Dear Roger: Where Did The Time Go? Can I Get A Rewind in a Digital World?

This next week my oldest son is turning 16 years old. I want to say,'Uh, NO! That is not allowed. There is no way in hell my cute little, curly haired, dimpled, sweet baby boy is turning 16", but I have a feeling my cries would be fully ignored unless they were laughed at. This is like birthdaymageddon around here. My eldest daughter is turning 20, another heart stopper but I have had more time to get used to that one. You would have been on the back side of 65 and that still blows my mind, my father is in the same boat. My nephew, my niece, my sister turned 40 on the 1st and I actually managed to break with tradition and send her out a few truly obnoxious cards in time to annoy her, and so many others in the family have birthdays this month that its no wonder that everybody gets so damn cranky. Daughter has been sweating me to get her hand drawn card to her favorite boy mailed out to him because he creeps ever closer to 30 this month as well, and every time I walk past where its laying on the counter I feel guilty, not because I think he gives a damn, but because I know she does and if I don't get it sent out in time, she will be upset with me.

Back to son, SIXTEEN. Holy shit. He is such an odd character for 16. Case in point, I came home unannounced the other day because I knew he was at my house with his buddies Jay, and Shortround and they were in my home alone. I remember what I would have been up too at age 16 with no parents around and money as well as time on my hands so I decided to scoot on home and make sure they were behaving. I walked up the back way and found all the blinds drawn and the lights off. I thought to myself, WTF? Do I reallllly want to go in there? Will I need brain bleach? After all, kids are different nowadays and I just don't understand how things go anymore, and I know that they are wayy more touchy feely and friendly with less respect for personal space than the guys I grew up with used to have and I did not want to be traumatized. But it was cold outside and I figured, well, I have seen all kinds of things, nothing can be that bad, so I opened the back door and stepped into the house.

The sight that greeted me was, unexpected to say the least. Jay is a musician like my son, and he was sitting next to my son on the couch and they were both arguing over a chord progression or some musician/dork thing. Shortround was sprawled out on the floor with a soda in one hand and an quesadilla in the other, watching Harry Potter. My kitchen had been violated in a foul and demented manner with eggs and Asian seasoning splattered all over the pans,and there were empty soda cans everywhere, but there was no lingering odor of weed, no blaring rap music, no evidence of any other kind of weirdness going on at all and I had to wonder, What the hell kind of kid had I raised? I know what I was doing at 16 and it resembled nothing like that. My friends and I were involved in partying out on oil leases and racing vehicles and drinking all forms of alcohol. I wont even get into some of the other stuff that went on, but lets leave it to say that those Jackass guys were copycats and candyasses compared to us and its amazing more of us didn't end up splattered all over the highways.

My son has wrecked his skateboard a few times, and he has a deep and passionate loathing for Toyota drivers because of their seeming desire to have him as a hood ornament, but he has not been in trouble or suffered any serious injuries,(know that I am furiously knocking on my bedside table that is made of wood), but he is a good kid. He is way too serious and intense at times, he has a bit of a stick up his ass when it comes to cutting loose and having fun, but I am soo damn lucky. Hes not a criminal, not a sociopath, not a bully or a coward. He has friends and he stands up for those weaker than him, and his friends are loyal to him. I cant stand his girlfriend and neither can his friends, but its not because shes a bad girl or a whore or anything like that, she is just wrong for him. Turns out my son is a bit of a prude, and while he likes looking at pretty girls, he doesn't like trashy women. Can I get a hallelujah?! No hookers, strippers or sluts in his future. He likes good girls! Yes! I swear to GOD, I damn sure don't understand that one. He is smart as hell, a little lacking in the ambition side of things, but hopefully he will find that as he gets a little older. He is going to start an early entry college program after the first of the year that will allow him to focus on music theory and more advanced classes that don't have all the screw up kids in them, because he does not suffer fools well. He lacks patience and he resents group projects where he feels like he is doing all the work and putting in the effort and then suffering when no one else contributes their part and the grades stink. Its happened to him several times this year already and he basically quit going to one class after the last time because he got all his part done, and no one else did theirs. He was pissed off, frustrated and angry and I was worried that he was going to resort to getting physical over it because I had set the rule that he could not participate in sports unless he had B's or above, and with the loss of the group project grade, that meant that was not going to happen, so his temper came out at school, and his counselor realized then that he was in the wrong place. She referred him to the college based program and told him that he was too smart and talented for any other the other programs, and that since he couldn't afford private school, it was his best bet. He will end up with 24 college credits, early entry into Portland State and the start of a good musical resume that will begin at 16 instead of 19, so hopefully his intensity and love of music will drive him to succeed, where the schools have failed him. His ability to play so many instruments will hopefully be cultivated and expanded and he will take that and make something of it, if not as a musician, maybe as a songwriter,(which he already dabbles in), or as a teacher. Either way, at 16 hes no longer a kid, though he is still my baby.

