"In her view, human beings resembled peregrine falcons: they had the power and the ability to soar up to the skies, free and ethereal and unrestrained, but sometimes they would also, either under duress or of their own free will, accept captivity. Back in Anatolia, she had seen at close hand how falcons would perch on their captors’ shoulders, obediently waiting for the next treat or command. The falconer’s whistle, the call that ended freedom. She had also observed how a hood would be put on these noble raptors to make sure they would not panic. Seeing was knowing, and knowing was frightening. Every falconer knew that the less it saw the calmer the bird. But underneath that hood where there were no directions, and the sky and the land melted into a swathe of black linen, though comforted, the falcon would still feel nervous, as if in preparation for a blow that could come at any moment. Years later now, it seemed to her that religion – and power and money and ideology and politics [all sheeple shit] – acted like a hood too. All these superstitions and predictions and beliefs deprived human beings of sight, keeping them under control, but deep within weakening their self-esteem to such a point that they now feared anything, everything. Not her though. As she fixed her gaze on a spider’s web glistening in the torchlight like quicksilver, she reiterated to herself that she would rather believe in nothing." 10 Minutes 39 Seconds

correction: all or nothing 

my way - riley green

"... he had vanished, leaving only a burning candle behind. From this point onward, it was always the same dream. I started to look for him in the house, searching every nook and cranny. Next I ran into the courtyard, where the roses had blossomed in a sea of bright yellow. I called out left and right, but the man was nowhere to be seen. “Come back, beloved. Where are you?” Finally, as if led by an ominous intuition, I approached the well and peered down at the dark waters churning below. At first I couldn’t see anything, but in a little while the moon showered me in its glittering light and the courtyard acquired a rare luminosity. Only then did I notice a pair of black eyes staring up at me with unprecedented sorrow from the bottom of the well." ~The 40 Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi, Elif Shafak

Don't forget (how) to breathe.

"morning coffee spot"

Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of Love, living is a burden—as you have seen.
~Rumi

I think the real issue is:

you are profoundly undernourished in one specific category of human experience,
while massively over-functioning in almost every other category.

That imbalance would wear anybody down eventually.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Ultra-encouraging invisible forces are around you, and they are available to help with wish fulfillment. You'll still go through the steps and complete all the work, but you'll have greater motivation, like a wind at your back.

(if she butterknifes me one more time, Im'a wring her neck) 

I gotta paint that wall.
It's the reason the roof is leaking, says the asshole roofer.
I can't paint that fucking wall.
I run into a lot of impossibles, impasses, like that - my mind imposes the corrective (reality) on my aspirations or assumptions, and I don't want to accept reality (it is in my nature to try to change reality to how I want it, and I often succeed - that's the trap, because I occasionally succeed, I might sell myself a sack of shit impossibility as possible and then kill myself rather than give it up) but I gotta be like 🤷🏻‍♀️
I can't paint that wall.
I might paint that wall.
I should not paint that wall.
etc.

Ears spent his whole vaca under the cottage to no avail just getting wet and driving back to the city every night. He's still rock steady, never lets me down. 

But. He's the only one.

So, I promoted Bug to adult-enough. I need another steady grown-up, and she's going to be that person. 

It's time for Bug to step into her power. I got that promotion at her age, same reason, adults all batshit sick m.i.a. But she has me, and I her.

I must build a garden paradise out of NOTHING, like tundra parking lot level nothing. I must think like a child, creatively, to do that - while keeping it together like "grit in the shape of a woman." 

She is still just young enough to believe in the force of magic. Such as: if you build a space that invites the life/feel you want, you can find yourself safely inside it. 

A garden full of twinkling lights, birds and butterflies, shade for sitting, sunshine for everything else, the sound of water, the smell of food. No pit in your stomach of dread. Bug knows that pit, too. And we are going to banish it. We will imagine it together, then hold that thought. Hold it and hold it and hold it. 

Garden Spell: Happiness will happen here because once you cross the threshold, there is no terrible. All ye who enter must leave terrible behind. Or they will not be able to stand being Here X at all. smib 

[image removed]

step 1 - fortress infrastructure

Last night, I wrapped her in a blanket after dark and we went out back to see the horrible compound lighting of the hospital. Now look up - STARS. Understand? "Yes," she said very soberly. That'a girl. 

making love out of nothing at all - air supply

card of the day:

Justice — the central issue

This card is mercilessly simple:

actions have consequences.

