Ten-second eclipse.

Eclipse teaser trailer.

Stephanie, stop borrowing from my archives.

PS Team Edward all the way. Team Jacob seems like sacrilege. Besides, in this house we love vampires.

Snort.

Give me a BREAK.

I found the drum keys. I know where everything is in this house and soon I won't be able to find a thing. Today is breaking down the drum kit and hopefully getting the hotel arranged and more boxes to pack. Toys and books, toys and books. It's endless.

And Power 97 keeps playing Just Breathe by Pearl Jam. It's a sign. I love this song. I am trying to listen closely.

OH! And speaking of signs and songs, HELLO new music video!!!!

You're welcome. Warning, it's sad and beautiful.

JUST LIKE BRIDGET.

Need a miracle.

No luck today. I try to arrange the words just so but they all pour out in a scream. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow will probably be worse.

Ha, I am having a real hard time with your optimism. Maybe you should WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES and then tell me to calm down. I need drugs. Drugs and someone else to do this because I really don't think I can pull it off without casualties. Watch as she explodes before your very eyes just out of sheer stress.

It could happen. Stay tuned.

Shhhh.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

Benjamin, I can't lift these boxes.

I'll be waving my hands
Watching you drown, watching you scream, quiet or loud
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need a friend
As clumsy as you've been there's no one laughing
You will be safe in here
you will be safe in here

The thrill this week in grade three is to pull your mouth open wide with two fingers and say things like "puck" and "apple".

Sigh.

In grade six the trend is to decorate your jeans with memories written in sharpie, a la Sisterhood of the traveling pants. I may join that one. I already lead the threes in swearing so I think I have elementary school covered tenfold.

We are surrounded by cardboard boxes, markers, packing tape and lists. Contracts to print and sign, calls to make, addresses to change, hotels to book, flights to organize, pets to calm, children to reassure and...

...one princess sitting at a scrubbed table with a borrowed glass full of cheap white wine, near tears and near smiles at the effort in place to relocate many lives all at once, and memories too.

It rained all day today and I can see the tops of my lilac bushes again. I scraped away the ice in front of the garage door so that I don't have another session of stars and sparrows, flat on my back on the cement floor of the garage, wondering how I got there.

I'm favoring myself physically because if I hurt myself or pull anything I won't be able to pack. Time is at a premium right now, I am writing tonight from the dinner table, on precious batter power while Henry finishes his homemade pizza in the dining room and Ruth is long gone, off to watch television while she waits for us to be ready to head outside to walk the dog. Once I get the children organized and in pajamas playing Warcraft with Ben across the miles I will finish the calculations for my taxes and call them in tomorrow. Then I can put all of that away and concentrate on coordinating this move. Which sometimes seems so very easy and straightforward and other times becomes unbearably complicated and impossible.

But I have done so much. And I'm going to list the things because I could use a little pep talk with my contraband wine:

1. I refinished a hardwood floor.
   
2. I painted several rooms, top to bottom.
3. I mudded and finished a newly gyproc-sheeted room.
   
4. I hired a realtor and sold a house (almost forty showings in four days).
   
5. I hired a mover.
6. I had my car repaired and negotiated a free rental car for the duration.
7. I kept the three of us safe.
8. I lived without Ben for almost three months, no small feat for someone who is afraid of everything and who only breathes or sleeps in his arms.
   
9. I kept my computer alive. There's no resuscitation order on this thing. It clearly wants to die. I need to give it permission and I don't plan to do that for a bit yet.
   
10. We made brownies. They ruled the universe. Then we tossed the rest of the baking supplies.
    

I can't wait to call the airline and find out there's some screwy thing with bringing the pets. I can't wait for the car to be damaged on the rail to British Columbia and I can't wait for a host of new street names to pronounce and the mile-long list of donair and ramen joints Ben is going to to take me to so I can sample food in a foodie city for the first time ever. Does Pacific spiney lobster taste as good as Atlantic? What about the scallops? What about the Thai? The Thai has to be good and I'm never sure if what I learned to love here was authentic or just bastardized quasi prairie-Thai.

