Home.  Waiting for my Sunset in Seattle tea to cool enough not to scald my mouth so the chamomile in it will knock me out to get some sleep.

*sigh*

So MOST of tonight was absolutely dream like amazingly wonderful. I had decided to ride the wave of letting them in enough to find joy listening to Delta Rae songs again after the Chicago show. I figured that if things were on their way to better than no need for my overthinking to cloud the night and if things weren't going to get better then I'd rather a brilliantly good loving memory as my farewell to them show.....  So I had a mix of all their music on for the entire drive up to Minneapolis.  Loved the concert, mostly.

Had absolutely wonderful people around me EXCEPT Jessie's friends right behind us and our nearby concerting friends who were obnoxiously talking throughout EVERY song of Liz Longley's set,  loud enough for us to hear every word about their appointments and dating life, until I politely told them we could all hear every word of it distinctly and weren't trying to eavesdrop since we'd rather hear her songs but the acoustics of where they stood made it impossible for us not to know every detail. After that,  the tall brunette said,  "Ugh.  Doesn't she know who I am?  I'm a friend of Jessie after all." as if that should give her the right to talk during an artist's songs.  (actually EVERY friend of Jessie I've ever encountered in a crowd has used that justification for noisily talking during the songs in response to me asking them not to talk during the music or if they want to talk could they please do so at the bar.) This was BEFORE they started taking selfies with the flash on - intentionally having turned the flash on because otherwise it was too dark during Liz's set for selfies.... They were typical of my experience as an audience member of being near Jessie's obnoxious friends - this was the 4th time encountering some of Jessie's friends  of the 10 Delta Rae shows I went to this year.....

Anyway,  that was annoying,  but they shoved through to try to be in the front with a chain of half dozen humans behind them,  including Grant's girlfriend was grabbed onto at the end of the chain - though she had the decency to turn back and apologize to the people the two who'd been obnoxiously rude right behind me had shoved aside to move forward.  So at least I didn't have to hear those two talking all through Delta Rae.....

As for the show.most of it was delightful - I was genuinely enjoying myself dancing and singing and grinning and beaming my love.

That is.  I was until Eric started in on the kickstarter spiel and I felt the tremors of distrust and distance start in me...  I think he felt them coming from me too because he suddenly stopped and looked at me confused. At which point Britt hopped on the mic said,  "Remind them to find us on Instagram." and he said,  "I was getting to that."

See,  at each of these three shows,  they've been plugging their instagram - to find them and follow them on instagram to keep up on what they're up to.  No other socials,  just instagram - y'know,  the one someone blocked me on.  And at each of the shows,  my reaction has been to think,  "Yeah I did,  but now you blocked me I can't." and retreat into myself disconnect from everyone onstage at the relational bullying of bringing ONLY Instagram up.... Because that's what it is,  a reminder of the ostracism to everyone who was blocked (including me.)  Because to me,  being blocked,  that page literally doesn't show up nor does anything shared from it.  I KNOW every time Eric,  Mike,  or Grant try to share from the band's insta because their stories show up with the colored circle of an unwatched story,  but if I click on it nothing plays.  And if it's in the middle of other stories they post,  it just doesn't show up and I'll have 5 stories where Crissy's account has 6. On top of that,  everywhere anyone tags or links to it,  just shows up as text to me.... Such as on Mike and Grant's profiles:

So yeah,  let ME find you on Instagram after you've blocked me..... That definitely works.... Thanks for repeatedly telling me that's how to fix it and making Eric be the one to say it so you force even more artificial distance between us....

