Heatstroke barbie, or, I was wrong.

Jacob read my post from last night and would prefer me to clarify his doll comment because he says it makes him look like a jerk. I thought it made him sound like a jerk at the time he said it last night, frankly, but my mood issues were explained later.

What he meant when he said I looked like a doll was that I looked perfect. I wasn't withered from the oppressive heat, like everyone else. He thought that was strange. I wasn't sweating. I was uncharacteristically cranky too.

I didn't sweat at all, well not enough to cool off. Which meant our evening out was cut short because he again noticed that my skin was far too cool for last night's heat and suggested we duck out for water. We went outside and I was so weak I couldn't open the cap on the water bottle so we quickly drove home.

Where I promptly threw up.

So much for that perfect doll image.

Dolls do not vomit. And they don't get heat exhaustion.

And no, for crying out loud I am not pregnant. Half the wedding guests think I could be. Isn't that fun? Yes, I think so too.

I'm sufficiently better this morning. Jacob wants me to stay home and rest instead of going with him to church but that will most likely just add fuel to the blazing rumors so I think I'm going to go. With lots of water to sip.

Then I will spend the rest of the day indoors. Where it's cool.

I really thought he didn't like my dress.

Wedding barbie.

Huh.

I'm killing time waiting for the kids to eat and for Jacob to get ready since we leave in an hour for a wedding. I curled my hair and pinned it back and used my new Maybelline XXL mascara (which is insane, I can't say enough) and my candy pink lipgloss, and I have a cute pink fluffy little dress on, and my pink fuck-me shoes (that would be the 4 inch stilettos), because otherwise Jake gets a crick in his neck if we dance at all.

I was feeling pretty cute until Jacob walked past me and did a double take and said Christ, Bridge, you look like a doll.

I briefly debated switching to black high heels and a black dress but then I figured he might tell me I looked like a whore.

Yeah, it's really hot tonight and we're getting along smashingly.

Sweet to taste.

So I don't forget it for Tuesday:

To our therapist, who thinks I shouldn't try to draw power from my sexuality: Say nothing until you have witnessed the most erotic lap dance/striptease ever performed. Because someone (name starts with J) left the Hysteria album on, and Pour Some Sugar on Me came on, and I couldn't resist. The only thing missing was strobe lights.

He remained inarticulate for the next few hours. It's okay though, we weren't doing much talking. And he has a new healthy respect for me. And my strange and wonderful talents. I burned the chicken but I give a nice lap dance. Hey, the perfect girlfriend.

The human rubber band.

Friday always brings a second post, if you didn't know that then welcome and enjoy. Friday is a giant mood ring for me. I start off black and by sometime around three o'clock my mood ring displays the most beautiful shade of blue you will ever witness with your bare naked eyeballs.

I wonder how many hits 'Naked Saltwater Princess' will bring to this doorstep via Google over the coming weekend.

Jake says if every day was as bad as I painted it here we'd all be sipping belladonna and navigating a slow death a hundred times over. Do I do that? I don't mean to do that, but this is how it plays out in my head. I'm not an effortless optimistic, by any stretch of your imagination.

So here's a very upbeat! new! development! because there is nowhere to go but up. Right?

Jacob has cancelled my birthday trip.

And it's okay. Well, we were going to cancel it anyway. I have no intentions of taking my kids overseas while Israel and Pakistan Lebanon (Thank you Potor) are at war. And then Cole finalized our plans by not changing his will. Which means I need to take his ashes home to Nova Scotia. To top it off there are only so many vacation days you can take as a minister each year, so while we're home we'll spend time with both families-Jacob's parents live in Newfoundland, and call it the summer vacation.

I'm looking forward to it. Neither one of us have been home in years. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. Optimistically speaking.

Wait. I make him laugh, dammit!

This morning I exchanged the intoxicating freedom of the open highway where I swear I was seventeen all over again for the crushing personal roadblocks and congestion of couple's therapy, from which I emerged into the blinding sunlight choking back sobs and trying to uselessly force my way out of Jacob's strong arms, having just been yanked back weeks progress-wise. Our time even ran over and yet we weren't on speaking terms with each other when we left, despite the desperate measures we (okay, they) took to try to sort it out while we were still there. Because Jacob is fed up and because I am in pain.

