Dear Roger: Reflections

So I wake up this morning legally another year older. I have kinda adopted another day as my unofficial birthday because honestly, April 19th is just a day fraught with too many bad memories. I remember most vividly 1995, seeing the picture of Firefighter Fields carrying young Baylee Almon out of the wreckage of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City when my own child was just 4 months old, and I remember hugging him close and vowing that I would never take him for granted. I say a prayer for the 168 lost that day, at the start of every morning on my birthday, the 18 other children that were in that daycare and all those innocent people that were just trying to do their jobs. I was a firefighter back then and it left such a mark on my soul.

I remember the stand off in Waco and all those people burning. Its just not a day of really happy memories so I changed the day I celebrate to July 28, that the day we, as a small family, started living again, so we will celebrate then.

Daughter is insisting I do something today though because she is small and unwilling to allow me to wallow in any form of maudlin misery on what she considers a day to party. I will indulge her somewhat, by maybe picking up a small cake and letting her blow out some candles for me.

I went to the doctor yesterday and she was not overly concerned about my eye twitch, but she was concerned about my heart rate. I seem to have a resting heart rate of a hummingbird. I find that a bit worrisome considering I am in pretty damn good shape. I walk constantly and I dont just trudge, I haul ass. My legs are toned, and I am underweight for my height, so its the stress that jacking me up. Her strict order was for me to quit coffee. I am not happy! I am also supposed to cut back on all other caffeine, which really isn't hard considering I dont drink that much stuff with caffeine in it, but that was quite a blow to me. I had quit for a month as an experiment and it was miserable. I missed it and even dreamed about drinking it,but now to be told I have to quit it? Gah! I am doing this whole diet and exercise program for a month and then I go back to see if things have slowed down and little, if they have, then we know thats the problem if they haven't, then they are going to look at drugs. I dont want to use any medications, because once you start on them, then you end up stuck on them, plus things that mess around with the heart just freak me out, especially after what happened to you. Im going to be a good doobie, do my exercises, drink my pissy tasting hippy tea and try to mellow the hell out and hopefully get this shit dialed back in before things explode, but I think once I have my boys back with me and my ex vanishes out of our lives, things will slow down.

No birthday cards for me. Didnt really expect any from any family back home, but still. Someday those wounds are gonna have to heal I guess. I miss getting a card from grandma and you. I would hang it on my fridge and it would make me laugh for a few months. My sis will probably call and make fun of me sometime today, I am expecting nothing less from her. Daughter drew me a nice one with monkeys all over it, it was quite cute.

Its another year older, and I just think about all the people I miss. I think thats a true sign of getting older.

Dear Roger: As If Things Couldn't Get Any Stranger

Rog, I think I'm "mature". When the hell did that happen? Maybe there is another name for what I am? I mean, I still do all kinds of stuff that could be described as,'Immature", because I will stick my tongue out at folks, flip the bird, make weird faces, dance inappropriately, and I made some really bad choices in all kinds of things. I wear my jeans too tight,I like to jump in puddles on occasion and do all kinds of other stuff that could be described as 'Immature", but I did something last night that I never thought I would do! I had a conversation with my sons girlfriend. I was kind. I didn't go off on her for daring to try to corrupt my darling little boy,(snort), noo...when she texted me first, I responded politely. When she seemed to need someone to talk to, I did. I was kind and I reached out to let her know that I really had nothing against her other than she was my baby boys girlfriend, and that kinda freaks me out because I have goals for him that having a girlfriend put at risk. We talked about all that. She seems like a really sweet girl. I think I could like her. She is very pretty,(a model, no less), so he could do worse, but her family situation is tough and that concerns me quite a bit. I know he is not going to be happy with me for talking to her, but she seemed to need an ear last night, so I was it.I even invited her to go to the 100 Monkeys concert with us, which I know will probably freak son out because he doesn't want his girlfriend anywhere near those boys, but he will just have to deal.

