Dear Roger: Passive Aggressive

Still not writing much, though I have been working on some editing of a few things. Its frustrating, but I have been getting some runs of cluster migraines and with my left eye twitching almost non-stop for the last 2 weeks, I figure its not surprising that I haven't been able to write very much. I did get out and go running around with a friend of mine yesterday. We went down to the Hawthorne District here in Portland and went wandering in and out of some of the funky vintage resale shops and some of the music shops that they have down there.

I could spend days just wandering around down there, and probably thousands of dollars if I had them to spend. I found all kinds of cool old furniture that would look great in my house and that would go with the whole 30's Blues club theme I was trying to go for, and there were so many old guitars and other musical instruments, I thought I was in a museum in one store. If I hadn't had to come back and get daughter off the bus, I would probably still be down there wandering around in either a book store or this really cool acoustic instrument store that I found.

I wish my hands weren't so messed up. I have tried playing guitar again, but with all the damage over the years to my hands from broken fingers and such, the arthritis has made it really difficult, plus whatever weird neuro thing I have going on, makes my left hand really uncooperative when it comes to translating what my brain is telling it into action, so the more difficult chords and transitions, just do not happen, but I enjoy watching someone who knows what they are doing, play, and I plunk around when there is nobody to make fun of my clumsy attempts.

One shop we went in was really interesting. It had a 70's theme going on and the guy running it was fully embracing that whole vibe because the odor of weed hit us the minute we walked through the door. Its soo strange to me to be in a city where you can get a buzz while shopping, but it was funny and I got the giggles. It was a really cool shop and in there I found my perfect hat. Its a vintage Italian wool hat that beyond cool. I knew the minute I saw it that I had to have it, and I did something that I rarely do; I asked the guy if he would barter with me, and he did! I swapped my old wedding ring for it. I was so happy to get it, I even wore it out of the store and home. I got a compliment on it from a random stranger and it just fit me and my whole personality.

When I got a call from the ex later in the day, I told him about the hat and of course his comment was," So you are just embracing that whole dyke lifestyle now, aren't you?" He is such a charming bastard. I wasn't surprised he made such a nice comment. He was always like that. I actually hate talking to him, but I have to and I have to be nice about it for my boys. Its called appeasement. Playing nice so that I get to talk to my sons on a regular basis. Its miserable, but if I vented on him and let him know whats really in my heart and mind, then I would lose my tenuous connection to my sons and I would have to try and fight him in court to get them and I just cannot afford that financially. I would probably win, but then what? I have no car with which to go get them. So I play nice with a man who constantly makes hateful little remarks about me and my sexuality and looks and whatever else, who has for the last 10 years, cut me down both physically, mentally and emotionally, its just the price and the penance I pay.

My parents sent birthday cards to my daughter and my son. The one to my son was a month late, but they sent it. I dont know why, I haven't spoken to them since before Valentines day. I just cant. My issues with them run deep and twisty Rog, and I wish you were here to help me sort through them. I have a lot of anger at my father and at my mother and my insecurity about who I am stems from things that went on as I grew up. My father making fun of me and my physical appearance and what I ate, my mother discussing with her friend whether or not I was gay because I had pictures of a few female movie stars on my walls when I was 12. There are so many things that fucked me up when I was a kid that I dont even want to get into all of it, but my counselor is insisting that getting it out and talking about it, will help me deal with it. I think it just pisses me off further. Its hard to be a parent. We all make mistakes and I have not been a perfect parent by a long shot, but I have done my level best to never play favorites, and never let my kids doubt for one minute that I love them. I dont know if im fixable, but I know that I am trying hard to be a good parent and I damn sure intend to be a better grandparent for any grand kids I may have than my parents have been. My kids think that my folks hate kids. They dont even know their other grandmother, so they essentially have no relatives outside of me and their half-assed father and their crazy aunt. I wish that they could have had grandparents like I had. It seems so unfair that they dont have a loving grandfather and grandmother that teach them things and never make them feel unwanted or unloved or that yell at them. I remember the spanking that grandpa gave me for disobeying that one time outside of Chicago, but I also remember it was deserved and I remember that he really didn't want to do it and I remember that he hugged me later and that he still loved me. All my kids know of their grandfather is that he yells a lot and doesn't like kids. I dont know how to change that.

Dear Roger: What to say?

Rog, my heart hurts. I know if you were here you would be in agony right now. The country that you spent 7 years of your life exploring and loving, the culture that welcomed you and that you immersed yourself in, is bleeding. I have watched horrified as Japan has been torn apart by first the horror of the earthquake and then a tsunami of Hiroshiga proportions and I wondered about your friends and the women that were at your memorial service. I dont remember any of their names, and I am sure my mother doesn't have any of them, but I pray they are safe, after all, they cared for you and that makes them precious to me. The pain and suffering that has gone on all over the world has been hideous to behold, but Japan...that was close to home, not only because of you, but because my eldest daughter had planned to go study over there before she allowed a couple of albatrosses to weigh her down. I had hoped she would break free and go after all, but now, now I am glad she is safe. I hope your friends are safe. I wish I had gotten to meet some of them. I heard it was quite an interesting event, your memorial service. There were women from all over the world, but Japan was quite well represented for some reason. I guess the time you spent there was happy for you, and I know you loved that country as much as you loved this one. I still am quite adept at eating with chop sticks, and the tea ceremony, and I have actually attempted to pass that knowledge on to my own kids, but I lack your teaching ability, and they are more interested in the possibility of using things as weapons over eating, though all my kids love Asian food and they all know at least greetings in multiple languages, that is because of you and your influence.

My kids have been praying hard for the people in Japan, that is their way of coping and trying to help. I wish I could do more, and maybe by getting back into EMS, I will be able to get into international rescue. I hope the worst is over and that thing will begin to heal, and soon.

I reconnected with a friend from my past today. Another one of the old command staff from my days as a deputy passed away, and nobody bothered to notify me. That is low. Even if things are on the outs between me and the guy that I loved, he always sent me death notifications of my friends, but this time there was nothing. I hadn't heard from the young boyfriend that I had dated for a few years and that had always been a friend, so I got pissed off and I texted him and chewed him out for abandoning me as well. he texted me back and we talked for a couple of hours and all is well. Hes good for an ass kicking and for getting me back into my cop mindset and helping me get back into my routines when I am being a slouch. He used to be a pretty good friend and its nice to know that hes still around. I can count on him to make sure the right music is played at my wake and stuff like that, things that my parents would screw up or just not bother with at all.

I wrote a little this week, not as much as I would like, but then there has been a lot of heavy crap going on around me and that tends to slow the flow down quite a bit. I managed to put up chapters of both of my stories, but I let folks know I was probably going to put the longer one on hiatus for a bit, just until I find the voices again. I got a lot of really good reviews that were written by folks that seem to be more adult than the typical reviewer and that is interesting, but I still need a break from it. I want to write some lighter and funnier stuff, but I have to find it.

I enjoyed teasing my friend today by leading him to believe that I was considering switching teams because I was having such rotten luck with men. He was still pretty freaked out when I quit texting him. LOL!

Dear Roger; A Sense Of Displacement

Waking in the wee hours before everyone else with a feeling of being awoken for a reason, but not being able to find out why? is always a disconcerting sensation, but awakening like that, and then having a massive dizzy spell that takes you to your knees, is a less than pleasant way to start the day.

I managed to find the perfect birthday cake for my baby girl today! After hunting all over hell and half of Portland, I found a monkey cupcake cake, and not some lame "Curious George" cake either, NOO, this thing is like the perfect monkey cupcake cake, as if it was made with my little girl in mind. I got really lucky too, because I got the very last pattern kit they had too and even though its only got one, "googly eye", I know she wont mind, she will be thrilled that it is a monkey and that it has a banana mic! My friend is going to let me borrow her car so I can drive over an pick it up in the morning and deliver it to her school in time for her class to have as an after lunch treat. I got a some stuff to make a cake for at home as well, but I have no real skills for making super fancy cakes, or the pans for doing it, in fact I dont even have a full sized cake pan because we just dont eat the stuff around here, but her and her little friends in class will be happy and all sugared up for the end of the day and the trip home and she will have her monkey stuff.

