Just Thinking--Oh!--And Winter

The news seemed weird to me this morning. I've been thinking.

Apparently, the military now sees pregnancy as a medical condition equivalent to drug addiction and self-mutilation, something that is punishable by court martial. The general in charge of making this order said that he doesn't see the new rule being carried out to the full extent in many cases. He will consider each case on an individual basis. It will be solely his decision. He will be the one who decides.

Who knew that kids would be fucking if you put them together for twelve months of weirdness? Don't ask, don't tell won't work here. Benefits to being gay in the military, I guess.

Then there is Chocolate Girl, the Black Pearl made famous by the popular Chinese television show "Go! Oriental Angel." See? Oriental. Not "Asian Angel." Maybe it is a bad translation. Again, who knew that Orientals were prejudiced? It must be the Asians who aren't. Tibetans, I think, love everybody.

Maybe waking up at four a.m. every day is making me strange. I sit here in the dark and read what other people read, but it seems to effect me differently. My mother, for instance, always comes away with a different take on things. If I make a comment about one of the news stories I've read, she'll say something like, "Well, what do you want? A bunch of pregnant women shooting people? That's just what we need, a pregnant army. Genius, honey, genius."

I made that up. She doesn't sound like that. But the basics are there. And she, like many people, would think that the case-by-case consideration sounds reasonable. I wonder what the Oriental girl, Black Chocolate, would think about that?

But I've been provocative enough this morning. My job is to perceive, not to opine.

* * * * *

Before Christmas, Mike and I drove back to school to find a new place to live. The apartment complex we'd been living in had been sold to the University and was to become a married housing complex. We could stay there one more term, we were told, but we'd decided to rent a place together. I'd never had a roommate before and was a little scared. But it would be cheaper, and we were hanging out together anyway. And so we got into his little VW bug and cruised the hundred miles north.

The town was deserted now and strange. With all the students gone, it was just another small town surrounded by prairies and farmland, the gently rolling hills now brown and golden. Things were beautifully worn and dull, not shiny and new as they were becoming back home. It was cold and clear, and here and there we saw people walking around in jeans and flannel jackets hunched against the wind.

We had decided to rent a trailer on the outskirts of town, halfway between the university and the small town of Archer. The park was situated in a stand of oaks overlooking a big lake. We stopped at a concrete building that was the office at the front entrance. Walking the ten feet from the car to the office door, I felt that I was sealing my fate.

"Hi, we want to rent a trailer," Mike said to the woman behind a metal desk.

"You students?"

I wondered if it made a difference. If we said "yes," would she turn us away or charge us double? Her face gave away nothing.

"Yes."

"You'll have to put down a deposit and a month's rent," she said, and she began going through all the rules and regulations and legal things related to trailer park living. Eventually, she said, "C'mon, I'll show you what we've got."

The first trailer she showed us was fairly new and clean with a small living room and combination kitchen/dining room. There were bedrooms at either end. Mike and I looked around like we were trying to find something for a minute, but there was nothing really to see. We were merely trying to feel ourselves together in this new place. He looked at me. I bobbed my head slightly, shoulders hunched, my mouth and eyes silently asking and answering at the same moment.

"OK," he said. "We'll take it."

After signing all the paperwork and writing out the checks, the woman gave us two sets of keys. It was done. This was our new home.

We drove back to the trailer to see it again, parking in the little driveway beside the front door. We opened the door with our new keys and went in, each of us going to a bedroom, thinking about what would fit into the spaces, and then we sat on the floor for awhile and began to talk.

"I like being out here," I said. "It is pretty country."

"Let's go over to JRs place," he said. "We'll just say hi."

JR lived closer to town in a group of "modular homes." These were just trailers without wheels as far as I could tell. He lived with his girlfriend, Sandy, who had been the prettiest girl in our high school and who had gotten pregnant by a fellow I had hung around with some. She was a year younger than Mike and JR and me, and she had missed a good part of her sophomore year while she went away to live with her aunt in North Carolina. And when she came back, JR was all about her. I had never liked JR, but he and Mike were best friends, so I guessed I'd be seeing a lot of him.

When we got to JRs, Mike knocked on the door, and Sandy answered.

"Hey Mike," she said in a honeysuckled voice, "Come in."

! ! ! Postscript ! ! !

Yikes! I forgot to mention that yesterday was the Winter Solstice--The First Day of Winter. Equal parts Night and Day. Twelve and Twelve. Cosmic Algebra. If you were wondering about all the weirdness, there it is. That is why.

The days grow shorter. Winter.

Winter, Winter, Winter.