If it's okay with you, I'm just going to go ahead and slide into Tuesday.

This force is in love with you
It wants you safe
It wants you well
This force knows what you can do
And what you can make
With your tattered shell

Faith in your device
So quiet and precise
Just when, not how
You can feel it now
Deep beneath the light
A spark will now ignite
And you will see me now
This is our world now

Dreaming of omelets and angels today. Cold to a fault. Frustrated with being sick and feeling weak and achey and dizzy. Not in the mood for anything it seems and yet life demands that I sit up and pay attention when I just want to fight it, push it away and crawl under the covers in order to sleep for a year.

Sam calls that depression. I just call it Monday.

I don't know how to fix this frustration. Wait to get better? Go easy? Naw. I was changing beds all morning and hauling weeds all afternoon. I daresay I made a hint of progress on both fronts and can do it all again in a week. Invisible chores. Like cleaning windows and the tops of cupboards. All the things no one sees but appreciates like mad the second they lapse. Bah, humbug.

Bah Mondays.

They should be stricken from the record.

I'm going to go put on wool socks and a big fuzzy grey sweater and try and thaw Lochlan, who won't thaw at all but is gentle and sweet even if he's mad. I can't say I blame him but he agreed to this and it's working so why fuck with a good arrangement? Why not just stay away from the Devil? Why eat angels when you can eat eggs instead? Why be sick when you could be better? Why be awake when I could just sleep and then my brain wouldn't forge a mutiny on me at the start of each brand new week?

Wouldn't I love to have the answers, but the questions aren't even real.

Here is patheos. Happy Easter.

Caleb's hands were warm and strong as he pulled my face up to his. I warn him but he never cares. I want him but that wouldn't matter. I love him and hate him with equal force.

Diabhal. Don't.

I know you miss Cole, Neamhchiontach. Take your time. 

But I struggle like a bee in a spider's web before he forces me still. Straight-ahead affection is so uncharacteristic of him, I want to soak it up like a sponge. Usually he's too rough, bordering on violent. He won't let me face him, won't let me move, won't kiss me or hold me. He bites. He twists me until I cry and then he is satisfied that he's exhausted all of me. So when he takes his time and he's sweet it throws me off my game of defense. Even though I'm still not sure precisely which way this is going to go.

Then I decide it's not going to go and I stop.

He puts his head down all the way until the top of it is against my collarbone (the one his brother broke in half when he threw me at a wall) and he pleads for me. I am half out of my clothes, he is so warm. What's the harm? I think as he liquifies my resolve.

(Oh. Dumb girl. There's so much harm and it's not just to you.)

His hands tighten against my skin and he starts whispering in Gaelic. A mile a minute. I can't catch all the words, I'm chasing them but they're getting away and I'm running slower and slower down this dark road and I just want a way out. I want a map. I need a ride, dammit.

And then it strikes me. He's praying.

(The boys were once Irish Catholic. Before one became a psycho and the other, the Devil himself.)

(Oh, he's praying hard and I am trapped still in his web and I'll never get out. Shalom, Shalob.)

Oh my Diabhal. You can't just wish for things. Or people. Or ask God to give you anything you haven't earned. It doesn't matter what words you say. I should know. I tried them all.

Spoiler.

Yes, that's exactly what it looked like:

Two rows of teary-eyed men and one drowny-eyed lady at the movie theatre when the lights came up at the end of Furious Seven.

I wasn't sure I was up to going, it's two hours and seventeen minutes and I have a blistering headache from the antibiotics but I'm glad I saw it. I forgot about how sick I felt as I held my breath through some of the craziest action scenes (the BUS! JESUS!) and then..well, and then when that white car peels off I lost my shit.

It was fun. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham had far too much screen time. Lucas Black had a whopping one-minute cameo. Michelle Rodriguez finally had a whole bunch of screen just like in old times!

But Paul.

Man.

He lit up the screen like a celluloid heartbeat and he will be missed.

This is a day of nothing.

I didn't really get up today except for the part where Ben led me to a warm bath and then into fresh pajamas. He washed my hair for me and then I leaned back against him in the broiling water and I closed my eyes. So tired. Head hurts so bad. Far too sick to pull this off alone.

He dried me off. He picked out pretty blue leggings with waves all over them and a long-sleeved white Amaranthe Massive Addictive t-shirt and I am good to go for another day. Then he disappeared.

PJ brought up more tea and sat for a while showing me funny videos. True facts about Seahorses. That was the best one.

I watched a documentary with Duncan. I can't remember what it was about. I took my pills as scheduled. I slept hard but I still feel like I've been kicked in the soul.