I will soon find out. Two weeks from tomorrow.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Bring more wine then, I have work to do.

Eight is enough.

There's a little white porch
And you wanted it so
Can you let me go down
To the end of the road
In the black and the white
A Technicolorful life
Can I stand by your side?
We can make it alright

Ben took that picture in the post below. I am still landlocked quite tightly but the countdown is on. Give or take a little we're down to less than twenty days remaining. Ben will be home in just under two weeks and we'll wrap up life on the Prairie and get the hell out, but I'll save the malevolence of goodbye for the final few days, if my laptop is still functioning then. The house is sold. The truck is booked. The lawyer is booked. The neighbors have been told. I've been saving out keys and taking things down. The suitcases are all over the dining room floor and the table pushed out of the way.

Here we go, Bridget.

Here we go, boys. Take our hands and never look back at this place, or I swear to God, I'll claw your eyes out.

Ben sang to me the other night. He played Tangerine and when I finally went to sleep I wasn't crying. Almost into the single digits now and finally I figured out how to destroy whole blocks of time Godzilla-princess style with movies and books and throwing myself into whatever else I am doing with one hundred percent attention and effort, instead of the usual fifty-fifty. Half a shot, merely a chance, and not a sure thing. Like the game of Capture her Heart. You won't get how it works but three of them figured it out in my life and that's enough for me.

There was no Hyde this time. The stress is starting to shift to semantics and plans that don't hinge so heavily on outside influences and finally it feels like reality instead of incarceration. Pair that with the clocks going ahead this coming weekend and a less-frigid round of weather as of late and I have officially clocked out of here with eight full winters under my belt.

Eight.

Eight.

When the fuck did that happen? Nevermind, it won't happen ever again. He promised.

Just nevermind. This chapter will be dealt with later as I see fit. Not today. It's a nice day today and I don't want to ruin it. Though I could ruin it if I think too hard about Ben's eyes, or Ben's arms, or Ben's beard, or Ben when he breathes and I hear it sometimes. It's one of my favorite things in my entire life and I'm counting the days now until we're a force to be reckoned with instead of two completely lost individuals foundering around in far-apart locations trying to do the best we can. Of course it's been good enough, but it isn't GOOD enough. Got it?

Sometimes you can just tell when a new chapter is going to be better than the previous one. I don't know how that happens, but it does. Sometimes it even happens to me.

One, two

She's coming for you..

Three, four, on the twenty-eighth floor...

Wait. What the fuck?

Two bits (losing my credibility completely).

Could someone please tell me where I put the box full of cellphone chargers, headphones and assorted cases? I've looked and I can't find it. I NEEEEEEEEED it. My headphones! I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed my headphones. Argh.

In other notes, I really need to get a bigger microSD card for my phone. There is never enough space for the songs.

And just because this is calm before the next storm, I'm going to do something totally awesome here and post the list of songs in my OHW folder on my Blackberry. That's One Hit Wonders. Even though they aren't, they're just random songs I love and want to have handy but I don't want the whole albums on my phone. Get it? (If you are the author of one of them, don't be offended. The whole albums are on my computer, but the SD card is very tight, packed full, okay? And I love you.)

Don't laugh if you see something weird. All of them are a good offset for Tool and for Ben's stuff. Trust me. These are the songs that you find when you open up the glove compartment in Bridget's head and reach far back into the dusty corners.

1. Toto-Africa
2. Trust Company-Downfall
3. Thirteen Senses-Into the Fire
4. Matthew Good-Strange Days
5. Train-Drops of Jupiter
6. Iron and Wine-Night Descending
7. Matthew Good-In a world called catastrophe
8. Black Crowes-She talks to Angels
9. Wide Mouth Mason-The River song
10. Black Crowes-Remedy
11. Garbage-A stroke of luck
12. Hudson River School-The Great mistake
13. Spin Doctors-Two princes
14. Incubus-Drive
15. Iron and Wine-Each coming night
16. Collective Soul-The world I know
    
17. Sting-Fortress around your heart
18. Foo Fighters-Come alive
19. Neverending White Lights/Dallas Green-The grace
20. Foo Fighters-Times like these
21. Hawksley Workman-Striptease
22. White Zombie-More Human than Human
23. Slipknot-Vermillion Part 2
24. Bee Gees-How Deep is your love
25. Death Cab-Transatlanticism (the whole album, so it's probably in the wrong place)
    

It could be worse. In PJ's OHW folder we found Kelly Clarkson, Wilson Philips and MC Hammer.
And I won't tell you about what was in August's because he would come home and tickle me to death.

