Dear Roger;The Cat in The Cradle

My son. I swear there are days that he seems to go out of his way to try and see if he can make me totally insane. He is flunking English! can you believe that Rog? English! His native language! Not because he cant do the work, after all, he is in AP English and he WAS doing fantastic until the stupid prep school offered him a chance to go there and then retracted it when they discovered he would be ineligible to play sports for them until next year, but nooo! He is flunking English because he doesn't like the teacher and thus refuses to do the work! He tells me,"The guy is a jerk and he plays favorites. I dont like him and I dont have to put up with that!" I mean, who the hell says that at 15? He is doing great in French, and his other classes, and he got a recruitment letter from the track and field department pretty much begging him to come run for them, but flunking English because he,'Doesn't like the teacher?" What the hell?

I know what you are thinking Rog, that is soo not funny! Yeah, I might have had a bit of an attitude when I was in school. Yeah, I might have gotten out of running cross country by telling the Asst. Principal that I only signed up due to,'Temporary Insanity", but my son is such a hard headed kid, I swear he is waay worse than I ever was!

I dont care that my family insists that the,'Great Artistic bonfire" of '91 was very much the same kind of behavior. That was just my way of insuring that my art didn't get in the hands of people who didn't appreciate it, really! It wasn't because I was in a fit of pique over some pissing contest I had with my parents over schooling. He does things that just make no damn sense at times. My rebellions always had a purpose, and even if my father threatened me with New Mexico Military Institute more than I care to think about, I like to think that I stood up for what was important. I tried threatening my son with military school and he called my bluff. 'Please send me to boarding school! Please!! (he conveniently forgot I was talking MILITARY school), noo, he promptly started showing me all the websites for schools for the arts and such that I could never hope to afford and then he turned it into a guilt trip on me because I cant afford to send him to places like that. I was left sitting her thinking,'What the hell happened?"

I do blame myself for his negotiation and arguing skills. After all, when he was younger and got into trouble, I would hold a trial and allow him to present evidence in his defense and sometimes even allow him to broker a plea deal for a lighter sentence, so that has really come back to bite me in the ass.He will argue and negotiate and try to turn things back on me until I am literally just out of argument. Part of the blessing and the curse of having super intelligent kids like him is that you never get a moment to rest. I am always having to work to stay one step ahead of him, and watch what I say, because he picks up on things that I often wish he would just have missed, such as the "Tire iron" comment I made by accident.

We were watching some program together and he asked me what a tire iron was for. Being a bit distracted, I said,"Busting knee caps or removing lug nuts." He looked at me and said, "So how would you know they are good for busting knee caps?" And before you ask, nooo, I didn't think to say, I saw it on tv, he knows that I often make fun of fights and stuff we see on movies and on tv as what sissy boys imagine a real fight is like. He must have harassed me for an hour before he finally gave up and said he would just call my sis. This is soo not a good thing! I know my sis will dime me off about my younger and wilder days in Dallas. She considers it payback for sending her kids musical instruments for Christmas that one year.

He is quite the temperamental artist as well. He spends hours playing his guitar and working out the chords and notes for songs,and if you dare disturb him, he throws a bitchface that would do any teen girl proud. I know I was the same way when I was working on my photography and art, but often in photography, if someone disturbed you, it meant that you lost the shot! He can just go back and try the chords again on the guitar.

He harasses me about how I dress and such, but I catch him swiping my clothes all the damn time. the little bit of jewelry I have has been pretty much commandeered by him, and I often see him headed out for an afternoon out, wearing more bling than a rapper! I stopped him the other day and told him he looked 'Douchey" for wearing 4 necklaces and around 6 bracelets as well as a t-shirt that had died back when he was a baby,and one of my hats. He called me a hypocrite! We got into a big debate over whether or not it was hypocritical for me to call my son a douche when the young rock star I find soo interesting often wears as much or more bling and odd clothing. Trying to explain the difference to a kid that is standing there, looking like he had finally bested me in an argument was funny, and a bit disconcerting. I finally ended the discussion with,"I aint that boys momma, and I dont have veto power over his choices, I do over yours!" Yeah, it was a lame way to go, but Rog, I swear!

