Burning Bridget at the stake.

So for what it's worth I have enemies now. Real ones that aren't just little Bridget with her big imagination.

Ben and Caleb have opted to join forces to try to...irritate me to death? I'm not sure. Caleb called Ben to talk about me. He had questions and instead of just asking me he decided to dig around. And Ben knows everything. Well, almost everything and now it seems he's got a new best friend.

Should I be worried?

Ben seemed smug. Jacob is concerned. Which makes Ben more smug and Caleb even more curious. Ben and Caleb have been spending far too much time together, I'd wager. This makes me laugh. This is absurd. For two people I have pushed out of my life out of necessity they sure are causing a ruckus.

When you guys are done with the high school payback attempts, let me know. And pardon me for trying to leave the trouble behind. Because that's what you both are, trouble. Caleb, I can't even believe you're stooping to this level. Whatever you're looking for, it isn't there, sweetie. And if you're just interested as a way to get to know me and learn everything you can, well, you're too little too late. When I was twenty you could have had me, I would have thrown Cole over for you in a heartbeat.

But thanks for feigning interest in my heart all the same.

I don't know what more I can say. I don't need this. How can I leave this alone? My ears are positively burning.

    Leave me out with the waste
    This is not what I do
    It's the wrong kind of place
    To be thinking of you
    It's the wrong time
    For somebody new
    It's a small crime
    And I've got no excuse
    Is that alright
    Give my gun away when it's loaded
    that alright with you
    If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it

Disillusionment.

Have you ever been fed lines that sound so deep and beautiful and raw and honest that you fall for it hook, line and sinker? You proclaim the speaker of the lines to be a unique, precious charm in the otherwise pretty but dull costume jewelry bracelet that is your universe and you reserve large portions of time and brain power to the challenging and introspective conversations you actually look forward to now.

My weakness, I'll admit.

Then they go and behave like a total asshole and you discover that they're a fake and a fraud and a total charlatan. They lied, and that the conversations you were having weren't unique or deep or even introspective, they were a front for an image that was carefully, cleverly cultivated. Their words were just enough to leave you with a sense that they were just like you, with fears and failures and hopes and then you find out it's a front for some good old fashioned shallow bullshit. They're just like everyone else, and they were seeking out you in a way that would get your attention.

They got my attention with the imaginary neon lights over my head now that proclaims USED in capital fucking letters.

Jacob tells me to leave it. To be nice, to let it go and continue with the status-quo but really I'm having a hard time finding my nice for this particular person now. I was used and I hate this feeling. Someone fed off my sweetness and took it away just a little in the process. And they turned in their deceit for anger, at me. I did nothing wrong here. For once. Except I'm guilty of an unusual level of naivety because I believed it. He fit in so well. I should have known it was all a front.

A lesson for that friend would be not lying and not trying to be someone you're not.

A lesson for Bridget would be not to be a sucker for a pretty face and a soulful exchange.

But really, who isn't? Everyone I know is victim to that same weakness, wanting to be around the pretty ones and yet I don't put on a front. They know they're getting a slightly kooky, very brittle, somewhat kind and outwardly confident fun girl with some...issues. I'm not pretending. It's not a put-on (despite popular opinion), there's going to be no massive letdown for them in the end when I show myself because I was here all along. If anything I will prove to be less sure of myself then they suspected and I don't think that's going to come as any huge surprise.

My mistakes are in full view, my choices picked apart and evaluated and I have been judged and I continue to be judged and it's fairly kind, all things considered. And if you talk to me I'm not going to feed you lines. What is the point?

Did you want to be near me that badly that you had to pretend you were someone you're not?

    stones taught me to fly
    love taught me to cry
    so come on courage
    teach me to be shy
    cause it's not hard to fall
    and I don't wanna scare her
    it's not hard to fall
    and I don't wanna lose

Coma kisses.

It's so cold here, the time of year has come at last when I resort to wearing clothes to bed. Mostly Jacob's shirts because they come almost down to my knees and they smell like him, even though they're clean. Like Patchouli. Like soap. Like...warmth.

I just need something warm around my shoulders because with the constant moving around, the blankets are mostly at waist-level. Even though he is warm and I don't leave his arms when we sleep, sleeping uncovered in the winter is a fresh new hell.

For too many mornings now I have woken up stark naked, and neither one of us knows why. I was wearing a shirt when I went to bed. I didn't take it off. And I'm not a heavy sleeper with two little kids and a big creaky old Victorian house underneath us. How the heck he could get me undressed without me waking up would be a magic trick in itself. He swears he didn't do a thing.

Then he laughed and his cover was blown. Because every time I come to bed less than completely naked he protests loudly, and because I almost believed him when he said he didn't remember taking me out of my clothes.

I wonder what else he's doing? It would explain the wonderful dreams I have about being kissed all over. Maybe they're not dreams. My dreams have become reality anyhow, my life something out of a romantic movie. It's a small price to pay for waking up with various cold body parts, I'll tell you that for nothing.

Not like the other.

I was looking for a way to describe a true cake emergency as only I can have it. I have a thing about cake. It's one of the few things I eat without having to be reminded. When you struggle to stay on the right side of a hundred pounds, food you love seems to magically appear on a regular basis.

There's a very decadent bakery many blocks from our house, and it's too cold to walk there in the winter and too hot in the summer because the desserts would melt on the return trip. They make the most decadent, delicious cakes I have ever tasted, and I love cake. I hate to run out of cake.

Bet you didn't know that. Nope. Surprise!

In any event, I was on the phone with Jake trying to make him see that he needed to hit the cake store on the way home, and he insisted there was a whole cake in the freezer. There was. A generic chocolate freezer cake. He kept telling me we could pull that out and warm it up and it would be fine.

Finally he stopped talking long enough to hear my horrified whispers, barely daring to speak of the pale imitation of cakeish-type sweetness lurking inside the ice box, the fast food little punk brother equivalent of a true double-layer black forest masterpiece baked with kirsch and lovingly drizzled with shaved chocolate curls. Oh...that is cake. And Bridget knows cake.

But Jake, it's ....ghetto cake. I need real cake.

He laughed so hard he had to hang up and he was still laughing when he came home, with a real cake.

I'm sure right now he's planning an intervention. I think I may have a problem.

I'll be waiting there for you.

If I were a poet I could recite my poetry on a corner.

If I were a songwriter I could sing my love songs in a quiet cafe.

If I were an artist of any note I would take my easel to the river's edge and paint.

But I am a writer. I suppose I could sit on the dock jutting violently into the sea and tell stories but really, who would listen? How would I hear myself in the wind anyway?

I'll never be a busker again, traveling around the word collecting coins in a hat, at any rate.

I've come to that conclusion. And I have to sell my soul instead in phrases and paragraphs and chapters at a time in exchange for an occasional cheque and I don't mind, because I love what I do, I'm very attached to my words and I'm always exclaiming over new ways to put different words together to make my points of note. I love my fictional characters with all my heart. I have cried and bled for them, I have wished some of them dead and refused to allow others to hurt as I had planned, because I was far too wrapped up in them emotionally. Which speaks volumes, it tells me it works.

Because I can feel it.

But I like writing here better. And some days I wish I could just pack it all up and go sit on that dock and tell you stories about myself, about Jacob, about my children and about my life and you might like it. You might stay for a while, you might stay all night and we could build a bonfire on the beach and maybe Jake could sing and then I would have new stories borne out of that night for the next day.

My life is a snowball rolling down a steep hill, a sandcastle in the throes of accretion, a book that keeps getting added to, chapter by verse, word by letter, day by night and it is turning into a story all by itself. And the poetry has finally surpassed the porn because I have never had such a big response to one quiet little post as I did with the one I wrote on Tuesday. Those who have seen the picture and know us and love us were left breathless from the momentum with which I described that time in my life and those I haven't met in person yet were moved to tears and wonderment and for all of the letters coming in from far-flung magical places, the encouragement to keep writing and keep sharing I say thank you. It means a lot when you take the time to tell me you were moved.

Because you can feel it.

Those letters are the coins in my hat. My storyteller hat. Because I always wanted to remain a busker, traveling the world. I didn't realize I still am.

On ice.

Someone's amateur hockey career was over fifteen minutes into the first game. At least for this season.

Because of his temper.

I know! My God, here I was going on and on about the gentle giant singing me beautiful love songs in bed with his guitar and everyone I know was snickering because they don't get to see the Jacob I see. I wish they got to see mine more instead of the one with the temper and obvious lack of self-control. I don't like writing about it. I don't want to acknowledge that he has these issues but sometimes it bothers me. Sometimes it scares me.

Ben had to play last night too. He has balls to show up, but they're already short two players (Cole and Loch) so it was an empty bench altogether.

Jacob is the team's enforcer, he gets into a few fights each season as it is. He and Cole used to brawl whenever they had the chance and I have had many a winter dinner party in which the two of them sat at the table with black eyes or a few loose teeth. I stopped going to watch the games years ago because I couldn't stand watching them fight.

Cole's somehow passed his torch to Ben. I'd feel sorry for Jacob but he needs to learn to let it roll off.

They started hurling comments at each other before they got on the ice and were warned repeatedly to keep their personal problems out of the arena.

Did they listen?

Of course not.

I have been told that Ben said something to Jake when his back was turned and he was skating away from the net and that Jacob turned around and just launched himself at Ben and they went into the net, helmets and sticks skidding away and punches flying and that it took, once again, the bulk of the rest of the players on both teams to get them apart and keep them apart, as they attempted to go at it a few more times in the dressing room and then in the parking lot even, Jake's truck showing the brunt of that episode because they broke the passenger side mirror right off.

Nice.

Ben called this morning to apologize. Jacob wouldn't talk to him and all Ben would say is that he said some really shitty things about us to try to get under Jacob's skin and it worked and he feels like an asshole for doing it. I asked Ben for specifics and he said it was too awful to repeat. I thanked him for continuing to keep me free of doubt in my decision to cut him loose. He was so damned bitter. I told him to stay away from Jake. That he agreed with. He has a broken nose and is sore all over.

Jake wouldn't say anything about it at all. He doesn't hurt anywhere, save for a sore ear where his helmet was ripped off. He knows damned well he's too strong to get hurt in a fight. He and his size 12 skates (two sizes too small for speed) are intimidating and he knows it and I wish he wouldn't give in when he gets egged on.

I told him I was glad he was off the team because I like the kind, gentle man who sings love songs so much better than the brawling out-of-control giant throwing punches with abandon. He said only that life is certain to require a little bit of both and he's ashamed of last nights' behavior but Ben crossed the line and he's already gotten away with far too much and he wasn't going to get away with anything more, but that I should be proud because I bring out Jacob's softer side, that he feels relaxed and unhurried and unstressed when he's close to me and he likes himself when I'm within reach.

That shouldn't be cold comfort, but it is.

The gossip making the rounds of the neighborhood today is simply the surprise that he was off the team so soon in the season. Usually he makes it all the way to January.

Delicate and definitely not Tool.

Last night very late Jake picked up his old beaten-down Martin guitar (that he usually pets instead of plays) and he started to sing a song I had never heard before. I had tears rolling down my face and he got more and more serious as he sang and finally at last his voice cracked just enough for me to barely hear it on the third to last line that he stopped and he put the guitar down and this morning after I took the kids to school I drove to the damned record store myself and bought the CD because the song was that good and he had been practicing it from memory whenever I left the house for a good while now. It's for 110 days of marriage, which is tomorrow, by the way. The mood just struck him, so I was treated to this gift just a little early. I love nights like that. Everything else fades away and I 've just got Jacob's voice. Maybe that's all I need.

Thank you, Damien Rice.

    we might kiss
    when we are alone
    when nobody's watching
    we might take it home
    we might make out
    when nobody's there
    it's not that we're scared
    it's just that it's delicate
    so why did you fill my sorrow
    with the words you've borrowed
    from the only place you've known
    why did you sing hallelujah
    if it means nothing to ya
    why did you sing with me at all?
I'm glad he didn't try to sing The Blower's Daughter, because I might have cried that much harder, and he laughed and said there was no way in hell he could do that song justice, but that I shouldn't think for a minute it didn't cross his mind more than once.

Oh, just kill me now. Please. I am so spoiled.

Dedicated.

Oh, it's you. From the road I thought some kid had lost their beach ball.

Funny stuff, preacher boy. Be nice to the hugely pregnant girl.

Why are you down here on the beach alone, Bridget?

I'm not alone anymore, Jake, you're here now.

Where's everyone?

Still at work.

I see.

Why aren't you working?

I'm finished for the day. All my papers are written so I came out for a quick walk. Want to go for an ice cream instead?

No, thanks, it's too nice out. I just want to sit for a few more minutes.

What do you do in the winter when you come down here?

I bring a sweater. Then a parka when it gets really cold.

Boots?

No. The sand feels good when it's cold in my toes. Like if I dug down far enough the warmth would be there just waiting for summer again.

I think I have a nickname for you.

I hope it's a nice one. I'm a little sensitive these days, being wider than I am tall.

Saltwater Princess.

Sounds high-maintenance, but I like it.

No, not really. I've just noticed that when you're on the beach or near the ocean you never look at anything but the water. You don't hear anything but the surf. You're the princess of saltwater. It's as if you're surveying your future kingdom. You're barely paying attention to me.

Well, the surprise is on you then, Jake,because that's exactly what I'm doing. Except for the paying attention part. I'm listening to you.

And you're about eight million times happier when you're within touching distance of the water.

Who could blame me? She's beautiful, isn't she? That's my ocean. Mine. And I'm happiest when I'm near her.

Everything is beautiful here, princess. And I think I understand what you mean.

I tore my eyes away from the aquamarine waves long enough to smile in appreciation for how easily Jacob's new nickname for me rolled off his tongue and the meaning of his words. He was smiling back at me. He sat down behind me and put his knees up so I could lean against him like a chair.

You do realize you're going to have a mermaid baby, with a tail instead of legs.

Yes, I know.

Two weeks, princess. You ready?

As ready as I'll ever be. I hope she likes the ocean.

Oh, I'm sure she'll take after her mother.
I closed my eyes and listened to the waves crash upon the shore, and inside me Ruth matched the vibrations of the waves with kicks of her own. She always kicked a lot when Jacob was talking.

Jake? I think I'm going to head back. Want to come for supper?

Sure, princess. I'd like that.

Are you really going to call me that now?

Special girls need special nicknames. It will catch on fast.

He was right. Within a few short months the nickname stuck like glue and everyone, including Cole was using it. And I had my mermaid baby, Ruth, who was five days old when she saw the ocean for the first time, and three weeks old when she visited the beach and I stuck her tiny pink toes in the sand and showed her mommy's favorite place in the whole world.

When she was nine months old, Jacob took Ruth in his arms and walked into the ocean up to his knees at sunset and blessed her in a dedication ceremony with all of our friends and family present, the latter grudgingly coming out for the 'hippie baptism', as they liked to call it.

I have the sweetest picture from that evening. It shows Jacob standing in the surf in the glow of the sun's final light, his jeans wet up halfway up to his thighs, his white shirt untucked and billowing in the wind, his hair flying into his eyes and he's smiling up at Ruth and holding her up high up in front of him. She is smiling back down at him with her one-toothed grin, her fine blonde hair blowing straight up from her head, her little dress buffeting around her diaper. If you saw it you would see the similarities, the connection they've shared forever and it makes me happy that Jacob has this history with us, that he has been a part of our lives and every major event therein. It's a permanence that belies the honeymoon phase of our relationship now with our marriage still in it's own infancy.

It gives us a deeper appreciation for each other, a foundation on which to build our castle, because this princess finally found the prince she was looking for. He was right under her nose all along.

The soundtrack for this morning was "Huh? ", "Really?" and "Eeeek!"

It's shaping up to be a strange day.

When I woke up I was upside down in bed on top of the covers and Jacob had one hand wrapped around my ankle. It must have been a spectacular dream.

Henry asked for Rice Krispies, which he never does, claiming he doesn't like them.

When we left to drive Jacob to his meeting we discovered a mouse living in the back porch, which would explain the hole in the bag of winter birdseed I keep on the floor of the utility closet in that room.

I'll be back with a real post this afternoon. Lots of appointments this morning. Ciao!

Pixies in the shallow end.

Yesterday I stood in front of the bathroom mirror holding a fistful of my hair out from my head and my giant sewing scissors. Frozen like a statue.

For close to a half an hour.

I just stood there, thinking.

My hair has an identity all its own. It's been long and very pale blonde with ribbons of darker ash and lighter white forever. The color of my hair matches my children's hair and my husband's too. We're a set of four. A blinding, vaguely Nordic, fully Irish flaxen presence, a towhead force to be reckoned with. It was stick straight forever until I let it grow with abandon and then it grew into crazy gentle waves and tendrils. It's called my crown, literally. Mermaid hair, princess hair, hair people covet so desperately they buy it in dyes and extensions and straighteners or they come up to me and ask me where I got it.

My hair drives me crazy sometimes. It's a love/hate thing. I go through a bottle of conditioner a week. It gets singed at the stove, it goes down the drain if I lean over the sink, Jacob is always pulling long strands from his beard, and off his coat. I tuck it into my jeans by mistake and get it caught in buttons and car doors. He sits on my hair without thinking, sometimes he lies on it, he's pulled out locks in his sleep because he's tangled in it. I veer violently from looking angelic to being Medusa. And yet it's comfort. I rarely wear it up anymore. Henry used to hold it when I fed him. Jacob holds it or touches it constantly, which I relish. And people stare at me and I admit I like that. It's been this way since I was around four years old. I'm possibly dumb enough to enjoy that kind of attention and admit it willingly.

But a small part of me would sometimes love to chop it all off and dye it bright red and be different just for a little while, not forever. Have it stick out all over in cute little turned-up points and become a smoldering firecracker, a ginger-flavored spicy pixie, instead of a vanilla lemon-drop princess. Why? Just to be different looking. Redheads are gorgeous creatures. I was born with bright orange hair which fell out within two weeks and then grew back in fuzzy and yellow and glowing. I've always identified with redheads. They get stared at a lot too.

Then slowly my common sense began to return in a trickle, because even if I say I hate my hair, I don't. I love it, unapologetically. But I didn't put the scissors down right away.

Jacob found me still standing there. When he saw the scissors he dropped his favorite coffee mug on the floor and it shattered into so many pieces I may spend the entire winter fishing shards out from between the hardwood boards.

Princess, what are you doing?

I'm thinking, Jacob.

Are you thinking about cutting it?

Yes.

Can I ask a big favor?

Sure.

Put the scissors down. Please don't change your hair.

I'm not. I'm just thinking about it.

You're thinking if you change your physical appearance enough you've have a clean slate, maybe feel different?

Something like that, maybe.

It doesn't work that way, princess. A big change can be symbolic but in the end life still picks up where you last bookmarked it. Altering your appearance won't change that.

I know. Somehow I know.

Bridget, I really love your hair the way it is right now. Call it a guy thing or a fetish if you must, just don't change it.
I just stared at him without responding. He had shaved his beard off early yesterday morning, sending his seventies sideburns and tickly mustache with it. Now he's baby-faced again, clean-cut if you ignore the shaggy blonde hair that he hasn't had cut since possibly June. He couldn't put any logic around his own minor treachery. He can shave off his beard and I almost cried but I can't cut my hair that he loves? Um, what?

I left the mirror and returned the scissors to my sewing basket.

Within an hour I was overwhelmingly glad I hadn't cut my hair. I'm sure relief is always more welcome than regret. I didn't think we were both so shallow but it runs deeper than that and I can't explain it. I guess when you have a trademark like the one I do, being easily recognized for my hair, my brand, an identity tied to a physical characteristic, you shouldn't fuck with it. A package deal. I'm not a superstar, therefore I don't need to try to reinvent myself.

My other remarkable characteristics that are shared by few constitute my lack of height, my color-changing eyes and the sacral dimple that always seems to be a fun surprise to my lovers. I can't change those either, and I wouldn't even if I could.

Okay maybe I would lose the dimple. I find it kind of an oddity. Like maybe I was meant to be a bowling ball with three holes but at the last minute, through a cruel twist of evolution, I turned into a human female. Sorry, that sounds really yuck but I'm laughing anyway. Or maybe it was a tail and I would have been a little more popular on the freak circuit but it just wasn't in the cards for me.

Made in the image of a Blythe doll with the freaky eyes, but anatomically correct, and real. A living mermaid doll.

And yes, I'm tired today. Too tired to write anything important. I need a bath. I have to wash my hair. I need to get started on the the ten loads of laundry we created over the weekend. So you get a two-page ramble about my hair.

Feel fortunate, I could have posted a two-page ramble about sex.

I still might.