what i did on my summer vacation...

well, i’m back and settled in my cozy accommodations in iraq… i got placed at the same base i came off of, which is kind of bittersweet. i am familiar with the base, the surroundings, the equipment, the risks, and the routine… what i miss are the people. the guys i lived with… well, most of us came in within about 8 weeks of each other. within the month before i left, a bunch of them left. when i came back, the rest were gone. all new faces. other than officer staff… i know one firefighter.not that i won’t get to know these guys… it just takes a while. i’m not exactly an extraverted, socializing kind of person. (people who know me will dispute this fact… although people who have known me for years have discovered there’s a lot they *don’t* know about me just by reading this journal…) speaking of meeting new people… you’ll be glad to hear that the stress of initially meeting my gf’s close friends and parents is pretty well over and done with. (just in case any of you read this… don’t worry… it’s not you, it’s others…) but seriously, i enjoyed meeting them… they all seemed like wonderful people. doesn’t stop the fact that it’s a bit nervewracking for an introvert like me. so that’s what i did over my summer vacation… i traveled… i saw a lot of old friends (and some new ones)… ate thai, drank chai, and didn’t really workout seriously for about 2 months… which put me in serious hurting condition for the festivities that awaited me in Baghdad. …but that’s another journal entry altogether…

return to texas... land of steers and...

beers! (what were *you* thinking?)so i got to make a little 5 day trip to san antonio... see one of my good friends, her husband, and my boy. and by "my boy" i mean my dog, of course. although, i can certainly tell who's been feeding him and spoiling him for the last year, cuz he was glued to her side... it was very cute.i also realized that while i lived in texas for a couple years in elementary school, i didn't remember that much about it. or the other 2nd and 3rd graders that made up my social circle hadn't fully developed into native "texas-americans" yet. i love architecture, and i love history and visiting historical sites... and my friends were awesome hosts, making sure i was well entertained and the full tour. as well as a taste of the texas culture......not that they could help it, i was surrounded by it. if i learned only this, it's that texans love 3 things above all else...1. They love texas. unfortunately, they seem to love it in the way that bible thumpers love their religion, and that is to shove it down your throat in such an overkill fashion that natural born noncomformists like me end up absolutely hating it. and then, they seem totally confused as to why on earth would you *not* want to be a texan. doesn't everyone?2. They love texas sports teams. which, while they're a little fanatical about this, i can't fault them for. 3. They love churches. and crosses. a lot. i was quite entertained by the uniformed police officers out on 4 lane roads to direct traffic in and out of the churches. although, the warning signs, which looked identical to a "yield" sign... only, with "church" in the middle... yeah, those took the cake. well, i figure it's about time those things came with a warning...

timeshare assault, continued...

...now, the real question is why were WE being targeted? it's true that a number of companies began targeting the gay and lesbian populations a while ago... based on the traditional makeup of the homosexual families and the buying power they hold. that is, to say, we're largely "DINKS". (Double Income, No Kids) They run adds in queer culture publications, commercials during TV shows, support booths during pride weekends... we were just blindsided by the aggressive marketing we experienced. so of course (in the true nature of the lesbian overanalysis gene) we started discussing this. So were we being targeted? well, since neither one of us were wearing our "We (heart) timeshares" t-shirts... and both of us were avoiding eye contact as if it were sodom and gomorrah itself... i'm going to have to say yes. now, HOW? i imagine these entrepenuring salesmen and women going through timeshare peddling orientation... with a special session on "customer identification" Instructor: "Now, THIS is the homosexual male" (points to slide) "...Notice the tailored t-shirt, the evenness of the his tan, the manicure of his fingernails. But the real give away is always the shoes... can everyone see the shoes? ...Matthew, can you identify those shoes?"Matthew: "Those would be Prada, sir."Instructor: (thinks to himself that matthew needs to come out of the closet already) "Good. Now, this is the textbook lesbian. Short hair might be a clue, along with a more masculine dress... but really if you're looking beyond the butch and andryogenous quota... you're looking at fingernails and shoes again. Repeat after me... 'Lesbians are women in comfortable shoes'..."alright... really, i'm done with this...

time(share) well spent...

alright, i apologize for being MIA... i thoroughly jumped into enjoying travel and seeing people during my break here, and have been away from a computer for a good long time. as those of you waiting patiently for replies to emails can attest...so i made it back to the US... adjusted for the time difference... and set off for the first place that would serve as "full immersion" therapy for the aversion to crowds, lights, and all things stimulating that i experienced 4 months ago on my last break. yep, we set off for vegas...it was a wonderful experience... with very few notable exceptions. the biggest and only real complaint i'd like to air right now...the aggressiveness that was displayed by the timeshare recruiters was unbelievable. i applaud them for their efforts, which were truly impressive. we were targeted as a lesbian couple on walkways, in casinos, leaving hotels, at traffic intersections... even walking into a pharmacy. don't tell me that straight couples get approached as much... we had couples walking all around us, and they would step AROUND these folks to get to us. i would say we probably had about 3 good days of walking... and got approached well over 50 times. and that's a lowball number. i figure about once every 15 or 20 minutes we were fending off someone. there were times we were still shaking off one when a second one was waiting in the wings to approach us. WTF? are they playing a zone defense here? now, i'm not really a person who likes to lie... which is fortunate, since i'm really bad at it. so we started off by being polite and telling the truth. we found the truth was effective, but inefficient. 5 minutes of conversation to just say "no". by the end of the week, we had told so many stories to these people... "do we live together? naw, we just met." "our flight leaves this afternoon" "we've already seen that show" "no hablo ingles" "yep, i'm a marine." ...pretty much anything to draw a close to the conversation. oh, and my favorite, which i never got to use... "oh, i'd LOVE to own property out here... love the weather, love the entertainment... but i can't STAND the timeshare peddlers..."

time(share) well spent...

alright, i apologize for being MIA... i thoroughly jumped into enjoying travel and seeing people during my break here, and have been away from a computer for a good long time. as those of you waiting patiently for replies to emails can attest...so i made it back to the US... adjusted for the time difference... and set off for the first place that would serve as "full immersion" therapy for the aversion to crowds, lights, and all things stimulating that i experienced 4 months ago on my last break. yep, we set off for vegas...it was a wonderful experience... with very few notable exceptions. the biggest and only real complaint i'd like to air right now...the aggressiveness that was displayed by the timeshare recruiters was unbelievable. i applaud them for their efforts, which were truly impressive. we were targeted as a lesbian couple on walkways, in casinos, leaving hotels, at traffic intersections... even walking into a pharmacy. don't tell me that straight couples get approached as much... we had couples walking all around us, and they would step AROUND these folks to get to us. i would say we probably had about 3 good days of walking... and got approached well over 50 times. and that's a lowball number. i figure about once every 15 or 20 minutes we were fending off someone. there were times we were still shaking off one when a second one was waiting in the wings to approach us. WTF? are they playing a zone defense here? now, i'm not really a person who likes to lie... which is fortunate, since i'm really bad at it. so we started off by being polite and telling the truth. we found the truth was effective, but inefficient. 5 minutes of conversation to just say "no". by the end of the week, we had told so many stories to these people... "do we live together? naw, we just met." "our flight leaves this afternoon" "we've already seen that show" "no hablo ingles" "yep, i'm a marine." ...pretty much anything to draw a close to the conversation. oh, and my favorite, which i never got to use... "oh, i'd LOVE to own property out here... love the weather, love the entertainment... but i can't STAND the timeshare peddlers..."

we all have our limits...

i'm watching the harry potter collection in dispatch tonight. it's been a different trilogy night all week... the matrix trilogy... the LOTR trilogy... i think i'll split star wars over the last two nights...i had to start the first one pretty early... 8 hours of movies in 12 hours... plus bathroom breaks. and i've had enough coffee to necessitate several of those...so it was early when i started the first one... scrappy stuck his head in to remind me *again* of how many days we have left... i don't need to carry a calendar with him around... and he kind of got sucked into part of it. it was the quidditch scene... it sucks everyone in. my gf asked me one time if i could relive any scene out of any movie, what would it be. not sure what she was looking for, but of course my brain went right to the impossible. i want to play quidditch. or swing through the city, like when spiderman was first honing his skills. anyways... he got sucked in. he asked, i had to give him some history... how harry was orphaned, who voldemort is, who might be trying to kill harry.......well, we can all voluntarily suspend disbelief up to a point. we've all got that line, you know? scrappy's absorbing it all... apparently he can understand flying on broomsticks, wizards and witches, schools of magic, even mountain trolls. where is his line? at what point could he no longer suspend disbelief? "if that troll fell face first like that... that wand would've been shoved into his brain..." indeed...