Pickles and ham (21).

Twenty more bug bites or so, and a wicked wood splinter under my middle fingernail from where I grabbed a sawhorse without looking to make a makeshift kiln cover when it started to rain this afternoon. Yes I have the kiln under the eaves but only barely and the rain and wind picked up all at once and I'm not taking chances, thanks. 

The rest of the day was spent wrapping gifts, decorating and baking a cake for Henry's birthday this weekend. He'll be twenty-one and I am stunned by how fast it all happened, how he was four and asking for more goldfish crackers an hour ago and a minute ago he was nine and having outbursts of frustration and we learned how to help fix them, together. 

We read a lot of Robert Munsch (Love you Forever was a staple but our favourites were We Share Everything and A Promise is a Promise) and cooked a lot of dinners together. We read Harry Potter and fell asleep on the couch and rode bikes down the sidewalk in the sunshine. We pet llamas and cuddled cats. We learned math. We had deep conversations about what it means to be emotional and how it's not a bad thing. He makes short jokes. I make tall ones. He asks for help when he needs it and reassures me when I need it, and vice versa. He is the best son a mom could have, frankly and it's very hard to let him go. But as the saying goes, you teach them how to leave you. 

He is independent and almost ready for that job that's waiting for him. He hates the heat and loves chocolate, just like mom. He is the rose at the centre of the compass of this Collective. He is Ruth's easy accomplice, and Ben's gullible shadow. He is Lochlan's verbal spar and Caleb's foil. He is a prince among men. He is bunny and I love him forever, my baby he'll be, as the book goes.

I'm pretty sure bugs and noise are considered international war crimes.

Sixty-seven bites. I'm going to lose it. I look like I have big juicy measles on every exposed ounce of flesh. You would think in the wind, in the sun that it would be better but I did a little gardening and I took the dog around the yard this morning for his flower inspection time (he adores smelling flowers) and so I have more mosquito bites. 

Emmett is here fixing something and there's so much goddamned noise I want to cry. I'm not great with loud, prolonged noise unless it's music. This is prolonged. He has yelled SORRY multiple times. It's not helping either. 

I want to watch Netflix but I can't sit still. I want to take out all my money and stuff it into a backpack and move to a deserted but shady island with a freshwater lake surrounded by beaches and a saltwater ocean and have a chocolate tree and one that dispenses Vietnamese food too and I want unlimited high speed data and a kitten and a whole  host of puppies and some painting supplies and I'm going to nap in the sun and not lift a finger. 

Emmett says I must have sunstroke. I don't. I have daydreamitis. It's when all you do is wish you were someone/where else. 

A bite, a moment, and a threat.

George lands hard. Caleb is in the doorway. I look up, startled and he winks and comes out onto the porch. 

Less mosquitoes out here? He tries again.

Eh, not so bad. 

Bad is relative. I have fifty-three bites and counting. I am itching and dancing and flapping around the point like a bird. I have gone through a tube of afterbite and one of hydrocortisone too. I contemplated swallowing a thermocell portable carry along but then figured that would be yet another emergency and I still managed to deal with all of the ivy in the front yard today and also scrubbed the bathrooms as I drew all the shit chore cards today. To retaliate I made personal pizzas and potato salad for dinner and I took my peach popsicle outside to the gazebo to see if I could make it fifty-four. I'm sure they're there. 

George is sorry he hit you. 

I could take him. But in all fairness, Bridget, I need to apologize to you. I thought I was calling out a double standard and instead I was being invasive and crass. I am sorry. It's not my business-

I can hear a but. 

But I would like to resume our relationship. 

You aren't good for me, Diabhal. 

His laugh rings out across the darkened woods. That's us in a nutshell, Darlin'. He does his best Jeffrey Dean Morgan here and I am rapt but noncommital. 

Maybe later. 

Maybe is better than no. Besides, and he gets right in close against my ear. You like the hard parts.

I might be bitter because it's another ten days until I can use the pool.

 It's Tuesday. Sorry you haven't had anything to read since Friday or whenever I was here last. I threw a punch and was sent to purgatory circa 1633. No devices. No access. No light. I contemplated turning into Black Philip but then decided I could tackle my book pile instead. The boys all felt bad and figured I learned my lesson and also got tired of incessantly relaying replies to Ruth who is always connected to me and refuses to play along (it is a game, isn't it. It gets harder when suddenly the children are now adults and you have to explain yourselves, isn't it?) so I got my services back yesterday and I outclassed them by saying it no longer mattered anyway and I reached out and pulled the chain to turn the lights back off and I refused to engage or exgage for that matter, and they came crawling back one at a time to do a sort of virtual penance while I ignored it all in my dark corner of the world and I came out when I damn well felt like it, which isn't even now, technically because it's still too warm so I'm only here for a minute. The second someone decides I have died or been killed and will never write again is usually the moment I will gesture absently from the back that they are probably wrong, and that I am indeed here. 

So hi. (Gestures absently)

I am reading a lot. I turned on the air conditioning today before I even needed it. I only cried twice so far and I don't think I am having a good summer overall. Maybe a little but certainly not a lot. I remember being nine, when my biggest worries were whether or not I would run out of freezies or when my lip balm would melt. I remember tanning because I was never inside. I remember the endless patch of eczema on the outer corner of my right eye and my nose which is back again and that's how I know I've hardly moved past the daydreamer dissociation that keeps me going, keeps me from focusing too keenly on all the bad parts of the world and has honestly saved my life more than once. 