Anyway,  her response was to say,  "Yeah.  Sure you were." and then go on and on about how  these last two months have been a celebration (also the time since Eric aided in the bullying and I got so hurt and decided the only thing I could do about that was to sever all ties to him including the inner bond) she's the one who does all of it and she recognizes and knows people by name and never forgets anyone or any interaction etc etc.  And somewhere in her continuous relational bullying of,  "I want to be friends with all of you,  except the people I blocked and yes I knew it was you when I did it" speech I just felt everything break inside me....  All my fragile hope and faith there was a better answer on the horizon than me leaving,  all my incandescent joy and love for the music and these particular humans and what they're doing artistically - all of that just shattered as she continued poking the bear with her relational bullying.  And then it was gone and I was right back in the same place of hurt and sorrow and defeatist "the only thing left I can do to not be feeling these things is leave the situation of intentional ostracism and walk away from this bullying and everyone who is a part of it" and pulling myself in tight not to let any of my love reach them or their overtures reach me because doing so would be knowingly opening up pathways to be hurt worse.   Eric,  Ian,  and Liz all felt it immediately and it visibly gutted them watching all that light and love vanish and me go back to wound up tight/tense, unsmiling, not dancing, singing along mechanically.  I couldn't see Mike or Grant or Ellen, so I don't know if they realized.  But I saw the different ways it gutted Eric,  Ian,  and Liz.  But by then it was too late to fix with words about how much you love everyone there (subtext: except those of you I intentionally blocked) or catching my eye and trying to reassure me and reach me and get even a partial smile.  When they realized not even Dance in the Graveyards could break through the damage that adding more relational bullying had done on top of the over a year's worth of hurts because of this,  it was horrible for me to see what that did to them.... Especially Eric, who went from beaming giddy as a kid on Christmas morning to a frowning grimace with a tic in his cheek looking like he was going to cry while banging on his keyboard extra hard.  That is when I could even look at him,  I hardly could for those last two songs and the two songs in the encore,  because when I did look at him all I felt was my hurt over him having willingly taken part in bullying me via the band's instagram three times back in August/September compounded by HIS pain at everything he'd just lost and him seeing the place I was back in....

The first thing I did when I got back to the car was switch out their music because I couldn't listen to it again....  I put on Emma Langford's album Quiet Giant instead.

And now.  Now I'm back right exactly where I was before/during the Ann Arbor show.  Only the pain is deeper and fresher for my 24 hours of having been a fool for LETTING myself be taken in to be hurt again,  for thinking there was going to be a way out better than me leaving and that I could have all that light and love and joy and their music back in my life again....  It hurts worse for being fool enough to extend them that hope and faith only to be bullied yet again in the exact same way all over again....

I hurt so badly over it under the tension and unsmiling face with the distant eyes rebuffing your every overture to reopen real contact and revive that love that's the reason it hurts so badly.....

Tomorrow or the next day or the next I'll get this grief and pain under control so I can start shutting Eric out from reaching me on the bond, amplifying my hurt/grief with his.  And then after that I can work out how I put the bond to sleep again completely so none of his emotions bleed into mine and neither of us can hear or reach the other that way....  That's what I'll do when I get a better grip on it.  But right now,  the pain and sorrow is too raw,  too fresh.  All I can do is feel it until iit becomes my new normal instead of overwhelming me - and that will be when I can start on the next necessary steps for me to leave.

But dear gods,  it hurts so badly right now though.... And right now all I yearn for is that wondrous love and connection and joy that we refound in Chicago and I let myself believe I could have....that's where I want to turn for comfort from this hurt/sorrow, and I can't because Eric's sister and also Eric for following her lead on this  is the source of the pain for me...  .  Now I have to start all over again the 3 months work of accepting I can't have it..... And it's harder now,  right after that so recent and so blindly bright lovelight renewal between us.....

It just hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts right now and nothing helps ease it in me....

