Newaccountitis.
Some new business accounts:
- clburke@carolyn.org
- Passport Online
- clburke@maple.net
- MapleNet Technologies Inc.
Things I shouldn't say.
I wish I could find someone who would love me. How dull I must be to
be compared to an exotic mystic and end up seen as the dull housewife.
Or is it only that the sky is grey today?
There are two women, or there were. One was an author, Dorothy
Parker, about whom a movie was recently made. That movie woman and I
identify - perhaps not in writing skill but rather in world view to some
extent. Am I practicing my negatives?
The other woman is Mrs. Brown. Superb example of couch potato turned
white trash drunk. an amputation as a consequence of gangrene in her
foot didn't change her lifestyle at all. How can someone be like that?
Am I? Is this the part of my formative years that did sink in? I had
always thought that the parts that I embraced and the parts that I
fought were the only parts. I think this may be wrong. Do I not
remember most of my childhood simply because most of it wasn't strongly
reacted to by me? And Mrs. Brown.. who was she anyway?
So I've taken up drinking too much whenver I hurt a lot. Its been
two weeks since I started this, and I've gone from getting tipsy after
half a glass of wine to being able to put back most of a liter. More
interesting is that there was always a confound on what I thought being
drunk was. Where I was from, it was the biggest taboo to drink at home
alone. Not only hadn't I drunk much previously at all, but I also have
never done so alone until now. Its by exploring the taboo subject that
we learn why it's taboo, I guess. Bfore that it is only just another
convention to follow, and in this case, a moraly reinforced to the max
taboo.
So here I am, in my front room, drinking a bottle of wine -- two
nights ago actually. And I find that I am in perfectly fine control of
myself. My ideas flow where I want them, and my actions and intemntions
match. Don't get me work, both differ from what they would have been
had I not been drinking. I claim nothing to that. Rather, it is simply
that every other time I've ever drunk, I would get flirty, or loud, or
scared of people ... always social reactions. And now I know that this
was due to having been in social situations, and not to the booze.
Now I know that my own feelings come out clearer (from my point of
view that is) and easier for me. If my feelings are about being nervous
in a social situation, then the booze assists this feeling in coming out
clearer. And when I am alone, my feelings are not social. Now I know.
Another taboo crippled in the face of experience.
You see, I feel now that the taboo is not about becoming an
alcoholic. It is an attempt to prevent people from knowing themselves a
little clearer. Surely most of us believe that a bit of pot or a valium
or any other mood alterer isn't harmful in and of itself as much as it
harms the social fabric shape. This is the fight that keeps the study
of philosophy and psychology out of all pre-post-secondary education.
The recursive subjects are considered subversive. As is drinking in
private. As is thinking for oneself. And as is being your own person.
Good luck.
There are somethings that I just
cannot write here -- about my own life. Such would have unduly harsh
effects on various parts of my more conservatively fronted life. That
said, I end up discussing things metaphorically and not literally
factually.
What difference does it make?
On on down the depressive spiral of self loathing I go. I see what it takes to be an uprising person, and I do nothing to do these things. I live with another who professes love, and acts otherwise. And I cry about it. Instead of gritting my teeth and leaving. I understand the rape victim, and I so the rapist too. As professionalism is to prostitution so love is to rape. You let someone in to your heart and you invite only the most painful of attrocities. And yet they are invited and not pursued. [Moppins chirps in friendship. I stroke her back for awhile.]
Friends don't really do anything when they say they'll be there for you, and loved ones aren't. My life is a ruin. I must live in between the artifacts of despair. Without the escape velocity to get out, I'm stuck here. But if I had that energy, I foolishly use it for other dreams first. Maybe I should dream those dreams even now when I can't find them most.
I pushed my friends to have other relationships and friends. I did so for many reasons. And now I am alone and surrounded by the noisy causal footprints of too many others. For those frineds refused to keep their relatings private.
Am I just another failed genius? Yes. I will be Mrs. Brown and wallow forever in nothing.
Yours in wallowing..
moooo.
So are happy endings possible? It seems so. I simply approached him and suggested that he up front says that he doesn't love me or he commits to total conservative monogamistic (about everything) relating with me. Neither was a yes or no. After awhile I saw that what put him off was hiving away with me, and losing othercontact - but not hving the contact with me that we used to have. So we're trying that out - rather successfully so far.
Oh, and tit-for-tat works in educating the wandering palatte. I'm glad that the first time I tried it, it succeeded. I think that this horrible strategy of revenge ought to be kept in the background for special cases though.
I'm off to do some seminars next week in the US, and then I'll drop in on an old friend who's on contract in New Jersey. It'll be fun to be back in the states after these past few months. The extroverted pseudo-bully personality is comfortable and encouraged by daily interactions in the US. Canadians encourage such a level of tight-assedness and coldness. Its tiring to always be behind a front of cool.
And maybe, just maybe, being happy will come easily. And I shall be less truth-functional and float more.
[I think my diary will have to be kept in a safer spot at carolyn.org soon. I also need my new netscape. miau]
It was my turn.
I'm sitting in a room darkened just a bit without the light of day through a window. The chair is rather hard and stiff without cushioning and my eyes adjust slowly. There are others in the small room, the nearest of which has smelly tangy breath forcibly blowing across the space between us. He is hungry for me.
And included amongst this almost circle of chairs is the boss.
I can feel the weight of betrayal in my heart. The fight to stay seated with dignity for my approaching death is the hardest I've ever fought. My face remains all but motionless. Only he will be able to read the subtle signs I can not cover. Perhaps that is his one greatest skill, that of knowing a person behind their mask. I hope with all my heavy heart that this is not so. And I know it is. "Sit still elegantly without a flinch," says my heart to me. Do not run. There is nowhere to go from here.
I sit and watch. He is talking with the man before me. They discuss something I am not informed about, issues of import to both. To the boss, the issue is a sliver of his world and yet an indication of its health. One man's dinner is another's life, and yet to go without dinner long enough - to even think that he might - is sufficent to cause the most civilized of men to fight another. It is no different here. Tensions grow as they come to the heart of the matter.
And ease again with his smile. And now to me.
He looks my way, directly at me with eyes burning. I see anger in them, and disappointment. I know I will die shortly. He sees me. I notice for the first time as my mind races for safety that I am the only woman in the room. I should feel the flattery of having been allowed to come at all - to face my death as a man. And I do. Perhaps this keeps me from turning my eyes away as he pierces deeply into my soul. He has noticed the signs I cannot hide. He courts my heart now, prying where only a lover can go .. into the depths of self-knowledge. He knows.
I try to keep my breath steady. I haven't yet said a word. Nor has he. Only seconds have passed - the last few I will know.
"Is it true?" he asks with an old-world bluntness. God how I which it were not. But I am here and dignified. I tell myself, so loudly I am surprised they cannot hear also, to stay and die with their brand of honour.
"Yes," I reply to him without flinching. I am managing to die well. Quivers of excitement coarse through me. Has a lover ever made me feel so alive, I wonder. And he must know for sure, as he watches and sees the shiver, that I must die. I have betrayed his trust - betrayed him.
The others in the room vanish into nothing as his energy coarses through me longer and harder. I know I am only his now and they will only appreciate his strength. I try to be as calm as any of them would have. Still my blood races.
He holds up a picture of Beckett. I can read a story in his face about the man in the photo. He is telling me something, that I as a woman was not responsible for what I had done, for what had happened. His eyes draw me again to the photo. "You are a whore. Don't worry anymore."
I looked at him sharply then, revealing insecurity, fear finally. I didn't understand. I tried to keep my head held high as I watched him raise his hand. Emptyness filled it. Here was my opportunity to run. I chose with all my being to live and yet, I stayed instead - ready to die. It was the most important decision in my young life.
"Jesse," his voice boomed. I jumped inside but with his eyes behind me, I don't think he caught it. I would die bravely.
Through a recess in the wall off to my left, I could see Jesse enter. Long black hair loose down his back, the indian held in hand a tiny gun, perhaps a pistol. Finally my reserved control broke and I jumped at Jesse, startling him. The tiny gun ended in my hand. Flipping it around to point first at the boss, and then quickly at myself, I muttered, "No, not Jesse." I thrust the gun into his still empty hand. I gasped, "Only you."
A look of surprise crossed his features. And yet with a beautiful fluidity of motion, the gun's journey continued on, though it remained firmly in his educated grasp. The muzzle forced its way quickly between the thick flesh of his body and his elbow to peer out behind him. Two quick shots bolted out coldly killing a fellow I had only briefly noticed. The slender black fellow slumped and his partner, another black dealer sat up in full, almost military attention. He had moved on as planned to his next order of business.