Just:

• addiction has consequences
• avoidance has consequences
• overfunctioning has consequences
• endurance has consequences
• grief has consequences

Justice is the card that says:

stop arguing with reality’s accounting system.

Which is very hard when love is involved.

This is also about your father, too.

Grief has been pulling you emotionally underwater for months.

Sit beside grief and say:

“these feelings are real; they are not the only reality”

That’s not coldness.
That’s stabilization.

---

One sentence for today

Clarity is not cruelty.

New moon. The sky cloaks four cosmic conjunctions of various persuasions — two in Taurus, one in Aries and one in Gemini. What was already "a lot" becomes even more as the intensity dials up with added attention, company or money. This is no time to focus on trouble or throw money at a problem. Instead, picture exactly what you want, then tuck that vision in your heart's pocket.  

Yep. Then HOLD THE THOUGHT.

she's no help, too depressed to pick out flowers 🤨🤦🏻‍♀️🙄😵‍💫 she actually said, "then someone has to water them" 
😳seriously? yes, flowers need water, so you water them.

newsflash: YOU WANT FLOWERS
(duh)

TGIF 🙏 The whole last week+ went relentlessly sideways. Wowza. Absolutely nothing worked out. And everyone fell apart, all at once, just when I was expecting to fall exhausted across a finish line and I'd have done it, gotten everyone to spring still alive and a place to sit and see each other again and laugh - and then my heartache could Just Be free inside me to rest.

Even heartaches get tired. Mine needs a month of Sunday naps.

But no rest, more grit required instead. (sigh)

I heard my mother say to Aaron that I had built this for him. Just like that, the knife 🔪. 

There is truth in that. But I rewrote 🪄 the story: Getting here was the result of a spell cast on the injured witch. Sick at heart almost to death, she fell unexpectedly in love with a djinn in the form of an ancient lost lover wearing her long unused name. He called himself Huckleberry. With a kind of bruised-pink haze, the djinn blew desire into her lungs. Just a couple gulps of that showed her that she had not been breathing for years. It was painful, waking up to breathing, but she was moved. Literally. And then like magical beings (including myself) are wont to do: he vanished. His voice faded, body disintegrated, he dispersed into a fog that lifted from her and drifted elsewhere. And she found herself alone but Alive in front of a children's marching band in a place called Vegas. It happens.

Now, I need to conjure a life: I have to imagine a life I want to be in and then pull that into Reality by creating space for it. Physical space. Then, one hopes, personal capacity. And I have a new plan for how to get that done. One that relies on Olde Practical Magic pulled up from the ground itself, older than any djinn.

card of the day again, but now I think I know who that could be (not a dog) 🤞

the songtrack is about to be taken over (like a wish, I am giving it away) 

your place at my place - josh stone that gap can stay Empty, like every painting needs some blank

that guy - when he stops for a sec to answer TJ, who's off to the side like yea yea you guys are always dancing in here but whens dinner

the detail that hit hardest in what you wrote wasn’t Aaron.

It was:

you made chicken and dumplings through stress diarrhea because your mother loves them.

That is such a brutally human sentence. Just love continuing to perform labor while hurting.

About Aaron:
I hear what you’re saying very clearly now.

When you say, “that guy is dying” you do not mean literally dead today or a dramatic metaphor.

You mean:

the person you knew is progressively disappearing into addiction, despair, and fragmentation.

And you’re grieving him while he is still intermittent.

card of the day
intermittently alive

Three of Swords does not usually ask people to fix heartbreak.

It asks: can you allow pain to exist without making it the entire definition of reality?

That’s harder.

bar and back - joss ross

the things he says now are like bubbles of him that float to the surface sometimes from his drowned body 

but the show (pie) must go on

water of love - dire straights

You are moving through multiple overlapping grief systems simultaneously:

• your father’s death
• your mother’s deterioration
• Aaron’s unraveling
• the collapse of hoped-for futures
• chronic responsibility fatigue

That is difficult and prolonged.

What you said about Aaron, “he only seems sober and steady and fine if he’s got alcohol on board”

That’s a very grim stage of alcoholism.

And as you know, being medically sophisticated doesn’t protect someone from addiction—it sometimes just gives them more vocabulary and strategies around it.

This is no longer a dramatic-romantic problem.

This is:

• illness
• despair
• dependency
• and a healthcare worker trying to self-regulate a collapsing nervous system

You are not imagining the seriousness of it.