I am 'emotionally immature' (I want to write 'duh' here but that would just confirm it). And when I was pointedly called upon to define myself under that label I straightaway looked to Jake to FIX IT BECAUSE THAT ISN'T FAIR. And the counselor pounces again and asks me what Jake is going to be able to do for that, since he is part of the problem.

Jake? Well, he studied the floor like it was going to magically scroll the answers across the tiles beneath his shoes.

In trying to help me develop tools to stand on my own two feet in this relationship (translation; grow the fuck up) instead of being so goddamned submissive when it comes to men, specifically the ones I love, all of my flaws are exposed to the light, then they have verbal acid thrown on them and then they're kicked to the curb to be repeatedly run over.

Jake is asked to list some of the things he brings to our relationship. Easy. He DOES THIS FOR A LIVING, people. He rattles off so many concrete examples. Flawless. Bravo. I am lucky. A million times over. I love how he never has to point out his fears like I do in these sessions.

What do I bring?

Ha. Um. The kids, okay, yeah, Ruth and Henry. Um. Ah. Optimism that the future will be better than the past. Oh and I can totally get my way with sexual favors.

Bridget do you feel that your power comes through sex?
Aw geez, you people are harsh. Inside my head the wild girl is screaming with laughter. Of course it does, watch as I seduce any man I want without having to speak a single word. Idiots!

Outwardly:

Well, no, it shouldn't, but..

Do you think this is healthy?
Oh now here comes the belligerence. Such a fucking brat.

Yes, actually I think a healthy sex life is very important in a relationship.

Healthy if you're using it as a means to an end instead of just as recreational intimacy?

Well, that's why we're here now, isn't it? Because I don't have any other obvious bargaining chips.

Jake laughed. At the very worst time ever. Which turned out to be good, because the therapist got to witness us argue briefly, to see both Jacob's total faultlessness and my purposeless, misunderstood, automatic compliance, as I deferred to him. As usual.

Bridget, why do you do that?

What?

Drop the argument and yield to Jacob?
I didn't even hear myself whisper it. So he doesn't leave me.

Therapy was stopped then, and it was decided that we were going to step up the frequency of the sessions because when they tell me I'm doing well they lie. It's a verbal pat on the head because I didn't fire anyone that session, or something. When they say I'm doing well I take it to mean that I'm almost normal again. Which colors me as an optimist, because when they say I'm doing well, what they really mean is that I'm progressing normally for a totally fucked up girl. Textbook.

And because pressing myself against the inside of the truck door isn't very comfortable I sit like a robot beside Jake on the drive home. Wait for it, wait for it...here we go.

Why can't you believe that I'm not leaving you?

Because trust takes time.

Oh, and you can't trust me? After all this time?

I can't trust anyone, Jake.

Then why did you say you could before? What changed?

Nothing, I just decided telling you what you want to hear isn't going to make this feeling go away.

What feeling?

The fear that this is all a dream and you're not real. That you'll leave. People say things they don't mean every single day, Jacob.

Well, I don't. I'm real. You are not sometimes. Bridget, when I touch you I feel like I'm in heaven and it's not real. You're too good to be true. When I go to sleep at night I pray that I won't wake up in the morning and find you've changed your mind. That you don't really want me, because you're too beautiful and I'm just a servant. That you'll find some great new guy who will take you out of this godforsaken place for good and give you everything, with none of the bad memories we have in our past.

I'm never leaving you. Ever.

Okay then I need another promise. Promise me you'll never stop making me laugh like you did today. Because I knew exactly what was going through your pretty little head even as you said something completely different. You're impossible. I couldn't help laughing out loud.

My purse bounced harmlessless off his head and we almost went off the road laughing. He is better therapy than the professionals that cost us money.

This just in: I'm one hundred percent not cool.

In response to the emailer who asked me how I could post so flippantly less than two days after my husband's funeral. I only have this to say:

You deal with things your way, and I'll deal with things my way, with help from my family, friends, two therapists and my writing. Maybe even with help from my boyfriend.

And for the record, I've been grieving for Cole since April when I actually went back to him briefly and then again in May when he tried to kill me. He's been dead longer than just a week in my world.

I need a thicker skin. Tomorrow I'm going to talk more about comparisons and new couple dynamics and the effects of that on said family and friends. It's been...interesting, to say the least.

