Dear Roger: Power Struggles,I Can Claim Temporary Insanity Due to Teenager Infestation

New parents of baby boys out there feeling all smug and self-satisfied that you dodged the bullet because you think that because you have only one dick to worry about, let me tell you a thing or two about a thing or two regarding that situation in which you now find yourself.
You think your little baby boy will be easier and less dramatic and less prone to bringing drama into your house? I say to you, "HA!!!" I used to believe the same thing. I thought that when I had my sons that life was going to be easy street, that I wouldn't ever have to worry about them getting hormonal, and moody over boys or overly  dramatic and shrieking because someone disrespected some odd little actor/rock star or stuffed animal that was an iconic representation thereof, but let me tell you what,boys are just as weird and dramatic and horrible about things, and often they are more demonstrative in their feelings and destructive. They do stupid things like throw their video game controllers at hard surfaces and then wonder why they don't work, take apart their guitars and skateboards and all kinds of crap thinking they can make it better or,"Fix" it and then get upset with YOU when you don't understand the method to the madness of the laptop screen with the cardboard jammed in it.
If you have more than one boy in your house,(as do I), you might have the blend of the guy archetypes. I have the "Shy, sensitive, deep thinker that slow boils to explosions", the "Cocky jock who thinks he is the man of the house and reminds you enough of Eddie Haskell at times you want to scream"  as well as the "Practical joker who finds every fart worth sharing with everyone at all times, especially in public as he blames it on you."  I have all 3 types as well as my poor, long suffering daughter who is a blend of all three in one seemingly innocuous package,(dont believe it, not for one minute!), but there will be more on that another day. I do my best to cope, but I have learned to laugh at those who find out they are having a boy and actually seem relieved. I enlighten them with a few tales of some of the things my boys have done, as well as share some tales of adventures of some of my friends sons.
To be fair, most of the boys besides my sons are Texans, and that kinda skews the dynamic because growing up Texan and boy does up the ante for pure fuckery and insanity, but truck surfing, and nearly becoming road kill while running from the game warden can happen anywhere as well as riding a dirt bike off the side of an overpass, or through a barbed wire fence or blowing up a battery and nearly blinding oneself, jousting with Roman Candles,playing with Ronsol and Axe and setting their damn jeans on fire to the point they had to come home in their chones, ending up a hood ornament on a Prius due to a downhill run on a longboard that went a little wrong,as well as any number of things that have left parents I know as well as myself with enough grey hairs to keep Lady Clariol in business for the next century.
Little boys can be sweet and cute and all kinds of fun to raise, but if you think that first time they peed in your face was an accident, I say,"Woe unto you, that is yet a sign of things yet to come."
I tell you these things now while I still can as I spend a few hours trying to figure out just how my eldest son managed to make himself administrator of our home computer network and set it up so that he can shut off my damn computer and lock me and my Iphone out of all internet access. I used to think it was pretty cool he was such a genius at all things computers and self taught at all of it, kinda like his music habit where he taught himself how to play guitar and write music and all kinds of things. I have a feeling there will be a lot of ante upping over the next few days as we engage in our power struggle to establish the Alpha in this house. He may be a teen, but he knows very little about the true cost of war and living with a person who will go nuclear with the first strike.

Dear Roger: Wake Me When September Ends? No, Try November

I've sat here for days with a half-assed, morose bit of poetry rolling around in my skull that I just cant seem to put together, and perhaps its due to the changing weather or the inevitable end of summer that I cant put my thoughts together, but I really have nothing against September, though I do really like that song and appreciate its sentiment. Its November that I wish would end, and soon. Its been like a long, protracted, suffering that has gone on much longer than it should and as sleep comes less and less easy, my temper becomes more and more short, I feel the slow build to the end and I know I am powerless to do anything other than stand back and watch what I know is bound to happen, happen. It will be my final answer, the end of everything and I will accept it and move forward, but I will mourn for the,"What might have beens" and what I wish could have happened in another lifetime.
It is a blessing and a curse, the cancer that will be going into its final remission though its unfortunate to think of it like that, in many ways its been a cancer that has been eating me from the inside for a long time, much like all good heartaches do to a person.  When its over, I will have a drink and a smoke, put my boots on and walk out the door into a new day and a new mindset with it all behind me, knowing that the door is forever closed, and that may be the true sign of healing...if I can actually do it.

