BREATHE, dammit.

The new Friday routine is to get absolutely flattened and spun out by Ben, early, when he is sleepy and unself-conscious and then shower and put on warm clothes (-10 this morning WTF) to make the trek next door where I crawl under the covers between Schuyler and Daniel, their little alarm clock as it were, and Schuyler will leave, showering and heading out to get us breakfast, and Daniel and I will put the covers over our heads and scroll the real estate listings, exclaiming over the nicer touches, interesting placements and pretty paint colours and snarking on some of the more ridiculous decor.

Okay, if you're going to have a gorgeous marble desk off the kitchen it needs a knee hole, does it not? 

It KNEES a knee hole? 

Yes, it knees one! 

True. Hey, how about this. Framed over each side of the bed: "Inhale" and "Exhale".

In case you forget? 

That's what I'm thinking. 

I would have to insist they come with the house. And all future builds as a public service announcement.

What the hell is this? 

A very large...vase. For sunflowers? Maybe an umbrella stand?

If people bring their children over you can put them in it to keep them from touching things. 

This is what's it's for. One hundred percent. 

Eventually Schuyler returns with coffee and pastries and we eat those in bed while we report on our finds and he laughs until his cheeks are pink and there are tears in his eyes. All too soon Lochlan is up and dressed and in the doorway and we save our very best observations for him and by the time I crawl out from the cuddles, crumbs and the wifi blanket around me we're all howling. 

It's the best, these Fridays. Better than the old days.

Fuck it.

 Deepfield has a line in Dreams that sings Give me something I can die for. 

I almost wrenched the steering wheel and drove right off the road but instead I jammed the power button so hard it stuck in place and won't come out, even days later so I'll have to take a thin shiv to it on the weekend and see if I can fix it. My fingers still ache from clenching the wheel straight as I finished my trip and returned home. I brought the CD inside and threw it into the recycling bin by the door. 

This is why I listen to mostly Kpop these days. No memories. Zero negative associations. Incredible choreo. 

Halazia on repeat? Yes, please.

Watching soccer with the dentist.

It's the perfect calm before the storm as I have a million appointments this week and the snow and wind loom large. It's fine. I have a truck and an overflow of common sense. If the roads are shit I can cancel every last thing. Nothing is more than twenty-five kilometres away and that is some sort of calming thought to me. 

My speakers are blown in the vintage jeep and there's no bluetooth so I'll take the big one. It's fine. Everything is fine. Did I mention it's all fine? I don't care. I can hibernate until Easter if I must. 

I'm making pancakes and fruit for supper. So exciting. It's Ash Wednesday and then I need to do Lent and every time I turn around Lent is staring me in the face, Sam barely in focus behind it, demanding that I give up something I think I need, something that will be a sacrifice. I raise my eyebrow in his direction and plan to answer later with my decision but for now I am busy. 

You will be thrilled to know that I have no cavities though. I accepted my ever-present lecture, a reminder to brush better, a new toothbrush, floss and paste and a weird realization that I actually enjoyed the soccer game. Usually they put on a home makeover show and I lament the strange choices or corners cut so this was a nice change.

It's a 5th day routine now. WTF.

Breakfast in dishes I made myself. Brewed black coffee with a healthy splash of Maple Rum Cream from home, hastily grabbed at the airport (never again, too awkward), fresh-made pumpernickel bread with a slathering of cottage cheese and a dash of sea salt and cracked pepper and an endless curtain of rain obscuring the sea, and so they turned on the patio heaters and threw a blanket on my favourite chair outside so that I can eat out here and see what the ocean is up to. It's three and a half degrees and by this time next week we'll have snow on the ground but I don't ever waste a view. 

The week was quiet. I didn't get a ton accomplished. I went grocery shopping. I cleaned a little. I worked on finishing the blanket for the dog since one of the new cats has appropriated everything that belongs to him. She wants to love him and so she stole his bed, toys and heart, somehow. He doesn't care about anything but walks, cookies and sleeping beside me. 

I finished the fourth and final season of Ozark alone and hate-loved it. I listened to In the Trees by Stalgia on repeat and then a little more. I finished the mending and started to reconstruct a top that I hate the style of into one that I will love, via patchwork. I didn't walk enough but I did use my sleep apnea machine at night and my lungs are huge and tender and my eyes are clear. 

It's working and I don't wake up every three minutes any more. 

Yay?!

I'm awake.

What would you like for Valentine's day?

A Roset Ducaroy velvet circular sofa. Actually two of them, one for the living room and one for the theatre room. 

What a stupid question, Diabhal, I think to myself. What does any woman want for Valentine's Day? Precious gems and flowers, maybe dinner and dancing. Perhaps a break from being rescued and the endless mansplaining or gaslighting. I don't know. Pick a dart and hit a balloon, any balloon. This isn't hard. 

Seriously? 

Of course not. 

Let me write it down though. Duke-

I was teasing. 

I see. 

I'm good though. 

Bullshit. 

Well it's too late for breakfast in bed but I did snag the leftovers for lunch so I'm feeling fine. 

Let's talk about that. 

Did you want the food? I didn't know-

No, about how you are feeling-

Fine (Aside from going into a fugue state six or seven days a week. Other than that...well, really really really good.).

Glad to hear it. The relief in his voice of being let off the hook makes me sad.

Something there to remind me.

 NO. NOT BURT BACHARACH. WTF GOD.

Lochlan used to spend a lot of time singing Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do) when I first met him. It would be months before I would hear the Christopher Cross soundtrack version and I always told Lochlan I liked his version better but damn if Burt didn't have such a huge and varied body of work. A lot of songs you will recognize and a lot that might surprise you. 

Anyway, I'll be busy the rest of the day erecting a statue to this man inside my head. Not sure where to put it, perhaps on the rubble of where the memory thief destroyed my former office digs. Or maybe just tucked somewhere in a corner as part of my weird and wonderful vernacular. I'll find a spot and let you know.

This just in: no one is shocked anymore.

Sigh. Really angry right now. Not in the mood to write. I have to make some meatloaves and start some baked potatoes. I have to chill out a bit but I am averaging three hours sleep a night and as I said, not in the mood. 

Whoever thought it was prudent to report a three-year-old post about sword swallowing needs to fucking chill, too. I didn't post a how-to, I posted an almost-died but apparently it fell under the dangerous activities warning and is now behind a warning. It's fine. I warn you more than Google does that what I write isn't ever for the faint of heart nor is it for the easily-offended or closed-minded but if you refuse to listen then go find a farming blog to read or something. As I always say, this will never be it and if you aren't interested in my own private brand of random memories and what's for dinner, you're free to leave. Or email me if you have a beef but reporting posts, especially old ones is shitty and pointless. It's not like they took it down for your efforts, it now just comes with a little yellow bar that says 'hey don't sword swallow if you don't know what you're doing' which is what I said in the fucking post ANYWAY. 

My meatloaf is really good, by the way. And blame the stupid person who tried to fuck with me as the reason I won't bother detailing the last eight days I missed posting. I can pull the whole thing down at any time. I've done it twice before.

Trigger locked.

What was once a comfort now seems a curse. Jacob would have hated this life for sure (and he did, hence the knees-bent and arms outstretched swan dive, or so I imagine whenever I close my eyes) and I'm not sure we like it any more than that. Days are spent in gratitude and deep conversational therapy. Ideas are deployed, tested and then evaluated for change or success. Every day ends in a post-mortem of discussing events or rough moments. I eat too much. I don't sleep enough. They let me drink, if I so choose. I want to finish a book, get lost in a movie, or begin a painting but I can't. It's far too cold to get messy with throwing on the wheel, as my clean-up routine involves the house by the garage and the gravel side parking in the driveway as I refuse to be the guy who fucks up the sink in my studio with clay.

So I am aimlessly wander, a tortured soul on earth mimicking the footsteps of my angel in heaven. 

I asked nicely to be taken off these pills. It's been *almost* a year. The answer came back with a resounding denial. I researched stopping them myself and found out you can taper by opening them up and counting out the little balls. I opened one and found discs. Six of them. I took three and had a bad day. I won't do that again. Maybe they will decrease the dose when we hit one year. I've missed a lot of joy in that one year and a lot of writing and creativity too but I've also not had an anxiety shadow looming over me. I've had a bunch of panic attacks. I've had breakthrough fear but mostly I've just withstood and withdrawn, a capable tiny woman in a silent world who hasn't been a handful in a long time and now grows the risk of becoming an afterthought, a warm breeze through an open window, a less sparkling version of She who I once was, flaws and all. Is it better? No. It's like I am the best cup of coffee you've ever had and suddenly someone appears at your table and begins to pour an entire pitcher of milk into it, until it overflows the rim of the cup and begins to bloom across the tablecloth and drip onto the floor. Is it still coffee? Vaguely. Can you still drink it? I guess so. 

Is it good? 

No. 

I tell this to Lochlan and he laughs and kisses my forehead. 

Is it necessary? Yes, Peanut, it is. You're still here. I promise. 

But we know about Lochlan's promises and his bold reassurances that he has no way to guarantee, let alone fulfill. We know he has the want to console the crying child but can he? I shake my head. 

A facsimile. 

I can barely tell.

A perfect clone. 

Hardly, Bridge. The words come with a knife edge, suddenly as his patience is cut clean through and he changes the subject. Let's go see Ruth today. 

Please. 

And get some sleep tonight.

I shrug. I can guarantee one, just not the other. Sleep is for people at peace. Death is for people at war. 

I know what you're thinki-

No, you don't. 

We're not at war. It's peacetime.

If you say so.

It's been a really busy week. Busy organizing and cleaning the house, early spring cleaning, as it were. Burns Night. University transcripts in the mail. Dog rebounding. Cat warming up. Long bitch sessions in the hot tub and in the living room. Hot chocolate to the point where I should just open my own cafe for I am constantly making it lately. Furniture rearranging and planning for a little bit of paint and polish to the house when it warms up. It's supposed to drop down very cold tonight so this morning Lochlan and Ben and I took our weekend walk on the beach while we could. It's too slippery to walk on the rocks when it's below freezing and though I do love to be throw off the cliff and swimming back around to the beach, January is rarely the month in which I do it with any regularity. I can't say the same for every other month, but lately I want to be comfortable. I feel old and tired in my bones. 

Lochlan said that will get better as I get used to it just being the usual crew on hand. 

I wonder if he's right. This is the lull between seasons, between holidays and between storms. I've started pulling tax papers together. I've started wearing Valentino lipstick. I've begun to think less about what's for dinner and more about how I can relax. I haven't slept much but eventually I will. I continue to pledge to post properly even though my head is in the clouds or in the dirt on any given day and since we had our Burns Night supper the days are indeed seeming a little longer at last. 

That's good.

Oh look, nothing again.

I made a mountain of my famous mashed potatoes to go with dinner (chicken and zucchini) and there was none left for tomorrow's lunch. I should have known, but I wondered if anyone was hungry as they were all snacking around three this afternoon and I figured a light dinner would be enough. 

Now it's all finished and the whole kitchen has been scrubbed and all of the pots and pans and dishes too and the time machine is loaded and ready and I'm going to head down to Dalton and Duncan's to watch Singles Inferno and drink tea (DO NOT BUY THE TETLEY LIVE THEY ARE BAD). If I can stay awake, that is. 

In other news, we've finished Bling Empire: New York. It was terrible. The music was terrible. Their voices were terrible, the fashion was mostly bad and the whole thing screamed set-up and everyone was made to be a villain. 

Ha, sounds like my house.