Dear Roger; Would Somebody FEED the Children?

Rog, it has been an interesting couple of weeks around here. Ive been writing quite a bit on my stories and I even started a couple of new ones. I started this new thing called a,"Tumblr" which is like a combination of the twitter and some odd blog/picture feed and its been FUN! I get all kinds of cool stuff that comes directly to the desktop of my computer for my viewing pleasure and mainly,as you know, that has been pictures of handsome young men. I get a lot of stuff from a few male gay porn websites too, but mainly its just pictures of my favorite little fella and some of the newer pretty young studs out there, and I have noticed something kinda disturbing. They pretty much all look like they need to have their mommas sit their asses down and FEED THEM A MEAL.

Now I know that the cute young thing I am partial to is a bit on the smallish side. I mean, the boy has no ass at all and considering he plays a kid most of the time thats par for the course, but its starting to get a bit concerning. He aint not kid anymore, hes starting to tap on the door of 30 and the last picture I saw of him from some magazine shoot he did, he had his t-shirt pulled up, showing off his tummy and his happy trail and even the edge of the forest, and he looked GAUNT. In fact the expression on his face even looked like he was hungry. It didn't make me hot, it made me want to go into the kitchen and cook up some dinner and feed him. My 15 year old son is bigger than him, and that aint right, because my 15 year old son looks up to that guy as kinda a role model and now my son,(who has a six pack and is an athlete), is dieting! Im a bit pissed off. I dont let my kids live on crap or junk food. We eat healthy. In fact my daughter considers mac and cheese and rare and amazing treat and McDonalds is virtually unheard of.

My son actually got a bottle of his favorite Asian salad dressing for his birthday and was tickled to death because he eats so much salad that its something he actually uses. Nobody in my little family is fat, but nobody is unhealthy either, but I worry about my son because he thinks he is fat because you cant count his intestine lines. What the hell is with the twink look that is going on in Hollywood nowadays for young men?

I saw a picture of the new Spiderman and I was like,"Really?!!" the child is soo skinny that he doesn't look like he could fight his way out of a spiderweb. I dont expect all guys to be big old bulky muscle heads, but normal, healthy, manly sizes would be nice to see. It hurts my heart as an older woman to see a cute young man looking like he is starving to death. I worry that he might be sick, or not taking care of himself, its not a look that generates a desire to do anything other than sit down and have a talk with my own kid about positive body image and nutrition.

Sis and I had a chat about the disturbing lack of bulges in the zipper areas of young men in many of the pictures as well, and my sis's comment was,"Well, thats just because you are out there on the Left coast, getcher ass back here to Texas where we got fellas that wear faded spots in the front of their wranglers with their peckers." Yeah...sis has a way of reminding me of all the the good things I am missing by not being back home. Like another friend commented, its just a disturbing trend towards making everything plastic looking. Getting rid of the bulges, getting rid of the body hair and blemishes and faults that make them interesting. I personally find all the little quirks like freckles and moles and scruff and glasses make a fella more human, and I wish that those that make magazines and movies would remember that. My son keeps trying to rid himself of all his body hair, and considering hes of Scot/Irish descent, hes a bit screwed in that aspect. He furry as a werewolf and the one good thing that came out of the whole starved looking picture that my son saw was that he saw the guy has fuzz...so maybe, just maybe, my son will stop trying to eradicate his.

The Face In The Rearview Mirror #3

I wrote another chapter of this. I posted it on my fan fic page, and on my Tumblr .I talked to my sister about him today and she remembered him and we had a good laugh about all the craziness that went on. These are fictionalized accounts of my youth, so I have taken some liberties with some things, but most of this stuff? It really happened, just so you have a little better understanding of why I am so damn weird. Found a picture of the little cutie that made me laugh, because you lighten the hair a bit and turn up the nose just a little on the end, and they looked pretty damn similar. I guess its just a look. Funny to think I woulda probably whooped his butt for the hell of it just based on appearances back in the day.

A/N This particular vignette will be in several parts. I am glad to see that I am getting folks who are adding this to their follow list. Thank you! I am sorry it still doesnt have a consistent updating schedule, but these stories are based on memories and I am a bit old, so sometimes its hard to remember some of the good stuff.

The heat coming up of the blacktop road was almost too much for my bare feet to handle, but considering I had just made fun of Jasper for scooting off into the grass and hopping from foot to foot like some crazy assed lizard I had seen on tv one time, I wasn't about to admit it. "Come on you big ole baby, you are slowing us down by trying to dodge all the stickers. If you would just cowboy up and keep on walking, your feet would get tough and you wouldn't notice it anymore." I was so annoyed at him for slowing me down on today of all days. My folks had taken Rose and gone to Longview for the day for some modeling thing, so we had the entire day to ourselves to just raise hell. I was planning on us hiking down to the Sulphur River bottom and looking for the Indian mound that we had heard that our neighbor had found when he was clearing some land for his cattle. If we cut across the highway and took the old railroad line that had been abandoned for so long it had trees growing up in the middle of it, we would have time to look for the mound and then also explore the old Waldrum place on our way back, but NOT IF HE KEPT DAWDLING! I picked up a rock and threatened to chunk it at his feet, "Come ON!" " Jeeze Bella, I'm coming already. I'm sorry my mom made us put on sunscreen and answer all those questions. You know how she is. If you hadn't shot me…"Hey! You shot me too! I still got the pellet to prove it!" I jerked my shorts down and showed him the bump in my butt cheek where the pellet was easily felt. Jasper grinned his goofy gap toothed grin and poked it with his finger. "That'll teach you." I gasped in mock outrage, " I knew you did it on purpose! Prepare for wedgie attack!" I tackled him into the grass on the side of the road and administered the required wedgie and a couple of noogies for good measure while he shrieked a little bit like a girl and tried to get away, until one of our neighbors drove by and stopped and asked if "Everything was okay?" I stood up and said, "Yes. everything is just fine. I just had to administer a couple life saving wedgies." They called me a 'Smartass " and drove off as Jasper threw grasshoppers and pebbles at me until I helped him get up, and we finally headed back out on our journey.

Crossing the highway was usually against the rules. It was so remote and so quiet that I didn't understand why, but my father had told Rose that someone named , "Henry Lee Lucas" had been down that very highway hunting people to kill and he didn't want her anywhere near it when there wasn't an adult around. I figured that if my father cared enough to warn Rose away from it, that there must be something pretty damn scary about it, but we were going to just cross it really fast and then head straight to the old railroad and walk down it.

When I first found the old railroad, I was amazed to see tracks that had trees growing up through them. One of the baby neighbor kids parents told me that our property had been a big old slave plantation back during the Civil War, and that railroad had been used to haul the cotton and the lumber to Galveston as well as to other parts of the Confederacy. Once the war was over, the track had been abandoned along with most of the old structures that were along it, and even a few old houses that were way back deep in the forest because either their owners had died in the war and it was too hard to get to them without the railroad, or they were rumored to be haunted. It was one of these old houses that we were going to investigate after we went looking for the Indian mound.

Jasper nervously stood at the side of the highway, holding onto his pecker like he was prone to do when he was scared. "Bella…I don't know if I should. My mom is not going to be happy if I cross the highway." I was already across and glaring at him across the narrow expanse. " Oh Come ON! We told her we were going to see the Indian mound" And we did, but we just kinda neglected to mention that we were crossing the highway and walking a few miles into the Sulphur River Bottom. She probably would not be really happy about that, but she was working a 12 hour shift so we were going to be alone all day long. I decided to just act like I didn't care and start walking, " Fine Jasper, Be a baby! Go sit in your house and watch nothing on TV. I am going to go see the Indian mound by myself and if I get disappeared, its all your fault." "Bella! Wait!" He stomped his foot, (still holding onto his pecker),looked up and down the highway like he was seeing if his mom was going to jump out and catch him being bad, and then he scooted across the highway like his ass was lit on fire. "FINE! But if we get in trouble, I'm making sure my mom spanks YOU first."

I held the fence so he could get through it without catching his shirt on it, and then we were into the trees and out of sight of the road. It was eerily quiet walking along the old railroad and I had the bright idea of telling ghost stories to each other while we walked along to make the trip seem shorter. Turns out Jasper knew some pretty dang scary ghost stories and one about some thing he called the, "Leaf Man". Let me tell you, something was seriously wrong in a boys brain that could come up with a monster that masked itself as a bed of leaves and moved along the forest floor and into the yards of unsuspecting suburban families. I vowed then and there to never look at a pile of leaves the same again. I used to think that dog turds were the biggest hazard, but a pile of leaves that would eat you? and then move onto the next yard or town or even back into the forest where it would eat woodland critters? I stopped and looked at Jasper. "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you NOT see where we are?" He smiled at me, "What's the matter Bella? Are you skeered?" I bent down and picked up a stick and started walking towards him, "NO! But you should be!" He laughed and took off running ahead of me, dodging the missing ties and trying to do a scary voice over his shoulder and failing miserably as I chased after him, threatening to beat him within an inch of his miserable life when I caught him.

We ran for a few minutes until we both caught the smell of water. I knew a creek ran near the railroad, but I wasn't sure where, and I didn't want to get too far off from the trail, but it was hot and this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. "Lets find it Jasper, maybe we can wade and cool off for a bit and then head on into the Sulphur." Jasper grinned at me, "Truce?" "Yeah you big baby, you got a truce, but I am keeping the stick in case of a snake." Jaspers eyes got big, "Do you smell one?" Ever since his finger got broke, he was all jumpy about that, " No, I don't smell one, but I want to be ready, and this is a good stick." Truth is, I was planning on whacking him across his butt when he bent over to take his shorts off for swimming, but he didn't need to know that.