Dear Roger:Keeping it Reality?

So I got to see myself on a tv show last night. Yeah, I actually dabbled a little bit into the acting thing and extra-ed on a couple of shows and even considered trying for more, but I don't think I have the right personality for it, meaning I have too much of a smart-assed temper and I am not a very good ass kisser. When I don't like someone, I tend to let them know it, even if its unconsciously. Anyway, back to seeing myself on tv, I had gotten to work on this new show for ABC called GRIMM, the premise sounds pretty cool and it has potential, so I was pretty excited, but Ill tell you what, acting is boring. It was a lot of repetition, a lot of sitting around and a lot of ego stroking. I did meet some pretty cool and interesting folks, made some new friends, and for the most part it was a fun day, but meh...not really my thing. I figured I would get cut from the final product because I didn't really look like all the other background folks, I was dressed in my white shirt and vest and black jeans and boots.,(my typical attire when I worked in forensics), and while their wardrobe person called it good, I got them impression the director didn't like it, but whatever. Some chick did my hair for me that day and it was pretty neat. I haven't had my hair styled like that in well...forever and I think there were enough bobby pins in it to unlock half the locks in Portland. I spent a great part of the day sitting at a desk pretending to write a report and answer the phone, then another chunk of the day walking back and forth in a hallway and then at the end of the day I was walking around in the squad bay passing out folders. That is what made it into the show! Me, walking around. Mostly caught from the back. I was shocked to see how weird I walk. I already knew I was short, but I have this weird bowlegged amble.WTF? How come nobody ever told me? I sat there looking at the tv stunned a how strange I looked, and impressed at how long my damn hair is in the back now, but I walk weird. My ex said that i have always had a very distinctive walk that he could pick out of a crowd when he could recognize nothing else, he called it an "Asshole swagger". Hes a jerk though, so I don't pay him any attention, but my son agreed. Soo, I don't think I like seeing myself on film. I am also in an upcoming episode of Portlandia and thank God I am sitting down for most of that one. Having never seen myself on video, its quite an odd thing to digest. You see all the faults and oddities in yourself and if you are surrounded by knuckelheads like me, you get teased about them ceaselessly. The only one who wasn't teasing me was my baby girl, she was very proud and wants to get into acting herself...oh no, oh nononono! What have I done?

This week flew past and has been soo damn busy for me. I am tired and ready for a break but I dont think thats coming anytime soon. Daughter asked me yesterday,"Whats that black stuff under your eyes? I thought I had dirt or something under them so I went and looked in the mirror and realized I looked like a raccoon from being so tired. Dark circles with bags, what a nice look. I dont think I would have to worry about any looming acting roles for a while looking like that.

Dear Roger:Observations,Realities and Accepting the Fact I Dont Have Time For BS

I have become a much harder person as I have aged. While my small daughter still keeps me young at heart in many ways, in many other ways, the experiences I have had have turned me into a colder person who calls it as I see it. I am a lot less willing to put up with bullshit that I put up with earlier in my life because I have realized that time is short, things happen and there are no promises of tomorrow. I have faced my own mortality a few times and rather than being afraid for myself, I was worried about my kids. That really would be my only worry. I read an interesting article yesterday about how doctors die. Strange subject material I know, but it struck a nerve with me and I realized it was because it was how I saw things. As someone who has worked in the medical field from beginning to end,meaning I have delivered babies and I have been with people as they have died, I have worked trauma codes that did not end well and I have assisted in 34 autopsies, I have decided that I am a strictly,"NO CODE" kinda person. No heroics, no long drawn out money draining efforts. I want my quality over my quantity. I hope to be one of the lucky ones that is just out walking around and have it hit me like a bus and that is it, gone with my boots on. My greatest fear is ending up at the mercy of someone else. I have lived the last 10 years with various serious health issues and I struggle now to keep adequate weight on, to keep my migraines under control and to function some days. Its not fun. It makes me grumpy and hard to be around at times and no one really understands that living with long term pain kinda sucks the joy out of you. I tend to ignore other things, like the two wisdom teeth I have that are slowly breaking down and abscessing in my jaws right now because there is really nothing I can do about them. The last quote I got to get them removed was $1200, and that is out of my reach, so I just have learned to cope with them.Its all relative to whatever else is going on in my life. I get annoyed at people like my ex when they whine about minor things like how difficult his life is because he fucked up and now everyone judges him. Well, that is his own damn fault. He had options earlier in his life, he had a full ride scholarship to a great college and he could have been a lawyer, but he decided to be an asshole instead. We all choose our directions and we have to deal with the repercussions. I try to get my kids to see that and realize that decisions we make as teens can have a lasting impact into adulthood. I was a fuck up as a teen and I lived hard, abusing my body with copious amounts of alcohol and it took me a few years to figure out that the whole,"Live fast die young and leave a good looking corpse" thing wasn't going to work out for me because it was too late to die young. Alcohol poisoning slowed down my drinking and now I am pretty much a one beer drunk. You would think that being such a cheap date I would score a man every now and then, but nope... Its still a straight pecker desert around here. Its okay though because with the live I have going on right now, any sane man would run screaming into the night and I have already had enough of the crazy to last me a lifetime. I have things I want to do to make life better for my kids, but I will get them done one way or the other, with or without help. I always do, I always will. I work hard to be a good person, an honest and direct person who does the right thing, always. I am not afraid to die, not afraid to live. I am doing both, daily.

Dear Roger:Inspirations,Motivations, Writing Jags and Monkey Sex-Or things Found In A Molskine

Im on a writing bender again. It could be worse, having writers block is waay worse for me, but my muse had paid a particularly inconvenient time to pay me a visit, especially with the crowded house, the stress of trying to find a new place that I can tolerate and the holiday stress. I have 3 new stories I have cooking, one is already at over 25k the other at 15k, and the third is around 8k but its rather dark and I try to keep it on the very back burner. My other stories I have been working on all along are still just cranking out of me and I intend to wrap up 2 of them in this next week. Its really not a stress for me to write, and that makes my son a little crazy. He has been hit with writing assignment after writing assignment lately and he struggles with them. He of course waits until the last minute to ask for any help and then he harasses me when im in the middle of either writing something that is really flowing , or editing. Both situations make me a little crazy. He had been struggling to come up with a concept for his one paper and he started bouncing ideas off of me. I shot them down one after another until he was about ready to scream in frustration. All of them sounded like the sitcoms or crap he saw on tv and I told him so. I told him to draw from real life and what he saw around him. We sat and threw things back and forth until he finally grasped the concept and away he went.

Life experience is what helps me to write.I have been asked in the past where I get the ideas I write about and how I create things so quickly, but its from observation and life. Everything I see or hear or experience has been filed away and preserved so that I can draw from it at a later time. I have had some pretty depraved experiences and that has made for some of my more dark and horrific parts of my stories, I have also had some pretty damn funny things go on in my life and those have been added in as well. Every person, every voice and story and place is added to the mix and drawn from and something as simple as an expression shared between two boys in a photograph can fire off an idea that takes on a life of its own.

I spent a lot of time in college studying criminal psychology, criminal personality, things like body language and microgestures. I wanted to work for the FBI in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I read every damn book there was to read about it, studied under some of the best professors to be found, and then life intervened, my head got scrambled up in a tumble down the I40 and it took several other knocks that left me with a wonkiness that no one wants to employ in any law enforcement capacity, but I still have all that knowledge from all those classes I got,"A's" in and all those books I read. So I study people and I use it when I write. Watching how two people move around each other or look at each other when they are supposed to be in a relationship, or others when they are just friends, it leads to some great ideas for story lines that only seem to wander through my mind at the most inconvenient of times. I get ideas when I am in the shower or almost asleep in bed or out walking in the rain, in a hurry to get somewhere. It never seems to be when I am actually sitting at my computer trying to write. One of my favorite authors,"Bukowski" said that that was how it should be though, you should only write when its burning to get out of you. Lately it has been. I dont know what I will do with it other than keep putting it up where I have been. I think about submitting it to a publisher from time to time, I have what are essentially 3 novel length stories already done, but I am so damn difficult to deal with when it comes to editing. I have that artistic temperament and my stories are my 'Vision" and much like a painter, I write them how I see them, and I write how I talk. Its often a bit crude and rough around the edges and impolite, though rarely graphic in the sex department. Weirdly enough the most graphic sex scene I wrote was in a story that involved two gay male characters. The research on that was interesting to say the least. I prefer to not smack my readers in the face with it,(so to speak) and let their imaginations do the work, but I still get reviews describing my sex scenes as,'Smoking hot" and so on, so I guess I am doing something right for someone who has failed in all real life research attempts as of late.

Writing has been my salvation my entire life. I have always done it. I write everything from stories to poems to songs to just nonsense ideas for things. My dream job would have been to be a writer, able to ensconce myself off in some Scottish croft, alone except for the occasional visitation from a hot lil number that I had flown in just to see to my needs when I wanted him, and there I would crank out my great American novels as the mood struck me, along with a few hit songs for others to sing, but life stepped in and smacked me up side the head and so I write from my bedroom in an apartment in a suburb of Portland in the wee hours of the morning, hoping to get enough time to edit and save before the dog needs out or the kids need food, and I save those experiences in my mental file for later.

Dear Roger: Keeping Things Interesting On The Homefront

So yesterday I mentioned I was having a hard time dealing with my teen son, right? Well my masochistic tendencies must have kicked into overdrive yesterday because now I have two teen boys in my home. Sons best buddy is having problems at home like we had a couple of years ago and he ended up needing a place to stay. Like I was going to leave a kid out on the street? You know I take in strays. Hes a good kid, and my own son seemed a lot calmer and happier knowing his buddy was safe. They are piled up in my living room sound asleep right now, its the first time in hours that its been quiet in the house. The kid must have thanked me a million times and I kept telling him its not a deal at all, but he hugged me.I am not a hugger. I hug my own kids, but outside hugging does not happen. I am not a very physically demonstrative person. I just kinda go into a freak out mode when someone grabs me for a hug, so I try to avoid them, but the kid was fast and before I could move he hugged me. Son told him,"Dude! She is not a hugger. She wouldn't even hug Jackson Rathbone when she had to chance so you are probably lucky to be alive!" I think I was too stunned at that point to do anything. The kids mom had hugged me too. It was just a day of my personal space being violated all over the place.

