Dear Roger:Werewolf Birthdays

My son turn 16 today. I think this is the saddest I have been on one of my kids birthdays ever. Raising a boy has to be one of the most maddening, frustrating, heart breaking and difficult undertakings you can attempt.

I tried hard to be a good mom. I talked, listened, stayed involved, gave lots of hugs, supported, and made sure he had the things he needed to fit in or to be himself, whichever he was wanting to do at the moment. I always made sure than when he went to school, no one knew he was a poor kid. I indulged his weird haircuts, his odd tastes in music and when I could I took him to see his black cloud of a psuedo girlfriend. I cleaned up after him and over-indulged him as any Texas mother is prone to do her first born son. He has constantly been told how,"Smart, talented, handsome" and what not he is, and hes got a bit of an ego. Ive heard from his best buddy he can be a bit of an ass at times to be around, and honestly, ive seen it. Hes got a snarky, sarcastic temper and hes a perfectionist who expects everyone around him to be up to his standards.

I love my son with all my heart. For his whole life hes done without the key thing that helps a boy turn into a civilized male, a civilized male role model. He has no father. His biological is a sociopathic bastard who offered to kill us both many times over if we ever bothered him, convincingly enough that the state investigators determined that he was a credible threat and that we should probably stay far away from him.( I really know how to pick men)But now that my son is of age and wanting to go into acting and such, he wants to meet his father and ask him,"Why?" partly to find that out, and partly because his father was a small time actor amongst other things who still has family out in Santa Monica and I guess he thinks he might get in their good graces.

When my ex showed up out here, he greeted him with open arms and they have developed a camaraderie. I dont really know what to think about that. I know that they have talked, in depth, several times about what happened, and I know that my ex has apologized to him but I dont know, I guess I just cant forgive as easy and my ex knows that. We actually talked about that last night when my son left for a little while. It cleared the air about a lot of things. My ex said that boys reach a point where they just become creatures that are really unpleasant to be around,(like werewolves)and that without focus or direction and strict regimentation like a military school, they often get into trouble. He told me that the next two years are going to be the toughest. I remember my 16-17 year old years and I still don't really know how I survived them and I wasn't in a big city filled with all kinds of trouble to get into. My son has been pushing me away lately, not wanting to talk to me, looking at me scornfully and accusing me of favoritism towards my daughter. Thats not true. I love all my kids equally, but differently and i tried to explain that to him. With him, for years it was just me and him, struggling with only each other for company, he was my peanut and my world. I gave up everything for him and I stopped being selfish. I stopped living just for me. With Sticky, my protective love emerged. I watched him struggle to live and then struggle to achieve and I helped him every step of the way and I live for his smiles and his hugs. Stubby is my middle child, the one who thinks he is the extra, but he is the child who is most like me and that is both something I love about him and fear for him. I see every personality trait I have ever worried about in me, living in my son and I hug him daily in the hopes that he will realize that he is loved well beyond what he imagines. Stevie, my daughter? The one son accused me of favoring...we nearly died together. She was born sick, she struggled to live and nearly didn't. Her father never came to the hospital to see us in those entire 10 days she struggled to live. When I brought her home, I was told that she was my problem. I spent months sleeping with her in my arms. She is my smiley child. Even though all the horrors, she would try to make me smile. When I was soo sick with H1n1, she would bring me drinks and sit and sing to me and keep me company. She always greets me with a smile and a hug, and no matter how crappy my day has been, she knows how to make it better and she will harass me until she makes me laugh or smile. How can you not love that?

I'm not really explaining very well that I love all my kids equally, but I do. When Chance is late getting home I am uneasy and worried, not because I want to control his life , but because I want to know hes safe. he thinks its because im a control freak at this point. The ex tells me that I wont win. He said I could present the boy with a brand new truck for his birthday,(wouldn't do that even if I could because that's just ridiculous over indulgence), and he would still find a reason to be pissed at me. I was going to give him the electric guitar, but I don't think I will now. I'm going to wait for Christmas, maybe by then he will be talking to me? I don't know. Everyone says boys are supposed to be easier, but I don't believe it. They are like having a werewolf with rabies and and an eating disorder living in your house. The do dangerous and ridiculous things and wonder why they have road rash on their skull and ass, and scorch marks on their jeans. I've spent some time looking at military academies and wondering if i dart him like a rogue grizzly, would they accept him for shipping if he were duct taped to the seat?

Dear Roger:Love You Long Time

http://youtu.be/Mia9jYTDtFI

My daughter. Good Lord that child. I often say that she is the greater beings sense of humor at work because there is no way a train wreck of a woman like me should have such a girly girl as a child. She has butt length curly blonde hair that she expects me to help her style when my idea of style is a pony tail stuffed under a ball cap. We got into an argument last night because she wanted me to paint her finger nails and toe nails, and I told her I didn't want her to do that because she is too young and because I am terrible at doing that, I mean seriously, it looks like a blind man with the tremors got ahold of house paint when I attempt it, but she wore me down and I let her do it.

She loves young Jackson Rathbone. I think we've talked about that before quite a bit, and I don't really deter her. She needs a decent male role model and she could do worse than him.

She celebrates his birthday pretty much the entire month of December and draws him cards and such. Last year I had to hike my ass to the post office to mail his card in the rain after she found it laying on my desk where I had stashed it thinking it would just go to some mailing center and be discarded anyway. I wont make that mistake ever again. She wanted to sing a song for him this year and after she worked on it for over a week with much drama and stress, she finally got something she was happy with and we got it recorded and I sent it off into the internet ether a little early thinking it would bounce from place to place and maybe get seen someday. Yeah...im a dumbass. Not only did he see it, he tweeted it out and thanked her for it setting off an avalanche of emails and tweets and comments and HOLY COW ! in my life. She was tickled to death he had actually seen it and that he knew she was thinking of him.

Shes a good hearted kid, and that was her whole motivation, to let him know she was wishing him a happy birthday. She prays for him every night and defends him from teasing by her brothers and others.

Her father wasn't pleased by all the attention, but then his gripe was,'She never does that kind of stuff for my birthday." yeah...well...I wont go into the reasons why, they are all public record, but she doesn't even know when his birthday is and I don't think she cares.

She adores a decent enough boy and I am happy to let it be. I remember when I was just a little bit older than her, standing in front of a stage I was barely tall enough to see over, watching a young man sing and strut around, my heart racing as I screamed my tweeny lungs out. I adored him and I had all his records and posters and concert t-shirts. He was pretty obscure and I got teased pretty hard for liking him as well, but 30 years later, the opening chords of one of his songs still brings the biggest grin to my face and news of a revival tour of the states has me contemplating going to L.A. for the first time in over a decade, just to see him. I get it, I really, really do.

Dear Roger: As If Life Wasn't Interesting Enough

So yesterday I was telling you about daughters little video that I sent off to her favorite fella? yeeaah...I didn't think anything of it, he is busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest and he has soo many people vying for his attention that I didn't even dare to think that her little video was even going to cross his radar, so I was going about my business yesterday morning, sitting around being lazy, drinking my coffee and reading a, uh ahem...story? when my Iphone tells me a priority tweet hit. I picked it up off the coffee table thinking it was either my bestie Chels wanting to know if I wanted to go for coffee or the band boys talking about all the excitement over in England. Oh yeah, it was one of the band boys all right, THE band boy daughter thinks hung the moon and lit the stars. Not only did he see her video, what I was looking at was his tweet of the link to it with a description of it as the "Best Birthday Gift Ever" and thanking her for it. I dropped my damn Iphone in shock, thank God for good cases and soft carpet.

I may have shrieked...I dont know, but Spencer jumped, the cats fled the room and then things really got crazy. My twitter feed went nuts, my email started blowing up and I just was standing there with my teeth in my head for a few minutes before my Texan kicked in and I remembered my manners. I typed in a polite,'Thank you " to the young man and sent it off and then realized I had to tell someone in RL other than the dog how awesome this was because I just knew my daughter was going to lose her ever loving mind when she got home from school. I watched for a bit as the numbers on her video started climbing and I was dumbfounded, good Lord...My little girl has sand like none of us has ever had. I would have never had the guts to do that, I am still freaked out that I helped her with it, but she was very sure about what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it, I was worried though that she would be freaked out that soo many people had seen it, so just a little bit of dread hit for a bit.

I called up my sis and talked to her and she was more reassuring and convinced that God had played a real joke on me by giving me Stevie as a daughter,(girly girl), when I flounder on the best of days to not shave my head in frustration and and am more prone to jump into a brawl than some men. Stevie makes me try harder to be civilized and that, I think, is good, but I hope I am not failing her.

I got all kinds of emails and tweets and facebook comments in support and love for her little video and I was busy all day saving them up for her, but the main one, the one from him, I marked that as a favorite and set it aside so she could see it when she got home first thing.

I watched for her bus and Shortround got home first. I told him and he was excited and happy for her. I swear, if his mom cant keep it together, I am going to adopt him. Hes a great kid and hes good for my son, making him spend less time texting his black cloud of a psuedo girlfriend, and more time actually going out and doing things. The way he invades my sons personal space and forces him to be more social, cracks me up, and well, he has done the same damn thing to me. The kid is a hugger and I've been hugged more in the past week than I have in the past couple of years. I've learned to deal. Hes needed them because things have been pretty rough in his life. Hes started calling me,"Mom #2" Weve spent a lot of time taking about his situation and things, and he knows it will get better, and that he has a place with us for as long as he needs, my main rule is that he has to actually eat some real food, check in with me regularly, go to school and be here at night. My son watches out for him at school and walks him home and to school, so I think we have it handled . He helped me get the computer set up so when she got it the tweet was right there for her to see. We both got hang dog expressions on our faces and pretended we had some bad news for her,(fucked up, yes, I know) and as she shed her jacket and backpack and sat at the computer, I got my camera ready. It took a minute for it to register and when It did I was glad I was standing back. The "OH MY GOD's" were deafening. She was soo happy he actually saw it she jumped up and hugged me, her brother Stubby, Shortround, Spencer, and then she raced through the kitchen half a dozen times shrieking, "Im soo happy! I love him soo much!" She was buzzing for HOURS. In fact, the voice of doom finally had to be broken out at 1130pm to get her to finally go to bed and go to sleep. She had gone on a painting jag and had painted half a dozen new ideas that were mostly hearts.

Looking over at her now, she is snuggled up in her bed with her monkey under her arm, and a slight smile on her face, her day, her week, her month, her year, made again thanks to a kind young man taking a few moments from his hectic life to make a child's life so much more bright.

The video view count this morning was over 903....good Lord.

Dear Roger:The Wheel That Spins Us All

Yesterday was just a weird day. It was colder than frostbitten penguin balls, in fact I swear I saw a few snow flakes. The kids were restless and working on driving each other an myself nuts, so they went out grocery shopping with their father for a little bit and he came back looking like he had been through the gates of hell,(wussy), and my daughter...that child, let me tell you, she is going to be the death of me. Seriously, she is going to probably be the one with the pillow over my face in the wee hours. She was insistent that she HAD to get the song and birthday video done for her favorite fella yesterday. She had been walking around working on the lyrics for a few days and getting frustrated when her ever helpful,(heavy sarcasm) brother Stubby, kept interjecting his suggestions. I had to intervene when she chased him from the bedroom with a boot in hand, prepared to use it as a weapon. I had to say,"Boots are shoes, not tools of destruction." Three thrown pens later, two flounces and and a meltdown in tears, she finally got something she was happy with. If she is like this as a child,(super perfectionist), what the hell is she going to be like as an adult? Her older brother was trying to stay out of her line of fire and practice his guitar with Shortround, but she went up to him and said,"I need to know if you can play a simple rhythm?" She then hummed it out for him and he tried to copy it and she shook her head, "No, No NO! Thats all wrong! Listen to me!" Shortround at this point is clutching a pillow and trying to not fall off the couch laughing as my son looks a bit intimidated. She clapped the rhythm and then gave him an example of the sound she was looking for by singing it. He tried to copy it but he was putting his own funk on it and she got annoyed with him."Do you not get this is a BIRTHDAY song?" They began bickering and I am sitting there looking at them wondering if other families have kids that bicker over such things? She finally just threw her hands up in frustration and said, "Never mind! If I want background music or something I will have Cole beatbox for me." Shortround fell off the couch laughing. Fired from a gig by a 7year old. I left and went to work for a while. froze my ass off, got called a,'Bitch ' by a junkie, and just generally had a crappy afternoon when my shoes got wet and my toes froze, but when I got home, I was met at the door by my little girl who hugged me with her sopping wet hair flying all over and one of her best dresses hanging on her . I was put to work right away doing wardrobe and hair, combing out her hair and drying it while she played with my Iphone and took pictures of her Jackson sitting on her bedside table. Once I got her hair and dress ready, I asked if she was going to wear shoes and she said,"Why would I wear shoes? We aren't shooting this outside. You aren't going to focus on my feet are you? I don't need my shoes, focus on my face mom."

She was practicing her song and talking to her monkey while her minion, also known as her brother Stubby, ran around getting the lighting just right and trying to get Spencer to stop biting his butt and chasing the cat. Once that was all sorted, he bribed his underwear only clad brother Sticky to stay in his room for the duration and then she tells me,"Im ready, get your camera person hat on and get ready."

With Stubby sitting next to me on the couch, adjusting my hat til she thought it looked right, I used my Iphone and filmed her, trying to avoid filming all the boots and jackets hanging all over the dining room chairs, the dog water dishes, the backpacks, and all the other crap in the background. She messed up once and we all started laughing so I had to stop filming and erase it and start again, with her looking like a bundle of nerves the whole time. Shes a funny kid, all confidence and swagger on the surface, but she wants to make things perfect to the point of stress. I got her laughing and she finally relaxed and said,"Okay, Im ready. Camera, ready? Lets get this right, its important! Roll em!" And she sang her little song and for once there were no interruptions of the dog barking or her brother snorting or anything else. It came out pretty damn cute. I loaded it to youtube, and she watched me like a hawk as I sent it off in an email and posted it to my Facebook page. I got a lot of hugs yesterday for that, pretty decent pay for what I did I think, though it was a a couple of hours after I got home before I got my wet shoes off and my frozen toes thawed out. Shes worth it though, her and her brothers started filming some movie about the dog and her monkey...God only knows what that is going to be about .

Found another place down near that school for her. Its actually right across the street and if I can get it all pulled together, hopefully we will be there around mid January. I wanted to move for the start of the new term, but there is just too much up in the air financially so I have to sit tight until I am sure someone else is capable of pulling their weight. She is so eager to go, she has been working on her ,"Portfolio" and yesterday she painted a picture of a cat turd because the blue flecks from the litter make it interesting. Interesting does not begin to describe the child.

Dear Roger: Where Did The Time Go? Can I Get A Rewind in a Digital World?

This next week my oldest son is turning 16 years old. I want to say,'Uh, NO! That is not allowed. There is no way in hell my cute little, curly haired, dimpled, sweet baby boy is turning 16", but I have a feeling my cries would be fully ignored unless they were laughed at. This is like birthdaymageddon around here. My eldest daughter is turning 20, another heart stopper but I have had more time to get used to that one. You would have been on the back side of 65 and that still blows my mind, my father is in the same boat. My nephew, my niece, my sister turned 40 on the 1st and I actually managed to break with tradition and send her out a few truly obnoxious cards in time to annoy her, and so many others in the family have birthdays this month that its no wonder that everybody gets so damn cranky. Daughter has been sweating me to get her hand drawn card to her favorite boy mailed out to him because he creeps ever closer to 30 this month as well, and every time I walk past where its laying on the counter I feel guilty, not because I think he gives a damn, but because I know she does and if I don't get it sent out in time, she will be upset with me.

Back to son, SIXTEEN. Holy shit. He is such an odd character for 16. Case in point, I came home unannounced the other day because I knew he was at my house with his buddies Jay, and Shortround and they were in my home alone. I remember what I would have been up too at age 16 with no parents around and money as well as time on my hands so I decided to scoot on home and make sure they were behaving. I walked up the back way and found all the blinds drawn and the lights off. I thought to myself, WTF? Do I reallllly want to go in there? Will I need brain bleach? After all, kids are different nowadays and I just don't understand how things go anymore, and I know that they are wayy more touchy feely and friendly with less respect for personal space than the guys I grew up with used to have and I did not want to be traumatized. But it was cold outside and I figured, well, I have seen all kinds of things, nothing can be that bad, so I opened the back door and stepped into the house.

