Jesus negative reinforcement.

Today in early church we sat in the third row to watch Sam struggle with his severe cold, which was bringing back memories of watching Jake fight through a service feeling so awful he shouldn't have been there in the first place but truly it would take a lot to keep Sam from his lead up to Lent, which is fast approaching (to him anyway).

I slid in after Caleb and before Lochlan and after getting settled into my seat, coat off but around my shoulders, dress smoothed out underneath me, my handbag tucked just behind my right elbow but underneath my coat, (the Fidget label looms so large sometimes), I took both their hands, Lochlan's in my left, Caleb's in my right. Caleb takes it as a sign of unity or romance or whatever. Lochlan finds it annoying.

Honestly I do it because I'm fucking cold. The church is freezing. The heat blasts from the vents and doesn't go anywhere. My coat is usually back on me or over me, like a blanket, by the end of announcements but the service hasn't even started yet.

Lochlan leans forward to fix his shoe (he hates dress shoes) and looks to see if I am indeed holding Caleb's hand. Caleb demonstrates that I am indeed by holding up our hands together to shoot a cuff to check the time. Lochlan sits back, settling in. Annoyed, he lets go of my left hand.

Once the service begins his arm goes across me. I am focused on Sam and figure Lochlan wants Caleb's attention for whatever reason but then the tip of my thumb gets very warm suddenly and Caleb rips his hand away from mine with a loudly whispered curse, gets up and storms out of the church. Lochlan snaps his lighter shut and repockets it with a hint of a smile on his face.

This magic from far beyond.

I said forever, and I mean forever

Lochlan makes himself into a human shield some days, some weeks, beginning yesterday morning when I got home, continuing through this morning when he put himself between me and life itself, making sure every breath, every thought, every word was filtered through him. I don't fight it, I prefer it, truth be told and let him run the days and nights, keeping up a wall, building an ark, keeping out rain and people and any bad thoughts or feelings, instead working to cement us. Me and Him. Loch & Bridge. The fire eater and that girl from the high wire. You know, the ones that do that act together? The one that you have to show ID to get into and come out of warm under the collar?

The ones that would slow dance in that empty bar (in five different states) until they were asked to leave because it was closing time and come to think of it, is she even old enough for you? 

She is now, though she wasn't then, she's always looked a lot younger. Maybe still does, though she doesn't feel younger.

No, I definitely don't but I'll take the stance, I'll take up the cause alongside him anytime. Us against the world.

Us against them.

Us against him.

But I'll still venture just far enough away from Lochlan's reach when I have to and he'll still hate every second of it until the day he di...no. Not that again.

Nevermind.

I made a big breakfast for him this morning. I put on his favourite pink lip pencil that he likes on me because it doesn't come off on his face and the ring and the necklace he gave me and I've chosen sides for the day like I do every single day and it's rarely ever the ghost anymore who gets the loyalty as I have to focus on the living now. Especially when the living make such a beautiful effort like this. Especially when one consumes fire in order to breathe me in. Especially when one proclaims his devotion to a girl not yet old enough to understand what that even meant, but she knew that being given allegiance and love like that at that age was very important indeed.

The promises, the...covenants have stood the test of time. His eyes have faded a little bit, like mine have, like green does, but his love hasn't wavered, the looking around to see if I'm still there hasn't ever ceased to be a habit long-ingrained, and the bond stretches but it doesn't ever break.

It won't, he says, looking up finally, reading my thoughts as they warm my soul. Ever.

Spanners in the works.

He stopped moving all at once, one arm wrapped around me, the other pinning me down, hand wrapped around my neck. Sometimes that's the only way I can do this, with him, when we slide backwards into horrible roles too familiar and comfortable to give up easily.

Listen.

But I hear nothing.

Shhhh.

But he's pressing me against the sheets and I panic, I don't know if the army is about to storm the gates or if it's thundering outside, a good bet mixed with all this rain.

He gets up, pulling me up to sitting with him and then goes to open the window.

Listen, Bridget. Spring.

Then I hear it. A bird chirping. Maybe one of the ones we watched yesterday. They're coming back. Imbolc used to be a winter celebration and my most disliked one of all thanks to the long dark days and cold nights but here you blink and winter is finished. The seasons are vastly different from elsewhere. Here they are rain, cherry blossoms, more rain,  and forest fires. So the birds aren't ever gone for long.

He leaves the window open, returning to me, stretching out, his weight around me like a cage, knees and elbows enabling his direct attention, face to face. He's inside me again, an evil machine hellbent on being a part of me no matter what else or who else happens.

But on the upside, it keeps him nice as he's back to talking about nature and done with his threats to end my life.

