Black Tar Heroin Is My Fallback Plan

The war on the domestic front is winding up neatly on one front. Personal laundry and goods have been cleansed and organized. I didn’t throw away as much stuff as I thought I would, but I think some of that has to do with being better about not hanging on to junk, maybe. I’ve been making an effort to recycle stuff and save water/energy. It’s supposed to take something like 30 straight days to build a lasting habit, so we’ll see how that goes.

Although me and Netflix have been a running joke in the past, I’m finally starting to use it. Right now there’s something like 100+ movies on my queue, the vast majority of those being from before 1945. But at the rate that I can watch a movie, mail it in, and get a new one I can only watch like 6-8 movies a month, so that list will be long for a while. And what is this bullshit about the watching instantly thing not working overseas?

I signed up for biology last week. It was the only class they offered this semester that I either hadn’t already taken a class for or taken an AP test for. I won’t know what credits will transfer, I have to take two classes first, but I’d like to avoid any kind of repeats if possible. Here’s hoping the plunge back into academia (more of a toe in the water really) goes better than my last foray.

The job has taken a remarkable turn for the better. In large part this has to do with the news that my unit will not, after all, be going to Hawaii. So though that may be spiteful, at least it removes one of the primary contentions I had with the work. The pace in general has slowed down, and some new blood around the shop has made the atmosphere a great deal more jovial. I’ve got a lot of free time now too, so for now I’m doing an extreme reorganization of the shop, though after that I’m not sure what I’ll keep busy with.

Well, things keep going forward towards the end of the summer.

Tokyo was a good time, but every time I get on a boat or a plane I come back worse off than before, and in so many ways.

After living down the road in a temporary barracks for a couple months, while our old one was being painted, we are finally moved back in. I didn’t much care before, but now that I’m back it’s pretty nice. We’re closer to work, the water pressure is actually decent here, and the rooms are just nicer. The only disparaging thing I have to say about it is that were a lot farther from the gate, which means more honcho rides. Moving has also demonstrated to me how much useless shit I’ve managed to gather around me. So now I’m doing something which I used to do probably once a year, but really have been putting off for almost three now: Going through everything I own and throwing everything that isn’t vital away. This usually means getting rid of a lot of books, CDs etc., but since I don’t have the option of a trip to Half Price Books a lot of it’s going in a box to wait for the next time I go home. It’s also dug up a lot of half finished projects that I need to finish; if I ever get around to it some people can expect to get stuff in the mail.

I read Tropic of Cancer and I can’t remember the last time I was so excited by a book. The only thing that killed me about it was this wild swing in tone, where in one instant he’s out with his friends and they’re having wild times, and I’ve almost never heard better stories; and then the next he spends half a chapter in soliloquy waxing poetic about the human condition and the filth surrounding him and filling him and it’s all I can do to keep from skipping forward and looking for quotation marks. The maddening thing is that even though 99% of his monologues are bullshit he still drops these occasional lines that are amazing, I just want to frame them or tattoo them on my body or something.

Halfway now, and then new beginnings.

It’s nice to be back in Okinawa. As far away from what I really consider home, it really is a place I’m comfortable now. And it’s so beautiful when you come sailing into the shore. I guess I missed it when I flew in, but from the deck of a boat is really the way to see anything tropical with white sands and blue water.

No time to really settle in though, we’re moving barracks in a couple weeks, and then again in a couple months. And the weather’s gonna get hotter soon and everything but at least it doesn’t hurt to go outside anymore.

I need something to occupy me besides the usual and I think one way to do this is to start with charts.