The sight that greeted me was, unexpected to say the least. Jay is a musician like my son, and he was sitting next to my son on the couch and they were both arguing over a chord progression or some musician/dork thing. Shortround was sprawled out on the floor with a soda in one hand and an quesadilla in the other, watching Harry Potter. My kitchen had been violated in a foul and demented manner with eggs and Asian seasoning splattered all over the pans,and there were empty soda cans everywhere, but there was no lingering odor of weed, no blaring rap music, no evidence of any other kind of weirdness going on at all and I had to wonder, What the hell kind of kid had I raised? I know what I was doing at 16 and it resembled nothing like that. My friends and I were involved in partying out on oil leases and racing vehicles and drinking all forms of alcohol. I wont even get into some of the other stuff that went on, but lets leave it to say that those Jackass guys were copycats and candyasses compared to us and its amazing more of us didn't end up splattered all over the highways.

My son has wrecked his skateboard a few times, and he has a deep and passionate loathing for Toyota drivers because of their seeming desire to have him as a hood ornament, but he has not been in trouble or suffered any serious injuries,(know that I am furiously knocking on my bedside table that is made of wood), but he is a good kid. He is way too serious and intense at times, he has a bit of a stick up his ass when it comes to cutting loose and having fun, but I am soo damn lucky. Hes not a criminal, not a sociopath, not a bully or a coward. He has friends and he stands up for those weaker than him, and his friends are loyal to him. I cant stand his girlfriend and neither can his friends, but its not because shes a bad girl or a whore or anything like that, she is just wrong for him. Turns out my son is a bit of a prude, and while he likes looking at pretty girls, he doesn't like trashy women. Can I get a hallelujah?! No hookers, strippers or sluts in his future. He likes good girls! Yes! I swear to GOD, I damn sure don't understand that one. He is smart as hell, a little lacking in the ambition side of things, but hopefully he will find that as he gets a little older. He is going to start an early entry college program after the first of the year that will allow him to focus on music theory and more advanced classes that don't have all the screw up kids in them, because he does not suffer fools well. He lacks patience and he resents group projects where he feels like he is doing all the work and putting in the effort and then suffering when no one else contributes their part and the grades stink. Its happened to him several times this year already and he basically quit going to one class after the last time because he got all his part done, and no one else did theirs. He was pissed off, frustrated and angry and I was worried that he was going to resort to getting physical over it because I had set the rule that he could not participate in sports unless he had B's or above, and with the loss of the group project grade, that meant that was not going to happen, so his temper came out at school, and his counselor realized then that he was in the wrong place. She referred him to the college based program and told him that he was too smart and talented for any other the other programs, and that since he couldn't afford private school, it was his best bet. He will end up with 24 college credits, early entry into Portland State and the start of a good musical resume that will begin at 16 instead of 19, so hopefully his intensity and love of music will drive him to succeed, where the schools have failed him. His ability to play so many instruments will hopefully be cultivated and expanded and he will take that and make something of it, if not as a musician, maybe as a songwriter,(which he already dabbles in), or as a teacher. Either way, at 16 hes no longer a kid, though he is still my baby.

Dear Roger:Keeping it Reality?

So I got to see myself on a tv show last night. Yeah, I actually dabbled a little bit into the acting thing and extra-ed on a couple of shows and even considered trying for more, but I don't think I have the right personality for it, meaning I have too much of a smart-assed temper and I am not a very good ass kisser. When I don't like someone, I tend to let them know it, even if its unconsciously. Anyway, back to seeing myself on tv, I had gotten to work on this new show for ABC called GRIMM, the premise sounds pretty cool and it has potential, so I was pretty excited, but Ill tell you what, acting is boring. It was a lot of repetition, a lot of sitting around and a lot of ego stroking. I did meet some pretty cool and interesting folks, made some new friends, and for the most part it was a fun day, but meh...not really my thing. I figured I would get cut from the final product because I didn't really look like all the other background folks, I was dressed in my white shirt and vest and black jeans and boots.,(my typical attire when I worked in forensics), and while their wardrobe person called it good, I got them impression the director didn't like it, but whatever. Some chick did my hair for me that day and it was pretty neat. I haven't had my hair styled like that in well...forever and I think there were enough bobby pins in it to unlock half the locks in Portland. I spent a great part of the day sitting at a desk pretending to write a report and answer the phone, then another chunk of the day walking back and forth in a hallway and then at the end of the day I was walking around in the squad bay passing out folders. That is what made it into the show! Me, walking around. Mostly caught from the back. I was shocked to see how weird I walk. I already knew I was short, but I have this weird bowlegged amble.WTF? How come nobody ever told me? I sat there looking at the tv stunned a how strange I looked, and impressed at how long my damn hair is in the back now, but I walk weird. My ex said that i have always had a very distinctive walk that he could pick out of a crowd when he could recognize nothing else, he called it an "Asshole swagger". Hes a jerk though, so I don't pay him any attention, but my son agreed. Soo, I don't think I like seeing myself on film. I am also in an upcoming episode of Portlandia and thank God I am sitting down for most of that one. Having never seen myself on video, its quite an odd thing to digest. You see all the faults and oddities in yourself and if you are surrounded by knuckelheads like me, you get teased about them ceaselessly. The only one who wasn't teasing me was my baby girl, she was very proud and wants to get into acting herself...oh no, oh nononono! What have I done?

This week flew past and has been soo damn busy for me. I am tired and ready for a break but I dont think thats coming anytime soon. Daughter asked me yesterday,"Whats that black stuff under your eyes? I thought I had dirt or something under them so I went and looked in the mirror and realized I looked like a raccoon from being so tired. Dark circles with bags, what a nice look. I dont think I would have to worry about any looming acting roles for a while looking like that.

Dear Roger:Observations,Realities and Accepting the Fact I Dont Have Time For BS

I have become a much harder person as I have aged. While my small daughter still keeps me young at heart in many ways, in many other ways, the experiences I have had have turned me into a colder person who calls it as I see it. I am a lot less willing to put up with bullshit that I put up with earlier in my life because I have realized that time is short, things happen and there are no promises of tomorrow. I have faced my own mortality a few times and rather than being afraid for myself, I was worried about my kids. That really would be my only worry. I read an interesting article yesterday about how doctors die. Strange subject material I know, but it struck a nerve with me and I realized it was because it was how I saw things. As someone who has worked in the medical field from beginning to end,meaning I have delivered babies and I have been with people as they have died, I have worked trauma codes that did not end well and I have assisted in 34 autopsies, I have decided that I am a strictly,"NO CODE" kinda person. No heroics, no long drawn out money draining efforts. I want my quality over my quantity. I hope to be one of the lucky ones that is just out walking around and have it hit me like a bus and that is it, gone with my boots on. My greatest fear is ending up at the mercy of someone else. I have lived the last 10 years with various serious health issues and I struggle now to keep adequate weight on, to keep my migraines under control and to function some days. Its not fun. It makes me grumpy and hard to be around at times and no one really understands that living with long term pain kinda sucks the joy out of you. I tend to ignore other things, like the two wisdom teeth I have that are slowly breaking down and abscessing in my jaws right now because there is really nothing I can do about them. The last quote I got to get them removed was $1200, and that is out of my reach, so I just have learned to cope with them.Its all relative to whatever else is going on in my life. I get annoyed at people like my ex when they whine about minor things like how difficult his life is because he fucked up and now everyone judges him. Well, that is his own damn fault. He had options earlier in his life, he had a full ride scholarship to a great college and he could have been a lawyer, but he decided to be an asshole instead. We all choose our directions and we have to deal with the repercussions. I try to get my kids to see that and realize that decisions we make as teens can have a lasting impact into adulthood. I was a fuck up as a teen and I lived hard, abusing my body with copious amounts of alcohol and it took me a few years to figure out that the whole,"Live fast die young and leave a good looking corpse" thing wasn't going to work out for me because it was too late to die young. Alcohol poisoning slowed down my drinking and now I am pretty much a one beer drunk. You would think that being such a cheap date I would score a man every now and then, but nope... Its still a straight pecker desert around here. Its okay though because with the live I have going on right now, any sane man would run screaming into the night and I have already had enough of the crazy to last me a lifetime. I have things I want to do to make life better for my kids, but I will get them done one way or the other, with or without help. I always do, I always will. I work hard to be a good person, an honest and direct person who does the right thing, always. I am not afraid to die, not afraid to live. I am doing both, daily.