Estamos emocionados!

Caleb made eggs benedict late this morning, with Ben's help and then set the table for four. I wasn't paying attention, as I was banned from the kitchen for the duration, forced to go to the library where I needed lights as it's rainy, damp and dark. I was called to the table a little after ten-thirty, starving, a condition announced loudly as my stomach growled when I sat down, surprised to find Ben and Lochlan at attendance, Caleb not even attempting to do a morning at-home date. He likes the late night ones anyway and I sneak hashbrown chunks, golden-crisp all through his remarks about fresh-starts marked by important days, and how working together will keep us together. Lochlan deflects every last word back onto the devil and surprise, this morning the devil is magnetic, the magician enigmatic, and the princess quiet, just watching them figure out this new endless present in the shadow of a hopeful future. The rock star is also starving and matches my bites, one for one. Trying to make me laugh. Winning the fight.

Maybe this future will be different, as they have been fighting over me since I was nine.

My god, it's been forty years. That's four decades of history now living in this house at last and we are still trying to rewrite the book. We can't change anything but we can control how we go forward from here.

Caleb says my name as I manage to finish the hashbrowns while he's talking.

Would you like some more, since you couldn't wait?

While you're talking the food is getting cold. I kick the leg of my chair, and Lochlan tips his plate towards mine, spooning a third of his hasbrowns onto my plate.

Make them last, he says.

There are five bags of them in the freeze- I start to point out and Caleb laughs.

We're just trying to have a leisurely Sunday brunch, he says. This is nice. 

It is, actually. Especially with a third-more hash browns. The boys eat a lot more than I do so they usually put mountains of starch on their own plates and a traditionally-appropriate amount on mine. Though Lochlan always shared growing up, and looks like that isn't going to change. Hell, if there are more hash browns going forward then yes, I'm all in.

I think the rest of the day will involve teasing Sam about this week's podcast, as he got a little dramatic, and possibly birthday cake. Maybe Mexican food for dinner as I failed to choose a birthday meal but am also craving burritos.

You're still hungry? Lochlan listens to my stomach growl again as I excitedly discuss toppings and size requirements. A burrito must be as heavy as a newborn. Green salsa, not red. No sour cream but cheese, please. Yes, chips on the side, please. Gracias. Te agradecemos mucho.

The story of your life with mine.

No matter where you are tonight a part of you is here with me
Here with me, I don't know where you are, all I know is I need you to be
Here with me, I know it's not to late, to turn around and get it straight
It's not fate to have you here with me

The king of eighties power ballads demolished my broken heart again this morning, beating me to the piano where I had huge plans to bang out a rather difficult Sorabji (Opus Clavicembalisticum, bitches, but not the whole thing because I have things to do but one of my original goals was to be one of the few artists to be permitted to perform it. Oh, the pipe dreams of youth.) and played a very old REO Speedwagon tune that he used to sing to me when I would come and visit with him when Cole was being a monster and Caleb was unreachable.

He would sing it into my hair, a breakup song about missing someone so much but they've left you and it broke my heart then but now as he sings it the meaning has shifted into one of a Lochlan brokenhearted because he's aware that the one he loves is not emotionally present and he knows he can't fix anything but if she just stays it will be the Greatest Love Of All Time.

He tells me this story every day now, though. I'm beginning to suspect it might be true.

Here with me.

Kind of better, still rotten.

Thank you for the very kind early birthday wishes. It isn't until Tuesday proper but since life is weird we sometimes try to celebrate on a weekend instead. Not sure if we're doing it this year. I let go of my early annoyance with life after dinner last evening as I caught up on chores and then on vodka. Then I didn't care anymore. Then I wasn't so annoyed. It's going to be a rainy cozy weekend and I'm looking forward it it. I have a plan and it's grand. Some wine, movies and catching up on Outlander. Catching up on sleep after a week of not much. Preparing to get kind of excited but not excited because things are opening up and I'm really wanting normal life again though every single person I have encountered as I try to get things done that need to be done has been patient and cheerful and encouraging.

I really hope that is the legacy of this Life Event we're all sharing. That people find patience. Though from my ivory tower I can see some people are falling apart and some are lashing out and it's tense, too. I'm not a pollyanna (I swear). I know it's rough. We've looked after many people (entire crews) who otherwise would have lost everything, and we'll continue to do so, as it's going to be a long road back.

We'll get there as one big giant family.

