Some advice

First piece of advice, based on a dream last night:

Don't go to Iraq. It's fucked up there, with the US Army reduced to fighting insurgents house to house with slingshots. If you do go, don't take your four-year old son. If you do take your four -year old son, make sure he's with you, otherwise you'll find out that something vaguely dire has happened to him--this is also the moment you discover he's along for the trip, incidentally. If your son is harmed in some way, discourage your wife from leaping onto a steam train to rush to his side if she is without a ticket, because otherwise she will be accosted by surly Iraqi women for not riding legitimately and you, her husband, will be forced to run alongside the train, beseeching your suddenly materialized guide and interpreter to help you with the oddly shaped coins in strange denominations (39?!) that you must now throw through the open window of the train compartment to your wife to pay for her ticket and arrest the onslaught of irate Iraqi widows.

Second piece of advice:

Go read Mo on Miranda July. I find much of what she says sage, although I personally am not that keen on the bite your tongue school of thought. Then again, Mo gets in fewer dustups than I, so she's perhaps onto something.