Freeze Spell

 

Property of Stormberry

Recently I've been considering to do a freezing spell. I am not one to go around doing spells that affect other people, or spells in general, but I am more the kind of witch that rather do cleansing and protection spells, and manifest and has mantras and all that kind of love&light magical work. I do not like to meddle with other people or other entities, and I prefer my work to remain centered on myself, as a building and improving process.

Through my practice, though, I have collected tidbits of spell, and this was given to me by a friend and fellow witch, aimed mainly to stop people from doing something, oftentimes from doing harm. The downside of this spell is that if it's broken, the person gets released with vengeance. And of course, it has a price on the witch, just by making it. Being that I am a risk-averse human - in all areas of my life (I'm a huge advocate of Comfort Zones) - the idea of making a freezing spell was a no-no. Yes, knowing about them is important to me, but not for something I would ever consider doing.

The freeze spell as come up in the podcasts I listen to, and I think also in one of my recent readings, and so I also got a different view on their use: they can be a "hold up" spell, a way to slow or stop something but not indefinitively, but only until you are ready. This definitively sounds better. This gave the freeze spell a different outlook, a way to "buy time". But I still wasn't going to commit it to my Book of Shadows. (Yeah, that's another project I should be retaking, specially now since I think I know the kind of witch I am: a kitchen witch. But I digress.)

Recently I had a very uncomfortable situation with a friend, who has been behaving in an unpleasant manner. This person can no longer be excused for "being young", or "having lived a sheltered life", and recently has been not only voiced deeply troubling views about others, lifestyles and ideologies, but also has been telling tall tales or downright lying about things that make no sense, and which make you wonder that if they are so willing to lie about such insignificant things, and then contradict themselves without batting an eye, what would they not be willing to say and do about important matters. Usually, when someone in my circle displays troubling behavior, I deal with it by cutting that topic or situation out of our regular meetings, and this normally work. With this person, however, the points of discomfort constantly popped up, couldn’t be cut off, and instead multiplied reaching new areas. This resulted on this person then trying to control the situation and control others as well in things like what we eat when we go out, or what we check out in stores and so on. No, it didn't work with me.

Then, offhandedly, this person asked me if I was going to a grill party their spouse and a friend of mine were organizing. That was the first time I heard of it, so I said I had not heard of it, so I don't know. They started pushing, that I had to go, my friend will soon call me, surely, it was something for the five of us at my friend's place, and I had to be there. I found it odd that my friend wouldn't tell me, and I had to know from other people. Well, it turned out that a) nothing was being organized, as it was an idea for a get together of a group of people I'm not part of (so I wasn't even going to be invited), b) it wasn't going to be at my friend's place, and c) with this person's actions, my friend and their spouse were put into a stressful situation. When I started confronting this person about the facts, they said that the idea of the group was my friends, that it wasn't the original idea, and that they prefered if I went, because otherwise they would be bored and needed someone to talk to.

Oh, so I was to be their... "lady in waiting"?

I talked over with my friend and their spouse and they were annoyed this person had taken the liberty to themselves to invite people to their home without consulting them and without having the facts about there being something organized or not.

For many days I was so mad, and I was avoiding this person, journaling copiously about what had transpired. But then, as I cooled down, I though of the freeze spell, and how this could be a solution. Sure, I can just block them entirely and cut them off, no magic in the middle, but then I thought thatit would be much more beneficial if, softly, I could slip away out of their mind, and open a window for them to meditate on their words, their actions and their attitude. I can hope they get a light to shine on what they are doing, that there's nothing wrong with living the life they have, there's no need to fabricate drama or pretend to be grand when they are regular people like the rest of us. I can only hope they find the time to meditate and work actively to improve themselves and their life.

Yes, this would be magic and this is an act of hope. I can cut them off, being confrontational, which I don't like, but what good would it come from that? Maybe they receive the energy to do this inner work, maybe they don't, but for me, it's worth to send some light so someone I believe needs it, as I am not the only one pulling away because they make others feel uncomfortable.

A Year Begins with Mercury Retrograde

Property of Stormberry

 Happy 2023. The year started with us dipped in Mercury Retrograde season, and truth to be told, it didn't feel much like Mercury Retrograde once we were in it. Or at least it didn't feel so for me. Could it be that I'm learning to surf it better? I did try to be careful and concentrate more in the introspective part of the equation, taking time to meditate instead of jumping into action with a now-or-never attitude. There were lucky strikes through this season and really good stuff I had not expected.

But at the same time, I did saw people being roughed up in the waves of the retrograde, getting bad news and trying to start things that worked against them. Not in the least, I saw that in politics, but then again most of politics nowadays seem to be living in permanent Mercury Retrograde, independently of what are the celestial bodies doing or where they are.

I'm taking my time with my thesis (again), which shows in the fact that I have taken several weeks off active thesis work, dealing mostly with thought process and organizing my ideas, but without commiting anything or much to paper. Then, notes started jotting on scraps of paper, into the notes section of my planner, or the margins of the printed out versions of the chapter drafts I have specifically put on paper for this reason: so they organically catch the notes and ideas in a way that I can see them and relate to them easier. I don't cease to admire people who can do all their notetaking digitally, on so many tablets, phones and apps, because that to me seems so dry, so lifeless and more messy than my own handwritten notes. Not that I'm entirely analog, mind you, but paper and pen will always trump the electronic options. At least for now.

Today I came to a Starbucks store I recently discovered, at La Ribera in Belén (Heredia, Costa Rica). It's not the closest one to my place (that would be the one in Plaza Real, Alajuela), but I like this better. The place is small, calm, not overly cold and is located is a good neighborhood, in the front court of a hotel I have not heard much about, and frequented by people who pull out their laptops to do laptop-things. Let's not pretend that everybody here work or study, as I am here and I'm doing neither. Tomorrow I'll come again, but then I'll meet for afterwork coffee with my dear friend Mario, and probably his wife Arelys too. That will be a social visit. This one is a Me-Date, and as such I'll get to strike out two things from my List of 13:

• Have a me-date
• Blog

Cool, huh? I love doing stuff from my List of 13 (which is the whole point of the list). I also was in need of a little brain-break, as I was working at home, and also took the chance to do some thesis work in the down time. I felt tempted to continue BUT that would have not been wise: the brain needs to be rested regularly to keep it working well. I had also a practical excuse to get myself out of the house, namely that I had to tank the car because my brother borrowed it on Tuesday and brought it back with the fuel light on (not cool, really), but also because I'm running low on groceries so I have to go shopping for sustenance. I would have come yesterday, but after work I wasn't feeling much like it, so I procrastinated.

Today, however, that was no longer an option as I really had to deal with the fuel and the food, and leaving it for tomorrow, when I'm meeting with Mario and Are is not really an option. I wanted a relaxed, enjoyable outing, and worrying whether I've enough fuel to make it to the nearest, acceptable gas station is not enjoyable in the least. And besides, I wanted my me-date. I needed my me-date.

Last Saturday I met with a friend for her birthday, and, well, the outing wasn't all that pleasant. There was an awful experience there, where she tried to return some skincare products she had bought but which had fallen and broken. The store didn't take it back and my friend got upset. Really upset. Honestly, I was taken aback, as I have never heard of a store here that would receive back a good that has been broken by the customer, whether on purpose or not. The whole experience was awfully unpleasant and uncomfortable, and then she didn't let go of the topic. It could have been such a nice day, otherwise.