The gun sailed gently back to Jesse, who had a shotgun in replacement already, and he pocketed the small deadly object. I almost fainted. I hadn't run, and I wasn't dead.
As eyes in the room focused on the boss's disappointment at this sudden death, the fear eminating from the still alive dealer drowned my own panic. With an almost calm, once again sitting in that almost ring of chairs, I took account of my situation.
The photo meant something more now. If I can embrace that a woman is not responsible for the comings and goings of business, in this man's world, then I may live freely. Can I accept this though? I had braved the possibility of death at his hands successfully, and with opportunity to fail. All women are whores in this man's world. Beauty, sex, comfort. Not responsibility. Could I live with that? I could have died with responsibility, and now instead Beckett would. Would he ever understand that in hell, only the demons have power?
I wanted to tell the boss, to insist, that to hold me responsible, that I am capable of being trusted, that indeed it was me who broke that trust - my betrayal and not Beckett's. I wanted to stand in the twentieth century as a citizen of the enlightenment. And yet, the code of honour that I had embraced - his code - bore no resemblance to this end. And I chose to sit still awhile longer as a whore with only the brave heart of a man, hidden.
A note to anyone reading this: I dreamt this two nights ago, and woke out of this dream into a morning of sunshine and happiness. This is not a true story. It is a bit of my mind teaching me about loyality, codes of honour, trust, and commitment. And my dream was exactly as I have written here today.
Velvety paws.
5pm and I wonder about things some more. The storm in my life broke finally the other day. It never was me. He says she was too much still in high-school even at 23 - after claiming she was older and wiser than any he had met previously. Now he sees the childlike flirtations, and the gossipy manipulations for what they always were - young. Not simply open and wonderful - just young.
And I tried to discuss the cost of simply writing her off now, after the investment all of his friends have made in her. He says that she is too dangerous to him now. Not of course in the conservative traditional sense of "she'll tell my wife". What could she tell me that I haven't seen with my own eyes, heard through closed doors. No. She knows his buttons, his soft spots, his desires.
And now it is my turn to tell him that he should not push her away. She is not who he thought in some ways, and yet that is not sufficient to simply never speak with her again. He was the illusion weaver, not her. And I'm happy to say - he knows that I wasn't either. Neither she nor I should be or have been put out by his pursuing of learning. There is surely something for him to learn. He'll get there some day. :)
I must at least teach him not to see me as an excuse for his relatings not working as he wants. My own privacy concerns create a reticience that everyone mistakes for a simple form of snobbery. Silly to let that allow me to seem bad intentioned. I think I'll write up a treatise or something - and let everyone I know swear to it. Something saying that I'm simply a very private person and not a nasty evil comer-between of things beautiful. On the contrary.
Being with him is like living with a match-maker sometimes. I wake up surprised to find myself on a blind date of his choosing - someone he claims is amazing. I've no doubt that in his system of principles, these people are amazing. I am certainly not blind. It is only that my principles include "a friend should be stable about something valuable". It is not as if I hold this principle in some extreme form. I merely try to damp oscillations - they disturb other things I've built. Thanks for pointing this out, K. You had it right.
A story I read.
I read a story the other day about how sad the world can be. It talked of pain and sorrow and helplessness, and average people who couldn't get out of the pitfalls that these emotioanl indulgences create in all of us. I read that story twice, once to find out what happened at the end, like everyone does. A second time to find out what the beginning meant after the end was clear in my mind. I think that authors always know how the whole story will feel even when they don't quite know the ending, even when the story is about themselves.
This author did. And I could tell that the ending was not the point of the story once I had read it. I knew that author much better the second time. He or she -- it was unsigned -- must have been hurting a lot. The story released the pain into the reader much like a robin fills her chirplings mouths with semi-digested worms. It was nourishing, and yet it left something out -- an adult awareness that the author lacked. We cause our destinies, and this author, this person stuck in a pit of helpless sorrow, didn't know this. How then did she or he expect to tell a story about anything other than sorrow? Perhaps that is all any story is about. I hope not.
The story ended with a dull cry for help. Dull because it was more of a whimper. I came away knowing that help couldn't help. I wonder if that is always true now, or if the author was uniquely trapped in an original pit. I guess if this were to be true then the story was a good one. But I don't think so -- original pits are rare.
The whimper expressed the hopelessness of the author's shame and hope tha perhaps the other people in the world, the readers of the story I guess, would understand and reply only with sympathy and with help, and not with disgust as is usual.
Perhaps the pathway that wound through the words of the story could be best described as newly meandering -- the speed of the current was still that of a mountain stream, but banks were forming to bypass the author's pain as it collected on the rocks of memories.
The story began with a bold tempting expression of life as if the author didn't know the end that had to be told. And yet I know that the author had it wrong. The expression was a whimper dressed up in its Sunday best, hoping to draw a suitor before even courting was too late. No-one reads hopeless writings unless they are there too. Ask Nietzsche. He knew how to court the suitor indefinitely, like a spider does a fly. The plea for help can be seen disguised behind a glorious make-up job, a new dress and a fancy hat. I wonder if the author has read any Nietzsche. I haven't, but each of my suicidal friends dwells on his stories.
After this colourful beginning, the window-dressing so to speak, the story takes the reader by the hand, well it took mine for awhile, and wades through the uninteresting details of the author's thoughts. They were uninteresting only because the interestng part of the story was between the lines of the text. The author was clearly a coward, and left out every exciting human detail. I wonder why still.
Someday I shall read that story a third time.
Murphy's Law is true:
Murphy's law or some variant is true. It is a response or heuristic used to respond to our normal use of probabilities psychologically -- say a prior prob update heuristic. Ie./ When the prior probs have remained the same for *awhile*, one ought to decide that it is time for the low prob happenings to have their turn(s). Now statistically these could have ocurred at any time during the run, but given a long run of only the high prob events occurring, the use of the gloss of Murphy's Law by the person, will allow him or her to make adjustments in recognition of the fact that the long chain of high prob events excluded the representative number of low prob events.
Two choices emerge: update the prior probs so as to represent the new beliefs about the low probability events - namely that they will not actually occur and that they were wrong previously -- ie. that a low prob event wasn't going to happen and hence the probs were wrong; or invoke the heuristic of murphy - namely that the low prob event will happen VERY SOON, even NOW. this latter invokes two things: the person recognizes that the heuristic is in play - mumbling something about murphy's law, and the person begins to change their expectations of what will occur in the world soon - namely that it becomes likely that the low probability event will occur... although the priors are not updated, as they are required to draw this conclusion.
Grey Stalk (52K)
This is not a test.
...
+20
I look out the window at bluing skies and drifting clouds with a free sense of wonder at what the dawn will bring. The lingering seagulls riding the currents like jaded old net-surfers act as remailers of the first light. Beside me, Jenny breaths quietly. I can taste her breath lightly in the air.
I feel like a kid again. Time to get into the kitchen.
...
-20
As the morning arrives, the hustle and bustle awaken in me the urgency of every day. Its time to get my act in gear, grab my books, run out the door and simply get to school. There all responsibility ceases as the doors of the large faceless building close up behind us all.
An alarm rings. It is not my nightstand clock. Its too loud. My eyes spring open and I notice foolishly that I'm already at my desk. The teacher is looking around as her own personal alarm shows on her face. We start to form a line as the bell keeps ringing. "This is not a test," booms the loud speaker. Things get pretty serious. I file out the door in turn into the hallway, holding my breath. We make it into the basement. All sound vanishes as if I have just gone deaf.
Before everyone is in, an incredible boom rocks the shelter.
...
1995
The pots jangle. Someone has just arrived. I think to myself that maybe the re-breather supplies have arrived along with the new footsteps I can hear. But no. It is my sweet Jenny on the step in front. She looks so lovely there behind the safety glass, playing as children always have. I'm glad we can give her this small freedom.
Behind her, I can see roiling clouds. We have survived in the midst of this nuclear zone all this time. Before the wars, everyone knew a few of us would survive. We all had our theories on how to survive the blasts. Shelters, survivalists, masks, special body postures, even simply holding one's breath.. all sought out preventative cures against what would be dropped simply on our heads from above. Funny that of the billions who were concerned, I should have been one of the lucky ones. There would have been some survivors no matter what foolish thing mankind devised. And yet, for it to have been me... Jenny waves to me, and goes back to playing.
