Doing it again.

 I got Lochlan to bring the kiln outside. It is packed full of wheelthrown bowls, greenware that's not going to get any drier so may as well get on with it. This is the ninth time I've used the kiln and I have so little to show for it so yesterday I threw for four hours, three of which were on a bat with a loose bolt, and the last successful hour on the wheel without the bat. Throwing on the bat means you take the whole bat off with the piece to dry and you don't have the stress of trying to get the item off the sticky wheel. I have tricks. It's easy, but on the wheel direct I murder the sides of my hands so not sure how this will work going forward. Maybe the bats for big pieces and the wheel for little ones. Who knows? 

It's supposed to rain this afternoon but just a little so I am tempting fate as always. 

In the meantime, I had a decent-ish sleep, it's Friday and I'm plotting a few errands, plus Ruth and I are headed for her final dress fitting before lunch. So hard to believe. She can bring the dress home and then no more trips to the bridal shop and the only thing to figure out is finalizing the food plans and a few odds and ends.

I'm drinking kettle-coffee which is just coffee made with instant from a jar like when we go camping or the power goes out, and I'm going to have a bagel, I think, with cheese, since it's going to be an on-the-go kind of day. I threw away the keurig because I wore it out, and also I added at least twenty dollars a week to the grocery budget which is just dumb to me. And it wasn't all that good anyway. And even though I just cut my caffeine in half the best thing about kettle coffee? No GRINDS. I hate grinds. No mess. No cleanup. No refilling water. No counter real estate gone and no more hassle. I'm not fussy on coffee anyway. Gas station coffee, whatever, I'm here for it. 

Netflix's biggest fan.

 Watched Into the Woods, Red Dot and Intrusion on Netflix (so far) this week. Starting Prey now. Trying to heal my back and learn how to be a little more productive. I can get my list done and then I crash and I haven't had the want to paint in months, trying to throw on the wheel is tiring due to the cleanup routine, and drawing just doesn't work at all so I watch movies and if they don't have subtitles I can work with yarn or do some mending or sewing. Everything is a herculean effort but I'm trying. I sort of went off the grid this week too. I talked to Bailey and the birds and no one else. I talk the dog constantly. I talk a little to Lochlan and a little to Ben and PJ but not much else. 

For the record, Into the Woods you can skip. Red Dot is nonstop jumpscares that end in a Babadook-style parable on grief and Intrusion is rich people games and wives who go from noticing absolutely nothing to suddenly being expert private investigators so maybe we are zero for three. I keep trying, but I'm also saving the good ones (like the new Texas Chainsaw) for movie nights so these are almost just rest hours. That's fine. Not every movie has to be great, not like I'll run out of options, right?

It's spring too, so I'll have to fire up some anime movies and throw in a couple of Bollywood musicals since those are always uplifting. A good foil to all the horror.

New week, new me.

Two showers later and my nails are still caked with dirt, fingers pocked with thorns from the roses and raspberries, palms with blisters from a wooden-handled shovel with a very sharp edge on the metal spade-shaped bowl and the best, shortest and yet heaviest shovel we own in order for me to wield it properly. I moved just over three-quarters of a cubic yard of soil myself yesterday and now, due to the impending storm coming tonight and tomorrow, I have to get it finished, when I would much rather have a long sauna and a short swim, put on pajamas, order a crappy west-coast pizza from somewhere and eat it in the dark while watching scary movies. 

Garden Jesus didn't show up yet today but I think I met him anyway in the form of a woman who stopped to talk to me in the seed aisle at the local small hardware store and we struck up great and long conversation and then I left thinking about it all day. It was focused on children growing up and then self, afterward. It was based around identity, before and after and on enthusiasm and making one's own decisions and it was almost as if Skateboard Jesus (remember him?) found a different form and perhaps a different approach, and came right back, to make me think. 

Life feels good right now. I wrote in my gratitude journal last night. I made macaroni and cheese for dinner (we love our starchy pastas in this house) and I drank enough water. I felt like I had accomplished along but my bones winged and hawed in misery as I tried and failed to get comfortable enough to sleep. This morning the house is quiet, though there is a big bowl of chocolate eggs on the table, and the laundry machines send a quiet hum through the floors beneath me. I have the countdown coffee on, as there are four or five keurig pods left and we are limping to the finish, here and then it goes in the trash and will not be replaced. 

I bought a jar of instant. Fuck it. 

I want to finish all of my projects and this week I'm going to work on finding the energy to do just that.

Facing inward.

Ben has taken to sleeping on the side of the bed with the door closest to him, and Lochlan has taken to holding my head cupped against his neck like he's always done, affectionate to a fault, rubbing his fingers through my boy-haircut but never actually letting go, content to breathe in tandem with me, content to not have me out of reach, or rather out-of-arms. It's a defensive mechanism that serves as a visual reminder but doesn't do any more to keep me safe or to keep Caleb from glowering nonstop. 

