50%

It’s been a whole two weeks since I last cried all over this keyboard posted an entry. But <Here’s a lie in order to give me some excuse besides laziness>, I’ll try to make a more concentrated effort in the future.

Big daddy stick welding. The OG, pain in the ass welding from ye olden times. Now, I consider myself a reasonable person, but stick welding has reduced me to yelling racist slurs at inanimate objects. Along with the the immediate (and frequent) crisis of accidently welding my electrode to the metal (which is called “getting stuck”) there’s a slow, menacing torment to my craft. I’ve heard it called “rot” and it comes from “slag” that I fail to clean out of each successive weld as I layer them. This isn’t due to neglect since I spend a lot of time furiously chipping and scrubbing. Sometimes it’s just there, and stays there in a little cranny that I can only barely fit the goddamn end of the chipping hammer into. When I give up, think “good enough” and weld over it, it appears again, and again, and again. My mistake continues to haunt me, making everything shitty, and by the end I can’t fix it no matter how hard I hammer away. It’s a lot like Afghanistan. 

Today, as I unproductively scrubbed the contaminated spot (Lady Macbeth style) I pondered how fast life passes us by. I’m almost twenty two years old and my last birthday feels as if it happened just a few weeks ago. It was a quiet night out with some friends, I had my first drink (didn’t like it, alcohol is icky and bad for you) and made well thought-out and responsible choices. It was such a good time, I probably shouldn’t try to top it this year, wouldn’t want things to get too crazy. The point is, though time speeds up as we get older, I have the unique opportunity to spend the next two months experiencing the opposite phenomenon. While staying here at Fort ShitsOnEverythingYouLove I’ve experienced time in all its slow and agonizing glory. I’m not the only party suffering. I see the hollow and tired look in the eyes of the instructors who will remain here long after we’re gone. Shaved heads seems to be their preferred hairstyle, perhaps to cover up premature graying from the cruel onslaught of the somehow slower solar cycle. Junior Marines could be the culprit, dealing with a class of these idiots would probably give me good reason to pull my hair out. Unlike their unfortunate souls, I only have two months left here. As a matter of fact, by tomorrow, I will have hit the 50% benchmark.

Sorry, I had to take a quick break. Blogging is harder when you’re throwing up over the thought of what the future has in store for you. But I jest. I’m not that upset. I’m only dry heaving. However, fifty-seven days will get pretty interesting if my dreams keep up their current trend that leans towards the bizarre. Last night I was stuck in an airplane and all of my friends were in a religiously inclined nudist colony and it was not cool at all. At one point I was cooking meth, but this is just a poor attempt to connect with readers who are also fans of Breaking Bad, a show whose attempts at hyping people for the season finale really detracts from the drama and suspense by making us all picture the actors (and therefore picture the characters) as a bunch of fun, easy-going people who are really excited to see their own show and will be your friend for a day if you donate to a charity. But yeah. Dreams or something. Crazy stuff right?

Disclaimer: I don’t spend much time analyzing editing the content of this blog.