Onward!
My new favorite word is “crikey.” Yes, like they say in Australia. I started using it a lot last week because my mom was visiting, and I didn’t want to offend her sweet nature by saying “Christ on a fucking CRUTCH” like I normally do. So after a week, “crikey” slipped into my lexicon. I found myself using it once again while I read all of your amazingly supportive words of wisdom and cynicism, as in, “Crikey! Other people have to pay bills too!”
So, I backed away from my computer (yes, even from Facebook, the site which will probably go down in history as having prevented more intellectual pursuits than a medium-sized war) and took action. I calculated my debts, organized my bills, finished my homework, found a bus schedule, wiped the tears from my vagina, and got on with life. I also reminded myself that there are plenty of people all over the place who have things far less together than I do, which definitely helped, along with the knowledge that I’m not required to call anyone “Sir” anymore.
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My classes have been scooting merrily along this semester. I’m taking two Education classes, partially because I think I might possibly want to be a teacher someday, and partially because it never hurts to learn how to teach people things. If anybody remembers my less-than-capable co-worker from my first deployment, you may recall that I was less than patient with him during our little training sessions. I have since learned that most people tend to stop listening to you after you call them an incompetent idiot a few times, especially if you follow it by inquiring about the whereabouts of their head, specifically, if it has recently been seen anywhere near their ass. So now I get to go to class every Tuesday and Thursday to learn about educational psychology and have spirited discussions about how No Child Left Behind could only be more counterproductive if it required teachers to simply smack students in the head with a brick as they walked into the classroom. It’s hugely enjoyable, to say the least.
I’m supposed to start observing classrooms in the next week or two, which means that I first had to actually go to schools and ask them if they minded me lurking around and taking notes. I chose my schools using the Variety is the Spice of Life method, and ended up with Oakland High and a private Catholic primary school down the street from my house – both of which, amazingly, were more than willing to subject their teachers to the watchful gaze of a heavily tattooed stranger like myself. I’m also planning to do some tutoring in a high school English class, Chris Farley-style: “Oh, you don’t care about run-on sentences? Well let’s see if you care when you’re living in a van down by the RIVER!” Then I will casually mention that I know how to operate an M16A2 semiautomatic rifle, and isn’t it time to work on grammar, now?
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A bit about my current living situation: it is more or less wonderful. Back in April, my former housemates, a soon-to-be-married couple, informed me that they had just bought a new house, and would be moving out June first. and would I like to take over the lease here? Although I was disappointed to see them go, I decided it would be pretty excellent to be able to choose three new people to live here, so I agreed to become the new master tenant. There were several shaky weeks of “Eeek! No furniture is here!” and “Eeek! Craigslist is full of weirdos!” but at last, all is well. I am living with three other fantastic women, and also Eric, whose Most Supportive Boyfriend In The Entire Known Universe award is currently being crafted out of a tiny slice of heaven.
When Previous Housemates moved out, you see, they took all of the furniture which was theirs. To properly emphasize: they took all of the furniture, which was theirs. What remained was a pine kitchen table, four chairs, a couple of plates, a refrigerator, some shelves, and a couple of huge empty rooms. After a few minutes of gaping in the dark, I got it together and went to Eric’s place to use his silverware and whine for a while about how I was all alone and had nothing to sit on and could you please refill my glass of wahhhh. He gave me a back rub and told me not to worry, and yada yada yada, we now are living together with said fantastic women in a home full of lovely, cheap-or-free furniture, a dog, two cats, two goats and a beautiful backyard garden.
(Yes, there are two goats living in our backyard. It is a temporary thing, but we all love them, and we have a special Goat Dance that we do when we greet them. They don’t care that we live in Oakland, as long as they have alfalfa.)
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My traveling has not stopped, I should add. Nor has my propensity for enthusiastic partying. However, I have been slowly learning how to integrate the world of drunken frivolity with that of ever-growing responsibility. Eric and I call it “mindful recklessness,” which pretty much means that one should never celebrate life in the form of blacking out and becoming incapable of carrying on a somewhat coherent conversation. Tomorrow we’ll be heading down to a friend’s ranch in Santa Cruz to continue putting that philosophy into practice. Don’t wait up.
Pending further guidance
There comes a time in my life – every week or two, it seems – when I have to simply sit down, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I am now an adult. I’ve been having this revelation pretty frequently these days, especially whenever I have to spend money on things like utilities, my dog’s flea medication, parking tickets and filing fees for divorce paperwork. What happened to the days when all I paid for was new clothes and booze ice cream? Ah, they have gone, back to yesteryear, when I lived in my parents’ house and had no discernible Plan for the Future, back when gas was a dollar a gallon but I didn’t care because I couldn’t drive.
The thing is, friends, I have been absolutely living it UP since I got out of the Army. Seriously, my life has been awesome for the last year or so, and I am not ashamed to admit it. I’ve traveled all over America, guided mostly by impulse; I’ve seen beautiful places, met amazing people, and somehow acquired the most excellent boyfriend in the history of Ever. Things, in general, have rocked.
This fall, I’m finally settling down. I’m spending more than a week at a time at home. I’m paying bills. I’m taking three classes. I’m attempting to find gainful employment. In short, I am giving Growing The Fuck Up a good, healthy shot. But man, I sort of suck at it.
The Army, lord bless it, sheltered me from the storm of adulthood. Yes, I had to pay rent, work in an office and go to war every now and then, but in retrospect, they really made it ridiculously easy: I had job security; I knew exactly how much I was getting paid every month; my work was simple; and my every move was dictated by my supervisors, their supervisors, and Dick Cheney. Piece of cake. All I had to do was stay alive.