My sis called yesterday about wanting me to talk to my parents again. It was like the great gorilla in the room that she finally pointed out and decided to confront me about. I have not spoken to my parents since February of last year. It was a decision I made after much introspection and the realization that it would just be better for everyone if I quit trying to be the daughter I cant be. Its not about money or material things as they seem to think. I could give a flying fuck about money. I don't have any, never have , never will, don't care. Money just brings troubles of its own. If you consider pictures of your grandparents and uncle to be material things, then maybe. But it was because I was replaced. I wasn't needed. They had another chance to,"do it right" and I don't know, maybe they did? But I am screwed up and it just best this way. I am not a particularly nice or pleasant person to be around on the best of days. I got tired to being the family fuck up and without a family to be compared to, I seem to be a success story. I came up here with nothing, got a place to live, a job and built a life from nothing and now we are moving forward again. My writing is going well, my kids are doing well. My family tends to heed my advice and its working well for us so far. I've got issues and resentments and problems that go back decades, and rather than deal with them I prefer to just shut the door on that part of my life and move forward, trying to let it go. We all make mistakes. I was one of them. I know that, its okay. I have accepted that I was never the perfect kid, but I am trying like hell to be a decent parent to my own kids. I don't know what else to say. I worry about losing my sis. We finally built a great relationship as adults after being played off of each other for years. She was the favorite,getting away with almost everything but murder, and for a long time all we did was fight,. but now I would be lost without her bi-weekly calls to harass me about some craziness going on in her life.

I don't know how she lives back there, but she is doing well with no debt, a new house a great husband and life, once again the perfect child. We balance each other, the good kid and the black sheep. I miss her and her crazy kids whose adventures just about rival my own kids craziness, and maybe someday we will all get together again, but for the near future, I am happiest far away and wandering and I hope she understands.

Dear Roger:A Sure Sign Of Insanity

My eldest son is going to drive me to drink. I swear to God I do not know how teen boys survive to become men. He has moments when he is kind and helpful and charming and the adorable little boy with the dimples that charmed the hell out of people all over the place, and then in the next moment he is the epitome of,'Werewolf boy" snapping and snarling and trying to rip throats out of all those around him without rhyme or reason. He is reckless, like a,'Jackass" stuntman without the paycheck, often coming home with odd scorchmarks on his pants or his pants ripped completely out like he did the other day! I am serious Rog! The entire ass end of his jeans were ripped completely out. I asked him what the hell happened to an almost brand new pair of skinny jeans and all he could say was,"I dont know." He has road rash and weird scrapes and bruises all over him, like a stray dog that got rolled by a pickup truck. I know a lot of its because of that skateboard, but my God! Hes running around with a bunch of Japanese boys and hes picked up some of the language, so now he mutters in three different languages under his breath when I annoy him, which seems to be all the damn time.

He comes home to eat, poop, get his clothes washed, and to practice guitar for hours. That is about it. He only really talks to my ex, which blows my damn mind. Its lately been like he prefers his company, which he might. Maybe he is just desperate for any adult male to talk to? I dont freaking know. He seems to be pissed at me most of the time no matter what I do, so I just try to stay the hell out of his way. I have over indulged him and I can give him anything else, but at times its reached the point I dont even want to be around him, but that may not be a problem much longer. I found an Arts and music magnet school in the city of Portland that is very highly rated. They actually have a gifted program and they are an immersion program in the Arts including Music, dance and painting and such, in other words, heaven for Stevie. The only problem is that its in a very spendy neighborhood that we all couldn't afford to live in, so what we are considering doing is me getting a studio down there with her, letting the boys stay in Gresham so that they wouldn't get disrupted, and commuting back and forth for work and visits on weekends and holidays. A lot of things have to fall perfectly in place for it to work, but Stevie is beyond excited. Its the neighborhood we originally wanted to move to when we moved to Portland and she would fit right in. The ex already has applied for 6 different jobs and is waiting to hear back on them. He wraps up one he got today, so hes already showing signs of progress in that aspect of things. If I find the right place and get in, we can financially make it with no problems, and maybe my son will be less moody to be around when he doesn't see me every day. I dont know, teen boys are difficult creatures to deal with, and I have 2 others on the way, a terrifying prospect to say the least.

