Separation Anxiety and Other Brain Farts

I hate getting dumped.

Its disheartening to realise that people reprioritise and you don't make the cut. I don't take it like an adult. I turn into petulant child and take cheap shots.

Losing friends bites ass.

I'm moving on Monday, And so I ordered a new luggage set, set to arrive on ....yup, you guessed it...MONDAY.

I need to stop blogging when I'm in weird moods, but of recent, it seems those are the only times I can sit still long enough to write anything.

My birthday was great. My mom came with my sister and we didnt fight ONCE. She took me shopping and spent waay too much money on me and cooked for me and cleaned my apartment and did all the other great things that mothers do, like pee with the bathroom door open.

On my actual birthday, a coworker took me out to lunch. Then on tuesday, a whole bunch of coworkers took us out to lunch for the June birthdays and one of them gave me $50. I was very touched. I have to remember to send her a present and invite her to my graduation.

Gosh, I hope I don't do that and she feels pressure ot fly all the way out there for one day of smiling with strangers she has never met! Okay. Scratch that. Just the present and the occasional email.

I adore Nelly Furtado.

Lately...

...I have had the strangest feeling

With no vivid reason here to find

-- Stevie

So much for friends. No one wants to help me move. SO I guess I will be driving 8 hours 34 minutes by myself. Maybe its biting myfingers to spite myhand [or however that saying goes] but I don't think I have a choice. I will not grovel. it's not that serious. I hate people having the audacity to tell me how much of a bad idea it is to drive all the way by myself, but refuse to help in the same breath.

Even more distateful is " I would have loved to help if I could"

Why cant you?

Silence or nervous laugh. Take your pick.

I'm so irritated that I'm planning to go and get packing boxes tomorrow and start packing my shit up.

I truly am very hurt. Because I'm still the idiot that will go out on my last limb and drink garri for a month, because you needed me to fly in to help you tie your shoe lace.

Okay, that is unfair to say no one will help.

Someone did agree to help.

Then asked if he would be getting some ass as part of the deal. Not in those words, but the message was clear.

And no, he isn't Nigerian.

Listening to Glenn Lewis

Tagged....again

I honestly hate these tag things. I never read them unless they are written by people I adore. Unfortunately, more and more people are growing on me. Here goes...

Accent – Weird mix of "depends on who I'm talking to". Im a lingual chameleon. Im waiting for the day the chinese delivery guy slaps me for saying "tenk you, kamagain" after he delivers my fly lice.
Booze – Im a cocktail girl, with a strangely high tolerance for alcohol. Usually Hypnotiq and Vodka [I like the pretty blue color] but more recently, Black Forest Martini [mmmmm, chocolate cherry goodness!]
Chore I hate – Dishes. I will marry the man that will buy me a dishwasher.
Dogs/Cats – Cats. I once saw a bumper sticker that said "Dogs have owners. Cats have staff". I adore their independence. Very unlike those suck-ups people call dogs.
Essential electronics – The pod [Oh Steve! you have made a crack addict of me!] and the PC.
Favourite Perfume – Givenchy Very Irresistible.....although my new Vera Wang is growing on me [eat your heart out, Mona!]
Gold/Silver – Gold
Hometown – Ile-Ife
Insomnia – Never heard of it. I can sleep for 12 hours straight.
Job Title – Bum
Kids – None that I had noticed.....I KNEW I couldnt have made that mess myself!
Living arrangements – Weird roomate who walks around wearing a full Kimono, which would be normal if she was Japanese. She is white.
Most admired trait – The ability to raise one eyebrow. Or whistle. I could never do either.
Number of sexual partners – Now when you say sexual, you really mean people who don't run in the opposite direction when i come down the street, right?
Overnight hospital stays – Too many. The nurses all knew me by name.
Phobia – The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. So why cant I watch scary movies?
Quote – "Not trynna be your woman, pimp bones in my body" [Im sorry, i had to think of something fast]
Religion – Christian
Siblings – 4 sisters. Yes, I am a middle child, and president of the Middle Child Syndrome Anonymous
Time I usually awake – 7:30 when one of my employed friends thinks its funny to wake me up to stare into space for a few hours.
Unusual talent – Pissing people off without trying.
Vegetable I refuse to eat –Cauliflower. UUUGH!
Worst habit – I correct bad english. It irks me.
X-rays – I dunno....maybe 4?
Yummy foods I make – I am told i make a mean stew. *shrug* I love my beans and corn.
Zodiac sign – Gemini [which will explain the split personalities and the extreme mood swings]

Leaving on a Jetplane

I can barely believe I'm done. I have a few more weeks of hanging around doing nothing planned, but I feel like i should be packing. I'm not excited or dissapointed. I'm strangely....meh.

No emotion.

I need to start making plans. Call Enterprise rent-a-car about picking up a car and dropping it off there. Buy boxes to put my stuff in. Figure out who is driving with me.

I'm a dummy, I should have paid 2 months rent in one fell swoop. I forgot. I wonder if they'll give me my check back, or I just have to write another one.

People are funny. The year is over and no one who promised came to visit. Except Chi. And I dont even think she was one of the people who promised when I got the job.

I'm moving back now, and all the people who promised to help me move back home aren't picking up their phones. Ha ha.

I guess I need to truly "try it on my own" as I have been singing for the past year. 8 hours 34 minutes, here I come!

Freaky Hi5 Weirdos

Does Hi5 only send friend requests and messages on certian days, or is there a "lets send Tori friend requests and stupid messages" day?

Last wee kit was saturday. I got about 5 friend requests from absolute strangers. It would be one thing if they were all male, but apparently, Im so hot, or so mysterious[ considering there is very little personal information about me on my page], that women want a piece of this too!!!

Im very shallow, so my Hi5 works like this:

• If I actually know you, I will definitely approve you
• If I don't know you, but youre a really hot guy, then I'll approve you..gotta keep the lines of future conversation open :wink:

Everyone else gets the boot. I very very rarely send friend requests to people. And if I do, chances are you are an old friend I lot touch with 10 years ago and I was just so excited to see you're alive and well, and it doesn't hurt you if i remember you are hot/have a hot brother.

anyhow, back to my story. I got the cutest message yesterday.

"hey wassup i propose we skip the hi5 thing the long telephone conversations and everything else in between and just get married ASAP plus i gat lots of naira i cook mow the lawn do laundry and my bedroom skills are off the flipn hook...wut u think??? "

If you ignore the blatant disregard for the rules of the english language, it was funny and sorta refreshing, compared to the usual "I dont know you, Angel, but I know you are the love of my life, and we ought to spend eternity together" messages I usually get.

I must be coming up in the world.

Blogger is Scary

I think that is why my posts are such garbage. I read a few blogs here [as you can see from my side bar] and I think just about everyone on there has had their comment boxes thoroughly raped by spammers.

How absolutely mortifying.

I have no idea what my traffic is on here, nor do I know how many readers I have, but lucky for me, my blog hasnt been "graced"........yet.

I think Xanga is comforting and maybe that is why that blog is years better than this one. I open a fresh editor for a new post and my mind goes blank for fear of getting run over in a drive by comment spam. *shudder*

Funeral [not parking lot] Pimping

Jersey was......strange.

A very good [and grossly underappreciated] friend lost her mother a couple weeks ago so I felw out to New Jersey to see her and attend the memorial service on tuesday [her mom passed in Nigeria, and Graduation is on Sunday].

I truly need to stop whining. And I say that every year when I am graced to witness strength in adversity. She was, of course, very upset about her mom, but she spoke such wisom and strength to me, that I had to say a prayer of "Who am I Lord?"

She is one of those wonderful people who always has a kind word for absolutely everyone. She is an incredibly generous spirit, and I feel awful because she truly was one of those people in college who went out of their way to be a friend. Of all my "friends", she was the only one who made it to my graduation. And she got me a very thoughtful gift [a few months earlier we had been at the mall and i had liked something I couldnt afford to get. She remembered]. I can't remember how many times she called me just to say " hey, Tori, I just cooked...would you like to come over?" when the other people who were my closest friends were in my suite every ten seconds to eat, but never remembered me when it was their turn. [Okay, why is food important? Obviously, because we were broke college student, and every bite needed to stretch].

I am broke as a churchmouse right now, but I am glad I went out there to support her. And it didn't hurt that her cousins are hot.

Okay, that was tacky. But they are hot.