Now … christ. Rather than attempting to explain, I will copy and paste. Here, in the form of an e-mail to my dad, is a tiny bit of what has been keeping me awake till three o-fricking-clock:
“… do you recall getting a letter for me that could have been from the VA? I filed a GI Bill application back in May and when I talked to them today (after being first hung up on by an automated voice and then put on hold for close to fifteen days), they said they sent my approval letter to you and mom. They’re re-sending it to my address, but I want to make sure it actually went to you and they’re not just blowing smoke. Once I get the letter, I have to make an appointment with the school counselor (sounds simple, I know, but budget cuts and understaffing at the community colleges have made it a Sisyphean task), then an appointment with the veterans’ counselor, after which it will still take at least six weeks to get my benefits started. Of course, that’s assuming that I fill out all the paperwork correctly, get it to the right people at the right time, and promise the VA that I will give up my future children to work all their days behind a desk at a government agency. And I won’t even start on the mess at the DMV, or the fact that once my car actually runs again, I have to pay some crooked mechanic forty bucks or more to ensure that my emissions levels are low enough to get my car’s registration renewed, and there is NO WAY to know if said mechanic is telling the truth or not, ESPECIALLY considering the faulty alternator that was installed in my car and lasted for almost one entire month before breaking down on me today at the dog park, during rush hour, an hour before I had to go to class. So I missed my class tonight, and my car is in the shop until “sometime tomorrow,” and I have bills again now, and Bones keeps getting fleas, and Frontline is wicked expensive, and the fleas will not go away with generic-brand flea stuff – they demand the BEST. Oh, and did you know that parking tickets in Oakland cost $35? Or $55. Or $70. Or whatever the cost of the city council members’ lunch was that day, because YOU NEVER KNOW. It’s like a special surprise in a little yellow envelope. And since taking over the lease on this apartment has pretty much wiped out my bank account, I can’t pay the tickets till after they’ve already doubled in cost, which is super awesome.
I’m kind of stressed this week, and it’s possibly because I am not yet good at Life. According to Rhonda Byrne (author of “The Secret,” which … yeah) it’s because I haven’t been Envisioning Success, but I think it’s really because I’m not getting enough iron in my diet and I’m bad at math.
Sigh. At least I’m not in the Army anymore.”
So, there was some rambling there, as well as a noticeable lack of paragraph breaks. I think it’s because I sort of lost it for a minute – at which point I sat back, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that I am now an adult, and as such, should go buy a bottle of wine, drink it, and write a journal entry. And now, in this fragile state of tipsiness, I will swallow my pride (which, incidentally, tastes like a slightly-undercooked Hot Pocket) and ask you older – or younger – and wiser folks for whatever pearls you can offer regarding Life, the Universe and Everything.
I’m not even being sarcastic this time, guys. I’m honestly scared shitless that after all I’ve already been through, I will still somehow be awarded a big old Fail. Apparently once I stopped being angry all the time, I became neurotic. In the language of the military that I know so well: Please advise.
Let’s hear it for new experiences!
I think I freaked out the women working at the free clinic today. But not in a bad way. I should start at the beginning.
In every relationship that begins as a one-night stand, there comes a time when one partner says to the other, “We should get tested for the HIV [pronounced "The hiv"], just in case you are diseased.” The other partner says, “Sure, why not?” And then, since they are both very thrifty, they go down to their local free clinic and try not to pick up hepatitis from the other patients while waiting for their blood test results.
Saturday is the designated day for women to show up and get tested, so I strolled in around noon.
“Hello!” I said cheerfully to the girl at the front desk, who looked like she was barely old enough to drive, and had maybe volunteered for this job to get credits for her high school health class. “I would like to make sure I don’t have the HIV.”
She seemed pleased. “Great! Take a number and a counselor will be right with you.”
Since the Army has taken care of my disease-testing/vaccination over the past several years, I’d never been fortunate enough to know what goes into this kind of procedure in the civilian sector. In the Army, they just say, “Stand in that line so we can draw your blood and then put something else into your veins. Do it. Now.” And with no further comment, you do it.
At this clinic, I was ushered into a smallish office by two women who seemed like they were, again, considerably younger than I am.
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions before we do your test?” the one with the clipboard asked me.
“Not at all,” I chirped, glad to be getting this out of the way after several weeks of procrastination. “Ask away!”
They then proceeded to ask me several details about my coughsexlifecough. This is where I think I may have freaked them out. But not in a bad way.
The thing is, I have never (in case you hadn’t noticed) been a shy person. I’ve never even been a slightly reserved person. If two women approached me on the street and asked me what my preferred method of birth control was, I’d probably tell them, without even asking why, that I am partial to Lifestyles condoms, the ones in the blue box, and what was your name, by the way? It should also be factored in that, in the junior enlisted sector of the military, one’s sexual exploits were not necessarily considered sacred in any way, and unless you were hooking up with someone else’s spouse, the rules were that there were no rules, if you know what I’m saying, and I think you do.
So, I was more amused than uncomfortable with the questions (and answers) being bandied back and forth with some degree of awkwardness on their part.
“Um, how many, um, sexual partners have you had in the last year?” one asked, as the other prepared to take notes.
I counted aloud. “… three, four, five … six? Six!” I said confidently. “Or seven.”
“Ummm, okay.”
It continued like that for a while, but in the interest of retaining some semblance of class in this entry, I’ll refrain from transcribing the entire “counseling session,” as they called it. The whole thing only took about ten minutes, but by the end I felt as though I had really made a statement about sexual liberation … or something. All I’m saying is that I think they were maybe surprised that my test came back negative.
Anyway, hi! The Too Much Information portion of this post is now concluded. If any of you are still reading at this point, I would like to share something with you that is completely unrelated to STDs. It originated as a Facebook Note, but I feel like too much effort went into it to just let it stay there, so I’m sharing it with you. It is titled …
The Electric Flavor Wave Turbo Test
“Is it better than ‘Everyday Normal Guy?’” I asked, referring to the last time she’d made that assertion.