...
-20
I jump forward and pull shut the door - before everyone is in. My terror is too great for civilized planning. There are eleven of us inside.
We will survive this nightmare. I will.
...
+20
Jenny pulls the door open to run to me with a big embrace. The human race will.
Wishes.
Some people live without ever exploring their dreams. I have. I'm really quite proud of myself and the fearlessness (in the end, anyway) with which I have travelled to those things that I wanted to do and be. I met a young woman the other night who has not done such. She is titillated by the simplest implication that her boundaries might be crossed. I know that all of us have boundaries. But some of us work to understand and perhaps even to expand these boundaries - me, so that I can live more than one lifetime in this one.
But this woman is clearly living only one life. It seems like a rather comforting and productive though relaxing sort of life. And yet, at the same time the new ground she covers must be rather limited. I suspect she must have to create many distractions for her rather sharp mind to hide behind. Otherwise she might find her lack of exploritoriness painful.
Now I don't think that everyone should be an explorer or a frontiersman. Society is a pyramid scheme, and we need the worker ants working and the worker bees humming along .. to keep everything incredibly reliably functioning. Have I said this before... I want the air traffic controllers to be anal retentives without lives -- because I want the planes I fly in to be governed without human error. And that of course, is the difficult thing to remove. Modern society has done a painfully good job of stocking the bottom third of that pyramid with reliable and hearty contented people. Contrary to many, I don't want to uplift the sheep - I want to keep them well-fed, contented, and able. Explorers could never bring in a successful landing. They'd be too tempted to experiment.
I'm not being cynical about people. Harlan Ellison tried to wise us up with The Glass Teat and now writes for TV instead. I think he may understand now why we need the base of the iceburg. As a race, and not just forthe genetic diversity. Perhaps I am merely the ultimate Canadian when I believe and try to live out a maximum tolrerance policy. (Of course, I can tolerate serial killers better than anyone I know. Funny that. Until Natural Born Killers hit the screen, I thoguht that I was the only one who could understand. I remember trying to explain to Rit why this guy in Montreal murdered a bunch of female engineering students. I remember trying to explain to Hella why a prof at Concordia did the same to some of his colleagues. I suspect that more people understand this than will admit to such an understanding. After all, most take understanding to indicate condoning. Unfortunate that.) As I embrace a policy of maximum tolerance for the choices others make, I find that few others really do. It is this principle that relieved my anger at the "unwashed masses". I found that looking at that segment of thepopulation as useful for some thing .. and then exploring what that something might be to have been productive. Not only don't I hate my parents in the typical sense, for a dark and morbid person, I don't hate much of anything. But others do.
This latter disturbs me. I would enjoy it if people did not so easily hate each other. And yet, my policy also guides me into anacceptance of this problem - seeking of theusefulness of non-tolerance. Non-tolerance allows tribalism to thrive. It allows the assembly-age to produce anthills of humans, each of which knows which anthill it belongs to. We have union people who can smell big business on their foes. We have teenagers who with a quick glance at your piercings can tell your sexual preference. We have criminals simply because a bunch of said that certain things should not be done. Am I a criminal for not being monogamous - in this province? This year? (Please don't think I oppose all victimless crime legislation ... only.)
With more tolerance, that woman I met could not be so cheaply titillated. She would have embraced strangness without fear quite as often, and on into life she would be. I've lately found it amusing that those who do embrace life usually end up in an inflationary sprial of hedonism. They either burn out and get jaded at some plateau permanently, or they continue on trying to inflate things further. Come to think of it, the woman seemed to be playing an inflatinary game with incredibly low stakes. It's still nice to see someone who hasn't completely jaded over. I don't think I ever will.
My solution to this problem is self-honesty. When my guts say to me that I've gone too far in some hedonist or aceticist direction, I tend to pursue the opposite for awhile. I pivot on the balance point between indulgent sensation-pleasure and quiet alone centeredness, avoiding the dangerous extremes of decadence on the one side and emptiness onthe other. To my tastes, this young person I met hasn't steered too well through this maze. Then again,fear can do that.
I've tried out my dreams, my fantasies, and my fears. Now I can as a rational adult create new ones that will lead to fulfillment in some deeper sense (yeah, well it sounds good anyway).
Why the future is not usefully predictable more than once.
