Creating Capital

[I won't lie-- I had to look up the difference between capital with an a or with an o. Oh grammar, I just can't quit you!]

Lately, I've been trying some alternatives to traditional career moves and I came across a website my friend Redd from college has been actually making a LIVING off of. I have been so proud of her because she's one of the most creative and industrious people I've ever met. A couple of highlights about her...she moved from the UK for college in the US (so brave!), has supported herself working in a career of her dreams (stage management) in Atlanta, then took a huge leap and moved to Las Vegas and worked for Cirque du Soleil! How cool is that? She has written an excellent, relatable food blog that she also published as an e-book cookbook. Now, she's been doing voice over work for a long time and has made her career off of this site called fiverr. Her voice is beautiful and she's technically minded, so she can edit and market herself quite brilliantly. She's my "living her dream" hero! 

A few months ago, I started my own fiverr. I'm sticking with stuff I know-- letter and card writing, water-color painting, and homemade natural living products. I'd like to add some editing and other digital services, but for now, that's what's on my plate.

So, if you're interested, please take a look! Feel free to share far and wide, because I'd sure appreciate it.
Remember my post about making natural deodorant? You can buy your very own container of it-- customized with essential oils of your choice. Click HERE for deodorant.

Want to relax and take a break? I've read recently about the effects of magnesium deficiency in our diets from the environment being stripped of certain minerals. Did you know a nightly (or weekly, comeon, ain't-nobody-got-time-for-that) bath in epsom salts can help restore your magnesium levels naturally and safely? Check out my customized bath satchets HERE.

My fiverr gigs also include hand painted water-color cards (or could be on a small, frame-able paper) HERE, post cards from Colorado HERE, and hand written, locally printed (Leanin' Tree Art in Boulder, Colorado) cards HERE. If you know me in real life, you know I send cards and postcards like nobody's business already. ;)

If you're interested in something along those lines from me...please send me a message! I am pretty shamelessly plugging myself here, but maybe you'd be interested in this cool world of five-bucks-a-pop.

Payment note: fiverr.com uses paypal. For some people, that's very easy. For others, it's a new financial system. Until recently (thanks, Trina!) I was not a paypal user. It's safe and easy...and I'm still scared of bitcoin.

Mother's Day 2013

May '08, ASC: 3 generations of education graduate degrees

30 years ago on this Mother’s Day, my mom was only a few days away from giving birth to a second child, her first girl, and the first the granddaughters on both the Thomaston side and Gauthier side. It was the 80’s and they only did the ultrasounds if there were suspected problems, so she didn’t know if she was having a girl or a second son. The story of my birth includes my Grandma Jane coming to my parent’s house, at a rainy, drizzly midnight, where a feverish toddler brother was being read stories while my mom breathed through contractions. My grandmother, all 5 feet of her, admonished my mother and pointedly said to my father, “I can read to Neil for you. I CANNOT have this baby for you. Now go to the hospital.” (I was born at 2:52, and would have been born sooner had the obstetrician even been at the hospital. The nurses slowed my mother’s labor with drugs and instructed her to wait on the pushing bit. Apparently I was ready to head out into this world!)

If you’d asked me ten years ago, “What are your mother’s day plans?” for today, I’d have assumed I’d be celebrating this holiday with my family and own children. I do not have children, with the exception of the many hundreds of children who have passed through my classroom door over the course of the past five years. I often do quite a bit of counseling with my students (from the young ones up to the high schoolers) and I am grateful that I’ve been deemed worthy (by whatever powers that be) to give advice and help my kids see a different point-of-view on the world. Little ones (from teaching Elementary school classrooms) have called me “Mommy” instead of Miss G from time to time, and many hugs with heads buried in my side and arms wrapped around my waist included wistful, “I wish you were my mom”s. Many of my high school kids have fussed at me for not having a baby yet, saying that I’d be a “cool mom” and warning me that my “eggs were frying and I needed to have kids soon.” (Yikes!) 

Several of my high-schoolers have been mothers or mothers-to-be and I’ve had a special bond with those girls, encouraging and enabling them to get the education they deserve in order to be the mom to their babies that their children deserve. I’ve felt humbled when talking with teenagers (usually girls) and pointing out that their moms are scared to lose their little girls—and that this transition point of high school is a clear sign that they won’t have the same role to play with their daughters as when they were younger—and hopefully saying words to these girls that will help smooth out the oft-tangled relationships between teen girls and their moms. 

So am I glad I’m not celebrating Mother’s Day tomorrow with children who are “mine?” No, not really. I’m a little jealous of moms and that relationship that they have as a sustainer of life—it seems to me like a mystical, spiritual chance to be one with God…one that I haven’t had the opportunity to take. Am I happy for the moms out there? Of course. If not for moms out there, I’d not have had the chance to teach, converse with, sing with, make art with, and learn from their children. 

My mama came to my Beethoven concert in April

In another sense, I’ve been so fortunate, lucky, and blessed to have a wonderful mom. My mom has shown me with her dedication to anything she sets her mind to—that life is yours for the taking. She never showered me with gifts, but always experiences— Girl Scouts, church, theater, museums, concerts,  Social Studies fairs; trips around this country and Europe; piano, voice, and oboe lessons. She is thoroughly academic and musical and has always encouraged me through her words and actions that I should strive for excellence. She has been my toughest critic with singing, acting, and music…but she’s also been at every concert and performance humanly possible. One time, in grad school, I was singing with an acapella group and we were singing at a woman’s wedding. My mom crashed the wedding—in order to hear her baby (24-year-old) sing.

 My mom is a teacher—a product of the 1970’s era of Women’s Lib when she knew that she had the opportunity to go to college, but she felt that her only two career options were nurse or teacher. I worked really hard in college to NOT become a teacher, but to accidentally follow in her footsteps anyway. They’re definitely not bad footsteps to follow. She’s been a teacher who’s constantly reinvented herself: she taught Elementary school, then worked while she was pregnant to obtain a Master’s degree and Gifted certification; then after 17 years, she switched to teaching Middle School Language Arts and Science and earned her Specialist’s degree. After 13 years there, it was time for a change again, and she switched to Elementary gifted again—at schools with immigrant populations unlike the golf-course-homes one she’d left years before. 

She’s made her mark, earning Teacher of the Year for her county, helping countless kids earn Social Studies, Writing, and art awards and taken dozens of field trips around the southeast with kids. She started a monthly recognition luncheon for the best citizens in each class—and it’s caught on so that other teachers help bring in deserts to brag about the good kids. She lives her life as true to herself as she can—church-choir singer, sci-fi fan, family caregiver, rescue-dog-mommy, pianist, baker, reader, gardener, and Snoopy collector. 

Some other moms in my life are my grandmothers: my mom’s mom, Grandma Shirley Jane Pepperd Thomaston, and my dad’s mom, Grandma Marilyn Faye Cerasoli Gauthier (see, French and Italian!). I was at my Grandpa Bill’s 80^th birthday celebration this weekend when his sister-in-law (a woman I’ve not seen since I was a toddler), looked at me from a table, sighed, and said, “I see Marilyn in your face.” It made me cry because my mom’s always said that she sees my beautiful Grandma Marilyn’s eyebrows on me—in addition to other features. My grandma Marilyn was stricken with a neuromuscular disease most of my life—so I always knew her to be in her home, surrounded by her books, beads, sewing, crocheting, music, television programs, and Bible. 

There were several summers as a child when we spent a lot of time at their house west of Atlanta, and although she didn’t have the strength to do much of the cooking, she perched on a stool and gave me directions of what to do—to make Italian stuffed shells, salads, desserts, and drinks. She had recipes, but she also cooked by smell and visual presentation. Her dishes, “tablescapes,” and foods were beautiful to look at and wonderful to taste.  I would often call her as I was driving some place and she would fuss for me multi-tasking, but she would listen and sop up every story about my life that I had to tell her. She was an incredible listener, philosopher, and activist. I remember saying to my sister, that I can’t call Grandma Marilyn any more, but at least I can still talk to her—I just have to wait a while for her answer. From the time we were little, we’d give eskimo kisses and say “Bee’s Knees!” and so whenever I hear that I think of her.  I miss her so much.

 '08 Baccalaureate-- mom and grandma Jane love stuff like that.

