Answering the call

it's 2:30 in the AM and I should be sleeping, but...well, here we are.

Highlights since October..

Still working for the magazine. I've settled in nicely, hiring photographers to cover events and parties, writing articles, and doing general PR stuff.

I had a great test drive for an article, a SMART fortwo. A car So tiny and so different, I have to abuse italics just to get the point across. this deserves its own blog (soon, I mean it this time).

went to Rhode Island with Melissa. Newport is a sweet town.

plenty of other stuff happened as well, it's all just a little difficult to recall at this hour.

So why the insomnia? For starters, I rarely sleep well. I don't think I've slept on a decent schedule for 6 years. I tend to stress a lot. a lot. so much so that I have to abuse italics again. I also suffer from depression and OCD. I don't talk about it. at all. ever. with anyone. I don't know why I'm blogging about it now, but maybe it's because I think it effects the relationships I have with people. My skittishness and odd behavior (not returning phone calls, breaking plans, not being able to maintain steady friendships, general xenophobia, lack of motivation, self loathing) could possibly stem a great deal from that.

How's that for insight? you thought this was going to be about cars.

Since Christmas, I've spent every night playing Call of Duty 4. Now its far from unusual for me to have marathon videogame sessions, but this time, its harder to stop. and when I'm not in front of the Xbox, I'm yearning to get back. It's become a white 20 gig crack pipe and I don't know how to put it down. The only answer I can comprise is, oddly enough, a very unsoldierly concept: retreat.

I'm retreating. I'm hiding. all the things that normal people have to deal with during their daily lives has, for me, become extremely hard to deal with, so I'm focusing on fake people and fake events just because it let's me not be me for a while. when I get interrupted, I get agitated and snappy to people. when I have real things to do, I put them off. when I'm forced to maintain a semblance of being a social entity, I dread every minute until I have to stop and leave.

It's not a violence thing. I don't lust after the thrill of causing simulated harm to caricatures of Islamic extremist or Russian mercenaries. Indeed, I'll begin to sympathize with my pixelated foe. I wonder what terror ran through a soldier's mind as he stormed forward to protect his beliefs, armed with his killing skills and automatic rifle. his life steeped within conflict and training, he must have possessed a battle-hardened soul that wouldn't hesitate to cut down a platoon of men on the battlefront given the chance. amid the shouting, the strobe of muzzle flare, he presses forward, turns the corner to find...me. with a double tap of my MP5, he's fatally wounded and drops to the floor. And then I think, after his whole life, his whole adult life that was dedicated to fighting, after becoming so dull to the fact that he kills people, it all went away in that moment he met me. mainly because I was a fraction of a second faster than him. what fear is going through his head as he lies there? what a nightmarish realization he must be having. his life is over. even as he squirms in digital blood, he fires his sidearm desperately in my direction, desperate to kill, desperate to kill me. I shoot him again.
this is just a videogame. these things actually happen to real people, and its frightening to put yourself in their shoes, if only for a moment.

Maybe I'm drawn to the sense of duty. I've always liked the mindset and efficiency of the Military. things happen. shit needs to be done, so shit gets done. its that simple. your hands will get dirty and you will be in pain and you will not like it, but you will do it anyway because it is your duty. Duty tends to be something difficult to define. It usually comes down to something that one is obligated to do. I think that I translate it a little differently. I think that to me, duty is another word for purpose. In the game, I have a clear cut purpose: to go over there and physically stop those who want to do bad things. It's an honorable notion, even if it's fake.

I think I'm just at a loss for what my purpose is. I don't know what my duty is. You'll probably say cliche's like " to yourself" or " to loved ones", and you'll probably be right. still...I don't know.

I don't often go on about stuff like my "feelings" and crap. it's well beyond my comfort zone.
don't know how to end this either. I just know that Capt. Price of the SAS 22nd regiment probably wouldn't approve.