there is something wrong with this...

"So how many times had you seen him before that night?"
"Uh. Twice."
"Right, and that added up to..."
"Like 2 hours."
"Do you know his middle name?"
"No."
"Do you know his last name?"
"Uhhhh...no."
"And so you hooked up with him?"
"...he gave me a ride."

Stupid insticts

I love cats. I think cats are the queens of the animal kingdom. I think dogs are obnoxious and slobbery and just lame. I am re-thinking all this love...

Today, Belinda and I got home from my first training sesh at the ice rink as I get ready for the Olympics and I got myself a Hershey bar and turned on the TV preping myself for some unwind time when I stepped on something that I assumed was a stuffed animal...

...until I looked at it.

See, what Belinda forgot to tell me when she let me move in is her outdoor kitties are very much intouch with their lion-like instints.

It was a dead...something. Rodent sized. With its innards all on the floor. Are you disgusted yet?! Well, I. STEPPED. In. It.

Thankfully I have a habit of walking on my toes so it just hit my big toe, but the big toe on my right foot will never be the same, people.

So once my brain took the 45 seconds to process what I was actually looking at I screamed for like, an hour and ran upstairs and into Belinda's room still screaming. Thankfully she was really calm about it and was like, "Oh yea, happens all the time." Although she did tell me that Kiwi does normally eat all the innards and just leave the fur as a present for her...

I take it back. Cats are stupid. But at least they're smarter than dogs.

yo quiro

After a 3 night drinking binge and no chance for hangover recovery. My newest favorite person in the world up-ed her total fucking awesomeness by bringing me taco bell from the mainland.

Ooooh. Delicious taco bell crap. All that dog meat and my hangover is totally cured.

Jamie is my most favorite.

the puddle part deux

This is it, ladies and gents. This is my puddle. Be in awe of its hugeness. It may have given me a flesh eating bacteria-- not many puddles can say that. Thankfully if there's no rain for more than 5 days it dries up and just becomes part of the road instead of something that belongs on a map.

A Ship's horn just blew. I love living on Nantucket.

Update-a-licious (101 in 1001)

I still have almost two whole years to complete this thing but I figured I'd give an update on the ones I've completed in the last few months.

1. Finish reading Long Walk to Freedom <--It's amazing what 12 hours on a bus can do for reading your 600 page book. It's increadibly, everyone should read it...

9. Graduate from college <---June 1, baby. I'm a college graduate. Uh-oh actual world!

19. Go to Chicago <---Spring Break! Sooooo awesome, I cannot wait to live there

36. Help Cougar throw that yard sale we’ve been talking about for years. <---It was kinda a bust but we made a decent amount of beer money and cleared out a lot of room

45. Visit Nantucket and hang out with people my own age who aren’t related to me <--that's what this summer is all about

54. Live somewhere other than New York or Maryland/D.C. <---what's up Nantucket?!

No booze 'til we cruise...

A lot of my friends have been being all weird about coming to visit me on Nantucket. Wanting to do it but not sure if its worth the time/money/gas to see me on my new island home. Think no more! I have discovered the why (to come visit)--well, one of the many whys (like: Duh, its me, of course you want to visit) but I think this is the one that'll tip the scales in my favor.

Drinking on the ferry.

I cannot speak for the fast boat (as I've never taken it, it could end up in Narnia for all I know) but on the slow boat you can buy booze and drink it on your two and a half hour journey to paradise. This was a novelty I had never experienced until this year, but now that I'm 21 I've embraced it, like my drunk ass family before me. Here's the thing 1 beer+ fatigue from traveling + boat swaying = decent buzz. Particularly if you don't eat anything. Imagine the possibilities with two beers! Hello boat dance party! The selection is sparce (mostly frat beer and cheap wine) but they have Sam Adams Summer Ale since Ch-ello! We're in Massachusettes! The birthplace of democracy and delicious beer! And its not anymore expensive than an NYC bar but its better! Because you're on the Ocean! Well, technically the Sound but its water and all water eventually leads to the ocean.

So Okay! Seriously!! Come visit! Not only can we drink together, you can arrive drunk! Awesome.