So I'm going to change into my pjs,  drink this chamomile blend tea now that the sun is up,  then curl up in the fetal position hugging my dog in my bed and wishing I could cry over it because that would ease the weight in my chest and the lump in my throat and the pricking in my eyes.  But,  unfortunately, I'm someone who grieves over loss of those I love so deeply that you can't cry to ease the pain of your loss because you hurt too much to have any catharsis yet....  It took me five years before I could cry over my grandfather's death,  five years of carrying that grief.  And it was 3 months before I could smile with my mouth,  4 months for even a sardonic laugh,  and 6 months for a smile that reached from my soul to my eyes - and that smile was for the puppy a family friend brought thinking my grandpa still alive and puppy snuggles would cheer him up for a bit.  He waa already 6 months dead,  but that puppy brought out my first real smile while I was in the hollows and my dad being a dog person and seeing that insisted right then we adopt Samwise Doggee....  Because my papa was the only one knew how hard I was grieving and how deep in the hollows I was when I told my parents they didn't have to fight over who was taking me to ballet a month pr so before - dance couldn't bring 9 year old me joy any longer so they shouldn't waste time or money or love in a spat over taking me to something that ceased bringing me joy.  After I started laughing and smiling with my eyes again,  everyone thought I had healed but really I just hid my grief I was carrying behind my eyes. The healing didn't start til the catharsis of crying released the grief - and that took me 5 years.  It was 10 years before I returned to dancing....there were people who met me in middle school and high school who never knew how central dance as an expression of joy in the music had always been to me and certainly no idea that I spent so long focused on being a professional ballerina before learning that at 9 I was already too tall for it.....  If I'm honest, I haven't been to a ballet class or any dance class since the precogs started of how much pain Delta Rae signing to a country label was going to cause me and what it was going to demand of me in giving up and bearing my way through the hollows of my grief over most likely losing Eric in this life due to the chain of events it would set in motion.  I haven't been to a dance class since - and as much as there are people in my life can't imagine me NOT alight inside dancing multiple hours a day almost every day in one of the disciplines I love,  it's been years since I last danced for real not just at concerts or club style dancing to pop songs I love.....  For me,  dance comes from the soul - and I can't do it other than surface level when I'm in the hollows grieving.....

So you can hope I dance all you want,  but I can't til the grieving fully heals.... And in me,  that's a long process of carrying sorrow and pain behind my eyes still clinging desperately to every spark and sparkle of joy I can find and showering everyone I meet with as much light and joy as I can while I grapple my way through the hollows to the catharsis of my first cry and the long years til I'm fully healed enough to go back to dancing....

I'm slow to heal my hurting,  just good at hiding that and going along stoix as I can knowing I'll get through it eventually....

And right now,  I hurt even worse than I did in August/September from Eric taking part in rhe bullying via ostracism behaviors.... Because I let me BELIEVE, truly believe, we could have that light and love we both have for each other and I let him in again.... And now I have to begin from scratch the process of numbing myself to this hurt so I can do what I must.....

But right now, today, all I can do is curl up with my pain and wish I could cry to ease it at least a little. And do my best to make me sleep when possible during the worst of the hurting part of the grieving.

I dropped my pup off with my parents after FINALLY kissing my emo little bear luck dragon inro accepting me only sleeping about 4 hours.  Mikaela was there with her mom as well. Disappointed I couldn't hang out but whispered to me while hugging me,  "You should go see Delta Rae more often Dani.  I don't remember the last time you didn't carry a sadness under your shiningness.  But the sadness is gone today - you're all sparkles and light straight through you."

And my mum said as my da walked in right before I was leaving,  "O good!  You can see how cute your daughter is before she leaves!"
And my da looked at me and thought loudly,  "Her eyes are happy again for the first time in months.  Her brightness goes past the surface again."

They're not wrong.  But I didn't realize it had been so obvious....

I have a lot to process from the last couple nights.  And need to head to bed get some sleep before tomorrow driving to Minneapolis and back

Ann Arbor was hard.  Everyone was just so upset and unhappy.  And I couldn't look at Eric at all without just feeling all the hurt and brokenness and distrust and all of it crash down on me....  Yet,  whenever I wouldn't look at him,  because looking hurt too mich, I'd just get swamped in his heartache over the fact he couldn't get a single smile from me (I think I smiled maybe twice and then during Dance In The Graveyards so long as I focused on Ian and the song itself. 

Tonight was better.  Which is good,  I don't think I could have taken another night like Ann Arbor.  Tonight,  I'd brought my rose quartz with bear claw charm in with me (hangs from front mirror,  but I don't leave it up parking in bigger cities.  And the thing is,  rose quartz amplifies love connections.  And for me,  it manifests as enhancing my empath gifts AND by turning up the volume on all my inner empath bonds and karmic bonds. And. Since the one to Eric is strongest of all,  if he's feeling anything strongly,  his strong emotions drown out everything.... I actually have been unable to wear any of my rose quartz jewelry or even have it within my chi/auric field because if I do,  the strength pf his grief just completely drowns me til I feel like I can't breathe the sorrow hurts so all-consumingly.  So tonight,  especially with the physical proximity, having that small piece of rose quartz in my purse and a similar size piece of quartz in there,  all I could hear of anyone's emotions in that entire space was Eric.  All of it.  And I couldn't stand his suffering, not knowing that all he needed was for me to look at him.  Even if I couldn't smile,  he just needed me to at least meet his eyes and to listen and let us at least make eye contact to know that even with all the hurt there,  there was still lpve amd need and desire to heal the hurting there.  In both of us....  And I reached a point I just couldn't fight that anymore.... And his joy when I finally did was so incandescently bright, even if neither of us could more than half smile that it just broke some stubborn proud part of me that was refusing to let go before,  and I just.... Right then,  all I wanted was fpr him to feel how deeply I still loved him,  under the hurting and mistrust, and to bask in the joy of that mutual acknowledgement.  And....  To let us both feel all the complex emotions and bare those honestly openly and feel the reassurance and love from the other person just wash over that to make it heal.  And that was a bit of a chain reaction of joy for everyone onstage..... 

And.  Things are still complicated.  And though I love him want him more than I've ever wanted anyone or anything - I don't want him if he doesn't want me or if things are going to be toxic/poisoned between us,  or if we can only bring one or both of us suffering.... What I WANT is him with only love and light and joy that beings us both healing and makes us better for having each other....  And those are the only terms I want it on - if it's going to be toxic or hurtful,  I'd rather we let each other go til we've learned the lessons to be something solely of goodness for each other....  

And I don't know that I believe we can have that for us.... Because nothing has been fixed or addressed and that toxic poisonous set of issues is exactly what it was before I saw him in person again....  It may still be best and kindest for the both of us for me to cut all ties to him and the band til we have each grpwn enough to be healthy and healing and good for each other.... I just don't know.... 

But even if me cutting ties and going is the healthiest thing for the both pf us,  I'd rather go with him knowing how deep the love is in me for him and how incandescently pure and good and unwavering that love is.  That he know and feel that so he has that much.... 

Because even if poisoned seeds have grown to toxic strengtg that ruins any chance of anything healthy between us,  I still want him to KNOW,  with no shadows of doubt,  how bright how much love is there always and always. So he can carry tgat with him,  even if only in memories.  

Also.  I'm glad they didn't do You Can Tell Him I'm Leaving.  I couldn't have handled it....  And then,  for everyone to leave stage after Doesn't Get Any Better Than This so he could have time/space for just him and his piano for Meaning Of It All.....  That took so much courage and maybe a lot of desperation in his sorrow,  and reaching a place of,  "I can't live with myself if I don't acknowledge these truths before I lose you." And also a very smart,  "I am going to MAKE you look at me,  make you have nobody else up here but meeting my eyes listening to what I need you to know." i was so close to breaking down and just sobbing uncontrollably at multiple points for the rawness and honesty in him about it.  and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him tell him,  "Enough pain.  Enough hurting.  There's already been too much of it.  It's time to make things better,  to heal.  But for now it's time to just wrap our arms and love around each other til it drowns out all the rest. " Especially the end,  the promise there that no matter how bad this storm and how deep our hurting goes,  he'll still be waiting with his arms wide open.... 

And it broke down the last of what was pulling away from him in me, all I wanted was to believe that and to hug him til we both knew deep in our bones it would be good somehow.  

