Next person who calls them the 'aught years' gets a wedgie.

Oh my. I'm coming here late in the day. It's dark out and I'm incapable of telling you about this day or even tomorrow right this second so we'll go with a grateful list and call it a night.

1. I slept in. Only the sleeping part was only from about five until eight. (It was worth it. So, so worth it.)
2. Soundgarden is reuniting. YES!
   
3. The middle of January forecast appears to be warmer than it is now. Thank heavens.
4. I have movies to watch all month long. Most of them seem to involve Gerard Butler. Why? He makes me happy. Just like PJ and chocolate cake.
   
5. The drywall is finished. It was a huge project and it's done. Done!
   
6. There will be more cake. I'm going to go get one. Maybe on Tuesday.
7. Did I mention the two extra minutes of daylight a day?
   
8. When I grasp at straws, I am usually successful (see #7)

We're going to go now and make some bagels and fruit for dinner (lunch was so late, like 2:30!) and walk the puppy and watch some movies. Tomorrow is my last day of Normal Life with Ben. I have to keep reminding myself that it's not forever, but it sure feels like it is. And I know I'll be (almost) okay when he goes. I just wish he could stay.

PJ, Lochlan, Dalt, Sky, Danny, Christian and Rob all went today. So yeah. New plan. Pour cement into Ben's shoes. Turn off cellphones. Hunker down and disappear.

If only.

(say it with me: FORTY DEGREES WARMER THERE. BRIDGET, GET A GRIP!)

Three sleeps left and I don't know how I'm going to do this.
~via BlackBerry.

Wow. Thanks for the emails.

If ANYONE on the face of this earth has earned the right to medicate in any way, shape or form, it would be me. If you don't agree then it's simple. DON'T READ. You don't want to think I have ways to get to Jacob? I make you uncomfortable? Right.

I never said it would be pretty. I said *I* was pretty. There's a difference.

Well, here we go.

So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions
for self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions

so everybody put your best suit or dress on
let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one

In 2010, things are going to be different. We're preparing to move somewhere warmer than the -45 I walked out into this morning, the cold sunshine burning my skin and my eyes, no amount of coat or arms or heat able to block the shivering.

In 2010, Ben and I will celebrate our second anniversary married.

In 2010, the children will turn 11 and 9 and I don't know where all this time actually went but perhaps in 2010 I will find and restore it so things move at a more natural pace that isn't way too fast or agonizing slow.

In 2010 we will be rich but not in material wealth and not because I sold out for sugar because it seemed like a great way at the time to ensure the future and stick it to Satan all at once. The richness will be in adventure and in living near water and mountains and forests and warmth, because we are ocean people and ocean people need oceans nearby.

2010 for Bridget is dedicated to making every day fun and peaceful of mind and learning how to embrace the present and just be. Deal with things as they arise instead of distressing myself to pieces over what may or may not go wrong. Maybe on paper that seems to be a circumvention of traditional resolutions, but if you know me, then you understand that it will be a full-time job.

Enjoying every single day to the fullest will be difficult considering that between now and Monday, most of the boys are leaving for work in our new city, and on Monday proper Ben flies out too. Which leaves just me and the children behind here in the city that is colder than Siberia to navigate the remainder of winter, the sale of this big wonderful house and the mountain of painting and packing that needs to be done.

Enmeshed in daily living will be efforts to maintain or improve my mental health. With things like sleep and good food and biofeedback and distractions because it's been so easy to lean on the boys, letting them fix things while I fret and flutter around their margins. Maybe I'll become stronger. This is the collective hope. Failure is not an option. Failure means the end of everything and so we can't entertain that scenario. It just can't happen and so it won't.

Last evening I spent the final night of 2010 bubbled in expensive champagne, dancing, sparkling. Talking about profound things and accepting admiration I haven't earned yet.

I cried when August started a midnight singalong of Auld Lang Syne and I went to the beach house when Caleb came looking for us after the last guest drifted from my hazy vision, opening the door just in time.

Jacob turned around from where he was drying dishes at the kitchen sink.

