Pick a flower, hold your breath.

Yes, I cried when I heard the news. I have a pretty short list of people I adore who don't live in my immediate vicinity.

And I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on this planet with the entirety of the lyrics to Still Remains tattooed on my back. Sandwiched between the giant scrawled words in Caleb's handwriting, Neamhchiontach and Croíbhristeoir, because it was the one song Jacob couldn't actually sing successfully (he was a minister with a Stone Temple Pilots cover band if you're green to SWP) so I put it there as a challenge, that maybe he could someday sing it all the way through in heaven. It's a difficult song to breathe through, the same as today is a difficult day to breathe through because we lost a huge shining light that makes up fully half my life's soundtrack. A tiny man with big showmanship, a man who entertained me for nights and hours, in person and through my headphones, and left an indelible mark with his words. A man who had his demons on his heels the whole damn time he lived. I hope they've left him now.

Rest peacefully Scott Weiland. And thank you for everything.

(Croíbhristeoir means heartbreaker. Everything Caleb has ever called me in kindness goes on my skin as a label for all eternity, but this post isn't about him, because he is still alive.)

I'm so fucking sad. 

Jesus Christ.

Telling fortunes, telling truths (a real gobsmacker from thirteen and eight).

What is the lie-berry like at the Junior high? Do they have The Hardy Boys?

It's lie-braire-ee, Peanut. The R comes right after the B. Like in Bridget.

Right! Lie-berry! So do they?

No, just books for teenagers. 

Like what?

Horror books mostly. John Saul and Stephen King. And stuff like Raise the Titanic. 

No Judy Blume? 

That's for babies. 

Wow. I'm not a baby! 

You're eight. Yesterday you were a baby. Tomorrow you'll still be a baby. But someday you'll be a big kid. 

Will you still be in junior high when I start going there too? 

No, I'll be in high school then. 

I wonder what the lie-berry is like up there. 

It's all encyclopedias and microfiche machines. 

So, boring? 

Learning is always boring, Bridge. 

Not if your friends are with you. I'm by myself and you guys are all in Junior High and it's a disaster, Lochlan.

I can't help the fact that I'm thirteen. 

I know. 

What's your favorite book right now, Bridge? 

A Little Princess, by....I forget who wrote it. It's a girl writer. 

What's it about?

A little girl who gets sent to boarding school by her father and she's very rich but then he dies and the headmistress takes away all of the girl's pretty things and makes her live in the attic where she invents stories in her head to escape her oppressive life alone. She's finally saved by a rich man who knew her father and lives happily ever after. Well, as happy as one can be orphaned.

Oppressive. You can use oppressive correctly in a sentence but you can't pronounce library? 

Prio-rites, Locket.

That's prior-i-tees, Bridge. You're a funny little kid. 

I'd be better if I was in your grade. 

I'm dropping out in a couple years anyway. So I'll never be there. 

I get a weird little flutter of panic in my chest when he says that so I put both hands across my heart suddenly and hold my breath.

He is taken aback. What are you doing? 

I don't know. It hurt a lot when I thought of you not being around. Like right here. I point at my chest.

He smiles. I know. I get that feeling too when I think about being away from you.

Well, maybe someday I'll meet a rich man like in the book and then I can use all of his money to make sure you're always here. With me.

Does that mean you have to go through a lot of difficulties first and someone has to die? 

Oh, probably but I think it would be worth it. 

Hindered spirits.

(Here's the thing. And I have all kinds of time because I'm hiding out from Batman who's been looking for me for two days but he also can't just walk in like he owns the place because he doesn't. I do. Remind me, I need to get the key from Caleb. That's going to be a fight. Apparently I need better boundaries. Right and longer eyelashes too but a girl can only work with what she was born with, right? And I was born with a brain so flawed that it was easy to exploit me into what I am now. I'll take full responsibility for it though. Instead of actually making changes I just take circuitous routes back around to where I started.)

You should have gone with Matt. 

I know but I'm too busy to be flitting around Europe right now as the kept wife. It's Christmas, for fucks sakes, Bridget. Sorry, Gina. Sam calls out to the cleaning lady who is frowning at me because Sam swore. I point to him and she smiles and disappears again.

Matt's coming home this weekend for a break, a visit, a fight. Something big, anyway. Sam isn't doing well. He's retreated. He goes to the church and he comes home and disappears downstairs to his apartment. He hasn't joined us for any meals. Hasn't asked how anyone is doing. Didn't add his opinions to the whole PJ saga that turned out to be completely harmless (but cloaked in that famous frat-boy humor that pervades throughout the point) and he hasn't exactly been truthful about his answers when asked how he's doing. I'm glad he threw himself into his work. I'm glad he's keeping busy. And I'm absolutely devastated by his absence. I followed him down to church again in my pajamas but no one bats an eye about that anymore, they just give us even more space than usual.

Bridget, I don't think things are good with him. It would be like if Ben just kept going out on the road and didn't notice if you were lonely. Didn't notice when you were sad. Had this perfect life mapped out otherwise. Hit all the right notes with romantic gestures and all the right answers about the present and the future but completely missed the part where all you feel is lonely. Shouldn't he be able to tell? If you give someone your heart, shouldn't they be able to understand the language it's written in? I thought if I had him that I wouldn't feel like this any more. This isn't a hole God can fill, I don't mean I'm not fulfilled as a person but when it comes to love I shouldn't feel like this. You know? 

I can't answer him because my brain got stuck on the part where he said 'If you give someone your heart, shouldn't they be able to understand the language it's written in?' It's when I realized things really aren't any better or different between Sam and Matt, and it's when I realized that I've ruined Sam too and I fell a little harder in love with him (oops) and I nodded to him as tears rolled down my face and he said he didn't want to make me sad for him, that I'm sad enough, and he said to come on, that we'd go play hooky for a day and maybe then we'd both feel better, but first I need to go home and change. And come back and he should be finished and we'll head out.

I wiped my face with my sleeves and he laughed a little bit shakily and said it felt good to be able to talk to me one on one without the army waging war over my head and I realized he wasn't avoiding me, he just didn't want to add to the mess that is my life and I told him that's a mistake because he has a way of sorting everyone out and fixing things that we let fester so long, or maybe he can just come and talk to us and he'll feel that much less lonely. I lie, in other words, because that doesn't work.

At least we're good for each other. He smiles and wipes his own tears away quickly.

Oh, I highly doubt that. You must not be current on the family memos. I ruin everybody. 

Naw, Bridget. You're just looking for someone who speaks the language of your heart. 

You don't think they do? 

I think some of them have enough words to get by, if you know what I mean. 

I don't know if I do, but it gives me lots to think about on my way home.

The lesser.

I really wish you'd stop interfering. Lochlan scowls at Caleb, who actually came over to feast on some crow after being told in no uncertain terms by Joel that for PJ to be banished (even temporarily) right now at this perfect juncture between Ben's birthday and New Years would be detrimental and probably highly destructive to my well-being.

(I'm guessing Joel finally picked a side and is going to be looking for his brownie points from me from now on.)

I got to tell Caleb this morning and invited him over for his bird-meal. I may film it and put it on Youtube. 'Millionaire's latest attempt at scorched-earth campaign goes bust.'

But for some reason he is still full of fire. Fire and feathers, now.

If it weren't for my interference, you two would be bickering over a nickel in a run-down trailer park somewhere. You'd be drunk and she'd be scared and hungry. Bridget wasn't meant to live like that. I know you're hellbent to, though, so there's the door. 

Diabhal. You aren't allowed to speak to him like that. 

I am, actually. I pay his bills. 

No, I do. 

With the money I give you. 

I'm not here for your money, Caleb.

I forgot. Those with means are in a lineup behind me. See, Pyro? You're never going to have what you want. You should just get out while you still can before you end up like the others. Save yourself. 

And leave her for you? Never. 

Am I in a movie? I spin around looking for the cameras but they're well-hidden, I guess. I can't see them. Both men stop and look at me without words. Loch finally says What are you doing? 

Nothing. Thinking. 

About? 

How to fix this so you two don't kill each other. You have four years left. You're more than halfway through this forced arrangement. 

Going to be a long four years. Loch says it almost under his breath just as Caleb starts to laugh.

You won't leave here once the custody arrangement ends. I know you better than you think I do, Bridget. 

Maybe you'll leave. Maybe I'll lock the point down and everyone will have to move.

You would miss this too much. Miss having all of your boys around. Miss having them watch you, touch you, give you whatever it is you don't get from him. 

Definitely a movie. Right on cue Loch dives at Caleb and Duncan and Dalton rush in to pull them apart. I give up. What's my role again? Oh yes, I go out and stand on the edge of the cliff and look out to sea while the camera does a slow pan away from me until I'm but a speck of black on the screen while the credits roll.

Really I just didn't want PJ to feel like he was being shoved out and I don't want Lochlan to feel like he's a charity case. But I worried prematurely. Both things fixed themselves. Lochlan brought me a quarterly rent cheque and told me I'm not to cover it anymore but he would like receipts from Caleb himself, and PJ assured me that he didn't feel pressured to go and really he's happy to remain but he is taking his next long weekend and going to visit some family. I sat looking at the cheque for a while, doing the math in my head and I finally went back to Loch and asked where it came from.

I have a sugar daddy too these days. Thought you would have noticed by now. 

I just stood there with my eyes wide because I wasn't putting two and two together. I'm so bad at math.

Batman. I got a Christmas bonus. Early, he said, so I'd have it to use for Christmas. Oh, and the rest of the year off. He's not a bad boss actually. 

So this is the bonus?And you're giving it to me? 

No, that's just this week's paycheque. The bonus is in the bank. More money than I've ever seen. And it's ours, Peanut. No strings. 

From Batman. 

Yes. 

Oh, there will be strings, Loch. 

Still twelve and seventeen, apparently.

I got annoyed at iTunes this morning for not taking the playlists I have made on my phone and populating them over onto my macbook. Is this even a thing?

As usual Lochlan won't help with anything because he expects me to be technologically independent so I threatened to go back to using a Blackberry. Drag and drop. No problems. If Ruth burns through any more iphones I may have to go back to Blackberry anyway because they're less than half the price of a new iphone so I would just give her mine and revert. We shall see.

I'm not independent in any way, frankly and I don't know why he persists except that he is hurting today and lashing out because the Cirque show brought up feelings in him that he has no place to put anymore. I tied him down. I took him out of his comfort zone and stuck him rigidly into Happily Ever After right smack up against the Devil even though I knew when I fell in love with Lochlan that he would rather die than sit still, ever.

Oh, good choice of words, Loch. Excellent. Now please excuse me while I run upstairs and cry my eyes out for ruining your life. 

That's not what I meant. 

It seems pretty clear to me. 

I miss it, Bridget. Don't you miss it? Life was simpler. Everything was simpler. There was so much magic. 

You have to find the magic in other ways now. It's still simple if you keep it that way. 

This isn't simple, Bridget. 

So your fix for it is to hurt me? 

No, I just want to make you see the things you seem to have forgotten. 

I didn't forget. 

Maybe you were just too young to remember.

Maybe it was just too hard to live like that. 

I can see that. It's much nicer and cushier here with the Devil emptying his wallet on you.

That's not what I meant. 

Then what did you mean? 

It's safer here. 

Why? He's right in your face so he can't sneak up on you any more?

Pretty much. 

Well, I wanted more for you. For us. 

And I GAVE IT TO YOU. Even though it's cost me most of your trust in the process. 

I wonder if this was worth it, Bridget. Do you really think it is?

