Obverse and Bridge.

Lochlan waits until the room is at least forty-five degrees and then he pulls me up into his arms, one arm around my shoulders, the other scooping the rest of me up hard against him, not touching anything else. He can move us both, he's strong and he's overly warm and I didn't know heaven was a sauna until I met him.

Jacob described heaven as a garden, but only around the edges. He said he thought it was more like a digital picture frame you could walk right into, or change at will. He wondered if it was like a university and God was the professor and you would go from class to class processing everything you have learned, studying the meaning of life and having coffee or lunch, spending time with those who arrived before you.

What a weird concept, Pooh, I told him from my pale sun-dappled nest in bed. He's bunched all the quilts up around and over me, and just my head is peeking out. It's freezing and the summer bedroom is unheated, save for him and the woodstove we forgot to bring wood in for. Jesus, Jake. I think we need to run better vents in here. 

I think I can keep you warm, Princess, he promises, pulling me up against him.

Lochlan says heaven is a day at the fair. No one steals your wallet, you never get hungry or sunburned and the tiny lights are never turned off because you never have to go home. It doesn't pack up or shut down, it's just always there.

What a perfect idea, Locket. 

It would be except that heaven doesn't exist, Peanut. We have to live now because once we're gone, that's it. This is the reward, only most people don't know that. They hope for something later instead of now. That's a waste. 

What about God? 

What about him? If he pays he can come in and see the show. Just like everybody else. 

HOT and FAST.

I'm all fixed up. Lochlan gave me a hard line for my internet and suggested once again that I give up on Firefox and use Chrome.

Of course he's right, but that's okay too. He's the computer guy, I don't know anything about computers or networks or HTML, because you've had to look at the same design of my blog for almost five years now and while I'd love to change it, I don't know how.

In other news, we have heat wave and wind warnings and the humidity is high and so I'm just going to slither down into a chaise by the pool and pray for winter. I told you I wasn't good with the heat. I have a headache and my eczema is all over my hands now. It's probably got less to do with the heat and more to do with how neurotic I am but who cares? I'm broiling. I'm also wearing the absolute least amount of clothing I can get away with and still considering making this into a nudist camp. It's the only stone still unturned in this commune. May as well throw caution (and clothing) to the wind.

Short and sticky-sweet.

Today is all about Pallbearer covering Love You To Death, a very mild case of sodium hypochlorite poisoning (I'm FINE, Jesus. Locked myself in the shower to scrub it, used way too much bleach. Shower is incredibly clean but my throat hurts and my eyes did that thing like in erotic asphyxiation when the black comes in around the edges just before I pass out but I survived. I always do.) and plotting to have ice cream for dinner, which never goes over well because big guys seem to require big plates of chicken and vegetables or huge slabs of steak and garlic bread to not be hungry.

Offering up a frozen cone of something sweet probably won't cut it but it's too hot even to barbecue at this point. We'll have to stand in the shade and eat the ice cream reallllly fast or it could get messy (also like in erotic asphyxia-oh, nevermind) and really I don't have much time to write much more here today.

Because someone (I won't name names but it starts with L) seems to be throttling my internet something awful lately and it's taking too long to do anything online, This is it for the day, though Andrew offered to look into it later. I'm sure he'll find the root cause and Lochlan will pretend he forgot to do something when he reconfigured things and then I'll be back up to speed but in the meantime it's too frustrating. I'd rather be choked into unconsciousness than wait for these pages to load.

I'd rather be outside with ice cream dripping off my elbows.

I'd rather be loved to death.

The Devil's cover letter.

There's such a tiny little part of me that is a shallow, materialistic nightmare most of the time I can forget about her, but the Devil knows how to coax her out of hiding in spite of my best efforts to kill her off, quash her forever and be the free spirited light traveler I was groomed to be before the Devil took over. Now I run a fine balance between being a capable earth mother and a helpless walking nightmare. I'd like to say it's all his fault but I'm loathe to give him anything, including credit at this point.

