The problem with having tons of ambitions plans for a blog is that you end up losing all interest to write consistently. The reason twitter and facebook do so well is you can think of a sentence to say to the world every 30 seconds if you try, but a paragraph? A passage? Good luck.

Thus, I’m going to abandon all of my notions for what would be the ‘standard’ of my writing and just write what’s going on in my life and what it makes me think about. It might not be as interesting to me all the time, but with any luck I’ll feel more motivated to contribute.

The last entry in here was vaguely about a girl, but then again so are most of the entries in some indirect way. At present, I am about as single as I’ve ever been (if there is a scale for such things) as I’m both accepting and acknowledging of the futility of a healthy relationship while at sea and in the Far East, and at the same time pretty open to whatever level of human interaction comes my way. I say this because my daily human contact is limited to a very small handful of individuals. I work with roughly 5 other people (not counting the Captain), but the length and depth of our conversations range from simple logistics to sarcastic musings about what an “awesome” time we’re having.

I also discussed with a few Supply Officers at how sarcasm is a coping method for just about everyone onboard with the mental capacity to use it.

Speaking of coping mechanisms, I’ve adopted a few worth noting. One is magazine subscriptions. In the day of conservation, it might seem like a lot of paper to waste on hard copies destined for a landfill somewhere, but this is a small cost for the ‘break up the day’ joy that comes from receiving just about anything in the mail. I currently get Wired, The New Yorker, and GQ at least once a month, and often a month behind, but that’s the way the military post office works.

Speaking of GQ, every year the Armed forces ban together for an annual giving program called the Combined Federal Campaign (or CFC) which seeks to encourage the ‘holiday spirit’ in all service members to give to a truly exhausting list of charities. Members may choose any amount with a minimum of $1 a month to be divided among any number of charities in the program. The last few years I’ve chosen about five different charities somewhere to the tune of $20 a month, but this year decided that with all my recent life upgrades (and subsequent compensation increases), it’s time to man up and give an actual percentage instead of just a few dollars. As such 5% of my base pay will be going to Oceana which GQ actually clued me into with their collective charity The Gentlemen’s Fund. The Gentlemen’s fund is basically a collaboration of brands, actors, and GQ to raise awareness on issues that affect the modern gentleman. Oceana was their pick for conversation, and after researching the charity, I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate.

A little bit of background. On a ship of 5,000 people, waste is a huge issue. Firstly, the biological waste generated by 5,000 people every single day is, well, a sh*t ton… literally (probably more actually). Not to take into account the discharges from the reactor plants (don’t worry, radioactivity is essentially zero), the dirty fuel from the fuel scrubbers, and the food and supply waste that is literally just thrown overboard.

If all Sailors are obeying the rules, the plastic is all sorted separately, and not thrown to the bottom of the sea, but that doesn’t exclude the ‘if it sinks’ rule. Soda cans, metal, glass, and anything heavy (up to and including broken copiers) are tossed. Realize that the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON is underway around 150 days a year with full crew, and that we are never the only carrier deployed, and then consider the other ships in our battle group, and every other independent battleship in the U.S. Navy. The environmental impact is staggering. I’m sure if you brought up “carbon neutral” to any higher ups in the U.S. military you’d get a very good laugh, but after seeing the extremes of the beautiful glass of the Caribbean, to the murky litter covered black of the Manila coasts, it’s hard to ignore that any amount of ignorance towards the issue of ocean conservation is just leading to it’s eventual destruction.

While my 5% may not even be close to compensate for the damage just my one person causes to the oceans I’ve sailed on for the past few years, I hope it’s a step in the right direction. The thought of not being able to drive my family one day to Cannon Beach to watch the sunrise and appreciate the beauty and staggering vastness of the waters of the planet is more than just a ‘hippy tree hugging pinko commie’ notion (as many Navy Sailors would say).

In other news, prior to getting underway last week I spent the bulk of the month of September trudging through red tape in order to finalize my move into the Velasis City Marina apartments in Nishi Uraga, Yokosuka, Japan. I wake up every morning in my own bed to my own 800 square feet of bliss. Many of you would be under whelmed by my living conditions, but considering my free space over the duration of my time on the GW has been limited to a rack and a half locker… I feel like I’ve truly moved on up. Also, for greater Tokyo, I truly am living beyond the means of many, all on the Navy’s dime. It truly is ironic as well, that the Navy actually pays me more to live out in town (beyond just rent compensation) for opting to move off base than it would if I were just living on the ship in port. They effectively pay me more to cost them more. I’m not complaining, of course, as my savings account will finally see the action it’s been missing. Still, going from a sailor at sea to having an apartment, a car, and a view to die for… it feels like either Karma has given me a huge advance, or else I’ve done something pretty awesome to deserve it.

With more than two years left in the Navy, only time will tell.

The day will come when you stop playing the lottery.

It will hit you more suddenly than you realize even though you’ve known it was coming for some time.  It won’t be born out of pessimism or regret, and you won’t harbor bitterness towards all those “investments” you made along the way.  Still when it comes, that last bit of youth that defied statistics and was convinced that you were that one in tens of millions that had something different, that you were somehow the master of your own universe, will have run out. 

It’s replacement will be someone who still laughs inappropriately at times, enjoys canned ravioli, and doesn’t have 100% clarity on what life looks like 10 years from now.   This person will finally understand what that book you read and thought was profound at the time (you know… the one where the guy goes insane and gets over it) was really trying to say.  Grow up.

And it’s not just about sending thank you cards or returning phone calls or being on time for the movies.  You’ll still want to question information, and pick and choose what cultural norms are worth perpetuating.  There will still be time for farting around on the weekends, and even putting yourself in harms way by embracing that next alternative sport.  What will have changed, is your realization that fantasy doesn’t keep very good company.  The reason most people end up the way they do is because they’re people.  Good living isn’t some well kept secret taught by old men on mountain tops, and thinking you’ll be the exception to the rule should probably have taught you by now not to be the case.  Winning the lottery isn’t a storybook fantasy that you can dream into being, and neither is that perfect body you can take pills and get surgury for.  Everything has a cost.

That optimism that made you raise your fist in defiance of conventional wisdom won’t have done you any disservice, as there will be times when the nostalgia it will bring will be enough to get through those long days.  Those ideas you had about striking gold weren’t bad ideas, they just were missing a little bit of research.

Most importantly though, those memories should show you that life really shouldn’t be taken too seriously.  Your record collection is really just about as important as what you had for breakfast this morning, and all those “what if” scenarios are really just wasting even more opportunities you think you missed.

So you’ll take that last drink of your pint, throw your jacket over your shoulder and exit the bar, because it’s time to wake up to the rest of your life.

“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.“

There are times when one is faced to look back on life, at the things they’ve forgotten for the right reasons.

Because they were too perfect.

The odds of perfection are so few and far between that the eventuality of that crushing dream being broken only further enhances our longing for that greener grass in that part of our mind is still so shameless in its optimism.

So it is that to better balance our bell curve, we eliminate our own extremes from the record. In time that dull memory fades to black, and we can renew our seeking of that same perfection once again.

That first time you ever used the “L” word and truly meant it… no one in their right mind (unless unduly pressured) wanted to build up to that moment again. Most people wish that every futile and euphoric fantasy could have been one that was carried through to the end. But very few ever end up with their initial ideal, and even fewer got what they paid for.

The promise of the future is easier to experience when not burdened by past failures, and this is why zombies are the most terrifying of all monsters.

When one looks at a zombie from an all encompassing critique of monster quality, it falls more than a little short (initially because it can barely walk). The zombie is empty, unintelligent (except in the art of opening doors), can utter only a variety of one word nouns, and has very little sex appeal (hellooooo Dracula!).

If we look at other more common monsters (Wolfman, Medusa, Starbucks, and Lenny Kravitz) we see only the common trend of lethality and malicious intent. All of them want us dead, our family dead, and to have an awesome cackle after the fact.

Zombies don’t share said traits. Zombies only have one thought, and one desire. It is neither moral, existential, or evil. Zombies just want to feed. This hunger isn’t caused by pain, lust, greed, or quest for global domination (even if that’s how it ends up eventually). Zombies are driven by a desire so powerful that aside from decaying flesh, is everything that they are.

Some would argue that the thought of your own mother or girlfriend turning pale and walking around in a stupor would make us more than a bit upset, and this is why Zombie’s are terrifying, but they are wrong.

Zombies are terrifying because they are the one monster that is truly inhuman in every way.

Wolfman is angry because he’s not accepted by society, Medusa is in a feminist rage about her hair, Starbucks was simply beaten down as a child and has delusions of grandeur… and Lenny Kravitz hates things that sound good.

All monsters in all creation are meant to point out a part of ourselves that we loathe, that we fear, or that we don’t want to accept. Zombies merely show us what we want more than anything. True, unadulterated, unquestioning purpose.

Live is about doubt, and the undead are graced without this capacity. They are the essence of their drive. The absolute perfection that is unaltered devotion. Even in failure they succeed in advancing themselves towards filling that emptiness.

In our own way, we must all wish we had the ability to not eat, sleep, falter, or accept anything other than our goal. If we had endured that final hungry day would we have been satisfied? Would we not be faced with the perils of what if and the charred emotions of ‘almost’?

If zombies were to reflect, ponder, and answer that question, they’d probably have fairly decent insight into what was probably required to succeed in turning that endless fantasy of ours into reality:

“brains”