Gale.

Today is a quiet day. I'm working on sanding and painting a little cabinet with a glass door that I found at a junk shop. I'm painting it white and I'm going to keep my crystals in it. It's not actually little but it will still fit nicely on the shelf by the window going up the front staircase and it will keep things more secure. 

Ruth and her fiance came by on their way home from an appointment. They stayed for half an hour and played with the dog while they tried to cement their plans for the remainder of the day. I felt vaguely obtunded and dull. I didn't sleep well last night at all. I couldn't get warm. The dog wouldn't stay put. I've already added a blanket under my pillow that I can wrap up in if it happens tonight again. 

The rain is supposed to start in earnest in the next two hours. So excited for a dark stormy day. I'm going to finish Red Dot and maybe start the House of the Witch. Apparently it's leaving Netflix soon so I need to figure it out. 

Hanging out with the dog. By myself. Henry's asleep. Haven't see the Devil yet. Dalton is here keeping an eye and everyone else is out. The wind just picked up like crazy. I guess the storm arrived sooner than I thought it would. 

*Yawn*

Today I bought another gazebo and a privacy trellis for the guest garden suite so that if someone ventures outside they aren't in full view of the driveway since it wraps around now and then I let Daniel cut off all my hair for me into a cute little shaggy pixie that made me weirdly happy. I have very expressive features and a very small head and I grew out my hair over most of last year and hated it long even though I always say I'm going to grow it long it's such a hassle and it's thick and heavy and I wanted it just...off. Daniel did a great job and I gave him a huge tip too. Mostly I was stalling because I don't want to put the gazebo together at all and I just want to materialize but we will work on it next weekend maybe. That will be fun. 

In the meantime tomorrow is a rare day. We're supposed to have rain and wind and Dalton and I both drew the laundry card so we will fold the laundry and get it all done and returned to the right rooms and catch up. Nothing else needs to be done. We're way ahead overall for spring by many weeks. I even got my potato seedlings to plant in a few weeks. Normally I'm not even thinking of any of this until my birthday. 

Loch and Henry went out and picked up Japanese food for dinner. We had tofu yakisoba and gyoza and spicy chicken while we watched Moonfall. Gosh, it was so exciting and so pretty. I loved it. Would have watched it all night but tomorrow there are things to be done so everyone needs an early turn-in. The boys have a project (sadly not the other gazebo) and I am going to play ghosthunter. In my pajamas because I won't be going outside. 

But first, a good nights sleep.

Daydreaming about running away.

Found a house on Purplebricks tonight and it's only around eight hundred thousand pounds. It's in Bodmin, a four-hour drive west from London and it looks like a pretty place. I could be invisible anywhere, truth be told, as long as I know where to get things like..wait, nevermind. Watch batteries, vacuum belts and kids' snowsuits used to be the triple-threat, once I knew where to buy those things in a new city I had it all figured out. 

Now there's Amazon and forty other online places and the internet so it's not so hard to find what I need. 

This is a four-bedroom rural two-story with greenhouses and a sunroom and a kitchen with a very big aga stove and it looks bright and quiet and peaceful. It looks nice. No imposing historical architecture, no glaring modern twists, just a slightly shabby and light-filled home that is cheap, probably because of the location. It might be a little too invisible and so I will resume my search. I still think if I'm going to do this is should be an island so I can literally as well as metaphorically cut myself off from the world proper, misanthrope as I am, and live out my days knitting by the sea, death metal in my headphones, heartbreak in my bones. 

The Devil hovers, hungry as if for a bone, soaked by the blood of the past, baptized by the rain at present, unsure of a certain future. If I show him this house he'll just buy it and keep it, just in case. He's done that before. So I won't say too much about it and I'll come back to it in a few weeks and decide then.

Potatoes are starchy gold. Fight me.

Right in my face and I didn't even see him come out. He put his hands on the arms of the patio chair I was curled up in, brought his head down until we were nose to nose and smiled bitterly at me. 

You can't..stop me from loving you. That's what my life is devoted to, Neamhchiontach. 

Then Caleb pushed off from the arms of my chair and walked quickly back inside. 

Tell us how you really feel. Lochlan yells toward the house with the chuckle and I shoot him a look that shuts him up. We're no longer allowed to bully or roast anyone when they're struggling, no matter with what. 

