Dear Roger: If You Give A Kid A Monkey

Talking to my daughter about what she wants in the New Year is kinda a reminder that I may not have failed all my kids totally when it comes to instilling morals and values in them. While she may be a bit of a roughneck at times and prone to popping her brothers in the nose when they steal her Jackson and do crude things to him, she is pretty damn selfless and all of her New Years wishes were for people other than herself. I mean, she said she hopes she gets to see her favorite boy again,(that's a given), but she said,"I want him to eat and sleep and be happy and get all that he wants so he smiles big." For her brothers she vowed to try and not pop them in the nose so much anymore and to try and be patient when they bug her when she is painting or drawing or doing one of her plays. She also vowed to be better about combing her hair and keeping clothes on.
The clothes on thing is a bone of contention between me and all my kids. It drives me a little nuts that they insist on trying to hang out in the living room in their drawers. I ask them, "What are you gonna do if someone comes over?" I always get the scoff and the eyerolls with the,"Nobody ever comes over, nothing exciting ever happens, its hot in the house because you are an anemic weirdo, so let us be." I've gotten Stubby to wear his pj pants that he got for Christmas, but the other three? Its all underwear all the time or worse. I've told my oldest son he should not be in the living room in a towel, ever, because that is bound to end badly with his prankster brothers and a grabby pup around, but it never fails, he always seems to remember something he forgot to ask me just as hes about to get into the shower and then he comes stomping out into the living room, towel barely around him, to say whatever is problem is. Poor daughter clamps her hands over her eyes in defense and usually shouts,'Eww! Soo much hair!!" just to piss him off and then the boys start darting around acting like they are going to grab the towel, Spencer gets into the act and all hell breaks loose. Never mind the fact we live on a busy city street and I keep the blinds open so we get some natural light and I can see out, which means of course, others can see in. My vow is somehow, someway, to put an end to this potential bit of trauma looming. My eldest is 16, stands close to 6ft tall and easily passes for 18, he should not be wandering around in his drawers in the living room or around his little sister, its just ...eww.
Hopefully a lot of things are going to change shortly, and daughter is a big part of it. We are still working on moving down to the Hawthorne so she can go to a better school that will actually be able to allow her to follow her dreams and that will challenge her. Its disgusting to me that the schools here spent all the money to have her tested, found out that yes, she is extremely gifted in all kinds of ways and then they have nothing to offer her other than teaching the slower kids. They have moved her into some 4th grade classes and given her free rein to do pretty much what she wants in reading, but no music, no extra art nothing that she really wants, just like they did with my eldest son who is now dropping out of high school in frustration.
The boy is a natural musician, picking up musical instruments like most pick up breathing, hes also just as gifted and smart as his sister and the schools have done nothing for him except injure him and frustrate him so I am going to help him withdraw when the office re-opens and he is going to try the online college program, but if its the same lack of challenge that the regular schools offer, then I will guide him though getting his GED and mourn the fact my dreams for him will have died because I failed him soo terribly. He might still be able to work his way through some community college program and eventually get a scholarship into a decent college, but A&M will never be in his future, studying Psychology and Music Theory with the idea of using music as therapy for the mentally ill will just be a pipe dream for him.He is not a fortunate son, and he has asked me to let him try to handle things more on his own in this next year, but its hard for me to do that. While he is a young man, he is still my baby and I want the best for him. He encourages me to focus more on his siblings, trying to guide them into things that will ensure their futures are brighter, but I just worry that time is short with him.Maybe he will surprise me and find his hook and run with it, but he has never had the best of examples so I can only hope he just keeps practicing and focused on his music. He played me a song the other day that he had written himself, and it was really cool, so maybe, just maybe the boy knows something that I don't and he will rise above things and make it. He has his faith, and I don't fault him that, in fact, considering hes spending New Years at a church based party over spending it at some big teen party he got invited to? I'm not complaining at all.
I just had to fuss at daughter for tackling and attempting to eye gouge her older brother for some monkey related trauma. I'm thinking that in spite of her best intentions, her New Years resolutions are going to get broken pretty early on.
Mine? Mine are to try and keep moving forward in spite of the 280lb dead weight I allowed to find us and then reinfect our lives like a cancer of the worst kind.
I have my kids to keep things funny and bright and hopeful and with them making sure life is never dull and boring, I have a feeling things will be okay, no matter where we end up or what we end up doing, though if daughter has her way its sure to involve monkeys, music and a lot of silliness. I see nothing wrong with that.

Dear Roger:Decisions and Revisons

Things are about to change, and pretty damn dramatically, one way or another. I've been too damn pissed off to write a decent letter for the past few days so I have just concentrated on writing my other stuff. Being pissed off seems to be a pretty constant state of being for me lately, and that's not a good thing. I was happy for a long damn time, and I don't know what it is lately other than the time of year, the people around me and just the general fuckery that has gone on in my life over the past month, but I am annoyed to the point I want to smack up on something pretty damn hard. If I was in Texas or Arizona, I would take a pistol and a box of rounds and go target shoot at a tree until I felt better, but up here, I just haven't found the place or the time to get into that.
Not having a man around,(NO, the ex does no count in any way shape or form, its like having an old, neutered, dog in your house that piddles on the rug and smells weird, so just...ugh! NO!), has made me cranky. I know I need to get laid, badly,(not badly, goodly), but I don't see that happening any time soon. I still scare the hell out of what passes for men up here and I am not so far gone yet as to be ready to switch teams. I dont get out much. That really hurts my chances for getting any, but that is my own damn fault. If I was more demanding, I would be able to force my son to stay home and baby sit or I would be able to just get out, but I dont see the point. I dont have any money to spare on running around or eating out or anything like that, and its frustrating to have to be soo damn careful all the time because I am supporting 6 people with what I make when its not even enough to support 2. Im grumpy.
My rays of sunshine in all this have been the kids. Stubby has been his usual up and down self, alternately playing nicely with his sister and then harassing the hell out of her. She popped him in the nose the other night for stealing Jackson again and then calling him ,"Gay" , (referring to both monkey and boy), she bloodied his nose and was thumping on him pretty hard, even going for a good old fashioned eye-gouging when I managed to get her pulled off. Dont think I have seen her that furious in a long time. Stub knew he had stepped in it and I got his nose under control and then sent him in to sit on his bed,(the top bunk for his safety), while I got her calmed down. It took a while and a lot of talking. Bless her heart, 1st loves are always the toughest. I remember mine and while I was older, and it ended in a horrible fashion, I do remember the angst. Sticky came out and tried to comfort her, and that was pretty sweet, even her big brother got on Stubbys case about saying mean things, that don't make a bit of difference but shouldn't be said to like they are hateful. I swear, 9 year old boys are rotten little critters.
Daughter is working more and more on her skateboarding. She named her skateboard,"Stella" and she narrowly misses my toes about half the time I am in the kitchen. I worry about her falling, but she hangs onto the counter most of the time. Her father let her fall backwards off the damn slide at the park and bang not only both her elbows really badly, but her skull too. She had a huge knot on it, and scrapes. She told me much later about it and said that when she cried he told her to ,"Get over it and rub dirt on it", so she did. Rub dirt on it? I may kill him. Yes, I do coddle her a little more than the others,but again, she was not a well child when she was born. You nearly lose a kid, you tend to baby them just a little. I also baby Sticky just a bit, but hes gotten so damn independent that when I try he gets annoyed at me. I got what I pretty much wanted with him. I did my best when he was little to make him tough and resilient and independent and I tried to instill in him an attitude that even though he might have Downs Syndrome, that there were a lot more people out there who were more retarded than him who were supposedly normal, and you know what? I have. He got his new glasses last night and he put them on. He didn't like them. He said,"They aren't cool enough for me, they need work." I knew it. I told his father they weren't going to work, but his father wouldn't listen and now we have a problem because when Sticky hates something, he hates something. I will have to see if I can exchange them, or maybe get them adjusted to where he does like them, but he likes his Buddy Holly style glasses, and hes hard to convince to change, just like with his shoes. The boy likes skater shoes, his father tried to cram him into some dorky assed Brahma hiking boots because they were cheap, irresistible force? meet immovable object.The boots went missing. Never to be found. Then some of the dumb asses things started vanishing when he was being mean to Sticky over the boots. Sticky may have Downs, but hes not stupid. Payback is a bitch and that is one kid you dont piss off. All my kids are heathens. Its a constant rolling dog fight in the middle of a circus around here with the monkey drama, the dog that has now decided cat turds are the most tasty treat in the world, the weird, face biting cat that always seems to be in heat, and the wandering crackheads. To add to the fun, Chance came stomping out of the bathroom yesterday wrapped in his sisters bright pink towel, complaining that the tub wasnt draining. Eww. I knew this didnt bode well. I went in and poured some vinegar and baking soda down it with a hot water chaser, and it didnt help much so I got my multi-tool,(the one I used on crime scenes when I was an investigator), and using the needle nose pliers part, I reached into the drain and began pulling things out.
Now my ex looks like a low rent David Crosby, bad hair and all...okay? He is at that age where hair is departing his body in amounts that equal that which Chance is now growing and then manscaping it off voluntarily. I have a daughter with butt length curly blonde hair, and my hair and now past my shoulders. The other two prefer to adopt the butch cut so they contribute much to the problem. What I pulled out of that drain looked like an overweight ginger gerbil with leprosy. I have poked around in rotten people guts, so I have a strong stomach, in fact, pretty much nothing fazes me, Chance however, is a candy ass. I pulled that mass out of that drain and then shook it at him, speculating about the contents of said mass, including what him and the ex might have contributed to it, and the boy about hurled on me. The rest of the kids scattered quicker than if I had said,"Whos going to clean the toilet?"
I got it fixed. Traumatized my kids, had a decent laugh and survived another day. This too shall pass.

Dear Roger: Monkey In A Box, Duct Tape and Rabbits

It was a pretty decent Christmas. Having started early getting things for the kids as well as carefully planning for what to get them, allowed me to make sure that each of them had a nice stack of presents to make up for the paltry amount of last year. I didn't get what I want, hes still around and they were sold out of the small sized hoodies, but then maybe I have been a very bad girl? Its irrelevant, my kids were happy and that is all that matters. Of course there had to be some fun had by the boys torturing my poor daughter. The largest box under the tree was for her. It actually was a pretty damn big box that contained a keyboard complete with stand and adapter as well as some books and such, but when she spotted it, my eldest son walked over to it with her and kind of shoved it towards the back of the pile and said,"Damn mom! You forgot the air holes!" Leading the poor child to suspect we had been up to some nefarious behavior. I dont know what was worse, the fact that she is aware of such goings on in the world, the fact she looked at me like she suspected I might be capable, or that the rest of the family would conspire along with me. She dove at the box in an ill fated rescue attempt and had to be restrained. I threatened her brother with bodily harm if he didn't clear up her misconception, but I know he kept leaving that shadow of a doubt in her mind, especially later when I saw him show her my empty duct tape roll. I ended up sleeping on the couch because I had to guard the tree and presents from her and sure enough, at 4:30 in the morning she was up and out and trying to effect a rescue.For a brilliant kid she is alarmingly single-minded. I made sure her rotten brother was woken up equally early.
She was, of course, delighted with the keyboard, but I also think she may have been a little disappointed that her favorite boy was not, in fact, duct taped in the box. Who knows? She is an odd child. She started practicing on her keyboard and kept at it for well over 3 hours straight. She is already writing down finger placements and trying to figure out how to read music.She is fascinated with all the different sounds the board makes and loves to play it at the same time her older brother is playing his electric guitar.
Yes, I voluntarily purchased my children musical instruments for Christmas. Yes, I am insane. I have listened to the eldest torture to death every song from my youth with the guitar over the past couple of days, and now he has started on the songs that daughter holds dear. She got a hoodie with an ipod connection and was walking around with my ipod listening to "Sinners Dream" and singing along. Son decided he wanted to play it on his guitar. A heated debate occurred over whether or not it was fair that he "torture" her with playing bits and pieces of every single song she loves over and over again until we all cringe. I gave him headphones, but he claims its not the same as hearing it through the amp. We all suspect hes just an exhibitionist.He played the song on the guitar, she sang, I guess it was a fair compromise. Im sure my neighbors are about ready to kill us all, and if they weren't musicians, I would think they would have already been over, but so far no complaints.
My daughter came to me yesterday with an interesting proposal for our New Years tradition. She said that since she had been the first to say,'Rabbit Rabbit" last year on January 1st,our luck had been pretty exceptional. I had gotten a job, her brothers had come home, she had gotten to see her favorite boy again and gotten to hug him and talk to him(the highlight of her whole year), and things had just gotten better for us all around. She said, "I think I am lucky, so maybe you should just sleep late that day and let me have it again." I think she is right. It has been a good year with the one exception, and if we could figure a way to deal with that, then this next year will surely be even more awesome.
We know we want to keep moving forward and upward and there is no way that the dead weight I have hanging around my neck in the form of the albatross is going to prevent that from happening.

Dear Roger: Wash The Monkey! Please?

My small daughters companion has reached a point of grubbiness that leaves me worried that the CDC is going to come looking for us in their bunny suits. The beady eyed little minion has substances on it that make it somewhat sacred in her eyes so when mention is made of giving it a bath, she reacts as anyone who has their rather dubious religious icon threatened, she freaks the hell out. "Nooo! You cant! What if it came off?,(referring to her favorite boys autograph on the paw), and his sweat would be gone!!"while I think that would be perfectly acceptable, she, however does not. I have tried to convince her we could get the monkey,"resweatted" (I swear to God I have lost my mind having kids), the next time we went to one of his concerts, or maybe the monkey could just stay clean for once? but NO! she went ballistic. "Are you crazy? NO! What if he never comes back? What if I don't get to see him again? What if he forgets me?No! No Baths! Besides, Jackson doesn't like baths!"
Her brothers have offered to perform run by Axeing's of him to quell the odor a bit, but I don't want bloodshed and that would just lead to an escalation of tensions amongst the siblings. Its bad enough that they often steal him and stuff him down their pants and hide him in the dog bed.
She is very protective of that little stuffed monkey, she sleeps with it every night, and he has special jewelry and a special blanket and when she does her plays or sings her songs, hes always there. He was in our family Christmas pictures yesterday and when her brother tried to get her to leave him out of the family picture, she yelled at him,"Hes part of the family, get used to it loser!" Her brother just shook his head and muttered about the weirdness that is his family and smiled for the camera. I drew the line at posing with the thing, and bore her glare for it, though I took a picture of her with it.
She knows its a bit on the grungy side at this point and she likes to torture me with it. I am a bit of a germaphobe, and I don't like things near my face that I KNOW are a bit uh...contaminated? So what does the child do when I am on my knees trying to get a picture of her brother? She sneaks up behind my and just as I go to tell him,"Smile" she reached around and had the monkey kiss me full on the mouth. Thats right...I got a mouthful of contaminated monkey, but I also got a smile from my son for the picture as the room disintegrated into hysterical laughter at my reaction. I walked into my room yesterday after falling asleep on the couch to find her asleep in my bed with the monkey cuddled up next to her on.my. pillow. siiiiiiiigggggghhhhh.
I wonder if maybe Santa could write her a letter and tell her the monkey needs a bath or if I should just keep waiting it out?

Dear Roger:What I Think About Today

Damn Rog, you would be another year older today. Another year cooler I am sure, opting to refer to yourself as ,"Vintage" or something I am sure. Damn, I wish you were here. I really could use your advice now, more than ever. I am sure you would probably like to kick my ass up between my ears for a few things, but I know you wouldn't, you would just offer some insight and opinion in to how to unfuck the situation and I would actually take it. Why did one of the few people I actually listen to have to leave me so damn soon in the game? Its really not fair you know. My kids should have known you instead of just hearing stories. Speaking of my kids...holy hell, you would have loved my little girl. She paints and draws and does all kinds of stuff and the other day she was in such a great mood she went on a painting binge and she painted something that you would have found hysterical I am sure. She was very intently looking at her easel, applying blues and browns and oranges, her brush strokes carefully applied, gentle dabs following after, and then with artistic flair she titled it," Cat Terd in a Toilet." When I made the mistake of pointing out her misspelling, she slammed down her brush, scowled at me and said,'That is part of the JOKE! DUH!" and stomped off. God...another artist in the family. I already told you about the video didn't I? yeah...the video that is over 16k hits? I missed having someone to call and tell about it because honestly, I freaked the hell out. She was all happy and excited and thinks its awesome as does her big brother, my sis was even happy, me? Im an ex cop! What the hell do you think my reaction is? Danger WILL ROBINSON! Arrgh! I needed you to tell me its going to be okay. That my little girl is going to forget she wants to go out into the wild, wide world and do things like that and associate with young rock stars and such. I just dont know about all this. Shes hitting me up to make more videos of the plays she does with her brothers, but luckily we cant keep clothes on Sticky long enough to get one all the way through, and random nudity is a deal killer that gets everything erased, so no more videos so far, though the one last night was pretty damn cute. It involved a cross-dressing Harry Potter, Raccoon's, rabid weremonkeys, and a rampaging dog that kept attempting to steal one of the co-stars.
I'm trying not to be sad today. I have been in a bit of a funk all week and its mainly the stress of the season, all the birthdays of everyone I miss, and just worrying about making sure I am not going to let my kids down. I have been writing like a woman possessed lately and that has helped quite a bit, but that is another reason I really miss you. I wish you knew that I finally was back at it. I started writing again just over a year ago and even I can see the improvement in my style and my content. I'm still to much of a control freak to let anybody mess with it, but I have been putting it out in a place where its been getting read and damn Rog, its popular and growing in popularity almost daily. I get emails from readers who tell me I made them laugh so hard they wet their pants! Me? Making someone laugh? That just blows me away. I enjoy writing and it feels like its burning out of me half the damn time. I just feel like I have to write, my skin gets tight feeling and im anxious and nervous and stressed if im kept away from it for too long. I go back and work over my older stories and instead of deleting everything in frustration like I used to do with my art or photography, I just fix what needs fixing and I move on. I talk about it with people and that's another shocker, instead of just keeping it to myself, I talk about my writing. The asshole ex still makes fun of me because Im not making any money at it, and he thinks that unless im making money at it, im a failure, but considering hes a metalsmith/jeweler who never made a dime,yet spent thousands on his vocation, I don't think he is one to talk at least mine is pretty cheap to practice.
There are soo many things I would want to tell you about today, the mistakes ive made, and there have been so damn many, the triumphs I have had, and there have been quite a few of those too, and the doubts I have about being able to keep on keeping on some days. I struggle on the best of days to deal with everything that pushes down on me, and the things the buoy me up, like my kids and my writing are the bright spots in all the grim, I miss having that voice calling me out of the blue and saying,"Hey, numbnuts, hows it going?" Much like you were the only person who could get away with calling me Jenny, you were the only person I liked hugs from, because they weren't overpowering hugs, they were big, knock the world off your shoulders and make you feel safe, bear hugs, and dammit...I really need one more than ever. I miss you soo damn much.

Dear Roger: And So The Crazy Begins

The kids are off school for the next couple of weeks. Oh God. I know this is supposed to be a time filled with joy and celebration, but picture this if you will...4 kids,(though my eldest disappears with his buddies to work on their "Band" for hours), stuck in the house due to rain, cold or lack of willingness to wrangle all of them on the busy Portland sidewalks it the combination of the aforementioned. It should also be mentioned that my shoulder has decided to go out again. I had it rebuilt about 5 years ago and apparently that is the extent of the warranty on the rebuild. It has slipped out of socket on me several times over the past few days, leaving me feeling like cursing, crying and barfing while I try to slip it back into place, or a combination of all three, so trying to deal with recalcitrant kids who often reenact battle scenes from Fight Club in public,is not within my capability at the moment. The ex has been working long hours at his new meat selling job and while that is a blessing meaning that he is gone away from us for vast stretches of time, its also a bit of a pain for trying to get out and get anything done.
I know the inevitable will happen and I will have to brave the maddening crowds with them sometime in order to keep them from getting cabin fever and doing horrible things to each other more than they have already done. We are hardly into the first full day and already I have two boys with painted fingernails and one who woke up with a drawn on mustache and unibrow. Daughter has spent most of the day racing around the house in her panties with a blanket tied to her wrists and ankles proclaiming herself to be a,'Sugarglider".
She made her brothers dress up as a raccoon and a dog, and directed them in a play that involved the,'Raccoon" knocking over a trash can and the,'Dog" chasing it, and that was all well and good until Spencer, our real dog, got freaked out and decided to get involved in the chasing and offered to bite the,'Raccoon" on the butt.Spencer went to puppy time-out and the play was revised.
The eldest came home long enough to eat 6 slightly burned waffles coated in half a bottle of syrup, shower, drop off his dirty clothes, collect his guitar, argue with me and leave again. I cant say I blame him, I kind of wish I could trade places with him. Especially after daughter comes up to me and said,"Remember that chili ed made me eat yesterday?" yeah...I did after she giggled and walked away. Girls are every bit as gross as boys. As I write this, she is out burping her brothers in a root beer burp contest.She tells me that she wants to spend the next couple of weeks,'Being feral." I asked her, "What if we have company?" She scoffed at me, "Nobody ever comes over to our house. Im not worried. We dont have any family around and the boys are always trying to make me smell their arm pits, so I think I should try to go stinky as payback." Seriously...can I trade places with the older one?

Dear Roger: Things I Cant Give Her

Christmas approaches and while it promises to be better this year, its also a bit stranger. I have struggled with what to get my kids, not just because money is a bit of an issue, hell...Im used to that, but because they seem to not really need anything. I work really hard to provide for them, and they have pretty much what they need in the way of things. We keep our lives pretty simple and they aren't the type of kids to really demand the latest shiny electronic toy or geegaw,(well, the eldest is, but then again, he has most of that, that he is allowed to bring into the house),and the other things, like video games and fancy flat screened tv's, he knows are just things that aren't really that important.
I have debated and tried to figure out what would be special to each child, and while daughter is the easiest,(art, music, monkeys and Rathbone related), she is also the most difficult because I want to get her something she will love because she is also the only kid who hasn't hit me with a list on a daily basis. She did mention a hula hoop, once, but she hasn't begged or nagged or pointed at everything in every store or ad.Its like she has faith that she will be taken care of and she just keeps on keeping on. She was tickled to death to bring home the present she had made for ME from school to put under the tree and she wanted to make sure that Spencer and the cats all had something to put under it as well. She enjoys doing for others and she wants to be involved in either making or getting stuff for her brothers and shes been making up and singing Christmas songs all week.
Her brothers are kinda the opposite, they are on overload and its like Christmas was soo sparse for them last year that they just want anything this year so they are asking for everything in the hopes they will get something. Apparently he got them each a coloring book each and then they got some clothes that didn't fit from a charity. The money I sent them was spent on candy and food, so apparently it was a pretty crappy Christmas for them. I have already made sure it wont be like that for them this year, but I can tell that they are worried. They got given critter head beanies already and Stubby has not taken his raccoon one off yet. I dont know if its because hes happy to have such a cool present, or he just loves it, but when he got a fishing pole from another friend yesterday, he slept with it next to him last night.
Stevie has faith. I think that is the difference. She knows that no matter what it will all work out and what is meant to be will be. She is very happy with very little, because she knows that there are others who have had to make do with a lot less than she has gotten, she has seen them in her own family and she wants them to realize that this year things will be different, even if they dont get the whole world, they got a new one and it is getting better.
Im going to get her a keyboard of some sort or another, it may not be the best, it may not be brand new, but it will be new to her and I know she will love it because that is just how she is, and she will use it to make music that will make me laugh and that will be my present. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.

Dear Roger:Cast That First Stone, I DARE You.

So of course there had to be some drama for my sons birthday,we are no longer allowed to enjoy a simple day to ourselves as a family, with family related things going on, no, for the past two birthdays we have had to deal with the black cloud of a pseudo girlfriend and her family of dysfunction.
I really don't have too much of a problem with girlfriend, she is a product of how she was raised, but she is a manipulative little thing that seems to be able to make my son dance like a trained monkey on a leash like no one else. The couple of weeks he had broken up with her were like the good ole days, he was a happy guy again and a joy to be around, and we all knew the minute she pulled the,"I cant live without you" bullshit she used to get him back because he looked like the weight of the world was back around his neck. The only bright side? I am pretty sure he is starting to break away from her by hanging out with another girl from his school is a dancer,(no, not a titty dancer though even that would be an improvement, a Ballerina), so that's an interesting wrinkle in the situation.
On sons birthday, I was informed that girlfriend was going to bring him a cake and that she was going to be joining us for dinner.I learned after last year to not put much weight into such declarations and I went on about my business of preparing for dinner, keeping my comments to myself, though I made it quite clear, I was NOT going to drive him to Vancouver so he could see her. He assured me that she was coming to our house and I should be ready for an extra at dinner, suuuuure.
I went running around with a friend of mine for a little while and did some shopping for some things and then I arrived home to find son in a particularly foul mood. He informed me that his girlfriend was NOT going to be coming for dinner,(no, really? Wow, I'm shocked), she had texted him and told him that her father was not going to bring her because I am a,"Damned Sinner" and he doesn't trust me around her.
Whoa...say what? Does he think I am going to sacrifice her for a virgin or something because considering he has 2 other kids who both had kids out of wedlock before they were even 17, I'm willing to bet that ship has probably already sailed. (Catty, I know, but let me give you some backstory on this crew), and then we will talk some more.
This guy...he considers me a,'Damned Sinner" because I support gay rights. I don't go to church and I have issues with my faith. I am very open and honest about that.I have been though a lot and I have my doubts about a lot of things, but I don't force my issues on my kids and I send them to church. One of his relatives found out about what I write,(that was a really fun day), and they confronted my SON about it IN CHURCH. My kids didn't know about what I wrote until then, thanks to them, everybody knows now. Nothing like being outed as a writer of Gay erotica and other things to your teen son in front of his friends in church. I wasn't even there and that's probably a good thing because I would have gone to jail. These are the same people who told my little girl that I was going to go to hell along with her favorite boy and his band,(have no idea what the hell they did to set them off), and most of the things and people she holds dear. The only thing that kept me from going over to this guys house and kicking him in the dick is the fact I don't have a car and he lives in Vancouver with the kids of his that haven't attempted suicide recently or who aren't currently locked up.
Last night, I actually saw my son finally reach his limit with the crazy. He made other plans with other people after they stood him up,(again at the last minute because I am a sinner), and right as he was getting ready to walk out the door, his girlfriend texted and asked if he was able to leave to go with them and his response back was,"NO, Im busy being a sinner too."
Can you tell I am a bit pissed off? I didn't choose the church my kids go to. I never intended them to continue at this church for a long time, I wanted them to maybe for a year, get a good feel for the doctrine and then move to another church and see how it was different, but then son got tangled up with the crazycrew and its been all downhill from there. Another good thing about the move for me and my daughter will be the fact that she will have to change churches. Shes a child of faith, and she can flat throw down a prayer like no ones business, but I really don't like the social makeup of the church she is attending. They are all about the financials and a lot less about service to others and compassion. She is a compassionate child and my son used to be. We don't have the same social beliefs as the church they are attending now, and we damn sure don't have the hypocritical attitude.
He didn't go hang out with her today either, and I have my hopes that he has finally seen the light, but I am not going to hold my breath, this "Damned Sinner" has learned that the boy doesn't seem to think too clearly when it comes to women, though I am really rooting for the dancer, shes the one who made him the snow globe and asked him to the Winter Formal and who has told him to, "get over himself" more than once. Gotta respect a little chick that and shes a local so I would at east be able to keep an eye on things.