On second thought..

Night-doubt.

Oh ominous place spellbound and unchildproofed
My least favorite chill to bare alone
Compatriots in place they'd cringe if I told you
Our best back-pocket secret our bond full-blown

Tonight I was swinging gently on the swing that is tied to the tree with two heavy ropes. A weathered grey board beneath me, my toes only graze the ground if I stretch my legs out far. I was watching the stars as they lit in the sky and then I noticed how frayed the ropes were. Once knotted securely to the strong branch, I could see that they were unraveling to the point of it being dangerous to continue to swing at all.

But I didn't move.

A little of the euphoria is beginning to cloud again and the fear makes a campaign to return. What if someone steals our mail? New bank cards and tax receipts are at stake. I suppose our identity gets stolen or some funds from our bank account. All of it will be replaced. What if there is nowhere to stay when we arrive and someone drops the ball and the condo isn't ready for us? We find a hotel.

Jesus, Bridget, you really need to get your mind off things.

What if the plane crashes? Then nothing else can go wrong, now, can it? What if the movers lose my car/our furniture/everything we own? Then I guess you get a wad of cash to spend on new things. New things you have always wanted like a custom-painted fiddle, nicer clothing and a couch you can sleep on that still fits through a doorway. Maybe a stacking washer/dryer because they take up less room.

Simple things for a simple girl, because she over-complicates things so very badly.

Snap! And Bridge drops an inch on the swing as more stars come to light in the ever darkening backyard. You can hear her if you listen closely. She is singing songs she heard on the radio today, and today she is wearing a useless evil eye bracelet, or maybe it isn't useless but she would like a detailed report of that too if you have information for her.

What if it's awful?

How can it be awful, princess? We've got the ocean, the mountains, the forest and the mild easy living you have craved through eight arctic winters.

What if it's too expensive?

Then you write more and crawl back up to your post as the author who has these big dreams but puts them at the back of the shelf behind the mental obstacles for safekeeping. Words that are destroyed are merely letters after all.

What if I get homesick?

For what, exactly? Eight years, princess. Eight years and we still can't believe you did it.

Where does Jake go?

Where I always go, pigalet. With you.

What if Ben is difficult?

I promise, beautiful, no more Mr. Hyde.

They (everyone) feel the same way. Maybe everyone hides it better. I never had a poker face. I would see a handsome man or tell a lie and the action would be evident in my expression, colored in as a blush to a admission that I was all heart. Completely heart and nothing else. No mind, no guts, no brains. Just heart. A girl-organ, all red and pulsing with valves meandering off into different directions and blood squishing through your fingers as you hold me and feel me beating.

Too fast. And it won't slow down until I conquer all of the current fears and invent the next round to swing from, some of which will bring my swing crashing to the ground. But only if I let them. I may, but I may not. After all, it's dark out. No one will see.

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind
I am a Joan of Arc and smart enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne

Destined to reign, destined to roam

Composers in absentia.

Just a little reminder when things get so very hectic I tend to take to Twitter. Button to your left and in this post below. Don't be a lurker though, it's nice to have followers and I will follow you in return if you say hello.

Why I like Twitter so much I'll never know. But I do. It's painless and quasinonymous and....

...there's a picture of me on my Twitter profile and for once I'm not hiding behind a BlackBerry/sunglasses/boy. Ben took the snap last night during our webcam chat. So that is me from my bed at two o'clock in the morning. If you look closely you can see my striped over-the-knee socks. I was cold.

More later. I thought you needed a treat because you've been very good readers putting up with my non-existent, positively undigestable word arrangements during this chaos. Thanks for that.