We walked along the railroad a little further and then when the ground started to slope away from it a little, we saw the telltale glint of water in the distance. We both grinned and whooped, jumping over the rail and heading towards the glint at a run. I wasn't sure what we were going to find, but it was like the perfect kids swimming hole. It wasn't stagnant at all, in fact, it was a place where the creek simply widened into a perfect bowl for swimming. There was even grass on the edge of it so you wouldn't get too muddy getting in or out of it. Trees overhung part of it and there were some rocks on the far side. "Jasper, I think we have found heaven." He just nodded at me. "Well? Lets do this!" I started stripping and Jasper began pulling his shirt up over his head. "Do you think it will be okay?" I stopped and looked at him, " Who is going to care, nobody is around, we have this pool all to ourselves, I don't smell a snake and its perfect! Im going in, now hurry UP!" I got finished stripping and stood waiting for Jasper as he dawdled along. He got his shirt off and seemed to debate his shorts. "Oh come on Jasper, if you go in with your shorts on, your mom is gonna know we went swimming and we are gonna get in trouble, now come on, don't be a chicken." He grimaced at me and pulled his shorts down with his tighty whiteys, "Okay, but don't laugh at me Bella." He was so weird about that, I never got why he thought I would laugh at him. Boy parts were different, just like bulls were different from cows. I didn't care he was a dangler. "Jeesh Jasper, The only way I would laugh at you would be if a catfish grabbed aholt of that, so you better keep one hand onto your ding a ling." I took off into the water and splashed up at him as he squawked his outrage at me, but came wading in gingerly anyway,(keeping one hand on it the whole time), we waded and swam for a couple of hours in that little pool, enjoying a break from the crushing East Texas heat.

When we finally got hungry, we sat on the grass, drying off in the sun and eating the PB&J sandwiches his mom had packed to go along with the I had smuggled out of my house. It was a perfect break on our trip and I could tell by the sun that it had not even reached noon, so we still had the majority of the day left ahead of us to reach the mound and see if anything was left to find and rescue before the rancher bulldozed it all. I wanted no further part of Jaspers scary assed stories, so we started telling jokes and planning further adventures for the rest of the Summer. Jasper grinned at me and said, "Well, mom has said she wants to take us to 6 Flags one weekend! Do you think your mom will let you go?" I had no idea, and I couldn't imagine them having any big objection other than the expense, but I knew my father got free tickets for everyone in the family that we never used, so I told Jasper I would ask if I could get them. "Well, don't make him mad at you Bella, you know how he gets." Jasper looked worried and he reached over and took my hand. Jasper had been at the door one day when my father had been mad at me. He had a hard time forgetting that. I guess rich folk didn't beat their kids with belts very often and it took him a while to stop crying when he saw me after that. The scar on my head still made his lip quiver, and that was something that he was just going to have to get over, hell, I did.

Dear Roger: Boys and Communication Skills-Two of These Things Dont Go Together

My son was in such a mood last night! It really kinda ticked me off because it wasn't fair. He had gotten to go out with his friends, including his girlfriend, he had money in his pocket that I really couldn't spare that he had been able to spend, and he had been off sledding up on Mt Hood after spending time at the mall just hanging out being a kid. I hadn't hassled him about homework or anything. He had come home to a clean house,(including his room)and that was enough of a disgusting disaster area that I should have been pissed beyond belief myself, but I had also cooked a nice dinner. He had been asked for nothing and given much. So he should have been just about shitting rainbows and all Mary sunshine. But no, he was surly and hateful and treated me like I was bothering him when I tried to talk to him. I was starved for adult conversation with a real life human being. I had not had a casual human conversation with another person in a couple of days and I was getting a bit buggy. Mind you, the internet is fine for most casual conversations, but I am a Texan, and a Southerner so body language and gestures as well as inflection and the ability to get up and move around kinda play a part in the whole conversation thing, so sitting at a computer and typing just isn't as satisfying. I was starving to talk to someone! When he came in and dumped off all his gear in the dining room, I didn't even start a fight with him. Hell, I was glad to see him and glad to have someone to talk to! I put his stuff away and I went and knocked on the door to his room. I could already hear the noise of alerts on his computer which told me he was talking to his girlfriend who he had just left.

He answered the door and said,'What? What do you want?" I was a bit taken aback at the rude tone of his voice, after all, he had just gotten home! I said,"How was the trip?" He scoffed and said," It was ridiculous and I dont want to talk about it, now can I go please?" I was shocked. He had just gotten home and I was looking forward to talking to him and he was shutting me out. So I said,"Let me guess, You are fighting with your girlfriend or your buddies so I get to suffer? Nice...thanks a lot son." I turned and shut the door behind me and I went into the kitchen and started finishing up dinner. I could hear him in his room obviously arguing about something and ranting about some stupid thing that will have him in a surly mood for a week. I served dinner to my daughter and tapped on his door and let him know it was ready, but I wasn't kissing his ass anymore. He knew he had already messed up and until he came out and apologized, it was not going to be good around us.He knows I dont put up with it because its not fair to make me and his sister suffer because he and his friends are having problems they cant seem to sort out. I refuse to let sleeping dogs lie. I will force him to talk about it eventually and I invoke interrogation skills that I learned as a cop and as a teacher and in a couple of decades as a mom. He sulked in his room for a little bit longer and then he came out and he did what he knew was required, what I have always required of him since he was a little boy. He stood in front of me and he apologized." Mom, I'm sorry I was rude and a jerk when I got home. I was having an argument with my girlfriend over I dont even know what and I took it out on you and that wasn't fair to take out on you.It was a dick move and I was wrong." Being able to apologize hasn't always been easy for him, but he has discovered that it has earned him respect from adults and other kids because they see him as a man who is capable of admitting when he was wrong. Thats a hard thing to do and I struggled with it myself when I was younger and I wanted to help him avoid all that pain, so I taught him to always admit his mistakes and stand up and own them and apologize, but to never stand for being abused.

