Calling All Skeletons

I just bought tickets for Rise Against/Alkaline Trio/Thrice/Gaslight Anthem in Houston on 27October.  I could not be more excited about this show.

I probably won’t have anyone to go with me.  The show is on a Monday night, and Alan is not likely to be able to get a day off. I’m lucky because there isn’t any discussion about me going alone.  He knows what it means to me.

I feel guilty sometimes for all the freedoms I have (I’m not being patriotic, I’m talking about my relationship).  I traipse off to New York for four days and get tattoos.  I think every time he spoke to me that weekend I was drunk.  He was always cheerful, excited for me.  Last April I went to California for four days to see Bamboozle.  No questions asked.  I decided I wanted to, and he was excited for me.  I stay with male friends – actually most of my friends are male.  Last summer, a year ago Monday, in fact, I drove across country with a dude while the hubs was in Iraq.  He’d call, and I’d be at Mount Rushmore, on the beach, hiking the Grand Canyon…

I get really anxious inside the army cage.  I went from “I do what I want, when I want (and when I can afford to want it)”, to “I wonder where I’ll have to live in four months”, more or less overnight.  Suddenly I was using phrases like “Life Insurance Beneficiary”, and “Leave and Earnings Statement”, and speaking mostly in acronyms. Half the time, I didn’t even understand what I was saying.

Now I shop at the commissary, get bad haircuts at the PX, observe the speed limits on post, and flash my spouse ID usually five to ten times daily, just like everyone else.  And every fiber of my being rebels.

I don’t even get to pick a doctor!  At 7:45 a.m. last Friday (boys, close your eyes), I had to get a freakin’ pap smear from a 65 year old man and a psychotic nurse (or “female chaperon”, as the army dubbed her) in a giant red hat and purple scrubs. I was instructed to sit on the table for a “visual breast exam” (which still doesn’t quite sit right, there, grandpa), and he saw my tattoo.  The nurse squealed with poorly contained hysteria and ran over to the table to get a look.  Here I am, bareass-ed naked, and the two of them are cramming their heads between me and the wall to get a better ogle at my tattoos, and I thought, “this isn’t the time I want to be playing 20 questions, unless of course my tattoos and their various meanings somehow effect the health of my cervix”.  “Oh I LOVE tattoos on other people”, said that wacky nurse in a voice I typically reserve for 2a.m. and six beers later , “but I could never get one myself.”

…which of course is code for “I’m judging you”.  I couldn’t help but think it was slightly inappropriate behavior for an army doctor, but whatever.

It continued to get more awkward toward the end of the appointment, when the Doc whipped out his handy instructional packet for giving yourself a breast exam.  It was four or five sheets of paper stapled together, each a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, ad infinitum.  The first letter of each line on the top sheet was cut off.  “Of course, that’s supposed to say ‘nipple’, not ‘ipple’!” Then he burst out laughing like this was truly the most hilarious thing he’d said all day.  And granted it was only 8:30 in the morning at that point, but still.  Really?

I digress.  It’s a strange dichotomy.  On one hand, it’s like living in a small town on, say, a tiny, self contained island.  Especially down here where there is no surrounding town.  On the other hand, I get to do so much outside the army life box, thanks to my wonderful hubs.

Look, the point is, would any of you like to come to Houston and see three of my favorite punk rock bands in October?

=D