Gourmet Tee

There is nothing in This Land to make me happy. By extension, I assume that there is nothing here that makes anyone happy. In the face of constant peril and an extended absence from Holly, beer, and video games, the drab, featureless landscape has begun to reflect the hollow cavern of my ego. With things blowing up more constantly than ever, I have retreated from myself and left the shell of my body behind. And with my contract in the military long since expired, each day is an inexorable step into a vacuum.

Few things make the time here pass with greater ease. Candidates spring from the most unlikely places. A stress ball. A nice pair of headphones. A digital camera I never use. Most recently, though, I discovered that wearing nice undershirts improves my mood dramatically. Fashioned from polyester and some spaceship material that astronauts probably use to blow their noses with, these shirts are orgasmically extravagant. they are the undershirt equivalent to silk boxers.

At a mind-boggling twenty-four dollars each, though, they certainly aren't for everyday use. Sadly, the Army dictates the wear of ugly brown shirts, otherwise I would invest in dozens. When my extended time in the military is over, I doubt I will want to be caught dead in brown shirts ever again. Since I wear a large (and not, for example, extra-large or medium), I find that most outlets carry my size in terrific bulk. It's just a shame, though, that these shirts need to be ordered on the internet.

On an unrelated note, a lot (read, none) of you have been asking me for my postal address. Should you happen to have a separation from military service lying around the house, or if you can think of anything else to send, here it is:

(Author's note: Address no longer valid).

Yankee Doodle Danny

An awkward side-effect of living in Hong Kong in the final quarter of last century was coming to terms with your national identity. The Chinese didn't have one, as evidenced by their mass exodus to anywhere. Most expatriates didn't have one. They would cling to their cliqueish parts of the city, but would mix among themselves with little regard for citizenship. The common values of capitalism and entrepreneurial spirit tied everyone together, though, and transcended everything in a free-for-all frenzy for fast money.

Growing up there was difficult enough. The maids were always overcooking my macaroni, and I could never get the driver to help me skip out on equestrian lessons. The worst part was that I had to go to a private school. A French one, at that. All my classmates were from Europe. I had no reason, of course, to suspect that I was any different. I was able to live under the shelter of ignorance until I was eleven. The world around me changed when the lie was exposed and I finally discovered that I was, in fact, not like them. I was American.

It happened right before Thanksgiving the year I had my appendix removed. It was a rainy day, and the class was engaged in some unguided learning activity when the teacher summoned me to the side of the room. I had never been taken aside before and, on account of my lousy grades, was filled with trepidation. She began to show me pictures of things that I didn't understand. Have you any idea how odd a cornucopia looks to someone who's never seen one? But what really creeped me out was the picture of the Puritans. I still remember the comically oversized belt buckles and their weird hats in the cartoon picture. I had no idea what I was looking at. As far as I was concerned, if you weren't wearing a suit of armor, you had no place in a history book. Why, though, had I been singled out for that aside? I was insecure as a child, and uncomfortable with anything that drew attention to me.

When I got home, my mother understood my confusion about Thanksgiving. What she didn't realize is that I didn't understand it's significance. I had to read between the lines during reflection later before inspiration struck. When it did, the shocking grip of despair threatened to destroy the very core of my schoolboy innocence. How could I be so different on such a grand and fundamental scale? I didn't feel American. At first, I was ashamed and hid the truth from my classmates. It was easy because nationality and citizenship aren't concepts that young boys trouble themselves with.

A couple years later, I was made to leave that school for the American one in Hong Kong. I was determined to find an easy equilibrium with my compatriots. Surely I would fit in much better among them, I thought. Fate conspired against me thrice. First, I had acquired a style of diction that, although not British, was far from American. Second, as the first school I attended that didn't require a uniform, I defaulted to my father - a clothing designer himself - for my wardrobe. While others would attend classes in Quicksilver shorts and flip-flops, I was attired in tweed trousers and button-down shirts. The final blow was delivered by the school bookstore. Our summer vacation that year ran into the first day of school, so the store's stock was very poor. It made no difference except for their selection of Trapper Keepers. For those who remember them, they were the all-purpose folders that had nifty designs on them. I was made to choose the one with the neon pink and purple hearts with arrows through them.

Being American was the worst thing I could possibly have been at that school, so I played my differences off on being British. Everyone bought it, too. I still got beat up, of course, but at least I could blame being different on something that wasn't my fault. The tough part was the lying. I had to build and maintain a complex network of deceit, and I certainly wasn't going to get in touch with being American if I was telling everyone I wasn't.

In the end, my journey of shame has landed me in a very interesting place. As I write, the waters of the Tigris flow a scant hundred meters away. I am months into my second campaign against a tyranny that has divided the country. No matter my personal feelings on the matter, I will wake up tomorrow and do my best to make the world a better and safer place. That I do so in the name of The United States of America is no coincidence. It was the choice I made, and I think understanding the freedom of that choice is what being American is about to me.

File Not Found

Recently, I received an e-mail announcing my highschool's ten-year reunion. At first, I simply dismissed it as insignificant. After some reflection, though, I was hard-pressed to produce reliable memories of the whole affair. I considered the matter more carefully, and decided that I hadn't repressed them, but that they had just been misplaced. It's sort of like trying to remember the last time you were standing in line at Burger King. You can remember it, but why would you choose to? It has no relevance or impact on your day-to-day affairs.

I thought that was a very defeatist way to go about thinking of things. If not for our memories, what can we say we have learned from the past? Surely you can't learn anything from standing in line at Burger King, unless you brought a really good book. But in four years of highschool, something must have happened. I was reminded of 2001, which I spent drunk. I was intrigued, and decided to delve deeper.

That's when I unearthed an authentic repressed memory. I had completely forgotten about my sophomore year, when I was expelled from a prestigious preparatory school for interstate check fraud. So, that brought back a series of emotions that I quickly bottled up all over again and stuffed under a different mattress that hopefully won't be found for another decade or so. It still didn't account for the other three years, though.

Maybe nothing significant happened during those years; maybe subconsciously, I've decided there's no need to hold on to them; maybe 2001 dealt a lethal blow to the memories. Whatever the case, I can't help but feel a little like China expelling the Nationalists to Taiwan and then getting all upset about wanting them back. It's not that I particularly cherish the thought of dwelling on those years, but it seems a waste to have come so far without learning anything from the journey.

I suppose for the time being, I have surrendered to the assumption that change is inevitable, and as everyone is bound to be affected by the people and places in their lives, I am a product of all my experiences; even those assigned evasive memories. And as China and Taiwan are learning, reunification is a long and difficult process. Sometimes it takes more than ten years.

Pulp Nonfiction

The Arabic word for the military rank of major is "ra'ed". It's also a common name. I met someone today named Ra'ed Ra'ed, or Major Major. It's all I could do to keep it in. When I recovered from my amusement, I wondered if anyone had ever written a book in Arabic that took the same liberties "Catch 22" did with that name. I thought of the vast cultural divide, but that some things remain constant to humanity and transcend values.

One of those things is bureaucracy. Isn't it true that no matter where you go, you will find miles of red tape? I have always found bureaucracy very intriguing and equally difficult to spell. I like to imagine huge, monolithic structures looming in the background where rooms full of forms are filed by faceless people who smoke too much. I very much buy into the defeatist view of the system perpetrated by the likes of "1984" and "Brazil".

The army has forms for everything. There's a form to fill out if you want to order more forms. If you need to move to a base in Japan, there's an army form you need to fill out to prove your pets were quarantined per regulation. That there are so many forms is only the beginning, though. What really boggles me is that they all end up somewhere. I'm serious; if you're not in the army, you have no idea how many forms I've filled out. Where are they? I'm sure a fair share are shredded, but the fact still remains that somewhere out there is a massive stack of papers with my name on it. A huge stack. And I guarantee it isn't all in the same place. Bits of me are scattered all over the country. Somewhere, a vast network of clerical staff labor day and night to organize information about me, most of which I probably didn't even know myself (or certainly didn't care about, anyway).

I used to be really optimistic about my taxes. I used to think of all the things that went on in the background that taxes pay for, but that you take for granted. Like air traffic controllers. I would like to thank an air traffic controller for keeping me safe, and for doing so without very much recognition. But I would never feel obliged to thank someone who files dental records. I imagine a whole army of civil servants whose jobs would be wiped out in an instant if the government shelled out for a couple thousand high-speed scanners.

