Dear Roger:Scars and Marks That Are More Than Skin Deep

Well Fuckity,Fuck Fuck!(to quote some of my favorite people) I knew things were rocking along a little too smoothly, and just to remind me that life likes to give me a swift kick in the ass when I get a little too full of myself, I got some of the warning signs that my noggin is on the fritz again. I have tinnitus pretty much constantly, and while there are times its just an annoying little mosquito hum in one ear or the other, there have been times it seems to almost drown out everything else around me, including music. It has been pretty much constant over the past few days, and then something that has never really happened before struck me, I lost my ability to read red or green colored fonts on my computer! I could tell there was something there, but it was just like weird blurry mess that made my eyes hurt the harder I tried to puzzle out what it was. Yellows and light blues were equally difficult and I have to say, that freaked me the hell out! I often lose vision in my right eye when I have a real bitch of a migraine coming, and my eyes burn or water and stuff gets blurry, but I have never lost colors before. I haven't said anything to the kids or m family because I dont want them freaking out, but I have been dropping down the dosages on the Topamax in the hopes that I could go off of it altogether, but when I started smelling blood and feeling really queasy last night, I knew that I was going to have to go back up to the full dose again, and that really sucks! I hate taking that stuff, it makes it really hard to keep any weight on and it just fucks with me in all kinds of ways. Im trying to keep a positive outlook, and not let it get me too down, after all, my pot smoking, hippy neighbors have actually contributed to me having a little better appetite and probably not so many headaches due to all the fumes and blow by that I have inhaled since I have lived up here. Friends of mine have actually suggested that the reason my headaches have been gone is because my neighbors have been soo generously sharing though the walls, and I am more than a bit conflicted.I am a bit uptight when it comes to that, and due to the ex and his drug issues, it just kinda freaks me out that that one thing that might me the answer to my neuro problems is an illegal substance! But the truth is, my neighbors have been gone mostly over the past few days and that is when my headaches came back, so though I think the issue would need more study, my friends are more than a little convinced. I just have never seen myself as a stoner, in case you forgot, im all about power and control and that just doesn't really mesh with my image of what weed is about.

My other uncle has been on my mind the past couple of days, and I really dont know what has brought him to such vivid clarity in my minds eye, other than I was talking about Robert the other day and he was Roberts daddy. James Colwell, was the only other member of that part of the family I really ever bonded with. He was my Aunt Judys first husband and to call him a,'Character" was a vast understatement. I remember him being lanky and having dark curly hair with dimples and eyes that always laughed.I remember he always smelled like Old Spice, cigarettes, and what I now know was just a hint of whiskey. He was skinny and funny and he would get down on the floor and roll around with us kids and play when the other adults would ignore us or send us outside, and he always called me,'Little Sister" or "Sister", (probably why I call Stevie that today), he played harmonica and guitar and he used to sing old Hank Williams songs for me in my granny kitchen and laugh at me as I tried to sing along with,"Kawliga". I remember him wearing a white, snap button cowboy shirt the last time I saw him that had little bitty roses embroidered in it. He had a gift for the understatement and when he took me fishing once and I made a pet out of a minnow and named it,'George" he risked getting caught by the fish and game officer to rescue that silly thing after I dropped it in the bed of the truck in the rush to flee and then began crying.

When he first got sick, no one told me anything, I just knew that Uncle James was gone alot to the doctor and my aunt cried alot. My cousins started fighting all the time and my parents didn't talk very much. When we went over after he got out of the hospital, he called me over to the couch where he was laid up and I was soo happy to see him I wanted to give him a huge hug and just crawl up against him and make it all better, but my Aunt jerked me away and told me I had to stay off of him. I sat next to the couch for the longest time and counted the roses on his shirt and we watched cartoons and just hung out. He smelled like whiskey and band-aids at that point and his eyes didn't smile as much, but his dimples still shown for me. He died of cancer,(something with his kidneys and liver) two and a half weeks before my 5th birthday and there really is no way I should remember soo much about him, but someday s I can close my eyes and see him in my granny's kitchen with a short glass of whiskey next to him, his ratty old guitar and his smile, and he is laughing at me as I try and sing,'Kawliga". Besides the memories, the only thing that is left of him is the tattered funeral notice I rescued from the trash at my parents place, and I have visited his grave in West Texas a couple of times to just let him know that I miss him. Robert is next to him now, and my granny and pa are nearby. The rest of the family is scattered all over West Texas, and I often wonder where my folks will chose to end up, and while this is a pretty fucking morbid topic to be talking about on such a beautiful day, its one I have had to mull over more than once, especially with my weird neurological issues and the two cancer scares that I have had to contend with this past year.

I try not to be a fatalist about things, but with our family history, its a very real worry with me. I grew up in what is called,'Cancer Alley", and I lost both grandfathers, my granny, Uncle James, Aunt Judy, Uncle Runt, Uncle Charlie, and others and more than a few friends along the way and with Trina having to have that implant that measures the growth of that lump, it just seems pretty much a sure fire bet that one of these days my tab is gonna come due, because Lord knows I abused the hell out of my body when I was younger and that shit tends to leave a mark.

Chance got a good look at some of my marks just a bit ago when I was changing from one shirt to another and the knuckle head walked in without knocking. I had on a sports bra, (Thank God), but he was able to see the full array of scars that are typically covered by even a wife beater and he was a little freaked out,(really helpful for my self-confidence), and I could tell he wanted to ask about ten thousand questions, but most of the stories are best left for another day, when he is older and not so prone to calling me a hypocrite when I tell him he cant have a motorcycle or date a certain person or own a really sharp knife, or jump off the side of a bridge or own a shotgun.

Dear Roger;Obsessive Compulsive and Hard Limits or Why Being a Parent Makes Me Just a Little More Crazy Than Most

I have been accused of many things, being a "controlling, ball-breaking, scary as fuck, bitch on wheels", "Neat Freak"," Obsessive Compulsive to the Power of 10", and the "Female R.Lee", but I really do think most of those things are a little over the top. Just because I like things to be neat, tidy, and in their place and for people to arrive on time and as instructed, it should be expected that I would be a little put out when someone wastes my time by being late or slovenly or perhaps misrepresents what they are capable of.

My background and history has led to many of my habits, and I actually have found that many of my so called,"idiosyncratic behaviors" have actually served me very well. My grandparents were retired military, and as such, they kept everything neat,tidy, and everything had a place because it might need to be found quickly. I learned very young that if I kept my things put where they belonged, they were easier to find the next time. I also learned how to take care of my boots and clothes, including polishing and ironing,(not sewing though,I am a complete failure at that)but I can starch a military crease like nobodies business. Cleaning up after right away when I finished with whatever I was doing was something that I was taught helped to keep the house clean. And always dressing up to go out in public was just expected. I was never allowed to go to town in pajamas or house shoes like I see kids wandering about in nowadays. My grandparents would have shamed me if they had caught me out with my butt hanging out or a huge muffin top hanging over my britches. I was expected to be neat, clean, presentable, and to look as if I owned a mirror, and even though I often wore rock t-shirts and jeans, they were always decent, and as I have gotten older, I have gotten even more self conscious about it, and I find myself requiring the same behavior of my kids even when my ex would have allowed them to go about dressed only in a diaper and a dirty t-shirt.

My house is cleaned every day, and I butt heads with Chance with I tell him I want him to make his bed each morning. "Why should I make my bed,its just gonna get messed up again ?" I explain that its so the house looks neat and orderly and it helps to instill a routine and a sense of pride in himself. " No it doesn't, it annoys the crap outta me because even when I make it, you just come and re-make it because I dont get the edges right." Seriously, the boy refuses to do hospital corners properly just to annoy me. I try to get him to at least fold his sleep pants and put them in the proper place instead of wadded up in the bathroom floor, and he simply flings them through his bedroom door, where they land on his pillow and I bring up the point that his butt goes in those pants and now its on his pillow and I wonder aloud,"Is that okay with you, its not very sanitary?" He just grunts and scratches and wanders into to the kitchen and opens the fridge, preparing to reach in and grab the orange juice and drink out of the container! 'IF YOU DRINK OUT OF THAT CONTAINER IM GONNA THRASH YOU!" I yell, breaking out all three names of his in pure Texas momma. And he just blinks at me, holding the container in his hand while the fridge door is still open. He mumbles that he was going to drink the whole thing and he grumbles about the fact that I dont even drink orange juice,(no wonder,I know that he drinks outta the container), and he puts the container back and roots around the fridge a while longer, pulling out the milk. I should say at this point that he is shirtless, which is against the rules, and he starts to reach into the cupboard for a bowl when I stop him and tell him to go wash his hands and then sit down after he gets a shirt, because if he goes rooting around in the cupboard for a bowl I may just have a heart attack.

My son learned a lot of bad habits from living with my parents. My mom is the anti-housekeeper, and her house is probably the reason for many of my habits.They are also horrible procrastinators and will often either wait until the last minute to do something, or put it off until past the due date and then try and get an extension. They have been supposed to mail me my sons shot record for over 2 weeks now, and when I called yesterday, she was,'Planning on putting it in the mail today." I like to get stuff done as soon as I find out about it, that way I dont have to worry about forgetting stuff. The only things I tend to put off are papers and writing projects because I like having the pressure of an impending deadline. I work very well under pressure, in fact I thrive under it, so other than that exception I get stuff taken care of right away. Dishes get washed right away, laundry gets picked up and put in the hamper and when I have a washer I do it the minute I have a full load and then I put it away. I plan meals and organize the things I need for them. My cupboards are organized, and yes...the cans are all facing the same direction and arranged by product and type, but its so I know when I am low on something. My closets are the same way, colors with colors and styles with styles, and my boots are arranged according to color and style. Yes, the things in my bathroom are lined up and arranged according to usages and I do keep everything clean and I notice when something has been moved. Bedroom is carefully arranged and bed is made as soon as I get out of it. My routines and habits serve me well and I have the kind of memory that allows me to see things as pictures in my head, so that even when it has been awhile and my ex calls me wanting to know where something is in the house back in Flagstaff, I can tell him that the hdmi cable for the tv in the back bedroom is on the second shelf in the master closet on the right hand side about 1/3 of the way back under the spare controller for the xbox,and after he stops mumbling about me being weird and obsessive, he goes and finds it exactly where I told him. Its also how I was able to recall exactly what Stevie was wearing the day she went missing and I was able to describe it right down to her socks, and when she was found the deputy was amazed at my recall.

