Reporting live from the F

Ive got a lot of ground to cover here. Ill start with funny.
Yesterday, I had a gig that I was really excited about. Not a paying gig mind you, but I was going to do hair for some test shots of models that a photographer acquaintance of mine had put together. Like the congnac ad before him (thats what I was supposed to do last week, but didnt work out for one reason or another) he cancelled, couldnt get confirmation from the models, couldnt get the agency to nail down a time. I had already staged my absence from work, so when I got his email, it was nine o clock and I had to get to the upper east side in half an hour. My private plane is down (its all ball bearings these days!) so I was forced to take the F in (not a half an hour trip mind you, I was late.) I was sitting on the train, reading my book about what is and isnt like to be a Jewish writer, a large and heady book of essays from all kindsa Jews who write and have time to write essays about being a Jew who writes, really kills me but, its some damn good writing. I had taken notice of a slight, elderly african american man who was very nattily dressed and sleeping accross the aisle from me. He was noticible because his head was resting on his chest a few inches above his belly button. I had stared at him for a few moments when I first got on, thought to myself "jesus christ, his spine must be shaped like a damn question mark!" and got to reading. A stop or so later, a tall skinny black man, who from his intense fragrance and dirty clothes I gauged to be homeless, got on the train and sat directly next to me. I thought about moving, but i always feel like a snotty bitch when I do that (though I did make an exception last week when a man whos brian chemistry had certainly seen more well balanced days got on and lit a long brown cigarette and started intermittently talking, smoking and spitting loose brown globs on to the floor) so I decided to stick it out, and I am so SO glad I did. The second he sat down he, noticed the obscenely bent and somnolent man in the seat in front of us and launched into this, verbatim:
"Greetings! Reporting live and direct from the manhattan bound F train, today we will be covering sleeping patterns of subway riders. Here we have a gentleman, clearly sleeping soundly, whos back is bent in the most astounding way! You can see the curvature of the spine is like a questionmark, and clearly the chest cavity seems to have give way as well to make room for the resting of the head. Now I know the subject, not well but I have seen him around, and I know that when he wakes up, his spine actually doesnt look all that different, still really bent, cant hardly raise his head. This is a good example of why you have to listen to those parents! Drink your milk. We dont drink enough milk, eat alotta candy, but not enough milk, gotta have those strong bones for a straight spine. I know my spine is straight, so Im in pretty good shape for a man in my life conditio...occupation as a interviewer and talkshow host today!" Me:(all pretenses of reading dropped and visibly laughing) " You are hilarious." Man: (getting up and getting off the train) "I know. So that concludes tonights subway sleeper segment of the Dave Chapelle show tune in next time and drink that milk." Unbelievable. No one else even raised an eyebrow. It made me wonder what his life circumstances were and what all he does and did before he became who he is now, and smelled like a new delhi public restroom.
So, the city is in an uproar over the childabuse related death of seven year old Nixzmarie Brown. The NY post and other crapass newspapers are splashed with headlines such as "Evil stepdad can never suffer enough! and Nixzmarie's Mom: the Silent Monster! everyone is just a scratchin their heads as to how this could have happened. The story is that she had been being tortured for years (starting with the name Nixzmarie,) was made to urinate and defecate in a cat litterbox, eat catfood, was severly beaten, missed 47 days of school last year, social services had been to the house multiple times and failed to take the case seriously enough to remove the child from the home. She took a yogurt from the fridge without asking and was tied to a chair and beaten to death as her punishment. Honestly, the child was lucky to only last seven years. There are so many kids like that out there, and nobody hears about them until its too late. Every one was talking about it all the time, about how evil her parents were and how they couldnt understand how you could do that to a child. There may be some mental abberation in those two but somehow I doubt it, we create those kind of violent monsters with ease. Loveless, cruel childhoods, a little military time, hundreds of war and violent crime movies by the time you turn 20, kill and maim video games, and the constant throb of the press reporting and repeating every sick and twisted human event they can get their nasty hands on. Add to that malnutrition, hormone/additive rich and nutrient poor food, caffeine, sugar, alchohol and drug abuse, dehydration, air pollution, low self esteem and possible childhood sexual abuse, urban claustrophobia and the ultimate dreamkilling reality of abject poverty, then you expect to have a loving nuclear family? Im suprised this isnt more common. The dominicanattitudeproblem.com assistant at work waited an hour and a half in a line outside the funeral home on the lower east side to get to see the child in the open casket ceremony, apparantly they had put her in a little wedding dress, how cute. Why would you ever go to that funeral??? I cant even imagine. People are such tragedy whores. Anyway, it was upsetting to constantly hear everyone's stupid opinions about why the mom hadnt stepped in to help and what their punishment should be.
Things havent gotten any better with simple Simon, I realized another thing that bothers me about him, any time you look up or look at him, he is already looking at you. Hes like one of those paintings that is staring at you no matter where you are in the room. The asking stupid questions thing is so over the top, and he uses gloves everytime he shampoos, so his horrible little hands dont get dry. On busy days he goes through almost an entire box of gloves. AND he takes his watch off every time and then puts it back on and takes it off again five seconds later. JUST LEAVE THE ACCURSED THING OFF!! Why do you need to know what time it is anyway? Whatever, I still need Jesus.
Ive been hustling all I can, emailing and calling all my photographer and makeup connections, trying to start assisting and doing more freelance stuff. Thats why Ive had all these meetings that havent happened. But its ok, itll happen soon enough and Ive gotten myself mentally prepared to start doing more creative and risky stuff so thats good.
Today I spent quite some time on the phone with the WA state Dept of Licensing. I have been trying to stay positive and patient and not kvetch but when I called today and found that still. nothing had been sent out at all, I was through. No more Ms Nice Gal.
Here is a timeline of my interactions with them, nay with Theresa, who should be taken out FRONT and shot.
1. Aug, I pass the practical and send my pass letter as well as a form from Ms. Kendra stating that I had finished all my hours to WADOL to request paper permission to go take my written exam. Late Aug I get all my application forms back from NY state saying that I need a whole slew of paperwork from school and WA state that they didnt specify on their website and so they are unable to process my application. Back to the drawing board.
2. Sept. Nothing arrives and I am forced to move to NY without taking the test. I call mid sept and theresa informs me that nothing has ever been received from me at all. In fact there is no record that I exist in their database. So, I have to resubmit everything, and now I need to send an extra 25 dollars and a letter requesting hours certification to be sent directly to the NYDOL so they can let me take my test here.
3. November. Ive received nothing, so I call Theresa again, yes they have received my letter and it seems Ive over paid 25 dollars so they didnt do anything with it. Mind you the letter spelled out what the checks were for like it was for a 2nd grade esl student. But, patience persevered. They had also not entered my social security number yet. I implored Theresa to please send the letter about my written exam to my moms house and the letter of hours cert directly to NY.
3.5 December, I call her and she says that shes sending that out this afternoon. I call a week later and leave her a messge that I am coming home and need to take the test while I am home so the paperwork has to be there absolutely no later than the 20th of December.
4. later in december weeks after we spoke before. I go home to seattle, just knowing that the letter will be there waiting and I can take the written test while Im there, even drive to olympia if i must, and have this miserable crap over with so I can start the same mess in NY. No letter. No test.
5. Early Jan, I call and leave two messages, unreturned.
6. Today, jan 23 (the day office max was supposed to deliver my business card software and didnt) I called again, this time theresa's fucking voice mailbox is full, so I just call the helpline and get anyoldperson. I got a young woman named Desiree. She opened up my file, my SSN was entered, and she could see records of my calls and my payments BUT TO THIS DAY NOTHING HAD BEEN SENT ANYWHERE!!!! I was beside myself. Am beside myself. I told her, Desiree i dont know what to do here!!! Imagine my frustration having this conversation again after four+ months! Why should I beleive that you are going to send anything out? I cant bear to give you my address again! And whats more, I spoke to the manager of the WADOL (which i should have done freaking months ago) Theresa and Desiree's superviser Rosie (yes I told her theresa should be waiting in a soup kitchen line and applying for job retraining in a nutcracker assembly line) who informed my that as of Feb first, the DOL wouldnt be administering the written exam anymore so I dont even NEED that stupid letter anymore and I have to take a test administered by lasergrade which will cover an entire section of Anatomy and Physiology that the DOL administered one did not and was therefore not covered in school! Unreal. All this so I can do hair. It is easier to get a chiropractors liscence and youre snapping freaking necks. I could cry.
I had a date, set up by two clients of my boss. Two older jews, of course, who are adorably and happily married, a second marriage for both of them. So I told them they have to set me up with someone so I can be as happy and adorable as they are. They immediately think of someone who has been after them to hook him up with someone and promise me that we will have a double date in the next couple of weeks. They had a place they had all been wanting to go, and he said when they found him a date that he would go. I didnt even ask where it was. I met him at his restaurant on the upper east side by my work. He owns a very cute little arab style restraunt where he does all the cooking and the food is REALLY good. His car had been stolen the day before, so we pile in to his produce delivery van, which is huge and bright yellow. We drive to harlem where i am told we are going to a bbq joint called the dinosaur pit. Great ribs. I had to tell him, the vegetarian thing, but that I was sure Id be able to find something. So we get there, its raining, the place is loud and kind of like a less corporate Outback Steakhouse type vibe. Big and gimmicky. But our datemates are waiting for us. We take our table and everybody orders...baby back ribs. I'll have the catfish, not kosher still but at least not pork. Its a very traif sort of place. We had a good time, we did. The couple is hilarious. The man wholesales walnuts and rubber gloves (which is how he knows Judah, he keeps simon in the small latex, no powder gloves) a very interesting combination which I tried to examine further for its genesis but was unsuccessful. She has one deformed hand and I cant remember for the life of me what she does for work. Something real estatey. They are raising her youngest daughter, and the both have older kids who are out of the house. As they were devouring (they both ate astonishingly fast, and I am really not that slow of an eater myself) their pork ribs she commented that he had to finish hers since they couldnt bring home leftovers. Why not? I ask. Theyre not kosher! But youre eating pork! Yes but we dont bring it in the house, we keep a kosher kitchen or the kids wont come over. What a disaster. Somehow I dont think thats what the ol' holy one blessed be he intended with his dietary restrictions, nor the rebbes who developed the kashrut laws, but, who am I? As for the guy, he is really sweet and generous. He works hard and seems really loving. I dont think we have a tremendous amount in common and he is 75ish pounds overweight, which is a toughie. Hes just not active...which Im really not either at this point...but I am getting back on the horse... joining the prospect park Y this month... death to total inactivity! I dont know, I want to hang out again and see if I can get past that superficial crap. I took this great Italian woman Emmeti who works with me to class at Djoniba, we took a beginning class, which was more like afrobics than dance. Packed with people, just packed. They love the hybrid sabar djembe excercise pablum. The guy hardly has to teach, all his students know all the routines and warm ups by heart. Crap if you ask me, but a good way to learn how to follow in a dance class, easy steps and easy combinations so you can see how things go together and start hearing the breaks. Emmeti had a great time, she is so exuberant about life, and so beautiful. She has more personality just evervescing out of her than anyone I have ever met. Salt of the earth, Im telling you. I gotta teach her some dance so we can go to a real class and skip the pablum.
Everyone, start reading Wallace Stegner immediately. What a writer, makes you proud to speak english. Just finished All the Little Live Things, really an inspiration. The way that he defines his characters with the way they speak... its not even that the narrative is that gripping but you just want to read more of how he says things and what his characters think about. Wonderful. His descriptions of the california landscape are amazing. The way he defines and lays out the psyche of the 60's hippie underacheiver is stellar. Some of my favorite few pages of reading ever.
Im going shopping this week, pants ahoy. Wish me luck!

Clothe Me, and Pass the Oragel.

