....and a wake up....

I've started a new category to people that have started blogs because of me, cheers me up to think that I've started other people down this path, there might be more people but I just don't know about them. Could use the cheering up, quitting smoking has been the hardest thing I've done since I've been out here, but it is about time that I did. I think that the majority of my readers are smokers, I just get that feeling except for that smoking Nazi, Josh. I'm going to miss the fellowship that goes with smoking and of course reading and smoking, sigh, I've become a quitter.

Received a letter from Dr P, he's a retired cardiologist that that had worked with corpsman during Vietnam. Out of all the people that I wanted to write back to his was at the top of my list and somewhere in one of my moves I had lost it, he had sent me a second letter making sure the first one had came my way. And I wrote him. Just reading what he wrote reminded me why I'm out here as a corpsman, I'm here to save lives and take care of my Marines and he had a few words on smoking about the empty feeling and the crabbiness that I'm going through. He's been there a few times, so I'm not feeling so alone in this. I didn't actually stop for any real reason, no one I'm trying to impress right now, just something changed internally and I said that's it, it's time. Doesn't make it any easier though.

On the upside, I do think I'm still on the advanced party list, which will be leaving VERY shortly, if I don't answer emails or blog for a day or two, that will be why. It could mean that I'm on a plane ride back to the states. Whoopee! Now I just have to find a new place to live till December, if it comes to it, I'll sleep in my suburban and after some of the beds I've slept in out here, I'll be real happy just doing that. Of course I do miss my suburban and might do that anyway.

We'll just have to see what kind of surprises life has in store for me the next couple of months. Thanks for all the support everyone.

I'm going to try adding a few words on what I'm reading to every post from now in.

Currently Reading

The Cider House Rules
By John Irving

I've always thought John Irving was an old man because of his antique wording and the mindset that seems so authentic in his characters, his period pieces of the early twentieth century seem so real that you would have had to actually have been there to experience that much. Well it goes to show you what thinking gets you for tonight I finally read his bio. That liar had me thinking that he was an old man all of this time and he's the same age as my dad, well 3 years older, born 1942. I had this concept of him being old stuck in my head for years, expecting each book to be his last and come to find out he probably won't be stopping for a while. Oh well.

I've always enjoyed his work, his characters come to life and you feel their pain, and in some sense you become them, each one of them has some gem inside that reflects back part of you. The melancholy grays of the background with the tender heartaches that abound in the book seem to suit my mood just fine.