Now I don't have to ask to borrow theirs anymore, and I'm really happy about that.

It's always nice to look out the window
And see those very first few flakes of snow
And later on we can go outside
And create the impression of an angel that fell from the sky
When February rolls around I'll roll my eyes
Turn a cold shoulder to these even colder skies
And by the fire my heart it heaves a sigh
For the green grass waiting on the other side

By Christmas Day after dinner we were scattered around the livingroom, full and slow from way too much dinner, listening as Sam read to us from the book of Luke, and I tried to keep my eyes open, nodding my chin down against my chest to the point where Lochlan gently reached over and took my wineglass and then I just surrendered to the sleep, letting my face come down and rest against Matt's shirt who I was using as a leaning post until then. Matt, to his credit, can sit for hours if someone is napping against him. Pretty sure we've all done it at this point, even Ben and Caleb, though Caleb refuses to admit he nodded off for a moment there. Sam sure appreciates having to share his comfort object, but at the same time he beams from morning to night these days, making up for the absolutely zero hours of sunlight as of late. Hell, at this point I no longer smell pine and cinnamon at Christmas, just petrichor, twenty-eight hours a day.

I got a kiss on my cupid's bow yesterday with a reminder that the days are getting longer, Lochlan smiling into my eyes. God I love him. But wow, was that ever the last thing I wanted to hear.

Just what I need. I roll my eyes and he pretends to be taken aback.

I'm surprised Santa brought you anything at all with that attitude. 

(Now is the part were we won't talk about how I had to be convinced to come back inside on Christmas Eve for I was sitting at the bottom of the pool in the pouring rain trying to conjure the ghosts of Christmas past and the Bridget of Christmas future all at once.)

Santa was incredibly good to me this year, and Lochlan is right, I don't deserve any of it. They have opted to bring me into the 2020s kicking and screaming, unwilling to pry my own fingers from around the abacus, washboard and kettle for the woodstove that I consider my operating tools for life or whatever it is that we entrenched Luddites take inspiration from.

I got an iPad*, a massive professional one, with a keyboard case and an apple pencil because he is determined. SO determined.

And I love it, secretly, but outwardly I went around for at least a day pointing out it didn't fit in my apron pocket and oy, what if the goats chew on it or it gets damp in the barn, hand across my forehead for effect. Finally last night when he caught me in bed with Apple (Well, I had to name the iPad something, right?) instead of August (or hell, pick a name) he laughed until he cried. What are you doing?

Learning Procreate. 

Ah, you don't know how happy this makes me, he said.

Weirdly I do. 

*( I was also given two incredible beautiful bespoke rings from Lochlan which far outweigh the iPad in my eyes, from both Pyrrha and Peg and Awl but I know damn well you don't want to hear about that. This man knows me so hard he's burnished my soul in a way I'll never be able to describe. They are incredible. I couldn't decide between them, Peanut, so I just got both.)

Merry Christmas!

We're pulling the plug on the outside world in 3..2..

See you soon! Be safe and have a wonderful holiday.

A Palpatine is when you touch someone all over.

I got a fun early gift from Benjamin and I can't stop using it. It's a virtual bluetooth projection keyboard that you can put on anything and type. I wondered if it would even work. So far I've used it on Ben's back, which was confusing as fuck trying to find the letters superimposed over his tattoos, I tried it in the empty big bathtub (weird) and I also tried it in the backyard in the grass which wasn't nearly dry enough and did not work at all.

He said it's not exactly a gift, just a thing one of the execs gave him and he figured I would love it. I don't, I actually hate technology and have already had a moment where I wondered if for 2020 I should go completely analog and write my journal on hammered tree bark with a quill that I could then roll up, seal with wax and a lock of my hair and deliver it via carrier pigeon subscription.

Who's in?

I wasn't kidding when I said technology is hard. I like humans. I like tactile things. I liked Blackberries but I think that was it, everything else seems so exceedingly complicated and completely overwhelming. A few times last night I even asked Lochlan but what happens if they're holding the lightsaver the wrong way and hit the button and it goes RIGHT THROUGH THEIR LEG? in horror but he hasn't answered me because he is too busy being embarrassed or maybe now he understands the definition of Too Young For You because right now he could be having this conversation with someone who got to see the first Star Wars in their preteens instead of barely out of grade two and maybe then he would be happy. I'm going to go type virtual love letters to him on his fucking forehead until he lightens up a little, I think.

Maybe I'll even post one of them.

Dear Fuckhead, it will read. You're probably wondering why I'm contacting you-

I crack myself up. Still no spirit. Heading out looking now. Sidetrip to post office included. Wish me luck.

In my defence I only fell asleep when everything onscreen was exploding.

We survived the not-bad traffic and terrifically-behaved audience to go see the new Star Wars, and loved every second of it. I won't post any details but definitely a great way to spend a Sunday morning, there at the church of popcorn and celluloid, and don't worry, we went to Jesus beach at eight this morning in the freezing cold long before wrapping up even more to brave the morning theatre. It's always freezing at the movies and holy car commercials, Batman, stop it already. So many ads now, it makes it hard.

What a great event though and now the Internet is embiggened again since no one has to worry about spoilers.

Geez. Now I just have to run the gauntlet of groceries, garbage, post office (one more time, with feeling) and Henry's work shifts and then I'm safe. I would like to sleep in but nope, none of that on this horizon line of mine.

Pacific Northstressed.

I'm just here trying to turn Christmas around. I can't find the spirit this year. I was ready early. I looked everywhere. I've been on walks through neighborhoods full of lights and driven down festive tree-lined streets. I've see Santa, more than once. Maybe he's replacing Skateboard Jesus, whom I haven't seen at all. I bought some cheap wine and fruitcake but that didn't do it either, just as the champagne and French hand-milled and decorated cookies Caleb flew in didn't. Surprise on that.

It's on, what, Wednesday? So don't mind me over here beginning to panic. It's been raining heavily, nonstop even, and I feel like I'm slipping. Maybe it's not even me, maybe reality is eroding and around the edges you can see the black where they painted in your happy life. Maybe they fucked up the painting and it's not so happy, and no amount of holiday movies, cinnamon rolls or wrapping presents for the ones you love so dearly, so desperately can fix it even though presently, nothing is wrong that isn't always wrong-

You're just tired, Bee. 

And that.

Stop doing so much. 

Admittedly it's been a marathon of a week and here it is Saturday with another few days of marathons to go. Henry pulled a surprise three days off over Christmas at least, but before that happens there are three shifts left, a few more groceries to pick up, some errands that will not wait, and the boys want to see Star Wars, so we're going to maybe attempt to fit that in. I sat for a moment and tried to remember anything about Star Wars. I swear I've seen at least nine or fifteen of the movies, though apparently unless you read all the books and watch all the tv shows you're not a fan which is fine, I don't know what's going on anyway. I don't know why things have to be so complicated for me yet hell, even Duncan, who watched at least the first five movies blind drunk as a teenager can rattle off all of this information and I can't even remember the character names.

(Snopes? He's the big creature you go to and ask if something you read on the internet is true or false, right?)

I think something might be wrong with my brain.

But name virtually any song written after 1942 and I can probably sing it for you.

I need to fix this. I'm heading out now. I have a map and a marker and I'm going to do a grid search until I find this fucker. If I see Santa I will ask him where the spirit went, though in all honesty it's probably somewhere sheltering from ALL THIS FUCKING RAIN. 

(Soundtrack? Bledig. Perfect for this day.)

For the birds.

What are you waiting for, Peanut? Lochlan slides another cup of coffee in front of me. It's Friday, I'm allowed to have a second cup, plus I have a shitty sudden headache coming on from either the air pressure or the time of the month that it is or maybe just the stress of being me, as he calls it.

Indeed, and he did call it and I just want to feel good.

PJ thinks he saw a cedar waxwing so I'm waiting for it.

Well, either he did or he didn't, there's no thinking about it.

That's what I said! Truth be told, I think I conjure things. Upon moving to the West coast, I wanted nothing more than to see a Stellar's Jay, the dark cousin of our East coast Blue Jay. Now I have one that comes to visit, bullying the chickadees away from the feeder, hanging out until I go out and say hello.

I'm pretty sure it's Cole, but let's see if he appears in tiny yellow and peach waxwing formation and then I'll know for sure. The birds are pretty amazing here. I guess they don't like the snow either.

ਯਿਸੂ, ਪਹੀਏ ਨੂੰ ਲੈ

It's raining and I've been forbidden to leave this bed and so you get to bear witness to my rumbling belly, burgeoning headache because I've gone past coffee o'clock, and a whole host of hits by Parmish Verma, who I discovered last night while watching the trailer for his upcoming movie Jinde Mariye. Dude's amazing (acting AND singing) and so this Christmas I'm just going to blindside everyone with his particularly fun and catchy brand of Punjabi pop, because that's what I do.

Lochlan wants one more hour, which I don't blame him for, and this is so nostalgic, reminding me of the good old days when he childproofed the camper so I couldn't leave without waking him up completely. This way he can keep an eye on me, but also sleep as apparently I have gone out of my way to find danger or trouble, or even more exciting, both at the same time and that isn't going to happen today.

Pretty sure he's planned a trail of cotton candy for later, and at the end is a giant girl-sized beehive. I'll pluck the last piece of floss off the floor and he'll pull the stick away from where it was propping up the hive and I'll be trapped inside, right where he wants me. Then he can, as he told me last night, relax for five minutes for fucks sakes, Peanut. 

Geez. Okay. Just do it then. I have no place to be until eleven and then Bridget's Taxi Service begins, ferrying kids to jobs and then home again, picking up August from the airport at the end of everything else and yes, I refuse to farm it out because I need to do this or I swear the agoraphobia will just take right over and I'll never leave the point again. I'm fine to leave the house, it's just the driveway I don't want to venture far from. Because highway driving in the dark, in the pouring rain can kiss my little ass.

The good thing is that we're basically ready for Christmas and so I don't have to venture out other than for rides and maybe a few odds and ends that I will pick up Monday morning at the grocery store and then I'm not going near a shopping centre for the next three months because it's getting so crazy out there and I don't have any patience left. I'm hoping that the more I listen to Parmish the more I will adopt his devil may care attitude. Or at the very least maybe I can grow a beard like his.

It's magnificent.

Walls painted in gold.

It's a marked contrast to the casual summer-heat unrefined wild of Lochlan, everything unexpected and magic hour all the time to the punctual formality and predictable neatness of Caleb, ironed down and dark. Perfect.

And then in the middle there's Batman, still off-limits, still playing emotional hooky, still mysterious but somehow just playful and engaged enough and just enough of a safe haven to see me unwilling to choose sides when life is a dodecagon anyway, and I don't have to so long as I defer to the hierarchy they made and gosh, I'll never not be twelve and having the list drilled into my head of who I go to first and then who next if they're not there and never go to x when y is around because x would be jumping a very cemented seniority that began for them in grade school but never seemed important at all until I showed up.

But Batman wasn't even in my life until my early twenties and so he isn't really a part of the list or the hierarchy and there is no rhyme or reason to this poem but maybe that's why I like it. And maybe his refusal to put away his checkbook in spite of me asking him for clear direction on what sugar he wanted makes this less daunting than keeping up with Caleb, overall. Caleb has a passionate, crushing, needy and dangerous way about him that keeps me more scared than excited. He's that bad boy you know damn well will mortally wound you but you can't stay away.

Batman? Not so much. He doesn't give a shit, though he lies and tells me exactly what I want to hear. He is content maybe moreso than he lets on. He is fine. And yet here I am, and there is his checkbook. Though it's digital now. He just has to log in and press a button and all of my immediate problems are solved. He just has to extend an offer of some time and I suddenly have hundreds of minutes to spend.

