Coffee at 8 pm, after the movie probably wasn't the smartest plan but it helped bring me back down from the zombiefest that was I am Legend. It was pretty good, I always like Will Smith's serious turns, and God knows Bridget loves her zombies.
They're like, my peoples or something.
I will be up all night now. Alllllll night. Thanks Joel!
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Lawyer tag.
We're all in
So begin
Just remember I win
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win.
Never underestimate someone with nothing left to lose.
So begin
Just remember I win
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win,
I win.
Never underestimate someone with nothing left to lose.
Friday, 14 December 2007
A treasured book with missing pages.
I am a lover hater
I am an instigator
You are an oversight
Don't try to compromise
I'll learn to love to hate it
I am not integrated
Early therapy this morning (again), squeezed in because I pay well.
I'm not dumb. Money can buy just about anything I don't need.
This morning when I woke up both of my worst nervous habits had moved back in to stay. My friends thought I was dead when I abruptly stopped doing one and then the other but I was quite pleased and then this morning I was told one never even went away, they have simply learned to ignore it.
That would be the head-nodding. I nod, gently, almost imperceptibly when people talk to me and I choose not to listen. It makes me look intent, agreeable and it's unconscious. I didn't even know I did it until it was pointed out after one too many misunderstandings.
This morning my Queen CD went frisbeeing out the passenger-side window, across the field toward the tracks less than a block from my house. Who wants to live forever, indeed.
I sat on my hands the whole way in. On the way home I sat on them again and it was only when I sat down with a fourth cup of coffee that Ben pointed out that the fluttering was almost welcome after not seeing it for a long time. He said it's more endearing and less frightening than when I sit like a statue. He grabbed my wayward hand and kissed my fingers. They're already cracked and split from the cold, from handling wood and washing them a billion times a day, from holding tissues and pictures. From wiping tears and from locking doors seventeen times an hour on my way to bed. And from not caring.
I snatched my hand back, scowling at him. He laughed quietly and changed the subject.
I refused to talk about Jacob today, in therapy or otherwise. I started to sometime this week but I can't so back in the box he goes inside my head and I will touch a memory when I can do it without blinding pain flooding in. It makes me angry. I need those thoughts and I need them now and I can't be forced to confront them. I was doing so good and I have to protect myself and they no longer call it shock or denial. I forget what they said. I was too busy nodding and thinking through the names of all the Warren Miller movies I could name in my head. And not fluttering, goddammit. It's been too long for shock and too far for denial and they tell me I can't outrun it forever.
Oh hell yes I can.
It's better to be perceived as fucked-up and cold.
It's better to be a bitch than a shell of a person.
It's better not to be alone. I don't have to be alone today. Today will be okay. Today is okay
I am an instigator
You are an oversight
Don't try to compromise
I'll learn to love to hate it
I am not integrated
Early therapy this morning (again), squeezed in because I pay well.
I'm not dumb. Money can buy just about anything I don't need.
This morning when I woke up both of my worst nervous habits had moved back in to stay. My friends thought I was dead when I abruptly stopped doing one and then the other but I was quite pleased and then this morning I was told one never even went away, they have simply learned to ignore it.
That would be the head-nodding. I nod, gently, almost imperceptibly when people talk to me and I choose not to listen. It makes me look intent, agreeable and it's unconscious. I didn't even know I did it until it was pointed out after one too many misunderstandings.
This morning my Queen CD went frisbeeing out the passenger-side window, across the field toward the tracks less than a block from my house. Who wants to live forever, indeed.
I sat on my hands the whole way in. On the way home I sat on them again and it was only when I sat down with a fourth cup of coffee that Ben pointed out that the fluttering was almost welcome after not seeing it for a long time. He said it's more endearing and less frightening than when I sit like a statue. He grabbed my wayward hand and kissed my fingers. They're already cracked and split from the cold, from handling wood and washing them a billion times a day, from holding tissues and pictures. From wiping tears and from locking doors seventeen times an hour on my way to bed. And from not caring.
I snatched my hand back, scowling at him. He laughed quietly and changed the subject.
I refused to talk about Jacob today, in therapy or otherwise. I started to sometime this week but I can't so back in the box he goes inside my head and I will touch a memory when I can do it without blinding pain flooding in. It makes me angry. I need those thoughts and I need them now and I can't be forced to confront them. I was doing so good and I have to protect myself and they no longer call it shock or denial. I forget what they said. I was too busy nodding and thinking through the names of all the Warren Miller movies I could name in my head. And not fluttering, goddammit. It's been too long for shock and too far for denial and they tell me I can't outrun it forever.
Oh hell yes I can.
