Liken unto lichen

So all right, I've got some kind of pox. I've never been to a dermatologist before, and if they're going to insist on hacking bits of my flesh out, I may not return. In May I got some unknown rash thing and two months and $300 later I have been tentatively diagnosed with Pityriasis Lichenoides et Varioliformis Acuta, or PLEVA. I have a disease with an acronym. And yes, "lichenoides" means "like lichen," the stuff that grows on rocks. Sigh. It's not contagious, it doesn't itch or hurt (except when they carve bits of it out of me at the doctor's office), and it doesn't occur enough to warrant enough research to know what causes it. It's just irritating and ugly, though the really hideous spots are confined to my ass. And apparently it'll go away by itself, but no one knows when. My health has been going downhill since age thirty. I feel like a leper.

Opening night jitters

M. and I open a play tonight. It should be exciting, and it'll certainly be fun, but it's the first show I've ever done outdoors and I'm a little nervous, not least because I don't trust the 300-year-old grandmother-in-law of the director who is running the sound cues. I have to sing a duet, pretending to be an Italian opera star. And the music cues have never yet been correct. That, and phones tend to keep ringing when they've already been answered.

Deep breaths. It'll be fine. I've been adding more and more Italian muttering for comic effect, and I just pumped my dear friend Y., the Siciliana, for offensive things to shout, like "vacagare" and "figlio di una grandissima puttana." It's in middle Wisconsin, this show, so I doubt any delicately-eared Italiophones will be in attendance.

And now I've been talked into doing another show, which starts rehearsing as this one runs. It'll be a blast; it's Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged, and I'll get to work with a very good friend. But I'm sposed to be writing more diligently on my book, and this'll mean not going to see my sister and baby nephew in August. Ah, the sacrifices we make for the art.

But happily, the new season of Battlestar Galactica finally starts this eventide. I'm recording it, of course. Anyone geeky enough to want to discuss it can feel free to post comments.

"G-g-g-g-g-g-thunk. Ssssssssssssss."

That's the sound that my car made Thursday night on the way back from rehearsal when I finally managed (barely) to pull into the city limits of Nowhere, WI. The "check engine" light had been on for about 10 miles, and the disconcerting smell of burning metal had been seeping into the car through the improvised air conditioner (i.e. the open window). It was nearly midnight when the Mazda refused to go the last few feet from the parking lot to the gas pump at the Citgo on Lakebottom Road, so I woke up M and pushed it into place. The top of the radiator was a gooey white mess with steam coming out of it, and there was no visible oil in the engine. I put three quarts in and water in what was left of the radiator, limped the car to the mechanic and left a note and a key.

Keep in mind, please, that I cannot currently afford a single skateboard wheel.

The bill for the radiator, $260, hit me pretty hard, especially coming on the heels of the hard-earned realization--in the form of a $200 doctor bill--that my health insurance covers just about nothing. (I need another job. I can stand either a crap salary or crap benefits, but not both). But even harder was the next blow. Running the engine without a radiator apparently makes this mysterious thing called a "head gasket" take the inconvenient course of "blowing." And remedying this would push the repair costs up to around what I paid for the car in the first place.

Conundrum. I haven't had a car payment because I bought this spiffy 14-year-old Mazda from a good friend for a good price. It's worked out to about $100 a month. Do I want to double that in one swell foop, or do I want to cut my losses and get another car. Unfortunately living without a car is out of the question in this here piss-ant burg.

So I did the latter. I am not the kind of person who just buys a car in an hour or so. I'm the kind of person who researches, compares, and whatnot. But I had no time!

Anyway, I got a pretty good deal (about $1700 under bluebook) on a 2002 Ford Focus. She claims that her name is Charlene. She seems good-tempered and I do look good in green. I haven't signed anything yet (4th of July holiday and all), but I'm approved for a loan. I could still back out.

Opinions? Somebody tell me I'm doing the right thing.

Hooah

M. and I recently returned from Fort Knox, KY. I was asked by the Nowhere College ROTC guy (who, it turns out, the Army refers to amusingly as a "PMS" or Professor of Military Science) to go as an educational observer of the Cadet Command's LTC.

Warning...as this post concerns the Army, there are going to be lots of acronyms. I'll try to explain them as I go.

LTC stands for Leaders' Training Course. It's what Sophomores do in the summer after they decide to do ROTC but missed the first two years. They haven't signed any contracts yet, so it's a sort of kinder, gentler, Disneyfied version of the Army. It involves lots of shouting "hooah," which can be an affirmative, an interrogative, or just a bellow. It seems to be an all-purpose word for the Army, like "Smurf" was for the Smurfs.

Anyway, there was lots of participation. We did the FLRC (Field Leader Reaction Course), which involves commanding a squad through various battlefield-type obstacles. Here's me trying to get across a gator pit. And here's M after having been hoisted atop an 8-foot fence.

Also we did stream crossing, climbed 50-foot climbing walls, flipped capsized Zodiac boats, and ate MREs (Meal, Ready-to-eat). That particular TLA (three-letter acronym) is especially silly, since it also relies on the military's tendency to comma-ize, everything. For example, one doesn't wear a camouflage cap, one wears a "Cap, Camouflage."

This course, in addition to teaching orienteering skills and battling acrophobia, is meant to instill Army values, which, it turns out, are a pretty respectable ethical code regardless of how anti-killing one is, and I'm pretty anti-killing. I got a chance to talk to lots of Army people and to realize that like any institution, it's made up of really diverse people. I met a Captain, a guy so buff that his arms barely fit into his uniform sleeves, who is firmly against the war and the president's policies, a political progressive who's valiantly doing the job he's sworn to do to the best of his abilities. This is a guy who would be a mechanic in Rhode Island instead of a professional with a dual degree in Poli Sci and History if it weren't for the Army. So I'm pretty anti-war still, even more anti-Bush (now that I've had a chance to see who he's sacrificing), but not anti-military. Hooray for perspective-expansion, I say, even if it means swallowing a little pride and reconsidering my attitudes.

So overall it was PFH (an M coinage: pretty fuckin' hooah). I got to meet good people, jump off a 3-meter diving board blindfolded with a rifle, and help try to fish a tick out of M's ear. A good weekend, all things considered.