so i found an adorable paint brand

handmade and all

but, two things

one, i already ordered the paint

two, you don't seem to be able to pick like one thing of paint

and also the format is a little problematical

i did not enjoy the small pan format when i got that kit before

when i was younger i used tubes

and i need a lot of room for mixing

because i mix everything

that's part of the funfor me

so

i ordered three from daniel smith

quinacridone gold

quinacridone fushsia

sodalite genuine (which i got instead of the payne gray blue that i was originally going to get because it was prettier and has the whole granulation thing going for it + it mixes pretty with other colors)

and three from m. graham

azo yellow (did not specify nickel)

pyrrol red

anthroquinone blue (i have a tendency to get indigo or prussian blue because i think of those as my colors, but they aren't very good inwatercolor)

in fact prussian blue, indian red, and naples yellow were practically my triumverate in oil painting, but the texture of the paint doesn't work well--  very heavy pigment, takes over everything

but

i had some sort of flashback

to the days of painting past (like the seventies)

and, although i thought i could get by with six paints

i wanted holbein umber and holbein manganese blue

i was like what blue did you used to paint with

because i decided i should probably split the primary for it too

i don't really like ultramarine blue (maybe it's just the ones i've had) it never works right

i don't like cobalt or cerulean either

and thalo (which maybe i like a little better) has the same take over problem

they don't make real manganese blue any more

the process is apparently toxic

the manganese "blue nova" from holbein is apparently made with thalo blue

but whatever, it looks right, and i'm okay with it not granulating

i don't remember the granulation stuff anyway

i probably was using acrylic

it's not completely transparent--  which i didn't notice when i ordered it

but whatever

also i never knew holbein was from japan--  guess i never read the label

umber by holbein is a transparent raw umber--  neutral brown

not to say that all raw umbers are neutral browns

 they are all over the map

but it's a soft, lightly pigmented brown that blends really well

i kinda want daniel smith's transparent red oxide

which i can make a case for

and

i kinda want schmincke vermillion red light

which i can make less of a case for

and

several things that are just super pretty and i'm used to having them

like i usually have a mars violet

and i usually have a rose madder

mars violet is another one of those heavy earth pigments

that don't play well with the whole transparency thing

and rose madder is probably close to quinacridone  fushsia

anyway

eight colors is more than enough, probably

it's coming from three different places

the daniel smith is scheduled to be here saturday

but the other places are saying like two weeks

so the paints i will have starting this weekend

they don't really make a primary set

the quinacridone gold and fushsia blend out to make a sort of flesh tone

so they are closer to opposites than a triad

and the blue is near black

so i'm not sure how easy it will be to blend them

but

whatever the other paints probably won't take that long

That reading looks like everything's fine

Five of feathers and ten of feathers could be taken in a bad way

But the cards that are explaining them are accomplishment and mother of feathers so those both directly contradict

I'm not sure what that means

Okay well the other tarot says I need to calm the f*** down and breathe

Everything's fine

You don't think I'm saying bad things to you

You're not trying to say bad things to me

Everything is fine

but I should perhaps not stay up all night drinking coffee and going down 12-hour rabbit holes about what the perfect shades of paint are

I love you very much

I think I should sleep for a little while

I hope everything is going good with your move

I don't know when you're planning to do the driving

So I don't know if it's happening or happened yet or whatever but

At whatever stage you're in I hope it's going well

Be safe

Take care of yourself

I love you

i haven't gone to bed yet

 i'm doing a reading

 well

i've been looking at paint

for more than twelve hours

and

the thing is

i'm wondering if you think

i'm telling you something that i don't think i'm saying

or

possibly i'm losing my mind

So I was just reading a thing

About how

Since Democrats are voting by mail

And Republicans are voting supposedly in person

That there may be a long period of time during which it looks like Trump is winning

And I personally have heard him say many many times even though I'm not going to his rallies and I'm not looking for this kind of information from him so I've heard it in the general media I guess or social media

I've heard him say many many times that the only way he can lose is if there's foul play basically

And he said that last time

And he was actually the one doing the foul play but you know he has that projection thing he does and then also he was priming for telling his base basically oh well we were robbed right

And I thought about it and when I did that reading I was asking you know who was going to win and what was going to happen was he going to try to stay in power by any means necessary or whatever

But it didn't specifically ask about the voting part you know like what's it going to be like at the voting booth and what's it going to be like in the you know counting I wasn't asking specifically for that situation and so I went ahead and did another reading on that

And it was consistent I mean it's basically like

basically it was like he's going to realize that his ass wrote a check that he couldn't cash

Feel like I'm getting that wrong

Well whatever He's going to realize that the jig is up and that he doesn't have all the power that he thought he had

And then and then it's the world with the queen of feathers on top and the empress on the bottom and that's all about that feminine energy and you know change and entering a new world and crap

And then there was growth and altruism and Like higher perspective higher ground so I mean even though it's another reading it was very clear and very consistent with the other reading and didn't even need as many cards to say it this time because it was a much simpler question I guess

Anyway I guess we'll find out soon enough

I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier

But I was very confused

Anyway I'm just going to assume it wasn't bad

I'm going to bed now

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

Woke up with a leg cramp

And I guess I had to pee

I was dreaming about cats

I was being introduced to cats

I'm not sure where

I'm not sure why

But they seemed like nice cats

I have to sleep some more

I'm going to bed now

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

Okay so the two cards I had were breach and rivalry and breach is the one where the beavers are so busy working on what they're working on that they don't pay attention and notice that their whole damn is falling apart at the other end so it's about focus and paying attention to the bigger picture in the tradition of seven of cups which is about fantasy and daydream an inability to see what's really there because of the fantasy and daydream s so in this case it's things falling apart that you weren't looking at and paying attention to and

Then the rivalry card is five of wands and that's always got something like rivalry or fighting or it's a card that I've always had a lot of trouble with because it seems kind of vague and every description that you read of it is a little bit different and so I've never had a very clear understanding of kind of what it meant in a reading it just seemed kind of vague

And in this card it's interesting because it's almost like she responded to that so maybe I'm not the only person that has that issue so she's like you know it's these two Gila monsters that are fighting they're these feathers that are set up making it kind of look like it's a cage match or something but in fact even though Gila monsters are you know North American lizards who can bite with poison and they could kill each other blah blah blah in fact that's not what's going on at all it's part of a mating ritual where the the male Gila monsters fight with each other and the winner which nobody knows exactly how the winner is determined I guess it depends on case by case basis but the winner gets the girl

So the idea is there's some stuff going on and we don't really understand what it is because we're looking at it through the context of our own filters and what I thought was really interesting is she said she was writing it in the spring of 2018 and she wished our elections were more like Gila monster fights or Gila monster mating fights whatever so I thought it was interesting that I'm asking a question about the election and she references in her description the elections of 2018 however 2018 were elections that were very much you know was like the the the wave the blue wave but also it was all the women who went in and kind of had a sense of camaraderie and tried to get things done and so so both of these cards are you know kind of to do with perspective and change in that way my cat is menacing me

And then the cards that I drew were the daughter of roots and the mother of feathers and the daughter of roots apparently the Cherokee would for both trail markers and marking important spots they would take the trees and start to kind of weave the branches so they would grow in this very unusual loudest form and be easily identifiable and it's also talking about that this is a really good card for if you're interested in or if the aquarium is interested in you know tarot reading or esoteric mysteries or whatever this card is very much about very much about that and so I took that with breach to be that you know with this election we're going to get a real sense that what we need to do is focus on putting it to place things that will protect the checks and balances that we now understand viscerally that the things that have always been done that were a tradition and a precedent but apparently we're never codified as being something that had to be done and so Trump didn't do them and tried to undermine many other things that are that are codified but perhaps are not strongly enough codified since they've been able to get away with it somehow so I take this as there's going to bureau focus on trying to find a way to make that reinforced and supported and more unbreakable to kind of weave it in in a way that it can't be just ignored and fall apart

And then mother of feathers is very interesting it's very interesting Father of feathers is the the hawk that has the lizard that's bleeding from its eyes and the prairie is on fire and he's all got the wrong attitude about things about how he's all in control well in the mother of others they're talking about that and they're saying in the mother of feathers she's sitting on her throne which is like a stump or something and there are three male birds that are trying to court her but she is not concerned about that when she is ready to pick a mate she will pick a mate and if these three guys leave they will be more along she is not worried about it she has got her paintbrush flower which when it blooms makes the prairie look like it's on fire but it's like a happy and good you know new growth kind of fire not a destructive kind of fire

And I'm not 100% sure

But it seems like that kind of dichotomy of the mating ritual like these two Gila monster guys are fighting fighting fighting for the right to the woman rivalry

But this mother of feathers is just like yeah I'm not concerned with all that I'm doing my thing and I'm just ignoring you guys it seems like that is significant in a sort of a change of attitude about the way things are done as well maybe like we're not focusing on that you know there's two sides and one's going to win and they're going to get the girl but now it's like you know the girl

Which I mean in this I guess represents the country or the people or the state or the state of mind the zeitgeist whatever it represents the thing that there's this fighting to get well you know she's not all that interested in being gotten she's interested in getting s*** done so she's got her you know set in the prairie on fire going on and you know all you fighting people can just kind of f*** off

And that doesn't seem like a nicely wrapped up answer but it feels very satisfying it it feels very you know we're shifting we're shifting our whole focus to not be this b******* but instead to be you know life and new growth and that kind of stuff and then trying to fix all the s*** that was too flimsy to stand up to bad people

I mean we've had plenty of bad people

And we've had plenty of bad people in politics

And we've had periods of time you know starting as early as the second president

Alien and sedition acts

Blah blah lots of bad stuff

But the checks and balances have typically worked eventually not right away

and we swing in cycles we do you know I mean I was just unfortunate because at the time when I became aware of politics was the period of time when they were putting in all the stopgap measures to try to protect against people like Nixon right and then I've watched the whole of my life you know all the regulation and the framework to try to protect anything that could be protected just be chipped away on shipped away at until the point where you know there's f****** homeland security b******* and Guantanamo

And then I really really hoped that Obama would turn some of that back I really hope that he would say no no this is a bridge too far we have to turn back to the light

And he didn't do that

And so for all the people who say great president

I say he was a very intelligent and charismatic man and and he was in many ways a very good president especially when compared with Clinton and it must be said it pains me but it must be said Jimmy Carter was maybe the most honorable man that we ever had as a president but he wasn't necessarily the best president

And and part of the reason why he wasn't had to do with that same honor

Where he would do something that was right even though maybe it wasn't the in some very important ways

Honoring our commitments to the shah of Iran for example did not pan out to perhaps have been the right decision but it was for sure the honorable decision and so I mean I think if you look at Carter and then you look at Clinton who kind of preempted the Republicans by moving to the right and I can't help but feel like in some ways facilitated the fact that in a lot of ways the Democrats are now like Nixon Republicans and the Republicans are batshit crazy anti-intellectual fundamentalist Christian conspiracy theory cultist

So I mean when you look at Obama in that framework man he kicked ass

But what I really wanted from him

Was for him to turn back but I considered to be the super duper dangerous things that went on during the Bush administration which were continuation of a line that in my mind started with Reagan but perhaps started before that that was just where I came in to the movie you know

I wanted him to turn that back

And that didn't happen

And then with this presidency it just became some kind of chaotic hellscape where there are no laws and there are no rights and the president is king and he's got you know paramilitary beating people in cities that he has determined are you know like libland and you know up is down in black is white and

And to be honest with you now I don't even remember the point I was making

And I mean maybe these decks are just telling me the s*** I want to hear I don't know that is what I want to hear that is so what I want to hear that you know in the same way that when I was growing up there was no way there was ever going to be gay marriage people weren't even asking for gay marriage

And then things move along and there's a complete sea change and now of course you have gay marriage because The supreme Court recognized that it's just a fundamental right and I mean that came about through a number of different actions that were pretty smart one of which had to do with filing for a separate type of certification where you know the Christian said marriage is between a man and a woman and they're like okay well fine then why don't you let us have civil unions because we're not concerned with the religious aspect we're concerned with the legal aspect and then when it was presented to them that particular way the supreme Court was like well you can't have separate equal no of course they have to have marriage that's just natural but it was years between the point at which literally people would say things and I don't mean just like people I heard on the street I mean like people who were being quoted in the media people who were thought their opinions were important we're saying things like blah blah gay blah blah bestiality like being gay was a sexual aberration in the same way that bestiality was a sexual aberration when clearly they're not the same sort of thing at all

But that was the kind of mindset that was rampant in the country

And to go from that to will of course same-sex couples can get married because if we didn't let them that would be a violation of their rights that kind of sea change

Generalized is what I would really like to see happen and of course there's a way in which culturally the millennials and the zoomers have already instituted some of those things as being just normalized

I mean just a few years ago I was talking to you about non-binary only I don't even know if I was using that terminology and it was weird to you You didn't really know what I was talking about and now you've been living in a community maybe not the specific neighborhood you're in but the state for sure in which it is a very common practice to state or to ask people for their pronouns

So again that's a pretty large change culturally

Although there's still a lot of growing pains and issues with some of the cultural changes

I mean like for example when I was in college a safe space was a place where you could say whatever it was you needed to say and people would not attack you

Now a safe space is a place in which no one is supposed to say anything which might trigger anybody

which I maintain isn't actually possible because you don't know what might trigger somebody so you can avoid the things you think might be obvious triggers but you can't actually know all the things that might trigger somebody

And although I very much like the idea of not being triggered

I'm not sure that if you take that to its natural extension you don't create a situation where people aren't able to learn in a way because they aren't exposed to anything that might be difficult for them and a lot of the learning that we need to be doing involves some real difficult talks

A lot of the things that need to change in the world or in America I should say I'm not going to make generalizations to the world but a lot of the things that need to change in America involve us really needing to have more of a kind of truth and reconciliation situation than a politically correct non-triggering environment

But I'm not trying to make an anti-political correctness statement generally that's not what I'm doing what I'm saying is that there are a lot of societal problems that need to change that involve people changing their attitudes about things in a similar way to the way we went from gay people could never possibly get married to well of course gay people can get married

so I guess what I'm saying is perhaps all these wonderful changes that the deck is telling me are going to happen perhaps they aren't really going to happen perhaps it's just telling me what I want to hear I don't know but it's two different decks and they both tend to be kind of tough love type decks really they're both reinforcing the same message so I cannot help but think that something some of this is going to happen

And they did tell me it's all going to be okay

When I look at things I don't see okay I see scary post-apocalyptic hellscape

But apparently okay

Okay so I would say this more or less completely verifies that other reading we've got the chariot which represents will but in this deck not necessarily very directed will we've got the hierophant that in this deck represents a connection with sort of a universal spirituality in the book she talks about the hierophant being a specific priest in ancient Greece who kind of presided over the ceremonies of Demeter and it wasn't really about him it was about her or the cycles of essentially the things that were involved in sustaining life for the community food and whatnot 

But then the hierophant became a position that was essentially representative of the Pope energy but now in this deck this card is kind of moving past that into some sort of a universal spiritual consciousness represented by the characters in the book that are you know native summer native American and some are from major world religions but the idea is there's this will that needs a direction and then there's a universal spirituality and then the sun I know I've mentioned that the sun is a super duper positive card but in this deck it's represented by these birds which are the first birds that emerge in the spring and they become more and more yellow I wasn't clear exactly why but it has to do with the the warmth and the sun and whatever and then it has the sunflowers that always turn so they can follow the sun and get as much light as possible so I mean this combination is kind of like you know a turn from the chaos to the light

That's what I'm going with a turn from the chaos to the light

and then in the center column we've got you know joy again which is Ace of cups which showed up in the other reading as well and then we've got six of cups which in some decks can represent a kind of nostalgia for the past but in this deck specifically does not so go with me here You could really look at it like you know the the people who are great again they have this the people who aren't that as a dog whistle for slavery times right The people who are make America great again who are thinking of it in what I think the majority of people thought of it in Reagan times was this idea that there was a point in the past that never I don't believe but they're nostalgic for it this time when everything wasGood and true and just in the American way and everybody was prosperous and blah blah blah

I maintain that what they're remembering is something that never existed truly

It may have existed at different points for small groups of people within the community but it tends to get generalized into this magic time where it was just all beautiful and wonderful after you know we came back from world war II and the economy was booming and everybody could finally buy things after they had been deprived during the depression and they had been deprived during the war and now suddenly everything was roses

Well I mean

Reagan

And whatever

And you could tie that kind of you know yearning nostalgia for simpler times when things were all good that maybe didn't ever really exist that the 6th of cups cards represents in other decks

But this one kind of turns away from that and says no there's a very fundamental quality that is not just true among people but it's true among animals it's true among all creatures that there's a certain necessity for just play and happiness and not having any of that sort of looking for something that happened in the past but is very much about being in the now in a positive way

And then there's Joy which I think I mentioned is the same as the Ace of cups which was in the previous reading and also I think I talked about Joy in a previous reading that I did but with happiness and joy and fulfillment I mean I don't think it could get a whole lot clearer and the fulfillment in this deck is about Caribou making this long track across this kind of dangerous river and some of them will make it and some of them will not make it but it's part of their migration and this caribou is on the bank and he's dripping water into these cups and it's like fulfillment in the sense that he has accomplished this thing that he needed to accomplish to survive and you know there's the geese and of course nine of cups is the wish card which was also in the previous reading 

and then we have the seven of roots which is the seven of pentacles which is all about growth and cycles but it's also in this debt got a part to it where people are frightened of the cicadas when they come out they think they're locusts and they're going to destroy everything and eat all the crops and they think it's crisis and plague and bad things coming to get us but in point of fact none of that stuff happens the locusts come out and they go up in the trees and they do their thing and then you know there's they sing their songs and there are the dried out skins that they shed that are left all over the ground but they've had this long cycle that they've gone through and crawled their way up out of the dirt and done their thing and then that's all over and it's on to the next 17-year cycle so that takes into account a lot of you know that hysteria and growth and whatever so I think that's fairly reinforcing of the message of the other one also

and then mother of horns we've mentioned that before that she's all tied in with creativity being an important and essential part of life with her paintbrushes or flowers that look like paint brushes and her flutes and the turtles and everything it's just really pretty and good

And then daughter of feathers ties in with that Hopimythology again with there being multiple worlds like one ends and another one starts and remember the ants were protecting them well when they came out when it was safe to come out they didn't have any food and so this bird some kind of swallow brings them part of an ear of corn that they can plant and start their food supply up again so it's it's got to do with that rebuilding the world after the destruction of the world kind of energy so I mean that all seems very much to support and reinforce previous reading and there are just a few other cards that didn't fit in with that and I will be right back with those

Okay so the negative cards that we had were the hermit and the tower and the eight of swords and Herman isn't exactly a negative card it just didn't fit in anywhere with the other things The hermit is kind of about introspection and carrying your own light and the tower is about sudden transformative change

That might be for your best interest but is usually difficult and people usually see the tower as a very bad card eight of swords is interference it's basically feeling like you're trapped or that what you want to do is being interfered with in your unable to move so then I pulled these other cards

So with the hermit I got the star and the hanged man and the hanged man is about stopping and looking at things from a different perspective it's about I mean the the image is pretty clear You're hanging upside down and you can't go anywhere or do anything so it can be a peaceful meditative experience or it can be less pleasant but it's definitely a different perspective and the star is generally about hope and positive things for the future combination of these cards seems to me it's indicate that there is going to be a very hard look taken at where things have gone wrong and how we can ensure that this does not happen again where someone I mean it doesn't say in the cards where someone completely hijacks all of them or group of someone's completely hijacked all of the checks and balances that are designed to make sure that tyranny does not occur not just a few of them but like all of them so so that looks like it's going to happen and then the tower had the three of wands and the three of cups

Now the three of wands is sometimes seen as being virtue but it is for sure a very stable solid structure of wands which is all about energy and passion and drive and enthusiasm and creativity so you know in this deck with the kind of tripod structure it's it's almost like the four is that kind of creating the celebratory space but this is more like creating the structure to be able to work in creating the structure that will hold things together and the three of cups is usually about celebration and harmony and it's another one that can be seen as you know a wedding or an engagement or a birth but in this case it's just about kind of that kind of love of people friends but then also you've got the rainbow at the top and the characters seem like they're at least of different races and maybe multi-racial so and they've got the little heart tattoos they've all got little heart tattoos so it's like in the context of this reading it seems to be saying that there's going to be some kind of major forward movement in that direction as well

and then with the aid of swords the interference you know if I just had that card in relation to the election I would definitely think oh well you know they're going to try to pull fast one but with all these other cards I mean clearly there has been interference already and will continue to be interference but then with the five of swords which is that kind of like you might hurt yourself or you might hurt others with your pretty little rings and then the lovers which you know is about lovers but it's also about choice and connections and binding things together and so I was like I don't really get it I don't really see how these things connect so I pulled another card which was the 10 of pentacles and the 10 of pentacles is kind of I mean it can be another happily ever after type card but it can also be and is usually more like establishing an estate for your children preparing for future generations legacy right but in this deck they've got it's really cool it's like balancing act it's all about you know the one person with the other person balanced on top of them with the dog on top so it's like and it's like at night and it just rather than being more specifically about some kind of financial situation it seems more to be about the understanding that you know if you're going to build a pyramid you got to have a strong foundation and then you got to have a strong middle part and you've you know I mean in order for and then the dog is I mean he's really kind of sweet and the people don't be sense from them that they're struggling it's like they're just casually in this weird contorted position with the dog on top

And so I guess those things together say to me thatmaybe the interference is multifaceted like maybe there's interference going into the election but then after that maybe there's a sense of people not just casually moving forward with whatever they want to do but stopping and looking at the different ways in which their actions can be harmful to other people and how we're not separate from each other and how we have to have balance

And that the important thing is not to have these people over here who say this and those people over there who say that but the important thing is to have a sense of loyalty to the larger structure of the country

Okay so that's my divinatory reading and I don't see how it is possible at all that that is going to happen

in fact that seems so utopian and filled with hope that I'm going to do a whole nother reading with the other deck because I just don't buy this but that is that's my reading That's it what's so crazy about peace love and happiness

Okay so first the two of cups in the nine of cups we're in the initial reading they were in the initial grid matrix whatever but then in the extra cards there's Ace of cups and ten of cups and the empress who isn't a cup but I think you'll agree that she kind of fits in with this so I'm reading her with these cards so Ace of cups is you know the beginning of the feeling of love and joy and creativity and all that stuff and the ten of cups is you know I know I said that the nine is usually the highest and then the ten is usually moving on to the next thing and that's sort of true with cops but it's less true with cups than it is with the other ones The ten of cups is like the happily ever after card kind of so like nine of cups is the wish card and ten of cups is happily ever after which in this one is a bunch of people you know sitting around a campfire out in the in nature with the stars and then there are these kind of I don't know like intangible cups like the cups aren't concrete they're ghost cups so it's like they're telling ghost stories about all the different feelings and emotions and whatever right and the empress is about creativity and fertility and you know all that kind of stuff so I mean I read this very as a some sort of like you know how we've had this very divided very hateful situation going on and it's just escalated and escalated and escalated but it's been going on for a long time and now it's reached the point where I mean the two different sides don't listen to each other and they demonize each other in a way that is really unhealthy well this is just a lot of love in this and not just like you know friend love or I mean it's justit's just very positive cards to the point where I feel like there's going to be some sort of change and I can't imagine what could bring about this change I mean I can't see how I mean even if Biden is elected and even if the house flipped I mean the Senate flips to Democrat so all the houses are together with the executive branch and even if they all have like a big love fest about you know taking care of people and and loving the world and solving the problems that we have and black lives matter and millennials and zoomers feeling like there's just no point in the political process and not understanding the ideas of compromise and cooperation that go along with American politics or strong arming and whatever

To the point where they would send a letter to Biden saying basically if you don't do everything that we wanted Bernie to do then we won't support you and there are so many people that I hear just going on and on about how they're not going to vote because they're not going to vote for Biden because he's not any different

And I mean I get it but I don't get it because how how could they possibly think that allowing 45 to be re-elected could do anything good or could get even one of the things they want done to be passed so I mean the idea that there could be all these people who are saying if we don't get everything we want then we're not even going to do anything that might get some of the things we want done we're just not going to participate

And I am hearing that

So I don't see how even if the stars align we're moving from this very toxic and negative situation that we're in that isn't just caused by the Trump cult I mean they are making it very difficult but they are not it's not just them it's not just that one group and and when they get out of power everything's going to be all hunky-dory they're all these other issues you know

And I suppose that you could boil them down to a sense of disenfranchisement just kind of across the board I mean I think that even a lot of the people who voted for Trump last time did it because they felt disenfranchised by the political process and they felt like if they had someone who was from the outside that that was going to somehow be better for them than to have someone who had been a career politician

And I initially thought that at least that feeling was kind of a good sign both sides were looking for someone who was not a status quo they were looking for you know Trump or they were looking for Bernie but they were looking for somebody who was going to make fundamental changes

And that isn't how it played out

And certainly there were people in Trump's base who were and are racist you know crazy people but it's not just them it was a coalition of people who felt like maybe they finally had somebody who would do what they had been trying to get people to do for I mean years right

But I don't see how if the stars align that there's just going to magically be a total change where people are valued and loved and the American ideals are upheld and I mean the cards in this reading just represent an awful lot of good loving positive things and system corrections lots of system corrections in the direction of harmony and preservation and peacefulness and love and I find it hard to believe that all of that is going to happen with this transition

But that's what the cards say

Okay so I decided to do a reading on the election see what it said and I was asking it you know is there going to be peaceful transition of power is 45 going to get reelected or is biden going to get elected and if Biden gets elected is 45 going to leave or is he going to try to stay I was basically asking it all these questions I'm like just give me a kind of a view of what's going to happen

And it was interesting it all kind of lined up there are seven more cards that I pulled so that means I pulled what 16 cards 19 cards I can't count I should probably just pull like two or three more cards but we'll see so they all lined up fours and twos and nines and pentacle court cards then there's a stack of other cards that I'm going to have to reconcile on their own but I'm going to start with this stuff except to say that one of the random cards is the page of swords so I predict you have some sort of a planned communication related to the selection or else if things go badly there will be a communication from you like you know what I'm saying there's a project coming from you that's a communication one where the other and I haven't really read the card s*** so I don't know if it's coming out bad or good but it looks preliminarily like good

So the fours with the emperor and the four of pentacles and the four of wands it's all about power and the four of pentacles is kind of that hoarding grasping energy and then the four of wands is a celebratory energy and and that kind of magical creation of the new space so I think there may in fact be a little bit of trouble but I don't think that the forces of evil are going to prevail and it might even be that the hoarding and grasping close of the pentacles has to do with holding tight to the principles of the country I can't say yet

The twos there's two of pentacles and two of swords and two of cups and again that two of swords with the crossed energy is more like you know no I'm standing my ground you must go no further the two of cups is more about that you know connection between people and the two of pentacles is about change and it's got that kind of a magic so I think that looks like very positive

The nines and also nines are like a completione no not completion but nines are like the fulfillment where 10 sometimes 10 goes over into the it's too much we've got to start a new phase 9 is like the goodness the sweet spot the amazingness and choose are like not the beginning energy but the more kind of stabilizing energy it's the first stage at which there is a concrete action taken maybe is a way to explain it it's not just the thing and it's raw form it's the beginning of like an actionary step so choose and nines are very positive in this reading and then pentacles court cards there's that's all about hard work and dedication rationality it can be like I think I mentioned before it can be about the senses so it it or money it's all very to do with kind of earthiness and the real world as opposed to philosophical or energetic or whatever but King of pentacles is a very all three of these pentacle cards are very stabilizing energies and the the page of pentacles I mean he's making like a piece crane you know what I'm saying and the night of pentacles he's all about like hard work and effort and the king of pentacles is about I mean he's kind of like the the Lion King he's viewing his kingdom all he surveys and he's in I read about this card in the book and it's not that he's I mean I looked at it initially and I'm like that's kind of weird he's like a void but no he's in shadow and what he's looking at is you know like the future and it's bright and clear and focus whereas he is like inside you know kind of like that thing where you're in a oh I'm just getting this this is good like when you're inside a dark room and so what's outside is even brighter and clearer so it's like he's looking out onto the world that is no longer in shadow he's in shadow he's in a shadowy place but he's looking out into a more positive place I mean I don't think the card is intended to have that kind of shadowy meaning but I think for this particular reading I think it's pertinent

And again you know there's not a lot of swords there's not a lot of wands The swords that there are are the the only ones are the two and that card is you know about justice and balance and this particular card has got the like no you shall go no further kind of energy about it and then for wands we only have that four of wands which is about that kind of celebratory positive space being created and the nine of wands which is about this particular one I think is really kind of beautiful because nine of wands is kind of about standing your ground a lot of times it's a final final stand before your battle you know with the idea what kind of like in Henry the 5th you know rallying the troops and but not necessarily about their being other people it's more like an internal like you are preparing yourself for the final onslaught for the final battle right but in this one it's got this very kind of looks like a body you know the ones the eight ones on the side they kind of look like ribs and then there's this one in the middle that's kind of like the spine and there's a broken bone and it's all tied up with this red string which kind of looks like the out makes it kind of look like the outline of a body and there's this kind of vascular energy to it and so I read it as very much internal fortitude you know as opposed to anything to do with battles even it's just you know you're taking the thing that's broken in you and you're binding it up and then nine of pentacles is you know that you know you have everything you need or want monetarily and you know it's the queen in her garden with her falcon and you know it's I mean that's not exactly what's depicted in this card it's she's got the falcon but you don't see the garden but you see that kind of eye above her and I I read it as more like she's on top of it everything is under control and then the nine of cups is the wish card but in this it's got this very you know pink art love love happiness sensuality so it's like you know internal fortitude and top of your game and joy and happiness so I mean I read this as a very positive you know maybe we're saving America kind of thing but now I have to read the cards that were not working out into the grid and see what they have to add to it and I dictated all of this so if there's some wack stuff that doesn't make sense just keep in mind that I have too thick of an accent for this thing

 i haven't been up all that long

but i'm really sleepy, like nodding off

and i'm cold

and while it is slightly below 80 degrees outside

and the a/c is on, i don't think i should be cold

ok the a/c just shut off maybe i'm less cold

there's still a fan blowing on me

i think i'm sensitive to the air blowing on me

which isn't normal

i feel a little off generally

not sayin i'm sick or anything

had some fish and asparagus

no coffee yet, maybe that's the problem

but

i feel like i could go back to sleep, no problem

i think 11-7 is as bad a sleeping schedule as it is a work schedule

that was always the schedule that wore me out the most

6-12 is the best

i have to get back to that schedule 

Okay so I don't know if it's just showing off or what but we got both the violent cards

That angry looking woodsman with the ax and the disembodied head with the mallet

If I get either of those cards it freaks me the f*** out so I don't know

Like I said maybe it just wants to show off or maybe something bad's going to happen today

Otherwise there's crystals and cards and rain and strength and that's a game controller but I usually read that as internet so that's probably all related to the thousands and thousands of posts that I'm making so I gather that either that's going to be an interesting thing for you or it's going to be bad somehow

And then there's this card with the cat that kind of looks like it's made of China or porcelain but it's painted in blue with bright orange eyes so either if it was cards all those other cards I would say it represented sensuality but since there are those bad cards it might equal fragility

Okay so that's freaking me out a little bit now I'm worried you're going to get hurt

Nope both the Jokers

You just wanted you to see the cards

It was showing off

We got coffee and coolness

And rainbow cuddles

Then that other cat that's all got its fur messed up

Which either means that it's like yeah you caught me I was just f****** with you

or you're going to feel a little bit out of sorts today because you didn't get enough sleep

But I guess I've still got to learn

How to make it sound like

Madam somebody's mystical fortune telling 

What was that lady's name

she's on TV all the time for some psychic network

Call up like a dollar a minute or something

Is it like Madame Cleo or something

I don't remember

anyway I don't guess it really has to sound like her but

I'm probably going to go to sleep in a few minutes

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

And I thought I was done

But I don't guess I am

The thing that's tricky about tarot

Is that the cards have meaning specific to the card and it varies from deck to deck and system to system but essentially the cards have a meaning

But then you're not just reading the meaning of the card You're looking at it in correlation with other cards

But then you're also getting like an intuitive read off of it

And some people they just look at the cards and they just given into it of read

But I don't like to do that

I mean I might

if there's something that's really catching my attention in a particular card something of the imagery is catching my attention that time as opposed to some other time or something like that fine

But I've been to people who give card readings and it's just like they're not doing a card reading they're just giving some kind of a quote psychic reading end quote

And that's great if they're psychic

But I still feel like the card means something

And so I'm not sure if that's a deficiency in me or strengthen me

I mean for example

That lady I went to that read the cards for me who said that nothing could stop you from loving me I think could dissuade you from loving me

The card she was looking at was four of cups

And four of cups is about not being able to see what you have in front of you

Traditionally

And so the way I am I would have just said that's just ridiculous That's not what that card means

But I had had that previous reading

Where the woman told me about the angels and how I needed to listen to the angels and they were going to be telling me the truth

And I didn't like it when I got that reading because I'm like angels Angels are b*******

But then liter ally that the lady was reading with was the angel to row and most of the imagery on that deck is you know non-traditional because it's one of those lo scarabo

I may not be saying that right an Italian deck brand and they put out lots and lots of decks that are essentially art decks but mass produced art decks that are for different kind of you know like angels and native American and druid and Celtic and whatever but they're mostly for art and playing with and not necessarily great for divination at least in theory

But I felt like that native American Tarot that I had from them was very divinitory I had some amazing readings that I still think about with that deck which is somewhere

But so maybe when I'm looking at the cards I should not keep in mind what the cards mean

Maybe I should just look at them and get the magic

But I feel like it should be a combination

Like if you're trusting the universe to send you the cards you're supposed to get and if you're trusting the deck to talk to you

Then it doesn't seem like you should just be ignoring the cards and thinking s*** up You know what I'm saying

but in the interest of trying to open myself up to just reading cards without having meanings associated with them several months ago I got the the magic Neko deck which is basically a 52 card card deck with pictures of cats I know I talked to you about it when I got it and it had an instruction booklet with it that had meanings for the cards and I found myself looking everything up and so I promptly lost it I mean it's somewhere I didn't throw it away but I don't know where it is I think it's in a box

And I like to but sometimes I ask them questions but sometimes I just kind of go you know how's it going today and lay them out and see what they say and it's not so much about any particular card sometimes it is but mostly it's about kind of the configurations of things give you sort of a feeling except they're just a couple of cards in this deck that creep me out and generally if I get one of those I'd have to stop because I feel like they're very negative even though I don't think they're supposed to be very negative they just say violence to me

So I'm going to do a reading for you now and just see what it says

And the question I'm going to ask it is if anything interesting going to happen for you today

And then there are a bunch of cards that I really really like in the stack but the lovers card I really like that it's like two people that you can't really tell where one starts and the other stops I really like that and then there's that kind of watercolor mark through the center of them that looks like it could be a Chinese or a Japanese symbol I don't know that it is there's not any mention of that in the book so I suspect that it isn't but it looks like it could be and then there's the the red going around and around which gives me this sense like there's movement like they're in their own kind of encapsulated universe almost I very much get this sense of the description I have in my mind of of birds mating where they I don't know they're all birds make this way in fact I haven't actually fact checked I don't know any birds mate this way but but I have this description of eagles meeting and they fly and they join together and then they are not flying while they're mating and so they're falling and you know I get that very I get that image from this like they're swirling around and falling through not even the air more like time and space it's it's pretty cosmic

And then the star is so different from any star card I've ever seen before with the little astronaut and at first I was like oh I don't know if I like that or not because you know it's got that kind of idea like you're floating in space and you're you know maybe that's a dangerous thing maybe that's bad maybe you don't want to be floating in space and the star is supposed to be a really positive card about hope and stuff Hope and and/or but then I thought about it because I really am drawn to it I really like it so I didn't want it to be a negative

which is perhaps not the best way to go about things to decide that you like them and therefore they have to be good but but there's just this real sense of like you know the cord still seems to be connected so there's no particular reason to to say that there's danger you know it could be dangerous but you know it appears as though they're still tethered so probably they're fine but that idea of just floating weightless and that amazing whatever that is you know not just the stars but like nebula or something so it's like you're out floating free and you're seeing the most incredible thing that you could never have imagined but it's real it's just space you know so I really like that card

And then the four of wands it's almost like in this deck it's almost like she started out doing a pips deck but then decided not to and the wands are fairly pippy

Three of pentacles is also fairly pippy but the four of wands which usually has you know something that appears to be a ceremony look slightly like a like a wedding or you know something like that it's often depicted in that way but this is like you know there's the four wands and they're in that kind of shape but then there's this like energetic geometry like you've just got these four sticks but you're building some kind of cosmic structure and I just I don't know it seems cool to me

I'm not going to post all the pictures of all the cards I like That's just silly

But the two of cups which is usually a card that's about you know love has at least two hands and they're doing like a pinky swear thing with two lotuses and I just think it's really sweet and it you know it's more about intimacy and connection than specifically about love

and the six of wands is usually you know kind of like victory so you know traditionally there's like a guy on a horse with a staff raised like yay I'm coming back from battle or some crap like that but on this one it's got the six staffs just like the tops of them showing and they've got these beautiful yellow flowers on them and they're pointing up at a big circular rainbow around the sun and it just has this kind of more kind of group harmony feeling to it then you know returning from battle so I really like that the two of pentacles has two oranges well they look like oranges with stars five pointed stars drawn on them and then there's all these like yellow flowers kind of twisting around them and hands just hands that are reaching up and doing kind of like a little wiggly magic trick thing so it's more like magic then oh I'm just juggling some s*** you know so I don't know it has a a really sweet feel to it and then like I mentioned before the five swords has those rings with the swords on them so it's like you know you need to be careful because you could hurt yourself or you could hurt somebody else but you know you're you know potentially dangerous and then the eight of pentacles which is often about mastery of traditionally like a craftsman skill it's got like a monk reading books so it's and the pentacles are on four of four of them are on the books and three of them are like floating in the air around his head and then one of them is like on his chest and you can't see his face he's just reading a book I think that's an interesting take on it and then the magician has eight arms but not really the the way it's drawn there's this kind of sense that he's moving his hands so quickly that you are seeing different movements but you could read it as like one of those multi-armed gods also which is cool and he's got six it looks like he's juggling six balls and he's got a wand in one hand and then he's doing like the shell game with cups on the table so it's like kind of a blending of the idea of magician so like maybe he does magic tricks or maybe he really does magic or maybe he's just quicker than everybody else and so he can make it appear as though he's doing magic you know I don't know I I really like it it's really cool

and I don't know how much you know about tarot decks generally I mean like why would you have multiple tarot decks but I feel like when you have sometimes different kinds of questions you need different kinds of decks or if you have the same question and you ask it to different decks they have different personalities they give you different answers it's like asking different friends for advice you know it's not like one of them necessarily is going to give you the answer but in fact none of them might give you the answer but they all give you information that comes from different perspectives yeah that's what I mean

so this was a lot and I don't know if this was interesting and I was going to do a reading but then I didn't do a reading I decided that I wanted to talk about the decks so I hope that was interesting

And then The seven of pentacles in this one it's a girl in a garden of yellow flowers which I like I think is a very cool The page of sword she's got all the birds in the background and the little eyes on her thing so she's kind of weird and mystical but she's also kind of I don't know she's a little bit tough you know not so angely or whatever and then the three of pentacles I'm not super I like the way this looks but it doesn't really say a lot to me symbolically it's got the three pentacles with the stars and that's great I like the watercolor and the variation it's nice looking but what I see is more like somebody found an art deco logo and decided they were going to paint it with these crazy watercolor things to make it look like you know in the seventies those patterns that were where they had the stripes that were really popular it was like somebody decided to do that but they were just kind of doodling around with it and then they drew hands on there so it it just looks like somebody took something and made it into something else which doesn't really doesn't really say three of pentacles to me so for me this card doesn't work as well symbolically but I like I like it anyway

now here's a different deck in fact this is a deck that I said I wasn't going to buy but then I did anyway and I really really like it these are not the same three cards because the center one is different but this is the eight of cups same card but a different aspect so in this one rather than it being like emphasis on you know growth and moving and this one it's about that kind of angst You know like how when a woman has a breakup and they cut off their hair or whatever or you just want to be a different person and so you're you cut off your hair it's but it's just so clear what the card is talking about maybe maybe it's not as clear to a man I don't know but I mean I think but it deeply resonates much much more than like a rider waite Guy looking pensive would you know

And the 10 of swords in this is a lot more like the traditional ten of swords only when I look at this I don't see swords I see acupuncture needles and there's not any blood he's not in a pool of blood so I mean a lot of people look at this and they see traditional representation but I look at it and I see you know you're going to take the experience that this has given you and it's going to heal you and you're going to move past whatever the illness was of the too much so I think that's a cool representation of the card as well

And then the night of swords it's not the father of roots That's the king of pentacles but the night of swords is very dynamic but very mental so that guy that I took the Tarot class from his archetype that he used with Spock

So like knight of swords is Spock and knight of wands would be Kirk and night of cups would I guess by extension beBones except not really

But you get the idea

And what I think is so cool about this character is you know he's got the sword brought up to his head like some kind of meditation with the sword but he's got that butterfly so on the one hand he looks very kind of alien antennae whatever but also possibly while he was meditating the butterfly or moth or whatever flew up to his head and he just sliced it in two without looking at it so it's for me a very interesting card because it's got kind of that duality to it is that butterfly a butterfly he cut in half with his great skill with his sword that he could do that just from the sound of the butterfly he could cut it in half perfectly or is he kind of an alien you know I am I just really like it

So not a reading

But just to show you cards that I've talked about there's the daughter of arrows one That's the card that tells me that you're going to say something and the seven of roots That's the one with the cicada That's the card in this deck that is that card that keeps being me in different decks and then that work card that's the three of roots which is the three of pentacles which is our card

But it's it's really kind of interesting in this deck and it has little different meaning in their book

one of the things it can mean

More spiritual work to do

I've never ever seen that as a meaning for three of pentacles

However it does have an interesting other aspect in that it's got all the different elements balanced it's got the feather and the arrow and the horn and the roots which is also unusual

But they're trying to emphasize or she's trying to emphasize the spiritual aspect of the roots element which isn't usually in fact emphasized

Pentacles is usually specifically not spiritual it's usually specifically very earthy and grounded and it typically has to do with or I should say it often has to do with for sure earthly things but the pentacles not specifically the three but the pentacles are often tied in with money and stuff like that

so while it's not my favorite three of pentacles from any deck it is pretty cool

And then those other cards are just cards that I think are really well

Father of Roots I just think it's beautiful it's one of my favorite cards in the whole deck but eight of cups departure and ten of arrows finality are just particularly well done versions of those cards eight of cups is often like losing interest in something that you've found important in the past there are variations on that but that's like the simple version but it's turning away from something and this and it has the dragonfly but it's it's not turning away from something it's growing out of it basically I just think it's really beautifully done and then the 10 of arrows is usually ruin

So it's usually a super negative card in a reading it can just mean you know you're done with that give it up but it it can mean just almost like the tower it's a card that you kind of go no often there's a body with like swords in it and it's in a pool of blood and it's just very dramatic but this is a possum and they're all these sword and not swords arrows behind him and then he's kind of holding two so they kind of look like they're going in and he's pretending to be dead and I just think it's so playful it's like rather than being like oh your life is thrown it's more like yep not doing this anymore I just want you to think I'm dead I'm really fine but I'm pretty over it and he's so cute so I just wanted to show you those cuz I think they're particularly attractive cards from this deck

 i love you

i had to go back and finish

but

i also had to do a bunch of stuff to my face

i like triple washed it

and did that thing with the witch hazel

and

retinol

it feels great now

it hasn't cleared up

but

it's those same spot just keep bringing stuff up

and i decided i'm just gonna run with it

peanut butter

that's where i came in

and i thought that's what we were talking about,but i wasn't sure

i think either everybody has the same experience with that oil situation

or else we're twinning

because that always happens to me

i like the kind of peanut butter that separates

it's probably better for you

but the kind i like better is the kind that probably isn't really food

so it keeps that nice smooth creamy texture the whole way

so i hadn't had the oil thing for a while

but

when iwent to that sunflower butter

it'll fuck with you

it starts off looking exactly like the fake food pb

and then it separates like a mf

and when you get to the bottom

it is dry af

and will almost kill you, those last three spoons full

even if you stirred it every time

i got this sauerkraut from the imperfect

because i feel like my micro biome is suffering

and they ask you when you add a new item

do you want this on every order

and fuck idk i haven't had it yet, idk what it's like

they won't ever ask me again, but i know if i wanted to commit

to sauerkraut every week

but

i think maybe i do

it says it's seventeen servings

seriously, like one tablespoon

who eats one tablespoon of sauerkraut

seems like, if you were having one hot dog it would be at least two tablespoons

and if you're scooping a big pile of sauerkraut into a bowl with an avocado and calling it a meal or scooping a small pile of it into a bowl and calling it a snack, either way you are using more than the hot dog even--  i figure it's about a weeks worth ,if you're eating it most days which is kinda the point

it's dill and garlic flavor which is refreshingly like pickles, but not as salty

i'd be a little happier if it was locally made--  surely there's some happy hippy fermen-tators in austin somewhere so they could lower the carbon footprint vs shipping it in from sonoma, but maybe there's a food waste story.   i don't think so, though

i want both peanut butter and a tuna sandwich with sauerkraut--  that's not true--  i want a veggie reuben--  it's possible i have ingredients for that i have avocado and bread [not rye bread, though] and sauerkraut [as previously mentioned] i don't have the russian dressing or swiss cheese [i have montery jack cheese {which is better, as it turns out, in pea salad that cheddar like so much better} and i could maybe make russian dressing, but no horseradish.  so i cannot really make a veggie reuben.  no i cannot, but i think maybe i'm gonna go try anyway because i am more excited about that than any food i've thought of in a long time.

Okay well I don't know if that last thing was coherent or not but I guess I'm going to sleep for a while

I don't really know what I'm talking about

So if I seem clear

It's only generally speaking

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I know I didn't say much

But I had to be sure what I thought

I see what it means

There's just so many ways you can look at things but I feel solid

But then I just didn't have much to say about it I guess

And I was going to do another reading

Well I did do one

But it was just for me

And I put down several cards but

It cut me off at the past with the first card

Was four of wands

And I'm like okay

Just checking

Anyway

I'm going to sleep for a while now

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I'm up

 i think maybe

i'll go to bed now

i love you very much sweetheart

see you later

 well

mine doesn't make as much sense as yours

the first set had some very positive cards

and then

some very stuck cards

and the cards i pulled to resolve it

just kinda said

you have too much fantasy

you have strength and will, but you're hopeless

the "tough love" deck

was actually nicer

it saysi don't need much from the tangible world

and i should focus on drawing from the mystical world

that's about all i get

focus points

no specifics

i'm less satisfied with my reading than i am with yours

now i want to see if i can see my future

 you are going to get your shit together

whatever that means

it's going to all become clear

what you need

what you want

what you feel responsible for

and what you don't

how to build the engine of your life

so it holds together

and it doesn't overheat

and the transmission doesn't fall out when you're driving

so

not bad news afterall

i did something weird and it was changing words

 so continuing here

i'd say

the new meaning is

ok, so i said this was the "tough love" deck and it has warnings

 the father of feathers

is all about creativity and like fire in the belly stuff

but

he also has the energy of too much control

or too much assurance of control he might not really have

also burning the prairie

cycle of death and rebirth

when combined with father of horns

who has reached the top of his hill, but

doesn't see the alligator which is a danger

emotional or subconscious

or a dangerous situation

that he doesn't see because he's not aware somehow

when combined with seven of arrows

which is specifically lies or trickery

and

the resolving card is six of feathers- victory

so again with the need for hawkeye

in your dealings with other people

you need to have a big picture view

be aware

and

do not be the snake

these seem like things that aren't going to interfere with

your work or your happiness, as such

but

might really cause problems with your relationships

and

i almost feel like i shouldn't have told you that

because maybe

you will think that i personally am trying to tell you

but that is not the case

i pulled temperance and the chariot

chariot has a little different meaning in this deck

i pulled out my "tough love" deck to see if it had anything to add

 and yes it did

you are going to be so so fucking happy

it is like unbelievable

it reinforces the first reading

but

less specifically about your work

and more about your emotional state, i'd say

there were only three cards

that maybe told a different story

not contradictory

just a different story

so

i pulled another card to resolve them

and

i'm going to read that now 

tarot reading about your move and new location

 this is an incredibly good reading

and it seems so specific and balanced as well

kinda freaky

you are going to have like some sort of epiphany

you are going to find it

whatever it is

your mental state will be both meditative and sharp

your communication will be strong and quick and sharp

like never before

your creativity will be grounded

and grounded in like i'm there, i'm in the garden of my soul

and there won't be any separation between the

nimble free child mind and the powerful on your game mind

they will flow in and out of each other like the yin/yang symbol

i mean

if you think you've been a creative machine before

well

you are about to have your singularity event

i'm serious

i'm not making this up

you're about to like

evolve

or something

i wish i could get answers this clear for myself

So just starting off with something kind of basic that probably isn't interesting but that I really enjoy

I think you remember I said I love that witch hazel Dickinson's maybe

Well I decided to try in the interest of environmentalism I think was the reason I decided to try

I have these muslin cloths

That I use for balm cleansers

Or more specifically the eve lot

But the reason why she uses them or recommends them or whatever and these ones I like are not actually the one that came with her cleanser

I got them from The Grove which is where I get the tree free toilet paper

and I really like the texture of them I really like the way they feel they have a texture they're not soft

And I've heard people saying that they use towels to put on their or washcloths to put on toners and stuff and I thought wow that's really going to use a lot of toner and I mean the witch hazel is cheap but it's not so cheap that I want to just you know fill up a washcloth with it

And people have those reusable cotton rounds but I mean if socks get lost in the laundry can you imagine those things

whereas the muslin cloth I mean you can wash those out by hand they're like whisper thin

So I thought well let me try that

and I am ending up using more witch hazel because it feels so good I just want to rub it and rub it and rub it

How much of an exfoliation that gives me I don't know

I'm trying to be so careful that I don't overstimulate myself because I really want my face to be cleared up

but that just feels so good I love that witch hazel smell and I love that texture and I just go in circles and kind of buff around and I get behind my ears and I do the back of my neck which to be honest with you I have never spent a lot of time on the back of my neck I mean you know it gets washed when I'm in the shower ish

And earlier today I was looking at my face and I was like it is so close so close I've just got a couple little places on my chin and around my nose and then it's it's almost all gone and then I'm sitting here and I'm feeling stuff come up on my chin I'm like in real time feeling it and I'm like what the f***

So I don't know if I had some kind of hormonal surge or what the hell but then I start picking at it and I'm like no no no no no

So I had already put on like a c balm

and it had already all soaked into my face and it was not even feeling like I really had much on my face but it was looking nice and bright but I'm like

Uh uh

So I have this Clinique blackhead cleanser/mask

I'm like well I'll put that on for just a few minutes

So I put it on and I fell asleep in the chair and I had it on for like 30 minutes and I'm like oh f***

So I scrubbed it off with these facial cleansing towellet things

That I used to use to remove makeup

because I would like remove my makeup and then I would clean my face but I didn't want to just have you know makeup all in the cleanser because I wanted the cleanser interacting with my skin

Only these are not actually the ones that I used

they come from the Grove also where the tree free toilet paper comes from but they sent me a packet of the sensitive as like a perk or something and I don't like the sensitive ones nearly as well as the clarifying which were the ones I was using before but that's what I have next to the chair and I figured they would be more gentle anyway

So I used several of those to get that mask off and I mean I didn't put it on my whole face I just put it on the parts where they were or there was stuff going on which was basically my t-zone and jaw but after leaving that on for 30 minutes my skin was like hella dry

So I went and scrubbed it down with the witch hazel again

And I've been trying to work out a system and I figured I was going to be using retinol like every third day which would be three times a week I think one day well no it's probably not it's probably two and on average a half but whatever not like once a week

So I did it last night and my face looked really good today and then it did that thing

And so I was like well f*** I don't know

So I just put the retinol on all the places where the stuff is

And I'm kind of letting that soak all in and then I'm going to put the vitamin c on again but I don't want to just smear the retinol around everywhere and I don't want to dilute the application the retinol is also lighter texture

I swear to God this cat is going to drive me to drink I keep saying I'm going to drink but I keep not making drinks I'm drinking coffee now it's probably doesn't make any sense

So anyway I'm letting the retinol sink in and then I'm going to put the vitamin c on I guess

I just don't understand why it did that

Anyway

I keep seeing all these people on YouTube saying that witch hazel is drying

Very very drying they say

But my skin was dried out from that mask and I went and put the witch hazel on it and then it felt hydrated again

And I don't know whether my skin was dryer a few years ago and just to whatever I've been doing to it I've made it less dry or whether it's because it's the summer and it's hot although it's been summer every year for 6 months of the year so I would seem like I would have noticed if that was the case

I definitely have to do different things in the winter than I do in the summer

But this being in the house all the time is different too

I mean I did all these steps before put all this stuff on my skin and then I would put my makeup on and I would go out and it was like my face felt protected but now if I put much on my face at all it feels like it's just caked up with goo

Which is how I always used to feel

I've not typically worn when I was younger moisturizers

I mean I have it several points but mostly what I would do is I would use a cream cleanser and then some kind of slightly clarifying toner and then serum

and the serum would be light enough that it wouldn't cause me as much congestion in my pores plus it had the active ingredient so it works great and then you know sometimes I would wear moisturizers if there was a particular moisturizer I wanted to try but it was more like eye creams then full on face creams usually

I don't even remember that may not even be right but I know that serums were the thing that I was mostly interested in and I often did not use moisturizers because I did not like the heavy feeling of them on my face

And generally

I'm reasonably happy with my face

My eyes well my right eye doesn't look baggy at all it's got a little bit of creepiness but it's not too noticeable generally if I've got it moisturized and I've got like just the tiniest little crow's feet but the skin is not all thick and you know that thick skin that you get from being tanned

your whole family has got to know about that because you're all just hand all the goddamn time

And all that time in the desert

Well I don't tan so I didn't have to decide whether I was going to do that and sun damage my skin or not do that and wear a lot of sunscreen

I'm pretty much wearing a lot of sunscreen or I'm burning the s*** out of my skin

And I may still get skin cancer I can't be 100% sure because when I was a kid I got badly burned at least once every year and they say it's the stuff that happens to you when you're a kid that really messes you up

But my left eye it has this crease that if I hydrate it enough it becomes a noticeable but it's always there and I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it

Anyway the cat he wants to eat

And he's so funny

He eats the same food all the time because

 A) that's the way he likes it

And B) he has to because of his pancreatitis or whatever has to have simple diet and the same food

so I thought well that'll be no problem he has to eat the same food all the time there won't be any question of oh he wants different foods like with buzz he sometimes wanted one food and sometimes one in another food but that was no way to guess which food he wanted and so when he got to be older and you were trying to coax him to eat sometimes you're opening three cans of food trying to coax him to eat something

Well this cat sometimes you open new case

And he's just like I don't recognize that as being my food

And I couldn't figure out you know I mean sure the quality control might not be perfect but how can it be so different that he doesn't recognize it as being his same food

But then one day it occurred to me

It's white fish

Whitefish is very nonspecific so I bet they don't always use the same white fish

and I mean sometimes it's a little bit pink so I think maybe they get some salmon or tuna or something in there too so I don't know

But I'm pretty sure that that is the problem

initially I thought it had to do with texture and the texture does vary from case to case because you know like I say the quality control is maybe not perfect

But then he has so much trouble with hairballs he just cannot competently cough them up I have never met a cat that couldn't cough up a hairball but he just can't so I started occasionally mixing some mineral oil in his food to try to melt the hairballs

Well he decided he likes that and I don't think it has anything to do with when he's got a hairball or when he doesn't he just sometimes he likes his food to have a little bit of warm water and some mineral oil added to it and it's all mixed up so it's like a gravy and sometimes he just wants it straight out of the can

But it might vary

He might want it all day long one way or he might want it to alternate

so you pretty much have to start with it playing because you can't take the water and stuff out of it and you won't eat it if you mix it the way he doesn't want it

so we play this game where I set it down and I go is that okay Kitty do you need me to fix it for you

And he either says yum yum yum

Or he's like no you dumb b**** I'm not eating that

and I have to go doctor it up for him but then he's standing there going hurry hurry hurry you're so slow why are you so slow

Well he's developed this new trait

well lots of new traits he doesn't cut me anymore now he gets up behind me and passed me on the shoulder and then starts just randomly knocking s*** over

Because he's discovered that the threat of my skin care and what not being knocked over is a lot more effective than cutting me which may or may not lead to my feeding him

But now he's decided he wants halfsies

so he'll eat half the food and then he wants the other half of the food done the opposite way

Which works fine if he starts off with it plain and then I can doctor up the second half of it but has previously mentioned I cannot undoctor food so then we usually have to have an argument

and I realized this is not interesting You may not want to be reading any of this You may be going oh dear God

But I'm trying to talk and this is my life

So I highly recommend muslin cloths and witch hazel and I think it would be really good for for post shave if you're shaving but also just really great for cleaning your face

It's a sensory experience I would highly recommend

But demanding cats I would not necessarily recommend

and I get that it's all me because he's a cat and he can't actually make me do any of that stuff

And most people would just say f*** you and take him back to the shelter probably years ago when he was doing the cutting thing

And the neighbors they used to have a dog and kitty was unmerciful to the dog he would tease him and taunt him and rub up against his people so that he would make them smell like him he was just a real a******

But the dog got really really sick and I don't know if he died or if they had to put him to sleep or what but he wasn't very old it was really really sad and they really really loved the dog

But now

Kitty has them wrapped around his little finger

If I let him out and I have the chain on and the door blows shut or something so he's stranded outside momentarily they'll like come knock on the door like if they're out there and they see that he wants to come in they're like knock on the door or ring the bell or something so that I noticed that he's needing to come in

and they have pictures of him on their phones and tablets and stuff

And the father whose name I have never known I know the mother and the son but I don't know the father's name he used to always be gone cuz he's a truck driver but now he's been home for months so I should know his name but I've known him for too long that I can't ask him his name now

He calls him tiger

And of course he is a tiger striped cat but I mean

He renamed it

Which I guess is fair his name is Neptune

And I never call him that because I just don't call him that I didn't come up with that name and I'm not crazy about it but it seems somehow to fit him in some way so that's like his official name but I call him Kitty or a****** or occasionally monster

Also the father went and got his son's super soaker gun to fend off gray cat

Who is kitties arch nemesis I think I've mentioned

So Kitty is definitely using all his resources

But it makes me think all the time

When I was in psychology of women

In college which was a class that I did not particularly care for actually

There was a woman who came to talk to us about abuse domestic abuse

And she's like

okay if you find this joke funny you've been abused probably

So the husband he wants eggs he wants one of them fried over medium where all the white is cooked and all the yolk is raw

Which is actually how I liked my eggs when I ate fried eggs before I discovered poached eggs which I like better

So you wanted one egg like that and he wanted the other egg scrambled soft

But not slimy

So she cooks the eggs she takes them to him and he takes one look at them and he throws the plate against the wall and says can't you do anything right you b****

And she says I cooked them exactly like you asked

And he says you fried the wrong egg

And I started laughing hysterically

But pretty much nobody else in the class did

So I don't know

I hadn't been married it wasn't anything to do with being married

But Kitty makes me think of that joke a lot

He is just extremely high maintenance

And sometimes I'm like dude

Just f****** eat it or don't

But mostly not

and he doesn't cut me anymore but he does menace me a lot

all in all I'd probably be better off if I had a dog that I had to go walk

But he is also very very sweet

So that statement also makes me laugh hysterically so am I an abusive relationship with my cat

so this is going on for a long long time and has not been actually about anything so maybe I'll just stop here and write something in a little while about how I love you and I'm going to bed

Unless I think of something more interesting and coherent

This is really just been in case you just wanted me to talk

Not with the idea of being entertaining just that kind of talk that you do when you're with somebody and there's a need to talk and you're just talking but it's not really about anything

I mean it is it absolutely is about something it's about my life but it's not about anything

 this shit is fucked up

and i'm not jumping on this whole

wow, wish we had dubya back

because i don't

but

jesus, i didn't think it could get worse from there

but

i think we have

i mean

we aren't at war with another country

so that's good

but

just wow

and i'm not liking this red mirage thing

not at all

because i remember 2000 when they decided we don't count votes

not if it takes a little while

and

it's just too surreal for me

i might need a drink

 i think i knew they way over charged for events held at their hotels and etc, but i don't think i knew they just outright stole stuff, but it doesn't surprise me.  and the idea that they want to spend billions of dollars of tax-payer money to have a pr campaign to make us less afraid of the covid--  instead of actually doing something about it with that money--  it's like using tax-payer money for their campaign, actually, exactly like that.  after using the white house for their convention.  and the whole russian asset thing wasn't ever investigated.  and it almost feels like i should say  blah blah blah  except that it's all so very serious.

how's your sanity after today's news cycle?

I'm not sure if I'm up

I'm not swearing I'm up

But I was dreaming

I was I'm not sure if I was a multi-generational entity or if time was nonlinear

But I was in the shower

And I was talking to another version of myself

And I allowed myself to become distracted

By talking to myself

And the phone was ringing

But I didn't hear it or notice it somehow

And somebody else was telling me

Maybe it was the other version of myself

That's the thousandth time the phone has wrong

It's our parent

You've allowed yourself to become distracted

Her sister has been killed on the roof

But before that I remember

This little kid version of maybe it was myself I don't know

Was like some kind of vigilante crime fighter

It was really weird he had a gun too

But he was a baby and he wasn't exactly even holding the gun he was kind of firing it with his telepathy or something

And then

There was this other person who seemed like it was me

I think I was male

Oh I think I was black too

And I was putting on a show at the school

It was sort of brilliant

I was getting all these people to perform pieces

And it all fit together and some kind of a coherent hole but I'm not sure how

And this old lady guidance counselor was taking her chance on me

I'm not sure why

She had talked very sternly

But then somebody had been

Talking about how she was nothing but the man really

And I had turned her upside down with my telepathic power and said something loudly about how she was one of us

And she reacted coolly about it instead of getting all pissy

So she gave me 18 minutes in the show to do this concept I wanted to do

But I was putting it all together and I was getting people into the show who never did anything in school I didn't care

And I was making this sign

there was somehow with little strips of picture and I don't know if it was both very complicated and kind of cheatery somehow

But I had it at like 40 minutes and that was of nobody ran long

And a lot of these acts were likely to run long

And she was telling school that what we could do

Was put my segment at the end of the show

I was like an end of year program or something

And they could give out all the awards first

And the diplomas

And have that important speech about the teenage something that had something to do with bad behavior and sex

but also some kind of really important social ill that was unrelated I think to it being teenage or sex I'm not sure now

But these were all important things that had to happen and they normally did them at the end

and they were like no some people have to leave at the end of the ceremony and they'll miss all that stuff if he runs long

and she's like me we'll just do all of that first and then we'll run his piece and people can stay and watch it if they want to

And they can digitally signal when they're ready to go and whoever it is that's picking them up can come pick them up

But if they want to stay they could stay and whoever's picking them up won't come because they haven't digitally signaled yet

So all that was going on

And I was in the shower talking to a ghost basically who was maybe me

Or maybe a previous incarnation of me

Or maybe an earlier in my life portion of me

Or possibly the baby on the roof that my sister had gone to get under some kind of unusual circumstance

That involved some sort of danger

From an outside source

And now she was dead

But not really dead

More like you have to run from the graveyard dead in an multiplayer whatever that's called MM PO C

I always get that wrong

Like Warcraft or something

Where your character in the game

But it's your avatar that's running around

And you're playing with other people in the game whose avatars are running around

But then there are lots of characters that aren't actually people there in the computer

And when you die you wake up at the graveyard and you have to run back to wherever it is that you've been fighting

So she was dead but it was more like that kind of dead from the perspective of these characters 

I love you

I hope you're doing good

getting things all packed up

I hope you are excited about where you're going

and that it will be, at least, good to feel

safe from fire

there's still plenty to be uneasy about

and

you've gotta figure out the voting

but

it's a known place

with people who care about you

I am sorry I'm not talky-er

I just don't feel capable of it

I have the image of the wings

and my mind is going all different directions

but

the idea of writing a coherent thought

is like

anathema, or something

I've got to get it together

I want to go out

I want to go to a coffee shop

I want a facial

I want

something

but

I don't think I'm going out

my face is almost healed up again

I think I might be depressed

or

possibly

just losing my mind

I love you

I'm sorry I'm not being fun

I want to be fun

and that is giving me some hope

if I was really depressed I wouldn't want to be fun

I would just be mumbling some stuff about dancing monkeys

and I don't feel that way

I've been trying to remember my jewelry teacher from high school, her name

for several days

and I just remembered it

Mary Rogers

I have this desire to do crafts

doesn't make much sense

but

it's there

I'm going to go to bed

I don't know if I'm sleepy or not

but

I'm tired

I think I've been awake long enough

I just feel very weird

slightly dissociated

I don't think it's really abnormal

all things being what they are

I love you very very much

It's all gonna be ok