Dear Roger: The Year Of Lost Resolve, and Many Other Lost Things

I have not written anything of substance since March. Yes, I have blogged and worked over stories that I wrote in past years and I did actually publish 3 books, and I have one that is primed to come out any time, as well as one that is in revision, but when it comes to creating a new adventure or tale, or even completing the one that is in progress? I have vapor locked.
It is a miserable place to be and I have struggled with what to do about it. I re-read the one story, and it just makes me sad. I love the two main characters and like many of my readers I want them to have a happy ending, I want them to end up together, safe and happy and able to be with each other, but for some reason my muse keeps pointing me in the other direction, and in a fit of frustration and angst not unlike many other artistic hissy fits I have had in the past, I even wrote an ending that was very, very dark. I delved in to the deepest misery that comes of a broken and betrayed heart and I had it end in a murder/suicide. The way this past year has gone, if not for friends of mine who are very invested in the characters and the story, I would have gone with that ending and then regretted it.
I hate not writing. It puts me in a bad place mentally and I am not quite sure how to get myself out of it. I am very determined to finish the story because that is what I do, I finish what I started and the fact I have left people hanging for over 8 months deeply embarrasses me and makes me feel like a flake, something I strive hard to avoid, I am not some punk ass kid that just flits from project to project when I get bored. I am more like a long campaigner, I dig in for the long haul and stick in til the end, even if it drives me nuts.
This new year should start off a lot better. The crazy is settling down with a lot of changes for the good with my work, (problems leaving), and hopefully I will continue to just gain skills and responsibilities. We are considering moving to Seattle in the summer or maybe to the downtown Portland area.
My eldest son is leaving traditional high school for an early college entry/job training program. Im done battling him over his attendance and study habits. The stress was making me sick and since he is 17 he is capable of making some choices on his own. I need to focus on finding out what is going on with me, why I keep losing weight and getting sick, and fighting with him all the time is not going to help that happen, so I let him choose what he was going to do.
I have 3 other kids I have to worry about and support on my own, so that is what I am going to focus on.
My little girl is growing up and sometimes I think its too damn fast. Her monkey stays home an awful lot nowadays and while she made a little video birthday card for Jackson, when she saw some tweets of his she didn't understand and she perceived to be kinda mean towards someone she likes and is weirdly protective towards,(most women are for some reason), she got upset and offended and hasn't had much to say about things since. Im  going to sit down with her soon and have an abbreviated TALK, she has been more emotional lately, angering easily, lots of door slamming and then bummed out for no reason. She has asked to get her ears pierced and maybe it will happen, maybe not, but we will talk about and I will see if i can slow things down a little.
I have one son that is a grown man, another son in the throes of puberty, one just entering it and a daughter who is of indeterminate status trying to deal with all of it and who currently thinks all men are, "Stupid, unreliable and mean!" so maybe its time to try and find someone who sets the bar a little higher and acts more manlike? I havent really, genuinely tried dating because I didnt want the hassle and honestly where I live and work the pickings are slim, but maybe this is the year to relocate and reconsider the value of a great many things in our lives.
I need to get back to writing, I need to find where I lost my way and I dont know if a geographical fix will help but its up for consideration.

