Bethany's Digital Soapbox

It's been a while...

2010-04-01T11:59:00.002-05:00

I've been too embarrassed to write. In November, I chose to leave my adorable apartment in Austin and move in with family. Our future seemed uncertain from where we stood then. Evan wanted to become a firefighter upon leaving the army but that hiring process takes approximately six months. I was applying to law schools and had no idea where or when I would be accepted. Our lives were and are very much in the air. I think we made the right decision, but it's hard when someone asks "So what are you up to?" to say "oh.. we moved back home." So I was ashamed for living with family and at the same time having the gall to be ashamed while accepting gracious, unblinking hospitality.

And then something shifted. I realized that it's nice. I realized that I like the awkward placement of chairs around a table that is only slightly too small. I like having so many people to talk to. The house we live in is spacious and while we definitely don't trip over each other, the living situation is more crowded than we are used to. People are always coming and going; I'm never quite sure how many people there are in the house at any given moment. I like the noise that gets made by so many people. I love sitting down to dinner together and hearing details of everyone's day. I like being one big family.

Evan and I are transitioning back to civilian life and it's so wonderful to have a stable base in which to do that. For the first time in years, there is no deployment hovering on the horizon. We can trust that tomorrow will probably be a lot like today. The weight that's been lifted off of us is immense, but it's also something to learn to get used to. Essentially, we have to redefine our personal definition of marriage from something that involves a lot of waiting and promising into something that is constant.

I also realized that in many, many cultures, perhaps a majority, young people live with their parents for decades. American culture is unusual in its encouragement of young adults to leave and start over in new homes of their own. Evan and I are not so strange and I shouldn't be embarrassed by something that I'm truly in love with. I think I'll be able to blog more now.

Expiration Date

2010-02-25T13:29:00.003-06:00

The monster that is The Army is thinking about releasing us from it's claws. We are begging and pleading with it. This terrible beastie might try to make us stay for another day. We, very gently, remind it that the paperwork is finished, we have all the proper signatures and The Great Green Stamp of Freedom has been obtained. It raises an eyebrow. "PLEASE!" we scream in unison. "We have given you three years and two deployments in this place. We have missed out on so much while we have been here. Please. It is one day. Please let us go; it is one day.

Paradise

2010-01-13T10:48:00.002-06:00

Evan and I arrived in Puerto Angel on Monday. To get here we had to spend six hours in a 15 passenger van. We left at 5:00 AM and the sun was just starting to rise as we began our climb into the mountains. The views were spectacularly breath taking - we saw coffee plants growing wild and other amazingly lush vegetation. To say that we feared for our lives on this trip, would be, in a word, true. The roads reminded us of the back roads through the Blue Ridge mountains between North Carolina and Tennessee, but at a much higher altitude, without guard rails and a perpetual cliff edge to one side of us. Simply put, we were scared. I tried to remind myself that the driver probably had no desire to go tumbling off a mountain and that he probably makes this drive at least twice a day. But every time I saw him cross himself, my heart rate rose. ¨Don´t ask God for help; God wants you to drive slower, buddy!¨ I felt like shouting. In the end, we arrived safely. Although, at one part during our trip, as we were getting close to Puerto Angel, we had to get out of our van, and cross a bridge by foot to meet another van on the opposite side. We didn´t understand why until we were out in the middle of it. Local villagers had shut down the bridge by placing tree trunks and cement blocks in the road in order to protest the lack of education available to their children. I know this because the girl sitting next to me on the bus was friendly and eager to practice her English on me. The protesters weren´t alone - there were Mexican soldiers, heavily armed, standing in front of them. Realizing what was happening I paused to reach for my camera in my backpack. Evan turned around, just as I was bent over it and in one movement, he put my pack back on my shoulders, then pushed me in front of him and said, ¨we´re moving!¨ rather sternly. I stuck my tongue out at him. You can all blame Evan for ruining my chances at becoming a photo journalist. (And seriously - if any of you lived in a place where your children couldn't attend school, wouldn't you be out there shutting down bridges too?) As I write this, Evan is at the computer next to me buying airline tickets so we don´t have to sit on a six-hour roller coaster back to our original departure site.

Puerto Angel is a working fishing village and a Mexican Naval base. It is tiny and quaint and the fish is really fresh. The ocean is a deep, deep blue and the waves crash loud enough to hear from our room. So far, we've visited a couple of beaches and a local lagoon that acts as a wildlife sanctuary, predominantly turtles and crocodiles. Tomorrow we´re going snorkeling and if we're lucky, we'll meet dolphins and whales.

Our hotel has a summer-camp feel to it. Our room is made from concrete and we share a bath room with other guests. There is no hot water and no air conditioning. At night, we sleep without sheets, naked under a mosquito net. We have a fan, but the net stops most of the airflow. We wake up hot and sticky and a little irritated until we stumble outside and see the ocean. It feels like paradise. We might cry when we finally have to leave.

More later.

Monte Alban

2010-01-10T19:03:00.002-06:00

The rain ended yesterday evening and although today was cloudy and cool it was warm enough to head off to Monte Alban. To get there we had to buy tickets from a bus company downtown. We were supposed to leave at 10:30, but the bus was forty minutes late. When it arrived we piled into it and covered our mouths as it belched diesel exhaust up the mountain switchbacks. The site is huge; the part available to tourists is at least one square kilometer and as we learned later, less than 10% of the ruins have been excavated. We walked around, slack-jawed with amazement for three hours.

Monte Alban was the economic, politcal and religious capitol of the Zapotec culture. In its golden age (300 - 700 AD), the population was about 40,000. It's situated on top of a mountain, surrounded by a valley which is surrounded by more mountains. Obviously, this made the city easier to defend and the choice of location was not an accident. Evan and I hired an English-speaking guide which was expensive but worth every peso because we learned an incredible amount of information in a very short time. I don't have time to write it all right now, so here are the coolest tidbits.

- The Zapotec were one of three early cultures to successfully perform brain surgery. The Mayans and the ancient Egyptians were the other two.
- Unlike most other impressive early cultures the Zapotec didn't own slaves, which means that all of their grand structures were built willingly by people who were compensated, which means that the society must have been incredibly wealthy.
- Due to their level of intellectual advancement many have theorized that they had some sort of public education system.
- There's an awful lot about them that we don't know; their written and mathematical languages remain undeciphered. There is no Rosetta Stone for Meso-America.
-The Zapotec didn't die out - their descendants are around today, although they did abandon their capitol at some point and no one knows why. There is a Zapotec language.
- We saw a tarantula! This has nothing to do with the Zapotec people, but we saw it in its natural habitat and we took pictures... with the zoom lens...

Early, (very early), tomorrow morning Evan and I are heading to Puerto Angel, which is a teeny-tiny fishing village without a single ATM, (probably not a single McDonalds, either!)

Rain and Lady Gaga

2010-01-09T13:58:00.003-06:00

Today is cold, damp and dreary. Evan and I woke up this morning, threw open the shutters and saw our ruined plans in the puddles. We were supposed to visit some ruins this afternoon but the rain made us hesitant to spend thirty minutes in the back of a pickup to get to the site. So we had breakfast, then walked to a huge outdoor market that sells a myriad of items, including ball gowns, spices, livestock, lumber, and DVDs. The only thing we couldn't find were umbrellas. Every country we've been to has had these expansive markets but Mexico is the first country where people didn't try incessantly to pull us into their shops in order to show us items in which we had no interest. As we entered the markets we both made a subconcious effort to keep our heads down and avoid eye contact but as we wandered we noticed that everyone was laid back. Eventually we started to smile at people and stop to smell the spices. People smiled back. No one tried to give us the "hard sell." Occasionally someone would try to talk to us in Spanish and all we could do was smile and shrug our shoulders. The response is always a reciprocating smile and a nod. No one repeats the same sentence with added volume. We've been here a handful of days and have encountered only polite, hospitable, beautiful people. Every time we travel Evan looks at me and says "we should become expats here! Lets just cash in our savings, get an apartment and some jobs." I always say something sarcastic like, "sure, where's the closest ATM?" But this time when Evan made the expat comment I looked him in the eyes and said "Yes. We Should."

Our hotel is across the street from an elementary school and at the moment there's some sort of fiesta taking place. We can see the pinatas from our window and we can hear the music loud and clear. Our windows thump with the bass - it seems to be a dance party of sorts. Evan is drinking coffee and reading his book next to me and we're both bouncing to the beat a bit. I love it here. We'll go to the ruins tomorrow. We can see some more museums today.

Yay For Clean Panties!

2010-01-08T11:29:00.002-06:00

Our first two days in Mexico have been pretty rough. Our flight out of Houston was delayed and we got into Veracruz close to midnight. We were tired, but we perked up a bit as soon as we stepped off the plane and breathed the balmy, salty air. We were quickly admitted through customs and then stood waiting next to the luggage carousel. The wall between us and the baggage handlers was thin and we could hear the truck pull up and the men talking as they unloaded it. Passangers grabbed their bags and one by one, started filtering out of baggage claim. After about ten minutes, the conveyor door slammed shut and we heard the baggage truck start up and drive away. Evan and I looked at each other, by now the only two people remaining next to the carousel. "That's fuckin' brutal," he said. We snagged a passing airport employee and because neither of us speaks any Spanish, Evan looked at the man, held up his arms in the universal sign of confusion, then pointed at the carousel and said "Perdido," which means "lost." The guy (who's name was Juan, we found out later), squinted at Evan and in perfect English said "Are you trying to tell me that your bags didn't make it?" We nodded. Juan whistled, "It might be a while,"he said, "we only get one flight a night."

Our Mexico trip thus began rather inauspiciously. Luckily, Juan was incredibly helpful and since we weren't planning to stay in Veracruz, he was able to rereoute our bags to Oaxaca and we picked them up from the airport this morning. Wearing the same clothes for three days was unpleasant, hence the title. But now I am sitting in our hotel's courtyard, with a rented lap top on my lap while Evan drinks local coffee (which he says is amazing) on the roof-top terrace.

We spent most of yesterday on a bus. The bus itself was very clean and comfortable and if you have more time than money in Mexico, it's an excellent way to travel. We drove over mountains that started green and lush then changed to rocky and cactus-covered, then they changed to mountains that looked like rocks stacked on top of each other with very little growing on them. I closed my eyes as our bus driver crossed the double yellow line to pass slow moving trucks on blind curves. Oaxaca is beautiful. The buildings are all brightly colored and the people are amazingly patient with our lack of Spanish. Breakfast this morning was unbelievable - I ate tortilla chips drowned in red sauce then garnished with fresh onion, farmers cheese and crema. Evan had a traditional Oaxacan dish, basically a giant tamale wrapped in a banana leaf instead of a corn husk with masa (corn dough), chicken and a dark mole sauce inside. Our lives are ruined -- we will never again be satisfied with Tex-Mex restaurants in the US.

I'll write more later - we have exploring to do.

Off We Go!

2010-01-06T18:09:00.003-06:00

I'm writing this fromt he Houston airport USO. Evan and I will be taking off to Veracruz, Mexico in a couple of hours. The original plan was to spend several days in and around Xalapa and the Emerald Coast on the Atlantic side of the country. However lousy weather has encouraged us to change our plans and tomorrow morning we'll be boarding a bus to Oaxaca, which is in the mountains near the Pacific. From there, we'll be able to see several ruins including Monte Alban, the oldest tree in the world, and maybe the adorable beach town of Puerto Angel. There should be plenty of stuff to keep us busy. For the foodies out there, Oaxacan is famous for it's mole sauces. Our tummies are rumbling already.

Evan and I packed extremely light for this trip. I brought my camera, a couple changes of clothes, sandals, toiletries, enough yarn to make a pair of socks, and nothing else. Neither of us brought our computers. I am going to make a committed effort to do a bit of blogging from internet cafes, though. Look to hear from me in a few days!

Deployment Tips

2010-01-04T13:12:00.000-06:00

I have survived three deployments and I've learned a few things along the way. A dear friend of mine is now facing a deployment of her own and I put this together partly for her, and partly for anyone else who may stumble across this blog. There is no panacea for deployments. They suck; you just have to muddle through them, but here's my advice.

1. Everyone is happier when everyone is happier. Try to present the happiest part of your days when you talk to your deployed loved one. I am not suggesting that you lie or sugar coat things. But seriously, everyone is comforted when everyone is alright.

2. Take a multi-vitamin. Depression is equal parts physical and mental. You have to take good care of yourself. If you don't - no one else will. I cannot tell you how many times I felt unhappy until I got up, went for a walk and made myself a sandwich. Doing small, simple, boring things can really make you feel better.

3. Make yourself comfortable, and I mean that in every possible sense of the word. Eat the food you like, do the activities you like, sleep in when you can, buy nice soaps and high quality chocolate. A serious source of happiness has left, you have to try and fill the void with other sources of happiness.

4. Devote more time to perfecting your hobby. If you don't have a hobby, you need one.

5. Be patient with yourself, especially in the beginning. The emotions that accompany deployment stress are very similar to grieving.* You are not going to function at full capacity. Don't be angry with yourself - that will only make it worse. You need to be on your own team. Be nice to yourself. There might be a little voice inside yourself that tells you not to be so indulgent - tell that voice to fuck itself.

6. The first six to eight weeks are brutal. You will not feel like yourself, you'll get frustrated over small, stupid things and you will nearly wreck your car at least twice. Be especially careful while driving. The same goes for the first three weeks after R&R.

7. Let people help you. If someone offers to help, take them up on it. You're going to encounter people who couldn't care less and people who want to take care of you. Avoid the people who do not care and educate them if you cannot. Reach out to the people who want to help you. You can not do this alone.

8. My grandmother had a son who fought in the Vietnam war. When she got lonely and afraid for him she played some of those big, military marches on her record player. This did not work for me, I am too cynical, but it might work for you.

9. Ban sad or depressing movies/books/poems/wallpaper. Do not watch war-movies either. Just don't. I am embarrassed to admit this, but during deployments I typically become a fan of the Die Hard movies, the Lord of the Ring trilogy and Harry Potter.

10. If you live alone, adopt a pet if you don't already have one. Coming home to another living creature is very wonderful. Knowing there is someone at home who needs you can be life-altering.

11. I strongly recommend keeping a journal. Write down how you feel. It just helps.

12. Alcohol is trouble. My problem is that it's very hard to know my limits when I'm not talking to anyone or getting up and moving around. Sometimes I would consume half a bottle of wine before knowing that I was wasted. Ergo, I don't recommend drinking by oneself. While Evan was deployed I allowed myself to drink whenever I went out with other people, unless it's just really necessary. Sometimes it's just necessary. Sometimes the best thing to do is to have several glasses of [your drink here] and go to bed early. Just don't do it every night.

13. When the military offers advice, they usually say, "find a routine." That's vague and useless. What they ought to say is that you need to have a reason to leave your home for a few hours a day, several days a week. Someone needs to expect something from you, whether it's an essay, or to read a new book, or to show up at a job or to buy a friggin' cup of coffee. You need regular, face-to-face contact with other human beings. It is crucial.

14. Sometimes you will need to cry for no real reason. Keep a package of tissues in your purse. One day, while leaving the grocery store I noticed that one of my tires was dangerously low. There were several gas stations very nearby and all I had to do was drive the car slowly, find one with an air machine and fill up the tire. It was not a big deal and if my husband had been with me at that moment nothing would have changed. But somehow, seeing and dealing with this teeny, tiny crisis on my own made me lose it. I got into my car, leaned my head against the steering wheel and sobbed. When I was done I wiped my face, then went about finding a gas station to fill up the tire and everything was fine.

15. Long absences give you a chance to examine your relationship. You will better understand all the reasons you are right for each other. This is why deployments make some relationships stronger - you know why you're in love and you understand what you need from each other and how to communicate exactly what that is. Sometimes, you can tell yourself that you are sad and lonely because you are in love, but that only works when you're in a Polyanna-sort of mood. Not all relationships survive deployments but the ones that are built on real love and acceptance and mutual respect do.

16. Some people, when they learn your spouse is deployed, will tilt their heads, nod, frown and then say "I know how you feel." If they have never been through a deployment tell them exactly where to stick that. I give you permission.

17. Sometimes the only thing to do is to get through the day and hope that tomorrow will be better. There is no tonic for these feelings. Deployments suck. Try not to take out your anger on strangers.

18. There will be times when you feel absolutely certain that your loved one will die. It will feel like a lightening bolt of intuition; it will be sharp and clear. You will just know that something terrible is going to happen. This isn't intuition. It's what happens when your mind doesn't have enough to do. Shake it off and get busy with something.

19. You may find yourself getting more worried and anxious the closer you get to the homecoming. You do not want to have come so far only to lose everything. You will have to work extra hard at staying calm. I recommend meditation or yoga.

20. This might be the most important tip -- don't get overwhelmed. Don't spend a lot of time imagining how hard all the coming months will be and try not to stare at the calendar. Live in the present - focus on today and tomorrow and remember to breathe.

*Here's the thing - deployments are essentially a grieving process that can't progress because you have to maintain an emotional space for your loved one. So instead of healing and moving past the loss, you have to keep dealing with it. It's like living with an open wound.

Exhale

2009-12-07T17:05:00.003-06:00

I have exhaled after holding my breath for a year. Our days swim by in glorious normalcy, for the most part. Our living situation is at the same time, strange and unusual and completely expected. We’re living in a three-room cottage on a nature preserve north of Fort Hood. It has no cable, no internet, no insulation and a phone that's constantly monitored by the army. Our cottage sits a few scant miles from the artillery impact zone. There's currently a unit training in the field and every time a round lands, the whole house shakes. As we were getting ready for bed one night, the rounds started falling quickly, one after another. Evan suggested we drive out to the range and see if we could see any explosions. I pulled his coat on over my pajamas and ran, barefoot over the frosty grass to the car. We found the range then sat with the engine running, holding hands in the dark. We didn't see anything.

We live twelve miles from anything, and seventeen miles from anywhere where I can check my email. We go through gas faster than ever and we have to organize our days around how often we want to dive back and forth between civilization and our temporary home. Our drive takes us past multiple herds of cattle, birds of prey and deer depending on the time of day. I've been trying to take pictures.

and me, Dark Topo style :

Other than the wildlife and the heavy weaponry nearby, our days are pretty normal. Evan has rediscovered his old cookbooks and we try new recipes with abandon. I have lots of free time to work on various knitting projects. I’ve even been getting into Evan’s video games when my fingers are too sore for any more yarn.

Homecoming

2009-11-25T09:01:00.017-06:00

Evan returned from Iraq Monday morning, thus bringing an end to our third and final deployment. I flew into Austin from Louisville on Sunday night, spent the night at Brad and 'Auli'i's house, (thanks again, guys!) then got up early and drove to Fort Hood. I didn't drive by myself, though. Brad followed me in his car and then used my camera to take roughly 200 pictures. He took a lot of time out of his day and used up a lot of gas despite being under no obligation. I am extremely grateful and his generosity will not be forgotten -- thanks B-Rad!!

