Just So You Know

I went and got a Tumblr.

http://mjnappi.tumblr.com/

Head on over.

Cheese-Eating Rat Fink Bastard

Its a damn shame people can't just mind their own business. Its a shame that they have to stick their douche-bag faces where they don't fucking belong.

Was I dipping work? I sure was. I missing anything important? I was not. Did me skipping work in even the slightest way impact anyone? It did not. Other than of course to make Spc. Bitch angry that I was sleeping in my bed while he was sitting against a wall locker in the ready-room.
But I guess to him blowing my shit up was an appropriate response.

I'm not really that angry. I fucked up, so I'll take my punishment. Not that big of a deal really. Its just disappointing to me that people can be so petty. That they feel a need to make everyone be miserable because they are.

To me, if you can get by, get over, get out then good for you. I'm pissed that I have to suck it while you're not, but that's no reason to call someone out. You just man the fuck up and move the fuck on. But I guess I only feel that way because I'm not some fucking cry-baby bitch.

I Should Have Just Gone To Nassau

Today concludes the first four-day weekend I have spent in El Paso since August. And it has hit me with more than a little force why exactly it is that I don't stay here on four-days.
Hell Paso is played out, my co-workers are played out, my battalion is played out and the uniform sand-color of everyfuckingthing within 300 miles is played out.
Never again.

Might As Well Celebrate

Three years ago today I walked into the Ft. Meade MPES station, took the Oath of Enlistment, got on a plane to Ft. Benning, Georgia and that, in effect, was that.

In the last 1,095 days I guess a lot of shit has happened. Its tempting for me to go ahead and write out some run-on sentences listing some of contrasting experiences I've had these years, but I'm not going to.

What I am going to do is get good and drunk.

Shit I'm Into Now

Books:
Democracy In America -------Read this shit, otherwise Frenchmen will set fire to your crotch.
The Stranger -----------"Maman died today." Meursault is a pimp and life is truly absurd.
Leaves Of Grass------America's bard who was all about living life, jacking off and hooking up.

Music:
Madder Red -Yeasayer--- Weirdest. Video. Ever.
Black Squirrel Radio----Those god damn hippies at Kent State got one thing right: College Radio

Teh Internets:
Epic Meal Time--- If Man vs. Food et al. is food porn then these guys are Max Hardcore.
Sid's Tumblr --Its almost like hanging with Sid, except you don't get to call him a hipster-douche
Letsrun.com -- Running Mecca.

TV:
Archer -Season 2 premiers the 27th. "Someone better call Kenny Loggins, 'cause you're in the DANGER ZONE!"
Teen Mom ---- You'd be surprised how many soldiers watch this shit, aka my whole platoon.

Rando Junk:
Kimber 1911 .45 cal. with laser grip -- Man. Gun. Shoot. Boom.
Tropical Fruit candles -- They smell like candy and covers the smell of dirty laundry very well.
Miller High Life --This is where I cut corners so I can afford trips to everywhere.
Hood To Coast -- This shit gives me a shin-splint, side-stitch, thigh-cramp, hard-on.


I recommend them all.

8 Miler In The AM

I didn't run today and I'm losing my fucking mind. You would think that after years and years and years of this shit I'd have it figured out.

Running=Sanity
Sitting on my ass=Insanity

Writing Fail

Four times I've opened this window and four times I've written a paragraph or three and four times I've deleted everything.

Today just ain't my day.

The More Of These I Can Combine The Better

Shit I Need To Live A Balanced And Happy Life*

(In No Particular Order)
-
-

Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supremes
Philosophy
Decent Running Shoes
Humidity
Bob Dylan's Music
Sex
Lots of Water
Wood Fires on Cold Nights
Cheap Beer
The Vienna Inn
Dirt
Teen Mom
Ultimate Frisbee
Nudity
Travel
Long Showers
Hugs
A Good Knife
Guns
My Leg Hair
Working Up A Good Sweat
Friends
Neighbor's Karaoke
Being Outside
Fine Liquor
Books
Front Porch Chillin'

(* This is by no means a comprehensive list.)

Did You Know Tumblr Has Classy Black And White Hipster Pornography?

I am trying to not be impatient. I am trying to get the most from every damn day I'm still stuck here and not just coast through. But its hard knowing that I'm going to start a whole new, fucking awesome, terrifying and worthwhile life on my own terms in 117 days.

This Marathon Is Gonna Kill Me

For serious though, it is.

But I suppose sometimes you have to kill yourself to live.

120 Days Left

January the 7th, 2011.

I feel really bad for the firefighters and EMT's out here on East Ft. Bliss. Today the second floor of the Brigade HQ caught on fire, some doucher Cav Scout passed out during the 5-mile post run and split his head open, and not 10 minutes ago some poor SOB tried to hang himself in the building next to mine. I can't go an hour without hearing a damn siren. And its not even 7pm...

All Non-French Names Have Been Removed Because They Really Don't Matter

I have no idea how to start this so I'ma jump right in it and maybe come up with an opening later.

So I'm sitting in Scott's room watching TV and having a beer and all the sudden I remember something. Something fucking awesome. Someone fucking awesome that I have not thought about in five years.
This might seem not unusual to some people; I'm sure many people don't think about people they met just once five years ago. But I'm pretty good at remembering everything. So when I forget about someone as mind-blowing as Françoise...

It was senior year of high school, at an indoor track meet up in PG County the day before winter break. I was fucking around, per usual, waiting for the 3600m (which is always the 3rd to last race) to start. Earlier in the day I, along with half the guy's team, noticed this girl.
She was running the 4x400 when we noticed her, smoking the shit out of everybody and looking damn sexy doing it. Later she was spotted high jumping and if I'm not mistaken triple jumping. And it was after her last triple that ______ made his move.

Now to put it simply, ______ had game like none other, especially when we were 17. And even if he hadn't had game he did have an in; he was the only male triple jumper on our team. But pimp as he was he had two liabilities. First was the fact that directly after the girl's events came the guys, thus he had to stop flirting and start jumping. Second; and no doubt more important, was his girlfriend. She was a friendly, enthusiastic yet bland girl whose name I can't even pretend to remember and whose long-term relationship with ______ was ever a puzzle to us all. In any case she was also a jumper and seeing these two issues converging rapidly I inserted myself into the conversation and _____ also seeing them removed himself to start stretching.

It was then I found myself talking to Françoise. She was of medium height, had long brown hair, a beautiful face and more curves than any female who could run that fast had any right to have. And if that were not enough; if being beautiful in face, hot in body and in shape enough to wreck the field at 400m was not enough... She was fucking FRENCH!
And not like just her name was French, or her parents were French, or she had been born in France. She was a French exchange student, attending a Fairfax Country Public School, with the sexiest goddamn French accent known to mankind, ever.

So there I was sitting on the bleachers, outclassed, outgunned, beyond all hope, giving it my best shot.
And rip out my windpipe with you teeth if it didn't fucking work. Not a quarter of an hour later we were out back of that gym doing what 17 year-olds do like there was no tomorrow.

Now you may be wondering if this story has a point. To be honest it really doesn't. It just boils down to me remembering a very fond memory that has eluded me lo these many years. And hoping it isn't half a decade before I think of Françoise again.

Cut Ya Damn Hair Boy! You Look Like A Stinking Hippy

I can confidently say that returning to El Paso this most recent time has been the hardest yet. In the last six months I have been building my life back around home; bit by bit, long weekend by long weekend. I have people there again, people that haven't been around really since we were a fair bit younger. And even a few people that were never there before.

And I'm getting so close to leaving the Army I can see the door. I can almost smell it and I know that I'll be able to get by just fine. Because I used to worry about it sometimes. I used to worry that I'd been so institutionalized I would have trouble adjusting back to a normal life.
But not anymore.

I know just what I have to do and I know what I don't have to do and I know how to get by just fine without some SOB telling me which way to piss. I'm sure I'll have a few bumps and I'm sure I'll get nostalgic, but I'm already transitioning away from being a soldier. I'm already trying to think like a civilian. And while I'll never truly get there (once this shit is in your blood it stays for life) I'm not worried I'll end up some smelly old vet who never moved past his war.

Why Oh Why Did I Goose Up That Punch...

Fuck you 2010. I'm sure I have worse, and I'm sure I'll have better.
So just stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Damn You Gary Numan

I keep hearing about quiche. I don't mind quiche, its pretty fucking tasty actually, but its beginning to freak me out.
Its like I live in a world where everyone thinks quiche is just the shit to mention. People are writing about it, referencing it on TV and it is a minor plot point in a book I just read.
This is insane. It is out of hand. It must stop. Light, fluffy, egg-based, pie-pastry-whatever-the-fuck foods should not be something that occupies my mind for more than the 7 minutes it takes me to eat them.

Happy New Year. See you in hell quiche.

Would You Look At Us

Getting slightly ever so nervous.

I Believe It Was MONS Beer

I was just now sifting through the random floatsam and jetsam of the internet and came across this picture.
This is a picture of the Chinese city Yichang, which is located in Hubei province. Its fairly out of the way and just about the only thing going for it is its proximity to the Three Gorges Dam. I know this because I spent two days there and there wasn't much to do but see the Dam.
Because of this I spent most of the second day waiting for a train to Beijing, but not being one to sit and wait around a train station when there is a perfectly good fucking huge river nearby my friend and I spent our time waiting on the steep banks of the Yangtze River tanning and drinking lukewarm Chinese beer. And as we sat and drank and got stared at we talked and caught up and shit. And its not that we hadn't been talking for the entire week we had been traveling around together, but there was something very normal about our time by the river. Something that was reminiscent about times we spent chilling in his basement or running around Nottaway or eating lunch outside at Madison. Here we were, literally on the other side of the world and we just sat and bullshitted like we always have. I've seen a lot of cool shit in my life, and I've had a lot of fun, but those handful of hours sitting by that river ranks up there when it comes to just plan simple joy. And seeing a picture of it randomly just kinda set it off in my head.

This Shit's Better Than A Slam-Dunk, A Punt-Return Touchdown, a Grand Slam and A Greatest-Into-Callahan Put Together

This may seem like its petty, and it may seem to contradict the honest and pure fact that I really don't care and I'm over and done with it, but I don't and I am.
Its just that I won. I won hardcore. I won so hardcore its like winning it more than once. Shit, I might have won this three fucking times over.
So without getting too specific; a list of my win:

Moral Highground: CHECK
Massive Improvement in Standard of Living: CHECK
Retained (or Won) Friends: CHECK
Got Something Better, Not Massively Worse: CHECK
Parted Situation With Cold-Heartedness and Finality: CHECK
Didn't Lose My Fucking Mind: CHECK
Got More Attractive 'Friends': CHECK

Wiener Cousins

I feel like I say and/or write this often, but who gives a shit.

The world is an amazing place. I'm blown away on nearly a daily basis by its beauty, complexity and magical feel. In the same way pretty much nothing any of us could ever do will ever really matter, every tiny little thought and action also has more impact we could ever conceive.

It seems to me to be pretty common practice the world over to view life in a linear way. We are born at the start, we die at the end and in between we run alongside other line-lives and have milestones (even the world milestone speaks to this straight line view) and events along that line.
But often I feel myself looking at my life as a web. I am the center of my web, and everyone else is at the center of theirs. And as I live and grow and learn and move and love and kill and work and drink and travel and think and write and run and as everyone else does the same our webs interconnect. We cross and separate and run alongside and diverge for a time and re-connect and get lost forever, however the case may be. In those tangled webs greater structures arise that in turn go on to connect us more deeply and with more people. And even after we're gone; moved or broken up or lost touch or died, the remnants of our web still remain. Who we are or were is preserved in what we did and the connections we made and the ripples that exist in our wake.

This web of ours is Life, and it is chaos. And the deeper you peer the more beauty shines out and when you are very lucky, when you have had just the right number of drinks with just the right people in just the right places with members of the opposite sex that are just the right level of attractive, every little thing falls right into place for a fleeting second. And this crazy mess of a web makes perfect sense.

It Always Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

So close.
24 hours until I'm back in Virginia.

So close.
5 months until I'm out of the Army.

So close.
Less than a year until I can make myself a home.

"Are you breathing?"
"Yes."
"Then you're ok. If you're breathing then you're ok"