41 and a wake-up: in the arena

I had yesterday off but couldn’t bring myself to do much for the most of the day. Working seven days a week, and now six days a wekk drains a body, and when I have any down time I just crash.
Eventually I pulled out my Thoreau and a notebook and went and sat in the sun by the pool. But Thoreau bored me even though, as always I found a couple of classic ideas to hold onto. I wrote some in my notebook but what I’d intended to be an essay on the dichotomy of me and Thoreau and military culture turned into yet another rant, self realization that I don’t want to work more than six months a year…someday, if I aspire I will be partially unemployed. Unfortuanetly that means unpaid as well.
So I just pulled out a dried out Cuban cigar and smoked it, watching the lithe girls in the distance run up and down the length of the pool…as the teacher who spent 8 weeks with us on my last cruise and became a friend of mine once said, Billy, you and I were the kids who spent too much time in time-out in kindergarten.
He’s right, I’ve always resisted jumping into the arena. As a kid in Chantay Acres I have somewhat fond memories of crawling down into man holes to stand in the sewer. But when my friends wanted to do it, roll the cover off the man hole, I said we ought not. Only when I saw they were going to pick up that heavy metal lid anyway did I help. Looking back now I guess it could have fallen on us and cut off our fingers…would drastically slow down my typing.
So I made up my mind, stubbed out the foul cigar and walked back to my trailer to change into my swim trunks. I got to the pool and dove in. I flopped and languished and just as I was about to get out to dive in again my friend Andy(rea) swam up. We talked I told her I was afraid to go off the high dive. She got out and dove in from the sort of high dive but I just stayed in the pool and floated on my back. Then I talked to the Dutch girls that are here for NATO. I invited them to the Chinese restaurant with me and Andy, Johnnie, and a navy Master at Arms I’d met while floating in the pool. They said they had to work but maybe next time…maybe next time. I like the Dutch women, with their brown hair and dark eyes. I still need to make it to Amsterdam sometime.
So there was Chinese afterwards, pleasant but filling. Now I’m getting ready to head over to the Convention Center and try to account for U.S. government property. But really, the only thing I’m counting is the days. Forty-one and a wake up.