Ok, lets get started, shall we?

Brad insisted we have some tea before getting on the road...

When we got to Killeen Brad left his car in a parking lot and then got into mine so we could get on post together. Unfortunately, my military ID had expired and the gate guard confiscated it, but she still let me on post because I had a valid drivers license.

We saw this tent and thought the ceremony must be here....

but it wasn't.... I was sad....

but then we found it!

there were horses...

...and dancing children...

...and high-ranking dogs

..and me...

my friend Jared was there waiting on the arrival of some of his soldiers! (No one knows what I am explaining here, but it must have been funny).

...and we waited....

the buses arrived! Evan is on the second one, but we didn't know that then.

the soldiers formed up behind the buses

then the buses drove away...

...and the soldiers marched onto the field

a chaplain said a short prayer, thanking God for the safe return of these soldiers and the Colonel thanked them for their hard work and dedication during the past year

then he yelled "Charge!!" (cause it's the cavalry, see?) and all the families rushed onto the field

all the family members start searching for their soldiers in the crowd

...but not me. I stood still because I learned in girl scouts that it's best to "hug a tree" when you are lost and let someone find you. (Also, this is not my first rodeo and Evan and I have this pretty well choreographed by now). So I waited....

but then I saw Evan!!

we are together again!

I introduce Evan and Brad. (This picture would be perfect if I wasn't holding my mouth all wonky.)

and we start walking to find Evan's bags..

stopping to talk along the way...

Brad notices that we both have pants tucked into our boots.

Evan gave me his backpack and I try not to fall over while he goes off in search of his heavier bags.

Found 'em!

then we walk ALL the way back to the car (you can't tell, but Brad is also carrying a large duffle bag)

...still walking...

When we got to the car I sat on the curb and let the boys try to figure out how to squeeze everything in. Unfortunately, Evan's bags take up too much room and we will not all fit.

so I take Brad back to his car...

...he goes to the restaurant, and I drive back to pick up Evan.

and Brad takes pictures of us while we eat...

THE END!!! I hope you liked the pictures, and if you do, you can thank Brad in the comments section!

Jealousy and Nostalgia

2009-09-21T21:27:00.007-05:00

OR

"The Golden Age of Rachel"

A week ago I drove down to Houston to spend a couple of hours with Rachel and her carnie friends. I got to meet lots of interesting circus-performers, watch them warm-up, apply their make-up, do their hair, change into costumes and perform. Their costumes were gorgeous and elaborate. One (very attractive) man wore a single red contact lens. If you get the chance to see Vau de Vire, do not miss out. Rachel introduced me to all of her friends as her sister. When someone asked which of us was the older one, she quickly explained "No no, we're sisters by oath; not by blood." It felt good. Rachel reminisced, "you know, we went to college together, we were in a coven together, we were strippers together, we went to Paris together..... that's a ton of shit to do with one person."

Rachel is amazingly talented and she is traveling around the country with an amazingly talented group of people. She danced in the corps, en pointe and did pole acrobatics. (Stripping was clearly a good career move for Rachel. It was a good career move for me too, just you wait.) At the end of the show I got to go and play on the pole with her. Her acrobatic pole was thinner and made of plastic. I couldn't convert my spins to it and when I tried I just ended up with terrible burns down my arms. I couldn't play with her; I could only watch. It made me very nostalgic for the days when we were equally talented. Rachel and I have taken very different paths. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we started at the same place.

And now, pictures:

Jason

2009-09-03T01:06:00.004-05:00

On Friday morning I was chatting with Evan online and noticed that Jason was trying to urinate in various places and was completely unable to do so. He was very uncomfortable. He wasn't using the litter box and I understood immediately that something was wrong. I made a quick phone call to the vet anddescribed what was going on. I half expected them to laugh at me but was told to bring him in immediately because these were the warning signs of a life-threatening ailment. I explained the situation to Evan, stuffed Jason into a carrier and rushed him out the door. My car has not been driven that hard in quite some time. This was the beginning of a long, sleepless, expensive weekend of trying to keep Jason alive.

I will spare you the icky details, (they are very icky), but he needed an emergency surgery on Friday afternoon and another on Sunday night. Jason came home Tuesday evening and is doing remarkably well. He is on three different medications, one of which is basically morphine for cats and he seems to be enjoying it. I can tell because he lets me give it to him without any fuss.

This weekend made me realize that the pets in our house get treated less like pets and more like family members. I am very proud of that and I'm grateful that we had the resources to enable such treatment. I started this post thinking I could make some deep comments about typical treatment of non-human animals. I think that all I want to say is that there are four members of our family and two of them happen to be fuzzier than the other two. After this weekend I am really grateful that there are still four of us.

Finished Projects

2009-08-14T23:39:00.006-05:00

I know I haven't posted a lot in the past two months and part of the reason for that has been my knitting hobby.

Behold, three finished projects: a shrug for myself, a baby sweater, (for a baby whose parents do not read this blog), and a pair of Cavalry socks for Evan.

This was made with Noro's Cash Iroha which was a (generous) gift from my mother. I'm glad I could put it to good use.

Made from Koigu KPPPM.

knit with Louet Gems, which quickly became one of my alltime favorite sock yarns because of the fantastic stitch definition

I am most proud of the cavalry socks. The insignia is the First Cavalry shield which Evan wears on his shoulder. I was knitting them in public one day when an older man saw them and asked "Hey.. that looks like 1st Cav patch...." I beamed up at him, with the biggest possible smile on my face. I had been worried that the shield would not be recognizable to anyone but Evan and myself. I had opened my mouth to tell him how pleased I was that he had understood my artistic expression when he interrupted me, "... but why d'ya make it in Marine colors?" "They're NOT Marine colors!!!" I said, perhaps a touch too loudly. "Red is the color of the artillery and yellow is the color of the cavalry!"
He shrugged. "Ohh.. okay then." Obviously, some of my artistic intentions were misunderstood. I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

I designed these socks on my own, (with one or two knitting consults from Cara). I have not mailed them to Evan. I am too terrified that they will be lost in the mail or that he'll wear through them before I ever get to see them on his feet. I will have them in my pocket whenever he gets off the plane.

Today I walked up the street to my local yarn store and bought yarn to make a new project - the Central Park Hoodie, which is very popular among knitters. You can see Cara's version here. I bought eleven skeins of Queensland Collection's Kathmandu Aran. Look how pretty it is!

Hi There.

2009-08-06T16:51:00.003-05:00

Hi. I've been out of touch for a while. Sorry about that. I just didn't have anything worthwhile to write about. I still don't. But I decided that if I didn't start blogging again soon, I might never start.

It is very hot in Austin. The temperature in direct sunlight is almost the same as the temperature in the shade in Iraq. I avoid going out and I am very grateful that I can park my car in the shade. Evan and I are over half-way done with this deployment. We are closer to two-thirds than half. I am counting down the days until he comes home. Sometime around Samhain I'll be moving back to Fort Hood. Leaving Austin and my swanky apartment in my swanky neighborhood makes me sad. But the other option is for Evan and I to live apart for over 6 months. There are downsides to both.

Lately, I am pre-occupied with law school. I have started researching schools, programs and tuition rates. I am requesting transcripts and letters of recommendation. I am building excel spreadsheets with information about places to which I might apply. There is so much information and there are so many choices. My list of schools changes everyday. This is not like applying to college, (or "undergrad" as I will now be forced to call it). When I was picking colleges there were people around to help me choose them and to offer advice, (even if I didn't want it) and my parents and friends visited several campuses and we spoke with many department heads. And everyone - I mean everyone was supportive. No one tried to talk me out of going to college or tried to tell me that I should scale back my ambitions and get a certificate in some trade. No one offered me their dreams in exchange for my own. When I told people I was going to college no one shrugged their shoulders and said "Well.... okay... if that's what you want...." I feel very alone in this pursuit. Maybe it's because I'm deciphering information and making decisions on my own this time. Maybe it's because no one in my family has ever been to law school. I am fragile. My self-confidence is easily dented. If I was wealthy I would hire my own personal cheerleading team to follow me around and shout inspirational chants. (They would have the best outfits. Rachel knows.) Most people have been supportive. Most people wouldn't say "maybe you shouldn't reach so high..." to a loved one. The vast majority of my friends and family are willing to do everything but choreograph cheers and some of them might even do that if I asked. They know who they are and I love them very much.

I have decided to go to law school because I want to be an advocate for feminist organizations, (preferably feminist sex worker organizations). I am very certain that this is the path I am supposed to take. I think I would be a good advocate. I might be able to affect positive change instead of just lecturing people in coffee shops, (...not that I've ever done that). I want this. I know that I'm supposed to pursue this but that doesn't mean I'm not a little scared. If you can't offer real encouragement, then please do me the favor of not talking to me until I get my confidence up. It might be a few months. I'll let you know.

Published.

2009-06-18T15:05:00.004-05:00

UPDATE: This same article has also been posted on Kabulpress. (The link is on the right side of this page)

I submitted an article for publishing on two blogs and it was accepted on both of them. Feministing published my piece on it's "community" page a few days ago and RH Reality Check has agreed to publish it early next week. Hooray!!

Here it is again, (I guess this makes three blogs now).

The military is very fond of parading little tokens of femininity. They point to female mascots such as Molly Pitcher and Margaret Corbin. Being the spouse of a soldier is touted as the “toughest job in the army.” They like the idea of women’s service. They like to toast the spouses at formal dinners and applaud them at deployment ceremonies. Like yellow ribbons on the backs of cars, these gestures mean little. The military is less appreciative of and less willing to accommodate women’s actual service. A female helicopter pilot within the army recently told me that her male colleagues often made her feel unwelcome by “forgetting” to make her aware of last minute changes in plans and refusing to sit with her at meal times. A naval officer I spoke with confided that he did not approve of integrated (meaning men and women) crews and attributed higher rates of violence within such integrated crews to “[so many] women with synchronized cycles.” It is unsurprising to learn that women who serve in the military and female family members of service members have their reproductive rights significantly curtailed. A woman facing an unwanted pregnancy who is tied to the military by marriage or by contract faces restricted access to the choices that were rightfully and legally hers before she got married or signed a contract. When I married my husband, a soldier, I knew that I was joining a community that was largely disinterested in the female experience, I didn’t know that they would have such a profound effect on women facing an unwanted pregnancy.

While condoms are widely available for sale (and often given out for free in the Navy), base and post pharmacies are not required to stock emergency contraception and the majority of state side facilities choose not to, to say nothing of overseas installations. Because there is no law requiring that it be available, the choice in this instance is up to the base commander. In places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait emergency contraception is nearly impossible to obtain, while condoms are still relatively easy. The ubiquity of condoms compared to the rarity of emergency contraception is telling. While the military is very interested in protecting its male members from the risks of intercourse, they are clearly less invested in protecting their female members.

Female service members have almost no privacy when it comes to this issue. Pregnancy tests, while easily available stateside, are not reliably available to women serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. If a woman suspects she is pregnant and cannot get a home test she has to go to a medic who will prescribe one and if the results are positive, the medic will inform her chain of command. Whether or not she intends to continue the pregnancy is irrelevant. Pregnant service members who are deployed are immediately sent back to their normal duty stations. (I knew one woman serving in Iraq who took a pregnancy test in the morning, found out it was positive and was on a plane back to the United States that evening.) If she miscarries or terminates the pregnancy she will be sent back to wherever her unit is serving, thus providing plenty of fodder for the military’s incessant rumor mill. She will likely be “slut-shamed” or shamed for making a choice with which her superiors might disagree. This in turn, damages her cohesion with her unit and raises her stress level, which raises her risk for suicide, something the military knows a lot about.

It’s well known that the military has appalling rates of sexual assault particularly for women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a woman living on an army installation, I had a much higher chance of being raped and murdered by my husband than anyone else. According to statistics released by the Department of Defense, the rate of sexual assault rose eight percent worldwide between 2008 and 2009 but rose 26% for women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though alarming, these are just the numbers for reported assaults. According to the Department of Justice, 60% of sexual assaults are unreported. One has to wonder, how many rapes resulted in unwanted pregnancy? How many of those could have been prevented by emergency contraception? Why is the military so unwilling to make it available? Why are they so uninterested in protecting their sisters-in-arms? More importantly, why is the military so slow in creating a safe working environment for women? Why is it so hard?

Abortions in military hospitals cannot be performed except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. If the woman happens to be living or working stateside then she may be able to travel to a civilian provider to have the procedure. However, many military installations are in rural areas that have poor access to reproductive health care services already. Out of the five states with the highest number of military installations, four were given a grade of “D” or lower by NARAL Pro-Choice America regarding the availability of reproductive health care. The difficulties for women do not end there. If said woman is living or working in one of the many, many overseas installations, she can try to obtain an abortion in that country (if it’s legal and available), or she can travel home, losing time and money in the process. Furthermore, military health insurance only covers abortions performed to save the life of the mother. Rape and incest victims have to pay for any abortions themselves. (On a side note, the military’s health care provider also refuses to cover forensic rape kits.) Abortion is legal for all American women unless that woman is living or working on an American base within a foreign country. It’s a common joke that once you sign the papers to join a service, (or marry a service member), then that service “owns” you. This seems to be more true for women than it is for men. The ability to create life is one of the ways we define “woman,” and the military seems determined to inflict its arbitrary rules upon the lives of the women it owns.

Another Art Form

2009-06-07T19:03:00.007-05:00

Beading! I made the necklace and the earrings today because I needed a distraction before the LSAT tomorrow. Beading, like knitting, is soothing to me and the results are just as pleasing.

The red beads are carnelian which focuses mental abilities, inspires confidence, motivation and determination. Ancient warriors carried it with them into battle. I will wear it with me tomorrow.

Mingus Socks

2009-05-30T21:55:00.007-05:00

I made these socks from a Cookie A pattern called "Mingus." This is the second pattern I've bought from this designer. The first one made me cry and caused me to think very bad things about Ms. Cookie A. My experience with Mingus was much more positive, though. Presumably, they're named for Charles Mingus who was an avante-garde jazz bassist during the 1950's and 1960's. Like a lot of jazz musicians he had quite a temper and was known as "the angry man of jazz." Amanda tells me that well-rounded jazz musicians are hard to come by. She once attended a concert in which the performer lowered his horn to ridicule a late-arriving audience member.

Anywho... the socks are quite beautiful even if their namesake robbed a trombonist of his career by punching him in the mouth. They took an eternity to make, (almost two months). I finished them today and am glad to be done with them.

In other knitting news... my local yarn shop is hosting Cookie A at the end of July. She's teaching four or five classes and I signed up to take two of them. I am really, really excited.

Thank you, Captain Obvious!!

2009-05-15T18:10:00.005-05:00

The Guttmacher Institute just released a study stating that mandatory "counseling" and delays before a woman receives an abortion don't work. They studied Mississippi, which has mandatory waiting period as well as "counseling" laws on the books. They found that there was a decline in abortions within the state, however there was an increase in women going out of state to seek abortions and an increase in delays in accessing abortion services. Eighty-seven percent of counties within the United States do not have abortion providers and there is only one abortion provider in the entire state of Mississippi.

This study reminds me of that one done a few years ago that said women really do have cramps, headaches and fatigue during their periods. (Hooray!!! We weren't all making it up! Don't you feel relieved?) My response to this study was "um... doy." Smart people everywhere already knew this. I am not saying that anti-choice people are not smart. They are very smart - they know that they cannot change women's minds about abortion so they chip away at access to it. They're saying, "Sure!!! you can have an abortion just as soon as you drive several hours to a provider, find out there's a mandatory delay, spend money on a hotel room, call the babysitter and beg her to stay overnight, thus spending more money. Oh, and you'll need to call your employer and tell them you're going to miss another day, while hoping and praying that they don't fire you. Then, right before you finally have the abortion, you'll be treated like a child and have to listen to someone tell you shit you already know, like that the thing in your stomach is actually a baby, and have you really, REALLY thought about the consequences of your actions today? Hmm? But sure, you can have an abortion. What's the big deal?"

They cannot legally stop women from having abortions but they can gum up access to it. I wonder if there's a correlation between people who support waiting periods for abortions but oppose them for guns... that's a study I'd like to see.

Things that Grow

2009-05-14T19:40:00.004-05:00

As you may or may not know, Evan was recently home on leave. We had a wonderful time until he left early yesterday morning. I feel like I've been dropped back into the days shortly after he left in December. I love it when he comes home on R&R but it throws off my rhythm. After he leaves, I have to work hard at re-acclimating myself to living on my own.

Today, to distract myself from my feelings, I went and bought plants for my balcony. It is much nicer out there now - it was all concrete and metal before. I bought one large palm and two red hibiscuses. (Also, I checked in the dictionary - the plural of hibiscus is "hibiscuses" not "hibisci" which would be better, I think).

The very grizzled man who helped me select plants, sold the palm to me as a "palm." He neglected to mention the noun that "palm" modifies which is "tree." I bought a palm tree completely unawares (but at a very good price, I would have thought that trees would be more expensive). The tag stuck to his leaves informs me that this palm tree is a moderately fast grower and that he can reach up to 40 ft. tall. Oh dear.

Can I Just Say...

2009-05-06T12:38:00.006-05:00

One of the major problems with feminism today is that there is no consensus on what feminism is. There is no central party platform. There is no real definition of a feminist. People like Sarah Palin can call themselves feminists and we cannot authoritatively deny them. We can't agree about what a pro-female society should look like. There are anti-abortion feminists and pro-choice feminists. There are "pro-sex" feminists and "anti-pornography" feminists. (Guess which group I'm in). None of this even touches the huge debate about sex workers who call themselves feminists. Are these women playing into the preset patriarchal conditions by making themselves available to men "on demand?" Or are they just rejecting the ideas that a woman's sexuality is something that needs to be controlled through institutions such as marriage and slut shaming?

My point is that we are not an organized bunch. I dream of the day that we are. In the meantime, however, a plurality of feminists can unite through our hatred of mediated images of women, with television commercials being the worst offenders. Have you ever noticed that birth control commercials market birth control as "period control" (you'll have shorter, lighter periods!!) instead of actual birth control? Pads and tampons are marketed as feminine "hygeine." This makes me irate. My cunt is not dirty. Stop trying to clean it with your wads of bleached, white cotton and your images of bright, spring days and flowers in bloom. It does what it is supposed to do, it smells the way it is supposed to smell and it looks the way it is supposed to look. I could go on and on and on and on and on some more about how terribly women are portrayed in the media. In my first year of college I wrote a paper about mediated images of women. I made an A.

Anyway, what I've been wanting to say is that commericals suck. But every now and then there's one that markets to women as well as portrays them, respectfully. Voila, exhibit A:

This commercial is for a Spanish mattress company and it ran in Spain. The couple is talking about how their bed is special to them because it's where their son was born and it's where they would like their daughter to be born as well. The slogan at the end says "Your bed; the most important place in the world." This ad makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and I had to share. (If you need more warm and fuzzies, check out this non-heteronormative ad that ran in France. The text says "And you? How do you sleep?" It's a play on words, because it sounds similar to "Comment-allez vous?" which is the formal way of asking how a person is doing.)

