Professionals.

Ben wasn't so keen to be found and distracted and so he shared the wealth and brought me back to Caleb's where I was held down by one and spun out by the other before they traded places and spun me back in. Then Ben went back to work and left me there to sleep but sleep was full of nightmares, bruises and that weird brand of shame I can never seem to shake, though it's been years and I don't answer to anyone outside of the Collective anymore.

Caleb slept like a baby.

Funny, that. The more violent he gets, the easier he sleeps. The true mark of a monster, I guess, though if you put a mirror in front of us and asked us to point out who the monster is we would both probably indicate me.

Ben is angry that I even registered Ransom in the house. Told me not to get into it. Then Caleb threatened to fire him and call in a new architect. Apparently they're a dime a dozen around here, if your dime is platinum and crusted in gems. But I don't want any architects, let alone Ransom, he can just live on the fringe, like Ben.

Except I miss Ben. I shouldn't after last night but I still do because he was moody and quiet and thorough, hurtful and a little bit rougher than I wanted, though maybe it wasn't about me. It might not ever be, and that's okay too.

Caleb was just rough because that's the way he is. Always wants to put on a show, refusing to show any side other than the purest of evil just in case someone finds further weakness in him. Aside from me, I mean.

So today I asked for breakfast in bed so I wouldn't have to deal with Ransom at all.

And I got it, but of course that meant a couple more protracted hours that I wasn't home and when I did get home (when Ransom left) Lochlan was waiting and ready to take his piece of me, carving out most of the shame and ego I brought in and leaving me with more of the former and none of the latter. He said I should be there going over the plans so I know what's happening (this after telling me yesterday I didn't know what I was doing so just stay out of the way) and also if I could stay put that'd be great. I pointed out I was with Ben but Lochlan asked if Ben even knew where Ben was these days and I didn't answer because I knew it was a rhetorical question and then he unrolled the plans across the island and just like that, the subject was changed.

Writing without talking (here is what you missed).

We celebrated Ben's birthday last weekend, on Sunday, not Saturday because he was working downtown and couldn't extricate so at the last minute we moved the whole thing to the next day and had a lovely celebration. This was part of my Saturday-frustration but I wasn't about to blame him for anything other than being a workaholic.

He is forty-seven now and does not want to be detailed here day-to-day. He's mellowing and would sometimes like to fade into obscurity and sometimes not. It varies depending on his moods but he is happy, healthy, loved his presents and his speeches too and ate almost half the cake in one go. I make two now, since one is never enough, but that's probably too much. He's as mercurial as anyone and worse when he doubles-down on a project. I can't pull him away and we both wind up irritated by just about everything. Him by my whining, and me by his endless working.

***

Ransom. Architect. Here doing some work on the house because apparently it's not good enough so they're doing so major renovations. Like, MAJOR ones. Last time I checked it was my house but even Lochlan (you thought I was annoyed you should see him) pointed out my standards end at a 100-foot-square camper and I can't see past the end of my nose to understand things like flow and usable space and multipurpose areas. That I settle for nothing and am too happy about it. That I should try harder to live the way I want to live and not the way I remember it.

This is total bullshit. Someone just wanted to throw my OCD into overdrive because it's not bad enough. Let's just rip the side of the house off and have crews in here all through the holidays.

But that's not the point. The point is that every morning now when I come downstairs Handsome-Ransom is in my kitchen looking at plans with the boys and he'll look up and greet me with much attention. We grin at each other and he'll watch me go and pour my coffee to the point that he usually has to be prompted to return to his conversation.

Just what I need. Another man.

***

Caleb just bankrolls whatever they want as long as they frame it being for my benefit.

This will give you a little more privacy. 

I'm fine.

Neamhchiontach-

I said I was fine. (Just don't look too closely, large parts have been blown clean off.)

He sighs. Where's Ben?

Good question! 

You're more than welcome to stay here while the work is completed if you'd like the quiet or if you're having issues with Ben-

Who said I was having issues?! FUCK.

Ben's right. Your ire ranges from white-hot rage to insolent emotional immaturity. 

I'm...emotionally immature?

Very. Yes. 

Do you know how that comes to be? 

Bridget-

No, really. Do you? Because my brand of it comes from trauma at a young age. Do you remember what that was, Diabhal? 

Shocked into silence, he turns and leaves the room. The conversation is over. I need to go find Ben anyway to find out who authorized them wrecking this stupid house to try and make it better. The only way we could make it better would be to fix the people who live in it. Namely me.

Little blonde clown.

I've decided 2018 is going to be the year that I. start. not. giving. a. fuck.

Yes, I know, I've probably said it before, something something blah blah blah have more fun/worry less. Then I worry more, fold myself into a tangled ball and hide out the days exisiting or surviving instead of living.

I'm afraid of a lot of things. Not like Sarah Paulson in AHS: Cult who screamed like a banshee every time she saw a fucking clown (I LOVE clowns, but not Pennywise, he bores me, overrated, you know this) but afraid of weird things that send my heart plummeting into black dread and my body into fight mode.

(Note? Don't spoil Cult for me, we haven't finished it.)

Because I don't run. No, I'm stupid like that. I go after that fear because how dare it try to do that to me. How dare my fears try to leave me unsettled, get the best of me or just plain make me afraid. They don't get that right. I fight like something you've never seen. I force myself to do it. I march right up to it and demand that it be fixed right now so it isn't scary anymore.

Except for elevators. I haven't figured out how to make them back down yet but I take one if the stairs aren't handy. It's terrifying but I do it anyway because that's who I am.

Or something.

But yeah, this year I'd like to become someone who sort of doesn't give a fuck, doesn't give a voice to the fear, doesn't care if she's tired, doesn't worry about every little thing, doesn't hide and then come out swinging, doesn't worry about it.

I've earned it.

I won't bother listing the fears. Some are valid, some are earned. Some are ridiculous. Some are unfathomable and some are tiny but powerful. They all hold the same weight to my battered brain and I'd like it better if they didn't hold any weight at all. 

Sam calls this determination one of my fleeting moments of courage, in which I'm going to change my world with my Big Plans, only to be the same as ever. I'm not sure if he can see my capabilities better from up there or if he's trying to goad me to actually follow through. You'll have to ask him.

 

A girl, a fix, a prank.

I got part of my wish last night, as August put his Spotify account on my phone. At any given time now I can see what he's listening to, and since I don't have a poker face, I fear that just about every time I look at him from here on out he's either going to be treated to an expression of pure surprise or sheer disappointment, as his musical tastes have always been more than a little strange for a man his age.

We went for a walk out out in the orchard, now laced with a huge chaotic array of those carnival rainbow bulbs, because why not? We did so with some mulled wine and it was perfect. Well, except for the subject matter, which involved a plan to navigate the holidays with as little upset as possible, as that familiar helplessness and frustration came up yesterday that signals a decided lack of self-care, a focus on the negative (but I made a list of the good things!) and a disappointing ignorance of just how good things are.

Suitably stung, I nodded. He's right. He's always right but at the same time I feel an undercurrent of annoyance. I didn't ask for this, it was facilitated to me. My good fortune in life is a debt paid for unspeakable reasons that began long before there was ever any Cole, any Jacob to be worried about and he addresses that too, before I can abandon the walk in a flurry of misery.

Ask for help, Bridget. Before things reach that point. 

I know. 

But do it. You know it and you keep silent. 

It's hard. I want to be capable. 

Capable people know the limits of their capabilities. 

Oh, then I'm not capable at all, nevermind. 

He laughs. Sure you are. As capable as you can be for you. 

I look up at him. In the dark cold if I close my eyes and focus on the accent and not the man, I feel like I could touch heaven if I jumped.

Don't look at me like that, Bridge. 

Sorry. I didn't mean to. 

Jesus. What you're 'capable' of is dismantling the strongest of men with your very being. 

Wow, Augie. See? That's the problem. I don't want to dismantle anyone. 

You can't help it. 

I could go live in a cave. 

You could, but it's going to get awfully crowded, since no one's going to let you out of their sight. Get some sleep, okay?

And with that, we are at the side door of the house and he opens it just as PJ is coming down the stairs. They give each other one of those violent man-back-clapping hugs and then PJ holds the door for me, locking it behind us as August heads back across the driveway to his loft.

Any luck?

Yes, he gave me his login.

Oh, the games are ON now. 

(Supposedly on Spotify you can change the music on another user if you have their info on your deivce. Don't worry, we're not mooching the songs, we're just going to try to brainwash August into slightly heavier music. PJ already hooked me up with my own IHeartRadio account for the all-Christmas station I've been playing when I'm driving.)

The Ballad of Highway 99, Part II.

(Excuse the rant, but I'm entitled, once in a while. Or if you want to put it a different way: I'm entitled so once in a while I rant. Yes, first world problems. I understand. Skip the emails, seriously. I get it.)

My world is changing
I'm rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too?

I woke up like this.