PS- Yes, I wrote this drunk while on the ferry and yes, I took that picture of my half-empty beer and yes, I'm sure the people around me started to judge the second the flash went off. The sooner everyone recognizes I'm a mild alcoholic the better for humanity

PPS- A big shout out to the Boston Culinary Group for hanging out, particularly the foreign gentleman working behind the counter of The Nantucket, who was maybe trying to give me my beer and bagel for free but I was too stupid/tired to pick up on it.

Stop the time machine...

My little cousin Courtney, who is not-so-little anymore is in the process of having a slumber party to celebrate her 10th birthday. She only has two friends over, which is a totally respectable amount...

However.

I now understand why eventually my mother refused to ever let there be another slumber party again. Little girls are loud. And walls anywhere besides a top secret military bunker are not thick enough to keep out the giggles and the screams and the TV. And this is only two kids. I used to have slumber parties with up to 5 friends!!!

Sorry Mom and Dad. My bad.

I'm not so much liking this getting older thing. I was in the car today and I could not remember what being 10 was like. I had no memory of 10, no real idea of what that year held for me until Courtney's little friend came up to me and asked if I liked sea food.

Boom.

All of a sudden I remembered 10. It blends into 9 and 11 a little bit but it's all there. The uncertainty about boys (gross or cute?), body image (the training bra debacle) and what was "cool." I also remember that it was still okay to play pretend, and with barbies and occasionally just run around the backyard screaming. That's pretty much the last year of that. Once you hit 11, it stops being uncertainty and becomes self conciousness. At 11 you may want to play dress up but know that you can only do it by yourself or maybe with your best friend for fear of looking like "a baby."

The Horror.

10 is awesome. The space between 10 and 16 is bleak. 13 is okay, but really-- that six years sucks. Hard. And from what I've experenced, except for the alcohol and making out, its pretty much all down hill from there anyway.


Happy Birthday Courtney. Don't grow up too fast.

Crossing the pond with The Beatles

I don't quite know why, but it seems that nothing really blog-worthy has happened since I've been on Nantucket. Yes I have a new job, new house, new roommate, new almost-friends (we don't know each other well enough for me to call them friends but they will be), I've seen celebrities, I've gotten drunk, I've flirted, danced, lied, made bad choices, made good choices, spent money, spent more money, talked to Tierra like a bajillion times on the phone, been home sick, considered spending the rest of my life here, and just kind of hung out. I've yet to go to the beach (maybe today), but I'm still dealing with the last dredges of poison ivy so I'm not too distraught about that.

Seriously?! Its weird, everything is fine and okay but...I keep expecting something to happen. I keep comparing this summer to Theatre on the Hill 2004 and my trip to Cape Town, which is kind of stupid because while those events had a lot in common (many people in a small confined space who had to forge relationships with the help of much alcohol and who had very little actual work to do), this summer I'm working full time (today is my first day off in 7 days...gross) only living with one person I'm not related to and since she doesn't have the same running-rampant alcoholic gene I do we've only gone out once. And we had a great time. So I shouldn't complain. And I've only been here a week and I have like 10 weeks left. So I really should just give fate a litte time to work itself out.

Anyway, the one thing that I kept thinking about that was almost blog-worthy in its total randomness is the title of the blog. On my walk to work there is a "puddle", in quotes because the thing is pond-sized. It should be on a map, there should be fishes living in it. It comes when there has been a day or more of rain because the people creating the drainage system for the island took a big old bong hit before they did this little patch of road. If its sunny for a few days it dries up, but this is Nantucket, so the weather is as reliable as a crack whore so, it's pretty much always there. And completely unavoidable on my journey to work.

So, normally I try to look just pathetic and dim enough to get someone to drive me over the puddle, but occasionally my timing is totally off, forcing me to find my own way over. So I take off my shoes and pull up the legs of my jeans and grumble my way over. But EVERY time this has happened, a Beatles song (twice Let it Be, once Dig a Pony) has been playing on my ipod.

You can't spell, "I've really lost the will to live" without I-V-Y

It is not going away. Everyone said it would go away but they lied. They are liars. I am still covered in this nonsense and I'm wondering if it's due to the wonder drugs that are running merrily through my system and effing everything up. If that wasn't bad enough, it seems to be spreading. It was on my forearms but now its on my upper arms (and getting bigger) as well as on on.my.FACE! Well, luckily its the underside of my chin way over next to my right ear. But still?! SO. GROSS. and totally ruining everything about my new adventure in Nantucket (which is totally awesome, btw). I know its pretty ridiculous to be bitching about this, especially because I AM on Nantucket and not a poor, starving child in Somalia. But this really, really sucks and makes me a)totally terrified to be outdoors and b)desperatly miss New York City where we didn't have silly things like plants to fuck everything up. According to About.com it could take as many as 20 days for the Iv to have its way with me. So far, its been 10, and that's counting the days before I saw it so it may actually just have been 7. Faaaaantastic.

I'm gonna go clean my grandma's house because I do not want to go out in public, because I hate everything.

The Ivy Update

TWO THINGS:
1- this is a tmi post. On many levels. Just a heads up. Don't say I didn't warn you, foo'
2- if you had a hand in my chromosome I would appreciate it if you would stop reading right. Now. For all of our sanities. Thanks.

So, according to my mother, who is the foremost expert on poison ivy I could find without getting out of my chair, the ditty about The Iv (as I now call it, which sounds like the Hiv, but is way less traumatic and uh, not permanent) is "three days coming, three days with it, three days going," according to my astute college graduate calculations, that's nine days. Saying that I got it the day of my party, I have until the 12th or 13th with this crap, and as it stands now, it looks like it plans to be around for a bit longer than that. Anywhoodle, this time frame totally overlapped all my time in Maryland.

Enter A Boy. He is not The Boy. He just happens to be around a lot while I'm in Maryland and he's a decent enough human being for being raised in this god-forsaken hell hole of a town. We met socially on many occasions in high school and now that we've all grown up a little bit, things have shifted slightly into new territory. Sort of. When things look like they're about to start shifting, other things get in the way. Namely Annie. Who is neither sweet, nor nice and is also kind of a bone head. But she's my friend and I love her, when she's not ruining everything for me. So! Annie is in NYC. I am here. Boy is here. Things are gonna be delicious, no? No.

Because I look like Jeff Goldblume in The Fly. Not a joke people. I sat on my bed with my siblings and I was like, "can this happen?" and they both try to break it to me nicely, "hell no Rachel, you are disgusting."

Having zero self esteem on a normal day, it has managed to dip into negative double digits with this predicament. So I made up a believable but totally lame stall tactic, which will turn into me blowing him off and feeling really bad about it.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I got cockblocked by Mother Nature.

irony is an ugly, dirty whore

I graduated from college on June 1. On June 2, I was no longer a resident of the city of New York (well, Brooklyn, but whatever). On June 3 I celebrated my return to country-bumpkin Maryland life with a quaint, little, backyard graduation party. The party was delightful. A good 90% of my favorite people were around to help me eat delicious food and shower me with wonderful presents. I looked adorable. My hair was as straight and non-poofy as one can expect from Maryland humidity. Today is June 6. Every appendage (meaning both arms and legs and (very possibly) neck) I have is covered in poison ivy. I haven't had poison ivy since I was ten when I got it on my eyes (not pleasant, btw) at summer sleep-away camp. I am itchy, cracked out on benadryll and wondering if I made the biggest mistake ever when I left my nice, warm concrete jungle.

grumpy face.

So.

I hate packing.

I don't hate moving. Moving is exciting. Moving means new adventures. If there was a way to move with out packing than I would move a whole bunch more. My first few years in NYC I was bouncing around so much that I lived with just the bare essentials (which are not as bare as you might think...because I am insanely materialistic. No judging. Its hereditary). Then I moved to Brooklyn. And I got a huuuuuge closet. And I got comfortable. So here I sit, 18 months later, surrounded by garbage bags and boxes and piles of random shit I haven't seen in months but can not bring myself to get rid of. I'm close to done, but the closer I get to done the more I realize that there is no earthly way this is all going to fit in the back of a Mazzda Pick Up and a Chevy Impala. And there is the lingering fear that I won't sell my futon. Which means that I will also have to get a 600 pound futon mattress home as well. I'm freaking out. Freak.ing.out. It's 12:25 AM on Tuesday. I have to be out of the apartment by 10:00 AM on Friday. This seems like so much time but I'm working full time, going to tea, spending the night in a mansion, graduating, attempting to survive a meal with both my parents (ps. I wouldn't be in Tavern on Dean on Thursday afternoon if you don't want to deal with that hot fetus of mess) and uh...oh, going to my post office box. And buying my first piece of Hunter clothing (now that I don't go there, I'll wear their colors).

It also does.not.help that there is approximatly 100% humidity in Brooklyn with a whacked out pollen count. And where's my allergy medicine? Maryland. Because who gets allergies in the concrete jungle? Yea. I hate everything right now.

In happier news, I had a wonderful last weekend, full of all the right amounts of drinking and sailors and kisses and tears and smiles and self actualization and reality checks and true friends (occasionally via telephone) who I am far too lucky to have. I'm sorry I took absolutly no pictures. Boo, I suck sometimes. Luckily I have enough memories (and old pictures) to last forever.

And can we please discuss how Fraiser is the worst.show.ever!?

I win! I win I win I win!

I would like to take this moment to discuss how awesome I am.

At 6:05 this morning, as the sun rose over the condo monstrosity across the street, I finished* my last college paper ever (at this point, people, I have a fat kid's chance in gym class of making it to grad school).

I was going to take a picture of the sunrise but I smelled pretty badly of stupid and could not manage to get my camera to function. So here's a Brooklyn sunset. Just as pretty, only on the opposite side of the apartment.

*finished means that I could not possibly come up with another word to type so I saved it, now in the next few hours I have to make sure I did all those fancy things like write in complete sentances and use periods and stuff.

I think its appropriate to pull an all nighter for the final big paper, if for no other reason than it reaffirms my choice to be D-O-N-E with school all together.

Anyway, so I'm feeling that a little acceptance speech is in order.

First and foremost I'd like to thank the various forms of liquid caffine that prevented me from having to inject it directly into my eyeballs to stay awake after only getting 4 hours of sleep Sunday night. I'd also like to thank that bag of Microwave Kettle Corn for hanging out and being crazy delicious, even 4 hours after being popped. The West Wing season 2 dvds need to be recognized for their abilitly to lull me into a condusive writing mode. My Nantucket shirt, for giving me the drive I needed to finish this nonsense up so the summer can begin. Natalie for the coffee, and Mel for the I Can't Believe its not Butter for my toast (though as of this writing neither one actually knows that they helped the cause, thanks anyway girls!). Hallie, Tierra, Rachel, Waseem and Aimee for the cheerleading and the emotional support, particulary Hallie for still being around at 4 AM and Aimee for getting me totally excited about our upcoming "Sex and the City: Chicago Style" existance. My blogging boss needs a huge thanks for not yelling at me as I haven't done work in two weeks, Myspace for being the best distraction tool ever and Limewire for letting me download that episode Grey's Anatomy that I got to watch when I was done as my "reward" for finishing.

At this point I'm too wound up to sleep. I'm gonna do some editing, start packing (!!!) and get ready to turn this sucker in.

I can't believe its over. I've spent the past two weeks telling grown-ups that the reason I've waited until the last possible second to write this piece of horse poop is because I'm feeling, "slightly nostalgic and sad about it being my last paper." And while that was total bs when it was coming out of my mouth, it's actually kinda true. Though I bitch and moan about it, I love writing and I love having to write. Its so hard for me to write without being faced with an imenent deadline.

Anyway, lets graduate and see how things go.

OH! And while I have your attention! You HAVE to go to this site here: Help Meredith Choose and buy lots and lots of adorable stuff. Do it. NOW!

dude

Anyone else freaking the fuck out about the Grey's Anatomy finale tonight?

Okay, cool. Its not just me.

Oh man, Shonda Rhimes...I am soooo your bitch.

fat

I doubled my caloric intake today...

...with 5 cookies.

Stupid Girl Scouts. You are so delicious.

its coming.

"I want you to be our baby-sitter forever!"

As A and I went to go pick up her sister, J, at her school we were talking about the keychain on my keys for their house. A told me to put my name on the keys. I told her that I'm gonna have to return them to her Mom at some point.

"Why?"
"Well, I'm not gonna be your babysitter for very much longer."

She looked at me confused for a minute. As if she hadn't been paying attention at the dinner table as her mother and I discussed how things were winding up for me (and let's be honest, she's 6, she probably wasn't listening. She asked where I was going and I told her I was going to Nantucket for the summer but didn't tell her that I wans't going to come back.

This keeps happening! It keeps being the first good bye, the last dinner, flurries of cell phone calls with promises that we're gonna see each other, "soon. Really Soon." I'm working as hard as I can to keep these lazy promises, knowing that I just will not be able to fit everyone and everything in. Between trying to sublet my stupid room (which, every time I talk to Mel about, one of us ends up choked up. How do you fall in perfect friendship with a roommate you haven't even had for a year?) and trying to write my impossible thesis and do all the rest of my homework, attempting to answer every single random question my parents can come up with about graduation, Nantucket, Chicago and whatever else they feel like grilling me about, working three jobs, and going back and forth between Maryland every other week I just can't figure out how I'm gonna sqeeze in last drinks with everyone (especially because I'm not really drinking this month).

How is it possible that I only have 30 days left?

Well, my hair is doing this delicious wavy thing, its fabulous-D's bithday fiesta which should be full of people who made these 4 years so awesome, and A gave me her left over Oreos, which are still in my bag.

double oh five and a half

There's a man in a tux wandering around my reception area (yes, my, if I'm sitting here for the day, I own it). He's been sitting and standing and just kind of hanging out for at least half an hour.

Mildly attractive and deliciously tall, I wondered if this was perhaps the fates sending me a sign. What if this man was my knight in shining armor?! He was going to whisk me away in his Aston Martin to his manse in the Hamptons and we were gonna live happily ever after...

Knowing that this might be my only shot to not die alone I find some courage in my almost empty bag of chex mix to talk to him. I took a minute to prepare what I was going to say so the risk of sounding like a total asshole would be significantly lowered.

"So, do you always come to work dressed like that?" (Okay, its not very clever, but when delivered with the appropriate amount of flirt, I think is not bad)

"I...uh...they...I was told because they don't know whats going on...I don't know."

...

He sits back down and I put my head in my hands cursing the gods for taunting me like that. He would have zero grasp on the English language...

they just wanna...

So, its been said many times (a few by me) that, "only good girls keep diaries-- bad girls are too busy having fun." While, I do agree with this statement, I think an appropriate corollary would be, "girls who have a lot of crap to do before they graduate in 30 days would rather drink beers than keep a diary." However, I feel like my adoring public has probably been religiously checking this space since my last update and has had a little part of their soul die every time they haven't seen a new update, particularly because my last post was so effin' disgusting. However, I have a brand new blog to document all my fun medical hypochondriatical disgustingness. So, you win.

Anyway, it seems as though my life isn't going to settle down until after I get to Nantucket which happens in mid-June so I figured I'd give a brief recap of all the shennanigans that went down over my spring break.

I desperatly wanted to make this a photo blog but some people have been a little slow about posting their photos on the internets. Its okay, they're all still good people, particularly when I forget they have actual grown up jobs and can't be talking about debauchery on their grown-up jobs servers. I suck. Anyway.

Eventually there will be a spring break photo montage. Right now, After a 2-time zone, 7-city, 12-day, 13-bar break, I leave you with this:

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scratchy scratch

I am itchy.

Really, really, (really) itchy.

I was told with my new medication that I would get dry skin and chapped lips. I was like, "eh. whatevs. gimme the drugs." I was blessed with increadibly smooth skin (thanks Italian genome!) and so have never had to be one of those every-morning mosturizers. Now?! Every 6 hours or so. Or I peel. People, I cannot even begin to discuss how absolutly disgusted I am by my body at this point. And its not just my legs, its my arms, stomach and the part in my hair and my face. I've been experimenting with the various kinds of lotion I already own, but its looking like I'm gonna have to take it up a notch. Does anyone have a really amazing moisturizer?! Preferably one with Alpha Hydroxy Acid, which are a must.

And while we're talking about my disgusting body (because thats a fun topic), my lips. Gross. Gee-ross. I can not be without my Burts Bees for more than 5 minutes or I start to twitch. Egh.

How much are you enjoying reading this blog?!

I'm also itchy. Because in two days I'll finally be home. I'm getting my 48 hour homesickness itch. I've never gotten homesick for Maryland, but everytime I know I'm about to get home I start to miss it, even though 2 or 3 days after I get back there I immediatly want to be back in the city.

Easter Break is shaping up to be increadibly awesome. At some point I'm gonna have to break it to my Mom that she isn't actually going to see me until Saturday or Sunday. There's gonna be a lot of traveling, mostly on completely foreign public transportation but it's going to lead me to my friends--all of whom I have not seen in far too long!