I find a pattern in something .. something like a social situation or an economic one. I note also that I can make somesort of gain relative to my current position by using the this pattern to predict its next instance in some manner. I do so. If there is any feedback at all into the causes of the pattern, and I have in some way interacted with those causes - either by changing them, or by adding in more causes that interact the original ones - then the pattern will no longer hold. I may or may not gain as I predicted depending on whether the changes I added into the system come into effect before or after my payoff would have.
Either I get my payoff or I don't. However in eithe rcase, I've altered the pattern that I used to create the prediction in the first place. It may not be replaced with another pattern.
Note though that it is possible to make such predictions (barring Hume's problem, etc. to which every law, regularity, etc is humbled). The use of them may alter or eliminate them for a second use, but this does not eliminate their first use, in some cases.
The question is where and how can systems of this sort be predicted in such one-shot manners. For instance, there may indeed be predictable patterns in the stock market. As soon as the pattern is used to make a decision, the odds are that it will alter, leaving the original mover with a gain, and everyone else marvelling at that investor's savvy at knowing when the streak, if you will, would end.
Am I the only one surprised by this? OOps.
Nothing much.
I have nothing to write today, and yet I'd really like to write something out. I could give in and do up a list, I could go off and edit more of Peter's Electronic Sage, I could get into answering all of the follow-up requests for info for FSC, or I could bear out the self-awareness block (most know it as writer's block, but I think that's not what it is) and produce content. There's no style in me today either - actaully, I was so hoping to produce a stylicsh little piece that I thik that stopped me from exploring further. Isn't that one of those sins? Covetness.
I also covet a really swell black leather jacket I saw yesterday, Victoria's Secret's model's looks, and an easier to get along with personality. Hmmm. And I'm not even Catholic. I did however see Priest. There's a disappointing movie -- its only shocking if you're already hung up on some ofthe issues - homosexuality, celebacy in priests, etc. Since I already am less than supportive about such hangups, this movie said nothing I haven't already. But there are a few rather ambivalent people I know who would rather enjoy this one. To me it was only a lesson in what the inner workings of that humungeous bureaucracy might look like if... well if the plot of the movie were removed.
The only thing that really gets to me is the security and pomposity of thepeople who feel that they have the knowledge to stand in front of a large bunch of people and explain things of a spiritual nature to them. That is amazingly none humble. And I wonder how anyone can be attracted to sitting in that audience. Aren't there better shows out there. On the other hand, to relax and let someone else be responsible for your own life could be tempting... if you had no ambition or drive of your own. Sometimes I think that church going is a social event primarily... and for many it just might be. But there really must be those inside that believe more than that -- this isrequired in order to keep the same rituals and the like going over time. Or perhaps they get comfortable with the patterns of the rituals -- and change to them would then be disturbing. Hmm. Grad school was like that to me in a way. There was a comforting ebb and flow to the taking of courses evey term, to the fighting to get just one more TA job, to the wonder of writing essays every four months. There was a feeling of purpose in that poverty. There is a scarier sort of ebb and flow in business - the feelign that just goig out for a salary would be safer. But it wouldn't relly actualy be safer - just easier in the short run. In the longer run, the entrepreneuring will be more secure as we become the core of a bigger company in a bigger industry. Then we will have the stability of the priesthood rather than that of the cult.
Just in:
The cactus flower and the American West cactus.
The day after.
Thanks! Last night, my friends threw this really fun party for me. I had such a wonderful time, and I think many of them might soon be cruising these pages. Thanks. Do I ever have some things to write now!! :)
Unfortunately, at the moment, with a new html-mode installed in my emacs defaults, I am going nuts trying not to type any html tags. This needs some fixing. miau for now.
Dismissal.
Purrrup says the beautiful black cat wandering through the room and over the keyboard.
I 've lived quite an exciting few days. They seemed fun, shallow, satisfying, and in the end better assistance to sense of life than painful meandering. But,... and I say that with all due concern for its lack of style, the balance between the self-knowing the the doing must sit somewhere. When I get backlogged in the knowing department, I tend to swing bakc and forth more and more. With too much knowing and not enough doing, I get dulled and bored.
There is a balance for me - perhaps a transient level monitor wherein the balance happens only in the long term.
[Gotta run again. ps .. What's the deal with the Discovery Channel?
Why would I do this here online? Why wouldn't I!]
