Gah. The internet seems broken. The boys say it's only me but they're also not really online as much as me in a way and way more than me in another and so I don't know if they're playing straight with me, I just know that everything chugs and buffers and the webpages look weird and there's junk at the top and bottom but I can mostly find what I need and it only took me five tries to log in so either I forget how to blog or someone is messing with my Perfectly Ordered Routine. 

Probably the Devil but would that actually do him any good?

Cormac McCarthy died and I shed a tear for one of my favourite giants of literature. I got my speaking in Italics from him, when I write. I got Southern gothic from him, in my dreams and I still quote needing whiskey for The Road if we ever end up on it. A gun, bullets and whiskey. Other than food that seems to be all they needed. 

When I hit the road (AKA Highway 99) I have my tote with a lighter, a knife, pepper spray, a phone charger, and chapstick. Then in the back of the Jeep is a tire kit, fire extinguisher, food/water/blanket, jack, first aid kit, etc etc etc. 

Huh. Anyway, I am sad. Everyone dies.

Bruised fruit and great TV.

I'm a bubble in a bubble. Absent for days drifting on the wind above a dark blue sea. I'm slowly descending though as they realized that pain medication on the reg was going to fuck up the walking-coma thing I have going on and something had to give. Something was not the pain meds, that's for sure and now I can almost form a coherent sentence. Sometimes even out loud, if I must. 

Let me tell you some things. 

With one arm I helped do all the repairs on the gazebo because I can climb like a monkey. As long as it's only one level up no one worries. When we get to two or three they all panic but really would it be a bad thing if I snapped my neck and went away forever? 

That depends on who you ask. But who is going to shimmy up the side and be able to stand a roof panel that won't support a whole man? Me, that's who. 

I watched the whole first season of Yellowjackets. I'm starting season two. Ben is a great pillow. He loves to nap, I love to watch movies and shows and so we make a great team. If I move he goes off. Like an IED and so Lochlan is content to also nap or do what he needs to without worrying. Sometimes that's nice. I can say that from here, in the clouds because the chemical lobotomy has been the greatest thing ever, even trumping sliced bread.

I listened to the new Foo Fighters album and let me tell you. But Here We Are is a great song, Rescued is a great song but Beyond Me is a spectacular song made better by the whole-hearted eighties power ballad it seems to want to be. This is a Bridget/headphones 24/7 kind of song. This is so good it's criminal. I am hot or cold on the Foo albums. I have my favourite songs. Some whole albums leave me cold, but I keep coming back. I've seen them twice. Will I go again? Of course. They came back with grace from a tragedy that is unthinkable. Unrecoverable from. Like me.

Did I come back with grace? Of course not. Hahahaha.

I am still knitting sweaters over here but boy it's hard to do now. Luckily I was always a slow knitter so I am barely bothered. I do this while I watch things. While Ben sleeps. 

I've been coughing all week. Pretty sure my allergies have gone through the roof. There's a patch of ground in the garden that plants grow in just fine but it makes my skin burn. Explain that. I can wait. I mostly direct, now and PJ and Dalton do their best. August comes to play Rubik's Cube with my brain and Caleb continues to torture me with his..everything, who am I kidding and Ruth and Henry are so independent and capable I sleep like a damn baby when I do sleep at all. Sometimes I roam the halls like a ghost in Hello Kitty pajamas, gliding through the dark, checking cats and doors and windows and looking out at the cold dark sea. Sometimes I sit and watch the fire die and sometimes I go crawl with Duncan and it's like waking up on the festival grounds again. I have to think really hard to remember where I am. 

My beloved dragonfruits have reached sixteen dollars each and I'm switching to apples for the summer, I guess or until the price goes down. Hell I could put a little drop of apple juice on a cucumber slice if I need a craving satisfied but life has gotten weirdly comical and not in a funny way, in a sad way that is so horrifying you just laugh and laugh until you sob. People have no patience and no manners. I had to learn to tell people off nicely which isn't my strong suit. I have a whole new outlook because now they won't let me leave the house because every time someone pisses me off in public I start talking about the purge and waving my cast around. 

Even today at the drivethru, someone tried to go around me and he caught my eye and my eyebrows went up, cueing his car to reverse back to where he was and I was still amazed. Like, did you think I was in this lane because I want to go inside? No, I don't want to go inside. I just want an ice cream handed through a window and I can wave my card at a little black box and no one needs to make a fuss here. 

It was butterscotch ripple for one scoop and rum raisin for the other. So good. 

The cone was stale though. They're always stale. Like nacho chips, hard taco shells and the air between my ears. Makes my last outing alone bittersweet, that's for sure.

At least tonight I have a date with a boiling hot bubble bath and a kush bath bomb. I can't wait.

Really fucking clumsy for a goddamned former acrobat.

The ten day absence isn't because I am avoiding you. 

George has a crack in his belligerent self because Bridget took a drunken backflip off the diving board and might have landed on...the diving board because SUE ME, I'm used to doing backflips in place and forgot about things like physics, momentum, gravity and...pain. 

Never ask a tightrope walker for a trick because she'll do one and fuck up her summer with another complete lower arm cast, this one which is also temporary for two weeks until the next one gets put on and I got a pale green cover for it because it's pretty and WOW. I figured I could just roll with it and I said I was fine but then Lochlan touched it only slightly and the noise I made ratted me out. 

Narcotics don't mix with anything but George has a way of hurting me like no other man ever could.  

I did all this with my left hand, including formatting!

While I wasn't looking.

 Drunk and in the pool all week. When people start complaining about how low the temperature of the water is set to I get out and run and jump off the cliff into the actually-cold water. Then I realize I'm drunker than I thought and do it all again an hour later after another drink. 

The one downside of this Collective is that someone will always sneak me a drink without realizing that three or four or nine others have the same idea and then Lochlan or Benjamin or Schuyler has to make a new rule that only Lochlan can bring me drinks and I snort-laugh and he instantly feels like a servant and the dynamic doesn't work like that and POOF Bridget's drunk again. 

At least they are watchful around the water. And I'm such a strong swimmer now, but I don't have the speed. I can tread water for hours. I can breaststroke from one side to the other, I can do a front or back crawl around the point but it's too slow for everyone, especially Lochlan who is always in a hurry to Be Safe and I know his trauma wears a different face than mine but it's just as monstrous. 

Drunk is good though. And I think now I did get a lombotomy while no one was looking. It didn't hurt at all so that's the good thing and I'm annoyed at how everyone is explaining everything like I am nine again but then expecting me to adult as well. I didn't tell you about the tree branch that fell on the hood of my Jeep nor did I tell you I didn't melt yet. I am close though. I stay up very late now and I look at the boys when they talk and I swim or lounge in the pool by day waiting for summer to be over before it has started. Another trip around the sun indeed. Another new fancy restaurant. Another plan for another time. A wish for sleep and then a wish for change. 

I feel like a runaway train that never had a destination in the first place. Is this burnout or insanity?

Maybe it's acceptance.

Homesick hour, but for what? was the question that never gets answered.

 Here comes the first heat wave/dome of the season and the pool is ready. The bikinis don't fit but the pool is ready. Who gained weight? I did! Probably because of the lead they glued to my soul to keep me grounded. I can work for hours, sweat like a demon whether it be cleaning, gardening, waxing the Jeep but then I just sit like a tired potato and people bring me snacks. The way to Bridget's heart was always lined with cake and it seems like there's no shortage, birthday or otherwise. 

But yeah. Um. Thank god my two piece retro swimsuit fits. It's a high waisted bottom with a shirred halter top and it's so fifties. I love it. The boys don't because they all are perverts but that's fine. I like what I like on them so we're even. 

Wet. board. shorts. Pastel colours and you can see...everything. 

EVERYTHING. 

Life is good.

Also I did not talk about my birthday but I'm still younger than Naomi Watts or Jennifer Lopez at least. I will detail it tomorrow maybe. I need to sleep now. Goodnight.

Didn't expect it but I expected it.

My first world problems of forgetting Nick Cave lyrics (The Carny, of course. It's three times the length of an average tune with a billion and a half words and Lochlan has it tattooed to his soul but I can't remember anything any more, as I am unplugged, deconstructed and subdued) and being extremely irked by Canada Post and UPS and their abject failures in bringing me my things and then setting up the patio lights All By Myself only to discover when I went to plug them in that I started with the wrong end and then had two female plugs-the end of the lights and the extension cord. 

All first world problems, as I said but enough to start a quiet landslide in my brain and then it all stopped when I saw the paper tonight. Or rather, the AP newswire and saw that Heather Armstrong (Dooce herself) has passed away, on purpose even, as if it wasn't written in the cards the way it always is after the fact. 

I read her from the first. And I continued to read until things became darker and darker and I couldn't see any more and there are no blogs I read now because the time has come and gone and the people have come and gone and I'm still here. Never famous or infamous but full of thoughts and opinions no one's going to read or listen to and that's okay. I'll still be here until I am old and blind and still deaf and still trying to remember the words, good, bad and lyrical. 

Her poor children. It doesn't matter what you may have thought of her but it hurts most for those left behind. Be mindful of that.

FUTURE PAST.

IRON. MAIDEN. 

