Leave me here forever in the dark.I ran this morning. It feels like it's been ages, and my head felt heavy, my knees felt unreliable and the mittens I grabbed on the way out the door were the wrong ones and I wound up running with clenched fists and had to work very hard at keeping myself from jamming my hands under my arms. Have you tried to run like that? Exactly. At the speed I travel I need my arms for balance.
I can't keep up with Corey or Dalton. They maintained a two-block lead. Ben and Lochlan ran half a block behind me. I was the outcast and so I turned up my music and let a different Ben serenade me this morning.
And damn. I really love this record. My Ben still maintains this Ben is a lightweight. Benjamin is jealous of mainstream rock success maybe. The kind that his very incredibly heavy metal does not seem to enjoy save for large parts of Eastern Europe and a niche market here in the Americas. My Ben could turn on all that but he won't sell out to things he doesn't believe in and neither will I. I'm not saying the other Ben did, but the other Ben's music is just that much more palatable for radio, and for Bridget's worn out, broken ears.
There's room for everyone.
I think my Ben is jealous. I'm not sure I've ever quoted a song from his old band. Wait. I did once and some of you got it and I freaked out and left the internet. Then I came back, because fuck you, this is my page. So there.
I don't entertain the email questions about my Ben any more just like I don't sell out my blog for product placement or paid reviews or whatever else people ask me to do because that's not what I want here and I was royally pissed to see several formerly well-loved and anticipated blogs go that route recently. Ah well. Delete, delete.
To each his own, right? Room for everyone. Just not my thing. Just like I am not your thing, and that's okay too. I'm not dumb. I know you read it because you're curious. Everyone is curious. Even me.
So, back to my run.
Outcast novelist bookended by beards in a morning run that felt downright warm compared to temperatures as of late that had PJ offering me the stupid treadmill because he didn't want to chase me into the frostbite. I declined and ate cookies instead. Do you know I paid for those cookies this morning by bringing them in the form of extra pounds on my run. I will not make that mistake again. (Hey, mom? The cookies you sent are gone. Please send more. Thank you, love, your youngest daughter.) Damn cookies. They are so good.
Give me a signI'm taking some of today for non-moving things. I'm going to wrap presents, holing myself up in the library with the paper and the bows and the sharp scissors which I will be permitted as long as I return them to the keeper when I am through. Invisible tape and a black Sharpie for the tags. Silver and black for the colors this Christmas and a separate hidden roll of Victorian sleigh patterned paper for the gifts from Santa because my children still believe in the magic of Christmas, just like we do.
There's something buried in the words
Give me a sign
Your tears are adding to the flood
Just give me a sign
Just like you should, maybe.
This afternoon I will go to the box offices and pick up our Avatar tickets for tomorrow and our Switchfoot tickets for after New Years. Yes, I know, so not heavy but I really really like them, they sing my battle cries. All of them.
I have one more moving estimate to collect for Caleb (because I want to make sure you have the best of everything, princess.) and tomorrow is the final day of school for the year and soon the house will revert back to the chaotic bliss that it turns into when the children are home, from the shadow-filled mausoleum it is when they are away. Good. We have all kinds of plans to exact upon this city so we can wring the very best out of it before we go.
Cole asked me to do that. Last night when his hands slid around my neck as I slept into wakefulness, breath choked away from me because he's always liked to keep it, he reminded me that I am always running on ice that is thin, and resolve that is too fresh to stick and that there will be a fall, eventually. But he never says where and he never says when. It's always positively wonderful to get confirmation that leaving him was smart and that I have to keep the guards in place for his brother because I like evil.
I let his hands slide over my eyes (because I want to make sure you have the best of everything, princess.) so all I could see was the dark and I could see his face smiling at me and telling me to run. To leave this place where he died, leave the cold, leave the lights in the sky and the roads that go nowhere and live because he can't and so he needs me to. I'm not sure why Jacob let him take direction. I haven't heard from Jacob lately. I will ask.
You tell that to Lochlan or Ben and they frown and look at each other and it's almost comical because I highly doubt Cole talks to them in their sleep and that's okay because he's mine and they would never listen to him anyway except for the very major things like who gets Bridget when everybody dies?
We're ALL still waiting for the answer to that one.
And you thought it was neat that my Christmas ribbons are black. Bet you changed your mind just now.
Ben gets that look. That Jakey-resolve look that says he's going to fix everything and then he realizes he can't. So instead he does the best he can, and he knows that when push comes to shove, I can outrun anything.
He believes in me, just like he believes in ghosts and the spirit of Christmases past and Corey the wonder-gazelle, half human, half flying beast. Man, he goes so fast. I'm never running with him again.
I'm kidding, Corey.
Everything else is serious.