I am ignoring Lochlan, who pulled me against him, wrapping one hand around my back so I was pressed against his heartbeat and the other hand was around the back of my head so I could hear that beat while I felt it, too and then he kissed the top of my head and took a step back but then put his hands around my hips and pushed me up against the door and my dress hiked up to my waist and he let out the longest breath I have witnessed from him as the air got sucked from the room and our lungs and then he yanked my dress back down on his way out after putting me down while I swore a blue streak and then, the irony here, oh are you ready for this one is that not fifteen minutes later I was making tea to take out to the gazebo with my sketching supplies when Caleb made a comment about a girl and a door and a moment and a double standard and I had enough and tried to slap him but I couldn't unclench my hand (oops. Well, maybe not oops but oops is my official response) and popped him a good one and the bigger irony is that the all-seeing PJ saw it and grounded me and then Lochlan levelled the punishment because what's good for the gander is good for the Bridget too and yeah. 

Yeah. Exactly. 

Life is a big run on sentence and it's up to you to make sense of it, I guess. Or maybe it's up to me. In which case we are most certainly doomed.

You look sad, Princess. 

 I have a headache. 

Still?

I've had it for fifteen years. 

Can't relax?

Can't relax. 

Do the soundbites work better than long absences or are you all just gone?

( I still don't have my access that I would like so I don't know.)

I have a long day tomorrow so this will be as short as everything has lately. I'm really minding not having much internet and having to go through one of the boys to send mail or make appointments or whatever. Mark is out here and we're finishing my chest. Long story but when it comes to my chest I'm a superwhimp but he's brought numbing cream and his new apprentice, Zoe, and she is going to do the work. She isn't new-new but new to me. He said I will love Zoe's humor and her style and that's the main thing I think. So lots of water for me and a good night's sleep (ha) and tomorrow I will be in agony. Yay? On the upside, gotta get this suit finished already. I'm losing my ability to sit like a rock for hours. 

Disney Princess.

A bird landed on my head today and came up the driveway and into the house. We opened all the doors so he could fly back out and he did and then this morning he was by the patio steps. I picked him up and put him on my head again and he hung out for a little while before flying off. If he's there tomorrow I am keeping him. 

Lochlan was shocked. PJ said he wasn't surprised. Ben said it was one of my small miracles. 

I didn't forget, I was busy.

 I spent yesterday afternoon on the wheel without a break. When I tried to stand up I couldn't. I Made more glaze test tiles out of my favourite darker clay, and a few plant pots with matching saucers and a knobby little bear mug with big ears and I threw and practiced pulling up cylinders and trying to find my speeds and my pressures and my patience and I worked hard and then ran out of time and here I am today finishing up with some hand built, hand-cut stuff to round out a decent load for the kiln. I like to pack it full and then I have a lot of glazing to do. Everyone hates glazing but it's my favourite part. 

Caleb is being good. I'm sure everyone's wondering. No threats, as of late. No puppy dog eyes or directed triggering. No deals, offers or efforts. I'm enjoying the summer of just sleeping in as late as possible and sometimes not at all. Ben is being sweet. Lochlan is being sweet and present. We are watching the gardens, some thriving in the cool rainy spring-like weather and some struggling like the veggies without heat or prolonged sun. 

I don't mind a cold summer, truth be told. 

I like today though. Our Mondays are quiet. I did the floors, I did some clay, I fixed some stuff up, I talked Ruth's ear off after she called with some career questions and I contemplated owls and trees. I want to paint some later this week. I miss my sketchbooks and the quiet of strokes on a page. Of mixing colours to get just the right shade and of not requiring an outfit change and a complete studio scrubdown every time I want to make something. 

I also have a blistering headache now. PJ can kiss it better and make dinner tonight and I'll take his tomorrow shift, maybe.

Working on piano now (and that beautiful wail at the end).

Every day every night here we go go go

It's Utopia and it's stuck in my head and it won't leave. A little faster and more frenetic than I would usually like stuck there but I never get to choose, now, do I? 

Jacob would laugh. 

Lochlan thinks it's hilarious because it's Korean but Lochlan never fails to have a head full of eighties power ballads on tap, whether it be humming, singing out loud or picked out gently on the strings or the keys. He doesn't venture far from his playlists and that's fine too. 

(I am off the hook because this obsession with Ateez is Ruth's fault.)

Caleb doesn't laugh about anything lately. Last night I am outside in the porch reading. Falling asleep with my screen in my hands, fighting yawns (and mosquitos) and he comes out and presses his head against mine, waking me up gently, telling me it's time to go to bed. I shake my head and fight his hold and then I feel myself turned into familiar arms and still I misunderstand. 

No, no. Don't make me. 

Shhhh. 

And then I wake up this morning at five, tucked safely between Lochlan and Ben, just like always. I don't know if it was a dream or he was being kind or they were testing the waters or what until I looked at my phone. 

The smallest words are the ones that break my heart. I didn't know that until now. 

Sent last night by Caleb around eleven.

Huh.

Perfection is a prison-

-You were meant to fly. 

Spending breakfast at the little airport today for Canada Day. It's so busy here, and also very busy above my head. Someone made me a coffee and I'm talking with someone else about the Piper Archer versus the Cub. High wings everywhere but I prefer low. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy but having a plane is a kind of nice and I miss being able to travel easily. 

I'm not flying it but I know way more than I should, frankly. I could in a pinch. And I know a stupid amount about engine hours and procedure and I don't want to say much more, but I think I could fix a plane if pressed. 

I would store it here, maybe and come and fly when I want to get away or go for a sightsee or maybe just to get the rush and feel alive or maybe I'll just listen as everyone talks shop. It's like cars but the highways in the sky are a thousand times more beautiful, if not more. 

We're not going to talk about people who flew to become ghosts. No, not today.