I’m starting to work on Saturdays, which is good because the salon is busier and I’ll get more experience and because I wont have to come in on Mondays and whistle Dixie for ten hours. It sucks because I wont have any time off with people who work regular hours, which is everyone I know, and as well (is there a worse idea than all you can eat pancakes?? IHOP cut it out!!! We are morbidly obese, morbidly!!! We don’t need to test our pancake intake potential!) I am totally unused to going to bed early on Friday nights and so am watching Will and Grace which is not as funny as it should be for being as popular as it is. I didn’t come York to hang out though, I came here to hustle, so Saturdays are for the best. Im suffering a little right now too because I just overflossed after having lost my floss in the post Spokane shuffle, and I also burned my cheek on a hot walnut this morning. From my mother I inherited a penchant for the “twice baked.” The premise is that anything toasted, toasted again, is 100 percent better than when first baked. Throw a package of standard graham crackers in the toaster oven, you’ll never go back. In summation: burnt raw cheek from hot walnut, sore gums and a touch of deep depression. The depression comes from the only dance class I can stomach, Ousmane Sall’s Thursday Kutiro/Sabar class, being cancelled for four months so that he can jaunt off to Senegal . So damn selfish! I was so crushed when I went to Djoniba and found out that there was no class that night, nor any other for months, and there was some short Cote d'Ivoire guy teaching (in a pink pantsuit, the top of which laced up the sides) that I went directly into the neighboring Union Square Petco, headed downstairs to the parrot area to visit the birds. I spent about a half an hour talking to a sun conure, felt better. I went upstairs, perused the cat adoption area, heard the volunteer telling a crazy cat lady that though she was sure she provides a good home, she couldn’t in good faith let her adopt a SEVENTH cat for her studio apartment, went home and drowned my sorrows with my roomate's houseguests in a glass of chardonnay and a dumb horror movie starring Kate Hudson as a wannabe nurse who lands a job caring for an old guy in a creepy New Orleans house that turns out to be Hoodoo central. Gotta watch out for those African slave spirits down there in the bayou apparently! Yeah, I watched the whole thing. My edge: Lost.
I met the owner of a very posh salon on Madison on New Year’s Eve. I have his card, and I need to go and see him. I know he liked me and that his place is well known and very nice. I’ll tell you something though, I haven’t gone because I cant figure out what to wear! None of my clothes hold up to these places. You have to have a certain amount of funding just to walk in the door and be at zero, if not then your cheap pants start talking before you do and your working with negative numbers right outta the gate! Ive gone over my wardrobe 100 times in my head and can think of no combination that will get me to zero. Black pants are neutral but they're not edgy and they say…”I could always get a restaurant job if this doesn’t work out!” I don’t like jeans and anyway people around here read back pockets like Hasids read the Talmud; Sevens, Citizens, blah blah blah! I cant spend three hundred dollars on pants of any kind let alone ones that could be equally at home in the key arena. I don’t know what to do. Basically, if I like it enough to buy it I cant afford it. MARC JACOBS IF YOURE READING THIS, CALL ME!! SPONSOR ME!! TAKE PITY ON ME AND SWADDLE ME IN YOUR BEAUTIFUL OVERPRICED CLOTHES!! There needs to be some kind of organization that provides designer fashions to those who cant afford them and want to become successful in New York, cause its like goggles for the 100 meter freestyle; you cant make it without ‘em! I was invited to a swanky birthday party in the meat-packing district tonight and I didn’t go, same reason. I’m going to have to find a solution to this problem. I’m taking suggestions, and donations! Narsisco?
Alright, Will and Grace has segwayed into Frasier and even I have standards. Goodnight, hopefully since mouth tissue heals fast, I'll be feeling considerably better tomorrow morning. Even with the soreness, I'm so glad I found the floss. It really is the cornerstone of adequate dental hygiene. Happy new year and anyone who wants a terrific garbanzo bean and eggplant salad recipe should call me, I have developed a fantastic knack for the bean salad since quitting wheat. So delicious!

Happy New Year, I Liked a Boxing Movie.

Happy New Year!
