Airport extreme.

Duncan left this morning for a ten-week stint overseas. We're not worried about this run for him, the guys he'll be working for are all in the program now and long past their crazy years.

Gotta pay the bills, Princess, and he laughed. I think he feels old. I think he feels the pull of our family, wanting to stay home and just hang out forever when he really does need to take a couple of gigs a year to break even. 

What about your future? I ask him when he says he's turned things down. 

Beloved honorary hunkle and bouncer, affection meat lump for the princess? I think I have my hands full right here, he laughs and I stamp my feet in frustration. 

Go! Have a life! Get the girls! Bag it and tag it, Poet! Christ! Don't sit around here and watch me mope around and start shit. 

Well, at least you admit it now, but that's not what I do here.

What do you do then?

I sit around and molest you in my mind. 

Oh, well that's classy and wrong and completely wonderful.

Not the way I play it out in my imagination, it's not.

So today was sort of comforting in that he's taken a job and not comforting in that the balance tips against me in the house from where Lochlan and I seek people who agree with us so that our arguments are evenly matched. 

I'll bring you back some souvenirs, Duncan tells me. He's stalling. Last-minute regrets. 

Bring back yourself. D&D free, no babies. 

Yes, Mom. 

Don't call me Mom. 

Don't tell me not to go out into the world and get everyone pregnant. 

How will you support them all if you have a crowd of kids by Christmastime?

I'll sell my poems. Holiday-themed ones.

Oh, Jesus. You are flighty, Dunk. 

Not as much as you. 

I'm not out there planting seeds everywhere. 

God, you're crass for such a pretty little thing. 

I live with your friends. 

I need to talk to them about this. The 'lady' part of you is waning.

Good! I hope I grow a penis. 

Why?

So I can write my name in the snow! It's on my bucket list! Don't you ever pay attention?

Phew. I thought you were going to say something alot worse. 

Shhhhh. We won't speak of the other things I'll do. See you when you get home, Poet. 

If I come back and you've already grown a penis, don't ever tell me, okay?

Promise. Besides, I wouldn't tell you, I'd SHOW you. But I only want the penis, not the balls because balls are gross. 

They're less gross than vaginas. 

Nuh-uh. Vaginas are fun. 

You win again! See you before your birthday.

Don't be late. We're having a party.

Don't grow a penis! He yelled and then he was gone through the gate and I realized departures was full of people staring at me. 

Ha. Idiot. Sam scanned ALL THE LETTERS. Remember?

No?

Well, he did and he put them in a cloud so delete away. They'll still be safe from you.

Saturday it happened and we can't change it now.

I'll tell you about the Evan Peters thing. We started watching American Horror Story to fill in the gaps while we wait for Season 3 of Game of Thrones to show up on Apple TV and wow, is it ever bizarre and tense.

But then the character of Tate moved to the forefront, who's all a hundred and eighty miles an hour of white-hot teenage-boy sexy angst (oh, shut up) and he reminds me of someone I know at that same age, also with curly hair and determined stubbornness and almost-teary eyes when he gets so frustrated at things.

Yeah.

Totally a trip down memory lane except for the obvious living, breathing and non-psychopathic parts (knock on wood).

Lochlan was not at all impressed when I pointed out all the glaring similarities that I could see and he spent the entire second half of that episode staring at me. Not angrily, just curiously, as if I were some great riddle he was studying. Then he begged off the next one entirely, saying he'd catch up on it later, perhaps.

I went up after it was over and he was outside, sitting in the dark deep down into one of the Adirondack chairs, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the flames shooting up from the giant copper firebowl. He pulled me down into his lap when he saw me and buried his face in my hair, saying he was sorry. He kept saying it. Over and over and finally I pulled away and asked him what he was sorry for, leaving me to watch a television show? Yelling about some stupid offhand comment that may or may not be obvious to others but was just something I found interesting? For all the things since 1983 that didn't exactly go as planned so meticulously once upon a time?

No, Peanut. No, this is a big thing I did. Just now. Look at the fire. I'm sorry but I'm not sorry at all. In fact, I'm relieved and I wish I had done this years ago.