Okay after a delicious 2 hour nap (a thing I don't get nearly enough of anymore), I'm going to class.

Where's my Lifetime movie of the week?

So this past weekend was shaping up to go down in the history books as la-ame. In fact, it was looking so lame that they wouldn't probably give it a footnote in the history books. So, Saturday night I'm sitting watching Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind wondering if I would look as cute as Kate Winslet if I dyed my hair blue (then realizing it would take a face transplant for me to come anywhere near looking as cute as Kate Winslet) and then crying because I'm going to die alone without even a cat to eat my eyeballs because who doesn't go out on Saturday night?!...when Teeny calls. We chat it up and then she invites me to a Mets game on Sunday. Well sure! Anything to break the suckiness of the weekend-- they serve beer at baseball stadiums, and I had never actually been to a major-league game. Even though it was just supposed to be some sort of scrimmage (what do they call those in baseball?) I was stoked.

Long story short: There was no game. It was just watching the Mets have batting practice. The boys we came with were so embarrassed they just got us real liquored up so we wouldn't be hella pissed when we realized we got dragged to Flushing to watch the 3rd string 2nd baseman hit a ball over the fence and have it not count for anything. Yea, so 4 beers, 3 hours of direct sunlight and a few handfuls of peanuts later, we're feeling awesome.

I get ready to pour my drunk ass on the 7 train and sleep all the way into Manhattan. These boys- Phil and Adam along with their sidekick Teeny have other plans and literally throw me into Adam's 'Lanche (the gayest SUV around) and start driving back to Conneticut and the all-boys prep school that the three of them are employeed by.

That's right everyone. I was imbibed with really expensive baseball stadium Budweiser (and two Bud Lights, because aparently I think water is delicious), kidnapped, and taken across state lines, on a Sunday, at 4 in the afternoon.

We promptly got lost in Queens which of course meant we had to stop for those awesome 24 oz kegs of Heiniken which (fyi: family) we will be serving at my graduation party. Those and Rolling Rock mini-ponies (what can I say?! I'm all about packaging).

Once we got to Conneticut, I aparently (I don't remember much):
-Thought it would be cool to let Phil give me a tattoo, which, 2 days and a lot of scrubbing later, still hasn't come off. So I'm working with a poorly drawn moon and stars on my left fore-arm. I did manage to keep my wits about me enough to NOT let him color in my other tattoo.
-Thought it would be funny to scream really loud about how incapacitated we were as Teeny and I walked across campus with the 14 and 15 year old boys staring at their crew coach and the crazy girl attempt to walk in a straight line.
-I tripped over a lawn chair and fell flat on my face (who keeps a chair right infront of a door?!) while walking in Teeny's door, cutting up my hands, right foot and left leg. Did Christine comfort me as I lay on her floor possibly bleeding internally?! Nope, she definatly went to the bathroom. Thanks Christine.
-Fell again. This time into Christine's vaccuum. Turning it on, and leaving it on because I can't figure out how to turn it off.
-Changed the outgoing message on my voicemail...to something along the lines of "My phone doesn't work! Call me here! [insert Christine trying to say her phone number and laughing so hard you can't understand her]"
-Thought it would be an awesome idea to go swimming in the crew-lake.
-Convinced another co-worker of Christine's that I was a complete stranger that they had picked up at the "game" and brought back.
-At the resturant where we ate I managed to drop every piece of silverware. Twice.
-When the fruity drink Adam had ordered for Phil arrived, I took it upon myself to stick my finger into the whipped cream on top and take a dollop for myself before he had even tasted it.

Once we got home from the resturant I became the most anti-social kidnapping victim ever, making everyone shut up so I could watch my stories. Then I became the obnoxious kidnapping victim announcing to Christine that she would be waking up at 5 to drive me to the Metro North station so I could catch the 5:30 train and be in the city in time for my first class.

I made it. By 8 PM last night I was essentially useless, working on about 3 hours of sleep plus a bit of PTSD from the whole ordeal.

So I got home to my UPS package. And it was just a letter. From the company that makes the drug I'm taking. Talk about an effin' Let.Down.

I also find it humerous that those friends of mine who are privilaged enough to be linked from this blog find it necessary to up the ante with their content, while I'm totally statisfied writing this junk.