Fun Monday facts.

I weirdly easily and annoyingly learned all of the words to Fancy Like and have been wandering around the house singing it at the top of my lungs all morning. Every time someone asks me to stop I suggest they pay the lady. I made four hundred and twelve dollars inside of half an hour. 

PJ and Lochlan had a major disagreement and Lochlan tried to follow PJ into his wing to talk about it and PJ slammed the door in his face and locked it. So Lochlan went and got a few sheets of wood and the drill and screwed the door shut (don't worry, PJ lives on the ground floor so if there's a fire he can get out) and then ordered PJ's favourite meal for lunch and ate it right outside the door (a toasted roast beef sandwich and sprouts on rye and steak fries from a local place) while PJ threatened extreme bodily harm from the other side of the door. Lochlan was taking a risk. PJ usually climbs out the window and storms back into the house. I think he's building the drama. Should be fun later. I feel another glitter bomb is coming. I just wonder from where. 

Caleb bit through the top of my ear last night. I did not feel it until I realized my hair was sticky (with BLOOD you gross fucks). I'm sure next Lochlan will shut him in a box, screw it shut and light it on fire as he sends it out to sea. Monster funeral. Ben cleaned my ear for me because Lochlan's hand was shaking too much. 

Schuyler came out of retirement officially. Says he was never really in it, as people still needed him. He's going to try again in a couple of years once he downsizes his project list. You would think that would have been the first thing he did. These boys are so good at fighting and working and so bad at relaxing. 

I watched Finch. The Tom Hanks movie? It was so good. I thought it was going to be Chappie 2. Luckily it was not. I also watched the Candyman remake. Sequel? Whatever. It was also really good save for the fact that they kept trying to paint the candyman as a misunderstood neighbor one minute and a demon the next. Like which is it? Also levitating in broad daylight is never a good horror trope. It just looks fucking dumb. But other than that the movie was high quality. I am most excited for the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which will be a direct sequel to the one that came out when I was two but I saw it when I was nine or ten and it was part of a long succession of now beloved slasher favourites. 

Halloween still tops the list but I also haven't seen Halloween Kills yet. Ruth told me it was bad so I'm waiting a bit just to soften the blow. I will still love it I bet. I'm terrible with that. But my ear doesn't hurt, at least. Duncan has some good painkillers. Or whatever it was. Mixed messages all the time, as always.

Absent Jesus, present Devil.

Coffee, cats and rain alone this morning. It's dark. No one got up early. I might not have slept more than a minute, as I tried tucking in against Ben and couldn't get warm or comfortable enough and so I got up at six. Jesus isn't getting a visit today, it's cold, rainy and miserable and the only thing I'm leaving the house for is a quick visit to Ruth before lunch. The boys staggered in one at a time and the coffee flowed, seemingly from one cup into the next and so on until a river of sweet caffeine opened everyone's eyes wide enough to greet the day. 

Hard to believe this is the downslide into a dozen years here. So much longer than I thought we'd stay. Lunar New Year, Groundhog Day, my booster shot and The Olympics are all up next. I can't breathe, and everything that goes wrong feels like the last straw. The days are growing longer minute by agonizing minute and I know damn well things will be better soon. It just doesn't feel like it today. 

Caleb rubs his thumb across the space between my eyes and smiles gently, as if to reassure. He fails but I let him have it anyway.

Ticket to ride.

Snowblind Friend is playing through the speakers. Lochlan taps one foot against the hard-packed ground while we wait in the blazing sun. He lifts one skinny arm up to shield his face as he squints at me. The hem of his green and white striped t-shirt rises up above his jeans when he does it and I see freckled skin along his hip. If he tucked his t-shirt in like I do it probably wouldn't do that, I think and sweat rolls down my forehead, pressing my bangs to my own freckled skin.

He said he wanted heaven but praying was too slow, so he bought a ticket to an airline made of snowwwwwwww-

What does that even mean? Like he wants to go somewhere to cold, to church?

No, Bridget. I'll tell you when you're older.

Why can't I know today? 

Remember that guy sitting in the doorway a month ago? The one that didn't know where he was? And you said he had flour all over his nose holes? It means that. Doing drugs that are bad. 

Not like from the doctor? 

No, like from the shaman. 

Oh.

(The shaman was someone who lurked around the fringe and supplied people on the tour with their own brand of heaven for their day off. Or maybe for every day, I don't know.)

Stars on 45 comes on, the Beatles medley. My favourite. I shake my butt and Lochlan frowns and shakes his head once. It means stop.  

Why don't you go and get some lemonade and wait for me over by Melody? Melody was the lady on this tour who oversees the food trucks. She's very nice. She told me she killed her husband and hit the road. I asked her how she did it and she told me I was too young to hear those kinds of horror stories but that I would grown up in a world with one less monster. I told Lochlan this and he laughed and said he wouldn't be surprised. 

I want to wait with you though. 

You'll burn. Go. 

I don't argue with him. I take the five dollar bill and go get two lemonades. Melody won't take my money so I stuff it in the tip jar and she winks at me. She'll give it back to Lochlan tonight I bet. Everyone spoils us as we are the youngest people on the tour and what they know is that Lochlan is old enough to be emancipated and he has guardianship of me, that I am his little sister and we're escaping bad, drunk parents. For some reason everyone here is also escaping something so they accept it as gospel and give us free food and easier jobs. They look out for us.

And some of them prey on us, and so Lochlan waits patiently outside the office for the rest of his paycheck, as only half of it was in the envelope when he was handed it earlier at circle meeting. 

He says he always keeps track of his hours and this isn't the kind of advantage he worries about people trying to take. That money problems will always be fixed if you ask people to be straight up with you. 

I shake my butt a little under the awning while I sip my lemonade and hold Lochlan's in my left hand. His ice is melting and I finally see him disappearing into the office. He comes out three minutes later with another envelope and holds it up. Victory. Maybe the boss thought he wouldn't count every last dollar but he always taught me to do that and said it's up to me to see that it's right, no one else and to never assume. 

I hold up his lemonade in return and some of it sloshes down my arm, dripping off my elbow onto my Nikes. He smiles really big and heads over, just as the Beatles medley ends. I don't hear what's next. I get a kiss on the cheek and a showman's flourish in his Thank you, Miss as he takes the cup and drinks it in one go, shaking his hair off his face, grimacing at the sour-sweetness of the drink.

The reluctant storyteller.

I threw a chair off the front porch this morning in a rage-panic. Went down and picked it up and wrestled it back up the steps while Lochlan watched but did not help, even as I scratched the dark green paint on the floor of the porch because the chair is wooden, large and heavy. I scream again as I finally shove it back into place and wonder how I managed to get it over the rail in the first place. 

Feel better? He says, looking out across the drive toward the woods. 

Nope, I admit. 

Want to go for a walk?

Too cold. 

Everything's fine, Bridget. In a while this will be another tale, down the road.

I know he's right but I really hate this feeling. Panic is only marginally better than outright fear and I don't want to feel either one.

