Dear Roger,Middle Aged Crazy and Chasing Boys

Okay, it officially sucks being single.Summer is almost here and I want to be out running around on a motorcycle or a horse, instead I am sitting home most days reading soft-core Twilight Fan Fic porn and butlering for my dogs. The kids will be out of school in a few days, my oldest will be home from Texas, and my prospects for getting any fine monkey loving is fading as fast as my bank accounts balance.Its just not fair! My guinea pigs are getting more action than I have in the last couple of years, and they are both male! The kids are all bummed because they will miss their friends/girlfriends/boyfriends,(my baby girl has no less than 4 little suitors)and Stubby and Sticky have a few each as well. I have no male companionship, none, zip, nada! Its just not right, I work hard to stay in shape, and not to brag, but Im a freaking size ONE! my girly bits are all where they should be, and im still rocking a,"D" if you know what I mean, but all guys will do is look! I am going my best to be non-intimidating, I smile, I make small talk and I dont correct their grammar or anyhthing else, I let them think they are smarter than me or more capable than me, but even that doesnt seem to tone it down. I have tried tattoos covered, tattoos uncovered, jewelry, no jewelry, I wear tight jeans and I fix my hair and I dont look like a scrub, and I even turn down my music when I am driving, and I havent called anyone a,'Pinheaded Jackass" in a few weeks and I have only yelled at one Prius driving idiot that was doing 10mph on a road that was clearly ment for people to do 50 or better on,(okay, I do still drive like a road-raging asshole, but I cant fix everything)and my van is pretty embarassing so that just irks me and puts me in a mood.
My options for getting out are starting to narrow pretty quickly, once the kids are out of school, Im pretty well screwed because I will most likely have them 24/7 until school starts back up. I am planning on trying to get out on weekends when the ex is around, but even that gets awkward because if I did find someone, I would have to arrange meetings at my house around that complication.im frustrated, stressed, horny, and aggravated and I dont know what to do about it. Other than investing heavily in duracell,(and even that is difficult with 3 monkeys that can pick locks running loose)and nothing kills the mood like the sounds of a child either barfing or sneaking into the kitchen to steal from my chocolate stash.I need privacy, motivation, and peace, but none of that is going to happen any time soon and its starting to get to me.
Im not even allowed to comment about younger men, even cute one from the movies that are just sooo pretty, because my kids like to remind me,'Ohh, he looks like Chance"(definate mood killer), or the ever snarky,"Arent you old enough to be his mom?" and then the ever popular,'GROOOOOSSSS MOM, hes almost half your age!!", Im mean JEESH! its not like im ever going to meet any of them, but my kids cant stand me even drooling over them and its making me feel OLD, and that is not cool.
I do get looks, and even comments of a favorable nature, but guys seem to vapor lock when it comes to doing anything substantial, and its really hard to meet guys when your days consist of dropping off children, cleaning house, trying to write, and then picking up children coming home and cooking dinner.
I am seriously considering getting my EMT/Paramedic back so I can get out and do something that I love to do and perhaps meet people that I would get on well with. I had considered looking into volunteering with the local sheriffs dept, but that would just remind me that I miss being a cop, and then all kinds of crazy ideas about getting my badge back and all that start to float around in my head, so its best that I probably avoid as much of that world as possible. I just need to be busy and productive until my Masters starts back up in August, so I will just have to sit tight and try to find something that I enjoy besides sitting around and watching Mixed Martial Arts and Cage fighting, its just not a healthy thing.
Im thinking about buying a motorcycle or a horse, just so I have something as a distraction, but until then I will have to just try and make sure there is time for cold showers.

Dear Roger, Do Gigolos Have Payment Plans?

Yet another weekend where the ex has managed to skate out and Im sitting watching crappy TV while the kids play,"Pull my finger" right next to me so that they can share the pain with me.If anyone ever says that girls are capable of being nasty, welll...my sisters mini-van that we took on the trip back to Texas in 2005, and my baby daughter would have to disagree. My sis ended up selling that van because the smell never seemed to go away, and her oldest son never found it funny to fart in an enclosed vehicle around me and her ever again.Sitting up drinking beer and eating deviled eggs the night before we left on the trip gave us an excellent teaching tool for a gross boy and got her out of having to drive that mini-van forever.Her son still gets a little nervous when me and my sis get together, but then most of the men in the South get nervous when me and her team up. I really am trying to find a way to get back home, I miss my big son something terrible, I miss my sis even worse, and I want to go hunting for a cute lil,(not really) Texan to import back here to the land of few straight,unattached men.
I swear, this town is desolate when it comes to single men that are of legal age,have a job, and are straight and unmarried.I dont to the whole bar scene anymore, but I would love to have someplace to go where there is at least a chance of meeting a single, straight , employed, man. It was soo much easier to find a single man back home, and if I had my sis to go hunting with me,I am sure that this long, dry spell would come to an end. My son still gets all worked up when I tell him I am going over to the college campus to take care of business,"Leave those college boys alone you COUGAR!" He is worried that I will find a college boy that will end up messing with his Wii or guitars and he gave me this whole long speech about how it was,"Wrong and morally bankrupt for me to even consider looking at younger men." I have to wonder, who the hell raised him? I never taught him that you are supposed to love or date one type of person, and his brothers are pretty liberal with who they find intersting. Stubby loves large black women and oddly enough ,Dakotah Fanning as long as its in her Volturi guise,(he likes tough/mean women), Sticky likes blondes of all shapes,sizes and ages, and my baby girl adores cowboys,(God help her), and my big son has dated so many girls this last year, I have lost track of what he prefers, but I have never tried to push him into a mold, but he damn sure has opinons about what I should date.
The damn wind is blowing like hell this weekend, and the escape I had hoped to make, shows no sign of being possible, but there is hope on the horizon! I have friends who have offered to kid sit, and I am planning to go to the Henry Rollins show on the 16th, so I will be getting out some, and with school starting back at the university in August, and due to my status, I can go do research in the library and get out where there are other people,so I see hope on the horizon, that or I am going to just buy batteries in mass quantities and call it good.

Dear Roger, Is Being Addicted to Reading Treatable Through an Intervention?

