Coping is Dope #1: Geography Truth or Dare

 The mainstream milspouse blogs are littered, soaked, stuffed, piled, and saturated with articles about PCSes- apparently they are stressful, disruptive, and generally suckful.  Yeah, no.  Moving sometimes blows, but staying can be worse- at least, that's what I thought.  

Get the Truth after the jump!

Behave Yourself! Slacker Rehab

Now that January's almost over, it's time for a little check-in on those big plans we made while drunk on gluten-free Dos Equis not one whole month ago.  Have you been a good badass?  No?  Well, we're not surprised, but we're here to help.  Habit RPG is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to those of us who are long on plans, standards, and workloads but short on self-discipline.

Watch the video for a far more coherent explanation than we're able to give at this point, and get our tips after the jump!

Viking Ritual with Tank and other links for your linking pleasure

Sometimes, all we feel like doing is watching a bunch of Scandinavian studs re-enact key scenes from classic Broadway musicals.  You probably have days like that, too- in which case, you've come to the right place.  Behold, the Swedish Marines.








Want some more?  Yes you do.  After the jump, you little minx!  It gets better...

"People who think this is the happiest day of their lives need better lives."

My wedding was not the happiest day of my life. I never expected it to be.
Kilo and I had a discussion about this just yesterday...that we never bought into the Wedding Industrial Complex's fantasy. We both always thought that women who lost their sh*t over their weddings; who were crushed by disappointment; who were traumatized by the emotional roller-coaster of family, friends, logistics...that these were the women who were fixated with dress up bridal barbie and Disney's Cindarella wedding planning manual. In short, getting-married-females with unrealistic expectations.

Both of us manage severely budgeted events for non-profits. Both of us wanted our weddings to have meaningful ceremonies and fun parties. Nothing crazy. Nothing formal. Just us. With friends/families/food & drink. In short, realistic expectations.
BAM!
Family drama.
BAM!
Dick caterers.
BAM! BAM!
Direct quote from Kilo-at-the-reception: "People who think this is the happiest day of their lives need better lives."

Weddings are, however, teachable moments. Learning experiences. There was meaning in each of our wedding experiences; golden moments, precious and exhilarating. Dare I say, just as we experience living, or trying to, while married to the military.

My lover has a saying about Army life. That is comes down to "embracing the SUCK." Sounds dirty, eh? The meaning isn't dirty. Embracing the suck means making the best of bad circumstances. Stop whining and do your sh*t. STFU already and get on with it. Do what you can do in the face of an uncontrollable life.
For the women we are, this is a really difficult practice.

We're professionals. We've learned what makes us happy and what makes us miserable, and in the face of misery, we've learned to change the circumstances to create happiness. Move to a better environment. Get a different job. Get an advanced degree. Live alone. Rent out rooms and live with friends. Throw weekly parties. Start a radical book club. Own a car. Exercise daily. Bike commute. Form an alumni group/book club/social movement and make friends. Break-up with toxic friends and uninspiring dates. CHANGE.

When we married, we gave up the ability to go it alone. To change as often as we wanted or as much as we could. The wedding itself was an indicator of that. Yes, I experienced joy and killjoys. Yes, real life took away some of the fun that I had hoped to have at my wedding. Yes, I was totally overwhelmed at the reality of the commitment and the logistics of the party; emotionally, financially, and even physically. But I am learning. I embrace the suck of the wedding. I put it in the past and I make peace with the death of the Happily Ever Wedding.

Next year, maybe he an I will throw an anniversary party. Go to a museum, drink some booze, and wear fancy clothes. Maybe we'll even invite our parents and siblings and grandmothers. Maybe we'll take our wedding back from the suck.

Maybe, yes. Se puede!

A New Military Spouse Orientation Plan

In which Bravo and Kilo discuss new MilSpouse orientation, the military divorce rate, and LeftFace's article "Suicide- a military spouse's story".

The past month has been rough. DH and I had a couple of dust-up fights with ANGER! and WORDS!...but between hashing out some hard issues and applying the wise counsel from our friends in fighting fair, we got to a better place with our relationship. Heck, we practically moved from emotional Alaska to emotional Hawai'i in the space of two weeks.

Kilo believes we need a New Military Spouse Orientation. So I asked her, "if you were putting an orientation together, what content would you provide?" This notion can't be new but the devil is in the details. I bet someone proposed it before and then ended up providing a fun-filled 5 hour long powerpoint presentation on how to register with the DEERS system. Kill me.

Kilo's notion is to discard all the rote crap you can get in an informational hand-out. No "how to read a paystub" or "how to get an ID card". She wants a focused, short gathering that will provide networking, counseling and affirmation on how being married to the military is hard but there are skills to make it ok. How to communicate. How to prioritize shared values like careers, babies, hobbies, sex. How to know when your relationship is really, truly broken...as opposed to on-going, and intensive work.

Made in the USA: Coffee

OMFG, I hope you care about coffee.

Specifically, I hope you care about fair-trade coffee. 

Sometimes when I'm wandering down the coffee/tea aisle of Chain Grocery Store I become lost in aromatic contemplation over what values Dunkin' is actually Driven on. I percolate over whether Newman's Own's non-profit status means that their coffee-bean pickers get paid on a non-profit payscale. I steam up over the tangled web of Starbucks' clever price-fixing scheme with the Kenyan coffee cooperatives that I read about ever so many years ago in graduate school. 

Then I think about the planet. 

Coffee is bad, folks. It turns locavore tree-huggers into jonesing addicts with carbon footprints spanning hundreds of thousands of klicks. If you add in Keurig single-serve coffee makers, you become personally responsible for the death of panda bears. Or polar bears. Or koala bears-- something cute and sufficiently removed from eating us to seem vitally adorable to children nursery wallpaper motifs. 

Our national obsession with a substance with an almost 100% addiction rate is compounded with a production model encompassing the social ills of capitalism in the Third World. 

All. Of. Them. 

Thank goodness for the colonization of  Hawai'i!

What I mean to say is, hey, we Americans now have access to American-made coffee. Homegrown, fair labor standard coffee. Coffee that is domestically produced in the US of A. By Americans. 

Buy American. Period. 

Winter in the South

It's January. What is wrong with this picture? 

This is actually a cultural test. Where Kilo and Echo and I are from, people would say, "Where's the frost? Where's the snow? Gosh, those trees are so green!"

Where I live now people would say, "Why is there a school bus running in that cold weather? Didn't they see the sign?!" 

You saw the school bus there in the middle right of the picture? No? You were distracted by the written PSA in the bottom left corner, perhaps?

I saw it. I slowed down to a respectable 20MPH and was sharp on the lookout for black ice. As I pulled in the parking lot, realization hit. It is 38F here. There is no snow. There is no ice. It is 38F.

Now, 38F is cold. See also, "winter". 

Two weeks ago in Rochester, MN it was -52F with windchill. 

People in North Carolina freaked out at the news story about the Polar Vortex. There was public consternation and when the temperature hit a low of 30F with clear skies and zero precipitation, the good folks of the South cleared out the grocery stores and cancelled school. 

People in Minnesota went back to school after a couple days. 

Please won't someone tell me what the hell is a "freeze warning"? 

And I would be so excited if someone would share with me what here in North Carolina is actually frozen?

Self Storage

One thing I never anticipated having in my life was a self-storage unit. Despite moving between locations every 6 months or so in my early 20's for college and internships and international travel experiences, my stuff stayed where it was housed...with my parents.

In fact, when dude told me about his self-storage unit the first thing that came to my mind was the Charlie King album I was in love with as a tween and his song titled "Self Storage"
Did you ever start to wonder how you'd ever get by/ 
When the cookie jar is empty and the pie is in the sky? 
When the trickle-down is fickle...? Found a homegrown freemarket solution...
Just an old abandoned factory but the paint was bright and new/ Just an old abandoned factory/ Where you once could earn a buck/Until the firm ran out of country and the workers out of luck...
$8 bucks a month/Self Storage


It is a radical song where the singer is advocating a policy solution for the old, the sick, the poor to check into only place the free market has left priced at self-sustaining affordability: self storage for $8/month. He sings about being these folk being forced out of the middle-class; losing their jobs, houses, and future. Charlie King lyrically wrings out the economic turmoil of the late 1980's...and, my, how times have changed. Oh not the corporate greed or neoliberal globalization but the prices! My dude has been paying $60/month for the past 7 years for his self-storage.