Bonus post: The way to a girl's cold, dead heart.

Lochlan just came home with a pick me up for me. McDonald's french fries and a big bag of colour-changing fire pinecones. He really knows the way to cheer me up. It's only marginally better than his usual drugstore bag of goodies with the lip balm, Archie comics and nail polish in a weird color, gummy bears, fruit-scented pen and notebook and a hair tie. I'm a simple girl. Seriously.

Sidewalk chalk but I do spells with mine.

Rickety little Jeep is all fixed now and happily back in the drive waiting for the next round of snow (or repairs, but hopefully the snow will come first.) Every time a boy looks at it they wistfully point out they could have done the work. PJ laughed in repairman when he found out how much I paid for my repairs and what they ended up doing but hey, at least there's a carfax record now, something we never got when we bought it. LOL. I was too busy fighting to get an inspection report, which took a week or near to and once I got that in my hands I forgot about damned near everything else. 

I may call and ask for it. Then I have the full record for the vehicle. 

In other news, it's fucking minus whatever and my fingers are split wide open and I was racking my brains to remember what I used to use on them in the prairies to soothe and heal them. 

Lanolin. Pure lanolin. 

Found my tube and now I'm good to go. 

Also Duncan is being cute today and I'm so dead.

Last of my kind, for sure.

Burns night was a mad success. I enjoyed a single glass of mead but did not have anything after that. Cleanup was quick and the Scottish folk music channel was playing softly in the background. 

In my bid to live completely off-grid with nothing more complicated than an oil lamp wick to deal with or maybe the wheel on my buggy might fall off and I'll have to make a new axle out of a tree branch or something, the boys decided to go full Smart Home (before it was only a few rooms, none of which I ever go into) much to my dismay, and now every time I want to turn on music, a light switch or (probably) a man, I have to announce it, prefacing it with Hey, Google! Or Okay, Google! 

It's somewhat magical and somewhat infuriating, which is how I describe Lochlan most times so no surprise there. It's really neat. It solves a weird, longterm problem of having too many lights on solitary switches on some of the different floors and it also solves the problem of me trying to connect my phone to bluetooth, an Olympic feat best left to the professional tech athletes in the house. I am full on amateur. It never works. If it does I am surprised and then can't replicate it again for weeks. 

Very frustrating. 

So this solves half a problem and creates a half-dozen more in the process. 

But the boys think it's cool. 

They spend all day sneakily changing the colours of the lights of rooms I am in.

Nursing my wrath to keep it warm.

The neighbourhood looks terrible right now. The post-winter, pre-spring death of last summer is still in the air. The fog and dim heavy cloud cover keeps it dark, and everything is wet leaves, mud or damp brick. The trees are bare and wind-ravaged, the birds have left, and even the water is roiling, black. 

The only shining light is Jacob, standing by the new, far edge of the circle driveway.

The gang is coming back on the weekend or early next week to add an outdoor lockable cover for my kiln and to fix up a couple of tiny leftover issues, like mainly how I found a very large pile of broken bricks in the woods just past where the lawn ended before. I texted a picture to Ransom and told him he forgot something and he has five days to collect it. He said Saturday. And then he texted sorry, but he didn't know. 

And here I was so thrilled about everything else. I don't like it when someone hides or leaves waste materials after a job. It's as close to a dealbreaker as I can get save for jobs that run way over. I told Caleb next work project that arrives on the point may see me leave it forever. I just want some peace and quiet. 

Does it scare your ghosts away? He says, his voice in a serious tone. 

I look up at him and he looks sad and resigned. Maybe he sees them too. 

Sometimes. 

I think that's it for a while. They did a good job though. 

I nod. PJ now leaves his Jeep all the way around past the house almost to the point where the circle rejoins the long driveway. He goes out often and likes to make things easy. I get pride of place right in front of the porch steps but like I said or maybe I didn't. My vintage Jeep has sprung a tantrum and needs to go in the shop tomorrow morning because no one has the time or energy to fix it anymore. Least of all, me. 

The job is well-done. I like driving on the brick. Jacob clasps his hands behind his back and glowers at Caleb, watching us but unable to do anything about our proximity. I am leaning back against Caleb who leans against the rail. I told him we needed to rake the leaves and he had them do it and now it looks better and I think I'll stick to walking the dog down to the cliff and back or maybe to Batman's french doors and back so I don't have to see the sorry post-Christmas state of life on the Outside. 

We may be out of time for that. The Devil shoots his cuff and checks his beautiful watch. It's after four. Time to start supper. He drew the short card and has to help me make a Burns Night Supper. Whiskey, candles lit with no electricity otherwise, and sausage instead of haggis, mashed potatoes and a veggie, since the haggis is hard to find and only truly liked by half the point, or maybe a third, and Lochlan didn't want me travelling anywhere other than our regular grocery store anyway due to health order constraints on the population so it's a bit of a relief and I'll be drunk by dinner time anyway, if I'm lucky. 

Even thou who mournst the daisies fate, that fate is thine. Jacob's voice in my head like a sudden spike of pain.

You okay, Neamhchiontach? 

Fine.

Dark; crowned with blackberry thorns.

It's official. Sam's breakfasts might be even better than the ones at Troll's, though with Troll's there are no dishes, no cleanup, no pans to wash. And you usually get a bill that makes it cost more than buying separate ingredients at the grocery store and making it yourself. I'm not sure if the lack of cleanup makes the difference worth it or not. 

I could do that math, but between you and me I am exceedingly nervous about being in public these days and to be certain there is no price on peace of mind, at least to me, and so I think Sam would be a good short-order cook as long as Matt is away but it won't be long and I will be back to fending for breakfast for myself while everyone else does the same. 

Jacob waved from the edge of the woods to me when I went to take some things out to the stables. 

I waved back, reflexively and then caught myself. There you are, I think. Hiding in the fucking woods. That would be Cole's doing, sure as I live and breathe. Cole loves the woods. Jacob loves the beach. They were complete and total opposites and my brain has awkwardly put them together as companions, almost and so they are always together and must compromise. I find they take long periods in turn, like a season almost and then-

Where are you, Peanut? 

In a fog maybe. Camping my projects and my pet projects too, I think. Sorry.

It's fine. Ready? 

I nod and follow him back toward the garage. We are warm and fed and ready to go and do the repairs that Sam and I dutifully logged on the weekend. It won't take long. Lochlan loves this chore. Sam doesn't have to go because he made breakfast for everyone. Win-win.

Foggy Jesus/Withdrawals.

I can't see anything this morning. Our whole world is encased in a thick fog. The ocean is gone, hell, the gazebo is gone. Matt is gone on a quick trip home to see family and Sam didn't really want to travel right now so they amicably agreed to miss each other and then everyone else got pissed off when I said we would keep Sam company until Matt comes back on Wednesday. He was sent in the jet which, I KNOW I KNOW carbon footprint but also CORONAVIRUS so there.

