On not getting out in time.

False start.

We're actually leaving in a few hours for the farm. We'll do a bedtime run so that the kids can sleep in the truck the whole way. Now that Caleb has left, now that Ben is okay again. You know, the usual. I wasn't going to drive in the blizzard, by myself with the kids last night. I much prefer to sit and not pass unspoken judgement and listen as Ben drives and tries all kinds of different angles, first for indignation, then justification, then for forgiveness. As if saying a certain number of words changes a thing.

Does it?

Would it, I mean?

It's not up to me to justify or forgive. It's not up to me to be angry with him just like it's not up to him to be angry with me for trying to sidle out of a decision that was reached on my behalf so that all interested parties would retain their unrestricted access to me and the rest would be absolved as long as that access was maintained. I wasn't aware of such an agreement and thought I might have a say in whether or not I keep my job. The 'job' description so loosely defined at this point I'm just about ashamed of myself, and I haven't done anything that wasn't (isn't) fully sanctioned.

The only thing I was aware of was that everything was beginning to fall apart and I was trying to head that off.

So I don't know what I've done but it's gotten very complicated and so I'm glad we're going away. We can sort it all out with the horses and the snowmobiles and some pond hockey and be all Kinkade-Christmas-card about it and if we can make it pretty enough maybe it will taste better.

Or maybe it will poison us for good.

Leaving well enough alone.

I'm taking a half-dozen of my slednecks and the two wee ones and we're going to the farm for the weekend. Daniel is going to stay in the house and oversee the menagerie and on Monday I will be back. It's been a long week. Too long, maybe, and it's the danger time of year. You thought that would be November? Fuck you, February came pre-programmed. I HATE February with the passion of a thousand vestal virgins confronting a ship full of recently released gladiators. Yes, THAT much.

Wait, I'm not even sure that makes any sense. I don't care, my head hurts.

Here's to rested adults and children and calming influences. Here's to a quiet few days with nothing but fire and snow. Here's to learning something new.

Here's to quitting my job, effective at noon today. I'm such a chicken. I waited until I knew Caleb would be gone for a lunch meeting and I put my letter of resignation on his desk. Along with that pretty brand-new Blackberry Bold.

It's okay, this is a good thing.

(Except for giving back that phone...I really liked the phone.)

Mother****ing GPS.

When push comes to shove, and shove isn't happy, she goes to her new hideout. An out of the way theater high above street level where they show subtitled foreign films twenty-four hours a day. It smells like spilled martinis and burned coffee but it's warm and the old Italian couple who run it are friendly and the seats are so comfortable you can fall asleep sitting up. Which is what I did. This morning. Because when you can't run then you must hide.

Next time you hide you might want to leave the Blackberry Bold at home so that your boss won't find you so easily and show up beside your seat. And then join you for the remainder of the film that you didn't care for in the first place or you wouldn't have fallen asleep, now, would you?

For the record, I was not watching Tokyo Gore Police. I did not get fired, either.

Why I never listen to the radio.

This is my life
Its not what it was before
All these feelings I've shared
And these are my dreams
That I'd never lived before
Somebody shake me
Cause I must be sleeping

Now that we're here,
It's so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
All the mistakes one life contained
They all finally start to go away

If you could understand how incredibly exposed I feel most of the time, wide-open to the thoughtless comments, unintended love songs and unpredictable memories that most people would not give a second thought to, you might see me differently.

In other words, look left. I got a whole playlist up, which will change as often as the weather. This should get about two hundred of you off my back. Finally. I only wish I was kidding.

Now, congratulations to all you American readers. It looks like you finally have the change you've waited so patiently for. Could you please stop hosing my internet now? Thank you. See you tomorrow.

This is actually less about the computer than I am about to lead you to believe.

You see
The things I cannot change
The things that make me plain
Lift me up my soul's so hollow
Lift me up

In site news, if you are rightside up and navigate toward the left side of your screen, there's a new widget there that will feature whatever song is embedded in my skull presently. When said song leaves my head I will update with whatever replaces it. If and when I figure out how to present an entire Bridget-playlist (you know you want the lap dance list) I'll let you know.

Might be a while. For a prime example of how technologically impaired I can be, please feast your eyes on these words of mine typed on a a brand new Aspire notebook, because it only took me sixteen months to murder the Presario I had previously. I used it too much and burned it right out by leaving it on twenty-four hours a day.

Whoops.

Luckily there was a knight nearby and he rode in on his horse and swept me right off my feet, to Futureshop, where he presented a gift to me, a new box full of beautiful new squee-rrific (Hmmmmm, that word contains both queer and queef. FASCINATING.) laptop. And said princess swooned and kissed the knight and dammit if they didn't go back to the castle post-haste and set up the new technology and the tears of the princess dried and all was well in the kingdom once again.

I am not all that high maintenance most of the time, and while Ben is not prone to indulging in princess-complexes and much prefers that I just deal with it and oh my God please don't cry and anything else he can do to pretend there is no crisis, he's awfully good at being the knight in shining armor, don't you agree?

I thought you might. Because I can be shallow and he can be sweet, even though neither one of us would ordinarily cop to such pedestrian labels.

And so this morning I ran down past the river in the newly melting snow and warmer temperatures to clean the snow off the benches and visit with the ghosts of laptops past. I sat down for a minute to say hello, because sometimes that's what I do, and then to my surprise hello didn't come out of my mouth. Instead it was something else entirely, something I didn't really understand until much later this morning. I said two words to them, and two words only, and then I turned around and ran home.

He's perfect.

Embedded footnotes and a whole bunch of proof that I do listen to PJ's suggestions.

Today's favorite quote: Creepy: Weird with romantic intent.

Today's music includes but is not limited to Chevelle, Trapt, Rev Theory, Deepfield, Crossfade and Allele. More Submersed. Feel better now, PJ?

Today's menu includes hot applesauce and crumpets for breakfast, grilled cheese and fruit salad for lunch and homemade vegetarian pizza and salad for dinner with generous handfuls of pistachios in between.

Today's activities include but will not be limited to sleigh ride sermons, long honest talks, playing in the snow in the backyard, baking brownies, watching movies on Ben (the movies will not be played on Ben because I don't do human projection. I will lie on him and watch them because he is comfortable) and surfing new skate prices because Henry is growing by the day, possibly by the hour and any tattoo budget I had allotted for the spring will now be re-allocated for a entire new wardrobe for this gigantic kid. The huncles* have proclaimed that Henry will be as big as they are soon enough. I find that funny, seeing as how Cole was under 5'11". My children belong to all of them too.

*Today's new word is HUNCLES. Since I get tired of writing honorary uncles, and if I just use uncles, everyone assumes I have over a dozen brothers and I actually don't have any. The boys, my friends, all serve as uncles for the kids because they've always gone above and beyond, filling in as babysitter, friend, dad, uncle, brother, whatever we've ever needed, so huncles it is. (Maybe hunkles would be even better.)

Mmmm...hunkles.

Today's mindset is silly, as you can plainly see. A hell of a far cry from yesterday. Thank goodness. I may change my mind after I meet with Sam, so that's why I'm posting before lunch!

Byes for now.

Aptly Named.

I can love you I can love you, I can love you a lot,
I can love you, I can love you, I can love you a lot,

I'm here and I wonder if I'm lost
because I can't seem to understand the way I feel.
I'm not here to be a creep.
I'm just feeling incomplete.
Take me home.

There are worse things than having the Crush (or Submersed, for that matter) lodged in one's head.

The purpose of the bridge is to build the tension leading up to the climax of the song or to lead a song to its conclusion.

There are worse things than that girl with the cake fetish at the market holding the strawberry profiteroles, that one who held on to them too long with no intentions of ever eating them again and finally was persuaded to put them down even though she was thinking because in the real world it doesn't take three hours to pick up some things for the coming week.

It doesn't overwhelm others to have a few things go wrong. Drop a glass, break a key, forget some paperwork, drive in snow. It doesn't occur to them that 'personal assistant' means nothing of the kind and maybe personal doll would be a better job description. It doesn't occur to any of them that when life goes on after they break their key and get a new one that hopefully it will be the last bad thing that happens for a while because they have no concept of what it means to take years to find your way back to a place where the little things don't cause you to have a total breakdown at six in the morning on a snowy Saturday.

It was the perfect, sheltered chance for some self-rescue. I grabbed the H CD (long story but I made a whole pile of mixtapes for the car, with songs from each letter of the alphab-nevermind, that would only appeal to the music geeks, and according to PJ I am not hardcore enough for any of them to read here) and we set off, listening to Hollow and by the time we got to Home, I had checked off a whole bunch of things on a list that didn't even exist three days ago and I was secretly planning a reward or two in my head and soon enough I was pulling up in front of my house and Hell had just started playing.

I think my stereo is trying to tell me something.

Somewhere out there is a wicked thrashing song about broken glass, keys and decapitated dolls that has a simple chorus about learning to calm the fuck down, with an epic bridge. They always have a good bridge. And it's always my favorite part.

