Cows.

I hate the heat. HATE IT. I'm melting before my own eyes, now limpid opal pools of pale green and blunted pastel turquoise. 

Want to go for ice cream? The Devil craves the heat of the asphalt, and the roar of his car. 

No, it's too hot. I refuse to put on additional clothing or stick to the warm leather seats. Not today, Satan. I have a freezer full of ice cream in the garage anyway. At least I think I do. PJ and I compete for who has the biggest sweet tooth of the Collective, and so I usually go looking and find the shelves empty.

A full Levantine menu for summer, then.

Things I did this week included swimming (a lot), jumping off the cliff to supplement the pills (a lot-they work really well but then ten percent of the time they don't work and I panic and revert), watching true crime documentaries by the handful, and for the crowning achievement I stood in a dusty parking lot under a tree eating my first ever shawarma and guarding a found shattered cell phone until I was finished, after which I scooped up the phone and took it to a makeshift lost and found where they threw it in a box with ten others and I left, contemplating just offering to buy the shawarma truck and bring it to my driveway, where I could get one whenever I like. Don't even laugh. It gave me massive amounts of deja vu from the midway and I loved every second of it.

What's up? Caleb's head pops up next to my huge inflatable watermelon slice, where I float and burn, float and cry. Float and count my blessings, float and wish for food. 

I'm thinking we need a food truck festival in the driveway. 

When would you like it to be? (God, he's better than Santa Claus) 

Every day! 

He laughs and pushes off, leaving me bumping against the side. I'll consider it. 

The pool isn't big enough to get away from him, sadly. They've retracted the whole end of the glass birdcage for the rest of the summer and will enclose again in September, I think. It's not a small operation and so we had to have a referendum on it but the boys won out even with the mosquitos and I do agree now, the fresh air is better than the weird chlorinated humid air trapped in a dome. 

For a brief time I relished the snowglobe effect, I admit. I like to tilt-shift everything and then it matches me better. 

Want to grab a late brunch? 

Maybe. Do I have to get dressed? 

Yes. I don't do drive-throughs. 

Give me an hour? 

I can give you whatever you want. 

Of course. Of Course. 

The relief of casual intimacy.

I still cry because I'm bitter and angry. I can't accept that he promised me the moon and stars and then left me in a night so black it swallowed my soul. Because he removed any chance of ever trying again or starting over. Of changing his mind, you know? Realizing he made a mistake.

Do you think he made a mistake in leaving you first? Making sure you hated him so it was easier for you to go?

It doesn't matter what I think. I didn't have any input. 

The lack of control-

Psychoanalyzing me fifteen years on isn't going to change the fact that he's never coming back. He's a pile of dust now. It was a waste of a life. A waste of potential. He threw away every happiness and he took mine with it for so long. 

That's new. 

I'm happier now. 

Why is that?

Because I know now that he took the easy way out, even if it wasn't easy. I'm here. I took the hard road and I'm proud of myself and even when things are wrong and difficult I still want to be here because sometimes things are easy, things are right and it's worth it and I also have so much love here to get and to give and even the parts that are fully unfixable aren't as bad as nothingness. As fading all of it to black. 

August nods and then stares appreciatively as I adjust the strap on my bikini top. I've got a cute sarong to cover my bottoms and the top is so spare but nice for healing my tattoo work and I can swim for a bit tomorrow because I heal way faster physically than I ever do mentally. 

Mentally I am coding orange all the fucking time. Physically I am a war machine.  

Take it off if it's uncomfortable. 

Sexually harassing my counsellors has never done me any favours. 

Oh, are we formal again?

Only if you're inside my head. 

Then it's time I closed that door for now, unless you wanted to talk more on the subject.

Where are you with it all, Augie? I ask because he always makes it about me and so rarely about himself. 

More or less the same (Ah. Closed book). Want to swim? 

I'm not allowed until tomorrow. Tattoo. I gesture. I get them at the stupidest times of year, I think. 

Well then come and float on a big watermelon floatie or the swan while I do some laps to cool off? 

Yes. I'm never going to say no. 

