Private Lessons
On a more positive note, I initiated private lessons with a rather attractive salsa dance instructor from Fairfield. She also knows her stuff. Apparently, she also knows members of my former dance group, so she knows my stuff, too. Maybe I'll improve!
She started things off by critiquing me, which I'm not so sure was a good thing for me or for future patrons. No matter what the skill level of the person, dance should always be about fun first. Well, whatever. I'm paying her, not the other way around. I hope this will take the edge of my rage. If anything, I'll have more moves to impress the ladies with. Now if only I can make more time for going to the club...
Bitterness
So basically my life lays unfettered before me. Can someone tell me why the hell I'm dwelling on past issues?
The Air Force, for example. They still piss me off. Almost every day when I worked for them, they always found a way to pat themselves on the back for a job well done, no matter how miniscule the job. But when you live the life and see what really goes on, you notice a surfeit of incompetence on all bureaucratic levels that one would find humorous were it not for the fact that those very same people are responsible for national defense. Granted, there are many who accomplish the Mission successfully every day. But what about the number of Airmen that don't know the basic responsibilities of their jobs, the Captains in operations squadrons that sit around doing nothing or golf half the day, or the General officer that neglects to review his paperwork and negatively affects the future assignment/life opportunities of a junior officer? Honest mistakes that should be acceptable? pheh. For an organization that preaches "excellence in all they do" to its young, it is hypocrisy. When my former commander--the most morbidly idiotic specimen of a "leader"-- got a line number for Colonel last fall, I knew that I had to go. An organization wherein ass-kissing is a criterion for promotion is a broken organization indeed. And what is up with the rampant alcohol usage in the military? The days of every Friday being mandatory beer day at the base club are long gone, but the culture of drunkenness still pervades Air Force society. You are an outcast if you do not imbibe obscene proportions of beer. Beer! Good lord, it's not even the good kind of alcohol!
I am out of that madness now, but I am still bitter.
Here's one that I've grappled with for awhile now...There's this girl I was interested in right? I basically tell her my feelings, but then I get temporarily assigned to Colorado Springs for five weeks. I assumed--poorly--that she had feelings in kind and would...I don't know...wait for me or something. While in CO, I learn that she fucks her ex-boyfriend. Then, when I get back, she tells me that she's dating someone else. Wow. Fuck her and the clown that sticks her. I want her to contract syphilis so that she can feel a physical burning akin to the seething anger I still have towards her.
She is over 200 miles away, but I am still bitter.
So why do I still harbor this anger? With a purpose, anger may be a mean to an end. It can make you work harder to achieve the goal. But there is no point to my negativity at this point! The things I dwell on are things that are better off dead in the past.
I really need positive folks around to lift me up. Without that, I'm afraid that my recent past and the negative feelings associated with it will consume me as much as they did when I was at Vandenberg....
Full Circle
Every time I try to write something profound, I inevitably seem to disappoint myself. So instead of having the same great expectations for this post—and the requisite patience for editing that I would otherwise put into it to make it sound good--I’ll just tell it how it is. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been spending time moving back into my parent’s home in Napa. Back when I was stationed at Vandenberg, it didn’t seem like such a big deal because all I ever wanted in the first place was to get out of the military for the entire time I was there. Now that I’m back in the old house and the old neighborhood, things are different. No, no, the physical makeup of the house hasn’t changed. My bedroom was much as I had left it over nine years ago. The downstairs toilet still flushes on its own (the result of a cracked o-ring…ohh, ooohh). The fourth step on the stairwell still creaks. There are also the emotional imprints of the place. For most of my teenage years, I perceived the place as a prison. Under the iron hand of my parents, I really wasn’t allowed to come and go when I wanted. Not that it would have helped if I could; I didn’t have money to go to all the fun places, and I was underage.
Once graduated college and left the area (UC Davis is but 40 minutes up the road), it was so liberating. Part of the reason why I loved Omaha so much was the fact that it was not Napa! It was a fresh start and it was all good. If you’ve kept up with my posts, you all know how my assignment at Vandenberg turned out. And so, I find myself back here. I’ll venture to say that most folks my age don’t live at their parents’ place. So one of the things I began to ask myself upon my return here was: am I a failure? Will this place once again be my prison?
That’s one way to look at it, I suppose…the cynical way. Trusted friends say that I am at a different stage of my life now; to compare my current situation to the one I found myself in one decade ago would be like comparing apples and oranges. I’ve got the job and the money, I’m of age, and the parents aren’t even here for the most part (much of their time is spent in the San Diego condo). So I’ve got this house to myself. I should be ecstatic. But I’m ill at ease. Hmm……
Napa, Davis, Omaha, Santa Maria, Napa. Wonder if this is it for me?
Adjusting
My job is going well enough. Good projects are coming my way in the near future (I think) and the people at work are really, really cool. When you’re the new guy, you can’t help but feel a bit detached from the whole operation, though. So it was at my other past two engineering jobs. I hope this feeling passes soon, however. I want to get into the thick of things again.
For now, I’m bored.
I’m reading specs. I’m reviewing procedures for obtaining funds. I did a cost estimate. I drafted a source selection document. Yawn. I hope something tangible comes my way soon b/c I am seriously falling asleep after lunch at work. It is bad. I’ve decided to keep my expectations low for now b/c I hate being disappointed. The word “disappointment” sums up the past two years of my life. I hope the next few years turn out better.