Breaking the Mold

We're trying to break the mold...aren't you?  But what does that entail?  In what way are we not typical Army wives?

There are over 2 million people serving in the US military.

There are potentially 2 million people in the USA partnered with soldiers.

There are certainly nearly 1 million female spouses.

Many if not most of those are Army wives. 

There are so many of us that it is hard to believe that anyone would think there is such a thing as a "typical Army wife," let alone how specific the details of that label get.

We're supposed to be very young- possibly too young to get married at all.
We're supposed to be god-fearing Christians wrapped in the flag.
We're supposed to be unquestioning, unflinching, with a skill set adaptable to disposable diapers and unaccompanied tours spanning years.
We're supposed to be a-political, non-political, and uncaring about systemic economic forces.
We're supposed to be registered Republicans or at the very least middle-of-the-road Democrats.
We're supposed to talk about household budgets and the surprise return of our spouses at Christmas-time. Not politics. Not confusion. Not despair. Not career-ending frustration.

Aren't we typical Army wives?

Echo: I wanted to find other spouses/partners who could relate to what felt like a unique experience- the reality of military life as a newly-married, child-free, socially conscious thirty-something. Then I met Kilo, Bravo, Charlie, India and others who were in a similar boat. Actually, the exact same boat...ironic, given we are all Army wives. We felt alienated by so much of the media that targets military spouses as young women who are beginning adulthood as well as couplehood, and often simultaneously, parenthood. We saw a need for validation for spouses and partners who support their soldiers but cannot see themselves reflected in the mainstream media. We believe that every military spouse deserves recognition- perhaps especially if military culture sharply contrasts with his/her background. Military life requires plenty of adjustments, even for those who are not "older", childless, religious minorities, queer, vegan, etc.

Bravo: Marrying someone who could retire with a full Army career by our 10th anniversary was out of the 'verse. In my not-super-long life I have had several labels: red diaper baby, Gifted & Talented, varsity player, high school graduate, college graduate, master's candidate, foreign student, international traveler, young professional, manager, Board member, subject matter expert...fiancé and Army wife were most definitely new ones for me. Moving to a new state without friends or peers was a struggle and it put a strain on my relationship with my lover, the north star that brought me here. In a relationship with an introvert and serious gamer is not the best place to be when you're lonely. And then Echo and Kilo entered my life and I finally felt part of a community. A military community of like-minded people. Suddenly I had other women to talk to about all the targeted communication from the Army and MilSpouse society that didn't speak to me at all.

Kilo: I blew up a fulfilling life that I had worked hard for and loved very much to support my now-husband's career. Although I love my dude more than I ever knew I could love someone and there are thousands of moments in any given week when I am genuinely happy to be here with him, the knowledge of what I've sacrificed continues to hurt every day.  I used to think that this feeling of loss would stop, but now I honestly am not sure it will. So that my husband could pursue his dream, I left friends who are more like family and below-market rate rent in one of Brooklyn's coveted brownstone neighborhoods. I passed up a promotion with a $15K pay raise in a city government office and took a pay cut below what I was already making in favor of a job with a nonprofit that offered me flexible work location.  When I miss out on parties and friends' birthdays while being bored to death because there is nothing to do in this town, when I work longer hours than my new salary justifies, and most especially, when the person I moved here to be with is too busy with work to spend time with me, I miss that life profoundly.  I feel like the pat storyline is that Army wives are just so proud of their husbands' work; they're our "heroes," yada yada.  I am very proud of my husband for doing something difficult to pursue his dream, but I can't say that I am proud of his work.  Mostly, I resent the everliving fuck out of it, because it cost me everything else that mattered to me, and some days it doesn't feel like I am getting back even half of what I put in.  Make no mistake: he puts all the time and effort he can muster into our marriage, and I know that he loves me most of all.  It's just that once the Army is done with him, he doesn't have very much leftover to give.  I put him first to a degree I didn't think I'd ever put anyone first, yet he still has to put the Army first in a lot of really tangible and important ways, even if it's not what he feels in his heart.  That makes it hard to really be proud of him sometimes.  And that's before even considering the political objections I have to what his work entails sometimes.  I guess part of the reason I needed this community was to connect to others whose relationships to their partners' careers are way, way more complicated and painful than people usually talk about.

