On Religion and Partisans (Part One)

So, I'm working on a class project about the partisan movements of the Baltic countries during and directly after WWII. It's both fascinating and incredibly depressing. Many (but not all) of the people I'm reading about had a deep and abiding love of their country, despite the incredible dangers and hardships they faced. Not all of them shared the same ideas as to how things should be done. The best of them protected their weaker neighbours and harassed the enemy invaders of both sides who tried to eradicate them at every turn. The worst of them were violent and sometimes bigoted individuals who shot whoever they felt like or didn't like under the auspices of patriotism or while collaborating with the occupiers dejour. The best and the worst are worlds apart, yet they both get considered as partisans by the outside world. And now I'm going to make an imperfect analogy, but one that feels very natural to me. When I was ten, my parents started attending the Tridentine Mass. I will be the first to admit that ten-year-old me did not appreciate it as much as I perhaps ought to have. At the very beginning, I was actively hostile to the idea, insofar as a ten year old could be actively hostile. I didn't want to go. It took forever, it was in Foreign, it did not feel the least bit edifying and the old ladies pinched my cheeks. After Mass, there were sometimes, but not always, social gatherings in the parish hall. And these were more interesting to ten year old me, because they were in English, for one. And for two, the people at these social gatherings were always interesting. They were mostly older, some the terrifying old ladies who pinched my cheeks, some the cranky grandfatherly type, some people my parents' age who always seemed a bit peculiar, a handful of older teens, most of whom didn't ever stay very long or talk to ten year old me. But there were books to read, some of a 'usually out of print' nature and some of an 'out of print for a good reason' nature. These books intrigued ten year old me at least a little bit and I read some of them and I listened to the conversations of various grownups. From these books and from those conversations I came to the following nearly inescapable conclusions: 1. Once upon a time, this is what everyone did. Everyone prayed in Foreign and went to the church hall to speak in Local (and sometimes the Other Foreign, as appropriate to the ethnicity of the majority of the congregation). 2. Something Bad Happened in the 60s and everyone stopped doing what they had been doing. 3. Those who objected were ruthlessly kicked out of their home parishes which were then wreckovated to oblivion. Many of them were forced to attend Masses in hotel conference rooms, without the knowledge of their bishops, who were almost universally Bad Guys, or if not bad, then intimidated by pant-suit wearing nuns. 4. We, the attendees of this liturgy, were a small group of faithful people who were going against the larger group of people who had either tamely accepted everything the bishops had said and done as Word of God, or had left the church for various Protestant denominations. From ages 10 through about 14 these ideas merely percolated. I still didn't particularly like the TLM, but the thoughts were there. Around age 14, I started to feel that even though I didn't _like_ the TLM, it was more spiritually beneficial for me to attend it. At age 16, I read the Silmarillion, which made a profound impression on me and to this day I don't know exactly how my brain tied the Silmarillion and the TLM together but it did. I actually started to enjoy attending and tried to puzzle out the Latin with varying degrees of success. Around 16 or 17, I started flirting with the ideas of sedevacantism, a sort of back-burner thought process that continued up through freshman year of college. To Be Continued...

Cheap Historical Reenactment

(Written in the Atlanta airport after a half-day of braindraining classes and barely edited, so you can't say you weren't warned...)

So you want to be a reenactor, but don’t want to spend a lot of money on your outfit or equipment, or worry that you can’t get the look right? I have discovered an awesome budget option! In a few easy steps, you too can re-enact!
Step One- Go to the thrift store to find your outfit. Find a cheap, badly-made suit in a dark colour and clunky, uncomfortable looking shoes. If you’re feeling more blue-collar, find coveralls or very well-used jeans and a denim jacket. Make sure everything you’re wearing is either two sizes too big or two sizes too small.
Step Two- Men: Grow some facial hair. Women: Wear either no makeup at all or something that does not go with your complexion.
Step Three- Stand in line at airport security in Atlanta, keeping a tight hold on your ID and boarding pass. Wait, wait, and wait some more. Get harangued by a security guard for the very-nearly-capital-offense of sneezing but watch someone else cut through three lines of people with no consequences. Hear everyone around you talk about how 1. It could be worse and 2. They feel safer even if this extra screening is a little annoying.
Step Four- Despite all your careful packing/forethought either get pulled out of line for extra-personal screening or have your bag opened and your life analysed by someone who is convinced that you are an enemy of the state.
Step Five- Declare loudly that you too, feel very safe because of all this extra screening which is sure to stop those who wish to do our glorious country harm. Address the screeners as ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ at every possible opportunity and thank them for the work they do keeping us safe.
Step Six- Get where you’re going and unpack the luggage you weren’t allowed to lock. Discover stuff is missing. Profess horror or irritation but no shock at the loss.
Congrats! You’ve re-enacted life as a citizen of a police state! Depending on how much time and effort you put in to your thrift-store costume you can be from any time between 1940-1990 in one of many different countries!

***
I thought of some more stuff to put in there too but the time has passed and I'm just going to leave it as is...

Rant Warning

Maybe I should give up FB…
So this was going to start out as an injunction to others to be careful what they post on FB, and not just in the mundane security senses ie, never post “I’m going on vacation for the next three weeks and I’m leaving the key under the mat so that the person who waters my exotic plants and feeds my expensive cat can get in” unless you want someone to nick both your plants and the cat… and the more I started thinking the more I began to think that maybe the problem wasn’t the other people it was me. Or FB. Or something. Probably mainly me and a bit FB too.
On a tangentially related topic- related because I saw it on FB- I followed a link from a FB-friend to an article talking about how even nominal Christians were engaging in premarital ‘relations’ at a rate pretty much on par with their secular counterparts of the same age and gender. What my FB-friend had commented on it (on FB not on the post which had a hilariously flame-filled comments section btw) was ‘Get married earlier. Seriously. What’s the worst that could happen, you’d be poor?’ I felt as though someone had prodded me in the stomach with the ‘it’s-all-your-fault-western-civilization-is-failing’ stick…

What.

The.

Hell.

Really?? Obviously, that’s the answer, get married younger! You! Lovey-dovey young people! Get your rears in gear and get yourselves properly wedded! Quick! Better to marry than to burn! You must be afraid of poverty but DON’T worry, God will provide! And if He doesn’t at least there’s WIC so you won’t starve!

The fb-friend in question is someone I’ve never met in real life. She’s married to a guy I went to college with. I felt like posting back words to the effect of “I’d love to get married but I’m just not as fortunate at getting a guy as you are, Mrs. Jones.”

One of her other friends shortly thereafter did post something like ‘Takes two to tango’ and I had to like that instead of posting what I wanted to…

I would _happily_ have accepted poverty, a crappy place to live, no car and a stack of student loans if it meant marrying Mr. RightForMe (Writing it all down like that though looks a bit wrong-headed…). Unfortunately he hasn’t turned up yet and I am assuming he must either be somewhere with lousy GPS reception or he’s got his map the wrong way around… so until he does show up, I will *gaspshockhorror* have to manage on my own. Which, by the way, means having student loans steadily getting paid off, living in a decent place and working a decent job which is practically a vocation. I’m getting debt-free and sorting my life out. There are worse places and ways to do it than this.

It was a kind of flippant comment for the woman in question to make but she underlined it by saying ‘no seriously’… seriously… Okay lady. Seriously. You go out there and find some eligible guys for me, club them over the head a few times and convince them that they have to marry me in order to save western civilization... Because I’m not going to be chasing anyone. Goes against my everything.

Oh, and I read the linked article, I found it hilarious in its unimaginativeness. There was a line in there that said something about ‘People waiting into their twenties and thirties- what do we tell them, keep waiting?’… Duh.
Ooh…and my other favourite line was a quote from a subject matter expert who was talking about how in biblical times people married young and didn’t really play the field prior to marriage due to that.

So…marry young hm? Setting aside for a moment the (for some poor unfortunates) insurmountable obstacle of NOT KNOWING MR/MS RIGHT, at what age should people be getting married?

And this is what really gets under my skin and burrows around like a creepy horrible bug… This line of thought ‘Better to marry than to burn, quick marry ‘em off before they disgrace themselves/us’ is unpleasantly familiar sounding. Now where have I heard that before? Oh right. From crazed ayatollahs. From people who say it’s okay to marry an eight year old as long as you promise not to consummate the marriage until she’s 12….

Now, no Christians would do something crazy like that, right? … Right? …

I feel as though there is a distant but shrill and hysterical chorus of people chanting an angry chant at ‘heretical’ successful young single women of the faith. “Misguided Women with Feminist Leanings! Marriage and babies! Western Civilisation depends on YOU! Marriage and babies! Repent and be married and have lots of babies!”
Not quite as distant/shrill/hysterical is the burbling of newly-marrieds “We’re pregnant! Life is awesome when you’re married! We’re awesome and happily married! Did we mention we’re pregnant? Life! Maternity! We’re pregnant again!”

And realistically I know that these women are artfully leaving out the messy/squick moments of marriage/pregnancy/childrearing. And I know that. But they are in the enviable position where the segments of society that we actually care about- ie friends/family/Church-at-Large approve of them. The working single women are looked upon by the same segments as a bit unfortunate and secular coworkers are apt to mistake ‘doesn’t do casual relationships’ for ‘never gets out and don’t bother trying to get to know her’.

Marginalized by one and ignored by the other. Lovely.

Thankfully I know some sane marrieds with sweet kid/s and they are awesome. There aren’t as many of them as there are of the other type, but nonetheless, they are awesome.

End Rant...

So, me not posting anything for a long time isn't AT ALL unusual, although I have a rather better than usual excuse for this particular six months of absolutely nothing on this blog. And I was going to write this awesome post because I just got inspired standing in line at Panera but unfortunately I didn't manage to pack MacAlister's powercord... go me... I packed _sunscreen_ and not the power cord. But seriously if it's the only thing I forget this weekend, I'm doing pretty darn outstanding!

So right, inspiration in line at Panera. A post elsewhere entitled 'Can't Even Go to the Park' by a homeschooling mom talking about PDA in the park has been ticking over in the back of my brain. I was trying to think of where I was on the spectrum. I don't have kids yet so obviously my POV on PDA levels is quite different. And the PDA I couldn't help but see in line at Panera was obviously het. It still made me throw up in my mouth a little, which, right before a good meal is seriously suboptimal.

It wasn't gropey making-out or anything terribly obnoxious but it still provoked a reaction from me. It was hand holding, body holding, hand kissing, shoulder-kissing(??) and it made me think about what was and what wasn't acceptable PDA in public. Prior to this evening I had thought that I was pretty much okay with everything up to kissing in public. A peck on the cheek, okay. And these were just pecks but there were a LOT of them. And before I get any accusations of being some kind of voyuer I will repeat, I really couldn't help but see them. I did eventually stare at the sign over their head and roll my eyes theatrically. I did manage to stop myself from sighing audibly but it was a near run thing.

I realise acceptable PDA levels are different in different cultures, but sometimes I think it's just incredibly insensitive of couples to be so wrapped up in themselves and expressing their LURVE for each other at all times and in all places. I'm starting to think I've been in uniform for too long- if you SHOULDN'T do it in uniform you probably SHOULDN'T do it in public at all....

And on that, note that I said 'shouldn't' not 'can't' because I realise there are dumb people out there who 'do' anyway... and at least in my tiny corner of the world they can get masted for it.

Am I an evil grumpy single? Yup. Don't inflict your coupleness on the world, couples of the world!

(Sidenote: Would I be happy in an Islamic theocracy that prohibits PDA on pain of pain? Hell no. Because I believe that being able to choose to do the right thing is far superior to being FORCED to do the right thing...)
(Additional sidenote- link to the homeschooling mom's post will be provided at a later date and time when I have a powercord...)
Dedicated to: The couple in front of me in line at Panera that I will quite likely never, ever see again.
Coming soon! Catholic-bashing conversation overheard at Panera! Praying for infidels instead of overturning their soup bowls on their heads! (Why is it that the correct thing and the thing that would be entertaining are rarely the same?)

Merry-Christmas-and-Happy-Feast-of-St-Steven-the-Protomartyr!

There, now I'm not behind! Hurrah!
So what can I write about that hasn't been written about regarding Christmas? Pretty much nothing. So, in the absence of new subject material, I will go after some older material, after I air one grievance-
The lyrics of 'In Dulci Jubilo' are FAR superior to 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice'. It is NOT 'hard Latin' and it has substance, where 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice' is a fuzzy bit of marshmallow fluff. Only not even that because marshmallow fluff is kind of tasty (while being simultaneously disgusting- think of how much sugar that is!!). I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that lame hymns are a contributing factor to people leaving the church. Why? Because I've found people remember bits of songs far more easily than say, the Eucharistic prayers. I've found myself randomly humming bits of the Divine Liturgy and I've quoted parts of it (sometimes while singing it) to people who ask me about 'my faith and what it means to me'. If you have good solid doctrine in your hymns and not just fluff, people may find it easier to understand aspects of their faith. What a thought, right?
Okay, rant over. Promise.
So Christmas in the vicinity of Ft. SINYF. It's SNOWING! What the heck? Not complaining, just shocked! I thought it wasn't supposed to snow here! The locals seem for the most part to have taken the smart course of action for them which is to stay indoors and cower. This strange precipitation from the sky might be a harbinger of nuclear winter or something. I mean, it's sooo weird... It's like rain but not!
Seriously people? It's not even accumulating. You don't get to complain about snow unless there's two feet of it outside, you are completely snowed in with intermittent power, and your mom decides to make 'colonial herb bread' with the last of the food in the pantry. Then and only then may you complain that said bread tastes like sand and was probably the sole reason for a high mortality rate in the colonies.
Yesterday and Christmas Eve, I had people over for food/games/socializing. The food was good if I do say so myself as the person who bought and prepared almost all of it. The exception was a strange sort of salmon quiche made by one of my guests with the salmon I bought but didn't have time to prepare. The rest of said salmon will probably be my dinner tonight. Yum!
So what else... we played a rather outdated game of Outburst which was still fun, even though we had to remove from play cards like "Famous Baseball Pitchers 1960-1990", and "College Football Team Nicknames". This second was more due to the guests than the age of the game. On the whole, we are not sports fans. That would be far, far too normal. What is normal anyway? Why should I care about sports? I don't know any of the athletes personally. I feel a sort of... not quite patriotism, but I guess a sort of back-yard nationalism... ooh that sound bad too. Um... micronation-sentimentality... No, that won't do either. Regional pride sounds daft. Er...
You know, that feeling about a geographic region that you either currently inhabit or have inhabited or have relatives from, that you feel a sort of fondness for. You'd like to go back and vacation there, maybe even live there, but you can't say truthfully that you're FROM there. Whatever.
Anyway. When did this get to be about sports? Sorry... back to party stuff. I think everyone had a good time. I'm not much for hosting parties. I mean, there was a housewarming party ages ago, and then this. And I forgot so many things that I meant to do or get before it started. Planning a party is complicated. I think it requires more free time and energy than I actually had. But all things considered, it was not bad. I think people enjoyed themselves and that's really the main thing.
All right, now I'll turn to a more serious thing. Today is the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, and according to the New Rite, also the feast of the Holy Family, more on that later.
St. Stephen was the first martyr, hence the title protomartyr. It struck me today that this is pretty interesting. I mean, there were twelve apostles and St. Stephen was 'just' a deacon. You'd think that one of the apostles would be the protomartyr- maybe St. Peter because he had a history of doing rash things (hacking off an ear?) and saying rash things ("I'll never deny you!"). You could just picture St. Peter saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the right time and getting martyred for it. But it was this other guy, St. Stephen instead. So what do we know about him? Not a whole lot, I don't think. He understood that Jesus was the son of God, he was a deacon, he was tried by the Jewish religious court and sentenced to death for blasphemy ("God forbid that God should have a son..."). St. Paul acted as a coat-stand at his martyrdom, not actually getting his hands dirty in this instance but complicit. Did the memories of that stoning come back to haunt him during his conversion experience? Did St. Paul's temporarily sightless eyes see a young man dying a terrible death for the truth?
Looking a little further ahead on the calendar, we can see the feast of Holy Innocents. I love to think of them as Jesus's honor guard, his _comitatus_ (the Old English sense of the word, nothing to do with Hungarian counties or Bulgarian administrative units).

People want to celebrate the joy of Christmas and Christ's birth, but if you leaf ahead a little, as it were, you can see that it's not going to be all eggnog and presents. It's going to get very, very bad. Innocent people will die for the crimes of existing and telling the truth. But when it's bad, think about Christmas and Christ's birth. He was the only one who was ever born to die, to set us free, to open the gates of Heaven for us. With Him, our suffering and even our deaths will not be in vain.

NB: Yes, I know, some people move St. Stephen's feast to the 27th. I still say it's the 26th, because I think Boxing Day is lame. All right?

Additional NB: Perhaps this should have been several posts instead of one large post? Thoughts?

DADT Repeal: Rant

So much to say, so little inclination to actually write....argh. Okay, here goes...

Regarding DADT, its recent repeal and the implications of aforementioned repeal

I wish I could give some people at the highest levels of my chain of command a small piece of my mind. I wish I could give them a deck-plate view (I used deck-plate therefore I am steeped in Navy traditions..), but they clearly aren't interested in getting it. Not once in all the media hype and coverage surrounding this 'historic' event that I have seen, has anyone interviewed a literate, currently-serving member of the armed forces who is opposed to the repeal of DADT.
On the whole, the armed forces have been portrayed as anywhere from apathetic to whole-heartedly enthusiastic about an instant repeal of DADT...
To my fellow servicemembers who approve of the repeal: think of the GMTs, people. If NOTHING else, think of the hours of your life that you will never get back doing GMTs (sensitivity training/annual training/'awareness' training for you civilian readers). Don't we already have enough GMTs to do?
If that doesn't motivate you, little will.

Here's a thought, Washington and Assorted Brass- the reason why you didn't get most of those surveys you sent out back is because the vast majority of us are too damn busy doing our jobs to fill out anything that won't directly affect our pay, housing or access to food. You think I'm joking but I'm not. If you REALLY wanted to know what everyone thought, you'd send that damn survey to every single servicemember out there and make it MANDATORY to return it. 100% contact. We do that with NMCRS donation forms every year. It can be done. You won't do it though, because the news will be depressing. I heard somewhere that about forty percent of Marines surveyed said they won't re-up. I'd say probably half that number are not in a financial position to decide that- but that their numbers will be made up for by people who haven't yet realized the full impact that the repeal of DADT will have.

Here's what I want and what I won't get- I want to get out and keep my bonus money and my GI bill because I signed up for a different Navy. People who disagree with my point of view may say "Get out, we can't get rid of your bigoted kind fast enough."
My answer? I have some very specialized skills that I'm taking with me as I leave. To train up my replacement will take you two years, minimum. My departure will impact mission readiness. But if it was free pass to get out, I know I wouldn't be the only one to take it.

But that won't happen. I'll grind my teeth and fulfill my contractual obligation. I'll be damned if I re-up though.

Now I'm done shooting my mouth off.
Bring it on.

What class today felt like

Sweaty palms, clenched toes (of all things), sloshy stomach, aching head, ringing ears, knotted chest- no deep breaths, hyper-awareness of every sound, smell of fear, stiff back and neck.
Worse than thesis semester? Yup. Worse than previous school? Yup. 4-5 weeks left to go, three tests next week? Yup.

Really, sir? Really truly?

When your SEL is giving you the hairy eyeball, there is probably a reason why. And part of that might have something to do with you saying "I will personally inspect my entire command" when said command consists of slightly over one thousand souls.
I might add that this is after said command has already been inspected by division heads. So chiefs and senior chiefs have already given up what could have been a normal morning to inspect everyone in the near dark at a different location than usual. Everyone's done this already in recent memory.
Why are we repeating this evolution?
I guess we clearly have nothing better to do than get up at oh dark thirty on the Monday after Halloween weekend to go to a place we've never been before with the rest of our department and get there an hour before he does and get heightlined by an OCD first class.
Yup.
Oh- and this isn't going to be a 'Good shoes, hm... you'll do' inspection. This is going to be a "What is your seventh general order?" inspection.
Again, really?
With all respect, the vast majority of us have been out of bootcamp for more than one year, will never stand such a watch and have our heads filled to the bursting point with other JOB RELATED bits of info that will help us carry out the mission.
Rargh.
'Cause this guy wants to make admiral. Or he hates us all or something. I mean, there were something like five DUIs right after he took command so I could see why he'd be pissy, but consider the fact that all of those people are on the way out- and we're not! We're the more-or-less good ones who can be trusted to show up for work on time, do our job and not complain until we get home.
And then he goes and does something like this....
It's just a little contrary to good order and discipline if you ask me. Which of course no one has.
Also, it doesn't say much about his faith in his department heads- doesn't he think they can be trusted to do a good job?
It's special. So very special...

A Mess of Contradictions

Because I'm human. I'm a Trad who wears pants. I'm a Gregorian chant lover who listens to metal. I'm spiritually aware enough to know that I was at the back of the line when awareness was being handed out. I'm right handed but I do random stuff left handed.

I will not be put in a box and classified according to someone else's definition of who or what I am. I will not compromise. I will not lower my standards. I will not be consumed with regret about the past or with fear about the future. I was created by a loving God Who has a good plan for me. To Him, I am beautiful and special. That should be all that I need. I will never forget my dreams, even if I have to put them aside for a while. I will strive to keep a clear head in the present and to do my job to the best of my ability at all times and in all places. I will accept my current limits and love myself while striving to improve myself. I will learn from the past, but I will not allow it to hurt me. I will seek to know God's will in my life and to carry it out.

Rant Alert

I've had a thought- not very original but here goes: "Blogger- for when your rant won't fit onto Twitter!"
I don't mean to use this place solely as a soapbox from which to complain and shout about the injustices of the world at large or my job in particular. It's just a relatively safe forum in which to do so, when I need to. So the topic of this rant is technology and chits.
In the olden days, you filled out chits by hand. For obvious reasons I'm glad we don't have to do that any more. Many trees died some pretty needless deaths as a result of that. Then we progressed to Adobe and had chits you could fill out and then print off and route to your respective people. One shot, one kill. If you forgot to put down something important, you'd have to do it all over again. Oh well. You'd use another piece of paper and deforest some more rainforest. Now, we have an improvement! It's a difficult to navigate, hella confusing, poorly laid out improvement! We all hate it! I think everyone on up to the highest levels hates this. It's as though the people who designed it never tested it, they just threw it together while drunk and at three AM and called it good!
Okay, no more ranting, end rant here.

On a more positive note, I'm getting caught up on my novel. On a less positive note, as we all start finding different extracurricular things to do, our carpool may be drifting apart. It happens. It was nice while it lasted. Who knows, it might still last a while?

Improv + packages= NOT cool...

Okay, I have to rant here because if I do it in real life it'll get messy. WTF...
I asked my parents to send me some uniform items that I had to ship to them in the messy/confused process of moving myself and all my earthly goods to Ft. SINYF. I gave them specifics- coveralls, NWUs, ballcap. Nothing more, less or other, please. Then I remembered that I still had a package I was waiting for- a small one that I'd had sent to them. It was a custom made keychain. I asked for that to be included. For some reason unbeknownst to God or man, my dad thought I needed my crocs.
Let me elaborate on these crocs. They are a hideous shade of green- like Kitchenaid green. I bought them for about five dollars when they were no longer the hip thing. I bought them not because they ever were the hip thing, but because I was going off to summer camp and needed some shower shoes. Recap: they are cheap, hideous and not-cool. Why the hell did he feel the need to add them to the package and NOT my keychain?
Noobody knows...
I'm not happy about this. I called and asked my mom if I'd mentioned crocs at any point in the list-making process and she said no, but that Dad thought that I needed them. My dad has a history of thinking I need things that I have no earthly use for. He has the best intentions but it drives me nuts when his thoughtfulness is so completely screwy. I mean, I will never forget what happened when I was in first grade.
I was not a fan of breakfast at that age, I never really had time for it, I thought. A large part of the morning was Mom running a comb through my hair to get all the knots out and braid it so I could go to school looking halfway decent. I didn't need or want breakfast. At all. I might be persuaded to eat some oatmeal but that was it. My dad was concerned.
It was a day like any other. I picked up my pink backpack with my name written on it in shaky red sharpie and headed off for school. My lunch was in my lunch box and I was a relatively happy camper. I took the bus to school, stuffing my backpack between me and the side of the bus for added comfort. I dropped said backpack a few times at school because I was a clumsy kid, and then I hung it up and forgot about it until it was time to go home. And then the most irritating kid in my class, a white-blond twerp who probably thought that 'tact' was something you used to put up posters said "Hey, your backpack pooped!"
I stared at the nasty looking brownish smear on my beautiful pink backpack and a horrible feeling filled me. Something of mine was defaced, and not by me! The injustice of it all hit me like a hammer. I'd ruined things on my own more than once. I regretted those things, I felt so miserable when that happened, but it was my fault, I'd been the sole instigator. That another person with the best of intentions but the very worst of execution had ruined one of my things brought little me perilously close to tears. I came home and yelled at my dad for ruining my backpack. Now I feel a little bit bad about that, but still kind of not. If he'd treated me like a grownup, asked me if I wanted breakfast, what I'd like for breakfast, if I minded if he packed me a breakfast, I would have told him: "I would love some awesome organic dry cereal, or maybe a granola bar. That would be very yummy. You can put it in my lunch box and I'll eat it on the bus."
But there was no asking. There was no communication there was just a perceived problem and a messy, unfortunate solution, because I was a child.
When stuff like this whole package shebang happens, I feel like a child again. And I hate it with every fiber of my being.
Update: This post was going to languish forever in my 'edit posts' page. I thought I'd overcome my baser nature and decided to give the parents a pass as they're old and senile and if you want anything done right you've got to do it yourself. I was going to do that until I opened the other bags in the package.
They sent me a Navy ballcap all right. A Navy ballcap with an elastic headband and '1-800 Navy' embroidered on the back of it. I don't remember getting it from my recruiter but it probably came in my Navy backpack that I got for free after signing up. That was the straw that pretty much broke the camel's back. We'd packed all my earthly goods into four boxes that we shipped (at their expense, so I should try very hard to be more charitable) to their house. In one of those damn boxes is my actual Navy ballcap, the one I went through Battlestations to get. I know it's not a trident. I know it could be worse- they could have mailed me my 'Recruit' ballcap. They could have... I dunno. It's just so damn frustrating. I was really looking forward to getting to wear my coveralls at long, long last, but no such damn luck. I called, ready to give them a piece of my mind, but the phone rang and rang, so I called Tbro instead and ranted to him. He told me (pretty nicely) to quit whining and that he'd call and ask them about sending me my ballcap... at this point I think I may just buy a damn command ballcap. Or forget about it until the fourday when I can go and get my damn ballcap. I just want to throw a temper tantrum. This is as close as I'll get to doing that. I desperately want to though, I'm so pissed off that I'm not sure this is going to be enough. I seriously want to go out there and start hitting things.
Oh- and one final insult. In another well-intentioned but completely stupid gesture, they sent me my purse. I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it. I have TWO damn purses out here, and none of the THREE that I have now is within the damn regs. Not a single flipping one. I've had it, I've had it, I really would like to run around screaming now. I know, I sound like a complete and total ingrate, but I don't care. I'm so sick of being treated like a child. I know, part of the way to avoid being treated like a child is to stop acting like one. I know that having the temper tantrum I want so desperately right now would be part of acting like a child. I know I need to get everything I own from their place because right now that's still a dependence on them- free storage. I just don't want to move the books! They need to stay somewhere temperate and safe. I don't know what to do. I can't have that much stuff. I know I'll be able to downsize once I get there. I'm thinking of pulling everything that I hate but have kept because of Mom or another relative and taking it to the thrift store. Get rid of the ugly, get rid of the guilt, get a good dinner afterwards. I think that's a pretty awesome plan.
I hate improv in packages.
Gentle readership, it is HIGHLY unlikely I'll ever ask you to send me random crap that I've left at your house. And honestly, since you're not family and you don't treat me like a child, if you DID send me the wrong stuff, I'd be sad, but I wouldn't be pissed like this. Honestly.
And if you ever just want to send me random stuff, that's cool too. I gladly accept books, sweets and cash. ;)

PT! Good for me! Good for you! Aaarggh....

So, I am back on a more strictly regimented PT schedule. I hasten to point out to my dear readership that I WAS going to the gym every single day in the evening and biking or elipticaling my little heart out. Every single blessed day. I was sooo good. And then I joined the Div. And suddenly my time was less my own. I expected that. I did not expect Monday morning to be the most painful run I've had in a long time. Perhaps I should have, especially since I haven't run in a while. But then, I thought why bother?

I bike my PRT. Laugh. Go ahead and get it out of your system. It's hilarious, right? That we're allowed to plop down on a bike and burn calories for 12 minutes in lieu of a run. Well, stuff you. It's a damn good work-out and it's CARDIO which is what matters. Besides, would you say the same thing about swimming? Well, probably. But I'd love to see someone get horribly shown up- 'Oh, swimming's EASY! I don't need to practice, I'll just show up and PRT!" Hehe.. You die by lap eight if you do that...
I on the other hand, can just throw myself into the pool and push out 12 laps in the required time. I've done it. I don't recommend it, and I know I could have done better if I remembered racing turns, but that's neither here nor now.

The main thing right now is this- in less than 10 weeks, I'm supposed to do my real twice-a-year PRT. Does it make ANY sense to not practice how you're going to play? No. Not really. Is there any earthly reason why I shouldn't be doing machine PT instead of this running crap? Again, no. The only thing I've heard said for running is that it builds division cohesiveness. I fail to see how that works. Yep, everyone cheers for me when I 'do my best' and drag my dying body over the line in one last, all-or-nothing sprint, but there's less cheering in the first half-mile where I'm stumbling and kicking the person behind me.... Because the slow people run up front. I hate it, I hate it, and it's not helping me.

They might say "You'll slack off." Like hell. Honestly? I have my crows. That's supposed to mean something, I thought. Means that I can handle a little extra responsibility and can be trusted not to completely screw up if left unsupervised. At least that's what I thought it meant.

Anyway. Tomorrow at oh-dark-thirty, I will probably be running. If you think of it, say a prayer.

Oh yeah, one more thing- if you want to say something clever like 'You can bike in your own time' the answer is 'No I can't. My body is all-over-agony from yesterday's PT...'