Why Do I Do This To Myself?

Sometimes my mind is my own worst enemy. I do a lot of thinking. All the time. We all do that, it's how we function. But with me it's real bad. You see, at any given time there are thousands of different thoughts, ideas, tidbits of information circulating inside my head. Each one is like a little, individual dot floating around. Stupid me is always running around trying to draw lines to connect these dots. Who knows, maybe I have some form of OCD. Now, most of the time it's not that bad but every once in a while I go into overdrive. When that happens it's like a roller coaster ride or flying through the air at supersonic speeds. I'm using these analogies because I don't really know how to describe what's going on. It's a time of highs and lows, energy and exhaustion. Eventually, I come down from the ride and everything goes back to "normal". It can last for weeks though. I'm going through one of those periods right now. I don't know when it started and I don't know when it will die down so please be patient with me.

To an outsider, it's not really noticeable. I seem normal. If you've known me for a long time though you will have learned to pick up on the signs. And like a siren wailing a warning of an impending tornado, friends and family have learned to take cover and hope they're not in the path of the tornado. The signs are subtle. There will be days when I'm very quiet but look agitated. I get restless, pacing around the house, going out for drives to no where, finding a coffee shop or truck stop and getting a cup of coffee then just sitting there observing and thinking. There are frequent trips to the bookstore and hours spent reading, everything from articles to books to blogs. I don't get much sleep during these times because as tired as I get, when I lay down and close my eyes my mind is still racing. God forbid you are the one to accidentally call me during one of these episodes or even worse, answer the phone when I call you. My friend Joe made that mistake the other night. It went something like this:

Phone rings
Me: "Hello, what's up?"
Joe: "Hey, not much. What's up with you?"
Me: "Nothing really."
Joe: "What are you doing?"
Me:" Just sitting here in the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts thinking."
Joe: "What are you thinking about?" (Note to readers, this is a big mistake)
Me: "I don't know. A lot of things. I'm kind of all over the place."
Joe: Knowing chuckle sound
Me: "How's Lisa and the kids?"
Joe tells me something about his wife and kids.
Me: " That's funny. You know, I was just thinking about back when we had the band. Remember how we came up with songs. I wonder why..."

An hour or two later either the cell phone battery has gone dead or we realize it's late and say our goodbyes. We also have that moment at the end of the conversation where one of us asks how we got on the last topic we were talking about. This is because each topic has segued into the other and though they are different subjects, each are interconnected.

So what is this post really about? Well, like I said, I'm going through one of these episodes right now. This morning I woke up, made a pot of coffee and started the process all over again. So far I have sat outside on the steps thinking about what I thought about yesterday, expanding on my thoughts. I have gone on the Internet and checked email, checked Facebook to see that everyone is just posting nothing interesting and then started surfing news sites and such. And that's the problem. See, I came across this. It's a list of five books about the working world. Most of you will probably think " So What? They sound boring". And at a certain time I would probably agree with you. But not now. I read the little synopsis for each one and the light bulbs started firing off in my head. "Whoa, I need to read these. There are themes in these books that tie into what I'm currently thinking about". Here's the problem; Remember how I mentioned recently that I started reading "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"? It's been hard to get into reading because it requires concentration. That's hard to do when your mind is racing all over the place. It's also hard to do when you have a roommate who watches TV or talks loud on the phone. And now, NOW I have these five books calling to me. Tempting me and pulling me away from Mr. Gibbon's tedious three volume compilation of thirteen hundred years of history.

I feel like a young man who has decided to take the plunge and commit to the challenge of marriage who then has 5 other women tempting him away. OK, I know, that's a little melodramatic. My point is why am I like this? In writing this post I think I have come up with a term to describe myself. I am a mental masochist. I drive myself crazy with torturous thinking and thinking and yet somehow derive enjoyment from doing so. Now that I have determined what I am, a mental masochist, I am asking myself "But why? Why am I like this? How did I get to be this way?" Dear readers, do you see what's happening? It's starting all over again, thinking and thinking and thinking. Somebody, PLEASE, make it stop. I'm begging you.

The story of Rahmeen...or was it Rahim?

