Travel Saga

Herein lies the adventure of one Firefly, traveling from her current base to home address.

My base is a training command, which means that we CAN take what's referred to as "Christmas Standdown" - nearly all of the base shuts down for two weeks. This is by no means the case with every military base. One of the girls in my class (former Aviation Technician) showed me her squadron's patch - it was a calendar month with a different image representing every well-known holiday, with a red "no" symbol superimposed over it, and their squadron name beneath. That year, they had flown on every holiday.

The actual dates of standdown are not generally released until mid-November. This is a source of irritation for anyone who wants to fly home - is it best to purchase tickets early, securing a good price but risking having the dates wrong? Or would it be better to wait, have to pay more, but have the dates for sure? Of course the latter is safer, but the general saying is that the two most important things to a Sailor are his time* and his money - because the Navy doesn't give us much of either. :)

*Much closer to the truth are "his girlfriend, and his family," at least for the guys I know, and they prefer having their time and money to spend with these two parties.

I am fortunate - taking the bus is a conceivable option. There's a nice little element of the Midwest referred to as Megabus - it doesn't exactly run on time, nor do they have designated depots, but they're decently warm, fabulously affordable, and sometimes even have Wi-Fi (not always, it must be noted, but sometimes). Ticket purchase ended up being an adventure in and of itself - internet is by no means a sure thing in my life.

The adventure begins Thursday. The past few days, we've been busy setting our rooms aright for this break - in essence, giving the appearance that no one lives there. While both of my roommates are done with their responsibilities at noon, this is in fact when my classes begin (having been moved up for the day).

Some massive shifts regarding my curriculum begin in January - we elected to switch our schedule up a bit and take one of the shorter units this week, rather than the one that was originally scheduled and would have had us testing the day after we returned. Too short a unit, it turned out - we finished and tested a day early. A rare fluff day - we spent it watching Master & Commander, and then released to a short field day on the schoolhouse. I spent the hour polishing two solid brass Howitzers captured off a Confederate ship during the Civil War.

Met with a few friends for pizza that evening, a sort of last hurrah. Over the course of the night, I got nearly 40 minutes of sleep. Reveille was at 0200, superiors wanted us out of the barracks at 0400, my bus ticket was for noon. Brilliant.

David and I were going to take the train into Chicago together, but this meant first schlepping our stuff the two miles from our barracks to the station. This is a simple matter for me, with my solitary backpack and laptop. Not so for David, who is hauling over 250 pounds between his sea bag and two overstuffed backpacks. (David is a foot taller than I am, and we weigh exactly the same. He has years of backpacking experience, but this is still quite the load he's hauling.)

We barely made the first train - really, it was only because of the press of sailors already waiting that we did. I imagine the ride in was uneventful - I slept through it. On David's sea bag.

Having arrived in central Chicago, we discovered that 1) Booters cannot be trusted to wear a dress blue uniform properly through a train station, and 2) Breakfast was in order. In the time it took to consume bagels and coffee (coffee for me, for David, the worst cup of tomato juice he claims he's ever had), we encountered a half-dozen other friends from base. Cheers!

Parted then, he to O'Hare, I to Union Station. To wait. And try desperately hard NOT to fall asleep. I'd elected NOT to travel in uniform (were I flying, that would be different), and it was kind of nice to not be noticed.

Four hours, six pages of journaling, a long conversation with a longer-distance friend, and a path-crossing with one very attractive Marine later, it was time to meet my bus. Or...so I thought. As stated, Megabus doesn't always run on time. The Megabus to Memphis was just pulling away as I arrived at the corner. Twenty minutes later, the 1140 bus arrived. Those of us headed to Minneapolis slightly cheered at this - a sign that our bus had neither vanished nor arrived early, but was running ridiculously late. But, had I known that I would be standing in the snow for an extra hour, I would likely NOT have worn my soon-to-be-retired running shoes.

I don't actually own a pair of nonmilitary boots. It's on my to-do list for this break.

Forty minutes late, our bus arrived. I climbed up to the second deck, found a window seat, and almost immediately kicked off my shoes and hid my sock-clad feet under the seat in front of me, in hopes that some feeling might return to my soaked toes before frostbite set in. Being from Minnesota, you feel a little stupid admitting that you didn't properly dress for the weather.

My seatmate turned out to have been a stage-management major in college, and then moved on to nonprofit humanitarian work (two years teaching English and theater in Romania with the Peace Corps, among a lot of other cool things). Very cool conversation, comparing some of what she does with nonprofit with the way things run at Camp (I was wearing both a Camp hoodie and t-shirt*).

*This was actually not planned - I just own more Camp t-shirts than anything else.

There's something so, so nice about having someone waiting to pick you up when your bus/plane/train arrives. You're perfectly capable of making your way the last leg if you had to, but the fact that someone cared enough to meet you, and is happy to see you...wow.

We don't really do, "happy to see you," on base. It's dangerous to be too happy, it attracts attention. You can do a, "Hey, cool, you're here," or if you're feeling especially good, you can divert it into sarcasm. We divert everything into sarcasm - the more emotional we are, the more we sound like jerks. It's like a code where we interpret it and bond over it, but it's a whole lot safer than actually expressing what's going on. The fact that you're somewhere where people DO means that you're safe again.

Dad and I spent a most enjoyable ride home. Everything from Dr. Demento to discussions about Catholicism. Dad and I can talk for hours about anything...as long as we're in the same room. We're awful at phone conversations.

But now, I am home. And it doesn't feel weird at all - really, it feels as though I never left. :)

Body Mist and Umbrellas

I smell delicious. Like chocolate, mostly, but not quite chocolate. Perhaps chocolate and caramel? Mixed in a house where the air is heavily laden with cinnamon? What IS that?

Oh well. I actually make a point of leaving most of the real pleasures at home right now. Thanks to the relative proximity of the base, I can visit home once every month or two. That'll be changing now, with on-base duty changing around and snow flying in (I do NOT fancy driving seven hours by myself in this stuff - that accident on the way back from Sheridan left a fair shiver of respect in me for winter driving), but for the last eight months, I have left a fair number of the things that make me happy back there.

It's not that here is exactly terrible. It's just a little rough. And you never really let your guard down, ever. You don't ever really trust people - you think you do, and then you come home, and you're with friends that you'd fall asleep on, that you'd open your heart to, that you can be happily vulnerable with. And then you realize that, oh, wait, I don't do this with anybody on base.

It's kind of like an umbrella, that's all. Stuff keeps coming at you, and you've got to get your work done, so you don't ever open yourself up to getting hit, and that way you can get some work done. (I'm noticing that this is a common phrase with me. Someone asked me about my biggest peeve the other day, and it was, "Guys who try to flirt with me when I'm trying to get work done." Ironically, I don't know that my work is ever done.) When everything's good, you kind of loosen up a little, but it's only with your closest friends that you're really you.

Which all sounds tremendously emo. I don't know how best to explain it. I'm happy enough, certainly. Working hard, always have a challenge in front of me, and friends to laugh with. It's good.

But I leave my comfy pajamas at home. Because if I got THAT comfortable, here, I might not be able to get that umbrella back up in time before going outside.

Anyway, I smell really good. Yum.

Es Schneit Aus!!

It snowed!!

And we had a Christmas party for the kids!! (this was awesome, by the way)

And I wiped out on the ice in ranks!!

But that's okay because it snowed!!


I can't stop grinning, but that may be because the muscles in my cheeks are frozen.

Recovery Time

Brian has a saying - every time you break, it's easier to put yourself back together, because you know how the pieces go.

I don't know if that's what's going on or not, but I talked with Joseph and one of my sisters and got some sleep and thought about Cheryl, and I'm feeling a LOT better today.

Reacting

I'm a little numb today.

I don't know why I'm reacting so strongly to the hit-and-run, except that I know and like the two girls who were standing there. Maybe it's just that it's easy to see how, twenty seconds earlier, it could have been them instead of their friends. Maybe I'm just tired of people dying.

Sigh. Days like this make it very hard to remain motivated about the details of life here. If I leave out my shampoo bottle, have a scratch on my belt buckle, get some dirt under my boot laces, who cares?

I was a real mess earlier today. Things tend to take a few days to hit, sometimes. Talked to my sister, talked with Joe, and deleted a few friends off Facebook. I have no idea why, but this made me feel better. Well, not 'better', exactly, but like I could actually get through lab tonight and learn something.

We'll start Radar next week. This is when we're really supposed to start losing people.

(It should be noted that I had an absolutely splendid Thanksgiving, but since my friends clearly didn't, I feel very mixed.)

Re: My Supposed Best Friend

Does anyone know a polite way to express, "I'm sorry, I have no idea what changed, but you're driving me crazy, and I just don't want to be around you anymore?"

I was thinking a week off would do it, but I am apparently mistaken. He's just way too happy about ME, and it feels like he's trying to make this a dating relationship without me noticing.

Firefly doesn't DO ambiguity. At least, on my end. Apparently I cause it in almost everyone else's lives. But I'm not sure how to handle this one without burning the bridge to the ground.

A Very Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving, then!

This was a wonderful interlude. I brought my friend David along - his family is in California, and visiting them over the break wouldn't work out, but I felt that unnecessarily spending Thanksgiving on base was stupid. Since my house is within 300 miles of base, and since he works for the chapel, his paperwork for this only needed a week to process (unlike the rest of us, who needed about a month's advance notice).

We rented a car for this. There's a Hertz on base, and I've used them before for the occasional duty-free weekend. I tend to get compact cars, as it's usually just me traveling and they tend to charge significantly less for them. David is a foot taller than me, but his mom assured him that he would indeed fit in a compact car. We figured that if he had to lay down for the whole trip, that is indeed a "fit", but it actually worked out fine. Make and model were another story. They gave us a powder-blue Nissan versa. Girliest thing I've ever seen that wasn't parked next to a Barbie's Dream House. Eh, whatever. The heat works, the headlights work, the brakes work, and the music works. These are the major concerns for us.

My sisters had arrived the night before, in time to see my parents' show. The week or so prior to this happy holiday, we'd been thinking of it with no small amount of excitement and trepidation. All three girls were planning to bring a male associate (mine the only one not holding some sort of romantic status), Mom and Dad's show opened that weekend*, and the first really good (or bad) winter storm was kicking up for right around that time.

*If you don't have anyone in your family who does theater, let me explain: The week before opening night is called tech week. Your significant other/family member/best friend actually vanishes off the face of the earth during this time, and when you do see them (awake), they usually have wild eyes and their hair's out of control as they feverishly mutter lines to themselves.** It's great fun.
** My Mom is much more refined. I can't actually see her doing this. I've just seen all my friends and both my sisters doing this. Great fun. Bring them food, set it down, and back away slowly. You'll see them again opening night, and they should be back to themselves at the afterparty.***
***I have one friend who doesn't just act or play, he also directs. He's a case from about a month before the show to a week after the run is done, and randomly disappears for weeks at a time. You just sort of take it in stride.

My Mom does Norman Rockwell-style Thanksgiving meal. I love this. There is turkey. There is in-the-bird stuffing, and stovetop stuffing. There are probably five different kinds of potatoes and squash that have been mashed, candied, and/or baked. There is green bean casserole (a personal favorite of my sister's - I by contrast tend to devour the mashed potatoes). And there is pie. Lovely, lovely pie. Blueberry, and pumpkin, and apple - and it's all made with you in mind. (This is a difference you can taste. The galley food NEVER has this.) So good. So so good.

One of the boys couldn't make it, thanks to the impending doom that the weather heralded, but it was nonetheless a splendid time. Traditionally, we tend to go around the table and each talk about something we're thankful for this year, but we only made it as far as me and David. I had said something about the Navy, or the tests that I've made it through, and that sparked interest, and then David and I took turns fielding questions from everyone else for what seemed to make up a lot of the rest of dinnertime. Oops.

But AFTER dinner, it was game time. Not the football game, no. My family's big on speed scrabble. Mom was elsewhere at the time, otherwise she would have decimated us - my Mom is brilliant with wordplay. The boys were playing for the first time - speed scrabble is based on evaluating very quickly what you have and what you can make out of it, and doesn't use the board, so it's a little something to get used to.

Taboo's another favorite - David and I were on the same team, which was fortunate because about half of what comes out of my brain now is Navy-related, and no one else would have understood. This was followed by Pictionary - I'm not sure why, but I am spectacularly awful at Pictionary. It's not that I can't draw; it's that I can't communicate through drawing. Elizabeth's the only person who ever seems to be able to guess what I'm thinking, and she was paired with John. It was a lot of fun, though.

There's a statement that you learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. And I've also found that one of the swiftest ways that I grow closer to a person is to laugh with them. And these are both events in which my family excels.

It was so very good to be home.

New Class

So, what happens when you get sick during "A" School?

Well, the wacky thing with my program is the amount of cramming it involves. In the interest of time, we end up covering what should be a week's worth of material every night. If I get the chance sometime, I will post a picture of what one of our tech pubs looks like - these are effectively our textbooks.

This means that if you get sick for a day, you end up missing a week's worth of material. You may be able to make this up, you'll just have to work your butt off for the next three days. If you get pneumonia, or something equally beastly, and miss six days, you'll receive what we call "I.I." - Interrupted Instruction - which means losing your class.

This was a point of confusion with some of my friends, so let me clarify. This does NOT mean the loss of my program. A new class of ETs starts roughly every two weeks. It means that my current class of 23 people is too far ahead for me to catch up, in the opinion and experience of the school's Leading Petty Officer, so I will be moved to a different class, with a later graduation date.

Wist and apprehension greet this notion. I like my class, we've had a lot of fun together, I know them, they know me, I have friends there. I have no idea about my new class, but I know most classes aren't exactly keen on newcomers.

I don't care diddly about the graduation date. This is because it's only changing by a few weeks. Winter in the Midwest is, in my opinion, exactly the same from December 28th through about the first week of March. Some activities are limited, some are available, and the sky doesn't do anything interesting. I'm not sure why, but this all comes together to mean that I am perfectly happy to be doing something productive and indoors during this time, and don't care if it finishes up at the end of January or the end of February. From my standing, it doesn't actually affect much.

I was happily surprised to find that a cheery acquaintance from my ATT class is one of the more leader-like people in my new A School class. The girl who sits next to me is also a treat; she announced to me, "We were talking about it, and we've decided we like you." Um, yay? I think yay.

There are the new bits to adjust to. Labor works out a little differently here than it did in my last class, the instructor looks for different things during a uniform inspection (leading to me nearly failing my first PI ever on day one), and they don't have a coffee mess*, but I think it'll be okay.

*Coffee mess is precisely what logic would have about coffee. You appoint one person to be in charge of getting supplies, whoever wants to have coffee during an 8-hour class that runs 'til midnight chips in on a weekly basis, and you keep a coffee pot in a fire-safe corner of the classroom.

The material we're working on right now, that's another matter entirely. *headbonk* Wish me luck.

Substitution

Part of the uniform upkeep for males is that they MUST be clean-shaven. Always. There are medical exceptions to this rule (there are probably medical exceptions to EVERY rule in the Navy), but if you're not one of them, you must keep it clean.

So, what's a manly man to do when No-Shave-November comes around, but daily inspections deny him the right to grow out a proper full-length fluffy beard?

Take the manliness a step further. No-Shower-November. Still shaving every day, spraying down with Axe, but not showering for a month.

I sincerely hope they cave soon.

Closetful of Smiles

Friend notes my face as I come bouncing up to greet him. "Oh no."
Bewildered. "What?"
"What'd you break?"
Indignant, "I didn't break anything!"
"That's your 'I-broke-something' smile."
"Is not! This is my, 'I-want-something' smile." I am pleased by the distinction.
"Oh." Thinks this over. "Why does your 'I-want-something' smile look just like your 'I-broke-something' smile?"
"Um...'cause usually when I broke something I want you to not be mad at me about it?"
"Ah."

I didn't realize I did this, but he's right - I checked the mirror, and they are almost exactly the same expression.

After Supper

There's something so lovely about long shadows on the grass.

And talking with my sister about her adventures.

And getting time to rest.

And early dark makes me think of Christmastime.

(Admittedly, most things do.)

And the private walk back after a meal

Lost in my big black hoodie

While the stars quietly make their presence known.

I am sick. This is why.

So, I've been beastly sick all week.

I have come to the thinking that, given current or only recently past events (whatever they were), my perspective on the past is skewed enough that I can't properly compare what was with what is. I can have a rough idea of what was, and I can live in what is, and I may have a glimmer of an idea of what will be, but that's about it. So, while I loosely recall labeling a period in Sheridan as, "The sickest I've ever been," and I remember thinking on Wednesday, "This is the sickest I've ever been," I honestly can't tell you which was worse, or if there were others in between those two. Fortunately, I am not especially bothered by this.

One of my roommates was honestly convinced that I was going to die Wednesday night. She threatened to kill me in the morning if I did so. I told her that she'd be justified, and I wouldn't even seek legal retribution if she did.

This started with the flu shot. Predictably enough, I got a little flu the weekend after said shot. But my body proceeded to turn that into a little pneumonia. The sleep schedule for night students is mildly heinous, but usually not all that wretched. We go to sleep somewhere between the hours of midnight and 0200, and we're expected to be awake somewhere between 0800 and 1000*. But it's fairly normal to have some little two- or three- hour project in the middle of that, around. Those days, you sleep for two or three hours, get up and get into whatever uniform is needed, take care of what needs to be done, change back into sweats, and exhaustedly return to your rack.

*It should be noted, this is actually a little nicer than the rest of the base has it - they're on the 2200-0500 schedule. Mind, outside noise is secured during that time. Night students just condition themselves to sleep through nearly everything but a knock at the door and their cell phone. Loud roommates are a curse to them that have them; mine by contrast are lovely.

You can survive off this. You can even get a fair amount of learning and work done off this. But you will be emotionally ragged after about four days of it. You start breaking down. And then you start breaking down physically. You can feel that it's happening, but there's not a whole lot you can do about it. I knew I was sick, that there was junk in my lungs, and it was just getting worse. This week, I was skipping everything else I had to do (bare bones schedule: sleep, shower, class, repeat) hoping to hold the system together until I could rest on the weekend. If I can...just...make it...to the weekend...

I didn't make it to the weekend.

Now, you're asking, why didn't you go to medical before this? Because I knew that if anybody with a stethoscope and a modicum of expertise got a listen to my lungs, they'd slap me a Sick In Quarters chit before I could blink. And while that SOUNDS nice, if I take a night off right now, I likely lose my class.

My program takes a 2.5 year electronics program and stuffs it into just under 5 months. The result is that we cover about a week's worth of material every night. A new class starts every other week, and for the most part stays together until graduation. If you missed a week of class and couldn't make it up, your school administration would probably bump you back to a later class, too. But it's hard to start in a new class. You don't know anybody, and unfortunately, they already don't like you.

It's not just your imagination. Unless your gpa is one of the top in the class, you get along well with people, and you're fairly attractive, we subconsciously resent anyone new coming in. Because this is hard, and we've been through a lot together, and who's this guy who thinks he can just ride on how far we've made it? It stinks, it's irrational, but it's there. This philosophy starts in Boot Camp - you band together when everything's against you, and regard anything from the outside with suspicion. When you're forced to let it in, you don't really let it in, don't trust it, for a long time

So you try very hard to stay with your band. I am not the first one in my class to get sick. There were a good five of us who had some nature of the bug, one of the guys had a worse cough than mine, but if we could rest up enough, and our bodies could fight it off, we'd make it through this and still be with the class, still be among friends.

