Sub Plans

Dear Roger;Rest Stop On the Road Trip Of Life

So this has been a bit of a lazy-assed, do nothing, kinda week. I have sat on my butt around the house and just kinda mulled things over and debated the next thing to do. I have done some writing, I have scheduled doctors appointments, I have made other appointments and I did clean house and we get out and got all the laundry done, but as for actually getting out and going wandering around and just site seeing...nope. I am fighting it, I really am, but the desire to become reclusive up here is really kinda starting to win. Not having two dimes to rub together is a big part of it, and I seem to be stuck in kind of a catch 22 situation where I cannot get out and find a job because I dont have a copy of my resume, and I dont have a copy of my resume because I dont have the money to print it off, and a couple of the jobs I have put in for, are out of reach of the public transport, so I am screwed even if I were to get those. Its a bit frustrating, especially when my wonderful ex-husband calls to bitch at me about something or another and to tell me that he has just been given a truck by a friend of his, so he now has 2 vehicles. I asked him about shipping some of my things up here, first and foremost a guitar and maybe my wok or some of my cooking stuff, and he yelled at me...thats right, he. yelled. at. me. No bit surprise there,that was his standard form of communication, but considering I had just helped him find a sitter, and get a new fridge, he could have at least been apologetic and said,"I really cant right now, perhaps in a week or two.", but no, he fucking yelled at me. There are days that I wish Sus had not made that phone call, and while my life would be either over or vastly different, I would have at least gotten the satisfaction of never getting yelled at by him again.

I dont tolerate yelling, it makes me go from mellow and calm to seeing red, in the blink of an eye and I react very strongly. I have even had to shut off movies or leave rooms when someone was yelling at another person. Its not to say that I dont raise my voice,I do, but its very rare, and what I tend to do is speak forcefully and in a way that lets the person know that I am not fucking around, or as Chance calls it,"Going into cop mode" and I used to do it when I would first walk into a High School classroom. I got that out of the way the first few minutes, let them see that I was a little bit dominant, maybe a little crazy, and that I wasn't scared, and then I would break the ice and get down to teaching. The one time I did break out the full-on, in someones face, yelling, drill Sergent, im going to end you right now, kinda presence at school was when some vato wanna be gang banger tried to front me and he made a gesture like he was pointing a gun at me, but what he did not expect was that I would get all up in his face and toe to toe with him, ready to throw down over it. The teacher in me left the building and the cop arrived code 3. I speak passable Spanish, understand waay more than I let on, and he found out that I can enunciate very clearly at a yell., but I dont like yelling. I prefer the up close and deadly sounding whisper, but in a welding shop that would have been hard to hear.

My son thinks I am an easy read when it comes to body language, and he really couldn't be more wrong. I have trained myself over the years to broadcast the opposite of what I am feeling. This brought up an interesting conversation with him the other day over,"tells" and having a ,'poker face". I took his computer away from him because he was spending way to much time in his room listening to emo music, being an all around grump and because his attitude had gone to that of an entitled shit. We both have our problems, and we have been trying to work through some of them, and with his hormones added to the mix, the computer was the distraction he didnt need to shut me out of any conversation, so I took it, changed the administrator password and told him he was restricted to using it only at the kitchen table when I said, and only for the amount of time I said. So now, I have to log him on and off each time, which he hates, and we hang out together while he is on,which he also hates. He jokingly said that he was going to hack the password, and I told him that he would never figure it out so that he might as well not even waste his time trying , which of course is exactly what he spent his first allotment of time trying to do. He thinks that when I smile or laugh, that I am lying, and what he didnt realize it that it actually was cracking me up to hear how his brain was working as he was trying to puzzle out what I would use as a password!

When I was in law enforcement, I worked in narcotics for awhile. I did undercover, narcotics investigations and I deceived people. I led people to believe that I wanted to buy drugs from them. I led people to believe I was something I was not, and I was good at it. In my classes I studied criminals and psychopaths for the last 15 years and I examined the reasoning and methodology behind their behaviors. I studied microgestures and expressions and I learned how to read people, and I got really damn good at it after the last mistake I made with my ex, and perhaps that is why I am soo cautious about approaching or getting involved with another man, but reading people is something that I work on and I practice on a daily basis, as well as carefully presenting what I want read off of me. When I am out with my kids, I present a,"Do not fuck with me" presence in places that I feel that there might be a risk, because I am protective of my kids, and when I do relax and let the more open and friendly me come out, its still really hard to not watch the reactions of the people around me for rejection and then take that to heart.Its a vicious cycle.

My son kept up his guessing game for quite awhile and got pretty frustrated with the lack of success. I told him that he had to take into account all the different combinations of letter and numbers that meant things to me, as well as word phrases and names, and even symbols, that in 41 years of living, I had acquired a vast amount of knowledge, including phrases in other languages, like Latin, and that he could guess for weeks and never even come close. 'But you smiled when I said that last one mom!"Yeah, son, I thought it kinda funny that you think I would use something a 12 y/o teeny bopper would use as a password, I might think that boy is cute, but as a security device, please, give me credit." He never did get it, never even got close, and his frustration gave way to him trying to negotiate more time with me which led to me actually being able to negotiate things outta him like a cleaned up room for the first time in weeks, so I am going to guard that password with my life.

He starts school in a couple of weeks, and I am so damn happy that he is getting back into a routine, the only thing that is stressing me is that he needs pretty damn near everything. He is growing like a weed and he is so hard on his clothes that they look like rags that even a hobo would reject, including his never pairs of jeans. though he swears that, that is the,'look'. He insists he just needs another pair of chucks and maybe a couple pairs of jeans and a rock t-shirt or two, and socks..God, that boy and socks...lets not even go there, though I still dont freaking understand just what the hell happens to his socks? Is there is sock gremlin that comes in and eats them or pisses on them or just does really foul stuff to them in the middle of the night? I find them in the weirdest places, and often in pieces and I have reached the point that I dont touch them anymore, I kinda treat them like a dog or a cat turd and I pick them up with either a paper towel or a plastic bag and I put them in the trash. He just rolls his eyes at me and claims that I am weird, but let me tell you, I am pretty sure he is the weird one around here.

Sus felt sorry for him since I banned him from using my razor. He had actually started sprouting a pretty decent beard except for two patches right on either side of his chin that looked a bit moth eaten and his distress at the fact he had more facial hair than her husband was making Sus feel bad. She asked my permission, and after receiving permission from me, and assurance that the only thing he would shave with it would be his face, she bought him his own electric razor. He washed their cars for them and did some work around their house for them to pay her back and I know he appreciated it beyond all reason. His skin is really clearing up and its so weird to see the difference between him and the boys he hangs out with at church. he is actually even younger than two of them, but he is bigger, has better muscles and way more hair and just looks more mature. Keeping the older girls away from him has become a bit of a stress, and I am afraid its just going to get worse after school starts, luckily one of the girls that has really set her sights for him lives in Vancouver, and her car is in the shop so she cant get here to try and see him, (as if I would let my son go in a car with some 18 year old girl!)and when school starts he will be too busy. I never thought I would have to worry about my sons virtue, and though there are times I wonder which side he butters his bread on, I do worry, and I dont want him getting involved in anything that he isn't prepared to deal with.

Our cat has been a welcome distraction this week. He is a cute little thing, and though he bites the hell out of my feet and whatever else he happens to be near, he makes up for it by just providing amusement and happiness. I apparently lost out on the name bid and he is no longer,"Daniel", my son and daughter now just call him,"Jasper" and I laugh at my son when I give him the raised eyebrow and he says,'Shut it,mom! thats not funny!" He carries the kitten around cuddled up to his chest or hold it in his lap when he is sitting down, and I noticed that he seems calmer and more at peace with he has it, and he is protective of the little thing, so perhaps it was just the right name for just the right calming influence for all of us.

Mumford & Sons - Winter Winds

Dear Roger: Its a Fly By The Seat Of Your Pants Kinda Life

Its been a busy few days around here. I had to deal with another eyeball melting migraine that left me feeling so crappy that I really just wanted to hide in my room for a couple of days, but since I have never been allowed that luxury, I just had to keep pushing on through and trying to deal as best I could while I lost my ability to see green and red fonts,(the latest and weirdest side effect) and the tinnitus pretty much drowned out everything else. I finally got off my ass and found a new doctor and with that comes a procedure that is kinda like going on a blind date/job interview for a job you dont really want.

I have spent the past couple of days filling out the medical history and let me tell you, seeing it all on paper is like...whooo..wow...im fucked up. Between rolling my truck down the 1-40, all the crap I got into as a cop and a firefighter, and pissing off men that were waay bigger than me for too many years, my body is a road map for 40 miles of bad road. The bright side is that I dont have anything like heart disease or communicable stuff and I am very cognizant of my health so I work on maintaining a healthy lifestyle other than I may smoke a little, but considering all the other shit I could be into, one or two cigs in a day is not gonna seal the deal for me. I am hoping the new doctor doesnt want to go poking around in my spine or my brain. The last time weird stuff started happening, the doctors decided that on top of all the mris' and ct's and eegs and all tests, they needed to stick needles into my spine and not only withdraw some fluid for testing, they injected stuff to deaden the nerves in my lower back to stop the pain. I did not know my heart could beat that damn fast! Because yes, I was awake as 4 sets of needles were directed into each side of my spine in the middle off my back and the stuff was injected. One wrong move and I would have been fubar, and being helpless is not something I could handle. The thought of going through that kinda crap again is a bit unnerving.

Soo, we got a cat yesterday. We had been debating it for a while, and though I wanted to go and get Fergus with all my heart, I know I could not take him away from my boys. They need him and he needs his space. Soo, I bowed to the the desires of Chance and Stevie and I got a cat. We looked at cats at the shelter, we looked at cats on CL and we looked at cats in the paper. I found a woman,(Russian) who had a a few kittens whos feral mother had abandoned them and because she was caring for a disabled husband, she needed them gone asap, so we went over and looked. The father was a Bengal, and she said the mom was an extremely tiny fluffy looking cat. She brought out 4 kittens crammed into a shoe box and the poor things were shaking and terrified, except for one.His head popped up right away and he was yelling and looking around and bellyaching about everything. He has really interesting markings on him and in fact the pattern on his head looks like a small skull. he has green eyes and 4 white feet and he is quite the griper. All the way home he sunk his claws into my boobs and yelled in my ears, and once we got here, he didn't want anyone out of his sight. There has been some disagreement over his name, and though Stevie and I had agreed on Daniel, Chance called and audible and said that the the name just "doesn't fit".He went into this long dissertation about,"Jeeze mom!,With all of Stevie's Twilight stuff, the one time we have something where the name Jasper would fit because hes small, blonde and bites like a freaking piranha, and you are gonna call him Daniel?I mean, what the hell?"I gave him the raised eyebrow and asked,'YOU,You, want to name the cat Jasper?!" Im more than a little confused at this point because he is always the one flipping me and Stevie crap over being fangirls, " Well, even Susan thinks it fits" he muttered at me, that comment really raised my eyebrows, "Wait a minute, SUSAN? my "convinced that its a sin to pretty much even mention the word Twilight, friend,wants to name the cat Jasper too?!" Im picking up my cell phone at this point getting ready to out my friend as a closet twihard. "MOM! The name Daniel just does not fit the cat." By this time Stevie is starting to cave and she is sitting next to her brother who has the kitty cuddled up to his once again bare chest, as she reaches over to pet it, the cat turns and sinks its needle sharp teeth into one of Chances nips and then begins raking its little claws across his chest as it tries to escape my daughter. Chance squeaked and his eyes began to water in pain as he gently tried to make the kitten let loose,"Ahh, I see...how about Jasper Daniel?" I said, and dont you think you should wear a shirt until he gets a little less likely to use you as a scratching post?