Oh yeah, while I was in college, we went to a wedding together and I met her hot med-student cousin and his hot med-student buddy. Isaw them both again in Jersey and came to find out the hot med-school buddy is going to do his residency at my grad school. What are the chances of that?

This entry sucked balls, but I felt like I owed something.

Xanga is on Hiatus...

...and so I was forced back here.

I'm sorry...I've been AWOL. Xanga is still my first love. She feeds my attention seeking self. I get feedback.

That is not true, because I don't even check my sitemeter on Xanga. Hmmm....I wonder what my traffic looks like.

Here, I have no idea if I have one reader or twenty.

I suspect one [lol]. Most people know the good stuff is on xanga.

I am falling deeper and deeper in love with The Tony Rich Project. I got Pictures yesterday, and now I'm on a mission to get Birdseye and Resurrection. I've always adored Words, but I'm rediscovering it and loving every second.

In other news, I'm jamming to ElDee and his Long Time Coming CD, and I'm loving Do ti e:

There's a party at the club, je a lo si be
Its strictly IV but we don't care
I got a bottle of Hen and Courvoisier
And if you wanna bounce us, a ma do ti e

I'm homesick. I've been listening to Naija music like its about to be banned like in the Prohibition. I swear, there was a time I never touched Nigerian music. I'd hear it in passing, but would never burn a CD, let alone put the tracks on my PC.

Now? I Have a little over 3.5GB of contemporary naija music on the 'pod, and a whole rack of old stuff [I'm not homesick enough to listen to the Obey yet, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to collect it in anticipation for the bug to hit :wink: ]

oh yeah, check out the ElDee "I go yarn" video. It's rather cheesy, especially with the solitary tear running down his cheek, and he used a lot of general african hunger footage, and some american homeless people footage and I thought that was out of place, but then, I figure the song is meaningful for all of Africa, so I'm willing to overlook that.....but the US footage? ehhh.

Anyhow, I'm talking too much. Watch it for yourself here.

Nigeria, We hail Thee!

This was adapted from an email I sent to a buddy. He said something about naija men and how they seem to be the brunt of every joke, the bad guy, the Tony Montana to all of our sensibilites. We call them uncouth, liars, Cheats, 419-ers and a host of other horrifying names and my friend asked the question "is it really the naijamans fault?"

My overlong response [lol.....the email I was responding to was about 3 lines long] was:

If you pay a policeman too little to feed his family, how do you want him to survive?

I hate people hating on the police for taking bribes etc when they don't realise that it's not their fault, it's our fault. You want a man to protect the peace when he has no home to shelter his family?

A boy goes to school and gets a degree in chemical engineering, but cannot get a job anywhere then we get angry that he cheated some greedy SOB who wanted $2,000,000 of Abacha's money that he didnt work for?

Unfortunately women dont get accused of the same crimes, because women in Nigeria don't do that. Our society is so sick that it is much easier for a naija girl to find a rich man who has abandoned his real family [his son is probably the one sending 419 emails, because his father said his mother was a witch and refused to continue paying school fees] and is willing to pay for her housing, food clothing, and whatever else she may need for a little loving on the side.

And her poor policeman father cannot open his mouth and ask her not to do it because he knows that she is paying her 4 younger siblings school fees and putting food on the table which he couldn't dream of doing because he hasn't been paid in 3
months.

*sigh*

I am not my Hair

or this skin or that degree or that *cringe* bank balance or these 3687 mp3s on my iPod.

Although, I am rather proud of that last one.

My hair has bothered me so much, that I had a dream last night about dying and being readopted by my family [ or something like that] and anyhow, my natural mother was half white so the resulting me was the exact same bautiful dark skinned me with the exact same beautiful african features, except I had that covetted long super curly, super unmanagable "mixed" hair.

It was long and full and all over the place. And I loved it. Somewhere in there, I woke up. And I remembered every conversation I've had with my natural haired sister and natural haired buddy about cutting my hair and going natural. And then I got online and saw African shirts blog and India's video, and I think its certain now. Im going natural.....someday.

For now, I'm going to do everything I ever wanted to do with it, but was too scared to do. I am going to get a beautiful completely fake long curly mid-back length weave. And I'm going to love it. And then maybe after that, right before I chop it all off, I'm going to get one of those short uuberfunky assymetric cuts that look fabulous. Then I'm going to make like India.Arie and go bald.

