feelin gs, whoa whoa whoa feelings...

 Oh my the feels. So many feels.  Rage and outrage. frustratino and fear. Excitement and hope. Terror and courage. It just goes on and on bouncing like a box of super bounce balls in a small concrete room.

I started reading the Art of War, because it seems this is what the enemy has read. I think it's kind of de rigeur at least for law students.  most rich guys read it.

Here's the cool part, though, you still have to be smart to use it. It's designed for bronze age warfare, not modern society.  You have to read past the obvious instructions to the principles and see how your situatino relates.  Like you won't be marching an army up a box canyon any time soon but the idea of trying to capture a strategic passage first might relate. But Lao Tzu is talking literally.  So just because my enemy has read it does not mean he will use it properly.  Nor even that I will get it straight, really. 

Here's the curious thing, though, somehow I've already been taught these principles through my reading.  Not because I chose it, but because almost every fantasy writer has a war, I've been reading the strategies in the minds of fantasy characters instead.  pretty cool.  It helps me feel stronger.

what really cheese me is how I've never reached for wealth, power, or advantage, only peace and joy and a place in my world. Honestly. I never wanted more than that.  I often dreamed of a time when I could have occupied a monk's cell with a quiet occupation that contributed and people who respected me.

yet here I am, and ti's kind of almost like a punishment for reaching for a middle class lifestyle.  I just wanted to know what it was like. Then I was just so damn miserable, the shopping therapy became a thing for a couple of years.  I usually kept it at a hundred bucks a trip, though, and we didn't spend much in restaurants or movies by then. Seriously, I'd say our non-necessary expenditures averaged less than $200/mth including junk food. All the same, while I hunted out good deals, I got decent kit and took good care of it.  when I took the best bits in to the pawn shop I was able to sell almost everything. What didn't sell was stuff I wasn't sure they'd take, and some of what I wasn't sure still went. yeah, maybe I could have gotten more selling it directly but frankly I don't want to hold a yard sale at all.  I might try a few online ads but I might just tidy up the house, arrange the left behinds, and winterize the house. I also was going to see if theres a company that will handle the whole mess at once in some fashion. the yard sale is if there's a deep desperate need for money.

One reason is it's a lot of activity and advertising and I feel potentially spied on. Not actually, there's nothing going on to raise my suspicions.  It's more about trying to get ahead of possibilities.  If I do hold the sale, I will have moved out of the yard first and be parked at a distance, probably bike in with a bike I can lose, so that should they spot the ad and come by to commandeer the proceeds, my enemy gets what I was letting go, not what I need to move forward.

Honestly, life is not about fair.  Noody gets what they deserve.

you get what you can grasp and keep what you can care for.

the last four or five years I have not been emotionally invested in the house. I got back in too late? 

Or it's a push to force things. See, since I was 4 I have wanted to actually live on the road in a self contained vehicle. But I just couldn't make it happen, over and over. Not with the van, nor the car, nor a boat, and now, the bus looked like it was going bust.

I can say I dont relish driving a 38ft bus around, but I think I'll get used to it pretty fast. I felt ok going to the grocery store that one time, it was fun and nothing went flying. I could have brought the dogs. I had windows open and it was neat.

excited and scared

See, Dan.  He's an asshole, yeah? 

yeah.

But that asshole has been feeding me and the dogs and even buying my weed and making up shortfalls in my bills.  Without once being asked. He offers and I say yes because I'm desperate. the whole time feeling like he's reeling me back in. 

So that's not much fun. Years ago I thought to myself, you know, when he relaxes he's tolerable.  Sometimes he can even be company. If I could get him out of the city into a slower and less pressured lifestyle, could he be a decent human to me?

I also wondered "if he sticks around after transition, will he naturally be nicer because he actually really hates females and part of the problem was my voice pitch?

And it's impossible to tell if this is the case or he's in grooming mode until he gets me alone in the bush? He did say that sitting alone in that room sucked and there seemed little to look towards, and that we were the only thing that he had for family. It's true, I make a family around myself. Not just me and my pets.  I turn it into a family as part of my nature.

He probably also had a chance to think about what he had. I'm no ordinary person, I'm incredibly valuable.  Few people pay attention. But I can do so many things there's not much I can't handle. Ironically, I married Dan because his best talents are my deficits.  He needs me for the same vice versa, but has too damn much ego to see it.  I think a winter alone in an empty room really tamed that ego.  I have to be careful, though, there's only so much truth telling I can afford to do before he gets exhausted and balks. He needs these truths, because it's the key to his healing. He needs to accept, for instance, that he isn't perfect, not theoretically or for all intents and purposes nor even does he fake it.  Secondly, that nobody gives a shit. Like today, he wasted twenty minutes coming up with reasons why he had trouble making a turn when nobody asked.  I was telling him I didn't give a shit the whole time.

Dude is very annoying.  I mean, I don't think I'm that annoying? Or maybe I used to be but know better now? 

Here's the thing, I don't hate you for it. I just won't pretend either. You can come back and be yourself and I'll keep checking you until you learn better habits. All I ask is sincerity and loyalty.  Not mafia loyalty, basic loyalty.  you know, don't go behind someone's back for advantage in some fashion. Loyalty.  It's nothing I don't offer.

Well ok, been laying my feelings to rest again.  I mean, dayum, man, it's a roller coaster. 

Oh, and I go through periods of what I used to call "lucidity" although I never checked to see if it was a proper term. what I mean by it, is a form of spiritual faith so deep it feels like mental and psychic clarity.  As if I suddenly remember a whole different truth and reality. the buddhist one, in case you're wondering.

And then other times, it seems so doubtable. back and forth between deep assurance and deep distrust.

Funny that.

time to brew the catnip tea for sleepy time.