Good things come in big packages.

There was a surprise waiting for me in the porch when I came back from walking the dog.

It was over six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes.

It's name is Benjamin, my surprise. And in eighteen hours he'll be gone again.

The long, breathless kiss was followed by a big goofy grin because he knew I never expected him home tonight. I only get him until early tomorrow morning so I must go and make the best of the time we have.

So HEY.

I think I'll post all day and just drive everyone crazy.

I am not dating Ben Folds. But thanks for playing, whoever emailed me their triumphant discovery. Ben is not that Ben. Oh, and please stop guessing.

I found the coolest thing on Etsy this morning. I need a pear cozy for my favorite snack because my pears get mushed in my huge bag.

The laundry is still not dry. Dryer-repairman wasn't one of Jacob's strong suits. One of few flaws overall or the least of many, your call.

Blinded by what I hear.

    Something that I felt today, something that I heard
    Swinging from the chandeliers, hanging on your word
    I remember watching you once upon a time
    Dancing from across the room in another life
I finished Ben's new scarf. Black and grey stripes like the little guy at the beginning of the Horton Hears a Who trailer. He can layer it over his headphones and ignore the world as he walks in his own, hands strumming to whatever plays on his iPod, eyes seemingly unfocused but missing nothing, an instinctive peripheral vision that borders on spooky.

When I put on my headphones, also threaded under and up over a handknit scarf, fuzzy pink mohair that I usually wind up picking off my tongue for hours afterward, I launch myself onto another planet where I am blind but my hearing is perfect, one where oxygen comes in the form of musical notes and I walk a rhythm on bars and tabs. The one where a freight train could sneak up on me and I would chose to ignore the blaring horn in favor of a great lead from a long-dead musician, or beauty in a lyric I'd concentrate hard to remember, to bring the words back home while that engine leaves streaks of paint on my skin and tears my clothes to ribbons, leaving me a memory for someone else to keep or shove away.

He worries about me. I have been glued to headphones of one size or another, one quality or better for most of my days, and I still haven't learned how to watch where I'm going or how to avoid a train.

I'm going to run out of wood (please, no jokes).

What do you get when you add a blowtorch and then ice water to a bowl of vintage marbles?

You get crackley marbles. Which look very pretty.

It's so cold here we have resorted to fire games to have fun (and to think I picked on my neighbor for a similar stunt a while back). Because seriously, the windchill was so low this afternoon that when I walked over to get the kids from school I had to unclench everything from the full-body kegel I was doing.

I bribed John this evening to bring in as much wood as I could make space for. I don't plan to let the stove go out until this latest gale is over. I suppose I should bribe him to stick around and keep me warm but Butterfield has that covered. As long as I sleep in Ben's bed instead of mine, that is.

Ten more whole days.

And I am still doing very well. The emails have been very sweet and supportive. You guys seriously rock. I'm not the easiest girl to come and read, I know. It means the world that you do anyway.

Unpopular.

    When are you gonna come down
    When are you going to land
    I should have stayed on the farm
    I should have listened to my old man

    You know you can't hold me forever
    I didn't sign up with you
    I'm not a present for your friends to open
    This boy's too young to be singing the blues

It's a good day for a long overdue barometer, isn't it? The sparrows are back, the chickadees are outside shivering on a blindingly sunny morning. The kids are (somewhat) healthy, I fell asleep on PJ late last night while I waited for him to pass me back my phone, Ben again checking in before bedtime. I woke up on the couch this morning, fully clothed, PJ had locked up and gone home and set my phone to go off at six. He is all sorts of awesome. At 6:02, Ben called and told me his revised coming home date. March 17. Eleven days!

Speaking of dates:

February 12 was the last time I went to therapy.

February 24 was the last day I swallowed a pill.

Just thought you should know.

How am I doing? Fucking great. As in, really fucking great. The fog is starting to lift. I'm not dizzy or hungry or shaky or quite as foggy. I'm not spending my moments mired in working my brain and my heart as if they were ever supposed to be some sort of cohesive mechanism. I'm not missing Jacob because I just don't think about it. I pretend he never happened. I just glom onto PJ and wait for Ben to come home and cook and clean and write and shop and life is quietly like it's supposed to be.

I couldn't do it anymore. They kept forcing me to confront things I would rather forget. I'm going to do this my own way, or rather, no way at all. I'm just going to mash the gas and watch the scenery race by until where I am looks new and unfamiliar and like a place that I could spend a while. My mental Veyron, she is gunning for me to hurry up.

I don't want to think about Jacob . I can't. I can't. I can't.

It's one thing for life to be a circus. It's quite another to be strangled by one's own safety nets. I just couldn't do it anymore.

I'll be okay. I am always okay. I always come out somewhere in the middle. I will keep writing.

Don't yell at me, internet. Say your peace if you must but do it in lowercase, please.

Pressed for time.

The highlight of this evening would have been knocking over a whole row of Ben's books and discovering a lovely collection of pressed lilacs between the pages of the heaviest hardcover he owns (a Poe collection, I have the duplicate). When I asked him about them he asked me if I remembered the first day I was able to go for a walk after Cole lost it all over me and Ben picked enough lilacs to fill three vases because I love them?

Same ones.

You're flooring me with this, Benjamin.

What?

Were you going to give them to me or something?

No.

No?

No, I was just keeping them because it was a good day for us, we had a nice afternoon that day.

Yeah we did, didn't we?

Please. You were so high on Vicodin you had no idea.

I knew I was loved by you. And I loved you too.

Yeah? That's good. That makes me glad.

He had to go then, before I got a chance to tell him that it makes me glad too.

Mmmm, carbs.

Three posts a day. Hi, I don't have enough to do this week. No, actually I've gotten way better at time management. I'll tell you about that later though.

In case anyone thought I was moping or somehow ruined you should guess again. August is here, we're making baked eggs in bologna cups (recipe here) and watching episodes of Metalocalypse on youtube.

Place your bets on whether or not August plans to eat any of this stuff.

And I'm FINE. Really. I'm totally fine. Whatever. I'm used to losing people I love now.

Bye bye, Dr. Perfect.

Well, that was interesting, anyway. It might have been nicer to duct-tape me to a bed and play Freebird on a loop.

Remember a while back I mentioned Joel was having some career issues? There was an internal review, and among other things, he had blurred some lines between being my psychoanalyst and my friend. We had pretty much picked up the latter before dropping the former and it wasn't exactly cool to do so. The lines remained blurred for the last ten months as he dispensed free therapy and pills and offered to marry me to keep me away from demons.

Needless to say, he was offered a lateral move to keep his job, working on the courts side of things so that he has less chance to fall for young widows and mess up on the job.

Joel declined the forensic position and destroyed our friendship in one go. Want to know how? By accepting an offer to go and work for Caleb's firm doing in-house counseling and resolving management disputes. A lovely high-paying white-collar gig that is about as redundant as the last seven inches of my hair. Good, go. Have fun in hot potato town.

In all opinions, this is for the best. Only with a ten-month old friendship I see no need and have no impetus to try and salvage anything. We have no history to soften this betrayal.

Ben says good, Dr. Perfect needed to go, baby.

Let's just countdown to the first time Caleb pulls out his happy pack and Joel gives up every last nugget of Bridget-lore that he keeps inside, shall we? Sure, I'm 'legally' protected, and if you believe that I have a Bridget I can sell you. Because this is nothing but another attempt by my brother in law to hit me where it hurts while he soothingly tells me we're even. I'm sad that Joel chose this. He used to sit with me, always hunched down into his shirt collars and slid-down in his seat and tell me that some people were incredibly skilled in manipulation and now he's been manipulated too.

The downside of Caleb checkmating me is that in order to use what I have against him I'll be subjected to the mother of all premiere screenings and I'd really like to avoid that so I wind up squished once again between the brick wall and concrete one, because over the past while I've decided I do care if my friends see that movie. I'd really rather they didn't.

Casualties of war.

This had less to do with you than you think it did, Bridget.

How dumb do I look?

Dumber than I first imagined. I simply saw a need and filled it. I pick from a pool of people I know I can work with.

No, you exploited a weakness and you're going to chew him up and spit him out.

He is an adult. He could have said no.

Your money, your power makes that too hard for most.

It worked for you and your new boyfriend.

We learned the hard way.

Yes, precisely. Anyway, I only called to tell you there's no reason preventing him from remaining your friend.

It isn't possible anymore. Not if he's working for you.

Joel is a professional, Bridget.

He never was with me, that's how he wound up in this situation.

And that is a gift you should be exploiting, princess.

What makes you think I'm not?

See, we could have teamed up and the whole world would have been our oyster.

Last time I had oysters I got food poisoning, Caleb.
I hung up to the sound of his laughter.

Cosmic jokes aside.

Every lament is a lovesong.
If I could do it all again would I? The answer is still yes.

I must be a goddamned trampoline. Or a masochist. Okay, yes. We all know the answer to that one. Give her a little pain and she's so alive.

Give her a little more and watch her try and fight back.

God has his hand on my forehead and I'm swinging and kicking with every ounce of my strength and he just laughs and laughs. Or so it feels, sometimes.