Dear Roger: Father of Mine

Its Fathers day. Another one of those socially constructed, fucked up, revenue driven ventures that leaves me and many others sitting around feeling a little left out of all the celebratory mood. My relationship with my father was not the greatest. I was not wanted. I was a disappointment to him because I was not a son, and I was constantly reminded of that. My earliest memory of him is of a lit cigarette being dropped down my back. Other memories are of him singing,"Fatty Fatty two by four" to me because I was chubby as a pre-teen. I remember him teaching me how to shoot a gun, and some of him teaching me horsemanship, but he was a taciturn man, not given to shows of affection. Neither of my parents were. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, recalling some of my mothers stories of what a,"Difficult baby" I was and how I had destroyed a crib by literally shaking it to pieces. She had related to me that I cried a lot and that a pediatrician had told her to put me in my crib and allow me to,"Scream it out", she had commented that I was an,"Early headbanger" because I would sit and rock and bang my head into the wall or the sides of my crib. I was neglected. As someone who has studied psychology, I recognize all those things she was telling me as signs of a sorely neglected child and I have to wonder how long I was left alone in that room to ,"Scream it out." I know my father never rescued me. He was in Viet Nam for 3 tours of duty and then when he returned, he wasnt around. He was a angry man who worked all the time. My father figure was John Wayne, Grandpa and you.

I guess I could have done worse. Being raised by John Wayne gave me a hero who was also taciturn, but who cared and was brave and good hearted deep down. I have always doubted whether or not my father cared for me deep down or if he simply saw me as the lost hope. Grandpa and you were everything I needed and I am so thankful I had you. The fact that I have any moral compass at all is largely due to you and grandpa and grandma. I miss you every single day and I mourn for the fact that my children will never have that kind of relationship with people.

My parents are out of my life. My children have no grandparents and that breaks my heart, but my parents are soo far away from what my grandparents and you were, that I know they have nothing to offer my children except rejection and pain.

My son has no father, and I have often mourned that loss in his life, but he has sought at male role models to guide his path, some good, some I question, but all have helped to form him into a decent young man. He struggles at times, but he has a good moral compass and his faith seems to hold him to being a good person.

My small daughter has a father, but he scares her when he is close by, after all,she has seen him with a straight razor to her mothers throat and she knows he can be a monster that is capable of terrifying things, even towards her. The young man she looks up to as the archetype for what a man is supposed to be like, her John Wayne, her hero, and her hope that there are good men in the world that aren't scary and angry, is young Jackson Rathbone. So far, that has been a good thing. He has been a fairly consistent, relatively calm and sane young man that isn't whoring himself around every bar and party to be found or splashed across the cover of whatever trashy rag happens to be trolling the,"scene". Whatever he does in his personal life, he is very good at keeping it just that,"Personal" and that is refreshing. He does what he does, doesn't curse constantly, looks relatively normal except for that sneery thing he does, and he genuinely seems like a decent person. When she met him, he was kind and she needed that.

I cant recall that many significant memories of my father that are positive. We had a difficult relationship and it left a lot of scars on me, but I can recall memory after memory of John Wayne that influenced me. I learned how to ride a horse, shoot properly, how to be a good American, cook a steak and just how to be from him. Think what you want about him and his politics, but to a lonely kid that was left to their own devices day in and day out, he was a calming influence and a hero that was there when no one else could be and he raised me. I am here for my kids, but sometimes they need that,"Guys" influence to just let them know that there is another way of doing things, and their guys are having as profound an impact on them, as John Wayne had on me, and I thanks them for that.

Dear Roger: Im Lost

Death has once again taken one of mine. This time my best friend has been stolen from me and I feel so lost and empty inside that I just dont know where to begin finding my way. I keep forging ahead because my kids demand that I do so, but the fact I am the one that gave the go ahead that sent my beloved Fergus to his death, will torture me for forever. I know it was the,"Right thing to do", and that it,"Stopped his suffering", but I wasn't there for him in those last moments. I wasn't there to comfort him and let him know how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. He may have only been a dog to most people, but to me and my little family, he was a much loved and valuable part of our family that had protected us, loved us and in the end, probably died much younger than he should have. If he had belonged to a rich family, the cancer might have gotten caught sooner and he might have been saved, but we were his family and like the rest of this band of refugees and misfits, his lot was set with struggle and strife and doing without.

