Do You Remember?

"Don't worry you don't need to remember his name because next time you're here, he won't be around," Joyce said to Liverpool after she introduced him to her latest paramour. I almost hit the floor when she recounted that to me laughing so hard. She's been saying that about him since day one. And day one was months ago. She's gone back to the land of not believing, just passing time. Last night she bumped into L., the guy she tripped and fell madly in love with mere months after her breakup with GG. Now she can't stop thinking about him. Their relationship combusted blew apart after it became long distance and commication went from loving and missing to manipulative to cruel. She ran into him in the street yesterday and is left with the memory of the feeling she had in the beginning. The feeling she had never thought she'd feel again after GG. The feeling she never had before GG. And despite how ugly things got at the end, it's hard for her not to remember what brought them together in the first place and to second guess herself and her perceptions of his nasty long distance emails.

There's been a dearth of romance lately. It's like we forget that we ever felt it and forget what it felt like and don't even aspire towards it we are so far removed from it. ML, V and I talked about it while watching a couple canoodle at Barcade in Greenpoint. We half had no idea what it felt like and half did. We agreed that sometimes we just didn't want to remember. And sometimes the memories washed over us unwillingly, taking us off guard at the most inoportune moments, crippling us. When the moment passes we are transported back to the here and the now, the only believing in what we can see, smell and touch where being in love is like believing in Santa or the tooth fairy. Come on. Simultaneously I have been pining over Brooklyn like it's my job and Joyce is now pining over L.

Hanging out with Joyce and Liverpool last night at Bar Tabac I was reminded of High School and how we were all relationship cynics and love cynics. We didn't get it we had never felt it and even me who was bit by the Brooklyn bee right before high school didn't really get it until he penetrated through my sheild of self-protection when he told me he loved me after high school graduation. Up until that time I was lovin' em and leavin' em and feelings were never something I had. I remember when Liverpool first fell in love. I felt like we suddenly living on two different planets. How could we still be friends when the philosophical cynicism our friendship was based upon no longer existed. The night before a major math test Katri and I were at her house with the pretense of studying but instead had raided her parents' liquor cabinet. We invited Liverpool over to try to drag him back on to our team. We didn't want him to be in love. We didn't believe that faith preceded knowledge. We couldn't feel, see or smell love. Love didn't exist to us. Sex existed. Lust existed but Love? Hell no. So we proceeded to do everything in our womanly powers to drag, pull, coerce, pressure him back to our world. We teased and tortured him into fooling around with both of us to prove that he was still as laissez-faire about all that stuff as we were.

After Brooklyn, I became a love sucker. I was suddenly the biggest romantic ever. I was smart about it most of the time. Or at least D tells me I was. Supposedly I gave good advice and always managed to get who I wanted so I must have had some smarts about it. Either way, despite not always wanting relationships, or usually not wanting relationships I was a romantic. I had feelings. I got caught up in moments. I could turn a night where I hooked up with a random dude at a bar into a story of unrequited love in the retelling. I had it with LG. I had it with 31. 1982 was a magical miracle of an experience. I'm not there anymore. It bothers me that it's gone. The last guy I had it with was New Year's Eve guy. The sex was transcendental. We clicked and I hoped to see him again. I liked him. Nothing materialized and the switch went off - as mysteriously as it had gone on years before. It's like my life went from color back to black and white.

So I think about Brooklyn and I remember all of the flavors, colors, tastes and smells and texture my life had. I think about Brooklyn and despite all of my new powers of not getting ahead of myself or daydreaming even when I don't like the guy, which I used to do to just kind of 'try him on,' like hmmm ...what would that be like; I am thinking about Brooklyn. I can't stop wondering. And that's what Joyce is doing. How can we be staunch non-believers yet be nostalgic for when we did believe all at the same time?

I wonder if that is why I can't stop thinking about Brooklyn. He was my first foray. And I still can't explain it. There aren't words. There are only conflicting theories and emotions that I can't boil down into logic and reason. Once I got stung by him, my protective shield was penetrated. I instantly became my worst enemy. I betrayed my former self. Suddenly I had these feelings that I couldn't explain or understand but I knew that I was drawn to him in a way that I had never been drawn to anyone before, I was completely taken off guard and suddenly got it. I don't know if I miss him or whether I miss the feeling. It's like as quickly as I became a romantic - the Brooklyn bee sting, hearing him say, "I love you,' for the first time; the switch was flipped back the other way just as unexpectedly. And here I remain feet firmly planted in the world of logic and reason and explanation until the next bee comes my way and stings me so hard I am seeing colors again.

