Oof. Slight hangover. Touch of nausea. Light, butterfly wing of a headache. Yuck.

I think I should probably be excused for drinking a little much last night (although not as much as other nights, with less severe resultant hangovers -- why? don't get it), as it was a bit of a trip down Emotionally Fraught Memory Lane.

Okay, July 4, so (actually kind of randomly), I end up at the U.S. army base in Yongsan (the big ass one in the middle of Seoul) watching fireworks with Marc, who's with the U.S. army; Vivian, a nice woman from Taiwan; Yuji, the 38-year-old Japanese man who looks 30; and Dan/Jeff, who is 18, considers Biggie his role model, and whose name I obviously didn't catch.

These are all people (except Yuji, whom I met at Junior's birthday party way back when) that I met at a post-graduation party two weeks ago. With the exception of Marc, we all go to the same language program.

I'm not exactly sure how it conspired, but I think Vivian and Marc were in touch after the party two weeks ago, and Marc invited all of us to his apartment for drinks, chow (cold cuts and American and provolone cheese! I was so happy) and fireworks. Anyway. Doesn't matter. Must divest self of compulsion to remit useless boring facts to reader.

So we head onto base for some July 4 fireworks, and it is... trippy, to say the least. First, it's an odd thing, to enter a U.S. military base, even if you're in America. It's a different world, like 1950s suburbia. There's a day care, elementary school, and high school. There's free first-run movies for active duty soldiers. There's a classy hotel that's just for military personnel. It's just... weird.

Second, the Yongsan base is a freakin' U.S. military installation in the smack dab middle of a freakin' foreign country's capital city. Marc said that if W gets reelected, it's a pretty sure thing that they'll move the base about two hours south of Seoul, and that he thought it was a pretty good idea. Besides the political factors, there's the small matter of the chaos and disorder to be overcome if Seoul was ever attacked -- yeah, there's an American/Korean plan for evacuation and all that, but if the drivers in Seoul don't even pay attention to traffic lights, what's the chance that they'll obediently zip onto the assigned roads to evacuate the city?

Third, the last time I was on an army base, it was in DC, and I was going to see J. So when I saw the humongous, Target superstore-size commissary, I suddenly remembered the Fort Myer commissary, where J and I used to go grocery shopping. Marc, the army guy, pointed out the shoppette (a convenience store), and I flashed back to the time J and I were both low on cash, went to the shoppette on base, and bought tuna, bread and mustard with the five bucks we had between us.

Marc said that there used to be a golf course on base (in the freakin' middle of crowded, living-on-top-of-each-other Seoul!), before Seoulites complained about this extravangant use of precious real estate. It was turned over to the city, which plans to build a natural history museum on the grounds. Anyway. More pointless info, leading to the real story, which is that I yelped, "A golf course! That's extravangant," to which Marc said, "All American bases have golf courses!" to which I replied, "Ft. Myer didn't!" to which he replied, "Sure it does!" to which I challenged, "Where?" to which he answered, "Uh, in the back?" to which I laughed, to which he joked, "Well, maybe the generals tee off of JFK's nose," to which I fell silent, because I just got hit with the memory of all the times I went to see J at the Tomb, the Cemetary in the winter and summer and fall and spring, the way J looked on the mat, the times I'd come by with lunch for him after having borrowed his car in the morning, the care and diligence and pride with which he did his job.

Sigh.

Interesting factoid: Marc said that it was common knowledge that North Korean special ops trainees, as part of their testing, have to sneak over to the South's side of the DMZ and take a rubbing of a sign that is hung on the fence to warn visitors off.