What gives America?

I'm normally not into politics, and I don't spread my political opinions around like pollen on a windy day. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone thinks theirs is right.

That said, I won't go into politics here so much as humanity, decency, and doing the right thing. Do people really believe that fixing the country will happen magically once the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Do they really believe that saving the country's flagging economy rests on taking things away from poor people and giving extra perks to the rich? Kind of like Robin Hood in reverse?

One of the reasons I don't usually talk about my views and opinions is because I have no solution. I believe if anyone is going to criticize our president, our government, or our society, they can only do it if they have good ideas for fixing it. Of which I have none.

I'm naive, and an idealist. I believe in everyone working together to save our future, and I believe in putting aside grudges and animosity for the greater good. There's very few of us left, though. Most people are of the school, "What's in it for me? How do I get anything out of this?" Reality TV, social networks, blogs, Youtube, and other web sites, are proof of this. Look at the comments section of any news station's website and you will always find people quick to put down anyone who doesn't share their opinion, and do it viciously.

I saw a picture someone put on Facebook, of a guy flipping two middle fingers up at as President Obama's bus rolled by them in Ohio. Really? Did your mama not teach you any kind of respect? It doesn't matter if you like the guy or not, disrespect of that kind speaks volumes about your parents and how you were raised. If you don't like the guy, vote him out. If he gets reelected, wait four years and he'll be gone. This isn't Libya where the same guy runs the country for fifty years with an iron fist.

I saw a video on Reddit the other day, of a guy hassling border patrol agents in Texas. Since I routinely drive through these checkpoints, living in Texas and working in New Mexico, it's a matter of, "Hi, are you a United States resident?", to which I say, "Yes", and the man nods and waves me on. How hard is that, seriously? Where exactly are your rights being infringed upon? They don't ask to see papers. They don't make me get out of the car while they search it. It's a 20 second blip on my drive, big freakin' deal. But the guy in the video, no he has to be a jerk (I'm refraining from using stronger words). "That's my business," he answers smugly, while secretly recording it. Obviously, the agent wasn't expecting that so he pauses for a minute and then says, "Actually, it's my business. Are you a United States resident?" And naturally, mister cocky is all like, "What is this Nazi Germany? Are you going to ask me for my papers? I don't have to prove anything to you. I'd like to go on my way now." They go back and forth, and the agent tries to get him to pull to the side, so the traffic piling up behind him can keep moving. "No, I'm not going to pull over there. I should be free to go on my way. This is America isn't it?" He was trying to say how America is a police state and we're all being harassed. I don't see how being asked a simple yes or no question is harassment, but whatever. Most of the viewers of the video felt the same as me, although he did have a few people cheering him on.

It's very obvious that this guy staged the whole thing for some notoriety. A quick look at his website shows that he also speaks out against women wearing pants, he's strongly anti-gay, and an ultra conservative Christian. He should hook up with the Westboro Baptist church and get it over with.

ANYWAY, my point is, that people being selfish, closed-minded, and arrogant know-it-alls are what is killing this country. The government isn't our enemy. The average voters are our enemy. Americans are our own worst enemies. It seriously makes me want to uproot and find another country to call home.

On My Own

My husband left two days ago for an 8 week training course in Virginia, and I'm rattling around the house kind of like a lost child at a carnival. I don't have to have certain meal times, I don't have to brush my hair, I don't have to even get out of my jammies if I don't want to. Sure it's neat to have the house to myself. For about 5 minutes.

I'm missing my husband something terrible. I have lots of time to write, read books, watch movies, play video games, do school assignments. I'd gladly trade all this freedom and "me time" to have him home, or for me to have gone with him. He's feeling the same, I know. We love to road-trip, and this is the first time he's taking one without me. Or alone at all, for that matter. He calls me a couple of times a day from the road. So far I've gotten calls from Abilene, Little Rock, and Memphis while I sit in front of my computer with a United States map on the screen and track his travels, wishing I were with him. And how pathetic does that make me?

I feel like "overly attached girlfriend", stalking his every move. I will admit I haven't taken a shower or changed out of the ratty clothes I've been wearing since he left. I did the same when he left for Iraq a few years ago. It takes me a couple of days of wallowing in sadness and depression, then I snap out of it before I sink too far. I only just realized today is Saturday, for Chrissake.

So today I'll shower, and change into clean clothes. I'll get in the car and go somewhere, just to get some sunshine and fresh air. When I get back home, I'll sit and write another chapter of my book and I'll feel some sense of accomplishment. Then it'll be what...noon? Yeah, I can see how these eight weeks are gonna go.

Time flies when you're having fun

It's been over a year since I last wrote. That should tell you how hectic that job was. Yup, was. As in, no longer. I finally couldn't take any more, no matter how much I liked my boss or the people I worked with, that job was going to kill me. I'm just glad I saw the writing on the wall and got the hell out of Dodge.

I can't even begin to accurately describe the hectic idiocy of that job, and the couple who own the place and hand down the mandates. The biggest challenge was trying to run that hotel despite the owners ludicrous demands. I hope my (former) boss muddles through until her husband gets his PCS orders and they....get the hell out of Dodge.

Anyway, my return to unemployed status gives me time to concentrate on a few things. First, my writing-and second, my weight. I did lose weight on the job, I'll say that much. But that was only because there was never time to eat! My health declined even as the weight went down. It really was a terrible situation.

I've debated back and forth on trying a new diet, or getting in touch with a surgeon to revise my gastric bypass as options. I've decided, for now at least, to go back on Atkins and see if that helps at all. I know fad diets and yada yada, bullshit, etc. but since I have a very real addiction to carbs, I am kind of hoping that if I can stick to Atkins for a while, it'll help break that addiction.  I'm on day 3, as of this writing, and 2 pounds gone already. Time will tell though, I've failed nearly everything else, even surgery for God's sake.

And then the writing. I've been working on a couple of things simultaneously while going to school, and my next  two classes are Spanish, and won't that be fun?! I've gotten back into my stories, with some ideas for new ones rumbling around in my head, I just need some organization to get them straight and take small bites. If I don't get overwhelmed, I could be done with more than one book in a year. Time will tell on that, too.

Next time I write here won't be another year down the road, promise!

Culture shock

So for the first time in several years, I'm working again. For the first time in even longer, I'm working for a hotel again. Culture shock is the only way I can really describe it, to be honest. Even at my busiest at Alyeska, I never worked this hard, or this long. My life has changed dramatically in the past two weeks, and I've yet to decide if this is a great thing, or a terrible thing.

Lets start with the fact that I'm now only a weekend wife. My job has me living in a different state from my husband, and he makes the two hour drive every weekend to see me. Once he gets here, I find myself working through half of the time he's here, leaving him to his own devices, or to hang around my office and feel like he's in the way. Let's not forget, that for at least the next month, I'm living in one of the hotel rooms until the owner vacates the apartment his family is in next month, and I can move in there. When he leaves on Sunday evening, it feels like he's leaving on deployment again, and I'm a weeping wreck for the rest of the night. Well, at least it's been like that the first two times he left...we'll have to see if saying goodbye every week gets any easier.

I've been working twelve to fifteen hour days, nearly every day of the week since I got here. No day off yet. Compare this to the unemployed, I'll-clean-the-house-at-my-own-pace-thank-you-very-much life I led just two weeks ago, and you'll probably get an idea of just how tired I am. I come to my room every night, too tired to eat dinner, too tired to walk the dogs, too tired attempt any meaningful school work (yes I'm still attending college classes online), too tired to clean my room, or do anything but sit there and rub my aching feet. I want to call my husband, and talk to him a little before I pass out, but good Lord, I'm almost too tired to carry on a conversation at this point. We talk for a few minutes, or we just text each other good-night and hope to find time to talk about each other's days and lives tomorrow. I miss him a lot, especially at night. But I do this for our future. So that we can save money to buy a home and live comfortably before I get too old to do jack-all.

Then there is the atmosphere at the hotel itself, which is another kind of culture shock. My boss is great. We get along, I respect her a lot, and she's a fair, no-nonsense type of lady. Aside from that, everything seems to be in chaos all the time. No matter how well planned something might be, something unexpected makes a mess. It's enough to make me crave a cigarette for the first time in years, and that makes me a sad panda.

Well, I've worn myself out just talking about work. It's 7 a.m. Sunday morning, my husband is fast asleep in bed, while I'm drinking coffee number two, and obsessing about work. I think I'll go crawl back in with him for a little while.

America...sigh

I'm an American, born and bred. As time marches by however, I'm less and less inclined to feel proud of that fact. All over the media outlets of the country, the political rhetoric is heating up and people are being pulled in different directions. America has become one giant Jerry Springer show - we're just waiting for the chair-throwing to start and we all have ringside seats.

I think it's totally preposterous that multi-billion dollar corporations such as General Electric, Verizon, and Federal Express should not pay taxes, because, as their CEO's claim, "it's perfectly legal" not to. Meanwhile, our wonderful Republican base has decreed that tax breaks to these big corporations will help to keep them hiring people.

Except they're not hiring. They just give bonuses to all their already high-paid executives for getting the job done and making a profit with the staff they already have. Why take on new employees when they can make a metric crap-ton of money without them? I've worked for big companies before. That's what they do. They continually, year after year, brainstorm ways to make more money than the previous year. When there are no fresh ideas forthcoming, they start eliminating positions and paying one person to do two other people's jobs, thereby still showing a profit.

Then the oil companies, which is a whole issue all by itself...

But I digress. Right now, my husband and I are thinking about making use of his dual citizenship with Canada and heading north when the Army spits him out for good. Some people might say the grass is no greener on the other side of the border. Sure, every country has it's issues, but Canada seems to have no problem with making sure their poor don't starve to death, or live in a cardboard box under a bridge, or die of some hideous disease because they're poor. Canada's rich are still rich, and the poor are still poor. But everyone has a place to live, food, and some semblance of health care. Not sure why that's so hard to do on this side of the fence, but hey....at least the rich over here don't have to look at us poor folk and have their consciences nudged.

Random things

Where to start? So many different things have gone on in the past week, I can't decide which to write about. I guess I will start with the reinvention of me. I realized, after a doozy of a fight with my hubby, that I have grown complacent. I can't decide if it's depression, laziness, or an all-time low self esteem, but I haven't wanted to do zip in quite a while. I have been unable to find work, and after giving up, I've been unwilling to look for yet another job that will just frustrate me and foster my intense dislike of the general population. I finished my Associates degree in psychology last year and I'm working on a Bachelor's degree in English now, so it's not like I spend my day lounging in front of the TV stuffing my face all day. I have school work to do, and while my house isn't spotless, it isn't a pig-sty either. I have 2 dogs and 2 cats to take care of and clean up after as well. And I try to find time to write. So my days aren't exactly carefree leisure time activity.

I find, however, that not working has made me feel like less of a contributor to my marriage and more of a leech. My husband is the one working and making the money, and I do things at my own pace and answer only to him. Thus, I have inadvertently put him in the role of boss, father, and minder, instead of my partner...and the strain is mounting. I'm actively looking for work again, and I'll take anything at all if it'll put us back on even ground. However, I still will find time to write, do school work, take care of the animals and the house and somewhere in there, find time to enjoy life. I'll let you know how it goes!

Ebil dentists

So the past few days have been different from the norm. My husband had to have all four of his wisdom teeth pulled on Monday. This gave him a few days off to recuperate, which he thought was going to be all fun and games. I tried to tell him, oral surgery is still surgery and it's no picnic, but he wasn't hearing it. So Monday came, and first thing in the morning we headed to the oral surgeon's office.

Now my husband is a pretty sturdy guy, and he very rarely gets sick. In our nearly ten years together, I've seen him sick enough to go to the doctor exactly once. So I sit in the waiting room reading. There are lots of other people there, as each patient has to bring someone who can drive them home. I watch as patients go in, and not long after, a dental assistant calls for their driver to pull the car around back. I notice that people who went in after my husband did were going home before they called me. I started to get nervous. Finally, it's my turn. But, they don't tell me to pull the car around back. They have me come into where my husband is recovering. One look at him and my knees turned to water.

His eyes were mostly closed. His head was wobbling around on his neck like one of those bobble-head toys. His face was stuffed with bloody gauze and blood was dripping down his chin, splatting on his shirt. Blood dripped from his nose, and there were droplets of it on the floor all around the chair he was reclined in. I swear he looked like a train wreck, not a dental patient. I used to work in an emergency room years ago and I've seen some blood and gore that would put most people on the floor, or at the very least, lose their lunch. But none of those patients were my husband. My stomach sank, my nerves were bouncing and my legs didn't want to hold me. However badly I wanted to collapse on the floor in a puddle, I had to stay upright and be strong. He was so out of it, I had to keep my wits. It wouldn't have gone well if both of us were incoherent.

The dentist came in and tried to reassure me. He said my husband's case was pretty tough. His bottom wisdom teeth had been laying sideways under the jaw line and it was really hard to get them out. The upper ones were impacted and one of them left a hole in his sinus cavity, hence the noseblood. Since my husband never takes any kind of medications, not even Tylenol, the Versed they gave him really knocked him for a loop. They guided him out to the car after I pulled around back (they do this so they don't scare the bejesus out of patients in the waiting room), poured him into the passenger seat and I took him home. I had several near-crashes because I was so anxiously watching him, more often than the road. I finally got him home and helped him into the recliner where he immediately passed out. Then came the waiting game. I knew from experience that with Versed, even after it wore off, he'd be tired and groggy half the day. I waited a bit to make sure he didn't been help to the bathroom or anything, then went to get his prescriptions filled. My poor baby slept until late-afternoon before finally waking up and being able to hold a conversation.

It's wierd, I've dealt with stitches and broken bones with my children, but nothing has ever made me go weak in the knees like seeing my husband laid low by the dentist. I tell ya, I'll be happy if I never have to go through that again. But my husband is in the Army. I'm betting it's inevitable that I will be going through that again.