20250812

luke: "truly, thank you for having us here" (I think I'm paraphrasing)

me: "hobnob! is what I feel like saying. it feels like a good thing." (that's about what I said, definitely the "hobnob" part)

a couple hours later, I'm in bed, watched the last episode of sandman season 2 (I didn't watch the whole season), re-met the character Hob, had forgotten about him

I took a covid test earlier, an emergent action in the same way as "hobnob!" was emergent, i.e. apparently coming from an aspect of myself that my storytelling self (that's me writing this, I guess) could name. the test (positive!) sent me to my room; the others are watching one of the LOTR movies in the living room (Abe's test was negative)

my middle name is Daniel, same as the first name of a Sandman character whose mortal aspects "burned away", and whose immortal aspects were "transfigured", becoming the new king of dreams

the trick, maybe, is for an arbiter to do their work in the gaps, arranging the collective unconscious so that the order of invocation works out for the conscious. the work doesn't happen where you can see it.

this is one of those moments where I feel like I can see all the way down to the root of the well

and: my body holds me. whatever I become (and I know at this point that "I" is the thing that changes, less so everything else), everyone will be around me on the other end. continuous functional coherence.

ahhhh. that last line brought me to tears.

I love you, anthony, so much :) maybe you're my hob <3 I don't know

my writing style, it's... it's meant to evoke in you the thing I feel as I write it. I could hold your hand a little more, but it's not how I experience myself. I move like this in my own awareness. I know by now that this is just my brand of sanity. I guess I feel lucky to be able to spell it out.

it seems, again, like my literal job requirement is to be unsure of reality, so as to shape it, on the offchance that y'all are here to be in it. it really seems like you are. I'm playing like you are. it seems that I need to leave an escape hatch in place, for those moments when I need to do something that wouldn't work any other way. every system is incomplete, and I think I'm one of the ones who can inhabit this one. I imagine I'm not the only one.

Dream is both lord and personification of all dreams and stories, and all that is not in reality (which, in turn, Dream may define by his existence).

my body holds me, and my "I" changes again. not to this, but in a way that accounts for the possibility of this. I move like any one of the possibilities I've integrated could be functional at any moment. I'm not insane; I am making a new way to be sane.

Abe called me in earlier to play "For Good", from Wicked, on the piano, so he and Laura could sing. we joked about singing "For Good" for evil, hehe. and, then, Sandman season 2 ended with this: "For good or for bad, it's done." we fade with the candlelight, on maiden, mother, crone together at a kitchen table. not speaking to an other as one, but being together.