"It never appealed to me to be the same as everyone."

And when it comes to shove and I can't see you through the black
I'm going to scream your name till you come back

I realize I left you hanging back there in 2009, with Ruth about to turn ten when I was on the hunt for a replacement breadmaker.

She'll be nineteen on her next birthday. Jesus fucking Christ.

And I did get a new machine, in 2010. It's so industrial it makes three-pound horizontal loaves and is made by Black & Decker. I don't remember if I actually bought it at the hardware store but it's likely that I did. I was a little surprised to come home and realize that it didn't have to be connected to the air compressor to work, it just plugs into a standard kitchen outlet.

Now that I think of it, I suppose it's old now too, like the last one that lasted nine years. Should I start looking for a replacement? Must check and see if DeWalt or Ryobi makes them. I'll look next time we go back to the hardware store.

(I'm only kind of kidding.)

It's churning away right now, this monstrosity of a breadmaker, knocking around the counter in time with Demon Hunter. I hear nothing else. It's sort of funny. Who knew Through the Black had such a catchy beat?

Well, I did, but did Black & Decker do this on purpose?

(I'm not breaking any bottles today, so there's that. Though Joel and I went for a long drive last night, we accomplished little. I still mostly hate him but he seems the most knowledgeable at times and attributed my sudden lashing out to stress, and depression and a host of vague labels I abhor. He also said I'm not manic (for the armchair psychiatrists out there) and he's not concerned about anything else, as I have a good track record of being able to maintain a polite and thoroughly upbeat demeanor for the sake of the people around me that sometimes caves into a hole all at once. Only certain people set it off, however. Namely Caleb, which makes sense.

So I'm not going to offer him any bread once it's done baking. He can make his own.

(Also from that link, I never listened to David Cook again after that afternoon and I still haven't told you things that would make you like me more, but hate everyone else in the process so yeah. I shouldn't ever read back through this blog. Ever.)

I would hide from me too except I'm very easy to find.

Yesterday went from fun exciting office work to all-out stress and by ten I took Caleb's champagne offer, snatched the bottle from him, smashed the bottle against the rail, threatened him with the jagged glass of the neck I was holding and promptly burst into tears.

One should always be as threatening as possible while crying, shouldn't they? How do you hold and console a person who's trying to talk to you through great heaving, hitching sobs while they jab a broken bottle in your direction?

You don't. You leave it to a team who will corner and then immobilize her, take her fun new weapon and suggest she change out of her office clothes into warm pajamas and go the fuck to sleep, as the book goes.

And so she did.

I always wanted a reputation as a crazy, tough chick and yet I still don't have it. Instead this morning they're treating me like a small child. PJ made me hot chocolate for breakfast. Lochlan cut my toast into four strips, sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar and for a moment there I was worried he would try to feed me, too. They've got their kid-gloves on and they're concerned with my snappage as am I, but honestly Caleb just picked the wrong time, words and beverage and I'm fairly sure my next alcoholic drink will be served in a plastic cup, if I get a drink ever again, I mean, but really it's the end of January and shit's worse than ever but if you ask me to my face I'll tell you I'm doing just fine, though who's going to ask? Our resolution to talk for four hours a day already fell by the wayside. Or maybe they gave up.

Pretty sure Joel is on the way. Guess I can't exactly make bottlenauts while he talks, can I?

Tuesdays with Jesus (and Gayle Waters-Waters).

I was going to post a huge lengthy thing of monstrous proportions but then Sam got overwhelmed at work and needed an office manager for the day! So yippee! I got to put on a pretty dress and shoes (and a big sweater because it's freaking COLD in here and I'm still looking for the thermostat, of which Sam won't say where it is located for REASONS like the electricity/gas budget) and answer the phone and file things and organize his office and call for deliveries and schedule the shit out of everyone and oversee the continued efforts in unsticking the windows that were painted shut and should probably be sanded down, you know, if they ever get them open without breaking them.

The best parts include fielding excited/nervous wedding questions by phone and spoiling Sam rotten with bottomless coffee and decent food. In addition to stocking the kitchen I ordered Vietnamese food to be delivered for lunch. I don't think he ever has hot food unless he's home. We sat in his office watching Chris Fleming videos and snorting with laughter while we tried to navigate rice with chopsticks and it was over far too soon but he's super busy and didn't really count on just about everyone on his staff being out with the flu so there you go.

Yes, I sanitized everything. It was the first thing I did when I arrived. Went through an entire can of Lysol wipes. I may stop in on the way home and pick up a few more, just in case.

On the whiteboard it says 67 SLEEPS TIL EASTER.

No pressure, right?

Intentional shadows.

But you see it's not me
It's not my family
In your head, in your head they are fighting

I woke up with Ben's huge headphones on, my phone with three adaptors plugged in and the Cranberries on repeat because that's what Lochlan picked for me, and since he always picks the music he'll never pick metal if he can help it.

