Upside: I didn't get eaten by a bear.

Yesterday's adventure wound up consisting of a long waterfall-laden hike yesterday. I ran ten kilometres to pull this off, as everyone walks a brisk pace when we hike to keep an even distance from other groups of hikers, even faster when we need to overtake, and since the average stride of the long legs of anyone in the group span several meters easy (might not be hyperbole), I therefore must run. When I begged them to slow down in the humidity they did but only enough so that I had to walk so fucking fast I ran out of breath eventually and got teased endlessly for being out of shape. Ben offered a piggyback. Lochlan offered to take me back to the truck to wait for the others. I swore at both and continued my medium jog as walking fast wasn't keeping up and the flat out running is really hard in the close air of the woods. I also needed enough stopping power to avoid horse poop and huge banana slugs making their way home, something I don't actually have the reflexes for when I run.

My reward was a giant beer and a monte cristo with a mountain of fries and two dill pickles. WORTH.

It also gave Lochlan a chance to regroup and rally back around instead of starting off offended at my allegiances of the morning, wanderlust speaking for me without permission or information, obviously as it is selfish and singular and I am generally not. He isn't mad, and has vowed to make the next week exactly perfect and beyond, as we can manage it via these uphill battles. We're attempting a full-fledged effort to throw history into the sea. Or the woods. I may miss the spectacle since I can't keep up.

Sight/seer.

Watching Caleb sleep. I'm jammed in the corner between the wall and the window, knees up, weighing down the duvet so that if he turns, he's going to wake up, as he won't be able to take the duvet with him. He's my wanderlust cure, my adventurer oddly enough, always suggesting exactly what I need to fix the weird propensity to want to run when things get good. I think it's a holdover from the days when Lochlan would sneak us out of a gig or a town with a saying about always leaving on a high note, when things are good, before people start looking for you. Lochlan is a homebody at heart though. He always wanted to just stop moving, for chrissakes.

My brain has her bags packed, all the shades are drawn and the lights are on automatic timers so that no one will know that I'm gone.

You're like a little bear. The only thing missing is a honey pot. He laughs sleepily. I jump at the sound of his voice. I thought he was out like a light.

Did I wake you? 

Yes. You didn't think I would feel a hundred-pound weight on my blanket? I've been paralyzed like this for over an hour. He grabs me, pulling me in against him, throwing the duvet over top of both of us. His skin is so warm. He kisses the tip of my nose and then pushes his face up toward the light to fall back asleep.

I close my eyes but I don't sleep.

Where do you want to go? 

Day trips. 

Where though?

Exploring. 

Ah. Close enough to be safe but far enough to get away. This is the story of your life, Bridget.

Waiting for the wind to change.

Sam felt the urge this morning to wake us all up at the crack of the dawn and march us down to the beach for a private service by the water. He vacations just about as well as I do, which is to say he hardly does. I will proudly report that I sat outside for a whopping ninety minutes with a glass of wine and Kitchen Confidential, churning through almost a quarter of the book proper and I didn't hear a peep from the house or the sky or the neighborhood. I think they put an embargo on contacting me for that time period and it was nothing short of surprising and completely unexpected.

I did forget to water the lawn too, which was going to be part of my evening but the book was too good to put down and so it waited. I'll do it today.

I was having a good sleep but I am finding that it doesn't actually matter if I go to bed at ten or at one in the morning I will wake up exactly seven hours later ready to roll. Usually that's five but since last night was so late due to an attempt to cram two movies into the later part (Rezort and IO, respectively, on Netflix. IO was far better but Rezort had the best chase scene since Vanishing Point, not even kidding. I screamed out loud.) I went to bed at one-thirty and was up promptly at eight-thirty, or maybe that was Sam's soft knock urging us to follow him.

He had coffee in thermoses at least. Bless him. I sucked almost a whole one back and then decided I was ready to listen but he was almost done. It was cold, about seventeen degrees and I'm up to my ankles in the icy Pacific, short-shorts and a huge sweater and bedhead because that's fashion for me as of late. Underneath it the ever-present pink bikini.

I look around as the caffeine lights the fire in my veins and I think this is my life now and it's awesome.

Moonicorns.

My dark favorites of music and metal in particular are thick and heavy like cream pouring over glass, like the night settling in over the trees, layers of inky opaque purple punctuated by random tiny flashes of light, fireflies or stars to decorate the black. Just the way I like it. I tried to commandeer Ben's big headphones for the morning but he needed them and so I made due with my airpods (finally in again after three months less one week using corded phones due to the ring through my ear.) and it wasn't so bad, honestly.

Besides, Mark is here so I'm not listening to music right now. Right now I hear the hypnotic drone of his machine, the power supply humming away on the floor underneath his doc boot, the needle a higher pitched vibration as he deposits color into Lochlan's skin.

I'm always horribly jealous when someone else has work done and I can't be the one. There's something so cathartic and relaxing about focusing on the pain of the needles for a few hours. I have to watch very carefully. If I am distracted my brain forgets to stay still and I will be overwhelmed with the urge to rip myself away from that pain. If I watch I'm fine.

I'm not having any more work done. Think I'm full up. Mark has changed a few small things, touched up things and finished me off and the only parts remaining that are not tattooed are not places I would like to be tattooed so I'm done but I miss the process. And so I have my books and wine and I'm chilling out this weekend at home while they get things done. I will garden and cook and bake and maybe nap but probably not and I will Netflix and chill and Schuyler promised to take me for ice cream at a place they go since we can't get to Cows up the hill in Whistler this week and it's better if you buy it by the cone instead of by the tub.

(Whistler is overrun with mountain bikers this week for Crankworx. Not my all-time favorite season on the ninety-nine but better than ski season, oddly enough. And Cows is the best ice cream in the known and unknown universe, as ever.)

Nutshell.

I've got new Slipknot music, new tattoos to plan and rain and red wine in my upcoming weekend, a nice change from everything else as we head into the dog days of summer, ignoring the Burning Man elephant in the room. The countdown is on! The invitations are open! And for some stupid reason I have FOMO about it. Fear of missing out. Even despite the relative glamping luxury I was thrust into and still managed to catch a fucking lung infection and a whole heaping pile of misery.

I feel like I'm a part of it now and I'm supposed to show up, but honestly sticking close to home, seeing through the huge harvest of our garden, those new tattoos (not for me but for LOCHLAN who is covering some very old things that he got on a whim and should have dealt with long ago), 3/4 of a cheap red (Vintage Ink whiskey barrel aged, if you're looking. Medium dry, very mellow. Kind of good, actually and I'm not much of a red girl unless it's merlot or shiraz) and my sketch book and headphones.

I don't know why. The other part of me wants to go go go and DO THINGS SEE THINGS GO TO PLACES HAVE FUN but truly I am a homebody and I don't know how to deal with the wanderlust parts that scream so loudly. I make myself more miserable than those around me at least, so there's that. Trying to force contentment when there's no contentment to be found. It's all around us, as always and as always it's just out of reach.

Next year I'll plant epinephrine, just in case.

It could have been a lot worse. 

I hate that phrase. It makes it seem as if what happened wasn't bad enough, or catastrophic enough. It's almost a gleeful sort of schadenfreude of a comment, honestly and I smacked it out of my range of hearing with the back of my hand as soon as it came out of Caleb's mouth.

 Right. I'm fine. Really, I am.

I have no stings. I walked right into a wasp nest, tucked into the middle of the huge oregano plant that I let grow crazy and bolt like fury in order to appease the bees, ironically enough. While the bees were happily buzzing around the giant four-feet wide by three feet tall shrub I had stepped to the middle of it to pull an errant weed, and at the last second I saw the nest, before stepping directly into it. Angry wasps swarmed out in a tornado of disruption and instead of screaming I closed my eyes and my mouth and hoped for the best.

I heard shouts and didn't move. I could feel them landing on my legs, my hair, brushing my eyelashes, wondering how to fight back against this giant of a human that had just levelled the house they spent all summer constructing.

Lochlan ran right into the oregano and grabbed me and I flew out of it and into his arms. He was promptly stung four times in the space between my chest and my back through his t-shirt. PJ used a blowtorch to destroy the remains of the nest and was stung twice on the arms for his efforts. Caleb stood with a curated concerned look on his face and Duncan had his phone in hand in case someone did indeed turn out to be anaphylactic (We're not. Hell, we've done this before. A few times now.) but everyone is relatively alright.

As Caleb said, I guess. It could have been worse.

Once back inside, using baking soda to treat Lochlan's stings, he undressed me slowly, untying my spare linen dress. Two wasps fall out and hit the floor, squished. A bee falls out, crushed the same way. Lochlan starts to laugh, a relief in his voice that surprises me for it's intensity.

It would never be from something like this, I tell him. He stares at me and it makes me so uncomfortable I turn the light off with my mind. He looks toward the dresser and notes the light and asks if I can not do this sort of thing so much.

The day seemed a little dull, I tell him and he laughs some more, not in amusement but in disbelief.

The thirteen year wait (exhale, expel).

Unveil now
Lift away
I see you running
Deceiver chased away
A long time coming

Almost cried in anticipation this morning as I slipped on my headphones and cued up my purchased copy of Tool's Fear Inoculum, a single I thought would download for free when I preordered the album but it didn't and I couldn't wait.

I freaking love it. It has just enough of everything I love about them with a strange new maturity overriding it all. Just mellow enough to be so easy to slip into but still with enough of that vague sexual energy and strangeness to pull off what makes Tool Tool, I guess.

If you're not into it that's okay too. A week from now the first Starset single drops for their third album and I'm sure I'll squee all over the damned floor then too. So the legend has it if you don't like what I'm talking about, listening to, watching, just wait a minute. Or two.

It's absolutely the new music summer of our lives. I have something like five preorders incoming and more to pour over, as I am introduced to things. I love every second of it. Thirteen years ago I was a harried mom caught between Cole and Jacob, trying to raise kids who still needed endless supervision and repair a house that was in pieces around me, all the while enduring the long prairie winters that were bitterly cold and wondering if it would get better. If this was it. If everything would stay this way.

It did get better. This wasn't it. And nothing will ever be the same again, except the music. Familiar voices, modern material. I'll take it, thank you, guys.

Hummingbears.

Caleb's hand lands on my head, trailing down the back of my hair.

Your hair is getting long again, Neamhchiontach. He's right. It's two inches past my chin and headed for my shoulders again. My bangs, only the barest of baby bangs two short months ago are always in my eyes.

Finally, I agree, though he won't. He likes it chin-length or shorter, even. I can't decide if I agree with him sometimes or not. I hate photographs of my pixie cut but I did love how easy it was to manage. Long hair is heavy and hot. It's a pain in the ass. But it also is warm in the winter, in the rain and it's more versatile, plus it turns more heads. That alone will make me grow it long again.

What are you up to here? 

I'm spending some after-dinner time with the hummingbirds. They come to our front walk to drink from the flowers. They buzz close to me, curiously, and then depart. They've been here every night. So I have too.

Any around? 

I point and he sees one lone grey baby. We watch it in silence for a while. I sip the good red wine he brought for me. He has a tumbler of ice and water. Or maybe it's vodka but I think it's water.  We don't say anything for a really long time and after my glass is empty I lean back against him, very sleepy and am instantly awake when I get the distinctive smell of sandalwood and campfire I know and love so well.

Peanut, Lochlan says, his own glass of red wine new and filled halfway, bottle beside him on the porch.

When did Caleb leave?

Probably after you went radio silent ten minutes into his stay. 

And you came out?

I didn't want you to be alone. 

How come? 

Bears, maybe. Dangerous birds. You know.

I see.

Tin roof.

Today PJ and I went to get groceries together alone, knowing the stores would be all but empty thanks to the long weekend, thanks to weekends being hot and crazy as of late. I waited until we ran completely out of food, too and then I woke him up early, told him I was leaving in twenty minutes, did he want to come with?

Yeah, he said, looking almost grateful for a Big Task, and after taking a few minutes to dress and brush his (very long) hair, we were off, not having been alone for weeks. PJ is now seventeen days sober and really isn't having trouble at all. Alcohol wasn't so much an addiction for him as it was an event, and he ended the event independently and before I pointed out he was being heartbreaking and so it's not a question of him not drinking but a question of him being able to navigate stress and changes without turning into a drunken jerk in the process.

He would probably say the same about me, but for it only takes me a glass and a half of wine to be ruined and subsequently send myself straight to bed. If he had only done that this wouldn't feel strange right now. It wouldn't be so hard.

He gets into my Jeep and buckles his seatbelt.

Hey.

Hiya. You sleep?

Oh yeah. You?

Enough.

How much is enough?

Enough to get through the day without falling apart, I guess. Thanks for coming with me.

Thanks for asking. I'm always game to go.

I appreciate that.

Though they can get their own food.

I know.

Same argument every trip. Last time we tried shelf assignments in the fridge and cupboard it got crazy, and Duncan almost got scuvy. They're very large children when it comes to diet. No veggies, no fruit unless someone makes it and puts it in front of them. I mean, I could let Duncan get scuvy and then maybe he would learn but it's a hassle and what's nine extra children? I was cooking anyway.

The morning sped on and every now and then I would sneak a look at PJ to see if we were really okay and he would catch me and then look away as quickly as I did and it still feels like we have a little way to go but then he takes my hand and squeezes it. He laughs and tells me he's glad he can be here for the next stage of our lives, the children's lives, to be a part of the Collective less drunkenly maybe and with his shit together again. I point out there's been a lot of that going around lately, that both Lochlan and I have suffered glorious tantrums akin to thunderstorms, clearing out the humidity from the air, making it fresh again.

He's happy with my description, throws an extra bucket of ice cream to the top of a very overloaded cart and we're off to the checkout.

Pooling resources.

(Okay. The only part left is a trip to dispose of the rotted wooden boards (I don't even have to go) and to rebuild the gates but we're swapping those out with lightweight metal ornate open panels that look very goth and foreboding. I ordered them a while back. The cost came in at almost double what I was expecting but heavy wooden waterlogged gates are a pain so it will be worth it when it's finished.  I will stop complaining but Lochlan has promised me the years of giant DIY summer projects are coming to a close. Soon, Peanut, he said and foolishly I actually believe him.)

So I think I'll be done complaining for a bit. Because yeah. I did a fair amount of it this week and I shouldn't have. I had toasted crow for breakfast and coffee and I'm apologizing to everyone within reach. And without, for that matter. I went and tracked down everyone who bore the brunt of my childish tantrum that was seemingly neverending and I did a full circle right back to Lochlan, who pretends he forgot.

Bless him. We seem to take turns being assholes and then we get hot, tired and worn out and we're back to ourselves. It's almost like a toxic buildup and once it's cleared everything is okay again. After forty years stuck together we know exactly how to push each other's buttons, how to bring the other to their knees and how to get up and move on. How to fight and forgive, so that's good at least. We use our words, we have an awful lot of them, spread around us in five separate languages but we figure it out.

Now my keyboard is melting and I need to go find some cool water. The only kind of weightlessness I can appreciate lately.

(Happy Pride! I didn't address it but since you asked. We're staying home today. The parade day is a lot of people and it's going to be forty degrees and so I think Christian and Andrew are going but we're not going to. I bet it will be a fun and incredible event though!)