Some things I just cannot tolerate, and I just kinda freak out a little and perhaps go a tad bit overboard, but considering all the education I have had in regards to sanitation and cleanliness, I think its a reasonable issue. I cannot handle the thought of bugs being in my house or around me. When I was traveling alot, instead of staying in hotels I would often sleep in my truck because I KNOW how nasty hotels are, and the problem my friend is facing right now just cements that thought. Her husband had to stay in a hotel in Idaho on business a few weeks ago and it appears that he brought home a friend when he came back, bedbugs have infested her house! I wont go over there now. I hardly can even stand to be around her without itching or just being freaked out. They have already had an exterminator out and are getting things handled, but its like they are tainted now. Bugs are something that just causes me to lose my mind a little, and some types of bugs just put me a little of the deep end, like lice. Lice will get you exiled from my life. If any of my kids ever came home with them I am afraid I would just freaking move and not leave a forwarding address. Cockroaches are also unacceptable. I dont care how much I liked a guy, if I was deeply in love with a guy and I went to his place and I found cockroaches, that would be a deal breaker, its just....yech. But the one thing that will cause me to abso-fucking-lutely hurt someone is a grand daddy longlegs spider. I do not care that they are supposedly harmless. I do not care that they supposedly aren't even really spiders. I actually even like most spiders. I have no problems with snakes or mice or all kinds of other critters, but if you come near me with a grandaddy longlegs, I will cut a bitch. Its a Texas related trauma that is soo deeply rooted in my psyche that even the mention of the damn things sends a shudder up my spine, and the feeling of pure and utter dread that comes over me even seeing one just pisses me off to no end, that when a ex-boyfriend once thought it funny to try and chase me with one, I picked up a baseball bat and chased him with that, and I had to be restrained from breaking his knee caps when I caught him. I think its one of the main reasons that I just couldn't get comfortable with the idea of ever moving back to East Texas because those damn things are all over the place back there. I was very dismayed to find that they also live out here, and the one I found on my back porch yesterday quickly met a bad end before I had to hurt a boy that might have found it funny to try and harass me with it.

I always try to arrive a little early for appointments, not annoyingly so, but just enough so that I am comfortable and organized and ready to tend to the business at hand. Arriving early has served me well in the past and it was how I got some of my jobs working personal security and on sets. I would often be the first to arrive for squad meetings and that got my face right there in the Captains mind, and he knew I needed extra work as a single mom and he knew I wasn't one that really gave a crap about who someone was,(with one exception, he would not let me guard Trace Adkins), and that really hurt, but he said that I was the reason they needed security! and I enjoyed working those jobs and I was good at it, but I would have missed out if I had drug in late because there were other guys that were bigger and tougher looking and outranked me, but because I was early, I got them and they kept me and my son fed in the lean times. People who arrive late or at the last minute annoy me, its like they see their commitment as an afterthought and not something that should be taken seriously. I make allowances for life issues, but habitual lateness just gets under my skin and I dont tolerate it from anyone, its kind of like laziness.

Chance and I butt heads over some of my rules, and I know that he was allowed to get away with so many things while he was living in Texas, but is it really too much to ask of a boy to;Pick up after himself and clean up the bathroom after himself, wear a shirt to the table and not wear a hat in the house, wear a belt and keep his pants pulled up, dont fart in my kitchen or at the table, dont cuss around his baby sister, shake hands and make eye contact like the gentleman he was raised to be when he meets new folks,say ,"Please and thank you and Sir and ma'am" like he has been taught his whole life. I would let a few things slide like his bed making and maybe even how he folds his sleep pants if he would just remember his manners because I have met more than a few people,(adults included) that have no idea how they are supposed to behave.

Dear Roger;Submission? Me? Yeah, Riiiiiight, About That...

There are times I choose to walk away from conversations with people, not because I am afraid I will lose an argument, but because I am erring on the side of keeping a friendship intact and not revealing too much of myself to those who really dont need to know all aspects of my personality. The dinner conversation that started up over at Susan's house the other night was a perfect example of one of the times I chose to walk away and keep my silence, because while Sus has been my friend for quite awhile, and suspects that there are more than a few twists and turns to me that I keep under wraps, she doesn't question me about it other than in a joking manner, her husband on the other hand is a delightfully oblivious minister who really doesn't know too much about me other than I have some really dark shit in my past and that I am a very tightly controlled person who has a hard time letting go and relaxing enough around people to engage in conversation with strangers or even allow casual physical contact. He knows not to crowd me or raise his voice around me, and he knows that I tend to always be a little bit on the,"alert" side, and as former military, he gets this.

They drug me over to dinner the other night and we were sitting around afterwards watching the boys trying to tie cherry stems in knots with their tongues. It was a bit of a surreal and odd thing to be watching my teen son trying to master, and I was a bit put off by it, and Sus was attempting to tie 2 of them together herself when she said,"I cant get it to go in." I snickered and said,(not thinking of the mixed company)"Thats what she said" as the boys promptly spit their stems in guffaws of laughter and Sus's eyes widened in shock as her husband asked,'Just what does that mean?" Why do you say that?" I told him, its a pop culture reference and it can sexualize and make dirty pretty much any statement someone makes without thinking, and its also a delightfully dirty song. He just looked at me and said,'Ohh, do you really think that is appropriate around the kids?' Well, the boys already are well aware of that phrase and game and it goes well above Stevies ability to understand for now, so until she is able to understand the meaning, I think its okay. I have a fairly open line of communication with my kids in regards to sexuality, I think it helps to keep them from getting into trouble or things that are over their heads. At this point the boys bailed to go play video games, taking Stevie with them so the adults could debate, and I prepared to be interrogated about parenting.

I believe that having an open line of communication with my kids about most things, keeps them from being caught off guard and built up with false expectations about life. I try not to lie to them about the reality of our situation or build them up with false hope, because my parents did that to me when I was a kid, and by the time I figured out what they had done, it was too late to salvage the disaster. They had always told me,"You are going to college, you are going to be a famous photographer/artist, and you can go to the college you want to go to." They let me assume that they had been saving for it like many of my classmates parents had done, so when I applied for UCLA and UC Berkley and all the other great schools that I hoped to study my art at, I applied for a few scholarships, and financial aid, but I wasn't too heart broken when I was told that my parents made too much money and that I was the ,'Wrong minority", until it came time to pick a school and my parents told me that they could not afford to send me to any school out of state, in fact they could not afford to send me to a big in state school like Rice or UT Austin, and I would be real damn lucky if they could afford to send me to the crappy little liberal arts college up the road, in fact, they couldn't and if not for my uncle ponying up some bucks and me managing to get out of the meal plan, I would have never gotten to go to college with my peers. As it was, I got married at 19 to a guy who was in similar straits so we could both qualify as independent, and then I worked my ass off to be able to stay in school. I will never delude my kids the same way. They know they will have to work for their educations unless my book sells or we get really damn lucky, because their father will never financially amount to anything, and being medically retired out of my former career does not make me rich. I also talk very directly about sex and drugs and real life to my kids, because as a former cop, and as a family member of someone who had AIDS, I know the high cost of not communicating, but that doesn't mean that I talk to them about the entire world.

He seemed a bit annoyed that I am very accepting of homosexuality, and I called him on it and said that while there is only one or two passages in the bible that may or may not condemn homosexuality as a sin, there is a whole hell of a lot in the bible about forgiveness and loving ones neighbor, and to me in the whole grand scheme of things, I find things like people who hurt kids or commit atrocities in the name of God, a whole lot more deserving of my hate and damnation than people who cannot help that they love the same sex. I told him about the hell my cousin went through, living in West Texas, having to hear all the ,'Faggot jokes" from those around him, including family members, keeping what he thought was a big secret, until it festered inside him and caused him to drink and engage in unsafe behaviors in Houston, and he ended up HIV positive and a horrible alcoholic. He was a beautiful man, and the one member of that side of the family that actually,"Got" me, and I still laugh remembering him trying to talk me out of getting married to the boy I married so I could go to school. He even offered to take me to Houston with him, and to tell the truth, I wish I had gone, it would have been a hell of an adventure, and he might still be alive. When I was telling him this story, I explained to him that I would not risk my children's lives in that way, that I would make sure that they knew no matter who they loved, that they had my unconditional support and love, and even though I may tease my oldest son for his random comments about young actors making,'Cute chicks", that if he really was that way, then I would support him and I would still be his mom. He asked me,"have you been worried about him being gay?" and I was honest because I am not used to the casual attitude that kids have to the ambi-sexuality nowadays, but I told him that he has assured me he ,'REALLY LIKES GIRLS". I told him that so many of the young guys now days are," Pretty" that its really hard to fault kids for being so casual about things, because the more I see of some of the pictures and films of some of them recent popular actors and such, the clearer it is that there had been a bit of a shift from the masculine ideal of the macho, hairy, tough guy to the younger, sleeker, almost effeminate young men in the past few years, and luckily that is starting to change and facial hair is making a comeback as well as chest hair and a general manliness that will help to erase some of the confusion, but I told him that I really could not blame kids for being confused. Girls are way more sexually aggressive than they ever used to be, and that has left many boys wondering just what their place is in the entire grand scheme of things.

'Well that is the problem, you see the bible says that the woman should submit herself to man and when women stopped submitting, the structure of the family began to fall apart." OOOOOKAY, its "GO" time. Well, if there were men worthy of submitting to, then perhaps more women would have been willing to retain their status as second or third class citizens,but when you have men who are incapable of managing things without either cruelty or inefficiency, then it is the right of the woman to rise to the role of the dominant and take over to save herself and her family. I have had to deal with less than satisfactory men most of my entire life and that is why I reached a point early on when I said that I would never submit again. I have endured much, including beatings and attempts on my life, but,I.submit. to. no. one. I claimed my power a long time ago and I have yet to find someone worth sharing it with, so I stay alone, I answer to no one and I find its just easier to stay that way rather than try and find a man that is capable of following my rules. I think its best that we agree to disagree on this subject and drop it, but in order to stay connected to my kids lives, I follow whats popular, I pay attention to catch phrases and jokes and music and that way I know what is just silliness, and what is potentially dangerous, but I have an advantage,I taught in a High School , so that helped and I really suggest you do the same because you cannot shield them from it all, and its much better to know what they are thinking than to have them sneaking around and hiding all the weird stuff they are doing. My son didn't know I still was able to get into his computer and check his history and all that he had viewed, so just out of curiosity I checked up on him while he was gone. When I went into his history I found lots of music sites, lots of archived messages between him and his girlfriends in Texas, sites visited on physical training and workouts, a few videos from bands I dont much care for, skin care websites, and some gamer sites, but what I didn't find was porn or drug info or any other stuff that would have made me lose my mind. In fact, he had even quit downloading music from one site that I had blacklisted as a pirate site and forbade in my house as stealing. So, I guess I am doing something right.

I got up at this point and started getting ready to head back to my place and he was still wanting to discuss the whole,'Submission" concept with me, and I finally said, Look, I am a sinner, I have been a knowledgeable sinner since I was 16 years old. I could never atone fully for all that I have done in my life, and I spend my days just trying to ensure that my kids have a better life that I had and that I am able to prevent some of the darkness from shadowing them. I send them to church so that they might learn to submit to God, but its to late for me, I submit to nothing but the end and thats how its going to stand. I appreciate your efforts, but they are wasted on me, save my kids. With that, I thanked them for dinner and scooped up my daughter and headed home for the evening, hoping that he would let it drop, and so far he has.

My friendship with Sus has always been an odd one, she is very much a girly/girl and always has to have her hair done and makeup on and she dresses in heels or flip slops and jewelry and all kinds of girly crap that I could never carry off, and I am always in jeans and boots and either black or darker colors and rather tough looking clothes. She never had considered a tattoo until she met me, and now she is considering her second one, while I am on my 6th, soon to be 7th, and though mine have gotten a little less dark over the years that I have known her, they have moved into more visible areas, and with the one that I am going to be getting on my forearm, she has been waiting for me to find the right shop to get it done, but what she doesn't know is that I am going to ask her husband to finish up the drawing of it for me. He is a brilliant artist and though I have the perfect picture from the concert, my sock monkey drawing skills are not what that need to be and Stevie has been wanting to take over.Hopefully he will do it with just a minor amount of negotiation, I have yet to consider selling what is left of my soul for a good tattoo.

Dear Roger: Ambi-Sexuality,Gay Buffers, Amanda, Or Weird Conversations with My Son

Chance made it back from camp relatively unscathed except for a pulled back muscle, and I kinda think he is milking that one a bit as a way to just get out of two-a days for football instead of just telling me straight out that he didn't want to play JV. I finally told him that it was okay if he didn't want to play football, even though I died just a little inside, I didn't want to pressure him, so I gave him the out and told him that I thought that maybe with us just getting moved and trying to get settled in, that it might be too much for him to go out for football as a freshman. He seemed relieved.

My son confuses me,in fact many of the boys nowadays confuse me. When I was a teen it was pretty damn clear what team who played for and who were the switch hitters. I grew up in a very small, very rigid, buckle of the bible belt East Texas town and boys were boys and they looked and acted like it and damn sure dressed like it and they never would have joked about being gay or even dreamed of wearing clothes that were made for girls or make up. It.Just. Was. Not. Done. There were a few boys in town that were gay, I knew them, and in fact I was friends with them, but they were deeply closeted for their safety. The one who did come out in the senior year of high school was brutalized and eventually left. My own cousin, who grew up in West Texas in Midland and Nocona and then Houston, always had two personalities that he carried when he came to visit, the one he showed around my dad and the rest of the ,"guys" of the beer drinking, hell raising, mans man, and the real him which was a troubled gay man that had lived such a life of frustration and pain, that he had not been as careful as he should and he paid the ultimate price. But I always knew he was gay, just like I knew the neighbor kid was gay from the time he was 3 years old, you could just tell. I have always had an open mind about these things, though I prefer not to have peoples sex lives shoved in my face, because to tell the truth, my lack of one at this point in my life is really starting to get to me! But, the way kids are nowadays, things seem to flow back and forwards pretty freely and its really damn confusing! I have actually met some guys where I kinda got the vibe, but I just could not tell, and then with my own son and some of his comments, I was beginning to get a little concerned that perhaps he was considering a walk on the wild side, especially after some of the comments he has made. He loves the show,"Criminal Minds" and he watches it with me and often asks me questions about it, and his favorite episode is the one with Jackson Rathbone, because its just soo,"Freaky" , to quote him. ANYHOO, we were watching it the other night and he asked at the end, "Whos the cute chick at the end,she kind looks like my ex-girlfriend in Texas?" I choked on my tea just a little,"You think shes cute?!" I had frozen the screen on the dvr and he was able to look at the image a little longer. "Yeah, shes kinda cute, Id do her." after I smacked him upside the head for saying something so crass as "Do her", I just looked at him and said, thats not a chick. "Huh?" thats not a chick you dork! "Yeah it is" Jeeze Captain Oblivious! Have you NEVER paid attention to the show?! Adam and Amanda were the same person!! Amanda is ADAM! Thats a DUDE, thats Jackson Rathbone you dope! "Huh...weellll, he makes a cute chick." This was before we went to the concert and of course you know I had to tease him the entire time we were there, but what kinda bugged me was that he didn't act offended like guys I grew up with would have, he didn't even act embarrassed. He was okay with it when I leaned over to him during the show and said,"Are you going to ask for his autograph?" He just rolled his eyes at me and went back to texting and left me to stew. Later when I had my fangirl moment and Stevie was freaking out, he said,"I expected him to be taller".

