To Embellish

I suppose it's high time for a post about my life, mainly for my mother and my sister - my mother, who I haven't called in a while, and my sister likewise. The thing about this job is you can only say so much, and then that sort of bleeds in to the rest of your life, like mud spreads. And all of the sudden your life is a gray mesh of classified information.

This is where I am.

I moved to a new squadron. So far I've been made to go on to a shift that's nights...which is awesome...but that includes a 4 hour shift on Saturday - which is decidedly not so. And I was volentold to do some duty at 6 am on a saturday. And I took part in a squadron-wide piss test in order to root our columbian drug lords or some other such nonsense. Welcome!

I hate it.

I'm trying to not be so negative. I remembered, from some previous "I can't talk about this" sort of training, that I had a nervous smile. I don't think I have that anymore. I have a nervous frown, and a calm frown, and a happy frown. Let's not go that far, but we're getting there. I tend to complain. I tend to whine. I should stop that, but then I'm looking for something really good - really good in my life. There are plenty of things I just have to grab hold of and shake and squirm like one of those tube blob things you can't really get a hold of. I'd rather not explain.

Otherwise...not much.

I read less, I write less. Here is a hilight. I'm taking drum lessons and practicing a lot. I've wanted to do this since I was young, but then, we always had guitars around. I play my electronic set and I do drills and etc. It's not ideal, but it's a light, for sure.

Side note. I remember when I used to go to church, in high school, in youth group...we were trying to come up with a new name for the youth group, rather that YOTM - Youth on the Move. My suggestion was B.U.T.T.E.R - Bound Undeniably To The Everlasting Rock. The one that ended up getting voted in to power was Luce or Luchay. The Italian word for light. Pronounced Loo-chay. It wasn't universally accepted. So a few of us painted the podium to say stuff about butter, and had verses about butter, etc. I really enjoyed that time.

Butter.

I'm trying to spend time with people, and I'm getting back in to creativity - being interesting - transcending. There are definitely bright points in my world.

Domino

Today I evalled. I'm not going to bother explaining what it means. It is the anticlimax of my henceforth existence. This 10 hour flight and everyone is too tired to move at the end, and a little too bitter to give where credit is due. It is this landing and this long transit across the united states.

And all the souls I know are on night shift, and it's a wednesday, which means I celebrate with a bottle of smirnoff ice, alone on my couch.

I may watch the daily show, I may read something, I may go to the casino. My apartment smells like onions, like a rotting box - the life is drained out of me. I eat because I must and I let my eyes tumble out of their sockets like bowling balls in the alley down the street. The one I'm not in.

Here is the transparency, here is the melancholy, here is the roadblock. The paths of blue open before me, as does the sand. There is no more excuse.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for Tomorrow, we Fly

Except I probably shouldn't eat anything crazy, I definitely shouldn't drink, and "crew rest" fairly prohibits me from being merry with anything more than what's already in my apartment - which, don't get me wrong, aint bad.

I'm fairly nervous, as I always am when going into something new or very different. Every time I go to a new place or start a new class or a new activity I get somewhat nervous the day or so before, so I guess this is expected. Thinking back in recent memory, I think the only things I was really justifiably nervous about were Survival School, and Basic Training. Everything else has been no big deal. This also, I'm sure, will be no big deal, and might end up being actually kind of cool.

There's some kind of psychological therapy that focuses on just thinking about things rationally. An example of this would be something like if your significant other was an hour or two late from work. Instead of automatically assuming the worst, it would have you stop, and think about all the more realistic possibilities (their phone died and they had to stay late, they had car trouble on the way home, they had some other appointment you forgot about or maybe they forgot to tell you) and realize the reality of your worst fear being true is pretty slim. In this situation, even though my worst fear isn't very solidified, the flight will probably, nevertheless, go by with a minimum of incident. I know the stuff I'm supposed to know, and I've never come across much of anything that I couldn't handle with relative ease - at least as far as these standardized things go.

I look at some of the people that have gone before me, and I figure they might as well skip the five flights and just graduate me after this one. Sorry if this post isn't exciting, it's more to myself. By 1630 tomorrow, hopefully, it'll all be done. And in three months or so it'll just be a dim memory.

Arbitrary Gestures

Today's Adventures:

Hair cut - Same as always, but my dyed, then bleached hair looked very strange as it was getting swept up off the floor. Like the mane of a baby lion.

Change Cell Phone plan - The year was up, I went in, got unlimited texting, and got me a chocolate. It's definitely the coolest phone I've ever had, and the one with the most appetizing name (way better than VX6895, blegh).