We have the ongoing arguments over his hair that just wear me the hell down. He blames me for his dark, curly hair that is so thick you cant see his scalp most of the time. That is truly not my fault. I am a blonde! He seems to forget that. I offer suggestions about letting his hair just grow out and he then chooses to get it all buzzed off. I suggest a hair cut and he of course wants to let it grow. I tried to talk him out of attempting to go blonde that one time, and he wouldn't listen to me, so when it went orange I did indeed laugh at him, a lot. But that was deserved, much like how much I got laughed at and teased when I colored my hair red. He seems to have to just find things out the hard way. Told him not to pierce his ears, and he begged and pleaded and harassed me about it until I finally gave in and let him get it done and of course he hardly ever wears earrings now. He talked about getting his tongue pierced until I threatened to explain just WHY people tend to get that done. I can still stop pretty much any argument by threating to explain the sexual implications of many of the things he wants to do.

He is soo competitive about everything. He has been looking up stats on the runners from last year for his school and and he has already started training even though the season isn't for a few more weeks. He thinks he is fat, even though he has dropped back into a size 29 waisted jeans and he has a six pack! He challenges me to run against him, which is really not fair because of my bad knee, but I guess that he just has to try and prove that he can outdo me at something. He knows I can still take him down and felony flop him, and that really freaks him out. He wants me to teach him how I do stuff like that when I only got ahold of one of his thumbs, but I swear, I need to keep my edge somehow, because the boy is driven to prove he is better at everything for some reason. He has said he intends to get famous and then hunt up his biological father and spit in his eye, even though I have tried to tell him that its not worth it. I tell him that he should get famous because he wants to, not because he thinks he has to prove something to someone that gave nothing to his life except some genes. I would rather he went to college and got an engineering degree or something practical so that he could make a steady living and be comfortable, but he his chasing something that he will probably get, because for as strange and difficult as he is, he is also determined and driven, and I like to think that maybe he got that from me and I will blame all the weirdness and difficult temperament on his father.

Dear Roger: Contemplation Of,"What Ifs"

Well, like I had figured, a bridge that is burned and allowed to turn to ashes, tends to stay burned. I have not heard from him. Not an email telling me to go to hell, not a phone call, not a text, nothing. I really fucked it up this time. Much like the tattoo of Texas on my right arm that is screwed up and scarred and a grim reminder of so many things in my past, "Not all fuck ups are easily fixed." I will follow through on what I had said I was going to do, and the first of March I will close that old email account and lock the last door on that part of my life. It wont be easy, I have already gone against my vow to not check that email a dozen times a day, hoping for some word from him that he had forgiven me. its a bit pathetic, but when you are facing the realization that the man who you have loved beyond all reason as not only a lover, but as your best friend, is really and truly gone from your life, you tend to resort to clinging to desperate bits of hope. Its my own damn fault for being such a misanthrope that I dont have more friends.I am not an easy person to get close to, in fact I tend to push people away. That is why he was so special, he was always willing to fight his way past my bullshit and force me to want to be around people.

Writing about the one close friend I had as a child has brought back soo many memories of such a poignant time in my life.I wish I knew where he was. My son wants to find him, to see if he remembers as much as me, and if I matter to him, what became of his life. I want to leave it alone. His name is so common that it would be virtually impossible to find him, and like I have tried to express to my son, its better that way. We wont disappoint each other.

My son is enjoying the stories I write,(not the 'Adult" ones), he likes the ones I write about Texas and some of the other ones I write that he recognizes some of the characters in. Hes trying to talk me into "un-ficcing" and making them real stories that could be submitted professionally, and a few other friends have suggested the same thing, but I dont know if I want to do that. I write for my own pleasure and to just unload my mind from time to time.

Its been an okay week, took the kids to see the Harry Potter movie and it was actually a good evening out, though we were all apprehensive about what was going to be in the movie. Son and I are not ready for the series to end. He has grown up with it, I watched those kids grow up, and we are going to miss them horribly. Its like being cut off from your favorite world and told your friends aren't going to talk to you anymore. Something I am much too familiar with lately.

Dear Roger: Proof That Sometimes "I'm Sorry" Isnt Enough

Writing has not been coming as easily lately, I have been a little bit distracted by memories of things and people in the past, and by current stress. The job search has not been going well, and to tell you the truth, I am in a bit of a rut. I have my ups and downs. You know how that is with us artistic temperament types. I get in a blue funk when things aren't flowing well and then its just a downward spiral until another flow of inspiration catches me and then I am off and running again. I firmly believe all great artists/writers performers have some degree of bi-polar disorder. We thrive on the highs and the lows often eat us. Its reflected in the songs and the writing and the looks of so many of them.

I have been grappling with my long running problem with my love life, or lack there of. I just do not play well with others. I am socially awkward, arrogant, a perfectionist, and I am less than truly motivated about getting out into the dating world. Its like shopping for a vehicle on a very restricted budget. I am a lower income, middle-aged, disabled, mom with a misanthropic nature, sarcastic bent, and I lust after younger men. That is like trying to shop for Porches with a used Kia budget. I keep getting shown broke down 40 year old Fords and Chevys that need ring jobs and that leak exhaust and often have hefty payment plans. I dont want to buy anything, I just want to take one of the really shiny, fancy ones for a test drive, maybe squall the tires and blast the stereo, but im not even allowed on the car lots of the models I want to take for a spin.

It was facing yet another Valentines day with a less than satisfactory ending, that led me to try and rebuild a bridge that I burned in a pretty damn spectacular manner almost a year ago.

I have missed my Cowboy. I have tried to forget about him and tried to put him out of my mind, and I have failed miserably. I miss him horribly. I threw away not only a lover like no other, but my best friend and voice of reason and sanity when I was at my worst.

I spent this last few days reading through all the old emails that survived the purge, reliving our moments and all the support and kindness he gave to me, and I thought about what a damn fool I had been. Yes, it wasn't perfect. Yes, it was pretty dysfunctional at times, but then what isn't?

He was everything I wanted, everything I needed, and nothing I could have. I loved him and I still love him. Perhaps because its that way that cowboys have of getting under your skin and living in your heart, but I realized I needed to try and salvage something with him, even if its just a casual email every now and then, so I drafted a "fall on my sword, I was an ass, please forgive me, I was a drunken idiot, I didn't mean it,(except the part where I said I loved you), apology" email. That was not easy for me to do, because I do not tend to apologize for things like that easily. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but like a junkie craving a fix, I kept getting just enough of a taste to keep that dependency.

Friends sent me word of him,he showed up in news reports, I would log onto an old chat account and even though I had deleted him, it would show that he was on. It was so damn painful I couldn't cope and I knew I wasn't over him. So I wrote and sent the email the day before Valentines day, apologizing for my behavior and for all my failings. In a perfect world, he would be the same ole forgiving Cowboy that always forgave me my failings, he would be cautiously forgiving and we would begin rebuilding our friendship, and maybe this Summer plan on seeing each other for old times sake. In a less perfect world, he would have replied that too much damage had been done and that he just couldn't forgive me, and while that would hurt, and I would beat myself up over it emotionally for the rest of my life, I would at least know, but in my world? In my world? There has been nothing. The silence is deafening.

I talked to my son about what I did. He knows most of the story, after all, he lived through it. He watched my heart slowly break to pieces over the years, and he watched me fall apart after I made the phone call and the ramifications of what I had done sank in along with the shame that didn't allow me to respond to the emails wondering what the hell was going on. He knew I had felt crushing guilt for everything, and while he didn't agree with me apologizing, he has been supportive of me trying to fix the mess I made of the one thing I had that often brought me daily happiness in the form of emails or texts.

Its been a long week. I try to tell myself that I am not going to check that email a dozen times a day, that there is no email coming. I fucked up. I have lost him. The one friendship that I had managed to keep over a decade long and I blew it. I am going to close that email account at the first of the month, and that will be the end of things. Another step along my path that will lead away from things in my past to hopefully something or maybe someone in my future. Some days its hard to keep walking, but even when my boots are wanting to turn back, I guess I have to keep moving forward.

Dear Robert: Queer Life?

Robert was my favorite cousin. Rogers on vacation this week.

Cuz, you have been in my mind a whole bunch lately. I dont know why, perhaps its because there are so many pictures of that young fella that resembles you that tend to flow across my Tumblr dash, or maybe its all the changes in the world that have come about since you left it, but damn…I wish you were here to see things now.

I keep replaying the last time we were together. Grannys funeral in Midland, such a sad and tense affair. Nobody was expecting you or me to put in an appearance, and I wouldnt have, but sis pretty much kidnapped me and promised me she would run interference with the rest of the clan.

I was so damn happy to see you when I stepped out of the truck into that blast furnace of Texas heat. You looked like you hadnt aged a day from the last time I saw you, and I knew you would be the one with the whiskey that would be necessary to get through dealing with family.

Finding that plant in the waiting area that had leaves that looked like marijuana leaves? Hell! How could they not expect the two of us to get the giggles? Granny would have appreciated the humor of the situation.

I couldnt believe you didnt think I would want to drink after you outta your flask! What the hell? The only worry I even had about drinking with you was that you were going to drink the last of it before I got to it.

Sitting on the steps of the funeral home with you after the service, I can remember how good you smelled. It was nice to share a smoke and your flask, and every time I have a drink of whiskey and a smoke now I remember you.

Watching you walk away to your truck that day, if I had known it was going to be the last time I ever saw you, I would have told you that I loved how we were the black sheep of the family together. That I forgave you for that time you talked me into head butting that mean-assed goat of grannys and then laughing at me when she knocked my ass out cold. That I was brave enough to venture out on my own from Texas because you had done it first. You were the first person I ever knew who was gay, and I know you went through hell growing up in West Texas, but you always kept that dry sense of humor that hid the pain.You made me a braver person, and a more empathetic and compassionate person. You also made me the kind of person that will go after anyone with blood in my eye when I hear them yell the word,”Faggot” at someone just trying to live their life.

I never knew until recently that my own father was cruel to you, but I cant really say I am surprised. I was told that you knew I adored you and that brought me a lot of comfort, because I wasn’t told you were gone until after you were buried. That was my father at work. We have issues that wont be solved in this lifetime I am afraid.

You wondered why I was crying that day as we were drinking? I knew what it meant when you said your t-cells had dropped. Time was short, I just didnt know how short.

I have done my best to raise my kids to know about you. My oldest son has heard all the stories about the trouble me and you used to get into when we were around each other, and how you tried to talk me into running off to Houston with you instead of getting married the first go round. I really should have gone with you, it would have been a hell of an adventure.

My youngest daughter has been hearing stories about you lately, and I know you would have loved her. She adores the lil fella I mentioned earlier,he is a bit on the ambiguous side of things many in the entertainment industry seem so adept at working. She has seen him all done up as a girl a couple of times and instead of being all upset and disgusted or not liking him anymore, her only comment on it was,”Oh Jackson, PINK is not the best color!” She never even batted an eye beyond that. All my kids are open minded like that, even my jock of a teen son who spent time living with my father still managed to maintain his open minded, live and let love attitude.

Been working on repairing all the damage my father did to the relationship with that part of the family, and if all goes as planned, I am going to try and come see you this Summer and maybe we can share a flask again, talk about old times and maybe this lost black sheep can take some comfort that you live on in lots of good ways.I aint bringing you any flowers though, I did save a extra leaf from that plant from the funeral home.If I stick it to your headstone, do you think you will rank as the top black sheep again?

