Request for a hat trick, if you please.

Like a thunder in the mountains
Like the lightning in the sky
Like the eye of a tornado
She'll watch it all go by
Then she kills for recreation
And she plays her games at night
She wants to work on her vocation
She sets the world alight

My phone exploded shortly after seven this morning in a flurry of noises, ringing and alerts in a never-ending stream. It was possessed. It was haunted! No, it was just the boys, all letting me know that AC/DC is coming to town this summer. This is one of those big band names we toss around, who we want to see before we die. Mine is Tool. But on the off-chance they don't make it back here I'll be at the AC/DC show with (Hell's) bells on.

In other news, I'm heading out in a little over a week for a two-night trip to see Ben.

Remember him?

My brain has declared him dead and yet my stupid, naive heart is all excited to see him. I'm hoping the two can reach an agreement sometime before we fly out. I'm taking Daniel with me. All the arrangements have been made and if you blink it will be over but frankly I don't care that it's a quick and dirty visit. Yesterday I almost lost whatever pool of ubiquitous calm I've been floating in lately. A few ups and downs and sometimes my head goes under. John pulled me out yesterday and administered CPR and here I go, back in this morning to tread water for a little longer, the lifeline of late-night phone calls from Benjamin keeping my spirit afloat.

Always, he'll say Just a little bit longer, baby, and then I'll be home.

Oh and today? Lunch with Sophie. Because I'm insane. Remember her? She was once Jacob's wife too. I hate having things like that in common with people. I hate that I'm even going to this farce of a lunch. I don't want to be polite or kind or adult. I'd much rather get up and knock all the dishes off the table and flip it over and then run out the door. In my dreams last night I did that and it was impressive. In reality I'm guessing the table will be too heavy and that freaking out will just serve to show exactly how pulled-together she is and how pulled-apart I am.

Does anything ever change?

Beautiful disaster.

Miss guarded-heart
Miss play-it-smart

I'm almost ashamed to admit we're having a Kelly Clarkson day here today. Nice and freaking loud too. It's possibly more than a little funny to me that August knows all the lyrics to Miss Independent. Makes me wonder what else he listens to when I'm not jamming Tool into his ears.

(It explains why you're single, beautiful.)

No worries, internet. I'm not really being mean. I love August. And for this gem of a secret I gave up my sick secret crush on Toryn Green's physique. At least what it looked like last time I saw him.

Hot.

Way hotter than Kelly. By far.

(Going to go crawl in the dumbwaiter now so they can't tease me for the REST OF MY LIFE).

Surrealism for lunch.

Mouth so full of lies,
Tend to black your eyes.
Just keep them closed,
Keep praying,
Just keep waiting.

Last night I was put to bed shortly after eight. A novel idea, considering lately every time I sit down I'm just about asleep in my place, and I tend to seek out hard shoulders and warm shirts and I instantly shut down, worn out, exhausted. So damned tired.

I slept until six this morning and I actually feel rested. I don't think I've felt this rested since long before the snow came.

I looked in the mirror this morning and I was seventeen years old again, frowning at the pretty face, tucking back a lock of errant white blonde hair that never behaves. Frowning at the darker circles standing out against alabaster flesh like pools of black water in white snow.

I am seventeen again and I'll never be more than this/I'll be everything more than this.

The world in front of me, my favorite music to score my life, boys on the side, the sun behind me, a light wind out in front, pulling me along the road. In my hand, clutched with disbelief, my invitation to my twentieth high school reunion.

My life is a mirage. My days, dirty glass beads on a frayed white string. My love, all the warmth you can gather in one place, and be ready now because things will change so quickly everything will scatter if you're not so careful.

Brave are those who stand in the shadow of the Big Bad Wolf.

The battle you picked was so one sided.
Now dependent on me the one you invited.
Beg, plead, scream.
For redemption, for forgiveness.
Beg, plead, scream.
Sorry I'm not listening.

Welcome to your vice.
Good luck with life.

The children returned yesterday with their doting and well-behaved Uncle, having logged miles of coast and rain and sun and wind, and I could let out the breath I've held for a week straight. I still recognized them, they still recognized me, and with abandon they saw fit to knock me down at the airport, jumping on me, forgetting how big they are in their rush for familiar life, familiar arms. I know how that feels.

Eyes on me. I know how that feels too.

I had the wall of knights there to play bodyguards calm my nerves and I thanked Caleb for taking good care of the kids and for doing all this. I did it professionally and with the ice-cold calm of a thousand icebergs and then I ignored him when he asked about Ben. I took the kids' hands and followed PJ to the truck, leaving the others to collect the kids' things with my brother-in-law and I did really good because he looked really good. He always goes to the coast for a visit and instantly adopts Cole's style. Beard. Jeans. Hoodie. Flannel. Fitting in too well and standing out too much.

Drives me fucking nuts.

But I was good because under all those handsome genetics beats the heart of my smooth, wealthy, prolific nightmare. The wolf in Hugo Boss. You think I'm going to forget that NOW?

Nope. Not this time around.

No one else did either. I thought Christian would have to knock Lochlan out and leave him home when we set out. Thankfully everyone was good.

It's a first.

Status Reports.

This morning I'm still riding on previous highs. Movies with faces I know almost as well as the ones I see every day in person. Celebrating new lines and graceful changes. Music that weaves in and out of my days, notes punctuated against the backdrop of muted noise that I travel through like fog around the shore.

Food so decadent yesterday I relented and wound up spending most of the afternoon and evening drunk on prime rib and lobster and wine and chocolate. I may never eat again, and jumped out at the gas pump hours later to get some fresh air and move around a little, if only to shake some of it down into my knees where there may have been some space remaining.

Plotting spring running shoes to buy this week and planning even more paint colors as we vow to finish the house this year and finally, a new, very quiet dream emerges, one of packing suitcases once again to clutch an international flight for a view that is unfamiliar yet comforting, a far away place we've decided to return to. Don't know when or how, but it's there, a new pot with a new dish, simmering quietly on the backburner of the dual-fuel stove that seems to be my life.

Hands so distracted they haven't had time to tremble or fumble. Busy hands. Chores and distractions choking off the flutters with flurries of activities all hellbent on filling voids that have become chasms. And instead of going through, or falling in, or just sitting there on the edge waiting for a change or a bridge or a tiny airplane to get me to the other side, I've been doing something different. Uncharacteristic and downright risky.

I don't know that I take risks. Everything is sewn up so tight. Double-stitched, securely knotted, evenly-spaced and then I burn a hole through the fabric and attempt to squeeze through it.

This time, well, just, no.

I packed up as much as I could carry, and I'm inching my way around the edge. There are no obstacles in the way, I can do this the whole way around and then I'll be on the other side. it's so slow-going. Progress takes forever. The ledge is narrow and crumbling slightly. Some places I hold my breath. Others I can sit and rest. But every time I finally give in to the urge to look back and see if I have made it anywhere, I'm surprised to see that I have. The starting place is hard to see now. Dammit, it's working. It's narrow and I'm terrified and I'm shaking because I'm afraid of heights and it gets worse as I go instead of better but there's no other way. I see no planes, I can't build a bridge and if I fall I know damn well that eight lives have been used up and I'm on my last.

I miss Ben. I miss him more than you could possibly understand. It feels like he's dead but he isn't and my brain wants to take the easy way out and just mark an x over his face and Bridget's Survivor gameshow will continue with nightly tribal councils and challenges designed to make the cream rise to the top but surprise! The game has changed and we're bringing this contestant back. Voted off but a second chance looms and this time Ben has plans to win because the stakes are high. So high. I'm balanced on one of them right now. On my brain, on this ledge, with these analogies tightly clutched in my fists.

(I am the teacup on the ruler on the hairbrush on the ball on the bowling pin on the seal's nose held by the clown on the unicycle at centre ring. My circus never seems to end or stop or pack up and leave this town for the next. We're a permanent installation and admission is free.)

My children will be home in an hour and I would bounce off the walls, but if I do that, I'll fall off my ledge. Instead I'll stop here and breath deeply and wait to hold them in my arms again, and then when I've rested enough and they are ready, we'll hold hands and resume the slow progress around this hole.

Full circles for a Saturday morning.

Lay beside me, tell me what they've done
Speak the words I want to hear, to make my demons run
The door is locked now, but it's open if you're true
If you can understand the me, than I can understand the you.

Lay beside me, under wicked sky
Through black of day, dark of night, we share this pair of lives
The door cracks open, but there's no sun shining through
Black heart scarring darker still, but there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining.

I didn't realize just how good our seats are for the Metallica show this fall until five minutes ago. This is awesome. So, so awesome.

1080p in a 480i world.

This morning the little monster that rolls out of bed that gets coffee poured into it until it coughs up your favorite princess is very excited indeed.

Cough. Sputter.

Hallo, world. It's Paul Walker day.

Oh don't my boys HATE these days with a passion. It's the one day of each year (gee, thanks, Paul, for making these movies with huge gaps in between. Could you stop that? Thank you, yours truly, Bridget) when I get to happily drag a bunch of them to the movies with me so I can see Paul's gorgeous face on the big screen.

Required trailer goodness.

I've had a crush on him for nine years now (don't know why he hasn't called yet. Usually it doesn't take this long). Ever since I saw him in The Skulls, in which, ironically, he played a character named Caleb, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed him at all.

It was love at first sight.

And it's tolerated because I have put up with certain blistering crushes on Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Selma Blair, and Megan Fox, among others.

Thankfully a few of them also adore Amy Smart, Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman, which makes it bearable, because I have crushes on those girls too. I just don't tell the guys because then their brains go into overdrive imagining all that hot girl-on-girl action and they might burst into gratuitous, perfectly acceptable and encouraged flames.

We just can't have that. If my boys implode then who the heck is going to take me to the movies so I can see Paul?

Yes, I know you're still picturing bad, bad things in your head. Stop it. Stop it now.

Drive-by Thursdays (Nice teeth, Bridget).

Man she saves me
To this day I don't know why
She picked me up
When I was down on the road
With the wind when it blowed

I think I surprised the boys when I said I could listen to Citizen Cope for a week straight. I think I also surprised them when I came out of the dentist with no cavities, a wonderful feat considering I'm loathe to give up my jolly ranchers, skittles and rockets and I'm also loathe to floss.

I surprised them once again when I threw a few wicked knuckleballs of snow during the impromptu snowball fight on our street. I only did that because I knew PJ was aiming for a head shot and I'm having a good hair day, I was hoping I could knock him out before he could land one.

I surprised myself when, confronted with those crazy butter curls at the restaurant we hardly ever go to for lunch because it costs a fortune, I had restraint and didn't make any butternauts at all.

There's a void now.

I'll make some at dinner to make up for it.

I surprised August by picking a fight with him over Rascall Flatt's song, Me and my Gang. I swear to God I have heard the chorus before. I was singing along the first time I heard it. I was like, decent cover. I was told it wasn't a cover. It has to be. If it isn't a remake, cover or at least a sample of a song from the seventies I'll eat my record player.

I'm home for ten minutes to change (wet. snowy. princess.) and my teeth STILL hurt. Ow.

Ow ow ow.

That is all. I'm going back out. See ya!

"Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool." -Josh Billings

This morning PJ called me very early and asked me how I slept, if I wanted him to bring breakfast over and if I really wanted to go for a run with fifteen centimetres of fresh white stuff on the ground. My answers were okay, yes, and no, he had a point. Under the white fluffies were hazardous, icy spots and I'm in no mood to hurt myself like I did the last time. Thank God for being double-jointed. He was about to hang up but he paused. He sounded troubled.

What's up, PJ?

If I tell you something will you keep it between us?

Of course. Unless I'd be better served to retain plausible deniability.

No, Bridge, come on. This is important.

Tell me what's going on, PJ.

I'm...

Pregnant?

How did you know?

You've been unusually cranky and eating for two.

Yes, well, I was hoping to keep this a secret.

PJ, I think everyone knows, you've been eating for two for years.

How long can this pregnancy last?

Who's the mother?

You are.

I thought we were more careful.

Remember that time you sneezed on me in the truck?

Oh, yes. I didn't think you could get pregnant from that. I mean, I only sneezed once.

It's a myth. There's an outside chance it could still be Christian's. He picked up the wrong coffee once.

I always thought you two would make beautiful children together.

Yeah, me too.

Really?

He's got that great red hair.

I was still laughing half and hour after I hung up, when PJ appeared in the back porch bearing a large bag from McDonald's. We're not running. What I would most like to do today is wait for that magic phone call from Lochlan, who can read better than he listens, telling me that living at John's house isn't going to be the new plan and that he is going home to be with his daughter. Cross your fingers.

Me? I had a good night last night. Andrew and Duncan came over and convinced Lochlan to go to John's, (okay, fine, they MADE him go) and then we made some pizza and watched a little TV and they were gone by eleven with promises that speed dial was my friend, as always, and they didn't care what the reason was, I was to use it if I felt like it. I had five similar promises before midnight, including one from Ben, who volunteered Daniel in his place and seemed completely unfazed by the drama because he knows we make it. We cause it and we stir it up and let it boil over and sometimes we bake it dry. He and I laughed and talked a little bit about how the children were doing and how the boys were doing and then he said that he missed me.

I was doing so well up until that point, you know? So well. I blubbered that three weeks without him was too long and I didn't have a date to look forward to because he doesn't know when he's coming home and this was too hard and Lochlan was on my case and I was messed up and I don't want to be messed up anymore.

He told me I was perfect. That he would be home soon. That he couldn't picture spending his life with anyone else, ever, in a million years. And then he said to watch out for tomorrow because it was April Fool's Day and PJ would probably call me and tell me that he was pregnant or something.

Bystander effect.

Change the colors of the sky
And open up to
The ways you made me feel alive
The ways I loved you.
For all the things that never died
To make it through the night
Love will find you
What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me
all that I was meant to be?
What if our love never went away?
What if it's lost behind
words we could never find?

It isn't fair to chip away at my resolve or to yank the rug out from under my feet. You forced me to stumble until my hands found the wall and I pressed my back to it and slid down, until I was rocking on my stupid high heels and hidden in the shadow of the wall that cuts off the headlights as they pass the window on the stairwell. I put my arms up over my head so that I was as small as I could possibly be and how is that I'm still the biggest obstacle to you? How is that no one can move forward or sideways even? How is that you can't be kind in a time when I'm relying on you to help keep my spirits up? You took them instead and throttled them right off, drowning them in an icy puddle for good measure.

You admired me and then had the nerve to chastise me for wearing ridiculous shoes for your ridiculous night. Anger always worn on your sleeve for me, right beside the love, because I grew up and left you. Because you pushed me away because you were scared and I just figured that out last night.

You were scared.

Scared because for once you couldn't control every last emotion you had, scared because you didn't like the depth of what you felt and scared because you weren't the one people stared at any more. All those warning signs and you still chose to remain within reach, maybe because you couldn't help it or maybe because I couldn't. If your memory is that bad, just remember one thing.

I wasn't the one who wanted to let go.

This is your fault. Instead of being a coward, instead of shoving me away, you could have been a man like your friends were. You could have saved me from three lifetimes of pain and instead you're here to feast on my carcass like some kind of sick fucking vulture.

Every last time there was something difficult to do you weren't the one to do it, instead doubling back and reaping the spoils in your throwaway manner, forcing others to stand up and be men while you acted as if you were above all that. Well, you weren't, and I begged you to step in and show that perfection in your adult form, because you can't coast on sunburned-freckle fast-car teenage-curls forever.

Maybe you're the one who isn't strong and that's why I can hide from you, still on my feet, curled into a ball, avoiding the carnage when you land on your ass. Christ, I can see it from here but somehow you don't. Somehow you're blind, caught in a bright light but can't you see that everyone is passing you? They're stepping around you and in front of you like you're not even there.

I asked for one thing from all of you to help me through this. One simple thing. One thing to help me ignore my pliable resolve and keep me focused on the end in sight. A bigger picture for once instead of the here and now. Don't take too much. No looking back, no stepping sideways, no doubling around and sneaking into the dark to see me through to the morning. I asked for help because I needed help and instead you've taken advantage. I wanted one single happy ending in my life and instead you've worked hard to see that it never happens for me. Is it worth it? Can you sleep at night knowing that I don't feel safe with you anymore, knowing that I never know which end is up when I'm with you and that I'm not able to make any decisions at all anymore? Knowing that I'll never pick you?

And then you show your beautiful contempt for me and you look down your nose and tell me I'm slow and indecisive and irresponsible. Exactly as you raised me to be. You take pride in the fact that I tremble when you touch me, instead of seeing why I really do it. You refuse to see anything but what's right in front of you. You're as ruined as I am but there's no reason to your destruction so capitalizing on mine isn't going to save you anymore than this will save me. When are you going to get out of my way so I can stand up again? Who's going to let go first?

It should be me, only I can't do it, and that's why I asked you to do it for me. Why didn't you just tell me you couldn't do it either? Why didn't you tell me I was the strong one? That's it's the courage that makes me flutter? You forced me to grow up fast and yet you haven't changed a bit. Get out. Just go. Just take your leave from my life and stop coming back. I can't do this, I need you to. It can't be that hard to let me go, hell, all your other friends have done it. Just have some fucking courage for once in your miserable life and listen to me, please, Lochlan.

For once.