Learning as we go.

Daddy's little girl paints the world with her magic wand

Let's see now. It's Sunday night. The sun is going down which means the ghosts are waking up, Sam yelled at me (how could you have him in the house!), Ben and Caleb are arguing over Lochlan (which yeah, well, interesting) and I somehow have to tell Ruth that Molly died.

At least once a month Ruth and I snuggle down on the couch and watch Uptown Girls. It's our favorite afternoon activity when she's not feeling well or we're tired or just because. We know all the dialogue and the words to the songs. We cry when Molly or Ray cries onscreen. Now when we see it it's going to be unbearable, and it's just one more reminder that joy is measured in moments, and you can't let them go to waste.

I really hope Ben and Caleb can put their tempers away for the children's sakes. For my sake. So far so good. You know, I don't care how awful a person is or how much out of my comfort zone I end up, Christmas + alone is just not a combination I will let anyone take on. Even Satan.

I'm hoping for a peaceful supper and an escape kind of night. I have a couple of movies lined up and I'd like to learn to pass the time instead of enduring it. You know, taking my own damned advice.

No room at the inn.

My actual Christmas bonus wasn't the money put into funds that might mature when I do in order that I don't wind up playing airplane tag with kids in tow. Caleb isn't dumb. That money, along with any other money save for about a hundred dollars in my purse is out of reach unless I ask for it now. Mainly because if I have it, we will run. I don't lie.

The bonus was supposed to be Caleb leaving town for the holidays.

I was going to drive him to the airport myself this morning. Or rather, Ben would have, since it's slippery today and snowing.

And yet here he is. Still in town.

Why?

There was snow in Montreal. So much of it that rather than mess around with changing his plans or possibly getting stuck there when he is on a tight schedule, he opted to stay in town. Right. This is the part where I point out that since he's here, we'll have to see him and since there is nothing more depressing than a hotel during the holidays so...

He's staying here.

Sigh. I know.

He already asked where I keep the clothing steamer.

Umm.

Do you have an iron?

Um, nope.

Jesus, Bridget.

We're not barbarians. I don't iron. Period. Not anymore. I have. I will sometimes. Like once a year. If that. So when the iron looked slightly rusty I pitched it. So he's going to have his laundry picked up to be done. Which is fine. I would have loved to shrink all his favorite bespoke shirts and lose one sock out of every pair but really it's better this way.

Wait until he finds out the thread count in my sheets are close to zero.

Wait until the dog poops by the door instead of outside. It happens once a week or so.

Wait until he finds out I reheat coffee sometimes, if the boys are busy and no one brings any home for me or takes me out for some.

Wait until he really understands the gravity of staying in a hundred-year-old house with seven other people and an emergency-grade shortage of bathroom facilities.

Maybe, since it's Christmas, I should cut him some slack. I considered this briefly on my way into church and then as we were stepping around a group on the icy steps, both Caleb and Ben reached out, each placing a familiar hand on my back, one of which was very quickly withdrawn when treated with the dark flash of Ben's temper, ever so quietly over my head.

And so today instead of praying for patience, I was forced to pray feverishly and silently that no one murders Caleb in his sleep this Christmas season.

Ironic.

Right now.

We saw Avatar yesterday afternoon. And evening. It's a good almost three hours long, which is usually a lot for me. I only technically hold a thimble-full of pee and couldn't make it through King Kong even though it starred Naomi Watts and I have a huge crush on Naomi.

Whoops.

Okay! Avatar. It was so beautiful! The forest at night was amazing. I wanted to go there. I wanted the people to be happy and safe and I cared about them. Which is pretty significant. You forget they are aliens because humans are the aliens in this movie, the bad guys, the one ruining everything. I held my breath when the Na'vi flew through the skies and I cheered for them when they fought against their obstacles, both within their ranks and without. It was an adventure, an event, something not to be missed. Go see it, okay? You'll be glad you did.

Today toward moving we took the three very fat, very ancient goldfish to the pet store to be re-adopted. Then we tore down the tank and took it out of the house. It's very quiet on the main level now. I'm so used to the burbling and knocking noises from the tank and the ambient light from the corner of the room where it sat. Now Ben's guitars are stacked there. They will not be re-adopted but instead packed lovingly and the good ones carried on the plane or in the truck, we still have not decided if we will go by land or by air. It's too bad we can't fly on giant bonded-to winged critters like in the movie.

We also went for a drive around the city, a big loop from west to south and back again, stopping for coffee and donuts with Christmas sprinkles and Boston Cremes, which I lick all the filling out of and Ben makes lewd comments the entire time. I am still enjoying my coffee because I put it in my big Starbucks steel mug so it stays hot for days. So yummy. I'm hoping for equal yummies by going out for dinner and then maybe another drive to look at the lights.

I have started to work on this years resolutions for January first and beyond. I believe I have gotten off easy in the past. 'Stop missing Jake' is no longer the fallback goal of my life maybe. In around the edges there is light. It's faint but it glints just enough to be noticed. I have to work now. I have to make plans and look forward to things and move.

Dammit, Bridget, move, he says. Go, now, silly princess. Stop missing me.

I'm trying!

The balance of power shifts and it's awkward and exposing. Frightening when I let it get to me but empowering when I don't. Right now it's 75% frightening and 25% empowering but I'm working on a 60-40 split the other way. Trying to keep my eye on the prize.

Damn...wish my prize was Naoooooomi.

Haha.

Uninterrupted.

I'm going to check out of today, which hasn't gone all that smoothly but it may be because of the chip on my shoulder and go worship the velvet curtains and mid-black screen of the movie theater for three speechless hours of escape. Sorely needed, and long overdue.

Movies are my escape and they're been few and far between as of late. I'll be able to rectify that once Ben is away but for now I'm kind of a barnacle on his underbelly, content to cling and feed off his existence, a pretty parasite of the unnoticed kind. That is the hardest part of this move. I can pack things, I can arrange for things, I can coordinate things. I cannot process being away from Ben for weeks at a time anymore. Maybe I used to, maybe I never did.

God, this sucks.

On the upside, the kids are off for Christmas break, Ben is home for the next two weeks straight and okay, no, I really need the escape. Bye.

I'll have a review of Avatar later on. Possibly tonight.

Sweeping out the holly cart.

Leave me here forever in the dark.

I ran this morning. It feels like it's been ages, and my head felt heavy, my knees felt unreliable and the mittens I grabbed on the way out the door were the wrong ones and I wound up running with clenched fists and had to work very hard at keeping myself from jamming my hands under my arms. Have you tried to run like that? Exactly. At the speed I travel I need my arms for balance.

I can't keep up with Corey or Dalton. They maintained a two-block lead. Ben and Lochlan ran half a block behind me. I was the outcast and so I turned up my music and let a different Ben serenade me this morning.

And damn. I really love this record. My Ben still maintains this Ben is a lightweight. Benjamin is jealous of mainstream rock success maybe. The kind that his very incredibly heavy metal does not seem to enjoy save for large parts of Eastern Europe and a niche market here in the Americas. My Ben could turn on all that but he won't sell out to things he doesn't believe in and neither will I. I'm not saying the other Ben did, but the other Ben's music is just that much more palatable for radio, and for Bridget's worn out, broken ears.

There's room for everyone.

I think my Ben is jealous. I'm not sure I've ever quoted a song from his old band. Wait. I did once and some of you got it and I freaked out and left the internet. Then I came back, because fuck you, this is my page. So there.

I don't entertain the email questions about my Ben any more just like I don't sell out my blog for product placement or paid reviews or whatever else people ask me to do because that's not what I want here and I was royally pissed to see several formerly well-loved and anticipated blogs go that route recently. Ah well. Delete, delete.

To each his own, right? Room for everyone. Just not my thing. Just like I am not your thing, and that's okay too. I'm not dumb. I know you read it because you're curious. Everyone is curious. Even me.

So, back to my run.

