"I want them to feel their balls tremble" Kevin Spacey (as Buddy Ackerman) in Swimming with Sharks

One of my friends has handed out the old "you find men when you aren't looking." So why didn't he break into my apartment last night when I had no make up and was watching bad horror movies. I mean when exactly are you not looking for someone. There is only one time and that is when you are already with someone. Then the men come out of the wood work. I should have been taking numbers. Last year at this time i was getting "Time heals all wounds." but I have certainly proven that untrue. The truth is that time can sometimes act like acid on the skin, eating away at a wound, through bone and muscle, till there isn't anything left to heal. Sometimes there is no cure, there is no "moving on". Sometimes there is only how long it takes to kill you.
What a cheery thought for a Saturday night.
John still hasn't called.
Ok my point about the escapism and fantsy thing is that most people think that when I type mor eit is a good sign because I am being more expressive and therefore getting more statisfaction (repressed impulses finding some sort of release) but the truth is that the more energy I spend here typing, the less I am doing in the outside world, the more cut off I become, and therefore the more time I spend typing. It is a vicious cycle.
"Forgive? The flesh was torn from my body by flames while I was yet alive. No."- Vincent Price The Haunted Palace-an loosely adapted H.P. Lovecraft's story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Yes I ended up watching The Haunted Palace until three in the morning. Hey, it starred Vincent Price AND Lon Chaney Jr. This line struck me since Price's two accomplices are trying to get him to abandon avenging his own death. Price's character, Joseph Kerwin, is burned to death as a warlock. 110 years later he possesses the body of his great great great (I think) grandson and sets about burning the descendents of the townspeople who burned him. the accomplices want Kerwin to stop monkeying around with personal issues and focus on their goal of world destruction (or more accurately opening up the gates so that the "Elder Ones" like great Cthulu may rule the world again-like they did such a good job the first time). But the line I quoted showed the ridiculousness of what the accomplices are trying to accomplish, How do you get someone to "move on" from their own murder? Hey, hey, can you just forget about that whole burning at the stake thing and focus on the rest of your life, buddy? Of course, it is the desire to avenge his own death that ultimately leads to a second destruction. (Or maybe not. The end of the film is ambiguous. And strangely concludes with a quote from Edgar Allen Poe and NOT Lovecraft)

The Dead Zone and it's Halloween-esque incidental music are on TNT right now (probably trying to cash in on the popularity of the television show) and I am suddenly struck by the idea that almost all of Stephen King's books have a kind of similar theme, the closer one comes to the supernatural, the closer one comes to death. In the original movie Johnny (an odd name for the very adult Christopher Walken) dies, his psychic impulses are killing him. The same thing occurs in The Shining the closer Nicholson's character gets to whatever it is that is haunting the hotel, the closer he gets to death. In another film not directly related, The Amityville Horror (by Jay Anson and not King, but in the same general oevre) the more the husband is possessed, the closer to death he comes, until finally the family flees for their lives. The theory here is very simple, one can not walk in two worlds at once, the strain will start to kill whoever tries. The hero has to pick a realm. In The Dead Zone the hero picks to walk with the dead (same as The Shining ). Why pick the dead? In The Shining it's clear that the novelist picks the dead because they give him acceptance and elevate his status, treatment that he feels is lacking in his actual life. So what do these films then become? Perhaps allegories for the dangers of living too much imagination. Of course we all imagine what we want most in life, but if those fantasies begin to take over, they can become dangerous. The dreamer withdraws more and more into a private fantasy and eventually may experience a psychotic break (the inability to differentiate between fantasy and reality.) Even more so the withdrawal from actual life leads to the deterioration of actual life even as the imagined life improves and becomes more vibrant. It becomes a cycle, the less statisfying the outside life, the more imagined life has to built up. Finally, the individual may be compelled to withdraw completely (This can work not only psychologically with catonic patients, but with such creative people as Emily Dickenson and J.D. Salinger.)

On a side note, I do not know what these people in the hallway are doing to their kids, but maybe they need to take a parenting class. Last night this kid is screaming and crying in the hallway for TEN MINUTES. I mean, the elevator doesn't take that long, so what was the mother doing? Casually getting the mail while this kid wailed? While the kid was wailing I could hear her having a conversation. Who can casually converse with THAT going on? Again today this same kid is wailing outside my door (this time with his father). Therapy, people, therapy. It can do a world of good for those of us who live in the first floor next the elevator.

Cujo is now on TNT ( what no Pet Cemetary or even more upsetting no Pet Cemetary II ? PC II has one of my favorite lines in it "No brain, no pain. Think about it.") I should be doing stuff, but I'm very depressed, about my apartment, about my life, about everything. John hasn't called. He isn't going to call and this is very depressing. One of my friends sent me an email saying that he thinks I get too attached too quickly. I was like "Well, thank you Captain Obvious. I would never figured that out with out your help." Yes, I know that. But that is the nature of compulsion, you know you are doing the wrong thing but you have to do it anyway, you have NO CHOICE.- Like Bruce Willis in the end of 12 Monkeys "This part is about following orders, isn't it?It's about doing what your told." It's not about making anything better, it's not about doing what you have to do, even if you know that ultimately it will lead to your own destruction.

I was teaching Jung the other day, and I asked my class a question based one of his claims. (That art manufactures what is most lacking in the age.) So I asked, if we take this statement as true, what is our age most lacking in? They couldn't come up with a damn thing. So finally I asked what about all these reality shows. What does this indicate a lack of? Again, they came up with nothing. So I suggested that what we lack is the genuine, the honest. That these reality shows are attempt to get at something authentic. (And in the process create something toally artificial.) Just an idea.

Must go get things together. Hate life.

Oh and professorial twit called me today. I've become like his break up 12 step sponsor. And the worst part is that even after putting this much time into counseling I know there isn't a point. I know that he isn't going to listen to what I have to say. My father used to always about advice, "The wise man doesn't need it, and the fool doesn't listen." He was right, of course. This is the same stuff I used to do in high school, spend hours giving advice and offering support, that would not be listened to. (They always came back crying "youwere so right" they would get more advice that they wouldn't listen to again.) The other fabulous side effect is that this guy like all of my other "clients" is not willing to listen or help me. gain I give off some sort of ultra capable vibe and they just don't accept that I need advice and I need support. What do I need to do? Put up a sign? Emotionally needy Jew. Inquire within.
Tonights classic film is "House on Haunted Hill" an awful remake of a not so thrilling movie originally starring Vincent Price. The original version is happy to stop with Vincent faking his own death and then haunting his wife into a confession. (His "ghost" is really a human skeleton rigged up marionette like. He then manages to scare her into confessing and then throwing herself into a vat of acid.) How exactly the producers of this remake got Geoffrey Rush to agreee to be in the film I don't know. I do know I would have liked to see how it was done. (Probably something very undramatic like "Listen you signed the contract now you will do whatever piece of shit film we say you will do.")

Friday night and nothing to do. NOTHING. Those chicken mcnuggets only worked on monday. Great. The insane professor I was talking about yesterday, the one who is all worked up about being left by the One-well he called me today at eleven o'clock in the morning and yakked at me for an hour.I have now become, in his mind, the undisputed expert on his relationship. Fabulous. Just what I need as a another hobby. He is also one of the massing throngs who think I truly missed my calling and that I should be a therapist.I sincerely doubt that his behavior is going to prove that I can help people never mind "cure" people.-Of course the good news is that maybe I can use his relationship as part of PhD thesis, dysfunctional relationships in the over educated and emotionally unstable. Ok what I didn't mention yesterday is that when he pulled myself and the other professor into the conference room to tell us his tale of woe he actually referrred to it as "an intervention for himself." This wouldn't be so surprising if there wasn't a friend of mine who knows someone who is planning his own intervention at a spa. Interesting day and age we live in, ain't it? So this guy calls me and is all over the board, he wants to call her, but he doesn't want to talk to her. (I refrained from saying "You know Sign Language just isn't as effective on the phone." This goes back to a previous post about how hard it is to post how disinterested you are.) So after I give all this advice (take your time, don't call her, take some time away from the situation before you make a decision)-and I would like to say the most annoying part of this process is I would offer advice, he would disagree I would explain my case, he would accept my idea and then twenty minutes later bring the idea back up as if A he never disagreed with it and B it was HIS idea and not mine. But here is where it gets really fun. He is going to talk to her on Sunday night. This is the night when I told him "Ok you two sit down, and go in with no preconceived notions, go into the evening with the idea that this is an exploration of whether or not you can continue the relationship and if you can under what conditions. But don't go in with 'This is what I am going to do' attitiude." So he says "You know I really want to her that I won't talk to her unless you are there, because you have such insight into her." I'm like oh great, like I have nothing better to do with my weekends now than play amateur couples therapist. The really sad thing here is that I don't, actually. So now he thinks this is a good idea, to have me in as a "mediator." Of course, as a friend of mine pointed out, this is a guy who had an intervention for himself so probably not that well versed with good ideas. Oh wait, I forgot, last night I left him in a bar, on his way to crawling into a bottle of bourbon, what does he do? After being left by the One only fourteen hours before he goes and finds another woman, Katie, who he really likes and he sees now as another option. I've been on the market for two effing years, cute, voluptuous, smart, and not nearly as insane as this guy I can't options, but he is on the market all of FOURTEEN HOURS and he can? (Of course as one of my other friends remakred, don't get excited until you see what his "options" are. After all he was drinking bourbon pretty heavily. His new friend is probably an Emu in drag.) Yet another friend pointed out that I could have boyfriends-paul the mad robe flasher in indiciative of that-she pointed to the fact that I date "a lot of people." My response was "only if you are using the term 'people' loosely." Oh and one other note, his One came back. My didn't. His even called to say she hated hurting him etc etc. I never even got so much as a frickin' postcard (Sorry I ruined your life. Hope you're ok.) I'm not depressed because I've got a distorted perception of reality, I'm depressed because reality is distorted.

In other news John hasn't called. Sniff. I guess I'm just not fit to wear the crown.

Well, at least I can go see Willard to soothe my misunderstood soul.

"When you bend to smell the flowers, are they scared?" Steve Martin-Roxanne

Ok well tonight is going to be fast. I'm utterly exhausted. (I was tempted to swear there, but I curbed my impulse so as not to loose my huge Mormon fan base.) But I will add this, I have found the STUPIDEST title for a cancer memoir ever. (It might actually be the stupidest title for a memoir ever.) And now I am going to save it for posterity here. Courtesy of amazon.com "There's a Flying Squirrel in my Coffee:Overcoming Cancer with the Help of my Pet." My friend Tim Herrick has come up with a close second (personally I think its a very funny cancer memoir title) and that is "I Died of Cancer and My Cat Ate my Face." The touching tale of a man dying of cancer and a cat that could care less until it starts to starve to death and has to start eating the body for nourishment. Now THAT I would read.

Ok so drama in the office today. There is this other prof. and he is a piece of work. One of those guys who always has to be right, can't just let things go. Even little things. This summer this woman broke up with his answering machine. Now normally my response to that kind of behavior is that there is a specially place in hell just for people who break up with answering machines (it is a little higher than the break up through IM and Email people are kept) but this case I was like "Probably a good idea." Because this guy would argue your grounds for breaking up into the ground. He is the type of guy that ex girlfriends emigrate to avoid. Anyway he was telling us all about this ex girlfriend and how she broke up with answering machine and he is crafting all these arguments to these allegations she left on the machine. He wants to call her up and argue with her. So I'm like "Oh I thought you didn't like her and were going to break up with her." And he says "I was." And I was like "So why are you going to argue with her?" And his response is "She's wrong." So I'm like "Wait, you don't want her back you just want her to break up with you for the "right reasons"" And he said "yes." And he's looking at me like I'm the crazy person.

OK so that wasn't the point, the point is the women that this guy was totally in love with and thought was THE ONE and talked about having children with, well, the ONE is having cold feet. And he is , predictably, an utter fucking wreck. And what makes me feel better is that I went through all of this when I was 27 instead of 42 (his age). I'm watching him and he is saying and thinking the exact same things I was when I went through it myself. Shoba, another teacher, thinks it is just being heartbroken. She doesn't see it's much more than that, its hopelessness. So there you go I got it over with early. Even more evidence that I am, as always, ahead of my time. But here is the good thing about going through such an experience. (Actually there are a few) The first is that if this is the worst, the absolute worst, then it's all down hill from here.

