Generic Blog Post #33c

Authorship
James B(all) Naylor

King David and King Solomon
Led merry, merry lives,
With many, many lady friends
And many, many wives;
But when old age crept over them,
With many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
And King David wrote the Psalms.

*****

I just realized I'm 2/3 of the way through my contract. 40 months down, 20 to go. In the past three and a half years I've spent three months living in Georgia, twelve in Arizona, eleven in Germany, thirteen in Afghanistan, and one in Texas. Texas is a great state...if you don't believe me, just ask a Texan. Texas Pride is incredibly annoying, though. I'm starting to understand why the rest of the world is sometimes annoyed with the Sean Hannity mindset of many Americans. I've always thought that the "America is the greatest country in the world" crowd is incredibly closed-minded. Mother Teresa was once asked if she thought America didn't suffer like other people because of our righteousness. She retorted, "Oh, no, I'm afraid you're so wrong...I don't think you suffer because I don't think you're worthy to suffer."

I'm not quite sure yet if I miss Germany. On one hand I really didn't get the whole experience of living in Germany since I spent more than half of that time in Afghanistan and a good part of the remaining time was spent at different schools. Christmas and New Year's were amazing and a lot of fun but anything work related was made miserable by the cold weather. The transition to San Antonio has been smooth so far; I've got a lot of freedom to do my own thing. San Antonio is a great fit for me in a lot of ways.

I ended up finding a place pretty close to downtown. Crime is a bit of a concern; it seems like everybody has had their vehicle broken into over the past couple of months. Still, I feel pretty secure in my apartment. It's a gated community about three miles from work. I'm sitting on the first floor and I can see the complex's pool from my patio. It's only 610 square feet but that's really all I need. I don't have any furniture yet to fill up the place and it'll take a while to do so. It came stocked with a washer, dryer, fridge, microwave, stove, and dishwasher so I've got all the basic necessities.

The location itself is pretty convenient to the city. I'm trying to ride my bike into work every day, which isn't that hard to do unless I need to bring my body armor or my rucksack into work. A bus stop sits right outside of my complex so I can get anywhere in town conveniently if I have plenty of time to plan ahead and allow for transport. Plus, I'm living next door to a Wal-Mart on one side and myriad assorted businesses on the other. If I'm feeling homesick there's B & M's Taste of Chicago to serve me a decent Italian Sausage or a Chicago-Style Dog. There's a barber to give me a decent high and tight for ten bucks, eliminating the need of going on post to get a haircut. A Little Caesar's if I'm feeling cheap and need a large pizza on the go for five dollars. And a plant nursery if I feel like honoring my background as a flower salesman when I want to decorate my porch with a partial-sun hanging basket or any other flora that will thrive in the shade. All in all, it's easy to feel lonely when I'm by myself but at least there's plenty of amenities to give me comfort and a sense of home.

And so because of the bike and the public transportation I'm trying my hardest not to buy a vehicle to get where I need to go. It's a tough challenge that I thought would be easier to get used to. While at Arizona and Germany it was easy to live without a vehicle because everything was within a mile of my barracks be it work, commerce, or leisure. It's much harder to manage when living off post. I'm waking at four or five in the morning, spending a half-hour to ride to work, and have to take care of all my other business on post. Instead of going home to get a shower after morning physical training I'm using the facilities at the gym. Instead of going to the dining facility to have my meals I need to bring food from home and find a secluded place to have lunch...which isn't always pleasant when the temperature is ninety degrees and the humidity makes it feel like a hundred and ten.

It's tempting to just buy a vehicle and make life so much easier but I really want to try and manage without one. I've been challenged by Matthew Sleeth's books to try and live a simpler life without the burdens of material goods. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing good things but more often I'm frustrated by a sense of futility. That my efforts are insignificant or worse, that I'm harming myself instead of helping myself because of a false sense of moral superiority and egotistical pride. And being human, I'm sure that contaminated motives play a role in my efforts.

One benefit of being away from Germany is taking a break from conducting Airborne operations. Sure, it's a lot of fun to jump from an airplane. The rush of adrenalin is a feeling that can't be duplicated and is easy to get addicted to. But even with that I'm not very good at falling. I couldn't get a smooth jump to save my life. On my first jump I sprained both of my knees and I'm still taking an unhealthy amount of ibuprofen and acetaminophen when my left knee starts acting up. I'll probably have an arthritic knee someday because of it. During my second jump I ran into another jumper in mid-air, deflating my parachute for a terrorizing second or so of freefall and causing him to accidentally pull his reserve parachute. During the third and fourth jumps I was the first man out of the C-130, meaning that I was the safest jumper but still had to look out the door of the plane for a full minute before jumping rather than the split-second to consider chickening out if you're anywhere else in the jumping stick. During the fifth jump I accidentally pulled my reserve parachute as soon as I jumped out the door, giving me a harder impact with the ground than anything else I've felt in my life. And during my sixth jump the ground was frozen. I almost broke my back when I landed on a frozen berm of dirt in a cornfield. So, while I hope to jump again someday, it's nice to take a break for a while.

Loose change and miscellaneous thoughts:

-I've had it up to here, Perez Hilton. Go away.

-I'm kind of shocked the Cubs haven't been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet. Being the consummate fairweather fan I won't start rooting for them until they're within a breath of having the championship rug miraculously pulled out from under them. God may hate the Cubs, but I'm endeared to the perennial losers.

-I yearn for the postmodern church to de-emphasize praise and worship and instead return to the hymns. There is no other experience that emotionally stirs me and wells me up with tears like them.

-Ever have one of those moments where you think back to something incredibly funny and start to laugh uncontrollably, raising the eyebrows of those around you? That happened to me earlier today when I thought back to the episode of The Simpsons a few weeks ago where Bart tries to impress Anne Hathaway's character by saying that he helped out with his mentally challenged father. To drive the point home they had Homer walk up to a lake, see his reflection in the water, and have a conversation with it. *shakes fist* "Don't shake your fist at me! Look man, I don't want any trouble, it's cool...here, just take my wallet, leave me alone, OK?" *throws wallet in pond*. I almost died today when that popped in my head.

-While sitting on the bus this weekend I listened to about five different versions of The Cure's "Love Song". I'm a bit of a cover song junkie. By far the best version belongs to Tori Amos. Other covers worth seeking out: Nickel Creek's take on Britney's "Toxic" (lots of hits on YouTube but the best is on NPR's Live Concerts from All Songs Considered podcast...Yael Naïm does an amazing version as well, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q04hwMdgdw0 is a better one of the myriad examples, if you're not familiar with her stuff you might know her as the girl who sings the song used in the Macbook Air ads, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgEfYGzojcA&feature=related), Boyce Avenue's covers of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5paQ9BwFAgI), Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lio0YbTi87g&feature=channel), and Justin Timberlake/Madonna's "4 Minutes" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJNkgLNtn8&feature=channel_page). Also noteworthy is Sufjan Stevens' version of "The One I Love" (found it in a compilation torrent, don't know if there's a video on YouTube) and I LOVE LOVE LOVE AFI taking on The Misfit's "Halloween" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmsEbHpVkk).