Pssst!!  I'm better now.  My anger burned itself out.  The play and the playwright and al the mansplainers in the world ain't worth any more of my anger.

And I don't need any more o'my scotch. Best save it for another night. You know trump tariffs have been put on French wine,  Irish whiskey,  AND scotch?! Now THAT is something worth cussing like a hellcat over....  But I won't.

I am, however,  gonna put the kettle on for another cuppa tea then back to my book.  Shit just got real dark,  real quick!  And I am absolutely not even the slightest little bit capable of thinking about putting the book down going to bed!!  OMFG though what?! Chapter 9 of The Invasion of the Tearling,  say WUT?!?!

i'mma be tired tomorrow (today now)  and it's my maman's birthday. But there is a 0% chance I could sleep even if I tried with what this book just did....  Say wha?!

Also though.  My anger dunnae need more scotch,  but fuck all this turn the book has taken requires another wee dram o scotch in my snifter...

So I am absofuckinglutely livid right now....  Don't worry! Not at you darling.  Not at anyone close in your life and certainly not at you. Not unless your name is Lucas Hnath,  and you decided that as a moden man, you felt that the critiques against another man's proto-feminist existentialist examination of mansplainong female identity and self hood must come from a lack of understanding about feminism therefore it is your job to write a play of the same central characters 15 years in the future to mansplain how a woman discovers and defends her self-identity by having her confront the arguments of all the critiques by embodying all the classic misogynistic tropes of a woman as: irrational, flighty, selfish,  materialistic, deflecting or changimg the subject if she can! T defend her position, and above all impossible to please EVEN WHEN YOU GIVE HER EXACTLY WHAT SHE ASKED FOR!  Just.... i don't even know where to BEGIN with why the fuck every single thing about that is utterly infuriatingly not getting it....  I just....  And then the actual dialogue/plot content.....   Don't even get me started on all that is wrong and maddening about it.....  There wasn't a single woman in the queue for the loo afterward who seemed to identify or agree with the playwright.

Don't get me wrong,  the acting was SUPERB and the costumes divinely exquisite (especially Dora's shot silk ensemble)  and I'd go see it again in a heartbeat to watch Jimmy DeVita,  Colleen Madden, and  Sarah Day playing against each other so brilliantly. But the mansplaining play pisses me off so fucking much......

Gah!

Anyway.  Read it (or see it)  and form your own opinion.... But never lose sight that it's written by a man trying to mansplain a "feminist" defense of how a woman creates and defens her own self-identity....

And now,  this incredibly irate bitch knows what she wants: she's going to take her t-shirt and skivvies but no bra clad arse to steep a cuppa tea and pwatch the snow outside while waiting then pour herself some Johnnie Walker red label (what I felt justified my budget could afford when I bought it) for the other hand, gather up all the remaining peanut m&ms, and go curl up to reada novel til I calm my shit down.  Will continue to apply tea, new fallen snow, scotch,  and novel til shit be calmed is achieved. Unless anyone has a better idea how to calm me down make me less ready for a fight....  Maybe I should listen to Hit Me With Your Best Shot on repeat.  (I actively really love that song and have since I was a kid. There's something about the line "You're a real tough cookie with a long history,  of breaking little hearts like the one in me. Before I put another notch in my lipstick case,  you better be sure to put me in my place" and the entire put up or shut up badass bitch vibe of it that just resonates with me when my temper gets riled up.)

(naw but honest,  my anger is nothing to do with anything you did.  Promise.  Unless your name is Lucas Hnath.....)

Yeah it's been a few days since I lasted posted. I'm fine, just have nothing I wish to write about here. Happens sometimes.

nothing has changed. No revolutions and no revelations. Nothing has changed. I still haven't listened to Take Me There.  I still don't want to listen to the new song or any songs by Delta Rae.  Do not expect that to change without addressing the instagram account issues the girls created in blocking me for being honest AND addressing the trust issues I now have with Liz,  Britt,  and Eric for their use of insta live as means of providing exclusive content WHILE KNOWING that a system of ostracism had been created against their fans who disliked the country music and doing nothing to fix it.  That is something that will never disappear nor fix itself with me....

Everything is just as it was. we're just several days closer to the shows I have tickets for but wouldn't plan to go to if I didn't have the tickets. I'm not excited for the shows, mostly I'm just, "Meh." about the whole thing. I don't trust the girls and if I don't trust them I can't like them. As for Eric, that still hurts and I don't currently trust him either after the way he behaved end of August and early September. I certainly do NOT trust him given how malleable he is to peer pressure rationalizing so long as Jessie is in any fashion a part of his life or a friend of his. I know that i genuinely dislike everything I've seen of Jessie or from Jessie. Including her over sharpened bad filters/effects pictures. If she were to come up to me and tell me that Eric NEEDED to see me and I had to go with her, I'd look her in the eyes and tell her to her face, "I don't like anything I've seen about you. I don't trust you. And I refuse to go anywhere you might lead. if Eric needs to see me, have him send someone I'd trust." That's my visceral instinctive response to Jessie and has been since she first showed up on so many posts related to The Revival.  She was a bigger deterrent than the country artists for me to not attend any of the shows of that project or desire to visit their haunted chapel they created for it.  My initial response was instinctive icks and observation of her and her influence on them,  especially Britt but also Eric, does nothing to improve my intuitive revulsion toward her and everything she touches..... Having her around and involved compounds the problems and makes the chance of reconciliation and healing less likely.....

And that's just how it is now.  That's where we're at.....

~*~*~*~

I read this passage earlier this morning, at about 5am, and it resonated strongly with me. 

"The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they're just harder to fix.  And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues,  the worse the harm,  until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future."

That's where we're at now,  the point where the problems of the past that were never dealt with or addressed or fixed, but just attempted to hide them by sweeping them under the rug ignored are actively creating the problems of the future.....  And the future problems they're creating are "for the rest of this lifetime" level problems.  And time is pretty much up on averting those future problems. And all because the problems now of the past were never faced.....

And that's not on me. My choice was to be honest and forthright and not try to hide the hard truths but rather face them and in facing them find a better answer.  I was never met with that same honesty,  courtesy,  and desire to solve things before they became stubbornly insoluble. i tried - but open dialogue takes both parties trying,  not just one....and all the girls wanted was to be right and to be idolized and to hide any uncomfortable truths.  I'm at the point I'm ready to give up trying,  turn on my heel walk away to go find people who care and will respond to honesty with honesty.

I'm gonna go make another cuppa Some Like It Hot tea (a black tea chai with hot peppers in it as well as peppercorns) and read some more. (still reading The Tearling trilogy, it's incredibly good!  Only, it's one you read slowly to savor even when you can't put it down and the last couple weeks somehow got ridiculously busy on me.) I may change out of my pjs and take the dog on a walk in the new snow after the sun is up. She'd love that - playing in the snow and playing in muddy bogs are two of her favorite things....she doesn't like summer as much,  she overheats easily and the only good things in the summer are playing swim fetch and long days "helping" me in the garden. but for hiking and walks and playing outside?  My dog is all about the snowy days and wet boggy days,  lol.  May also head into work for a bit later today once the roads are ploughed.

Most likely, I'll just keep reading and drinking tea til I make coffee and brunch then shower then head to work around 4 to be sociable.  (been VERY introverted lately when not busy or migraine,  and people who love me are missing me.) Heading to Spring Green and over to APT tonight to see Hrnath's A Doll's House Pt.  2 (don't get me started on the shortcomings of the play - I read it right after seeing their production of Ibsen's A Doll's House.  Both are by men, Hnath writing his idea of a sequel to Ibsen's classic.  Writing to try to explain what female Independence and self-definitio looks like....and both define it by refusing all attempts at compromise or pleasing you so you decide you can only define you by abandoning the people you love. why not stop mansplaining for a second and just let women write the plays if you really want to know what we want/need to be strong in our own identity?!) The play's at The Touchstone,  their indoor theater, not Up The Hill so I will not be sitting outside in the snow up in the woods for hours.  At least,  not tonight,  lol.

Now that's just purely unfair levels of Universe snark at me damnit!!

So I say that I don't want to hear any Delta Rae,  old or new songs, right now because while this festers I'll only get upset listening to them and that will only reinforce the current negative associations make it harder to fix them. Which is true.

So what happens?  Runa featuring Eileen Ivers decide to do a Celtic cover of Dance in the Graveyards that they released on Halloween.  And now it keeps getting shared to me first by Runa,  then Eileen Ivers,  then by all sorts of friends and musicians from within the Irish music community that I've just become deeper and deeper entangled in over the last 20 years..... Including just now from Maryann.

And the worst of it is,  I should be absolutely giddy about it and want to share it when two worlds I love collide.  And instead,  I'm just numb inside at anything to do with them at this point and it made me hysterical laugh like Arya when she and the Hound are told her aunt just died....  And the worst is I KNOW how I ought to react and would without this infernal fuckup the girls made messing everything up and just creating worse and worse consequences the longer it's left to fester instead of being dealt with and healed....

But Runa with Eileen Ivers covering Dance in the Graveyards?!  Really?!

What fucking cheek Universe.  Seriously?!  What.  Fucking.  Cheek.

😂😂😂

I take it you remain opposed to me saying they've been made into too much pain and not enough joy for me so I'll just cut them out of my life.  Trying to do so means you're going to force me to confront this by mixing them it back in my life where I least expect it til I do.  

What fucking cheek,  Universe.  That's so bloody damn ridiculous a blindsiding.  Fucking Dance in the Graveyards covered by fucking Runa with Eileen Ivers....  Definitely did NOT see that one coming.  Was not prepared for it. Do you have any idea how improbably ridiculous that is?!  Such fucking snark from the Universe.... 

😂😂😂

(okay.  But I really DO love Dance in the Graveyards.  And I wish I could listen to it again without getting upset at the girls for the bullying behaviors and all of them for staying silent hypocrites over that wrong and mostly just deeply hurt by Eric's cave to the peer pressure rationalizing from Jessie and Britt and him taking part in acts of intentional exclusion and relational bullying by ostracism.... It's one of the songs I miss the most....  As is Morning Comes.)

