Dear Roger;My Sister Claims I Am Adopted, Someday I Wonder

My sister and I are about as opposite as two siblings can possibly be. I dont know if its because she spent so much time with granny and pa and I spent so much time with you and grandma and grandpa, but she grew up being quite the typical Texas fru fru girly girl with the big hair and the make up and perfectly done nails and all the fancy dress, and I grew up wearing jeans and boots with short hair, always mucking about with guns and vehicles and fighting with boys and hanging out doing things that she wouldn't because she might get dirty or muss her hair. We weren't close as kids, in fact we fought like cats and dogs, to the point of broken bones,(3 ribs for her and a finger when she tried to push me onto a water moccasin), so we stayed away from each other as much as possible. She never played sports like I did, and she damn sure made fun of me for being the only girl playing soccer in our town. She was my parents favorite,I knew it because my mom said it one day when we were waiting for a rodeo event I was riding in was about to begin and she was debating weather or not my sis was going to go out for Rodeo queen, mom made no bones about the fact that she thought sis was the prettiest, but she thought I was the smartest,(any wonder Im more than just a little fucked up?) well anyway, we survived that mental fuckery to grow up and endure some pretty horrible events that drew us together .

Either way, we have developed a much better relationship as we have gotten older and we are protective of each other, talking about things in our pasts that no one else knows and that we have to deal with somehow. She teases me to keep things light, and she gets away with harassing me over things that no one else could, including my lack of a social or sex life, and she enjoys rubbing the fact that she married Mr. Perfect/Superman, in my face. I am actually very happy for her, because she is the perfect example of someone who kissed a lot of toads to find her Prince Charming, and he is a rare gem that she treasures and protects unlike I have ever seen her protect in her life. He is her 3rd and final, and I have to say, I wish like hell he had a brother! A man that would marry a woman who had been through an abusive relationship, who had 4 kids, no money, no prospects, and who was skittish as hell, yet he went for it? Siiiiiiighhhh!And hes a good looking, hard working, honest, funny and kind to all the kids and relatives, MAN.

SO, since my sis seems to be an expert on situating hard cases with decent relationships, she has decided to try and help me, though I think shes at a bit of a disadvantage because we are around 1800 miles apart, and I am very set in my ways.She calls me and nags at me about how I am dressing each day. My sis is one of those who gets up each day, turns on her curling iron, and then goes and makes her coffee. I dont own a curling iron. I dont own a hair dryer,make up, heels,or anything like that. I own one dress that I bought from a Russian woman at a yard sale for $2.00, because I thought its kinda cool to have a little black slut dress around just in case. I dont have any heels because I have actually hurt myself wearing heels, meaning I have cracked an ankle and twisted my knee before. I wear boots, or if I am being lazy I have a pair of chucks that I slip on. I have a pair of Adidas running shoes for my heavy training , but beyond that its all boots all the time. I dont even know how to put make up on, seriously, my mom never taught me. My sis was taught by my cousins Rose and Rob, so she is a bit of an expert, but my hair was kept short, and I was a bit of a hassle due to my soccer and baseball and all that, so my mom kept my hair chopped off and didn't bother with teaching me anything like makeup, the one time she used a curling iron on me, she burned the top of ear to hell and gone, so I refused to ever let her near me with it again. I was written off as as a hopeless case when it came to getting me into a dress when I went to my Senior prom in jeans with my camera to shoot pictures for the school paper, (I had gone as a Jr and left early to go get drunk and make out with my boyfriend on an oil lease, thus ditching my dress asap), embarrassing my family and leaving lingering questions regarding my sexual preferences forevermore in the minds of more than a few of the staff at the High School, as if they didn't already have more than a few questions because of my Mohawk, Docs and love of punk rock and muscle cars and propensity for hanging out with boys. What people didn't seem to realize that hanging out with boys should have been proof enough, but oh well.

