Witness protection.

Oops. My friends are holding me at arms length this afternoon. Not because I publically shared a profoundly intimate moment with Jacob (who holds his words more sacred than his flesh just like I do) but because I admitted that I'm still listening to a song that came out when I was thirteen years old.

I know.

Then you won't be surprised either if I told you I keep Kansas, Bad Company and Bon Jovi in heavy rotation too.

And I didn't grow up to be embarrassed of my pictures in off the shoulder shirts and parachute pants and giant plastic neon jewelry, oh no. My wardrobe was a heavy rotation of Metallica t-shirts and incredibly tight jeans. Black high heels, eyeliner and a whole lot of hair. My dream? To follow in Tawny Kitaen's footsteps and get paid to roll around on the hood of a car.

Go big or go home, Bridget.

(As you can see, I went home.)

And pretty range wildly between gypsy lovechild and metal queen now. Okay. Shut up.

Because it's twosday and I have a lot on my mind.

I apologize. I'm prone to wax poetic when faced with old, bad, familiar news. I also posted half an entry, but you can't tell, because I spin. And here, I might even get personal.

Bridget cannot be fixed.

Like anyone had any doubt. Okay, one person did and I feel bad for him. He's so idealistic, so innocent in his plans to conquer the universe. My God.

He's awesome.

And naive.

And he never listened when Cole laughed seven years ago one night and told Jacob that he made sure he broke me good. I didn't listen either, instead attempting to take full responsibility for myself and my problems. A losing battle that made it that much worse.

But hearing that we've gotten just as far as we're ever going to get here just sucks monumentally because I watched Jacob, I watched his expressions unfold as they pinned him to his chair with pessimistic prognoses that he had thus far refused to sit for or acknowledge. He gave no weight to them before, preferring to enjoy a false levity, a gamut of second and third and fourth opinions that merely served to grind it in, salt in a wound. Clarity was never a more unwelcome revelation in our presence as he realized with total and utter grief that he's not going to be able to undo it by galloping in on his white horse to save this princess from certain danger.

The time has passed now.

    Time is slipping away, passing us by,
    You're wondering why but it's gone,
    Gone forever my friend,
    and it won't come again
    So don't try to pretend you feel fine
    Killing time,
    killing time

It's a fucking joke, really. I didn't start out this way. And I'll blame Cole until the day I die. I'm going to give myself that, right or wrong. Chemical, my ass. The simple fact is that Cole had twenty years of me all to himself to beat me into this frame of mind, and it will probably take Jacob twenty years to love it right out again.

Which is okay. We've got time.

When we came back home he put his arms around me and he told me I had it wrong. But instead of berating me with further attempts to find ways to get inside my head and tinker with the parts that aren't working, he instead gave me a gift that I don't think I know quite what to do with but it left me speechless in his generosity and total surrender all the same.

He asked me if I would take care of him.

I could never make you understand what that means to me, for us. You'll never fully understand what lies between us and surrounds us. With all my stupid words, I could never sufficiently describe it. It goes to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

That I will do, Jacob.

Base jumper.

Jacob has done it and so this can be for him.

    Put me somewhere I don't wanna be.
    Seeing someplace I don't wanna see.
    Never wanna see that place again.

    Saw that gap again today
    As you were begging me to stay.
    Managed to push myself away,
    And you, as well.

    If, when I say I may fade like a sigh if I stay,
    You minimize my movement anyway,
    I must persuade you another way.
    There's no love in fear.

    Staring down the hole again.
    Hands upon my back again.
    Survival is my only friend.
    Terrified of what may come.

    Remember I will always love you,
    Even as I claw your fucking throat away.
    But it will end no other way.
Petulance achieved today in self-destructive historically significant songs in my personal soundtrack.

