This Morning

Water boiling for Vaughn's oatmeal
in the kitchen behind me.
Chorus of “surf's up, surf's up,
ho daddy, ho daddy,” coming from
the living room where Vaughn and Dash
are kneeling on the hardwood floor.
Harsh hush of cars rushing by outside.
Sharma's claws tug at her ottoman
tucked under the desk
in the dining room. I stir
the oatmeal and bring it to my daughter
not because she asked politely
but because we must be going soon.

Another Quick Little School Bus Morning Poem

The bus stops and Vaughn
climbs on, finds her seat
beside two other girls.

No wave goodbye this time.
No looking out at
Ayla,* Dash, and me.

The bus moves on, leaving
its exhaust behind. The days
of the week go by

so many times, one loses
track, like Thomas the Train
rushing to make good time.

_________
* Ayla is the Japanese Maple we planted in our front yard last year, named by Vaughn.

Dark Telephone Pants!

“Dark telephone pants!”
That voice from a farther room
is Dash’s as he and Vaughn
are playing some obscure
childhood game, deeper
and more complex than tag
or hide and go seek.
“You’re supposed to do this
and I’m supposed to do
this ! Oh man, now we’re rowing
out to—now I’m in your house.”
The game could go on for hours
or evaporate in a few timeless
tom-tom moments. Now someone
has cast a spell and they are trapped
and Vaughn is being pulled
by her mouth and yammering
on like a chimp. I guess it could
go on for days if anyone would
let it. “The bad guys are guarding
me.” “They’re guarding me, too.”
“Oh man, they’re letting the horses
out. One by one. We have customers
in our restaurant. I mean, we own
a bookstore, right? Every day
is a different pony.” “But you didn’t say
anything about the Fraggle Rock
mystery?” Quivering lip, quaking
cloud. O epic, O broken lyric heart!

An Inscription

This vase is a gift
from a father to his daughter
that she may always have a place
to keep her flowers in water;
she who tends to plants so well
and greets all creatures like the dawn,
the Fairy-winged Princess of 94 Grove,
the Mermaid Queen of the Overgrown Lawn.
________________________________________________
Based on a Mayan inscription.

Blob-of-Dust Morning

No words, gray light,
only rooftops out the window,
black and staticky.
No birds, no squirrels,
only bruising car-go-by sounds
and Vaughn's voice
from out in the living room
as she runs like she's not supposed to
back and forth with her brother,
“I'm a blob of dust.”

Vaughn to Dash

Yellow is the color of sun.

Yellow is the color you can use.

What do you want that's yellow?

I'll draw.

A First Loose Tooth

Standing on the step stool to look in the bathroom mirror while she wiggled her tooth, Vaughn announced, “My tooth is a rocking chair.”

      —•—

Later last night, I tried to explain to Vaughn, who had been bothered by talk of starting again to look for a new house, that it didn't matter what house we lived in, the important thing was that we are all together, to which she replied, “We won't be together when we’re gone,” and then proceeded to cry.

      —•—

My tooth is a rocking chair.
We won't be together when we’re gone.

Halloween Paintings by Vaughn

Vaughn has been busy the past month or so making lots of Halloween art. Here's one of her paintings I came home to today.

Dashzilla

Vaughn sitting on the floor
in the living room, rebuilding
her Lego tower. When Dash
totters over and knocks it down
again, she turns to him and says,
“You're a monster, Dashiell.
You're the god of grief.”

Labor Day evening

Labor Day evening. Half the house asleep. Sitting in the yellow light of the backroom. The cat licking at her water dish under the desk in the kitchen. Stomach still not settled. Throat soar. Words fall. Days uncomfortable. Art impossible. Subjects weaving in and out. Focus lacking. Labor Day evening. Half the house asleep. The yellow light of the backroom, compact fluorescent light taking its color from the wall and the stained-glass fixture hanging from the ceiling. The cat crunching her food under the desk in the kitchen. The window behind me partially blocked by a sheet from Vaughn's art pad painted with bright animal shapes: red bunny, blue pony, red pig, brown horse, brown cow, yellow chickens, black sheep. The refrigerator hums. KC flips the page of her magazine in the living room. The goddamn cars go by outside like muffled screams. Slouching in my chair, leaning backward into fall, into might as well be silent.

Stumble through the hall

Stumble through the hall of morning's first moments. Familiar rumble outside from the construction across the street. Into and out of the bathroom. Into and out of the dream. Into and out of the thoughts that aren't there. There might have been a dream, sitting in a cell block, looking at a clock through iron bars. Some chubby guard with a dumb grin, fuzzy eyebrows, and big blue clothes. Big ol' Hollywood keychain hooked to his big black belt. Pacing the hall in his big black boots. Down into the morning, Vaughn at her desk in the kitchen, cranking out the multi-colored Play-Doh. Dash tottering between Vaughn and his mom as he learns how to walk. Magnets across the floor—an orange g, a green o—and tupperware and toy silverware, and toy-sized tins that either are or aren't toys I have no idea. Sometimes my guts want to give up and seep back into the earth. The little noises too much. The excesses, the effusions, the never enoughs. Vague and dizzy feelings cradling objects. "The sky / is a black / sudden cloud, / a sun. / Speak / to me, say / what things / were forgotten." (Creeley, from "The Shame")

bits

Sitting at the dining room table feeding Dash bits of peaches and whole wheat bread. Curtains drawn to shade the room. Vaughn seated at the chair behind me, working on a grilled cheese sandwich. She starts singing, "Higher, higher / the room's on fire." I ask her where she picked up that song. She says "It's from London." "From a movie?" I ask her, thinking Mary Poppins or something. "None movie," she says, "I made it up for you. And Dashiell-do."
      —•—
Took a book from the shelf, last night. Opened it to a little brown bug. Closed it back up and put it back on the shelf. Wonder what he's doing today.
      —•—
Vaughn at her desk in the kitchen, kneading a Play-Doh sky. The whistle of a truck blowing by outside, not quite as loud as summer's seething insects. Grumbling construction across the street. The rumbling stomach won't settle down.
      —•—
Vaughn: "Ow, the chair went on my toe. Ow!"
KC: "I'm sorry you got hurt, honey."
V: "Oh, when will I never get hurt, Mommy?"
K: "Unfortunately that's part of life, honey."
V: "When I die I'll never get hurt."
(Pause)
V: "Ow, I'm so saturated."
K: "Exasperated?"
V: "No, I'm so saturated."
K: "Saturated? You might say that if you were wet."
V: "No, I'm saturated that I'm hurt."

The Pepto clouds

The Pepto-Bismol clouds of sunset, yeah, they're there, just like the fever clouds behind the hills, the remnants of rural lives, the groves and canopies and houses with fields. I woke up hours later, around three a.m., exhausted from too much sleep but feeling better than I had in twenty-four hours, even the sludge slogging through my digestive system was approaching settled. What was with that Ziplock of leaves fallen in August? Vaughn, her bed slightly lit now for the past few days since we bought a night light for the bathroom so she can find her way in the middle of the night, looks to the north I suppose. She who sleeps deeply and thrashes into the wall at times. Her floor a mess of wooden blocks, Lego bits, and books. Dash's door is closed. He who sleeps lightly and gnaws the white paint off his crib when he wakes up. The dark blue night through the window in the hall, the veil of Mary. You can't get rid of what they give you when you're young. I can't at least. I stagger down the stairs, lift my head at the cat as if she can understand that means "hey, how you doin'?" Pour a glass of water. Sit down at the dining room table. It's covered with newspapers, magazines, and old bills. The bananas in the fruit bowl are perfectly spotted. The street's actually quiet. Through the bowed opening of the curtains where they're supposed to meet: blue night, low rock wall edging the neighbor's driveway, vinyl siding and gutters, garden hose, wire fence with chubby posts, the cement walkway ending out of sight, their dining room window all lit up, some people never sleep. I sip the water. My stomachs don't feel better anymore.

      —•—

from "Sixteen Sloppy Haiku"
by Paul Blackburn

A sound you'll never
hear again:
pissing in the toilet
about 3 A.M.
 

A bag of leaves

Vaughn returned from Nana's today with a Ziplock full of orange, yellow, and red leaves. I didn't mow the lawn for like the twentieth day in a row—it makes a great pretend jungle. The Cowboys' first team didn't look so hot this time out. Could be a long season, especially if T-New misses significant time. A few things conspired to have me thinking autobiographically today, from Reginald Shepherd's "Working Class Hero" blog post to Kent Johnson's "competence, linguistics, politics & post-avant matters" in the new Absent issue to Lisa Jarnot's post with pros and cons of academia—the universities are packed with worse poets and minds: it's a sad commentary that she hasn't landed a full-time gig by now. Also, up late last night reading how Creeley “never forgot Williams’ contention that ‘the poet thinks with his poem, in that lies his thought, and that in itself is the profundity . . .’ ” What have I never forgotten? There must be something substantial at the core.

Strange bug, 2 a.m.

2 a.m., Vaughn rests her cheek on her sheetless mattress, knees tucked into her chest. In her red Mount Rushmore T-shirt, a bundle of brightness in the dim night. "My Big Starlight," I call her, ever since she first called me her "Little Moonbeam" what seems like years ago already. She tilts her head and squints her eyes up at me from their pale sockets. She puts a hand on my knee and tells me she loves me. The best feeling in the world against the worst: not being able to help your child. I try to remember we're among the world's privileged, low budget and all. The children in warzones with their shattered selves, fragments of flesh, marrow—what happens to capillaries?—image of a father trying to piece his daughter back together. Fear there's no answer. Vaughn starts hacking again. She lifts her head, I grab the tupperware and move it under her. The easy foods we fed her today—oatmeal, crackers, Jell‑o—compiled into liquidy greenish goo. She asks for a paper towel to wipe her mouth, I fetch them from the bathroom, tear off a sheet. She wipes her mouth and hands it back to me. I crumple it in my left hand, seal it away. She has wriggled to a lower spot in her bed. I rub her back. I sing her a lullaby:

               Making your way in the world today
               takes everything you've got.
               Taking a break from all your worries
               sure would help a lot.
               Wouldn't it be nice to get away?
               Sometimes you want to go—

She interrupts and asks me to sing the one "with the girl and the pretty dress." It takes me a second to remember what she's talking about. We had gone through a phase a few months ago, when during a bath, or maybe after one, drying her off with her purple towel, I half-consciously sang the opening to The Doors' song "Running Blue." She latched onto it immediately, asking me to sing the four lines over and over, for weeks and weeks. Though after the first spontaneous singing I realized I had to change the word "dead" to something else.

               Poor Otis, lost and gone,
               Left me here to sing his song.
               Pretty little girl with the red dress on—
               Poor Otis, lost and gone.

It's a short ditty, and after a few times around I try to think of another song, maybe a little more soothing, and that I still remember the words to. But Vaughn says she saw something black fly through the room. "Did you see it?" she asks. "No," I say. "How big was it?" I ask, imagining a Grim Reaper-type thing. "Small," she says, "like a bug." "Like a fly?" I ask. "Yes, like a fly. There it goes again. I think it went into the closet." I look around, squinting because I don't have my glasses on, but I don't see, or hear, anything. There've been very few flies in the house this summer, not like last year. "Maybe it came in through the holes in my wall," she says. "You mean the vent in your ceiling?" "Yes, the vent." "I don't think so. That's for the air conditioner. I haven't seen any bugs coming in through there." "Well, maybe, they can go in there," she says. "Maybe," I say. Our breathing's silent but in sync. The air light as our eyes are heavy. I settle into a lullaby.

               Carry me, caravan, take me away—
               Take me to Portugal, take me to Spain.
               Andalusia, with fields full of grain,
               I have to see you again and again.

               Take me, Spanish caravan,
               Yes, I know you can.

               Trade winds find galleons lost in the sea.
               I know where treasure is waiting for me:
               Silver and gold in the mountains of Spain.
               I have to see you again and again.

               Take me, Spanish caravan,
               Yes, I know you can.

Vaughn's eyes are closed, though she's not quite asleep. I kiss her on her hair, on the back of her skull. I want her to live forever.


 

strange bug, etc.

Been a tough week for writing. Vaughn picked up some strange bug in Maine where she seems fine all day but wakes up in the middle of the night and throws up three or four times. Dash had it, too, the last night in Maine, and then he had, you know, that other digestive issue for most of this week. Took them both to the doctor Monday and the dr. said wait it out. Called him on Wednesday and he said call him back on Saturday if we need to. Dash did finally seem to be over it today, but if Vaughn yacks again tonight, it'll be off to the doctor again tomorrow.
      —•—
Tuesday night at work I got a call from KC saying it was our anniversary. Not your stereotypical wife-nagging-hub call. Nope, we both forget the day. Every year for four years so far. Probably something to do with being together for like seven years before that. Also maybe that we both primarily look at it as a good excuse to go out to eat. So today Meme watched the kids, and KC and I went out for lunch at the Cookhouse. KC had the lemon-butter grilled salmon, horseradish mashed potatoes, and coleslaw; I had the lemon-butter grilled salmon, horseradish mashed potatoes, and a salad. There's a reason we're together I guess. Conversation was mostly about the kids. KC mentioned a really interesting take, intertextual, on one of the Harry Potter characters (I haven't read the books at all; she tells me about them, then when the movie hits we check it out). She asked if I'd been writing political poems lately because the various notes she's seen around the house are mostly political. Not really, I tell her. No more than usual. Not as much as I'd like, perhaps. She told me how she tried some gelato they now have at the bakery on the green. We considered stopping there on our way home, but it was getting late, meaning close to the time I'd have to leave for work, and I wanted a little more time to spend with Vaughn. We'll go with her when she's feeling better. Back home, Meme, Vaughn, and I played a game of Crazy 8's that just wouldn't end. It went on so long, I ended up getting into work just on time: the latest I've gotten there in months. Vaughn won the game, just as KC was about to take my place.

Over the hills and into the spider

"Over the hills and into the spider," Vaughn says as she scribbles on her drawing pad. "Over the hills and into the spider," I repeat as I stop to stand behind her. "Don't tell my story," she instructs me, barely looking up from her little chair and table in the kitchen. In the living room, KC's holding Dash and swaying to "Sunday," borrowing from my bag of tricks. Out the dining room window I notice the mail truck is stopped at the neighbor's house past ours. It's still raining out. Our mailbox still has a hole. I walk back to my desk in the back room and sit down. Flip through Google News, then Google Reader. Vaughn skips into the back room. "Can we play a game?" she asks, then without waiting for an answer says, "I want to play Go Fish." "Sure," I say, "as soon as Mommy gets Dash asleep." We step quietly toward the living room and peak in. KC's already heading upstairs to set Dash down in his crib. Vaughn and I get out the set of card games Meme bought for her on vacation. KC heads out for this week's supplementary trip to the grocery store. Vaughn's favorite Fish card is the Pool Shark. She collects all four and we place them down next to her other sets. After she wins, we break out Crazy 8's. I shuffle up and deal, help Vaughn organize her cards, then organize mine. We both hold a Crazy 8 with a big, blue spider grinning at the five cards in his cartoon hands.

The Bridgewater Fair, 2007

                Vaughn showing Dash her new "tattoo"

Heading to the Bridgewater Fair, we have to drive like a mile-and-a-half around the fairgrounds to find the soccer field where we're supposed to park. When we finally get there we actually get a spot all the way up on the baseball field, right next to the pitcher's mound, nice and easy to remember. We unload our stuff, our kids, and head in the direction we saw others head. A woman calls out to us from a school bus: she's trying to fill more seats before shuttling folks right to the ticket booth. We think probably not, what with the stroller and all. KC asks her how far it is. "About a quarter mile," she says. I shake my head; we keep walking on. There are about a half dozen buses here—spewing their exhaust into the air because of a quarter mile? I shake my head. Eight bucks a pop for KC and me. Vaughn and Dash are free. "It smells like animals," Vaughn says. Smells like shit, I think. The first thing we see is an area roped off around some antique machines. One of them generates a mini waterfall. All of them spewing more exhaust into the air. "I'd rather smell the animals," KC says. We head over to the large white tent where the sheep are. Vaughn wants to see the black sheep. They're in the other aisle; we slowly make our way through the crowd. She says "Hi" to the black sheep, stares at them for a while. I wonder what the heck all the adults without children are doing here looking at the sheep. Make room for my kids you jerks. A sheep is bleating loudly. "I want to see the one whose baaing," she says. We follow the sound to end of the aisle. There's a white sheep being sheared. Face held still in some metal contraption. Beheheh, she bleats, mournfully, as if trying to reclaim whatever dignity she can.
      —•—
After the sheep, we head to the rabbit tent. But Vaughn's not too interested in the rabbits—she saw Uncle Joe's neighbor's two rabbits up close last week. Instead, the crowing of roosters at the other end draws her over there. We talk to a few of the roosters, but spend more time checking out the muscovy, and then listening to the very talkative African goose.
      —•—
We move on to another tent with a couple of large black horses, 1,600 pounders. They're busy eating and mostly we see their big behinds. On the other end of the tent is a small calf and a young bull. Vaughn takes to the cow, affectionately naming him Long Horns. I start to explain that the emblem on the hat I usually wear is for a college football team called the Longhorns, but I quickly realize that's much less interesting than the bull itself. And the next tent down is a whole long tent full of cows. She's really into the cows today.
      —•—
KC and Vaughn get a soft serve ice cream; we sit and they eat. Dash is good through all of this, taking in the scene, the crowds, the cooking smells, the exhaust smells, the carnival rides and game booths. Finally we head over to what was Vaughn's favorite activity last year at the fair: the sandboxes filled with dried-out corn. The boxes are crowded and Vaughn is shy. I point out places where she can squeeze in and start playing, but she's wary of the other kids. Finally, two girls, who look a bit old to be playing in corn, shake off and leave, and Vaughn gets in. She takes a shovel and fills a bucket, pats it smooth, then dumps it, and does it all over again. One boy gets really upset when his grandfather tells him it's time to go. The boy throws corn all over, flails his arms, has to be carried out. Later, a girl whose mother tells her it's time to go is met with screaming and violent whipping of the head back and forth. Vaughn won't be keen on leaving either. I think maybe they shouldn't have this attraction. I tell Vaughn we have to go soon. She says she doesn't want to. She has "finished" her most recent bucket filling. I tell her one more and then we're going. She scoops and fills, scoops and fills, and before too long smoothes out the top. She dumps it out, stands up, shakes off any pieces of corn caught in her dress, and reaches her hands up toward me. I picker her up and put her down where she can put her purple clogs back on. We head out with KC and Dash toward the women's room.
      —•—
One more thing to do before we go. We wander around and finally find the face and arm painting place. Most of the designs cost $2 or $3. Vaughn picks out the Little Mermaid, which is $7. KC talks her out of that. Vaughn's next choice is a unicorn, also $7. Lucky for us, Vaughn sees a heart in the $2 section, and she decides that's what she really wants. When the heart's dried on her arm, Vaughn asks us not to wash it out tonight. We tell her if she stays clean, we can do a sponge bath tonight and make sure the heart doesn't wash away.
      —•—
On our way out, Vaughn and KC cut through the tent where Long Horns is kept so Vaughn can say goodbye.

The eye bends the

The eye bends the horizon to see it. Nearly bereft of objects, the horizon, old professor, is not--not quite--a straight line. Long-bow horizon, arrow eye. A lighthouse to the periphery north at the end of a sleeping spine of rocks. Masts, dendrites, or a bit of spider web stuck in a corner. Sand-whipping wind over the beach late morning. Feet anchored below the ankles in the shallow surf, I hold Dash's hatted head close to my chest. The looking's slow, slow as words creeping through, into. Ocean sky. What's that? A kiss. KC lifts Vaughn by the arms to help her jump the waves. Colleen with Antonio, reckless boy, smashing the water with his three-year-old feet and shins. Rob's shaved head like a second sun against the dark marine: he seems to be the only one on this stretch of beach fully in the ocean, swimming this windy almost-chilly morning. Vaughn has fun until an almost-big wave surprises her and she decides she's had enough. There's a middle-aged couple playing bocce ball; and a very young couple, twenty yards apart, tossing a football; a father digging a big ol' hole, it's up to his waist, for his son with people gathered around; J.J. building a mountain of a sand castle complete with moat. Vaughn runs far ahead of us, eager to tell Meme about the water. A couple of women, older, cross in front of KC and me; they're watching Vaughn, smiling. As we get near our spot on the beach, I see beyond us in the rougher sand, another little girl and her parents walking among a dozen or so ring-billed gulls. The girl is trying to give them something; I don't think it's food. A shell? A rock? I look around and realize there are almost as many gulls as people here today. I hand Dash to KC. Not far to my right, a gull, disappointed that whatever he just pecked at wasn't food, keeps moving along: An eye on the ground, an eye on me; an eye on the ground, an eye on me. Vaughn leaves with Meme to collect shells and rocks. KC nurses Dash in Colleen and Rob's tent. I don't consider it odd that Dash's bathing suit and swimmy diaper have left my T-shirt wet even though he didn't go in the water. It's just a wetness that I'm sitting with, like sun screen, as I stare out at the browns and greens and whites and blues. Objects, I guess. Words? Mmm.

Drove the night

Drove the night to Maine. Rainbow north of I-84 just past Hartford. Old Testament longings, belongings--what Vaughn packed in her frog backpack that we let her pack for herself: fuzzy yellow weed flower, shrivelled; Jakers coloring book & fresh pack of Crayola crayons; her orange calculator; her frog calculator; yellow fork from her plastic kitchenette set; address book/notepad; small, rainbow-colored basketball; little sheep figurine; two post-its with "notes" on them; Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds, which I hadn't realized she packed when I said "Oh, we should have brought the bird book." Light traffic, cruising just above sea level, eighty-five under tunnels, over bridges (50+% chance of faultiness) into sunshower, a small mass of dark clouds displace the earlier backlit clouds--old cellulite of clouds on the horizon. Stop at Old Sturbridge to pee, stretch back, snack on granola bars and raisins, gulp bottled water under moving clouds, then quick back on the road, into the night. A couple hours into this trip and kids strangely still awake when a half-hour drive's enough to knock them out. Through the road construction, bumpy surface, glump-glump tires, high road noise of the Civic, lane shifts ahead just around the bend, Dash throws up, "Projectile vomit," KC says, keeping an eye on him as I slow to sixty and get over to the right lane in case we need a quick exit from this shoulderless stretch. Sour milk smell fills the car, we lower the windows, pushing on--O puddle of puke. We pull off into the next rest stop. Vaughn's finally conked out. KC and I clean the car seat with baby wipes, but we know there'll be no ridding of the smell tonight. Light sleeper like his mom, gets carsick like his mom. Just hope he keeps eating his veggies like his mom, not like me and Vaughn. Long second stretch of the ride up into Maine, Dash's whimpers alternating with his quick loud little noises, punctuating silences. O hour of nothing with your black trees, heavy lights, and heavier eyelids. Wipers on, wipers off; wipers on, wipers off. The exits in Connecticut come one right after the other but not here in Maine. Finally, we reach the exit we need, take a few turns until we're on the Post Road and find the condos where we'll be staying. Meme and Aunt Colleen are waiting for us. No parking spaces open; they say "OK to park on the grass." Vaughn wakes up and Meme carries her inside. Vaughn bounces up and down on the air mattress on the floor. We say "Quiet, your cousins are sleeping." Dash crawls all over the mattress getting himself briefly stuck under the coffee table pushed against the wall. It takes a while but finally everyone settles down. I start off on the sofa; KC, Vaughn, and Dash on the mattress. But Vaughn wants me next to her so I try the floor, and soon I'm squeezing onto the mattress. Dash gets his third or fourth wind and starts crawling all over the place again. Vaughn wants me to get between them so I move inside and she slides to the end. Then Dash crawls over me and KC follows him and I end up on the other end. Dash keeps bopping everyone on the head and laughing so KC moves up to the sofa with him, leaving Vaughn and me on the mattress. We decide to play rock-scissors-paper. We can barely see so we have to push our hands together to see who wins. We play the best of seven. I take the first "throw" with rock-breaks-scissors. The second throw is a paper-paper tie. After that Vaughn wins the next four throws doing something she had never done before: changing her throw each time. "Let's play word association," she says, and so we do. "Dog," I say; "song," she says. "Moon," I say; "flower," she says. "Sun," I say; "rain," she says. "Cloud," I say; "rain," she says. "Seagull," I say; "cardinal," she says. After this, the game devolves into nonsense syllables I can't quite recall. Soon we are tossing and turning ourselves to sleep on the lumpy air mattress. I wake up frequently with dreams I think I'll recall in the morning but of course I won't. I remember only the one bit of a dream where I was with my family in some kind of lodge with a deck out back and a sliding glass door, and pacing out there was Jordan Davis, someone I've never met and only know of as one of the editors of The Hat and someone who who written some poems I’ve enjoyed, and anyway he's out there, looking like D.H. Lawrence, wanting to kill me, but only in a nonchalant "maybe I will, maybe I wont" kind of way.