Dear Roger:Werewolf Birthdays

My son turn 16 today. I think this is the saddest I have been on one of my kids birthdays ever. Raising a boy has to be one of the most maddening, frustrating, heart breaking and difficult undertakings you can attempt.

I tried hard to be a good mom. I talked, listened, stayed involved, gave lots of hugs, supported, and made sure he had the things he needed to fit in or to be himself, whichever he was wanting to do at the moment. I always made sure than when he went to school, no one knew he was a poor kid. I indulged his weird haircuts, his odd tastes in music and when I could I took him to see his black cloud of a psuedo girlfriend. I cleaned up after him and over-indulged him as any Texas mother is prone to do her first born son. He has constantly been told how,"Smart, talented, handsome" and what not he is, and hes got a bit of an ego. Ive heard from his best buddy he can be a bit of an ass at times to be around, and honestly, ive seen it. Hes got a snarky, sarcastic temper and hes a perfectionist who expects everyone around him to be up to his standards.

I love my son with all my heart. For his whole life hes done without the key thing that helps a boy turn into a civilized male, a civilized male role model. He has no father. His biological is a sociopathic bastard who offered to kill us both many times over if we ever bothered him, convincingly enough that the state investigators determined that he was a credible threat and that we should probably stay far away from him.( I really know how to pick men)But now that my son is of age and wanting to go into acting and such, he wants to meet his father and ask him,"Why?" partly to find that out, and partly because his father was a small time actor amongst other things who still has family out in Santa Monica and I guess he thinks he might get in their good graces.

When my ex showed up out here, he greeted him with open arms and they have developed a camaraderie. I dont really know what to think about that. I know that they have talked, in depth, several times about what happened, and I know that my ex has apologized to him but I dont know, I guess I just cant forgive as easy and my ex knows that. We actually talked about that last night when my son left for a little while. It cleared the air about a lot of things. My ex said that boys reach a point where they just become creatures that are really unpleasant to be around,(like werewolves)and that without focus or direction and strict regimentation like a military school, they often get into trouble. He told me that the next two years are going to be the toughest. I remember my 16-17 year old years and I still don't really know how I survived them and I wasn't in a big city filled with all kinds of trouble to get into. My son has been pushing me away lately, not wanting to talk to me, looking at me scornfully and accusing me of favoritism towards my daughter. Thats not true. I love all my kids equally, but differently and i tried to explain that to him. With him, for years it was just me and him, struggling with only each other for company, he was my peanut and my world. I gave up everything for him and I stopped being selfish. I stopped living just for me. With Sticky, my protective love emerged. I watched him struggle to live and then struggle to achieve and I helped him every step of the way and I live for his smiles and his hugs. Stubby is my middle child, the one who thinks he is the extra, but he is the child who is most like me and that is both something I love about him and fear for him. I see every personality trait I have ever worried about in me, living in my son and I hug him daily in the hopes that he will realize that he is loved well beyond what he imagines. Stevie, my daughter? The one son accused me of favoring...we nearly died together. She was born sick, she struggled to live and nearly didn't. Her father never came to the hospital to see us in those entire 10 days she struggled to live. When I brought her home, I was told that she was my problem. I spent months sleeping with her in my arms. She is my smiley child. Even though all the horrors, she would try to make me smile. When I was soo sick with H1n1, she would bring me drinks and sit and sing to me and keep me company. She always greets me with a smile and a hug, and no matter how crappy my day has been, she knows how to make it better and she will harass me until she makes me laugh or smile. How can you not love that?

I'm not really explaining very well that I love all my kids equally, but I do. When Chance is late getting home I am uneasy and worried, not because I want to control his life , but because I want to know hes safe. he thinks its because im a control freak at this point. The ex tells me that I wont win. He said I could present the boy with a brand new truck for his birthday,(wouldn't do that even if I could because that's just ridiculous over indulgence), and he would still find a reason to be pissed at me. I was going to give him the electric guitar, but I don't think I will now. I'm going to wait for Christmas, maybe by then he will be talking to me? I don't know. Everyone says boys are supposed to be easier, but I don't believe it. They are like having a werewolf with rabies and and an eating disorder living in your house. The do dangerous and ridiculous things and wonder why they have road rash on their skull and ass, and scorch marks on their jeans. I've spent some time looking at military academies and wondering if i dart him like a rogue grizzly, would they accept him for shipping if he were duct taped to the seat?