It's crazy to think of it, but bureaucracy is common the world-over. Everywhere you go, you will find miles of red tape, arcane laws, and overflowing ashtrays. Big Brother has been syndicated internationally. And sometimes his name is Ra'ed Ra'ed.

This article was originally published under the same title at http://teamcrusader.blogspot.com

Everyday is Sunday

"It's hot out today." What? What is that? What do you want me to say to that? It's ridiculous. It has to have originally been a joke. I've thought about it, and it makes absolutely no sense to point out something so obvious that it blatantly crosses the line into sarcasm and irony without it being a joke. It would be like saying, "I see you're wearing clothing today," or perhaps, "oh; you brought your arms." What is that? If your only reason for having spoken to me is to point out the weather, perhaps you are underqualified to hold a conversation with me. Go home, think, come back tomorrow and try again.

I like the weather, don't get me wrong. I studied it in university. I think it's interesting in the way an atheist studies religion. I like it, but I don't believe in it. How can you believe in weather if it's constantly sunny? Of course it's not constantly sunny everywhere. Just wherever I happen to be. Now, I know this might sound a little conceited, but I've come to the conclusion that my chronic sunnyness can only be attributed to me being a Minor Sun Deity.

Most people get a good chuckle out of that. But I'm serious. History speaks for me. Some will say, of course, "well, you've only lived where it's sunny". There may be truth there, but it doesn't explain how the clouds will part in my wake when I visit cities famed for their overcast. It's not like I expect anyone to go out and sacrifice the vestal virgins, though. Especially since I'm desperately seeking a cure.

I can't tolerate sunnyness. It depresses me. There's something about the infinite vastness of blue sky that leaves me feeling underprotected and naked. The fact that only a few, very thin layers of gases are the only things between me and the depths of the universe is slightly unnerving to comprehend. It's not as though I have a phobia, mind you. It's just a slight disquieting feeling that is analogous to someone almost stepping on your toe, but not and you being slightly startled by the possibility of the pain; but realizing that everything's okay, you move on with your life. It's like that, but then at the same time being The Minor Deity of Having People Come Close to Stepping On Your Toes.

So, I haven't gone and told anyone important about my powers yet. I think I can get free cruises or vacations in the tropics just in exchange for keeping the clouds at bay. The only way I can foresee making some real money out of it, though, would be to threaten the global environment by making my home in one of the polar regions during winter, and then holding the world hostage. The problem with that, of course, is the number of times that I'd have to listen to, "strange weather we're having, huh?"

Thought For Food

I know a girl who hurt her back and can't wear body armor. They're sending her to a base where you don't need to wear it all the time. I liked that. I thought that maybe they have a base where not having two arms is mandatory. If I were paralyzed, they would find somewhere to put me where I wouldn't have to walk. I'm pretty sure that they have a base where it's not necessary to be alive. It's the underpublicised Zombie Army.

When you're killed, your superior yells at you profusely until- still bound to some sense of obligation reaching beyond the grave- you rise again as an undead. As a zombie-soldier, you will have some grave responsibilities. You will likely be assigned to some of the more mundane, but high-exposure details like gate guard or commanding general.

In the short-term, the plan is flawless. Images of zombies devouring the brains of insurgents on Al-Jazeera will cause the number of attacks to plummet; they'll end stop-loss, and I'll get to go home. In the long-term, though, there are some hurdles. In The Pentagon, they will run projections for maintaining the zombie force, and it will be decided that the number of soldiers they will have to sacrifice to feed them will outweigh the advantages of the undead army.

Looking for an out, they will try to dust them under the rug by imprisoning them in a deserted missile silo in Wyoming. Eventually, activists will get wind of it through an independent report gleaned from the Freedom of Information Act, and they will begin a "They Are People Too (Sort Of)" campaign rally, demanding the release of the zombie army.

Caving to pressure from the left and from international regulatory committees already angered with the United States for vague violations of the Geneva convention's rules of biological warfare, the zombie army will eventually be released into San Francisco's Lower Haight, from where they will begin a small underground movement, which will eventually rise to political notoriety through the compassion they will find in a public already outraged by their post-war treatment, fueled by disillusionment with the bipartisan system.

In preparation for the future of a zombie ruling-class, I have decided to only think for two hours a day. This will cause my brain to shrink, making me a less desirable food source. It serves the secondary benefit of making me a better soldier.

Free Radicals

I think I've posted my resume to the internet. I'm not sure, though. It looks like it works, but I can't figure out for the life of me why it works. It shouldn't work. The site that's hosting the file says that it won't work, but it does all the same. Anyway, if you're dying to give me a job and you're running into trouble figuring out how to access my resume, please just ask me for it.

Click here or follow the link to the right. (Author's note: Link no longer valid; e-mail me for my resume)

In case you were thinking of giving me a job, please know that I'm not going to settle for anything less than 80 grand. I have debts, and more importantly, I have expensive habits that, for the most part, involve a future not living in a toilet (see "Baath Time", April). I was also thinking of buying a bed. These days, you can't get a halfway decent bed for anything less than three thousand dollars. What is the world coming to?

I picked one out that's so amazing that it has silver microfibers woven into the mattress. Is that amazing, or what? Apparently, they negate positively charged atoms in muscle molecules, relaxing them. They call them "free radicals". It neutralizes "free radicals". I'm guessing that means Nelson Mandela had one of these beds since he was imprisoned for being a free radical. Anything that's good enough for Nelson Mandela, you know?

So, seriously. Hire me. I'll do anything. Really. I've done it all for far less than minimum wage. Once, I was on crutches and in a cast with a broken leg, and they made me strip and wax the floor. Can you imagine? "Use the buffer for stability," they said. "Use THIS for stability, you punks," is what I didn't say. I never had to burn feces, though (see "Petrol & Flies", February). I don't know if there are many vacancies for that state-side, anyway. It's too hard to push your way to the top of the heap in that profession, I hear.

Have you hired me yet? I have nothing but the utmost respect for authority, and I absolutely promise not to scatter crumbs in your office in the hopes that giant rats maraud through your files. I work well with the people who I don't wish would die. I don't even have any distinguishable mental problems (only a slight issue adjusting to stress, I'm told).

Okay. That's all. My back hurts from bearing the burden of ill-made decisions by others. Hire me & I'll bear your's.

The Amazing Technicolor Dreambag

Have you ever actually seen a child wearing a sailor suit? I have. I owned one. My sister had one that matched and, thusly attired, we would be paraded through public streets to meet the stringent demands of a society obsessed with the façade of image. My parents believed in my image very vehemently. Of paramount importance to it was my school bag.

My school bag was the shape of a briefcase, but with shoulder straps. It had several pockets and flaps on the outside, each of which were a different color of vivid. In retrospect, I realize the bag could only have been designed by a homosexual pixie named “Sven”. There are no words to describe how gay it truly was. Nevertheless, it was felt the bag would properly convey the avant-garde European tastes that were probably very much in vogue at the time.

The last place in the world you would expect to see this bag would be trapped within the porcelain walls of a commode covered in human excrement. But that’s what happened to it, all the same.

It happened one day at physical education class. I was still attending the French school at the time, and classes like PE, arts, and music were taught in that language. Our teacher was one of those massive French-Polynesian guys that can bench press the majority of creation. After exercises, we went to change, but my plans were quickly thwarted by the bag’s displacement.

The image is one I will never forget. There was my bag - completely intact and with no other deficiency. It was lying there so innocently radiating its bright and colorful trendyness that it took some time for the shock to impact. It wasn’t until a crowd had formed that understanding finally yielded the horrible truth. As I stood there aghast, someone had fetched the teacher. His words stuck with me for life. In his thickly accented and broken English, he stated very fairly and very finally, “I’m not fishing that out”.

In the end, I was only slightly distraught that I had to replace my schoolwork. It wasn’t that I’d been shat upon. It wasn’t even my image that had been attacked. I would even have done it myself, if such a thing were possible for me to imagine. At the time, I was too young to see myself as an extension of my parents’ image. Now, everything is clear, and the next time I see a really gay bag in a dressing room, I will know what to do.

Baath Time

I live in a toilet. Two days ago, Luke, Al, and I moved into our own room. Hidden away in a secluded alcove as though concealing a shameful secret, the room boasts an enviable degree of privacy. I don't think any of us knew, though, that we would be moving into a bathroom.

I didn't know until last night. Luke was the first to move in and reported excitedly that the room had in it two working sinks. "Hurrah," I thought, "sinks!" It never passed my mind that they might betray the room's former purpose. The absolute nonsensical nature of Iraqi architecture has trained me to expect random plumbing and electricity. My jubilation also helped quench supposition, and allowed me to spend my first night there in blissful ignorance.

Last night, though, reality crashed through the fragile walls of the utopian facade I had been living in for the preceding twenty-four hours when I noticed a baday under the sink. The cabinet beneath the sink has glass windows, commanding an excellent view of the baday within. "What an odd thing," I thought, "to have a severed baday stored haphazardly beneath our sink". As the inevitability of the logical conclusion shocked and appalled me, I immediately became acutely aware of everything in the room. Everywhere I looked, evidence piled up against my last grips on a delusional denial, and the shocking conclusion fell with the certainty and finality of the guillotine's blade.

Woe be me that could not hold on to the disgust of the revelation, for in the aftermath of the shock, I became distinctly aware of new emotions. Within seconds, I realized that not only did I not mind that I was living in a toilet, but that I enjoyed living where people used to poop. The solitude it provides removes me from the stresses of being surrounded by people I wish would die.

So, here I am. I'm a twenty-eight year-old bilingual college graduate who has been to Tibet and Switzerland; who has stayed in the finest hotels in Paris; who has dined on world-class, aged chateau briand steak, and who has even piloted his own aircraft into Las Vegas for some quick gambling before dinner. I am all those things, and I live in a toilet.

My highschool's ten-year reunion is this year. While I frankly don't care where any of them washed up, I hope they take some time out of their lives and imagine me as I sleep where dictators would once grimace as they struggled to oust their own insurgencies.

Tater-Tot Tale

I went to a psychosomething. I don't think she was a psychologist, and she certainly wasn't a psychiatrist, but she had a clipboard. In the months running up to our deployment, getting an appointment at mental health was neigh impossible. There was such an unprecedented number of "mandatory referrals", that others had to wait weeks.

"Mandatory referral" means someone beat up a police officer, took pills, or decided some shotgun blasts would accentuate the interior decoration of their barracks room and were compelled to a mental health interview. There were many. When I finally did get an appointment, two such "referrals" were escorted in while I was in the waiting room - from separate incidents.

I went to seek mental health because I wish most people I know would die. I did not feel those were normal sympathies and wanted some remedy, lest I decide that my wishes were not bearing enough fruit and seek dramatic conclusions on my own. I thought some drugs would set me right, and heard that mental health were giving out antidepressants like candy in the face of a second, stop-lossed deployment.

I knew I was not going to get drugs as soon as I saw the psychosomething with the clipboard. Her smile beamed with the gentle, caring facade that probably helps the type of people who are missing mother figures in their lives. Unfortunately, I wasn't looking for a mother figure. I wanted drugs. Although unqualified to prescribe anything, she apparently felt she was qualified to diagnose me. My wishing that most people I know would die turns out to be an adjustment problem. I'm apparently unused to stress.

Gee-whiz. I could have come up with something better than that, and I wouldn't have needed the damn clipboard. How do you communicate to someone with a fake smile the feeling you get when you hear the zing of a bullet fly overhead, or the overwhelming panic that consumes your chest and constricts your breathing when an RPG strikes the building you're in? How do you tell someone what hatred and betrayal feel like? How do you tell someone about giving five years of your life for selfless service to the country, but then asked- no, demanded- for six?

What she should have told me, and what would have made me walk out of that office happy to be empty-handed is, "you hate everything because they took everything from you". The justification or, at least the explanation for my feelings would have given me the validation I was looking for. If I had wanted to have my jingle jangled, I'd have re-enlisted.

It's kind of moot now, of course. Every morning, I swallow a tater-tot whole, and I pretend it's a drug to make me happy. It does, a little. Sometimes, it makes me feel bad about wishing most people would die, and I pray that I don't die before I've had a decent chance to repent my hatred. If there is a hell, there can't be a more deserving person for it than one who wishes the ultimate unpleasantry on others.

Crumby

I think it is easy to hate things. I hate so many things, and I add new things to hate to my ever-expanding list on an almost constant basis. "Be passionate about something", people always tell you. Well, I have become passionate about hating. Sometimes I loose track of all the people I have decided to hate and I have to re-acquaint myself with them before I can remember if I wanted to be friends or if I had pledged to wreak horrible inconvenience upon their lives.

I had a list. I didn't actually write it down because there were only a handful of people on it. For my part, I wished people on the list would be inflicted by the most unpleasant and vile circumstances imaginable.

I ran into some problems, though. The things that I could think of that would most displease a person had already befallen them. One, for whom I had wished the most unpleasant heartache and agony, had lived through three divorces. Another had a fat, ugly wife (who - rumors had it - would abuse him). Yet another avoided home to the extent that coming to The Troubled Lands was a blessing.

As each of these unpleasantries unfolded before me, I became to realize that karma and justice do have a place in the mundane. From the microcosm, life appears unfair. But knowing that there was a chance that balance existed on the grander scale made me more comfortable with my own agony.

Understanding this balance led me to recognize the hatred that others must feel for me in order to justify my current lot. Instead of blaming them and their hatred for landing me where I am, it made me feel better about some things. I realized that if the passion of their hatred burns even half as hot as mine for them, that my existence must truly be a magnificent blemish on their already tarnished lives.

Armed with that knowledge, I took it one step further and decided that everything that I have done in the last twelve months of my professional life has been motivated by my ability to control exactly how much people hate me. I think I have purposely sought to increase it. I know they have purposely set out to provoke mine.

On a macrocosmic scale, the passion of the hatred is proportional to the motivation of the group. I submit that hatred is - by far - the most overwhelming driving force behind every decision and every action taken here. I think it may be part of the culture of this organization, and becoming addicted to the passions the hatred stirs in you is part of the intrigue of staying in it.

In the meantime, until I can return to the sanity of reality, I will continue to scatter cookie crumbs under the beds of those so fortunate to make 'the list' in the realistic hopes that large rats will maraud their sleeping places in the darkest hours of the night.

Timely Death

My favorite thing in the world is that I am sitting in a computer "cafe" booth, and hung on one of the dividers is a calendar for Lappeus Funeral Home. They have been "serving families since 1906". There are a host of questions that I urgently want to ask of the fine people at Lappeus Funeral Home, Sharon Springs, NY. Sadly, though, they don't have a website. I checked. If it were free of charge, I would telephone their (518) 284-2253 number to find some answers.

My first question would simply be, "why do you publish a calendar?". Isn't the unpredictable nature of death belied by a funeral home calendar? Or, perhaps I should circle the dates for which I have appointments to funerals? Before the advent of this funeral home calendar, I had to resort to regular calendars for that. Maybe it is a calendar by which I can schedule my long-term poisonings, such that their fruition coincides with Yom Kippur. Maybe I should be crossing the days off, thanking God for each one that I don't have to dial (518) 284-2253.

I am sure the fine people at Lappeus Funeral Home would quickly assuage my concerns with some excellent logic. I imagine they have received so many phone calls on the subject that they merely leave a card behind the concierge reading, "should someone call and inquire why we publish a funeral home calendar, simply tell them, blah." The second paragraph (which they have probably yet to write) would read, "if the caller asks why we publish a calendar whose circulation reaches the far side of the globe but don't yet have a website - let alone an e-mail address - let them know that, blah."

Having received my tutelage, I'm sure my next question would be about their "serving families since 1906". Do they only serve families? How many families die off all together that there is a funeral service especially for them? I think the calendar is subterfuge. It's purpose is to get you thinking about scheduling long-term poisonings for your entire family. It ought to have a place off to the side for your family tree, such that you can connect the appropriate family member to the desired date.

I want to ask the people at Lappeus Funeral Home why they want soldiers in Iraq to begin plotting the eventual demise of their families through slow, but effective poisoning. I'm pretty sure they must be communists. That number again is, (518) 284-2253.

I hear they give out free calendars.