Well I didn't say I liked it.  And I didn't say he'd like it.... I didn't say anyone would like it.  I said it's how it is now.  Liking has nothing to do with isness.  No more than anything Eric or I ever wanted brought us to this point.  This is still where we are.

What else do you want me to do except tell you the same thing I've told you for a year now: fix what you broke or this will never be healed. You want me to lie to you?  Won't change the reality.  Want me to pretend everything is fine? I could,  but it won't change the trust issues and poisoned soil that was created by this. Want me to listen to the song?  If I do it won't get a fair listen,  not til you purge out all this toxicity the girls created then tried to bury and hide so it would fester instead of heal.

I can decide enough is enough and I need to remove myself from the situation,  cut ties and run.  I can stay and try to pretend this isn't toxic at the root of everything while it poisons and kills everything you try to do.  Or you can do what's right and deal with the ethics issues of principle here to make things good again.  Those are your three options.  There are no others. Every solution you can find is a form of a)  leaving because it's too fixed to change b)  lying to oneself or others about it or c) acknowledging the truth and working with that to make things right.

Yes there were two posts from early in the morning yesterday, during the witching hour, when I'd drunk enough wine to be honest rather than stoic, and demanding of what i WANT rather than working to accept what IS.

They're set to private. I do not intend to change that. And that's because it doesn't matter how desperately I WANT things to be different -- nothing will get better and nothing will heal until Eric or someone else in his band cleans up the mess Britt made poisoning everything and someone starts fixing what's been broken. If they never do that, then it never heals. Period. My wanting has nothing to do with it -- only direct action by the people in whose name everything was broken can begin to fix what was broken.

I am not a person with whom you will EVER succeed by trying to sweep things under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. You own up to your shit, you face it, and you try and make right by it -- otherwise you'll never get anywhere with me. Ever. And that means NOTHING will get better, and Eric will NOT have any future chances with me so long as he's involved with Delta Rae if the official band policy is that osctracism is an acceptable way of behaving when you don't like a truth you're told. He has no way to move forward with me if this doesn't get addressed and fixed. And that's just how it is.

And since Britt is the sort of person whose pride makes her incapable of admitting even to herself when she has messed up, let alone to the person she wronged, I don't expect anything whatsoever to EVER be done about it.  And when she refuses to admit when she's wrong, she can never learn and she can never heal and she can never grow. I pity her for it....  It's why any criticism or anxiety hamstrings her -- because she has such depths of undealt with 'I was wrong, I fucked up, I ruined things and hurt people I care about" that she has never faced in order to heal, grow, apologize, atone, or find forgiveness.  You can never be forgiven by a person you wronged nor forgive yourself if you repress that you ever did any wrong. So  more than anything else, I pity her and I pity the path she has chosen and created for herself. But my pity won't fix what can only be mended by those who broke it.And I have no expectation of ever seeing that happen.

So my wanting of Eric doesn't change a damn thing in the situation and thus it doesn't matter and I should refrain as much as possible from indulging in it. Doing so won't help me move forward with reality as it is now..

In the same vein, I saw the emails with the poems and I saw the download link, and since I paid for it already, I downloaded the song. But I haven't put it into my library nor have I listened to it. I didn't listen to it yesterday. I don't intend to listen to it today. I don't intend to listen to it tomorrow. I don't know when I shall listen to it, if ever.

You see,  I don't desire to listen to it. Yes, i DID love Take Me There when I first heard it, but I have no desire whatsoever to listen to any songs by them since Eric went live on the band instagram at the tail end of their Kickstarter KNOWING full well that i was still blocked on it from when Britt got defensively angry at me telling her the honest truth that the country music was causing me enough pain I'd not go to any further Delta Rae shows so long as country music was any part of it AND when I tried to address this issue, NOBODY even acknowledged or responded to me. And it's ever since then that there is absolutely NO song by Delta Rae I desire to hear. Nothing new, nothing old -- no songs. Nothing with their name on it brings me any sort of joy while this festers instead of being cleaned up. Nothing they do to try to start anew will bear fruit with me. Not while this remains unaddressed and unhealed.  And yes, I will be seeing them in a couple weeks with the tickets I bought back in July. *shrugs* That will be what it will be. But don't expect any affection or trust or joy at seeing you from me or in my eyes unless you've earned it.

And no music or video releases or art projects or social justice/environmental stands will fix that. No matter how it OUGHT to appeal me, it will have no appeal to me so long as this situation the girls created back in 2018 and eveyone else followed their lead on is still festering and undealt with. And that's just the simple facts of the situation, the situation they created and have done nothing to right.

My wanting is no part of that, it's just an ache that I carry and will carry but can do nothing to heal other than to let them go.

And Eric has taken himself out of my possibilities by choosing non confrontation and following peer pressure rather than ethics -- he's not even a possibility for consideration so long as the soil is this toxic. And it will be this poisoned and toxic til it's addressed and dealt with. And a year ago, it was only the girls' fuckup in trying to bully me and only them to blame -- but since the end of August, it's also his and I cannot trust him or give him anything further from my heart after what he did unless he makes this right.....

 ~*~*~*~*~


So I was thinking about it the other day,  and my main red flag issue I've been having around "he doesn't care if he hurts me or is part of behaviors designed to disclude or hurt me" from Eric is completely not a thing at all with Dave.  If anything, he goes far to the opposite extreme.  The time my car nearly got totaled by a 16yo turning left while only looking right gunning into me from a stop sign,  we still went to their concert in Chicago but took Crissy's car after getting insurance info and mine towed to be examined.  After the set,  and all of them pantomiming checking in from onstage, while we were talking,  he hugged me then wouldn't let go, kept asking if I was really okay.  He finally let go when his brother called hom over for a selfie with someone who'd been waiting in queue at the merch table for him. And even then, all the selfies he's looking over at me, concern written across his face.

So I do know that his concern is for me in particular -- but I genuinely have no idea what his current situation is with Di. My policy on that question remains what it has always been, "It's not my circus, not my monkeys -- and until somebody involved decides to make it my business, I'm just happy so long as he is happy with the choices for the life he builds himself."

 That said. I've only seen him angry twice, both times when people were intentionally cruel to me, in front of him, and they are people who only crossed my path because of him. I've never seen him as angry as he got in Milwaukee after Di's behavior, and I know a friend asked me if they're on a break because Di looks so sad all the time in recent posts and they stopped liking each other's posts. And I shrugged asked her why she thought I'd know. Diana is on the end of a tour in Ireland over the last week and Dave went back home to visit his parents in Galway right before she's supposed to head back to the states, but whether they're speaking or have plans after her tour ends is not something I know.

 But it doesn't actually matter you know. His love of me is going to stay as strong as ever, no matter who he dates. And as long as he's dating anyone else, I don't consider him an option for me. Not as a permanent thing, but as a temporary thing, for as long as he is with someone else. I am not the sort to consider someone an option romantically so long as he is in a relationship with another women. Never have been, never will be. I have more respect for myself, for him, for the other girl than to do that.

I heard on the radio then looked up to read a study tonight that said it takes,  on average,  5 new good things to undo the damage of 1 bad thing. If a person apologizes or shows genuine remorse for the bad thing,  it takes 2-3.5 good things to counterbalance it (depending on how quickly they apologize)  but if they NEVER apologize or address it,  then it takes 8.5-11 good things to counteract the painful interaction depending on the severity of how the bad thing was received.

The data was consistent for rebuilding the broken trust REGARDLESS what had come before,  and it has to do with the stress hormones released by the negative eventand how they rewire your memories so even thinking about the person/thing that upset you releases the same stress hormones visible on an fMRI that shut down logic and heighten emotional flight or fight response.  And it takes multiple good hormone release situations to undo the damage of just one negative interaction.....

It was a fascinating study proving what we all knew intuitively.  Still,  hard data is good to have.  And.  I reckon it's good for everyone just to know that fixing things after a fuckup that hurt them will take time and consistent effort and doing good things over and over and over  without getting upset or defensive reinforcing the bad emotional responses from before. Especially if you never will willingly apologize or admit you did wrong.

Anyway,  the hard data on it was fascinating!

Back to drinking wine and tea and watching the snow fall outside while the candles and hearth fire burn inside all while reading my book..... It's so hygge in here,  you have no idea! All I need to make it perfect is a man to cuddle with,  preferably shirtless but it's negotiable. 😉 Because cat and dog snuggles are all well and good,  but they're not the same as having someone's arms arpund you and curling up into the warmth of their love for you. Ah well,  some other fire on some other snowy night perhaps..... For now. Time to put another log on the fire, put the kettle on for a fresh cuppa tea, and go stand by the balcony door talking to my hawk roosting in the tree and smiling at the  snow falling under the white lights of our condo complex.

O I know I know.... Eric didn't intend or expect my reaction to his instas to be revulsion or icks. I know he didn't.  And his POINT is how shitty and non-inclusive it is that success in country music is to be a white man -- a point that OUGHT to have resonated with me as he was showing his feminist side and his outrage that  "this is a really small sliver of humanity and how is this all that's represented?!" I understand that was what he intended. But frankly, expecting ANYTHING else in country radio is like expecting the current White House administration to actually give someone competent the post. Any female or person of color success in the country music genre is the outlier of the system and happened usually because they were famous elsewhere or they had friends with money/fame to spread their fame.  It's always been a white identity politics genre, ALWAYS. It started off racist history and the racism and misogyny is endemic to this day in the genre. THAT'S JUST HOW IT IS.  It doesn't matter how many not even c list white chick country artists you befriend trying to change that, that's the genre. Racist whites IS the target demographic of country music. ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Always will be. And I guarantee that if you start scratching the surface, MOST of your friends who love country music or are in that part of the industry ARE white racists under the surface.

On top of that, by playing it and sharing it, all he did was cause me physical pain from the vocals. That will never go away NO MATTER WHAT YOUR POINT IS when you play country vocalists. That's just how it is for me..... Even if you're bashing them, by playing the songs, you're still causing me the same physical pain due to the synesthesia that you'd be causing me if you were playing it saying how much you liked it... the pain is the same if you play the offkey vocals. I know he was bashing it, but it was still causing just as much physical pain to me as if he were praising it.....

AND, on top of that, ANYTHING to do with ANY country artist from him or anyone in his band automatically puts my hackles up makes me defensive BECAUSE of the way that Liz and Britt treated me trying to defend that career choice.  I don't think you realize JUST how awful their responses to me (and other people) have been getting defensive about their choice to try to succeed at country raduo and defending their pitchy vocalled country friends when Delta Rae fans didn't like it. because Delta Rae old school loyal fan base ARE NOT COUNTRY MUSIC FANS by and large. And the influx of country music fans (who ARE white identity politics Republicans) has actually STOPPED people from continuing to support the band they loved because the concert going experience is just not fun with that element included.  And it really doesn't matter if Heather is your friend or Jessie's friend -- she sounded REALLY fucking TERRIBLE and pitchy. And I don't fucking blame the audience for talking over her -- she was BAD. Like most of the artists they've had open for them since they have tried to find a way to belong in the country music scene.

So i get that he expected his post to find favor with me and I understand that he was doing more than being salty over the way his band failed in that genre and all of Jessie's friends who are now his friends can't succeed so they just sit in nashville and bitch about it being their genitals not their pitchy ass offkey vocals that are the reason they can't succeed -- and if it had been about ANYTHING other than country music, he'd have succeeded. but the moment it was a playstation game about singing COUNTRY music, he killed any chance of conveying anything to me other than me pulling away having a revulsion reaction toward him. The mistake was in 1) expecting anything but pitchy ass bad vocals and misogynistic white identity politics from anything to do with country music because that IS the target demographic of country music and 2) thinking that bringing up country music or anyone involved in it in any context would ever have ANY reaction but a negative one from me.

But I do recognize his intention was to show support for women and his feminism and ally to the under-represented side. things that NORMALLY should have appealed to me. He just picked that absolute WORST context he could possibly have found to try to make that point.....

I can acknowledge his intention while still recognizing the reality of the results as how I'll always react to him posting anything playing country music or having anything to do with anyone in the genre....

The answer to my questions from earlier tonight is nearly three years. Nearly three years since the last time Eric's band (which is the center of his life, not just his family and closest friends, but it is his life at this point -- I don't think even he knows who he is without the band) did anything that brought me joy with no strings attached of pain or disgust.

The last time was their holiday acoustic tour they did with Penny & Sparrow. Before they announced "we're a country band now." Since signing to Valory and trying to fit in with the country music scene and seeking fame/fortune via country radio, there isn't ANYTHING they have done as a band or he has done as an individual that has brought me unalloyed joy. Most of the joys they have brought me, few and far between as those have been, were in trying to fix fuckups they made/did by their career choices and by what has happened during the Big Machine era of Delta Rae and the Jessie Roesch era of Delta Rae.

Three years is a long time.

I was excited about them going independent, hopeful that it meant they were done selling out. That was before all of the pandering to the Swifties they did which destroyed most of my excitement and support for their new chapter I'd felt up until that choice they made.  Eric's choice to go live on the band instagram and ignore me about the problems of that and why it was unfair happened well after I had lost my excitement and desire for anything the band was promising about this new chapter of them as an independent band or the albums they'd make with the Kickstarter money. They'd already shown me nothing had changed in them and what they were going to continue to try to fit in country music and they were still willing to sell out just about anything to get ahead. All that had changed was that the label booted them for the ways they could never fit in at country radio.

So three years since the band and Eric himself have done anything that brought me joy and only joy without first causing me pain/disgust or subsequently causing me pain/disgust by the direction they take the good start they had. And nearly a year since Britt's choices in the name of the band created a situation where the pain FAR outweighs any joy, where I can't even find joy in listening to the songs that had been a constant soundtrack in my life from the time I discovered them up until Britt did that. The truth is that even all the physical pain that the country music caused me due to my synesthesia,  the joy of everything that came before still far outweighed it up until a year ago when Brittany made her choice in free will and in the name of the entire band to block me for being honest that the decision to go country caused me enough pain at shows that I would not go to any more shows so long as country music was any part of it.  That choice and that action of Brittany is what tipped the balance so pain would outweigh joy and I'd not even be able to listen to my much beloved tracks from Carry the Fire,  Chasing Twisters EP,  After It All, and live tracks I ripped off fan youtube videos.

It's been one year since there was MORE hurt than all the joy they brought me - but it's been nearly three years since they brought me unalloyed joy with no hurt attached to it.  Three very long years.

So I must ask myself again, "Why did I expect anything else of Eric given how thoroughly he has let the peer pressure from this scene consume him? This is simply who he is now, who he has made himself into to try to fit in with Jessie and Britt and the people he and the band have surrounded themselves with over the last three years."

I shouldn't expect anything better of him, this is simply who he is now. And I need to recognize that truth. I should be making my own choices and decisions under that aegis.

That has nothing to do with him being sick or not being sick recently -- it's simply who he is now. Who he chooses to be and who he wants to be. And it is based on who he is and the sort of man he aspires to be that I should be making my choices. Not the man he was or could have been or I want him to be. But the man he is and the man he chooses to let himself be.  And I have three years now of data on that on which to base my own actions and choices.

