Whirl.

You know those moments when you're dumbstruck at finding out that someone really was listening while you prattle on and on endlessly?

Yes. That was my weekend. Not the prattling on part, the dumbstruck one.

The heated 'cottage' Ben hinted at over his shoulder which I had to jump to catch because he's very tall (don't talk away from me) and I'm very small (and almost deaf besides) was an eight-bedroom picture-perfect house with a path that led straight to the beach and is so not available in the off-season I don't even begin to want to guess what he paid for it. All I was permitted to do was breathe and walk on the beach and draw a little and ask when I wanted orange juice. I was not permitted to wear any clothing after dark, blow out any candles I might come across or worry about anything, which is easier said than done but I might have pulled it off.

Sometimes Ben can be the weirdest, most closed-in person, running ahead of life on a slightly-different plane than everyone else, being strange and difficult and aloof and quiet and hard to read and just when I think he doesn't hear me or notice me or cave to my whims (as extravagant as they can be), he strikes me dumb and hits every last detail and then a whole bunch more that I didn't think to consider. He says he hates the princess complex as much as every other human being I've ever spoken to and then he goes and perpetuates it to the extent that I am left stunned by how much he loves me.

There is a reason the house isn't available year-round. The wind was freezing cold and relentless, ice choked off the surf, the rocks slippery along the breakwater and the nights so dark and desolate you wondered if you reamined on earth, or still yet, if anybody else did.

Ben brought the light with him, having bought fireworks and dozens of candles in town, for the three-point-two seconds we lasted outside after he set off the fireworks and I clapped my hands appreciatively. We ran back to the house and once inside he locked the door behind us and shoved his freezing cold hands under my coat, my shirt, against my skin and ran them down into my jeans and I howled and beat on his arms and he just laughed and pinned me harder until I was begging for things I usually fight against.

Of the thirty-six hours I was AWOL from home, I was in Ben's arms, nose pressed way up against his collarbone for thirty and the other six I was hand in hand with him, our fingers woven together and locked tight in a way that kind of makes you throw away the past in a huge rush of empty cold space that vanishes forever and you were glad you couldn't feel it when it left you because it would have been the most unpleasant experience you could ever imagine.

I never see Ben that relaxed. Ever.

Early this morning I opened my eyes to the fleeting sun and then he blocked it out, looking down at me and saying he wished we didn't have to but he had to get me home and then he had to fly back to where work is right now but on Saturday he is home again. For a while.

We packed up our things and took the house keys to the owner in town and then the happiness drained out of Ben's eyes as we drove to the airport to get on planes again. He didn't have enough time to come all the way home and see the kids. We parted ways at Logan because he thinks somehow I can manage flying home alone, and I proved that I can.

He went straight through to his gate after leaving me at mine and then when there was no time left he came back and kissed me so hard my whole face tingled the whole way home and I came out of arrivals by myself to August's easy hand with my fingers on my lips, once again holding fast to blow those hollow kisses that are never caught.

Just like that.

Did you have a good time?

Yeah, we did. It was incredible.

Then what's wrong?

Not enough time.

Hey, he'll be home before you know it.

I know.

I'm sure they think we just argued the entire time, or maybe we just didn't get enough time to unwind because of the urgency of the trip and the insane timeline we met but they don't really get it. I took a full breath while I was there, a deep one, the kind that fills up your whole body right down to your toes. I didn't think about anything. I left my ghosts at home, which is something I've been learning to do with little success up until now, and I felt like I was normal. Average. Alive, even.

It's amazing how the past three days could fly past but the next three will crawl. Worth it, though. Worth it by far.

Make it up to me.

Choose your words
Choose them wise

Far be for me to ever keep up. All week long I really thought that, judging by the hints Daniel has been dropping, that Ben was planning to fly me to New York to meet up with him for the weekend, that he had asked Lochlan up here to share babysitting duties with Daniel and PJ and also keep me from going left of centre field in the meantime, as in Keep her out of the pantry until I can get her down here with me and apologize to her face for the last time I was home.

I was mentally plotting dresses to pack.

I won't need any of them but we're still taking off.

He's rented a heated cottage somewhere but he won't tell me where, only that it's on a beach and that I won't need any clothes except warm ones for when we get off the plane, and he's got almost two days to make up last weekend to me and all of that will involve fresh memories but he said it in his growly voice and he didn't say fresh, he said flesh and he laughed and then I was laughing too because if anything, we need some fresh memories but I liked his pun anyway.

So yeah, no posts. No kids. No friends. Just Ben. Just me. Just the ocean roaring in my ears and his breath roaring against my skin and with any luck I will melt into a puddle of bliss and come Monday I will be poured back into my usual haunt here at the kitchen table in something resembling the previous Bridget-form, only more rested, less resentful and hopefully gloriously wind and stubble-burned.

High notes.

If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?

Hug.

Seriously.

Hug.

Bridget, you're impossible.

Oh, now you're making me sad. Can I have a hug?

Sure, I'll be home tonight.

Are you serious?

Yes.

Yay! So why did you ask me what I wanted to do?

Well, I could have gotten us tickets to the Coney Island freakshow and I was waiting for you to say "See a freakshow." when I asked what you wanted to do. Then when you did, I would have said "Well, I just happen to have tickets to one." and then you would have laughed and it would have been cool but it didn't work and now I just have to be witty and cool with no material to work with.

Oh, see, now, someone REALLY NEEDS a hug. Come home, I have lots.

Then why did you say you needed one?

I don't like my own, silly. Only ones from other people.

Mourning routine.

Morning comes so early as I open my watercolored green eyes to greet almost complete darkness, still, at this hour.

I don't need an alarm anymore, I have trained myself to wake up just before my nightmare hour and so the house rests silent and still, cats and children, two to a bed, slumbering through the final few hours before their own days begin. I turn over onto my stomach and grope for my hearing aids, popping in the right one first and then the left, since my right ear is worse, though that is a myth, both ears share the same degree of loss.

I crawl out of bed and pull on the pink flannel bottoms that I discarded to the floor the night before. They seem to go well with Ben's faded black Affliction t-shirt that has become my security blanket when he is away. I sit up slowly and take a sip from the enamel mug on the nightside table. Both the mug and the table are dressed in chipped white paint and heavy use. I'm not sure I won't get lead poisoning from either one, eventually. I make a face at no one at the taste of warm orange juice and stand up, stretching my arms high above my head, then combing my hair away from my eyes in an impatient and often-repeated gesture. I grab my phone off the table and wish for faster nightfall already. First.

I check the kids, finding their lumps under heated blankets where I last safely left them, smaller furry lumps at the foot of each bed that purring greetings on guard and I back away down the hall, turning and heading for the steps, bare feet already sure of where the worst creaks of the wooden floor lie and moving to avoid them.