Peanut-

That counts and now you need to apologize. 

If I go chasing after him he's going to think I'm just being possessive and he's going to go on the defensive. 

Then text him. 

Fine. Lochlan studies his phone for a minute, sends a message and then tosses his phone on the table. 

Better, Princess?

Oh, you're in a mood tonight. 

The Devil just came outside and tried to ruffle our feathers and you want me to not be in a mood?

Right. I don't. 

The next thing you say better not be that he's harmless. 

I shake my head. It wasn't going to be. We know that better than anyone. I just want to change the subject. 

You just want to live on your potato farm by the sea. 

I do. 

That's a wonderful goal, Bridgie. I wouldn't have expected it from you. 

What did you expect? 

I figured you would get stars in your eyes from all of the trips and gifts and I'd become the brunt of jokes for a completely different reason than he has.

I still get the gifts and the trips and the stars though.

Yeah, not sure how you pulled that one off. 

I learned from a master thief. 

That's grifter. I just take opportunities. Not stuff. 

Is it diff-

It is. 

Honest? It's boring.

A huge victory for me in that I've earned another three months at my current dosages, as it's working and it's 90% miracle, 10% doubt at this point but also my doctors are loathe to fuck with it, lest it trigger a return of the narcolepsy. Mine comes and goes depending on the rest I do get, stress levels and of course medication and so I try and manage it but it still gets the best of me and I'll have several months of fighting just to get through a sentence and then other times I feel like I could make it through the week without a single bout, but since it's a lifelong chronic condition I'm happy just to keep it quashed as far down as I can and no one wants to wake the beast, so yay? 

Yay. 

(Because I won't take those drugs. they've tried but I'd rather fall asleep than run at a million miles an hour.)

I was gifted a three-month bottle of pills and now I'm good.These ones keep me from being nervous about every little thing and they keep me from finding my ghosts. I'm pretty sure those two things are closely related but what isn't? In any case it's really nice to watch Lochlan take good care of me. We cook for everyone, we spend a lot of time checking for the first signs of life in the garden, we beachcomb for hours at a time. I am not allowed on my computer, someone opens a window for me. No email, no news anymore, no nothing. It's lovely. I paint and I sculpt and I take a lot of long walks, some fast, some slow, I keep my hands to myself, stay wedged in between Ben and Lochlan most of the time now and I feel like maybe that's why Jake isn't around right now, because he doesn't have to watch over me because I've stopped running. Stopped letting the Devil love me, stopped looking for Jake or Cole, stopped crying, stopped feeling, stopped breathing so hard, stopped wishing I could go at least halfway but not the whole way (just enough to see), stopped being Hard To Manage. 

Lochlan's having a good vacation. I am easier. Things are great. 

The problem is, and this is what I keep telling everyone, it's not default. This isn't the way things are or they would already be this way. This is my artificial pharmaceutical dreamscape and it ends when I get to the bottom of the bottle or whenever they change the dose and I won't even remember to care that I was busy looking for Jake before they distracted me with these pills. At least I can do that now. Care, not look, I mean.

But the boys deserve a break and so I'm trying to give it to them. 

And I am no longer unique or special.  

Fuck me.

Rain drops and last rites.

This morning I am ticking off my list. I fixed the Keurig. I fixed the CD changer in the vintage Jeep. I fixed the vacuum and I fixed my face a little. We went for a walk and saw a dead robin. She was pale and powerless, just off the walking path way up the hill on the school road. I wanted to collect her and give her a proper safe burial underneath the hemlocks where the roses grow unchecked but Lochlan wouldn't let me touch her. I'll go back later when he is busy and I'll wrap her in the Chanel scarf I hate and she can be buried it in. She deserves better than to be left at the side of the road.

The rain stopped but it won't be replaced by the sun. The landscapers were here to drop off a fresh mountain of soil for the gardens and I'm really not sure if I should get out my gloves and shovels or run to the store and get some toy trucks so we can play in it first. Maybe both. Play and then work, which is never how I do a thing, now, is it?

We're going to cook tonight. The weekend is over. Cinderella turns back into a mouse or however it was that that works and routine returns to the point after a brief respite from everything. My medication is being doubled, starting this week and I may miss it all anyway.

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.