I don't see any other way. 

Well, you would, but you've grown too use to this gilded life to consider anything else. You sat there complaining about your phone this morning. We used to walk to the payphone, a mile there and a mile back. Did you forget already?

That was in the eighties! Before cellphones. You're not seriously going to use that as an argument are you?

I was but I'm sure you've bought all your answers in order to be sure you'd win. Or he did for you.

This is exactly why I ran away and joined the circus.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I nearly imploded from the impending excitement of attending Kooza, the Cirque Du Soleil show that arrived in town last month and didn't really get my shit together again until I fell asleep on Ben watching Rogue Nation in our theater last night.

(The movie was boring. Wasn't it? I didn't really find it interesting enough to stay awake.)

But Kooza.

Well, Oh My God.

I watched it with tears in my ears. I saw things I've done. Things I couldn't do. Things I wished I could still do. Things that made me laugh, made me cry. It was positively full of heart. I loved the historical costumes and I loved the skeletons too. I actually considered re-applying to work for them.

I bought a lot of souvenirs. Christmas ornaments, t-shirts. I bought six-dollar water.

Things have changed when you can charge six dollars for water and people buy it without blinking but it's also Vancouver.

Heh.

I think my favorite big part was the two athletes on the wheels. And my favorite small part was when,  both during the pre-show and the actual show, they would bring an audience member onstage for a moment and when they escorted them off one of the clowns would reach into his pocket and throw a handful of confetti into the air at their back.

I don't know why but that always seems touching to me.

I might have spent some time again wondering why it all turned out so differently for me, but eventually everyone leaves the road and moves on. It isn't an easy life, all told, though it's more magical than most.

Lochlan's eyes watered the whole time too. When we got home he went to our room and didn't come out again. I know he feels it. It hurts because it's so beautiful and because we can't go back again. I mean, we could but it wouldn't be the same.

Lost at last.

I found my latest happy place this morning, sitting on the wet sand at the edge of the water on my beach, (because the rocks and logs were all slippery-frosted over and wet seemed better than slick and I made a mistake, okay?)  headphones in and David Gilmour's song In Any Tongue on repeat, Cole's big grey sweater wrapped tightly around me.

This is the best. The sand is ice-cold, the music is glorious (the album is hit and miss, though Faces of Stone, A Boat Lies Waiting and the leads in the intro and outro are glorious. Also The Girl in the Yellow Dress is amazingly smooth and jazzy, a surprise. I wish Gilmour's voice was stronger. I wish he wouldn't age. Eventually there won't be any new music and we will still listen closely and hear things we never heard before. I will, anyway. I miss a lot.

In the meantime, I'll be here. Winter has finally arrived at my beach and once you survive the trip down here, it's the perfect place to be alone.

Not that I need to be alone or anything. I don't actually like to be alone but I also don't like to be anywhere but here.

This house is made of cards and they're old and flimsy and don't hold up at ALL.

I'm not sure why everyone is harping on her Majesty the Queen for carrying her purse in her own home.

I do that.

Mostly because I bring it down in the morning and put it on the table in the foyer. If there's people around the property that I don't know I leave it on the desk in the kitchen. At night I bring it back upstairs and put it on the dresser in my closet.

If I go out I make Ben carry it.

See? Simple.

Thought right now there's too much stuff in it but I vetted everything and it all passed muster so I think I really need something bigger. I always loved carrying diaper bags. You could bring damned near everything you own. Case in point, I pare down my bag and then instantly need something I have left behind.

Also don't disparage the Queen. Thank you.

Speaking of queens royalty, PJ is considering a trip for Christmas after all. The Devil is such an asshole. I asked PJ what he was going to do because he's about to start his chocolate advent calendar so he can't leave now.

I could bring it with me. 

No. Sorry. They aren't portable. 

What are you talking about? It would fit in my bag.

I said no. 

Oh, I get it. You just don't want me to go. 

