What three things do you look at first in a man?
Um, what? Oh Lord. Smile, hair and the width of the shoulders. I can't believe you asked that.
Moving on. Last album download.
Rev Theory's Light it Up.
Latest time consuming activity?
Learning to use Ben's old iPhone 3G. He got the 3G S yesterday.
How many freckles do you have now?
This interview is over, Duncan.
What did I say?
I liked your beat poetry better than your Larry King.
Monday 22 June 2009
Sunday 21 June 2009
Lights off.
Yesterday Ben won me a giant stuffed Hello Kitty at the fair. My freckles were activated, though the power of our sunblock held strong, and I didn't refuse to go on a single ride that was presented to me, which meant I found myself swinging far out over the midwestern sky in the broilerplated heat two stories in the air with only slick metal chains keeping me from certain death more than a dozen times.
I ate pizza on a stick, which is one of those magical foods where the first bite is the best one and it's all downhill from there, I climbed up the Euroslide, had a change of heart, and then Henry talked me back into it, because Henry's 52 inches tall and you have to be 54 inches.
Mommy's 60 inches tall so she HAS to take me because Ben is 76 inches and might make for some drag on our speed and we want to have a race.
Pffft. That ride right there? Death trap.
Besides, Ruth in all her 54 inches of height and newly-big-kid glory won hands down. Because she jumped the gun and that's fine, you do that when you're nine.
And there were carnies everywhere, under the darker shade of the tents, charming us out of our cash and enticing us to stay longer and throw harder and take our time and come over to the next booth and ride the coaster again later after we've stayed here for a while and not leave through the big white gates at the magic hour, you don't want to go just yet, the fun is just beginning and you might miss out on the greatest summer of your lives if you go now. I can stamp your hands and you can come back for more.
It was then and only then that the tears began to sting behind my eyes. He's missing out. He didn't want to go JUST yet, the fun IS just beginning and dammit, there is no stamp for reentry. The sun has gone down and the fair has packed up and left town for him and you know what was dumb? That I have that one stupid memory of him here, walking along the dusty road between the games with their barkers, hands in his pockets, smiling politely because he always felt like they wanted him to sell his soul for the price of picking a duck with a letter on the bottom. The games made him uncharacteristic, superstitious, uncomfortable. He would spend a couple of dollars only, and then we'd leave that whole area, returning to the rides and the barns and the light, the open sunny skies because he was never comfortable with trying his luck, even though he had a knack for that kind of magic and so many illusions of his own making.
I watched Jacob walk down the road yesterday in my head until I couldn't watch him anymore and then I turned back to the living, where no one blinked as the boys pulled out bill after bill, hoping for one of those tiny Henry-sized motorcycles and the biggest teddy bears I have ever seen. I let the memory burn in the sun and I didn't get my hand stamped, because I'm not coming back to this.
I ate pizza on a stick, which is one of those magical foods where the first bite is the best one and it's all downhill from there, I climbed up the Euroslide, had a change of heart, and then Henry talked me back into it, because Henry's 52 inches tall and you have to be 54 inches.
Mommy's 60 inches tall so she HAS to take me because Ben is 76 inches and might make for some drag on our speed and we want to have a race.
Pffft. That ride right there? Death trap.
Besides, Ruth in all her 54 inches of height and newly-big-kid glory won hands down. Because she jumped the gun and that's fine, you do that when you're nine.
And there were carnies everywhere, under the darker shade of the tents, charming us out of our cash and enticing us to stay longer and throw harder and take our time and come over to the next booth and ride the coaster again later after we've stayed here for a while and not leave through the big white gates at the magic hour, you don't want to go just yet, the fun is just beginning and you might miss out on the greatest summer of your lives if you go now. I can stamp your hands and you can come back for more.
It was then and only then that the tears began to sting behind my eyes. He's missing out. He didn't want to go JUST yet, the fun IS just beginning and dammit, there is no stamp for reentry. The sun has gone down and the fair has packed up and left town for him and you know what was dumb? That I have that one stupid memory of him here, walking along the dusty road between the games with their barkers, hands in his pockets, smiling politely because he always felt like they wanted him to sell his soul for the price of picking a duck with a letter on the bottom. The games made him uncharacteristic, superstitious, uncomfortable. He would spend a couple of dollars only, and then we'd leave that whole area, returning to the rides and the barns and the light, the open sunny skies because he was never comfortable with trying his luck, even though he had a knack for that kind of magic and so many illusions of his own making.
