Louisiana is for lovers.

For what it’s worth, I’m stuck at Fort Polk, Louisiana.  I got here about a month ago, and I don’t get to leave until about a year from now.  It’s a major sh*thole.  Unless, of course, you love WalMart, roaches, 100+ degree temperatures, and absolutely nothing else. If that’s the case, then it’s paradise.

I’m terrified of this place. It’s a little akin to … going back in time.  I’m from New York, and I’ll admit, lots of places are like going back in time when The City is a mere 30 minute train ride from your hometown.  But this is REALLY like going back in time.  Really far back in time.

I thought everyone would talk slow, ya know, because I talk really fast, like a New Yorker, ya know?  Well, it’s not that, so much, as there’s this… weird … delay.  In conversation.  Those of you familiar with conversation know that, more or less, you speak, and then the person responds.  Down here, it’s more like you speak, and the person responds after three labored breaths.  Which for me, of course, is just enough time to seize up in terror that I’ve somehow offended the person, or that I spoke too fast and couldn’t be understood, or I accidentally slipped some kind of obscenity into the sentence and I didn’t realize it… or OH GOD THEY SMELL THE TOFU ON MY BREATH. I’M GONNA GET CHASED AWAY WITH A FLAMING CROSS.

It’s insane.  It takes so long to communicate with the locals.  Not to mention how terrified I am of the food.  Don’t get me wrong, I love sampling the local fare.  Last year, in Texas, I had rattlesnake, and it was delicious. When I found out I was coming down here, I couldn’t wait to get my mitts on some wonderful crawfish and alligator… mmMMmm!  But then I found out every dang thing is deep fried.  And not just deep fried, but battered, fried, soaked in some extra grease, for flavor of course, slathered in butter, wrapped in bacon, and served with a side of southern buscuits, “hushpuppies”, and a bucket of peanuts.  Seriously.  We had to end dinner early, because the table started turning clear from all the grease, and I was afraid it would become structurally unsound.

Oh, and we have giant mutant killer monster spiders down here:

It’s a huge change from Alaska.  Yes, Anchorage, Alaska.  We spent the winter there – from November 2007 until June of 2008, in fact.  Winter in the Tundra, summer in the Bayou.  I hate army.

Alaska was a hoot as well, don’t get me wrong.  If you’re interested in what it’s like to live in Alaska, my hubs and I wrote a summary upon our hasty farewell.  You can read it here. I loved it there……. most of the time.   It was isolated. I couldn’t just jump on a plane and go visit my friends or family, because it was always WAY over $500, but Anchorage was a great place to live.  And as they said, “Alaska was only 30 minutes away!” (if you lived in Anchorage, supposedly you weren’t a ‘real’ Alaskan.)  Here, it’s a different kind of isolated.  Everything is a two hour drive away.  The nearest Best Buy, Borders, mall, park, venue, anything.  You name it, it’s at least two to three hours from here.  So close, but yet… you know.

Anyway, I digress.  The skinny is, I started this blog because I feel like some things have recently become clear to me. First, some background on me.

When I got married in September 06, my husband was two weeks away from a 13-month deployment to Iraq.  We got married on a whim, after a VERY brief stint of “dating” (a term I use loosely, as I was living in Philadelphia and he was living in Anchorage).  We met at McDonald’s when we were 15, and the only thing that ever got in the way of our friendship all those years was the army.  I visited Anchorage in September, and we knew getting hitched was the right thing, the smart thing under the circumstances, and that we could deal with whatever happened from that moment forward.  Then he deployed, and I moved to New York to live with his sister and her two babies ( <33 ) and get to know his family better.  I really wasn’t even involved with the army life until November of 2007, is where I’m going with this.

But now I am, and it’s a trip, really.  The army is insane, sometimes.  They hold on to the most meaningless of rules with a tenacious fastidiousness, and the big, important rules that could actually effect a soldier in combat, say, are swept under the government issue rug.  You can piss hot for coke, and just get moved to another unit until everyone forgets.  Forget to file one itty bitty form for Command Sponsorship, and you could be paying the price 2 years down the road (that’s a rant for another day).

When he was in Iraq, everyone kept telling me how important my job is, in relation to the army.  I kept laughing it off, thinking, you’re insane!  He’s the one in 130lbs of gear with a bullseye on his head in the middle of a combat zone.  I just work every day and try to smile.  It’s really not that bad!

Lately, though, I get it. This week, my husband’s schedule is the wackiest yet.  He’s OPFOR, which is basically a fake terrorist in the lazer tag game they call training down here, so he has to get up at 3a.m., be at work by 3:30, and he isn’t getting home until after 4 p.m.  Then, he gets one day off (Sunday, I think), and then he’s got a week “in the box”, which means for 5 days and 4 nights, he sleeps in a tent in the woods in fake Iraq, 20 minutes from his real bed and real wife.  He’s not allowed home.

This sucks for him, and I feel for him, believe me.  But seriously, I am now officially in charge of everything.  The new puppy, the old cat, the bills, the car, the laundry, the cleaning, the budget… everything.  It all falls on me, because he’s completely incapacitated by exhaustion when he finally stumbles in the door.  I get it now.

Yesterday it hit me: I am the administrative assistant to this marriage.  And I know so many army wives must feel the same way.