But I'm also trained for taking orders. So the two hit a compromise on my stubborn side - if three people, one of them outranking me*, told me to go to medical, I would. Well...my buddy Adam was first. Then my big Army brother (it's not that I forget that he technically outranks me. It's that I forget he's a possible factor in adventures like this.) Then one of the girls in my class that I really look up to. Well, blast.

*There's a difference between outranking me and being in authority over me. Students at my school are everything from E-2 to E-6, but because we're all in student status, the only ones with any authority over me are my class leaders.

Mind you, that day, I'd been informed that I looked like a)hell (multiple variations on this theme), b) the living dead, c) grilled ****, and d)"Not Mumm-Ra, but one of his acolytes." (This last required some research. I am not a better person for the experience.) High fever, ridiculously high heart rate, massive chills, and I could barely stand up. Yes, I'm still going to class, why do you ask?

So I came home from class around 2000. Went to medical the next morning (because the only option the night before was the ER, and while my roommate disagreed, I didn't think I needed THAT). And now I'm SIQ. Sighhhh.

How do you feel?

"Okay, listen, in case I die..."
"Can we walk, and talk? 'Cause, in case you live, I don't want to be late."
-What Women Want

"Bring out'cher dead!"
"I'm not dead yet!"
-Monty Python

"You better walk the line or you'll be left for dead!"
Meat Loaf


"All around the city you see the walking wounded and the living dead!"
-Meat Loaf

I. Feel. Like. DIRT.

Joseph and I had a delightful (fever-induced on my side) text argument about the validity of the phrase, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Commonly used in the military, brings hope to many on the lower ladders that there is a place and time where no one, not petty officer, not Commanding Officer, not another Battle Stations drill, will be able to wake them. At least, this is what I said.

I know I'm not actually myself right now, but I do recall at one point feeling so wretched that I didn't care if I did die, as long as there was some peace on the other end of it. I know, Bible teaches of what is to come for us, but when I'm struck down to the bare bones of what I am, there's a firm knowledge of God and how important it is to seek Him, and everything else gets kind of lost.

Don't know yet if this is going to get worse. Do know it's going to get better.

"I will not die; I'll wait here for you!"
-Three Days Grace

Dietary Concerns

"Well, look at it this way. You're from Minnesota, right?"
"...right." Wondering where he's going with this.
"You guys have that salad thing with like two pounds of shredded turkey and ham on it, right?"
"Chef salad. It's usually less than two pounds. And I don't think that's just a Minnesota thing."
"Well, whatever. It's like that! You'd eat that, wouldn't you?"
"Mike, the argument is not about whether it's okay to mix kingdoms. The fact is that if I find a living critter INSIDE my apple again, I will react with startled disgust, and then refuse to eat the rest of it."
"I'm just sayin'. Protein and carbs. You're good."
"Mike, would YOU eat it?"
"**** no! I'm not into all that healthy ****. You know that!"

I hang around with a lot of guys (and one girl) who survive and thrive off straight junk food. (This is by no means the majority of the Navy - thanks to the requirements on us, most personnel exist in the "culture of fitness.")

The food on base is...um...suspect. There's food we're already charged for - if it's anything actually healthy, be suspicious of how long it's been sitting out and where it was beforehand. There are other food options, but as you're ALREADY paying for the one, most people prefer to go there.

By now my system is conditioned to a new level of fussiness - it won't tolerate junk food. I had three oreos and a chocolate chip cookie when I was home one afternoon, and everything was grumpy later. It WILL tolerate organisms from other kingdoms (animal, fungal) present in my food, that's more of a mental hurdle to get over.

I usually end up ingesting such things by accident. Once I realize the mistake, the reaction is no longer to fling away the offending article with a shrieking spasm, but just a resigned sigh. "Ah, man. I wanted to eat that."

Then again, I've been in for less than a year. The day could very easily come where I just won't care at ALL.

The Navy Ball - Tonight's the Night

The base provides a shuttle to the Marriott Resort for this event, assuming that a number of the sailors will be getting themselves moderately wasted and they'd really like to have said sailors back in the morning, or at least Monday. A number of students are spending the weekend there.

Also, by sheer, wonderful coincidence, my friend Carroll is going to be there. Carroll's been in Boot Camp the last two months, and was scheduled to graduate on the 8th. Unfortunately, he got beastly sick for the last three weeks, and one of those days cost him attendance to a more physical test he needed to pass in order to go through Battle Stations 21 (kind of the Boot Camp Final). So, we were sad, because his sister (one of my girlfriends on base) was planning to bring him to the Ball the night he graduated. By happy arrangement, he'd managed to get better and cram everything in by Thursday morning, call her, and graduate with his class that Friday.

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity there. Stephanie and Carroll are as close as I am with my sisters, if not closer. She happens to be on the base that's right next to the base that he graduated from - in a week, he'll be on the other side of the country, in a few months, she'll be off to her next command. Yeah, you could go to the Ball with any of the guys who ask you, but boyfriends come and go pretty quick on this base, and this is a chance to go with your brother. So cool.

Carroll is a card. He honestly doesn't TRY to misbehave or be rebellious. He's just very creative. I may explain that further at a later date.


Brett is an artist. No, really - he's been in the Navy for four years, and every base he's been assigned to, he left a mural behind. He's the only person I know who's spent this much enlisted and never been on a ship - until he was reassigned to communications, he worked on a particular aircraft that's shore-based, which meant HE was shore-based. But painting is what really makes him happy.

Stephanie is sweet, kind, beautiful, and hardworking. She and J are the two lights that really shine among the girls in Sailors For Christ - but Stephanie's light is like a soft, white, constant, and J is a many-colored torch. That probably doesn't make sense, but it's pretty cool to see how they both lead.

I don't know how they see me - Brett thinks I'm pretty, and predicts that I will make history as a female Admiral and they will name a ship for me. Stephanie knows me better than a lot of people, but almost everyone on base sees me as being about three years younger than I am, and I don't know if she does, too. And, yeah, I'm really not sure WHAT her brother thinks of me, but it's clear that I'm Stephanie's friend, we became friends while he was in Boot, and I'm glad he's here. (That, and this is a totally awesome thing to do on your first weekend out of Basic.)

Watching the Navy band play made me tear up. I really miss making music.

I kind of felt a little awkward wearing my uniform - most of the girls were dressed up. (Stephanie had offered me a pretty dress of hers, but it was a lot more clingy and revealing than I was comfortable with...and I had no shoes.) But at some point, I don't know, it was just time to cut loose, forget worrying about it, and have fun on the dance floor.

And I'm glad we did.


I don't know how often I'll get to go the Navy Ball. (I DO know that, next time I go, I will wear a pretty dress - this staying in blues all night is clearly for the guys.) But it was very cool to get to go to this one, and I'm glad Brett asked me.

The Navy Ball - Tizzy

I'll have to state this repeatedly, but Brett and I are friends. We're going to the Ball as two friends, and really the only reason that even suggests that it would work is because it's a military function and we're both military. We have a conceivable reason to show up there, and it's more fun to do something like this with a friend than alone.

Guys, this may not be clear to you. I will translate. If you're going to a dance, or a wedding, or anything fun and dress-up worthy with a girl, she is most likely going to think it's a date. Even if she asked you. Even if both of you have said it's just as friends. Even if she wants to think of it as just friends - unless she's really not attracted to you, and the only way you'll get that is if she spends most of the time there talking about some other guy. I don't think of Brett as a boyfriend, and I was excited about this.

Really, we just like to make ourselves pretty and be told that we're pretty.

As soon as Brett was gone, I shyly announced to Adam (possibly the only person on base who will ever see me acting shy, because shy normally gets you stomped) that I was going to the Navy Ball.

I got back to my barracks, and made a request to my two roommates, who spend far more time making pretty than I do, that they help me with my hair and makeup the day of the Ball. Excited squeals from the one, and an assured smile from the other - they've both regarded my dateless status with some quiet dismay over the past six months. (I'm just a little selective - my sister has expressed (with some hyperbole) a certain refined disgust with my standards. Also, I am in school. Busy busy.).

It should be noted; this is not my first element. Do I enjoy prettying up and being pretty for a night? Yes, actually. But it happens so rarely that I usually don't remember. MY first element is hiking boots, rugged jeans, and a hoodie, climbing over hills, trees, and leaves in the fall. Possibly running shoes and beating the trail. I belong in the woods, to my thinking, and require assistance for such affairs.

There was also a point of consternation when the date was clarified. Seems someone had set the Ball to be on Friday, not Saturday. As it doesn't start until 1730, this is only an issue for the 150-200 students in ET "A", and a scatter from ATT - there are no other night students on base. Brett at this point was on days, so I sadly admitted that he would probably have to ask someone else to go with him.

Well, he's having none of this. A week before the date, my instructor says he's 90% sure we won't have class that night. This is the Navy for you. We just kind of prepare for either possibility as much as we can. Brett and I actually haven't seen each other in about three weeks; most of our planning by this point has been by text, because I can jot something to him when I get home before bed, and he'll get it when he wakes up four hours later.

Days Nights
Reveille 0500 0900
Class 0700-1530 1530-2400
Taps 2200 0100

You see the problem.

Brett, meanwhile, has been given the royal runaround on the tickets - this is also Navy, or at least TSC, for you. Go to this office, to talk to this person, to be told you actually need to talk to THAT person in the third building, to go to that building, to find out they're closed, to return to your SDC and find that they told you wrong and never meant for you to end up on that side of the base, but by now the situation's changed and now it doesn't matter what they meant to tell you, because NOW they need you to go over here. He didn't mention this to me, which was an unfortunate glitch in communication, because the SDC in charge of this one was actually in MY barracks.

