I might be bitter because it's another ten days until I can use the pool.

 It's Tuesday. Sorry you haven't had anything to read since Friday or whenever I was here last. I threw a punch and was sent to purgatory circa 1633. No devices. No access. No light. I contemplated turning into Black Philip but then decided I could tackle my book pile instead. The boys all felt bad and figured I learned my lesson and also got tired of incessantly relaying replies to Ruth who is always connected to me and refuses to play along (it is a game, isn't it. It gets harder when suddenly the children are now adults and you have to explain yourselves, isn't it?) so I got my services back yesterday and I outclassed them by saying it no longer mattered anyway and I reached out and pulled the chain to turn the lights back off and I refused to engage or exgage for that matter, and they came crawling back one at a time to do a sort of virtual penance while I ignored it all in my dark corner of the world and I came out when I damn well felt like it, which isn't even now, technically because it's still too warm so I'm only here for a minute. The second someone decides I have died or been killed and will never write again is usually the moment I will gesture absently from the back that they are probably wrong, and that I am indeed here. 

So hi. (Gestures absently)

I am reading a lot. I turned on the air conditioning today before I even needed it. I only cried twice so far and I don't think I am having a good summer overall. Maybe a little but certainly not a lot. I remember being nine, when my biggest worries were whether or not I would run out of freezies or when my lip balm would melt. I remember tanning because I was never inside. I remember the endless patch of eczema on the outer corner of my right eye and my nose which is back again and that's how I know I've hardly moved past the daydreamer dissociation that keeps me going, keeps me from focusing too keenly on all the bad parts of the world and has honestly saved my life more than once. 

I am ignoring Lochlan, who pulled me against him, wrapping one hand around my back so I was pressed against his heartbeat and the other hand was around the back of my head so I could hear that beat while I felt it, too and then he kissed the top of my head and took a step back but then put his hands around my hips and pushed me up against the door and my dress hiked up to my waist and he let out the longest breath I have witnessed from him as the air got sucked from the room and our lungs and then he yanked my dress back down on his way out after putting me down while I swore a blue streak and then, the irony here, oh are you ready for this one is that not fifteen minutes later I was making tea to take out to the gazebo with my sketching supplies when Caleb made a comment about a girl and a door and a moment and a double standard and I had enough and tried to slap him but I couldn't unclench my hand (oops. Well, maybe not oops but oops is my official response) and popped him a good one and the bigger irony is that the all-seeing PJ saw it and grounded me and then Lochlan levelled the punishment because what's good for the gander is good for the Bridget too and yeah. 

Yeah. Exactly. 

Life is a big run on sentence and it's up to you to make sense of it, I guess. Or maybe it's up to me. In which case we are most certainly doomed.

You look sad, Princess. 

 I have a headache. 

Still?

I've had it for fifteen years. 

Can't relax?

Can't relax. 

Do the soundbites work better than long absences or are you all just gone?

( I still don't have my access that I would like so I don't know.)

I have a long day tomorrow so this will be as short as everything has lately. I'm really minding not having much internet and having to go through one of the boys to send mail or make appointments or whatever. Mark is out here and we're finishing my chest. Long story but when it comes to my chest I'm a superwhimp but he's brought numbing cream and his new apprentice, Zoe, and she is going to do the work. She isn't new-new but new to me. He said I will love Zoe's humor and her style and that's the main thing I think. So lots of water for me and a good night's sleep (ha) and tomorrow I will be in agony. Yay? On the upside, gotta get this suit finished already. I'm losing my ability to sit like a rock for hours. 

Disney Princess.

A bird landed on my head today and came up the driveway and into the house. We opened all the doors so he could fly back out and he did and then this morning he was by the patio steps. I picked him up and put him on my head again and he hung out for a little while before flying off. If he's there tomorrow I am keeping him. 

Lochlan was shocked. PJ said he wasn't surprised. Ben said it was one of my small miracles. 

I didn't forget, I was busy.

 I spent yesterday afternoon on the wheel without a break. When I tried to stand up I couldn't. I Made more glaze test tiles out of my favourite darker clay, and a few plant pots with matching saucers and a knobby little bear mug with big ears and I threw and practiced pulling up cylinders and trying to find my speeds and my pressures and my patience and I worked hard and then ran out of time and here I am today finishing up with some hand built, hand-cut stuff to round out a decent load for the kiln. I like to pack it full and then I have a lot of glazing to do. Everyone hates glazing but it's my favourite part. 

Caleb is being good. I'm sure everyone's wondering. No threats, as of late. No puppy dog eyes or directed triggering. No deals, offers or efforts. I'm enjoying the summer of just sleeping in as late as possible and sometimes not at all. Ben is being sweet. Lochlan is being sweet and present. We are watching the gardens, some thriving in the cool rainy spring-like weather and some struggling like the veggies without heat or prolonged sun. 

I don't mind a cold summer, truth be told. 

I like today though. Our Mondays are quiet. I did the floors, I did some clay, I fixed some stuff up, I talked Ruth's ear off after she called with some career questions and I contemplated owls and trees. I want to paint some later this week. I miss my sketchbooks and the quiet of strokes on a page. Of mixing colours to get just the right shade and of not requiring an outfit change and a complete studio scrubdown every time I want to make something. 

I also have a blistering headache now. PJ can kiss it better and make dinner tonight and I'll take his tomorrow shift, maybe.

Working on piano now (and that beautiful wail at the end).

Every day every night here we go go go

It's Utopia and it's stuck in my head and it won't leave. A little faster and more frenetic than I would usually like stuck there but I never get to choose, now, do I? 

Jacob would laugh. 

Lochlan thinks it's hilarious because it's Korean but Lochlan never fails to have a head full of eighties power ballads on tap, whether it be humming, singing out loud or picked out gently on the strings or the keys. He doesn't venture far from his playlists and that's fine too. 

(I am off the hook because this obsession with Ateez is Ruth's fault.)

Caleb doesn't laugh about anything lately. Last night I am outside in the porch reading. Falling asleep with my screen in my hands, fighting yawns (and mosquitos) and he comes out and presses his head against mine, waking me up gently, telling me it's time to go to bed. I shake my head and fight his hold and then I feel myself turned into familiar arms and still I misunderstand. 

No, no. Don't make me. 

Shhhh. 

And then I wake up this morning at five, tucked safely between Lochlan and Ben, just like always. I don't know if it was a dream or he was being kind or they were testing the waters or what until I looked at my phone. 

The smallest words are the ones that break my heart. I didn't know that until now. 

Sent last night by Caleb around eleven.

Huh.

Perfection is a prison-

-You were meant to fly. 

Spending breakfast at the little airport today for Canada Day. It's so busy here, and also very busy above my head. Someone made me a coffee and I'm talking with someone else about the Piper Archer versus the Cub. High wings everywhere but I prefer low. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy but having a plane is a kind of nice and I miss being able to travel easily. 

I'm not flying it but I know way more than I should, frankly. I could in a pinch. And I know a stupid amount about engine hours and procedure and I don't want to say much more, but I think I could fix a plane if pressed. 

I would store it here, maybe and come and fly when I want to get away or go for a sightsee or maybe just to get the rush and feel alive or maybe I'll just listen as everyone talks shop. It's like cars but the highways in the sky are a thousand times more beautiful, if not more. 

We're not going to talk about people who flew to become ghosts. No, not today.

I called him a piecemeal salty motherfucking timbit and he got mad. I mean, come on.

LOL 

Sorry, I went AWOL again. I still don't have access to anything other than this page, and I am not online much at all. The news sucks, the weather is hot one minute and cold the next and I do as much as I feel up to when it's cold. My allergies went crazy this week and so I got some allergy pills that I'm not allowed to take and cut them in half and took one a day, just to take the edge off the constantly runny nose and sneezing. My face is pink and raw around my nose from the constant wiping on tissues, hankerchieves and Ben's shirt sleeve, and Lochlan has a perpetual worried expression that doesn't leave his face when he sleeps even. 

I backslid a whole lot with the anxiety this week too. The sleep doesn't get better. The fear won't leave completely, just enough to function and I tried to throw myself into working away at the landscaping (we're changing some areas to make more room to grow food, of course. Full-on commune now, thank you very much) and it was hot and too difficult but I made enough headway to feel accomplished and then the mercury gave me the excuse of not finishing anyway, and PJ gave me a covid test just in case it wasn't allergies and my nose was so sore and it hurt so much that I snapped at him and then the look on his face made me cry. I know it's not his fault and he knows I didn't mean it but if I've going to break their hearts it shouldn't be over something this dumb. 

In any case, I am here and the allergies seem to have tapered off a little or maybe the pills last longer than I thought. I am sleepy and hungry and agitated and I wish it was fall but maybe not and this weekend is a long weekend for Canada Day but we're only going to finish some more landscaping and shop for Henry's upcoming twenty-first birthday. I can't even believe it. 

I also want to take PJ to the fancy gelato place in town for a special treat since he's God's gift to everyone but honestly if you shove a giant sharp q-tip up someone's nose you have to be prepared to be sworn at (exact words are in the title, I didn't choose them, they chose me). It's a given.

Melted lip gloss.

What are you thinking about, Peanut? 

We are at a lake I don't know the name of, pretending we are residents at the campground even though we've just walked up the road from the asphalt parking lot where the camper is parked with blocks against the tires for the next five days as we work a show four hours from home, but a lucrative show with last day bonuses, meant to keep everyone from bailing as we are paid each night at ten. We've heard rumours that the bonus might be a full days pay and that would be amazing, as the camper needs tires and Lochlan needs better food. I can live on sugar and fresh air but he works hard in the sun and needs the calories. Seventeen year old boys are walking appetites. I've never seen them eat so much as they do now. I wonder how much he will eat by the time he is twenty, though that's so far away from now.

I'm wondering why they call it a glove box. How that kind of label would persist when I've never seen a grownup reach over and tuck their gloves into a special locked case in the dashboard. Like, if you're wearing gloves then it's winter and you'll need to leave them on until the heater warms up the car. Unless that's why and once it's warm you put them in the box. Just because they might get lost otherwise?

His laugh rings out across the water. That is what you're thinking about? 

Well, what are you thinking about?

Where we should go next. Do you want to stay out?

Yes, at least until the beaches are empty at home. 

What if we went really far?

How far?

New York far. 

I don't know where that is. 

It's a few hours past Cape Cod. You just keep driving. 

Oh. That's REALLY far. We're going to drive? 

Maybe. 

If you don't need the glove box since it's summer can I use it for my lip gloss?

Sure.It will still melt in there though.

No. Hot.

Not going outside today. Even though the pool is set to a refreshingly cool temperature, the air conditioning in the house is too nice to leave. I am hot, though I did find bras yesterday. FIVE of them. All cotton, all comfortable and god it sucks to be a woman. I mean, I could just whip off my shirt and wander around but that's distracting. Hilariously I'm not wearing any of them, instead opting for a very spare, very revealing cotton sundress with ties that has a halter and an open back. Which means everyone touches my back and makes me shiver. 

Dinner will be ice cubes and lettuce leaves.