And now, I'm hitting the road with the sunroof open in my little sportscar and I'm taking my Def Leppard Hysteria CD with me. Because 1987 was a good year for music, a full ten years before Savage Garden ever made it to my stereo. And because Jake refuses to listen to the lead-in to the chorus for Love Bites because he says it's painful so he wouldn't let me play it in his truck. I don't get it but he won't explain. Pfft.

    I don't wanna touch you too much baby
    cause making love to you might drive me crazy
    I know you think that love is the way you make it
    So I don't wanna be there when you decide to break it
Oh, on second thought I totally get it now.

Blackmail for two.

BRIDGE!

Yes?

What is taking so long?

I'm putting on mascara.

What?

I'M PUTTING ON MASCARA!
(Finally I make it to the back porch.)

Why are you putting that on? Your eyelashes are long.

They're white. Like yours. Read: invisible.

And?

And I want to look pretty for you.

You look pretty asleep. Sweaty. I'm not picky really. Besides, you didn't even brush your hair. You're secretly a high maintenance scatter-brained tomboy.

Yes I did brush it.

It's vaguely messy.

It's controlled 'just rolled out of bed' you like it?

Very much now put that way.

Are we ready?

Do you have the CDs?

Yup.

Which ones?

Um, Black Sabbath and the soundtrack for Heavy Metal.

Oh Lord.

What did you want?

Savage Garden.

No, seriously Jake. If the guys find this out they're going to make fun of you.

I like that moon song.

Yeah me too. Back in a minute.

The way a fool would do, madly.

Today will be long again. I have therapy and then meetings all morning and in the afternoon we're playing airport taxi again. Jacob just left for work because he has to actually do some. I guess I can't hide behind his capable shoulders today. I'd like to. And him going to work involves him strolling the three blocks down to the church with his coffee and stopping fifteen times along the way to charm all the elderly ladies who seem to conveniently have to go out on their porches just as he passes by. It's adorable.

It goes well with the kids right now. Who haven't stopped playing Heart & Soul on the piano, since we went to see Superman Returns.

But I feel like I'm living in an episode of The Truman Show today.

Except taped to the front of my refrigerator is a sign that says

BRIDGET
DON'T
FORGET
TO EAT

More than fine.

Late this afternoon the kids and I decided to brave the warm summer sun and walked the 4 blocks to the row of shops that border our leafy neighborhood-there's a bakery, a chiropractor, a dollar store and a deli. We were stalked by our member of local government who as usual pounced on me to see how the kids were doing, were they excited about starting school, and they had a quiz to name a statue that he had pins of. They got the pins even though they answered wrong.

He asked how we were doing, I said fine.

The funniest thing in the world to me right now. I suppose I could have entertained him with a litany of news. My husband died a week ago but it's okay because we separated in April and then again in May and the minister is now living with us because I half had an affair with him for the past ten years and I just recovered from the beating I received at the hands of my ex and I'm currently attempting to rebuild my happy go lucky/wild/enthusiastic self without resorting to any more alcohol and my kids had DNA tests even. Like Holy #$%^&*!

But sometimes 'fine' is the better choice.

It really is.

God love me. I'm a Jerry Springer show.

Home.

Still going. I'm the energizer bunny. Thankfully I'm just not angry like I was this morning. Instead I am tired. Just very tired. Worn out. Possibly coming down with the flu.

The memorial is over. Thank God. They did a great job, Cole's..OUR friends all put aside their judgements that they had leveled against each other and against me and created an unforgettable tribute to him. A fitting one. Lots of funny stories. Tons of pictures passed around. A nod to his talent, constant reassurance that he would live on forever through his much-admired work and through our children. The magnificent effort of so many to tell those stories without touching too heavily on me, as I have been there beside him since he was nineteen years old. Some of his genius borne out of various overwhelming moments of joy or pain with me. The temperamental artist and his faithful muse.

I pegged this as the hardest day but it isn't and for that I'm grateful. I'm grateful also for the random hugs from friends, the offers of help, hell the offers of continued friendship from a group of guys who have put up with me and my wildness for so long they are family. And I'm grateful for the comments, emails and the real live snail mail cards from reader friends who have no idea how much they really mean to me. Thank you.

I want to write that I'm not going to talk about Cole here anymore but on second thought I don't want to make a promise I can't keep. Some days I don't know where my entry is going until it's there.