As if I even need a reason, To shut up and just play along. Well, I'll gladly be your witness, I just hope I didn't see it wrong. 'Cause there's some who say that words can only get you so far, Two ways to be myself, at least, Yeah, that's the best part. Well, there's one to keep you entertained while keeping you safe. And the other one's how you see me when I'm on stage. 'Cause even the best worrier there ever was, They got nothing on me. But you always know when I need to be told, You put me at ease. And even in the best worst case scenario, At least it's easy to see, That I'll rearrange my future days, Will you spend them with me? Yeah, I'll rearrange my future days, If you spend them with me.

I saw the email about the Too Late Tour while I was at my parents house having dinner with my maman and the dogs then finishing up the last of our currently DVRed figure skating while my da was playing cards with his friends. (We watched the last events from Four Continents; Worlds starts this week in Montreal, so after Thursday we should have some more on the DVR for at least a few more future Tuesdays while he plays cards.) 

It sounds like a cool project and I won't say I'm not curious, especially as I'm incredibly curious what his story is he needs to tell. If there were one in the area I'd consider going if it were more of a house concert I'd consider it, but I haven't contacted about hosting in my own living room and don't intend to because I don't think my living room would work well to host a concert. I mean, it's fine for friends or now exes practicing or playing just for me in that space. (Did you know that when I was 19 I accidentally cursed myself and have only ever ended up dating musicians and singer-songwriters since then?  True story. I off handed made a comment to a male friend of mine who was singer in an indie band I used to help out a lot that I wasn't the sort of girl that musicians or singers date and he told me (while dating a really jealous mean hearted sorority girl who was very cruel and vindictive to his female fans and friends) that I assume too much saying something like that. And ever since that conversation EVERY person I've ever dated, no matter how we met, I would find out very quickly that he's a musician and/or singer-songwriter. EVERY single one since that conversation.)  But you see, my living room is rather small (my entire condo is only 1200 sq ft) and can't fit many people in it (though it does have like 25ft tall cathedral ceilings in the living room and 10ft ceilings throughout) so there's some beautiful natural reverb in my living room for singers and instruments -- just not much space for people. And then, while my dog loves everyone once I tell her they're friends, my cat is a scaredy cat with new people/noises until he knows you -- although he adores piano so I can pretty well guarantee you that anyone playing the piano in the living room will get the cat to come running. Especially if you play anything by George Winston. Spock loves piano more than anything else, probably more than me if he had to choose....  And not only does Spock love piano, but I happen to know that he also loves Eric's voice and songs because whenever I have listened to anything of his at home, Spock comes over chirping and with a happy purr rubs his cheeks against my phone or laptop or speakers I'm using to play Eric singing, lol. So it would make Spock the happiest cat in the world to have Eric come play in the living room, as long as he didn't have to put up with a crowd of strangers in his home, lol.)

But even more than having a small space with neighbors below and down the hall and amplified noise being a questionable choice for my neighbors, I choose not to have internet at home other than on my phone. I haven't had internet at home for over a decade.  Which always shocks people like I'm living in the stone age or something, lol.  You see well over a decade ago, Charter jacked up my prices and so I canceled with them and signed with TDS to install fiber optic. Well, Charter never came when they scheduled and so they charged me for the next month AFTER I canceled even though all their damn equipment and cable router was in a box waiting for them to come pickup and I stayed home literally all day and late into the night they were scheduled and they never showed up even though I called multiple times to find out when they were coming -- but because it wasn't turned off BY THEM on the last day of the month, they charged me for the next month. It was a huge fight to get them to come out and actually turn off the hookup because in their books I wasn't a customer even though they kept charging me, for like three months while I kept calling them to pick up their equipment and turn off my service and refund me the months they were charging me when I didn't have useable internet but they hadn't turned off the cable... It was a horrific nightmare bad customer service and so I swore that I would never give Spectrum Charter another damn cent of my money EVER again after that interaction. And then, once I had the Charter mess cleared up just as I was about to be scheduled by TDS, they passed an "anti monopoly" law in Madison dividing areas into Charter service and TDS service and nowhere that had both available and so if I lived across the road I would have been TDS but where I lived I was in Charter area AND my condo association didn't allow external satellite hookups. And since I had made a vow NEVER to give Charter another cent of my money, I decided I just wouldn't have internet or cable hookups at home. Now, luckily, TDS never charged me and weren't going to until service to my location was setup and they were incredibly apologetic bout that law once it passed and after a lawsuit struck down that law I COULD have signed with TDS and I still can. 

Only I discovered that for me, having wifi at home was like junk food -- if I don't bring it into the home, I don't miss it at all and I'm actually happier and healthier without the mindless consumption that happens if I do bring either internet or junkfood into the home. By not having internet at home, I save a lot of time not doom scrolling social media and save a bit of money on the monthly cable internet bill and all the streaming services I don't pay for, lol. And I decided whenever I needed internet and did't want to be at work, I'd rather spend $70 at coffeeshops on delicious coffee than just the convenience of immediate hookup at home. And honestly, it's not that weird to me not having it -- I've gotten accustomed to living at home without internet and only having it at work or my parents house or at cafes or while traveling -- I am actually quite introverted and outside of concerts/theatre, your only real chances to encounter me are when I travel or chance encounters while I'm walking the dog or gardening or running errands. And at home without internet, I have my fur babies and my plants and all my thousands of books and all my tea collection and my liquor cabinet with selection of whiskeys/scotches and my laptop and sketchbooks/canvases and CDs/DVDs/downloads to my laptop for recorded music/movies and my wood burning fireplace just for the hygge of it and my piano and guitars I never learned to play properly but have and a TV I've never actually setup still sitting in its box in Spare Oom, lol. I don't miss the absence of wifi in my home space. However, that does mean that any sort of show that would require internet access just can't happen in my living room unless your phone is enough internet for whatever it is. 

But I would assume that whatever his existential concert series he has designed, he expects to have internet as a part of it, and I don't in my living room. I just don't have it (and it also means I don't have everything smart appliances in my home, lol.) 

Also, sometimes, when the deities that protect me get VERY over zealous protecting me, or after I've done some very stupid but necessary things dealing with powerful unincarnated malicious entities, it's impossible for even me to get cell phone signal in my unit.... Like, I don't like letting people in uninvited to leave energies for me to clean up and that also applies to spirits so I have warding up across the time/space and all the entrances so no disembodied spirits can enter without my permission because as a medium who dream walks, I need where I sleep to be safe from attacks. That was part of why last summer while I was in the hollows following the death of my dog of nearly 15 years, when the attachment hooked into his then girlfriend feeding on him and his connections that  tried using the bond to track me down threw me and made me react saying nobody and nothing with her energy tied into them could reach me. And when I did that, I did assume he would choose her, after all he was very vocal about being in love with her and I figured he either didn't feel the bond or wouldn't miss it now he'd fallen in love with someone else. Discovering I was wrong in that assessment definitely shocked me when he fought his way back to reach me via the bond again after he broke things off with her.... I didn't expect that. Not at all. (Also, the fact that my allied deities/archangels allow him to reach me via the bond, sleeping and waking, and to reach me in shared dream space is actually VERY unusual and a just him thing. But that's a different thing.)

(And yes, that means that whatever hour I send out an email or I write here what I'm thinking/feeling, if I don't do it while I'm at work it means I tapped the entire damn thing out on my phone, lol.)

So I did not respond to the email with a request to have him play in my living room, because there's not much space there for many people and I wouldn't want to annoy my neighbors downstairs or down the hall with a large party at my second floor condo, without internet. He'd be welcome to come sing and play for just me and the animals (and maybe a small handful of friends) because that's happened before in my flat with friend exes who are also musicians/songwriters but my condo isn't big enough for hosting a lot of people. before the fact he wouldn't have any internet for whatever extra layers beyond just the music and storytelling he might have planned for the shows. Maybe I misunderstood what he's looking for for this tour by assuming typical house concert setup. I am curious about what he's got up his sleeve with this idea, VERY curious, but I still don't think my living room would make sense to request as a date for the tour. Because not much space in my second floor condo with shared hallway/walls, I like to gate keep what energies I allow into my home space, and no internet or TV setup, lol.

But even if my curiosity isn't satisfied and there isn't an opportunity for me to hear the story he needs to tell with this living room tour over the summer, I remain excited for the promise of a single this summer and that he's picked a title and date for his solo album debut!

I do have a lot of free time though this summer (except in August when I have the three weekends in a row of Irishfests and then in September we have decided not to go to Muskegon because we weren't super excited by most of the lineup for the price point and long drive, so I will likely be out in Montana  in September if anything does materialize for my Uncle Dave's 70th birthday. I suppose if he wanted to come play a show at my parents cabin in Whitefish for all my crazy family and just jump in the deep end there meeting everyone, that would make more sense than having a show in my living room unless it were VERY small and intimate and no internet, lol. I would very much like to hear his story and the songs and what it is he feels such a strong need to communicate.... And I would like even more to see him again than to have my curiosity satisfied, curious as I am.

I should head home and head to bed in a little bit here (unless I decide not to sleep at all) given I have to get my grandma to her appointment at 10:45a tomorrow (today now.) Good news is that I'm currently sitting pretty at like 33 hours in when I punch out tonight and after tomorrow I'll be over my 40 for the week. Which is great because we're supposed to get snow on Thursday night through Friday morning and so I had a plan to stay home with a fire in the hearth and make a curry and have some introvert recharge time of books and music and fur babies and a hearth fire through the snow storm. And then a second snow turning to mixed precipitation nobody knows what Sunday through Tuesday. As of right NOW, I'm supposed to drive over to Racine on Friday afternoon/evening to see DAIMH play at McAuliffe's Pub AND on Sunday, my parents and best friend and I have tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof dinner theatre at Fireside. So as much as I want snow, I want to shift the first snowstorm earlier and the second one later, lol. On verra.

That said, my remainder of March and April is actually LESS busy somehow than I had in my head it would be. I have much less in my plans for the summer, but it really isn't as much as I thought the rest of this month and in April. Like, all next week I actually have nothing at all as a have to in my calendar except Bailen at Majestic on Friday March 29 and that weekend I only have to check in on Henry (Crissy's cat) over the weekend while she's out of town. For some reason, I had in my head that the end of the month was busy busy busy, lol.

O hopefully that means I'll have some time to write!!!! I have DEFINITELY been negligient in making time for my REAL writing recently.... (If you ever want to help me with keeping my ADHD time blindness in check so I keep working in my actual writing, all you need to is ask to be a reader and be willing to have real critique/discussion time with me and then demand I give you the new chapters asap. Also, I write most prolifcally when I'm traveling and/or don't have to be responsible for keeping my home space clean. When I'm more free of the guilt of ought tos. And I do know that I will continue to have fiscal just scraping by as long as I'm ignoring my real purpose and not finishing my writing and publishing it because what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing with my life to leave behind me is my writings not my face/life for the public this time around, even if I did say I'd only leave behind the great truths in fictional form because I don't trust those who come after this body is dead to get the message right in their interpretation when it comes to deeper truths...)

P.S. Astro Poets still advising both Libra and Pisces that love is real and that things are better with promises to continue getting better, lol.

"Week of 3/17 in Libra: So many memories that are part of love. So it sings too like a fountain. Someone misses you. You miss them, too. Butterflies are blue and gold."

"Week of 3/17 in Pisces:  You have finally seen the truth. What will you do now. Even if you do nothing you can turn around the clock with forgiveness. You can go back. You can only go forward with love."

See what I mean?  I find it interesting that the one for my rising focuses on forgiveness and that you can turn back make it better if you approach from a place of love. My sun sign is just all about love and the song in the heart and reassurance "they miss you just as much as you miss them."

And in case I forgot to share from last week:

"Week of 3/10 in Libra: The sun is everywhere. So are you in love. Let this part of the story be neverending. Let there never be a final thing. There doesn’t have to be."

"Week of 3/10 in Pisces: Some parts of the sun are so orange. Some parts are not even the day itself. You have something you want to write down. Keep it beyond the page. Keep it to yourself if you can."

[Post title: lyrics to The Coronas song Best Worrier.]

 So this morning, when I got up, my hair's idea of bed head was to get MORE curly overnight like it went, "bitch, what do you mean you sometimes don't believe I'm curly?!?! Let me show you curly!!" And that despite me taking extra snooze snuggle time using the cat as a pillow (which should have made my hair extra static-y frizzy if anything) because the dog laying across my legs didn't want to get up yet and no amount of me fidgeting got any response from her other than licking the air or yhe blanket across my legs 😂. We're talking like, summertime humid 3b tighter curls. Just out of nowhere -- normally sleeping on my hair flattens the curl pattern, not amplifies it. 😆 (I've tried every curl protective technique Over ever heard of, like pineapple-ing and bonnet-ing, and every time while I sleep I get frustrated and pull them out. The most I can do is a loose braid when it's been more than 3 days since my last wash day for my hair, and even then the hair ties often get lost while I sleep and the braid comes undone.) 

But it was the funniest thing, my hair trying to prove to me that it's curly by being MORE curly. It made me laugh really hard when I saw what the curl beast had done overnight. That is, I was laughing until I discovered how feral it was this morning refusing to believe in straight parts and breaking hair ties trying to tame it into something a bit more manageable than what I woke up to by pulling it back. 😆 Curl beast was definitely feisty, "ain't nobody going to doubt me being curly, I will SHOW you curly!"  It didn't even want any finger combing (though it did except some oil moisturizer to help reduce frizz) like, "Don't touch me. I love you but I'm still mad at you. Dafuq you mean anyway saying maybe I ain't curly?"

I don't much mind the contrariness of my curls doing what they choose on any given day, I'm accustomed to curly hair having a mind of it's own and never behaving the same way twice. or even twice in the same day some days, lol.  Curly haired people have to be more adaptable to whatever your hair decides to do, I've known many people with straight hair who say they wish they had curls and none of them are particularly flexible or adaptable people.... Curls require you to be adaptable to whatever you encounter, not a slave to a pre planned routine.

So anyway, I'm sorry if anyone felt some sort of way about me being honest that sometimes I question if I lack evidence for a hypothesis OR if I seem to have evidence that both point at radically different conclusions and lines of questioning. My curl beast definitely took that personally. Lord Almighty, curl beast tried to prove me wrong with dry air below freezing outside "winter is back again" curly hair going all 3b summer humid ringlets on me after sleeping, lol. But also, I am appreciative will gladly take the hurt lashing out "how dare you question me and my nature?! let me prove you wrong" over any form of "how dare you question me, we done!" (Not that the curl beast that lives atop my head can actually call it quits with me and survive, but also in the larger metaphor about my questioning, please please please don't get so hurt/angry to decide to walk away be done with me just for questioning.... That would devastate me. Please prove me wrong if that's the truth because proving the truth for me IS what I want from the questioning, but maybe don't get so hurt by me asking the questions that you say, "fuck this I'm done" with me because I questioned not having anything tangible supporting the heart space KNOWING.) Like if you're upset over my questioning, please use your anger to step up prove me wrong instead of walking away calling it quits if I'm going to question the should be obvious. Please please? Because I'd LIKE to be proven wrong, I would in no way like angering you so you say, "Well I'm fucking done with this bullshit if you going to even ask that...." So maybe just prove my overthinking brain wrong, yeah? That would be way cooler, make everyone happier. Please and thank you. And a cherry on top. And some sprinkles if you want. 24k gold sprinkles might be a bit TOO extra, but cherries and sparkly sprinkles on my please and thank you I can totally do!

K thanks, bye! I have to go start the process of watering  allllllll my indoor plants at work now. 😘 Green babies be thirsty like that. And it's not like they can get up for a walk about fetch their own water after all....

It's not that I don't appreciate, How love it can choose you, But I'm not much use at being fake. I'll see this out. And blow them all away, Then you'll get your break, Leave with your head high. You fought for it. You should be applauded. And it's okay to bleed, But I bruise too easily -- You can let yourself out. I'm much too honest, Oh, but I'm not sorry. I'll take my medicine, You'll take the credit. This thing could get the better, Of you if you let it. Hold on, I'm not finished. Just give me a minute. My everything looks so much nicer, With you in it.

Thinking of which: 

The part I forgot to say when I was using the example of my hair and how neglecting it between washes destroys the curl pattern until it's next washed, to the point it can lead to questioning if the curl is really there at all.... (My hair is the most easily damaged hair type so between the chlorine and hard water it can't be washed with city tap water more frequently than once maybe twice a week if one of those days I don't use shampoo. If I lived where I had some sort of rain water collection system, both my hair and my skin would both be softer and could get washed more often without over-reacting. In my someday dream house, I would like to have some sort of rain water réclamation system for showering, some way to do it without the risk of insect larvae that you get from typical rain barrel collection systems....)

But what I forgot to mention when I was saying that it would be easier if there was some sort of "go wash you hair and see what reality tells you about natural state of things" when I get to doubting the bond to him..... It's not that I love him or want him any less when my brain gets to doubting and thinking that way. It's that I'm making myself face the facts that I can assume it goes both ways mutual or I can assume he doesn't feel it so I'm wasting my own damn time and energy but I always know that whatever I pick to believe, both of those options are assumptions at this time. And my core nature is to seek truths, not assumptions. It's because I don't know his truth or have any means at my disposal of discovering it that it gets me so wound up about not wanting to base my own choices on untrue assumptions. 

It doesn't change any damn thing in my love or what I selfishly want -- I want what I want. But when I can't have knowledge of the truth and have to base my choices off one of the two assumptions, it does affect my actions when I question it. I'm not single because I lack for options, I've always had plenty of I want them, without really trying. The thing is I've never met anyone else as an option who I want more than the pull to Eric IF he feels the pull too and wants me. In any lifetime, I'd always choose him if he's among my options -- I just can't seem to wrap my head around whether he ACTUALLY is an option for me this life or if I just WANT him to be among my options this life..... 

And when I get to thinking maybe he's not and he never was and all my wanting and not choosing any other man is me wasting my own finite time and energy on a desire and dream that only I can see.... Well that's when I get into that headspace of thinking like my hair might actually be straight given it's behavior after 3-5 days since the last wash and being pulled back in ponytails and buns too much to keep it from getting too tangled.... That's when I start trying to be brutal with myself to not believe that just because I desperately WANT something makes that assumption his truth.... I still want what I want, but I stop believing he wants me back and I tell myself to face reality as it IS stop lying to myself about what I believe the potential to be. 

Does that make sense? Only without knowing his truth and without any simple experiment like "go wash you hair to see what is the true natural state of things" I don't have any way to refute the realist brutal take not to mistake an assumption/hypothesis to be truth just because you so badly want it to be true.....  I still love him and want him and would choose him in a heartbeat if I could -- I just tell myself I can't let me run away with believing a theory to be truth simply because I want it to be..... 

If I had certainty of his truth or something I could measure the assumptions against to be like, "THIS is the truth of the natural state of things" it would help me not be that way, help me not look elsewhere (even if only as a flirtation) because I get to despairing I'll never have what I want because the bond is all in my head and only runs one way not both..... 

But I don't currently have any sort of "go wash your hair and the true pattern will reassert itself" when it comes to knowing Eric's heart and desires for himself.... I don't even know that he can feel the bond tugging and as a source of strength/joy/inspiration that way it is inside me. I only have the untestable certainty in my own heart/soul and in my head is whatever assumptions I let myself treat as if it is truth in the moment or the intellectual relativism that I won't put my faith in an assumption and since the truth is unknowable, I will invest my energy and love elsewhere not worry my pretty little head over him anymore..... 

That's the difficulty that sets me off to try pulling back from him and making myself let go of the hope/promise that there's a way through back to each other to have that this life. And that's when I start telling myself that it's in everyone's best interest for me to force myself into letting him go, letting go of even the dream/faith that the pull toward each other matters as a promise of what hasn't yet come into being.... 

I hate it when my head gets like that, but I can't find any logic or evidence to refute it other than my soul being stubborn insisting it knows better than my head hears the song in his heart singing the same as my own heart..... But that's not tangible or irrefutable, there's no observations in reality as we are currently living it to support it, it's just assumptions and ideas and beliefs.... It's not a provable isness about his truth. 

And when my truth seeking head overthinking and questioning everything is in control, I'd rather break my own heart with the harshness of a bitter truth than lie to myself telling me what I want to be true but has no foundations under it....

*Sigh* there is no way to think myself out of the problem of assuming without having factual evidence to support anything.... I just question in circles til I get so fed up of not finding an answer I decide that absence of an answer IS the only answer available to me at this time so I should put my energy and capacity to love into those actually in my life and focus on someone else as if he's not choosing to be an option available to me..... 

Anyway. I'm certainly not getting any nearer truth or understanding what he wants with overthinking all these words and repeating myself in circles. So I'm going to bed now -- and I'm NOT going to wash my hair in the morning because today was a wash day but I also won't question if my hair is actually curly no matter what my bed head looks like when I get up and get ready to take my grandma to her dentist cleaning appointment in the afternoon. 

[Post title: lyrics to The Coronas song Give Me a Minute. This was the right post for those lyrics, more than the last one.]

There must be nothing you've left to prove, Turn it into something that you never wanna lose. I want a lawyer, give me a good lawyer too. I'll say I'm guilty if it brings me back to you. I'm good for a little bit, But I get lost in the thick of it sometimes. I hate to say that I'm wrong, Feels better playing along, Hoping you don't notice it, When I'm just a bit low-spirited, and I I gotta face it alone. Maybe we could meet up, sometime? Just a little knees-up, sometime? Walk until our feet hurt, sometime? 'Cause we're only growing, not unfolding.

So. We need to have a serious talk about me and how I can be sometimes. And that has to do with the part of my brain that questions EVERYTHING and seeks proofs about reality even when the isness should be really fucking clear and it's actually stupid of me to question it. And we're going to use an example that I'm occasionally guilty of and is truly laughable but also true about me.  

So. If I ever try to tell anyone, myself included, that my hair isn't actually THAT curly and maybe at best it should be called wavy, you should really turn that around to ask me how long it's been since I washed it and get back to you after it's washed and dried. My hair is actually curl type 3a with some 2c wave pattern sections in it AND it's high porosity (meaning it easily soaks up moisture but also easily releases moisture so it gets dried out and damaged easily) and that means that if the air is dry enough I can brush it out and then it just has light wave pattern to it (though even with flat ironing it won't STAY straight unless it's desert dry or winter dry air) but as soon as there's any moisture in the air, even just boiling water or a humidifier, no amount of product can keep my hair from curling. Also, if I put it into ponytails or pigtails or even braids, it clumps to form ringlets around itself -- the parts of braids that aren't a French/Dutch braid against the head actually curls around itself in a corkscrew.) As in, I used to be confused as a child how people braided their hair and got the long part of the braid to lay flat instead of having the braid corkscrew around itself and I wondered what they braided their hair around to keep it laying flat.....

And the REASON you should handle my doubt about the curliness of my hair by asking me a followup question suggesting I go wash it and get back to you is because this is the example from this morning of how it looks after washing it and letting it air dry, and there is nothing about my hair after it's been washed that should make anyone think, "Yeah that girl has straight hair" :

So I ABSOLUTELY should be called on me doubting if my hair is ACTUALLY curly just because I haven't washed it in a while... Because that's just this morning on Paddy's Day, this is from washing it like a week or so ago, before heading out of town for Aoife Scott's afternoon show in Milwaukee and back to Madison for Skerryvore's show that night:

 

Because it turns out that ACTUALLY straight (or even actually wavy) hair doesn't look like that after washing it letting it air dry it, lol. I just can't wash my hair too frequently as it's the most easily damaged hair type and while your hair is wet is when it's most fragile. And I don't like my hair to feel crunchy or ick to the touch, so I use very little product on it, just curl cream while it's wet to help reduce frizz so I don't look like first year Hermione.... Just washing it and then a small amount of curl cream when it's wet like a leave in conditioner and that's how it dries. Every time. Well, different curl patterns because curly hair never dries the identical curl pattern twice, but all variations on that theme and level of curliness, lol. And I think it's pretty obvious that, in fact, I do NOT have straight hair by any imaginable stretch of defining straight vs curly hair, lol.

Granted I don't have the patience to properly section it and style it for defined curls, so it will always have a bit of unruly curl beast to it -- but it can be really beautiful if someone else wants to section and style the curls while I read or something. And also granted, I don't like using gels or mousse to define my curls and when I use a curl specific protein based hairspray I don't use much of it because I hate any sort of crunchiness in my hair. I also don't put my curls up in a pineapple or wrap them in a silk scarf or turban while I sleep because I yank out anything in my hair while I'm asleep -- best I can do to protect it while I sleep is a very loose braid which always destroys curl patterns turns it to waves.

And yes I own a diffuser, but I still air dry my hair because I've never yet met a diffuser technique or products that didn't make my hair type go complete frizz ball first year Hermione because it was touched while drying. Even at a salon.

But yeah. If ever I (or anyone else) gets to doubting my hair is curly because I slept on it and/or brushed it since it was last washed and the air isn't humid enough to re-curl it just from ambient moisture, just have me wash it (or get it soaking wet, not lightly misted but soaked through) and truth will reassert itself right quick. 😂 

(And no, I have no idea WHAT color my eyes are, like the seas they change all sorts of shades of green-blue-grey depending on lots of factors including my emotions. Best color adjective I know for them is glas which is Irish for "the colors of the ocean" but isn't something I can readily put on official forms like my driver's license or passport. Just like the way every sunrise is unique, my hair never curls the same curl patterns twice and my eyes are never quite the same hue and that's just a part of how it is with me.)

Now, I did not bring this up or share all the pictures out of mere vanity or to say, "Look look look how pretty my hair can be when the curl beast is cooperative!"  I had a broader point about my character and the EASIEST way to make my point was to assert reality vs the sort of doubting/questioning that I can get my head into if you let things continue too long without asserting a reality check.

My brain is the sort that will question and doubt literally test everything  that doesn't make sense and want to run experiments to assert truth. It's a combination of all my years in physical sciences (especially biology/medical/chemistry) AND my grandfather's maxim he got from Buddha and taught me when I was young ("never trust anything anyone tells you, not even me, until you have thought about it and tested it to prove it to your own satisfaction") and little four year old Dani ended up in a deep philosophical funk sitting under the dining room table refusing to play or color or do anything other than try to apply to the maxim to itself and not being able to figure out how to square that circle and how that day and the discussion with my grandfather shaped a large chunk of my formative character, lol. 

So here's the thing -- that aspect in my character means that i can't HELP questioning and doubting the nature of anything and everything, especially when I have even a single piece of contrary data. And my example is that brushing my hair out after sleeping on it without protecting the curls for several days in a row will get me to questioning very basic (and obvious) facts of observable reality that my hair IS actually curly in its natural state rather than brushed out desperately in need of a wash day. And I wish that I could say that the experiment of reasserting natural state by just washing my hair (or going swimming or out in the rain/snow) means that I would never again question IF my hair is curly. But it simply isn't true -- every time my hair gets to be brushed out straight in need of a wash, I find myself questioning how much natural curl I have and if I should even CALL my hair curly. 

And that's fucking ridiculous, people who know me best would just laugh at me if they knew my brain was doing it, but the instances of observations that counter the typically asserted narrative of reality STILL make me question that.

And that's about my own damn hair. That I have lived with my entire life in this body. And that an experiment/test as simple as "why don't you go wash your hair, love, and then get back to me about if you think it should be classified as curly or straight." It's a VERY easy thing to give me a test and have me just laugh at me say, "O right. Yep. Reality is EXACTLY how reality has been presumed to be and this was just a circumstantial anomaly in the larger data set because it was tangled so I had to brush it out then put it back in a ponytail." 

I can't help questioning and doubting betimes, especially if there's some data that doesn't fit the current understanding/theory of things. It's just how the philosopher-scientist trained brain in me IS, I have a very curious mind and I'm very much someone who examines all the premises I realize I've never examined before. And this can certainly work in your favor when I have that epiphany that makes me go, "O shit! I've been running on this unexamined assumption and my conclusions are fucking skewed as hell and I'm so sorry I wronged you running with that conclusion from bad unexamined premises!" And sometimes the things I doubt/question are just insanely ridiculous to even question, rather like questioning "okay but ARE the sun and the moon and the stars still out there because we've had a LOT of clouds lately and I just can't be sure til I can SEE they exist and just confirm nothing catastrophic happened to them while the clouds have hidden them." And sometimes you just have to call me on it take the piss out of me and make me laugh at my own contrariness or give me a simple experiment to test both hypotheses to find out where the reality is when I'm ridiculous like that, questioning things like IS my hair curly, DOES the sun still exist when the clouds are in the way, does the love in the bond EXIST when it never manifests into everyday life or is this all in my head?

And. It also means. No matter how frustratingly asinine my line of questioning or doubting can be, and yes sometimes it even annoys the fuck out of me when my brain gets to overthinking and questioning EVERYTHING, if you stick to your truth and/or find ways to remind me that I'm giving an outlier in the dataset too much credence then WHEN I have proof to settle me down again I'll remember that reality IS and my hair is curly and the sun's still there even when I don't see it behind thick clouds and just because there's no movement into the 3d quotidian ways we live our lives doesn't mean the soul deep connection and love no longer IS. As long as YOU know and are certain in yourself that your truth is like the Shakespeare line in Hamlet, “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” then your certainty can help me find the balance again of what reality IS and I'll stop doubting once there's evidence I see to counter the questioning. And, if you can figure out how to do it, maybe just give me a simple experiment type thing like "go wash your damn hair if you're doubting it's curly" to assert which hypothesis IS truth about reality.

And I'm sorry. I ain't going to pretend it doesn't hurt to be questioned or doubted or to feel rejected when i get to overthinking and doubting... I don't mean to hurt you or me when I do that... I feel horrible about the hurt that the doubting breeds... but I can't HELP asking the questions and continuing to pursue the line of questioning until I get an answer that rings true and is experientially consistently proven to be true.... I don't do it to be hurtful and i don't even WANT the questions I'm asking to be true, I do it because I firmly believe that believing a lie would be more harmful than facing any hard truth and so I need to worry away to FIND the truth of what the reality IS.  Just hold to your truth and do what you can to show it and live it and force me to take in the dataset of the evidence of what IS the truth. And the more truth evidence there is, the easier it gets for me to see how whatever led me to the line of questioning is actually the outlier and not the state of isness.

And sometimes, sometimes if I doubt and question something that is so patently obviously how reality IS, just tell me to go wash my damn hair if I'm going to go around second guessing the intrinsic isness of reality. Because my hair IS curly, and anything else is the outlier of the dataset of my hair being dirty and oily and brushed out slept on to flatten out the natural corkscrew curling pattern my hair's truest nature IS. And all I have to do is get my  hair wet all the way through and watch it air dry naturally to prove to me that it's curly, has always been curly, and always will be curly if I just take care of it and wash it once in a while, but not too often or it will strip it of moisture and make it frizzy and dry, lol.

And I'm sorry. The recent while of my questioning and doubting can't have been easy. And I'm so sorry for any hurt that my questioning caused.... Just know that I carry the doubt in me if maybe my hair ISN'T curly right up to the moment I get in the shower and wet my hair down and the curls start springing back into shape, including this morning and every time I've gone too long between washes... And then once reality's ISNESS and natural state reasserts itself, I laugh at myself for the part of me that questioned and questioned and could have so easily found the answer by just soaking my hair and seeing what happens the moment any amount of moisture is allowed to enter my hair.

I am sorry though...I didn't mean to be hurtful...I just wanted to know the truth of ISNESS... It's been hell on me too, the questioning and doubting and what if-ing and having nothing to prove it to my brain one way or other -- only the stubbornness of my heart and my soul's inner knowing yelling at me, "You fucking idiot girl. What the actual fuck are you doing questioning this right now?!?!" And all I needed, the entire time since the questioning started was whatever the equivalent of either gentle or teasing or brutal asking me "why don't you wash your hair so you can see things in the natural state of isness, love."  I don't know what is the "go wash your hair" of questioning his love if it runs both ways or if I'm wasting my time deluding myself holding onto a belief with no foundations in reality.... But, really, what I needed was the "go wash your hair and you'll see it truly IS curly no matter what the recent mistreatment circumstances have done to make you question it." 

So just. If you DO know the truth of your own isness or you're just able to hold the faith that the sun still IS no matter how many days of clouds get in the way, stubborn through my questioning clinging ot your truth trying to get it into a form I can see it. And if you can figure out what the "go wash your hair" is of this sort of questioning/doubting pattern when my brain starts in on it, PLEASE tell me whatever the equivalent is of "go wash your hair and see what the natural state is, love." Because I can't help questioning, especially when there's evidence I can't make fit the accepted theory of reality, but sometimes you just need to make me laugh at giving too much weight to the outliers and an easy way to reset test for what truth IS in the given situation. Because lots of people have straight hair in this world, but I'm not one of them. And lots of people don't have a bond of love where their souls are woven together, but that's not us. My hair is curly and the bond with all it's love exists -- and yeah the sun and the moon and all the stars are still there no matter what clouds block their view or how long the clouds make you question if catastrophe may have happened when you couldn't see their isness.

And sometimes, you just need to tell me to go wash my hair to find out that reality truly IS no matter how I question or doubt it, lol.

[Post Title: Lyrics to the song Lost in the Thick of It by The Coronas. I also considered using lyrics from Give Me A Minute. Only, unlike the lyric I AM sorry for having caused hurt even though I'm not sorry for being honest. Also, it made my heart so happy that they brought back Dreaming Again for this tour, it's such a happy hopeful song! been ages since I last heard that one live!

And, funnily enough, after my teasing about them needing to come back around again soonish and Danny telling me they'd be back every Milwaukee Irishfest if invited because the people/scene/sessions are so great, they JUST announced yesterday that they'll be back in the area in July after a few shows back in Ireland following  their June tour dates out in Seattle/Vancouver and California, but specifically back in the Chi area opening for The Saw Doctors in Boston, NYC, and Chicago dates of their US tour. But I don't know that I $70 gen ad at Aragon Ballroom want to see them as just the opener for an Irish band I like well enough but don't love. Much as I would love to see at least Danny, Knoxy, and Conor (the core original of the band) and maybe Ro and Lar, thta's a large ticket price to see the band I actually love  open for someone else I'm only in "like well enough" toward, y'know? Hopefully they can garner some more new fans stateside though se they have more reasons to keep coming back other than mixing into their sold out theaters/stadium shows having small audience club shows with real connection be humbling and affirming because there's real connection that happens there.]

 It was so good to see the Skerryvore lads and so many friends again tonight and then when I got frustrated with seated dancing to just get up out of the seats (old historic theatre venue) and move to front side and be up and dancing start the dance party for those who wanted it without blocking those who wanted to be seated!!! 

Also so many hugs!!!!! 🥰 And Keito was feeling better enough for big huge hugs and to be back to work merch and join us for dance party second set -- she came down with COVID two nights before the Madison gig and so Alana and Maddie ended up covering for her for merch but meant we couldn't hang with them at the show.  When the lads came by where we were chatting on their way to go to merch for their post show meet and greets and selfies, they all just grinned like school boys in a line excitedly waved as they were walking past and Alana was telling us a story about the woman who fainted outside the lavatory she was in on the plane last weekend. Until Martin Gillespie (VERY hot VERY well muscled Pisces blonde bagpiper and if I weren't such a heightist and he were just a bit taller so he was taller than me, would have charmed the panties right off me between his grin and his Scots accent ages ago; luckily he has a long term girlfriend now who has settled him down into an open poly relationship but she's primary in his life, so when I'm tempted by his hotness to forego being a heightist for once, I remember Celine is very poly open and also just how much of a health risk the amount of promiscuous can't keep it in his pants Martin can be if he drinks too much or lets himself and that turns off my interest in anything beyond no strings no expectations flirtation admire each other -- because Martin's entire existence is to flirt and laugh with everything/everyone including inanimate objects and I'm a Libra sun Pisces rising who gets awkward tongue-tied when actually interested but will accidentally flirt with anyone if there's nothing more than friendly camaraderie in it.) So while grinning and waving walking past like everyone else, Martin made eye contact with me, winked, then pushed into the circle with a big grin and wrapped me in a big hug lifting me off the ground surprised a puppy yelp out of me. (Which I'm sure was his goal given I either yelp like a puppy or squawk like a bird whenever I'm sufficiently surprised.) And then it was like he gave everyone permission and it was like a massive group hug puppy pile for a bit before the Scots men all gave us cheeky grins and waved and continued on to the merch table all hopped right into a photo like nothing had happened. 

I definitely have one of my most loveable (and promiscuous) characters I've ever written into one of my novels based on Martin's personality. He wasn't supposed to be a main character, he started off a secondary one in the resistance part of the dystopian world, but everybody who has read the manuscript so far adores him and has threatened me with bodily harm if I kill him off..... 

Anyway, it was a great night in Viroqua with good band friends and fan friends who I've known for well over a decade now. (Skerryvore are celebrating their 20th year together as a band next year and they first came to Milwaukee Irishfest in 2011 and thus the first I met them and their music will be 13 years ago this August.) 

Tomorrow night (tonight) will be Natalie MacMaster and her husband Donnell Leahy -- they're both from Canada and she plays Cape Breton style fiddle and he plays rural Ontario style fiddle all of it Irish-Scottish fusion. She's been a favorite fiddler of mine since I was like 17 or so, and I'm always super happy when I get to see them (and sometimes their passel of many kids who are like the Von Trapp family all fiddlers and multi-instrumentistes, lol)

And then Sunday is brunch at Heritage at 11a and symphony at 2:30 -- St. Patrick's Day parade on the square is at 1 so we may catch that before heading over for Dvorak and I don't recall what else on the program, lol. 

So while I spent last week with some of my favorite humans from Dublin (Aoife, Andy, Danny, Ro, Knoxy, Conor, Lar, and Cian) and Sunday night with the Celtic Tenors at ICHC (around my divine protection car acting up but still getting me where needed without harm) for ACTUAL St. Patrick's Day weekend, I'm seeing shows by Scots men, Canadians, and a symphony performance. 😆 

Ah well, just putting a wee bit extra emphasis for the ish part of Irish this year for Paddy's Day this year ☘️ I'll make sure to wear my Ireland zips the next two days though. (Today I wore a striped skirt in scottish blue and white paired with a blue/white/yellow tee for Minnesota Irish Fair (which Skerryvore just announced the other day they would be back at this year) that has the Minneapolis skyline with a loon whose body is an Irish harp.)

Also. I've been home over 3 hours now (Crissy needed to get back early because she has to be in Milwaukee area at 7am for a DI tournament so couldn't stay out late go drinking with the friends) and even drinking a chamomile blend tea (Sleep Well blend from London Tea Merchant in St. Louis) and reading philosophy essays on determinism vs free will, I still have souch sugar in my system from the cocktails before the show tonight that I'm not sleepy yet feel like I could run laps around the block til properly exhausted if it wasn't 3am.... And if my knees had more cartilage cushioning so that running more than a couple miles didn't cause me several days of my knees randomly giving out, especially on stairs. (One of the obvious reasons to suspect Ehlers Danlos syndrome runs down my mum's side: all my joints have less than 2/3 the cartilage they should, and so I have joint hypermobility, extreme flexibility so my stretches when I'm tight (for me) make normal people's wince, I fracture knuckles/meniscus rather than jam knuckles, I have multiple double joints, shoulders that subluxate easily especially when I do hot yoga to the extent that if I turn wrong in my sleep I can fully dislocate the right one entirely wake up in excruciating pain have to shove it back into place, etc etc. ) So I love running, but can't run more than half mile on concrete, mile on a treadmill, no more than 1.5 mile on a track, 3 miles on soft grass/dirt paths, but up to five miles barefoot on wet sand before my knees start randomly clicking and giving out while walking from the repetitive stress of running with less than 2/3 the cartilage I should have cushioning in every joint.  I was really good at basketball in middle school and high school, but playing it made it so I couldn't go up stairs at all and I wasn't allowed to try out for soccer (which I also used to be good at) since I couldn't run all the laps around the soccer field every day for warmups without it causing my knees to lockup give out. I always liked sprinting better than distance anyway, and was good at sprints trying out for track, before we found out how badly my hypermobile joints handle running too much.... Thus why I stick to dance, martial arts, hiking, ice skating, canoeing/kayaking, cross country skiing/snowshoeing, etc instead of running sports. I do enjoy weight training as well and that can helps stabilize my shoulders so it subluxates less easily/often, but I need a good spotter who can correct me when I overextend and overstretch the hypermobile joints so I don't cause injuries. 

Anyway. The dog is in bed, I'm in PJs snuggled under a blanket in my reading chair with the cat curled up purring in my lap, sipping chamomile blend tea and reading philosophy essays on free will vs. determinism waiting for the exhaustion to kick in stronger than the hummingbird hyper fidgeting of the sugars from the cocktails I had with dinner between 5pm and 8pm (before the show) so I can eventually head to bed and dream. Eventually. Preferably before sunrise but also I understand if it isn't.... I'm hopeful to get work hours in before the week started but really all I NEED to be up early enough to is late afternoon drop the dog off at my parents house before heading downtown to Cooper's Irish Tavern for dinner (hopefully, if Crissy is back from Milwaukee area early enough) before the Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy show at Capital Theatre in Overture Hall. Also. I should go plug my phone in and go put the kettle on for a second steep of my tea -- phone battery is currently at 19%

P. S. In case you are wondering, "okay but how hot can a Scottish bagpiper ACTUALLY be? Especially with the faces most bagpipers make while playing" Let me introduce you to the eye candy of Martin Gillespie: 

 

He's even cuter when he's grinning, and when he's not actively playing the bagpipes he's almost always grinning or horsing around trying to make himself and everyone else crack up laughing. He is also one of the kindest most hilarious absolute puppy darling man who would give you the shirt off his back if needed incorrigible flirt with the mischievous grin and kind blue eyes that you will ever meet. Pretty sure every girl he meets his entire life has been charmed by him, whether or not he was successful in ever fluffing her skirt. 

The more I think about it (and hear from other people, especially mechanics and car people) the more my alternator going out like that feels like elemental protection or divine intervention in an electrical manifestation (how elemental spirit energy, including my own, tends to manifest) to avoid a more dangerous situation happening.  And I'm relieved to have things taken care of BEFORE heading down to St. Louis /Cape Girardeau in April. And tomorrow morning I will be picking up my car from Tires Plus with new tires on it and their roadside patching/replacement and lifetime alignments just in case.

And while I'm on the matter of cars. Thinking of which: I did toss that out there rather lightly about electric vehicles, particularly Teslas, in minor fender benders being a large part of car insurance rises in recent years. But that isn't just my massive aversion ick reaction all things Elon and his ego. I didn't make that up about EVs (particularly Teslas) getting in accidents needing to be totaled being a main reason EVERYONE has auto insurance prices going up.

 The problem is that there's no way for third party inspection to determine if the minor impact has caused structural integrity damage to the battery to make it a fire hazard. (Lithium ion batteries, if even a single cell is damaged, can auto-ignite. This is why you're not supposed to pack them in checked luggage or leave them in hot cars in the summer.) Even leaving your seemingly undamaged lithium ion battery  EV car parked charging can start a fire in a garage that destroys OTHER people's vehicles and it's murky whose insurance covers these EV fires when they occur in parking garages.... This is enough of a problem that many states are now requiring large EV stickers on front and back windows of cars so that when police or fire crew show up after an accident they know of the additional risk potential of autoignition and harm to first responders.  This is a problem for ALL electric vehicles, but Teslas have the highest rate of needing to total the ENTIRE car for a minor fender bender rather than replacing/recycling only the battery because to reduce manufacturing costs, Tesla has made their batteries STRUCTURAL -- so even a dead battery needing replacement costs in the thousands of dollars rather than at most hundreds.  Which means that EVERY Tesla that gets in a minor fender bender that causes even the smallest scratch on the battery, insurance COMPLETELY totals the ENTIRE car because changing out the battery is cost prohibitive due to the way it is welded into the structural assembly of the vehicles and without any form of third party assessment of battery health there is no way to determine if that lithium ion battery now has damaged cells to become a fire risk. So if you buy a Tesla, on top of generally spending $200-400 per month extra per driver on your insurance, if another driver hits your car and there is even the smallest scratch on the battery, your ENTIRE Tesla will get totaled by your insurer and you will be out their estimate of its value even if you're still making payments on the car you just drove off the lot. As far as insurance or potential compensation in a crash without totaling the car goes, you're better off getting a hybrid or a long range fuel efficient standard car over any electric vehicle but especially over a Tesla.

Now, I am a mother earth loving hands in the dirt hippie who has protested pipelines and refineries and I would LOVE genuinely cleaner environmentally friendly vehicles -- but because of the planned obsolescence in case of anyone hitting your car, the inability to recycle/refurbish the batteries, the toxicity of rare earth mineral mining, AND the fact that a large percentage of the grid is still coal/natural gas that burns dirtier than a fuel efficient car engine -- electric vehicles are NOT the solution at this time because they don't typically last long enough compared to a fuel efficient or hybrid car for electric car environmental gains to outweigh the combustion engine cons....

And that's BEFORE we get into how frequently tires need to be replaced with EVs  -- at the conservative minimum end it's 30% faster than combustion style vehicles but real world data from Firestone shows sometimes as frequently as every 7,000 miles if driving on hot roads or weather changes degrading tire faster -- mostly due to the extra weight of the engine wearing out tires faster. it is INCREDIBLY environmentally damaging the process of tire production/replacement/disposal.... (Also all that extra weight makes cars 1) have greater inertia to overcome requiring MORE electric/combustion power to get it moving or stop it 2) greater risk of damage/injury/death in a collision (to self and others) and 3) greater risk of rollover in high winds or if a tire blows out at high speeds or any evasive maneuvers.)  Replacing tires every 5k-10k miles is WAY more expensive than an oil change every 5k miles and new tires every 50k miles and it is NOT environmentally friendly given the problems of tire manufacture, disposal, and microplastic runoff from tire degradation on roads if your tires destroy more rapidly.... 