When I enter the kitchen I push on the ancient ceiling light, a beautiful embellished glass dome that I can't bear to remove, and the harsh glow flickers on full after a two-second hesitation. I squint at the sudden intrusion to the relative peace of the dark and then the phone rings in my hand, a buzzing irritant, a life saver, and I jump ten feet on the inside, disordering my brain and loosening my teeth.

I jab the answer button and Benjamin's voice floods into my skull, soft words to greet me, to confirm his missing us, to repeat his love from so far away. He has a pattern. Ensure that everything is alright and then detract from my plans, needing confirmation I won't step outside alone in the dark, wanting to close the space between us with more than our imaginations for resource.

We fail and say goodbye and then I blow him an invisible kiss, two fingers pressed against my lips and my eyes water up inevitably because I miss him too but I didn't tell him and I always wonder if he knows.

I wonder if he knows me as well as he likes to think he does. I let thoughts roll through my head as I absently butter the inside of the egg coddlers, one for me, one for PJ. I need to eat something before I run or I have a tendency to falter and fight against rubbery legs. I fish two pieces of wholewheat bread out of the bag in the fridge and feed them to the slots on the toaster and then I hear the gentle alarm beep and see the light flicker in the hall to let me know PJ just opened the back door. He and John enter wordlessly, and I get a cheek-kiss from each one before they settle into their customary habits, John starting coffee, PJ checking the eggs to see if they're ready yet. I won't drink coffee before running (it makes me have to pee. A lot.).

We eat quietly, the boys hear Ben's update and add their own to the patchwork of current news within our circle and then just as the sun begins to rise at last, John pours his coffee and heads to the den to read the newspaper and keep watch over the house while I creep back upstairs to get into my running gear.

Within five minutes PJ and I are out the front door and pacing down the deserted sidewalk. Me fifteen yards ahead, music spooling into my head to set the pace. PJ catches up, my own large human shadow working to keep his long strides in check so he doesn't leave me far behind. I could run flat out and I would never be able to keep up with his legs.

This is the easy part of the run. We don't talk, we just listen to music, check for each other and measure our own breath. Within twenty minutes PJ will begin to complain quietly and suggest turnarounds every six minutes. I ignore him until I get the message from my endorphins that I am high and can go home now. It usually happens fifty minutes in now. I could get it faster if I were in better condition.

That makes me laugh. I'm like a used car for sale. Hidden corrosion and the engine is seized but otherwise you would never know by looking. I think I can outrun my problems and they're waiting for me upon my return or I can wallow in them just to feel every last drop of agony, thinking full immersion might help me mover forward and instead when my head clears I've lost more ground than I expected and have to start over.

Par for the course.

Fuck you, this isn't golf. This isn't a game and I resent that you would compare it to one.

Bridget, you take things too seriously.

Someone has to or it all falls apart.

What are you talking about?

If I forget where I've been or what I've been through bad things happen. The absolute second I begin to take things for granted or relax and enjoy life something bad happens. It's always been that way.

You're imagining things.

No, I can imagine a lot, but usually good things. This is everything else. All the bad things that can go wrong. It's like my life is somehow the one that is all wrong and so there's no grace to guide it.

You sound like me now.

I listened you know. I always thought it might help, that maybe if I tried harder to believe in things and just coast like everyone else seems to, that things would change. Instead things got worse.

It wasn't you, you know.

It's always me, Jake. Always.

PJ cuts off my conversation there as he takes my elbow to signal that we're doing a turnaround so we can head back toward the house. We make the loop on the other side of the river and I can see the wooden benches with their bronze plaques wedged into the ice like ships in the arctic ocean and I press my fingers to my lips and then force myself to abandon a kiss to the wind, hoping it makes it across and will be divided equally. My eyes fill up, burning now and I grab PJ's arm for stability for just a second and then the world clears and I take the lead again.

We fly soundlessly down the sidewalk, following our well-worn but invisible path back to the big house in the middle of a block of like-houses, the gingerbread shrouded in the pre-dawn darkness. I stop just in front of the iron gate and look around, a new habit of taking in the unfamiliar street that I've only lived on for three years, and I listen. I listen for the noises that begin to creep in around the morning. Maybe a bird, maybe sirens far off in the distance. Maybe cars idling down the block.

Maybe Jacob, still whispering things to me long after I've stopped listening.

Bright boys.

Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you
But if the bright lights don't receive you
You should turn yourself around and come on home

Lochlan confirmed this morning what I've suspected for a quite a while now. All the boys are losing it and I'm doing really quite well now.

YES.

Well, if you don't count that I seem to have these drawn-out, hilariously long and convoluted conversations with Cole, but I don't see that as being any different from when the boys talk to me under their breath where they know for sure I won't hear them but then they can say they did talk to me later when a point comes into question.

I'm onto them. They think I'm in the dark all the time, they have no idea every now and then I sneak down the hall toward the light and hang out for a little while, just listening and biting my lip so I don't make a sound, warming myself in the sun before returning to the hole my head lives in.

Now the rest of this day I am crossing my fingers that Andrew comes home with a date. He went with Henry's class on their field trip. With Henry's young, pretty and very single teacher.

I'm going to fix up Lochlan next.

Oh, be quiet already.

Lochlan is here, because for some reason April is just too damn far away for him. Because for some reason he happens to be smart enough to understand better than anyone when Ben is being too much like Cole and when Bridget is being too much like Bridget. Ha. God help us all.

I hate that he freelances. It's just far too easy for him to come and save the day.

Running all of it past Cole.

Bridget, would you just stop? Enough already.

What do you want?

I want you to get a grip. Jesus, he's going to cling to you even more than you do to him. I don't know who is more pathetic but it'll work if you stop trying to throw everything you can reach at it.

How do you expect me to do that?

Revert back. Reign it back in. You want to be like everyone else? Well, everyone else wants to be just like you. Go back to your sweet submissiveness, baby.

It didn't work.

Oh, like hell it didn't. Think about it for a moment.

You don't know me anymore.

Still better than anyone. Don't you kid yourself.

It won't work. It didn't work. I couldn't do it. I lost it.

I lost sight of your impulsiveness, that's all, baby. I let go just a little and I dropped you. I'm sorry.

You're not sorry. You think this is funny.

No, it isn't funny. I fucked up, baby. But there's only one thing I have left to tell you and then I'm gone. It's too crowded in here in your sweet little head. I need space and time.

What is it?

He's just like me, Bridge. I'm glad you're safe now.

Safe was a joke with you, Cole.

No, Jacob was a joke, Bridget. He was an illusion. Sure he was a good man and he lived admirably and all that shit but at the end of the day he was more fragile than you are and look what happened. I could have warned you. I wanted you to be so happy. I couldn't make you happy and I tried to overlook his problems and let you alone and I failed you.

You never wanted me to be happy.

Bridget, I wasn't smart enough to control myself when it came to you. None of us are. When are you ever going to get that through your head?

So now what?

Stop overthinking things. Watch a bunch of movies, dote on the kids and wait for Ben to come back. Forgive Ben for his issues. Get on with your life. You're driving me fucking crazy here. Everything is okay now. Accept it and live, for once. In the present. You guys will figure it out sooner rather than later.

I know.

Don't know. Just do.

Yeah.

Fucking finally. I love you so much. Be happy for once.

How do I help him be strong?

Be happy, Bridget. That's all it ever takes. If you're strong, he'll draw that from you. There's nothing else to it.

Were you always so strong?

Never. I knew I took that happiness from you and squandered it. I'm so sorry, Bridget.

Well, I win, because now you're dead.

Or maybe I win, because you're still a beautiful fucking mess.

Price of admission.

Shortly after I wrote in my journal Jacob and I made a late dinner. Quietly, resolutely we ate together. The suffocating disappointment of Friday's outcome still hanging over our heads made things tense, an unwelcome feeling for me now. Halfway through the meal I looked up only to discover Jacob was sitting there making silly faces at me. I laughed so hard. We made up. Okay, not exactly true. We made up in his dining room chair in various states of undress because going upstairs would have taken too long.

Here's where I point out when he was unzipping my dress he heard a creak. I told him it must be the cat. We continued on. That chair was fun.

Until we decided to return from heaven and we both saw Ben standing in the doorway watching us. Leaning in the doorway, because he had been standing there for a good ten minutes taking in the flesh-for-fantasy lottery. He struck Bridget gold. He saw everything. All of it.

Most people would have been embarrassed and left hastily. Ben? He stayed to watch the show. Which pretty much destroyed the already shaky ground he occupied in Jacob's good graces, because Jake hated the offhand comments Ben would make at any given opportunity. Or the lingering looks if my strap slid or the wind swirled my skirt. Jake always said that Cole and Ben were likeminded individuals.

That's part of an entry from June of 2006 published here once upon a time and now offline with the rest of my archives because I have paranoid tendencies for such a public journaler.

There are moments in life that haunt me and I am not the only one. For Ben there are two moments in our history that he would like to permanently alter and this is one of them, told to me in a waterfall confession of tears and frustration and utter despair. This one moment where he says he stood in that doorway and he simply couldn't move. He knew it was wrong and he knew he was't welcome and he was frozen to his place while his head went off-leash. He stood there and burned me to his memory forever, every last detail of what I looked like in the throes of bliss because he wanted to be the one making that memory.

This weekend he tried to take that memory from me and I won't allow it. Not to be a dealbreaker, instead he thinks he'll wear me down and he doesn't seem to hear me when I tell him he can't because the walls around those memories aren't wooden, they're forged steel and he can't make them into matchsticks, he'll only get hurt fighting to dent or scratch them.

He will get hurt and I can stand in front of him and block his path and put forth a courage I don't think I can back up but it won't serve to do anything more than make me realize that for all his reminders to live in the moment, to just be, he isn't doing it either. He is not taking his own advice and half the time, I really don't know what to do with Ben. I wouldn't hurt him, really I wouldn't, but that one moment he can't take.

There's no making up, either. In a few hours he's on a plane back to work and we have to just leave it swinging between us, dropped on both sides because we can't get around it so we'll have to resort to stepping over or ducking under for a while to come.

Makes me sad, you know. It makes me sad to think that after all this death and all this crap we've gone through, he could still be so sickeningly jealous of a ghost.

Take warning.

Inevitably ownership issues take over us all. There's no way to avoid it. You get tired of being generous. You grow weary of making allowances and having patience. You become frustrated when the memories fail to be remade in your image.

Forcing the issue will backfire. You know this and you do it anyway. I would too but I know the outcome. I'm sorry. It's been done before and there are certain places where you will walk where the grass grows tall, unbroken from being trespassed and never trampled as your path before but there will also be places where you'll weave back over onto the softer earth where the grass no longer grows at all, it's been flattened by so many steps. Looking ahead, there is no other way. You have to go that way. You just simply have to.

I don't have enough of my own strength to remind you of much more than this, for you KNOW all of this and all I can do is quietly speak to you of this inadequate analogy of a well-worn path and hope the hell you can figure out the rest before you do or say things you might regret only when you're far away and can't undo the damage.

I don't have enough courage to overlook the difficulty of your head not being here because your heart has no direction and no authority and you really just need to stop this and just hold on to what's here right now in this moment and let the other ones go.

Please. Just please.

Red covered Ordinary World.

Pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

I woke up this morning wrapped almost twice in Ben's t-shirt. The one he wore yesterday.

Daniel called yesterday afternoon and said not to pick him up at the airport, that he had a few errands to run and he would be here around suppertime. He was indeed, sporting a genetically-matched shadow by the name of Benjamin, who arrived in the kitchen with orchids and a singing balloon, just in time for Valentine's Day.

A big cheesy smile paired with a big cheesy beautiful heart-shaped helium balloon that said Still the one and played a song to match the words. What a riot. I wasn't expecting him but since it's a holiday weekend he is all ours until Tuesday morning.

I love that he did that. I love that he knew I was getting fluttery and tired and homesick. I love that he defied instructions not to break his concentration and not to be trying to wear a steady path back and forth, wasting time when there is work to be done. I love that he needs me and he knows when I need him most. I love that he's sometimes very openly cheesy and sweet under all that focused intensity.

I love that he's here. He said this morning that he loves that I'm here. And now if you'll excuse us, we're off to spend a day attempting to resemble human velcro. Ciao.

(Title today is related to this, go listen and forgive us for still being big fans of Duran Duran. Some things can't be helped. Yes, I'll go look now for my credibility, lodged somewhere on the CD shelf between Cannibal Corpse and Tool.)

Vintage candy and the princess of persuasion.

I've been walking this road for far too long
To turn and walk away
I've been walking this road for far too long
Listen to what I say

Ben called them expiry dates, the final few nights before he flew out in which we would plan special dinners, movies, long walks, long talks, whatever we could come up with that would qualify as time together alone, stocking up so that we would each have enough to live on until he comes back at the end of the month.

So far so good.

(Good being subjective to whatever constraints you want to stand around that word, barricades against turning this day into one that is half-empty.)

I got an early Valentine's Day gift. Daniel will be home tonight and so I can send home the lumberjack (John) and replace him with my fairy godmother. Which makes me infinitely happy because Daniel is as close as Ben ever was and he calms me down and he keeps things light. John is so serious. (I still love you though, LoJack).

Daniel already called ahead and asked me to keep the afternoon clear tomorrow and we would take the kids skating at the rink with all of the old people while they blast static-Elvis through the loudspeaker and everyone must move briskly clockwise. Then he wants to shop for chocolates at 6 pm because they'll be on sale and most definitely from last year. Stale. There's a lifetime contest on to see who can bite into the most petrified ancient chocolate and live to tell about it.

So my hands may be fluttery today and this week I've taken up an old habit of listening to one song over and over again until I can hardly stand it but for now we stand at half-full with hopes of a refill even.

And I can't wait until Ben comes home so we can work on the best before dates.

Samwise.

Fading
It's over now
(Don't you know it's over now?)
Over now
(You know it's over now)
Fading
(Some kind of big surprise)
Fading out
(Don't you know your world is burning down?)
Burning down
(Your world is burning down)

I met Sam for an early breakfast this morning, a substitution for a run on a cold, snowy morning. His request, not mine, though I grew increasingly confused as he lingered over coffee, firing question after gentle question at me. How am I doing? How is Ben? Is everything okay with him gone? Is Caleb minding his boundaries? Have I talked to Lochlan? Is Seth reporting success on the away front as well? How am I really doing? How are the kids dealing with Ben being away? When does Daniel arrive?

And on and on and on until we ran out of taste for coffee and I reverted to one-word answers to try and subtley point out the elephant, that I wasn't going to bring up, so help me God, because I knew eventually Sam would for both of us. I didn't have to wait forever.

PJ is right, you know.

How's that?

You're an easy target, Bridget.

Because they saw me at the church?

No, you've always been an easy target. Ever since you left Cole. It started then. Jacob said they were relentless.

Sometimes they were.

Possbly more than you realize, Bridget. There were several who tried, at the time, to perpetuate rumors just to hurt you. Things about Jacob that weren't true.

Who? What are you talking about?

Jacob spent half his time doing damage control, trying to shut off the rumor mill before it could do harm to you. That's when he began his policy of open-door meetings and witnesses, to prevent any later misunderstandings. So many women had their eyes on him and wanted to make trouble for you.

I know. I find it funny, you saying it now.

No, it's really not, Bridget. But no matter what people say or do, they don't know and at the end of the day everyone will take what they say with a healthy degree of skepticism, I promise you that. No one is out to get you or me, just keep that in mind.

I don't care about them, I only care about you and Lisabeth. How is she?

Sad. We're both sad. But you had no part in this, short of warning us a long time ago that the church took up a lot of time. If only I had realized how right you were then. That was only part of a larger problem though. There's no single event that caused this.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

I'm sorry it's happening to you, too.

Don't worry about me, Sam.

I will always worry for you, Bridget.

I have been nothing but trouble for you.

You're not half as awful as you think you are. If you were I never would have kept the promise I made to Ja-

Oh, Sam. You didn't.

I didn't know with any certainty, Bridget. I suspected for a long time that he wasn't doing well, and he wouldn't get the right kind of help, the kind he sorely needed. His only concern was for you and the kids. That we look after you, together, all of us. That's why it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. It's why we don't care what anyone thinks.

What did I ever do to deserve this, Sam? What makes you all stick around for me? Tell me, because I don't get it.

I don't know, Bridget. I really don't. It's a different sort of faith, that's for certain.

So we are a cult now.

Pretty much.

Does this mean we can be pol-

Oh, don't even start with that today, okay?

I was kidding, Sam.

Yes, I know. But sometimes I wonder about you anyway, Miss Fidget.

To the choir.

PJ wants me to tell you I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, that just because Sam publicly pleaded for privacy on Sunday with regards to their formal divorce proceedings underway does not mean I am automatically the town harlot. That speculation is simply that, and I am an easy target.

The truth is I had nothing to do with Sam and Lisabeth breaking up, and those who spent last fall watching me slip into and out of the church almost daily for several months straight don't read here (really it wasn't anyone's business that I was getting grief counseling) and chose to talk about me. Then Lisabeth poured some fuel on the fire almost inadvertently by worrying aloud about me to others. Because she wasn't so sure. I've been her. I can't blame her. I wouldn't blame her.

Just like you can't blame me.

I wouldn't touch Sam. He's a friend, not a lover. Never ever ever.

So save the stakes with which you were going to burn me. When I have really and truly earned my fate, I'll go quietly, I swear. That time hasn't come.

(Now, God, could you please stop finding ways to mess with me? Thank you.)

Mmmm, pitchforks.

Word about town is that she runs a cult, a twisted, protected cult of polyamory and forced affection and no one gets out alive. That it wasn't Jacob and it isn't Sam that can be so enigmatic as leaders, oh, no.

Really?

Look down. That innocent looking one there? In the pale blue coat with the wind whipping blonde tendrils of hair into her eyes and her hands clasped in front of her, warm in her black gloves, no hint of a smile in her eyes, just many, many miles of roads travelled in order to put her in a place she can't name? That's the leader. Look out, she'll brainwash you without even opening her mouth.

And yeah, they've got a commune going on down there just west of the city proper. They all wear black and they're polite if you speak and they really seem to stick together and there are children but we wonder who they belong to and people come and go at odd hours and they're rather private. Some of them have the same tattoo.

I heard she wrecked Sam's marriage.

I heard she wrecked Jake's, too, before she married him.

I heard that she she uses sexual rewards for compliance. I heard her newest husband bites heads off small animals. I don't even know him, he's too scary-looking.

I heard she's really very sweet and down to earth and not at all like people paint her to be.

Oh, really? You must be one of them.

I heard she breaks your heart and then you die.

Yeah, I heard that too.

I'm not even sure if I heard all of it right. My ears, they're not so good, you know.

At least my skin is thick. Fucking good, hey?

Numbers.

It's a dime for a tin whistle
And a cigarette
God damn if you listened
But what else do you give

Depending on who you are cheering for, it's day 943, day 462 or day 2 of Bridget on her own.

Only for the last one there, he'll be back. Just like the first 2 but slightly different because he isn't dead.

And it's okay, I'm not crazy either.

I've had a good day so far. Up at 5 for my phone call, 6 for my doorbell and 7 for my run. 8 marked the first fall of the day on the ice, on my own portion of the sidewalk because I didn't shovel and it actually rained. In February. Sorry, I was busy yesterday feeling sorry for myself.

Today, I'm not doing that.

9 meant going shopping with PJ. 10 ended long I lasted, listening to Untitled Lullaby in the truck and 11 was when the need for coffee superseded my barely-singed credit card and we called it a morning.

At 12 we headed for home for lunch with the kids, and 397 is the number of grams in this bag of chili lime pistachio nuts that I'm going to snack on all afternoon while I wait for 7, when the goodnight phone call comes for the children and then 10, when I get my very own.