I cannot seem to tear myself away from reading or writing for some reason! I am staying up insane hours to read,not great classic works for the most part, but pretty much anything! I have been reading magazines from the subscription to,"Details Magazine" that I got for my oldest son in the hopes of getting him to realize that there are fashion styles beyond skinny jeans and rock t-shirts and beanies, my subscription to,'Psychology Today" as well as ,'Guns and Ammo", and I have 4 books going right now, including,'Cemetary Dance" and ,"The Chronicals of Jack Primus" and a couple of others that I pick up and put down depending on my mood, and then there is my nasty,'Fan Fiction" addiction that I seem to be unable to break.I am readingor writing more than 6 hours a day and I get up at 0500 to start and often go back to bed sometime around 0200.Its insane, and often I find myself nodding off with either a book or my computer in my lap.
I am getting somethings done,I started looking into Writing Fellowships and trying to sort out just what I can do to support me and the kids over the summer,but mostly what I want to do is spend time in the library doing research for my novel,or curled up somewhere quiet so I can read. I have found that I really enjoy listening to music while I write, so i often have my Ipod going or a pop out music player from a couple of bands I like on my desktop so that I can listen to something to keep my brain from focusing on too much of the past.I finished the first chapter, but I could not write about his death.I guess I am just not to that point yet.I got to the curve in the road, and it all came flashing back and I found that I was just unable to do it.I got blistering,"Suicide" migraines for 3 days in a row, and just a feeling of melancholy and sadness, that I decided to see if I could pick up afterwards, and luckily I found a starting point for a chapter that will be in the middle of the book, and even the end has been floating around. Writing has been coming easier lately for other things and I have even been kicking around some song lyrics, and that would be the first time in close to 20 years that I have even remotely considered writing songs. My lyrics tend to be dark and kinda sad, but I think they would also speak to more than a few people, kinda like my poetry did back in the day. I am going to have to see if my mom will give me back my high school journals with the poetry in them, though after the,'Great art and photography funeral pyre" that I conducted 20 years ago where I burned almost all of my work, I am sure it will take some convincing on my behalf to get her to give the surviving stuff. I dont burn much of my work anymore, though I have been tempted, and the book containing my ,"Cowboy Poetry" made it as far as the top of the woodstove before I reconsidered due to her ire over me burning my younger poems, though why she gets so upset with me I dont understand, afterall, I have never let her read any of it.I dont let many people read or see what I have written in the way of fiction or poetry, and it even weirds me out when people I know actually read my online stuff, its kinda like being naked in front of them. I mean, I dont mind if strangers read it, because after all, Ive done my fair share of flashing a little skin when it was around people I wasnt going to ever see again, but when its people who know me, I tend to kinda skeeve out a little inside. Showing my writing or my art is like standing in front of everyone naked with my guts hanging out, you know people judge you and ive got a lot of scars and lumps.Ive never been an exhibitionist or even remotely interested in being famous,(hell, I spent enough time being infamous),and frankly I give a lot of props to those with the guts to get up in front of people and show themselves. I have given a few speeches in front of large crowds,(over 300 people)several times, and the anticipation was the absolute worst.I have told people who use me for public speaking events to not even really warn me, just call me and say,"you need to be here tomorrow and dress nice and be ready to talk to some folks" and I would be fine, but the last time I had to give a speech at a fundraiser for one of my favorite charities, they made the mistake of telling me a month in advance and they expected a copy of my speech 2 weeks before I spoke.By the time the day rolled around, I was a nervous wreck and I had discarded the original speech and I ended up just using some basic notes and speaking from the heart, which I have found always makes people more interested. I got a lot of laughs,(on purpose) and a standing ovation, so I guess it wasnt too bad, but again the sensation of being naked with everything hanging there was almost overpowering. The few times I performed my,'Cowboy Poetry' , it was a little more relaxing because I didnt know anyone,but im still really damn particular who I let read or see it.
I have kinda tinkered with the other stories I was working on, and I do not know if they are going to flesh out enough to be full-length novels, but I am thinking a compilation of my "Southern Gothic' stories might be something worth pitching.Living where I did as a kid sure gave me some stories to tell, and so many of the recollections take me back to times that sure as hell seemed a lot more simple and happy.
I always miss home and the South in the spring.I miss the green of everything and the smell of hay meadows as everyone tried to get in some quick hay cuttings before the rain gets too crazy, I miss the sound of cicadas and whip o wills, and bar b cue, and Southern men, the kinda men I grew up with that had that wonderful lazy way of speaking, and dressing. God, I dont know what it is but I am soo sick of seeing a good looking man and then seeing him wearing flip flops or sandles with socks!I miss men that wear boots and skin tight wrangler jeans that sit soo low...AW HEll! im digressing, but its been soo long that when I hear a Southern accent or a Texan accent in the store I just want to see if they are from home or if there is something we have in common so I can hear the sounds of home a little longer.I also perk up when I hear an English accent as well, because growing up across from Mick and all his craziness, I just associate that Bristol limey accent with home as well. It feels like I have lost soo much by being away, and sometimes when I talk to friends on Facebook, I see that they never left the area and they all seem to be pretty happy. I am the only one in my family that is this far from home, and sometimes I wish I hadnt wandered so far away, and perhaps this constant pull that I seem to feel is my punishment for leaving.

Dear Rog, Im 41 Going on 14, I think Its Called a Midlife Crisis.

So, im owning the fact I am little bit freaked out about being officially middle-aged, or in the case of our familys history, probably one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel! I mean WTF, you left me at 45, Granpa died at 64, Robert at 43, and Ive danced with death 4 times now and I think I scared him off but Hell, you know I LOVE to dance on the edge.
Im getting that skin-crawling, gotta go now! feeling. I want to be out seeing and doing and going, and those thoughts of just taking that step off the main highway and back out into the wilderness is gnawning at me.The endless days of playing the good little soccer mom from hell are starting to eat me, and its showing in more than a few ways. My temper has gotten shorter and I havent found an outlet for it, and that makes life hell for me and those around me. I have been writing more than usual, and listening to music until I cant take anymore, but I havent touched the guitar in weeks, and I still havent found a piano for the kids to start learning on, so I guess im just rattling around in my head too much without anything physical to ease the stress.
My oldest boy gets home in a few more weeks and I am looking forward to having him around to nag me into doing things like working on the damn van and my yard,(place looks like whats left after a tornado hits a trailer park), so I am not totally mortified when folks come by to visit, though if I keep it up with the surround sound and the music blasting with the occasional werewolf growl thrown in, I may not have too many folks coming around.I managed to clear the crowd of extraneous dogs and children away from my front gate this afternoon by turning up one of the Underworld trilogy movies, my dogs not only left for the back part of the pasture, the neighbor kids and their dog hauled ass home looking back over their shoulders like a chupacabra was on their tail, I about fell out of my chair laughing.
Did my little spiel at the Community Action Board meeting today, and it was well received, in fact, they want me to develop a Facebook page and then coach them through Twitter,(I barely understand that one myself), and then be in charge of it. I have time for that right now, but in the Fall I am going to be taking 12-15 hours o graduate level cousework and hopefully teaching a class or two, and I just dont know if I can committ the time for it. I love volunteering for them, and its nice to be around people who find me interesting and actually capable of doing something, but I have also had some epic arguments with others in that department and they dont like having legal precedent and case law and that kind of stuff thrown at them, so I may have to find a second to run things if I get my Southern up like I did when I was a paid employee.
It was another cold, windy, day up here and because I had to go to my formal meeting and present, I dressed in my finest black jeans and my black banded collar shirt and I made sure all the tattoos were covered, though I did finally break down and wear my damn glasses, so it kinda skewed the whole look into the East German touist vibe again,and that is not conducive to meeting any elgible males. The young fella that I am interested in was a work all day, and my shcedule was all messed up, so it appears that it is going to be a chronic case of the forces moving against us. I did go turn in the rest of the papers over the University to get my funding reinstated, but I am not going to go this Summer, I want the chance to travel, and if I do get the opportunity I dont want classes to hold me back.
I think I need to get more exercise.I am skinny as hell and the size 1 jeans fit me fine other than I do not get why jeans makers feel the need to cut the waist so damn low! I really dont enjoy having my backside in the wind up here, and if I have to squat down or work on something where I am hunkered down, it never fails that one of the dang kids drops something cold down the coin slot or tries to give me a wedgie! Im 41 years old, I am the wedgie inflicter, not the receiver!
Looks like its going to be a summer of taking the kids to movies just about every dang week. They were so excited to see an ad for The Last Airbender, they came running into the living room whooping and hollaring and they jumped on me and knocked my dang chair over backwards! Then they started ,'Earthbending" and "Air Bending" and staging mock battles in the lving room,(makes it really damn hard to write), and telling me that I had to take them. Stubby is all bummed that his dad shaved off his ,"Sokka Doo", I dont think he could stand the fact that I could and did, comb it into a wicked mohawk for the kid on occasion and it was adorable, but with the way Stubbys hair curls forward, it was getting to be a pain and I guess he just found it easier. Sticky really misses his, and he seems to be cussing and growling a lot more than usual, and he damn sure is fighting me over what he is going to wear every day, it took all I had to get him in clean underwear and shoes today, but I won and he was pissed and we ended up having a brawl in the back of the van on the way to school because Stevie dared to sing along with the 100 Monkeys song that Sticky has claimed as his,(Reaper), and he yelled at her to shut up and she threw a book at him and he just went for her, and the next thing you know, all three of them were rolling around in the back of the van, kicking,spitting, throwing punches and acting like a pack of wild animals. I had to pull over and threaten to seatbelt check the lot of them, so its no wonder that some mornings I get up, make my coffee, go sit on the porch and contemplate a vacation, but with the oldest coming home, I can only hope it will get better. I think he finds me to be a decent mom, I mean not too many of friends are willing to listen to the music he listens to most of the time,(emo/screamo),but I try and I show him some of my stuff and we have things to talk about, but we also have things to argue about.Considering I am pretty liberal when it comes to a grown ass persons choice of ,"Partners",I would ahve thought that my son would have developed a fairly calm attitude about me giving up on guys my age, but he is adamant that I should,"Act my age" and not even look at the younger set,but he has no problem with men dating younger women. Im sure we will have some interesting debates when he gets home, but until then I am going to try and raise myself out of this lethargy and get out and do something worthwhile.

Dear Roger, I Need a Man,a Motocycle And The Hell Out Of Flagstaff

I am beginning to wonder if Spring is ever going to really arrive here in the frozen North! I mean,FUCK! its the middle of Goddamned MAY and we are supposed to get more snow over the next couple of days! I had thought we would be done with all of this mess, I mean my traditional Spring bout of last gasp of the schoolyear, kiddie plague has seen fit to strike right as I am supposed to give a presentation in front of the C.A.B. meeting on Tuesday, but apparently I am in the early stages of Strep Throat and I have lost my voice and I feel like crap. Of course you know this would strike right as I am getting prepared to go chasing after the 23 year old, so I am now officially miserable.
I want to get back to Texas so badly for the oldest 2 kids graduation,but considering my financial situation, it doesnt look like that is going to happen. It never fails, I always have some fiscal disaster right as I really need spare cash for something important, and my last months gas bill kicked my bank accounts ass. This month is going to be a little smaller, but still close to 300 bucks, largely because Sticky has an obsession with twisting the thermostat, and some mornings I have gotten up and found it set on the far end and the dogs have decided to try and climb into the fridge to escape the sauna.
I have been writing more over the past couple of days, but I still havent killed him.I wrote up to the curve in the road and then my migraines got to the point that I thought I was going to pull my scalp off and shove my eyeballs through the back of my head. I had started making chapter notes for the progressions, and I managed to pick up after the fact and I am having a lot of success working on the story past that point, but killing him and the immediate after is really an exercise in masochism. The muse that is the older version of the character really helps to push it along, even though the story has some pretty dark themes, but because the pictures that I use is of him smiling, it helps to add some lightness to it in places where things were actually pretty crazy. Sometimes as a writer, I feel like I am speaking an entirely different language than most normal humans,but hell! When have I ever been a ,"Normal" human? Ive been working on some sketches for a sculpture design that I threw out to my ex a few years ago, and I am really wishing I had the capabilities to get it built because I have quite a few sculptures in my head that would really be fantastic installation pieces for some public place, but when you combine giant pine beams,wrought Iron and blown glass as well as running waters, you have to have bucks to bring that kind of stuff to fruition, and I may just have to content myself with my sketches, but you never can tell.
Im a little fed up with the weather, the near constant wind is drying everything out and we will be in High Alert status again in no time if it keeps up,because that damn wind just sucks the life out of everything.
My social occasions look to be few and far between for the next few months, just as I had anticipated, my ex wants to visit the kids when it offers him the least amount of inconveniance, so I am essentially functioning much as I did before he was released, he does the minimum, I am supposed to be the one in charge of every damn thing everydamn time. He has a couple of job leads in the works, but the money he has been paid so far has gone to his Parole fees and extraneous fees and expenses, and on occasion he has bought a gallon of milk or so for the kids. Its very ironic that I am giving a presentation on how Social Networking and resources like Twitter, can and the ability to access them for the poor are essential for rebuilding a sense of connection with the community and helping to give equal access to resources that in many places, only the rich can afford, Im flat assed broke, yet I will go in there tomorrow and discuss this issue with the board and try to persuade them to move away from only allowing funding for land-line phone lines, which limit the ability of the poor, to keep mobile while they are job hunting or attending school.Hell, in some places up on the Rez, they dont even have access to phone lines, and getting the funding switched to prepaid cell phones messaging so that the holder can get tweets about jobs would allow them to be out and looking in person or attending school, and the cost is comparable to a land line and monthly service and you get less services with a land line. The other board members also want me to give them a brief orientation to Twitter and the differences between it and Facebook,(honestly,some have noo clue),and if all goes well, I can start getting them to shift to a more user friendly was of disseminating the funds that we have been placed in charge of, but changing rich peoples attitudes about the poor is never easy, its simply astonishing how many of them think the only poor in this country are ghetto welfare queens and illegal immigrants, they forget that there are some that end up poor due to circumstances, and can even have Masters Degrees and may have never been an addict of any sort. I am the token bright,shiny poor person that also has the caveat of being a Domestic Violence survivor,parent of a child with Downs Syndrome and just about any other social train wreck you could imagine, but I clean up pretty good and I can string words together in a cogent manner, so I love to sneak up on some of the more arrogant privilaged and blow their assumptions out of the water. Being a social activist does have its moments, and I dont really fit the mold, after all, sanctimony really pisses me off, and I do not tell people what to eat or how to dress or anything like that,and I get really annoyed when people try to harass me about my habits, I guess that whole growing up in Texas and hanging out with you in the summers really made me a bit of an enigma.I value children over dogs, though I love my dogs very much.I wont buy a Hybrid because I dont believe in becoming a wage slave to a car company and those damn things just look stupid, and again, back to the Texan thing,my self-image is just a little wrapped up in my ride and I would rather drive a shitty old truck than a shiny new nerd wagon, but I dont drive as much as many people and I am a conserving wild woman. I put 2 tanks of gas in my crappy ride each month and it lasts me. I would prefer to get a cycle for the summer and let the ex use the van for driving the kids around.I miss having a motorcycle, and now that the kids are getting bigger, the desire for getting one is getting stronger.Now I realize that everyone freaks out over the whole,'racing the train across the crossing" thing, but that was over a decade ago and the constant weather changes up here remind me that my bones and joints are paying the price for my motorcycle issues, and I dont intend to date a biker because I.Dont. Ride.Bitch,if I am going to be on a bike, I am going to be in control of the fun.

Dear Roger,Technology, Friend? Enemy? Thing that Can Make You Swear And Throw Things.

I am damn sure not as young as I used to be.Since arriving back from my adventure in the valley of the sun, I have had to spend the past two days recovering from a an almost non-stop attack of suicide migraines, and pretty much all I have wanted to do is sleep, so I think we have ascertained that Vodka and Long Island Iced Teas are most certainly NOT in my future, though as we both know, Vodka at least figure very prominently in my past.I dont know if I would call it an all lose/lose scenario, I had a good time and I let loose a little bit and apparantly I tried to buy a waiter and told another that since I had the glass of Chianti, and we were in an Italian restaurant, I was sure I could find some fava beans, so he should just come on over and see if we could find something to do with all that.My friends were just a little horrified that I was chasing the youngsters,after all, I have had it with the guys my age and I guess that I just finally decided to quit looking quietly and act on it. I got a message the other day through my Facebook where some random guy asked me,"Whats your type of man?" and I almost sarcastically responded,"Alive,concious,functioning,employed,and capable of at least some speech", but I didnt, in fact I havent responded yet because I am really not quite sure what my type is anymore, its almost easier to describe what I wouldnt like.I dont like lazy men or men who dont care about how they look,(though the overly preened metro-sexual is also a turn off),I dont really like the businessman/stockbroker type, they just kinda bore me, though the buttoned down British guy in a suit just gives me all kinda chills because I want to take them out, muss them up and set them loose when im done.Guys like Woody Allen creep me the hell out and inspire me to violence.I kinda have a thing for Brits and Native Americans.I could care less about their financial situation, but they have to have motivation and drive and I like a man to be intelligent,articulate, or to at least aspire to achive more. I mean, hell! I have dated the Mensa member, Rocket Scientist and we had a good run and it was fun because he could not only carry on a conversation in 12 different languages, he could dance,sing, play violin concertos by ear and the man KNEW ROMANCE, but after a while, it just reached a point in the relationship where we just got tired of constantly one-upping each other. I was married to the handsome yet mercurial,international minor league soccer player who was built like a brick out house and could charm the socks off a squrriel, but we were like nitro and a bumpy road and bones were broken, so that was best left in the past, but that curly hair and green eyes and those dimples... but jocks and my temperment do not blend well, because we end up comparing scars and then adding to each others collections.My other ex was almost as bad, the broody/tortured artist that longs to be a biker yet struggles to achieve...anything was 10 years of 'artistic differences", he found it more compelling to constantly criticize me than to try and achieve anything else, and we ended up in the newspaper more than once. Artistic temperment is a difficult thing to deal with, im a perfectionist by nature, judgemental and arrogant, but I am also seemingly going in reverse when it comes to maturity. My sense of humor is more like that of a 12 year old and I love mosh pits and indie bands and I do not dress, act or(so I am told) behave my age. I am actually kinda chasing a young man that I was close to a while back, but when he lost his job, I thought he had left town and he thought I had left town,so we had lost contact with each other,it turns out,he is still here and he was just as happy to run into me as I was to run into him, and if not for an irritating deputy sheriff who felt the need to keep traffic flowing, we would have exchanged numbers and probably more,but as it was, I had to settle for yelling to him that I was still at my home and that he was in fact welcome to come by! I have liked this guy for a couple of years, and we used to flirt back and forth really hard, to the point that my eldest son told us to,'Get a room" one day, so the feelings were pretty interesting to say the least, and the only reason I did not ever really try and follow up on them is because he is only 23.Yes, thats right, 23! Almost half my age, and that used to really bother me, but lately, I have to say that it doesnt anymore. Im in good shape, I own my own house and I dont need a man to take care of me, and I would prefer a COMPANION instead of someone trying to take care of me, so hell, it might be fun, and we all know I love to create a scandal for the family, dating a guy almost half my age would be epic. Im sure my son would be just a little horrified, after all he is completely grossed out and disturbed by the fact that I have pictures of the Twilight hotties as a screensaver, but damn! I have always appreciated good looking men, even if they are just pups. So I guess I would have to say that my type is an ever evolving creature, though probably a little younger than I would have thought in the past.
Ive been enjoying playing with technology this week,through Youtube and Twitter I was introduced to some really cool new indie bands and some really funky cool music that I have loved sharing with friends. I have been Tweeting up a storm about all kinds of random things and I have found resources for my book.
My novel comes in fits and starts, I wrote over 10 pages on my trip and I reached the point in the story where the boy is about to die, and now I have vaporlocked with pain. I know it is because I am reliving his death in a way that is making it so difficult, and though I am able to let him live on in the story as the character evolves into the ,'Half", its still so God-damned painful to remember his death that I have been falling apart the further down the road his truck goes. I want to stop it and turn it around and send him off on some boyish foolishness,but he died before cell phones were around and no one can call him and tell him to come back or warn him of the drunk bastard careening towards him. Being that I am also writing it from his first-person perspective is also brutal, and that I think is the masochist in me. I have developed the relationship between him and the girl in the story a little more, and "Half" will age in the afterlife as she lives her normal span, but spilling out all the pain and brutality of his death is a gut wrenching experience. A friend from back home sent me a picture of the boy that "Half" is based on, and it struck me how clearly and accurately I had remembered his face, and that my son is now at that age. I have done little writing on it over the past couple of days, and the blog I wrote earlier in the week was lost when for some strange reason my computer decided to randomly restart, but apart from that, I hope to find a quiet place to recommit a nearly 30 year old murder and then move on with the story.

Dear Roger, Things That I Shouldnt Do Anymore

Ohhh Roger, Around 10 years ago I swore off hard liquor, and I thought it was for a good reason,mainly because I really liked to do too many things that started with an,"F" when I was drunk, foremost amongst them was fighting,and since I am a small person and many of those I tried to fight with were quite large, I decided that constantly picking fights under with influence of intoxicants was probably not a good way to continue. Also, I had suffered a rather serious encounter with acute alcohol poisining, and I had gone from someone who could handle 11 Alabama Slammers, to a 2 beer drunk, and there was just no fun in any of that, so I had written off the indulgence of slopping around with other lushes, not to mention the fact that it plays hell with someone who has Celiacs disease, being that I dont have the normal lining of my gut to handle the absorbition rate, so I get trashed almost as fast as I drink the stuff, and then you factor in the other meds I take and I am a walking visit to the E.D. waiting to happen, but I figured, Hell, I have been bound up, tied up and wallowing in misery for all this time, im going out of town where I will be away from everyone who knows me, my kids and all responsibility, lets cut loose just a little bit. I indulged, just a little, some wine, a couple of Long Island Iced Teas, and so on, and I unleashed a beast that probably had been chomping at the insides of me for a long, long time.
I wont say I didnt have fun.I loved cutting loose and acting in a bit of a shameless manner. I flirted with younger men and probably made a bit of an ass of myself, but I had a blast doing it. I killed some pain, rode around in a car way nicer than anything I can afford, stayed in a resort suite that costs more than anything I could ever afford, and I ate a $27.00 steak! Thats all a big fucking deal to me because all the last 10 years to me have been about deprivation and doing without and nobody giving a damn about me wanting to have fun.Nobody knew who the hell I was, but they knew I was pretty damn funny and I made people laugh, including myself. I slept in a fancy ass bed, and I hung out with a Hopi chic that gave me alternating Indian names depending on what the heck was going on in the day, and she thought it was funny as hell how I nailed the Hopi accent, and it was nice to be able to talk to her and hang out as just two friends who related on many levels without all the bull shit of worrying about offending each other over our differences. Her youngest son and my oldest son have the same name, and we both found that to be pretty cool, and we have the same struggles with being imperfect people trying to be perfect parents, and we became friends with plans for her to come to the Celtic Fest with me this year where I am going to see about her becoming an honorary member of my clan, and shes gonna teach me how to make Pikki bread and thats worth more than freaking gold.
The alcohol fueled foolishness was self-indulgent, and self-abusive, but it was also a good reminder of why I dont do it, because I was pretty freaking sick after I did it, but not hung over, I was just sick as in pain. I do like the flavor of Long Island Iced Teas, but they lead to some fuckery that I am not sure the breadth of at this point, but my friends called it a,'Mind fuck intervention", though considering that they are both a little on the "She-woman man hater persuasion", I am not sure that was a good thing. I was poured into my bed, my cell phone locked away in the room safe, and I was told it was "for my own good", and I really hope it was, but at this point I have a headache, a gut ache and a vague feeling of unease.

Dear Roger,They Call Us Older Women Cougars? Its The Young Ones That Are Predatory!

Rog, you know that saying,"When you have a boy rejoice because all you have to worry about is one dick, because when you have a girl you have to worry about all the rest of them."?Well, I think the worm has turned when it comes to that saying,(so to speak), because the young women of today are waay more forward and seemingly predatory than I ever thought of being, and my son has become the new prey of some of these young ,"Cougars". I am one of those moms that actually pays attention to what goes on in their childrens lives, and as such, I occasionally peruse his online accounts and read through what people write to him about his pictures and while I knew he had been getting hit on quite a bit by a wide variety and age ranges of girls, I was absolutely floored by some of the comments and the suggestive nature that they had.I dont expect him to remain ever a virgin, but for Monkeys sake!, hes only 14, and while I may have accepted the fact he has become acquainted with himself, I am not ready for him to be involved with anyone else, though by the comments of some of the young girls, they are damn sure wanting him to put forth the effort! I realize that teen girls are beasts, and I remember being one, even though my teen years are far,far behind me, but some of the worst are not even teens and where he is at in Texas, they bury young men under the prisons for that kind of mess.Its just amazing all the comments that the girls have posted about my baby, they have called him things like,'Hot" and "Sexy" and other things that made me want to wash my eyes and brains out with bleach, after I went and found the young girls parents and showed them just what their daughter was saying about a boy! I know my son wants to be an actor, and I know its supposed to be a brave new world and all that rot, but dammit!!He has had girls constantly bombarding him with attention since they were old enough to figure out he was a boy, but now it has reached the point if insanity and its starting to really worry me and while I am glad he is a healthy and happy and hetereo, male,(because I know how difficult Robert had it being gay),his phone constantly rings,his web pages are constantly getting comments on them, and girls fight over him! I do not ever remember fighting over a boy, and while there were some I really liked, I never found any worth fighting over, and none worth constantly harassing like he is getting from all the girls, and yet anothe thing I have to wonder is ,'Where the hell are the parents of these girls? Do they not know what their daughters are up to? My small daughter makes one off-hand comment about Peter Facinelli being,"Pretty" and thus she thinks that automatically equals,'Nice" or like an "Angel" and I freak out and turn it into a lesson on how while he might very well,be a nice guy, she doesnt know him and "Pretty" guys are not always "nice guys", and I probably took the whole comment waay beyond what her 6 year old mind ment it, but dammit! Im a mom and thats my JOB! All men are Danger Will Robinson! I love the fact that she still likes being a princess ballerina and Hello Kitty and wearing fancy dresses, yet I am seeing her beginning to develop an edge and that partially having older brothers, partially having a life that hasnt been all sunshine and butterflies, and partially the fact that she is seriously brilliant and fucking Gifted, as in spooky smart. I was talking to her father on Sunday about not being able to sleep, and that my insomnia was making me a little crazy, and jokingly I hummed a few bars of the 100 Monkeys song,"Keep Awake" and she giggled and looked at her dad and in perfect pitch she took off with that song and sang the freaking song to him! I didnt even realize she knew all the damn words in perfect pitch! We both sat there with our jaws bouncing off the floor and she just hopped up when she was done and danced away like,"No big deal". I guess it shouldnt suprise me that she is the lead instigator on the raids in the kitchen and on the chocolate supplies, but she is still my little girl and I will end any S.O.B. that tried to treat her as anything other than my princess, so im the same way with all my kids, this hyper-vigilant, psychotically over-protective, want to keep the assholes, monsters and freaks away from the door, even if they are 10-20 year old females who are chasing my more than willing to comply, 14 year old son. I never dreamed I would be having to find out if the whole,"My parent used to be a cop" thing works on girls.

Dear Roger,Control Freak?Whats Wrong With That?

Rog,being an artist yourself, you understood my control freak tendencies because you had them yourself, and in fact I probably inherited mine from you,and I have to say that if you were around in todays times, you would probably be like me, loving and hating the hold that technology has taken on the arts! Now, I can remember when,"A Nightmare Before Christmas" first came out,(Ali,I am sorry to say remembers it well too,and is still traumatized but how the hell was I to know a child would be terrified of the ghost dog?)and I was absolutely enchanted and in love with the stop action animation, and I decided that I wanted to do whatever it took to be able to do that kind of work.I loved the possibilities and all the artistry involved in bringing the creatures to life, and in all the horror movies of my youth, everything was craftwork and skill, not computers and pixels and mindless digital manipulation. Photography, my art, was the same way, I used my clunky old Pentax K1000 with all the manual lenses and I did all my developing by hand and I CONTROLLED EVERTHING, but now its a different world, HELL, you cannot even hardly find the film anymore and everyfreakingthing is digital this and digital that and,"Photoshopped" and manipulated by computer until even a 6 year old can take crap pictures and make them look decent. I spent the day photographing some of my ex-husbands jewelry and metal-smithing work so that he could get it ready to sell, and I spent more than half my time fighting with the damn camera I have, trying to get it to quit making decisions for me and turning on the damn flash when I didnt want flash, or just going weird. I set up my own lighting and shadowing and tried to get things to work, but shiny,silver jewelry with all kinds of different shadows to deal with as well as limited time, made the whole affair very frustrating, but I did finally manage to get a few shots to turn out for him, and hopefully they will work.I also borrowed a few pieces of his stuff to wear for my trip out of town, because even though I was never much of jewelry wearer in the past,I find myself enjoying wearing certain pieces,and even though he frustrates and occasionally stresses me out and sends my anxiety and even anger levels to the point of me needing to either go and hide in my room and decompress or just leave all together, we are both trying to make peace for the sake of the children and the kids are much happier when he is able to come by and see them without me making it difficult.I know I hold the cards,and I have women that think I am insane for being so accomodating after all that has gone on, but they are not living our lives and they dont see my 6 year old daughter who worships her daddy, and vice/versa. He has been punished, he lost it all, and I am a beliver in restorative justice and atonement, he has done his time, he has apologized to me, he is working on atoning to me for what happened, and we have an uneasy peace, I will achieve nothing by destroying his relationship with his children.He is a gifted artist and I hope that by helping him he will someday find the ability to support himself and eventually be able to help support the children, but until then I just keep on keeping on as best I can without expectation other than he try.
Coming from two parents who have artistic temperments,and with artists running so strongly in the background of the family, I realize that my kids are somewhat screwed in their career options. I would dearly love to have a "doctor" or "engineer" or something practical come our of my childrens mouths when they are asked what they want to be when they grow up, but NOOOOOOO, of course not, not my kids, so far I have produced a brilliant elder daughter that also wants to be a writer, my eldest son that want to be an actor/musician, another son that wants to be a professional sports soccer star,(if he ever stops peeing on the field),another son that wants to play video games professionally, and small daughter that wants to be an artist/actress, so while I have faith and love of my children, I also realize that you pretty much have to be born into the glitterati nowdays, and my kids are light years away from that life,(THANK GOD), and I try to encourage them to have contingency plans such as medical school or engineering school or something to keep them out of the unemployment lines as they get older, but its also kind of funny at times navigating all the high tone personalities.
The "Stinky Princess" or small daughther is like an elf, she is tiny and etheral, with her long, blonde, curly hair that hangs to her waist and her dimples that seem to constantly show, even when she is enraged at her brothers or me for some slight.She is constantly amazing me with her grace and the way she moves and pirouettes around the house, and she seems to always be dancing about or singing, and she is the most opinionated child I have ever known!Her clothes have to be just SO, and she wears dresses and skirts and fancy dress up wear every day, and if I dont get her hair just right, its as if the world has ended, and her frustration with me is neverending.She has even made fun of me and harassed me into getting rid of a pair of my jeans, telling me that they made my ass look huge!What kind of 6 year old tells a mom that jeans make their ass look huge? She alo hates my boots, but she knows thats a losing battle.She designs all kinds of books and stories and she watched Romeo and Juliet with me and got the story and even cried at the end, and she sits and looks pictures with me on my computer as I read the news and she makes comments about men,some mature for her age referring to some as ,"Really cute" or even,"really pretty, he must be an angel" prompting a talk about how good looks dont always mean nice, but I dont know the guy I just wanted her to have a heads up early, pretty guys arent always nice guys, OH Lord do I know!,but she is smart and she will figure it out really quick I am sure.
All the artistic personalities make for lots of temper fits and demands on my time and refereeing, and with my oldest son coming home in a month, I have a feeling its going to get even more dramatic, because he is at the age where he walking hormones and add that into the fact is he a huge jock, and wants to be an actor and he has girls crawling all over him due to his curly hair, dimples, blue eyes and eyelashes and cheekbones that most women would kill for, I have a feeling that my phone is never going to be seen again, and I am going to finally go totally grey. I am hoping that between either lacross,rugby,football,or some form of sports,as well as the local theater troop and his bagpipe and guitar lessons, he will stay so damn busy that he wont have time to get into any shenanigans, but just in case I have plans to try and keep him pretty closely supervised for his own safety because he already has no less than 5 girls back here eagerly awaiting his arrival, and I shudder to think the amount of women he has dated back in Texas!I wonder if I can still take him down, when he left I could still pin him and almost outrun him, but now hes bigger than me and I have no doubt he could outrun me.I just hope that the doctor that assessed him when he was a baby was wrong, because while he is a reasonable size now at 5'9 and 150 with size 12 shoes, he is already complaining about being hungry all the time and achy, and if the growth spurt I was told to expect, hits him, I will be trying to feed and deal with an over 6'6 teen thats a bit of a diva by the time hes 16, and I dont even know where to find shoes to fit monsters that big, so one of my kids better hit it big, and not just in size.