(Except for Mark. He refused the Ha, oops, did I tip you back in the late winter for that tattoo? I forget attempts to fill his bank account and is too fucking proud to pretends it's anything less than what is is so we have instead filled his days with commission work so at least he can say he earned it. We also can still tip fairly huge on those without him getting too annoyed at least.)

And I want the hairdresser to open. Henry has refused all attempts to have Daniel or Ben or anyone cut his hair. He's been going to this lovely Korean lady since he was eight years old and he won't let anyone else cut his hair. They have a bond, it's kind of awesome. I wonder if she misses him too. I'm saving a huge tip for her because it's going to take her two hours to cut his crazy mop at this rate.

But really I just want to go to Trolls for breakfast. I complain about the crowds and the tourists but damn I want their hashbrowns and coffee like you wouldn't believe.

Cake.

Sliding into a muted birthday weekend here, muted, dulled by the shadow of a pandemic blocking out the light, making it hard to make plans, making it hard to be me, unless defined by Lochlan's explanation in which I dance in a circle made by their hands, from a young age til now, in an ever-widening space in which the grass is soft and green and tangled with flowers. I can spin and spin and spin in the rain and I can't get hurt, even if I fall. They won't catch me, as they don't break the perimeter, they won't break the bond, they won't let go but I can get up and keep going, forever, as they watch me, watch over me.

That's beautiful, I tell him as I smack my black rye toast, fucking hideously annoyed and spoiled rotten and anxious to do everything from have breakfast at Trolls to ride the rides inside my brain to not have to spend the day shovelling soil, delivered from a place out of town but in huge quantities for my gardens.

Peanut. That's all he has to say sometimes and I understand I'm being unreasonable. I just want a birthday like the others have been. Magical. Without equal. We can defer-

No! It has to be the right day! I continue to smack my toast, wallowing in my annoyance. It's the only thing I have left to do.

Five kilometres to couch.

And I'll wait for that woman
Until then I will wait alone

The new routine is to crawl out of bed reluctantly, throw on my technical gear for rain, save for shoes. I wear the lightest most breathable running shoes I own since my feet are going to get wet anyway and Caleb and I meet to run to the top of the hill to the playground in Cypress and back home. We average five kilometers or more each morning (which sounds like nothing until you realize the intensity of the incline), a half hour to begin the routine of day from the time we set our watches in the driveway to when we collapse on the front porch and hit End.

My heart rate remains that of a hummingbird. His is an easy measured lope. We'll never match up in workout stats. Bigger, taller people burn more and go harder, small people go further, as I add a third more steps just to keep up with him.

I don't miss running but God do I love that high at the end.

And the focus for the rest of the day as I don't flutter quite so hard all the time. I wear out my body and it's as if my mind gives in.

Caleb on the other hand, uses it as foreplay. He wants the time, wants the visual. He considers exercise a necessary precursor to performing well in bed and I don't know if he's right or not, as PJ has incredible moves and a bit of a beer gut. PJ only runs if you hold a loaded weapon to his head and even then he'll be like come ON, man.

(Whoops. Shhh.)

We don't talk when we run. At all. It's considered 'public' or something (he doesn't talk when he fucks, either as a data point though) and other than seeing a bunny today up on the trail we barely spoke to one another. He is busy watching me, busy planning out the rest of his day, hoping to include me in it, all the way through the end to the next and I am busy yelling BUNNY inside my brain and then looking for the next bunny, hoping it's not a bear because I'm getting tired.

(I carry bear spray when I run. Well, it's tiny so it's actually dog/mugger spray but I could at least surprise a bear enough with it to get away or at least get a headstart.

Caleb could probably just control the bear with a hefty payout. It worked for New Jake, right? Except that he's still a wildcard at the end of the day and I just try to avoid him.)

Lochlan does not want to run. Lochlan wants to sleep and then Lochlan can't understand why I can't stay awake past eight at night. I am tired. I don't know why I get up at so early anymore except that's when you catch the bunnies and the sun and the Devil on a good day, that's for certain.

Win stupid prizes, too, they say.

OOoohhhh. Did I tell you I discovered Apollo Under Fire? I went looking for Submersed, after listening to Flicker from the new City Burials album by Katatonia and wondered briefly if it was a cover. Then I went to make a fire playlist and realized Submersed was missing from iTunes.

(iTunes eats things. Did you know? One day you just wake up and stuff is missing. It SUCKS.)

But then I followed the trail of musical breadcrumbs left by Donald Carpenter and found this band. Apollo Under Fire, and they have one whole self-titled album out but it's solid and beautiful and really freaking GOOD and I love days like this.

Also returned Submersed to my revolving favorites list and can't believe I didn't notice for so long.

But it's fixed.

Also fixed is the shower drain in our ensuite. It's sealed so it's a bit of a pain and I figured between Lochlan, Ben and at the worst, New Jake's ingenuity as a handyman or an actual professional called in, we could fix it. Lochlan said it was my fault. I blamed him, handily. His hair's been longer longer, right?

Then I got to work and fixed it! Alone! Ha!

It was all blonde. I have enough to make a whole extra person here with this hair. Or at least some highly efficient voodoo dolls. Either way, it's fixed and I have one of those confidence-bursts from not freaking out and calling someone, and now I'm off to the bank to finish signing the paperwork for my deal which is all approved and ready for me to deploy.

The Devil watches me from the shadows and smiles, proud of his little contextual prodigy, with dollar signs in her eyes, sleeves rolled up, ready to do all of his dirty work because the cut is too much to turn down.

When Lochlan finds out the amount it will be enough at least to offset his sudden desire to wash me down the drain and into the sea. His eyes will go wide and he'll have that moment of doubt but then resignation as it's not all that different from the way things are now. We just raised the stakes a little in order to raise the reward.

Okay, a lot. We raised them a lot.

If you want to be a big player you have to play the big games, Neamhchiontach.

Vikings.

Just for fun they all ('all' meaning PJ, Duncan, Dalton, Gage, Lochlan and John) let me shave the sides of their heads and put braids in their hair. Just a few here and there with silver rings for decoration.

Just...well, DAMN.

No one is ever allowed to revert back.

Skol.

Netflix is upping it's game and so is Liam (I mean Chris).

We watched Extraction last night. I spent the entire first half thinking it was the Lesser Hemsworth starring in it, since that's what I call him. Poor Liam, always in the shadow of his larger, older brother or so I think. Liam was in The Hunger Games and Chris, the actual Hemsworth, is Thor. 

Then Lochlan ever so kindly leaned over and said in my ear, This is Thor. 

What?

This is Chris Hemsworth. 

Then why does he have his brother's hair? 

I remain suspicious for the remainder of the movie, wondering secretly if Liam decided he needed to up his game, got buff, became ridiculously John Wick-like and then passed his brother in an easy sprint, now becoming The Greatest Hemsworth. 

(I Google nothing, forgive me)

Liam did not, and this IS Chris.

Damn, it was a good movie. So good I mowed right through an entire bag of Swedish Fish and I don't even like Swedish Fish, and now my stomach is a big ball of xantham gum and stress.

Bee balm up to my knees.

Today isn't so pretty even as the sun conducts an endless fight with the heavy rains. The boys conduct endless fights with each other and with me and I finally took off to buy some supplies and found even more toilet paper, hand sanitizer and all sorts of dry goods and came home in a much better frame of mind. It's sunny now but beautifully windy and I just want things to go back to routine.

Not every day will be a good day, Sam says, rubbing my back as I finish my noodles. Lunch is curry noodles with five tall glasses of cold water. We are relentless in our efforts to try our best to do the things we always do, though and so it is a typical Saturday.

I know. I nod in his direction and then go back to my bowl. Really not wanting the encouragement or the platitudes today. I just want my noodles and a little company, if you're not inclined to pick me apart. That's all.

On the upside, we have a whole case of curry noodles now.

Exhibition indeed.

How are you doing today, Bridge?

John's finally back and finally out of quarantine. Idiot was overseas when this all went down and he got stuck for a while and then came home the first week of April and we put him somewhere safe (Batman's guest house) and he's FREEEEEEEEEE at last and wants my cooking.

(Which is funny. I sent him a foil-wrapped meal every freaking night at dinner time for sixteen nights straight. I'd like a medal for that.)

As long as they're still determined to hold the South Shore Exhibition I am doing great. If they cancel it I'm giving up on life.

Oh, you're going this year?

No, we're not traveling for at least eight months. You?

Oh, I'll be home for a long time. He laughs. Love his face. Love his longer hair and road beard. Hope he keeps it, though usually they tend to until I point out how much I love it and then the next day it's either gone or barely stubble anymore so I'll keep my mouth shut please and thank you. You know if things get really bad take Caleb up on that personal Ferris wheel offer or carousel or whatever and we'll stay home forever. 

It was the permit thing. We couldn't do it. 

So what?

You need permission from someone-

No one's checking anything right now, Bridget.

Oh my God, you're right.