Supposedly while I slept they all trucked down to the beach for a family meeting by the sea, in the rain and wind, there out of necessity, eschewing comfort in case I walked in if they did it in the house or yard. The kids were off to school early and prepared thanks to PJ but no one woke me up as I was up very late and there you have it. I came down around nine-thirty and asked where Lochlan was and PJ says to me,

After the meeting he went for groceries with Ben. 

Well, first of all, I've got the list and second, WHAT MEETING?

Guess you weren't invited, Bridge. PJ grins at me.

Is there a body count? 

No and as an extra bonus we even talked Dalton out of leaving. He and Duncan were forced to make up and Caleb took a few hits from both of them for their ignorance.

I wouldn't call it that-

Call it whatever you want. They got their pound of flesh from Caleb and then somehow your husband wrangled it all back into a tightly-knit army. I watched him do it and I still don't know how he pulled it off. Then he decided he would look after the mornings' chores on your behalf. Text him if you need something specific that can't wait though. You know damn well all he'll buy will be bread, a roast and endless vegetables.

Aw fuck. Wait, Ben's with him?

Yeah.

Then don't fret. Ben will get the good stuff. Ben is a terrible grocery shopping but in the best way. Not only can he carry the entire load from the truck into the house without help but he can talk you into buying ice cream in bulk. So what's the verdict?

Everyone's cool. Feelings are smoothed over and Caleb has his Disney villain status fully reinstated. I think Dalton was one of the few remaining who didn't know the whole story.

Who else is left?

I don't know if anyone is left, Bridge. Maybe Gage. Andrew? Actually I don't know about that whole household, but you might want to hold your own meetings so that no one freaks out like Dalton did. This isn't the kind of thing you should keep from them, and what you've already said isn't enough.

PJ-

Times have changed, Bridget. We've changed.

Hollow wind.

I spent most of the overnight hours sitting in the library or on the front porch with Duncan, trying to soothe his wild ego, mend his close relationship with his brother through absolution, and repair whatever fractured friendship we seem to have ended up with. I didn't realize how terribly hurt he's been over some of my words and feelings, how sad he feels that I think of him the way I do, and how betrayed he would feel that I kept on, steamrolling through this point leaving a swath of broken hearts and destruction while I look for a way to fix my own broken heart and fail, every single day, over and over again.

He took it to heart, so personally he says he's different now and that's what I've always wanted and yet have always tried to avoid. I don't want them to get sucked into my gravity field but I can't see any other way to manage this.

We talked for days. He knows things about me he didn't know before, maybe. Things he's guessed at, partial truths with huge gaps now closed. I broke his heart again on purpose, with intent this time so that he would not have any lingering questions and now we start over with a new friendship, with a whole new relationship on a new level. Maybe one with all of our weaknesses and mistakes still close enough to touch but maybe he'll not be hurt by the things I do or don't do, as it were.

Why didn't you tell me everything the first time? 

Because I don't want hate to have a place here. It's a point-blank shot to the heart. It serves no purpose to make the boys enemies of each other.

Why did you lie? You said there were no secrets, Bridget, nothing left that we didn't know. 

I still love him. I still want to protect him. I want to protect you. I want to protect me. 

He doesn't deserve it. Caleb deserves nothing from any of us. 

Well, life never turns out the way you plan for it to, does it? 

No. It doesn't. The grief on Duncan's face mirrors my own.

This is what I would have spared you until the day I die. There's no reason you should have to figure out how to live with this. 

There's no reason you have to live with it alone when we're all here to help.

I really haven't been a hundred percent, fighting the flu, feeling really good at small moments and really, really awful at others. I haven't been able to listen to the entire single The Banished Heart as of yet without interruption thanks to my beautiful household. I did, however, manage to cram the entire first (and last) season of The Mist into the past three days, because why not?

It was really good. I wanted absolutely EVERYONE to die save for Frances Conroy, as always.

I went to Muji and was so thoroughly underwhelmed it was almost criminal. Also the huge pet store with all the sweet tiny dogs is gone. I knew they passed a bylaw preventing selling pets in pet stores here but I forgot and now Metropolis will be forever underwhelming too. I didn't agree with selling dogs like that but what a respite in a retail wasteland to go in and cuddle them.

Both kids are feeling better, at least. Perfect. Just in time for me to go down.

But isn't that how it always goes?

On the upside, I got a lot of things accomplished that were bothering me and still have some more issues to deal with. Namely the odd unauthorized jealousy that Caleb has flaring up because of Dalton and he isn't the only one.

Duncan's really, really pissed off.

And I don't feel well enough to fight with words. Not this week. Not today.

