step breather and had everyone's inner child be arms up spinning ballerinas, including him, all during his song I Wanna Dance. He says the only two rules at his shows are "don't be a dick" and "if you know any of the words to any of my songs, you have to sing them with me as loud as you can, it's cathartic for both of us that way." I love a lot of genres of music, and like kids I love them all differently, but as a recovering emo punk Warped Tour scene kid, there's something extra special for me being in a crowd (especially in the circle of the mosh pit) at the "smart kids punk existentialist songwriter" Frank shows dancing, jumping, and shout-singing my heart out. He always speaks the hard truths and doesn't sugar coat them but he's also an incorrigible optimist that if we start with honesty about where we ARE we can always choose to do/be better than we have let ourselves be. Both individually and as social collectives. 

Anyway, I'm an old old fan of his dating back to the release of Love, Ire, & Song so I rather forget sometimes how intelligent you have to be to understand his lyrics and get the allusions he's making. But still he's me favorite punk existential songwriter and I will always have a soft spot for this modern incarnation of Kit Marlowe. And unless I have other plans made before his shows are announced, he is forever and always at the top of my list of "if you're driveably close, I will come see you" and he's never done anything in all these years I've adored his music and what he has to say to make me ever question that or rank him lower on the list. Not once in like closing in on 20 years of being a fan of him and his music. Though my argument to Crissy (who does NOT like punk or metal or most rock music) to get her to come with me for her first Frank concert back when it was just him and his acoustic guitar remains one of the funniest ever, "But he's from England, who KNOWS when he'll be back in the area?!" Given he plays shows in the area at least once if not multiple times a year every year except when the pandemic completely curtailed touring. I didn't SAY it would be a long wait, but my phrasing asking who knows when he'll be back IMPLIED an unlikelihood that never existed. But also, one show and she was hooked on his shows so yeah.

He hand picks the openers and they were all really good. I'd seen Amigo the Devil before, and enjoy their songs/shows a lot, so knew that scene what I was getting into. But this was my first introduction to Bridge City Sinners and they blew my mind with how good they are!!! Like, my favorite new to me music discovery in a long time. They're like this weird genre defying gothic punk bluegrass fusion who sing murder ballads and songs about witchcraft vengeance and the devil and I just adore all of them!!! Upright bass, electric banjo, singer on electric banjo ukulele, fiddle player (Luke is effing AMAZING in his own right, and I say that as someone who has a lot of experience and opinions about good fiddle vs meh fiddle) and guitar. Anyway, Bridge City Sinners are my newest to me musical obsession and you should check them out. They're absolutely incredible and they fill for me the musical hole of needing a quirky genre defying dark witchy band specializing in murder ballads I've been looking to fill since all that mess over the last almost six years now that I've written enough about and nobody but me seems to care about changing from the current status quo so I need to accept and let it go.  Anyway, I've been looking for something to fill that musical hole, especially on certain days when the witch winds rise. Bridge City Sinners are much darker, MUCH darker, definitely acoustic-folk-metal with some jazz/swing/bluegrass elements, if you had to try to define genres. But Bridge City Sinners are soooo good! They delight me so much to have discovered them!!!!

Anyway. I have some things to get done at work and even though I have some more to write about (including a realization I had this morning and also I should share the more recent Astro Poets because after that one not so clear week because week by week they're getting brighter and brighter again linked and clear cut for Libra and Pisces again.)  I'll have to write another post later.

Also, my sister and brother-in-law have a good deal to use their points to fly me out for a visit June 9 (or 10) thru June 21 or so. Which, I'm still concerned about my cat's health and the off gassing of their renovation making me sick, but also, weather and solar weather have had me migraine-y here anyway. I think part of my sister wanting to get me out there asap this summer, enough to use their accrued points to fly me via Madison even not a cheaper route (like Milwaukee), is because even though she consciously doesn't believe in it she wants me to grid and protect the home for the kiddos' sake now they're back in their own house again after all the renovations.  I have to make sure that my parents can watch the dog AND that I can have someone to water all my plants for me until I get back -- and I'll be honest the plants are the big concern for me.... Maybe I'll need to rustle up some rain, but not too much or too severe, for at least the weekend I'd be gone. I dunno. On verra.

Anyway. I need to finish this deposit and get some more headway on the rsvp contract audits I'm doing right now at work. But I will write more later about what I realized this morning and also those recent weeks of astro poets including this week.