Goldilocks and the three things (One too small: the mouse. One too big: The Devil. One just right: The redhead).

My bird cam (which is set in the big tea roses in the upper part of the garden on the woods side of the house) regularly catches a curious adolescent Spotted Towie and a bully Starling, three unique and habituated hummingbirds and a giant Northern Flicker is now a mouse cam.

We have a mouse. In the garden. Or maybe it's a rat. I don't know but it's small and it makes three trips a night across the garden and back. Every time we fill the hole we think it's using it finds a new one and this has been my entertainment this past week as my eye stops hurting and my skin heals, all the swelling slowly returns to normal and I finish out all these pills, which give me headaches. At least it's cool and raining today and I checked all the places and we learned where it goes and where it's coming from. Not sure we can do anything about it save for removing the water from the fountain and turning it off and taking down the bird feeders. I take them in every night anyway to usurp the bears and raccoons but apparently this critter might be attracted to the little bits of seeds and suet left behind. 

I felt well enough to organize Caleb's life a little, looking after picking up packages and having a look at his emails. He isn't all that dedicated and will just read things. He won't act on or file them away though and so I have to chase him down to find out what his plans are for each and every thing. I transfer all of his dividends to my account and check shipping, clean out some old files and then book him in with his barber and cardiologist. Pre-summer stuff. In exchange for three hours of admin-light he had to take over cleaning five bathrooms and making lunch. 

It's all done now. We had bagels with cottage cheese, dill and cucumber and fresh peach slices. He made a point of going to find Loch and bringing him back to make sure he had a decent lunch, as Lochlan is out in the yard sanding down every last sharp edge and thorny path in my life so that he can sleep at night. Apparently we have reverted somewhat and instead of calling it an accident and removing the hollow log so there will never be another surprise, Lochlan has gone full fearful parent and is demanding we cut back all of the flowers to minimize insects and maybe brick over more of the yard. Maybe the gazebo should be glassed in like the pool to have a safe waypoint in case it happens again. The points on the roof and eaves and doors and windows will be regularly sprayed now. Someone has to sweep the garage, stables and sauna before I can go in, oh, and I'm never allowed down to the beach again because God only knows what's under those steps but it's probably bad all the same. 

He will not listen to reason. 

He did however, stop at the pharmacy to pick up Matt's spanking new Epi-Pen, good for sixteen months, and got me a bag of Sweet Sixteen licorice tape (the absolute best) and that's how I know he's still in there. He isn't worried about my teeth, just my skin. So we're good, I guess?

Not even remotely good today.

I'm gonna check my scars at home
Gonna cash my chips and roam
Gonna walk before you fade to black
I'm gonna write a new resume
I'm gonna write you off the page
Gonna take what we might take away

Caleb knocks on the door softly. How is Tuesday? 

I shrug. Noncommittal. Epic headaches. Epic weakness when I want to be strong. Epic exhaustion when I want to be energetic. I want to be the sun and the moon. I want to be able to play more than three-quarters of any verse on the piano before someone interrupts me. It's okay, I lie.

He frowns. He knows my lies. I have a present for you. 

What is it?

A nap. In the shade. With Ben and I. 

Yes, please.

Ooh. Wrote a whole bunch and now I need to go lie down.

Duncan just told me I am far less intimidating right this minute with my puffy half-face and fragile health than I usually am, without it.

He is my babysitter right now. He's healing a full back of hand and knuckle tattoos. He is hurting and it's GLORIOUS.

I love being bowled over with their honesty at nine in the morning while I'm still sipping my first coffee and enjoying the rain, however light it is right now. The rest of the boys are walking the property now to make sure there are no more nests.

This is somewhat comforting, as we were playing Night & Seek just about every evening at dusk up until last Saturday when I got stung during the day, at least, and it was so much fun. And I can fit into weird surprising places that I didn't expect, like the cupboard that holds the hose reel on the back side of the house, as long as the hose is out of it and unspooled across the side yard. I can fit behind the lawnmowers under the steps where we keep them in a locked shed built under the steps of the loft going up from the garage. 

I did mention that's where I got that big scary spider bite in 2011 that turned my arm black, right?

Do I learn? No. Is Night & Seek as much fun forty years later? Hell yes it is. And it only took fifteen minutes on the first night to convince Lochlan that if we hide together we will be way too easy to find and then the game is ruined for everyone so we need to split up. The only rule was you have to stay well inside the perimeter of the property and you have to keep your eyes open for wildlife. They turned the fence on after walking it for bears and bobcats at the start of each. Gosh it's fun living in the woods by the sea. He let me hide alone as he knows I am so competitive about the game. 

The first night I saw the fattest raccoon I ever laid eyes on. The second night both neighbourhood local cats who won't stay out of my garden/off the point/away from my birds showed up and I sprayed them away and then ran through the dark for my life to hide as far away from the hose as possible. The third night I think I saw a rat but I haven't seen him since and the fourth night Lochlan got cold feet and made me hide with him again and we hatched a serious plan and sacrificed Ben, who was found first. Lochlan did not throw a rock to Ben to draw Sam to where he was, nope, uh-uh. 

*whistles*

We're trying to have a great spring and we're going to have a better summer. This is the plan. 

Thank you, I think.Can I smack your hand now, by accident? 

Please no. It's nice being on the same level, that's all.

Oh, you're slumming today? 

Not what I mean, Bridge. I mean you're this ethereal creature most of the time and today you're just a hurting human. 

God, I love it when you talk dirty to me. 

You know what I mean. 

Okay. 

Seriously. 

I said okay. 

I didn't explain it well. Nevermind. He looks at me and I look back and then he looks away again.

Okay, I say, and crack up.

HOLY FUCKING HELL (also BEES. But not actually BEES).

One of the hardest parts about taking extended breaks (four days is apparently a lifetime?) from my daily updates are the rumours and the terrible predictions I come back to in emails. 

People wonder if I died. If I did myself in or if maybe Caleb killed me, or worse, someone else did. People wondered if we were taking a fancy trip abroad and I didn't want to get flack for it in the time of a pandemic. People wondered if Lochlan finally got tired of me and left, leaving me heartbroken. People wondered if I was finally moving on from writing everything down that I want to share or even don't want to share.

A lot of you wondered if maybe I had been sent away to be fixed or bettered or helped somewhat, that it was good. Those ones were weirdly encouraging and loving and now I feel strange about every word I've ever written here. 

But nope. Close but I didn't. I wouldn't. He didn't. No one else would dare. Of course not. No, he didn't and he never will. No I'm not. And no, I didn't. 

Hope that helps, okay, byeeeeeeee-

Ha. I am still here. 

This is totally sad but as I said, my body takes Great Delight in sabotaging me every single chance it gets and so the DAY BEFORE I am to have my Covid vaccine I stepped right into a wasp nest in the back of the orchard. One tucked in to the place where I stand to reach up and hang the bird feeder when I remember to refill it. There's a large piece of driftwood underneath that delineates the path from the arbour and it's also a great way for me to reach the lowest branch. Apparently it was also a great place to build a nest for a large quantity of super aggressive yellowjackets and of course when I stood on it they came out and in my surprise I kicked the log again and oh, my. 

It was a cloud of black angry buzzing in my face and all around me. 

They stung my hairline and my lip and my nose and right at the corner of one eye, one on my elbow, getting caught and then for good measure my thumb, too.

I am not allergic, or rather, I wasn't, but fourteen stings at once is a lot and I didn't fare so well and my blood pressure dropped and my heart began to dance and now, well now I am allergic. Really thought I would be fine before my body went hey...what? No.

The whole side of my face swelled up, a rash developed almost all over my top half and my eyes swelled shut. My nostril swelled shut. One side of my mouth blew up. It was frightening. It hurt so bad. So, so bad.

Expired epi pens still have lots of life though and that's good. 

The boys are surprisingly good in emergencies now and didn't fuck around wondering if it was a real emergency or something we could figure out. It was just go go go.

Doctors are fast and incredible at what they do, and that's even better. 

The boys have spoiled me rotten for more the last week. It happened last Saturday afternoon and I think I lost an entire week of my life but I'm feeling so much better and the only long term effects are whatever time it's going to take the rash and subsequent nerve pain to subside and the fact that I have to add ALLERGIC TO STINGS to my HARD OF HEARING medical bracelet. My vision is okay, hearing bad as ever and when do I not have a rash or reaction to something?

Fun fact since I managed to demonize Caleb at the beginning of this post for no reason and I have to not do that, as he spent all of Tuesday randomly describing the screen for me as we watched Bling Empire on Netflix. Well, he watched and I listened because I couldn't see and even if I could have I couldn't put my glasses on because it still hurts and my skin feels like a third degree burn and it almost burst in places. He said they paused and zoomed in on various designer items during the episodes and I told him it's to give people time to buy something from that designer online and there begat a new game for us and now we have some interesting packages coming in the post this week and fully a third of them are from Cartier. 

(the rest are men's Dior and Balenciaga RTW items for Lochlan since he expressed interest in a shirt so Caleb bought him a BUNCH of stuff he thinks Lochlan might like. They, along with Ben have stuck beside me around the clock even though I look like the elephant girl. Still do, pretty much though the swelling has gone down a little now.)

So all is not lost. The silver lining in a long week turned out to be white gold. And never stand on a hollow log without checking to see if anyone's home first.

(My vaccine is rebooked for the end of the month, thank God. That's all I wanted in the first place and it's why I was rushing to get the gardening done so I wouldn't have to do any on vaccine day or the day after that because the boys were all really tired after their shots.)

One foot in the gr- (Don't be so morbid, Bridget!).

Not dead. Just having some fairly extreme surprise medical issues over here and apparently I will start to feel better in four or five days or maybe that was weeks, I don't know. I was supposed to get my vaccine this afternoon but my body decided to stage a mutiny and come up with something new and different. Not online. Not doing anything but lying in the shade watching Netflix and sleeping way too much. She goes until she stops, I guess. 

I'll be back when I feel good enough to sit up for five seconds and don't have other pressing things to do with that energy.

Overcoffeed already this morning, chewing on the headphone cord while I try and figure out how to clear this fog. I never have energy but I don't sleep and I eat too much sugar. I don't sleep because I worry too much but I can't let go and just give in to the medication, give in to the booze, give in to the endless, constant chronic reassurance that it's all okay, no, life is a goddamned white-knuckle extreme thrill ride and honestly I got every thrill I ever needed from the most basic standard Ferris Wheel and never asked for more. 

I have headphones permanently plugged in to my shitty laptop, an Asus zenbook (never ever buy one) that can be flipped around to become a tablet which still remains useless as fuck, the pencil is useless, the sound is so fucking bad except through headphones but I hate taking my airpods out of my bag because then I forget to put them back and get out somewhere and wish for them dearly. 

I miss the macbook but I have an ipad pro that can almost do everything anyway and Lochlan got me a folio case with a spot for the pencil and a full bluetooth keyboard and the sound and picture is unfucking real from it but I'm going to wear this laptop into the ground first before I go ham on the ipad, though I use it for drawing and for watching movies by the pool or in bed. 

I'm probably going to electrocute myself on this cord at some point but I'm pretty sure the four other times I got blown off my feet by electricity and lived to tell the tale probably explain everything we need to know about my brain, if not everything that came before those events. What can I say? It all goes into the mix, gets stirred up and whatever comes out is pretty much your fault. 

Especially the lower-lip-biting, which was a concentrated, painful reminder to think before I spoke but now serves as some sort of visual heartbreak to everyone. I don't know how that happened but Lochlan just said the cord is the same thing and please stop it. 

Guess I'll go back to just blurting out whatever comes to mind, whether I heard you properly or not.

Little electric nightmare.

Yesterday I think my energies got out of control. I don't know it was leftover dismay at my birthday year or the fact that Schuyler completely unpacked my very being, breaking it all down, taking inventory, and then packing it all back up again. Maybe he forgot to put the lid on, maybe there was an air bubble. In any case, I popped four balloons, three lightbulbs, broke a mug and failed to successfully replant an errant majoram sprig for no freaking reason even though I've been patiently pulling them out of the marconi daisies where they took up residence and moving them to a different section of the garden for the past two weeks and it worked great up until today. It rained like the dickens through dinner and I just bandaged up my hand from where the mug edge cut into my flesh and I took my shitty energies and went to bed alone. The dog joined me and then Lochlan, who slept with his elbow in my face. I had to get up like five times to pee even though I cut out my water at dinner and Ben came up in the single digits and woke me up again, mumbled sorry, turned away and that was that. 

I swear to God, I wish there were magic sleep spices that didn't involve severe tranquilizing. I wish there were vacations. I wish my energies extended to being creative instead of locking down and imploding. Here's hoping today is off the grid though. Yesterday grew exceedingly stressful and I don't want a repeat of it.

On the other hand, fully half the point is being vaccinated this afternoon and there are still like five pieces of birthday cake left and I get to cull favours in exchange for them, which is always fun. Oh yes, and it's Friday! Tomorrow is wiped clean just in case there are effects from the vaccine (it's Pfizer or Moderna, we waited for the government rollout instead of the pharmacy one, which is AZ) and I can watch and plan because I get my shot on Tuesday.

Aftersmash.

Working on big picture stuff, and prioritizing my goals today with Schuyler, from where I am newly jammed in between he and Daniel, all three of us in boxers but I get a warm long-sleeved t-shirt, because I am always cold now, having scones with jam and pretty good coffee. Schuyler likes to check in with people on the day after their birthdays now to help them set goals for the coming year and shed bad habits and old ineffective methods. 

I think you just banned yourself, I take another bite of toast. I try to keep it neat but Schuy leans over my face and steals a huge messy bite. 

Never, he says through his mouthful. This refines you. 

Daniel laughs. He is sleepy but loves having guests, loves watching Schuy play life coach. Loves watching Lochlan nap. Lochlan army-naps. He can sleep anywhere. And I sort of love having a life-coach who knows me. Who doesn't? Schuy is level-headed, organized, successful and retired so he has time to devote to helping those of us who struggle with meaning and whatever our definitions of success might be. I am loathe to realize my entire creative existence was borne out of pressure from my publisher and isn't even under my name and he is loathe to see how much that bothers me, after a fashion. And he isn't some stranger, some counselor brought in to work some sort of textbook program. And that's what I think I love most even though of course again, there is work ahead.

But in the meantime there are scones and semi-naked men. Savage Garden. 

***

It was a blissful birthday. A quiet, dry one. Lochlan outdid himself, right down to the tiny detail of telling Caleb he had already looked after champagne and a drink order and then made pink lemonade, from scratch. Dinner was outside. Pizza, which was awesome, and then ice cream cake inside and hot tea and balloons that burst at random, seemingly and made us shriek and laugh. It was one of the nicest and most wholesome birthdays I think I've ever had and I would do it again every single day if I could. 

We'll go back to being heathens tomorrow, Lochlan said. For tonight I just want to see you smiling like this.

A Joan of Arc (and smart enough to believe this).

Oh ominous place spellbound and unchildproofed
My least favourite chill to bear alone
Compatriots in place they'd cringe if I told you
Our best back-pocket secret our bond full-blown

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind, I am a pioneer naive enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne 

It's an easy round and even number, somehow comforting and frightening all at once. It is a dividing line, a highway down the centre of the route you thought you were taking until you turn around to look back and realize you've gone off on a tangent, found a detour and you're very near to where you meant to be but you're in a different place altogether at the same time.

(Where are you meant to be, Bridget?)

(We've got to get off the road.) 

I shrug and readjust my pack. Somehow over the years it got heavier and yet somehow, over the years, I figured out how to better carry it. 

I feel established and knowledgeable and experienced. I feel like a scared teenager in a bad situation, one who felt tough right up until he called her bluff. 

I feel like I should fight. 

I'm too tired to fight.

I feel as if today should consist of eating cake and watching good horror movies. Maybe an eight-hour sleep afterwards. In reality today will consist of laundry, more laundry, dishes, bathrooms, vaccuuming (still can't spell it, how old am I again? ) and figuring out dinner as everyone rolls in. Maybe a little horror movie time later. 

There are presents on the table in front of my chair. I was sent to bed at eight last night in order to facilitate a balloon throne, constructed on the spot and these beautifully wrapped presents piled around it which I have to wait twelve hours to open. I did not sleep. I read (chipping away at The Pandora Room. Love me some Ben Walker mysteries) and then I tossed and turned and got up at five and cried. 

Lochlan laughed and reminded me how I tried to comfort him when he turned this age and somehow in his mind I minimized his feelings and for that I'm sorry even though it's been five years since that happened. I didn't know that's what it feels like, saying it's just a number and the numbers don't matter.

He is right. 

It isn't but it doesn't matter either. 

Life is confusing. You want to be taken seriously. You want to be left alone. You want to throw glitter around indoors and dance to music that's so loud it's criminal and then you realize if you get glitter everywhere indoors you will still be finding it on the next perfectly-round, even birthday. 

So don't. 

But consider it. Because you can.

(Destined to reign, destined to roam.)

Find yourself a love who looks at you like Darren Hayes looked into the camera in the nineties.

I'm not watching Savage Garden videos. You are. 

I'm not enjoying the last day of my forties. No sirree. We already got groceries. I'm wearing my tiara. We have cupcakes for later and this is it, boys, there she goes. I'm not looking back. Not going to let it get me. Not going to entertain the ghosts for free when it costs me extra, not going to let fear rule when love does it so much better. Not going to put up with much more bullshit as every single man who walks into the room says something along the lines of not being able to believe that tomorrow is my birthday and it's a really big one. 

A huge one. 

One I can't wrap my brain around but the numbers don't care. They just keep marching like troops in nice solid blocks, in step, in cadence with each other and with the ticking of the clock. 

How do you feel? Lochlan asks, for the dozenth time.

I have no answer for him, yet. This is too new.