Drat. Cant do that. I have this weird birthmark on my scalp. Ugh. Moving on.

And finally [for at least this chapter of my life] I am going to watch it grow slowly, naturally, un-messedwithably.

Do the Shuffle

This was yoinked from Pilgrimage to Self:

Turn your MP3 player on random and list the first 15 tracks it plays (regardless of how embarrassing they may be):

1. Ancient Words (Live) - Michael W. Smith
2. Ol' Keeper - Anthony Hamilton
3. Satisfied - Prince
4. Turn Da Lights Off - Tweet feat. Missy Elliot
5. Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus
6. Seems Like You're Ready - R. Kelly [embarrassed by this one]
7. U R The One - Usher
8. When Doves Cry - Prince [more Prince? who woulda thunk it?]
9. Mo Se Ori Ire - Paul "Play" Dairo
10. Hero - Chad Kroeger and that guitarist dude
11. Sympin - Boyz II Men [I would have been sorely embarrassed if BIIM didnt make the list!]
12. Voodoo Reprise - Cassandra Wilson and Anjelique Kidjo
13. This Love - Donell Jones
14. Where There's Gold - Seal
15. Here I am - Dynasty

lol. No John Mayer. How absolutely unfair! I have absolutely everything he ever did!

Double Standards

I hate it when men think it's okay to say shit like this to me

Stupid Asshole: ah ah./...i jus saw d pic on facebbok...u really loookin gud
She... says: lol
Me: eshe oh [thank you]
Stupid Asshole: awon bobos nko....
Me: none in Michigan oh
Me: at least i havent met them
Me: there are some hotties i Chicago sha...
Stupid Asshole: damn...u must be horny as hell

I think I have some left over Queen's College prude in me. Either that or Im just stuck up. Especially considering I had just promised to feel him up in a club if I saw him perform in Chicago instead of Maryland.

But that's a whole other story.

Like a Woman

I'm growing.

I don't know if I like it yet. I'm not ambivalent, but I'm not hating it anymore. I'm not scared of it anymore. I'm taking it one day at a time. If I keep going like this, I'm going to wake up one day and be 800 :smile:

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well

-- Diane Ackerman

Listening to good music as always. So far today, Lynden David Hall and The Tony Rich Project [hence the title... if you dont know that song, go find it. I promise its that good].

WHERE IS MARY DUNNE? I miss you lady! Come back home! I pray all is well.

I want to start the purpose driven life, but I'd hate to do it alone. I actually think I'm overextending myself. I have far too many books I'm supposed to be reading right now. its beautiful outside. Everyday now, I walk by Kodak moments. Water dripping off the budding trees after the sprinklers go off. Water glistening on the grass. Ducks outside my building [at work...Imagine!] New Tulips.

I need a camera soon! I need too many things and I have far too little money. I need about $33,000 in tuition money for dream school [its interesting how my first choice school changes every few weeks] , probably another $20,000 for other expenses [new apartment, health insurance, etc], a car, a laptop, a vacation.

*sigh*

Where was my Dad when people were selling their souls [and their country] to the devil for 30 pieces of silver?

I keed. Im grateful I can with pride that my father is an honest man. In the midst of al lkinds of corruption, he taught me to be proud of my name and speak with authority about what is right and wrong without needing to be PC to avoid people rummaging for skeletons in closets.

The Lord will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus

So I wrote my first piece today

:giggles like a schoolgirl:

It wasnt very original, and it was very short, but I got great feedback. The muse may yet be here

I'll C&P.

He's looking at me.

I know it. I know it because I've been looking at him since we got here.

Well, maybe not the entire time. It was hard to remember anyone existed when that song came on. The world became a blur as I moved, all caution to the wind. I didn't care how I looked or what anyone thought. I twisted and turned and swung and let completely loose. My hair was everywhere, my purse, shoved in the hands of a waiting friend while I let the rhythm take over. I danced till my stomach hurt. And it felt good. As the music changed to one of those songs you and I both know by heart, but not because we like it, but because someone somewhere paid someone to have it played on the radio 8000 times, I made my way to the bar to get an apple martini.

And that was when I saw him looking. He toasts me silently and I smile back.
I make my way back to where my girls are talking about how I took over the floor. I laugh and sip my drink slowly. The music is good. There is no point wasting a good night to baraje by being intoxicated.