In other news... you may have heard that scientists in China have completed trials for a male, hormonal contraceptive shot. So far, the study shows that it works and that it could be as effective as the female pill or condoms. This is good news; we seem to be quite a bit closer to male contraception. I wondered though, since female birth control is marketed as "period control," how will this pure contraceptive be marketed to men? Evan thinks that since it is "normal" and acceptable for men to not want children, the marketing might be very straight-forward. This makes sense, since society is pretty suspicious of women who don't want children. Feministing has some ideas for commercials and wouldn't you know it, so do I. Here's my vision:

It's a bright, sunny day and a group of four to six men of all age ranges, laughing and talking stroll up to an outdoor shooting range with rifles and pistols in hand. They take cover behind barriers and begin to fire at a variety of targets, some are concentric red and white circles and some are outlines of a large man. As shots are fired none of the targets are impacted. After some time, the men get up and walk away clapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves. As they leave the field the tagline appears : Shooting blanks... sometimes it's what you want to do. Then a female voice over says "Talk to your doctor about Testonex."

I think I'm clever.

Knight in Shining... Kevlar?

2009-04-25T19:18:00.004-05:00

Yesterday a very suspicious package was mailed to the Texas NARAL office. It was heavy and cylindrical and had no return address. The police are investigating and the package has not been opened. I was working from home and heard about this second-hand and after the fact. Evan was online shortly after I heard about it and I mentioned it to him. Our conversation went something like this:

Bethany: Someone mailed a possible pipe-bomb to our PO box.
Evan: WTF???? Call a bomb squad and get out of the office!!!
Evan: Actually, get out of the office and THEN call a bomb squad!!!
Bethany: The Executive Director hasn't opened it; the police are going to scan it on Monday.
Evan: You all take classes about handling suspicious objects, right?
Bethany: umm... no...
Evan: Why the **** not???
Bethany: I don't know... probably because they cost money and/or are hard to come by...
Evan: I'm going down there and giving one then!
Bethany: Are you really qualified to do that?
Evan: Ummm, I'm a hell of a lot more qualified than the person who's giving them now! And, there was that year I spent looking for suspicious objects and rendering them null.... And then there was last week.... and the week before that..... **** yes, I'm qualified!
Bethany: Well, alright, I'll email the ED
Evan: I mean, do you guys even have a poster up from the post office or anything?
Bethany: no
Evan:WTF???
Evan: You guys are like pre-9/11 America!! Those ******* have declared ******* war on you, dear!! And they are squatting in their caves dreaming of death and destruction!!!
Bethany: ...I don't think the anti-choice-crazies live in caves... I think they live in suburbia...
Evan: their basements, then
Evan: Email your boss. Tell her I am coming down there and teaching them how to deal with IEDs and UXO. I'm totally doing this.
Evan: For the **** of ****, I have a project now.
Bethany: You're very sweet. I love you.
Evan: I love you too.

I did email my boss and she is ecstatic. She is inviting representatives from other organizations who receive occasional threats. I'll let you know how the class goes.

I Call Bullshit

2009-04-05T16:56:00.004-05:00

Read this article.

It's about Afghanistan's recent decision to legalize marital rape and it raises reasonable questions about why the United States is supporting a government that more and more resembles the Taliban. I thought we invaded to remove the Taliban, not elect them to high office.

I have to say that the outrage generated by this law infuriates me. I find it vastly hypocritical. In the United States there are thirty-three states that consider marital rape to be a lesser crime than stranger rape. This is especially appalling considering that nearly three quarters of rape victims know their attackers. Americans are angry because marital rape is legal in Afghanistan but we're complacent when the same crime is scarcely illegal in our own country. A woman is raped every three minutes and a woman is beaten every eighteen seconds. It's taken me about forty-five minutes to write this. Do the math yourself. It didn't happen half way around the world, or 3000 miles away or in the next state or the next town - it is happening now and it is happening in your neighborhood. You probably know a rape victim. You probably know a rapist.

Before this law was passed what were the chances that a victim of marital rape could prosecute her husband in court? Notice I said "prosecute" not "convict." What were the chances that a victim of any kind of rape could prosecute her attacker in court? Women are blamed for being raped in our culture and in Afghan culture. Under sharia, (which I refuse to capitalize), law a woman needs four witnesses to prove her crime took place. In Afghanistan and other countries, women are the ones who go to jail for rape and they go to jail in staggering quantities yet you would be hard-pressed to find a rapist in these jails. What does this tell us? It tells us that rape is acceptable and that the people who write the laws, (ie men), believe women exist to be fucked by men.

Some men are going to read this and call me to tell me that not all men rape. They're going to tell me that they are appalled by rape. They're going to tell me how guilty they feel that other men rape. I want to tell these men that they are the ones who are in charge and that the guilt they feel strongly resembles acquiescence to a situation they don't care to change.

In places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq women are commodities. If one of them is perceived to be damaged she is thrown away or destroyed and no one is likely to care. She is property and if one wife is "polluted" through rape it's no big deal because you can go out and buy another one. This is about the control of women, about ensuring and enabling sexual access to them and about keeping them as reproductive slaves. I am not outraged by Afghanistan's recent decision. I am barely surprised.

Do you want to do something about this situation? Send some money to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Rest assured that even though they are revolutionary they are non-violent. (Though I wouldn't mind if they started throwing the occasional molotov-cocktail and if they did I might run away and join them). If you prefer to help women in our own country, send some money to RAINN.

**I wrote this with help from Andrea Dworkin. I can do that because it's not like anyone who reads my blog has read her.

Cent Jours

2009-03-23T00:01:00.002-05:00

Evan has been gone for 100 days. I'm alright. I'm stable, I have a routine, even if I don't always follow it. I am confident in my ability to live the next several months alone. The coffee table and the bathroom are constantly cluttered. I spilled soda on the coffee table at some point. The stain is brown and sticky. I keep meaning to wipe it up, but it's only me. I bought a potted plant a few weeks ago; it's dying. It's hard to assign importance to these things. Where should a droopy plant, a dirty bathroom sink and a sticky corner fit into the grand scheme of my life right now?

I still have trouble focusing. My mind constantly wanders. I look at the clock and add eight hours. I wonder what he's doing at that moment. I wonder what we would be doing if he was home. I try to remember what we were doing this time last year, when we were together. I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder when he will call again. I wonder what it would be like if at this moment I could say his name out loud and have him hear me. I wonder what life will be like when he isn't in the army.

Evan has been in the army since before I met him. He's wearing his uniform in our wedding photos. Half of his closet space is filled with uniforms and boots. We picked our wedding date because of the army. The army has been a third partner in this marriage. I joked once that we might have to get married again when he's out, "but without the army, this time." More and more it seems like a good idea. Something simple, with just the two of us. No uniforms or fancy clothes; just us as we are.

I wrote this so people would know that I am mostly okay. I'm lonely, I miss my best friend, but I can function. Also, there is a sad plant on the counter and a sticky spot on the coffee table. One hundred percent might be a bit much to hope for.

Leaf Lace Socks

2009-03-21T15:57:00.005-05:00

I made these in about two weeks. They are my first pair of lace socks; I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

If anyone out there is interested in making these socks, the pattern can be found here. I worked with Koigu KPPPM.

I'm Alright

2009-03-10T22:06:00.004-05:00

The last post was depressing and allusive. I wrote it because I wasn't chosen for a job I really wanted. I was strung along for over a month and made it to the final round of interviews. Last Friday they chose someone with more experience. That seems to be a trend for me. I thought this was going to be a final, glorious end to my job hunt of two and a half years and four different locations. It would have been perfect; you can't even imagine.

I don't understand why this process seems so easy for all of my friends while so impossible for me. After years of rejection it's difficult not to compare myself. It's impossible to not feel isolated and discouraged. This is why I can't stand the Happy, Shiny, Optimism Routine. If looking at roughly thirty months of joblessness, you see the "bright side," you might be ignoring some facts. I do not know what my failing is, but it's clear that I have one. I cannot respond to want ads anymore. I won't look at craigslist or the Austin American Statesman. The facelessness is unbearable. I'm tired of being boiled down to what's written on a two-page resume. It's unfair and I can't do it anymore. I've started carrying with me a copy of my resume and a writing sample. Should I ever find someone interested, I'll give her a copy. If I'm going to be rejected I want to be acknowledged as a human being first.

Confessing this is hard. My lack of employment is something I struggle with. I know that a job is not what defines me; I know that I don't need a paycheck to be myself. But it's hard not to look around me, see all the people walking to jobs and not wonder what's wrong with me. This is my greatest insecurity. And I just made it common knowledge on the internet. I wonder what will happen.

Anyway, this is a lost opportunity. I am grieving it. This job would have been perfect. You just can't even imagine.

Nothing has Changed

2009-03-06T14:35:00.005-06:00

I don't know how to deal with rejection and disappointment. This is my fault but then again it isn't. I don't know what to do. This is just a shitty day. I am waiting for it to be over. I hate being disappointed in myself.

I've been waiting to put something wonderful in this space for one month. Today arrived and I have nothing wonderful, or even mediocre to say. I want to say everything. I want to open my mouth and let it all pour out of me. I desperately want to share all of it. But I've told this story before. You've heard me tell it before. I'm tired of telling it. You're probably tired of hearing it. I'm tired of it being true.

If I were to tell the whole story I would most likely receive a bunch of comments trumpeting some sort of bullshit optimism. I can't deal with it. I can't stand it. When people tell me that the sun will come out tomorrow and that these things take time, (because two and a half years just isn't long enough), I feel like they're ignoring whatever crap situation I'm in. No one can say "Wow. That really sucks for you. How do you feel?" This situation can not be fixed even though everyone wants to.

The hardest part is that there is no one at home who will let me cry on his shoulder or make me good food or hug me or smooth my hair or draw me a bath or read Stardust to me. When shitty things happen I get to deal with them alone.

Buried Treasure

2009-02-10T18:59:00.011-06:00

Yesterday I upgraded the operating system on my Mac. Today as I was loading more software I found this video. The "Get Well Soon" balloon is probably from when I broke my wrist in June of last year. Watching this makes me happy. I wonder what Evan will think when he finds out I've posted this...

It's THAT Bad

2009-02-02T22:56:00.005-06:00

"Hi. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hello? Excuse me but I have the made the journey to where you are and I need to be reminded that I am worthy of adoration. Hello...?

"Hello why are you lying on the floor? I mean I like it this way I don't have to jump up to where you are. Not that I wouldn't because I would.. I do it all the time. But... it takes effort. I hate effort.. You know? It's just so... efforty.

"Hey... you smell funny. Kinda.. kinda bad... Oh! Oh you don't feel good! You have the sick. I can tell. I smell it it smells bad. And I think that's why you are lying on the floor. Well, lucky for you Jason here. I can fix everything. Yes. You need a moment to marvel at your good fortune. Yes. It is alright I understand.

"Here.. I will lie upon you. Does that hurt? Nothing in life is free, you know. Ok now the next step it is up to you. Yes. Pet me. See my soft glossy black fur? I am lovely I know. Yes! Pet me. Like that. You feel better already. I can tell because of the way your eyeses are closed and the way you make a noise after each time you breathe. See how I good to you I am? I am good to you. Now.. just wait for this next step in my 'make the hooman feel better scheme.' See? I am purring. It sounds good you like it you do you do.

"Hello I am not sure this is working. Alright.. I will do one more thing for you but you really don't deserve it. It is ok you are already indebted to me anyway. What can you do? See? See I am drooling upon you. You are making more loud noise now... you are welcome.

"Hello don't have the sick. Feel good. Feel better. You still have to feed me you know? Even if you feel bad and you're coughing up yucky and all your joints hurt and moving takes way more energy than is normally required and even if you have a very high fever and you are calling your mother past midnight to ask what you should do because there is no one here to take care of you because the army says it's all about family values when clearly the army doesn't give a flying fuck about families. Even then. I don't work for free lady.

"Wow you must be really sick. You're writing fiction. You never write fiction probably because you're bad at it. Like really bad. High school teacher told you "well, fiction is obviously something you're interested in." Yeah, that bad. What did you make in that class, anyway? Maybe you shouldn't have spent so much time poking Cara and more time paying some fucking attention.

"Know what else? You anthropomorphized a cat. Like in a "I am Jack's slpeen," sort of way. Except that was clever and this is not clever. You even had to look up how to spell "anthropomorphized." There's an extra "h" in it and you had no idea.

"I'm glad you have an excuse, cause this is lame. If you had more than half a brain right now I would be embarrassed for you because this is a big load of what's in the litterbox. Know who else would be embarrassed? Your friends and your family and at least one creative writing teacher probably more. I hope no one reads this... you know for your sake."

Tomorrow is Doomed.

2009-01-28T15:17:00.002-06:00

I can't focus on anything. For the past three days I've been working on one project that should have taken no more than three or four hours. I have no appetite. I don't obey mealtimes; I eat when my body is hungry and lately I don't feel hungry. When I wake up in the morning it takes me a solid forty minutes to think of a reason that validates getting out of bed. Sometimes it takes longer.

Yesterday I was walking to the store to buy cat food and my jeans kept sliding down. "What is wrong?!?!" I screamed inside my head. And then I remembered that my anniversary is tomorrow. That isn't entirely correct - I didn't forget about my anniversary. I knew it was approaching; I saw it looming at the bottom of my calendar. I just wasn't thinking about it. Now I am and I'm sad and lonely and numb. I am so very, very numb.

Deployments tick by so damned slowly. Evan left six and a half weeks ago. It feels like so much more. I don't know how much longer it will go on. It will probably be more than forty-five and a half weeks. It will probably be more than fifty-two weeks. We are waiting to find out.

I don't know what to do about my anniversary. It seems very silly to celebrate such an occasion by oneself. It seems even worse to not celebrate it in any way. If I try to do something special I will probably end up crying. If I do nothing, I will end up crying. Tomorrow is doomed. I cannot win.

RE : The Weather

2009-01-27T21:02:00.006-06:00

Dear Austin,

I know it's cold outside. It's currently about 32 degrees and the wind chill brings it down to 27. It's chilly; we can both agree on that. Coats and hats are non-negotiable if one chooses to be out in this weather. The forecast calls for freezing rain which could, in theory, cause accidents, school delays and other "undesirables." However, two days ago the temperature was in the 70s. I sincerely doubt that the salting of the roads thats happening right now is really necessary. The roads are too warm for any ice to accumulate. Furthermore, no matter how much you beg and plead with me, I absolutely will not leave my faucets trickling in order to prevent the pipes from freezing. The pipes, quite simply, lack the capability to freeze at this temperature; they need no assistance from me.

While culturally you most certainly are not part of the southern United States, geographically you are. Let me break it down for you, Austin. You are less than four hours north of Mexico, which is not a country known for it's skiing. They bred the Chihuahua, not the St. Bernard.

I don't want to be insensitive. I know the cold weather causes anxiety and you're right to be anxious. Cold weather can cause quite a bit of mayhem. People can die of hypothermia, which is probably why you should take the money away from those damned salt trucks and start funneling it to the overcrowded and understaffed homeless shelters.

Austin, you need to get a grip. Your paranoia regarding the weather makes me laugh at you. I do not want to laugh at you. Please, study a frickin' map and then pull yourself together.

With Love,
Bethany

Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

2009-01-24T15:21:00.009-06:00

Disclaimer : This post is for everyone, but it is mostly for Rachel and Mel; they will be the most proud of me.

Ballet Austin offers ballet classes for adults; I took my first class last week. I have always wanted to do ballet. Rachel and Mel indulged me by teaching me pas de chats and pas de cheval. (What is the correct plural of pas de cheval? Is it pas des chevaux? Or has it be anglicized to pas de chevals?)

The adult class has no start or end dates - it's just a continuous class that anyone can join. My personal goal for the evening was "try not to cry." The instructor, S. is a company dancer within Ballet Austin and is a charmingly snarky gay man. After sucking through my first class I was certain that I had accidentally showed up at the wrong one. As everyone was leaving I approached the instructor. "I think I came to the wrong class," I whispered.
"Ohhh, no honey!" He practically shouted. "Everyone is like this in the beginning. Ballet is hard and the French makes it worse."
"Actually, the French is the only thing saving me."
"Oh." He paused. "Well if you already know French then you're ahead by leaps and bounds, so what are you complaining about?"
I blinked at him.
"Just keep coming honey; you'll be fine."

The following class went much more smoothly. I was able to focus more on maintaining the posture Rachel had tried to teach me. (Turn the legs out from the hips, pull your abs up into your ribs, relax your shoulders, lift your head and show your pretty clavicles to the world.) Halfway through the seventy minutes the instructor asked the pianist to stop playing for just a second. He walked up to me and knelt beside my feet. "Everyone gather 'round! We're having a little kum-by-ya circle over here." He looked at me - "tendu side." I stuck my right leg out to the side and pointed my toes with all my might. "Mmmhmm..." he said, "you have hooks." (I don't know what these are, but I'm fairly certain that they're good.) Then he grabbed my foot and bent my big toe back so that the edge of my toenail rested on the floor. My achilles tendon went from pink to neon white. It hurt and I yelped. "Welcome to ballet honey," S. said, "nobody said it was easy." I continued to stand there with my right leg burning and trembling while S. addressed the rest of the class. "THIS is a pointe. You all need to work at arching your foot and then bending your toes back like this." He motioned to the pianist and the class continued. For the first time in a very long time I was singled out to a class for doing something right. It was a magical moment for me. I will remember it always.

The third class went even better than the past two. But again, half way through, in between practicing tendus and dégagés, S. made the angry face. He crossed his arms and shouted "THOSE of you who HAVE hooks, need to hook 'em." He paused, no one moved. "SHE knows who I'm talking about." I looked over my shoulder at him. "Mmmmhmmm. That's right!" He started walking back towards the front of the room. "Lord knows I don't have the best feet in the world, but if I did, I'd be point-point-pointin' 'em!" Then, he smiled gently at me and with a new softness in his voice he asked "Does it hurt?"
"Yes." I said.
"Do your calves burn?"
"Yes!"
"Well, I don't really care! Keep pointin' 'em."

Apparently, I have very nice ballet-feet. I had no idea. I am going to keep going to the class. The French really does save me; I understand immediately the intention of the movement. We have learned tendus, fondus, dégagés, frappés, coupés, cou de pieds, retirés and the pas de cheval. (I was very happy when we learned this because I already knew what to do.) Oh! We have also learned the sous-sous. So far, this is the only French term that makes no sense. It means "under-under." What the hell is that supposed to mean? I like the sous-sous though because I use them in pole dancing for spinning while standing. Turns out, they are used in ballet for the same purpose. (You didn't know that ballet and pole dancing had anything in common, did you?) The sous-sous-turn moment was another happy moment for me.

Mel, Rachel.. come visit. We will go to ballet class together.

Eric

2009-01-17T23:51:00.002-06:00

Eric bought books for Evan. He gets a blog post about him. I debated writing this because I don't know Eric as well as I would like to and I was worried that if his post was smaller than Melissa's and Rachel's then he might feel slighted. I hope he does not.

Eric is my cousin; he is the son of my father's oldest brother. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and two (adorable) sons. He does not work outside the home; his job is raising and caring for his children.

Eric got married in a small chapel in Louisville when I was rather little. The floor of the chapel was made of uneven, rough-cut, gray stones. For whatever reason, I found it very interesting and it is the only thing I remember about his wedding. (I was a small child! Give me a break!)

The interesting thing about Eric and me is that we are complete opposites. He is a devoted Christian. I am a Pagan. He is a gun-toting conservative and I am a bleeding heart liberal. We get along just fine.

I am not particularly close to my father's side of the family. Eric and I have only recently started to get to know each other. I'm really glad that we did; I like feeling connected to family.

I wish I had more stories to tell about him. I am sad that I don't. I think that will change in the future.

Ups and Downs

2009-01-06T18:11:00.002-06:00

Yesterday's posts were rather depressing but they were true. Yesterday was a bad day. This morning wasn't much better, but the rest of the day has been pretty good. This blog might be upsetting to read at times. Evan's deployment is upsetting at times too. The first six to eight weeks tend to be brutal; bear with me. Deployments don't seem to get easier but they do get simpler. I know what to expect and I know that I have to be patient with myself in the beginning. These emotions are very similar to those of grief and they require a lot of brain power. I am not operating at full capacity.

A few concerned people got in touch with me yesterday and asked if they could help. I thanked them but said that there wasn't anything they could do. I realized today that that isn't true. Calling helps. Being told that I am loved helps. Knowing that other people care helps. Saying things like "Chin up!" don't help. I am in this hole and if you want to help you have to get in the hole with me and see it from where I'm sitting. If you stand above the hole and tell me how nice the view is from up there, that doesn't help. That's not where I am.

That metaphor was a little childish. It fits though. I cannot ask for anything else.

The Bright Side

2009-01-05T20:33:00.003-06:00

...is that I successfully resisted the urge to get stupid drunk.

Today was a horrible, awful day. I hurt emotionally and it's bad enough that I hurt physically. I am jittery, my knee hurts, (it's not uncommon, it's an old injury), but I've done nothing to stress it or to make it hurt. I'm having my period even though I'm on birth control and it's the completely wrong time for it. (Some of you are probably assuming something at this point - it's not that either).

I have spent the whole day trying not to cry. I am so afraid of falling apart because there's no one here to put the pieces back together.

I worry that I complain too much.

Onslaught

2009-01-05T12:59:00.003-06:00

Admitting that dealing with a deployment is hard, is the hardest part for me. I don't want to be one of those women who stops functioning whenever her husband leaves. I go through all the motions of my day. I wake up, make some tea, read the news, shower, etc, etc etc. I try not to think and I try not to feel lonely. I turn on the radio or the television in order to make noise. I try not to wonder about when he will call. I try to maintain the numbness so that I don't fall apart. Purposefully or accidentally I am killing my ability to care about anything. My constant goal is to turn into something resembling a monolith.

There are too many feelings and I cannot deal with them all. I don't know how to deal with them all. I'm sad, I'm lonely, I'm angry I'm frustrated I'm bored. I can't fall apart because if I do it means that I might not be strong enough to do this again. I have to believe that I'm strong enough to do this. And if I can't believe it then I have to at least act like it. The cats want to help. Medea makes eye contact while she purrs. Jason head-butts.

I don't know what to say when people ask how I am. Where should I start? I am feeling too much and I don't have the time or the energy to relate it all. The individual asking probably doesn't care that much. I always say "fine."

I have dreams about vomiting. I dream that I'm coughing up this unending, orange flow of acid and bile. The feeling that accompanies this dream is one of frustration - I'm trying to hurry up and finish so that I can do something else. I know what the dream means.

Melissa

2009-01-04T20:42:00.007-06:00

Melissa recently sent a deployment gift to Evan. She gets a blog post about her.

(Mel is seen here on the right. Shannon is on the left and I really hope she doesn't mind having her picture posted on the internet. Shannon seems to be in all of the pictures I have of Mel.)

Melissa and I met in my dorm in the fall of 2003. She was interested in joining the coven I was trying to start. I felt an immediate kinship towards her because she was a fellow cancer and a foreign language major. She majored in German, which is just as useful and lucrative as a French major, (which is to say, not at all useful or lucrative). I didn’t tell Mel that I felt drawn to her; I was kind of shy.

A few months later Evan and I moved into the worst apartment ever. Mel and her heterosexual life partner lived all of two blocks away in a much nicer apartment. Because her apartment was so much more luxurious, (it had been a three or four star hotel in the early part of the century before it was converted into apartments), Evan and I hosted formal dinner parties there. A variety of Thai dishes were always on the menu because that's what Evan enjoyed cooking at the time. Evan wore his uniform, I wore a ball gown and I don’t remember what our other friends wore but I know they were sexy and glamorous. None of our immediate friends were surprised when our wedding was “black tie optional.” They had seen it coming. Melissa was the one who taught us to waltz. She had a key to the dance studio at UNCA and let us in after hours. By the time we were done Evan could twirl me and lift me.

In 2005, Mel and I had moved to different apartments, (both of which were nicer). Miraculously we were once again only about two blocks apart. We hadn’t planned it that way. Evan was deployed that year so I would frequently walk to her apartment and then study or knit. Her door was always open for me and I was grateful. She came to my place whenever she wanted to play on the pole, or study or knit. I think that’s how my pole parties started – with Mel and Rachel and a few bottles of red wine. Mel was always available whenever I went out of town and needed someone to feed my cats. (She is one of Jason’s chosen four). Once, in 2005, I hosted a party for her. I will remember it always.

Melissa graduated from UNCA in 2006, a semester ahead of me. Since then she’s had far too many jobs for me to list, but my favorite was when she worked as a mover. She is thin like me and if you looked at her you might not assume that she can easily lift heavy things. But she can. It’s rather stunning.

Currently Mel lives in the woods near Asheville, surrounded by trees and gardens, with her partner. They complement each other perfectly. She is a wonderful friend. She went with me to my sister’s wedding when Evan could not. I love her dearly and miss her very much. She and her partner need to get in a car and come visit me before the Texas weather gets too unbearable. (March or April would be good).

Shameless

2008-12-29T15:48:00.004-06:00

Some of you may remember that when Evan deployed last time my blog linked to his wish list on amazon.com. I am doing the same thing this year. (Scroll down just a bit, you'll see the link on the right.)

If you find an item on Evan's wish list selling for less somewhere else and choose to buy it there, please let me know so I can remove the item from his list. This way he won't get two of one item. (That happened last year).

The offer I made during the last deployment still stands; if you buy something for Evan I will write an entire post all about you. Wouldn't that be nice?

Yay Amanda!

2008-12-28T16:23:00.002-06:00

Remember a few posts ago when I said that I had trouble sleeping because of too much quiet? Amanda found the answer. One of her Christmas gifts to me was a CD of ocean waves. At bedtime I plop it in to my computer and I go right to sleep. Amanda fixed the problem. Yay Amanda!

Untitled

2008-12-26T21:33:00.003-06:00

My default state now is one of sad confidence. I hate that I am playing this waiting game again, but I'm pretty sure I'll be okay. This sadness hurts physically. Shortly after my father died my therapist asked me if my grief had localized in any part of my body. It was a strange question but it immediately made sense to me. I said, "Yes, it's in my stomach." She nodded and wrote something on her yellow legal pad. A few months later she asked the same question. "I feel it in my heart," I said. She smiled. "That's good. It's moving; you have to let it work its way out of you."

When my father died I was so angry at him for abandoning me. He left me. We weren't done. I do not know how to say it any other way. He was my friend and I wasn't done. When Evan leaves the feeling of abandonment is very similar. Someone I love is leaving me behind. Even though I know Evan is going to come home the immense of time stretching out before me feels like forever. When there were three months left of Evan's first deployment I had to make another appointment with my therapist. It had dawned on me that my husband was going to come home but my father wasn't.

This deployment is hard for a variety of reasons. I'm trying to share because I want to believe that sharing will make me feel better. I'm still not sure if that's whats happening.

The Littlest Badass

2008-12-23T21:25:00.008-06:00

I love our new apartment but it's a little noisy. People clomp up and down the hallway at all hours. Some of them are just walking home, but others are carrying groceries or new furniture or (I am certain), riding Clydesdales down the hallway. When the noise happens after nightfall it bothers Medea. She jumps up from her nap, races toward the door and then sits and patiently waits. I've seen her stand guard there nearly half an hour after the noise has ended. If the noise is particularly upsetting and if it happens while I am asleep, she jumps on the bed and growls in my ear. Is there a vet out there, or some sort of expert who can tell me if this is normal?

Yesterday evening I made a quick run to the grocery store. When I returned I opened the door to find Medea crouched with her ears back, her whiskers forward and her mouth open. She was ready to hiss, (or maybe even bite), then she saw it was just me and rubbed against my leg as if to say "Ooops! My mistake!" She strolled off with a feline nonchalance. I do not know why she does these things. I certainly never tried to train her to be a guard cat; I'm a little skeptical that it's possible. When I lived in Asheville, I had a creepy neighbor who found my hidden key and walked around my apartment when I wasn't there. He ate the food from my refrigerator then threw the wrappers on the floor. I had the cats when this happened; I wonder how Medea reacted and if maybe this behavior is a learned behavior. She has never shown aggression to anyone I have invited into our home. (Honestly, the only person to whom she has been aggressive is the vet, and he gives her shots, so really he started it.) Medea can tell the difference between welcome guests and unwelcome guests. I wonder if it's because of the creepy neighbor. I would like to think that she attacked him and perhaps tried to gnaw off his ankle. I doubt it though; cat bites are serious, (just ask Amanda), and he probably would have spent some time in a hospital had Medea sunk her teeth into him with any real force.

None of this matters. She is special and I am very appreciative of her defensive quirks. (But if a veterinarian stumbles across this, I would just love to know how often this happens in cats).

Pass the Valium

2008-12-21T23:31:00.002-06:00

Evan has been gone for a week and it hasn't been completely horrible. I have to force myself to go to bed because it is lonely and too quiet. Evan snores, it drives me crazy normally but not hearing it at all is so much worse. I don't get hugs. No one touches me. That is the part I hate the most.

I can't decide if blogging about how I feel makes me feel better. In the past, I have avoided sharing because putting these feelings into words was impossible. (Un)Fortunately, I've been through this enough times that I can recognize and quantify how I feel. I think I'll try the blogging for a time, (maybe a month), and see if it makes any difference.

Mostly, I just feel numb. I think that's preferable. I think this is how it's been in the past. For the first few weeks I'm a fully functional individual and most people who talk to me might not know that anything is wrong. But when I'm home at night and it's quiet... that's when I tend to fall apart.

I hate this so much.

It's Not Frenglish, it's Franish.

2008-12-16T13:25:00.004-06:00

I live in Texas now, (you may have noticed), and Spanish is spoken by a lot of people in a lot of places. Spanish is not a language I speak, (you may have noticed), but I'm trying to learn because it's in my best interest.

Today I ordered my lunch in Spanish. (This was a first for me). There is a little taco truck in the parking lot adjacent to my work. (I know some of you are probably reeling at the idea of buying tacos from a truck in a parking lot, but it came highly recommended and the food is good). As I walked to the window I rehearsed what I would say. I wanted two chicken tacos with cheese. I know all of those words; I just had to put them together.

I stepped up to place my order, "Dos Tacos Pollos Con Queso, s'il vous plait." It just popped out - I couldn't help it. This isn't the first time it's happened either, I'm pretty sure I did it in Thailand too. It's like I have a very specific form of Tourettes. The man behind the counter stared at me for a second then nodded his head. The guy behind me laughed. I felt very stupid.

Oh well. Better luck next time.

I Have Stepped Off the Emotional Roller Coaster

2008-12-13T23:17:00.002-06:00

...and now I am just sad.

For the past twenty four hours I have vacillated between feeling utterly devastated and feeling perfectly confident that I can handle this shit for the third fucking time. But Evan left a few hours ago and now I am just sad and lonely.

Also, I am angry. It is so unfair that I have to do this again. I have paid my dues and I should be done. I am grateful that we have a president who wants to bring the troops home, (and I am furious at the people who did not vote for him, who therefore did not want to spare me or others this anguish), but I am realistic enough to know that the troops who arrived first will be the first ones to exit. Evan will serve at least twelve months.

I am exhausted emotionally and physically. I need to go to bed. But it is so lonely in there...

We Look Good Together

2008-12-09T18:20:00.006-06:00

Evan and I have very few pictures of the two of us, so part of our Yule present to each other was to have professional portraits made. Allison was our photographer and is very talented. I highly recommend her if you are in the Austin area but Max is still my personal favorite. I own the rights to these pictures, so if anyone wants copies, let me know.

(The third one down is my favorite. It will be framed and hung very soon).

I Think This Is What Drowning Would Feel Like

2008-12-07T19:29:00.005-06:00

As I write this, Evan is putting his duffle bags in the car. In about an hour we'll drive him back to Fort Hood where he'll stay for the next few days before he leaves for Iraq. We'll see each other again before he gets on the plane, but this is the last time he'll be in our home for quite a while.

I don't know what to say. I've started this paragraph a couple of times now. I've spent a lot of time trying not to cry. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't. The skin around my eyes is red and dry. It hurts to wipe my eyes.

I would like to hear from people, but if you are going to tell me to perk up, or that he'll be home soon, or that I'll make friends quickly, or that this year will fly by, then please don't waste your cell phone minutes. I cannot deal with the perky, optimistic bullshit right now. This situation sucks; it is completely unfair. My best friend is leaving me and I am heartbroken.

I would give anything for my coven sisters and a good many bottles of wine.

Morocco Socks

2008-12-02T18:05:00.003-06:00

Almost a year ago, I started a pair of socks for Evan. I finished the first sock and then left the yarn for the second sock in Morocco. I didn't know what else to do, so I ordered a second skein of the same yarn, even though I knew it wouldn't be the same dye lot and wouldn't match. I finally got around to knitting the sock last month, and yesterday I finished it. It took forever. Evan has really big feet.

The lighter sock was made in Morocco.

Settling In

2008-12-02T16:24:00.006-06:00

After a week of packing, three days of unpacking, two trips to IKEA, one trip to a hardware store, about five different drop-offs at GoodWill and one whole day of sitting around and waiting for different maintenance crews, Evan and I are finally settled in our new home.

I placed the rug askew because I think it makes the room look bigger. Evan thinks it makes the room look like it was decorated by crazy people, (though that's not entirely untrue). Comments?

Our kitchen is minuscule and it made Evan very cranky, which is why we had to schlep all the way to IKEA, (twice). He feels better about it now.

Here's the view from the patio -

Two Weeks Off

2008-11-18T09:03:00.004-06:00

Evan and I move very, very soon and things around here are starting to get crazy. The office has been packed up, the living room is full of boxes and the bedroom is next. In the midst of all the packing we'll be taking a trip to see family. We're living in a state of controlled chaos. Don't expect much for the next two weeks. Mark you calendars; I'll be back by December 2nd. (Probably with pictures of the new apartment!)

Big is Beautiful

2008-11-13T22:16:00.005-06:00

Medea has large paws. I was compelled to photograph one and show it to you.

Look, six toes. All of her paws are like that. Polydactyly is beautiful.

Leaving Fort Hood

2008-11-07T20:51:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Evan and I were granted approval for our new apartment in Austin. We will be moving there before the end of this month. Our apartment is very swanky. It's on the top floor with a view of the pool and beyond that, the Austin skyline. It's on the most desirable street in the most desirable neighborhood in all of Austin. (We feel a little proud of ourselves if you couldn't tell). Our impending move made me start thinking about Fort Hood and the time I have spent here. Believe it or not, there are a couple of things I'm going to miss.

I love hearing the soft thuds of the artillery late at night. It makes me smile, then I roll over and go back to sleep. I love it even more when the artillery happens in the middle of the day and booms loud enough to rattle the glassware in the cupboard. What I love the most is when the bombs are so very loud that it startles Medea and causes her to growl and puff up her fur. (I have tried to explain to her that the bombs being dropped weigh more than she does. She is undaunted).

I will miss driving through the gate and showing my ID to one of my friends. Plain and simple - I will miss that action and I will miss them. Otis is my favorite friend at the gate. He is a portly old man and I adore him.

Sometimes tanks drive on the roads. If I turn off the radio and roll down the window I can hear the sounds of their tracks hitting the pavement. The first time this happened I was annoyed because I had the green light but the line of tanks never broke for their red light. (Tanks always have the right of way, simply by virtue of being tanks). I sat there grumbling for a few seconds and then I realized that waiting for a convoy of tanks to pass is not something that happens to most people and it's kind of cool.

There's a Mexican restaurant just outside the main gate. Their breakfasts are the best ever. Their dinners aren't bad either. We frequent it often.

Once, a fighter jet flew very low and very fast over our neighborhood. I was terrified. (This had never happened to me before.) Evan and I were sitting in our living room and had to shout to each other in order to be heard. I wanted to know if we should do something; maybe hide and cover our heads? Evan sneered then turned the page of the newspaper he was quietly reading.

I have many happy, giggly memories of the months Meltem stayed with me. If you want to read about those check out the archives during the fall of 2007.

I don't want to gloss over anything. I spent several months here being quite miserable. I have lamented, more than once, the lack of a yarn store or a fabric store, or until very recently the lack of a bookstore. Killeen is an unattractive city in many, many ways. I am so happy to be leaving this place. There were just a couple of things that were memorable.

How Anti-Choice Measures Threaten All Women

2008-10-29T16:55:00.001-05:00

Fancy Math

2008-10-28T21:08:00.003-05:00

Yesterday my husband started a difficult military class. He's learning how to talk to other military branches in order to call for fire from a variety of vehicles including fixed-wing aircraft and boats. It's sounds pretty innocuous. He assures me it is not. He is currently sitting on the couch studying from three different books, note-taking and making flash cards.

He showed me one of the books. I am completely forbidden from photographing the page and showing it to you, but trust me that the geometry was terrifying. There were lines, rays, arcs, angles and other elements whose names I can no longer recall and can not be bothered to look up. (By the way, I believe I made a B in high school geometry - the highest grade I ever made in a math class). I couldn't figure out where to start when I looked at it. It made me cry and not in a frustrated or confused sort of way. I cried because I miss my dad. He loved math; he thought it was fun. He liked it so much that he couldn't ever understand why I couldn't understand. He majored in math in college and was a little disappointed that he didn't get to use it very often in his job. One summer, he installed a bay window in our house. In order to prevent water damage he had to build a small roof for it. He was thrilled, (really - thrilled), because he got to pull out a pencil and paper and work formulas in order to calculate the proper dimensions and angles of the intended roof. He could have used a calculator; I think he thought it was more fun not to.

My dad would love the math that Evan is doing. He would think that it's super cool and would probably sit Evan down to show him a variety of other "fun" formulas that would take a lot more time, leg work and involve a good many greek letters. We would not have helped Evan escape from his unfortunate fate.

Dad's birthday is a week from today. He would have been fifty-seven. I miss him a lot and I love him.

Look at Me Now, Bitches!!!

2008-10-28T19:01:00.005-05:00

Yeah, that's right. I baked bread. Uh huh, sure did. And I did it all by myself, (as long as you don't count the two phone calls to my mother and the text message to my husband). I think I rock.

Our house smells frickin' fantastic right now.

Ramona Sweater

2008-10-26T17:48:00.009-05:00

At the beginning of this month I began work on the Ramona Sweater as published in Sensual Knits. I finished it two days ago. It is the nicest sweater I have ever made for myself. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. The pattern as written had bell sleeves on the sweater; the only modification I made was to remove them. (I like bell sleeves, but not on sweaters). The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, (color 017); it is deliciously soft and drapes beautifully. One small problem: I used nine balls and three of them had knots connecting two separate strands within one ball, (one ball had two such knots). Obviously, this isn't a big deal but not something you expect when working with a luxury fiber.

I am absolutely delighted with the way it turned out. Behold:

The thing running down the front is a reverse seam. Other than the grafting of the sleeves to the body, it's the only seam. Pretty cool, huh?

Sock Exchange

2008-10-23T11:26:00.004-05:00

Have you met my friend Cara? If you haven't, you can read her blog. Back in February of this year we decided that we would each make a pair of socks for the other one. I attempted several patterns but was happy with none of them, (one of them made me cry). Evan said "Why don't you knit something that looks like it's from you?" It got me thinking and I designed my own pattern.

(photos courtesy of Cara's husband, Brendon)

I dyed the yarn myself, (with Koolaid!). There are three different shades of red and pink in there. What makes these socks special, though, is that they have runes purled into them just under the cuff. They are very hard to see, but I promise they are there. One sock has runes about the home and family and the other has runes about creativity and personal success, (this way she is balanced). Each sock has a rune representing abundance.

These were a lot of fun to make and I'm quite pleased that Cara likes them and that they fit.

Here, Have Some More Pictures

2008-10-20T18:51:00.006-05:00

Evan's helmet was lying around and I decided to play with it. It is incredibly heavy and smells terrible, (like dust, sweat and shampoo gone moldy). While I was wearing it Evan asked me a question; I nodded my head yes and the helmet fell backward and the strap choked my neck. I sat gagging and coughing, trying to right the thing while Evan laughed his ass off.

Picture

2008-10-19T16:38:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't updated in a while. I am not abandoning my blog, just trust me that nothing terribly interesting has been happening around here lately.

Thanks for the picture, Bob!

Why Doesn't the Army Understand that I Don't Roll Out of Bed Looking Fantastic??

2008-10-03T01:07:00.003-05:00

This is a stupid post. I know that. Go ahead and laugh. If you want, you can call me and we will laugh together. Wouldn't that be nice?

Evan has been training in California for the past month. I was told that he would be home Thursday, but I was not informed of the time. "It will be later in the day" was the best I could get. Soo... knowing my husband would be home, I chose flattering clothes. I put on make up and I curled my hair. I looked amazing, even if I say so myself.

That was over twelve hours ago. My curls have fallen and my makeup has worn off. My outfit is wrinkled and slightly smelly. I pulled my jewelry off a while ago. I know that Evan is going to be happy to see me... I just hate that I put effort into looking nice and the army saw fit that it should all be for nothing.

It's now past one in the morning on Friday. I'm waiting for Evan's plane to land, then I'll have to wait for him to turn in his rifle and get vaccinated, (that's right - fucking vaccinated), before I can see him.

I hate the army. If it wasn't for the army, I wouldn't have written this stupid post.

Changes

2008-09-28T17:10:00.002-05:00

I am very sad to do this, but I have enabled comment moderation on my blog. From now on, all comments will be emailed to me and I will have to approve them before they can be published. Lately, some rather nasty comments have been left by a relative of mine. I hate that I have to change things because of the tendencies of one person, but such is life. My apologies to everyone else.

I love getting comments and I hope this does not dissuade others who leave kindly-worded messages. I promise that so long as a comment is not nasty or belligerent, it will be published. This is my soapbox, not anyone else's soapbox. If you want to spout hatred you should get your own damn blog.

(Also, if somebody out there could please leave a comment so I can figure out exactly how this works, that'd be super.)

The Dying Time

2008-09-20T01:03:00.005-05:00

Monday is Mabon, also known as the autumnal equinox. In the pagan tradition, Mabon is the second and often the last harvest. It's a time to prepare for the difficulties of winter. It's a time for reflection and to be thankful for all that we have. We look over the things we've done this year, analyze our successes and our failures and decide how these actions pertain to the things we want in the coming year. Our God is old and feeble. He'll be dead in less than two months and He knows it.

The three months between now and Yule are my least favorite time of the year. I hate these months. The God is dying, which throws the heavens into chaos and makes my life chaotic as well. It feels like I have to work extra hard to find a routine; like normalcy isn't the standard so much as the goal. Mabon is the last easy day before things swing into disorder.

I can't sleep at night. I want to; I'm exhausted, but as soon as I lay down my brain invents things to keep me awake. I remember things about which I should worry and things of which I should be afraid. I end up scrying in the shadows, which is never a good idea.

I hate this time of the year.

There's Something Out There...

2008-09-15T00:57:00.004-05:00

It is currently 1:00 AM and I was just woken from a not terribly sound slumber by the sound of someone pounding on a window and what sounded like a ghostly howl. It was scary. If you slept alone in an empty house you would have been scared too. A nice burst of adrenaline helped get me out of bed. I snatched my mace off the nightstand and my cell phone, then ran to check all of my doors. No one was there. Still jumpy with adrenaline I made a second round around my house and noticed Jason, puffed up and hissing at a window. For those of you who've met Jason, you're most likely aware that he is not known for his... ahem.... bravery. He's known for running when he hears a door open. There are, (in the whole world), four people that he trusts not to kill and eat him - Evan, Meltem, Melissa and myself. He's a big chicken but he's very loving if you're one of his chosen four. Medea is typically the one who charges herself with the protection of our home. If someone enters her home without first knocking or ringing the bell she's been known to growl and run to see who's there. When Duncan, my mother's 16 lb. cat tried to pick a fight, she showed him no quarter. We found him later, hiding above a cupboard. I'm digressing. All you need to know here is that Medea is a 9 lb. bad-ass and that Jason lives in fear.

Jason was crouched in front of a living room window alternating between pounding on it with his paws and trying to dig his way through it. I flicked on a light to see what had him so worked up and I gasped. Let me say, that I love animals - especially cats, but the creature on the other side of the glass almost made me sympathetic to the early Christians who rounded up cats and burned them as witches. Almost. This cat was scary. It was Himalayan, gigantic, black and equipped with monstrous, glowing red eyes. (Not green eyes, like a normal cat, but red). In fact, I am not certain that what I saw was not actually the chupacabra of local lore. Chuppy then proceeded to emit the ghostly howl I had heard earlier. He must have said something about Jason's mother, because my cat backed up and then charged the glass. I have never seen Jason act this ferocious; I was worried he was going to hurt himself. The stare-off lasted several minutes with Chuppy howling and Jason pounding. Meanwhile, Medea sat several feet away from the glass completely un-threatened. Eventually, Chuppy decided to take his terrifying features elsewhere and strolled off. Jason is now running around to every window in the house looking for his frenemy.

About forty-five minutes have passed and Jason is still looking for Chuppy, albeit with less enthusiasm. I'm going to try and get back to sleep now, though that's going to be difficult with the nightmares I'm bound to have.

Just Like Home

2008-09-12T19:38:00.006-05:00

I went to the grocery store today because Hurricane Ike will be arriving shortly. It's a good thing that I didn't need bread because the bread aisle had been picked clean. I stopped and stared at the empty shelves for a moment. It made me think of home. The thought that immediately followed was "Why doesn't Texas feel like home?" I don't know why, but it doesn't. I've been in Killeen/Fort Hood for eighteen months and it doesn't at all feel like home. It feels like ....I don't know, the worst vacation of my life.

I hope Austin feels more like home. I think it will. But every time I go to North Carolina I stare out the nearest window at all the green. This place is dusty and brown and I miss the green grass and the green trees and even the green kudzu. I miss grass that doesn't crunch under my feet. I miss the rain and the thunderstorms and the hurricanes. I don't so much miss the hurricanes as the stories they lead to. Hurricane Fran hit and Dad thought we were going to lose power for several days, so he went and bought an expensive generator. We did lose power, but only for about six hours. I lived in Asheville during Hurricane Ivan. It flooded the Swannanoa river and contaminated the city water supply. I drove around for over an hour looking for bottled water. I found two gallons and set it aside for the cats. I drank beer and juice that week. The water out of the faucets smelled awful; I couldn't even wash my face.

Is it bad that I think I'm going to enjoy this hurricane? I like hurricanes, but of course I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who lives several hours from the ocean and who does not own beachfront property. Hurricanes remind me of North Carolina; they remind me of home. They remind me that I am an independent adult who lives in her own home with her own family. Do you know what I love? I love when Evan and I wake up in the mornings and one of us looks up, notices that both of the cats are sleeping on the bed, then says "Look, our whole family is on the bed together." I like those mornings. It's even better if they're rainy mornings, but those happen very rarely.

Sarah Palin is NOT a feminist

2008-09-08T16:02:00.003-05:00

Did you catch that? She is not, not, not, NOT a feminist.

Nevertheless, political commentators, (especially the conservative ones), keep asserting that she is. These are the same conservative commentators who roll their eyes at most feminists, (or feminazis as they're often called). They know nothing about feminism, they usually hate real feminists but now they're using that word in a completely incorrect context and as a compliment. ...I don't get it.

The biggest points of confusion seem to evolve around the facts that Sarah Palin is a woman, she has a family, a very high-powered career and she enjoys hunting. These traits are certainly not exclusive of feminism, but they don't really make a feminist. Let me break it down for you.

1. Feminism has nothing to do with gender identity. Nothing. Men can be feminists. My husband is a feminist. My father was a feminist, (he was also a girl scout). Everything I believe about a woman's right to choose comes from my father and a story he told about a woman he worked with. The idea that because a person's gender identity is female, or because someone has benefited from the feminist movements of the past, then that person is a feminist is just silly. I would say that most everyone in this country has benefited from the feminist movement of the 1960's because those women helped to break down stereotypes about gender. I may be in the minority but I believe that women can be race car drivers and men can be nurses partly due to the efforts of the first wave feminists.

2. Having a powerful career and a family does not make you a feminist, it makes you a master of time management. I am sure that Sarah Palin works very hard and for very long hours because she is devoted to these two things. I am not assuming that these things are easy. I wouldn't never want to attempt balancing such a large family and such an important career; not even for five minutes. Lots of women who would never call themselves feminists have careers and families. It's difficult, but it can be done and it isn't terribly uncommon.

3. She can field dress a moose. This no more makes you a feminist than it makes you qualified to be vice president. However, when people say that Sarah Palin's love of hunting makes her a feminist, I think what they mean is that she doesn't subscribe to traditional views about what a woman should do and how she should act. Again, that means she has profited from feminists who came before her, not that she is one.

4. She's a member of the organization called "Feminists for Life." This is the part that really gets under my skin. Not because the organization is anti-choice, no no. It's because Sarah Palin did things while governor that truly contradict the beliefs of this group. Feminists for Life believe that women shouldn't have to choose abortion. They want things like better access to health care, better access to and more affordable child care, they want more support for teenage mothers and they want real sex-education in schools - not just that "abstinence only" crap. I disagree with this organization but I want a lot of the same things they want. I would never be a member of Feminists for Life but they don't make me want to pull out my hair.

While governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin slashed funding for homes for unwed, pregnant women. She is opposed to sex education in schools. There are even some sources that say she opposes birth control amongst married couples. The only point I'm trying to make is that while governor, Sarah Palin had perfect opportunities to enact some of the beliefs that Feminists for Life espouse. Not only did she not enact things to help pregnant women manage motherhood and careers , but she chose to go in the opposite direction and cut their funding.

Sarah Palin is not a feminist, not even by the standards of the only feminist group to which she belongs, and certainly not by the standards taught to me by my father.

Revelations

2008-09-07T19:05:00.006-05:00

A couple of posts ago I said that I was cooking up a plan that involved getting a job and moving to a distant city and that I didn't want to give too much away because I didn't want to jinx anything. I had an interview on Friday and I was offered a job. I am now willing to share what I call "Bethany's Very Grand Plan."

Starting at the beginning of 2009 I will be working for NARAL of Texas, located in Austin. (The city turned out to be not so distant, after all. It's only about seventy miles away.) For those who don't know, NARAL stands for National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. They do things like lobby congress and state legislatures, organize the community to sign petitions and contact their elected officials as well as host educational events. They were one of the sponsors of the March for Women's Lives - I should know; I was there. Their mission is to provide safe, legal and accessible reproductive choices including, (but not limited to), birth control and abortion. Working for a feminist organization has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager. I can't even describe how good it feels to have my first real start at achieving that dream. Oooooo, it just makes me giddy.

I understand that abortion is a very polarizing issue. Some of the people who read this may feel strongly. I believe very passionately in a woman's right to make choices about her own body. It is the cornerstone of my feminism. I just don't understand how women can even approach equality in any society without first being able to make decisions about their own bodies. (That isn't an invitation for someone who disagrees to explain it to me. I'm really not interested.)

Anyway, sometime in the middle of October, Evan and I will spend a weekend or two looking at apartments in Austin. We're still unclear about when I'll be moving, but obviously it will be before the beginning of the new year.

Giddy, giddy, giddy!!!

In order to celebrate my wonderful opportunity I made an appointment at a nice hair salon and had my hair cut and had high-lights and low-lights put in, (something I'd never done before). Behold, my new loveliness -

Gross Incompetence

2008-09-04T14:04:00.002-05:00

I just returned from the appointment with my doctor for the purpose of reviewing my ultrasound results. First, I need to say that the doctor of today's appointment was not the same one as the doctor that found the lumps. I like today's doctor much, much better. I like her so much that I am not going to print her name here.

The results came back negative. There were no lumps in the ultrasound pictures. So, today's doctor, because she is very thorough, did another breast exam. She declared that there were no lumps in my right breast, and as for the left... she found a lump, but it's a rib.

That's right folks... the first doctor, who's name is Aris Calhoun, felt a rib in my chest and declared it to be a potentially cancerous lump. I am relieved that there is nothing wrong with me but kind of angry that I had to endure this ordeal because of one non-existent lump and a rib.

I hate... I really, really hate military health care.

What the Hell Kind of Ethics IS This?

2008-08-27T15:01:00.003-05:00

Thats what I said to the ultrasound technician who refused to tell me whether or not I have cancer. You read that correctly - cancer. You probably need me to back up a little bit.

Four weeks ago I went to my doctor for the yearly female exam, everything was normal except my doctor found lumps in my breasts. One in each. She said there was a good chance they were both cysts which are fairly common and completely benign. Nevertheless, she encouraged me to make an ultrasound appointment so that we could know definitively.

My appointment was today and I went because I thought for sure I would get results. The technician, (her name was Laetitia) showed me into a room, instructed me to remove all clothing above the waist and then lay back on the table. I followed her directions and when she came back in the room I asked if she could tilt the screen so that I could see it too. She immediately said no, she couldn't do that because she was not allowed to share the results with me. I must have had a strange look on my face because she she said "It's standard procedure." I will have to make another appointment to find out about my results. How silly of me to think that just because the technician could see the results in front of her face that she would actually tell me about them. I left the appointment trying not to cry. While exiting through the maze of hallways a soldier, (a far more caring one than any in the radiology department), saw me and asked if I was alright (I was doing a very bad job of trying not to cry). I burst into tears and collapsed on the floor at the same time. I think I scared him. I thanked him for asking about me then pulled myself to my feet and kept walking. As soon as I was in my car with the doors closed and the windows rolled up I started bawling. I have no idea if the lumps are cysts or something worse.

I don't think this sort of treatment is typical of any other hospital or circumstance. I thought it was illegal to knowingly withhold a patient's records from them.

I touched on this earlier, but I'll say it again. Army families don't want people to stop and thank them for their service. They want tangible things - like decent health care that treats patients like they're competent adults. By the time I get my results Evan will be training in California and possibly out of cell phone range. I hate the army. I've never been treated worse by any medical establishment.

I Yelled at a Colonel

2008-08-19T13:27:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Evan and I attended a very large FRG meeting conducted at the battalion level and lead by a lieutenant colonel. He went over very basic things about the next field problem, then talked about life insurance, powers of attorney and wills. We were informed about how to send Red Cross messages and what information we would need to do that. The colonel asked the wives in the audience to raise their hands if they knew which platoon of which battery their husbands were in. Almost no one raised her hand, but I did. He repeated the question and was met with the same response. Then he said "Wow, I guess you guys just like the paycheck." My jaw dropped but I didn't say anything. It was an incredibly rude thing to say - being married to a soldier is never easy and shame on him for assuming that we only want to be because of the money. (Anyone who marries a soldier thinking they're going to get rich is in need of a reality check). And while I believe that a spouse ought to have her soldier's unit information written down somewhere, there's really no reason to have it memorized as the colonel so rudely suggested. The army is not my career and it's not the career of any army spouse. I shouldn't be expected to know everything about a career that isn't mine. Furthermore, it's always inadvisable to make generalizations about a group of people and this guy was old enough to know better.

At the end of the meeting the colonel, (as expected), asked for questions. I stood up and shouted "Why did you make a sexist comment about wives only being here because we like the money?" The audience, of about two hundred people erupted into cheers. He blushed. He had to wait for people to quiet down before he could answer me. I think he was more than a little embarrassed. Finally, after people had stopped cheering for me he raised the microphone to his lips and quickly said "You'reright,Iapologize" I thanked him and sat down.

As we were leaving a lot of people came up and told me how cool that was. Evan says they're still talking about it at work. I don't think they're used to the wives that stand up, say things and hold people accountable. I'm happy to break that stereotype for them.

Dilemma

2008-08-18T22:58:00.003-05:00

As I've made very clear, Evan will be leaving home in a few months. I stayed here during his last deployment and twitched with boredom until Meltem came to save me. This deployment I will most certainly NOT be staying in Texas. I am off to bigger and better things. I have the beginnings of a plan, which is to say I know what I want but I don't want to share it for fear of jinxing it. Here is what I will share - it involves a move to a distant city, (within the country), before the start of January and would bring me a lot of happiness.

Getting to this city and finding an apartment while working around Evan's deployment schedule is going to be trixy. The way I see it, I have three choices all of which involve paying a moving service to some degree.

