Yesterday Danielle, Jesse and I decided to be total jerkfaces and celebrate Cinco de Mayo with every fake Mexican thing we could think of. We made tacos, had chips and salsa, and watched A Fistful of Dollars, being that it is in fact a spaghetti western about Mexico filmed in Spain and Italy by an Italian director, starring a lot of Italian guys pretending to be Mexican. We also bought Tin Roof ice cream which contained Spanish peanuts.

Jesse and I figured that as long as we were INTENTIONALLY being total jerkfaces about it, it was ok. (As opposed to us just being totally stupid without knowing we were being stupid.)

We decided we should start calling our version Cinco de Mayo, as in the condiment, 'cuz apparently you don't get much whiter than us.

Yoinked this from destroyingangel and Danielle...

1. Pick 10 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search or other search functions.


1. "BJ calls it a ravioli." "Does BJ have a ravioli?" - omdog21, Dream for an Insomniac

2. "Nothing says 'romance' like a kidnapped injured woman!" - riven, Stardust

3. "It may disturb you. It scares the willies out of me." - ielle77, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I LOVE Slartibartfast. XD

4. "What're you looking at? Never seen an ice cream thief before?" - ielle77, Kung Fu Hustle! Great job, Danielle, that was a hard one since it was technically a subtitle, not a line.

5. "It's a - it's a - it's a - it's a - it's a - it's a..." (This might be hard but I have faith :D) - Huzzah to omdog21, The Fifth Element

6. "Yes, Mister French Pastry. I have nothing whatsoever to say to you. I trust you have nothing to say to me." - and another huzzah to omdog21, Young Sherlock Holmes

7. "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..." (This is kind of a trick question as this person was quoting another source.) - I award this to infiniteviking who I was counting on to get it, but also my friend Liz who when I asked her immediately said "it's a line from a poem but it was also used in a Star Trek movie." Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

8. "And DADDY, they TOOK MY BOOT!" - I knew that between omdog21 and destroyingangel, whoever got here first would get this one. So that would be omdog21, (Disney's) Tarzan

9. "The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage." - destroyingangel, Emma

10. "Spiders... the spiders... they want me to tap-dance. And I don't want to tap-dance!" - this time a huzzah to aurillia, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


....and we're all finished up! My friends are awesome. :D

Ok... Bryon is currently sitting in Afghanistan watching NCIS on cable.


The world is a very, very weird place.

Time seems to pass quicker than I realize lately. I guess this is a good thing, now that I think about it—just what I'd hoped for, since the faster it passes the faster Bryon will be home.

It's been an interesting couple of days. Thursday I watched more Atlantis with my mom, and Friday was the new Doctor Who.* I was so exhausted from work, and the cumulative effects of not getting to bed on time (even though I've gone to bed earlier this week than the three weeks before) were such that it was actually a challenge to stay awake for Doctor Who at 9. I did so by finishing The Tombs of Atuan and starting Montmorency: thief, liar, gentleman? which is extremely entertaining, and talking on the phone with Christine. I am enjoying the "new" companion and the interesting teasers to start off the season.

Today I got up fairly early, Stine came over, and my parents picked both of us up so that we could go to a rummage sale at the Montessori school, and bag day at the book sale. I found a Little Mermaid lithograph for my bathroom and a couple of books at the rummage sale, and despite attempting to exercise restraint, came home with a full bag of books from bag day. (It's genetic. My parents had a bag each.) Some of the interesting finds: a hardcover copy of Steve Martin's Shopgirl, which has already sucked me 40 pages into it without even trying; both of the Douglas Adams novels I was missing (the two Dirk Gently books); a nice hardcover of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation; two William Gibson sci-fi novels. He fried my brain when I read Pattern Recognition along with Jesse's class a couple of years ago, but apparently in an enjoyable way. Heh.

I had actually already been to the sale earlier in the week, and found 6 books, including the complete works of Jules Verne, a one-volume edition of the Prydain Chronicles (The Black Cauldron, etc.), and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which I've heard interesting things about. I find it's good to go earlier in the week, because I restrain myself much better when it costs me more money to purchase a book.

After the book sale, we stopped at a street of yard sales. I found (finally) a pair of rollerblades that fit me, for three bucks; a couple more books (oops!) and an Inuyasha keychain—the nice kind, for my cousin—for ten cents. We stopped to get ice cream, and right after that Liz called me and invited me to putt-putt! Being that it was a gorgeous day, this sounded like a great idea, so after running to our respective houses to change, Stine and I met up with Liz and Shane. We had a lovely time playing despite the fact that it actually sprinkled for a few minutes, then hit the snack bar, and then we all went home.

I spent the evening enjoying my new haul of books, putting them in LibraryThing, and reading one of the younger-level books I got (Twice Upon a Time: Sleeping Beauty, or The One Who Took The Really Long Nap—cute fairy tale book that tells the whole Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the princess and the prince in alternating chapters). After Shopgirl sucked me in I suddenly looked up and realized it was almost midnight. Somehow it always sneaks up on me.

I'm really happy to know there is another day of the weekend left. I'm planning to invite my parents over for dinner tomorrow.

*Yup, I haven't seen season 4 yet. So the fact that they're just starting it on Sci-Fi makes it "new" for me.

Julie: something very important
Maggie: im praying you didnt just rick rawl me
Maggie: OMG
Maggie: you did
Maggie: you did it
Julie: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Julie: oh my god, you just made me laugh so hard by saying that that i almost inhaled some of my hair
Maggie: HAHAHA
Julie: oh my god i'm still laughing
Julie: that just... that could not have been scripted better than that
Maggie: haha mike did that to me ALL weekend
Julie: but did he rick roll you with THE MUPPETS
Maggie: no. no he did not
Maggie: he left those guys out

ETA: I should have mentioned that the Muppets were via jagreen79.

I talk about a lot of fluff on this journal, but this is very important. Made me cry watching it too. One of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

I never knew... that before playing Atreyu in The Neverending Story, Noah Hathaway played Boxey (the little kid) on the original "Battlestar Galactica." You learn something new every day...

(Ironically I found this out on the same night that The Neverending Story was on TV, just a few hours ago.)

I thought this was pretty interesting...
Using Comics to Turn off Terrorism

Ironically this is slightly related to the book I'm reading, which is Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, involving a journalist who thinks the Hollywood movie producer/perfumier she's just met is an Al-Qaeda terrorist. It sounds really fluffy but it actually makes some interesting points.

No word from Bryon since Sunday. I'm not worried, it's just that it's like torture; every day I wake up sad that I woke up to my alarm and not my phone (with a text from Bryon saying he's online), and then somewhere around 3 pm I give up on hearing from him for that day because it's 11:30 pm there and too late for him to get online. It's a sad business.

I am trying to keep myself busy. I have watched both seasons of "Heroes" (very very good by the way) and last night I just watched the first episode of the 1978 "Battlestar Galactica." I really like it so far, and am surprised at how close it is to the new series (despite Starbuck being a man and the Cylons being actual robots instead of robots that look like humans). I really like Lorne Greene as Adama; haven't seen enough of anyone else to comment yet.

One side comment from having caught an ep of the original Star Trek on TV a while back. I got really mad at Enterprise when it first came out (and a little at Voyager) for trying to "sex up" Star Trek by putting all the women in skin-tight outfits, etc.; particularly on Enterprise they seemed to have a lot of sex-related plots. However, watching that episode of ST:TOS really put things back into perspective for me. I mean, Uhura's outfit, a tight mini-dress, probably wasn't any less hoochie for the period than Seven of Nine's spray-painted-on jumpsuit. And the disposable away team member for the episode (actually I don't think she died by the end) ended up in a Greek goddess costume which showed way more skin than I would have expected. So, what was I thinking?? Star Trek has always had a fairly sexual element to it, mostly to appease the fanboys, I suspect. It never detracted from the show. In fact, I continue to be amused by Kirk's turns as space playboy, so accurately poked fun at by Zap Brannigan. XD So I guess this is a recanting of my non-realistic views of Star Trek.

Bryon just tried to convince me to fly into Kabul Airport so that we can go get married at one of the FOBs, which apparently has a huge garden in it. XD

(Gee, it's only a 28-hour, thousand-dollar trip.)





(Is it bad that I'm still thinking about it?)


XD

Doctor Who: The Five Doctors
(1983) NR
This 90-minute special of Britain's long-running fantasy TV series first aired in 1983. When four of the current Doctor's incarnations fall prey to a rogue Time Scoop, they end up at the evil Death Zone of Gallifrey and must make it to the tomb of Rassilon to uncover the secret of the first Time Lord President before being sucked into a vortex. But they've got company -- the men are besieged by a Dalek, a Yeti, Cybermen and the Time Lord himself.


I laughed so hard at this—a Yeti? Really?

Don't get me wrong, the Yeti can only make it that much more awesome.

I am going to attempt to watch as much Doctor Who as I can from the beginning. I know that parts of it have been lost (with some bits recreated) over the years, so I'm a little confused as to the proper chronology and what is actually available. Any suggestions as to the location of said chronology and also where to find the earliest series (as Netflix doesn't have them all) would be very helpful.


In other news, I got to talk to Bryon online for AN HOUR AND A HALF TODAY. WITH WEBCAMS. :D :D :D It was completely marvelous. He is doing really well, and even worked enough mojo to get one of his guys back in his truck. :D I also talked to the wife of the other guy, and he is actually doing really well and is okay with where he is, so that's a load off my mind.

I played catch with my brother today, and managed to semi-pull my right pectoral muscle. Oh boy. Also went to my parents' house for dinner, and talked my mom into watching disc 1 of season 1 of Stargate: Atlantis with me. XD She liked it and says she will watch more of it with me. (This isn't THAT surprising being that we always used to watch ST:TNG growing up and stuff...)

It's been a good day.

I just watched the episode of LOST from March 21st, then was very confused as to why ABC didn't have the following two episodes online. As it turns out, the March 21st ep was the only one I missed, because the show won't air again until April 24th.

So, I'm caught up again. Um, that was easy!


And also, this season is SO GOOOOOD.... I swear, it's back to season 1 quality. When I'm yelling at the TV you know the show is good. XD

Bryon e-mailed me. He's doing fine, obviously, but there has certainly been a lot of moving around.

I'm going to bed.

Well, yippee, everything may be going to heck in a handbasket.

Got a call today from the wife of one of Bryon's truck-mates; she'd gotten a call from her husband who said all the guys are getting split up and sent to various bases. Out of the three guys in the truck, her poor husband is going north and Bryon and the other guy are going south? maybe? and they won't even be in the same truck when they get there.

WHAT. THE FLAMING #$#@.

What is the point of having people train together for two months (plus the training they did before that) under the impression that they were building a cohesive working relationship, if they are just going to all get split up!?!?! The girls and I are devastated, and I'm sure the guys are too although they have no choice but to buck up and deal with it because, well, they belong to the Army, at least until we get them back again. It just reeks of incompetence and... oh I can't talk about this anymore.

Earlier in the day I was half-crying over this, I was so upset, but now I'm just sort of shrugging it off. 1) There's nothing I can do about it either way; 2) I don't have the whole story yet because Bryon hasn't called me since his initial 30 second report-in to say he was in-country; 3) it's not going to do me one iota of good to get all tense and upset over it so I might as well use the energy for the powers of good.

So, tonight has been a TCB night (taking care of business), certainly not in the sense of "It's business time," a la Flight of the Conchords (oh my God, go watch that, I'll wait...), more along the lines of.... laundry, and shower cleaning, and litterbox emptying, and actual dinner cooking (not in that order). I also finished The Squire's Tale, first in a long series of seriously entertaining books about Terence, squire to Sir Gawain.

*sigh* I also discovered GoodReads thanks to Anjali over at Giant Jeans Parlor, which allows me to make a list of books I have read (whether I own, or ever owned, them or not) and also to list books I want to keep in mind for the future. I'm loving it. It even let me import stuff from LibraryThing. If you join up, let me know and we can friend each other. I even got my mom to join. :D

I leave you this evening with one of my all-time favorite quotes from the Hitchhiker's Guide uhh... quintrilogy? Because I can. Maybe tomorrow the Army will have completely changed its mind again and everything will be spiff.

"I have detected disturbances in the wash."
"The wash?"
"The space-time wash."
"Are we talking about some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?"
"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "...is he. Is he." He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly, then?"
— Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe and Everything)

Julie: so... is that about the proportional amount of shooting in tomb raider?
Danielle: huh?
Julie: i mean, like... climb climb climb, run, dig dig, run run run, climb, jump, climb, shoot shoot, climb run run run?
Julie: it doesn't at some point become, shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot run run climb shoot shoot?
Danielle: lol
Danielle: yes
Danielle: it's a lot of die die die!! then hmmm i should puzzle this out, then oh crap a giant radioactive monster then hmmm i wonder how i can get this to open, then ahhhhh i'm sliding into a pit!!!
Danielle: then wweeeee i can swing on a rope!
Danielle: then oh @#$%... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Danielle: splat
Danielle: or
Danielle: oh @#$%, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... SHINK (as you land on giant spikes)
Danielle: or oh @#$%. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh glubb glubbb glubb (as you drown)
Danielle: oh and my favorite, hmm ok i need to light this stick on fire so i can light the rope and ... uh oh @#$%... i'm on fire. I'M ON FIRE!!!
Danielle: lol
Danielle: which equals lots of you going HA HA HA HA or god damn it! And quitting in frustration that evening.
Danielle: lol
Julie: ROFL


Danielle came over last night and brought a couple of her Wii games. She doesn't uh, exactly... have a Wii yet, so she wanted to try her games out on mine to make sure they worked (she bought them used). This meant that I got to see the new Resident Evil game, and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, neither of which I would have picked out on my own. Resident Evil was a little gross (not TOO bad, at least not the part she played); Tomb Raider was really entertaining. I got to try it too, and now I'm all wanting to play Tomb Raider right from the beginning, so Danielle's going to loan me the first game! Apparently Tomb Raider: Anniversary is really a remake of the first game with new controls, etc., but I'd prefer to start off old school and work my way up. :D



In other news... Bryon called me from Kuwait yesterday. "I'm walking around Kuwait with full bars on my cell phone!" It's expensive to do it, but it's still impressive that he can call me from there on his own phone. We are looking into alternatives - adding international dialing to his phone, or possibly Bryon buying an Afghani cell phone from one of the guys who is heading home. We'll see. I also had two e-mails from him this morning, which was nice. :)

It was a busy weekend, and I'm still kinda tired. Tonight is Finish Our Taxes night. I got most of mine done last night, and I have to take Bryon's in today. Wheee!

Well, Bryon's on his way. He called me yesterday from Ireland (they don't get to leave the airport; he did this on the way to Iraq too). Possibly Kuwait next, although I've also heard Germany and Turkey. He won't know til he gets there.

The FRG meeting yesterday was... enh. The first half was all about stress management, not really anything new, and then someone asked a question about the last subject anyone (including her, really) wanted to talk about: the death of a soldier. So the guy kept saying "I didn't come here today to talk about this, but if you want to know, I will... but if people don't want to hear about it, just tell me and I'll stop." Well, I think the whole room was full of people who didn't want to be "that guy," and so we all sat there and listened to him even though we all very nearly wanted to walk out. I was tearing up, Brandy was tearing up, and two or three other women I talked to afterward were too. That was not the way to kick off a deployment.

Oh well. I got to talk to several of the other wives/girlfriends/etc. and exchanged e-mails with some of them, which is good. I certainly feel a lot more a part of the group this time than when Bryon went to Iraq. For that one, they were attached to a unit out of Glens Falls; I hadn't known any of the wives-etc. when he was in Oswego, and I CERTAINLY didn't know anyone out of Glens Falls. I hate to say it, but they seemed a little standoffish when I would go to events, and while I'm a pretty friendly person, I had a hard time breaking through that. This time, I am right in the thick of things, and I think it is helping a lot!

I made plans yesterday to meet up with Nick and Kathy on Thursday for dinner. I'm really excited. I think it's kind of funny that I am now in the exact same position Kathy was in about 4 years ago: planning a wedding while waiting for the groom to get back from Afghanistan. Well, they got through it, and so will we.

I have a birthday party to go to today (for Bryon's sister) and I think I'll go do my taxes at my parents' house tonight. What an exciting end to the weekend...

I am just whizzing through my pile of library books. Admittedly, they're all YA fiction and fantasy, so they don't take a lot of time anyway.

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin. I'd always meant to pick up something of hers to try—in fact I discovered during my LibraryThing cataloging that I own book 4 of this series—but I was finally convinced to do it when Stine and I went to the library. She's read them, and she says she's the only person she knows who has, so she can't talk about them with anyone. Well, say no more. I really enjoyed it; it's very typical high fantasy (wizards, dragons etc.) but none of it feels generic or like it's been done before. In fact, it made me think that Christopher Paolini must have read Earthsea to get the idea of knowing something's true name to control it. -_-;

Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth, by Lee Welles. This book is written by a local woman and set in Upstate New York, not far from here. That in itself made me willing to give it a shot. It's basically an environment-saving girl power book. It's a tiny bit preachy at times even on non-environmental subjects (such as advertising), but it was a good enough read that I'm going to pick up book 2 when I go to the library.

Now I'm 200 pages into Inkheart... Kim omdog will be excited to hear that. :D


I haven't done Booking Through Thursday in forever (since Nov. 15th!)... and go figure, last week they used the question I sent in! So, here I am trying to play catch-up in a big way. I'm not going to answer them all, just ones that pique my interest.

( Here we go! )

So, I haven't posted much about books or movies for a bit, so here goes:

Movies I've Watched Lately:
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age. AFSDFLKJFSDH ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I won't speak on historical accuracy of the plot or the costumes, but OH MY GOD, you must see this even if all you do is put it on mute and just watch it go by. Absolutely gorgeous. And Cate Blanchett is awesome.

- Mystic River. Sort of half-watched this while my brother had it on in the living room. Sure, the acting was great, and it even had Emmy Rossum and Smalls from The Sandlot in it (Tom Guiry. His name is Tom Guiry.), but man, the subject matter is DEPRESSING. Very dark and disturbing movie.

- Jindabyne. One of my brother's picks from Netflix... also pretty dark. I do love Gabriel Byrne though.

- Death Wish 4 and 5 (I think). Charles Bronson scares the crap out of me. Bryon and I caught these on TV in NC and he was sooooo excited, although neither one turned out to be the particular Death Wish he was thinking of. They are entertaining in a ridiculously bad way.

Books I've Read Lately:
- Firesong (book 3 of the Wind on Fire Trilogy) by William Nicholson. These were interesting. The guy is great at making up names, for one thing; and he certainly doesn't pull any punches story-wise. Also, the author co-wrote the screenplay for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and has written them for several other movies. Neat.

- Deception Point (on CD) by Dan Brown. Why, oh why did I pick this. I've read The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, but I'm still extremely anti-Dan Brown. Obviously, the library had a VERY slim selection of audiobooks I was actually interested in. This was PAINFUL. First off, it could have been 9 hours instead of 15 if the guy had just TALKED FASTER. Secondly, his pronunciation drove me batty—it's NASA, not, "Nassaw." His "female" voices were kind of annoying as well. But besides all of that... Dan Brown needs to stop using 4 sentences where one would do, and stop dragging out every dramatic moment until I feel like I'm going to claw my own eyes out. AUUUUGH. Not to mention, the book felt like it would never die, because after the action was all over, he felt the need to add on a completely unnecessary sex scene in the Lincoln bedroom, during which the guy HID IN THE CLOSET AND PRETENDED TO BE THE GHOST OF LINCOLN. It was absolutely horrible.

- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Ok, I've ranted a bit to people about this already, but now I've actually finished the book and had a chance to mull it over a bit. Philippa Gregory is a really good writer. Her characters really come to life and their interactions are believable. That said, I had a hard time with the "historical fiction" aspect, where she did a bunch of research and then just chose the bits that she thought sounded good and wrote them in as if they were fact. I mean, that's what she HAS to do to create the story—as she says on her website, in a history you have the option of saying "some people think this, or it might have been this" but you can't do that in a narrative. She absolutely evoked the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere I would imagine court life had at that time, and I am still thinking about the book two days later. What weirds me out is how much I feel like I KNOW these people/characters, and yet all of that is based on Gregory's imagination—we know almost nothing about these people, Mary Boleyn in particular. I do think that while she pushed an overtly feminist agenda, she makes some really good points about the political ramifications of what was going on. I would definitely recommend the book, and now I am fighting off the urge to go try and borrow others of hers from Sara (gotta finish the library books first!!). HOWEVER, I will be, and I would recommend, following it up with some of the histories that are out there, such as Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Oh, incidentally, I've heard nothing but crap about the movie even from Sara who adores the book, so I think I will skip that until it's on DVD.

Now I'm reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, and will be watching the first DVD of Stargate: Atlantis season 1. Woohoo!!

I will try to zip through this, although I know how long-winded I can get on here.

I drove down to NC in 13 hours, from about 10 pm on Thursday to 11 am on Friday. I worked Thursday, went to Circuit City and bought a TomTom GPS thingie, then tried to sleep before I got up to go. Originally I was going to caravan down with another of the truck wives, but she wasn't leaving Oswego til midnight and I couldn't stomach the idea of Bryon getting out at 9 am (of course the original release time was noon, so we had all planned around that) and sitting there for 2-3 extra hours waiting for me so I decided to go ahead and go, being that Amanda had other people caravaning with her from Oswego anyway.

It's a very, very long drive, but not a hard one. That "I drove all night to get to you" song by Celine Dion has a lot more meaning for me now. I thought it would be weird driving through the night, but really it was fine; there was little traffic but always enough that I didn't feel like I was alone on the road, and the TomTom gave me good directions, including directing me easily back to the highway anytime I made a stop.

Upon arrival there was a very short period of awkwardness for me, as we sort of readjusted ourselves. This happens every time and it vanishes quickly, but I still hate it. Still, we settled back into our together-selves fully and completely and it was a great feeling, a feeling I just ache for now.

We basically spent the week in a whirlwind of driving around, restaurants, just sitting around watching TV, shopping at the PX... it's awfully hard to find much to do down there because the whole town around there is a complete hole. There's seedy-looking pawn shops everywhere, offering a range of services ("loans, jewelry, guns and musical equipment" was our favorite) and a clustered, claustrophobic mess of stores, restaurants, services and highways. We discovered that the TomTom does not help at all in this regard. While it generally managed to get us where we wanted to go, it had a nasty habit of taking odd ways to get there, or telling us to turn left in a place where there was a median, or being unable to find in its listing places we knew we had driven right by multiple times, or in one case telling us there was a Waffle House in the middle of a residential area. Nice. I think both of us wanted to throw the thing out the window more times than we actually thought it was useful. The worst part is, when you depend on the GPS, you lose all sense of your surroundings. In a place as congested as that town, everything looks the same, and we had very little concept of where any of the roads led. I guess overall, I would just rather have a plain old map and a compass. Lucky for me, there is a two-week trial period on those things and I plan to take it back; you get your money back minus a "restocking fee" of about 15%, and that's worth it to me. *shrug*

Things we did this week (in no particular order):
Ate at IHOP (with some of the truck people plus some extended family), Waffle House, Hooters (not our idea, but the food was pretty good), Tony Roma's Rib Grill, Wendy's (it was right across the street from the hotel so we walked there a few times), Ruby Tuesday (with the rest of the truck), Sonic (our first time; not impressed with the hot dog but the banana splits are great!), Burger King at the PX, and in the hotel room, working on leftovers. Went to Books-A-Million (BAM = LOVE). Found a yarn store. Visited Bryon's FOB, so I got to see the tent where he's been living for the past two months, and lay on his cot, and see that really and truly, the tent is heated and probably they weren't freezing like I was worried about. Watched a bunch of stuff on TV, just lounging around and relaxing together, including Death Wish 4 and 5 and Destination Truth and America's Funniest Home Videos. It felt NORMAL, which made it supremely wonderful.

On Thursday, Bryon had to be in at the FOB at 5 am, so I drove him over there. He didn't get out of his ceremony rehearsal for about 6 hours, most of which had consisted of all the guys out on the parade field in the sun, standing around. The next day, after again getting in at 5 am, they were out on the field at 7 for an 11 am ceremony, standing around in the sun in full gear. Grarrrr... I just get so, so frustrated.

Anyway, the ceremony was the usual talking and fanfare, with the best part being getting to take Bryon with me at the end. We went to Waffle House. I was so, so glad that I decided to go down there. If Bryon had come up here for his pass, he would have had to leave mid-week to return for the rehearsal/ceremony, but this way, we had the ENTIRE WEEK together before he had to go back in. We got an entire week of normalcy, and then I had to leave him there, which just about ripped the heart out of me. 13 hours later, at about 1:30 am, I was home, totally exhausted. I'm still getting used to being back here. I'm sure it will kick me in the head tomorrow when I have to get up for work in the morning, and I guess that will at least be a distraction. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the clean apartment, and have spent much of the day laying around trying to finish up The Other Boleyn Girl.

I have a strong suspicion that our heat is off again, which has happened I think 4 times since we moved in. It's rather chilly. The computer tower is currently putting out more heat than the registers are.

Anyway, I'm readjusting myself to my new kind of normal, and counting down the days - oh look, one day down. About 10 months to go.

Oh, and a side note: I've confirmed every impression I had of Dan Brown by listening to Deception Point most of the way down and all the way back; every single bit of plot is dragged out to the point where you feel like being poked with something very pointy might be a relief. Also, I forgot the cardinal rule of Dan Brown, which is that whoever seems to be the bad guy, most definitely is not. It's always the one you least expect. I guess he's consistent if nothing else.

Today, my support network kicked in full force. I only slept until about 9:30; I woke up at 9:15 and I just couldn't seem to fall back asleep, so I got up. I made a run to the dump to take in all our recyclables, and after that my mom came over to help me whip the apartment into shape. It looks better in here than it's looked since I moved in. I hung more pictures on the wall, got rid of/consolidated more boxes (or sent them to my parents' basement to await yard sale, future use, etc... sorry Mom & Dad!) and we even got the kitchen table cleared off for the first time since I moved in. Woo! It looks pretty darn good in here. (Thanks, Mom, for all your help!!)

Stine called to say that D was in town, visiting home from Japan, and invited me out to dinner. D, Stine, Sara and I had a lovely time (and a delicious meal) at Olive Garden, shopped around Target for a while, and then came back here and watched a bunch of episodes of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. D also showered us with really amusing presents from Japan; my haul included completely awesome lace socklet-thingies that tie around the ankle (maybe I can add a pic later; they're hard to explain), a terry-cloth-style handcloth, giant green tea-flavored Hello Kitty Pocky (it's seriously like... a foot long) and a cute cookie that looks like a taiyaki. She also bought Bryon a Gundam (!) and the most hilarious One Piece hand towel... he is going to love them soooo much. And he will be able to use the towel where he's going, too. Wahahahha. XD

(Danielle is off at home dealing with a family crisis. I hope everything is working out for the best over there. :( We were all thinking about you today.)

I swear, between my family, my friends, and people leaving supportive comments on here... I have the best support network anyone could ask for. ;_; Thank you, everyone.

Last night was hard, and I fully expect there to be more hard nights ahead, but at least for tonight I am doing pretty well. Climbing into bed last night, I just realized what I had sort of been feeling on the whole drive home: Driving away from where Bryon is is not "going home" for me. In a lot of ways, being with him is "home" for me anymore. We had such a great week together, and then I was driving the 13 hours back and I kept thinking, why am I trying to make good time? Why does it matter if I get there a few minutes earlier? It doesn't, not like it did when I was heading down to NC. *shrug* Of course I am glad to get back here, to see my family and the kitties, and to not be in a hotel, etc. But the thought that I'd had to drive 13 hours away from Bryon/"home" had me crying hard, curled up into bed still in my clothes and hugging Optimus Prime (the stuffed one Bryon's nephews bought him for Christmas) and feeling the tears streaming down my face. Eventually I fell asleep. I think I just needed to get it out.

I am going to make every effort to find interesting things to do while he's gone, get things accomplished that I might not otherwise get done, and distract myself as much as possible. But I also know that sometimes there will be bad days, and I have to let them happen on occasion too. It's part of letting out the stress.

Jeez, I sound so freakin' positive, don't I? I suppose a lot of this is because Bryon is still text messaging me... it's already been a hard, hard return to reality after a really really good week and there's harder stuff to come. But I'm going to try to face it head-on and just buck up. I want Bryon to be proud of me. :)

Here goes nothing, I guess. :)

I am home.

Bryon is still at the base, in a tent, until they choose to put him on a plane and actually deploy him.



THIS TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY BLOWS.

If I think about it any longer I'm going to cry again, so I'm going to go collapse on my bed. 13 hrs of driving = barely coherent, jittery and weak. Ugh.



IT BLOWS I TELL YOU.


I also realized, that it doesn't feel like coming "home" when I'm going AWAY from Bryon.