God... I Love That In The Shot We See Of Sid Waiting By The Car To Pick Eugene Up At The Train Station

The first time I saw Skip Muck’s grave at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, I just stood there and felt numb. I was with Dick Winters and Carwood Lipton, on a trip led by Stephen Ambrose. It was 1991. No tears. In fact, there’s a photo of three of us old vets standing at his grave and we’re all looking resolute. Soldiers, you know, posing for a picture taken by a historian who admired the hell out of us. I returned there in 2004 and remembered how when Roe asked if I wanted to see Skip, I’d said no. And when Winters asked if I wanted a break, I’d said no. I realized that since those moments, I’d grieved for everybody I’d lost except for one man, the man whose death I’d tried for decades to run away from, the man whose loss had hit me harder than all the rest. How many times had I looked at that 1942 photo of all of us at Toccoa, the one I’d written all the KIAs and SWAs on for those killed and seriously wounded, and thought, Why not me? Why no initials on my chest? Why not at Brécourt Manor, when I’d stupidly gone after what I thought was a Luger on that dead soldier? Or at Hell’s Corner, when German soldiers had our patrol outnumbered eight to three but wrongly assumed we had more firepower and surrendered to us? Or at Bastogne? If Winters hadn’t split Skip and me up, that would probably have been me, not Penkala, in that foxhole with Skip on January 9, 1944. But even if I’ve played the what-if game often, I know, deep down, that you can never win at it. Better to remember that, for whatever reason—God or fate or reading a Reader’s Digest article about paratroopers on a Greyhound bus heading for Astoria—I was privileged to serve with a company of men who would make me far more than I would have been without them. And that losing one of those men had hurt so badly that I’d buried the thought of him, thinking that somehow that would help me avoid the pain. Better, I’ve since learned, to turn into those waves and dive. So on that day in 2004 when I visited the cemetery where Skip is buried, I looked at that white marble cross and that name—Sgt. Warren H. Muck—and thought of the kid who swam the Niagara. The march to Atlanta. The smile. I knelt, placed flowers at the base of that cross. Prayed. All the things I’d done before when I’d come to see his grave. Only this time I did something different, long overdue, and hard but freeing. I cried sixty years’ worth of tears.

~ Don Malarkey

We used to make fun of people for saying "not all men" it was beautiful

In a Lonely Place 1950, dir. Nicholas Ray

adhd gothic

- your alarm rings but you are too tired. you set an alarm for five minutes later and go back to sleep. when you wake again, it is light outside and the alarm never went off. it was set for five hours later. you could have sworn you set it to five minutes later.

- your clothes are organized in piles on the bedroom floor. occasionally a shirt moves from one pile to another. you do not remember moving it.

- your desk at work is organized but not. “i have a system” you tell yourself. you are worried someone will discover the truth. you must not let others know you are struggling. your desk at work is organized but not.

- you did not take your meds. your brain is static. you did take your meds. your brain is accelerated static. last week your meds worked well. are they working well today? did you remember to take them? did you even refill your prescription last month?

- your assignment is due in november. it is september. your assignment is not due soon. it is end of october, but your assignment is not due until november. it is november 15th. where is your assignment? you go to bed, it is now november 27th. why do you turn in work late?

- you go to work to make money. you know you make money because you are told you do. your bank account doesn’t change much. you spend more because you are told you make money. you haven’t looked at your bank account for a few weeks now. it makes you anxious.

- there was something you were supposed to do. you didn’t do it, and you disappointed someone. you do not know who. it will come to you eventually, perhaps.

- you trip over a half-knit scarf. one of the needles is missing. you tried to learn knitting a year ago and forgot about the scarf. how long has this been on the floor? where is the other needle? you do not remember how to knit.

- you find yourself growing bored and unconsciousness slips into your periphery. you throw yourself into your work. if you are busy you will not sleep. if you are bored you will sleep. fight the sleep as long as you can. you cannot sleep at night.

- you do not eat and you eat too much. 

- your friends ask why you do not reply to their messages. it is overwhelming and you are so tired. you send too many messages at once and are filled with guilt. your friends keep texting you and you do not know why.

- your eyes blur when you read. you skim the words and do not retain. you skimmed this post and did not retain. you do not remember what the first bullet on this post was. you might not have read this last bullet, either. you will still tag the post as though you read it. you understand its essence, and that is okay.

Ratatouille (2007) // Challengers (2024)

[we all lie.mp3]

+ the Biggest Liar of them all:

travel stills, photographer unknown, c. 1965.

Crying, Gerri Kellman you will always be famous

"get outta here, you serious? i love the holidays!"

merry christmas, chag sameach, and happy webgott wednesday :)