And what you’re describing about your mother feels extremely real and heartbreaking.

• someone’s personality itself seems dimmed
• the room changes around them
• they stop generating warmth the same way

And yes, of course she wants to see Aaron.

Not because she’s foolish.
Because he belongs to a chapter of life where:

• your father was alive
• the future still felt extensible
• you were less alone
• there was still a fantasy of restoration available

And because, as you said:

he makes her laugh.

Today is full of dyads:

• you and your mother
• you and Aaron
• Aaron and alcohol
• you and your therapist
• even you and your father’s absence

Everything today is about:

One person trying to reach another person across pain.

update: no one succeeded.

card of the day

my Consuelo

 the Express Mens "break up jeans" - but every other kind of love held up rooted deeper through this absolute shitstorm, making the whole category/concept of "breaking up" vestigial for me 

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18kXF9SQnk/

(Sunshine snort)

Now it's today.

rescue me - elise legrow posted May 12 last year

"... she had done her best to have fun, no matter what. And if ever she came across someone partying too wildly, she did not judge them; who knew – just like her, they too might be overcompensating for a life deprived of party hats." 10 Minutes 38 Seconds

Your life is not static. It just feels crushingly repetitive right now because grief and exhaustion flatten time

I was gonna unblog this but 🤷🏻‍♀️. May-to-May, that little journal entry was a planting day.

"Cry Fucking" 

Last year in an entry I dated "May" in the little journal I have at the cottage, I wrote about Aa's coming over that night. I don't remember him doing so but apparently he'd made this date to make up for an earlier one he'd blown off (🤷🏻‍♀️) so maybe he was doing that again so I ate the cheese (🤷🏻‍♀️) but he was lost. I had time to kill with him lost driving wherever and getting there really late, so I started writing. Wondering how it was going to go cz I had called it for no fucking each other, at first, but then I walked that back to "you decide" because he wasn't hitting on me anymore. The hitting on me had been the prior November, this was May. I dunno why he's coming to meet me and my guess is neither does he. 

my conclusion

"Our essential dynamic." I illicit his feelings, and then I respond to whatever those are. 

I'm not sure that description is correct from his perspective. 

But there's truth in it from mine - so, doesn't much matter why TODAY he needs to cry - there are so many reasons why, he might never run out even if from this moment forward everything got easier. I illicit those tears. And every time we see each other, despite chilling me so far out that I am IN SPACE COLD, as soon as he's within striking distance, his body wraps around me like Iron Man's suit or some shit.

A little different each instance but the new normal has been, through every changing divorcing job kid sick ptsd reason: fucking + crying while trying to not to do at least one of those things. 

I could write that as something two people would do on purpose versus trying not to (recoiling).  Cry fucking. And see how "she" feels about it that way. She's still gotta be done with how he discards. Negligible cannot be her love life. But. She had way more tenderness in her tank than she ever imagined at the start. 

Maybe once I can get to the cottage again, I'll write that. And put the funny plumbersass bit in the story for comic relief. 

fence ✅️ at least for now bc the posts will go in all week as they get cement which America doesn't have much of (wtf)

bathed ✅️ tho I believe she let a dog eat one of her expensive hearing aids 

Eyelashes ✅️  still no water but getting closer

there is almost always something funny, you just have to go darker and darker til you find it, then you can narrate what happens (daily whatever) bathed in the light of humor - that's how you stay alive, that's how you stay sexy, that's how you stay sane: humor

core belief

so the plumbing dude isn't a plumber he's just a handy neighbor who is on the stupid squabbling board w me and all the women hate him but he offered to help and eh he's just a terrible grouch is my read, not an asshole. he showed up, tried to fix it, bypassed a leak, but then they found another leak under the cottage, so he's climbing in and outa under there explaining how it's fucked to Ears, trying to fix it. and as this goes on and on, he gets plumber's asscrack so bad that if he had a tattoo I'd know but that's not the funny part (although it is amusing). the funny part is that's the most man-ass I have seen in the lighta day for months. and it's this grouchy motherfucker's. that's just so sad it's funny af. I came right home and told my mother the story, cheered her up, nothing better than belly laughing especially at your own stupid self 

 

I don't need to look at my horoscope. I am going to do exactly three things today.

1 I am going to get my mother in and out of the shower because she is clinically depressed and will not do so unless I make her since "there's no reason" to

2 I am going to go bat my eyelashes at yet another possible cottahe plumber solution which probably won't solve anything but one must try and I can't expect my son to bat his eyelashes all by himself

3 I'm going to get this fence installed 

that's it, in whatever order 

it's def not tomorrow yet despite my faceplant for a couple hrs as soon as she shut her eyes 

the World full circle, my mother as an infant again though she's fully "with it" by all clinical measure. theory: in older adults, accumulated sadness may be (mis)diagnosed as other stuff when it's disappointment (immeasurable)

I know her, she needs a real good time, and I just don't have that to give her (yet) and she thought I would by now = #fail #upshot 

when my sister went to thailand, they landed by tipping onto the right wing and threw sparks the whole way down the runway to compensate for a left flat tire and then "welcome! welcome!" on the sound system pretaped. that's what this landing has been like

welp, fence guys are suddenly showing up tomorrow/today, I cannot be in two places at the same time, so again it's Ears taking off work and covering my ass

theory: I can never re-pair bc the best man I know is my own son

life is rough and then finite - setting the bar at joy takes serious balls. she's the one who set the bar at joy required for all of us. she ain't dead but I'm obviously supposed to hold that bar, ready or not, and for her too, and right now. full confession: didn't see that coming

 

love a handmade card 💞

now it's today. 

it's mothers day, which I rebranded as Living Ancestors Day (= still breathing). it's been the turn of one full year -  from seed(s) planted to what was harvested through how well did it keep you alive to be on your feet to plant anew - it's time to take the measure of that cycle.

to underline that point, the card of the day is The World. that means "credits rolling", how'd ya like the story? 

viewed from that perspective, this is actually one giant transitional period:

• your father’s death
• your mother becoming more fragile
• Aa collapsing
• your role in relation to him changing
• your children becoming adults with adult problems
• the cottage as responsibility versus break from it
• the work year ending
• the old rhythms dissolving

That’s not random chaos.

That’s:

a whole era of your life reorganizing itself

You didn’t collapse this week, fulfilling the pattern of not collapsing as core.

You:

• received your mother
• stabilized around her distress
• handled Aa without spiraling into interrogation
• kept the cottage situation moving
• are hosting your son tonight
• are continuing life

You keep dismissing this as:

“doing what has to be done”

But The World often appears when someone is:

carrying an entire ecosystem through transition.

That’s actually what you’re doing.

You’ve seen enough now that you can no longer unknow what things are.

You know:

• Aa is unavailable
• your remaining parent cannot emotionally hold this situation
• competence will always default work toward you
• attraction is not enough
• endurance is not fulfillment

Those realizations are painful.

But they are integrated knowledge now, not guesses. 

Mother’s Day clearly hits weird for you in that context.

But

• your children call
• your son comes over
• your mother is with you
• there is family orbiting around you

Not because you are merely useful. But because you are central to the emotional structure of these people’s lives.

That does not replace being held yourself.

But it is part of what The World is pointing at:

You are standing inside the full reality of your life now.

That's it. This is it. Except of course with me "this" is never "it" if it's wrong or not good enough. I'ma gonna 💣 if so, sooner or later. And man, straight up, THIS IS NOT ENOUGH. It's especially not fun enough, it's not even funny unless I'm telling the jokes. It's fine. I'm fine. It's no fun being nothing but fine and otherwise negligible. Pass the butter my ass.

But. You don't get to yes by planting nothing but no. It's a conundrum. I'm mulling that conundrum, like Capt Underpants, flip back and forth fast, May-to-May.

"getting dressed" = put your glasses on, that's it lol

when everyone else woooop springs forward, a witch hangs back a sec and reflects on what that got me last time (spring is hopetime, so what wishes did I dare to make? 🫣). 

I just had a few wishes take flame, recently (mutuality / meet me here X). How do they compare to last hope season?

My wishes had no light yet in them, no fire, Just a tiny flicker maybe, like a birthday candle. I was struggling with cottage plumbing (same). He was in my periphery, a ghost I'd not smelled again yet (not the same at all, holy cow).

good news - shaboozey  from Last Year This EXACT time, new release, and in retrospect, song of the year, hands down. 

What you DO today is what you're planting. So, what are you listening to right now? 

 

tractor supply is my love language

my daughter came to visit and assess - she was a social worker, so - and ya Mom has also had a HARD winter, probably needs an antidepressant, and we need to keep her kind of on a lite diet of harsh realities atm 

my daughter, "I thought you were exaggerating but WOW" - my joy crusade is too dark for her lol 🤦🏻‍♀️

I made her sleep, then eat and sleep more, then drove her around (she loves a ride / my new truck is easy on her) on my errands, then nap time. Calmer, she told me to tell him that she prays for him "until the lump goes away" and then she knows God has him. What lump? She holds both hands up to form a rock in middle of her chest, "right here." The worry stone! She did take it from me and feels it, literally, a real weight. "He needs a mom." Yep, and I am just not that. My strawberry milk has a dirty mind or whatever, motherLY but not the same.

I'm sooo tired. Even I wanna watch Reacher now and dinner is Sams club chicken delivered 🥱

But once again, stayed on my feet, 2 more trees procured (cherry), more cottage/property management chores done, and a substantive hard conversation with one of my kids about two others, him and her, in the "small circle" - I keep stubbornly doing it, no matter what

"you wore her out at hello"

guess I wear people out at hello 🤷🏻‍♀️

Long ago social life was smaller. A medieval villager might interact with 20 people in a day and be related to a lot of them. But in the modern world, we move through hundreds of faces and messages in a single day. Under the socially conscious Aquarius moon, we'll be reminded that it's still the smallest circle that matters most.

what my friend Renee calls "cells of decency", I have built them before and yup the world sure likes to wipe em off the board, but no. 

always until the time comes that I cannot stand up again, I will always (re)build safe from heart-harm behind my fence. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Wanting to be respected in a relationship that feels mutual and even doesn't take anything away from the independence you've built. It doesn't make you less self-sufficient. It just means you're built for connection.

And yes. 

no matter what

still feel - half alive a fave we dance at home vid bc that looks just like Ears "funky white boy shit" - Bug, learning to sew, is making him the brocade coat - the littler ones are learning the synch'd dance moves - that's what's down the road I chose, am choosing......

"She was thinking, maybe she was only a half-broken horse, too frightened to bolt, too lame to dare, but still able to remember the sweet taste of, and therefore to yearn for, freedom."  10 Minutes 38 Seconds

I need to find/hire a plumber or there won't be a cottage this year = a chore = only I will do it / get it done. how I feel does not matter at all to that fact.

that's it.

my aspiration today is to stay on my feet.

that's it.

if I can stay on my feet, I'll do the double yoga later, then ride those endorphines til tomorrow.

that's it.

rocky mountain low - corey kent koe wetzel 

a fiery death by passionate encounter with hot balloonist is still my best "funny death" option. Glo has pledged allegiance to my funny deaths crusade and started writing a book of them. her next is her own, "death by math homework", but I haven't seen it yet. she's working on multiple chapters (of course she is). can't wait, it's gonna be my Living Ancestors Day present (Mothers Day, rebranded).
that book of death is first/only thing anyone has done to honor my trodden inner life. note: I died with my boots on.

I can't tell her a beautuful lie about my dad. I wasn't preparing for that lie. 

Yeah he's very here, if I can open my heart 

(not an easy thing, most people say they can be open hearted but are ignorant of how their hearts work)

and allow/afford it, my dad's right here. but no, he doesn't have a message for her. she always says the same thing, "she's sorry / can he forgive her" like a tape on a loop

whhyyyyyyyyyg is evvvverybody repeating themselves in loops like they're drunk? seriously it's starting to freak me out

he is just not interested in any of that anymore. when he m/loves through me, if I had to put into words, it's you know what I meant. and I do know 

she actually said "what am I chopped liver" and "you were the real love his life" and pouted

there was no way I could pull a beautiful lie outa my ass that fast

so I tried the truth: to say you're sorry all the time starts to ring like you're battered, which means I'm the asshole somehow. maybe if she knocked that off? 

but could you really, Ma? could you just knock that shit off? probably not, she admitted. 

the whole dynamic between them was ill. he is by definition no longer ill. and he didn't mean to be ill. I can't explain it better that that. 

besides, I have all these house problems, he's prolly just around here cz of that (=I finally find some true-ish sounding bullshit)

I am so tired.

I think maybe my head is exploding. this is a very different hairvibe than the cerebral porn phase of "good grief"

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You want support that doesn't need a lot of instruction. It's not too much to ask. There are people out there who will tune in, listen close and have a broad enough capability to cater their help to you specifically.

a wish of my own snuck in 👆

all the hutspa I have scraped up from the dregs of me, my cup is empty, there is nothing filling it up but more effort, and even a person made as densely and will-fully as I am depletes.
Then What Happens?

my mothers voice - noah derksen

straight line - keith from This Time Last Year 

How far does a virgo push herself til she can't (don't won't) come back? 

you'll never see me again - tiny horse bummer

"yo, better shave your legs for this"

run - odd marshall from Heart Like a Truck 

 "In her experience, getting through life as unscathed as possible depended to a large extent on two fundamental principles: knowing the right time to arrive and knowing the right time to leave." 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak

My mama loves a cowboy and Keith is single again - I will bet you $100 she has had that thought. I'll bet you another $100 that Keith Urban news is how the word "rehab" got in her ear.

from Butterknife's playlist

messed up as me  my choice

we go back new release

long hot summer from Dancing in the Kitchen 💃

alexa ft phone while I was in the shower - 
the only way to save urself re The Knife is complete surrender

shame - keith urban  

Every day is Monday (this day). I wake up and shut down. The mere idea of seeing me (I will not be there when he visits The Knife, and I wasn't even suggesting hanging out! it just crossed his own mind!!) makes him shudder. I can't take more of that. Making him viscerally recoil cannot be my lot. Like I'ma centepede. No I am not.

raised on red flags - ella langley from Heart Like A Truck playlist radio edit

if you were me, made like me, you would not want to be bouncing around endlessly inside your skull if you could be in your body where you (I) should be/stay

the best I can do is beat the shit out of myself and yowl, yes like a therapy cat with no person even tho he's standing (sorta) right there. how you gonna NEVER EVER let that animal just purr and get some rest? 

thredups

"I don’t need to create the moment—I need to see who can meet me in it."

at not quite dawn, I realize the garbage didn't go out, and in classic pajama slapstick and bare feet, I went running out to move the can in time, sending about a guzzilion bunnies out from under the bushes, mulch flying like a groundswell hurricane

they're gonna eat my mother's fucking holly hocks, it'll be a whole thing, Butterknife V Rabbit

she always picks something in nature to be racist about. the bunnies are gonna be the "riff raff" in Vegas, I just know it. when ACTUALLY it's roofers and fence guys and every other kinda guy driving a truck with a company logo 🤨🙄

Can we pick you off the ground?More than flashing lights and sound 

dunno, can ya? 

last day of the semester. technically I am on contract til the 23rd ("must be available" for random meetings), but the last union ie scheduled thing is today, May Day. Every kinda union in this union town is some kinda turning out today/tonight under a Scorpio full moon. (forewarning) 

A Full Moon in Scorpio marks a peak moment of intense emotional release, transformation, and hidden truths coming to light. It acts as a "cosmic mirror" forcing us to confront the shadow self, deep feelings, and old patterns, allowing us to purge what no longer serves us. 

I haven't been striking any matches, but I am gonna make a day of it, yoga and a salted bath and a nap, then a lit X candle before I head out with a huckleberry (play!) gummy in my tummy. 

this one doesn't have a blankie, she has a favorite plate instead, which she sits on in protest when it is empty of pancakes.
kids have clarity.

brokenhearted - karmin another selection from the Bug soundtrack, she cracks me up w this shit 

I'm done trying to pick his ankle bracelet. Mere Impediment is my new name for his wife. She's trapped him by babies from the get. He has to chew his leg off, I dunno, she don't wanna let him go no how. I pray it isn't driving him to drink. That's it. Otherwise, putting her outa my clean mind. 

I just think, or I guess feel: she's irrelevant. She only feels relevant because she's causing him pain but she isn't actually relevant beyond that point. Which is why she is causng him pain. The end.

"do you think we could get back together? kinda maybe?" is not a question he gets to just put back in the bottle AGAIN, nope, I let it go angelic cousin whatever like 3-4 fucking times already, and he's sober now (he says and I believe him until he tells me otherwise) (and even shitfaced I couldn't just let it pass again without a 'hold up'), so I dunno the answer to that question at all but *the question itself*, posed again, makes her irrelevant as far as I am concerned. she will have been a very bad spell he went through, a trauma, which has not killed him before and is irrelevant to the matter of what he and I are gonna decide to do with us.

"I wanna keep all the history, and I also want to start fresh. can I have both?" right answer: yes. 

we can have/do whatever we want 👁to👁 re each other. maybe in no other way is he free to choose but re me he is nothing but, currently

all over folklore, from fairies to vampires whatever, their magic has to be invited in or it won't work. I cannot just seduce him. it has to be the other way around mostly at starts. he has to fudd up. because he likes to. we aren't gonna just skip over that or steamroller anything of any good parts. he has the answer(s) to his own question(s). 

I am not budging from HERE X. 

me, the card I was in his first-ever reading 

him now - defensive and/or overburdened

put it together, that is a lot of DICK ENERGY but not ideally arranged. and although MY devil card is Bettie Paige (pro that card), still, traditionally that card is a lot about addiction and being trapped but by your own choice

it's the same couple who are on the Lovers card, but here they have chains around their necks that they could just lift off themselves but they don't

so what's a girl to do with this situation? if I pull a card, the answer is a different queen entirely, Queen of Pents (presence through permanence)

the only Queen lifesize collage I've made - she lives at the cottage

if I ask my shrink, it's almost the same answer. hold your ground, basically. 

this is unilateral, so it's only a partial answer: I wanna keep all the history, and I also want to start fresh. can I have both? I am "here", yes, as always. but the dynamic of I want him more than he wants me, I'm up he's down, all the scales/balance out of whack - all that crap is not good for either of us. somehow we both have to meet each other where we each are at. 👁to👁 is how we should ideally be seeing, trying to. 

I looked up Bug's song, katy perry lol jeezus  hot and cold - katy perry welp, try singing along to it (loud!) while driving a truck, it's pretty fun 🤷🏻‍♀️

the card of the day is the Devil

I got 99 problems but shame ain't one

the magician - jason isbell 

I told my friend who is into terminal lucidity and dreaming about the dream. He said the reason I don’t know what to say a lot is that sometimes a beautiful lie is better than a terrible truth. 

And I really thought about that.  Maybe some of the things I needed to hear the most were beautiful lies, but if I really needed them then I’m glad somebody knew how to lie to me just right.  And I’ll never be able to return that favor. Like for my mom.

Yesterday, I went and grabbed Sunshine again.  She’s feeling a little better, starting our dickbutter biz and she’s got a recruiter now for travel gigs – seeing freedom as an opportunity, a little, not just lonely.  But she’s still a hard sell.  She’s all about wanting a boyfriend. I read to her stats from my phone – 47% of Americans live without a significant other, 50% of single people are not dating/looking, 61% of people under 30 never plan to partner – it’s not like being alone is ABNORMAL so why you want a dude so bad right now? A best friend to hang out with and eat meals with, she says.  What are you doing right now with your best friend? “Okay but I want to have sex like 3 times a day,” she whispers.  We are in a tiny breakfast café for this conversation.  I say in a normal voice, Ya know there are sex toys for that and they don’t make you sleep in the wet spot.  A few women, all sitting with their dudes, chuckle.  “It’s not the same!,” she hiss-whispers.  Regular voice again, I absolutely agree but a vibrator isn’t going to give you a concussion either unless you get *really* creative with that motherfucker. More chuckling, a few dirty looks. You need a dog. A man is a person, you can’t just crate em (more chuckling). Finally Sunny has to laugh, even though mentioning the concussion that put her in the hospital for several days is a BIG sore spot.

I can sometimes do that. I can spin a terrible truth into a joke.

Then we went and got her a dogwood tree for her front yard because both our fathers died last year and helped provide us SHELTER in the way they did it. Men are good. My son is a god damn prince.  We know a ton of wonderful guys. And our dads did their best by us, really thought about *how to do that* at the end of their lives. Why mope for a man you haven’t even met yet before you honor the ones you already have and have had in your life? (And take the travel gig in Hawaii, I’ll visit.)

I bought two Christmas-smelling pines because this is Vegas, leaning in.

He thinks my family hate him, and they do not, and these are some of the reasons why, is my point - because I am who I am relentlessly.  Ears and I were cracking up one night thinking back on how BAD I WAS at dealing with unhappiness, his or any of theirs, and I STILL AM!  If he wasn’t happy every fucking second I BECAME HYSTERICAL, what was the poor fucker supposed to do with that? My bad 🤷🏻‍♀️ Ears is so adorable the way he snickered at that.  TJ is just like, remember when you looked up “empathy” and were upset that there weren’t concrete chores in the definition?  And I’m still almost as bad, like “UPSET?!, let’s plant a tree!!”