The cat did good last night. I got up this morning to find him asleep on Chances chest in the middle of the living room floor, and I found that he had actually used his litter box, so i guess he will get to stay. My son has always been good with animals, and he has always been a bit of a cat person, so maybe this tiny little critter will help him like Fergus helped me, and naming it gives him a bit of a sense of responsibility for it as well. We will go in the next week or so and get it some toys and goodies and I will get him fixed as soon as he is old enough to cut down on all kinds of hassles.

Next week I get to register both kids for school!!! Uh, YEAH!!! hell YEAH!! Chance will be in high school and though he has missed the start of football camp, he is still able to be in football if he wants to, so I have been pricing the needed equipment and its freaking me the hell out! The boy is in a growth spurt, and that is a huge problem because he seems to shoot up over night. His shoes are now tight on him which means that he now needs either a 12.5 or a 13. Holy Monkey... a size THIRTEEN shoe? I dated a guy who wore a size 13, but he was over 6'4 and in his 30's, not a 14 year old. While we were wandering around looking at shoes and stuff, Sus and I came across a size 18 tennis shoe! We were both momentarily floored by the implications of such a beast...,"Could you imagine, if the old wives tales were true?" Sus whispered. I picked up the shoe and told her that I needed to go find my "Cinderfella", a little louder than I should have because the clerk in that department overheard me and he turned a bit pink around the ears...im guessing he wasn't a fit. I tend to believe its more related to hand size anyway, thats why I kinda have a thing with those guitarist hands...anyhoo, its gonna be expensive as hell to outfit the boy for sports this year! Between football, track, baseball, and whatever else he decided to get into, I have a feeling its gonna be a daunting prospect.

Im still trying to get a guitar for us. I have decided to try and trade my jewelry for one and though my jewelry is one of a kind stuff and most of it I have had for a few years,its kinda a niche market, so I may not have a lot of luck at it, but I have a barter ad up on CL and I am at least trying. Chance got to play a $5000 Gibson the other day and he about lost his freaking mind. That was hands down the most expensive thing he has ever been allowed to play by far, and he really liked it quite a bit, and now he has heard the difference between a cheap 100 off brand and the real deal and its killing his soul. Kinda like what happened to me when I got to play the Dobro. The good news is that job prospects are starting to look up and because of all of my glitches, I will get a little extra help in my job hunt. As for school, its still the great unknown. I cant get anyone at NAU to return calls or answer the phone, and until next month, I cant pay the fee at Reed, so I am stuck until the Winter term, but its no big deal either way, because with the writing I have been doing, I really dont need some school program mucking it up with a bunch of busy work.

It finally cooled off up here and I am glad! Its been hotter than balls up here and we have all been extra crabby, so hopefully now that Portland is back to its typically mid-seventies kinda days, we will mellow the hell out a little and maybe I will quit feeling like a salamander stuck in mid-shed.

The video I finally figured out how to post on my site is of a band that I just recently found out about,(yeah, I do live under a fecking rock) and its yet another case of love at first listen. The really are another talented bunch of guys and I have had their stuff on pretty much constant rotation since I found them. When I figure out how to build a play list, or when I bribe Chance into doing it for me, I will put up a list of my favorite 100 Monkeys,Avette,and Mumford and Sons stuff along with the Barnstormers and Cage the Elephant. If you dont know who any of those bands are, check them out, they are pretty damn good. I wanted to go see MAS in concert up here in October, but apparently they are pretty damn popular and they are sold out, but I am scouring CL to see if I can get lucky, and yeah, I know they appeal to a certain element,and I dont give a rats ass, if you haven't read my previous blogs and aren't aware of my feelings on the matter, then you need to educate yourself. Love is love is love, and hurt and pain are hurt and pain, doesn't matter what what type of boots your love happens to wear, they all go on the same way.

Mumford and Sons - Liar

Dear Roger: Somedays It Just Sucks To Be

I seem to excel at getting on my sons shit list this week. No matter what I do, its wrong, no matter how hard I try, it isn't enough, and just when I think all is going smooth, he rockets off into either rage, or he turns into Captain Emo. This parenting shit is hard and if I wasn't a stubborn ass Texan, I would have said,"fuck it" and just thrown in the towel and put my boots on and walked a long time ago.

I have tried reasoning with him, but I have discovered that like most men, you cannot reason with him. He has a one track mind and his mind right now seems to fixate on a few topics and he just cannot see anything past those things. The first fixation of his is that he is majorly pissed that we are poor. I cant freaking help that right now. I am trying, but its not my fault hes not some spoiled ass trust fund baby, my dads side of the family blew the money long before he was born, and then my dad took what was supposed to be my inheritance and blew it, so we are screwed, blued and tattooed when it comes to money. Im disabled, as in fucked up, not supposed to work, as in many days cant work. I get headaches that partially blind and cripple me and I injuries that just really dont make life very fun most days, so even though I really do try to work, and I have held some jobs, its really hard to find the perfect fit. His biological father has never contributed a single dime to his support, ever.Though he came from money, and was a successful person in a few fields including acting, he only contributed his biological material and a death threat, and even though my son has been asking if he could reach out to him and see if he would be willing to meet him, the thought of that scares the hell out of me. My son has been pushing the issue lately and I am more than a little afraid he is going to try and find him via the internet, though my searches have revealed that he keeps a pretty tight layer of security around himself and he would probably only be contactable though a formal agency, such as a lawyer or the state.I do still have the number for his parents place in Santa Monica, and it still shows up as a valid number, but even though my son is a physically large young man, and strong, emotionally being rejected or even threatened by someone that looks just like him could be devastating.

My sons next obsession is his body and all the changes he is going through and talk about a land mine of a subject! He runs around without a shirt on most of the time and one of his buddies commented that he must be "less evolved"than the rest of them! Okay, I did not kick the kids ass, but I did say that no, it was just that my son was maturing faster. Hes already got a six pack,and hes a bit fuzzy and its driving him insane. I want to know when in the hell it became the style for men to get harassed for looking like men? So what if he has the beginnings of a beard and mustache and chest hair at 14? My God, he is a BOY! They were supposed to be hairy the last time I was around guys, but for some reason he is convinced he is supposed to be smooth and hairless like some chick! He obsesses over it and when my very expensive, fancy assed razor kept either disappearing or turning up out of place with weird hairs caught in it, I knew something was up in the weird department. He hardly ever wears shorts because he was sensitive about his legs looking,'all muscle y and weird and hairy" but the heat wave we have had broke him and he came out of his room in his boxers to Al Bundy it up in the living room one day and the boy looked like he had been attacked by rabid ants and there was not a hair to be seen anywhere on his legs,or chest! I was speechless for a good long while and I just kinda stared at him a bit before I said, 'Ill just bet that razor burn is a real bitch in this heat with all the sweat running into it." That was shortly before we had the whole,'gay" discussion. I started hiding my razor after that because the damn blades are expensive as hell and he dulls the heck out them with all the manscaping, and I have tried to reassure him that men are supposed to be fuzzy, and THANK GOD, some of the actors in hollyweird and some of the young rock stars are starting to look like men again, but still...geeze, its all the mixed signals that leave me feeling like im back on the pogo stick in the minefield with the screamo going again.

When I call my mom or even my sister for guidance, they just laugh at me and wish me luck, but I really wish you were still around, or that I had some young guy that I could call for advice on what the hell to do for him. He has been so abused and jerked around by the men in his life that he has no idea how a normal man is supposed to act, he knows how an abuser and an alcoholic acts, and he knows how to abandon people, but he has only gotten to spend maybe a grand total of a few months around normal, well-functioning, successful men, and that scares the hell out of me. Without a grandfather or an uncle close by or even good, close friends, he is floundering and so am I.

I have taken some steps to try and let him know that I am trying. I am working on getting him a guitar.I dont have much, but what I do have I will sell in order to get him one, because I know he misses his music, and that was one thing that was a positive in his life, and the fact that my ex wont send his guitars up here pisses me off to no end, but I cannot focus on yet another loser male in our lives, I have to work on fixing the one that still has potential, even if he resents the hell out of me for trying.

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.