I was out watering the herbs on the patio this morning when he wanders over oh-so-casually and without preamble drops his latest thought on my head. It was heavy. I'm shorter now and have a headache. Talk about left field.

If this property isn't satisfactory, Neamhchiontach, we can find one that is.

I'm sorry. What?

He takes a deep breath. Everyone has dealbreakers. You have to decide if this is one of yours. 

Frankly I don't care if we live in a cave. The discussion was private, the thought was fleeting. 

I can have the camper moved, if he won't do it. I can look after virtually anything he won't do, Bridget, and you know this. It worked for Cole and for Ben and it can work for Lochlan too if you stop writing down every single thought that crosses your mind. 

Maybe you should stop saying every thought that crosses your mind out loud. 

Consider it. Seriously. No man can be everything. Especially to someone like you. 

Someone like me. I wondered for hours afterward what he meant by 'someone like you'. And the little tiny part of me that goes for broke (or maybe goes for rich) started jumping up and down yelling Oh boy! We get our house on the beach! SCORE!, even though it will probably never happen.

Because I can't be discreet, and because he'll never settle for second place.

Serenity Princess (accepting those I can't change).

The further you go
I should have known
No use in holding
When it's already gone

It's Monday and I'm still here on the surface of the fucking sun, so let's do a barometer (a core dump as Loch calls it) and then I'm going to go outside by the pool and wait for my brain to melt and start pouring out my ears where it can mix in a puddle in my lap with my heart and I'll let the whole mess slide into the water. Pink and blue. So if you fly over the area I'll be the one with the now-purple pool, just outside Horseshoe Bay.

There is endless loud derision for the fact that I regularly sleep with counselor number one (August) and seem to always be just about to with number two (Sam). I don't know if it's any of anyone's business. I'm doing okay right now (Look, Ma, no meds!) and I haven't been caught anywhere (in the past eight hours at least) talking fervently to ghosts or demons alike.

I'm in love with everyone though. Still. Always.

That has to count for something.

In other news if I have to pick between DC and Marvel, I'm going with DC. Sorry but it seem obvious that I'll pick the dark brooding emotional superheroes over the shallow slapstick ones, though Iron Man teeters in between. I'm a Batman girl all the way, he's my favorite.

The actual Batman in my life I'm trying to avoid. Long story. He's presently Lochlan's boss and mine as well, though I am contracted a whopping six hours a week with work I can do in two. It's sweet of him to attempt to take over Sugar Daddy duties but well, long story, he isn't. I've had several vague yet sweet invites for breakfast in bed or whatever. I haven't refused them, I choose not to acknowledge them at all. Maybe he appreciates the sparing of his dignity in a way I don't appreciate the kindly sexual harrassment. We're so civilized in our strange relationship.

Since we're talking about sugar, I am not allowed to move the camper down to the beach. I had even found a company who could do it at great expense but Loch said no. Then he said I was immature. Oh my fuck. I just want to live on the beach. Didn't think that was too much to ask. If I ever move, he's not invited.

Speaking of invites, I received a beautiful one on pewter stationery to spend Christmas in Tahoe this year. Which would be...well, amazing. Obviously I'll have to refuse. In lieu of being able to do that (bait, switch), I was also invited for a horror movie night this weekend. I might be able to swing that. He is still my (boy)friend, after all (shhh just shut up just shut up) and I somewhat betrayed him and would like to make peace with that, as long as it doesn't involve being held up against a door by my throat, that is. Or at gunpoint. You know. That all kind of kills the mood.

Yes, I have the new Switchfoot album (well, there's a shift in subject matter). No, I haven't had time to give it my requisite five consecutive-listens through but it's audibly stunning. I love I Won't Let You Go and Shake This Feeling and Holy Water and Where The Light Shines Through (also the name of the album, don't you know) and If The House Burns Down Tonight. It's amazing. The boys all love Float because they're huge Jamiroquai fans and it seems to be in a similar vein to that genre but really Switchfoot could put out an album of all white noise and I would love it. Some songwriters seem to have the keys to unlock my mind, I think.

