Today I worked out in the vinyard tying up shoots to the guide wires. It was almost chilly and I had to don a long sleeved shirt to ward off the cold and wet. This weekend is the 20th anniversary celebration of the winery and it should be a big event. My parents bought color ads in all the papers, and while watching the Weather Channel local forcast today a streaming banner came across the bottom of the screen advertising the event. I pointed it out to Mother and she was like, oh yeah, we paid for the air time...we need this to be a big success.

Much of the afternoon was spent with my parents griping about the proposed excise tax on beer wine and soda. "What's next, a tax on happiness? Why not tax McDonalds? Last I checked heart doctors still recommend a glass of red wine in the evenings..."

I did have a nice stroll this afternoon. The house next door is a old huge brick mansion with a slate roof, used as a civil war hospital back long ago. The neighbor lady was nice and gave me a tour of her new 7 car garage filled with vintage mustangs(there was a 1968 Mustang fastback ala Steve McQueen in "Bullitt" that almost made me have an orgasm), and a tour of her heirloom rose gardens and nursery. This weekend she opens for business selling roses to coincide with the 20th anniversary cellebration at my folk's place, not that she needs the money, her husband sold his dot com before the bubble burst, "just a hobby gone mad" she explained. With the rain and nothing but roses as far as the eye could see, I felt like I was in the English countryside.

I wish it'd stop raining though...I had to fire up the wood stove (my only source of heat) this evening. Thank God for the forecast this weekend, partly cloudy and 80 degrees. Should be nice for event this weekend. I'm told I'm to be in chrage of parking...which essentially means I'll wave cars in one direction while they park in the opposite direction.

My mom's fattest cat is down with me tonight...28lbs...so fat she can't even clean her rear end; a process that requires exam gloves and baby wipes. Every time she gets up to walk I feel like there should be tuba music playing. I'm told her weight is a genetic predisposition, but I can't help but feel it may have more to do with the 5 pound can of tuna kept in the fridge that's her "special treat."

A lot has happened recently that I just haven't had the time, or energy, to update about. I got into a little accident with my car and of course being broke and without a roof over my head my insurance had naturally lapsed the week before. I left a 6 inch scratch in some guys front fender and he was none to please. Recognizing my car in the library parking lot a few days later he confronted me with his suburban psudo-gang and demanded I gave him some moeny right then and there. I explained if I had any I'd be sleeping in a motel and not in my car but that if he got an estimate I'd try to raise the money to repair his car. Later that night he smashed in my rear windshield.

My parents figured it might be a good idea for me to get out of town while the police sort the whole thing out. They agreed to repair my windshield and get me insurance in exchange for working at their winery 30 miles south of me. They even provided me with a place to sleep; a rustic bunkhouse resembling a studio apartment they'd just built onto their barn. It has plumbing and a full kitchen and some rather decent furnishings. At the end of a long day i can relax and rub aloe into my farmers tan, while watching a movie and snuggling with one of the vinyard cats. It's quite peiceful living in the middle of a vinyard, especially with the mist and fireflies.I have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and work like a field hand(picture Scarlett O'hara after Sherman marched through Tara) but it's okay for now, and I've already worked off most of what I owe my parents already.

And I guess the good thing is I'm getting closer with my mom. Next week we're headed to Orlando to check in on my Grandma. And we're talking about going to the Dylan concert next month, if we get the time.

So I guess things are good for now, except for the strong thunderstorm passing overhead, pelting so hard on the currogated tin roof I can barely hear myself think. Off to bed now, at 8:30PM like an old person.

I met this girl at Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute...

My counsellor thinks it isn't a ridiculous idea that I sell my remaining possesions and leave the country for a bit.

"If I'm going to be homeless, wouldn't it be better to do so in a socialist country with better sceenery?"

"I don't see why not...if you're going to sleep on a park bench why not do so in Picadilly Circus, make the odd quid by washing windscreens at the roundabout..."

Don't laugh...I'm going to the British Embassy tomorrow to get travel visas...

Before I sign off, here's your moment of Zen.

There's so much emotional pain I'm going through just now, and i wish i could write it all out for the world, but the words won't come, or aren't adequate to express the entirety of the situation. Inside a little voice says "write, get it all out," while another pleads, "no, not yet..."

Excuse the silence for now...

I'm doing ok. Everyone is being really supportive. There's not really much going on in my life I'd feel comfortable exposing to the world. I still suffer from a lot of shame and guilt over the recent past, but I'm doing my best to move on. I won't say I'm happy, but the possibility for happiness is there.

"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find."
-Walt Witman.

I'm doing OK now. I talked to God or whoever it is last night. While staring at the stars I listed everything I was thankful for. The warm weather, the early sunrise soon to come, the National Gallery, the place I spend my days, the British Invasion. The conversation was decidedly one-sided, but it made me feel better all the same.

I'm going to start to write again; to get out whatever it is in my head I need to stop holding in.

More later...

I'm in a crazy house with smoking privaleges and internet access...life just doesn't get better.

Life's OK for the moment.

I'm hoping he'll email me back.

I hope the government will show me some love when I turn in my disability application.

I'm hoping lifewill be beautiful again.

I'm so over talking to psychologists...

Three pairs of pajama bottoms, three full zip turtleneck sweaters(from Target): $82.45

Brooks Brothers calf skin slippers: $85.00

Carton of Marlboro Lights: $32.75

Circa 2003 Burberry Top Coat: $675.00

Modern Library Edition of "Remembrance of Things Past" by Marcel Proust: $24.95

Being packed for your commitment to a state mental health facility: PRICELESS

Operation Kyle Interrupted is a go Monday. Life just keeps getting better...

...the intervention was a fiasco.

If Obama were elected I think I'd be OK. It's hard to explain...

All I can offer is that my situation has gotten exponentially worse since the 2000 election...but then, maybe it's just me getting older and learning life isn't what I thought it'd be.

Can I just let my past be what it is, deal with the reality of now, and hope for better things ahead? I don't know if I have it in me.

I feel so ridiculous...

I haven't been updating lately, as there's not much I feel like sharing. It's not that I'm trying to be antisocial. Indeed, I really wish I could put myself out there just now, but just now I don't have the desire.

Bare with me please.

I need to figure out what to do, and get some anti-depressants; not necesisarily in that order.

Like a lot disabled veterans(realizing people are comming home from the Middle East missing limbs, I use the term loosely), life is pretty dificult for me just now. There's a lot I could write about, but I don't really feel like I have the emotional energy to go over the past few months, years for that matter, and try to write an intellegent essay on what it all means(perhaps nothing?).

Things take time right?

I'm not sure this whole Northern Virginia, living with the brother's family, thing is going to go. Ever since I got home I've be awash with anxiety and depression. The town I grew up in in the outlying suburbes exploded in the 15 years or so I'd been gone and nothing looks familiar. Life has pretty much been a busy sequence of searching for a decent job and health insurance. I'm not really happy with this environment and situation, but the rational side of my brain tells me I should get used to it given enough time and that perhaps it's good for me to step outside of my comfort zone. But I dunno...I suppose I'll see. I'm almost sure being here and around family is good for me, because I'm not enjoying it...

In the interest of taking care of myself, I'm spending Saturday in D.C. at the National Gallery of Art. After 3 months of toilet humor and government accomidations as the norm, I feel like I deserve a bit of beauty and culture.

I'm out of practice with journaling, so excuse the disjunct nature of this post. OK that's all back to it...

Tomorrow's the day. I'll be at Chicago O'hare Airport drinking a 5 dollar beer at the air port bar in a Navy sweatsuit and combat boots(classy huh?) because I'm on my way home!!!

I'll be staying with my brother and his family for a while up in Northern Virginia for a while untill I get my act together. I'm nevervous as hell, but I'm also hopeful. Thanks to everyone for supporting me. This chapter in my life is over as of tomorrow evening...

Expect a long entry to follow.

I'm being medically discharged from the Navy after 3.5 months in bootcamp. It's a long story...

I should be nervous and freaked out, but I'm not. Many thanks to those who wrote to me, and one special man whose letters made the whole thing barable. I'll have more freedom soon and will update at further length about when exactly I'll be leaving and what I'll be doing.

My best to you all!

I just talked to my Dad and complained about what a bastard my step-dad is being. It was a bit like preaching to the choir though. I was pleasantly surprised to find though, that he did in fact not vote for Bush last time. Being from Texas, he has no love for a Texan that can go bankrupt in the oil business. I said if he cared about me at all, he'd vote for Obama in the fall, because now even the republicans are not funding the VA hospitals...so much for being the party of the military. He said he liked McCain to a certain extent, and I do too kinda, but we both agreed he needed to stop being such a pussy though and be his own man.

I wish life were different. I'd be interviewing Obama two months from now for 16 Blocks Magazine if I weren't joining the service. Of course the big break always comes after you've chosen another path in life. This will be good for me though, I think I've made the best choice. Well really I made the only choice, it was this or homelessness, sleeping in my car, and scrounging for food. Still, I can think of worse courses of action to resort to.

I can' help but be drawn back to one of the first novels I read as an undergraduate back in my Freshman English course back in 1998, Catch 22. Irony seems o be a big part of my life now...not like when someone says something is ironic, but doesn't understand what the true meaning of the word is; when the actual meaning and the implied meaning are the opposite. Monday, I have to stand at attention and swear once again to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. My current boss has done more to trample the liberties promised as part of the social contract implied by the aforementioned document. Also I must swear to not commit treason, however the fact that this entire country was formed by rich white men, well informed by the enlightenment literature of the day, committing treason against England, doesn't escape my sense of irony either. Do u think it's possible to be an intellectual and a sailor at the same time? Like Russel Crowe in Master and Commander, who plays Bach on the violin when not battling Napoleonic French Privateers? The older I get the less life makes sense; and yes, even at the age of 27(almost 28) I can sense and see how I'm becoming older, as more and more Gen-Y kids take over the haunts and lifestyle I once lived for.

I went to the pub one last time tonight, to have a couple of beers and deal with the stress. And though drinking is never a positive way to deal with stress or emotion, it turned out to be a positive thing. I got to see why I'm serving one last time; a bunch of college kids, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon out of bottles, watching baseball on the big screen and talking bullshit, while the entire atmosphere was completed with Nirvana's Unplugged Album playing in the periphery.

I want things to work out, and I think they will.

This'll be my last post for 3 months or so. I wish you all the best. Good night and good luck.

Of course having someone that's behind me, that sees eye to eye with me about 75% of the time, that is my number one enthusiast, that appreciates what I do for them and makes a big deal out of it(no matter how little trouble it is or glad I am to do it), someone I can be close to emotionally if not physically...well, it makes the prospect of at least 5 years in the "World's Greatest Navy" moderately tolerable.

It's nice when someone gets you, and takes you as you are. And it's nice to have someone to write emotionally charged love letters to, that you have to read between the lines to understand, from basic.



All this makes it OK. And the bungalow at the end of my personal Odyssey will be well worth it. Sometimes fulfilling simple tastes, can be as hard as fulfilling the extravagant ones.

VPI Kyle (9:55:44 PM): i originally wanted to be an english teacher, but freshman year i saw columbine on tv
VPI Kyle (9:56:02 PM): i said screw that, i'm not going to work in a war zone and get paid nothing
VPI Kyle (9:56:13 PM): ooops, i guess thats how i'm going to end up anyhow
ragtimematt (9:56:25 PM): LOL... I wasn't going to say anything.