I watched Jacob walk down the road yesterday in my head until I couldn't watch him anymore and then I turned back to the living, where no one blinked as the boys pulled out bill after bill, hoping for one of those tiny Henry-sized motorcycles and the biggest teddy bears I have ever seen. I let the memory burn in the sun and I didn't get my hand stamped, because I'm not coming back to this.
Friday 19 June 2009
Fair warning.
His name was William, and he was just another unrequited crush.
My job was to get sunburned and grow freckles and white streaks of sun in my hair and brown legs with pink shoulders and nose.
My job was to eat blue cotton candy (my favorite, always) and hold up one tiny wrist at the carnies as I made my way onto the Scrambler to wedge in beside Bailey and her friends.
My job was to stay with the group and not spend too long in the barn petting goats and oxen.
My job was keep quiet so I watched the Ferris wheel operator do his job. He looked like Gregg Allman. He had a beard and kind, world-weary eyes. He was tanned and blonde and he never cared if we had bracelets or not. He counted extra turns when we were on the wheel and he never made us get off until someone stopped smiling. He wore dirty jeans and a ripped white shirt and he had tattoos from some other life before the one in which you live in a broken-down camper, towed from one small town to the next.
One late night he asked me what I was staring at. I told him the lights were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He walked over to the canopy where the rainbow lights were and he reached up and unscrewed a round red bulb and he brought it over to me and told me I could keep it so I would always remember the fun I had that night. He became a fixture after that, and every year he gave me a different colored bulb that I would collect near the end of my evening. I brought them home and kept them in a cardboard box pushed far underneath the big iron bed with the mattress that sagged in the middle. The cocoon bed, I called it, home away from home at my grandparent's house.
When I was twelve I decided when I was eighteen that I was going to marry him if things with Lochlan didn't pan out (because they weren't anyway because I was twelve), and I'd wear a pretty yellow embroidered apron and fix him nice dinners at the three-legged table that was bolted into one corner of the camper and at night we would sleep in the tiny bed in the other corner with a threadbare blanket and he would sing me to sleep while the carnival traveled to the next town.
Pay cheques were dispensed in cash and time off was where ever and whenever you could find it. There were no shopping malls, no school and no long car trips, there was only the gleeful screams of the people on the rides, the food that hasn't changed in sixty years, since his grandpa operated the wheel and the lights that always, always make me dizzy. Those lights are better than the northern lights and better than fireworks to me, because those are the lights of true adventure around every bend. Familiarity in rusty bolts and discarded paper cones, ripped paper bracelets and discarded, dusty prizes.
I never had big dreams. Mine are so very small and simple. And I still have one of the lights that he gave me. It's rusted now, and even if I had a socket that it fit I doubt it still works. He would be probably late fifties, early sixties by now, maybe he still travels with the shows and maybe he closed up his trailer and stopped somewhere nice when the carnival passed through a town that looked appealing. Hell, I'll never know. But it makes me feel happy to think about sometimes.
Got a taste, can't be saved, I'm a junkie for lifeI had my arms raised over my head just like the teenagers, freckles mixed with dirt, sprinkled across the bridge of my nose and my cheeks, braids loosened and tied in knots to keep them out of my way, too long bangs swept impatiently behind one ear, green eyes open wide as evening approached, the colored lights of the midway forming a glow around this huge field on the edge of nowhere, the small town where I was born and where still nothing happens, and still they greet me by name when I enter the small diner down on the road beside the river that empties into the sea. I never know which direction to take to get to Green Bay or to get out of town and go to the city. I never know which end is up when I'm there. I was never required to.
She fuels my fire and adrenaline high
My need for speed's got me gunning
One touch, she screams to keep it coming
Are you ready for the best damn ride of your life?
Gimme a "hell"
Gimme a "yeah"
Stand up right now
My job was to get sunburned and grow freckles and white streaks of sun in my hair and brown legs with pink shoulders and nose.
My job was to eat blue cotton candy (my favorite, always) and hold up one tiny wrist at the carnies as I made my way onto the Scrambler to wedge in beside Bailey and her friends.
