Dear Roger: If You Give A Kid A Monkey

Talking to my daughter about what she wants in the New Year is kinda a reminder that I may not have failed all my kids totally when it comes to instilling morals and values in them. While she may be a bit of a roughneck at times and prone to popping her brothers in the nose when they steal her Jackson and do crude things to him, she is pretty damn selfless and all of her New Years wishes were for people other than herself. I mean, she said she hopes she gets to see her favorite boy again,(that's a given), but she said,"I want him to eat and sleep and be happy and get all that he wants so he smiles big." For her brothers she vowed to try and not pop them in the nose so much anymore and to try and be patient when they bug her when she is painting or drawing or doing one of her plays. She also vowed to be better about combing her hair and keeping clothes on.
The clothes on thing is a bone of contention between me and all my kids. It drives me a little nuts that they insist on trying to hang out in the living room in their drawers. I ask them, "What are you gonna do if someone comes over?" I always get the scoff and the eyerolls with the,"Nobody ever comes over, nothing exciting ever happens, its hot in the house because you are an anemic weirdo, so let us be." I've gotten Stubby to wear his pj pants that he got for Christmas, but the other three? Its all underwear all the time or worse. I've told my oldest son he should not be in the living room in a towel, ever, because that is bound to end badly with his prankster brothers and a grabby pup around, but it never fails, he always seems to remember something he forgot to ask me just as hes about to get into the shower and then he comes stomping out into the living room, towel barely around him, to say whatever is problem is. Poor daughter clamps her hands over her eyes in defense and usually shouts,'Eww! Soo much hair!!" just to piss him off and then the boys start darting around acting like they are going to grab the towel, Spencer gets into the act and all hell breaks loose. Never mind the fact we live on a busy city street and I keep the blinds open so we get some natural light and I can see out, which means of course, others can see in. My vow is somehow, someway, to put an end to this potential bit of trauma looming. My eldest is 16, stands close to 6ft tall and easily passes for 18, he should not be wandering around in his drawers in the living room or around his little sister, its just ...eww.
Hopefully a lot of things are going to change shortly, and daughter is a big part of it. We are still working on moving down to the Hawthorne so she can go to a better school that will actually be able to allow her to follow her dreams and that will challenge her. Its disgusting to me that the schools here spent all the money to have her tested, found out that yes, she is extremely gifted in all kinds of ways and then they have nothing to offer her other than teaching the slower kids. They have moved her into some 4th grade classes and given her free rein to do pretty much what she wants in reading, but no music, no extra art nothing that she really wants, just like they did with my eldest son who is now dropping out of high school in frustration.
The boy is a natural musician, picking up musical instruments like most pick up breathing, hes also just as gifted and smart as his sister and the schools have done nothing for him except injure him and frustrate him so I am going to help him withdraw when the office re-opens and he is going to try the online college program, but if its the same lack of challenge that the regular schools offer, then I will guide him though getting his GED and mourn the fact my dreams for him will have died because I failed him soo terribly. He might still be able to work his way through some community college program and eventually get a scholarship into a decent college, but A&M will never be in his future, studying Psychology and Music Theory with the idea of using music as therapy for the mentally ill will just be a pipe dream for him.He is not a fortunate son, and he has asked me to let him try to handle things more on his own in this next year, but its hard for me to do that. While he is a young man, he is still my baby and I want the best for him. He encourages me to focus more on his siblings, trying to guide them into things that will ensure their futures are brighter, but I just worry that time is short with him.Maybe he will surprise me and find his hook and run with it, but he has never had the best of examples so I can only hope he just keeps practicing and focused on his music. He played me a song the other day that he had written himself, and it was really cool, so maybe, just maybe the boy knows something that I don't and he will rise above things and make it. He has his faith, and I don't fault him that, in fact, considering hes spending New Years at a church based party over spending it at some big teen party he got invited to? I'm not complaining at all.
I just had to fuss at daughter for tackling and attempting to eye gouge her older brother for some monkey related trauma. I'm thinking that in spite of her best intentions, her New Years resolutions are going to get broken pretty early on.
Mine? Mine are to try and keep moving forward in spite of the 280lb dead weight I allowed to find us and then reinfect our lives like a cancer of the worst kind.
I have my kids to keep things funny and bright and hopeful and with them making sure life is never dull and boring, I have a feeling things will be okay, no matter where we end up or what we end up doing, though if daughter has her way its sure to involve monkeys, music and a lot of silliness. I see nothing wrong with that.

Dear Roger:Decisions and Revisons

Things are about to change, and pretty damn dramatically, one way or another. I've been too damn pissed off to write a decent letter for the past few days so I have just concentrated on writing my other stuff. Being pissed off seems to be a pretty constant state of being for me lately, and that's not a good thing. I was happy for a long damn time, and I don't know what it is lately other than the time of year, the people around me and just the general fuckery that has gone on in my life over the past month, but I am annoyed to the point I want to smack up on something pretty damn hard. If I was in Texas or Arizona, I would take a pistol and a box of rounds and go target shoot at a tree until I felt better, but up here, I just haven't found the place or the time to get into that.
Not having a man around,(NO, the ex does no count in any way shape or form, its like having an old, neutered, dog in your house that piddles on the rug and smells weird, so just...ugh! NO!), has made me cranky. I know I need to get laid, badly,(not badly, goodly), but I don't see that happening any time soon. I still scare the hell out of what passes for men up here and I am not so far gone yet as to be ready to switch teams. I dont get out much. That really hurts my chances for getting any, but that is my own damn fault. If I was more demanding, I would be able to force my son to stay home and baby sit or I would be able to just get out, but I dont see the point. I dont have any money to spare on running around or eating out or anything like that, and its frustrating to have to be soo damn careful all the time because I am supporting 6 people with what I make when its not even enough to support 2. Im grumpy.
My rays of sunshine in all this have been the kids. Stubby has been his usual up and down self, alternately playing nicely with his sister and then harassing the hell out of her. She popped him in the nose the other night for stealing Jackson again and then calling him ,"Gay" , (referring to both monkey and boy), she bloodied his nose and was thumping on him pretty hard, even going for a good old fashioned eye-gouging when I managed to get her pulled off. Dont think I have seen her that furious in a long time. Stub knew he had stepped in it and I got his nose under control and then sent him in to sit on his bed,(the top bunk for his safety), while I got her calmed down. It took a while and a lot of talking. Bless her heart, 1st loves are always the toughest. I remember mine and while I was older, and it ended in a horrible fashion, I do remember the angst. Sticky came out and tried to comfort her, and that was pretty sweet, even her big brother got on Stubbys case about saying mean things, that don't make a bit of difference but shouldn't be said to like they are hateful. I swear, 9 year old boys are rotten little critters.
Daughter is working more and more on her skateboarding. She named her skateboard,"Stella" and she narrowly misses my toes about half the time I am in the kitchen. I worry about her falling, but she hangs onto the counter most of the time. Her father let her fall backwards off the damn slide at the park and bang not only both her elbows really badly, but her skull too. She had a huge knot on it, and scrapes. She told me much later about it and said that when she cried he told her to ,"Get over it and rub dirt on it", so she did. Rub dirt on it? I may kill him. Yes, I do coddle her a little more than the others,but again, she was not a well child when she was born. You nearly lose a kid, you tend to baby them just a little. I also baby Sticky just a bit, but hes gotten so damn independent that when I try he gets annoyed at me. I got what I pretty much wanted with him. I did my best when he was little to make him tough and resilient and independent and I tried to instill in him an attitude that even though he might have Downs Syndrome, that there were a lot more people out there who were more retarded than him who were supposedly normal, and you know what? I have. He got his new glasses last night and he put them on. He didn't like them. He said,"They aren't cool enough for me, they need work." I knew it. I told his father they weren't going to work, but his father wouldn't listen and now we have a problem because when Sticky hates something, he hates something. I will have to see if I can exchange them, or maybe get them adjusted to where he does like them, but he likes his Buddy Holly style glasses, and hes hard to convince to change, just like with his shoes. The boy likes skater shoes, his father tried to cram him into some dorky assed Brahma hiking boots because they were cheap, irresistible force? meet immovable object.The boots went missing. Never to be found. Then some of the dumb asses things started vanishing when he was being mean to Sticky over the boots. Sticky may have Downs, but hes not stupid. Payback is a bitch and that is one kid you dont piss off. All my kids are heathens. Its a constant rolling dog fight in the middle of a circus around here with the monkey drama, the dog that has now decided cat turds are the most tasty treat in the world, the weird, face biting cat that always seems to be in heat, and the wandering crackheads. To add to the fun, Chance came stomping out of the bathroom yesterday wrapped in his sisters bright pink towel, complaining that the tub wasnt draining. Eww. I knew this didnt bode well. I went in and poured some vinegar and baking soda down it with a hot water chaser, and it didnt help much so I got my multi-tool,(the one I used on crime scenes when I was an investigator), and using the needle nose pliers part, I reached into the drain and began pulling things out.
Now my ex looks like a low rent David Crosby, bad hair and all...okay? He is at that age where hair is departing his body in amounts that equal that which Chance is now growing and then manscaping it off voluntarily. I have a daughter with butt length curly blonde hair, and my hair and now past my shoulders. The other two prefer to adopt the butch cut so they contribute much to the problem. What I pulled out of that drain looked like an overweight ginger gerbil with leprosy. I have poked around in rotten people guts, so I have a strong stomach, in fact, pretty much nothing fazes me, Chance however, is a candy ass. I pulled that mass out of that drain and then shook it at him, speculating about the contents of said mass, including what him and the ex might have contributed to it, and the boy about hurled on me. The rest of the kids scattered quicker than if I had said,"Whos going to clean the toilet?"
I got it fixed. Traumatized my kids, had a decent laugh and survived another day. This too shall pass.