Soo, my sis and my friend Sus have been on a mission to try to make me more girly and appealing to men. My sis calls and asked me yesterday what I was wearing, because she believes that you ought to be dressed and prepared at all times for the man of your dreams to come knocking at your door," Soo what do you have on ?" uhhh, my fire dept sweat shirt, my cargo shorts, chucks. "Gag!, that rotten old sweater that you have fixed a dozen times and those shorts that hang off your ass?" yeah..."Is your hair at least done?" depends on what you mean by done, I washed it this morning and ran my fingers through it a couple of times. " Are you wearing any jewelry?" well, just my typical stuff...I have a collar on my ankle, got my new Spencer Bell Memorial band on my wrist along with a cuff. " Did you quit wearing the handcuff necklace, you know that really sent off a weird message to guys?", I miss my handcuff necklace, and I think it sent off a perfectly apt message about exactly what I am about to guys. "OH JESUS, I dont really want to know! But its gone, right?" yeah, I left it along with a lot of my other stuff in Arizona. "Okay, what about earrings or stuff like that, do you have anything that doesn't look like you are into bondage?"( I dont answer),"Okay im gonna take that as a "NO", so here is what you need to do, take Chance with you, go to Target or something and have him pick you out some ear rings and maybe a necklace or two." I dont have any money for that foolishness. "Do you have any clothes that aren't black, brown, red, white, or jeans or do you even own a dress right now?" I told her about the slut dress, but that I left my stockings, and garters in Arizona and that I dont have any heels, so she just made sounds like she was trying not to laugh or throw up. "Do I even want to know what you were doing with garters and stocking?" they went with the corset. "Corset?...OH.My.GOD., We need to get together and have a tequila talk party dont we?" well, I left all that in Arizona, so perhaps after my ex finds it and the rest of the stash, there will be something to talk about."You left it?!" yeah, gotta give the guy something to eat his heart out over, the bastard is gonna wonder about what was going on for those two years for the rest of his life once he finds those. "Soo, back to the task at hand, what are we going to do about you, you arent going to catch a man if you constantly look like you could kick the ass of every male that could possibly be interested in you." I dont do well playing the helpless female, its just not in me to look that way, and whats the point of getting all dressed up to sit around the house? " Well what if some good looking guy you have been twittering at shows up at your door?"(my sis is technologically backwards and does not twitter or facebook and has no understanding)No one ever comes by here except my landlord and he is gay, or Sus. Nobody I 'Twitter" with, knows how to find me,im a tweet ninja, and besides, Im a poor white trash scrub in the 'burbs of Portland, and my life is not a romcom. "WOW, you know how to be a buzzkill dont you?" I could tell she was getting frustrated with me at this point, so we started discussing options for my hair which seems to be in a constant state of disarray lately, though its growing like never before. I agreed to not cut it off again in frustration or in mourning,(as long as no one in the family dies again), and she offered some suggestions on how to tame it now that it has oddly found the desire to curl in odd places. I teased her some about becoming a grandma before me and her desire to move to Florida, while I am inhabiting climes further and further North and more and more funky, she just snidely remarked that she is aging gracefully while I have become one of those who seems to desire to forever be the,'Problem child".

Dear Roger; When I Close My Eyes

My life has had some pretty fucked up events occur in it. I have witnessed the worst of the worst when it comes to human behavior. I have seen child abuse,murder,rape,car accidents where body parts were strewn for yards down the interstate, fires where people burned to death. I have handled suicides where the sheer horror of what they did to themselves would make the grimmest minded horror movie director shudder, and I have recovered those bodies and had to make the notification to the family. I have had guns put to my head, a straight razor to my throat and various other places, I have been tortured for the kicks of a sadist who's facial expression never changed as he did the things to me that he did. I have held the hands of people as they died, and I have bagged and then autopsied their remains after finding their bodies that have lain undiscovered for weeks after they ended their own lives. If I allowed myself to close my eyes and think about it, I could replay each and every moment of these events in crystal, clear clarity. But I try not to do that, I push those memories down and I let memories that I treasure come to the surface, and some days those memories are so fresh and so happy, they sustain me through the darkest of times.