Problems with Irrational Debate

So this week Echo ran into a little sitch. She was at an on-Post social club and someone made a crack about how the First Lady doesn't care about us Army wives. It was in the context of the cost of on-Post recreational activities, which although subsidized and generally low-cost, are not always free.

Echo was upset and for good reason. The First Lady happens to be the driver behind the Joining Forces initiative, along with Dr. Jill Biden, which has focused on military spouse and veteran employment along with fresh food and fitness for military families. Beyond that, hellooo! This is the First Lady we're talking about. You know, married to the Commander-in-Chief? Disrespectful much?

Reaching for the Stars...'n Stripes

What does the Battle Book say about applying to prestigious fellowships, oh fellow MilSpousers? I was never that kid in college who was anyone's first pick for a Truman Scholarship or the Pickering Fellowship. I lacked the attention span, the savvy, and likely the grades, too.

No, I was always the kid who found out about the fellowship requirements the day after the winner was announced and thought, "wouldn't that be cool...if only." Can you picture the wistful inner monologue?

I discovered a paid internship opportunity at the Center for Defense Information (CDI) in 2004 the week before it was due. There was no time for bs or obfuscation. I told them who I was and why I wanted to work in security studies. I JUST DID IT. And I got it. And it was great. I learned. I wrote. I researched. I made friends with video news gurus, policy wonks, and supported experts in their research. I sat in on meetings with Fareed Zakaria from TIME Magazine and watched an intern from the American Heritage Institute get crushed in a debate with an intern from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).* I gained confidence and validation along with experience.

Let's talk about Bringing Kids to Restaurants

Is this a military thing?  Since our direct experiences of military communities occur in regions we are otherwise unfamiliar with, sometimes we're not sure whether certain behaviors are examples of military culture, regional culture, rural livin', etc.  Or maybe this is just Velcro Generation Parenting? Like, just what people do now? I mean, using smartphones wasn't a thing in the place we lived BS (before soldier) but that was probably more the decade than the zip code.

PICTURE THIS: a Friday night at the end of a rough week. Somehow you and a favorite MilSpouse have managed to convince BOTH of your partners to go out to a restaurant together.

Goddamn are you looking forward to a relaxing evening of drinking, joking, and probably swearing.  All parties agree on a restaurant- and you think, shit, this is going to be expensive, but so worth it because last week you went to Chain Restaurant and it was like, filled with bored (loud) kids and their inconsiderate parents.

And then we entered the restaurant and before the appetizers were even served, much of the mythology we'd understood to be sacred about dinner in American brewpubs was shattered. 
Shattered, sneezed on, screamed at, publicly spanked, dipped in ketchup, and shattered.

Ship it Good: the details on e-retail

want them?  go buy them

My friend's cousin's piano teacher has a neighbor whose pastor has a stepson that skates with some lady who makes a billion dollars a minute working from home.

And our friend, BAMP* and SIMAAG reader from Georgia makes actual, real money selling antiques and shoes at Jen's Eclectic Market on Ebay.

We thought that the successful, self-employed BAMP was an urban legend (military myth?  battle BS?), but sure enough, Jen is a living, breathing, and re-furbishing example of what's possible when good ideas happen to determined people.

Behave Yourself: 10 Things We Know About New Year's Receptions

This information would have been more useful to you a few weeks ago.  Frankly, we could have used it, too, but we had to complete the requisite field research first.

1.  A New Year's Reception is an Army tradition that essentially consists of a gathering held at the Brigade or something Commander's house.

2.  New Year's Receptions tend to be scheduled the weekend after the actual holiday, apparently with the purpose of minimizing your excuses not to go.  Your partner's boss knows whether you are in town too...so that's a thing.

Suzanne Brockmann's Sweet Tweet

Suzanne Brockmann is a GOD

Remember that drama with the Bravo Familia in December? Well, the hospital visits have been keeping my mind off the painful job search but only binge-reading really smoking hot and well-written fiction keeps my mind off the hospital visits. 

I managed to finish four of the Suzanne Brockmann Troubleshooters series in the past two weeks. All I can say is, "Damn. That is one kickass author." Seriously, I've been a fan for years and years. It is entirely possible that I read my first Suzanne Brockmann in 2003 or 2004. AND THEY JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER! Not only does the idea of boinking a completely ripped dude from SEAL Team Sixteen drill my fantasy buttons dead center but add in sarcasm, witty repartee, and oh can you say Joss Whedon references (Buffy! Firefly! Star Wars! ok, he didn't write that last one...but you get me here, right?!). Be still my heart. 

And then take that SEAL body and add feminist outlook and some real marriage equality love...let's just say you can skip the foreplay and take me now. 

Suzanne Brockmann, if you are out there and reading this, there is a progressive MilSpouse right here that loves you.*

*I'd put money on my spouse appreciating your art as well. Next date night, I'm planning to experiment by reading an Izzy & Eden excerpt from Breaking the Rules. We'll see if GI Bravo sends up a salute. 

I just found this amazing...:vomits:

I just found this AMAZING store for all your  military industrial complex tool Army Wifey clothing needs!
See also, these- 

Has your husband been busy invading a foreign nation for <purpose unclear>? Has your government been using him as canon fodder in the search for more oil? Who cares, right?!
Pull on your wifey panties, grrlfriend, and lie back and think of 'MERICA!

Things to do with a wedding dress

Inspired by this article "Union Bride Auctions Wedding Gown on eBay for Protest Fund"...


By Cynthia McCabe

"Remember the bride who, along with her groom, braved snow and an imminent wedding to protest alongside tens of thousands in Madison, Wisc., on behalf of public school teachers and other American workers a couple weeks ago?

Now she’s auctioning off on eBay the gown made famous on websites including this one and Salon.com and the news, and donating all of the proceeds to a fund established to aid citizens protesting the attacks on the American worker and middle class."

Because I've been thinking how fun it would be to have a Wedding Dress dinner or brunch in honor of Marriage Equality. We live in North Carolina, a state currently without equal rights for all citizens. And despite the fact that an average marriage license is only $30-$60 pretty much anywhere in the good ole' USofA, I was determined not to give a penny to any state that didn't let everyone get married. So we got hitched in New York State. Twice. 

Inviting of my favorite 30 or so people all dressed in white to march over to the County Clerks and demand equal rights for lovers seems like a piece of cake. 

Want to don the gown? Would you join me?

~Bravo

Presently Unplugged, courtesy of "Unplugging & Work-Life Balance" #APW

I just read this great article on work/life balance and the need to unplug by Meg Keene of www.apracticalwedding.com #APW. I wish to share this article with you, along with one caveat and a couple of comments.

Number 1 being that it I don't want you to unplug. In fact, the complete opposite. The very reason this blog exists is to enable progressive military spouses to find community. The internet is magic in the way it allows people with different geographic locations to find support, share stories, and connect.

"There are times when work needs to be done, and emails need to be checked, and God knows the baby doesn’t need us in his face all the time. But building a life takes the unspooling of time. Life is the moments in between. Looking around your kitchen and thinking about how it reminds you of your grandmother’s. Glancing over at the baby and seeing him go wild with glee. Having that long conversation with your husband. Being bored and seeing where that takes you." ~Meg Keene, APW

Number 2- that said, try it and you'll like it. Meg has a really valid point about being present with your spouse, with your loved ones, embracing the dynamics of your daily physical life. I took a hiatus from tv- in fact, I actually didn't own one- for a good five years. Even now with the giant flat screen nailed to the wall above the fireplace, DH and I still don't actually have television channels (although, ehem, we are both internet-provided movie addicts). When I didn't have a tv, I sat on multiple community group boards and I cooked CSA veggie meals with my housemate. I focused on projects like starting a Slow Food chapter and a faith-based young professionals group. My friends and I had sewing nights, organizing meetings, a radical book club, and locally-sourced themed brunches. I went to the gym, or forgot to go to the gym and bike-commuted to work. At night there was Battlestar Galactica marathons via my laptop...but there was also the time for my housemates and friends to light the candle-lanterns and sit out on the porch and listen to my neighbors play fiddle, or sax- and one whole summer we had a bluegrass band across the way who liked to rehearse in the deep twilight nights.  First it was hard. And then, as the friendships got stronger and the community grew around me...and I bought a house because you have time for a whole load of stuff you will never have time for again once you own a house, darling...it was easy. Honestly, I don't know how I ever had time for watching so much tv before. Welcome to the freedom of reality.

"The other night, the baby was in bed, the weather was lovely, and I asked David to come downstairs with me and hang out in the hammock. David’s never been one for sitting and staring into space with me (ruining many a perfectly good vacation moment, if you ask me), meaning a double hammock is the smartest thing I’ve ever bought. Once he’s IN the hammock, it’s hard to get out, so I’ve effectively trapped him with his own laziness. Marriage!" ~Meg Keene, APW

Number 3- once you unplug, you don't go back. I/we don't have an internet-free weekend rule, yet. Being married to a tech-savvy milDude with a giant television (hehe) and an online vid/gaming habit means that normal post-work hours are very different now then they were 2+ years ago. I do notice when he's got his face in his phone and won't come out to socialize. Or when I need his total attention and just can't get it. And while he thinks nothing of spending 3-5 hours a night plugged into his computer for a League of Legends tournament...I can't do it. And the pendulum swings the other way too. When I'm in the middle of reading an email and get irritated that he wants me to look at something "right now!". Mind you, I can spend 3 hours reading a book (although it has only recently stopped feeling really weird to read a GoogleBook on my phone). I can sit in the same room with him and plan a wedding on my computer...or write an Executive Search description...or re-write my resume. But that's just the thing. I can work or I can plan, but I can't hit recreation mode in front of a computer in the same way. I get, well, bored. I want to do something. Interact. Cook something, make something, change something, debate something- preferably in the company of friendly people and open microbrews. There is so much I want to do in the world that to simply plug in to kill time, to be entertained... it feels empty. 

"I’ve noticed when I have to ask for David’s complete attention by asking him to put down his phone. I’ve noticed when he’s had to ask for mine when I’m busy checking email. And I notice those moments when we could be chilling with our kid, but are instead checking for Facebook updates we don’t even care about. Of course, it’s not always that simple." ~Meg Keene, APW

So while we haven't discussed forsaking the internet on weekends, I would like DH and I to come to an agreement about nights without screen time. Nights where we can talk and reconnect and be. Maybe just us. Maybe us and unplugged community. But present, fully present, in every way.

Signing off.
~Bravo

Resolution: Freight Loss

As you've undoubtedly heard, we are in great shape- but we could stand to lose like 400 pounds, collectively.  You're thinking gym time.  You're thinking Body Image Issues.  You've been reading mainstream blogs (admit it!).

We've had an excessive year!  The weddings.  The holidays.  The gifts!  

And now we have way too much...stuff!  As mil spouses, clutter busting is more than a good habit- it's a sacred practice and meaningful to maintaining optimum mental health levels required to effectively cope w all the army crap.  Everything you own is something that will, at some point, need to be boxed up and moved.  And unpacked.  And possibly repaired.  

Why did you buy that, anyway?

Anyhow, so this year I've resolved to cut the crap by enforcing the "one in, one out" policy that I've pretended to have for years.  

Before I went to grad school and realized I needed to keep all my textbooks forever.  

Before I got married and received champagne glass picture frames and a portable fireplace.  

Before I found out that all this crap I thought was recyclable actually wasn't so now I have to save it and think of an art project that uses it and do the art project and find the crap I kept and figure out the relevant art skillz and make some art and then...find a place to keep it.  

You guys I am so not even a hoarder.  But I figure, when India visits to do Jillian Michaels with me and I have to look in four places before giving up to do a free YouTube workout-  I have too much stuff, garbage, junk, rubbish, tchotchkes etc.

Or at least, I really don't have the organizational skills to manage my current inventory.

Onto the (poorly formatted) FAQs:

Do the trade-offs have to match?  Nope.  I can get rid of a worn-translucent pair of sox in order to buy a lip balm.  And I can use up a bottle of sunblock (uh, we still have like four) in order to get one of these. 

But...consumables count?  They take up space and cost money, so yes.  But we'll allow some flexibility so we can get more milk before we are totally out of it.  As a lady with five boxes of tea, four things of coffee, and...six shampoos...I will just say that yes, consumables count.  Pare that shit down!

How about objects of vastly different sizes?  We will figure that out later.

And magazines?  I seriously cannot answer that at this point. 

We're On TV!!!

We're frequently asked what the hell we do with our Saturday nights, snow days, fake sick days, and tv-at-work-bc-who-gives-a-shit days now that our favorite fake army show has been canceled.
(answer follows the jump)