Danger Zone

Chuck has a theory that disaster follows me wherever I go. I used to think he was just being mean-spirited (which, let’s be honest, is probably still true), but now I’m starting to believe him. Bad things do seem to happen when I’m around. Catastrophic things. What if I’m the opposite of King Midas and everything I touch turns to shit? (And shit is totally the opposite of gold, so I don’t want to hear it.)

What, you ask, are these disasters I speak of?

Example 1: August 2005. Brian and I were on the last leg of a New Orleans-to-NorCal-and-back road trip. We were crossing the vast state of Texas (notice I did not say “the great state”–bigger is not better in this case). Texas did not approve and flipped our car over four or five times.

Example 2: August 2005, one week later. Hurricane Katrina. Enough said.

Example 3: October-November 2005. I moved to France at the beginning of October to take a job shaping young minds. By the end of the month, race and class riots had broken out in cities all over the country, including Marseille, an hour from where I was living.

Example 4: October 2007 (I had a good run there for a couple of years). That Iraq bullshit I wrote about in my last post. I know it’s more of a personal catastrophe, but I’m counting it.

Example 5: October 2007. I just moved to San Diego three months ago, and what happens? Southern California starts burning. I used to joke about L.A. breaking off from California in the next earthquake, but I didn’t really mean it, and I never wished any harm on San Diego.

I don’t know what I did to be cursed like this, but I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll do some sort of gypsy magic spiritual cleansing before I move back to New Orleans.

Uncle Sam, It’s Time for a Chat

So we got some shitty news last week. Actually, “shitty” doesn’t really do it justice. Awful, heinous, fucking ridiculous– take your pick. The Navy wants to send Brian on an eight-month deployment to Iraq. Yes, the Navy. Like the one that is supposed to stay in the water. That was the only thing it had going for it. Way to screw that up, guys. Kind of like how the only good thing about Nicole Richie was that she hadn’t procreated. And now…you tell me where the silver lining is.

Being the outraged liberal that I am, I decided to take action. I cried for three days straight, then I wrote a few strongly-worded letters.

What I actually wrote:

Dear Senators Boxer and Feinstein:

My boyfriend is an officer in the Navy, and he recently returned home after a nine-month deployment in the Persian Gulf, in which his ship transported Marines between the U.S. and Iraq. Because the Marines’ tour in Iraq was extended twice, his ship was also extended; a six-month deployment became nine months long. When he came home, we were relieved to know he would not deploy again until June 2008.

Last week, we found out he will most likely be sent on an IA (Individual Augmentee) assignment to Iraq. If this becomes official, he will leave in January for four months of training in the U.S. and then spend eight months in Kuwait and Iraq. We know very little about what he will be doing there, except that he will be there to support Marine and Army forces in this “global war on terror.”

Earlier this year, President Bush sent a surge of 30,000 additional troops to “secure” Iraq. He announced last month that he would immediately begin to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by 20,000. If we are actually reducing our forces there, why then are we sending in Navy personnel? This disastrous and deceitful war has gone on long enough, and we have lost enough American lives.

I am worried for my boyfriend’s safety and frustrated at the additional time we must spend apart, but most of all, I am angry that our country is still putting our armed forces in danger for a war based on lies and manipulation.

Please support legislation to prevent us from sending any more troops to Iraq and to start bringing our citizens home. Thank you.

What I wanted to write:

Dear George, Dick, Don, Robert, Condi, etc.

This letter applies to too many of you to list, so I’d be much obliged if you could just forward it along to the others. Thanks, gang.

Now don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell is wrong with you? You invaded Iraq four years ago because you swore up and down that it had “weapons of mass destruction.” Of course you never found those WMDs, but don’t worry your pretty little heads about that. I’m sure you wouldn’t knowingly deceive or manipulate Americans into supporting a bogus war. Oh, no. You were just trying to protect us from the terrorists. Anyone who says differently is obviously not a patriot.

No, I don’t want to beat a dead horse and ask why we started this war to begin with. It was bullshit from the get go, but let’s focus on what’s happening right now. George, you said last month you would immediately start reducing the numbers of troops in Iraq by 20,000. Now I’m no math major, but I’m awfully perplexed about why we’re sending the Navy in if we’re cutting down on troops. Do you really think if we keep sending over more and more people, this situation will actually stop being a total disaster? Oh, sure. And Larry Craig was just reaching for some toilet paper.

I know y’all are a little slow, so let me be clear: it’s time to admit that you screwed up. Just come clean, and start making this right. Stop spending $8 billion a month fighting a war you can’t win; stop sending our men and women into harm’s way; stop destroying my personal mental health. Just stop, and listen to reason for once in your lives.

I hope this doesn’t get in the way of our friendship. Let’s do lunch.

XOXO,

Me

Drying Paint? Where?

I’m officially one of those people who blogs, not because I have anything to say, but because I am so bored I’m considering alphabetizing every product in my shower. Brian’s ship is underway until Sunday, the one social event I had tonight got canceled, I’m already sick of the book I’m reading, there are no movies I want to see in the theater (no amount of boredom could entice me to see “Sydney White”) and we still don’t have cable hooked up in our apartment.

Of course there are things I should do, productive things like emptying the dishwasher or cleaning the bathroom or brushing up on my French literature, but those things can wait. I’m busy wallowing in my own ennui. It’s way existential.

This is my new plan for the evening:

6:00: Start writing e-mails to the people I should have written back to weeks ago
6:04: Get distracted by Facebook and start writing on unrelated people’s walls
6:25: Stare in dismay at the junk mail, bills and other crap in the living room that I should put away
6:27: Halfheartedly shuffle the papers into a neater stack on the coffee table
6:28: Open a beer
6:30: Attempt to read the last two chapters of my book
6:35: Stalk my building manager again to see if he has our cable installation package
6:36: Mutter obscenities under my breath when he’s not there and I end up running into the blond chick from downstairs who always complains that we walk around “too loudly” à la Mr. Heckles
6:38: Wonder how many beers one can consume alone before it becomes a red flag
6:40: Open another one anyway

That’s really as far as I’ve gotten. I might throw in some aimless YouTube viewing or blog surfing, just to keep things fresh. Remember the time when I actually had places to go and friends in the same city to hang out with? Yeah…that was awesome.