Musings on me
This is a long entry, so I'm going to attmept my first ever cut...
Don’t worry, about a thing, cause every little thing, is gonna be alright…
I’m one of those people who when asked if I’ve made any New Year’s resolutions I say, “I don’t believe in them.” I also don’t believe in writing lists (except for grocery lists) or writing down goals. I think if you were to search through things that I’ve written you’d find me saying, “Writing down goals is for people who write and buy self help books.” At least that’s what I think now, and I’m pretty sure I’ve written that in a previous entry, I just don’t want to be caught repeating myself without making note of it. But if it works for you… so be it. Ah, but the truth is, is that I do have a sort of list of goals in my head. I do have dreams and wishes, but they’re not really for public consumption, they just sit in my brain and make me feel guilty at night, right as I’m about to go to sleep, especially if I’ve done nothing during the day to work toward my goals. Lately, they’ve been shouting at me.
New Year’s resolutions: I have none… except for maybe this one: don’t be me, be better me. This is sort of the same resolution I’ve had for the last three to five years. Now, the last three to five years the “Don’t be me, be better me” resolution has been hidden behind the everyman’s resolutions of, “Loose 20, 30, 40 pounds. Find a better job. Save some money. Learn to play the guitar. Paint more. Blah, blah, blah, ect.” But it’s starting to become clearer with each passing day that my resolutions for this year, and beyond are so numerous, and so vague, and so concept oriented that they can only be described as, “Don’t be me, be better me.”
This is a concept that’s hit home by the fact that this year I’ll be turning 30. Now, here’s the thing, I understand that 30 isn’t that old, unless you’re one of my friends who’s in their early to mid-twenties (my flamboyant friend Scoop comes to mind), in which case you look at me and think, “fake hip, any day now.” Now, I know many a person who will tell me, “Thirty? You’re just about to start your life!” Or at least, I’d hope that’s what they’d say. And earlier today I heard someone say, “Thirty is the new twenty.” Okay… that person was me, but still, someone had to say it, and I’m sure many people would agree. Thirty seems to be the new crossroads. I’m not old per say… but I do have to work out three times as hard now in order to see results at the gym, and yes, on occasion I do have to take an antacid pill if I eat something late in the evening, my knees crack, I cringe when I realize some of my younger co-workers have no idea who the Thundercats are, or have never seen a the original Star Wars movies, or any of the Indiana Jones movies, and for the first time ever I find that I’ll be looking at a cute young girl and instead of thinking, “Cute young girl.” I’ll think, “Her mom let’s her out like that?” Now, that last one has only happened like twice, but still… adult sensibilities are catching up with me. This terrifies the hell out of me.
I had dinner with my friend Theater Guy the other night, and we were talking about getting older, up into our thirties, and what that meant for us. He was filling me in on his philosophy that when you get to be thirty you start to come around to realizing who you are, what you’re about. It seems that the growing process has slowed as the generations have passed. By the time my parents were my age, they were working at their established jobs respectively, and getting ready to have me. I believe by the time my grandparents were my age, they were working at their established jobs, two kids into it, and Grandpa had already fought in a world war. I’m at my age, and I’m just now learning how to keep my checking account from going into the red, and that’s still not a definite thing.
Theater Guy said something along the lines of, “Your twenties are for living care free, you live life, you have fun, you work jobs to make money. By the time you’re thirty, you still want to have fun, but you’re sensibilities change… you want to have adult fun. You want to go on vacations to real places like the Galapagos; you want to pick up a hobby like deep sea fishing, or canoeing. You start to have this idea of who you want to be in life, and you start working toward that. You still might bounce from job to job a little, but the jobs are more in line of what you want to do, and not just for drinking money. You become a student of life, and you start to learn who you are. By the time you’re in your forties you’re ready to settle down and your established.”
(I know I just butchered something that Theater Guy said, and let me apologize to him now. I’m know he was very serious and sincere when he said it, I know this cause I was sitting across the table from him when he said it, unfortunately I didn’t take notes on the conversation, and there was this attractive girl sitting in the booth behind him… so occasionally she’d be a distraction. I just wanted to make this note cause I don’t want to be accused of being another James Frey, making stuff up).
So there it is… this year I turn 30, this year I have to come to terms with the kind of person I’m going to be. Who will I be?