And the fact it's been three years since he brought into my life any joys untainted by hurting me is the real reason I need to call it.  I'm sure that whatever their plans for The Light and The Dark,  it still is centered in this grafted on country scene bullshit of the last three years.  And anything with anything to do with country music will only ever cause me pain and evoke disgust in me. So I don't even need to hear it to know it can't possibly bring me unalloyed joy as the band I used to love did before they attempted to fit in and have anything to do with the country music scene.  That band is dead,  and it's time I accepted that and made my peace with it,  and stopped mourning for my loss over what happened to the band I had loved so terribly much.

Mon bon dieu but the extraordinary thinness of the veil this year is distracting and draining.....  It's been about 7 years since the veil was THIS thin......

Just had a newly dead ghost of a very old man from across the street and up the hill (where there's a retirement home) come knock HARD on one of the windows while I had my back to it, watering one of my fig trees. I nearly jumped out of my skin, it was so sudden in the stillness! He pointed at my shirt (a black sweatshirt with a large white sugar skull on it) and I nodded and opened a gate to the light for him to easily follow. He grinned like a little boy and then moved on but I had to hold it open and wait while another half dozen spirits who'd lost their way but recognize the pull of that gateway connection came to me to be let in. (None of them the black lady with the bandaged/missing limbs  in the wheelchair who spooked me the other night with her panic about the serial killer based in southern MN being back hunting in Madison) I finally was able to close the gateway and just as I did it and turned back to my plants, an ambulance and firetruck with lights on came and turned at the light headed up into Oakwood. I just shook my head and muttered, "You're too late. he's gone already."  Firetruck has already left, ambulance hasn't yet.

Witching Hour Problems of a Medium When It's Only 3 Days Til Samhain........ Could write a book on it, lol.

I'm going to refill my watering can then back to my plants now. Hopefully no more interruptions for the night. And maybr the snow will hold off til Halloween itself -- I still have things I must do outside in the garden bed.....but in my heart of hearts,  I WANT the snow,  the whiteness and beauty and stillness and peace of it.  I'll come in tomorrow during the day and work on that though. Just in case. Also to make sure i get hours in. I have concerts on Weds night (Daniel Champagne -- an Australian guitarist) and Sat/Sun (2 nights of Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi concerts) and Tues night mum will likely want me to come over to watch figure skating now that the season has started up again.

3:07am addendum:
Ambulance just left while I was deadheading one of the geraniums before watering them. Lights off. Headed the opposite direction as the fire station (nearer than the hospitals, thus why a firetruck usually comes with the ambulance everywhere but the Isthmus.)

The last couple days, I was leaning toward the decision to hold off on internally putting the bond to sleep because Eric is sick and I don't believe in kicking anyone when they're already down.

But then tonight, he posted a whole bunch about country music as if there was anything redeeming or even redeemable in the scene (there isn't, regardless the genitalia of the singers, the problem is country twang on vocals are offkey as fuck, the songwriting is designed to pander to the lowest common denominator of confederate flag waving trumpies,  and the scene is a known promoter of bigotry and entitled white identity politics -- the only reason Rascal Flatts ever bought Eric's song Never Been to Memphis is because it's an ode to glorifying and rewriting post-antebellum southern white history and romanticizing southern white chicks -- the same song but changing the city to Detroit or Chicago or Seattle or Boston or any city that isn't south of the Mason-Dixon Line would not have been of interest to their team because it would not have been an attempt to redeem southern white identity -- it is an incredibly problematic song he wrote. And never a favorite of mine as a result.) And then he was once again promoting and endorsing The High Women (whose harmonies ALL sound terrible -- mostly because Maren Morris has a shite voice  even before she twangs it and I genuinely doubt she could hit a note true if had a tuner visibly in front of her to tell her what notes she's actually producing..... She is so TERRIBLE. I have nothing good to say about Maren Morris, anything she has sung, or anything she does, tbh.)

It gave me an immediate visceral ick revulsion reaction toward Eric himself. not to the band, but to HIM. The fact he did that, that he expected anything good from anyone/anything tied to the country scene (even a PlayStation game) and then defended, well, anything or anyone to do with the country music scene, it gave me the icks quite intensely.

I'm going to finish watering my plants at work right now, but I'm definitely currently in the camp of genuinely asking myself, "Eh. I lose nothing that's good in my life by letting Eric go at this point, do I? Why did I expect anything else from him? When was the last time he did ANYTHING that didn't cause me pain or cause me a visceral ick reaction anyway? What am I even holding on for?"

I'm not going to do anything while taking care of my plants -- the plants only deserve love and my full attention without any negativity. But, y'know, that's where I'm currently at after he did that tonight.  And once again, Eric has nobody to blame but himself and who he's twisted himself into to try to fit in with the peer pressure of others (most notably, again, Jessie and Britt and their Nashville country chick friends that Jessie keeps introducing into their lives.)

I'll make up my mind what I'm going to do after my work plants are all taken care of. But first, refilling the kettle for another cuppa tea.

Thought:
Cutting ties saying I'm done doesn't actually help Eric fix this issue (not this instance of it,  not the pattern of it,  not the very real danger to me that my instinct is to trust him yet his ethics are as malleable as whoever he happens to be spending time with.)  And it doesn't help either of us to heal... He deserves a chance to make things right,  if he wants to, once the problem has been diagnosed.  He's had not quite two months since he fucked up,  not a year.  Britt's fucking everything up and what was done in the name of the entire band,  that's had practically a year to right it and nothing been done...That deserves to have the book closed on it,  it's been a year. But for him,  he's had 2 months.  And a lot going on.

It's fair to say it's time to close chapter let go of the mess the girls made and to step back on what all I see from the band - the band and their music doesn't currently reach me or touch me anyway due to this.

And it's fair to say I don't feel I can trust him. I can't trust him to refrain from knowingly causing me harm if peer pressure tells him it's okay....  So I can't trust him not to knowingly hurt me.

.and it's fair to acknowledge that I can't love another man as he deserves while actively being drawn so strongly to Eric.

And it's also fair I'm fed up frustrated with being so long and perpetually single.

But it's not fair to state, "This is a problem that I can't fix,  only Eric can" but then not giving him any fucking chancea to fix any damn thing about it......

This thought is absolutely aided by my decision to drink an entire bottle of wine in the last seven hours by myself.  And I shouldn't have.  I'm absolutely feeling it, even with one more glass poured but not yet drunk.   But not because I'm still rattled by yesterday or that's a ridiculous amount to drink in the time alotted (it isn't)  but because I'm unwell,  physically weak.  Not blue from the hypoxia of alcohol poisoning (trust me,  I know from college what that looks like....  I once went into a hospital in Chi for it when I was so drunk I forgot all my English, could only insist in slurry Parisian French between bouts of vomiting, "L'hôpital.  J'ai besoin d'une hôpital.  Je ne peux pas me conserver en vie sans attention médicale.  J'ai besoin d'une hôpitale." and that was all I could say....  Though by the time my friends got me there,  I was sober enough that after wrapping me in hot blankets to stop the wracking shivering and giving me a saline drip, I read through all the documents before signing and asked my only friend with any high school French if I should sign that I needed a translator or if she would serve.  And that time I stayed in my body!  Two times in college,  I did not....)  But anyway,  hypoxia from blood alcohol piisoning,  I turn bluish.  Right now,  this pallor is just....  3 migraines in 8 days last week, my period recently,  a 2 day cold/flu start of this week,  eating too many onions (causes anemia in me),  and the emotional toll of all of this....  Not just my skintone,  but the lack of color in my lips says volumes,  tbh. That's the color of them wine stained.... Imagine if I'd taken pictures before any wine....

I am pale.  And yeah,  I am wearing my Blackbird Sessions tee.  It made me happy when they released it.  And I've never had anything but positive feedback to give on the raven and dove yin-yang artwork..... And last night,  when I WAS panicky,  it was the only thing I could come up with for pjs made me feel safe and happy....  I am pale,  I've neen paler - especially earlier this week, and no I do not advocate my level of pallor for anyone.

i'm really not okay with my decision to put the bond to sleep.  Believing it the best solution,  yes.  But okay with it,  never. .  And that's wine drunk honesty over-riding my natural stoicism.  But really I'm not.  Especially these last few days,  hearing how sad and upset Eric is and it making me tear up want to sob for no reason betimes....

Look.  It's been rough on me. And I'm definitely physically not at my best - I know the toll it's been taking and how it's drained me. But it remains the best answer,  and if it's inevitable, I'd just like to be done with it....

I'm going to bed as soon as the sun rises (can't sleep across sunrise or sunset unless very ill) my sleep has not been the best of late....

Just checked in tonight with AJ, the lady (well ghost, but so newly a ghost she didn't even know she was dead yet) who started all the wyrd last night hasn't (yet) passed her way looking to move on. But she said she'd keep an eye out for her and would recognize her. It's convenient, as one who deals with the complicated cases to know a mother shepherd medium who's the lighthouse that lost/confused "newly' dead souls go to. (I strongly set protections against unincarnated spirits entering anywhere I intend to sleep,  but especially my own living space, for reasons that should be obvious givem the entities I deal with who have bad intenrions.  So I cannot function for newly dead that way for them to come find me for help....only when I find them in my wanderings can I help them. So I like knowing there's someone for them to find to help them.) Not to mention she's a darling. Been through a helluva lot, you have no idea, but she's darling! A favorite of mine!

So anyway, went to Michelangelo's for a con panna then got the text that Short Stack was open so went for late night French toast (theirs is my favorite other than my own) after going to the CTM (Children's Theatre of Madison) performance of Matilda the Musical (love this musical and they did a spectacular job -- genuinely surprised me how great a job they did with it. And Abby, who was in my middle school girl Scouts troop and then was friends in high school was Miss Honey.)  So that was all normal enough.Then picked up my dog from my parents and was going to stop by work even though it was about 11:30pm to pick something up. And that's when things went weird.....

Was just around the corner from work when out of nowhere I had a newly dead spirit rush me. And she was VERY recognizable! A black lady with blonde dyed hair, in a wheelchair, with her left leg wrapped in bandages and her right leg missing beneath the knee. And she was freaking her shit out. She came out of nowhere from the left, wheeled straight at me calling to me waving her arms panicky at me telling me to go back, go home, not to stay near here, "HE" was nearby and it wasn't safe. She then wheeled right through the hood of my car, into the parked cars to my right and I slowed down to deal with her and that freaked her out even MORE so she turned herself around and came BACK at me waving me in a panic to go home and hide, HE was getting clsoer.... So I said, "ALRIGHT! I won't go in, I'll head home NOW." And then she just disappeared. So I kept going past work, VERY slowly, and a car turned headed the other way and no apparition from her, and the car didn't even slow down.  So drove around the block, worried about helping her with the panic she was in because she needed help, and as I came up the side street, she was parked in her wheelchair blocking the nearer driveway into work and she turned her head 180 degrees from the way I'd left toward me and just started shaking her head and panicked waved her hands at me to GO, that I had to be home before midnight.

My dog didn't respond to her at all. My dog responds to the living, but she only responds to unincarnated spirits if they're malevolent or bad intent.

Then, on the drive home, I had a rabbit run out of nowhere from my left, then a deer from my right, then a young male deer from my left, then on my home circle, a fox from my right. The fox was chittering loudly at me and then after I parked the car, as I was coming upstairs I saw the fox sitting in front of the door to my condo building facing outward actively guarding. And after I locked and chained the door, after verifying Alana (who's still mostly staying in Spare Oom) was home, I heard a rush of wings and the great horned owl that lives nearby settled in on the ledge of my balcony near my wind chime, on the side of it that the cherry tree doesn't protect. had the strongest urge to leave the lights off like we'd all gone to bed and not stay up or show signs of anyone there. And then as soon as I'd gotten into pyjamas, the dog wanted to go to bed without dinner (I always feed the animals right before bedtime) and hopped up before I even lay down. Once I did lay down, she lay across my shoulder/arm between me and the window obviously on guard. And then the cat jumped up on the bed and ley on my other side exactly the same across the shoulder and arm, facing my bedroom door and clearly on guard.

Anyway, the woman, whatever her story is.... She didn't know she was dead yet. And her panic, it was about a living man, not anything spiritual. But it was VERY raw and VERY communicable. And I got the sense that whoever it was, it was the story behind her missing/wounded legs as well..... I think most of the panic was hers transferred to me. Having stared down a switchblade pulled on me and taken down grown men bigger than me when attacked AND faced down adn taken care of some VERY nasty piece of work evil malevolent spirits this life, there was no REASON for me to be so shaken. I actually respond to danger and emergencies by getting preternaturally calm and decisive, no fear of any sort, and time slows down while I move/think at hyper speed.  The panic in me and the intensity of the need I be careful and hide was all transferred from her panic and then with how quickly and thoroughly everyone/everything rose up to protect me including both animal spirits and some of the gods/devas/angels/fée who watch over me at all times.

But, that said, I do have an active concern about whoever she was afraid of. because he's a human problem and one who needs to be dealt with before he hurts again. And he's not something the spirit world or the gods/goddesses who watch over me can deal with. Humans must deal with the humans in things like this.... Which is why I'm hoping this newly dead lady comes to AJ... To move this forward and take out the rabid dog of a man that affected this lady's ghost so....

Now, I'm actually at work with my dog. My parents and Sarah and Ian and Karissa had a pizza party and game night tonight at the office while Mikaela and I finished watching Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince. (She'd never seen it before, and she's not read the books.) We also started Deathly Hallows Part 1 even though I told her we'd not finish it. (Got to the part where the house elves bring back Mundangus, so past Hedwig's untimely death.) But we both agreed we'll just start this one over next time I see her as she missed some important dialogue due to everyone talking VERY loudly and interrupting as their game finished.  I'm gonna head home now though. I'll add a postscript when I get there.

Not panicky or on edge or feeling unsafe or extra wary at all right now. But I'll still get myself home before midnight and keep an eye out. Just in case.  Go home, put on pjs, and curl up with some tea and read uninterrupted for a long while. I have nothing in the docket tomorrow (unless I decide to come into work) til heading to Milwaukee to see The Drowsy Lads at the ICHC (old converted church with its own pub.  My plan for Sunday is to come into work though. Have to take care of plants and get hours in and all that.

And, I don't plan to do anything about the one year during the day time or when busy. I just decided one year is my limit. It's not a deadline, just my limit on waiting for any signs of fixing what Britt broke and my limit on waiting to see if Eric would show any signs I ought to extend him any trust or belief that he wouldn't rationalize wrongs because of peer pressure, that he'd learned his lesson. I don't have to do it Sunday, probably will because New Moon while the veil is so thin it practically is nonexistent. Sunday is simply the deadline before things change because they have to and I give up on my trust/belief in their goodness and their desire to do the right thing instead of the ego driven thing.

And yeah, I'll add a postscript to this one once I get home. Before I get lost in a book, lol.

P. S.  Home now.  Figured out what the energy the panicky ghost was projecting reminds me of, a previous experience a couple years back.  You're not gonna like it thoigh. But I can safely say,  what she was on about,  if I'm right,  he's gone back to MN....