But.  It still might be healthiest for us both for me to go.   I dunno.  My precogs show me nothing.  It's all too muddled and the choices to definitely decide which path we take haven't been made yet - the coin is still in the air spinning.....  

I did break down let go of enough of my hurting that on the drive home,  for the first time since late August, I actively WANTED to listen to Delta Rae music and put it on for the rest pf the ride.... 

I dunno.  Tonight is the third and last of the shows.  I forget if it's the dress all of gold or covered in diamonds or the dress made of sunshine that the princess wears to the third dance in all the fairytales...  Don't think I own either, and this is real life not a fairy tale anyway. I honestly have no idea what I'll actually wear.  Didn't get that far ahead...  But it's 5:30am and I should get some sleep.... 

G'night. Even if it's morning now.  Sweet dreams.  Things are still complicated uncertain don't know which way the coin will fall.....  But it's better than it was. It's a fragile thawing and start toward rapprochement and healing.  But it is a start.  And for the first time in months,  it tastes of hope...  

P. S.  The Leonids meteor shower peak today and tomorrow. Tonight is a good night for stargazing and night drives and making wishes...... So is Sunday night. 

See. The thing is. The closer I get to actually seeing Eric, the harder it is for me to stay stubbornly upset and hurt with him.... It's just neither my nature nor my desire to be upset with him or see him hurting.....

Am I still angry at the situation? yes. Do I still read between the lines of everything posted from the band accounts as a veiled, "All of our fans EXCEPT those we blocked because you were honest about what we didn't want to hear. So you're not our fans. We'll take your money but you're not a fan." no matter what the actual content of the post or the medium the band uses? Yes -- words don't matter when your actual actions are a direct and continuous contradiction of the words. Is this HEIGHTENED if it comes from Brittany or Jessie as the primary people involved in how that happened last year to set this entire situation up? Absolutely.  Was it made a thousand times worse by the very intentional and ostentatious proclamations EVERYWHERE in August saying,  "we want to celebrate with our fans - come hang out with us on instagram live" and then NOBODY responding or dealing with being told that's straight up ostracism to have it be on the band's instagram from which fans had been blocked for stating they had issues with the country music related band choices?  Oh HELL yes! That quite explicitly was a DELIBERATE exl3usion and slap in the face of "we're celebrating with all our fans and anyone who isn't here isn't REALLY a fan." alongside the DELIBERATE gaslighting and relational bullying of simply treating a person as if they don't exist. Did I get that message from Brittany, Jessie,  and Eric and the choices they made at the end of the kickstarter?  Yes, yes I did - loud and clear.  Do I WANT to like content that they have been sharing that aesthetically and intellectually and emotively appeals to me? Yes, yes I do. Can I find myself liking it now with the way things are and how they have been for over a year now since that decision was made in the name of the entire band? No -- I can't like it, even if I try it just makes me feel sad and hurt and unwanted and unappreciated and that I should just fucking leave because then they can do whatever the hell it is they want to do and I won't be hurt by it because I won't see it to be reminded of the subtext of EVERYTHING that has happened as a result of deciding to block a fan for being honest about a truth you didn't want to hear and didn't want known. Do I now have trust issues with Eric and question his ethical core and his ability to have empathy for anothers suffering that I never had before his choices to go live on the band account (3 times, not just once) without ever addressing any of this? YES -- and this isn't going to be easy or quick to heal. Broken trust never is.

So it's complicated. It's not a matter of want versus stubbornness in me, it's about genuine issues of ethics and principles and the doubt that has been sowed toward the girls, toward the band generally, and toward Eric now.  And ALL OF IT is directly as a result of this one action that was done a year ago in the band's name and that the band has defended by refusing to address or redress no matter whose attention it has been brought to or how it has been brought to them.


And the sorrow and grief and aching loss in me over feeling this is the only option left toward Eric for me to pursue is to be saying goodbye on the best terms I can with this hand we have and this toxic choice that was made and NEVER cleaned up by anyone so it festered and has infected, well, everything to do with the band for me... That sorrow and grief in me is also a gaping chasm inside me right now and if I look too close into it, it howls and hurts and overrides everything else. But I can stoic through that -- it's a loss I've known before. And I should admit that my only fault in this situation was to choose honesty over lying sycophancy, the fact this flaw was tested and he failed and that hurts me IS my own damn fault for pushing in how I constructed my reward life request before he'd finished learning his lesson that he stumbled over so badly 400 years ago with me.....  If I'd chosen for my reward life differently, I could have made it so that any seeking me could find me WHEN they were ready for encountering me -- and then he'd just not have known about me or remembered me before meeting me or had any of the psychic linkage of the internal bond or any of it til he'd learned this lesson some other way and was ready to be given the chance of finding me again.  That's on me, that I should have known enough to add that clause into what I asked for that secondary term of my reward life.... I'd have saved us both this pain and this situation we're now mired in.

It's not that I don't want him and it's not that I don't want to heal all this mess and work at cleaning it up -- it's simply that I can't do it one-sidedly and I can't do it from only the options available to me. I can't make choices for other people and I refuse to try to bend or force another's will -- the healing has to start with making right what got broken in this relationship, it can't begin anywhere else. With only the options available to me, my best choice is to put the bond to sleep so its presence cannot be a source of hurt to us or anyone else in our lives (we can be hurt by its absence, the silence and emptiness of it missing, but that's a passive hurt not an active danger that's unfair to other people) and to walk away from any and everything to do with the band. To give in to what the stated subtext and goal of is in the decision to block a long time fan -- the denial that I am a fan of the band or antyhing they do.

But it doesn't mean I don't love Eric and want him to be happy and to have the happiness it is he seeks in his life. And it doesn't mean I'm not hurting and sad and scared and wishing there were another way out of this mess. And it doesn't mean I wouldn't RATHER clean this up and try to heal things than have me walk away. It just means I acknowledge that the options at my disposal in this situation are limited because I can't make choices or actions for other people and so I can't fix what was broken here. It's not within my sets of options to do that.  And I'm not going to be party to trying to hang on any longer to something toxic that will just require more karmic cleaning later, I'd rather leave it than make the mess worse than it already is......

It's not me being stubborn -- it's me acknowledging I lack the capacity to do anything else about this situation the way it is now and someone with other choices and options will have to change it before my options open to me change. It's me playing out the best I can this shitty hand that was dealt by 1) the band deciding to go country 2) the girls getting defensive and rationalizing their cruelty at being told that the country music is EXTREMELY painful to my synesthesia and was going to stop me attending shows or being able to listen to their music in the future as they tried to conform to country radio and 3) that defensiveness and rationalizing and desire to hide their cruelty culminating in the decision to block me on the band's official instagram account.

That's the hand that was dealt and these are the way that hand plays out.

It plays out in the band losing a long time loyal fan due to the sheer stubborn stupidity and defensiveness of the girls rationalizing manifesting as bullying behaviors and cruelty -- and the band refusing to back down or make right what Brittany did wrong. And that choice inevitably plays out as me walking away and cutting off inner ties to Eric and him losing everything that could and should have been born from him finally finding me again.....

*shrugs*

There are no options and no choices and no actions that I have to fix this or heal what was broken. So And all my attempts to try to get anyone else to listen or do a damn thing about it were deliberately and repeatedly ignored and gaslit as if they'd never been made. So I'm attempting to make the best decision of the options and choices and actions that ARE available to me.

This is me admitting defeat. This is me burying all that was good and should have been even better and brighter moving forward. That's what me walking away is -- and I know it. I'm not going to lie to myself about that. I don't go in for the lies to make things easier -- not to tell myself and not to tell others. So I know this is me admitting defeat.

And that is how we got to where we are right now. Right in this crux of opportunities to fix this some other way are almost all past and writ in stone all the choices everyone has made.

I am so fucking enamoured with the new Jonas Brothers Christmas song they just released, Like It's Christmas

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It's sooooooo fucking amazing!!!!!! Everything about it, musically and thematically!!!!!

