Dear Roger,I am Cougar,Hear me Roar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Roger, Movie Premiers Or Why I Dont Teach Tweens

Well, last night was finally the night! I did something I have never done and I actually went to opening night of a major, guaranteed to be freaking insane, and chock a block full of annoying tweens and dodgy others, movie. I managed to put aside all my hating crowds issues, my not liking other peoples tweens issues, as well as my general dislike of all things media hyped and insane and I took Chance to see the premier of Eclipse. We went with my friend Elisha and we saw the film along with the other two previous films, which was kinda cool because I realized while I was watching them, that I had never seen any of the actors in any of the movies in the theater ever before, I mean, sure, I had seen other movies of theirs, but always on dvd or cable, never on the big screen, so it was pretty interesting, and I realized that WOW! some of those guys are even better looking, BIG! but hell, when isn't big,better??

The theater was slammed to hell and gone and I was very glad I had gotten out tickets over a month ago, because even arriving an hour early with advance tickets, we still had to sit down pretty close to the front. They had over 900 people turn out here in the ghetto in the meadow to see this, and there were more who wanted to, but it sold out so damn fast that they had to turn people away. People had camped out, and the line went around the building which really shocked me considering we are such a podunk city that doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of a celebrity showing up for any kind of events, and in fact there really weren't any events to speak of, just long lines at the womens restrooms and concessions.

The crowd was good natured and really diverse with a large contingent of Native kids, Twi-moms and the ever present vaguely psychotic, tweens that screamed for not apparent reason and seemed to have bladder issues, or at least the ones on our row did. It finally reached the point during the second film that much to Chances dismay, Elisha and I finally got a little hostile, because if you have an issue that means you cannot sit through a 2 hour movie without having to get up and wade across 12 people more than 8 times with your 4 little girlfriends, then you need to be either sitting on the outer row or your momma needs to take your ass home instead of trying to mad dog those finally get sick and tired of getting their boots stepped on and say something.

There was lots of cheering as the favorites came on and lots of hooting and hollering during any kinda romance or smexyness and I only embarrassed Chance a little by whooping it up when Jasper showed up in his back-story wearing a Confederate uniform, riding a horse, but DAMN! there is only soo much a grown assed woman should be expected to take and keep silent, and in my defense, I was not the only person that got a little vocal, there were more than a few grown assed women, and (men) that let it be known that Team Jasper was in the house. I know I had a big ole grin, and I probably embarrassed the hell out of Chance, but he was good natured about it and I only herd a muttered,"Cougar" once or twice, but then I think he realized he was outnumbered by,"Cougars" so it was probably safest to be quiet.

On the way home at 0300, I asked Chance if it was totally horrible? and he said,"Noo, it didnt totally suck, there were lots of hot babes wandering around, the fight scenes were pretty wicked". When I pressed him to pick a favorite character, he went with Jasper,"Gotta go with the Texan, DUH!" Thats my boy!

It was good, I will buy the dvd.

Dear Roger,I Got A Pair Of Boots Older Than My Last Friend With Benefits

Well, the time is getting short and im really having to get stuff ready to go, and I have spent most of the past few days looking for places to live, sorting out things that can go to storage for a while, things that have to go with us right away and things that are just gonna get gone. The worry about the unknown is the biggest thing bugging me now and oddly enough my boots are my biggest issue. I have more than 8 pairs of cowboy boots, in fact they are pretty much all I freaking wear and have worn for most of the last decade or so. I have walked the soles off of several pair of Ropers, worn down the sides on a pair of combat boots, and I have some Tony Llama Rough outs that are older than my last "friend with benefits", in fact they are actually 36 years old and in better shape than he was in and much tougher. I own boots that have waded thorough mud, blood, beer, cow pastures, crime scenes, and dance floors. I have worn them for horse back riding, running, fighting, motorcycle riding, one really interesting night with a fella that found my boots and Vickies to be quite the turn on, and the spurs to be quite the icing on the cake,(actually my PaPa's spurs)but there is no accounting for the oddness of some folks.I value my boots up there with my books and my music and I have worn and carried them with me pretty much everyplace I have lived. I do not own a pair of heels, and I only bought a couple pair of tenny shoes after my ortho guy had ten different fits about me working out in boots on their mats after my back injections were done the last time. I used to wear Doc Martens quite a bit as my tenny shoes, but then they got adopted as the unofficial footwear of those who bat for the other team, and considering I have enough trouble tracking down a fella willing to put out, I sadly had to let them go, so that I would not shut down any interest based on first impressions.

When we get up there we will not have any furnishings! Im going to have to buy beds, a table, a tv, and all kinds of stuff, but it will all be a clean start and as long as my boots are on the ground and my I can see where the starting point is, its all good.

