just another number

I called a very confused MeuAmor last night, who was out with friends. I heard all of them in the background chatting animatedly in Portuguese, with his voice floating on top, speaking in English to me. Too bad our barracks is the black hole of cell phone reception -- he didn't understand what I was saying. When he asked me this morning, I had lost the words in Portuguese and was too embarassed to say them in English. I still owe him an explanation.

In the van today, LittleBit asked if I was okay and told me that if I wanted to talk about anything I could. I know that she's trying to help out, I know that she'll keep certain things to herself, but there are some things that she just doesn't need to know. I'd much rather talk to Nerd or EnglishProf or Fifi about them anyways. Not like I really have any pressing issues -- I'm tired, I'm hurt, I'm lonely, and I really just want a hug.

I mean, I even thought about walking up to JazzMan or Fratboy today and asking one of them. But I was too worried about being called out on fraternization. So I won't do it and I won't ask.
Look, it was just a bad day.

*****

And, the daily pox update: the big white blister has started to ooze. It's kind of gross looking. We're all walking around the barracks with one sleeve rolled up and our pox exposed to the world. All in the name of trying to air it out.

Yesterday, when we had a drug test at o'dark-thirty in the morning, our acting first sergent was walking around with his exposed telling everyone "I'm airing my pox out" and "don't make me rub my pox on you!" Only at o'dark-thirty, pox doesn't sound like pox at all. I'll let you figure that one out.

That's just as bad me saying "small girl, big cot" in a supply room full of dirty old men.

*****

Another lazy day today. We went to get our first issue for this deployment. A set of DCU gortex wet weather gear, a pair of desert boots, several polypro sets (are we really going to need these in the desert??), and body armor. Which means that I now offically have something with each of the three camo patterns in use by the Army today. Most of my stuff is still the "traditional" woodland green pattern, but we're slowly transitioning away from that. Hopefully our next issue will include our new universal pattern uniforms.

That body armor, though. Wow. Just wow. It's very heavy. There is actually a handle just behind the neck. I'm not sure why it's there -- if it's just to carry the armor or to help move people/bodies around -- but whoever put it there is a freaking genius. All of my other gear will go over the body armor. Talk about heavy.

*****

Days like this are days where I just really feel like a toy soldier. Pull me out of my bunk early in the morning, make sure I eat breakfast, stand me in line to play the hurry up and wait game, have me do my job, and then put me back in my bunk when The Man is too busy. Pull me back out of my bunk when we can all do something productive. Repeat as needed.

When you look around on this post, you see blocks and blocks of barracks. Barracks that all hold bunks that hold soldiers. Like boxes of toys.

It's so easy to feel like just another number here.