This little corner of the internet turned twenty on Friday. I would have posted but I keep opening my yapping trap and losing my internet privileges. The blog might be an adult now, but I don't think I ever will be, at least not to Caleb, who controls the flow of information out of the Collective most days, or to Lochlan, who can't be bothered to die on that hill, frankly and I don't blame either one of them. It's a blog, not a big deal really. A place where I overshare and foist my tiny frustrated opinions on everyone and you just take it. You read it and then you probably shake your head and get on with your day.
Yes, imagine me in real life. This is why the boys need naps.
Eighteen years ago I started writing my tiny, stupid opinions on things and telling you about my tiny stupid life from a tiny, stupid brick apartment building, in a crumbling-paint lead-lined fifth-floor walkup a park away from the main thoroughfare through the city.
I took that all down. Then it became After Jake.
Then it really became After Jake because he died and it took me (it's taking me, I mean) the better part of sixteen years to come to terms with the weight of that and how to walk and drag it along with me without becoming out of breath.
That was three addresses ago that I started it. I just remember people kept hitting our car in the parking lot and that's how I met my neighbours, all decent people who would pitch in and help me with the kids on fire-alarm days, anyway. Then we bought the castle, and Trey (Cole) lost his shit and then he lost me and then he lost his life and I started writing like a joyful little maniac, thinking I had all the time in the world, never once turning around to see the freight train coming at me. Of course I never heard it either. I'm functionally deaf and the biggest faker you will ever meet, pretending all the time.
But there is never enough time. Twenty years goes by in the blink of an eye and I am trying and failing to ease myself back into the every day here but it's tough going because I had the wind knocked out of my sails and I don't fight with Caleb much anymore, I just let him shoulder the guilt as I turn away, tucking my shoulders in, putting my head down and going and finding something (or someone) else to do.
I never said I was an angel. That was Lochlan's nickname for me. One of thousands. He still looks at me with rose-coloured pupils and for that I am eternally grateful. They all do. The zookeepers with their little monkey. The wolves with their feral forest girl. I never said I gave up any bad habits I just took a break from writing about them because with the inclusion of possibly two years of the worst medication I have ever been on, you would have thought it was a major Red Flag. Like last time. I get stoned and everyone shrieks that I am being taken advantage of so it's better not to say anything at all.
It isn't them. It never was. It's me. All the time. I take the blame. I am the blame here, every day of my life. Brick by brick, letter by letter, pill by pill.
Happy birthday, blog.
***
I am 1/4 into Yarn Harlot and it's...well? Upsetting. I have trouble reading about people who are wilfully irresponsible. Ironic, isn't it? I guess I hate reading about people who shove their kids aside and maniacally laugh about psychological issues. I have all sorts of those and I still gave my kids my all. I always will. I'm going to stick with it and then maybe burn it in the bonfire later this week. It's a weird navel-gaze, anyway. Maybe it will get better?
***
I finished Gypsy on Netflix. Thank God I watch these things on one and half speed, sometimes two, so as not to waste my own time. Everyone says the actors sound like chipmunks when I do that, but I'm just gleefully content not to have wasted over ten hours. I LOVE LOVE Naomi Watts. I want her to play me in the movie of my life but this was a terrible thing. She was bad, it was bad. Billy Crudup was amazing. It should have been a two hour movie with a murder. Then it would have been okay. Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't have watched it after Penguin Bloom, which was a full-on masterpiece. Doing the lord's work here, as always.
***
Jacob would have loved the way Caleb uses the internet as a reward-based system to keep me in line. He would have laughed in that hoarse, incredulous Newfie twang that rang through the halls when something was that Oh-My-Fucking-God. He and Caleb would have probably killed each other by now if Jacob had been stronger. But he wasn't and so there's that. And I'm sorry this has been eighteen years of strife and misery but like I said, at least it's going along at a rapid clip. Just read it all in a chipmunk voice. It's what I hear when I picture you reading it out loud.