We ate outside tonight. First patio dinner of the season. I did not find all the chairs yet.

Sunday night and I'm sitting on Lochlan's knee at the corner of the big glass patio table eating nachos from our favourite Mexican restaurant with extra jalapenos, licking my iodine-stained* fingers and reading guitar reviews out loud from the musical instrument shop we frequent. 

My favourite was for a Jimmy Page edition double-necked epiphone: 

Pros: Stairway!!

Cons: This is heavy!

(Most people try to sound cool or nonchalant when they're writing reviews. This was the first one that was just straight-up honest.)

(*I lost a fight I didn't know I was in, against some surprisingly sharp picture-frame glass from the early eigthies. Almost severed my damn fingers.)

Tiny lessons.

Dear Future Self: Always check and make sure your locking nut key is in your Jeep when you leave a repair shop. Fate woke me at three am and I tossed and turned and woke up at six and went out to check and SURE ENOUGH it wasn't there. 

Big Sigh. 

Called the shop and they had it (a BLESSED MIRACLE, I SAY) and so I took another vehicle in for service when I picked it up, this time in and out in a cool thirty-five minutes and now I've paid my dues to the universe and I'm fucking done for the week. The madness continues but the will does not. It's time to watch some horror movies and rest a little. It's Friday, Bitches and I did more before ten this morning than most people do in a month. 

(Yes, I checked the other truck for the key before I left the lot. HAHAHA I'm not STUPID, right?)

Texas Chainsaw weekend for me. Bye.

Just. Well, look at the 'character' properties first. Those are always the best ones.

Yesterday was an even MORE wild ride that began with sex and groceries with Ben (in THAT order, no less) and then I don't think I actually was on the point until three in the afternoon again as I had a sudden burst of manic energy that saw me tick off a bunch of languishing appointments and chores that I was ignoring thus far. I still have a few left but those will play out over the next few weeks, and that's fine. The doctor returns on Tuesday and this morning was my first massive anxiety wake-up, as it's always worst on the way to sleep and first thing and then the courage comes with the dawn. When I jumped on the scale the scale told me my heart rate was 170 and I believed it. A second try registered 74 so that's probably more accurate but I do feel like I can let today cave in because I was Productive yesterday and that's all people care about. 

Also stop tightening your fucking OIL CAPS SO TIGHT THEY BREAK. That alone added over an hour to my trials of Wednesday the twenty-third of March. FFS. It's not hard. Also the replacement better be metal or I'm going to be pissed off again. 

Today I get to Netflix and laundry. Tonight is steak stir-fry on rice with peppers and onions. In the meantime I am waiting for Henry to wake up (he's in his final two weeks of fine-tuning his graduation project wtffffffff) and browsing Purplebricks for my next house. Purplebricks is a huge time suck in my life right now, I spend hours looking at listings. 

And I'm going to try to go back to posting every day. I have the go-ahead. Everyone's super happy with my 'progress' or something, as apparently my personality before was too much or too stressful.

This makes me sad.

Drama in real life.

Yesterday was a wild ride. Did I tell you I broke my toe? Dropped my phone on it and boom, now it's black and purple and it looks a little like it's been lying on Mount Everest for a few decades and I'm so fascinated I keep showing everyone. They tell me not to drop my phone. Uh. Okay, right. Will do. 

Hopefully it will be back to it's normal colour soon or I will arrange a service at base camp for it, I guess. 

I have nine other toes, right? yes, of course I do but the smallest ones are the runts and they are fairly useless and also hilariously misshapen. Everything is micro on me. Especially my hands and feet. So I'm surprised my phone didn't miss by a mile but nope, toe-smash city. 

In other news I also witnessed a crime this week. Fun! Especially since it was something in my own neighbourhood and while minor, it was completely unnecessary and glaringly obvious to the point where I do believe the world has lost it's collective mind, and also yes, I made a report and now get to wait and see if anything plays out. 

I hate that but I also know who did it and don't plan to let them get away with it because they're fucking batshit and they need to learn a lesson here. 

God. Just do the right thing. It's not hard, people. I can figure that out and I only presently have nine useful toes! 

I will provide updates soon if anything comes of it all. 

Happy Ostara.

I climbed out of my fog yesterday and had a great day. I played in the muddy gardens, went through three pairs of garden gloves, put out and set up two hoses, helped prune and stack grapevines in the vineyard, unwrapped and pruned the tiny olive trees, marveled at the buds on the cherry and pear trees and counted all the buds on the rosebushes and tearoses. The bee balm is multiplying already, the larkspur has come up along with the poppies and the ivy seems lush and plush again suddenly. The Japanese maples have huge buds and the grass is even coming back, at last, though slowly. We cleaned up for around two hours en mass and then ended the day with a feast of Chinese food and television. We finished Lucifer. We made plans to finish Lost in Space and then begin the new season of Ozark. We enjoyed the sun on our faces and the good back pain that comes from hard physical work and we look forward to getting the garden planted and underway soon.

The wedding plans tick along too. This week we have a couple of things to do, namely Ruthie's dress fitting for alterations and possibly shopping for shirts for the men. She's requested an unusual colour scheme and yet it's extremely flattering to the skin tones among us so no problems there. She is the furthest thing from a bridezilla but she also has a tiny vision in mind and we intend to make it happen for her. I'm excited. So excited but also loving coasting on the decided lack of anxiety. It's great. When it's not a pure fog it's absolutely great and working. 

Winter is done. Just when I gave up on hating the darkness at four in the afternoon and the endless damp cold, it's done. Again. I love it. I'm looking forward to Easter and my birthday, and the wedding. 

And we're having slow lake-Jesus today because coffee at a lake in the mountains is better than coffee in church. A million times better. Sorry Sam (he doesn't blame us truth be told).

Maybe coffee would he- no, it probably wouldn't. You're right.

I feel like a dull pencil. Too blunt to write purposefully but still good enough that eventually I will be sharper and in the meantime no one is going to throw me away. But a hopeful pencil, with stories and dreams I want to write but I just can't because I am too rounded to use. Too dull to be able to put to paper any of the words I thought I had, blurred by the moment and now I forget. 

I am pushing through. Maybe it will get better? Maybe not. Who the hell knows? This the halfway point of the whole trial of it anyway so we shall see. 

*yawns* 

Christ.

Recycled.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Our Padraig is having a wonderful time. He's almost already drunk. He's had three meals and it's only two in the afternoon and the rain is pouring down so hard and that, coupled with the three-degree wind and darkness has made us cancel our plans to go and carouse about town tonight to celebrate being Irish as only a few of us actually are. 

Kidding. We had zero plans to carouse, as it were. 

I am busy throwing mugs anyway. Not throwing them on the wheel, actually throwing them. At the fence, which is cathartic as nothing I have ever seen before except then I have to go and pick all the shards up and put them in the recycling clay bucket and make them back into clay. As long as they haven't been glazed you can do that and apparently I am the QUEEN of weak handles on cups, which shrink and crack a month later and ugh, the learning process coupled with my OCD-perfectionism (DIAGNOSED, in case you're easily annoyed) is just about ruining this whole thing. I ground the edges down with a file and now it's a drinking VESSEL, just not a MUG. 

It's fine, everything's fine. 

*picks up shards*

I get to start drinking at five. 

As soon as you've eaten, says my minder. He makes the rules, I follow them. 

*throws perfectly good mug this time, just for emphasis on the 'follow' part.*

The Sunlight Protection Act.

 If you've tried to reach me and haven't gotten a response (or a block, HA) it's because for the past little while I don't have access to my email. Lochlan won't let me have it. I post remotely from my blog post link from blogger (really glad I set that up that first time I took a trip and wanted to post from the road without logging in, per se) and haven't really acknowledged any readers as of late. I haven't even posted every day, as of late, truth be told and things are as ever. Though after many attempts to stop taking these pills I am given them now and it's an illness to be cured or maintained, not an experiment and yet the joy vanished with the anxiety and I'm trying to figure out how to live in this unfamiliar place where nothing inside my head can get a rise out of me suddenly, and I can poke around and find the panic but then I drop it and it's gone again. 

In other words, bear with me. It isn't like we haven't done this a million times before, Dear Reader, which is why I'm not too concerned. Eventually I will have the energy to rebel or something with trigger something else and we'll be back on the rollercoaster you know and crave. 

Gee, can't wait. 

(See? That's the reaction you get out of me these days. Like they shot me with a tranquilizer gun and then shook me awake so that I can still respond in conversation. Not less than eleven different people have remarked that this shit may be too strong. Hahahaha you think? And the talk was that the dosages WILL BE RAISED.)

In other news, my current province (British Columbia) saw our premier waiting for the United States to make the first move on leaving Daylight Savings Time always-on due to trade and cross-border logistics and since the senate or congress or whichever you use voted unanimously to adopt permanent Daylight Savings Time (hilarious name for the act, by the way. I fucking DIED at the gravity of it all) I think, Mr. Horgan, that it's time to make our announcement too. And never again will I have to turn on lights at three in the afternoon. That alone is worth cheering for. 

I will get back to my emails soon. I'm hitting all my progress points, or so they say. Baby steps and all.

Annnnd this is why I ordered not one but two extra glass doors because we already have to replace one from where Lochlan shoved Caleb right into it, and now I still have a spare. I'd put a laughing emoji here but it's not funny.

Do they ever learn? Or change? Do I? No to all of it.

I thought I made it out alive.

Neamhchiontach. 

Caleb's breath is warm against my forehead. His head is bent down against mine and I am frozen in place. Wanting so badly to run but wanting to stay, too. 

Ten days interest is going to cost you. He says it softly, voice breaking on the cost part. Every day that goes by means you're going to pay dearly. 

His birthday was on the third and we celebrated as a big family. As always. As always, it wasn't enough.

I struggle out of his embrace, tears streaming. My voice is caught in my throat, choked out by sudden insolence. Just pretend it's a year we aren't together and you'll be fine. I wipe my cheeks, trying to find the rage to replace the fear. Trying to be stubborn and hold my ground when it's an avalanche. He holds firm and I give up my fight, waiting for the dead (or the living) to rescue me. Not wanting to rescue myself. I don't want to be the bad guy in my own story. I just want him to stop keeping score. I'm not a game. There are no points to be had, here. He lost before he knew he was a player but he refuses to concede.