Dear Roger:Blushing at my Age and it Wasn't a Hot Flash.

Well its been a long week. It finally decided to get serious about getting cold and I ended up swiping Chances 2nd favorite hoodie to wear under my coat, just so I have something that will cover my ass. Its soo weird having a kid that is so much bigger than me.He is such a freaking moose that I have to wonder where the hell it comes from. I sometimes feel like I am shrinking as I get older, I never did get over 5'1 even when I stretch, and I hover around 107lbs .Chance is rapidly closing in on 6ft tall and is 170lbs! Hes not fat at all, in fact he likes to show off his six pack and his biceps.I found the funniest picture of him posing for a picture for his girlfriend where hes kissing his bicep like some kind of muscle head. I saved that picture for when he is older and has kids of his own...perfect blackmail material. We have been having some fun as a family, working at getting along better and trying really hard to have good times and understand where each other is coming from. I do still enjoy teasing him and playing pranks on him and he gets soo flustered when I get the best of him that I laugh about it for days. I got him so good the other day that he about peed his pants.

I saw he was walking up the sidewalk towards the apartment, and I stood right beside the door, not really hiding, just being very, very, still (something I am really good at), and he came through with his ear buds in, not paying attention and just in his own world.I waited until he had slammed the door and was into the kitchen and then I slipped up behind him and grabbed him.

Did you know that a teen boy whose vocal range hovers around that of a baritone,can actually reach soprano when you scare the piss out of them? He turned around with his hand on his chest, as pale as a ghost and yelled,"OH! MY! GOD! I soo want to kick your ass mom!!" But he got his revenge, because with yelling,"Oh my God", he got the song,"Wings on Fire" by 100 Monkeys, stuck in my head. I swear to God that song is like the ultimate ear worm for me, it gets in my head and wont stop for days and he KNOWS that, so after he calmed down a bit he told me he was going to get me back beyond getting the song stuck in my head, and bless his heart he has tried. He has hidden around corners,tried jumping out of closets, all kinds of things, but he is about as subtle as a bull elephant. The one good thing to come out of all of this prank playing though is that he is finally paying more attention to his surroundings. It worries me how unobservant he was to the world around him, and he even used to call me paranoid, but I have always found paying attention is the best way to keep safe and alive and more often than not, he has found me to be correct.

Waiting on small daughter to get home off the bus was interesting yesterday. I was standing down on the sidewalk, watching the cars on the road speed by, listening to my ipod and jamming along with my favorites and in a pretty decent mood when I saw this guy walking up the sidewalk. Now, most of the time the guys walking up the sidewalk are transients headed to the church down on the corner of Powell where they give out free food and other things that transients need to get along up here. Half the time they are a little drunk and always kinda grubby, but this guy? this guy was a vision. I initially glanced up and then looked back down, but then realizing what I had seen, I pretty much had to fight hard not to stare. He was so damn cute! He was maybe late 20's early 30's, well dressed in black with BOOTS! and he had a short, blonde crew cut. He was wearing sunglasses as he approached, but he took them off as he got closer and he had those kinda eyes that crinkle up in the corners when he smiles, and Rog, holy freaking hell...He fucking smiled! He smiled at ME! and oh my GOD...he had dimples and straight white teeth and he was gorgeous! I was just flat assed twitterpatted and I know I smiled back, but you know what? I blushed! Me! blushed! He really screwed me up when he said "Hi" and I fumbled trying to get my ear buds out. But I know I said "Hi" back at him, with my face still in flames. He kept walking down the sidewalk as if he was in a hurry to get somewhere, but I couldn't help myself, I just stared at him as he walked away and I saw him glance over his shoulder with a grin still on his face as if he knew exactly what he did to me. Blondes dont usually do anything for me, but I was still out of sorts over 10 minutes later when Chance came walking up. He asked,"What the heck is up with you, you look like you saw a ghost." I asked him if he saw the guy and he said ," Yeah, he was headed to the Max station, why? did he do something to you?" I told him that yeah, he smiled at me. I dont think its really very nice that he simulated vomiting, but hes a teen, I dont think I should have expected anything different. He found it funny as hell that I was still sort of blushing and goofy even later that afternoon.

