Being Numb

I took my own advice and left. Yeah, I really showed her, (and myself), who's boss alright! I threw a bag together and left when she wasn't home. A cowards choice? Maybe, but in my own defense I really intended on just leaving for a while to clear my head and had every intention of going back to see what could be salvaged. I left all my things there that wouldn't fit into my bag anyway. But, of course, she decided to dump the last 2 months worth of crap out of her mind into one long email. I asked her over and over to share her thoughts with me, to fight with me, anything that would open up that mind of hers in a way other than to apply make-up. But of course she's the kind of woman that stores and lets things build before they explode in a bevvy of derogatory complaints. So after reading it I said goodbye to her for good. Poor John had to go and get all my things from her place for me. My brother always has my back, but one of these days I will have to clean up my own mess without him.

So I came to Oregon to stay with Rita and Paula for a while. My plan was to stay until I got my plane ticket to head for Baghdad. But, in perfect unison with the storm raging in my head, it's Friday and there is no plane ticket for Sundays supposed departure. Not only is there no ticket, but I haven't been able to get a response from the company for over a week now. Yes, yes, I know I should be used to the Contractors Run-Around...but it's a tune I just can't ever seem to get in step to. Maybe I'm not as good a dancer as I thought I was. I am so...sick...of...this! I know, I should just go get that Walmart Door Greeter job I have heard so many good things about right? I bet the Big W treats their employees much better than these contracting companies do! OK, but I digress. I wanted to say that while here in Oregon I went and spent 4 days on the Shining Star Ranch with Randy. It was a good and mostly pleasant visit. Good because my dearest and oldest friend and I had a chance to bond and clear the air of some unpleasant things that have been clogging up our friendship. And we got to spend a day floating the river and getting some always needed sun too. But that way of living is too hard on me now. I'm not as domesticated as my Zanja Brother is. Someday I pray that he and I will be able to enjoy life on the same page. Until then, we agreed on a base line for our relationship that will never fall below the minimum standard we set for each other long ago as boys playing in the dirt. I love him very much.

And on a similar note, while in Sutherlin I spent a little time with my married X-girlfriend. (That made me laugh to write that.) She's still just as married, and just as unhappy about it, as she ever was. I think I must still love her, although now it doesn't bother me like it used to. She will always be special to me if for no other reason than we shared hallowed ground once. But the poor girl is so unhappy and so unwilling to do anything about it that it just makes me really sad for her. She has the world on its' heels but doesn't have the courage to look down and make it bow. I wish she could see what I see. It was good to see her and put my hands on her skin once more, even if maybe for the final time.

So I guess I am going to spend the remainder of the day trying to figure out how to get a rudder into the water. That demon with the claws came and sunk them in, but it doesn't hurt like it used to. I don't know if that's because they aren't as sharp or maybe I'm just numb to it now. Whatever the reason, I wish I could learn to embrace the pain and lose myself in the sensations until the next time I come up for air. I'll tell ya, these days anything's better than being numb.

-JF

So Act

30 days later I am still home...waiting to go. Is this the story of my life or what!? OK, Update:

My BMI is down under the acceptable % required by the company. My recruiter gave me a date to hit it by and said she'd get me into the group leaving yesterday, August 14, if I made it. Well not only did I make it but I shattered it by 4 pounds! Which means that in the 6 weeks since I got back from Reno I have lost 27 pounds...and 5 pounds more than that since about the week before I left. That's a grand total of 31 muther F*%#$ pounds since the middle of June! But, alas, my recruiter was wrong and she could not get me into that group because come to find out it was already full at 50 people. I think she must have underestimated the power of the elliptical and my love/hate relationship with it. So I have been slotted for the group heading out August 29...two more damn weeks!

It's creeping up on me now...I can feel the demon coming for me. He's the one that sets his claws in my mind right about these times, when things get frustrating and it's as if I might lose control of myself all together. I am very unhappy with the living conditions I have put myself in. Not to mention the relationship that results from it. I am such a coward for staying and not just setting out on my own for however long I need to until I leave. She makes it so easy for me here though, almost as if she knows that to make things any harder would see me leaving. But she's not happy either, not happy with the way I behave towards her most of the time. But I am 99% certain she won't do anything about it because she's not that kind of woman. She won't confront me. She won't complain...not outright anyway. Her passive aggressiveness never goes unnoticed. I let it go unchecked because to do anything about it would be a waist of time. But I always notice when she does it. I have always said that this is the exact kind of woman I never want to be with, yet here I am again. Sound familiar Jim? Two more weeks climbing the walls. Two more weeks of her pawing at me like a dog that doesn't know how to bark for a bone. Two more weeks of the Queen B and her plastic crown and Harley Davidson sensibilities. I can't stand it, or her, or this anymore. I can't do it.

So act. Reach out for something more than what's been at arms length for the past 2 years. Take the next two weeks, hopefully the last two weeks in America for a while, and do something with it.

-JF

Skewered

OK, July is half over. It's the 15th and my race for an acceptable BMI is mother effing close!! I've lost 12 pounds so far and have been doing really well on my diet and torture...er, uh...I mean exercise plan. I've been to the gym 6 out of every 7 days since I came back, and the Atkins thing is still working although it's slowed down a bit this week. I think they call it a plateau...my weight loss is plateauing. How queer does that sound? I guess my Man Card doesn't matter right now because I am going for broke here. So in ten days I will contact my recruiter and see where to go from there.

I'm still staying with Lori but it's not getting any easier. To say whatever "relationship" we have is straining is an understatement. We are totally different people with polar opposite approaches to life. She'd say otherwise, but that's one of the things that makes us so different...I see two sides to every story and she only see the rainbow colored side. Someday you're going to read this Lori and know what I mean, and I'm sorry for spelling it out here for the world to see. But the way things are right now as I write this, I can't do it any other way.

I am looking for a different way to live out the next few weeks. I have compromised my beliefs and my morals out of a skewed sense of necessity. (I can convince myself of anything once I set my mind to it.) I'm hurting people as I go along and I can't brush it aside any longer. This just isn't who I am. I'm sorry.

I miss the Red Letters, very much.

-JF

The Desert In My Mind

It's July 3rd and I've been to the desert and back. Well, not exactly to "The Desert"...but to the one that exists mostly in my mind.

I left a week ago for Reno and training with Company B so I could go work in Baghdad finally. But after just two days they sent me home. It seems I'm not as physically fit as they'd like a guy who will carry a gun for them to be. So I ate some room service, signed some forms, and got back on a plane and came home. I came home to no house, all my shit in storage, no money, and needing to lose 20 pounds in 30 days. I swear I live the strangest life of anyone I know!

And let's chat a second about the weirdest thing of all to happen to me in the past 7 days. How does moving in with a woman I wasn't even seeing 3 weeks ago sound? Like a great decision...like a splendid plan...like a fucking lunatic's dream? Well, that's exactly what I did. It's equal parts necessity and pure, unadulterated selfishness actually. I can't go back to my house because it's void of all my belongings and will be rented out this week. And I can't really spend a month on John and Paula's couch. I could go live in Salem or Sutherlin I guess...but that wagon wheel has broken spokes. So I moved in with the woman I have been seeing off and on for a few months. More off than on lately though. I actually like her...but not well enough to shack up. No, certainly not well enough to become roommates. But that's just what I did, and Jesus do I feel guilty as hell about it! It should have wrapped up nicely last week before I left. We got a great hotel room downtown and had a happy little party and hotel room sex. We said all the usual things and had a heartfelt goodbye. And then I left. But no...not in The World According to Jim. In my world crap doesn't roll into a nice, tight spiral. It never can be so simple. So here I lay in her bed blogging as she sleeps off the vodka dousing she gave herself earlier tonight on stage. Perfect!

Let's see, how about some good news though? Well, I've lost 6 pounds this week on the crash Atkins diet and miles and miles of elliptic machine torture. So the 20 I needed to lose on Monday is now just 14. Thank God for small miracles. I may just actually make it to the desert yet! And the kids will be in town next week for a nice long visit. That's really good news because I missed not seeing them before I "left" last week. I'll actually get to see Caden for his 2nd birthday, and take Courtney to the horse races in Boise! Other than those things there really isn't much to be cheery about. But I feel better for have written something here about it all. Shit, it doesn't mean a damn thing...but then when has it ever?

-JF

32

Finally. After a year of waiting I am finally going back to work in Baghdad. I accepted the job and depart this Sunday, (tonight as I write it's early Wednesday morning), for Reno for some training and testing then I'll be off on July 2.

I'm not sure how to be feeling right now. That's not to say I don't feel overwhelmed, but simply that I don't know which is right or wrong at the moment. This week has been busy. I'm storing things and shutting off utilities. I'm scanning final documents and trying to say goodbye to friends. I'm excited yet sad, and unsure about most things now. I'm a bit afraid of leaving too. That's really hard to spit out, but not for the reason one might think. It's the unknown that worries me. I haven't shared this with many people, but once I leave I don't plan on coming back to Boise. The house will just be my rental property and the home I have known for 10 years will cease to exist. Every ounce of me wants to make a new home somewhere...to burn down the bridge to this life and its ghosts and skeletons, and just begin life with a fresh canvas. So that's what I plan to do, that is if I can muster the courage to walk away. We will see in a few weeks.

I have also decided to share this blog finally because once I'm gone I will no longer make entries to it. "All Is Well" is going to smolder in the ashes of that bridge too. What comes after is as much of a mystery to me as it is to those who will choose to read.

There's so much to be said tonight that I can't put into place. Soon, though, I'll have no choice.

-JF

Frame of Mind

May 20, 2011.

It's been almost a year since I started trying to get back to the desert. Finally, a job offer has come through. I'm relieved to be getting back to work, bummed I am going to Baghdad and not Kabul, and mixed about the direction I'm headed in general.

I was offered a spot in the group deploying in just less than 2 weeks. But I declined it because I have too much preparation to do and need more time. I'm hoping I can put them off for at least 30 days, that way I can button up the house and get it ready to rent, take care of my bills, see friends and family, etc. I had almost forgotten how contracting waits for no one. 10 days notice to pack up your life and move across the world is about standard. I'm not in the right frame of mind for that kind of living yet. But I will be.

-JF

Shark Week

It's May now and my quest for the desert has stalled, yet again. This time it's company B and the Eqip process. My security clearance was given an "Interim Declination." Doesn't that just have a nice bureaucratic eloquence to it? It means something in my Eqip raised a red flag on the State Dept's computer and now a human has to get involved. They say I will get a phone call in 30 -90 days! Sweet Jesus...3 more months of waiting!? Next month is June and will mark 1 year ago that I applied to go back overseas. One whole freaking year has gone by!

Personally, I have been swimming in more shallow waters lately. I met a nice woman who isn't married and actually seems to like me. She's all the things I could ever want in a woman, seemingly. Which is exactly why I'm suspicious! That's sick and demented, I know. It's beyond bad that I fully expect to screw it up or shove her out of my life the moment my fears or demons come out to play. Maybe I should take a pill or see a shrink about that nasty little habit of mine? Yeah, maybe I should, but I won't. Who am I kidding...the fish swimming around in my end of the pool are beautifully plentiful. But I don't swim with them, I eat them. I am a shark and only know how to do one thing...I kill everything in my path. Kill it dead.

-JF