Yes indeed

A few years back on Thanksgiving I was watching a PBS documentary about Charles Shulz the creator of peanuts. I've forgotten the exact quote but he said something like 'When someone says 'I feel like Charlie Brown today.' you know what that means.' I thought that was fascinating. Because godamnit I do know what that means and how that feels. To wake up just feeling alienated and isolated and just plain fucking bummed out and you just don't know why. I remember in the documentary too how they talked about how Shulz himself was a very depressed inward kind of person. And how he pored his heart and soul into that comic strip. And how after he died he wouldn't let anyone else take over for him. And god bless him for it, I say. Because that strip was his work and he felt very personally about it. And he continued to draw it up until his death. And the football the Charlie brown tries to kick every time only to have it taken away by Lucy. How he talked about how he couldn't let him kick that football. That football represents something I think. Although i'm not sure what. That one thing that we are all striving for that somehow gets away from us. That demon we are chasing that always seems to elude us.

Ok! Time to wake up!

Carter walked slowly through the sun drenched village wary of everything around him. It was midday and the sun was at its zenith and the sun had slowed down to a standstill. Everything was quiet except the soft breathing of a gentle breeze. Carter could see why the people of the village shut down at this time, the temperature had topped 100 degrees. It couldn't even be called heat in his mind, it was more like a malevolent force bent on people misery. Still carter had acclimated himself to most climates so he endured it as best he could. When he had been in Vietnam he had seen many of his colleagues felled with heatstroke and sunburn he had remained unscathed. He looked around the village. It was of modest size with stucco buildings and architecture that had likely been there for ages. It was unfortunate that the people of the country had been ill-formed and chosen the wrong person as they're leader. They weren't really to blame as they had no way of knowing. General Mustafa was a charismatic man who was genuinely concerned about the welfare of his people. His opposition General Aziz was the polar opposite, a lying, corrupt drunk who displayed an obvious disregard to anyone's wellbeing but his own. Even Carter had found him intolerable. But still he was their man, their guy the one who would do what they said. So it was his job to right this wrong, to train and equip a 'resistance' force, to plant stories in the local papers and to make it all seem legitimate. A few old man stood in front of the cafe idly smoking on a hookah. He had tried it a few times and it had always left him was an intense head rush, a few of the time he had suspected that someone had sneaked some hashish in the mix. He over to the cafe keeping a close watch at the two old men who peered back the same.