I didn't think you would since you showed up in your swimsuit. 

Oh. Right. But also it's really hot and it's the smallest outfit I have. 

Well, it's on my gratitude list now for the day. August smiles so wide I match it. 

Pickles and ham (21).

Twenty more bug bites or so, and a wicked wood splinter under my middle fingernail from where I grabbed a sawhorse without looking to make a makeshift kiln cover when it started to rain this afternoon. Yes I have the kiln under the eaves but only barely and the rain and wind picked up all at once and I'm not taking chances, thanks. 

The rest of the day was spent wrapping gifts, decorating and baking a cake for Henry's birthday this weekend. He'll be twenty-one and I am stunned by how fast it all happened, how he was four and asking for more goldfish crackers an hour ago and a minute ago he was nine and having outbursts of frustration and we learned how to help fix them, together. 

We read a lot of Robert Munsch (Love you Forever was a staple but our favourites were We Share Everything and A Promise is a Promise) and cooked a lot of dinners together. We read Harry Potter and fell asleep on the couch and rode bikes down the sidewalk in the sunshine. We pet llamas and cuddled cats. We learned math. We had deep conversations about what it means to be emotional and how it's not a bad thing. He makes short jokes. I make tall ones. He asks for help when he needs it and reassures me when I need it, and vice versa. He is the best son a mom could have, frankly and it's very hard to let him go. But as the saying goes, you teach them how to leave you. 

He is independent and almost ready for that job that's waiting for him. He hates the heat and loves chocolate, just like mom. He is the rose at the centre of the compass of this Collective. He is Ruth's easy accomplice, and Ben's gullible shadow. He is Lochlan's verbal spar and Caleb's foil. He is a prince among men. He is bunny and I love him forever, my baby he'll be, as the book goes.

I'm pretty sure bugs and noise are considered international war crimes.

Sixty-seven bites. I'm going to lose it. I look like I have big juicy measles on every exposed ounce of flesh. You would think in the wind, in the sun that it would be better but I did a little gardening and I took the dog around the yard this morning for his flower inspection time (he adores smelling flowers) and so I have more mosquito bites. 

Emmett is here fixing something and there's so much goddamned noise I want to cry. I'm not great with loud, prolonged noise unless it's music. This is prolonged. He has yelled SORRY multiple times. It's not helping either. 

I want to watch Netflix but I can't sit still. I want to take out all my money and stuff it into a backpack and move to a deserted but shady island with a freshwater lake surrounded by beaches and a saltwater ocean and have a chocolate tree and one that dispenses Vietnamese food too and I want unlimited high speed data and a kitten and a whole  host of puppies and some painting supplies and I'm going to nap in the sun and not lift a finger. 

Emmett says I must have sunstroke. I don't. I have daydreamitis. It's when all you do is wish you were someone/where else. 

A bite, a moment, and a threat.

George lands hard. Caleb is in the doorway. I look up, startled and he winks and comes out onto the porch. 

Less mosquitoes out here? He tries again.

Eh, not so bad. 

Bad is relative. I have fifty-three bites and counting. I am itching and dancing and flapping around the point like a bird. I have gone through a tube of afterbite and one of hydrocortisone too. I contemplated swallowing a thermocell portable carry along but then figured that would be yet another emergency and I still managed to deal with all of the ivy in the front yard today and also scrubbed the bathrooms as I drew all the shit chore cards today. To retaliate I made personal pizzas and potato salad for dinner and I took my peach popsicle outside to the gazebo to see if I could make it fifty-four. I'm sure they're there. 

George is sorry he hit you. 

I could take him. But in all fairness, Bridget, I need to apologize to you. I thought I was calling out a double standard and instead I was being invasive and crass. I am sorry. It's not my business-

I can hear a but. 

But I would like to resume our relationship. 

You aren't good for me, Diabhal. 

His laugh rings out across the darkened woods. That's us in a nutshell, Darlin'. He does his best Jeffrey Dean Morgan here and I am rapt but noncommital. 

Maybe later. 

Maybe is better than no. Besides, and he gets right in close against my ear. You like the hard parts.

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.