Around the same time I met Jonathan and was introduced to my first taste of army life, I found out that my cousin Scott had enlisted. I quickly went from having no military connections in my life at all to having army in my love life, and army in my family life. Suddenly: camo everywhere. …
As you may have guessed, my brief leave of Internet absence means I’m hanging out in Fort Campbell, waiting for an elusive welcome home flight, and relying very heavily on 3G and Taylor Swift. So far I haven’t driven anywhere without getting lost, and I’ve discovered that Tennessee is an open-carry state. Toto, we’re not … Continue reading »
During Jonathan’s first deployment, I spent long morning train rides into work behind the greasy pages of a newspaper. I flipped every day through the filmy sections, scanning the headlines and searching for content to keep me awake after 40 miles of 5:30am rush hour traffic with my face smashed into the steering wheel. I … Continue reading »
I’m back from a lovely scenic vacation to Fort Campbell. Which I guess I should preface by saying that my idea of a scenic vacation is 22 hours in a car in two days, to make sure the apartment I rented isn’t actually just a vacant lot and a port-a-potty. The good news: It’s not … Continue reading »
OPSEC is one of my least favorite parts of military life. As a top-tier control freak, the amount of information (e.g. travel dates and details) Jonathan holds back in the name of operations security is migraine-inducing. (Although honestly I think he sometimes uses OPSEC as an excuse not to feed my TOTALLY WARRANTED ANXIETY ABOUT … Continue reading »
I’m currently following Jonathan through that magical stage of his deployment when I know he should be coming home soon-ish, but the United States Army’s definition of “soon-ish” is more like “probably sometime before 2015; we’ll let you know soon but also maybe not lol ttyl.” I became acquainted with this process towards the end … Continue reading »
It’s not. A raven is not like a bridal shower. Which is good, because Lewis Carroll’s intention in the Mad Hatter asking of Alice, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” was that the riddle had no answer. We’re all mad here, remember? We don’t have the emotional capacity for riddles that have real … Continue reading »
Earlier this week, I attempted to spend one day unplugged. No email. No social media. No phone, even, if I could help it, with the caveat that I would talk to Jonathan if he became available on any of these things, because love is the only thing stronger than my conviction to following through on … Continue reading »
A few days after I sent my St. Patrick’s Day care package to Jonathan, I found out he’d soon be moving away from the address I sent the package to, to a different base in Afghanistan. So it’s a good thing I didn’t include anything super yeast-y and likely to mold while it searched for … Continue reading »
