A different sort of hotness.

Last night saw a trip to the hardware store to look at fixtures and more fixtures and floor coverings and sometimes taps, though the salesman called them faucets, and almost flinched when I asked if the three-hundred-dollar coating on one was any stronger than the $69 chrome plate. I was asking from experience, because if you've ever tried to lift a pot over the sink and accidentally dinged the new expensively-coated faucet, you would know it chips even more easily than the previous cheap chrome one that made it through a good three decades before you took up cooking in there.

As John led me around by the hand, my other hand clutching a hot cup of coffee, I people-watched endlessly. It wasn't until we were leaving (empty-handed because John cannot settle on exactly which plunge-router he is going to purchase) that I realized I had stumbled on a new phenomenon sweeping the men of this city.

Overbearding.

Yes, that's what I called it. Overbearding. You know, when a man grows a beard that seemingly comes up past his nostrils, almost covering his cheeks? You're not sure if he's that unaware that he is growing wall-to-wall facial hair or if he's desperate to cover up the dark circles under his eyes or maybe, perhaps, he just doesn't know any better.

John had the answer for me, as we drove home in the dark.

We've just come out of a long cold winter, princess. Trust me, if you could grow hair all over your face, you would do it in a heartbeat.

Makes sense to me.

Please don't let me fall forever.

(Hi, it's one of those days where it just all pours out. Like a flood. Don't be alarmed. I'm actually fine. Well, if fine is relative. I'm relative, then. And I have no idea what that means, exactly.)

Henry's hair is getting long. So much so that I used a half a can of hairspray this morning on him because he wanted a fauxhawk for school and his hair is heavy and reluctant and I don't keep gel in the house. I don't use it (okay, Ben would eat it if it was just sitting around). I'm certain Henry's hair will be flat again by the first bell because in a few minutes he has to put his winter hat on to go to school.

Tonight it will take several washes to get all of that out, so I'm guessing today is going to be all about make-work projects and about compulsively checking my phone in between rings to see if it is on. Does that make sense? Yes, I know. It will ring and be Duncan or Mark or Dylan on the other end and then if ten minutes goes by after I hang up I'll check status again. Do I have capital EDGE? Okay, good. Okay, no, that's bad, Bridget. Because I haven't talked to Ben this week. He moved on Saturday and that was when I spoke to him last. This place doesn't allow for cellphones. They do have nightly phone times available but he hasn't called. The last thing he said was Go away.

Maybe this journal has become about rejection. Rejecting reality, rejecting life. Rejecting Bridget. Maybe Bridget is the one who is the problem and make rejection is teaching me more about time and space and control and choices better than death, better than religion, or better than that pearl-blue western sky. Maybe I'm going about it all wrong. Maybe the clear and present temptation does nothing but allow me to fail time and time again, while time fails me.

Or just maybe I'm doing fine, and this is life and I've simply run out of luck, which is something I think I said I did in 2006 but no one listened back then because they thought I was ungrateful. I wasn't ungrateful, I was predicting the future. A future with an empty place at the dinner table where my heart is supposed to sit and an empty can of hairspray from trying to pretend everything is completely normal.

Who was I kidding, anyway?

This isn't to say I don't have hope. I don't know exactly how I feel. Maybe he'll never change and maybe he thinks I never will. I just know that I am here bookended by some of the most together, stable, handsome and caring men on the planet and all I can think about is that messed-up, unstable, handsome and completely-self-centered one who isn't here.

Maybe he feels the same way. That's my hope, anyway. And I might not be the only one with hope seeping in around the cracks, since the past couple of days, all the boys have been showing up with black-painted fingernails, a small and quiet show of support for Benjamin, who has no idea how much he is missed by everyone.

They look completely ridiculous and I love it.

I tried to save you but
I can't find the answer
I'm holding on to you
I'll never let go

Okay, I have no idea what the sweep part means.

Drunk on failure's regrets
Letters of silence confess burdens within
Speaking as loneliness listens
While hopelessly feeling
Casted out

One of the joys of this morning was shopping with August.

August sets his own schedule, and he's been an absolute godsend to me lately (maybe that's a Jakesend), hanging out, encouraging me to talk just a little more, not because he wants to get inside my head but so that everything inside my head can get out. He's listened to me prattle on since I met him, he thinks my head is extraordinary, and he thinks I'm beautiful. He's also one of the few who just hugs without asking, and for that alone, I'm going to get a very large jar, stuff him in it, and put him on the shelf as the one and only miracle product of Bridget's tiny apothecary.

We stopped at the tailor he uses, who is actually an ancient and wizened little Chinese lady who lives on the second floor of the most run-down building I have ever set foot in. She had him strip to the waist and she took about eight hundred measurements and she's going to make him four hemp dress shirts. Seriously. Bespoke hippie clothes, people. She asked him if his beautiful wife would like anything made, that she would be honored but I'll be damned if I could understand her and August repeated her question to me and I didn't want to be rude so she's going to make me a lovely olive-green wrap skirt. I think he is paying for it. I don't know, we go back in ten days and everything will be ready.

I was just very happy she didn't ask me to strip to take measurements. I think August was very happy I might someday be planning to wear something that isn't black, though I've become rather attached to my ability to walk into a room and suck the light out of it.

I suppose now you'll tell me that's not a good thing...

We finished our shopping by heading for the global market, as August is also hunting for a dress belt, the caveat being it has to be vegan. After an hour of looking and asking and googling on the go even I finally looked up, slightly crazed and asked him why the belt had to be vegan, if he had steak at my house last night? What code of ethics ran that show, anyway?

Hey, there was a pretty girl standing there holding a plate piled high with steak. Show me a Vegan who will turn that down and I'll show you a fucking idiot.

Except, once again I had to get him to slow it down and translate because his accent is still thicker than that of the tailor. I'm hoping that with time, that will change too.

There is absolutely nothing going on today but people seemed nervous that I didn't post.

The sun is out, the snow is melting, I had a long catharsis of a run this morning, and I don't feel nearly as gloomy as I usually do. I can see the end of having to wear practical boots and my heavy wool coat and a hood that perpetually flattens the perky chin-length hair cut that is so flat it's almost shoulder-length again. Or maybe it grew. I don't know, spring is coming, so who cares about anything else right now?

Even the kids are losing their ever-loving minds. You would think they've never seen sunshine before.

Trust me, living here, sometimes that's what it feels like.

I'm about to go wedge myself in the corner of the couch under John's elbow and finish going over Christian's writing, and then hopefully if all goes well I'm going to make an early dinner of steak and baked potatoes and be in bed by nine.

I will try to write earlier tomorrow, for those of you losing your minds. I feel loved. Which is kind of creepy when it comes from total strangers on the internet.

This might have a soundtrack by Prokofiev or someone whimsical like that.

Is there an easy way? Great. I'll be over here under the sign labeled "danger". You requested honesty and here, have it for fucking breakfast and then leave me alone.

I will love him, thoroughly and unapologetically. I will throw down my guard and my trust and he will gobble them up and spit the bones back out and smile in the half-assed, charming way that he smiles and splits the crack in my heart open just a little wider, in order to wedge himself in deep. Go ahead. Deeper. Please.

It hurts, you know. It burns and it aches and at the same time it feels good in the most twisted way.

Just like in order to weigh down my fingers, I wear so many rings. Rings that are borrowed and bought and given freely and with conditions. Rings with skulls and roses and words and scratches too. Rings that when you squeeze my hand too hard I may squeal because it hurts and my knuckles are bruised in between.

Will I take them off?

Not on your life.

This one from him, is all skulls and darkness. It's my tie to him while he's gone. Another spins around and around, wearing a bell sound into my skull. He has a matching one, and he left that for me too, for twice the comfort but his is so big I wear it below mine, so mine will hold it on. Others include my wedding ring, and more rings that mean different things. They serve to provide a nice heft to keep my fingers remembered in their tasks of spelling properly and using punctuation and then I sound less crazy because I have dotted the i and used a comma where a comma should be and I'm rather presentable because I'm beautifully accessorized even if it is in an over-the-top rockstar boyfriend format. It's okay, I won't apologize if you don't ask to see them up close. There are so many now that I keep a little blue pottery bowl by the sink to hold them when I wash dishes, wash my hands, wash an apple. Wash away the hurt part.

In the event that it is needed, I could simply use them as tools, wedging them far into that crack in my heart to hold his place. I've done it before, I'll do it again. In the event that it is needed I will melt them down and fashion a silver bullet and save us all.

But I will not apologize for loving him. And I'll be really proud of him for getting through detox and then moving to a slightly closer program, one that has a family weekend once a month.

He always wanted a family.

Now he has one.

And we'll be there in April to spend that weekend with him, which I think falls on our very first wedding anniversary. I can't remember right this second. Emotion overload, okay? I don't mind talking about things that are over. It's things that are ongoing that are so difficult in a watchful public eye where people pass judgement without fully understanding the gravity involved. I worry. I'm afraid. What if I self-destruct while he's gone? What if I forget him? What if he comes out different? What if he comes out the same? What if I miss him too much, hell, what if I miss him too little? What if neither one of us can get through what is going to be a very long and painful separation?

My head is unpredictable, and therein lies the reason behind holding that place with as much silver as I can find, a representation of something good and pure, like the very incredibly overwhelming love I have for someone I'm not sure that I don't hate right now.

That stupid half-charming, half-fratboy Tucker smile will fix everything, and I can't wait to see it again.

Treasures. Two for Saturday. This never happens.

Oh my goodness. Fuck the previous post. Look what was found for me on the 'tube. God knows, I still have the hugest crush on Jesse Hasek's voice and this doesn't help matters any, now, does it?

Beautiful, acoustic.

Okay, now, enough with the youtube links. I promise.

Wow.

Fastball.

Anyone could see the road that they walk on is paved in gold
It's always summer, they'll never get cold
They'll never get hungry
They'll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won't make it home
But they really don't care
They wanted the highway
They're happy there today, today

Here, since we're being goofy today. This is one of the very few songs Lochlan will sing out loud. I have more to say but instead I'm going to be smart and just go dress shopping instead.

Sugar burns.

He declared the food fight officially over after a particularly violent ambush left Daniel with a fruit loop up his nose. Whoops. The kitchen looks like a talking toucan exploded in it, there is fruit loop shrapnel all over everything, in the plants, in my ears, my hair is candy-coated and the box on the table is empty now.

Daniel started sweeping up while I started trying to clean up from breakfast. He failed to notice when I put the milk away I found the perfect ammunition-a leftover juicebox that was open but still full, because sometimes I grab one when I'm on the go. No one else likes them. I don't like them either. I would have thrown this one out in a week or so.

I rose up from behind the fridge door and let loose all over him, squeezing the box as hard as I could. He screamed, running around trying to block the spray, finally taking cover near my laptop, threatening to hug it close and get it all sticky and possibly ruin it forever.

So I did what any self-respecting outlaw girl would do. I dropped the box, put my hands up and surrendered. I give up. You win.

It's not over, though.

Not by a long shot.

To keep.

Your Cinderella stories, for a price.

Jake used to tell me I could have made a career out of missing Benjamin. If only someone would have paid me.

He's probably right. I started waiting for Ben before his plane took off, I started marking days and counting hours before he was settled in and I decided I was going to take it personally within seconds of being told where he was going, and when he would be back.

Lucky for all of us, I have since changed my mind on that last point.

I won't take it personally because it isn't personal and it has nothing to do with me. On the other hand, it has everything to do with me and in my universe you need to be tough and you need to step up and swing for home because I can't. I don't care if you score, I don't care if you foul out, just make the damn effort on my behalf and you've already won.

Be my hero because you are my hero.

Ben has won his war, he just needs to clean up the collateral damage and that is what he has gone back to his battlefield to do.

Lochlan is taking good care of me, because he promised Ben that he would. He made similar promises to Cole and to Jake and for some reason I wound up with a great bunch of guys I owe my life to. Lochlan made some difficult and incredibly unpopular choices for our benefit, on our behalf, and I was too selfish and too blind to see that he did this for us, for Ben and I, that he knew I would hate him and he sent Ben away anyway, because Ben needs to get better so that Bridget can have her Happily Ever After finally, at long last. I didn't see that, and I'm sorry.

Heroes come in many forms, and I am a lucky girl. I'm just usually thinking too loud to hear you when you tell me.

Blink.

I never made it anywhere. We'll just call it yet another impulsive action that serves to prove that I still need heavy-handed guidance. Do you think they know what I need? I doubt it. They don't listen.

They act, however, and in an ironic twist of fate, Ben is going away and I am not. The next few months are clear, the opportunity is being taken and he's going somewhere to clean up his act. As in, he's gone. Now. Already. Seth moves fast. Not quite fast enough, however, because Ben got himself back into trouble right under everyone's nose and it took a lovely dramatic set of events for them to see how much trouble, precisely.

If you remember, it was a little less than a year ago that Ben went away to dry out and showed up on my doorstep four days later. This time things will be a little different and he won't be able to come home until he's finished. We get that. We can deal with that. Just fix him. Please.

In a further ironic twist, Lochlan will be staying here indefinitely now. He can do that (dumb freelancing) and I should be grateful, he says, that he's here to help out while Ben goes to Emotherapy.