Sifting through the past.....aka my junk

I knew there was a reason I never actually did any spring cleanings.......I hate it! I am in the process of getting ready for the movers on Wednesday and it's just madness. I am throwing away stuff I absolutely don't need and deciding what I'm actually carrying with me and live off for the next 3 + months and what to have shipped with the household goods....not that a barracks room qualifies as a household mind you.

I think I have the clothes down to a reasonable amount and I am bringing only 10 pairs of shoes.....sacrilege! That is less than I brought to a 2 week vacation last July....LOL....Matt is impressed. Even then, I still have my camera stuff, computer stuff, CDs, accessories, etc to set aside. I will no doubt need more than the huge suitcase I've already put clothes into, but that was to be expected.

Looking for the suitcase down in the basement, I found some summer clothes that actually fit and the dress I wore to the homecoming dance on my senior year.....it fits! OK, it would have been slightly big 10 months ago but hey....I can't believe I can get into clothes I wore as a teenager. The dress is actually a simple dress so I will be wearing it for formal nights on the honeymoon cruise. I would have probably found more stuff down there if I had gone through more boxes but the lights kept going out after I'd turn them on and it was really creepy so I left. Tomorrow is another day of packing, chucking, etc and I am not looking forward to it.

No More

A little more than 2 years ago I arrived here in Naples, Italy. I knew where I'd be working before I even got here because I specifically requested it. I was immediately placed in the Emergency Department where they sent me to various classes to become an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and an EVO (Emergency Vehicle Operator). I must admit that living in such a controlled environment with pretty healthy people, I never really saw any trauma. I responded to a couple car accidents nothing ever major. I did a few transports but once again, nothing ever critical. Actually being in the ambulance was just a very small aspect of the job. Most the time was spent in the ER itself seeing patients. These patients, for the most part, really had no reason for being seeing in the ER. I've seen more than my fair share of week old cold, 3 month old rashes, flu symptoms and other pretty stupid stuff. This people may indeed be sick, but they didn't normally have stuff that needed to be seeing in the emergency room. But because it is free and on the base they live in, I bet they thought.....why the heck not? I specially hated the Sunday after church crowd, and the late Sunday night "I'm feeling sick and I have to work tomorrow"s. I guess no one likes to work on Mondays. Neither do I.

While I have complete sympathy for people who are genuinely sick or in need of emergent care, I have none whatsoever for bullshitters. This may come from the fact that I saw stuff in the Gulf that no human being should ever have to endure so things like colds, small cuts, etc are absolutely trivial. Obviously I never let the patients realize I thought they were complete halfwits and that they weren't really welcome. In case you are wondering, if you go to the ER for stupid stuff the staff does talk about you and make fun of you, so think about it twice before you make the trip or don't get offended if you over-hear them.

I endured that all this time, and I hated every minute of it. I hated the system, I hated the bullshit, I hated the hours I worked. You name it, I probably hated it. It wasn't always so bad though. We also covered shifts at two other locations where we would be on a call basis. We just hung out in a room for 12 hours waiting for a call to come. Most of the time it never came, only once in a blue moon so we pretty much slept all day, watched tv, went online, played video games, etc. I loved those days!

However, everything, good or bad, must always come to an end. Today I worked my very last shift....ever. Thankfully, it was at one of the other sites, not the hospital. I cannot express how relieved I feel. No more 12 hour shifts, no being called in when someone else gets too drunk the night before to go to work, no more dealing with malingerers, no more ambulance rides, no more having to shove my food down my throat because there is an angry patient with a cold that requires my immediate attention, no more stupid staff meetings on my day off, no more shift work, no more stupid bright orange jackets. No more.

I'll still be here for another 2 weeks almost and I do have to check in by phone every morning, but I already feel liberated. Now I just need to get things ready for the move because I am nowhere near ready......and they are coming on Wednesday.

Sex, drugs and Amsterdam........NOT

Matt is always having these totally insane ideas and then convinces me they are not so crazy. I got up at 5:30 am on Saturday and worked all day then got a plane to London and didn't get to bed until about midnight. Then Sunday morning we got up at 5:00 am and, as one of Matt's crazy ideas, we hopped on an 8:10 flight to Amsterdam for the day.

The flight was a short one, only 35 minutes, so we were in Amsterdam by 10:15 am GMT+1. We were supposed to meet a group of people at noon but we were there an hour early. This whole thing was for a photographer get-together from one of the photography sites we frequent.

It was an ugly, dull, gray day.......not to mention freaking freaking freezing. We started walking around and then after a while ducked into one of the many cafes.....not the ones that serve hashish mind you. Some had beers, others just sat around, chatting, shooting, etc. After a while we got going again and shot some more. We came across this small plastic baby doll on the street, everyone took a turn at shooting it and then I picked it up and kept it. It's kinda freaky looking but I've always wanted a travel mascot and what better mascot than something you picked up while traveling? It has small wings on its back but according to Matt it looks freakish so I think I'm gonna name him Memnoch, after Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil.

There these weird looking bollards, rather phallic. I didn't notice it until someone else pointed it out but it was rather obvious. Some of them even had little holes on the tip. I thought I'd be funny and I started stroking one as if I was giving it a handjob. With so many photographers around, the moment was immortalized in digital images. It was pretty hilarious actually LOL.
After walking some more, we came up to the Red Light District. For the first time in my life I smelt weed. We walked past a group of guys smoking. I guess now I know what it smells like. Then we got to the main event.......the girls.

It was rather amusing. They sit or stand half naked behind their glass doors, in rooms lit only by red lights. They stroke themselves as people walk by, sorta showing them what they are missing. The ones on the "normal" section are very pretty girls (for the most part). Then there's the fat girls area, the old women, and the transsexual. We only got a "highlights" tour but to be honest, it wasn't quite what I expected. Granted, we went past when it was still light out and we only walked through a few streets, but it really wasn't what I had expected. I guess I was expecting it to be much wilder, raunchier, more in-your-face. But it wasn't. I was bummed we couldn't take pictures but I guess pimps don't like it and I didn't particularly wanna end up in a red room behind a glass window myself. When we walked by the transsexuals, no one actually told me that's what they were but I did notice they looked rather masculine. Some of them looked like they were still packing.

After that we went to another bar and stayed there for quite a while. We talked about lots of things, laughed, had a great time. We had had lunch earlier but it was time for dinner again, specially since we had to be at the train station at around 8:30pm to go back to the airport. After much debate and some more walking, we went into an Argentinean steakhouse because they were advertising all you could eat spare ribs for 14.90 Euro or something like that. The meat was great and the company excellent. We didn't really want to leave but we had no choice.

Once on the plane, I took a short nap before landing in London. I was totally exhausted and my feet hurt like nobody's business. We got home around 11:30pm and went straight to sleep.

I don't know how I let him talk me into this insane daytrip but I will never do it again. Not only did we not see anything really but we spent all that money for just one day. We had fun, but it would have been much better if had been able to stay longer. I'd like to go back to Amsterdam sometime in the spring or summer, when it's not so gray and depressing.

Tidying up

When you live in a room that is roughly 12 by 12 and have a closet about 1/4 of that size, it is very hard to find a place for everything. Not hard, impossible, specially if you have a lot of stuff. I have lived in such a room for the past 2+ years and let me tell you, stuff can pile up. We have weekly room inspections so the main room has to look somewhat tidy. Come Wednesday night, I usually just relocate stuff from the room to the closet. So, in the long run, the closet becomes so full of crap you can't close the door. That was my closet earlier today. I am in the process of moving so I knew I had to clean it out and actually make sense of the mess. It was a task I had been putting off for a very long time but I just had to suck it up and do it.

After a long day, with several Pepsi, shopping or food breaks, I did it! This is what my closet looks like now. I would have taken a before picture but I could only open the door just enough to barely squeeze in. I really regret having left it get like that but I have so much stuff that there really wasn't any other place for it......and I am not exactly a neat freak. Granted, those few boxes full of packing peanuts could have gone months ago. I am not exactly sure why I kept them but I did. There were peanuts all over the dang floor. I also have a habit of doing laundry, folding it and putting it in plastic bags and shoving them in the closet. That made for many interesting finds. Clothes I hadn't seen in months. I finally figured out where all my socks and underwear had gone. There were also several pairs of shoes buried under the heaps.

I put all the stuff in proper storage containers so now it's all organized. Now that I've done that, I feel accomplished. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it tidy for a couple of weeks until the movers come and take everything away.

Inn and out.

Because we are getting married in the US and most of Matt's family can't come, his parents offered to host a reception in the UK once we are back from Florida. They picked this really nice, quaint, and intimate restaurant close to Aylesbury called The Five Arrows. The restaurant is attached to an inn by the same name and is part of the Rothschild estate. I had never been there before so they thought it might be a good idea if we went out to dinner there to see if I liked it.

We went last night. The place is actually very pretty, very much a traditional English Inn. The food was amazing. I had a serrano ham, buffalo blue cheese and wine poached pears salad for appetizer. The main course was a fillet of beef with crayfish tails in a truffle sabayon sauce (or something like that) with potatoes and parsnips. It was the most tender, juicy steak I've had in a VERY long time. Dessert was a vanilla panna cotta with biscotti, very good too. This was the first time I'd been out with Matt's parents and it went very well. I think we all had a good time.

Then we went back to their house, where Matt proceeded to leave me alone with his mother and brother while him and his dad went upstairs to fix some computer issue. I was forced to make small talk and to answer an endless amount of questions. It was a bit uncomfortable because I am not much of a small talker but once again, it went well.

I remember how nervous I was when I first met them, but while I don't feel like that anymore, I am still not 100% comfortable around them. It's not them, it's me....really. I am just not a socializer. It takes a long time for me feel comfortable around strangers and that is technically what they are still. I hope I can get passed this, specially since they will be my family in law in just over two months.......scary.


All good things always come to and end.....Today it was time to fly back to Naples and once again leave Matt. After 10 months, it's still not easy.We we woke up and didn't to much, just had a lazy morning, had lunch, drove to the airport. Matt hung out with me for a while, trying to make the most of the little time we had. I was the last one to board the plane, which is very unusual for me so I got a crappy seat. Towards the end of the flight, just before we landed, I started feeling very airsick. Then it took forever for them to start letting people off the plane. I am usually the first person at passport control cause I know where to stand to avoid the crowds, but this time there was already a HUGE line when I got there. I was very nauseous, light headed and I was in desperate need of a toilet. I was feeling very week and I really thought I was gonna collapse. The line just wasn't moving thanks to a bunch of Eastern Europeans who were holding the line up, don't know why. Then an angel.....not really, an immigration officer came to mine line and took 5 of us. She got our passports, showed them to the other immigration officer, gave them back to us and let us go.

I made a beeline for the toilet. I put my bags down and wiped the toilet seat. In my desperation, I didn't notice there was something odd about the toilet bowl.....then I sat down (yes, I sat down) and thought...."What the f....?" The seat was squared. Who the hell ever thought of a squared toilet bowl and seat??? They are incredibly uncomfortable and just downright weird. After I took care of that, I was SO relieved. When you gotta go....... I don't know what it was because I didn't have anything dodgy, but who knows.

Now I am at home, all alone, 1000 miles away from Matt and hating it. What makes it even worse is that I don't even have my engagement ring because we had to it along with my wedding band to get resized because together they were too small. I feel naked.

Fly Me To The Mo....UK :P

If easyJet had a frequent flier program, I'd be flying free now. Since March of last year, I have spent most of my time off flying from Naples to London, sometimes for 2 days, sometimes for 4, but rarely more than that. It is exhausting, yes, but at the same time, there is nothing better than reuniting with the person you love after being apart for up to 3 weeks. Having a long distance relationship really does suck, but you a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Yesterday was one of those very long days.....woke up at 5 am to to go work, worked 11 hours then went to the airport and hopped on yet another plane. I think the girls at the check in desk already know me by name LOL. Got to London at 9:20 pm and, as usual, rushed out of the plane so I'd be the first one at passport control because I absolutely HATE lines at passport control. I was out in the arrivals lounge and being hugged by my honey 5 minutes after I left the plane....speedy, huh?

I was tired but of course that was the beginning of my night. I'll spare you the details, I don't wanna turn this into a porn blog ;) but at the end of the night I was exhausted I just slept like a baby all night.

There is a point to all this rambling. The point is that in about a month and a half, I won't have to do that anymore. No more flying to meet Matt, no more being apart, no more long distance. I admit I am a bit scared of how this is gonna work out since this is all we've known but I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to being with every day, waking up next to him every morning.....then all those months of long distance and being apart will have been well worth the while.

Guilt

All these years I have wondered how all those girls....and boys....can just stick their fingers in their throats after a meal and throw it up. I have always felt pity for this girls because I always thought it was just incredibly sad to reach such a state. It wasn't just the fact that they induced the vomiting or that they looked sickly skinny, it was why the did it that bothered me the most.

All these years, even though I was battling my own demons, I thought I was above all that, I thought I knew better than that. But I guess everyone feels that way before they realize they have a problem. Well, there is nothing more humbling that falling as low as you never thought you would. Today was that day for me. I am not proud of this, in fact, I am ashamed. I tried so hard to lose weight the right way and I succeeded but I still have cravings. Tonight I had a burger and I felt to gross and guilty that not only did I think about throwing up but I actually tried. I tried for a few minutes but I just couldn't make myself puke. Then I sat down on the toilet, face red and eyes full of tears, wondering what the hell I had done. Me? How could I have? But the truth is that, successful or not, I tried and in my mind I have become "one of those girls" Will I try it again? Who knows, but to be honest, I don't know if I felt more guilt for eating the burger or for trying to purge.

Little Black Dress

Some days are just so boring that you have absolutely nothing to write about, nothing stimulates your brain. These past couple of days have been like that. The only thing exciting is that today I bought a little black dress for my honeymoon. We are going on a cruise so we need to bring formal wear....what a pain, specially since we both are jeans and tshirt kinda people. I don't mind dressing up, I actually enjoy it, what I don't enjoy is having to shop for clothes. I am very self conscious and I never like the way dresses look on me, something about that damn belly. I guess I'll just have to suck it up for a few days while on the cruise, otherwise I will be eating a heck of a lot of burgers and hot dogs.

Along Came a Man.

We spend years subconsciously searching for the person who is meant for us. We meet people we'd love to get to know and we meet people we wish we would have never met. Relationships come and go, some end in good terms, others leave us devastated. We break hearts and get our own heart broken. Then one day, when you least expect it, and right out of the blue, the right person comes along. The one that gives you butterflies in your stomach just thinking about them, the one that makes your toes curl and every muscle in your body contract when you see them. It may not be obvious at first, but then they just grow on you and you wonder how you ever lived without them. Then they do something that totally blows you away and brings you to your knees.....in a good way.

For the past several years I have been dreaming about, and actively planning a year long trip around the world. I had been saving for a few years and I was ready to set off this April. Then just under 10 months ago I met Matt. At first we were planning on still doing the trip and he'd join me but once we got engaged we decided it wouldn't be the healthiest thing to put a brand new marriage through so we postponed it. It was originally my idea but I never quite came to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be going on this trip like I had planned.

I kept bringing it up every now and then. Even though I am thrilled to be marrying this man, deep down, I still long for the opportunity to go on such a journey. We are still planning on going on the trip but it will have to wait at least a couple of years so we can save enough money to actually do it. Last night I was having a particularly bad case of wanderlust. We got to talking about the trip and what it would take for us to go on it. Something like that isn't exactly cheap. Matt knows how important this is to me and he said something that touched so much that I had tears streaming down my face. He said that he would stay behind and work while I traveled if it was that important to me. He said we could meet between jobs. He said he'd do that for me because he knows how important it is for me and he wants me to be happy and he will not let me give up my dreams. Of cause, I would never do that. I would never leave him behind to fulfill my travel fantasies, but just the fact that he would do that for me is just mind-blowing.

Now I realize that I in fact want to share that adventure with the man I love. I want to share that adventure with the person that cares enough to sacrifice his own wanderlust just because he wants to make me happy and see my lifelong dreams come true. I can't think of a better person to go on such a journey with, or a better person to spend the rest of my life with. He makes me the happiest I have ever been and he understand me better than anyone else ever has. I am just so lucky to have found such a great man and I am even luckier that he wants to marry me too :)

Exercise and Suicide.....are they worth it?

For the past 2 years I have been on something called "FEP", short for Fitness Enhancement Program. A couple years ago I failed the navy bi-yearly fitness test and I was put on that stupid program. It is designed to help you get back within standards, but who are they kidding? I was on it for over a year before I made any progress and even then it was because I decided to go on Weight Watchers. My failure was on the running portion. I just don't like running....or any other form of exercise for that matter.....and to top it off I have arthritis on both my knees which makes running physically painful. So.......today, over two years after starting this stupid program.....I am done. Mind you, the ideal way to get off the program is by passing two consecutive PRTs (that's the name for the Navy's fitness test) and that is not the case with me. I am getting out of the Navy in 1 month, 2 weeks and 6 days (who's counting???) and I start checking out of my command next week. So I am taking the easy way out of it, they have to let me go by default. Let me tell you, I am so glad I am done, it's just a pain in the butt having to figure out how the hell you are gonna make 3 sessions a week when you work up to 5 twelve hour shifts just Monday through Friday. For my last session ever I did the lazy thing.....I went to the walking session. There was no way I was gonna put any more effort than ABSOLUTELY necessary into it. From now on I vow to be a couch potato and never, ever, ever run again.......ever. It's not worth it! Well, maybe I'd reconsider if I was being chased by a hungry lion or a pissed off dog.

When you work in an ER, you see a lot of things. It is not particularly busy where I work, nor do we see a lot of real emergencies, as a matter of fact, emergencies are rare our emergency room. Most of those things you just forget about, others you just don't understand. Today a man brought his 16 year old daughter in because she had swallowed a bunch of Tylenol. In case you don't know, Tylenol is very toxic and to be honest, not the easiest way to die. People that die from a Tylenol overdose die a very slow and painful death, from liver failure. But anyhow, apparently the issue behind the suicide attempt was a boy. The girl had a boyfriend and her father forbade her to see him again. Father and daughter fought, daughter tried to kill herself......in a nutshell. This is not the first time I take care of a suicidal patient, but it is the first time under those circumstances. I am not going to condemn her or anyone else who has attempted suicide because you never know really goes on but I still don't get it. I was a teenager too, and I remember having fights with my parents about boys, and I got dumped, and I got my heart broken. I thought about moving away (once I was 18), I thought about a lot of things, but I never, ever, ever even toyed with the idea of killing myself. I refuse to believe that is EVER the only way out of something. In this girl's case for example....assuming she wanted to kill herself because she wasn't allowed to see the boy she loved (can you really be in love at 16 though?)....she didn't succeed, so now she has a much bigger problem in her hands. Not only is she still not allowed to see the boy but now she's also on very bad terms with her parents who will keep a much closer eye on her.....so much for independence. Had she succeeded, she still wouldn't have been able to see the boy....who would have gotten over it and found someone else. I know that no man is worth your life, but are they indeed worth any of the troubles, tears, broken hearts, etc that we as women endure? Had it been the other way around, do you think the guy would have tried to kill himself? Just some food for thought.

So many questions.

Some people just never seem to be happy with what they have.......I am one of those people sometimes. For Christmas, I gave Matt a small point and shoot camera that he had been wanting for quite some time. I gave it a go once he opened it and it turned out to be a sweet camera. I had to have one, because God knows 3 other cameras wasn't enough for me. Instead of buying the same one, I ordered a Canon Powershot SD450 instead. I ordered it on Christmas Day and it arrived today. It is so tiny. It's so small it fits on the palm of my hand.....and I have small hands. I didn't really NEED the camera but I wanted it. Why are human beings so greedy? Why can't we just settle for what we have instead of constantly being on the look out for material things that we think will make us happier but in the end don't? Are we capable of just settling? I admit I am a bit greedy and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, after all if we had no greed we'd never accomplish anything because there wouldn't be an incentive. Some level of ambition or greed is perfectly normal, but when is it too much?

On a different note, today I finally set up the scanner and scanned Matt's growing up pictures for the slide show a friend of ours is gonna make for the wedding. He was such a cute baby! But of course, I may be slightly biased. Looking at those pictures, and the ones of me made question the whole outlook society has on beauty. When we are babies it's ok, and even expected, for us to be chubby. A chubby baby (which I was not) is a cute baby, or so people seem to think. Once you grow up though, forget about it, if you are not a stick person then there is something wrong with you. As babies, we are force-fed all kinds of fattening stuff because.....well.....the baby has to look healthy!. Some of us are born skinny and then fattened up as we grow up. I was a thin baby, then I was a slightly chubby toddler, then I was a skinny child....skinny until I was 15...then I just blew up. I am not blaming my parents for it but I remember my mother sitting next to me with a flip flop in her hand, ready to spank me, until I cleaned out my plate......and now I get strange looks from people if I eat too much or go back for seconds. Doesn't that just seem unfair? I have been struggling with my weight for many years now, not because I wasn't happy but because I thought I didn't look the way I was supposed to look. I wasn't tall, I wasn't anorexic so I wasn't normal. When I finally lost 34 pounds I started to feel really good about myself, and once again, for all the wrong reasons. To make a long story short, even though I still want to lose some more weight, I am doing it for me, I am doing it because I want to be healthy, not because society thinks I should look like a starving 3rd world child. Will I ever get to my goal weight? Who knows.....but for now I am happy, I am at peace with myself. So, when do we go from being chubby and cute to being chubby and ugly???

And so it begins.....

I have never been able to keep a journal, something about writing everyday just for hell of it just doesn't appeal to me. I have started one several times but never followed through. Hopefully blogging will be different since I am online pretty much every day anyway. I am in the process of getting out of the navy and I am getting ready for my move.

The other day my bookshelf collapsed leaving my books on pile on the floor. My wonderful fiance was there so he stacked up nicely on the floor. Today I put them in boxes. Now the moving process has actually started. I am gonna hate all this packing because I have a lot of stuff. I guess I'll just have to throw some things away before the movers come.