It's all still in my head right now, ideas swimming around in free-form, but I am beginning to piece to together a connection between my grandparents' escape from Nazi occupation in 1939, the passing down of intergenerational trauma, and my own, reoccurring, descents into victimization and self-punishment.

My mom has a tendency to brush it off and change the subject when I start to talk about my link to my paternal grandparents' escape from Nazi Germany. Maybe she feels it's a part of my identity that has absolutely nothing to do with her, and maybe she doesn't like that. Perhaps it's just a topic that causes her eyes to glaze over, the way mine do when she begins another diatribe about the state of the healthcare system. 

But I don't think I should dismiss this connection I feel, this need to explore this part of my family's history, and how it has contributed to who I am, both genetically and emotionally. I wonder, is progeny responsible for the indefinable guilt I have experienced since early childhood? Do two generations of repressed trauma and secrecy have a noticeable affect on the third generation?

I've always had this bizarre sense, way back in the depths of my consciousness (however, it is a conscious awareness), that when I am out on the streets, dating ex-cons and murderers, taking drugs, and allowing myself to be abused in various ways, that I am some kind of vigilante investigative reporter, tracking down stories for which most journalists would not risk their lives or reputations. The darkness of the world has always compelled me to make sense of it, to understand the inner workings of said darkness on an individual level. Through understanding a few specific people, I am gaining a generalized education in the development of dysfunction, addiction, and learned (as opposed to instinctual) fear.

I wish I knew my grandparents' story better than I do. I know only surface level information, little more than what is available through a Google search, with justifiable reason. My grandparents, Henry and Elly Glass, were miniature-sized couple who walked slow, were perpetually cold due to prescribed blood-thinning medication intended to counteract years of Elly's Viennese cooking. Despite decades in the U.S., their accents were as heavy as they were precious and they, in true European fashion, had complete outfits for every occasion. Neither owned a single garment made from denim, and they considered peanut butter to be proletariat. Charming as they wereCulturally, we have accepted Holocaust survivors' reluctance to unveil the atrocities they have witnessed. My Jewish heritage was not revealed to me until the summer before my junior year of college. Revealed to me so casually, in passing, and as if the information had always been common knowledge, I was stunned. It's funny to me now, looking back, how plainly it had been presented to me throughout my life. Yet, as casually as it was mentioned to me that August day of 2003, the evidence to back it up was the area of contention, the question that could not be asked directly of either of my grandparents. Also, as I had always been aware of this vague family history, I'd been equally aware that it was not appropriate to ask them about it.

So how do my holocaust survivor grandparents fit into the story of my own life, filled with dangerous characters, illegal substances, and willing footsteps towards complete submergence into anomie? My grandparents, from such a completely different time and place that even with what they had to endure during Hitler's regime, I believe they would've been devastated to learn of the places I had gone willingly, the chemicals I ingested, and the men I allowed to invade my aura.

When I think about what they went through, the adversity they had to overcome, how they had to leave their country, lose friends and family, suffer who knows what kinds of personal violations in order to secure their freedom, I am ashamed of myself. What a complete lack of respect I've had for my family's history.

My grandfather always wanted me to pursue the arts. In his opinion, I should have focused on fashion design. Well, I think that would've been ab-fab, but I was too impatient to learn how to sew. I was also too impatient to learn to play the guitar, deeming null my prospect of becoming the next rock god(dess). I considered other options in the arts, such as painting, but found as a teenager unwilling to get a full-time job for any longer than six months, the cost of materials was a major deterrent. Photography offered even more absurd financial woes.It wasn't that I chose writing as a career path because of it's low overhead, I just got lucky. Writing requires no accompaniment, or special ability other than typing (but even that I postponed until my mid-twenties, opting rather for spiral bound notebook and decent quality pen).

Am I reaching here? Am I wanting to make something out of nothing because of the identity it might provide me? Probably. But I won't know what I'm searching for unless I travel down a few dead ends along the way. Too bad life doesn't have a GPS system. I guess some questions have to be important enough to be worth searching for answers, and getting hopelessly lost along the way. 
 
It's late and I've been thinking...I want to have a baby. Not right now. I want to go to grad school next year and don't want to have to deal with breastfeeding and childcare, but I do want a family. I want to get married. I want to be healthy. I want to travel. I want to leave Washington. HAM does not want children, he refuses to get married, has already told me that he will not leave Washington when I go to grad school, and he said he wants to drink and will not stop, but he'll stop in front of me. I realized that stopping in my presence is not enough. Not getting married is not enough. Not having children is not enough. Not moving to be with me is not enough. He loves me, but not the way I need to be loved. I tried to break up with him because of alcohol, and he made me feel guilty about it, like I was totally out of line for wanting to be with a sober person. So then I tried to break up with him because he doesn't believe in marriage, and he made me feel guilty for that because "you'd rather just find someone who will marry you than be with a really good guy". God, he has this way of making everything that he says sound so reasonable and everything that I say sound irrational. But I know in reality that I deserve the things I want. I'm not asking for the moon, a million dollars, or to be the next Brady Bunch. I just want to leave Washington, get married, have a family, and be with someone who is passionately in love with me. Why the fuck should I feel guilty about that? How the fuck is that irrational or unreasonable or shameful in any way? It's not much. It's just a few things that I know I want for my life. Instead of just accepting that we are different and want different things, he wants to keep me as his girlfriend, keep drinking, never get married, never have kids, and never leave Seattle. It's not the goddamn life I want! I finally just conceded and said, "Okay, let's stay together. I surrender. I'll drink with you and I won't care about marriage, it doesn't matter. Everythings' fine." So I drink with him. I don't even want to, but fuck, if I don't drink with him, I hate him. I am seething with anger when he drinks around me and the only way to cure my disdain is to join him. I'm so fucking mad. I don't want this and he won't let me go. They never let me go. They always want to control me. He acts like he's so much better than all my other boyfriends, and yeah, in a lot of ways he is, but at the same time, he's set it up so it's cool for him to have female friends but unacceptable for me to have male friends. He's unwilling to read my writing or be supportive of what I'm working on. He refuses to acknowledge my past. If you deny my past, then you deny me. And by denying my writing, he's also denying one of the most important parts of me. It hurts. I'm tired of being judged and controlled and treated like a silly girl. He calls me "pet". That's his nicknmame for me. I'm not a goddamn pet. I'm a woman. I'm older than him. I know more by default. I know what I fucking want out of life and this isn't it. I want my needs and desires to be respected as valuable pieces of information about who I am. I want to go to grad school, live outside of Washington State, get married, and have children. I need a relationship that supports that, or I need my freedom. I'm tired of sacrifcing who I am and made to feel guilty about what I want. I love HAM. I'm mad at him, but I truly love him. I wish he wanted the same things as me, or that he was at least willing to meet me half way, but he's not. It's what he wants or nothing at all. I can't last in something so one-sided. I deserve to be happy, too. The things I want matter. Maybe not to him, but they matter and they're valid and I won't stop wanting them no matter what he says.
 
Last night we drank again. It wasn't much, just a glass of scotch and then a glass of wine several hours later. The problem for me is that even the smallest amount of alcohol has negative conequences for me. The nxt day is almost always ruined, and even if it's not ruined, I never feel that great. I usually walk around in a funk with a slight headache the entire day, wishing that it was tomorrow so I could wake up feeling good. There is absolutely no question at this point that I am still an alcoholic and drinking should not be part of my life. Unfortunately, it has become very difficult for me to stop. HAM drinks, my dad drinks daily, and now DL is in town and she drinks with my dad. Last night I actually saw her a bit toasty. I spend most of my days dreaming about the future. Future-tripping, I guess would be the unofficial term. I want to be out of this house. I refuse to blame anyone else for my choice to drink, but I will say it's a fuck of a lot harder to stop when it's always around me, on the lips of my boyfriend, a part of our lives. I don't crave alcohol, I crave health, yet I'm not addicted to health, so acheiving it is more difficult. It's so easy to just say, "fuck it" and have a drink when HAM drinks, or ask my dad for a glass of wine. It's hard to say no, it's hard to not ask, it's hard to no give in to temptation. My therapist said that he doesn't think my drinking is out of control, and he is right about that, it's not "out of control". I'm not spending my days and nights blacking out, doing regrettable things, ending up in the hospital, or even causing the slightest bit of concern in anyone around me. My therapist says, however, that I should not drink because of how it makes me feel about myself. That is a self-esteem deterrent. I agree with that, but I would add that I believe any drinking that I partake in is out of control in the sense that I have declared my desire not to drink, yet I do it anyway. I think it would be easier for me to be sober if alcohol wasn't in my home and if the people I love were not drinking so regularly. I'm sure it would also be easier if I were to return to AA, but that's just not gonna happen as long as I'm in Washington. God, I just want to get out of here. I don't believe in geographicals, I know they are something that alcoholics like to believe will work for them, but I do believe in a need for a change. I am so sick with allergies and stressed out by traffic, depressed by gray skies and constant drizzle, lonely without a dog, and angry that I am stuck living with my dad. I would take a tiny, dumpy apartment over this big, comfortable house if it meant that I was taking care of myself and making it on my own. I want it to be a year and half from now...now. God, I am sounding like such a classic AA definition of an alcoholic, but I need a place to vent and this is it. This is what all of us continue to think about, sober or not. We are all selfish, we all want what we want right now, we are inpatient, stressed out, pissed off, and resentful of our current situations. If you have a lifetime of alcoholic decisions behind you, of course you're not going to be satisfied with your present state of affairs, because the present state of affairs is a result of poor alcoholic decision making. It's not that every day is bad. It feels worse today because it is the day after doing something I have set out not to do. I have spacey and tired, weak and foggy. I just want out of this house and this city. I don't even care that I live in the Northwest anymore--it's really not the weather or the hills or the traffic, as many places have hills, bad weather, and miserable traffic. It's not the Northwest but what the Northwest represents for me. It represents failure to care for myself. It represents my old life and who I used to be. I am trying to become a new person, I even changed my name, yet here I am in my dad's house, working less than 10 hours a week, not writing as much as I should be, strung out on the internet, and drinking despite my desire for optimal health. I know the saying , "Wherever I go, there I am" is real. I don't think that moving away from here is going to "fix" me, but I do think it will be good for me. I am just so tired of waiting. I want to be there now. In AA they say, "You're exactly where you're supposed to be". Let's just say that is the truth. Then what am I to learn from my circumstances? Do I need to learn humility--should I just suck it up and go back to AA to face all the people who hurt me and let them feel so self-righteous about being kind to me, the one who relapsed? God, I can't think of anything worse. Can't I just admit that alcohol doesn't work for me without having to be around such cruel and abusive people? I would give AA a try in another state, where I wouldn't have to see those people. I know they exist everywhere, but the very specific individuals who hurt me--I don't think it would make sense for me to want to be around those people again, and eventually (for step 9) have to apologize to them, when they were the ones who are at fault. I don't know how I could ever see that differently. I was in pain and reached out for help, I showed up, I always showed up. I did my service work and I got berated for not doing it the right way. I asked for help and I got stood up twice, ignored, and rejected. I tried to make friends, as difficult as it was, and got humiliated. I just can't see myself having to be around those people again. Which is why getting away from this place would be good for me and I can't get out soon enough. I think I should look into summer writing retreats and see if there is any way I can spend the summer away from here, focused on my writing. I can't think of anything more important than writing for me, so why not. It would be the perfect excuse to escape. No one could argue with me, because it would be for my career, my future. I refuse to believe that things are going to suck forever. The future has to be better than right now, whether it's helpful to think that way or not. I will do my best to make the present bareable, but I know that the future will be better.
 
Well, I have to say, today was a good day. At the beginning of the quarter, I ended up with a really terrible parking spot, so at every tuesday, my teacher drives me to my car after class. We talk about my book, grad school, whatever, and tonight she offered (I didn't say a word about it) to write me a letter of recommendation for my grad school applications! I love her. Her name is Theo Nestor and her blog is http://writingismydrink.com/. She is great! I feel so blessed to have this amazing teacher in my life and to have the money and opportunity to take this class. It is helping me so much. I always connect more with instructors than students--why is that? I can't call myself super smart or anything, I can't call myself a dummy either. I don't know what it is, I just feel safer with my teachers than my colleagues. But I feel so humbled that she just offered to write me a recommendation without any prompt. I know my goal here is to stop letting others dictate my worth and feelings, but still, it means a lot to me, and I think that is allowed. It's not like she decided whether or not I am worthy as a writer, but she reinforces my belief that this is what I am supposed to do. I plan to read her book over the break because 1.) I'm curious, 2.) It is respectful since she's reading my work and helping me with it, 3.) I'd like to know more about her as a person and a writer. Today was a good day for me. I feel grateful to be free of confining relationships, and able to pursue my calling, and even more so, I am grateful to finally acknowledge my calling, to fully give in to its power and accept that I am destined to be a writer, and to believe that one day I will be a good one.
 
After about five months of experimentation with controlled drinking, I have decided I am indeed still an alcoholic. It started as just a half a glass of wine, then one glass, then two, occasionally a whole bottle and a few benzos, stealing my Dad's fentanyl patches and perks, smoking weed, and having a general desire to get more, drink more, check out of reality. But then I always wake up the next morning feeling guilty and hungover, even if nothing bad happened, which it hasn't. There have been a few negative consequences, affecting mainly me. I called in sick to work one day when I really just had a hangover. I got drunk and ate so much food that I made myself vomit. Those are the main things, but I think it's just creating a sense of general sadness in me. I am more depressed, less interested or able to do things. I get hangovers so easily that even one glass of wine will leave me feeling like shit the next day. Not to mention all the extra calories. And I'm down to 113 lbs now, so I don't want to sabotage that. I told HAM the other day that I am drinking alcoholically and stealing pills and drinking alone, because I don't want it to be a secret. I need someone who loves me to know that I am headed down that same ugly path. I haven't taken anything or had a drink in two days now, but I don't want to go back to AA. I was hurt too much by those people and I don't ever want to see any of them again. So I have to do it on my own, and honestly, I don't know if it's too late or if I'm OK to just stop and not care. I have a feeling the compulsion will return, although it hasn't yet. I still feel happy that I'm not drinking right now, even though it's almost nine at night, a time where I would like to have a glass of wine. I want to be a healthy, happy person, and using substances will not help me achieve those goals. I am desperate to get out of this life as a happy, successful person, not a fucked up loser. I just have to make a commitment to love myself enough to stop drinking and taking pills. I am going to be taking "The Art of Living" part 1 course on breathing this December. I was reluctant at first, but I decided, with a little discussion with HAM that I should just try it. It was created by Ravi Shankar. Mabye I can finally reconnect with some type of spirituality, maybe try yoga again. I need to fucking relax. Pills and booze are only temporary fixes and they will not help me grow or change, and in the long run, they perpetuate greater chaos in my life and hinder relaxation. I want to have the energy to work out five of six days a week, and this week (I do have a cold) I have only been once. I have continued to eat pretty healthy (minus the binges) and I think my diet has actually improved quite a bit over the last few months, so that's one bright spot, as well as my memoir writing class. I wish that class was every day. God, I just want to get into grad school. Getting fucked up certainly won't help with that, I already found out in 2006. I want my life to get better. I don't wanna die, spiritually, emotionally, or physically. I want to get better.

"My life is going to change. I can feel it." - Raymond Carver, Fat
 
I was going to write something tonight, but the damn Adobe Flash Player was being a bitch and now it's time to pick up HAM from work. I am in my memoir writing class now. Also, applying for full time jobs and going on interviews, secretly hoping I don't get hired so I can go to grad school and eventually become a professor of Creative Writing after I become a successful author. I am also making this AMAZING vegan minestrone soup regularly, which is not only saving me money, but delicious and healthy too. I am loving the whole cooking thing lately. I'm good at it and I am slowly converting HAM to veganism through example (never through pressure because that is guaranteed to backfire). HAM is getting worse and worse at saying "I love you" lately. It's so hard for him, even though it's easy for him to show me he loves me in every other way. Why are those words so hard for him to say? I am wearing my hair in pigtails for him RIGHT NOW. I made him soup. I am picking him up from work so he doesn't have to spend money on a cab. I told him today, just like Bryan Adams said, "Everything I do, I do it for you." And it's true - I always want to make him happy and keep him loving me. But he's so weird about just saying those three fucking words, even when he knows how happy it makes me. I mean, I know what makes him happy - pigtails, homemade food, deep-throating, and back massages. I do all of that for him. Why can't he just say "I love you" a few times a day? Why is that such a problem? But whatever, that's besides the point. The real point is I want to go to grad school, I want to be a professor. Becoming a "professional" will only deter me from that path and that sucks hairy balls. So anyway, thanks, Adobe, for making this post so short and wishy-washy. What I really wanted to say was something eloquent and poetic, with deep social underpinnings. But instead, this is it. Damn you, Adobe!
 
I got home from the gym a little while ago and since then I have taken a shower, got dressed and did my makeup, took out the trash, recycling, and compost, done the dishes, wiped down the kitchen counters, and taken my vitamins. Not to mention that when I first got home I smoked a little weed and ate some waffles. Back when I was the old me, living in that nasty house on the highway in Nice, CA, I used to be one of those stoners who couldn't do shit. I'd just sit there and eat and surf the internet. Or drink and surf the internet. I couldn't exercise, pay a bill, make dinner, clean the house, or clean myself. I was a waste product. Needless to say, I felt like a loser. Today, I figure, if I smoke weed, it's okay, as long as I am still a functioning human being who is able to take care of business. I've found that I've actually become more productive stoned than I do just normally. I used to tell myself I couldn't write stoned, and it was probably just an excuse I told myself so I didn't have to write. Or exercise. Although I wouldn't exercise stoned because that would just be counterintuitive, I also wouldn't let it come before a work out. Nothing comes between me and the gym. I'm there rain or shine, heartache or bursting at the seems with love, whether I'm angry, depressed, way too full from over eating, sick, or in pain. I always go. I can't imagine anything other than HAM being as important as the gym. I guess school. School takes even more time than the gym and balancing the two is difficult. I don't know how HAM does everything that he does. He'll make a good marketing executive someday, or whatever he decides to do. I remember back in my senior year of college, I was newly married, in school full time, working part time, applying to grad schools, and smoking crack on the weekends. I mean, not every single weekend, but if it wasn't crack, I was getting drunk, popping Xanax and Oxycontin, snorting cocaine, or even dropping ectasy. Who knows how I made it through all of that with my degree and a 3.9 GPA. Of course I didn't get into grad school, and I'm sure it was because I was delusional from the drugs. But I still accomplished a lot while I was handling a million other things. So I wonder, was it not being accepted to grad school that really pushed me over the edge as far as "partying", or was it just the natural progression of addiction? In AA, they say that's what happens - you can never maintain. One is too many and a thousand is never enough. I guess I don't know yet. I do know the year before I quit drinking and getting high was the worst year of my life. I definitely don't want to end up back there again. So maybe that's why I become so overly productive, trying to prove to myself that It's different this time. But is it worth it? Because if I am truly an addict, this won't stay manageable. It will become unmanageable and I'll have to stop. If it turns out I was just misguided and had some impermanent dependency issues, then I guess I could go on forever feeling satisfied with a little evening weed smoking and one glass of wine. That would be fine. Honestly, I don't know why I ever liked getting drunk. It's much better to just slowly sip one glass of fabulous wine than "get fucked up". I don't like being out of control, doing and saying things I normally wouldn't do and say, and waking up feeling like shit, dehydrated and ashamed. No thank you. One is just right, actually. I don't ever feel like I'm stopping myself from having more. All I care for is one, and then I feel done. Damn, AA really fucks a person't head up, doesn't it? It's so weird, because AA helps so many people, but it's also a brainwashing cult. It's just that the brainwashing helps a lot of people. But it hurts people, too. It hurt me and I've heard stories about others. I guess I just don't have the answers on this. I guess I'll just have to watch and see what happens, and hope it's nothing I'll regret.

 
It was a toss up this evening between tanning and writing. Here I am, so obviously I chose the latter. EP invited me to a barbeque tomorrow and I'm thinking I will go. I don't know anyone there besides her and I'm not very good at parties, especially if I don't know anyone, but I feel like a jerk that I keep avoiding hanging out with her. Even though she's a hot girl, she actually is really nice. I just never know what to say to girls. I've spent most of life around guys. My first friend was a boy. We met in Hawaii when I was one year old. Then, growing up in West Seattle, my best friend was a boy. We used to build homes for worms out of mud and leaves, throw toys around my room, get chased by packs of neighborhood dogs, and torment his twin sister. There was a bit of time, middle school, where I didn't really have any boy friends. But in high school, my best friend was a boy. We talked on the phone for hours every day. He had a crush on me, and since I didn't feel the same way, we became friends for several years. When I started hanging out at Totem Lake Denny's, there were mostly guys there. I became friends with pretty much all of them. Wherever I went, whatever I did, I always had lots of dudes around me. I like guys because they're usually funny and there's no competition. I get to be the pretty one, the one with the vagina, they get to be the ones who settle for being my friend because I won't date them. I'll admit, I've had my share of guy friends who bought me drinks, dinners out, clothes, gas for my car. One guy bought me cable TV. I always got free drugs. To this day, I have no idea how much an eight-ball costs. Although it doesn't matter anymore. I've just had a lot of bad experiences with girls. A girl introduced me to HAM. She had a boyfriend, but apparently she liked HAM, or at least she wanted HAM to like her. When she found out that he and I were seeing eachother, she didn't want to be my friend anymore. That really hurt. I thought she actually liked me but it turned out she liked me until she realized that guys were more attracted to me than to her. As soon as she realized that, she was out. Now she's best friends with HAM's ex girlfriend. I had a "best" girl friend for years. I'll call her TB. TB was pretty cool for a while. Super artistic. She was a poet, and she was funny. We had all kinds of inside jokes and we also spent hours on the phone. Bit drugs eventually tore us apart. She went to prison for a year for international drug trafficking, and I only wrote her twice the whole time she was locked up. We stayed friends after that, but she was really fucked up, and I guess I wasn't much better. Eventually I got sober and I decided I didn't like the state of our relationship, so I basically broke up with her. I've talked to her only one time since then, to apologize for being a total shithead (because I broke up with her through email after being best friends for 15 years). I guess she's living in some ghetto apartment out in Lake City and spends every night in a gross bar getting wasted. So I guess I'm not missing much. Too bad, though, because she used to be really amazing. She was so charismatic. She was the type of bitch who could make friends with anyone, get a job anywhere, convince anyone of anything. She could dance, sculpt, write, sing, and paint. Drugs and alcohol just sucked the soul out of her. I guess they sucked my soul out for a while, too. I'm thankful for all that time I spent sober and for learning how to live sober, learning that "getting fucked up" really isn't that great. I mean, every once in a while, sure, but every day? So lame. Life is too good to spend it high. Besides, I like my job, I love HAM, I love that family trusts me, that I can hold a job, go to school, write, work out, afford to get my nails and hair done, look realistically toward the future. I enjoy a nice glass of wine here and there, and a good old-fashioned opiate session is still enjoyable every now and then, but I'm not trying to spend my life as a junkie. I truly learned from AA that life is better without drugs and alcohol running it. But I have also discovered that I don't have to be a teetotaler to NOT be a junkie. There is a balance. Anyway, I've gone off in a completely different direction here. My cat is staring at me. Girls...that's what I was talking about. I'd love to have some girlfriends, but where the smart girls at? Where the funny bitches at? I miss my college professor, SH. That's the kind of chick I want in my life. Funny, brilliant, eccentric, and darn cute. I guess I really need to go back to school and get my master's if I really want those type of chicks in my life. The ones who understand my sense of humor, who think deeply about things, who know there's more to life than taanning. I get to be that girl who's funny, eccentric, smart, and hahaha, she goes tanning and spends $300 on her hair, isn't that insane? Oh, that BG, what a character. I want to be the only girl in my group of girlfriends who goes tanning and gets her hair and nails done, because usually the girls who do things like that are empty, vacant. There lives revolve around those things and they lack substance. I do those things now more for HAM than for me. I mean, I like being pretty and well-maintained, but it's expensive and a lot of work and time. I can think of about a zillion things that are more important than tanning. Like writing this long, rambling blog about...what is this about? Girls, drugs, and tanning? I guess. My point is, all those superficial things I do, I don't believe in them as worthwhile endeavors, I just can't stop doing them for some reason. I am attache to physical appearance, being pretty, or desiring to be pretty. But I know in the greater scheme of things, hair, nails, makeup, and tanning is all irrelevant. It won't say on my tombstone, "BG - She had fabulous hair". (I guess I could request that if I really wanted to.) I would like it to say something like, "BG - A great writer and a true friend" or something like that. "Loved by many". Right now I have HAM, my mom and dad, and my grandma, who (if things go the way they're supposed to) will probably not be at my funeral. Maybe there would be an old guy friend who would show up, maybe my ex boyfriend, BD, and my homie KH, but other than that, I am not loved by very many at all. "Loved by a few". Better than "BG who?" Oh well, this is getting a bit morbid. I just need to go to this barbeque tomorrow.