My job was to stay with the group and not spend too long in the barn petting goats and oxen.
My job was keep quiet so I watched the Ferris wheel operator do his job. He looked like Gregg Allman. He had a beard and kind, world-weary eyes. He was tanned and blonde and he never cared if we had bracelets or not. He counted extra turns when we were on the wheel and he never made us get off until someone stopped smiling. He wore dirty jeans and a ripped white shirt and he had tattoos from some other life before the one in which you live in a broken-down camper, towed from one small town to the next.
One late night he asked me what I was staring at. I told him the lights were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He walked over to the canopy where the rainbow lights were and he reached up and unscrewed a round red bulb and he brought it over to me and told me I could keep it so I would always remember the fun I had that night. He became a fixture after that, and every year he gave me a different colored bulb that I would collect near the end of my evening. I brought them home and kept them in a cardboard box pushed far underneath the big iron bed with the mattress that sagged in the middle. The cocoon bed, I called it, home away from home at my grandparent's house.
When I was twelve I decided when I was eighteen that I was going to marry him if things with Lochlan didn't pan out (because they weren't anyway because I was twelve), and I'd wear a pretty yellow embroidered apron and fix him nice dinners at the three-legged table that was bolted into one corner of the camper and at night we would sleep in the tiny bed in the other corner with a threadbare blanket and he would sing me to sleep while the carnival traveled to the next town.
Pay cheques were dispensed in cash and time off was where ever and whenever you could find it. There were no shopping malls, no school and no long car trips, there was only the gleeful screams of the people on the rides, the food that hasn't changed in sixty years, since his grandpa operated the wheel and the lights that always, always make me dizzy. Those lights are better than the northern lights and better than fireworks to me, because those are the lights of true adventure around every bend. Familiarity in rusty bolts and discarded paper cones, ripped paper bracelets and discarded, dusty prizes.
I never had big dreams. Mine are so very small and simple. And I still have one of the lights that he gave me. It's rusted now, and even if I had a socket that it fit I doubt it still works. He would be probably late fifties, early sixties by now, maybe he still travels with the shows and maybe he closed up his trailer and stopped somewhere nice when the carnival passed through a town that looked appealing. Hell, I'll never know. But it makes me feel happy to think about sometimes.
Thursday 18 June 2009
In this breath just now there was no worry, oddly enough.
Train of thought today, sorry.
I'm consumed with gratefulness for the tiny rituals, like Ben playing guitar every night, schooling the children in Hendrix and Sabbath while they finish their dinners, and rituals like late at night when we collapse on the couch in front of a movie and split a green apple, always green because they're crunchy and sweet and an apple a day keeps the demons away. Or something like that.
I'm watching the skies for the coming thunderstorms and glad to have the afternoon in front of me to write and work for once, free from the worry that has consumed me recently. I have come to think that I worry too much about things that don't bother others. Like, way WAY too much. Anxiety unleashed and out of control and I have settled for it as an uncomfortable status quo, too lazy to move from where I rest on my bed of nails because it's a bed and beds are where we lie, correct?
I'm relieved that there are still good people in this world, good people like the plumber who didn't charge me because the pipe is fine, that's what it does, it isn't ominous nor is it in need of replacing, and the previous plumber may have been a little green behind the ears and so that isn't a reason for me to pay their fee for the visit and the city had my water turned back on in under an hour.
Now, in order to relax I've brought some water and my laptop and my blackberry out here to the sunny backyard and I'm sitting under the umbrella, feet up on another chair pulled close, a light breeze stirring the leaves on the trees and I wish I could hear them but the hearing aids will bring the barking dogs and lawnmowers and the squeal of the train and all the city traffic and instead I'll just try to find an hour or two of contentment inside my muted little garden oasis.
Soon Ben will be home and I can share this latest offering to the writing gods with him and he will share some of his news with me and we'll lock the doors and retire once again to the tiny rituals that bring so much unexpected peace so suddenly. Kind of like finding a feather on a bed of nails and imagining where that feather is as a softer part of impossible situation. It will do for now, anyway.
I'm consumed with gratefulness for the tiny rituals, like Ben playing guitar every night, schooling the children in Hendrix and Sabbath while they finish their dinners, and rituals like late at night when we collapse on the couch in front of a movie and split a green apple, always green because they're crunchy and sweet and an apple a day keeps the demons away. Or something like that.