Option #1 - Pack up while Evan is still here, two weeks or so before he deploys. This would be the easiest thing to do - Evan would be available to help me pack up our belongings and move our furniture into a moving van, (which will have to be driven by a paid professional). I would arrive early enough to find an apartment and to get settled. The obvious downside is that I wouldn't get to be with Evan during his last few days. There would be no one to say goodbye to him when he left. This also relies upon Evan's work schedule. He's likely to be very busy right before he deploys and if he's working twelve or fourteen hour days he's not going to have time to help put stuff in boxes. We could do all the moving while Evan has time off, but that will be three or four weeks before he deploys. We would miss out on a whole month of time together.

Option #2 - I pack up everything by myself after Evan leaves. When I say "by myself" I mean without the help of a single person. It's more than daunting - we have a lot of stuff. It also leaves little time for me to find an apartment in my future city of residence. This option is very likely to cause panic attacks and random fits of tears. I hate this option.

Option #3 - I pay someone to pack me up after Evan leaves. This isn't really an option because I don't think we could afford this. However, if money suddenly falls out of the sky this option would allow Evan and me to spend his last weeks together and it would prevent me from pulling out my hair. I like this idea best but it may not even be possible.

I don't know what to do. If anyone out there has good advice about hiring movers or retaining sanity while packing and moving I would love to hear it.

I hate this deployment.

You Can Do MORE

2008-08-14T16:18:00.002-05:00

This is what my good friend Mel left in my comments section. She makes a good point and I think you all should read it.

Hi Bethany...very glad you had fun in SF and I'm saddened for you and Evan both that you must once again say goodbye to each other for another deployment.

My garden isn't for victory, it's for eating. And I buy my food from farmers or friends, except for processed grains and the like, which I buy from the co-op where I'm a worker/owner. Of course, I am also intentionally boycotting several industries when I do this. The same industries that fuel the machine you're railing against.

I think that asking people just to vote differently is a really small start. We've all seen how elections can be recounted *cough* stolen, and of course, it's such a small start. why not ask people to make lifestyle changes that will actually affect the way this country runs. It starts small, but can grow quite large. We've seen it happen with the organic food movement. You can buy just about anything you want organic now at Ingles, which wasn't the case 5 or 10 years ago. The more people bought organic food, the more they carried.....blahblahblah

There are a billion and one stories of families and churches buying body armor for their sons. You know every single person here would be mailing you a check if you came on here and said "Evan doesn't have this vital piece of equipment, please help."I agree with you completely that something needs to be done about Iraq, just as I think something needs to be done about MOST of what's going on. Did you hear about the "rule change" that would deem birth control abortion and make it illegal? That wouldn't need congress to pass it? Yeah. We need change. Usually, it's either very slow, or very bloody...I'm not sure which is better.

On Deployments

2008-08-13T14:03:00.001-05:00

A long time ago, (back during Evan's first deployment), I was a member of an online chat group that catered to wives of soldiers. I didn't really like the women in the group but sometimes it was nice to be able to talk to a woman who had experienced or was experiencing what I was going through. I often described the group by saying "it's as if some evil fairy went around distributing high speed internet and computers to the most ignorant and backward women in all the land." There were a few notable exceptions to that rule and I still communicate with those women. (I even link to their blogs).

The reason I'm mentioning this is because someone, in an astounding moment of clarity, once posted that "one of the only good things about a deployment is that you get to fall in love with your spouse all over again when they get home." That sentence has stayed with me because it's completely true. But it's never as easy or lighthearted as it was the first time. It also takes a good deal longer, which is what makes the current deployment tempo so cruel.

Supposedly, soldiers spend a year overseas and then a year at home. The only problem is that they don't spend anywhere close to a year at home. Since he's returned from Iraq, Evan has been sent to two schools and two lengthy field problems, with another one on the horizon scheduled to last four to six weeks. All these exercises add up to about three months that he's been in the country but not at home.

It takes Evan and me about five or six months to re-learn how to be a couple after a twelve month deployment. I have no idea if that's "normal" or if other couples experience shorter or longer times. We don't spend that initial time cranky and arguing - it's usually the opposite. We don't know what to say and we don't know what to do. This is hard to explain and if you haven't been in this situation then you might not understand. But the first five or six months are just a little awkward. We sit on the couch and read books, or watch movies. We just don't know what to say. Our experiences have been so very different, one of us spent the past year wishing for security and monotony and the other wished for anything exciting or challenging. We've spent the past twelve months purposefully putting space between us and it's impossible to take it away all at once.

Right about the time Evan and I figure out how to live together again it's time to start preparing for the next deployment. The FRG is making phone calls to remind us to check the beneficiary of Evan's will. We're asked if we want to increase his life insurance. Evan and I are in a wonderful, happy, joyful place right now. We run to the door when the other one comes home and we cuddle all the time. But it's time to start thinking about training and the equipment that we have to find or buy. I have to start thinking about what I will do and where I will go because there won't be such a thing as "home" during the deployment. I'll have a place to live, but it won't feel like home. It's time to start thinking about the end of our wonderful, happy, joyful place. Then Evan will be gone for a year and then we'll have to work, again, at getting back to our wonderful, happy, joyful place.

It's time - already - to get into the mindset of, "we're still together" and "it's not tomorrow yet." I have to remind myself to calm down and take deep breaths and to just not think about it. I'm really angry that I have to do this for the third time. It's just unfair and I'm not trying to be whiny... but this situation sucks. I have done enough. Evan has done enough. It's time for this nonsense to stop.

So, I'm gonna ask you for a favor. If you love me or Evan, if you are sympathetic to the nightmares we've experienced as a couple, if you care about either of us at all, then please vote for someone who wants to start bringing our troops home from Iraq. Don't you dare feed me that bullshit about "missions we have to finish" or "commitments we have to honor." You're not the one finishing the missions or honoring the commitments. Please stop telling me that you support the troops. Please stop telling me that you appreciate my husband's service. I can't tell you how angry it makes me when people saunter up to Evan, shake his hand and say something along the lines of "I'm so grateful for all you do for our country." I bite my lips to keep myself from screaming "Yeah?? Well then do something for us!! Show us how much you care!! "Cause your flag pin doesn't do anything for me." The handshake is a nice gesture but it doesn't cost anything. You're not paying for our commitments in Iraq. You're not sacrificing anything. Evan and I pay for them every. single. damn. day.

I mean it; if you love us then don't vote for anybody who wants to keep us in Iraq for the next hundred years.

Limeade

2008-08-05T20:30:00.003-05:00

Is it hot where you are? Want to make something cool and refreshing? Try this recipe Evan and I just made.

the juice of 10 limes, (about 2 cups)
1 cup sugar
.5 cup honey
8 cups water

Heat the water then stir in the sugar until it's completely dissolved, (do not boil the water). Add the honey and stir until it dissolves. Remove from heat and add the lime juice. Stir, then refrigerate until chilled.

The super-adventurous can pour the mixture over an ice cube tray and make limeade ice cubes for other refreshing drinks.

Gary Fesperman is an Idiot

2008-08-01T00:03:00.004-05:00

That's all I can say to this article on CNN. A small town in Georgia bought a strip club in order to close it down... and they paid a million dollars for it. I don't know what this town's annual budget is, but I'm certain they spent well over half of it in order to close a strip club. If they were worried about crime they could have hired another ten police officers with all that money. (Actually, they probably could have hired more than that because I don't think police officers make one hundred grand a year.) Was there nothing better to spend this money on? Was there not a school that needed new books or computers or more teachers? Were there no potholes to be fixed, no parks to be made, no roads to be paved? Did no hospitals need doctors, did no libraries need books? Was there not a single after-school program that needed a damn swing set? Perhaps they thought all these problems would fix themselves if only they could get rid of the strippers.

They paid

one

million

dollars

to get rid of maybe twelve naked women.

(Just so you know, I am now back from my wonderful visit with Rachel in San Francisco and I know a lot of you are waiting for stories and pictures. Believe you me, I have stories and pictures and they are coming. They just take a while to type. Be patient.)

To My Friends and Family

2008-07-22T03:05:00.003-05:00

I am in San Francisco.

I arrived safely, (though I did sit next to an old woman with terrible gas on the plane), and am with Rachel in her very campy and very charming apartment.

I am already drunk on cabernet.

Please do not expect to hear more from me for at least a week.

Thank you, that is all.

Not My Job

2008-07-20T03:27:00.004-05:00

As I write this it is 3:30 AM on Saturday night. This is the second night in a row I have been awake at this ungodly hour. I spent last night and tonight in the emergency room with a woman I scarcely know. Evan called me from the field Friday night to say that the wife of one of his soldiers was so very sick that she couldn't drive herself to the ER nor could she take care of her two month old baby. She had just moved to Fort Hood, she didn't know anyone and she didn't know how to get to the hospital even if she was capable of driving herself. "I know this isn't your job," Evan said, "and probably no one but me will thank you, but would you mind driving her to the hospital?" I agreed, changed out of my pajamas and drove to her house. Evan said that the unit commander was willing and eager to release the soldier so he could care for his wife and baby so long as we could get a Red Cross message delivered to the unit.

Renee looked very sick. She had a fever, she was shaking and she had spent most of the day vomiting. Her baby was exhibiting the exact same symptoms as well as crying inconsolably. I got them to the emergency room then I sat and waited with them while they were treated. They gave anti-nausea drugs to Renee, and told her to come back if her symptoms persisted. We asked about sending a Red Cross message, but we were brushed off. She then had to spend the night at my house because in her fuzzy-headedness she had forgotten her keys and couldn't get back in to her house.

Saturday night, we repeated the whole damn thing. Renee wasn't feeling any better, (although the baby was), and she had to be driven back to the emergency room. We asked again about sending a Red Cross message but the doctors refused, saying that her condition wasn't serious enough. They explained that Red Cross messages are reserved for situations in which the phrase "life expectancy" is used. I partially agree with the doctors - it's best to use emergency services only during emergencies. However, this woman's husband is a mere twenty miles away and he could easily be spared for two or three days to help his wife get back on her feet. If she can't take care of herself, then she can't take care of her baby and that situation benefits no one. Mostly, I fault the unit for demanding unattainable paperwork in order to do a very simple thing. Renee is at home now, trying to rest despite the four-hour feedings. (I asked if she wanted to spend the night at my house again, but she said she wanted to be in her own bed).

I didn't mind helping this woman. I don't have a day job and staying up late only means that I'll sleep late the next morning. But like Evan said, this wasn't my job. It was important and somebody had to do it, but it wasn't my responsibility. This woman was so desperate for help and so unaware of how to attain it that she called her husband's sergeant, (Evan), in tears, to say that she was sick and she didn't know where to go or how to get there. It was sheer luck that Evan had his phone turned on. He had gone to a meeting and had meant to turn it off. I am not resentful or irritated that I was asked to help her even though it wasn't my job. The thing that I'm wondering, though, is why isn't it someone's job? Yes, there's an FRG, (Family Readiness Group), and had Renee called any one of them, I'm very confident they would have given her directions to the hospital. However, those women all have children of their own and I can't be sure that they would have dropped what they were doing and driven her to the hospital. (Maybe they would have, I just don't know. What I do know, is that I have offered to volunteer twice with the FRG but since they found out that I used to be a stripper, they won't come near me).

It's late, I'm tired and I'm feeling a little preachy. Here is what I want - I want the army to start taking families seriously. Remember - FRG stands for Family Readiness Group - not Family Resource Group, they are not there to provide resources for the family, they are there to make sure the family is ready when the soldier gets deployed. When I consider that, I can't help but think of the old truism "If the Army had wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one." The Army doesn't recognize my existence or my needs via my own self-agency. They only recognize my existence and my needs in relation to my husband. He is the filter between me and the outside world. The military in general is exceptional at stripping away one's autonomy and family members are no exception. I'm supposed to believe I'm not chattel, but I can't even get a resource group that is devoted solely to me as a family member. The best I can get is a readiness group that is devoted to Evan, but wants my help.

So back to what I want - I want a resource group and I want the people on it to be well qualified and I want them to be well paid. They should have backgrounds in medicine, counseling or social work. Among the many people who will be on the payroll, two or three of them should be "on-call." They will be there to answer questions, to direct you to local resources and to come to your house and drive you to the emergency room if you are too sick to do it yourself. I want the army to take families so seriously that they will include them in their annual budget. I'm tired of the Army thinking that soldiers' time is valuable but their wives' time is not. I want the Army to stop making empty promises and to stop hosting luncheons where they wax poetic about their commitment to families when they aren't really willing to do anything at all.

Broken.

2008-07-10T14:25:00.003-05:00

Let's play a game. Above, is a picture of my broken left wrist. If you are the first to correctly find the fracture in this x-ray, you'll get a prize. We'll play for one week.

(No dice if I've already shown you where the break is - I know exactly who I have told and who I haven't.)

HINT - It's very small.

Attention to Detail

2008-06-27T21:41:00.005-05:00

As the sun was setting this evening I walked out to check the mailbox. Among the numerous catalogs and junk was what appeared to be a bill from a hospital in Davie County, North Carolina - where I was taken when I was thrown from that horse two weeks ago. I walked back to the house, poured myself a glass of wine and opened the bill. It said that they were owed a grand total of $774.05.
"Ohhhh Godddddd..." I said.
"What??" Evan said, running into the living room.
"I just got a bill from the hospital in Davie County. We owe almost eight hundred bucks."
Evan loudly said a word I won't print, poured himself a glass of wine and then sat at his computer to look up the policies of our glorious insurance company.
After twenty minutes of researching Evan said it looked like we would have to pay the hospital out of pocket, then file a claim with Tricare and oneday, probably many, many years from now, we would be reimbursed.
"Great..." I said, as I finished my glass of wine and poured a second.
"May I see the bill?" he asked.
I handed it to him, then watched him blink at it and then rub his eyes.
"Beth.. there's a box at the very bottom of this bill... it says "Amount Due From Patient" and in that box is a big fat zero! You might also notice that at the top, there's a column for "costs" and then right next to it is a column for "amount paid by insurance" and the numbers in both of those columns ARE THE SAME!!!!" He handed the bill back to me.
"...oh... sorry..."

But hey, the good news is that our insurance company actually paid for something!! (this time)

"Your Problem is that You're just Not an Asshole"

2008-06-23T13:47:00.002-05:00

About a week ago Evan and his platoon were outside, cleaning and repairing equipment that was used during their recent field exercise. It is a favorite activity of no one but still something that has to be done with some regularity. One of the higher-ups in Evan's brigade called Evan over and asked him to take a short walk with him.

"Is there a problem, Sergeant?" Evan asked.
"Oh no, no, no," the man replied, "I just wanted to give you a little bit of feedback. Do you remember Sergeant P. or Sergeant M.?" (These were two sergeants who are no longer with the unit, but who were notorious for their yelling and fits of anger.)
"Yes, I met them."
"Well, we need you to be a little more like them. I know the yelling and the anger might be unpleasant - I'm a pretty nice, relaxed guy, too - but try to step outside your comfort zone a bit."
"I'll work on that; thank you for bringing it to my attention," Evan said.

I find this conversation fascinating on several levels. Evan didn't get in trouble, but he did get noticed for being too nice - and he isn't all that nice to his soldiers. I hear stories about how he yells at them and the minutiae that he yells at them for, (I don't print them here because they're fairly vulgar and uninteresting). I also love the use of the phrase "step outside your comfort zone." In other words, "we know society has conditioned you to be civil and respectful towards others, but we really need you to get over that."

The army is so weird.

Randomness

2008-06-18T13:29:00.002-05:00

It isn't even summer yet, but the days here heat up to about 100 degrees and the grass in the common area past our backyard is already dusty and brown. The evenings however, tend to cool down to very pleasant temperatures so yesterday Evan prepared a beautiful dinner and served it on the patio. (We had ribeye steaks and rosemary potatoes with an Australian shiraz). It was nice. Really, really nice. Those are the kinds of moments that I'm going to try and remember while Evan is in Iraq. I know I shouldn't be thinking about it yet, but I can't help it. This next deployment is a terrible black cloud and it looms oh-so large.

A few days ago I overheard my neighbors gossiping about Evan and me. "They're so weird and quiet" one said. "I know!" The other replied, "I've never, ever heard them fight." The first one rolled her eyes. One of these women is desperately and hopelessly trying to hold together a marriage that failed a very long time ago. The other one seems to flip-flop between hating and threatening to leave her husband or not being able to keep her hands off of him. Evan and I are a married couple who get along, who actually enjoy each other's company and while we do occasionally argue, we don't ever do it in the backyard. No wonder we seem strange.

I would like to write more but my wrist is hurting. I was thrown from a horse a week ago and my left wrist is yellow, blue and purple. Evan joked that if my wrist was an ice-cream flavor it would be lemon-blueberry. It's going to take a while to heal. You'll hear more from me when it does.

Back to Iraq

2008-05-26T14:27:00.003-05:00

If you haven't heard, this announcement includes Evan. He'll be heading back to Iraq sometime around the end of the year. This isn't exactly news - we knew he would be going back sooner or later. The deployment tempo is twelve months there and twelve months at home, so I can't say that that I'm surprised by this. I just feel like I can't catch my breath.

Oh, by the way, Happy Memorial Day.

Kitten Pictures

2008-05-23T17:13:00.003-05:00

As promised - here are two pictures of the mama with her babies and one (horrible) picture of me with the kitten I saved. Several people have asked if we plan to adopt him/her. Evan and I have been talking about it and we would like to. But we have two perfectly behaved cats already and we're worried that if we threw in a third cat, the original two might no longer feel the desire to behave themselves. It's quite a predicament.

Another Win for Patriarchy

2008-05-22T12:54:00.006-05:00

I have very few problems with polygyny and I don't think that it should be illegal. That may come as a surprise to a lot of readers since I usually bill myself as a radical feminist. My only issue is that it undeniably promotes patriarchy. In a polygynous family there are multiple female household-heads who are all subject to one, supreme, male ruler. Even before a single word is spoken, children look at that model and see that men are the ones who are really in charge. At the same time though, our whole culture promotes patriarchy but with much more subtlety. Fathers are usually the disciplinarians in two-parent households. "Wait until your father gets home!" used to be a fear-inspiring phrase for most of us. I almost feel relieved that polygynous families, at the very least, are honest about their love for the patriarchal paradigm.

Polygamy is not something I would ever choose for myself. The operative word in that sentence was "choose." If other adults choose to live that lifestyle it is absolutely none of my business and I wish them all the happiness in the world. The operative word in that sentence was "adults."

I have huge problems with the polygynous compounds spread across this country, Mexico and Canada. Girls and young women are forced into marriages. Boys and young men are oftentimes kicked out so that there are more wives to go around. The wives and children of men who die, or are exiled, can be "reassigned" to different men. Once again, if these compounds were inhabited by consenting adults I would feel differently. But disagreement and departure are usually forbidden in these places.

Today the Texas Court of Appeals has ruled that the State of Texas was wrong to remove the 400 some children from the polygynous compound outside El Dorado, Texas. Their reasoning was that the children there were not in imminent danger of physical abuse. I do not know if this decision will be appealed and I do not know if the hundreds of children will be returned to their families. I am just amazed that the Texas Court of Appeals doesn't seem to acknowledge emotional abuse. I want to know why forcing young women to live in a situation that is scarcely better than slavery isn't abuse. I want to know why treating women as breeding machines isn't abuse. I want to know why the owning and trading of women isn't abuse.

The men own the women - body and soul. They use them to make children. They use them for labor. They are not allowed to leave. The fundamentalist Mormon church believes that after the Rapture men will go to heaven and then call the names of their wives and children. See, he even gets to control her access to eternity. How is that not slavery? When is slavery not abusive?

I've been asking all these questions, but really, I know the answer. The abuse that's taken place happens mostly to women and girls who are of far lesser value than men and boys. If the situation was reversed and women kept men chained to a wall and used them only for procreation or pleasure the state of Texas would intervene so fast your head would spin. Catherine MacKinnon, a respected feminist and legal scholar might argue that the courts cannot acknowledge the enslavement of women at the Yearning for Zion ranch because it would require that they also acknowledge the enslavement of women elsewhere. Or it could be the other way around. It's very possibly a "chicken and the egg" sort of thing.

There are feminists who argue that when a woman gets married she is essentially permitting ownership of her body by her husband. I do not subscribe to that belief nor does my husband, but the law does. While marital rape is illegal in all fifty states, all but seventeen of them have exceptions and exemptions that make the prosecution thereof nearly impossible, (MacKinnon 211). For example, some states say that if a husband jumps out from behind the bushes and rapes his wife then he can be prosecuted - but if the couple shares the same bed, then he cannot. The idea of rape hinges on the idea of consent and in thirty-three states the law says that when a woman marries, she signs away her right to refuse consent.

I've taken a lot of time and a lot of space to say a pretty simple thing. The courts just upheld the right of men living in Texas to own women. I am outraged but not surprised. Men get to own women all over this country, the ones affected by this ruling are only different because they get to own more than one at a time. I do not believe that my husband owns me and my husband does not believe that me owns me, but what difference does that make?

MacKinnon, Catherine A. Women's Lives - Men's Laws. Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambrige. 2005.

An Article about Blogging

2008-05-22T12:15:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading this article on the New York Times. It is very long, so you should wait until you have some time to spare before you click on it.
It's about a young woman who found a job posting on a gossip blog in New York. She was an unrepentant over-sharer when she started and through her job, the over-sharing developed until she was posting her life online and living without privacy. As someone who has a tendency to over-share, (though it mostly happens in public when I'm face to face with someone), I found it really interesting. Set aside twenty minutes and then go read it.

In Which, Bethany Saves a Kitten

2008-05-17T21:03:00.004-05:00

Around 11:00 on the morning of May 15 my neighbor Abby called me to say that her cat had just given birth and she was worried that one of the kittens was stillborn and would I come over and look? I went over and all of the kittens were slimy and covered in a variety of fluids. There was a fair amount of blood on the sheets Abby had laid down and on the mother cat. My first thought when I looked at it was "Birth is gross." At least there wasn't any poo.

One of the kittens was indeed off to the side and not moving. His umbilical cord was still attached to a placenta. My first plan was to call Meltem. I asked her what to do about a potentially stillborn kitten and she said "Dude, I have no idea. Call a vet." (This is one of the reasons I love Meltem - she is never afraid to say "I don't know.") Abby looked up a local vet and I picked up the little guy and his ribcage moved. It looked like he was trying to breathe but was experiencing difficulties.

When I was fourteen I had a job on Saturday mornings at a veterinary hospital in Greensboro. I did whatever odd job they needed done and in my spare time I got to pet the animals and witness surgeries, (at the time I thought I wanted to be a vet). On one particular Saturday a woman rushed in her cat in labor. Two of her kittens were not breathing when they emerged. I watched two vet techs each tightly hold a kitten in their palms at arm's length and then bring their arms down between their knees as fast as they could. They repeated several times until the kittens mewed. It sounds strange, but this allows gravity to remove any ickiness, (that's the technical term), from the poor thing's nose or throat that prevents him from breathing.

Abby got the vet on the phone who told us to use dental floss to tie off the umbilical cord and then use scissors to cut off the placenta. I did both of those things then I described what I had seen when I was 14 and the vet told me that that would be a good thing to try. We hung up and I only had to do it twice before the kitten mewed. Abby and I both said "OHH!" at the same time. We put him next to his mother who groomed him and guided him to an available nipple.

Queenie gave birth to six kittens. One of them died on the second day, (not the one I saved), but the rest of them are doing fine. I haven't taken any pictures yet, (new mothers and babies abhor flash photography), but I will. Check back in a few days. I saved a kitten. I am proud of myself.

Things I Should have Said a While Ago

2008-04-30T22:33:00.003-05:00

I get asked a lot about what I do during my days. Most people know that I am not gainfully employed and they're curious about how I spend my time. They say things like "So, what are you doing now?" "What are you up to these days?" and my favorite "Have you found a job yet?"

I piddle. I putter. I run a lot of errands. I make sure that the car gets its oil changed and its tire pressure checked. I am frequently responsible for the preparation of dinner, (but never dessert). I water my plants. I make sure that Evan has clean uniforms and that we sleep on clean sheets. My days are surprisingly full. Essentially, I'm a housewife but that doesn't mean I have sparkly floors.

I'm not bored or unhappy but I feel like some people want or expect me to feel that way because I'm unemployed. No one is paying me to be useful, so some people think I ought to feel useless. I don't feel useless because I know that I'm not, but the pressure I feel is stunning. I went to college, I studied abroad, I graduated and I was supposed to get a job. I know that there were some expectations I didn't meet. I tried, it didn't happen and I've moved on. I wish others would move on too. I've been encouraged to get a job as a typist or a massage therapist just so I could "have a job." I'm sick of all the importance placed on a paycheck. My employment, or lack thereof, is not what defines me.

When there are no errands to run or plants to water I knit or I write or I dance by myself in my living room. I am an imaginative person. I feel a strong desire to invent something with my hands or my movement or my mind. My creativity is not something I've paid a lot of attention to in my life. I've only known how to knit for about four years. I've been writing my whole life but only recently thought that other people might want to read it. I've wanted to be involved with dance since middle school but I didn't get into it until I had no other avenue. And while we're on the subject, please stop looking the other way when I hear a beat and start to shimmy. Please stop looking the other way if I twirl around the pole as I pass it. My dance is beautiful and if, when you look at it, all you see is strippers and sex, then that's your deficiency.

I am lucky enough to have all my needs met by someone who loves me and likes having me around. An entry-level job as a bank teller or a typist is not going to sate my artistic side. It would make me miserable and I'm hurt that so many people who claim to love me push for it with such enthusiasm. I have a perfect opportunity to say "fuck you" to the world of menial employment and stay inside my home and inside myself to culture my creativity. Thats what I want and it's what I'm going to do for as long as I can.

I can say it, so I will - Fuck You.

Ode to a Futon

2008-04-15T21:31:00.005-05:00

Two weeks ago I bought a new sofa for the living room. It will be delivered tomorrow which means that the futon upon which I am currently sitting, will be relegated to the office where it will seldom be used. Tonight, like most work nights, Evan and I had dinner, talked about our days and then cuddled on the futon to watch movies, (at the moment, we're enthralled by season one of Dexter). I realized that this might be the last time that we have this evening ritual on this piece of furniture. Please don't think I'm getting sentimental over a futon. The frame is currently held together by chunks off a 2x4 and engineer tape that Evan brought home from work. (Also, engineer "tape" is not at all like tape, there is nothing sticky about it, it's more like rope. I have no idea why they call it tape.) We got it second-hand and it's been through a lot. It's needed replacing for quite some time now.

Evan and I moved in together in November of 2003. We found an apartment in a very sketchy neighborhood in Asheville, owned and maintained, (though I hesitate to use that word), by a drunk. It had a gas heater which kept exactly half of one room warm. Birds nested in it in the springtime. We could hear them chirping, it was nice. The day we moved in, our landlord, reeling and smelling of vodka, explained that our heater had been provided and installed by one of the public works projects of the Great Depression. He said that this fact guaranteed that the heater was insured by the government. Neither of us was sure if we could believe him but we thought it was interesting. From then on, we referred to it as "our government cheese heater." We were both in school at the time and were given money by our respective parents. We were living on around eight hundred dollars a month. We were well below the poverty line and it was, I'm not kidding, one of the happiest times of our lives. Later that spring, half of that income disappeared. That was the motivating factor that led to me becoming an erotic dancer.

When we got the apartment we had, between the two of us, a mattress, a box spring, a desk, and a dresser. Our living room was empty and so one day I set out to find some furniture. I knew I wanted a futon because my sister liked to visit me on occasion and I didn't want her to sleep on the floor. I went to two stores in downtown Asheville. I asked both of them if they had scratched or slightly damaged stuff that they would be willing to sell at a discount. The first place couldn't help me but the second one did. The owner was trying to sell an entire set of his own furniture. (He had recently upgraded as well). There was a futon frame, a chair, a coffee table and two end tables. It had been well loved. He had several dogs who'd had a good time chewing on the corners. I think he wanted two hundred dollars for the whole set. Somehow I talked him into giving me everything but the chair, and a mattress for the futon for two hundred dollars. The mattress cost $80, so he gave up quite a bit of ground on the rest of the furniture. I called my mom who agreed to give me the money as a Christmas gift. The same guy delivered it all the next day, looked around our tiny, run-down apartment and asked "How much does a place like this go for?!?"
"Um, we pay $385," I answered.
He blinked at me for a second then he left. I think that if he had felt taken advantage of about giving us so much for so little, he didn't after that moment.

That was four and a half years ago and a lot of living has happened on and around our futon since then. In the coldest months in that miserable apartment we pushed it next to the heater and slept on it instead of in our bedroom. My sister has slept on it many times as well as countless other guests. I did homework on it when I was in college and later taught myself to knit on it. Meltem wrote and edited parts of her Masters thesis on this futon. The cats have napped on and under it. And in the fall of 2005 as Evan was heading back to Afghanistan at the end of his two weeks of R&R he gave me a long kiss goodbye while I sat on the futon. His parents drove him to the airport, I couldn't. Eight months later he came home and the first thing we did was to sit on the futon, watch a movie we've loved since we were dating and try to remember where we had left off in the loving of each other.

Maybe I have gotten a little sentimental over a futon. I hope you'll forgive me.

(futon and cats in the non-slummy apartment in asheville)

Mine, All Mine

2008-04-09T21:07:00.002-05:00

My very last car payment cleared the bank today. I officially own my car.

Mine, mine, mine.

Oh, Happy Day

2008-03-27T05:22:00.004-05:00

Mommy, Mommy!! I have a friend!!

This sounds like something I would have said in kindergarten or the first grade as a child, but in fact I called my mother just yesterday to say the same thing.

Evan and I have found friends. Actually, he found them - he met them when he was at that two-week class back in February. But I have met them and hung out with them, and I totally agree that they're good people. We're going to go play in Austin with them this weekend.

Finding friends in Texas has been hard. We're liberal and pagan and that can make friend-making hard in the only state that tells other states not to mess with it. The really beautiful thing is that our new friends have had trouble finding friends too, cause they're just like us. So, it all works out.

In other news, I've gotten my Mac back. Some of the magic is gone because so many pictures and writings were lost. I feel like a scorned lover. But the point is that my computer is back and hopefully I will be inspired to post more often.

Beware the Red Vomit

2008-03-26T00:42:00.006-05:00

Early yesterday morning Evan was leading PT for his fifteen soldiers when one of them ran to the side of the field and vomited. This was the third time that this particular soldier had vomited in the past two weeks. He either needs to eat less before exercising or not imbibe so much the night before, but clearly he's had some trouble figuring this out. Evan walked over to him intending to yell and punish him with more exercise but was stopped by the bright red puddle at the soldier's feet. Evan's first thought was "oh shit, I've killed him."

Evan launched into a battery of questions. "What did you eat for dinner last night??"
"Ummm... a hamburger and french fires" the private answered.
"What did you drink?"
"Coke."
"What have you had this morning??"
"Nothing."
"Do you have any sort of bizarre medical condition I don't know about???"
"No!"

Fearing massive internal bleeding, Evan frantically got the vomity soldier into the car and drove him to the hospital. He made sure the kid was admitted and into a room before he left. Upon returning to his squad he asked the other guys if anyone had seen him eat or drink something unusual. One kid answered, "He had a Powerade this morning."
"....what color was it?" Evan asked.
"Red."

Evan informed the unwise private, (in no uncertain terms), that he is no longer allowed to drink red Powerade before PT. He may drink the blue one or the purple one or the green one, but not the red one.

A Cry for Help

2008-03-05T15:53:00.004-06:00

When I first started knitting socks I had a huge problem maintaining tension next to the gussett decreases on the left side. For some strange reason, I've never had this problem on the right side of the sock. What's even stranger is that it didn't matter what decrease stitch I used. It just always happened on the left side. It looked like this:

Sometimes they show up in my socks and sometimes not. I have no idea why. I maintain tension by wrapping the yarn several times around my middle finger. I have pulled it so tight in the past that I have broken the yarn. I don't have problems with ladders anywhere else - it only happens next to decreases on the left side of my sock. This means that I also see them on the toe.

Does anyone out there know why this happens and what I can do to fix it? It is driving me crazy because it doesn't seem to be related to tension. I am tired of constantly (and uselessly) frogging my gusset.

Please, I need help.

The Ball

2008-03-05T12:39:00.003-06:00

At the beginning of February Evan and I went to the ball hosted by his field artillery unit. Look how beautiful we are!!

All Gone

2008-02-21T12:30:00.003-06:00

I just got a call from the data recovery experts in Austin; the data on my computer in unretrievable due to a mechanical problem with the hard drive. He said they might be able to try again if I was willing to pay for the computer to be sent to a clean room. (By clean room they don't mean somebody's recently cloroxed kitchen - they mean something from the SciFi channel). Apple will replace my hard drive for free, so I'll still have a computer but the 400 pictures I took in Morocco are gone. All the pictures I've taken in Texas are gone too. Everything circa 2006 and before should be on our old computer. There were also some things I had written, (poems and other creative stuff), that are gone.

...this is a very sad day...

Leftovers

2008-02-18T01:02:00.001-06:00

Evan is currently away at an army school and while I don't have any recent, interesting stories, I do have several short, leftover stories from our trip to Morocco. I hope you are not bored of hearing about it. Some of them are funny.

Airports of Doom
London's Heathrow airport is on my list of Worst Airports In The World. There are only two airports currently on my list and the other one is Paris's Orly. That airport acheived notoriety because the security blows up things -with dynamite- inside the building and without properly notifying or cautioning air travelers. (I'm not making this up. I was there.) Anyway, Heathrow earned its place of honor because it is impossible to navigate. In every other airport I've been in there are television screens in a prominent area displaying arrival and departure flight information. These screens are useful, if not completely necessary, for getting to your gate and/or terminal. This is not the case in Heathrow. Instead, there was a poster that listed various airlines and their terminals. I imagine if we had been flying a small airline, like say, Phuket Air, then we might not have had a problem, but we were flying on British Airways and it was spread across three of the four terminals. European and North American destinations were in one terminal, Asian destinations were in another, and the third terminal was labeled "other inter-continental destinations." Morocco is in Africa, which is another continent, so Evan and I picked Door #3. We made our way to the bus that ferries passengers between terminals, then we waded through security. We removed our shoes but did not use them to beat screaming children (which is what I wanted to do). Oh, and we watched a security video that bore a startling resmeblance to soft porn. The video was in black and white, but particular parts would be colorized - like a woman's bright red, lips while she talked on a cell phone, or a man's belt buckle as the camera zommed in on his crotch. After about thirty minutes we passed security and then finally (FINALLY!), made it to one of the screens with the important information. Our flight wasn't there. Perceiving this to be some sort of mistake, we asked an official, who told us that we were in the wrong terminal. We needed the terminal that delt with European destinations. Apparently, Morocco is in Europe. We had to go back to the bus, ride to our proper terminal, wade through security while still resisting the urge to use our shoes as cudgels and THEN find our gate. According to British Airways Morocco is in Europe. That's funny to me because France tried to make Morocco part of Europe and the Moroccans weren't havin' it. Neither we're the Algerians. Or the Tunisians. That's the problem with imperialism; it's just plain hard to enforce. Anyway, the moral to the story is to avoid London's Heathrow.

Goddesses
Evan has started a tradition of buying Goddess statues for me whenever he travels. When he was in Afghanistan he bought me a bronze statue of Lakshmi and when he was in Iraq he bought me a wooden statue of Bast. Both are less than eight inches tall but quite beautiful. With this spirit in mind, I decided to try and buy myself a small statue in Morocco. While we were in Meknes we found a woman selling sculptures and carvings made from a variety of mediums. Her store was huge and it looked like she had just moved into the space because a lot of her wares were spread out on the floor or in boxes. I looked around for a few minutes but couldn't find anything because the store was so disorganized. In French, I asked the woman, (who was completely veiled), if she had any statues of goddesses. She hesitated for a moment, then said, in French, "What's a goddess?" Her French was not that great and it's very possible that she didn't know the word, but I couldn't think of a single way of explaining it without being disrespectful to Islam. "You know, like Allah, but a woman instead of a man," was not going to win me any friends. I said "nevermind!" and ran out of the store. Evan was already out there; he had bolted as soon as I has asked the original question. Moral - cultural sensitivity, it's a good thing.

Les Chevaux
In Marrakech there are a lot of of carriages pulled by one or two horses that are intened to take tourists around the medina and even into the Ville Nouvelle if you're willing to spend that kind of money. The horses are treated badly. It infuriated me to see western tourists (who probably abhor animal cruelty and should have known better), riding in them. They were filthy, (I won't go into details about what dirt under leather tack can do to a horse's hide, but it's bad and it can't be reversed), some of them were so thin I could see ribs and a good many of them didn't have shoes. The condition of the horses was abominable. On one of our walks, Evan and I strolled past a long line of carriages waiting to relieve tourists of their money. Each driver approached us and tried to convince us to be ferried around by him and his starving horses. I politely said "Non, merci" each time. But the guy at the very end of the line wouldn't give up. He followed us for several feet promising "very good price" and assuring us that we would "take many picture." I looked at his horses and my tolerance expired. I yelled very loudly "NO!! Your horses are thin and badly treated!!" All at the same time the man gasped, took several steps backward, and placed his hands over his heart. I think he was not accustomed to being talked to in such a way by a woman. Not willing to just let things be, I yelled "Yes, it's true! You're mean to them!!" Then we continued walking and I translated what I had said for Evan. I was very proud of myself. It was a double whammy for feminism and animal rights at the same time.

Evan's Sock
It's a seven hour train ride from Fez to Marrakesh and we had to take it on the last day of our trip. Evan sat across from me and read his book and I knitted a sock for him. It was the first sock of a pair made from very fine Koigu yarn. The sock was already half way completed and I managed to finish it in the last thirty minutes of the train ride. Like a smart knitter, I weaved in the ends, I wrote down the final measurements and I put my needles away. Then, like a stupid knitter, I left the yarn for the second sock on the train. I realized this when we got the airport and I had nothing to do. Poor Evan has one sock. The look on his face when I told him I lost the second skein was the most pitiful thing in the whole world.

London
On our journey home we had a twelve hour layover in London. He arrived at about 9:45 at night and didn't have to leave until 10:30 the next morning. If you thought we would spend the night int he airport then you really don't know us very well. We claimed our luggage, got our passports stamped then took the airport shuttle to Paddington Station where we began our search for a hotel. The first place we went to wanted a ridiculous sum. I don't remember what it was but he gave it to us in pounds and I looked at Evan and said "How much is that in real money?" (Cut me some slack - I had just spent seven hours on a train, then three hours on a plane. I was tired and hungry and punchy). I received a nasty look from my husband who said "too much" and we left. The next place was so reasonable it damn near bordered on cheap. With the hotel squared away, we went out in search of pints. We had no idea it would be so hard. We went into three different pubs all of which had already called the Last Call. (At midnight! Who the hell has last call at midnight?!) We finally found a restaurant that stayed open to an outlandish 12:30. The kitchen was closing though and all we could order were appetizers. We had some potato skins and two pints each and then the restaurant kicked us out. It was a sad, sad thing; we were in one of the wettest cities on Earth (literally and figuratively), and there was scarcely a beer to be found. On the way back to our hotel we passed a Burger King and a liquor store. We bought whoppers and whiskey then went back to our room and talked about our favorite memories of each other. All in all, it was very romantic and I say that without a trace of sarcasm.

UNC Asheville
The next morning we made our way back to the Worst Airport in the World by way of the airport shuttle out of Paddington Station. I do not believe in traveling in anything that is not comfortable and I was wearing a UNCA t-shirt over a long sleeved shirt. It was a good thing too, because on the way off the shuttle I heard a woman say "I went to UNCA." It was amazing. I had met a fellow alumna in one of the most unlikely places ever. We shared graduation dates, (she was there about a decade before me), then I asked what she had majored in. "French," she told me. UNC Asheville admits about three thousand undergraduate students a year. Roughly ten of those will major in French. What are the odds? She now lives in Nice and works for McDonalds Corporation. Pretty cool, huh?

So there you have it. Those are all the stories I have. If you want more you'll have to wait until our next big trip. Switzerland, Russia and Peru are in the running.

Fingers Crossed

2008-02-14T11:31:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I mailed my crash-tastic computer to Heroic Efforts of Austin. Here's hoping they can get to the stuff on my hard drive.

Hanging in the Balance

2008-02-05T22:56:00.000-06:00

If you are extraordinarily observant you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in about three weeks. Part of that was a lack of anything interesting about which to write, and part of that, the more recent part, is because my computer has passed on. It made a horrible sound, then I got a Black Screen of Death and when I drove nearly two hours to have it looked at by a Mac Genius he said "Uh oh."

If you and I were to have a conversation about my technological misfortune, I imagine it would go something like this:

"But Bethany, you forked over an awful lot of money for an Apple Computer and those aren't supposed to crash! What happened?"
"That's a damned lie. If you don't believe me I'll have the receipt from the data recovery experts in about a week. It's expected to be an entire third of the original purchase price of the computer. If I choose not to spend it, then I'll only lose every picture I've ever taken. Also, Evan will lose every picture he took in Afghanistan because for some reason those were on my computer. When the important data has been removed I'll have to drive back to Austin, (where I will surely get lost - it happens every damned time), so that the Mac Genuis can replace my faulty hard drive."
"Wow.. that really sucks. Because we're such good friends, I'm gonna buy you a GPS so at least you won't get lost.
"Thanks. I appreciate it."

I'm writing this from Evan's computer. Next week he'll be at some school where he's not allowed to have his computer and I'll try and post some more.

...I miss my Mac...

Airline Horror Story

2008-01-16T20:39:00.000-06:00

Hello readers. I think we need a little one-on-one time. It's come to my attention that I've been withholding something from you. I'm sorry if I've not been up front with you; obfuscation was not my intention. But there's something I would like to share at this point.

I am a woman.

Oh, don't worry - it gets worse.

Not only am I a woman, but I am a woman of child-bearing years. Ergo, I am a woman who, about once a month, bleeds from her coochie.

It's true. Please try to contain your shock. I've been living this way ever since I was thirteen and it's not likely to change anytime soon. It was my understanding that most people understood this, but apparently the folks on United Airlines flight 929 from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare hadn't gotten the message about women and their proper functions.

I had the pitiable misfortune to be aboard an eight-hour, international flight on the first day of my period. We boarded our plane and then sat on the runway for about an hour past schedule. Under any other circumstances it wouldn't have been a terrible delay but I was not allowed out of my seat to attend to my particular circumstance. You see, the “Fasten Seat Belts” light was lit even though the plane had not yet pulled back from the gate. I summoned the flight attendant and asked if I could use the restroom. She said “No.” I said, “please?” she then explained that if it was “an emergency” then the cockpit would have to radio the tower and we would likely lose our place in the line for take-off. I didn't want to do that to a plane full of people so I quietly asked if there was just a dark corner where I could change a tampon. Maybe I was unreasonable to ask that. It's possible that it's left over from my stripper days when we would walk to the center of the room (that's where the trash can was), drop our thongs and add or remove accoutrements in front of God and everybody. Maybe I'm overly comfortable with my body and its abilities. All I was trying to do was find a way to attend to my situation without having to ask the cockpit to call the tower to let them know that someone had to go potty. The flight attendant gave me a very disgusted look, then said “We do that in the lavatory,” nodded and walked away. So I sat. I waited. I ruined a pair of panties and I was beginning to ruin a nice pair of jeans when the plane finally took off.

When I was thirteen and in the seventh grade I got my period for the first time on an all-day field trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. I am not making this up. The field trip lasted the whole fucking day. We were dropped off before school started and returned home past dinner time. It was a three hour bus ride to and from the estate. My panties received their first bright red splotch shortly after getting on the bus. I had one pad with me. One. It reached capacity a mere ninety minutes later. I don't remember if I asked any of my friends if they had pads, but if I did, they were without. I'm also sure that I was too embarrassed to ask very many people. There was nothing to be done. I bled. Fortunately, it was winter time and I had a coat that I could tie around my waist. But that did not prevent me from completely ruining a pair of jeans. When I say “ruined” I want you to imagine the worst case scenario. Now double it. I smelled like blood and the pertinent areas of my clothing were wet and cold. Later, on the ride home, they got stiff. I remember nothing of the actual field trip, all I remember is worrying and sweating that people would be talking about it at school the next day. Somehow I escaped the ridicule that would have certainly followed. Evidently, the flight attendant on board United Airlines flight 929 from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare wanted me to relive that experience.

After we had gotten in the air but were several thousand feet short of our cruising altitude I asked another flight attendant, (a man), if I could please use the restroom. He said no. I said please. He said no. I said “PLEASE!!” He flippantly pointed to the fasten seat belt light and walked off. Fifteen minutes later the light was still illuminated but the flight attendants had begun serving beverages. Evan noticed this before I did and said “Beth, they're distracted with the the drink carts, if you go quickly, you can probably make it before they notice.” I listened to the veteran, unbuckled my seat belt and ran to the bathroom. The damage was not all-encompassing. I'm out a pair of panties, but I didn't have to tie a jacket around my waist.

I'm strongly considering writing a letter to United Airlines. If there's anybody out there who can help me with that, or make suggestions about how to get someone to actually read it, please get in touch.

Henna

2008-01-14T07:30:00.000-06:00

This picture was taken by Tom from Mosiak Photography.

Lucky You

2008-01-12T10:13:00.001-06:00

Hello dear readers. I have a couple of stories for you which I wouldn't have time to write, but Evan consumed some bad water somewhere and is lying in bed in a very uncomfortable state. We are administering yogurt, bananas and liters of bottled water in an attempt to speed along his recovery. I suspect he'll feel much better in the morning, (but probably a bit embarrassed that I published his tummy troubles). In the mean time, I have to amuse myself somehow, and I might as well amuse you too.

Knitting in Morocco
I brought my knitting with me to Morocco, I finished one pair of socks and have started another and my hobby seems to be the source of a cultural disconnect. I knitted almost the entire time on the seven hour train ride from Marrakesh to Meknes. Our train compartment contained six people, including Evan and me. The other four, (two men and two women) stared unabashedly. But whenever I looked up to offer a friendly smile the men looked away and the women squinted their eyes at me. This is not what I expected. Women, (and men in some cultures), make knitted goods all over the world. The oldest knitted fabric found is a pair of socks made in Egypt in the twelfth century. (This find was impressive because knitted garments, until very recently, were made of natural fibers which tend to biodegrade quite quickly.) Knitting may have been invented by Arab traders, but nobody really knows. Anyway, I had hoped that knitting would ingratiate me with the local people and maybe even remove my status as "The Other." No no. Puzzled stares were all I got.

When Evan and I had dinner at Icham's house in Meknes I asked him why people were so confused. He explained that in Morocco knitting is something done by poor peasant women and the article is usually sold immediately after. By knitting on the train I had presented an image of a woman who has enough money to travel, but has to make her own socks. (My priorities must need serious readjustment.) There is very little desire for the handmade here. That's not at all atypical in poor cultures, but I hadn't perceived Morocco to be that poor.

Naked Time
Yesterday I went to the hammam with two American women also staying in Dar Roumana. Public baths are very common in the middle east because a lot of families do not have running water and in the days before running water it was the only place to get clean. Allah strongly encourages cleanliness which makes them a staple of society. Hammams either have separate areas for men and women or they admit men and women separately at different times of the day. The one we went to welcomed men from 7 am until 1 pm and women from 1:30 to 9 pm. Women are granted a great deal more time because it's a public gathering place that is socially acceptable for women. They get to see their friends and family outside of their homes without having to see or be seen by men.

Hammam equipment includes a towel, an extra pair of panties and any toiletries one is inclined to bring. The first thing we did upon entering the hammam was to remove all our clothes except our panties. (I was aware that I would be wearing panties and wore a cute pair with pink and yellow stripes just for the occasion). Undressing in the lobby was strange, (yes, even for me). Then we paid the woman our admittance fee, 10 dirham to use the baths and another 50 for a massage, (translates to about $9 American) and walked into the steamiest room I've ever been in. Naked women sat talking, laughing and bathing against the walls. The energy was happy and friendly. One woman sat in a corner scrubbing two rather uncooperative little boys. One sits in the hammam either on a a plastic mat or a plastic stool, you can pay someone to wash you, or you can do it yourself. There are two fountains in the back, one that emits hot water and one that emits cold. The closer you get to the hot fountain, the hotter and steamier it gets. To wash, you scoop up a bucket of cold water and another of hot and then mix them to a desired temperature and with a smaller bucket, (we used tupperware containers), you pour it over yourself. The water goes out through a drain in the floor. The three of us then sat in the steam and waited for a very old woman with no teeth to scrub us, (honestly, I didn't know that breasts could sag that much). I took my turn last and let me tell you, she was thorough. Breasts were lifted, thighs were parted and ears were folded. The soap she used was black and made from olives. It made my skin feel very clean but very dry afterward. (At the end, I ran back to the dar, stripped naked and slathered lotion everywhere.) But if you don't get to bathe but every few days, that's probably exactly what you want. The women in the hammam were very polite, but they did stare and point at the three women who were obviously not Moroccan. I perceived them to wonder why, since we could obviously afford better, we did not want better. All in all, it was a very good experience and I wished I had done it sooner.

I think if we had something like the hammam in our culture we might not have such strict standards of beauty. The hammam forces a woman to see and be comfortable with what women really look like. Nearly all of the women in the hammam were beautiful, but almost none of them were beautiful in a conventional sense.

Jewelry
When Evan and I were in Thailand we went a little crazy with the spending. I bought two skirts, a dress, a couple necklaces, gifts for nearly all of our friends and some art, very little of which we display. Evan bought two or three tshirts and wears all of them on a regular basis. Okay, so maybe it was me who went a little crazy with the spending, and not "us." On this trip though, I decided to curb the flow of money and buy one nice thing for myself. Today I found it.
The picture is not great and I'm sorry for that. It's night time here and my camera didn't want to focus in the dim light. It's a heavy silver ring and the markings on it are letters from a Berber alphabet. There are several Berber languages and none of them have had alphabets until recently. I do not know which language the symbols come from or what they mean. I just think it's pretty and unusual. And now it's mine.

Fez

2008-01-11T04:10:00.000-06:00

Evan and I got to Fez yesterday morning after a very short train ride from Meknes. We are staying in Dar Roumana, which is simply incredible. It was built around the turn of the century and used as a private home by two different families before it was purchased by Jennifer, a former investment banker and graduate of Duke, and turned into a riad. It's amazingly calm and beautiful and if any of you ever travel to Fez, I urge you to stay here.

Back to Meknes - we had the wonderfully good fortune to meet a Moroccan soldier sitting next to Evan on the train ride from Marrakesh. He had just finished a six month tour in the Happy, Shiny, People's Democratic Republic of Congo and was finally on his way home. Seeing the uniform, I asked if he was a soldier and he responded "No, I am an officer in the army." Oh my. He was impressed that two American tourists had picked his city to visit. He told us that he thought it was important to offer hospitality to people who are interested in where you come from. He barely knew our names before inviting us to his home; his name was Icham. We had dinner at his house two nights in a row. His family was composed of his parents, his sister, her husband and their set of twins - a boy and a girl. They were unbelievably friendly. They ushered us into the family room and wouldn't even allow us to take off our shoes, (even though everyone else had done so). They asked us very few questions even though I had expected a great many and had mentally prepared answers in French. The food was... I don't know how to describe it.... it tasted awfully good and there were endless quantities of it. There were chicken and beef skewers, there was creamy rice with bits of cheese and green pepper in it, there were french fries, (these seem to show up with everything in Morocco, Evan ordered veal at a nice restaurant and it arrived with a side of french fries), there was bread, we had mint tea to drink, and then for dessert there was an entire mountain of fresh fruit - oranges, apples and pears. We were driven back to our hotel a little past midnight, (Moroccans eat dinner between ten and eleven o'clock), where we shared most of a bottle of Pepto-Bismal and then immediately collapsed. Moroccan hospitality kicks southern hospitality's ass.

Icham was also kind enough to drive us to Volubilis, a ruined Roman city just north of Meknes. We took no fewer than two hundred pictures while we were there.

So yesterday we arrived in Fez and wandered the medina, which is massive and very intimidating. There are narrow corridors that snake along and intersect with other corridors for kilometers? miles? no one really knows because there are no maps, so Evan and I are always trying to remember how many rights and lefts we've made. A ten year old boy found us and started showing us around, (for a fee, of course), we saw the famous tanneries of Fez. They're really fascinating because their method for tanning leather is completely unchanged by technology. They've been doing it for hundreds of years in the same place, in the same way. The white tubs in the back are full of pigeon shit. The high quantity of ammonia softens the hides. From there, they get washed and dyed. Yellow is the most expensive color because the dye is made from saffron. Green dye comes from mint, blue from indigo, and red from poppies.

Finished Products:
Evan and our guide Mohammed:
We did find a small cafe run by a very energetic English fellow. We had lunch there and as we were leaving there was a henna artist setting up. You can probably guess what happened next.

After the henna is painted onto your hands you have to let it dry . The longer you wait the darker it will be. I let mine rest for two hours, but local women paint henna on their hands before they get married and they leave it on over night. Because you have to hold your hands away from your body with your fingers spread, your hands get quite cold. My nails were turning purple, so the cafe owner was kind enough to let me stand in the kitchen with my hands next to the oven. It was just after the lunch rush so the cooks had to work around me.

You'll have to wait for pictures of my hands. The color will darken a bit more over the next forty-eight hours. Be patient; it will be worth it.

The plan for today is pretty simple. I am going to the hammam, (public bath house), with two American women staying in our riad and Evan is going to have a Moroccan cooking lesson from the same cafe owner. I will try to post about those experiences later, but since we leave Morocco on Tuesday, we're trying to cram in as much stuff as we can and we're running short on time.

This Space Available

2008-01-07T09:52:00.000-06:00

Evan and I are in Meknès. We are staying in a hotel without internet in the Ville Nouvelle. Because I'm in an internet café I can't upload pictures and I can't spend a lot of time. Our riad in Fès has WiFi, so expect to hear from us on the eleventh. See you soon!

Fun with French

2008-01-05T15:11:00.000-06:00

The first thing that Evan and I did after breakfast today was to take a taxi to the bus station, conveniently located next to the train station, to buy two bus tickets for Ouarzazate. The bus station was almost entirely full of foreigners with fancy backpacks and kayaks. There was an Italian man trying to pick up a fairly willing Australian woman in one line and two British lesbians in another. We waited our turn in line and when we got to the window I told the woman, (in French), that we wanted two tickets to Ouarzazate. She said "No, the road is closed," and motioned for the next person in line. I blocked the line and asked why. She said there had been rain and snow and repeated that the road was closed and gestured to the person behind us again. I asked when the road would open again and she shrugged her shoulders and said "How should I know?"

We were forced out of the line and Evan and I stood there staring at each other. Clearly, the Divine had no desire for us to travel to the desert, none whatsoever. We skipped over to the train station, bought a coke and flipped through our guidebook. We pondered Tangier and then decided on Meknes. Lonely Planet says that it is often looked over because it's so close to Fez but that it's well worth seeing. Alrighty then. We're going to Meknes.

I have to pause the story here to say that Evan's French is cute. Really, that's the best word for it. He knows the most important verbs, he has a basic vocabulary and he has a decent grasp of pronunciation guidelines. But he only knows the present tenses of the important verbs, he has trouble putting things in complete sentences and, (most irritatingly to me), he moves his mouth to much when he talks. If Kim reads this, she'll understand, but when speaking French the jaw does not move - it drops barely an inch and then the tongue and the lips move in order to form the proper sounds. Students who study abroad in France wonder why their jaws hurt at the end of the day and it's because English speakers don't use the muscles around the mouth in order to hold the lower mandible still - we use them to move it around when we talk.
But I digress... all you really need to know here is that Evan's French is cute.

Evan, smiling his "I'm-about-to-speak-cute-French-please-don't-throw-things-at-me" smile, stepped up to the window in order to buy the tickets and in perfectly pronounced, clear-as-a-bell French said "Nous allons au Meknes. Nous voulons deux billets pour la couchon." There's no problem with the first sentence. It correctly says "We are going to Meknes." But there's a glaring error with the second sentence. What Evan meant to say was "couchette " which is a sleeper car on a train, instead of "couchon" which means pig. Evan politely asked for two tickets on the pig. Horrified, I immediately stepped in to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, neither couchette nor couchon was available and we settled for two first class tickets. We leave on Sunday at 9 AM. We have no hotel reservations. Here's hoping the Divine approves more of Meknes than the desert.

More obligatory pictures: