(Transcribed from a daily journal I kept while in the army 1984-1987 stationed at Ft. Meade)
It’s been a whole week since last I wrote in my journal. Rather than a day by day account, I’ll try to simply note highlights of the week.
Last Saturday (14th) I went home and spent a pleasant 2 days there. I went to Curt and Laura’s reception and had a great time. I really like Ray and his friends. For the fourth wedding in a row, I caught the bouquet, which is decomposing in the front seat of my car still.
Ray and I are ostensibly friends, but he and his parents hold out hope that we will be more. After dropping Ray off at a friend’s and after a tedious goodbye, I drove home in a really intense thunderstorm. For a while I was just crawling down the road. Lightning was constant and everywhere.
Paranoia had gotten me good by the time I made it home and I nearly floated into the house from my car. I slept on the couch after watching the lightning for a couple of hours. Loved it.
Dad watched the storm with me for a while. His routine is to open the windows so he can really hear and feel the rough weather, while he sits in his chair snickering triumphantly about not being out there in it. 30 years of the army with 8 years of combat have left him shell-shocked on one hand, and incredibly grateful for the simplest of amenities on the other.
Sunday I hung out at the old Scranton manse. Saw mom, looked pretty good and I got some assurances that she really works for McDonalds from Corynne.
Her kids are great! Danny is so cute and has such a strong, intelligent personality. Cody says he’s bossy and pedantic. Maybe so, but I can’t think that’s a bad thing in the long run, shows leadership. Gina also has a strong personality. Less than a year old and she already has fits of coherent anger – you know exactly what she’s upset over. She’s also very pleasant though and smiles and babbles constantly. She’s finally gotten over her Cholic and now her parents can catch up on the months of sleep they missed out on while she was screaming and turning wild colors on the greenish end of the spectrum.
Dad was in his room working hard on his automatic pilot with gyroscope for boats. He’s brilliant and I love him.
I got back Sunday night when I spent some time with Gene then finally slept. The week skated by uneventfully for the most part. I did little work. This is great in a way, almost no pressure, but would love a challenge about now. I had 3 lunches away from work this week. One with Leo and Mr. Bill at the Starting Gate (taco Wednesday). Leo was thoughtful and drank less than I did.
Tuesday Emma, Top, Doug and I took Bill Dane out to lunch at Senor D’s. I rode in Top’s Corvette. He took her up to 115 mph on the BWI Parkway. I laughed at the outrageousness of the speed. Top’s an authority figure and here he is speeding like hell and trying to get me to go out with him. Bill’s leaving for the far East and I envy him that, also his professional excellence. They are replacing him with 3 people. He taught me a lot.
The final lunch I attended was a horror. Joanne, a friend of Emma’s is leaving for Germany soon and this was her farewell. It was at some overpriced slow serviced seafood restaurant. I nearly suffocated there, sitting 2 hours with some incredibly boring stuffy people amidst the reek of old fish. I got back to work ready to flip tables over.
I ran all week to the point where I’m completely sore. At PT Emma and I ran 3.5 miles.
On Friday I went to a practice softball game for the office team. I took Gene who also played. I got 2 runs in. I had no idea that a softball game could be such a good time. Friday night and Saturday were spent with Gene. We weren’t getting along and I had a rotten time.
Saturday night I had to pick Bill up at BWI. The first time down we went home Bill-less. His plane was snowed in at Denver. His new wife called me and said he was coming in at 1AM, so down we came again. He had tons of luggage and we almost couldn’t fit it in Gene’s car. We had to take apart one of the boxes. Wedding presents.
Sunday I had a pretty pleasant day with Gene. He’s really a nice, well meaning person, it’s just that we’re so different and I’ll always think him kind of nerdy.
It’s about 11 now and I’ve gotten pretty much done – laundry and taxes (finally) hopefully I’ll be at work on time tomorrow. Last year’s taxes were a mess. I sent them in after haphazardly putting them together. The IRS sent a letter to dad’s house saying I was being audited. Dad decided to address the matter himself and began communicating with the agency. While completely drunk a few times he wrote some nasty letters to them in scribble all over the forms they sent, calling them pathetic monkeys and whatever. I finally got a letter to my current address from them asking me to get him to lay off. I think they just dropped whatever their concerns were since dealing with dad just wasn’t a high yield undertaking. Besides, I was employed as a bartender and didn’t make enough money to be worth it. Surely the administrative costs of the audit exceeded my earnings last year, let alone the pathetic fistful of change I owed them.
