PTSD, among other things

I think about PTSD sometimes. For instance, I recently applied for a job assisting veterans with mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder. I haven't heard back yet from the potential employer, and I'm not entirely sure I want to, in spite of the growing desperation in my employment situation. Tonight I read an article by a woman who was diagnosed with PTSD after childbirth, a kind of strange diagnosis perhaps, but certainly believable, considering her circumstances. I am writing a short story that sort of deals with the subject of PTSD.

Regarding my own "issues," I doubt that I ever suffered with the disorder part of post-traumatic stress. I drank too much after I came home from Iraq. But I wasn't exactly a poster-child for sobriety before I left. I just had a lot of that active-duty combat pay in my bank account, and single-malt scotch tasted good and made the weird dreams go away. I probably had a serious predilection toward scotch-abuse long before I ever joined the army. In the past, occasionally something might have triggered a fucked-up kind of memory or instinctual fear. The best example I can think of is one moment when I was entering a freeway on-ramp and I drove right over some piece of trash in the middle of the street. I clenched up in dread as I expected that the rubbish in the road was some kind of improvised explosive that would blow me sky-high. But I was in Nashville, Tennessee, where there have been few (as in zero) incidents of roadside bombs in recent memory. And after that, I just kept driving. I think that someone with a real case of PTSD would have probably had to stop and shut down and suffer for a while.

But now I am rethinking this whole issue. It is February and Football Season Is Over, baseball season is two months away, and basketball, hockey, and the Winter Olympics all make me miserable. I am without sport to entertain me. For some strange reason in my personal economy, I still have cable on at my apartment, and I have the MLB Network, which broadcasts a lot of off-season gossip and shows that try to determine who the best right fielder was during the 1960s. I can think of three who were all the best: Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Frank Robinson. They also do these recap shows on entire seasons of Major League Baseball, and tonight they are showing 2003. The year we invaded Iraq. The year I went to Iraq. The year that the Chicago Cubs went to game six of the NLCS with a 3-2 lead in the series, all the way to the 8th inning of game six with a score of 3-0. After a flyout in the top of the inning, they were five outs away from their first pennant since 1945... and then the Bartman "incident." No rational person still blames Bartman for the Cubs' loss, much like no rational person would pay $22 to walk around a "science" museum that shows off mankind's recent relationship with living dinosaurs. No, the Cubs pissed that one away all on their own. Yet it still haunts me. I  recall thinking what a great moment this would be, while I'm stuck in a stinking shithole war-zone in the Middle East, if the Chicago Cubs could possibly alleviate my agony (I was really whiny about being in Iraq, by the way) by just making five more fucking outs and going to the World Series. We had satellite television, on which we could get not only all kinds of European soccer and pornography, but also rebroadcasts of the baseball postseason. And it was in October 2003 that my dreams died. Later that month, I came back to the States on leave, and after being home for no more than a day, my girlfriend broke up with me. I wandered around in a drunken haze for two weeks, barely caught the several flights I needed to make it back to Baghdad, where I suffered from an increasingly serious lack of motivation regarding my military duties, and then two months later got myself crushed by an overturned High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle and sent home with a tube in my chest.

So if you ask me if I suffer from PTSD, I'll probably say no. Until you mention the 2003 Major League Baseball season.

Mayor's son called to active duty

One complaint a lot of people have had over the past decade is the lack of prominent politicians' sons and daughters voluntary service in OEF/OIF. Say what you want about the cesspit that is Chicago politics, but you gotta admire that the son of Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley is going on active duty in the army. Who knows where he's going to serve, what his rank is, or what he even does (I don't really feel like taking the time to research it, because it really doesn't matter to me at all). It's just nice to see that the burden of military service is not entirely upon the shoulders of regular working class Joes.

About genius

I read an article today about Peyton Manning being a genius and a pain in the ass. I think he's a big ugly dickhole playing for a stupid team in an awful state, but no sane person would argue that he isn't a great and phenomenal NFL quarterback. And sure, he's probably a "genius," but I think more likely a savant. Leonardo fuckin da Vinci was a genius. If Peyton can solve the unemployment situation, or develop a feasible alternative to fossil fuels, or paint a fuckin fresco, then he's a genius. Anyway, the article's main point is about obsession and hard work, and I see connections to my own problems as a writer. I lack the obsession and work ethic that I have seen even in several of my peers in the writing game. I think I probably have some level of raw talent or ability, probably not much, but enough to get by for a while. What holds me back is this whole discipline thing. Work. I spend too little time reading and writing...that awful time that really good and of course, great writers spend on their craft. The time that shatters their relationships with the people they love. The time that drives them to substance abuse and suicide...though I am sure plenty of non-geniuses have drunk themselves to death or jumped off bridges. The thing is, I do read and write. Constantly. I'm writing right now. But it's the quality of the writing that matters. Perhaps it doesn't matter so much on that first shitty draft we all write (right?). But that so often is where I give up. I write a bunch of crap, don't finish it, and walk away. Somehow I lack the tenacity, or maybe temerity, to stick with it.

Where, then, do I get sticktoitiveness from?

Certainly not Icehouse beer and blogging at 4:30 in the morning.

A gay old time in the military

I've never put a whole lot of thought into "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," because I never really felt its effects (that I know of. I never asked!) But rationally, it's institutionalized discrimination, which seems about as sensible as racial segregation. Or the outdated, sexist notions about women in combat roles. (In case you weren't aware, men and women have been serving side by side in combat for the entirety of OEF/OIF.) During the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Georgia Sen. "Sexy" Saxby Chambliss declared his opposition to the repeal of DADT. His rationale is that it would lead to a slippery slope of "immoral" behavior in the military, including:

Alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art.

And let me tell you. There is no better summary of my military service than this collection of words. I mean, if I ever get around to finishing the memoir, I should use this for my title. This is the most hilarious argument I think I have ever heard against allowing homosexuals to serve openly. I may have engaged in all of these things in a single night when I was in the Army. At least three out of four. And I received an honorable discharge...though I should admit that I did receive a Summary Article 15 for this one time when I was still in training. For whatever that's worth. Anyway, I imagine there's probably a ton of gay people who would be better soldiers than I was.

So there. Institutional discrimination is bad. And I was a bad Army-man.

The Snail's Pace (and other cliches)

I have been working on a short story this week. I've set my expectations rather low and am trying to write something to contribute to the old grad school alumni magazine. It's not that I don't respect the publication and all of the work that goes into it...a lot of good writers have published work in this magazine...it's just that their acceptance rate is pretty high from what I understand, as long as you're a current student or graduate of the Notre Dame writing program--the only sources of writing the magazine accepts anyway. Which is fine, it's a good outlet, and I'm glad that even well-established writers and graduates of the ND program still contribute to it. Plus, I never sent them anything when I was a student. I suppose I just feel like I ought to be setting the bar higher for myself. Still, I'm putting every bit as much effort into this writing as I would for any other manuscript, and I am enjoying the narrative that I've got going so far, it's just that it's taking a goddamn long time. I seem to be writing sometimes in these haphazard kind of fits and starts, but lately, I'm just blocked or bored or distracted or whatever. This whole unemployment thing is really fucking with my rhythm. Plus I have a wonderful cold or maybe bronchitis or maybe pneumonia right now that my lovely wife gave me.

But this is not a good excuse. After all, I went out last night, checked out Bad Meaning Good, a fun little movie event at this dive bar in the neighborhood. Everyone gets together to drink and watch a terrible movie and holler at the screen fun things about the movie's awfulness. It was a lot of silly fun. And if I can muster up the strength to walk to this joint and watch a terrible movie, I ought to be able to write a decent short story.

Or a bad one, even. I suppose I should stop this nonsense and get to work.

Or go to the store to get the stuff to make empanadas. That sounds really delicious to me right now.