A great idea, unfortunately it doesn't work in practice. It just tired you out until you get to the point where something as stupid as a co worker telling you that you look like you gained weight can send you into a suicidal depression.
Lord, "My Best Friend is a Vampire" starring Robert Sean Leonard is on HBO 6 tonight. Hopefully it will keep me up long enough to finish a little bit more grading. I'm so exhausted.
So even though I started the day in a really good mood, it quickly deteriorated into seirous depression. Now part of that was due to sleep deprivation. (When I don't get enough sleep, i get seriously depressed.) But of course not ALL of it can be simple sleep deprivation. (Because of course the sleep deprivation was caused by anxiety attacks, which are caused by god knows what psychic trauma I went through so many years ago that there really is no point even being in therapy for it.) I digress.
So the days starts I come into my office. And like all women I'm mindful of my weight. I'm not crazy about it. I don't live on rice cakes and dreams, but I try to be pretty responsible about it. You know, no high fat food, no high calorie food, no eating late at night (if I snack it has to be something healthy like baby carrots or a little salad). So this woman who has the office next to min comes in and says to me, "You know I've been meaning to tell you, you've put on some weight. You look heavier this winter." I'm like "Great, thanks for stopping by. Is that all, would you like to call me ugly and stupid before you go on your way spreading joy to the rest of the teachers?" The truth is I lost weight, although I probably looks heavier because I put on a lot of muscle because of dancing (my thighs are all muscle now). Or at least that's how I'm justifying the fact that I have lost weight but look heavier.

I am mean that's not all that happened. The day just went downhill from there. I show up at my therapist's office to find that my mother has called to ask "what she can do to help." Translated this is "My daughter isn't getting better fast enough so I have situate myself into the therapeutic relationship." She has done it with past therapists too. She doesn't see how this behavior is invasive. For someone who doesn't believe in therapy for herself she certainly is very invovled wtih mine Of course this goes to my theory of therapy by proxy. She needs to go, and she knows this, but doesn't go so she kind of tries to horn in on my therapy. And since I pay for my therapy, it is mine and she should get out of it. If I wanted her involved I would have told her, or asked her to join for a session or some other craziness. But therapy, and the beautfy of therapy, is that for an hour you get to have things be all about you. You don't have to pretend or worry about other people's feelings or negotiate. So that was a totally unwanted and unnecessary intrusion.

Then I go to ballroom. Now ballroom is a "safe space" for me. It used to be my apartment, but that's not so anymore. Un the last year my apartment has become the enemy, the place I don't want to go to, not the safe womb like presence it used to be. When I was growing up, even in college, people used to love to come my bedroom. I used to create this very comfortable relaxing energy. Gone. It's just a god damned mess now. I sit on the couch and think something has to change, but I'm not sure of what or even how. So I go to ballroom and the last of my favorite teachers, all of the others, including Poor Max have been fired, is leaving. He can not stand the studio anymore and so he is leaving to visit his sick mother in Russia and he doesn't know if he'll ever come back. Now for a person like me, a person with limited social resources, a person who becomes emotionally attached very quickly, to have a teacher I have been dancing with for almost a year just up and leave, leave the whole country, is very upsetting. Its another abadonment. My upset was so clear from my face that through the lesson he kept trying to reassure me. "Well, I don't know if I'm going to stay. Maybe I'll go back and hate it. Maybe things here will change if they realize that I'll leave. Nothings definite." Right nothings definite, exept that it is. Except that I already know he won't come back and I will have lost another safe space, another thing that makes me happy. And its getting much harder to replace these things. To find another activity or space. Without Oleg, studio really has no hold on me. But where do I go then? What activity do I try next?

There are those that would see this as an opportunity. Now i can devote myself to getting the PhD. But what these people don't realize is that the one thing I always wanted to avoid in my life. The one thing that I never wanted to do was be all about my work. I learned that much from my parents. My father the doctor and my mother the CEO of a hospital. I never wanted my job to be the most important thing never mind the ONLY thing period. And so I rebel at the idea of just being about teaching and learning. Am I good at it? There is no doubt. But do I want my whole life to be about it. No.

Of course the flip side of the argument is that this is like Quentin Tarrantino saying that what he really wants to do is act, despite the fact that his acting is awful. Maybe whatI should do is simply accept my talent and go with it, that I'm spending too much time on something that was not meant to be. Apparently I was not meant to have friends or a boyfriend. I was only meant ot be an academic. And apparently a fat one at that.

