Dear Roger: There is Only One Person I Hate

Hate is a powerful word to me, it means that you wish horrible things upon a person, that you revile them to the point of wishing them dead. I don't like the word Hate at all and I try to discourage its use, much like I try to discourage much of the hostility and vitriol I see. I don't know when I became such a semi-Buddhist, peace loving, pseudo-hippy, but I have found myself being the one who has in many situations been the person calling for a measure of calm and a reduction in the number of expletives flung about. Its not that I'm worried about being sued, Hell! anyone who sued me would find that they would need to get in line behind my student loan debt, the house the ex let foreclose,(I was still on the note, even with the quit claim), and all the general bills and BS I have facing me each month. It would be like suing quicksand.
No, its that in the grand scheme of things, I don't see why the hate is being rolled out for things that are ridiculous,irresponsible, and mean-spirited, but not hate worthy.
People are hurting in my small little microcosm, they are worried about people who mean a lot to them and they are looking for someone to blame, but adding fuel to the fire via hate is only making the quagmire of horrible emotions thicker and more negative.
I spent nearly 30 years hating a person. He never knew it. He never even knew who I was and I could not have picked him out of a line up, but I knew what he did and the repercussions of his actions changed my life and me in ways that you cannot even fathom. But, I felt my hate was justified at the time. This person had killed someone important to me and I had to face the end result of that every time I went to school and home for years. It haunted me. It was a big reason I became a cop, a big reason I carried anger in me for drunks and a big reason I carried the burden of hate, and he never even knew it. He went on and lived a long, most likely happy life and died just recently a very old man.
My hate aged me, ate me from the inside, twisted me and took years of happiness from me. I never realized it until I some little hippy chick counselor I got sent to for PTSD (after I went off on the Chief of Police in a meeting of the Domestic Violence Action Committee when he said that battered women don't really want a way out)scratched open a wound that had been festering for close to 30 years and got it bleeding.
The thing about wounds like that, sometimes you have to open them up and dig out the bad to get them to heal, and when I left Arizona, I was still festering. I came to Portland with it still bleeding, angry and hurting and without direction, my hate beginning to eat away at me again, and then we had our day in the sun... I found some direction. My little girl smiled. My son began to be a little less angry at me and the world in general and we had hope. We found a small little light in the darkness and I followed it. I  found a direction and a reason and a focus. I also found a role model for how to handle my grief in someone who had made changes in the world because of his.
I have lost many people in my life that I loved more than anything, not only to death,but to ended relationships where I was cheated on and then unceremoniously dumped on Valentines day, left with a little boy who did not understand why his Bear was no longer coming to see him after 3 years of being there for him. I've had to come to grips with the fact that a man I loved heart and soul and who I would and did sacrifice everything except my children, for, just did not love me. Yes, he cared for me, yes we have a bond, but he doesn't love me like I love him and realizing that hurt like hell. But I don't hate them. I made my peace with them and we still talk and have friendships.
My ex, the one I sent to prison for taking a straight razor to me? The albatross who cant manage to support himself much less his kids? I don't hate him. I may not like him very much and I may not have much in the way of kind things to say about him, but I do not hate him.
"Hate is a poison that consumes the vessel that contains it" is a very old quote that I find to be very true. Its the same with anger. Sometimes you have to just take a deep breath and look at all sides of things and stick to the positive and that is what I intend to do because anything to do with hate is just as the hippys would say,"Bad Karma".
The world I live in used to be a very happy and silly world with monkeys bouncing about, bright eyed boys that made us laugh and sigh and songs we all know by heart. Its changed lately, as worlds tend to do, and change is hard to deal with, but with the change some have tried to bring hate into it and I have watched as one of our bright-eyed boys has begun to suffer more and more and I worry as the light around him dims and becomes faded. Hes struggling and it scares me. Watching the pollution that hate has brought into our little world slowly choke out the bright light around him and everything that was good and sweet and silly  and I am saying that the hate needs to stop. I may not agree with what has gone on. I will not support a person who openly and unashamedly followed a vile hater and who made not so veiled threats,(in my humble opinion), but I do not hate any of my boys and I cannot hear any one speak of it.
When my little girl sees a picture of a certain young man who has always in a way kind of freaked her out, and she says."Oh no! he looks soo sad I want to draw him a monkey and give him hugs until hes all better." Then I think its time to bring some love back into the whole mix of things.

Dear Roger: Her Role Model Was a Monkey, What Did You Expect?

Daughters play finally was performed this past Sunday and it was not the typical church plays of my childhood. This one had the production values of some Hollyweird endeavors with wireless mics professional level sets, a sound track and all kinds of lighting and coaching of the actors that seemed to suck a bit of the fun out of it, and weirdly enough, a grown-assed man playing the lead in the childrens church play? I was a bit off-put by that, but I guess that is how things roll now days.
I didnt really pay that much attention to the rest of the goings on of the play, my focus was on my little girl and I have to say, she shocked me!
First off, her wiggle to the music! She told me earlier in the week they had told her that she wiggled her butt too much, and I guess she still was at it, because before the started the rehearsal the guy coaching them reminded her to keep it decent in front of everyone and he pissed her off, so then she went the opposite direction and went stiff so he ran up during the rehearsal to try to get her moving again. She is a wiggler and her most frequent dance moves are very familiar to anyone who has ever seen any concert videos of a certain band, but she is temperamental and telling her something in front of everyone just does not go over well.
Then the next thing that really shocked me was her voice, she actually sang the blues solo and I was shocked at the voice that came out of her. She has been so quiet lately, not her formerly boisterous and exuberant self, so to hear her actually singing a song loud enough that it was heard? Even her brothers were shocked.
The wiggle really started coming out during her singing, but it was the harmonica solo that cracked me up. I knew she had been looking forward to that and she really seemed to enjoy herself. The audience seemed to get a kick out of her performance as some of the old her re-emerged.
I was so very proud of her and stunned by her voice and her presence on the stage. She was so funny after the play, thanking the people who came up to talk to her, congratulating her on her singing and asking her were she learned how to sing like that? She told the,"I learned from Jackson." They thought she meant the ratty monkey she had hugged up to her and so once again, the churchy folk are convinced we are even more odd, but hey? I don't see much wrong with that.
My second book is going to come out, come hell or high water, sometime this week. I had it almost perfect and then we realized that one word in the title was off from what the ISBN had been issued for, so the whole thing had to be pulled back while that is adjusted. Its been stressful and frustrating to try and get it up and going, much more so than with the first one for some reason, perhaps because this story is so deeply personal and was at times so hard to tell? Its been very emotional at times to write about it, reliving things from long ago, writing about how things should have been, could have been might have been? That is what is so true about that great quote, "Fiction gives us the second chance that life denies us", and the story coming out is part that, part reality based, so its messed with me a bit to get it ready. I have nit picked it apart at times, and hopefully caught every out of place comma, period and just odd misspelling, but I doubt it. Its hard to catch everything on your own and with crappy glasses that have a prescription that is probably 2 years past its effective limit, but I have done my best and I am throwing it out there, hopefully to have some success and to let some things go.
I've started on the 3rd one, its a different kind of love story, one with love and loss, angst and atonement with a hope for redemption, kind of how life is on a daily basis in out little world, but its what keeps us moving forward, and that is the only way to go.