There was something else though, that was strange. Her husband and Mario are very good friends and are part of a friendly gambling group that bets mostly on the outcome of the NFL. The five of us have gone out and met a couple of times, so one could say that we are all friends. And we five have also gone out in the prepandemic days on #NFLtours, which were the Costa Rican Twitter buch parties that we organized to go see a game together, open to anyone who saw the tweet and wanted to join. I met my friend and her husband in one of those gatherings. So, all this to make clear that the NFL games are a thing for us. All of us.

So, on Saturday this friend tells me that Mario and her husband are planning a grill party at Mario's to watch the Super Bowl, and if I'm going. That it was something just the five of us. I was surprised, because I would have expected to hear of this first from Mario, not from this friend. Mario and I are really close, like siblings. I would have thought he would tell me before asking my friend's husband. I assumed there was a reason Mario had said nothing, so I told my friend I would have to check my calendar. The next day or maybe on Monday I asked Mario, as Mario had still told me nothing of this close party I was supposed to be part of.

Well, it turns out that it wasn't a grill party for the five of us at Mario's place, but an activity for the NFL betting gang, it was going to be at a party ranch at Mario's condo, with a small gathering of max 20 people. Mario was a bit confused but said that of course, if I wanted to go, I was more than welcome, but he had said nothing because it was still just an idea, nothing had been arranged or booked and it was a betting gang thing, not an "us" thing. I told him not to worry, that I still have to see if I can fit the activity in my agenda, as the Super Bowl is on Sunday, at night and I would still have to drive home and have someone feed my furry children. However, I do was upset that my friend had mislead me.

I messaged her, and told her that I heard something different from Mario about the activity, and I still wasn't sure I would be able to attend. Then she doubled down, said "Oh you know how Mario is..." and claimed that the original idea was only the five of us, but Mario made a huge thing of it. So she would need me to be there because sure the men would be doing their thing and she didn't want to get bored, so it would be good if I was there to keep her entertained. The audacity. I thought for a moment about unloading Mercury Retrograde on her, but then, if I haven't unloaded it on Sinner, why would I waste my anger on her? She also noted quite upset that the founder of the betting gang (M) would be there, since she's terribly jealous of this woman. Mario did tell me that M would be there, as she was the founder, though M had taken distance from the group and was pursuing other interests, so it wasn't sure she would be there.

I left most of her message unanswered, and told her that, again, I wasn't sure I would go, but even if I did, wasn't going to be anyone's lady in waiting, because I would be watching the game, so probably I would be bunched up with the men, as well as all the people who have an interest in the NFL (all attending), but that she could try and talk to Are, that it would do her good to expand her friend group, and maybe talk with people who have things in common with her.

Since doubling down here was no longer an option for her, she messaged back saying "Oh, I wasn't aware you liked American football!". Does she remember how we met?

Thoughts on a Wedding from outside

Source: Google Images

 I don't know what was I thinking, but I agreed to be a bride's maid for a friend. Yes, I know. A bride's maid, when I don't believe in the institution of marriage and I advocate for independence and freedom, and also the freedom in the relationships, open and free, where - if anything keeps you together then it should be waking up each day and each day deciding to stay or leave the person or persons you are with.

Anyway, this friend is getting married with her boyfriend from ten years, and she asked me. I did tell her, I can't be very involved, I have a lots of commitments with my job and my studies. so yes, I can't participate in a lot of things and she accepted it. So, so far so good. Things have been light and all, but then, bills started to build in. On one hand there was the bride's maid dress, which - fortunatelly - can actually be transformed, and not like the silver one I still have hanging in my closet.

The thing is that some things have changed for me, and I decided to start saving in earnest, so I'm looking closely at every penny I spend. This is how I started to pay closer attention to the money I was being expected to spend on someone else's wedding and all the partying and activities around it. The dress, the gift for the wedding, the gift for the bachelorette's party, the fee for the bridal's shower, the gift for the bridal's shower... The bill is quickly raising above $300 or even more, and that's in a country where the average incomes sits at about $400.

Honestly, being called and "invited" to the bridal's shower, after the bride had floated the idea of a bachelorette party in a hotel room where all the bride's maids and the bride would stay over (and pay $255 each... plus the gift), alreeady started to ring some alarm bells in my head.

I know she want's a grand wedding, and she lives in the kind of group where all her friends are getting married and they all compete for who makes the biggest production out of the wedding and the surrounding parties and... "cash/gift grabbing" occasions? As if there was no pandemic going on, and as if we were not in a country were death and infection statistics weren't going through the roof, with hospitals already collapsing, sending back sick people because there are no more beds. I know she was affected at first, at the idea of only having a religious ceremony, because she wanted her reception, but the way this is ballooning into - at least - five different events (all of them demanding gifts and at least two of them demanding a fee), it's beyond crazy for me.

Are they not concerned about the health of people? What makes them think people can't get sick by meeting so many times? Are they so easily swayed by the fake promise made from the renting locations that "they keep the protocols", when protocols must be kept on all sides?

And then, the money. Why the need to squeeze their guests for so much money? Sure, I keep the dress, but it's not a dress I actually need. I'm working from home, I don't need that dress, nor the transformed version I'll pay for it later in order to be closer to being able to use it more than once. And why the fees? People isn't swimming in money right now, so why can't they only do the activities they can pay for by themselves, and also consider which are actually sensible to organize given the current situation.

I have always considered activities that demand a fee from the guests as a distasteful thing. Your guests are not asking you to organize them, so if you decide to do them, do them within your budget. Don't make your guests pay for your ideas. And demanding a gift... how tacky is that?

Weddings always make me pity the couple: all this need for attention, this grand production only to receede later on into a life that's not a reflection of the grand production they put on, an aftermath only to be shadowed by the next big production. Why people who get married can't simply get married and be done with it? Why the production and the implicit lie?

The Fixings

Property of Stormberry

The leaks in my roof have been fixed, and I hope they stay so for a while. What a relief! The people making the fixing had to come out three times to finally get all the leaks dealt with. Now only the windows need sealing. I actually messaged them today and got a swift reply after they have been silent for almost twenty days, while the rains poured and the water filtered and ruined the paint on my walls. Oh, on that note, it's worth noting that my chocolate brown walls get very marked with water, which I don't really get. The outside dark grey walls hold well their color, and so the medium grey ones. If it were because "the rain washes them equally" it wouldn't be so as the rain doesn't always falls the same way, and some parts are not touched while others are. So why are the brown walls getting so damaged with the rain water?

But anyway, we are moving ahead and my house is standing strong and lovely, and we are both growing more and more into who we are. I'm so happy with my house!

I'm not out of the woods yet, as I had a lot of expenses, and I had to make decisions about how to finance them. Nothing I can't manage, rest assured, but I decided to use my credit card again while I get over the current bump. Some things, after all, have to be dealt with switfly, and some instruments can be used to such matters, as long as we keep them well watched. Yes, it makes me uneasy, mostly because it was not part of my plans to use my card again, but one needs to deal with the cards one is dealt.