We've been told that, prior to the introduction of computers on base, all hands ended up walking more than five miles a day thanks to this sort of thing. There is NO driving from place to place here. Live-Ashores drive to the base, and park by their barracks if it's convenient, but if you're not injured and it takes less than forty-five minutes to walk there, you have no reason to drive.

Brett's a Fleet Returnee. This affords him more time to work with and much less hassle about needing a buddy to go anywhere. Brett's actually ignoring the status thing this time around - the fact that he has as much time in as he does, and I'm six months out of Boot Camp makes this a little like a senior asking a freshman to prom. We're the same age, but that's because Brett joined as soon as he was out of high school. He's passed the test to go to E-4 two or three times now, but advancement is based on how things are in your rate - if they're packed full enough that they're sending people to other rates, they're not going to be promoting. If he HAD made it to E-4, the two of us going to the Ball together would be a little sketchy - if he was E-5, it'd be right out.

Meanwhile, my nervousness is mounting. I was thinking that the Ball was going to be later in October - I've been planning a trip home for a friend's wedding, and was thinking that I could simply pick up one of my former prom dresses and shoes then. I honestly hate clothes shopping, and somehow keep having other projects crop up on the weekends when I could go.

My nervousness turns out to be for naught - the first part of the evening is supposed to be in dinner dress blues. Service dress, full dress, and dinner dress are all exactly the same uniform - the distinction is in how the decorations are worn. Any current photos of me in dress uniform are in service dress - full dress would be with the full-sized medal(s). Dinner dress uses miniature medals that have to be picked up separately, and the NEX is cleaned out of the particular one that both Brett and I need (he has four to my one).

Fun story there, though. We're perusing the shelves, and a very nice lieutenant overhears us. This is a fun bit of Navy culture y'might not see much of as a civilian: Officers are usually really nice. Higher enlisted will sometimes be jerks because they have to be - they're getting leaned on, so they have to lean on us. Officers are as separate from us as the people are from the giraffes in the zoo. And where a Petty Officer would probably have gotten on our cases about getting our medals earlier (I had gone earlier, and they were still out), this wonderful lieutenant said that she might have an extra in her car, because she kept all kinds of things in her car. And ran out to check.

This kind of stunned us. But, it ended with Brett having the proper medals, and me completely milking the bragging rights to the other girls out of his earshot - he has a rating badge as an AM (most of us are still in school, so there's no rate on our sleeves, just the E-2 or E-3 stripe), he has his medals, AND he has a hashmark on his sleeve (one hashmark = four years of service. At 12 consecutive years of good service, they turn gold). Yep, this is effectively the Navy Prom.

Even the day of, before we got the tickets (thanks to the royal runaround), Brett was asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this. Am I sure I want to hang out with Brett? Yes, absolutely. Am I sure about the Ball? Well...honestly, I wouldn't mind if it turned out we couldn't get tickets and we just went bowling instead. I'm fairly nervous at this point. But, I have also learned that when I'm terrified of something for no good reason, that's all the more reason to go do it. Brett's a good guy, we're taking the shuttle so driving's likely to be fairly safe, and while I could manage to fantastically embarass myself, nothing at the Ball is likely to mess up my life or my career. I might not get the chance to go to another one, as I'm on sea duty for the rest of this enlistment, so, I say, let's go for it.

October 8th

IT'S MY DAD'S BIRTHDAY!!!

And my half-birthday.

We have today off from school.

It's supposed to be in honor of Columbus Day, and we still spent five hours of the morning deep-cleaning the barracks (most of which we will proceed to undo over the upcoming weekend), but it is Fall, in October; a lovely, lovely day, and I hear there's a Ball tonight.

I'm freakin' out about that, but aside from that, life is good. :)

Also, Monday is Joe's birthday.

The Navy Ball

Someone's asked for more about Navy culture. I again remind everyone that I'm not yet in the Fleet; evidently this is comparable to cattle being raised in a barn vs. free-range on the hills. But, let's go for a saga on this one, and see what y'all care to pick up.

It started with the birthday.

Appropriate, as the Navy Ball is held every year in celebration of the Navy's birthday - October 13th, 1775. But this was Brett's birthday.

Brett and I were in Apprentice Technical Training together. He's an IC, I'm an ET, but all of us in Combat Systems have ATT in the same building, even if we're not covering exactly the same material. During breaks from stuffing our heads with CBTs (computer-based training - we started these in Boot Camp, still doing them in A School, likely be doing them as long as we're active duty), we started giving each other guff. Typical fast-talking, trying to pull the rug out from each other, constantly baiting.

Brett's been in for 4 1/2 years, which gives him a little more status. He came in as an AM, but six months before the end of his enlistment, the Navy decided that they had enough AMs (which can happen to any of us), and told him, "retrain or get out." Brett's one of the guys who wants to go career

The wacky thing about him is that he's actually a really good guy - but he never wants anyone to know it. You have to do a bit of digging and talk to the people who work with him to figure out what's real and what's just an act. He prefers to be known as an unpredictable wacky goofball, and affects a feigned air of hurt whenever I introduce him to a friend as "a good guy."

This may be because the Navy effectively eats nice guys...and girls, for that matter. I understand the distinction between "nice" guys and "good guys," but I do the same thing - in class, I'm a quick-talking smart-aleck, solid on my feet with any comeback, or at least remaining archley above the males and their shenanigans - a far cry from my previous identity, which would have been steamrollered here in short order. Brett and I still keep things light, never serious.

Shortly after I completed ATT ("comped") was Brett's birthday, and a number of us were celebrating at one of the two bars on base. This party ended up being me and nine guys - base population being what it is, this is not at all unusual. The bar was actually packed, and I was one of three women there. The guys were planning to head to the more chaotic bar after this one closed down, a location I make a point of avoiding, so Brett walked me back to my barracks.

As we're keeping it light, I don't say anything about how much I appreciate it, and he doesn't suggest that he's going to, just falls in next to me on my way out of the bar, and neither of us say anything about the girl who was attacked on base the week before by another sailor coming out of the bar. (It came out okay - the guy didn't realize that the petite little sailor he went after used to be a boxer in high school). We spend half the way back trading the worst pickup lines we've ever heard.

(It should be noted - Adam was also concerned about me walking back alone, and came from his barracks to escort me. Double-escort, make a girl feel special, chyah. :P)

So he asked, "What about this one: 'Wanna go to the Navy Ball with me?' "
I thought carefully, and said, "Nope. Never gotten that one before."

Now, it should be noted, posters about the Ball have been up since about April, but I (like most of my friends) had no intention of going, and little idea what exactly it was about. I don't know if it was Long Island recklessness, the interest in trying something new, the fact that I actually like hanging out with Brett, or some residual guilt over how many times I'd inadvertently stood him up before (we have very different schedules. It's hard to make anything work.), but I said something nonchalantly committal.

And proceeded to spend the next few weeks in a bit of a tizzy.

Mmmph. Morning.

If I could practice being kind to people in the face of exhaustion, to the point where the more tired I am, the nicer I get, and make that part of my personality - that alone could make all the physiological abuse of a military lifestyle worthwhile.

Had a watch today on two hours of sleep. My relief failed to manifest at the appropriate time. But Camp memories grab you sometimes. One of the big things that got me last summer was a conversation with Tails at breakfast, when he'd been up the entire night counseling a friend. He was indeed falling asleep on the breakfast table, but anytime anyone roused him because they needed something (or, y'know, they're kids, and everyone just loves Tails), he was kind, and did his best to engage with them. He didn't make a big deal about the lack of sleep - as far as I know, he didn't tell anyone but me.

So, I'm still tired. And I'm going to be running until Saturday night, it seems (Friday's going to be another short night). But I'm actually pretty happy. And if I could make this a regular practice, it might become a regular part of character. That's something that I can definitely see as a good trait to carry around.

Bible Study

I've probably mentioned this about Adam before, but his parents alternate between being missionaries and pastors. When they're pastors, they're taking the marriage cases that are harder than what any of the other pastors know how to handle. Adam's grown up in this environment, but he wasn't really living God-focused until a few years ago.

I mention this to try to explain a little bit of what it's like being around him. I've said that his kids are going to have an amazing inheritance because of what he's learned from his parents. He's absolutely set on how God's going to lead, he makes an effort to find something to love in everyone, he's got a nearly perfect record on military things, and his big pet peeve is people trying to spackle up their lives at church (because we're supposed to be able to be real with the believers close to us - if we can't, it's a failure on somebody's end).

Occasionally, being around him drives me nuts.

Most of the time, though, he's one of my best friends. So, I got to hear this story.

There's a small Bible study that goes on (or went on) in the main lounge of his barracks. Adam's not usually there, but he was walking back one night with the guy who leads it. He's another student, barely older than me, just stepped up when it became apparent that there wasn't anything at this end of the base (we're the two furthest barracks - about a twenty-minute walk from the chapel if you're booking it), and he's been working on leading. And his heart's there, but he's struggling. Really struggling.

And at some point, he looked at Adam, actually tears in his eyes, and demanded, "Why aren't YOU there? You know this stuff! We need you!" And Adam was actually knocked speechless.

Tends to be how I'm feeling about a lot of this. Still, the only things I really feel at all qualified for involve kids (if you get cut off from music for six months, you've got some work to do before you can perform again). Every other skill I have, it's one where I'm ready and willing to help, but I can also think of a friend who's better at this, and would get the job done better. Not a down-on-self thing, but it's about getting the work done. I will work UNDER my friend, no problem - but they're more experienced, better at this - I'm on this because it needs to get done. And while I can't say it out loud, I still have that echo in here - turning to my friend, almost on the verge of tears, "Why aren't YOU here? You know how to do this better than I do! We need you!"

