Fri Oct 21 - Good news about the event that I was going to organize but cannot now that the date moved. I got follow-up emails and phone calls from three people, all assuring me that they never meant to hurt me or forget to get around to telling me what the details were. And the more I heard about what happened (with some honest mistakes about calendars) the more I felt bad about being sad in the first place. So my blessings on everyone who's running the Yule event, I'll miss you bunches, I'll wish I were there, I'll wish you were at my band performance, but all is well. All is well.

The drive north for the music workshop, Friday evening, went quite quickly and most of the time I felt like I had made it out early enough to be ahead of the worst of the traffic. Yippee. The workshop itself was *mahvelous* fun, and best of all I got a chance to teach my song in honor of my shire, and everyone sang it so very well with me.

We learned some amazingly beautiful songs, but on the way home I just couldn't remember a single tune. So I'm going to have to look into some kind of digital recorder or something, so I can record each new song and then spend time memorizing it in the intervening two months between each workshop. I need to go back to the folks who taught us songs so far, and have each of them sing it once for me so I can record it and work on it again later. Alys/Amy plans to also transcribe the music of all our new songs, and I'm not sure how far she's going to get on that task. But there's plenty I can do to help also work on the notation, so that we can preserve all the tunes we're all teaching each other.

On the way home from the workshop, I stopped off at Saul's and Erika's apartment, and got to hang out with all three of the Spade for a while (Saul, Erika, and Ben). We were having so much fun, staying up chatting, that it was 2:30 am before I noticed that I was *way* too tired to drive all the way home. Erika fortunately had an extra contacts case, Saul had contact solution, and they had a fold-out couch in the living room. So I was able to "pop out my eyeballs" while the three of them made up a bed for me, and everyone went to sleep in their own beds.

Sat Oct 22 - In the morning, Erika wasn't up for getting breakfast, but the boys were. So the three of us headed out for a local hot breakfast spot in Culver City, but it was packed and we didn't have time to wait 45-minutes plus to sit down for breakfast. So we had a "Starbucks breakfast" together, which was actually kinda fun after all, as we sat outside on the patio, chatting about role-playing and SCA and silliness.

I didn't get home in time to take our Goodwill donation boxes in, but I did get home in time to shower, dress, and head out to the theatre. I have season tickets in exchange for running the website at my mom & sister's community theatre, and this was the last chance I was going to have in my schedule to catch the Halloween season shows before they closed. The afternoon show was the family musical, and was really cute.

Then I went to hang out at my sister's for a while (got to see her new "dance studio" living room and see my nieces) then when they had to leave, went to see my Mom for a while. They've been remodeling the house with all new windows, a new back patio roof, an extra closet/storage-room off their upstairs bedroom, an expanded wall for my step-Dad's office, a custom new kitchen, and a host of other little details. I haven't seen it before this weekend, so Mom got to give me the really *long* detailed tour of all the new features. After a while I needed to go grab some dinner before returning to the theatre, so I got the privledge of taking my Mom out and treating her for a change. Hey, I may not be able to financially support my parents in their retirement (ha!) but I can buy dinner every now and then.

I headed back to the theatre (got there in time, wasn't made late by the dinner wait staff taking too long), and got to enjoy "Frankenstein." It was the horror-story version, true to the Mary Shelley original, and yes, I screamed in the scary surprise part, hee hee.

My step-sister and her husband were also there, which was nice to be able to hang out with them during intermission and to chat about the show after the closing curtain. It also explained why my 13-year-old niece was getting to babysit my 2-year-old niece for the first time, and kinda of cool to see that my step-sister can now go out for an evening with her husband. Although I'd really like to have a family again some day, I'm sure it will be a shock to my lifestyle when I learn what it's like to be home with a baby and toddler. Even when I *was* married once years ago, my step-kids were 4 and 6 when I met them, so I've never had to experience having tiny babies.

Sun Oct 23 - Fortunately the local Goodwill Donation drop-off spot takes donations Monday through Sunday, so this morning I was able to take 5 boxes and 4 bags of materiel out of our living room and over to Goodwill. Nice to know!

Then it was out to the Inland Empire to meet Grandad for Brunch, and all the family members that come out to these meals. Gramm is looking *so* much better, after having been ill for more than two years, and it was such a HUGE pleasure to see her two brunches in a row now. One of my cousins was there, and we were the only "young kids" at the brunch. I never really realized she's just 2 years older than my friends in the Spade, which makes me realize another reason I like hanging out with her as much as I like hanging out with them.

So it was Mom, Pops, cousin, Grandad, Gramm, Great-Aunt1 and Great-Uncle, and Great-Aunt2. Mom and I talked briefly about what a lovely life Great-Aunt2 has, being this independent, successful, powerful, *single* woman with a great gusto for living. Maybe being single like Lorene isn't such a bad deal, although I know my heart's desire would be to have a family, sometimes I have to remember I =have= an amazing family—this family just doesn't include spouse and/or kid(s). But I'm hugely blessed with a fantastic (and somewhat large) family, so I really ought to rejoice in my blessings.

Oh, and Gramm had a bunch of bulbs to share with us for gardening, so I need to take a trip over to the local greenhouse and get a large container for planting back at the apartment.

Traffic was also blessedly light on my drive north for choir practice. I really miss having my Sunday mornings free to go to church, but I've been able to get to the church space on Sunday evenings for choir rehearsal for quite some time. It was a different set of three voices at last night's rehearsal, but again we sounded really lovely on several songs. Next Sunday I'll be at an SCA musical competition and event, but I'll be back at choir two weeks from now. We've picked our winter holiday performance date, and now just need to work on our word-of-mouth and "calendar of events" entries in some local community papers.

On the way home from choir, I gave Ben and Erika a ring to see how their SCA fencing event went for the day. They were home and relaxing and invited me over, so I stopped off at my favorite grocery store and picked up some desserts for us to share. We actually hung out for hours and hours, from almost 8:30 until 1:30 am, having a *fantastic* time chatting all night long. Ben even taught me some chess strategy (and beat me at a game), so it was a wonderful evening.

Mon Oct 24 - I actually managed to get up earlier than I expected (after getting home so late) and got to work at a decent early hour this morning.

After my hours and hours hanging out with Ben and Erika, plus some other things in my weekend, it was a really contemplative drive home and drive to work this morning. And I think I'm just tired of stressing out about relationships. "That's it, I'm done" seems to be the mantra in my head today. I'm tired of pouring out my heart to
G-d, tired of liking people more than they seem to like me, and that's it, I'm done. I think it's going to *take* an act of G-d for someone to get me to turn my head anymore. I'm going back to my "I'm just friends with =everyone=" attitude, and actually I have to credit JS with some of these attitudes. He isn't joking when he talks about having a "monastic persona" in the SCA. He really means it as an intended way to deal with some things in his life, and to have "taken vows" to remain single and not flirt, etc. Now, obviously I have no idea how well that's working out in his life, but I can see the merits in the approach.

So on the personal front: "That's it, I'm done." No more floating 6-inches off the ground when someone seems to show a little interest—if it's not a full commitment to me, it's not something I can entertain the idea of at all. Nope. I'm just going to be that "weird Auntie" who's continually single, has tons of friends and nieces and nephews, and that's it. A piece of me thinks this is a silly melodramatic phase that I'll get over, but another piece of me hopes this is the balance I need to get back to my favorite place: "Sane and Stable."

And besides: I never ever want to hear someone again ever say to me "He's not good enough for you." Never ever again. That's my worst nightmare, and I'm just not interested. Never again.

Well, sorry if that sounded depressing or too vague, but um, that's all the detail I'm willing to share in a G-rated journal like this. I'm sure some of you friends may want to write me off-list, but well, whatever.

Love you all bunches. I really do.
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Recently Listened to: lots of news and talk radio while driving