Kandahar 14

It’s been a week, or two, I guess. Maybe three. At this point, who really knows. Every day blends into the next and you sort of lose track of time when there aren’t really identifying characteristics to discriminate one day from the next. Josh asked me to describe what it’s like to spend the holidays deployed. In two words - it sucks. The caveat, though, is that every day here sucks.

Every day is Groundhog’s Day, in the Bill Murray movie sense. I hear my alarm, press snooze, hear Joe’s alarm, he presses snooze. I eventually wake up, go to the gym, shower and shave, go to lunch, sit around in the MWR (morale and welfare room) and tool around on the computer, dress for work, go to the clinic, BS with Joe for a while, see some patients, go back to the gym and run a bit, then shower again, get dinner, eat at the clinic, see a few more patients, go back to the room, answer a few of Joe’s questions (I think he really misses pre-sleep pillow talk with his wife but I draw the line at just talking), go to bed. Sleep. Wake up. Repeat.

Careful! The Afghan groundhogs are most likely rabid.

You become a creature of habit and routine because there’s nothing else to do. Very occasionally something will break a small bit of the monotony: a good-looking girl wearing black stretchy workout pants at the gym, fish and chips day with mushy peas (better than it sounds) at the dining facility, the occasional interesting patient, rain, a tour of one of the airframes on base, birthday dinner and ice cream cake. We’re talking extremely small “victories.”

On the holidays some of the dining facilities will cater to that day. So there was turkey and ham and stuffing on Thanksgiving. Our compound, Camp Losano, had dessert for Air Force people and they showed a movie outside on a makeshift screen. I was working, so I didn’t hang out. As an aside, they sometimes hook up an X-Box and hold video game football tournaments and invite whoever wants to do so to come and watch and cheer -- I cannot think of anything more boring and pointless. “Hey guyth, you wanna thee my thweet Madden thkillth?” Wait, you mean how quickly you can punch buttons with your fingers and thumbs on a plastic controller? Wow. That sounds great, but no thanks. I'd rather just go back to my room and pass a kidney stone.

On 9/11 Outback Steakhouse provided dinner, which was far and away the best meal we’ve had here, although it’s not my first choice when I’m back in the States. The lines on the special meal days are usually ridiculously long, though the worst lines are at the British dining facility when they hold Indian night once a month or so. Every single southeast Asian TCN on base (and there are a lot of them) comes, not to mention plenty of the white people who like Indian food (or just need that small break in the monotony), and it can easily take 30 minutes to get out of there, whereas usually if it takes more than 5-10 minutes you’re taking your time.

I still spend a lot of time at the gym, and try not to waste it only listening to Rihanna. Between her own stuff, and working with everyone from Eminem to Sean Paul, she’s EVERYWHERE! I re-subscribed to The Economist a while back and got the audio word-for-word edition where professionals read the entire week’s contents, all 8-9 hours of it. It’s great, especially when I discovered that the iPod Nano has a feature that lets you play podcasts at 2x speed.

I thought that I’d have to listen and think twice as fast, and maybe I'd get headaches or have seizures, but turns out it doesn’t work that way. You just sort of let your brain do all the work for you and it takes almost no effort at all. It took a little getting used to, but now I can’t listen to podcasts any other way. Regular speed now is like watching erosion or listening to some patients as the recount every single detail of what’s bothering them. Excruciatingly slow. So slow, in fact, you start thinking about other things and miss the point entirely. It doesn’t work so well to listen to podcasts on the spin bike, though – you have to have music for that, and that’s where Rihanna enters the picture. No way around it.

Marc, a Belgian guy, started coming to the Canadian gym a few weeks ago. He teaches spin back home and is keen to keep up his skills, so he leads a class most mornings. Nice enough guy. His voice is, um .... let’s just say that it projects well. “FEEL ... YOUR ... RESISTANCE!” --- “KEEP CLIMBING!” --- “GET READY FOR SOME HANGING!” (Hanging is nothing more sinister than leaning over your handlebars but moving back as far as you can on the bike without actually sitting on the seat).

Writing it out in all caps makes me picture a little Hitler in spandex lederhosen on a spin bike. Not sure what that’s all about, and not that anything about the Nazis was all that funny, but that might be an amusing SNL skit – Hitler leading spin class, or Zumba. Who knows, maybe some yoga: “NOW VEE VILL PERFORM ZEE DOWNVARD HUND!” Now that I think about it, Marc also does this thing where he puts one hand up in the air when he does countdowns in order to get your attention and then direct you to the next move on the bike; kind of looks like a “Sieg heil!” I’m just sayin’.

HANDS AT POZITION VUN!

I could do without the whole situation of hanging out with a bunch of sweaty European dudes in spandex, especially the part where we stand around in a circle and group stretch afterwards. Not that we stretch each other, just that we stretch individually but at the same time. I usually pass and spend some more time on the bike. Otherwise, it’s OK. Marc wants to meet up when we’re both back in Europe and do some real biking. Belgium is right next door to Germany, so maybe I will – I pass through a chunk of it every time I head down towards Griff’s place near Ramstein.

Unfortunately, the Canadians have officially left and they’ve closed off their gym for a week or so before the US takes over and reopens it. I don’t like the spin bikes over at the NATO gym, and it’s a 10-minute walk to get there. I know, wah wah! They held a farewell 5k run a few weeks ago. On 4 October 2009, I ran a 5k in Kunsan, came in second, and the title of a post afterwards read, “15 years too old, 15 pounds too fat, and 4 seconds too slow.” This time I was “8 years too old, 15 pounds lighter, but still ½ second too slow.” In all fairness, the fastest guys on base ran in a half-marathon the day before, skipped this one, and so the competition was weak, to say the least.

Still, I was able to stay within 30-40 meters of the first two guys for most of the race, realized I still felt OK with a few hundred meters to go, so made a push for it; passed the second guy, then closed in on the first. With 20 meters to go, I was right on the leader and made a last push for it, then the @&#damn bastard moved over just enough to cut me off and then elbowed me, almost knocking me into some orange cones funneling runners into the finish line.

I'm sharpening my elbows and bringing a knife to the fight next time, A-hole!

I’m over it. But still, pretty lame. He denied it, of course. Acted like he didn’t even know he’d run into me. Whatever. It’s a stupid race in a stupid war zone. It wasn’t even about winning, it's just about catching that one last person in front of you; those of you who have run races know what I’m talking about. Anyways, I finished in 17.36, about a minute faster than the previous one I ran here a month ago. I always have to qualify things by remembering that I have a brother who ran in the Olympics. Still, not horrible for an old man who hardly runs anymore. Not carrying an extra 15 libbies doesn't hurt.