At least for the moment.

A lingering kiss and he resumes his inward focus. I close my eyes. No medium blues. I don't want to see the set of his mouth. I don't want to be here so I go away, back to the lights, the screams, the fast-forward tick of the prize wheel, the cheesy scary music of the haunted house, the barkers chiding those who walk past their booths without stopping. I take my seat on the Ferris Wheel. Lochlan winks as he locks the bar across the front and I am whisked backward once he steps back to the lever, away from him. He grins as I disappear and he loads the rest of the wheel.

And then I am falling through stars.Who needs birds when you have this?

When he stops the wheel and pulls me out of my seat (eventually), he asks where I went. I don't know what he means until he explains that every rotation of the wheel sent me past him with a faraway, unfocused expression on my face. That it's like I forgot where I was.

I did, I tell him. I was in the stars. I could touch them but you told me not to stick my hands up on the rides.

He smiles. Glad you're listening. More glad that you have a happy place.

A happy place?

Yes, it's a place you can go, either physically or in your imagination that brings you comfort.

Suddenly his whole face changes and it's Caleb. Instead of green eyes and red curls I get blue eyes and dark hair.

Where were you? He is finished and my whole body aches like it always does.

I was in my happy place.

He looks so proud, briefly.

Someone doesn't like the rain. Or anything else, for that matter.

He glowers better than anyone, this one, and he likes you to understand precisely how disappointed he is in you to the letter.

You're adding things in to your writing and you think I won't notice, Neamhchiontach.

I don't care if you notice. I don't write for you. 

Maybe you should. The glower turns into a scowl. Maybe you should write about something other than me. 

I don't write about him, much. I don't want to engage in this game of semantics today. Today I want to marvel at living in a place where the rain never stops. Where everything is lush and rotten and I spend all of my free time now kicking mushrooms off the cliff. It's going to be my February Olympic sport, I believe, unless PJ or Lochlan puts a stop to it because they grow right on the outer edge and when you wind up to kick you're leaving your anchor leg on wet grass with a good downward slope.

And my balance isn't what it used to be, though it was once Olympic-level. Enough to fool around on a highwire and be fairly popular for it without hitting the net most weeks.

Sometimes hitting the net proved to be more lucrative, however because then the barkers would call people in from the street insisting that she might make it without falling...tonight. Don't miss it! 

(Oddly it never occurred to people that we might be faking that hype. They ate it up. And I fed off it like it was gravy on rocks to a junkyard dog.)

Caleb came out in the pouring rain, just as I reached the outer edge of Daniel's lawn and met Batman's, which is mostly deck and very little grass and so I had started to walk back. I feel as though if I had still been facing the sea and lashing out with my strongest leg into the air Caleb would have simply reached out and shoved me off the edge. I know I sometimes get these incredible urges to do it to him. Wouldn't it be so easy just to have him gone too?

But then I remember that he is the reason I still have yet to go through missing Cole. Why miss him when I practically have him still?

And then I also recall that Caleb loves me to pieces and gets angry and antsy when he doesn't get time with me regularly and comes out swinging for the hills every. goddamned. time.

I'll go back and edit, I lie.

Thank you. Things I think we've overcome, Bridget. It hurts to see you make reference to them when I don't expect it. 

Sorry. 

No harm done. I don't think anyone reads it anyway. 

Of course not. It's just for me. 

I still feel as though I'm the one responsible for you growing up into this beautiful woman. 

I nod. It's always safest to agree with crazy people.

He nods back. Let's go in before we float away. At this rate I won't have to wait for spring for a swim. He looks toward the pool. The cover is on but it's dipped in the centre, heavy with rainwater. It's a puddle on a puddle but if the cover doesn't have a little give it will break.

I like it. 

You always did like everything in the extreme. 

Lochlan says you have to live big. 

How does he live now, Bridget? He lives in your house and has to deal with you living big while he waits. 

I didn't mean that-

It's all the same in the end. 

Bullshit. Don't be an asshole, Diabhal.

It would have been easier just to push you off. You're right. 

Stop reading my mind. 

Pretty hard not to. Especially on a day such as this. Your feelings radiate. 

Well, next time fetch someone less fighty to come collect me and I'll go quietly. 

Into the night?

If that's where they lead me. I tilt my head as I answer him so my meaning is as clear as the raindrops on his face.

I could still push you off. 

Just do it already. 

No, I haven't had any fun yet today. Maybe later.
 

Astronomical phenomenons like egos and moons.

The moon came up large and red. We toasted in the freezing cold rain with a flask that was barely more than half-full and that was fine with me. A few whoops and hollers at the sky and everyone mostly dwindled away, back to bed because it was too early to be navigating those steps in the dark.

I need to finish turning this point into my evil lair. I would dig down into the ground in order to have an inside access point that opens onto the beach. That would be perfect. Like Mirage in The Incredibles. A little door opens in the cliff and in you go.

The stairs were hard enough on the way down but going back up at six in the morning in a sleepy day-drunk sort of stupor was a hundred times worse. I asked Lochlan for a piggy back. He swore at me as John laughed and offered me one, if it was okay but Lochlan of course said it wasn't because if he doesn't trust himself then he's not trusting anyone else.

Story of my life, right there. But I'm still drunk so what do I know?

Anyway, the moon was amazing and now it's over, the frigid air newly felt after such an intense pause in life. The cool blue-grey of the morning belied the fiery red ball we witnessed and left a pall on an otherwise profoundly exciting way to start an average Wednesday in January. When we returned to the house, Lochlan fired up a pan of eggs and I methodically made toast to go with it. We fall into a weird traditional routine that hasn't changed much, even in spite of long absences from each other, in many years. He likes marmalade on his toast, I prefer honey. He likes his yolks easy, I like mine medium. He likes to read over breakfast, I like to talk.

Since he was mildly drunk and moderately tired, we got eggs over hard, jam on toast and silence as we both watched the birds out the window, vaguely sad that the spell of the moon was broken in such a pedestrian manner.

Caleb came in, rested and organized, having missed the blue moon party altogether.

Ah. Just the girl I was looking for. I'd like to borrow you in a little while, if I may. 

No, Lochlan said, but he never turned his gaze away from the sea. Not today. And he reached across the table and held my hand. He knew where it was without even looking.

A super-duper, blue-blood moon (Goodnight, Bridget).

Tonight is going to be very exciting indeed, as the skies have cleared just in time for the super blue blood moon and lunar eclipse visible to everyone who lives in this, the Ring of Fire, a lovely description but also a scary prospect, as every time there's a big earthquake somewhere I fret just a bit.

At least with tornado warnings, we knew what to do. We put our shoes by the basement door. In case of a funnel cloud, any basement worth its salt would save you.

Not so much an earthquake. Everything turns to ruin and your shoes better be by the nearest exterior door, because you'll have to leave. Or so I think. I have no training in what to do if one hits, other than if the house is no longer liveable or no one is home we have a meeting place away from the house where everyone is to go. That's where we'll regroup and figure out our next move.

(Honestly my only thought is that I'll present Caleb's black card at the Fairmont Pacific Rim and we'll live like kings until it all blows over. Lochlan says that isn't very productive, reasonable or mature and my only answer to that was look who it's coming from. Someone who isn't the least bit productive, reasonable OR mature but I'm also the person who packed the bug-out bags so be nice to me or yours will contain only useless items like a muffin tin, a rubber duck and a pair of leg warmers.)

Our meeting place is not the Fairmont Pacific Rim, or even De Beers or Tiffany, as I suggested.

(You said choose a landmark, Lochlan. 

I mean like a park or a mountain close by, Peanut. Something that will still be intact after the fact.)

It's easier to just pretend it will never happen.

We've survived a few tornadoes. A couple of floods. Some life-and-death moments, definitely some deaths. We've gotten through a shit-ton of hurricanes. We've had a 4.2 earthquake that rolled the floors once already and made me feel really fucking weird, but otherwise I'm not interested in the Big One.

Unless you're talking about something else entirely.

In which case, I'm all ears.

(As long as you're not all talk.)

***

The only reason I brought all of this up is because of the Ring of Fire designation for eclipse-viewing and the fact that people act weird when there's a full moon. Everything is hurried and strangely off, nothing is settled until the sun comes up again and it seems more prevalent on the coast for sure. Closer to the water, naturally where the moon tries to pull her sea-blanket up to her nose, maybe to be coy, most certainly to be destructive as she refuses to acknowledge that it's time to sleep, dammit.

Reminds me of someone I know, Lochlan says.

"Lot 666, then, a chandelier in pieces!"

In spite of this endless rain as of late (a sure harbinger of spring in the Pacific Northwest), the buds have popped on the cherry trees, blossoms threatening to bloom a pastel pink against the dark grey sky.

I can't hear them opening though, I finally replaced my Original London Cast recording of Phantom of the Opera, circa 1987 and it's GLORIOUS. It will join the others in a good solid stack of hours of listening and entertaining pleasure.

It was the first one I adored, quickly followed by Hair, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and RENT. These five I can sing just about all the words to, with much enthusiasm if you ask anyone who knows me. These are the best ones, I think.

This is Lochlan's fault as always.