14982 is the number of sheep I'll have to count before my dreams come and take me from this day, for that's how many it took last night.

And 1, as usual, is the loneliest number. But not for long. Because in 20 days, he'll be back.

Repeat after me.

(This is the part where Ben must travel for his much beloved secret night job and I sorta kinda almost mostly implode but not.)

Look at me, my depth perception must be off again
You got much closer than I thought you did
I'm in your reach
You held me in your hands
But could you find it in your heart?
To make this go away
and let me rest in pieces

Ben's plane finally got out and I'm almost sober again. With any luck someone will bring me just a little more because this hurts like hell and it really didn't help that we wound up in the airport lounge waiting for his first-class flight trying to pretend it wasn't going to hurt like hell.

It didn't help that he ordered me drink after drink at seven o'clock in the morning hoping he could dull the pain for me just long enough to make his getaway, laughing in his defeated way, telling me all I had to do was say the word and he would figure something else out.

It didn't help that my lingering kiss at the gate was the exclamation point on an argument we managed to craft before the announcement that his flight was rescheduled at long last. Never mind that that final kiss seemed to be more of an attempt by him to soak up whatever alcohol he could taste by proxy, and never mind that he slipped his lucky ring onto my finger before he left, even though it's supposed to be this very ring that gives the night job all of the magic, or so he claims, and when I tried to make sure he took it back he told me just to shut up and keep it for luck, because I need some,

He said that I would be in good hands. That I am always in good hands. As in fuck off and shut up. I'm gone and they can deal with you so I don't have to worry about you.

Okay. Yeah. I may be drunk but I know you, Benjamin and I know how exquisite your hatred can be when you shut yourself down in order to go work because otherwise you wouldn't go at all. So you don't need to be mean just to protect yourself.

Can I use that against you later?

Sure, whatever you need, Benny.

When did I ever say we were functional?

The good news is, it's all an act on his part because I saw his eyes before I turned to run back down the concourse, coat flying out behind me, heels clicking on the polished stone, heads turning as I passed, gasping for breath while the tears just fucking streamed.

This was right after I contemplated making a scene, yelling, I love you, you fucking asshole and he would have whispered it back because there is only one phrase in the whole entire world that I can lip-read and that would be it.

I hate the airport. I hate goodbyes and I hate waiting. I hate that everything echoes. I hate that I made it through the automatic doors while security walked about twenty feet behind me because really, a delicately-crying five-foot-tall woman in high heels who can barely walk upright isn't much of a threat and John caught me before I wiped out on the ice and he took one look at me and he said very slowly that everyone cries when someone they love leaves.

I know that, that part is easy. Excusable, almost.

But not everyone drinks at this hour on a Monday morning, princess. I'm really glad you called me.

I didn't say anything. He cajoled me the whole way home, stopping for coffee along the way and pointing out that in three weeks I will have Ben back.

Poor John. I'm sure there is nothing better in the whole world than a drunk friend with abandonment issues being your charge.

(Oh wait, I just described life with Ben before I married him.)

So, apparently there are worse things.

And for the record, I fully intend to keep my promises and get on with improving my outlook, curbing both my emotional outbursts and my flair for the dramatic while Ben is away, to give myself an unemcumbered shot at getting better without his influence, and oh, what an influence it can be, since I made no attempt to refuse four whiskey sours on the table when I hadn't even cracked a coffee yet.

And no one is allowed to give him a hard time, he was doing what he thought might work because, really, between you and me? No one knows what works or helps or makes anything better and so Ben fell back on the one thing that always used to make him feel better. I wouldn't have been surprised at all if he had called me from his destination three sheets to the wind, softly fumbling the words I love you and I'm sorry into the phone but instead he asked how I was doing as if he really and truly cared and it kind of surprised me because he doesn't do that when he's away. I confirmed that yes, I was pretty much sober the moment he was gone, because if there is ever a sobering moment it is always that one when they go out of sight.

I also confirmed that yes, I am making spaghetti for dinner for the boys tonight, because they're the ones holding the net, while Ben and I do our high wire act. Tickets are cheap but they go so fast. It's hard to believe your eyes.

It's so hard to perform perfectly with all these distractions. But I'm going to learn how.

The part where she lives.

I might be getter better. The cold seems to have loosened it's grip on me. My voice hasn't cut out today, my headache left after being chased off the premises by the mighty Advil Liquigel I took after waking up and the energy I can credit to a little fresh air and a big bottle of Mega C Vitamin water, something the dorky one swears by when he's on the road. All I need is a little extra sleep, which I should be able to pull off tonight, and I'm maybe home-free.

Until the next cold, that is. Henry still coughs a little at night. If he wakes up for whatever other reason, I pop out of bed, get his inhaler and a glass of water and bring them to him and then take them back and it usually takes him five or ten minutes to settle back down and fall asleep again. One of these days he'll be responsible enough to have the inhaler on his nightside table and maybe I won't have to get up at all but we're not there yet. Soon, just not quite yet.

In other news, I'm a mess. I looked at my reflection while we were out this morning and almost screamed. I had my hair twisted up into a little ponytail and my bangs are down to my chin again and the blonde is brassy and winterburned. I had no makeup on so my eyes were dark hollows. Pale lips. No jewelry. Jeans that are too loose again. Burgundy parka that washes me out. Mittens. I asked Ben if I was losing it and he said I only get this sick once or twice a year and not to worry. GEEZ, darling are you looking at me?

You know I must be feeling better when that actually bothers me. Remember Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises? No, no, after she would get off her bike. In the cold, with the red nose. Yes, that's exactly right.

We came home after getting all of our things done and I did not change my clothes or do much more than brush my hair, add jewelry and put on some mascara and some lipgloss but what a difference a little sparkle makes.

Maybe I'll just vomit glitter all over you. I feel like it actually, I think I had a little too much water and used up a little too much energy this morning.

Rotary girl.

It's a good day for double-toasted bagels and a few rounds of Exquisite Corpse (which is unfortunately named). A good day to play outside in the snow since it's a free day from school, and a good day finalize the grocery list for tomorrow as we batten down our hatches and attempt to ride out February as painlessly as possibly.

A good day to start packing because the extended winter break is over for Ben, a little earlier than scheduled and he has mustered his numbish enthusiasm to tell me it will be okay.

I know it will be okay, though.

Once it ends. Once I try and remember all the rules and mechanisms we put in to place to ensure that each trip out won't end in complete and utter disaster like last year. Once I remember that I married Ben and I married his other life too, since it's such a huge part of who he is and him going away to work is just something I am going to have to learn to get used to.

The whole thing gives me a goal for February. I don't really enjoy goals (or disappointment or pressure, for that matter). I don't enjoy living in this big house all alone either with some harried late night or early morning staticky phone calls to stand in for Ben's epic, irreplaceable hugs and presence. I don't enjoy living a life behind glass where everyone sets the charge and then retreats to the safety of the shelter to watch the explosion and subsequent shockwave from a safe distance and then runs back over to assess the destruction.

I don't want to be the damage.

(Change the things you can, princess).

Here's the thing, Jacob. I can't change Ben's vocation. This is his calling as much as yours was the church. It makes him who he is. What I can change is my reaction to it, how I deal with it or how I fuck it up for both of us, over and over again.

You're totally right, Jakey. I need to do this. I can do this. Everyone else seems to be able to manage it, and as a bonus, I get Ben back in the end. Safe and sound. One-piece man. No more puzzles, no more fragment-girl, left to founder at home.

No more fragile. No more spinning around the dial looking for a number to fall into. No more ancient, tested and true methods of riding out the fear unsuccessfully. All new for the new year. I do believe I have finally grown tired of myself and the way I think and it's time to make things better. I wasn't aware one could suffer that much grief and then proceed to lose several entire years but it can't go on.

It can't go on, Jake. You need to go. You need to let me go.

Oh, wait. I need to let you go.

Beautiful.

There is a video for that song. I knew that already, I just didn't bother linking it but here, since some of you wanted to know. Oh, and if your work does not approve of bikinis, save it til you get home, okay? (I'm talking to you, Duncan.)

It's not until you go to look at newly updated copyright notices and the like and you discover you've been putting the words down for just about five years now and there's no more trust in yourself than you had the day you started this stupid thing.

Yes, it's probably cabin fever, or maybe it's the fact that everytime I take a deep breath everything hurts like hell and I can't seem to stop coughing and I shouldn't have gone for a run and hell, I shouldn't have done a lot of things but really, the only gift I seem to have is the ability to write without stopping. It may not be good but it's goddamned plentiful. I daresay words are the one thing I never seem to run out of as long as they flow from my fingertips and not from my mouth.

I may just post all day. It's called being unsettled.

Short run.

...expressions are cast to confuse and impress, eroding the resilience that serves to be not quite good enough. I try to bring the words with honesty, instead of persisting in the shade of daydreams...

...inevitably, more tragedies wait in the wings while we linger under the hot lights, reluctant to take our bows and exit stage left to face the music of the pressing darkness. Pride and ego standing in for courage...

Beautiful, fragile. Beautiful, fragile. Beautiful, fragile.

Oh, I love this part!

visually you're stimulating to my eyes
your Cinderella syndrome's full of lies
your insecurities are concealed by your pride
pretty soon your ego will kill what's left inside

just as beautiful as you are
It's so pitiful what you are
you should have seen this coming all along
It's so pitiful what you are
as beautiful as you are
you should have seen this coming all along

you're everything that's so typical
maybe you're alone for a reason, you're the reason

it's so pitiful what you are, you should have seen this coming all along

God I love that song.

My time is up, where should I turn?

Maybe just one more block.

It would have been nice to run long enough to leave the uncategorized thoughts behind. Perhaps tomorrow.

Peas, pod.

I was in my usual haunt being my usual self. Hair piled up behind my neck with a myriad of Victorian pins and a spare black pencil because I break my hairsticks so easily and have gone back to the old standard. Fingers laden down with rings rolling loose around my knuckles, bones shrugged into a thin black sweater over a dark dress, dark stockings and three-mile high platform shoes. Holding another black pencil with my thumb while I rattled off a pile of words on the keyboard, ones to be sorted later.

Humming along while the stereo roared in my ears , oblivious to every last potential nuclear holocaust that might or might not be occurring outside of my non-peripheral, complete and utter tunneled vision.

I surprised myself when I felt a presence, a perceived attention and I looked around and found Ben standing in the doorway, regarding me with a fascinated look, not daring to break the spell I can put myself under any old time.

I bit my lip, adding the snarly, toothy look of concentration that he positively adores.

There's a word for this.

For what?

You, with your hair up and the all-black dresses and shoes inside the house, the whole doll thing, the formal mourning clothes on bad days. It makes you who you are, right from the top of your beautiful head to those thin little spindle-ankles of yours.

Ah, so I should change?

Into?

Less scary clothes? Normal shoes? Jeans more often?

He came into the room and sat down in the spare chair and began to play with the contents of my bag, separating the Happy Meal toys out and testing out an errant sharpie pen, reading some scraps of paper, holding up a hearing aid that should have been in my ear but wasn't.

No. No, don't change a thing. This is who you are.

Maybe good people change for their loves.

When have you ever done that?

Never.

Exactly. No, they change for you. They want to become part of you.

No one has ever changed for me, if they did they would have become perfect. Instead of being perfectly flawed.

You think?

I know.

What about me?

You don't change, Ben.

That's encouraging.

No. You improve but you're not jumping through hoops to please me or to fit in.

I never needed to do that. You wanted to be like me. All hardcore and stuff.

Oh is that it?

Yes, that's exactly right.

I must be so transparent.

Admit it.

What happens if I admit it?

Nothing.

His face broke into a huge smile when I nodded, and then he bit the top off my chapstick for good measure. I've taken to buying the fruit-flavored organic lip balms just so the boy gets a nutrient or two.

You want to come to the rink with me?

Sure, just let me change.

You look beautiful, Bridget. Leave everything as it is.

I don't want to be cold.

I won't let you be cold, baby. You can wear my coat.

Sorry, it's not hardcore enough for me.

Hey, I can change.

Don't touch a thing, Benjamin. Just leave it all like this.

He's got the sweetest smile, you know. If I only had the words to share it with you.

Good grief (the Snoopy kind, not the Sam kind).

Choose your words
Choose them wise

Not surprisingly, I'm plotting extra tattoos this morning. I like words, okay? Give me the perfect combination and I will wear them for all eternity.

I'm still magnificently sick today but instead of throwing the proverbial kitchen sink of cold medicines at myself and hoping for the best, this morning I'm chewing aspirins and drinking green tea with honey, taking my vitamin C and my iron pills and just digging my fingers into this day so I don't get flung off like I did yesterday, hitting the couch facedown before six and then giving up on even that and going to bed at eight where I cried myself to sleep and raged in and out of an uneasy Nyquil coma uneasily until the alarm went off at five and I swore at Gord Downey once again.

I just have to make it through ten more hours and I can do it all again, even though in an effort to stay healthy so that he can continue to make the most delicious BLT sandwiches I have ever eaten and wash dishes with Henry and surpervise the children at circus (bed) time and all the other things I normally do plus his usual night-but-suddenly-day job for just a little while longer, Ben is reduced to giving me forehead kisses and oddly-removed squeezes from above with his face turned away as if I am a plague in pajamas. A cute little drippy blonde pariah. I hate that.

I can't blame him though. He has to be healthy right now.

I'd like to be healthy right now but I can't complain. By this time over each of the past three years we would have already weathered five or six major colds and rounds of antibiotics and dozens of days lost to the stupor of sickness and dismay.

So this is peaches and cream because it's the first bad one and really, there's only six weeks left of winter thanks to the groundhogs. I can make it, really, I can.

Oh, and God bless Ben too.

Song of the week for you, since I can't get the playlist-thingie to function in all of your browsers and the words must always come first. Lochlan took it off for me and we shall muddle through, alright?

That beautiful song woke me up this morning, for Ben sings and plays a mean acoustic version of it, and because I've been complaining about my favorite radio station waking me up with Tragically Hip eleven mornings out of twelve. So he woke me up instead. With that.

It was nice, because I went to bed last night nursing the end of a bad headache and woke up with a painfully sore throat and space-cadet head. And while it would be nice to spend the day in flannel, reading under the blankets in front of the fire, we had to get up, instead, wash every dish in the house because I think every last one of them was used for the Superbowl party last night and then do three loads of laundry, which I'm just about done, and then I'm going back to bed.

Before I fall asleep I promise I'll say my prayers though. God bless Advil Extra-strength Liquigels, God bless Dayquil and God bless Bounce dryer sheets for making everything I can't smell smell good anyway.

(P.S. Since Youtube seems to be on a video removal binge lately, the song is Flicker by Submersed.)

Plus three.

The kids and I are on our own today, since it's a work day and since tomorrow is Boy-Sunday, in which boys who never put down their hockey sticks or guitars or tools actually stop and watch the Superbowl, you know, in case other boys bring it up later in the year. It screams masculine. It screams something about stereotypes too, I dunno, I don't hear very well, PJ.

There, there. It's only one day and then you can go back to sweet, precious hockey. I love hockey. I do not love football.

We've already grocery-shopped, done the house chores, eaten breakfast and lunch and gotten the laundry started. Everyone is clean, the beds are made and the cats are lazing in the sun coming through the living room window, enjoying the view of the melting snow in the backyard.

It's a heat wave. My favorite kind of wave.

I've even oiled my countertops and butcher blocks. Something I swear I'll do once a month but seem to do every three. I talked to my mother on the phone and I stocked up on rockets and skittles because if the groundhog doesn't see his shadow on Monday I think I might throw a party.

And now, if you'll excuse me, in between the marathon of running up and down the stairs doing laundry, since the bedrooms are on the third floor but the washer and dryer are in the basement, I'm going to curl up in the window seat with my new copy of Rolling Stone with a haggard-looking Bruce Springsteen on the cover and eat some of these skittles before they melt in this heat.

Not like me.

To you
I'm all I've left undone
I'm all I haven't won
Lift me up my soul's so hollow
Lift me up

You take
The breath you didn't make
What's left you did forsake
Lift me up my soul's so hollow
Lift me up my soul's so hollow

Here's the point where we grab the wheel and spin it back, undoing the past year and going back to the days where the kids and I are protected (on paper) from Caleb because life is safer that way. Where most people would give one strike, I always seem to give three before I declare someone out. His game is officially over now.

For the past three months Caleb has been threatening me and I didn't tell anyone because I wouldn't and he knew that, thanks to Cole. Years of violence can leave people without the tools they need to scream out loud and because if anyone has ever made good on a threat, it is Caleb. I have seen and experienced firsthand what he is capable of and I don't want to be on the receiving end of it ever again. I went to work for him, I continued to put up with his charming malevolence and his depravities because I thought he was capable of taking Ben away from me and I don't ever want to be faced with that. My physical safety was irrelevant compared to that. My safety is always irrelevant. Play with her until she stops moving, that's Caleb's tried and true business model. It's his way.

I'll admit as well that in a sick and twisted fashion (because that is how we roll) I was also attracted to Caleb. He's handsome, rich, powerful and dangerous. He reminds me of Cole and no one will ever understand how hard it is to let go of that.

No one, except maybe Ben. But Ben isn't given to fixing things, he isn't given to picking up where Jacob left off, he isn't given to dictating my actions because he doesn't feel that has any place in the relationship we have forged.

Until yesterday, that is.

I didn't want to go on the trip with Caleb. I think Caleb knew his game was falling apart and he wanted whatever chance he could get to be alone with me. He's a very lonely person and I think he thought I was going to fill the space within, but he doesn't know how to make that happen because you can't buy that. He tried. He saw something pretty and sparkly in the window and he had to have it. Even Cole knew, for Cole spent a lot of our life together keeping his brother away from me.

I'm ashamed to say how much alike we are.

Ben didn't want me to go either and yet the others pushed on, because we don't make good decisions, because we're both so messed up. They think routine is terrific. Bridget being busy is such practical therapy. Caleb was behaving, right? All seemed well. They let their own logic override plain good sense (did I say Caleb charmed only me?), but we found it and dusted it off and to our surprise, good sense can still prevail.

When I was zipping up my travel case and it wouldn't zip and I started to cry because I was so afraid, Ben said enough.

Enough of this goddamn game, Bridget. What in the hell are you doing?

Keeping you safe from him.

What?

He said he would hurt you if I didn't stay close to him.

He can't hurt me, princess. He's got nothing.

He told me he knew things.

I've been around long enough to know not to tell people like him anything I wouldn't want everyone to know. You think I wanted you to be with him? I thought I was making things as easy as I could for you. It killed me when you were with him.

I just stared at him. What in the fuck have I been torturing myself for? Oh, right. My memories.

(This is why making her own decisions is bad, bad, bad news for Bridget. Now do you see? Now do you understand why she shouldn't be in charge of any damn thing past choosing breakfast? Good. Just so we're clear. Bad, bad news, baby.)

Yesterday Ben took me by the hand and we went to court and we reinstated the order of protection and we notified the school and we sat down with our friends and told them and we did all the things we needed to do to ensure that Caleb can't get back into my head or my heart. I am safe. I don't work for Satan any more and I don't need him to enhance the memories of Cole that I keep in my heart.

No more secrets, Bridget. I'm not as fragile as you are.

It will do for now.

coercion
Improper use (or threat of improper use) of authority, economic power, physical force, or other such advantage, by a party to compel another to submit to the wishes of its wielder. Agreements entered into, or testaments signed, under coercion are considered illegal and invalid. See also duress and undue influence.

Olives and outrage, both absent.

And you're right to love him
And you're right to want to
Close the door and lock me in
Break the key and chase the blood out of my veins

Streaming down the side streets,
Where the city ends
And the dead ends meet
Bite your lip and smile
I have many holes to fill
And I'll find them all

She holds them in her hand
But when she lets go she knows
It's the last time that she ever will again

In an effort to prove he is not the bad guy, and as part of his stipulations in my job description, Caleb has decided I absolutely must accompany him on his trip this weekend. It isn't far, just Toronto for two nights, but he's on a mission to unpaint himself as Satan, and in light of last weekend, I wish him luck with that.

We leave tomorrow evening, and will return Saturday afternoon or evening, and I will get a chance to shop in stores that we don't have here, and he'll get a chance to show off his charm when he takes me to the fundraising ball. He said I'll get a chance to play princess and it's been a while, and I pointed out I'll have no one to turn to when he turns into a monster out of fighting range from my boys, who pretty conveniently forgot this aspect of Caleb's ability to play dirty and what's wrapped up in a pretty bow as 'Bridget gets a shopping trip away and might have to coordinate a dinner or take notes at a meeting on the side' is really just another insidious opportunity for Caleb to have his favorite completely unrestricted access to me.

For those who worry about my children being home alone with Ben (and Daniel, bless him) for two nights, don't. They will be fine. They love their stepdad and their uncle very incredibly much and it means Ben stays home because he is unequivocably needed. I wish I had the same power over him that my children do.

For those who worry about me, stop pulling my leg. You don't exist. No one worries about me. Not anymore.

Mmmmfmmtscht.

Someone really needs to take these garlic-stuffed olives away from Bridget.

That is all.

Imaginary vacations.

I suck at emailing. Text message me or ICQ and I'm there, perpetually available. So if you left me a recommendation for something to try related to this post, you're in luck, I have an update.

Because I know I leave things dangling too and you're never really sure what's going on and then I drop it altogether. I'm an annoying blogger, I think. I could probably help it but then I'd have to round it out by telling you things I don't think I should be telling you. But then you know what's going on and then I'll get shut down and let's just..well, let's play nicely and see where we get. I will try to be better at email.

Oh, look, there go the pigs again. They look so pretty against the blue.

The update is, it isn't just dry. It's eczema. Something I have fought with since I was a little kid and something that only surfaces in times of stress. So the solution? Try to keep the stress to a minimum.

I'll wait while you laugh.

So I'm covered with a lovely case of eczema, which is fine if I just let myself itch to death and I don't touch it. And my fingertips, especially my thumbs cracked open so the physical pain returns with a vengeance and if I ever had an inkling that my entire body was going to revolt against the issues faced by my mind I think I would....

Be right where I am right now, obviously. Battling stress, both real and nonexistent, which is my very favorite kind of stress. You know, spill some milk, fall apart. Be oddly removed and distant from actual stress but find the perceived and potential small stresses completely overwhelming.

Oh, what's that? You didn't want that kind of update and were looking for better news about what's going on with everything else?

Me too.

Here, I saved you a place in line. Let's listen to some vintage Motorhead while we wait.

Stricken dumb, cut and run, someone is screaming and the sky is dark

All dressed up and no place to go.

Hypnotize the desperate
Slow motion light
Wash away into the rain
Blood, milk and sky
Hollow moons illuminate
And beauty never dies

The best thing about the internet today. (<--x games goodness on youtube)

The music today is White Zombie, a pace set in the car when Mike turned before pulling away from the curb in front of my house and asked me if I had any preference today. He called me Ms. C____ and I corrected him, again, still pissed at Caleb's insistence on using my maiden name or his last name instead of the other two. I know it's confusing for you but it isn't confusing for him, he just likes to claim me as his or revert me back to pre-Cole.

I'm at work now, at my beautiful little desk pretending to work on revised trip plans since Caleb didn't go away over the Christmas holidays and has decided he still wants a break. It gets cold up here for hell, you know. In reality I am writing and messaging a blue streak with Lochlan, who is really thrilled that I'm not quitting which is interesting because I was PRETTY SURE I DID but the collective powers that be have decided that not only is it very healthy for me to have a routine but it's also incredibly unhealthy and against all of the rules for Ben and I to be home alone all day together isolating ourselves from the world.

So Lochlan cashed in his chips and aligned with Satan finally, who was able to exact undue influence and just to show how serious this is, they made sure to squeeze Ben just hard enough to bump him off the wagon and he promptly climbed back on and raised his finger at them in a glorious Fuck You gesture but for the sake of all that is good and holy, I'm totally trapped in this nightmare of big insolent brothers who would much prefer to leave me dangling out in harm's way lest anyone pull anything over their eyes ever again. I have to stay or they hurt Ben.

Thanks, Cole. This is all your fault.

That said, do you think Caleb would be pissed if I booked him tickets to Novosibirsk instead of the BVIs? I'm considering it.

Twenty-four hour reprieve.

Around lunchtime at the farm today, a knock on the door interrupted Grace, and Nolan went to see who was outside. It was a courier with a small box tied with a pink ribbon. For Miss Bridget Lund.

There's only one person in the world who uses my maiden name anymore. I'm on my fourth last name, I doubt anyone else remembers it. My mom, maybe.

In the box was the Blackberry Bold I had reluctantly returned to Caleb. And a notecard that said simply,

See you tomorrow, princess.

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.

Like a yeti. You know they exist but you've probably never seen one.

I've now been banned from writing about Ben's semi-mentalities here.

Dammit.

He would much prefer the world fear him for the monster that he thinks he is. Feel free to roll your eyes with me, okay, here we go, one....two....and roll. He doesn't care if you like him. He would prefer if I didn't talk about him much at all, and frankly the artist formerly known as Tucker Max is as anti-social as one can get these days, with his head down, grinding away at his obligations both professionally and personally, hoping no one notices the effort and just continues to appreciate the man without making things so complicated.

That's my Ben, the big romantic wall of total mush.

In other news, it appears that today is our annual stay-home-because-it's-too-fucking-cold-to-go-outside day, the day in which we let the cabin fever warm our brows and broil our brains, the day where we catch up on lots of housework and odd, long-ignored chores and watch the temperature sit at the bottom of the glass, mercury long drained away, muttering about godforsaken lands and tropical holidays. I talked to Nolan and he said even the horses didn't want to stay outside today, that's how cold it is, I think minus forty-five with the wind and the sun has already come up.

When is spring again?

I'm not complaining though. A surprise day home, some chores I can tick off the list, a nice dinner to cook for tonight (Tandoori chicken and basmati) before heading to the pool for swimming, the entire day riding on the sweet, sweet memories of the early hours of this morning, woken up by the (not) romantic so he could (not) do sweet things to me that I'm (not) supposed to share with the world.

So shhhhhh already.

Stay warm.