(no subject)

Watching "Top Chef" -- the challenge for the one I'm watching is for the chefs to make food for military personnel.

It always catches me by surprise, how purely nostalgic I feel whenever I see army folk in camo -- I mean, full camo, with nametag and everything, not Some Dude On The Street With Camo Pants On Who Thinks He's Tough. I grew up an army brat, on army bases, until I was nine, and I was a happy kid, I was happy on base. I have mostly good memories of that part of my life. I used to hug my dad's camouflage-clad leg every day when he left for work. My knee-jerk association with people in uniform isn't 'scary,' it's 'Daddy.'

And I always forget that, until suddenly I'm looking at a bunch of TV chefs feeding food to enlisted personnel, and then suddenly I'm tearing up. Once upon a time I would have been one of those kids in line, holding her army dad's hand and acting shy in front of the people serving food.

Culture is culture, I guess, wherever you find it.

(Fun fact: my parents were liberals when they were in the army. It's true. People aren't the stereotypes one might expect.)

catalogue of a solitary day

I love spending days alone.

Today I:

* Went to lunch at a restaurant alone. (I know a lot of people hate doing that. I love it.)
* Wrote. A lot.
* Leveled my white mage up to level 9.
* Trimmed my hair. Actually, more than trimmed: chopped off all the remainder of my damaged ends. My hair is still below the shoulder, but not by much.
* Touched up the henna on said hair.
* Exfoliated.
* Plucked my eyebrows.
* Regretted having no nail polish so I couldn't paint my nails, too.
* Watched Top Chef.
* Cooked whatever I wanted for dinner. (In this case: pan-fried chicken breasts with a puckeringly sour lemon-butter sauce.)

And now I am off to a hot bubble bath, with a glass of sweet dessert wine and a fluffy book.