Don't come the cowboy with me

She has to have either been following me around, or she has dated some of the same men as me.

Dear Roger:If My Prince Never Comes,So What? Im Not Settling

Well my writing project seems to be at a bit of a standstill. My muse has fled once again and I cant seem to find the mindset to get back into working on the smut piece that some folks had been nudging me into attempting. I guess I would be more inclined to work on it if I had some raw material to draw from, but its been so damn long since I have had a good trouncing, that I am beginning to forget what that feels like. I haven't even been kissed in so long that I probably would be all awkward and weird about it, like some school girl. My sis and Sus are convinced that I need a makeover, that my lack of the feminine graces is what is putting men off of me, and my son says that its because I look at men like I either want to ,'Eat them, kick their asses, or both" and that is why they scurry away like frightened mice before me.

I dont get where that I am soo scary? I am not a big person! I am quite the opposite, meaning I am short, skinny, pale, and I can get by with children's sized clothes,except in bras...nothing children sized going to work in that department because I do have a chest that men tend to notice first. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, most of my teeth, no facial piercings and I do smile on occasion. I dont growl at people, I try to be friendly, but I do keep my distance. I am literate,not prone to extravagances in either expenditures or liquor. I like some sports,mainly soccer and cage fighting and I have all kinds of skills that could come in handy in a rural situation, such as the ability to hunt down, shoot, skin and cook pretty much anything. I can work cattle and horses, rope, ride,castrate, vaccinate,dehorn, and even trim hooves. My accent only gets strong under stress or anger. I can cook over 6 different ethnic styles and everyone I have ever cooked for has survived and gained weight. I like kids, in fact I have a pack of them, and I have even taught! So what the hell? Why am I so unapproachable? I dont smell bad, I have basic manners and I can and do behave myself,most of the time. I have not picked a fight with a man in months or threatened to kick anyones ass in at least a few weeks, and my glares aren't intentional. But I cannot change who I am this late in the game for someone. I just cant do it. Sus and my sis would cram me into a dress do weird stuff to my hair and nails and put make up on my and expect me to wear heels and go out on some blind date with a church guy/business man with whom I have nothing in common, when all I really want is to find someone who sees me looking at them and has the courage of heart to smile back, walk up and say,"Hey,cool t-shirt! I like that band too, have you been to any shows lately, would you like to go?" Then it would be the start of something with potential.

Dear Roger: Getting the Glitches Worked Out,One Perversion At A Time

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Since I have been sitting here waiting for my knee and shoulder to quit yelling at me for the wreck I put them through, I thought I would spend my time wisely and actually work on learning some things or even writing, but alas, my damn muse fled the scene again, so I was relegated to playing around with the computer and teaching myself how to post links and images and better yet, animated images to web pages!! I have had soo much fun playing around with that, I cant even tell you,(yes, I am a bit of a pervert), but at least I have been entertained and not sitting here dwelling on my knee or shoulder or how broke we are.

I am soo damn glad that this month is almost over! With .52 cents in the account for over the last week, its been pretty fecking grim around here. We are out of bread,cheese, butter, cereal, peanut butter,and pretty much every other damn thing you could think of, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it until Tuesday. No word on a job yet, but I am still looking and the kids start back to school in just under a week so my time will be a lot more open for me to be able to find something without them tagging along. I have been able to keep the kids fed because I stocked up on staples, and I eat very little, in fact I have even skipped days, but I have to be careful about that because if Chance catches on, he gets really angry with me and then he starts trying to skip meals, so last night I cooked some frozen crappy steaks we had been given and I made sure he got a good bellyful of steak and potatoes. Tomorrow things will be looking up and we will walk down to the store for some basics to tide us over until we get to borrow Sus's car.

I am going to be dog sitting this next weekend for Sus while her and my kids go to camp for 4 days. Its some church based thing and I am not going for a few reasons, including crowds making me a bit nervous and all that fun stuff, but I will have money, a car and I will be child-free for the first time in a Looooooog time. I am considering a drive over to Vancouver to check out a few of the nightspots and to just perhaps chase some boys. We will see how things look once our lives get back to normal. Now that my ex cant hit out bank account and drain the funds, life should get a lot better!

I hope the little video I attempted to post works, just dont get too mesmerized, he tends to have that effect on folks.

Dear Roger; I Got Banged, But I Really Didn't Enjoy It

I am glad this weekend is almost over! Pretty sure that I have been cursed with a case of the clumsies, and if I was capable of going out anywhere today, I would be risking life and limb even further than I did yesterday.

We went with Sus and family down to Sweet Home as part of their church based stuff, and I should have gotten a clue what kind of day it was going to be when I realized that not only was it the same day as the Spencer Bell Legacy concert that was going to be live streaming, so I was going to miss most of it including the early 100 Monkey performances, but that my cell phone charger hadn't been plugged in all the way and my phone only had a couple of bars of juice, so if I could get the concert on my phone, it would probably kill it by mid-day. If that wasn't bad enough, then a delivery I was expecting to arrive on Sunday, was actually scheduled for yesterday as well and a bunch of juggling had to be done to get that handled, so it was hassle after hassle and we hadn't even left Gresham!

When Sus came and picked us up, I ended up sitting in the back seat of the Durango and we headed down through Clackamas. Normally a drive like that would not be a problem, but three things were wrong with that little venture, namely; Durango, back seat, Clackamas. The road from Gresham to Clackamas is a twisty, turning, hilly, driving adventure and in a Durango, which can be vomit inducing on a straightaway, its misery. By the time we reached the city limits I was an interesting shade of green and Sus was offering to pull over so I didn't barf in her truck. The boys that were with us were in almost as bad as shape as me, and we ended up having to put down all the windows and she had to slow down on the curves. It was rough!

Soo, we got to Clackamas, picked up a 10 passenger van with seats designed to kill asses, and foolishly letting the boys take the back section of the van, we headed out towards the 5.

During the trip, the boys graciously decided to entertain us with songs from pretty much any weird youtube video you could think of including "A Mysterious Ticking" to the point that I felt I had to retaliate with the Robot Chicken theme, earning the vitriol from all the adults in the van with us.

The trip down was not too bad and I got to see parts of Oregon I haven't seen before, and luckily, other than my sanity being a little impinged upon, I survived intact. We got to the church and I wandered off to look around the grounds, and I found copious amounts of blackberry bushes! Since I normally wear jeans, boots and longer sleeves, I was able to wade right in and pick the bigger, riper ones and pass them back to those who had worn shorts or lighter pants, including Sus and her dad. The boys were roughhousing and stealing berries from each other until they heard Sus's dad say ,"Its a good thing Jen wears boots and all that denim, she can really get up deep into the bush and get the good stuff." Silence fell for about 30 seconds and the implications of what was about to happen flickered across the faces of 3 teen boys,myself, and Sus. Her father is rather oblivious and had no idea the glorious double entendre that he had just given the boys and as I raised an eyebrow at him, (thus resulting in an explosion of hysterical laughter from the boys), he just looked at them and asked,"What? Did somebody get a worm?" I just came back out of the bushes and headed to the van trying not to die laughing each time I looked at her dad for the rest of the day.

We left the church and headed out to just do some touristy stuff and we ended up at a place called,'Green Peter" dam. I have to wonder, were the folks who named stuff up here in Oregon all British? There are more places with names that are giggle worthy up here than anyplace I have ever lived and have to be inspired by all kinds of perversity, you got Couch that is pronounced 'Cooch" and Green Peter? Wouldn't you know, "Green Peter" is where things started to go really wrong for me? We drove across the dam and on reaching the far side, the kids decided to shoot off along the trail, seeing a place to get close to the water, and being after adventure myself, and also being a bit of a worrying mom, I went after them even though I was wearing leather soled cowboy boots. I was doing good until Stevie started getting really close to a sharp drop off over some rocks, and then I was paying more attention to her and not where the hell I was walking, and I managed to step on a part of the embankment that was weak and it gave way, taking my goofy ass down hard, with no warning. I landed on my left elbow and butt cheek, on a rock and my shoulder promptly slipped right the hell out of socket,(it does that every now and then), and then the embankment kept crumbling so I had to dig my right heel in and throw myself back onto my side a little further up the hill and that jammed my left wrist. My sons friend who I call,'Sparky" saw the wreck happen and I could tell he wanted to laugh but he was also a little freaked out. I told him, make sure Stevie doesn't come down here, and you might wanna get back because I may puke when I put my shoulder back in,(I didn't), but it hurt like hell and made me say words that a good little church going boy shouldn't hear. Once it slipped back into place, I assessed the rest of the damage, and I realized that I was pretty wrenched feeling and I was scuffed up, dirty and embarrassed to death, but I was alive and not in the damn cold water, so it was actually a win. I hobbled back to the van, rounding up the kids as we went, and enduring the jokes and comments about the new hole in my favorite dark jeans and the scuffs all over my good boots, including my own sons smart ass comment that if I wasn't wearing boots I probably wouldn't have fallen, to whit I replied, 'No, I probably would a gone in the damn lake because I damn sure cant walk in anything else." I guess I cant walk in boots this weekend either though, because when we got back to town and went to drop off the van, I managed to fall, sideways!, down 5 steps at the front of the church, further twisting the crap outta my knee and wrenching my whole body, so I am feeling all kinds of pain in interesting places. An assessment when I got home revealed a really epic bruise on my butt, a knee that looks like someone took a ball bat to it, a bruised up elbow and shoulder and a left arm that I cannot raise past chest level, so pretty much all I did the rest of the evening was throw myself a pity party.

Did get a bit lucky when I got home, the concert was not totally over and I actually caught the 100 Monkeys last performance and HOLY HELL! It was a scorcher. Chance was sitting out here in the living room, kinda sorta listening to it, and watching from time to time while he talked to his friends online and got things for me. He only listens to me and my stuff with about half an ear most of the time, caught up in his own emo/angsty teen stuff, and he knows most of the song lyrics to the 100 Monkeys songs just because he has heard them soo much since he has been home, but when the song,'Strangers" started up, he turned and looked at me with his jaw just hanging open in shock. The fact that I probably had a similar expression was not lost on him, and when I burst out laughing, he blushed and muttered about the fact that ,"Most normal moms would be freaking out over that kinda song, my moms probably gonna make it her ringtone"(not true) but I did like the raw, directness of the song, and truthfully, it kinda stuck me a lot like seeing a puppy baring its teeth, cute...but you wanna still just roll em over and rub their tummies because you know they are all growl. The song that really got my attention of the night was 'Joygasm". That is the song that is supposed to be their ,made up on the spot, song of the night that the audience gives them the idea for. Young Mr. Rathbone really knows how to work the audience, and he didn't let them down with this song, but what amused me, was the fact the lyrics were kinda wide open for interpretation. I enjoy his showmanship,(the boy moves like water in a hot skillet), and hes brilliant, leaving not only the girls in the audience needing a cold shower, but the boys as well. It was a great show for a good cause, I wish I could have caught more of it, and perhaps next year I will be able to be there in person, unless of course I manage to break my neck falling over air or something.