Caleb offered a drive in his R8. He knows I love the car. He knows I get cabin fever but I just wasn't up to it. He graciously took a raincheck and also said if I wasn't a lot better in a day or two he would summon the doctor back.

Sam cuddled with me for hours and we didn't talk at all, we just sat together in the big double chair and watched the fire, his arm looped around my neck. He seemed content to not talk or listen to music  or do anything for hours but then he disappeared too (Good Friday services) and I went back upstairs.

I think I slept but then Loch sat down on the bed. He rubbed my back and told me a story about a little girl who runs away and joins the circus but she doesn't want to work, all she wants to do is ride the amusement rides next door and pick flowers and never ever talks to anyone unless she's on stage or on caller duty and she's so silly and he loves her so.

Hey. I know that story.

Outside the rain continued endlessly. I hardly noticed.

Echo in the wells.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

This morning I came down to a Mexican standoff. Batman and Caleb in my kitchen staring each other down, face to face, words fired, wounds filled with letter-shrapnel, and PJ is playing Simon & Garfunkel which made the whole mess all the more absurd.

They both turned as I reached the bottom steps with my feverish face and hair sticking up, in soaking wet pajamas. Loch made me come down for food (orders via phone, he is working today) and then I'm to go right straight back to bed. I need my antibiotic for the morning and Daniel promised to come up and snuggle. PJ said maybe and Sam said he would be up straightaway after work.

But these two, well, they're not invited.

They don't even live here, though by virtue of circumstance, good fortune, bad luck and ridiculous timing they afforded me this life, though both alternately claim credit and refuse to acknowledge their investment at all. It's kind of dumb and I'm too sick to deal with it today so PJ hands me a plate with a blueberry muffin all buttered but cold the way I like it and a half-cup of black tea. I take it and walk right between them to sit at the island right in the middle because that's my seat. I'm almost too weak to climb up on the stool but I manage and I sit and eat quietly while everyone stares at me. When I'm finished I give PJ my dishes and he kisses my forehead and I turn and go back upstairs without a word.

I don't care why they're arguing, as long as it doesn't wake me up.

I must be sicker than I thought.

I'll take a black-market kidney if you have one though.

Hotel Rio is still my favorite, though iTunes keeps sliding right into the Happy In Galoshes album after this one and Missing Cleveland is worth another look if you haven't.

I wish I could figure out the words.

***
Some things don't change.

I sat up nice and pretty for the scary Russian doctor (not the older one) this morning. I'm fine. It's just another kidney infection. Hurts and I'm rundown, hence the crankiness of late. Lochlan swears he can sense when I'm about to get very sick based on my moods.

I don't believe that for even a second.

The doctor has less interest in my current ailments and more in what his connections might be able to do for me. He doesn't speak the language much and Caleb had left to afford me a little privacy. Lucky for me. I felt very sophisticated coming back down the hall with a container full of my pee to be tested.

Your hair. Did someone cut it?

I had it cut. 

You wanted it like this?

Yes. 

Oh. He flinched as if he couldn't believe that and then tried something else in stilted English. I have a guy. He can do your...your backside. 

Excuse me?

Surgery. So you have a bigger backside. A...booty, if you will. 

Oh! No thank you. I like it the way it is. 

Do it for the mans?

Hell no. 

Seriously? You would not to want change this to be bigger? They like it. 

No, they would not. No plastic surgery. 

That's a shame. You could be so pretty. You have the face. But you're a little on small side, no? I'd have to, what do they say? Throw you back.

Blast radius.

I am still awfully cranky.

Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts' debut album Blaster came out this morning. Jeremy Brown died last night. I'm not so sure the timing could have been worse to birth an album but never get to meet it properly, in the hands of the public who adores you but there is no good timing for death. It just grabs someone you love while you're looking the other way, at something stupid or inconsequential.

Either way, guys, Blaster is a surprising masterpiece of an album. Hotel Rio is my favorite on the first listen but it's ALL good and over the next five listens I'll change my mind five times.

So yes, I'm still crabby. We should be celebrating, not mourning. Life is so short and we waste so much of it fighting to control feelings that seem to do little more than waste our time. 

Rest in peace, Brown. (I hope they bury you with one of your hats.)

And Matt moved off the point yesterday, deciding Batman's house was still too close to be 'space'. 

Spoiler: she didn't go to the boathouse!

Last night and today featured a full-point internet blackout until we were finished dinner and could watch the season finale of The Walking Dead. 