Dear Roger:Mothering 101

Its yet another one of those industry created holidays designed to create stress and guilt on those who don't fall within societal,"Norms" Yeah, I know, I'm being all bah humbug and whatever, but really? I hate these holidays, just like I hate Valentines day. 
My kids have been busily making me cards and little treats all week and its been really sweet and I appreciate them, especially the little card that Conner brought me on Friday in his own handwriting that said,"I love you, mom" Hes finally writing independently and hes writing full sentences, and that's cool as hell. Of course, later in the afternoon he yelled at me to,"Get off my ass!" so...meh. My eldest is gone all weekend doing some,"Fast for Famine Relief" so its been fairly peaceful and quiet and I was able to finally finish re-editing my second book.
Its hard to write and edit with kids around. The younger ones seem to get it, and other than when they actually need something, they tend to leave me to it, but my eldest? It drives him nuts that I can sit for hours writing and working on something. He has even admitted that! He hates to write, so the fact I do it so easily drives him crazy. I tried to explain to him that its like playing the guitar or music for him, it just burns out of me at times and I have to write the story or it itches and makes me anxious. Then when its written, the obsessive/compulsive part of me takes over and I have to fix it and tweak it until its perfect, but I always worry that they never are.
We agreed to disagree about it, and he tends to try to drag me away from my computer with guilt or with just general harassment when he thinks I have been at it too long.
I worry that I am not a good mother constantly. I have tried to do a good job, and I am one that believes that my kids come first, last and always, even if it means depriving myself of most things that some women consider important. My sis thinks Im crazy, but I grew up always being second and I didn't want my kids to ever feel that.
Its hard to be the mom of a pack of kids with all the different personalities and ages as well as the needs and wants. My sons are as different from each other as they are from my daughter but they are all dramatic and intense and competitive and prone to brawling when they get annoyed with each other. I often feel like I am the ringmaster of a rolling dog fight in the middle of a circus with daughter and her monkey on the trapeze above us all laughing fiendishly flinging poo down on us.
Last night, I had the middle boy come strolling out of his room buck naked, carrying his drawers  as he walked into the kitchen to make some chocolate milk. Daughter was in there and I heard her shriek at him,"EWW! Conner! Why do you not have pants on?!" He muttered,"I don't want to talk about it, here smell them!" and the proceeded to try and chase her with the drawers. He forgot the broom was out in the kitchen and readily available to her. It then became a case of her chasing him and she swatted his naked ass with the broom before he could make it to his room. She then began yelling at him about being a savage and rude to be walking about with his bits hanging out when there were,"ladies home" him and his brother argued that there were no ladies around and things were deteriorating when I finally intervened.
I asked what had happened to the drawers, since the entire ass end of them was ripped out, and my supposedly,'Retarded" son very dryly replied,"Bad fart", and grinned at me. I probably dont want to know the truth, but I do know the drawers were getting old.
I hunted through the pile of laundry on the older brothers bed and found a pair of boxers which caused Stubby to throw a fit claiming that Conner shouldn't wear the boxers because,"He DOES things to them." so maybe there is some veracity to the,"Bad fart" claim? I dont know, but I do know boys are gross and weird and that is what I am going to be taking with me to daughters church this morning for the play she is putting on. It should be interesting.
The play is something she has been working on for months, she got the role she wanted, she has attended every single rehearsal and she has practiced faithfully.
She is pretty excited because she has a Blues solo and shes going to be singing in front of the whole church. She watched videos of her favorite boy in order to get some ideas on how to give it some zing, sooo...this should be interesting, a Jackson Rathbone/100 Monkeys influenced church play. Lord Help me? I did have her tone down the butt wiggle just a little bit, I already get the condescending looks from that preacher as it is.
Its going to be an exciting day I have a feeling, Conner has the farts, Stevie has the nerves so I will be carrying her Jackson monkey to church for her,(thus earning more stares and judgement from the churchy folk), Stubby stayed up to late reading  Harry Potter 4 and is grumpy, and my eldest is really annoyed that not only did I text him about all the yummy Tex/Mex food he missed at the street fair yesterday, but that I also tweeted about his love of Teletubbies when he was younger to Jackson Rathbone and others.
Being a mom is constantly living on the edge, just in ways that are a little different than when I was younger and on my own.

Dear Roger: Always Look On The Monkey Side of Life

"Always looking on the bright side of life",It seems like good advice that would be something to get you through life with at least a hope of a smile a few times a day, but let me tell you, when it seems like life is determined to continually junk punch you with bad news, its kinda hard to keep that optimistic outlook.
More than a few folk wandering around the monkeyverse in particular have been having a hard time lately, myself included and I have come to the conclusion that we are in a protracted mourning period for a patient that, while not dead, is suffering from a dread disease that is really making them suffer and we are all feeling helpless because we want to cure them, we would even donate vital parts of ourselves to fix them, but the doctors are fucking listening to us, in fact, the hospital is trying to have security shove us all out the doors and lock them on us while they experiment like Frankenstein gone awry.
If that wasn't enough, many of us have other personal issues going on in our lives that pretty much trump the hell out of our one light in the darkness wavering and being in danger of going out, I personally, have a sister facing major surgery on in June where they will go in to attempt to make sure they get all the stuff out of her so cancer wont win. This will be the 4th damn time shes gone under the knife for that. It was the just  5th anniversary of my cousin passing the other day, I had a migraine storm to just about end all migraine storms that left me curled up in my bed hoping I would wake up with my vision back to normal and my eyeballs in my skull, while my kids worried and hoped that I would just wake up.
I have friends who have kids and loved ones facing surgery, or who have been through it, major job and life changes, poverty and health issues, political stress and relationship problems.
In other words, life is happening for all of us out here and some of it hurts like hell and without our sunshine in the darkness, its even harder, but we have to remember something...
They are all still alive. There is always hope. We have to have faith in the fact that young men grow up and things change and things that caused hurt and anger sometimes no longer seem so damn important anymore.
As I published my first book this last month I sat here in my living room and i realized that most of the people I wanted to be proud of me for it, that I wanted to see the moment I actually did something with my writing, were dead.
I couldn't call them up and say,"Hey! I finally did it! Are you finally proud of me?" There was no one to call.
I tweeted it out, spoke to a few friends online and that was it until last night when a friend from home who I have known for over 30 years talked to me about my second book,(the one I have dedicated to those boys), she reminded me that while we may wander away from things and places and even people that have hurt us in the past, they are a part of us and the roots go deep, and make us who we are. There is no escaping that, and that gives me hope for them.
I know things seem dark right now, but hold steady, hold the faith and believe in the power of good things and good people. Look on the bright side of things and know that they are alive and there is hope.