Hollaback Girl

I remember being a little kid and hearing my older cousins or friend's older siblings tell of their crazy stories about sex and dating and I remember wishing I had stories. Well now I got some stories. The blog from the other day about faux pas and deal-breakers was a lesson that I learned from being out on the field all these years; if someone likes you they like you despite you eating to much or saying too much. I think women try to attach a reason for why a guy didn't call in making up these rules. Well it must be because I was wearing granny underwear or I hadn't shaved my legs or I finished his meal and got dessert. No! That's not it at all. He just isn't into you. Those stories were embarassing but they were all me being me. Unfortunately as much as I sometimes wish I was quiet and small and demure and ladylike and neat, the brash, rash, loud me always forces itself out; usually at the most inoportune times.

Anyway, the real faux pas women committ are none of those surface offenses. I have lived the real ones too, the embarassing, not funny, sad ones ones. In doing so I learned how to protect myself and when to put myself out there, when not to, not to ever get ahead of myself, never to assume, always to take relationships slow and to separate the rejection from how I feel about myself. Obviously, I am a work in progress but trusting your gut and doing what you want and not trying to dissect what someone else is feeling from their tone or by listening 10 times to a voicemail they left you is paramount.

I remember waiting for a call from Brooklyn that never came and literally falling asleep with the phone on my pillow. Now if I am in that bad place, I turn off the phone. I remember driving Brooklyn to a wedding he was going to with someone else. I thought by driving him to Long Island for the wedding, he'd see that I was the better girl and he'd want to be with me officially and monogamously. Brooklyn's no dummy. If he could sleep with me and get me to take him to Long Island in my parents' car to go to a wedding as another girl's date, why wouldn't he. I was afraid to give him an ultimatum that it was me or her, that he couldn't have me when he wanted me and then do his own thing when he wanted to because I was afraid he wouldn't chose me. So I played these games and tried to make myself so ingrained in his life that he would be lost without me and realize how great I was and only want to be with me. It eventually happened. But not soon enough. He used me for a long, long time. And I allowed him to. Brooklyn didn't have enough integrity to tell me that given how I felt about him, I should probably keep my distance because he did not feel the same way or give it to me straight so I could make a decision. Despite that, I know I would have fought hard to be with him in whatever way he would have me. I had no pride when it came to Brooklyn. Integrity is part of my list now after realizing how different I would be and my relationship with Brooklyn would have been if he had taken responsibility and been honest sooner, before I had one foot out the door.

Staten Island was plain old psycho. He and I had insane sex. He called me his sexual soul mate. I think I mistook our sexual connection for a real connection. How could someone who knows how to please me so well not be my soulmate. In retrospect, I think I was addicted and obsessed with the sex, not with him. I know now that the two must be evaluated separately. He was ridiculously paranoid and over the top jealous. He'd pout when he didn't get his way. He had no qualms calling me 20 times in a row when I was out with my friends. He had the gall to accuse me of lying to him when on the Sunday after my grandfather died, I told him I had to be with my family to send cards out to people who had attended the funeral. I listened when he called me 'the girl that fucked up my world,' and satan, when he ranted and raved about how insensitive I was and how awful I treated him and how he blamed me for his failing the bar exam the first time he took it. As soon as we were having sex, our communication was flawless. We were loving, we anticipated each other's needs and wants, we laughed, we were giving; our sex life contained all of the elements that made a good relationship. Good sex is great but it doesn't translate into a good relationship.

And I will never let anyone talk to me the way he did. Ever again. First of all it was unwarranted. I wasn't doing any of the things he was constantly accusing me of. Secondly, even if I had been, there are better, more appropriate, more mature ways to handle a situation like that without berating someone you supposedly love. Then he had the gall to cheat on me and use the old Ross excuse from Friends that we were on a break. He was always breaking up with me and then wanting me back so I can't recall if we were actually on a break then and if so whether it was to gain perspective or whether it was official and we could see other people. He was the guy who broke up with me on my 24th birthday in the same phone conversation (I can picture myself sitting on the floor in the bathroom in my parent's house at 2:00am crying on the phone with him) in which he first told me he loved me. Have you ever? And when I asked why he couldn't have waited until after my birthday, he snidely responded, "you'll have other birthdays." Unfortunately that was neither the first or last time he broke up with me. What an asshole. Actually I was the asshole for allowing him to constantly pull that shit. For two years I put up with the Staten Island show, never knowing which personality I was going to get when I picked up the phone.

