Relics

I have several half-baked blog posts written up, but this is the one burning on my mind. 

Andy and I have been packing up our apartment and moving to a new townhouse.  Every now and again, I run across a relic from some memory or another--maybe from when Mike lived with us for a year, or the infamous cream of tarter story that Andy will never live down, or remembering when we had just moved in and played a game with some friends that involved one of my characters being a possessed food processor ("KitchenFiend," with special ability Three Step Salsa).  More often, though, the relics I'm finding are relating back to--well, I don't have a really good word on what to call it, actually, but I'll stick with "the first year and a half of our marriage."  That rough patch, where my health was our major concern.

I found Hibiclens soap.

This is the soap that I had to use on my open wounds and ostomoies or the night before another surgery.  It was safe for those very sensitive and vulnerable places, coating in a  red veneer.  More often I referred to it as "the gas station soap" because that's what it smelled like.  I threw this out with some extra force.

I found all three of my Mayo Clinic pillows.

I made it a point to bring one of these home from each Mayo surgery.  I can point to this and tell you which parts I don't have anymore and what is particularly angry still.  I referred to any one of these as "Little Red."  They were also functional:  whenever someone has had surgery on their abdomen, the most dreadful thing can be a cough or a sneeze, a violent wracking of the body when all the sutures are trying to hold together.  The idea was to hold the pillow against the body for laughter, coughs, as a pain coping mechanism, etc., so that the compression against your stomach would help counter sudden movement.  When my kidneys were starting to quit from all of the antibiotics and the stress of infection, I even used it walking around.  Plus, you had to give yourself a hug as part of the process, which was kind of nice to have anyway.

Speaking of my kidneys stressing out, I found the wrappings for my legs.

[No picture for this one, but just think longer, looser ace bandanges]

My kidneys really were shutting down, as in they were discussing dialysis as a possibility if they didn't start leveling out soon.  We couldn't leave for home until my creatinine and a few other indicators came back down.  My body was breaking in a few ways at that point, the dissolving of that tissue around the internal sutures on my colon, well, that mean there was a lot of infection floating around in my abdominal cavity, something that can never fully be cleared, frankly, as we still see in the random infections that pop up.  There's only so much the body can take.  What this meant in terms of other physical symptoms though was that my kidneys were no longer shunting fluid around like I needed them to.  My legs and body swelled to some ridiculous proportions.  That swelling pulled against my sutures.  I literally would roll to one side (pillows propped underneath me to keep me rolled but not too far), sleep a couple of hours, and then need to be rolled to the other--in that time, one side of my body was quite literally heavier, where the fluid had sunk down to the low end in a doughy mass.  That weight pulled on every fresh, healing part of me, worse than the normal after-surgery stiffness.  I threw these out immediately. 

I found one complete ostomy bag change kit.

This one I kept on purpose.  It is a tangible part of some of the most horrific moments of my life.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about it.  I don't know why, exactly, but I know that it's very important to keep it.  Also, with it I found my Mayo Clinic Commemorative Plate, this being the small sandwich plate when accidentally stole from them but keep as a trophy.

We cleared out all of the furniture and stood in the empty living room, Andy and I.  For months, I lived on a small spot of that apartment, only moving from couch to bathroom and back.  I remember trying to stop my ostomy from oozing everywhere one day while I was still determined to be able to take care of myself for a couple of hours.  I remember breaking down into tears in the bathroom, frustrated that I couldn't get the bag to stick correctly.  I remember how we had to stuff pillows so that I could finally sleep in our own bed again.  I see a blur of faces of the people who came to visit me or stay with me for a while, with a warmth in my heart.  I see Andy trying to handle his own frustrations with our situation, managing a similar but still different kind of helplessness.

In that empty apartment, we saw a place where we had had some of the worst experiences of our lives.  I want so very much to leave it there in that space, to abandon it there with a handful of nails, fuzz, and indents in the carpet.  And at the same time, I know that I will keep it, partly because I haven't figured out the best way to carry it, so the weight can still chafe, but also in that Andy and I both grew stronger for the experience.  The good and the bad are all a part of us, the obscenely bad where we made through with the help of those that love us, communication, and a whole lot of grit.  There were some very good memories in our old apartment, our home of five years. 

It's time to pack up the pieces we want to keep and establish something new.

The Physical Aspects of our Trip

Some people think that you need to be a certain age before conversation can settle fully around body parts and bodily functions by means of greeting.

Well.  My experiences have certainly aged me in some ways, where I have as little shame talking about my bowel as a random eighty-year-old woman on the bus might have about her kidney function.  

And here's the thing:  I know that many of you have been praying specifically for my body over the course of this trip.  I have two things to say to these people.  Firstly, thank you, thank you, thank you; the compassion that you demonstrate by acknowledging these very real variables in my day-to-day life truly touches me and makes it difficult to type as I tear up.  We've been addressing this unmet need for compassion in therapy, and I'm trying to find better ways to ask for it or to encourage it further when I see it.  Thank you again.  Secondly, I feel that I owe these persons an update as to how the trip went within this sort of perspective.

How my body might handle the changes and stresses of the trip was one of the most important factors for me when planning the trip itself.  My greatest fear, as I've mentioned before, is that my body would collapse in the middle of the trip and wind up in the hospital or otherwise inhibit my ability to do things, meaning that I would be in Norway but only come away with memories of the hotel room having to rest through all of that precious time.  The anxiety around that latter option was very real because it was highly plausible; the other, well, I have an active imagination and still know how to say "hospital" and "doctor" in Norwegian, just in case.

Now when I mention those fears, there is an important piece of information to help mention:  one of them happened.

I have an abscess that is in such a position that we can never deal with it fully, aside from more or less taking out the rectum (i.e. have an ostomy for the rest of my life).  I have a permanent fistula (Crohn's patients are prone to these, where the body makes weird little connections between different places) that happens to connect between this abscess and out through the skin, so it does drain on its own.  However, sometimes the abscess gets a little out of control, where my energy levels plummet, my appetite goes, pain around that abscess and fistula, and a certain kind of pressure from the abscess itself that is a different kind of painful.  Historically, this has meant a round of antibiotics to give my body a leg up.  Please pardon the pun--this knocks me on my ass and it can do so quite suddenly.  

This started flaring up to the point where I was certain it was happening again about three days before our trip.  I made some very assertive calls to my doctor's office and got the antibiotics started.  This lead to two conflicting emotions, one being frustration that once again my body had fallen apart at a rather inopportune time and the other being relief, that it had at least fallen apart at a time I could ask for help, rather than trying to figure out how to get a round of antibiotics going while in a foreign country.  The worst (as far as probabilities) had already happened so I was no longer dreading it.  

Between the medicine kicking in, eating poorly, and the stress of travel, I was a couple shades of miserable for the first three days or so of the trip.  There was a part of me that was very certain that this was going to be as good as it was going to be, that this had been a failed experiment and travel truly was out of my grasp.  And then, things started to turn around.  This isn't to say that there weren't still points where I felt a little blah, but on the whole my optimism started to return and we started to find a schedule, which included eating more often (particularly with all of the added exercise of walking everywhere) and slowly reintroducing carbs to make it easier to find a quick meal once our energy had run down.  

The museum schedules in Norway  for the winter months seemed to be enforcing this idea of stopping for self-care, with most open from between 11-1500 or maybe 1600.  We couldn't cram in too many museums in a day, we slept in, and then we had to find a cafe for a snack anyway around closing time before wandering into some different stores or returning to the hotel for a little while before deciding where we wanted to walk to for supper.  It also helped us keep a good, lazy kind of pace, while still seeing as much as we could.  This did mean we missed out on a few museums, but that gives us yet another reason to go back.

Eventually, we found a good groove, planning out a couple of things to do everyday but allowing the random conversations and wandering around to get lost in the right ways to fill in the gaps between meals, museums, and shopping. 

Around the end, we began to grow tired of being on vacation but certainly not of being in the country.  And I survived it--my body held out and I was also able to enjoy myself. 

"Adventure" might well be something that I can reclaim from Crohn's.  ...but I might have to take a couple more trips to Norway, just to be sure.

By the Elements

Earth

There were a couple of confused looks when we reported to others that back home we had to drive at least five hours in order to get to mountains, that it was terribly flat where we lived.  For further perspective, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) and Swiss have special allotments for skis and ski boots as part of their baggage rules.  Fjords, mountains, actual variance in topography.  We stepped on stone, clay, brick, gritty shoreline, gravel paths.  I recognized shale and granite and was too caught in staring to pull out much more.  I touched a wall from the 16th century with another from the 11th century just on the other side of the barrier.

Fire

There is a concept in Norway called koselig.  This roughly translates to cozy, but there is more weight to it than that.  Hospitality, kindness, warmth, welcome.  This picture was inside of a Sami structure called a Lavvu, with a central stove of bright fire leaking out the gaps and candles.  We had more candlelit dinners in Norway than we've had in the rest of lives together because every cafe and restaurant had at least tea lights at every table.  Shops had standing furnaces or candles outside of their shops to indicate that they were open or a sale was going on.  Fire was everywhere and symbol of welcome, to make people feel at home.  Fire was also a large part of every city's history, in that each was old enough to have seen some great fire or another (or many times), coming together in community to rebuild again. 

Water

We took two trips by boat, once in a ferry from Flåm to Gudvangen and then a larger boat from Bergen to Trondheim.  However, no matter where we were, we were still close to water in some capacity--water flowing down the mountain, an inlet in the fjords, the coast, snow snow snow.  I remember clearly the rumbling beneath my feet and the crunching sounds from the bow of the ferry as we plowed casually through the frozen water on our trip to Gudvangen.  These fjords were carved by glaciers. 

Air

It almost looked like clouds at first, a greyer spot against a dark, clear sky.  And yet here we see evidence of something much, much more.  Hints of color were visible to the naked eye, but the camera was set to see something like what we see in this image here, glorious greens, reds, and a hint of purple.  We drove a couple hours out of Tromsø to find clear skies, actually crossing into Finland for a bit of time in our search.  We found a place with less clouds, but the activity remained minimal--all the more reason to go back one day.  Particles from the sun striking Earth's magnetic field, making invisible components of the air visible and brilliant against the field of stars.

The Road Map

Hey, all!

I've had more than one person ask for it, so here it is:  the following is a day-to-day itinerary of where we are when.  

February 10th
Heading out of Bloomington around 1045.  Our plane leaves O'Hare at 1615.  We'll be in for a long, overnight flight.

February 11th
Arriving in Frankfurt, Germany.  Departing out of Frankfurt to Oslo, Norway.  Collapsing in the hotel room until we forage for food, unless, of course, we're too excited to sit still.

February 12th
Continuing to acclimate to the jetlag, hopefully going to the Royal Palace and seeing Edvard Munch's The Scream (below) and otherwise seeing what happens.  Maybe heading down to Bogstadvein.

February 13th
More random adventures in Oslo (perhaps the Viking Ship Museum) and ending our time there with La Cenerentola at the Oslo Opera House.

February 14th
Big travel day, dropping our luggage off to meet us at the end.  Train from Oslo to Myrdal.  Then a train from Myrdal to Flåm, boat from Flåm to Gudvangen, bus from Gudvangen to Voss, and then a train from Voss to Bergen.  Phew!

February 15th
Thus begins some of our adventuring in Bergen, involving taking the tram to top of the mountain for some scenic views.

February 16th
Another day in Bergen, hopefully including a visit to Grieg's Tomb (you've heard of Edvard Grieg here and here).  We'll end the day getting on a boat, heading off toward Ålesund.

February 17th
I'm on a boat.  I'm on a boat.  (Yay, dated references!)  We'll be stopping in Fløro, Måløy, and Torvik on our way to Ålesund, embarking here at least shortly to wander around the city before spending a second night on the water.

February 18th
Our boat arrives early in the morning at Trondheim, the Capital of the Vikings.  With a name like that, I'm sure at least Andy's beard will fit in just fine.

February 19th
Flying from Trondheim to Tromsø.  We'll have a little bit of time to settle in before a guided tour to hopefully see some of the best views of the Aurora.

February 20th
Day two in Tromsø will end with dog sledding and learning a bit about Sami culture.  I think I also heard mention of reindeer stew. 

February 21st
A day of leisure in Tromsø.  Honestly, I think we might ask the front desk what they recommend. 

February 22nd
Fly from Tromsø to Oslo and stay our last night in Norway.

February 23rd
Fly from Oslo to Zurich, Switzerland, for a brief layover and heading back to O'Hare around 1600, in theory

You'll notice that there is plenty of time in there that don't have a specific activity outlined, where we might have a something for the day but certainly not a minute by minute calibration.  They call it a "self-guided" tour.  All of our travel and lodging (apart from local taxis and buses) is taken care of, but the rest of the time we can fill in with a random adventure or whatever strikes us next.  It's a road map, subject to pit stops, tourist traps, and whatever else. 

Can't wait to see what we'll fill it in with.

Preparing

As of this post today, Andy and I are officially 14 days away from our Norway Trip.  That means, I already have a checklist of everything I want to make sure I have in our carry-on bag, I have all of our vouchers printed off for hotels and other tickets, and I have certainly obsessed about where we will be on which day and when we'll need to be ready, etc.   The latest and greatest in our excitement was buying tickets for La Cenerentola or as I've been referring to it, Cinderella by Rossini.

And you probably at least know Rossini from "Rabbit of Seville."

There was a lot of flailing involved in that purchase, mostly from me, actually, and we did have to purchase from a site that was entirely in Norwegian.  It was oddly exciting to recognize words like "payment" and "continue" without having to pull up a translator.

So here it is.  So close to our goal and our adventure.  And there is a rolling tumult of emotions in my gut.  We promised each other that our fifth anniversary was going to be something big after we survived those first couple of years of marriage, with four surgeries, countless doctor's appointments, and lots of arguing with insurance, not to mention all of the emotional heartache that goes along with it.  We damn-well made it happen.  This involved paying off a fair bit of debt, saving, learning basic Norwegian, but the hardest preparation personally was getting to a better state of health, involving slow, steady healing, a new diet, and finding an exercise routine I could tolerate.  It really did take five years to put this all together.

This trip is symbolic, a stick-it-to-the-man where "the-man" in this case is our situation revolving around my health history.  It is an affirmation of our perseverance as a couple and as individuals (with no small thanks to our AMAZING support system).  This means there's a little bit of pressure to be absolutely amazing, and I've been reminding myself to not build my expectations too high and go along with the adventure instead.  

There are also decisions that we've told ourselves "We'll worry about that after the Norway Trip" that will be waiting for us when we get back.  

There's also that goal-gap, the "I've just finished an amazing book and don't know what to do with my life" kind of depression.  We've been working toward it for so long, it's time to find out what our new dream is.

And most significantly, I'm also terrified that my body is going to fall apart through the travel.  How crushing would it be to finally make it there and then be unable to experience any of it because I have to sequester myself away for rest at every opportunity?  My body is absurdly unpredictable for someone my age, despite all the ways I've learned how to listen to it.  And that stress compounds on itself, meaning that I'm likely to pull out of normal activities for the next couple of weeks, trying to adjust for that best I can.

So I'm ecstatic.  I'm burying myself in the details to cover some of those other anxieties.  And sometimes, that means I have to stop, acknowledge to myself that, yes, I am scared, which then seems to allow me to keep going anyway.  My excitement and my fear are there in equal parts, rolling in my stomach.  Thankfully, both feel at least a little better with some peppermint tea.

14 days.  

Tightrope Down the Middle

Unsurprisingly, Facebook right now is a veritable minefield.  Everyone has an opinion about what is happening in our country right now.  So far, I've tried to walk a difficult line down the middle, pleading that we all try to see from the others' perspective.  For my own peace of mind, though, I need to take a more aggressive stance today.  

I am sick of this idea that name-calling or dismissal is the same as proving your point.  For example:  "Oh, you're just mad that your candidate lost" or "You've been brainwashed by Fox News" or "oh, it's another entitled millennial."  And then walking away as though that somehow clinches your argument and made all of your opponents points and/or feelings invalid.  

Grow the hell up.  

This is not an argument, dismissing someone wholly and completely.  It's all kinds of logical fallacy (Red Herring, Irrelevant Appeals, Ad Hominem, I could go on), and while you might feel momentarily superior, A) that did not win the argument, B) it keeps us further from the truth, C) you've alienated any potential future audience particularly with this group, and D) resorting to these fallacies means that somewhere your argument is not strong enough to carry a point on its own, meaning that you should probably form some more coherent reasons.  

Anyone saying the former, the "You're just mad that Hillary Clinton lost" or "Trump won; GET OVER IT" crowd:  

Yes.  We know.  And while there might still be some frustration there, that does not mean that everything else said after the fact is stemming purely from that frustration.  Obama won both elections cleanly and that did not stop people from criticizing him--why was that okay and criticizing Trump magically not okay?  How did you feel when you were told "you lost; just get over it?"  I've had this twice now, from Hillary Clinton supporters telling me to fall in line when she beat out Bernie and now Donald Trump supporters trying to tell me to do the same.  I'm sorry if/when someone else did this to you, but that does not make it okay to use this as your primary point.  People have real concerns about this transition, again, having accepted that this is what happened.  

Myself, the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act and in particular the pre-existing condition clause has me scared for myself and others.  I know first-hand how much maintenance medication can cost and how I feel even trying to stretch out that interval a week, let alone more if that's what you're trying to do to stretch your dollar.  If you cannot pay for your medication because you were suddenly thrown off of your health insurance, that means that you're not taking it as prescribed, which can be dangerous for all kinds of reasons--in my case, it would mean slowly disintegrating until I could not longer work and then fall into complete bankruptcy while my health is being held for ransom.  Perhaps you think I'm being melodramatic, but if you know my history, you know that I've seen the numbers and run them through my head more than once, what I would have to do to survive without health insurance.  Are you going to tell me that my fears are completely unfounded, when I have a damn good idea of what it's like to waste away to Crohn's?  Even if you retort with some logic, that this clause would ultimately be saved, etc., I still have that fear and it helps me to at least have that acknowledgement that I'm afraid.  Disregarding that entirely by saying "get over it" certainly doesn't help.  Why would that help anyone else? 

As for other concerns, people might be looking for red flags, sure, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any.  Everyone has a bias and is looking for information to feed that bias, but that doesn't mean that there is no evidence.  Donald Trump is a textbook narcissist.  That is why a great many people are concerned.   

Are there bitter people out there right now, working through their own mourning process?  Sure.  Does that invalidate all of the points that they are making?  Absolutely not.

Anyone saying the latter, the "You're just regurgitating Fox News" crowd:  

I don't care if they're quoting Hannity directly--clearly they at least agree with some of these ideas.  And there are reasons why.  Just saying someone is brainwashed (true or otherwise) disregards these reasons and their feelings.  I think that this phenomena has contributed to where we are now, certainly:  there were and are a LOT of people that feel disregarded and ignored, enough that they were willing to overlook blatant racism and misogyny to just simply be heard.  What is so important to people that they are willing to overlook other warning signs?  Have you asked or listened for the answer?  And why silence more people in the same way?  

I find this tactic almost as offensive as "You're just an entitled millennial" or "You're a woman; what do you know?"  Again, taking an opinion or characteristic about a person to disregard their whole argument gets us nowhere. 

What have you done to help broaden their news base?  Have you been constantly critical of what they're doing or have you made some neutral suggestions?  Yes, there is a way to introduce new ideas without being an ass about it or belittling their choices.  Find out what these concerns are instead of writing them off.  Allow people who feel that have been ignored to freely speak again.  That's where we'll find common ground.  I'm going to say this again and plainly:  these people have legitimate concerns, too.

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So what does this all mean?  I'll start with "Stop trying to take shortcuts out of arguments just because someone challenged something you said."  Facebook is not actually full of only people who agree with you, believe it or not, and freedom of speech is not only for people that agree with you.  If you're going to voice a thought publicly, chances are someone is going to view things a different way.  If you cannot handle that responsibility, reconsider posting.  If you're going to instigate a conversation, have a conversation rather than a shouting match. 

Seriously, at least keep the name calling out of it.

Tips for Sticking to Your Weight-Loss Resolutions

Hey, all!  The gym that I go to is certainly seeing its influx of new people with the start of another year, and I have see more than one person I know remark about promises they have made to themselves for the coming year regarding their weight and health.  Last year, I happened to have a very successful experience, shedding about 45 pounds and otherwise moving toward a better health standard--while I'm not an expert, I have a few things to share with you about the experience.

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1.  When it comes to exercise, find something you like, something realistic
What I mean by that is that if cross-fit doesn't excite you, don't do cross-fit.  Also, don't expect to be an Olympian triathlete in a couple of months.  Me?  I like Zumba and yoga.  Andy likes racquetball or something that involves a game.  But maybe you don't feel comfortable jumping into an hour long aerobic routine--then start with water aerobics instead or making sure you get on a bike for fifteen minutes a day or going for a walk, building up to something larger over time instead of killing yourself two weeks in.

2.  Have others hold you accountable
A sticker chart works wonders for some people, but maybe not everyone.  Have a friend politely ask you every now and again how your progress is going.  Find a workout buddy.  Sometimes, it would be as simple as telling my Zumba instructor "see you again on Thursday!"  Now, she probably wouldn't say anything about it to me later, but making that statement aloud was a self-edification that held me to that promise.

3.  Reward yourself reasonably
I did not reward myself for sticking to my keto diet each day with a big ol' plate of pasta.  I did (and still do) grab a fun-size chocolate something out of Andy's candy chest at work once in a while.  I told myself that I could have one cheat day a week, where I didn't follow my carb count precisely.  This cheat day could be pizza or it could be a catch-all for a day I might have not realized how many carbs are in kidney beans, meaning that my cheat day was also my safety net.  I've gotten to the point now where I'm so used to the diet I don't use my cheat days as often as I used to. 

I like to reward myself with some retail therapy every now and again, particularly as some of my clothing just doesn't seem to fit right anymore.  For anyone planning on losing weight, I strongly suggest that you find articles of clothing that fit you along the way instead of waiting to go buy a whole new wardrobe once you have achieved some magic, shining goal-weight.  Have at least some clothing that makes you feel good wherever you are now.

4.  Track yourself
I went with MyFitnessPal.  It's a free site/phone app combination where you can track everything that you take in and what calories you "get back" from exercising.  There are a lot of things pre-programmed in from all kinds of restaurants and products.  Even recipes from my main keto site have already been added by someone.  Before you make any changes, try getting a baseline of what your intake actually is--this will be revealing for its own sake.  Whether you use an app or a journal or whathaveyou, document what you're doing.

5.  Consider your Metrics
How are you going to measure your progress?  Is it some particular weight or dress size or running a mile in a set time?  Not only should you set an end goal, but you should also set some supplementary goals.  My goal was "improvement of health," which was (and is) a very vague goal.  It was easy to get discouraged without defining how I was going to measure that.  So I kept track of how I was feeling.  I kept track of what I was eating and staying within my macros.  I kept track of my overall endurance for how much I could do in a day.  I took a before picture, and it was one of the best decisions I made for myself--it was much harder to argue with a picture. 

Maybe the numbers are not reflecting on the scale as fast as you'd like, but there might be a pair of pants fitting looser, visible muscle tone peaking out, a workout routine that doesn't exhaust you as much as it used to, etc.  Really consider what standards you're holding yourself to and include more than one mode of measuring.

Additionally, how often you measure is worth considering.  With my keto goals, I found that considering my carb count as a week instead of a day to day made it easier to forgive myself if I went a little over--I balanced out somewhere else in the week.  In other words, I entered in my calorie and carb counts daily, but considered them holistically.  With my weight (again, the perk rather than the goal of my plan), I choose to only weigh myself once a week or, frankly, when I felt that I had lost weight and wanted to record a positive number in MyFitnessPal. 

Is there a time limit and, if so, why?  For me, I wanted to be in a better state of health before our trip to Norway--I had about a year to be "better."  Is your timeline realistic?  Do you give yourself enough flexibility for life to get in the way on occasion or for those inevitable plateaus that happen from time to time?


6.  Be honest with yourself
This is easily the hardest part. 

I've been frustrated before with my weight, that I had been trying to lose weight but didn't get anywhere.  When I really look at the numbers, when I really look at what I was doing, I wasn't putting my full effort into it.  It was very hard to admit that to myself.  I hadn't actually committed to trying, just a series of half-assed ideas that didn't stay for longer than two weeks.

That means reporting the good and bad, putting in the mini-chocolate bar in my calorie counts and knowing that if I didn't make it to the gym one day I would try to make it up on another day.  Acknowledging where I fell short, and then moving on.  Acknowledging, too, when I was doing well.

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And stick with it, my friends.  Even if your resolution only lasts a month, a month's worth of being better to yourself is still a good thing.  The change that I saw happened over the course of a year, meaning I plateued here and there, but I stuck through those times.  

Also, I still don't tire of people telling me that I look great and neither will you.