About a hundred years ago I was on my way to being in the US Air Force. I still don’t really understand why but I’m kind of glad I almost did.

A friend and fraternity brother of mine, Greg, was in Air Force ROTC and he persuaded me it would be a good idea to join. There was the guaranteed job (more or less) when you graduated and, once you got the job, you wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear for eight years. I pretty much told him to take a look at me: I already don’t worry about what I wear.

I signed up for the courses, got fitted for a uniform and spent the better part of a year studying the history of the Air Force, learning to march and giving orders to others while marching. I had a Pilot’s slot, which meant that when and if I graduated, I would have a good chance at studying to be a pilot. Please note it was “good chance” not “guaranteed chance”. At one point, during the official physical, I was told to sit in a chair and then measured to see if I would fit inside a fighter cockpit with a helmet on. I passed, but with little room to spare.

The only thing that could qualify as a funny moment is when I took the Air Force Officer’s Qualifying Test. I seem to remember that the rules were such that if I did badly, I couldn’t take it again for a while. As soon as I arrived at the test site, however, I got my migraine aura, which is a bright spot that looks a lot like the coiled filament in an incandescent light bulb. The presence of the aura meant I had about 45 minutes before a migraine set in.

The test begins with the test proctor, a senior officer in the local program, reading a blurb about how if we felt sick and thus felt we were physically unable to take the test we could opt out “without prejudice” and take the test again at the soonest possible date. My hand shot up and there was an awkward exchange as I explained I was about to be sick. The officer found the blurb he was supposed to read and I left to find a dark, cool place to suffer.

The officer later told me that was the first time he’d seen anyone ask to leave. I took the test later and did surprisingly well.

I then went to a six-week Officer Training School where I got sick with something strange and ended up hospitalized with a tube in a place most men would be very surprised to discover a tube would fit and very few would want a tube fitted. After 10 days, I was out-processed and given a “medical discharge without prejudice” which mean I could come back the following year for a four-week OTS.

Fortunately for the Air Force, a lot happened that next year.

First, I was inducted into Arnold Air Society which is an honorary organization that, at least until I got there, was for elite cadets. That took me to a conference in Boston where much of the time was spent debating where the next conference would be. It all proceeded with a shallowness that was surprisingly annoying and that was the first time I realized: I’m going to have to work with these folks for eight years. I still believe if I hadn’t gone to Boston, I’d have overlooked almost everything that came next.

The next thing that happened was an officer change that put in place an officer I didn’t like. That was the first time I realized that I couldn’t respect the rank if I didn’t respect the person wearing it. I couldn’t just say “I prefer not to because you’re an arrogant ass” or “You’re not the king of Dwayne”; I had to say “Yes, sir. and then do what I was told.” That made me seriously reconsider that guaranteed job.

Finally, there was national politics which, for a while, made it appear as if K-State’s program was doomed and we’d have to travel to KU to continue with ROTC. That ended up not happening, but my entire year, except I think one person, said “see ya” and left the program. At least one of my younger fraternity brothers stayed in and got F-16s.

However, despite all that, the final truth is I was never fully committed to joining the Air Force in the first place. It was just something to do that, at the time, seemed like a good idea. I learned a lot, and still believe everyone should do a stint of national service, which is why I later joined the Peace Corps (another long series of posts that).

That said, if you’re considering military service, “it’s a job when you graduate” is not a good reason to join. If you can take it or leave it; leave.

Because yesterday (well, this morning actually) I talked about drinking too much, this evening I should talk about one of the immediate consequences of drinking too much: eating pizza.

Once, a couple hundred years ago, after I started at K-State, I tried eating Swannie’s donuts after drinking. I never made that mistake again. Sweet and beer go together like raisins and grated carrots. Since then I’ve been a pizza man.

Now, there are countries where people get drunk and eat bowls of ramen or other types of noodle soup or go out for a curry. But those places, and the people in them, are evil and have no souls.

For me, the place to go after bars closed was Falsetto’s pizza in Aggieville. The pizza was greasy and the people in line of questionable character (i.e. my fraternity brothers) and no one ate there when they were sober. In fact, I’m the only person I know who ate there while sober and there are still people who don’t believe me. As for the pizza, let’s just say it lost something in sobriety.

The snobbish and soulless opted for Pyramid pizza, which was mostly famous for it’s thick crust and side order of honey. (See previous comment about “sweet and beer”.) Pyramid was sober pizza. It was not acceptable to eat it at closing time. If your only option was Pyramid, you should opt for a Red Barron pizza toasted at home or Frito Pie from 7-11.

That said, I’ve eaten pizza in several countries on three continents in two hemispheres and I’ve been shocked by the endless abominations offered as “pizza” by otherwise civilized countries. Italy was decent but never order “pepperoni” as you get “peperoni” and lots of peppers, not salami. I still pine for a slice of veggie pizza at the Shawarma Orient in London but, at the time, all they had was veggie pizza (more on that later). Albania and Greece had truly gruesome concoctions involving single, whole eggs cracked in random locations on the pizza.

Japan, however, excels at ruining pizza. Flaked tuna and mayonnaise are popular toppings and corn is a must have. Tonight, to celebrate my last day of classes (it’s all preparation now) we ordered pizza from a nearby Pizza Hut. We opted NOT to eat Teriyaki Chicken, or Seafood Mix or Potato Gratin and instead chose the only appropriate toppings for pizza: tomato sauce, cheese and dead animal flesh in the form of sausage, hamburger or bacon.

This wouldn’t bother me so much except I worked at The Scheme in Salina for one summer before heading off to Japan. I therefore consider myself a professional pizza chef. (I do and I was paid to do it so shut up.) Here in Japan, I tried to teach my adult students in Nou-Machi to make pizza properly, but realized I’d failed when some admitted to slipping squid or octopus on a pie when they were cooking at home.

Finally, I’ve tried to teach my girls the importance of saving energy by eating leftover pizza cold. Oddly, this has met resistance. In fact, many Japanese tell me how gross the idea of eating cold pizza is, right before they eat rotting beans on rice.

Clearly, I still have a lot of work to do.

I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly. A quarrel, but nothing wherefore. Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! —Othello Act 2, Scene 3.

Well, I’ve missed a day already (it’s 12:09 a.m. on the 18th here in Japan.) In my defense, I decided to wait until I was drunk.

I just got home because today was the farewell party for a good friend and colleague who’s not only proposed to his longtime girlfriend but is moving on to a job with more work and less pay but more stability. Now, given that background, I could use this post to talk about friendship, marriage or ambition; I also could have written this before I went out, but since I thought I’d be home earlier–until we went to a place that had good food and cheap beer–and since I’m less than sober, let’s talk about drinking too much.

Many years ago I dated a recovering alcoholic. On occasion, we would go to places where I would drink wine or beer. She was impressed that I could stop after only a couple drinks.

I told her that I learned to do that the hard way. Back in my fraternity days I discovered the temporary joys involved in drinking a lot and immediately rushed out to drink a lot. I could usually control it but that was mostly a matter of not having much money. One year, for reasons that border on laughable, I was appointed Chaplain of my fraternity. This is one of the easiest jobs in the house because you’re only responsible for organizing ceremonies, which don’t happen very often. Instead, I instituted a regime of Spiritual Demerits for those house members who didn’t live up to whatever ideals I decided were necessary at the time.

One Thursday, as was our tradition, we had an L.A. Law party, which amounted to buying a six-pack of Corona Beer and drinking while the tv show was on because that seemed a very yuppie thing to do and we really didn’t need much of  pretense to start drinking. (Okay, I drank Corona. So what?) After that, we decided to go drinking and, for various reason, I didn’t have to buy any. I then met my friend Steve who guided me to a new bar where I consumed more free beer and something called a Kamikaze, which is a shot consisting of tequila, triple sec and lime juice.

To make a long story short, there was some evacuation of stomach contents involved at the bar and, on the way home, a toilet break in a clump of trees that somehow involved me falling over and smacking my head on a rock. I managed to get home, beat on the door rather than trying the combination lock and shocked my fraternity “pseudo little brother” (long story) by having blood all over my face. When he asked what had happened I explained “The rock flew up and behold the rock was hard” which actually made a kind of profound sense at the time.

What happened next is fuzzy. I remember sitting down to evacuate other parts of my body. I remember laying down on the floor in the stall. I remember getting up and going to bed. I didn’t realize that over two hours had passed between the time I sat down and the time I got up and that there’d been a discussion about taking me to the hospital or not.

I missed school the next day and was sick for three days. None of it was very pleasant, but I learned how to turn off the drinking once I got started. I learned at which point I should switch to water. I also learned to eat more to help slow down my drinking. I no longer felt the need to match people drink for drink. As a result, I’ve not been sick from drinking since then and have managed to remember everything I did, for better and for worse. Unfortunately, I even remember that time after I first came to Japan when I sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” with my boss at a karaoke bar. But that’s fodder for another post.)

You think you can out drink me? Really? Really? You’re right. You win. Drink up.

I’m in a philosophical mood tonight–you have been warned–because I spent the afternoon communing with ghosts.

No, I’m not being followed around by Dr. Malcolm Crowe and trying to get him to realize he’s dead so he’ll leave me the hell alone. No, I’m not trying to get people to crossover into the light because our apartment building was built on their graves. No, I haven’t been watching too much American Horror Story (in fact, I barely got through season one and then they kept Dylan McDermott and got rid of Connie Britton. I mean, really?).

Instead I’ve been looking over old pictures of old friends and old haunts posted on the Hayden High School group on Facebook.

This got me thinking about old friends and it occurred to me that, in many ways, friends are very much the same as ghosts. They always inhabit the same time and place. They are always linked to the same emotions. They are always the same age. They always do the same things. They always talk the same way. They always wear the same clothes.

Meeting the same people years later is not the same as meeting your old friend. They are a mere hint of what they used to be. My best friend from when I was growing up in Colorado now makes brooms for a living and speaks with an Arkansas accent. My best friend from university is  paid to watch soccer and has also become a talented artist. The kid I grew up with builds hot rods and barely had time to see me that last time I was in the USA.

They are different people and although it’s fun to reminisce, I need to get to know them again now that they are not who they were. Now that they have much more interesting stories to tell about experiences we didn’t share.

I suppose this feeling is part of the fun of aging and becoming more experienced and learning more about the world. It’s the same as going back to your kindergarten or your elementary school and realizing how small it actually was but remembering in your bones how big it felt. I had the same feeling when I managed to sneak back to Hayden High School after having been away a few years. I remember Mr. Wenzlau, who taught history and social studies, smiling at my reaction–Yes, I spoke out loud as I’ve never learned to keep my mouth shut about things like that–and telling me, in so many words, that I’d seen more of the world and wasn’t the same person. (I remember thinking “Living in Salina-f&#%ing-Kansas counts as seeing the world?”)

It’s also, I suppose, a remnant of the glorious feeling we had when we were children that everything would always be the same. Friends wouldn’t move away; friends wouldn’t die; we really would be best friends forever. And maybe we will be. Maybe we are.

We just have to convince that old ghost in our heads to leave us the hell alone so we can move on.

It’s funny how moving from here to there makes you see large portions of your stuff as crap.

I spent the day packing and moving crap. More specifically, I spent the day binding old crap and setting it in the hallway so that someone else can throw it away. I put crap I’ll need into boxes so that someone else can carry it to a new building. I also carried some other crap to my new desk.

I’m in the process of moving offices because, for the past year, the school I work at has been building a new building around the old one. This involved first tearing down two-thirds of the old building, often while we were in it. (The rubble decorating this site shows off some of that destruction.)

This has got me thinking about the number of times I’ve moved in my life and how my perception of my stuff changed each time. I remember living in places when I was little, but I don’t actually remember moving to them. The first move where I remember moving stuff was when we moved from Denver to Hayden, Co. That one doesn’t count, though, because we simply moved our trailer from one place to another. Serious decisions were therefore not required–at least by me.

Then we moved from our trailer to a house. What I remember most about that one is how all the stuff from the seemingly smaller trailer didn’t seem to fit in the larger house. (I suspect this is why I’m a Doctor Who fan: I lived in the TARDIS.)

We then moved from Colorado back to Kansas. I don’t remember making any serious decisions then. The moves after that were pretty basic: home to fraternity, fraternity to apartment. Everything I owned could easily fit into my car. Serious decisions were therefore not required.

The first time I had to make serious decisions was moving from the apartment to Albania. Imagine how hard it is to pack for a two week trip. Now multiply that difficulty out to two years and you’ll understand the decisions I had to make. (Spoiler: “He chose poorly.) In Albania I had to move four times (long story that will take many posts to explain) and each time began to reconsider how much crap I had. Then I left Albania and managed to shed a lot of crap, especially as a lot of my crap had worn out thanks to two years in a developing country.

I spent two years in Mississippi and had my first realization that I might actually be an adult when, for the first time ever, all the crap I owned couldn’t fit in my car.

From Mississippi I moved to Nou-Machi, Japan “for two years”. Three years later, I had my most expensive move, I moved from quaint, quiet little Nou-machi to megatropolitan Tokyo. To imagine how expensive this move was imagine driving the 21 miles from Salina, Kansas to Abilene, Kansas and then back again. Every mile, open the car window and toss out a 100 dollar bill. By the time you get back to Salina, you will have spent less than that move cost me (including moving crap and getting an apartment).

Finally, I moved my wife into the apartment, found an infant on the front step of my in-laws’ house (for the record: this is the official story we tell her; officially the second was found four years later under a bridge.) and then moved everyone to our current location just outside of Tokyo. That move involved a pretty serious purge of crap. (For the record, I kept the wife and child although I’m still not sure why they kept me. And to the person/people going “mmm hmmm” right now: Shut up.)

Now I’m moving out of the desk I’ve worked at for 14 years and after all this I’ve learned to toss out a lot crap. Not as much as I should, though. My new desk is already full of crap.

Eventually, and I know this because it always happens: I’ll need some of the crap I threw out.