He proclaims to 'not remember the words' but he's biting his tongue, he's clamped his cheeks shut and he's trying not to laugh. Just like he used to once I came out of the shell I retreated into after transitioning from the midway to the circus, from childhood to adulthood, from victim to survivor.

From wallflower to performer, and I never looked back. These taught me I could be anyone and I was never shy for even half a second ever again.

So that's not a bad thing, and boy does this sound wonderful remastered, played on a whole-home hybrid system fine-tuned especially for my ears.

Say you love me every waking moment
Turn my head with talk of summertime
Say you need me with you now and always
Promise me that all you say is true
That's all I ask of you

Deluge Jesus.

It's pouring and black today, the sea calm enough to swim in, but who would want to and so we stayed home today, finishing off the jar of chunky peanut butter on homemade bread and drinking coffee while the water ran down the windows in thick rivers of soaking rain.

I kind of love days like this, truth be told. Ruth has her boyfriend over, Henry slept in, I slept in, the dog slept in and we're all up now, the kids are in the theatre watching Geostorm (so good!) and I just finished booking a bunch of our phones to go to Apple next weekend for battery replacements.

Because oy. Both kids' phones are on life support by lunchtime suddenly and Lochlan's phone isn't far behind and since we're all scattered so far during the days I need them to be able to make contact if they need to and not have a dead phone in an emergency. At least they're getting fixed. I have a seven plus, it fits in no pockets but the battery life so far is incredible.

And the pictures it takes are amazing but honestly it's HUGE as fuck and I don't think I'd get one this big ever again.

Sam went out for early service and left the lunchtime one to his second, coming home, running in the door, still soaked before realizing he left his satchel and had to go back out to his car and get it. Now we're making seriously belated grilled cheese sandwiches for whoever is around (I just put out a message on our group SMS but not the 911 one) and shortly they'll start funneling in. I hope we made enough.

Here's a little cautionary tale about how to miss your whole Saturday.

My love for Pad Kee Mao and other assorted noodle dishes caught up with me as we tried a new Thai restaurant on Friday night and barring the fact that we had to eat with surprisingly heavy forks (an ABOMINATION), were offered no chopsticks and the starter came at the glorious, bitter end I thought we might have found a new haunt. It's nice to have new places to eat.

(I should have taken all of those signs as an omen. But I was hungry.)

Then this morning I almost died, as the worst headache I've had in fifteen years woke me up, if not for the nightmares beating it to the job, and only when I threw up at eleven did I feel any better. I slept until three and it took me until seven to be myself again.

Everyone else is fine. 

I'm especially susceptible to Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, or so it's called, a bit of a misnomer as it seems to cover any foreign food and any symptoms but in the migraine headache world it means the worst headache you've ever had, and mine was right up there.

I'm stupidly sensitive to glutamate, but only in very large quantities so I don't know if I can research what is safe to eat on the menu or not, I just know I get all excited over noodles and new restaurants and I'm still thrilled we finally went to this spot as we've been driving by for a couple of years and never pulled the trigger before. Little did I know I was pulling it on myself.

So today all I had to eat was a slice of homemade bread with honey and then a small plate of mashed potatoes. My phone was off, my door was closed and everyone had to go out so Henry was tasked with keeping an eye on me with instructions to drive me to the ER if I got worse.

(Which I've only had to do about eight times. I love headaches.)

God bless him, he checked on me every fifteen minutes, scared to death. On the last check I was awake and up and sweaty. He wrinkled his nose and gave me a hug anyway, and sadly I don't think I can ever go back to our favorite new restaurant again.

Merciful, ferocious, fearless.

Carry me through this world alive
I feel no more, the suffering
Bury me in this cold light
I feed the wolf and shed my skin

Last night was Burns Night and I pulled myself together just long enough to roll out a very fancy, very Scottish dinner replete with whiskey and a piper near and dear to my heart.

I was hoping the cacophony from Ben's bagpipes (thanks to the rain he performed INSIDE which, well, never again) might obscure the fact that instead of haggis I managed to get my hands on a good sized Stornoway black pudding which I boiled up and served with turnips, carrots, potatoes and the bread I made earlier.

One bite in though, Lochlan noticed. I should have started serving him drinks at lunchtime.

Hey, so did you hear about the.....wait, is this...black pudding? 

He looks at our plates, then at me.

I forgot to pre-order. I'm sorry. It totally left my mind. But it's...uh...hagg-ish, right? 

He didn't say anything. No one said anything.

Then he started laughing.

And he laughed until he was red in the face and exhausted and silly and teary eyed.

And then he pulled his chair in closer, winking at me. Alright boys, we're having haggish! Dig in!