(Also I have zero input on that. Caleb offered. Matt accepted. I don't think he even wanted to go before that. It's a duty visit and those suck balls.)

I am playing a quiet/sappy playlist through my air pods and enjoying this very much Maritimer-specific weather for once. It's freaking cold out but doable in a hoodie, and we are walking the property as we try to do at least once a week to check for problems, changes, updating our list on what's been done and what hasn't, checking to see if anything big and weird washed up on the beach (I wait for the ubiquitous west coast shoe with a foot inside but it hasn't happened. I'm telling the truth. Yes, I love bones but never from people. Unless they're teeth. I love teeth.), if any parts of the fence have been broken, if any trees have fallen or if any outbuildings are insecure (like yours truly). 

Sam isn't saying much of anything. I think he's tired. I know I wore him to smithereens and he swore in the dark and fell asleep next to Lochlan, forehead pressed against Lochlan's shoulder and I laughed so quietly and Lochlan smiled and said it was probably for the best. We're a huge comfort mechanism for Sam and he for us. No explanations no apologies and no boundaries whatsoever, there. 

I am singing along with The Weeknd and abruptly Sam turns back and laughs silently at me, or so I think. I pull out an air pod and he suggests I turn it down slightly so I can hear myself. If I can hear I can sing in key. If I can't hear myself I will...not. And it is funny but it's also mildly stinging and so I fall back further, letting my notebook swing in my hand as I follow him. No more singing then, he can have silence. Besides, Ben and Lochlan are still asleep and since Sam is off for his sabbatical I don't understand why we're the ones up working early on a Sunday but we are also the ones who are the early birds, chirping at the clouds, marvelling at the rain, watching for the sun. Sam says a quick prayer before we walk out the door and now here we are, sniping at each other lovingly as we go. 

He's promised to make me coffee and eggs Benedict with crab cakes AND English muffins when we go in and he even said a double-order of hash browns is possible if I want. 

That's why I didn't throw the notebook at him back and stomp off into the fog already. 

I'm not dumb.

Nameless, graceless, oh and untouchable too.

Ben was on a facetime call on his laptop and I thought he was on speakerphone so I came right up beside him only to be caught onscreen. He's on with someone he sometimes writes with/for and is giving advice or maybe they're just shooting the shit and I try to sneak away before I can be acknowledged, stepping back around so the laptop faces away.

Hey...is that...she looks so familiar. Hey did that girl used to be on your Canadian tours sometimes? She wasn't with you though. A friend, I think you said. 

We're together now. 

Funny, Since you said friend before, I went for that sweet little piece of ass so hard. She looked like a deer in the headlights when I tried to talk to her. I was right beside her during your set. Looked right at me, almost through me and then just turned and left. She said nothing. She was cold-

She's deaf. 

What's that? She was playing at it to avoid me? 

No, she's actually deaf. But since my speakers are up loud she can hear you now so keep it respectful as I'd hate to have to end the call. 

No harm, no foul, man. 

Maybe apologize to my lady, who is still in the room. 

I am sorry, Miss...? I didn't catch your name. I didn't mean to be crass. I am appreciative of your beauty to the point where I forgot to be polite. Please accept my apologies. 

Ben is smiling at me. He's amused. Tour times are far in the past now. This right here is one of the reasons I rarely visited him backstage. I would go and give my regards to people I knew and on my way back I would be ambushed by people I didn't. Tours were a little hedonistic and weird, to say the least. 

I stick my middle finger up at Ben and he cackles in his drawl behind the screen. This guy can't see me and Ben moves along. All good, man. No worries. Thanks for that. Now did you need my manager to send you details-

With that I leave the room. I have actual cold icky chills from that feeling and I want to be up by the fire where it's warm. Maybe Caleb can pour me a brandy. Maybe I could pretend I was someone else but for some reason they always remember me so easily.

MIA.

The very good news is the heavy-machinery part of the driveway is done (after four long days of noise) and the very Bougie part of having a whole team laying bricks by hand has begun. It's a thankless, tedious, back-breaking job and I intend to reward each team member aside from whatever Ransom is paying. I've already ordered them hot breakfasts and hot lunches each day and bring them tea and lemonade in between meals and Ransom is mad that they take far too many breaks here. 

Have you laid brick? I dare you to try it and tell me a lot of breaks aren't required. 

He didn't dare say anything else and the hot meals will continue, though apparently they will be finished by Saturday night. 

I mean, that's pretty good. And next week will be quiet. I hope. I did a huge grocery shop with Ben. Surprisingly there are still no good cereals (Kelloggs is having a moment. A stop work order, I believe so no product due to labour disputes) and God knows where all the spices went, but I can make my own Italian seasoning and I did find pepper and I will use fresh stuff dried and stored from last year's gardens for everything else. 

Next week is a car week, as my vintage Jeep needs some TLC...A starter motor and some liquid or linkage for the four-wheel-drive. I don't know. It bit the biscuit over the last snow event and while I could buy a starter and bolt it on, I just want it done and no one wants to work on it with me so I will pay stupid labour costs to the garage too. Why not, I'm on a roll here. 

Then the cats. Oh yes. The cats. One is terminal as I said yesterday and lives on pain meds and cuddles these days with a super-short prognosis, and the other has an auto-immune disease and needs meds now too and suddenly the pets are all ancient, the kids are all grown up, Lochlan has an errant white streak appearing at his temple and all of the boys are staring down advanced middle age and I am here still stuck at seventeen and screaming for them to slow down so I can keep up. 

There's your barometer, I tell Sam, who sits patiently at the big table in the kitchen, iPad, notebook, phone, bible and coffee cup in front of him. 

Sounds like a good one. Not too busy, not too bored, not too panicked, didn't mention ghosts even once, worried more about your Apple Jacks than your devil and not the least bit worried about your own mental health. To what do you attribute the change today?

The noise finished so I'm grateful. And also the full moon is over. Oh, and the days are getting longer and have you seen Jake cause I can't find him at all lately.

George likes to add spaces and Bridget isn't impressed.

If the editing is wonky again let me just tell you George drags himself through life like a depressed sloth and no matter how fast I get going on a keyboard he is rife with insolence, determined to do his own thing here, and I am left also annoyed but in the dust. He has control over my dominate hand and control he will, even as I rail and go back time and time again to add the words he refused to type, change the words he added in spite of what I wanted to write and fix up the cadence, grammar and punctuation. I still see things I missed and I'm too headachey-tired to bother fixing it all a fourth time here today so never fucking mind, George. You win. Happy now?

In other news, the weather looks like it is going to hold for the weekend and I can fire my kiln. I'm very excited about this but also I did not make enough things and now I'm sad because as always life is about having all the time in the world and then suddenly having none (George tried to write now right there, gosh I hate him sometimes). On the upside the good weather for our region is coming, and the bad is retreating. The days will be longer and so I'm excited to have more time, not less with which to experiment and try things and make things. Even if it's all little trinkets and gifts for people. I've always wanted to do this. 

Schuyler asked me about marketing last night, as in if I have a plan to sell things. Maybe locally? I also had an invitation to sell my wares on a relative's website but I am only thinking about that for now, and not really sure what to do. Let me focus on being happy with what I make first and then I will worry about the rest of it. 

In any case, at least George likes to make things with me. Maybe he was a repressed fifties business man and he wanted to be a creative gay? Who knows. I just know we're both happier lately when we're not writing, which is an absolute first for me and a horrible, strange feeling overall. It will come back. I hope. 

I feel like I've somehow tested positive for pandemic-fatigue. Or maybe it's life-fatigue. I just know one of my cats is terminal, the other two pets ancient and hardly mobile, the whole house seems so empty without Ruth and I'm all but torturing Henry with frettish attention and the fact that life is still shut down and everything is awful is beginning to catch up with me in a way I didn't expect. For once it's not the dead, it's the living that's the problem and this is new. I hate it, for the record. At least the ghost emotions were predictable.

Recipe for a good night's sleep.

We were alone. He had my face in his hands and his weight on my whole heart, lowering himself slowly into me, never breaking his gaze. It's a nightly reinvention for us. A show, just for us. An intense, quick-burning but slow-smouldering act of contrition against everything (and everyone) else. By the time our hipbones touch I am desperate for the inevitable quickening of our pace which always follow a languid, almost-hesitant to the point of torturous beginning. He always looks for my doubt and he can extinguish it quickly, an errant spark left to burn before being put out for safety. Lochlan was my very first true lover and he will be my last. That alone gives us a depth that no one else can touch. 

A kiss followed by one hand moving away while the other slides down around my neck. The one that moves away is now against my hip, flattening my pelvis out for him as the gentleness leaves us in favour of that desperation I referenced before. I pull the sheets up around us with both arms and then give up if only to hold on to something that isn't moving at all. Then I give up on that too and hold his arms, muscles flexing them almost too big for me to hold onto so I am clutching his shoulders.

Are you looking for a handle? He whispers with a laugh as he pulls back and flips me onto my face. Pulling my hips up while I laugh into the blankets I am flattened out once more, this time under the weight of his own heart, and I close my eyes. He takes my  hands and pulls them up above my head where he gathers them in one of his hands, and his other hand presses my stomach up so that my back is pressed against his chest and abdomen. The whole world ignites in this space now and the darkness is left behind. His lips press against my temple, his breath ragged in my hair. I am a captive audience. I am a meal. I am flammable, combustible-girl for Lochlan's very own brand of fire. I am sent to the moon while he circles around the stars, joining me on the surface to see the earth, just for a moment.

And we are warm at last. His breathing slows, his hands unclench, his whole body relaxes as he lies down beside me, pulling me up and into his arms, letting my hands fall. A kiss against my lips and his fingers to smooth away the hair from my face and his own and he presses his forehead in hard against mine. 

Good? 

So good, I whisper back.

He nods and pulls my shoulders in close so my head tucks underneath his chin. We are both asleep in seconds. 

Useful idiot.

One good thing about Ransom is he'll always ask for my list. He knocked on the door yesterday late afternoon and Dalton got it and then all of the sudden Ransom is in my kitchen, masked up, as per house rules if you don't live on the point, asking me if I have anything else for him to do. There's always a honey-do list on the side of the fridge with things that Have To Be Done and yesterday was no exception. 

There's the caulking at the bottom of the stairs, the screen door needs to be replaced on Duncan's door and on August's and caulking the kids' bathroom so check the others, the step at the bottom of the sauna is rotted through and if you can find out what's taking my electrician so long. Just kidding, that one is on me. 

I cough and he asks when I booked.Then he says to just have PJ call and cancel and Ransom's guy will do it. 

It was done by four-thirty and now I have an operating kiln and no time to try it out. 

Actually there's a little problem with the fact that it needs to be outside. I would wheel it out on a dolly. I'm not concerned. But I need a roof over it so the stables need a porch. Then they won't be stables anymore and it will just be a fully-fledged house and I can just go live in it and get away from these-

Anything else? 

No, that's it thank you. 

He winks and turns and leaves. Just like that. Perfect. 

Dalton asks which crystal he should bring down to fix the vibes in the room now. 

All of them. 

PJ laughs from the couch where he waits for me. Right beside Lochlan. Lochlan is where those vibes came from. He likes Ransom less than I do.

I'm not going near the front of the house today. That's where all the noise is.

Today's t-shirt reads ONLY THE BLONDE SURVIVE. I love it. Matt got it for me in an airport overseas somewhere and it's starting to pill slightly. It also pulls just a little in the front and the cut is perfect for a girl. Nipped in at the waist and skims over my hips perfectly. Sleeves actually fit. When I wear Ben's XL men's shirts it's like putting on a black garbage bag. Shapeless but soft. I threw on green leggings with it, since the shirt is ivory with pink bands at the arms and neck and I look like a little kid fresh out of her snowsuit, complete with messed up hair. I dried my hair with a blow dryer but I couldn't find my brush. Then I started coughing anyway and added a sweater to my outfit because within an hour Lochlan will demand I put one on.

Cue a hot chocolate, because damn near everyone's trained now. 

And we've hit that part of January where not only did most of the boys go for a dry January if they aren't already in recovery, but they really went for a dry January, in that the remainder of the solitary men almost one by one gave up the faint hope in their dating apps and unsubscribed and deleted them off their phones. 

They do this every year. 

It always makes me vaguely sad but also mindful of years past when the desperate, poor-decision panic would set in so that people would not be alone for the holidays and the boys would make a go of burgeoning relationships in one of the most stressful periods of the year. It never ended well. I doubt it ever would, except in rare occasions and I see this as an armchair anthropologist, always. I've watched these boys my whole life and life is a roller coaster with free admission, for sure.

PJ has his head in my lap as I sit by the fire gingerly holding my piping hot drink over his head and trying to take sips as he laments the state of the world, that this wasn't what he intended but that he also wouldn't change a thing and he can't quantify why he feels fulfilled but he does. It's a stream of consciousness existential crisis and he has a few each year. 

I'll indulge him until he's good and finished because he's had nothing but time for me. I braid his beard while he talks and look at the colour of his eyes and the flecks of light in his irises and I will lament the almost-waste of a perfect man save for the fact that he did say he was fulfilled and maybe not becoming a husband and father but still having the role for the best years of his life is enough. 

This is a man who cried a little the other day when Ruth came in and told him how many paintings she sold over the holidays and how much she made by doing so. He's always got patience and concern and pure love for all of us and it shows. PJ's love language is service and I'm glad he's never let that part of him shut down. 

He's also the world's most comfortable human weighted blanket. 

He's also rude and completely incorrigible and I love him for that too.

I love that my face is mere inches from your-

Padraig! Don't be gross. We were having a moment. 

We could have a moment-

Hush, you.

Unspoiled.

What is happening with the fountain?

They're going to change it up. A Cherub, maybe. You choose.

Medusa. 

Bridg-

You told me to choose! That makes the most sense, honestly. 

The fountain is getting a big upgrade. And they'll be removing the little pond altogether and just making it look like the rest. Perennials. Etc. etc. Work starts tomorrow because of course, ofc. ofc. Just delay someone else's project so you can pull a whole team and come harass Bridget and overcharge and just..GOD. I wish we could get a new contractor. Emmett is 'unavailable' (I love that word so much) and Ransom is weirdly free. 

RIIIIIIIGHT. 

Yes, so Medusa. 

We'll discuss it. What if we got some koi-

No. Take the pond out, please. It should never have been there in the first place. No one was going to look after it. 

Caleb looks so defeated. We're trying to make this a paradise for you, Neamhchiontach. When you are happy, we'll be happy. 

I thaw a tiny bit. I liked it before. 

It was muddy and deteriorating pavement. 

I know. Now it's just so...sterile. 

Your input is what makes it less so. He's so gentle with his words. 

The fountain is ridiculous. What if we take it out? 

And put in? 

An apple tree with a swing and a garden of flowers around it. Some more lampposts.

Done. 

Oh, thank God. 

You hate the fountain that much?

It looks like when you drive up to a hotel. It's dumb looking. I want a home, not a house. 

I start coughing again and he says that's enough for now and heads off to make hot chocolate for me. It's like a bottomless cup. 

He returns in five minutes with a cup on a plate and some cut up apples. Good, I wasn't about to indulge you with the Medusa anyway.

No Easy.

In a commune full of big, strapping, ridiculously-healthy men it's almost hilarious how the germs go in circles, bypassing everyone with any seriousness until they get to me. The weakest link. The runt, as it were, feral girl prone to every last crumb of sickness and once I get and develop it into a full-blown illness then I give it back to everyone, they work through it and then it lingers only to infect me once more. 

It's not Covid. I've been tested twice now. It's just the flu. Probably because I sleep three or four hours a night and just run on white-knuckle breath-held vibrations and that never changes. Lochlan was running a mild fever too this morning almost as if on instruction, as the doctor said this will run it's course in a few days and to call him if anyone spikes a fever over 104 or if we can't keep control of the symptoms. I worry slightly about Caleb and about New Jake who are both men with health concerns but they both seem fine. 

(Do not even ask me why New Jake wouldn't be fine because I ain't talking.) 

Daniel has the sniffles but no fever. PJ coughed once and Caleb glared at him until he lied and said he breathed his coffee by mistake instead of swallowing it, and otherwise everything seems good so at least it's not pneumonia (I still have at least eight weeks to get that and I'm sure there's one with my name on it waiting in the wings, as ever) and it's not bronchitis. The other favourite.

I lamented being sick all the time and Lochlan pointed out germs are heavier than air so it makes sense if I'm shorter I catch more. Like krill for a baleen whale. I'm just walking through life filtering them with my teeth. 

A vision.

Indeed.

Bathic content.

(I'm doing nothing but waiting so here's a post about nothing.)

Lochlan reaches up and turns on the light on the chest of drawers. My face is illuminated in the mirror. Delirious eyes, wild hair. Pink cheeks. He kisses my shoulder, without taking his eyes from mine in our reflection.

Bathtime. 

I close my eyes and he leads me into the big ensuite and I am put on the chair to not fall over while he runs the water in the tub. He adds a capful of rose oil and a capful of bubbles and then one of salts too (which takes away a lot of the bubbles) and then he comes back and takes off the Hello Kitty pajamas I am still wearing. 

We can burn these. 

They're my favourite. 

I'll get you a new set. He kisses my forehead (should we burn that too? I feel like I already am, from the inside out) and I'm neck-deep in bubbles finally. I lie back against the little pillow and instantly slide down so that just my face is visible. 

Good? Lochlan appears upside down above me. 

Come in with me. 

After I wash your hair. 

He sits on the little stool by the tub where I normally keep my phone and washes my hair for me before stripping down and sliding into the tub behind me. The water is now up to my shoulders and I'm still sitting up. He lies back and I use him as a pillow. I offer sleepily to wash his hair and he says he doesn't want salt in it. 

Salt should be in everything, I point out. 

Tomorrow you can have a saltwater bath then. 

I don't know what he means but I close my eyes and breathe in the steam and my throat feels a little better. The doctor is coming after lunch today. He would have been over first thing but he is flying back. It's fine. I'm not going anywhere. Other people have far worse problems. Get to me when you get to me, I think and before I know it our time is up in the tub, because Lochlan doesn't want me to overheat. 

I could live in the bathtub.

Come on, mermaid. Let's get you dry. He steps out and towels his skin off quickly, giving me the most wonderful show while he's doing it. His milk-pink skin, freckles scattered everywhere like sun stars, hair still tied back, woodchopping/fire throwing muscles threatening to blow his white-collar cover, as ever. Tattoos damned never everywhere now and I love it. He was late to the game, but took it up eventually.

What are you staring at?

You. 

Let me return the favour then. He holds out his hands and I take them, stepping ungracefully over the very high side of the tub. He wraps me up in a giant towel and lets the water out of the tub and then comes back.  

Oops. Forgot your hair.

It's fine. 

Another towel and he blots my whole head. (One of the advantages of being with a man with super crazy curls is he doesn't rub your head dry like he's polishing wax off a car. My hair used to be straw for a while there, right through the Cole/Jake/Ben years, but now it's shiny and soft again. God, my brain's going everywhere. It's probably a prion disease). 

I am combed and dressed in clean clothes. A warm baggy sweater and comfortable soft jeans. Matching Lochlan only his sweater is a navy and mine a robin's egg blue. Our jeans are the same shade of dark indigo and he goes back, after a thought, and gets socks for me. Thick cream-coloured wool socks that feel so nice. I am the barefoot princess, usually. 

I wait for a hat and a coat, possibly, but he seems satisfied at last. 

Breakfast-

-I'm starving.

God, I love it when we can read each other's minds. Good girl, he says, and I go weak in the knees.

Hello sicky.

Two in the morning and there's a knock at the door. I startle awake because I'm a light sleeper. Lochlan's hand grips mine and then lets go as he turns over. He's in dreams, at the fair, no doubt. His happy place. Way back at the start. 

I open the door just a little. The Devil's face in shadow from the light from the windows at each end of the hall. 

Neamhchiontach. Will you come to me? 

I study his face in the dark. The expression holds, as if cast in stone and I meet his eyes. Yes. 

I come back to the nightstand for my phone while he waits by the door. Lochlan touches my hand and then makes his warning. 

You bite her again and I'll kill you. 

You have my word. Caleb says it softly in order not to wake up Ben. 

I close the door gently and we move down the hall, around the corner and to his door. He bends down to kiss me on the forehead and then opens the door and waits for me to enter first. His rooms are dark. He wagered on me saying no, or not being allowed. He turns on a few low lights and the gas fireplace and then comes back close to me, pulling me in against his chest, tucking his head down toward mine, breathing in my hair. 