Interestingly, on a trip to the beach one summer when we acknowledged that we were doomed as a couple, we created who we envisioned the other's perfect mate was. The guy he sculpted for me was Illinois. Out-of-the-box, unorthodox, creative career, gets off on cooking and watching me eat what he made for me, from the midwest, tall, broad shouldered and lean, tawny in coloring, handy around the house, someone who'd dance with me and be spontaneous with me. Sadly, respect was nowhere on that list. Needless to say I learned a lot from my relationship with Illinois. I will never compromise like I did for him. I will never do all the work in the relationship. I will never be with someone who feels free leaning on me but whom I can't lean on.

You have to respect yourself to command respect. I guess that's the true lesson.

Oh Father

I am near tears and very angry. I need a warrior princess run. I wish it was snowing so I could really feel tough and get it all out. I wish it was dark to hide my tears and make me feel like I am out on the street all alone. I wish it was colder so it would feel like January and I wouldn't be in the wrong weather clothes every day. I wish I didn't feel so twisted. I wish I wasn't in a funk. I wish I wasn't so pissed off. I wish I didn't feel so sad. I wish I was in yoga right now, letting the heat work its magic. I wish I had mint oreos in the house or had access to a bombass chimichanga or meat samosa right now. I wish I was in boxing class right now. I don't think hot Juan (the instructor) would have to tell me, "My grandmother could punch harder than you; c'mon girl, pretend I'm your boyfriend...etc" I am mad. I am steaming. I need something to put me out, calm me down.

On the surface everything is working out according to plan. My job ended today. Well, fingers crossed that it's final. In this industry, nothing ever is. Me trying to stay true to my resolution regarding my finances let my instincts rule, saw us running out of work and put the word out that I would be available for work come next Tuesday. I got scooped almost immediately. A good gig too. I got the call that they wanted me when I was in the elevator leaving the building. That was very cool. I planned that I would actually get to enjoy my three day weekend because I knew I'd be working on Tuesday and thereafter. It actually worked out that way. My intstincts were perfectly on point.

It's my dad. My brother called me earlier and told me that his friend's dad is in town and his friend took his dad to Katz's deli. Guess who they ran into there? I didn't need to think twice for my answer. "Daddy," I said, knowing it wasn't a celebrity and it wasn't someone else that we know. I knew it. Is he self sabotaging? He isn't supposed to be eating that shit. He's rebelling. He's anxious. He's scared. He wants to feel some semblance of control so he is putting himself at peril so if the procedure goes bad he knows who to blame, himself. It's hard when you don't have an answer or anyone to blame and you curse the world and scream and cry to the ether, to the heavens, to God, if you believe; WHY IS THIS HAPPENING, as if the answer would change anything. Asking that question is a decoy. Deal with the fact that it is happening. Clean that mess as best you can. Don't ask questions about why because there is no fucking answer to that one. But I get it. I spent a lot of time there. Of course I didn't hang out in Katz's deli eating my feelings but my health was so bad that I was unable to proactively self-sabotage. Trust me, if I had been physically able to, I would have. I would have drank my feelings, eaten my feelings, smoked my feelings, fucked my feelings, shopped my feelings, all of the above and probably some more that I forget. I wish I could tell him what I learned; that bad things happen to good people. And that you do have some control. You can do what the doctor tells you to do and not do what the doctor says not to do. He's obviously not scared enough. He's letting the loss of control rule. If he let fear rule, he would be listening to the doctor. But letting fear rule and listening to the doctor would mean that he felt like he did have some control and that his efforts would have an impact.

He has given up. To compare to my situation, I was in such extreme pain and discomfort that I had to let the doctor's orders wash all over me. I had nothing else to go on. I had no instinct. I had no better idea. I felt like the doctor was wrong and I was misdiagnosed because it kept coming back with a vengeance and we kept changing treatment to keep up with it and chase it out of me because for a long time, it remained. But I still had no other options. And the treatment was as bad as the disease but I knew that without the treatment I would die. With it I was alive but unhappy, scared, anxious, angry, moody, tired, wide awake, wired, manic and completely freaked out. Is my father going to have to hit some kind of rock bottom before he starts putting the control he does have into good use?

Similarly, my dad is not a drinker. He chides my siblings and I for our drinking and he consistently asks my doctor whether or not I should be drinking, as if I have some drinking problem, making the doctor say, "well, I think Briana is on enough drugs right now that drinking's not such a good idea," to which my father responds by giving me a victorious, knowing look translating to, "if this is what had to happen for her to stop drinking then it's worth it." But I digress. My dad's been drinking a lot lately. It's weird. You turn 60 and that's when you start drinking? It usually doesn't work like that. But there is definite correlation between that and his emotion about his health. There has to be. I knew it couldn't be good for him but I did my homework anyway on his condition and the medications he is on. The research is very clear. Drinking is bad for someone in his position. It exacerbates the underlying condition and it is strongly discouraged when on the meds. I am sure he knows that. Again, with me it was strongly discouraged as well but I had the added incentive that whenever I craved it, which was all the time (you frequently 'need' a drink when you're as stressed as I was) it tasted weird. Weird bad. I couldn't get a beer down. Similarly I bought a coffee every morning and then would take a sip and blech throw it out. Your desires remain the same but your body doesn't welcome them the way they used to. Very strange. But clearly, my dad's body is welcoming the alcohol and the caffeine and the bad food with open arms. He's using food and alcohol as coping mechanisms. He doesn't realize this but he's just feeding the beast. And the beast never gets full. The beast always wants more. You need to change the way you cope into something positive. If you change the mind, chances are the body will follow. I am sure he will eventually get there, to the elusive place of acceptance that my siblings advocated for me and I resisted for so long; I just hope more damage isn't done before he gets there.

So yeah, I am mad at my dad. Who cares how smoothly and deftly I arranged my work schedule, seamlessly jumping from one project to the next with a nice three-day weekend wedged in between when my dad is stuffing his face with his comfort food, the food of his youth, hot pastrami and well done fries, a hot dog smothered with potato salad to start, a celray soda and god only knows what else. I am pissed at him because he's not taking care of himself. He's not doing what he can. He's not doing his best. Doesn't he know how much he means to me? Doesn't he see what this is doing to us? He's being so selfish allowing himself to wallow in his situation without thinking about how scary this is to watch. He may as well be balancing out the window on the 36th floor on a ledge on a stormy, windy day. Come on, Dad, shit ain't cool.

Meanwhile, I was right the other day about the reactions of my siblings. My blog started an onslaught of emails from them about how they envisioned each of us dying. First my brother wrote, "It is just something that I am 100% certain is going to happen some day, even if I dread that day whenever it comes. I am very confident that he will be well for a long time." My sister replied, "I'm with ya. I'm not worried ... eventually he will die from something heart-related and Briana colon related. Mommy prob something like her mother. N [my brother], I don't know about you...or me." My bro wrote back, "I think I am gunna die like Grandma T....not literally an aneurysm, like her, but something where I am gone in an instant without warning.." My sister then picked her fate, " Probably I will either have a heart attack or a stroke or a combo of them." I responded, "I don't see him as well now. i think he's sicker and more unwell than he lets on. i do see him living longer than momma, look how long his parents lived; but with no quality of life just like them, constantly plagued by ailments brought on by the excesses of his life. His eating habits lately aren't serving him well at all. His eating habits lately also demonstrate how stressed he is about this. So I don't feel as confident as you two do about him." My sister fired back, " Oh he's stressed and his eating isn't good but he isn't dying per se. If he talked about his feelings instead of keeping them in, he would mentally and physically feel better." My brother's two cents, "[H]e has been stressed and eaten poorly his entire life...I just dont think it is his time to go yet and this is just a first of many warnings that he and we are going to get.." I was appalled that they were chosing to ignore reality, "i think we have less control over our fate than we think we do. on the other hand his lifestyle is a self-fullfilling prophecy. i don't know why he's tempting fate the way he is. i did all this research today on atrial fib and his meds and he is not allowed to drink alcohol or have caffeine, should be exercising and yoga and meditation were also suggested. now he decides to suddenly become an alcoholic. you know?" My brother snidely replied, "I also hear that staying up until 10:00am and drinking heavily is not the best thing for ulcerative colitis....It's his life, and he is doing the best he can to find the medium ground between happy and healthy....just like we all are..." Case closed until today when my brother's protective veil of nonchalance was finally penetrated.

You Might Think

It was 2001. It was my first date with LG. I had been crushing on him peripherally for as long as I could remember. We got together in my last single phase (pre-Illinois) when I decided it would be prudent and fun to try and hook up with / date everyone I had been curious about all the years I had been with Brooklyn; you know, before moving on to new people. He was one of them. I got to the restaurant first. Before he got there I drank two beers. Singha I believe? Since I had gone for a run immediately before meeting him I was tipsy from the two beers. He arrived. Turned out he had stopped drinking because he realized he had some issues with the sauce. Me being semi-drunk when he arrived = faux pas. We were at a Mongolian Barbecue place and we both got the mongolian barbecue with beef and the peanut sauce, going up to the counter and choosing veggies and different kinds of noodles. I reminded him of how much everything shrank after it was cooked so to really pile it on. He did. As it turned out, he piled on more than he could finish. I was able to finish mine. And I was still hungry. So I took his and finished it. Faux pas? Most girls would probably say so; we aren't supposed to eat like that front of guys. Did LG and I go out again? Yes. Did he think differently of me after watching wolf down my food and some of his and get desert? Nope.

2000. I'm at a Veselka with Staten Island. We finish our meals and to prepare for the beautiful summer Sunday that lay ahead of us we both went to the bathroom. I went first. He went after me. Let's just say, I didn't go number one. Staten Island came out of the bathroom and told me that I hadn't flushed. Major faux pas; that's another thing us girls just don't do. Did we stay together? Yes. I was embarassed but I brushed it off. I still don't understand why he didn't take the gentleman route and keep my faux pas to himself but that's a whole other story.

It was the night after the SAT's. I was in Princeton with A. and D. visiting D.'s cousin and after drinking 40's of Old English we cruised around Princeton trying to get into some college parties to no avail. D's cousin picked daffodils out of someone's yard and gave them to me. Daffodils are my favorite flower. Suddenly I really liked D's cousin. We were all sleeping at his place. Later on that night D's cousin and I were fooling around in his room. I drunkenly realized I had my period or maybe he found the string - I don't recall. Either way, I pulled out the tampon with flourish and threw it on the floor, right there in front of him, in bed with him. Gross. Another faux pas, I'm pretty sure. But that didn't stop us that night or the other few times we hung out thereafter.

Last Friday I texted New Year's Eve guy asking him to go to a party with me. Moments later, I felt my phone vibratating and fumbled to see what all the commotion was about. I ended up erasing all of my texts, both incoming and outgoing. I didn't know if he had written me back or hadn't written me back. I asked A. what I should do. She advised that I should write him back and tell him what I did, that it would be cute; and anyway he probably responded. I did what she said. Hours later I get a voicemail from New Year's Eve guy specifically stating that he recieved my text message, actually both text messages and he clarified that he hadn't responded. I cringe just thinking about it; Briana, how overeager and desperate do you seem?? A double text, whoa! But he did come to the party. Was the second text a faux pas? Was I supposed to just cross my fingers and hope for the best? Maybe. I wanted to know that he knew that I wanted him to come to that party, only way to do that was to send that second text so in an abundance of caution I did. Of course my wuss ass self should just have called him in the first place, but then I wouldn't be my wuss-ass self now would I.

There are many others. Farting. He may or may not have been asleep but the fart was loud so it's possible he was wakened by it. Hope it's not a deal breaker. I know I have been the recipient of the farting and it hasn't been a dealbreaker for me. But I think guys expect girls not to fart (even though I just learned that the average person farts 15 times per day). At least until they are your boyfriend and realize you're human. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've probably committed every faux pas / possible dealbreaker there is. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with the guys that end up becoming my boyfriend or liking me with those faux pas I've committed.

Look what happened with 31 that fateful morning in August. I hightailed it out of his apartment like my life depended on it. Was it ruder to hightail it out there the way I did or was it ruder to have an 'accident' on his living room floor in front of his friends who were all going out to brunch. That's a no-brainer but unless you know what was at stake for me that day, you don't know why I was so rude and brusque and might think I am a bitch or a slut or both. Although I am no prude, I am not a 'wham bam thank you ma'am' kind of girl. Usually if I am sleeping with you I like you and want to hang out with you. A lazy Sunday with breakfast and some more sex thrown in is my kind of day but that day it was impossible. A faux pas? No. Although I have written volumes about the weirdness that ensued between 31 and I after that day I am pretty confident that it had nothing to do with my behavior that morning.

We try to control our bodily functions and our impulses to impress other people and try to be 'perfect,' whatever that means and sometimes we slip up and our humanity is revealed. At least I hope that's what is revealed. I hope those things allow us take the other person off the pedastal and allow us to see them as equals and dispel some of our nervousness about being with them and bring us closer together. That's what I feel everytime a guy comes to quickly the first time we have sex or commits one of the other so called deal breakers. So maybe those things aren't deal breakers? My deal breakers are a lot more substantive than any of those things and even they are usually negotiable, although I can't imagine sympathizing with any guy's reason for being pro-life. But hey, you never know; I'm crazy like that.

21 Questions

I don't know how to do this girl boy thing. I don't know if I used to know how to do it and I lost my touch or the climate has changed or what I want has changed or my moves have changed or I've gotten pickier or what but something has changed and I am so out of loop it isn't funny. Everything I say is wrong. Everything they say is wrong, when they say anything. It usually doesn't get to that point. Usually I don't see anyone remotely interesting that I would want to talk to. Obviously that is based solely on looks and everything they may or may not accurately connote. I rarely get approached. And when I say rarely, I mean rarely. AC tells me I am blind to the people that actually like me and actually do make an effort, that they actually exist. Twinkle always remarks on how many looks I get when we walk down the street together. Obviously something gets lost in my non-verbal communication that ensures that no verbal communication is ever attempted.

Thinking about what I may or may not be doing wrong takes away from me thinking about what I want from them or how I feel about them. Or, on the other hand, when I do focus on my intentions and try to make them clear to the other party, they always get lost in the translation from girl talk to boy talk. Meanwhile my intention is to get to know the person better so I can ascertain whether or not I like them. Once I make that determination, any other intentions regarding a desire of a future with the person may or may not manifest themselves.

When there is verbal communication from them it is most unsatisfying. I am talking about the boys of the last two years. I have been clueless with all of them. I don't know if they like me. I don't know what they want from me. I don't know anything. Why is this? Are there signals that everyone can read but me? Am I blind? Seriously. Am I? Or am I deaf? I don't want to play games. But when you don't play games and you respond immediately to their e-mail or say yes too eagerly to their invitation they think you're desperate. When you sleep with them too eagerly or too fast, they think you probably do that all the time and they don't mean anything and it isn't an isolated incident and something you do with everyone (meanwhile I can't state enough how much of 2006 I spent not having sex. Sad but true).

All I can do is be honest about what I want. I want to hang out again. I want to have sex again. Anything relationship I want to take slow. I want you to take me out to dinner. I want you to make the first move. I want to know you actually like me. I want to know why you like me. In the past two years I have known none of that. I have had to interpret and manipulate situations so I could stand to stay in them. Like 31 for example. What the fuck was that? I still don't know. Did he get scared? Did he decide he didn't like me? Did he not know how to mix sex and friendship? I never said I wanted 'more' or what I wanted but he ran anyway, making any decisions I might make moot. Even the other night when we actually saw each other for the first time since August he didn't give me a reason for his disappearance except to say, "don't worry, I kept up with you," by which I presume by reading this blog, and, "I do that sometimes." You do? I have known you since I was 21 years old and you've never disappeared on me. Is it because we tainted our chaste friendship with sex. Why should that change anything about how we deal with each other? And if he wants it to change how we deal with each other, couldn't he have just told me how he wanted things to change? I like a good head-up when it comes to things like that. Illinois always told me that 31 crushed on me. Guess not. If he did, I doubt he would have blatantly avoided me and risked never being my friend again. Again, this girl boy thing has become a mystery. So many sitcoms have men expounding upon the intricacies and hypocrosy of women's wants and needs but I think it's men who are the weird ones. Tell me what you want. Then we can both know. Maybe it will turn out that we want the exact same thing. If we don't, is that yet another reason I should know what you want?