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Things I miss

It’s only been about two months and I’m not home sick and I don’t really ache for anything, but I miss things both in the glaring petty idiocies that abound out here and in the simple things feel small swells of tentative longing for,

• I miss sheets that fit the bed.

The Army is incapable of buying sheets that fit beds. They are either square or too short, leaving a good six inches on either side exposed. How fucking hard can it be? This makes me want to be back at my home base more than anything, as I bought my own fitted sheets after seeing the Army’s sheet clusterfuck at CRC.

• I miss going out to dance clubs.

I have so much dance music on my iPod that I could have a genre for dance tracks about going dancing. Ridiculous tracks like Tik Tok really just send me over the edge.

• I miss days off.

Note the plural, particularly 2 in a row are rarer than drag queens without attitudes. The last day I had off was Veteran’s Day, which I took off on a whim.

• I miss having reliable habits.

I miss the gym more than I care to admit, because several days straight of 12, 14, 16, 18 hour days suck the life out of me.

Sometimes it gets a bit lonely. Not in the sense of not having anyone around, because there are other people around everywhere, but the lack of anyone to talk to that I really connect with.

Update from KDub

I know it’s bad form to read anything from the Overheard websites when sitting atop a metal bunk bed after lights out, but I need it.

Also, I wish someone had told me that most of the time I’d be too exhausted to be horny. Now this is punctuated by momentary surges, but if I don’t have enough energy to make it to the gym (where I can burn off some of the same sentiments, along with stress, aggression and ennui), I might as well just get back to yet another Atwood book, put on some readers and knit myself a petitcoat.

I’m almost done with my current task, except for the part where people’s wishes suddenly become requirements. I can only do so much, and tomorrow I hope to say I have done what can be done and the rest will have to be done from home. I’ve started re-wearing clothes (don’t know that it’s worth it to buy supplies to do laundry if I live in a day or 2) and hoping for the best.

I’m even contemplating spending my own money to fly commercial home, just to avoid the being parked in a tent for 12-48 hours before I actually board a flight. The surreal aspect of that cost difference is that it would cost the government less to fly me commercial than the amount of travel comp time I could receive. That said, I’d rather spend my own money and get my ass a guaranteed exit; it’s just more overtime, of which there is not a shortage.

I think this year I will enjoy not having to burn fingers to prep for Thxgiving, and it can be relatively low key. I don’t expect flavor, but ya can’t argue with free and no work.

Being CHUzy

Some people measure locations in theatre by the food, I measure them by housing, and give an up or down nod for bathroom accessibility.

Transient housing by default isn’t palatial by any means, and I have yet to experience the thrills of AFG, but I already have a few under my belt.

Qatar (chez les nerf), home of the 3 drinks a night haven and occasional R&R stop, boasts plywood adorned trailers, which are the kind you know people aren’t ever going to put on wheels and move. Two to a room, bunk beds (at least in our area), a mini-fridge, 2 wall lockers and an A/C unit. Not so bad, though you would not want to live there long, and yet some people might be there for up to 6 months. They have tents too, but I haven’t seen them, and expect they are the suck. Rating: if there for a short time, maybe a 6.7. Subtraction for having to walk to go pee at midnight (learn to pee in a bottle kids) at the “Cadillac”, no internet reaching that far, gym not as nice as in the perm area. Cadillacs also host showers.

Victory (Baghdad): Stayed in a dry CHU (containerized housing unit), so not really transient housing. A more permanent state of housing, but for perms also 70% more pay. Separate beds, i.e. no bunks, a side table, 2 IKEA style closets, and again a walk to the Cadillac aka Ablution Trailer. Lamisil by the case suggested, got athlete’s foot so virulent it took a month to get rid of. Rating 7.3, bonus points for no “wobbles with every cough metal bunk beds”, internet in CHU and port a pottie a short distance away; no bottle required. Minus points for well publicized risk of electrocution in shower. Tents likely to be option next time, may want to up the rating then.

KDub (Arifjan): Open bay, 80 man room, metal, shakes of cough transmitting up and down hardware bunks, Spanish flu death trap. 2 slender wall lockers, ladder used as rail for hangers. Personally I’m under the A/C vent, so grateful for the thick and scratchy blanket. Bonus points for: short walk to real aka tiled, reliable running hot water (great pressure!), good internet conn ($35 for a month, buy cash from vending machine in PX, ATM next to it dispenses US dollars) and for a short duration, less than 2 weeks, not horrific. Mattress not half bad (beats CHU and Qatar easily), and gym, small yet equipment in very good shape helps bump it up. Final rating: 6.6, fear of H1N1 outbreak risk brings it down by 1 point.

I know nothing of AFG yet, but this makes my bones quiver, just a wee bit.

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Pieces – Nov 10

There are probably 3 people besides myself with beards on base. There’s the porn ’stache contingent, like something out of Tales of the City, the guys who look out of place in them, in their flight suits the colored of the most abundant resource around these parts. There’s the 5 o’clock shadow contingent, the slightly more rebellious men, skirting the rules, playing with the time possibilities of a 24/7 operation.

I was keeping my beard closely trimmed, to go with the hair, (even though it also lightens it and hides the red, makes me look younger in that trying to look older way), but now my charger won’t light up and I fear it will cut out when I’m halfway through, which would leave me with only one option: a lunch time rush to the PX to get a new trimmer (having seen their selection I’d end up hurting myself, necessitating waiting to go into town, or far, far worse) to re-balance the Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde look that would be sure to appear.

I’ve started moving my mouth with the words to songs lately at the gym. Takes my mind off the thing, although sometimes lately the odd songs come on, the ones that i don’t know if I would have really noticed as much before, or at least require a different mind space. Some are just so funny when you consider the place that I have to laugh as I wordlessly sing along. Gossip’s Music for Men is in heavy rotation and Le Tigre’s classic Viz is hitting every note. Stripped of the whole aura of indie self-satisfaction and just able to appreciate the music for what it is, that’s what I’ve missed. Still, I try not to completely slip out of the world to observe it; I miss too much that way. Lots off La Roux’s latest album. It’s weird, but her slow, methodical parsing of her songs actually works well with my abs work out, though no one can beat the Beyonce. It’s helping mitigate the current (until the last episode) Angela Montenegro experiment only so much, but at least I’ll look a bit more fab when I do return.

The next 2 months are going to send me like so much buckshot into the air and I won’t really know where I’ll be or even if I’ll be in touch, whether the holidays will even be holidays in anything but name, so I’m taking my days to myself, a little imposed exterior control. A whole weekend this time, a half day tomorrow, then we’ll see.

“Trop Bureau” catch up

I’m finally catching up with the rest of the world, or at least part of the US and every awards show for the last 3 years: I’m watching Mad Men from the beginning. Nothing to say beyond what has been said, though I’m not sure they ever imagined their shows being watched on a C-130 or C-17 (hopefully more of the latter, against the wall please, with less corkscrew) on perfectly two episode timed hops. I caught 4 episodes on my flight into Doha on my way, and I just can’t seem to get away from reading Slate’s reviews of shows I haven’t seen.  They aren’t reviews so much as discussions, which leaves me enough to watch the shows themselves.

I would never have thought that I needed a paper bag over my head to judge my strengths and weaknesses, but that would cover up those exceptionally well tuned (for now, though I swear it’s fading on the left), yet overly endowed ears. I’m already learning things. What ever else is in either category I already know. I can be objective about the subject at hand, it’s one of my greatest assets, I just pretend that I’m not.

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