The hardest part about being out here is not the loneliness - there's always someone to talk to and there's a certain sense of commeraderie and family from living this shared experience that's so different from the rest of the land-based world - but instead the feeling of isolation. Wanting to reach out and feel connected to the friends and family you know are out there somewhere, beyond this big stretch of blue laid out in sheets all around, is the toughest part. Sure there's email, but there's only so much satisfaction to be had beyond the few-second thrill of reading a friend's note, and I hate feeling tied to Gmail and being at the mercy of its white-highlighted lines of new mail. The phones here are in very public areas, and I don't trust myself to not giggle loudly when on the phone with 2-0-7 Love. So I work out, talk to people about their lives, their kids, the tv shows that gather us in the conference room, and watch movies on the satellite tv. I try to read, but I find that reading makes me think and sometimes thinking too much just makes me sad.

Here, too, it's especially important to be very androgynous, and not let anything thing seem to carry even the slightest hint of impropriety. It's tough to feel llike I'm constantly hiding an integral part of who I am in order to fit in in this world of sports-chaw-redmeat and testosterone. (I wonder if that's what it's like to be in the closet?) Today a woman cook flew out which brought the grand total up to 3 out of 140 people, with me being the only one under 50.

And when you like human contact as much as I do (13 times a day, it's a researched fact! You need 13 x to be happy!) and don't have Tommers around the corner for my daily hand pat or hug, I feel like I'm having to physically hold myself back from reaching out and bear-hugging someone! Especially when most everyone here looks and talks like my dad!

Because of all these realities of being out here that you really only see after it's been three days and you still have another 7 to go before heading back in, I'm becoming more happy about the prospect of only doing a 7-7 schedule in the beginning, to acclimate to hugging myself. But I don't think the self-hug counts towards 13.

I think everytime I come out here it changes me a little, makes me a little more introspective (is that even possible!?!), and a little more aware of what I'm working towards, personally and professionally. It's frustrating, too, though, when all the guys out here are so genuinely nice to me and are very complimentary (in a dad sort of way, of course - one guy told me he was sorry if I caught him staring at me, it's just that I look so much like his wife when they were my age; someone else told me I was "lovely" hehe), and I think about how great it'd be if someone my own age in my own country and state would think the same thing. *typical sigh*

Anyway, I'm breaking all my own rules by doing this right now (using a company-owned laptop! with a company-owned internet connection!) so I'm going to go back to rockin' out my hard hat.