Dear Roger: Preparations, Conversations

It has been pretty much the week from hell. The stress alone has had me napping in the floor more than once, so I think I am ready for it to be at an end. Between my paychecks, and my cousins help, I have gotten enough money that allowed me to book a flight to Phoenix and I will be leaving on Wednesday. I hope to Amtrak it back out of there on Saturday, which would be the cheapest departure date for the three of us, at 514, with no real issues. That would put us getting back into Portland on Monday. A looong trip, but bearable. The stress of trying to come up with the money, trying to figure out what to do, dealing with phone calls from the ex where he is telling me about the flooding that is going on due to the monsoons and fire damage as well as all the drama that is going on back there, its been enough that when son kept pushing me about playing chauffeur to him and his girlfriend on a weekend when I was already dealing with the looming 100 Monkeys concert and and hysteria from the youngest daughter, I snapped and told him off.

We dont own a car. We cant afford a car. He wanted me to borrow a car from our friend, then drive to Vancouver and pick up his girlfriend, bring her to Portland and drive them to a restaurant for dinner. He also wanted me to pay for all of this. I have to wonder what part of scraping together every single dime to get his brothers, he doesn't understand? I realize he is a teen with teen issues and teen brain capacity, but that was just ridiculous. He was nagging and being hateful and even trying to bully me about it and I just snapped and unloaded on him. I called him selfish and accused him of not wanting his brothers because they would take away from him. It was ugly. After a little bit we both just sat a opposite ends of the couch and were quiet for a while and then after my blood pressure went down, we talked.

I explained to him that he needed to realize that I do not have to explain everything I do. My motivations and decisions are not his to question and that its not my job to finance or facilitate his love life. I dont have a love life mainly because I dont have time for it and I cannot afford it. I told him that if he wants to have an easier dating life, he needs to find a girl who lives in the same zip code. Hes a good kid, but like a typical teen, he is selfish and egotistical. I try to work with that, but there are days it gets frustrating. I know I have it pretty easy though. My friends son is a defiant problem child. He is confrontational, threatening , calls his mother,"Stupid" sneaks out and runs off, openly flaunts their rules and faces no real repercussions for his behavior. They are failing that kid soo badly it breaks my heart. I see a dark road ahead for that kid, and I suspect things about him that are probably going to lead to a serious schism within that very conservative Christian family, and I only hope it doesn't lead to his self-destruction. I have tried to be a peaceful middle-ground for them, and to let him know that I will listen to his respectful comments, and I have often offered a calm, safe place to come and talk while everyone settles down, but things are getting worse and they seem to not know what to do about it. My son and him have been best friends since they were 6, and my son tells me that he is worried as well, but all he can do is tell his friend that he is there for him no matter what and that he will listen, but they are drifting apart and that is sad to see.

My son and I were talking last night and he did tell me that as crazy as our lives are, and as difficult and as strained as things can get, he knows that I love him no matter who he is and that has always been something he has been happy to know, because he knows his friend doesn't have that luxury.

Today is going to be a crazy day. Its get the kids up, get out the door by 730 and to the train, ride to Lloyd center to meet our friend at the hotel, then off to where the Pre-show is going to be. We get to hike about a mile, which is less than we had to hike last year, but still a bit of a bummer. After the pre-show is over then we head back towards downtown to wander around until the show at 7 tonight. After the show, depending on when its over, we have to figure out how to get home. If the max is still running its that, if its too late, its a cab with a amped up 7 y/o. I hope she gets another picture with young Jackson Rathbone again, she adores him soo damn much I know she will be crushed if she doesn't, but I have tried to prepare her. They are getting more popular and its probably going to be a bigger show with more chaos, so its going to have lost a lot of its intimacy and charm. The VooDoo days are long gone. Most of my friends from that concert aren't even going to make it up for the show, so nothing is going to be the same, and that's a little sad.I know things have to change, I just wish it wasn't so much so fast.

Dear Roger: Waiting, Working, Trying to Not Fall Apart

Stress is getting to me. I took another unexpected nap in the floor yesterday and I guess I needed it. I feel tired all the time right now, but I know I dont have time to sleep. I have been working on rounding up things the boys are going to need when they finally get here, still trying to scrounge the funds to get them back up here, and dreading every time the phone rings and its my ex. I am soo damn afraid he is going to call me and tell me hes been arrested for driving on a suspended license and that the boys are going into foster care. I am just floored that he has let things get to that point in his life. I mean, I knew he was not an upstanding, achiever at all, but to sink to the level that I have to worry that my children would end up at the tender mercies of the state? It boggles the mind. I have scrounged enough money and thanks to my cousin, I have enough money to get there, but I don't have enough to get back with them. I cannot end up trapped down there with him, that would not be good at all. I was hoping to just grab and go, its not like they have a lot of things to bring with them. I am going to have to buy them pretty much everything, including shoes, once they get up here. I have seen pictures of them and for the first time in their lives, they look poor. I never allowed that when they were with me. We may have not had two dimes to rub together, but my children had nice clothes and were well tended. The only thing he makes sure of is that he has his damn can of tobacco every week at 13.00 a can. I could turn that 13.oo a week into new shoes for both boys as well as jeans and shirts, but he doesn't think that way and that is where we always differed.

He says he is going to follow them to Portland. I hope the hell not. I hope that once I get them out of there, he realizes that its actually hard to get out of there and make a change and he just goes to Virginia to live with his mother like his brother did. Im angry and stressed out and worried about my sons. My daughter is worried about them but excited that they are going to be going to the same school as her. My eldest son is trying to maintain calm in the house, but we have butted heads more than once over silly things.

The concert is Sunday and we are planning on heading down to meet up with a friend on Saturday to just try and decompress and not stress over things for a little bit. I think I need to do that so I will quit taking the unexpected naps in the floor.

Dear Roger: Closer

It has been frustrating trying to get it all sorted out for how to go and get the boys. My ex vacillates between grim acceptance, and anger that I wont just fix things for him again and leave them there in the mess he has created. I have felt like beating my head against the wall when trying to find resources to help me get down there to get them. This is one of those times when not having a car and when living soo damn close to the vest financially, really hurts. I dont have an extra thousand dollars or so laying around to drop on plane tickets or train tickets or things like that. I squeak out the rent and the basic necessities each month with little to none for extras left over. I had to save up and buy the tickets for the concert we are attending this weekend, several months ago, and those tickets are under $20.00 each. We dont have a car because I crunched the numbers for all the expenses and we just dont have the money each month to pay for insurance, gas and upkeep, so we dont have a car. I dont get my hair done professionally, I dont wear make-up or smoke or drink or go out because there is just not money for it. My daughter has begged me for months for dance lessons, but I cant afford it, so I find her videos to watch of dancers. We dont have cable, or any damn extras and I dont often ask anyone for a damned thing. I know there are people who live in my apartment complex who are on housing, they are on food stamps and all kinds of assistance. They also have not one, but two damn cars! They also smoke like chimneys, have 4 kids that have bicycles and at least 2 long board skateboards, they wear nice clothes that are never clean, and I have to wonder,What.The. HELL? Those people are disgusting sweathogs who drop trash everyplace they happen to be, they create problems and hopefully will soon be leaving due to all the problems they have created, but they seem to have lots of time, money and things for doing all the wrong things.

I pay all my own damn rent, buy all my own stuff and I keep my place immaculate and my kids out of trouble. I just want to scream in frustration when I see that they get handed more and more and when I go ask if there are any resources to help me get my sons here, and I am told,"Sorry, no. The donations people make to our organization for D/V aren't used for things like that."

None, not one of the so-called "Womens Groups" or organizations that are supposed to help Survivors of Domestic Violence, were willing or able to help me. These are groups that rake in millions of dollars annually . If my kids were dogs, I would have had people falling all over themselves to fly them up here, but because they are just an 11 year old with Downs and a 9 year old little boy, facing homelessness, they are screwed. I have proof I have custody, he is also drafting a letter that he is getting notarized that gives me the right to take them out of state without getting and trouble, so none of that is a problem, but no one wants to get involved. My D/V case manager was less than useless. He just referred me to the Catholics, as did several other organizations. What the hell do the Catholics have to do with anything? Im not Catholic, I lost my faith a long time ago, and I am not their problem. Is it because I have a lot of kids? It got frustrating and made me a little angry.

The one really bright spot in the day was one of my cousins came through and helped some. They are not wealthy folks by any means, but their contribution meant more to me than they know because none of my family has offered to help other than my parents wanting to get my stuff for themselves. My cousin reminded me that I do have some family left that cares and that understands that kids are what matters. Im still working on things and hoping to raise enough money to get them soon. School started down there today and he isn't sending them because they dont have clothes or shoes or anything they need for school and with me coming to get them soon, he just didn't see the point. His license is suspended, so every time he drives anywhere, he takes the chance of getting arrested and my kids ending up in foster care until I can get there, and that horrifies the hell out of me. I have got to get there soon. My sons are excited about being here, Conner and I talk every day and he is back to telling me knock knock jokes. He wants to ride on the Amtrak because that is how he remembers me and his siblings leaving. I looked it up again last night and I found that 3 one way tickets out of Flagstaff are a total of $542, so I am shooting for that. even if I have to pay rent late this month, that is what I am going to do. It will be a long, stressful trip with two little boys, but once I get there, we will sort it out and I think once we are together again, it will all work out.

Dear Roger:Priorities

I am not one to just sit back and let things happen. The minute my ex said I could have my sons back, I started working on the,"How" of getting them up here. I may be a, "Micro-managing bitch" as he has called me, but I do not like to leave anything to happenstance. I am also not good at asking for help. If not for my friends, I would not be trying to get people to help me, and I would be selling everything I own in order to raise the money to get there. I still have a contingency plan to do that. I asked my ex to photograph my Keen Cutter advertising print and even though I love it, I will sell it to raise the money.

My sis tells me my parents were only interested in getting my things from my house before my ex loses it. That is not happening. I will have my things put into storage and shipped to me slowly before I allow them to be taken back to Texas to be peed on by animals or thrown in a garage and forgotten, or given to my mothers,'adopted" daughter in Arizona. That just made me angry, and I wish my sis hadn't told them anything. My friends will help me get my things, and they will make sure they get where they need to be. My children are the primary concern.

I finally overloaded on stress a bit yesterday and took a bit of an unexpected nap in the floor for a few hours. I just remember feeling really weary and dizzy and the next thing I know I was looking at my boss who was asking me if it was okay if she wrote that I was an ex-cop in the complex newsletter. Son tells me I laid in the floor, deeply asleep for around 3 hours. He said he wasn't worried because I was breathing and occasionally muttering in my sleep. Its good to know the boy doesn't freak out about his mother laying unconscious in the floor! I think it was just because I hadn't eaten properly for a couple of days, I was worn out, stressed out and I just needed to shut down for a bit. I felt like I had a hangover afterwards, and I ended up going to bed early last night.

My daughter is really excited that her brothers are going to be here. She has been buzzing around, talking about tea parties and going to the park and all kinds of fun that she can have with them. She has missed her brother Conner the most. Because of the Downs Syndrome, he is closest to her in size and he is always willing to play with her without being unhappy about getting dressed up or being told hes now a monkey or a puppy or something. The often had very cute and creative games that they played. Getting Conner here sooner than later will put my mind at ease, I know he will need a good medical check up and probably a lot of dental work. His father has been supposed to take him for weeks and hasn't had the time, so I will get that done. He will have to have a 1:1 aide for school and the bus, both boys are going to have to have clothes and shoes and school supplies because he told me yesterday that they have nothing. Im going to be broke financially forever, but for the first time in over a year, I am going to be the richest woman alive, my boys are coming HOME.