It's better to be perceived as fucked-up and cold.
It's better to be a bitch than a shell of a person.
It's better not to be alone. I don't have to be alone today. Today will be okay. Today is okay
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Oh my fuck, do you want to know something? Something from the deep dark locked file cabinet inside my head of shit I shouldn't say out loud lest I appear to be ungracious or graceless or just plain selfish?
Well, then here's a big one.
I hate being alone.
I hate living alone.
I hate sleeping alone. I hate waking up alone. I hate showering alone and I hate talking to myself from the time the children go to bed to when they wake up in the morning.
Alone and I, well, we don't get along. I've never tasted it for any length of time, I don't think it's something I would enjoy and yet...
Here I am. Forever cursed to be alone.
Nice.
Well, then here's a big one.
I hate being alone.
I hate living alone.
I hate sleeping alone. I hate waking up alone. I hate showering alone and I hate talking to myself from the time the children go to bed to when they wake up in the morning.
Alone and I, well, we don't get along. I've never tasted it for any length of time, I don't think it's something I would enjoy and yet...
Here I am. Forever cursed to be alone.
Nice.
On becoming a day-counter.
Over a month has passed now. A month that in any of Jacob's imaginary travels would have brought forth a choppy, staticky-quick phone call or a hastily-written postcard on one of his trips, now entirely suspect in light of revelations from his letters to me. A month that in past years would have seen Cole settle into a relaxed-tense state, and everyone else drift off to their own space briefly as we lost a little of the brightest hues in our technicolor world.
Living in that moment just before the shoe drops.
I took that shoe and threw it right through the most beautiful stained glass window in my house.
I made a horrific mess.
The house is warm but it has to be plain now. It's a living museum where even the brightly colored toys scattered on the floor rest in the shadows and memories echo off the ceilings of loves gone by, with a tiny young widow who rattles around the halls high on pills and low on energy and the ghosts come at night when she sleeps. Mostly, anyhow.
I have had a long month of explaining myself despite not needing explanations, details which have already been duly noted and absorbed and it's almost time to fully process what I did the weekend after Jacob died.
And I have to be the one to tell it. I'd rather you get all the facts from me than from Caleb.
But not yet. There are more pressing matters to attend to first. There is the living to attend to, first.
Henry and Ruth both had brief speaking roles and they both sang in the choir last night and did a wonderful job. Three songs and some very bright eyes in the audience. Seven minutes in, after the lights went out and the kindergarten kids shuffled onto the stage, Ben appeared behind me, putting his hand on my head and kissing my ear as he sat down. He passed me my hearing aids. I turned to look at him and he shook his head and pointed to the front, as in, we'll talk later.
I turned back around and proceeded to immerse myself in the concert. It was so cute and funny. I felt like I wasn't going to fall apart for once and I turned around when the lights came on to talk to Ben, just in time to see him slip out the door at the far end of the gym. PJ said that he would collect the children and meet me at the truck if I wanted to follow Ben and so I pushed past a crowd growing at the exit and ran outside into the snow where Ben was walking down the path. I called out to him and he stopped and turned around.
Could you just stop, please?
I didn't want you to feel obligated to spend time with me. You wanted space, here it is.
I want you to be present without expectations.
I don't live without hope.
Me neither.
You're going to talk circles around me for the rest of my life, aren't you?
He didn't have the right, Benny.
It wasn't an instruction, Bridge. It was an inevitability. It was a gentle push.
Did Jacob deal in inevitabilities?
No, but I do.
He smiled and I wanted to kill him and hug him all at the same time. Instead I just stood there staring at him, expressionless.
Jacob wasn't a stupid man, princess.
You're biased now. Somehow you tricked him.
No, the inevitability of life won him over, he just takes the time to look for things most people will never see.
I doubt he saw anything. He was trying to help me.
Exactly. So why won't you let him?
Because it means giving him up forever and I'm so not ready to do that.
He was three inches from me then, because he could hardly hear my whispers.
You don't have to give up anything, Bridge. I wouldn't ask you to do that.
He puts his hands on my arms and I pushed him away.
Ben, you can't ask me for anything at all.
And with that I turned and walked away from him. Because the past month of my life went by in a dizzying blur and it went by in drips and fits and starts like molasses (morelasses). Taking forever, agonizingly, slowly. I can't figure out which end is up, which road to take or what to do next.
Ben, no, he has it all figured out. Jacob had it all figured out and Bridget, well, as usual she has no fucking clue at all.
Living in that moment just before the shoe drops.
I took that shoe and threw it right through the most beautiful stained glass window in my house.
I made a horrific mess.
The house is warm but it has to be plain now. It's a living museum where even the brightly colored toys scattered on the floor rest in the shadows and memories echo off the ceilings of loves gone by, with a tiny young widow who rattles around the halls high on pills and low on energy and the ghosts come at night when she sleeps. Mostly, anyhow.
I have had a long month of explaining myself despite not needing explanations, details which have already been duly noted and absorbed and it's almost time to fully process what I did the weekend after Jacob died.
And I have to be the one to tell it. I'd rather you get all the facts from me than from Caleb.
But not yet. There are more pressing matters to attend to first. There is the living to attend to, first.
Henry and Ruth both had brief speaking roles and they both sang in the choir last night and did a wonderful job. Three songs and some very bright eyes in the audience. Seven minutes in, after the lights went out and the kindergarten kids shuffled onto the stage, Ben appeared behind me, putting his hand on my head and kissing my ear as he sat down. He passed me my hearing aids. I turned to look at him and he shook his head and pointed to the front, as in, we'll talk later.
I turned back around and proceeded to immerse myself in the concert. It was so cute and funny. I felt like I wasn't going to fall apart for once and I turned around when the lights came on to talk to Ben, just in time to see him slip out the door at the far end of the gym. PJ said that he would collect the children and meet me at the truck if I wanted to follow Ben and so I pushed past a crowd growing at the exit and ran outside into the snow where Ben was walking down the path. I called out to him and he stopped and turned around.
Could you just stop, please?
I didn't want you to feel obligated to spend time with me. You wanted space, here it is.
I want you to be present without expectations.
I don't live without hope.
Me neither.
You're going to talk circles around me for the rest of my life, aren't you?
He didn't have the right, Benny.
It wasn't an instruction, Bridge. It was an inevitability. It was a gentle push.
Did Jacob deal in inevitabilities?
No, but I do.
He smiled and I wanted to kill him and hug him all at the same time. Instead I just stood there staring at him, expressionless.
Jacob wasn't a stupid man, princess.
You're biased now. Somehow you tricked him.
No, the inevitability of life won him over, he just takes the time to look for things most people will never see.
I doubt he saw anything. He was trying to help me.
Exactly. So why won't you let him?
Because it means giving him up forever and I'm so not ready to do that.
He was three inches from me then, because he could hardly hear my whispers.
You don't have to give up anything, Bridge. I wouldn't ask you to do that.
He puts his hands on my arms and I pushed him away.
Ben, you can't ask me for anything at all.
And with that I turned and walked away from him. Because the past month of my life went by in a dizzying blur and it went by in drips and fits and starts like molasses (morelasses). Taking forever, agonizingly, slowly. I can't figure out which end is up, which road to take or what to do next.
Ben, no, he has it all figured out. Jacob had it all figured out and Bridget, well, as usual she has no fucking clue at all.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Less like Jake, more like Bridget.
Wow. There's an abrupt turn. Joel just left an eighth message. He has cleared his (light) afternoon schedule and is bringing soup for lunch and the 2-pack DVD of 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later.
Since if you can't beat a zombie, you might as well join her.
Tonight is dinner for twelve and the Christmas concert at the school.
Since if you can't beat a zombie, you might as well join her.
Tonight is dinner for twelve and the Christmas concert at the school.
Staring down the longest day of the year.
You're right
I can never lie
Let me go
Try to find a home
I can't wait
Try to stay awake
Dead inside
Bothered by the lie
You're right
This morning the lights were too bright, the world was too quiet and the pain hurt too much and I made it all the way to the fifth floor lobby when I turned around and jabbed at the button, willing the elevator doors to open and then swallow me whole again before Joel could turn around and realize I was no longer right behind him.
I failed and he turned and came straight over to where I stood with my eyes shut and he took my arm and bent his head in and asked me quietly where I was going.
Home, I whispered.
He shook his head and straightened his back and asked if I was going to spend my days hiding in my ivory tower playing loud music and disintegrating slowly or if I was going to get my head on straight and get through this, expecting me to fall into line.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped in and turned around to face him and I told him that today the music was going to win.
The doors closed on his surprised expression and I am now home with the music on so loud I can feel it in my blood, Jacob's shirt on over my clothes and seven messages on the answering machine from Joel telling me he isn't falling for this and I have been rescheduled for tomorrow where I will be expected to be the person my children are depending on.
He is way too much like Jake.
I can never lie
Let me go
Try to find a home
I can't wait
Try to stay awake
Dead inside
Bothered by the lie
You're right
This morning the lights were too bright, the world was too quiet and the pain hurt too much and I made it all the way to the fifth floor lobby when I turned around and jabbed at the button, willing the elevator doors to open and then swallow me whole again before Joel could turn around and realize I was no longer right behind him.
I failed and he turned and came straight over to where I stood with my eyes shut and he took my arm and bent his head in and asked me quietly where I was going.
Home, I whispered.
He shook his head and straightened his back and asked if I was going to spend my days hiding in my ivory tower playing loud music and disintegrating slowly or if I was going to get my head on straight and get through this, expecting me to fall into line.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped in and turned around to face him and I told him that today the music was going to win.
The doors closed on his surprised expression and I am now home with the music on so loud I can feel it in my blood, Jacob's shirt on over my clothes and seven messages on the answering machine from Joel telling me he isn't falling for this and I have been rescheduled for tomorrow where I will be expected to be the person my children are depending on.
He is way too much like Jake.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
A little relief, a fourth post. I have no life.
Hey, baby girl.
Hello, Lochlan.
Ben's fine. He came to me before I could go track him down.
Can you talk him out of going to see Caleb?
Too late.
Oh, shit.
No, he's fine, Bridgie. He's here for the night. We're toasting to new beginnings and talking about you.
Oh, that explains the nickname-fest.
I'm on my way to bed soon. Parenthood and alcohol don't mix.
Loch, is Ben drinking?
Of course not. He's not supposed to, right?
Right. Thank God. So he's okay-okay?
The devil didn't eat him, if that's what you were worried about. His soul appears intact, anyway.
I'm glad you called.
So do you want to fill me in on what happened between you and Caleb?
No, not really.
I could always get Ben drunk and then he'll tell me.
That is so not funny, Lochlan.
I know. Sorry. Are you okay?
Should I be?
Eventually. Okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow. I just didn't want you to worry. Ben said he would have called but that you're not speaking to him.
Yeah, I don't know what we're doing. We're fighting.
He thought this would be smoother, baby.
There's nothing to be smooth about. I'm not property.
No one thinks you are.
Everyone thinks I am. I was bequeathed, for fuck's sakes.
No, I don't think it was like that. I think Jake wanted to eliminate some of the pressure.
He didn't and I'm so angry, Loch.
Do me a favor, Bridgie and just talk to Ben. Sort it out so you at least are surrounded by magic and not tension, okay, please?
I'll try, Loch.
Thank you, now I'm going to bed while I can, Miss Hope just passed out cold on Ben.
Send me some more pictures, will you?
Will do. Love you.
Love you too.
Hello, Lochlan.
Ben's fine. He came to me before I could go track him down.
Can you talk him out of going to see Caleb?
Too late.
Oh, shit.
No, he's fine, Bridgie. He's here for the night. We're toasting to new beginnings and talking about you.
Oh, that explains the nickname-fest.
I'm on my way to bed soon. Parenthood and alcohol don't mix.
Loch, is Ben drinking?
Of course not. He's not supposed to, right?
Right. Thank God. So he's okay-okay?
The devil didn't eat him, if that's what you were worried about. His soul appears intact, anyway.
I'm glad you called.
So do you want to fill me in on what happened between you and Caleb?
No, not really.
I could always get Ben drunk and then he'll tell me.
That is so not funny, Lochlan.
I know. Sorry. Are you okay?
Should I be?
Eventually. Okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow. I just didn't want you to worry. Ben said he would have called but that you're not speaking to him.
Yeah, I don't know what we're doing. We're fighting.
He thought this would be smoother, baby.
There's nothing to be smooth about. I'm not property.
No one thinks you are.
Everyone thinks I am. I was bequeathed, for fuck's sakes.
No, I don't think it was like that. I think Jake wanted to eliminate some of the pressure.
He didn't and I'm so angry, Loch.
Do me a favor, Bridgie and just talk to Ben. Sort it out so you at least are surrounded by magic and not tension, okay, please?
I'll try, Loch.
Thank you, now I'm going to bed while I can, Miss Hope just passed out cold on Ben.
Send me some more pictures, will you?
Will do. Love you.
Love you too.
Oh, I get it now. It was a cover. Distract her and she's a little hurt that Ben doesn't show up but since they're not so much as speaking she understands and then she comes to find out through the weakest link (ha, thank you Christian) that Ben has flown to Toronto to probably lose his temper all over Caleb because it's been a disaster in the making for weeks now.
Loch has gone to try to head him off. Which should be great seeing as how he's exhausted and a little busy at the moment. I'm so impressed, guys. I can't believe not even one of you tried to prevent this or at least tell me beforehand.
Loch has gone to try to head him off. Which should be great seeing as how he's exhausted and a little busy at the moment. I'm so impressed, guys. I can't believe not even one of you tried to prevent this or at least tell me beforehand.
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