Sleeping in the car.

Hold me closer let me be
Hold me closer let me go away
Barely know you know my name
Trip the witch and ride the shame

Good morning.

It's very early and we're going to some sort of function that sees me attempting to put perfect lip gloss on at seven in the morning. I'm not sure I enjoy these very dressed-up events that require me to be alert when my body hasn't had time to acknowledge the coffee I sacrificed to it yet and sleep was in short supply thanks to a combination of a late night outside talking, the dog being awake half the night, the city on a Friday night in full glorious stupidity and Dalton and Emery showing up and bringing this event to us on a day when the larger plan was to..well, rest today.

Instead, God no, I get to sit here in this dress that highlights the fact that I've been sick (it is very black and I am so very pale) and it's a teensy bit snug (shut up) and the shoes just HURT (but they look HOT) and I didn't paint my nails and my ringlets are falling out and Lochlan is staring at me with that Oh, fresh-baked princess kind of appreciation and Ben is calm and happy and handsome this morning and the kids get to go play all morning with their friends and I mentioned Dalton was here which is huge because he was supposed to be gone for so long and sometimes the calendar just straight out tells bald-faced lies and that's okay with me.

God, I hope they have more coffee there. I can't even think.

And Emery. Christ, I haven't even introduced him to you yet.

Later.

Going now. Have seven whole minutes to sleep in the crook of Ben's elbow in the car, and I'm going to take it. Somehow Mike is delivering us there? No idea. Like I said, coffee isn't activating Bridget and Bridget is not going to be so sparkling today. Have to go on looks, I guess.

Unglued in a really good way.

All is not lost. I just scored the best block of seats in the house for Stone Temple Pilots.

Come home to mama, boys.

Addictive.

What a long week. I'm capping it off with the cold from hell, as that's where they are born. I lost my voice a few times already, a squeaky Kirstie Alley kind of twist to my words that everyone finds so amusing. Once my head was upright and there was coffee poured in it, I feel a little more capable. Have already cleaned up a bunch of things and am ticking through the inevitable list on the counter because I don't remember things anymore. I'm going to be the old man in that mental illness commercial in a few years, the one who buys lemons every day and there are lemons on the shelves and in shoes and pockets, too.

Oh hell yes, that will be me.

Ben fixed my iPhone. It is lovely. Just one or two little issues remain keeping me from loving it. Namely the low volume, lack of ringtone assignments for text messaging and horrific reconciliation with my email on the PC. But it works and that's the main, awesome part. I am leaning toward keeping the Berries going until July though when my contract rolls forward, so we have a backup iPhone in case he or one of the children drop HIS phone. Because shit happens and those phones are not indestructible.

Of course I can break things with my mind, so perhaps these are issues mere mortals never have to experience.

I told you I was special. You didn't believe me. Ha.

This is the last hot day of the summer. I plan to get some groceries and then some vodka and sit out on my Victorian stone patio and relish the last rays of the sun all afternoon with my love. I haven't seen him. There is no time that we have, only that which we borrow, and then we have to return it or pay fines we can't afford. No vacation loans, no renewals, because this is a bestseller.

It could be a keeper, but no one will allow it. I learn so slowly to do for me, it's an impossible task sometimes, like climbing a mountain without shoes on, like flying without visible wings.

How could you?

I feel perpetually left behind. Like everyone took their life instruction books and ran off and I can't find a book, no one included me when they were given out, there wasn't one with my name on it and I don't know what to do. I have no answers, just the try. Always the try. I've gotten good at failing first, almost to the point where I have gotten reckless and I do the opposite of what I plan to do because hell, it can't be any riskier.

Nope.

No riskier.

Riskier doesn't look like a word.

Who cares.

Loneliness is an incredible, completely mental condition. Lobotomy for one please, because it's all in my head. So the next time you grab your handbook and take off for life or escape into life or hide out from life, for Gods sake, take me with you.

Please.

I wish I could see inside his head. Sometimes I wish they could see inside mine. Open books but muddled storylines. Tales crafted with words pretty enough to obscure the truth and hide the ugly realities from our gentle eyes.

Time doesn't stop for us.

Scott, this time I'm kidnapping you to add to my collection.

What a day so far. Smashed my ankle on a railroad tie, waiting to hear about a financial matter that could save me hundreds but probably won't, and I have no earthly idea which side of the licence plate I'm supposed to put the renewal sticker on for my car and far too proud to ask.

I'm waiting to sneak a peek at Ben's truck when he comes home and then hopefully go from there. It's confusing here. Back home it was simple. But back home we also had a single laminated card for a license and here it's a three-piece dealie with a laminated card and a paper card with a bunch of information and then a plastic sleeve. It does not fit in a wallet.

I don't complain though, every other single thing is easier here for some reason. Except learning to live with the cold. I see this coming week we'll hit our first zero for overnight temperatures and so I should be covering my gardens until I have them wrapped for the winter.

It's difficult to think of all this on a beautiful day like today.

When Ben gets home from running around with the boys, we're going out for Thai and then will grab some coffee on the way back. Maybe if I'm lucky we'll get to check out some other things along the way. Putter around, drive around in the truck listening to music with the past looming large in the rearview mirror and the future laid out on the highway in front of us, invisible roadkill we will drive over leaving marks on the asphalt but not even feeling a bump. I'll wear my seatbelt pulled tight and low over my hips and never find a comfortable way to put my head back to close my eyes because the headrest is so high and I'll have my window all the way down to feel the warm wind.

I'll forget about the sticker and the new ankle bruise and all the other stuff.

Just for five minutes.

Five whole minutes.

Jacob always said it was there, I just wouldn't claim it, always giving it to someone else first, a narcissistic martyr of the highest degree. You know you are loved and you exploit it and then make it impossible for anyone to do anything different.

This is my fault.

Over two decades now with the barest shift in the roster, the changing of the guard and we're still here. Hell, Jake is still here if you come knocking on the darker, windier days. My link to Cole comes through Satan, because depraved and evil older brothers are better than cake sometimes until you reach too far and find out you got quite badly burned indeed. I have zero business playing in Caleb's power playground but I persist because he appeals to all those parts of me that you only see on those days.

So there. Part of it is putting myself in the line of sight so that Caleb stops corrupting Benjamin, because he can so he does. He thinks it's fun. Pull the strings. Puppet, dance. If I take Caleb's focus off Ben then maybe, possibly Ben can get away.

Part of it is like I said before. Caleb brings the evil. Bridget has never pretended not to like that. To a degree. There's the catch. I like it until it goes too far. Don't we all.

Part of it is because we're irrevocably tied together in more ways than we can count and so it's a long slow dance of agony until eventually one of us will die.

I know who goes first, for once.

Oh dear. I've gone and darkened the sky just a little again. I had to, the glare was making it so difficult to see. I'm going to go now anyway. We're headed out for lunch now. I'm wearing flats because my ankle is sore and it will be lovely because I'll wind up with armpit head from constantly being tucked under various and sundry overwarm boy arms.

Worse things could happen.

My Dayquil could wear off.

I need one of these for Ben.

An Elizabethan collar. Maybe a psychological one and then he couldn't tear open the wounds in his soul every ten minutes. Oh, the analogies I can make right now but I won't because my eyes are closing.

The last load of laundry is in. The giant tattooed Benjamin is upstairs fast asleep under my Leafs blanket and I'm contemplating a cup of coffee. Just a regular one, nothing fancy. It turns out Bonham has an ear infection and some eye problems and scratchies from having too many baths with a dog shampoo that doesn't like his skin and so we have drops and washes and plans to not keep him fresh smelling all that much. I have this feeling this little dog is going to give us a run for our money, literally, for the next decade or so. That's ok. He's a pretty good dog, and soon he'll feel alot better, I hope.

Ben too.

Puppy has barfies. News at eleven.

Hectic day today. Kids to school. My parents left to catch a flight out an hour ago. We have to take the dog to the vet (terribly swollen eyelid, scratchies and pukeys too) and then I have a mountain of sheets and towels and all our regular stuff to wash. At some point. Probably long into the dinner hour and beyond, tonight. Maybe we'll go out for dinner. Who knows? Depends on what's up with Bonham and if we can leave him alone for a bit.

It was a good visit. Tense in a few moments for me as Ben tried to work his ass off downtown at the studio and then come home and be a social animal for a few hours, usually missing dinner but picking up right afterwards. He was too tired for all that but he did it anyway. And my parents had fun. That was all that mattered. We needed a good pulled-together visit and it happened, finally.

The really good news is the next twelve days are all mine. He will be home. Not just home but here. In the house even. Resting and sleeping and having fun and hanging out. Time we need. Then it all goes to hell at the first week of October again.

So I will just enjoy the next couple of weeks instead and not worry about anything else.

Well, except the dog and the wagon and the ghosts and all the usual things. But right now I have the sads for my puppy. So he takes first watch. Then I'll deal with the rest. Oh, and I have a cold even. It was six degrees this morning! But HEY, I CAN BE POSITIVE TOO!

Pft.

Department of defense

The most amusing thing that has happened all week long has been Lochlan and Benjamin fighting, in code, over my head and around my parents without coming to blows. I bet by tomorrow they'll be up to hammerfists and headlocks but for now they've got their nonsensical phrases and low growly threats that they've dressed in costume for the occasion.

As always, Lochlan is adamant that I don't put myself in Caleb's line of fire, and Ben..well, he doesn't so much care. Heh. As long as everyone sticks to the rules, of course.

It's jealousy on Lochlan's part, and he won't deny it. He would much rather be the one fighting over time with me instead of being left out altogether.

So I can safely say it's not a love triangle.

We're making fucking pentagons over here.

Cherries and bergamot.

Late last evening, a package was delivered. Mike brought it, because it was from Caleb. We didn't spend last evening with him but he wanted to make his presence known anyway. He is hoping to be back in town this evening to join all of us for dinner and put forth his good graces to my folks, seeming all the while existing to make the other guys seem less smooth, less accomplished and less pulled-together.

Of course the package did exactly what it was intended to do, confuse everyone. Easy enough for me, difficult for everyone else. Inside the box was a new Blackberry Bold, a bottle of Cartier perfume, Delices, and a Breitling, my initials engraved on the back. A smaller, more feminine version of his own. There was a text message on the phone already. I read it and put everything back into the box and slid the box onto a shelf.

I go back to work November 1st. As Caleb's assistant. Wearing my new perfume and using the new Blackberry which will be a work-only device. Just like last year.

I will most likely return the watch, though I'm not exactly dumb, once something has been engraved, it cannot be returned. It would be the single most expensive piece of jewelry I have ever owned and it's not right that it wasn't given to me by Ben. The last initial is not his last name, the one I use now. And I've wanted one of these watches my whole life. Hell, I want a lot of things that aren't practical. Doesn't mean I will get them. So yes, I think this goes back. And that will be it for defiance for the first little while because I would rather get off on the right foot this time around so I'll comply and wear the perfume and use the phone and dress the way Caleb likes. Like a doll.

Save for my decade old stainless steel watch with the scratched glass and the mother of pearl dial. On it's seventh battery and fourth band, no less. Because new watches don't work with me. I am magnetic or something. We've gone over this before. Would the new one work? It isn't cool for me to even try it on. It isn't from Ben. It must go back.

That would be proper, my mother says. But she doesn't get it either. I think I will keep things that way.

Don't even ask me what the text message said.

In absentia, in situ.

One of the hardest things about having so many guests this week is that it makes it hard to find time to post. I've been washing bowls and doing laundry and organizing activities and keeping the children from melting down with all the attention and basically enjoying things. But not posting. In a few days I'll be back okay? I had great plans to sit down for a bit and write today but Ben just called, he is on his way home and so I need to go brush my hair and put on my lip gloss and my smile instead. So whatever chance I had is over now. See you Wednesday unless some major downtime comes my way before then. Twitter might be more exciting. Then again, maybe it won't be.

You can live without me for a couple more days, right?

I know, I didn't think so either.