It's a rainy Sunday evening on a holiday weekend. I'm on the third day of a four day weekend which though it sounds nice, it isn't necessarily so. You see, a long weekend is nice for relaxing but because I don't have much to do... well, I take that back. I do have stuff to do, I just don't really feel like doing it. I'm getting lazy in my old age. So most of the weekend, aw heck who am I kidding, the whole weekend, has been spent reading and thinking, reading and thinking, reading and... you get the point. Friday morning, I went to the book store and walked out with two books. One was "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini which lasted from Friday morning to Saturday evening. I didn't plan on finishing it that fast which effected my plans for the weekend. What can I say? It was a good book. The other book was "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon. Don't ask, sometimes I just like to torture myself with a challenge that will take months to accomplish.

Now don't think I've been sitting here in isolation, driving myself crazy. Oh no, I've had quite a few long phone conversations with friends and family back home. I had a great one with my best friend Joe last night. In fact, I was originally going to write about it in this post. Somehow we started talking about when we had a band and wrote music. It went from that to how we wrote music different from another band member who actually studied music in college. I'm not going to give away the whole conversation because it's good material to write about in another post. Let's just say that we started with music and ended with conformity which oddly enough ties in to a previous post. Sometimes the coincidences are eerie. So anyway, I was bored earlier and went for a ride. I just went out exploring because I haven't been around this place in a while and had forgotten my way around. Of course, me being me, I started thinking about things while driving around. One thought that popped into my head was something that happened last year in Afghanistan. It's when I met Rahmeen.

There's really not much to the story of Rahmeen. How could there be? When I met him he was only a year and a half old and he never lived past that age. I was at Bagram airbase. On Bagram there are two hospitals; one run by the American military and one run by the Egyptian Army. The hospital run by the Egyptians deals with the local Afghans who need medical care. This is for cultural and religious sensitivity reasons. Both hospitals work together though, in terms of supplies and training. You will find American medical personnel assisting at the Egyptian hospital on a volunteer basis. Sometimes there are Afghan cases transferred to the American hospital because the required care can't be provided by the Egyptians. This could be based on a lack of specific equipment or simply because a specialist is needed that the Egyptians don't have. Sometimes injuries are so critical, the Afghan patient will be flown in by helicopter directly to the American hospital. That's just the way it is.

I guess you could say I met Rahmeen by accident. One day a Major who worked in the HQ asked if he could borrow a vehicle or if one of us could give him a ride down to the PX and the hospital. I told him it was no problem and I would give him a ride. At first, I thought he was sick but then I found out he was going to visit the kids at the hospital. Turns out he went there everyday after stopping at the PX to pick up little treats or things they might need, like toothbrushes. Normally he walked but that night he only had a little time. I was surprised because I didn't even know these kids were there. So I went down with him and rather than wait in the vehicle I went in with him.

First I met Nadzia. She was two or three years old and one of the most adorable little girls I ever saw. Nadzia was in the hospital because she had gotten a hold of an old watch battery and swallowed it. When I first met her she was sitting on the bed, her father by her side, with a bandage around her neck. The bandage was to protect where the doctors had had to do a Tracheotomy. She was playing with a toy the nurses had given her and her eyes were big from fear. You can only imagine what was going through her head at that age in those circumstances. It was tough on me. Show me a little kid whose scared and hurt and my heart melts. If it's a little girl, I'm even worse. The next time I saw Nadzia she was up and walking around. She still looked a little scared but all the nurses doted on her and you could tell she knew she was the queen of the ward.

I met some older kids who were there for different problems. One was born with a cleft palate and was getting corrective surgery, another had almost had his leg cut off in a farm accident. The last kid I met was Rahmeen. I can't really describe him to you because all I saw were his fingertips, mouth and eyes. The rest was wrapped in bandages like a little infant mummy. Rahmeen was burned over 98% of his body. No one had a really clear story of how this happened. His family was Pashtun and the interpreters spoke Dari. The languages are very close but different. Add in the reluctance of the family to talk and the picture was never clear. What I learned from the Major was that someone threw Rahmeen into a fire. His parents got him out and were going to bring him to the hospital but were talked out of it by their fellow villagers. The villagers told them that if they brought Rahmeen to the Americans, we would kill him. After about a week, the parents decided to bring him anyway because his condition was bad. I don't know how to describe the feelings I had when I saw him and heard the story. I know my eyes watered, I got that lump in my throat and I was shaking. All I really wanted to do was go find a corner and cry. I spend so much time trying to understand the world I live in and the people I share it with. But I have never been able to understand what drives someone to hurt a child.

I saw Rahmeen once again after that. I tried to get people back home to send stuff that I could take down to the kids but nothing ever really developed. The Major moved to another unit and I never made it back down to the hospital. When I did run into the Major months later, I asked about Rahmeen. He didn't make it. They tried a lot of skin grafts to save him but because if his age and size, there were only so many that could be done. It was amazing he had lived as long as he did. In fact, because he had survived that long with those injuries, we all thought he would make it. He was a tough little guy.

There is a reason I titled this post the way I did. This story is not for you the readers. It is for me. Rahmeen never knew me. He was morphined up so probably not aware of the people around him. I didn't sit and talk for hours with him and our only contact was a brief "handshake", more like his hand and one of my fingers. If he had lived, he would never know I even existed. My impact on his life was so minuscule as to be non-existent. If anything, he had a bigger impact on me. You see, there is no moral here, no lesson, no finger pointing or grand social commentary. I met him, I felt for him, he died. Shit happens, it happens everyday all over the world. And life goes on...

You see friends, I wrote this for me. Meeting Rahmeen was one of those experiences in life that affect you and shape you in some small way. It's an experience that has no meaning; it just happened. But it's such a small, brief experience that over time it may fade. I never saw his name in writing and for all I know I misheard it. So now I'm not really sure what his name was. That's why I wrote this. I may forget and I don't want to forget.

Why couldn't they have done this research when I was married?

Check out this story from the British newspaper "The Telegraph". According to researchers in the Netherlands, "...men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive." The researchers think the reason for this lack of brain function in men is because we use so much of our "cognitive resources" trying to impress beautiful women, we don't have enough left to perform basic functions, like memory.

" Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived.
Researchers said it was as if he was so keen to make an impression he 'temporarily absorbed most of his cognitive resources.' " Just think of the impact this information will have on society, not that we hadn't already figured this out millions of years ago. But now, men have a new excuse that is backed up by science. "I'm sorry I forgot our anniversary dear. It's just that I'm so distracted by your beauty I lose the mental capacity to remember things". If she doesn't believe you, hand her a copy of the study. BRILLIANT!

Of course, there's a possibility the study is flawed. Picture a bunch of science geeks in lab coats who spend all their time in a lab. It could be that what the data really tells us is that researchers need to get out more often.

The "Rebellious Arab Girl"

Hello dear readers, all two or three of you who actually take the time to read the meandering, confusing thoughts of a person, that would be me, with far too much time to think. Today, I would like to introduce you to "Rebellious Arab Girl", more better known to her fans and readers as Mona. Rebellious Arab Girl is the name of Mona's blog and what an interesting blog it is. I found her blog listed in the blog roll of another site and clicked on it out of curiosity. Oh the magic of networking. Anyway, after that first day of reading her posts and the comments from her readers, I have become hooked. Those of you who really know me are probably thinking it must be a blog filled with elaborate essays on feminist issues in the Arab world. Not quite, which is why I've linked to Mona's blog above. Check it out to understand what my interest is about.

OK, perhaps I will still have to explain my interest in the blog. First off, check out the banner to the site. Underneath the title it says "Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values". Wise words to live by. Far too often, we associate change with tearing down what exists and starting all over; Out with the old, in with the new. Doing so doesn't necessarily bring about change for the better. The funny thing about the name of her blog is how many people don't understand the context she uses the word rebellious. She is rebellious in the sense of not conforming to cultural norms because somebody told her to conform. Explain to Mona why she should act a certain way and, if it makes sense to her, she probably will act that way. Although, from what I've picked up on reading her posts, it will still be on Mona's terms. Mona is a 28 year old, Arab woman living in the West. She is educated, talented, opinionated and young. Her blog is much more like a diary, simply putting out to the world her day to day thoughts on her life and life in general. However, there is an underlying theme to the blog taken as a whole. That theme is the question "why"? Why do certain things happen? Why do people act the way they do? Why, why why?