I look at the fire and after a minute I see why he's sorry because I see what he's burning. Jacob's letters. All of them, still stacked and folded in small white bricks in packs of fifty, tied with gold and silver ribbons because that's what I did to keep myself from swimming in ashes or from slitting my wrists after he flew. I folded each one carefully and made groups of them and then tied them like presents with the prettiest ribbons I could find.

And now they're gone.

The yelling by the others started almost immediately. They said he's brainwashed me, that he always has, they say I don't think for myself when he's around, that I revert, that I regress but maybe he's taking those risks by doing what needs to be done, even if it's an unpopular or horrifically shocking decision.

Even if he's right.

I wasn't curious but I am now. What if all the answers were there and I'll never know? What if everything would have been better had I read them?

I pushed away from Ben and Sam and ran back out into the dark where Lochlan sat, still in the chair, still watching the flames now with an audience of detractors and dissent.

I flew down the steps and he stood up and I smashed into him with an alarming violence. He caught me and he looked scared to death.

Did you read them? At least some of them?

Yeah. I did and I wish I hadn't.

I'm not talking about Valentine's day or my weird crush on Evan Peters until tomorrow.

I put the letter that I was carrying back. I was masterfully persuaded safely the other way. Spend the morning with one hypnotist and the afternoon with another and watch me fling myself back and forth within my own loyalties. In the end I wisely chose self-preservation.

(AKA Lochlan got me last and talked me out of it. He undid all of Sam's efforts only I'm not all that sure if it was for my benefit or his. Maybe both. But is that a bad thing?)

But really if I was curious I would read everything. My curiosity will most definitely be what kills me (if Caleb doesn't kill me first) as I've said so many times but I'm not all that curious about Jake's letters. In fact, I'm blindly and inexplicably apathetic to them. I ventured an effort and it got snapped back so maybe I'll just take that as a sign.

Of what? That I am more important than the past?

Yes.

Definitely. Because I'm still here.

(I came to that conclusion on my own. Sam did not agree with Lochlan's efforts to prevent what he thought would be healing for me. They're really gearing up over here and I want to know why.)

Probably because I'm insane. Like your front row seat? Of course you do. Everyone's a voyeur.

In other news, I'm about to go out and lie in the driveway so someone can run over my cast and crack it off because I'm so fed up with it at this point you have no idea. None. It's killing me slowly. Like winter in the Prairies and wind in the Maritimes and ghosts in my garage and on the wall and in my soul. I saw my soul the other day when Caleb came to get Henry. I think the Devil carries it around on a chain.

And in mildly riveting news, out of housebound boredom between Olympic events I started a Pinterest account, pinning some things I have, things I know, things I like...is that the point? I don't get it. Am I inspired? Not really but it's better than getting a high score of 5 (yes, five) in Flappy Bird and throwing my phone at Andrew.

In my quest to add the button just under my profile so you can visit my uh..page I also found that I can add a "Pin this!" button to my posts but then I couldn't figure it out because I'm about as HTML-savvy as a goddamned starfish. I feel like the cast is actually on my brain. PJ said it definitely should be so I hit him with it.

The cast, not my brain. I wanted to use something that will leave a mark. Or a pin, as it were.

(Update: Pinterest was a flash in the pan and is gone now. I still don't understand the point of it.)

Mercury glitter.

More forms. Taxes. Wills. High School. New Jake having a little issue with his blood sugar because motherfucker needs his mom. I can't watch him too. Fighting with Caleb about which school Henry will go to next year. Fighting with Ruth to pass in her assignments on time but she's floating away on a musical cloud. Daniel has such a bad cold I want to cry for him. Norway didn't stand up to Crosby & company and we trounced them so easily. Important things in drawers I'm supposed to remember if things go wrong but I can't because I don't have that part of my mind anymore. Loch being weird about Sam out of the blue, all of the sudden. Duncan and Matt standing between them as if they needed to. Meatloaf for dinner because it's easy even though everybody except John hates it and Batman swooping in to take Ben for a talk to try and keep him on the path but out from under the wagon wheels as I pull on my coat yet again to go back to more lawyers and more nodding and more listening and more trying to remember things I shouldn't even have to think about it, so instead all I can picture is sitting in the sun wishing my whole life was the thick glossy polychromatic glitter like on the boat that the boss towed behind his truck my first year on the Midway. I never got a ride in that boat but every time I see that kind of glitter it makes me feel energetic, invicible and young.