I'm watching the skies for the coming thunderstorms and glad to have the afternoon in front of me to write and work for once, free from the worry that has consumed me recently. I have come to think that I worry too much about things that don't bother others. Like, way WAY too much. Anxiety unleashed and out of control and I have settled for it as an uncomfortable status quo, too lazy to move from where I rest on my bed of nails because it's a bed and beds are where we lie, correct?
I'm relieved that there are still good people in this world, good people like the plumber who didn't charge me because the pipe is fine, that's what it does, it isn't ominous nor is it in need of replacing, and the previous plumber may have been a little green behind the ears and so that isn't a reason for me to pay their fee for the visit and the city had my water turned back on in under an hour.
Now, in order to relax I've brought some water and my laptop and my blackberry out here to the sunny backyard and I'm sitting under the umbrella, feet up on another chair pulled close, a light breeze stirring the leaves on the trees and I wish I could hear them but the hearing aids will bring the barking dogs and lawnmowers and the squeal of the train and all the city traffic and instead I'll just try to find an hour or two of contentment inside my muted little garden oasis.
Soon Ben will be home and I can share this latest offering to the writing gods with him and he will share some of his news with me and we'll lock the doors and retire once again to the tiny rituals that bring so much unexpected peace so suddenly. Kind of like finding a feather on a bed of nails and imagining where that feather is as a softer part of impossible situation. It will do for now, anyway.
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Closing gaps.
You're the oneOne of my weirdest throwbacks to being little is saying grace. We do it when there's a significant spiritual presence and at large gatherings as a verbal amulet to hasten a good year, some good luck, a better season and to publically acknowledge our blessings.
You are the hurt inside of me
And you are the one that makes me weak
Shadows that crawl all over me
Swallow the light that lets me see
I get right in there and put my elbows together on the very edge of the table and I place my forehead against my fists and I close my eyes. I've always whispered the words that had to be said en masse, because I couldn't hear them well enough to keep up and I wind up in my own little world quite easily as a result.
Caleb brings this up yesterday in the car on the way to his breakfast, french cuffs and whiskey in fine form at eight a.m.
What's your point?
Are you going to be difficult?
No.
Good. My point is I watched you then and I watch you now and you haven't changed all that much. God, so beautiful. I don't know what my brother was thinking.
We both know precisely what your brother was thinking.
Cole was more talented than he was smart, princess, just like you.
He was the smartest person I will ever know, Caleb.
You know, hearing that makes me as glad as I used to feel when mom would put me beside you at Christmas dinner. I could watch you up close with your funny little facial expressions and exclamations. That amazing gap when you'd fail to realize someone had addressed you and the resulting command of everyone's attention. And you respected my brother.
I did nothing of the kind or I wouldn't have what I have now.
What do you have now?
Secrets I don't want anymore.
Everyone keeps secrets, princess. Yours are just more exciting than most.
There's no point anymore, Caleb. Everyone's dead.
We're not. And we should be embracing this life, because we know firsthand how short it is.
I am. I'm trying to but you won't let me.
That's because I have your best interests at heart, beautiful.
No, you have yours and yours only.
We both know how you lie, princess.
I don't lie.
Your whole life is a lie, Bridget. You may tell the truth with your feelings but you'll leave out everything else, and you'll keep this up because you don't get a choice anymore.
Suddenly the door was opening and I saw Mike's face. Caleb got out and reached back in for my hand, which I gave him and I exited the car as gracefully as possible. I stood up, far too close to Caleb because he hadn't moved and I stumbled back and he caught me with his arm, pulling me so close to him I smelled whiskey and I could count his eyelashes.
It doesn't have to be like this, Cale.
Smile pretty and fake the next hour, alright, princess? It's what you do best.
He turned away, heading into the hotel, pulling me behind him while I fought back tears and won, because my anger always outweighs my fear of my brother-in-law. I got into something awful once and I don't think I'll ever get out of it. This is hopeless and now I'm stuck and it's dark and I don't like it here.
I played my part, applauding and smiling when he was introduced, laughing lightly at all the right points during his speech, and accepting the admiring glances as they washed over me when he had the nerve to out me as one of the great loves of his life from the stage.
Wish he hadn't done that.
It really made me mad.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Breakfast in hell, take two.
Exit lightNine months ago I agreed to attend a very important breakfast function with Satan and today is that day. Only instead of merely attending, he somehow waded into his field here in this city with a flourish and wound up winning some sort of award (again), which will be presented to him this morning. Now, I've never been to a black tie breakfast of this magnitude before and so true to form, I've already eaten breakfast and had my coffee and the boys are grudgingly allowing this whoring out of their princess because Caleb will only be able to flaunt his power in public. I'm somewhat safe.
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to Never Never Land
Somewhat, I said. We've mostly avoided each other this spring save for a handful of decent altercations and I've come to understand who he is and why he does the things he does. However I can only do the figuring-part away from him, because the moment I am within twenty-feet the Cole-similarities take over and I'm quickly under his spell. Too quickly, too under.
I think if Ben could send me with a rope tied around my waist that he could pull on really hard to bring me back he would. Other than that I think he's got a new appreciation for the visual glory of Bridget in a little black dress and six-inch heels at seven in the morning, because unlike just about everyone else, he's never seen this before.
Sorry, I find that amusing. I must be grasping at straws.
Nervous, trembly straws.
Monday 15 June 2009
The Time Traveler's Wife.
Beautiful Bridget torture.
I wonder if I'll make it through this movie. Hell, I wonder if I'll be allowed to go see it.
(I didn't do so well with Up so I doubt I'll get to go.)
Hmmph.
I wonder if I'll make it through this movie. Hell, I wonder if I'll be allowed to go see it.
(I didn't do so well with Up so I doubt I'll get to go.)
Hmmph.
Let's just say I overslept. Please ignore the pajamas.
Because I put them back on when I came home.
Every single plan I had for the weekend was dashed in a welcome bid for some easy times. Concerts were ignored and rescheduled, we didn't go to the fair, we didn't have a picnic or fly remote control things in the park, we didn't get many errands run or get to the butcher or baker. We didn't run or work really hard, though Ben installed the rain barrel and even set up the planter in the top part so I have flowers there now and we rearranged the stone patio and then yesterday we went outside with everyone right after lunch and we sat out there and talked and hung out right through until bedtime.
This morning? No anxiety. None. Not a trace. I slept through the night again. I came to some sort of unspoken perspective. Or maybe it's just that I rested enough to feel better. I laughed. Especially Saturday when I was leaning over to grab the watering can from behind the chair and Ben stuck the hose up my skirt and sprayed it. Half an hour later, still in the wet skirt, I was cornered by him in the garage and we felt like two teenagers taking advantage of five minutes of privacy. I'm always struck by what an incredible kisser he is with me. He used to say he hated kissing girls because they read too much into it but sometimes now I get a forever kiss which is more like exchanging precious breaths until every last one has been traded but it sends a ripple up my spine, activates my goosebumps and makes my head spin.
He likes kissing ME, that's all.
Which is why I kept walking around slowly watering plants and helping with cleaning out the truck in that wet skirt for half the afternoon, only venturing inside out of the sun to change when Henry came home from down the street and asked me if I had an accident. He thought Ben doing that was funny and wanted to see it again. Had I hung around outside I'm sure I would have been soaked, my only saving grace being the plea to not spray me because I'm holding my phone and if you ruin my BlackBerry you're going to be in SO much trouble, Benjamin.
He stopped then, not because of the phone, which he is hellbent on replacing anyway, but because he didn't want to push his luck since I hadn't been feeling well and the goal was to relax Bridget, not wear her out entirely.
Even the children were content to stick around the neighborhood and do next to nothing. The groove of the first truly hot and summery weekend has spilled over into Monday too, bringing a relaxed and vaguely still unfocused attitude that helps deflect the routine and the stresses of every-day life.
I hope it sticks around. It's pretty nice. And I did get worn out eventually. This morning. We were ungodly late getting out of bed this morning, and I loved every second of it.
And it almost makes up for not being at Bonnaroo.
I'm turning the page for something newThis morning the Veer Union and Revolution Mother took turns pounding through my head, replacing the pain of last week as I ran through the pollen and the new leaves on the elm trees that line the streets of my city neighborhood. The air is clear and warm, the conditions PERFECT for running and still I had to turn back long before my knee-cracking endorphin marathon, so far out of reach I couldn't even say I got close to it, because the guillotine has come down and cut off the need to overachieve in my daily routine.
I'm finding my way through life in bloom
Every single plan I had for the weekend was dashed in a welcome bid for some easy times. Concerts were ignored and rescheduled, we didn't go to the fair, we didn't have a picnic or fly remote control things in the park, we didn't get many errands run or get to the butcher or baker. We didn't run or work really hard, though Ben installed the rain barrel and even set up the planter in the top part so I have flowers there now and we rearranged the stone patio and then yesterday we went outside with everyone right after lunch and we sat out there and talked and hung out right through until bedtime.
This morning? No anxiety. None. Not a trace. I slept through the night again. I came to some sort of unspoken perspective. Or maybe it's just that I rested enough to feel better. I laughed. Especially Saturday when I was leaning over to grab the watering can from behind the chair and Ben stuck the hose up my skirt and sprayed it. Half an hour later, still in the wet skirt, I was cornered by him in the garage and we felt like two teenagers taking advantage of five minutes of privacy. I'm always struck by what an incredible kisser he is with me. He used to say he hated kissing girls because they read too much into it but sometimes now I get a forever kiss which is more like exchanging precious breaths until every last one has been traded but it sends a ripple up my spine, activates my goosebumps and makes my head spin.
He likes kissing ME, that's all.
Which is why I kept walking around slowly watering plants and helping with cleaning out the truck in that wet skirt for half the afternoon, only venturing inside out of the sun to change when Henry came home from down the street and asked me if I had an accident. He thought Ben doing that was funny and wanted to see it again. Had I hung around outside I'm sure I would have been soaked, my only saving grace being the plea to not spray me because I'm holding my phone and if you ruin my BlackBerry you're going to be in SO much trouble, Benjamin.
He stopped then, not because of the phone, which he is hellbent on replacing anyway, but because he didn't want to push his luck since I hadn't been feeling well and the goal was to relax Bridget, not wear her out entirely.
Even the children were content to stick around the neighborhood and do next to nothing. The groove of the first truly hot and summery weekend has spilled over into Monday too, bringing a relaxed and vaguely still unfocused attitude that helps deflect the routine and the stresses of every-day life.
I hope it sticks around. It's pretty nice. And I did get worn out eventually. This morning. We were ungodly late getting out of bed this morning, and I loved every second of it.
And it almost makes up for not being at Bonnaroo.
Saturday 13 June 2009
They should change the name of the MuchMore music channel.
Today things are much better. Things were actually much better by last night. And I learn hard lessons once again about the difference between slowing down when I don't feel well or I'm overwhelmed and actually slowing down. I don't, I tend to just keep muddling through until I drop and then I figure after sleeping a little overnight that I should be back to rights and I can pick up the slack.
Not so.
Slowing down is actually stopping moving. Yesterday I wound up lying down with ice and pills and tears and I didn't do a damn thing all day. Okay, a little bit of laundry and I made an easy lunch for the kids and otherwise I lay down with the ice pack and the TV on low and I tried to just rest. I tried to slow down. I watched music videos from artists I don't enjoy and I drifted in and out of a pain-fueled hysteria and it was one of those times when I just gave up.
I'm not sure if it was the tail end of this flu that's been shadowing me since early May or if I just burned the candle at both ends until it ran out of wax but I needed that time and I got it. By five o'clock I could crack a smile and by the time Lochlan walked through the door to check on me all of the tension had evaporated. Ben felt better too. I really think now that a lot of it stemmed from his trip and maybe that's how stress comes out-days later. I think for me stress now exists under a magnifying glass and I can't put it in perspective anymore and I'd like to get back to where I could do that, on my own, without one of my knights stepping in and doing it for me.
In any case I felt well enough to go and run some errands last evening after canceling our larger plans and then I forced myself to go to sleep long before I wanted to and I didn't wake up until eight this morning and there is no pain today in my head for the first time in a week and I feel alert and calm. Which is good because we have a really busy weekend ahead.
Busy meaning fun.
Oh and mainstream popular music? Never again. Ever. Seriously. DO NOT LIKE. Even August wandered through the living room at one point, stopped to watch a few minutes of Lady Gaga, and said What the hell is that? A disco stick, is that what she said? I reminded him that music tastes are subjective and he doubted me. I'm buying him all of her CDs for his birthday now. I won't be listening to them though. And this goes down in history as one of those moments in which they gauge how sick I was by the music I was listening to. It must have been pretty bad.
My prescription is to listen to Tool all day today and call the doctor in the morning. And to learn what I never seem to learn: that it's okay for Bridget to stop moving every once in a while.
Not so.
Slowing down is actually stopping moving. Yesterday I wound up lying down with ice and pills and tears and I didn't do a damn thing all day. Okay, a little bit of laundry and I made an easy lunch for the kids and otherwise I lay down with the ice pack and the TV on low and I tried to just rest. I tried to slow down. I watched music videos from artists I don't enjoy and I drifted in and out of a pain-fueled hysteria and it was one of those times when I just gave up.
I'm not sure if it was the tail end of this flu that's been shadowing me since early May or if I just burned the candle at both ends until it ran out of wax but I needed that time and I got it. By five o'clock I could crack a smile and by the time Lochlan walked through the door to check on me all of the tension had evaporated. Ben felt better too. I really think now that a lot of it stemmed from his trip and maybe that's how stress comes out-days later. I think for me stress now exists under a magnifying glass and I can't put it in perspective anymore and I'd like to get back to where I could do that, on my own, without one of my knights stepping in and doing it for me.
In any case I felt well enough to go and run some errands last evening after canceling our larger plans and then I forced myself to go to sleep long before I wanted to and I didn't wake up until eight this morning and there is no pain today in my head for the first time in a week and I feel alert and calm. Which is good because we have a really busy weekend ahead.
Busy meaning fun.
Oh and mainstream popular music? Never again. Ever. Seriously. DO NOT LIKE. Even August wandered through the living room at one point, stopped to watch a few minutes of Lady Gaga, and said What the hell is that? A disco stick, is that what she said? I reminded him that music tastes are subjective and he doubted me. I'm buying him all of her CDs for his birthday now. I won't be listening to them though. And this goes down in history as one of those moments in which they gauge how sick I was by the music I was listening to. It must have been pretty bad.
My prescription is to listen to Tool all day today and call the doctor in the morning. And to learn what I never seem to learn: that it's okay for Bridget to stop moving every once in a while.
Thursday 11 June 2009
I'm not Mary and he's not Scott.
(Tattoos and now-defunct-but-once-much-lauded cover bands aside.)
Packs a lot of talent into that head of his though, everyone can happily agree on that one.
SCOTT WEILAND'S ESTRANGED WIFE PUBLISHING MEMOIRMy love of all things Scott Weiland is well documented but those of you emailing me their Gotcha! lists for this month can rest easy. I'm so obviously not bipolar (snort, if only), and Ben is not small enough to be Scott anyway. I mean, have you seen Scott? He's the only person in the world shorter than I am. (And Jake was not Scott either, because as you can plainly see, Scott is still touring. Still breathing even.)
• Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland's estranged wife, Mary, will publish a memoir called Fall To Pieces on October 27th. A press release describes the book as "a visceral rollercoaster ride inside bipolar disorder, rock 'n' roll, celebrity culture, and the competitive world of modeling from a rock star wife and recovering drug addict," adding, "On the surface, Mary Weiland had a fairy-tale life. She was a highly paid fashion model married to successful rock star Scott Weiland, the notorious frontman for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver. Then came the rampage in a Burbank hotel room and the resulting media frenzy that revealed to the world her bipolar disorder and drug abuse."
• Although Scott’s previously reported memoir has yet to materialize, he told us that the recent disintegration of his marriage was the subject of most of his latest solo album, Happy In Galoshes. "Every time I'd be out of the house and I'd be living in a hotel or renting a house or at a friend's house, that's when I would just basically be living in the studio, and writing a song a day. Sometimes two. There were some periods of time when the pain created most of the prolific stuff that I've ever done, I think."
• Scott Weiland will hit the road for a short run of dates with Stone Temple Pilots this summer, with the band also preparing to make its first studio album in eight years. Weiland also continues to tour behind Happy In Galoshes.
Packs a lot of talent into that head of his though, everyone can happily agree on that one.
Find you in the dark
Read you like a cheap surprise
Without shame
Sell me out, and frame your name
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