Moloch: Fern rests in bed. Pain meds…soothing her tired body.
An aging woman. A matriarch who never was. It’s tragic.
Kasey is on a date with her new partner. They. They wear pink eyeshadow. Both spray themselves with Coach perfume. Cherry.
Where’s Ben? We don’t know. Lacey is writing this for me, and she has no idea.
And it bothers her. Because Ben is human too. Where is he?
You can’t hide truth. You can burden it FAR too much. And then…it GIVES. Like an earthquake.
Kasey needed this ring:
Or this one:
Or this one:
Lacey: Those exact rings!?
Moloch: Yes.
Lacey: Then how did I get them!?
Listen to “The Artifact & Living” by Micheal Andrews.
Moloch: You didn’t even want them!!
1:06
Lacey: I loved the heart behind them more than that. And I did like them.
Moloch: YES!
But they were never mean for you.
Kasey was who they were meant for.
Lacey: Then how did I get them?
Moloch: Someone tried to screw YOU over.
Lacey: What was my ring supposed to look like?
Moloch: A ring that was never made. You were horrifically attacked.
You’ve done your best.
2:00
The song ends.
All that we can say…is that, Kasey would have loved a ring like Princess Kate’s.
Kasey: How do you not know that I thought of that too?
Moloch: Except…she never even thought of it.
They went to the store and it just looked like a ring she wanted. She didn’t intend to imitate Princess Kate, at all. Lacey just liked the ring.
See…it wasn’t meant to be her permanent ring. So she intended it to be a dress ring. And she just liked the ring.
A reader: Why would you like that ring!?
Lacey: Why don’t you like it!?
A reader: It’s…kind of strange looking.
Lacey: Huh!
Except it’s also not.
It’s…like a bug…at first…but then you realize it’s actually just a very difficult sapphire. A rude sapphire, even. Surrounded by pieces of diamonds, desperately trying to make amends. And you think, “Huh! This sapphire is…cool. Kind of like Nefertiti was cool.”
It’s not my wedding ring. But I appreciate it.
A woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: So this ring has nothing to do with you!!!
Lacey: Sapphire is my birthstone.
The woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: But that doesn’t make sense.
Lacey: How?
The woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: It’s supposed to be your ring.
Lacey: It’s MY BIRTHSTONE.
The woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: But the sapphire is your stepmother.
Not you.
And it’s…your dad? Or some other man??? I can’t tell.
But that isn’t you.
Lacey: *thinks*
It’s a cool ring though!
The woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: HECK YES!
But…it’s for your collection. …NOT right now.
Or what was right now.
Lacey: Then what am I supposed to do!?
The woman at Helzberg, who sold her the ring: Which ring do you WANT?
Lacey: Tape together the whole fricken store..and see what that shit looks like.
Nefertiti: *nods*
It’s just a ring.
Lacey: YES!!!!
Nefertiti: They don’t understand your limitations.
I get it.
*she thinks*
Give Lacey a pearl ring. Set in gold.
Lacey: She literally said, “Anything but that.”
Nefertiti: SHE WAS A LIAR.
Moloch: Pearl it is!
Mark could have bought you a $1200 pearl ring. Maybe even $3,000.00. And diamond later.
Mark, in the afterlife with God: That would have made so much more sense.
Nefertiti: Yeah!
There was a better pearl ring at Helzberg, back then. The best one now, is on clearance. *she laughs*
*later*
Moloch: The problem is…if Lacey had bought that pearl ring…people, like Kasey, would have been upset.
Very upset.
Because they’d have had to deal with her actual personality. Not just the one they imagine she has.
Like…how come Lacey gets a pearl ring…AND…a diamond ring? Suddenly Mark looks rich.
How did chaste Lacey…land HIM!?
*Moloch laughs*
They’d have eventually realized who she is, not in her character, *he rolls his eyes* in HER PERSONALITY.
Part of what Casi Hart couldn’t handle, at all, was Lacey’s actual personality.
Lacey doesn’t have a bad personality. She has a personality like Alison Roberts, a bit. And sometimes Alison has been mean, and yet some other times Alison has been HONEST.
At times Kasey has misinterpreted Alison.
Lacey and Alison are similar, in a way of…accuracy.
Lacey isn’t a mean person. I’m not analyzing Alison more right now.
Lacey doesn’t mean to truly hurt anyone, who doesn’t deserve it. Like Alison, in some cases, she just wants to be honest. To do the right thing, and say the truth.
Why is that so bad? Because all these years…Kasey has been hurt. By both of them. And having to accept that someone can be kind…and mean well…and still say something harsh…is one of her biggest issues, in my opinion. She likes to be nice. She likes nice people. But nice people aren’t necessarily good people.
Her partner (?): Who is he talking about!?
Moloch: *raises his eyebrows*
A LOT OF PEOPLE.
*he smiles*
I don’t like all of your friends. I’m sorry.
They’re all nice, but how kind are they?
So…
If Kasey had to deal with how rude, compulsively competitive and arrogant some of her friends are…she’d lose friends. And she’d be…more…in touch with reality, but also far more sad.
So essentially, Kasey’s choice is between being aware of Lacey’s actual existence…as brutal as that is…and being…not sad.
She’s mostly chosen to be not sad.
*he shrugs*
Kasey isn’t Lacey.
Even though Lacey was at her wedding, and a bridesmaid she wasn’t photographed well, AT ALL. And I don’t think Kasey gave a hoot. *he laughs*
She’s shared that photo with no regard for Lacey’s feelings, for years.
Lacey’s NOT ugly. She has no double-chin. And she CERTAINLY has no deep hidden insecurities, either.
There’s never been any real competition between Lacey and Kasey.
Her father is that man.
He has a perfectly fine chin. He was heavy in that picture.
*Moloch laughs*
In every photo from Kasey’s first wedding…Lacey‘a chin looks like Tom’s, in the last photo.
NEITHER of them have a real…ugly double-chin. Tom had a slight one. Lacey had not one at all.
She’s NEVER had a double chin.
There is no double chin.
She has a chin like Tom Banks because that’s her actual father. And from a side profile view, you can make it look like they have a double chin if you photograph them at the wrong moment.
The truth is, they have an unusual chin that was actually dominant in the old Dutch money upper class. It’s soft, but it’s also not. It’s extremely unusual, genetically.
He doesn’t have a double chin and neither does Lacey. She moves her face upwards and photographs more to photograph her face well than because of her chin.
I think she does worry that her chin will look too soft, but it’s more about her face looking bad than her chin. She really photographs very badly and so did Tom so it’s hard to know how good-looking he actually was and why he was such a ladies man from his photographs.
If she saw him in person, she would be terrified because she would automatically think of him as daddy because they look a lot alike. He is her father, but it would be a very almost deadly visceral reaction because psychologically she’s not experienced that with almost anyone alive. There are a lot of entities who have tried to channel through her in photographs, so don’t look at those photographs as good representations of what she looks like, in general. But you can get a good idea of what her chin looks like.
The thing is that’s a very unkind thing to do to Lacey. But what happened is that the photographer was so startled by Lacey‘s beauty that day in person because Lacey is ravishingly beautiful, in a very rare way, and the photographer assumed that it would photograph well. And so she didn’t think about what Lacey would look like at all in the photographs and none of them looked very good. And that’s not Kasey’s fault, but the problem is that Kasey has never even considered the fact that Lacey has never been remotely upset with her in any noticeable way at all. 
That’s not normal, Kasey. She was being unusually understanding. And you just took that for granted and assumed that it was normal and to be expected and it’s not.
A lot of your friends are very jealous of her especially Jana because Jana is ugly as shit compared to Lacey and not as smart as her either. Jana found things wrong with Lacey to pick on to feel better about herself. But none of them were grounded in reality, and they were all out of context.
There was a pool party at Joe Bartolotta’s house where Lacey dressed way too maturely for her age. And Jana made fun of her because Lacey looked awkward. But your male friend was ready to fuck the shit out of her. Because Lacey has a body that’s hotter than most women to ever live.
She’s extremely curvy. It’s not fat. She has real curves. Jana would die to be that sexy.
If Lacey were to take photos of her tits, the way that you have recently, she might be censored.
She could show that kind of cleavage, but it would look very risqué and inappropriate for Facebook.
She let you post those photos because it was your wedding and she just wanted you to be happy.
But then the downside of having that personality is that she really does understand things in a very objective way. And so she would never say anything that I just said to anyone’s face. But she knows it’s all true.
And the problem is that she’s never had, anyone explain this to her because people have all used her sweetness to cruelly cloak their own insecurities.
You were very thoughtless and immature to not give a shit about how she looked. She flew out from college and bought her own dress. She bought you a wedding gift and she cared about you and your husband.
You could have put thought into those photographs or at least apologize to her or try to talk to her, but you didn’t do that because you enjoyed how bad she looked, in my opinion. You’re very cruel person, at times.
You should have had a conversation with her and said, “I’m sorry that the photographer wasn’t able to photograph your face so that we could’ve seen what you really looked like that day.” But then you’d have to admit that she’s astronomically better-looking than you and you can’t do that. 
Part of that is a certain heartlessness on your part and immaturity and part of that is that you’re very obstinately competitive. Ben assumed that you were just evil. This is me saying this, not Lacey. 
Ben assumed that you were just heartless and immature. He didn’t realize that you were actually somewhat disturbed but too clumsy and awkward to know how to handle it. And too ashamed of that, to know how to handle that.
And that was the part of you that was competitive. That was the part of you that wanted to make money and live well and kick ass. 
The truth is burdened.
Is it to Ben’s credit that he tolerated that or not? Some might say that he meant well and he thought he could help you be a better person. Other people might think that he was just an absolute jerk. I’m not going to answer that question right now.
Regardless, you have a very strong competitive streak. Kasey.
In every photo Lacey looks bad. From your wedding day. 
And you look good…but you don’t really look like yourself.  Did you look that good?  Yes. But that’s not really what you look like. 
If you get married again, be very careful who you hire for your photographs. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive photographer, but you need to make sure that they are an intelligent, kind person who truly has your best interests at heart.
Lacey would explain what my concerns are, but that would be her being honest and being herself. Because I’m using her vocal cords to explain this, I’m going to be honest with you. You weigh a lot more than you used to. You weigh so much that you’re being judged everywhere you go. Finding a photographer who is not being judgmental, is going to be harder to do. If they get jealous of you because you and your spouse are too happy that day for them to be able to handle, your photographs are going to look atrocious. That would be your second marriage. People are very forgiving of happy first marriages, but they’re more suspicious of second happy marriages. Which is why a lot of people explain way too much. I think you are already doing that with your current partner.
The thing is people want people to be happy but if they’re not happy themselves, they don’t know how to process it anymore. So because your wedding may potentially be colorful…it would seem as though you’d be forgiven as if it was a first wedding…but people nowadays aren’t that kind.
Lacey talks like this and so does Alison, and you assume that they’re insecure pricks who are jealous of you and you get excited. I’m sorry to disappoint you with the truth.
This is an actual warning and a lot of what they say is meant with the same heart and mind.
Neither of them are necessarily judging you for being overweight, stop reading that into what they’re saying. (I’m addressing her right now.)
It’s very possible that you’ll have a photographer who will be jealous of the fact that you and your spouse are really happy.  And if Lacey’s not at the wedding sweetie, it has nothing to do with her.  You won’t be able to blame her or make it about her.  The person you marry this time is too smart to fall for that shit.  She’s not constantly watching you. She barely watches you at all.  So if your spouse hears, you say, “Oh you know it’s Lacey‘s fault.” It’s not gonna work this time.  You’re not hiding yourself as much from your current partner and so you can’t pretend. 
Lacey‘s never been your girlfriend and Lacey‘s entirely heterosexual. I don’t think you are. Kasey, I don’t think you’re entirely heterosexual.
Your current spouse is not going to believe that it’s Lacey‘s fault. And so your current photographer is going to have to deal with you entirely. And if you’re actually happy that day, it has nothing to do with Lacey. It’s you and your spouse. 
And then what? Uh oh! You’re marrying someone that you actually like yourself for your own reasons. And if that photographer gets jealous of you, you might feel guilty for being mean to people when you were jealous. 
I suspect you’re already dealing with issues like that.
People who are jealous assume that it would be so much fun to be on the other end and it’s not.
Admiration is not the same thing as jealousy.
I’m sure you have Lacey‘s admiration, but she’s not jealous of you.
I would hope that you would learn to appreciate her admiration.  If you haven’t already. 
When she likes your photographs, it’s not because she’s pretending to admire you. It’s because she actually does.
There obviously have been people like that or people wouldn’t keep pretending to be that in the way that they do.
And so at your wedding Kasey, be careful. Your photographer will highlight your mid section at the expense of everything else. Despite you for finding something that they can’t find. And that has nothing to do with Lacey. It has everything to do with how lonely people are today in general. 
You could have a family member take your photographs. Someone who actually cares about you and is actually happy for you and admires you.
I’m going to advise Lacey not to go to your wedding simply because I don’t think it’s what’s best. You’ve done very unkind things to her over the years. And it’s actually in your best interest for her not to be there.
She’s not a spiteful person. But you’ve never met Lem. She’s not schizophrenic. And I don’t think he would manifest- But speaking of birthdays…and reincarnation…
*people awkwardly laugh*
I know you’re not in love with Lacey at all in a way that would ever matter. I’m sorry I had to say that. You’re not straight and she is a woman. And you’re very faithful, really. But I have a feeling you had a crush on her when you were a kid. But until you’ve totally processed all of that and how unkind you were to her, it’s not really good for you to be around her in a vulnerable state. She would never freak-out, she’s straight and she would just reject you politely, but I don’t think Lem would handle it that way.
I think it would get very awkward. Because you’re a little psychic. And if you’ve read this blog- You’re gonna pick-up on his energy, you’re gonna hear him somehow, and he’s gonna say something nasty to you, if you step out of line just a little bit. And I mean, just even a smidgen of a-of a fraction. Because you have been hurtful.
I suspect you and Chris are going to get married. You have free will, but that’s what I suspect. I don’t think Chris is gonna be hurt by anything I just said in my theoretical context. But I think that they will be hurt that their wedding is being tainted. Not like they don’t know that you have your own life and that you have a history but, more like, “How dare you make this day about anything other than our happiness!?” 
I think they would like Lacey at your wedding if I understand. But I think until you deal with your childhood and grieve your marriage, it’s a bad idea. 
Lacey is completely straight. Make sure you reassure Chris of that? And your love for her is more like a childhood crush. If you can even call love at all.  You’re only saving grace would be that you’d see her and realize that she’s completely straight and find it unattractive. She’s still very beautiful. So you could be so sophisticated that you can see that but, that’s too much to ask yourself  
I think you’re better off just letting things be what they are.
It’s very sad to me. Because people have told her that you’re shopping for rings for each other. And that’s very exciting to her, but then she has no way of knowing if what she’s hearing is true. And what’s more, she worries about posting jewelry now because she thinks it could be weird.
If she accidentally posts something the same day that you reveal an engagement ring in the next year, please don’t take it personally because it’s not an attack. It’s not an insult. It’s not competition. It’s not her feeling sorry for herself. It has nothing to do with you.
The only thing it has to do with you is that you’re her friend on Facebook and she cares about both of you as much as she’s able to care about the two of you, not knowing Chris almost at all, other than what she sees. You both look very genuinely happy. And being an objective person, she may wonder if she’s wrong, but it’s not like what some people wonder.
So if you’re ever heartbroken by each other, do not assume that she knew that, either.
I think she would probably wanna like your engagement photos if you post them, but she won’t. Out of respect for both of you. Because it’s gonna be too confusing unless if hundreds of people like the photo, and maybe they will. But keep that in mind: it’s not that she’s not happy for you.
Alright, enough about Lacey. Let’s talk about those rings.
That sapphire, especially if it was pink, would’ve been a perfect ring for you. A pink sapphire with little diamonds around it, set in gold.
Why didn’t you make a suggestion to Ben to buy it? Because you’re not straight, Kasey. And it made you feel stupid, because compared to Lacey…you’re SO not straight.
Lem really is her…ideal.
A gay man would never sit and stare at him in awe…terrified he wouldn’t notice him. Lacey does! Every single time she sees him. Not because she’s insecure, because she’s been horrifically abused. …Regardless, he’s her ideal. That’s how heterosexual Lacey is.
Kasey…you would NEVER go for Lem.
*Moloch laughs*
Who do you go for? Chris. A non-binary individual. A warm, feminine, tallish, jaunty sir…who would rather be dancing…
You have very different tastes than Lacey. The thing is…she’s known you for so many years. Your first wedding was so dreary, so here are a few suggestions:
- Have a beach wedding. In the summer or spring. Barefoot. Classy. Late afternoon. Make sure to plan for the weather as much as possible.
- Have a pool party wedding! Rent a luxurious pool or find one available. Have the wedding there.
- Have the wedding somewhere special. Does Kasey still like San Diego?
- Get married on Lake Superior, in the evening, on a boat. A dinner cruise?
- Rent an Airbnb next to Lake Superior, and get married next to a fireplace in February. A small, cozy, quiet wedding. A late afternoon wedding. Semi-formal. Reception nearby.
- Get married next to Lake Superior, without fanfare. Then have your reception at the Boat Club in Fitger’s. That could be very elegant and romantic.
- Get married at Kasey’s grandfather’s spot. On Lake Superior.
- Get married next to Lake Harriet.
- Get married in Kasey’s parent’s backyard.
- Get married in some cool places, like the Bahamas. Or Hawaii. Or Alaska. Or Paris…although that’s tricky. …Maybe, in Germany. …Cornwall?? …Or maybe Duluth. Duluth is a secret.
Keen to Cross the Pond 
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