Freaking Sweet: A Long Distance Sit-Down With Andrew

(Based on Instant Message and Phone Conversations)

“I lost a couple more friends this week,” Andrew says, plainly. “One was from G4 (Andrew’s West Point Unit) named Garrison Avery.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell him.

“It’s alright man,” he shrugs. “If I’ve learned one thing while I’ve been over here, it’s that I’m a soldier, and our number one job is to kill before we die. Some people are just better at the former.”

“I think I saw that on a Hallmark card somewhere.”

“Probably.”

It becomes clear rather quickly that to talk about war with a deployed soldier as literate and well-spoken as my brother is to volunteer for an exhibition in dark comedy. We don’t avoid the talk of death, nor our place in the hereafter.

“I’ll probably go to hell for that,” he says after making a crack about the pope.

“I’ll save you a seat,” I assure him.

Despite the artillery at my brother’s fingertips, the greatest weapon in a soldier’s arsenal is humor, though a humor of a very bleak and disturbing variety. It’s tickling the funny bone by way of the jugular. And I seem to be just about the only civilian who has the stomach to play along.

“You’re freaking people out back here,” I tell him, referring to a recent e-mail detailing a fierce firefight with some outgunned assassins. “But I laughed my ass off reading [the e-mail].”

“That was the intent, to make everyone laugh,” he says. “Can you just picture me saying to my guys ‘Kill that piece of shit’ and laughing to myself?”

Some of this may be false bravado. I doubt the laughter came during, but I don’t doubt for a second there was laughter after. And thank God. If it weren’t for the sick sense of humor we share and Andrew’s usual cocky bluster, I’d be worried about him.

“I’m a superhero,” he tells me.

“Well, just stay away from tights or I’ll start to wonder about you?”

“I’m wearing some as I speak.”

Why am I not surprised?

Some Letters

“What happened to those letters you were supposed to give me?” I ask.

When Andrew came home for Thanksgiving, his last weekend in the States, we sat in my bedroom for a spell as he debriefed me on all the information he’d absorbed during his run-up to deployment. After the dry-erase breakdown of Andrew’s battlefield, he first mentioned the letters.

Though my brother had yet to deploy, our family was experiencing our own special trip through the seven stages of grief. The letters were a symptom of that stage my brother and I spend so much time in: anger. With the larger political focus his domestic digs afforded him, my brother intended these letters as a rigor mortis laced middle finger to the administration, and it was my duty to see them delivered to the editorial staff of the nation’s major newspapers. But in the commotion of Andrew’s departure, they never changed hands.

“I’m glad I didn’t give them to you,” he says. “Now that I’m here they seem kind of stupid.”

The moment Andrew hit the dirt of the Middle East he stepped out of the realm of political speculation and into the grave perils of war. For all of Andrew’s eviscerating critiques of the administration during Thanksgiving weekend, it all seems very much, well, silly now. And very much beside the point. Asked if he ever feels the repercussions of presidential decisions, he answers no. But that’s not to say he doesn’t notice W’s fingerprints from time to time.

“I have about 9 conspiracy theories I’m developing,” he tells me. I can almost hear that trademark Rockwell brother shit-grin spreading. “Presidential level conspiracies.”

Yet the more I talk to my brother the more it feels as if the soldiers in the Iraqi theatre are driven to succeed almost in spite of the administration's ineptitude. The letters Andrew wrote were a way to rub his death in the President’s face. Then I he landed in Iraq, and he realized that his success on the battlefield would be an even greater F.U. to the people who put him in harm’s way.

“I’m excelling here like I never have before in my life,” he says. Andrew’s drive in Iraq makes Oprah look like Homer Simpson.

“Do you not worry about sleep over there?” I ask.

“Sleep?” he responds, as if he were unfamiliar with the word. “I sleep when I can’t function anymore.”

And probably not a second sooner.

“Start missions at 0500 and keep going until 1200 the next day. That’s about 31 hours.”

“Is this your choice, or the Army’s?”

“My choice.”

While it seems some soldiers are intent on forgetting where they are whenever possible, my brother has accepted his situation and plans to make the most of it. Aside from the occasional episode of 24 (“It’s an addiction over here. I’ll have half the battalion watching it with me.”), Andrew is neck-deep in intelligence, plotting and planning.

“I’m going to kill [Zarqawi],” Andrew swears, and one doesn’t accomplish that playing XBOX.

“There are [video games] all over,” he says. “I just don’t have time for them. Although I did play an awful lot of GBA Zelda in my free time (while shitting).”

And one suspects that, like his hero Jack Bauer, Andrew rarely has time for that.

“I’ve been working the satellites at night. That’s why I haven’t been sleeping. Watching particular buildings real-time thermal. I do missions all day. Then go get on Falconview and see how our daily ops effected particular people. I’m trying to turn myself into the Rain Man of the area.”

“So you’re a go-getter,” I say. Then he reveals an ulterior motive for his work ethic.

“Makes time go quickly.”

Brothers

The hardest thing for me to reconcile when my brother left was that I didn’t believe in what this war was about. I couldn’t handle the idea of Andrew risking his life for something I didn’t believe in. But that was before his men fell into the equation.

Naturally, there are those jingoistic soldiers who will dedicate every kill or victory to their Commander-in-Chief. Then there are others, like my brother, for whom the President is just some abstraction, completely irrelevant to their situation; the fight is all about their brothers-in-arms.

Last week we spoke and as the conversation progressed I sensed a dramatic shift in his temperament. He had just come off a tremendous military victory, nabbing Al Qaeda’s number 4 in Iraq and seizing an enormous cache of weapons. Yet there was something bubbling underneath; the victory did not come without a cost.

“I lost four Iraqi army soldiers yesterday,” he confessed. “Whatever it takes these mother fuckers are not going to kill anymore of my friends. It won’t happen.”

For the first time, I realized that the brotherhood of the American soldier had expanded to include those who had never set foot on American soil. Unlike the faceless enemy that takes cheap shots from bushes and alleyways, the Iraqi soldiers have stepped up with great risk to themselves as well as their families, and that sacrifice has not gone unnoticed by my brother.

Specifically, my brother seems to have embraced his interpreter as a close confidant. How close?

“I gave the 9 mil we found [in the weapon cache] to my terp as a gift,” he tells me.

Of all the men in Andrew’s command, this is the one I’d be most anxious to meet. A former Baathist who reads my brother the local news every day, he is working towards a visa so he can join his sister in Detroit, but he can’t get one until the war is over. He’s also a Christian who appears to be my brother’s major insight into the machinations of Iraq. I have a feeling that a good deal of what Andrew relays to us at home comes, at least in some part, from his terp. With the knowledge of this ally, no longer will my political musings suffer for want of an Iraqi face to empathize with.

How is Andrew Doing… Really?

“Look man, I’m like 11 weeks into this,” Andrew says. “That leaves 41 weeks. Four of those will be spent at home or heading home. Time’s really starting to fly. The dollars are starting to add up. It’s freaking sweet.”

My mother called me when she got Andrew’s firefight e-mail. Whenever we get a particularly nasty correspondence from him, my mom makes sure I know about it immediately. I can’t say why. She always seems nonplussed by my reaction; I never share her horror.

For me, the horror ends when the e-mail arrives. As soon as I see Andrew’s name in my inbox I know he is safe. My brother is trained as a soldier. As best he can, he has prepared for what he will see. And as he tells me: “I still haven’t been nervous yet. I haven’t had my asshole pucker up. I wouldn’t worry too much about [me] if I were you. If I die it’s because I fucked up.”

“Comforting.”

“I don’t fuck up.”

For most of us, the fear we have is the randomness and the disorder of what is going on over there. But the more I talk to my brother the more I realize that it’s not as random as we might believe. The enemy is using tactics just as we are, and Andrew is breaking those tactics down with every waking hour. And he’s pissed.

“Phil, I’m serious when I say this. I broke their intelligence network. It’s all over for them in my area. I’m dead serious.”

I can’t help but smile hearing that, because I know if it isn’t so now, it’s only a matter of time before Andrew makes it so. My confidence in my brother exceeds any respect I have for the enemy over there. And the more I talk to him the more confident I become.

I’ve become a barometer of worry for my mother. I think that’s why she’s always so anxious to pass on word of my brother’s e-mails. She wants to see my reaction. I’ve assured her that she’ll know when Andrew has had a really bad day, because I’ll be worried. I know my brother. I know his mind. I know his heart. And right now both of them are fully invested in leaving his mark on Iraq. He’s the type of guy they’ll be telling stories about for years, Iraqis and Americans alike. “Remember Rock? That was a crazy fucker…” they’ll start. Those of us at home already have an entire library of these tales, and he’s writing an entirely new volume as we speak. And this one has a much bigger budget and much higher stakes.

Still, I’m confident, and fortunately I had the foresight to see that some days my confidence might waver. Luckily I made a quick observation on Thanksgiving that will save me a lot of worry over the next year. After watching my brother in the foyer of our home, saying good-bye to his family, I was struck with a powerful sensation and immediately rushed to my room to write it out on my whiteboard. It’s one sentence, one observation, I read immediately upon rising every morning. I’m going to share it with you now to use during those times when you don’t share my unshakeable confidence.

Take a look.

Garfield, Your Ass is Next!

Ever dated a manic depressive? I’m pretty sure I did. I can’t say with certainty, because I bailed before a proper diagnosis could be made. I wasn’t about to stick around for the boiled rabbits to debut.

On the bright side of her spectrum of neuroses, this girl was a delight: smart, charming, witty. I had no idea this other malevolent force festered within her dainty frame. Then one night she threw a plate against the wall. Now, I’ve seen this done in the movies and TV. If Carmella Soprano has never thrown a plate against a wall I’ll eat my shoe. I certainly can’t argue its value as dramatic punctuation. Yet when it happened in my kitchen, I had an entirely different reaction. I froze with a fork of pasta dangling at my mouth, and then turned to see the glob of fettucini alfredo making its slow slide to the floor. Then, suddenly, I heard Mike Myers’s alter ego, Austin Powers, in my head.

“Who throws a plate? Honestly?”

Now, as my online persona will attest, my whole personality is based around an inherent grouchiness and repressed anger. Yet, I’ve never thrown a plate. It’s just not civilized, and I usually look for similar etiquette from my companions. But clearly I misjudged this girl’s manners.

I handled the situation like a rider handles a spooked horse – being very still, speaking in hushed tones – meanwhile two opposing thoughts sparred in my mind.

1) This girl is crazy, and I need to get out of this relationship.
2) This girl is crazy, and if I leave she might get really crazy.

I have to believe the US government is dealing with those same two sentiments when it looks at the unrest in the Arab world this past week over… wait for it… a cartoon. Hundreds of protests have erupted across the world over an editorial cartoon published in Denmark depicting the prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban.

How bad is this cartoon? I don’t know. The American press, to my knowledge, has not printed it for fear of turning the Arab Street on us. Let them burn the Dutch, we say. Just don’t make eye contact with them and they’ll leave us alone.

If there was ever a time for the US government to stand up and say to the Arab world “You want our respect? Stop acting fucking crazy!” this is it. Yet, we’re caught in a delusional relationship with a culture so far behind our modern (and democratic values) that chastising them at this point would mean undercutting our “progress.”

So, what has the government done? They’ve come out and given a half-hearted statement about that essential cog -- freedom of the press -- in the machine of democracy. For people like me, who desperately want to maintain some optimism towards the Iraq experiment, the riots across the Arab world are the most brazen indicator that “democracy,” as the United States intends, will never survive in such a repressive, angry culture. On the same day that my brother lit up a riverbank like the opening shot of Apocalypse Now, this cartoon absurdity is what leaves me feeling hopeless.

A cartoon! Let us not forget that. Ponder that for a moment, won’t you? Now, I really hate Family Circus. There is something intensely aggravating about banality as entertainment. Still, you won’t find me outside Bill Keane’s home with torches anytime soon (although that might change the tone of those insipid one-liners for a time).

If much of the American public is like me, they’re finding less and less to empathize with when it comes to the Arab world. When the villain in your morality play is Denmark, you’ve taken anger issues to an unprecedented level. Part of the mistaken idealism of heartland America and the Bush administration is that everybody wants what we want, that everybody is essentially “just like us.”

I call bullshit. Americans only burn down buildings when their sports teams win championships. We don’t torch the New York Times when Odie gets the best of Garfield.

Two things terrify me most about this whole ordeal. The first is that it becomes apparent with every passing day that we are in the groundswell of a mythic civil implosion in the Middle East. The tensions between the West and the Arab world will continue to grow, and with Iran flashing its ass to the world with its nuclear program the positive scenarios continue to get pulled off the bulletin board.

But in an ironic twist, the most frightening thing about the recent cartoon controversy is that America has pulled back on its idealism in a fear of inflaming the Arab world’s lunatic sensibility. By not condemning this behavior outright, we’re kowtowing to incivility, and if we intend to solve anything in that region of the world, that’s the last thing we should be doing. We need to step up and set some fires about what we believe in. Freedom of the press. Separation of church and state. Separation of powers.

Whoops. For a second there I forgot which country I was in.

Best Birthday Ever!

Even as I've become entrenched in my twenties, I can still rely on a few friends and family for some solid presents. My grandparents are always good for a few bills for the slots. Norm and Dee always send me a book that gets read by the end of the week (though this year I got Lonesome Dove on DVD, which with its 6 hour running time and Larry McMurtry source material is still in the same vein). But even with those all-stars having my back, nothing can compare to the gift the city of Rock Island left at the end of our driveway today.

Check it out.



Jealous?

26 and Climbing

So, last year, fully entrenched in my first year of blogging, I decided I needed some sort of staple for my birthday, to see how I've changed over the years. I fell upon James Lipton's questionnaire from the end of Inside the Actor's Studio. So, being that I have just recently begun my downhill slide to 30, I thought I'd share this year's questionnaire (with last year's answers for perspective).

Phil (dramatic pause) what is your favorite word?

25: Asinine
26: Grace (as in that of a dancer)

What is your least favorite word?

25: Dude.
26: Job,

What turns you on?

25: Intelligent conversation.
26: Grace.

What turns you off?

25: Ignorance, and indifference to one’s own ignorance.
26: Bad and/or irrational arguments.

What sound do you love?

25: The ticking clock theme from 24.
26: Rain with a dash of distant thunder.

What sound do you hate?

25: My dog, Scamp, barking at the raccoons at three in the morning.
26: Wire hangers scraping against the metal crossbeam in my mother's fabric room.

What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?

25: Chicago Cubs’ play-by-play man. I’d say starting pitcher, but who are we kidding?
26: Well, being that I'm unemployed, I can pick anything here. Dramatic television writer.

What profession, other than yours, would you not like to participate in?

25: Anything involving tips. Never again.
26: We're gonna stick with last year's on that one.

What is your favorite curse word?

25: Bullshit or horseshit. Any word involving animal excrement I find quite delightful.
26: Bollocks.

Finally, if heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

“I suppose I have some explaining to do.” This answer will never change.

(Un)Intelligent Design

I have two family members in public office. This is the first time that I ever considered that I could cause them some trouble. I woke up this morning to an editorial in the Rock Island Argus entitled "What are the scientists all afraid of?" In the editorial, which you can hopefully read here he basically calls the scientific community cowards for not adjusting the scientific credo so that it can include intelligent design. Among his more absurd pronouncements is that science "will collapse, sooner or later, like the Soviet Union." Now, people who know me know that that kind of ludicrous shit cannot stand without rebuttal. So, after spending a couple hours at a hopeless job fair *sniff* this afternoon, I got to writing. Since I have serious doubts whether this will actually make it to print, I wanted to share it with you here. This is what the Argus' People's Pulpit will be getting in their inbox this afternoon :

William Rusher’s column of January 12 asked what the scientific community is so afraid of when it comes to intelligent design, and in doing so, he exemplified what terrifies scientists so much. Quite simply, the fear of those in the scientific community is that a philosophical and theological concept will rewrite the definition of what science is. Rusher argues for just that in his column. He chastises science for its adherence to “materialistic interpretations of reality.” He criticizes science for being an empirically based enterprise and not allowing supernatural explanations into the formula. He wants to change the rules of science, plain and simple, and he calls the scientific community cowardly for not doing so. It’s like Peyton Manning deciding to plant landmines in the backfield to keep a defense off his back, and then calling his opponents wimps for not allowing for more lenient interpretation of the rule book. You don't hear any scientists calling for ammendments to the Ten Commandments in order to make them more scientifically inclusive, so why should we twist the fudamentals of science to make room for faith-based explanations?

The rejection of intelligent design in the scientific community comes from an absence of compelling evidence, not some underlying political dogma. Rusher makes a number of baseless suggestions about the scientific community that completely misrepresents their worldview. First among them is that science has a worldview. It does not. The theories and laws that guide science are the result of years of testing and experimentation; science didn’t bend these conclusions to fit with what it believed to be true. If that were the case we’d all still be worried about falling off the edge of the Earth. Rusher also labels the scientific community as intrinsicly godless. Again, incorrect. At worst, the scientific community is, in practice, agnostic. There is no empirical data to support the existence of God, so scientists study independently of that faith-based variable. Still, there is no universal claim from scientists that there is no God. Certainly there are a number of atheists in the scientific community, just as there are in the world at large. But some of the best scientific minds also had deeply held religious beliefs. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds in history, often spoke eloquently and faithfully about God, and he is not the only scientist to do so. And despite Rusher’s claims, science does not show, without a doubt, that the universe had no beginning. It suspects. It has ideas. But it is constantly testing those ideas against empirical data. If science played by intelligent design’s rules, the scientific community’s work would be done. They could just give it all up to the "designer".

One of Rusher’s more naive suggestions is that intelligent design leaves the identity of said designer open. Of course, he admits, “one obvious possibility is God.” I’m curious what he believes the other identities to be. Zeus, perhaps? Or possibly some extra-terrestrial? Alf, maybe? Or those little chain-smoking aliens from Men in Black? Let’s ask Tom Cruise who he’d slip in as his cosmic architect. I’m sure Rusher would appreciate an open conversation on the topic. After all, we don’t want to be like those narrow-minded scientists. In truth, God is not one possibility for the intelligent designer in an open-ended spectrum; which God is where I.D. remains mute. Yet, this is where intelligent design becomes more dangerous than Rusher’s aww-shucks presentation. If we institute I.D. into schools, how long before the conversation turns to who, specifically, this designer is? Suddenly, science is no longer science. It is theology. And despite what Rusher seems to believe, that is a bad thing.

Intelligent Design does have its place in public schools, in philosophy or theology classes, but its inclusion in science classes further corrodes an American student body that is falling further and further behind the rest of the world in those “materialistic” areas like math and science. If we want to broaden that divide, we need only adopt a concept like intelligent design into our classrooms under the pretense of inclusiveness and well-roundedness. Despite Rusher’s prediction that science and its godless worldview “will collapse, sooner or later, like the Soviet Union,” I assure him that science and faith will have equal influence on the future of humanity, but that doesn’t mean we should change the nature of either so that we can bring the two together. That is what intelligent design is asking us to do, and that is what scientists and the faithful alike should be afraid of.

Welcome Back Scrubs

I don’t think it’s a big secret that I’ve been a tad depressed lately. My brother leaves for war. I lose my job. The usual holiday decompression. Not to mention the fact that the sun has been absentee for damn near a month here.

But this week marked a turning point, if only a temporary one. After taking a break for the holidays, the bulk of my favorite television shows return this week with new episodes. Now it’s probably unhealthy to find solace in TV, but it’s amazing how your life drags when you’re used to two hours of entertainment every night. It'll be nice to have those two hours back, and if I can get over my melancholy, it’ll give me something to write about nearly every day. Right now, it’s all about killing time, and the networks are going to give me a lot to do once things get moving.

The first show back I needed more than any of them because it reminds me how hard I can laugh: Scrubs, which is now airing two episodes a week on Tuesday nights. Though I haven’t watched Scrubs passionately since it’s second season (are you kidding? Tara Reid was on this show?), I’ve fallen back in love with the program with season 1 & 2 debuting on DVD. Though the characters feel a little different after missing two years, the show maintains its unique charm. Much like another dearly departed comedy favorite, Arrested Development, this show is slightly manic with its daydream cut-aways and bedside lunacy. Yet as a writer, there are moments of this show that can bring me to tears, both from laughing and from heartache.

Arrested Development, on what is likely its last episode, poked fun at some of the explanations for its anemic ratings. First and foremost, the family wasn’t likable or sympathetic. This is maybe half-true (but the show was still hilarious). Scrubs does not have this problem. The characters are all sympathetic. And that is the thing I truly admire about Scrubs -- hence the tears. It finds a way to be both extremely funny and extremely poignant. As madcap as the show can get, a hospital is a place where life and death come in equal doses, and the writers do not shy away from that fact.

Tonight’s second episode saw the furiously unsympathetic Dr. Kelso replacing a poorer man’s spot in a potentially life-saving drug trial with a wealthier one. Always the cartoonish villain Kelso has earned a reputation for whistling on the way to his car every evening, even after the ugliest of days. So when the show rolls to a close and Dr. Kelso walks to his car without the whistle, it breaks your heart. Scrubs pulls off these kind of moments without being cloying or saccharin, and these heartfelt moments make it that much better than its contemporaries. Life doesn't fit into Award show categories, Comedy or Drama. Thankfully, neither does Scrubs (which is probably why it never wins anything).

It Had to Happen

I didn't go to my first Cubs game until I was 22. It was a remarkable experience, if not a typical Cubs experience. Kerry Wood threw seven innings of one-hit baseball before turning the game over to the bullpen who quickly gave up ten runs in one inning to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yet one image lingers in my brain from that game. Sometime in the middle innings a Pirate (whose name I cannot remember) hit a rope off Kerry Wood that screeched straight towards my seat in the left-centerfield bleachers. It was a 0-0 game at that point, but this rocket was destined for the gap and would mean at least one run for the Pittsburgh.

Then a streak of blue skirted the outfield and swallowed the ball with a miraculous diving catch. That streak was Corey Patterson. Patterson finished that year looking very much like the heir apparent, hitting the snot out of the ball while becoming a fixture on Web Gems. The next year followed with an unfortunate knee injury. Then last year he returned with substandard numbers that eventually won him a trip to Triple-A.

Well, now that player who I will always identify with my first Cubs game is no longer a North Sider as this afternoon the Cubs deal Patterson to Baltimore. It makes me sad, but like Sosa a year ago, it had to be done. Since Corey will be in the American League (and for the time being will not return to torment us as so many ex-Cubs do), I wish him the best of luck and I look forward to seeing him on Web Gems this spring.

Black Site

My brother wanted to post some pictures on my blog, but the military has a pretty strict stance on sending pictures over e-mail. So, I gave him instructions on how to post on my blog. Unfortunately, in doing so I had to reveal this "black site" that I've been working on since my brother left. Somehow, this knowledge got around to my mother, and this evening I stumbled upon her reading my hidden blog.

When I got upset at the invasion, she got upset with me. She believes this site is about Andrew, and therefore she should have access to it. But it's not. It's about me.

So I watched her like a hawk all evening, and now I've temporarily transferred my address to this one. Later this weekend I'm going to set up a completely new blog (new profile) and transfer to that one.

"I'm a lot stronger than you guys think," my mother said. Like Andrew was telling me what was really going on over there and she was just getting the nice stuff. Actually my brother has been very candid about his experiences. I don't know what she expected to find on this site.

Oh bother.

See you tomorrow.

Same bat-time.
New bat-channel.

God Bless Pat Robertson

I get so few good belly laughs these days. But running across a certain article on MSNBC this morning... I haven't laughed that hard since... well, since the premiere of Scrubs on Tuesday. Pat Robertson has put his foot in his mouth so many times over the last five years he should just slap a Nike Swoosh on his lips and try to get an endorsement deal. First, 9/11 was the fault of the gays, and abortionists, and feminists, and all those other Ists that get right wingers chastity belts in a bunch (to be fair he tag-teamed with ray of sunshine Jerry Falwell on that one). Then, he recommended we assasinate a head of state. Next, he predicted fire and brimstone for Dover, Pennsylvania for ousting every school board member who voted Intelligent Design into the public school system. And then comes this gem regarding Ariel Sharon's recent health problems.

Not only is the statement itself priceless, but kudos to MSNBC.com for picking a winning screen grab from the 700 Club to properly contextualize more Robertson lunacy.

"I'm Just Calling To...."

Probably the biggest nuisance that has arisen during my brother's absence has been the new power granted telemarketers. Every time the phone rings, we're hoping it's Andrew. We can stand the let down if it's family or friends, but when it's some jackass from Legend Windows (who?) well, you'll have to forgive my intolerance. Wasn't there a law passed, not to long ago, that telemarketers can only call people with whom they've done previous business. Who the hell is Legend Windows? Making this nuisance even more intolerable is the international phone delay. Before Iraq, I used to hang up at the first moment of silence before a telemarketer clicked in. Now, if I do that I could be hanging up on my brother, and that would probably get me a shiv to the ribs from Mom (she's ruthless, you see). I don't know if the number of telemarketers has gone up, or if we're just hyper-aware of the phone calls, but it seems like they're getting out of hand again. Again, where is that legislation?

Although there are those moments when the sun shines in, where I get the opportunity to turn the tables on the telemarketers for a brief moment.

"Is there an Andrew Rockwell there?"

"No, he's not here right now."

"Could you tell me when he'll be back?"

"Well, he's in Iraq right now, and we haven't heard from him in two weeks, but I'm sure when he has a moment between mortars and hostile fire he'll be thrilled to learn Visa has preapproved him yet again."

Click.

And then I do the Snoopy Dance.

Ten Things I Learned From Today's IM Conversation with My Brother

1. My brother recently shaved his head and was told that he and I look exactly alike...

2. Ergo, there must be some special kind of herb growing in the desert that we don't know about.

3. CNN sometimes has the best intel, but they can still see a helicopter shot down when there wasn't one. Did you catch that whoops yesterday, Joel?

4. The unit Andrew and Co are releaving just left. So as of tomorrow (God help us) he's in charge.

5. Haji already calls him Rock everywhere he goes.

6. Cousin Brian gets the honor of "Best Package" so far, and we're going to assume that my brother meant the one sent through the mail. (Was that too blue for a family site?)

7. Haji smokes hurt the throat.

8. The Chicago Cubs have lead the majors in strike-outs for the past five years. And we got only one post season appearance to speak of. (On a similar note, quote of the night from Scrubs last night: "How depressing is it being you? Would you equate it to being a lifelong Cubs fan or being born with no lips?")

9. 95% of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) won't penetrate American armor, but they will give you a headache.

10. Pictures over e-mail. A no-no.

Also, my brother and I have worked out a way for him to post pictures on this site. So, look for some of those in coming days (although, as he said "Days seem to turn into weeks here for some reason").

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It strikes me that I have some anxiety about falling asleep lately. There's this underlying sensation that I have not accomplished enough, that another day has passed with no meaning found, that morning will arrive with no reason for me to drag myself out of bed other than sleep funk and halitosis.

So I have nothing left to do with my day. I'm exhausted and sleep-deprived, yet I can't pull myself to the bedroom. What is that?

King Kong

Roger Ebert, on his syndicated television program, called King Kong this year's greatest entertainment. It's so not. I've sat on the fence about this film since I saw it several weeks ago, but now I'm taking a stand. This is not a good film. Peter Jackson, much like George Lucas before him, has so many neat toys at his disposal that he feels he must use every one. The original King Kong was 80 minutes long; Jackson's version is 187 minutes of bloated unnecessary action set pieces amongst a handful of truly touching scenes between Naomi Watts and the remarkable Kong. Those were the longest three hours I've spent in a theater since Titanic (and this coming from a guy who did the Lord of the Rings marathon).

Special FX are great, but for every film that uses them correctly, there are many others that fall in love with their digital creations and let them rule the roost. Special FX mean nothing if they're not in the service of a story. Titanic is still a turd that won't sink fast enough. Shock and Awe couldn't save Star Wars from becoming a shame for kids nurtured by its original fantasy. And King Kong suffers the same fate.

The fact that these enormous action scenes take place between scenes of transcendent filmmaking only makes their superfluousness more glaring. Naomi Watts is amazing in this film. Every scene she shares with the great big ape are captivating to watch, both for the technical achievement of Kong and the Watts's performance. But these scenes are too few, and they're too often spoiled by giant bugs or stampeding brontosauri or Jack Black.

Jackson pummels us with action. Pummels. So much so that when the one action scene with emotional resonance arrives, the ascension of the Empire State Building, I was so burnt out that I just wanted it all to end. I didn't weep for Kong when he fell, as apparently many critics did. This is a flawed film. Deeply flawed. Which is a shame, because like I said, Naomi Watts is amazing and deserves some accolades for her work here. But I can't recommend this film.

If you want the year's greatest entertainment, I have two words for you: Batman Begins.

Stream-Of-Consciousness

It's going on 3 AM, January 1st, 2006. Since losing my job my sleep schedule has fallen back to that with which I am most comfortable, that of the night owl. The week following Christmas has seen a chilly stasis about the house. My mom is off work until Tuesday, and I am off work indefinitely. So we hung about the homestead -- she with her quilts, me with a few video games I got for Christmas.

I haven't played video games in years, not avidly anyway. Suddenly, it's all I can do to get through the day. Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog have become the keepers of my sanity (sadly, my dignity cannot be salvaged through video games -- Morgan Webb, be damned). If nothing else, these games are marvellous time killers.

Today saw an attack near Baqubah. My mother caught the tail end of a report over the radio and sent me out into cyberspace to get the full story. Everything's ok. But I've never typed CNN.com faster.

"Don't spin me," I told my brother before he left. "Tell mom whatever you need to, but you tell me the truth, however you see it."

What a stupid request. As if I am any better equipped to handle what he tells me than my mother. Everybody around me has something to fall back on. My mom believes he's protecting the country. Ok. I don't. My aunt has her faith. I so don't. I have Ratchet and Clank. And the cozy blanket that is a nihilistic worldview.

While my brother and I have become more similar with age, the one thing we still differ on is fear. My brother is fearless. I can paralyze myself with overthought and anxiety. My brother will become the type of man who can change the world. I'll most likely be the one who talks about how it should be changed. Big bark. I look at him and I see passion and drive. I can't find that in the mirror these days.

I talked to Andrew briefly this weekend, before dozens of family members clammored for their piece of the Trans-Atlantic telephone pie, and asked him how he was. No spin allowed.

"I'm all right," he croaked. I haven't been able to shake the sound of his voice. My brother has been changed forever. I think we tend to forget that. We all worry about the life-or-death of his situation. We forget that the brother or son we put on that plane is gone for good. He will not return the same.

Shit.

Nighty night.

Melancholy Holidays

I could write a small novel on this most recent holiday, but I don't want you fine people to think I have nothing better to do than sit in front of a computer all day long (Nay, it is the television that is my glowing comfort). So, here are my Christmas highlights -- bullet point style.

-- Lunch with Jasmyne -- lovely and thoughtful friend.

-- Documenting the creation of the Deines' first snow-penguin (see picture) while Brian enlightened Eileen on the subject of yellow snow.

-- Breaking down Mac's pool table (yes, it's the end of an era) and transferring it to Mike's developing bachelor pad.

-- Finding a way to get Andrew into the Cousin's picture (and he looked better than all of us).

-- Giving Uncle Joel his Thanksgiving picture.

-- Not crying, no matter how many times I had to hide in the bathroom.

-- 24 vol. 4, and Scrubs Vol. 2. Of course I had to mention some presents. It's Christmas.

-- Playing hopscotch with Eileen. I think she was crushing on me a little.

-- Using my brief time on the phone with Andrew to talk about the potential Mark Prior trade. Also, finally being able to ask him how he was, and hearing his response.

-- Being the first out at the Deines poker game, then coming back like a champ at the Rockwells on Christmas Day. Constantly raking.

-- Finding new and imaginative ways of blaming my Uncle Danny for my being laid off.

-- Bears v. Packers on Christmas Day. Beautiful win.

-- Having a five and six-way conversation on religion and politics with Norm, Dee, and their girls.

-- Learning that the best way to prevent religiosity in your children is to send them to Catholic school.

-- Finding out how much I can sweat standing still when Norm badgered me about my opinion of his daughters (for the record, yes, your girls are gorgeous, Norm. But I've also seen them in diapers, so it takes a minor adjustment to realize one of them is old enough to drink.)

-- Two families (Rockwells and Andersons crammed behind my recliner as I attempt to take our picture with the camera facing me. I would love to post that picture, unfortunately I ended up looking like Uncle Fester strapped to an electric chair. And after my admission in the previous bullet point, can you honestly expect me to volunteer such a horrifying representation of myself? If I had that little pride I would have kept the White Trash Stache (is it wrong that I kind of miss it?)

Of course all of these highlights are simply my effort to find something good in the first Christmas where I sat alone on my parents' couch to open presents. There was no stocking of silly Happy Meal toys. No evenly distributed presents. No snarky ribbing of mom and her militaristic Christmas tree ettiquette. We burned through that experience as fast as we could, as if the faster we went the less we would notice Andrew's absence. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Andrew, I miss you. If the amount of misdirected anger around here is any indication, I miss you a lot. But I'm proud of you and I admire your courage. Stay smart and come home safe so you and I can once again sit on the couch and give mom some shit; she needs it.

Merry Christmas, Baby Bro. And here's to a speedy 2006.

Care Package

This is funny. Literally, two seconds after finishing up my previous post about jealousy I was hit with such a tremendous dose of it that I went straight past petty envy to seething anger. So, let's just look at that last post as being about my gratitude for my friend Jasmyne, rather than the whole jealousy thing.

This will be my jealousy post. I've been going slightly stir-crazy since I lost my job. My afternoon with Jasmyne and my Uncle Joel were temporary antidotes, but barely 24 hours later their affect has been negated.

This week leading up to Christmas, my mother has made the holidays all about Andrew. That's only natural. He's just gotten to Iraq. His absence here is glaring. We all miss him. But where I differ from my mother (in kind, and certainly degree) is, for her, Christmas has to be all about Andrew... for everybody else... all the time.

A few of the gifts I put together for my family were 8X10 photographs of my brother with various people at Thanksgiving. I didn't get a picture with every person who stepped through the door, but I got a few. And I'm sure the people who I got pictures of will appreciate the gift. But seeing this, my mother got it in her head that everybody needed a similar picture with Andrew.

So, I was given a handful of prints to take to Walgreens this morning to make copies of, but there was one minor difference. The pictures I printed and framed were taken with a thousand dollar digital camera at its highest pixel rate that I touched up in Photoshop. The pictures my mother sent with me to Walgreens were taken with a $5.99 disposable from Wal-Mart. These photos make Civil War etchings look hi-res. I understand the sentiment, but the presentation is (to my perfectionist eyes) almost offensive.

Plus they're all just things. Things. My mother is losing her mind about things. Like a photo is necessary to remember my brother. My brother is on my mind every waking moment, and I don't have one photo anywhere around of him. I don't need one. I don't need a reminder. He's in my heart. And nobody who gets those shitty, disposable camera blow-ups are going to need them either.

But I digress.

As I was writing my previous post, my mother came home from an afternoon of shopping and ripped into my dad for not going to the post office for more boxes to mail to my brother. We have two full boxes already sitting in our house, yet to be mailed, and my mother was absolutely furious that my father (who has slept most of the afternoon and is sick as a dog) did not go get more. Just based on her weekly tally thus far, my brother is going to return home with thousands of dollars of books and DVDs and other tripe that there is no way he will be able to use (he does have a full-time job over there).

My mother has seemed to equate these care packages with proof of her love. If Andrew doesn't get as many packages as the other guys, or as good of stuff, she's going to feel in her mind that he feels unloved. It's completely irrational. My father and I don't have those concerns. He knows we love him and never for a moment will he doubt that while he's over there. That's why we don't write him e-mails every day. That's why we aren't pulling our hair out over these packages. And that's why my fuse is getting shorter and shorter with my mother's impatience with anybody who isn't the zealot she is.

The row between my parents was only a primer for what finally set me off (in my own repressed, low-key way). My brother spent three hours at Wal-Mart this afternoon. She returned home with at least ten bags of shit, and no wonder she threw a fit about not having enough boxes. All ten of those bags were going over to Iraq.

But wait (INSERT GIANT RED X HERE), there's more.

As I walked through the dining room, I saw a row of eight gift bags lined up on the table in front of my mother with the names of the men from my brother's unit written on the side. As I felt my stomach turn to lead I watched as my mother carefully sorted a table full of gum, candy, playing cards, etc. and dropped them delicately, one-by-one, into each bag. I scoured the table and saw that this wasn't some random collection of things. My mother put a lot of thought and care into what she dropped into those bags. She spent an afternoon gathering the materials, God knows how long actually planning the whole thing. I can deal with the overstuffed boxes Andrew will be getting over the next year, but something about the love and care my mother was putting into these unnecessary packages for his men -- I lost it.

And again, it wasn't about the things. My mother did all of her shopping for the entire family in two hours last night, so I'm certain there won't be anything stuffed under our M.I.A. Christmas tree that shares a tenth of the thought and care those gift bags got. My presents will be pulled off my half-assed list with all the passion of a refrigerator post-it. No imagination. No desire. Just something to cross of the weekly to-do.

It hit me tonight that I need to leave this house. I don't care if I continue to live paycheck to paycheck, with no chance of putting money into savings. My mother is a zombie, essentially spending the year in Iraq with my brother. I can deal with being ignored, but not to my face. As much as I can, I'm living this year aware of my brother, but not chained to him. I have to do other things or I'll lose my mind. My mother is the opposite. She can't do other things, or she'll feel that she's neglecting her baby.

Hmm. Irony.

Fuck. Happy Holidays.

Talking

Yesterday I had the pleasure of enjoying a rare lunch with the smartest girl I know, my dear friend Jasmyne. Naturally, coming off an earth-rattling e-mail from my brother, much of the early conversation revolved around those developments (thankfully our conversation did turn to less grave things like her allergy to the words "tits" and "bootleg" and my one Christmas wish, cuddle time with Kristen Bell). It was the first time I've had the chance to talk (face-to-face) with a friend about the changes in my life and my family since my brother left. As always, her insight was invaluable.

I have ties to many smart people. After lunch with Jasmyne, I spent three hours talking politics with my grandfather and Uncle Joel. I'm sure I could do the same with any number of my relatives. But it's always ideals and rhetoric and philosophy, which is remarkably impersonal despite our passions. My conversations with Jasmyne are different though. They're conversations about people, often about me.

I have a tendency to hide my feelings from even my nearest and dearest, and several years ago my friendship with Jasmyne was borne of that self-revelation. In the same moment she crushed my romantic advances, she became the first peer with whom I felt comfortable talking. In a peculiar way, I often viewed people's worry as condescension, like somehow people who offered me advice felt they were above me. Who are they to give me advice? I recognized the error in that judgment talking with her yesterday; sometimes people just care about you.

At one point in our lunch, Jasmyne asked me a rather perilous question: Was I jealous of the attention being paid my brother? Two years ago, I would have given an answer with more spin than an 80's DJ, but when I don't have to worry about somebody leaving me at the table or not returning my phone calls I can be more candid.

The answer is yes, but as I said to Jasmyne, it's not a "Look at me" sort of jealousy. Though I could never have walked the path my brother did, his life has had a consistant trajectory since he was 18 and got accepted into West Point. Two years my junior, my brother is doing something with his life, something honorable at that. When he leaves the Army (if he does), he will not have these years of transition, wondering what he's going to do. He'll have a job right out of the gates that will likely pay double what I've made in my best year (economically). Meanwhile, I have blown my savings during my year in Florida and have returned to my parent's home (no longer mine) to replenish my bank account and see if maybe I could finally find some direction for my life. Long story short, I'm not jealous of the attention; my brother deserves all the attention he gets. I'm jealous because I don't have anything remotely comparable in my life that would be worthy of attention. I remain a wandering dreamer, while my brother has his head down charging into the future.

There are many things in that confession that I wouldn't care for any girl I was courting to know. Jealousy is a particularly ugly trait, not to mention the admission of a lack of career direction and personal pride. So, it's hard for me to put into words how remarkable I find it to stare across a table at one of the most stunningly beautiful girls I've met and admit these things without worrying about how it makes me look or what she'll think of me. No longer worried about dating her (thank God her boyfriend Andy rescued me from that perilous pursuit), pretense becomes superfluous, and I'm a streamlined kind of guy. If there's no need for it, cut it.

At the beginning of what I hope is a therapeutic three days with friends and family, my lunch with Jasmyne was a great primer. I don't doubt if aftershocks of our conversation show up for weeks to come.

Smart, smart girl.

On a Dime

A little over a week ago I was contemplating a post discussing how frighteningly mundane life is. I didn't expect complacency to nestle into our happy home so comfortably, so soon. I was in the shower, where much of my best thinking is done (note to self: take longer showers), and I realized that nothing had changed since my brother went off to Iraq. We see Andrew so infrequently throughout the year that standing in the shower, gelling up with Prell, it felt like things were as they had always been. Andrew off in Georgia, or New York, or Hawaii. The family at home.

Well, things changed quickly with two e-mails. In the first, my brother documented the mortar attack that welcomed him to Iraq. They quickly fled from their plane to a bunker, but not before my brother made note of the bullet strikes alongside the AC-130 that dropped them into the war. As horrifying as this could have been -- the first attempts on my brother's life -- Andrew coloured the experience with a jocular bemusement that distanced us (and probably himself) from it.

But no amount of tongue-in-cheek could dispell the horror that befell my family with Andrew's next e-mail. His first mission in Iraq started as a retrieval of a High Value Target and ended up as a complete ambush of US and Iraqi forces. Despite the absense of any US casualties, the Iraqi forces were decimated. The bodies were piled into the back of a pickup truck and dumped in front of the aid station, where my brother spent the rest of his day doing blood transfusions, and IVs, as well as stitching up the wounded. As my brother put it "I must have aged 25 years in a matter of 25 minutes."

Our house has been crippled ever since that e-mail. At the tail end of it, my brother promised to call that evening or the next day, so my mother has hunkered down in the living room with her quilts for the past two days (Andrew's deadline has since expired), occasionally taking breaks to knock out a game of sudoku online. In a wonderful twist of the knife, we received an inordinate number of telemarketing calls -- a few even asking for Andrew. It's a special kind of heartache when it comes courtesy of Spanky McG.E.D. from Sprint.

I empathize with what my brother is going through. This house is similarly on edge, but instead of mortars and gunfire we have doorbells and telephones. The night after we got the ambush e-mail, I had trouble sleeping. It was nothing special, just one of those nights. Somewhere around one o'clock in the morning, as I finally started to make headway on dreamland, I heard a car door slam outside. My eyes flew open, and I lay completely still in my bed, waiting... waiting... for that ring. After a minute or so I got up and headed inconspicuously to the kitchen, telling my mother I was merely getting a glass of water. In truth, I was going to make sure there wasn't a car parked in front of our house. There wasn't, but I could still hear the doorbell waiting as I walked back to my bedroom.

The next day a friend of Andrew's came to visit my mother. She knocked. Nobody ever knocks at my house, so my anxiety immediately hit 10. When I got to the door I saw a car on the street, one I didn't recognize. It all added up to "not good." I was awfully friendly to Brandi when she walked in the door. I don't know if I've shared more than one or two words with her in my life, but I was schoolgirl chatty when I welcomed her inside. She must have thought I was nuts, but really I was just thankful she wasn't wearing green.

The mood has changed, and I didn't expect it to be so swift. I thought my brother would have time to get comfortable, as we got comfortable, in war. But we dove in headfirst, and we're already choking on the saltwater.

I've called my brother's deployment The Longest Year. Well, The Longest Year just got a lot longer.

G.I. Joe and Mr. Jolie

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in the past couple of days. It's true. I have been away, and honestly it's cause I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say to a bunch of guys who were thrilled, THRILLED at getting every Brad Pitt movie on DVD. Now, I like Ocean's 11 as much as the next guy, but Cool World? There's just no excuse for that. Although that might explain why he got 150 DVD's for a C-note (a hundred dollars for those of you not down).

Seriously though, I should say something about what's really important here. And that's the fact that my brother is finally going to partake and that holiest of holies... 24. Finally, after much grandstanding my brother and I can share in Jack Bauer's many adventures. Now, if I could just get a certain aunt and uncle (you know who you are) to finish up season 3 and get on to season 4. It's the best yet.

I suppose some of you would expect me to say something about my brother's trials in his first week in Iraq, but I don't need to.

He said it best: "I'm invincible."

I'd ask any of you who know him well to argue with his assessment.

Babysitter

From time to time I've wondered whether I resent all the attention my brother is getting. I'm increasingly impatient with people who feel the need to involve me with every single thing they're doing for my brother. It's absolutely necessary that I collect newspaper articles for my brother. It's absolutely necessary that I choose the books to put into his care package. It's absolutely necessary that I help my grandfather pick cigars to send my brother's squad.

You're all adults people. These are your projects. They're not family projects. Andrew knows who is responsible for all these things. He knows that Mom is the care package diva, just as he knows that Dad has to mail it for her. I picked out his books and wrote a little preface in each one, but Andrew knows full well that my mom is going to be a slavedriver with these packages.

I know everybody has to deal with this year in their own way, but damn I wish they didn't all seem to conflict with each other.