He exhales slowly, as if he has been holding himself tense and ready.  I hold my breath like a line thrown from a ship and I'm in the water. As hard as I can. It forces me to cough and he just holds tighter, smoothing his hand up and down my back as if to soothe me. His hand is warm. 

For once. 

When I stop long enough for him to relax again he steps back away from me, shrugging out of his jacket in one motion. It's fine wool but he lets it fall to the floor in a crumple anyway, and then he takes his cufflinks off. He doesn't unbutton his shirt though and he steps closer again, hands around the hem of my Hello Kitty pajama top. It's a glorified t-shirt. Soft and thin. He pulls it up gently and I raise my arms over my head dutifully. The shirt joins the jacket. He takes his shirt off quickly and pulls me back in to his warmth and I don't mind. It's cold. 

The sound of the rain against the windows drowns out anything he has said so far, or maybe he's said nothing. Either way we stare at each other but don't speak. He lets his pants fall so he's down to his briefs and I'm still in my pants, shivering now. I look at my shirt and he snatches it up, pulling it back over my head, threading my limbs through the holes. 

For now, he reassures himself and again, I say nothing. 

He leads me down the hall into the dark and I can appreciate his form. Strong and tall. Confident in a way that only comes with time and money. A sudden confidence compared to the acting he did at my bedroom door. Just vulnerable enough for me to drop my guards and then back to predictable devil. 

He takes his time. He takes all night, almost. I am not released for sleep just yet though. He isn't finished with me yet. 

And then I cough again and he stops. 

Bridget, are you sick? 

I didn't think I was. It's just a tickle. 

By morning there is a roaring fever to accompany that cough and I can hardly move. No one blames him, though. I am still in my pajamas, and they are stuck to me as I sweat right through them. It wasn't cold. It was chills. It wasn't a delirious dream, it was a fever dream. The best and worst kind all at once.

Honoured.

Home to the Devil and the magician who take notes and are collaborating this morning on breakfast. There's a roaring fire in the woodstove, all my tiny lights are lit and nothing else and the rain pours down outside like a punishment for something dire. They are making marshmallow fluff toast and hot chocolate mixed with coffee. My very own early cafe mocha, as it were. Lochlan makes a last-minute healthy choice to peel an orange, as is his custom so that I don't die of scurvy but I always feel like Veruca Salt at the chocolate factory in life. 

Or maybe that's Augustus Gloop. 

Shakti. Lochlan's voice floods into my head. It's amusing. Caleb can't hear him in here.

Either way, I am well-fed, rested-up, touched-out and content right at this moment. I reach up to hit the pause and Caleb takes credit. Almost instantly, before my finger can touch that invisible but necessary button, he crows that he knew it would work. Lochlan glowers at him but says nothing and I let my arm come back in close against my body for warmth. Not pausing right here, suddenly I'd like to hurry through. Suddenly my handknit sweater isn't warm enough and the fire's heat isn't reaching me and the coffee's grown cold in the cup. 

Lochlan feels it and comes and pulls me in against him, his arm tight around me, fist holding me to his heartbeat. A kiss on the top of my head stakes his claim and I am written into the logs as his forever. I always thought I never deserved it maybe, or that he was simply too good to be true. Oftentimes I thought I would never be good enough or that his standards were so high I couldn't see over the top and then he reminds me that life is simple, that we have what we need and we have each other and I can't hear the devil any more and then Lochlan works his magic and I can't see the devil either and it's a moment I can finally breathe.

Unsavage garden.

Eating Pad Thai in Schuyler's bed, watching Emily in Paris because Daniel offered and I'm not saying no to any of the three offers-their bed, good Thai food and endless feel-good Netflix, and feel-good only. 

Today will not be a sad day, Schuyler proclaimed, remote held high. 

That was yesterday and well, we're still here. This is the very definition of a safe place. There are no ghosts, no frowning allowed and no tears unless we are Working Through Shit and no safe words because these men pay close attention and find no joy whatsoever in hurting people to get off. They also don't throw out sharpened words meant to hurt and they're always up to speed on who in the house needs a little S&D, their very own brand of TLC. 

It involves ones favourite meal, a bunch of happy shows or music, and absolutely no clothing, or clothing optional in winter, as I've been dozing in Ben's big t-shirt all day, as is my habit. I feel almost whole again as neither the ghosts nor the demons can touch me in here.

Told you, Daniel says, and he kisses my nose. Better?

Almost. I yawn again. Schuyler winks at me.

That's it then, we're keeping you for the week.

Build the ark, I'm coming for you.

Ben isn't doing cocaine. He's all about the self-disparaging jokes these days, and yet they take a while. He thinks slower than he used to. The words, the thoughts and plans are all there in his head but his head healed a little thicker than it was before, he says, and so it takes a little longer for everything to come out. 

I always always tease him when he says this, as he has always been thick-headed. Stubborn. Aren't we all. 

And we have have as many bad days as good, here on the point. The barometer is never just for me, though I can be as quiet as they can when things aren't just right. Only I can't fake it along through the hours. I just get more and more wound up, fingers clenched, teeth clenched, miserably tight and miserable indeed and then I explode or I melt, depending on the issue and everyone gets to see everything and I get to keep nothing to myself. 

It's healthier but I hate being the bad guy. 

And so does Ben but Ben is in survival mode. For those who say it's nice to retire before sixty with a catalogue the likes of which he has, for those who say more money is so lovely and that rich people shouldn't complain, for those who do nothing but snark before me from their faceless keyboards, words stabbing my tattooed skin like daggers, drawing endless blood, endless rivers of black and the floods carry us all away, I can only say one thing. 

Fuck you.

8:03/4:31 (we're the worst).

Caleb is at the bedroom door. 

I have something for you, Neamhchiontach. 

Lochlan looks up from his book. We are hibernating today. Having hygge (which is the danish word for fun, if you want to be technical). Clean pajamas, a small fire that we let go out because it got so warm we opened all the windows instead, and breakfast for three, in bed, and I lost a fork and Ben went looking for it which made us all howl with laughter. Then...um...new sheets and more clean pajamas because fork is a similar word to, and sometimes used as, another word that makes sense in the bedroom and then I catnapped and now I'm starving. I have closed the windows because the sun is headed for the cliff of horizon and it's time for another dark cold night and I even checked the sunrise and sunset times and it feels like we aren't getting anywhere here. A few lights on and both boys are now reading. We're unplugged, an acoustic BLB. Off the grid. Well, the lights are electric and so are our hearts but that's it, today. 

What is it? 

He holds out his hand and drops it low. It's a carved lepidolite heart. 

How did you know? 

I was reading up. This one is for restlessness and anxiety. 

Where did you get it? 

I went to a little shop that sells all the crystals. 

Ohhhh and you left me home? 

It was near another store where I was already running errands so I thought I would take a look. 

I love it, it's beautiful. Thank you! 

If you have a list I would like to help you collect them all. 

Like Pokemon? Lochlan calls from inside. 

Hush, you. 

Gotta catch em all, Ben laughs in that slow, infectious drawl he does now. 

Hey man, I read that crystals are taking over the world. Caleb is defensive but light.

I told you! Well, not really but they're so pretty. 

Yes, I like the display in the hall and since you work hard to keep the decorating as woodsy-masculine as you can it's good if you can have something to remind us all that a beautiful woman lives here too. 

I didn't know you cared, Diabhal! Lochlan is in hysterics. 

Shut the fuck up and try harder, Lasraichean, Caleb all but sings it over my head, in through the door. 

And I laugh and hold the cool stone up to my cheek. That was a term of endearment, meaning flame. They're comfort-sparring, today.

Shall I put it with the others? Caleb smiles. So pleased. 

No, I have to cleanse it and then charge it first. 

This is...oddly complicated. 

Not really. They work best when they are cleaned, renewed and charged up with power. 

And how do you do that? 

Either put them in soapy water, sunlight or moonlight and then put them on the white plate with the carvings for a day or two. 

Oh, I see. Then their power is...unleashed? 

I mean, kind of. It's hard to explain. 

Works for me, Lochlan grins, still determined to tease Caleb any chance he gets as he ducks between us. Going to get Chinese food. Need anything else? 

Rain, I call after him. 

Huh? Oh, that day. Ha. You. Lochlan points at me and winks and then he's gone and it's just me, the rock and the devil and a really sleepy Ben nodding off into his pages. 

Thank you again. 

Drink later? 

Maybe tomorrow or the next evening. I have plans tonight.

What rock do I get for loneliness? 

Cocaine, Ben says and he starts laughing again, awake after all.

 It's snowing again. 

*#@%#$&@*!.

매 순간을 치고받아!

Things toasted until they're burnt, martini olives, k-pop and doom metal playlists that alternate between the two, velvet hair ties and Ozark. 

Sam is rapid-fire. Fast. Okay, name the perfect day. 

It's raining like crazy. Lochlan and I wake up, make love, have a long hot bubble bath and then make eggs and toast and coffee. Then we paint for a little while and then go for a walk on the beach, pop into a little restaurant for chinese food. After we get home again we change into dry clothes and watch a movie and then make love again and go to sleep by ten. 

Specific. 

It happens around once every five or six years, just by chance. It's the best day ever. 

I'll make a note of that. I think Matt would be up for it. Sam laughs. Now, a barometre on today. 

I still hate the snow and I'm worn down and I hate this time of year anyway but daylight brings perspective that I don't seem to possess at night hence the drinking, and everything will be okay. 

The drinking. Address this. 

I honestly don't think the three martinis I had this week, spread out across seven days are cause for alarm. 

What would be?

Three a night. 

Definitely. 

Though, having a second is not the end of the world. 

But can you not have any for a week? 

Yes, but I fear the unchecked anxiety will just kill me faster, to be fair. 

To be fair you're not taking your med-

I HATE the side effects. Sam, you know. (Really hard to not full-on whine here but I tried.)

Which is worse?

Side-effects, every time. 

We can keep looking-

I said I was done being a test subject and I meant it, Sam. 

I understand. 

Keep going with the questions, this is fun. 

Favourite song. 

Right this second? The Real by Ateez. 

Hahahahaha that's amazing. 

It's a banger. Just like my life. 

Sam smiles but it's not his practiced, professional smile. It's full-on, with teeth. 

What's happening?

Sam is dissecting my brain in real-time. 

And? 

Sam turns to Lochlan. You're right. It's full of cotton candy and glitter. 

Better than wet clouds, like sometimes. Lochlan smiles back. No teeth though.

Chum deureogayu/춤 들어가유.

George wouldn't let me shovel the sixty million feet of snow we got today so I'm inside spooling up the dance party and making hot chocolate for when everyone is finished and comes back inside. This is oddly one of my favourite things, when there are gloves, hats, jackets and boots flung damn near everywhere, with puddles of snow melting on the floor. 

I hate the snow proper, though, don't get me wrong. It makes me claustrophobic. It's exhausting to get rid of, and it makes it hard to go places, emergency or otherwise and I think fewer people understand that then I would like but that's neither here nor there today and our driveway is completely shoveled. Can't wait until it's fifty percent longer by Easter or whenever the snow is gone and the work begins. 

I want to run though. So bad and the treadmill doesn't cut it. Ben sped it up all the way and then a little more still and I was running flat out and it's just not the same. He put on a video of a jaunt through the mountains of Switzerland and asked if that was better. No, of course not. It will pass. I just need to stay distracted. His eyebrows go up. 

Oh, I can distract you. 

Oh, really? How's that? 

Jump off. I obey his order. No point slowing the machine down and making a graceful exit when one can fly off like a maniac. Someday one of us is going to die playing on this thing and it will probably be me. I already chipped a tooth on it because my timing was off. It's a death trap and it's only good for bad weather or total boredom. It's actually good for nothing, come to think of it. Speed. That's it. 

I did a front walkover over Lochlan's chair last night and misjudged my spatial awareness level for the night and had to be rescued as it were so I'm not really up to running hard anyway. I think I stretched my back and my hamstrings further than they've ever been and now they are adventurers for life. 

I should know better than to be trying acrobatics without a sufficient warm up. Lochlan never ever let me miss the full warmup even if I was still eating dinner. More than once I did stretches with a pizza crust between my teeth, admonishings from Lochlan to put it down or finish it already so I don't choke. I would take my sweet time finishing, just to make him crazy. 

Okay, I'm off. I turn back to laugh at Ben. I stuck the landing, anyway. Now I wait for the distraction. 

Oh, you are the distraction. Wait til they come inside. 

Why? 

Remember that time in the back of the truck? 

Yes. (Oh my God. Found it.)

Thought maybe for old times sake.

You thought for old times sake we should freeze our asses off? 

Yes. Yes I did. He laughs slowly, picking up speed. Just like my run, right out of my mind.

Where can I move where there are still seasons but no weather bombs, domes, tornados, fires, snowstorms or earthquakes?

The snow keeps coming and this just makes my plea for a baby plow/4x4 for yard work that much more interesting. I could just order one but that's no fun. I like it when they do it on my behalf. Hell, not like I'm having much luck this week. I tried to order a custom G wagon for Caleb in robin's egg blue and I got precisely nowhere. I tried to do some taxes and got nowhere. I tried to get motivated and got nowhere. I keep finding the mornings drag and the afternoons rush by and I did buy something today, so there. I ordered a labradorite sphere. I'm hella excited. It looks neat. If all goes well I'll go back for a lepidolite bowl or maybe an agate one or maybe both but that's for another day. Look, a girl has to have something to do when it's snowing this much and there's nowhere to go. 

We're not even going to talk about the necronomicron infection (oh do I mean Omicron? No. Je refuse.) I think at least 4 of us have. 