We still lock the door at night, but Ben serves as a volunteer extra-measure of security. It also keeps me from leaving to wander the halls when I can't sleep. Now I have to lie there and count the stars on the ceiling, if I can see the ceiling. Or count the freckles on the Lochlan as usually I'm looking that way. Ben's a whole cage with two arms that surround us both and he's so content to just be close and watch the clouds and sip tea and talk books and movies, whereas the Ben of the mid-2000s had to be flying/driving/running somewhere/doing something/someone and he never slowed down for a second. I really love mellow Ben but then again I always have and I often reach up and tug his too-long black curls now, as he has let them grow out to like four inches and they just start flipping and he looks so young again, save for the dark circles under his eyes and the habitual frustrated expression. 

Lochlan and Caleb are ignoring each other. It's new to me. It's not new to them but Caleb's still on his best and Loch has chosen not to waste his energy when he knows he's got the upper hand and the rights besides. 

And again it's not a bunny-year as no one replaced the costume and no one wants to give out eggs when we don't feel like celebrating life after death or spring or anything really. We're saving our energy for May, which is proving to be a packed month, and we're saving our resolve for this impending threat too which rings hollow but is probably still somewhat true.

Hit first (come away bruised).

The world hasn't ended, Mo Grá.

Give it time, Neamhchiontach. 

I meant by your hand. 

I don't repeat myself, Neamhchiontach. 

There's not going to be any push here-

There certainly is if you do that again. Part of a healthy relationship includes not freezing the other person out for some ridiculous ceremonial display. 

Sam asks us to observe certain things as a test of faith-

The only thing I have faith in is you, Bridget. 

A ten-year-old looking the other way. 

Sometimes. Sometimes looking back. And not ten anymore. 

I had to grow up fast. 

And I pay the price for that, and I'm trying to do the right thing by giving you everything you need. 

Then give me space when I ask for it. 

That's the one thing I'm afraid I can't give you. 

Or the world will end. 

Mine does when you ask for time away. 

Then you need a hobby. Besides terrorizing Lochlan. 

I think it goes both ways.

He wouldn't harm a soul. 

Then that's the difference between us.

Life has changed.

It's weirdly disconcerting to go over to Ruth's house, and have her call her cat to come and visit and get used to me by saying Come see Grandma. 

Lochlan almost hit the floor. 

We will be tasked with feeding said cat while she and her husband are on their honeymoon and she wants the cat to have a lot of time to get used to me, but the hard part is the cat won't come near me at all. 

Maybe it's the shock vibe emanating from Lochlan as he realizes that his once ten-year-old girlfriend has a grandchild, even if it has four paws and is velvety-soft. Of course not that his early twenties daughter not only got a pet but is getting married soon. Very soon. In a blink soon.

LMAO. 

Also Ruth and I invariably end up piled on the couch trading memes. Same as ever.

Manic pasta dream girl.

I made Fettuccine Alfredo and garlic naan for dinner last night. I made a metric ton of it. Everyone was full and pushed off from the table after an hour or more, scattering to the four corners of the house to enjoy the heavy rain and a second glass of wine for those who indulge, and water or ginger ale for those who don't. 

But then every single one of us had absolutely bonkers nightmares. Mine were ludicrous, ranging from trying to make a toy shop owner laugh so that she would let me leave, to beating a delayed preteen to death because he made an inappropriate move on me, as I was trying to use the bathroom in a derelict building that I had run into to escape the whole toy shop experience. Every single person I touched in the dream melted where I touched them. I hit the kid with a metal pipe and his whole head caved away like it was cheese dripping off a barbecue grill and I woke up angry and scared. Then I heard the dreams of the boys. They were different and weird and some were worse. 

We are never eating Fettucine Alfredo ever again. What the fuck.

Tart.

 I found a decomissioned WINDMILL in...uh...second here..

WAINFLEET for sale. Wainfleet seems lovely but in a way like I would still be that newcomer with the harsh Maritime-Canadian accent* twenty years after moving there. Or that every building would give you a mini-history quiz as you walked into it and if you fail you get electrocuted at the front gate. It also looks like it floods a lot, often, actually and is almost four hours by car to London. Maybe too far? Maybe not far enough. I don't know. 

Plus the actual blades are missing from the house and I don't know if I would find that charming or not, as I would much prefer to go to bed at night with the soft thwup-thwup-thwup overhead to lull me to my dreams. 

Lochlan gave me a few names of towns I should look in, he said they actually would be enjoyable to live in and they aren't so remote as to become a daily hardship. 

But what isn't a daily hardship at this point, if not life. It's not like I can find Chef-Boyardee at the store. We have four kinds of poptarts in this town. I have to order almost everything online anyway, wouldn't it be better if they drop-shipped it to me from a plane to my windscarred island near Scotland or off Ireland or whereever the grass looked greener before I packed up all my toys and realized it isn't? How many kinds of poptarts do you think you can buy on Anglesey? 

(The answer is it doesn't matter. Duncan found them all on Amazon. Apparently also at Target just across the border since we don't have Target in Canada any more either. I just need to pick my flavours now holy magnolia.)

I think we should stay in Canada, Lochlan reiterates. Not like I get to pick in the end, anyway, right so I just daydream. 

But look. You would see the Devil coming from five miles away if we lived here. I point to a renovated Friary on the Western border with Wales. You could make a gun turret out of this tower. 

Or you could just be Rapunzel, there. I miss your hair. 

I don't.The pixie cut is hilariously easy and I hate washing my hair. When it's long it's never ever down and it's heavy. My head feels so light and free. 

Lochlan had Daniel buzz off all of his curls so that we would match. Lochlan looks so young with his flippy ends and close-crop, no beard and pale-green button down, sleeves rolled up, tattoos out and proud. His cargo pants are threadbare but he still wears them three days out of each week and his leather shoes are so soft he forgets he's wearing shoes and leaves them on in the house until given a reminder. 

What if I miss your hair, Locket?

It'll grow back. 

Exactly. Then you can be Rapunzel. And I will be the bad guy. 

You're not the bad guy, Peanut. 

Maybe I am. 

You just always bite off more than you can chew. 

Yeah.

And then you choke. 

Okay, you can stop now. 

*( Fun fact: after weeks and weeks of trial and error it appears Google still and forever cannot decipher my accent. Hilarious.)

In my dreams the Devil is nowhere to be found.

I didn't make it through Lent, unfortunately I gave up something I needed and I didn't realize it until I had a craving that was uncovered late last night. 

I stayed up to read. I've been doing that a lot lately. My doctors have said part of my sleep issues is that I use the bed for everything. Eating. Watching movies. Reading. Having long conversations and longer naps. Looking at my phone. Drawing. Watching the birds outside the window or the fire inside. Sex. Everything but sleep, unfortunately and so a line was drawn and everything but sleep and sex has to be elsewhere. 

Or sometimes sex can be elsewhere. 

Caleb came downstairs just as I was nodding off at the last page of my chapter and pushed his head against mine from behind the big chair with the lamp where I curl up to read. He kissed my temple and told me to come up and nap with him. 

And I realized I was hungry. Not because my stomach growled but my heart did and he said if I loved him I wouldn't freeze him out like this, so long, so abruptly, and it hurts his heart to even look at me and he needs to hold me, needs to feel needed and as he said this my ego swelled right out of my head and for a brief moment I held all the power over him which is a feeling I would sell my soul for, as it's fleeting and rare. 

I said it was fleeting because I was pulled to my feet, book hitting the ground and I was steered upstairs to his room, door locked behind us, steered down the hall, another door, another lock and I was pushed down, stripped and turned over and I was not about to give up that power so fast so I cried out. 

Gingerbread! 

Nothing, he isn't listening. His hunger is so much greater than mine and I don't want to have it be like this. Not like this. I hate it like this. 

Wenceslas! Diabhal, please. 

But his ears are suddenly deaf, like mine and he says something dismissive that I miss and he is inside me and I was fighting him but I can't now, pinned into the blankets like a Riker frame, a fluttery little moth stuck inside a window glass, looking out at freedom, looking at the reflection of her own death. 

I stop fighting and go numb, curling inward, letting my wings rest. He hates this more, and it's the only strength I have left, to deny him any reaction at all. Any response. Any reaction. He slows to a crawl and then turns me over and is back inside me. 

Neamhchiontach, look at me. Tell me you love me. Every moment hurts. Does he care? Of course not. 

I stare at the wall. 

Harder and I cry out involuntarily. Stop it. Stop hurting me. A sob escapes and he slows, more gentle now. 

I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you. 

Liar. 

I can't help this, Bridget. It's what you do to me. 

Don't blame this on me. 

It's how I feel when I touch you. 

Like a monster?

Yes. Exactly. 

You can stop it. 

Not after so long.

Then you need to fix that because this is the past. This is where we're supposed to be better than what we were. 

I'm never going to change, Bridget. Not as long as you're not with me. Full time. 

Then you'll always be the bad guy, and you'll never get what you want. 

There isn't a chance anyway so none of this matters. 

Then maybe you should go. He hates that suggestion, and he covers my whole face with his hand. I can't breathe. He ramps up hard again, violent driving into me and I squeal into his fingers, tearing at them with my own but he doesn't stop until he's finished. Then he gets up and lets go of my face and as I take a huge breath, ready to light into him, so angry and betrayed that he breaks his promises time and time again, he tells me he needs a sixty-forty time or the world as we know it is going to end. I turn back onto my stomach, skin stinging from his harsh touch and I ignore him. He's not going to negotiate from this place of the enemy. 

The world ended in 2007, I point out, muffled against the sheets. 

Caleb swears and walks out. I hear the shower and I race off to my dreams, to meet my ghost. He's always a safe haven even if he did leave me here with the monsters forever.

Promise you anything.

Got tickets to Nazareth today. Happy, happy girl.