I am 12 years Mona's senior, non-Arab and male. My life is and has been nothing like hers in so many ways. And yet I find her blog interesting. Since I found Mona's blog, I've been reading past posts going back to 2005 when she first started. Sometimes I disagree, sometimes I agree, sometimes I chuckle, especially when she relates an argument or discussion with her mother. I think no matter what gender we are or culture we come from, we all can relate to dealing with mom. That's the magic of her blog. If, like peeling back the layers of an onion, you strip away the culture, strip away her education, her occupation, even disregard her gender, you are left with a basic human being. That's where the commonality begins between Mona and me. That is why the blog is interesting to me. Because I can start to relate as a fellow human being which means that even when I may disagree with something she may write, I will at least think about it and consider her point of view.

On a wider level, my interest in Rebellious Arab Girl the blog is because between Mona's posts and the comments from her readers I see something bigger; The future. Mona and all those like her, whether they realize it or not, are the future. As an Arab woman asking the question why, she is the future of the Arab world. As simply a young woman asking the question why, she, and all those like her, are the future of all of us.

On Moms and Dads

It's been a work week and a weekend of writer's block. There is so much to write about that I don't where to start. Add in that so many topics are interconnected in some way, piecing them together has actually caused my brain to lock up. Somehow this has brought me to a point where I am sitting here in retrospect of my relationship with my parents over the years. Don't ask me how I got to this subject, I don't really know. Well, OK that's not really true. The reality is that when you want to write but can't seem to coherently put some big, grand idea in print, you fall back on "Let's make fun of mom and dad". Sorry mom and dad but it was only a matter of time.



So let's start with dad. My father is a rather quiet man. At least he is when my mother is around because when my mother is around, no one can get a word in edgewise anyway. Get dad alone and he will talk. We have had many a conversation lasting hours about all different things, especially now that I am older. I say now that I am older because it is a conversation, give and take on whatever subject comes up. When I was younger it had the appearance of a conversation but was, in fact, more of a lecture and learning exercise on logic with me on the receiving end. During those years of my late teens and early twenties, when I knew everything and had the answers to all the world's problems, nothing could be more frustrating and aggravating than to mention them to my father. He sent many a great idea to the trash heap of great ideas not by simply dismissing them; "Get lost kid. It will never work". Nooo, not my dad. He actually listened to the idea and then asked questions. Questions I hadn't thought of and therefore had no answers to. In the end, I would stomp away angry and mumbling about how he just didn't understand but inside thinking "Damn it! He's right again". See dad was my Devil's advocate, my Red Cell in a way and he was very efficient in that capacity. But I owe him for that because he taught me how to think.



My father is also a font of historical knowledge, especially military history. Get into a conversation with dad and you will walk away with some trivial knowledge about some obscure, British regiment serving under Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars. Mind you, it's not simply confined to the Napoleonic Wars, it can be about any period in military history. "Hey dad, traffic's really bad today on the highway". An hour later, you are walking away with some quote from some guy who fought in the Boer War, along with a background of his unit and why they were where they were that somehow relates to the cause of traffic jams. Go figure, who knew? Of course, not all of these lessons in history were delivered straight forward. Some were imparted subliminally. To this day, the song "Waltzing Matilda" will periodically pop into my head. Why? Because dad would hum or sing it while shaving and my bedroom was across the hall from the bathroom so I would hear it. Over and over and over. For years I wondered who Matilda was and why dad was singing about her. Was she someone dad knew before mom? Did he dance with her? Why would anyone want to even waltz with a girl named Matilda? Does mom even know about Matilda? I learned later that the song was like the National Anthem of Australia or something and was, of course, sung by some obscure Australian unit during some war a long time ago. Regardless, THE DAMN SONG IS STILL STUCK IN MY HEAD! Thanks dad.



My father is not big on mystical or supernatural things. This goes down to even having a distrust of organized religion. Despite that, he has still found a way to put a hex on me that has followed me throughout my adult life. Let me explain. Dad's entire career was with the Army and this had a profound effect on his children. As I mentioned before, he was big on military history so myself and my sisters were exposed to military history. Somehow, the Army creeped into everything. It was so bad that it led to fights with my sister. Nothing was so infuriating, so humiliating and demeaning to a young boy as finding G.I. Joe in the toy box naked because my sister had taken his fatigues and put them on her Barbie. She even took his rifle! Score one for Women's Lib. Of course, I got the last laugh when the fatigues ended up on the floor and naked G.I. Joe was in bed with naked Barbie. Score one for the guys! Unfortunately, mom found that one which triggered the "Maybe it's time to talk about the birds and the bees" alarm. But I digress so back to dad's curse.