I try hard to pull off small miracles for my kids. I wont be able to deliver her hero, but I am going to deliver the next best thing as soon as I can. I am trying to figure out a monkey mayhem based explanation for her main present being late once again. She is going to be getting a t-shirt and eventually their new album, and once I can find one, a poster of her favorite boy, and I am damn sure holding her fathers feet to the fire to provide the promised copy of the "Last Airbender", of course that means I will have to buy a dvd player, but he promised it, so its the least he could do. Grandparents of course have forgotten her totally once again, but she is used to that and would be shocked if she got anything, including acknowledgement, from them.

Her big brother has been doing his level best to alternately drive her crazy and entertain her lately. He has been trying to act as if he is her parent/boss lately, and considering she is very intelligent and a little on the independent side, she is not taking to his bossy side very well at all and the fights have been enough to make me a bit on the crazy side. When he is entertaining her, he shows that he is capable of being a wonderful and doting brother, in fact, he imitates her hero to amuse her. Today he was doing his "411" days and even I was giggling just a bit. He played his guitar for her, and they sang together for a bit, and then...then he pissed her off. She snuck off to go swipe one of my twizzlers and he took it away from her and ate it and then the war was on. She threatened his guitar, he hung her upside down and said he was going to tie knots in her hair or hide her Jackson, and then she tried to kick him in the nards. I had to intervene when she ended up accidentally getting getting hit in the nose and then started crying. He felt terrible and she got mad, so I had to stop it and make them both sit in time out until time to leave for church. She is a tough little chick, and she loves her brother, but he does drive her crazy at times.

I haven't been writing as much lately. I think I have Spring fever or something going on. I get ideas as usual, in the shower. It never fails that when I am least prepared to write something down, I get these brilliant flashes of entire paragraphs or stanzas or even whole songs, but when I dont have a way to write them down I tend to lose them, or I lose the flow. I know it will come back, I have just been in a bit of a funk, and it hasn't gone totally away, its just not burning like it was, its more just kinda creeping like slowly cooling lava. Perhaps the looming prospect of my 42nd birthday in April is what is causing the problem, or yet another failed attempt to find some form of male companionship, I really dont know, but I do know that I am going to get a tattoo for my birthday, and maybe an evening out with some friends.

Life is not bad, its not horrible, Spring is right around the corner and with it, pretty boys in t-shirts and the concert season and the hope that maybe my baby girls favorite boy will wander back this direction and I will be able to give her a late birthday present that will make both of us happy,(because we all know I like looking at him too), I aint gonna lie about it.

Dear Roger: Shes Amazing

My baby girl is the most amazing child. I do love her so. I love all my kids, but she hardly seems to be a child that would be MY kid. She is the most girly-girl I have ever met, with her long, naturally, curly, waist-length blonde hair that is a BEAR to wash and dry and comb out, but she insists that I do it and that I at least attempt to braid it for her a couple of times a month. She talks about make up and dresses and all kinds of stuff that I know nothing about like ballet. She dances and sings her own operas, and she is the most tender-hearted person I know. She hurts when she thinks someone she loves has been wronged.

When that rag tag lil rock star she loves so much looked tired and weary and then got an insulting,"award" the other day, she cried for him. I found her curled up in my bed snuggled up her stuffed monkey,"Jackson" with tears rolling down her cheeks, patting is little head saying, "Its okay, it will be okay." It broke my damn heart. The child spent two hours drawing that boy a birthday card and never heard nothing back, but her love never wavered, because that is how she is. She gives and gives and gives and loves honest and true, no matter what. She prays for the boys in that band, every, single night, just like she does for her family and friends.

I dont have to threaten to punish her for not feeding her cat, she feels so guilty for him going hungry that I often feel bad for not just handling it myself. She says,"Hello" to people or waves, trying to make peoples day better, even if they just walk on by and ignore her. She offers to share her stuff and she cares about people, even when they dont deserve it.