Surprise surprise.

Eleven minutes of princess bowling.

And if you could make up
For every single time you lied
I'd probably whisper this
Hello, Goodbye
And so it begins again
Harder each and every time
I start to reminisce
I never seem to ever find

Someone I can trust
Someone I believe
Someone who will never try
To bring me to my knees
Someday I will find again
Someone just like me
Someone who will take the time
In understanding me

That was all there was time for, consensus being that it was too damned cold for any fun outside today. If I sit down on the ice and hug my knees to my chest, Ben will give me a mighty shove and drill me right into the guys on the other side of the river. If he knocks someone over with me he gets 500 points. If I bounce off he loses 500 points. It's an ongoing, multi-year thing and we have lost track of the scores.

You think that's strange, you should see how fast Ben can whip Daniel across the ice, since he's not afraid to actually use his strength with Dan. The children have even gotten good runs by sitting down and holding on to the end of Ben's goalie stick while he skates in a wide arc and then they let go and glide for hundreds of feet if the ice has been swept. It's like curling with children instead of stones.

We didn't knock anyone down today (if you call that 'standing', Schuyler) and the kids didn't miss any fun by being in school because like I said, it's too cold. It should be warmer this weekend. Perhaps we will try again.

There will always be second chances. And sometimes, if we're lucky, thirds.

(PS The only actual rule in place for Ice People Bowling is that it must be followed by a leisurely hot lunch somewhere nice. No one would dare break that one. No one ever has, anyway.)

Calm down, now shut up.

Not much to say
No alibi
For my selfish fear
And my foolish pride

The past few days have been an interesting ride of almost-drama, certain-drama and nearly-missed drama. There is no dearly-missed drama, thank heavens. Lochlan is home, far far away from here, reunited with his daughter after a month apart and now happily ensconced in a city that's just about as cold as this one. Caleb consented to a third day off based on the weather, the difficult week and because he couldn't answer when I asked him what he might possibly need me to do that I didn't take care of already or couldn't take care of on Monday. And Seth left a couple of hours ago, relieved to get on a plane that will take him back home to California where he will live in his bland seasonless sunshi-okay, fine, I'm jealous of that right this moment.

Ben and I are on our own once again and it's nice but a little scary too. The lack of sleep this week coupled with our spectacular, consistent track record means that inevitably, we will find some drama to make.

Eventually.

But for now, it's cold and I have a sunny window seat to lounge on, a fully-charged laptop, a boatload of editing to get done so I can catch up to where I need to be and a huge bowl of red pistachios to eat for lunch.

Bliss, for the moment.

There will be no drama today, because it's one of those days where we are oh so aware that it lurks in the shadows waiting to pounce, and we went around and turned on all the lights today. There are no shadows.

Not today.

Countess von Backwards and her howling wolves.

I'm going to run some numbers for you this morning.

Yesterday was 2 minutes and 9 seconds longer than the day before.

I have had 4 hours of sleep, bringing me to a total of 10 for the week.

The windchill right now is -50 and once again I'm keeping myself and the children home. The school buses are not running, it would be an academic throwaway day for them anyway so we may as well be home and indoors. Even though by 2 pm they will be insane. By 4pm I will be.

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

Lochlan's flight leaves in 35 minutes. Last night he stayed here, since I live closest to the runway and he wanted extra time. I wanted extra time. We won't see each other again until April and so it had to end on good terms at least but it isn't anymore because we can't seem to agree on anything save for the fact that we want to remain close, probably for different reasons, so yeah, I won't attempt to explain it to the world at large.

Seth leaves tomorrow at 12. Hopefully second time is the charm for Ben. Cross your fingers.

My house will hold 4 people once again instead of 6.

I'm up to 17 on my apocalypse list for 2009. I need to get to 100 and then I'll post it. Notice you've never heard about it before, since I've never gotten to 100. It's the list of all the things you want to accomplish before the apocalypse and each year that the apocalypse fails to occur, you must make a new list. Some people call them '100 things to do before I die' lists. Everything has an apocalypse-spin here instead (even the cupcakes). But with regard to the list, PJ was at 100 in less than 15 minutes flat. I believe it's a list of 99 celebrities he wants to sleep with, and me.

Finally, I am 1 cup of coffee short of a full attention span and working on changing that as we speak.

Tomorrow I'll be writing from work because unfortunately the world does not stop for cold snaps. Not like in my universe, anyway. The one with yearly almost-apocalypses, sleepless nights, frozen intentions and revolving doors.

And Sesame Street. Because if you're home and it's early, you may as well catch up on vintage muppet goodness.