Change, they say, is a good thing. I don’t know who said that… if I had to guess, I’d say it was someone who was a megalomaniac, someone who liked to screw around with people he or she felt were beneath him or her… maybe Henry VIII. I’m not sure how I feel about change. Personally, I don’t much like it; I’m sort of set in my ways. Now, “Change is a good thing” is just one of those saying that’s been co-opted into being advice for anything. Sort of like, “Everything happens for a reason!” Change is never good, and nothing happens for any reason. As it turns out, things happen, change is inevitable, life just keeps happening, and we, as people, deal with whatever happens, or we don’t and die. Science and religion aside, Darwin is right, we adapt to the change, whatever it might be, and life keeps happening. Eventually we find ourselves thinking, “Oh well, things don’t really seem that bad, I guess change IS good!” Or, “Wow, I thought I was going to be miserable now that the Tom Thumb closed, but I just bought these cookies at Albertson’s, now I’m happy, I guess everything DOES happen for a reason!” And as for the people who don’t deal well with change, and end up dead… well, they’re not around to tell us that we’re wrong about those sayings. Yes, I hate change, but it looks like it’s time to adapt.
I’d like to say, on a personal note, that I think that it’s interesting that this is happening now. I’ve just spent the last year and change falling head over heals for this girl who didn’t fall back… and there I was, falling, all alone, looking like an idiot. Now, some might accuse me of being a bit… obsessive? No, that makes me sound weird and creepy… ensconced in the idea of being in a possible real relationship with a girl who made me laugh, who made me think, and who I truly liked, and those people, the people who said I was ensconced, would have a good case to argue, cause now I find that the free time I used to dedicate to talking to this girl on the phone, or going out with her, or whatever else it is we did, are once again free for whatever I want them to be used for, and I’m having a bit of a hard time figuring out what to do in those moments. I find myself thinking, “How did I end up back here? Sure maybe the time I spent with X was sort of fake, but it was fun fake.”
(And yes, it’s really depressing when I find myself home on a Friday night watching television, thinking, “I bet she’s out having fun right now with a guy who isn’t me.” But that’s another thing altogether…)
Lately I’ve had this idea, to fill this hole in my schedule with old friends, maybe get some new friends to shake things up with. Go back, reconnect with old friends, make new friends, see if I CAN get by with a little help from my friends. But I found that most of my old friends are busy living their own lives, and most nights I have to fend for myself, which I have found, is a very daunting task.
I’ve recently sort of reconnected with an old friend. I met her while she was acting in one of Theater Guy’s plays. I found her to be intimidatingly good looking, and smart, and friendly, and while I think I would have enjoyed going through the motions of friendship, crush, fizzle, no more talking, with her, I just ended up lending her my Harold and Maude video and our busy lives dictated that we skip all the other steps and go straight to the no more talking phase of our relationship. That was a few years ago; a few months ago she e-tracked me down, e-mailed me, and e-told me that her roommate accidentally sold my Harold and Maude video in a garage sale. And to be honest, I didn’t e-recognize her at first, or even e-remember that I had lent her the video (I’d honestly forgotten that I’d had owned the video to begin with). And now, over the past few months we’ve developed and e-relationship through e-mail.
I started hinting, through the e-mail, that we should maybe do something in real life, cause well, it’s real life, and way more entertaining than this e-world. And by hinting I mean being completely obvious, like, (this is an example… not taken from actual e-mails) “I bought some Cheetos today. You want to do something later? Call me.”
There’d be no phone call, but she would be kind enough to write back, “Have you ever tried the spicy Cheetos? They’re really spicy.”
And then next three e-mails are all about junk food. Then I’d ask again, and she’d kindly ignore the question, and I’d find that we’re talking about pop culture and the blending of celebrity couple’s names (Bennifer, Brangelina… something that fascinates me… and something I’d like to talk about- but that, again, is another thing altogether).
I find that I’d like to tell her, “Look, I’m not asking you out on a date, I’m just wanting someone to hang out with. Now that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t ever like to ask you out… I think your intimidatingly beautiful, smart, and funny, and frankly that totally scares me, cause while I think I’m smart, and people tell me I’m funny, I think you’re too pretty for me. I mean, look at me! Plus, I’m a neurotic mess. I’m self-conscious, I lack discipline, I have a healthy ego, coupled with a good dose of low self-esteem, and I have no idea how that works. I’ve hinted at my women troubles over the last year… and you’re smart, and I’m sure you’re thinking that if you do hang out with me, that you’re simply going to step into the roll of the object of my affection, and you know what? You maybe right? But the truth is, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for. I’m not looking for a relationship, I can’t even commit to a beard. I haven’t shaved in weeks and when people ask me if I’m growing a beard I say, “I don’t know… I just know I’m not shaving.” I don’t know what I’m looking for… maybe I am just looking for the next distraction in life. Not that I think you’re a distraction…no, but… ohmigod… maybe, I’m a crazy person. Maybe you’re right to avoid me. Maybe I need to learn to be on my own, completely on my own for a while. Maybe I need to learn to be able to hang out with myself, before I can hang out with anyone else. But, I mean, why would I want to hang out with me? I’m crazy, self-absorbed, and low self-esteemed. I don’t want to hang out with me. The me that I know is out of shape, and angry, and bitter, and broke, and spent a year and a half pining over a girl who really just wants to be my friend. That me is kind of a looserish me. I want to hang out with a better me. I want to hang out with the me that lives inside my head. The me that is a good 50 pounds lighter, the me that constantly writes, paints, has money, knows how to play a musical instrument, can properly court a woman, and understands a little something more than the common man about the concepts of time and space. That’s the me I want to hang out with! That should be my goal. I want to be a better me! Are you sure you don’t want to hang out?”
Now, I can’t tell her any of that, because she’ll see that I’m not the fake self-indulgent pseudo self-aware post-modern crazy person that I pretend to be in writing, but in fact just a crazy person. Plus it’s not exactly the manliest way to go about saying, “I think you’re pretty.” Although I hear that women like self-aware, vulnerable, sensitive men… it’s been my experience that they like self-aware, vulnerable, sensitive men who happen to be ass kickers first and foremost… and that whole thing I just wrote doesn’t exactly exude ass kicking.
(The funny thing is that, she is indeed going to know all that went through my head, because I wrote it here, and told everyone, instead of just her. This is what gets online journalers and bloggers, including me, on several occasions, into trouble. They talk about their business to everyone, instead of to the person they need to tell. And you know what? I think we do it on purpose. It alleviates the embarrassment of a one on one conversation, and just airs the dirty underwear to the world. It’s reality television in the form of online blogging. It’s saying what I want to be known without ever having to really say it. It’s sort of chicken shit, (sort of… I mean, why admit to thoughts and feelings and open yourself up to possible embarrassment of yourself to one person, when you can do it in front of numerous people… that takes guts right? Plus I get to pretend that I have the adoration of many, many people who muddle through this whole thing) But it’s effective. It’s a totally post-modern (and you know what? Let’s do away with the term post-modern… I’ve used it way too much in this essay… I’m not even sure what the hell post-modern means anymore) way of communicating. I know that it’s potentially embarrassing for someone to realize that someone else it talking about them to the world (my excuse was always, “But no one reads my blog… as it turns out… some people do, much to my confusion… although I’m guessing they’ll quit reading if I continue to write this much). And I know that it might cause trouble for me, and I know that all I have to do is hit the delete button, and I can save myself from people possibly being angry with me, and yet I move forward with gusto, both cognizant, and oblivious to the fact that what I write will be read by people I wish would know what I’m thinking, without me having to actually say it, and read by people who I don’t want to know what I’m thinking, but probably should know anyway… it’s very… post-modern… Andy Warhol, I think, would have liked this era we’re living in now… maybe not. Eh, probably not. That’s also, and again, is something else altogether). (Also, get a load of the use of brackets in that last thought).
It was just after having this thought (it was on a Friday night, I stayed in, and went to bed early… thus the heavy thinking, I think I would have preferred heavy drinking, but whatever) that I hopped out of bed, and wrote all this down… and realized that maybe now that I’m turning thirty soon, now that I’ve almost got this Container Store Girl thing behind me (and if you’re reading… hi… I hope you’re doing well, and I swear we’ll talk in the future), and now that I’m starting to understand how I torpedo myself… That the me that’s been around may not be working, maybe my goal, my resolution, should be, to be a better me. And eventually have sex sometime soon… and I’d like to learn Spanish, and travel more, and clean my apartment… ah hell.