Dear Roger:Love You Long Time

http://youtu.be/Mia9jYTDtFI

My daughter. Good Lord that child. I often say that she is the greater beings sense of humor at work because there is no way a train wreck of a woman like me should have such a girly girl as a child. She has butt length curly blonde hair that she expects me to help her style when my idea of style is a pony tail stuffed under a ball cap. We got into an argument last night because she wanted me to paint her finger nails and toe nails, and I told her I didn't want her to do that because she is too young and because I am terrible at doing that, I mean seriously, it looks like a blind man with the tremors got ahold of house paint when I attempt it, but she wore me down and I let her do it.

She loves young Jackson Rathbone. I think we've talked about that before quite a bit, and I don't really deter her. She needs a decent male role model and she could do worse than him.

She celebrates his birthday pretty much the entire month of December and draws him cards and such. Last year I had to hike my ass to the post office to mail his card in the rain after she found it laying on my desk where I had stashed it thinking it would just go to some mailing center and be discarded anyway. I wont make that mistake ever again. She wanted to sing a song for him this year and after she worked on it for over a week with much drama and stress, she finally got something she was happy with and we got it recorded and I sent it off into the internet ether a little early thinking it would bounce from place to place and maybe get seen someday. Yeah...im a dumbass. Not only did he see it, he tweeted it out and thanked her for it setting off an avalanche of emails and tweets and comments and HOLY COW ! in my life. She was tickled to death he had actually seen it and that he knew she was thinking of him.

Shes a good hearted kid, and that was her whole motivation, to let him know she was wishing him a happy birthday. She prays for him every night and defends him from teasing by her brothers and others.

Her father wasn't pleased by all the attention, but then his gripe was,'She never does that kind of stuff for my birthday." yeah...well...I wont go into the reasons why, they are all public record, but she doesn't even know when his birthday is and I don't think she cares.

She adores a decent enough boy and I am happy to let it be. I remember when I was just a little bit older than her, standing in front of a stage I was barely tall enough to see over, watching a young man sing and strut around, my heart racing as I screamed my tweeny lungs out. I adored him and I had all his records and posters and concert t-shirts. He was pretty obscure and I got teased pretty hard for liking him as well, but 30 years later, the opening chords of one of his songs still brings the biggest grin to my face and news of a revival tour of the states has me contemplating going to L.A. for the first time in over a decade, just to see him. I get it, I really, really do.

Dear Roger: As If Life Wasn't Interesting Enough

So yesterday I was telling you about daughters little video that I sent off to her favorite fella? yeeaah...I didn't think anything of it, he is busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest and he has soo many people vying for his attention that I didn't even dare to think that her little video was even going to cross his radar, so I was going about my business yesterday morning, sitting around being lazy, drinking my coffee and reading a, uh ahem...story? when my Iphone tells me a priority tweet hit. I picked it up off the coffee table thinking it was either my bestie Chels wanting to know if I wanted to go for coffee or the band boys talking about all the excitement over in England. Oh yeah, it was one of the band boys all right, THE band boy daughter thinks hung the moon and lit the stars. Not only did he see her video, what I was looking at was his tweet of the link to it with a description of it as the "Best Birthday Gift Ever" and thanking her for it. I dropped my damn Iphone in shock, thank God for good cases and soft carpet.

I may have shrieked...I dont know, but Spencer jumped, the cats fled the room and then things really got crazy. My twitter feed went nuts, my email started blowing up and I just was standing there with my teeth in my head for a few minutes before my Texan kicked in and I remembered my manners. I typed in a polite,'Thank you " to the young man and sent it off and then realized I had to tell someone in RL other than the dog how awesome this was because I just knew my daughter was going to lose her ever loving mind when she got home from school. I watched for a bit as the numbers on her video started climbing and I was dumbfounded, good Lord...My little girl has sand like none of us has ever had. I would have never had the guts to do that, I am still freaked out that I helped her with it, but she was very sure about what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it, I was worried though that she would be freaked out that soo many people had seen it, so just a little bit of dread hit for a bit.

I called up my sis and talked to her and she was more reassuring and convinced that God had played a real joke on me by giving me Stevie as a daughter,(girly girl), when I flounder on the best of days to not shave my head in frustration and and am more prone to jump into a brawl than some men. Stevie makes me try harder to be civilized and that, I think, is good, but I hope I am not failing her.

I got all kinds of emails and tweets and facebook comments in support and love for her little video and I was busy all day saving them up for her, but the main one, the one from him, I marked that as a favorite and set it aside so she could see it when she got home first thing.

I watched for her bus and Shortround got home first. I told him and he was excited and happy for her. I swear, if his mom cant keep it together, I am going to adopt him. Hes a great kid and hes good for my son, making him spend less time texting his black cloud of a psuedo girlfriend, and more time actually going out and doing things. The way he invades my sons personal space and forces him to be more social, cracks me up, and well, he has done the same damn thing to me. The kid is a hugger and I've been hugged more in the past week than I have in the past couple of years. I've learned to deal. Hes needed them because things have been pretty rough in his life. Hes started calling me,"Mom #2" Weve spent a lot of time taking about his situation and things, and he knows it will get better, and that he has a place with us for as long as he needs, my main rule is that he has to actually eat some real food, check in with me regularly, go to school and be here at night. My son watches out for him at school and walks him home and to school, so I think we have it handled . He helped me get the computer set up so when she got it the tweet was right there for her to see. We both got hang dog expressions on our faces and pretended we had some bad news for her,(fucked up, yes, I know) and as she shed her jacket and backpack and sat at the computer, I got my camera ready. It took a minute for it to register and when It did I was glad I was standing back. The "OH MY GOD's" were deafening. She was soo happy he actually saw it she jumped up and hugged me, her brother Stubby, Shortround, Spencer, and then she raced through the kitchen half a dozen times shrieking, "Im soo happy! I love him soo much!" She was buzzing for HOURS. In fact, the voice of doom finally had to be broken out at 1130pm to get her to finally go to bed and go to sleep. She had gone on a painting jag and had painted half a dozen new ideas that were mostly hearts.

Looking over at her now, she is snuggled up in her bed with her monkey under her arm, and a slight smile on her face, her day, her week, her month, her year, made again thanks to a kind young man taking a few moments from his hectic life to make a child's life so much more bright.

The video view count this morning was over 903....good Lord.

Dear Roger:The Wheel That Spins Us All

Yesterday was just a weird day. It was colder than frostbitten penguin balls, in fact I swear I saw a few snow flakes. The kids were restless and working on driving each other an myself nuts, so they went out grocery shopping with their father for a little bit and he came back looking like he had been through the gates of hell,(wussy), and my daughter...that child, let me tell you, she is going to be the death of me. Seriously, she is going to probably be the one with the pillow over my face in the wee hours. She was insistent that she HAD to get the song and birthday video done for her favorite fella yesterday. She had been walking around working on the lyrics for a few days and getting frustrated when her ever helpful,(heavy sarcasm) brother Stubby, kept interjecting his suggestions. I had to intervene when she chased him from the bedroom with a boot in hand, prepared to use it as a weapon. I had to say,"Boots are shoes, not tools of destruction." Three thrown pens later, two flounces and and a meltdown in tears, she finally got something she was happy with. If she is like this as a child,(super perfectionist), what the hell is she going to be like as an adult? Her older brother was trying to stay out of her line of fire and practice his guitar with Shortround, but she went up to him and said,"I need to know if you can play a simple rhythm?" She then hummed it out for him and he tried to copy it and she shook her head, "No, No NO! Thats all wrong! Listen to me!" Shortround at this point is clutching a pillow and trying to not fall off the couch laughing as my son looks a bit intimidated. She clapped the rhythm and then gave him an example of the sound she was looking for by singing it. He tried to copy it but he was putting his own funk on it and she got annoyed with him."Do you not get this is a BIRTHDAY song?" They began bickering and I am sitting there looking at them wondering if other families have kids that bicker over such things? She finally just threw her hands up in frustration and said, "Never mind! If I want background music or something I will have Cole beatbox for me." Shortround fell off the couch laughing. Fired from a gig by a 7year old. I left and went to work for a while. froze my ass off, got called a,'Bitch ' by a junkie, and just generally had a crappy afternoon when my shoes got wet and my toes froze, but when I got home, I was met at the door by my little girl who hugged me with her sopping wet hair flying all over and one of her best dresses hanging on her . I was put to work right away doing wardrobe and hair, combing out her hair and drying it while she played with my Iphone and took pictures of her Jackson sitting on her bedside table. Once I got her hair and dress ready, I asked if she was going to wear shoes and she said,"Why would I wear shoes? We aren't shooting this outside. You aren't going to focus on my feet are you? I don't need my shoes, focus on my face mom."

She was practicing her song and talking to her monkey while her minion, also known as her brother Stubby, ran around getting the lighting just right and trying to get Spencer to stop biting his butt and chasing the cat. Once that was all sorted, he bribed his underwear only clad brother Sticky to stay in his room for the duration and then she tells me,"Im ready, get your camera person hat on and get ready."

With Stubby sitting next to me on the couch, adjusting my hat til she thought it looked right, I used my Iphone and filmed her, trying to avoid filming all the boots and jackets hanging all over the dining room chairs, the dog water dishes, the backpacks, and all the other crap in the background. She messed up once and we all started laughing so I had to stop filming and erase it and start again, with her looking like a bundle of nerves the whole time. Shes a funny kid, all confidence and swagger on the surface, but she wants to make things perfect to the point of stress. I got her laughing and she finally relaxed and said,"Okay, Im ready. Camera, ready? Lets get this right, its important! Roll em!" And she sang her little song and for once there were no interruptions of the dog barking or her brother snorting or anything else. It came out pretty damn cute. I loaded it to youtube, and she watched me like a hawk as I sent it off in an email and posted it to my Facebook page. I got a lot of hugs yesterday for that, pretty decent pay for what I did I think, though it was a a couple of hours after I got home before I got my wet shoes off and my frozen toes thawed out. Shes worth it though, her and her brothers started filming some movie about the dog and her monkey...God only knows what that is going to be about .

Found another place down near that school for her. Its actually right across the street and if I can get it all pulled together, hopefully we will be there around mid January. I wanted to move for the start of the new term, but there is just too much up in the air financially so I have to sit tight until I am sure someone else is capable of pulling their weight. She is so eager to go, she has been working on her ,"Portfolio" and yesterday she painted a picture of a cat turd because the blue flecks from the litter make it interesting. Interesting does not begin to describe the child.

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.