And we're definitely not going to talk about Schuyler's eyeliner today because some of us might spontaneously combust. Oh my Lord the fire is turned up to seventeen with that one. 

(The fire measurement being the dial on a gas fireplace in my house but whatever, he's making his own fire today.)

I told you there was nothing happening and now I'm going to go make four shepherd's pies.

Arcane, indeed.

Why don't you love who I am?
What we could have been

 

Tuesday is a slow-motion weekday today, the first true day maybe. Ruth came over and we took a long walk around the neighbourhood, Henry and Lochlan hovering just enough on the icier sidewalks but then forging ahead, deep in conversation far out of reach. The rain is heavier now and I'm glad it held off. 

 

Caleb remains behind us. Walking steadily. Not looking up. Ears tuned keenly forward but adding nothing to the conversation. Ruth is stronger than he is and they both know it and so he is charming but guarded now that she has come into her own. The older she gets the more favourites she plays but she also does not forget or look coldly on her time being raised partially by him too. The rest she knows and we just don't talk about it, but she understands I keep no secrets from her or her brother and the tension with Caleb will forever be a tangent presence. 

I'm reading Dave Grohl's biography and I'm struck by how he glosses over major formative aspects of his childhood in order to wax platitudes on the other side and how that's exactly what we all do once we are past the hard parts. It's a coping mechanism and an eroded emotion. It's water under the bridge you burned. It's the way it's done and you just hope to do better with your own children, only they are still attempting to raise me together as a pack and rarely does that work, if ever.

Green light red light (yellow light, blue).

This morning I am back to business, trying to get quotes for the kiln outlet, trying to order Caleb the vehicle I said I thought he should get and he agreed, trying to begin year end tax forms and trying to pull the whole house back together in one day and at some point this morning Lochlan put his hand on the top of my head and told me to spend the week doing Nothing with a capital N because everything is delayed/shut-down/not in a rush anyway. 

Huh. I mean, okay. If I haaaaave toooooooo. I already caught up on all my chores (laundry up to date, living room is cleaned and my art studio is rearranged to be more user-friendly and the floors have been done. All of them. Everything.), no one's answering the phones at the two different electricians I called for quotes, Mercedes told me the chips are scarce and they'll let me know about ordering the vehicle I want for Caleb and did we want to look at their preowned inventory? (no, thank you we can wait or we'll move on) and why would there be tax forms out? It's January fucking third. 

I cough and Lochlan says see? He's mildly concerned. I have a really bad cold suddenly not really I was sick through Christmas and it's worse now) and I have resorted to carrying around my Victorian embroidered handkerchief with a few drops of thieves oil on it or I can't breathe at all here. I'm big on natural remedies because I hate chemicals but I also hate this feeling so I'm counting down the hours until the Nyquil coma. That's the best part of being sick: the five or sick hours of oblivion that stuff affords me. I don't know what's in and I don't know if I care. I just want to feel better so I downloaded a show no one else wants to watch (Emily in Paris, season 2) and I have my afternoon all planned.  

Fun.

Hello red brick road, where Bridget's wolves ceaselessly howl (liberties taken, Mr. John).

About two weeks, possibly three depending on the weather. Caleb has his hands in his pockets and he's hunched his shoulders in close, as if to deflect an imaginary, impending blow. 

When am I going to have some peace and quiet?

When it's perfect. When it's the way you wanted it to be in the first place.

I have to learn to watch what I say. I made a brief squawk about his car being in the wrong place when I went to back out of where I park when I'm going to be going back out because it was too close and I really had to go back and forth for a bit to get past PJ's jeep which is always in the right spot. Both of my jeeps and PJ's Jeep go in front of the garage or in it, plus the little space on the left is mine for when I come and go. Caleb parks beside the side door. Lochlan and Ben park their trucks up along the side nearer the front door and Duncan, Sam, Matt and Daltondrive down past the house to our actual parking lot between the side fence and the Boathouse. Ruth's car is no longer here much at all, she used the little spot on the left too, and Henry is soon to get a vehicle and he'll share that spot so it's a bit tight sometimes. 

Especially since we're all homebodies now who hardly ever leave. 

By choice. 

So when I complained about his car being two feet closer than usual, Caleb called fucking Ransom again and he's having the driveway extended up around so you can cut left or right at the fountain and drive back around and out. I lose a tiny bit of my pointless and very dark front yard. I will not lose a single tree in the woods though and they will redo the little grotto into a proper garden courtyard. I am oddly fine with saying goodbye to the yard and of course they will redo all of the landscaping in order to have it look like it's always been that way and WATCH ME PARK RIGHT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PORCH STEPS NOW MUHAHAHA. There will be room for their vehicles or delivery vans to drive past me and things will be great. I no longer have to go in the side door unless we are grocery shopping and then I don't drive often anyway. Lochlan does. Or Ben but only if it's clear and bright out which is never anymore.

Plus this will absolutely eliminate the eight treacherous stone steps leading up to the front walkway, to more stairs. 

I am all for that. And it will be paved in the same brick pattern as the rest of the driveway so super luxe and stupidly expensive and I still don't have to pay for any of it. Perfect.

When can they start? Let's get this over with. 

I'll make a call. I want it done before I trade in anyway. 

Oh really? What are you getting next? (The A7 hasn't performed well over the past few weeks, especially in the rain and he's not going to keep it).

Not sure yet. Maybe you can help me choose. 

I would love to do that.Why me, though? Lochlan's the gearhead. 

You're very practical but also fun. 

(Yeah, story of my life).

This is the golden age/I think I'm gonna make it after all.

 Euphoria's goooooone it's time to move ooooonnnnnnn

This is my brain. Flailing wildly between U2's New Year's Day, a plaintive, seminal New Year's song from forty years ago (WHAT THE FUCK) and Switchfoot's New Year's Day, a fun rollicking hooky song that's only seven years old. 

This is normal. This is me. Either sad or crazy and never sure which power to harness and which one to ride out. 

What are you doing?

I yank off my headphones just as ABBA's Happy New Year starts (it's a playlist I made, okay? Here we are, me and you, feeling lost and feeling bluuuuuueeeee). I am disappointed at being interrupted in my epic once-a-year early morning routine where I finish off the final half-bottle of champagne and sing my heart out in the library where no one can hear me. This isn't a performance, it's a ritual.

The static makes my hair do fucked up things and Caleb laughs. 

Ice cream?

It's eight in the morning. I doubt anything is open.  

Maybe I brought a selection home and it's in the freezer. 

I stand up, never taking my eyes off him, putting down my headphones, my phone. Moving slowly.

He moves to make room for me to leave the room and join him. It's a fake-out. I book it to the door and he blocks me and then turns and runs down the hall to the kitchen, grabs a spoon from the drawer and heads out the back door. I am left behind. Winner picks the loser's flavour is the rule. GREAT.  

His resolution was to be kinder to me so he chooses coffee flavour since it's early. I am mollified and content. I have brain-freeze too but no one notices, or maybe no one really cares.