Outcast novelist bookended by beards in a morning run that felt downright warm compared to temperatures as of late that had PJ offering me the stupid treadmill because he didn't want to chase me into the frostbite. I declined and ate cookies instead. Do you know I paid for those cookies this morning by bringing them in the form of extra pounds on my run. I will not make that mistake again. (Hey, mom? The cookies you sent are gone. Please send more. Thank you, love, your youngest daughter.) Damn cookies. They are so good.

Give me a sign
There's something buried in the words
Give me a sign
Your tears are adding to the flood
Just give me a sign

I'm taking some of today for non-moving things. I'm going to wrap presents, holing myself up in the library with the paper and the bows and the sharp scissors which I will be permitted as long as I return them to the keeper when I am through. Invisible tape and a black Sharpie for the tags. Silver and black for the colors this Christmas and a separate hidden roll of Victorian sleigh patterned paper for the gifts from Santa because my children still believe in the magic of Christmas, just like we do.

Just like you should, maybe.

This afternoon I will go to the box offices and pick up our Avatar tickets for tomorrow and our Switchfoot tickets for after New Years. Yes, I know, so not heavy but I really really like them, they sing my battle cries. All of them.

I have one more moving estimate to collect for Caleb (because I want to make sure you have the best of everything, princess.) and tomorrow is the final day of school for the year and soon the house will revert back to the chaotic bliss that it turns into when the children are home, from the shadow-filled mausoleum it is when they are away. Good. We have all kinds of plans to exact upon this city so we can wring the very best out of it before we go.

Cole asked me to do that. Last night when his hands slid around my neck as I slept into wakefulness, breath choked away from me because he's always liked to keep it, he reminded me that I am always running on ice that is thin, and resolve that is too fresh to stick and that there will be a fall, eventually. But he never says where and he never says when. It's always positively wonderful to get confirmation that leaving him was smart and that I have to keep the guards in place for his brother because I like evil.

I let his hands slide over my eyes (because I want to make sure you have the best of everything, princess.) so all I could see was the dark and I could see his face smiling at me and telling me to run. To leave this place where he died, leave the cold, leave the lights in the sky and the roads that go nowhere and live because he can't and so he needs me to. I'm not sure why Jacob let him take direction. I haven't heard from Jacob lately. I will ask.

You tell that to Lochlan or Ben and they frown and look at each other and it's almost comical because I highly doubt Cole talks to them in their sleep and that's okay because he's mine and they would never listen to him anyway except for the very major things like who gets Bridget when everybody dies?

We're ALL still waiting for the answer to that one.

And you thought it was neat that my Christmas ribbons are black. Bet you changed your mind just now.

Ben gets that look. That Jakey-resolve look that says he's going to fix everything and then he realizes he can't. So instead he does the best he can, and he knows that when push comes to shove, I can outrun anything.

He believes in me, just like he believes in ghosts and the spirit of Christmases past and Corey the wonder-gazelle, half human, half flying beast. Man, he goes so fast. I'm never running with him again.

I'm kidding, Corey.

Everything else is serious.

The mistress of disarmament.

After nine hours of running around doing things and being nice to people I am once again taking a few minutes to sit and have a coffee and do my daily word-arranging for your consideration.

Nine hours! What the hell? I'm a writer (read: unemployed). I really don't get how people with jobs get anything at all done. My bobby pins are off to you, in lieu of a hat. You have my admiration.

I've gotten twenty letters of thanks this morning from everyone born in the seventies for reminding them of that Chris De Burgh song last night. You're welcome. It is amazing, isn't it? It's made me cry every time I've ever heard it, starting when I was four years old. Neat.

I've done a hell of a lot of cleaning and organizing toward the move, and entertained the second of three moving estimators. I'm practically a pro this time around. Great fun. I'm feeling better about the packing part. I think I have that part under control.

Not sure I will ever be a pro at Missing Ben. And Ben has been gone a billion times before. That was then, this is now. Now he is mine and I finally have him to revolve around, tiny planet-moon that I am, without distractions and bullshit and whoops, there he goes again. He is very grumpy today. It isn't helping but I have been a worse pain in the ass than usual.

Ah well. Hopefully the time will go fast. I was talking to a military wife today who moves every nine months or so and she was incredibly supportive and encouraging and oddly it helped. I'm a detail person. The boys fly by the seat of their pants. They assume all will be well and I ask questions and organize things so that I don't have to assume. Otherwise I just wind up picturing the worst or wishing I had asked more questions.

I try to temper my rigidity with honesty though. The very first thing I do is thank people for their help and point out I am apprehensive/worried and then everyone is rocked off their guard and I get actual help. If it's a gift I don't know how it translates but it's always been the way I do business. Don't give me your spiel, give me your heart. Maybe that's how I wind up collecting so many, I disarm.

Now that the coffee is gone and the words have arrived I notice the children should be home any minute now. It's a lot warmer today, still cold by most sane people's standards. I am feeling better too. I still have a bad headache but the queasies and achies have all but vanished after three days of yuck. Whatever it is thankfully moves fast. No fever anymore either which is nice and I managed to achieve a full six and a half hours of sleep last night.

The sun is going down. Early next week is the winter solstice and then I will await the longer days with hope. I don't enjoy the very short days. It seems to make everything harder altogether. The first day of winter marks those precious moments of daylight that are tacked on to morning and night and I count every last one of them.

Every last one.

Shhhhh.

Ben is singing A Spaceman came Travelling.

Awesomeness.

Better for it.

Today I have the usual confidence daylight seems to bring.

I'm wrapping presents and cleaning and doing things toward the move and I'm battling an epic headache and chills and flu and really I'm thinking this is just all more life experience that I'm supposed to get and then maybe I'll be promoted to the next level.

Oh, wait, this isn't Warcraft and I don't get to level up. I won't be sainted or martyred and apparently Dirt Devil is not going to read my mind and send me a vacume to roadtest because I still can't spell vacume and guess what, I now refuse to ever buy another Dirt Devil again because it can't manage to do fuck-all on the four carpets in the entire house, two of which are actually classified as throw rugs, I would imagine. Seriously. Whoever designed these things should be crucified slowly and obviously has all wood and tile floors and a really kick ass broom.

Let's see. What else? The children are home because it's Fucking Cold Out and they are battling the same headache/chills/mild fever thing I am. Really going to school to watch a movie and decorate a gingerbread house is not as exciting as doing it here and not having to wait turns, miss pivotal dialogue because someone is talking or watch the other kid that you hate put the last gumdrop on the roof. Fuck it, kids, stay home and we'll build a whole gingerbread village, or maybe a city, or perhaps a municipality! And you'll hear the movie you watch and I'll make popcorn and you don't even have to put on snowpants. Not even once.

I am the coolest mom ever.

Well, I am.

Maybe you are too. It's okay. We can share the trophy and the glory. Or maybe you don't have kids but you made a kick-ass lunch or had a good sleep last night. Here, grab a hold, hoist it high.

I'm going to need to go scrap some of this confidence into a jar or something so I can bring it out when the vampires come. Nights and early mornings are no longer doing me any favors. I just lie there and imagine the furnace breaking, the car not starting, being out of liquid assets and having the rapture break loose all in the same night and winding up outside with the kids when it does.

That seems to be my nightmare.

That and missing Ben. You haven't met him, you don't understand what he means to me or how much I love him. If you have met him then I know you understand, and that this is practically incapacitating me.

I am trying to remember it's less than a deployment, less than a season and less than a lot of people endure. I am loved and spoiled and the odds are those awful vampires from 30 days of night probably won't find me. My father says the odds are small, if any.

He has not seen the movie.

My dad likes movies like Out of Africa. I did too, but I doubt it's for the same reasons. I don't think one of my father's daydreams involves Robert Redford washing his hair.

At least I hope not.

I am finished shopping for Christmas, the flu hasn't brought me down yet, and I'm caught up on laundry and cleaning now. I have not hired any Russian, Polish or Belarusian hit men to take out my evil brother-in-law yet (I SAID YET) but I do have their numbers in case I decide to later and I am grateful that the dog has finally learned he doesn't have to go out every two hours anymore. We are up to four or six. Which is nice in the cold.

I would babble at you just a little more but in the feverish, overtired state I am in, I would just stop making sense (what?) or say too much and then everyone would freak out. Instead I'm going to go rustle up some lunch and do a little more towards the move. It's a big job moving a spectacle of this size across the country. Didn't I tell you that last time?

I guess you didn't believe me.

Home Alone.

It's been a long day. A long day with Caleb's choice of soundtrack leaving me just about blind with a headache. Add it to the other aches, I'm curled up now in a heated blanket nursing my cold, tired self and happy that the day was a success for so many others.

The music in question was church bells. Central European church bells. It was pretty but after an entire day of it fading in and out I found myself hypnotized and distracted by them to the point that my head continues to ring and I've been home for quite a while now.

Today Caleb and Mike picked me up just after nine. Mike driving, Caleb smiling and handing me a coffee, made just the way I like it, Second Cup to prove he is always paying attention to the details. Infuriatingly smooth. I thanked him and took a sip, burning my top lip just enough to scowl a little and retire the cup to the holder beside my seat.

You look beautiful.

Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself.

I could be in rags and no one would notice with you there.

Sure they would. Hugo Boss doesn't put out a rag line.

He laughed and then settled back to look out the window and listen to the music. I could only hear a little and I squinted at nothing in particular and Caleb pressed a button on the console that sent the bell ringing swelling to the forefront.

I looked at him and without saying a word, was treated to a rather strange peace of nostalgia I didn't know he even held. Some of the years that Cole kept Caleb absent from our lives are still a mystery. He is the most well-traveled man I know.

I did give it my best shot. I was hostage to it anyway, between the car and the day's schedule and the take-no-prisoners shoes, the six inch ones with the satin ankle bows and the lovely dress that was so festive and yet seemed garish and fabulously inappropriate for a Monday morning wasn't going to allow for me to become part of the landscape.

We spent the first three hours riding elevators and walking labyrinths of corridors to surprise most of the recipients on Caleb's list with cheques and small gifties and wishes that they enjoy a wonderful holiday. Polish businessmen with their brittle hugs and humble tears and mobsters with their questionable glances and bruising cheek-kisses and semi-false dismissal of Caleb's gestures in order to cover their joy. It became exhausting. If there is one thing Caleb is known for, it's his generosity in rewarding people who work hard. If he benefits from it so will you.

(Nevermind the other things Caleb is known for, this is not the day for that.)

We took a long lunch, fueling up on Pad sew, coffee and sugar cookies and then ventured out in the cold once again, surrounded by bells and cash, and I had a positively hilarious conversation with one man who asked me if I knew where he was from and I guessed Georgia and he said Belarus and laughed and laughed like I was the most delightful girl, because I at least chose the Russian Empire. He said most people say France. I told him I had been to France, for a day, and his accent was definitely not French.

He howled and told me his mother was French.

Then I noticed he passed a padded envelope to Caleb and told him that he should treat me well, that I was positively engaging. Caleb said he would do his best. I was more interested at that point in why they were trading bonuses but on the way to the car Caleb took my elbow and squeezed it harder than I liked to keep my attention and changed the subject to dinner out, later on, with the children and some of the boys, to cap off a wonderful day.

As in, you saw nothing.

Right. Bridget sees nothing. Just words. Words to arrange. Words to pay for later.

I'm not sophisticated enough to want to take that further. It just looked weird and that's when I pretty much stopped enjoying myself and hung back a little more, prompted politely but forcefully more than once to inject the situation with a little more of the morning's brevity. But I was getting tired and we had crossed off the entire list by four, and I called Daniel to make sure the children were home from school and warmed up and then Caleb said he wanted to stop by the loft and then we could continue to the house.

I rolled my eyes.

You really don't want to miss this, princess.

I can wait in the car.

I promise. Just come with me. Mike will leave the car running.

Sad that I expect that promise and you make it without being led.

It is, but I deserve it.

I was happy to escape the bells, so up we went.

I waited by the door. He disappeared into his office for a moment and then returned with an envelope. A large manila one, like the ones I keep in his desk to keep his travel itineraries organized. He passed it to me.

What is this?

Don't you want to look inside?

I frowned at him and then looked inside. It took a moment to pull out a heavy sheaf of papers and I started going through them. Arrangements for trips to Vancouver and New York. For everyone. Everyone except for me.

What is this?

This is your independence, princess. You've spent your entire life hiding behind Cole, and then Jacob, and now Benjamin and the others. Only in a few years you're going to officially be a grownup and yet you don't qualify. Not yet. So this is your chance. Ben and only Ben will be home on Jan. 16 for a weekend, and then not until mid-February. Then mid-March. There will be one trip for you and the children to go and see him and then you all fly out to Vancouver once the house sells. For everyone who fights your battles for you and keeps you handicapped by your own fears and doubts I'm going to play the bad guy one last time and give you a little tough love. Just a little and just for a couple of months. You can do this, princess. You're going to do this and you'll thank me when it's over.

My whole head tightened up and began to throb and I started to cry before I even finished working through what he had said. And he smiled like I was the most pathetic thing he had ever seen and said this:

My God, it's so easy to want to save your life. I'm sure now my brother died of a broken heart and I can't say I blame him. And Bridget, I am not trying to be cruel. I need the boys to help get this show on the road out west, Ben needs to go to New York and then join us later and you need to show the children that you are strong, and capable, and confident. Do it for them and do it for yourself.

I nodded. (Words. I need words and there's nothing there. I can't find any. I can't say don't. Please don't.)

You will thank me.

He took my hand and I followed him back onto the elevator, down to the car and then we were back at the house.

In the car on the way here he said not to worry, that my Christmas bonus would be in my account on Friday as well as gifts that he would bring over closer to Christmas day and that he would be flying into the city regularly as well to check on us and that no one would ever be more than a couple of hours away at any time, and that our extended families and all of the boys were already aware of the situation and supportive of it.

(Traitors.) My mind found a word!

Everything will be fine, Bridget.

I know.

What?

I know. I'm not thanking you though.

You will when it's over. And your bonus? The largest one I have even paid out.

I don't want your money.

Why not? You could use it to play airplane tag.

The kids have school, idiot.

That's the smartest thing you have ever said to me. Wait, no, second smartest. The first was when you said to make the pain go away.

Was it tough keeping the evil all bottled up inside all day, Cale?

No, actually. I've learned to harness both the good and the evil inside. Just like you, princess. Just like you.

Where I explain Warcraft to the masses.

I swear I could have gotten away with remaining in pajamas today. Ben even sat up at eight and offered to walk the dog. I usually take the dog out for his first walk of the day. I declined. I don't have to walk him after dark. Not yet, anyway. Ben went back to sleep for an hour or so and I made coffee and had breakfast with the children, who are completely nonplussed that so far their advent calendars have yielded five poinsettia-shaped chocolates, which is five too many considering we are only thirteen days in. Next year we're going to do a fun-activity advent, even though every day we do something.

Today it appears to be eating Pringles in our pajamas, playing Warcraft and reading (Ben and the children play the game, I try to read in between shouts of joy for leveling and finding razorbacked critter pets.

Ben yells CONSECRATE! and I jump twenty feet. I would play but it seems rather agressive and involved and I like games to be short and sweet. Like Pac-Man. Half the level cleared, killed by ghosts three times and YOU LOSE, BRIDGET.

But the wackawackawacka noise is supremely comforting somehow. Much better than these squealing pig sounds during battles. I can sit here and picture them being attacked by roving bands of wild boars dressed as characters from Lord of the Rings and every now and then everyone starts dancing onscreen and it looks funny.

So there you have it. They could kill whole days doing this but I have managed to kick them off at least a few times for meals or non-essential events like..oh, bedtime.

But I try. Someone has to be the bad guy and keep order in the guild.

Or something.

(I really have no idea, but they seem to like it.)