Not the song to be singing while you pack, Jake.

    She can kill with a smile
    She can wound with her eyes
    She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
    And she only reveals what she wants you to see
    She hides like a child
    But she's always a woman to me

    She can lead you to live
    She can take you or leave you
    She can ask for the truth
    But she'll never believe you
    And she'll take what you give her as long as it's free
    She steals like a thief
    But she's always a woman to me

    Oh, she takes care of herself
    She can wait if she wants
    She's ahead of her time
    Oh, and she never gives out
    And she never gives in
    She just changes her mind

    She will promise you more
    Than the Garden of Eden
    Then she'll carelessly cut you
    And laugh while you're bleedin'
    But she'll bring out the best
    And the worst you can be
    Blame it all on yourself
    Cause she's always a woman to me

    She is frequently kind
    And she's suddenly cruel
    She can do as she pleases
    She's nobody's fool
    But she can't be convicted
    She's earned her degree
    And the most she will do
    Is throw shadows at you
    But she's always a woman to me

Best of the Web.

Hey. I'm not much in the mood tonight to regale the gleeful masses with my negative-brain space. You wouldn't want to see it. Suffice it to say I'm being easy to get along with! And chipper! And really fucking pulled-the-fuck together!

I think I'll get high this weekend and dance on tables and maybe pick up a boy..oh, wait, nevermind. I forgot I was talking about me here. Uptight, fragile little bee.

I'm going to read this weekend. Not work, just read, hang out with the kids and maybe order in pizza and when they go to bed I'll have hours to myself with all the books I'm planning to get later tomorrow at the library. I think it would be better if I didn't post here while Jacob is away.

Since I'm reading, you may as well read too. And don't just skim, fall into the words like a warm bath. They're better that way. Enjoy. You can search all the titles. I'm too tired to link.

Most popular post: Underwater Nyquil and porn. -This is hands-down the most visited entry I have ever written, probably because when people google "underwater porn" it comes up on the first page. The funny part is at least half the people who read it wind up coming back regularly.

Most painful post: It's a tie between The freefall and Two syllables and one saint. Both are incredibly private moments spelled out quite audibly. They stay up because this is part of my history just like the incredible and happy moments. The post in which I first talked about Cole's death doesn't count since it could be nothing but painful.

Most romantic post: I'm told it's Hollow, and I'll agree with you. That or it wins the award for revealing that kissing your best friend is one easy way to put yourself in labor.

Friends and family favorite: The Speed of Sound. This one is a look inside my head that clearly delighted people and I'm told it's well-organized, that it stands alone. The most praise I've ever received for an entry here. Thank you.

Most pornographic post: Mondays are special, it seems. I wanted to clearly and distinctly convey Jacob's sexual prowess with our size difference (his 6'4" to my 5') and I think I almost did it. I also think I need a cigarette after reading that again. And I don't smoke anymore.

Most link-filled post: No rain, just words, in which I list all the bloggers I read, proof that Bridget is not as narcissistic as she seems. I wish you'd all write more, every day would be nice but then again not everyone is wired like I am. That post gives you a good hand up to go and read some new faces or old favorites and have a nice weekend.

Don't worry about me, I'll be here somewhere. Eating pizza and reading Everything's Eventual.

See you early next week.

Not all bad.

Now that the sting of Jacob's trip plans has had a little time to soften, I wanted to point out I will be fine. I'm a big girl. I have a million resources at my fingertips, I just have to not think about the strongest of those being in Newfoundland while I am here. I have a million more resources here if anything else happens with rose petals, benches or flowerpots and I get the Suburban all to myself so I can drive all over town if I feel like it. I'll keep my appointments and take my pills and just try and stay super busy. I am fully aware it sounds like I'm trying to talk myself into making the most of it, probably because that's what normal people do.

Hot, cold. On, off. Hot, cold. Cold cold cold.

Sure, weirdest entry title ever. If you have to know, I hate putting titles on my thoughts. I could never categorize the jumble that comes out of my head, why should I name it?

Oh, and you can leave now, this one is private.

Jacob leaves on Friday morning for his annual conference. Yes, I know. Yes, that conference. He'll be back on Monday. Four days, three nights. I wouldn't have told me either.

Excuse me while I go scream or something.

No, on second thought, I'll be fine. Right?

I throw a mean dinner party but I have trouble with the giving thanks part.

And everything is good enough like it was.
    And everything is good enough like it was.
    And everything is good enough like it was.
    Like it was.

I'm sitting here, not drawing a blank but instead painting so many pictures I'm not sure what order I should present them in.

Bridget is the supreme adherent. I drank what I was given last night despite knowing I shouldn't, I returned to the table when I was ordered to when Ben showed up at our front door and I continue to slice and dice Jacob in marriage therapy as instructed.

It would have been better to skip the alcohol, sleep with Ben sometime over the past several years and ultimately protect Jacob from the pictures in his head now from having to listen to my brutally graphic and protracted descriptions of Cole's favorite things.

I was doing such a wonderful and admirable job of sugarcoating shit right up until today and I slipped and now I can't put it back in. The things I've already shared with him were so mild and I had hoped it was enough. It was not.

Dinner was lovely, by the way. The turkey was perfect, the kids cleaned their plates and everyone had a great time, since Jacob managed to throw Ben off the front lawn without any sort of fuss whatsoever.

Someone please remind me why I'm here? I'd ask Jake but everytime he looks my way he loses his composure all over the floor. And for that reason alone we're staying home for the rest of the day and I get to do some one-handed typing, because he won't let go of my other hand.

Loathe to infect my guests, I did indeed go to the clinic before lunch and it was predictably a ghost town so I was ushered in right away. My throat is healing, the cough and pain is residual in nature, as well as the lack of useable hearing in my ears. All of it should go away "in the next few weeks."

Weeks. Yippee. On with dinner plans!

On a completely unrelated note: Men who go out into the rain with cowboy hats on?

Incredibly freaking hot.

That is all. Happy turkey day to all.

Sick people have no business throwing parties.

    Lord, I'm foolish to be here in the first place,
    I know some man gonna walk in and take my place.
    Ain't no way in the world I'm going out that front door

The tie Jacob wore to church lasted until 11:26 am and then I watched as he untied it and snaked it off one side, balling it up and stuffing it deep into his suitjacket pocket. Then he saw me watching him and made a goofy face while pulling on the neck of his shirt with one finger to symbolize being strangled. I laughed out loud and Sam broke into a grin at us and kept talking from the pulpit. I was so embarrassed but that laugh flew out anyway and Jacob smiled for the rest of the morning.

He loves it when I can't stifle a laugh.

In the late afternoon we chose pumpkins at the pumpkin patch and then opted to come home, much to the dismay of Ruth and Henry, who were all corn maze! and hayrides! and ghost stories! but they're still coughing and have unpredictable sore throats and my throat still hurts all the time and I'm coughing a lot at night and in the mornings, so we came home to warm up and snuggle in for a bit before supper. Listening to music while I fussed with making chicken noodle soup and hot chicken sandwiches. Fielding more protests as I tucked the kids in before 7:30 pm so that they could have the benefits of sleep to heal.

It was exhausting.

Choosing sleep as well around nine, I headed to bed while Jake sat at his desk in the den, reading glasses on, cognac at hand, with Eat a Peach playing on the stereo, almost indiscernible to me at such a low volume. He's already back into his groove, philosophy and faith writing being old familiar friends to him so I left him to enjoy his time.

He did and he woke me up at midnight with drunken pooh-bear talk and crashing into the humidifier and a solid refusal to let me stay asleep in favor of indulging his favorite obsession (that would be me). I would have protested but I was too preoccupied with his mouth and his hands (among other things) to fight for sleep.

This morning we're slowly coming to life, the kids are feeling better today and my throat is miserably raw again. I'm seriously considering a quick run over to the walk-in clinic to have my throat looked at for a third time but may just leave it for tomorrow, as I have a table for ten set (well, two tables) and a lot of cooking to start this afternoon.

And cake. Bridget's got cake. The hell with turkey, bring on dessert.

I'm sure Jacob said something similar last night but I couldn't hear him clearly enough.

I'm not late today.

Just for fun and to freak people out, Jacob's wearing a tie today with his rumpled plain white shirt and his newer corduroy jacket. Just for fun. He looks so handsome.

He couldn't tie it properly. He pointed that out repeatedly and finally I stood on the bed behind him and did it with my hands over his shoulders. He asked me how I knew how to do that and I pointed out it's just something girls seem to learn and so I learned it along with Lochlan and Cole as they moved from school and play clothes into formal wear, along with ironing and making braids. He told me that he was grateful for the ironing and soon his hair would be long enough for braiding again. We laughed. Ruth loves to braid his hair and she was more than a little perturbed when he came home with his short locks in the spring. Now that he is back to shaggy-long she's looking forward to adding beads and some rollers to her arsenal of hair accessories to use on Jake.

Today there's only one service, Sam has made some changes and is making some of the sparsely-attended holiday services sermon-light and community rich. Today was an open invite to help your neighbor rake leaves or take some food boxes down to the shelter and volunteer for an hour or two and then the standard second service will be at 11.

We didn't rake or make the trip downtown. Instead we slept in and I was gently awakened by Jacob smoothing his hands over my shoulders and then my legs and then he rocked me against him until I saw stars and could no longer breathe. And then he smiled and asked me if mine were as bright as his.

Stars are so much nicer than leaves anyway.

You know me better than I realized.

    Out of the ground I rise to grace
    Nobody knows it's just a phase
    Help me I'm out of breath again
    Nobody knows somewhere to make it go away

Upon waking this morning, I discover wonderfully dark gothic treats. Back into a groove we didn't have last year, as Halloween approaches we embrace autumn and longer, colder nights. Bloom where you are planted, so to speak.

This morning I found rose petals in the front porch. Not a packageful slipped through the mail slot but a handful shoved through. They were beautiful. Fresh, dark red turning to black around the edges. Jacob didn't put them there, he found them with me. He doesn't like them, finding it sinister, but I quite enjoy this one, whatever it means. Is that bad? I don't know but it's better than being afraid.

We hung paper garlands of fall leaves along all the porch windows. They'll come down toward the end of November and will help extend the color in the skies when the last of the real leaves fall from our elm trees this weekend or shortly after. There is a foot-high layer of leaves in the front yard that I need to tackle next week. Jacob says he'll do it but then he sneezes for days after.

We went to family therapy this morning and learned once again that kids are resilient and profound and aware and observant and the one thing they know for sure is how much everyone loves them. And how much we love each other. I was grateful for words such as those today. Then we went to an overpriced coffee shop a little ways from our favorite one, which was closed for the long weekend and had pastries that weren't quite as good, and coffee that wasn't as strong and servers that weren't quite as relaxed but it's okay, not every place can be the best one.

We stopped at the farmer's market on the way home and bought acorn squash and some baby pumpkins and some huge carrots and some indian corn too and Jacob bought this giant basket that someone was selling that their grandfather made and I can fit in it and he laughed and said it would look nice beside my spinning wheel because it might actually hold my fiber instead of only half and he was right and he gently teased me about making him a new sweater this winter and I probably will.

Joel showed up with non-alcoholic wine for Thanksgiving dinner, his acceptance of the invitation and a box containing a brand new pair of spendy headphones for me. Lowriders no less. I'll get mugged wearing them to run, they're too cool. Mostly because they have skulls. I like skulls.

Speaking of skulls, I just got another kiss on the top of mine, which means it's time to go. Errands to run before lunch. Hearing aid batteries, stuffing and Jacob's having his ahem...piercing changed to a bigger gauge, because he's so hardcore. My earrings are now 10g, and I think he feels left behind.

Snort.

On running with Joel.

    Cause I am my enemy
    The water's up to the knee
    I never wanted anything from you
    Yes I do, yes I do
    My engine's running on dry
    My head's so fucked up inside

Joel is a riot.

For all his importance that I tease him about, for all our issues in becoming...er...acquaintances, since we're still a few steps away from the friendship stage, he's a nice guy. He and Jacob have been friends forever and I respect that immensely.

My issues with him lie with his immediate heavy-handed approach in wanting to micromanage every aspect of my life when we approached him to help. My subsequent rebellion and amusing accusations did little to enhance his image of me but in vindication I have since heard that several clients jumped ship once he completed adopting Claus' practice because of his radically different approach. Claus has retired, of course. Joel has many irons in his professional fires, the least of which concerns therapy (thank god) because frankly...

He sucks at it, I think. And I should know. I have fired nine people now, in two years.

Okay, so maybe I'm not the best one to ask. But there are far too many counselors out there who are not as objective as they appear to be, and at risk for either getting sucked into you on a personal level, unable to maintain any distance, or they are so rigid they keep trying to shove you into a category and fail to notice you are a human being and when you don't comply they give up.

I seem to always get one or another, which is dumb. Which is why I wind up getting counseling on the fly from Jacob who does a magnificent job at being neither objective nor forgiving and well, it works about as well as you'd expect it to. But Jacob is still awesome despite having no business counseling his own wife.

In any event, I didn't sit down to talk about therapy (which sucks, did I mention that?), I wanted to talk about other things.

This morning was a barely concealed arrangement between Jacob and Joel that Joel would run with me today, since Jacob had early meetings (didn't I say the church would eat him alive again? He loves it, I swear) and is freaking busy all the time again, already (part-time, Sam, part-time. I think that means nothing.) so Joel said it was fine if we ran and didn't talk and so I brought my zen and he brought his iPod and we ran and ran and traded players every now and then (who the HELL listens to Sigur Ros when they run? Joel, that's who.) and we went down to the river and I held my breath until we rounded the corner and the bench was...upright. Not disturbed for the first time in eight days. Which is good. Maybe it was a fluke. Joel was pre-warned (thanks to Jake) and yet he said nothing and we kept going.

And then my headphones died an abrupt death. So Joel put away his iPod and we ran and talked, only we didn't talk about Bridget, we talked about Joel and it was nice to hear about someone normal without many issues and without a world of hurt and baggage dictating his every move. He survived a messy divorce quite admirably and is vaguely lonely but has some friends here and counts us among them, I think he meant Jake more than me but I'm sure he'll correct me after reading this. I hope we do become friends eventually but we had a very rough start. Hell, the day I met him was...a painful day and I'm colored by that forever. I come with a neon sign over my head that blinks constantly and flickers and gives people headaches and it says "insane" I think. I can't see it but trust me, it's there. How do you become trusting friends with someone who you first met as they held you down while you screamed in order to give you a sedative?

I didn't think so. God, what a horrible memory.

After my shower I dug out my old nomad player and stole the headphones from it. Of course they still work. Figures.

I invited Joel for Thanksgiving. I wonder if he'll come.