?

I got nothin'.

Its Hard To Keep A Kitten Off A Keyboard

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

He Takes A Cider Drink, He Takes A Lager Drink

I'm amazed at how stupid I am sometimes. Then I look at the people around me and feel better. I can forgive myself for failing to correct a (the?) massive deficiency in my exiled existence because while it took me so long to see this simple solution, no one else did. None of my platoon-mates, or fellow vets stateside I've talked to, none of my high educated and very creative minded friends, not even the criminal elements of my peer-hood that I converse with infrequently said to me; "Nappi, why don't you...".

Why don't I make Pruno?
Yes, Pruno.
Prison Wine.

It hit me like a fucking Mack truck full of Vino and it took god damn long enough considering the frequent comparisons we make between Iraq and the penal system. But once the idea started to congeal in my mind there was no stopping it. And as we speak trashbags full of rotten fruit, moldy bread, and so much sugar are fermenting in the harsh sun of the Middle East. In three days it should be ready for tasting, which is something I dread almost as much as I look forward to. In the mean time I'll continue to check on it often and beat myself up for not thinking of this in February.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Out here I have pretty much only two jobs. I either ride around in the back of a MRAP, then get out and walk around with a machine gun, or I ride around on top of a MRAP with a machine gun. The subtleties of the difference may be lost upon those who haven't had the pleasure of working closely with MRAP's for extended periods of time and for that I call you lucky. But they exist and the longer you do one job the more you long for the other.

But sometimes when I'm sitting up in the gun I truly enjoy it. I love cloudy, overcast days where the air is dead and even when we're driving no wind seems to blow across my face. I love driving in the mornings before it gets ungodly hot, with the sun hitting me full in the face and the air smelling of wet grass. And I love it at night, when the roads are empty and the towns are all dark. I can see the stars so clearly it reminds me of cold nights in the fields outside of Shippensburg spent looking up, and of standing pre-dawn guard shifts on top of dunes in the desert marveling at the universe.

And sometimes when its none of those, when the sun is trying to burn a hole in my helmet and the wind blowing in my face feels like a furnace a good song will come up on my iPod and the road will even out a little. The ride gets a little smoother, I lean back in my swing-seat and I light a cigarette. Its then I'm reminded of how good life is, and how when this is over I'll never cruise along a desert road on top of a 20-ton armored truck with an 7.62mm automatic weapon in my hand. So I might as well get my money's worth now.

DoubleThink Isn't Always A Bad Thing

I turned 22 yesterday. And with that in mind I sat down to write. I wrote a great deal about dumb shit and upon reading it I deleted every word. (Well no that's a lie. I kept the first sentence.) I deleted it because it was stupid.
I don't know anything about this world or my life. I can't be 100% sure of anything when I sit down and think about it. And I hate very much that admitting something like that because it makes me sound weak and lacking conviction. It sounds like failure and and paralyzing uncertainty and self-doubt. And I freely admit that sometimes I do fail and sometimes I am uncertain and sometimes I do doubt myself. Yet as paradoxical as it sounds I am just as sure of everything. I know good from evil when I see it. I know love and I know hate. I know happiness and I know loss. And I know that I am strong.

So upon looking back over these 22 years of life I have lived I can say I am not proud of everything I have done or failed to do. But I am sure that that's ok. I'm not sure where I'm headed and what this next year will bring, but I am sure that it will be alright. There is nothing in this life I can't handle, nothing so terrible it can't be beaten. Because I'm alive and will do my best to continue on being alive. As long as I do that everything else will shake itself out along the way.

I Tried Very Hard Not To Turn This Into A Romance Novel

I really miss sex. A lot. A lot a lot. I am sure there exists many better ways of putting it, but whatever merits that type of language may have it lacks the singular and forceful conviction necessary.

Its not that I'm horny, (I am.) its more than that. If I was merely in need of getting off then I could just do what I have done practically every day of my life since I figured out how to do it.

It is a wholesale longing for everything associated with sex, not just orgasmic gratification. And the more I think about it the worse it gets. The solution would be of course to not think about it, but that has the same likelihood of happening as me actually having sex before I finish this paragraph. Any distraction I attempt is either too mild to distract me fully or it simply serves to remind me. Even something as intense as Hajji lobbing mortars and rockets onto the FOB, which forces me to immediately contemplate my own mortality, strikes a fear deep inside me that I die without ever having sex again. Which leaves me with a pounding pulse and a twisted head; taking stock of my life and wishing feverishly I had someone to fuck.

I miss everything about sex. I miss not just the feel, but the taste and smell and the sound. I miss the way it seems to both deaden and heighten the senses. I miss the feeling of surrendering so fully to the feeling that all perspective is lost.

So here I am, laying on a rock-hard mattress awake the entire night thinking about sex. Sex I have had, sex I wished I had had, sex I want to have, and sex I am going to have when I get out of this evil, backward country. When I get back to the land of green grass and high-proof alcohol where there is a large bed with a beautiful, sexy girl who fucks like a goddess waiting for me.

I Woke Up In A Car

I was just sitting on the roof of my Combat Housing Unit (CHU) tanning and smoking and thinking about sex when something occured to me. It hit me like winning the lottery and a suprise make-out sesh: I'm in Iraq right now.
And it wasn't like "Holy fuck freakout". It was more like "Look where I am". Here I lay 6,000 miles from home, doing something real with no safety net or fallback plan. Two odd years ago I made a choice to go off on my own and to not follow. I left home and everyone I love and college that was free and went balls first into something this life-changing.
And now look at me. I have some scrilla in the bank, I have a girl that loves me, I'm self-sufficient, I still have amazing friends and I have a job I can be proud of. And maybe for some people leaving what I did and coming to do what I do isn't really that big a deal. For some people I guess its just life. But I am the kind of person that can get mired down and loose direction and end up just taking the easy path that I'm already on. I don't like change so much and I fear starting over. So for me this is something huge and real and awesome.
I forget that sometimes. I get so use to this as my life I forget what used to be my life. I don't realize how different everything might have been had I not had the guts to take a chance on myself. I get too caught up in noticing the shit I'm missing I forget what everyone else is by not being here.

I'm Actully In A Pretty Good Mood

Fuck
My
Life

Just as simple as that. Even when things are going as good as to be expected I fuck them all up in my head. I should have something implanted in my brain to shut down my mind when it is not actively being used for things. And even when it is thinking over important shit there should be a seperate part that edits my thoughts. Like keeps me from thinking things that will only spiral in my brain and drive me insane and pull me to places I have no wish to go.

I'm so fucking frustrated right now and its 100% my fault. Me and my god damn brain. Sometimes I wonder if I just shouldn't get myself put on Xanies or Zoloft or Lustral or Prosac or Vallies or Paxil or any of the hundred other chemical cocktails that would keep this shit from happening. Make it so this dumb shit doesn't hijack my mind and send me into a fucking tailspin for however long.
But I don't. I don't go get meds, I don't go and "talk to someone". I'm not exactly sure why I don't, I just don't. I try hard to meet that shit head-on and deal with it, because hiding from it doesn't seem to solve much. And for the most part that seems to work. Maybe the terrible mental pain is worth knowing that I am strong enough to face the dark places in my mind and still make it out alive.