For anyone who thought I was harsh on Lochlan the past little while, please remember this is the curly golden boy who says whatever will make him look best. Of course he'll finally have my best interests at heart. Of course he won't try to come between Ben and I.
Pigs. Flying. Look how pretty.
None of it matters because nothing can come between us. Ben and I are nothing apart and everything together and I have yet to be distracted from that. Okay, I was mightily distracted from it this morning as Ben wandered around the house with his coffee and his tattoos and his pajama bottom pants yanked down just perfectly and the hair all tousled and sexy and his Movember beard and moustache now at ridiculous lengths and we were the only ones home and took full advantage and now he has gone to some meetings and Daniel is home sick and sleeping, having gone to work and returned with perfect timing and so I am shut in the library hall with the tiny desk at the end of the room in front of the window with my pleats arranged just so on this black dress that shows too many tattoos in itself and black stockings, black shoes and a dainty little silver evil eye necklace. Hair in the customary disconnected, cascading chignon and black glasses halfway down my nose. I always make an effort to sit up very straight while I type and apart from lunch, which is soon, I have the remains of the day in which to arrange the words so that I like them.
It's been a while.
Sometimes we go off the tracks and weeks go by and something rocks me and I lose my focus and then suddenly it's there again and I can block out everything else and the windowsill corners get dusty and papers pile up on the table and I begin to forget to do things like buy groceries and follow Ben around unplugging his instruments and amplifiers because if I didn't sometimes we get a loud surprise from a trespassing cat or a curious Henry.
I don't actually forget to buy groceries, it's more like I put it off until we've done a pantry challenge and use up some meal ideas that have been waiting for a bit. That's all. If you think I could ever go a day without pouring hundreds of dollars worth of food into these growing boys, you would make me laugh. These are the three-cheeseburgers-in-one-sitting type of eaters and then I am given ample opportunity to curse their male metabolisms as I try and zip up my dress after half a burger, no cheese.
I'm relishing today with the cold winter sun hitting at just the right angles to avoid needing lights in here, the books lining the shelves all the way around have a tendency to darken this room and the rickety glass chandelier that I can't reach to change the bulbs does little to help one to read. That's why I removed the window seat in this room and Cole made a built-in desk instead and lower shelves for my collection of antique typewriters. Only it's so narrow it borders on unusable, except by me and sometimes Ruth when she is moved to come in here. There are whole areas of the house they just don't bother with and others you will always find them in.
They prefer the sunny back of the house to the gloomy front and I can see why. It's been a challenge to find a balance between warm family-friendly rooms and my penchant for medieval chill and gothic revulsion in decorating. The urge to paint every room black gets bitten back in favor of the weird warm shades, like the pumpkin guts color that wound up in my kitchen.
The urge to leave the words in a tangle on the table is gone as well. I've put it off, let it go, ignored it in favor of letting the low grade fear run through me, incapacitating my brain again, letting the boys call the shots, fight over me and run the show.
Sometimes it's necessary. Voluntary even, as my head checks out and I live on auto-pilot, breathing quick and shallow, pulling the ribbons on my dress tighter so I don't notice and sabotaging the moments of levity with the greater future threats and past weight that precludes just being who ever in the hell it is that I am.
Whoever she is has enough charisma to secure the means to figure the rest out. Everything else I will just blame on words.