Dear Roger: Pretty,Pretty Shiny Shiny, All Are Welcome,Alll Are Welcome

Things have been pretty calm around here. There is a spirit of cooperation that seems to be working out well for all of us. Maybe its the holiday spirit, maybe its just the realization that its root hog or die, or maybe its the realization that we have to work together for the common good, but everyone has been doing okay, even with all the typical strangeness going on.

The ex has finally accepted that he plays second fiddle to a monkey and he even got into the spirit of helping to find monkey related Christmas presents for her. I was floored. Most of the time he seems pretty confused as to how to deal with her. She seems to amuse and terrify him at the same time, but finding her things he knows will make her happy are his one sure fire way of communicating with her.He brought her some tattoo magazine the other day that had her fella in it and that got him a hug from her that about strangled him before she vanished into her room to read it to her Jackson. I had to ask,"Are you on drugs again or something? I didn't even know you remembered that boys last name." He said, "Well, I figured I better learn it, she has been pretty damn loyal to him for the past few years so it doesn't look like hes going away any times soon." He kinda growled that last part and I saw the irritated biker father for a minute,and it cracked me up. He has been buffaloed by a tiny blonde and a monkey...oh how the mighty have fallen.

She still calls him by his name, but at least she does talk to him now and she doesn't vanish the minute he shows up. She showed him her art work, including the birthday card she drew for her favorite fella and when he asked how old he was going to be, she said,"Lets just not talk about that." So her smart assed brother ,"Stubby" (though no longer called that to his face), said, "Hes going to be 27, that's TWENTY YEARS OLDER than you! ANCIENT!" He made several other snarky comments until her other brother, my oldest son said, "Why you hating on Jackson? What the heck did he do to you? Do you KNOW him? Have you met him? What is causing this problem with you? Are you jealous?" Just prior to this dissertation, he had been sitting in his chair obsessively playing with his new Iphone 4's guitar tuner app and ignoring all of us, I didn't even know if he was in the same world as us, but then BOOM! He calls Stub to task. All of us stop and stare at him, and he never even looks up from his phone, just keeps messing with the app, until his baby sister flies into his arms and hugs his neck so hard she about strangles him. The ex goes and puts an arm around Stub and says to him,"Son, we are out numbered just drink the koolaid and smile, its safer that way."

Christmas shopping has been a little better this year. Im still not rich by any means, but I have been able to pick up a few things for the kids and its going to be a lot better than it was last year for them. There wont be any fancy tv's or game systems because we just aren't into that kind of stuff, but there will be things they need and musical instruments as well as music and we will all be together. That is the most important thing. I missed my kids all being together last year and it was a very sad Christmas, this year? We are thinking about going out and actually having a Chinese dinner and enjoying ourselves, even though the ex thinks we are all crazy.

Its difficult shopping for the boys because they want gaming systems, and the ex has finally gotten on the same page with me about that in that he has realized that gaming systems just make the kids fat, lazy and irritable. So its no Guitar Hero, its real guitars. No Tony Hawk Skate games, its real skateboards. He was floored to realize his little girl has quite the attitude and is learning to skate faster than her older brothers. Her attitude and style had him muttering the other day and he looked and me and said,"If my daughter grows up to be a Suicide Girl I am going to blame YOU!" I didn't know what to say, he was the one who was a biker, not me! I may have been into punk and edgier things, and maybe I had shown her a world that most little kids in polite society didn't see, but HE was the biker. I pointed THAT out to him, and then he reminded me that while he may have been a biker, he was not the one with tattoos on his wrists and arms and a hobby of telling people where to go and what to do once they got there, and as my small daughter trotted past us after her brother for some slight, with her monkey hanging out of her back pocket, a stick-on tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of her t-shirt, as she yelled,"Im going to kick your butt you ass hat!" He pointedly looked at me.