There you are. Happy new year, princess.

Happy new year, Jake.

What should we do today?

Let's take a walk on the beach.

Are you sure? It's pretty cold today.

I'm sure.

Black tie optional (New Year's Absolutions)

Here is an education, the lesson professed is quite cruel
There are some things worse than death
And one of them is you.

Oh my goodness. All that hard physical work this week and one piece of cake yesterday is going to ruin the tenuous relationship I have with this dress.

I just won't breathe. Which is fine, since if I breathe I might take in cold air and it's freeeezing tonight. The dress will be hidden under a suit jacket most of the evening, unless it's very warm at the loft.

Caleb is throwing a New Year's Eve party.

He came back early after going to Montreal for much of the week and managed to pull together a huge soiree for this evening. The children are going to PJ's mother's house for a sleepover and we are all in our best right now, something I generally only see for memorial services and other people's weddings.

I borrowed an iron from my neighbor for Ben's shirt.

He looks amazing in a suit. I think I've said that before. Ben's linebacker shoulders squared up in a plain black suit and a dark grey shirt and dress shoes make me melt. Perhaps I can have Caleb teach him to shoot his cuffs and then my knees would be even more wobbly than they are when I look at him now.

This is the last party in this city. The last time all of us will be together here. The last New Years we will celebrate at thirty below and the final time that I visit the loft, since it has already sold and Caleb is actually staying at the house with us.

All of my boys look so handsome when they put some effort into finding something to wear other than their usual uniforms of flannel shirts, jeans and beards. And I think I look almost okay in my Marchesa dress. Okay enough to leave August speechless for the first few minutes when he arrived and I answered the door looking like a ballerina on a coffee break. Dress. Hair in curlers. Bare legs. Now that my hair is finished and I've found my garters and stockings and shoes the look is complete. Maybe he thought I looked awful.

Right.

Ben just stares and smiles, happy that the diamond and the amethyst rings that dangle off my finger came from him. Oddly still relieved on major holidays and events that I didn't marry Lochlan as they really and truly thought I would had all the planets aligned when we were teenagers. Now everyone seems to have come to a place where they leave Ben and I alone. Save for Caleb. He doesn't leave us alone. Lochlan does, because Lochlan is aware that major holidays and events belong to the devil. He doesn't like it, he is just aware.

This will be the last night we spend at the loft and I'm relieved for that. That is what I'm celebrating. The end of that place as Caleb's evil playground. Happy New Year indeed. I'm hoping that maybe he leaves me with enough dignity that I can show my face at New Year's Day brunch tomorrow without wanting to crawl into a hole until I'm given the signal that I am not blamed for the appetites of others and that it's merely a source of massive relief when I walk out of a room after being touched by Satan himself, instead of being carried out or led out unsteadily, painfully. I won't say bruised because bruises are a given. Bite marks too. Twisted, twitching muscles and mollified expressions a staple the day after.

I can only walk into the party tonight with the hopes that it runs long, which makes the endurance that Ben and I submit to shorter in length, and that Satan is feeling generous instead of selfish. But that's the thing with hopes. They are something that optimists hold. I never claimed to be one of those.

Happy New Year. Tomorrow if I have any wits left I'll share my resolutions. I hope you will too. I always love to hear what others have in store for the upcoming year.

Too tired to be dramatic tonight. Sigh.

Every single cut we made today had to be some sort of lazy parallelogram, a listing rectangle, screwed into the studs with a hope and a prayer and more swear words than ever before. We went through fourteen sheets of plasterboard and three hundred screws, suffering a host of injuries.

I wound up under a falling sheet once again and Ben didn't happen to be handy enough to catch it today so as a result my head is a little flat now in one space so there will be no words that begin with a D until it returns to normal. Ben carved up his knuckles and stepped on a huge rusted staple which wouldn't come out easily. I'm sure it hit bone and tetanus will befall him shortly.

But we're finished and he never nailed me to the wall by my hood and I never attempted to accidentally stab the crowbar into his back. We even cleaned up together, put away all of the tools and remarked on how good the porch looks now. And how warm it is. Amazing.