Pay me no mind, it's proven to be a tough morning from the get-go. And I'm mad at myself for talking about shoes and books and inside jokes and home renovations here when I want to talk about things that are going on in my head and in my heart and sometimes on my flesh itself and instead I distract you with my cuteness, as Jacob calls it. It's the ugliest cuteness ever, if that's true, because it's a dangerous space for me to occupy, a hazardous cliff on which I stand, directly at the edge, to the point where your audible sharp intake of breath exposes your own fear at how close I really am.

But your eyes wear the colors of rationality and calm, and you rightly begin to speak in soothing, relaxed tones, words of warmth and remembrance, memories and promises of good, light and gentle, oh so gentle admonitions, almost canonical and comical at once in their desperation to reclaim my soul.

It's not failing, you just don't understand. There is a point to which I will come away from the edge, a line drawn that I don't seem to have permission to cross, and then when you aren't looking, when you aren't paying attention, I cross my fingers behind my back and take three very big steps back, sometimes landing on an unsure footing that puts my own heart in my throat and gives me a tiny thrill of anticipation at what it will feel like to fly, but the fear is greater and I grab the strong hands that reach out almost too late but not quite.

This is as beautiful and as fucked up as I am ever going to be. This is as good as things ever will be for me, and I'm okay with that.

Just don't take away the memories I have made away from the edge. And don't look too closely, for if you do you'll see I don't have a parachute.

Rarities and B-sides: A girl who doesn't like to buy shoes.

One of the more cringeworthy running jokes in my circle is how incredibly difficult it is for me to buy shoes. Some say now that it's as hard for me to decide on a pair of shoes as it is for me to decide on husbands. And then once I find something I like, I wear them into the ground.

Oh, let's face it. I'll make the off-color joke and spare you from feeling guilty.

So, yes, those pretty new Earth shoes are awesome.

The previously loved ones by Demonia are toast, the four-inch platform I can no longer depend on, and I fit right under Jacob's armpit again (yes, that man who doesn't like shoes much either).

Now if this isn't a metaphor for something, I really don't know what is.

This is the house that Jake built.

    Throw the rocks and break the glass
    I'll get down on my knees and kiss your ass
    'Cause you're the one to be in my dreams
    It never was
    It isn't what it seems

Good morning. My apologies to Caldecott for stealing his title and changing it to suit my whims.

I have new Earth Shoes and a fresh outlook. I feel like a million dollars.

Shhh. It might be the Vicodin.

I haven't run, the last day being with Loch who is the most impatient, quietest, most dedicated non-runner ever. He doesn't run, he prefers to do strength training in a sweaty gym somewhere, standing still (pffft) but by the time he left here he was talking about maybe starting a daily run. Ha! And, must be nice.

Consensus is definitely that something is going to be taken away here, therapy-wise. The pills seem to have little effect, what's having effect is the brutal honesty with which I can finally confess to Jacob exactly how many times a day, a night, an hour I think of Cole, or remember something about him, and exactly how many times a day it's a positive or a negative thought. I didn't think I could tell him, and I told him that and he floored me by being able to take that. God forbid if our roles were reversed, I wouldn't want to know.

My God, I love this man.

And the wall came down yesterday, the wall in the kitchen that was my target as the human flying machine, a wall full of shelves and dishes that shattered brilliantly in the evening light as every bone in my body flexed magically and only 3 out of 206 broke. I should have kept count of exactly how many dishes Cole broke over the course of our lives together.

Jacob had taken what was left of the shelves down and repaired the wall itself from the outline my head and shoulders embossed into it but we never put the shelves back up and now the whole wall is gone, a beautiful archway in it's place, a new door opens, literally and figuratively, and we made the old opening into a wall. The house flows better and I don't stand and look at that wall anymore, swearing I can still see my outline because there is no wall to look at. It's one less proverbial wall to climb over in search of memories that don't hurt.

Sparing Jacob's feelings, sparing Bridget's, it's sweet but it doesn't fix Bridget, what's fixing her is the time. He keeps pointing out how much time has passed and how quickly it's slipping through our fingers. And I don't know anyone as strong as Jacob. I never will again. He is it. Strongest man I ever met. Strongest man you'll ever meet, should you be so lucky. A man convinced that no matter how much I think it might be hard for him to hear things or for me to say things, or for him to have to rebuild an entire room to change the past, then the step forward is worth the harmful part, if only as a means to an end.

He wanted it down before a year was up and so he did it.

It's our house now.

I cheered. And he grinned and I noticed his dimples filled that new doorway.

Two fools, early on a snowy Sunday morning.

When I woke up Jacob whispered to me that it was raining. It was soft, muffled by the snowflakes falling too, I couldn't hear it, but I closed my eyes again and tried to drift back into my dream. He wouldn't allow for that, instead he put his arms around me in his customary protective cage that he makes for me and he put his hand gently around my neck and felt, with his nose, for the soft place directly under my left earlobe that he likes to kiss when he wakes up.

Then he told me we had to get up and get ready because he had to do the service this morning. Oh wonderful. I love to watch him so I started to get up (still gingerly) and he frowned and stopped me, pulling me back into his arms and pulling the quilts up over our heads.

April Fools, princess.

Aw, I was actually hoping to hear you today.

You're my fanclub, I can do a home version for you today.

Okay, maybe later.

Can we go back to sleep now?

Just for a bit. I need extra time to get ready today for eleven.

I'll help you. Goodnight, princess.
We did go back to sleep for a bit. And in my dreams, I traveled back a year in time to the Sunday before Easter, in which I put on my rose-print dress and went to church by myself, Cole hardly ever went, and I sat mid-sanctuary and watched Jacob and wondered what a week from then was going to bring for us all

If it's chipped do you keep it?

Jacob regularly points to a flaw that I'm not sure is a flaw so much as a bad habit. To me a flaw is a defect that cannot be altered or fixed easily. This could be fixed with a little effort, a drive to not do it, like most bad habits.

I suppose I could let him hypnotize me too but I've demurred thus far.

My bad habit in private? Self-disparagement.

I talk very poorly of myself but only when it's just the two of us and it's late at night or we're alone. As if I'm looking for confirmation that I'm wrong, somehow. That maybe I am perfect after all even though I don't see it. That I maybe could be exactly what he wants even though I'm not sure if I am. I'm too thin, too pale. My hair is straw, my skin is bruised, my eyes are tired and emotionally, I'm a natural disaster. I shine a light on it, only the bad. Brightly lit for all to see the ugliness that is me.

He hates that. Despises it. He can't understand why I do it.

It makes two of us.

It makes no sense at all. My ego is relentlessly stroked, backed up and duplicated in threes. I get a daily if not hourly confirmation that assures me I'm amazing, that I'm wanted, needed, valued and admired.

I'm special. Unique even. They've all wanted me. If not for my terribly unstable emotions, they wanted a piece of me.

Bridget's wild streak hears it, her heart hears it and her soul wants it but her brain completely ignores it.

One more fault for the earthquake, one more anomaly to keep me grounded, one more strange and wonderful flaw for my husband to marvel over.

Like warmth, it would be nice to save up and use when you need it most. But we don't have the power to do that, we only have the power to fake it. Artificial heat and artificial self confidence.

An illusion.

One that would be fixed. I can be told I am special, I'm perfect, I'm exactly what they, no...exactly what he wants. I can see it in his eyes but I can't internalize it and so it waits like a tide to come in, just offshore while Bridget plays on the sand and pretends that she is nothing.

Which is hard because I am everything.

Sometimes.

I will follow you home

I should do a weekly entry telling you about my amazing nightstand, now stacked to four feet off the ground with things to read. Things we pass around, things from people I know who tell me I have to have a look or should take time out to check this or that. And though most weeks I get about a half hour at the end of every day to read for pleasure, I take it like medicine.

However, reviews are rare from me. I love what I love for my own reasons and I find people's individual tastes and subjective love of music, movies, television and books far too esoteric to be able to share most of the time. What makes you love Modest Mouse leaves me vaguely confused and I will never be able to explain my intense, overwhelming love of Tool.

So forgive me but I want to talk about something.

I mentioned a while back on a painful day that I was obsessed with being an ungracious widow and I said I was reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King.

Those of you literary-type folks who will nod approval of my mentions of Hemingway or Stevenson will now turn up your nose as if Mr. King, purveyor of fine horror novels that marked most of my adolescent reading jaunts, is a lesser writer somehow. Christine, anyone?

You would be wrong.

Read his offbeat novels-Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, Stand by Me, or one of my favorites of all time (of his), The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon.

And yet, Stephen King outdid himself here, with Lisey. And while I knew when I picked this up in Chapters that this widow, like all the others I have encountered, was happily married when her husband died, Lisey struck a chord in me that resonated and I can still feel the vibrations.

Her husband was mentally ill, destroyed by a terrible childhood that left him mostly crazy. I identified with the character of Scott Landon because he wrote his dreams, he harnessed his baggage and turned it into his lifelong work through his writing, all the while well aware that he was merely outrunning his pain.

Which is kinda sorta how Bridget lives.

Granted Scott was a multi-million dollar bestselling author and I might never be and that's okay, it was refreshing to read of their love through the eyes of his strong and adoring wife, who simply loved him, as Jacob does me, maybe in spite of and because of our demons.

There was even a bad guy, named Gerd Allen Cole. I'd be lying if I didn't choke when I saw that. But damned if I didn't sob like a baby through the final pages of that book, wishing it would never end and positively struck by the beauty with which Lisey found her closure for her life with Scott. And it was a little scary too. But like Tom Gordon, the scariness of the threats never manages to overshadow the emotional map drawn of the central character.

There's something to be said for just letting the words out, and not worrying about whether they will sound cheesy or if anyone will really understand them. Is it too deep, too feeling, too honest or too revealing? Mr. King managed to let it out, he let the words flow over the page and he spun an incredibly moving river of a tale of love and loss and he did it with such aplomb. Or maybe I was in the right place at the right time to be able to find a personal theme in this book and so perhaps it touched me more. I'll never know any different, so here you go.

Well done. It's now one of only three works of fiction that have literally brought me to tears in my life and it's by far the most compelling.

Now I'm back to reading college review mags because Thorn is so much more bitter and harder to swallow.

The part where PJ tries his hand at a lecture.

Boy, you really are Jacob's 'main squeeze'.

I always knew he had a 'crush' on you.

And those were the ones I can repeat, as the boys weigh in on the latest news. The unrepeatable ones were references to the friendly giant's commanding size and how girls should watch out, lest he rearrange their innards, or some such depravity.

I said I love my friends, right? Does that mean I can tell them to fuck off?

Secretly I love it but not today. Today Jacob is still rather sensitive. Today he sees how easily I wind up with dents and knocks and also how accidents happen and oh my God I wish he would smile. Just once. Ben poked him in the shoulder and made some crack yesterday and Jake didn't even move his head but shifted his eyes sideways and Ben actually made some excuse and left shortly after, never wanting to be on the bad side of Jacob. No one does and thankfully they're mostly sparing him the digs while I try not to laugh because it hurts but oh fuck me, it's so hard not to.

If all injuries came as a result of such fun. And I kept going! Which is scary because the more time passes the more babyish I'm getting about my ribcage.

But it's time to move on, to greener pastures, better topics and more excitement because life demands it. Life is to be grabbed and squeezed and emptied out and refilled and dammit, do it with gusto.

PJ took me out for coffee last night and we took the truck since I wasn't going to walk and I played Eulogy loud. Then I remembered I won't be lapdancing for a long while which made me sad and so I turned off the stereo because that's one of my favorite songs to get into.

PJ eyed me curiously.

What's up, Bridge. You okay?

Yes, just tired.

That's because you're a freak.

Nice.

Well it's true. Maybe you should slow down.

We were.

You aren't twenty-five anymore.

Well fuck you too, Padraig.

Listen, Bridget, Jake can't handle you getting hurt. He hasn't been able to yet.

We didn't mean for this to happen.

No, but maybe if you two had a normal sex life you wouldn't have gotten hurt.

I'm not having this conversation with you, Peej.

Then just take it easy. Very few things upset Jake to that extent and one of them is you and injuries, he doesn't care how they originate. The guy needs a break.

We all need a break.

Right, so just cool it.

I cannot believe you're lecturing me on Jacob.

Oh don't worry, I talked to him too.

About?

Ruining you with his giant schlong.

You DID NOT.

I did. I reminded him that princesses are delicate.

Fuck right off with that. Did you really?

No, I just said I hoped it was going to be funny in the future, because it's a good kind of disaster. Especially moving that desk.

What are you talking about?

He said the desk moved a good foot.

No way.

You hit the corner of the desk, Bridge.

I did?

Bruised livers don't come from being squished by 200 pounds of love machine.

Ah. I didn't notice but it explains a lot.

Yes, since it took both of us to push it back.

Cheese and crackers, peej!

So no more monkey business.

Right. I'll get right on that.

Bridge, you're a riot. I'm just glad it's a happy thing for you. I worry about you.

You do?

All the time. But I worry about Jacob more.

Gee, thanks.

We laughed and he turned Tool back on and put the volume on eleven, so that the next time Jacob starts the truck he'll get blown out of his seat. PJ's fun like that.

Tender mercies.

I'm not giving up. You might.

A trip to the ER yesterday afternoon netted me a handful of painkillers and advice to take it easy. We managed to crack two of my ribs and they never really decided if my liver was bruised or not so they went with a yes, just in case. Fuck.

I'm fine, it just hurts when I try to breathe super deeply or flex my torso at all.

Or move at all but really let's just gloss for Jacob's sake. Mkay?

So hi! Radioactive Vicodin girl makes her unwelcome return to the house.

Which is really great, she's a perfect match for Guilt-Laden Husband Shouldering All The Blame, who isn't welcome. I'll take the blame, hell, I walked into the study knowing exactly how the night was going to go down, and he can't resist me. He thinks he is my guardian angel superman, somehow able to pluck me out of thin air and save me from harm. We have this fight weekly because I still wipe out on the ice and fall down the basement steps just about every second trip.

He sees zero humor in this so I brought him with me to see Claus today because for once I attack a situation as well-adjusted which is always just in time for him to fall apart. Christ, we're a perfect match. Jacob pointed out that support from me is like building a house on broken stilts and hoping for the best. He'd like to keep moping while I bounce off the walls.

I reminded him that if I am glass then he needn't insult me when I try to help and he lost it.

He has this magnificent ability to cut me down and yet he wouldn't let go of my hand. He has barely let go of it since he got home yesterday afternoon, which is fine because my solace comes from him. But I had to ask him to release me so I could go to the bathroom at one point. Sweet and frightening.

Hey, wait, that's my description.

God, we're so fucking well-adjusted. Just when we had begun to finally put fragile miss to rest once and for all. Just as we were beginning to make some progress on our joint obsessive issues with each other. Just as we approached normal. Sexually and otherwise.

It figures.

But this is not going to be a setback. Maybe a very brief delay but that's all I'm going to allow for.

When we were looking at antiques on Monday Jacob held up a horseshoe and we were cracking jokes about wedging it firmly up my ass to see if our luck might change. We got sidetracked and never actually bought it.

I asked him if we could go back and get it and oh, the bitter laugh that came out of him practically curled my hair.

I am glass. Handle with care, angel boy.