1. I just had a brainfart and tried to go to the blogger platform to add this post. As much as I love the flexibility this platform allows me, I think I really miss the user interface of blogger. Hm. Points to ponder. Weirdly, I last used blogger something like years ago–Peter turned me on to Posterous, which I really really loved, and then Ed helped me to move over to this site. I don’t know. Maybe WordPress just needs more orange.
2. Here are some things Sprocket has been compared to:
A piece of licorice
See for yourself:
Hamster butt:
(photo CuteOverload.com)
Witness it!
An ottoman
Those first two comparisons are courtesy of Jen Flowers, by the way.
3. People always ask how long it takes to get over a deployment. That answer is highly individual. Because I am a wuss, I suspect it takes me longer than others. I like to Ponder Implications. I like to explore the things we did, and the way that those things might have affected me.
Today I finally feel some sense of normalcy. I no longer shy away from using tap water, and I don’t feel the urge to force myself to lie on the couch and Not Worry.
Perhaps most telling, I am starting on a new physical project that is very exciting, but I’m not going to tell you about it yet. You will have to be patient.
And the corollary to that, of course, is that I am finally ready to start work again on my thesis, which is being re-written in diary form.
So. It feels as if all gears, mental and physical, are turning. Here is a brief list of the things I do in the weeks after deployment. This is only after five deployments’ worth of experience, so I am curious to see how this list will change as I gain more experience.
- Mope
- Drift aimlessly from room to room
- Eat. Anything. Buckets of popcorn; bushels of fresh fruit and veg; massive luxurious sandwiches. Those are the primary culprits.
- Hide out. I almost never want to see anyone in the weeks after a deployment.
- Watch TV. Loads and loads of old movies, or episode after episode of something like Miss Marple, Poirot, Frost, Lewis…(This may be because we almost always deploy with a Brit on the team, since there are more of them than there are of us. I’m probably just missing the accent.)
- Lie on the couch.
- Make a mess of the house, which inevitably is a clean slate for my mess, since Jim is nice enough to clean it just before I get home.
- Stare at art. This goes back to the whole “hide out” thing. If you’re staring at art, people don’t usually approach you.
I think two weeks is about right. Weirdly, I never write about the deployment, and I don’t usually talk about it. And I usually get back on a weekend, so this one was weird in that I got back on a weekday and had to dive headlong into the workweek. I cancelled a trip to Philadelphia almost at the last minute cos I was feeling sick, but I really did think I was going to be Just Fine. What a dweeb.
Anyway. The day beckons. Hope it’s a good Monday for everyone!
