I was going to sit down and write another letter to my husband, but I thought I'd write it here instead of on paper...

I've been feeling very sentimental today. Maybe it's because we're a week shy of the six month mark, or maybe it's because LT A's injury has made me feel how precious lives are, but I'm feeling mushy today. I miss him a lot.

I miss his dimples. I miss the way he always adjusts the elastic on his jogging shorts. I miss his exasperated pleas for me to stop talking and go to bed. I miss cutting his hair, even though it turns into a bi-weekly argument. I miss the way he always makes my rum and cokes too strong. I miss when he begs for me to make the entire box of crab rangoon. I miss his encyclopaedic knowledge of history and geography. I miss making him waffles. I miss seeing him sitting in front of the computer trying to get his Arabic pronunciation absolutely perfect. I miss driving him to the motor pool at 0400 only to find he's forgotten his wallet at home. I miss his foul mouth. I miss dancing to the Old 97s while I make dinner. I miss the smell of motor pool and tank on all of his clothes. I miss finding his beret all over the house. I miss when he shyly comes to my work at lunch to ask if I need anything. I miss the way he hugs me tight and kisses my forehead.

We're half-way done.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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My belief system affects everything I do in my life. My values shine through in every conversation and circumstance, and I think it's very important for people to have shared values, "common ground" as I normally call it. If I don't share basic assumptions and values with someone, we can still be friends, but in the back of my mind I'll always know that all of our ground isn't quite common. I'm not a person who can easily set my beliefs aside and become close friends with someone I fundamentally disagree with.

That said, when someone needs my help or reaches out for emotional support, all of that goes out the window. No matter my feelings towards the person, if he is suffering or upset then I will do what I can to try to make him feel better. Even if I did have I-told-you-sos echoing in my head, I wouldn't bring them up in his time of need. There's a time and a place for everything.

There's a time and a place for political debate and arguing, and there are times when it's 100% inappropriate. When Daily Kos said "Screw 'em" when the contractors were killed in Fallujah, that was unequivocally inappropriate. When that crazy DU lady said "I hope the bloodshed continues in Iraq", that was clearly inappropriate. And when dc used my friend's injuries as a springboard for talking about "deceit" and "lies", that was wholly inappropriate as well.

You see, our friend LT A wants to be in the military more than anything, so much so that the other OBC guys sometimes worried he was a little too hooah. LT A's father went through unspeakable horrors in Vietnam and stayed in the Army to retire as an LTC, and all LT A wanted to do was follow in his father's honorable footsteps. He never questioned his role in this war, even when two of his soldiers died in his arms the first week they were in Iraq. I imagine he would be mighty pissed off to hear someone tell him that he is "trapped in a lie".

Last night dc should have put partisan bickering aside for five minutes and let me worry in peace. A simple "I hope your friend is OK" would have been fitting, as would reverent silence have been. Instead, in the moment when I most needed someone to hold my hand, dc chose to give me an indian burn instead.

I don't know how to ban someone, but you're no longer welcome here, dc. I have tolerated your dissenting views for a long time now, but you stepped over the line last night. I am a person, dc, not just pixels on a computer, and you've disrespected my feelings. It's not politics when I talk about my injured friend; it's emotional and personal. Please don't comment anymore.

LT A is stable, and they should be moving him to Germany any time now. His wife will be on her way as soon as she gets the go-ahead, and I will meet them at Landstuhl early Saturday morning. I'm anxious to give her a big hug, as well as a gentle little one for LT A.

Thank you to all who are thinking of him...

UPDATE:

Seems now they're sending him right on to Walter Reed. More info when I know it.

UPDATE II:

I did some detective work and called Landstuhl hospital. I got to leave a message for LT A with the ICU desk, so hopefully they can pass it on to him before they move him back to the States...

Posted by: Sarah at 04:22 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I just learned that one of our good friends was critically wounded in Iraq yesterday. I'm sure he could use our thoughts and prayers...

MORE TO GROK:

Here's a harrowing account of the firefight he was in. One of the commenters was right -- he couldn't have been hit with an RPG -- but he was the Soldier hit in the stomach during the battle.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:05 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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I'm scared of old spaghetti sauce. When I was a kid I ate some spaghetti sauce that had been in the refrigerator for way too long, and I got so sick. So yesterday when I was eying the Ragu that I had opened on Saturday, I did what every kid does when she comes across a dilemma: call mom. Mom said she thought it would be OK, so I ate it. And I was sick all night. I don't think I made the situation any better today when I started eating my cereal and noticed that the milk was not quite right. Check the carton: it's a few days too old too. My poor stomach.

Last night I came across a new word in Dark Star Safari. Often I read words and can't quite remember the definition, but it's pretty rare that I find a word that I've never seen before. So I looked it up, and I'm not surprised I had never heard the word detumescent before. I'm fairly certain it was not present on our high school vocabulary tests.

MORE:

Dang, I just came across another new word online: jeremiad. Just when I start to think I'm getting smarter...

Posted by: Sarah at 03:38 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I got an email today from Spirit of America with an update on the sewing centers in Iraq:

Two new sewing centers have opened - one in Ramadi and one Habbaniyah.
The Marines helped refurbish the building and Spirit of America
provided the sewing machines being used in the centers. The Centers
provide women with a way to make money and improve their standard of
living. They also offer a safe place to meet to discuss women's issues
and day care for the women's children.
...
Major General Jim Mattis - Commanding General of the 1st Marine
Division - emailed us about our donation of sewing machines saying,
"The sewing centers are getting good use and more are planned. We
should see a lot of very beneficial impact as the word of these
spread. While the first one in Ramadi is well attended, I am
surprised at even greater anticipated use in smaller, less affluent
areas. I guess I should have forecast that, but we will look at our
roll-out plan and make sure that we have targeted the future centers
for the greatest good based on what we are seeing. Thank you and your
team again. Semper Fi, Jim"

There are photos of the ribbon cutting in Ramadi and Habbaniyah. I'm so proud we could be part of such an event; thanks to all who donated with me!

Posted by: Sarah at 01:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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OK, so it turns out that I don't have a virus on my computer, but I had a laughable amount of spyware and junk. Hard part's over, right? We just set up the router and download Norton's Antivirus and we're golden? Wrong. Oh so wrong.

The router won't work. We plugged it all in, unplugged it, over and over. Not working. And I don't want to go into opsec details (even though it's a good story), but I ended up with stuff on my computer that the Army wouldn't be happy I had, and it took us hours to try to get rid of it. All in all we spent four hours with a net gain of very little. Sigh. But I sure learned a lot, watching my friend mess around in DOS after trying to remove parts of the Army's business accidentally wrecked Windows.

It reminded me of the time my dad thought he could outsmart Bill Gates and install Windows 95 on top of Windows 3.0. Or, as he renamed it, Jindows 3.0. Ha, didn't work. It was good for a couple hours of entertainment though. Or at least it was better than watching soccer.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:09 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Happy Birthday to my husband, the cutest baby born in 1980.
I love you, Blue 6.

UPDATE:

And after 13 days of no communication, I just got to instant messenger with him! My family has a tradition of singing a silly birthday song, so I got to type-sing it to him and changed the words to make them about Iraq. He seemed to think it was pretty funny. "So, has anything happened in the world in the past two weeks?" he asked; I didn't have enough time to even scratch the surface.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ohhhh, this is mean. One of the German pop-ups makes the same sound that Yahoo messenger makes! That sound makes any military wife come running, hoping that her husband has just logged in; instead you find a pop-up for T-Mobile. Mean, mean, mean.

My computer programmer friend is coming over tomorrow to do scary things to my computer that include the words "reinstall" and "virus". Hopefully she can teach me how to get rid of all of these damn pop-ups, especially the extremely graphic German porn ones.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:00 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, we didn't quite make it to a full sewing machine, but we got close (together we donated $300). My sincere thanks to everyone who pitched in for this project of mine. Hopefully the women of Ramadi will be sewing like the wind soon...

Posted by: Sarah at 10:45 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ten seconds after I published the previous post, my friend called to apologize. She hadn't even read my blog yet, but she knew she had been in a bad mood and had taken it out on me. I laughed and said that I know I am overly sensitive and that it's just as much my fault as hers. She finally got me to agree that I would try to say "you're being a bitch" if she is being one, which was really funny to me. And all's well that ends well.

My friend attributed her crankiness to hitting that breaking point in the deployment, the first major hump to get over. I can completely understand, and I know that sometimes I'm just not myself either. My friend is perhaps the strongest wife I know when it comes to the deployment: she's been incredibly upbeat and composed and she does not complain or grumble at all. We three friends have done pretty well for ourselves, I think, yet we all know that we're not quite whole. There's a part of our hearts that's far far away, and it can make us all a little crazy at times. I guess the important part is being able to recognize that and just try to help each other get by.

And she borrowed the Larry Elder book too...

Posted by: Sarah at 11:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend who did a number on my self-esteem. Everything I did was wrong. My taste in music: wrong. My clothes: wrong. My views on social issues: wrong. I spent so much time being hurt because he never gave my views any credence; he simply said, "How can you think something like that?" and then told me the right way to think. I hated it, but I kept trying to please him because I hate disagreeing with people.

I hate disagreeing with people. Not something that someone who enjoys reading about politics should say, right? But I really do hate it. I hate discord. I hate arguments. I hate not having common ground. I usually try to avoid people and situations where I know there'll be discord because I'm so bad at dealing with it. I can't argue with someone and then turn around and be friends again in ten minutes. I just can't; it lingers...

So I do anything to avoid arguing. When someone says, "Ugh, Bush did blah blah blah..." I just ignore it and change the topic. I'd rather just let them think what they think than get myself riled up by discussing the issue. Just last weekend I sat at a table while three people railed on President Bush and I didn't say anything. Until it got out of hand and one person stooped to making monkey noises, at which point I calmly said, "That's quite rude, considering I plan to vote for the man." And that was that. But it lingered...

The way my high school boyfriend treated me has stuck with me, and I never want to be the person telling someone else what to think. I never want to be the person putting down someone's ideas or taste. I never say what I think of movies, or food, or music, or anything, for fear of hurting someone's feelings the way my feelings were hurt every time my boyfriend made fun of my music or views. If someone asks me what I thought of a movie, I always hedge. I often turn the question back on them to see what they thought before I give my opinion. It's a horrible habit, I know, but I can't feel good about myself if I'm making strong statements that others disagree with.

Which is why I started this blog. I don't talk about these things in person. I hate it. I never talk politics or current events in person because I don't want to make anyone feel stupid for holding certain views. Tim talked in his farewell post about how the internet allows people to express views they would never express in "polite company". He sees this as a bad thing, but it has been a very liberating thing for me. I want to work out my own ideas, and writing is how I do that best. But no one is forced to read my site, so it's not the same thing as forcing someone into a conversation they don't want to be having. I say things here I would never dream of saying in person, simply because my blog is the one place where I feel comfortable being direct. I still think people should be civil, and lord knows I hate discord in the comments section, but my blog is an open soapbox where I can air my views and not worry about sounding rude.

Which is why it's been extremely weird for me to have people in my "real" life read my blog. Very few people even know I blog, and I'd really like to keep it that way, because there are so many times when I wish I'd never told any of them. Most of the time they agree with me, and everything is fine, until something comes up in "real" life that's a major source of discord. Like tonight when my friends said, "I can't believe you're reading that book." All of a sudden I was back in high school again, trying to defend myself and why I'm reading Larry Elder. "Ugh, I would never read a book like that" sounds in my ears like "You are a huge moron", and it really bothers me. Because I would never say something like that. That's what my high school boyfriend said, and I would never treat someone that way. Even if a person were reading Noam Chomsky, I'd never say anything. When a friend offered to lend me Bowling for Columbine, I simply said, "No thanks; I'm not a big Michael Moore fan." I bend over backwards to avoid offending people, just so they never have to feel as incompetent as I did in high school.

I know I'm over-sensitive about things like this, and I know it's my fault that I can't let things like that go, but I really don't know how to change. I don't know how to let go of the hurt I feel when someone puts my interests down. It lingers...

Posted by: Sarah at 05:17 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I just put letter number 100 in the mail to my husband!
I haven't quite sent him a letter per day, since I couldn't write while he was in Kuwait and I don't always have anything good to say. But the ratio comes out to 100 letters in about 145 days in Iraq. Not too bad.
Someday we'll look back on all these letters and laugh. And our grandkids will think that grandma had a foul mouth.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Erin, your husband left you a message...

Posted by: Sarah at 02:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I am doing a three-person chat with Red 6 and Blue 6 as we speak! Husband and Best Friend are talking shop, and I'm sitting back and enjoying them being themselves. It's great to see them let off some steam and make jokes. I can't wait to see it in person...

Posted by: Sarah at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sorry, I put off all my grading this weekend to make meatloaf and sit around doing nothing, so I'm swamped today. You'll have to read someone else's blog instead...

But I will let you in on my backed-up knitting project. Here's my newest sweater:

Yeah, it's a pile (and not a very clearly photographed one, at that). I ran out of yarn right at the very end, so I'm waiting for my mom to mail me another skein. It's gonna look like this eventually, but for now I'm stuck with a pile of pieces.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I was just sitting at the kitchen table grading papers when I looked up to see a Military Police vehicle parked in front of my house and an MP out in my yard. I froze. We live right next to a corner where lots of people get tickets, so I knew he was probably just clocking people, and I know in the rational parts of my brain that MPs do not do casualty notification, but I decided to check it out. He said there had been a noise complaint in the area, so he was listening for loud music. I told him that when your husband's deployed, an MP is the last person you want to see in your yard. He laughed and apologized, and when I walked back in the house, I realized I was shaking and crumbling fast.

No matter how many times you imagine the scenario -- and believe me, we lie in bed on bad nights and think about it -- I guess nothing can really prepare you for that knock on the door. As I shut the door and swallowed the lump in my throat, I wondered if I really would be as strong and brave as I am in my imagination.

I didn't feel very strong ten minutes ago.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:34 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I just finally watched the movie Miracle.
I. Loved. It.
But I bet you guessed I would...

Posted by: Sarah at 05:02 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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My mom sent me a nice story a few weeks back that I meant to post and never did. Here's what she wrote:

I just had the nicest thing happen to me. The Insight repairman just came to fix my computer. He fixed it and I now have internet again (as you can see). He says my computer needs to be "cleaned up."

We visited and I told him you have a blogsite that I read every day and that you're in Germany and [husband] is in Iraq. He has a daughter named Sarah too! He went out to his truck two different times and got equipment to fix the computer. When he left, he said he wasn't going to charge me---that with my son-in-law fighting for him in Iraq that that was the least he could do in return. He wanted to be sure I had internet to keep in touch with you. Technically, he didn't have to stay and fix it. I almost cried; wasn't that nice? You see, there are good people in this world who know that we're doing the right thing.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So it's been a while since I checked my blog email. I found lots of nice emails, another $5 for the sewing machine, this beautiful link from Tanker, and an email from my best friend from high school who found my blog and thought she recognized me. Yep, it's me, the same girl who stole a lunch tray from the cafeteria and used to say "buty" all the time. It's good to hear from you.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've bragged before about how wonderful my students are; tonight one of them outdid anything I've seen yet. Right before I was leaving my house, my phone rang: it was a student, one of the two students I have who drive more than an hour each way to come to class. He had gotten all the way to post and realized he'd forgotten his wallet, so he couldn't get in. I gave him the phone number of another student so he could get signed in as a guest. When I got to class, he wasn't there, so I figured he didn't have any identification on him and they wouldn't let him on even as a guest. About fifteen minutes after class started, he came in through the door. He had driven all the way back home just to get his ID so he could attend class. He said he was speeding like a madman, but he wanted to make it back in time for our class.

Now that's dedication...

Posted by: Sarah at 04:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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