Dear Roger: Love, Little Boxes, Breaking Molds, AIDS, and Finding Somebody to Love

The season of "Giving" is approaching and im finally getting back into my charity work. Its something I had really missed, and thanks to some friends of mine, I got out and did the Portland AidsWalk. The walk not only met its goal, it exceeded it by over 45k! It was quite an experience to be involved in it and I enjoyed myself. The scene was as Portlandia as Portland gets and I don't think I have felt so welcomed since I have been here. The boys who were part of my team are friends of mine and we made a day of it, just walking along talking about our experiences growing up and dealing with a society the expects everyone to fall into a particular mold. There were people of every size, shape and description walking in that fundraiser, they were walking for friends, family, loved ones, themselves or just because they know that Aids is a terrible disease we should have defeated over a decade ago. I walked in memory of my cousin and for all the people who live in the shadows and in fear. That was a huge topic of discussion that day, the stigma.
I remember seeing on the news the misery and torture that Ryan White went through when he was diagnosed with Aids and how horrible people treated a child who had an illness he had no control over and that was going to kill him. It was just the tip of the iceberg of how gay people were and are treated.
I've never gotten it. I know I was raised with a certain attitude in my home as a child because when my said to her friend that she suspected I was more than just a,"Tomboy", it freaked me the hell out. I was already getting harassed by some of the prominent members of the football team at school and called things like,"Dyke"  because of how I dressed and acted and my sports playing as well as being ostracized by people who had been friends and neighbors previously, so when my own mother made comments about my room decor  (Hollywood stars of the 40's of both sexes), It horrified me and probably had a lot to do with why I became a bit of a sexually aggressive young adult that had kids early.
I've grown a lot since then and reached a point in my life where I don't care what other people think about me, and I am just accepting of where I am in life. I am at peace with my place in life and accepting of difference and I wish more people were the same way. I see people that I know are living in pain, living in the shadows and hiding who they are and who they love for the sake of their careers or family or community and I see the heartache and the pain it causes and it hurts my heart for them because I know how much it hurts. It was refreshing to admit to myself and the friends I walked with that day that love is love is love and being open to accepting it no matter if its not in the form you or anyone else expected is an amazing and freeing way to be.
It was hard for me as a parent of 5 kids to reach that point. I was fast on the way to falling into lockstep with my family and I wanted my children to be,"NORMAL", with my sons being tough and strong men who would go on to the Corp of Cadets at Texas A&M and marry good girls with all the traditional trappings of Texas to follow. I wanted my daughters to be good girls who would marry respectable men who would be their equals and respectable members of the community. I wanted my daughters to go on to either Texas A&M or UT and get their Doctorates and become powerful women who would lead their communities before they gave me a few grand kids to spoil rotten. The thing is with my kids it that they are individuals, and as individuals they have very distinct paths and hopes for the future. My eldest has already made her own distinct path and TAMU is not on the radar and she has not shown any interest in dating.  My eldest son wants to go to college in Oregon and he talks of never marrying quite frequently. My other two boys are a puzzle. My youngest daughter has had her sights set on one particular fella for a long time and she tends to talk of TAMU as being the only school that is worth even considering, but I have stopped pushing that, and when we talk of the future and what my dreams of for my kids, I simply say, "I want to look in your faces and only see joy and peace, never pain or unhappiness, if I see that, then I know I did my job as a parent. Ill love you no matter who you love, what you become, where you are or what you are doing. If YOU are happy and being a good person who does no harm to others, then I am at peace with that."
I've always been a person who when told to zig, I zagged. I resented being forced into molds and little boxes. I always worked non-traditional jobs, dated or even married the type of guy who was so far removed from the family norm that I am sure my parents wished I had been gay at times. It wasn't because I was trying to to purposely offend anyone, it was just at the time, the person who walked into my life and shook up my world with love happened to be a Lebanese Semi-pro soccer player, or an Iranian gypsy violin playing/singing, blind, research scientist,(still do carry a bit of a torch for him), or a former Hell's Angel Prospect with issues of his own who ive now reached a peace with and share most of my kids with. Love doesn't always fit a perfect mold and being accepting of the form it takes is part of being a grown human and I think I have finally grown up.