Oh great Cthulu, Oh mighty Elder Ones, Oh, um, magnificent celestial powers. Thanks. No really. THANK YOU.

Just so no one can say that I'm not grateful when things go my way in even a marginal form. Yes this is where I have gotten to emotionally, I am overjoyed by things going right even by 30%. So John came over and we attempted to watch the film Sletuh. We were not successful in that goal at all. AND NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU IMAGINE. Get your minds out of the gutter. No, no, no. The reason why we weren't successful in watching is that we were talking the whole time. You don't know how exciting it is for me to actually hook up with someone else who not only knows movies as well (or even better) than I do, but thinks about them a great deal. We kept having these conversations films, which ranged all over the place. But it was great. Ok we fooled around.

But here's the catch, Miss America, remember the girl John has "just started seeing" is still around. (One of my former students, when hearing about the he's seeing someone, simply responded-there's only one thing to do "KILL HER" Of course, we would have to find her first.) Little Miss America has yet to be dethroned, but let me just say that I think there is at least a patch of ice on the stairs to the throne. The Tiara isn't on her head yet and there maybe be hope.

Of course, there may not. We were sitting on the couch and he's like you do know I'm seeing someone. To which I said yes. And he's like "I'm just syaing if things were different.." How do men think this is comforting Do you think it makes me feel better to know if that I had been just a little faster? If the world had been just a little different I could be happy? The idea of missing happiness by a narrow margin instead of a football field is supposed to make me feel better? People, I'm still not happy, whether it is by an inch or a mile. I reminded at this moment of a former friend of mine who was supposed to, as a favor, call this girl I knew and take her to meet some people. (She was young and new to New York and so I thought I would help her find some friends her own age.) He, however, called her, set up a date for coffee, and then NEVER SHOWED> When I called and yelled at him about it, he was like "You can't yell at me I was doing you a favor." To which my response was "No, you ALMOST did me a favor. If you had done the favor, you would have actually met her. But since you didn't, I feel ALMOST grateful, not quite, but almost." I digress. Going back to the if onlys. Of only things were different. I mean why stop there? If we are going to go into the real of fantasy..if only I was blonde, if only I was five four, if only living in new york city didn't cost a small fortune. I mean, if only doesn't do anything. So then he continues with "Well, actually I don't know. I don't where this thing is going. Maybe it won' go anywhere, this quasi relationship." My response was to kind of put myself down (don't worry I'm not the type of girl men fall in love with) and his response was "Don't sell yourself short." To which my response, and only the people who know how tall I am will get this is, to sell myself any other way is false advertising.

So I'm trying to just see where this goes and not get too attached.

Right because that approach worked so well with the Beast.
"Anticipating Rejection" former student suggested this be the title of his or my next novel(actually it would be my first novel)

Ok so I'm having a really bad idea here, but I'm excited aboutit. So now, gentle readers, it is time for you be the judge. I just got in my little email box an invite to a singles cruise. NOW for those of you who remember january in which I went on the cruise with my distant cousins. (famous for the "when did you decide to become a jew?" incident) But the truth is with just the events part, especially when my family wasn't involved, I had a great time. Well now I have the opportunity to have a great time and be in a bikini (joy). Now I feel lame about doing a single cruise, but its to cool places and I think it could be a good time. But here it why I am scared. I am depressed and this seems like a good idea. And my golden rule is don't make big decisions when you are depressed, generally a bad idea. It's moments like that when you wake up married to some fifty year old guy and say "What the HELL was I thinking?" And what you were thinking was "Well, this SEEMS like a good idea." Right it always seems like a good idea at the time. And certainly when alcohol is involved anything short of sex with a flaming goat seems like a good idea at the time. Ok even sex with a non flaming goat doesn't seem like a good idea. Was that a double negative? See what a whole day of correcting does to the human mind?

Have to go-hot man named John called and is awaiting me. Thank you for the sacrificed lambs and chicken mcnuggets. Please thank appropriate divinities.