Got the tickets. Andrew and PJ got the rest of the tickets. We're going as a SQUAD. With earplugs though because the first/last Maiden show I went to saw my ears ring for three days straight afterward.

Benzodiazabridge.

PJ made us a couple of surreptitious tequila screwdrivers for dinner, under the guise that whether it be allergies or covid, we will amp up our vitamin intake and the rest seem to have bought it as I am super-extra medicated today and so the evening probably won't end well but the day started alright but then went downhill so quickly. I tried to distract. I pulled out every favour card I had, playing them in turn, a full house, four kings and then the ace. I bargained a ride to the plant shop and bought lavender and barnsley. I bargained for coffee and got homemade. I bargained for sleep and found only darkness and I bargained to keep my ghosts, the only reward being grief in return. 

The ghost crept in close, breathing his cool breath on the top of my head and I checked out. Not every day is going to be a good day, not every step is forward. Sometimes no distractions work at all. The pharmacist had the answer. Pretty sure we keep her in business because Lochlan won't rely on the old doctor or the younger one and brings his own list to the party. 

So yes. Right now you could shoot an arrow through my forehead and I'd probably thank you. 

I still want that lobotomy. Medical care takes so long here.

Absent. Minded.

I had a supplement in my water today for mental energy. Not sure if it's supposed to be obviously but I do feel as though I have given myself a treat so there's that. By treat I mean being kind to myself. Self-care or whatever. It was lemon iced tea flavoured but plant/mushroom based. Not sure about buying it on the regular but August or Duncan always has something like that around. I also bought flavoured herbal teas since I stopped drinking tea over the past year but I love tea and so I'm going to get back into it. 

Lochlan brought me a whole bag of tangelos and a reverse colouring book out to the gazebo today. It's sunny and dry. Jacob is stretched out on his back in the grass, soaking up the sun. Bare feet, shirt unbuttoned halfway, sleeves rolled up, jeans so soft and ancient they are like a fine cotton. I don't know if his skin will darken into a tan or not anymore. I can't remember. 

I also have a glass of wine that PJ brought me. To settle, he said. He's a big proponent of using liquid fixers to bring things down a notch and believes that alcohol as a depressive serves a grand purpose to quiet, to lull. He's not wrong, though it's frowned upon. 

I am also in jeans and bare feet today. Messy pixie cut, new linen button up shirt to test the fabric. If it's cooler than what I have now I will buy more of these shirts. If not, it's still a natural fabric and will be so comfortable. I had a whole host of torso touch ups yesterday and am hurting badly today but I refuse to admit it out loud. Lots of places coloured in and recoloured, some older work fixed up, some new work added and a lot of laughs while I cried from the pain. It looks beautiful. I don't know how much more I can take. 

It's my turn to make dinner too. I think french dips since they are easy and hugely popular. Then salad the rest of the week because it's going to get super hot. I don't like the heat. Fun.

I watched Obsession so you don't have to (unless you want to, that is, but honestly it's...uh...not great).

 Netflix is a never-ending Christmas morning for me. There's always something to uncover or fire up, always something new and surprising, always something I want to see, plus a host of comfort-viewing if that's what I want but rarely do I rewatch anything at all. 

(Disclaimer: I bought some stock in it this week so if I tout it here can I inflate my values? Worth a shot.)

(Wait, nevermind. Martha Stewart went to jail for that, didn't she?)

(I also have stocks in gold, copper and a heaping pile of tech, plus an equal pile of ETFs. Caleb and I are still in a mad competition to see who is smarter. He will win but I am more clever and far more logical.)

So back to Obsession, which is a fun story for the whole family on what can go wrong if Dad decides to pursue his son's fiance, after said fiance all but jumps on Dad FIRST. Everything goes wrong and this was a loosely-written cautionary tale built on an unstable foundation around some silly sex scenes and a solid amount of full-frontal nudity for Thorin Oakenshield (AKA Richard Armitage, who must have lost a bet or something.)

(It's based on a book called Damage by Josephine Hart. A woman. Not a man. It all makes sense. It's fantasy.)

The most smashing of all was the fact that every time they had sex it lasted less than four seconds and still they managed to gasp and sweat at the same second (the last one). I want to know what drugs they took to pull THAT off and also? Four seconds is not long enough. It was the same vibe as seeing a couple of scuba divers in trouble share a tank. The relief of the breath and then back to counting. 

Hilarious. So hilarious. And then, well, no spoilers but let's just say Thorin was set up to be an extremely accomplished human being and a highly respected one, and I can see him throwing it all away just because some stupid twit showed him her twat and then told him that she 'surrendered' to him. 

You really don't understand a lot of men then, do you? Dalton laughed, but he did so nervously. 

Oh, I do. That's the problem.