I got to sleep in this morning which was pretty great. I was way
behind on sleep thanks to an almost sunrise night at the bars with an
early wake-up, followed by a late night at work. So sleep was
needed.
I didn't really do anything with my day other than researching phones
with the intention of dropping T-Mobile and going with Ting. Mainly
to save, potentially, a crap-ton of money every month. Because Ting
doesn't have set monthly plans, if I have another month where I get
tired of my phone and don't talk and only text a little, my bill will
reflect that and be tiny. It won't be seventy bucks regardless of my
activity level.
And even though I still kind of dislike phones, I don't want a crappy
one, so I am looking at the new Samsung Galaxy S4. A phone expensive
enough that I could upgrade my computer into even more of a beast or
buy a decent laptop for the same amount of money. But it is a really
nice phone. I also like the Galaxy Note 2 but it is even more
expensive. And next month the new one is supposed to come out. I
just wish there was one phone. It would make the choice a lot easier
if there wasn't really a choice. I'm still thinking about it. The
lower monthly bill will offset the cost of the phone but that upfront
cost sucks balls a bit.
Tonight I met up my friend again and we went down to the bars. It
was a nice night, weather-wise, so we spent the first while sitting
outside and just talking about stuff. Over the unnecessarily loud
music. At some point my other friend stopped by on her way to work
and we talked with her briefly. We will hopefully be getting
together sometime next week to go shopping for new jeans for me. We
have successfully purchased my last two rounds of jeans so I have
high hopes at being successful once again.
Some time after that we met up with corduroy dude from the other
night and another friend of his. Corduroy dude reminds me of the
short dude from Workaholics
and Pitch Perfect.
His friend reminded me of a short Triple H with a military haircut.
We got into a conversation early in the night about the child
advocacy thing I do because he was really interested in it and wanted
to do it but his work schedule is too erratic. He told me if I ever
got into a situation where an abusive parent needed a more physical
talking to, he would be available.
After awhile another group of
corduroy dude's friends showed up. One of them was this small dude
(150 lbs. but with a video on his phone showing proof that he can
deadlift over 450 lbs, mostly with his back, and he's had two back
surgeries, but still impressive) who is a sniper. He went to college
and got a job in an OR as an X-Ray tech. Then he enlisted in the
Army and became a sniper. He was giving corduroy dude crap saying he
hadn't seen corduroy dude ever carrying more than a camelbak for a
two day mission, when he, X-Ray dude, was completely loaded down with
a full pack.
X-Ray dude introduced us to another
guy, a big black dude, and told us a story of when they were at an
outpost and they volunteered to take watch in one of the towers.
When they were up there they got fired at and the big black dude
leaned out the tower and fired back at the enemy with a giant .50
cal, one handed. And then they both got banned from the outpost
because apparently they never fired back at the enemy at this
outpost.
Later on everyone was supposed to be
going to another bar down the street because some of the guys wanted
to dance. So a group of them left but corduroy dude ended up at a
table talking to two girls so my friend and I ended up sitting with
them. Corduroy dude ended up getting up and leaving after a bit and
my friend and I stayed, mainly just to see if he was coming back.
The two girls seemed nice, and my friend kept the conversation going
because I have no social skills and made no attempt to do anything
beyond adding in a comment here and there, but my friend and I
weren't really interested, and the girls weren't either, so we parted
ways to search out corduroy dude.
We went to the bar across the
street, then the bar down the street, then another bar where a girl
my friend had been talking to earlier said she was going. In all of
these bars there were one or two of the corduroy dude's friend group
but not corduroy dude. And in the third bar there was a tiny dance
floor with ridiculously loud dubstep and house music and people were
packed in like sardines. It was entirely unpleasant. And the girl
wasn't there. Or at least my friend didn't think she was because he
couldn't actually remember what she looked like. Which I found kind
of funny. After working our way through that mess, we ended up on a
back patio, which connected to the back of the first bar we were at
so we walked through there, and then headed back across the street as
a last effort to see if we could find corduroy dude.
And we did. My friend wanted to
make an attempt to talk to him and let him know that there were
options out there for getting help and there wasn't any problem with
seeking help. And corduroy dude definitely needs help because he has
been out the past three nights, getting wasted to the point of barely
being able to stand up, in remembrance of the death of his friends a
year ago. By the time we caught up with him he was way too drunk to
really listen to anything so my friend took corduroy dude's friend
aside and talked to him about it. His friend understood where my
friend was coming from but said it was the year anniversary of the
deaths and corduroy dude was still working through it. Which is sad
because getting blackout drunk and fixating on death isn't going to
solve anything. While my friend was talking to that guy, I was with
X-Ray dude and corduroy dude. X-Ray dude was telling him that if
their friends were alive and he was dead, they would be celebrating
his life and talking to girls, not getting completely trashed and
belligerent, and then sent him off to talk to girls. Before
following him he turned to me and said “Thank God I'm married... I
probably cry myself to sleep three or four nights a week. And then
there's Coozy.” So basically, this sniper is constantly struggling
with the things he has been through but he has a wife to lean on.
Corduroy dude has his friends but no one to really lean on and pour
his heart out to. Or someone that can help him with his mental help,
not just help him try to deaden his pain with alcohol.
It is tragic how open these guys are
about the trouble they have dealing with their experiences on
deployment, even with me who is a relative stranger to them, but they
can excuse that openness by saying it's the alcohol, and won't
actually seek professional help to work on making things better.
There is still such a stigma around seeking help in the military and
a lack of initiative in changing that. Ignoring the legacy of that
stigma, there is also the fact that there just aren't enough
resources out there. In a perfect world, talking to a psychiatrist
or psychologist would be mandatory for anyone who goes on deployment,
but there just aren't enough resources out there to help everyone who
needs help. And that is true in the general population as well, but
I would say we owe it to the men and women we ship overseas. The
least we could do is take care of their mental health.
Hanging out with these guys tonight
and Thursday has really made me interested in studying PTSD again.
It is a lot harder to get into a graduate Psychology program than a
Library Science program, and I still want to go into Library Science,
but I think I might also try to apply to a couple Psychology
programs, just to see. Can't hurt anyway. Either way, I need to
start applying to graduate school. I've had all summer and have come
up with other things to do. Pointless things. I need to do
something with my life other than the same old things. I need to
change things up and take steps to move my life forward. I've been
stuck in the same rut for most of my twenties and I want nothing more
than to get out of it.
And it is four o'clock in the
morning once again so I need to stop typing. But I'll end on a
lighter note. While I was talking to the guy earlier in the night
about my volunteer work, two hot girls walked by behind me and the
guy stopped me:
Guy: “Do you have a wife?”
Me: “No.”
Guy: “A girlfriend?”
Me: “No.”
Guy: “Fuck-buddy.”
Me: “No.”
Guy: “Want one? I'll be your
wingman.”
I should have rolled with the
opportunity and gone for it, if only for the story.
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