It finally reached the point after he got his other ear pierced at the mall on Saturday that I felt it was necessary to broach the subject of sex and sexuality with him, because he is at the age where he is wanting to go and hang out with friends alone and the potential is there for getting into things that perhaps he is not ready to deal with, so I thought it was time to expand upon, 'The TALK",to include what aspects of homosexuality I understood and I figured that sitting on the deck watching the traffic go by drinking a soda and relaxing was there perfect time to do that, while we were both relatively relaxed and not at each others throats.

I opened the conversation by laughingly complaining that Susan and I needed a walking,"Gay Buffer" when we hung out with each other because with me looking like such a roughneck or tough chick and her looking like such a girly girl and it being pretty obvious that we are not related, I think that its messing up my dating potential because guys are assuming we are a couple!He laughed with me and agreed that we needed to figure something out if I was going to try and start dating, though he still did not approve of my desire to date younger men. I then broached the subject of the clothing issue and my disdain for the super tight skinny jeans that he desired, and we discussed back and forth the last pair that I bought him that he rarely wears, and he even admitted that they were not comfortable, so we negotiated that in exchange for me not wearing wife-beaters in public, he would give up the super-skinny style of skinny jeans, and then he asked for a pair of ,'Cowboy boots" with segued very nicely into where I was trying to go with the conversation. 'Ahh, so you wanna dress like somebody? I said giving him the raised eyebrow," Wha? Oh , well dude has style, and boots would be a good idea up here in all the rain and stuff." Son, its okay if you like him, im cool with that, I love you no matter who you like." 'What?!, wait...mom, im not gay. Im not bi-sexual. I like chicks, ALOT.Okay?" Im just saying son, im not one of those parents that would give you a hard time about it, I might tease you a little, but you know I will support you and if you were to be either of those ways the only worry that I have is that you be safe and responsible. "MOM! stop! No sex talk! Jeeze!" Well son im just so damn confused, kids are soo different nowdays! When I was growing up, no guy would have ever admitted that another guy was good looking or made a cute chick or would have worn his moms clothes. It just wasn't done! I dont care what you are, I just want you to be safe! "Mom, you raised me to be comfortable with myself and confidant in who I am. I dont mind saying a guy has style or is sharp,because I look at that as something to want to be like.I know what Rob went through and I know you worry about that, but I am not gay, things are just different now days, people aren't so hung up on the whole thing." Well, you know that no matter what you are, I wish you would wait to become sexually active until you are in a committed relationship. Just the shudder that he made when I said the words,"sexually active" kinda gave me a giggle moment, because he still cannot even handle the words sex, but he has become very wise to sexual innuendo and all kinds of jokes and such, and things that used to go over his head now seem to land fully in his lap and he laughs and even cracks inappropriate jokes about,"Pickles" and such in the grocery store, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty of things and I begin to talk to him about waiting or safe sex, he turns every single color of red and seems to try and hide in the couch cushions, but that is one conversation that we will have no matter what, just like we have had the talk about drugs and alcohol and depression and domestic violence, we will talk, because I know its a matter of life and death, Rob taught me that.

We are going to rearrange the house a bit today. After spending over ten dollars to try and do my laundry in the machines at the apartment complex and having the machines either breakdown or not work at all or do a half-assed job, on top of dealing with a creepy guy who was interested in how I folded my panties a little too much for my comfort, I decided that we oughta just rent a set and do our own at home so I dont have to worry about my Dolce jeans ending up at Buffalo Exchange or some creeper pawing through my delicates. We have decided to screen off part of the living room and make Stevie her own little private area that will be her bedroom/play area. It will also force Chance to get to bed earlier,since he has gotten in the very bad habit of hanging out in the living room and watching tv until the wee hours and then wanting to sleep until afternoon.

Still no luck on the dating front for me. It stinks being single and I really would like to find a guy for a good trouncing if nothing else. I know that sounds bad, but its been soo long since I have even been kissed, I am beginning to think I have forgotten how. I have seen some really gorgeous guys up here, exchanged some smiles and even some stares, but no one has followed through. Chance noticed that I seem to be working on consciously being more friendly and approachable and even dressing nicer, though I never did dress like a scrub,(no sweats or pjs in public for me), I do have some really nice and grown up looking clothes other than rock t-shirts and I have been wearing them, but so far, nothing. Maybe once the kids get in school things will improve, one can only hope.

Dear Roger; Pay Close Attention, Sometimes Its What They Dont Say That Is Scary

Chance gets home from camp today, and after he relaxes a bit and unpacks and I assess his injury to make sure he doesn't need to go see a doctor,(he managed to hurt some ribs in a game of chicken with a few other campers), he and I are going to sit down and have a talk about some things he has said over the past few weeks, things that I have come to believe are a cry for help that I have sadly missed hearing up until just recently.

I know my son has issues related to the abuse we went through back in Arizona, and I know that the time in Texas helped with that somewhat, but it didn't fix everything and as he has gotten older and his teen issues have started hitting, the damage to his psyche has become more evident and I really think its time to put my foot down as a parent and say,"This I will bear no more!" and even if it means negotiation and perhaps agreeing to give up my coping tools of smoking to deal with my stress, I am going to insist that he get into counseling for his PTSD.

I know you have read that alot in this blog, and whether you understand it or not, its a bitch to live with and it can destroy you as a person and make live with you, a living hell. At my worst,I would not leave the house, I kept the curtains drawn and the front gates locked, and when I went out for things like groceries, I wouldn't hardly make eye contact with men and I carried a gun...everywhere.Older men who approached me were in danger of getting hurt because they were a threat and I reacted to them as such. My temper was hair trigger because I was ALWAYS on alert, I slept 2-3 hours a night, if I slept at all, I had skull crushing migraines, I didn't eat, in fact I got down to 97 lbs at one point and I wanted to die. I started smoking and drinking and all kinds of self-destructive behaviors to try and cope with the pain, and I avoided people. Its been a damn long road back, and I have lost friends along the way, and made a few as well, and its a constant struggle, but there have been major successes. Finally getting away from Flagstaff and the cause of my worst stress has been huge, and after I did that I had some of my greatest breakthroughs. I no longer carry a weapon at all times, I have gone off,'Alert" status and I have been able to do things like ride public transportation and be in crowds, and even talk to strangers and cut loose a little and have fun and I laugh and smile and I sleep, but I have noticed warning signs in my son, signs that I lived and I am going to to try and get him help before he gets much further down that long dark road.

He commented to me a week or so ago that he related to the song and video,"Love the way you lie" by Eminem, and I didn't really pay attention because I consider that singer a misogynistic punk, but last night I was watching MTV for some odd reason and the video came on and my blood ran cold. I had no idea and I found myself in tears by the end of it as I relived things I never wanted to live again. If you can, imagine that video, only picture a little boy and other children, standing there,watching, and put a gun or a razor in the mans hand. He never threatened to burn me alive.No, he threatened to,"Cut your throat,give you a Columbian necktie,take a picture of it,send it to all your friends and then dump your Goddamned body down a well on the Rez". This was after the time he put a gun to first his and then my head telling me that there was nothing if I left. My son witnessed this, amongst other things, and this is my sin,my burden and my shame that I have to atone for and that I have to fix.

My other children have been in counseling and seem to be coping well, and since they were all very young, they do not remember too much and they didn't understand what all was going on, but since he was much older, and not my ex's biologically, Chance caught the brunt of the overflow and the beating in the front yard was the cumulation of that.

Such a happy, talented child that loved music and art and who had such big dreams, has turned into such an intense and quiet young man who more often than not listens to dark and sad things, and I have to pull him back from the edge.He used to be a talented piper who won awards as one of the youngest bagpipe players in Northern AZ, but now he absolutely refuses to touch them, and hes very negative, even saying that he doesn't want to play sports and he hasn't been skateboarding in weeks, so I have to change that, because we made a deal to leave the darkness behind and I am going to help him do that, even if at first he doesn't want my help.

Made more progress this week. Got a new bank account started and that will enhance the separation from the ex, and give me much more control and autonomy and I finally got a change of address filed as well as my voter registration and library card taken care of,next will be my drivers license even though I do not have a car. I am looking for work and up dating my resume is a bit of a pain in that ass because I am the worlds worst at keeping track of dates and contact information. I am also trying to get all my stuff into NAU so they will finally get the English dept to either give me a yeah or nay response about if I am attending for Fall or if I am starting in Winter, if they screw me around too long I will just get all the stuff on over to Reed and do what I would really life to do and apply there and go back to being a site based student so I am work on my whole,"being around people" issue. Reed is a much more expensive school, but it also seems to be a much better school, so I am not to stressed either way. I just love being back in school, so something has to happen soon either way.

Dear Roger: Stevie Rae-Music, Monkeys and Sunshine, or How I let my 6 y/o Design My Next Tattoo

My small daughter is a force of nature. The fact that she is alive and kicking after what she was born into, is a testimony to her will. She was born 6 weeks premature,sick to a sick mom during an emergency c-section. We both spent 10 days in the hospital with just each other for company while I recovered from heart problems and she recovered from an infection and other issues. She was a tiny little thing, but fierce and demanding, and from the get go she had me wrapped around her little finger,much like anyone else she happens to meet. She was named for a hell of a Texas Blues guitar man and a Hells Angel and there are days when I believe she channels both of them. She is brave and fearless and tough, but with a delicate femininity that I really dont know how to deal with sometimes. She has butt-length blonde curly hair that is a challenge for me to take care of, but she gets really pissed off when someone mentions cutting it, " I am a GIRL, not a boy, I am supposed to have long hair!" She insists on wearing dresses or skirts most days and picks out her own outfits that are often wildly exotic combinations that oddly enough work. She wears boots most of the time,(like her hero,Jackson Rathbone), and she coordinates them with her choice of stuffie for the day. She GOES hard all day long, and has never been one to take naps, she dances and pirouettes all the damn time and just trying to keep up with her is an exhausting feat.

Her passions are as varied as her moods, though a few have remained consistent over the last few years. She loves to draw,dance,sing, and she LOVES the 100 Monkeys and Jackson Rathbone. She knew the music before the knew of the guy and the first song she ever really started singing was,'Keep Awake", unfortunately she decided to sing it in her kindergarten class and that is how the principal and I got to be on a first name basis. She cut me quite a bit of slack because she knew that I was doing the best I could as a parent, considering I was on my own with my kids, dealing with PTSD due to years of Domestic Violence, and then not one but 2 cancer scares that hit me, the loss of 3 close friends within 6 months, a winter where we got 12 feet of snow, my oldest son being in Texas, and just a huge shit storm of horrors that made life misery, and the 100 Monkeys were our sunshine, that is what Stevie called them,"Our Sunshine" because in the dark, sad, hard, days when we didnt have enough money for food, and I was soo damn sick I couldn't move, we had their goofy music to cheer us up and make us smile and to keep us moving forward. Soo, we had a family meeting the other day and we were discussing just random wants, needs, and hopes for the next few months and I mentioned that after I get financially a little better off, I am going to get another tattoo, and while I had a design in mind, it was decided that we are not going to keep reliving the dark and the past, we are here and happy and moving forward and our days are now filled with music and even though its known for being overcast and rainy up here, we have sunshine and light for the first time in over a decade, and in fact my son telling me that he has never seen me smile so much in his whole life, has really affected me, and I am trying to make sure I focus on things that are positive and happy every day, so my new tattoo that is going on my left forearm to cover up some scars is not going to be,"Memento Mori" with a bunch of other symbolic stuff, Oh Nooooo, its going to be what my enamored and artistic daughter suggested; a band of sock monkeys, all with distinct characteristics, and backed by a bright orange sun. I started sketching it out last night, based off some pictures from the concert we attended.Stevie has her own take on the idea, but it wont fit on my arm and my back is already tatted up with dark stuff and the scars on my neck are going to remain as a reminder that even in the sunshine sometimes the shade creeps in.

Dear Roger;A Few Small Repairs

I think we have found a cure for what ailed me. Though I am not foolish enough to believe that all my problems have been magically fixed, I do know that I am doing a hell of a lot better up here than I was doing back in Arizona. Its been almost a month and I have not had a migraine. No familiar smell and taste of blood, no loss of vision in my right eye, no shooting pain in the side of my head that comes in flashes over and over and makes me feel as is I am being repeatedly shot in the side of the head with a shotgun loaded with rocksalt until I puke my guts out. I am sleeping better, in fact, I am willing to bet I am averaging around 5-7 hours a night! That is about a Gosh damned record for me for the last 10 years! I have been able to be in crowds and even approach an speak to men I dont know! Yeah, he was about as threatening as a puppy, but still it was a crowd situation, he was a stranger to me, and I had my child with me, all situations that would have left me a stuttering,twitching mess a few weeks ago, but I didn't to any of those things! I was able to be polite and speak clearly and normally and not fall apart!Chance commented on that after we got home that instead of being tense and stressed that a strange guy had touched my arm, I was actually happy, and that I had a grin on my face for almost the entire day. He even said he could not remember me smiling so much...ever. That is really sad, my son doesn't remember me smiling much, but I am working on changing that and its a lot easier up here. I am still a little wary at times, and I have had some twitchy episodes, but that is usually after I have had to either deal with something ex related or Chance and I have been bickering or just some extreme amount of stress has descended upon me. Counseling for my PTSD needs to be restarted and I need to find some kind of structured physical outlet for myself so I can build an appetite, because my weight loss is worrisome and I cannot afford to buy clothes to accommodate my shrinking frame if I get much smaller. I got down to 101 again and I know I have not been eating properly since we got up here, but getting distracted up here is really easy and I forget to eat and when I lose track of time its really easy to miss meals. The kids seem to be doing good and Stevie is the happiest out of the bunch, though she is pretty spoiled at times, and I take full blame for that one. My guilt over her living in such a dysfunctional and destructive environment for her whole life is not fair to such a sweet girl, and she has the explosive temper of someone who has seen too much. She got made at me yesterday because she wanted to go to another 100 Monkeys concert,"Right NOW!" I told her that they weren't in Portland and she wanted to know where they were and I said that I really didn't have any idea, that I wasn't their keeper and they were big boys that had lives to lead, so they could be anywhere. She said, "When will they be back,I want to see them again!" Soo, I got online and I looked around until I got a list of tour dates and ball-parking it I told her they might be back in around 6 months or so and that they were in California. "We need to go to California then, I want to see them again." I told her that it was 11 o'clock at night, it was past her bed time, she was too young to be a band following groupie and I was too old and that if she was a good girl and stayed out of trouble in school and quit biting her brother, when they came back we would get tickets and go see them again,without Chance. "I WANNA GO NOW!!!" I remained patient with her because I knew she was past tired, and I broke out a map and I showed her where they were vs where we are and then I told her that I would put her cd and that I would get her a t-shirt, but that she needed to go to bed, and then we got to the gist of the issue,"Mom, I miss Conner and Cole and Fergus, I wish they could have gone with us to the concert." Yeah, honey...me too, though I think Fergus might not have enjoyed it as much as we did. I finally got her to go to bed and she settled down and was out in a few minutes, but I realized that she has said a few times that she misses her brothers and our dog, but never her father and that when he calls she always quickly asks to speak with her brothers or the Fergus. Nobody wants to talk to him, he is such a hateful ass and our lives up here are so much happier without him. I think I may end up gaining an inch or two in height because I dont slouch or cringe near as much as I used to, I do know that my smile has returned and hopefully it will stick around.