Dear Roger: Defective Teen Sons,Soccer and Musical Theater

Its been a bit of a productive week around here. It finally cooled off a little so it is not constantly hotter than Satans scrotum around here and we are all a little less cranky, but we are still broke as hell and that has not made our moods much sweeter. Its frustrating to constantly have to tell my kids,"We cant afford it", especially if the it is something like a loaf of bread or a jar of freaking peanut butter! Yea, we have been that Goddamned broke this month! Leave it to me to forget that this is a very long month, and when I paid up all the bills at the beginning,I neglected to allow for the extra week, can you say suuuuck? On the bright side I always try to prepare for lean times and I had extra rice stashed away and staples, so I have been able to cook up some pretty creative meals that the kids have claimed were pretty good. Last night I made rice with some chicken and green beans, sauteed with some leftover squash and garlic. It was weird, but it was food.

We walked over to the kids new schools and got them registered this week, and while Stevies was really easy to take care of, with minimal decisions to be made, Chances was a whole 'nuther ball of wax. I swear I filled out more paperwork for him to go to high school than I filled out to go to grad school! There were 3 different forms wanting to know if we spoke English at home! I felt like answering ,'NO" after the 3rd one and putting in Gaelic just for the pure cussedness of it because of all the hassle. We met with a counselor and Chance was thrilled to find that he can still play football, though I lobbied most passionately for soccer. I just do not get the whole attraction of football, soccer is much more of a pure athletic event and requires you to be in much better condition and if you are an aggressive player,(like he used to be) then you can still work out your stress on the opposing team, but he would rather suit up with all the other meat heads and play football, bashing into each other for small gain. He claims he wouldn't have allowed me to come to any soccer matches of his anyway because I am,"such a soccer-nazi freak" that I would either pick fights or embarrass him by going postal on the sidelines. I just get into the game because I played it, and I played it well and I have a passion for it, and I miss playing it at the team level, so when those who do get to play it, just half-ass it, that makes me a little crazy. I expect a full measure of effort out of him when he goes out for something and I cheer him vigorously when he does, and I guess he finds that embarrassing.

He also decided to enroll in all honors classes as was his right with his levels, and I was proud to see that he didnt attempt to slack off. He also selected theater as an elective along with musical chorus.He has to audition before he gets an actual part chorus, but the boy is constantly singing so hopefully that will come of some good for him. His school has a swim team and a water polo team, and I asked him if he intended on participating in any of those sports and he gave me the most annoyed look," Mom, I have enough hair on my body for two full grown men! If I got into the pool, they would freak out." So I guess that means swim team is out. He is talking about letting his hair grow back out, though he still insists that he wants to get rid of his curls! How the hell he expects to do that on a permanent basis, I have no clue, but I have tried to convince him that women find curls to be irresistible, and he just rolls his eyes at me and says,"Im not into grandmas, I like girls my age and they dont like guys with curls! Im not a sheep, im a man, mom! Im not cuddly, I want to look cool, not like some old dork." Soo, I offered to just shear him bald so he could look like every other little wannabe rapper he seems to listen to now days, and he did not appreciate the offer.

My son has also been talking about ,"gauging" his ears, as in making his ear piercings into these huge holes that are just GROSS! and I swear by all that is Holy, I will end the fool that does that to my kid. Trying to get him to understand that for someone who claims to want to be an actor from time to time, that he really shouldn't put extraneous holes in his face, is like trying to convince him that skinny jeans are a fashion failure. At least right now I have on my side the fact that he is underage for all that kind of insanity and I can keep him from doing anymore damage than necessary. He has the same genetic quirk as me that makes him someone who scars really visibly, and it just would not be a good thing for him to put holes in his face. He goes all emo on me from time to time, proclaiming that he doesn't stand a chance as an actor anyway because he is a nobody from nowhere, with nothing, but I just try and encourage him to keep his heart on his dreams with his mind in the game that is getting the best education that he can get, with college and other options to support himself while he works towards his goals, but that he cannot let himself give up.

I am supposed to take him shopping for football cleats in a size 13 as well as a mouth guard, and most uncomfortably, a cup and jock.When we were looking over the list of stuff to buy, seeing the color drain out of his face was kind of funny, but then again, it wasn't a particularly pleasant thing for me to consider either, I just do not even want to be aware of my sons bits and pieces at this juncture, and according to online research, the cups come in particular sizes, oh bloody hell! He asked me to just give him my card, but last time I did that, he came home with rock t-shirt, and a "I like Boobies" bracelet, wound up on rockstar sodas, giggling over stuff that had gone on at the mall, so that is not even an option. Its times like this, a rent a man or even a reliable male friend who knows about such things as cups, jocks, and cleats could be utilized to help him with these things, instead of his mom, who is prone to asking embarrassing questions or being an embarrassment, simply by her presence. I wish you were here.

Dear Roger; That Muttering Under My Breath Thing? Yeah, You Were Right!

You always told me that if I kept biting my tongue and not saying what was on my mind I was going to get headaches or a heart attack, so years ago I started following your advice and I started saying what I wanted to say, even if it was under my breath or here on this blog, or in various forums,(thank God for web), because not only have I been able to keep my various twitches under relative control, I have staved off a heart attack longer than you did! I fully expected to follow right along in your footsteps and have my first and probably last major heart attack at 35 like you did, but hell, perhaps following your advice has given me some more time to explore what is going on in the world and that is yet another reason I have to thank you. But sometimes my willingness to speak my mind or randomly comment on things comes back to call me to task or even shock me just a bit.

Even though I write and publish in a forum that is available to most of the public, I am actually a fairly private and shy person. I do not often approach strangers because I tend to vapor lock, and if its someone I have a bit of a thing for, its even worse, I mean I literally just kinda become an all over twitching, gelatinous mess. But from behind the comfort of my computer or my pen and paper, I am brave and confidant and a bit of a smart ass, because I dont have to worry about all my little quirks coming out. I dont normally bother people I like, especially the famous that i follow on twit. But yesterday I was a bit morose and I was sitting on my porch just contemplating the day and trying to find a place to cool off when I saw that an actor who is amongst my very favorite actors of all time, was tweeting about a concert he had attended. I dont know what compelled me, in fact after I sent it, I thought to myself,"You goofy heifer, he probably has 10million others harassing him!" and I felt bad, but I thought that my commentary about my dorky son finding the band lame and that perhaps my son should be returned as defective, was funny...at the time. I went on about my business, Stevie was putting bunny ears on me and squawking about spiders being on the porch, my friend was calling me about the kids going to church, and Chance was griping about my requirement that he clean his hair out of the sink in the front bathroom,(seriously, someone sheared a weasel in there), and I almost missed it, but I have tweetdeck and I happened to hear the tone and I glanced down and there it was...he responded to me! Dork that I am, I spazzed, jumped, and dropped my laptop. Thats right, I dropped my freaking laptop, almost fell out of my chair, and Chance claims that I squealed. He came running out to see what the hell the problem was, thinking that a spider had gotten on me and fearing that if I had killed my computer, that he was going to lose his to me, only to find that I was incapable of coherent speech. I stammered for a good minute while we assessed my laptop and I just pointed to my screen. Chance looked at it and asked the typical oblivious, teen boy question,"Who the hell is that and whats the big deal?" followed by, "Mom, you are such a DORK!" accompanied by a look of both pity and dismay, as if he is afraid my dorky/nerdiness will rub off on him. He stomped back into the apartment and said,'I would have been impressed if it was that lil chick that play Alice, now shes do able." Never mind the fact I was completely disturbed that my 14 year old son say the term 'do able" I did yell back at him that at age 14, nothing is do able for him, it completely stunned and shocked me that I had gotten a response. I am so used to just being able to sit here and mutter under my breath or just throw stuff out into the open without anyone ever commenting back, that it totally set me back on my heels that I arbitrarily got a response, much less from someone that well, to be quite honest, I find to be more than a little interesting for a guy thats my age. Soo, I am not quite sure how I feel about that, I know I wont go off randomly tweeting famous people anymore, that just gobsmacked me and I dont think my computer could handle another drop.

Writing has always been my way of venting, of getting off my chest my feelings about what I find to be injustice, or even my commentary on just what is going on around me, a simple testament of my life and what has gone on. I have always been a bit arrogant, and I have never denied that fact. My temperament has always been that of an artist and as you are well aware Rog, us artistic types do not often play well with others, so rather than mix out in the world, I write and share that way, and sometimes I take pictures or draw, though my drawing is not what it used to be. My photographs used to share my view of the world, but without access to a darkroom and an enlarger, I enlarge my world in the written word, changing what displeases me by simply erasing or marking through, or even hitting backspace when I write on my computer, its much simpler and less dramatic than the great artistic bonfire of '91 that my mother has never forgiven me for,where I burned most of my artwork and photography in the backyard, but in a way its just as cowardly. Writing is the one thing that I tend to let myself loose on, and while I may not speak out loud as much anymore, it does help me find my voice, but when someone hears me, it tends to scare the hell out of me, even if they do consider it as a sneeze in a crowd, it was my sneeze that got the,'Bless you" and for a moment someone knew I was there, and that is what my writing does for me, it reminds me that I was here.

I have been invited to join some groups since I have been up here, and while I find it very flattering to be invited to join and participate, I find that my upbringing and my perhaps repressive, public side has me reticent to make the decision to do it. There are parts of my life that I keep private from the majority of those who know me, almost Jekyll/Hyde kind of life so to speak, and sometimes when those start to overlap, its a bit distressing. My reading habits,as well of most of my social networking habits are kept private from my family and my real life friends and when I go to work, I wont share that side of me with my work mates, but sometimes the language of my other life slips into my real life and that makes for some embarrassing moments. Considering that my verbal filter does not work its best at the worst times, I have done my best to keep my mouth shut when I am drug to church or social occasions around church folks, especially since using the term,' Hard limit" in a conversation, realizing what I had just said, freezing, then stammering out ,'Oh Shit" and then just standing there wishing that I could evaporate the rest of the time. I am not very extroverted. I embarrass easily, and I tend to like to be more of a loner, that just doesn't get into the whole fan insanity that surrounds so many scenes, and I mulled over the invites with that thought in mind. While it would be nice to know more people who share my passions for good music, I am just a little to uptight to call myself a "hoor", and thus is the crux of the matter. I was never the groupie type even when I was young and able to run around after random rock stars, and even though the thought of it would be kinda fun in a truly decadent way now, I am just past that part of my life and I would chain my daughters in the basement if they even remotely acted that way. Luckily my eldest daughter is not interested in men or dating until she finishes college, and my youngest, while in love, still equates her love with that of a teddy bear or sock monkey, so I am golden for a few more years, and then I will see about that basement. My eldest son is the one I have to worry about hooring about, though I am not quite sure after what?

I have use of a car, once it gets fixed that is. Sus has generously said that I can borrow her car for extended road trips to Seattle or the coast so I can get out and explore! I have to make sure that the medication I am on isn't going to keep my blood pressure too low to drive, and I have to keep gas in it and watch my lead foot, but other than that, I can finally break out and go! I am planning on hitting Seattle pretty soon, I have been just dying to get out and wander around and even though I would be alone, it will still be an opportunity to stretch out. After all those years of not being able to go and see and be free, this is like having the blinders off and the threat of the whip taken away. Its amazing to have the power to hang up on him and not worry about whats coming through that door.

I have even been considering trying an open mic night with some of my writing, perhaps letting the voice that has only been seen for many years finally be heard once again. I dont do the ,"Cowboy Poetry" anymore, I left it behind with much of the heartache, but I have new stuff that is built out of a decade of shouting into the darkness, so perhaps a brick at a time I need to throw it out at the world.

Dear Roger;Tech Support is Lacking Around Here So I May Hide His Computer

So with all the free time on my hands while I have been cooling my heels at home, so damned broke I cant even afford to pay attention, I have been trying to figure out how to post some of my favorite songs and stuff to my blogs website,(much like many of my fellow blogsters have done), and while I can post them as blog postings,I seem to be too techtarded to be able to post my whole damn youtube playlist of favorites like I wanted to and its annoying the crap outta me! I used to be the family's go to person for all tech questions, I was the one that was up on all the latest things and I knew how to do it all! Hell, I even worked in a computer lab at my college for awhile, teaching kids how to use the internet, but now days I am falling behind. Its like my brain has been filled up with so much random junk, that I have lost all the valuable abilities that I used to have. I couldn't even properly explain to a kid the other day, the meaning of a God damned Sperber essay! That obtuse, verbose, self-important, frog, was freshman torture when I started off in college and I suffered through his crap for over 2 years, and I could not form a coherent thought. I also find myself losing little bits of other things like laws and things that I used to know backwards and forwards, and in a lots of ways it scares me, but I find it annoying more than anything. I read, I write, I pay attention to what is going on around me, and I practice things that should help me stay sharp, but not being able to make a simple playlist? I have tried to get Chance to do it for me, but I dont allow him or any of the rest of my family into my blog, so it makes it a bit difficult, plus the little shit find it funny as hell to tease me about my failings.

I walked to my doctors appointment today, and that was another example of my goofiness catching up with me. I had the directions wrong and instead of being 400 yards away at the closest office buildings, it was actually 4 miles away, and up hill. I had to beat feet to get there on time and I was a bit on the sweaty side because it decided to get pretty damn warm today, and of course it was a nice and toasty walk in jeans and boots with a black denim shirt. I made it on time, but I was sure to mention that I tend to do goofy stuff like that more and more, though she just kinda laughed at me and said that I should probably go back up to the full dosage of my seizure medications, (something I am not wanting to do), though she did not sweat me about my smoking in light of all the crap I am dealing with. She also suggested a medication to help me get over my acne and to perhaps give my libido a kick start, which kinda left me thinking, why bother? I dont have a man, I haven't really put forth a hell of a lot of effort in looking, and I just dont really want to get ripped over the coals of another relationship. I listened to that last song I posted the other night,I mean I really LISTENED to it after Stevie started crying while she had it on with headphones, and she said that it just broke her heart to hear him sooo sad, so after I listened to it, I thought that I spent a huge chunk of my life feeling that way and it absolutely stinks, and its a horrible way to be, and I just dont want to go through it again. I dont have the strength of spirit, at least not at this time. I like looking, cute boys make me smile and flirting is fun, but to actually open myself up to that kinda pain, of actually just being a hollow shell of who I am for the sake of not being alone at least in the physical sense? nah...I have my screen saver and good music to sing me to sleep, I have interesting stories and books to read, and I have people to talk to and movies to watch with cute boys that make me smile, even though they obviously know a little more about the pain of living lies than they let on. I will just be alone, maybe renting from time to time, and happy to not drag my heart across the razor blade.

Hopefully I will get the music thingy figured out, with all the free time I have on my hands I should be able to get it sorted in the next day or two, if I can keep the damn cat from attacking me every time I start working on it.

100 Monkeys - LDF ( Album - Grape 2009 )

The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

Marc Broussard - Home

Dear Roger: Claustrophobia and My Issue With Personal Space Keeps Some People Alive

My ex knows how to push my buttons, and for the last week he has done that pretty much every damn day, to the point that he had me so angry yesterday that I wanted to go out and just beat the dog mess outta the first fool that crossed me and that looked enough like him to satisfy the itch.

Its not that I have not got my temper under control, I do. But understand, I do.not. have. any. outlets. other. than.writing. I am starting to go a little crazy. I haven't had sex in so damn long that I think my parts have forgotten how things are supposed to work, and that is really damn frustrating. Its been difficult to get out and go running or get in a good workout due to scheduling hassles and having kids making it difficult to sneak out for a run in the wee hours of the morning without worrying about them waking up and freaking out that im not home,(its happened before) so I have been a slack ass, lazy bum lately and the tension is killing me. Not having a guitar around to plink on,even badly, is also a drag. I was working on re-learning how to play, and even though the damage to my hands makes it difficult, I found it soothing to at least try, and I know that Chance felt the same way. The one bright spot has been the goofy little cat we got. He is a royal pain in the ass, and he yells at me and right now he is biting the shit outta my ear, but he is so funny and its kinda soothing to have him just lay up around the back of my neck on the couch and purr in my ear,(right before he bites the crap outta me and then shoots off into the kitchen to yell for something to eat), and he harasses Chance when he tries to sleep on the floor. Seeing him follow Stevie around and grab onto her monkeys and attack them,cracks me up! She tries to make him behave and he just rolls up in her skinny monkey and starts kicking it and biting and making little growling sounds until she shakes him loose by picking it up and running off with it, and then he just sits there looking after her like,'Hey! bring him back, hes got a purty mouth." hes already litter trained and he damn sure lets us know when hes hungry by yelling at us, so I next week we are scheduling him to get fixed and a good check up so he will be set for awhile and then I am going to get him on a food that hopefully will take care of his gas problem, because for a tiny little cat, he can just about clear a damn room, and considering he likes to hang out around peoples heads and neck areas, thats a bit of a problem. The cat has been a good thing for all of us, and a welcome distraction from the bullshit of the ex calling and stressing me pretty much every damn day, but even with little Jasper,(yes, the fecking name has stuck and I still flip Chance crap over it), I still fume every time my phone goes off with my ex's ring tone. Used to be, I would be happy to hear from my boys, but I rarely get to talk to my boys much, instead it is him, either yelling at me or just bitching and complaining about something that he thinks I am to blame for . I did not make him a lazy,shiftless bastard. I did not make him an abuser that found it necessary to brutalize me and my eldest son. My ex does not realize how lucky he is to be alive I think. He hates me for sending him to prison, but the alternative was killing him and I was going to do it, because I am a person very capable of wrath and hate and when he beat my 12 year old son in front of me like a bad dog, I burned with a hate that has not abated. Yes, the courts system dealt with him. Yes, I got him the maximum sentence for the charges the piece of shit county attorney felt capable of pursuing, but, my son did not get justice. My son was called names like,'bastard', "stupid", and other things that no child should hear, he witnessed things that no child should see, and he is scarred as a result of it. All my kids have to live with my anger and damage, and though I am working on it, the end result is, I am still not the mom I should be, and when he calls and verbally abuses me over the phone, and tells me that he isn't providing for my boys that he kept, in the way that they should be provided for, I get angry all over again. I cannot just refuse to take his calls, because he has my two youngest sons, and if I dont take his calls, he wont let me know how they are doing and I wont be able to talk to them. I miss my boys soo badly, and I worry about them every day, and if the courts in Arizona had been in any way accessible to me, I would have taken them and run, but the judge that granted him 50/50 custody of them and refused to put them on the restraining order,AFTER HE TOOK THE STRAIGHT RAZOR TO ME, was still the judge in charge of our custody case, and until he retires in December, I am stuck, but once that bastard is gone, I am filing for a change and I am getting my kids, unless of course he manages to lose the house before then, and if that happens, I will get my boys sooner, but either way, its most likely a damn good thing there is a good amount of distance between us, because something in me shifts when one of my loved ones gets hurt, and my son is still hurting and God help my bastard ex if he hurts one of my other babies, because no one else will be able to.

I was evaluating my tattoos the other day. I have had tattoos for the last 15 or so years and I designed them all myself, and while the original designs had special meaning, one the application, some of them were not done properly and I have to get that fixed. My best tattoo is the one on my left arm, its my feather and I have had it the longest out of all of my tatts. I got it when I lost you, and after I did a lot of research on our family heritage and the meanings of the various feathers. Being that the native blood runs so strong on both sides, I thought the feather was the best choice, and then I went with Lakotah symbolism for great grandma. The feather is split at the bottom to symbolize the loss from a loved one,(since you are gone I am the only one in the family left that cuts my hair to mourn our losses as well), the end is red to symbolize wounded in battle, and the blue beads at the top symbolize my two children that I had at the time, and the bear claw on the leather thong hanging to the side,symbolizes our family clan and you.The rest of the feather is battered and damaged, but pure white that symbolizes that even though many hurts have occurred, I have remained pure at heart. I didnt go into this one lightly and it has always been my favorite and I had a brilliant artist in Yuma do it.The one on my chest is of a grizzly standing in a forest fire, and it has a lot of personal meaning that I dont share, but its meaning has morphed and changed over the years, even though the tatt has stayed the same. The one on my right arm is a shining example of what can happen when someone else controls your life. Its the state of Texas that was being done to cover a poorly done bear paw, and the artist stopped at what he felt was a prudent place to cease because I had a very large area of skin that was raw, bleeding and open to infection if not allowed to heal, so I went home with the plan of going back in 2 weeks and getting it finished. That evening, my ex was pissed at me for being gone for a few hours. It was a stressful scene at the house, and I had taken my bandage off to show him what I had been doing,(he always hated my bear paw and wanted it gone), and while it was uncovered, Stevie, who was 10 months old), grabbed my tattoo with her grubby, poopy hand. By the next morning I had the tell-tale lines of blood poisoning already down to below my elbow and I had a fever of 103. I ended up having to have an iv of antibiotics and the tat had to be scrubbed and debrided like a burn. I was not allowed to go back to get it finished and the scarring is a reminder that sometimes fuck ups cannot be fixed easily, though I am planning on seeing what it will take to get it the rest of the way filled in, now that I am now in control of things. My motto is on my back. I wrote it and I designed it, and the fact that it is in Latin is significant because I love Latin, and my High School guidance counselor told me I was not smart enough to take Latin in high school, so I took it in college, and that is where I wrote my own motto, as a testament to my family heritage and my love of my children. Its ," Ex Animos Venio, Propter Amore Audeo" or "From Courage I Come, For Love I Dare" and it honors the tough as nails, refuse to give up and die, Scot/Irish/Native ancestors who always seemed to end up in the thick of battle with none of the glory, but are the ones that made this country strong.

My other tattoo is a screwed up mess that was started but not finished on my back, of bear paws working their way up my spine, and is a testament to the ability of my ex to raise my blood pressure to points that scare people. Its also one on my "fix" list. But my next, new tattoo is going to be the most light hearted and fun one, and though all my tats are on my upper body, the kids are advocating for me to either put this one on my lower back just above my butt, or on my leg, though I was thinking of putting it on my left forearm or even my right chest.I have to find an artist I can trust though, I didnt have very good luck in Flagstaff because the last guy seemed incapable of grasping what I really wanted, and tattoos are not something that I go into with the thought that they could get removed, I go into mine for life and they are not flash, they are keepers for life that are a part of me that I control and they cover up and incorporat the marks that others have left, in more ways than one.

Dear Roger: Kinks, Perversions and Things That Make You Go Hmmm?

Well this is interesting...a new video with my favorite little musician/actor came out yesterday,(If you wanna see it click on the title to the blog, im too techtarded to link it properly),and being the pervy woman that I am, of course I went on youtube and watched it right away. Yes, I am a member of the musical groups website. Yes, I also pay attention to the fan site. Yes, I am a little pathetic, but damn that boy just has all kinds of devilment behind those eyes and it makes me smile and twitch in all kinds of ways that I thought were impossible after being pretty much numb inside for the last chunk of my life, but anyhow... I went to the video site and I was watching it, and it was actually a promo for a new magazine. It was a kinda behind the scenes of the photo shoot that he did and he was just kinda goofing around while the girls with the magazine set up the shoot, but in one of the scenes, they put some chains and pretended to lead him by a collar and I about fell outta my damn chair! That just did all kinda of wrong things to me and I found it to be the most interesting part of the whole video. What the hell?

I have always been fascinated by the darker side of life, and the edgier side of things. The vanilla lifestyle has never been my cup of tea, and being forced to live it has aged me and made me an unhappy person, but the complications of my life have made any other alternative pretty much impossible, so I have just lived a solitary existence rather than try and indulge in any habits that might fulfill any needs I have had. The one time I shared my desires with my ex,I was called a,"freak" and told that I needed to just get over it, so I guess in a way I did.

Sex has always been a taboo subject around my family and considering where I grew up, thats not surprising. I mean, there was a lot of sex going on, and ,'parking" was a common weekend activity out on the oil leases and back roads of East Texas, but sex education was pretty much,"Dont do it, if you do you are going to hell." and the ever present,"Queers go to hell" ,(hell was the major theme back there) but nobody seemed to really discuss the fact that a whole lot of sex was going on and it took all forms in all kinds of places. My own parents did not talk to me or my sister about sex. I knew absolutely nothing that I didn't learn out of a book and let me tell you, I read some books. But they weren't your typical Judy Blume books that most 12-14 year olds read, hell, I had read those when I was 8-9, nooo...I found and read the Marquise De Sade books like "Justine" and I found them to be fascinating, which was pretty distressing for a kid in the middle of nowhere East Texas. Once I left for college and moved to the Dallas area, my life expanded in ways that I had only imagined, and I had a wonderful few years living with freedom and happiness and a Bohemian sense of recklessness that only should exist in your early 20's. I went to places in parts of Dallas that I never dreamed existed and I met people from all over the world that I took me to elegant parties in mansions and out to dinner in places where the appetizers cost more than most of my meals cost in a week nowadays. I traveled to Houston and attended events that were black tie and I rode in limousines and I lived in elegance and I had a few years of just reckless abandon before the reality of needing to live in the real world caught up with me in spades and I have been stuck in it ever since.

I am at a point in my life where I am stuck. I have responsibilities to my kids because my kids cannot count on my ex for anything, in fact he called me again yesterday to cry and bitch at me because he is" broke, his job sucks, his boss yelled at him, life is hard, he cant afford anything,the boys wont listen, baby sitters are expensive..." he just griped and yelled at me about everything and blamed me for it all. I have a feeling that before too much longer I will end up having to go back to Arizona to get my two sons. I am not sad about this, I had actually been expecting my ex to fail and once he does, it will just make it easier for me to get full custody of my kids and be free of him forever, because I am leaving his ass in Arizona, even if he is living on the streets. I made it on my own with my kids while he was gone, I supported them, and I maintained the home and the family because I knew it had to be done. He is weak, he lacks the ability to endure and overcome and that has always been his failing. He thought he was strong because he was mean and sarcastic and tried to dominate through brutality, but he is not strong and by lying to himself and others, he has really done himself no favors. Being up here with all 4 kids will be difficult, and it will surely mean that I will be alone, but that is just my lot in life at this juncture and I have accepted it, but it doesn't mean that I dont dream and feel and wish that my life had been different and that I could enjoy some of the things that I see.

Ive been doing some sketching and a little bit of photography and more writing lately. My muse is still on the lamb, so mostly its just rambling bits of ideas for stories,(some of them a little perverse), and I may just expand on some of them for the hell of it, because I have found out through some friends of mine that believe it or not,sex sells! hmmm, who woulda thunk it? I am still doing most of my writing on paper, and that is both a blessing and a curse. Its a blessing because I dont have to worry about losing it on my computers hard drive, but then its a curse because I have to keep it hidden from my son because God knows I dont want him reading any of the stuff I write! He already suspects I read some really strange stuff, and I had to enable some really strong security settings on my laptop to keep him from reading anything I might have up,(my screensaver starts after 5 minutes of inactivity and that sends him shooting from the room screeching,'Akkk my eyes, my eyes!!" every time)even though in every picture the young men have their clothes on...(mostly),it never seems to cease horrifying him that I have what I see as a healthy interest in men, be they young, middle-aged, or even a little older than me. He is at that age where moms are not supposed to think about sex, or are supposed to have never had sex,and are not supposed to know anything about sex, and I guess my fairly liberal attitude about it and willingness to discuss safe sex with him in an attempt to keep him from making mistakes that could either ruin his life or kill him, is emotionally scarring him or maybe putting him off it for a while,(one could only hope) though with all the testosterone flowing around him on any given day it is hard to know.

Its going to be a long, dull, weekend around here. I am feeling a little crappy and I am just going to work on some projects that I need to complete for my school program no matter which way I decide to go with it, and I am going to register with a job hunting website to see if I can get any movement off of that resource. I am also going to develop a new physical training program for myself. I have gotten a little lazy since I have been up here, and I havent been working out like I used to and I think that is part of my whole funk. I used to be able to do well over 100 push ups and my endurance and weight lifting capabilities were well beyond what people expected for someone of my size, and I miss being in that kind of shape, so I think I need to get back into it and find my drive once again. Running is difficult with my knee problems, but sometimes pushing through the pain is what inspires me on to bigger and better things, and maybe that is where I will track down my muse again.

Sub Plans

Dear Roger;Rest Stop On the Road Trip Of Life

So this has been a bit of a lazy-assed, do nothing, kinda week. I have sat on my butt around the house and just kinda mulled things over and debated the next thing to do. I have done some writing, I have scheduled doctors appointments, I have made other appointments and I did clean house and we get out and got all the laundry done, but as for actually getting out and going wandering around and just site seeing...nope. I am fighting it, I really am, but the desire to become reclusive up here is really kinda starting to win. Not having two dimes to rub together is a big part of it, and I seem to be stuck in kind of a catch 22 situation where I cannot get out and find a job because I dont have a copy of my resume, and I dont have a copy of my resume because I dont have the money to print it off, and a couple of the jobs I have put in for, are out of reach of the public transport, so I am screwed even if I were to get those. Its a bit frustrating, especially when my wonderful ex-husband calls to bitch at me about something or another and to tell me that he has just been given a truck by a friend of his, so he now has 2 vehicles. I asked him about shipping some of my things up here, first and foremost a guitar and maybe my wok or some of my cooking stuff, and he yelled at me...thats right, he. yelled. at. me. No bit surprise there,that was his standard form of communication, but considering I had just helped him find a sitter, and get a new fridge, he could have at least been apologetic and said,"I really cant right now, perhaps in a week or two.", but no, he fucking yelled at me. There are days that I wish Sus had not made that phone call, and while my life would be either over or vastly different, I would have at least gotten the satisfaction of never getting yelled at by him again.

I dont tolerate yelling, it makes me go from mellow and calm to seeing red, in the blink of an eye and I react very strongly. I have even had to shut off movies or leave rooms when someone was yelling at another person. Its not to say that I dont raise my voice,I do, but its very rare, and what I tend to do is speak forcefully and in a way that lets the person know that I am not fucking around, or as Chance calls it,"Going into cop mode" and I used to do it when I would first walk into a High School classroom. I got that out of the way the first few minutes, let them see that I was a little bit dominant, maybe a little crazy, and that I wasn't scared, and then I would break the ice and get down to teaching. The one time I did break out the full-on, in someones face, yelling, drill Sergent, im going to end you right now, kinda presence at school was when some vato wanna be gang banger tried to front me and he made a gesture like he was pointing a gun at me, but what he did not expect was that I would get all up in his face and toe to toe with him, ready to throw down over it. The teacher in me left the building and the cop arrived code 3. I speak passable Spanish, understand waay more than I let on, and he found out that I can enunciate very clearly at a yell., but I dont like yelling. I prefer the up close and deadly sounding whisper, but in a welding shop that would have been hard to hear.

My son thinks I am an easy read when it comes to body language, and he really couldn't be more wrong. I have trained myself over the years to broadcast the opposite of what I am feeling. This brought up an interesting conversation with him the other day over,"tells" and having a ,'poker face". I took his computer away from him because he was spending way to much time in his room listening to emo music, being an all around grump and because his attitude had gone to that of an entitled shit. We both have our problems, and we have been trying to work through some of them, and with his hormones added to the mix, the computer was the distraction he didnt need to shut me out of any conversation, so I took it, changed the administrator password and told him he was restricted to using it only at the kitchen table when I said, and only for the amount of time I said. So now, I have to log him on and off each time, which he hates, and we hang out together while he is on,which he also hates. He jokingly said that he was going to hack the password, and I told him that he would never figure it out so that he might as well not even waste his time trying , which of course is exactly what he spent his first allotment of time trying to do. He thinks that when I smile or laugh, that I am lying, and what he didnt realize it that it actually was cracking me up to hear how his brain was working as he was trying to puzzle out what I would use as a password!

When I was in law enforcement, I worked in narcotics for awhile. I did undercover, narcotics investigations and I deceived people. I led people to believe that I wanted to buy drugs from them. I led people to believe I was something I was not, and I was good at it. In my classes I studied criminals and psychopaths for the last 15 years and I examined the reasoning and methodology behind their behaviors. I studied microgestures and expressions and I learned how to read people, and I got really damn good at it after the last mistake I made with my ex, and perhaps that is why I am soo cautious about approaching or getting involved with another man, but reading people is something that I work on and I practice on a daily basis, as well as carefully presenting what I want read off of me. When I am out with my kids, I present a,"Do not fuck with me" presence in places that I feel that there might be a risk, because I am protective of my kids, and when I do relax and let the more open and friendly me come out, its still really hard to not watch the reactions of the people around me for rejection and then take that to heart.Its a vicious cycle.

My son kept up his guessing game for quite awhile and got pretty frustrated with the lack of success. I told him that he had to take into account all the different combinations of letter and numbers that meant things to me, as well as word phrases and names, and even symbols, that in 41 years of living, I had acquired a vast amount of knowledge, including phrases in other languages, like Latin, and that he could guess for weeks and never even come close. 'But you smiled when I said that last one mom!"Yeah, son, I thought it kinda funny that you think I would use something a 12 y/o teeny bopper would use as a password, I might think that boy is cute, but as a security device, please, give me credit." He never did get it, never even got close, and his frustration gave way to him trying to negotiate more time with me which led to me actually being able to negotiate things outta him like a cleaned up room for the first time in weeks, so I am going to guard that password with my life.

He starts school in a couple of weeks, and I am so damn happy that he is getting back into a routine, the only thing that is stressing me is that he needs pretty damn near everything. He is growing like a weed and he is so hard on his clothes that they look like rags that even a hobo would reject, including his never pairs of jeans. though he swears that, that is the,'look'. He insists he just needs another pair of chucks and maybe a couple pairs of jeans and a rock t-shirt or two, and socks..God, that boy and socks...lets not even go there, though I still dont freaking understand just what the hell happens to his socks? Is there is sock gremlin that comes in and eats them or pisses on them or just does really foul stuff to them in the middle of the night? I find them in the weirdest places, and often in pieces and I have reached the point that I dont touch them anymore, I kinda treat them like a dog or a cat turd and I pick them up with either a paper towel or a plastic bag and I put them in the trash. He just rolls his eyes at me and claims that I am weird, but let me tell you, I am pretty sure he is the weird one around here.

Sus felt sorry for him since I banned him from using my razor. He had actually started sprouting a pretty decent beard except for two patches right on either side of his chin that looked a bit moth eaten and his distress at the fact he had more facial hair than her husband was making Sus feel bad. She asked my permission, and after receiving permission from me, and assurance that the only thing he would shave with it would be his face, she bought him his own electric razor. He washed their cars for them and did some work around their house for them to pay her back and I know he appreciated it beyond all reason. His skin is really clearing up and its so weird to see the difference between him and the boys he hangs out with at church. he is actually even younger than two of them, but he is bigger, has better muscles and way more hair and just looks more mature. Keeping the older girls away from him has become a bit of a stress, and I am afraid its just going to get worse after school starts, luckily one of the girls that has really set her sights for him lives in Vancouver, and her car is in the shop so she cant get here to try and see him, (as if I would let my son go in a car with some 18 year old girl!)and when school starts he will be too busy. I never thought I would have to worry about my sons virtue, and though there are times I wonder which side he butters his bread on, I do worry, and I dont want him getting involved in anything that he isn't prepared to deal with.

Our cat has been a welcome distraction this week. He is a cute little thing, and though he bites the hell out of my feet and whatever else he happens to be near, he makes up for it by just providing amusement and happiness. I apparently lost out on the name bid and he is no longer,"Daniel", my son and daughter now just call him,"Jasper" and I laugh at my son when I give him the raised eyebrow and he says,'Shut it,mom! thats not funny!" He carries the kitten around cuddled up to his chest or hold it in his lap when he is sitting down, and I noticed that he seems calmer and more at peace with he has it, and he is protective of the little thing, so perhaps it was just the right name for just the right calming influence for all of us.

Mumford & Sons - Winter Winds

Dear Roger: Its a Fly By The Seat Of Your Pants Kinda Life

Its been a busy few days around here. I had to deal with another eyeball melting migraine that left me feeling so crappy that I really just wanted to hide in my room for a couple of days, but since I have never been allowed that luxury, I just had to keep pushing on through and trying to deal as best I could while I lost my ability to see green and red fonts,(the latest and weirdest side effect) and the tinnitus pretty much drowned out everything else. I finally got off my ass and found a new doctor and with that comes a procedure that is kinda like going on a blind date/job interview for a job you dont really want.

I have spent the past couple of days filling out the medical history and let me tell you, seeing it all on paper is like...whooo..wow...im fucked up. Between rolling my truck down the 1-40, all the crap I got into as a cop and a firefighter, and pissing off men that were waay bigger than me for too many years, my body is a road map for 40 miles of bad road. The bright side is that I dont have anything like heart disease or communicable stuff and I am very cognizant of my health so I work on maintaining a healthy lifestyle other than I may smoke a little, but considering all the other shit I could be into, one or two cigs in a day is not gonna seal the deal for me. I am hoping the new doctor doesnt want to go poking around in my spine or my brain. The last time weird stuff started happening, the doctors decided that on top of all the mris' and ct's and eegs and all tests, they needed to stick needles into my spine and not only withdraw some fluid for testing, they injected stuff to deaden the nerves in my lower back to stop the pain. I did not know my heart could beat that damn fast! Because yes, I was awake as 4 sets of needles were directed into each side of my spine in the middle off my back and the stuff was injected. One wrong move and I would have been fubar, and being helpless is not something I could handle. The thought of going through that kinda crap again is a bit unnerving.

Soo, we got a cat yesterday. We had been debating it for a while, and though I wanted to go and get Fergus with all my heart, I know I could not take him away from my boys. They need him and he needs his space. Soo, I bowed to the the desires of Chance and Stevie and I got a cat. We looked at cats at the shelter, we looked at cats on CL and we looked at cats in the paper. I found a woman,(Russian) who had a a few kittens whos feral mother had abandoned them and because she was caring for a disabled husband, she needed them gone asap, so we went over and looked. The father was a Bengal, and she said the mom was an extremely tiny fluffy looking cat. She brought out 4 kittens crammed into a shoe box and the poor things were shaking and terrified, except for one.His head popped up right away and he was yelling and looking around and bellyaching about everything. He has really interesting markings on him and in fact the pattern on his head looks like a small skull. he has green eyes and 4 white feet and he is quite the griper. All the way home he sunk his claws into my boobs and yelled in my ears, and once we got here, he didn't want anyone out of his sight. There has been some disagreement over his name, and though Stevie and I had agreed on Daniel, Chance called and audible and said that the the name just "doesn't fit".He went into this long dissertation about,"Jeeze mom!,With all of Stevie's Twilight stuff, the one time we have something where the name Jasper would fit because hes small, blonde and bites like a freaking piranha, and you are gonna call him Daniel?I mean, what the hell?"I gave him the raised eyebrow and asked,'YOU,You, want to name the cat Jasper?!" Im more than a little confused at this point because he is always the one flipping me and Stevie crap over being fangirls, " Well, even Susan thinks it fits" he muttered at me, that comment really raised my eyebrows, "Wait a minute, SUSAN? my "convinced that its a sin to pretty much even mention the word Twilight, friend,wants to name the cat Jasper too?!" Im picking up my cell phone at this point getting ready to out my friend as a closet twihard. "MOM! The name Daniel just does not fit the cat." By this time Stevie is starting to cave and she is sitting next to her brother who has the kitty cuddled up to his once again bare chest, as she reaches over to pet it, the cat turns and sinks its needle sharp teeth into one of Chances nips and then begins raking its little claws across his chest as it tries to escape my daughter. Chance squeaked and his eyes began to water in pain as he gently tried to make the kitten let loose,"Ahh, I see...how about Jasper Daniel?" I said, and dont you think you should wear a shirt until he gets a little less likely to use you as a scratching post?

The cat did good last night. I got up this morning to find him asleep on Chances chest in the middle of the living room floor, and I found that he had actually used his litter box, so i guess he will get to stay. My son has always been good with animals, and he has always been a bit of a cat person, so maybe this tiny little critter will help him like Fergus helped me, and naming it gives him a bit of a sense of responsibility for it as well. We will go in the next week or so and get it some toys and goodies and I will get him fixed as soon as he is old enough to cut down on all kinds of hassles.

Next week I get to register both kids for school!!! Uh, YEAH!!! hell YEAH!! Chance will be in high school and though he has missed the start of football camp, he is still able to be in football if he wants to, so I have been pricing the needed equipment and its freaking me the hell out! The boy is in a growth spurt, and that is a huge problem because he seems to shoot up over night. His shoes are now tight on him which means that he now needs either a 12.5 or a 13. Holy Monkey... a size THIRTEEN shoe? I dated a guy who wore a size 13, but he was over 6'4 and in his 30's, not a 14 year old. While we were wandering around looking at shoes and stuff, Sus and I came across a size 18 tennis shoe! We were both momentarily floored by the implications of such a beast...,"Could you imagine, if the old wives tales were true?" Sus whispered. I picked up the shoe and told her that I needed to go find my "Cinderfella", a little louder than I should have because the clerk in that department overheard me and he turned a bit pink around the ears...im guessing he wasn't a fit. I tend to believe its more related to hand size anyway, thats why I kinda have a thing with those guitarist hands...anyhoo, its gonna be expensive as hell to outfit the boy for sports this year! Between football, track, baseball, and whatever else he decided to get into, I have a feeling its gonna be a daunting prospect.

Im still trying to get a guitar for us. I have decided to try and trade my jewelry for one and though my jewelry is one of a kind stuff and most of it I have had for a few years,its kinda a niche market, so I may not have a lot of luck at it, but I have a barter ad up on CL and I am at least trying. Chance got to play a $5000 Gibson the other day and he about lost his freaking mind. That was hands down the most expensive thing he has ever been allowed to play by far, and he really liked it quite a bit, and now he has heard the difference between a cheap 100 off brand and the real deal and its killing his soul. Kinda like what happened to me when I got to play the Dobro. The good news is that job prospects are starting to look up and because of all of my glitches, I will get a little extra help in my job hunt. As for school, its still the great unknown. I cant get anyone at NAU to return calls or answer the phone, and until next month, I cant pay the fee at Reed, so I am stuck until the Winter term, but its no big deal either way, because with the writing I have been doing, I really dont need some school program mucking it up with a bunch of busy work.

It finally cooled off up here and I am glad! Its been hotter than balls up here and we have all been extra crabby, so hopefully now that Portland is back to its typically mid-seventies kinda days, we will mellow the hell out a little and maybe I will quit feeling like a salamander stuck in mid-shed.

The video I finally figured out how to post on my site is of a band that I just recently found out about,(yeah, I do live under a fecking rock) and its yet another case of love at first listen. The really are another talented bunch of guys and I have had their stuff on pretty much constant rotation since I found them. When I figure out how to build a play list, or when I bribe Chance into doing it for me, I will put up a list of my favorite 100 Monkeys,Avette,and Mumford and Sons stuff along with the Barnstormers and Cage the Elephant. If you dont know who any of those bands are, check them out, they are pretty damn good. I wanted to go see MAS in concert up here in October, but apparently they are pretty damn popular and they are sold out, but I am scouring CL to see if I can get lucky, and yeah, I know they appeal to a certain element,and I dont give a rats ass, if you haven't read my previous blogs and aren't aware of my feelings on the matter, then you need to educate yourself. Love is love is love, and hurt and pain are hurt and pain, doesn't matter what what type of boots your love happens to wear, they all go on the same way.

Mumford and Sons - Liar

Dear Roger: Somedays It Just Sucks To Be

I seem to excel at getting on my sons shit list this week. No matter what I do, its wrong, no matter how hard I try, it isn't enough, and just when I think all is going smooth, he rockets off into either rage, or he turns into Captain Emo. This parenting shit is hard and if I wasn't a stubborn ass Texan, I would have said,"fuck it" and just thrown in the towel and put my boots on and walked a long time ago.

I have tried reasoning with him, but I have discovered that like most men, you cannot reason with him. He has a one track mind and his mind right now seems to fixate on a few topics and he just cannot see anything past those things. The first fixation of his is that he is majorly pissed that we are poor. I cant freaking help that right now. I am trying, but its not my fault hes not some spoiled ass trust fund baby, my dads side of the family blew the money long before he was born, and then my dad took what was supposed to be my inheritance and blew it, so we are screwed, blued and tattooed when it comes to money. Im disabled, as in fucked up, not supposed to work, as in many days cant work. I get headaches that partially blind and cripple me and I injuries that just really dont make life very fun most days, so even though I really do try to work, and I have held some jobs, its really hard to find the perfect fit. His biological father has never contributed a single dime to his support, ever.Though he came from money, and was a successful person in a few fields including acting, he only contributed his biological material and a death threat, and even though my son has been asking if he could reach out to him and see if he would be willing to meet him, the thought of that scares the hell out of me. My son has been pushing the issue lately and I am more than a little afraid he is going to try and find him via the internet, though my searches have revealed that he keeps a pretty tight layer of security around himself and he would probably only be contactable though a formal agency, such as a lawyer or the state.I do still have the number for his parents place in Santa Monica, and it still shows up as a valid number, but even though my son is a physically large young man, and strong, emotionally being rejected or even threatened by someone that looks just like him could be devastating.

My sons next obsession is his body and all the changes he is going through and talk about a land mine of a subject! He runs around without a shirt on most of the time and one of his buddies commented that he must be "less evolved"than the rest of them! Okay, I did not kick the kids ass, but I did say that no, it was just that my son was maturing faster. Hes already got a six pack,and hes a bit fuzzy and its driving him insane. I want to know when in the hell it became the style for men to get harassed for looking like men? So what if he has the beginnings of a beard and mustache and chest hair at 14? My God, he is a BOY! They were supposed to be hairy the last time I was around guys, but for some reason he is convinced he is supposed to be smooth and hairless like some chick! He obsesses over it and when my very expensive, fancy assed razor kept either disappearing or turning up out of place with weird hairs caught in it, I knew something was up in the weird department. He hardly ever wears shorts because he was sensitive about his legs looking,'all muscle y and weird and hairy" but the heat wave we have had broke him and he came out of his room in his boxers to Al Bundy it up in the living room one day and the boy looked like he had been attacked by rabid ants and there was not a hair to be seen anywhere on his legs,or chest! I was speechless for a good long while and I just kinda stared at him a bit before I said, 'Ill just bet that razor burn is a real bitch in this heat with all the sweat running into it." That was shortly before we had the whole,'gay" discussion. I started hiding my razor after that because the damn blades are expensive as hell and he dulls the heck out them with all the manscaping, and I have tried to reassure him that men are supposed to be fuzzy, and THANK GOD, some of the actors in hollyweird and some of the young rock stars are starting to look like men again, but still...geeze, its all the mixed signals that leave me feeling like im back on the pogo stick in the minefield with the screamo going again.

When I call my mom or even my sister for guidance, they just laugh at me and wish me luck, but I really wish you were still around, or that I had some young guy that I could call for advice on what the hell to do for him. He has been so abused and jerked around by the men in his life that he has no idea how a normal man is supposed to act, he knows how an abuser and an alcoholic acts, and he knows how to abandon people, but he has only gotten to spend maybe a grand total of a few months around normal, well-functioning, successful men, and that scares the hell out of me. Without a grandfather or an uncle close by or even good, close friends, he is floundering and so am I.

I have taken some steps to try and let him know that I am trying. I am working on getting him a guitar.I dont have much, but what I do have I will sell in order to get him one, because I know he misses his music, and that was one thing that was a positive in his life, and the fact that my ex wont send his guitars up here pisses me off to no end, but I cannot focus on yet another loser male in our lives, I have to work on fixing the one that still has potential, even if he resents the hell out of me for trying.

Dear Roger:Scars and Marks That Are More Than Skin Deep

Well Fuckity,Fuck Fuck!(to quote some of my favorite people) I knew things were rocking along a little too smoothly, and just to remind me that life likes to give me a swift kick in the ass when I get a little too full of myself, I got some of the warning signs that my noggin is on the fritz again. I have tinnitus pretty much constantly, and while there are times its just an annoying little mosquito hum in one ear or the other, there have been times it seems to almost drown out everything else around me, including music. It has been pretty much constant over the past few days, and then something that has never really happened before struck me, I lost my ability to read red or green colored fonts on my computer! I could tell there was something there, but it was just like weird blurry mess that made my eyes hurt the harder I tried to puzzle out what it was. Yellows and light blues were equally difficult and I have to say, that freaked me the hell out! I often lose vision in my right eye when I have a real bitch of a migraine coming, and my eyes burn or water and stuff gets blurry, but I have never lost colors before. I haven't said anything to the kids or m family because I dont want them freaking out, but I have been dropping down the dosages on the Topamax in the hopes that I could go off of it altogether, but when I started smelling blood and feeling really queasy last night, I knew that I was going to have to go back up to the full dose again, and that really sucks! I hate taking that stuff, it makes it really hard to keep any weight on and it just fucks with me in all kinds of ways. Im trying to keep a positive outlook, and not let it get me too down, after all, my pot smoking, hippy neighbors have actually contributed to me having a little better appetite and probably not so many headaches due to all the fumes and blow by that I have inhaled since I have lived up here. Friends of mine have actually suggested that the reason my headaches have been gone is because my neighbors have been soo generously sharing though the walls, and I am more than a bit conflicted.I am a bit uptight when it comes to that, and due to the ex and his drug issues, it just kinda freaks me out that that one thing that might me the answer to my neuro problems is an illegal substance! But the truth is, my neighbors have been gone mostly over the past few days and that is when my headaches came back, so though I think the issue would need more study, my friends are more than a little convinced. I just have never seen myself as a stoner, in case you forgot, im all about power and control and that just doesn't really mesh with my image of what weed is about.

My other uncle has been on my mind the past couple of days, and I really dont know what has brought him to such vivid clarity in my minds eye, other than I was talking about Robert the other day and he was Roberts daddy. James Colwell, was the only other member of that part of the family I really ever bonded with. He was my Aunt Judys first husband and to call him a,'Character" was a vast understatement. I remember him being lanky and having dark curly hair with dimples and eyes that always laughed.I remember he always smelled like Old Spice, cigarettes, and what I now know was just a hint of whiskey. He was skinny and funny and he would get down on the floor and roll around with us kids and play when the other adults would ignore us or send us outside, and he always called me,'Little Sister" or "Sister", (probably why I call Stevie that today), he played harmonica and guitar and he used to sing old Hank Williams songs for me in my granny kitchen and laugh at me as I tried to sing along with,"Kawliga". I remember him wearing a white, snap button cowboy shirt the last time I saw him that had little bitty roses embroidered in it. He had a gift for the understatement and when he took me fishing once and I made a pet out of a minnow and named it,'George" he risked getting caught by the fish and game officer to rescue that silly thing after I dropped it in the bed of the truck in the rush to flee and then began crying.

When he first got sick, no one told me anything, I just knew that Uncle James was gone alot to the doctor and my aunt cried alot. My cousins started fighting all the time and my parents didn't talk very much. When we went over after he got out of the hospital, he called me over to the couch where he was laid up and I was soo happy to see him I wanted to give him a huge hug and just crawl up against him and make it all better, but my Aunt jerked me away and told me I had to stay off of him. I sat next to the couch for the longest time and counted the roses on his shirt and we watched cartoons and just hung out. He smelled like whiskey and band-aids at that point and his eyes didn't smile as much, but his dimples still shown for me. He died of cancer,(something with his kidneys and liver) two and a half weeks before my 5th birthday and there really is no way I should remember soo much about him, but someday s I can close my eyes and see him in my granny's kitchen with a short glass of whiskey next to him, his ratty old guitar and his smile, and he is laughing at me as I try and sing,'Kawliga". Besides the memories, the only thing that is left of him is the tattered funeral notice I rescued from the trash at my parents place, and I have visited his grave in West Texas a couple of times to just let him know that I miss him. Robert is next to him now, and my granny and pa are nearby. The rest of the family is scattered all over West Texas, and I often wonder where my folks will chose to end up, and while this is a pretty fucking morbid topic to be talking about on such a beautiful day, its one I have had to mull over more than once, especially with my weird neurological issues and the two cancer scares that I have had to contend with this past year.

I try not to be a fatalist about things, but with our family history, its a very real worry with me. I grew up in what is called,'Cancer Alley", and I lost both grandfathers, my granny, Uncle James, Aunt Judy, Uncle Runt, Uncle Charlie, and others and more than a few friends along the way and with Trina having to have that implant that measures the growth of that lump, it just seems pretty much a sure fire bet that one of these days my tab is gonna come due, because Lord knows I abused the hell out of my body when I was younger and that shit tends to leave a mark.

Chance got a good look at some of my marks just a bit ago when I was changing from one shirt to another and the knuckle head walked in without knocking. I had on a sports bra, (Thank God), but he was able to see the full array of scars that are typically covered by even a wife beater and he was a little freaked out,(really helpful for my self-confidence), and I could tell he wanted to ask about ten thousand questions, but most of the stories are best left for another day, when he is older and not so prone to calling me a hypocrite when I tell him he cant have a motorcycle or date a certain person or own a really sharp knife, or jump off the side of a bridge or own a shotgun.

Dear Roger;Obsessive Compulsive and Hard Limits or Why Being a Parent Makes Me Just a Little More Crazy Than Most

I have been accused of many things, being a "controlling, ball-breaking, scary as fuck, bitch on wheels", "Neat Freak"," Obsessive Compulsive to the Power of 10", and the "Female R.Lee", but I really do think most of those things are a little over the top. Just because I like things to be neat, tidy, and in their place and for people to arrive on time and as instructed, it should be expected that I would be a little put out when someone wastes my time by being late or slovenly or perhaps misrepresents what they are capable of.

My background and history has led to many of my habits, and I actually have found that many of my so called,"idiosyncratic behaviors" have actually served me very well. My grandparents were retired military, and as such, they kept everything neat,tidy, and everything had a place because it might need to be found quickly. I learned very young that if I kept my things put where they belonged, they were easier to find the next time. I also learned how to take care of my boots and clothes, including polishing and ironing,(not sewing though,I am a complete failure at that)but I can starch a military crease like nobodies business. Cleaning up after right away when I finished with whatever I was doing was something that I was taught helped to keep the house clean. And always dressing up to go out in public was just expected. I was never allowed to go to town in pajamas or house shoes like I see kids wandering about in nowadays. My grandparents would have shamed me if they had caught me out with my butt hanging out or a huge muffin top hanging over my britches. I was expected to be neat, clean, presentable, and to look as if I owned a mirror, and even though I often wore rock t-shirts and jeans, they were always decent, and as I have gotten older, I have gotten even more self conscious about it, and I find myself requiring the same behavior of my kids even when my ex would have allowed them to go about dressed only in a diaper and a dirty t-shirt.

My house is cleaned every day, and I butt heads with Chance with I tell him I want him to make his bed each morning. "Why should I make my bed,its just gonna get messed up again ?" I explain that its so the house looks neat and orderly and it helps to instill a routine and a sense of pride in himself. " No it doesn't, it annoys the crap outta me because even when I make it, you just come and re-make it because I dont get the edges right." Seriously, the boy refuses to do hospital corners properly just to annoy me. I try to get him to at least fold his sleep pants and put them in the proper place instead of wadded up in the bathroom floor, and he simply flings them through his bedroom door, where they land on his pillow and I bring up the point that his butt goes in those pants and now its on his pillow and I wonder aloud,"Is that okay with you, its not very sanitary?" He just grunts and scratches and wanders into to the kitchen and opens the fridge, preparing to reach in and grab the orange juice and drink out of the container! 'IF YOU DRINK OUT OF THAT CONTAINER IM GONNA THRASH YOU!" I yell, breaking out all three names of his in pure Texas momma. And he just blinks at me, holding the container in his hand while the fridge door is still open. He mumbles that he was going to drink the whole thing and he grumbles about the fact that I dont even drink orange juice,(no wonder,I know that he drinks outta the container), and he puts the container back and roots around the fridge a while longer, pulling out the milk. I should say at this point that he is shirtless, which is against the rules, and he starts to reach into the cupboard for a bowl when I stop him and tell him to go wash his hands and then sit down after he gets a shirt, because if he goes rooting around in the cupboard for a bowl I may just have a heart attack.

My son learned a lot of bad habits from living with my parents. My mom is the anti-housekeeper, and her house is probably the reason for many of my habits.They are also horrible procrastinators and will often either wait until the last minute to do something, or put it off until past the due date and then try and get an extension. They have been supposed to mail me my sons shot record for over 2 weeks now, and when I called yesterday, she was,'Planning on putting it in the mail today." I like to get stuff done as soon as I find out about it, that way I dont have to worry about forgetting stuff. The only things I tend to put off are papers and writing projects because I like having the pressure of an impending deadline. I work very well under pressure, in fact I thrive under it, so other than that exception I get stuff taken care of right away. Dishes get washed right away, laundry gets picked up and put in the hamper and when I have a washer I do it the minute I have a full load and then I put it away. I plan meals and organize the things I need for them. My cupboards are organized, and yes...the cans are all facing the same direction and arranged by product and type, but its so I know when I am low on something. My closets are the same way, colors with colors and styles with styles, and my boots are arranged according to color and style. Yes, the things in my bathroom are lined up and arranged according to usages and I do keep everything clean and I notice when something has been moved. Bedroom is carefully arranged and bed is made as soon as I get out of it. My routines and habits serve me well and I have the kind of memory that allows me to see things as pictures in my head, so that even when it has been awhile and my ex calls me wanting to know where something is in the house back in Flagstaff, I can tell him that the hdmi cable for the tv in the back bedroom is on the second shelf in the master closet on the right hand side about 1/3 of the way back under the spare controller for the xbox,and after he stops mumbling about me being weird and obsessive, he goes and finds it exactly where I told him. Its also how I was able to recall exactly what Stevie was wearing the day she went missing and I was able to describe it right down to her socks, and when she was found the deputy was amazed at my recall.

Some things I just cannot tolerate, and I just kinda freak out a little and perhaps go a tad bit overboard, but considering all the education I have had in regards to sanitation and cleanliness, I think its a reasonable issue. I cannot handle the thought of bugs being in my house or around me. When I was traveling alot, instead of staying in hotels I would often sleep in my truck because I KNOW how nasty hotels are, and the problem my friend is facing right now just cements that thought. Her husband had to stay in a hotel in Idaho on business a few weeks ago and it appears that he brought home a friend when he came back, bedbugs have infested her house! I wont go over there now. I hardly can even stand to be around her without itching or just being freaked out. They have already had an exterminator out and are getting things handled, but its like they are tainted now. Bugs are something that just causes me to lose my mind a little, and some types of bugs just put me a little of the deep end, like lice. Lice will get you exiled from my life. If any of my kids ever came home with them I am afraid I would just freaking move and not leave a forwarding address. Cockroaches are also unacceptable. I dont care how much I liked a guy, if I was deeply in love with a guy and I went to his place and I found cockroaches, that would be a deal breaker, its just....yech. But the one thing that will cause me to abso-fucking-lutely hurt someone is a grand daddy longlegs spider. I do not care that they are supposedly harmless. I do not care that they supposedly aren't even really spiders. I actually even like most spiders. I have no problems with snakes or mice or all kinds of other critters, but if you come near me with a grandaddy longlegs, I will cut a bitch. Its a Texas related trauma that is soo deeply rooted in my psyche that even the mention of the damn things sends a shudder up my spine, and the feeling of pure and utter dread that comes over me even seeing one just pisses me off to no end, that when a ex-boyfriend once thought it funny to try and chase me with one, I picked up a baseball bat and chased him with that, and I had to be restrained from breaking his knee caps when I caught him. I think its one of the main reasons that I just couldn't get comfortable with the idea of ever moving back to East Texas because those damn things are all over the place back there. I was very dismayed to find that they also live out here, and the one I found on my back porch yesterday quickly met a bad end before I had to hurt a boy that might have found it funny to try and harass me with it.

I always try to arrive a little early for appointments, not annoyingly so, but just enough so that I am comfortable and organized and ready to tend to the business at hand. Arriving early has served me well in the past and it was how I got some of my jobs working personal security and on sets. I would often be the first to arrive for squad meetings and that got my face right there in the Captains mind, and he knew I needed extra work as a single mom and he knew I wasn't one that really gave a crap about who someone was,(with one exception, he would not let me guard Trace Adkins), and that really hurt, but he said that I was the reason they needed security! and I enjoyed working those jobs and I was good at it, but I would have missed out if I had drug in late because there were other guys that were bigger and tougher looking and outranked me, but because I was early, I got them and they kept me and my son fed in the lean times. People who arrive late or at the last minute annoy me, its like they see their commitment as an afterthought and not something that should be taken seriously. I make allowances for life issues, but habitual lateness just gets under my skin and I dont tolerate it from anyone, its kind of like laziness.

Chance and I butt heads over some of my rules, and I know that he was allowed to get away with so many things while he was living in Texas, but is it really too much to ask of a boy to;Pick up after himself and clean up the bathroom after himself, wear a shirt to the table and not wear a hat in the house, wear a belt and keep his pants pulled up, dont fart in my kitchen or at the table, dont cuss around his baby sister, shake hands and make eye contact like the gentleman he was raised to be when he meets new folks,say ,"Please and thank you and Sir and ma'am" like he has been taught his whole life. I would let a few things slide like his bed making and maybe even how he folds his sleep pants if he would just remember his manners because I have met more than a few people,(adults included) that have no idea how they are supposed to behave.

Dear Roger;Submission? Me? Yeah, Riiiiiight, About That...

There are times I choose to walk away from conversations with people, not because I am afraid I will lose an argument, but because I am erring on the side of keeping a friendship intact and not revealing too much of myself to those who really dont need to know all aspects of my personality. The dinner conversation that started up over at Susan's house the other night was a perfect example of one of the times I chose to walk away and keep my silence, because while Sus has been my friend for quite awhile, and suspects that there are more than a few twists and turns to me that I keep under wraps, she doesn't question me about it other than in a joking manner, her husband on the other hand is a delightfully oblivious minister who really doesn't know too much about me other than I have some really dark shit in my past and that I am a very tightly controlled person who has a hard time letting go and relaxing enough around people to engage in conversation with strangers or even allow casual physical contact. He knows not to crowd me or raise his voice around me, and he knows that I tend to always be a little bit on the,"alert" side, and as former military, he gets this.

They drug me over to dinner the other night and we were sitting around afterwards watching the boys trying to tie cherry stems in knots with their tongues. It was a bit of a surreal and odd thing to be watching my teen son trying to master, and I was a bit put off by it, and Sus was attempting to tie 2 of them together herself when she said,"I cant get it to go in." I snickered and said,(not thinking of the mixed company)"Thats what she said" as the boys promptly spit their stems in guffaws of laughter and Sus's eyes widened in shock as her husband asked,'Just what does that mean?" Why do you say that?" I told him, its a pop culture reference and it can sexualize and make dirty pretty much any statement someone makes without thinking, and its also a delightfully dirty song. He just looked at me and said,'Ohh, do you really think that is appropriate around the kids?' Well, the boys already are well aware of that phrase and game and it goes well above Stevies ability to understand for now, so until she is able to understand the meaning, I think its okay. I have a fairly open line of communication with my kids in regards to sexuality, I think it helps to keep them from getting into trouble or things that are over their heads. At this point the boys bailed to go play video games, taking Stevie with them so the adults could debate, and I prepared to be interrogated about parenting.

I believe that having an open line of communication with my kids about most things, keeps them from being caught off guard and built up with false expectations about life. I try not to lie to them about the reality of our situation or build them up with false hope, because my parents did that to me when I was a kid, and by the time I figured out what they had done, it was too late to salvage the disaster. They had always told me,"You are going to college, you are going to be a famous photographer/artist, and you can go to the college you want to go to." They let me assume that they had been saving for it like many of my classmates parents had done, so when I applied for UCLA and UC Berkley and all the other great schools that I hoped to study my art at, I applied for a few scholarships, and financial aid, but I wasn't too heart broken when I was told that my parents made too much money and that I was the ,'Wrong minority", until it came time to pick a school and my parents told me that they could not afford to send me to any school out of state, in fact they could not afford to send me to a big in state school like Rice or UT Austin, and I would be real damn lucky if they could afford to send me to the crappy little liberal arts college up the road, in fact, they couldn't and if not for my uncle ponying up some bucks and me managing to get out of the meal plan, I would have never gotten to go to college with my peers. As it was, I got married at 19 to a guy who was in similar straits so we could both qualify as independent, and then I worked my ass off to be able to stay in school. I will never delude my kids the same way. They know they will have to work for their educations unless my book sells or we get really damn lucky, because their father will never financially amount to anything, and being medically retired out of my former career does not make me rich. I also talk very directly about sex and drugs and real life to my kids, because as a former cop, and as a family member of someone who had AIDS, I know the high cost of not communicating, but that doesn't mean that I talk to them about the entire world.

He seemed a bit annoyed that I am very accepting of homosexuality, and I called him on it and said that while there is only one or two passages in the bible that may or may not condemn homosexuality as a sin, there is a whole hell of a lot in the bible about forgiveness and loving ones neighbor, and to me in the whole grand scheme of things, I find things like people who hurt kids or commit atrocities in the name of God, a whole lot more deserving of my hate and damnation than people who cannot help that they love the same sex. I told him about the hell my cousin went through, living in West Texas, having to hear all the ,'Faggot jokes" from those around him, including family members, keeping what he thought was a big secret, until it festered inside him and caused him to drink and engage in unsafe behaviors in Houston, and he ended up HIV positive and a horrible alcoholic. He was a beautiful man, and the one member of that side of the family that actually,"Got" me, and I still laugh remembering him trying to talk me out of getting married to the boy I married so I could go to school. He even offered to take me to Houston with him, and to tell the truth, I wish I had gone, it would have been a hell of an adventure, and he might still be alive. When I was telling him this story, I explained to him that I would not risk my children's lives in that way, that I would make sure that they knew no matter who they loved, that they had my unconditional support and love, and even though I may tease my oldest son for his random comments about young actors making,'Cute chicks", that if he really was that way, then I would support him and I would still be his mom. He asked me,"have you been worried about him being gay?" and I was honest because I am not used to the casual attitude that kids have to the ambi-sexuality nowadays, but I told him that he has assured me he ,'REALLY LIKES GIRLS". I told him that so many of the young guys now days are," Pretty" that its really hard to fault kids for being so casual about things, because the more I see of some of the pictures and films of some of them recent popular actors and such, the clearer it is that there had been a bit of a shift from the masculine ideal of the macho, hairy, tough guy to the younger, sleeker, almost effeminate young men in the past few years, and luckily that is starting to change and facial hair is making a comeback as well as chest hair and a general manliness that will help to erase some of the confusion, but I told him that I really could not blame kids for being confused. Girls are way more sexually aggressive than they ever used to be, and that has left many boys wondering just what their place is in the entire grand scheme of things.

'Well that is the problem, you see the bible says that the woman should submit herself to man and when women stopped submitting, the structure of the family began to fall apart." OOOOOKAY, its "GO" time. Well, if there were men worthy of submitting to, then perhaps more women would have been willing to retain their status as second or third class citizens,but when you have men who are incapable of managing things without either cruelty or inefficiency, then it is the right of the woman to rise to the role of the dominant and take over to save herself and her family. I have had to deal with less than satisfactory men most of my entire life and that is why I reached a point early on when I said that I would never submit again. I have endured much, including beatings and attempts on my life, but,I.submit. to. no. one. I claimed my power a long time ago and I have yet to find someone worth sharing it with, so I stay alone, I answer to no one and I find its just easier to stay that way rather than try and find a man that is capable of following my rules. I think its best that we agree to disagree on this subject and drop it, but in order to stay connected to my kids lives, I follow whats popular, I pay attention to catch phrases and jokes and music and that way I know what is just silliness, and what is potentially dangerous, but I have an advantage,I taught in a High School , so that helped and I really suggest you do the same because you cannot shield them from it all, and its much better to know what they are thinking than to have them sneaking around and hiding all the weird stuff they are doing. My son didn't know I still was able to get into his computer and check his history and all that he had viewed, so just out of curiosity I checked up on him while he was gone. When I went into his history I found lots of music sites, lots of archived messages between him and his girlfriends in Texas, sites visited on physical training and workouts, a few videos from bands I dont much care for, skin care websites, and some gamer sites, but what I didn't find was porn or drug info or any other stuff that would have made me lose my mind. In fact, he had even quit downloading music from one site that I had blacklisted as a pirate site and forbade in my house as stealing. So, I guess I am doing something right.

I got up at this point and started getting ready to head back to my place and he was still wanting to discuss the whole,'Submission" concept with me, and I finally said, Look, I am a sinner, I have been a knowledgeable sinner since I was 16 years old. I could never atone fully for all that I have done in my life, and I spend my days just trying to ensure that my kids have a better life that I had and that I am able to prevent some of the darkness from shadowing them. I send them to church so that they might learn to submit to God, but its to late for me, I submit to nothing but the end and thats how its going to stand. I appreciate your efforts, but they are wasted on me, save my kids. With that, I thanked them for dinner and scooped up my daughter and headed home for the evening, hoping that he would let it drop, and so far he has.

My friendship with Sus has always been an odd one, she is very much a girly/girl and always has to have her hair done and makeup on and she dresses in heels or flip slops and jewelry and all kinds of girly crap that I could never carry off, and I am always in jeans and boots and either black or darker colors and rather tough looking clothes. She never had considered a tattoo until she met me, and now she is considering her second one, while I am on my 6th, soon to be 7th, and though mine have gotten a little less dark over the years that I have known her, they have moved into more visible areas, and with the one that I am going to be getting on my forearm, she has been waiting for me to find the right shop to get it done, but what she doesn't know is that I am going to ask her husband to finish up the drawing of it for me. He is a brilliant artist and though I have the perfect picture from the concert, my sock monkey drawing skills are not what that need to be and Stevie has been wanting to take over.Hopefully he will do it with just a minor amount of negotiation, I have yet to consider selling what is left of my soul for a good tattoo.