I came back from Seattle night before last, the thirtieth of December 2005. I divided a week between Seattle and my mom and my Dad in Spokane. I did some really really lame booking for my tickets, and the stupid MT A was on strike so I decided to get up really early and share a cab with Monica Frisell and try to go standby on her flight. I got to JFK at six…no go on the standby. So my flight left at eleven, to Atlanta. I did a lot of waiting at the airport. I went and laid down on the benches in the café and slept. It was not restful. I was, in the end, glad, even with the four hour layover that I hadn’t gotten on monica’s flight because I sat next to the most extraordinary child. He was nine, and so poised it was incredible. I had seen him with his mom on the tarmac, and asked him if he wanted me to switch with her. He said “No, that’s ok. Don’t worry she’ll be keeping an eye on me over the seats.” We hit it off immediately. He was obviously a frequent flier, informing me that in first class they have water waiting for you and the seats recline all the way, that he always tries to get the little latch that holds up the tray table as straight as possible, and that if I fell asleep he would close the window shade so the light wouldn’t bother me. He said he was so excited to see his brothers in Atlanta, and I asked if his parents lived there (as an aside, I really tied one on last night, this is taking me forever to write. Not my finest hour.) He said that no, his parents are dead, and the woman several rows ahead of him who he calls mom is actually his grandmother. I didn’t want to pry, I mean it’s a little kid for godssakes, but he offered that he had never really known them, his mother had been killed as a pedestrian by being hit by two cars. I told him how lucky he was to have someone who took as good care of him as his grandma does. He was so well dressed, and so well spoken. She spends a lot of time and energy on him. She came back to our seats to check on him and bring him a book, a maximizing your potential type book called “Your Best Life.” She had book marked chapter thirteen for him to read; Programming the Computer of the Mind. Ok? Nine. He picked up this weird science magazine that was in the seat pocket in front of him and read a couple of paragraphs of a very difficult scientific article about membrane permeability that he had no understanding of but could read the words without hesitation. He told me that his brother was weird and was still living at home and never went to school and talked funny, like “what up dog?” I pointed out to him that his mom’s death might be harder on his brother since he was older when she died. He said that’s what his grandmother said too. I told him he was a very unique little person and it was going to be an important challenge for him to remain loving to people who had less perspective and a poorer mental proclivity that he. He agreed. We had a picnic of oranges, peanuts and granola bars and drank spicy V8 with lemon, both of our favorite airplane beverage. He asked how it works when there is a phone number that spells a word, how do you dial a word? I showed him on my cell phone and he was like oh! And promptly spelled his whole name on the keypad. I wanted to keep in touch so bad, but couldn’t really ask the kid for his phone number, it just didn’t seem right, so I asked his grandma when we deplaned if I could give him my address and we could be pen pals, I had suggested it on the plane and he seemed really excited about it. I really hope he writes. I then had four hours to cool my jets in the ATL airport, where they have soul food, yum. Candied yams are directly descended from ambrosia. I also saw a handsome g-d down brother wearing a shirt with the WB logo, which I thought was weird, but on further inspection, it said above it “If you see da police…Warn-A-Brother!” Just hilarious. On the flight from ATL to seattle, my suspicions (roused by my enjoyment of the Harry Potter movie,) that I may be losing my edge, were confirmed by two hours of riveted attention and feelings of near PATRIOTISM (gasp!) generated by the Russell Crowe vehicle Cinderella Man. It is so unlikely that I would even try watching a boxing movie, so much more unlikely that I would watch the whole thing and a near impossibility that I would love it and yet all three happened. It took place in the depression and made me feel so nostalgic (probably more so since I wasnt alive yet) for a time that despite terrible hardships people believed in something more, and believed in each other and in their country. Before we had been betrayed by our government so many times that faith in government can be achieved only through total ignorance and denial of the truth. James Braddock’s strength of character and even more, the amount of joy and pride that his success infused into such an abjectly poor community is in stark contrast to our entertainers and public figures now who rise to the top through as much debauchery and immorality as they can pack into a five minute video. I want to feel proud of being an american, I do. I feel robbed that I cant even say the word patriotism without a sneer. At the end of the flight the other two people in the row and started chatting, an elderly woman with a british accent and a middle aged African American woman from Alabama. Through our talking it came out that the elderly woman directly next to me was a british citizen who moved to france at 14 to help the allied forces fight the Germans. She was caught by the Nazis and placed in an internment camp for three years. She remembers hearing prisoners crying for their mamas as they were burned to death and having all of her friends and bunkmates rounded up and put in a cattle truck and taken away never to return. She said she was never scared. Never questioned her dedication to the right thing. She sounded so proud and her struggle for a Europe she could be proud of and her belief that her death would be worth it only sharpened the contrast between her generation and mine, or at least her and me. I wonder what I would do in that situation...would I risk it all or would I try to save my ass and the asses of those near and dear. Not that I would have been able to help anyone else in WWII, I would have been the first on in a cattle car wearing the felt star (im a poet and I dont even know it!) But now, its a different "enemy" and I am hardly doing my best to fight the power. Hmm.
