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

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

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

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

Dear Roger, Things That I Shouldnt Do Anymore

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

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

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

Dear Roger,Control Freak?Whats Wrong With That?

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

Dear Roger, It Only Gets Stranger

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

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

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