I dont know if thats the mom thing or what, but I worry about kids and their happiness. Its like the young fella that my baby girl loves soo much. Yeah, she loves him much, but she is 7 and that aint happening, ever. She is going to go to college and have a career and a life and marry a good boy from a good, old, Texas family and she will run things like my granny did. There were pictures of that boy out with a girl from sometime over the weekend, and the girl he was with was soo cute, and they made such a cute couple! My first thoughts were, "Oh HOW SWEET! Now get married you scamp and have lots of pretty lil babies,(a good portion of which I hope are daughters so you get a bunch of grey hairs in payback for all the ones you have caused all the parents of daughters), the sooner the better! But it was shocking how many of the nutballs on twitter and such were pissed off. Jeesh, its kinda scary how weird some folks are nowadays about that, especially the girls. I would lock my daughters in a convent if they said 1/10th of 1% of the stuff that I hear or see some of the weirdos out there saying. I show that kinda stuff to my son. I want him to see exactly what kind of world he is wanting to get into when he claims he wants to get into acting or being a rock star. There is really no way in hell I want any of my kids to do that. The art or the writing and such is reasonable. You dont get quite the level of insanity unless you are a King or a Rowling, but still...wow! I would never have imagined saying the things that kids seem to feel its okay to say to people nowadays. Manners and decorum seem to be really lacking in the world in most places.

Son thinks I go a little over the top on manners and decorum sometimes, and maybe I do, but my family honor is important to me as well as appearances, so I will not have my son running around with his pants hanging off his ass, acting like he is some kind of hooligan with no home training. He is Southern and Texan and comes from a long line of Texans, not a bunch of jackasses with no more common sense than God gave a billy goat, so he knows that you hold the door for the elderly and you dont burp or fart in public or act a fool without pissing me right the hell off and causing an immediate cessation of whatever fun or trip was going on. We went to Target the other day to get some things and he needed some new shorts. I was gonna buy them for him, but he was being annoying and a bit disrespectful. The icing on the cake came when he farted, loudly and intentionally in the middle of the aisle in front of his sisters face. He knew he was bought and paid for before I even had to say anything. I just hung up the shorts, turned the cart to the front and paid for what we had and we left. He tried to claim it was an,"Accident", but im sorry, a 15 y/o with that poor of bowel control? I shoulda took his rotten young butt to the hospital right away! I was fit to be tied I was soo mad and embarrassed. He got in trouble for what he did and then he got in trouble for lying about it, so it was a tense night. He did apologize, but ill tell you what, if he didn't tower over me and I wouldn't have had to stand on my tippy toes to reach that ear of his, he would have got drug to the car by his ear. I am hoping that his girlfriend will be some assistance in helping him to remember his manners.He is a perfect gentleman around her, opening doors,serving her first, all kinds of things, so hopefully she has good home training too and can remind him that without that nowadays, you are just one of a herd.

Dear Roger: "Rattle and Hum" Has Turned Into "Wiggle and Smile"

Music has always been soo damn important to our lives, from the first song that I really remember hearing which was "Whiskey River" by Waylon and Willie, to the snippet of what I am sure is going to be a song I love called,"Time" by my favorite funky little band the 100 Monkeys, its been a part of my life that I wont do without because its as vital as air. I felt pure joy yesterday hearing that little snippet of that song, and it made me smile because I recognized the guitar chords as the music from the dvd that daughter got for Christmas. She came running out when she heard it playing and laughing said,"That song makes me want to smile and wiggle at the same time!" I had to agree with her, I felt the same way. Good music just has a way of doing that, making you want to smile and wiggle, so we did. We hopped up and danced crazily around the living room for the short amount of time that snippet of music played, laughing and enjoying the fact that we have made it. We are still hanging on. Nearly a year has gone by and we are still laughing and smiling and wiggling and our boys of summer are coming back with the sunshine. It was a happy day yesterday, in spite of the fact it rained all day and was a bit chilly. Music does that. It helps me to let go of all the fear and the stress and the worry for just a little bit. I forget that I never have enough money to take care of everything, that my knee is getting worse and the twitches and tremors now have a more ominous meaning possibly, I forget that my ex is screwing up and that has repercussions for me and my kids and all the others stresses and fears and things that make me rage leave. They just float away on the notes and I am free to just indulge in the notes and roll away on them.

My writing coming in fits and starts again. I have 3 chapters on paper for the sequel of the one story and I have written some more bits and pieces of a song that I am working on, so I just have to force myself to sit down and take all the notes I have scribbled in my notebooks and organize them into some semblance of coherency, and then maybe I will be able to do something with them. Typing them into my computer has become an issue because my ADD tendencies come out to play and I find myself wandering off into reading or talking to people or trying to do several different things while trying to write and then I lose my train of thought and it just gets distracting. I had 19 tabs open yesterday and I inadvertently discovered that is the tipping point for my computers sanity. It crashed on me last night and I had to spend a couple of hours defragging and cleaning out the cache as well as talking really sweetly to it. I have become quite the tech nerd and losing my computer would be quite a blow to me, so I try to treat it kindly, but like most things in my life, it suffers by proximity. Its already missing keys, and it has some wonky habits,(much like me), but it gets the job done most of the time.

My tattoo has finally, mostly, healed, or at least the monkeys butt has finally stopped itching. The flames seemed to have scarred as the roll up around the side of my wrist, but thats okay, it fits the whole theme of the tattoo.

I haven't been to the gym yet. Its not that I haven't wanted to, but with son gone to Idaho and the rain and all kinds of candy assed, whiny excuses, I just haven't gone yet. I plan to hit it every day this next week and develop a work out schedule like I had when I was 25 and see if I can get back to close to where I was back then. My knee is going to be the main problem with my work out plans, but I have a doctors appointment on my birthday to see about the eye twitch and tremor in my hand, so I will see what she wants to do about the knee. If she thinks its time to go ahead and replace it, its going to have to wait until after August, because there is no way in hell I am going to be on crutches at a concert. I have a brace that will get me through as well as pain drugs and what ever crap I need, but the whole, "No car" thing will be a real problem when I go ahead and get the knee done. I hope to get that whole issue handled before then.

Dear Roger: Checking Things Out

Called and talked to sis today. I hadn't talked to her since my other phone went swimming so I figured I had better call and check to make sure the tornadoes hadn't blown her and the rest of my kin to Arkansas or Hell,(interchangeable if you ask me), and to see how my nieces and nephews were doing. She sounded pretty good for someone that had that whole "Dallas Society Maven Body rebuild" done a few months ago. I guess she is finally used to her new boobs and all that. It still seems a bit odd to me that she is into stuff like plastic surgery, but then again I am into tattoos so I guess I have no room to talk. We got to talking about health and stuff, as folks are age are wont to do, and I mentioned my crazy left eye twitch that has been around for almost two months now, and how my left hand has gotten more prone to shaking on me at odd times. She got quiet for a minute and she asked,"You ever been tested for Parkinson's?" I told her I had been tested for everything but that because it didn't run in the family. "Who told you that?" Nobody...by this time that little twisty,cold, knot that is called fear started building in my gut. Why? Who had Parkinson's in the family that I didn't know about? "PawPaw. He was on heavy medications for it for years. Aunt J, and they think daddy, hes supposed to be getting tested for it." fuck me running...the people that I have proven to be the most genetically linked to. Happy freaking birthday to me. That is when my appointment is with my doctor.

In other news, not much else has been going on. Son left for his basketball tournament last night after I got nickel and dimed to death so he could go. I am not a big fan of his church. They are constantly hitting folks up for money, yet they are one of the richest churches in Portland. I am used to churches that put the effort into the kids, and hitting up the poor families for gas money so they can take the kids to play a basketball game that will bring good pr to the church, is kinda, to me , crappy. They have plenty of money to support the all kinds of dodgy characters and folks that by all rights shouldn't be there, yet kids that devote hours of service and time doing clean up in the churches name and things for members of the community that help to promote the name of the church, get hit for money for any activity, including watching movies at the church. I keep trying to coax my son into finding a nice Methodist church near us, so he can see what youth ministry is supposed to be about, but his girlfriend belongs to another branch of this ridiculous church he goes to, so he attends in the hopes he might see her sometimes. They have been having problems lately and might break up, so that will probably be the time that I will push for a change of venue for his church attendance.

