All the astrologers have been talking about how auspicious the Jupiter conjunct the sun in Aries and how much good luck in new beginnings it is for everyone and how much positive energy it's bringing, and I'm just over here like, "Jaysus!* How did you miss the part where ever since this conjunction, everything's been spontaneously starting on fire or exploding, all over the world?!?! It's not even typical fire season and everywhere is unseasonably warm and on fire.... And with Mars in Cancer square this conjunction, everywhere that isn't on fire is flooded and these recent days we literally have places flooding and on fire at the same bloody damn time! The new beginnings this conjunction is ushering in is the burning down to make room for the new." I haven't seen any astrologers talking about it, but I don't understand how they've missed that cardinal fire starts by burning down everything in it's warpath.... Hopefully we can make it through this conjunction without any sort of nuclear incident (runaway uranium fission being the hottest fires possible on earth at this point ...) I've been avoiding people because I can tell tempers are extra fiery quick to take offense misunderstand and at home I haven't even lit any candles or incense since the conjunction because I don't trust how easy it is for the tiniest spark to cause massive wildfires and burn down everything right now. Energetically, it feels like I'm living in the "It's fine" meme with the dog in the room where everything's on fire. How do you not see how easily everything is catching fire and burning down right now?!?! I don't understand the willful blindness to that truth about this particular conjunction and how out of your control everything burns that you try to start right now....

*Jaysus = I've been watching British comedies with Irish characters and Irish comedies from the turn of the century so I'm Irish cussing more than my normal. I watched Black Books first this week because Ian P recommended it after I admitted I never saw it and it was bloody fecking brilliant and made me laugh so hard! I didn't realize until I started watching it just how much I needed something to make me laugh til my abs ached. Black Books will definitely be a comfort laughs rewatch of a comedy series for me in the future.  And then after that, I remembered that I never watched Father Ted after the lads of We Banjo 3 had a watch party with the first couple episodes of it so I started that last night.

I'm going to go sleep now, energies are getting too powder keg for me the longer the sun is above the horizon.....

I walk a lonely road, The only one that I have ever known. Don't know where it goes, But it's home to me, and I walk alone. I walk this empty street, On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Where the city sleeps, And I'm the only one, and I walk alone. I walk alone, I walk alone. I walk alone, I walk alone. My shadow's the only one that walks beside me. My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating. Sometimes, I wish someone out there will find me, 'Til then, I walk alone.

 Sometimes I wonder what's the point of the gift of prophecy and having to play Cassandra. O I know the myth of Cassandra right well, it's one I've always identified with because too often across my entire life people have been skeptical and asked me "but how can you KNOW?" and all I can ever answer is "I saw it."  I don't even know that it's meant to be punishment, but so often it just feels like it is and it's so exhausting to KNOW but not to be believed or not to be able to shift the fatelines..... Because I mean, what's the point of it when most of the time you can't change the fatelines? Sure it's nice to have the extra time/space to plan for what's inevitable when you see major immutable precogs so that while everyone is shocked you already have a plan to hit the ground running, but at what cost do you have to suffer out of sync with everyone else you know? I mean, yeah, sometimes you can see the course to shift to a different fateline and it's amazing and there are literally lives that exist now because I shifted the fatelines enough they or their parents didn't die before they were born -- but even when I can win those victories against contingent precogs, most people will never believe you because they never saw or had to live those fatelines that you truncated. They never KNEW how close to tragic fatelines everything was and how thin the knifes edge balance point was..... They don't know how close they personally came to death or how close certain things were to absolute disaster until you stepped in and shifted the course of the fatelines because you saw what would happen if you did nothing....

But then there's the times you see the chance and you fight like hell and you fail. And it feels like you failed as you watch the fatelines you try to make true dim and fade from many to a handful to one then to none and you recognize that what once was a contingent fateline you had even the smallest chance to shift has now become an immutable one that no damn thing you do or can ever do will ever stop or alter. Because you failed. You tried and you failed and you knew all along the price of your failure and still you couldn't find the way through not to fail.....I tried every damn thing I could to get to the fatelines where my sweet Pisces pup lived to 21.5 instead of not quite 15.... I dealt with an entire years worth of "we will never do this again if I can't find my way through" until it turned into simply "we will never do this again" and the joy tasted of ashes even while we were in the moments of joy still unfolding. I poured so much energy into healing her and keeping any infection or cancer from breeding inside her and in taking away her pain -- but the thing with healing hands is you can heal what's broken and stop from dividing the cells that shouldn't and promote the healthy ones and you can literally take all the pain out from the sufferer but it doesn't tell you what's wrong. I poured so much into her that I had terrible migraines and exhaustion from over extending my gifts connecting to source and being a conduit for too much energy for a physical body and I did nothing but buy time in stasis and no closer to finding out what she would die of or how to stop it. I did that for well over 6 months until finally my dog decided around Samhain that she wouldn't let me connect up and heal her with energy work, she'd only let me take away her pain and if I tried to sneak anything else she would give me sad reproachful eyes and get up move across the room or to another room entirely so I understood she meant her choice that I wasn't to keep draining myself to keep her going without knowing what to do to actually make her better.... 

And my da insists that it wasn't the tooth paining her, that a dog doesn't completely refuse to eat and die of 11 days complete hunger strike against even soft food or soft food in a slurry with water despite everything you and multiple vets try to get her to eat UNLESS there's something else like a cancer that you can't see... And I know maybe he's right. And I know the Dr. Mason told me after I found that cracked tooth that while he'd never seen one cracked that way so it might have been hurting her when she bit down on hard food because there are three roots to that upper molar on a dog and the crack ran across all of them, but with no inflammation or abscess it shouldn't have been enough to make her refuse even soft food and slurries unless there was something else wrong we just couldn't see going on inside her.  But. Also. Tooth pain is a bitch and people and animals HAVE died from refusing to eat because their teeth hurt them for millions of years and as long as she wasn't eating or drinking so anything would touch the tooth and i was taking the pain away, she didn't hurt so she just decided to avoid what hurt.... And what if all I needed to do to get to those longer fatelines was find the crack on the tooth earlier so we could schedule an extraction instead of me continuously burning out all infections and anything dividing abnormally in her body but never dealing with the cracked tooth getting water/air/anything right up on the nerves of any or all of those three roots? 

I knew from the time she was a puppy that if I could be really good she would live to 21.5 years old but if I couldn't then she wouldn't quite make 15.... I knew that for all those years and still somehow I wasn't good enough to figure it out in time, even with 6 months of bloodwork and scans and meds to fix her bloodwork while we tried to find the cause for her bloodwork anomalies... I wasn't good enough. And what if the entire time all I needed to do was find the crack in the tooth and insist on extracting it before the bloodwork made her a bad candidate for sedation?!?!

What even was the point of knowing and seeing the contingent precogs and the fatelines where I could be good enough if I just wasn't good enough to be able to pull it off? Why carry that for over a year and rob those moments of joy by knowing the bittersweet truth that if I couldn't win they would be the last time and then by autumn knowing I hadn't been good enough and they would be the last times ever because she'd never see another spring or summer or another fall...Everybody thinks they wish they'd known that something would be the last ever, but let me tell you as a precog that you shouldn't wish for it because it mixes bittersweet and sorrow into your joy whereas those who don't know get to taste the joy without the knowledge it can never be again..... And why even carry the knowing if you can't be good enough to win out to the brighter fatelines? 

I've just. I've been grappling for a long while now with these questions and this sense of guilt and not being good enough, not having done enough to get my sweet girl across that threshhold into the 21.5 year fatelines... It's not that I didn't expect her to never die, all things mortal die, I just really thought that if I saw the possibility of those longer fatelines glimmering I should and could somehow be good enough to get us there. And I wasn't. I failed. I tried everything I could to get there and I made every moment of that last year count but still I failed and I can't help but count all the walks we didn't take when she wanted because she asked when I was already running late to drop her off before other plans.... And I just. What was the point in me knowing there might be a way past the not quite 15 year death that I saw if I wasn't good enough to manifest it into being real no matter how damn hard I tried and how far I pushed this body channeling more energy than a physical body should to try to force a way to those fatelines? And what if it was all just a damned cracked tooth that needed to be caught and extracted all along? And I just wasn't good enough to find that because I was too busy dealing with the symptoms to find the root(s) cause?

That's what gets me to sobbing til I have hiccups and headaches. Thinking that with my gift of precog/prophecy I knew there was a way but despite all my love and all my many gifts and all my effort exhausting myself I still wasn't good enough or smart enough to figure it out until it was too late and maybe it was just such a damn fool thing as a cracked tooth killed her.... That's what guts me and makes me cry. To feel I failed her because how could I have seen a fateline to get her past it if there weren't also fatelines I could/should have been good enough to figure it out in time?

I tried. And I failed. I wasn't good enough and I failed her when she trusted me completely. And I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry.... I don't know how I could have tried harder or what else I could have done or how I could have put more energy and fight into to win.... But I know I failed her. Because those contingent precogs would never have existed, there would have just been immutable precogs of her death, if there hadn't been some way for me to make them manifest. The very fact I knew about them meant there was some path, some set of choices, that was open to me to get to the other fatelines until we were past the window of opportunity. 

And that's how I know I failed her, because there had to have been a way to the 21.5 yr old death I saw as contingent precogs or I wouldn't have ever seen it if I couldn't find a way to make it real. And although never in a million years would my dog (or anyone else) accuse me of failing her or not doing every damn thing I could across those last six months as the fatelines dimmed and went out to get her past the not quite 15 years old crisis, still I felt the guilt of me having failed her.... Nobody else blames me or accuses me for it, but I feel I failed her. Because I saw those contingent precogs fatelines and I wouldn't have seen them unless there was some set of choices could have been made to make them real..... I wasn't good enough and I failed her even though I gave her the best possible of the death fate lines open to her and as much time as possible and as much energy and free from pain as possible and I gave her the one thing she wanted which was to have me there with her. My sweet little bear luck dragon would never tell me that I ever failed her -- but I tell me that. I've been telling myself that since those fatelines of my Pisces pup making it to 21.5 flickered and were extinguished.....

