I just noticed this.

Holy COW.

We're moving.

(Yes, I realize we're almost three months into this knowledge, but we made it. *I* made it.)

Woohoo!

Seriously.

Ben, hopefully is somewhere in the Pacific Northwest forging my medal as we speak. I hope it matches my crown, because coordination is paramount.)

I will make his here before we leave.

He earned one too.

The food replicator must be in there somewhere.

Looking at houses in Vancouver tonight online. The first few things I can see are that it's raining in almost every photo, every house has more bathrooms than bedrooms, and they all come with dishwashers.

What is this machine...a dishwasher?

I'm guessing it's a portal to another dimension. When you close the door and hit the switch you are transported into the future, where your dishes are already clean.

Unbelievable!

(I'm sad to report the people who bought my house can take over wondering what those two switches do in the front hall. I have no idea either, perhaps they also trigger access to other dimensions. Good luck!)

She looked right into my
eyes and said to me
The hurt that you try to hide is killing me
You drink a thousand lies,
to freeze the past in time

I've tried to fill this silence up
But now it's back again

See the pain in my eyes
see the scars deep inside
My God, I'm down in this hole again
With the laughter I smile
with the tears that I cry
Keep going down this road called life

Look out.

You don't want to be here right now. She'll turn around slowly, curls resting gently against her shoulder blades, eyes bleeding black all over her alabaster skin. The fear that turns your blood to ice will be no match for your curiosity and you stand your ground in front of her. After all, you are looking down at her and she must lift her lashes to meet your eyes.

She won't. She looks straight ahead now. Wooden doll, charred and blackened and thrown under the shed out back because you didn't mean to.

Oh, but you did.

There are few secrets that can't be told and fewer dreams that can't be destroyed with a whim. She bides her time, you see. Standing still in order for you to witness the horror but smiling gently and with a sinister intent because she knows things you will find out later. She knows her own whims can destroy you in a completely different way. She doesn't mean to be bad, it isn't her fault that everything is black. Somewhere along the way it got darker and darker until her pupils expanded and she could see again. She has that gift, you don't so don't even try.

Just stay there, let it wash over you. Know what it's like. Feel what she feels. Cry like she cried. She isn't crying today and that's why today will be worse for everyone else but not so bad for her.

It's deafening
it's deafening
this silence inside me

Ten-second eclipse.

Eclipse teaser trailer.

Stephanie, stop borrowing from my archives.

PS Team Edward all the way. Team Jacob seems like sacrilege. Besides, in this house we love vampires.

Snort.

Give me a BREAK.

I found the drum keys. I know where everything is in this house and soon I won't be able to find a thing. Today is breaking down the drum kit and hopefully getting the hotel arranged and more boxes to pack. Toys and books, toys and books. It's endless.

And Power 97 keeps playing Just Breathe by Pearl Jam. It's a sign. I love this song. I am trying to listen closely.

OH! And speaking of signs and songs, HELLO new music video!!!!

You're welcome. Warning, it's sad and beautiful.

JUST LIKE BRIDGET.

Need a miracle.

No luck today. I try to arrange the words just so but they all pour out in a scream. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow will probably be worse.

Ha, I am having a real hard time with your optimism. Maybe you should WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES and then tell me to calm down. I need drugs. Drugs and someone else to do this because I really don't think I can pull it off without casualties. Watch as she explodes before your very eyes just out of sheer stress.

It could happen. Stay tuned.

Shhhh.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

breathe.

calm.

Benjamin, I can't lift these boxes.

I'll be waving my hands
Watching you drown, watching you scream, quiet or loud
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need a friend
As clumsy as you've been there's no one laughing
You will be safe in here
you will be safe in here

The thrill this week in grade three is to pull your mouth open wide with two fingers and say things like "puck" and "apple".

Sigh.

In grade six the trend is to decorate your jeans with memories written in sharpie, a la Sisterhood of the traveling pants. I may join that one. I already lead the threes in swearing so I think I have elementary school covered tenfold.

We are surrounded by cardboard boxes, markers, packing tape and lists. Contracts to print and sign, calls to make, addresses to change, hotels to book, flights to organize, pets to calm, children to reassure and...

...one princess sitting at a scrubbed table with a borrowed glass full of cheap white wine, near tears and near smiles at the effort in place to relocate many lives all at once, and memories too.