Frustrated and slightly overwhelmed as I watch my to-do list pile up and I have taken to hard slashing, cancelling everything I can cancel, trying to group errands, getting things done early or strategically putting them off and generally trying to put myself in everyone else's shoes so I don't rip their heads off.

I drove for two hours last night in the pouring rain of an inky black night only to arrive downtown, thinking I was off the hook for driving for the weekend only to realize it's Saturday and what a gift it would be if I could get a few things done today to make the week ahead easier. Plus, Henry abruptly needs something and I have to go out anyway. But where we live you don't go out for one thing (unless it's food). You go out for a few hours and do everything while you're there, because it's a hell of a drive home.

I'm sure they chose this remote place because it is most like home. And yes. It is in a way. If you squint and make everything super blurry and way smaller. And the shopping matches, because there isn't any here either, and what should be a twenty minute drive to the shopping centre has never taken a mere twenty minutes. More like forty-five. Each way. Which isn't bad per say but I make that drive multiple times a day sometimes and this time of year, between the weather and the Christmas rush, it's particularly awful.

But I got Henry's shoes, the new security lights for outside (three of them have failed in the past month. I guess their life expectancy is seven years), and mailed all of the parcels that are going home. So I felt better making that drive home, knowing I've just saved what would have been half of Tuesday, freeing me up to do other things.

Like get ready for Christmas. It's a battle not to constantly feel overwhelmed but I somehow do. Yes, I have help. Yes, I have a list and a plan. Yes, I have the means. Yes, I started in September.  But in my rush to make the season perfect the only part that isn't is me and I don't know how to fix that either. I wish it would snow but only Christmas weekend. I wish I could not have chores, but chores wait for no one. I wish I could cook better. That's so dumb but it's true. The thought of dealing with a turkey again makes me tired. Also slightly grossed out because I only stopped being a vegetarian eighteen years ago and I still can't figure out bones.

I want to sit by the fire and drink whiskey and read a good book. I want to listen to Christmas music but the IHeartRadio app scares me and I'm bored of my own supply of Christmas music that I own, or that Ben has sung, sometimes with me. It's a little disconcerting to be singing along only to hear your own voice out of the blue over the stereo. I want Lochlan to have some time off (yeah somehow Schuyler and Batman both have him booked up. He was going to retire. Except, true to Loch, he can't sit still. Maybe this is a good thing?). I miss him though.

I want to walk in the woods and sleep in, eat brunch and watch holiday movies. I want to stop moving.  I could. Boy, could I ever. There just never seems to be any time left over. Everything is so fleeting and then we're up and off once more. Tomorrow Ruth will need some obscure art supplies and we'll run out of orange juice and John or PJ will need a watch/pair of boots/truck picked up and I'll be up there on the highway again.

I'm starting to hate that road, but it runs East, and for some reason that makes it okay. At least every time I leave my house, I'm one step closer to home.

Waiting for a King Tide.

I'm ready.

I'm ready for the dock to be underwater and the sea to come up and try to reach me, throwing up foam and salt, an icy slap from out of thin air. I'm ready to be banned from the backyard, the cliff, the beach (which will briefly disappear, as it always does at high tide anyway) and the steps. I'll remain inside where it's warm, turtleneck unfolded up over my mouth, nose pressed against the window, trying to commit that particular elusive shade of teal to memory. Still failing to do so, I'll be lured to the fire instead, to the flame, if only to pass the time between oceans.

I finished all of the off-point Christmas gifts today. Now I have to organize, wrap and ship them. Everyone is getting a small painting (by me) and a jar of pickles with their gifts (also made by me) and I hope everyone likes them. They'll all be shipped to the other ocean, the one that's a slightly lighter shade of teal, more grey for the Atlantic to the Pacific's green undertone.

Colder, still.

At least it's brighter there. Here in the dim petrichor air we grow mushrooms in our hair and squint at the lights because it's so dark, so wet. So miserable. I don't know where the perfect place is, but I'll know when I find it. Trouble is, I'm not really looking, so how can you find something you're not even really searching for? Home is where the heart is, so I guess right now one piece is downstairs in the studio, one is in the boathouse, one is in heaven and one is on the highway on the way home, with take-out for lunch.

Not long.

I was digging out rubbermaid bins from the storage room yesterday. The storage room sort of doubles as the control center of the house. The alarm box is there, the modem, router and printer all live in there and if you keep walking (it's very narrow), at the back of the room I have neatly stored holiday decorations in bins as well as a good stack of moving boxes (Lochlan conjured up a nomad in me I can't seem to get rid of) and an entire bureau full of DVD and Blu Rays. Or is it Bluerays? I don't know, I'm not down there to look.

