Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance

Up since 3.30, the birds woke me.
More of this would be good. Right now I want rainwater and night that lifts into these extraordinary sunrises. We finished the bedroom yesterday, but now the wooden sills, trim, and skirting need re painting, and the walls left white look tired. Might try to freshen that up. We've ordering the lights, the shutters people are coming around next week... I know for a fact that the moment we have this house perfectly done, we'll up and move.

By then I think I'll need more sky. And more sleep.

I pay attention to this, my animal self has all sorts of smarts. Intuition? These things blend. The instinct, a feeling that something is... off? Wrong? Unshakeable. Had it for days. And yet everything else is marvellous right now, almost Spring-like for all the wuthering weather. It's just this strange undertow. Now I hear of a dear friend's difficulties and am concerned though relieved things turned out well. This morning, I found a bracelet sent to me by another dear friend when I first got my cancer diagnosis. I wore it every day then it disappeared for ages. Turns out it was in my bedside drawer all the time.

To anyone, including my valiant friend across the water.

Advent calenders! I will dig out Nakatomi Plaza again, but as an extra, got R a coffee testing calender. Today he starts with a silky Colombian. See, see how I resist the jokes! He got me a perfume sample calendar too, so my reviews will start early.

December has started off by giving me the gift of a peculiar dream.

I was with someone unknown/vaguely familiar in real life, part of a group who had hired a house. My companion was flapping wildly because a key had been lost, not to the whole house, but to part of it. Either the key or the room it opened was labelled '2'.

I couldn't see what the problem was; all they had to do was ask the landlord for a replacement key. The person gave me instructions indicating that I should take the basin out of the sink and pee in it. It was full of crockery. I did what they asked but looking at the urine sloshing around the plates, decided this had to be wrong and drained away the pee. Did I then clean the plates? I don't think so. I had it in mind to just throw it all away and let no-one know how totally I misunderstood instructions/ followed them even though they were clearly stupid. Then I was with the panicking person again, and we were walking uphill through a street. An uphill motif has been very clear these past few dreams. The person was going back to the house lacking the key, and talked about how the group as a whole was unhelpful, hadn't followed house rules, couldn't tidy, lost things. My own house was back down the hill, the person's furore was not my problem, though I felt sympathetic because they were extremely agitated. I was on the pavement to the left of this person, and knew we would reach the top of the hill, then they would have to turn right towards another road when we got there.

Bizarre.

But hello December! I promise not to pee on any plates!

Longer version with note and explanation here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/smokingboot/p/maybe-you-didnt-stay-long-enough?r=1r9jj7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

But short and to the point, I remembered this today:

The Witch⁣
　⁣
　No cauldron crafter, gatherer of herbs,⁣
　No broomstick, poppets, pumpkin by the door.⁣
　I am that time the clouds looked upside down,⁣
　The quizzical expression of a stranger,⁣
　The message for you chalked on a pavement⁣
　When you remembered what was going to happen.⁣
　I am what rolled the escalator backwards,⁣
　Graffiti at the bus station deserted,⁣
　Giving you directions before you blinked,⁣
　Found yourself atop a rodeo steer, blinked again,⁣
　Passport checked, flying to another country.⁣
　I am a scrabble tile for no word ever.⁣
　I am the wiring in this elevator.⁣
　The city in the tesseract and its guide,⁣
　Storm of the air, sand whirling in the heart.⁣
　A voice will say, 'we don’t know what this is⁣
　so til we do, best call it a witch.'⁣
　But you know better when you hear my name⁣
　among the murmurations on the wind.⁣
　⁣⁣

Shepherd take warning, it's going to be cold (going to be? I already have my endless winter headache,a tightening across my forehead that makes me feel like I am squinting at everything) and I've had a ginger shot to boost my, ugh, I don't know, powers of enthusiasm or something. But in fairness, these late sunrises are worth it, bands of orange and pink all across the sky. I cannot love Winter the way I love Summer, but I do love it. From afar.

Strange dream, Mum and I sitting in a cafe somewhere, suddenly up pops my dear dead aunt, she comes to the table and kisses each of us, says something I can't remember, then goes into a back room. I don't follow her there, partly because Mum and I are astonished saying 'Did you see? Was that her? What the -?' and it never occurs to me to follow because she's a ghost until I remember that I'm dreaming and there's no reason why a ghost can't appear in a dream.

And there we were. Excellent mate's 50th, total lack of responsibility all around, a lot of booze occuring. My recipe for staying power was plenty of prosecco in the pre-party, then when we got to the room nothing except alcohol-free hydration. This meant I could keep going until 1, but even with added virtue power, no way could I stay on with the clubbers, who only disbanded at 6. Looking at the faces of long missed friends, laughing but listening too. I know we all have our problems but it became clear how for so many these last few years have been harsh times, personal wars of attrition. People are climbing out though; there was great cake and four DJs who played blinding sets; haven't seen this much leather and velvet in years as everybody got the hell up and danced.