I've been at my parents house tonight with my maman and the dogs while my da is at cards with his friends. She made us butternut squash and kale gnocchi from her box and we had a bottle of Italian chianti and we worked on finishing up some of last years Four Continents dvred figure skating that we had from just before the Olympics and forgot about until she was going through her DVR in August when I was stupid super busy with Irish fest and then my parents were out of town. We want to finish these out before this year's Grand Prix season starts with Skate America (always the third weekend of October.)  

So that's been my night, gnocchi and chianti and dvred Four Continents performances.

~*~*~*~

I started this book Sunday evening but was so tired that I it read the first couple segments before I had to sleep. But when I got home from work last night at like 2:30-3am, I sat down and just hyperfocal devoured it all in one sitting. As in carried it with me to the kitchen to read while waiting on the kettle to steep another cuppa tea. (Finished the whole book in only 3 cuppas.) 

It's one of my favorite books I've read in a really really long time. If I guess it would be and have made other people buy it based on my enthusiasm for it, even unread, but just wanted to confirm that I absolutely adored it! And not just because I always refer to him as Odin Oathbreaker and insist he can never be trusted.   

It was so good!!!! I loved it so much!!!

I bought it in the bookstore at SeaTac on my way home from visiting my sister but I have been impatiently waiting to read it. I picked this one up and I knew it was going to be a thinning of the veil dying of the year when all the trees  light up flame colors and start dropping -- the crisp and windy step down from early autumn harvest waning into the great seasonal die off/sleep. The season of apples and whiskey and pumpkin spice and holding onto the warmth and goldenness to keep in your memory and soul through the glitter and starkness of the great slumber and purity and silence before everything is reborn. The ending that sets the seeds for the rebirth on the other side of the resting. I was so excited on Saturday night when I had finished both my purse book and my at home book and we hit a last gasp of sunny 70s before we settle into lows all in the frost/freeze category. I was so excited when the winds whispered to me "Now. Now is the time for this one!" And then the weather and my schedules lined up for it last night/early this morning, this last witching hour between midnight and sunrise!

 I have a very strong opinion that you only get to read a book for the first time once -- you can reread it as many times as you want, but your first time reading a novel and experiencing a story and it's world and finding yourself in that character is a chance that only happens once in your life.  every time coming back to that old love will taste of the memories from your first read. So if you KNOW you think a given book will resonate with you and click, I like to buy it then wait with it unread on my shelves in anticipation for the right time to try to setup my first read like a first date you're super excited for getting perfect. I need to make sure I get the seasonality and the mood and the timing and my snacks/drinks exactly right to complement the experience of the book. Some books are coffee, some tea, some hot cocoa, some wine, some whiskey, some beachy cocktails. Some are fruit, some cheese and crackers, some nuts, some fasting until you reach the end. Some of them are daytime books, some night time books (once I started the first couple sections, I felt so strongly this was a witching hour book that I told me I couldn't read it until after a good long sleep and then staying up all night to read it all between midnight and sunrise, across the witching hours.)

And I love it when I hit the synchronicity of seasonality and the mood and the moment and the aesthetic and the drinks/food exactly perfect to suit the experience of my first read with a book! 

 I realized something early this morning. 

After I get back from my late November visit to my sister's family (Nov 16-Dec 2) I will have absolutely nothing whatsoever in my calendar or that I have tickets purchased for except symphony subscription..... No concerts, no plays, no travel. Nothing booked except my monthly symphony subscription.... 

I can't for the life of me think of the last time that happened where I can say "beyond two months from now I will have absolutely no scheduled plans or shows or travel booked" -- it's been well over a decade.... Even in the lockdown period of covid in 2020 when in person everything was getting cancelled and postponed and rescheduled I still had tickets to things in the future even if we didn't actually know WHEN they'd be allowed to occur again.... It's been a VERY long time since I could look ahead and go, "Huh, two months from now, I'll have nothing booked for the future except symphony subscription....."

