Bear witness.

I'm standing here right now with plane tickets pending on my screen, fully charged phones and packed bags and I'm paralyzed and Lochlan, if you take this one down I'll never speak to you again.

In a nutshell, Ben's been drinking for days and I don't know why. Probably because he had a momentary wobble of self-esteem and decided that he wasn't tough enough and didn't deserve us and maybe Lochlan should be the one to just step in and take over finishing what Cole started and Jacob ran with but couldn't manage either. Last time I checked, any total moron could manage to have a family and a normal life but this isn't any normal family so silly me, I should know better.

Why aren't they strong enough? What is it about me that makes them fight like dogs and love like men and behave like total creeps?

Because gee, I don't know, Lochlan egged Ben on (just like he did with Jake) until he had nothing else left and then moved right in to collect the spoils. Only he doesn't want me to write about his actions because he would much prefer that everyone believes he is here in town, working hard to secure a future and pining for his own estranged fiance and baby girl back East and that he's here as a friend, and such a smart one so he can keep everyone and everything pulled together and then everyone thinks that BRIDGET is even more of a mess than usual or BRIDGET can't get her act together.

It isn't BRIDGET. And it certainly isn't BEN and TOUGH FUCKING LUCK, LOCHLAN, I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE.

Please, God, just hear me this time.

Oh, and one more thing.

Don't follow us. I don't know where we're going yet but you're not invited.

Because I thought I could handle it.

Last night I woke up to angry voices. I went down to the den, and lo and behold, Ben is there with his fresh bottle of whatever, and he and August are in each other's faces and Lochlan is standing away from them, arms crossed, staring out the garden doors into the dark like he's looking for something, and then when I made my presence known, Ben lurches out of August's airspace and heads for me and they were all over him before he could get to me.

I yelled Leave him alone! and then Loch somehow figured he could fix this. Whatever this was. I don't know. I was hardly even awake. He pushed me out of the doorway and shut the door and I heard August yell at Ben to figure out what he was going to do and fast and Ben yelled back that he had it under control. Lochlan just listened with me and stared at me. I could have slapped him but instead I took one look at him and pointed out how what they worked out doesn't work and they should just leave us alone. Then I walked away from him, down the hall, made it almost to the kitchen before I lost my nerve and went back and went through the door behind Lochlan as he walked back into the den and I went to hold Ben and he pushed me away and said Don't let her see me like that, get her out. I'll hurt her. I always hurt her.

Only it wasn't the slightly confident Benspeak that I know by now when he's had just enough to soften the edge on his life. It wasn't anything I've heard before and I waited while my brain was sorting out what my ears told it they heard and when all the words were in order and straightened out and the consonants and endings were added. I waited too long and by then he was screaming at them, staring at me and really to lurch again, fighting to get to me, probably to slam the door on me so I wouldn't have to see him.

This time when I turned to leave Lochlan was in front of me and he put his arms around me and I caved in. This time I could hear Ben yelling that I should have gone with someone who was normal and maybe it isn't too late, that he's so sorry he couldn't take the pressure and he got greedy and then Lochlan put his hands over my ears and I couldn't hear anything else, but I knew that Ben was still screaming because I woke up this morning, still in Lochlan's arms with Ben's voice was still in my head but he isn't here and I need him and I think they've taken him away from me and if they did heads are going to roll. Probably mine first. Oh, too late. Nevermind.

Good enough.

Apparently a few rather quiet days at home with fresh snow and extra fruit were needed, and sorely. They helped to shore up the eroding mental strength required for me to just deal with things people deal with every day. Maybe I keep myself in a bubble too much. Maybe I should just listen.

The flu is not the flu and I'm not pregnant. I'm taking some amazingly kick-ass iron pills that in order to make me feel human and have energy, first they must suck the life out of me and leave me miserable, ready to vomit at the first sign of heat, oxygen or hell, pick something. I have to eat more. They told me to take with food. Apparently coffee is not food. I now take with bagel.

I don't plan to address the whole pregnancy topic with you anymore, internet. If you were around when I was pregnant two years ago then you get that. If not, then next time work on your punctuality.

This morning also brough the sting of hot tears of disappointment, when a tiny little story I had a lot of hope for made it's way back to me from a publication I wanted to be a part of. It's funny, too. I was just describing last evening in an email how this industry is not for the faint of heart and here I am, faint of heart like nothing you've ever seen before, smack in the middle of trying to call it a life. This story was very close, rather personal and it was out for four months and the letter said they considered it and then considered it again, and ultimately they passed on it.

Par for the course, but the sting is still always there and always fresh. In amongst the vomitish, overtired, non-pregnant, freshly-ironed tearful feelings for a Monday morning, you might just catch a glimpse of what keeps it going.

I sit on my knees, hunched over to the ground, my hands cupped around a tiny candle, keeping the flame from the wind. That stupid flame makes me get up, dust off my skirts and take another goddamned iron pill, write another story that's going to take me on a rollercoaster of hope and accomplishment and failure too, and spend another day raising my children without the genetic shackles of faint hearts and fragile egos. Stomping out the fire that licks up my skirt because as always, I'm standing too close.