I'm still going to show up. Always. And I suppose you can argue that that's more helpful, willingness to work and learn over aptitude without willingness, but it just feels so much smaller. I KNOW someone who can do this.

While I'm Waiting

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

And I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting, I will serve You
While I'm waiting, I will worship
While I'm waiting, I will not fade
I'll be running the race, even while I wait

I'm waiting, I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful; I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy, no,
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait!

And I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting, I will serve You
While I'm waiting, I will worship
While I'm waiting, I will not fade
I'll be running the race, even while I wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
I'll be taking every step in obedience, yeah

While I'm waiting, I will serve You
While I'm waiting, I will worship
While I'm waiting, I will not fade

I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
Waiting on You, Lord!

I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting


-John Waller

-----
Also in my head when I hear this one, "I will trust You while I'm waiting." One of the harder lessons for me to learn when I was younger was, "Trust God's timing," and I still struggle with it. I've come to recognize these things in hindsight, that it WAS better this way, at this pace, but I have difficulty applying that to whatever I'm looking at in what I think should be the immediate future.

There's so much that I want to do after the Navy. My college plans are a big one, and the career to follow. Being back at Camp is another. There's a lot about my life that seems to just be on hold right now. I recognize that I'm training and learning, and there's a lot of this that will no doubt prove useful later on - but man, sometimes writing down what I want to be doing then is the only thing that gets me through another agonizing lecture.

Whatever I thought about bad instructors, difficult classes, or stressful schedules - cake, now. I might not have any of my credits transfer, but after "A" School, I am possibly equipped to handle the stress of going for my Masters while holding down a job, playing with three different bands, dating someone special, and taking care of two cats.

There's a lot back home that I miss, and want to start working on, experiencing, or re-experiencing, and I have to put it on hold for now. When I first heard this song, I played it about eight times over. The lyrics were exactly what I felt like, but much more encouraging. God didn't forget about me over here, and He was doing (and is doing) something big with all of this, though I don't know what. Serving while I wait might just end up being the 'theme' for the next half-dozen years. Not a bad focus.

Fall! Again!!

I say again; I LOVE this season.

Let it be noted, I am in the minority on this. At least, on this base. It seems that between 65-85% of the student population hail from Florida, Texas, or California. I went to the galley tonight to meet my friend - I was wearing running shorts and a t-shirt. He was wearing jeans, an overcoat, and a stocking hat. I stood a four-hour quarterdeck watch this afternoon, and nearly every person who came in had something to the effect of, "*%$! it's cold!!" I got outside, and was so happy I had to run - this weather's perfect. I was thinking it'd be another case of northern-bravado, where I'd be acting like I wasn't cold while my skin turned blue, but this was actually great. Love this kind of weather. Makes you want to run five miles and then just stop and look around you, taking it all in.

And then wonder, "Where the heck am I?" :P

In months to come, I will be transferred to another command. The two most likely options from here do not have seasons. Virginia tries, all right, I understand, you don't have that much to work with. San Diego sneers at the concept of changing seasons. What nonsense. If you want winter, go up in the mountains. If you want summer, it's right here - much more convenient for driving, biking, and wearing cute little summer dresses in January.

They have a point. But I'm rather stuck on this business of Mother Earth changing her gown, as Charlotte says.

And I love Fall. Love, love, love. The air hasn't quite gotten down to "brisk" yet over here, but it's managed "crisp" a few times. I love the leaves turning, and the image they present scattered on the grass. Everything in me says that I should be wearing rugged boots, rugged jeans, and some fairly solid overshirt, and go clambering off through the woods. Even if it's just over to Quarry Hill on the breaks between classes - trees are where I'm supposed to be right now.

For now, I have to wear my digis, and keep my boots clean, and stay on base. In years to come, I will be deployed during this season at times, which means that I'll completely miss it (or see some very different translations of it), but the time will come, my friends. I will return, and possibly retreat back into the Bighorns (hello beautiful hiking!), and there will be falling leaves and the smell of fresh dirt and woodsmoke once again!

"Pika-Vanna"

Okay, now they're just pushing my buttons.

Today, they decided that I walk like I'm on a runway. Note - this is while I'm wearing digis (a fairly asexual uniform) and drill boots. And I thought, nah, they're just excited and trying to see how much they can get away with.

Until Adam heard this one, and took to studying this. Adam's one of those kids that no one realized needed glasses until about the sixth grade - he just assumed the world looked like that to everybody. So when he identifies or recognizes someone, it's by the way they move - facial details are just perks.

So, I was coming up after chow, we usually sit on the hill in the grass and talk for a bit before going back to class. I'm happy because it's Fall, and all that's in my mind is a wistfulness for the hills and woods that I feel I should be climbing when the weather's this lovely, and he interrupted my thoughts: "They're right!"
"Hmm?"
"You DO walk like you're on a runway!"
*whap!*

He just laughed. "Pikachu" was the first nickname he handed me, six months ago, and the class has referenced, "Going all Pikachu," for what it looks like when I get mad. Like Pikachu, the madder I get, the more adorable they think it is.

I am not an adorable person, I would have them know. I'm strong, solid, kick-butt, and I'm good with kids. Adorable is for more petite girls. Or so I'd like to think. Sigh.

They'll find something more interesting in a week or so. Nothing to do but wait it out.

"Reading Rainbow"

This is my new nickname.

While I was in ATT, my class nicknamed me "Shakespeare," in reference to my speech patterns. For awhile, I was picking up a new nickname every two weeks or so, so I didn't think anything of it - I'm of the opinion that if you ignore a nickname, it'll go away when they find something new to amuse themselves.

This one came up while we were going through homework. In the sixth week of "A" school, we've become fairly comfortable with each other. The class had been rather free with the new handles that week, awarding "Skittles" (the kid ate some off the floor) and "Dum-Dum." We'd just received a new instructor on Monday (through ET "A" school, each class changes instructors about 6-12 times), and were settling into this new teaching method.

Going through that day's homework, we were firing off answers, just reading off from what we'd written the night before. After my turn, though, there was a long silence. I looked up to find everyone, including the instructor, staring at me. "What?"

"You sound like you're reading a novel."

At the daycare, I would usually read six or more books to the kids each afternoon. I don't read the same way that I talk, because...I don't know. I just developed a "reading voice." And apparently it stuck.

With the exception of the Bible in study groups (and that's different. No, I don't know why.), I don't think any of my friends have really heard me read aloud. So, I didn't know about this. But they continued developing this idea (we tend to volley ideas around the class - it drives our assistant class leader nuts), and decided that I was supposed to read for kids on tv. Like Reading Rainbow!

Personally, I'd have preferred Wishbone. I loved that show.

One of the guys has really gotten into it - every time I walk into class now, I hear, "Butterfly in the sky..."

Nothing like friends to let you know what you don't know you're doing. Sigh. I guess it could be worse.

FLOOD!!

Any friends of Camp Victory, check out their Facebook page. They have photos, and continuing updates, and can do a much better job of explaining what's going on.

Camp used to be rather nomadic. For about fifteen years, they settled on property on Lake Zumbro - my sister was a camper there during that time. A few years ago, they purchased their own property just on the other side of the dam, running along the Zumbro River until it crossed one of the back country highways. Started building, we've been adding more every year.

Zumbro River ran high this year. If anyone remembers the flood back in '07, my second year of Camp - that was about half this high, I hear tell. That one was mostly fun, actually. We had to relocate archery, we couldn't get to paintball, and Doc was paddling kids across the impromptu river in a canoe because the ropes course was on a temporary island. We all just sort of waited for everything to dry out, I think we lost some of archery and low ropes was pretty soggy for awhile.

Caribou's referred to this as a "double-flood", because flood stage is 18' feet above the usual waterline, and this was twice that. Made it clear across the soccer field, and into the lower section of the dining hall (big downstairs meeting room we use as a chapel until we can get the one on the hilltop built). Not sure how much it did around Old Town. Took out some of the roads, seems to have wrecked mini-golf (this is rather painful, as that was a gift in memory of someone else) -

Part of Camp is the camp director's house - it's a smallish house, with a separate garage, and there's a small chapel on the property. (My friend Holly and I were helping clean out the chapel last spring, and I ran across a bunch of the old Hanna-Barbera tapes that we used to watch in Sunday School - took me back.) Big yard - I'd often see the boys ATVing around or playing with the dogs in said yard when I was coming back from a week at Camp. Entire yard's now underwater - house is really damaged.

It is frankly driving me CRAZY that I can't be there helping. If I was in the area right now, I'd be LIVING at Camp - rise at sunrise, work all day, shower off the sludge, sleep the sleep of the dead - do it until the work's done. It's not that I think they can't do it - people care about Camp, and naturally respond to need. It's that Camp is my second home, really. My friends at Camp are like my extended family. And I'm stuck HERE, can't be helping them.

Joseph is familiar with this, even kind of used to having to serve one place while your heart is hauling on you to go serve somewhere else. He calmly reminded me of what I CAN do from here, which doesn't feel like much, and talks me down about it. Denise reminded me of what I know but don't want to pay attention to - she and I both saw the gymnastics that went into me getting into the Navy, getting the ET rate, going through Boot Camp - we both know God's been working to get me right here, right now, and He knew this was coming. For whatever reason, me being here is what needs to be happening. It doesn't feel like it. I'm sitting in a classroom.

As soon as I mentioned it to home, Dad said he'd bring it up with one of the team's he's on. My Dad's awesome, by the way. I talk about Mom's music stuff far more often, I know - really, both of my parents are amazing. But, he's part of a team that helps out with this sort of thing - when Richland was hit a few years ago, they were helping to clean out and rebuild some of the houses.

One of my friends who has NO association with Camp (and is actually remarkably introverted) offered to go out, as he had a random Tuesday off. I practically tackled him over the phone in gratitude. If I can't be there, I at least want to know that someone CAN be.

Staff manage to scatter pretty well through the school year - Ethan and I've been commiserating over this, because we KNOW how hard they're working (not that we know the workload - we just know the team), and we want to BE there, helping. It just seems WRONG to not be. The analytical side of my brain's running through my friends from Camp and a few Bible studies I was part of, figuring out what kind of human resources we have available. He's got good experience with drywall, those two were on that brush-clearing project with me, she's solid with long hours and staying cheerful and encouraging, he's good with the Bobcat and can be trusted to manage a chainsaw...the list goes on.

Of course, the flip side to the list of human resources is if they're NOT helping. That just hurts. I know, I know, free will and all that. But I can't be there, and she can, but she doesn't feel comfortable being there. It's frustrating. I think I came out with, "Well, go anyway and worry about whether you're comfortable after you're done!" Military-mindset people probably shouldn't give civilians work-related advice.

So, that's in the back of my mind all the time now. And if I'd ever doubted that I was planning to return to Camp - man, just try having someone threaten what you love to figure out whether or not you really love it. I want to come back and grow ROOTS there. They won't be able to kick me out unless they shut down - I'm going to do EVERYTHING!!

(This is slightly ludicrous, I realize. I'm not qualified to do everything. I end up bringing in friends who are, but don't realize it - this seems to be my addition to Camp.)

So, all of that aside, if you want to help out, give them a call. The Camp Director's house really needs help, and there's a lot of work to be done around the rest of Camp, too. Also, a LOT needs to be replaced; check out the list.

Blagh.

Been sick all week.

Food-cravings are getting pretty entertaining, though. I end up consuming about three oranges a night, and surprising amounts of peanut butter.

Hopefully be out of it soon. Sunday was the worst so far.

Cello Thoughts

I'm starting to think that emotions are only linked to events about half the time. That is, the internal and the external don't match up.

My first few months on this base, I'd been hearing from some of the longer-term residents about how awful it was here, and how much they hated it. Baffled, I turned to my then-roommate, Mills, for an explanation. I was under the impression that it was pretty good here. I had my own bed, my door had a lock on it, there was a small fridge in my room, and room to keep some books if I wanted. Best of all, we had our own head, WITH a bathtub (this barracks used to be a hotel), and we almost always had hot water. And I could work out whenever I wanted, and we were right on the edge of Chicago - if you couldn't find something to do in Chicago, you really weren't trying.

Mills explained that I hadn't been here long enough to get it. And maybe now I have, because I'm starting to see a little bit of what's rough on this base (though I still think it's going to have NOTHING on ship life, especially on a deployment). And there's some other annoyances (50% of them could be cleared up if every male could just understand that I don't WANT a boyfriend right now, but I really need solid friends), and having crested one mountain, I've glanced up to see six or seven others, greater than the ones I've been struggling to clear this summer. I miss my family, and the distance is pulling away more relationships that I can only hope will resurrect when I come back.

But tonight, the emotions don't match that at all. I'm listening to a beautiful cello trio that I love, and feeling that sweet ache from memories that are so, so good, and having had friends that are so, so good. Times at Camp, with the kids, or late at night in my bunk, listening to everyone fall asleep, being ready for anything they need. Going for long treks with another counselor, late late so that the lights of Camp are off and we're relying on the moon to get us around, and if we get caught being out this late we'll be washing Delta's car with a toothbrush in the morning, but the conversations are so GOOD that it'd be worth it. Josie. Ethan. Myles. Rose. Ducky. One day when some of us were wrapping up the ropes course late, and two of us sat on top of the tower and watched Camp settle down for the night, and the sun recede behind the valley.

The band - somehow, between St. Charles, Autumn Ridge, Fort Wilderness, Sheridan, Riverland, Camp Lebanon, RCTC, early morning jazz rehearsals, late night play rehearsals, all the musicians I've played with form one massive ensemble in here. The band.

Sheridan, mountains, the intensely happy friendship Ross and I shared in the midst of a lot of other junk, hiking, my kids, Britni, The Well, late nights out by the horse paddock in the middle of a snowstorm, Ross coming to find me when I was just stressed by all that was going on and went out to clear my head at the far end of campus, happy mornings, all the antics with Ashley, late nights with Ross where we both had too much to struggle with and went out to the soccer field to pass a ball around for a few hours and yell over the wind about what we were mad about. We could solve each other's problems, but not our own. And somehow, with all of that struggling, Sheridan was a really happy time for me. Volunteering at the animal shelter. Having a fantastic job working with kids. Learning in show choir, and collecting stories in Biology and A&P. Disagreeing with the pastor, but walking to church in the sunrise. A LOT of time with Charlie, my Park Avenue. Late nights calling home, and home coming to visit. Blinding snowstorms where you'd get ticketed for driving, but we could walk anywhere and have ninja-battles. Watching Firefly with Doritos and getting back to Davis way too late. Clowning around with Chris, Ross, and Ashley in show choir. Beautiful sunny mornings when I could see Cloud Peak from my front step.

I think here, we're afraid to make those friendships. Or we simply recognize that we can't. My two closest friends on base are both male - one will be going for officer in two years, and the other's on a separate rate, which means separate schedules, separate departure dates, and separate assignments. If we DID end up on the same ship, we'd be stuck like glue, because the people that know you through these transitions mean so much more to you. The people who wrote to me during Boot Camp ended up being people that I stayed tied to, somehow, just stronger. I have one friend who's known me since I was fourteen, and went Army - he's now occupying an interesting position to have seen the transition, be on both sides of it, but also understand a lot of what's going ON in the transition. And then there's Josie's inherent beauty and Ethan's strength, Myles' joyful humility, Rose's quirky whimsy, Ross' trust, Ducky's indomitable spirit, the amazing spark that lives in Bjorn, Ashley's pride and goofy self-deprecation, Britni's...SUNSHINE! Layne...wow, Layne was all-around awesome as a girlfriend.

Other things go back further, but it's as though the sweeter something is, the more painful it is to contemplate now. There's so much in my life that's been beautiful, and for some reason that hurts tonight, but it's what we used to call a happy-hurt. You hurt because there was (or is) something good out there.

And as soon as I think about my family when I'm feeling like this, I just start tearing up, because they've been AMAZING. They encourage me (hugely needed these days). They inspire me, because they're already proud of me, and I want to earn that pride. And no matter how much this changes me, they will always be there for me. And the memories of what we've done together, and the unique colors in all our personalities - it's overwhelming. I'm so blessed.

Life is getting a little rougher on base. But there's SO much more to life than this base. Maybe that's all that's going on tonight.

Morning Thoughts

"I hate a Roman named Status Quo." "Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away."
-Fahrenheit 451

Excellent book. At my high school, they had a class or two that were supposed to read it because it's about the evils of censorship. Except, after the first chapter, it isn't. It's a lot better than that. But I'll let you read it.

There's been a thought running around and pulling on pieces of my brain. Suggests that I don't want to be a nurse because I want to, but because it's stable and will make my family happy. Not that they're not happy now, just the idea that they'd worry about me less. Suggests that I don't want to join the Peace Corps because I want to, but some psychological combination of trying to atone for my blot on this world, and at the same time trying to escape something back home. Suggests that I'm living things on too small a scale again.

But, for now, I have an academic and a physical test coming up, and if I live through those, a celebration weekend. And, as it's now Fall, I will DRAG Adam to the woods if I have to. It's simply been too long.

Cheers!

"When I Grow Up..."

I do not remember WHAT I dreamed about last night, but I woke up with the end conversation in my head. Apparently I was some six-year-old version of me, mapping out my career plans. I think I pin this one on working in the daycare.

"First I'm gonna be a musician, and then I'm gonna be a camp counselor like YOU, Janie. And then I wanna be a sailor 'cause my daddy's a sailor*. Then I'm gonna be a fireman. And then I wanna be a nurse like Aunt JJ**. And then I'm gonna be a forest ranger over at Yellowstone with the bears.*** And then I'm gonna be a teacher, 'cause teachers are old!"

"And when I die, I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna turn into a sea dragon and live in the ocean and every time they try to catch me I'll just dive way down deep in the deep parts an' they'll never find me, and I'll swim all over the world for the rest of forever because dragons live forever until Jesus comes back, and He'll say, "Dragon, I know who you are. It is time for you to come home." And because He knows my real name, He'll say it, even though everybody thinks I'm a dragon I really wasn't, and when I hear my real name I'll turn back into me and go with Him and then we'll go into Heaven together."

I'm assuming this was in answer to, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" but, I don't remember any of the other person's side of the conversation. The kids are just like that, though - they get really into a concept sometimes, very detailed, and then they haul the whole thing off on another tangent entirely, and if you just sit and wait and listen, it's fantastic where they'll end up. Nearly always unexpected, but fascinating.


*There was a point, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember my parents having an interest in sailing. I think this predated the ski boat, actually.

**I have no idea who Aunt JJ is. Evidently she's a nurse.

***I went to Yellowstone with some friends for a weekend when I was 21. Yeah, the park rangers were cool.

Weekend in Review

We might live on the most stressful Naval base on the planet, but there are benefits to being a student. The occasional four-day weekend, for starters.

Friday, I got to meet Allan's mom and grandma. Wildfire would be the best steakhouse I've been to in the Great Lakes area. So, so good. Admittedly, it's probably also the first steakhouse I've been to this year, but it was wonderful.

Saturday, I was on duty. Spent the day doing laundry and watching movies that I hadn't seen before. Cars was good and fun and I now want to take two weeks out of a summer to drive Route 66.

I made the mistake of watching Alien late at night - wrapped up around 0100. This would be the first time I'd seen it - had it recommended to me by my mild-natured Pixar-loving friend. I forgot that my mild-natured Pixar-loving friend also loves Sci Fi, and has a much higher fear tolerance than anyone would suspect. Owing to the fact that I'm a night student, I was up late with the lights off out of respect for my sleeping roommates. Owing to the fact that I'm a little behind on sleep and it's the middle of the night, the phantoms of my imagination seem much more solid. Owing to the business of me sleeping on the floor...it's just really easy to picture an adult Alien coming in and leaning ominously over your vulnerable, unconscious form. I didn't fall asleep for about an hour, just shaking.

Note: For anyone concerned about how we DOD personnel handle fear - there is a massive difference between imminent danger and movie-fear. Movie-fear is confined to the screen, and there isn't anything you can do to change the situation, because it's in there and you're out here. You can't help the physiological response, and that actually kind of makes you mad, because you're not really scared, your body is just jacked up on adrenaline. Real situations are different, because there's enough time to drop a load of adrenaline in your system, but you're anything but paralyzed - you know exactly what to do and where to go. This actually came up at Camp a few times - as long as we have something to do, we're not going to melt down. I need to be actively engaged on some kind of work, even if it's just talking someone else down from a meltdown, or hauling down some tents or something completely unrelated to the situation. Throw myself into something, and we'll be cool until everything's quieted down again. Tell me that there's nothing I can do or work on here, and then all the adrenaline meets up with all the emotion, and you get a big mess.

Sunday, Julia foisted a Harvard Lampoon parody on me. "Night Light." You can guess what it's parodying. I have indeed read the Twilight series, but I don't feel the need to repeat the experience. (It was mostly, "Well, I work in a bookstore; I should probably at least be able to TALK about these. I don't have to like them." Similar viewpoint on Hemingway, but for different reasons. Can't stand Hemingway.) I finished Night Light in about an hour, and returned it to Julia's roommate with the words, "Tell her that this is the worst thing I have read in my life." And it was. If you haven't read Twilight, you'll still be thinking of Night Light, "This is awful," but you won't entirely grasp WHY it's so awful. The simple fact is that if you're parodying something that's already pretty bad, your best option is just to make the result REALLY bad. I'm pretty sure this was indeed the worst thing I've read in my life.

I make no apologies to vampire fans I have just offended. You want good vampire lit, read an Anne Rice novel.

Also met up with Allan and family for the base theater's showing of Inception. That was a good time. The first time I saw this with friends, we had to skip out on the ending in order to make it back before liberty expired. So, seeing this the second time, caught a few more details, don't know if I enjoyed it more, but it was still good. Ending had me thinking of the story we three girls heard, about a man who leaves home looking for Paradise, has his course thrown off by a demon, and comes into a house with a woman who looks like his wife, and children who look like his whoask him to stay. To please them he agrees, and lives there to this day, "never knowing if he is in Paradise or not."

Monday was a splendid day. The night before, my friend Avery was on the watch closest to my deck of the barracks. The best part about late-night ladderwell watches is that you can do a LOT that isn't exactly watch-related, as long as you're standing where you need to be and keeping an eye on who's coming and going. (Myself, I prefer sudoku or having a decent book - this most likely will not fly in the Fleet.) So, my friend Wilki and I are keeping Avery company - she's coloring a velvet highlighter poster (these are oddly popular on base), and I'm reading excerpts of the Harvard Lampoon travesty. And somehow over the course of the hours, Avery and I make plans for Emily's the next morning.

Emily's isn't in the same category as Wildfire at all. It's not as pricey, not as amazing, and, well, they're not a steakhouse. They're a pancake house. And they're pretty good. Wildfire's more like, "We're going out to celebrate something special," but Emily's is the place that I'd go every Saturday morning, if I had every Saturday morning off. They have pancakes. They have waffles. They have blintzes. They have crepes. And they're really, really nice.

Also, thanks to Avery and this Monday, I now have a decent, reliable cab service in the area to call. This is a big deal to us - we're dependent on the cabs to get around, and we don't particularly LIKE the ones that just show up to base. They're okay, not great.

After breakfast, we regroup. What's next? Well, Avery's got something to return at Best Buy. Pulls out his phone, which in his case is also his gps. Best Buy's six miles from here. No problem. We start walking.

Found a thrift store - closed for Labor Day, but logged that away for later. Thrift stores are a lot of fun. Found a Salvation Army - went in looking for flannel shirts. Fall's coming, that's why. No luck. Flannel suit coat is something I didn't need to know existed in this universe - although if I'd been thinking, I would have gotten the lot for the Aires for their Christmas show. Red, green, and tacky seems to be the theme for our elf-gear. Randomly ran across a Frank Peretti book - got that instead. Yay.

Crossed from Waukegan into Gurnee. Learned that Avery doesn't do so well identifying plants, pointed out a half-dozen that he's planning to forget as soon as he gets back home. Found a church that looks interesting. Found a park that holds a Farmer's Market every Friday - had Avery send a picture of it to Julia, it's a lot closer to base than the other one we found. Found a Dairy Queen. Stopped for Blizzards, had a conversation about family (mine's awesome, his drives him nuts). Passed the road to Six Flags, and the hotel where everyone stays when they do a Six Flags weekend. Found a Starbucks, and a Chuck E. Cheese (the last is significant to Avery - he's planning on coming back). Found the Interstate. Huh.

Look at Avery. He looks at me. One of us is wearing a Navy t-shirt. One of us CLEARLY has a military haircut. Both of us probably shouldn't be doing something visibly illegal like walking across the highway. If word gets back to base (as word has a sneaky way of doing when one does not expect it), we will be in A Lot Of Trouble. And neither one of us can afford to lose our program, which is one avenue that Trouble can take if the Captain's feeling cranky. We go back to Starbucks. Call a cab. Get Starbucks.

Travel two miles via cab, hit Best Buy. In my experience, sending a guy into Best Buy is right up there with...well, a guy sending me into a bookstore. I took the opportunity to catch up with people-I'm-supposed-to-call. Right in the middle of a decent debate about DADT with one of my civilian buddies when he came back. Headed over to the mall.

Salt was good. I have a thing about kick-butt girls in movies. I simply have little use for any other kind. Princess Buttercup and Snow White come to mind. Yes, they're pretty and all, but crisis situation, their first response is to throw up their hands and desperately sigh, "Oh dear." This is well and good when the guys are around and get to play the part of the bold and brave hero, and we applaud them for that, but if it's just you waiting on a hero to manifest, you're probably going to get eaten.

Note: I'm not sure WHY I feel this way, because for the next six years, I will probably NEVER be in a situation where there aren't any guys around. 10:1 ratio's the best one I've heard so far, my base is 35:1, and carriers are still 50:1.

But, yes, Salt was good. Open-ended, but you get the feeling that it's supposed to be, that this is establishing where the character Salt came from for the future saga. Really felt like a prequel, just out of order.

We got decent Chinese food (not great, but quite a bit ahead of the nonsense that the galley masquerades as being Chinese). We'd already had Dairy Queen, Starbucks, and Emily's. Foodwise, it was a very good day.

Company-wise, it was splendid - Avery's like everyone's big brother, with a very solid element of weird-goofy to balance it all out. He's also like a big Doberman that has the personality of a Labrador - everyone's really intimidated by him, but he's a huge goof. Good friend. Good food. Good day.

Translation

Nonverbal...

"Hi. So, I think it's great what you're doing with your music. I gave it a listen, and you've got some good things going there. And I'm really impressed with the way that you still have your life ordered with God at the center. I remember that from high school, too. Yeah, you probably don't remember me, I was the shy saxophone who dressed weird. Just forget about that time. But yeah, you were awesome - a lot of us at church looked up to you, and you just took it in stride. I remember you and your best friend doing everything with leading music and being wacky but totally based on God the whole time - you guys really made a difference to all of us. And, yeah, I kind of absolutely had a crush on you then. But...you're with who now? Seriously? How'd you score THAT gig, that's amazing! Of course I've heard of them, I brag to people all the time that they're from my state, but I had no idea YOU'D joined them. Ahhhh, crud. So, you get fangirls all the time, huh? And, yeah, you're probably with the other 90% of college grads that aren't interested in a girl until she gets her degree. I'm working on it, you know - just, military duty has to come first right now. And dating someone who's active duty is about sixteen times more challenging than any NORMAL long-distance relationship. So, well, yeah, that's cool. Keep doing the music thing, you guys really have something going there."

...comes out as...

"Hey, haven't seen you around since graduation. How's the band doing?"

Catch-Up

Mentally, I come in breathless, thinking, "I have GOT to post something!" Upon logging in, I am informed that my last post...was really only a week and a half ago. Ah. Well then.

Time differential again. I could have sworn that I hadn't said a word here since the first week of August.

This past weekend was absolutely splendid - my parents and sisters came down to visit. There are a number of attractions around Chicago where a military id gets you in free, so we hit the Shedd Aquarium the first day. I still prefer Underwater World for, well, feeling like you're underwater, but I love dolphins (normally have to go to the MN Zoo for those) and I had never seen belugas before. I have photos, of course, but I had no idea they were so graceful in the water. You don't expect something that weighs a quarter-ton as a baby to ever be 'graceful', but it was like a different take on ballet. Ballet minus legs, you could say.

Or not. That's a really unfortunate mental image.

Sunday we hit the Art Institue and Millennium Park. I evidently love the art of the 16th and 17th centuries - I hadn't realized this before. Stark contrast, the sister with whom I spent the most time wandering the galleries places surrealism at the top of her list. No matter. Also had a great conversation with Dad, because he's got some woodworking background, and really appreciated the intricacies of the way things are put together, while I'd just looked at the pattern and thought, "oh, that looks cool."

Twinks and her family stopped on by Monday afternoon - two weeks ago, we'd been talking about them visiting base on their way back from a family vacation, but when I started night classes, it made a train wreck out of my schedule (I have friends on base that I haven't seen since starting night classes). But, we managed to snag a short time together, and I got the biggest hug I've received from anyone outside the family since I last saw Joseph. We all prayed together before they left, too - I've missed that aspect of all the relationships at Camp.

Night classes mean your liberty is completely whacked out, and it's tough doing anything with your normal daywalker friends during the week, but, unexpectedly, you do get more sleep. That is, you're allotted more time to sleep - the noise through the rest of the barracks during the daylight hours can't really be helped. My roommates have been splendid, though. I see one of them for perhaps a half-hour every morning, and I have over an hour with the other in the afternoons - all three of us are doing the best we can to be respectful of having three wildly different time zones/circadian rhythms existing in the same room.

Classes themselves haven't hit the difficult point, but we're assured they will. At the moment, it's mostly just in a style of soaking in/scribbling down a lot of information, and then testing the next day. Study time is good.

My appreciation for the cello has been renewed. Perhaps it never needed renewing, but that's what happened. I miss making music, and I've never played the cello (nor do I have particular designs to do so - it'd be cool, but right now I just want to get back to performing what I CAN play before I lose it all), and the emotion that gets caught up in it tends to leave me very grateful that I can only watch youtube in my room.

This weekend, I seem to find myself triple-booked once again, but in a scavenging sense - I've assigned one friend as much time as he wants (because I really owe him for skipping out on things the last two weeks), and everyone else can simply come as they please to claim whatever's left over. If nobody comes, fantastic, I will go for a very, very long walk.

I still have yet to find decent woods. Rumor has it that you need to leave the greater Chicago area for these.

When You Dream...

So, all three of us roommates do weird things in our sleep. All three of us are also on different schedules, so that the only time everyone's asleep is from about 0100 to 0500. Thus, we have the opportunity to observe each other.

I apparently talk in my sleep - or at least, I make sounds as though I'm talking in my dreams, but I don't have the energy or capability to open my mouth. Last night, however, I clearly announced in a dead sleep, "I'm a Fire Controlman in the United States Navy!"

The roommate who did overhear this one was entertained and puzzled. She's the only one of the three of us who IS an FC - they're kind of the buddy program to ETs. I'm puzzled, because I have no idea what I was doing in my dream that I needed to specify that.

...especially the "United States" bit. Was this an international altercation? I'm thinking I had to justify why I was qualified to fix something and save the day (or night, in this case), but I don't remember dreaming about ANYTHING like that.

At least this time it was just perplexing. Past nocturnal announcements have been downright embarassing.

Fire Standard

Standard I've held since Camp: If I haven't lost a kid and nothing's on fire, it's a good day.

This is mostly just an excuse. I never had anything catch fire at Camp, and kids don't exactly go missing, they just find themselves with another counselor without telling you. I like having good days, and most of the time people demand an explanation. "Why are you having such a good day?" is right up there with, "Why do you have skin on?" It's just how things are.

So, I tried explaining this to one of my friends who was standing ladderwell watch.
"What if something did catch fire?"
"Is it out yet?"
"Yessss..."
"Then it's a GREAT day! We put the fire out!"
Thinks this over. "What if it isn't?"
"Then the day's not over yet."

Same thing with the kid. If anyone's missing, your day's not over until they're found, so you don't worry about labeling it at that point.

Tonight, I'm handing off the soundboard at Chapel to another guy - he's an EOD, different training schedule than ETs, so he's more available than I am. We spend about half an hour running over the basics, and then I go putter around with a few unrelated things in the office before returning and watching him for a bit.
"I'm going to head out. You know who to talk to if anything catches fire."
Glances around the room, looks at me. "The fire extinguisher."
Big grin.

I love EODs, just for their practicality. Anyone ELSE would tell me who you're supposed to report it to, but, really now, put it out first, THEN report it.

Anyway, I apologize for all of the crankiness lately. I am very tired, yes, but really, I'm actually still feeling happy most of the time. It's still a good day.

Voice Patterns

"Whoa. You...you just said that in your sexy voice."
Dead glare. "That's not my sexy voice. That's my you-just-got-me-out-of-bed-at-some-ungodly-hour-and-I-just-might-murder-you voice."
"Well, THAT'S sexy."
-late night, they decided to pull me to stand a watch when I was already asleep. This actually happens a lot, but my voice is often very low when I've been sleeping, and while the sudden wakeup does dump enough adrenaline into my system that I'm visibly shaking, it doesn't raise the pitch at all, just makes it more snarly.

I suppose I forgot to explain before, WHY I'm so sleep-deprived right now. Hopefully that clears it up.

Rest Easy Now

In the Fleet, depending on your command, you may have what's referred to as a 19-4 schedule. For an entire deployment.

This is rather ghastly in my opinion. Not that I mind working all the time when I'm awake, but that business of four hours a "night" makes me shudder. (You sleep when they tell you it's time to sleep. Your rest time could be from 1100 to 1500.) I desperately assume that your body adjusts to the weirdness, and hopefully soon. Mine hasn't yet, and I'm still getting six hours a night most nights. Seven is really nice, eight is wonderful. Eight only happens on Saturdays when I'm off duty.

It's possible to live off of micronaps. Very high stress, your body will reject almost everything you try to put into it (including light and possibly air), and you're going to be temporarily insane, but you can live through it, and recover later. What's been proven scientifically impossible, apparently, is complete sleep deprivation. If you're not permitted even the micronaps, your body will be able to sustain for about a week and a half. Before Day 12, your heart will stop. Just can't keep up - sleep is the time for all the little workers to run around and do repair and maintenance while the system's down.

So, it could be a lot worse than the present symptoms. They're interesting, though. Hierarchy of needs in action some days - I can get up and work because I need to, but I can't eat. Just not enough sleep. That's rare, though - the appetite vanishing is more of a stress thing than anything else. Your muscles hang off you a little differently, too. Skin hurts. That's a new one. The dermis aches, and the epidermis stings. Actually, feels almost exactly the way it did when we all got tear-gassed.

But the dreams, man, the dreams! I have amazing dreams at night. And I love the way falling asleep feels, when you actually get there. I didn't realize before this that you could feel "when" you were asleep. Actually, when you're asleep, it feels like everything's okay. The stress lifts, there's a distance between you and what's going on and everything you have to take care of, and you forget how much things are screwed up in your body and remember your body the way it's SUPPOSED to be. Maybe that's why I couldn't read it before.

I actually fall asleep now by dreaming about sleeping at home. On the couch in the living room, with a book forgotten in my hands and flopped down on my chest. Or out cold in the family room in the wee hours of the morning - I sleep there when my room's not an option for one reason or another, and there's something kinda cool in the atmosphere out there when the house is asleep. My room is my lair, kind of, and it's so strange to dream about a bed and space that are "mine" as much as that space is. I don't think about that one very much, because it feels too good, and it's hard to come back to here.

Obscurely, my sister's room is where I best DEEP sleep. I don't know what it is, but if I go to sleep in there, I am OUT, and usually for a lot longer than I normally would.

Anyway, I'm on duty today.

"I Got A Nickel!!"

The problem with gaining some solid perspective on the things we previously feared seems to be that fear is one of the greatest motivators of our lives. Take away that fear, and in its absence, I seem to float in a sort of complacent zero-gravity. When you figure out that you actually CAN deal with just about anything, the stick-shaking consequences don't carry as much weight. You have to actually pursue what's good, because you're no longer concerned about fleeing from what's bad.

Dangerous, dangerous. We're not made to sit still.

----

On a completely unrelated note, I was standing as the Petty Officer of the Watch for four hours on our quarterdeck. The Messenger of the Watch stands next to me - he's responsible for doing whatever running-around needs to be done in those four hours. I'm responsible for everything that's not supposed to happen on the quarterdeck.

During long watches, you find little things to amuse yourself. I don't know how well this would fly on a ship; I'm not there yet. Here, you'll often come in late at night to find the Watch playing The Name Game or something equivalent. Everyone has something. We do our job whenever people come by, but when you're faced with a good three hours of studying the opposite wall, you'll naturally begin to play with something. I like Sudoku, personally. This time around, the Messenger decided that he was going to ask for a quarter. From every person who passed by.

The splendid thing about asking for a quarter is that it gives the impression that you're very close to whatever it is you wanted out of the vending machine. So, even if someone doesn't have a quarter, they might still give you whatever other small coins are to be found in their pockets. He ended up getting three bottles of pop over the course of that watch, plus some 96 cents.

We stand between two flags - the National Ensign and the ship's flag. The USS Franklin was hit during the Battle of Coral Sea by two kamikaze pilots, killing over 900 sailors, but she still made it back to port; she's known as "The Ship That Wouldn't Die." The flag commemorates this incident. All of the barracks are named for ships that served well in battle.

I came back just as two Rovers from the Bonhomme Richard were walking off with our ship's flag neatly rolled. I raised a questioning eyebrow at the Messenger and he just assured me, "It's cool, they're from the Bonhomme Richard." Right. This explains nothing. All right.

Later, the watchbill coordinator came by and noticed the conspicuous absence (unsurprising - it's eight feet tall and a very strong blue), and demanded to know where the ship's flag was. I explained, "The Bonhomme Richard, ask the Messenger." Visibly agitated, she turned to the Messenger, just coming around the corner from some other task.

"The Bonhomme Richard stole our flag?!"
Not hearing her, he cheerfully announced, "I got a nickel!"

This unfortunate timing led to a swift-spreading rumor in the barracks that the Messenger of the Watch had given the Bonhomme Richard our ship's flag for a nickel. While it later transpired that the B.R. had been given the task of collecting all of the ship's flags for a parade that was to take place the next day, we're still hearing some echoes of it.