Don’t worry, about a thing, cause every little thing, is gonna be alright…
I’m one of those people who when asked if I’ve made any New Year’s resolutions I say, “I don’t believe in them.” I also don’t believe in writing lists (except for grocery lists) or writing down goals. I think if you were to search through things that I’ve written you’d find me saying, “Writing down goals is for people who write and buy self help books.” At least that’s what I think now, and I’m pretty sure I’ve written that in a previous entry, I just don’t want to be caught repeating myself without making note of it. But if it works for you… so be it. Ah, but the truth is, is that I do have a sort of list of goals in my head. I do have dreams and wishes, but they’re not really for public consumption, they just sit in my brain and make me feel guilty at night, right as I’m about to go to sleep, especially if I’ve done nothing during the day to work toward my goals. Lately, they’ve been shouting at me.
New Year’s resolutions: I have none… except for maybe this one: don’t be me, be better me. This is sort of the same resolution I’ve had for the last three to five years. Now, the last three to five years the “Don’t be me, be better me” resolution has been hidden behind the everyman’s resolutions of, “Loose 20, 30, 40 pounds. Find a better job. Save some money. Learn to play the guitar. Paint more. Blah, blah, blah, ect.” But it’s starting to become clearer with each passing day that my resolutions for this year, and beyond are so numerous, and so vague, and so concept oriented that they can only be described as, “Don’t be me, be better me.”
This is a concept that’s hit home by the fact that this year I’ll be turning 30. Now, here’s the thing, I understand that 30 isn’t that old, unless you’re one of my friends who’s in their early to mid-twenties (my flamboyant friend Scoop comes to mind), in which case you look at me and think, “fake hip, any day now.” Now, I know many a person who will tell me, “Thirty? You’re just about to start your life!” Or at least, I’d hope that’s what they’d say. And earlier today I heard someone say, “Thirty is the new twenty.” Okay… that person was me, but still, someone had to say it, and I’m sure many people would agree. Thirty seems to be the new crossroads. I’m not old per say… but I do have to work out three times as hard now in order to see results at the gym, and yes, on occasion I do have to take an antacid pill if I eat something late in the evening, my knees crack, I cringe when I realize some of my younger co-workers have no idea who the Thundercats are, or have never seen a the original Star Wars movies, or any of the Indiana Jones movies, and for the first time ever I find that I’ll be looking at a cute young girl and instead of thinking, “Cute young girl.” I’ll think, “Her mom let’s her out like that?” Now, that last one has only happened like twice, but still… adult sensibilities are catching up with me. This terrifies the hell out of me.
I had dinner with my friend Theater Guy the other night, and we were talking about getting older, up into our thirties, and what that meant for us. He was filling me in on his philosophy that when you get to be thirty you start to come around to realizing who you are, what you’re about. It seems that the growing process has slowed as the generations have passed. By the time my parents were my age, they were working at their established jobs respectively, and getting ready to have me. I believe by the time my grandparents were my age, they were working at their established jobs, two kids into it, and Grandpa had already fought in a world war. I’m at my age, and I’m just now learning how to keep my checking account from going into the red, and that’s still not a definite thing.
Theater Guy said something along the lines of, “Your twenties are for living care free, you live life, you have fun, you work jobs to make money. By the time you’re thirty, you still want to have fun, but you’re sensibilities change… you want to have adult fun. You want to go on vacations to real places like the Galapagos; you want to pick up a hobby like deep sea fishing, or canoeing. You start to have this idea of who you want to be in life, and you start working toward that. You still might bounce from job to job a little, but the jobs are more in line of what you want to do, and not just for drinking money. You become a student of life, and you start to learn who you are. By the time you’re in your forties you’re ready to settle down and your established.”
(I know I just butchered something that Theater Guy said, and let me apologize to him now. I’m know he was very serious and sincere when he said it, I know this cause I was sitting across the table from him when he said it, unfortunately I didn’t take notes on the conversation, and there was this attractive girl sitting in the booth behind him… so occasionally she’d be a distraction. I just wanted to make this note cause I don’t want to be accused of being another James Frey, making stuff up).
So there it is… this year I turn 30, this year I have to come to terms with the kind of person I’m going to be. Who will I be?
Change, they say, is a good thing. I don’t know who said that… if I had to guess, I’d say it was someone who was a megalomaniac, someone who liked to screw around with people he or she felt were beneath him or her… maybe Henry VIII. I’m not sure how I feel about change. Personally, I don’t much like it; I’m sort of set in my ways. Now, “Change is a good thing” is just one of those saying that’s been co-opted into being advice for anything. Sort of like, “Everything happens for a reason!” Change is never good, and nothing happens for any reason. As it turns out, things happen, change is inevitable, life just keeps happening, and we, as people, deal with whatever happens, or we don’t and die. Science and religion aside, Darwin is right, we adapt to the change, whatever it might be, and life keeps happening. Eventually we find ourselves thinking, “Oh well, things don’t really seem that bad, I guess change IS good!” Or, “Wow, I thought I was going to be miserable now that the Tom Thumb closed, but I just bought these cookies at Albertson’s, now I’m happy, I guess everything DOES happen for a reason!” And as for the people who don’t deal well with change, and end up dead… well, they’re not around to tell us that we’re wrong about those sayings. Yes, I hate change, but it looks like it’s time to adapt.
I’d like to say, on a personal note, that I think that it’s interesting that this is happening now. I’ve just spent the last year and change falling head over heals for this girl who didn’t fall back… and there I was, falling, all alone, looking like an idiot. Now, some might accuse me of being a bit… obsessive? No, that makes me sound weird and creepy… ensconced in the idea of being in a possible real relationship with a girl who made me laugh, who made me think, and who I truly liked, and those people, the people who said I was ensconced, would have a good case to argue, cause now I find that the free time I used to dedicate to talking to this girl on the phone, or going out with her, or whatever else it is we did, are once again free for whatever I want them to be used for, and I’m having a bit of a hard time figuring out what to do in those moments. I find myself thinking, “How did I end up back here? Sure maybe the time I spent with X was sort of fake, but it was fun fake.”
(And yes, it’s really depressing when I find myself home on a Friday night watching television, thinking, “I bet she’s out having fun right now with a guy who isn’t me.” But that’s another thing altogether…)
Lately I’ve had this idea, to fill this hole in my schedule with old friends, maybe get some new friends to shake things up with. Go back, reconnect with old friends, make new friends, see if I CAN get by with a little help from my friends. But I found that most of my old friends are busy living their own lives, and most nights I have to fend for myself, which I have found, is a very daunting task.
I’ve recently sort of reconnected with an old friend. I met her while she was acting in one of Theater Guy’s plays. I found her to be intimidatingly good looking, and smart, and friendly, and while I think I would have enjoyed going through the motions of friendship, crush, fizzle, no more talking, with her, I just ended up lending her my Harold and Maude video and our busy lives dictated that we skip all the other steps and go straight to the no more talking phase of our relationship. That was a few years ago; a few months ago she e-tracked me down, e-mailed me, and e-told me that her roommate accidentally sold my Harold and Maude video in a garage sale. And to be honest, I didn’t e-recognize her at first, or even e-remember that I had lent her the video (I’d honestly forgotten that I’d had owned the video to begin with). And now, over the past few months we’ve developed and e-relationship through e-mail.
I started hinting, through the e-mail, that we should maybe do something in real life, cause well, it’s real life, and way more entertaining than this e-world. And by hinting I mean being completely obvious, like, (this is an example… not taken from actual e-mails) “I bought some Cheetos today. You want to do something later? Call me.”
There’d be no phone call, but she would be kind enough to write back, “Have you ever tried the spicy Cheetos? They’re really spicy.”
And then next three e-mails are all about junk food. Then I’d ask again, and she’d kindly ignore the question, and I’d find that we’re talking about pop culture and the blending of celebrity couple’s names (Bennifer, Brangelina… something that fascinates me… and something I’d like to talk about- but that, again, is another thing altogether).
I find that I’d like to tell her, “Look, I’m not asking you out on a date, I’m just wanting someone to hang out with. Now that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t ever like to ask you out… I think your intimidatingly beautiful, smart, and funny, and frankly that totally scares me, cause while I think I’m smart, and people tell me I’m funny, I think you’re too pretty for me. I mean, look at me! Plus, I’m a neurotic mess. I’m self-conscious, I lack discipline, I have a healthy ego, coupled with a good dose of low self-esteem, and I have no idea how that works. I’ve hinted at my women troubles over the last year… and you’re smart, and I’m sure you’re thinking that if you do hang out with me, that you’re simply going to step into the roll of the object of my affection, and you know what? You maybe right? But the truth is, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for. I’m not looking for a relationship, I can’t even commit to a beard. I haven’t shaved in weeks and when people ask me if I’m growing a beard I say, “I don’t know… I just know I’m not shaving.” I don’t know what I’m looking for… maybe I am just looking for the next distraction in life. Not that I think you’re a distraction…no, but… ohmigod… maybe, I’m a crazy person. Maybe you’re right to avoid me. Maybe I need to learn to be on my own, completely on my own for a while. Maybe I need to learn to be able to hang out with myself, before I can hang out with anyone else. But, I mean, why would I want to hang out with me? I’m crazy, self-absorbed, and low self-esteemed. I don’t want to hang out with me. The me that I know is out of shape, and angry, and bitter, and broke, and spent a year and a half pining over a girl who really just wants to be my friend. That me is kind of a looserish me. I want to hang out with a better me. I want to hang out with the me that lives inside my head. The me that is a good 50 pounds lighter, the me that constantly writes, paints, has money, knows how to play a musical instrument, can properly court a woman, and understands a little something more than the common man about the concepts of time and space. That’s the me I want to hang out with! That should be my goal. I want to be a better me! Are you sure you don’t want to hang out?”
Now, I can’t tell her any of that, because she’ll see that I’m not the fake self-indulgent pseudo self-aware post-modern crazy person that I pretend to be in writing, but in fact just a crazy person. Plus it’s not exactly the manliest way to go about saying, “I think you’re pretty.” Although I hear that women like self-aware, vulnerable, sensitive men… it’s been my experience that they like self-aware, vulnerable, sensitive men who happen to be ass kickers first and foremost… and that whole thing I just wrote doesn’t exactly exude ass kicking.
(The funny thing is that, she is indeed going to know all that went through my head, because I wrote it here, and told everyone, instead of just her. This is what gets online journalers and bloggers, including me, on several occasions, into trouble. They talk about their business to everyone, instead of to the person they need to tell. And you know what? I think we do it on purpose. It alleviates the embarrassment of a one on one conversation, and just airs the dirty underwear to the world. It’s reality television in the form of online blogging. It’s saying what I want to be known without ever having to really say it. It’s sort of chicken shit, (sort of… I mean, why admit to thoughts and feelings and open yourself up to possible embarrassment of yourself to one person, when you can do it in front of numerous people… that takes guts right? Plus I get to pretend that I have the adoration of many, many people who muddle through this whole thing) But it’s effective. It’s a totally post-modern (and you know what? Let’s do away with the term post-modern… I’ve used it way too much in this essay… I’m not even sure what the hell post-modern means anymore) way of communicating. I know that it’s potentially embarrassing for someone to realize that someone else it talking about them to the world (my excuse was always, “But no one reads my blog… as it turns out… some people do, much to my confusion… although I’m guessing they’ll quit reading if I continue to write this much). And I know that it might cause trouble for me, and I know that all I have to do is hit the delete button, and I can save myself from people possibly being angry with me, and yet I move forward with gusto, both cognizant, and oblivious to the fact that what I write will be read by people I wish would know what I’m thinking, without me having to actually say it, and read by people who I don’t want to know what I’m thinking, but probably should know anyway… it’s very… post-modern… Andy Warhol, I think, would have liked this era we’re living in now… maybe not. Eh, probably not. That’s also, and again, is something else altogether). (Also, get a load of the use of brackets in that last thought).
It was just after having this thought (it was on a Friday night, I stayed in, and went to bed early… thus the heavy thinking, I think I would have preferred heavy drinking, but whatever) that I hopped out of bed, and wrote all this down… and realized that maybe now that I’m turning thirty soon, now that I’ve almost got this Container Store Girl thing behind me (and if you’re reading… hi… I hope you’re doing well, and I swear we’ll talk in the future), and now that I’m starting to understand how I torpedo myself… That the me that’s been around may not be working, maybe my goal, my resolution, should be, to be a better me. And eventually have sex sometime soon… and I’d like to learn Spanish, and travel more, and clean my apartment… ah hell.