Of course I don't. I don't care if you travel but not because he wants to call the shots. 

Don't worry. I've been kind of restless lately anyway. I won't give him credit. 

Why can't you go in the spring instead?

Bridget, people need to be with their families at Christmas. 

I am your family!  I might have stomped my foot with that sentiment to drive home my point but I was holding my purse and it was heavy.

The Devil you don't.

Caleb suggested that PJ take a few weeks off and come back at New Years, refreshed and refocused. He is worried that PJ can't do a good job what with all the distractions around here. I told Caleb he could stuff his opinions into the cold marble house on the hill and also what is he doing with that place anyway?

Establishing my role as King of the Mountain. But he laughs when he says it. He worries. About me. About PJ. About the children, though he doesn't have to worry about them. PJ puts them first and is the best nanny a mom could dream of, honestly and I'm not going to send him away unless he wants to go.

He already said we're all making a mountain out of a molehill and he doesn't want to go anywhere.

Good, then that's settled and I can get back to dancing to Dark Side of the Sun. Because something something Modeselektor and no metal cred anymore anywhere.

It's fine. Really. I just wish I could figure out the words. Besides Bitch motherfucker, because that part is obvious. LOL.

***

Other weird things about today:

~Pinterest has a shitload of 'one-pot wonder' meal recipes that are amazing. We just do five stock pots on the stove instead of one. And it reduces the need for an hour of slavery over the stove. I finally found a use for that website.

~Fingerless gloves look really good on everybody.

~ Hanukkah starts in less than two weeks!

~Christmas is THIRTY days away. I asked for beards. Razor burn works very well as a....macrodemabrasion feature but I fear in places I don't have much skin left. What happened to Vikings and Highlanders and..and MOVEMBER, people??

~OH. The last two episodes of American Horror Story: Hotel have brought me back around. It's good now, finally. The serial-killer dinner party was by far the worst thing I've ever seen so really they had to work hard to keep me interested. Otherwise I'll just continue with Sons of Anarchy. I just started it and it's really good, save for the cheesy intro. Ben and I keep making jokes about our tattoos flying off our bodies and doing other things while we stand stoically behind them.

It's good though. I want to binge-watch it but there's just too much other stuff to do. Namely dance.

I still love you.

In my defence what is there to say
All the mistakes we made must be faced today
It's not easy now knowing where to start
While the world we love tears itself apart
I'm just a singer with a song
How can I try to right the wrong
For just a singer with a melody
I'm caught in between
With a fading dream

I wake up alone this morning. PJ is back in full force and has the kids off to school on time, affording me an extra hour of sleep. He sent Ben off to his meeting, taking Duncan with him (they are inseparable sometimes) and runs interference for me with Caleb.

Caleb can be very bossy.

When I come downstairs, Lochlan is sitting at the piano playing and singing. In My Defence. Freddie Mercury. He shares his birth date and his love of showmanship but there's no audience today. Just me with my teacup in the doorway watching his shoulders move with his hands, the sunlight hitting the sleepy curls on the back of his neck and the fuzziness of a soft t-shirt and pajama pants. He was waiting for me to get up and didn't go far, I guess.

He tilts his head sideways indicating a place for me to sit beside him on the bench so he can finish the song and I do. He smiles sideways and pulls out all the stops. A performance just for me. It kind of makes me cry except I'm not awake and I'm always more anxious about him hitting a high note when he sings than I ever have been when he's lighting me or himself on fire.

Oh here he goes.

Yup. Got it. My insides turn all mushy and my eyes threaten to overspill. He smiles when he sings the last part which changes it completely and then he ends with a sweet little flourish on the keys. He taught himself to play piano in the first circus we worked for, in the kitchen on Sunday mornings while everyone else was at church under the big top because he said he only worshipped me and the almighty dollar but he was just being a shit back then.

Wait, he's still a shit now so never mind that but he can be romantic when he wants to be, even at ten a.m. on a Tuesday in pajamas.