Dear Roger: Monkey In A Box, Duct Tape and Rabbits

It was a pretty decent Christmas. Having started early getting things for the kids as well as carefully planning for what to get them, allowed me to make sure that each of them had a nice stack of presents to make up for the paltry amount of last year. I didn't get what I want, hes still around and they were sold out of the small sized hoodies, but then maybe I have been a very bad girl? Its irrelevant, my kids were happy and that is all that matters. Of course there had to be some fun had by the boys torturing my poor daughter. The largest box under the tree was for her. It actually was a pretty damn big box that contained a keyboard complete with stand and adapter as well as some books and such, but when she spotted it, my eldest son walked over to it with her and kind of shoved it towards the back of the pile and said,"Damn mom! You forgot the air holes!" Leading the poor child to suspect we had been up to some nefarious behavior. I dont know what was worse, the fact that she is aware of such goings on in the world, the fact she looked at me like she suspected I might be capable, or that the rest of the family would conspire along with me. She dove at the box in an ill fated rescue attempt and had to be restrained. I threatened her brother with bodily harm if he didn't clear up her misconception, but I know he kept leaving that shadow of a doubt in her mind, especially later when I saw him show her my empty duct tape roll. I ended up sleeping on the couch because I had to guard the tree and presents from her and sure enough, at 4:30 in the morning she was up and out and trying to effect a rescue.For a brilliant kid she is alarmingly single-minded. I made sure her rotten brother was woken up equally early.
She was, of course, delighted with the keyboard, but I also think she may have been a little disappointed that her favorite boy was not, in fact, duct taped in the box. Who knows? She is an odd child. She started practicing on her keyboard and kept at it for well over 3 hours straight. She is already writing down finger placements and trying to figure out how to read music.She is fascinated with all the different sounds the board makes and loves to play it at the same time her older brother is playing his electric guitar.
Yes, I voluntarily purchased my children musical instruments for Christmas. Yes, I am insane. I have listened to the eldest torture to death every song from my youth with the guitar over the past couple of days, and now he has started on the songs that daughter holds dear. She got a hoodie with an ipod connection and was walking around with my ipod listening to "Sinners Dream" and singing along. Son decided he wanted to play it on his guitar. A heated debate occurred over whether or not it was fair that he "torture" her with playing bits and pieces of every single song she loves over and over again until we all cringe. I gave him headphones, but he claims its not the same as hearing it through the amp. We all suspect hes just an exhibitionist.He played the song on the guitar, she sang, I guess it was a fair compromise. Im sure my neighbors are about ready to kill us all, and if they weren't musicians, I would think they would have already been over, but so far no complaints.
My daughter came to me yesterday with an interesting proposal for our New Years tradition. She said that since she had been the first to say,'Rabbit Rabbit" last year on January 1st,our luck had been pretty exceptional. I had gotten a job, her brothers had come home, she had gotten to see her favorite boy again and gotten to hug him and talk to him(the highlight of her whole year), and things had just gotten better for us all around. She said, "I think I am lucky, so maybe you should just sleep late that day and let me have it again." I think she is right. It has been a good year with the one exception, and if we could figure a way to deal with that, then this next year will surely be even more awesome.
We know we want to keep moving forward and upward and there is no way that the dead weight I have hanging around my neck in the form of the albatross is going to prevent that from happening.

Dear Roger: Wash The Monkey! Please?

My small daughters companion has reached a point of grubbiness that leaves me worried that the CDC is going to come looking for us in their bunny suits. The beady eyed little minion has substances on it that make it somewhat sacred in her eyes so when mention is made of giving it a bath, she reacts as anyone who has their rather dubious religious icon threatened, she freaks the hell out. "Nooo! You cant! What if it came off?,(referring to her favorite boys autograph on the paw), and his sweat would be gone!!"while I think that would be perfectly acceptable, she, however does not. I have tried to convince her we could get the monkey,"resweatted" (I swear to God I have lost my mind having kids), the next time we went to one of his concerts, or maybe the monkey could just stay clean for once? but NO! she went ballistic. "Are you crazy? NO! What if he never comes back? What if I don't get to see him again? What if he forgets me?No! No Baths! Besides, Jackson doesn't like baths!"
Her brothers have offered to perform run by Axeing's of him to quell the odor a bit, but I don't want bloodshed and that would just lead to an escalation of tensions amongst the siblings. Its bad enough that they often steal him and stuff him down their pants and hide him in the dog bed.
She is very protective of that little stuffed monkey, she sleeps with it every night, and he has special jewelry and a special blanket and when she does her plays or sings her songs, hes always there. He was in our family Christmas pictures yesterday and when her brother tried to get her to leave him out of the family picture, she yelled at him,"Hes part of the family, get used to it loser!" Her brother just shook his head and muttered about the weirdness that is his family and smiled for the camera. I drew the line at posing with the thing, and bore her glare for it, though I took a picture of her with it.
She knows its a bit on the grungy side at this point and she likes to torture me with it. I am a bit of a germaphobe, and I don't like things near my face that I KNOW are a bit uh...contaminated? So what does the child do when I am on my knees trying to get a picture of her brother? She sneaks up behind my and just as I go to tell him,"Smile" she reached around and had the monkey kiss me full on the mouth. Thats right...I got a mouthful of contaminated monkey, but I also got a smile from my son for the picture as the room disintegrated into hysterical laughter at my reaction. I walked into my room yesterday after falling asleep on the couch to find her asleep in my bed with the monkey cuddled up next to her on.my. pillow. siiiiiiiigggggghhhhh.
I wonder if maybe Santa could write her a letter and tell her the monkey needs a bath or if I should just keep waiting it out?

Dear Roger:What I Think About Today

Damn Rog, you would be another year older today. Another year cooler I am sure, opting to refer to yourself as ,"Vintage" or something I am sure. Damn, I wish you were here. I really could use your advice now, more than ever. I am sure you would probably like to kick my ass up between my ears for a few things, but I know you wouldn't, you would just offer some insight and opinion in to how to unfuck the situation and I would actually take it. Why did one of the few people I actually listen to have to leave me so damn soon in the game? Its really not fair you know. My kids should have known you instead of just hearing stories. Speaking of my kids...holy hell, you would have loved my little girl. She paints and draws and does all kinds of stuff and the other day she was in such a great mood she went on a painting binge and she painted something that you would have found hysterical I am sure. She was very intently looking at her easel, applying blues and browns and oranges, her brush strokes carefully applied, gentle dabs following after, and then with artistic flair she titled it," Cat Terd in a Toilet." When I made the mistake of pointing out her misspelling, she slammed down her brush, scowled at me and said,'That is part of the JOKE! DUH!" and stomped off. God...another artist in the family. I already told you about the video didn't I? yeah...the video that is over 16k hits? I missed having someone to call and tell about it because honestly, I freaked the hell out. She was all happy and excited and thinks its awesome as does her big brother, my sis was even happy, me? Im an ex cop! What the hell do you think my reaction is? Danger WILL ROBINSON! Arrgh! I needed you to tell me its going to be okay. That my little girl is going to forget she wants to go out into the wild, wide world and do things like that and associate with young rock stars and such. I just dont know about all this. Shes hitting me up to make more videos of the plays she does with her brothers, but luckily we cant keep clothes on Sticky long enough to get one all the way through, and random nudity is a deal killer that gets everything erased, so no more videos so far, though the one last night was pretty damn cute. It involved a cross-dressing Harry Potter, Raccoon's, rabid weremonkeys, and a rampaging dog that kept attempting to steal one of the co-stars.
I'm trying not to be sad today. I have been in a bit of a funk all week and its mainly the stress of the season, all the birthdays of everyone I miss, and just worrying about making sure I am not going to let my kids down. I have been writing like a woman possessed lately and that has helped quite a bit, but that is another reason I really miss you. I wish you knew that I finally was back at it. I started writing again just over a year ago and even I can see the improvement in my style and my content. I'm still to much of a control freak to let anybody mess with it, but I have been putting it out in a place where its been getting read and damn Rog, its popular and growing in popularity almost daily. I get emails from readers who tell me I made them laugh so hard they wet their pants! Me? Making someone laugh? That just blows me away. I enjoy writing and it feels like its burning out of me half the damn time. I just feel like I have to write, my skin gets tight feeling and im anxious and nervous and stressed if im kept away from it for too long. I go back and work over my older stories and instead of deleting everything in frustration like I used to do with my art or photography, I just fix what needs fixing and I move on. I talk about it with people and that's another shocker, instead of just keeping it to myself, I talk about my writing. The asshole ex still makes fun of me because Im not making any money at it, and he thinks that unless im making money at it, im a failure, but considering hes a metalsmith/jeweler who never made a dime,yet spent thousands on his vocation, I don't think he is one to talk at least mine is pretty cheap to practice.
There are soo many things I would want to tell you about today, the mistakes ive made, and there have been so damn many, the triumphs I have had, and there have been quite a few of those too, and the doubts I have about being able to keep on keeping on some days. I struggle on the best of days to deal with everything that pushes down on me, and the things the buoy me up, like my kids and my writing are the bright spots in all the grim, I miss having that voice calling me out of the blue and saying,"Hey, numbnuts, hows it going?" Much like you were the only person who could get away with calling me Jenny, you were the only person I liked hugs from, because they weren't overpowering hugs, they were big, knock the world off your shoulders and make you feel safe, bear hugs, and dammit...I really need one more than ever. I miss you soo damn much.

Dear Roger: And So The Crazy Begins

The kids are off school for the next couple of weeks. Oh God. I know this is supposed to be a time filled with joy and celebration, but picture this if you will...4 kids,(though my eldest disappears with his buddies to work on their "Band" for hours), stuck in the house due to rain, cold or lack of willingness to wrangle all of them on the busy Portland sidewalks it the combination of the aforementioned. It should also be mentioned that my shoulder has decided to go out again. I had it rebuilt about 5 years ago and apparently that is the extent of the warranty on the rebuild. It has slipped out of socket on me several times over the past few days, leaving me feeling like cursing, crying and barfing while I try to slip it back into place, or a combination of all three, so trying to deal with recalcitrant kids who often reenact battle scenes from Fight Club in public,is not within my capability at the moment. The ex has been working long hours at his new meat selling job and while that is a blessing meaning that he is gone away from us for vast stretches of time, its also a bit of a pain for trying to get out and get anything done.
I know the inevitable will happen and I will have to brave the maddening crowds with them sometime in order to keep them from getting cabin fever and doing horrible things to each other more than they have already done. We are hardly into the first full day and already I have two boys with painted fingernails and one who woke up with a drawn on mustache and unibrow. Daughter has spent most of the day racing around the house in her panties with a blanket tied to her wrists and ankles proclaiming herself to be a,'Sugarglider".
She made her brothers dress up as a raccoon and a dog, and directed them in a play that involved the,'Raccoon" knocking over a trash can and the,'Dog" chasing it, and that was all well and good until Spencer, our real dog, got freaked out and decided to get involved in the chasing and offered to bite the,'Raccoon" on the butt.Spencer went to puppy time-out and the play was revised.
The eldest came home long enough to eat 6 slightly burned waffles coated in half a bottle of syrup, shower, drop off his dirty clothes, collect his guitar, argue with me and leave again. I cant say I blame him, I kind of wish I could trade places with him. Especially after daughter comes up to me and said,"Remember that chili ed made me eat yesterday?" yeah...I did after she giggled and walked away. Girls are every bit as gross as boys. As I write this, she is out burping her brothers in a root beer burp contest.She tells me that she wants to spend the next couple of weeks,'Being feral." I asked her, "What if we have company?" She scoffed at me, "Nobody ever comes over to our house. Im not worried. We dont have any family around and the boys are always trying to make me smell their arm pits, so I think I should try to go stinky as payback." Seriously...can I trade places with the older one?

Dear Roger: Things I Cant Give Her

Christmas approaches and while it promises to be better this year, its also a bit stranger. I have struggled with what to get my kids, not just because money is a bit of an issue, hell...Im used to that, but because they seem to not really need anything. I work really hard to provide for them, and they have pretty much what they need in the way of things. We keep our lives pretty simple and they aren't the type of kids to really demand the latest shiny electronic toy or geegaw,(well, the eldest is, but then again, he has most of that, that he is allowed to bring into the house),and the other things, like video games and fancy flat screened tv's, he knows are just things that aren't really that important.
I have debated and tried to figure out what would be special to each child, and while daughter is the easiest,(art, music, monkeys and Rathbone related), she is also the most difficult because I want to get her something she will love because she is also the only kid who hasn't hit me with a list on a daily basis. She did mention a hula hoop, once, but she hasn't begged or nagged or pointed at everything in every store or ad.Its like she has faith that she will be taken care of and she just keeps on keeping on. She was tickled to death to bring home the present she had made for ME from school to put under the tree and she wanted to make sure that Spencer and the cats all had something to put under it as well. She enjoys doing for others and she wants to be involved in either making or getting stuff for her brothers and shes been making up and singing Christmas songs all week.
Her brothers are kinda the opposite, they are on overload and its like Christmas was soo sparse for them last year that they just want anything this year so they are asking for everything in the hopes they will get something. Apparently he got them each a coloring book each and then they got some clothes that didn't fit from a charity. The money I sent them was spent on candy and food, so apparently it was a pretty crappy Christmas for them. I have already made sure it wont be like that for them this year, but I can tell that they are worried. They got given critter head beanies already and Stubby has not taken his raccoon one off yet. I dont know if its because hes happy to have such a cool present, or he just loves it, but when he got a fishing pole from another friend yesterday, he slept with it next to him last night.
Stevie has faith. I think that is the difference. She knows that no matter what it will all work out and what is meant to be will be. She is very happy with very little, because she knows that there are others who have had to make do with a lot less than she has gotten, she has seen them in her own family and she wants them to realize that this year things will be different, even if they dont get the whole world, they got a new one and it is getting better.
Im going to get her a keyboard of some sort or another, it may not be the best, it may not be brand new, but it will be new to her and I know she will love it because that is just how she is, and she will use it to make music that will make me laugh and that will be my present. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.