It Happened Again

When you do this indie publishing thing, you(I)  hear from so many people that are so opposed to it.   I, personally, am all over the map about is this whoring?  Is this frustration?  Is this vanity?  Is this a need to enlighten?  Is this a waste of my time and other's time and space?  When the gauge by which you judge yourself is so palpable and undeniable as actual dollars or actual printed words, it is so easy to let yourself be wracked by self doubt.  I think this is normal.  I don't think I am particularly more or less filled with self doubt than any other Joe Shmoe.  And I already discussed being a Joe Shmoe and being accepting of that. And I totally feel that putting your words and thoughts out in the public eye indicates that there is a lot more going on than self doubt.  And then you get a random review from a random stranger and you are jubilant.  Not so much an ego thing, that they Like you, like Sally Field, but that the words they chose indicate they get what you are saying.  This holds far more meaning for me than having someone say  "Your style is so fun or amazing, or ridiculous, or convoluted, or strange, or  stupid, or hideous."

But then you are kind of noticing a person, and identifying with their doubts and their struggles and you go so far as to compliment them and try to encourage them and buoy them up a bit and thank them for sharing with you, and then you read something, and it is like Holy Shit.  This sucks.  This makes no sense.  I can't follow this.  My sophomore English teacher gave me more props than this will ever get.  This is fucking hopeless.  What do you do?  I know what I do, what I will do, what is the only comfortable path for me.  I am going to fade out of the scenario.  And I'm gonna wonder.  Self doubt?  Apparently I have none.  Apparently there is just a certain blindness people have.  Apparently people that love me want me to just stay in my cloud of self-delusionment for fear  of hurting me (which never seemed to bother them before) or robbing me, in my final moments, of my last thread of hope.. . Or apparently I can write.

And, you know what?  I will never have an answer for that. 

Roman Roads, French Language

I hardly know where to start. I will ramble. I will control it. I am obsessed with the war in Afghanistan. I am obsessed with the Restrepo film. I even ordered it from National Geographic (and you can too). I am obsessed with Major Daniel Kearney. All these things are very unhealthy, but at my age I don't give a shit. I finally get to shine here. They will probably never know the scope of my brilliance, but at my age I don't give a shit.

I have watched at least a dozen clips, four, five, six minutes each, or more, so I probably have seen more vid footage than the actual doc. The one where Sebastian Junger is crouching behind the wall with his eyelids shrunk into his head from fear, and we know, concomitantly, his scrotal sac and all its contents are also shrunken into the depths of his body for the same reason, and he is wearing this shitty Second World War Helmet that doesn't fit him, you know right away the whole platoon must hate him, and he sure as hell didn't read about when Pat Tilman got shot otherwise why would he be wearing that piece of tin that rocks back and forth on his head. Or did he pick it cuz it looked more cool than the reasonably effective helmets?

And (at least) TWICE, two different people, one of them Kearney, so they were probably instructed to pronounce it this way, they are asking the villagers where they are keeping the weapons "CASHAY". This is bone picking, but that is where we find the sweetest meat, and now I know why I gave birth to Gerty the Grammarian. The word is CACHE and in the Midwestern United States it is pronounced KAYSH. In the Western US it is pronounced KASH. Maybe on the Eastern Seaboard they say KASHAY, but we already know how wrong those people are. It is French for a repository, usually secret, or at least undisclosed, for things you own. KASHAY is cachet which is an air of self-possession or aura of charm that you know you have and flaunt. That definition is slightly editorialized. It is spelled CACHET. Yes, they do come from the same Romance language root. The thing is two different guys say it this way on at least two different filmed occasions. And I just have this fear that the Afghani translator is asking the Native Elders where they are keeping their charm or their sex appeal or their eyeliner. And the interrogators are always assuming these are the good guys who are going to tell on the bad guys when it is obvious that they are talking to the actual shooters, or fathers thereof, the sons of bitches, girly men, with an obsession for red hair, so perverse that when the old fuck's red beard grows out white, he holds on to the bottom two inches that were originally red, kind of like a Drew Barrymore hairstyle beard. Get a life. Get a fucking scissors.

And THEN:

Walking through a woodsy copse in rural England you are apt to come across a cracked earthenware jar filled with Old Roman Gold Coins and jewelry. This happens. But more often, you may come across a section of cobblestones, neatly and evenly placed which are the remnant of an ancient Roman Road which they built to make their lives better. Let's just quit the BS that we are building roads for the Afghanis. OKAY? If they wanted a fucking road, they had four thousand fucking years to build it, and they didn't because they don't want it, or are too stupid and primitive to understand the concept. They cherish their isolation so the men can walk around with their eyeliner and their dresses and their red hair giving flowers to one another, seeking "favor". And that may be why they are shooting at you and, anyway, you are just there to distract from sneakier, larger, more important missions up North in the same God forsaken Country. So get a clue and stop trying to fool us. Who in America is left that buys this shit?

The obsession with red hair, which our future president, Daniel Kearney even commented on--that I can understand.