And then we had cake. And now coffee. And looked at our phones and found a second round of missed calls and orphan messages that will be returned tomorrow because tomorrow will not be spent working.

All of the very major construction-type thingies are finished now and I'm so happy for that tonight it's hard to be freaked out that I can't lift my arms anymore and I have splinters in my splinters and plaster in my hair and I may have killed another vacume (yes, spelling) cleaner with errant screws and construction wreckage.

So happy.

I will never put up plasterboard again. Ever.

(Find any d-words yet?) <---epic princess FAIL. Look at the title.

It started off sweet enough.

I was sitting on the floor trying to loosen the chuck of the drill or whatever that thing is you do when you want to change the bit when I heard a yell and saw Ben's feet appear beside me, then his face. Above his shoulders and resting on his back was the eight-foot sheet of heavy drywall that would have fallen on me otherwise.

Had it happened two hours later he probably would have let it fall on me and no one would have blamed him.

We managed to get eight sheets of it up today after finishing the framing-in and are planning to get the rest done tomorrow. My back and my legs are aching, I failed to sleep much again last night am I'm frustrated that we're mired in his last week home doing work on the house and I pretty much had a very unpretty meltdown just as we opted to hang it up for the night, after hours of bickering and admiring our work, alternately.

I hate tomorrow already but I plan to drag my sorry little aching butt to the grocery store first and I'm going to buy a giant chocolate cake or six so that when it's all done the princess gets a treat. Seriously, fuck these crooked walls and unsquare floors, all will be well when it's finished and we can have dessert. Dessert makes everything better.

It's Monday, I think.

I have twenty minutes to myself before the laundry will be dry and need folding so I end up here, knocking lightly on the door to my journal, hoping to stop in for a quick coffee before the day continues. I have coffee with me, a big fresh cup from the pot I made a few minutes ago because Ben wanted some too. I have some every day between two and three no matter what or I'm a narcoleptic nightmare after supper. Coffee does bad things to Ben's guts and he shouldn't have any but he does it anyway. He is here beside me working on his macbook.

Today toward moving we went and got the drywall screws and tape to go with the drywall they brought in on the twenty-third, and we worked for a couple hours finishing up the shelves in the kitchen. We had shortened the counter space a few years ago to accommodate the pastry station/chopping block end, and were left with an odd little open corner where the drawers met the rest of the cupboards.

Ben finished all of that off today, adding two shelves for cookbooks or wine or trays or whatever you want to put in them. They're cubby-holes and they work very well, adding a little more character because that's what we are good at. I will paint them after he goes to New York. I'll be painting a lot of things. For today I was content to assume my role of sitting on the floor handing him drill bits and levels and screws, burning his image into my brain as if I haven't already done that a thousand times over.

Also toward moving today we gave away Butterfield's big metal cage to a neighbor. It's far too large for little Bonham, and it's been sitting in the back porch for two years. We're going to need to empty the room in order to get the drywall up tomorrow.

I also had much success in shoveling the end of the driveway. After our Christmas storm, we were finally plowed out this morning, and I took the shovel down to the end of the driveway to clear the ridge of snow-plates that wind up blocking my escape and the bulldozer operator saw me and came back and scraped all the snow away from the drive before I had a chance to level my shovel at the mess. Bless him. I blew kisses as he drove away, went inside and fully half the boys in residence expressed doubt that I had finished that quickly. I said nothing and they went and looked and saw it all done and since I have no poker face I told them about the driver who came back and cleared it and they are content now that my charm still functions well enough to get the job done any way I can.

(Which is a total double standard in that it's okay for snow-clearing but not okay for anything related to Caleb. Surprise.)

Tonight I have to take a pill to summon sleep and possibly will hit my head a few more times to spool up the birds and take myself out of evil consciousness for a brief respite. I didn't sleep for five minutes last night and am frustrated with just about everything today as a result. Which is silly because I had a lovely night wrapped tightly in Ben's arms while he took away any chance I'll ever have again of being regarded as a lady proper, and then when he finally fell asleep I was wide awake and unable to quiet my head but not able to identify anything I could actively work on which defeats the purpose of being able to talk myself out of panic and that isn't fair.

For the moment, however, it is good to know the house is almost done, the roads are driveable again, the coffee is hot Sumatra, Ben still has this whole week here in within reach of the princess, which is nice. Time finally moves a little bit slowly. Or so it feels today.

Tomorrow the framing will be finished and the drywall goes up in the porch. It's going to be a busy day but it will be satisfying too to get that big job underway at last. I'm almost excited. And I HATE renovating. Think I can get a new house next time? Yeah, me neither.

Bridget's going to earn her merit badge for post-apocalyptic survivalism.

And if you were with me tonight,
I'd sing to you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big,
god wouldn't let it live.
May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.

Twenty-four hours later and I am marginally better, trying on this whole inevitable being alone for a couple of months thing under different lights, with different shoes and bracelets even. I've found a couple of angles that work and some that spell certain disaster. Overall it's a ridiculously bad idea and I've spent much of the day fidgeting with my new Blackberry, that now has ten different methods of instant-messaging installed and tested. God help us all, if someone wants to get a hold of me I'm pretty sure I won't miss their attempt. I can also sound the alarm a hundred different ways. Not like it will matter though.

August came seeking absolution on toast for breakfast this morning and he got it, because like I said last night, none of this is his fault by any means. A lot of the mannerisms and actions the boys display mirror each other, from years of being friends, brothers, roommates, bandmates, and rivals. It's inevitable. And the initial disapproval over Lochlan choosing to give Bridget a few glasses of wine rather than wait out the inevitable blonde tornado and her subsequent destruction was appreciated in the end in spite of the hypocritical nature of our actions. This is a house full of hypocrites at the end of every day. We are nothing if not humble and transparent and fallible and apologetic. We are equally narcissistic, veiled and unconquerable, refusing to be held accountable for what is surely an emotional wasteland that we will pick through for treasures, sustenance, adventure and safety, too.

Such is life really.

I see no point in sugarcoating bad things to make them taste sweeter. Shit is shit after all and artificially-sweetened shit is even more disgusting. Who am I fooling? I'm not okay by a long shot. But I'm a functional, darned cute little lunatic and that's what butters my bread for now. Just insane enough to make people laugh and suck them into my vulnerable, dark and beautiful world before letting them become aware that everything here is glass painted black and they have morphed into a bull with no room to turn around.

And wow, someday I'm going to run out of my ridiculous analogies. That's going to be a sad day indeed.

In the meantime, the boys say they love them and that's all that matters to me. This week I'll be helping them finish the house, everything but the paint and plaster gets done this week. There isn't all that much left. I will cover painting and minor plasterwork after they have left and then as Ben returns here and there (once in January and once in February) he can inspect my handiwork and look forward to those trips instead of imagining this as a blanket absence like those of my past. The hard part is expecting change over expecting the same experience, time after time. Apparently I will need to experience this to be able to see it for what it is.

Huh.

Character building is difficult and complicated and we have run out of wine. At least I have. I'm off to have a hot bath and then curl up in my flannel pajamas with Benjamin the Stoic to watch a movie and finish off the Christmas cake. I guess that is something to look forward to. Instead of cooking dinner for between eight and sixteen people every night I will be cooking for three and I could actually just cook for the children and sit with them and eat cake instead of dinner.

That might be pretty cool, come to think of it. I find it utterly fascinating that the boys can spoil me so thoroughly and yet I remain incredibly hard on myself. So much work to do and so little time to do it in. I guess I'd better get started. It's a pretty big freaking list and I've gotten great at putting it off.

The natural fool (excused for her behavior).

(Lit like a fibre-optic Christmas tree and back to sober in a three-hour span. Welcome to my rollercoaster. No pushing.)

I wasn't contemplating any of Lochlan's wine until August walked in through the back porch door, hung his plaid coat on a hook in the hallway and then reached for my ear with his thumb and forefinger as he was putting his arms around me for a hug, ostensibly checking to see if I had my hearing aids in.

