. . . or a Skunk?

No, I have not had a run-in with a skunk.  For all I know, Iraq doesn't even have skunks, though maybe they do in the mountains up north.Anyway, when I was in DC going through my courses at the Foreign Service Institute, we had a doctor come talk to us twice.  Once as part of my PRT training, and one as part of the Iraq Familiarization course.  Not only was she a doctor, she was, pardon the expression, a shrink.  She was a riot!  Her topic of discussion was how to physically and mentally deal with being isolated on a compound for extended periods of time.

Face it, I have it better being in Baghdad than I would have been at other PRTs where the "base" would have been a lot smaller and the living conditions much less luxurious (think 4 star hotel compared to 1 star), and I have it better than a lot of folks here at the embassy because I get to run about in Baghdad every week (granted, it's kinda like saying the President gets to go out and about in DC with his plethora of secret service agents, but face it, I get outside the embassy walls everyday).

So our teacher had a phrase she would ask us that leads to the reason I have one of my favorite cartoon characters as part of this post (Pepe le Pew if you didn't know).  She asked, "Are you going to be a chunk, a hunk, a drunk or a skunk?"  Apparently strange things happen to people after they've been cooped up for a while.

We've got free food.  Lots of it.  All we can eat and as much as we can take home.  It's not horrible, and the deserts can be mighty good.  So like a lot of college freshmen, apparently folks around here tend to chunk up if they don't watch what they eat. I've managed to avoid desserts most days, and really have cut out in-between meal snacking, so I'm no more a chunk than when I got here.  Question is, can I keep it up?

Unlike the military, we won't get sent home for drinking.  There's alcohol and beer at the PX, and a bar (Baghdaddies) that's open on Thursday and Friday nights.  Ann asked me the other night about what there is to do around here, especially on weekends.  Well, not a hell of a lot. Yeah, they have a movie night (don't know where they show it at), but really, folks walk around a bit (no place to go to, everything is dirt, and it's still pretty warm at night - and then there is the periodic incoming issue, which makes staying indoors the safest option) and then hang out in their rooms.  So drinking is a very viable option to spend one's free time.  But in the end, that turns you into a drunk.  And in case anyone forgets, alcohol has a lot of calories, so I suspect that a lot of the drunks are also chunks.  I assumed that when I came over here alcohol wouldn't be available, so I made sure I had most of my favorite brews before I got here.  Which chunked me up a bit, but has not left me craving for alcohol when I got here.  Despite the possibility of pissing off the beer gods, I've have a 6-pack of Sam Adams lager (yes Brandon, lager) in my fridge for a week and I still have 6 of them sitting there.  No beers in 4 weeks of being here.  I can't be a drunk.

Then there are the skunks.  The folks that decide that, because they're a few thousand miles away from the people they care most about, they don't need to do things like shower, clean their rooms and stuff like that.  Now, that's probably ok on the occasional weekend, but beyond that . . . no thank you.  And in case you're wondering, I still shower every day, and my day off is laundry day.  And while I may be a stacker, my piles are usually pretty organized (just ask Ann) and I haven't change my ways here.  So, I am not a skunk.  At least not yet.

Which leaves becoming a hunk.  Well, don't expect me to turn into Tom Selleck (I'm too short and don't have enough hair) and I've got quite a bit of chunk to burn off, but I have started going to the gym.  I've even gone enough times that I don't feel like I'm going to die while I'm exercising nor the morning after I've exercised.  I guess I really don't have an excuse not to go because the gym is located about 50 feet from the exit of my building. But still, one has to get up and actually go do it.  And I have.

So far I've mostly spent time on an elliptical glider, though I did do one day on a rowing machine (forgot to take off my wedding ring and had a nice sized blister when I was done). My motivation so far has been REM (Accelerate and Live at the Olympia in Dublin [great pre-album/tour live album with lots of old stuff]) and U2 (Achtung Baby) to keep me moving.  I'm kinda surprised at how quickly my body has gotten used to it.  After a few days I'm sustaining at a rate that I could barely do on the first day, and the tables tell me I'm performing at a good rate for a 50-year old geezer (as well as for a 40-year old not so geezer).  I guess there's hope for the hunk thing (now to figure out how to drop the beer belly, though I guess that doesn't involve drinking the 6 pack in the fridge).

We've also got weights and a lap pool, both of which I have not tried yet.  I expect boredom to force me to try those as well.  Like I said, not much here to do and I've already read through 3 of the 4 books I bought before I came out here.  So here's to me keeping to the exercise routine and coming out of here something other than a chunk, a drunk or a skunk.