My son knows I wont ever stand for it again. Sometimes I choose to walk away from a fight rather than engage in one, but I will not be brow beaten or abused ever again and I have taught my son to never take abuse and denigration from anyone. We actually got to talking about it again last night when an actor who is infamous for browbeating another human being in such a heinous manner that it made the evening news, won an award. I wont watch movies that the actor is in. I wont support anything he is involved in. The guy is a bully and a jerk and I have no use for him and my son asked me what I would have done if I had been on the receiving end of that kind of rant. "Dental Work" . No job, nothing. Is worth taking that kind of abuse and I told my son that. I have my dignity, my pride and my ego and I would prefer all of them to remain intact rather than to lose them at the price of a few dollars and I know my son heard that message loud and clear when he stood up to his step-father that day.

My son came out and apologized to me for his behavior, and I asked him what the issue was between him and his friends,and he groaned in frustration," I was talking to some other girls and apparently on friend likes one of those girls and my girlfriend knows that one of those girls like me and she didn't like me talking to her and now they are both men so I am apparently NOT allowed to talk to other people!" I laughed at him because he seemed so frustrated at the High School drama and all the insanity of the teen minds when he has been through so many adult situations and is actually very mature compared to many of his friends. 'What the hell is wrong with people, they act so damn stupid always obsessed about partying and they think their world is ending if they cant go skiiing!" My son is a funny kid, he is getting more serious about school and getting in shape as well as practicing his guitar and while there are days when he thinks he has it way worse than most kids his age, he knows that he is actually doing pretty good. He has friends, (though they may drive him crazy), he is a healthy and good looking kid that has girls and a couple of boys(and the fact that he is okay with this still freaks me out)following him around and even home, hes talented and smart and adults like him and comment on the fact that he will stand up and do the right thing. He has his moments when he is still an irritable, surly, smelly, hairy, weird, teen, but for the most part he is turning into a hell of a young MAN that I am very proud of.

Dear Roger; The Story of My Life

Writing some of my adventures has had me thinking about my younger and wilder days, and I have even been wondering what became of my partner in crime. I haven't heard from him except for one last phone call when I was 18. Him and his mom had moved to Garland and he was in town with his mom because she was visiting some friends. He wanted to see me, but I had a boyfriend who was jealous, so I couldn't go see him, and after that rejection, he never called me again. I have missed Jimmy over the years, and Jimmy was his name, and I have wondered what he grew up to be and if he ever thinks of me. He was my best friend in those summers, and we did so many fun and crazy things, but it was all innocent fun. We were in a different time and place, and at a point and time where we weren't really aware of the interest that that we might have for each other later. I think we would have ended up dating,maybe together as a couple long term and I would have been spared the heart ache of the loss of the first boy I loved in such a violent manner, because Jimmy would have been that love and that boy would have just been a friend that died. I speculate on a lot of things, but I wish I knew where Jimmy had ended up, his last name is soo common that trying FB search just brings up so many possibilities that I give up in frustration. So I picture him as I last saw him, a little taller than me, with his dirty blonde curly hair, his green eyes and his nose that was a little bit pug, he had freckles across the bridge of it, and his front teeth had a slight gap. He had a scar on his elbows and knees from where he wrecked his dirt bike into a barb wire fence when the neighbors stupid dogs got into a fight in front of him and he turned to avoid them, and he always tanned up really golden like he had Indian in him.

Growing up in the country gave me a life that I wish my kids could have. I didnt have many fancy things, and I ran wild most of the time because my parents pretty much ignored me, but I had adventure and I did things that my kids will never get to experience. I had pear-apple wars with neighbor kids, I lived like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I knew woods lore and I fished and hunted and built shelters and rode horses while other kids were going to lessons and having their fancy country club parties, and maybe I may have been an outcast when I was younger, but now those same people that rejected me when I was younger, are now reading my stories and loving them, wishing they could have had that. Living an uncommon life left its marks and scars, and I am still an outsider from so much of those who live around me, but there are those out there still managing to exist like I did.

My sons life is so similar to another's that it made both of us realize that what he had been through can be not only survived, it can be triumphed over and can make him a stronger person. We watched the movie,"This Boys Life" together the other night, and we were both struck at how much it reminded us of our lives, in fact if it wasn't made 2 years before my son was born, it would be like watching my sons life.He commented that he wondered if my ex learned his parenting skills from the movie. It was heartbreaking, but we looked up the author on the internet and found that he has done well and is still alive, so that was a relief.

My son knows that I dont allow him the luxury of claiming that coming from a tough background as an excuse to be a fuck up. My grandfather was a abused child. He was the oldest of 7 kids, beaten, starved and treated like a slave by an alcoholic father. He left home at 13 and worked his way from Iowa to Idaho where he worked as a ranch hand until he joined the military underage. He literally starved when he was a kid. He suffered, and he overcame it and achieved much in his life. He was a decorated WW2 veteran Navigator/Bombardier of B-17's and B-24s, Silver and Bronze stars, Pearl Harbor survivor, D-day, Berlin and Black Friday. He was a hero who went on to go to college and graduate and then teach. He never committed a crime, never was a drunk,or drug abuser. He was a good man. So bad backgrounds can be risen above and I remind my son of that on a daily basis. I have also known those that had everything handed to them on a silver platter and were worthless shits that I wouldn't cross the street to piss on if they were on fire. Money doest make class or dignity or morals and a man, so I tell my kids that they need to just work hard and remember who they are, do their best to be good people, and remember things that Honor, Integrity, Dignity , and Pride are things that a person has in them, and that they cannot be bought.

I hope that Jimmy grew up with those things. I like to think that he did. He was a good boy and in my memories he was all those and more, perhaps its best he remain there.

Dear Roger; Thinking About A Boy

Ive been writing on a new series of stories. I went ahead and "Fic'd" them, meaning that I gave them names of characters from the Twi series to get the stories some visibility, but they are based on me and my best friend from when I was a kid. He made my life bearable and I miss him constantly.

I plan to publish about one new story a month.

These stories are dedicated to the friends we make that leave a mark on our soul.

The Face In The Rearview Mirror

Shh! "If you don't shut up they are gonna hear you, stupid head and that's gonna ruin it, now be quiet til we are a little closer!" I swear, trying to sneak up on anything with him was pretty near impossible. He may be a boy, but sometimes he could be a chickenhearted boy, and not very much like Wild Bill at all, even though he always insisted he had to be Wild Bill and I had to be Calamity Jane because he was a boy and I was a girl, didn't matter that I was a better and a faster shot than him, or that I could wrassle him down and make him cry uncle by giving him Indian burns and noogies, nah…he was a boy and had curly hair like my hero so he insisted that he got to be him and I thought that sucked. We belly crawled forward a little further, keeping watchful eyes for fire ant mounds and snakes, as well as sign that we had been spotted by our quarry, the bag of pear-apples shifted and I decided that now was as good a time as any for a snack. 'Hey, dumbass! I tossed one at his head, smacking him in the back of his curls and earning a glare from him as he picked it up and threatened to throw it back at me. "Uhhh uhhh! I shook the bag at him, reminding him that I was vastly better armed than him, and considering that I had been found to have an 88mph pitch this past baseball season, he knew not to mess with me, because best friend or not, I would mess his butt up. We laid there in the deep grass for a few minutes, enjoying our pear-apple break, every now and then peering over the top of the grass to make sure our quarry had not moved further down the pasture out of reach.

" So, school starts next week, do you know who you have yet?" I didn't, my mom was not the most on the ball when it came to finding out things like that and in all likelihood I wouldn't have any idea who I had until I actually walked into the classrooms. " Nah, we haven't even gotten my school supplies or clothes yet. Mom took Rose last week to get her stuff but I have to wait until dads next paycheck, so she hasn't even gone by the school. I wasn't my parents priority, I knew it, Jasper knew it, and pretty much anyone who looked at me and my sister together, knew it. My sis always had the latest in fashion, the nicest of pretty much everything, and I got the leftovers, and I was the afterthought, the accident, even though I was the oldest. I tried to pretend that it didn't bother me, but it really did and Jasper knew it, his way of helping me to deal though was to throw the core from his apple-pear at my head and say, "They are on the move! Come on, we gotta step it up or they are gonna get away again," We belly crawled faster, towards our quarry, and reaching within the agreed upon distance, Jasper and I both rose to a low crouch and eased into a position so that we were able to separate two of our quarry from the rest. We raised up to standing and taking an apple-pear out of my bag I slowly began approaching my target, clucking softly and talking in what I hoped was a calm and soothing voice. The muzzle reached out and lipped the fruit off my outstretched palm, and I beamed in pride. Victory was all but assured! I reached out slowly to pat his nose and slowly reached into my bag to pull out another fruit for him. I could see that Jasper was having similar luck, we were gonna ride today! As I started to ease the bridle off my shoulder, I heard the truck approaching on the highway. Jaspers eyes met mine, surely not? We were soo close to victory! Surely with our quarry within our reach, we were not gonna have it yanked away right at the last minute? Dammit! It was.

"Hey! You damn kids get outta there!" Shit! It was Sammy and we were busted, caught dead to rights in his pasture with his prize stud horse and mares. I looked at Jasper, and breathed the one word I knew he was waiting to hear," RUN!" We didn't move suddenly until we had cleared the horses, but once we were out of the middle of them, we hauled ass like the devil himself was on our heels, and maybe he was. Sammy was known to have a bit of a temper and he carried a bullwhip in is truck, so rather than run the risk of getting a much deserved beating for getting caught riding his horses, we just ran like hell and hoped he wouldn't remember who the hell we were. We tore through the scrub oak and the briar bushes, jumping the old, broken down barbed wire fence that separated our place from the vast expanse that was the Cullen place. We ran until we reached the giant old oak with the grave underneath it, and then we climbed up and sat on our favorite branch, laughing at the craziness of our risk. "Your momma is gonna beat your ass if he goes and gripes at her" Jasper stopped laughing a minute, worry shadowing his face as he spoke. "Ahh, don't worry about it, she spends so much time in her room nowadays that she wont even bother to do anything." I tried to reassure him, but even I was a little worried. My mom was prone to explosions that he had witnessed on more than a few occasions and I had the scars to prove it.

Jaspers life was a pretty good one even though he didn't have a daddy. Considering the type of daddy I had, I figured no daddy might actually be a blessing. His mom worked at the hospital as a nurse in the emergency room, and though she could be kinda strict sometimes, she always made sure Jasper had food and clean clothes and that the house they rented was clean. My folks actually owned our house and my dad worked for the mine, supposedly a really good job that made my sister Rose all kids of stuck up, but we didn't have any of that kind of stuff. Our house was always nasty, with piles of laundry all over the place, dishes just stacked in the sink or on the counter and even the floor, and my moms animals just went wherever they felt like it. I knew I often smelled like cat pee or cigarette smoke, and I knew how to fetch a beer for my dad as soon as I was walking. Saying stuff about it just pissed my mom off and got me a slap, so I just learned to keep my mouth shut and stay our of the house as much as possible. Rose was often at friends houses, even though her room was the nicest in the house. My dad worked 12 hour shifts, and when he was home, he drank and smoked until he went to bed. I don't think we had spoken more than 10 words to each other in the past 3 years. My summers had been misery until Jasper had moved into the rent house down the road, and I knew he was going to be my best friend the moment we had met, even though the first words out of his mouth were, "Why don't you have a shirt on?"

Summer in deep East Texas is like living in a sauna. it's a kinda hot that gets amplified by the sound of cicadas and the way that the sticker burrs cling to your legs as you run through the pastures. The smell of bois d'arc trees and honey suckle hung heavy in the air and I loved to wander up the right of way picking the ripened buckeyes so I would have something to chunk at the old bull when I needed to cut through the small pasture he hung out in so I could get to my favorite fishing hole. I was walking up the old game trail, thinking about heading over to where the ruins of the old slave cabins were, to see if I could find anymore treasures laying around when I heard the sound of something moving up the trail towards me. We had put up with a roaming pack of wild dogs killing stock all summer, and not knowing if it was them or a stranger, I decided to make myself scarce by shimmying up a tree. I managed to get up the closest one and I stood on the branch, close to the trunk, waiting to see what was coming. Stupid granddaddy longlegs spiders were trying to crawl over my foot and I kicked at them, trying to keep them off of me, because even though I knew they were harmless, they were just gross and I hated way their legs tickled as they went over me. I heard more crashing, (whatever was coming had no woods sense at all), and I stilled myself and waited, watching up the trail. Before too long I saw him, and I almost laughed at loud with the glee at how much fun I knew I was gonna have with this one because it was pretty obvious he was a city slicker and had no idea the things in the woods that could mess with him.

He was a pretty boy. He was wearing a pair of fancy khaki shorts and a button up shirt. He had on sandals with socks and I almost fell outta my tree laughing at that and the craziness of wearing socks where sticker burrs ruled, much less socks with sandals. He had curly hair that was a little darker and mine and he was pale, as in the kinda pale that didn't see the sun very often. I didn't see any bandaids on his knees or scars or scrapes on him so I figured he was soft. Probably a Dallas prep school sissy boy. He wandered along with a stick in his hand, whacking at the buckeyes and knocking them off the bushes, and I could hear him muttering to himself as he approached. 'Stupid hick town out in the middle of no where! Nothing to do, nobody around! I hate it here! I want to go home!" Yup, I had called it, he was a spoiled assed city boy. I drew a buckeye outta my bag and decided on a plan of attack. If I hit him dead on, he was likely to spot me too soon and end the game, so I decided to go with the armadillo hunting technique. I was gonna attract his attention and then sneak attack from behind. He wasn't very big, so I figured I could take him and pin him easy, maybe scuff him up a little and get them clothes some hick town dirt on them.

I threw the first buckeye right in front of him, and he jumped backwards in shock from the sudden movement. When he realized it was just a buckeye, he kicked at it with his sandal and looked around to see if it had fallen out of a tree or something. I ducked behind the trunk of the tree I was standing on, waiting a few before I peeked around, to see what he was doing. He bent down to pick up the eye and I threw the next one, striking him right on top of his curly head. He jumped up like he had been shot and looked around like he was expecting a booger bear to jump out and eat him. I was trying hard to not fall out of the tree laughing as he looked all around him, so I threw another one right behind him to see if I could force him on under me so I could pounce. It worked and he started quickly walking along the trail until he was just about under my tree, and then I whipped another eye at him, striking him right in his pretty pink ear. He howled and grabbed his ear as I dropped out of the tree behind him, tackling him and taking him down to the ground, growling at him, "What are you doing in my woods city boy?" He shrieked like a girl and promptly passed out.