It rained all day today and I can see the tops of my lilac bushes again. I scraped away the ice in front of the garage door so that I don't have another session of stars and sparrows, flat on my back on the cement floor of the garage, wondering how I got there.

I'm favoring myself physically because if I hurt myself or pull anything I won't be able to pack. Time is at a premium right now, I am writing tonight from the dinner table, on precious batter power while Henry finishes his homemade pizza in the dining room and Ruth is long gone, off to watch television while she waits for us to be ready to head outside to walk the dog. Once I get the children organized and in pajamas playing Warcraft with Ben across the miles I will finish the calculations for my taxes and call them in tomorrow. Then I can put all of that away and concentrate on coordinating this move. Which sometimes seems so very easy and straightforward and other times becomes unbearably complicated and impossible.

But I have done so much. And I'm going to list the things because I could use a little pep talk with my contraband wine:

1. I refinished a hardwood floor.
   
2. I painted several rooms, top to bottom.
3. I mudded and finished a newly gyproc-sheeted room.
   
4. I hired a realtor and sold a house (almost forty showings in four days).
   
5. I hired a mover.
6. I had my car repaired and negotiated a free rental car for the duration.
7. I kept the three of us safe.
8. I lived without Ben for almost three months, no small feat for someone who is afraid of everything and who only breathes or sleeps in his arms.
   
9. I kept my computer alive. There's no resuscitation order on this thing. It clearly wants to die. I need to give it permission and I don't plan to do that for a bit yet.
   
10. We made brownies. They ruled the universe. Then we tossed the rest of the baking supplies.
    

I can't wait to call the airline and find out there's some screwy thing with bringing the pets. I can't wait for the car to be damaged on the rail to British Columbia and I can't wait for a host of new street names to pronounce and the mile-long list of donair and ramen joints Ben is going to to take me to so I can sample food in a foodie city for the first time ever. Does Pacific spiney lobster taste as good as Atlantic? What about the scallops? What about the Thai? The Thai has to be good and I'm never sure if what I learned to love here was authentic or just bastardized quasi prairie-Thai.

I will soon find out. Two weeks from tomorrow.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Bring more wine then, I have work to do.

Eight is enough.

There's a little white porch
And you wanted it so
Can you let me go down
To the end of the road
In the black and the white
A Technicolorful life
Can I stand by your side?
We can make it alright

Ben took that picture in the post below. I am still landlocked quite tightly but the countdown is on. Give or take a little we're down to less than twenty days remaining. Ben will be home in just under two weeks and we'll wrap up life on the Prairie and get the hell out, but I'll save the malevolence of goodbye for the final few days, if my laptop is still functioning then. The house is sold. The truck is booked. The lawyer is booked. The neighbors have been told. I've been saving out keys and taking things down. The suitcases are all over the dining room floor and the table pushed out of the way.

Here we go, Bridget.

Here we go, boys. Take our hands and never look back at this place, or I swear to God, I'll claw your eyes out.

Ben sang to me the other night. He played Tangerine and when I finally went to sleep I wasn't crying. Almost into the single digits now and finally I figured out how to destroy whole blocks of time Godzilla-princess style with movies and books and throwing myself into whatever else I am doing with one hundred percent attention and effort, instead of the usual fifty-fifty. Half a shot, merely a chance, and not a sure thing. Like the game of Capture her Heart. You won't get how it works but three of them figured it out in my life and that's enough for me.

There was no Hyde this time. The stress is starting to shift to semantics and plans that don't hinge so heavily on outside influences and finally it feels like reality instead of incarceration. Pair that with the clocks going ahead this coming weekend and a less-frigid round of weather as of late and I have officially clocked out of here with eight full winters under my belt.

Eight.

Eight.

When the fuck did that happen? Nevermind, it won't happen ever again. He promised.

Just nevermind. This chapter will be dealt with later as I see fit. Not today. It's a nice day today and I don't want to ruin it. Though I could ruin it if I think too hard about Ben's eyes, or Ben's arms, or Ben's beard, or Ben when he breathes and I hear it sometimes. It's one of my favorite things in my entire life and I'm counting the days now until we're a force to be reckoned with instead of two completely lost individuals foundering around in far-apart locations trying to do the best we can. Of course it's been good enough, but it isn't GOOD enough. Got it?

Sometimes you can just tell when a new chapter is going to be better than the previous one. I don't know how that happens, but it does. Sometimes it even happens to me.

One, two

She's coming for you..

Three, four, on the twenty-eighth floor...

Wait. What the fuck?