![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've been telling myself I should make a real entry, but I've been tired and feeling overwhelmed. I just realized it's been a week. Tomorrow is ElvenGirl's official going away party (her last day was... over a week ago, I think), as well as CeeJay's 30th birthday (although his actual birthday was about two weeks ago, I think) and Mainertoo's 40th birthday (which is actually sometime in November). Supposedly Mainertoo's friend's band will be there.
Night before last BuddyBoy was at the VFW hall and a few of us went to see him - he had been home for two weeks and was shipping back out to Iraq yesterday morning. Slinky, CeeJay, Moose (they live together so generally attend things together) and The Silver Fox also attended, as did a certain Harley-fan vendor of natural products who only recently quit working with us and Sign showed up just as Slinky and I were leaving.
Mrs. BuddyBoy was also in attendance - when Slinky asked BB how Iraq was and he said, "Not that bad. I didn't realize how bad you all thought it was until I got back here," Mrs. BB responded, "You're such a dork. Boys! Why do boys say things like that?" She proceeded to tell us how, when his trailer was shelled, he took pictures with his cell-phone and sent them to her. When everyone else's attention had gone elsewhere I said to her that I understood that impulse. "If your house were hit by a tornado or something you would probably take pictures to send to him, right?" "Yes," she said, "but not because I think it's cool."
BB is not stupid, he will take every precaution possible to preserve his own life, you can tell that from the stories he tells - they never include heroism on his part, he almost seems to be boasting about being a coward, sometimes - but he really seems to enjoy being put in situations where he needs to think about such things. Life loses it's complexity when it's all about staying alive. He says that in four months he'll be coming back and he'll have enough time in with the gov't to get a really good job, but I can't see him getting any office job. He can be charming and I believe he's a genuinely nice person, but he's not the sort to play office politics. He'll say stuff and assume that everyone knows he's just being flippant, and he seems taken aback and hurt whenever people misinterpret. It's a certain weird naivety - he continually seems surprised by people who are purposefully looking for ways to get other people in trouble.
I spent some time at BuddyBoy's party talking with ElvenGirl...
She says she's missing us all very much, and I got the impression that she feels the people at the IRS office where she works now are a little on the dull side. And they probably are. My experience working in offices is that I really like the work but that the people rarely are as open and accepting and plain fun as the people I work with, now. Or perhaps they're not so accepting and fun because they're not so open with each other? Probably because they're worried about office politics.
I spent a good chunk of my evening looking at the photos of the trip to Florida with CeeJay, Mainertoo and Mrs. and Daughter Mainertoo. That trip used up most of her two weeks notice before we left (making it impossible for us to plan a proper going away party before she actually went away), and if the pictures are to be believed it was pretty much a hoot.
"That night we all got pretty drunk and [CeeJay] started licking people." She said this with an exasperated tone, but the picture of him going for her ear with his tongue she looks like she's having a good time, and even Mainertoo doesn't seem too bothered by getting some similar sort of attention. :)
The one picture of her looking really annoyed was one CeeJay took after they missed their last flight on the way back. He was so freaked out by flying that he ended up accidentally leaving the gate area during one of their switchovers and couldn't get back in quickly enough. I think it was not so much the missing the flight that annoyed her as him telling her that she shouldn't have waited for him. She's afraid he wouldn't wait for her in a similar situation, and if he didn't that would probably be the end of their relationship.
I think I concur - it would be quite rude to leave your sweetheart behind. I don't think he would normally do that, but unfortunately if he thinks it'll really annoy her he might do it just for laughs.
And now, because the van wouldn't start this morning, I'll be walking to work in about a half hour, so I need to go take a shower. I was a touch depressed about that when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eor came bounding back up the stairs to tell me he had to take the car, and didn't remember at first that I had parked quite a long way off last night because it was Wednesday - street cleaning night. When I remembered I went running around like a mad thing, stuffing my feet into my clogs and searching frantically for my keys, and then chased off up the street. Where I met him coming back I knew he had only just not quite got to where the car was parked - it was right around the next corner. But then I was far too awake to go back to sleep and yet far too brain-dead to get much of anything done. I started beta-reading a story I've had sitting waiting for like two weeks (agh, what a horrible beta I am!) but brain and brain....