Oh no! I didn't mean to break him. I was just gonna scuff him up a bit, maybe make him eat some dirt, and then see if he wanted to go fishing. Boys aren't supposed to pass out! Holy Crap! I tried stuff I had seen on tv, I slapped his face, yelled, 'Hey" at him a few times, lifted his hand up over his face…nothing. He was out, and eww…he had peed his pants too. I felt horrible. I should have known he was gonna be more delicate, after all it was obvious he was a city kid and probably a rich, city kid so his folks were probably gonna have me killed or something for hurting him. I remembered I had some water in my canteen, so I thought maybe that would kill two birds with one stone! First is would wake him up, and second, if I got him all wet, he wouldn't know he peed himself! So I opened my canteen and started dumping it on him, starting with his shorts and working my way up. Sure nuf, it worked and he was coming round. He sputtered and coughed and started crying as he sat up and I squatted down in front of him, "Hey! Don't cry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you so bad, I was just messing with you. My names Bella, what's yours?" He wiped the water out of his eyes and took in his now muddied and defiantly scuffed up appearance, " Im Jasper, but why don't you have a shirt on?"

"Why didn't I have a shirt on?" Wasn't the better question why he did? It was hotter than hell at high noon outside, and it was Summer. Nobody was around, cept me, and maybe the stupid baby neighbor kids, but most likely they were in England again for their holiday or whatever they called it, and besides, they didn't play with me anyhow, so I was alone, and it was just cooler to go with out a shirt. I probably woulda gone without shorts too, but I didn't want to get worms. I wasn't wearing shoes either, but I hated wearing shoes, unless they were my boots, and since they were banned from the house for smelling so bad, I had grown to mistrust them after putting them on one morning and encountering a spider. It was just easier to wear nothing but a pair of old cutoffs. I had pockets for my pocket knife and gum, and my kit bag and canteen for everything else, I didn't need a shirt, but he looked at me so funny I kinda felt odd, like maybe I should be wearing a shirt.

'Where are you from Jasper? He was still looking at me funny and I was about to shove him back if he kept on, but he wiped the snot away from under his nose, smearing mud on his face as he did so, and he grumbled, "Houston, we just moved here a couple of days ago." Whoa! A new neighbor! Cool! " So how old are you,(I had to make sure he wasn't gonna get snaked by Rose), and if he was old enough to attract her interest, then she sure would try just to be mean. "I'm 12, how about you?" No way! He was my age too? Granted he's a bit on the soft side, and needed some toughening up, but I knew that I had just found the Butch to my Sundance.

Dear Roger:Ouch! For A Kid Whose Name Means "Lucky" in French, He Sure Has A Hard Time

Well, I think I have aged about 10 years in the past few days, and most of it is because of my son. Its not directly his fault, but rather the shit luck that he seems to have sometimes. The poor kid wants to be an actor, right? Well, you would think he would be a little more protective of his pretty face, but he seems to lead with it and he already had a nice scar on his chin that gives him an extra dimple, one on his forehead that he got when he was a baby and fell into a coffee table and split his face open, one over his eye that he got when he fell out of a bunkbed, and now, the best of all that could seemingly only happen to my son, an almost 2 inch long gash that is exactly between is eyes, onto the bridge of his nose!

He was in p.e., in the swimming pool because they were doing an aquatics block, he was minding his own business waiting for things to get set up while the teacher and another student moved the aquatics basketball hoop. Welll...something went wrong somewhere and the support for the hoop snapped and it fell, striking my son in the face. Thats right, a 2-300lb basketball hoop thingy,(pardon the technical term) fell and hit my kid in the face. So, hes got his gash in his face, a cracked nose, and a concussion. This makes his second concussion this year at this school! They called me and told me he had fallen in the pool area and that I needed to come and get him and take him to the doctor. That kinda pissed me off just a little, he should have been taken to the hospital! Hell, the first time he got a concussion during football, they sent his ass home, walking!!

Its a bit crazy that they seem a little unconcerned about kids getting bashed in the head like that. He has 5 butterfly stitches holding his face shut and will have a Harry Potterish scar to add to his collection. Perhaps he will be a character actor.

I am still dealing with my wisdom tooth issue. I finally broke and went to Urgent Care yesterday. The fact I was actually dealing with blood and obvious signs of infection and abscess, had me realizing that if I didn't do something soon, I was going to end up back in the hospital. Having a fever for a week makes me one cranky woman, and the pain that was shooting up under my eye was making me a bit psychotic. I was living on 3 year out of date Vicodin, so I knew something had to give. The doctor I saw was a bit odd, but he gave me a prescription for Keflex and oddly, and anti-fungal? I have no idea why he did that but what ever. I am taking the Keflex and I am going to research the anti-fungal before I take that. He also gave me a fresh scrip for Vicodin so maybe I wont damage my liver any more than necessary. My blood pressure was up for the first time in a long time. Normally I am freakishly low, as in 98/64 but yesterday is was cranking along at 128/88 and that freaked me out a bit because I was consciously trying to relax and I have really cut back on caffeine and all kinds of bad stuff and I work hard to stay in shape. I mean, hell! I had actually managed to get my weight up to 112, (though that was with boots and coat on), and I walk and exercise and try to stay limber. I should not have blood pressure that high. I am hoping it was just the fact I was in pain that had it so high. But anyway, I am working on getting this shit cleared up and I am trying to find someplace to get the wisdom teeth pulled so I wont have to deal with them again. My son is doing okay, though he has been a bit cranky due to the headaches. Small daughter is such a pistol, she pulled yet another tooth night before last and was very excited about it. She is such an odd kid, she just reached up and twisted it and POP, pulled the damn thing right out! She is saving up her money so she can buy the new 100 Monkeys album when it comes out,(I will buy it for her, hopefully for her birthday in March), or for a new t-shirt, but she is just fearless when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Its cold as all get out up here! I dont mind it, but I hate it when the wind blows, it seems to make the pain from my teeth worse, and that really makes me cranky.