He was devoted to me and my children. He used to wake me up each morning by putting his huge, cold, wet, nose up against my nose and rubbing his slobbery mug on my face until I got up to let him out so he could go take care of his business and run his morning patrol of the yard to make sure nothing had been insane enough to enter the yard. He was a fierce soccer player that loved to chase up and down the yard with my eldest son, often cheating by picking up a #5 soccer ball in his giant maw and popping it like it was a balloon, thus winning the game by default. I still have a scar on my ankle where his enthusiasm got the best of him and he mistook it for the ball. The look of chagrin on his face and his efforts to apologize more than made up for the mark. He was the best behaved dog I ever had. He responded to hand signals and tone of voice as well as anything, and he knew that if I shouted,'OI!" at him, he was in trouble, often for trying to take an extra cookie that one of my little boys were trying to smuggle to him.

He seemed to know my son,'Sticky" was different. He was very tolerant of him, laying still and calm, even when Sticky fell on him or pulled his ears. The only time he ever reacted was just before I had him neutered and Sticky grabbed the dangly bits, but even then Fergs eyes got really big and he jumped, but he did not ever snap or growl.

He adored my daughter. He slept on the floor beside her bed, often abandoning me to go be with her in the dead of night, keeping a careful eye on the tiny girl. She dressed him in her ballerina clothes and tried to paint in huge toenails, and she even put her monkeys on him for rides around the yard.

His relationship with my eldest son was like that of a big brother. They chased around the yard together, playing ball and insane games of gladiator tag that had the neighbors watching in rapt amusement.

I have never had a dog like him before. He was content to just be near me, but he seemed to know when I was suffering. He would sit next to me on the porch, leaning his bulk against my side so that his warmth soaked through me and I didnt feel so alone. I cried many a tear onto his shoulders, told him many a secret.

When we left, the tears we shed were as much over leaving him as they were for my sons. That may be hard for some to understand, but if you know me, you know that I do not have many people I get close to or care about. I am a person who keeps my distances and who does not love easy. My children are the only unconditional love that I allow, Fergus was the other. He was coming up here next month along with my boys. Our long time apart was almost over. The school year was finally over and the ex had just lost his job, so he was finally relenting and bringing me my sons and my Fergus, but then he called and tells me that the vomiting was worse and that Ferg had stopped eating.

People tell me I am not cursed, but I find it hard to not believe that. Its hard to explain to my kids about loss and death. They are church going children of God and I am a bitter, angry, person who believes that if their is a deity, that it has some vendetta against them for past sins that it is satisfying by taking everyone that they love or care for. I figure my children are safe because my ex got right with Jesus in prison, so he has some influence there, but as for those unfortunate enough to be close to only me? You are screwed.

I struggled at trying to explain to my daughter about why things and people we love die or get taken away. I cant really offer any words of comfort because I have no comfort myself. I have no peace of mind, nothing to offer her that her special fella will be safe and sound forever, or that there is some reason for Fergus being gone. Her brother told her something, and I hugged her and put on videos of her favorite boy so she would feel comforted that he was alive and well, but hell...hes a damned rock star and an actor, they live the life of an alley cat. So hopefully he will stay sane and reasonably sober until she is old enough to understand. Dogs and monkeys dont live forever,and mom cant make it better because she is broken herself.

Dear Roger: Burn

Arizona is burning again. It reminded me that this time last year I was sitting in Arizona, tense, nervous, and wary. My ex was out of prison and I wasnt sure if he was going to kill me in revenge for putting him there or if he was broken. Living under that kind of tension made me a little crazy. We had found the guide to our new path, the tickets had been purchased for the concert and we were trying to figure out how to get there. I was selling off things to raise the money for the trip and for starting our new life. I was also preparing documents to give up everything that I had thought was so important. Giving up the house was a fairly easy decision. I was tired of being a prisoner to a piece of property. When the fire started up on the Peaks I kinda felt it was a sign that it really was time to go. It hurt my soul to watch them burn though. The peace I found from sitting out on my front porch each morning, drinking my coffee, listening to the wind through the trees was gone and all that was left was a blackened disaster zone.

Packing was painful. When I thought I was bringing my van, we were loading our instruments and art and things we would need for a new life, but when the ex started hinting that a fight was looming over me getting out with my kids, I ended up having to surrender the van. Then the negotiations over my boys. I loathe the courts in AZ, but that is a whole nother story. I gave up my house for my daughter and my van for train tickets and no fights on our way out.

The fire that raged in front of the house before we left was symbolic to me. I was like a memorial of my entire time in Arizona. It burned up a decade of my life. The current fire is much bigger, and it has consumed an entire town. Coming a full year after the fire that burned the Peaks it reminds me of how far we have come. Life is much better. My kids are doing better. Its sounding more and more like I will have my sons soon. We talk often and they are eager to be here. My ex is on the verge of losing the house I gave him because he has found that the struggle to survive as a single parent back there is grim and never-ending. He has not made a house payment since I gave it to him. The fact they have not foreclosed on him amazes the hell out of me.

I have had a few nightmares about the fire over the past week and I have been a little out of sorts, but I guess that is to be expected, it was a hell of a thing to live through, having hell come to your front door. Now, we have an abundance of rain and everyone bitches about that except me. I love the rain. I still hate the cold, but I dont mind the rain.

I got to go see Flogging Molly in concert! I have to say it was probably the closest to a religious experience I have had in decades. I ended up front row, center, right in front of Dave King and in the heart of the mosh pit against the crash barrier. It was exactly where I hoped I would be. Yes, I got crushed and I got the hell beat out of me, but it was fantastic. I moshed, I sang the words to every damn song I knew and I got choked up singing along with the classics in moments that felt so special that I know they will remain with me forever. It felt so wonderful to hear a band recognize that they know its difficult to come up with the money for tickets, and that they sincerely appreciate those who spend their hard earned cash on them. It felt genuine and it was taken to heart, because the money I spent on them was money that probably should have been spent on something else, but it was my one luxury. I dont drink or smoke or do drugs or even date or have a car or anything else that takes up my money that could be considered a waste, so seeing an occasional concert is my thing. I wish I could have gotten a t-shirt, but its not like I would have been able to keep it, Chance would have swiped it from me right off. He has decided he likes them as well and has even started learning some of their music on his guitar.

Things are going okay. The job hunt is not going great, but I dont think it is for anyone.

Dear Roger: My Kid Is Smarter Than Me And She Talks To Monkeys!

My life is so damn weird Roger. I really dont know how I am expected to deal with how fast life is changing around me. My small daughter is a strange little genius, my son is a smelly music prodigy,and even Sticky is above average for a child with Downs and he shows all the signs of having some musical talent. The eldest daughter is writing a series of books and the youngest daughter has informed me that she wants to explore acrylics this summer! I sense your influence at work. She has been painting with watercolors for quite a while, and even doing some odd stuff with markers, but she remembers that bin of paints I had of yours and she eyes my brushes and tools with an envious eye, so I figured it was coming. When we discussed shutting off the tv for the summer as a way to not only get our brains back in gear, but as a way to save money for things we would rather have, she didnt even squawk about it. Her brother asked for an electric guitar and voice lessons as well as a cell phone, but she asked for a violin and lessons as well as ballet lessons and an artists easel and paints! I intend to go to more concerts and art museums and maybe take a writing class. I have managed to pare down our monthly expenses so much that we can actually afford to start doing some of the more interesting things. We dont have a car, so there is no gas to buy or insurance, we have a small place with cheap rent and only electric that is minimal, cook at home food from scratch, and very little else. The cable was one of our biggest expenses, and since I managed to get a usb wireless internet card at an affordable rate, we are golden.

I need to be able to provide the kids with more things to encourage their artistic endevours and passions. Son has been asked to play with his church band and he is playing small gigs a few times a month with his friends. He is doing well in choir and has even been offered private voice lessons as well as recruited for to the concert choir. Neither of them threw a fit over me deciding to shut the tv off. I think was struggling more with the decision than either of them because I am used to having it as background noise. When you dont have adult conversation other than in small snippets over coffee in the morning, you get starved for the sound of adult voices. Honestly I miss the sound of a mans voice. I think that is half the reason I keep it around, just so I can listen to a man talk from time to time. But in the end, we agree that with all the negative crap that is on tv nowadays, and all the just pure trash, reality crap that we dont watch anyway, we would be better off. I think the only things I will really miss will be things like Artland and Halogen tv as well as some of the educational programming, but that just makes me feel old to admit that. Most of the stuff I want to watch I can see on the internet anyway and that is the most important thing to keep us connected.

Daughter had another stellar performance at her talent show, and I was informed by more than a few people that my small daughter apparently has perfect pitch. Well...she sure as hell did not get that from me. She loves to sing. In fact, she sings a lot. She knows more song than I do and she writes her own songs and she seems to really enjoy it. I dont mind singing when I cant hear myself, but she can get me to sing with her, and we often sing in the kitchen in the evening or on Saturdays when I am cooking a big meal for all of us. Son was shocked that I was cajoled into not only attending church this past Sunday for her play, but that I actually stood up and sang. I dont do it often or willingly, but daughter gets me to do all kinds of things I never thought I would do. She has me carrying around a monkey in my pocket or in my messenger bag. She has me apologizing to that same monkey when I stuff it in my back pocket and then sit on it. She has me filming her performances of songs about some boys purple pants, listening to her sing that song until it was stuck in my head for daaaaaays. I have watched a monkey opera, and even participated in debates over, "if so and so was a real monkey, what kind of monkey would he be?" My daughter is somewhat of an expert on not only the monkeys, but the boys as well so it was pretty interesting to hear her speculations, (I dont think I will look at those fellas without an extra giggle ever again), because she even drew pictures to illustrate her point.

My other two boys should be up here this summer. I am not going to hold my breath, but I am hoping against hope that I get them soon. My ex says he wants to go back to school and he doesnt think he can manage two kids and school as well. Gee...I managed 4, a all hell breaking loose around me constantly as well as poverty and him making life hell. I didnt quit grad school until I was halfway through and everything was settled down. I just simply lost my way. If I ever found something to interest me again, I might even go back, with 4 kids making me crazy, because thats how best I roll.

Dear Roger: Settling In

http://youtu.be/eb6oveLtMd8 Baby girls "Jacksons Purple Pants" video

Mornings around here are finally settling into a rhythm that sort of works, even though my son thinks its going to kill him to keep waking up at 0530 in the morning to shower. I swear teen age boys are not the friendliest creatures in the morning. He does his level best to empty the hot water heater of every drop of hot water so that I am assured to run out in the middle of my shower every morning, but I am pretty fast and efficient, so I am managing. Dealing with son has its ups and downs. He has the typical teen moodiness and that gets pretty old because I have the middle-aged, hormonal, thing going on myself so our clashes can get pretty epic. he also has discovered he likes to tease and harass me Bam Margera style and I dont react like the father, I react like a pissed of wolverine and so far he has found out I cant take him down is he makes the mistake of letting me get ahold of even his thumb. He may be over 8 inches taller than me and outweigh me by 70lbs, but when I am pissed, I tend to go berserk. No blood has been shed and we do end up laughing, but I am sure our neighbors think we are insane.

Spring is finally starting to show its face, though I am still having to wear a jacket most days. I am just a bit of a wimp when it comes to the cold, so I will probably be wearing long sleeves or a jacket for the rest of my damn life if I stay up here. I do love Portland, but I dont like the cold. Texas has been getting hammered with tornadoes, at least I dont have to worry about that anymore. Daughter spent a chunk of yesterday afternoon praying hard for her little fella she is so fond of. Turns out he was in Stillwater,Oklahoma filming some movie,(why the hell anyone would be in OK in tornado season to film a movie is beyond me), and of course a huge storm track ended up headed right for where he was at. He tweeted out a sad little missive and she went high and to the right, freaking out. She started praying and sounding almost threatening in her conversation with God. Let me tell you, if that boy ever needed a lawyer, daughter would damn sure be able to get the job done because she was telling it like it is when it came to why her little fella should be spared. About an hour later he was fine as frogs hair and eating pizza and she said,"High 5 God!" and pirouetted around the living room for a bit before she went back to watching a show on animals and drawing. Son was grumbling about the fact that family in Texas was under tornado warning and she wasn't too concerned but let young Jackson get nervous and she freaks out. I told him that young Mr. Rathbone has been a fixture in her life a lot longer than anybody back there, so shes more invested in him emotionally. Its sad but true, she tells people she doesn't have grandparents and since I have disavowed my parents, she really doesn't.

Daughter has her talent show today and I am looking forward to seeing it. She ended up writing her own song and it has a harmonica solo to go with it, (influence of her favorite boy showing again), so it should be cute. She is quite the pistol and I uploaded her first video to youtube the other day after she wrote a song about young Jacksons tight purple pants. Its cute as hell I think, especially where she counts off the beat, and her dramatic style cracks me up. She is always trying to work in the harmonica in so that is there as well. She also insisted on thanking him at the end and that was just hysterical, but the real kicker was later in the evening when she came out of her room and seriously asked me,"Mom, do you think I will be a one hit wonder?"

Dear Roger: Run Boy! RUN NOW!

So it has been an enlightening and interesting week. I have always known that my small daughter was particularly bright and talented, beyond what my own ego imagined, but I really had no idea the true depth of her abilities and now that I do, I am more than a little freaked out.

Her school sent her to be tested several months ago. It was a long day of intense testing that had followed a myriad of interview forms about her background and family history, her teachers observations and her classroom work and a series of observed tasks and what have you. I got the results of all of this yesterday and I have to tell you that I was beaming. My daughter is,"Intellectually Gifted". Her abilities cover not just one particular thing, but the whole shebang, though she is off the charts on verbal ability. I wasn't really shocked there, after all the kid could talk an ear off a statue and she throws down $5 words like its normal for a 7 year old to do so. We play games like,"Thesaurus" that I made up where we start off with a simple word like,"Small" and come up with as many words as possible that mean the same thing. Her first word in the game yesterday was,"minuscule", so yeah....

Her teacher tells me that she seems to have a real talent for writing songs and plays as well as performing for the class. She recounted how my daughter found out about her birthday and in 15 minutes had written a personalized birthday song that mentioned her pets,and that she had even drafted 3 little boys to sing back up for her as she stood up in front of the class flipped her hair back and belted out the song and then took a bow. She is always writing songs and plays and even composing little ditties about her monkey, "Jackson" both stuffed and even the real one. Last night she was writing a new song called,"Purple pants" in honor of her favorite young mans new fashion oddity. She wrote her own song for the talent show after her and her brother had severe ,'Artistic differences" over the performing of Spencer Bells ,"Beautiful More So". Her song is about Zombie Gummy Bears and is heavy on harmonica with very familiar dance moves,(remind me to limit her viewing of 100 Monkeys videos for a little while), and is so damn funny and cute that I cant help but think she may do well just on sheer cuteness and ballsyness factor alone.

I have a lot to be thinking about over this summer. The school is going to be working on trying to develop a plan to keep her challenged in this next year, and they are already giving her special privileges in the library and I am looking into finding a music teacher for her that is capable of teaching her the musical instruments she wants to learn. I guess I am going to have to step up my game on teaching her French like she wants, though I am still trying to talk her out of thinking she is going to marry that poor boy and drag him to, "France for 6 months and then Italy so she can study art", though with her abilities and determination, she may just be able to do it and in a vastly shorter time period than I had anticipated.

Dear Roger:My Muse Ran Off With My Ambition

I dont know if its Spring fever, the fact I have been distracted by all the pretty boys wandering around, the need to find a job, or just the general mess that is constantly going on in my life, but writing has not been coming easy for me lately. I think its maybe because I miss coffee so much. maybe I need my heart to be racing along like a hummingbird on speed in order to fuel that manic maniac that is my muse, but I have been lackadaisical at best. I have revised a few of my songs/poems, edited my stories and come up with a few ideas, and actually my moleskine has been getting utilized pretty regularly to jot down my ideas and musings, but as for my regularly scheduled story updates and writing...I am sadly remiss.

I have been going to the gym pretty regularly and I am getting in really good shape. The regular tanning is a double edged sword for me. Its helping my skin and its nice to not look as pale as a corpse, but the down side is that every single scar on my body now stands out in sharp detail, especially the ones on my chest and and stomach. The ones on my throat dont show as well which is nice, but the others really glow and I am not really happy about that. I am not particularly vain or concerned with things cosmetic, after all, I dont wear makeup or go for any of that salon stuff, but I really dont like looking all scarred up. My hands are actually the worst. The are all scarred and battered and rough looking. I have seen men with more femininen hands than what I have, but I guess with the life and work I have done, its to be expected. My son actually has my hands, we noticed that one evening while we were cooking dinner and it was kinda weird to see that, he even tends to chew his nails or pick and the cuticles when he is tense like I do.

Speaking of my son...he is most definitely NOT a morning person. I get up every morning at 0500 to start my day. Its part of my routine and it works for me. It also means I usually get the first shower and the majority of the hot water. He bitched and complained and threw such a fit that I challenged him to get his butt up and shower before me. He boldly claimed that it would be,"No problem" and he actually managed to do it for about 3 days. He managed to get up and he used all the hot water and he was mighty proud of himself, but then a teenagers true nature showed through and he began whining about the early hour. He started whining and saying, "You go first", which as you know, threw off my routine and ticked me off. I am not saying I am obsessive compulsive,(not much anyway), but I have ways of doing things and when I get into a way of doing things, I do not like to deviate or change them up. It was rather loud around here for a couple of mornings and I had to threaten to break out the bag of frozen corn to get him up and moving. He repaid me by using every drop of hot water. Kids are wonderful critters.

Man hunting has been pretty dismal. The pretty gay boys are out in force, but luckily my gaydar seems to be pretty attuned to them now and I am wasting less and less time with dogs that wont hunt.

I am hoping to do some writing this week, I have a few ideas kicking around in my skull and I need to get them written down. Hopefully I will find a job pretty soon, things have been pretty slow and as usual the economy and job market is still pretty slow for me. I dont know what I want to do and that is the big problem for me. I dont see myself working around the general public very well. I had considered going back into EMS or teaching or even school, but I just dont know. I am kinda at loose ends and I think I need to take stock of things and figure out what I am going to do.