Anyway, I'm totally rambling, now, because I don't want to go. Bah.
Night before last BuddyBoy was at the VFW hall and a few of us went to see him - he had been home for two weeks and was shipping back out to Iraq yesterday morning. Slinky, CeeJay, Moose (they live together so generally attend things together) and The Silver Fox also attended, as did a certain Harley-fan vendor of natural products who only recently quit working with us and Sign showed up just as Slinky and I were leaving.
Mrs. BuddyBoy was also in attendance - when Slinky asked BB how Iraq was and he said, "Not that bad. I didn't realize how bad you all thought it was until I got back here," Mrs. BB responded, "You're such a dork. Boys! Why do boys say things like that?" She proceeded to tell us how, when his trailer was shelled, he took pictures with his cell-phone and sent them to her. When everyone else's attention had gone elsewhere I said to her that I understood that impulse. "If your house were hit by a tornado or something you would probably take pictures to send to him, right?" "Yes," she said, "but not because I think it's cool."
BB is not stupid, he will take every precaution possible to preserve his own life, you can tell that from the stories he tells - they never include heroism on his part, he almost seems to be boasting about being a coward, sometimes - but he really seems to enjoy being put in situations where he needs to think about such things. Life loses it's complexity when it's all about staying alive. He says that in four months he'll be coming back and he'll have enough time in with the gov't to get a really good job, but I can't see him getting any office job. He can be charming and I believe he's a genuinely nice person, but he's not the sort to play office politics. He'll say stuff and assume that everyone knows he's just being flippant, and he seems taken aback and hurt whenever people misinterpret. It's a certain weird naivety - he continually seems surprised by people who are purposefully looking for ways to get other people in trouble.
I spent some time at BuddyBoy's party talking with ElvenGirl...
She says she's missing us all very much, and I got the impression that she feels the people at the IRS office where she works now are a little on the dull side. And they probably are. My experience working in offices is that I really like the work but that the people rarely are as open and accepting and plain fun as the people I work with, now. Or perhaps they're not so accepting and fun because they're not so open with each other? Probably because they're worried about office politics.
I spent a good chunk of my evening looking at the photos of the trip to Florida with CeeJay, Mainertoo and Mrs. and Daughter Mainertoo. That trip used up most of her two weeks notice before we left (making it impossible for us to plan a proper going away party before she actually went away), and if the pictures are to be believed it was pretty much a hoot.
"That night we all got pretty drunk and [CeeJay] started licking people." She said this with an exasperated tone, but the picture of him going for her ear with his tongue she looks like she's having a good time, and even Mainertoo doesn't seem too bothered by getting some similar sort of attention. :)
The one picture of her looking really annoyed was one CeeJay took after they missed their last flight on the way back. He was so freaked out by flying that he ended up accidentally leaving the gate area during one of their switchovers and couldn't get back in quickly enough. I think it was not so much the missing the flight that annoyed her as him telling her that she shouldn't have waited for him. She's afraid he wouldn't wait for her in a similar situation, and if he didn't that would probably be the end of their relationship.
I think I concur - it would be quite rude to leave your sweetheart behind. I don't think he would normally do that, but unfortunately if he thinks it'll really annoy her he might do it just for laughs.
And now, because the van wouldn't start this morning, I'll be walking to work in about a half hour, so I need to go take a shower. I was a touch depressed about that when
eor came bounding back up the stairs to tell me he had to take the car, and didn't remember at first that I had parked quite a long way off last night because it was Wednesday - street cleaning night. When I remembered I went running around like a mad thing, stuffing my feet into my clogs and searching frantically for my keys, and then chased off up the street. Where I met him coming back I knew he had only just not quite got to where the car was parked - it was right around the next corner. But then I was far too awake to go back to sleep and yet far too brain-dead to get much of anything done. I started beta-reading a story I've had sitting waiting for like two weeks (agh, what a horrible beta I am!) but brain and brain....Anyway, I'm totally rambling, now, because I don't want to go. Bah.