Around the time my paths totally innocuously crossed with Brand’s [ fun fact: he’s the only ‘comedian ‘ I ever paid to go see perform] there was alot of BS and blacklisting afoot in my life due to liars.

It was in that season that I learned to let what people who knew better but still chose to believe mess about me be the heavenly vetting that it was. They hated that they had seen I was ‘good’…so they glommed on to the most obviously false accounts of me as their raison d’etre… and I fought with no one to keep them in my life.

I had No friends… and it was truly one of the first happiest seasons of my adult life.

I remember being asked about it, solely because I’d just seen his show the night before.

I was asked by someone who had ALL THE FRIENDS, you know?

Who literally couldn’t fathom walking around in this world solo.

Had friends falling out his earlobes kinda guy…except not one of his friends told him the truth about him and his behavior. They all looked the other way and partied on, on his tab.

I remember that guy’s look … his face as he did the actual math. He could tell whomever was in his ear was lying about me. He could tell it was untrue, all the dank shit being said.

He didn’t believe them. About me. At all. I knew it. I could see it. But he didn’t comprehend why I didn’t fight back. Why I was letting the lies stand. He was weirded out by whatever God whispered in his head as he processed xyz.

When he fell (& we all do)… they scattered like rats. Then a clutch of them scurried back in to “eat” what they could. Because he’d already always been the actual feast.

I folded all that into the kairn that crossing paths with Brand was over the years. Because even then, Brand’s personal narrative was shifting in a way that a lot who stamped him as Bacchus were not going to like the diminished ROI on.

So I get why that’s frothed back up in this season. I really haven’t bothered with many friendships since that season…and it was a long time ago. I have my crew. But most importantly it’s cool to see the evolution of just how deeply now I have my self,& to remember what all that developed self love stemmed from. And to thank it.

It was then that God folded Brand’s arc into the inspiration for Hezuz. That crossroads for me. &in the final book of Empyrean, I get to see the climax of all that. Before you guys do… when I finally publish it.

…so I do not take lightly this turn of events in Russell’s life. It actually makes sense of where Hezuz’s tale left off in Elision, book eight, before I veered into the madness of Elysum.