Dear Roger: The Monkey Found Its Balls

I am a generally good natured person. I like to believe that people are who they try to portray themselves to be, but I am also a bit of a protectionist person who suspects everyone's motivations and I try to just handle my business on my own and not owe anyone a damn thing because when you let someone do you a favor, they think they own a piece of you and no one owns me. I have worked very damn hard to get to where I am, I am raising my kids on my own, housing and feeding, and clothing them, with no social life or any of that because I dont have time for it. I work and I am always looking for a way to better our circumstances but NOT at the detriment of others. I fiercely defend my loved ones, but I prefer to just move on and leave the problems behind me. Other people, I have found, do not operate by the same code, but I have managed to navigate around them so far even if they have had me angry enough to spend a few hours reviewing Libel law and what constitutes a good slander case after. I let my Buddhist learning take over and I just decided that karma will out.
I have gotten tougher and much, much braver lately about actually dealing with people and NOT returning to my den and flipping the monkey upside down. Currently the monkey is right side up, erect and flipping the bird in aggravation, but that is the pose my son put him in, and while I understand his sentiment, I try not to take it down the stairs with me. I have been focusing on the positive things in my life. I wildly upgraded my phone from the basic Iphone 4 to an Iphone 4s 16g which now means I have a better camera and more storage and even better, SIRI and all kinds of fun tools to play with. I did the same for my son and mayhem has ensued. He wanted the 5 but I didn't want to wait that long for a phone, and I couldn't justify that kind of expense. This was the result of a bad business decision on my part that I had to extricate myself out of due to my job, and while it was a very costly lesson to me, it actually taught my son a lot more and he is now a much more wary and untrusting person, especially of women. He sort of jokingly claimed he was going to become gay just so he no longer had to deal with women and their manipulations.
I actually wrote and mailed a letter that I had been dared to write a long time ago. I still cant believe I did it, and after I put it in the mailbox, I stood there in panic wanting to get it back but unable to fit my hand through the mail slot. I had no I.D. with me and the mail lady wouldn't give it back to me, so its off and gone. My first ever letter of that nature. F.M.L.
My writing is coming in fits and starts, and once its more reliable and smoothed out again, Ill post something on my tumblr about it, but for now I want to keep working on making sure the characters are true to themselves and that the story flows well. I've been working on Secrets, but Long Distance is almost done with the editing, and the re-vamp of Drifts should be done any day now. Its just a matter of finding the time to sit down at my computer to put them all together and then out there for the world to peruse.
Im not walking with my head down as much and that is a good thing. I can walk with my head up, knowing that I am doing this on my own, earning my keep working an honest job using my brain and my honest effort with no man paying anything for me, though the ex did finally find a job back in Arizona, he still struggles to just keep himself fed. My kids are happy and busy and we are soon to have a car so we wont be spending this winter walking in the rain or trapped in the house. '
Progress has been made and balls have been found.

Dear Roger: Trusting Your Gut and What Its Worth

I got news last night that shook me. As my snarky teen son sat next to me on the couch and tried to convince me I was tired and needed to go to bed, while I was busy reading a blog by a young woman that I have come to care about as a distant friend, another friend who is from my past in law enforcement sent me a chat message on Facebook. He just asked if I had heard about an officer that we used to work with. It took a minute or two for the memory to come to surface, but once it did, the mans face was clear as a bell, he had been my eldest sons fathers best friend.
Whenever my sons father was on duty at the ambulance, this officer was around. They went shooting together, went to training's together for weeks, and they were as close as brothers. My sons father would even drive the nearly 300 miles from his home in Tucson on his days off, just to hang out with this officer and go places with him. I thought it odd at the time, but the relationship I had with my sons father was so turbulent and scary, that I dared not say a word about it. When I finally managed to get away from my sons father and he quit the department and was told not to return, the officer was not happy with me, but he left me alone. I remember him being a bit arrogant and odd, but not an overtly horrible person. We ate meals together, worked scenes together, saved lives together. He wore a badge and was part of my family in that way. If I hadn't been able to hide from my sons father due to his violence and threats of violence, and if he had gotten parental rights, the officer most likely would have been my sons Godfather and most assuredly would have been in my sons life quite a bit and I would have had no say in it, but I did what I knew I had to do as a mother and i protected my son and I fought to keep a monster out of my sons life for over 16 years.
I found out last night that trusting my gut and going without many of the things that so many women take for granted such as a man to help support and guide a son, child support or any kind of financial assistance, the security of knowing that no one is going to hurt your child because they love them,(in fact, he promised he would kill him if given the chance), knowing the medical and family history of the paternal side of my sons family, and my career, which I gave up and changed to stay below the radar for many years, was the right decision.
The officer who was my sons fathers best friend was accused by his eldest daughter of continually molesting her when she was a young girl. The investigation is just beginning, but he will never be arrested or serve any time for it because he took his own life shortly after being questioned about it.
Do I think my sons father would have been capable of being involved in such things? I will never know, but I am damn sure glad I will never have to find out.
Its a smaller world than we realize and we are all connected along our journey. I firmly believe that, even though we have vastly different lives and struggles and paths that we follow, we share things with each other and reading the young woman's blog posting last night reminded me of that because just the other day I was cleaning out my old certifications and getting rid of things that I no longer hold as essential to where I am in life now, and one of the first things I came across was my certification as a,"Tobacco Cessation Counselor" that I received when I was an Americorp Member. As part of my tour of duty and as a former smoker, I got certified and I taught classes on how to quit smoking,(a sort of AA styled thing), and one of the ways to quit that they had been pushing was a drug...a drug that I had recently heard about via a tragedy. I had done more research after hearing about this event, and how unpredictable it was and due to the population I was working with, (largely Native, Impoverished and poly-substance abusers), I refused to even introduce it as a possibility. I encouraged natural methods, along with diet, exercise, the patch and distraction. I had a 95% success rate. It was the first time I had ever heard that name, that name that would a short time later circle around and mean much more to us and my daughter than I could ever explain, but it is an odd synchronicity that has reverberated  through many lives now and I will not discount it.
Trust yourself, you are stronger than you know, and there are forces in the world that make us all accountable to and for each other.
Blessings and strength to you all.

Dear Roger: The Monkey Is Running Amuck

School is back is session! I say that with the joy of a parent who is now free to walk around their house with THEIR music playing at an obnoxiously loud level while they scratch inappropriate places on their naked body eating goodies that they had stashed away, waiting for a moment when the ravening hordes of children weren't around to give them the sad puppy dog eyes and say,"Can I have a bite?" HAH! No! I'm going to go to McRaes today and have a plate of french fries with gravy and lots of katsup and I'm going to mix the two, like I like them. Its been over a year since I've had time to myself, and I'm a bit on the twitchy side if you cannot tell. I love my kids, in fact I live for my kids, but after not having a break from them I'm about ready to run off screaming down Burnside.
I think the kids were ready to go back as well, I know my daughter was even though the principal seemingly ignored our previous discussion about just letting her be a typical 3rd grader and he has stuck her in an advanced class as an 4th grader, at least she wont get bored and she really seems to like her teacher who is a young, blonde, cheerleader type. My daughter...Buffy in training.
She only took Jackson to the first day of school. I was pretty proud of her for that. Of course the minute she was in the door of home she was right into her room to grab him and hug him to tell him all about her day, but she let him stay home because she didn't want him stuck in her desk,"Alone and bored all day." Maybe she will let him skip picture day this year though in a way that would make me kinda sad.
The boys were not pleased to be back in school. Stubby just is not pleased about school no matter what. He would rather just stay home and read because hes anti-social and not a happy camper, but he knows its not an option.
Sticky was sort of happy to be back, he likes seeing his friends and hes very popular at his school, so its like going to a bit of a party for him everyday except for the part where they make him actually do some schoolwork.
My eldest was piled on with Physics, Economics, Algebra 2, Psychology, and Lit homework his first day. He was up late getting it all done and whining about the misery of being in Advanced Placement classes, while he is working but I had little to no sympathy for him. I do have to wonder about the intelligence of a school district that has the high school kids starting at 0730 and the elementary kids starting at 0830, if you ask me, I think it should be the other way around.
Im hoping to get back to writing more now that the kids are going back to school, my muse took a runner on me a couple of months ago and said,"Screw this mess!" and between work, kids, moving and all the other mess I haven't even promoted the books I have out other than to occasionally sell the paper copies I have on hand. I have a few story ideas cooking, and I need to get them put down, and I need to track down where in the hell the copyright office sent my copyright papers on one of my novels, so I need to get serious about my own life again.
I love Fall for many, many reasons, its a good time of year. I've got friends planning on coming over to watch a concert with us on our new big screen tv on the 18th, so I am actively socializing and making new friends and introducing them to the music and things I love while checking out the things they love and I'm going places and meeting new people and making plans for a future I never expected to have and I think that is a good thing.

