Get to Know Us! What Should Civilians See?

This past week, I saw a tweet from a blogger whose mad skills with words and bosoms make me delirious. Unfortunately, her tweet was something that made me twitch rather than swoon:

SmartBitches SB Sarah Wendell

Here, want to cry? 9 yo surprised by returning soldier father: is.gd/cnW0gU

 

After a short tweet-convo about the perils of reunion porn, SB Sarah responded thus-like:

SmartBitches SB Sarah Wendell*

what would you want shown? Would be of interest to me for sure!

 

My brain froze. What would I want shown? Certainly nothing that would make for good tee vee, to borrow a phrase from the cockwits trying to make the milspouse experience even further removed from reality and understanding for civilians.

So forgetting ratings and such, what should the civilian world see of our lives? What would make for honest cultivation of comprehension and empathy for the 99.5% who don't serve? Could they even see a snippet and get a full understanding of the psychological cycle accompanying deployment? Would they understand, even after the wars are well and truly done, that some will continue to endure extended deployments? Would anything we offer up convey to them how difficult the last decade has been for all, and how it's a real pisser even when we're not at war?

I don't know. But I'd love to hear what you think might help build that bridge of understanding. 

 

I'd love to see the day that civilians don't watch reunion porn without understanding how motherfucking hard reunion is, and how motherfucking awesome it is, and how incredibly intimate that moment is when you see a loved one after months and months of life apart. I'd love to see civilians have at least a passing understanding of how all those small moments of holy what the fuckery that occur, on top of the really fucking scary moments. I always think of Sis B's experience a few years ago, before her husband was severely injured, and I wonder if any civilian has ever even considered something like that might happen, and whether that kind of moment, once related to them, would make them stop to consider the greater milspouse/milfam experience.

So I guess, long story short (ha!), I'd recommend the following moments be shown to civilians. Not to titillate. Not to give them a shorthand moment of concern or elation that will make them feel as if they are involved and that they care. Nothing really to evoke understanding, because I'm not even sure that's possible without living this life. Rather, I would hope to inspire them to become involved in the military community. Whether it's volunteer service or just tapping in, some kind of involvement might at least foster the understanding our two communities lack.

1. Deployment gremlins. A moment when the one fucking thing in the house the milspouse does not comprehend breaks or starts spewing sparks/water/smoke/random high-decibel noise, and the only way to get it fixed is to shell out some cash we already don't have.
2. A PCS. From the point when the movers arrive, preferably catching them in the act of exercising the incompetence or outright maliciousness that's inspired by the shit-tastic contracts the government uses with them.
3. A trip to the Military Treatment Facility. Or, pretty please, a trip to the Tricare office in Monterey, California, so the world can see that in the entire city of Monterey, there are only five or six doctors willing to take the hairy-sack-tastic Tricare insurance payments. 
4. A PCS done while the service member is already on his/her way to the next duty station and unable to complete the required paper work that the milspouse isn't allowed to do in order to move all their shit.
5. The tears when we leave behind yet another carefully cultivated support system and yet another tightly knit group of friends.
6. The really morale-killing moment during deployment when you're out for a rare night of fun, forget that your spouse is in the middle of a fucking war for five minutes.
7. The soul-killing moments when we actually plan our reactions to learning our spouse was killed in action, because what the fuck else are we supposed to do with that reality looming over us?
8. The middle-of-the-night screams from the sprog having horrible nightmares in the midst of deployment.
9. The sudden behavioral changes the sprogs undergo because Mom or Dad isn't home and WTF is going on/?
10. The hell we must traverse to get our sprogs the therapy they need to deal with so much absence.
11. How the military culture (including those in charge) treats PTSD - still - and suicide - still - and doesn't even consider spouse suicides.
12. The little moments when a chain of command assumes that yon milspouse's job is to be a milspouse, and her (mostly her, as I seriously fucking doubt they treat mil-husbands this way) time is to be spent performing unpaid labor to benefit the command.
13. The way we're lumped together in one huge, Republican ass-licking group of automatons by much of the public. And the way liberals are demonized or told by those in the Republican ass-licking camp that when our husbands are killed in action, it'll be our fault b/c we're liberal.
14. The first fight after homecoming. 
15. The big fight that happens right before deployment, even though you've worked so fucktastically hard to get along this time and not stress out this time and not let the impending separation get to you. This time.
16. That moment when you realize your own career dreams are motherloving kaput. Gone. Not gonna happen.

And then these, too:

1. Milspouse camaraderie, banding together, preferably with a frou frou drink.
2. The joy at homecoming.
3. The joy when we actually getting to take a vacay that isn't sammiched between whirlwind family visits.
4. The excitement of something new, for those who still feel that excitement.
5. The pride that inevitably comes in spite of the pain of sacrifice.
6. An unexpected and well-timed military discount or hook-up from a veteran who remembers what it's like to need that hand.
7. The moment when you realize you can't have the career you worked so hard for in college, but HOLY SHIT there are other opportunities. And, if you've hit it on the third Tuesday of a month that starts on a Friday and coincide with the alignment of the moon and Jupiter, you might actually qualify for financial aid that will offset the additional cost of education.
8. That really horrible day that completely rushes you from behind, cops a feel, leaves a stain on your pants leg, and steals a twenty from your purse. And then when it's over, the stunning relief when you realize you hit the halfway point of the deployment right about the moment the day smacked you across the face with its dick. Sweet relief!
9. The meeting when you learn your sprog's teacher is a milspouse, and her husband is on the same ship. This mean she'll understand completely when the sprog loses his shit a month into deployment. And she'll know exactly how to respond. Motherchucking WIN.
10. Traditions. Not Navy traditions. Family traditions. Those little things, usually at holidays, that have become utterly familiar to the sprogs, so when they see them, they respond with bright-faced joy. Those moments are islands of refuge, and they deserve serious camera time.
11. Going for a drive with the sole purpose of getting lost, since that's the fastest way of getting to know the town you just moved to and will leave in two years or less. And also how you'll find that amazing little restaurant in the scary alley with the questionable but holy deliciousness.
12. The moment you hear your DH is CONUS and no longer subject to IEDs.
13. The first time you get combat pay plus separation allowance plus tax-free pay. Awesome. And then blow it on a latte and a manicure. Double awesome.

What about you? What would you have the American public see about our lives?

 

* BTW, Wendell's full of truefact when she claims to be a Smart Bitch. Her dissection of popular romance novels is a faboo blend of third-wavy feminist inspection and nonsense-free evaluation of the author's ability to entertain. Read her blog. You won't regret it.

Random shit

Now for some completely random news. 

The USS Enterprise fall festival happened today, and the sprogs had a blast. I'm stunned by how much money the FRG spends for fun shit. I'm bummed that so much of it is kid-centric (where the holy fuckerfuckles is stuff for the childfree and those who just want away from the sprogs for a few blissful hours?). And I'm curious about what the decommissioning is going to be like. Will they get Patrick Stewart here? Oh, sweet Poseidon, send us Wil Wheaton! If not, I'll take the seksiest bald dude that side of the pond, fer sure. Maybe we'd even get the Abrams-esque Enterprise peeps. Zachary Quinto? Mrow! I'd fornicate with that man's eyebrows. I don't exactly know how that would work, but by gods, I'd make it happen.

Something I learned today is that they do carrier cakes for special events. Carrier. Cakes. What the what?! YodaMan thinks I orta make some carrier cuppies just for shits and chortles. I told him I'd only do that if he promised to use his Enterprise pizza cutter on the next carrier cake, and then only if he'd say, "Pewpew! Pewpew!" as he approached the cake with the cutter. Because that would win the Navy. And also the next Trekker con.

In which the neo-cons get me all up in the lady bacon.

The current gaggle of honking fuckwits occupying the news these days (aka the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination) have got me pondering my lady bacon in ways I never imagined I could. From visions of Michelle Bachmann deep-throating a corn dog while pontificating on her role as subservient helpmeet to the utter incomprehensible Romney waffle from pro-choice to anti-woman, I wonder at the fate of my amazing twat at the hands of the Republican party, should they win the election next year.

Of course, there are plenty of other things I worry about, aside from my Netherville and the fate of future generations of women-turn-Atwood-handmaidens. Cuz, y'know, I'm pretty sure Margaret was getting her prophecy on regarding our neo-con future when she wrote her amazing pop-lit novel. Ahem. Anyway, though I shake my head in disgust at the entire line of holier-than-thous, I keep going back to the bacon.

Hence, the following rant.

I actually like the idea of smaller government. In many, many ways. Especially as concerns my uterus, which is my fucking business and none of yours. I have not consented to the intrusion of any politician in my ladyparts, so each time one of those fuckers tries to stick his business up my cookie, that is political rape. Also, when the rights of an undifferentiated ball of cells trump my rights, that is a violation of my civil rights.

I hate, hate, hate when rape is thrown around as a means of shock or entertainment, as that minimizes the horror and trauma that should be associated with the word. I hope that says how strongly I feel in equating restriction of reproductive rights with rape.

There are people out there, like my aunt, who desperately want a child, who are devastated when they learn that the fetus has such terrible anomalies that it is completely unviable and will live in agony for as long as it takes to pull in a lung full of air, and then will die. In pain. To force these women to carry to term, to force them to go through the birth experience knowing it will end in tragedy and sorrow, to force them to give life to a full-term baby rather than cut that little soul free before it suffers? That. Is. Rape. And never mind this worst-case scenario. To tell a woman that her health, her psychological well-being, and indeed her life mean nothing next to a ball of cells that is unviable outside of her womb? Also rape. Your business is up in her business. She is the physical manifestation of the Goddess. She is creatrix and live-giver, and to take away her ability to exercise her will is subjugation of power and force that is emotional kissing-kin to physical rape.

You haven't stuck anything physical up their vaginas, but you sure stuck something that didn't belong and wasn't welcome. All as a show of your will, your force, and your power.

So, neo-cons, take your tiny government claims and stuff them up your ass, and when you're done having an assgasm, consider shoving your hypocritical attitudes up there, too. Take everything about your 1% and shove it far and deep.

Ahhh. I feel better. /vent

Doh! Daddy Guilt, Fresh From the Sprog

YodaMan was incommunicado for a coupla days because he had duty right when a planned interwebz outage occurred on the ship. So for just under 48 hours, the sprogs had not heard a peep from him.

Of course, that's precisely when Shit Blew Up in my professional life (in a good way, but I still wanted The Huzbind to talk to about it all) and when an OMFG HUMONGOUS BLACK SNAKE RACED PAST ME IN THE FRONT MOTHERFUCKING YARD, MOTHERFUCKERS! Typical. Can't wait for next summer, when mowing the lawn will be my job instead of our job, and we've got MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES IN THE MOTHERFUCKING YARD HOLY SHIT. I have a slight snake phobia. True story.

Anyway, Dad wasn't home. This isn't new, but they don't remember when Dad wasn't around before. One sprog was too young, and for the other, he was young enough that that whole nearly-three years of misery seems blurry to him. Still, their understanding of the New World Order 'round here is acute.

Allow me to 'splain. Younger sprog's teacher e-mailed me today. He's having difficulty at his new school, and she wanted to chat with me about these issues. I told YodaMan about all the convo with the teacher and separately with the sprog. I nominated him to play Good Cop since he's leaving, and I'm sure at least a third of sproglet's issues concern the New World Order. Tonight, YodaMan had a wee convo with the sproglet, who is five years old.

YM: I heard you've been having some problems at school.
S: Yes, sir.
YM: You know you can talk to me.
S: I know.
YM: So next time you're upset or you have problems at school, just come tell me about it. I'll always listen.
S: [with scrunched-up face] But Daddy, you'd have to actually be here so I can talk to you.

Doh! So true. Younger sprog bonded way more with me because he was gaining long-term memory and understanding about the time YodaMan was deployed all over hell and back. And even though YodaMan will disappear for seven months next year, not to mention several weeks between November and then, I really wanted him to have the primary role of Good Cop. But he won't be around much. I'll have to play both parts, as is always the case when there are underways and deployments to consider.

Three more years of this shit, folks. Three more years, and we're OUT. I have to tell you, there's very little I'll miss about living the Navy life. This bit with the sprogs missing Daddy time because the ship owns his soul? Not gonna miss any part of that.

One more bit of hilarity. Just because.

Fun break, since the douchebaggery is depressing the shit out of me right now.

And now for something completely different. Something that will take the edge off all my anger lately. How about this?

Hmm. No, that's not catchy. What about this?

Better. But not quite what I was looking for. Oh, I know!

Yes. All better. Thank you, Benny Lava.

Dear Tricare: I will gnaw your dangly balls off with my teeth.

Mom's oncologist, it turns out, doesn't take Tricare. So she had to move to another oncologist. This one is concerned about the size and something about speed of the tumor's growth, so she wants to run the oncogene test to make the final determination on whether chemo will be necessary.

Alas, Tricare doesn't cover the oncogene test. Of course it doesn't. Why would it? Such a valuable tidbit of information could not possibly be of use in avoiding unnecessary chemo, which is exactly what it could do.

The test is $4000. There might or might not be patient financial aid services for this test. We'll see. Without it, chemo will be a definitely recommendation.

Mother. Fucking. Woot.

Once again, Tricare shows off its perfectly shiny asshole, waxed and bleached c/o tax dollars, and offering shit that is no less brown and stanky.

I've fucking had it. With the world.

The Riveting Lives of Military Wives of San Diego...my ass

Have you seen this flaming bag of bullshit? I received a tweet from an individual agent announcing this craptacularness several weeks ago. I had hoped it had died the sad, pathetic death it needed, but it looks like we're in for it.

I'm willing to bet my once-favorite network Bravo is the culprit. I haven't been able to watch it since it became the haven of stiletto-wearing, sneering bizatches and their clans of botoxed zombie minions. The call for participants leads me to believe they're looking to spin the same old bullshit but with a milspouse filter.

There are so many things wrong with this. First is the fact that our 1% is completely misunderstood or discounted by the 99% of civilians. A dramatized rendition, with requisite bullshit shenanigans, that has nothing to do with what our lives are really like will only serve to widen that divide of understanding.

Also, I see an amazing potential for Reunion Pr0n* to spool out into The Whole Fucking Cycle of Deployment Woe Pr0n. We know all the little stressors won't be given fair air time - after all, it's not titillating to watch an Army spouse dealing with a bullshit job s/he only scored out of luck even though s/he is qualified for a real career-building position making more money and doling out less bollocks...not when there's hair-pulling and petty jealousy over who's running for the FRG board. Instead, little vignettes of "Awww, poor wifey is dealing with reintegration" will help civilians feel smug and warm-cockle-hearted because it's clear now the six month deployment was the fun part - the part wifey really enjoys. The cycle is so complex, I just don't see how a network show based on voyeurism and Oh No She Didn't moments could possibly convey the intricate and layered reality in 60 minutes with five or seven or whatever different families.

Just today, I mentioned to a friend whose heart is breaking over the proliferation of military strife and woe that it's at least good she's not succumbing to Civilian Apathy Syndrome. This perpetual sense of meh emanating from the civilian world toward us could be remedied with a show that does not glamorize or dramatize our lives, but reveals all the little and big mind-numbing, terrifying, stressful, joyful, bone-melting, soul-hollowing, or amazing moments of loss, hope, yield, and unmovable obstacles.

Where is that show? Where is the realism that reminds civilians that we're no different from them, we're no less eclectic and human and prone? Why is our one hope at a realistic portrayal of our complex lives handed off to a "reality" show that has forgotten not all service members are men, not all milspouses are women, and wants to know "What 4 other wives would you love or hate to see join the cast for this show? (Think great television!)"?Also, I'm not feeling it when the group responsible for casting the show is military-stupid enough to call the different services "divisions."

Considering how common Civilian Apathy Syndrome is, I seriously doubt we'll ever see a fair and realistic portrayal of our lives.

Buckle yer belts, ladies and gents. We might need to bring out a few cans of whupass, and you'll want to make sure your pants stay up. After all, they're looking for us to show our asses.


* Reunion Pr0n: (noun) Video, audio, or photographic representations of military homecomings meant to draw an emotional response from civilians, often used to offer civilians the chance to feel better about their lack of actual support or knowledge of military families and service members.

Samhain Approacheth

Few things are more awesome than autumn, especially when you're a witchy type and totally dig on the translucent veil separating the overworld, underworld, and our world. Also, there's pumpkin. So. Much. Pumpkin. There's pumpkin soup, pumpking saag, pumpkin scones, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins. All vegan, natch, hopefully organic or local or both. There are fun pumpkin patches and corn mazes and haunted houses and skeery movies and paranormal month on the tee vee and horror novels and all kinds of my favorite shit in the world.

October really is the start of fun for those of us who are witches. And for once, we've PCS'd somewhere with a yard large enough and crazy enough to allow us to decorate. Boy howdy will there be decoratin'. We even have a very thick bamboo patch over here that I plan to turn into a spooky forest for all the trick-or-treaters to walk through. Skeery strobe lights, skeery things hanging from the fig tree limbs, and the very strange sound of bamboo rubbing together in the wind. Thank you, Navy, for sending us to the armpit of the country! I lurve it here!

Samhain is probably my favorite holiday because it reconnects me to my ancestors and gives me a sense of community and heritage and place I don't always feel. It's hard to attach to a spot spiritually when you know you're leaving in no time at all, but when you can attach to the people who once walked here, as well as to the people who have brought the spiral around to create you, it's so much better. And that, I think, is the greatest benefit of Samhain.

And then there's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I have no fucking idea why they chose October to highlight this cancer but hey. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here often enough, but I now have had two family members diagnosed with breast cancer. My aunt's cancer spread, and I believe it was the brain tumors that killed her in 2003. She was my mom's BFF and had been since they were wee. They married brothers. My mom, as I've mentioned, just had a bilateral mastectomy. She's still recovering from that brutal bit of surgery.

In 2006, I walked in the Breast Cancer 3 Day as part of team Witch Way to the Cure. I told my teammates that year that if I ever made noise about wanting to walk it again - as this is a 60-mile test of endurance over three days - to hog motherfucking tie me, pin me to the floor, and wedge slivers of glass into my feet and knees to remind me why I do not actually want to walk this again.

The game has changed, though. There are amazing advances being made, and it's because of the publicity and funding breast cancer research gets. I know this time how to train (on concrete sidewalks with starts and stops, not pushing 50 pounds of sprog in a jogging stroller up a 40 degree incline mountain trail), I know this time which socks to get (soft clingy ones), and I know to get someone from outside to bring me a fucking blow-up mattress to sleep on because that ground is motherfucking HARD and I am old and creaky. I want to walk it again. And I want to walk it next year, preferably somewhere warm so that I have to cover myself in wet bandanas to ward off heat stroke (that cold ocean air sucked ASS last time, I tell you. ASS).

I will walk again as Witch Way to the Cure. I want a team. Witchy or not, I want people who understand that every step we take is focused intention, prayer, intensely physical magical work that wills a cure. That reminds us that everyone deserves a lifetime. Everyone deserves hope. And we can make that happen.

I don't have teammates yet, but I might do the unthinkable and establish a fundraising toolbar on this blog. I hope y'all don't mind. It's not cheap to participate: each person has to raise a couple thousand dollars to walk. It's not hard to do when you start early, but unfortunately, you do have to be *that* annoying SOB always asking for a donation. Unless, of course, you get a corporate sponsor. That would rock. But I know better. That won't happen for moi.

The walk I do will likely be in Atlanta. Right before Samhain, this time next year.

Samhain approacheth, y'all. Embrace the energy. Embrace the dark. That's where you'll find the light.

Why Monterey Still Sucks Furry, Nit-Infested Balls, IMHO

So many things have reminded me this week of my time in Monterey, which I have come to think of as "two to life." It really was a sentence, but more something I'd imagine encountering in a Mexican jail. Except for the weather.

This week, talking to a milpeep friend who's got the medical what-what, I learned I might have a root cause for the rheumatoid arthritis I hadn't considered. Then when I researched this new root cause, I found a few sites claimed that its genesis often coincides with toxic mold ingestion. Yanno, like if you live in a house full of toxic mold, and it gets into your foodstuffs. Sweet. Eat it, Monterey.

This weekend, the temperature dropped, and it's been similar to that which I experienced in Monterey - in the 40s and 50s, overcast if not foggy, dismal, and bone-chilling. I fell into a bit of mini-depression, probably out of habit. Then I remembered it gets warm here. In fact, it'll be back in the low 70s as of tomorrow, and the clouds cleared up today. Eat it, Monterey.

I was called in to talk to my elder sprog's teacher. I was worried, as I have been since the first experiences at Foothills Elementary in Monterey soured me on teachers and school administration. But Elder Sprog's teacher is the fucking bomb. She's an aviator's wife, she's won teacher of the year, she's energetic, and she's amazing with the sprog. She called me in to find out things she could alter in her class to make Sprog's classroom time more comfortable. Not once was I made to feel like a shitty mom. Not once was Sprog labeled a problem child. She presented his issues not as behavior problems (they're caused by sensory overload, and his hands-on-ears-while-rocking response would have created huge issues in Monterey, despite the child-centric and granola view of life there) but as a recognition that there was something else going on that was not behavioral and not a personal affront to anyone at the school. The convo was awesome and extremely helpful for both of us. Eat it, Monterey.

Also during the convo, I explained to her the issues we had with Foothills in Monterey (one of the worst schools I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, IMHO) and a bit with the issues at La Mesa (the best school in Monterey fo sho', but far from the best school I've ever encountered). She was agog and expressed her intention not to teach when they PCS back to California after this school year. I told her I don't blame her. I don't blame her at all. The California system is broken beyond repair. Only a hard reboot will save the education system there, and meanwhile, the teachers who actually give a shit are the ones stuck in a horrible crevasse. Monterey is the worst since apparently the school district finds the best schools, dismantles them, and spreads those students throughout the worst schools in order to bring up the bad scores. Problem is, they've just laid off all those excellent teachers who gave a shit, and those teachers are mostly leaving the state for other work. Eat it, Monterey.

People might say that Monterey is so beautiful and so awesome. And it did have its high points. No deployments. Most evenings with the husband home, even if he was preoccupied with studying and programming. Weekends with the husband around, even if he was itching to study and finish his projects. Lots of great sight seeing, and some incredible if daunting hiking trails. Wonderful, fabulous, amazing friends abound. But overall, Monterey can eat my ass and lick it clean. I will never return to that area to live. Ever. I value my health, my bank account, my sanity, my core body temperature, and my kids' education way too much to be a sucker for the fresh agriculture and fun people.

No, Monterey can definitely eat it.

BLADOW! Y'all got served. Served a tray of smegballs.

Video streaming by Ustream At 23:50, you'll see this:

"We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the President of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don't believe in that. We don't believe in standing silent when that happens. We don't believe in them being silent since. You want to be Commander in Chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient. We don't believe in a small America. We believe in a big America -- a tolerant America, a just America, an equal America -- that values the service of every patriot."

FUCK YEAH.Well said, Mr. President.

And dearest Navy Times, you buncha fuckwits, this?

Yeah. Way to show your furry little taint raisins.

I feel like we are surrounded by fuckball zombie masses who are intent on eating our brains and demolishing all that is good about America. But maybe I just need another fucking Jack and Coke. I might need to spend the next year in a drunken stupor just to get through the amazeballs drama the crazyfest election is going to lay out for us. Holy mother of douchery, if the Republicans' behavior thus far is any indication of the coming tenor of this cycle, we. Are. Fucked.

Stay classy, Republicans. Stay classy.