My Luck Could Change

Dog Gone.

Well, not quite yet.  We'll get to that.  Suffice it to say for now that I feel like a really, horribly bad person.

But I'm (partially) filled with the feel good!  My usual station on my shower radio got bumped this morning to one of those 'Jack' stations, and in my groggy haze I didn't question why my favorite call numbers would be blaring 'Dancing Queen.'  And tonight it was one of the last songs at the game, musical bookends to my day.  And so funky!

The Padres, having clinched the division championship last night, thought it would be fun to take a scoreless game into extra innings.  Yey!  But as it was my first time at the new stadium and my first night out with Frank in a month, the view of the city and the pull of obnoxiousness (and wine.  and beer.) kept me from getting over excited from inning after inning of nada.  The Giants said 'screw it' in the 11th, let the Padres win and everyone got to go home.  Eventually.

First surfed the trolley back to our cars and kidnapped Frank to the Zombie where I knew I could get a drink-sized shot for $1.75 and whatever I could scrounge there.  Then, Frank kidnapped me to the Whistle Stop where I wasn't drunk enough to feel like I knew anyone there.  Even though I did.  I'm off my game.

And I come home and make myself the comfort food of all comfort foods.  A Banquet salsbury steak TV dinner.  The most vile of the vile, while somehow at the same time being as warming and comforting as a pull of whiskey.  Cheap, dirty whiskey. 

But here's the deal.  I love my dog.  But it's time for him to go.  The people we got him from said that they would take him back under any circumstance, and I'm hoping now they'll return my call.  Every day I'm afraid that he'll knock over the baby gate we have up and kill my cat.  It's beyond the point of something he'll grow out of and we've tried everything we can think of.  I've posted ads on craigslist and used everyone's advice to no avail.  I can't keep living with a gate dividing my house, my cat usually too afraid to come out of our room.  My first responsability (beyond myself and my familly) is to her.  Being barked at is one thing, but being physically threatened, pinned, something else.  Plus, I know that Adam isn't willing to bring the dog to Japan.  And I really don't want Jeremy losing his dog and his daddy all at the same time.  I feel like I'm justifying this to myself, but I've been thinking most of this the whole time we've had him.  And it's time for me to stop feeling so damn guilty every day about the situation I'm putting my other pet and myself into.

Either way, I feel like a really, really bad person and a failure.  But there's no fixing this.  None.

There's also no fixing the fact that it's after 1 and I've got an early class tomorrow.  Yey minimal functionality!  Yey Dancing Queen!

Winners and Loser.

I just bought tickets to the Padres game tomorrow night (which, I'm sure, they'll still be too hung-over from their celebrations tonight to play any better than little leaguers, but meh.), and it got me thinking.  With every Saturday night and, lately, nearly every Friday night spent at work, I honestly can't remember the last time I went out.  True, I have one of the coolest jobs on the planet, where I can drink and smoke and listen to bands and hang out and meet people, but still.  I'm at work.  Or I'm too exhausted or busy to go out any other night.  So, besides having people over, I think the most 'out' I've been was back in Minnesota.  In August.  It's almost October.  This is how peoples' entire lives go by without them noticing.  It's time to take Frank out to the ballgame.

But sometime between now and the game tomorrow I have to spend my morning at Teacher Mary's school, take Jeremy to swim lessons, make a Grimm's Law table with a bazillion examples, write a 3-page feminist manifesto in Spanish, and study for an exam.  Piece a cake...so long as I don't take bathroom breaks or the time to eat.  I wonder what's up with this "freshman five" thing I hear so much about.  I swear I've lost 5 pounds this month because I'm so f'n busy with school...

Now off to get some of that 'sleep' stuff I've heard so much about.

It's official.

We're going and I'm numb...I guess it's shock?  So now I've got a year and a half left to drink up everything America and San Diego has to offer before I leave it all behind for 3 years.  But today it's writing a paper, Jeremy's swim lessons, and making dinner - something I could be doing anywhere.  I'll have to make a list of all the things I want to do before we go...

But for now, that paper and more numbness...

Down to the Wire (and other cliches)

Adam called this afternoon with news of his impending promotion.  Good, because we'll soon be making a lot more money.  Bad, because without the promotion I could have stopped mulling over all this and just gotten myself ready to be poor come May.  Maybe good or maybe bad because I've got 'til perhaps only tomorrow afternoon to change my mind about going to Japan.  For three years.  Starting a year and a half from now when I may very well want to change my mind.  Or maybe I won't.

I had gotten myself to agree to Okinawa last week, then thought against it.  And then on Wednesday, sitting in my anthropology class, we listened to a lecture on Wallace.  Listed under his name were only a few brief points - when he was born, when he died, and the fact he spent 4 years in the Amazon.  Already an interesting and rare life and only 2 bullet-points in.  It struck me then that I needed as many bullet points as possible, should collect as many as I could, and Okinawa again became a possibility.  That night I talked Adam back into keeping it on the table, which brewed long enough in his mind to become his only clear choice.

Sometimes, when I think of it, the whole thing almost feels like it's medicine.  It might be hard getting it down, but it will help me in the end.

And, language-junkie me is excited about starting a new language I'll have a chance to get good at.  And the master's degree and teaching experience.  And the water so close and green.

But I'm sure once everything is final I'll start making lists of everything I'm going to miss when I'm gone.  And I'm sure I'll be leaving a big piece of myself behind somewhere, too.  But I'll have good stories to tell, and that bullet-point on the power-point slide of my life.  Those are very important.

Ooooookinawa

I don't know why I think that anything in my life would be simple.  I've got an overactive imagination and with it, a need to plug my life full of things to keep the gears turning.  So the complex finds me.  Or, rather, some part of me seeks it out.  Either way, I've got Conundrum #954929 to work out right now.  Here goes:

In the next couple weeks I have to decide if I want to live in Okinawa, Japan for 2-3 years.  But I wouldn't be moving out until May of 2007.  Which means any number of things between now and then could make me regret whatever decision I make either way.

But here are the benefits:

1)  Mo money.  Adam finds out in a week if he's getting a promotion which would elevate us from paycheck-to-paycheck to solidly middle class.  By the time Adam's contract expired he'd potentially only be 8 years away from pension, meaning he could pension out at 40.  If he doesn't get this promotion, everything else is mute.  But if he does, and we reinlist, there's a reinlistment bonus to boot.

2)  Trilingualism.  By the time I graduate I'll be fully fluent in English and Spanish.  And if we go to Oki I'll start taking Japanese next summer, and have 3 semesters under my belt before I'm fully immersed.  2-3 years should be ample time to get at least vaguely conversational.

3)  Experience.  I've heard rumours that finding an ESL teaching position over there isn't that hard.  I could probably, at the very least, find a teacher's assistant position, or do private tutoring.

4)  Education.  If we stay here and we're broke, grad school will probably be out of the question for a while.  If we go over there, it'll be expensive, but I can get my degree online (and with experience for my portfolio, which, as I mentioned shouldn't be that difficult).  Or get another bachelor's in business or something.  Jeremy will be in school during the day, so I won't have to worry about time unless I'm trying to juggle full time school and full time work, but even that I've done before.

5)  Change.  I thrive off of it. 

6)  Environment.  If we lived on base, it'd be impossible to live more than 3 blocks from the beach.  We might even get in a high-rise building ON the water.  Snorkling, scuba diving, deep sea fishing...all out my back door.  And the jungle to the north.  Gorgeous architecture all around.  New plants and animals every day.

7)  New stuff.  We'd have to move into a smaller space, so we could ditch all of our old, huge, falling apart furniture for new stuff.  And have the money to buy nice new stuff.

8)  There's a Taco Bell (and every other necessity) on base.

So, there's the good.  Here's the bad:

1)  Senior year solo.  Adam would be going out right when I'd be starting my last year, so beyond what help I could get from my mom and Jeremy being in kindergarter/daycare I'd have to go it alone.  It would be for about 9 months, but we could go visit for a few weeks for winter and spring breaks.  But still.  I'd get lonely and it'd be hard.

2)  Jeremy misses daddy for almost a whole year.  We'd see him every few months, but still.  That's an awful lot to ask of a 5 year old, although I kinda went through the same thing for a while...but my dad was just 150 miles north of us and it was only for a few months.  Still, I survived.

3)  New home AGAIN.  I've been in San Diego for 2 1/2 years and am finally starting to feel like this place is home.  I've got friends I love, a job I like, know almost the whole city, can go anywhere I want at any time.  How would I meet people in Okinawa?

4)  Island fever.  I'd be stuck on a foreign island.  When I got upset I'd likely feel very trapped.  We'd still be able to go back home about as often as we do now, but still. 

5)  Jeremy starts school abroad.  Depending on the experience, this could be an excellent and completely enriching thing, or totally shitty.  But he'd be going to school on base at an English speaking school.  Kid's adapt, and I'm not that worried about him.  He'd get to start 3rd or 4th grade back in the states and have plenty of stories to tell.  Or it might fuck him up for life in some previously unconceived of way.

That's all I got for now...that just drained me....

Hurricane Katrina: Photos from Keesler AFB and Links

It's devastating.  And while there's been dozens on the news who are able to eloquently describe this (Jesse Jackson on right now), I'm almost without words.

Donate if you haven't already.  And no matter how 'broke' you are, you've got a few bucks to spare.

We used to live in Biloxi while Adam worked at Keesler.  As far as I've been able to see so far, our old apartment building no longer exists.  I could be wrong though...it's hard to get your bearings with hardly any landmarks left standing.

I got some pictures from during the storm.  I'm not sure when exactly they're from, as the water's only a few feet deep and there's still leaves on the trees.  Adam said he was pretty sure it was when the hurricane was just making landfall, right before the surge.

And down Larcher: