Dear Roger: Beating My Head Against The Wall Isnt Enough

Its been a busy week again. I managed to crush my right hand between the bottom of the worlds heaviest couch and my friends Durango, and though x-rays revealed that no bones were broken and that it was in fact only severely bruised with crushed tendons and what not, it still hurts like hell and it has made getting things done a real pain in the ass. I have a splint I am supposed to wear, but considering the damn thing goes to my elbow and makes my arm sweat, it spends more time laying on the couch next to me than it does on my arm. As long as nobody bumps it and I remember to not pick anything up with that hand, I am okay, though it makes typing a real pain in the ass and slow.

I was an extra for a tv show this week! It was pretty damn fun and it involved a little bit of acting, and even making some noise and talking, so I guess I wasn't just window dressing. I had a blast and though I got paid, I would have done it for free. I got to hang out with a bunch of adults, talk about fun things that I am interested in, watch a comedian I find really funny do his thing and just hang out. It was like being on a playground with the cool kids and I was one of the cool kids for the day. Another casting director wanted my information for some shows she casts, and if it leads into other opportunities that will be awesome, but if that was it for my foray into acting, so be it. I had fun, but it would be hard for me to enforce my,"College and then a REAL job" policy for my kids if their own mom is running around doing play acting.

Son and I have been butting heads pretty hard lately. He has been a full on jerk at times and I have reached the point where I just take things away and tell him to walk away from me. The day I went and got the couch and furniture, he had been so damn hateful to me, I took the hotspot with me so he didnt have internet access except on his phone, but he used that to post hateful comments about me on Facebook. My ex husband called me to tell me I was being trashed online and to ask me what the hell I had done this time. In spite of all of his faults, he is good about giving me a heads up when son is on a rampage like that. It eventually blew over, but I am weary of it. He is so damn spoiled and I know I have only myself to blame. He suffers from 1st Texas son syndrome. I am a Texan. He is my 1st born son. It was just me and him for a long time and I turned him into a little prince. He has always been over-indulged in that way. I love my other children just as much, but he had me to himself for a long time, and he was spoiled and it has carried on. I know quite a few Texas sons, and those that are onlys or eldests, tend to be the worst spoiled, but its just something us Texas mothers tend to do and its hard to undo.With school starting back soon and his brothers coming up here soon,(hopefully), we will have some time apart and less time to focus on each others annoying habits and maybe the bickering with ease up. I can only hope.

My friend from out of state that was going to go to the 100 Monkeys concert with me is not going to be able to make it, so I am going to end up taking a friend of sons, another teen boy. I would pretty much rather take a boot to the head that deal with Beavis and Butthead at the concert, but I hate the thought of wasting the tickets and son insists he "Really wants to go". I rue the day he realized that there are lots of girls at the concerts, though I still tease him mercilessly about his lil crush on Jackson Rathbone due to the Criminal Minds episode. I thought about printing off a picture from the episode and taping it to his door, but I do value my computer and I fear it would suffer violence at his hands, either that, or he would keep the picture and frame it, just to traumatize me and his sister. He is such a contrary lately that there is no telling.

This next Sunday is the concert and I am both excited and apprehensive. Daughter was a little disturbed to find that it was on a Sunday and that she was going to miss church in because we were going to be wandering around town and going to the Best Buy thing. She is very much a church girl, but coordinating meeting up with the folks she rides to church with and our transportation to the concert would be a huge hassle, so I just told her no church. She was not happy, but when I gave her the choice of church or concert, she chose concert. She has been super excited and wound up this week Her monkeys have been drug all over and she has informed me that she is taking Jackson with her again. Her father made a comment last night that he wanted to see the end of that,"Little obsession" and that comment pissed me off.

She is 7 years old. She has been through the wringer in her young life and has done nothing but succeed and overcome all of it. She witnessed much of the abuse, she has been separated from her brothers and her pets and she lost Fergus too. She is growing up without the normal things most little girls have and she hasn't complained. So what is she loves a funky little rock star and so what if she carries around a ratty little monkey she named after him? Its her comfort and the one stable thing in her life. She no longer asks to take it to school or church, and I can convince her to leave him at home on occasion, but if my ex thinks he is going to come up here and try and usurp everything we have established and destroy her happiness in some half-assed bid to try and become a semi-decent father figure, he has another thing coming. He let her down time and time again. She has replaced him and she is happy.

He says he is coming up here. He got a foreclosure notice on the house and he has until October to get it figured out. He is selling off things, including my things, to raise money and he is talking about coming to Portland to at least get my boys to me. All I can hope for is that I can get my boys and get them in a stable setting and let them know that its only going to get better now that we are together. I just have to hope that once I have my boys, he will find someplace else to be.

Dear Roger: Surreality-The Weirdness That Is My Life

What a week! We finally have a couch though it nearly cost me a broken hand. Its a monster of a couch, 7ft long and all steel and wood and black houndstooth material, its very, very cool and probably the heaviest couch I have ever owned. When we were loading it into the back of my friends Durango, I managed to get my hand caught between it and the back end of the truck and ended up with,"Severely crushed tendons and a deep bone bruise" on my right hand of all things! It never fails that some damn disaster befalls me when I am at my busiest.

Work has been going good. I enjoy it and I am meeting people and starting to get out and try to actually socialize some.

I am making my first foray into acting today. I have been called to be in a funky show on the IFC channel. I am pretty excited about it and its just pretty much being window dressing, but wow! I like the show and I watched it regularly when I had cable, so I am pretty jazzed to be on it. If this is fun, I will see about trying to be in others, more often.

My writing is going along okay. I am considering taking the story into a little more twisted angle, but I have to get over being squeamish about writing the more explicit sex scenes first I guess. I just have read sooo many bad ones, I dont want to repeat the mistakes I have seen. I like to write erotic without smacking people in the face with all the,"Pulsing and throbbing" what have yous.

The kids are driving me nuts. School doesn't start back until September 9th and I am sure I will be insane by then. If I have to put up with sons smart assed snarky attitude much longer, I will lose my mind. Daughter is turning into an insomniac. Last night she realized that it was 10 days til the 100Monkeys concert. At 1130 at night I had a 7 year old in freak out mode. I was in my bed, at that stage of sleep where you are all relaxed and almost dead to the world, when I felt something touch my cheek. I jumped and opened my eyes to find her standing over me with her damn beady eyed monkeys. "Its almost less than 10 days til they are back!!!" she gushed at me.

I sat up and told her that if she didn't get her narrow ass out of my room and into bed, I was gonna whop her, her monkeys and him when I saw him, just for all the damn aggravation! My heart about jumped out of my chest she startled me so damn bad! It was dark in my room and to have someone standing over me! Hell, all she needed was to be singing,"Keep Awake" and the scene would have been perfect. I heard her brother laughing out in the living room, so I know he put her up to it. It took me a good hour to go back to sleep.

I have decided to go to my 25th High School reunion in April. I am probably going to take the Amtrak back there, but either way, I am going because there are some friends I want to see, and I want to see my sis. Its time to go home for a bit to just say,"Hello" and be the scandal to give folks something to ponder for a bit.

Dear Roger; Virtual Pasture Parties

I think I have decided to actually try and go to my 25th high school reunion. It will coincide with me turning 43 and a decent time of year in Texas, so going back home for a bit might actually be a good thing. If I have a car by then, I will drive, if I dont, I will fly into Dallas and then drive on home and maybe visit some folks in the outlying areas. I have close to a year to prepare myself for it, so I will figure it out by then. I do actually miss some folks back there. Some are kinda surprising, a gal I hardly ever spoke to in school because she was one to the 'Preps" has turned out to be someone I kinda enjoy chatting with, and there are people I played baseball with as well as just hung out with that I have discovered I do kinda miss. I also want to go pay respects to those who have passed and I want to see my sis.

My hometown folk have started a Facebook page and people get on there and just talk about all kinds of things. Some nights its like sitting around the tailgate of a pickup truck talking. All that is missing is the sound of whip o wills and tepid beer. I love reading the postings and catching up with people. Some of it is heartbreaking though, as I have found that some people I knew have passed on, in fact way more than I expected.

I do miss Texas and many of the folks back there. Its been hotter than hell back there though, and I wouldn't like that, but its going to be in April so I guess it will be tolerable.

Going back to see them will be fun. No pretense on my part, I am who I am. Yeah, I am,'Deeply and creatively weird", my private life looks like a train wreck and I am constantly broke, but I am a minorly published author, I am breaking into acting and you know what? I am a survivor and I am happy and comfortable with myself. I have no one I care about impressing. That is such a cool feeling. I dont care what anyone thinks about me. I lived most of my life with my own parents thinking I was gay or on drugs or just a huge disappointment to them, and in February, when I decided that I was done with them, I felt free. I am just me now. I write fic, I have some silver in my hair and wrinkles and I can burp like a truck driver. I perv after younger men but couldn't get laid if I fell out of a chickens ass, but I am happy. That is the way to be. I will be taking that with me when I go back and I think I will be a better person to know.

Writing is going pretty good. The hits on my stories are insane and I guess I should keep at it. Its a good feeling.

Dear Roger: Getting Priorities Straight?

Well, I did it. I finally nutted up and took the kids to see the final Harry Potter movie. I had put it off and stalled, using excuses such as bad timing, no money and not feeling well, but the truth was that I wasn't sure I was capable of handling it. I find it really unfair that people who will freely admit to crying over the death of a cartoon deer,(Bambies mom) or a movie dog when,(Old Yeller), make fun of people or say people like me ,"Need help" because we are bereft at the death of fictional characters that we have loved and followed for TEN YEARS.

I cried reading the book. Seeing the things I had read, acted out by actors I like and respect, was powerful and moving. Realizing that not only have the children who started those movies aged, but so have many of the others and that is soul clenching.

I cried during parts of the movie. It would have been much much worse had I not been prepared by my friend, but thanks to her I was at least prepared and able to maintain some dignity. The toughest scene for me to take was the scene in the forest where Harry sees and speaks with his lost loved ones. That scene just ...I shook with the power of my sobs and that was when my son actually patted my back. He understood.

My son was most affected by Lupin and Snapes deaths. He had heard what was going to happen, but seeing it got to him. We all walked out of there much more subdued than we went in, and there wasn't much talking on the way home other than an argument that I think was more a stress response than anything else.

Its been warm up here this week. I have actually enjoyed the heat and not being cold for once. I am probably the only one, but its nice to not need a hoodie in the middle of summer for once.

I have started slowly getting school clothes for the kids. Its not easy, daughter has grown like a weed and none of her jeans and almost none of her dresses fit so she needs EVERYTHING! Its all expensive and even though she isnt as picky as her brother, I like her to look good. My son is the problem child. He is a teen and at that age where what he wears is as important as how it fits. I have tired to step back and allow him to chose his own clothes and such, but my Lord the boy dresses like a twink. I finally told him flat out the other day that if he insisted on wearing skin tight skinny jeans with tight fitted tees, huge clunky shoes and a douchey small fedora, that if he got hit on by men, he better not get pissed off and rude, he should just politely inform them he just had poor fashion sense. He was not amused. I am not amused either, the boy stole a pair of MY Levis and has been wearing them. The are forever ruined and he had the audacity to complain that they,"Bind his bits", well DUH! They are made for a woman! I dont know how he thinks they look good. He is bigger than me, and taller so they are too short for him and waay too tight, but he wears them half off his ass so it looks like his knees are backwards. I have been tempted to pants him again just to prove my point,(once again),that wearing jeans hanging off your ass that low, is a bad idea.

He has other jeans. In fact he has several pairs of Old Navy jeans, but he wont wear them. He bitches about his t-shirts claiming I shrink them, but what he fails to realize is that he is growing! He cant wear a mans small anymore. He is in a medium headed to a large. He is too broad in the chest and hes getting to long bodied, but he doesn't realize that. He has outgrown his coats, his drawers, and pretty damn much everything. Its just like a financial apocalypse of the teenager kind.

I found myself a couple of pairs of jeans yesterday. I am lucky im not picky. I found them at a secondhand store for 4.00 a pair. Both were Old Navy, one still had the tags on them and the other pair looks brand new. Its hard for me to find a size 4 in black up here, so I got lucky and I grabbed them. Im not too proud. Im clearing out my western cut jeans. I am going to donate them to a woman's shelter so that someone might get some use out of them, after all, I haven't worn them but maybe once or twice in the past year and I have to keep moving

forward.

My writing is going pretty good. I am still shocked at all the hits my stories are getting. I have already hit over 1000 for this month and after hitting 7000 hits last month, I am on track to hit that again this month. Its an amazing feeling! I am even working on another chapter of my most popular story about back home. I may even take the advice of several of my friends and un-fic it and see about submitting it for publishing to see if anyone is interested, though I would leave the fic version for all the readers who have loved it.

The countdown to the concert has begun. Daughter is already in freakout mode on a fairly constant basis and she did something soo strange yesterday that I am still sitting here wondering if maybe I should limit her tv viewing even more or if I should just accept that she has become a child of Portlandia? You know she loves her monkey,"Jackson" with all her little heart? She carries it almost everywhere and sleeps with it, talks to it, plays with it. The goofy thing is her best friend. She also collects other monkeys, but they are secondary to Jackson and rarely rate her attention very long. Well, yesterday I found her another monkey for her collection. It was a cute one, blonde colored and a nice quality beanie baby.When Sus and I went by to pick up her and her brother to take them to a surprise lunch, she was forced to leave Jackson at home by her brother. She got into the car and I handed her the new monkey. She squealed and hugged it and decided his name was,"Fredrick", and she took out her "cell phone" and called Jackson.

The conversation was soo weird! She said, "He is soo excited to meet you too!" She chattered on and then said,"Love you too, bye!" and hung up. She then informed all the shocked passengers in the car that,'Fredrick" is gay. I have to say, that is a first for me. There was silence in the car for a bit and I just said, "Okaaaay." So, now what? I know I have raised my kids to be open minded and to believe in,'Live and let love", but amongst stuffies? What about Jackson? How much of what she said does she understand? I know she has clued in on a lot of things and she knows that our neighbors are a couple and she is starting to develop some,"gaydar", but her father would lose his ever loving, homophobic mind, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Dear Roger: Monkey Surgery and Writing Jags

Im writing again. Yeah, I know I write to you pretty much weekly, but I started writing another story. Its actually a sequel to one of my more popular stories, and yeah I am being a total candy assed wuss by sticking with the fic genre and not trying to just develop my novel and take it out of the realm of characters that have a developed fan base, but I was getting a lot of requests for a sequel for that story and it really fit best in that world. Excuses, excuses! I know, but hey! At least im back at it. I've been pretty shocked and humbled to see all the hits the story has gotten. In one month, all my stories got over 7000 hits! I couldn't believe it. I was soo freaked out I actually ran into the living room where son was asleep on one of his mattresses on the floor in front of the tv, and I may have jumped up and down on the foot of his bed yelling and whooping and about getting all those hits to my stories. Son was a bit unhappy with me at first, but he got over it pretty quickly and congratulated me. I'm steadily working on more chapters to load every other week or so, and I have other stories that I have been working on that I might finally finish fleshing out and do something constructive with, or I might just work on the type that is the most popular and end up cleaning it up, un-ficcing it as has been strongly suggested by some friends, and submitting it as a series of short stories to some publishers. I dont know if I will ever develop the juevos that will allow me to do that, especially without you around to nudge me into it, but I like to think that I would have back when I was younger and more able to withstand having my pitiful efforts ripped to pieces.

I worked some pretty awesome mom-fu the other day, I managed to repair daughters,"Jackson". His sewn on smile had come unstitched and she came unglued, crying and upset that he was falling apart. honestly, the poor thing has been all over hell and half of Portland. Drug in and out of bags, pockets, from around necks, its made trips through her brothers underwear when she has made him angry and he tortures her by stuffing the monkey down his pants to horrify her,(poor monkey has a permanently startled expression for a reason),the cat has molested it in ways that really just boggle the mind and will likely horrify her further when she is old enough to understand what was going on during those,"Wrestling" sessions. Anyhoo, I consulted with people in the know as to what should be done, and they recommended snipping off the pulled thread from the smile, and then restitching over with new thread.I have no problem snipping any monkey that is going to be around my daughter, but I had to wait until she left for church to keep the freakout on her end of things down, so once she was gone, I got that done, but then...I couldn't see the end of the damn needled to thread the mismatched thread I was going to have to use because I was out of black thread. Luckily, I had a black sharpie! Jacksons smile is now back to its normal, maniacal, self and she was none the wiser.

The new job is going well and I am liking it so far. The boss tells me I am popular with people,(so far), and I guess I am doing okay at it.

Dear Roger: Masochism, But Not For Fun

Almost 11 years of dealing with my ex and you think I would have developed a thicker skin. But yesterday he managed to get to me. I dont know how, but he did and after I hung up the phone I found myself in tears. I guess it was because he hit on my old insecurity about my looks. It goes way back to when I was around 9 or 10 and I was sitting in the rodeo arena stands with my mother and one of her few friends and they were discussing me and my sister. My mother said, "Jennifer is the smart one, but Trina is the pretty one." The friend spoke up and said that I would grow into my looks, but that one sentence stuck with me and has echoed in my head my entire life.

It didn't help that because our house was so filthy and disgusting when I was a kid that I often went to school smelling and with dirty clothes and looking less than decent. I had a teacher that took it upon herself to shame me in front of the entire drama class by handing me a comb and sending me to the bathroom to comb my hair. She then washed the comb in front of the entire class like it was diseased. Needless to say, my social standing was not helped and neither was my self-image.

For 11 years he pointed out every flaw. My odd nose with its bump that is a familial trait. My hands that have seen years of hard work and do not look ladylike. Yes, maybe I am too skinny at times, but stress is a great diet program. "A well-dressed Lesbian", was his favorite way to refer to my style of dress. "Lazy" even though I worked a full-time job and kept house as well as had kids while he often was unemployed and ensconced in his recliner.

Picking at little insecurities is his specialty and I guess I should be used to it. I learned to be quiet and not argue back because he was much bigger than me. In fact he was often up to around 290 to my 100-110 and there are still marks in the drywall and doorjambs from where I pissed him off by talking back. Shutting doors did no good. Did you know that a hollow core door will pretty much explode when a 290lb man kicks it? It is not fun to clean all that up.

He was particularly snarky yesterday. I had taken daughter to get her picture taken professionally and when I called to give him the information so he could relay it and see if his family wanted any copies or prints, I mentioned that there were a couple of group shots that had been taken but that I didn't like them. He said, "Well, you never do take a good picture." And there it was again, that hateful, snarky, "Lets cut her down and take the happy out of her day." that is soo much him.

It worked.

I sat there after I hung up, just feeling like shit.

Its not like I have any other input from men. He is the only male who talks to me and that's not a good thing because hes a bit of an ass. He is the king of passive/aggressive,(and let me tell you , full on aggressive), comments and jabs to hurt.

He has companionship. There is a woman I know who is visiting him and interested in dating him. It boggles the mind. She is an otherwise intelligent woman and she knows he was in prison for taking a straight razor to me and other fuckery, but they like each other and he now has a social life.

I dont get it.I cant even get the time of day from anyone anymore. I had quit trying, but it would be nice to at least be noticed, but I dont even get that.

I wish I didn't have to talk to him, but he has my sons and if I want to talk to them, I have to deal with him.

He has managed to lose the house and he received foreclosure papers last week. He is talking about moving to Portland. That makes me sick to my stomach. As much as I miss my sons and as much as I want them, I dont want him in my city. He is a soul-sucking, joy killing, lamprey. If he comes here, Austin will become much more of a possibility, even if I have to walk.

Dear Roger: The Further You Go

One year ago today we woke up in the spare room of the house of the one person we knew up here in Portland, dug through the paltry few possessions we had brought with us to find some decent clothes to wear, tried to map out the route to where we were headed one more time, dug through the dirty jeans and side pockets of our bags looking for any more money we might have, and then taking our $2.37, an over excited 6 year old and her scroungy stuffed monkey, we headed to the show that that turned things around for us.

It was weird that the now 7 year old woke up having a screaming nightmare about her favorite boy being hurt or something this morning. I had to go get her out of bed at o'dark thirty this morning and cuddle her up and assure her that he was okay and probably still asleep,(unlike me at that point), so I brought her and her monkey to my bed and tucked her in, and assured her that all was well. He, in fact, just tweeted a few minutes ago, and if she wasn't sound asleep next to me, I would have pointed that out to her, but like is always the case, the small child that wakes the entire house is always the one that is quickest to go back to sleep.

Its been a busy year for us, and just in that past week things have really started showing a vast improvement. I now have a job. We are no longer sleeping in someones spare room. I can personally attest, that we have well over 7 bags worth of stuff to muck about, and I now know more than 1 person up here. Not many more, but I met a friend at the concert and 1 year later we are still hanging out and talking, doing coffee and in a few weeks, attending our second 100 Monkeys concert together.

I am actually bringing a friend to this one. Thats soo not like me and that speaks to the power of this odd little band with its enigmatic front boy. We joke back and forth about her insistence he is a,'Serial killer", with me agreeing that as often as over-stimulated, hormonally challenged fans proclaiming,"Im dead", at every picture of him they see, that if it were true, he would be a very prolific one.But I invited her and nagged at her until she agreed to give his band a chance and come see them in concert. I am looking forward to seeing her and many of the other fans I have spoken with and made friends with... that's right, me...with friends that I actually hang out with and want to see. Just saying it seems soo damn strange. One year ago, I had one friend. They lived here. We didn't really hang out. We dont really have much in common. I am not a churchy person and she is, but she cares about my kids and we do get along pretty decently.

My other friend that I had in Flagstaff had gotten married and had left when she was afraid I was slowly committing suicide by staying in Flagstaff. We have reconnected since I moved up here, but she didn't have faith in me and that kinda stings a little. So, having people I am looking forward to seeing and hanging out with, well, that's just weird and cool.

I am so used to being,"So and So's mom" at this point, that having friends who actually know my name and who talk about going out to do adult things like chase cute guys or maybe have a beer or something, well, that's even stranger, but that is what these friends are talking about. Yeah, daughter is the main focus of the whole concert thing. Just like a year ago this is for her, but after that is for me. I am hoping to be able to send the kids home and play with the big kids for a little bit. A year ago I wouldn't have dreamed of it. I am still weird and somewhat out of place, but I am starting to adapt. Im older now, so things take a little longer, but as far as we have come in this year, I am pretty damn happy. We still dont have any damn money, but we will get there.

I look at the tattoo on my wrist and hand and I think about that day and how my kids started smiling, and how it felt to laugh again. That boy still makes me laugh, with his,"If you only knew what I was up to" grin and his Ely shirts that look like he raided my fathers closet circa 1978, its hard to not just love the hell out of him. Its been a year of good for us, and I hope the same for him.

Dear Roger: Kid Based Insanity

Kids make you crazy, or at least mine are making me crazier. We spend a lot of time together and that may have a lot to do with it, but between a daughter that averages over 170,"Hey Mom's" a day and a teen son that is well on his way to mastering snark and sarcasm, I have days when I long to just walk out the door and flee down the sidewalk, even if I am only partially dressed.

We talk about everything, and I guess its great that we have such an open and close relationship, but that is a double-edged sword. While as his mother, I offer my son advice about his personal grooming and dress and behavior, he feels free to do the same to me.

Yesterday, we were finishing up cleaning the old apartment so we could hand over the keys today. I had a hat on and my hair pulled back out of my face and was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He grabbed my pony-tail as we were walking up the sidewalk and he said,"When you get paid, why dont you spend some money and do something about this hair? You need to get a style so you look like a girl."

This started a debate over my manner of dress, my lifestyle, my habits and just what the hell was wrong with my hair? I have let it grow since we got up here to Portland. I haven't colored it, cut it or done anything with it other than wash it and let it grow. He now thinks I should get it styled into some kind of layered mom cut and that I should get the silverish stuff dealt with. What the hell?

Im not dating. I dont have anyone who gives a damn what I look like. I wear jeans and boots and t-shirts most days and while I am clean and presentable, I probably dont look really approachable, and really, I dont care. I am not going to change who I am to date some guy, so why should I bother messing about with my hair?

He went on to lecture me about getting a manicure and not wearing as much black!

Daughter even got into the debate and piped up about that! "Yeah mom, you wear black ALLLL the time, you need to wear pink or something." This is a child that talks to a stuffed monkey. I am not taking fashion advice from her. I like wearing black. It suits me.

Son is the opposite, he likes bright colors and has no problem wearing all kinds of odd arrangements. I asked him if he was wanting me to try to get out and date or something, he shrugged and said,"You need to do something other than sit around and read and write all the damn time."

Daughter has been just as nosy about my personal life lately. She came up to me the other night and asked,"Do you have a special someone?" I told her,"No, just you kids." she looked surprised and said,"Well why not? Everyone should have someone! I am going to find you someone."
Son was sitting next to me cracking up at this exchange and he said,"You are in trouble now."

I have images of me having to take her out in public muzzled for my sanity. She has no qualms about talking to people and asking embarrassing questions.

I have had to referee fights between her and her brother lately. They aren't as hateful, but she is much more sensitive to any verbal jabs he may inflict on her. He is starting to become aware that she looks up to him as a erstwhile father figure and he has somewhat stepped into that role. He taught her to tie her shoes in double knots, he is very protective of her and he calls her to task when she misbehaves. She listens to him as well as she listens to me, and when he tells her to go to bed or to not eat her dinner in my room, she gets mad, but she obeys. She hugs and kisses him goodnight, and even though he initially resisted and acted like a typical boy afraid of getting cooties, he now hugs and kisses her back and tells her he loves her.

We are working on becoming a affectionate family. We hug and talk and joke and tease each other constantly and we talk things through. Its not always easy and sometimes voices get raised,but raising a teen son on my own is the toughest challenge that I have ever faced.

Sticky boy turns 11 in a couple of weeks. We have been trying to figure out what to send him for his birthday and when I asked the ex what he wanted, I had to have him repeat it several times because I wasn't sure I had heard correctly. He told me that he wanted,"Wii games, some movies and ladies." I said,"Some what?" the ex said,"Ladies, lots and lots of ladies." I sat there stunned for a minute, looking at the phone as I repeated ,"Ladies?"

My soon to be 11 year old son, who is just at 3 ft tall, bespectacled, gap toothed, Down Syndrome affected, ginger son, loves the ladies. My ex tells me he tells him frequently tells him,"Dad, I really like ladies." The ex tells me that when he sees a woman who he particularly finds appealing he will smile at her and then say,"Raaar" with the little hand claw motion.

I advised the ex to ban any further viewing of Austin Powers and to begin ,"The talk" now!

Dear Roger: In Heat?

Well it finally has managed to get warm up here today. I am impressed it finally broke 80 something today, though considering the rest of the dang country is sweltering under a record wave, I guess I should be counting my blessings instead of bitching and griping about the fact I had to turn the damn heater on the other night because it was COLD in out new apartment. Now, before you go thinking its just me being an anemic,candy -assed, wuss again, my friends even admitted that they had to turn on the heat in their house after they got cold too! So there! Im not just being a whiner. I am wondering just how the hell I am going to cope with the fact that we really haven't had much of a Summer up here at all. I dont mind the rain, but I seriously have kept my jackets and hoodies where they are easy to get to, and I have worn shorts maybe 5 days total. I never wear flip-flops because I have no desire to taste pavement, but I tend to run around barefoot,(that gets me looks, but hey! at least im not wearing a sock hat in summer like some of the douches up here), but its been too cold for me to even do that comfortably, so ive been wearing my boots or the ratty pair of Chucks I have.

Finally got all the rest of the stuff that we are going to move, moved. We have decided to part ways with the couches and the decrepit entertainment center. I had decided that it was not entertaining to wonder just when it was going to finally collapse and send our tv crashing down on top of daughter or whomever was unlucky to be nearby, and the couches had such a distinctive odor of distressed small dog that not even repeated washing of cushions and covers could get out, that it just wasnt worth it. We are back to living Japanese style, as I tell daughter. Its really trying to put a positive spin on sitting our asses on the floor, and she is buying it for now. We have my,"Ugly assed Hobbit seat" as son calls my funky old writing chair, and two wooden wine boxes that make interesting side tables, but the 'Hobbit seat" really is an ass killer, so no one sits in it for very long. I cant afford to buy anything right now. Even used is out of our reach and I dont want to just jump into anything quickly because I dont want to run the risk of ending up with more of the same problems of odd smelling furnishings or things that will just need to be hauled away in short order.

I have a job now, but its not very many hours a week and im actually not too sure what all it entails. I was supposed to work for 4 hours today,(I thought), but considering I dont have keys to the office yet, or any of the information I need to actually do anything officelike, I was left at loose ends when the manager didn't show up. I tried calling a few times to see if there was a missed communication or something, but no one answered, so I just considered the day a wash and went back to cleaning the old apartment and getting it ready to turn back over.

Son made it back from camp in fine form. He apparently had a great time and enjoyed camping and rafting and shooting paintballs and such. I am sure it was much more enjoyable than moving all his stuff, that was a huge pain in the ass. He is a bit of a gross monkey, but then I think all teen males are gross. Sharing a bathroom is going to be like living in a layer of hell, but I am trying to look on the brightside and remember that instead of cleaning two bathrooms, I will only be cleaning one, though we will be having a,"Come to Jesus" meeting real quick about the placement of the commode seat, not peeing on the seat, the "flush, check and if needed , FLUSH AGAIN FOR GODS SAKE!" rule, not touching my towel(something he does just to mess with me because he knows I am OCD about that), rinsing out the sink, and where he should leave his dirty unders. I swear that if I achieve nothing else with him in 18 years, he will be fit to be around other women when he is grown.

He has volunteered to take over more of the cooking duties which leaves me wondering,"Why?" I know he likes to cook, and I did the fair thing today and cleaned the kitchen after he cooked breakfast, but I also cleaned it after I cooked dinner last night, so if hes angling for a fair division of labor, he needs to up his game. He is not happy with the fact he ended up in the bedroom without a lock on it, but he knows its in my power to change that, so maybe that is what he is looking for? Who the hell knows, hes a teen boy and they are twisty, turny, odd, critters.

Daughter has been in rare form lately,reading the Harry Potter book out loud to her Jackson has become a nightly ritual for her, and she doesn't just do a regular, monotone read, oh nooo! Not my kid, she does a full dramatic reading with voices and all kinds of fun stuff going on. Its hysterical. She doesn't know I am hanging out by her bedroom door listening to her do it, because if she did, she would probably kick my ass, but its amazing to hear her. She often falls asleep with the book still in her hand and her goofy monkey perched in her lap. She sat and watched the first Harry Potter movie with me last night and she was soo excited when she heard the actors speak lines from the book or recognized things she had read. Its amazing to be starting that journey all over again with someone who is so enthusiastic and in love with it. Speaking of love, Rog...I did a bad/funny thing that luckily didn't end up biting me in the ass, but I thought for a day or two she was going to kill me in my sleep! You know she loves that rangy lil rockstar quite a bit? She talks about him all the time, gets a goofy look on her face when she sees him on a video or something and she really, really looks up to him. Well, her brother and I kinda enjoy gently teasing her about it, just a little bit. I mean after all, she is 7 and he will be close to 40 when she is not jailbait, and besides, I have told her that she is not seeing any boys, ESPECIALLY some rangy lil rockstar until she has finished her Masters,(let me dream, okay?)but she told me a while back that she intends to,"Marry him, take him to France for 6 months and then to Japan." She was very serious and even when I told her that he might not want to go, she just looks at me and said,"He will be okay." Shes a bit on the scary and intimidating side at times, ya know? So anyway... Since her favorite boy has been on the twitter lately talking to all his minions, I thought just for shits and giggles,(and I was also put up to it by my friend 'Manda) that I would tweet him this little bit of info and ask for the name of a good therapist. Yes, my smartass bone is still up and functioning. The boy gets a bazillion tweets from over-excited, hormonally challenged, fans of all ages, so lucky for me it was lost in the flood of,Marry me, Jasper's, but for some reason, I later found it funny to tell her what I had done. Yeah...not my smartest move. If I wasn't the holder of the tickets to the 100 Monkeys concert, I am afraid I might have had an unfortunate accident by now. As it was, she told me to not to it again and that it was,none of my business. Rog, help? Did Damien have a sister? If not, I think he may have now.

Dear Roger: Changes and Adaptations

Spent most of yesterday moving and I have a feeling that I will be spending most of today recovering from it. I still have more stuff to move, including my couches and the entertainment center, but thanks to the help of my friend, we managed to get most of our stuff moved. It was exhausting! I was amazed at all the stuff we have managed to acquire in the year we have been here. The amount of daughters monkeys alone was shocking.

The new apartment is nice. I have discovered that stone tiles are really damn cold in the mornings and are great for assuring that I am wide awake before I attempt to make my coffee. I start my new job today, its an informal day of just showing me the ropes and letting me know what the expectations are for the position. I have managed to make friends with the manager somehow and she has said that she wants to teach me how to be a leasing agent so that I might perhaps someday take over my own complex. Its an intriguing proposition,it would be a career opportunity that would allow me to be able to move around some and there are always jobs. I will have daughter trailing after me today, so I wont be able to stay too long,and my official first day I think is Sunday, but I am excited all the same.

Son has a job waiting on him when he gets back from camp. Word has made it around the elderly community in the complex that he is a trustworthy and polite young man, and those who aren't in the best of health and unable to do things like get their trash and recycling out easily, have decided to hire him to help out. A lady who is the ringleader of the elderly/disabled here in the complex caught up with me yesterday and asked if he could be hired to help out several of those less able and I, of course, offered him up. She told me that there are quite a few folks that need help, and he will likely be pretty busy, so that is a good thing. His good reputation and Southern manners have paid off for him.He also has a pretty damn good work ethic when it doesn't involve keeping his own room clean, so he will do well.

I got all the decor put up yesterday. I couldn't just leave it be with the blank walls so with that finished and all the kids beds set up and made, I was able to finally crash out and sleep like the dead last night.I think we have finally started getting ahead, at least I hope so.

We have basic cable again and that made daughter happy. She is back to watching her painting shows and the other odd stuff she catches on PBS, so at least she is happy. I had been watching movies on my computer and seeing things that I hadn't watched in years, or even movies that I had avoided for whatever reason. I would pick an actor a night and watch whatever Netflix had to offer, which in most cases, wasn't much. I did see a few David Thewlis movies that were pretty fantastic, though they left me wondering if he ever makes it though a movie alive or unthrashed? I went on a Brit Flick bender and that was fun. The British are amazingly willing to indulge in full frontal nudity, and that was a bit of a win! I take seeing a good looking man naked where I can get it, though I do believe that more than a few of those fellas could make do with a meal or two.

Today was the last shuttle flight landing. It was the end of an era for not only the country, but for me as well. So many memories wrapped up in that venture. The trip to Houston and the Johnson Space center that I took with the Math and Science Club, seeing the Columbia explode and remembering the silence that fell over the school as we watched it on tv in Mrs. Maxtons classroom. So many things have changed for the world since then. It just keeps moving forward as well it should.

Dear Roger:Training is Lacking In Many Ways

I despise rudeness and the lack of civility. Sometimes I really think I may have been born in the wrong era, because I am a firm believer in using good manners and proper decorum that soo many seem to find,"weird" or "old-fashioned" in today's world. I believe in showing gratitude and repaying kindnesses as well as acknowledging small favors done. I have said many times I owed a debt of gratitude to a young man for a kindness he did of for my child and I meant it and I have worked to repay it in as many ways that my limited means will allow, including loyalty and support. I find it shameful that so many people take things for granted, and that they expect people to just give and give and give of themselves. Maybe it is the instant access to so many things in the world that has fostered this attitude, maybe it is the inattention of family and the disconnection from the traditional social interactions that used to foster social niceties, but so many people lack simple basic, good manners.

I have taught my children manners from the moment they were capable of understanding things and one of the first was how to say,"Thank you". They also learned that no one other than their family, owed them a damned thing and if someone was kind enough to give them a gift or a kindness, then they should acknowledge it and graciously accept it and repay it in kind. I have taught my children to say,"Ma'am and Sir and Please" and to hold doors as well as all the old fashioned social niceties that I guess I just take for granted that people taught their kids.I am finding that my children are, in fact an anomaly and I am a freak for expecting them to know manners and use them.

I was explaining to daughter yesterday that she should not refer to an adult who was vastly older than her by their first name unless told it by the adult that it was acceptable to do so because it was rude and disrespectful. I then provided examples and told her that I expected her to use her best manners when meeting and speaking to adults,and I explained the importance of good eye contact and a firm handshake. An adult sitting at a table near us looked at me like I had suddenly sprouted three heads.

I dont pretend that I am the foremost authority on manners and discipline,(well, maybe discipline), but I work very hard to raise children that will know how to navigate in a world where adult CEO's are having to attend etiquette classes so they dont offend people and lose contracts because they dont realize its rude to fart at the dinner table. My children already know this, as well as the etiquette for tea in both British and Japanese culture. They know about taking their shoes off at the door, and how to bow and curtsy as well as simply say,'Thank you" when it is warranted. If nothing else I have done for them sinks in and serves them well, I have a feeling that this will help them, because from what I have observed, social skills are sorely lacking in not only poor kids, but the rich as well and quite a few people could use a meeting with my grannys wooden spoon.

I have managed to land a part-time job! I am pretty happy about this and although its only a few days a week, its a start and it will allow me the time and freedom to hunt for other work while I do it. We are supposed to start moving into our new apartment tomorrow and I am happy about that as well, if it ever stops raining long enough for me to move stuff without it getting soaked! Its chilly again up here and this may well be the shortest summer I have ever lived through.

Dear Roger:Suggestions, Locations or Goodbye Cheech and Chong

I dont often write letters or emails to companies or celebrities about anything. Daughter is the reason I have ever written that rangy little rock star she is so fond of, and just a fit of temporary insanity had me tweet the great actor Michael Sheen in a rare moment of insanity, never expecting that he, himself is also a bit of a smart ass and before he got himself wrapped up in his pretty little girlfriend he would tweet back and talk to folks. When he tweeted me back he shocked me so badly I actually shrieked and dropped my damn computer. He all in all tweeted me 5 times and I have never forgotten just how much that made me smile and feel good. It was appreciated recognition that I was out here and alive from a REALLY cute guy that I happen to be kinda fond of for many reasons.

I dont really get too excited about the famous type of folk, I have met a few of them and for the most part they are just as twitchy as everyone else, but with a bit more money.I tend to get a bit gobsmacked around good looking men because well, I am a lonely, lonely woman and I think that is a pretty normal response for someone who has not had a quality trouncing in many years. When I met Aaron Tippin I thought he was pleasant and it was nice guarding him, and he was very kind to give me the signed set list for the evening, but his fiddle player was who I though was a little doll baby. Meeting Matt Hensley from Flogging Molly after the concert left me shaky and stuttering because that was like meeting a religious leader, if I had gotten to meet and shake Dave Kings hand I probably would have had a heart attack and died right there on the floor of the concert hall because he is a hero of mine who has brought me years of happiness. The oddest occurrence though, that has ever struck me was meeting daughters rangy young rock star and his compatriots. I literally was almost struck speechless. I know I stuttered worse than I have ever stuttered in my life, and I felt like I was standing down range of a firing squad of machine guns. He was cuuute! But, then they all were and though I was in full alert mode due to the crowd and the situation and being stressed out of my mind, I still managed to not pass the hell out or do anything too off the wall so that my baby girl could get her picture. I like to chalk up my reaction to the PTSD and the fact he was a guy and I was just over the top stressed and my blood sugar was in the pits at about that point, but who the hell knows, that boy is awful shiny and pretty and daughter is taken with him awful hard.

Giving advice is because I give a damn. Most of the time it is ignored or it offends the one I offer it to, but on rare occasions someone listens and it does some good. I never expect to get credit for my ideas or suggestions, after all, I am a parent and I have been a teacher and a cop and I have been in public safety for a long damn time. I am used to doing things for the good of others without anyone ever recognizing or noticing or even admitting I existed. I do them because I get the satisfaction of knowing that I paid it forward and that in some little way I made a difference for someone.

Sitting at the Starbucks with my friend the other day we were talking about the general dissatisfaction we were hearing and seeing with our favorite band. Fans were complaining about the loss of connection and other things that fans just tend to bitch about and that the pr folks were ignoring. I commented that someone ought to write the band and suggest that they use social media like twitter for maybe 15 minutes a day to actually talk TO some fans instead of AT them and that they would see an explosion in support and love. Well, the gauntlet was tossed down and next thing you know, I am writing of all things, a damn fan letter to this funky little band and making this exact suggestion to them, explaining how major celebrities and other favorite bands of mine like Cage The Elephant actually talk to fans, and they have a HUGE following. I figured the letter made it to some drones desk and then,"delete" was hit after jokes were made about the arrogance of some middle-aged skag in the middle of nowhere having the audacity to think they might know a thing or two about a thing or two was made. But then the other day, I was out wandering around with my friend and low and behold...evidence somebody, somewhere, took my advice. I smiled as the twitter feed exploded in over-excited fans and the happy feeling in my heart lasted for days. My own son may not take my advice very often, but its good to know other boys listen occasionally.

Daughter made it home from camp safe and happy and full of stories of monkey fighting with a girl named London who was offended that she was corrected by daughter that her monkey was in fact and ape because it had no tail, so she in return referred to Jackson as,"Gay", thus inciting a lecture on how,"Thats not a problem but its rude to say it that way." which then prompted a round of,"you're weird's" that escalated into a full on fight. London was moved into another cabin and daughter was told that biting and then blaming her monkey was not acceptable. I dont know if the other brat got the lecture about name calling, but somehow I kinda doubt it. Anyway, she got to go swimming and she told me they found out she couldn't swim when she went right to the bottom of the pool after coming off the slide. Nice...my kid nearly drowned.Just what I wanted to hear. But she is home safe and happy. Son leaves for his camp this Sunday. Its really terrible timing for us because we are moving! I have been having mild asthma attacks for quite a while now, and I am convinced its due to the weed smoke we get from the neighbors next door. Some nights its soo thick that you can see the haze in my apartment and I get a contact high if I sit in the dining room,and we cant even open the main front window without it pouring in.

I always have to warn visitors who are new to our place that the weed smoke isn't from us, its from our neighbors and that was our out. The management came down one day and were shocked at the amount of smoke around our front doors,(Cheech and Chong amounts), and realized that it was a health and welfare issue, so they granted us my request for a transfer.

The manager came and inspected my apartment and said I was getting back all of my deposit,(pays to be clean and careful), and they would allow that to be applied to the new place, so the fancy place is ours and we even get to move in early, but I will be doing the moving by myself because son will be gone for an entire week.

I will get it done somehow, some way because that is just how I roll, and it will be nice to finally be in a bright, shiny, brand new, all fancy apartment with new appliances and neighbors that dont smoke weed in amounts that make Cheech and Chong shocked. I dont have a problem with weed smokers, in the grand scheme of thing they are the lesser of many evils, but I am trying to find a damn job, trying to raise my kids and trying to just breathe and walking around half-stoned and smelling like a doob is not helping the situation at all, so a new location is the best solution.

Dear Roger :Things You Stumble Into

Shes been gone to church camp these past couple of days and it has felt like half of me is missing. I find it odd that someone like myself, who never wanted to be a parent, finds themselves ruled heart and soul by the creatures.

I really did never expect to be a mother. I failed my eldest daughter so terribly that I should have had myself spayed right then and there after she was born, but back then, the brilliant doctors in Texas wouldn't do that for a woman who was under 25.

When I had my eldest son, my life was a mess. His father is a full on, text book psychopath. I mean, seriously, out of Hares 21 characteristics of a psychopathic personality that lend themselves to being a serial killer, he met 13 of them. I still consider myself lucky to be alive and after the state investigated him to see if they could get me some child support and they determined that he was enough of a threat to not pursue for our safety, I guess my instincts were spot on. Soo, yet another child I failed.

My youngest three have a domestic abuser for a father. I consider him my atonement. I spent 10 years dealing with him and his tender mercies and he is still my burden to bear because I am forever connected to him because of my kids. I love my children and I miss my sons with a pain that cannot be expressed, though I have been told it can be seen. Nobody really understands it, but talking to them often makes the agony worse, especially when they cry and tell me how much they miss me. When Fergus died, not only did that rip my heart to pieces, but knowing that my children hurt and I couldn't comfort them made it all the worse.

My baby girl is my solace. I bought her way out of Arizona and she is my sunshine. I do not understand how she has come to rule my world so totally, but she is the wheel that turns us all and for once I dont mind it.

She is my miracle child, born sickly and early and the fact that we almost died together may have had something to do with it, in fact I had to face my greatest phobia to have her. I had to face being cut open with a scalpel . Yeah, my heart rate was through the roof, and being in that delivery room alone was terrifying because I didn't know what was going to happen if I died and she was alone, but I knew that I had to do it for her. Being strapped down and knowing they were going to cut me...I still shudder when I see that scar. Its one of the few that im proud of though, because it brought me her. I remember her first cries that sounded like a sick kitten, and how tiny she was. I was too sick to hold her for long, and we were separated for a few days, but I dreamed about her and I knew she was going to be something.

I dont know if its because shes the baby or because shes just her, but I try harder for her. I dont want to be like my parents. I try to always encourage and be positive and never tease about looks or anything. Shes beautiful with her long, curly, blonde hair that hangs to her butt and her big blue eyes and her dimples. She is the "Smart one" and the "Pretty One" all rolled into one, but I dont play favorites. She knows I adore her big brother just as much and we both spoil him too. We work at being a family, though we are broken and missing parts. She tries hard to make up for her brothers being gone by always talking about them and drawing pictures for me and reminding me that life is going on around us so I dont wallow in the misery of missing them and feeling like I have failed.

She never lets me feel that too long. She drags me along into her odd little world of monkeys and Harry Potter and her love of the odd little rock star, and she forces me to be enthusiastic about things that I would probably have put aside. She brings colors into my life and smiles and laughter and a joyful insanity. I have wallowed while she has been gone. Stuck a bit in my own head, though I did get out and go have coffee with a friend to try and chase away the darkness, but the 1st night with her gone, when my son was gone as well, spending the night at a friends house, I was reminded of the Douglas Adams saying, " I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

She will be home today with hopefully her Jackson in tow. I am planning to spend this evening celebrating by having a ,"Monkey tea Party" with her and over-indulging the hell out of her, just to let her know that she is loved, so she never for one second doubts that she is loved beyond all reason.

My son leaves next week and that will be yet another week of stress for me. Its a control thing I am afraid. Hes a teen and reckless, so I worry. Hes trying to show his independence and strength, but he is still my baby. We spoke of his father last night, and I finally told him everything. It was hard to see him grasp the fact that he will never have a relationship with a father figure. He wants that soo badly, someone to talk to, to be the guide and role model that all boys need to have in their lives, but when I explained everything, he just nodded and said,"I might as well consider him dead, that's fine lots of men grow up without fathers, ill just deal, but when I have kids, I am damn sure going to be there for them. " I wish you were here for him Rog, I tell him about you all the time, and the stories I think help. Knowing that there were good men who were part of his family makes him proud, and I wish you could have met him. Hes a handsome boy. He resembles you from when you were young, with the strong jaw and high cheek bones. Hes got those damn long eye lashes that boys seem to get and women wish they had. He gets looks all the time and often uses his looks to charm his way into things, and that scares the hell out of me, but I hope he learns to use them for good and not evil.

He dotes on his baby sister, even though they bicker as siblings tend to do. He is fiercely protective her her, and he acts as a father figure to her quite often. He attends her plays with me, making sure pictures and video get taken. He is attending the 100 Monkeys concert with us again in August, even though he really would prefer not to, because he wants to protect his baby sister from rampaging fan girls and he knows he will probably end up having to put her on his shoulders so she can see. He is a good big brother, even if he does steal her monkey and rub it in his armpits or drawers, just to hear her shriek in horror. He risks bodily injury by calling her favorite young rock star, "short" just to see her get mad and defensive so he can tease her to the point of door slamming and yelling and attacking, as a form of entertainment when there is nothing else to do, just so she knows he is paying attention.

Being a parent is not something I ever intended to do. I was supposed to wander through this life in a reckless and self-destructive manner, living the life of an artist and poet and burning out early and dramatically. My kids saved me, though I dont know why.

Dear Roger: No More "High" By Proxy or Relocation

We are moving. Not too far from where we are currently living, but far enough away that we wont be sharing a common heater vent with the hippies anymore. It seems that I am sensitive to either the smoke or the incense they are burning, because I have been having difficulties getting a deep breath, and as someone who had juvenile asthma, I am not into breath play or that less than delightful feeling of gasping for air.

I am also kinda sick and tired of explaining to visitors that I am not the reason our entry way reeks of weed. With as trigger happy as the Portland cops seem to be, I also worry about things like drug raids gone wrong,(hey, I was a cop, I KNOW what can happen), as well as all kinds of other dodgy characters wandering around at all hours, so when I noticed that the old managers apartment was being totally gutted and redone, I inquired about moving into it.

It is really going to be swanky with new appliances, paint, fixtures and ceramic tile, and to top it off, the bedrooms are a LOT bigger than the ones we currently have. The neighbors are all older, quieter, non-smokers and there are NONE on one whole side of us. Its a little bit more money each month, but it has a front lawn that nobody brings their dog down to crap on, and it also has a screen door.

Its going to be a bit of a pain in the ass to move, but I have already recruited several people to help, so we should be able to get it knocked out in a day, but what really amazes me is the fact that we came here a year ago with 7 bags, that's right Rog, SEVEN meager bags of clothing and miscellaneous electronics, and now? Hell! Now, we have STUFF!