Dear Roger:I Hate Valentines Day Because Nobody is Him

Well I am having one of those ,"Emo", pity party, feel sorry for myself kinda weeks. I am more than sure Valentines day has a lot to do with it, that and just the general financial stress and shark week and all the other crap that is regularly going on in my life, but to add to the fun, the greatest heartbreak in my life,(outside of the boy who died), made an appearance on TV this week and for some damn reason some jackass thought it a good idea to sent the link to the video feed to me via my personal Facebook.

Call me a masochist, but even though I had been pretty damn meticulous about erasing all forms of contact and evidence I even knew him,(not just for my protection, but for his as well), I for some reason clicked that God damned link and I watched him. I couldn't tell you for the life of me what he was talking about, but I could tell you that his voice sound the same as it did the last time I heard it, his hands looked the same, all weatherbeaten and calloused and tanned. His face with its carefully groomed cowboy style mustache and hazel eyes still captivated me and I was lost.

I miss him Rog. I wish I could take that phone call back. I dont care what my friends and family say about how bad he was or is for me. I MISS HIM. He was the one constant in my life. An email or a phone call at least every other day for YEARS! I dont even get that from family and I damn sure dont get that from people who call themselves my friends these days. He was advice and companionship and the promise of a "maybe, someday" that kept me plodding along the road to nowhere.

The one, perfect, most romantic, Valentines day I ever had in my whole entire life was spent in his arms. There was roses and candlelight and he carried me to bed and it was something that will have me smiling when I am on my deathbed, because it was just that good.

He inspired me. He made me laugh, made me happy and yes, he broke my heart in ways that can never be explained or forgiven, but I am a masochist for him.

I was sitting in a coffee shop last week, waiting on a friend to show up and I was looking at all the men wandering around and as I looked up, there stood a man that could have been his gay twin brother. The shock about caused me to fall out of my chair. Same imposing height,(around 6'6), reddish brown hair with a mustache and that ruddy skin color that looks like hes been outside too long, jeans and boots, but this guy had both ears pierced and was wearing a t-shirt that was about 2 sizes 2 small that showed off the same physique as him, but he would have never done that. I know I was staring, but the tears in my eyes probably made the guy think I was a bit insane so he stayed away.

I tried to send a text to a friend of mine back home to tell him what I had seen, to see if he had seen him lately, and to find out how he was, but inadvertently I sent the text to the wrong number...I sent it to him.

All he replied back was,"You are texting the wrong person". I dont even if he knew it was me because my number has changed so many times, but my heart broke a little more.

Rog, I wish you were here. I am nearly 42 years old and I am so damn alone. I managed to make it less than a week and 1 kiss with a guy before I told him to fuck off because he just wasn't"Right", and the problem is, I dont know what is 'Right" though I have a strong feeling I am a big part of what is wrong.

Dear Roger:Sadistic Dentists? Hell, In A Pinch Ill Take What I Can Get!

Its been a rough few days! I dont know if I had mentioned it, but for the past couple of months I had been living with some pretty significant pain. My wisdom teeth had decided to surface and not only were they badly impacted, to add to the fun, they were also infected and broken due to damage that had been done to my jaw. You dont take hits to the jaw and not do some damage, and I had even done some damage when I wrecked a motorcycle a decade or so ago.

So anyway, the pain had reached the point where it was unrelenting. I felt like hell, I had a constant infection in my jaw and I was on antibiotics and they weren't helping. I ran a fever constantly, I was taking Vicodin and over the counter pain meds like they were pez and nothing was helping. I was to the point of desperation and misery that I didn't know what I was going to do. I hadn't been able to find a dentist to take my insurance, I didn't have the cash to pay the ridiculous amounts some were asking just to see me, and I was losing hope.

I called the university dental school and they were booked several months out. The woman I spoke to there told me to call the a number for a low cost dental clinic, and at the end of my rope, I did. I went through their application process, qualified, and they agreed to see me this past Friday.

It wasn't fancy, and in the waiting room I was the only one speaking English, but at that point I didn't give a damn. I paid the entry fee, they took me back and did the x-rays and let me tell you people were freaking impressed!

Turns out, the one wisdom tooth was putting so much pressure on things, it was displacing things in my head! It had broken the tooth in front of it, and was causing other teeth to cross from the pressure, but it was also pushing on the bones in my skull! The nurse was impressed! She asked how the hell had I been walking around like that? I told her that I had reached the point where I wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping, and was ready to step in front of a train if I didn't get help, so I wasn't coping too well . But she was impressed I had made it a few months like that.

Good damn thing I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. The dentist came in, jammed a pick up into the the tooth and I about came unglued. Blood started pouring out if my mouth along with infection,(he had opened the abscess) and it hurt like hell. He said that he needed to pull the wisdom tooth and the one in front so he was going to numb me up and pull them. It happened that damn fast! He jammed that thing in, I bleeding and pissed, and hes pulling out a needle and then without numbing the skin, giving me an assload of shots to numb up the area.

He must have jammed that needled halfway to my eye, because that is where I felt it.

He gave me the shots while the nurse was trying to keep all the blood and gak sucked up, and then after about 5 minutes he started working on getting the wisdom tooth out.

It would have been nice if he had waited until I was totally numb. I guess he figured that since I had handled the pain for so long that I must be pretty tough, and I guess I am, but when you can hear things cracking in your skull over the music you have blasting to try and distract you.

I closed my eyes when I saw the blade he used to cut around the tooth. We all know my issues with knives, but at that point I was so exhausted by the pain I just couldn't find it in myself to care. He started cranking on the tooth again and it took him a good 10 minutes of twisting and cranking and fighting it to finally break it apart enough to get it out. Then he started on the one in front. All in all, it took about 15-20 minutes, I grunted a couple of times because I was feeling it. Blood was everywhere. I was pretty stressed out when he was finally done, and the fact he dropped part of the tooth down my throat and then had to fish for it, didn't help, but I was glad it was over with. It took a bit to get my face cleaned up, and the bleeding did not want to stop, so I had to sit in their waiting room for a half hour with my face packed with cotton until they were sure I wasn't going to pass out. I paid the rest of my bill and headed home before it started raining too hard and I tried to not scare people too bad by opening my mouth or anything, because if I did, blood fell out. I still got funny looks and when I got home I saw why, My face is bruised up pretty bad. I had the beginnings of a black eye and I looked like I had lost a fight.

Once I got home I just laid down on the couch and went to sleep. I woke up much later feeling like a human being for the first time in months!

I have an appetite again, I am not in pain and it doesn't hurt too bad to smile. Its still bleeding just a little, but thats just part of my wonky genetic issues, but I feel so much better!

Son commented I dont smell or look "Sick" anymore and that I seem much happier. Well, duh! I am not in pain. I dont need Vicodin to function and hopefully the worst of it is over with. It would have been nice if it hadn't been so rough and if I wasn't so bruised, but we all know I can take it, I have been through worse, and in the grand scheme of things, its a minor bump in the road.

I got up the next day and took daughter to her testing to determine what kind of gifted she is, I cleaned house and I did my normal stuff. I didn't even take a Tylenol after lunch time.

In the words of someone I miss, I have "driven on".

Dear Roger: Dammit Doug Fir or How I Got Bit In The Ass By 100 Monkeys

So I went to another concert last night at the Doug Fir. Never mind it was a school night, or that it was colder than penguin balls outside. I had bought the ticket over a month ago and I decided I might oughta go because I had told a couple of friends of mine I was going and I thought I deserved a night out. I did not expect it to drop to sub-arctic before hand, but hey? who the hell needs to feel their feet at a rock concert,right?

I wore my 20x Wranglers and a heavy coat, my hat, some gloves and I thought I was bundled up enough, but then we ended up spending a half-hour standing out by Pioneer square watching the temperature gauge on the Chase bank register lower and lower, while we waited for the next bus to come and get our frozen asses to take us on up to the Doug Fir,(have I mentioned that when my ears and nose get cold, my happy thoughts and general pleasant demeanor tend to leave the country?), well anyway, we get there and I had pretty much already decided that if they were gonna try and make us stand outside in the cold, somebody was gonna get told a thing or two. Lucky for us and them they were letting folks in where it was marginally warmer. But one thing they did before they let us in was stamp our wrists...WITH A MONKEY STAMP. The exact same monkey stamp they used at the 100 Monkeys concert. Fuck my life.

Daughter is not a stupid child. She is aware that her favorite person in the whole world,(and yes, as I am writing this, HE her favorite person)is going to be in this neck of the woods in the next little bit. She assumes that they will of course be doing concerts in this area. She looked up Vancouver BC on a map when I tired to explain that he was still quite a distance away,"Its closer than Texas and Arizona, so I am not seeing the problem?" She wants that I should just drop everything and take her, yesterday. So we have had our issues with making why that is not going to happen, understood.

So last night, she knew I was going to a concert. I had told her the name of the guy before, but she had never heard of him so she didnt retain it. She just knew she was staying home with her brother and that I was going to the Doug Fir,(she was already suspicious), and I would be in late.

I may have indulged a bit in a few too many whiskey sours. I meant to scrub that damn monkey stamp off my arm before I got home and fell asleep, but see...the thing is, my fella...Jack, met me at the bar after the show, and being a good Southie fella from Boston, he elevates drinking to a whole nuther level.We hung out at the bar and apparently, well, I got a bit snockered.

I got home around 1ish, still drunkish and I fell asleep in most of my clothes.I had ditched my coat and sweater at the front door along with one boot and my hat. But when I ditched the coat? I left my shirt sleeve pushed up and what did I awaken to this morning? "I KNEW IT!! YOU SAW HIM!! YOU LIIIIIIIEEDDD" Now I am still a little buzzed at this point, queasy and wondering just what the hell I am being accused of by my small daughter? Why does she sound like she is accusing me of stealing her man or something? Then I see it...that damn monkey stamp! Its as much a sign of guilt in her eyes as lipstick on a collar and she is MAD! Why they had to use the EXACT same stamp they used for the 100 Monkeys show I think was just God screwing with me pretty damn hard.

I start trying to explain, "Noo baby, I didnt see them! I saw some British guy" she is snot sobbing at this point and looking at me like I killed her puppy. "I dont believe you! You just wanted to go without me! Chance said so!" (deciding at this point that her brothers guitar is getting taken hostage),my head is pounding and I am trying not to barf on her and she is getting louder. She gives me the puppy dog eyes. The look that I wish I could bottle up and send to THEM, the look that tends to make anyone with a soul and a heart, squirm in real or imagined guilt for putting it there. "Please mommy, PLEASE promise me you didnt go without me? You wouldn't do that to me would you? I love them soo much, it would break my heart if I didnt get to go! Its all I want for my birthday!(oh and that is a damn dirty lie if I ever heard one), but I groaned in pain,(very real at this point), and dragged my whiskey addled ass out of bed and I wandered into the kitchen looking for my ticket stub, which by some small grace of GOD I had stuffed into my pocket. I handed it to her and she looked at it. "Who is Bobby Long and Guest?" Well daughter, I said, hes no Jackson Rathbone and 100 Monkeys, so will you forgive me?

She looked at me,"Promise me." At this point I was ready to promise to deliver the men themselves if she would only let me go lay back down. "Promise me you wont go without me to see them." So then stupid me has to negotiate with her,"But what if its an adults only show?" She wrinkled up her nose and looked a bit disgusted, "Why would they do that?" Ahh...to be 6 again.

She still is looking at me like she doesnt really believe me, and I know I heard her humming,"Keep Awake" when I went to lay back down, so I decided it was just a wee bit more prudent to do just that, keep awake and write than to risk sleeping off the rest of my misbehavior at least until she calms down and stops sounding like someones wife I have done wrong.