I have just a bit between now and my Seattle area trip: 

~Oct 14: symphony 

~Oct 15: Beau Soleil farewell tour at Stoughton Opera House (this was rescheduled due to covid and then re-rescheduled back in the Spring after a founding member broke his leg in Alaska.)

~Oct 16: Tickets to the Packers game at Lambeau ; meeting with my cousin Teddy and his fiancee Felicia afterward to hang out and have Cheese steak Rebellion together 

~Oct 22: Lone Bellow at Stoughton Opera House  

~Oct 22-24: Aunt Geeta in town 

~Nov 1: Stones in His Pockets at APT 

~Nov 5: mother daughter girls day Badger football game tickets with Crissy, my mom, and Crissy's mom 

~Nov 8: Coronas tickets in Chicago 

~Nov 11: symphony 

~Nov 12: big birthday celebration for my grandma in Chicago area 

~Nov 16-Dec 2: Seattle area trip 

~Dec 3: symphony tickets 

Somewhere in there is also the baby shower for my cousin Teddy and his fiancee Felicia, I think the first weekend of November but not entirely certain.... We told him to go ahead and include me on my parents invite rather than mail two of them, so I don't actually know the exact date.....

But after Dec 3? No concerts, no theatre, no travel plans..... Nothing booked and nothing with tickets involved for me other than symphony subscription..... How fucking weird is that?!

No idea what it means. It's just odd and for me it's noteworthy.... 

Also noteworthy, the marked contrast between my reactions in the first half of the Packers-Giants game in London vs the second half..... If you watched, you understand. If you didn't watch, well, if you're a Packers fan or even just a mildly supportive of the Packers human, it was rough and not watching was by far the better choice.....

First half (pregame, first field goal, first touchdown, second touchdown, second field goal):

Second Half:

Last minute of the game:

Just a bit of a difference in my reactions to first half vs second half, non? What photos don't capture is all my intensely reactionary shouting with visible hopping up and down about really exciting/disappointing plays and all my colorful commentary over... choices..... I tend to keep myself more contained when watching in public settings unless in a situation where everyone is noisy reactionary, but my emotions and my facial expressions are always VERY loud. (Also, even if it's NOT my dedicated sports loves of Packers and figure skating and FIFA World Cup (always France, ALWAYS rooting for Les Bleus -- USA comes n second to me when it comes to FIFA World Cup loyalty and investment) and x games events, if sports are on I can guarantee you I'll be watching it even while holding a conversation even if I'm not invested in it at all.)

I'll get over it. It was just SUCH a great first half and then SUCH a steamrollered second half.... And it just means that they should be fighting for a win THAT much harder next weekend when I'll be live in person at Lambeau Field with my maman! 

But also... It was a really brutal second half.... So fucking brutal.... Still smarting from it.... Could use a hug... Could use a damn lot of hugs.... Because it was a really fucking brutal smackdown..... 

 Spock is asleep on my lap, Audrey is chewing on the remnants of an old knuckle bone she's had for ages and forgot about until she dug it out of her basket of toys to rediscover it and work on tonight. I'm currently snuggled up with blankets and candles lit and a cuppa green tea and reading Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto - the 18th century novel that first created the gothic genre and is this the original progenitor of all horror and modern got this and dark fantasy. 

It's.... Histrionic and melodramatic and hyperbolic and a lot.... But in the best possible way. I fully understand now why Jane Austen satirized it so in Northaner Abbey. 

Here's a prose poem from I Hope You Stay by Courtney Pepperell which I read before settling back into The Castle of Otranto and which I particularly liked.

I like that. I would like to be someone's first thought, only choice, certainty. I think I'd like that more than anything else I can think of right now....

That's where I am and what I'm doing tonight and the cozy hygge éléments of which my life is made. But what are you up to? Wherever you are far from me. Is it cozy? Does it make you happy? Or if not happy, at the bare minimum content with where you are and what you have in this place/time you are camped in on your path? If you're not yet where you want to be, are you at least on the path to it? Is your Saturday night content with exactly where you are right now and the trajectory it seems to be taking you? I hope so. I hope that if you're not exactly where you want to be, you know deep down in the truest depths of your soul you are heading down the path to where you hope to reach one day.

But tonight, candles lit, blankets wrapped around me in my reading chair, purring cat on my lap, dog chewing bone on my feet, watching the steam rise from my Buddha Dragon well green tea, starting the next chapter of the og Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto is where I am and what my moment is composed of on this Saturday night before the full moon in Aries.

Also though. There is a discontent in my soul in that I would wrap my arms around Eric and kiss him until my knees felt too weak to hold me if I let him go. If I could. That's what I'd like to do just now. If I could. I can't. But that doesn't stop my wanting it. If only I could..... *sigh* alright then. More tea and books for me. And a Packers game in about 7 hours because it's in London. But just to remind you, if I COULD this would be a very different Saturday night than it is. And the happiness would be much more intense, significantly less calm, and there would be no shadows of discontent within me.  If I could have him in my life right now..

I think it's worth my acknowledging (to myself and here) that as much as it upsets me, I don't have nearly the visceral reaction he does of, "No! That's not acceptable! I won't let that happen now I have found you!" when it comes to contemplating acceptance of us not having a future in this life. Because he does have that reaction, and I can hear it down the bond from him. Today and all the time. Failure to build a future together isn't something he will even consider allowing to happen if he can help it now we found each other.... The only reason he could imagine for such a failure was the possibility of never finding me, of the odds against it given the sheer number of humans on the planet, and that used to upset and concern him greatly. Now he doesn't know how he's going to find his way to our shared life path, but he knows he will or he'll die trying because he doesn't consider failure an option.

But it's not like that for me at this point in time. I remember it being like that for me, but that was a long time ago. It's not my current truth. Not for lack of love or lack of desire. It's just.... I spent several hundred years coming to terms with the idea that given I promised I'd always choose him in any life if he wanted me AND given it ended up being centuries of lifetimes our paths didn't cross, I concluded that it must mean he no longer wanted me in those lifetimes, was no longer seeking me. And I spent a long time, many many lifetimes trying to grapple with that idea that he no longer wanted to find me and trying to accept that as a premise. It was only toward the end of last life I learned that wasn't what had been happening at all. I still have to unlearn the premise that for whatever reason he doesn't want me anymore - and it took me a long time to try to accept it so I expect it will take a while for me to unlearn..... 

And that's actually one of my lessons in this life for me to work on -- unlearning the premise that he doesn't want me wasn't seeking to reach me all those lifetimes we were separated. But it's going to take me time and consistent evidence for me to unlearn it and work on it, deprogramming yourself of anything you come to believe will take time and consistency of counter evidence. And I know that, same as I know I'm supposed to unlearn this. It's just.... 

Sometimes I think that the conclusions we don't want to be true and have spent the most time trying to refute rather than accept are the ones that become the hardest for us to unlearn later on. It's like the act of fighting them as being false before accepting them as true makes them harder to believe false again without even heavier counterarguments and evidence. And I think it's BECAUSE of how much time and energy we spent fighting it but also in listening to the proofs that rationalized it into something we came to accept as true.

And I fought so long, and for so many lifetimes against the idea that he didn't want me any more and that his happiness must lie elsewhere than with me.... But it was life after life after life after life of our paths not crossing and I reached the point of, "how else can I explain this long absence in our life paths crossing?" And I couldn't think of anything else, anything better, to explain his long extended absence out of my lives.....so eventually I came to accept it despite how deeply I desired not to believe it could possibly be his truth.

But a consequence of going so long trying to accept that he wasn't finding me crossing my life path because he wasn't wanting to find me, is that it made me take that premise and start to conclude that his happiness was somehow separate and distinct from my own.... That for him to have his happiness he seeks somehow was a priori  requiring I accept letting him go from my own life. And that's something else in me to unlearn and I know it -- but the best way to weed out an a priori deduction at the root cause is by having evidence that proves it false and thus makes you reevaluate the premises behind it. Replace the a priori conclusion with one based on evidence - such as a conclusion that for him, I am integral to the happiness he seeks and without me in it he can't reach that. 

And I know that would be the best thing to help me with unlearning and changing my behaviors so I'm not constantly believing that the best thing I can do for him is to let him go..... I just don't know how to make me see as evidence these truths of his from his actions... I only see these truths of his down the bond and my inner knowing. And that's not direct tangible evidence, it's just another type of abductive reasoning that is as fraught with a prioris as the current one I need to work on unlearning. If you want to help me unlearn the idea that his happiness must now be dependent on me letting him go, give me tangible evidence and proofs that premise is false. Something tangible is the best thing you could do to bring us back to fighting for the same thing again, fighting for the future where we have both chosen for ourselves a shared life path.  I don't know how to get me tangible evidence, but I know it's the thing would help me most to make better progress at my unlearning so I stop making the assumption that his happiness somehow is predicated on my absence from his life. 

Evidence, direct tangible evidence, is the single best tool at your disposal to help me unlearn and stop believing his happiness he chooses for himself requires I set him free of me. It's the best way to get me to stop acting in ways that set us on divergent trajectories that don't cross. It's the best way to help me understand how much it matters to him to believe and know that I'm watching and seeing him. Basically, it's the best way to stop me from doing impulsively stupid things that make everything worse.

Because. I just want for him to have the most overflowing joy and magic and happiness that his heart and his life can hold. And while I'd rather that included me even in a small tangential way, and more than anything else I wish I were an integral part of that for him, it's still conceivable (and even likely) to me that for him to have that requires me letting him go freeing him from me. And if that's what it would take to get him the happiness and magic and joy lighting up his soul, I'm prepared to let him go no matter how much it hurts me and upsets me or how deep the void it makes inside me..... But, if me thinking (and worse, acting) that way is the one thing that is keeping him from the light of joy and magic and happiness, then it's time and past time we did everything in our powers to remove from me the belief it could be his truth. It's time we proved that way of thinking/acting completely false and started giving me tangible evidence and proofs as to what he DOES require for incandescent love and joy and magic and happiness he seeks for himself. 

 ~*~*~*~*

 I haven't been doing all that much recently since right after my birthday. Quite a bit of hermitting and then some minor overlap with people at work. My maman had free tickets to see the Head and the Heart on Monday night (from a radio advertising thing) and we were going to go, but then she was incredibly tired and didn't feel up for going so I told her not to worry about it. I liked their songwriting and harmonies better when Josiah was still n the band anyway. I mean, they're still quite a good show, it's just they're not as good.  Mostly I've been catching up on sleep, spending time at home with the animals, enjoying the belated summer, reading, eating apples. I've so far gotten about 25 hours of work in for the week despite not getting any hours in on Sunday (due to spending the day in Spring Green.)  I'm thinking since it will get cool over the weekend, I want to have a fire in the fireplace. I don't have any real plans for the weekend. Packers game is a London game so it's like 8:30am on Sunday. And Crissy is going north to visit her dad over the weekend so on Saturday I need to check on her cat Henry.  Beyond that, I don't have solid plans for the weekend at all, just vague ideas that I should 1) go visit the orchard to stock up on more apples and cider 2) drive to Mineral Point (opposite direction of New Berlin) to visit my friend bryce and see his exhibit on Cornish Superstitions and Magic which he's running this month -- and I picked up some Cornish Gilliflower apples him as a surprise 3) UW Library book sale is this weekend, I'm considering going Thurs/Fri/Sat depending on how much money I feel like spending. (Because I really need more books.... Actually what I need is more bookshelves and a dedicated library, lol. I own 10 bookshelves already, but all my bookshelves are overflowing and double/triple stacked. So there's that. Some women come with lots of shoes and makeup, I come with books. And a LOT of books.) Anyway, the reason I should go to Mineral Point to visit Bryce is because this is my least busy weekend in October. Next weekend I have symphony on Friday night, Beau Soleil concert at Stoughton Opera House on Saturday night, and then my mom and I have tickets to see the Packers at Lambeau Field on Sunday (it's a noon game so driving up extra early) and then meeting up with my cousin teddy and his fiancée Felicia for Cheesesteak Rebellion (a Star Wars themed Philly Cheeseteak place in Green Bay; also a very serious obsession of mine whenever I make it up to Green Bay) after the game. So not next weekend. And then the weekend after that, I have Saturday night Lone Bellow tickets at Stoughton Opera House AND my Aunt Geeta will be in town for the South East Asian Conference that's held at UW-Madison every third weekend in October -- and my rule with my loved ones who live far from me has always been that in the times I DO get to see them, they get as much time from me as possible to make up for all the times we're not together. I have the same rule with long distance boyfriends or with boyfriends while they're on tour far from me. (Funny story: when I was 19 I accidentally cursed myself to only date musicians and singer-songwriters; I said to a friend on mine that I wasn't the sort of girl music guys date and he (a musician singer-songwriter) told me I assume too much. And ever since then, everyone I've ever dated has been a musician and/or singer-songwriter, even if it wasn't their career they still played an instrument often multiple.) And then there's Halloween weekend, which doesn't have plans yet, but also I feel like there's a reason not to put off that long if I want to see Bryce.

Anyway. I have a lot of ought tos to get done, but very few have tis for the rest of this week and most of next. For now though, I'm gonna start with putting the kettle on for some green tea to watch the sunrise. Let me just find the executive function now to make me get up.

 I had an absolutely lovely birthday, despite all my feels and pouting temper tantrum in the early hours of the morning, lol. Sometimes, you just gotta feel the feelings all the way, even when they're not happy or pleasant or fair.... You can't have a cathartic release of emotions you repress, you have to let yourself be honest and vulnerable enough with yourself to feel it all the way through without judgement. Otherwise emotions will sit inside you and fester.... And that means sometimes even optimistic happy people let themselves feel their disappointed desires and ask the Universe why did it have to unfold to be like that.

All the maple leaves turned this morning so gloriously gorgeous fall colors, and sunshine against those cornflower blue October skies was just a beautiful drive  -- 50s in the morning, upper 60s/ in the afternoon so t shirt warm in the sun but sweater/hoodie cool in the shade.  Huevos rancheros and coffee and greyhound for brunch followed by birthday key lime pie all at Hubbard Avenue Diner. My go to Barriques order (Lavender Honey Latte with 1-2 extra shots of espresso.) A lovely drive to Spring Green where we met up with Sarah and Mikaela at Arcadia for book shopping. (Arcadia is a wonderfully curated indie bookstore, and yes it is named for the Tom Stoppard play.) We also mentioned it was our birthday because the guy in front of me in queue happened to say it was his wife's birthday and because it was end of the day almost closing time they offered us free hot coffee (and Brewhaha is a small batch coffee roaster in Spring Green, started as a passion project hobby of the high school band teacher, which makes really amazingly good coffee.) Then we found a bar and grill on the river with the Packers game on and options I could eat and their website mentioned that on birthdays you get $10 off your order -- so my 2 pints of Spotted Cow and a grilled chicken caesar wrap totaled $9 before adding tip.... We left at half time because otherwise wouldn't make a 6pm start of the play.  Split a bottle of wine and then happened to see through the window that they had 25% off all summer scarves AND they still had the gold pashmina I've been coveting but couldn't bring myself to lay $46 for (it was the only remaining pashmina) so I definitely went in and bought it and then put it on because it perfectly matches my outfit. Then a scamper up the hill through the woods to get to our seats for closing night of Love's Labour's Lost, which they did an AMAZING job on. The physicality and farce in particular we're so spot on brilliant!!! And while it was tied 24-24 with 4mins on the clock when I checked the score right as the play was about to start, I saw at intermission that Crosby managed to pull off a Packers win in overtime for my birthday! 

So yeah, sunshine and fall colors, spicy huevos rancheros and key lime pie and all the coffee and WI beers and red wine and book shopping and a Packers win and a Shakespeare play!!!! 

