Why doesn't he write?

Seriously, I feel like the jilted, scorned lover who has been ignored and left hanging out to dry by...well, by me. 'Cause I haven't been writing. And I should be ashamed of myself for not writing, but I'm just so angry with myself that it's hard to be ashamed. Or something like that.

Ok, so what's happened since I last wrote? Well, that's a good question because I don't remember when I wrote last, ok? Geez, get off my back! I'm checking...April 10? Good gravy! I should have my writing credentials revoked. Too bad I don't have any. And if I did, are you going to come to Iraq to take them away from me? Good luck, they're presently in the process of kicking us out of this place. And we have some serious firepower.

Anyway, back to what has happened since I last wrote. Oh yeah, NOTHING. This place is like a black hole of time. Everything reduces to a singularity of slowness (that's pure science terminology there, boys and girls) while we tick off the days on our Marisa Miller calendar (we're past navel level!) and watch the temperature rise. I guess it's a positive when viewed at the strategic level that we're bored; the alternative is obviously much worse.

So, to pass the time, I've actually created at least one job for myself by doing a daily "Islam 101" lesson over secure-line Internet for a bunch of people I work with. It was started mostly to educate myself and I figured if other people can benefit, that's cool too. And I have to tell you, this Islam stuff? Wow. Seriously. I mean sure, they've got some great ideas like everything being the fault of the Jews, but who doesn't know that already? In all honesty though, I've learned some pretty interesting things that at least help me realize why certain things are the way they are over here. Maybe I could do an entire posting on the wackiness of Islam. Maybe I could also find out where that Salman Rushdie fellow is hanging out and join him.

Other events: Apparently Kung Fu died in a closet in Thailand with rope wrapped around his neck and his junk. Sad as that was to hear, let's be honest, we all laughed. Don't lie.

The Denver Nuggest finally realized that they are...well, that they're the Denver Nuggets, and lost in the playoffs.

Iran is holding a presidential election. So they can choose between....?

The movie Taken, with Liam Neeson, came out on DVD here in Iraq. Much to the enjoyment of pretty much every guy I know. And now we are all karate-chopping each other in the throat as a formal greeting because of it. Thanks, Liam.

Kim Jong Il launched a nuke. No word on if the UN wrote him a nasty letter.

Oh and I found out that white men are not as capable of understanding constitutional law as latina women. So that was interesting to learn (shot my dreams of a career in Law right down the tubes -- R.I.P. Matlock!!!).

I think that about covers it. I wish I had more to say, but the reality of it is, I have to wait until I'm done in the Army to say a lot of what I want to say. It's not that it's "classified" per se; it's that I don't want to go through the hassle of getting the Army's approval of my blog. I've seen how long it takes to fill out paperwork just to get pay straightened out, so I can only imagine what that would be like.

My plan is to write something for this whole deployment once I'm done. Possibly a multi-part series, or maybe something else. I'm not sure. Obviously hundreds of publishers have offered me millions of dollars to tell my amazing story, but it's really about the people, you know? I just want it to be told right. And by told right, I mean I don't want to leave out the part about how we painted the cat to look like Braveheart and then the next week used magic marker to give it glasses. And also how our detachment committed an unspeakable atrocity, sadly known as "moustache month."

But until that time, I will try to keep Iraq classy by smacking around as many locals as I can. In-sha, Allah, as they say...