Time goes by so slowly …

 
I’m still doing eleven- and twelve-hour days, but I’m more comfortable in the process, and there’s a possibility we’ll get a third man into the shop sometime in the next month or so. That would mean shorter hours, and — miracle — a day off every now and then. Twice a month, maybe. Maybe more often.

My Internet access has been limited as much by hours as by facilities. I have an hour and a half in the evening, and about that much in the morning, when I could go online. The problem is, people are always waiting in line at the Internet cubicles set aside for us at the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation center), so we get only thirty minutes at a time. I can get by on that, primarily by saving Web pages to a flash drive (including pages of LJ Friends postings) and reading them at leisure on my laptop, but it doesn’t leave me much time for composition, or to linger over a reply. There are wireless contracts available, and the rates aren’t that bad … but more than I’m willing to pay for something I could use only occasionally because I’m frikkin’ working all the time.

I’m more comfortable than I’ve been on any other combat-theater deployment, and working harder than ever. Trade-offs.

Not complaining, this is what I signed up for, and I know I’ll come to the end of the deployment feeling a lot better about my past year’s performance than I’ve done before. It does bother me, though. My fanfic activities are more to me than just casual amusement: I love turning out stories, I draw genuine and lasting pleasure from them. And I just don’t have the time for much more than work, sleep, exercise, and getting ready to do it all over again.

I’ve written one decent letter to my wife, none to my kids. Even the time I actually do have free (a ninety-minute block, twice a day), I need to wind down before I could begin to concentrate. I’ve actually been ordered to take half a day off, but we’re on a seven-day repeat schedule and there’s just no time I can afford to leave undefended, not yet.

This is not ‘woe is me’. I’m not exhausted, not even nearing burnout. But I am feeling the lack of … let’s see, what do they call it? … oh, yeah, a life.