Bridget and her third world kitchen.

Somehow yesterday I found myself in a swanky home furnishings place, in the kitchen section. Little did I know I was supposed to have all this stuff to make my life easier. I had to buy fuel for the fondue burners, because fondue=fun and I needed a hamper because the laundry basket, filled to overflowing, always sitting in the corner of my giant bathroom, looks ridiculous.

I used to have a saying, that when you felt like decorating, it meant you had no problems left in the world. And though I am prone to never taking a single thing in my life for granted and constantly waiting for the telltale footfall of that other shoe dropping, sometimes I want life to look nice and be slightly easier, too.

But not enough, apparently.

We wound up being ambushed by a saleswoman who steered us away from the unknown fly-by-night ninja-manufacturer blender and toward the Cuisinarts, because they chop and blend. And frankly Ben has wanted a blender around here forever because he is big on smoothies and floats and scratch soup and guacamole and whatever else provides the health-nut yang to his McDonalds-penchant yin. So surprise, when he gets home there will be a blender here.

Now, apparently the deciding factors in buying a blender are that it's by a reputable brand name (check), it has dishwasher-safe attachments (I have no dishwasher) and it matches the appliances (WHAT).

I'm much better at buying cars. At least they haggle and throw in fun things. This was $149.99 (OMG Bridget you can't NEGOTIATE at the checkout) and the only fun thing included was a recipe booklet that I don't think included a single thing that I already have on hand. Which means, now I have to go grocery shopping.

I thought this thing was supposed to make my life easier.

I am assured that all things look easier after you've downed a few of the mocha frappes in this booklet. I will report back later and let you know, even though I know my collective public is aghast that I have just revealed that the castle is indeed as medieval as you all have feared, since, I mean, come on, the appliances don't even match.

I have my priorities in order. I'd much rather have a butler, and then he can deal with the fact that there's no dishwasher around to put the swanky new blender parts in.

Sky captain.

The finale of Battlestar Galactica was EPIC.

I know, shut up already, that's all the entire internet is talking about. Well, maybe you should have watched it. It was pretty profound for a science fiction series. After the first hour of total space carnage, that is.

Some of my boys cried. I won't say who or why, for those of you who have TIVO or similar devices and haven't managed to catch it yet (Chase/Andrew/Schuyler). I won't go on about it too much, really, for I'm busy living my own incredibly profound life that has an equal amount of action and carnage and hope, death and resurrection too.

Bravo.

Echo.

November.

My much-anticipated phone call came last night and for once it wasn't what I expected. Well, half of it was expected and the other half complete surprise, cleaved down the middle in a firm dividing line of opposites and it left me confused and somewhat happy and somewhat sad and I haven't talked to anyone about it. Not Daniel. Not Lochlan and not anyone else either. Quiet once again. I don't know where to begin and so I won't even try until I figure it out for myself. I don't mean to worry people, hell I was the last of several to talk to him this week and I have a feeling my call was a whole lot different then theirs were. And so the party line goes something like this: He is working very hard, and we are very proud of him.

I guess for you coming to gape and to gawk at my life the highlight of this post is knowing that yes, Ben is okay and he is still where he needs to be right now and that is the only bottom line I have for you, so please don't ask me for any more than that and I promise not to spoil the ending of Battlestar Galactica for you in return.

TBSGF.

Instead of writing about my wet run this morning through a spring taking it's SWEET TIME to arrive, to the point where I think my hair grows faster than the snow is melting, and instead of telling you about that time (yesterday) when PJ forgot that he was supposed to spend the day with me so I wound up alone for too long and got into the home movies and oh just FAIL already Bridget, you stupid, drippy, unpredictable sentimentalist, I'm going to do something different.

(For the record, PJ did not actually forget to hang out with me. His email said ten and I assumed he meant ten in the morning, not ten at night. I never clarified and happily sent Lochlan off thinking PJ would arrive any minute. I wound up spending most of the afternoon at August's office and then PJ came and got me and by eight last night I had a whole collection of men hanging out in the living room watching home movies. Which made it far less difficult in the end.)

Now, let's move on.

It's Friday.

It's the vernal equinox, which means the sun will cross the equator, day and night are suddenly the same length and this marks the official end of my seventh winter here. One small step for Bridget, one giant leap for the rest of you who have to listen to her complain.

It's above freezing. Did I mention spring is coming?

Seriously. It's just hard to get past that part.

Tonight is the very last episode of Battlestar Galactica. Did I mention the winters here are long and cold and the boys have officially hooked me on all kinds of things I couldn't stand before. I laugh every single time someone says "frack!". Did I mention I'm also looking forward to the Tron sequel?

Did I mention my birthday is forty-six days away and the boys say I'm just finally getting cooler as I get older? Did I mention they're all huge liars and cringing at the thought of me walking around repeating the number of years I am old in total disbelief, wondering how I got to this place when my brain is forever seventeen years old? The hype is unbelievable this year. I do unbirthdays. I am worried now.

Tonight we're going to have something without vegetables for dinner. Because we can.

Tonight I'll listen to music that is attached to no one and brings forth no memories.

Today I noticed my ponytail does what it used to do and it made me feel like me again.

Today I noticed that black nailpolish has incredibly short wear time, even though for once I put it on myself and used topcoat and everything and still chipped all to rock-club junkie hell within twelve hours.

Today I noticed I'm singing along with the stereo again.

Today I turned down a lunch date from Satan and accepted one from Jesus (Sam).

Today I will vaccume the living room. I'm a thirty-something-year-old writer who can't spell that word for the machine that sucks lint out of my lovely Turkish rug. Fuck it. Some things can't be helped.

Today I'll have the last cream soda freezie from the freezer. That leaves all the orange and the coconut.

It's a good day. A surprisingly damn good day.

This has nothing to do with the once-rumored now-confirmed phone call scheduled for tonight from Ben. I just hope he doesn't call during Battlestar Galactica.

Oh my God, I'm kidding. Geez, lighten up.

A different sort of hotness.

Last night saw a trip to the hardware store to look at fixtures and more fixtures and floor coverings and sometimes taps, though the salesman called them faucets, and almost flinched when I asked if the three-hundred-dollar coating on one was any stronger than the $69 chrome plate. I was asking from experience, because if you've ever tried to lift a pot over the sink and accidentally dinged the new expensively-coated faucet, you would know it chips even more easily than the previous cheap chrome one that made it through a good three decades before you took up cooking in there.

As John led me around by the hand, my other hand clutching a hot cup of coffee, I people-watched endlessly. It wasn't until we were leaving (empty-handed because John cannot settle on exactly which plunge-router he is going to purchase) that I realized I had stumbled on a new phenomenon sweeping the men of this city.

Overbearding.

Yes, that's what I called it. Overbearding. You know, when a man grows a beard that seemingly comes up past his nostrils, almost covering his cheeks? You're not sure if he's that unaware that he is growing wall-to-wall facial hair or if he's desperate to cover up the dark circles under his eyes or maybe, perhaps, he just doesn't know any better.

John had the answer for me, as we drove home in the dark.

We've just come out of a long cold winter, princess. Trust me, if you could grow hair all over your face, you would do it in a heartbeat.

Makes sense to me.

Please don't let me fall forever.

(Hi, it's one of those days where it just all pours out. Like a flood. Don't be alarmed. I'm actually fine. Well, if fine is relative. I'm relative, then. And I have no idea what that means, exactly.)

Henry's hair is getting long. So much so that I used a half a can of hairspray this morning on him because he wanted a fauxhawk for school and his hair is heavy and reluctant and I don't keep gel in the house. I don't use it (okay, Ben would eat it if it was just sitting around). I'm certain Henry's hair will be flat again by the first bell because in a few minutes he has to put his winter hat on to go to school.

Tonight it will take several washes to get all of that out, so I'm guessing today is going to be all about make-work projects and about compulsively checking my phone in between rings to see if it is on. Does that make sense? Yes, I know. It will ring and be Duncan or Mark or Dylan on the other end and then if ten minutes goes by after I hang up I'll check status again. Do I have capital EDGE? Okay, good. Okay, no, that's bad, Bridget. Because I haven't talked to Ben this week. He moved on Saturday and that was when I spoke to him last. This place doesn't allow for cellphones. They do have nightly phone times available but he hasn't called. The last thing he said was Go away.

Maybe this journal has become about rejection. Rejecting reality, rejecting life. Rejecting Bridget. Maybe Bridget is the one who is the problem and make rejection is teaching me more about time and space and control and choices better than death, better than religion, or better than that pearl-blue western sky. Maybe I'm going about it all wrong. Maybe the clear and present temptation does nothing but allow me to fail time and time again, while time fails me.

Or just maybe I'm doing fine, and this is life and I've simply run out of luck, which is something I think I said I did in 2006 but no one listened back then because they thought I was ungrateful. I wasn't ungrateful, I was predicting the future. A future with an empty place at the dinner table where my heart is supposed to sit and an empty can of hairspray from trying to pretend everything is completely normal.

Who was I kidding, anyway?

This isn't to say I don't have hope. I don't know exactly how I feel. Maybe he'll never change and maybe he thinks I never will. I just know that I am here bookended by some of the most together, stable, handsome and caring men on the planet and all I can think about is that messed-up, unstable, handsome and completely-self-centered one who isn't here.

Maybe he feels the same way. That's my hope, anyway. And I might not be the only one with hope seeping in around the cracks, since the past couple of days, all the boys have been showing up with black-painted fingernails, a small and quiet show of support for Benjamin, who has no idea how much he is missed by everyone.

They look completely ridiculous and I love it.

I tried to save you but
I can't find the answer
I'm holding on to you
I'll never let go

Okay, I have no idea what the sweep part means.

Drunk on failure's regrets
Letters of silence confess burdens within
Speaking as loneliness listens
While hopelessly feeling
Casted out

One of the joys of this morning was shopping with August.

August sets his own schedule, and he's been an absolute godsend to me lately (maybe that's a Jakesend), hanging out, encouraging me to talk just a little more, not because he wants to get inside my head but so that everything inside my head can get out. He's listened to me prattle on since I met him, he thinks my head is extraordinary, and he thinks I'm beautiful. He's also one of the few who just hugs without asking, and for that alone, I'm going to get a very large jar, stuff him in it, and put him on the shelf as the one and only miracle product of Bridget's tiny apothecary.

We stopped at the tailor he uses, who is actually an ancient and wizened little Chinese lady who lives on the second floor of the most run-down building I have ever set foot in. She had him strip to the waist and she took about eight hundred measurements and she's going to make him four hemp dress shirts. Seriously. Bespoke hippie clothes, people. She asked him if his beautiful wife would like anything made, that she would be honored but I'll be damned if I could understand her and August repeated her question to me and I didn't want to be rude so she's going to make me a lovely olive-green wrap skirt. I think he is paying for it. I don't know, we go back in ten days and everything will be ready.

I was just very happy she didn't ask me to strip to take measurements. I think August was very happy I might someday be planning to wear something that isn't black, though I've become rather attached to my ability to walk into a room and suck the light out of it.

I suppose now you'll tell me that's not a good thing...

We finished our shopping by heading for the global market, as August is also hunting for a dress belt, the caveat being it has to be vegan. After an hour of looking and asking and googling on the go even I finally looked up, slightly crazed and asked him why the belt had to be vegan, if he had steak at my house last night? What code of ethics ran that show, anyway?

Hey, there was a pretty girl standing there holding a plate piled high with steak. Show me a Vegan who will turn that down and I'll show you a fucking idiot.

Except, once again I had to get him to slow it down and translate because his accent is still thicker than that of the tailor. I'm hoping that with time, that will change too.

There is absolutely nothing going on today but people seemed nervous that I didn't post.

The sun is out, the snow is melting, I had a long catharsis of a run this morning, and I don't feel nearly as gloomy as I usually do. I can see the end of having to wear practical boots and my heavy wool coat and a hood that perpetually flattens the perky chin-length hair cut that is so flat it's almost shoulder-length again. Or maybe it grew. I don't know, spring is coming, so who cares about anything else right now?

Even the kids are losing their ever-loving minds. You would think they've never seen sunshine before.

Trust me, living here, sometimes that's what it feels like.

I'm about to go wedge myself in the corner of the couch under John's elbow and finish going over Christian's writing, and then hopefully if all goes well I'm going to make an early dinner of steak and baked potatoes and be in bed by nine.

I will try to write earlier tomorrow, for those of you losing your minds. I feel loved. Which is kind of creepy when it comes from total strangers on the internet.

This might have a soundtrack by Prokofiev or someone whimsical like that.

Is there an easy way? Great. I'll be over here under the sign labeled "danger". You requested honesty and here, have it for fucking breakfast and then leave me alone.

I will love him, thoroughly and unapologetically. I will throw down my guard and my trust and he will gobble them up and spit the bones back out and smile in the half-assed, charming way that he smiles and splits the crack in my heart open just a little wider, in order to wedge himself in deep. Go ahead. Deeper. Please.

It hurts, you know. It burns and it aches and at the same time it feels good in the most twisted way.

Just like in order to weigh down my fingers, I wear so many rings. Rings that are borrowed and bought and given freely and with conditions. Rings with skulls and roses and words and scratches too. Rings that when you squeeze my hand too hard I may squeal because it hurts and my knuckles are bruised in between.

Will I take them off?

Not on your life.

This one from him, is all skulls and darkness. It's my tie to him while he's gone. Another spins around and around, wearing a bell sound into my skull. He has a matching one, and he left that for me too, for twice the comfort but his is so big I wear it below mine, so mine will hold it on. Others include my wedding ring, and more rings that mean different things. They serve to provide a nice heft to keep my fingers remembered in their tasks of spelling properly and using punctuation and then I sound less crazy because I have dotted the i and used a comma where a comma should be and I'm rather presentable because I'm beautifully accessorized even if it is in an over-the-top rockstar boyfriend format. It's okay, I won't apologize if you don't ask to see them up close. There are so many now that I keep a little blue pottery bowl by the sink to hold them when I wash dishes, wash my hands, wash an apple. Wash away the hurt part.

In the event that it is needed, I could simply use them as tools, wedging them far into that crack in my heart to hold his place. I've done it before, I'll do it again. In the event that it is needed I will melt them down and fashion a silver bullet and save us all.

But I will not apologize for loving him. And I'll be really proud of him for getting through detox and then moving to a slightly closer program, one that has a family weekend once a month.

He always wanted a family.

Now he has one.

And we'll be there in April to spend that weekend with him, which I think falls on our very first wedding anniversary. I can't remember right this second. Emotion overload, okay? I don't mind talking about things that are over. It's things that are ongoing that are so difficult in a watchful public eye where people pass judgement without fully understanding the gravity involved. I worry. I'm afraid. What if I self-destruct while he's gone? What if I forget him? What if he comes out different? What if he comes out the same? What if I miss him too much, hell, what if I miss him too little? What if neither one of us can get through what is going to be a very long and painful separation?

My head is unpredictable, and therein lies the reason behind holding that place with as much silver as I can find, a representation of something good and pure, like the very incredibly overwhelming love I have for someone I'm not sure that I don't hate right now.

That stupid half-charming, half-fratboy Tucker smile will fix everything, and I can't wait to see it again.

Treasures. Two for Saturday. This never happens.

Oh my goodness. Fuck the previous post. Look what was found for me on the 'tube. God knows, I still have the hugest crush on Jesse Hasek's voice and this doesn't help matters any, now, does it?

Beautiful, acoustic.

Okay, now, enough with the youtube links. I promise.

Wow.

Fastball.

Anyone could see the road that they walk on is paved in gold
It's always summer, they'll never get cold
They'll never get hungry
They'll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won't make it home
But they really don't care
They wanted the highway
They're happy there today, today

Here, since we're being goofy today. This is one of the very few songs Lochlan will sing out loud. I have more to say but instead I'm going to be smart and just go dress shopping instead.

Sugar burns.

He declared the food fight officially over after a particularly violent ambush left Daniel with a fruit loop up his nose. Whoops. The kitchen looks like a talking toucan exploded in it, there is fruit loop shrapnel all over everything, in the plants, in my ears, my hair is candy-coated and the box on the table is empty now.

Daniel started sweeping up while I started trying to clean up from breakfast. He failed to notice when I put the milk away I found the perfect ammunition-a leftover juicebox that was open but still full, because sometimes I grab one when I'm on the go. No one else likes them. I don't like them either. I would have thrown this one out in a week or so.

I rose up from behind the fridge door and let loose all over him, squeezing the box as hard as I could. He screamed, running around trying to block the spray, finally taking cover near my laptop, threatening to hug it close and get it all sticky and possibly ruin it forever.

So I did what any self-respecting outlaw girl would do. I dropped the box, put my hands up and surrendered. I give up. You win.

It's not over, though.

Not by a long shot.

To keep.

Your Cinderella stories, for a price.

Jake used to tell me I could have made a career out of missing Benjamin. If only someone would have paid me.

He's probably right. I started waiting for Ben before his plane took off, I started marking days and counting hours before he was settled in and I decided I was going to take it personally within seconds of being told where he was going, and when he would be back.

Lucky for all of us, I have since changed my mind on that last point.

I won't take it personally because it isn't personal and it has nothing to do with me. On the other hand, it has everything to do with me and in my universe you need to be tough and you need to step up and swing for home because I can't. I don't care if you score, I don't care if you foul out, just make the damn effort on my behalf and you've already won.

Be my hero because you are my hero.

Ben has won his war, he just needs to clean up the collateral damage and that is what he has gone back to his battlefield to do.

Lochlan is taking good care of me, because he promised Ben that he would. He made similar promises to Cole and to Jake and for some reason I wound up with a great bunch of guys I owe my life to. Lochlan made some difficult and incredibly unpopular choices for our benefit, on our behalf, and I was too selfish and too blind to see that he did this for us, for Ben and I, that he knew I would hate him and he sent Ben away anyway, because Ben needs to get better so that Bridget can have her Happily Ever After finally, at long last. I didn't see that, and I'm sorry.

Heroes come in many forms, and I am a lucky girl. I'm just usually thinking too loud to hear you when you tell me.

Blink.

I never made it anywhere. We'll just call it yet another impulsive action that serves to prove that I still need heavy-handed guidance. Do you think they know what I need? I doubt it. They don't listen.

They act, however, and in an ironic twist of fate, Ben is going away and I am not. The next few months are clear, the opportunity is being taken and he's going somewhere to clean up his act. As in, he's gone. Now. Already. Seth moves fast. Not quite fast enough, however, because Ben got himself back into trouble right under everyone's nose and it took a lovely dramatic set of events for them to see how much trouble, precisely.

If you remember, it was a little less than a year ago that Ben went away to dry out and showed up on my doorstep four days later. This time things will be a little different and he won't be able to come home until he's finished. We get that. We can deal with that. Just fix him. Please.

In a further ironic twist, Lochlan will be staying here indefinitely now. He can do that (dumb freelancing) and I should be grateful, he says, that he's here to help out while Ben goes to Emotherapy.

Bear witness.

I'm standing here right now with plane tickets pending on my screen, fully charged phones and packed bags and I'm paralyzed and Lochlan, if you take this one down I'll never speak to you again.

In a nutshell, Ben's been drinking for days and I don't know why. Probably because he had a momentary wobble of self-esteem and decided that he wasn't tough enough and didn't deserve us and maybe Lochlan should be the one to just step in and take over finishing what Cole started and Jacob ran with but couldn't manage either. Last time I checked, any total moron could manage to have a family and a normal life but this isn't any normal family so silly me, I should know better.

Why aren't they strong enough? What is it about me that makes them fight like dogs and love like men and behave like total creeps?

Because gee, I don't know, Lochlan egged Ben on (just like he did with Jake) until he had nothing else left and then moved right in to collect the spoils. Only he doesn't want me to write about his actions because he would much prefer that everyone believes he is here in town, working hard to secure a future and pining for his own estranged fiance and baby girl back East and that he's here as a friend, and such a smart one so he can keep everyone and everything pulled together and then everyone thinks that BRIDGET is even more of a mess than usual or BRIDGET can't get her act together.

It isn't BRIDGET. And it certainly isn't BEN and TOUGH FUCKING LUCK, LOCHLAN, I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE.

Please, God, just hear me this time.

Oh, and one more thing.

Don't follow us. I don't know where we're going yet but you're not invited.

Because I thought I could handle it.

Last night I woke up to angry voices. I went down to the den, and lo and behold, Ben is there with his fresh bottle of whatever, and he and August are in each other's faces and Lochlan is standing away from them, arms crossed, staring out the garden doors into the dark like he's looking for something, and then when I made my presence known, Ben lurches out of August's airspace and heads for me and they were all over him before he could get to me.

I yelled Leave him alone! and then Loch somehow figured he could fix this. Whatever this was. I don't know. I was hardly even awake. He pushed me out of the doorway and shut the door and I heard August yell at Ben to figure out what he was going to do and fast and Ben yelled back that he had it under control. Lochlan just listened with me and stared at me. I could have slapped him but instead I took one look at him and pointed out how what they worked out doesn't work and they should just leave us alone. Then I walked away from him, down the hall, made it almost to the kitchen before I lost my nerve and went back and went through the door behind Lochlan as he walked back into the den and I went to hold Ben and he pushed me away and said Don't let her see me like that, get her out. I'll hurt her. I always hurt her.

Only it wasn't the slightly confident Benspeak that I know by now when he's had just enough to soften the edge on his life. It wasn't anything I've heard before and I waited while my brain was sorting out what my ears told it they heard and when all the words were in order and straightened out and the consonants and endings were added. I waited too long and by then he was screaming at them, staring at me and really to lurch again, fighting to get to me, probably to slam the door on me so I wouldn't have to see him.

This time when I turned to leave Lochlan was in front of me and he put his arms around me and I caved in. This time I could hear Ben yelling that I should have gone with someone who was normal and maybe it isn't too late, that he's so sorry he couldn't take the pressure and he got greedy and then Lochlan put his hands over my ears and I couldn't hear anything else, but I knew that Ben was still screaming because I woke up this morning, still in Lochlan's arms with Ben's voice was still in my head but he isn't here and I need him and I think they've taken him away from me and if they did heads are going to roll. Probably mine first. Oh, too late. Nevermind.

Good enough.

Apparently a few rather quiet days at home with fresh snow and extra fruit were needed, and sorely. They helped to shore up the eroding mental strength required for me to just deal with things people deal with every day. Maybe I keep myself in a bubble too much. Maybe I should just listen.

The flu is not the flu and I'm not pregnant. I'm taking some amazingly kick-ass iron pills that in order to make me feel human and have energy, first they must suck the life out of me and leave me miserable, ready to vomit at the first sign of heat, oxygen or hell, pick something. I have to eat more. They told me to take with food. Apparently coffee is not food. I now take with bagel.

I don't plan to address the whole pregnancy topic with you anymore, internet. If you were around when I was pregnant two years ago then you get that. If not, then next time work on your punctuality.

This morning also brough the sting of hot tears of disappointment, when a tiny little story I had a lot of hope for made it's way back to me from a publication I wanted to be a part of. It's funny, too. I was just describing last evening in an email how this industry is not for the faint of heart and here I am, faint of heart like nothing you've ever seen before, smack in the middle of trying to call it a life. This story was very close, rather personal and it was out for four months and the letter said they considered it and then considered it again, and ultimately they passed on it.

Par for the course, but the sting is still always there and always fresh. In amongst the vomitish, overtired, non-pregnant, freshly-ironed tearful feelings for a Monday morning, you might just catch a glimpse of what keeps it going.

I sit on my knees, hunched over to the ground, my hands cupped around a tiny candle, keeping the flame from the wind. That stupid flame makes me get up, dust off my skirts and take another goddamned iron pill, write another story that's going to take me on a rollercoaster of hope and accomplishment and failure too, and spend another day raising my children without the genetic shackles of faint hearts and fragile egos. Stomping out the fire that licks up my skirt because as always, I'm standing too close.

Back on the horse. I am the lone ranger. Only I'm not lone, nor do I range. Do I range?

I do ramble, I know that much.

Level with the weather instead of still under it.

There is some random blessing in having the guys around tonight, piled into the living room, sprawled out on every soft surface they can fit, playing Halo Wars. Even if my presence is only useful in the sense that, every fifteen seconds, someone calls out to ask if I'm sure the internet says that in the fourth mission, the skull is next to the bronze statue, on the steps near base two.

I should start making things up.

Okay, it says for this one, it's next to the gilded unicorn, at the top of the hill west of the stone turret.

What the...unicorn? There's no unicorn here, Bridge.

Keep playing, it must be there somewhere...

Believe me, I've resorted to treachery and misinformation only out of sheer boredom. I must be feeling better.

Don't rush this, baby.

She said
I don't know why you ever would lie to me
Like I'm a little untrusting
When I think that the truth is gonna hurt you
And I don't why you couldn't just stay with me
You couldn't stand to be near me
When my face don't seem to want to shine
Cause its a little bit dirty well
Don't just stand there
Say nice things to me

Hmm, it's Saturday, it's still dark out and I still feel like someone ran over me with a tractor. There is a dirty guitar sound layered from the speakers that makes me check my phone every fifteen seconds because I think I hear it ringing but it's not. This is why most of the boys use conventional rings for their phones, since my penchant for using the bridges of my favorite heavy alternative songs (not the one quoted above, for it's pop) end up blended into the mix, getting lost.

It's okay, what I miss I will catch with the blinky light that tells me I missed it. My phone is just like a butler, only it doesn't bring me orange juice after sex. Which means Ben is my butler. Sorry, mom.

I'm in skinny jeans and a big black hoodie today with my fortune cookie long sleeved T underneath. Saturday socks. No, really, they say Saturday on the soles. I have my corporate sellout cup from Starbucks pushed in front of my nose and my coffee is almost gone and why I'm posting before anything has happened instead of after things happen so I would actually have something to write about is anyone's guess.

I have stopped wearing earrings. Every five years or so my body rebels and I wind up pulling out all the steel and going bare. Then I poke a whole new round of fresh holes and begin again. Right now the only thing left is the barbell in my tongue. Maybe I should just stick with the tattoos and be done with it. They don't get red or migrate or drive me nuts. They just are. A living canvas. I didn't even tell you about the latest one. Choose your words, choose them wise. Tiny but profound, it makes me happy. The grammar sucks but the sentiment blows my mind.

As it should.

Words are what it's all about, and I have so many. Take a large pin and stick it in my head and I will burst into a silent explosion, letters raining down in a ten-mile radius of devastation, covering everything.

You'll be able to read it perfectly.

At the bitter end, I lost my nerve.

Heaven help you.

There is always a song in my head but today it plays slightly muted and it skips a little and jumps here and there, I can barely hear it, almost like how when you duck under the surface in pools that play music you sometimes catch a melody but it's always full of bubbles and distortion and I know my hearing is bad but is there a point to piping songs into water in the first place?

I vote no.

August and I are drawing cartoons again, music on low, a fire stoked high, not so much talking as just hanging out, no obligations, no personality clashes, no egos to coddle or soothe, just space and time and sharpies with fine points and the scanner somehow legoed to my laptop long enough to make files to send to Ben's phone and every hour or so I get a one line text message that says ahahahahahahahaahaha and then another hour goes by and another message arrives with some variation in the number of those two letters. Ben and Seth have gone somewhere private hopefully to remove Ben's head and re-position on his neck, but straight this time, I think it gets habitually cross-threaded and he holds it up with effort. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if I see him later today and his eyes are level pools with the bubbles in the middle, showing he is straight and true. While that would be nice, it isn't possible because humans are human and princesses are notoriously princess-y and life is amazingly unpredictable at best and so in the future I think people would be best served to learn how to deal with change and how to expect the unexpected and why you should never try to put a box around your life because just when you have it all taped down and secured against the wind you realize everything is going to change and you just wasted all that tape.

The Haptic Response Team.

Why, yes, I think I will have t-shirts made that say that.

Visually you're stimulating to my eyes
Your Cinderella syndrome, full of lies
Your insecurities are concealed by your pride
Pretty soon your ego will kill what’s left inside

(Beautiful)
It’s so pitiful what you are (Pitiful)
As beautiful as you are
(Should have seen)
You should have seen this coming all along

I got a lovely email last evening that reassured me that my brother-in-law has no interest in scaring me or ruining my life, he simply wants to maintain an unbroken, unrestricted line of sight to us because we are family. That everything is fine but frankly after considering my actions for a full month, he's decided they should be ignored. Oh and when I wrote about how well the children were doing at school, that entry served as the straw that broke the devil's back, as it were and he's afraid he might miss out.

Mortality is having an interesting effect on this man. What a lovely, public midlife crisis he is going through, because I don't think anyone has ever seen him this unraveled. He blames me. And we could go back and forth forever in public and in private and none of it would matter. He gets to see and touch us and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it now because I have exhausted all my legal avenues and I have listened to all the ideas and I have invoked every last measure of protection I can find and it was all for nothing.

And I'm relieved but you know that and I don't believe I still have to explain it. It just is what it is. They come and they go and I am the centre axis. Lochlan likes to say I'm the singularly unpredictable haptic girl. Touch me or hell, push me and then stand back because you're going to get a different reaction every time.

I think my life would have been easier overall had they not all figured that out so damned quickly.

Oh hell, there's a million ways my life could have been easier. Regrets are better left on the side of the road, discarded and forgotten, as quick as you can, now, come on, we've got places to go!

Thirty days to breathe.

(You must be slipping.)

By virtue of having more money and more connections to a ridiculously inept justice system, and further compounded by pressure from Cole's family for me to 'do the right thing', Caleb has managed to fuck up my life beyond belief. He now has access to us again. You know, because he moved here to be close to his dead brother's wife and his beloved niece and nephew and get this, has been 'financially supporting' us since last fall, among other things. Last time I checked that was income from working for him which I don't get anymore because I thought I had finally gotten away from him.

In any case, it's been determined that he's good for us and life is great and we should all just be one big happy family and we apparently deserve no protection whatsoever because Caleb is a such a fine specimen of humanity who can single-handedly corrupt anyone he chooses, whether they want to call it that or not.

I wonder exactly how much it costs these days to bend the sympathetic ear of a judge who would rather facilitate the obsessions of a mobster instead of protecting a widow and her two young children who wouldn't hurt a fly. Maybe I'll go down there and ask. Oh wait, I just came from there. They can't answer me because they know this isn't right.

'Love You Forever' still makes me cry.

Not only am I having a devil of a time keeping my happy zig-zagging head in one spot, but at lunchtime I was informed that both my children had extraordinary numbers in the February Reading Race at their school. Extraordinary. Ruth read a third of the total page count for her grade, and Henry's class won the school contest for most pages read altogether.

In a way, I shouldn't be surprised. Cole was a reader. Ben reads constantly. And I started with them from birth every single day, reading and re-reading Are you my Mother? and Love You Forever until I was so sick of P.D. Eastman and Robert Munsch I thought I might turn blue.

We raced through the lyrical The Lorax and Green Eggs and Ham and then in one winter we covered the entire Little House on the Prairie set. We did some CS Lewis and some Stevenson too and now we're currently on book four of the Harry Potter series and that's only counting the books that get read aloud. The children go to bed at night and continue to read for as long as they possibly can, and most nights I am halfway up the steps before I hear the lights clicked off and everyone pretends to be asleep far too late for the average under-ten set to be awake.

But I'm still surprised because I thought everyone read the way we do. I always wonder how everyone else seems so together and so busy and so accomplished. Then I look at my kids and they have all the answers because they read them somewhere wonderful, and then I don't really care about everyone else anymore. Maybe we're the together ones.

This is awesome. That's all. Give Bridget her proud mother moment. (God knows, most days I feel like I'm doing everything backasswards.)

Whatever else I planned to write about can wait, for today, at least. Ben and Lochlan have gone to the airfield, Christian is here working in some sunny corner of the house with his laptop and I'm making egg salad for tomorrow and plotting new curtains and dishes because I am bored.

Not a slow news day, just a good news day. They should all be like this.

When you forget what you were going to say.

Today I sat down to write a poetic ode to something or other that involved negative butterfly photography and cherry-red lip stain but I've been ousted, since the space where I currently like write is occupied with junk.

The junk is from Ben's luggage that somehow gets emptied all over the kitchen table, much to my chagrin, but today I found something that made me laugh for half an hour and I forgot to be all mopey and damp about life just for long enough today, and that's a good thing.

You see, the items on the table are the same items that Ben hastily shoved into his suitcase in order to make his flight Thursday night. There are clothes. Everything is black and inside out and maybe covered with some diet coke from the empty bottle I also found, wrapped in a t-shirt and at one point leaking profusely. There are four pencils, eight guitar picks that are a thickness he despises, seventeen loose leaf sheets with words scrawled illegibly on the back only of each one. There's three tea bags (china black) and two snickers bars (melted and refrozen) and a stack of blank CDs. Two silver rings that should be on his fingers (not his wedding band, thank heavens) and the watch he hates wearing. A broken Nintendo DS lite and two matchbox cars that Henry gave him for luck and "if you are bored". An empty lip balm tube and a crumpled and diet coke-soaked CD insert. His phone charger. Four sharpies and yes, another pencil. A vintage John Saul horror novel that he doesn't read but it seems to go everywhere anyway. Two notepads and a picture of the kids in a huge ziploc bag, the only things in the bag worth protecting from the soda, I guess.

I know he was in a hurry but really he pretty much always goes out neat and organized and comes back to me a teenage boy. None of that was the strange part though. The strange part was the drumstick.

Bitten in half.

Just the handle end arrived at the bottom of the bag and I could ask about it but really? It doesn't surprise me in the least. He did say when he gets hungry he'll eat anything.

I think I finally believe him.

Last of the clary sage.

Or, how one city-dwelling transplanted beach girl exists in a land of obstinate Newfoundlanders and ubiquitous Americans.

This morning was busy as all get out. Christian (!!!) reappeared on my radar last evening, home from his very long time away, and we opted for a write-in this morning because wow, he's been busy and I never did slog through all of it with my red marker so he let me bring it home and I will spend the next few days giving him a hand with it.

Then church, with just about everybody and I sit in the crook of Ben's arm, jabbing him in the ribs with my pointy little elbows when he pulls out his phone and starts replying to emails halfway through the sermon and then toward the end Sam abandons his all-capable facade and tells the congregation with so much emotion in his voice that his prayers have been answered, that he and Lisabeth have reconciled and thanks everyone for their prayers and their support and I didn't even have a breath to consider how wonderful that was when I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt and tears spilled out because the happiness for them could not be contained and I didn't know and I wished so badly for that to happen, you wouldn't ever believe it. Problems are just that, problems. Things to be fixed. Things to be dealt with. Nothing is worth being apart when you love someone the way they love each other.

Selfishly, it was also a huge moment of vindication for me. I wasn't the other woman, I didn't cause their issues and I got a very long hug from both Lisabeth AND Sam as they saw everyone out. The whole neighborhood saw those hugs, and subsequently, the whole neighborhood can kiss my sweet little ass.

Sam, true to Jacob-form, is now taking on a second community minister, because just like Jacob, he wanted to come in superhuman and handle everything and the church is a soul-sucking business that will bleed you dry, burn you out and turn you over before you crawl away from it in bits and pieces. At least this one is. The addition of a second in command will greatly relieve the pressure on Sam and give them time to repair the damage that's been done. I wish them so much of everything, they deserve it.

Hell, Lis even took a hug from Ben, and she's terrified of him.

And it's March first. And I really hoped when I looked outside this morning that it wouldn't still be -30 Celsius with two feet of ice and snow still on the ground but it was and my little car was plugged in and the trucks were plugged in and everything is pretty much as I left it the last time my brain was engaged this beautifully. Present and accounted for. Fevered with spring and spring missed the memo.

And now I have the last-of-my-garden-herbs bread in the oven to go with the asparagus frittata casserole that I'm going to make shortly and lunch is going to be delicious. Even if I set a place and spring is a no-show.

Proper welcomes.

Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.
Father blessed them all with reason.
And this is what they choose.

Last evening Ben and Ruth got all dressed up and went to a restaurant downtown while I fed Henry and Daniel. This morning Ruth and I ate cereal at the table while Ben and Henry took off for some pancakes down on the strip. It was Ben's idea to help undo some of the more difficult clashes that arise when he's gone for long periods and then comes home and has to fit back in to our family dynamic. It isn't easy but he had smoothed their feathers and quieted their concerns eventually. It will be a learning process for all of us.

It will trigger a new princess complex for a new generation, sure as shooting. Ruthie is doted on by the hunkles anyway. She knows how to manipulate them already. Henry just tries to fit in. But they did enjoy their one-on-one time with Ben and late last night, so did I.

I got ambushed after midnight, over ice cream at the dinner table, Ben took the bowls away and I remained at the table thinking and he returned with a kiss on the tattoo on the back of my neck, the one place that sends shivers to the tips of my toes. He slid his hands around my shoulders and continued the kiss up under my ear and I turned and rested my head on his shoulder as his capable hands pulled me out of my chair and into his arms.

We waged a silent and comical effort to rid each other of the clothing that stood in the way and then when enough of it was on the floor, he pulled me above him into his chair and goddamn it if he didn't just fool me into that coveted moment he's wanted all along. And I let him. But instead of a spectre in the doorway or the sweet and soft warmth of the past, I relished the changes of the present, the cold and angular fierceness of Ben and the strength he keeps inside for these occasions only.

When his hands went around my ears and it was only that epic strength of his keeping me from falling, I cried out and he tightened his hold on me. Before I could voice my preference we were out of the chair and tripping up the steps, kisses falling everywhere and scratches against skin leaving marks to prove it's all real and it is. Once we were upstairs under the warm blankets in the pitch blackness, Ben resumed his unacknowledged plan to take everything back and keep it.

This time when I cried out his hand slid over my mouth. This time when I flinched he held only tighter. This time when I shook with the effort and the exhaustion of the night, he was there with his arms to hold me, and not let go, not leave and not disappear into thin air like the mirage of failed rescues in my history.

This time, we got it right.

Waiting so patiently.

Open up your eyes
Take the devil from your mind
He's been holding on to you
And you're so hard to find

Nolan arrived around six-thirty last evening, a whim leading me to beg him to come into the city for dinner, to bring his guitar and some of the boys would too and I would cook and we could all just embrace the cold night and the warmth we could make within it. PJ stoked up the biggest fire that I've ever seen in the woodstove, and Nolan lapsed into an amusing blend of storytelling, punctuating the action with noises from his guitar that made me laugh.

Soon enough though, the narcolepsy that had chased me through the entire day finally caught up and I remember closing my eyes and leaning my head into the crook of Daniel's arm and hearing the music of the Eagles from Sam's fingers, giving up to the late night because even though I had received a phone call to the contrary, I assumed that based on the hour Ben wasn't able to make it on a plane after all.

I woke up when a familiar stubble brushed against my cheek. I opened my eyes and all I heard was You've had a long day, haven't you? and then he was here and I saw his brown eyes smiling at me and that was it. Lights out.

So while I get zero brownie points for properly greeting my husband after a four-day absence, he's home now and my long week is over.

Thank heavens.

The beach on the kitchen floor.

Manageable with parameters so tight others can hardly breathe, but I do very well, thank you. Open the door and a peal of dissent will rise from my throat, anguish in my eyes. Leave the light off too, if you please, because it's as close as I can possibly get to heaven when I sleep.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do anymore. I think just keep on moving, one foot in front of the other and just keep a lot more to myself and open up just a little more at the same time. Loosen up but keep it together. I don't understand that.

Today I understand some small things that I've attached to. I have a huge crush on Jesse Hasek's voice this morning, I'm plotting a cake run in the morning because it's been a long time, too long, actually, since there was cake in my house. I need to call around for some prices on some work for the house that can't be done by my jacks of all trades and I'm going to manage a lot of editing this morning, if I can, just to get ahead of my future plans to dominate the publishing world under my own name instead of a made-up one.

We'll be driving outside the city tonight with a telescope to take in comet Lulin. I almost wrote Lupin there. She circles the sky like a wayward toddler star and it will make me feel small and full of perspective about my life and that might last until I can fall asleep, if I'm lucky. Dreams would be nice. Longer darkness would be nice. Unprovoked happiness would be a gift and instead it's an effort and I never fully understood why I'm the one who carries this while you all walk along beside me, lighter and happy until further notice while I fight so hard to pull my mood up off the floor where it languishes.

You think time will fix that?

Then you don't know me at all.

Ben is home late tomorrow night if I'm lucky. For a while. I'm so glad because when he isn't in this house I feel that much more lost and so very alone and it just serves to magnify all the flaws that I bite back and fake some happy for him and then he's still happy instead of concerned and wow, is that ever tiring and please don't throw anything else into the mix because I just can't navigate anything but a few simple steps right now.

So conservative fatalistic optimism is what you get even though you probably came for something else. I don't understand it either. But you're here now, so you may as well come in and if you want to go to the beach with me, that would be great. I have some jars of sand and I'm going to dump them out on the floor and turn on all the lights and play music very loud like I always do and then cry because it just isn't the same and it never will be.

Keep changing your mind.
Like clouds in the sky.
Love me when you're high.
Leave me when you cry.
I know it all takes time.
Like a river running dry when the sun is too bright.

Loops of endless avarice.

I'd say your worst side's your best side
I never hurt anyone
I never listen at all

There's a huge campaign to get me to call off the dogs where it comes to Caleb, you know, since he moved here to be closer to us and to provide whatever the hell it is that he thinks we might need from him, and couldn't I try to just get along for the sake of our family? This is the guilt levelled on me by Cole's parents. Which is lovely but I'm finding here as life goes on that the role of Satan has been filled with someone new.

Lochlan.

A hundred million years ago, when I was fourteen years old and he broke up with me (wow, I just realized how incredibly LOVELY it is that I have this twenty-three year long history of rejection from this man and yet he STILL gets whatever he wants.) he promised that he would look out for me. That he would never not be annoyed by me but he loved me still. Just not enough.

Not. Enough.

Bridget likes a challenge, apparently. Or Loch does. I don't know and furthermore this is one of those things I know I'll regret writing about but again it's here inside my head and it won't leave because it's not getting better and maybe if I just empty it all out and shake the crumbs onto the floor then I can wash the jar and store it away empty and things will be okay.

Then again, maybe I won't.

There's a desperate and pressure-cooker mentality to Lochlan these days that makes me want to rip him into little pieces and scatter them in the river because he clued in sometime around after I married Ben and then Ben and I have had some agonizing growing pains and there's a lot to deal with here. Lochlan saw an opening and threw his hat in the ring. Which was too little too late and yet he still thinks he's going to pull a Jake and wear me down. Even though that isn't what Jake did. Maybe it is to an extent but it really isn't, so no. And sure, writing it out once again puts Ben in his place because the weekend was fiercely beautiful and vaguely painful at the same time.

Lochlan told me last night that Ben should have been a fling, not a commitment and that Ben got greedy and jumped for the brass ring when he wasn't supposed to. I fired back that I've had a commitment to Ben forever, that if we didn't go our separate ways after all the awful things we've done to ruin each other then we're not going to now. And for the love of God don't you come back yet again with the same song for the same dance. Fuck you.

And he brings up the damn photo again.

Which was none of anyone's business to begin with and I'm so pissed right now. They resort to going through my phone because the times I am in control of my own life they don't like it. Lochlan saw a picture of me that Ben took on the weekend and in front of me on the table are two glasses, almost empty. Wine glasses. Two of them. Which means the alcoholic isn't on the wagon and they're all mad because I didn't run from Ben, I didn't rat him out and I didn't say a single word about it. I don't plan to say any more about it here.

And wow, she's doing really good again in so many ways, exactly how much like Cole is Ben going to be? They stroke my hair and whisper that I just need to tell them exactly what's going on and they can protect me from repeating history.

I didn't ask them to. And I find it fascinating that the minute I take over my own control again and exert a tiny bit of independence they all lose their minds.

And it looks like Lochlan wrote that letter but he didn't. Caleb did and it found it's way to my inbox because his email is set up to do that, with help, so that I would have records if he tried to contact any of my friends behind my back. And I'd like to know exactly what Caleb did for Ben that helped further Ben's race to my heart and I'd like to know what Loch thinks he's going to achieve by tearing Ben down almost continuously, as always, in my eyes and I'd really like to know why if I did everything right on the weekend, by not saying a word while Ben sat in front of me and drank wine, not berating him, not helping him get any, not making it my problem and instead focusing on getting what I wanted out of my weekend with him, then why do I feel so helpless when it comes to him? Clinging to the times when he's here and fearing for him when he isn't?

But not lost, oddly enough. And that is what makes Lochlan so crazy.

He can't fix a damned thing and oh, boy, does he ever hate that helpless feeling. Tell me about it. So instead he tries other methods. No more yelling, just his glassy-eyed affirmations that I no longer indulge in because life didn't turn out that way. We're reduced to whispers at four in the morning because we can't just fucking drop it already. Just take what I can give you and let the rest go. Jesus Christ, I need to get off this endless loop.

Enough already. You got Ben's supposed role, take it now and play it to the fullest.

Bridget, it was always supposed to be me, and instead I let you go.

There's no room for you here, anymore, Lochlan, why won't you just go?

Is that what you want? Because you keep saying it, Bridget and yet here we are. So you tell me, is that what you really want?

No.

I'm a coward.

A photo begat a letter.

Didn't write it, didn't receive it, don't have permission to post it. Doing it anyway.

Don't kid yourself that things are different now. The eyes are on both of you but it's such a helpless feeling to watch her. She's like a wounded bird. In her eyes it's there. It follows you. It makes you feel inadequate but larger than life at the same time, doesn't it? She wants you to make it better. She wants you to make her safe. Take away all her worries, repair the damage somehow. She has full confidence that you can. That you will. Don't forget who helped you get to this place where this is even possible.

It's a helpless love she gives you and you're exploiting that, deferring her needs but she doesn't withdraw from you. She didn't ask for what she wants, though. She doesn't point out your shortcomings, they're dragged from her. She is always so fucking slow to give up her secrets or tell yours. She is smarter than this. So are you.

You don't even care. What you care about is touching her skin and capturing her heart so that it can be yours. Are you mad? Are you really this stupid? You should be running but instead you're drawn to her like a moth to a flame and you don't change as much as you adapt to this fucked up life, only you're making it worse. You have no idea how lucky you are. None of them ever did, why should you be different? You should have taken what you wanted and moved on.

So now you hold the biggest responsibility of your life in your arms. Smarten the fuck up or live to regret every breath you've ever taken because if you let go of her again, I'll kill you.

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.