Dear Roger;Blind and Clueless? Even My Sis? What The Hell Happened?

Well, I dont know what has happened, but apparently I am the only adult left in my family that even attempts to try and keep up with what the kids are interested in and involved in or listening to anymore. I just dont get it. When you were around, you knew what I was into, HELL! You took me for my first mohawk! and you encouraged me to listen to all types of music and try all kinds of new stuff and check stuff out.You didn't discourage me from my photography and even looking beyond the common stuff like Ansel Adams, though when mom found out that I was more into the really off the wall images like Mapplethorpe and stuff she wanted to shoot you for a little while, but she never really got the whole appeal that I found in the body studies in the black in white images, so she was just squicked out by me seeing naked guys I think, but then again she never understood why I always gravitated towards the odder stuff when I grew up in a small Texas town where that stuff wasn't talked about, and it was because I wasn't held back in the summers I was around you and grandma and grandpa and it did me a huge service! I still have a love of the new and the different and the fun and the adventure of life and all that is to be seen out there in the big wide world, and I love all types of music and art and literature and going and seeing and doing, and I am trying to imbue my kids with that same idea, that there is a whole wide world out there and they should get out and try a little of many different cultures and ideas so they dont have such a narrow view of the world that they stop seeing.

I will admit that there are some things that I do tend to be a bit narrow minded about, and usually its things that might come back to hurt my kids, or that could potentially be detrimental to their well being, but I really do try hard to get past any learned or developed prejudices that I have gained over the years, and as a former cop from a border state, yes, I did develop some prejudices and issues due to experiences that I had on a personal level, and it has been very, very hard to get past them and see some people as individuals and not as the same group that I handled for drug dealing or robbing or murdering or assaulting innocent people, and someone throwing a child at you so they could escape with drugs tends to leave a scar on your psyche, but I am working hard to get past that image in my head so I do not pass it on to my kids.

The rest of my family has not been so open-minded though and that kinda bugs me. I have Pookie who I still think of as my Aunt even though she is all the way back home in Thailand now, and her two daughters are my adopted family members, and even though they aren't my blood kin, they are my family and I consider them just as important. Ali is half Iranian, and her father is never far from my mind though I know we will never be together again, I miss the times we had together and he was an important part of my life. I have had a wide variety of friends and acquaintances and even dated men from exotic locations,(much to my parents dismay), and even men much,much younger than me,(much to my kids dismay), and I think all the variety has made me a well rounded person who is more willing to consider the struggles that others may be going through, and that perhaps im just a little bit more forgiving.My attitude towards many things has changed over the years, and I have become more liberal as I have gotten older, and I think that just comes with realization that its just not worth ruining some kids life over a damn joint, or if they want to be just as miserable as straight people with all the hassles of divorce and that crap, then hell, let em. I could never go back to being a cop because I simply could not rack some kid up over a little weed, though when it comes to meth or driving drunk, I would every time. There are many things that I just dont feel are any of my damn business, like what celebrity is sleeping with who, and where they were seen or any of that stuff, I believe that they need to be left the hell alone when they aren't working. Chance told me about some video he saw on the news about that poor Pattinson kid getting jammed up by the photo rats and that the cops refused to help him , and I wished like hell I was those damn cops supervisor because they would been walking the graveyard shift in the ghetto for the rest of their very short careers for such piss poor public service. I dont buy magazines or watch those kinda shows or crap because it annoys me that people harass kids like that until they make them crazy. I did security for a bit, and I got to see just how nuts it gets and it could be very easy to come to hate folks in a very short while, many people have no manners and no common sense and when you mix booze and libido into it, things get out of hand real quick, oddly enough especially amongst the damn women! The worst I ever had to deal with was a drunk chick that thought she was going backstage no matter what" and no short little dyke looking cop wannabe was gonna stop her" .I really enjoyed that take down, and I swear, suit casing someone that outweighs you and is taller than you by a good 5 inches and then dragging them 20 feet to a cop car should not be as fun as that was, but hell, I was easy to please back then and the pay was great.

I sent the picture of Stevie with Jackson Rathbone, to mom and dad and sis, yesterday and I get a call from mom asking me,"How in the hell did you get Chance wrestled into a suit and smiling?" and I was confused for a bit., What are you talking about momma? Chance doesn't have a suit and last I saw him he was still scowling at me for daring to wake him up before noon. "Well the PICTURE you sent us" she says sounding all annoyed, like I had lost what few marbles I have left. "Hes got his arm around Stevie?....Whos that in the background too?" Now she sounds annoyed at me. Momma... thats NOT Chance! "What! Oh dont be silly, the picture you sent just yesterday!" Momma....can you pull up the picture again?now IM getting annoyed, "Jennifer, I think I know my own grandson!Those dimples! and Stevie is in it in some parking lot, he needs to shave by the way. Are you letting him grow a beard or something? hes really looks better without all that fuzz hes looking thin, is he eating? MOM! pull up the DAMN PICTURE! THATS NOT CHANCE! now my sister gets on the phone, " Heeeey Beyaaach, moms showin me some picture of Chance and Stevie in a parking lot, what the deal?" Sis, are you wearing your glasses? "Nah, I only need them for driving". BULLLLSHIT! go get your damn glasses. "'You dont have to yell, hang on im putting them on...ohhh who the hell is that boy?" now my moms back," Who is that kid with his arm around Stevie and where is Chance?" Chance ran off with the band, Stevie wanted to and I am now insane, dang it mom! I told you guys for over a month that we were going to a concert of the 100 Monkeys and that is Jackson Rathbone. My mom says,"Who is that? and is promptly echoed by my younger than me sister. Go ask Bailey Joe, I gotta go have a beer. "So this isnt Chance? No mom, he wont be caught dead in a suit and he doesn't smile, he prefers the brooding/sullen & skinny jean/rock t-shirt with orange clown fro look.

I may be getting older, and I may have recently realized that I need to wear my goofy looking circular framed, trifocal(Jesus wept) glasses more than I can got without them, but I do stay up on most of the current things in my kids lives, and even if I dont particularly care for their style or type of music or movie, or dress, I do at least pay attention and see if its something that they should be involved in, that is how I know that I dont allow anything like reality based crap like Jersey Shore on in my home, and that Brokencyde really annoys the snot outta me but that Chance likes them like I liked Ozzy. Black Veil Brides is not my favorite, but I will most likely be buying tickets to their show here in the next little bit because he really wants to go. The Warped Tour is another thing we are looking into and as long as he keeps an open mind and is willing to consider my favorites as well, we will keep up with the sharing, even if it means I buy the tickets and he pretends he doesnt know who I am once we get to the show, I expect him to return the favor when we go to shows that I want to act a little nuts at in the future, I behaved myself really well at this last show, and I was in "Mom" mode, but it was not easy because a raging fan was lurking under the surface just dying to escape, though never in front of my kids.

Dear Roger:Revocation of A Man Card, and As Good as I Once Was

Today started off with a groaned out,"Fuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkk." and an attempt to bury my head under the pillow until I realized I could not breathe,followed by the sound of the reason I could not breathe, the damn landscapers were back, mowing and hedging and blowing crap all over the place until my once hibernating allergies had come back to very angry and surly life. I felt much like I would have felt as a younger woman fresh from a concert and night of drunken debauchery, but there was a couple of things missing! Mainly the drunken and the debauching, there was nary a willing young man to debauch to be found and I was home and sober and behaving by no later than 9pm, so as best I can figure is,I just overdid it a bit with the move of all the furniture the other day and then hiking all over hell and half of Portland finally caught up with me. Plus I didn't eat or drink anything but 3 cups of coffee from 0900 in the morning until 9pm that night, except for a couple of slugs of Dr. Pepper and a couple of slugs of water, so I was a bit dehydrated and hungry. Carrying Stevie a couple of blocks didn't do me any favors either, because she may be a tiny little thing, but she is freaking solid and almost half my body weight!

I discovered that I need a little more padding on my scrawny ass before I go sitting on wooden beams for an extended period of time, especially if my goofy ass is going to be jamming and dancing about, because I have very interesting bruises on both lower butt cheeks and its not a lot of fun to try and sit on a hard surface.

Today was mostly spent laying around being a slug and talking to family and rubbing a very jealous nieces nose in Stevie's little moment, though not too meanly though, I did send her a copy of the picture and a few of the concert pictures, because Bailey Joe was the one that was the first fan in the family, and as tall as that girl is getting, I dont want to be on her bad side because she is as mean as a broke backed snake and if we go back to Texas for a family reunion, she might just kick my ass, she is after all,my sisters daughter and she comes by all that meanness honestly. Her question was,"Waaallll Helll Aunty Jen, Why didn't you just grab him up and toss him in the truck and bring him on round here, hes not so very big, you coulda took em." To which I replied,"One-Stevie would kicked my ass, Two-BAILEY JOE! Does your momma know you talk that way? Three- No truck" and she just busted out laughing and said,'Of Course my momma knows I talk this way, where they heck do you think I learned it?" We had a good chat back and forth for a bit and then I went and just hung out in my bedroom for big chunk of the day until Chance got home.

My son wasn't in much better shape and he complained that not having money to eat or drink all day before the concert really sucked, and I agreed with him, so my number one project this next week is to close out my old bank account and keep my ex from having any access to it at all so we dont get caught short like that ever again. I would have loved to have gotten Stevie a t-shirt at the concert, but that was impossible and I kinda resent my ex for that, as well as costing me the ability to take her to dinner, so I am fixing the problem once and for all. Hes going to have to manage to take care of his bills on his own because I have bills I have to take care of and I cannot support him. I made it on my own, supporting 4 kids and a vastly more expensive house payment, so he needs to man up.

Speaking of,'Manning up" pooor Chance, we may butt heads pretty hard, but we always seem to be able to tease and joke with each other pretty easily in the good times, and when he got back today I started right back in on him. Soo son, get your "Man Card" re-validated by hanging out with your buddies and beating on rocks and sticks? "Shut up! Mom! Jeesh, that crap wasn't funny, and I still do not believe you that you didn't know there weren't gonna be any guys there!" But son, there were guys there the fellas in the band are guys and then there were those two guys in front of us,oh wait, never mind the two guys in front of us, but the guys in the band were there, but wait a minute, I want to make sure you are clear after that whole "Criminal Minds" episode..."JESUS!!! MOM!!!! STOP!!!! OH.MY.GOD!!!! Im leaving, im going to Susan's, shes not so weird." Im just saying son, he is a cute lil thing and if your feeling confused there are... 'MOM! SHUT UP!! OMG! I have teased him off and on all day, though its been on a wide variety of topics related to the whole day. But I could not resist getting him on the whole masculinity worry one more time this afternoon when he came walking into the living room,scratching and burping and trying to act all caveman, guylike until I went to change the channel off,"Icarly"."Why are you changing the channel?" Because "Icarly" is coming on and your sis is busy reading to her stuffies and doesn't care. " Well, I wanna watch it, thats like one of my favorite shows". Say what? "I love that show, its cool." And then it dawned on him what he had just admitted, and to whom he had just admitted it to. Just hand it over. "What?" Your man card, and dont you ever bitch at me again about going to a concert I pick, because I will out you on every single social media/networking/teen place in existence as an "Icarly" fan the minute you do.

Dear Roger, Stevie Rae is in Love With A Monkey, and to Tell the Truth Im Crushing a Little Myself!

Well we made it to BOTH concerts and back home in one piece, though it was quite the adventure! Stevie did not quit singing and hopping around the house singing the praises of the guys in the band until after 11pm, when she abruptly fell asleep in a pile of her stuffed animals, still clutching the monkey t-shirt that she has advised me that I am never to wash again because Jackson Rathbone touched it when he posed for a picture with her at the Voodoo doughnuts acoustic show that they put on before the concert at Doug Fir.

We left the apartment at 1200 and headed to downtown Portland because we weren't sure exactly where the acoustic show was going to be, and I had written down directions off the internet, but being that I cant seem to find my butt with both hands in this city yet, we weren't exactly sure where we were going, so we ended up walking a few miles out of our way. Stevie Rae was a good sport about it though, she was soo excited about the possibility of meeting her hero that I probably could have told her were were marching to Arizona and she would have been up for it. I ended up calling the shop to make sure we were headed to the right place and luckily we got some good information and we ended up in the right part of town at the right time by just pure dumb luck and she ended up getting to sit in the very front row at the acoustic set, less than 10 feet away from the band. She was so excited she was squealing and almost vibrating and she was blushing and hiding her face like she was a freaking teenager! I was a bit disturbed to see just how much she freaked out over the boys, but I am hoping she was just amped up over the whole vibe that was going on in the crowd. I was pretty happy myself and I really enjoyed the music, and I am not gonna lie, there was not an ugly one in the bunch, so have a group of good looking, in fact strikingly handsome fellas to look at, made my whole week. They gave out free Cd's after the show was over and we headed out to walk back to the Doug Fir, but then I thought, "This is a once in a lifetime chance for her, she is such a huge fan and they seem like such nice guys, I will kick myself if I dont try" so I nutted up, embarrassed Chance to death and walked over and asked Jackson Rathbone if he would take a picture with her. He never faltered, he was so damn kind and nice and gracious and polite that I have to say, it sure shows that that boy has some damn good parents who did some good home training, because he was soo sweet to my baby. He posed with her with his arm around her at her level and he smiled really big and it just made her whole year! I thanked him and HE. TOUCHED.MY. SHOULDER! (end of fangirl moment)and I held it together until we left the parking lot and then I SQUEED loud enough that Chance wanted to find a hole and hide in it. 'MOM!" Hes young enough to be your SON! Thats GROSSS! siiiiiiighhhhh....such a buzz kill

Anyway, we walked back to Doug Fir and got in line for a couple of hours for the paid show, with Stevie soo buzzed up and high on Jackson vibe that she was bouncing all over the place and eager to get inside and be close again, it was like she was on some kind of weird crack or something and im pretty worn out tonight from trying to keep her from driving everyone in line crazy with her antics. She looked up at me once and said,"Mom, I kinda love him." with the most serious expression on her face, and I said,"Really? weelllll, Im sorry sis, but I have a very strict No boys until you finish college, rule that I will enforce no matter what or who, so talk to me after you graduate from Texas A&M in about 15 years." she looks at me and just says,"Oh".

Poor Chance was pretty much the only straight guy in the line to get into the concert. He was teased by some of the girls in the line and he begged me for a railpass so he could go back home without us, but I wasn't about to let him leave and ride all the way back to Gresham Station alone. After we got our Will call tickets he saw a couple of guys show up and he kinda perked up and even pointed out that he wanted to do his hair like one of them, but he quickly changed his tune and turned kinda sullen when they started making out with each other in front of him. I asked him if he still wanted to do his hair that way and he just glared at me, I guess he didn't find that amusing. He did like the band and he was really impressed with their musical ability, and it amused him to see that Rathbone had the same,"I like Boobies" wristband that he has. He pointed it out to me and said,'Great minds think alike".BOYS!

Stevie and I sat up on one of the log rails that extended from the upper deck so she wouldnt get stepped on and we could both see the show. My tailbone has a bruise on it from sitting on the hardassed thing for the entire show like a damn horse, but she was able to enjoy herself and even dance and wave to the guys and interact a bit. They smiled at her and she just giggled and came alive unlike anything I have seen since before we left Flagstaff!No sadness, no tears, no,"I miss..., just happy, we all were, even Chance,(though he would rather not admit it), it was a much needed shot in the arm of joy and fun and I thank those boys from the bottom of my heart.

Dear Roger,Adjusting to the Portland way of Mind

Last night was the first night spent in the new place. It was nice to be able to kick back and relax, watching "True Blood" on tv and not worrying that the really over the top weird shit that was going on was going to freak someone out, but it was also kinda sad to be away from my friends as I have kinda adopted them as our family.My friend Sus's parents are like how I wish my folks had been, doting grandparents and kind and concerned and involved and genuinely loving, and I miss having Sus to just sit and chat with in the evening.

We decided to turn the laundry area into private quarters for the Stinky Princess! Its a perfect area for her, it has shelves for her stuffed monkeys, as well as her boots and books, and there is room for a bed and desk and even a little tv/dvd combo if she so desires. Out of all of all of us, she is adjusting the best to all the upheaval in our lives. She has decided that she has adopted Sus and her family as her own and now Sus is her 'Aunt" and her parents are her new grandparents that she has never really had before. She flitted around that house like a fairy on speed, amped up on all the Twizzlers and Popsicles that they fed her and drew them pictures, danced for them and even sang the impromptu songs that she made up.I know she is going to miss the nightly performances with Sus's husband out on the back deck, singing along while he played guitar. She has quite the voice for a 6 year old and she is completely freaking fearless, so I have no doubt she is going to wow the new school she is going into this fall, and I am probably going to enroll her in piano lessons and maybe ballet if I can find a local studio, because she is a force of nature that needs an outlet. She is practically vibrating in anticipation of the 100 Monkeys concert that we are going to on the 28th, and I am just a little worried about trying to take someone that is only 3ft tall to a show that is going to be full to hormonally challenged tweens who will probably not give a damn if they run the hell over a small child. I am hoping that with Chance with me, he will be a good "Head of Security" for her and will help me keep her safe and protected from all the freaky hysteria because I would hate to go to jail in Portland for thrashing some heifers for hurting my baby.She wants to be up close, but I dont think that is going to be possible, I am going to just try to get her a spot so she can see and hear and hold her on my shoulders if I have to .

Chance and I have butted heads pretty much constantly. He seems to have developed the habit that my ex had of constantly criticizing me. He had to make snarky comments about pretty much all the furnishings I got, he didn't like the apartment because there is no pool, and it just seems that nothing I do is right or enough and I have started snapping back at him just like I did at my ex and just like my ex he has started trying to intimidate me and I called him on it. Last night he punched the wall right next to my head, and considering he is 5'9 and 170 and I am 5'0 and 105 in my socks, its just him trying to use his size to get what he wants and when I stepped towards him instead of cowering and asked,"Are you going to punch me?" he said,"Maybe you need punching." and I told him "Go ahead, punch me, I am used to it, Ive been punched alot, I can take it. Maybe it will make you a man like it did him, maybe it will make your life better, maybe if hitting me doesn't make you feel better you can punch your baby sister, shes alot smaller than you too and that should really make you feel like a man. Is that what you learned in Texas? Because none of the MEN I knew in Texas proved themselves men by hitting the women in theirs lives, but since you were in Arizona so long maybe you are more an Arizona boy than a Texas boy. Go ahead, hit me, whats one more bruise or scar or concussion?" He just looked at me and then went in his room and locked the door. I have been trying to find a physician up here for him and I am demanding that he get into counseling for all the issues that we have been through, because with all the anger he has floating around, he needs some help before he follows through and does hit me, because I have seen it in his eyes that he wants to strike out sometimes and that worries the hell out of me.

My little family has alot of issues to deal with, the least of which is learning to navigate the streets and cityscape of Portland, but we are starting to work on them and hopefully we will sort them out in time and adjust to all the new issues that seem to haunt us from our old life. Doing without all the luxuries that we had in our old house, such as our flat screen and our surround sound and my Cuisinart coffeemaker and my big ole fancy plantation style queen bed that was soo tall I had to hop up to get in it with the nice comfy memory foam topper that was 6 inches thick and all my pillows. I miss my art work and my barn wood tables and my Texas decor and Hatch green chilies and good tortillas and NOT hearing my neighbors getting what I have not gotten for such a DAMN.LONG.TIME....yes, I had forgotten that one of the joys of apartment living is that you can often hear your neighbors getting some, and apparently my neighbor needs to adjust the headboard on their bed or tighten it.

Dear Roger;Apparently I am "Freaking Know it All"

"Geek, Nerd,Annoying Pain-in-the-Ass, gamekilling Know it all", these are all names I was called before I was finally banned from all board games with friends and family. I am no longer allowed to play any form of Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, or any game that involves knowledge of words, language, obscure facts, or even pop culture or strategy! W.T.F.? I am not even allowed to play checkers because I,"over-think" the moves and beat the snot out of everyone I play against and they all want to throw the board after a few games against me. I break out a few words in Russian or Latin or even Italian or French and then challenge the rule interpretation on a couple of games, and all of the sudden no one wants to play with me.

Chance led the movement to ban me from the games,calling me a ,"Freak" that knows way too much weird, obscure shit about too many things and he claimed that I am obsessive about making sure things are correct and that I get annoyed when people get things wrong and I would just get sullen if too many trivia facts were screwy within the game,(as they often are) and that I would waste a bunch of time proving the game info wrong. When the hell did he observe all my so called obsessions? He claims that I am a such a nerd that I am too good at too many things and that I just ruin things for,"normal people" and that I shouldn't be able to play. It really hurt my feelings and I pointed out that I am not good at math and he just rolled his eyes and huffed at me,"because you choose to have a block about equations, but you KNOW all kinds of weird mathematical shit because of Amir and you have a basic grasp of Ring Theory and thats just freaky, so dont even go there", so then I reminded him that I cant read music and that just pissed him off and he yelled at me,"yeah, because you freaking play by ear whatever you want after you hear it once or twice and you can pick out each individual instrument in a damned song and tell if its real or electronic and you can tell when someone is flat or just off and you know more than 10 different guitarists just by how they freaking sound on a couple of chords!" GIVE IT UP! Just go read something like freaking Scientific American or whatever and let us lowly mortals play our simple games and be happy!

I kept muttering at him about my failings, such as grammar and punctuation or my fashion faux pas such as wearing boots all summer long and the hideous gray wifebeater, and I was promptly told that idiosyncrasy and refusal to participate in the rules of English writing as a result of my personal revolt against the APA and MLA style Nazis does not equal humanity. Not even my perpetually screwed up hair issues got me any leverage, but then I played my trump card, my guaranteed in, proof that I am human and prone to weakness and incapable of handling one aspect of life, imperfect and fouled up beyond all repair! I.CANNOT. FIND. A. MAN!

"aww geeze, I guess we should let her play". We found most of the Scrabble pieces after the board hit the wall 20 minutes later.

Dear Roger, Texas Boys Lead Lives of Alley Cats

Well crap! Im loving life up here in the Northwest Territories and im even going to the coast this Friday for some fun on the beach, though I hear the water is cold enough to shrivel the balls right off my teenage son, and I have been slowly but surely getting stuff moved into the new apartment and getting things set up so we will be fully moved in and settled at the first of the month,so I am pretty damn happy. I did make the mistake of reading my hometown,Mt P.TX, newspaper last night online though and I saw that a fella I knew growing up had passed away, and while his death at the age of 35 was a bit shocking, it was reading his obituary that really took me to my knees and left me crying as if my heart had been ripped to pieces.

Growing up in East Texas, I got into come crazy assed stuff, it was just the nature of the beast. We all either had pick up trucks or muscle cars or some form of transportation that led us to all kinds of mischief around the oilfields and I ran with a crowd that was a mixture of stoners,cowboys,poor white trash, and oilfield trash. We would go park out by the Sulphur River Bottom and drink beer and listen to music and do all kinds of crazy stuff, including racing our vehicles, jumping off bridges, and just being wild Texas country kinds, and one of those kids was a boy I always called,"Sleepy" because he had this slow-assed, lazy nature and drawn out, almost asleep, way of talking that would just about make you crazy, and by the time Jay got done saying something, we all had pretty much forgotten what the hell his point was. He was a cute kid with dark eyes and the typical dark skinned, dark hair of an almost coon ass and my sis even dated him for a while. He was a bit of a smart ass, pretty cocky, but also sweet and easy going and funny as hell and he was always around when there was a party or something to get into. I liked him, and last time I remember seeking him he had grown up into a pretty decent looking man for someone that was a couple of years younger than me, but like most of my other running buddies from back home, I had lost track of him and I figured that he had either gone on to work at the mines or in the oilfields or maybe if he was damn lucky, he had gone onto college, but last night I found out that none of those had happened for Jay because he is dead. There was no explanation in the paper as to what had happened to him, he was just listed as a previous decedent of the fella that had passed yesterday, but I cannot imagine what the hell happened to him. We lost quite a few boys out of our class in school; car accidents,accidental shooting,suicides,a hanging,and other just plain Texas style accidents, and then later war took a couple and we have a few doing life in the Pea farm for some pretty heinous shit, but Jay was not one to really be involved in anything too terrible. He drank, smoked a little green and was a goofball, but nothing that shoulda got him killed. My sis tells me some of the stuff that my watermelon headed nephew gets up to back home and I am amazed that that boy has lived to reach the age of 18, with all the truck racing and gun foolishness and his rich-assed, shit house mouse crazy friends that he runs around with getting him into all kinds of stuff, but he seems to have inherited the family blessing that none of us ever die violently,(even when we deserve it), and he has escaped some crazy stuff. Just this past weekend some of his goofy buddies decided to run from the lake patrol in their mega-cab pick up truck down some back roads and one of the boys decided to go from the front cab of the truck to the bed to throw out some evidence of some fuckery, and in doing so his foot slipped off the running board at 75 mph and he was drug for a bit until his other foot slipped and then he tumbled off and was turned into road pizza, ending up face down in the bar ditch, unconscious and unresponsive with multiple broken bones and missing a whole bunch of skin. His brilliant buddies decided that rather than leave him for the ambulance or the cops they would scoop and run with him to the hospital in the back of the truck.He lived, though he probably wishes he didn't due to the amount of skin he is missing in painful areas, but it just makes me ask,"How the hell to any of them ever fucking survive to procreate?" The next question is,'Wonder if those pictures of me hood surfing on my '73 Mustang with a Lone Star in my hand on the old long bridge over the Sulphur will ever surface?"

Jay was a good kid, Im willing to bet he was a pretty decent man, and most of the boys back home grew up into pretty decent men even with all the craziness, or because of if. I am sorry and saddened to see that so many of them have passed, though I am thinking the next generation is going to do a pretty damn good job of filling their boots.