Dear Roger, It Only Gets Stranger

Well crap! It seems that I am at the start of an run of extreme insomina,and let me tell you,if you thought I was a bit intense as my normal state of being, you ought to see me sleep deprived. Normally I average 4-5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, and I function pretty well on that,but for some reason I did not sleep last night,not even a cat nap.I was wide awake all night long and unable to shut my brain down, so I watched horror movies, read and went outside and tried to get the damn herd of elk to leave so that my crazy assed dogs would shut up and quit annoying the entire neighborhood.My kid were wondering why the dogs kept freaking out and barking constantly,and they insisted that I go out and check to see why and if there were any monsters out lurking in the yard.My kids know that I have my own mom monster slayer credo and it goes as thus,"Yea though I walk through the valley of death,I will fear no evil,monster,skunk,werewolf,vampire or spider because I am the meanest and toughest mom in the valley".I am the designated monster slayer,spider killer and mouse wrangler and I am allowed to fear nothing, even though they may occasionally startle me and elicit a girly squee, I will rally and thrash them with whatever weapon I can wrangle up. But the bachelor herd of bull elk that I encountered in my yard is a whole nuther story! I am 5 feet tall, and in my doggie print jammies with with my fuzzy slippers, I weigh around 103, and even though I may feel tough, those elk were not only taller than me, they outweighed me and they were armed! I stomped my feet at them and yelled ,'SCAT"! and they stomped their feet at me and said,"Get your goofy ass back in the house', and I got. Thats another reason I gave up gardening up here because not even Fergus will mess around with a pissed off horny,herd of bachelor elk that are looking for some meal and tail. They can weigh over 800lbs and they can jump my 6ft fence like its a joke, so they are like Bambi Rambos.
I stayed up and watched a few horror movies, but really there wasnt much good on last night, so I resorted to watching youtube videos and reading more than anything. I ended up talking to some folks about my favorite horror movies and what I considered the scariest vampire movie of all time, and even though it started a huge arguement, I told them that for ME, on a personal level,"30 Days of Night" and the original "The Thing" creeped the hell out of me! I love being scared, and those hit all the marks for me because if you can imagine, I live in a place where we got 12 feet of snow, often in 3-4ft storms, im often pretty isolated when those storms hit, and when I watched those movies, I was a single mom, home alone in the wee hours with my children asleep in a rickety old house out in the country, all the neighbors were gone for the holidays, we were getting huge back to back blizzards and the power had been blinky so I had been keeping the wood stove banked up, and it was a creeepy night to being with, where the snow clouds muted all the sounds of the world surrounding me and everything seemed to have just abandoned us. I was sitting in my living room with the lights off, watching that damn vampire movie around 2 am and when it finally ended, I realized I had to go out to the woodpile to get more firewood to get us through the rest of the night. It was that night I discovered that I had Superwoman like skills and that I could make it from my porch to the woodpile and back with an armload of wood in 2 massive leaps! I swear Rog, if someone had spoken to me or if a dog had barked or something, I would have probably needed new sweatpants and snowboot liners and my shriek would still be echoing in those mountains! Its a good movie that can do that to me. The Grudge is another on that gets under my skin and it really freaks my sister right the hell out, and for years after she saw that one I could call her up and imitate the sound of that cat in the wee hours and she would just start cussing me. Im a bit of a snob when it comes to horror movies, and I will watch pretty much anything, but slasher movies really dont do much for me, and I tend to not allow those around my kids even if I watched them when I was younger. I have a horror of knives and razors, and my ex used that against me when it all went down, and I still cannot handle movies that have a lot of realistic tension and knife work, and Sweeney Todd is not something that I can watch easily and I consider it horror, but the Twilight I consider fantasy/romantic fiction, so stuff that stresses out most normal people I just go, 'eh"?I like thinking horror movies, and ones that have a good looking guy in them, even if he is a psychopath, so im really looking forward to some that are coming out in the next few months.
Im tired to the point of jumpiness now, and driving in town today was an interesting experience due to all the tourists and family members of graduating seniors in town for NAU Graduation. I swear I got behind every brain damaged sheep that was lost and incapable of reading street signs in the cosmos and the fact that I had Rammestein blasting on the stereo and blasting in my head, was not helping matters much, but I needed something to keep me awake and alert so I could complete my mission of going to Sams club, getting the groceries that the kids and the ex will need and then getting back home in one piece.My German is really getting pretty good,I sing along with quite a few of the songs, and thought I get some odd looks, its fun to work out some of the stress by rocking out, but I have found that I am not allowed to headbang and fistslam around Fergus, he gets really anxious and tends to either try and take me down or get in the middle of me first or ask guestions later. he is a strange dog, and he does not like me acting out of character and he will let me know to ,'Cut the weird crap"! He is already asleep in his pile of doggy beds, but the minute he hears me move, he gets up and comes over and puts his head on my arm as if he is checking on me. When I went through my week long jag of struggling to sleep, he was constantly at my side and it seemed as if he was watching for a seizure, and I have no doubt he would make an excellent seizure dog, and he is great when I have my worst headaches, and I know he is an excellent second in command, even if he doesnt like werewolf movies, he will just go hang out with small daughter like he usually does.

Dear Roger,Disease,Fire,Apocalypse?No,its just another week in Arizona

Rog, Now I know why you didnt have kids of your own, the little critters are like walking petrie dishes of bacteria and foulness at times and they really pack some germs that kick some adult ass.This week has been then week from hell! Sticky managed to bring home some form of intestinal bug that made him spew shit and vomit all over the front bathroom and his bedroom.I awoke to Fergus freaking out and wanting out of the damn house, several times, so I think it even effected him, but since I was at a state of exhaustion and medicated with headache meds,I was groggy enough that I didnt notice anything until I awoke at 0500 to the most disgusting smell of baked shit. It turns out that my son had managed to somehow vomit all over the front bathroom and crap into the heating register, and let me tell you, that is a special aroma unto itsself.Its a good thing I worked in law enforcement and as a death investigator and handled decomped bodies and did autopsies on all nature of ickyness, because I think I would have otherwise just packed up the kids and dogs and tossed a match into the room. But since I dont get grossed out or freaked out by anything anymore, I had to deal with the clean up. Having kids helps you develop a strong stomach,and the types of work I have done leaves me more inclined to pick apart the stuff I see in movies rather than be disgusted or freaked out by it, I mean, after all I have had to pick through a bowl of someones bits to find a bullet before, and considering that they had been dead in the Arizona sun for a week, it was not a happy, fun, venture. Stickys fiasco in the front bathroom about put me over though.I had to scrub down a kid that was still urping and spewing both ends and try to get him re-settled, deal with 2 other kids that were both feeling ill due to the bug and the smell and pissed that they were going to miss school field trips and disgusted with their brother for his fouling of the kids bathroom, all before I had even one cup of coffee.
If the day did not start off interesting enough,the State,(in their infinite wisdom) decided to send a couple of welders to work on a stock tank on a plateau above my house without adequate supervision, and they set off a really nice wildfire and it looked like we might have to evacuate for awhile. The fire is still burning and has even jumped 89, but hopefully with the wind being mellow today, it will get put out before it turns back towards thicker fuel and my house.The wind yesterday was blowing up to 50 mph gusts and actually I thought the fure was a so-called "Controlled Burn" as the Forest circus calls them, or as us homeowners call them,"Make damn sure your insurance is up to date burns" because they always seem to wait until the wind is blasting at insane levels before they light one off.
The kids and I have just piled up on either my bed or on the couches in the living room, watching the Underworld Trilogies and Vampire movies, arguing about who is the most bad ass or powerful, and laughing at our goofy cat that seems to have totally lost her mind due to the growls of werewolves blasting out of the surround sound. She jumped to the top of the bookshelf in the living room, and poofed out her fur,yowling and looking freaked out until I muted it for a second and then she took off down the hall.The dogs dont seem to enjoy it either, but Fergus has had a more interesting reaction, ever my protector; the big ole beast has stationed himself at my right side and occasionally whines and growls when the battles go on and he gets all worked up and tries to get into my lap when I get a little to animated at the battle scenes or argue with Stubby about who is the more ,'Wicked/badass" of the supernaturals. Having kids with above average intelligence can be both a blessing and a curse sometimes,blessing in that we can have some really interesting and in-depth conversations about things like supernatural mythology and what is the more powerful critter,and even movie-making technology and special effects, but a curse in the fact that I cannot get away with much anymore, they just do not accept,"Because I said so" as a reason, they question me, and even my so-called ,"Special needs, crap in the heater vent" kid, challenges me to think outside the box. Sticky was playing video games yesterday and I distinctly heard him say,"Bloody freaking Hell would you DIE already?" as he was shooting at some alien creature. I just froze in my tracks as I was making my way down the hall and I stepped into his room and told him that he shouldnt talk like that, and he looks at me and says,'Why?" and I told him that its not nice and hes not British so he really cant talk that way, so he should stop,(we really need to lay off the Monty Python and such), but he wasnt going to let it go and he says again,'Why?" and hes not being a smart ass because even though he is above average for a kid with Downs Syndrome, he still has limits to what he understands, its like navigating a mine field on a broken pogo stick talking around him, you never know what he is going to retain and parrot back to someone at the worst possible time.
My baby girl has spent the past couple of days painting brilliant watercolor paintings and coming out to watch the ,'Scary, naked, werewolf dude" on occasion with me and her brothers.All the kids bail during any sex scenes on my command, so they dont see really any nudity, but anybody with their shirt off equal naked to her, thus the label.My kids all run around in nothing but their chone's most of the time,so its kind of ironic that she considers shirts off as ,'naked", but my kids are weird. I have gotten them to keep their clothes on in public a little better, though Sticky is still the worst about stripping down to nothing the minute we arrive home in the afternoon, and the cold still doesnt bother him like most kids, so I have had to retrieve him from the front yard, out in the snow clad only in boxers and snow boots more than once this winter, I dont know where he gets the desire to be naked all time, but I hope he outgrows it before he gets much bigger and I have to wrestle him down to dress him more than I already do.
Ive been writing a little, but working on my school paperwork and dealing with my infernal economic issues has kept pen from hand much of this week, its hard to really focus on my writing when keeping food on the table is a more pressing issue.I have sought a job from time to time this week, but it is not an easy endevour in this town,of nearly 20% unemployment, and im considered over-educated, over-qualified, and due to my misanthropic tendencies I am rather difficult to place. I have considered going back to teaching,but that will not be feasible until school starts back up in August. I am working on some art, mainly stonework and necklaces, so perhaps I will sell some of that to pay a few bills.
My counselor has been probing into some of my mental fuckery that goes beyond my PTSD,or perhaps is even connected to another event, but she started digging into a wound that has not healed for close to 30 years, and that was the death of that boy in East Texas that crushed me soo totally.I guess grief and mourning are things that when not handled properly, really fuck you up at a fundamental level, because when she poked that wound by asking about the first man I ever loved, my heart felt like it burned as I choked out his name, and it was a good 5 minutes before I could unclench my jaw enough to tell the entire story about his death, and I could not get out all of it without feeling like I was gasping for the very breath of life and failing to find it.I had bloody half-moons in the palms of my hands from where my fingernails dug into them as I attempted to not break completely down during the tale,and I failed, I cried as she sat there gently coaxing my memories out of me and I realized that I have never been allowed to grieve for anyone I have lost, including you and though I cannot allow myself to wallow in the misery that is loss, I have to find a way to resolve all the pain and anguish that I have felt over the years,because one of these days the game of chicken that I have been playing with death is going to end, and its not going to be in my favor.I asked a friend of mine to find his resting place, and she did, so I may have to take a trip home to Texas this summer, just to resolve some of the pain.I need to tell him how much I miss him and what he ment to me, and now that the man who murdered him is finally dead, I need to show him how I feel.Guess a roadtrip is in order.

Dear Roger, Say What?

You know, I hate it when my parents are right about shit. You never really nagged me about how loud I listened to my music, because after being in your car with you a few times, I knew that not only did I come by my roadrage tendency honestly, I also realized that my need to not only hear but to feel the music probably came from you.I love my music so damn loud that I feel the vibration of it through my soul, and that has probably cost me just a little.From the mustang with the 12 speakers and the 1200 watt amp in the trunk that was heard before it was seen, to the Ozzy concert in '86 in Shreveport where I was stationed in front of that enormous stack of speakers that gave me the BEST show of my life but left me functionally deaf for over a week, to the years in ambulances and squad cars and on firing ranges with no or inadequate hearing protection, I have totally jacked up my damn hearing. It really stinks getting older, I mean not only do I have to deal with things trying to migrate to the Southern hemisphere, and errant grey hairs that pop up in the damndest places, but now my eyes bug me and I have realized that I often think that people mumble! I dont often admit I am getting older, and I really try not to act my age, after all, I enjoy many of the things that my kids enjoy and that helps to keep me young, but all the crap I did to my body when I was younger and convinced I was going to die before I was 30, has really come back to kick me in the ass. I have had a shoulder re-build, bone spurs removed out of my neck and shoulder, work done on my lower spine and facet injections in my spine and neck to keep the pain at a dull roar, and I need to have my left knee rebuilt and my right wrist and God knows what else, but I figure considering the motorcycle wrecks, the brawls, and all the mess I got into as a firefighter, its probably a small price to pay, but my hearing going is really bugging me and the damn tinnitus is maddening. I love my music, and I have gotten rid of vehicles that had cruddy sound systems just because I could not deal with not being able to listen to my tunes, its as important to me as reading and writing and I guess breathing. My kids are almost as bad, and if they are being punks in the morning or on the way home all I have to do is tell them,"NO MUSIC" and they straighten right the hell up. We even sing along. I hope to be able to take my oldest to his first concert pretty soon, and even though I may not hear it as well,I know I will feel it. I wish I had taken him to the Rob Zombie concert that we had up here a couple of years ago, I know we would have been down in the pit and I would have been waay more jacked up than I was once it was all over, but we would have had such a blast.
I am supposed to wear glasses nowadays, but let me tell you, wearing trifocals is a huge pain in the ass and half the damn time I feel like I am a little drunk due to the constant shifting between near/far and further away and its really disconcerting to try and look at someone through them, and frankly they make me look like a bit of a dork. When I wear one of my hats to keep the sun from blasting me, I look like some East German refugee, slumming around the Rez land on the prowl for some touristy action, so I dont wear them as much as I should. I still read waay more than normal people, and last month I probably put away over 40 books, and quite a few of a new genre called Fan Fiction which is a type of story that is based off of popular characters in a current series that other authors poach and then set in new stories, its not quite plagarism, but it comes pretty damn close in some cases, and it probably could not exist without the internet. I have learned some interesting things and new lingo while reading "fan Fiction" and some of it leaves me shaking my head, like a "Lemon" is a sex scene, a "Unicorn" is an orgasm, Slash is basically same sex, sex scenes and let me tell you Rog, those are often like bad car accidents, you dont want to look,but you cannot help yourself and afterwards you just feel kinda dirty and I dont think I will ever look at the Cullen boys the same again, but mostly what I read are original ideas and thats also what I am writing, so I feel clean, but its hard to find the time and space to get pen to paper this week, and I dont write my novel on the computer, Im a dinosaur when it comes to that, and its just how I roll. My muse has been in my mind, and I am aching to get some more of him out, but the kids are chomping at the bit for the end of the school year and they are not wanting to sleep or stop fighting or flush the tolites or leave the dogs alone or you name it.
Twittering is still a learning experience, I have found the most amazing people on there and I find it addicting and also therapeutic,I mean, I go for hours with no one to talk to, and Fergus is really tired of my talking to him, and when he tries to answer we both end up frustrated and drooled upon, so being able to get my random shit just thrown out into the universe where someone may or may not give a damn about it, is kinda fun. Its like Russian roulette without the potential committment.
The damn wind is blowing again and once again I totally screwed a chance to ask JR out. I suck, im a coward and I am never going to get any at this rate. On the bright side, I decided to give the Size 0 Oakely jeans to this nice gal that works at the store who is always kinda broke, shes young enough to not look ridiculous wearing them and I keep the potential embareASSment for my kids to a minimum.

Dear Roger,Getting Sprung

It was a GLORIOUS DAY! Holy cow, no wind, no snow, no rain, and it was a flat out sunny day where I knew I had to wear my sun glasses, so I broke out not only my biggest and baddest cop style shades, but I also wanted to get some sun on the body. I got my nicest size 3 jeans out, my black retro Phat Baby boots and I busted out a black wife beater and my black leather dominatrix leather vest to go with. I mussed my hair up very carefully and I headed to town. I dropped the kids at school, and I jammed all the way in, singing along with the Pixies,"Where is my mind" and even some Robert Earl Keen, just savoring being a free, adult, woman for a few moments. I went and saw my friend that I am going to Scottsdale with next week for a conference, and she was shocked and pleased to see the change in me. I am gearing up to fully slam into my return to the land of the living. I have FRIENDS, people I like and who I make contact with.I even have gotten over my aversion to physical contact and I bump fists and hug and sit next to people who bump into me and I dont cringe or jump away. I bump back and I laugh.
Parking the van downtown and getting out by myself and walking the street to Martans was both terrifying and empowering, I got FLIRTED WITH! He couldnt have been more than 24 or 25 and he was adorable, and a Texan, and I wish I had offered to buy him breakfast or something, but I just chatted at him for a few and them went on my way, but with a decided snap in my Victoria Secrets! I had a great breakfast and then I went to a shp looking for a heavy bag to buy so that I could have something to pummel and work out some of my physical stress and frustration, but it seems that there is not one to be found in this town right now.
I then went to the feed store to get things for the guinea pigs and to see if the Navajo man I have a massive crush on was at work, as well as to visit with my friend who is the owner of place, and sure enough, he was there and I promptly vapor locked when he smiled at me. I dont know if he knows I like him, I have tried to give him hints, and we have had a good friendship for a few years, but UGH! I really would like to take him out. He has the smokey good looks of Lou Diamond, the gravely voice of Wes Studi and he is just such a calming presence that I enjoy talking to him, but I get all stupid when it comes to trying to express to him the fact that I find him very interesting, so I had to cut short my visit with my friend and scat like a scalded cat before I embarassed myself by either falling into the bin of turkey chicks or running into the animal cages.
I came home and worked around the house a little and treated the wound on one of my St Bernards, she got hurt by her sister and her neck has still not healed because her sister keeps licking it and keeps it moiste, so I have had to put her on antibiotics,and clean it, but trying to treat a furry, hyper, hurting, drooly, monster while her twin does her best to get in your lap, means that a clothing change is in order. I did find out today that I can wear a size ZERO in Oakley jeans, holy crap Batmsn! I am 41 years old, I have birthed 5 babies, 4 of them the old fashioned way, I have jacked up my body in ways that are unimaginable to most normal people who are not crash test dummies, and I can wear a size ZERO! After I put them on, I stood there looking at them and I thought about it, and while I can wear them, it comes down to a judgement call. While I can totally rock the Oakleys, the question is ,Should I? they sit low on my butt and they look painted on, and the term ,'Coin Slot" definantly comes to mind. Does anyone want to see a 41 year old soccer mom from hell Victoria Secrets hanging out the back of her pants? I dont even have a tatto back there ...yet.

Dear Roger,My Kids Sell Me Out At Every Chance They Get, and Im Still Expected To Feed Them?

Well Rog, this week is off with a bang, it finally stopped snowing and it was weirdly sunny and warm as only it can be in Arizona, so I got to enjoy being outside running errands, though I was dressed for colder weather. I made the kids dress up today and though they grumbled about being made to wear khaki pants with button down shirts and their black vests and converse shoes, the cuteness factor was off the scale, and amazingly, the Stinky Princess decided to wear jeans today,(I thought surely Hell had frozen over), but she was in full battle girl mode so I let her pick out her clothes and she opted for jeans and a pink shirt instead of her typical princess Barbie style dress.
We had a decent weekend, even though we had to spend most of it trapped indoors due to the snow and wind so we played video games and watched movies and I read and set up the sure sign of the end of days, a Twitter account. siiiiiggggghhhh....I had SWORN I was not going to do it, I made fun of all the self important "Twats" as I called them that had accounts,drabbling on about every little thing they did during the day, I harassed my son about his account, teasing him and asking him if he was going to tweet each time he farted during the day and cause the site to crash or if he was going to follow every vapid hollyweird twat out there,but ohhh how the mighty have fallen! I have been bored and lonely and I blame the MONKEYS!!Those darn 100 Monkeys and their tour, that was what broke me and I caved, so I went to the sight and I signed up and then I got curious,(I only took one drag on the cig...honest), and the next thing you know I got all these suggestions for people to follow so I thought, 'What the hell,hes cute, hes funny, hes British,(you KNOW I love the Brits) and then art and publishing and all kinds of stuff popped up" and then I realized that I could just say all kinds of random crap that pops into my head during the worst of my insomnia or solitude and I could put it out there for whomever to read and either laugh at or go,"DAMN! shes whacked!" Its been kinda fun and its a little addicting, and now I have it on my cell phone.
My kids are not like typical kids, they have been through quite a bit of horror in their short lives, and their lives are not typical happy Teletubbie lives, so when they sit and watch movies with me, I tend to let them decide what freaks them out or disturbs them to the point of wanting to leave or being scared, after all, not many 6 year olds have seen their mom have her ass kicked by their dad and then a straight razor taken to her in front of them, so vampires and werewolves and ghosts dont usually phase them, but my daughter decided that after watching movies like,"Pans Labrynith"(freaked me out a little) and 'The Messengers",(also pretty intense), she decided that the Underworld movies freaked her the hell out! What the hell? Those are mine and the boys favorite creature features and we were enjoying them at ear bleed level on our new discs, when all of the sudden she looks at me and says,"I dont like that naked,scary wolf guy!!" and jets from the room.What the hell?? So all action stops and we freeze the movie, and we all have a sit down and discussion about real vs fake and actors and play acting and all that and she was cool about after she realized he is in fact someones daddy and all that, and just a British actor who even does voices for Tinkerbell movies, and plays Aro,(again freaking her out), but I guess we all have just those certain actors that either make us shudder or twitch in just the right way, and Christopher Walken has always creeped me out and I adore him for it, and maybe she will grow up to appreciate this guy for his ability to inspire some kind of adrenaline response in her, I hope so, because the man is the face of my muse and its kinda funny that it inspires a response in her, becasue in me it just make me want ot WRITE! She dimed me off though Rog, she freaking told her teacher for class news today that this weekend we watched the Underworld movies and,"The scary naked wearwolf guy creeped me out", and now her teacher thinks I am some kinda terrible mom for letting her watch naked dudes. Its bad enough that Sticky and Stubby walk around singing 'Reaper" or the "Monkey SOng" which Stubby has totally memorized and even has formulated a dance to go with, but now they are letting people know that we watch inappropriate movies.
I really do try to shield them from some of the gnarly stuff out there, I dont listen to rap, I dont smoke or drink around them and I dont have any kind of social life, in fact I havent been laid for close to 2 years and let me tell you there are days.I keep my personal equipment out of reach,sight and mind, and I dont even really have any ,'Personal" time so that doesnt even occur so when the ex starts making fun of me for pointing out Alexander Skarsgaard a little too happily, I being ironic when I said that if, I did in fact have an "O" in the near future, he would most likely figure prominantly in it happening.Duracell thy name is friend. Yup Rog, its come to that,so to speak, one truly is the lonliest number, but I am working on a solution, I am going to be loose on campus very soon and I have plans.I dated a younger man a while back and I enjoyed it, and a 25 year old asked me for my number a short time ago, and if he had a job, he would have gotten it, but since I was not looking for another child to raise and support, but there are plenty of young men on campus and I have to think that its like throwing a handful of darts at a board, somethings gotta stick, or at least be fun to chase around for a little while, I saw the cutest German boy today...

Dear Roger, Dating Duracell is not as fun as it sounds.

Its STILL SNOWING here in Flagstaff! Cabin fever is starting to get to everyone and people are edgy and grumpy.Im pretty sick of being stuck in the house, but with the wind and the snow and being broke all the damn time, there is not much else to do other than stay home and try and work on getting back into school and write my novel.
Now that I have found my muse, its become a lot easier to write, and I often dream of him, so the story has advanced pretty fast after being stuck for so many years.I still have to name him, but that is going to require some research into not only our family history, but also Native American and Celtic lore and then I have to make a decison about what he is. Its really interesting that when my eldest son called the other day, I was in a joyous mood because I had found the face of my muse, or his avatar, and when I was trying to explain how that helped my as a writer to feel more comfortable and inspired in the process, my son actually GOT IT! I have tried to explain the concept of a muse to adults and they have looked at me like I suddenly grew a second head, yet my 14 year old,walking hormone,jock, son understood what the hell I was talking about.He is truely a special kid and I still hope that he will change his mind about being an actor, I simply cannot handle the thought of people exploiting him or being cruel to him or even being rude to him, I am so psychotically over-protective that I think I would spend a great deal of time seeking to thrash the living daylights out of people who hurt him. I got my vengence on his step-father, so I dont say this lightly.He is quite the athlete, already running a 4.40 mile and he is as aggressive at soccer and football as I ever was and he is a natural musician,already playing bagpipes,violin,viola,and guitar and he is an excellent student when he wants to be, but with girls chasing him constantly, he tends to get distracted easily and I fear that his good looks will be his undoing. He has grown quite a bit since he has been gone, and he is already 5'9 and 155! He left here a child and is returning a full-grown man who finds it amusing to tease me about my lack of a social life!He teases me about being a ,"Cougar" because I happen to enjoy watching movies with younger men in them and I have commented about a couple of them and he just loves to remind me that they are either close to his age or that he has been told that he looks like certain actors...soo disturbing! I finally got him to quit straightening his hair, so his beautiful natural curls are being allowed to show again, and that really eliminates a whole bunch of the younger fellas that I had been looking at, but oh well, at least my son has quit butchering his hair.
I am considering looking for a companion, its not easy to consider because I my life is a complicated beyond what most men can comprehend, but I need a stress release and even if its just a friend with benefits, I really could use a man in my life because its literally been years since I have had some quality time with a man and I miss that. I had made a resolution to not even attempt to date this entire year, but its reached to point of frustration and tension that even my ex is starting to look tempting, and that is a type of masochism that not even I will indulge in.