Anyway. I was backing out of the room with a bin in my arms and managed to smash into the alarm box with my right shoulder. It hurts something awful now, I have the biggest most colorful bruise and I'm pretty sure it chipped a bone, which means I have an orphan unattached bone shard floating around under my skin that will probably work its way around and stab me in a vital organ.

I was telling Lochlan about it when he asked how I got the bruise. I have no filter, I ended with a dramatic reenactment and death scene and everything.

How do you even come up with this stuff? 

Well, what if it does? 

I'm sure you'll know if that happens. 

Well, I had a bit of a headache earlier so I think it's going straight for my brain. If that's its master plan just know that I love you. 

Midweek Jesus (Because Sam was adamant that I not call this entry 'Hump Jesus')

Did Christmas change or just me?

We spent the morning decorating the church. Sam humored me and let me put the radio on over the PA, which meant I turned it to 105.3 FM, which is Vancouver's all-Christmas station. Deep and Crisp and Even, indeed. Eighty full percent of the time it'll make your ears bleed. But twenty percent of the time you'll be knocked off your feet by Elvis or Frank Sinatra or someone really good so when Ali & Theo came on, I begged Sam to give me the other mic and we could karaoke our way through trimming the tree.

And by golly, he was game. 

(He does a good Ali to my Theo, that's for sure. Then Kelly Clarkson came on and he just TOOK THE FUCK OVER. Go Sam!)

It made short work of the rest of the boxes. Singing does that. He was also game to chuck the remaining multicolored trashed decorations from years past and buy all white decorations with the modest holiday budget increase he got from head office this year.So everything is red and white, rustic and understated and woodsy and beautiful.

He had to rip the microphone out of my hand though, as usual I will tell you I freaking hate karaoke and then close the place down.

Now I get to decorate the point. I've got the all-clear. December starts on Friday, after all.

Places you didn't think you'd miss so much, but you do. Like people.

The best cup of coffee I've ever had in my life came from a little hole in the wall place called Vietnam Village in Corydon Village proper,  just up from Daly Burgers, a place we adored but tonight was a date night, just the two of us.

We ate our meal and then the coffee was made and brought to the table to brew. In a few moments the owner came back and showed me how to place the filter upside to one side and give the coffee a stir, as he had poured a layer of condensed milk into the glass before placing the drip on it.

It wasn't as sweet as you might think, only rich and wonderful. I think I'd have a future as a bulletproof coffee fan, if only not for this amazing creation that outclassed butter-stirred coffee by an easy mile.

I think it was as much the surroundings as anything. It was a hot summer evening and the sweat rolled down my back inside my sundress while Jacob played with his truck keys, watching me. We were the only people in the restaurant, because it was almost too early for dinner, but almost too late for me to be drinking coffee. We people-watched through the window, a breeze from a nearby fan not quite reaching us, until I finished the glass. Jacob went and paid our bill and then we stepped out into the prairie night, as anonymous as the rest of the world, but just as visible too.

The world needs more princesses.

We flew Mark in for the weekend. Daniel and Schuyler got coordinated tattoos. All the way down their forearms in each other's handwriting: Schuyler's says I won't let you down and Daniel's says I will not give you up. They're lines from Freedom! 90, the song by George Michael.

God, they're so adorable it makes me want to cry.

Cue an endless dancefest, because why the heck not?

The lovefest continues today too with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announcing their engagement. Squee! A royal wedding is on the horizon this spring. I love weddings. The bigger the spectacle the better, though not for me personally. I preferred small intimate ceremonies. Sometimes no ceremonies. But I'm a raging monarchist and I'm SO EXCITED.

You wouldn't think it was a Monday, and no, I didn't get any more tattoos, though Mark touched up a few spots on my knuckle tattoos. He tends to come out about once a year for a vacation and we make him work. He said my knuckle tattoos aren't holding up that well and I reminded him that duh, they're now a year old, plus I do the lion's share of cleaning, cooking and wetwork, as it were. He laughed at the description and pointed out that maybe the lion should do his own share and then he'd still have the honor of having his name inked on my left hand, LOCH, though before Mark arrived it mostly said lu l because that's all that was left. But I am fixed up and reclaimed and ready for my wedding invitation as a citizen of the commonwealth.

Wait, what? I can't go? That's fine. I'll watch it on Youtube and I'll be there with bells on.