Dear Roger, The Boot is on the Other Foot and its a Bit Disturbing

Okay, we have established that I like younger men, as in the 25-35 year old age group,correct? They are more entertaining,more likely to enjoy the same kinds of music,movies,hobbies and just general insanity that I enjoy, and I even lust after some of the lil Hollyweird fellas that are a few years younger than 25 just because they are soo damn good to look at, but 25 is a hard limit for me, and if a guy looks younger than that I wont even go there because thats just kinda creepy, but apparently some women/men around here do not have that same problem! My son has been getting eye molested quite a bit up here and its starting to freak me out. I know he is a good looking kid, and he looks older than 14, and hes a big boy for 14 years old, and hes a cocky,showoffy, arrogant, Texas smartass, but that does not give women,(and the occasional MAN!) the right to pretty much eye fuck my kid in the mall or parking lots, and they damn sure should not be approaching him!

He has had women ask his name and compliment his eyes and just random articles of his clothing or even his athletic ability when he goes vaulting over those security blockade poles that are 4 ft high like he is some kinda skinny jean wearing jack rabbit. His strumming a guitar in some off the beaten path music shop rapidly attracted an audience, and if he had started singing, I am afraid we would have had a problem in short order.He already has more new phone numbers in his phone than he left Texas with, and he has been offered more.

The guy in the animal shelter parking lot that tripped over his own car staring at my sons ass came close to getting his butt kicked by me, not because he was a guy, but because he was freaking OLD and he was waay obvious and creeper about it and if my son had seen him he would have been freaked out and made uncomfortable. I didnt say anything because I didnt want to make a scene at the time, but if looks coulda killed the guy woulda had more than bruises from his car to deal with.

My son is pretty casual about all the attention he attracts and I know he enjoys it, and I am also aware that he is still innocent,(so far), because he had had me drill into his skull since he was old enough to know that he was a boy that if he made one mistake with the wrong girl he could end up a wage slave paying support for a child that he might not even get to see. I have been open and honest and direct with him about sex and all the repercussions that it could have for him, both if he were straight or gay, though with the amount of girls in his call list and the amount of dates he has had, I am pretty sure he is straight. With my nephew now facing being a father at the age of 18 without a high school diploma, without a job and without a clue, my son knows he doesnt want to face that kind of life, but he also has been honest about how girls try to push him into things that he isnt really ready for, and if girls his age are pushing for sex, I could only imagine what the older women would try to do to him! He seems more mature because he has had a crappy home life and lived in the battleground of domestic violence where he lived in an explosive pressure cooker that most people can only imagine in their worst nightmares. He saw his step-father put a gun to his and my head and he heard him say that he should just kill all of us, he was in the house when he took the straight razor to me and he was beaten in the front yard like a dog and then had to endure the resulting fall out when the police finally intervened and investigated and he was examined like a rape victim and interviewed, but then sent back home to wait and worry with me about his step father getting out until I sent him to Texas for his own sanity so he would finally go off duty and be a kid again. Its still taking time for him to remember that he is a kid, and he tries to be the,"man of the house", but he is a kid, a goofy, smelly, awkward, trying to find his way, KID, and I hope people remember that.

Dear Roger, How in the Hell Do Teen Boys Survive to Adulthood?

Words cannot really describe the sound that I made as I was starting typing this entry other than it was a combination of a groan,deep sigh, growl, whine and exasperated whine. I spent the day with Chance and his best buddy, my best friends son, running around Portland looking at apartments and trying to get stuff done, with TRY being the operative word. It took them until noon to drag their sorry asses out of bed, and then they both spent forever in the bathroom trying to get their hair and whatever just right. I would have had them up and out of the house sooner, but we had a bit of trauma when I walked into the boys room without knocking first thing in the morning thinking that I would just just rouse them out and we would hit the road early. The trauma will hopefully fade with therapy for me and for my son, and I will knock from now on, but he wore dark sunglasses most of the day and refused to look me in the eye or even talk directly to me for the big part of it. It just kinda cemented my belief that boys are icky and kinda weird.

When we finally left the house I told them that we were taking Stevie to see,'The Last Airbender" as I had promised her before we left Flagstaff, and both the guys groaned and asked if they could go see a movie that men would like, and I told them that when I found a man I would have to ask him what that would be, but until then they were coming with us, so then they started teasing Stevie about her adoration of all things Rathbone, and arousing her ire to the point that she ended up wrapped up around her brothers head punching and biting his ear until he yelled for help and I threatened to make everyone go back to the house and sit on their bed if they didnt stop with the shenanigans. The boys started yelling, "Free Penis" out the window of the car at random people as we drove through Portland and I ended up putting up Chances head in the back window in an attempt to get him to stop. When we got to the theater they settled down a bit, and then it was Stevies turn to get a bit out of hand as she Squeed! and hopped up everytime his royal Rathboniness popped up on the screen, and her brother just about had to sit on her to keep her quiet. When the moon princess died and he was sad, Stevie started crying,"Hes sad mommy!,I dont like him to be sad!" and I had to console her until she calmed down as people were looking at me like I was some kinda bad mom for having such a tiny fangirl. The boys grunted and groaned and pissed and moaned about the movie not following the cartoon and generally bitched and moaned about not liking the movie based on the "Pattinson principal" but now they have changed it to the 'Twilight principal" based on that any movie that has a guy from the Twilight series has to suck, just because. But then Chance surprised the hell out of me and said, "Well, I gotta change that because I like 'Remember me", that was a damn good movie." I about wrecked the freaking car and we all turned and looked at him and his buddy punched him and said,'Dude, your just gay for that dude cuz hes hot". The whole car when to hell at that point and I had to park because one dude calling another "Hot" had occurred and accusations of deviance and all kinda things that went against the 14 y/o male bro code had happened so I pulled Stevie up front and let them hash it out in the back for a few.

After masculinity and jock status had been reaffirmed, we decided to go for Chinese for lunch and we went down to the Gorge which is really a cool viewing area for the river and they have a nice Chinese place on the corner. We sat and the lady came up and promptly dumped a full glass of iced water in Chances lap on accident. Hilarity ensued and we all laughed ourselves silly. We let the poor lady know that it wasn't a problem, and after we stuffed ourselves with awesome lo mein, I even tipped her extra for the comic relief.

We shopped a little bit, drove around listening to music alot,(if I hear Katy Perrys California Girls one more time I may voluntarily rupture my ear drums), and I even managed to embarrass my son by dancing. I figure I have the right to be as embarrassing as possible, especially since he seems to enjoy doing things like trying on bras and booty shorts in stores, grabbing up giant Kiwis and tossing them to me and yelling, "hey mom, didn't you want to get your hands on some Monkey Balls?" or farting and letting me walk into it, so the least I could do was dance badly for him and his friend in a very public place, and be THAT kinda mom as best I could be.

Dear Roger, Flying Sock Monkeys and Stinky P's Rules for Brother

I awoke this morning to a sock monkey smacking me upside the head. Sharing a bed with a 6 year old is always an adventure, and considering she sleeps like a starfish, getting whacked by 'Josh" was one of the milder things that could have happened. We have had a busy few days and getting out and looking for a place to live and jobs has made the time fly past us like nobodies business!

We are all enjoying being here and I broke down and bought Chance a new skateboard yesterday so that he could get out and have some fun with his friend. I am amazed at the wide range of stuff that can be found around here! I can actually buy cute clothes right off the rack and that makes me soo damn happy! When you have had to buy bras in the,"Freakishly large, must be older woman" section of Victoria Secrets, for years, with your choices limited to black,white, tan, or ewww leopard print, finding bras by Joe Boxer in your size(36D) with all the cool designs, just tends to make your day,week,month and even year!I now have a tartan plaid one with smiley faces on both boobs and one with skulls and crossbones and little metal studs. I also found undies in small and extra small with cool designs and jeans in size 1 and 3, right on the rack! I know that I am in heaven now!

The weather was interesting yesterday and it is pretty weird to be wearing a hoodie and douche hat in the middle of July, but it was chilly in the morning and the moisture up here has sent my hair into absolute seizures! It sticks up all over and looks like a demented rooster has taken up residence on my head. I am not alone in my suffering, Chances hair is totally out of control and his curls poof out all over the place no matter what he puts on them, and he just sighs deeply and waffles between wanting to shave his head or grow it all out and let it be shaggy, but mostly he wears his weird little hat all over the place.He has finally given up the super skinny legging type of skinny jeans,(THANK GOD!) and is wearing more normal fitting jeans though still pretty tight, and he is showing this cocky side of his personality that I thought Ed had beaten out of him.I am glad to see it survived, because that cocky little Texan personality is what has defined our family for generations and I am glad to see he carries it on. He flirts shamelessly with girls and shows off his athleticism pretty much any time he gets the chance, and then he shows off his tender side by doting on his little sister. I saw that in action at the mall when he was walking around holding her hand and she spotted a display for Eclipse and went running over. There were a bunch of tweeny girls there and they thought she was soo cute because she was making over 'Edward" and "Jasper" and she knows waaay too much for a 6 year old about the movies, and he came walking up, and she turned to him and told the girls,"This is my big brother Chance, and he saw the movie with my mom, but hes cooler than either of these guys.", and the girls just said,'AWWW!" how cute as Chance gave them his best ,"Aww shucks ma'am" and turned on the Texan so thick that I think my granny spun in her grave a little. He left that little scene with 3 new phone numbers in his phone and a new appreciation for his baby sister.

Trying to find a place to live in a good school district is a little trickier around here, I dont want him to end up in a giant school with problems, and I am even considering putting him in a private Lutheran High School that his friend goes to , the only problem with that is that its in a part of town that I wont live in, and until I either buy another car or get the train line figured out, we are kinda limited. I am looking to live on either Burnside, or Powell or even Eastlake, but not too far out so that I am near to the colleges and the city centers for jobs and just things to do. My friend Susan has other ideas because the thought of living in the city and near all the weirdness kinda freaks her out, but I actually get stresses about the thought of living away from all the action. Its an interesting balancing act and hopefully we will get it sorted soon, I have 5 potential places picked out, I just have to figure out the school situations for the kids.

Dear Roger, Monkey Balls and Finding Home,or Another Day in Paradise

We have finally found our home.Not so much our new address, but our new home.We arrived in Portland on Sunday to bright and sunny skies and beautiful scenery and my friends were at the train station to pick us and our 7 bags of up. The train ride was an adventure with lots of interesting things to see and people to hang out with, and on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most horrible experience ever, I would only give it a 2. I have bruises on both of my hips from trying to sleep in the seats, and I had to wear the same boots and jeans for 3 days, as well as go without a shower, but I have experienced worse. The kids seem to do really well, and being able to see most of California without having to drive through it was pretty nice, though I would have liked to have stopped and played in the Ocean for awhile at Point Conception.

Being around my friend Susan again has been great for me. Chance and I had a fit of giggles on the train when we both realized that she is my own personal "Alice", the character from Twilight. She is a very girly girl, into dressing up and always trying to get me to dress more girly and she lives to shop! I wanted to see the weird side of Portland, so she takes me to Hawthorne street and shopping, and then to the mall and shopping, and we have been to pretty much every store in the area. She is fantastic with the Stinky Princess and fixes her hair and her clothes and does girly stuff with her, and hopefully she will work on her and let me and my grungy fashion sense be.

She got me to try some different things up here including a type of drink called,'Bubble Tea", a concoction where the put tapioca balls into some blend of tea and fruit juices. I got one of those things in my mouth as I took a sip and I about spit all over the mall! It was disgusting and slimy and all kinds of weird, and of course the 'balls in the mouth"jokes started right away,(kinda hard to avoid with two 14 year old boys hanging around with you), and it was like a race to see who could come up with the more inappropriate jokes and make us laugh the hardest, it got to the point that the boys faces were so red that they looked like they were gonna explode, I was laughing so hard people were staring and Susan had tears running down her face as the Stinky Princess looked up at Chance and said,"Dont you like balls in your mouth?" We decided to leave the mall at that point because security was coming to see what the commotion was all about. We also found that using a straw you can shoot the balls a good 20-30 feet at whatever you found as a target.

During our wanderings we found some toys for Stinky, including a couple of stuffed animals. She wants a sock monkey, but we found a soft kitty and a really cool looking little monkey with a tail that is kinda small and just the right size to carry around and annoy people with, so it became out mascot for the day and everyone took turns doing weird stuff with this goofy stuffed animal! Susan was about ready to kill me as we where headed up Burnside and I kept slowly moving the monkey into her line of vision saying,"Do you want to spank the monkey?" SPANK IT!!! and making the boys just die with laughter. It was totally stupid, but we were high on just having a good time and we looked at apartments and schools and all kinds of things and just enjoyed being around each other . Chance is acting like a new kid, now that he is around is best friend again, and he is going the first part of August for a week to the coast for church camp and I am glad he is going to get out and become part of something again.

The concert we are going to is coming up soon and we are getting excited! I would love to take my friend, but I dont know if she would really enjoy all the craziness that goes along with that kind of crowd. The Avett bros. are going to be here next week and I know she would love them, but the tickets are waay expensive, so we are going to have to miss them this time around, but maybe next year.

My boys and ex are doing okay. It was hard to leave them but they are happy and I know that they will be doing good once school gets started and the routine is back up and running, I just hope that the ex can keep it together, after all, I set it all up for him to succeed all he has to do it try hard and put in some earnest effort.

I havent had any nightmares lately and I am sleeping better. In fact I am planning on stepping down the dosage on my seizure meds pretty soon as well as my Topamax, to see if the change in altitude allows me to go off of them altogether. Because its not a bright up here and my eyes dont get blasted as much, I have already had fewer headaches and I feel GREAT! Except for my left knee, and that just needs to be rebuilt or replaced, there are no two ways about it.

I miss Fergus. I know he is a great help with the boys and they love him too, but my big drool baby whined for me the first night I was gone, and the ex says he has looked for me, that broke my heart. I miss him soo much and strangely that has been the one thing to bring me to tears over this whole move. I am looking for an apartment that will allow me to have him, and as my companion animal/therapy dog for PTSD, I figure that most will have to, but then going back and getting him is going to be a logistical nightmare, but I just cant see me coping too long without him.

We are going out today to look at more places and to just be tourists for a bit. Portland is wonderful and the people are interesting and I am finally feeling at home and mostly at peace.

Dear Roger, Grannys Wooden Spoon or The Crazy Eye Comes Naturally

My Granny has been on my mind a lot lately, and I dont really know why, other than my dad and I have finally reached an understanding about a lot of things and while neither one of us may approve of the others decisions, we both have realized that we are flawed individuals that have survived a lot of foul shit, mainly because one woman imbued us with the pure cussedness and will to fight on and survive no matter what life may throw at us; mainly his mother;Dorothy Mae Wallace.

My granny was the oldest daughter of 13 kids, her father was a Scotsman and her mother was a mostly Comanche woman from out in the middle of nowhere West Texas. She was essentially handed off to my papas family when she was 13 because they were starving and couldn't afford another daughter and my papa and her were already fond of each other. Pa was 16 when she came to his family and they were married soon after, and then they waited until she was 19 before she had her first kid, but in the mean time she was a ranch hand, helping my papa break ranch horses, work stock and manage the ranch. She was fierce and tough and there were stories about her shooting wildcats and coyotes from horseback, standing up to cattle thieves, and being virtually unseatable from any type of bronc that the ranch could find for her to try. My favorite picture of my granny is of her in front of the little ranch foremans house that she and my papa had out on the ranch they ran for some rich oil man, and my aunt is in the picture so my granny is probably 21 or 22, and she has what my sis always refers to as 'Chinese eyes" because due to the native blood her features are kinda Asian looking, but she is just looking larger than life and tough and carefree and my pa is standing there next to her, looking all cool and tough in his authentic cowboy gear, but he looks smaller and not quite as tough as my granny, and really, she ran the show. My granny raised 2 kids, and a husband out in the middle of the brutal West Texas middle of nowhere, and she made it look easy always cooking meals that cousins would break out in fist fights over,all while rocking the typical West Texas hair and immaculate nails. They lived in Monahans, Midland,Odessa, Abilene, and finally Bryson.My granny kept papa going as his 6 brothers passed, she never wanted for anything and never doubted pas devotion to her because I think he was just a little scared she would end him in his sleep if he ever even looked at another woman, but truth be told he doted on her, buying her a new car every year and jewelry that kept the diamond mines working 24/7.

They were never amongst the super rich, that was papas brother Charlie and his horse racing "trash" wife as my granny called them, but they were comfortable and never wanted for anything except more time with each other and their family.

My granny was the toughest damn woman I ever knew, she was plain spoken and often could leave a mark with her tongue that either made you try harder or made you just want to curl up and cry, though she wasnt cruel, she just wasnt one to blow smoke up your ass and she could not stand laziness or whinyness or weakness, even in herself, and that is why she fought so damn hard against her body when it started failing her. Cancer cuts a deadly swath through that part of my kin along with diabetes and heart disease, and she managed to get the deadly triad, but even with all three chewing at her, she still kept the house clean, took care of papa and tried to tell people to mind their own damn business when they tried to tell her to take it easy. God knew he had to sneak up on her and get her when she wasnt looking, and sure enough, he took her with a sudden, massive heart attack one morning.

Her funeral was the last time my whole family ever got together and I found out there that she had known all along that my cousin Robert,(my favorite cousin and the one I was always closest to) was gay, and though we had been scared she would be less than understanding, it turns out that she had been paying for his Aids medications for years. I dont know what made me cry harder, finding out she knew all along or finding out that Rob had AIDS, but either way, I lost him less than 6 months later when he went to bed with a bottle of Patron silver and his partner of 20 years and never woke up down in Cabo on vacation. I like to think that he went out happy and snuck up on like granny did. I havent been back to Texas since I lost them, and my family kinda went to shit after they passed. My other cousins just bickered and fought over the estate and lost sight of what family was about, and from the sounds of things, no one had even tended the graves other than Robs partner, so I figure there is no great loss to be shed of them, but I would like to know what became of my grannys relatives and her siblings and the ties to the Comanche tribe. Granny never spoke much about them and papas documents got scattered to the four winds, so tracing any kind of family tree may be next to impossible, but everytime I see those slanty eyes and that cockeyed glare that makes me want to start ducking and dodging the dreaded wooden spoon that I currently have custody of, I have to wonder, cuz?

My sis gets the spoon now, I no longer own a home or a vehicle! I sold the van to the ex today and I hand him the deed tomorrow after a week of epic knock-down drag out battles that made me want to hurt someone or something. I got him to agree to let me take my baby girl with me, and I am leaving him my two sons for the school year until I am settled in with a house. I bought 3 tickets on Amtrak leaving here Friday night and we arrive in LA Saturday morning for a couple of hours and then onto Portland by Sunday afternoon with hopefully enough money left to get a good start. Its scary as hell, but also freeing. I have wanted to run for years and now I am doing it, I dont know if granny would approve, but I know she is the one that gave me the courage to try and start over after everything that I have put up with over the last decade, though my granny probably woulda made the bastard bleed a little first.

Dear Roger,I am Cougar,Hear me Roar!

Being the parent of an adolescent boy is like navigating a minefield,drunk, blindfolded, in a hurry while someone blasts really bad screamo music at you. I swear, my son alternates between an Emo,ambi-sextrous, basketcase and a Texas redneck that is both confused and a little irritated by me, his middle-aged crazy,raring to go out and recapture her youth by running full-tilt into my mid-life crisis, mom.

We engage in ongoing prank wars with each other, he hacks my twitter account and posts cryptic messages,I threaten to post his naked baby pictures, or create havoc with his hair dye job after he hides my favorite pair of cowboy boots and the Gorilla glue in a failed attempt to glue them to the ceiling of my bedroom. We swap clothes back and forth because we are weirdly enough the same size right now, except for his bizarrely large feet and hands,(im really glad he cant wear my boots because the boy is hell on shoes),we talk music and movies and about all kinds of other things, and he even seems to like hanging out with me on occasion.He admitted that he had fun at the Eclipse premier and he has even been throwing out random quotes at times just to crack me up.We share hair care product, skin care tips and even the occasional semi-dirty joke, but when it comes to me even alluding to the fact that I would someday, somehow, like to date again,he gets really upset with me, not because I want to date, but because of what I want to date. I only date younger men. By younger I mean aged 23-33 max,No older, no younger, and that horrifies him for some weird reason. I dated a 25 year old guy for a while and it was FUN! He was vibrant, energetic, he had a sense of humor and he had STAMINA, all the things that make life fun and that were missing out of the last ten years of my life.

My ex was all about cruelty, sarcasm, being a stick in the mud, humiliating and making fun of me, and less than satisfactory aspects of other things...(You get what I mean?) after all he was often asleep in his damn chair before the evening news and I was just here to take care of the house and the kids and bring in a paycheck, so I have had it with older men. I am looking for the goofy, funny, silly, not afraid to dance, not afraid to get lost in the moment, laugh or just run around in the rain or roll in the grass, tell a dirty joke, jump in the mosh pit, get a tattoo, be spontaneous and foolish and fun, kinda guy that still is tight and firm in all the right places.He doesn't have to be a keeper, im not looking for the love of my life, after all, I am pretty sure he died a long, long time ago on the side of that road in Texas, but a cute lil fella to spoil and have fun with, and to go DANCING with,(GOD! its been over TEN years since Ive been dancing!)and im not particular about year, make or model,as long as it falls between the parameters. But Chance seems to think that only men should be able to date younger women! He has taken to calling me "Cougar" pretty much constantly, and he even changed my phones ringtone to a cougar roar, which kinda backfired on him because I really like it and it annoys the snot out of him when he forgets about it and I have it set on high and it goes off and scares the snot outta him or prompts the dogs to attack him if he has jacked it and stuck it in his pocket or underwear to keep me from taking it back from him.

My son has girlfriends, a disturbing amount of them to be sure, and he spends way to much time texting, calling, im'ing, or all three at the same time, to multiple girls and they send him messages telling him how ,'Hot" and such that he is and all kinds of other wrong things about my lil monkey boy(one of his more politically correct, non-Texas,freak out all the liberal hippy, baby names) the other was "Pecker" that was given to him by his West Texas great-granny and was banned by my ex when my son started the hippy school here in Flagstaff and people from California didn't know that many Texas children grow up with very strange baby names bestowed on them by granny's and do not become ax murderers or have abusers as parents, but if I call him Pecker nowadays, he just rolls his eyes at me and tells me that if I am going to call him his baby name, we have to move to Texas so at least he wont have to kick peoples asses over it.

He accuses me of having a dirty mind and deliberately saying,"dirty" things on a regular basis supposedly just to embarrass him, and even when the words are not the least bit dirty, he says that my ,"look" or my raised eyebrow or leer or just the way I say things or even the context of how I say them, is all 'wrong". So according to him, I can no longer say,"bone,ball, weiner, steak and taters in the same sentence or when I am looking at any picture of any Twi-guy online at any time,meat, hard(any form thereof),do,pork; the list just goes on and on! I swear the kid is such a prude! He looks over my shoulder once and sees me watching a video of a young man jogging in sweat pants and a black wife-beater,ONCE! and he thinks im some kind of perv! He hasn't caught me the rest of the times Ive watched it, I swear!

Dear Roger, Tending the Dead, Texas Traditions,and Other Things I Think About When Insomnia Has Me

Well its another night that I am not having any luck in catching some zz's, so I have been watching John Wayne movies, eating cold pizza and drinking cheap soda. I am not supposed to eat pizza or drink soda and I will probably be dog assed sick tomorrow, but I figure I am not going any damn place so I might as well indulge in a little masochistic self abuse.

Its getting close to time to pack up and go and I am a full on stress case! I worked on packing my shit today and sorting out more of what is going and what is staying and what is getting sold, and its just soo damn hard to make those decisions. My ex and I are sort of on speaking terms, and as I expected, he didn't bank any money back to pay me for the van, so Im fucked for that one. I knew I couldn't count on him and I dont know why I even thought I could, and though he tells me he will pay me off for it and a,"week or two", I dont see that happening, and I know that I could sell the damn van at the yard sale on Saturday for over 800 and that would set me and Chance up mighty fine in Portland, but once again my albatross strikes. Its disheartening.

I was raised on John Wayne movies, and around men who were the John Wayne ideal. My granpa who flew more than 57 missions out of England during WW2, my dad who did 3 tours of Viet Nam, you and your time at the DMZ as a "courier" for the CIA and your adventures with Air America,(I would have loved to have heard those stories), Sammy in all his true Texas cowboy glory, Uncle Charlie and his West Texas ranch and all the race horses, and Papa and his stories of Wildcatting with his brothers in the Texas oil boom era and building and losing a fortune from nothing,I grew up around MEN! Men who would never in a million years visibly fail. Men who knew how to be a hero and how to make things right. What the hell happened? Where did the real men go? I am so sick and tired of excuses and failure and settling . Im tired of ,"carrying the penis". I haven't been around a man that could outman me in over a decade and I dont understand it. I loved romance, I enjoyed a man that would open a door for me or pay for dinner or lead when we were dancing. I never bitched any man out for those things, hell! I thanked them! Ive had to be tough and mean and a fighter and a scrapper because I have seemed to end up with pussies as companions or husbands and if I didnt get hard, they would just let the family fall into poverty worse than it already has. It cost me, because men that often wont fight the world outside for survival, will damn sure take their anger out on the one that makes them look bad, and I have the scars and PTSD to prove that being small and a bitch often leads to problems with your physical well being. It doesnt matter at this point in the game, but I am sick and tired of seeing this going on and I have told Chance that being the kind of man he has seen around is not acceptable, and the one thing I can hope from his time in Texas is that he learned what it means to be a man and the one who is supposed to at least shoulder 1/2 the burden.