Jesus, take the wheel.

(The title is completely unrelated today. Some days the day is completely unrelated to the day, here. In other words, I'm feeling better so you get the Necro-gnome-icon girl. Enjoy her while she lasts, for I'm sure it won't be long.)

Batman asked me this morning why I cause him so much misery without even being an active part of his life. I shrugged. I'm not actually going to let him put that on me because I didn't ask for his continued presence. I keep trying to get rid of him. He just won't leave.

I don't think it's my fault. I've been fending off his advances for a few years now.

I say now because there was a time when I didn't fend them off. He was a nice reprieve. Actually, I don't think that's it at all. He's always been patient and disapproving and difficult to read and closed and stunningly attentive.

And gosh. He's handsome. And rich too. And he has manners we don't even know yet.

But he won't leave.

I wish I could make him go but he and Ben are up to something and he's doing a little more due diligence with Ben this time so that Ben doesn't wind up leaving part of his soul behind on any more projects. They sort of ruin him. He can't set boundaries (I KNEW THIS PART) and then he just gives all of himself to something and doesn't know what to do with the empty hole when he sends his work out into the universes.

But pshaw, we all knew about the boundaries thing. Right? Right?

Right. Because I saw the silver envelope under Ben's ipad. I saw it but I didn't touch it. And  I don't want to know what it says or when it's for or any of that. Nope. I don't. And I didn't say a thing when the first words out of the client's mouth on the monitor as I left the room were the wish that they could have done this in person, because it would have been so much easier.

I don't agree with that.

I'd rather have Ben here, even if I have to start from scratch to teach him the difference between right and wrong. I don't think he's ever known, frankly.

I don't think I do either.

I'll just call it FacePalm.

Hearing aids. Now. 

Yessir. (I run and fetch them and put them in.)

Wow, you're fast. Now turn them on. 

ARGHHHH. Fine. Just a minute. (I turn them on).

Ready?

Yup. 

How are you feeling, my tiny beelet?

Like shit on a shingle, Benny. I wish you were here. 

I know. I like to argue in person as well. 

I wouldn't fight with you if you wouldn't keep flying off to places I can't go. 

Is that what this is?

Maybe. 

You miss me?

Cleverness really isn't your strong suit, is it?

No, we established that, Bridget. My strong suit is Hearts. 

That was the best comeback ever, Ben.

No, this is: I'm in the driveway. In case you didn't notice your FRONT YARD behind me on the screen. Cleverness isn't your strong suit either. But I knew that already. 

(At least that's what I think he said. I dropped the phone on the carpet and ran right out the front door.).

Still sick. Fever broke yesterday finally. Well, maybe. I hope it stays away. Doritos are good again and I crashed out hard on the living room couch at four yesterday thinking I would close my eyes for twenty minutes and work on my headache and it was so noisy and no one really noticed until BOOM, I woke up and it was almost six and we hadn't even planned dinner and Ben had to leave at seven to catch his plane and I pretty much railed at him for thirty minutes straight, made him a sandwich and refused to end the argument as he was walking out the door. 

Just like Tour! Only for a shorter time period. In other words, I'm still going to remember what I was mad about when he comes back. I'm not sure how that will go exactly but let's hope for the best. After all, he could have done this on a conference call. He could have stayed home to look after me and then he wouldn't a reason to complain that I don't "need" him.

I do. He just is very hard-headed and won't LISTEN.

In other news, my throat now hurts worse than my nose (which is always bad but good, I think) and my head feels like a freight train stopped on it and has no plans of moving forward. Every time I cough it's like being punched right behind the eyes.

So excuse me if I'm a wee little bit crabby today. I have just about reached the point where I'm prepared to auction off another little piece of my highly-mortgaged soul to the Devil so I can feel like a million dollars again.

(That's a figure of speech.)

Back to death I go. Let's try again tomorrow?

Death's Door.

The world is still coming to a rapid end here. I can't breathe at all but the game has just been upped with the most amazing Feel Better present in the universe:

It weighs fifteen pounds at least. It covers the 1870s to 1950s! It's the most beautiful book in the world. I had to put it up at the kitchen counter because it's too big and heavy to rest on my legs to look at in the big chair in the library.

Thank you, Locket. I love it. I love you.

Buckethead.

Benjamin's home. He brought Nyquil from the airport. It had already expired. I didn't say anything. YOLO and all that. I took it anyway. I gather I have fifteen or twenty minutes tops before I'm down for the count or I am fatally poisoned.

Your random email questions today, answered:

1) Yes, I realize 102 degrees isn't death's door. But it's higher than usual and I'm enjoying the hallucinations immensely.

2) PJ's jokes involved indignities to dead bodies. Okay? Happy now? GROSS. I can never ever die. Ever. Ergo, I hope the Nyquil was still good.

3) Loch sang this song on a loop for me and I don't think I realized it for the first three or four renditions:

And if I told you that I loved you
You'd maybe think there's something wrong
I'm not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one
Those who speak know nothing
And find out to their cost
Like those who curse their luck in too many places
And those who fear are lost

He did a good job. He is very tired now and asleep on the floor in the library.

4) Where is Duncan? Oh, dear Internet, you have a crush too. It's okay. We all think he's just the cat's meow. He is also sleeping (not on the floor but on the couch in the theatre room) because he took an additional late evening torture shift and spent five hours listening to me complain. This after spending most of yesterday afternoon listening to me complain.

5) Where is the Devil? Entertaining the children, thankfully. Finally he's doing something HELPFUL.

6) Ben is not in trouble. There's just no point in him sitting around in NYC until Tuesday so he came home for the weekend.  He seems to be convinced that sex, movies and Ketucky Fried Chicken are totally going to fix everything.

I hope he's right.

Oh. Lights out. Holy. 

Worse.

102 degrees (and still far below what everyone's favorite fire eater runs at).

Saw rainbow hedgehogs on the lawn.

Coughed up so much snot I made a very bad joke about snotnauts. Oxygen seems so scarce and I got scared. It took a long time to soothe the panic from coughing so hard you think you'll find a lung in your lap eventually but Lochlan sang and sang and sat up and rocked me like a child and PJ sat on the floor and made bad jokes about things I can't repeat here. Because no one gets how sick we can be and I don't mean snotty-sick.

Dalton brought in juice but I couldn't drink it and basically everyone over twenty has been awake since four this morning.

And Ben too, who got on a plane and will be home any minute now.

Yay!

Iron Maidens and hipster nursemaids.

(Lochlan had a full day of errands to run today out in the valley and so he left me to the Creative Facial Hair Club members. I will exact payback when I feel better.)

Death approaches slowly, walking in sock feet, not making a sound as it advances across the room and crawls into my throat and sinuses. My temperature rockets to a hundred but it's not enough to fry this clear and present danger, intent being to leave no survivors, and no trace that it was ever here.

Today I wandered around the vintage stores in a feverish daze while Daniel tried to get me to approve or dismiss everything he held up. I find four more Louis Vuittons (one real) and a whole herd of Coach bags and a Fendi too. He found a jacket Ruth would love. I just couldn't get my act together to feel good enough to care or buy anything in the end but he managed to drag me to four more stores and then suggest I stop at the insurance company (our broker sold out, ergo new paperwork ten times over) to drop off new cheques so I did that and then I cried Uncle. I wanted soup so we...came home.

Because in Daniel's sheltered universe, BRIDGET makes the soup.

Huh? We could have stopped at five different delis on the way home but instead he just assumed I would feel well enough to make a big lunch.

He went home in a huff, hungry and I threw the bag of clothes he bought right out the door after him. We both miss Ben. Daniel is a closet brat though. He won't admit that something's wrong, he just acts all twitchy and belligerent until I boot him out and then in three or four hours (the time it takes to watch two rom-coms and drink half a bottle of wine alone) he'll slink back over with a big case of the sorries and the Iloveyous. He's nothing like Ben when it comes to fighting. He turtles without any effort at all. It's almost disappointing to argue with him but if it's all the same to you I'd rather not.

Duncan took over control of Princess Ickynose Duty and made soup for me, putting it in my big Chococat mug with a spoon and a bubble-tea straw, on a tray with juice and crackers and then snuggled in with me on the couch with a whole box of tissues to watch The Man Who Laughs. I drank the soup, almost fell asleep and promised myself to campaign for a remake of the film that follows the book a little more closely.

Duncan swore he'll have nightmares for the rest of his life.

I apologized for sneezing on him, but he said that wasn't what he meant.

He turned off the television and the DVD player, closed the curtains and instructed me to sleep until close to dinner time. I obliged willingly and also vowed to someday maybe marry him too, if time permits, since he's surprisingly nurturing for someone so blindingly cool.

In a perfect world:

• All boys give hugs without being asked and don't let go until someone else does first.
• Every romantic lovesong is sung by Corey Taylor (at least in my head. He has a perfect voice).
• No movies are directed by Judd Apatow or Tim Burton.
• Laughter is endless and unable to shut down without herculean effort.
• Money doesn't grow on trees but things are more evenly distributed.
• Lochlan has no temper.
• Neither does (did?) Cole.
• Jake would have had no despair, no hopelessness to offset his flawed faith.
• Jake's faith would have been whole and perfect.
• Sam would not be restless, but content.
• Ruth and Henry are always safe, forever and ever, amen.
• I can park a car without a ten-foot buffer zone in all directions.
• Cotton candy doesn't make my teeth hurt.
• PJ finds what he is seeking.
• I'm not allergic to sunscreen, fabric softener, food coloring or red wine.
• The beach is closer and there are no oil tankers in the harbor (wtf Vancouver?)
• The Atlantic and the Pacific don't have to fight for my loyalty.
• Chocolate cheesecake is easier to find.
• My favorite television show (Revolution) moves to 7:00 PM instead of 10:00. 
• My narcolepsy gets cured by something stupid, like chocolate cake. (Sadly I tried this already and it did not work.)
• Caleb would find a hobby (besides making money, collecting things and...chasing me.)
• The wind would disappear.
• The cherry blossoms would stay up in the trees where they belong.
• I wouldn't have to wait so long for the third book in the Divergent series.
• Ben would retire now instead of in thirty years time.
• August would come back. 
• I am never sad about things beyond my control.
• God pays attention to me.
• I can hear. I can hear you. I can hear everything.

We call it Heartbreak Point because we're dramatic like that.

Ben is still in New York, probably eating his weight in pizza with one hand while signing contracts with the other. Batman will keep him out of trouble but they won't be back until at least next Tuesday. Why? Because it's March break, people are away and so they have to wait until those people come back.

I see the irony in this and I decline to even fight about it. Ben will work himself to death and I'll stand there with my shovel, damp earth weighing down the blade, splinters in my fingers from the handle and I'll tell him I told him so, just not out loud.

Caleb took his life in his hands today (as if it is ever anywhere else) and brought over a new envelope today. A big manila one with Lochlan's name on it.

What is this?

 The proposal he would like. 

What do you mean?

Read it and see. 

But Lochlan didn't read it, he burned it because he doesn't care. Or maybe because he does. It was sort of a relief to see it go away again without the weight of Caleb's blood spilled on the pages or my soul dissected in print for all to see. We didn't grow up when everyone else did, you see. We're stuck. Wedged between seasons, trapped under age.

Argh. Now I'm curious, Loch says with regret. I can't fight him blind. 

Never stopped you before. 

True, he says ruefully. You know, I think maybe we should take a trip.

Memories of flying down the Oregon coast, an angry mob chasing us the whole way rises in my throat like bile. No, I'm fine right here, Locket. 

I mean a real trip, Bridget. I think I'd like to take you home now. Overseas, I mean. Maybe we could do Ireland, too.

I don't believe him for even a moment and so I smile and indulge his thoughts as he spends them out wistfully out loud against the wind. Dreams and magic are his only currency here. He knows it will never happen. He knows we'll die here on this point, sandwiched between spring and fall, between the angels and the devils, the living and the dead, the carnies and the gravemakers too.

I don't think I gave us any other choice.

Don't shoot me down
While I'm awake
They've set the traps
I'm gonna stay

So I need to know your name
I'm gonna stay
I need you to do the same

Same conversation, totally different subjects.

Stop staring. What is so fascinating anyway?

You are. 

No, I'm not. 

On the contrary. 

I finally resort to staring back. He is studying my eyes. Maybe waiting for them to change from faded glass-green to washed-out watered-down turquoise and back to green again. They do that, based on my moods. If you look on my bare back there's a switch you can flip to see them do it when you get tired of waiting for them to shift naturally.

 All I can think of is those years in between when I was very young and now that have caused my complete and utter disdain for my own appearance. At a glance I'm still pretty, depending on how fast you look or how drunk you are. Upon closer inspection age and time and circumstance and death have cast a slight pall, softening beauty into something else. I still have short legs, no ass and childish hands but now my eyes have lines from squinting, I have black circles under them that just won't quit, my hair is fading to ash and my translucent skin is striking, startling. The road map of veins across my chest, hands and legs precludes looking good naked. Naked, I think I look like a map of the human condition.

Or something small and freakish that belongs in a jar.

And scars. Not sure which ones horrify more, the surgical ones (from being too ridiculously tired and small to give birth to ten-pound babies without help), the permanent marks Cole left on me that he thought no one would ever find (everyone found them) or the little white checkmark directly under my nose from where I tried to impress Lochlan by trying out his skateboard. I hit a rock and french-kissed the pavement. I also broke three teeth during that little stunt, ironically.

(Because, you know, I somehow wasn't smart enough to remember that I had already impressed him walking a wire sixty feet up in the air in front of hundreds of people. Or waking a burning wire eight feet off the ground while hungry, while there was a price on my head.

I can do that. But a skateboard? I can't ride a skateboard, those things are deathtraps.)

Enough, I tell him. Stop looking at me.

Why? I could never get tired of looking at you.

You're so...weird.

You're the one with the checkmark on your face.

Wow, Loch. Pretty good coming from someone who burned all his arm-hair and most of his fingernails off trying to learn to juggle fire.

I succeeded though. You still can't ride a skateboard. Oh and everything I lost grew back. I didn't think your scar would be there forever.

It could still heal. Forever's not finished yet.

EXACTLY MY POINT! THANK YOU!