On that same line, as I was going through dealing with uncomfortable situations and things that prick at my sense of order and comfort, this friend was brought back into my memory. I have written or alluded to him here several times, and has been quite a fixture. Though I want to think of him as a good person, truth to be told, if I want to be impartial, I believe I don't have enough elements to call him so. Maybe it is the way he is around me - because, honestly, I am a menacing person for him -, but be it as it is, I'm more inclined to say that he is a toxic sort of person.

Now, as you know, I believe in magick, signs, cosmic connections, spiritual phenomenons and the such, so for a while now I have tried to understand why had this person been so mingled with my life, and have always stirred such strong emotions. Emotions that I shall clarify, are not always positive. I mean, I like him - I do like him - but I also can't stand him. So why the push-&-pull? Did I want him in my life? Did I not? Did I want him as friend, as partner, as occasional fuck or as a distant memory of the past? Why did I find it so hard to let him go? Why did I go to such extents as I did for him? What has happening there?

I'm a Cancer Sun, Gemini rising and Leo Moon. Yes, it may not make sense to many, but I'll say this: for years he has been playing my Cancer (as in playing my emotions), and my Gemini (my communicative and knowledge thirsty part), by a very bizarre game of choosing words to keep me hooked like a writer of a cliffhangery pulp fiction, but also by not telling me ever much of the information. Then again, though it has been hard to come to terms with my Gemini (a lot of people I don't like are Gemini), my twins are quite a resourceful and twisted pair, and so... we did LOTS of research. Yes, that also kept me hooked, but also started opening my eyes to the fact that there were things there that were not kosher. I paid attention, I started to see the cracks, and I believe that's what kept me (in part) from falling into his game.

But I still was hooked for quite a while. It was one of those messy tangles where you know that it's not what you want, there's nothing really there that you could want in your life, but "something" keeps you there and you can't quite figure out why.

He was here at my home visiting in the begining of June and brought me an early birthday present (even though I am positive I had told him that I am picky about my birthday and I celebrate it only the day it is). The present was a book and a bottle of wine. Thoughtful, yes, and exactly what I have gifted him the last two birthdays of him. And then he was nice and all, but also made sure to include just a hint of insulting or - at least, derogatory. I know well that he takes to heart each time I have pointed out to the flaws on his thinking, work or skills, and I also know this is his pety way to try and get back to me, even though at times he has to invent an alternative reality just to point out a flaw in me. (Like the time he told me that one doesn't "eat different kinds of meat for one meal", just because I offered him chicken stock before a main course consisting of beef. Yeah... I believe he hasn't heard of paella, or burgers with bacon... or just about any meal with more than one course.)

So far, though his petiness annoys me, I just booked it as "him being stupid because he doesn't know better and has lived so far trying to be someone he's not, that he can't turn back and try to be himself". However, this month something happened, a shifting.

As I was working and dealing with the last of the second quarter of the Master's program, and dealing with the leaks on the roof, and the leaking windows, solving the financial situation and so on, he came to my mind, and just as I was solving all my issues and finding out that I can solve these things without having to run to my dad or my brother, it kind of landed on me: this friend has the bad habits of my father and my brother. The lying, the gaslighting, forcing his ideas on others like they are truth, unwilling to learn from others, or accept that others might be right, unwilling to accept that they are wrong, and when proven wrong going pety, bringing up over and over uncomfortable events of the past which they twist to fit their narrative, going as far as turning a happy memory or even a moment of confusion into something to be mocked of.

Through the days I have found that this person had all these qualities, and I understood: he was put in my life so that I can see that and work on my shadow. And let all that go. That was why I couldn't let him go, because I wanted to fix or defeat in him what I find so disturbing in my own family. And the lesson, I'm finding is, that their qualities are not my problem, and I can walk away or call them out if I like.

I had read the book he gave me, and found it awful. Then I also saw the book in the big scheme of things: he had been for a while trying to copy the main character of that book, which was particularly sad.

As I think about him, I feel no tendrils of attachment anymore, but rather a neutral void, like standing on an edge where a bridge used to stand, where there is no longer a bridge, but which lack you can't see because it's all drowned in a fog. I don't eeven miss it.

I think I am finally over.

Relationships

Property of Stormberry

First of all, Blessed Litha! Another Litha celebrated in the mids of the Pandemic, but we can still find reasons to celebrate, if we so wish. In spite of what goes on with the humans inhabiting Mother Earth, the planet turns and the celestial bodies sail on, go on retrograde and pulse on the deep skies, bringing the longest day of the year. Our work is both internal and external, we still work hard, even if we don't do it as before. Our activites have changed, but they demand the same effort from us, and this we can celebrate today.

Also, in the mids of this pandemic, I wonder if people are keeping their Quarantine Journals, and how those journals may look like. Have they kept them? Have those journals become just journals, inadvertently recording the process of human adaptation, from one world obssessed with traveling and out-of-home, social gatherings and picking locations of all types for the perfect Instagram/Tumblr/Pinterest pictures, to another masked up and full of new expectations and concerns?

My own journal had a page, an entry marking the beginig for me, of this new reality, but other that that, it's filled with the same sort of entries: thoughts, gossip, venting. My daily moves have changed, but the person I am have not.

Property of Stormberry

The seasons keep turning, we are adapating, we are getting he hang of this life with more cleanliness - which is always a good thing -, more physical distance and an ample range to discover new ways to show affection. This is becoming also a world and a time where physical intimacy holds a deeper meaning because of the risks associated and the care one must practice.

In my previous post I wrote about a date I had. My first date or "going out" with a friend I have had since the pandemic has began. This date of sorts have evolved, and we have been meeting for casual sex, though not as often or as regularly as the "have been meeting" might suggest. We have talked and decided we want to sleep together one day, and so we booked a room at a nice hotel, met there, had sex, spend the night and then each has gone on their merry way. And then again, last night, though this time my companion couldn't stay the night.

And so, when I was alone in the room, it felt like a stolen moment from the days before the pandemic, when I traveled and stayed in hotel rooms alone, and enjoyed that wonderful solitude and the limitless freedom it grants on you.

We talked before he had to go, and at one point he said he would not hide "what we have" if he was asked, and that got me thinking. What we have? And what do we have? I had not stopped to consider it. I had to ask him what he meant by that, "what we have". He said we were friends with benefits, and it stroke me that he might be right, but I never really stopped to think about that, and maybe realize that I am, inadvertently, entering a sort of relationship. Yes, I guess we are friends, and we have a lot of things in common, and sex is good, but just because we share sex together on a very random, casual manner, does that stamp a new name, a new label on our friendship?

I wish sex could be seen like sharing coffee with friends, or books, or music, and so friends who sleep together, because they enjoy it, could simply keep unlaterated the tag of friends without having to add words that let others know they also have sex.

There are things about this too. Now our friendship is part of his "love life", and I wasn't even considering him or our encounters as part of my love life. The first day he refered to us having sex as making love, and I also found that not only outdated (in my mind you don't "make love", love needs no making, but also, I don't like mixing sex and love, as love is an emotion that can permeat everything you do, and sex is an activity like eating, walking or spending time with someone), but also weird. Why "make love"? Now he simply says "fuck". I find it interesting that he doesn't say "have sex", which is more neutral, and yet chooses words or expressions that charge sex with a social or emotional connotation. He qualifies the sex between us, and with it, his mind expands and he qualifies the rapport between us, labels it, boxes it and so the thought in his mind arises about whether do admit or deny what happens between us, while in my head there is nothing to admit or deny, simply a connection that pertains only him and me, and nobody needs to know about it.

So I wonder if it could be the effect of the Pandemic, filling casual contact with more intimacy, deeper meaning than what it had previously, or whether we are still exactly the same, we still related to each other the same way, and only the logictics have varied.

Broken Trust

Trust is a very fragile commodity, which once it's lost, it can never be recovered again. Even when it might be repaired through a lot of work and dedication, the cracks remain and - in the best of cases - it won't be the same as it was before it suffered damage.

Recently I had a fallout with an acquintance I used to care for dearly. Last year, as the health crisis affected many around the world, this person lost their job. They are a physician, so some weeks after losing their previous job, they found a new one at a State hospital, which is a magnificent opportunity for any physician. They were there for a few weeks and then sent me a message asking me for money for some tests, so they could keep their job. It was a requirement from the hospital. The test were expensive (they said), and their family had helped them get most of the money, except the last, like US$100. I asked them why did they had to pay when the hospital was supposed to give them the test, and they said that the hospital itself was very slow and HHRR only have them a few days to get the test.

I thought it was maybe because of the pandemic, and though it was stupid and the hospital couldn't afford to lose able, trained physicians, I didn't doubt my friend and gave them the money. They promised me to give it back with their first check. First thing they would pay out, they promised.

That was in July of last year.

They kept working, and then started posting pictures of the books and stuff they bought for themselves on their social media, and I've got annoyed. I had planned on refusing to take their money when they would give it back, but as they didn't and instead let the months go by without a word, I grew disappointed. At one point I mentioned it to some friends, and thanks goodness I did. Little after one of them told me that this person had sent them a message about some terrible family tragedy related to money, and asked them to lend them money. They were doing the same thing again!

I took to messaging and wrote to all my friends to ask them to please not to lend this person money. When they asked me why, I explained them my case. This way I also realized that this person also asked other people for money for this tests they told me their family had gathered the money and needed only as much as I gave them. And this person also went asking others for money for this family tragedy.

I wrote this person and asked them to pay me back. They claimed to be so ashamed, but had this family tragedy and so on and on. (No mention of all those months when they could have honored their word, mind you).

In the end, I came out with my story with all of my group of friends, as a way to protect them from this person's schemes - as I also learned that the State had actually suspended those tests because they needed the physicians - and also confronted this person privately. I told them I knew it was all a lie, and I just hoped they sought help. This person got worked up and reacted angrily.

I talked the issue with my friends, and they said probably this person has an addiction issue. I wouldn't go as far, but I do guess they have issues, if they go around asking money from others and avoiding to pay it back, and that they resource to pity to get the money, and promises they have no intention to keep.

Some people told me, what would I do if this person showed me proof that the tests were real. (This person sent me a photo of a printed paper were the tests were requested). The issue isn't "just" whether the tests are real. The issue is the whole package of going to several people with the same story, and asking money over and over, never giving back the money, the cavalier attitude of showing off purchases after promising to pay back the lent money with their first paycheck, and going at the same tactic again.

What would a paper prove? If the tests are real and the family tragedy is real, how does that make it right that they have milked their friends for money? Now what proof do we have that they actually used to money to pay for those tests and help with that tragedy? How do we know if they really needed it? And even if they did need it for that, what paper can account for the fact that they never bothered paying the debts back?

The lesson here, children, is the following: don't let yourself be gaslighted, dissuaded from your point and your right to be angry because the offender explains of half-explains a part of your griefs.

Proofs can be forged, excuses can be made, but broken trust can never be made whole again.

Coffee with a Friend at the Distance

Property of Stormberry

Every Wednesday, my Best Friend and I send each other a picture of our coffee or our tea, as a way to pretend we are out for a coffee together. We take a moment and chit-chat a little throughout the day, and talk about things in out lives.

I love these moments, as we understand each other incredibly well, and we can always give really good advise to each other. We live in different contients, so we really can't just meet weekly at a coffeeshop, so this is something we devised a long ago in order to have "our coffee time". Little we knew that we would all live such a crazy change of all our structures, and these Coffee Dates would become our normalcy little nook.

Last year, if you remember, Quarantine Diaries became a thing, and maybe we thought this would be a thing of a season, half a year, and yet, here we are, thorn from our old normalcy, and now that we start to understand - really understand - that this is how things go and will go from now on, we start working on getting on our feet and finding our new rhythm.

What a curious and exciting generation we are! From the totally analogical world, where phonecalls and color TV were luxuries, where we still wrote letters and did research at libraries from encyclopedias, we are now in a fast world, one that has gone so fast, it but a hard break on us. One, we are surviving through even faster communication.

If you are here, if you are loosing your step, if you feel disconnected, take a picture of your drink, send it to a friend or post it on your social media, and caption it #happycoffeedate.

Update and Question about a Thorny Situation

Long time no see. How you've been? I've been doing fine, or sort of fine. Since last time I wrote, I defended my last thesis (Marketing), which went fine (of course), and I've got FINALLY out of that circle of studying! For those who know, I was also in a hurry about all those diplomas because these were loose ends for me, open cycles I wanted completed. There was this nagging thing about them, also because they appeared in old CV's of mine and always as unfinished, and some people seemed to believe that that was just like "finished" and so expected me to be able to do stuff I was no longer updated with or didn't actually had the certification to do them. But now all that is behind me.

However, never be said that I stay idle about anything, and so I enrolled into a Masters Degree program with my old Alma Mater. Yes, I am back to Economics, and in an Academic Program, not a Professional Program, because - though I am not in the Academia - I don't like pre-chewed and easy stuff. Will I regret it? Stay tuned.

If you are wondering now why can't I be normal? my answer is: Why would I? Normal is boring. I tried it once, you know? It made me want to kill everthing in site. I didn't, of course, but I quickly veered back to crazy. It's better for all of us. Trust me.

My house is still in process, and with serious delays. There have been issues and my dad keeps picking up fights with the foreman, and the foreman has also been doing somethings wrong and trying to hide them, and so that ensures more fights and... I will have to burn massive amounts of palo santo, sage, sandalwood and rosemary to chase out all that negativity. The house itself is looking wonderful, and different issues are being addressed. I'm getting my bathtub the way I want it and currently my only worry is how are they going to solve my hot water, since I want it made with a gas boiler because - in my experience - that's the only one that gives me water as hot as I like it, which is scalding hot.

So these are the important events of my life up to date.

Property of Stormberry

Regarding my situation with that friend of mine, yesterday I was finally able to write down in my journal everything that happened and was important on November 17th of last year, which was when we met at our old University and he told me he had left his wife. This was a very, very important day in my life, and this whole experience was life changing for me, because him and me got so much closer together, and from that day on I felt I had earned a brother, and my heart exploded for him.

It was hard, and I was so afraid of forgetting the details and letting his day and this experience slip through my fingers as my memory is famously bad. It was a long process and one through which I had to struggle a lot. The final part, that last mile, started on Saturday (two days ago) and I decided to write and write and keep writing until all was finally on the paper. And so I did, and so yesterday, after about seven or eight hours of continuos writing, I managed to get it done.