I need at this point to clarify something. It has become clear to me that some readers confused The Puppet Master (released in 1989 and spawning several sequels including "retro puppet master") with The Puppet Masters based on a Robert Heinlein novel. OK totally different movies and as grade B and the Puppet Masters is it is nowhere near as ridiculous as a man who uses slugs to "reanimate" puppets with the souls of the deceased-a process he learned in Egypt. Is it me does it sound like somebody threw in a whole bunch of different horror movies into a blender and came out with that little gem (add a little frankenstein a dash of robert heinlein and a sound byte from the Shadow and then bake at 375). To add some "sexiness" to the story, one of the puppets is his deceased wife. Oh the romance of it all.
However I would like to point out that one of the original screenwriters of The Puppet Masters (Heinlein) has written about the exact process I was dicusssing (writers being inspired by crap). He calls this crap-plus-one. Essentially the idea is that young writers are intimidated by good work, but when they see crap they think "I can do better than that" thus aiming only slightly above crap. He points out that crap plus on is a very meager goal. He doesn't address the more interesting point that writers are actually threatened by other sucessful works. It makes me think that the writer I knew in college (Jim) was right when he said he didn't read anymore because it impacted upon his work. (Of course the title of his novel was, and I'm not kidding, Metamorphoses 2000-this would have been in 1995)
And now a moment about Jim. Jim was an older guy who I hooked up with new year's eve 1994-1995. The interesting thing here about Jim is that he had been in Playgirl's 1993 College Hunk Search. He was not at all one would except from such a search. Not hugely buff, and honestly owing to a diet of constant alcohol and pot he was virtually nonfunctional in the sex department. He was good looking, but hardly a hunk. So there you go ladies, I have lived the dream.
"I could eat my underwear and barf something prettier in pink" heather kelly (former student) commenting on the ugly prom dress Molly Ringwold wears in Pretty in Pink

So now I have become one of those people that updates their blog four times a day. Well now I've completed that goal. I would just like to lodge another complaint. In a previous post, I complained about a Celine Dion Chrysler ad, now I would like to complain that AOL thinks that Chelsea Clinton making 100,000 dollars a year after graduation is news worthy. Now part of the reason I'm complaining, and I am open about this, is that it depresses me to no end because I am barely making any money. But when did what our former president's kid does become news worthy? Are we that desperate for news of Bill?
OK I was correcting papers while watching End of Days on USA (Arnold as the savior of the world-who knew?) and I actually came across this sentence in a paper by one of my students about the importance of education.
"Students should take education serious, but not too serious and kill themselves with work."

I'm thinking its definately not a problem for my students.
And now a side note. There is only one thing in this world that makes me wish that I owned a gun that is the annoying Celine Dion ad for Chrysler. Have I ever been so in love? Um yes, but not with this song, and not with your son, Celine, and certainly not with a car so KNOCK IT OFF.
I didn't go out last night. I stayed in and watched terrible, and I mean TERRIBLE horror movies coutresy of the sci-fi channel. I actually watched Blood Dolls. It's a wanna be Puppet Master. Now that's sad. Not even good enough to be Puppet Master but aspiring to it.It used to be that bad horror movies made me feel good. Here's how it worked. I would watch these atrocities like "Night of the Creeps" or "Day of the Comet" or, a personal favorite courtesy of Troma pictures "Night of the Wendigo", and I would watch these films inspired by the fact that at some point someone thought they were a good idea. That some one pitched the story and some one else said "Wait, that's brilliant." It just gave me hope. I mean if this piece of crap can get made with nothing more than will behind it then I still have hope right, then anything can still happen as long as you have the will behind you?

Right.

But the depression I am in is getting worse as nothing seems to be able to be changed. I have tried and yet it seems like I am trapped into the particular set of circumstances. Every weekend is the same I meet some hot guy who takes me number and is not going to call. And I'm an attractive girl, I'm a smart girl, people admit this. People know this, but it doesn't change anything. I still can't get a boyfriend. There are a host of different theories about it, but nothing seems to explain it. One friend of mine thinks its about me being picky. Now if I was picky would i have gone out with Paul the mad robe flasher for three dates? Would I have gone out with Scott, who couldn't tell me he loved me for two whole years? Would I have gone out with the Beast who couldn't even manage to call to break up with me, but just vanished? I am if I was really picky I wouldn't have given my phone number to the guy I met on friday night who already is seeing someone, but I did. And the thing is I don't think that I am picky. I think I deserve an attractive intelligent funny boyfriend with only minimal psychological problems.Ok I would even be willing to put up with serious mental illness (of course I admit that only because I have in the past.)

So the end here is continue the candles and vigils because only G-d's undivided attention is going to help me out with this one.