Kindergarten for Grownups
I miss grass.
I explored the mall this weekend and, crossing some streets, came across some grass that I tiptoed through with glee. Grass! Thick, crisp, well-cropped thistles of nature tickling my toes through my sandals.
In the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact", where Americans and Soviet bastards team up to fly an eight-month trek to Jupiter, one of the scientists aboard comments about how he misses the color green.
My apartment is all whites and silvers, the town cold cement and industrial asphalt. I need to find a park or buy a plant or, as My Pregnant Wife would say, eat some vegetables.
...the Jupiter guys also missed hot dogs.
There were 245 of us in our blue uniforms in the hospital auditorium this morning (+3 Navy guys, 1 Marine, and 1 Air Force guy who didn't get the memo and showed up in his flight suit) for our mass in-processing briefs. Not only did the hospital collect our records, but we also received mandatory annual Alcohol/Drug Awareness and Equal Opportunity/Sexual Harrassment briefings. During the latter, the presenter mentioned a time when a base newspaper had been published with an article about transportation, with a seemingly harmless photo of a guy in a garage looking into a hood of his car. But someone had complained to the commander because, on the wall in the background of the photo, hung a calendar.
"And guess what was on that calendar?" he asked.
Silence.
I had to offer something:
"...kittens?"
Because it wouldn't be me if I were in a new place and someone hadn't called me a smartass by day 3.
The afternoon consisted of mulling around in long (1hr+) lines to turn in and pick up paperwork, with forced introductions to the people standing close by. Hopefully Pam and Chris will be my new best friends. The good news was that the 100 or so of us in the Management program (soon to be renamed as "Strategic Leadership"!! Take that, Donald Trump!) have been pre-deemed sufficiently unintelligent enough to not have to take the 3-hr math exam tomorrow, so if I didn't have a car to move/a meter to feed by 8 am, I could sleep the hell in.
My comfortable married pattern of living has quickly evaporated, as I don't know what to do without a wife. My average bed time the last week has been somewhere between 12 and 1am. Last night was an early 10:55. And I don't even have cable yet. It's just me getting the apartment situated and playing the guitar and reading.
Did you know right now my baby's sebaceous glands are producing sebum which mixes with skin cells to form the vernix?
I explored the mall this weekend and, crossing some streets, came across some grass that I tiptoed through with glee. Grass! Thick, crisp, well-cropped thistles of nature tickling my toes through my sandals.
In the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact", where Americans and Soviet bastards team up to fly an eight-month trek to Jupiter, one of the scientists aboard comments about how he misses the color green.
My apartment is all whites and silvers, the town cold cement and industrial asphalt. I need to find a park or buy a plant or, as My Pregnant Wife would say, eat some vegetables.
...the Jupiter guys also missed hot dogs.
There were 245 of us in our blue uniforms in the hospital auditorium this morning (+3 Navy guys, 1 Marine, and 1 Air Force guy who didn't get the memo and showed up in his flight suit) for our mass in-processing briefs. Not only did the hospital collect our records, but we also received mandatory annual Alcohol/Drug Awareness and Equal Opportunity/Sexual Harrassment briefings. During the latter, the presenter mentioned a time when a base newspaper had been published with an article about transportation, with a seemingly harmless photo of a guy in a garage looking into a hood of his car. But someone had complained to the commander because, on the wall in the background of the photo, hung a calendar.
"And guess what was on that calendar?" he asked.
Silence.
I had to offer something:
"...kittens?"
Because it wouldn't be me if I were in a new place and someone hadn't called me a smartass by day 3.
The afternoon consisted of mulling around in long (1hr+) lines to turn in and pick up paperwork, with forced introductions to the people standing close by. Hopefully Pam and Chris will be my new best friends. The good news was that the 100 or so of us in the Management program (soon to be renamed as "Strategic Leadership"!! Take that, Donald Trump!) have been pre-deemed sufficiently unintelligent enough to not have to take the 3-hr math exam tomorrow, so if I didn't have a car to move/a meter to feed by 8 am, I could sleep the hell in.
My comfortable married pattern of living has quickly evaporated, as I don't know what to do without a wife. My average bed time the last week has been somewhere between 12 and 1am. Last night was an early 10:55. And I don't even have cable yet. It's just me getting the apartment situated and playing the guitar and reading.
Did you know right now my baby's sebaceous glands are producing sebum which mixes with skin cells to form the vernix?
posted by Dan at 10:22 PM
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