Dear Roger, Tending the Dead, Texas Traditions,and Other Things I Think About When Insomnia Has Me

Well its another night that I am not having any luck in catching some zz's, so I have been watching John Wayne movies, eating cold pizza and drinking cheap soda. I am not supposed to eat pizza or drink soda and I will probably be dog assed sick tomorrow, but I figure I am not going any damn place so I might as well indulge in a little masochistic self abuse.

Its getting close to time to pack up and go and I am a full on stress case! I worked on packing my shit today and sorting out more of what is going and what is staying and what is getting sold, and its just soo damn hard to make those decisions. My ex and I are sort of on speaking terms, and as I expected, he didn't bank any money back to pay me for the van, so Im fucked for that one. I knew I couldn't count on him and I dont know why I even thought I could, and though he tells me he will pay me off for it and a,"week or two", I dont see that happening, and I know that I could sell the damn van at the yard sale on Saturday for over 800 and that would set me and Chance up mighty fine in Portland, but once again my albatross strikes. Its disheartening.

I was raised on John Wayne movies, and around men who were the John Wayne ideal. My granpa who flew more than 57 missions out of England during WW2, my dad who did 3 tours of Viet Nam, you and your time at the DMZ as a "courier" for the CIA and your adventures with Air America,(I would have loved to have heard those stories), Sammy in all his true Texas cowboy glory, Uncle Charlie and his West Texas ranch and all the race horses, and Papa and his stories of Wildcatting with his brothers in the Texas oil boom era and building and losing a fortune from nothing,I grew up around MEN! Men who would never in a million years visibly fail. Men who knew how to be a hero and how to make things right. What the hell happened? Where did the real men go? I am so sick and tired of excuses and failure and settling . Im tired of ,"carrying the penis". I haven't been around a man that could outman me in over a decade and I dont understand it. I loved romance, I enjoyed a man that would open a door for me or pay for dinner or lead when we were dancing. I never bitched any man out for those things, hell! I thanked them! Ive had to be tough and mean and a fighter and a scrapper because I have seemed to end up with pussies as companions or husbands and if I didnt get hard, they would just let the family fall into poverty worse than it already has. It cost me, because men that often wont fight the world outside for survival, will damn sure take their anger out on the one that makes them look bad, and I have the scars and PTSD to prove that being small and a bitch often leads to problems with your physical well being. It doesnt matter at this point in the game, but I am sick and tired of seeing this going on and I have told Chance that being the kind of man he has seen around is not acceptable, and the one thing I can hope from his time in Texas is that he learned what it means to be a man and the one who is supposed to at least shoulder 1/2 the burden.