General Musings | [ getting back to life ]

The longer I delay in writing, the more difficult it becomes to find the words. After a month-long hiatus from the keyboard, I’ve found myself with plenty of time, and a severe case of writer’s block.

So let’s start fresh, for now, with the basics.

I am on a flight traveling from McCGuire AFB, New Jersey to McChord AFB, Washington. There are twenty seven of us aboard this C-17 aircraft: five crew members, twenty four adults, and four children. Most of us arrived in the McGuire Passenger Terminal somewhere between the last 24 and 48 hours. We are the lucky ones who got out, simply by virtue of our desired destination; had we been traveling eastward to Germany, we would doubtless still be sleeping next to the dozens of other travelers still stuck in New Jersey, some of whom have been there for thirteen days.

I have a migrane that refuses to quit, and nothing to subdue it. My bottle of Excedrine Migrane, while faithful in the past, refuses to assist.

I recently applied for and was offered a military credit card. I promptly used that credit to purchase a $2,000 laptop. I abate this temptation secure in the knowledge my interest rate will not exceed 9.9%, and I am only required to pay $11 / month to maintain a healthy and positive account. I promised Frugal Wife I wouldn’t go crazy with the card, given my rough past, but after spending $600 on a budget ultra-portable laptop and realizing it is the most dismally performing machine I have ever owned, I decided to make the switch. I had been wanting to for years, but again, at $11 / month, who am I to deny myself this guilty pleasure?

So far I am completely in love with this machine. It is dead sexy, stupid fast, and chock full of *everything* I want to do. Writing, photography and music are absolutely painless (except I am GarageBand retarded at the moment).

I haven’t told Suspicious Wife about the purchase yet, but I hope she understands (though, what is there to understand, really? My own selfish desires? She’s already markedly familiar with those.).

We are nearing our final approach location and I will soon be picking up a rental car for one day. I plan to spend as much of that day as possible re-discovering the stomping grounds of my youth. I was born an hour outside McChord AFB, and I have not been there in over fifteen years. I can’t say I have any friends in the area to speak of, all are long lost over time. My paternal grandfather lives in an assisted living home in the area, and I would sincerely like to say hello.

Other than the random chance I will run into someone I knew twenty years ago, I’d say it’s a good bet I’ll spend most of my time driving around and recalling the time I broke my arm here, or wrecked my bicycle there, or set fire to a forest just over there, or chopped off my friend’s toe back there ….

Quick entertainment update: on the flight from Hawaii to New Jersey with lilE, we watched The Spiderwick Chronicles. After parting ways, I have watched five episodes of The Office (season two), the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, Getaway in Stockholm I, Thumb Wars, and Freedom Downtime: The Kevin Mitnick Story. Tonight, I’m thinking Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and sleeping in the rental car).

That’s all for now, the Final Approach approacheth.

—-

Ok, several hours later I am at a Starbucks in Tacoma, and my three-day migrane is kicking strong.

After arriving at McChord, I called Enterprise for a ride, and ate two donuts and a package of Peeps while I waited. I was kind enough to offer a woman and her infant a ride to the airport, only to retract the favor after getting slammed in rush hour traffic both to and from Enterprise. She took her previously arranged shuttle.

Well fed, and with Dodge Avenger in hand, I headed west.

Getting from Tacoma to Silverdale is a simple matter of following three roads for thirty-some miles. The day was getting on, and I feared I’d lose all daylight before finding anything familiar. In fact, I had over two hours of overcast sunshine left. Unfortunately for me, for the first time in my life, I decided not to bring the camera. Fortunately my cell camera doesn’t suck *too* much.

As I exited the highway and entered Silverdale city limits, I saw an intersection I had not seen in nearly twenty years. I immediately knew exactly where I was, and a strange sinking hit my stomach as a decade of childhood nostalgia hit me all at once.

I turned right on Chico Way, and drove slowly along, determined to recognize my grandparents’ house. I passed it twice before recognizing it. My grandfather has not lived there in years, and the house and yard are in disarray. Even so, memories of rock candy, Skip-Bo, Texas Instruments “video games”, picking raspberries, and skipping rocks in the harbor came to me, as shiny and new as they ever were.

I called my dad a few times, hoping to find the address of the home my grandfather is now in. After bouncing around a handful of voicemail messages, I gave up, and headed further into town.

I approached the first traffic light, and instinctively turned on my right turn indicator, only half thinking I knew where I was going. Down the hill and a few blocks on the right, I again turned, my soul apparently well aware of where we were headed. I found myself at Silverdale Waterfront Park, an old favorite playground, and where I broke my wrist after slipping off an unsteady monkey bar. It was my first broken bone. The monkey bars are now coated in a space-age polymer, and each bar is welded to the frame. The floor of the play area feels like you’re walking on a nice, firm mattress. When I was a kid, the bars were free-spinning rusted steel, which caused me to slip onto the concrete beneath me and break my wrist. As Wil Wheaton would say, “FUCKING HARD CORE.”

On my way out of the park, I noticed a sign I don’t recall seeing in my youth. Something about a “sewage spill” and “do not harvest seafood” and some such thing. Gross.

Leaving the park and continuing down the main drag, I spotted several familiar landmarks: the auto parts store my dad religiously frequented; the Circle K market at the intersection, the Pietro’s Pizza where I had all of my birthd—wait, what the hell?! King’s Wok Buffet?! That’s Pietro’s Pizza, you son of a bitch! How dare the town change in the twenty one years I’ve been away.

—-

Again, this was written several weeks ago, and is just now being finished. Awesome Wife was dismayed when I revealed to her how much I spent on my laptop, but was instantly undismayed when she discovered it was a Mac. Man she is made of so much awesome.

Regarding the trip, I did, indeed, get to spend some time with my grandfather, and even spent the night with my aunt and uncle.

In all it was quite a surreal trip, and I’m almost glad I didn’t have my camera. Being all grown up made me feel a bit sad for a while there. I felt terribly out of place, and everything was far too small. I very much prefer to remember the home of my youth as it was, not as it is.

The following entry was written on September 13th. Incidentally, I was sick for eleven days before seeing a doctor, being told I had strep, prescribed Penicillin, which I took for ten days, with no effect, before taking some of bigR’s amoxicillin and feeling just fine after 24 hours on bubble gum flavored medicine. (I just secretly entered the World’s Worst Sentence competition. WIN!)

///

It was my intention to write a brief and bitchy rant about the inequality of the term “sleeping in”, as defined by Tracy and myself. But then this is how the day ended up:

1:30 AM: Sleep
6:30 AM: Wake with childrens
9:30 AM: Sleep on futon
12:30 PM: Wake and have lunch
2:00 PM: Nap with bigR
5:00 PM: Wake and have dinner
9:00 PM: Sleep

Which brings us to today:

5:00 AM: Wake and call work to “remind” them of my early morning appointment
5:05 AM: Sleep
8:00 AM: Wake and leave for 9:30 AM appointment

Which brings us to right now.

I still pretty much feel like ass, so you doctors claiming all anyone needs is a tall glass of water and plenty of rest can go shove it! I’ve been sick for nine days now, dammit!