And what was the point in me seeing those contingent precogs and the alternate fatelines and trying to fight for them if I didn't have it in me to be good enough to reach them? I could have handled the knowing she would die and all the bittersweet beautiful joys of last times if it had just always been the immutable precog recognition that we were at the end of her thread -- that's what it is to love mortal things is to know every moment is borrowed time to be treasured. It was the false promise contingent precog that there was a way for me to have more time when even trying my damnedest and nearly burning out this body running too much raw energy power through it, I still wasn't good enough to make it real. I still failed her....despite all my fighting and trying to find the way, still I failed her. 

[Post title: Lyrics to the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day.]

 The crows are calling. It's not even first light yet, but still the crows are calling. I should go out to my crow family (the family of Jon Snow whose life I saved when he fell out of a tall tree into a large crowd at Concerts on the Square when he was a baby; because he had broken a bone in his wing and the tree was too tall to return him to his nest, he was rehabbed at the wild animal rescue near Milwaukee then released back in Madison once his wing healed and he was full grown; he was so excited when he met me downtown again and then he followed my car back to the west side and settled and married into the murder that stretches from my home to my work on a diagonal -- he and his kin watch over me and give me gifts and when I took Audrey on walks they would join us fly along with us.) I should let them know I'm alright, they worry about me when they don't see me much and since Audrey died I haven't been able to bring myself to go on more than two walks in the neighborhood... It's just hard, not having her here. Last night was a hard night of crying for her absence and blaming myself for not noticing sooner that despite what the first vet* had said about her teeth looking fine when I brought her in for the progression of her not eating, her remaining upper molar was cracked all the way across when I decided to check her teeth for myself. It was not our regular vet, Dr. Haroldson was on vacation when Audrey stopped eating completely so we couldn't seen Erin until after Audrey was dead; we saw another vet at the same clinic and her misdiagnosis and dismissal of my concerns is why I took Audrey for a second opinion the following week but by the time I found the cracked tooth that Dr. Gallagher had insisted looked fine and put CBD oil on it for pain and finally got some food into Audrey voluntarily, it was so long without eating that her organs had started to shut down -- but it's from me trusting Dr. Gallagher's misdiagnosis and wondering if I had listened to myself sooner that it had to be a tooth issue that I feel so much guilt and grief over Audrey dying when and how she did. I don't know that she didn't have something else going on, by the time there was availability for ultrasound (both vet offices use the same ultrasound tech, she splits her time between all the local vets) it had been over a week that Audrey wasn't eating anything other than me forcing slurry in her. Audrey wanted to die at home and was scared of seeing Dr. Gallagher again, so scared she started shaking when I went in to pickup a prescription of sucralfate to try to help with any potential ulcers though Dr. Gallagher refused to prescribe any pain meds despite me asking for gabapentin at least and also with a fecal sample for both animals (over riding Dr. Gallagher's insistence there was no chance it could be parasites that cause the decrease in appetite even though pro heart only kills hookworm at time of injection and Audrey wasn't on dewormer because previously her monthly Heartgard had also been dewormer and nobody mentioned the hookworm risk when I switched Audrey to the shot instead of the chew. ) Audrey had never previously been scared of the vet in 14.5 years of vet visits, not even after being left there and the sedation to have her other badly cracked tooth extracted when she was 10.5, but when she thought she might have to see Dr. Gallagher again instead of Erin, she stood shaking in the doorway refused to go in and I had to carry her in and she kept pulling to try to leave while I was at the counter. Audrey did not behave that way with Dr. Mason even though she had never met him before and has never been to Faircrest until I took her next door to my work for a second opinion.... I still haven't told Erin that Audrey's dead or how it happened or the part Dr. Gallagher's misdiagnosis played in it all, every time I try to write the email to Erin I just start crying and can't stop. Erin has been our vet who saw Audrey right after I first got her as a puppy and there's 14 years of trust and loyalty there and she also sees Spock who turns 13 in May and he likes her. She's a great vet and has always been good at explaining things and answering all my questions -- but I just don't know if I can continue taking Spock to All 4 Pets, or bring Waffles there to see Dr. Haroldson, once I bring her home from Kirkland given I don't trust one of the other two vets on staff and I understand that Erin won't always be available.... Also, neither Dr. Meghan Gallagher or anyone else from All 4 Pets followed up or checked in after I dropped off the fecal sample and while Audrey was the patient of Dr. Haroldson previously you would think they'd have at least sent an email or something given I came in because my dog refused to eat anything for several days and they had actively prescribed medicine to increase her appetite and help with ulcers and on our phone call when I asked for sucralfate in case of ulcers if she wouldn't prescribe gabapentin for pain, I directly TOLD Dr. Gallagher that Audrey still wasn't eating and that at that point it was five days without eating. (I tried calling local emergency vets to see if they could do anything to intubate get food in her at least and they told me on the phone they couldn't get the ultrasound tech scheduled any sooner than the vet clinics since it's the same ultrasound tech and she had been out with COVID was catching up still and also they were so overcrowded and understaffed right then and so they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to feed Audrey check on her as they would be triaging younger dogs with more life expectancy. They said they could agree to do subcutaneous water administration, which Dr. Gallagher did the first visit as well as Dr. Mason when I brought her but Dr. Mason showed me how to do that and prescribed the bag of saline and needles as well as gabapentin for pain from her tooth once I showed him the cracked took and that she would eat after I gave her pain relief. So emergency vet couldn't promise anything but more bills and the treatment to prevent dehydration and pain management I was already doing at home....  And being with me was the only thing Audrey wanted at all that last week and a half so since emergency vet couldn't do anything to help, I didn't take her in there to be alone and scared when all she wanted was to be with me....) And the fact nobody from All 4 Pets even bothered to check in with me (though Erin probably never knew because she was on vacation when all of this happened and I didn't email her because I didn't see what she could do while out of town unable to examine Audrey for herself) is so damning. After 14 years at that vet clinic, they didn't even check in followup.... Especially since Dr. Mason texted and called me every morning to check in and find out if she was eating and how much I could get in her whether by slurry or as soft food once she was on pain meds but after her peristalsis had shut down from inactivity. All 4 Pets sent me an email birthday card for Audrey because they don't even know she's dead, Dr. Mason stopped by my work the day after I told him Audrey had died to bring a condolence card and say how sorry he was and to wish he could have met Audrey under better circumstances because she was such a sweet dog whenever we came in. 

I still don't know if there was anything else going on internally with Audrey at the end that made her stop eating  because the ultrasound tech wasn't available until the day before Audrey's death. I know there wasn't over the ummer when we checked her for cancers given her CBC numbers, but I don't know about in Dec. And even if the cracked tooth had been caught the first day I brought Audrey in wanting to have her teeth checked because of the progression of her refusing to eat (first hard treats then refusing kibble then refusing soft treats then refusing soft food then refusing even softer human food she love) there's no guarantee that even earlier pain meds could have gotten her to eat enough and that she could have been healthy enough with blood cell counts to allow the attempt to extract that cracked tooth or to even survive the sedation to make the attempt. But we could have tried. And we certainly wouldn't have been giving her a prescription for a fucking appetite stimulant to try to deal with the inappetence (this is what Dr. Gallagher prescribed at the fist visit) when she kept sniffing at her kibble like she was hungry but refusing to eat even soft food or soft human food like sticky rice because her tooth hurt her too much.... It's that thought she was in pain from that tooth when she ate and i feel like I could have done something sooner for her for that if I hadn't trusted Dr. Gallagher telling me that Audrey's teeth looked fine despite me asking her repeatedly if she was sure about that given the progression of the inappetence..... I hate thinking that my girl suffered unnecessary pain (even with me taking her pain from her which she allowed even after she told me to stop draining myself pouring healing into her to keep her in stasis) because I trusted the vet we were able to get in to see instead of checking those back molars for myself despite what Dr. Gallagher insisted.... 

I do need to make a decision for where I'm taking Spock by June when his next vaccines come due. And I'll be bringing Waffles back in May and while her vet annual is in like Oct per my sister, I do need to get her records to whatever vet I choose. And I do still need to tell Erin about Audrey's death and whatever decision I make after 14 years of seeing Audrey, including very frequently across the fall trying to figure out what was going on with Audrey's blood counts were so low after her food poisoning followed by COVID exposures when it went around work, as well as her 12 years of seeing Spock. Just. I'm not going to email her on Easter about it, and I was bawling just trying to write it out here let alone telling her what happened to Audrey while Erin wasn't available.... 

I should go see my crows now the sun is up. But after all that crying again, I have a headache and I don't have the energy to go out to them or to face neighbors with their dogs innocently asking where Audrey is because they haven't seen us on walks recently.... I'm going to make one of the teas I've been letting me drink when I'm sad and crying and save this second steep of apple strudel oolong to reheat later. My niece Monroe would never forgive me if I let me associate the taste of her favorite pink tea with sorrow and crying...... So I'll save this second steep in the fridge for later. And maybe I'll feel like eating some breakfast or at least making some coffee after I get my emotions better under control. But first till make some chocolate picante pu-ehr tea, because I never have liked pu-ehr teas all that much so I figured I lost nothing by drinking that while Audrey was dying and whenever I'm deep grieving and crying. I wanted to figure out a tea I could drink that I wouldn't mind if I spent the rest of my life tasting sorrow when I drink it -- and so I assigned that to pu-ehr teas since I never much liked them wasn't much of a sacrifice. But i can't let me make an association of the smell/taste of Mo's pink tea with grief, I introduced Mo Bear to pink tea and she loves it and you just don't break a 4 year olds heart that way by taking from her any amount of joy in her special pink tea love associated with her Aunt Dani.

Dang, there are the crows again cawing fit to raise the dead. And here's Jon Snow himself flew over to my balcony to check on me and he's knocking with his beak on my balcony door between cawing louder than the rest of his brood where they're sitting in neighboring trees and roofs... So I'll go open the balcony door have a chat with him try to reassure him I'm okay, or as okay as grieving process healing ever is, before I go make me some pu-ehr tea so I can have a tea I can cry into and not sully my associations of pink tea with my current sorrow upon me. Or, better yet, I should probably get some sleep after I go reassure Jon Snow and my crow family that adopted me. I didn't sleep yet at all last night, so it might be best if I decided to sleep at least a little now sunrise is finished. If I'm still feeling sorrowful and guilty and wanting to cry after I rest a bit, I can make me some tea to grieve with at the point. So crows first, rest second, and after that some tea I can let me associate the flavor/smell of it with my grieving.... I've cried myself to the point of hiccups and a dull headache, so after I talk to my crows reassure them I'm as alright as possible under the circumstances, rest even if I don't sleep is a solid plan.

I miss my luck dragon Pisces pup so much still.... Somehow the gift of almost 15 years of life to share with her and a year of last goodbyes focusing all my time/energy into her to try to fight the inevitable and then make her going as pain free peaceful as I could and it still doesn't seem like we had enough time together....

You are my sweetest downfall, I loved you first, I loved you first. Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth. I have to go, I have to go. Your hair was long when we first met. Samson went back to bed, Not much hair left on his head. He ate a slice of Wonder Bread, And went right back to bed. And the history books forgot about us, And the Bible didn't mention us. And the Bible didn't mention us, not even once. You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first, I loved you first. Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads, But they're just old light, they're just old light. Your hair was long when we first met.

 I didn't see about the way the TN state legislature vote shook out for the protesting representatives until today, after my nap and finishing making the bed I decided to give myself a self-care social media detox and news break last night. Damn but a girl needs to be more cautious when she tells you not to break anything that can't be fixed and go Humpty Dumpty with the world until she decides to awaken again...... I have to admit that despite how closely everything resembles the playbook used here in WI (next step: try to intimidate shocked voters by threatening to cut their funding -- but the okey-doke is while they have their super majority they gonna cut your funding anyway because your community had the audacity to elect outspoken troublemakers, the good kind of trouble, so the best thing you can do is to stand proud in your ethics and your anger and stand behind the eff you of reinstating the representatives. Because the super majority of the gerrymandered power grab, they gonna cut your funding no matter what the hell you do so your only best choice even with the threat is the moral high ground where you continue to come out swinging even if you go down. That's my advice from those who are ten years further down the roadmap of what the GOP is currently doing in TN and what they're trying to do across the nation if they don't accidentally spark the powder keg of white supremacist Christo-fascist misogynists desperate to hold onto power turning this fight into an all out blood bath..... As a precog, on every single fateline for the last decade, it will get even worse before it gets better and unless you're hiding behind ties to family money of someone in the millionaire/billionaire class (which makes you a fucking coward and you will deserve what you get as you reap what you sow because if we end up down some of the worse fatelines which is what happens if we don't fight like hell to win relatively quick, that money ain't gonna mean any damn thing no matter how far you try to run and hide) if you're not ready for a fight and you don't have good survival skills then you will be fodder in the grinding mill of the gears already in motion..... What I've seen coming isn't good, none of the paths are good, but all the best fatelines to find a way through it REQUIRE that you stick by your ethics and you fight like hell to protect every damn soul on this planet, animals and plants as much as those in human bodies..... Because if you don't, what's coming is so much fucking worse than you've even imagined.... I am lucky enough to be under the protection of Gabriel, Horus, Michael, the great Goddess as huntress-warrior, The Morrigan and other corvid deities, and Nephthys/Thunderbird and even Raphael and Thoth and Apollo and Bastet and Thor are allies who are fond of me watch over me check in from time to time in gratitude for my battles in past lives and this life but even they can only make my path so easy to navigate me through the remainder of this reward life because so much hangs in the balance of free will choices not yet made..... There are fatelines where I get to grow old in a cabin in the woods with my books and music and art and garden. They're not extinguished fatelines, just gonna be a hell of a collective fight so they don't disappear into impossibility when I die before reaching them....)

Still. All that said. Despite my expectations from past and what I have Seen coming in the fatelines that can't be avoided even in the best possible futures, I wasn't prepared for how blatant the racism and bigotry in Tennessee..... It's just. It's not. Look, as a Jew (I am, though I don't attend synagogue or keep the Sabbath and never bothered with a bat mitzvah though I did learn Hebrew and memorize the readings for it among other Jewish/Hebrew prayers and blessings; I self identify as a pantheist Daoist elf witch spiritually/religiously and I remember more of my many many pagan past lives than my smattering of more recent Judeo-Christian lives; but genetically I was born Jewish and raised in a secularized accepting Jewish family and so I celebrate Yom Kippur/Rosh Hashanah and keep my own Seder read through the Union Haggadah if there's no family Seder and light the menorah and I wear my favorite Star of David with symbols for each of the 12 tribes during all the High Holy days) and especially as a Jewish woman born in Jerusalem who has spent this whole life grappling with the concept there are those who would hurt/kill me for the accidents of my birth body and I have been told to my face here in an enclave of progressive "blue walled America" in the north by a neo-Nazi in a coffeehouse that "you can't be Jewish, you're too pretty to be Jewish" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) I know full well that when dealing with bigots and fascists that a visible enemy is better than a hidden enemy you think you can trust until they turn on you. You want them emboldened and cocky enough to make stupid mistakes but not so powerful they can set up bureaucratic machinery of oppression and death camps and a cowed populace. So yeah, I would rather know my enemies than not, but the racism in those legislature votes was so fucking blatant and Southern..... Growing up in the north, both Midwestern nice and New England WASP old money, the racism is always in what isn't said in the unwritten rules and the glass ceilings you slide off of can't bypass. The blatant cruelty and no more fucks to give bigotry in the open inherent racism in that TN legislature vote is just shocking to me..... And it worries me as to which fatelines we may go down if the young souls I summoned here to tip the balance of the fight and all the ancient/middle aged souls who have learned the importance of conviction in your ethics/justice can't find a way to break through the perimeters of fascism already in place.... 

As I said over on my Facebook sharing an astrology of the day post by Cosmic Owl (who I adore, she's one of my top four favorite astrologer and spiritual warriors, and I don't include me on my list of favorites because mostly I'm just an overly curious dilettante polyglot who's just doing the best I can with intuition and precogs and my gifts and bending the rules to call out injustice in the systems and spirit realm allies and chaotic good and past life/dream memories; I am the prophetess in the dark who finds the path through and keeps lit the spark of a firebrand, the chaotic good you don't see coming.) If you don't know of or follow Cosmic Owl, you should look her up for what she said about today but this was what I said when I shared her post:

"For those astrologically inclined or astrologically curious, this is a good take on where we are now. Also, I agree with every word of her politics. It's honest about the ugliness but hopeful for the future and finds the optimism in spite of the difficult aspects. As a reminder, America has been going through it's Pluto return these recent years and it happens to coincide with the longest duration Machiavelli believed could be allowed for any political system, however well thought out, to survive without falling into its shadow forms*  or renewing via rebellion/revolution over the inequities the previous form fostered. 

*Of the shadow forms that governments fall into, Machiavelli says that historically all democracies/republics fall into fascism of either oligarchies balancing shared power against mutual greed or mob rule elected demagogue cult of personality. He wrote his theories in the Italian Renaissance based on his studies of the ancient Mediterranean, especially Greece and Rome, but time and history have yet to prove them wrong. America is a battleground right now between these two (inevitable?) devolutions of representative government and the majority of people are caught suffering in the middle fighting to hang onto what rights and material well being they have slowly fought to gain for themselves. And no matter who comes out on top, the vast majority of people won't see improvement in their own lives from either the oligarchs or the demagogue factions that have so far presented themselves as options -- it will still be for the majority of people to fight for their own share or to slowly have it eroded to the barest survival by the greed of those in power. There's a better chance for some survival for the masses and traction against the vicissitudes of climate change and the current mass extinction with the oligarchs over the demagogue wannabes.

I have to say, what's been happening in TN had followed the CPAC and MAGA playbook that went down in WI with Act 10 and everything else Scott Walker and his cronies pushed through that it's taken over a decade of clawing back step by step every opportunity to regain what democracy there is in gerrymandered Wisconsin. What I didn't expect was the blatant racism slap addition to the CPAC playbook, I sometimes forget just how much more "in your face, keep em in their place" southern style racism is to so overtly punish only the Black men of the three representatives who stood with the protestors. Good on the white woman who was allowed to retain her elected seat for being so vocal an ally speaking out everywhere in interviews about the only obvious difference she can see for why she was treated differently for taking the side of the protestors. In the north, CPAC funded fascists would have stripped all three of them and snidely told the white woman the veiled racism that, "this is what you get for the company you keep." It's not that there isn't racism in the north, it's just whitewashed under Midwestern nice or New England WASP veneer of proper behavior. And while both places there are people who say the quiet part out loud, living int he north I sometimes forget just how loud and insultingly crude southern style racism can be....."

Which is very much how I feel about this current crossroads in time....

Also.  For The record: I stopped dating "except if I can't see the end before the beginning" not because I had a problem with me accidentally cursing myself to only ever get asked out by musicians and singer-songwriters, I'm quite fond of music and those who create it so long as they are quality humans. I stopped casually dating when my precogs forewarned me of the ending because I got tired of causing pain and breaking hearts when the only thing the guy did wrong was that at the end of the day he wasn't what I wanted. I didn't think that was ethically right or fair of me to do to nice guys who genuinely liked me, especially when I already knew what I would be doing and chose to be selfish go into it anyway rather than continue to be alone. Thus why I eventually decided that to live with my conscience, I needed to adopt my ethical boundary of "no more dating if I can see the end before the beginning" policy. Which as a precog prophetess means something different than just knowing your personal red flags and non-negotiable traits in a romantic partner or letting fear override your desires.

But it's a stance that begs the question of what I want. I no longer want to have a popular song with my name in the title because I thought it would never happen as a kid because it's already been done; I don't want to be a muse you write songs about while you date and fuck model type moneyed manipulative girls because ultimately that path as your muse makes me feel used not loved; I no longer want to have someone immortalize me as they see me in a song that tops the billboard charts because that wasn't about me as I am, it was about his IDEA of me.... I've had those and they're hollow shadows not the real thing. What I want is what I came into this life putting in my soul contract that I want -- I want to be loved for me qua me. I don't want to be on any pedestal, I spent my last life learning the hard way how lonely it is to be worshipped by millions without ever feeling truly seen by anyone.... I want to be as honest as I can be about who and what I am in this life and to be loved for that collection of good and bad and virtues and flaws, all the new growth and all the scars. All the versions of me I have been and the best I can be right now and the versions of me I am becoming day by day and trying to make better than who I was before. I want to be seen for myself, not me as an ideal or me placed on a pedestal, and to love and be loved as equals on those terms of seeing one another as truly and clearly as possible. 

That's what I want. And I realize that in a society built on money and status accumulation and name recognition and everything about the tinsel image you show the world, what I want isn't what this world teaches people to value. But still it's what I want. It's the only thing I want. And I won't lie to myself or anyone else that any sort of surface illusions and status climbing wealth hoarding will ever be enough for me to be happy. What I want is the depth and the honesty and the respect between equals and the raw gritty unpretty truths that for me shine the brightest because they ARE truth. I'd rather live a small honest life in obscurity but full of books and music and art and animals and flowers and trees where I'm barely but comfortably scraping by with wealth enough for my needs to cover expenditures and if there's any extra some money to give for the fights worth the fighting and to help the powerless that I focus my energy into helping. 

This life, I am embracing anonymity of a small life full of joys and wonder, curated for myself and those I care deepest about. And while I still fight, a spiritual warrior fights even in reward lifes, I fight behind the scenes unseen let others step up to lead while I shift things in ways nobody notices but tip the balance of the battle. I am not here to lead this life, I am here to remember and to protect in rejoicing the good and keep the sparks alive to change the fatelines of humanity and the planet -- and my greatest success will be to die without history books or the world or posterity knowing my name or recognizing my hand in guiding a stepping stone path across the deadliest of shifting fatelines. The world has remembered my name and my face and my stories and my glorious triumphs and my abject failures enough fucking times across enough fucking lives -- it doesn't get this life to polish or tarnish as societal whims see fit. I want that fulfilling obscure life full of love for the truth/beauty that IS more than any big city dreams where the air poisons you and you can't even see the stars shine. More than any damn thing this society has and it's greed for money/power accumulation could promise, I want that small life that isn't about excess consumption/accumulation but is about having just enough to make beautiful meaningful things and moments, to love and be surrounded by love for me qua me but that doesn't need to be lived or sacrificed for the history books this time. 

That's what I want.

That's what I'm fighting to claim for me this life.

And I ain't here this life to make any deals with the devil for any damn thing else.

And I'll just keep building that sort of life and nurturing the connections to help it grow within it's sustainable little ecosystems without compromising my ethics or boundaries along the way. And if that isn't something you want, then until you're ready to meet me as equals and honest partners, to be truly seen and loved for you qua you and to see me truly love me for me qua me, you should try to forget about me and pursue what you think will make you happy..... You let me know if or when what I want is truly what you want, I'll be here building it where it's hidden in plain sight and hoping some day you'll choose to find me and see me truly. Just, while you play with the lampreys bleeding you dry of the beat of your life force just to fatten them, don't expect me to wait forever and don't expect to have access to me at any level if you won't commit to me -- I'll keep going down the path that seems best to me of the fatelines that remain open and hopefully you can catch up and find me somewhere along the way if we ever want the same things on a shared path..... And if not, I genuinely hope you find the happiness you seek and have chosen, but in my experience lampreys and scorpions will always be the death of you no matter how infatuated you feel while you're with them. People only show up in spirit dreams as their truest selves, the fact she shows up in spirit form vision dreams as a lamprey should be setting off all your warning bells and the fact it doesn't tells me you deserve the lesson you've chosen for yourself in choosing to embrace a lamprey.... I'm not here to fight to save you from the consequences of your own choices, that's not my way because to do so is to fight the sanctity of free will and thus to serve the unraveling of this Creation's rules rather than to serve the unfolding of this Creation. I will let you pursue whatever you choose for yourself, but don't expect to find me where you lost me or for me to wait around for your lessons to come due for you.  Even in a reward life of anonymity, I have places to go and things to do and battles to fight and tides to turn when everything seems hopeless - I don't have time to waste while you play fuck around and find out infatuation with lampreys bleeding you dry.

Now, I'm going to drink my wine (a Côtes de Rhône called Halos de Jupiter) and eat my dinner (somewhere between a curry and a lentil stew I made tonight; tasty but an unexpected savory-spicy complex beast that defies categorization but is filling and delicious and nutritiously a complete meal and a damn lot of leftovers even though I didn't put much in it due to one of my gifts that the way food always multiples when I cook. This is VERY spicy, though it balances all the flavors nicely, and I admit that it's spicy which means it's probably too spicy for most people. Which given my cooking always tastes like my mood says a lot about my current inner state. I didn't cook last night, didn't feel like it, I just ate spoonfuls of peanut butter while drinking Raspberry Cheret  double radler beer brewed by Hog Head for the special exhibit of French poster art at Milwaukee Art Museum, and then I chose to head to bed early. So this is the dish I had been thinking to make last night.) And then I intend to finish this bottle of wine (red wine makes me feel extra cuddly and an agape love for humanity, so on a night like tonight keeps my anger in check so I don't ask old gods and archangels to help me burn down things before it's time) and drink many cups of tea and light some sandalwood incense and curl up with some candles and a good book until whenever I choose to go to bed.

[Post title: lyrics to the Regina Spektor song Samson. I adore this song, it's one of my favorites. It resonates with me and who I am this life at a core level.]

 Fwiw, I brought up my dating history with Ian solely because I was surprised and genuinely happy for him. I don't regret or have what ifs regarding Ian P. and me cutting the dating aspects off before anything more serious than making out. Exes are exes for reasons. And it's not just because I know what I want like a north star always pulling me back. I stand by what I told Ian P that I am too old for him until he has met his authentic self, both physically in this life since there's an 8 year gap between us and because this is his first ever incarnation whereas my soul has incarnated across so many millennia. And the only reason I know that I'm his manic pixie dream girl who got away is because he once asked me if I ever thought about if we had met later if maybe I would have taken him more seriously as a potential boyfriend, once he knew himself better and I reminded him, "If you hadn't met me exactly when you did, you would still be defining yourself in opposition to what others want you to be instead of trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be qua you. If we had met later, you'd be no closer to knowing your authentic self, you'd probably be further from it. Plus, we wouldn't have all these years of concerts and stories and memories." 

And. You shouldn't be surprised Ian is a piano player, or that one of my exes had a billboard top 10 that I know to be written about me. You have to remember, that when I was 19 I accidentally cursed myself and every boyfriend I have had since then has been a musician and/or songwriter. 😆 Every. Single. One. Even those who I didn't know it when/how I met them or who have it as a hobby not the center of their life/career. You see, when I was 19, I said to a friend of mine who was a musician in a college band that I helped out with whatever they needed, "I'm not the sort of girl a musician dates." And he told me, "You assume too much." And we got in a disagreement where I insisted they dated the cheerleader/sorority girl/model/heiress type who cling to them manipulate them and are mean girls behind their back to whoever they view as a threat and my proof was that this was a pattern I saw repeat over and over and over with every musician I had ever known or befriended, including him. And he said, "You're right that musicians get lonely and we date the first woman who is hot and makes us feel loved by her even if it's controlling and manipulative trying to mold us into who she wants us to be. But you're wrong about you. You're the girl we want to date if only we were a version of us good enough we thought you would say yes. You're the one we write our best songs about and dream of bringing home to stay. And some day, some musician is going to sweep you off your feet and marry you despite yourself." I just snorted and rolled my eyes said, "Right. Sure. That's what it is. It's okay, you don't have to try to make me feel better. The proof's in the evidence, and I've seen no evidence that any musician would ever date me because I'm not the girl who will lie to him try to control him just to keep him. And may the gods prove me wrong if I have a bad premise in there." He just shook his head grinned at me and said, "you'll see. You just cursed yourself, asking for proof that you're the sort of girl a musician would want to date. I've seen you wyrd enough people without meaning to, you just lay wyrd on yourself." He and I never dated, I always figured I was like a little sister to him, but he was right about my laying wyrd on myself -- since then every single guy I've even just made out with and gone no further with dating has been a musician or songwriter, let alone those I actually have dated. I've not even been asked out by anyone without them being a musician or songwriter since I turned 19..... It's ridiculous enough to be a standing second question when I'm interested in someone, "So what instrument does this one play?" 

I've dated touring musicians many times, and it's not the touring musicians life that is why they're exes, it's because they're not what I want for myself and I know that and eventually they knew that too. I've spent enough of my adult life in and around musicians and songwriters that there's no special aura around it and they don't exist on a pedestal for me, I know it's grit and hard work and scraping by more often than not. It's why I'm the friend they call when a vehicle breaks down because they know I'll pick them up side of the road get them to safety and drive me and my dog and a full car of musicians and instruments in the trunk from Chicago to Champaign when my plan was to head home to Madison that morning, in order to get them to the venue for at least a stripped down acoustic show then let them use my car to ferry everyone else down while I hang out and give synesthesia based song critiques of demos when asked my opinion and offered early listen.  For me, I don't judge musicians by their band's fame or their music's success, I judge them by how they treat other people and the ethics they live by. Not the ethics they claim they stand by, but how they ACTUALLY treat people. If I have ever loved your songs, I will always love those songs, but how you treat me or how I observe your lack of basic respect for anyone is the only way you will alienate me from loyally sticking by your band coming to every show that's driveably close. Even if I don't love the new direction of the music at any point, I'll still show up to the shows I can to support your music and let you know you are loved and respected by me so long as money/timing/weather allows. It's only when you behave in shitty ways and get defensive about it that I'll stop showing up for your shows. It's not that I fell out of love with the songs, it's that I lost respect for you and your ethics and that's something only you can fix by addressing whatever behavior pattern made me lose respect for you qua you. I judge you more by how you behave and treat people, myself included, than by anything you can do onstage to put on a good show. Diva behavior and ostracism bullying tactics that you defend rather than apologize make amends for will get you exactly what your behavior asks of me, you will cease to exist in my world and I will bury you in the dust of my forgetting. (That's a paraphrase of a Baltasar Gracian quote at the end.)

But yeah, my history of exes, every single one of them since I was 19 and accidentally cursed myself have been musicians and most of them were singer-songwriters as well. Varying degrees of success and varying levels of the music being central to their life/career, but every single one of them has been a musician. Not just Ian, the punk scene emo kid who moved to LA for his music but got discovered from behind the camera to become a cover model. 

P. S. And I'm reading the Foucault because I am a completionist and once I start something I want to see it through to the end, especially if it's a book or tv series. And a few weeks back I decided to reread The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature looking for something I remembered from my college first reas, but the copy I own picked up later has some further interviews/essays with each of them that I hadn't read before. The Chomsky ones were fascinating, but I honestly think that Foucault is a long winded pompous pretentious ass bag who likes to say, "well this is what MOST people think, but I disagree with them and then split hairs rather than tell you what he actually theorizes. He never seems to stand for much of anything except disagreeing with other people trying to make himself bigger by cutting them down.... But let me tell you what I really think of Foucault 😉

This is the last Foucault interview and then I'm done with reading this book cover to cover. I just need to finish it. 

O mon bon dieu!!! A friend of mine that I briefly dated is on the cover of GQ Style. Ian moved out to L.A. something like 6 years ago to try to make something of a career in music (he's an amazing pianist as well as a songwriter) but while the big city fed his ambition/ego it starved his soul so he couldn't write while he was there so he took up photography and had a good eye started landing major fashion shoots as photographer and was asked to sub in when the male model was sick with COVID and now he's both a photographer and a model in the fashion magazine world.  (This is a different Ian than my coworker, coworker is Ian D. and the only Ian I ever dated is Ian P.) Given I know him from a mutual friend introducing us at a Mutemath show and then me giving Ian a ride back from another punk rock show in Milwaukee we were both at then sitting outside introducing him to Frank Turner songs and talking and making out until sunrise, I can honestly say that GQ model is not where I expected him to land. 😆 He and I are still good friends and hang out whenever he's back in WI and he keeps trying to get me to visit him in Los Angeles.  I actually broke things off before they got too serious telling him that I was too old for him until he figured out who he authentically was and that I'd rather have him long-term as a friend than a short term quick burn boyfriend who never spoke to me again after I tumbled off his pedestal -- but also I know for him I'm his manic pixie dream girl that got away even though he has told me I was right and he still doesn't know his authentic self even though he's now so different than the punk scene emo kid who loved to play Mozart pieces from memory when he couldn't sleep that he was when we met. It's just funny to me that for a girl who has spent so much of her time single, I can now honestly say that I not only dated an Olympic team athlete and a singer-songwriter whose song about me was a Billboard top 10, but now I can also say I dated a guy who became a GQ model.  Which given how infrequently I date is fucking ridiculous as a past history.... Who is even scripting this story at this point?! 😂 But I'm super excited for Ian that he's a GQ model, this is a really big deal for his career not having ever intended it and just stumbling into modeling through the back door. 

As for me, because I didn't go to the Skerryvore show on Tuesday I actually got the last of my 40 hours of work in for the week last night while watering all my plants. (Also, I think my massive tropical plant I inherited and split last summer since it was uprooting itself that Iwas told was a banana plant is actually a bird of paradise....because the leaves grow flat laterally not round a central core. Also a customer just gifted us a much smaller bird of paradise that was too big for her place and it has the same sort of growth which is what made me question the one that's now three pots of massive tropical plant which reach to the ceiling. Our family owned computer store looks like a greenhouse and that's 100% my fault, albeit most of them are plants I have inherited or been gifted or nursed back to health or just won't die like my 12 year old geraniums that I bring in over the winter and threaten to kill if they stop blooming get too scraggly.) Anyway, last night was plant care night and when I added up my hours, I was already at 42.5 hours for this week. Oops. So today I'm having a chill stay at home day. I washed all the linens and bedding (well, duvet cover is still in the dryer), made myself brunch and coffee, took another COVID test to verify given exposure risk from my grandma. I'm currently stretched out on my couch with a cuppa Dark Pearl oolong tea and a book -- Spock stole my reading chair after I got up to check if the sheets were really dry or if the dryer was lying to me because the part by the sensor was dry but the bulk of it wasn't yet. And the cat is so dang adorable and happy curled up sleeping on my chair he stole that I can't even begrudge him making me move to the couch instead.... Later I plan to make some sort of lentil and carrot and potato curry -- mostly because I have some cooked up lentils to use up and I desperately need to go grocery shopping so the only other veggies I have right now are carrots and potatoes. 😆 (Okay, also frozen corn and dried beans, but neither of those would work particularly well with the lentil curry plan. I'll save those for a southwest something in the future.) That's my wild and crazy Libra full moon plans - introvert recharge hygge and laundry and books and tea and piano music and not planning to see anybody but my cat.

Thinking of which! COVID test! I was so excited t'other night about the state Supreme Court vote getting called even though i wasn't surprised because it aligned with the only precog I saw, that I forgot to say that the paxlovid made my grandma significantly better by the next morning --  I know it's science, but her turn around was like magic..... when my da stopped by Mon evening she drank a bunch of ginger ale with fruit punch Gatorade for electrolytes he mixed for her (the combination sounds ghastly to me, but maybe it would be okay if you like sweets as much as they do) and took her paxlovid later on Monday night then the next morning was ravenously hungry when my da arrived so he went to the dining room and had them make her breakfast which he brought her. Her cough is better but still there, but she's still having gi related distress from it. Hopefully she won't get a bad rebound now she's taken her course of paxlovod. For me, my biggest concern is that on Tues she had absolutely no memory of anyone stopping by Monday to help her, not Olivia, not me taking her nasal swab, not my da bringing her the paxlovid and something to drink......  None of it. And given that she has some mild dementia already and covid inflammation is known to cause Alzheimer's like degeneration in the brain for many people (thus the covid "brain fog" which is actually brain damage) this could accelerate her cognitive decline and there will be no way to know what long COVID she has if any until she's better.  There's also still the risk of the "paxlovid rebound" later this week and if that affects her cough/lungs so it develops into pneumonia. But she's night and day better after getting on paxlovid from how she was when i stopped by and took her covid test on Mon.

I'm still testing myself every day just in case, still negative and no symptoms and masking at work just in case. My parents are also self testing because my da is primary helping my grandma and then I'm secondary while she's isolating and convalescing, though they're not masking at work. I can't help taking all possible protections available when dealing with viral and bacterial pathogens given I spent my undergrad years as pre-med and one of my degrees was Medical Microbiology & Immunology. (I only chose not to pursue a medical degree because I came to the realization that my desired goals from med school were to fix people when they break and help people not to break in the first place and the modern American health system with its insurance based health "care" driven efficiency standards doesn't allow doctors to do that -- you have to monetize every minute and rather than deal with finding the root cause you're encouraged to prescribe a medication to mask the symptoms and bill people for everything and deny help you could give if they can't afford the bill...and if you have doctor credentials but aren't actively practicing medicine so that the place you work covers malpractice suit, you're legally required to give aid when somebody needs medical assistance but they can sue your ass for anything and you have to cover the malpractice suit entirely out of pocket so acquiring the knowledge and certification of becoming a doctor while not working for the modern health industry is something you can only do if you are already a private millionaire/billionaire/heiress/trust fund baby, which I am not, able to defend yourself if you get sued for the bruised ribs somebody had to endure after you give them the heimlich when choking or CPR to restart their lungs..... And I wish I was joking but those are real cases that people have brought against the doctor who saved their lives and won because the doctor was practicing medicine without malpractice insurance because they had retired from practice.  So I opted not to go into massive debt just because I want to know how to fix people who are broken and teach them the best ways not to break in the first place and either get mired in a red tape bureaucracy I loathe or open myself up to lawsuits that would further bankrupt me....) 