My grandma Jane was a force to be reckoned with. She grew up traveling across the U.S. by train because her parents divorced (it was unheard of!)…her father was a photographer and her mother a contortionist. She was more or less reared by an Aunt and Grandmother on a farm in Oklahoma. She received a scholarship to Birmingham Southern College and eventually met my Grandpa Matt there. My grandma was the mother of 5 children, a dutiful wife who cooked every night, and an avid reader. But I think more than anything, she was a talker. When people who I’ve met through teaching (she taught for over 30 years in the county where I currently teach) say that I remind them of her because of how I talk and care about people—there’s no higher compliment. She looked out for the teachers, parents, and children in her school and she was a wonderful Grandma.

She traveled with me singing to South Carolina, Chicago, and all over Europe. I lived with her for a time in both high school and college and I thank the stars every day for the opportunity to know her the way that I did—not just as a grandchild who cared for her grandmother, but in a more one-on-one nurturing way. Grandma Jane didn’t know a stranger and she loved to tell entertaining stories. She had one about during World War II about rationing and that it was time for her to get her allowance of shoes and the only mary janes available in her size were RED! The ten year old Janie couldn’t have been more delighted with her luck to be the only girl at her school to have red patent leather shoes. What luck, and what a perspective on the direness of the times. 

Luchsingers concert May 08. She was able to hear the Dec. concert from her new home.

I also learned things about cooking and sewing from my Grandma Jane. To this day, I’d throw away all my vegetarian ideals for her pot roast and cornbread. She grew up with little store-bought food, but since she was on a farm, she knew how to make something to eat out of most anything. She didn’t bake terribly well because she was in much too much of a hurry to read the directions carefully (all that chemistry and stuff). It didn’t stop her from making me a birthday cake a time or two, or calling my mother and asking HER to make the beautifully frosted confections that my mom was excellent at making. Grandma Jane and I had a funny song and dance at IHOP or Cracker Barrel in which I would order whatever food she wanted, and she would get the senior breakfast that I wanted (I always liked the portion better)—in order to save on the bill. We’d wait til the waiter was watching, eye each other’s food and say loudly, “Yours looks better than mine. Shall we trade?” I wonder who was fooled. 

I got my chocolate brown eyes from my Grandma Jane (okay, my dad has brown eyes too) and I’d like to think her fighting spirit and love of seeing places of history all over the world. She and I shared many a marvelous moment traipsing across Europe—and she never got tired of people asking if I was her daughter, and she proudly explaining that I was her granddaughter. A bus driver even commented (to our amusement), “Oh yes, I knew you were related. You have the same nice legs. Sexy.” I learned a phrase from my friend Amber’s mom when she said, “I ran into your grandma and she was telling me about your trip. You know she thinks you hung the moon!” I cherish the things my grandma Jane liked to say…”How often do you get to tour the Red Light District of Amesterdam in the morning and hear your granddaughter singing a Mozart Aria at a cathedral in Germany in the evening?” She lived for soundbites!

These women and others have shown me to live my truth and to stand for what is good, right, beautiful, and musical in the world. Maybe I have one’s eyebrows, one’s legs, one’s brown eyes…but their spirits and good energy are in my heart and soul. Happy Mother’s Day to those ones who I have been so lucky to have the love of in my life.

Mother's Day Lunch 2012- Aunt Janet, Neil, Adrienne, Emily, Mom. We are generally an amiable bunch.

Food Anthropology: Gangman style...Shamrock Shake

So, for those of you who live out of the American collective of fast food establishments...good for you. You're saving your money, your waistline, the environment (from all the superfluous shipping and packaging), etc. etc. I attempt to live a clean-whole-natural-organic lifestyle, but only about 85% of the time. I follow 100 Days of Real Food and I feel venerated in the fight towards label reading and food company transparency.  I love me some Coca-cola. That chilly, flavorful, sparkling HFCS is amazing. When my classes have parties (as I allow/encourage) about once a month, I pile a paper plate full of whatever preservative-laden-food-garbage they brought in: Little Debbies, Hostess cakes, Cheetos, Funions, cookies that probably could make it through the apocalypse-- you get where I'm going with this. My colon and rest of my organs appreciate all the salads and fresh fruit I eat, but some days, man-oh-man, a pile of cheese puffs with that magic orange cheese glitter being washed down by some orange Fanta-- it's the best. Thanks, 'Mrrica. You're doing it RIGHT!

In doing a little internet research (cough, cough Googlesearch), I found that there is a lot of McDonald's "art" with this marketed as a "limited-time only" milkshake. I get the allure of the seasonal products-- it makes you want something because you can't have it. 

Say Shamrock Shake. Now say it in the same voice as the Gangnam Style guy. Hah! Now you've got it stuck in your head too.

Scarcity used to be part of the human condition. For most of the world it still is. Ask any Anthropologist or Historian, and they will tell you that the search for water, game, and food was the majority of why civilizations were created-- to make the scarcity less scarce. To secure food protein-- to provide for future generations. 

The strange part of that is that fast food is, in its very nature, all about immediate, NOT delayed gratification!

So, when the business model of, say, Chickfila leaves us wanting chicken nuggets and special sauce for 24 hours when you can have access to them most other days from 6 am to 10 pm, why does it work? Wendy's sweet potato fries are seasonal, Chick-fil-a peppermint, banana pudding, and peach milkshakes are only around for a bit, and Dairy Queen promotes a certain blizzard (um, how many Pumpkin pie blizzards did we eat from that one in Decatur, Marcus?) during each month. Starbucks has their seasonal drinks and desserts (and pretty poster)-- I get pretty disappointed when I want a slice of that perfectly moist pumpkin loaf and I can only have lemon cake when I'm shopping at Target or Kroger or wherever else a Starbucks has popped up for my convenience. 

Why does this work? I think because it taps into our history as hunter-gatherers. Historically, we can only eat foods that are ripe, and certain foods are only ripe during certain times of the year. We used to only eat foods that were local to us or recently killed in that area (meat-wise). However, with economic demand, the ease of the vast network of global transportation (planes, trains, boats, trucks-- everything a toddler boy wants to have miniatures of in his mom's purse), and human ingenuity-- we can have virtually any food any time. 

This of course, has a massive cost on the Earth. Farmers produce more than the demand is so that unions get paid. Foods are picked unripe, shipped, and gassed to look ripe. Laborers are exploited all over the world. Why? So we can have that immediate gratification. But then there's the human condition of being let down. We want to feel close to the farmers, the land, the people who made our food. It goes against the massive food industry-- but we have these urges to  go with seasonal.

So what did clever marketing teams do? They created that vacuum. You can only have that Pumpkin Pie blizzard around Thanksgiving. (Cuz, duh. Pilgrims wanted low-fat icecream with candy stuck in it that would survive a trip in the cupholder sans lid!) You can only have the Coconut-lime-verbena-sugar-sanded-key-lime-pie-drizzled-frappucino-magic during summer time, because it reminds us of the island vacation we took one time. (Or never took because we're so busy working.) It put a price on our memories-- and allows us to feel like we are tapping into something bigger-- a time that we once had-- and a time when we once COULDN'T have everything we wanted with immediacy.

For those of you who do occasionally (or more frequently; I'm not judging) hit up a Mickey-Dee's drive-thru (or Chick-fil-A, or Wendy's, or Dairy Queen, or TacoHell), you know that late winter and early spring is the only time to get the magically minty Shamrock Shake.

I had NO idea that every time I read the "Shamrock Shake" advertising  (and it makes me hum "Gangnam Style" in the same rhythm...arrgh)...that it has a longer history than the less than 5-year-old McCafe. It is a St. Patrick's Day drink! They invented that Grimace (whatever he is anyway) has a green cousin who demands a different milkshake...and fortunately for you, dear consumer, he gets his way. I mean, he does have a Shilleleagh and a vest with Celtic knots. It seems legit. I don't remember any commercials, but I'd venture a guess that he has a Lucky (from Lucky Charms) Irish accent. 

See, he's real Irish. You can tell from the hat and the fact that he'll do RiverDance soon.

What is this? A styrofoam cup??

I mean, gosh. Who knew this thing had been around for so long? That cup in the bottom picture is still styrofoam! They got rid of those by the mid-90's when all those Tree-huggers got to the McDonald's buyers and made us replace our Styrofoam Big Mac boxes with flimsy waxed paper. 

Crazy!

So, to end this rant...with the idea that started it...I'd been teaching sonnets to my 12th graders. The assignment was to create the 14-line sonnet (the couplets didn't have to be exact) and each line had to have 10 syllables (it didn't have to be exact Iambic pentameter). 

The theme: Something You Love.

I got a delightful variety of subjects-- of course, the romantic love poems (they are 17, so love is very awesome), and the angry, bitter love poems (they are 17, so love is very awful). There were kids who took it a little less emotionally-- and wrote about literal things they love-- some of them poignant-- their love of education and accessing knowledge, their love of video games and the entertainment they bring, their love of certain-branded shoes and the designers who created fashion empires. And then there was the Shamrock Shake. 

The girl who authored it is hilarious and deep. She writes brilliant essays and hangs out with the artsy kids. I don't know if she makes visual art...but she sure can make some verbal art!

 

[And in case you want to know JUST HOW healthy these milkshakes are...here's a link to the official nutrition page. You're welcome. (In case you don't want to read it, there's like a million bazillion calories and stuff. Duh. That's why it tastes good.) ]

So yes. The Shamrock Shake. It has a funny poem now. And I had no idea that it was part of the McDonald's history of marketing and tapping into other cultures. I knew it made me want it...when I can't have it later in the year. 

Putting the attitude in gratitude

I jotted down some notes about this—which should be a great way of starting the pre-writing process, except for me, I’m a bit of a (as my friend Christy would say) one-draft-wonder. I write to have catharsis—I write to release—I write to share—I write to maybe enlighten, and very possibly entertain. If I write it down in my journal or notebook, I basically have released it. It’s a different sort of release than typing and/or blogging, but it’s been set free from the dizzying confines of my mind and is therefore somehow laid to rest. When I draft an outline, that’s usually as far as it goes.

I think I was kicking around ideas for this as a pro-con list. I like to make my pro-con lists when I’m in a euphoric mood—that way, when I look back over them later, if I should happen to be in a bad mood, it still makes me happy that I have so many darn pros in my life! Who can argue with that?

Lemme start with the bad…but I didn’t write it in this order. It was hard to think of the bad stuff.

The cons:

HOME: My home is a shitty townhome. I have a roommate and I’m almost 30. That is stupid. Then again, when you have a roommate, it’s kind of like having a sister who’s always there—we talk, cook, walk, and hang out a good amount of time. Eh, move it to the pro side.

WORK: I have a crappy job that I 80% loathe. Despite the colleagues I like, there are a couple of MCB (see my teaching blog for more explanation), disappointing administrators, a colleague who should have been fired outright for all her actions (in other words, someone who leads by negative example), and piles of kids who seriously need some rules in their lives. It sucks to be demoralized, treated misogynistically, and overworked on a daily basis; working for this paycheck has some serious drawbacks.

PET: My Sweetie Petey-Bella Boo is quite the leash aggressor. She pulls really hard when there’s another dog around and I haven’t tried a dog park in years with her. That’s tough, because I’d like her to be more social, but then again, she started life in a really rough way, so I’m more than happy with how awesome she is.

LOVE LIFE: Hah. No such thing.

Pros:

HOME: I live in a home surrounded by my comfy bed, cute clothes, fancy-smelling candles, interesting books, pretty art, fancy cooking appliances and dishes, and my clutter. Yes, the clutter is still a pro. It’s my clutter and I like it. It's in a good neighborhood that I enjoy being near places.

WORK: I go to a job that is honestly AWFUL, but I have made many, many shiny spots in the blackened and dreary kettle over the proverbial fire I work in. I have a really good work buddy (I’m ALWAYS friends with the art teacher!), a funny neighbor down the hall whom I admire, a curmudgeonly-young colleague, a grandfatherly-department chair, sister vegans, a sassy librarian, etc. My attitude about my shit-ass job has made it more than survivable for the past 7 months. Go me. The point is, I have a job, where others in the world do not. I’m grateful. 

I also do teach a ton of amazing, creative, kind, deep, unique, and intellectual kids who I feel incredibly blessed to see on a daily basis. What a weird society we live in—we send our children off to hang out with strangers for 8 hours a day. I feel fortunate to be that stranger to drop some knowledge on some of these kids. 

The art chick and I have a rather elaborate note-passing game going on.

PETEY-BELLA: I have a rescue American bulldog. She's 8 and had a tumor removed this summer, and she seems to be doing just fine. She’s my child with 4 legs and man, she is the bomb-diggity. She sleeps most of the time, she follows me around when I’m home, she never gets sick, she is insanely happy to eat her dog food and boring treats,  she barks at noisy bad things, and she snores when she’s doing all that sleeping. Honestly, she’s a cuddler. When I’m in bed working on things, she stays at the foot, but not underfoot (You catch what I did there?), but when it’s time for the human to do the sleeping, she repositions herself accordingly. How cool is that? She’s also learned (I could say I’ve taught her, but it’s more like conditioning) to pee and poop on command. I tell her “Go potty Petey,” and she squats where she is. It’s great. “Go poopy, Petey,” and “Go baffroom, Bella,” take a little more time, but generally the result is there. I’ve been jogging/running lately and she’s totally been game. She has about a mile to 1.5 in her before she’s totally a Petey puddle of pup on the ground and I have to drag her home, but still, that’s pretty good for a really lazy dog.

It's a rather difficult life sleeping on mounds of pillows and a duvet.

EXERCISE: Speaking of the 1.5 miles, I’ve been walk-jog-running nearly every day since Christmas break. It has been awesome for me. My stamina grows each day and my emotional well-being is, well- being awesome! I know doctors recommend exercise and stuff, but it’s hard to make happen with a busy schedule. I’m turning over a leaf towards daily movement and it feels good…like there are little fizzy muscle cheerleaders in my cells being like, “you’re awesome, work us out some more!” I enjoy seeing my neighborhood from the perspective of a walker and knowing which houses have which gardens, pets, and recycling. I'm mainly just nosy. Hah.

FOOD: I’ve also been doing pretty well about prepping food for going to work and cooking at night. I follow some food blogs and I’ve been applying what I’ve picked up from those venues. Don’t get me wrong, if I could afford to eat out every night of the week, I most certainly would. I like my dishes and all, but I like it better if someone else washes. I’ve started adding flax or sesame seeds to salad…sneaking in bits of protein and fiber where I can. I was doing a calorie counter app on my phone, and I haven’t kept up with it that much, but the idea of it keeps portion sizes in my head. It feels good to eat well.

MUSIC: I auditioned for and began singing with Emory U Chorus again this semester for the Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony—the Ode to Joy. It’s so cool to be in a room with 215 people, all watching the same skinny dude wave his arms around, while we read dots and dashes on a page in German, and make simultaneous noise pop out of our mouths at the same time. When the orchestra’s there, it’s going to be straight musical magic. Hellz yeah.

FRIENDSHIPS: I also started up a lady book club—not one I run for my students. That has its own place, but I wanted a chance to fellowship (femme-ship?) with ladies I didn’t work with and have a reason to read and talk about books—or a reason to get together and drink wine and not just talk about banal stuff. We had our first meeting, and there were only a few of us…but I felt good about it anyway. The euphoria of being with a group of women—that kinship—is strong and beautiful.

Checking out the Beltline art installation near Memorial Drive.

I’ve been spending some good times with good friends—ones I can count on my friend list (an actual one, not a list populated on facebook) for 5-10 years. Wow. It was pointed out to me how marvelous it is to have people in your life for that length of time—I hadn’t thought about it until I started taking stock. Good chats, good laughter, good food…good people in my life: I'm grateful for you.

Myself and one of aforementioned friends (Dan) at the High. The Klein Blue painting is particularly scary. If that Klein guy can get a color named after him, what else is he capable of??

LOVE LIFE: I have no boyfriend, but damn, I have got a lot of love in my life. Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of validation about my friends and how loyal, fun, and kind they are. My friends and family people know me, support me, and believe in me, even when I don’t have the courage to believe in myself. The right love in my life will come along when it’s supposed to, right now, the love I have is all the love I need.

BANGIN’ ASS BOD: Did I mention the working out and the eating more healthy thing? It has resulted in my body being AWESOME!!!! I have a scale that I left at my mom’s house, so I don’t really have any idea how much poundage I’ve retained/lost, but it doesn’t really matter. I look soooooo good naked!! I mean, I’m only getting naked for me and the shower (see love life, above), but still. It’s good to prance around in front of the mirror and be like, whoa, I look HAWT!

CONCLUSION: Bottom line, my attitude towards my life and body is pretty fiercely awesome. All that good attitude makes me have some pretty serious gratitude to nature, the universe, God, and all the other things that make it possible to have happiness, love, health, joy, and music in my world. That's worth singin' about.

Happy! Now go have a gratitude-attitude yourself. :)