I dont know who that guy was, or if he will ever come back by my waiting spot again, but I sure could use a rush like that everyday. Its good to know that something can still get me to feel alive.

I'm getting drug into doing Thanksgiving with Sus and her family. We were just going to go out, but Sus invited us and we probably should try to maintain some kind of traditional thing going on for small daughters sake. Christmas is going to be difficult, but we will get it figured out somehow.

I have decided to go back into EMS. Ive been kicking it around for years and its finally reached the point that I just need to do it. Even if I end up working in an Emergency Room as a tech for a while, I need to get back into that world. I miss the rush. Im not going to go back to being a cop, that is just too much of a mindfuck for someone that has my issues, but in EMS its just limited contact, get it done and get gone. I had thought about trying to go into private security or even being a bodyguard , but travel would be too difficult, so I have to do something that will allow me to stay in the Portland area. Im still writing some, and hopefully my guitar will arrive up here soon.

Dear Roger; Your Birthday Is Coming Up Dec 21st,If I Throw A Party Will You Come?

Well Rog, I do have a really good excuse for not writing sooner, I have been writing other things for the first time in a long damn time. I have written 3 songs and my novel has finally shown some damn progress for the first time in a long time. I have been doing my best to keep myself up and motivated, but this time of year just sucks the damn life out of me. I try not to be to morose for the kids, but if it was up to me, I wouldn't get a tree or anything. I am such a god damned selfish person in my heart, but my kids force me to be a decent human being for their sakes. So in the next week or two, I will scramble about and find some lil miserable Charlie Brown looking tree and we will make our own decorations, though I am going to ask the ex to send me up my raggedy assed patch work angel that Chance and I have had for close to 15 years, that is unless he has tossed it, and we will decorate it up like polite society expects me to, so Stevie will be happy. I am going to do the best to make sure they have some good things to enjoy under the tree, but fucking hell, as usual money is tight. I will get what I normally get...nada, and I am okay with that. If I get some time to write or read or listen to my music without that crap son calls music overriding it, I will be tickled pink, but mainly I will be happy to see all this mess behind me again until next year.

It dawned on me the other day that what would have been your 65th birthday is coming up on Dec 21st! Holy Hell, Rog. I can imagine what you would be like at 65, still that presence that gets the attention of everybody in the room we would walk into, still as dynamic and charming as ever. Probably traveling all over the place and making fantastic art. You would have been such a fantastic role model for Chance, he really needs you. I know you would be proud of the two daughters you raised, even though they weren't yours by blood, they honor your name and memory, as do I. So many times people ask me that stupid assed question, "If you could have one more day with any person in your life, who would it be?" Its always you. I never got to tell you that you were my lifeline through the tough times. I would trade decades of my life for more time with you, for the opportunity to have had you guide my son and be involved in my kids lives. My son reminds me of you at times. He has that presence thing going on, people notice him and he has that moody artistic temperament that we were accused of having. He thinks he cant draw, but he is one of those annoyingly talented kids that excels at sports, and in fact he has been scouted and recruited by a high tone prep school that wants him to play for them. He can pick up damn near any musical instrument just by piddling around with it for a while, and he was a really good bag pipe player and violinist until he got bored with them and quit. He sings at the drop of the hat, and dances all over the damn place. I love that he is exuberant and feels free to express himself. His fashion sense gives me fits, and I have a bit of a hard time letting go of that sometimes,(a problem I know you would be sure to help me with, much like you did mom) but his isn't wanting mohawks and Doc Martens with chains like I did, he wants to dress in a way that sends off the wrong impression. I wish you were here to smack me upside the head and tell me to get over it. Im alone. I hate that because this solo parenting of a teen boy shit is complicated. When you were around I didn't feel like I was alone, even if you were across the world, you would always seem to know when I needed a call to save me from my own personal brand of misery.

I spend a lot of time walking around up here listening to music and thinking about things. My counselor back in Flag would have approved of the fact that I am actually going outside and sort of interacting with the world now. I do talk to people on occasion in real life, but actual human contact is still pretty limited. Did you know I have not had a non-family hug in so long that I am actually kinda a little afraid of how I would react. Physical contact with a man has been even more scarce though I long for it with the burning want of 10million white hot suns, its gotten so bad that I even flirt with my young, gay neighbor pretty shamelessly just to see him blush and half in the hopes I might turn him.

I think we will celebrate your birthday this year by going out for Japanese food. I will introduce Chance to sushi and saki and I will tell him stories about the time you got that pinto up to 85 on Old Spanish Trail with me giggling like a fiend in the passenger seat and swearing I wouldnt tell grandma. I hope you will join us. I miss you soo damn much.

Tom Waits - The long way home

Dear Roger:I Tend To Wander On The Low SIde Of The Road

Wow,its been awhile hasn't it?I guess I wish I could say there has been a lot going on, but there hasn't been. I have just been fucking depressed and haven't really felt like writing as much. I get that way sometimes and I wallow in my misery by sitting out under the trees off my back deck, staring at the cars driving by on the road,smoking cigarretts until one of the kids demands I come in and pay attention to them.

I dont know why things started bugging me, perhaps it was all the horror movies,perhaps it was just too much time on my hands to think about all the things that I have done, the past and all the things that I have seen, but I started considering the fact that I have seen and handled horrors that most normal people cannot begin to comprehend. I am not normal, not by a long shot. I never have been. I have always been drawn to the dark and the grotesque, the freak shows and horror movies and things that would send normal people scurrying away in terror. I sought out and read dark things, hell, I have even written them.

I know things that most people do not know,like what a decomposed body really smells like, the sound a bloated body makes when it hits the ground after you cut it out of a tree, the feel of brains under your fingers, or how much pressure you have to use to puncture the vitreous humor of an eye to get the fluid.I have seen death in so many forms...accidental,planned,intentional,murder,natural and the looks on the faces of each and every one of the dead is still with me, especially the children. I cannot close my eyes at night without seeing each and every child I have ever picked up off the side of the road or out of their parents arms or off of some filthy floor. I can still feel the weight of their small bodies against me as I carried them to the body bags.

It bothers me that these memories stick with me clearer than some of my memories that I know would be happier. I have a hard time remembering many of the trips with my grandparents.Those were so long ago, but they were the bright spots of my youth. The one memory of a trip with them that does stand out is being in Whiteriver and seeing a native man fall out in front of a truck,that is very vivid in my mind.

I remember my father coming in and telling me that my very first crush had just been killed by a drunk driver.I even remember the smell on his clothes and how the house looked, where I was standing and how dark it was outside and that it rained for the entire next week. That memory is so strong it often haunts me at night, while the memory of his face and the times he spoke to me or I actually got to interact with him, are fading.

It seems that the memory of horror and fear has a very strong power to erase any of the happy memories that you might have. I know that I had some happy times with my eldest sons father, in fact the time we spent in L.A. was some of the happiest time in my life and I know that it must have been like a dream come true for me to have actually made it out there with a man who had actually been in movies and who knew his way around all the cool places I had only seen on tv,but almost all those memories were erased by the things he did to me later. All I remember when I see him in my memory is the shark like blank stare,the scalpel, the gun,his handcuffs, and that isolated little house he kept on the West Side with the deep hole in the back yard and the feel of his hands on my face. I still feel lucky to have escaped with my life and the scars and little glitches in my personality are a small price to pay.

The memories of my ex-husband are mostly of him with the straight razor to my throat and the look that was in his eyes...10 years and that is what I take away with me, the feel of a straight razor to my throat and the look of want in his eyes while my kids cried next to me on the bed. Fuuuck! is it any shock I have my days of down time?

I have been writing again, working on a novel for the Nainomo writing thingy and so far its progressing okay. I have also written a couple of songs, so I guess I am snapping out of it. A job change is in the works, the pet place is just not going to work out at all. Im tired of walking the 2.5 miles there only to be sent home because they cant find their asses with both hands and get me something to do.

You , Rog, are always strong in my memories...but the day you came to grandmas looking so tired and laid your head on her kitchen table and fell asleep is strongest in my memories because that is the day I knew our time was short. I miss you , I miss you soo much.