My writing is coming along okay. I am writing an outtake from one of my main stories for the 'Fandom Against Domestic Violence" project, I am hoping the POV of the Young Rock Star will raise a few bucks for them, my muse has been a bit elusive lately because of the pain, but hes been wandering around on the periphery, so hopefully I will catch up with him later.

Dear Roger: Parental Revenge? Or Whats So Damn Funny?

My son is an,"Interesting" kid. I have said before he is a bit of a smart-ass and a he vacillitates between this weird ambisexterous masculinity that seems to delight in trying to stress me out, worrying that maybe he is taking a walk on the,'Wild side", so worrying me that he is wrapped up in this ,"Girlfriend" of his a little to much. He has some strange ideas about who and what I should be interested in, and he often tries to be just a bit on the bossy side, and even more irritating, he seems to have a bit of a problem with authority, meaning mine. Getting him to listen is often an exercise in using my best reverse psychology. If I tell him to do something directly, quite often he will do the exact opposite. Tell him to clean up his room, he seems to make it messier. Suggest he stick with practicing one song in his guitar? He practices parts of 11 or 12 of them as part of one song. I actually heard him play something that started off as "Wish you were here" that then morphed into "Smoke On the Water" and into "Beautiful More So" and then "I Got A Reason" with "What Its Like" and God knows what else thrown in. I think he did it to try and drive me crazy.

He managed to lose his Ipod, and that lead to a bit of a disagreement over the reason for why it got lost. Yeah, I probably sounded like my parents, but jeesh! They boy has no organization at all! His room looks like he walks in and flings any transient garbage he happens to pick up on the way home. His schoolwork is all over the place, dirty clothes all over and frankly...it smells. He threw a bit of a hissy fit because he couldn't find his iPod before church,(shouldn't have it in church anyway),and I told him I would look for it while he was gone. He wanted to take my ipod, and maybe I should be flattered that he thinks my taste in music is good enough that he would deign to to such a thing, but frankly, my ipod cost a lot more than his, its older and I could never replace it now, so I said no. He thew a baby fit, but he left it and stomped on out the door muttering about how,"Mean" I was and "greedy" and I am sure all kinds of other unkind comments. I searched his room when he was gone,(gag!) and even though I used to be able to find all kinds drugs and stuff that people never wanted me to find when I was a cop,(being able to think like a criminal made me really good at finding all the secret hidey holes for all kinds of stuff, plus 70%of my friends growing up were into some kind of fuckery so I learned where to hide weed and stuff in cars, which made it great for me as a cop when it came to ferreting it out. But thus I digress, I searched his room and the rest of the apartment, old school style. I found a few dollars I didn't know we had, a bunch of my movies that he was totally messing up by having them out of their cases even though he had promised he was going to put them away, some really gross underwear and socks, and his missing house key, but no ipod. He was pretty bummed out when he got home and wanted to borrow mine. I was going to decline and he knows there are things that he does that gross me out. That weird thumb thing he does, threatening to flip his eyelids inside out, just general gnarly freakishness that makes my stomach kinda flip flop...yeah, well he did that thumb thing, walking toward me. I thought about starting to discuss sex or,"Hot guys" which usually works as a repellent against him, but my teeth hurt so damn bad I just didn't have any fight in me.

He wont listen when I tell him that he needs to get organized and put his stuff in places where he can actually find it. He argues with his English teacher, and consequently, he is flunking English! How the hell does a kid with test scores OFF THE CHARTS! flunk his native language? Ill tell you how, he decides to go,"On strike" and not do the work. Jeebus! He is doing great in French, just took a state aptitude test to see where he is at in science because apparently he is annoying his science teacher with being a bit of a,'Know it all" and he is going to get bumped up a year ahead and put into chemistry a year early!I suggested he take advanced math, meaning calculus, next year to compliment it, and of course he acted as if I suggested that he cut his balls off and said,"Jeeze mom! Should I have no social life?" uhh, yeah? Hes a teen, of course I dont want him to have a social life. He is planning on taking choir and theater and French again as well as running track, so maybe he will quit football? I am afraid to say anything about it because the only way to ensure he will play is to act like I dont want him to...I think? My mother called in the midst of one of mine and my sons infamous bickering matches about what a ,"Hardass" I am about things and,"How he refuses to listen". I told my mom that he seemed to have a real problem with authority and it worried me.

Rog, she fucking laughed at me. Not a little either, she guffawed. I mean she full on busted out, had to have been rolling on the floor, gasping until she was choking, laughed at me. Then she hung up on me. I do not get what was so damn funny? Yeah, I may have had a bit of an attitude growing up, but really? Was that called for?