Dear Roger: Teens, Tweens and Other Deal Breakers Nobody Told Me About

Babies are cute and easy to love. Toddlers have a certain charm and when they are being difficult parents can soothe themselves with little things like dressing them in all the dorky, mini-hipster outfits to be found or even foisting them off on some long suffering day care provider if worse comes to worse, but there is another stage in the process of child-rearing where that is no longer an option, where you really no longer get to pick out their cute lil outfits without WW3 breaking out, and even when you do, they manage to do THINGS to them, and if you can get a baby sitter to watch them, you have to worry about things like hazard pay or if your house will still be standing when you return. I am talking about the stage of development called the,"Tween" stage.
My boys seem to be navigating it with their typically strange aplomb, alternating from sweet little men who cannot give me enough hugs one moment and who are sweet, young gentlemen in training to the next moment when they are brawling, half-naked,(or fully naked) savages who take great pride in their pee helicopters, going as long as possible without showering until their older brother bodily picks them up and throws them in the tub, clothes and all. They can be kind and sweet or snarky and mean, sometimes within the same sentence, but they tend to keep it among themselves and the brawls are mainly over their goofy video games and who drank the last of what or ate the last of what. My daughter? She is a WHOLE nuther story.
My little girl is 8 and she is a bit of an artsy, temperamental, and to be honest, she is a bit of an odd child at times. She has always had a sweet nature to her, compassionate and gentle, concerned for others and worried about those she perceives who might be hurting, but that does not mean she will not put the smack down on someone, especially when they mess with her monkeys, or tease her about her favorite boys or just generally piss her off, and lately, there seems to be much in the way that pisses her off or upsets her!
She has gotten to that age where she slams doors, where she answers back and where she will tell off her father when she is annoyed at him,(have to admit that one makes me proud), she stands up to him now and that is a good thing.
Tweens are difficult to figure out. One minute she is singing along with Bruno Mars and arguing with her brothers about who drank the last of the milk, and the next she is teaching,"Monkey church" about the 10 Commandments.
She is starting to care about things like how to style her hair and her clothes more and more,(though she has always had a very distinctive style), and instead of looking up to her favorite guys, she has referred to them as,"Cute" or even worse, "Whoa! when did Ben G. get so handsome?" after the last concert we watched together online. I just said to her, "Hes the same, I have no idea what you are talking about, you are 8, no rock star is handsome when you are 8! Shh!Stop it!"
She just smiled at me and flounced away singing Shy Water until her big brother harassed her about picking up her socks and then she threw her boot at him because he stole her monkey until she came out of her room and got them. It was mayhem for about an hour that ended when she stole his Iphone and threatened to drop it in the commode.
She gets grumpy and stomps off to her room at the drop of a hat now, she cries if you look at her wrong and she slams doors hard enough to rattle windows and she gets upset over the oddest things. The other day I was sitting on the couch trying to do some editing and she came and sat next to me just in tears as if her best friend had died. I asked her what was wrong and she climbed into my lap with her goofy monkey and she said," I cant remember what they sound like! I cant remember Jacksons voice! Im forgetting! You said I wouldn't, that they would always be with me, but Im forgetting just like they forgot me and Im SAAAAD!" She was absolutely bereft. I asked her if she wanted to watch the video or anything, she said that she did, so I put it on for her and I told her that if if made her feel better, that maybe she should send them a,"Hello" or something but to bear in mind that they are big, busy people with families and jobs and lives and life moves on for everyone, even little girls. She watched her video and sent her little messages and maybe somehow, someway the powers that be got the message because her favorite boy broke his silence with a beautiful picture of him and his baby that made her just melt, and one of the others told her hello on FB which made her entire week.
Crisis averted for at least an hour.