Shopping - Needed a few things. Dishwasher detergent, paper towels, cat food. What a difference some Jet Dry in the dishwasher makes, too. Oh and I picked up I Am America and So Can You as a book on CD, so that'll be good to keep the trend after Death in the Afternoon.

Writing - Dear readers, I stumbled in my pursuit. Friday I consciously decided to "take a day off," and then last night I just planned poorly and was too tired when I got home to really get out anything good. Both of these were mistakes. So today I'm doing a 3000 word marathon. I'm about half way thru and I like the results so far.

Discovery - Adventure Alaska or Alaska week or something starts at 9 on the Discovery channel and I love Alaska and want to watch it, so we'll see if I can't get the writing done before then.

Birds - April showers bring floods, and what do floods do? Kill birds. To help combat that, I've refilled the bird feeder I hung outside my window last spring. The Professor is enjoying crackelingly meowing at the patrons.

Tomorrow - Grind grind grind the pieces of my soul away. My first of five flights is on Thursday. I'm anxious to get out of that place.

Cheerio.

My Fix

Tomorrow I let this tether go and send my moon careening off into space. Really I'm more the moon, and the earth - drugs, of course - is the one sending me careening off into the unknown. This is the speech of an addict, but I'm not really.

Tomorrow I go off Duties Not to Include Flying (DNIF), which means that the pills get tucked into cupboards and toilets and places the feds won't find when they raid my apartment. It's like Samson losing his hair. I suppose I could pray for healing, but then I've found the results henceforth to be rather unconvincing, steeped in mythological lore as I am, it hasn't provided one iota the relief of a pill or an IV or a shot of rum.

So, clean an free, start my clock. I've been sober now for at least 12 hours. It'll be 24 when I sign my sanity to the gods of flying status tomorrow, and from there we'll see. I still get periodic throbbings, swellings, and juicings from Mr. Socket, Dry, but there you have it; I'm a working man and I don't think I can get disability for constant oral discomfort. Maybe I should check on that, actually.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Two percocet, some cotton soaked in clove juice, an upset stomach, and about twenty starburst jelly beans later, and I'm writing a blog entry at one in the morning. It was dry socket, I'm out of pills, and I have no ambition.

Hemingway was the man's man of writers. He used to tie himself to his chair, get drunk, and go until he passed out I guess. I may do the same tonight. Lewis Carroll's drug of choice was LSD, why can't mine be prescription?

Today I discovered that I can feel the hole in my lower left gums, and my upper right one is starting to hurt. It may degrade into dry socket like my lower right. I suppose I can stand the pain, and it's odd, but one of the main things I take into consideration when delegating my hope is whether it will get me out of work or not. This may, so I'm crossing my fingers for it.

I don't know if it's the sitting in a room with the same people, the sense of no direction, or the knowledge that I'm forced to take part in a system I don't believe in and am not interested in, like a minaret that hate's disco forced to perform Saturday Night Fever, but on the days I don't go to work compared with those when I do I find it's the difference between trying to spot a zebra in the serengeti or in a polka-dot pillow sale. That is, I don't feel quite at home. That is, I feel like an entirely different human being that thinks he wants things, and wants to appear certain ways, that the me laying on my floral patterned couch wearing a floral patterned bath robe would never even consider. That wasn't suggesting I'm hiding something like Heath in Brokeback Mountain was, it's a throwback to the camouflage analogy.

To keep this from getting too heavy (I was told that "ism" don't make for good crowd interaction in a place that ends in .com) I'll clarify that yes, now I have gotten dry socket in one tooth. They packed it with some kind of cottony looking stuff that is supposed to act as "scaffolding" for the gums to repair themselves. Apparently the scaffolding my body provided took a long union break, then went on strike, or went to protest the damage being wreaked on the liver, or something. Except there were no scabs to bring in this time: pun intended. This cottony stuff was soaked in an oil that smells like cloves and tastes like digested and crapped out cloves, and ended up making me feel high and nauseous by the end of the night. I said, "My feet feel far away."

I'm reminded of Shawshank Redemption. "You know, the funny thing is, on the outside I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook." I was a good high schooler, and it took me joining the military to get me tripping the light fantastic, kissing the sky, etc. Going to the square dance. That's an LSD reference.

The professor has been very sweet lately. I need to put seed in the bird feeder outside my window. My hair is even more red looking since I tried to bleach it. I still don't have a camera. Licorice tea is delicious, but somewhat hard to find. Why must emotions nearly always skew relationships for the worse? I'm very satisfied with my last round of shopping. The joy of intellectual stimulation is something akin to sex and I don't know how I get along when I'm not having it. A new office is on this Thursday, I think. Happy Birthday Amy, I'll give her a more proper post tomorrow, when I also buy her gift. Chinese is a useful skill, like when the seamstress only speaks chinese, and gives you a huge discount when you chat with her in it.

This is where I sleep, little whiskered ones.

"A cat may look at a king. I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where."

Drip Down

Rumors, rumors and ill feelings. No matter who we're put together with, our own pride maybe, or expectations, or maybe the illusion of permanence, as the Buddhists think, make every kind of secret complaining or outright animosity spring out of initially stand-offish people. I've also heard that familiarity breeds contempt, which may be the case.

I think I may be cursed to apathy as well, controllable, but difficult to push back once it gets hold. It's just that once it gets going I have a damned time mustering the will to change it. All becomes bad and nothing good. If I can use the boredom and hatred, by historical figures, of their respective situations and occupations I still have to accept the revulsion of the present moment they must have experienced, and the suffering they must have endured for what we can justify in retrospect.

I'm also just tired of this shit.

The deployment was supposed to happen, then was canceled, then was supposedly pushed back a month. As of last week I found that, without being told anything, I had been replaced. Today, the verdict is, we're not sure, you might go.

I can't bring myself to be neutral about this place. Maybe malcontent would be a more accurate description. I just really hate what I'm doing. People have gone thru it with their chins up and bright prospects. That's just not me. And maybe I'm using this situation as an excuse to fan my coals of dissatisfaction. I can almost guarantee I am. I just choose not to put energy into finding the merits. Probably a poor response. I've really lost interest in determining that.

In contrast, here's a bit about the new Bond movie.

For Your Service

There was a flyer up at my work that was noticed by a few friends of mine. "Free tickets to the Nebraska - Kansas St. Game". We just had to go in uniform.
Two of my friends, Copp and Wing, saw it, and they being football fans, wanted to go. I said I'd go too, thinking it was in Omaha. It ended up being in Lincoln, 45 minutes away, but not horrible. We drove down there today and stood on the sidelines, just behind the fence where the players and media all go. I think we may have gotten on TV too. During half time we were all leaning on said fence and one of the cameras came over and we were put up on the big megatron thing, or whatever it's called - bunch of Air Force cats in flight suits.
The whole day people were going by, shaking our hands, saluting us, some 10 year old said "Thank you for your service." Why is it that when people say that I just want to say "Shut up, leave me alone."? I wonder if it's cause I joined for purely selfish reasons, or because I don't want to be in anymore. It's because I don't like the system, and don't like how I feel completely pointless where I am - going thru 2 years of language training to just be a warm body on a plane.
I'll never go to China, never really use Chinese again in my job, once I graduate from this class. I appreciate being able to learn chinese, and yeah I've had to deal with this shit, some of which the vast majority of the population can't really relate to at all and will never experience even to a small degree- but I didn't do it for anyone's service.
I did it for free credits, free college money, and free parking. It must be a kind of shame I feel. Like I should be more patriotic, should look at the kids and say, "I'm fighting for your freedom kid." Just leave me alone. I'm just another working stiff that hates his job, it's just cause I wear green and a dumb looking hat that you might think I'm special. But I never graduated from college, gave up on my dreams, took the structure over the freedom, god knows why. I'll probably never be shot at, and if I am, it's cause I'll go to jail if I refuse to run out into the line of fire - not because I believe in anything - any kind of cause. That's how most of "The Service" is, whether they admit it or not. There are the few gung ho master sergeants and wannabe pilots - but the rest of us just want to get our 20 year retirement, or 3 year GI Bill, or clearance, or alcohol, and then forget we ever -literally- signed our life away. We appreciate the appreciation, somewhere deep down, and some of us think we deserve it, but for most all of us it's a job with good benefits, crappy pay, bad hours, and low morale. So if it's a service to you to deal with that, you're welcome.
Your taxes pay my salary, but then, my own taxes do too.

Also

This was at Offutt earlier this week. Security everywhere.

The Promised

So I'm going to write a bit about my life right now. I just read andrew's blog where he gets to talk about what he learns at work/school. I can't really do that generally, which makes it difficult. But rest assured that this rockin classified stuff I'm learning is generally the kind of stuff you'd look at and say, "That's IT!?" You know, psychic brain probes and remote viewing.

What is the government not telling you? I know, and it's not that exciting. And no, it doesn't make Bush a better President, or make a Cheney or more honest man if you knew what was going on behind closed doors.

So now, where am I? I've started the class I'll probably be in till about Christmas time. I like the people in my class a lot - between séances we find time for sudoku and general merry-making. I had my first graded sim today and passed. I think I can say that and not be saying anything illegal. Yes, it was playing the sims and being graded. I had to add a third story to my family's house and make the husband and wife make woopee in the hot tub. I was nervous, but it was no big deal, as things tend to be when you start actually doing them.

On tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays we play ultimate frisbee for pc (physical conditioning). I'm usually picked pretty early on despite often throwing bad passes and elbowing people in the face (unintentionally of course (not really)). It's getting humid and hot here, and the base is near an Iams or Friskies or something factory where they make dog food. So sometimes you walk outside in 90+ degree weather, 70%+ humidity, and it smells like horse carcass and you just wanna puke all over the ground. You get out of the shower and feel like you wanna get right back in, but it's not that bad. I like how it feels at 5:30 in the morning when I go to work (on the 6am to 12pm shift right now). But the gym we're in for ultimate (we play in an indoor soccer field) has no exhaust and...I don't think has any air conditioning...so it's gotta be like 3000% humidity. You set your car keys down on the bench and you start pouring sweat.

I come home and I read books and read stuff online mostly, occasionally watch a movie, man vs. wild, the daily show, or the colbert report. That's about what encompasses my weekdays. I avoid loading/unloading the dishwasher as long as I can, as well as going grocery shopping. So I usually have clean dishes sitting in the dishwasher, nothing but tuna and boxed rice in the cupboard, and dried cheese/whatever I mixed it with (chips, eggs) stuck on the plates in the sink. Then I end up just drinking the last bit of the big 2 gallon jug of water straight from the container in the fridge before caving and spending my $200 on my sex-weekly (okay that sounds scandalous - what would it be? bi weekly, tri, quad...what's six?) grocery shopping trip.

The Professor's still pretty cool, but I think he's been gaining weight just sitting around all day, so I've started putting his food up while I leave. I'd love to let him out but there are 2 problems:
1) When I put a collar on him he just jacks with it till he can get it off.
2) The door to my apartment is in a hall that has another door to the outside, so when he'd want back in I don't know how I'd know unless I could train him to come to the window he escaped out of.
I'd also like to let him out cause he's starting doing this obnoxious meow, and sitting by the door - obviously trying to tell me he wants to go out. But he does it at like 2 am and wakes me up. I don't know why he keeps it up cause I haven't once actually let him out while he does it. I've started saying "Quiet!" and chasing him around a little.

Let's see...anything else to add? Taking a computer class online thru Metro Community College to fulfill what I need to get my associates degree thru DLI. I'm signed up for a biology class and a college algebra class next semester. I felt pretty proud of myself and I'll tell you why: Sophomore year in high school I took Algebra 2/Trig. After that year I took a math placement test at the comm college in So Cal and I tested into college math/statistics...like the math 140 range. Didn't actually take any classes until 2 years later after I graduated. I had to take the math placement test again and I tested into the math 070 range! Which is basically Algebra 2/Trig again. So in 2002 I took that class again. It has hence been 5 years. I had to take a math placement test again, so I bought an Algebra book and studied on my own before taking it. I got thru the book and tested into statistics...so like the math 140 range. So after 5 years of no math I managed to test into the same level as I did right after I finished the highest math I've taken. So I felt pretty good about that.

I actually like math now. I like figuring stuff out just thru logic - stuff that I don't necessarily know the real formula for. I always liked the humanities esk subjects more...but on the standardized tests in high school I always did better on the math parts.

I think that's quite long enough for now. Maybe more later. I'm sure there's more.

More: I work here.

The Vampire Within

Over this weekend, myself and my whole class has to make the transition from 6pm to 12am class to 6am to 12pm. I can never go to bed early, I just end up laying awake in bed until I usually go to sleep (which right now is 4 am). So this is what I did:

Yesterday I woke up about noon. Instead of going to sleep at 4 am, sleeping till noon today, and then trying to go to sleep at like 9 pm today...I stayed up till about 11 am this morning, then went to bed, and I just got up, and it's about 9 pm now. So now I'm going to stay up and go to class and then probably end up falling asleep like afternoon on monday. So this way...yeah I sort of lost a night of sleep...but I'm not tired and I'm just using my tendency to stay up late to adjust my sleep schedule in a way that feels more natural. Before, half my waking free time was in the middle of the night anyway.

So we'll see how it works out.

At First

A benefit to the Air Force is the time you get off. You're "on duty" 24/7, but you get out early some, and usually when there's a three day weekend, it turns into a four day weekend. The downside is getting shot at.

This past weekend was a four dayer and Eric Sward, a friend of mine from back in DLI days, invited/recruited me to drive him (and, sort of unavoidably, myself) to Minnesota and ultimately to an undisclosed location in upper Wisconsin for four days of ski, scrumptiousness, and scruples (nothing starts with "sk").


These are two pictures I took. I'll post more when I go back up there and take more pictures. I took my camera up there, then we'd go out on the boat or drive somewhere and I'd think, I should have brought my camera. These two are from backwoods tour given by the Sward grandpappy that the Sward children often fight over for their turn to go on. I doubt that sentence was grammatically correct. Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting. We checked grandpa's minnow traps, saw that big damn beaver dam in the left one, and learned about the history of the old rail lines that used to haul lumber out of there. I was also scoping out the place for where the holy grail was buried, as it was the Knights Templar Club and you know how those people are with their grails.

In the meantime, between when we got there and left, we did some hot tubbing, some tubing behind the boat, others skied and I oft considered skiing, saw pirates 3, played loads of games, and did all sorts of other things I promised not to disclose (in exchange for which I get treasure). It was much fun. The cast was myself and Eric, Stevo and Carla (the parents, we called them the fantastic 4, which doesn't really make sense), Sarah, Kristen, and Jenna (the girls, who we called the Lone Ranger(s)). It was a time of music and odd nicknames, and I didn't want to go home.

Bah

I have nothing to report. My new class is boooooring and we waste LOADS of time. Otherwise, waiting for my drums to get here, should be here tuesday.



Until then, this is an article about tissue they found in T-Rex bones.

Great Balls of...

Me in the old bag.I just wanted you guys to see my versatile posing ability.

Yet another...

Link. This one, to a bunch of online lectures from big universities. It's awesome, you can basically take a whole class on these subjects. I've been watching the buddhism one.

Wearing my flight suit tomorrow, so I'll take some pictures at some point. I look like a freakin astronaut, hot stuff.

Maybe There IS a God

So today is...my birthday...and guess what else happened?
SNOW DAY!!!

The FIRST one so far.

AND we have tomorrow off anyway as a WING day cause there's been no DUIs in...a month or something. So 4 day weekend!

Booyah!

Schedule

This has become my schedule:

Up at 6, leave at 7:15.

School starts at 8. Lasts till 4ish.

Come home, read, write, check email.

5ish, fall asleep.

7ish wake up. Eat dinner.

8:30 go to krav.

9:45, come home.

10-11 watch Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

11-11:30 Read.

11:30 fall asleep.

Repeat ad nauseum. I gotta cut the nap out, it's killin my productive time.

Bam

Today I'm going to shoot guns, to get qualified on M9s. Look out Osama.

There's a Hole in my Bucket

Dear Liza Dear Liza

I realize I've been tagged to talk about my weird things...and I may still...I've gotta think of some.

Otherwise, I'm leaving tomorrow to drive Erin's stuff to Cali, then drive to Phoenix. The only part I'm worried about with driving that big truck is just the snow here and maybe some snow I'll hit in Coloradoish, cause I don't think rental places give you chains or even allow you to put on your own.

It's 22 hours. I'm leaving friday afternoon and want to get to Santa Clarita by Monday. I don't think it'll be a problem. I drove 15 hours straigh after being awake all night the night before. So hopefully I can get to Phoenix on Tuesday if not late on Monday, then I'm leaving Friday again.

Sort of anticlimactic after the going away party, but I'm planning on just eating cheese in my parents garage the whole time I'm there, so no worries about awkwardness with seeing anyone.

Also the Professor's finally getting better. The snot sort of transfered to his eye, which is gross. At first it was just clear goo coming out, of his eye, but then it changed to the green and yellow stuff and it made his eyes swell - i'm thinking it's like when your nose drains at night and you wake up with a sore throat...except it's his eye. Blegh.

Also I went into an airforce clinic to get my shot records and I was due for a flu shot so they gave me that. The first year we got them I was real excited that I wouldn't get a cold then. But every time I've gotten them they've CAUSED me to get a cold. So I'm drinking plenty of fluids and I went ahead and slept late, just to stay healthy, you know.

College

So on March 1st I'll be halfway thru my military soirée, and I'm thinkin I'm not gonna re-sign (though there are definitely perks to the military. For instance, one of the belts in my car has been squealing at me, and even occasionally smelling like burning, and also my windshield wiper fluid wasn't coming out. So I took it to the on base mechanic, and they fixed both, and guess how much it cost. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS!! I've NEVER ever spent anything near that little to fix ANYTHING in my car. It's hard to even get an oil change that cheap! Anyway...) . So I'm gonna take advantage of the GI Bill and I want to go to school as soon as I get out...probably the fall or summer of 2009. How early ahead do you need to apply? I've been looking at different schools, but should I start applying for scholarships and what not NOW? Anybody have any input?