I'm not done just yet, as there is one other very significant day to our story and our friendship/brotherhood, which I also want to record, but at least this one is already on paper.

Though I have bitched quite a lot about him through the years - and boy, I have bitched! - at the end of the day it's plain to see that I do care a lot about him, that I do love him and love him deeply and carry his fate close to my heart. He's currently the only one of my friends I keep close tabs on, pretty much acting in a mother hen fashion - which I know I should be stopping because he is an adult and capable of making his own decisions and facing his own life for himself - because I have this imperative need to make sure he is well and happy. The gods are wise they removed the desire of being a mother from me. I would have probably raised the next Norman Bates!

The thing is - and here comes the topic of the post - that I have made friends with a girl who suffers from a mental disease. Her situation is complicated and I have the sense that she's very fragile. Up to my ability, I have tried to understand her, give her her space and be there for her as a friend when she needs it. My discomfort has begun when I've realized that she's in love with me, and has been trying to push herself more and more into my life, which I don't want. I'm truly scared to hurt her, but I do not want to upend my whole life supporting someone who will expect things from me I can't give her. I've tried my best to be gentle, friendly, and let her know that I've other priorities.

From what I gather, I've seen her plan to move into my house, or at least spend long seasons there - even though I have never made such an invitation - and then suggesting I should stop talking to my friend, because he's toxic for me. She's been falling more and more into crisis - or maybe that was always here regular rate and only now I know about it - and what bothers me is that her family is there, and I know they care, but it's almost as if she were expect me to take care of her situation.

I do like her, and she can be a great friend, but right now I don't know how could I backpedal this whole thing. I've already stopped telling her a lot of things about my life, stopped mentioning my friend to her altogether, and have been telling her less and less, keeping the conversation more and more superficial.

However, I could use advise if anyone has some to give. How can I be suportive of a friend with a mental disease, prone to hurting themselves while keeping my own independence and my own life?

Happy Saturnalia

Another week went missing from my postings, so I'll do my best to make do this week. Though technically I did write because I wrote a contribution to the blog of a friend of mine. In Spanish though.

Source: Net of Light via Google

Just to update you on the matters of my life, my broken heart has been pretty much mended. He and I got together again and things changed the tone. I'm not sure where this thing will go, or if it will all go up in smoke again, never to meet again. I am at peace, though. Oddly, calmly at peace. Perhaps I have cried my heart out already and there is nothing more to cry. We talked and he did tell me that we shouldn't meet ever again, but then his signs were mixed. I did tell him in all honesty, that I will wait for him. I feel this sort of... red thread... bonding us. I still feel that we are the storm and the beacon. I also told him I could feel how I was descending to my coffin, the lid was closing on me as I closed my eyes, crossed my hands over my chest and set to peacefully wait.

I imagine that the particular image I conjured was disturbing because he rebelled against it, but I found that feeling, of closing myself in the peaceful solitude of a coffin rather comforting.

The sea is storming, flapping and retrieving further and further into the center of open waters. The beacon tands tall, wet and cold, waiting impassively, as it is called to do.

These days also mark the begining of the Feasts of Saturnalia, and from them I want to highlight this year the Reversal of Rules. Admitedly, I am not very versed in the Cultus Deorum, nor the Roman Traditions - I am an eclectic witch after all, and I follow my own heart.

According to what little I have read, this was a time of liberation, of shaking off the strict rules of society and chase happiness often also with silly jokes and indulging into role reversals. Masters serving slaves, women and men dressing in each others' raiment and so on.

For my own practice, I have lifted up the sense of liberation, of safely testing the crossing of boundaries and being a bit daring, something I find hard to do given my natural propensity to avoid risk. Within the light of Saturnalia, I can find a space to meditate on many things about my life and whether they could have been different, and what could they have been like. Yes, he also comes into play in my thoughts, as the counter part of my One, the other side of the coin that is my heart. In this freedom and reversal of the rules that guide my inner life, I review different paths and dare to think of the what-abouts that I consciously know will not work and are headed to nowhere. I give myself the space to mentally follow a path that might have a different outcome, one were friendship can survive, even if I know that the chance of that greatly diminishes if we keep seeing each other.

The times are mixed now, the god that has succumbed and gone under during Samhain is rising to life again, from Saturnalia to Yule, parting the womb of the Mother to step forward and claim the wilderness. And as the earthy womb is revolved, broken and softened for new life to come forward, so we step forward into the new year, the new decade and walk the path. Back we leave the warm, nurturing womb, the safe and cozy tomb, some of us naked, vulnerable and cold, others springing forward like Athena, in full armor, but all of us scared of what lies ahead.

But Saturnalia is for cheer, to make light of our worries and seek merriment. So enjoy, dance, drink and celebrate. Gather cheer and strenght for what is to come.

Nursing a Broken Heart

Source: Property of Stormberry

Such a roller coaster of emotions in short two weeks. I feel now like I'll never take off again this bracelet, this one charm that represents him. I've been sad and crying and reliving time and again snipets of our last three meetings, but I'm still not strong enough to write them down in my journal, where the details of it all would be penned in with the blood of my spirit mingled into the ink flowing down the feeder and the nib of my pen.

The whole thing puzzles me greatly for I was already preparing to this. I knew the end was close, this cycle of our on-and-off acquaintance was reaching an end and a new era of long calm and emotional slumber was approaching. We can never stay together for too long, as if our emotions - whatever shape they take - could burn so hard they would easily engulf the world in flames. At least this time, the predominant sentiment was one of love, and not like in the past, where it was the blinding hate in my heart what had thrown the yellowish light upon our road.

We sink into the darkness and coolness of a world without each other. We have both done that in the past, with more or less success. I have a hard time letting go, and I can feel my bony, frozen fingers cracking, opening and trying to clutch into his strong wrist, for one last word. But my cold corpse is sinking deeper and deeper in to the underworld where I belong, where I am ruler,  undefeated and unchallenged. I have to let him go, I can't drag him down here, where I flourish and he withers, as much as I could not survive in his world.

Our last meeting was the longest and the most beautiful of them all. We talked long, shared our hearts, heard each other and held each other. Hugs flew freely each time they were needed, and smiles were free as well, marvelling in the miracle of having found each other. We talked economics and fell asleep like children, one next to the other, on a narrow bed, reading "The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman.

"Who else can I do this with?", he asked me, mirroring so perfectly what I myself was feeling.

No one else. That was the sad answer, wrapped in each other's arms, my head against his strong shoulder, in the dark, on the very night we knew we had finally ran out of time, and come the day, we will have to say good-bye.

We slept, but we didn't sleep together. Still in the morning we teased each other with that. "Hey, I can finally say we slept together". I laughed. "Watch out about that, child. You've slept with a witch".

Long hours rolled in bed, dreading getting up because they I would have to go home. Yet we've found the way to stretch those hours, steal one more, and one more until it was evident I had to pack up and leave. I had showed him my bow and my arrows, and had stringed it for him to see, to hold, to feel its power as its string is drawn against the nose and under the chin. We picked up dinner in my car, and he loved driving it. I told him their name and he not only accepted it, but gave it a petname of his own: "Nat".

He taught me to drink whiskey that night, and though I was still good enough to drive, he insisted I should stay. I didn't put much resistence either. I did want as many memories of us as I could collect.

We had lunch next day, driving his car, speeding some so that the rumble of the engine would crawl up my legs, and break on the reef of my upper lip. His car is a thing of beauty.

Those 22 hours were an intense experience, and he himself said a lifetime of closeness and friendship were crammed into them. A whole life was lived in them.

With love high in our hearts, we said good-bye, we let go. We walked away. And I've been crying since then.

Memories Are All That's Left

Property of Stormberry

A couple of days have passed that are proven to be emotionally straining. I'm trying to come up with a better word, but honestly, I can't. Ever since November 17th, when a chance meeting with an old friend, I had been feeling emotionally restless. We talked for much longer time than usual, and they unloaded quite a heavy burden that changed the way I saw many things about them. I also opened up a lot about them, and was rather brutally honest about some things that had perspired in the past. Those things weren't pretty things, but rather unveiled a dark side of my heart. To this day I have no certainty about how they took in that information.

There have also been issues at home, where my brother is going through some family issues and we are doing what family does in times like this: gather up tighter and hold up the one that needs most support. There have been other straining issues that might have grinded on my nerves due to the second hand pain I've been exposed to, and then comes the meeting and getting closer to people who might be romantically interested in me. Or are and I just don't want to acknowledge it for what it is.

Property of Stormberry

The truth is, I think I don't like the idea of me in a romantic relationship. I do have been in them, and I do have loved my partners, but I think those times are well past before me, and though I might be attracted to the people I'm going out with and seeing, I'd rather have the friendship and forgo the romance. Or could it be that I'm not that much into either of them? Or is it that maybe my friend's issues are taking an undue amount of my thoughts and that's keeping me from finding my balance and concentrating on what's really important - this being me feeling good?

I've been pondering in this a lot.

Normally, I have always cautioned my friends from getting too wrapped up in other people's issues, and look at me, getting all wrapped up in the personal problems of my friend. Not like I can solve them, nor like it would be my place. So why I am being sucked into their clusterfuck? Well, because I have the feeling that the time left on our friendship is quickly coming to its end.

I don't know precisely how to explain this, but this has been the dynamic of our life encounters since forever, and so I have now the feeling that soon we are to part ways and a couple of decades will pass before we see each other again, if ever. Not like we share much, but we have shared some deep stuff, and so they feel like a sort of comrade or a fellow soldier in the battlefield of life. I have made some notes about them and as I was recording some events, I came to the realization that, people come and go, but the memories that we keep from them often times remain with us much, much longer. Like feathers of a bird, they are a small part of the whole bird, but they remain with those who have collected them long after the bird has past.

We are to part soon, and I wonder if this is also the reason why I seem to be trying to collect their feathers by handfulls, as if I could stuff a pillow with them, to rest my head on them at night.

That Thing About IT

So, I'm in a sort of bookclub organized by a local booktube celebrity... Ok, let me explain this properly. There is this absolutely, drop dead gorgeous girl who loves to read, and has a booktube channel called GoWithKar (it's only in Spanish). She's very charismatic and talented, and her channel rose quite fast.

Source: Twitter, @gowithkar

Dedicated as she is to her content, she decided to create a Patreon account to support her channel, and there, among the different tiers, one includes a book club with monthly meetings. It took me a while to decide to support her, because I didn't quite saw the benefits of the service she basically provides through this platform until another friend of mine told me about it. Then I signed and and so I've got into the bookclub. Truthfully, I'm rather pleased.

When I've got in, they were already reading "It", by Stephen King. Kar, the girl, is a huge King-fan, so the reading of that book was expected. I'm really convinced by his production, so I was more than happy to be spared from the reading. Not like I wouldn't say no if asked, but you know, it was better this way.

The rest of the members of this tier had read the book and liked it very much, so they had decided to do a marathon of "It" movies, staring with the first one, watched at home of one of them, and then doing a group movie trip to go watch "It: Chapter 2". Somehow I was roped into it. No, don't ask me, I was roped in, and so I went.

Though the book and the writer don't really catch my attention, I also wanted to try out the story, see if it had the bones to maybe seduce me enough for me to give the 1500+ page story a try.

Long story short, it didn't.

After giving the movies a time to settle in my head - I was irrationally annoyed by the tendency of the characters of leaving their bikes thrown haphazard on the road - I came to realize that I don't hate the story. The story in itself isn't bad, I just doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't click with me, but I can see that it isn't bad. Now, "not bad" in this case doesn't automatically means that it's good. It simply means that it isn't a waste of time and paper and celluloide.

As I kept thinking and thinking about it, what I realized is that I actually don't like the stories where the plot doesn't solve itself within the original world it creates, or the expectation it creates. An example, for instance, is "The Murders in Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe. [SPOILER ALERT!!] In this story, a series of gruesome murders are commited by an animal, though for the duration of the story you are made believe it's the work of a serial killer. [SPOILER ALERT END] Though it is a story and a way to twist the reader out of the expected outcome I dislike this sort of plot solutions, because it seems to me like the writer was unable to fit the solution into the frame of the world they had created.

Part of the excitement of a suspense novel is precisely being able to guess what is happening and who is behind it, and once you find out, your mind goes back to the story to backtrack the clues. However, when the resolution of the story opens a new line and wrecks the hypothesis you've been creating, gives you  - or at least gives me - a sort of disappointment because the expectation of an explanation that could have been hidden in the prior lines evaporates.

This might be just a pet peeve of mine - and probably is - but then again, this sort of story also poses a social issue.

Though novels are novels and fiction is just fiction, truth is that everything people read permeates their minds and often find a way to their system of values and believes. This doesn't mean that people who read crime novels become criminals, but books do help normalize certain ideas. Romance novels can help normalize and promote the idea that women's greatest goal is to get married and have kids. Some of these can also normalize the idea that codependent, abusive, toxic relationships are the desirable type of relationship people should seek. Just think about how often people idealize and use fictional relationships as ideals for their own.

Pulling from this, suspense novels that end up giving the villain a background or origin outside the world of the heroes (comes from another world, another time, another dimension, another species...), starts putting in people's head the idea of the bad coming from "outside" the group. This idea could be pulled philosophically to safe harbors, but it also plans the seed for division of "us vs them" scenarios, where the us group is blameless, while the them group carries the whole weight of evil.

In It, though there are bullies, the movies at least do leave you with the sense, that this bully is under the control or is being influenced by the outsider, so the root of evil goes back to the "other", and away from the "us". There are no glimpse of other others that might be good, that might help, but all we see from this other is evil and desire to destroy the us.

What does this say to the world? What sort of message drops on a world so deeply divided, scarred by the nationalism and ravenous desire to blame others for the consequences of our own mindlessness and selfishness?

The book was written in another time, when maybe these ideas were harmless, but the idea still remain.

I guess a lot of people read this book and enjoy the miriad of stories crammed into a small town story. I am discouraged for the kick outside of the original frame.

Perfect Sunday

Source: Property of Stormberry

Today I met with my friends Shimmy and Are for brunch. You have no idea how I've been wanting to have brunch with friends. Originally I had intended to have brunch this weekend with another friend from the booktube community, but things didn't quite go as planned, and we didn't meet at all. That I am sad about, because I really wanted to meet him, talk with him and tell him about my literary projects, but also hear about his projects and concerns.

In this days Are and I talked a little becauseI found her on Telegram - you know, that semmaging platform that seems to be growing and pushing WhatsApp out of the way a bit - and it turned out that my beloved friend Shimmy was having some issues with his job situation. There might be a bunch of reasons for the crazy unstability he was experiencing (and he has been experiencing the oddest spell of work instability for a while now), and she told me he needed chearing up. As easy as that, we decided to meet today for brunch.The place we selected is close to where I leave, and it's a quaint coffeeshop called Kawah Café. I love it not only for the beauty of its covered terrace and the soft peacefulness of the little garden, but also because if their dedication to their coffee. My friend Shimmy is quite a coffee connoisseur, so Are and I knew he was bound to love Kawah.

We met at 10 a.m., a more than perfect time for a brunch, and ordered a traditional breakfast for Shimmy and two pinto-bowls for Are and I. Pinto us a traditional Costa Rican breakfast food where the rice and black beans are mixed together, cooked in a pan and seasoned with different thngs depending on the liking of people. It usually comes with some tortillas, one or two eggs, fresh cheese or fried chorizo (a sort of sausage), fried plátano (cooking banana) and sour cream or Lizano sauce (or both). In the bowl we had the pinto mixed with fresh, melted cheese, diced tomato, diced avocado and topped with a fried egg. It was to die for!

We had a wondeful chat about everything that has been going on in our lives, and when we talked about issues, we discussed some witchy ways and techniques to invite the good into our daily lives. I had picked a few crystals from my personal collection (not like I have any other collection, mind you), which I first have held in my hand to fill them with my love and good wishes, and suggested them a small ritual mostly inspired in Mercuralia and the realm under the control of Mercury. I know I see Mercury like the go-to-god for almost everything, but really, this was totally a work that fell square under his protection. I hope it will help them.

Source: Property of Stormberry

Our chat extended quite long, and since I had some courtesy movie tickets, we decided to cash some to go watch the movie Dark Phoenix. Yes, and X-Men movie, and I'm not a fan of X-Men. Truth to be told, the more I know and I get to know about the comic universe, I find that I am more and more a DC fan than a Marvel fan. The women are hotter, and the men are quite hot too. And now, with the new CW series of Batwoman with Ruby Rose I am head over heel.

I have heard bad reviews from most people about this movie - Dark Phoenix, not Batwoman! - and the people liking it didn't quite strike me as reliable, but I wanted to see the movie because of Sophie Turner - better known as Sansa - and boy she was hot! Michael Fassbender was there, and so was James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence, but I was actually watching only Sophie Turner. And she was hot. Other than that the movie sucked big time.

All the make up - both in mutant as in human form - was amateurish, and the costumes couldn't be cheaper or a worse fit. The story was weak and the point of yhe whole thing... well, there wa no point, only to see Sansa one last time.

Source: Property of Stormberry

After that, we went to have lunch-diner at an Asian restaurant called P.F.Chang's, that was a wondeful, wonderful experience. Both Are and Shimmy love Asian food - though in Are's case, she learned to love to as she started dating Shimmy. Their wedding, which is the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended, was also Asian themed - and they were taken off their feet with the kindness, the readiness, the presentation and the flavours of everything we've ordered.

Our "brunch" extended well into the early night, when we said good-byes after having poured out our hearts and filled them with friendly love and happiness.

It was so lovely to sit with them and feel like part of the family, sharing the food , joking, hugging and smiling big, open smiles. We have promised ourselves and each other to keep up the meetings. You see, life can be very, very busy and we can get easily overwhelmed, but if we make the purpose of breaking away a little slice of time to share with friend, and share the love, then the rest of our tasks and worries will be less. A smile in the heart and the memory of great time spent in the company of loved ones is always the best possible spell to cast over our days to make them brighter and better.

Thoughts on Manipulative Friends

Source: Tumblr
Shallon Lester's Channel

One of the vloggers I follow in YouTube is Shallon Lester, a former magazine editor, who now gives relationship advise online. I have seen several of her videos, and though I don't agree with all of her advises, I always enjoy her videos and her style.

Something she does in her channel is to psychoanalyze drama among celebrities and their private life. What she does isn't going for the gossip - though she does benefit from it - but also to teach people lessons about themselves and the people around them by using behaviors widely known through the media to pinpoint what people can also encounter in their lives.

The last video I saw touched on the current drama between beauty vloggers Tati Westbrook and James Charles, in order to talk about manipulative friends.

The topic of manipulative friends hits me close because I have had to deal with those. I mean, if you read my blog you probably know about those cases, right? Yes, it's not pretty but it happens and we need to be prepared to del with it.

I have a friend who is married and he's not very happy with his spouse. We talked recently - he has taken time to open up to me about his marital issues - and he said that though he wasn't happy, he was chosing to do the "right thing" rather than what he really wanted and what made him happy. I didn't say much - with words - but me being as transparent as a glass of beer, probably let him know what I thought: "you are being profoundly stupid". Now, judging and finding solutions from the outside is very easy, but it's not as simple when you are IN the situation. That's why it happens that you can be very good at giving relationship advises to others, but you still get yourself in all sorts of relationship jammies. Why is that? Because when we are IN a situation, we usually don't have the panoramic view people not involved in it have. When we are in the situation we find it hard to untangle, to be objective, to see the good and the bad, and we are subject to emotional pressure.

Now, the thing here is that we are also vulnerable to these same things with our friends, with the additional threat of us being less prepare and less suspectful since we think friendships are much safer than romantic relationships. Just think about that. In a romantic relationship you prepare yourself to suspect your partner of cheating, of being with you for your money, your connections, your looks, your status, or because you are just a device for them to fulfill a life goal: it's not you, but the ring you can put on their finger, or the ring they can put on your finger.

With friendships, we often tend to believe they are honest, serious, and when they are not, they tend to be scarce enough to be filed as "acquintances", so you don't worry. We also think that the "bad friends" are easy to spot, because they will pressure you for money, or ask you to bail them, be their guarantors for loand they then want to leave on to you and so on. We are not prepared for the manipulative friends that seek to leech on you in other ways.

Shallon Lester mentions as manipulative friends the people that are very self-centered and who talk only about their endless problems, and it's always the same issue. Here I want to make a distintion. There are friends who have a specific type of problem that is either eternal or cyclic, like issues with their job or issues with an illness or a family health problem. Yes, there are limits for that as well, BUT we can also understand when a person always talks about their problems in these topics.

What makes the difference - for me - is when the recurring issue is something the person can't really escape, and is bound to keep struggling with. An issue with a job can't always be fixed with resigning or looking for a change in positions, specially not when the market is in turmoil. People are also bound to their jobs because of the income and obligations they carry, like loans, mortgage, supporting their family, and so on. Health issues also take much of the attention and energy of the people. Being there to let them vent is important for them.

However, a friend who is going through these struggles will also ask you about your life, your issues and pay active attention to them.

By no means, a stressful job or a health/family issue entitles someone to monopolize the conversation.

Curiously, as a Childfree person, I have noticed this with some friends and acquintances who are parents: all topics are always child related, and if you try to go to a non-child related one either they veer from it, or just stare at you while you say your piece, and then go back to a child-topic. Now, 1) this is also a way of manipulation, by diminishing your topics and your issues, compared to theirs, and 2) beware because this is not a "parent thing", but a thing manipulative people do. I'd given you the example with the "child topic", because we all have had that new-parent friend who gets lost in parenthood, even though later they get out of it, but we know the experience.

So, when you are with someone and you feel like something is just not ok, you feel a bit bad or shamed, take a second to compare the situation with that "new parent" hype. If it fits, you are talking to a manipulative person, and they are casting their net on you.

Manipulative people monopolize the time, the conversation and/or the situation. It's always THEIR problems, THEIR issues, THEIR concerns, even when they are not presenting them as theirs. For instance, the friend that every so often comes to you crying about how much they are suffering by witnessing the suffering of someone else. Be it a family member, a close friend, a dear colleague... they pick someone who is close to them, or are portrayed as close to them, and then paint a gloomy, terrible situation (whether it is real or not), that makes the person a helpless victim, and they (the manipulative friend) is forced to witness it, wants so desperately to help BUT can't do anything. This last part is crucial because it ensures pity ON them, while looking at the same time so selfless and saint. There might be even a tear or two for dramatic effect and blocking logical thinking and trigger emotional response from the audience.

I used to have a friend who did this often, who used another friend to gain pity for herself. Curiously, when you talked to the martyred friend, they seemed to be absolutely ok. The cover of the manipulator? Oh, Martyr doesn't want others to know/notice. Does it ring a bell? You have no idea, how I wish it doesn't.

In other cases, the manipulator does use a real situation, a real problem of someone else - the Designated Martyr - in order to give their manipulation tools legitimacy. Here, the key one has to pay attention to is whether the issue can actually be fixed by the manipulator, and what is the manipulator doing to fix it. The issues manipulators pick are often the kind that can be milked for a long time. The longer they can exploit the topic, the longer they can command attention, earn pity/admiration and even get away with whatever they want.

Finally, here is the last element manipulators use to get their "reward": they often seek to push your boundaries. They get a boost, a victory when they can exert power over you by making you endure dissing, humiliations and other forms of disrespect. This is a way to state to you that they are more important than you: it sets a hierarchy among you, where they push themselves to a position - rather subtly - where they wistle and you jump. Part of the perk of these moves is that they are subtle enough to be easy to turn against you if you realize what's happening and complain.

What do I mean? For instance, the friend that's always late. Yes, we all are late from time to time, but there are people who seem to be chronically late and late by a lot. For me, the reasonable window to be late is five to ten minutes. I mean, consider traffic, finding a parking space, public transportation being late... A regular friend being late usually calls you to let you know they are going to be late. A manipulator won't tell you because part of their power trip is to keep you expecting, insecure. Manipulators also tend to make you wait for really long periods of time, often stretching into hours. It's usually a progressive thing, as they need to "train" their friends to just keep waiting. To "reward" the waiting friend, sometimes they shower them with excuses and copious amounts of apologies.

A rule of thumb here: someone who consistently makes the same offense or disrespectful action, and always apologizes for it, is placating you, not really apologizing. True apology is often followed by real efforts to correct the undesired behavior.

Now, being late and using tardiness to manipulate others is quite a textbook case, and easy to spot, but there are other, more conceited ways to bend other people's dignity and will to you, as a goal of manipulation. In this type of manipulation - into which chronic tardiness also falls - is about forcing others to accomodate to the manipulator. Instances can be the case of the person that always changes everybody's plans at the last minute, always dictate the whole program or part of it. A typical case would be that of the vegan friend with whom you always have to meet and go eat at vegan places. There are many excuses for this, such as "there are so little options for me in other restaurants" and "the menu says it's vegan, but they actually use animal byproducts in the dressing of the salad".

Again, I use a vegan individual in the example because this might be easier to spot, so it can be used as a template to discover similar behaviors, but think of the friend who always picks where do you go because "they can go to X place because there are so many memories there with their ex", or because "they have read the reviews", or "it's closer to their place, and they have so little time, since they have to take care of children/job/project/you-name-it".

This can also be the case of the friend who always picks the movie you are going to see, picks the seats, or picks where are you going for vacation and where are you staying. It's also the friend that orders for you at the restaurant quite often, usually disguising it as "you have to try this", or the friend that gives you tasks, or in any other way takes away your power of decision.

These forms of manipulation are particularly tricky, because if you react against them, the manipulator will always act surprised or offended, and turn the blame on you. They have a situation that's very difficult and you are not being understanding. They have so much work and they are trying so hard and you don't want to cooperate. They are trying to accomodate and make it good for everybody and you are being insensitive/spoiled/selfish.

Other forms to take power from you and manipulate you, is through making you suffer public humiliation or guilty tripping you. For instance, they can be prone to burst into tears at any thing, scream, throw temper tantrum... Things that are designed to make you feel bad, so that you will always do whatever there is in your power to keep these scenes from happening. If it happened once, rest assured it will happen again. Manipulators dose these incidents to keep the threat alive.

Ms. Lester gives a lot of good advise about how to deal with them, so I encourage you to look up her channel and check out some of her videos. If you ask me, I always go for the cut throat solution. Yes, I've been roped into these games, I have had hope my friends would enmend their ways and I have tried to minimize their antics. Experience has thought me that accomodating to manipulators and trying to softly undercut their antics only empower them more, because their realize you want them in your life, so they will keep playing on that and finding new ways to exploit you.

As I've grown older, my response to manipulators has been swifter, which as result has led me to lose those friendships. Then again, if I was being used as a toy for their instincts, was there really a friendship?

So here are my Cut Throat Advises:

1. You may allow the behavior once or twice, until you notice the pattern and can establish there is really a manipulative intent behind. Then, cut it.
2. There needs to be a facing of the facts with the manipulator. Ms. Lester recommends you frame your issues, when you confront your manipulator in "I feel" sentences. Here I tend to use two ways: the indirect one, where I answer behavior with behavior, and simply don't comply with the expectation of the manipulator, and the direct one, where I purposefully refuse to use softening phrases like "I feel", "I think" - which can be later used against you are a part of an argument of "everything is always about you and how YOU feel and what YOU think"- and rather state things in "you" sentences. Say things like "Don't talk to me like that", instead of "I don't like the way you sometimes talk to me", and don't fall for the trick of "What did I say?", or "When and what exactly did I do/say?". This is a favored trick of manipulators because memory is tricky, and they usually deal with subtext and tone, leaving their words purposefully open to interpretation. If they do that, don't answer, and if you are pressed reply something in the line of "don't add insult to injury", "I know you are smarter than that". The trick here turn their game: they want to make the problem about you, so you have to call them on it and place the problem on them.
3. If their game is tardiness, leave after 10 minutes and don't call them to let them know. If you call, you are opening a chance for them to keep you waiting. If they didn't call to tell you they'll be late, you have no obligation to call them to tell them that you are leaving.
4. If their game is changing plans at the last minute, you have to options: you stick to the original plan (and make previous arrangements to make sure you can go without the manipulator), or cancel them. If you cancel, don't go even if they set the original plan again. Show them there are consequences.
5. If their game is to take decisions away from you,  when the place is selected or the task given, tell them no. And stick to it.

Never be afraid of cutting a relationship with a manipulator person. Remember that you are in an illusion of a relationship, one where only you are. The relationship is a box, and you manipulator wants only to play.