For Christmas this year I got another deposit. More than he gave me for summer vacation, more than Caleb has extended in a while, enough to change my name and fake my own death save for the fact that I'm too curious for my own good. I got a lecture on market growth that I didn't even need. Batman went into full dad mode which made it even weirder. Maybe I'm always going to be twenty to him, always wide-eyed at the sight of more than a thousand dollars, always hungry and one missed cheque away from being homeless, always ready to sell the only thing I have that everyone needs but no one wants because it's the way they raised me.

Smile for them, Bridgie, and the world is yours. And so I turned back toward Batman and gave it everything I had.

I was gone before the ink was dry but it isn't smudged, and I definitely don't have to worry about being homeless now.

Blackberry smoke.

Caleb's eyes match the blankets in this halflight of a Tuesday morning. He wonders aloud if the pool has filled again, thanks to all of this rain, or when the snow will reach our part of highway 99. He worries about me driving, though I didn't see a lot of worry last evening when I left at eight to pick Henry up from his job and we arrived back at ten-forty-five to find a darkened house. Even the dog had gone to bed. Henry is learning. It took a long time to finish up. It will be better from now on, I hope, but at the same time this job is a gap-filler until the summer only, unless he loves it and chooses to stay.

It's fine, I remind him. I have a jeep, and if things get really dicey PJ can drive or we just stay home. 

He nods against my head and it hurts slightly so I slide it out from underneath his chin. My hair drags against the new beard he sports, going a few weeks at a time without shaving. This is how I get such dramatic bedhead.

You look so beautiful. I laugh and he piles it on. I love your laugh. 

Stop. Geez. 

I'm just stupidly happy you come for sleepovers now. 

I wasn't actually planning to, but when I came upstairs, in their sleep, Ben and Lochlan had taken up all of the available space and I didn't want to wake either one of them to rearrange the bed so I put on my angel pajamas and went down to Caleb's wing. He was still awake, quizzed me about Henry's shift, resolved to pick him up himself from now on and poured us each a quick, stiff nightcap. I don't think I finished mine. I had a good solid sleep spooned sweetly against Caleb's chest and woke up hearing birds. The rain makes them think it's spring. I think they're about to get a surprise.

Me too. I turn back and get a morning-breath kiss that I truly think was far worse for him than for me. But now I turn into a pumpkin. 

Already?

Yes. 

See you tonight? 

Probably not. 

Later in the week, then. 

Sure, I lie and let myself out as he goes back to sleep.

No lying this time, he calls as I'm closing the door and I remember he can read my mind.

For life.

Last night we put on all the outdoor lights, fired up the patio heaters and set up the long table for the first of many holiday dinners at home, as we call them, as no one wants to go out anymore and yet we love getting fancy and entertaining. They all wore suits and nice shirts, though no ties. I finally got a chance to wear my dress with all of the sequins, and I felt like the night sky. Caleb got his hands on some far better champagne and a crate of incredibly large Atlantic (!) lobster (sent from home, I'm not dumb) and we made cold salads and warm rolls and a big casserole of scalloped potatoes to go with.

Reminded me of home. It reminded me of the early dinners, though we could not afford to eat like this and usually potlock would end up meaning a pizza from at least four different places and someone, usually Christian would buy a chocolate cake from the grocery store, because he never forgot how much I love cake.

I love to have Sunday Night Dinner and I missed it and so we've chosen to create some new/old traditions, now that Matt is back, now that August and Caleb are on speaking terms again, now that Lochlan feels in control of his life again and maybe Ben too and now that the ghosts seem to be squeezing a little less hard. Maybe Bridget isn't throwing herself into the sea on a regular basis and we seem to be beginning a new chapter, with the kids all grown up suddenly and everyone seems so much more settled, as of late. Maybe I'm reading too much into it or perhaps hoping too hard, but this works for me.

We did put the anchors in the table, though, because honestly table-flipping seems to happen so fast around here. Luckily last night it didn't.