Coming Home

Being back in the States has been wonderful, yet weird in unexpected ways.

First, the wonderful: Three beautiful children leaping into my arms at the airport. For the next several hours they kept looking at me with a "is this real" look in their eyes.

Freedom to just go for a walk any time you want is often overlooked as something highly awesome. We started out in Boston, hit the Swan Boats and "Make Way for the Ducklings." Then we went to Rye, New Hampshire to enjoy a tropical storm billed as a hurricane. Now we're back in DC and it almost feels normal again.

Then, the strange: I can't get used to using tap water to brush my teeth and it keeps freaking me out to see people driving on the wrong (right) side of the road. After I had been home for about 30 minutes, I was playing with the kids and Caleb stopped, looked at me for a long time and said, "I forgot what it is like to have a Dad."

It is at times a little overwhelming. I had to explain to them on night one that I have three kids but only two sides so someone won't be able to sleep next to me. They are competing so hard for my constant attention that they are about to kill each other, and me, in the process.

Overall, I must give credit to Katie. They are great kids, and better since I left. Good job, Mom.

Distraction

Five days until I go home for three weeks. I can barely concentrate. It's funny the things you miss. Beyond the extreme and obvious longing for wife and kids, I really want Five Guys, Whole Foods two-bite brownies, and Trader Joe's cookies and Cream ice cream. And I really, really look forward to just wandering around without telling the embassy where I'm going and without giving motor pool 24 hours notice.

As Though WallyWorld Were Closed

This Pakistan monsoon season has been much hyped. I was told to bring waders. I was warned of mud slides on the embassy compound. I was told of endless rain weeks on end.

So I prepared. Special socks. Water proof shoes. Rain jacket. Water proof back pack. And I watched the sky. And watched and watched. Somehow I feel cheated. The magnificent monsoon that isn't.

I'm Feeling Ms Carpenter Lately

Show a little passion, baby, show a little style
And show the knack for knowing when and the gift for knowing how
And have a little trust in us when fear obscures the path
You know we got this far, darling, not by luck, but by never turning back
Some will call on destiny, but I just call on faith
That the world won't stop, and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, to what your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way

String Theory

It feels like a real, tangible thing. Sitting here, alone in Islamabad, thinking of my family, it feels like I could pluck it like a guitar string.

I was getting accustomed to being away. That in itself was sad and scary in a way, but on the other hand I was glad to be rid of the constant longing. But something snapped. I was in line at the airport and everyone was cutting. Well, I suppose they weren't cutting since they could not articulate any such concept. They were engaged in the behavior Americans would call cutting. Being American, I waxed righteously indignant. But I couldn't stay in front of the "them" unless I also cut. So I tried to block. Tried and failed.

One especially flagrant cutter got ahead of me and motioned for his brood to follow but I cut them off. It was too late to beat him, but I could stop the bleeding. Then he pulls ten passports out of his pocket and the customs officer motions all of them to come forward. And I lost it. Not outwardly. Not in the middle of the airport surrounded by people with no concept of my moral universe in which jumping the queue is an affront to human dignity. No, I lost it in my head and in my heart.

I don't understand them. And they are very "them." They could not possibly be more "them." I am me and they are them. I am alone. I want to be with us. I want to wrestle with Caleb and Henry. I want to have a dance part to Kidz Bop 13. I want to watch Maddie go off the diving board.

It feels like a real thing that I could reach out and touch--a telephone line perhaps.

Why Men Gain Weight

When I had a male cook. I lost weight. Now that I have a female cook, I'm gaining it all back. She keeps saying that my wife would surely expect her to take better care of me and that if I go home skinny, it will mean that she has failed. She just keeps making food that I don't ask for, don't want, don't need. And I don't think she would stop even over my obese, diabetes-afflicted, artery-clogged dead body. One week after bragging over getting into the best shape I've been in since high school, I may have to take it all back.

In My Free Time

Sans children I have discovered this strange new selfish, free, invigorating, lonely thing they call free time. I have chosen two objectives with this very expensive so-called "free" time: 1) get in really good shape, 2) write a novel.

The report on objective 1 is all positive. 5k time is down from 30 minutes to 22 min 44 sec. Belt has tightened one notch.

As for the second, it turns out writing a book is hard. I have written the first 20 pages four times.

Count Your Blessings

The cook at the USAID guest house finishes washing dishes and prepping the next day's offerings around 9 p.m. He then walks about a mile to catch a "taxi." His taxi is a small pick up truck. He goes to sleep in the back with seven or eight other men as the truck drives three hours to his village. There, he cares for his two sick elderly parents for a few hours before getting back in the truck to return to work at 6 a.m.

I just like this chair, OK. That's it. That's the whole post.

The Boiling Frog

Work is accelerating. We may have to inspect some installations in the southern lowlands where the temperature will be over 50 degrees celsius. So I had to get a conversion app to tell me what that meant in English: 125 degrees. I didn't know humans could survive at that temperature. So that will be nice.

The Weekend

From Friday evening to Monday morning I traverse the barren desert. Long empty hours burn and blister. There are no laughing children. There are no jolly friends. There is the market, movies, the embassy, mirages of distraction. I go to the pool where strangers sun bathe, silently, on adjacent lounge chairs. I go to the basketball court where the echo of the bouncing ball finds eternity uninterrupted by quarreling children. I run the treadmill. And run. And run. Across the wasteland I run, never progressing, only running. I go to my bedroom and discover that the Internet is empty, a wide portal to nothing and nowhere. It makes no early morning demands. It has no accidents that must be cleaned up. It doesn't fight, hit, kick, or scream. What good is a friend that does not exasperate? It is no friend at all.