Holiday Weekend Update

[aadler]

 
So, bad news and good news.

The bad news is that, though the other members of my unit have finished out-processing from Fort Dix and are home now, I’m still here. I’m on medical hold until some cardiac issues can be checked out and confirmed as innocuous. (Or, if they should turn out to be serious, annotated as line-of-duty for the sake of future medical coverage or even, perhaps, disability.) I’m almost positive it’ll turn out to be nothing, but this is being done at my request: I want to be sure I’ve covered all the bases.

That means, among other things, that I won’t be home in time to see my daughter, who made a trip with her fiancé to visit my wife, but will be back in a different part of the country before I get out of Fort Dix. Because, of course, none of the necessary checkups can begin until after the holiday weekend.

Good news? Well, three parts.

First, I’m being paid for every day I’m held over, and money is never unwelcome. (Also, because this was my fourth deployment, I hit the jackpot on a new program to give extra leave to soldiers coming back from combat theaters; applied retroactively and added together, I’ll receive two full months of paid leave. That should help during my search for what will be the first job I’ve held outside the Army in nearly six years.)

Second, the story I did for RemixRedux 8: Magic Eight-Ball has received fairly positive reviews, including some from persons whose opinion I have reason to respect. The Big Reveal is supposed to come today, I think, so I’ll hold back on details, but I can fairly say the response has cheered me greatly.

Third, these extra days give me further time to write. I’m 7,000+ words into a new Buffyfic, and at my current rate of progress I’d say there’s an excellent chance of my completing it before time to leave. Which will mean five Buffy stories during this current deployment, even if three of the five (one in toto, two started elsewhere but finished here) will have been completed at Fort Dix. Not as good a performance as during my first Iraq deployment (eight fics), or Afghanistan (nine Buffy stories plus a drabble, and one Alias), but I did more actual work for the Army this time through, so I’m reasonably satisfied by my output.

That’s it, then. Soon as I post this, back to writing.