I dont know why she is the way she is. She was raised in horrible circumstances. She was in the room when her father took the straight razor to me. She witnessed so much violence and trauma and all the ugliness that goes along with growing up in a household with domestic violence. She has no grandparents that give a damn about her. Her father fails her over and over again. He sent her nothing for Christmas, not even a card for the last couple of years and though he said he was going to send her a nice birthday present, already he is making excuses and I know that means that her trips to the mailbox with me will just result in disappointment. The men in her life fail her,with the one exception, and he is just a distant hero that is idealized and someone she sees on tv from time to time. I worry about what that means for her in the future, but knowing her, she will persevere and become an amazing person with just his influence from afar.

She is a brilliant child, and I do not say that lightly. She is smarter than I was at her age. She is reading so far above grade level that they aren't quite sure what to do with her, so they put her helping to teach the slower kids. Her teacher has declared her a,"natural teacher", and that is all well and good, but I want her be what ever she wants to be, and she loves art and music and dancing.

I wish I could afford the music and dance lessons she begs for on a daily basis, I have a feeling she is a prodigy, but she is anchored by her circumstances.

Her test results for the gifted program should be in soon, and I hope then that someone will her her small voice in the wilderness and pull her up out of the quagmire that is our lives, she is an angel and she deserves to fly.

She turns 7 this week, and even though it will be a small and quiet celebration, it will be enormous in my heart. I do my best for her, she makes me try harder and want to stick around.

Dear Roger:Motivations and Reasons

I had a meeting yesterday with my vocational rehabilitation counselor to get my program started so I can possibly get back into Public Safety. Not being a cop, though I wish, but working back on an ambulance or even a rescue helicopter, going to accidents and trauma scenes and saving lives like I used to back in my glory days. The problem is though, the meeting turned out to be a bit more invasive than I had thought it was going to be. I guess I have been putting off some pretty significant warning signs lately and I dont know what to say about it other than I have just reached a point where I am kinda at a crossroads and I am stuck waiting for the devil to come collect his due. I have lost my motivation, my reason, and I really dont have anything connecting me here other than my kids and even they seem to fare better without me. I am numb inside and out and I dont know how to find that spark again.

I have cut off almost all my connections with my friends and family. I haven't spoken to my parents in about a month, my sister briefly a few days ago, and I hadn't spoken to my friend Sus for a couple of weeks before yesterday when she pretty much forced me to talk to her. I lost my best friend due to my own stupidity and I cut myself off from the one online community that I used to love to hang out at because I couldn't deal with the bitchiness, but its not like anyone even noticed I was gone. I post on my Facebook page and no one ever talks to me, I feel invisible and as my invisibility grows, so does my sense of disconnection with the world. More people I love are dead than alive and that is a horrible place to be.

My son and I had a horrible fight last night and I dont know what to do about it. He needs a man to talk to about these things and I failed him in that and sometimes the guilt is overwhelming. The counselor picked up on many of these things as I was talking to her, and she prodded me about my past and my selection of men and my poor choices. Its the self-destructive bent that I have always had that led to so many of my problems and has brought me to the point I am at now. My lack of closeness with my parents, my anger at them for how they treated my grandparents, and how they suck as grandparents themselves. There is just so much wrong that I dont even know where to start looking for the right. I dont have a job, and the counselor is concerned that my PTSD and other issues could make going back into Public Safety problematic, but I am not the type to work in an office or sit at a desk. I just dont function well in that world. I am supposed to go see my doctor and get referred to a counselor for more work on my PTSD because I guess I am still having some problems, but I am so tired of dealing with it. Talking about it just makes it worse, I get angry and stressed and then I stop sleeping again and its just a vicious cycle. There is no one I can really talk to or relate to, and even though I have tried to reach out before to people in the online community I belonged to for awhile, its hard to make connections with people who have no idea what its like to have a straight razor at their throat in front of their children, or a gun to their head while they try to talk the man who supposedly loved them down. No one knows what it feels like to walk away from everything, including two of your children, the shame that I live with every day, and the self doubt. What it feels like to have to constantly tell my small daughter no, we cant afford it when she asks for some small trinket. What it feels like to not be able to get a decent job because I dont even have a fucking car! I am an adult and for the first time in my life I dont have a car. When my son got hurt at school I couldn't even go pick him up and take him to the hospital because I didn't have a vehicle or the money for a cab. I had to call around to try and find a friend to drive me and finally Sus called a friend of hers who drove me, it was humiliating.

I cant find my joy, Rog. I feel like I am buried and cant dig my way out of it. Daughters birthday is next week and all she wants is a monkey shaped cake and to invite her favorite monkey man to her party, yet I cant even pull my head out of my ass enough to even try to formulate a plan to fake a good reason why he wont be there.

Dear Roger: Boundaries! Dammit!

None of MY stuff is just MY stuff anymore. I dont really know when it happened that I lost control of all my stuff, but all of the sudden it seems, I started living in some kinda weird hippy commune where my kids feel free to use and borrow and just plain take MY stuff! My son is the worst about it, he helps himself to clothes,(yes, MY CLOTHES!)including my jeans and shirts, and my socks and jewelry. He outright swiped my Spencer Bell memorial necklace, claiming that "His music is for guys, and I just feel a connection to him, so im claiming this." He wears it constantly, so I guess he was serious. All of my Affliction t-shirts, and he tried to swipe my Dolce jeans, but when I commented you could see more than he wanted seen, he quickly gave them back. He takes my pens, head phones, dvd's, cd's, hats, and pretty much anything that strikes his fancy, but today I finally put my foot down and I meant it. He tried to take my towel.

I have a thing about people messing with my bath towels. I have a couple that I claimed as mine when we first moved and I keep them in my bathroom and no one is supposed to mess with them, but this morning he decided to grab my favorite towel out of the dryer and he used it! I dont even like people drying their hands on it, (yes, I may have an issue or two), so when he used it on his werewolfy body I was horrified and disgusted. The fact he left it laying in the floor of his bathroom only added insult to injury and I was ready to inflict serious trauma on his psyche for that. When he tried to grab it out of the dryer after I washed it today, and use it for his after track shower, I jumped up and chased him into the bathroom and grabbed it back. We had a bit of a tug of war over it and he claimed he was going to stuff it in his shorts, until I told him that if he did, I would do something crude to something of his and he would just have to figure it out. He let go of my towel after that, but I realized at that point that I have had enough. They broke my favorite coffee cup, used up all my pens so that I have had to write story ideas and take messages in crayon,(when I can find them), the tops of my socks are stretched out and weird things have been done to my socks that I dont even want to contemplate. They drink all my soda,(when I actually buy any), and they have no problem swiping and eating any chocolate I might have stashed. The only thing I manage to keep even remotely safe from them are extreme sour warheads and my tea and that is because they find them disgusting.

Its not like they lack for their own stuff, in fact I just spent $200 yesterday outfitting son for track. That was quite the experience in hell for both of us. He is soo damn picky about things and hes so uptight that its really hard to get through any shopping excursion without us ending up in some kind of bickering, rolling dog fight in the middle of a circus. We had to shop for something called,"Sliders" which as far as I could tell, are just overpriced spandex chones. He wanted Under Armour brand, which is probably my fault. I wore Under Armour t-shirts and stuff when I was a cop and I was happy with them and the quality, so I had bought him some other things in that brand. Well, first off I upset him when we had to ask some lil chicky clerk where the sliders were and she didn't know what they were, so I very helpfully described them as,"Spandex britches for runners that keep their bits from bouncing about." My son was not amused, in fact he was pretty ticked off that I said anything about bits in from of a girl that he thought was cute, so he pouted about that for a little bit. Then the UA sliders were $45 a pair! I may have said that I didn't know any men that had bits worth $45 and that upset him. I convinced him that Nikes were just as good, and if we saved on the sliders I could spend more on his shoes. Shoe shopping for him is a special kind of hell. He has huge feet, he hates white shoes, and he is a label whore. I managed to get him to actually find a good pair of shoes that he liked that cost less than half the amount of our budget, so I manged to also get him some Nike track pants, and a few t-shirts. He likes track quite a bit and hes good at it, so maybe that will provide him with a positive direction.