The ex is in the process of losing the house. He has not made a house payment since I left Arizona. How he has managed to not be foreclosed on or booted to the street, I do not know. This does not make me happy, because I have no idea what he is planning on doing with my sons if he ends up on the streets. I know he has been selling of my property that I had left there under the agreement that it would be left alone, in exchange for me not stripping out the furnishing of the house. He has sold my books, my music and some of my art. The anger from that ate me up for a few days and it was a good thing there was 1500 miles between us. He was supposed to send his daughter a couple of boxes of her things, in fact he had promised her, but they never arrived. I called him and he wasn't answering the phone or returning texts, which means I wasn't hearing from my sons either, until this morning when I finally got ahold of him. Of course he hasn't sent her things. I told her, she cried. She is soo used to disappointment from him. Its pathetic that he doesn't even really try anymore.

When he was told that her favorite boy was going to be putting on a concert up here in August, he just sighed and said,"Well, I guess I know what that means. I guess I better hope I get my settlement if I want to see her so I can come up there." He knows. He knows he know longer is seen as her hero or protector or champion,(if he ever was seen as that), he is just this pathetic, hat in his hand, loser that she is saddled with as her father. I try to not give her a negative opinion of him. I really dont "Trash talk" him, but when he promises her that he is going to send her some of her things, and then HE keeps telling her that "I forgot" or "I cant afford it" (yet he bought tobacco and she KNOWS that), or "I didn't have time" she has quickly realized that she is not important in his life so he has become unimportant in hers. She no longer draws pictures for him or asks to talk to him on the phone. When he calls she often tells him she wants to talk to her brothers or that she is busy, or she just talks about her,"boy" and her favorite music. She never tells him about all the things she has achieved or the awards she has won and such. He has done a lot of damage, but that was always his way. She has better male role models now. They may be a little immature and a little ambisextrous and odd, but they are the bright and the happy that she needs, so we will go with that for now.

Its still raining up here, still pretty chilly, but there have been a couple of sorta Springlike days, so hopefully things will warm up soon and I will be able to lay out on the deck and soak up a few rays like a giant lazy lizard.

Dear Roger: Ups and Downs, Erections and Deconstructions

Well this has been a week of quite a few goings ons. The funky little band that we adore so much finally announced their album release date and their tour schedule. Amazingly, they are coming back to Portland. It had been anticipated that they would spend this summer over in Europe and it would just be a long, lonely summer with nothing much going on, but no, they are coming back here in August. The news was like a break in the clouds for us. It gives me an out for having to send daughter to AZ. Her father knows that if he were to come between her and a chance to see the band, he would be forever on her shit list, so he will have to either come up here on my turf where I know there are cops on every corner and we are safe or he will just have to not see her. It was good news in any regards and it perked us all up. It may seem like a small thing to most people, but considering there is soo much that began with that funky little band, it was big news to us.

So things are off on interesting note with the man from my past. We seem to have picked up where we left off. Its nice to have him to talk to again, but odd as well. I found out he was able to see my tweets and that about caused my stomach to fall out of my boots. I tend to block most real life people out of my twitter feed, especially those from my past like him because I am so different from when I knew them. I dont censor myself on my twitter or tumblr feed, so when I find out someone who knew the old me is reading them, its kinda like your parents finding your porn...its just...ewww! As a writer I am soo kinda bashful about my writing anyway. When I meet someone who has read my stories and they discuss the sex scenes, I kinda die a little inside. Yeah, I am a grown up and all about the sex, but I thought my sex scenes were pretty tame. I dont do the graphic, in fact I tried to go for realistic, which at my age can be kinda awkward, embarrassing, fraught with worries and over too soon. Writing a sex scene with a younger man in it was fun, and I drew on my past a little bit, but still talking about it with someone had me blushing because its just not something I do! I dont even want to discuss the slash sex scene I wrote, thats a whole nuther ball of wax.

My writing has picked up again and I have started writing the sequel to my most popular story. Its not starting off quite as funny as the original, but its in the very rough, note taking stage. SO far there has been a fight, drunken photography, tazering, and naked handcuffing, so I have hopes I will find the funny.

I joined a gym that has tanning and all kinds of amenities. I need to be doing something everyday other than sitting in a coffee shop watching for cute guys to wander in and out. I figure if I get back into working out and getting into shape again, I will be happier and more likely to meet someone I have something in common with.

Im rearranging the apartment again this weekend. It drives son crazy, but I just get the urge to restructure everything and make it all look different, so I will strike while he is gone to Idaho this weekend to a basketball tournament.

Daughter is getting yet another award at her school today. I am so damn proud of her. She was over the moon with news of the concert and such, and then she dropped the news of the award on me, so we were just having a happy, bouncy fun time for the past couple of days. She has been very cutely trying to find out what my favorite cake is and what I want for my birthday. Its very sweet because there is really nothing she can do about it. I haven't been very helpful to her I am afraid, I told her no cake, we could just make some smoothies or something and I already had what I wanted for my birthday. She got a little annoyed with me, so I finally told her that I wanted her and her brother to let me take some nice, family pictures without any bickering or fighting. I think that made her happy. But she was sneaking off with paper out of my printer, so I think I am getting some artwork to add to my fridge collection.

Dear Roger;The Mind of A Man is A Dark And Twisty Place

Remember how just before Valentines Day I wrote an email to the man I had "drunk dialed" and told off? and how in this email I had apologized for everything I said and I had begged his forgiveness? It took a lot of soul searching to do that because I tend not to be one to do that for just anyone. I let people go easily and I dont put much effort into keeping connections because I have found that with a few rare exceptions, people will let you down. I valued him because he had been there for me as a constant in my life longer than just about anyone else. I had not heard a word back from him and it had ripped my heart apart. I had even closed an email account that I had kept since 1999 because I was driving myself crazy, checking it constantly to see if he had responded. There had been nothing. The pain of his loss was still there, but I had chalked it up to a lesson learned, that deep down I really was not a very good person and that I deserved to lose the man I had called my best friend for my stupidity. I was looking for something for the ex in my old email archives yesterday, and out of the blue, he replied.

I had not sent him any other emails. I was not on his active list, I was not even showing as active on messenger, but for some reason, he sent me an email. It was like getting punched in the chest. I sat there staring at his name on my screen for a good 5 minutes before I could even gather the nerve to click on it. I read the email half a dozen times, trying to read between the lines so I could figure out why now? What he was thinking and if there is any hope for a reconciliation, but I just dont know. I would like to think I was over him and that I had moved on, but you and I both know that is a damn lie. I miss him. I miss bantering with him back and forth over emails about our lives, and the sexual tension that we kept between us. Yeah, we couldn't do a damn thing about it due to time and distance and circumstances, but having someone to talk to about the loneliness and frustration that comes with being me, was helpful. He got me. He didn't let me get to wrapped up in being me, and when I would get in a funk, he would distract me and motivate me in different ways. He has always been one of my muses, though of a sort that is oddly out of place in my new life, he is still needed.

I dont know what prompted him to write me. I haven't responded yet and I am not really sure what to say back to him. His email had a bit of anger and hurt in it, but it did leave the window open for rebuilding, but I dont know if I should now. If I was the person hearing this, I would be yanking my hair out in frustration thinking,"Make up your damn mind!" but its just not so simple anymore. Yes, I have missed him very badly. Yes, he has been my best friend through most of my adult life, but its like walking into a buzz saw, because honestly I do have feelings for him that are well beyond what I should have allowed myself to develop, and I cant let myself keep looking back when I am supposed to be going forward.

Dear Roger:What My Brain Is Doing When Its Supposed to Be Sleeping

Ive never been a person that sleeps for long stretches at a time. Most nights, if I get 4-5 hours in a row,I wake up feeling like I hibernated half my damn life away. I never have been someone who needed a lot of sleep to function. I guess it goes to that whole thing of me functioning best when I am under pressure or some kind of deadline. When I was in Public Safety, I developed the ability to power nap in all kinds of situations such as while coming back from a fire returning from dealing with all kinds of mayhem. I was able to nap in patrol cars, fire trucks, ambulances, on the ground, wearing all my gear and ready to respond to all kinds of situations. Working in remote, rural areas, I often had to ride a half hour or more to the scene, deal with whatever it was, package the case, transport them or wait for the coroner, and then clear the scene with my partner and return to base back the other direction at normal speed which often was a lot slower, so I got really good at power napping so I could write my report when we returned to base, restock and be ready to go again.

Being a parent didn't help my sleeping habits. I have kids that are escape artists and a wrecking crew, so I had to learn to sleep with one eye and ear open so I could be prepared to wrangle them up. Used to be, my creative process kicked in when I was resting and I would get some of my best ideas for my art or my writing, but as I have gotten older I have had to start taking stuff for my migraines that suppresses my ability to dream and to some extent my creative process. Where, when I was younger, my dreams were more action and adventure and the crazy antics that I would get up to, nowadays, I find that when I do dream, they tend to revolve around conversations, though not always with folks I have any particular personal connection to.

I had an odd one last night, I was back at my childhood home in East Texas, down at the pond, sitting on the rock that I used to sit on when I was fishing. It was warm and the sunlight was shining through the sycamore leaves on the water and I was barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt. My dog that died when I was 12 was there,but nothing else was the same. The house was gone, and I wasn't worried about snakes or spiders or anything. I was just relaxed and happy, stretched out on the rock with my fishing line in the water, when a couple of shadows fall over me. I open my eyes and its my cousin Robert and another young man that I have never really spoken to, but that I find kinda interesting. They sat on the rock and asked me," Soo, any luck?" I told them that I hadn't caught anything, but that I wasn't really working too hard at it. They just both gave me a smile and said,"Well thats the Texas way of doing things." We sat there in the sun for a while, watching the clouds roll by until Robert said, "Its getting late, you know?" I told him that I knew it. He asked if I thought I had done what I was supposed to do and I told him that I thought I had and that if I hadn't, I had at least tried pretty damn hard. "You need to be writing more, you have been soo damn lazy lately." They were sitting on either side of me at this point, Robert smoking a cigarette and offering me a slug off his flask, and the fella on the other side just leaned back looking up at the clouds like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, all lanky and tall and vaguely stoned looking. I looked at him and said,"Why are you here? You aren't dead," He smiled at me and said,"No, but I like to hang out in the interesting places sometimes." We got into a debate over what was better being tall or short?, and if he was gay or not and why he was trailing around after Robert. He gave me some vague comments about everything and everyone being all interconnected and how art and music just flows through us all, so thats what he was doing..."going with the flow."Robert looked at him at that point and said, "You are soo full of bullshit your eyes ought be brown instead of blue." They got up and started walking off into the woods the led off towards a meadow where I could hear music coming from. They turned back and looked at me and said, "We are gonna go wander for a bit, you want to go with?" I woke up just as I started to tell them Yes. I guess its no wonder I dont sleep for long stretches at a time. I have no idea why I would be dreaming about my dead cousin, my dead dog, a live young man I dont know,and fishing! Nights when I dream about talking to you seem to make a lot more sense. Most of the time we are in an art gallery walking up a flight of stairs, and you are talking to me in that no nonsense way of talking that you had.

Chance asked me to try and describe how you were the other day.When I first told him who you were most like, as a mentor and by your very physical presence the way you always kept me on the straight and narrow even when I tried to get wrapped up into the whole dysfunction that was my family, he was a bit horrified, but then when I explained that you were never full on cruel or mean, you were just...you. But, of all the literary characters I could think of to most choose from that would help him understand what you were like, I fell upon Severus Snape. Many people wouldn't understand it, but when I explained the whole story behind it to him, he understood and then he said, "Yeah, mom...we are going to be bringing an entire box of kleenex to the theater for that movie aren't we, because sitting here talking about this with you is getting to me, so I can imagine what its going to be like for you to see the end. " My dreams of you often actually leave me feeling happy and well rested, no matter how brief amount of time they are comprised of.