Banished Heart indeed. There. Got my listen-though. Gotta go. He's shouting again.

Friday.

Be right back. I'm drinking semi-bulletproof coffee, listening to the second single from The Banished Heart and ordering just about every single thing in stock from Ewa i Walla while the Salish sea roils and churns in the rain.

Damn. What a beautiful day.

Clap your hands.

Happiness is poison, goes the quote about writers. Songwriters, authors, anyone who creates goes under this umbrella to stay dry against the river of blood that threatens to expand our minds until we're too content to find the words, too blissed-out to put it down on paper, too fucking thrilled to get it out and make it work and twist that darkness until it sucks the air and the light from all around us.

That's how it's always been, and Lord help them, they don't know what to do with me when I'm happy or sad. The de facto state for them is protect and entertain and anything else is simply a perk, a bug or a cog in the gears that fucks the whole thing up and takes us right off the rails but so far so good. We always seem to find our way back.

It's not boy gossip you'll find today, just contentment. Sort of like how you feel when you are in on the secret that the cool kids know. And this new change isn't a change, just a curiosity fulfilled. And this new day isn't dark, it isn't light, it's muted somewhere in between, as I said. Content. Entertained. Protected.

Safe.

Poisonous.

Yeah.

Rack Ops and Good Cookies.

Neamhchiontach. 

Yes? 

I'd like a word. 

PJ stares at Caleb for a really long minute and then grabs his phone off the counter and wanders downstairs to see what Dalton is up to. I know what Dalton is up to. He was sleeping when I left. So was Lochlan and dammit if that wasn't a fun sleepover. Dammit if I didn't want to leave.

What is it? 

What have you done? 

Today? I made coffee, caught up on laundry and had the front brakes replaced on the-

With Dalton. 

No, he didn't come with me to do the brakes. PJ picked me up and-

Were you with him last evening?

Define 'with'. 

Bridget-

WHAT?

Finally I'll be seven feet tall.

(We're literally doing nothing today, so here.)

Ben let me shave his winter beard today. It's twelve degrees in the sun. It's the calm before the storm, I know it. I see it coming a mile away as we drop one by one from the flu, as the snow looms on the horizon line, just beyond the mountains, threatening to spill down past the highway, an avalanche of typical January weather anywhere else, a ridiculous unnecessary anomaly here. He's going to regret his bare cold face within days but within a week of not shaving again he'll have the start of a new disguise.

He already went for a haircut. I already decided I'm not cutting my hair in 2018. Not even once, which will be interesting as I have a pixie right now that needs a trim but also can be tousled just right thanks to the built-in heavy salt air, so it still looks cute as fuck.

Give it a couple months and I'm going to look like a maniac but I have an assortment of headbands, hats and bobby pins to wrestle it into some semblance of something and I'll leave it like that until it hits my waist again. I love cutting it all off but I miss it too. Desperately sometimes. It can be a perfect curtain of privacy anywhere I go and I've grown tired of strangers commenting (however sweetly) on my expressiveness, or my eye color or my smile, since that curtain of hair is gone.

(You would be surprised. I have one of those faces that goes from looking like I'm about to cry to the most joyous mirthful expression in the universe. It's...I mean, it's fun but it's exhausting to check my expression when I'm out so people don't ask if I'm okay. Or I'm smiling and they want in on the good news but it's something dumb, like the time I said I was going to be Pyramid Head for Halloween this coming year, from Silent Hill. The boys can be the sexy faceless nurses this time (I did that already). I'll go shirtless, wear culottes and a bloody apron, have a huge helmet on and carry a machete. Except Ben called it a 'mah-chette' with a hard ch sound and I laughed so hard coffee came out my nose. People wanted in on the laughter. It was dumb but I couldn't catch my breath long enough to even share it.)

So that's the plan.

I mean, that's the plan today but I'm just daydreaming. I want to eat pizza (without plates, straight from the box like they do in the movies), and watch the rest of Lucifer because it's so campy and profound all at once and I want to avoid Duncan just a little bit though if you offer someone Bridget, pizza and endless television Duncan just appears as if by magic, as he's one of the cuddliest laziest fuckers I've ever met.

I want to snooze but not miss anything. I want to still be able to touch a beard if I need to (PJ is willing, able and ready, or so he pointed out when Ben left for the haircut with the promise that upon his return I could give him an Amish chinstrap beard before shaving it all off. Actually once I did that he turned and made it into a weird pointy goatee and no way in hell was that staying but if you ask me? Between us he's the one with the expressive face, the striking dark eyes, the easy, subliminal half-smile, the perfect skin with no lines on it save for such faint ones around his eyes when he laughs.

That's the face people should comment on but Ben will turn away in a crowd so you're not sure it's actually him, or he'll duck beneath the edge of his jacket hood or the brim of his hat.

That's a shame.