It's a nice change from PJ's recent steady musical diet of The White Buffalo. PJ doesn't have headphones, he plays all his music from the stereo that's wired into the house whole. The whole point, rather so if he is listening to something, we're all listening to it.

In other album news, it's the summer of genre mixing, apparently. I caught Royal Tusk live this summer and fell in freaking brutal, thorough love with a song they have called Above Ground. The chorus. Jesus, the chorus. It's like someone flipped open the top of my skull and started stroking my brain. It's the most glorious thing to hear live that you will ever hear in your life. Well done. All their other songs are good too but that one blows my little mind.

New Jake is doing really great, thanks  to those who have asked after him. He has a new (read: WORKING) insulin pump and is stable. I'm so happy people ask about his health. He's in a better headspace these days so he's managing very well. Sometimes my readers rock. Batman does too. He keeps Jake too busy to fall into holes, something Batman tried to do with me and failed because I'm "not motivated". I'm busy, uninterested in being his girlfriend because he is difficult.

Ben is also doing really well. Maybe it's a relief and I should be insulted? I'm not. I'm glad. All of this rearranging was tough and somehow easy at the same time. He's making an effort to be present but feels free to not be, too, if that makes sense. He's got a lot of work coming up that he can do from home and he's suddenly thriving. He also has the beginnings of a tan from all the gardening I make him do.

Yes, that's right. You didn't misread. Vampire Benjamin has a tan. A farmer's tan so just his neck and arms but IT'S A START.

In our garden just four out of the some eight hundred tomatoes in the garden are ripe. The pumpkins are ripening for fucks sakes and the hundreds of green tomatoes just hang there, mocking me because the nights are cold. I have heirloom seeds from everyone I know for next year already and things will be better. I'll be kicking the garden up a notch. Not as many tomatoes. Broccoli and garlic and rosemary in spades. I'm campaigning for some goats and chickens too but I have to check the bylaws to see if we're rural enough. I mean, we must be. There are no pokestops, gyms or nests for fifty miles. I have a page of pidgies and a Pikachu I hatched myself from an egg and otherwise I'm not playing Pokemon unless we drive downtown where the park is freaking full of Tentacools. Score. LOL

Jake would have hated Pokemon. We had very rudimentary Blackberry phones and woefully underpowered flip phones then. When I'm reminded of Jacob and his dumb little cellphone that barely worked I get a weird warm feeling now that seems to take a few more minutes to morph into a painful ache in my head and my stomach. Maybe I can credit the boys with being here, spending time, making things fun and keeping me distracted. Maybe time does change the way we react to constantly being aware that someone you love isn't coming back. Maybe I'm learning to live with the things I can't change. Maybe it's just a temporary great spot, treading hearts right here and I'm about to be sucked into a black hole in spite of my efforts not to. I don't know exactly. Cross your fingers.

I still have the phone. It's in pieces but I have it.

That's really all for today. See you tomorrow.

Sunday weirdos.

Heat makes things strange. Makes them ripply and mirage-like. Makes them smoke and waver. Makes them melt. It makes me lethargic and yielding. Makes me cranky and weak.

Beach Jesus/Sermon at the Sea was warm and overly sunny for me and I grew so tired of squinting I turned and walked back to Sam's car two-thirds of the way through the service. He parked in the shade. I sat with the door open fanning myself and feeling sweat pool in the center of my back and underneath each ear, somehow. I took off my hearing aids and put them away.

Thirty minutes and he was back. You alright? 

Good work, Sam, I tell him again in my deepest voice.

If it was good, why'd you leave? 

Too hot. Now I miss the Prairie winters suddenly. Ten months of the year without sweating, as long as you can make it through eight weeks of forty degrees.

It's only warm like this for three or four weeks out of the year here.

Yes and I hate it. 

And you miss driving on ice?

Fine, you win. Can we go home now? I'm going to need help moving my bed into the pool. 

Let's go out for lunch first. There's a little place I found downtown that's really good. 

Downtown? We won't get home until one. 

Oh well. 

Lochlan's home today. 

Ah. I've been replaced. And so soon. He looks down with a huge comical frown.

Never. But if he doesn't have to work I want to be with him. 

You really like the guy, don't you? 

Naw, I'm just bored and I want to play connect the dots. He has the most freckles. 

Actually I think you do. 

Shhh. We don't speak of those. 

But my face is covered. I've been marked by Jesus as one of the unbearable ones, a hot mess when everyone else is positively worshipping this weather instead of the things they're supposed to devote their faith to.

The Lord makes beautiful things. He smiles at me, turning on the car, turning up the air conditioning, motioning for me to close the door.

Like your Poland belt buckle? 

Ha! No, I think that was made in Taiwan. 

Oh. Really? Not Poland? How curious. 

I know! That's part of it's charm!

Shrinkage (take it any way you like).

Sam finishes another lesson by handing me a gold star from a roll he keeps in his office for Sunday school attendance.

Good work, Bridget.

You're biased because I'm in a swimsuit.

Actually I was going to talk to you about that.

You'd rather I didn't wear it?

Yes. Wait, no. I was going to tell you to wear your wetsuit for the lessons so that you don't burn.

I don't think the lesson is long enough for that to happen.

The sun is reflected in the water. You burn faster.

Oh. If you want, I can. But just say it, because me sunburning isn't the reason.

It's distracting to the point where I forget what I'm supposed to say.

You say "Good work, Bridget." I do it in a deep voice and he laughs.

Well, as long as you can prompt me, then, I guess it's fine.

It's way too hot for any more clothes. I was actually going to campaign for naked lessons.

Clear it with your husband and it's a go.

God, I can't wait to see you in your birthday suit yelling at me to breathe.

Wait, I thought you meant the student would be naked. I can't be naked.

Why not? Is it a sin against the Lord, Reverend?

What if I get excited?

Then you EMBRACE it! Jesus. It's forty zillion degrees and we have a pool! Boners for everyone!

Bridget, I swear to God. You're a man, aren't you?

I wish. Then I could write my name in the pool with my pee.

Okay, now that's just wrong.

I mean the snow!

Marginally better. You're obsessed with having a penis though.

Now you know how I got to this strange and wonderful place.

Collectors and defectors.

I haven't slept yet. Our hours of languishing flat out on the sand last night on the big round beach blankets watching shooting stars was followed with a night of being passed back and forth, being held up, being held down and being turned over so many times gravity ceased to be a factor because I couldn't tell which end was up. I became a falling star overnight only when I came back through the atmosphere I was supercharged instead of destroyed.

Ben could tell which end was up, thankfully, and he was anxious to reconnect in a new way. He likes it dirty and rough and difficult and by the time they stopped fighting over me I had flutters and shakes and was bathed in sweat. True to form they both fell asleep while I was in the (autoclave) shower and when I came out, Lochlan was flat on his back, snoozing deeply and Ben was almost spooning with him, one hand holding the top of Lochlan's head, the other holding my pillow against his chest firmly.

I wish I could post photos of that. I take them, I just can't share them.

Ben looks good though. The dark circles are gone and so is the beard. I thought I was throwing him under the wagon, marrying Lochlan but it seemed to calm him down, as if all the vigilance and strategizing of the past eight years can be relaxed at last.

I left them sleeping and went to find a bottomless mug of coffee.

Eventually they surfaced and right away, Loch asked me to come back upstairs.

Jesus, you're a machine. 

I wish. I have something for you, he said.

Upstairs we went where he went and pulled a largeish flat box out from underneath the bed and set it on the bed.

Open it. He smiles at me almost shyly.

I open it. Oh my holy water. Inside? At least a dozen pastel sets of the most beautifully soft vintage lingerie I've ever seen, far over the cashmere and velvet outfits he burned yesterday. It's all in perfect new condition and all in my size. I try on everything. Not a stitch is amiss, not a seam puckers or lifts. Uncanny. The slips fit like gloves. The garters are the perfect length. The bras contain everything yet still manage to be completely scandalous. I look almost..I mean...kinda sexy almost. He sits quietly, watching my fashion show, admiring my skin in between trips to the mirror. Hell, I'm admiring myself right now. Geez.

How did you-wait, when did you do this?

I've been adding to this collection for years. I've found pieces in Europe and the US but it was hard to find such small sizes so it's taken a long time but I knew I wanted to make the most beautiful collection for you.

And Caleb found out and beat you to it. 

He heard me telling PJ a while back that I wanted to go one better than Jacob and all that lingerie he bought for you that you liked. But Cale cheated. Everything was new again. That's not the same. Money can buy whatever. This is history. None of this is younger than 1960. I remember you looking at those retro Vaudeville girls on the sideshow. I remember you saying everything you wore would be velvet and satin and beautiful. I don't forget anything you say.

I can't believe he did that. 

Bridget, our entire history is steeped in his concentrated efforts to ruin everything for me but it didn't work. I have everything now and I want you to have everything. I want to spoil you for anyone else so that you will only be mine. I want to give you everything I couldn't give you before. 

Can we still have cheeseburgers though? I like eating those with you.

As many as you can eat. 

We both say half a one at the same time and he smiles so wide, eyes glistening that I loose my composure in the neatly stitched ribbons and ruffles.

I kiss him hard, wavering slightly. I still can't feel my legs but at least I look good.

Lochlan. 

Yes. 

Thank you. I don't even know which set to wear first. 

We'll pick, each day. How does that sound?

Perfect. 

Love you, Peanut. Glad you're finally old enough to wear some of this. 

Wait, how many years were you collecting it for? 

The first two sets I found in 1982. 

But-

Yeah, before Jake. Before everything. I mean, it looks now like I'm just copying everybody but I was-

You were here first. 

Yeah. I was. And I'm back. And I still love you as much as ever. 

How much is that?

More than anyone would even comprehend if ever they stopped to consider.

It's Perseid time!! Get your asses outside!

The velvet bonfire.

True to his word, he set it all ablaze. True to his word he left his fists at his side and instead asked me again to be different. To be that little girl he used to know before time and experience turned me into a stranger to him. True to his word he asked but did no push. True to his word he gave my name as his though it hasn't changed yet.

Yet.

I'm thinking about it.

What do I wear? I asked this morning in between the flames of sunrise.

Nothing, he said. And he laughed without letting his eyes in on the joke and we stood and watched the light change into something new and I was completely comfortable in my own skin while he roiled and tossed in his.

We were soon joined by the Devil, who came out to watch the fire, hands in his pockets, unreadable expression masked by forced joviality.

I see the renovations have begun. You going to light her counselors on fire too? Gosh, maybe we should take before and after pictures. The new and improved Bridget, version 4.0. Find the difference. Oh, right. There isn't one.

Lochlan didn't say anything, having escaped into the roar of the flames, blocking out the cold.

I turn to Caleb. He does what he needs to do.

As do you, clearly. Logic and Impulse. You two won't make it a month.

We've only been inseparable for three decades.

She puts no weight in your presence, Doiteain. The word is drawn out to make a point.

Things take time.

THREE DECADES, Pyro.

Diabhal, go inside. Please.

I'm fine, thanks, Neamhchiontach. If he's going to try to destroy what I've built then I'll undermine what he builds. She won't change for you, Brother. She's still going to go to them and then eventually she's going to come back to me. I wired her this way for a reason. That reason wasn't you.

I can get her back.

You already HAVE me back!

You can't keep her. That's the problem. But good effort. Impressive show, as usual. For that, I'll give you full credit. He throws a twenty into Lochlan's top hat, which rests upside down on the ground near his feet, and turns and walks away.