Since we played army, we played with little plastic green army men. The problem was I always thought big. See, it wasn't enough to just have ten little American army guys against ten little German army guys. Oh no, it had to be, say, the Battle of the Bulge or the Normandy invasion. Not a part of those battles but the whole damn battle. That meant tons of little plastic army guys. So instead of going to the local drug store and getting a bag of the generic "big" little plastic army guys, I went to the hobby shop and got the small, HO scale guys. These guys were perfect. They were small enough that you could have hundreds of them, whole battalions could be formed. Plus, because they were mainly for dioramas and war gamers, they were historically accurate. The drug store army men were the same mold just a different color plastic; Americans were green, Germans were gray. BORING! With the HO scale guys, Germans were Germans right down to their helmets and weapons. The same for Americans. Even better, there were British, Italian, Japanese. You name the country and they were represented. Even better, there were tons of vehicles to go along with them. It was an arsenal that any young lad with dreams of world domination would drool over. And, the vehicles were historically accurate. I know, I know, what's up with the fixation on historical accuracy? I couldn't tell you except that even at the ages of 6, 7 or 8 years old, attention to detail was important.

So anyway, on some holiday or birthday, I don't remember which, dad gets me a little gift. I kind of know what it is by the package; it's a little pre-built vehicle that they sold at the hobby shop. I'm hoping it's a tank or something because tanks are cool and they fight and that's what we are doing when we play, we're fighting a war. So I open it up and what do I see? A little HO scale 2 1/2 ton truck. What used to be called a "Deuce and a half". A TRUCK, DAD? No tank? What am I supposed to do with this? You can only guess at the little lesson old Sarge imparted. "Your troops need to move son. They also need supplies. How do you think those supplies get there? An army travels on it's stomach... logistics is the key to winning the war son...logistics is the key". Mind you, that truck was one of the first things to get blown up whenever there was a battle.

Now fast forward to my late twenties. I've been working in the trucking industry since eighteen and am now in management at a regional company, dispatching freight all over the Northeast. At one point I'm contemplating going to school to get a degree in supply chain management, aka LOGISTICS! That's when it hit me; "Logistics is the key, son". How the hell did I end up here? All those boring lectures that I had no interest in about logistics and what industry do I end up working in? Fast forward again to the age of 38. I decide to go back in the Army and this time specifically pick a combat arms job, tanker. I go through all my training and get assigned to a unit. Where do I end up? The 101st Airborne Division (AASLT). AASLT stands for Air Assault. It's a light infantry division whose main mode of transport is by helicopter. NO TANKS! I end up in the division headquarters and deploy to Afghanistan. What is my job in Afghanistan? I manage a country's worth of ammunition for training. Basically, a LOGISTICS JOB!

"Logistics is the key, son... logistics is the key". Thanks dad.

There's more to tell about dad but it's in relation to mom. I haven't even begun to talk about mom yet. I'll save that for part two. Thought you were off the hook mom, didn't you?

From Their Own Mouths!

Check out this video from YouTube. Pay close attention to what each speaker is saying about the "Public Option" and a Single Payer Health Care System. This is a perfect example of how the "Progressives" operate.

First we were told all those angry people at the Town Hall meetings were shills for the insurance companies and Republicans. Then we were told those people were just stirred up by lies and myths being perpetrated by opponents to "reform". I talked about this in a previous post, the arrogant perception of the Democrats that we, the people, are stupid and don't know what's best for us. Folks, ask yourself this; If the Democrat's agenda is so good, why do they feel the need to lie to us about it?

We have been continuously hearing from the Obama Administration, Congressional Democrats and the sycophantic "Main Stream Media" that those opposed to the current plan are opposed to "Health Care Reform". Not actually true! I, for one, will agree that there are problems with financing health care that need to be addressed. However, I don't think the plan(s) being proposed by the Democrats are good or the right fix. So I'm not opposed to health care reform, just to the power grab being attempted by the "Progressive" Party currently in power. Woe be to me for standing in the way of "progress".

There's Truth in Humor.

Check out this correction in today's L.A. Times. Here it is if the link does not work:

"TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday's Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV's "Jackass" show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" should have been listed."

For once, the "Main Stream Media" reported just the facts. Too bad it took an error in the TV Listings for that to happen. Or was it an error?