I wouldn't be drunk but that's exactly the routine Jake would carry out when he came home from the church or from the university and I know damn well August didn't mean anything by it. Hell, I just typed something to that effect the other day about my bobby pins always falling out because the boys are always touching my head, it's a given, they check for the hearing aids daily or whenever they come in, all of them so I don't really think about it much, and my head is at midchest level for most of them which means it's far more comfortable for them to put their arms around my head (blockouttheworld) than around my shoulders or waist or something. I'm five feet tall. Try it. It's just weird to reach way down, I bet.

In my peripheral vision I could see August greeting the guys, their routine of grasping hands and thumping backs a few times swimming in blurry flannel when it became too much, when my knees were too weak to hold me up because it was the single most painful case of deja vu I've ever felt since Jake died. The tea towel fell on the floor and I sat down heavily in the chair by the dining room door and started hyperventilating. So so quietly. They don't need this. They've had enough. Pull yourself together and just relax. Only it wasn't working and I could hear the little tiny gasps and I couldn't keep them silent anymore and I banged my head against the wall and oh Jesus Ben came running after the third crack into the plaster and I pointed out the stars around my head and asked if maybe they were accompanied by birds and into his arms I went, shaking like a leaf.

Jake was-

I know, princess.

No, August was here and-

Holidays are hard, Bridget.

He squeezed me in his arms and I squealed and he let go and looked at me. I looked at my knees (Flutterbyesbrowneyes). I sat on my hands. I did not meet his eyes. A hard holiday indeed when missing someone two years gone grinds a perfectly reasonable season to a halt. A feeling I wish I could bury forever.

Lochlan was in the doorway and he crossed to the cupboard and took out a glass and the bottle of red wine from last night that we opened and did not get to. (DullthepaindullitdullitquietnotSatansway)

Just for tonight.

Yeah. Just for tonight. Bring me the wine and bookend me. Keep the ghost away and don't let him come back. He doesn't deserve to take responsibility for how I feel.

Has she already been drinking? (Andrew, surprised by such a rapid decent. He doesn't see so many of these.)

I don't think so.

Where is August?

I'm right here, Bridget.

It's not your fault.

I know.

I don't think you do.

Yeah, I miss him too. It isn't easy not having him here.

Everyone nodded. Which seemed comical. They were standing in a semicircle around where I sat, like jokers performing for the princess. Make her laugh. Win her favor and you will become the court jester! Everyone loves to laugh. Ben was on his knees in front of me, Lochlan had already turned his back and was pouring me a glass of wine because I won't take pills to feel better because pills take away the sad but they take away all the other feelings too and you wind up with cardboard-cutout Bridget and she's dull.

Bookends, Lochlan.

I'm right here, princess.

Don't go either, Ben.

I'm not going anywhere tonight, bee.

No, don't go away. You can't. I can't do this.

We'll be okay.

Why won't you LISTEN?

Three glasses of wine now and I'm not angry with Ben anymore. I know if we had a choice this would not be it. I know that I'm a hypocrite for taking the night off from my feral emotions, my vehemence and using alcohol to do it, and I know that August is not Jake. Okay, well, sometimes he is and those are the times you really must look out for Bridget because she goes to hell in her handbasket, handwoven from the bones within her flesh and really they will just ride this out.

A good crack on the head should always feature birds for entertainment, shouldn't it?

No, bee. It shouldn't.

Oh, well, in a perfect world it totally would, Benny.

Bridget, in a perfect world you wouldn't injure yourself on purpose.

Right. No one would, would they? Not me, not you, and certainly not Jake.

Jake didn't-

I know what Jake did. I hate him. And I love you.

Then put down the damned glass and come sit with me for a bit. Read the paper. Write something while I work on emails. Just put the glass down.

I can do that.

No ghosts?

No birds. Good enough, I guess.

You're disappointed, aren't you?

Yes. I think birds should fly around my head perpetually, don't you?

I can do pathetic. What I can't seem to pull off is progress.