That's how ridiculously rude and disrespectful the internet has become, friends. They can't wait to prove they saw the show FIRST! so they have to vomit all the spoilers before half the country has even seen it. Nice.

Movie reviews take note and learn how to review a movie without giving things away. God. All of you, just use your fucking manners for once, could you?

Anyway, we finally got to see it and the blackout is over. But it's also late so posting will resume tomorrow.

(Notice I didn't spoil it, because there are still people out there who haven't seen it. This isn't hard! It's common sense and good graces. Jesus Christ. Chill. So annoyed by life. Goodnight.)

'What rhymes with soul?' He asked and before I could answer he said 'Cole.'

The Devil drowned in my nostalgia this morning after reading yesterday's entry and I let him. I stood in the kitchen of his house while he held me and let himself be sad, let himself miss his little brother. He let himself float on a wave of history for a little while and then he stood up straight, wiped his eyes and thanked me for letting him just have a moment, that it was just what he needed. He invited me for lunch after church and then over tonight maybe to watch home movies. I agreed to lunch (it was delicious) and am considering tonight, but I'm hoping I can talk him into watching The Babadook with maybe a little more gravestone juice. Maybe not. We shall see.

'Behold, I know not anything' is how it goes.

Care to...lick some gravestones? He says it with a smile. He gives in to my lack of sophistication. The Lagavulin has an amazingly specific smell and taste in that all I could ever imagine is that someone took the bottle and poured the liquid out across the head of the angel lying on Mary Nichol''s grave at Highgate and then caught it in another bottle and that's what I now hold in my hands.

I know what gravestone tastes like. I grew up with boys. I can still remember it clear as day.

It was nighttime. I was ten. We stood under the trees at the center of the cemetery and Lochlan passed me up as they took turns having a swig of bravery from Caleb's flask. Caleb is eighteen, Loch is sixteen and I am not going to get any bravery in a jar, which makes me braver than all of them by default. I ran after them all all night while they played Do or Dare, and when it got late and I got desperate I finally yelled PICK ME!!

Caleb turned and laughed. If I have to lie on this one then you have to lick the death date, trace it with your tongue. 

Oh, that's EASY, I boasted.

He lay flat on his back on the grave, arms crossed on his chest, feet together, pointing to the moon. Okay, go for it, Bridget. He sounded so uneasy.

I sat by his head and leaned over him slightly and stuck my tongue in 1938.

It tasted like the Lagavulin of my future. It tasted like moss and death and iodine and it wasn't nearly as awful as last week's game where Christian told me if I really wanted respect and entry to the Dare Club I would eat the dead ladybug he found.

I did that too except that I swallowed it whole so it only tasted a little bit bitter and then I threw up because he told me if I left it there it would come back to life and hatch and grow ladybug babies inside me then when I opened my mouth and eyes they would come flying out of my face.

At least I don't have to eat anything dead this time.

Also? Boys suck.

When I sat back and spit out the moss from my tongue, Lochlan put his hands out to pull me up. I think you just won the game, he tells me. He's plastered.

Caleb closes his eyes and pretends to stop breathing so we leave him there and start to run flat out across the cemetery. Cole is vaulting over headstones, Chris does slaloms. Loch throws out his hand for mine and we stay between the rows so we don't run over anyone. When we get back to the cars everyone is laughing and out of breath and I look back into the dark. Where is he? Maybe we should go back and get him. 

He'll be along. Loch lights a cigarette and blows smoke over my head so I don't breath it in. He hands off the smoke to Cole and then Caleb comes staggering out of the darkness and I scream.

He puts his arms out and drops the flask. What? What is it?

I didn't think you were that close. 

I like that Bridget is the only one who wanted to go back there and get me. You got my back, Bridgie. For that, you can have a drink. He goes hunting in a circle in the grass and finds the flask. There's a little left, he says as he shakes it. This is good. You're only little. He brings it to me and Loch shoves him backwards.

Naw, brother. She's too young. 

She's as old as we were when we tried it. 

And half our size. 

She's tougher than any of us. 

But I just keep staring at Caleb because he's alive, he's okay. I was worried that maybe he died for real and we were just going to leave him there in the dark. It's still a relief when I see him every time because he's still here. I didn't know at the time how final death is but maybe I did all along. That night stayed with me and we were just kidding around. Amazing how it feels when it's not for fun but for real and they don't get up. They don't come back into the light. They don't talk anymore. They're not there.

I finish my gravestone-drink and he pours me another. That's what this is for. Numbing everything. Maybe he knew all along what it would be like and this is just good practice, except it's not practice anymore. The dark is all around us, and the quiet and the weirdly-cold grass.