I can close my eyes and relive riding with you in that funky brown Pinto down Old Spanish Trail, while you ripped through the gears, reaching 80 mph in a car that shouldn't have gone over 40, and I remember laughing and yelling,"FASTER!!" but I cant remember the sound of your voice, and that breaks my heart. I remember sitting in that cafe with you down near the U of A and we were eating lunch and talking about art and where I was thinking about going to college and you looked tired...I should have known then that time was soo short for us. I remember sitting at the kitchen table in grandmas house and we were looking at some pictures of your art that had been sold a long time ago and some that you were working on, the Gila Monster was just a sketch then and I already loved it. You always inspired me, I remember that and you smelled like spearmint gum and paint.Those memories always make me smile.

I can close my eyes and picture the face of a young man with brown hair and blue eyes and they lean ropey muscles of someone just becoming a man.His dimpled smile and his friendly,open face that never held the look of contempt for me that so many others held. I remember the touch of his hand as he helped me up in gym class one day, the way he looked as he moved while throwing a football and how his brown hair set off his eyes and cheekbones.I remember the way my heart raced and it felt like the world outside the little bubble were in just ceased to exist when he walked into the room. I remember feeling that rush of love and passion and desire with the intensity that only an adolescent heart in the throes of that first, all consuming love can feel.I remember writing his name over and over in my notebook and stealing glances at him in class,hoping for another smile, and the way my heart felt like it just exploded in joy when he would grace me with a casual grin.I remember the white, hot, never-ending,soul destroying, life changing moment when my father so casually announced that he had died in a car accident just down the road from my house. I remember driving past that scene, days later and the scorch marks were still there, for years they were there, I relived it every day...but no one ever knew, because he lived in my memories,perfect and handsome and kind.

My memories of happier times are a little more difficult to come by, but they are there; the memory of a concert hall,filled to over capacity with hormonally challenged teens, all fired up and raging due to the delayed start of the show. Myself and my friends lucky to be front row, center in the crush of sweating, chanting bodies,'OZZY!OZZY!OZZY!" the lights going down and then coming up on stage and the music beginning, so loud that my body vibrated and my heart raced and I yelled and moved seemingly without control, for hours, my friends around me, all dancing and singing and alive.It was a moment in time that lives on forever in my mind, though 3 of my friends are gone.

Another concert, over 20 years later, my children with me and for the first time in 10 years we are safe and free and not worried about being in ,"trouble".Anxious and still worried though, feeling more apprehensive about being out in public, looking around for threats but trying not to be obvious, feeling out of place as a whore in church, but wanting soo desperately to let kids have a good time. Finding the right place, and feeling horrible that we only had $2.38 to buy a single drink and one donut and a bottle of water, but trying to make the best of it, sitting on the bench outside, tired but happy we had made it to the right place and watching as the cars arrived with the band in it. Feeling my daughter tense and jump in excitement beside me on the bench as she sees her hero step out of the truck,she squeezed my hand and her voice squeaked in excitement. Trying to maintain her calm as he walked over to sit on the curb where they were setting up,feeling happy and amazed to be so close to something that has made us so happy through the dark times and feeling lighter and more at peace than I have felt in a decade, all I can feel is my daughters joy radiating all around me, we sit on the curb and embrace the happy as the funky little band of beautiful boys sings songs that we know mostly by heart and we soar along with the music.My memory is sharp of the concert ending and of feeling strong and happy and ready to walk over for the next show, yet...my daughter, she needed more. She wanted to meet her hero, and I knew I had to do it. I remember feeling a quick rush of fear, as I approached him, coupled with embarrassment for wearing that stupid ,"Cougars" shirt that seemed soo funny earlier in the morning when my son suggested it as a joke, and as I approached the young man, I went into cop mode, watching for any micro-gesture or expression change that would suggest irritation or threat or danger to my child, but as I spoke to him, he just smiled and my heart melted. I remember he reached out to her and I didn't flinch,or draw her away, I got my son to take the picture and I remember I thanked the young man copiously for his kindness, and then he thanked me and he reached out and patted me on the shoulder.Patted me on the shoulder...the first time I had had any strange man touch me in over 2 years. I remember my sons gasp as he awaited my reaction, but I didn't, I remember just feeling happy, as if I had been overwhelmed with some weird drug, as we walked away from the show I remember thanking the rest of the band members and one of the other beautiful young men ,Hi 5'ing " my daughter, and I was taken aback by how beautiful his eyes were and how open his smile was, and I remember feeling as if I were drunk on happiness as we made it out of the parking lot on our way to the next show.

That memory is the brightest right now, because my daughter keeps me reliving it, but I have soo many other that help push back the darkness. The memories of playing with Fergus and watching how he slobbered all over my boys and chased them when they would steal his soccer ball. The sounds of Sticky singing along to "Reaper" in the back of the van or in the living room when we did out little concerts. Watching Sticky walk for the first time and hearing him say ,"Mom" clearly for the first time or seeing him walking in line with all his classmates and knowing that he has friends, even though he has Downs Syndrome and some days that makes life hard. Seeing Stubby and him play together on Halo and how their faces look so serious in concentration as they battle and get frustrated with each other . The memories of my boys sustain me right now,because that is all I have of them until things change, but there are soo many of them that they keep me going.

Working on building new memories is not difficult now that we are free. Though soo many of those that I loved are gone,I am working hard to try and get out and meet new people, make new connections and try and break my reclusive habits for the sake of my kids. Chance is constantly on my case about getting out and meeting,"Real people", and he knows I long to make friends that I have things in common with, but I tend to hold back out of fear of seeing them become memories as well. More of my friends are dead than are alive, and that is a hard place to be, perhaps its due to my former career choices, but most of my close compatriots have passed and I am at a loss as to what to do about getting out and meeting new people when I am not sure where to go and how to go about that. Church is not the place for me. God and I had a disagreement with each other when I was 14, and he has held a grudge against me ever since, and due to my stubborn nature, I refuse to be the first to surrender and apologize, so we just maintain a distance. I tried going to church, but when the giant preacher tried to strong arm me into something I was not ready for , it just came time to part ways, so I just use the time on Wednesdays and Sundays when my kids are gone to clean house.

My school has been delayed due to my university not employing anyone to answer phones to let me know if they actually received my paperwork or what my status is or anything else of that nature, so I will be going in Winter instead of Fall, so that cuts off one social opportunity.

The bar scene really isn't my thing, Im not much of a drinker, and I haven't gotten to dance in over 10 years, so I highly suspect that I have forgotten how. Its okay though, we have had laughter and I am sitting here smiling because even as my grumpy older son comes wandering out of his room with his hair all askew, his boxers hanging off his butt even though one of the blinds if open, and he is grumbling at me for having my music too loud, I can remember his laughter as he called me a ,"Nerd" and a,'raging fangirl" last week when I dropped my computer after I got I tweet from an actor that I think simply hung the moon. I remember how my sons face lit up as he teased me and he laughed at my embarrassment. 'Mom, its okay to like a dude, but it would kinda help if it was at least a real dude." and then his laughter as he picked on me for defending the actor as ,"real". These memories push back the horror and the dark and the sad, and they push me to making more bright ones in the hope that maybe, someday I wont see the dark anymore.

Dear Roger; I Got Checked Out! But She Wasn't My Type

We finally got the hell out of the house and ran our errands and did the things we needed to do! It seemed like it took forever for my finances to straighten out, and in the end they were still screwed up, costing me over $200, but at least the ex's past dues got paid again.

I didn't let that get me down though, we got dressed up and we headed out in Sus's car to run the errands we needed to run, and to pick up a few thing s that the kids were gonna need for school. Taking my son clothes shopping is something that is about as much funs as a pelvic exam. We bicker, argue over every decision, and debate every single choice until I am ready to run screaming into the parking lot.I long for the days when he was a cute little ginger haired scamp with ringlet curls and big blue eyes, that were set off so nicely by the darling sweater vests and dockers I dressed him in. I miss being able to dress him up the way I like, I see all sorts of cool fashion ideas that would really set off his best features, but he just scoffs, called them lame or worse and stomps away as if I suggested he wear a dress!Right off the bat he found a display of t-shirts he liked, so he started pawing through them as if he were the one funding the expedition. He emerged with of all things,a Batman shirt, and proclaimed it his hearts desire,he tossed me a t-shirt that was a retro "The Who" concert shirt and said,'Look, a geezer reminder" and then he took off looking at super skinny jeans in bright orange. I ended up hanging onto the Who shirt because it was cool but we argued over the super skinny jeans. I am soo tired of seeing that much of his skinny white ass, even clad in boxers with cartoon characters on them, I am just done and done. We finally compromised on a pair of jeans that weren't quite as tight, and in the normal dark blue, and then he decided he needed a brown leather belt that cost and arm and a leg, so we added that to the stack. As we were prowling through the store, oooing and ahhhing over stuff we couldn't afford, I noticed a woman looking at me, and I knew she was checking me out, but I didn't say anything to my son, I just smiled and kept on shopping, but he is a little more astute about things than I give him credit for because he saw her and as we headed into the mens underwear section, he whispered,"Mom, that chick is totally eyeballing you to death, its freaking me out." I laughed and said yeah, I know...too bad shes not a guy, shes kinda cute. Leaving him speechless for a few minutes was kinda the highpoint of my day.

We went into the underwear section because my son has suddenly decided at age 14, that he no longer wants to wear boxers. He has been a boxers guy since he was 2 years old and threw a walleyed fit when I tried to put him in tighty whities. This all the sudden shift to a different style has me worried, because not only does he want to go to a different style, he wants to go to Calvin Klines,(the really expensive stuff!), that only he and his long suffering laundry doer should be seeing. I started asking him why the sudden shift in desire from boxers with cartoons and such on them, that I can steal and wear as shorts when its hot, to super short boxer briefs that cost over $25 a pair! Who the hell is he trying to impress?He wanted them in colors as well, like red and black! We had quite a conversation about the risks of wearing the wrong underwear and how giggle worthy bikini briefs are deal killers for me, as well as anything silk,(I just start laughing,cant help it, dont know why), and that saggy old tighty whities are also just gross, but boxers are reliable and stable and whimsical and fun, where the ones he wanted just screamed..."Im gonna be doing something that will make my moms hair turn grey", but when I tried to push the topic further, he stuck his fingers in his ears and scurried away towards the shoes. We never did find any football cleats yesterday, and he is actually waffling about playing football now, so I dont know if hes going to follow through and play or not, he seems to be more interested in track and field than football some days, and he is a hell of a runner, even if he does run really weird! The boy keeps his shoulders still, and he doesn't really pump his arms! I have no idea how he was setting track records for the 44o at his school in Texas, but he is shockingly fast and I hate to tell him to change his style, it just looks really funny.

We had a pretty good day yesterday. After we got done shopping, we headed back towards the apartment, listening to the radio and singing along to whatever song came along that we both liked and could agree upon, and when,"Millionaire" came on, we were both belting it out and enjoying ourselves, laughing and just for once, feeling like we enjoyed being together, and as we approached the turnoff to the apartments, he said, "Mom, keep going, lets just drive for a bit and keep doing this, we all need it.", So I drove on down to Powell and decided to see if we could find Powells books.

The drive on Powell was eye-opening! I found out I live in the really white-bread, lame, part of Portland. I wanted to be in the vibrant, culturally mixed, alive, part of the city, but due to the need for good schools and to be near my friend, I decided on Gresham, and its very generic and very Caucasian, Where we drove through yesterday was where I would love to be. I found noodle shops, music stores, Boho little weird bookstores and the people hanging out on the streets looked like people that I would find inspiring for my writing or art. Chance looked around like his eyes could not take things in fast enough.,"Mom! I swear I just saw Harold and Kumar!" I laughed at him but I had to agree as we cruised through some of the more interesting sections.We never found Powells, and due to a missed turn, we ended up in Beverton, but I flipped a uey and we made it back to downtown Portland just as they were filming some new story, and though I didn't recognize any street names, we managed to find the right street to get us back to the bridge, back across into our side of the the city and into Mt Tabor, and Yamhill area. Those are very cool neighborhoods, and I actually ended up in the driveway of one of the biggest houses I have seen since I left Texas,(better street signs would really be nice), but I knew the direction I needed to be headed in so I just kept pointing us that direction, and we eventually found Division again and we made it back to Gresham in plenty of time to unload the stuff before I had to go pick up Sus from work. Chance said he was proud of me," Mom, you never freaked out once, memaw or Susan would have been spazzing and Aunt Trina would have been pissed off and yelling, you were just laughing and looking around,thats really cool." I told him I didn't see the point of freaking out, it was kinda cool to see new places and stuff, we weren't in a war zone, it was adventure and I love adventure.Our biggest issue of the day was our disagreements over music. The boy dissed AC/DC ! He tried to turn down 'Hells Bells" and I almost put him out of the car, and then he whined and moaned over Led Zepplin and The Who as well as Van Halen. We argued over who was the best guitarist ever and he what compromises good music. But he did admit that its nice to have a mom that rocks out vs a mom that doesn't like rock at all, though he does find it a bit disconcerting that I like black metal and am just as likely to have that blasting through my iPod as I am any "Indie weirdness" as he refers to it.

Don't come the cowboy with me

She has to have either been following me around, or she has dated some of the same men as me.

Dear Roger:If My Prince Never Comes,So What? Im Not Settling

Well my writing project seems to be at a bit of a standstill. My muse has fled once again and I cant seem to find the mindset to get back into working on the smut piece that some folks had been nudging me into attempting. I guess I would be more inclined to work on it if I had some raw material to draw from, but its been so damn long since I have had a good trouncing, that I am beginning to forget what that feels like. I haven't even been kissed in so long that I probably would be all awkward and weird about it, like some school girl. My sis and Sus are convinced that I need a makeover, that my lack of the feminine graces is what is putting men off of me, and my son says that its because I look at men like I either want to ,'Eat them, kick their asses, or both" and that is why they scurry away like frightened mice before me.

I dont get where that I am soo scary? I am not a big person! I am quite the opposite, meaning I am short, skinny, pale, and I can get by with children's sized clothes,except in bras...nothing children sized going to work in that department because I do have a chest that men tend to notice first. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, most of my teeth, no facial piercings and I do smile on occasion. I dont growl at people, I try to be friendly, but I do keep my distance. I am literate,not prone to extravagances in either expenditures or liquor. I like some sports,mainly soccer and cage fighting and I have all kinds of skills that could come in handy in a rural situation, such as the ability to hunt down, shoot, skin and cook pretty much anything. I can work cattle and horses, rope, ride,castrate, vaccinate,dehorn, and even trim hooves. My accent only gets strong under stress or anger. I can cook over 6 different ethnic styles and everyone I have ever cooked for has survived and gained weight. I like kids, in fact I have a pack of them, and I have even taught! So what the hell? Why am I so unapproachable? I dont smell bad, I have basic manners and I can and do behave myself,most of the time. I have not picked a fight with a man in months or threatened to kick anyones ass in at least a few weeks, and my glares aren't intentional. But I cannot change who I am this late in the game for someone. I just cant do it. Sus and my sis would cram me into a dress do weird stuff to my hair and nails and put make up on my and expect me to wear heels and go out on some blind date with a church guy/business man with whom I have nothing in common, when all I really want is to find someone who sees me looking at them and has the courage of heart to smile back, walk up and say,"Hey,cool t-shirt! I like that band too, have you been to any shows lately, would you like to go?" Then it would be the start of something with potential.

Dear Roger: Getting the Glitches Worked Out,One Perversion At A Time

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Since I have been sitting here waiting for my knee and shoulder to quit yelling at me for the wreck I put them through, I thought I would spend my time wisely and actually work on learning some things or even writing, but alas, my damn muse fled the scene again, so I was relegated to playing around with the computer and teaching myself how to post links and images and better yet, animated images to web pages!! I have had soo much fun playing around with that, I cant even tell you,(yes, I am a bit of a pervert), but at least I have been entertained and not sitting here dwelling on my knee or shoulder or how broke we are.

I am soo damn glad that this month is almost over! With .52 cents in the account for over the last week, its been pretty fecking grim around here. We are out of bread,cheese, butter, cereal, peanut butter,and pretty much every other damn thing you could think of, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it until Tuesday. No word on a job yet, but I am still looking and the kids start back to school in just under a week so my time will be a lot more open for me to be able to find something without them tagging along. I have been able to keep the kids fed because I stocked up on staples, and I eat very little, in fact I have even skipped days, but I have to be careful about that because if Chance catches on, he gets really angry with me and then he starts trying to skip meals, so last night I cooked some frozen crappy steaks we had been given and I made sure he got a good bellyful of steak and potatoes. Tomorrow things will be looking up and we will walk down to the store for some basics to tide us over until we get to borrow Sus's car.

I am going to be dog sitting this next weekend for Sus while her and my kids go to camp for 4 days. Its some church based thing and I am not going for a few reasons, including crowds making me a bit nervous and all that fun stuff, but I will have money, a car and I will be child-free for the first time in a Looooooog time. I am considering a drive over to Vancouver to check out a few of the nightspots and to just perhaps chase some boys. We will see how things look once our lives get back to normal. Now that my ex cant hit out bank account and drain the funds, life should get a lot better!

I hope the little video I attempted to post works, just dont get too mesmerized, he tends to have that effect on folks.

Dear Roger; I Got Banged, But I Really Didn't Enjoy It

I am glad this weekend is almost over! Pretty sure that I have been cursed with a case of the clumsies, and if I was capable of going out anywhere today, I would be risking life and limb even further than I did yesterday.

We went with Sus and family down to Sweet Home as part of their church based stuff, and I should have gotten a clue what kind of day it was going to be when I realized that not only was it the same day as the Spencer Bell Legacy concert that was going to be live streaming, so I was going to miss most of it including the early 100 Monkey performances, but that my cell phone charger hadn't been plugged in all the way and my phone only had a couple of bars of juice, so if I could get the concert on my phone, it would probably kill it by mid-day. If that wasn't bad enough, then a delivery I was expecting to arrive on Sunday, was actually scheduled for yesterday as well and a bunch of juggling had to be done to get that handled, so it was hassle after hassle and we hadn't even left Gresham!

When Sus came and picked us up, I ended up sitting in the back seat of the Durango and we headed down through Clackamas. Normally a drive like that would not be a problem, but three things were wrong with that little venture, namely; Durango, back seat, Clackamas. The road from Gresham to Clackamas is a twisty, turning, hilly, driving adventure and in a Durango, which can be vomit inducing on a straightaway, its misery. By the time we reached the city limits I was an interesting shade of green and Sus was offering to pull over so I didn't barf in her truck. The boys that were with us were in almost as bad as shape as me, and we ended up having to put down all the windows and she had to slow down on the curves. It was rough!

Soo, we got to Clackamas, picked up a 10 passenger van with seats designed to kill asses, and foolishly letting the boys take the back section of the van, we headed out towards the 5.

During the trip, the boys graciously decided to entertain us with songs from pretty much any weird youtube video you could think of including "A Mysterious Ticking" to the point that I felt I had to retaliate with the Robot Chicken theme, earning the vitriol from all the adults in the van with us.

The trip down was not too bad and I got to see parts of Oregon I haven't seen before, and luckily, other than my sanity being a little impinged upon, I survived intact. We got to the church and I wandered off to look around the grounds, and I found copious amounts of blackberry bushes! Since I normally wear jeans, boots and longer sleeves, I was able to wade right in and pick the bigger, riper ones and pass them back to those who had worn shorts or lighter pants, including Sus and her dad. The boys were roughhousing and stealing berries from each other until they heard Sus's dad say ,"Its a good thing Jen wears boots and all that denim, she can really get up deep into the bush and get the good stuff." Silence fell for about 30 seconds and the implications of what was about to happen flickered across the faces of 3 teen boys,myself, and Sus. Her father is rather oblivious and had no idea the glorious double entendre that he had just given the boys and as I raised an eyebrow at him, (thus resulting in an explosion of hysterical laughter from the boys), he just looked at them and asked,"What? Did somebody get a worm?" I just came back out of the bushes and headed to the van trying not to die laughing each time I looked at her dad for the rest of the day.

We left the church and headed out to just do some touristy stuff and we ended up at a place called,'Green Peter" dam. I have to wonder, were the folks who named stuff up here in Oregon all British? There are more places with names that are giggle worthy up here than anyplace I have ever lived and have to be inspired by all kinds of perversity, you got Couch that is pronounced 'Cooch" and Green Peter? Wouldn't you know, "Green Peter" is where things started to go really wrong for me? We drove across the dam and on reaching the far side, the kids decided to shoot off along the trail, seeing a place to get close to the water, and being after adventure myself, and also being a bit of a worrying mom, I went after them even though I was wearing leather soled cowboy boots. I was doing good until Stevie started getting really close to a sharp drop off over some rocks, and then I was paying more attention to her and not where the hell I was walking, and I managed to step on a part of the embankment that was weak and it gave way, taking my goofy ass down hard, with no warning. I landed on my left elbow and butt cheek, on a rock and my shoulder promptly slipped right the hell out of socket,(it does that every now and then), and then the embankment kept crumbling so I had to dig my right heel in and throw myself back onto my side a little further up the hill and that jammed my left wrist. My sons friend who I call,'Sparky" saw the wreck happen and I could tell he wanted to laugh but he was also a little freaked out. I told him, make sure Stevie doesn't come down here, and you might wanna get back because I may puke when I put my shoulder back in,(I didn't), but it hurt like hell and made me say words that a good little church going boy shouldn't hear. Once it slipped back into place, I assessed the rest of the damage, and I realized that I was pretty wrenched feeling and I was scuffed up, dirty and embarrassed to death, but I was alive and not in the damn cold water, so it was actually a win. I hobbled back to the van, rounding up the kids as we went, and enduring the jokes and comments about the new hole in my favorite dark jeans and the scuffs all over my good boots, including my own sons smart ass comment that if I wasn't wearing boots I probably wouldn't have fallen, to whit I replied, 'No, I probably would a gone in the damn lake because I damn sure cant walk in anything else." I guess I cant walk in boots this weekend either though, because when we got back to town and went to drop off the van, I managed to fall, sideways!, down 5 steps at the front of the church, further twisting the crap outta my knee and wrenching my whole body, so I am feeling all kinds of pain in interesting places. An assessment when I got home revealed a really epic bruise on my butt, a knee that looks like someone took a ball bat to it, a bruised up elbow and shoulder and a left arm that I cannot raise past chest level, so pretty much all I did the rest of the evening was throw myself a pity party.

Did get a bit lucky when I got home, the concert was not totally over and I actually caught the 100 Monkeys last performance and HOLY HELL! It was a scorcher. Chance was sitting out here in the living room, kinda sorta listening to it, and watching from time to time while he talked to his friends online and got things for me. He only listens to me and my stuff with about half an ear most of the time, caught up in his own emo/angsty teen stuff, and he knows most of the song lyrics to the 100 Monkeys songs just because he has heard them soo much since he has been home, but when the song,'Strangers" started up, he turned and looked at me with his jaw just hanging open in shock. The fact that I probably had a similar expression was not lost on him, and when I burst out laughing, he blushed and muttered about the fact that ,"Most normal moms would be freaking out over that kinda song, my moms probably gonna make it her ringtone"(not true) but I did like the raw, directness of the song, and truthfully, it kinda stuck me a lot like seeing a puppy baring its teeth, cute...but you wanna still just roll em over and rub their tummies because you know they are all growl. The song that really got my attention of the night was 'Joygasm". That is the song that is supposed to be their ,made up on the spot, song of the night that the audience gives them the idea for. Young Mr. Rathbone really knows how to work the audience, and he didn't let them down with this song, but what amused me, was the fact the lyrics were kinda wide open for interpretation. I enjoy his showmanship,(the boy moves like water in a hot skillet), and hes brilliant, leaving not only the girls in the audience needing a cold shower, but the boys as well. It was a great show for a good cause, I wish I could have caught more of it, and perhaps next year I will be able to be there in person, unless of course I manage to break my neck falling over air or something.