"Welcome to Fort Benning, home of the Infantry. Follow me!"

slowly the pen touches paper...

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart: God darnit Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

This Blazing Saddles quote best captures my mindset at the moment. Here I type, in just my boxers, at 1225am early on a Veteran's Day morning. I feel articulate, I feel passionate, I feel full of thoughts and words and life, and yet I feel trivial. I am now at Fort Benning, GA, tucked away into the southwest corner of the state in another strange land, where you can encounter a bobcat on a run and where the Cracker Barrel's floor plans seem to have been stolen from every other Cracker Barrel.

A three day weekend lies ahead to begin my Airborne School experience at a turtle's pace. I've been surfing the facebook for about two hours now, seeking my daily dose of meaningful human contact. Had plenty of time to think yesterday during my 11 hours of driving, and I thought that when I got to this blog, I'd have plenty upon which to pontificate.

Most centers around the fact that I at 23 years old, am now two years older than my father was when he began courting my mother. This occured to me as I hung with my dear parents in Milwaukee over the last week. Now I'm not wigging out or frantic for a life partner of my own. No, none of that bullshit. Instead, what I've been meditating on deeply is that I am now an adult.

I have always considered my parents as only my parents, some kind of distant entity with whom I had no frame of reference, and it blows my mind to consider my father, younger than I at the time, finding his wife, effectively transitioning his life to the phase where I entered stage left. My life, I suppose, is just different from his, but the fact remains: I am adult of 23 years and can reasonably say that I must share a similar perspective of life that he had after graduating college. Mine is something like, "Holy shit, I am an adult and college is over" His could not have been much different. It absolutely tickles me, the reality of my father and mother, around my age now, having me. It's as if for the first time I can share a perspective of life with them, that of adulthood. I feel that I am in the driver's seat of my own life! By driver's seat I mean of course driving a Segway down an icy 4 lane parkway the wrong way without a helmet and realizing I have a low battery.

What confounds me, though, is how quickly and suddenly this realization struck me. The ages of 19-22 came and went like a blur, and for the most part college protected me from such thoughts of my mortality and inevitable maturity like a butterflies' cocoon. Nothing gold can stay, I reckon...


Getting focused on my army training, or at least thinking real hard about it. Some serious months ahead for me, with the eyes on the prize of ranger school and a probable deployment. Ran a hard 8 today and hope to road march 15 miles tomorrow. Maybe a trip to see Hotlanta to relax? Oh my the possibilities.

So much more has been on my mind, mostly day dreams of love and life. Maybe when i'm in more of a sharing mood. Happy 20th Birthday, Matt Navien. May you rest in peace in heaven.

Me and my cousins in the picture at my house in Milwaukee. Addison in my ruck sack, Piper waiting for a ride, Carrie Fee smiling in the background.

que les vaya muy bien, chicos. Peace.

Dan