*happy sigh* You really don't want to know how many times I've listened to it today!!! Just,t rust me, you don't.

I've actually been on quite a journey since the release of Sucker in March from denial to acceptance that I just really fucking love what reunited Jonas brothers sounds like.  Like, since April, I've just been quite honest that I am a convert to being a fan of Jo Bro. Their pop songs are so solidly good and they're anchored so firmly in really classic staples that got lost in the last 8 years or so of pop music's wanderings and The Jonas Brothers are HERE to bring us the lyrical hooks you can't get out of your brain but really don't want to, their sibling barbershop motown harmonies, snaps/claps for rhythm section, all the variety of keys and synths, brass AND strings as needed, and dropping in that whistle where it's needed. And I am 100% here for what they've been serving up this year!!! (Even before Joe married Sansa, I mean Sophie turner. She will always be Sansa to me though....)

Happiness Begins is genuinely one of my absolute FAVORITE albums of the year. It satisfies the same part of me that adores Hanson, neon Trees, Bastille, Imagine Dragons, etc. The same part that used to find such intense joy from Chasing Twisters, Scared, Any Better Than This, Badlands, etc. Until the girls, especially Brittany, destroyed that so I'm now at a point I don't even desire to listen to those songs -- they couldn't bring me joy with the way things are now even if I did listen to them. But the Jo Bro album Happiness begins, it revives in me all that same joy and light and love -- just for the music of another band. But that still satisfies all the same motown-pop-rock vibe.

That said, I've had since falling in love with Sucker to acknowledge this and I've had since the summer to realize my adoration of Happiness Begins. But Like It's Christmas is an all new "fall in love with this sound all over again" for me!!! And I am so here for it right now!!!! It's exactly the gift I needed at this time!!

Tomorrow: hanging out with extended family at 10:30, then going to the Badgers-Iowa game at 3.
Sunday: Symphony tickets at 2.

Getting hours in at work around that (still at work now.)

next week also getting hours in front of the week. Heading to Ann Arbor late Weds/stupid early thurs to be sure to get through Chicago overnight when traffic is chillest. (Not actually looking forward to he opener, Carrie Welling. I know she's a good friend and former housemate of Eric's, and she may well be a very lovely human -- but her voice is TOO painfully country for me even just in the clips from that single they shared.) So very much not looking forward to having to sit through her as an opener for one of the three shows -- but Liz Longley for the other two is still a delight to me!!!  Coming back on Friday via the Chicago show, gonna pick up my dog and sleep in my own bed that night even if it's late. Then Saturday headed to Minneapolis and home again that night as well.

And hopefully by the end of that, I will be at a point of inner peace and acceptance of reality for what it is now and fallible people's fuckups then trying to hide them instead of face them as simple facts you need to set your expectations at. On verra.

But til then, it's gonna be a Jo Bro karaoke and dance party up in here!!! Because when it is, I genuinely don't even think about any of them or give a flying fuck about Delta Rae or wishing I could still love their music (still haven't listened to the single they released of Take Me There) or care what they do or don't do or feel anything at all about what sorts of people they show themselves to be. And that's good I think.  That's progress from where I was at end of August and all of September and even much of October....

Aaaaand, for right now, I'mma play Like It's Christmas yet again! This song though! Just dayumn!!!!

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Hi.  Yes.  7:46am CST. You're doing it again.  Would you like to tell me why you're flooding the bond with your love and light? Orrrrr.  No?  Does it just happen sometimes without your control?  Or is it intentional?  Do you even know when you're doing it?

Alright then. Don't tell me.  I'mma make another cuppa tea then and read some more.

Hi.  Yes.  It's 5:30 in the morning CST and you're flooding the bond with love and light with all the strength you possess so it drowns out everything else.  It's very heady. And intense. and it's been ages since that's happened....

And I'd just like to know,  um what?  Now?  Why now?  Je ne comprends pas......

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.