I didn't take many pictures today, Crissy was mostly documenting. But here's my book haul from today: 

And then, here are some pictures of me very tired bur happy after getting home with my dog -- still have my new birthday golden pashmina on. (Yes my eyes are very green/aquamarine tonight. They often are. Green eyes, curly hair, ridiculous Jessica Rabbit curves no matter how much weight I lose. That's me.)

*yawns* Now I is a very sleepy Dani. Gonna go take my contacts out and get ready for bed and then straight to sleep with this birthday girl now we're past midnight and it's no longer my birthday. (I share my birthday with my bff, a cousin, Bucky Badger (UW-Madison mascot), and Gandhi. So I feel like October 2 is always pretty solid for birthdays.)

"She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know"~Marilyn Monroe

 I have had a great several days of apples and sunshine and puppies and books and coffee and tea and more apples.... And I have lots of stories and pictures that I don't feel like tapping out on my phone screen rn. Only... Since now we're past midnight it's my birthday, there's still the one thing I want most and don't have. And it's not just the red wine talking (for all that red wine makes me super snuggly cuddly love everyone.) In vino veritas. Which is just a statement about the truths we'll speak when we stop caring about the reasons we've been taught not to say them out loud. And it's my truth that I do wish that things hadn't become such a fucking mess and I wish Eric were here for me to wrap my arms around and hug and kiss just as much as I damn well please. 

Wishing doesn't make it real. I know that. Not even birthday wishing makes something real. I mean, do people even get to make birthday wishes when they're in their 30s?  Or do the wishes just not count when you stop counting the birthdays? If wishing could make it true, it would have come true a long time ago cuz ain't nothing else I've ever wished for for myself. Or maybe it's just not happened yet because the only wishes that ever come true are the ones you believe in with your whole heart in fullest faith at the time you wish. And there's a part of me that doesn't believe it will ever be, the same part of me that doubts he wants me and is so quick to try to let him go so he can have whatever it is he wants..... Maybe that's why all my wishing has never made it real, because I have never managed to wish it without a shadow of doubt that it WILL be real.... 

I dunno. I just know what I want. Even if I don't believe I can have it because all the birthday wishes and all the wishes on shooting stars and tossing pennies in fountains and blowing away dandelion fluffs of my entire life still haven't got me my wish to come true.... 

I'm going back to my wine and tea and books. I should be in bed but I'm not. I need to get up early enough to shower, my hair needs a wash, and then dropping off the dog to pickup my birthday twin Crissy at 9:30 for brunch at Hubbard Avenus Diner before stopping by Starbucks for free birthday drinks for the drive to Spring Green for book shopping at Arcadia and then an early dinner at a dive bar on a campground (all that's open on a Sunday in small town Wisconsin) to watch the first half of the Packers v. Patriots game before heading to APT for closing night of Love's Labour's Lost which starts at 6pm. Won't finish til nearly 9pm and then won't be home again til after 10.  It's a good plan, many things that bring me great joy in my life. Not getting the one thing I'd wish for if girls in their 30s got to make birthday wishes that counted for anything.... But so it goes. Sometimes it be like that. And I live my life in gratitude for the joys I do get to have lighting up my life, even if there are empty spaces where other joys could be and are desires but never made real thus far. The wine definitely has me feeling the empty spaces more tonight. But tomorrow I'll smile and fill up on the joys that are in my life. And it will be good. 

And anyway. I've always been one to love the happy surprises -- they mean more than getting the things you ask for. So maybe it's better not to wish for anything, just to hope for the happy surprises that unfold in their own ways to bring me what I want most when I least expect it. 

P. S. My dog is more photogenic than you or me or any other dog I've ever met. Apple orchard pics as my witness. 

See? Pics of me with her in the mix as proof. Also, those last pictures, the reason she looks like she's laughing is because I had groused about trying to get some sun beams through the leaves in a different shot of a tree and my dog cocks her head to the side like, "O I can get you sunbeams" then moved a few feet away plopped down with her "get on my level and take my picture please" face and every angle I tried with her there she had light beams in the lens straight to her third eye or heart chakra. Magical unicorn of a Pisces Pup indeed!