Dear Roger: Protective Streak

I lost my faith in God when I was 14 and I was told that my kind, sweet grandpa was burning in hell because he didn't go to church every Sunday and tithe 10%/ I also punched the man in the nose that said that to me. I have struggled with being lost in a sea of faithlessness ever since, its a lonely place to be when you believe that any superior being that might exist has it out for you and decides to take out their annoyance at you by harming the ones you love. I have lost most of the people near and dear to me and most of them have died young and unfairly.
Its been enough to convince me that I have really pissed off the big one, so I try to stay low and stay out of the way so I can protect the ones I care about.
I managed to regain some faith as I aged, in fact when I took my first oath as a Firefighter and went to fighting fires in the mountains of Nogales, it felt like a sacred mission. We were protecting people, homes and the beautiful country from destruction. I loved it and took my oath to protect to heart.
this is what I swore back then:

A Firefighter's Pledge

I promise concern for others.
A willingness to help all those in need.

I promise courage - courage to face and conquer my fears.
Courage to share and endure the ordeal of those who need me.

I promise strength - strength of heart to bear whatever
burdens might be placed upon me.
Strength of body to deliver to safety all those placed within my care.

I promise the wisdom to lead, the compassion to comfort,
and the love to serve unselfishly whenever I am called.

-Author Unknown

and that is what I lived by until I finished my training to be an EMT for the Ambulance division of the fire department.then my oath changed a little, but the heart of it was the same, service to and protection of, others:even if it meant some sacrifice on my behalf. 

It was often hard, dirty, dangerous and sometimes heart-breaking work, but I loved it and I lived for it, for years doing it for free as a volunteer.My faith was in my work and the knowledge that I was making a difference for people, even if it was just a few, I knew that the strands of help rippled out. 

When I took my final oath, it became the one that most suited me, because I have a very strong protective drive. I don't know why or where it came from, but I can remember in the 2nd grade giving a tear wracked speech in front of the class about how wrong and horrible it was for the boys to have stomped the chickadee chicks out on the playground at E.C. Brice Elementary, and I have continued that streak of protectiveness, even trying to wade into a truck load of idiots who yelled the word,"Faggot" at my teen son up on Burnside when we first moved here. In typical Southerner, I was dropping my bags, taking off my jacket and trash talking, rolling up my sleeves, ready to fight, because I will back up words with actions, I protect those who matter to me, or those who are in danger. Its a vow I took, and while my badge may be retired due to my damned disability, my heart rages at the wrongs I see and I want to fix them, because I know what it is to be a victim and its hard to trust others to,"handle things" when trusting others in the past left locks unchanged and a sociopath with easy access. 

I know what it means to be stalked, I endured it for over a year. My sis got the life scared out of her when he tried to break into my apartment that I had moved to after moving for the 3rd time and he kept finding me because it turns out he had a cop friend who ran my information and gave it right to him whenever he asked. I trust no one, because people slack off and make mistakes when its not their ass on the line. People do things like put folders with the address and pictures of children in files that the stalker has access to and trust that he will obey the note to "Not remove tape" and view. 14 years of hiding for a reason. My ex hubs is a teddy bear compared to my stalker, and yes, my stalker was a man, but women are just as dangerous and deadly. 

It fucked me up what happened to me in my life. I am hyper-vigilant and I am off the scale when it comes to PTSD diagnoses. I have friends who help talk me down and without them I would be lost, because what had been sunshine and happiness has been pretty damn dark lately, with occasional spots of light, but there has been soo much ugliness that its had me pinging all over the place with stress and people keep telling me,"You aren't a cop anymore, stay out of it." but the thing is this:

I lived by these word in my heart along with my Firefighters and Emt's pledge for most of my adult life, they are my version of the gospel I serve no agency but my own conscience and moral code, and my moral code is that I pay my debts, I watch out for those who are in harms way, and I do my best to be a better person. I fail sometimes at the last one because I'm weak, but if I didn't act and follow my code, and someone got hurt, I would not be able to live with myself and maybe that makes me weird or foolish, but I have never been the normal. 

The stress has cost me pretty good this week, my back is wracked worse than it has been in years, and I would give money we don't have for a way to get the knots out. I had a flashback of the stalker last night, so Im sleep deprived in need of a hug, irritable, hungry and I want to hit something, My daughters answer to all of this? She climbs in my lap when i finally come home and says,"You look to sad today, you need a skinny monkey to cheer you up." She hopped off my lap and went to work and within 15 minutes I had a grinning, dancing, skinny monkey picture to add to my collection on the fridge along with a half dozen more hugs and kisses. It made for a much better night. 