“Hmm, I don’t know if it’s better,” she frowned. “But Mr. T is in it!”
Sparking the lighter, I raised an eyebrow and glanced over at her roommate, Emily. “Is this true?”
She nodded.
The three of us huddled around Aleece’s laptop, the screen casting its bewitching glow between our drooping eyelids. As Aleece entered F-L-A-V-O-R W-A-V-E into the YouTube search box, I settled back on the couch. I was slightly hungry.
“Here it is!” Emily pointed excitedly. “WATCH THIS.”
It was an infomercial for the Flavor Wave Turbo Oven – an invention that could allegedly cook, among a plethora of other things, a block of frozen meat in sixteen minutes. Mr. T was a supporting actor, whose role consisted of periodically gushing with earnest enthusiasm to the lead demonstrator, Darla, about how amazing it all was.
“This is DELICIOUS!” he proclaimed as he chewed a hunk of steak and proceeded to pity the fool who could not taste it.
Naturally, I was overjoyed to see a product which required me to exert even less effort than the George Foreman Grill, especially knowing my personal history of “cooking.” I have burnt items which started out frozen, undercooked some which were all but coated in kerosene, and (more than once, I’ll admit) turned a coffeemaker into a caffeine volcano, spewing grounds and brew hither and yon.
My most infamous endeavor involved a box of Minute rice. Tired after a long day of being owned by the government, I returned home for dinner one night to discover that the only foodstuffs to be found in my apartment were rice, Jell-O and butter.
Two of these things go together, I thought (rice and butter, since I was not high), and proceeded to dump the proportionally-appropriate amount of rice and water into a pot. I twisted the burner’s dial to “medium” and turned on a movie while I waited for my rice to cook.
Several minutes later, I peered into the pot.
“This isn’t cooking,” I announced to my then-spouse, whose help I had refused on the grounds of his goodnatured remark that maybe he should help, what with it being the last food in the house, and all. “Why isn’t it cooking?”
A short investigation into the matter concluded with my moving the pot to the correct burner. A few moments later, we ate our buttered rice, which had cooked at the usual pace once given a fair go at it.
My eyes were riveted on the Flavor Wave. I imagined it to be the answer to all of my cooking woes. There would be no more complicated multiple burners, confusing dials or meek eggshell timers; no more cold-in-the-center meat or soggy vegetables. The lapsed time between desiring food and consuming it would be cut drastically.
I had to take action. Clicking my way to the Flavor Wave Web site, I selected the cheerily-flashing ORDER NOW button.
Aleece and Emily gaped at me.
“You’re actually buying it?” they squealed. “No way!”
Yes way, I certainly was. Having never before ordered a product based solely on its infomercial, I was slightly surprised at myself, but nonetheless continued to the Shipping Information page.
One step away from purchasing my dream machine, I filled in the blank Address lines on the order form, but stopped short when I reached an impasse – the form wouldn’t allow me to select a country other than Canada.
“Drat!” I moaned, just in case I would ever have to relate the story with a PG rating. “They only ship to Canada!”
A message was hurriedly dashed off to my Canadian friend Leah, pleading with her to accept delivery of the Flavor Wave Turbo and forward it on to me. Ten years ago, Leah stood in line with me for hours outside a Toronto music store so I could shake hands with Puff Daddy (as P. “Sean John” Diddy was then known), and I knew that if anyone would be up for some international smuggling, it was she.
We were entering the wee hours of the morning, so I parted ways with Emily and Aleece, promising to keep them informed of further Flavor Wave developments.
A few days later, having gotten the go-ahead from Leah but not yet placed my order, I showed the infomercial to my friend Carolyn, who is a legitimate culinary artist.
“What do you think?” I asked her, fully sober at the time. “Is this possible? Is Mr. T right to pity me for not experiencing all that the Flavor Wave has to offer? Do you think the thing could really work?”
“Probably,” she affirmed. “It sounds possible.”
That was really all the confirmation I needed.
A quick visit to the correct Flavor Wave Web site told me that it was manufactured right here in California, and my order could be filled anywhere in the United States. I took the plunge. I promised Leah that I would keep her informed.
Two days and one (of three) easy payments of $39.95 later, my Flavor Wave arrived, and I intend to keep my promise to those who helped (or would have helped) make its acquisition a success.
Here, without further ado, is the Official Flavor Wave Turbo Test.
Bonus detail: While cooking in the Flavor Wave, the potatoes look eerily similar to the sacred stones in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” do they not?
Down the coast
Sometimes if I’m in one place for too long, I get an itch. I’m not talking about the kind of itch you get from sitting on a toilet seat in a bar or slutting yourself around too much (that would be crabs, in case you are ignorant or twelve years old), but the kind that makes me want to go on a long road trip. And not just any long road trip – I’m referring to the kind of road trip that leaves you broke, homeless and really, really tan.
I used to get the itch while I was in the military. I’d wake up one morning, drive down the highway to Fort Stewpid, and wish I could just keep driving. Unfortunately, the military has this crazy policy where you can’t call in sick unless you have a serious problem, like a broken clavicle or something, so unless I was due for leave or a four-day pass, I was stuck where I was. I might as well have been in a cage.
When I got out of the Army last May (almost a year ago! Can you even fathom it?), I plucked my freedom back out of Uncle Sam’s bony fingers and hit the road. My best friend suggested we drive the Pan-American highway from Alaska to Argentina (“It’ll be great! All we need is guns and money!”), and I would have done it if she hadn’t gone and gotten a job before I got back from Iraq. Since I’m one of those who likes to have a partner in crime for international adventures, I opted not to go it alone, and instead decided to traverse the United States.
From June to December 2008, my car was my home. I drove tens of thousands of miles, from sea to shining sea and back. I took the blue highways or no highways, stopping for gas, food, hitchhikers, sunsets and exceptionally tall trees. In the middle of Idaho I got a dog, and together we drove, walked and/or peed in every national forest we came across. I had no obligations, no bills and a steady paycheck, thanks to my ninety-seven days of paid leave and Iraq savings, and my future was unknown – just the way I liked it.
In January, I came to Oakland and got an apartment. I’ve continued taking one- to two-week excursions, either on my own or with anyone else who was interested, and doing more exploring locally than your average unemployed person. Still, it’s difficult to travel with reckless abandon when you know you’ll have to pay rent upon your return, so I can’t venture out as far or as frequently as I’d like to.
I explained all of this on the phone to Eric a few weeks ago. He was off playing music for people in Colorado that week, and I was getting frustrated with my neighborhood.
“It’s so blah,” I told him in my best non-whiny voice. “There is nothing I can walk to, and I hate driving in the city. You know what I need? Wilderness.“
Since I am just the slightest bit impatient and Eric is probably the most agreeable person on the planet (seriously, I could ask him if he wanted to do anything from going to a museum to learning how to play Cliff-Jumping Fire Darts and he’d be all, “Sounds like fun!”), he and I began planning our next wilderness road trip that very night. Two weeks later, we were packed and driving down Highway 1 to Big Sur.
The California coastline, in case you’ve never driven it, is ridiculously goddamn gorgeous, and that’s on a hazy day. When the sun is shining and the ocean is blue, you might as well forget about doing anything other than staring at it all day, from as many angles as possible. We drove down on one of those sunny, clear days that makes every RV-owner from San Francisco to San Diego decide to fill up the tank and drive 30 miles per hour down steep, winding roads, and the trip was so amazing that I only cursed out one other driver. We finally decided on a place to pull over and camp, but it’s difficult when all your options look equally perfect.
There was a sketchy-looking trail that led from our campground down to a deserted beach. We realized before long that the beach was probably deserted due to the path being 1) at a forty-five-degree angle and 2) heavily infested with poison oak. Of course, since a deserted beach is pretty difficult to come by these days, we had to take advantage of it by stripping and running into the ocean. The experience invoked countless feelings for me, but the only one I can remember clearly was a feeling of being too cold to breathe both in and out.
Our campsite was fairly secluded, as nobody else was interested in camping near the tree line due to a “raccoon problem.” Our closest neighbor warned us that the local scavengers were shameless enough to attempt to break into campers’ cars, but we decided the food would be fine in a locked Subaru. Surprisingly, the raccoon story ends there, rather than with “and then the raccoons smashed my windshield, ate all our food, set the tent on fire, etc.”
No, it wasn’t the nocturnal creatures that concerned me. One morning as I blearily boiled water for tea, Eric called my attention to the vehicle that had just pulled up beside the camp’s somewhat primitive toilet facilities.
“Look!” he whispered excitedly. “Does that say ‘got poop?’”
We spent most of our time exploring the area, as most sane people do when they are in a place that could be a visual definition of the word “Wow.” After hitting a couple touristy spots, like McWay Falls and its neighboring coastline, it was time to head into the woods so the dog could get poison oak and ticks more efficiently.
What? Did you think I was kidding? My dog has few priorities greater than Eat, Run Around and Snuggle.
Have you ever wanted to look up at a tree and hear your neck crack before you’ve craned it far enough backward to see the top? If so, I highly suggest walking through a forest of redwoods.
The back half of this tree was burnt during the wildfires here last summer. Its front half, weirdly, looked untouched.
We walked uphill and downhill through forests and meadows, pausing every fifteenth of a second to look around and repeat some variation of “Holy fuck, this is beautiful,” and at the end of the day, we reached this view. (I KNOW.)
After about four days of gleefully neglecting showers, we reluctantly dragged ourselves back to the East Bay and Responsibility. There are more road trips ahead, but my wanderlust has been sated momentarily. For now, I’ll just blame that little itch on poison oak.
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Today’s Moment of Zen
I’m sorry, Salamander. We didn’t mean to scare you shitless.
If they want any more, they can kiss my ass*
I’ve decided that if the Army wants me, it’s going to have to come and get me itself – if it thinks I’m going to voluntarily place myself within grasping distance of its camouflage-patterned talons, it is sadly mistaken.
After carefully considering all of my options (at least, more carefully than usual), it came down to the simple fact that I do not ever want to be a soldier again. I will never regret the time I spent in uniform (roughly eight skajillion hours, by last count), but I also will never put the thing back on again unless a) it is a matter of life or death or b) my boyfriend asks me to put it on for reasons I won’t go into on a public blog.
The thought of having my first name be “Specialist” again makes my stomach turn. The idea of answering to someone who can’t write in complete sentences gives me a twitch. The possibility that I’d have to take out my Celebratory Eyebrow Piercing (obtained the day I was discharged, solely because there was no longer a regulation prohibiting it) hurts my heart. And then, of course, there is that whole Going Back To War thing, which really doesn’t appeal to me at all, for some reason.
Plus, I heard they do drug tests, and I’m not into testing drugs. Tsk, tsk, tsk, The Army.
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Having figured out what I’m not going to do (go back to the military, ever) and what I’m going to do in the near future (get that college education I’ve been hearing such good things about), I’m now making the most of the time I have to travel between points A and B.
Since I spent my first seven months as a civilian traipsing around the country throwing money directly into my gas tank and the next three months trying to create a home base in a region whose reputation for overpriced rent is only exceeded by its reputation for having a ridiculously high crime rate, my funds are dwindling. My unemployment benefits won’t last forever (because apparently when I left Iraq, I forgot how to save money), and the G.I. Bill doesn’t kick in until at least August. With my savings account audibly whimpering from the blows I’ve been dealing it over the last ten months, it’s now time for me to figure out a way to earn money without giving up my soul, my freedom or my underclothes.
A few ideas I’ve had are (along with excuses side notes):
- Write a bestselling book about something
Definitely a possibility for the future (am dreaming big), but probably won’t help my current situation as is not yet written and/or published
- Get paid to take pictures
Generally professional photographers are better at taking pictures than I am, is the thing
- Be a stripper
See aforementioned caveat regarding Underclothes, Not Forfeiting
- Be a personal trainer
Hate working out. Hate, hate, hate. Also: am not in shape
- Get detestable part-time job
Key word being “detestable”
I suppose I could always go hang out in the Safeway parking lot and offer to fix people’s cars for cash, in the style of the charming Mexicans who banged the dent out of my hood this afternoon, but that would require mechanical proficiency.
What do you guys think? Do I have any marketable skills that haven’t been made obsolete or forced into hiding due to our thriving American economy? I am WIDE OPEN to suggestions.
:::
In the meantime, I’m getting myself back in acceptable physical shape using a method that differs as much as possible from my military training: yoga. I’ve been taking classes for a few weeks now, and have almost retrained my body to bend. I even signed up for a thirty-day program at a studio in Berkeley that deals exclusively in Bikram (read: Stinky Sweaty Hurty) yoga, despite the fact that I nearly passed out during my first session.
Hey, it’s better than this.
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Today’s Moment of Zen
Easter Sunday in San Francisco (not pictured: her friend, videotaping her)
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P.S. My mailing list dealie is once again seeming to suck hole. If you want to get notified of my updates, it’s probably best to just subscribe. If you are indeed getting my update e-mails, please let me know, because Gmail is acting kind of snitty.
*my new theme song
Decisions, decisions, decisions
My parents called me a few weeks ago about the letter.
“It’s from the Department of the Army,” my dad said. “Should I open it?”
My first thought was to tell him to drop it and RUN, run like you’ve never run before and don’t stop because THEY WILL FIND YOU! But I didn’t do that, because my anger management classes taught me not to react to my first thought all the time. Instead, hoping that it would self-destruct shortly thereafter, I told him to go ahead and read the thing, .
When a new enlistee joins the U.S. Army, he signs a contract promising Uncle Sam eight years of his life. He can serve those years on active duty, in the reserve component, on inactive duty, or all of the above. Unless he serves all eight of those years on active duty, though, the remaining years must be spent in the National Guard, the Reserves, or the Inactive Ready Reserves (IRR). The National Guard and Reserves require him to report for duty one weekend per month. The IRR requires him to Stand By.
Before we were at war, the IRR was something of a technicality – few people were getting recalled because there was no urgent need for them. But nowadays, as we all know, the military is stretched so thin that you’d probably get called back even if you were a transgender paraplegic. On a regular basis, newly-minted civilians are getting pulled out of the IRR, stuffed back into uniforms, and shipped out in C-130s faster than you can say “PTSD.” As far as I know, this is done on a completely random basis. I, of course, hoped I’d be finished with my time before the IRR caught up with me. I’ve always been an optimist.
As my father opened the letter, my stomach dropped. This is it, I thought. The deployment orders have arrived.
“Upon receipt of this order immediately contact the local Army Reserve -” (AAAAARGH) “- for a Personnel Accountability Muster -” (damn damn damn FUCK damn) “- this is not a mobilization muster. You will not be mobilized at this muster.”
I heaved an audible sigh of relief. My jaw unclenched. Consciousness was narrowly retained. This wasn’t, as they say, the Big One. It was safe to investigate further in person.
The letter told me I had to meet with Staff Sergeant H., my local career counselor (whose office is right next to homeroom! Seriously, couldn’t they come up with a better title than “Career Counselor”? For adults? In the Army? I mean, come on) any day between April 1st and 30th. Since I had already scheduled a visit back East to visit my family this week, I decided to just bite the bullet and make an appointment. It went well … ish.
Staff Sergeant H. told me that out of all the IRR soldiers who receive the same letter I did, sixty percent get a follow-up letter a month or two later saying, in essence, “Hello! You’re going back to war! Or jail! Your choice. Love, The Army.”
The loophole, I was told, is joining the Reserves. It’s one weekend a month until my IRR time is up in December, and it guarantees that I won’t get roped into another deployment – of course, it also means that I have to take out my eyebrow piercing, turn off my brain, and put on a uniform again.
The obvious choice is for me to go Reserves and stay out of Afghanistan. But, ugh. Isn’t that like Buttercup deserting Westley in the Fire Swamp? I’d feel slightly like I’d compromised myself.
Fuck it. Sometimes, compromises need to be made.
:::
By the way, it’s been more than a month since I quit smoking. I’ve gained five-ish pounds, but my lungs are happier. Someone pass me a brownie.
:::
Today’s Moment of Zen
My brother came to visit me, so I brought him to Lake Tahoe, where we played in the sand.
To everything there is a season
My first years in the Army were, from what I’ve gathered, similar to the average college freshman’s semester, except with sergeants instead of professors and morons instead of coeds. Our motto was “work hard, play hard, and by ‘play hard’ we mean ‘drink hard.’” We weren’t worried about getting fired or laid off – job security is one thing the military guarantees – so we destroyed our bodies and minds a little more every weekend or weekday, depending on the weather.
After I got out of that lifestyle and began settling back into reality, I took up the rallying cry of “Moderation!” Less is more, I insisted, and took only enough hits on the joint to become comfortably high. “Everything in its right place,” I shouted, and sipped only enough of the wine to relax with a tingly buzz.
Lately, I feel like I’ve lost sight of that kind of common sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve truly, finally quit smoking, or maybe it’s because I’ve lost myself in the scene, but my vices are definitely on the upswing. It’s like I’m back in Iraq and not getting laid, except the motive is more pure.
Whatever the cause, I need to chill right the hell out. The last thing I want to do is alienate the new friends I’ve tried to put at ease because I act like a mix between an infantryman and a flapper when I get a few shots in me. Last night, Eric played a gig with some of his other regular bandmates, and I vaguely remember calling their guitar player “Patchy” in honor of his beard. If that’s a compliment these days, I’m glad to know it, but last I heard, the humor generally got kind of lost on the recipient.
Anyway, from now on, it’s probably best for me to stick to the marijuana … ahem, when discussing drugs of which I would never ever partake. Hello, Big Brother!
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The last photo on my most recent entry was taken near Mt. Diablo – in California, southeast of Oakland. Go there! And bring your dog, since, if he is anything like my dog, he will have a great time rolling around in something dead.
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Cities in which I will be for approximately one day next week: Arcata CA, Ashland OR, Eugene OR, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Olympia WA. Eric’s band is playing there. If you want to dance like a happy little dork with me while also supporting him (and the band, obviously) by coming to the shows, drop me an e-mail at ferocitymill [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll give you details.
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Today’s Moment of Zen:
Anyone who says they would rather wear a Kevlar helmet than blue hair made of yarn is probably not on a hike in northern California.
What’s the plan, Stan?
In the months preceding my exodus from the military, I was asked at least once a day about my “plan.”
“So, you’re getting out. What’s your plan?”
Since the person asking me was usually a career soldier whose own plan had been to stay in the Army as long as possible to avoid having to hone any other marketable skills lurking underneath his own camouflage print, I tended to respond with as infuriating a reply as I could muster.
“Oh, I thought I’d blow all my money on a big, impractical car before moving back in with my parents and applying for a government job,” I’d say, smiling brightly.
Actually, that answer probably would have satisfied many of my superiors far more than the one I really gave.
“I’m going to travel for a while, then figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
“But – what’s your plan?” they’d repeat. “Are you going to go back to school? Do you have a job lined up? Have you thought about re-enlisting?”
I’d tell them all that no, I didn’t have a plan, exactly – I planned not to work for the government ever again, but beyond that, I was looking forward to lacking structure and discipline for a while.
My ideal day, as I envisioned it every twelve minutes or so throughout my last deployment, would begin at no time in particular. It would start whenever I woke up, and end whenever I was too tired to continue it. I would fill the hours of that day with whatever struck my psychological chord the sweetest, be it sleeping, hiking, traveling, conducting psychedelic experiments, protesting the war, or simply sitting quietly, uninterrupted. Nobody would call me by a rank or title, I wouldn’t have to put on a uniform, and the words “side-straddle hop” would be gibberish to anyone in my vicinity. Most of all – and this was what made the ideal day emphatically post-Army, rather than just any old Saturday – I would be able, if I felt so inclined, to go out and get a tattoo anywhere on my body that I goddamn well pleased.
That vision has been realized nearly every day since I left the military. I haven’t counted those days up because they’re still happening, but May 24th will be the first anniversary of my release, as I like to call it, and I feel like ten months is a pretty good run, so far. I’ve lived the last ten months in almost complete freedom – with no job, plenty of money in the bank, minimal responsibilities, a dependable mode of transportation, friends all over the world, and a healthy spirit of adventure. As far as gratified idealism goes, I feel like Anne Frank might have if, upon stepping out of the attic, Hitler had walked up and given her a hug. It’s been everything I thought it could be and more.
I’m saying all this to keep reminding myself of it, because the time is fast approaching when I will have to once again start earning my keep as a human. I won’t be getting a boring desk job as a government propaganda-spreader or anything, but it will definitely be time for me to start contributing something more than trunk space to the world.
Oh, and have I mentioned that this is the first time I’ve really even been on my own? The Army scooped me right out of my parents’ house, rocked me in its soft lap of financial stability and free healthcare for a while, then unceremoniously dumped me onto the gravel-coated ground of economic recession. I’m not complaining – hell, everybody goes through this transition at some point or another – what freaks me out is the fact that most of my peers have already had things figured out for a few years. How is it that I can spend three out of the last four years in a combat zone, yet have no earthly idea how much I should be paying for a visit to the dentist? The hygienist could demand a tip, insisting that that’s how it’s been done for years, and I’d probably pay it. The thought of situations like this make a little voice inside my head go, “AAAAARRRRGH.”
It’s been easy for me to tell myself that my post-Army career will revolve around something I truly love, that I won’t settle for less, and that I am an idiot if I accept anything else. But then I pull my head out of my ass, blink a few times, and peer out into a world where writers have day jobs, photographers shoot weddings to pay the bills, and bread costs five dollars a fucking LOAF. It may be time to re-strategize, is all I’m saying, because the unemployment benefits will be running out reeeeeal soon.
So, I’ve moved to California, made a website for my side-project of photography, and begun preparing to go back to school. My goal is to be an English teacher. It seems like a fairly obvious career choice for someone who has lines from classic literature indelibly etched into her skin, and I think I’ll be able to pull it off, as long as I don’t allow the wind to blow me off somewhere before I can get the necessary credentials. That way I can continue to work on my writing and photography, and the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill will fund my life until I finish school.
Anyway, that’s my plan. What do you guys think? Would you let me stand in front of your kids and tell them that if they can’t appreciate Oscar Wilde, they’ll probably grow up to be boring assholes?
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Today’s Moment of Zen
March 2007
March 2008
March 2009
The Mother of All Updates (a.k.a., This One Will Take Forever To Load, But You Asked For It)
The One Who Can Spell originally requested that I refer to him in print as “Roger” – to which I obviously replied, “Welease Wogew!” in typical supreme dork-o form – but since I just can’t bring myself to bestow that name upon anyone (this from someone who named her new car “Jimothy”), I will call him “Eric.” That is his name, more or less, and it is partially because of him that I have decided to live in northern California. Because the story of how this came to be is far more interesting than anything else I have to say at the moment (without going into Too Much Information Zone, that is), I might as well share it.
When I fled the Portland house and all the madness which lay therein, I did so accompanied by a fellow traveler whose acquaintance I had made only a week prior. I ultimately had to ditch the traveler in Denver on account of his becoming something of a liability, but during the four weeks we spent together, he introduced me to some bands I’d never heard of. And by “introduced me to some bands” I mean “played three or four songs by each artist while we were driving, over and over and over and over again until I threatened him with physical violence because seriously what are you, THREE?”
Ahem. Anyway, I thought a couple of the bands were fairly enjoyable, based on those three songs (which I had, by that point, memorized), and decided I’d check them out on my way back east. One, it turned out, was scheduled to play in my hometown just a couple weeks later, so I bought tickets and invited my mom to join me.
That, my friends, is where I met Eric. Because, the thing is, he was in the band. Between sets he was standing outside the theater, and my mom was out there, too, and she was chatting with him about how much she was enjoying the show. I sauntered around the corner; my mom said to Eric, “Have you met my daughter?”, yada yada yada, now I live in California. Thanks, mom!
All right, a bit more explanation won’t hurt.
He and I hit it off that first night pretty well, and we discovered that due to a chain of coincidences, we each had roughly the same travel plans for the next week. He and the band were touring, I was wandering aimlessly, and we both had very similar itineraries, inasmuch as I ever have an itinerary these days.
There was obviously only one course of action to take …
“Come to New York City on our bus!”
“Sure!”
… because that is how we roll.
The ride to The City became a ride to another city … and another … and another. Five or so days later their tour was over, and in Hartford, Connecticut, I saw him off at the airport. We planned to meet in Denver for New Year’s Eve, where each of us had already decided to spend the holiday months earlier. He boarded a plane home to Berkeley. I hopped a Greyhound for Ithaca. It was a few days before Thanksgiving.
Over the course of the next couple weeks, we both decided that it would be much more fun to see each other before December 31st, and – wouldn’t you know? – there were some really cheap flights headed out to San Francisco this time of year. I went to California for a week, a good time was had by all, and I decided that since I was going to be moving somewhere anyway, why not here?
And now, the entire story – from Portland in early October to New York on Thanksgiving – in pictures:
I left Portland with this guy. His name is Emery and he owes me money, so if you see him, please gently remind him that I never forget.
We drove east, through Montana, where this sight convinced me that maybe those long winters are getting to people there.
While we were in Billings, I got a tattoo. If you don’t know me, I will inform you that I get tattoos fairly regularly. It’s kind of my Thing. Hulk smashes; I get tattoos. It’s my superpower.
Also while in Billings, we picked up a third traveler – Tana (from Montana. No, I am not even kidding). Luckily, my iPod was equipped to handle all of our personalities.
We drove through Wyoming. Whee.
We stopped in Denver for roughly a week, during which time we explored Red Rocks …
… went to a couple shows …
… and made some meatballs.
After that, Tana went home, and Emery went … somewhere. I didn’t really care, as long as he went, since I was Not Pleased with him at that point. At last sighting, he was in Coos Bay, Oregon – not that I am suggesting he be hunted down and beaten, or anything.
I continued east, through the inevitable and much-dreaded Kansas.
It looked like that for, oh, eight bamillion hours. Seriously, Kansas, what the fuck? I don’t think you’re even trying.
I made a stop in Lawrence, Kansas, to visit my friend Rory, whom I last saw next to a pool in Baghdad.
Bones was exhausted after the long car ride, what with all the obsessive-compulsive moving from back seat to front seat while shoving his nose in my face and butt-bumping the GPS for 575 goddamn miles.
I arrived in St. Louis at sunrise, which was pretty rad. It definitely made up for the delirium I’d been dealing with during the all-night drive from Lawrence. Although, one of my Rideshare passengers helped me stay awake by way of the Cheesy ’80s Music iPod Showdown, in which the driver and passenger attempt to drive each other mad by playing – and singing along to – the most teeth-grindingly horrocious songs they can find on the driver’s iPod. Brilliant? Yes. Astoundingly annoying for the other passenger(s)? Yes.
I went to a Halloween party in Urbana, Illinois, which was made all the more festive with the help of a very special breath mint. It’s hard not to be entertained when you’re surrounded by creatively-costumed college students and the walls are rippling.
Did you know that a down mattress fits in the back of a Subaru station wagon? I never have to pay for a hotel room on the road EVER AGAIN.
Then I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my friend Nicole
bought me beer
and fed me leftover Halloween candy.
Nicole also directed me north to Ypsilanti, a college town which was apparently designed by frat boys:
Either that, or it was just really happy to see me.
I caught a glimpse of Niagara Falls as I cut through Canada on my way to Syracuse, and am pleased to inform you that customs officials on both sides are not targeting green Subaru wagons for drug searches. AND WHY SHOULD THEY?
A few hours later, I made it back to Syracuse – only three and a half weeks after leaving Portland.
I took a day to go tromping around in the woods with my parents, then hit the road again, this time southbound …
Have I mentioned more than a thousand times that I love New York City? Even though the traffic situation there makes me want to beat my fellow drivers with a bat and a pack of American Spirits costs NINE ENTIRE DOLLARS, I love it. I love wandering the streets aimlessly with a fierce look on my face, daring other visitors to ask me for directions. I love the fact that the subway will take me anywhere, even waaay up to watch out for that puddle of piss. I love that there are still viable secondhand bookstores all over the place. I love that I have so many friends living there, upon whose couches I may slump. And I love the pizza.
However, after a few days, I was ready to kidnap my friend Craig and abscond to Vermont, where snow had not yet fallen, and do some end-of-the-season camping.
There was always just the slightest chance of rain. As in, it rained for the entire weekend.
But that didn’t stop us from climbing a mountain!
With my mountain-climbing completed for the season, I went back up north, just in time to take my mom out for a night on the town. Little was I to know that she’d turn out to be the best wingman I’d ever had …
I won’t tell you which one he is. You’ll figure it out soon enough. (Oh, I am SUCH a tease!)
There were four days between the night Eric and I met, and the night we agreed that he would drag me, kicking and screaming with pleasure, onto his band’s bus. So to fill the time, I got a new tattoo.
The tattooist happened to be an old friend of mine, one I hadn’t seen for something like ten years, so when we bumped into each other at the tattoo shop where he worked, I assumed it was the universe telling me it was time to get that fractal flower on my arm, by gum.
Later that night, my arm still aching (as it tends to do for a while, after having been repeatedly penetrated by a needle for an hour and a half or so), I met up with Eric. We discussed our favorite Bob Dylan songs over a bowl of stew, he did his whole “playing music on stage” thing for a while, and then our first official week of acquaintanceship began – on the bus.
Day One:
Spotted somewhere in upstate New York. The best part is that there was a different cruiser there when we first pulled up, and I missed the photo-op due to laziness. When the second one drove through, though … I mean, come on.
Back to New York City, and this time? Traffic is NONE OF MY CONCERN.
Day 2:
Methinks East Hartford has just about had it with people forgetting where they are.
Albino squirrel! Holy shit!
My knight, and his steed.
Day 3:
A tour of the Equal Exchange factory. It was Wonka-like. I would elaborate on that, but this entry is already going to be loading on some of your browsers well into the next administration, so we’ll just leave it at that.
Kerouac’s hometown is somewhat confusing to walk through late at night. Luckily, it is also the home of some first-class chowdah.
Day 4:
The Electric Factory in Philadelphia leaves no room for error. There will be no Hello, Cleveland moments here!
See that forty-foot bus on the right? If you’ve ever been to Geno’s, you will know why this is a sight to behold. If not, I will tell you: it is a big fucking bus, and those streets are almost wide enough to sit down in. Almost.
Day 5:
By the time we got to Connecticut, the bus was getting slightly messy.
So we ignored it, and took a walk down to the beach. And yes, I realize that I am something like twenty feet shorter than he is.
So, that was my first adventure with Eric, and luckily he did not turn out to be a killer disguised as a banjo player. Although that would be a pretty ingenious disguise. And now I live ten minutes away from him, and we are continuing the adventure-having, and neither of us have gotten tired of it – or each other – as of right now.
Anyway, after that, I went home for Thanksgiving. There was turkey. I am probably just as tired of sticking pictures on this page as you are of waiting for them to load, so I’ll wrap it up now. I don’t think I even feel like proofreading this one, so please forgive any glaring errors and/or missed opportunities for profanity. Any further blanks can most likely be filled in by a quick visit to the ol’ Flickr page, so from now on, it’s nothing but news, baby!
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you – I’m learning to play the ukulele! Plink plink plink, motherfucker!
It rains, therefore I gripe.
When I was about 12, I stopped trying to straighten my hair. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that the strands boinged when I twisted my finger around them, and thus a new habit was born.
I confess to you now – that is why I have been sitting at my computer for roughly fifty-eight minutes and have just now started typing. My hair is short. My finger wanders upward. Boing. Repeat. It’s really one of the most pleasurable involuntary activities of all time. The only problem (other than it making me look somewhat autistic to any onlookers) is that it renders one hand entirely useless. What do you do at a computer when one hand is entirely useless?
Um, actually, I don’t really want to know what you do. That’s between you, your empty room and whoever walks in on you. But what I do is – well, anything but type.
And that’s just one of the many excuses I have for not being a successful, well-paid writer. Others include:
- The economy is too unstable to support any new books at this time.
- I don’t know where to start.
- My life is too busy – I can’t focus until I settle down.
- It’s raining.
- It’s sunny.
- Look, chickens!*
*Seriously, there are chickens living behind my house. Every five minutes they’re all, BRAWWWKbawkbraaaak and I’m all, “Mmmm, KFC.”
My point is that in the very near future, my unemployment benefits are going to run out. Since I’m not really interested in living on my savings, I am going to have to find a way to make money. And because I am entirely displeased with the idea of working at a “regular job,” I am going to have to stay focused, be creative and stop boinging my damn hair.
This is currently freaking me right the hell out. Can you tell?
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In other news, I am still not divorced, because the prospect of paying hundreds of dollars to have a regular human person put his or her signature on a piece of paper is not altogether appealing to me. What’s even less appealing is that I know I’m going to be the one who does it, because Eventual Ex-Husband is not going to. He hasn’t said this in so many words, but given his record of Doing Useful Things For Me (there are maybe two things on that list, and one doesn’t count because I actually paid for it), I am not optimistic.
(The irony of this is that the last news I heard from him was that he is living on an ecovillage in Texas. I don’t have the inclination or the time to go into why this makes absolutely no sense to me, but it could have something to do with the fact that he is one of the most selfish individuals I’ve ever known. For a start.)
I suppose I could wait it out and hope that eventually he’ll take some initiative and do it, but that wouldn’t be very effective. And the thing is, well, I just don’t want to be married to him anymore. I have officially MovedOn.org from that time in my life. Why should I have to pay the government cash money to recognize that?
A marriage license in the state of Georgia costs ten dollars. A divorce costs at least 150. He owes me thousands.
Luckily, not thinking about it is free. I think I’ll do that for a bit.
That is what we call "peer pressure."
You know what else was free? That bottle of tequila. Cheers!