Back on the horse. I am the lone ranger. Only I'm not lone, nor do I range. Do I range?

I do ramble, I know that much.

Level with the weather instead of still under it.

There is some random blessing in having the guys around tonight, piled into the living room, sprawled out on every soft surface they can fit, playing Halo Wars. Even if my presence is only useful in the sense that, every fifteen seconds, someone calls out to ask if I'm sure the internet says that in the fourth mission, the skull is next to the bronze statue, on the steps near base two.

I should start making things up.

Okay, it says for this one, it's next to the gilded unicorn, at the top of the hill west of the stone turret.

What the...unicorn? There's no unicorn here, Bridge.

Keep playing, it must be there somewhere...

Believe me, I've resorted to treachery and misinformation only out of sheer boredom. I must be feeling better.

Don't rush this, baby.

She said
I don't know why you ever would lie to me
Like I'm a little untrusting
When I think that the truth is gonna hurt you
And I don't why you couldn't just stay with me
You couldn't stand to be near me
When my face don't seem to want to shine
Cause its a little bit dirty well
Don't just stand there
Say nice things to me

Hmm, it's Saturday, it's still dark out and I still feel like someone ran over me with a tractor. There is a dirty guitar sound layered from the speakers that makes me check my phone every fifteen seconds because I think I hear it ringing but it's not. This is why most of the boys use conventional rings for their phones, since my penchant for using the bridges of my favorite heavy alternative songs (not the one quoted above, for it's pop) end up blended into the mix, getting lost.

It's okay, what I miss I will catch with the blinky light that tells me I missed it. My phone is just like a butler, only it doesn't bring me orange juice after sex. Which means Ben is my butler. Sorry, mom.

I'm in skinny jeans and a big black hoodie today with my fortune cookie long sleeved T underneath. Saturday socks. No, really, they say Saturday on the soles. I have my corporate sellout cup from Starbucks pushed in front of my nose and my coffee is almost gone and why I'm posting before anything has happened instead of after things happen so I would actually have something to write about is anyone's guess.

I have stopped wearing earrings. Every five years or so my body rebels and I wind up pulling out all the steel and going bare. Then I poke a whole new round of fresh holes and begin again. Right now the only thing left is the barbell in my tongue. Maybe I should just stick with the tattoos and be done with it. They don't get red or migrate or drive me nuts. They just are. A living canvas. I didn't even tell you about the latest one. Choose your words, choose them wise. Tiny but profound, it makes me happy. The grammar sucks but the sentiment blows my mind.

As it should.

Words are what it's all about, and I have so many. Take a large pin and stick it in my head and I will burst into a silent explosion, letters raining down in a ten-mile radius of devastation, covering everything.

You'll be able to read it perfectly.

At the bitter end, I lost my nerve.

Heaven help you.

There is always a song in my head but today it plays slightly muted and it skips a little and jumps here and there, I can barely hear it, almost like how when you duck under the surface in pools that play music you sometimes catch a melody but it's always full of bubbles and distortion and I know my hearing is bad but is there a point to piping songs into water in the first place?

I vote no.

August and I are drawing cartoons again, music on low, a fire stoked high, not so much talking as just hanging out, no obligations, no personality clashes, no egos to coddle or soothe, just space and time and sharpies with fine points and the scanner somehow legoed to my laptop long enough to make files to send to Ben's phone and every hour or so I get a one line text message that says ahahahahahahahaahaha and then another hour goes by and another message arrives with some variation in the number of those two letters. Ben and Seth have gone somewhere private hopefully to remove Ben's head and re-position on his neck, but straight this time, I think it gets habitually cross-threaded and he holds it up with effort. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if I see him later today and his eyes are level pools with the bubbles in the middle, showing he is straight and true. While that would be nice, it isn't possible because humans are human and princesses are notoriously princess-y and life is amazingly unpredictable at best and so in the future I think people would be best served to learn how to deal with change and how to expect the unexpected and why you should never try to put a box around your life because just when you have it all taped down and secured against the wind you realize everything is going to change and you just wasted all that tape.

The Haptic Response Team.

Why, yes, I think I will have t-shirts made that say that.

Visually you're stimulating to my eyes
Your Cinderella syndrome, full of lies
Your insecurities are concealed by your pride
Pretty soon your ego will kill what’s left inside

(Beautiful)
It’s so pitiful what you are (Pitiful)
As beautiful as you are
(Should have seen)
You should have seen this coming all along

I got a lovely email last evening that reassured me that my brother-in-law has no interest in scaring me or ruining my life, he simply wants to maintain an unbroken, unrestricted line of sight to us because we are family. That everything is fine but frankly after considering my actions for a full month, he's decided they should be ignored. Oh and when I wrote about how well the children were doing at school, that entry served as the straw that broke the devil's back, as it were and he's afraid he might miss out.

Mortality is having an interesting effect on this man. What a lovely, public midlife crisis he is going through, because I don't think anyone has ever seen him this unraveled. He blames me. And we could go back and forth forever in public and in private and none of it would matter. He gets to see and touch us and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it now because I have exhausted all my legal avenues and I have listened to all the ideas and I have invoked every last measure of protection I can find and it was all for nothing.

And I'm relieved but you know that and I don't believe I still have to explain it. It just is what it is. They come and they go and I am the centre axis. Lochlan likes to say I'm the singularly unpredictable haptic girl. Touch me or hell, push me and then stand back because you're going to get a different reaction every time.

I think my life would have been easier overall had they not all figured that out so damned quickly.

Oh hell, there's a million ways my life could have been easier. Regrets are better left on the side of the road, discarded and forgotten, as quick as you can, now, come on, we've got places to go!

Thirty days to breathe.

(You must be slipping.)

By virtue of having more money and more connections to a ridiculously inept justice system, and further compounded by pressure from Cole's family for me to 'do the right thing', Caleb has managed to fuck up my life beyond belief. He now has access to us again. You know, because he moved here to be close to his dead brother's wife and his beloved niece and nephew and get this, has been 'financially supporting' us since last fall, among other things. Last time I checked that was income from working for him which I don't get anymore because I thought I had finally gotten away from him.

In any case, it's been determined that he's good for us and life is great and we should all just be one big happy family and we apparently deserve no protection whatsoever because Caleb is a such a fine specimen of humanity who can single-handedly corrupt anyone he chooses, whether they want to call it that or not.

I wonder exactly how much it costs these days to bend the sympathetic ear of a judge who would rather facilitate the obsessions of a mobster instead of protecting a widow and her two young children who wouldn't hurt a fly. Maybe I'll go down there and ask. Oh wait, I just came from there. They can't answer me because they know this isn't right.

'Love You Forever' still makes me cry.

Not only am I having a devil of a time keeping my happy zig-zagging head in one spot, but at lunchtime I was informed that both my children had extraordinary numbers in the February Reading Race at their school. Extraordinary. Ruth read a third of the total page count for her grade, and Henry's class won the school contest for most pages read altogether.

In a way, I shouldn't be surprised. Cole was a reader. Ben reads constantly. And I started with them from birth every single day, reading and re-reading Are you my Mother? and Love You Forever until I was so sick of P.D. Eastman and Robert Munsch I thought I might turn blue.

We raced through the lyrical The Lorax and Green Eggs and Ham and then in one winter we covered the entire Little House on the Prairie set. We did some CS Lewis and some Stevenson too and now we're currently on book four of the Harry Potter series and that's only counting the books that get read aloud. The children go to bed at night and continue to read for as long as they possibly can, and most nights I am halfway up the steps before I hear the lights clicked off and everyone pretends to be asleep far too late for the average under-ten set to be awake.

But I'm still surprised because I thought everyone read the way we do. I always wonder how everyone else seems so together and so busy and so accomplished. Then I look at my kids and they have all the answers because they read them somewhere wonderful, and then I don't really care about everyone else anymore. Maybe we're the together ones.

This is awesome. That's all. Give Bridget her proud mother moment. (God knows, most days I feel like I'm doing everything backasswards.)

Whatever else I planned to write about can wait, for today, at least. Ben and Lochlan have gone to the airfield, Christian is here working in some sunny corner of the house with his laptop and I'm making egg salad for tomorrow and plotting new curtains and dishes because I am bored.

Not a slow news day, just a good news day. They should all be like this.

When you forget what you were going to say.

Today I sat down to write a poetic ode to something or other that involved negative butterfly photography and cherry-red lip stain but I've been ousted, since the space where I currently like write is occupied with junk.

The junk is from Ben's luggage that somehow gets emptied all over the kitchen table, much to my chagrin, but today I found something that made me laugh for half an hour and I forgot to be all mopey and damp about life just for long enough today, and that's a good thing.

You see, the items on the table are the same items that Ben hastily shoved into his suitcase in order to make his flight Thursday night. There are clothes. Everything is black and inside out and maybe covered with some diet coke from the empty bottle I also found, wrapped in a t-shirt and at one point leaking profusely. There are four pencils, eight guitar picks that are a thickness he despises, seventeen loose leaf sheets with words scrawled illegibly on the back only of each one. There's three tea bags (china black) and two snickers bars (melted and refrozen) and a stack of blank CDs. Two silver rings that should be on his fingers (not his wedding band, thank heavens) and the watch he hates wearing. A broken Nintendo DS lite and two matchbox cars that Henry gave him for luck and "if you are bored". An empty lip balm tube and a crumpled and diet coke-soaked CD insert. His phone charger. Four sharpies and yes, another pencil. A vintage John Saul horror novel that he doesn't read but it seems to go everywhere anyway. Two notepads and a picture of the kids in a huge ziploc bag, the only things in the bag worth protecting from the soda, I guess.

I know he was in a hurry but really he pretty much always goes out neat and organized and comes back to me a teenage boy. None of that was the strange part though. The strange part was the drumstick.

Bitten in half.

Just the handle end arrived at the bottom of the bag and I could ask about it but really? It doesn't surprise me in the least. He did say when he gets hungry he'll eat anything.

I think I finally believe him.