Dear Roger,Cooking Up A MId-Life Crisis On The Road to Hell

Well hell, the fire is finally mostly out though we are STILL getting smoke, the God damned ex is still here and has decided to raise his fucking voice to me from time to time and I have come real damned close to telling him to take his fucking attitude back down the road to his crappy apartment, because until I hand over the paper and its recorded, the place is NOT his and I can still tell him to fuck the hell off and get out, and I can walk away from the house, or sell it and then move the kids to wherever and he can try to take me to court to stop it. Im really trying to be overly nice and im getting sick of him not realizing that. Im stressed out and he really pushed it today and considering he didn't pay me any damned rent or child support or any other damned help, and I have let him use my car, and I could let a much younger and nicer and better looking guy move in here that would pay rent and probably clear my sinuses with a good thorough trouncing several times a day. I have 8 days left to put up with him wandering in and out and trying to get the kids on some kind of schedule and sorting out my stuff that I am planning on taking to Portland from the stuff that I am leaving here for the kids to have for their comfort and the stuff that I am selling. I have 40 years worth of crap to sort out and its not easy, and his attitude making my PTSD fire off like a bottle rocket on the 4th and im back to not sleeping and stalking around like a stressed out ally cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Chance is being a big help, he has been distracting me with movies like Harold and Kumar, and endless games of Wii Rockband where I actually scored 100% on "Give it Away " by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while singing bare footed with my shorts falling off my ass while I did the funny dance to the music and made him laugh his ass off and freaked out Fergus, nearly resulting in getting my butt bitten again. He also keeps acting like a living countdown, reminding me that we have very few days left here to put up with the shit attitude and the stress and soon we will be in the land of green and rain and trees and where everything doesn't smell like smoke.

Im not sure what all is going to happen once we get there, and I worry about things, but im doing my best to keep my kids fed and clean and sort of happy. I have been cooking more than normal, and I have busted out some of my old favorite recipes,even if I cant eat them I at least get to enjoy cooking them for my big son who really enjoys eating them.

When I was in college at University of Texas, I was in the International Student Union and I had friends from all over the world, and we got together and had communal meals every single day. We kinda functioned as a large, weird, dysfunctional family, with kids from all over, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Palestine, Israel, France, Germany, England,Ireland and me, the token Texan who loved to cook and hang out and play soccer with them. I gained the Momma Bear nurturing bone from my grandma I kinda started looking after some of them that seemed to need it, and we ate meals together often several times ag day, and I learned to cook large, recipes that were a blend of Asian, Texan and even African and Mexican, and I still love to cook that way, and I have even considered opening a restaurant at times like the bar b cue joint near where I grew up, where even if you could only afford the smallest, sandwich, the old woman who ran the place always made sure you had a bowl of cowboy beans and cornbread and sweet tea to go with so you never left hungry. I love cooking, and I love seeing folks appreciate my work. When I was a firefighter/EMT, I used to cook large meals in the fire station kitchen and feed all the duty officers in the area all kinds of Tex/Mex goodies, and I miss the camaraderie, and perhaps I could someday own a combination bookstore, coffeehouse restaurant that allows me the ability to make sure young uns are fed and taken care of, as well as allows me the time and place to write and relax in my kind of place. Who knows, maybe I can finally track down my muse and get back to writing again.

Dear Roger, For A Suck Ass Week, Things Have Actually Been Pretty Good

My boy is home! He is so different from the boy that left here a battered and bruised wreck of a young man, and I am glad to see that. We seem to have a better bond, perhaps gained through him realizing that we were both just surviving our circumstances and doing the best we could and that I was trying my best to protect him from the worst of it all.

He has grown so much. He is taller than me now and spending a couple of years playing athletics in Texas has given him lean muscle and made him fast and much more confidant than he was before. He still has the intensity in everything he attempts, music, athletics,harassing me about whatever, but we seem to get along really well.

We joke a lot more than we ever used to, and he seems to enjoy teasing me about whatever Twilight young man I have on my screensaver or picture that pops up, and I harass him about selling himself as my escort to the premier of Eclipse.He agreed for $35.00 so he could take out one of his girlfriends in Texas, that he would accompany me and my friends to the premier, wearing whatever clothes I selected without complaint, he just didn't realize that I would select clothes other than ripped skinny jeans and faded rock t-shirts, so now he is screwed, so he twitches and shudders just a little every time someone even says the words "Twilight" or "Eclipse" around him, because he saw the shirt and tie and vest and jacket and he KNOWS he is done for, though I did buy him a brand new pair of skinny jeans that he selected as a comfort, and I am allowing him to wear his Vans that don 't stink. He also knows we are taking pictures and hamming it up and planning on having a good time as well as posting pictures, so I guess he is glad that we are in the middle of a move between cities so that he can reinvent himself all over again in a new city and erase the shame and stigma that comes with having a mom that is full bore in a midlife crisis.

I am so damn glad to have him home that things that would have driven me nuts 2 years ago, dont even phase me. He has jacked my cell phone, some of my Affliction and rock t-shirts, my skull crusher headphones,my socks, and money, made fun of my screensaver, my taste in music and men and movies, and drank most of the sodas and dominated the tech area with Halo and Wii and attempted to P'wn me in Wii baseball while making bad "ball" jokes and trying to harass Fergus into biting me on the butt while I was at bat, yet I have reveled in ever moment of it. We watched the Team USA/Ghana match and he yelled with me and and we booed and cussed and mourned the loss together and fist bumped after the one goal and agreed to cheer on team England. We even went out and threw a baseball back and forth in the road for an hour or so, watching the helicopters flying gear in and out of the mountains where they were still fighting a few spot fires left on this side of the Peaks from the Schultz fire.

We have sat around watching weird movies, listening to different types of music and comparing musical styles and making fun of each others generations, though today he even admitted that Gen X'rs like myself had music that seriously,'Rocked balls" and still rocks harder that most of the stuff out there.He has refused to allow me to sit back in my room and hide from the commotion that is going on in my house while the ex prepares to take over operations. He has come back into my room and grabbed my computer out of my hands and said,'Old woman! quit perving over pictures of guys that are young enough to be your sons, get your ass outta bed, and come out to the living room and be with your family!" He has admitted he is scared but excited by out pending move to Portland, and he knows we will have nothing starting over again, but we will be free and we will be healing and no one will be able to hurt us again and I think that is why we are both feeling like life is finally worth living.

Dear Roger,I Think I would Really Be Capable Of Significant Violence At This Point

Rog, I have come to the conclusion that some people are poster children for 'Shoulda been Drowned at Birth", yes, that is not politically correct, no, I never claimed that I was politically correct. If I were the person to catch to stupid sons of bitches that went off and left a camp fire burning up in Schultz Pass on Saturday, I would probably strongly consider doing the world a favor and preventing them from ever breeding and contaminating the gene pool.

My mountains are devastated, my neighbors and my family has lived in fear and apprehension for the last 3 days, and our home will never be the same again, all because some stupid bastards were too lazy to ,make sure that they had done the right thing and put their fucking campfire out properly. If not for the balls to the wall efforts of the Firefighters, people would be homeless right now, myself and many of my friends included. Our forests havent been properly thinned for decades because the Forest Circus has been micro-managed by a bunch of Kum by yah pussies that think every tree is sacred and they might not be able to commune with the bark beetle as well if even one scrub jack pine gets cut! Well, its damn sure thinned now ya fucking dumbasses! But hell, they wont care, they will just pack up their trust fund paid for houses and take their PETA loving asses onto the next state to fuck up,(Probably Texas), and leave the locals here to look at the mess and deal with the mudslides.

Sorry, im pissed and ranting, but I got a clear view of the Peaks today when the smoke cleared for a bit and I actually puked. Its horrible. There is nothing left, it looks like everything up there either crowned and was lost, or is soo badly scarred, it will die anyway. Its not going to come back in my lifetime and I want to fuck somebody up over that!

I used to take my cup of coffee out on my rickety porch every morning and I would sit there and think,"Well, im broke, lonely, sick most of the time and surrounded by liberal Californians, but at least I have the best fucking view in the world", and now I dont even have that.

I threw on my tennis shoes, my ipod and my most arrogant Texas ball cap and funkiest 100 Monkeys t-shirt and I walked the mile down to the Chevron to see if I could get a gallon of milk without getting hooked up by the cops for being in the evac area,(I figured if I looked crazy and ornery enough they would leave me alone), and I needed to just get out of the damn house. The view from the main road was sickening and I just sat on the side of the road and watched the choppers go over with the bambie buckets for a little bit, my hands shaking and tears rolling down my face. The 4 Peaks are the spiritual center to the Tribes and to tell you the truth, after soo long up here, they have become my center as well, and to see them soo badly damaged and hurting, I just wanted to rage and hurt the fools that did it.

My walk cleared my head a little, and I spoke to a few other neighbors who gutted it out, another PTSD sufferer and another Texan, not surprisingly, and we commiserated for a few mainly by just standing there and looking like we wanted to cry on each others shoulders, but all knowing we arent the type to do that., we wanted to jack someone up. I managed to get in and out and get my milk without the media vultures harassing me, though they did give me the,'Look" as if to say...welll there is a mountain crazy, and you know what? They are right!

Chance is in Flagstaff and I cant get him, hes 7 miles from here and the cops told me that they will let me drive out, but not back in, so im hoping like hell they open up the roads tomorrow, or I may just walk my ass into town.