Ariel picked me up from the airport and we went to 611 supreme creperie for a lovely salade niscoise and a strong coffee nudge. Aside from a marathon thrifting spree in Spokane, the trip was pretty uneventful. I spent a lot of time with family. It was strange to be a visitor in my hometown, not as strange as I thought maybe I just haven’t been gone long enough. The rain still sucks, the traffic is still terrible, and there still isn’t anywhere to eat after nine. M’kay? I definitely didn’t make the most of my trip, there were several businessy and paperworky things I really should have done. Argh. My flight back was filled with members of the seattle expat network in NYC. Casey Kelbaugh and I traded seats around so we could sit next to each other. It was fun, we sync-ed up our mini tvs and watched Wedding Crashers together. Good times. The flight was laternhell, and there was a crazy nut woman sitting behind us who was eating french fries (serious social no no to eat pungantly fragrant foods in closed quarters, deep fried plane air is super rancid) and alternating deep exasperated breaths wiht loud curseword exclamations of the F variety. THe guy next to me was a very weird young asian guy with long and VERY greasy hair held back in a rhinestone butterfly clip and long fingernails. I tried to get some recognition from hime that the woman behind us was screaming cursewords basically into his ear, but no dice. I dont think he spoke any english and he didnt do ANYTHING on the flight. No music, no tv, no sleep and no reading. Just stared straight ahead into the back of the seat in front of him, occasionally watching the plane's slow progression over the midwest on the monitor when it flashed on automatically. Creep-ay. Then it took an hour to get my luggage, that really sucked.
I am watching CIN, the Carribean entertainment and information network, right now. Its great. They have this high school quiz show that is not to be believed. They ask the most crazy difficult questions, on all topics. The physics questions are amazing, and immediately followed by a clip of a Jay Z song the kids have to name, or a shot of Gary Payton they have to identify. The girls move fluidly from math, to pop culture, to bible knowledge to Jamaican history. Impressive! Not to mention the gospel reggae jingles advertising Jamaican phone cards, and a stay in school propaganda video featuring Red Rat (of tight up skirt fame) and his kids singing: “unu better respect unu elders…stay in school, learn to read, learn unu abc’s, exercise inna PE…” A whole new world of specialty programming.
My brain power is starting to come back from my Bushmills partial coma, last night was fun. We went to Arshad’s new years party, trying to redeem himself from the Halloween fiasco, it was fun. I rang in 2006 with Pablo, Mahdis and Mahroo. Ive know Pablo for 17 years. Wow. Then to tribeca for a party of Mahdis' hip and gorgeous Iranian friends, by which time I was already getting tired. It was nice, a lot of black and a lot of madonna, some olives. Then we went to Bushwick to a party of some young kids from the Bronx that we met at a bar called Pianos a month or so ago. By the time we got there at like three everyone was way too drunk and mostly concerned with a young lady who was in the unconscious throes of alcohol poisoning and by the time we left was being loaded, covered in vomit (a good sign) into an ambulance on a stretcher… and I just remembered that one of the paramedics took some time to try to hit on me and Mahroo and Mahdis as we passed by. Wow. Professionalism at its best.
Hey, check it out. I just relived the night with Mads who told me that what actually went down was this: As we were leaving, I was standing over said unconscious drunk girl watching them load her into the ambulance making pronouncements like "Oh yeah, its alcohol poisoning, just like I thought, yep. She'll be alright. Load 'er right in there, there you go!" Then the paramedic guy asks me how I'm doing and I say something to the effect of "Nothing a little party wont fix! How you doin'? I love a man in uniform!"at which time he's like "oh yeah? what are you doin later" and starts following us to the car. Mahdis had to redirect him back to the girl on the stretcher in the ambulance. We then went to a diner, at which time I drank a cup of coffee and promptly fell asleep on Pablo's shoulder. I am a real peice of work. I cant beleive Im preserving this for posterity. My Bubba reads this damn thing! Hi Bub! Arntcha proud? With stories like this, who needs great-grandkids? Another Update: Mahdis has informed me that it gets better! It wasnt a paramedic, but one of New York's finest! A police officer! I have no fear! And he no propriety! In seattle I would have been under arrest, no bail. Crime: distracting a police officer, ten years in Walla Walla, no time off for good behavior.
So, I got up to go to work this morning, hating it, hating jet lag, dragged myself all the way there and read the closed Jan 1 and 2 sign on the door. LAME. Bought a bunch of t shirts at the gap instead and took Mahroo to the airport, processed how annoyed Mahdis was with me for acting like an asshole on New Years and then laughing about it, now here I am and Im about to hit the ol sack and start it all again tomorrow. God Willing.