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13 Reasons Why I’m A Crappy Military Spouse.

When I was working my well-paying cubicle gig for the Environmental Management Branch on Fort Bragg, I sometimes had to drive to other areas of the installation to meet with various mapping, forestry, endangered species, cultural resources, and compliance subject matter experts.

SMEs, for short.

Because everything in the military is an acronym.

BEMA, for short.

I strongly dislike acronyms. (REASON #1)

ISDA, for short.

FS, for short.

You dig?

Anyway.

Since the installation is only like the biggest in the country, I’d get to take a government vehicle whenever I was driving for work-related reasons.  I’d sign out a nondescript white or silver sedan, bring the seat forward about 20 inches, reset all of the preset radio stations to something other than godawful, and be on my merry way.

For a year and a half, this was routine.  Like hopping a morning commuter train from a local Park-‘n-ride, I’d put ‘er on autopilot, crank some tunes, and somehow magically arrive at my destination.

Then, one day, on some rudimentary stretch of curvy road where soldiers deemed it necessary to cross as pedestrians because they thought they owned the place or something (wait, what? REASON #2), they reduced the speed limit by 10 miles per hour.

Just.

Like.

That.

And I, being the super observant, astute, law-abiding citizen that I apparently am — not — saw the flashing lights in the ill-adjusted rearview mirror before it even registered in my cubicle-muddled brain that I was driving not 5, not 10, not 15, but twenty-two miles over the newly posted speed limit.

It was a trap, I tell you.

Before I could even think to adjust my cleavage or touch up my lip gloss, the uniformed military police officer was at my window with the ticket.

“We’re giving tickets to everyone,” he said, before I could open my mouth.

“Ok.”  Hell.  I deserved one.

“No exceptions.”  The guy was ready for an argument.

“Ok.”  I gave him a sheepish smile.

“Really — the guy in front of you is getting one, too.”

“Ok.”  Is “ok” code for I-think-you’re-full-of-crap-and-I’ll-see-you-in-court?

“Fine.  I’ll write it up for 19 over the limit.  That should save you some hassle.”

“Wow, thanks!  Um… what kind of hassle will I have to deal with?” I handed him my contractor I.D.

“You’re not a spouse?  You work here?” He asked, surprise registering on his face.  “If you were a spouse, then I’d write you the ticket, you’d pay it, and your husband’s commander would hear about it.  But since you’re a contractor, you’ll have to pay the fine and attend a driver safety course.  At 8:00 a.m.  On Saturday.”

I thought about snatching back my contractor I.D. and handing him my dependent I.D.  (REASON #3)

“Well… this is a government vehicle I’m driving… so yes.”  I sighed.  “I’m a contractor.”

He ripped the ticket from the stack, a bemused grin curling the corners of his mouth, and handed it to me.  “The class is 8 a.m.  Saturday.”

So here’s the thing:  I wouldn’t have had to take the class if I’d simply shown him my dependent I.D. as opposed to my contractor I.D.?*  Being a “dependent” — and we all know how I feel about that — would’ve exempted me from paying my dues?  From learning how to be a safer driver?  From watching videos of high school prom dates impaled on fences and toddlers struck by drunk drivers and other nightmarish vehicular accidents?

(*I honestly don’t know, legally speaking, what difference which I.D. I showed would’ve made.  But the officer implied that the repercussions would have been less — for me — had I claimed dependency with a blush and a smile.)

The tradeoff, it seems, is that Justin would have gotten the lecture.  Justin would have paid the price for my recklessness.  And it’s that antiquated way of operating — the very idea that my actions could affect his career — makes me far too nervous to be an effectively “good” spouse.  In fact, it sometimes makes me want to test the limits.  (REASON #4)

Also, I’m not a mom. (REASON #5)

And sometimes I forget my husband’s rank. (REASON #6)

And I hate being called “ma’am.” (REASON #7)

And I sometimes get jealous of Justin’s travel.  (REASON #8)

And I think sometimes that it’s harder to be married to military than it is to be military.  (REASON #9)

And I disagree with the concept of respecting someone solely for his or her rank.  Especially if he or she is an asshole. (REASON #10)

And I can’t keep my delinquent thoughts to myself. (REASON #11)

And sometimes — sometimes — I actually revel in my alone time.  In watching whatever movie I want on the big television.  In eating cheese, crackers, and olives for dinner.  In putting a container of leftover pasta carbonara in the fridge and never having to suffer that suffocating disappointment when I decide to have some for lunch and discover that only 2 teasing bites remain — not enough to sate me, but just enough to justify not having to wash the container.  That really bugs me.  (REASON #12)

But then… I still miss him.  And his uniform.  And honestly, in the end, I wouldn’t want to do anything that would hurt his career.

I mean, who wants that on her conscience?

So I took the stupid driving course.  And Justin didn’t get a lecture from his commander about reigning in his spouse’s reckless driving habits.  And actually, the class may have been somewhat beneficial in teaching me ways to deal with my road rage.  In fact, I should probably look into taking a refresher.  And, at the end of class when I stood in the required line to show the instructor my passing exam score and the written offense for which I’d been committed, he gasped and said, “That was you?”

I nodded.

He looked at me, incredulous.

“Why don’t you slow it down, Katie.”  He smiled.

Slow it down?  Me?  Not likely, my friend.

Inside, I smiled too.

So.  Maybe I can do this.  Maybe I can play the military’s game.  And maybe — just maybe — I can still work my own little acts of rebellion into the mix, because hey.

I can be supportive.  I can smile and schmooze.  I can even learn the damn acronyms.

But in the end, I can’t lose sight of me.

You know?

P.S. Poll results are still coming in. If you haven’t voted, please do. And the thoughtful comments some of you have added are just… awesome.  If you’re in the U.S., you know your vote might not count in November’s election (REASON #13), but here, it most certainly does.

Decisions Make Me Sweaty & Uncomfortable, So Here. You Decide.

So.

After my lovely little woe-is-me rant last week, I came to a couple of conclusions:

1) I have some re-vamping to do on this site; and

2) I may not have many readers, but I have the best readers.  And since I’ve always been a quality over quantity kind of gal anyway, this suits me well.

While #2 can’t stand on its own, #1 may need some further explanation.

I’ve been struggling for a long time to define what I want to do with this site — which “direction” it should go, what topics I should write about, and why I should even call it “Domestiphobia” (aside from the fact that I like the word).  And since any type of planning or goal setting tends to make me want to crawl into the smallest, safest closet of my house with a bottle of tequila, a pair of sunglasses, and N-Sync’s debut album circa 1997 and pretend that I’m 15 again (with an apparent alcohol abuse problem), I’ve so far managed to successfully treat it as no more than an online journal to archive the often insane and aimless way I’ve thus far stumbled through adulthood.

Retirement plan?  Real job?  Sense of achievement and self-satisfaction?  That stuff’s for the Type As, I say, and let ’em keep it.

Except… it’s not.

I may be Domestiphobic, but I want these things:  Love.  Security.  A safe place to lay my head.

I want them.

I do.

I just don’t want to achieve them in the conventional sense.

In fact.

Every node on every nerve ending of every sensory receptacle of my body is repulsed by the idea of a “normal” life.

There.

I said it.

The very idea of working a regular 9-5 to support someone else’s dream seems ludicrous.  The thought that my basic needs can be met with a cable box and the latest Pottery Barn it’s-new-but-made-to-look-old overpriced dust collector is depressing.  The notion that life, as I know it, can be washed down in a blink with a single dose of monotonous routine just so I can earn enough money to wake up at 60 (should I be so lucky) with the means and motivation to actually start enjoying it seems like a waste.

I want to enjoy it now.

And I think each of us has this dream, maybe deep down, that life can somehow be more.

And for me, it’s going to start with this blog.

It will take some time to reorganize, especially knowing me, but that’s okay.

In the meantime, I need to know about you.  I tend to write a little about everything here — from travel experiences to home projects to dinner recipes and the deluded workings of my inner mind.  I’m all over the place.  And let’s be honest — that’s not likely to change.  But I would like to get an idea of what you, my regular readers, enjoy the most.  And maybe that will give me a sense of focus.

A bit of direction.

A safe place to lay my head.

Take the poll — it’s free and anonymous and will count for your good deed for the day.  Also, it could make you intelligent and rich and sexy beyond your wildest dreams.

Probably not, but I’m sayin’ there’s a chance.

(You can choose more than one answer.  Please be honest.  This is only my life we’re talking about.)

What? Like Parenting Is Hard?

Sometimes I cook dinner for my neighbor and her kid.

They come over because I crave the company and she doesn’t like to cook.

Whenever someone brings a child to my house, I realize just how not kid friendly it is.  I mean, it’s not like I have sharp metal furniture and crystal vases and nude portraits of Ron Jeremy hanging around, but I don’t have any designated “kid” stuff, either.  The closest I come is maybe a Pixar DVD or two, a copy of The Goonies (which really isn’t all that kid friendly at all when you think about it — but then, nothing involving Corey Feldman ever is), and… um… that’s about it.  Even my dogs aren’t really kid-friendly, since every time they see one they feel the need to knock it to the ground, immobilize it, then sterilize it via intense licking before letting it roam freely around their abode.

This usually doesn’t go over well.

When it comes to snacks, unless kids like goat cheese or prosciutto or Castelvetrano olives or a dry cabernet, they’re pretty much SOL.

Most of my friends are already aware of the situation at my house, so they come well prepared with toys and snacks and binkies and bibs.  But even the most prepared parents usually don’t think of the things most of us take for granted, like glasses.  All of my glasses are — you guessed it — glass.  So the last time I watched my neighbor’s daughter, I gave her milk shooters from a plastic JELL-O shot cup.

Hey.  Aside from those and the oversized red and blue party flip cups, I got nothin’.

I’m pretty sure that at 2 years of age, they’re not dexterous enough to handle my stemware.  And even I have a hard time lifting my chunky “Wal-Mart special” juice glasses.

This doesn’t happen at MY house. (source)

And I think, as I watch the little girl shoot her 4th milk, straight up, like a champ, that part of the reason I don’t really want one is because they need so much stuff.

As a self-professed minimalist with neurotic hoarding urges to constantly overcome, the very idea that I would need to purchase special glassless glasses and sippy cup lids and find somewhere to keep them and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, my friends, because did you know that kids need clothing and diapers and cribs and car seats and even special little spoons and plastic plates and omg you can’t put that tupperware in the microwave because the toxins will KILL your baby and I realize that in the end, I know I would require a JELL-O shot glass of my very own just to deal with it all.

I would be that parent who barely buys anything.  Who says, You know what?  Junior only really needs 3 toys at this age because he has the attention span of a gnat, and if I only give him one at a time and rotate them every half hour or so, it will be like he’s getting a brand new toy every time.  And that’s when the other parents would look at me with judgement and my child with pity and I’d go to jail for boob-punching the first woman who tells me I’m cheap.

Because I am cheap, but that’s not the point.

The point is that I just don’t want all that crap.

It stresses me out.

And if crap stresses me out, then that’s just one more check in the ever-growing column of reasons I shouldn’t be a parent.

Because, from what I hear, parents deal with a lot of crap — both figuratively, and literally.

And to be honest, I’d rather just have fun with their kids while they’re here, and simply throw the JELL-O shot cups away when they leave.

Vicarious parenting is so easy.

And That’s Why You Should Invest in a Fuzzy Bath Mat.

Last night I had a mini breakdown.

All of the big things and all of the little things culminated in my mind at approximately 7:36 p.m. and I was, to put it mildly, inconsolable for the next 7 minutes.  I cried.  I wrote an angry email to my boss.  I cried some more.  I panicked and tried to see if I could “un-send” the email to my boss.  I was relieved when I saw that I couldn’t.  I curled up on my super plush and comforting bathroom rug in a face-down fetal position and watched, fascinated, as black spots of watery mascara marred its fuzzy white fibers.  I stayed there until I couldn’t breathe, as my sinuses filled with all of the stuff that comes to the surface when we cry hard.

Then I cried some more, because I couldn’t even cry right without having to stop for lack of proper breathing technique.  I mean, everyone can breathe.  But me?  No.  Ask me to do one thing, and I’m pretty sure I’ll find a way to screw it up.

And so it goes.

The thought process of the minorly depressed.

Then I vented on Facebook, for crying out loud:

Drained. Physically, emotionally. Tired of feeling worthless at work. Angry at myself for not — STILL — being gainfully self-employed. Exhausted from loneliness. Pissed that I’m pissed about turning 30. I thought I’d be above that. But when you realize you’ve not only NOT reached your goals by a certain age but have managed to take a healthy flying leap backwards, it’s like… indescribably demoralizing. And now I’m complaining about it on Facebook, which we all know is like tapping the keg at my own effin’ pity party.

Then again, maybe it’s just my period.

And that made me laugh, a little, and so did some of the responses.

I feel better today.

Sometimes, I think, we just need to vent.

All over email, Facebook, and a soft, soft rug.

P.S. Check back later if you’re interested in learning how to build a closet organizer out of plumbing pipes.  Because… you know… isn’t everyone?

 

But Isn’t That Always The Question?

Earlier this week a friend of my friend’s husband died.  (Not the husband.  His friend.)

It’s so physically disconnected from my own bubble of existence that I never would have known — never would have cared — if it weren’t for the voyeuristic world of Facebook.  This slight tremor of the earth would have remained undetected by the radars whose boundaries define my reality, but instead, I could feel it.

And I think it might have tipped my axis.

Just a little.

See, my friend’s husband and his buddies are what you would call “adrenaline junkies” — men and women whose very core of emotional sustenance relies heavily — almost solely — on experiencing the rush that comes with dangerous physical activities.  Defying death, it seems, is the best way they know how to sustain life.

His drug of choice is BASE jumping, the acronym standing for the various fixed objects from which one could… well… jump:  Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges), and Earth (cliffs).  Sometimes they sneak off to places in the middle of the night when the wind is right — places most “normal” people drive past or over without a second thought.  Sometimes they travel to exotic locales where the scenery alone with its wild canyons and verdant jungles and sapphire waters and dissipating clouds and the climb itself would be enough.

Enough for most people.

But they’re not most people.  For them, it’s only about the fall.

I’ve always known my friend’s husband was like this, and of course I’ve always been worried for her.  What if something happened to him?  What if he was seriously injured?  What if… what if… what if… well.  We won’t go there.

And every time I express this to her — every time I ask if it drives her mad — she just looks at me.  Cooly, calmly, and smiles.  Because it’s him.  She could no more change this about him than the way he laughs when she says something funny or the number of girlfriends he’s had in the past.

And really, honestly, she wouldn’t want to.

So his friend just died.  His BASE jumping buddy.  He was found, it would seem, at the bottom of a mountain in some foreign range of which I’ve never heard.  From what I understand, he was experienced.  Knowledgeable.  Loved what he did.  Lived for it — and yes, died for it.  On his Facebook page, while the messages to him — messages I can only hope he already felt while he was alive — have the undertone of confusion and grief, there’s something more.  Obviously more.

They resonate joy.

Joy to have known him.  Joy to have learned from him.  Joy from those who knew that he loved what he did and he did it selfishly — without apology or regret.  Something that, when it all comes down to it, garners nothing but respect.

I didn’t know him.

And yet, I feel like I missed out.

That’s the thing about that kind of person.  About that kind of death.

It causes a confusing juxtaposition of emotion.  He was lucky enough to know and live his passion, but his passion is what ended his life.  Happy, sad.  It makes us wonder.  It makes me ask:  Is it worth it?  Would it be worth it?

Most of us will never know.

He died too soon, only 30.

Only 30.

But I’m willing to bet, based solely on the sentiments from those who knew him, that he lived more fully in those 30 years than most of us experience in a lifetime.

And probably yes, I think.

For that, it would be worth it.

So We’ll See If Husbands Can Be Replaced by Ladders and Sheer Will.

1.  Do not worry.  I haven’t decided to quit my day job to write erotic literature, nor will I start charging blog readers by the minute.  (Unless, of course, you’re in.  In which case, I’m in.  Just… you know… let me know.)

2.  My friend Stefanie had her baby.  Five pounds, 12 ounces, and I hear she is beautiful and will be able to go home soon, where I will visit and tell her harrowing tales about how her mother, while 7 1/2 months pregnant, moved across the country and survived apartment fires and dealt with dying vehicles and leaked amniotic fluid on my office chair all in an effort to find her a safe place to live.  Stefanie’s husband, by the way, made it home safe from Afghanistan in time to greet his daughter.

Read the rest of this gem…

Confessions of a Domestiphobic. (Taxicab Not Included.)

I used to flip through my mom’s novels — you know, the ones she kept on dusty basement shelves — and look for the dirty bits.

I’m not going to lie.

It started when I was bored.  I’d already gone through my stack of library books and Mom said, “Go find something in the basement.  I have tons of books down there,” and then suddenly my mind was opened to the likes of John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon and their twisted, dramatic worlds of crime and greed and super soft-core suggested sex.

Sex?

People can write about sex?

This was news to me.

See, I’d picked up a paperback by Karen Robards called Heart Breaker, which was probably spankin’ new at the time but now has those tea-stained yellow pages with curled corners — the charming kind that smell like dusty antique stores when you flip them past your nose* — and it promised to have action and romance and, if I was lucky, a little kissing, so I snatched it up and let me just say Boy, was I surprised when I got to page 251.

Read the rest of this gem…

It Turns Out Mucus Plugs Are More Important than Surge Protectors When It Comes to Safeguarding Your Office Equipment.

Call me crazy, but I have the sneaking suspicion that someone leaked amniotic fluids on my office chair.

Why do I think someone leaked amniotic fluids on my office chair?

It could be because I’m a woman with a surprisingly astute feminine intuition about maternity related body juices.

But probably not.  You all know how I feel about babies.

Or it could be because, through years of diligently studying the field detective tactics of one Horatio Cain and his partner, Eric Who-Cares-What-My-Last-Name-Is-Have-You-Seen-My-Ass-In-Magic-Mike? on CSI Miami, I’ve honed my forensic skills to a startling level of hyper sensitivity.

H and Eric

But probably not.  Most of the time, I have the awareness level of a sloth toked out of its mind while drooling over Johnny in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Read the rest of this gem…

There’s Nothing Fun About Exploding Sperm.

Is it just me, or does it not even really feel like the Fourth of July?

I mean — it’s the 4th.  Of July.  Literally.  But does it feel like a holiday?  Probably not, if you’re not in the U.S.  And probably not if, like me, you are in the U.S. but aren’t planning any grilling/feasting/playing-with-explosives-while-consuming-large-quantities-of-fermented-beverages activities.

Fireworks make me nervous.

They’ve always made me nervous.  Even as a kid.  So while I won’t hesitate to rappel waterfalls in Costa Rica or jump from a Cessna Caravan soaring high above the Hawaiian Islands, the thought of setting off Black Cats and Roman Candles and spinners and even “harmless” sparklers and those little popping sperm-like things you throw on the ground that explode with a mini-fierce CRACK that really probably aren’t harmless at all because seriously — what’s “harmless” about exploding sperm? — the thought of all that makes me twitchy and paranoid and inclined to repeatedly shout things like, “Be careful!” and, “Run!” and, “I once heard about a kid who lost his entire hand from an errant Black Cat — his hand!” and other general phrases that make people who are actually enjoying the dangerous, drunken festivities want to tie my leg to a rocket bomb and set it alight, just to see what happens.

Fun Snaps

Take my word for it — there’s nothing fun about exploding sperm.

So.

Read the rest of this gem…

Apparently Colorado Isn’t the Only Place with Fires.

So there I was, all motivated to start writing at night and knocking out posts, and then Wednesday happened.

On Wednesday night, I had my book club meeting.  Remember that?

So I went to this book club meeting at this great local Indian restaurant (because sometimes I like to pretend to be all edumucated and worldly, when really the reach of my intellectual knowledge hit a brick wall in 2007 when I graduated from college, and Indian food makes me break out in a sweat-stache).

The truth is, I’m not as smart as I’d like to be.

See that?  That’s a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel in the foreground.  It was mindless.  And awful.  And didn’t even have any good sex scenes.  But I picked it up on the bookstore on a whim because I had a gift card and it looked like an easy summer read and apparently I have zero respect for the world of literature.  Please don’t show this to my book club.  Also, I haven’t read the Ron Paul book yet.  It’s my attempt at trying to become more politically astute.  But so far it’s been a very good paper weight.  Also, I have very crooked ears.  My wonky glasses don’t lie.

Where was I?

Oh, yes.  Book club meeting.  After the meeting, I followed my friend Ava to her apartment so I could pick up the Hunger Games book she’d borrowed from me and The Game of Thrones I’d intended to borrow from her.

And that’s when my would-be predictable week of takeout and Dawson’s Creek turned… not so predictable.

In her parking lot, there were lights.  And confusion.  And stunned onlookers holding kids and puppies and, if they were lucky, the other precious things they could grab as they fled.  If they weren’t, they held only the plastic grocery bags they’d carried home, only to find that home was no longer there.

Now.  I want you to imagine for a second that you live on the far side (thank God) of the 3rd floor of a building that suddenly looks, for all intents and purposes, like the shriveled ass end of a used cigarette butt — all necrotic and charred and this was its good side — the back was far worse.

I also want you to imagine that your significant other is deployed, and you have no way of reaching him save through the Red Cross who, judging by the seedy motel in a questionable side of town they offered to put you up in, may not be the most reliable avenue for getting things done.

But hey.  You’re grateful for the toothbrush.

And also, imagine for a second, that you’re pregnant.  (This is where it might start to get tricky for the guys.  But you can do it — connect with your feminine side and imagine that womb with its resident parasite, dependent on you for its very survival.  Okay, wait.  That’s even hard for me, and I’m a chick.)  But anyway, you’re pregnant.  For the first time ever.  You feel nauseated and bloated, head filled with questions about feeding and sleeping and how to raise decent little humans.

Yep, plural.  Because you’re having twins.

But wait, there’s more.

A friend of yours, whose husband is also deployed and who also is pregnant, is scheduled to arrive at the local airport in T-minus 15 minutes.  Just 15 minutes after you realize you may have just lost all of your worldly possessions.  She’d been having baby stuff shipped to your apartment for the past few months and was planning on living with you until she found a place nearby for her family.

Imagine all of that.

Now.

What’s the first thing you would do?

Ava, who had reached the scene a few minutes before I, in her state of semi-shock and baby brain and sheer exhaustion at the thought of hassles that might lie ahead, knew exactly what she wanted to do.

I was told by an officer that she’d gone inside with the Fire Chief and that I should “stand by.”

Stand by?  You took my pregnant friend inside her smoke-filled apartment?  Did you notice that unmistakable pregnancy indicator known as a belly before you let her in?  And did I mention she’s pregnant?

She came out a few minutes later, a look of relief on her face, hugging tightly to her chest not photo albums or her laptop or legal documents, but books.

Two of them.

Hunger Games, and The Game of Thrones.

“I got the books!” she yelled across the lot.

I laughed.  It’s all you can really do in a situation like this.  Thankfully, the firemen were willing to escort me back in where, with the help of an industrial sized fan and their skilled use of a flashlight, I was able to navigate the eerie haze to rescue her laptop, hard drive, some important files, and stuff my purse full of her underwear.

Hey.

It turns out you never know what you’ll deem important in life until you’re faced with the pressure of time, limited arms, and the option to choose.

The front.

The back.  (Photo by Ava)

Ava, cute firemen, and reporter butt.  What?  A girl can look…

I picked Stefanie up from the airport while Ava got examined by the paramedics and spoke with the Red Cross, and now I have displaced roommates.

Two of them.

Five, if you count the babies.

And for 2 nights, I made them all sleep in 1 bed.  But now we have another, and each our own room, and I’m actually thinking this roommate thing is kind of fun.

Loneliness, it turns out, is like sensory deprivation —

You don’t fully comprehend what you’re missing until you miss it no longer.

And for me, that’s been laughter.  And company.  Someone with whom to share a meal and discuss the weather and debate the realisticness (yep, I’m going with that word) of the show Army Wives.

Stefanie makes a mean curry soup.

And I’ll admit — sharing my house has been an adjustment, but I’m going to miss them when they find a new place to live.

Whaddya know?

Turns out I’m not as reclusive as I thought.

There’s hope for me yet.