My kids both have beds. I have a bed. We have a couple of old televisions and we have some chairs and a table. We HAVE stuff to move. I am starting to get a few books again and even a few art things. My boy has a guitar and my baby girl has a ukulele and a few cheap musical instruments she piddles around with. We have acquired things, which I do not usually hold in high regard, but I think they mean we are actually making some progress. I have built a bit of a home for my kids. I can feed and clothe my kids, I have successfully kept us somewhat sane and happy through this year and we are returning to the beginning in a few weeks. We have tickets to another 100 Monkeys concert.

I have grown somewhat as a person and a parent I like to think. I am finally allowing my daughter so venture away from me for the first time to attend an overnight church camp. While the prospect terrifies me, I know its something she wants and needs to do as a child in order to grow. She is excited but nervous as well and she is insisting on taking her Jackson with her for security. She has never slept a night without him, and while I am afraid of her losing him or some nefarious other child stealing him away and breaking her heart, I have done all I can to ensure he will return with her, including tattooing her name on his paw, and taping our phone number and such to his fuzzy behind with offers of a reward if he is returned to her if lost and then found. I dont know quite how I am going to deal with her being gone. I haven't been away from her for an extended period of time, ever, so I am liable to be a huge emotional wreck as well, after all...I had a panic attack and followed the bus to school the first time she ever rode it, to make sure she actually made it to school. I wont have that option with this trip, she will be several hours away from me and I will just have to cope.

Son leaves for camp the week after. He has been several times before and hes pretty excited as well. He has been gone more than he has been around this summer, enjoying his last bit of freedom before school starts back and I turn him into an inmate only with less privileges. His grades had better improve this next year or I will have to follow through and start following him to school and meeting with his teachers daily to find out how hes doing, or better yet, volunteering at the school so I can better keep an eye on things.

Moving is going to be a good thing for us. Its a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, which means we will have to share a bathroom. I am not thrilled with the prospect of that, but considering that my son seems to be incapable of keeping a bathroom to himself sanitary by any stretch of the imagination, I guess it will mean just one less to clean and maybe I can get him to finally grasp the concept of aiming.

Dear Roger:The Old Man And The Technology

Rog, you know how I said I was running two households from up here and trying to keep my boys afloat and their needs met, while not letting my ex drive me totally insane? Well, sometimes that is easier said than done, but I do get to extract little bits of humor from the situation and that is my port in the storm.

Technology is an amazingly fast moving thing in today's world. I remember going with you to Silo and looking at stereo systems back when cd's were brand new technology and you wanted to buy a player for your house. Nowadays, with cds being considered old tech and digital downloads supposedly the way to go, I look back at that shopping trip and it seems amazing that it was 20 short years ago. I remember the days before cell phones and vhs and the internet even computers, but I have embraced technology and I love it. I pay attention to the latest technology and I try to keep up with things, though I have to admit I was hesitant to get a so called,"Smartphone", because I didn't like the idea of companies being able to track my physical location at all times, but then I started weighing the possibilities of a mobile hotspot and digital tethering as well as being able to have a laptop at my fingertips, that combined with the fact that they finally got reasonably priced, I decided to finally get service.

My ex, who is over a decade older than me, is a technology hating curmudgeon. He has hung onto his vinyl records and most of the stuff from his youth, resistant to upgrading his lifestyle or his abilities to even try to keep up with modern times, but with two boys that are hungry for technology and for staying connected with me and their siblings, he finally had no choice.

Even with the help I provided, he was losing his cable and his cellphone and then I wouldn't be able to talk to my sons, and that would be a problem. With them almost 10 miles outside of town, it is just not safe for them to be cut off from phone service and with no internet or cable, they would be essentially cut off from news, weather and any kind of entertainment to keep them busy when the wind blows 50 miles an hour, so I decided to step in and get him a phone on my service that would double as a mobile hotspot so he would have internet and via the wii, internet television.

I got him the exact same phone I have, had it delivered to him and ever since then I have had to field calls that have ranged from accusations of attempted murder via frustration heart attack, to stress related insanity. Did I mention that this is the same man who would bitch if he won the lottery over the denomination of the bills used to pay it out to him? Yeah...I expected him to bitch and gripe, and its fine with me. He is 1500 miles away and he knows he needs to just suck it up and deal with it. I think his biggest problem is that he has finally realized that while he has pretended to be old for years, he has finally realized that he actually IS old. He is very behind the times and he is very out of touch with the world around him.

I work very hard to keep up with things that my kids are interested in, the music they like, the books they read and the culture that they are growing up in. Some of it, I dont much care for, and I am DREADING if daughter ever becomes one of those tweens that wants to go see movies like the Bieber film or whatever. But luckily, she is into pretty cool and interesting stuff,(largely because I try to influence her to stay away from the over processed and hyped crap as being for "common sheeple", but I encourage her to do things like read and think and check stuff out and if she is curious, we check it out and I try to reserve comment at things that aren't geared for me. He is not so careful, he tells the boys he doesn't like some of the stuff they like, and he tries to force his likes onto them and consequently, they dont talk to him about their likes as much. He wont let Stubby read Harry Potter, and Stub is bereft. He thinks his father thinks he is too dumb to understand it, but the problem is, his father is biased against it because he wants Stub reading books HE liked when he was a kid, books that Stub is not interested in at the moment, so Stub has quit reading. Its the same thing with hobbies. He wants to work on jewelry, and he wants the boys to do the same. The boys want to play video games or be outside.

I dont expect he will ever change, and the boys just try to work around him. The phone will provide them a link to me so I can talk to them and see them on video chat and just stay in touch. I told their father that if he cant figure it out he could just hand it to Sticky, after all, he was the one who figured out how to connect the Wii to the internet and stream movies through the LCD tv, and if a kid with Downs Syndrome can do it, surely an old man can eventually be taught at least the rudiments.

Dear Roger:Im Too Damn Grumpy To Be Playing "Wheres Waldo" With Monkeys

Remember how I have talked about my eye twitch that tends to get a little accelerated when I am aggravated or ready to start dispensing with swift kicks to the backsides to those most in need of them? Well, I am flat amazed that my eye is still in my skull.

Maybe it is the Texan part of me, or maybe it is the years spent in the militaristic world of law enforcement, or maybe it is just because I am one to those obsessive/compulsive people who believes in having their shit wired tight and dialed in, but when something is out of order, FUBAR, fucked up, not where its supposed to be, pissing people off, and just generally half assed, and people ignore it, it makes me a bit nuts. Factor in a child that has been looking forward to something and blames ME for it being that way, when it is in no freaking way,my damn fault, then you can see why my eye has gone off the deep end.

Supposedly, on June 28th, her favorite bands album was finally released. She was soo damn excited. She stayed up late watching their concert and little party they had to celebrate the fact, and she was looking forward to going to the store that they swore and be damned was the authorized carrier of said album. I told her that because money was tight, we were going to have to wait until the 1st of the month, but that I would go and make sure it was in the store and then we would go together and get it.

I went to said store and looked, expecting with all the hooorah for there to be a display or something, but there was nothing. I hunted down a clerk while my friend hunted through the racks thinking that surely we had just missed it. The clerk looked at me like I was mental," Hungry Monkeys? Hundred Monkey?" NOO! I showed her the wrist band I wore that day. 'Ohh!" again with the look. She looked it up on the computer and it popped up,"No, we aren't carrying it, in fact its not available in Portland or in fact, Oregon. But we can order it off the web for you." She advised us to check back in a day or two and talk to the company that stocks the music just to be sure, but the system said that it wasn't happening. We checked back. We talked to the music dept people, I talked to the store manager. Its not getting stocked in Gresham. I was bummed, and then I wondered, did the band people know? I tweeted, I emailed, I did everything but flash my ass at the computer screen to try and get somebodies attention, but nada...I was lost in the sea to teeny bopper boobie shots. I just wanted to find out where I could buy their damn record with my daughter, in person, and nobody could take 5 minutes to tell me where the hell it actually was. Its kinda annoying. If it was anybody but them, I would have made a crude gesture and promptly begun pushing Flogging Molly at her like it was the best candy to be found, but she genuinely loves them and honestly I forgive a lot of foolishness because of it.

Soo, trying not to be me. I emailed their record label and got yet another youngster who told me that it was being carried by the big boxes or we could wait until August and get it then. Oh yeah...thats happening. I wanted to tell her to come and tell my daughter that she was going to have to wait until August to get it and see how well that went over. I called around to the places the record label people gave me, I even called Arizona! I was willing to enlist the ex and allow him to be a hero and send it to her as a 'Gift" that I would have bought, but its not in Flagstaff ,AZ either. Its not to be found in East Texas where I have kin and friends in Maryland cant find it.

I knew it was available as a fecking digital download off ITunes, but you know what? I took her to her first rock concert, It was them and I was determined to take her to buy her first record together. Its a bonding thing. I kept calling around and it dawned on me, "Where best to find a funky little indie band than a Indie record shop?!" I called Music Millennium and sure enough they had 3 copies! They knew who the hell I was talking about! I didn't feel judged or like I was trying to buy weird porn. The price wasn't much above what I was expecting, they were willing to hold the copies for me and they were nice. Soo, finally! Thanks to my diligent detective efforts to find what feels like the worlds best kept secret, I will take my baby girl to a funky, cool music store tomorrow and I will hand her the money, and she will buy her very first cd by the first band she ever loved. I hope will look back on it someday and remember it with fondness. I, however plan to stick a Waldo sticker on the back of the damn thing. I have never worked that hard for any band or any boys. The 100 Monkeys are making a lot of changes lately. Some I am a bit...meh? over, others I just kinda sit back and say, "Well...its growing pains." I have heard the new record and it sounds pretty damn good for the most part. There are a couple of things I could do without , but its not my place to say.

Daughter is starting to branch out in her interests, and that is good to see. She loves Harry Potter and is absolutely enamored with Daniel Radcliffe. That is really cute to see. She watched the Tony awards with me and was up singing and dancing along with him, and she recently asked for a Harry Potter poster for her room. She reads Harry Potter to her monkey,"Jackson", out loud every night and asks all kinds of questions about it that show a deep understanding of the story, so I encourage her to keep on keeping on.

I wont let on to her how much of a pain in the ass it was to find the cd. I have just let her be mad at me, thinking that it was my fault she didn't have it yet. But tomorrow we will have a fun field trip and she will be happy, and for a brief bit I will be her hero. Thats good enough for me.

Dear Roger: Middle Management

My ex is like an albatross, perpetually hung around my neck like a harbinger of doom. He had the audacity to call me the other day whining about the fact that he was running out of meat. I had already spent the day before getting the power turned back on in his house. The utilities are still in my name so he didn't have to pay a deposit and try to re-establish service, because, since he never seems to have a steady, on the books job, he has no decent credit history and he would not have been able to do. Anyhow, he had neglected to pay the bill and so for $56, the company had shut him off, and since he is brilliant, he had called and tried to get the power put into his name and they had found an old bill from 12 years ago that he had neglected to pay, so they not only wanted the past due on the bill in my name, they wanted that old bill, a deposit and a bunch of fees in order to turn the power back on. So my sons were facing being in Arizona in July, with no electricity because Mr. Rocket Scientist had manged to turn a $56 bill into a $435 bill with one phone call.

Because I volunteered in Community Action and advocating for the poor of Arizona before I left, I have some connections back there. I made a few phone calls and I sent him to meet with a couple of people and voila! His electric bill was paid, his gas bill was paid and he even had a box of food, but that wasn't enough, he was bitching at me because he didn't have any meat. This is a man who currently weighs about 270lbs at 6ft tall. He spends $15 per week on a can of Topps loose tobacco because he rolls his own and smokes like a chimney. When he buys groceries, he buys soda and ice cream and crap. He got fired from his last job and because it was an off the books job, he doesn't qualify for unemployment. He walked into a house that was fully furnished, stocked up with everything anyone could need for MONTHS. I had taken every spare dime I had and I had gone to Sams club and I had bought tolite paper, paper towels, laundry soap, food, clothes for my boys. I had paid up the car insurance for several months, the tags were paid for the year and I let him leave it in my name. Not for him. No, fuck him. I did this for my boys. I tried to get my boys out. I talked to the judge. I talked to a lawyer and because I didn't have the money for a long protracted legal battle in a state that says even a wife and child abusing man has legal rights to his kids, I had to bargain with him and he wouldn't let my boys go.I gave him the house to get my daughter out. I take care of things back there for my boys and he know that. He has me by my heart and he knows it. So when he called to bitch about not having any meat, I began working on it, but it really pissed me off. I mean, How dare he?

When I first moved up here with my daughter and son, we were on a shoe-string budget. Being fubar means that finding gainful employment is not easy and with the economy as it is, that makes it even more difficult, then factor in no car. We were behind the 8 ball from the get go, but we hit the ground fighting. I found us an apartment in a good area that we could afford, even though it took most of our money and then we hit second had stores and garage sales to furnish it. Almost nothing in my apartment is new. We came up here with 7 bags that held mostly clothes and things like our laptops and a few pictures. I had to leave my art, my books and pretty much everything I had ever acquired in my life.

Our first month in this apartment was tough. We had pretty much nothing, knew almost no one and it was pretty scary. I was still getting used to being around people again, missing my boys and my Fergus and my kids were afraid we were going to fail. The bright spot for us wads the 100 Monkeys concert.

We almost didn't go. I agonized over it. I was afraid of crowds, of riding the train and being around people and the noise and protecting my kids. We had almost no money for anything, in fact we had just $2.27 to our names, it was a fecking hot as hell day and we had no idea where we were really going. We left extra early and arrived downtown and started walking and bickering. Poor daughter ended up walking around 5 miles all told that day and by the time we arrived at Voodoo Donuts, she was exhausted and near tears. We spent our money getting her a Dr. Pepper, a bottle of water and a donut.

Sitting on that bench outside, sweaty , tired and stressed out, I realized that we were making progress. Even though my friend hadn't wanted us to go to the concert and had refused to let us use her car even though she had allowed it for all kinds of other things, I had not allowed someone to control me...I had made it anyway.Watching those funky little cars roll into the parking lot and those beautiful boys tumble out of them, I couldn't help but to smile and believe that things were looking up.

Things did get better after that, the sunshine had come into our lives with the discovery that we were truly independent, but life was still tough. With no money often meant no food. I will not allow my children to go hungry, but I am quite capable of missing meals myself and I did just that. I shopped very carefully for staples and I made meals for my children that were healthy and filling, but were not fancy and often I did not eat. I got away with it for a few weeks before my son caught onto the fact I wasn't eating much and we had a huge fight. He worries too much. My son is a good kid, but hes a teen and teen boys are endless eating machines, so I made sure he was well fed. I was glad when school started up though because that meant that they had lunch at school and I could stretch the food budget even further. I am lucky that grandma taught me to cook with staples and avoid the junk food, because without buying all the junk, we actually eat pretty good now, but we dont eat a lot of meat. That is what really griped me about the ex's call. He has complained about my boys not liking the steak he cooked one night on the grill I left and I had to bite my tongue...not only do we not have a grill here, but I have had exactly one steak in the last year. Beef is so rare in this house, that when I do buy it, my son acts as if its Christmas. We eat chicken, lots and lots of chicken or we have no meat at all and we do just fine. Out meals have gotten creative and interesting and I cook things that the kids brag about. I make, "Bangers and mash" with a homemade gravy that has my son calling his friend with a "heads up" when I get out the pans for it, so I end up having to make a double batch to feed two teen boys. Its cheap, filling and its something different. I make chicken spaghetti as well as all kinds of Thai food and even just plain noodles with veggis, but when I told the ex that he could forego the meat and maybe lose a few pounds, his response was,"How can you call yourself a Texan anymore?" I call myself a Texan because I am tough, resourceful and because I can burn the candle a both ends with a blowtorch going on the middle and still keep my pride that im doing it myself.

Dear Roger: Its Not You, Its Me

I got the results of all the testing and interviewing I went through a month or so ago in order to see what kind of employment I would be best suited for and what would make allowances for my little glitches. I thought I was doing good, that I had made substantial progress towards getting out and meeting people and trying to not be so aloof and cold and stand offish, but the results of the testing indicate very strongly otherwise. In fact to quote the results I got,I would be best suited to employment in a field that,"does not involve significant interpersonal contact."

Words like,"Hyper vigilant, Hyperarousal,(not near as fun as it sounds), inflexibility, perfectionism, irritability, and on every single page and they cited my anger. They confirmed my diagnoses of Severe PTSD, and a heaping helping of depression along with a laundry list of related fun that makes me the equivalent of the female version of Severus Snape. They even commented on my attire and my, "Solemn demeanor".

I take issue with some of the comments because, I mean seriously! If you take a look at my past, I have a damn good reason to be a bit on the pissed off side. I have had people try to kill me. That is well documented and my ex did time in prison for it. Others didn't go to prison, but I have not made the best choices in companionship.

Yeah, I am a perfectionist. I am also a huge fuck up. If I didn't try harder to get it right, I would have just given up and become a total bum a decade ago. I am a creature of habit and ritual, So the fuck what? What is wrong with that? That means I know where stuff is, I remember obscure things and that can really come in handy at times. Hyper vigilance keeps my kids and my loved ones alive, it also is habit after living in a war zone for most of my life. I am a pro at reading people and knowing when to duck and when to get my loved ones the hell out of the way. Because I said I would lay down my life for my kids or my loved ones with no regrets, they consider my high risk for suicide. Honestly, I only live for my kids. I dont have anything else right now. So, yeah...maybe they have me there, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be capable of being functional in a job.

Im supposed to attend a workshop this next month, they want me to jump through this hoop which essentially is supposed to help me find a sense of direction. I am looking into going into nursing still, I have known quite a few anti-social nurses, so that is not off the table.

I do not intend to change the way I dress. I am a grown woman and if I choose to wear boots and black, that is my choice. The report said that there really isn't much to be done for me. I am very distrustful of people,(duh), have no close relationships outside of my children, and I am intimidating,(me? I 5 fucking feet tall, weigh 105 lbs and I have wonky knees and shoulders!), but whatever, I guess my "Presence" scares the snot out of people. My temper is rigidly controlled and I maintain it that way for a reason. I dont lay a hand on anyone in anger, and the way things have been, I haven't laid hands on anyone for any other purpose either. A friend of mine suggested that I needed a good solid trouncing, and while I whole-heartedly agree, I do not foresee it happening anytime soon because apparently I am destined to just seethe alone.

Dear Roger: Ex's, Texas, Finding My Way Home

Rog, I miss the hell out of you. Of all the times for you to be dead, this time in my life is probably the most difficult to be without you. Yeah, you would be a 65 year old man at this point, but I know you would be one of those ageless bastards, probably like Alan Rickman, charming the hell out of all the artsy women and making everyone wonder just what the hell its is that you did to leave them so gobsmacked. But, son of a bitch, that heart of yours. I used to blame to doctors in Houston for your death. even though I KNEW that the survival rate for aneurysms was practically nil, I just always believed you were invincible. Anyway...I need your advice. I dont know what to do. I want to go back to work, I want to get out in the world and do something, but I cannot seem to get off the blocks. I dont know if I am lacking a swift kick in the ass to ignite my fire or if I am just weary through and through. I dont even get truly enraged at my ex anymore, it feels like I have just surrendered and become passive, or maybe perpetually stoned from all the weed smoke from my hippy neighbors, but regardless, I seem to go days without accomplishing anything tangible.

I dont even seriously hunt for men anymore. I look, but as for genuinely making an effort to meet and then follow up with? yeah...not so much. I dont even get away from the house very much. Now in my defense for that, I dont have a car and we actually have a grand total of 7.00 to see us through the end of this month. Being that completely poverty stricken tends to eliminate any kind of socialization or getting out.

I am considering nursing school. I had wanted to go back into Paramedicine so I could go back to work on an ambulance and thusly into the adrenaline filled world of Emergency Services, in fact I was leaning towards Tactical Medic school, buuuuut, the problem with that is the crazy hours and the reality of my age and physical status. I have had one shoulder rebuilt, need the other one done, need my knee rebuilt...Fuck! Im OLD too! Soo, more sane voices have been whispering, (and even yelling) in my ear about nursing school. I have been interested in it off and on, but I just worry about the politics and working around a bunch of women. I dont play well with others, especially women. I could go into Forensic or Industrial nursing and work for either law enforcement (Oh GOD, PLEASE?!) or companies, but in all honesty, I really enjoyed working in the Emergency Room when I was a tech and I dont get grossed out or freaked out, so trauma nursing would be something I might lean towards. I dont know. I will have to see what my voc rehab person says tomorrow. She may throw a monkey wrench in the whole works by saying that my PTSD has me too screwed up to deal with regular humanity, but I dont think so, I do try to talk to people on a daily basis, even if it is on the 'net, and my issues with my mom and dad are just that, MY issues and MY business, so we will have to see.

If I got my RN it would make it easier to eventually move back to Texas, and I know that is what my son really wants. Hes been mopey for the past few days because he wants to go back for at least a vacation and I just dont know how to make it happen. It would be wonderful to finally be able to move his young butt to Austin just in time to send him to college, and I know my daughter would thrive in the art community there. Its been a bit Californicated, but its still Texas and its still Austin and dammit...its where I was happy, once upon a time.

My first ex has resurfaced and has been talking to my oldest daughter for some reason. Its weird that after nearly 20 years he pops up out of the woodwork. I was a bit concerned at first, but hes married with 4 kids and living overseas. I guess he just was curious about what was going on in our lives. I wonder if he is still as good looking as he was when we were married? Well, thats neither here nor there, he is yet another past chapter of a closed book.

I am still working on figuring out where I fit in this world Rog. Having no purpose other than child raising never was where I saw myself. My hands ache to hold a camera and to capture the things I see, but I put that away from me when the world went digital and 6 year olds became 'Photographers" with the aid of Photoshop. I miss the thrill of the stalk and the drive and frustration to capture just the right moment at just the right time, battling time and elements and people, circumstances. Its not the same. My visions for my sculpture are too big to be constructed in my apartment, so I sketch them in my notebook and miss my yard and wish for a welder and chainsaw. Maybe frustration has turned into apathy? I haven't even written too much lately, but that is because I have been greedily reading everything I come across.

Rog, I miss you. I wish you would send a giant kick in the ass from wherever you are, some sign that I still have someone listening. I found myself listening to Pink Floyd last night and thinking of you, after all you introduced me to them, but instead of,"Learning to Fly", it was "Wish You Were Here" followed by the ever cheerful query of,"Is There Anybody Out There?"

I guess its the time of year, after all, this month you left us 17 years ago. Ironically, Fergus died the same week as you did, and while those who cleave tightly to the belief that the great one is a compassionate being and that you are with my big, slobbery best friend and solace to my crippled soul, you know I look at it as just another sign that I am forever his favorite whipping boy. I miss both of you more than anyone will ever understand.

Dear Roger: Monkey Training With A Rolled Up Newspaper

Rog, I think I may have had more of an influence on my daughter than I should have had. I would like to take full credit for her being a genius, but hell, that came from out of left field and hit me like a freight train. She is still revealing bits and pieces of the depths of her brilliance, such as walking out into the living room with her Irish Penny Whistle that she has been messing around with in her spare time and telling me, "Listen to this!" She put a piece of sheet music up on the wall in front of her and very intently looking at it, she stood there and played,"When the Saints Go Marching In". Apparently she can read music. Chance just looked at her, picked up his guitar, went to his room and slammed the door. He fights battles with bar chords on a daily basis, but claims reading music is not something that comes easy to him, and for his baby sister to have it as a natural talent seems to be a slap in the face. She also walks around plinking on her ukulele and playing the songs from,"Avatar" the cartoon. Its enough to give her brother a complex. But when it comes to relating to others, that is her weakness.

My daughter is very direct and a little blunt about her opinion on things and I am trying to teach her the fine Southern art of the gentle put down or scold without being rude. I think she needs to learn this pretty damn quick because last night when we were watching a concert her favorite boy put on to celebrate the upcoming release of his new album, she said something that I was shocked to hear her say. He does this thing with his lip, I dont know why he does it other than hes a boy, hes young and some dumbass girl or person probably told him he needed to to something to stand out. It doesn't look very good, in fact it messes up what is normally a stunning smile, but I tend to overlook it, kinda like to overlook a pimple or a bit of unshaven beard, but she didn't. He did that face a few times when pictures were being taken and she got really annoyed. "Why does he do that with his face?" she asked me looking like ever the annoyed young fangirl. I told her that I didn't know other than the fact he is a boy and boys often do odd and incomprehensible things. " Well, I dont like it and he needs to stop it. I want to tweet him to stop it before he messes up his face or something. Someone should whack him with a rolled up newspaper when he does it to stop him." I reminded her that he is not a cat scratching up the furniture and that he is probably getting thousands of tweets and she is not the boss of him so he probably wouldn't listen. She got annoyed with me then. "Why do boys have to be so ridiculous?" I was trying really hard not to laugh at this point. She was talking about ridiculous and silly in regards to a young man who she had seen in a pink dress. She is very forgiving of his silliness and I do not know what set her off last night other than she doesn't like that lip thing and I created a monster when I let her compose my 20k tweet.

She comes to me at least once a day with an idea for a tweet or a composition she wants on the internet. She in inordinately proud of her videos that I have put on youtube and she came to me today and asked about having her own webpage. I asked her what she would put on it and she told me that she would of course put her writing and songs and such on it. Most of her songs are about her favorite boy, his band, the songs and such and she is quite the fan, but she is not one of those screaming, chase after them, they can do no wrong, kind of fan girls. She watches and evaluates and judges and has very clear opinions about what she likes and doesn't like. Its pretty amusing.

The rolled up newspaper threat is not an empty one, she wields it quite often around here and her brother and I are quite often the recipients of it. Just today she came storming out of my room, curls flying all about, face alight with indignation as she stomped her foot at us and said,"DO YOU MIND NOT BICKERING CONSTANTLY?! I AM SICK AND YOU ARE DISTURBING JACKSON!" she shook her paper at us and turned back into my room and slammed the door. I blamed her brother. But she is quite the scary handful and her brother and I kept our bickering down to a minimum after that. I am taking her to see her boy in August, and she is very excited about it, in fact she is looking forward to talking to him again and that is what worries me. She WILL say something. She will throw out some $5 words and freak everyone out and then she will flat tell him to cut it out with the snarly thing with his lip in her oddly blunt way unless I can get her trained before then. I have to teach her Southernisms like,"Honey, you are as darlin as a speckled pup in a lil red wagon, bless your heart" and all those other things that are backhanded end runs around something you know is gonna sting, but maybe just a little less than a rolled up newspaper wielded by a 3ft tall fangirl.I am guarding my twitter from her because she already has proven she knows how to compose a tweet, and she is computer literate and very adept at figuring things out, so better safe then sorry and I will work on her training in manners and civility before August rolls around.

Dear Roger: Father of Mine

Its Fathers day. Another one of those socially constructed, fucked up, revenue driven ventures that leaves me and many others sitting around feeling a little left out of all the celebratory mood. My relationship with my father was not the greatest. I was not wanted. I was a disappointment to him because I was not a son, and I was constantly reminded of that. My earliest memory of him is of a lit cigarette being dropped down my back. Other memories are of him singing,"Fatty Fatty two by four" to me because I was chubby as a pre-teen. I remember him teaching me how to shoot a gun, and some of him teaching me horsemanship, but he was a taciturn man, not given to shows of affection. Neither of my parents were. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, recalling some of my mothers stories of what a,"Difficult baby" I was and how I had destroyed a crib by literally shaking it to pieces. She had related to me that I cried a lot and that a pediatrician had told her to put me in my crib and allow me to,"Scream it out", she had commented that I was an,"Early headbanger" because I would sit and rock and bang my head into the wall or the sides of my crib. I was neglected. As someone who has studied psychology, I recognize all those things she was telling me as signs of a sorely neglected child and I have to wonder how long I was left alone in that room to ,"Scream it out." I know my father never rescued me. He was in Viet Nam for 3 tours of duty and then when he returned, he wasnt around. He was a angry man who worked all the time. My father figure was John Wayne, Grandpa and you.

I guess I could have done worse. Being raised by John Wayne gave me a hero who was also taciturn, but who cared and was brave and good hearted deep down. I have always doubted whether or not my father cared for me deep down or if he simply saw me as the lost hope. Grandpa and you were everything I needed and I am so thankful I had you. The fact that I have any moral compass at all is largely due to you and grandpa and grandma. I miss you every single day and I mourn for the fact that my children will never have that kind of relationship with people.

My parents are out of my life. My children have no grandparents and that breaks my heart, but my parents are soo far away from what my grandparents and you were, that I know they have nothing to offer my children except rejection and pain.

My son has no father, and I have often mourned that loss in his life, but he has sought at male role models to guide his path, some good, some I question, but all have helped to form him into a decent young man. He struggles at times, but he has a good moral compass and his faith seems to hold him to being a good person.

My small daughter has a father, but he scares her when he is close by, after all,she has seen him with a straight razor to her mothers throat and she knows he can be a monster that is capable of terrifying things, even towards her. The young man she looks up to as the archetype for what a man is supposed to be like, her John Wayne, her hero, and her hope that there are good men in the world that aren't scary and angry, is young Jackson Rathbone. So far, that has been a good thing. He has been a fairly consistent, relatively calm and sane young man that isn't whoring himself around every bar and party to be found or splashed across the cover of whatever trashy rag happens to be trolling the,"scene". Whatever he does in his personal life, he is very good at keeping it just that,"Personal" and that is refreshing. He does what he does, doesn't curse constantly, looks relatively normal except for that sneery thing he does, and he genuinely seems like a decent person. When she met him, he was kind and she needed that.

I cant recall that many significant memories of my father that are positive. We had a difficult relationship and it left a lot of scars on me, but I can recall memory after memory of John Wayne that influenced me. I learned how to ride a horse, shoot properly, how to be a good American, cook a steak and just how to be from him. Think what you want about him and his politics, but to a lonely kid that was left to their own devices day in and day out, he was a calming influence and a hero that was there when no one else could be and he raised me. I am here for my kids, but sometimes they need that,"Guys" influence to just let them know that there is another way of doing things, and their guys are having as profound an impact on them, as John Wayne had on me, and I thanks them for that.