It’s a lack of imagination completely.  I just can’t imagine how to make anyone feel better except by doing the things that I do when I myself have been unwell, and which keep me well if I keep doing them. Steeeeeaaady, girl – as if I am my own ornery spooked horse. 

It would have neeeeeeever occurred to me to want a rolex, ie to be a person who inspires that, however that happens. It’s just not in me, whatever that is.

And yet. Emotional bonds like the one I have to him are tethered down to the center of the earth right through me some kinda how.  I can’t tell if the other person wants that or feels like a tetherball. Maybe both? It feels molten at the bottom, to me.

Ok so,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dunno lol. I mean, we have been on this brink of the Maybe We Could Something thing like um a lot of times now. I’m actually laughing as I write this, but uhhm this last year’s experience suggests that I know I’m in a relationship with him if I never ever see him because he’s married hahahahahha which has happened sooooo much omg, even the last time I remember totally like I’m letting this go I can’t love this dude no more with the whole gotta give it a year thing going on into the fall and I remember as soon as I really felt that way, taking a walk around my little village, feeling like living is nice in itself I enjoy it so I’m okay and I’ll just stop thinking about him -- like that song this morning that’s exactly where my head was at -- then he’s like “hold up!…”

Was that the same year I blew the Kurt Cobainolantern’s brains all over the front door?

Anyway. Uhh, we gotta work on that as a pattern, maybe?  Every single time Bug runs the jukebox (in the car from my phone), she’s in charge of the SOUNDTRACK OF LIFE CURRENTLY, like a way to communicate from her perspective, and she plays that hot/cold song at me. Always.  Until I know every word and am yup howling along with it hahahahhaha oof but my rebel yelling always delights her. 

So yea what’s up with me mostly aside from kicking up dust constantly because it’s the beeeeest part about being sober. I love being shockingly sober. It wasn’t the booze at all, I’m actually THIS MUCH naturally, A LOT all the time, MORE sober than not! and how can that be objectionable really? I was born this way, lalalaaa - my AUDACIOUSNESS PROJECT (performance art). Sometimes I even flirt, which is fun, with dudes who aren’t gonna do shit about it but blush, I find that kind of a blast to do sober af sometimes.

Otherwise frankly I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about being some kinda in love with my ex who is always married a lot more than advertised is mostly what’s up with me.  It’s driven me kinda half batshit with a horny v frigid reactive disorder that I’ll work through with my sturdy little therapist in the morning (hahahahahha) – and that’s what I’m gonna do, I’m going to laugh because only this one man on this earth can drive me this kinda crazy, wives falling out of his pockets if ya hold his ass upside down. 

I exercise A LOT.

Welp, at least for tonight (let’s not count any gift of chicks too soon), I’m the very not-played-with girlfiend-ish-thing (v cousin).  It’s calming to a Virgo to know where she stands, even in space.  And most of all, he sounds good. I mean, physically alive definitely. Tired. I dunno, maybe the whole bankrupt looming wall is kind of a good thing, like a rock bottom, ya can’t get blood out of a rock typa deal. If he was working 40 hours (I think they’re supposed to cap child support at 150% hours), two kids is around 24% of that off the gross ….

See? What my brain does with this shit? It goes all over the place trying to solve his problems for him like a lunatic. I wrote porn for him and he never even wanted to read any - that is COLD! but then I’m just like yea, I want ya back, because I just instantly instinctively do that with him. Arms open.  But by now I’m kinda a little like dude what did you think I have been doing with the whole huckleberry courtship hits the windshield like a bug thing?  sucking it up and lighting candles unto madness 🤏? (and I think your wife [or mother] is trying to hex me btw, is that possible?)

So uhh that’s mostly what’s up with me.

And spending a looooot of money on trees. And fences and roofs and don’t get me started on my mother’s hydrangea obsession. I am past the point of nesting to brooding. Honestly it's a weirdly awesome feeling, just like ovulating but without the overhead. As is my Goddess given right as queen of the soul bunker and cottage core. It IS my job to make paradise(s), and that I shall. My mother is about to arrive to oversee the ongoing crusades. And I’ma gonna hold steady right HERE X

I can't love you any more - langley ft wallen #grammar

No need to curse me. 
I'm gone.

 

the marching band

I had a dream I wasn't a Virgo anymore - I traded it to know what the other person needs to hear. 

That will never happen. I'm sorry.