I gripe about him taking my stuff and being a pain in the butt at times,but he really makes me proud most of the time. He told me he wants to go to college and study Psychiatry and Music Theory/Performing Arts because while he wants to be a rock star/actor, he knows the likely hood of a poor unknown kid from the middle of nowhere making it, as either of those things is not highly likely, and he wants to have a good back up plan and he thinks being a psychiatrist is a good back up plan.

School is going good for him. He is pretty popular, especially with girls, and that seems to distress him quite a bit for some reason. I think the fact that girls seem more aggressive now days than they used to be, and he has been groped and flat out propositioned, and has had girls and even a couple of boys try to follow him home. He claims he doesn't like the attention, and he even claimed he wasn't going to wear all black any more because girls,"Just seemed to lose their damn minds" around him and think they can grope him, but I notice he wore black all week, so I think he likes the attention. He is a good kid and he has a good heart, but I think sometimes he forgets that he is just a kid and I am the Alpha around here. He came home yesterday and grabbed the tv remote and was about to change channels. I told him to wait, because his sister was waiting to see her favorite lil rockstar on Mtv. He rolled his eyes and acted like he was annoyed, stomping off into the kitchen, until said young rock star actually appeared on the program, then I looked up to see him standing in the dining room watching just as rapt as my small daughter was on what was being said. I told him,"You can admit to liking him you know, its okay. I wont judge." He sneered at me and muttered,"Shut it , mom!" This from the boy who was walking around the house last week singing the ,"I like your hair" song in "Dobby" voice just to harass me. For all his macho jock posturing, he tends to blur the lines just as well as the young rock star, and I think he likes messing with my mind.

My daughter is an unusual child. She was pacing around the living room last night with her Barbie phone, waving her hand about, speaking in a raised and forceful voice saying things like,"Tim! You need to listen to me! I am your lawyer and you have to trust my judgment and what I am doing, its what you pay me for." She then tells "Tim" to hold on because she had another call, and she clicked over to talk to someone named,'Aubrey" about what an "Idiot Tim was being and how she was ready to quit being his lawyer". I was sitting on the couch next to son and we were both looking at each other in amazement as this was going on in front of us, her pacing about like a tiny lawyer, very animated and looking ever the frustrated counselor. She came marching over to stand in front of me and she told Aubrey to hold on a minute and she even covered the mouthpiece of the phone,while she asked me,"Whats a good career for me that pays lots of money and has less stress than a lawyer?" Son and I both said, "Actress!" She smiled and got back on the phone with Aubrey and said,"You want to take over the case? I am done with him, im going to be an actress!" She then hung up the phone on Aubrey, called Tim, told him," Tim, I cannot work with someone who doesn't trust me, I quit and I am going to go be an actress!"

After she got off the phone with Tim, she called up Disney Studios and said,"Im Stevie, Im going to be the next big thing, so you can put me in movies now, im done being a lawyer." Son and I both aren't quite sure where all that came from, but we were both kind of glad to know there is a budding lawyer in the family, even if she does decide to be an actress for a little while.

Dear Roger: There is Just No Winning.

Well I think the cold and the rain and the general stress of the seemingly never-ending winter is starting to grind on all of us. Son has been grumpier and bitchier than he typically is, and I cant seem to do anything to please him. Yesterday I got on his bad side because he has a lot of body hair. Yup, Rog...the boy blames me because he is hairier than a werewolf. I guess he has to be upset at somebody, but I fail to see how its just my fault? This led to a conversation about his biological father, (the hairy one, by the way), and possible solutions to his problem as well as just a conversation about his father. I dont give him all the details, because he just doesn't need to know all of them, but as he has gotten older I have revealed more about him, and sometimes I know he doesn't like hearing some of the things I have told him, but I tried to keep it largely positive yesterday, even though he is a difficult topic for me to discuss without my anger at him coloring my opinion.

He was wanting to understand why he is so much bigger than the rest of the family and why he has dark, curly hair with blue eyes and dimples when so much of the family is short, blonde or has reddish hair. My side can take full blame for the blue eyes, though its kinda weird that his father had hazel eyes, one of my parents has green eyes. I always thought that brown or hazel eyes would be dominant, but his eyes are not just blue, they are BLUE. The dimples come from my family and they are pretty common amongst my kin. As for the dark, curly hair? I am a blonde, my sis is blonde, my father has blonde hair, but my mother has dark, curly hair and his father had dark, wavy hair, and from what I remember of his brothers, both of them had the dark wavy hair.

The size thing is something he should be happy about, but as is typical with him, he has to have something to complain about. His father was over 6'2, his biological uncles were both well over 6'4. I am the runt in the equation and honestly that runs in the Texas side of the family pretty consistently. I am lucky to get to 5'2 in my boots,(a big reason why I started wearing boots a long time ago), my sis is 5'4, my dad is 5'7 in his boots and my mom is maybe 5'3. I know my mothers side of the family was taller, and that a Gpa, was 6'1, you were 6'1 or more depending on what boots you were wearing, and if the boy would take time out to think about things rather than griping at me for his being a moose with an attitude, he could thank me for the fact he has the genetic propensity to be tall, athletic and not only musically and artistically talented, but hes also smart. But no, of course not. I get the grumbling about his acne and hair and ginormous feet. Its not like he actually has to buy his own clothes or shoes, I am the one footing the bill for that and it is not cheap! He is so damn picky and so difficult to please. I know I could not have been easy to deal with, and I know its a rite of passage, but some-days I just wish I could catch a break and have him wake up in a good mood with a good attitude.

He made the choice to run track. I didn't force him into it, but the way he was belly aching this morning, you would think that I was forcing him to participate. The only thing I tend to try to force him to do is his homework and if I am lucky, maybe clean his room and take the trash out.

We hung out a bit together this weekend, and we watched a few movies together and we did have some fun conversations, so he runs hot and cold depending on the weather. I dont really blame him for being grumpy with the ongoing cold weather, and when it rains, but he knows I am stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to getting a car. I would think he would be happy to get the exercise, and I have bought him an umbrella,(though I wont use one),hats that he never seems to wear even though he insists he has to have them, he has a nice wool pea coat and all kinds of winter gear, but he wont use it. I dont know how he keeps from freezing when he is meandering his way to school in the pouring rain with just a hoodie to keep him warm, but its by his own choice, though he swears that he is deprived.

Daughter is a much more easy-going and happy kid most of the time, unless of course, her brother is picking on her. That went back and forth quite a bit this weekend and for some reason he didn't want to go to church, and because he didn't want to go, that meant she couldn't go because my friends wont take her unless he goes along. Since she couldn't go to church, she decided to conduct services for herself and her monkeys in my bedroom. She had all her monkeys lined up like they were sitting in pews and she read to them from her little bible. I dont know where she gets it from, or if its just her natural nature, but she was reading in 'Voice" and actually preaching. It was soo damn funny that I wished I had a video camera to capture it. She reads to her favorite monkey,"Jackson" every night before bedtime, but for her church service she had designated him,"Youth Pastor" and she even had him set off to the side with the smaller monkeys in an area she said was the,"Children's Church". She was pacing back and forth in front of her congregation, waving her arms around and preaching up a storm and then at the end, she says,"Okay, now we have to pray for the sinners." and that she did. I was trying really hard not to die laughing at that point, because she started off by praying for her brother, because "Hes a bit of a jerk", and then she went right into praying for her favorite lil fella and monkey namesake, saying that," God, help him to find some food and some sleep and to be safe from all the crazy people that chase him around." She then his all of her little congregation up for the tithe and announced that they were all going out for donuts. Hers was probably the most entertaining and heartfelt service I have ever attended, and I know if her Great Granpa had seen it he would have been proud.

I dont know whats up my sons tail end about not going to church lately. He isn't too fond of the minister, but he has friends that go there and I know he does get something out it, but he has mentioned more than a couple of times that he is thinking about finding another church. Our family is traditionally Episcopalian and Methodist, but I dont go to church so I have no real opinion on it other than he needs to find someplace that feels like they belong there. I personally liked lil sisters monkey church and I know I got more out of it than I have any other service I have ever attended.