When I read the numbers for claims that EVs are more environmentally friendly, the numbers don't add up when it comes to the tire replacement frequency AND the battery/totaling of cars from any minor scratch on a battery. It takes 6+ years for EV comparability by their numbers and that is assuming you will change the tires once in that time (so you're not driving over 7k-10k miles) and won't have to replace the battery in that time either AND nobody will hit your car during that time AND it won't start a fire while parked charging in a garage..... EVs are just SUCH throw away culture toxicity green washing at this time and I am very much a person who believes in caring for and refurbishing and repairing and trying to lengthen lifespan of objects rather than conspicuous consumption throwaway planned obsolescence culture....

On top of that, range anxiety is real. ESPECIALLY since I live somewhere with cold winters which can reduce the range from 10% to 20% in winter and over HALF what the specs are listed during cold snaps below 0F if it can even start when it gets down below 0F (which does happen at least a few days every winter where I live, even in La Nina year) and then the battery won't even charge until it warms itself up to 50F and will take more than twice as long in cold weather EVEN IF at a "super fast" charging station. Which means waiting over 3 hours for the battery to warm up before it will even start charging and then trying to get a full charge for every 50 miles-200 miles I need to travel...  But even setting that aside, 100-400 miles (the longest range is currently 411 miles) before a recharge when it ISN'T colder than 50F outside (and again, living in Wisconsin, over half the year temps are below 50F so will never get the range the specs state) means that depending on the model and the battery in it (and longer range batteries are more prone to auto-igniting so you're not supposed to park them in garages) I need to allocate OVER AN HOUR of recharge time in good weather for everywhere outside of town I would ever drive to AND finding a super fast charging station to have it be only an hour. And that includes a "quick" drive to Milwaukee and back... For reference, these are the drive distances to places I frequently drive:

Milwaukee -- 79 miles

Chicago -- 148 miles

Minneapolis -- 270 miles

That takes the drive to Minneapolis from a 3.5-4 hr drive to a 6+ hr drive if it's cold enough to require two charging stops each way depending on if there's any electric vehicle charging anywhere near to the venue I'm going to....

It's just not practical at all for me as someone who lives in Wisconsin where half the year is under 50F most of the time and who travels to all three of those cities VERY frequently for shows and concerts -- not counting longer travel roadtrips like heading to St. Louis or Michigan or really anywhere. I would never consider owning a Tesla or having one in my life at this point. To the extent that not only would I personally never own a Tesla at this point in time for those reasons, but a man CHOOSING to OWN a Tesla would be a major red flag for me against him as a longterm partner at this point. And I don't mean that in the "Tesla douchebag" cliche. I just mean quite literally I could casually date someone but never be able to form a lasting relationship or be willing to combine assets with someone who is okay with dropping that kind of cash on a car that could be totaled by any bad driver hitting them. As someone who loves rollercoaster thrills rides and adrenaline and has driven over 120mph more than once, I'm going to tell you that the sort of throw away conspicuous consumerism of owning an expensive car that an inexperienced driver  teenager hitting you in a fender bender might total is way too much of impractical risk taking for my blood. I mean seriously, buying into the Tesla dude bro scene especially if you put down payments to OWN a Tesla is a MASSIVE dating red flag for me at this point. it just is. 

And I'm not exaggerating about the fact that given the major environmental and practical issues of driving/parking/charging Teslas at this point in time that a man even owning a Cyber Truck (or any other Tesla, but especially the aesthetically ugly af CyberTurck) would give me serious pause about even casual dating and would be an "aww hell no" red flag about any idea of seriously dating.  It would be an immediate "Nope. NEXT!" from me to find out any guy I was interested in owned a Tesla or was planning to own one in the near future.... And, I'm not trying to say that in a cruel judgey way, I mean maybe there could be an exception I don't see right now?... But for me, it's just that if you can't see past the slick promises to the practical truths of the greenwashing throw away culture hidden fees and where the tech hasn't yet arrived to solve real world practical everyday needs (for most uses outside of simple home to work daily commutes) it means you have that same sort of blind spot when dazzled by rhetoric not to see the shit under the glitter of the image making sales pitch covers up. It's a symptom of a bigger character flaw if you can justify disposable conspicuous consumerism greenwashing and lack the critical capacity to look at the practical real world truths beyond the slick rhetoric sales pitch. And that's a problem.

There MAY be a time when EVs (including teslas) are truly more eco-friendly practical than status symbol outside of short distance in town driving -- but they're not yet. They are MAJOR green washing especially if you live where the American electric grid is based off coal and natural gas not renewable resources. In fact, I consider them a greater environmental risk than a standard combustion engine or hybrid/fuel efficient vehicle given the totaling of all components and explosive fire risk of them  And anyway, I don't WANT (often dirty power source) electric grid charging vehicle and increased fire risk that I can't drive when it's too hot like over 100F sunny days and I can't drive very far when it's below 50F -- I want better clean public transit and private vehicles that are lighter weight and reduce forever chemical microplastic pollution and have higher machinery efficiency to reduce ALL power usage needs and can harness solar and road friction and air flow to their energy need advantage. I want real environmental gains in EVERY aspect of the car's manufacturing and lifespan running -- not just green washing to make it LOOK on the surface to be eco friendly but the deeper you delve into it the more throwaway toxic you find it to be.

 MORE HAPPY SURPRISES FROM THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!! 

LACROSSE IRISHFEST ANNOUNCED THIS MORNING THAT GADAN (the Irish music band from Italy I discovered in Iowa last year, with Andrea the hot guitarist/banjo/singer who I fluster and was crushing on) AND THEY WILL BE PLAYING WITH ENDA SCAHILL FROM WE BANJO 3 JOINING THEM!!!!!!!! 💖 

Which means Seo Linn AND Gadan with Enda will be at La Crosse!!!! 

I'd been saying that I expected Enda would be the first from the band to start to miss us crazy Sconnies with the Irishfest scene AND in the fall in Milwaukee, after seeing Gadan with their normal banjo player (who seems nice but is musically the weakest link of the band imo), when Crissy said she hoped their temporary banjo player from August would be back with them next time then tipsy Dani the prophetess told Crissy, "Y'know what I would really love to see? I want to see Enda play with them." She laughed at me and said it would be amazing wish and I didn't SEE it through the tangled murky fate lines of the time between, but I wished pretty hard that it would somehow manifest. And it did!!!!!

I love it when the Universe grants even my most idle random wishes (like the time I told Crissy we would see Punch Brothers at Milwaukee Irishfest the next year, lol) and showers me with happy surprises!!! THIS is way I say I'm a very spoiled child of the Universe this reward life. 

Also. With the car. I think, especially with my parents choices removing .y money stress over it, I think that's a happy surprise too.... On Sunday while driving it, I definitely told Crissy, "y'know what this feels like? It feels like I've picked up a protective elemental like Dobbie -- thinks it's protecting from a bad future fate but also making things really difficult with how it does it.". But also, especially after talking to the mechanics, I am apparently extremely lucky that the blown alternator made me bring it in because if the drive belt went or more than one of my tires blew out on me at speed, consequences would have been deadly. And the thing is, it happened in the safest possible timing (literally at a stoplight right in front of the restaurant for dinner, and there are two turn lanes at that stop light so wouldn't completely block if I got stuck) AND spirit energy work manifests in electrical systems easily (trust me) AND I somehow force of will got it safely home then to the mechanic over 100 some miles driving with the alternator not giving the battery more than 12.6V after that happened.  The mechanics said it looked like just age fried the alternator, not any leaks or shorts. And it does FEEL to me like the way it happened was saving me from something worse happening to me, especially with all my upcoming driving including down to St. Louis for a few days (and heading to Cape Girardeau for the actual eclipse.) So that's why I think it can be considered a happy surprise (and then my parents doubled down on making it an incredibly happy surprise) even if it did start off dangerously stressful.

And!!!! GADAN WITH ENDA IN LACROSSE IN AUGUST FOR CERTAIN CERTAIN!!!!! And a promise to get to see a lot of Enda this summer/fall which will mean more happy surprises as it's announced!!

 Awwww! Today when my da took me to go pick up my Scion (since turns out I can't drive two cars simultaneously) when we got there Joshua (the mechanic I'd been talking to) had the biggest grin on his face the whole time and informed me that my mum called in and had prepaid all the repairs for me. Apparently, Joshua knew on the phone both yesterday and today, but she asked him not to tell me until I got there as a happy surprise. I was absolutely flabbergasted and so grateful!!! I was definitely not expecting that at all!!!! Especially since before we headed over, my maman told me that she had shopped around for me for the new tires and already ordered them for me from Tires Plus as the best option and they should be in on Friday but asked me not to drive long distance or high speed until those get replaced (to use Crissy's car on Friday to see Skerryvore in Viroqua if needed) given how bald the tires have gotten. I was grateful she had done the price compares and ordered them for me but definitely had a panicky moment of, "I know I need this sooner not later, but I have no idea how I can swing the auto repairs AND the new tires both this week, especially with having to pay property taxes at the end of the month." And my mum and Sarah (who was at work and already knew my mum had decided to prepay the mechanics for me me) watched me panic and still didn't tell me let me have the surprise at the mechanics, lol. Sneaky sneaky loves!  I'm so grateful though that my parents did that for me! Like, I knew they told me not to worry about it, but also I wasn't expecting them to just outright pay for it for me ahead of time! That was so sweet!

I had to pick up cat food anyway and I had promised my mum that next time I did I was going to pick up some more of the "salmon crack" (limited ingredient salmon and sweet potato) kibble that Sophie loves so I picked up a big bag of it for the dogs to mix with their regular kibble. I also picked up an anti-inflammatory limited ingredient food topper for both dogs and cats from Momentum Carnivore Nutrition figuring it would be good for Sophie and if she didn't like it I would see if Spock liked it since they're both older animals. Sophie really loved it and I can't tell if it was the salmon crack or the anti-inflammatory treats, but she had a lot more energy and didn't seem in as much pain after I gave the dogs both. 

Also. My box of books and Easter candy came in and I opened it before making cocktails and APT decisions (we have dates nailed down!! And they're nicely spread out! Also over half the tickets are purchased, was just waiting on a few more confirmations to coordinate picking up the others tomorrow) while my mum laughed at me asked if I needed more books she did have to admit that if I planned to buy both books eventually, getting one of them completely free was worth the timing. 

Also also. Last night my amazing sister gave me the life tip that the green color changing cocoa with whiskey makes a perfect St. Patrick's Day drink and I told her that I bet it would, except I had finished mine already -- what I have left is trying my pink color changing cocoa and I'm saving that to celebrate Spring flowers. So she sends me this pic of sparkly butterfly sprinkles tells me it sounds like these sprinkles they just bought would be perfect for my Spring time cocoa plans.  So of course I got excited, because sparkly butterfly sprinkles!!!! Then my sister asks me if I want some and I assumed she was going to use it to try to tease me  nail me down for the date of my next visit to Seattle area so I told her, "I mean, yes! But it would probably be cheaper to buy sprinkles than a plane ticket 😉 " Her reply was, "I hope you do, because we just ordered you some. They'll be at MCW tomorrow.  Enjoy" and I absolutely squeed in surprised delight before thanking them, lol. They also came in today and make me super happy! 

 

After finishing the APT dates planning, I went over to my parents house for some pizza (four cheese pizza that we added garlic and mushrooms and a fifth cheese and Mediterranean Spice blend) and white wine while cathing up on Four Continents figure skating while da was out playing cards with his friends. Then I went back to work to watch my election official training video and get some work done after my da came home and I used my gifted sparkly butterfly sprinkles on the last of my gifted cinnamon rolls from Mo's and a cuppa the tea blend Sabu made me as a thank you for the energy work I did in their office. (It's a black tea with cardamom pods and cloves -- and I don't know if Crissy TOLD him how much I love cardamom pods with tea and coffee/lattes or if he just intuited it but it's a delicious blend!)

So right now I am feeling very blessed and loved and spoiled. And humbled by it. And I'm so very very grateful for the love of the good and the kind people in my life and I hope I can continue to live up to deserving it and to pay forward the love and joy and kindness and care of gifting for others when and where I can.

P. S. And THEN, on the drive home from work at like 3am, the radio randomly played Billy Joel's For The Longest Time. And I squeed in delight and drove in circles singing along with it before going home.

 Just heard back from the mechanic, alternator was going bad so the battery was only charging at 12.6v but leads are good and the battery itself tests good. The drive belt is also cracked and worn ready to snap, which is often expected to replace around 110k-120k miles, so they recommend that replacement while they're in there. Replacing the alternator and drive belt is $674 plus the diagnosis fee. The oil change is $113 and the headlight is $65. (The wiper blades that need replacement are $58 through them so I declined told them I already knew had picked those up because that level thing I can do.) 

So I'm looking at $967.77 repair bill (before the $50 off of $500+ mailer coupon) which is an unexpected ouch. But my parents said it was worth it because without the alternator replaced I can't even hope to sell it for anything and it's still worth more than that to sell it.... 

They said it otherwise looked really good so worth putting the money into it now even if I do sell it to switch vehicles. Their only other recommendation is that my tires need replacing, are at 1/32, and so at this point of wear a tire rotation wouldn't help much. They're like $1.2k on tires and and I haven't bought any recently enough to know price points but there's a place in one of the country towns does them cheap if you bring cash so I declined that at this time given the other unexpected but pressing repair needed for the alternator, drive belt, oil change, and headlight.

I wasn't going to call around to try to find out if someone else can do the alternator and drive belt cheaper and then deal with trying to move it in this condition, they are within the range that online said to expect with replacing them in this model scion. And I understand that they have to charge the $113 diagnostic fee on top of the labor for the time they took and being thorough checking everything over -- I mean troubleshooting takes time and energy and labor. 

They are expecting that as long as the parts gets in early enough today, they can get the drive belt, alternator, oil change, and headlight replacement done for me by end of day for pickup (otherwise I will pickup tomorrow) at no rush charge or anything. Luckily for me it was a slow day with nothing much pre-scheduled so they could look at it and do it today.

And when I talked to my mum on the phone before calling the mechanics back to go ahead with everything but the wiper blade, she said they can help me out if needed and I acknowledged it would be appreciated and probably needed given this unexpectedness and all the other things I had to pay/do still especially since this is a property tax bill month and I still have two more after this month to figure out.

When I pick it up, I'll ask Ben or Joshua, whoever helps me out at pickup, if in the future there's anything I should watch for if an alternator is going other than lights flickering -- because I usually turn it on before I turn on headlights or anything. Just so I don't end up at that point of complete can't even that happened yesterday in Tosa/MKE.  Just because.... It's not the MOST unsafe thing that I've ever had happen while driving (that would probably be the tire completely flying off my old Prius -- which was luckily very early morning on a residential road going uphill so low speeds and nobody around) but it was definitely NOT fun driving with not fully functional power steering assist and I understand why it's illegal in most states to drive a vehicle with fully broken down power steering... You just can't safely navigate turns or parking or do much of anything....

And this will at least make things done before grandma's appointments next week, y'know?

But yeah. That's an unexpected ouch monetarily.... I was expecting the couple hundred of oil change and headlight, not nearly $1k in work for the alternator going out on me.... 

I appreciate my parents willingness to help me out, but I still feel money stressed generally right now and especially this happening on top of everything else, y'know?