While I wasn't looking.

 Drunk and in the pool all week. When people start complaining about how low the temperature of the water is set to I get out and run and jump off the cliff into the actually-cold water. Then I realize I'm drunker than I thought and do it all again an hour later after another drink. 

The one downside of this Collective is that someone will always sneak me a drink without realizing that three or four or nine others have the same idea and then Lochlan or Benjamin or Schuyler has to make a new rule that only Lochlan can bring me drinks and I snort-laugh and he instantly feels like a servant and the dynamic doesn't work like that and POOF Bridget's drunk again. 

At least they are watchful around the water. And I'm such a strong swimmer now, but I don't have the speed. I can tread water for hours. I can breaststroke from one side to the other, I can do a front or back crawl around the point but it's too slow for everyone, especially Lochlan who is always in a hurry to Be Safe and I know his trauma wears a different face than mine but it's just as monstrous. 

Drunk is good though. And I think now I did get a lombotomy while no one was looking. It didn't hurt at all so that's the good thing and I'm annoyed at how everyone is explaining everything like I am nine again but then expecting me to adult as well. I didn't tell you about the tree branch that fell on the hood of my Jeep nor did I tell you I didn't melt yet. I am close though. I stay up very late now and I look at the boys when they talk and I swim or lounge in the pool by day waiting for summer to be over before it has started. Another trip around the sun indeed. Another new fancy restaurant. Another plan for another time. A wish for sleep and then a wish for change. 

I feel like a runaway train that never had a destination in the first place. Is this burnout or insanity?

Maybe it's acceptance.

Homesick hour, but for what? was the question that never gets answered.

 Here comes the first heat wave/dome of the season and the pool is ready. The bikinis don't fit but the pool is ready. Who gained weight? I did! Probably because of the lead they glued to my soul to keep me grounded. I can work for hours, sweat like a demon whether it be cleaning, gardening, waxing the Jeep but then I just sit like a tired potato and people bring me snacks. The way to Bridget's heart was always lined with cake and it seems like there's no shortage, birthday or otherwise. 

But yeah. Um. Thank god my two piece retro swimsuit fits. It's a high waisted bottom with a shirred halter top and it's so fifties. I love it. The boys don't because they all are perverts but that's fine. I like what I like on them so we're even. 

Wet. board. shorts. Pastel colours and you can see...everything. 

EVERYTHING. 

Life is good.

Also I did not talk about my birthday but I'm still younger than Naomi Watts or Jennifer Lopez at least. I will detail it tomorrow maybe. I need to sleep now. Goodnight.

Didn't expect it but I expected it.

My first world problems of forgetting Nick Cave lyrics (The Carny, of course. It's three times the length of an average tune with a billion and a half words and Lochlan has it tattooed to his soul but I can't remember anything any more, as I am unplugged, deconstructed and subdued) and being extremely irked by Canada Post and UPS and their abject failures in bringing me my things and then setting up the patio lights All By Myself only to discover when I went to plug them in that I started with the wrong end and then had two female plugs-the end of the lights and the extension cord. 

All first world problems, as I said but enough to start a quiet landslide in my brain and then it all stopped when I saw the paper tonight. Or rather, the AP newswire and saw that Heather Armstrong (Dooce herself) has passed away, on purpose even, as if it wasn't written in the cards the way it always is after the fact. 

I read her from the first. And I continued to read until things became darker and darker and I couldn't see any more and there are no blogs I read now because the time has come and gone and the people have come and gone and I'm still here. Never famous or infamous but full of thoughts and opinions no one's going to read or listen to and that's okay. I'll still be here until I am old and blind and still deaf and still trying to remember the words, good, bad and lyrical. 

Her poor children. It doesn't matter what you may have thought of her but it hurts most for those left behind. Be mindful of that.

FUTURE PAST.

IRON. MAIDEN. 

Got the tickets. Andrew and PJ got the rest of the tickets. We're going as a SQUAD. With earplugs though because the first/last Maiden show I went to saw my ears ring for three days straight afterward.

Benzodiazabridge.

PJ made us a couple of surreptitious tequila screwdrivers for dinner, under the guise that whether it be allergies or covid, we will amp up our vitamin intake and the rest seem to have bought it as I am super-extra medicated today and so the evening probably won't end well but the day started alright but then went downhill so quickly. I tried to distract. I pulled out every favour card I had, playing them in turn, a full house, four kings and then the ace. I bargained a ride to the plant shop and bought lavender and barnsley. I bargained for coffee and got homemade. I bargained for sleep and found only darkness and I bargained to keep my ghosts, the only reward being grief in return. 

The ghost crept in close, breathing his cool breath on the top of my head and I checked out. Not every day is going to be a good day, not every step is forward. Sometimes no distractions work at all. The pharmacist had the answer. Pretty sure we keep her in business because Lochlan won't rely on the old doctor or the younger one and brings his own list to the party. 

So yes. Right now you could shoot an arrow through my forehead and I'd probably thank you. 

I still want that lobotomy. Medical care takes so long here.

Absent. Minded.

I had a supplement in my water today for mental energy. Not sure if it's supposed to be obviously but I do feel as though I have given myself a treat so there's that. By treat I mean being kind to myself. Self-care or whatever. It was lemon iced tea flavoured but plant/mushroom based. Not sure about buying it on the regular but August or Duncan always has something like that around. I also bought flavoured herbal teas since I stopped drinking tea over the past year but I love tea and so I'm going to get back into it. 

Lochlan brought me a whole bag of tangelos and a reverse colouring book out to the gazebo today. It's sunny and dry. Jacob is stretched out on his back in the grass, soaking up the sun. Bare feet, shirt unbuttoned halfway, sleeves rolled up, jeans so soft and ancient they are like a fine cotton. I don't know if his skin will darken into a tan or not anymore. I can't remember. 

I also have a glass of wine that PJ brought me. To settle, he said. He's a big proponent of using liquid fixers to bring things down a notch and believes that alcohol as a depressive serves a grand purpose to quiet, to lull. He's not wrong, though it's frowned upon. 

I am also in jeans and bare feet today. Messy pixie cut, new linen button up shirt to test the fabric. If it's cooler than what I have now I will buy more of these shirts. If not, it's still a natural fabric and will be so comfortable. I had a whole host of torso touch ups yesterday and am hurting badly today but I refuse to admit it out loud. Lots of places coloured in and recoloured, some older work fixed up, some new work added and a lot of laughs while I cried from the pain. It looks beautiful. I don't know how much more I can take. 

It's my turn to make dinner too. I think french dips since they are easy and hugely popular. Then salad the rest of the week because it's going to get super hot. I don't like the heat. Fun.

I watched Obsession so you don't have to (unless you want to, that is, but honestly it's...uh...not great).

 Netflix is a never-ending Christmas morning for me. There's always something to uncover or fire up, always something new and surprising, always something I want to see, plus a host of comfort-viewing if that's what I want but rarely do I rewatch anything at all. 

(Disclaimer: I bought some stock in it this week so if I tout it here can I inflate my values? Worth a shot.)

(Wait, nevermind. Martha Stewart went to jail for that, didn't she?)

(I also have stocks in gold, copper and a heaping pile of tech, plus an equal pile of ETFs. Caleb and I are still in a mad competition to see who is smarter. He will win but I am more clever and far more logical.)

So back to Obsession, which is a fun story for the whole family on what can go wrong if Dad decides to pursue his son's fiance, after said fiance all but jumps on Dad FIRST. Everything goes wrong and this was a loosely-written cautionary tale built on an unstable foundation around some silly sex scenes and a solid amount of full-frontal nudity for Thorin Oakenshield (AKA Richard Armitage, who must have lost a bet or something.)

(It's based on a book called Damage by Josephine Hart. A woman. Not a man. It all makes sense. It's fantasy.)

The most smashing of all was the fact that every time they had sex it lasted less than four seconds and still they managed to gasp and sweat at the same second (the last one). I want to know what drugs they took to pull THAT off and also? Four seconds is not long enough. It was the same vibe as seeing a couple of scuba divers in trouble share a tank. The relief of the breath and then back to counting. 

Hilarious. So hilarious. And then, well, no spoilers but let's just say Thorin was set up to be an extremely accomplished human being and a highly respected one, and I can see him throwing it all away just because some stupid twit showed him her twat and then told him that she 'surrendered' to him. 

You really don't understand a lot of men then, do you? Dalton laughed, but he did so nervously. 

Oh, I do. That's the problem.

Narrator: As it turns out the ghosts were there all along.

I put all of my diamond rings in a little pottery bowl beside the kitchen sink and when I remember, I put them back on, but this is a safe place for them when I am washing dishes, about to head out the side door to do something like recycling or fetch a package from the deep freeze in the garage or about to exit through the patio doors to do a little lawn cleanup/sunrise gardening or even better, hell-bent on throwing my tiny body off a high cliff into the roiling sea.

Everyone says it's fine to wear my best jewellery and just enjoy it. Nah, fam. Missing stones, broken claws and bent shanks aren't my thing. It can wait safely in the little pot I made just for that purpose and also to hold the dog's Trazadone. I feel you, puppy. Lochlan keeps my tranqs upstairs by the bathroom counter but the result? Precisely the same. An agreeable sort of sleepwalking, a casual coma, if you will. 

Jacob doesn't think that's funny. 

Well, you're not here, are you? 

He was my biggest champion. Literally and figuratively, fighting off the shady whims of the boys who always had their best interests at heart first but mine a close second and sometimes I think that they were more relieved than sad when he flew. 

Of course they were. Don't be naive. 

Oh, I'm the least naive person in the world, pretending to be the most naive. It's called self-preservation and again, if you knew anything at all about that, well then you'd still be here, now, wouldn't you? 

He bites his lip not to swear his invisible words in my face while I take my sweet time stacking my rings back onto my finger. 

Where are you going?  

To jump off the cliff. 

The water is two degrees. Can't you go in the pool?

So is your heart. And my skin hates the chemicals in the pool. You know I prefer the ocean. Everyone does.

It's not my heart I'm worried about. 

Hey, mine's broken too if that's what you mean. Can't wreck what's already wrecked. 

Where's Ben? Jacob is starting to mildly panic. He always tried to keep it from me the way a parent tries to with a small child. 

I dunno. 

BRIDGE! 

I hear Lochlan from the orchard and Jacob rolls his eyes. He still here? 

I nod with an evil smile. It makes me laugh, that Jacob reduces Lochlan to a lame joke, as if that would work. 

HERE. I shout back. 

Want to swim in the sea? Lochlan bursts through the door. The water's like three degrees. 

Yeah. Just let me take these off. I pull all the rings off again, pile them in the little bowl and stick my tongue out at Jake for good measure.

Never ever change the song, if there is one.

Today is laundry and mending and Jeeper Creepers sequels (just...hahaha NO) and electroform hobbies and gingko leaves and climbing ladders and plant-triage and listening to some of Lana Del Rey's new album but not all of it. I don't like her falsetto and I freaking adored the Norman Rockwell album and so this is hit or miss. I had coffee and an ice cream sandwich for lunch. The kitten has worms. I am doomed but in a casual way. The house is clean but we track in a fine layer of cherry blossom petals every hour on the hour, it seems. I'm making a couple of hexagon cardigans for Ruth and myself. I'm watching Love is Blind season 4. I'm baking bread and finishing projects and it's light outside until almost eight and it's amazing. 

I had two incredible nights with my CPAP machine, a love like no one else, breathing air into my lungs after Lochlan and Ben take it away. They are  jovial and patient and settling it at last. The Collective is aging, mellowing and finding comfort at last, it seems. It takes forever, it's like a shifting mass of emotions and events. It never stops. And we are learning about each other every day, every hour sometimes. 

I worked today. I scrubbed and polished and I went above and beyond and my boss forget he gave me a raise and paid my old rate. I don't know if I'm going to keep doing it. I don't love it anymore. Did I ever? Not really but it's also an easy way to say I work without working much at all, save for a highly physical few hours a week. It's not glamorous or dignified but it's honest and Lochlan always taught me that was the best way to do anything, if you had a choice. 

He meant the hard way, of course but I understood that part.

End of the road towns.

What's happening, Bee?

I'm moving to Tahsis. 

Where is this?

I show him a few pictures. It's about six hours from here. North of Tofino, mostly. 

Looks like Norway. 

It does, doesn't it? It's the fjords.

The locals won't like you. 

I'll buy their affection. 

That never works out. 

Which house are you looking at? 

Something private. As always. I am planning to move again. The Collective has run its course, I fear. We all scatter to our corners, do our own thing, meet up for meals or major moments, and otherwise I think everyone is about to or currently having a midlife crisis. Again.

What will you do there?

Throw pottery and endear myself to the people. Learn to fish properly, without anyone losing an eye. 

Ah. Buying a boat?

Of course. 

Caleb nods. Want company on your adventure? 

No, I want to go alone. 

Last time you were alone you went crazy.

Funny, since last time I went crazy I wasn't alone. Nope. I'm good.

What about Lochlan?

He may visit. 

Caleb laughs, albeit nervously. What will you eat?

Duh, fish. 

Do you even like fish? He laughs, more confident this time. 

Not really. Sometimes. Depends. 

Maybe you need to find a closer spot. 

Maybe I do. 

I'll help you look. 

No, as I said before, I'm good.