Dear Roger: Changing of The Guard

I've been pretty damn busy lately, between work and kids and trying to convince my pup,"Benny" that the bathroom is not where he is supposed to do his business as well, I have hardly had time to put two thoughts together in my head, much less down on my blog or for one of my books.
My muse is still pretty evasive and though he has been kicking around at the outer edges of my mind for one of my stories, the ending would be brutal and I am sure one of my friends would find it in herself to come all the way from the Carolinas just to stomp a mud hole in my ass if I finished it the way he is guiding me currently.
My kids had a pretty decent Christmas. Thank God for good friends and a gift card from my folks because my job boned me hard. I put in 93 hours this month dealing with all kinds of crazy bullshit from my stalker who is convinced I am out to get her when in all actuality I have done nothing but pretend she does not exist for the last few months, cops on the property almost every stinking week and just one fiasco after another including death threats from crazy crackheads. The one break in the month was a glorious weekend in Seattle courtesy of a wonderful friend and if there is anyway in Gods green earth possible, we will be moving there this summer. After the whole, "The company is going to monthly payroll and oh, by the way its effective now so that means you aren't getting paid all of December", thing, everyone is ready to jump ship and head for greener pastures.
Daughter is especially excited about the possibility of a move, she loved Seattle and the Capitol Hill area, she really likes my friend who lives there, so the chance to move someplace where there is a thriving art and cultural environment would be good for all of us, but mainly getting out of the suburbs and where we are now is going to be important. We love our boys that come over for Walking Dead night, and we have some great neighbors, but we have all been discussing that its maybe time for some major changes in many ways.
Stevie was on twitter the other night when her favorite boy started tweeting out a little story with visual aids. I was half-assed paying attention because I had been tumblr blogging some pics for a friend when I noticed her face looked a bit stressed so I looked at what he was doing a little more closely. Stevie asked me,"Is he being mean? Why would he be being mean? Thats not very nice." I honestly couldn't tell her. It sure looked like it initially and she put down the computer and just left the room to go read a book.
First time ever I have heard doubt in her voice when it come to him. First time I have ever seen disappointment in her eyes related to him. Shes got a very tender heart and she knows even giants can be brought down when their hearts are hurt and she was and is truly upset. I haven't really touched the subject with her again.
I'm not sure what to say as I don't know what to think and I'm honestly just pretty much done at this point. She is growing up and things that have been absent from her life for this past year are starting to fade, even her father has realized that while she is his daughter, she is a very independent and  strong girl who has a hard edge in a lot of ways and a snark to her that comes from being let down by men she looked up to, and that edge just got a little harder and sharper. She finally left her church this past month over a moral issue and I have a feeling that I am raising a child that will stand up for what she feels is right and for others, even when it breaks her own heart, that both makes me proud and scares me to death.

Dear Roger: Lucky

Yesterday was one of those days. I worked all day long in the office, screwing around building a new webpage for the company that will probably go ignored and unappreciated by the corporate schlubs, and underutilized as well by the masses, but its a sort of living when they actually pay me. It was all in all a pretty boring day of dealing with tech issues, and phone interruptions, residents needing weird crap and watching it rain as well as just generally trying to keep warm in an office that is always cold and trying to ignore the fact I needed to pee because that would have meant I would have had to log out of the computer, locked up the office and gone home due to there being no bathroom, (just not worth it), though the issue about got handled when the big boss called for some reason or another looking for my immediate supervisor and when I went to get her number out of my Iphone I managed to take the music off of mute right at the height of,"Reapers" chorus and,"Free the beast!" was blasted into his ears just before I dropped both phones. It was a great moment for me.
It would have been an average day for me except for the fact that Stickyman was off at the mall with his SPED class for the day. I am not a fan of him going to places like that without me, but then I am a control freak who thinks that no one takes care of my kid as good as I do, so I dwell and worry about him constantly when he is gone. I don't get news or radio in my office and my twitter feed there is limited, so I didn't know anything had gone down until I got home after 4pm. I walked through the door of my house and found my eldest son parked in front of the tv looking like he had seen a ghost. The news was talking about a masked gunman who had walked into the Clackamas Mall and started shooting...the mall my son and his SPED class had gone to for the day.
It didn't even register with me at first that I had walked past his backpack when I got home, all I knew is I had to see my baby and make sure he was okay. I was on the verge of a full on freak out when he came wandering into the room in his green Roca wear boxers and said,"Where the hell is my dang Ipad?WOMAN!" I grabbed him and hugged him, and yeah, I was already crying because by then we were hearing that two were dead and possibly as many as 7 injured. He didn't understand what was going on, hes pretty oblivious to most stuff like that and could care less. Hes pretty focused on his Ipad, his pipe cleaners and harassing his sister, so unless it involves those things, Sticky doesn't get involved. I'm kinda glad about that and wish I could be the same way. I spent all last night having,"Worst case scenario" nightmares.  The world is a scary place and there are days I just wish I could keep my kids wrapped up safe and secure at home. I didn't get a call from his school or anyone about what had gone on, where they were when it went down or what time they left the mall or anything. I got my kid home safe and sound and in the end that is all that matters. I don't know how Sticky would have reacted in that situation, like I said hes a fairly oblivious, lives in his own head, kinda guy. Stubby is very much a, " If there is a monster in the house I'm jumping out the window and you are on your own" excellent sense of self-preservation kind of kid. He has no plans to be a hero, but my other two kids? Those are the two who scare the hell out of me. My eldest son and my baby girl are the,"Run towards the sounds of the gunshots and see who needs rescue" kind of people and while I understand and I know where it comes from, It scares the living hell out of me. The one thing going for them is that lucky streak this family seems to have, I just hope it keeps on keeping on.

Dear Roger: Monkey Grows Up?

She finally went and did it, my baby girl went and talked me into letting her get her haircut and oh boy did she ever get it cut! She had more than a foot cut off and yeah, I stood there and cried like a baby when they did it. For her entire life I had taken care of her hair, I had made sure to give her what I had never had, a chance to have the long, flowing, curly hair that little girls should be able to enjoy. Mine had been buzzed off when I was very young because it was too much of a pain in the ass for my mother to deal with at the time and I guess it remained that way throughout my youth. I have had long hair off and on as an adult, but it just seems to be more of a pain for me to deal with because I never learned what to do with it or how to style it. I didn't want that for my daughter. Her hair reached her butt and it was curly and thick and beautiful. She was very proud to donate her hair to locks of love so a child in need of hair could hopefully use it and now she plans to go back every November 30th and donate it again. She has a very giving spirit and she has gone through her closet and sorted out all her clothes that she has outgrown and that are in good shape for donation, and she even gathered up all her toys for the less fortunate. She knows that even when things are tough for us, things could be worse.
I got pretty stressed out and angry this past week when I found out that the company I work for had decided to make the transition to monthly payroll effective THIS month of all months, and due to a clerical error, I would not be getting my November 30th paycheck, and because I am less than a 30hour a week employee and not eligible for any benefits, I am also NOT eligible for the mid-month draw, so I will not be getting a paycheck until JANUARY 2nd, so we are facing all of December with no paycheck. Yeah, the rent is paid, but as a single mom with four kids who was counting on her paycheck to buy Christmas for her kids, its really hard to not refer to the corporate office as,"Grinch Central". I just told the kids the truth, they shrugged and said,"Meh...its big business, what can you do?" Stevie wants to kick my big boss in the shins, but other than that we are a pretty much roll with the blows kind of crew. We have been there, done that and we know it could all be soo damn much worse. I just have been feeling like crud lately because Ive been sick and this didn't help matters much.
Looks like we may have a game plan to get the anemia under control and I am now on a weekly shot protocol with a nurse who apparently finds it amusing to stick Bugs Bunny bandaids on my butt. The issue is now to deal with the ongoing stomach pain and lack of appetite I have been dealing with over the past few months. It had been intermittent, and as such, I had been able to pretty much ignore it, but a little over a week ago it landed on me like a ton of bricks and it was all I could do to keep the boy from calling a damn ambulance on me. That would have been embarrassing as all hell. I fought him off with a promise I would call a doctor and go in, and eventually, when I got unbearable, I did. I have an ultrasound on Friday to see what the hell is going on. It has to suck pretty bad if I am actually taking Aleve to take the edge off because I don't take pain killers. I hope like hell they don't decide to cut on me because I don't take narcotics at all and the last time I got cut on and had to deal afterwards it was hard as hell to keep my focus and keep the pain down through meditation with kids asking me every 5 minutes,"Are you sure you don't need something?" I love them dearly, but they freak out waay to easy.
Daughter is the one I hope will be my calm voice of reason through everything. She is developing quite the attitude and strength of character and I am proud of her every single day, she can be a handful, but I can see she is no longer my baby girl, she is quite the young lady who has changed soo very, very much and come so very far.