One single letter folded in the pocket of my dress because it felt important so I pulled it out of the stack and tucked it in my hand in case I want to unfold and read it later on.

I have patience for your music, popular people, but this is just asking too much.

(Judgey-judge fluff. I have horrible things going on so please enjoy a rare public rant on what's wrong with kids these days and I'll get personal again as soon as...something changes.)

This morning I sat through Achy Breaky 2 in it's entirety.

Who does that?

I did, that's who and I'm not linking.

My official review is that it's as perfectly terrible as the first one, which I remember not so fondly as it was played constantly on the fucking carousel at the shore while we tried to take ourselves seriously directly adjacent to said carousel on the sideshow and some of the old lecherous fools there taught me the line dance behind the tents where you could follow the pink arrows to the sex show. Embarrassed men would slip past me, staring too long as if I was one of the performers they were about to watch.

I was not.

But again, hated the first song, hate the second one. A half-assed chorus reprise with a bunch of rap stuffed in between. Billy Ray Cyrus doesn't sing so much as he allows himself to be processed.

Do not watch the video unless you love breast implants and electrical tape and very little else. If I cringe at some of the videos I've been in then I can't imagine how these twerker-ladies feel. Also, Dude. The one driving the spaceship looks like your teenage daughter. Gross.

I think the boys watched it a few times in a row on mute. They have no taste.

Give me that fucking Robin Thicke video any day. At least those breasts MOVE.

Sleepwalker Samuel.

Take my narcolepsy plus Sam's perpetual exhaustion, prone to napping wherever he sits down, throw in twenty-four hour olympic coverage and an endless supply of firewood and you have a couple of fair-haired snoozers who seem awake less than more and not the least bit apologetic for it. There's something inherently comforting about listening to crackling flames with one ear while the other is treated to a flannel-wrapped heartbeat.

Sam is not a thirty-minute power napper the way Loch is, efficient to a fault, Sam is a lose-the-whole-day-don't-give-a-shit-someone-will-lock-the-church sort of psycho-coma-sleeper who wakes up dazed and sweaty like a toddler. But rested. He wakes up rested. Well, until he sits down again and tries to read and then nods off.

I think I might steal him from Matt. Maybe Matt will take trades?

Leafs=3, Canucks=1.

After a good twenty-minute exasperated protest by one redheaded wet blanket, Ben settled for decorating the end of my nose with one tiny little rosette of whipped cream and then licking it off.

The whole ice cream and caramel sauce part of the human sundae had to be abandoned completely because we didn't feel like burning all the bedding and shopvacking (I made up a word because spelling vaccume is some sort of curse onto my existence, okay?) my cast. It's filthy already and it's new so I could see that, though since my Leafs won it only seemed fair that I should get to bask in my winning glory but don't you worry, I still got a sweet ride.

Wait. I get that every day. Twice. Sometimes four times. Then I walk around kind of shakily and fucked up and they laugh at me so let's just...uh...change the subject.

This morning the boys were cleaning up and picking up in the living room because I don't anymore after big man-parties and Ben had a whole tray full of bottles and he kept staring at them. I asked if he could just take them right outside to the bin and he did but he never came back. When I went out he was sitting on the back step dangling one beer bottle by the fingers.

I stood and watched him for a couple minutes. I didn't want to jump the shark. I know I should always freak first and sort it out later but I stood with my forehead pressed against the glass until Loch caught up with me, saw what I was looking at and charged outside quite readily.

What the fuck are you doing? He yelled. Ben is five feet away, on the top step. Yelling might not be necessary but freaking out is the way we do this, I guess.

Ben turns around and says he wasn't drinking. He thought about it but he didn't so he just sat there thinking.

Let me smell your breath. Loch gets right in his face and Ben kisses him. I counted to fifteen and then my eyebrows raised so high they floated off my face and up into the sky as the boys finally broke apart.

Fine. Loch says and grabs the bottle. You don't clean up booze, okay? He comes back up the steps with the bottle and goes past me.

Should I be jealous? What a kiss that was! 

I just wanted to make sure I couldn't taste any beer on him. 

So what did you taste? 

Loch just laughed and said nothing while I clued in. Ben got up abruptly and came over and smashed against me, pulling both Loch and I in tight to his embrace and I asked him if he was okay.

Yeah, I didn't actually want it, I just wanted to remember what it was like to not even think so hard about it, you know? Like how you feel about stuff. 

I nodded. Yeah. I know, Benny.

He put both his hands on my face and rubbed his cold nose against mine, while Lochlan breathed on the top of my head. I know you know, Bee, but this guy here's a much better kisser. 

Only cause he has a bigger mouth! I grin at Lochlan, victorious in my burn of him.

That's debatable, Peanut. He grins back, deflecting the flames onto me. I concede. He's a good kisser. They both are.

Fine. But don't leave me out! 

Never ever. I got smooshed in the hug just then. I think I broke something else.

Dark North, strong and free.

Up and at 'em, boys.

Today is a decidedly Canadian sort of day, with the new Maple French Toast bagels for breakfast and a firm confirmation that we actually did the right thing in giving up the Tim Horton's coffee in favor of Best Gourmet. Tim Horton's is much beloved, don't get me wrong, but mostly for their dutchies and maple dips, not their coffee. Small shops make good coffee. Chain shops make desperate coffee.

I make the best coffee. I'm currently using a French press to do so. Takes forever. The Best Gourmet is a localish company from out in the valley near where Lochlan's family is. So hundred-mile organic coffee french roasted, for the win.

Also! Canada has a first bronze medal in snowboarding by McMorris! Hurrah! And Moir and Virtue are first in figure skating! And Alex Duckworth from home is competing in women's snowboarding so we're rooting for her! And we shut out Switzerland (5-0) in women's hockey too! And now two more in moguls, gold and silver from two of the Dufour-Lapointe sisters!

(Sorry, I have Olympic fever hard. Last time around when they were here, ironically, I was in the Prairies selling the castle and packing up life because Caleb. Arse. Whatever. I'm going to eat Sochi coverage for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

!

Jesus. It's a beautiful day for the red and white, and for the blue too.

Later today though is the second most difficult night of the year sportswise, in which I see the collective divided sharply down the centre as the Leafs play the Canucks.

Half of us (okay, a frightening minority) are true Leafs fans and the rest are (poser) Canucks supporters. The trash talk has already begun. The bets are being made. The tables are being bolted to the floor and the children sent to friends' houses for sleepovers. Hide yer women. Hide your beer.

Hide your halos because yes, I invited the devil. The amount of time we all have to spend together is non-negotiable anyway, with the amount of family dynamics we need to smooth over constantly and so the sooner he faces all of the boys the better. My bites have faded anyway. My mood is up and my cast is coming off on Valentines' Day if all goes well.

I hope the Canucks don't win. My bet didn't involve money. It involved some vague idea about a human ice cream sundae. And two guys with spoons. If the Leafs win apparently the sundae will be six-foot-four. I've never finished a sundae in my life, and boy, is Lochlan ever in trouble, since he's the only other Leafs fan in the house at present since August went home.

Facedown in the sand.

You would take the breath from my throat
And you would take the cherished people that I hold

Running gets so tiring. So exhausting. Hiding is worse, especially when I'm already afraid of the dark. I find myself inching back toward the light, as far away from the shadows as I can get but then everything just reaches out to grab me and I'm back at square one again and I never drew a map in the first place so I wind up searching from scratch for the right route. I wish Lochlan had sprinkled glitter or something so I would know what way to go but he told me I had to do it for myself. Maybe it's tough love and maybe I hate it for him even though the tiny part of me that is able to tell the rest of me that there's nothing in the dark that's going to get me is the same part that knows he's right.

I inched too far and I ran too fast and I found myself alone on the beach at low tide and everything hurt so much on the inside that it seemed like the only way to exist was to sit down in the wet sand and watch the waves break and then when I got tired and cold I lay down on my back but the light hurt so I turned to my stomach and pressed my cheek against the icy-cold gritty surface of the planet so I wouldn't get flung off of it again but then I went right up into space (Hey there's Orion again!) as Ben pulled me up so fast everything went blurry. He swore at me and stood me on my feet but then my knees buckled like a marionette and I laughed because oh, my brain is so cold right now I can't remember the things I should know by heart.