Navigating around the things that set me off and stress me out is hard, I cant just shut off the world, and I cant just stay out of things, but doing minor things that make me feel like I have fulfilled my vows as a servant of the good and human being as well as just ensuring those who are evil are held to task for their transgressions, makes me feel much better.Loosing my religion at 14 was hard, losing my faith and what is left of myself at 43, would be devastating.

Dear Roger:For What It Was Worth, I Was Here

https://www.createspace.com/3859423    My book.
I'm not a very outgoing person. I tend to stand back and watch things happen, observe goings on, pay attention to what is said, listen to the subtext and just try to be prepared to duck and dodge when things go wrong. I never sought fame or even fortune, never wanted to be the top dog in anything. I just wanted to do my thing and be happy. It would have been nice to have been loved the way my grandparents loved each other, but I am not a very lovable person. I am stand-offish and cold and I live a lot in my own head. Its a big part of the reason that when my sisters best friend killed herself, that my sis called me for an explanation, she knew of all the people around, I would have an understanding of why she did it, because I have lived with the reasons to do it for years, but I have the reasons not to nagging me for cookies or Koolaid and reminding me I am needed, so I keep plugging along.
My writing is my solace, my only outlet and my driving force. I write every damn day and it burns out of me like a fire from a volcano some days. Its not earth-shattering, life changing, great, philosophical literature, but its whats in my head and it has got to come out or it makes me crazy(er). I didn't write for years and years when I was living in darkness, mainly because I was so busy surviving and ducking and dodging, I just didn't have the time or the energy. I had lost my muse and my will.
It came back a couple of years ago, in fits and starts, at first with a blog where I started railing against the misery I had allowed myself to fall into, and then low and behold my true muse found me again and he was a bit pissed to have been neglected for so long.
My muse is a visual creature and he has a pretty consistent appearance and persona that drives me and inspires me to write.I have pictures that help remind me of the face of my muse when he wanders off and the inspiration leaves for a bit, and those help, but I have found that I understand why most people find writers to be a bit insane, because I know I am.
I wander around with bits of scrap paper stuffed in my pockets with odd notes on them, my computer desktop is a disaster area of pictures of random people and things that have inspired stories as well as bits and pieces of starts of new story ideas. My son has fits when he looks at it because it looks like I imagine my desk would look if I were sitting with pen and paper again.
My son knows that I write a wide variety of things, from short stories that have people writing me to tell me that I," Ripped their hearts out and left them sobbing," to rollicking, awkward sex filled humorous, tales that my son wont even hazard to try and read, to flat out gay erotica that has prompted more than a couple gay men to write me and offer praise at a," Job well done"(pun fully intended), I kill people in my stories, beat them up, give them hardship, leave them hurting, make them poor and flawed and give them packs of kids that wreck havoc on their lives, in other words, I write what I know, (except for the gay erotica, I have no idea where the hell that comes from, my muse is a bit of a odd ball), I don't write graphic sex, but I get the point across without smacking you in the face with it, and I write like I talk, Texan/Southern. 
People have commented on my writing style, calling it,"Reality writing for Southern speak", but I don't know if I would go that far. I use colloquialisms and I use slang, and I chop the ends off words. Like my characters economic status, their way of speaking reflects where they are and where they come from;me.
I self-published a short story of mine that has never seen the light of day anywhere else. It was written over a few days and I sat on it for quite a while because it was so damn dark, and until my muse would cooperate and lighten it up, I just wasn't happy with it.
I don't know if it will do any good or if many people will buy or read it, Its sold 7 copies as of the writing of this blog, but its something tangible of what I was and what I did. My next novel is almost done with editing and its my pride and joy because its months and months of work that took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to come to life. I don't have an editor or an agent or anyone other than a long-suffering friend who pre-reads and looks for glaring mistakes and then reassures me I am not out of my mind to trying.
My dedication page is about the only thing I am sure of so far, and its to the men who gave me my light so my muse found his way home ,so that when I am gone there will be something that even if its half-assed with grammar to have my English teacher spinning in her grave, that says:I was here, I lived my dream even if it was small, it meant the world to me.

Stevie Rae's Commentary On The 100 Monkeys

 This is my 8 year old daughters feelings about the 100 Monkeys and her experiences at the concert that she attended at the Wonder ballroom this last year. She wanted to apologize for her handwriting, this was for a school assignment she rushed through so she could get her monkey out of jail,(long story, but her Jackson spends a lot of time in jail on school days), so in her words, you have how she feels about things: