2 weaks and weighting

Hola mi amigos y amigas.  How the hell are you all doing?  What is going on?  What is happening?  What about me, you ask?  Hells bells, not much going on these days.  You know, SOS (same old shit)  Oh yeah, I guess I am leaving in less than two weeks, twelve days, two hundred and eighty eight hours for Afghanistan.  Packing for four months is an adventure in and of itself.  Okay, seriously?  I have been pondering my eminent departure pretty much EVERY day!  Really?  What else, pray tell is Nascar-ing through my mind during these last few days?  Really?  What else could be rattling around in my ever expanding brain pan these furtively passing moments?  Bear with me please, and for a bit, imagine yourself craning your neck to see what might possibly be appearing around this quickly approaching life-bend.  How far can your eyes rotate in your sockets before you start looking like a seizure poster child?  How far into the future can your head turn before you squinch in pain from, well, rubbernecking?  It seems kind of obvious that I have been turning my neck into mobius strips trying to adjust to this upcoming life change.  So, while I am looking ahead to "see" where my travels are taking me, I fail to focus on any particular thing to talk about.  I guess I lack a vivid imagination or something…

Since I cannot speak intelligently of that which I know nothing, I am gracefully arcing my head in the direction of life in Kabul.  I cannot imagine "what it will be like to work in a war torn country".  But I have been talking about this with pretty much everyone I see.  Sounds like something doesn't it?  Call my bullshit what it is people…

My current image quest for "that which I know nothing" is somehow Olympian in nature...like those lugers and the skeleton sled people (I would soooo do the skeleton, it is a Flexible Flyer on steroids) and what must be running through their heads when they hit that hugely banked last curve?  The curve with "Vancouver 2010" blazoned in green with the rings and everything on it...that mind bending curve, are you with me???  Well my world view is kinda blurry around the edges...just as if the world is flying by at 95 mph.  Okay, I admit it, I am a total victim of Olympic fever, hell I even watched "curling" for Christ sake, cuz they are OLYMPIANS doing Olympic stuff.  I watch them. I watch them and I wonder why?  I watch them and I wonder the same thing everybody else wonders, "WHY is THIS an Olympic sport?" Although to be quite honest, I would so practice and do curling, given the opportunity. (I mean, sliding stones on the frozen lake is a tradition that predates the written word.)  So here I am zooming around the impossibly banked curve toward my destiny, or as some have said, my “adventure.”  Yeppers, I am in a G-force vibrating blur which doesn’t allow me to focus on any thing in particular.  So I now will continue to speak in generalities about that which may be my life in the near future.

You all know me as a continuing life "practitioner."  I must assume that I have been training for this upcoming Olympian turn of events my entire life (thus the luge analogy...)  By proxy, I must possess some knowledge about who, what, where, when and why I am involved with this particular life "sport."  Well I do not.  Can't fathom it.  Don't know.  No clue.  Don't go there.  It is scary and dark in there...

everything I have ever done

everyone I have ever met

all of my relationships with family and friends

all the decisions I have made

has led to me this moment in my life  (©1979 lsg green book)



I am making lists, however.  Hell I even got a "bring to Kabul" list from my employer, which included Big Macs from Dubai.  Really?  (Yep, the Texas expats miss the taste of home cooking.)  The other US expats claim that most pedestrian items can be purchased furtively in Kabul, but those things also lack in quality.  Hmmmm, back to the Quality vs. Quantity thing.  I must ponder this recurring theme further, but later...

Other "must bring" items are no brainers, like socks and underwear (which will be a significant life change for me in and of itself)  Anti-everything-you-can-get preventative prescriptions that go above and beyond the icky diseases that we tender-footed westerners are susceptible to over there.  Typhoid, Dengue fever, malaria, ebola, you know, they have a painful shot for everything.  Comfortable shoes and cargo pants.  Gotta have cargo pants they tell me.  Something about needing extra pockets for stuff when we go venturing to the remote building sites scattered all over Afghanistan.  So, back to the cargo pants.  I think I would like to stuff my bulging pockets with extra clips for my .9-mm, although several knowledgeable friends of mine think I need at least a .45-cal auto.  Hmmm.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Back to what I think/feel about this whole deal.  As you all know, the universe revolves around me and me alone.  This fact remains my reality until I open my eyes and look around to see people and things that are not me.  Surprising as this revelation may be for some, I have felt connected to all that surrounds me.  I understand that what I am not, defines what/who I am.  As a victim of my own inexorable gravitational pull, I can only direct cosmological traffic in a quantum mechanical way.  Large objects attract smaller objects.  That being said, the orbits of all the known/unknown celestial objects resemble my current mindset.  Total chaos until notified otherwise.

Eating in Kabul will be punctuated by “in the compound” daily feeds.  The company pays for my room and board and pretty much everything else I think I need, so I hear.  There are dining experiences to be had in the green zone of Kabul, including a very good French restaurant that is frequented by expats.  I believe the braised lamb will be good with a fine Chianti if you really want to know.  Eat Kabul!!!  

Okay then, here are my positive thoughts about the upcoming change of life for Lou.  Besides the good pay, I will be working in a high level engineering/design environment.  There will be much to learn and much to gain in this large commercial construction atmosphere.  Site visits will allow me to see the countryside although interaction with the “locals” is not really allowed.  I don’t think there is any mingling with Afghanis that are not employed by the company.  Security risk I suppose.  There are good benefits.  I will be helping to rebuild infrastructure in a country devastated by near constant war for the last 30 years, which is a total plus.  I will be encouraged to grow a beard.  That is something.  I do have to wear a dress shirt and a tie at all times when working in the corporate office.  Reminds me of my "Catholic" school upbringing.  Ties everyday for 12 years.  The tie redux brings me to this fun thought...

I have a favor to ask of all of you "guys who have ties."  I thought it would be fun to be able to wear a different tie to work everyday for the first 4 months.  I figure I will need about 80 ties in order to achieve this goal.  I have about a dozen of my own.  So, if you have ties that you don’t use or need for a few months, hanging in your closet, consider loaning them to me.  I will take a tie picture everyday and create a “tie party.”  Magic marker your initials on the label and get them to me or Trice.  I will wear them and twinkle my eyes and think of you fondly as I dip them into my Palao and Qorma, traditional Afghan feeding frenzy foods.  Then, when you get them back you will have a piece of Afghanistan stuck like old pasta on your favorite tie...wadda ya think?  

Hasta later...the “cube”

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