Dear Roger: At Long Last, Hope...Coupled With Stress, Of Course

He finally agreed! After more than a year of me begging and pleading and trying to convince him it was the right thing to do, my ex finally agreed last night to let me have my sons!! Now all I have to do it figure out how to get down to Flagstaff to get them and then back to Portland. I dont have a car. I don't have any spare money, and I have no idea how the hell I am going to do it, but I have to. My ex got a foreclosure notice and he is losing the house by the first part of October, he has absolutely no money, in fact they cannot even buy gas to get to town, which is probably a good thing considering my ex most likely has a suspended drivers license. He is selling off things to raise money to buy things like tolite paper and dog food. He doesn't want to send the boys to school when it starts on Thursday down there because they don't have decent shoes. I have to go get them. I was up most of last night trying to figure out how to to it. I have looked at Amtrak tickets, car rentals, and I have been emailing friends. Today is going to be spent trying to get ahold of my Domestic Violence case manager to see if he has any resources he can tap to help me out to go get them. I have estimated I can do it for around $1000. Thats if I rent a car and drive, sleeping in the car,and packing my own snacks and keeping it conservative. The train would run about the same amount, though it would take longer due to just how damn slow Amtrak is. I haven't even considered flying because flying into Flagstaff would be insanely expensive. Last time I looked into the bus, that was almost as high as flying, which was just crazy. Im contacting friends, rattling cages all over in the hopes that I can get this to happen. This is the first hope I have had in so damn long. He has given up and he wants them out of there so he can concentrate on packing up his stuff and getting it out before the house is taken away.

There are things there that I want to get as well, but my boys are my priority. Things can mostly be replaced, other than my uncles painting, but I dont even know how the hell I am going to get that back home.

I need to get them before school starts up here on the 7th of Sept, that way I can get them to the doctor, get them some stability and somehow get them what they need. I am going to have to work 4 jobs and have less than 2 lives, but at least my sons will be home!

Dear Roger: Beating My Head Against The Wall Isnt Enough

Its been a busy week again. I managed to crush my right hand between the bottom of the worlds heaviest couch and my friends Durango, and though x-rays revealed that no bones were broken and that it was in fact only severely bruised with crushed tendons and what not, it still hurts like hell and it has made getting things done a real pain in the ass. I have a splint I am supposed to wear, but considering the damn thing goes to my elbow and makes my arm sweat, it spends more time laying on the couch next to me than it does on my arm. As long as nobody bumps it and I remember to not pick anything up with that hand, I am okay, though it makes typing a real pain in the ass and slow.

I was an extra for a tv show this week! It was pretty damn fun and it involved a little bit of acting, and even making some noise and talking, so I guess I wasn't just window dressing. I had a blast and though I got paid, I would have done it for free. I got to hang out with a bunch of adults, talk about fun things that I am interested in, watch a comedian I find really funny do his thing and just hang out. It was like being on a playground with the cool kids and I was one of the cool kids for the day. Another casting director wanted my information for some shows she casts, and if it leads into other opportunities that will be awesome, but if that was it for my foray into acting, so be it. I had fun, but it would be hard for me to enforce my,"College and then a REAL job" policy for my kids if their own mom is running around doing play acting.

Son and I have been butting heads pretty hard lately. He has been a full on jerk at times and I have reached the point where I just take things away and tell him to walk away from me. The day I went and got the couch and furniture, he had been so damn hateful to me, I took the hotspot with me so he didnt have internet access except on his phone, but he used that to post hateful comments about me on Facebook. My ex husband called me to tell me I was being trashed online and to ask me what the hell I had done this time. In spite of all of his faults, he is good about giving me a heads up when son is on a rampage like that. It eventually blew over, but I am weary of it. He is so damn spoiled and I know I have only myself to blame. He suffers from 1st Texas son syndrome. I am a Texan. He is my 1st born son. It was just me and him for a long time and I turned him into a little prince. He has always been over-indulged in that way. I love my other children just as much, but he had me to himself for a long time, and he was spoiled and it has carried on. I know quite a few Texas sons, and those that are onlys or eldests, tend to be the worst spoiled, but its just something us Texas mothers tend to do and its hard to undo.With school starting back soon and his brothers coming up here soon,(hopefully), we will have some time apart and less time to focus on each others annoying habits and maybe the bickering with ease up. I can only hope.

My friend from out of state that was going to go to the 100 Monkeys concert with me is not going to be able to make it, so I am going to end up taking a friend of sons, another teen boy. I would pretty much rather take a boot to the head that deal with Beavis and Butthead at the concert, but I hate the thought of wasting the tickets and son insists he "Really wants to go". I rue the day he realized that there are lots of girls at the concerts, though I still tease him mercilessly about his lil crush on Jackson Rathbone due to the Criminal Minds episode. I thought about printing off a picture from the episode and taping it to his door, but I do value my computer and I fear it would suffer violence at his hands, either that, or he would keep the picture and frame it, just to traumatize me and his sister. He is such a contrary lately that there is no telling.

This next Sunday is the concert and I am both excited and apprehensive. Daughter was a little disturbed to find that it was on a Sunday and that she was going to miss church in because we were going to be wandering around town and going to the Best Buy thing. She is very much a church girl, but coordinating meeting up with the folks she rides to church with and our transportation to the concert would be a huge hassle, so I just told her no church. She was not happy, but when I gave her the choice of church or concert, she chose concert. She has been super excited and wound up this week Her monkeys have been drug all over and she has informed me that she is taking Jackson with her again. Her father made a comment last night that he wanted to see the end of that,"Little obsession" and that comment pissed me off.

She is 7 years old. She has been through the wringer in her young life and has done nothing but succeed and overcome all of it. She witnessed much of the abuse, she has been separated from her brothers and her pets and she lost Fergus too. She is growing up without the normal things most little girls have and she hasn't complained. So what is she loves a funky little rock star and so what if she carries around a ratty little monkey she named after him? Its her comfort and the one stable thing in her life. She no longer asks to take it to school or church, and I can convince her to leave him at home on occasion, but if my ex thinks he is going to come up here and try and usurp everything we have established and destroy her happiness in some half-assed bid to try and become a semi-decent father figure, he has another thing coming. He let her down time and time again. She has replaced him and she is happy.

He says he is coming up here. He got a foreclosure notice on the house and he has until October to get it figured out. He is selling off things, including my things, to raise money and he is talking about coming to Portland to at least get my boys to me. All I can hope for is that I can get my boys and get them in a stable setting and let them know that its only going to get better now that we are together. I just have to hope that once I have my boys, he will find someplace else to be.

Dear Roger: Surreality-The Weirdness That Is My Life

What a week! We finally have a couch though it nearly cost me a broken hand. Its a monster of a couch, 7ft long and all steel and wood and black houndstooth material, its very, very cool and probably the heaviest couch I have ever owned. When we were loading it into the back of my friends Durango, I managed to get my hand caught between it and the back end of the truck and ended up with,"Severely crushed tendons and a deep bone bruise" on my right hand of all things! It never fails that some damn disaster befalls me when I am at my busiest.

Work has been going good. I enjoy it and I am meeting people and starting to get out and try to actually socialize some.

I am making my first foray into acting today. I have been called to be in a funky show on the IFC channel. I am pretty excited about it and its just pretty much being window dressing, but wow! I like the show and I watched it regularly when I had cable, so I am pretty jazzed to be on it. If this is fun, I will see about trying to be in others, more often.

My writing is going along okay. I am considering taking the story into a little more twisted angle, but I have to get over being squeamish about writing the more explicit sex scenes first I guess. I just have read sooo many bad ones, I dont want to repeat the mistakes I have seen. I like to write erotic without smacking people in the face with all the,"Pulsing and throbbing" what have yous.

The kids are driving me nuts. School doesn't start back until September 9th and I am sure I will be insane by then. If I have to put up with sons smart assed snarky attitude much longer, I will lose my mind. Daughter is turning into an insomniac. Last night she realized that it was 10 days til the 100Monkeys concert. At 1130 at night I had a 7 year old in freak out mode. I was in my bed, at that stage of sleep where you are all relaxed and almost dead to the world, when I felt something touch my cheek. I jumped and opened my eyes to find her standing over me with her damn beady eyed monkeys. "Its almost less than 10 days til they are back!!!" she gushed at me.

I sat up and told her that if she didn't get her narrow ass out of my room and into bed, I was gonna whop her, her monkeys and him when I saw him, just for all the damn aggravation! My heart about jumped out of my chest she startled me so damn bad! It was dark in my room and to have someone standing over me! Hell, all she needed was to be singing,"Keep Awake" and the scene would have been perfect. I heard her brother laughing out in the living room, so I know he put her up to it. It took me a good hour to go back to sleep.

I have decided to go to my 25th High School reunion in April. I am probably going to take the Amtrak back there, but either way, I am going because there are some friends I want to see, and I want to see my sis. Its time to go home for a bit to just say,"Hello" and be the scandal to give folks something to ponder for a bit.