I do still miss time spent in biochem lab work every single day and my mind is very much trained to find answers to all my questions by seeking via the scientific method of hypothesis-test hypothesis-conclusion-revise hypothesis despite how my intuitive gifts tend to just KNOW things. Even my precogs I like to test rather than implicitly trust -- I can precog that I'm going to one place for a meal with a group of people but they make plans for somewhere else and rather than speak up I just go along to see if we end up where I already know and how it happens. if I'm starving I won't wait to observe, I'll just say, "We can try that, but somehow it won't work and we'll end up at ____ so we could just skip the delay and go there to start" but that always feels like self-fulfilling prophecy work so i don't LIKE to do it unless there's a time crunch or I'm hangry impossible to deal with until I eat something, lol. People who know about my gifts sometimes just stop me and directly ask me if I've had any precogs of where we're going to eat and since I won't lie when directly asked, then I say yes and inevitably they say, "Well I don't feel like playing games trying other places to just end up where you already know we'll be so just tell me what you've seen." And then I do and we just short circuit the wandering time and delays, but it still feels like self fulfilling prophecy to me so I don't count those as REAL precogs despite me receiving the immutable precogs of them. I feel the same way about when I precog me in a given outfit and I just put it on rather than my sometimes stubborn dressing in something else and then staining/ruining the outfit(s) I tried to wear instead until I give in and wear the one I precogged me in. Clothing choices and packing for trips are significantly easier whenever I have precogs of the upcoming adventures. *shrugs* If you had the gift of precogs of petty mundane things like that as your norm, wouldn't you cheat too? And wouldn't you sometimes fight it just to try to prove it wrong even though ultimately it always comes true in spite of your efforts?

O mes bons dieux, how did I wander all the way to there from a simple update on my grandma being better? I should nap or caffeinate or something, my ADHD associative stream of consciousness is very tangential lightning leap right now....

Ya know what, an afternoon nap actually sounds like a really grand idea! I'm going to curl up on my white couch with an excess of throw pillows because muddy dog stains and Mikaela dropping greasy food on it when she was a young kid left grease/cleaning product spots -- but I don't mind those spots and imperfections because they remind me of my dog who is no more and the child version of the almost 18 year old.... I'm weird like that, I look forward to eventually having laugh lines and crows feet and silver strands in my hair because every one of them will mark memories of the life I have lived. And the spots I can't get out of the seat cushions remind me of the life and joy that was in those who stained my white couch. I like worn and aged things that have been loved better than sleek shiny soulless money bought trinkets, I like the stories and the memories they bring back to life once memories are all you have left of the way things once were. I like that I can look at my copies of the Silent Planet trilogy and remember being 7 and my grandpa standing with me at Borders Bookshop insisting he was buying me the first two they had and would find me the last one, in addition to my choices for my birthday shopping, because I had to read them. I like the things that when you see them they bring back alive the ghosts and memories of times past, even the stains on the couch from a dog who is now dead and a lonely small child who is now nearly an adult.  So I love my impractical couch that is spotted by the past but being hand made in Norway is as solid as when I bought it a year or two after college. And for the record, the dog came first into my life as a 12 week old puppy, before I bought a white couch which my mom tried to argue with me was the least practical choice i could have made and i was adamant i wanted to order the Hugo style in parchment and since it was my money I could buy it in whatever color I pleased and spots and stains and spills were a problem for future me to live with. And future me has decided to love those stains and spots on my impractical white couch because they bring back to life for a moment those I have loved who are now only alive in those past moments and no longer exist as they were within the present or future. 

*yawns* nap would be nice though. Nap sounds much better than rereading the same lines of Foucault over and over again because why even am I reading Foucault anyway? Didn't sleep much last night, I don't tend to sleep much during the energy of full moons, just snatches of naps and then overcharged can't hold still to rest because I'm ADHD to the max. Yeah. Afternoon nap on the couch snuggled under my vintage Pendleton wool blanket, until the dryer stops and chimes so I have to go tell it that it lies and the duvet cover is still very wet and put it on a long wrinkle release cycle to get it to dry some more. Don't get into too much mischief or let the world fall apart while I nap, k? Nothing that goes so Humpty Dumpty it can't be mended later once I awake from my nap. Thanks a million! 😘

And if at first you don't succeed, Then dust yourself off and try again. You can dust it off and try again, try again. 'Cause if at first you don't succeed, You can dust it off and try again. Dust yourself off and try again, try again, Again, again

JANET PROTASIEWICZ WON!!!!!! JANET PROTASIEWICZ WON!!!!!! JANET PROTASIEWICZ WON!!!!!!  THEY ALREADY CALLED STATE SUPREME COURT AND JANET PROTASIEWICZ WON!!!!!!

I'm so happy!!!!!!! Right now, this pour of Busker single pot still is a celebratory one!! Slainte! 

(I have the grey label Busker and haven't yet tried the other two in the single collection but I've also tried the triple cask triple distilled green label. I like the single pot better than their standard triple cask triple distilled blend, but they're both delicious. My current bottle is getting low so I'll soon have to go buy more, though I'm hoping it can wait until after I get back from May trip to Washington to visit my sister. It's a really grand Irish whiskey at a ridiculously good price AND it's distilled by a woman in charge! I first tried both Busker and Sexton, another favorite whiskey though that one is a bit softer Spring like whereas Busker is spicy like fall into winter, at a Women and Whiskey tasting/lecture that Darian put together for Iowa Irish Fest. Brilliant information, book recommendations, and delicious new to me whiskeys with a bartender/lecturer willing to pour more of any whiskey you wanted more of in your taste, lol.)

O I'm so happy!!!! I expected it because Kelly was SUCH a corporate schill asshat with no credentials other than a corporate lawyer with a willingnes to support the Big Steal and try to flip Wisconsin delegates to find the votes last presidential election, so I expected Judge Protasiewicz (yes I always have to look up how to spell her name, and no I have no idea how to pronounce it) to win but I expect it to be less of a landslide early call (and in an April election in a battleground purple state, this is definitely a landslide win) because of how vehemently the anti-abortion activists have been and how much dark super pac money was getting funneled in for ads for him from Federalist Society and their associates......

So for pretty much the first time since I could vote, state Supreme Court is 4-3 liberal leaning which means there is FINALLY legal recourse for the voter suppression and gerrymandered redistricting maps (one of the referendum at the county level was about if fair redistricting maps should be independently commissioned.) But most important of all!!! Our State Attorney General's lawsuit against the 1849 abortion ban with no exceptions will make its way through appeals to this 4-3 State Supreme Court!!! Which means that both executive and judicial are no longer under the cpac think tank sway that has been a dig your heels in fight here since Scott Walker and the protests and arrests in the Cpaitol building and the dismissal of legislators over the union busting vote (everything happening in TN is a play book that happened in WI under Scott Walker; different issue but same tactics. It's taken well over a decade of fighting like hell to scrabble back to this point we can maybe get the state legislature back if we can fix the gerrymandered redistricting issues that this state legislature created so the republicans could always hold state senate and assembly...)

But it is, quite literally, no lie to claim that this Supreme Court seat win is literally the thin line bulwark to keep Wisconsin from becoming the fake elector turnover in the next presidential election.

Still waiting to find out about the special election for State Senate District 8 (a northern Milwaukee gerrymandered district that is traditionally always Republican; the former Republican retired and Evers set the special election for it to coincide with the April Supreme Court primary vote. If Knodl, the Republican, wins then if Republicans in state assembly put forward ungroudned impeachment against Evers or anyone else they politically dislike, the Republicans will hold 2/3 super majority in state Senate to push it through rubber stamp it since that's where impeachment votes happen at state level. That race is Knodl leading by about 700 votes with 91% of the votes in....) 

But o I'm so relieved and happy that things played out how I saw them playing out!!!! Doesn't matter how many precogs I have, and in this one I precogged one fateline of contingent precog of me receiving a group text from a family member on the other side of the country confusing me then giving me intense joy by being the one to give me the news -- and that seemed hella weird so I snorted and ignored it and I said, "Yeah I wish." And then before I'd even started watching returns because I thought it too early for any calls to be made, that text came in tonight and before I even opened it I started laughing and then whooping for joy because I knew what it was due to that one contingent precog (the only one I got at all about the election.) I have a tendency to dismiss certain precogs as "well that's illogical af makes no sense" and then when they somehow come true I just laugh. Because I can't say I didn't see it coming, but it still makes no sense to me and I'm just delighted that somehow it's true after all.

Anyway. JANET PROTASIEWICZ WON!!!!!! Raise a glass for "I'm not dead yet" Lady Democracy picking herself back up for yet another round in this damnably close battleground of a purple state that I've called home all this life. Cheers!

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Aaliyah song Try Again. And yes, I am a long time Aaliyah fan and since like middle school, this is the song I hear in my head when you've successfully won a round of fighting when the odds were stacked against you.]

 I was thinking that I should set that last one to private because I'm not entirely certain it's my story to tell. It is partially my story to tell but not all of it is my story to tell and I don't like how what I said casts shadows on his past character. I wasn't intending to do that, I was trying to explain why past expectations are involved in my ethical line and the defenses I created because of that and why I have reacted as I have. I decided to leave it up because my intention was to talk about the fear at the root of my irrational behavior (most irrational behaviors have a fear at the root -- I don't say all because there could always be exceptions, but find me the exception to that theory of mine if you can and I hypothesize if we sift deeper down we can find the fear in its origins.) I believe that important personal growth and shadow work requires an unwavering look into one's own self and acknowledging thoughts, actions, and characteristics about yourself that you aren't proud of and that you don't understand why you did what you did. This is an examination not to make yourself feel shitty and guilty (though too long in critical mode will do that) but because you can't improve anything until you analyze where it fell short, why it happened, what needs fixing and only after these serious studies of your mistakes and flaws and miscommunications, only THEN can you get to the goal of the process, the most crucial of all questions "HOW can we improve this moving forward so we don't repeat the harms we have previously done?" This is important, the desire to be a better version of yourself than who you have let yourself be -- and it starts with the courage and introspection to stare honestly into things about yourself that discomfit you and that you are ashamed to own among your traits/actions except that honesty requires it. 

It's for the same reason that I see past lives as important for understanding lessons we're working on and patterns we repeat, but the more important question is: where do we go from here to do better? That's the most important question of all when you're in the crucible of the present moment. I actually don't like forced past life knowledge because I believe that the veil across it exists for the reason that knowing does more harm than good for that person and when knowing will be helpful to them, they will organically remember it or learn it. And I say this as someone who often acts as a catalyst to bring past lives to the surface for healing, both within other people (especially if they've known me in past lives) and rising up to read their past entries in the Akashic Records within their eyes as one of my gifts. When people ask me about past lives without recalling it for themselves, I usually tell them this and if they push for any scraps I'll tell them about their past life ties to me as long as doing so isn't harmful. Only on very rare occasions, when being around me has brought to the surface of their mind something traumatic from a past life do I discuss that life event and that life with them and sometimes set them research homework to help them work through those ghosts so they can heal. But mostly, bearing past life knowledge is heavy and hard.... Often people start by remembering their deaths, which is just fucking traumatic. But also, it means you carry the grief of bitter-sweet memories of more loved ones who are gone who even if you meet again will be new versions of their soul and not the one hallowed in memories. And it means carrying guilt for all the mistakes you can't undo and all the things you said (or didn't say) but wish you hadn't (or had) and all the "what if I had just done something different, been better" questions. I usually see past life memories as pointing to something we need to heal or reclaim and that's why having that knowledge peeking through the veil between lives is better than to have it remain unseen. 

Funny enough, I think that's true about me too you know. Most of my past life memories all center around the intertwining with Eric's soul, and most of them are so beautiful and good and full of love and warmth. It's not all memories of those bitter past lives recurring pattern of him choosing not me for family/social/money reasons. Those actually came later -- the bulk of my past life memories are of the good times where we found each other and everything shone with the love light between us. The other theme in my past life memories is me feeling abandoned and unloved and the deep aching sorrow of recognizing that I am alone and if I don't save me nobody else will and me having to accept that. And that includes my death in the Victorian London house fire when I was paralyzed from polio and my mother was out on one of the rare occasions and the maid never even thought of me when she fled. I was only 11 or 12 in that life, it taught me a lot about the importance of dependence and trust and gratitude and to aware of hardships imposed on those with disabilities not lucky enough to be rich with a widowed mother who dotes on you spoils you. But that life also ended in me feeling terror at being abandoned and unloved and forgotten by those you most trusted to be there for you and finally reaching the acceptance that sometimes you can't save yourself and nobody is coming to save you so you just have to make your peace with that truth and invite the smoke and the flames to take you.... I told you, carrying the stories of your past lives is often a brutal business. It's not the first time I died by fire, I was burned as a witch in the 15th century but mostly it was political reasons, but it was the first time I died accepting and making peace with the fire's inevitability. But more than how deeply my mother loved me and all her selfless hours caring for me that life after polio disabled her only daughter from ever standing or walking again, what I carried in my eyes and heart into this life when I was younger was the terror and abandonment and unloved and being forgotten -- but I've never been afraid of flames or fire in this life and I've never been burnt by open flames or sparks even when my entire right arm and half my torso and back of my head were once engulfed in a fireball but when I get too close to open fire all the pictures of me get a strong visual distortion aura. I get discomfort feel the prickles of heat outside the bubble of chi that shows up as color aura in pictures, but the only burns I've ever received are from hot metal, hot food, electrical stoves, chemicals, and sunburns. I wonder sometimes if that deep acceptance before death about the nature of fire is part of why there's that particular wyrd with me -- either that or my guardian angel or allied deities is constantly protecting me because it was only three lives ago before this one that it was quite literally the death of me..... 

Anyway, I didn't mean to talk about that death. But it's my story to tell and I don't mind telling it. But my point was that as a child, the lives I wore uppermost and my dad (who also remembers many of his past lives and can sometimes read other people's past selves in them but not as frequently as I do) commented on was the life I died terrified of having been abandoned and unloved and forgotten by the person most trusted by me and my deep longing and yearning for the soul I missed most of any who had gone MIA on me. Do you know what I asked for in my own soul contract for this life, which despite being born into the crossroads of empires and social structures falling and new ones being born IS a reward life for me? I asked 1) that any soul seeking me be able to find me 2) that I always be surrounded by those who see me truly and love me for me qua me 3) as long as those first two conditions can be met I would like to grow old because I've been dying young ever since we got trapped in this recurring pattern of never finding each other or finding each other and him choosing to build his life with someone other than me. And the only reason for that first clause (which has caused a lot of trouble and is part of why I have the gifts and spirit guides protecting me that I have because I didn't include any boundaries on REASONS for seeking me, just that they be looking for my soul) is because I wanted to make absolutely damn certain that as long as his free will choices involved missing me and WANTING to find me that he could and would despite all the fucking odds against it. I wasn't willing to put any chains on his free will by asking for him specifically and making me a have to for him, but damnit I was going to make certain that so long as he is seeking me and he WANTS to reach me, he will be able to. At least in this life. I can't write that into my soul contract EVERY life, but I did for this one. For this one, he can't lose me, can't lose the ability to find me and reach me against all odds EXCEPT by his own choices and actions of him no longer seeking me. In this life, as long as he wants to find me, he can and he will no matter any distance or circumstances or misunderstandings. What he (or anyone) does with that clause in my soul contract is about their decisions, but as long as I'm incarnating in this body that's an open door that can't be shut -- all you have to do to find me is to be seeking me looking for me. And because of the bond between us and how like a string it pulls both attachment ends with equal tension, I guess there's some part of him that's always yearning for me same as I'm always yearning for him.  What we do with that this life is up to us and where we go from here is about our decisions -- but that basic truth is what we're starting with and always have to work from.

And. Again. For what it's worth. I carry so many more memories of so many more lives of connection and joy and happiness and love light shining between us than I do of the repeated pattern in recent lives of our lives not crossing paths or when they do he chooses someone else for ego and money reasons rather than choosing the love in our bond. I mean, clearly that  traumatized me and i will admit to many lives of acting out in completely outrageous ways to deal with my hurt over his choices in this past repeating cycle just as I have died young over and over and over and over since the pattern began -- but also I don't think I would carry my past life memories so intensely about him and the trauma of feeling abandoned/unloved/forgotten by who you love most of we hadn't both committed in our soul contracts to healing that past pattern and starting something better between us moving forward. And. Also. I think that we both carry past life wounds in our souls from the separation and the repeating cycle (and whatever got us stuck in it, which is about him as much as me) and the only way we heal both of us is together, by both consciously choosing each other and commiting to not repeating the patterns that hurt both of us while we were stuck in them. 

And none of that is what I intended to write when I started this 😂🤦‍♀️😂 It's important and honest and I'll leave it. But gods love me and angels bless me, but none of that was what I expected to write here.... 

What I wanted to say requires a lot of not happy stories of how my Tuesday went completely sideways and nothing went according to plan whatsoever and honestly I'm in a state of tranquility and hope and love flowing down the bond right now so I don't want to delve into those stories right now. but the important conclusions of the stories I'm not sharing right now because I want to stay in this inner tranquility and hope and love: 

1) My parents are NOT going to Panama so I am NOT dog sitting Sophie and thus my sleep schedule for the next two weeks will NOT be inverted unless I stay up all night by choice. (Reasons: passports still haven't arrived but it's good that they didn't because my grandma is very sick, but see #2)

2) As mentioned, there were several cases of COVID in my grandma's building last week. They no longer mandatory test all residents until out real in elder care is ended, it's self testing and self reporting followed by isolating and residents don't have to wear masks anywhere at all ever.... Which given the statistics about the lethality of COVID to the elderly even after full vaccination/boosting is the most infuriatingly idiotic policy imaginable.... But it's worse than that and ask me some other time about my interactions with "Midwest nice bless your heart MAGA" Kim at the front desk today.... Anyway, grandma was very sick and cranky and unwell when Olivia from Bright Star came in to help her today as scheduled so Olivia called my parents who were supposed to be heading to Panama that evening but their overnighted passport renewals hadn't yet arrived. So after talking to my mom just after lunch to try to figure out if/when I was taking them to the airport and instead she told me how sick grandma was and how worried they are, I preemptively took a COVID test myself (negative) then went to get extra tests from my parents at work before heading over to my grandma's plague house to try to get her to drink or eat something and to COVID test her since nobody else had and no staff would help her because she's not assisted living level of care.... I went in knowing it was likely COVID so I wore only easily laundered things, left my purse and books in the car only carried in with me my keys, cell phone, and two boxes of COVID tests for her, and i wore my n95 mask before entering the building and putting on nitrile gloves before touching anything in grandma's place or testing her. The positive line lit up bright pink after 3mins of the 10, long before the faint blue line of the control darkened... Anyway, she was miserable and mostly just wanted to rest and be left alone and other than getting a little water in her and testing her not much I could do except for procedural next steps of triaging like getting a paxlovid Rx from her doctor (my mom did that) and letting the staff know and requesting they check on bringing her meals to her room while she needs to isolate since she can't go to the dining hall for 10 days -- not that she even wants to eat right now, but it's an excuse for them to check in on her and means meals should come to her at least. And my da let his siblings know and was going to go back to check on her once the paxlovid Rx could be picked up with ginger ale and Pedialyte and a thermometer (hers was missing and nurse staff said they legally couldn't loan it to me for the same reason they couldn't come in to check her, because she's not assisted care) and to loan my parents pulse oximeter to check her oxygen levels. Of course my Aunt Linda was there Friday and my parents all weekend and unlike me they take masks off when visiting her so now there is concern they might have picked it up. I'll keep testing me just in case, but no symptoms and I always wear an n95 at grandma's and in health settings as duty of care for the immunocompromised and at risk individuals who most need those spaces. I no longer mask at concerts or most indoor things unless I've got laryngitis or a cough of any sort (except symphony, but that's because most everyone there is old and thus high risk) but when I knowingly enter spaces necessary to high risk individuals, I mask for their protection not my own just in case. Same in airports and public transport -- it's not a major hardship on me to wear a mask and it's duty of care basic empathy for those most in need of protection. Anyway. I may have to check on grandma during the day this week so my parents don't have to leave work to check in on her so I actually am MORE likely to have a normal(ish) sane sleep schedule than not. The biggest concern for me is the way her horrible cough sounded to me while I was there, it's a wet but unproductive chest cough and it stopped when she was vertical to go to the bathroom but started again when she lay down to rest but she wouldn't let me prop her up to sleep at an angle because it's uncomfortable and she's a side sleeper. It's not yet hollow or gurgly like pneumonia, but a wet unproductive chest cough very easily BECOMES pneumonia.... So it's dehydration, low blood oxygen, and that cough turning to pneumonia that are the big concerns right now. Hopefully she won't have to go in to the hospital and she can recover in her own space, but those are the concerns that we're monitoring (via webcam and visits by family members) and in a COVID positive 85 year old, they're all three very serious concerns. 

3) Crissy and I have decided NOT to risk the severe weather and driving into 17mph headwinds from the east (in the Midwest, any time winds come from the east, your dealing with pressure fronts stronger than the jet stream so you expect tornadoes to be likely -- and these storms are likely to be worse than the system on Friday that created 66 verified tornadoes) to go see Skerryvore in Milwaukee tonight. Especially since they're Scottish but are scheduled for multiple days at literally EVERY Irish Fest this August so we won't lack for opportunities to see the lads that don't require what even I consider sheer recklessness of extreme weather and semis broadsided by strong headwinds every time the road curves even a little.  Yeah no. There are bands I would face down the possibility of tornadoes on the highway and potential death, and Bailen on Friday was one of them due to how difficult it's been for me to finally get a chance to see them after years of missed connections between their tour schedule and me traveling, but Skerryvore touring a new album I don't love love and knowing I'll be seeing them literally a dozen times across multiple weekends in August? Not worth the death risk of tornadoes and hail and flash floods and sheer winds and semis with quotas but who can't maintain lane position due to weather conditions.... 

So my plan for today is that I will go vote later after people trying to go before work are done, then I'll head to work to find out if I need to go visit grandma to take care of her and how she's doing. Maybe get some hours in and have drinks and feed Sophie some "puppy crack." (My parents dog Sophie was good insecure when they got her but has never been food motivated chow hound dog. But one of the foods I bought trying to get Audrey to eat and eliminate possibility of a food allergy issue is a limited ingredient salmon and sweet potato kibble that Sophie goes absolutely crazy for and will gobble down all of it immediately. She has never reacted that way to any food ever in all the years they've had her. So my parents have let it be my special thing with Sophie that if I'm there I get to give her her dinner or breakfast and only I get to mix halfsies for her of her normal kibble and the puppy crack salmon and sweet potato kibble. It's a new special thing between me and Sophie since the death of Audrey (who was extremely food motivated until the very end and we always joked that just as I have an inner teenage boy when it comes to food, Audrey had an inner lab inside her when it came to food) but it's very sweet and it means that my arrival is now the absolute highlight of Sophie's entire existence even though it's no longer me and Audrey showing up, it's now just me. And Sophie has always been happy to see me, but now it's an absolute extreme level of tail thwacking zoomies into belly baring flops need all the scritches in all the places but can't hold still extravaganza. 😆 It's a lot of ecstatic puppy joy every time she sees me - and she KNOWS that she only gets the puppy crack if she hasn't finished her breakfast yet or not until after 5. 

Anyway. That's my plan for today because voting is an absolute priority. Followed in priority by checking on grandma. Then making Sophie's day. My intention is that I'll head home (and get my car in the underground garage) once the severe storm cells start popping up so I can be home before any power outage or flood risks and protect the car from unnecessary damage because I easily can park it in my stall and to be home so if there's a tornado warning nearby I can be here to grab my cat and force him to come with me to the basement until the risk is past us. Because pets are family too, and if you safely can, you always grab them in an emergency before grabbing any damn thing else to save them as well as yourself.  

But first. Now it's time to drink tea and read and watch the sunrise. And then eventually it will be making coffee and cooking breakfast before getting ready for the day. And then the day's plan starts with voting and checking on grandma and lunch at work until I decide to head home to be there where it's safest for me and my cat and my car during this sever storm system. 

But beyond that plan for today..... If I'm my most honest and vulnerable version of myself, what I want more than anything else this world has to offer is for Eric and I to choose each other this life to walk a shared path through the fatelines and build a lifetime together that breaks us out of the repeating pattern of separation we've gotten so stuck in so we can finally choose something new and to chart a new course, starting with the choice of each other. And I don't need my tarot cards to smack me in the face or past life therapy to tell me that's what I want and my deepest truest desire no matter what my actions are or how they seem to directly lead away from us ever achieving my desired end goal. And I don't know how to make it happen to make my only goal become reality (second sight and precogs don't show me EVERYTHING after all and there are some things I've requested to always keep veiled because where's the fun in a life with no happy surprises?) But I genuinely believe that whatever the path to get there, it starts by choosing honesty and vulnerability to the greatest extent possible if I hope either of us can ever see things clearly to get to what I desire. There's enough fucking third party bullshit and living in end stage capitalism and mass extinction events getting in the way of things, why the hell should we  block our own shots and destroy chances before they can even exist? Clarity between us is better than illusions that block the way, and I firmly believe that honesty and vulnerability are two key components we must both choose to adhere to if we want to get things clear enough to find a way to each other instead of this separation bullshit.

 *yawns* thinking of which ... 

In the very lengthy very impenetrably ADHD sans caffeine rambling draft, there were some important gems hidden amid all the words. And one of them I think was an important admission from me. And so, while I drink my Serenity chamomile tea and wait for my nails to dry before heading to sleep, I wanted to talk about it here not in pages and pages of rambling stream of consciousness associations. 

So. IF that I know that I want and have always wanted to be with him is quite literally the only thing I want from the world in this life and that the flow of love resonating through the bond is the most comforting healing beautiful thing and that when the polar bear and i are together in dream space in harmony with each other hugging and snuggling into him feels like coming home THEN why by all that's holy am I so quick to try to let him go under the (often mistaken) assumption it's what he wants and why do I have such a reactionary fear based pulling away from the bond if the ethics line of him being with another woman feels threatened? 

Well. Because. He and I have past life history where we both accept that love is there and we lean into the bond for love and strength and support and across multiple lives he still chose to marry someone else due to family/society/the temptation of a lot of money and having the bond active following that choice just made it a source of pain and longing rather than strength and union. And my ethics line is about me refusing to be complicit in repeating that same damn karmic cycle with him because he hasn't learned his lesson yet and fails the same damn test. So the fear comes in when he can just bypass what for me is an important ethical boundary and just reach for me down the bond and I want him so badly that I give in to that temptation. The fear of crossing that ethics line, or being tempted to cross it in spite of myself is the fear of repeating the same damn stupid pattern that he's fallen into across many lifetimes these last 600 years when I damn well know better and promised myself that this life would be the one to break that pattern and go back to the way it was before the repeating pattern. I'd rather not have the joy and the brightness and the love and the feeling of coming home via the bond, to deny myself it even in dream space, than to fall back into that same stupid tragic frustrating pattern of the bond becoming a source of pain and unfulfilled longing do to choosing a relationship/marriage outside the bond rather than making top priority the bond and building that relationship on it between us. 

That's why it's such a thing for me and why I've been so insistent worked so hard at making it my ethical boundary line defense. Because it hurts to have the pull of the bond when the person on the other end is always choosing some other woman because of family/social/money temptation over you. And I don't want to repeat that again. I'd rather the emptiness and hollowness where the bond should be than repeating that over again for another round.... And if i feel so strongly about not wanting it and the ethical demarcation it creates for me, if he came just break through to reach me in spite of that ethics issue, then what the hell is there to stop that old past lives pattern repeating into this one and into future ones? 

That's where the fear and the flight and the pushing him away thinking about cutting off contact of his very few means of reaching me comes in whenever that ethical line gets pushed at all. It's about me not knowing what else I can do other than try to stop contact down the bond to keep the pattern from fucking repeating again.... 

It's not rational, but it's what was at the root instinctive reactionary of all the overthinking and pulling back and questioning if I should let me listen to further songs given the way the one cracked right through to reach me like that..... It's not jealousy, I genuinely want him to be happy wherever he finds that for himself, it's that I don't want to fall back into that past life repeating painful pattern yet again. Not this time. 

And it's why when I'm hurting or sad or sick, I have such a knee jerk "but no I can't take anymore pain" pull away from the place I instinctively want to turn to for comfort and love. It's why the overthinking and the fear didn't take over the joy and rapprochement the song had broken through to create until I was so physically sick throwing up and thoroughly miserable and the "but I don't want more pain" fear response/expectation took over 

And I thought that was an honesty and an insight I should make sure to share.