I steal a glance at him.

O my God, he's coming over. My heart skips a beat. I know I look a hot mess. I've ben dancing, I'm hot and sweaty and I haven't been to the bathroom to do damage control yet. Omygodomygodomygodomygod--Hi *smile, Tori, smile*

Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself. *omygodomygodheisGOOOOOORGEOUS*

Ha, ha! I need to catch my breath for a moment. Save me one.

I finish my drink, and make my way to the bathroom to see how bad it is. Not bad at all surprisingly. Most of my makeup is gone, but I look....alive. I grab my hair up in a ponytail and deal with a little forehead shine. I wait for her to get done and we re-enter the party and its like the DJ knows me.

"No-no-no-NOTORIOUS"

aww HEEEEELLLL NO!!! He took it back to 1999!!!!

I start moving right there. She laughs, and takes my purse without needing to ask. I spot the rest of the crew on the dancefloor and make a beeline for them....

As I begin to SCHOOL them on how its done, he appears at my elbow. In a second, I feel like proposing. We dance like we've been partners forever. He knows when I'm going to go forward, he anticipates my hip flick and counters perfectly. I'm in heaven. I don't remember who I came with or even what song is playing. All I know is the rhythm and our bodies moving in perfect unison.


*baraje: Nigerian term for losing yourself in the music.

Selling Out

Someone I have a lot of respect for as a person, a writer and a blogger once described my old blog as "excellent". That shocked me and made me feel extremely special. And it was all downhill from there.

I have this top secret dream of writing. I don't know what I want to write, but I want to be published. PhD dissertations don't count. Part of my quest for immortality. I have watched my blogs deteriorate at an amazing rate. I think I read too many blogs. The more I read, the more I find myself unconsciously trying to imitate. I find myself trying to anticipate what people who read my blogs want to see. And I find myself sucking.

But it's hard not to try to imitate....There are some absolutely fabulous Nigerian blogs out there! I had the most vivid dream last night; I found out that blogger had hired an entire team of Nigerian Bloggers as staff members, because of how amazing all the blogs were. Okay, in the dream, I was in a dorm room for grad students in Queens College with Lolu and one of the Blogger staff members and some random other QC girls who were doing everything from attending law school to heck, I don't remember..., but I digress. The point is that it is embedded in my deepest subconscious that there are a zillion bloggers waay better than I will ever be, but therein lies the dilemma: Why do I care?

Blogging for me used to be a place I used to empty my head. My best blogs are written early in the morning, before I read anything, see anything, or talk to anyone. I wake up at 3:17am and have a Eureka moment, and run to the internet to pour it out. Usually, it comes out 57 times worse than it was in my head, but then I read it 6 months later and its still absolutely fantastic. I need to do a lot of tweaking, but the heart is still there. I need to get back to that place. Blogging for me and not for the people.

*sigh*

Time will tell.

I had about 800 Eureka Moments last night. But I'm not going to blog them. I'm going to let them marinate and return to my subconscious and re-emerge as something else.

Till then, please don't misunderstand my few and far between comments as disinterest. I'm reading...and I'm horribly jealous. I'm just trying to get back to doing it for me. I must behead the attention-whore.

Brand New Jones

It's amazing what good music does for the soul. Iwas slowly but surely slipping back into my familiar melancholy over the past week as evidenced by my new playlist on my mp3 player

• Release Me [Wilson Phillips]
• I Love Your Way [Will to Power]
• Fast car (acoustic) [Tracy Chapman]
• Nobody Knows [Tony Rich Project]
• Smile [Tamia]
• Better Man [Robbie Williams]
• California Dreamin' [Queen Latifah]
• Home [Brian McKnight]
• Officially Missing you [Tamia]

but then, as I walked to work, I bumped into Robin Thicke and literally danced all the way here.

Busy day ahead, but it should be good.

Is it a bad thing that I am a total attention whore? That isn't even rhetorical. There is a correct answer. No. it is me. And I shall revel in it. No apologies.

Playlists are pure joy. Words are simply incomplete. Now an entire song? Or A group of songs! I can define places, feelings , poeple.... no, not people, but how I feel about certain people by my playlists. And you leave them alone and let them mariante for a couple of months then dig them out one day and enjoy the transportation back in toime to another place, another feeling.

*sigh*

It's been soo long since I made a good playlist... I think the last one was This time last year, quite possibly even later...

So I got Tagged Again....

...And since I'm a lazy bum, I'm going to C & P off my other blog. If you read my old blog, just read the very bottom of this one...that's all that changed. And I'm not tagging anyone. Thank me later.

1. He's gotta like to dance with me. [Lol, i got dancing on the brain].
2. Ineka will beat me up if I lie and say this isnt in there. He's gotta be tall. And preferably slim. [that isn't absolute, but that's where my head is right now].
3. I've gotta fall in love with his mind. Therefore he must be a reader. There is something reading random books does to peoples heads that... *shiver*
4. He has to be able to take charge without making me feel patronised or snubbed. Know how to pick his battles with me without making me feel ignored.
5. Spontaneity is always good. I think every man should take a 2 hour course on the importance of moments to a relationship.
6. He's gotta love God more than I do. Okay, that's just selfish, but sometimes I need someone to remind me/ keep me focused.
7. He's gotta know how to laugh and make me laugh.
8. He has to respect my mind.
9. He needs to make me feel safe and protected and girly. I like it when you open doors for me and, take my hand when we cross the street and take heavy things from me and all that cutesy stuff. AND I LOOOVE being picked up. If I could pay someone a dollar to pick me up every day, I'd do it.
10. Needs to make me feel hot without me needing to stuff pillows in my draws. lol.
11. Im cheating I know,this is number 11, but he has got to know how to kiss me. How to make my toes curl and my brain stop going a mile a minute.....I could keep goingwith that one, but I gotta maintain my reputation as a innocent little 8 year old. :wink:

My list is completely dynamic...it will probably change tomorrow. But , then again, it might not.

Why do I Still Care?

I had a fabulous weekend. And I didnt see him.
And I didnt really care.

I talked about him way more than I cared about seeing him, but my heart only skipped when I thought my buddy was gonna call him.

I came back and I havent thought about him at all...

...until an old friend asked me to send recent pictures of me and I bumped into pictures of him hiding in my pictures folder, taunting me, laughing at me, daring me to delete them...



and I was surprised I hadn't done that already.

Am I Crazy

for being mad that Donald Trumps 5th baby is more news worthy [according to Yahoo] than a cyclone in Australia?

Im just saying...

Copasetic & Cool

I still think Hill St. Soul misspelt "Copacetic".

Im having a beautiful day and it didn't even start yet. I dont know where the happiness starts each morning. It might be while I brush my teeth in front of the mirror in the morning after staring at myself for about 10 minutes. It might be somewhere in there while Im staring at myself. It might be in the shower. I dont even know what I think about in the shower. All I know is that by the time Im dressed and in the kitchen for breakfast, I'm happy and perky and ready to face the day.

Or maybe it's on the walk to work. My fingers are frozen, and my nose is drippy and Im bundled up like the Michelin man, but my iPod is doing its magic and life is beautiful, even with the dead skunk on the embankment.

Oh yeah, just in case you didnt know, the best "walk to work in the morning at the end of winter/beginning of spring is

• Hill St. Soul [thank you Soul! ]
• John Mayer Trio [Good love is on the way, Another Kind of Green]
• Plantashun Boiz [Emmema]
• Queen Latifah [California Dreamin']
• Ralph Tresvant
• Tosin Martins [Olo mi -- this one you can listen to all day and night]

Im sure I have about a million more, but I cant think of them right now. Im gonna sit still and put together an "On the Way to Work" playlist.

Its been so long since I made a playlist or mix-CD. I used to do it all the time in college to record a particular person or emition. I only have one of the CD's left because the others were fapped by various people.

I have no idea what is going on in the world. I need to start reading the news again. if gmail doesnt flash it across the top of my screen or its not an MSN headline, chances are I'll miss the article. I also plan to go join the Ann Arbor Library today. Ypsi library is too far away now, and the number of books im reading each week is exponentially declining. Not good, if I plan to take over the world within the next 20 years.

Today is my friday [I hope you all choke with envy].

This weekend, I'm off to Virginia to be wined and dined by a prospective grad school.

I'm very grateful for good friends. Thank you Rae.