This Just In: Band-Aid Boy Mystery Solved!

Today I was able to find out about the kid with band-aids over his eyebrows. This is something that has been bugging me for weeks. I got the scoop straight from a faculty member. Let me preface by telling you that this school is a Sixth Grade Middle School (public) and they just started wearing uniforms this year. For some of the youth who might follow a less desirable path, it has made showing gang colors very difficult. (yay!) School officials monitor everything right down to the color of your shoelaces. The boy in question, a young Hispanic, decided he would try to sport a lesser-known "sign" by shaving stripes into his eyebrows. He came to school with striped eyebrows and when he went home that evening, his mother went absolutely ballistic. She told the principal, "I decided if my son wanted to look cool like he thinks gang members look with the eyebrows shaved, then we'd just do it the rest of the way". And she shaved off every hair of his eyebrows for him.

I guess the Scooby-Doo band-aids are there until all the hair grows back. It's been several weeks, but I don't know how long that would take to get them all back. Okay...now you know. I thought I was going to have to lose some sleep over that one!

Danger, Will Robinson!!

A Yuletide Warning: Do not...I repeat...DO NOT attempt to set up the Christmas decorations this year while you are 1) alone in the house, 2) suffering from PMS, 3) listening to sad Christmas music or any combination of the above. I'm speaking from personal experience, people. Heed what I say!

Going through pictures of your teen-aged children in various stages of cuteness as they perch on Santa's lap or displaying the kids' holiday-themed art projects from kindergarten around the house as "I'll Be Home For Christmas" wheedles tragically in the background is a recipe for emotional disaster.

Wait until the kids get home from school. Turn off the music or wait until this week is over. Do yourself a favor. Back away from their personalized stockings that you were getting ready to hang by the fireplace and go have some chocolate. It'll all be better tomorrow.

In Memoriam

Author/artist Stan Berenstain died this weekend. He was 82. Stan, along with his wife and creative partner Jan, created the well-known children's book series, "The Berenstain Bears". I can't tell you how many times these books got us through a long wait time at the pediatrician's office. This little bear family was familiar to everyone, and the storylines were sweet without being sacchrine. When the seed of your inspiration flowers into something that people are still reading 45 years after you start, you know that your life has been spent on something good and positive. Farewell, old friend!

Two Things

The last wrap-up of "The Biggest Loser" is on tonight. I'm amazed how much this show interests me. I'm not a person for whom extreme weight is a problem (except for those 60 pounds that I gained with each of the three pregnancies...and that's gone), but this show is riveting for me. The female trainer seems incapable of wearing anything that doesn't reveal her sinewy six-pack and I want to tell her to go put a shirt on already, but she does manage to motivate and empathize with people who weigh three times as much as she does. Tonight they'll announce the winner. I predict Matt.

Also...I'm dying to find out about this boy at my youngest son's school. Every day I see him leaving school and he's wearing two band-aids over his eyebrows. I don't mean on top of the eyebrows....I mean RIGHT ON TOP OF WHERE THE EYEBROWS USED TO BE . Every day. Sometimes it's two Scooby-Doo strips. One day it was SpongeBob. Some days it's two regular brown ones. No one seems to know why he does it, but he looks like an alien. This is an age where most kids are loathe to call attention to themselves in any strange kind of way, so--of course--one has to wonder. He's got hair, so it's not a hair thing. His skin is as smooth as a baby's behind, so I don't think they caught on fire. I just have to know. Stay tuned.

Top 12 Christmas Songs

I've just had to sit through a two-hour PTA board meeting, so I'm missing several of the essential blogging brain cells I was counting on earlier. I did spend some of the time making a list of things I wanted to write about in the future, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to smack a couple of the "ladies" who are trying to ban books in our school library.

The whole thing was a total buzzkill and not in keeping with the Christmas spirit that I'm supposed to be feeling right now. I've heard several discussions of late about the spirit of Christmas and I guess I just have one question: Where the hell IS it??? I mean.... (*ahem*)....Has anyone seen the spirit of Peace and Goodwill to all who roam the planet?

Maybe I'm just not hearing enough Christmas music. I grew up on Christmas music in the church, so I never suffered from a lack of "Noel" or "O' Little Town of Bethlehem". But these days with several people I know in a state of toxic marital conflict and a few who can count the days they have left to be among the living and whatnot...standing in the Barnes & Noble listening to "Silent Night" just makes me want to throw myself in front of a bus. It's just really, really sad.

So I propose to bring you my TOP TWELVE LIST OF THE BEST TOE-TAPPING CHRISTMAS SONGS...EVER!!
12) "Let It Snow"- Dean Martin
11) "Linus & Lucy" -Vince Guaraldi (Okay. you can't dance to it, but it's PEANUTS!!)
10)"Merry Christmas, Darling" --Karen Carpenter (Sorry--not a happy song....)
9) "Santa Baby"- Eartha Kitt
8) "White Christmas"- Bing Crosby (classic that isn't required to make you tap your toes)
7) "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" - Judy Garland or Bing Crosby (See? I'm cheating)
6) "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"- the Crystals OR Bruce Springsteen (Did it again!)
5) "Sleigh Ride" - Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes
4)"The Christmas Song" -Nat "King" Cole (The Barry White of Christmas songs...more marriage proposals or babies made to this song...I'm willing to bet)
3) " Peace on Earth/ Little Drummer Boy" David Bowie and Bing Crosby (WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE!)
2)"Little St. Nick"- Beach Boys
1) "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)"- Darlene Love

For the uninitiated, I officially don't get my Christmas on until the night that Darlene Love appears on David Letterman to sing the aforementioned song. Paul Shaffer hauls out extra brass and strings and a buttload of killer back-up singers for Ms. Love and she belts out that song like nobody's business while artificial snow rains down from the sky. Letterman has her on every year, and it's one tradition I've stuck with for quite awhile.

For years Love was one of the artists who sang under crazy Phil Spector's tutelage...along with the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans and the Ronettes. Yes...I was but a wee tot in those days (literally), but greatness has no shelf life and years after these artists are mostly just footnotes in the musical archives, Darlene Love is still packing them in. You might remember her in the non-musical role of Danny Glover's wife in the Lethal Weapon movies. (See? You DO know who she is.)

I'll be bugging the crap out of everyone by reminding them of this momentus occasion until the actual night, so be forewarned. Maybe a countdown or something to remind you to watch. In the meantime, if you think I've omitted some crucial piece of musical artistry from the Top Twelve List, send it here. Operators are standing by to take your comments.

Random and Probably Useless: Part One

1) I'm really into the show "Grey's Anatomy", but the voiceover commentary by the Meredith character is becoming mildly irritating.

2) We decided that when our sons' need to know the truth about Santa Claus was clearly more intense/important (constant questions were a big clue) than their need to "believe", we would tell them how it really was. Consequently, all our kids knew the truth before their 10th birthdays and no one seems to have suffered any permanent scarring.

3) I had my palm read many years ago, and with the exception of one thing, everything has come true. I still don't quite understand it.

4) I find Alfred Hitchcock's movies oddly comforting and will often play them to hear the familiar dialog while I paint.

5) I can't watch "Extreme Home Makeover" or "Three Wishes" without crying like a big sap.

6) The episode of "I Love Lucy" where she can't tell a lie for 24 hours is one of my favorites.

7) My husband bought me a DeWalt cordless drill for Mother's Day to use on my artwork. It is still one of my favorite gifts.

8) There are no pictures on my blog yet because I'm apparently too dim to figure out how to make that happen.

9) Cartoonist Gary Larson's wife is an anthropologist. Now, it all makes sense.

10) I'm thinking about wallpapering our back bathroom in old New Yorker magazine covers.

11) OJ did it.

12) My first job was in a souvenir stand at Six Flags Over Texas. I was working in the balloon shed blowing up balloons on the day the radio announced that Elvis died.

13) I used to be an English teacher. People who confuse when to use the word "laying" and when to use "lying" bug me.

14) "Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints" should be our national slogan.

15) I once did a phone interview with Dr. Maya Angelou for the local alternative paper. She told me that "allowing a man to determine genius in a woman is like letting the fox guard the hen house". I thought that was brilliant.

16) A big thanks to Nilbo ("Truths and Half Truths") for adding me to his blogroll. It's always nice to be wanted.

The crumbs that remain

When we moved to this house 11 years ago, many of our neighbors were elderly people and most were the original owners of the houses they were living in. The neighborhood is a great one with solid homes built in the early 1940's. Homes with character/individuality, wood floors, yard space and huge trees. Couples with children have been moving into these houses as the old neighbors have passed on and the area has changed quite a bit.

Once again, it's a street where kids trick-or-treat at Halloween and almost everyone puts up lights at Christmas. Spring brings everyone out doing yard work and planting flowers. Summer means the annual 4th of July parade, the neighborhood burger-fest and pool parties. On autumn Saturdays, flags fly from every porch declaring loyalty to University of Texas, Texas A&M, OU, Texas Tech and TCU.

Estate sales are a fixture here, and we've already been to three on our street alone. I go in search of old chairs, shabby-chic tables or dishes I can break and use when I do a mosaic on the back fireplace or something crappy that I can re-prime and paint with a wild design. What I find are the crumbs that remain from the feast that we call "Life". It's hard to come away from an estate sale without being more cognizant of the fact that, no matter how much we accomplish in life, the end is pretty much the same for everyone. I don't mean that we all die...though that is true...but it's not my point.

I mean that the things we buy and love and use (or not) eventually just become items on a table in the house where we used to live. Everything marked with a low price. When it's our turn, our kids will go through the house and everything will be culled for its monetary or nostalgic value. They'll take the good silver and the framed/matted photograph of an Amish barn raising, but they'll leave behind the antique butter dish that I filled with handmade beads. They'll divide the stockpile of Christmas ornaments and maybe even the mason jars of beach glass from all of our summer vacations on the Texas coast, but they'll inexplicably sell the telephone table that came from my grandmother's house...complete with her old telephone.

Maybe they'll find the poem that their father wrote to me when he proposed, but maybe it will just get lost among all the other papers I've saved and get tossed. The raggedy copy of "To Kill A Mockingbird" with the inscription in the front will just be something to throw away, and they might never know that it was this very copy of the book that I held in my hands when we decided to give our first son the middle name Atticus. Their dad's collection of maps and bones (he was an archaeologist) may or may not be valued enough to keep, but they'll argue over the fossils and slides of his dig in Guatemala.

That's what went through my mind today when my husband and I went down the street this morning for another estate sale. Devoid of its normal arrangement of furniture, the house seemed to be nothing more than a random assortment of rooms, beds heaped with old quilts, kitchen cabinet doors ajar. The odd truths of our lives exposed....how many times Flintsones jelly glasses were used for morning orange juice. How dirty the floor really was when the fridge got moved. The mysterious phone number--now disconnected--written in pencil inside the pantry. And the boxes of random items...unused candles, spools of thread, postcards, kitchen shears, chewed pencils they used to work countless NYTimes crossword puzzles.

Everything had a story in that house. Some were probably more poignant than others, but most of them will go untold. The forlorn metal T-square hanging on a nail in the old garage. Its owner dead and the items it helped to build long gone. Who was the last person to place it on its hook and did he/she know it wouldn't be used again? Those were the things I asked myself as we walked up the street with our arms full of books and old plates. And when we opened the front door of our own house, I thought about all of our belongings and how far each item would travel to its next home. I don't worry so much about the big stuff. I guess furniture retains its dignity no matter what. It's the homely stuff that gets me. My framed copy of George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass". The little hats that each baby wore home from the hospital. My first voter registration card with my first college address on it. Who will want these...and why should they?

Name some small things that you value. Does anyone care about them as much as you do?

Too dumb to draw breath

While standing in line at the grocery store with half a million other people who all appeared to be stuffing their carts with the booze selections necessary to guarantee the "soft focus" effect that is so crucial for every family Thanksgiving, I spied yet another headline about the Jessica Simpson/Nich Lachey marriage.

Personally, when I heard the story where Jessica thought "Chicken of the Sea" tuna was literally a breed of amphibious poultry, I figured she was most likely the product of cousins marrying and worthy of my pity. Sudsy videos of Ms. Simpson "sponging off" the General Lee with her breasts while clad in what appears to be just the remaining waistband and pockets of an otherwise ravaged pair of cut-offs gave me hope that she was--at last--doing the best she could with the few tools at her disposal. News of her marital problems with Nick Lachey were sad but not surprising as that is often the consequence when a boy band member marries a girl on the heels of her 10th grade gospel choir recital/4H Competition.

According to the cover of a celebrity magazine, Jessica and Nick have decided that the only way to save their doomed relationship is to....adopt a child. What genius! Just what this poor, unsuspecting baby needs are two dipwad parents who will use the unique stresses of child-rearing as a way to "fix" their sinkhole of a marriage.

Please! Someone lock these two in a Wal-Mart accompanied by parents with multiple toddlers who are feverish, teething or suffering from acute diaper rash. Then, perhaps, they'll get a taste of the hell that their nanny will be likely to endure. It's not like I care if they stay together or not. I don't. But there's a child here who deserves a set of parents who don't see adoption as a career move or marital therapy. And if they do split, that will be one less bit of intrigue we'll have to read about on the cover of every gossip rag.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

What it took to be Virginia Woolf

Yesterday's NYTimes Book Review announced the publication of a new biography of the legendary writer, Virginia Woolf. While reading the review I was reminded of a discussion I had several years ago with friends.

I used to be a member of a book group, and though that assemblage of women still meets monthly, I quit for reasons I won't go into today. We were a group of women who had, for the most part, kept a foot inside the work force after becoming mothers. At our finest hour the group contained--among others-- four lawyers (one non-practicing), one PhD. college professor, two teachers, the owner of a medical transcription business and a free-lance writer. Still, there was a tension between specific camps inside the group. Suffice it to say that the women who spoke up for the most traditional aspects of "women's roles" also seemed to be the ones who felt their positions in the workplace made their opinions of literature more valid than...say...those of us who were part timers or had quit their jobs altogether.

The woman who started this group was so incredibly fearful that discussions would decline into nothing more than a gathering for us to talk about food or kids (A "hen party" as one threatened husband referred to us. Not my husband, though) that she instigated a rule prohibiting any talk about children and made sure dessert wasn't served until we were finished discussing the book in question. Of course, this same woman proceeded to do nothing BUT talk about her children whom she was sure were far superior to any of ours. Anyway--

One month we had to read "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf. It spoke of the need all people had--but especially women--to have a physical space in which to become whatever they wanted to become. Mostly it seemed to be a treatise for the luxury of thinking only of yourself... to contemplate the possibilities of your life and how you want it to turn out. It was pointed out quite early in the conversation that Virginia Woolf, though married, had no children.

Around that same time, Random House had just published a list of the Best 100 American Novels of All Time. (or was it The 20th Century?) Either way, the badge of honor required that only novels which had been published over 25 years prior could be considered. Do I even need to point out that only a fraction of the list named female writers? And at the risk of sounding as though we blamed our lack of recognized literary foremothers on the presence of children in their lives, let me hasten to remind you, dear readers, that Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway were all fathers many times over.

Of course, we know what the difference was between the life of Louisa May Alcott, a women who eschewed marriage so that she COULD write, and the freedom allowed any male writer of her generation. I imagine that the quality of Richard Yates' parenting skills was probably never called into question while he burned the midnight oil to perfect his novels or even when he drank himself into a stupor. And the women whose brilliance gave birth to books like "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Jany Eyre", "Wise Blood" or "Frankenstein"? All either single women or married but with no children.

So...our group set out on a mission. Given that women in the workplace still labor under the notion that their presence in the office, boardroom, courtroom or the senate would immediately be blamed if the children they produced turned out to anything less than Joe or Jane Model Citizen, we decided to find proof that a mother could also be a successful writer.
We kicked out the 25 year limitation because we wanted to include our contemporary sisters in the writing world....Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, E. Annie Proulx, Alice Munro...

Our assignment? To find universally lauded female writers who also had raised children that did not turn out to be drug dealers, snipers, or Enron executives.

Here's how we started the list: Dr. Maya Angelou.
I don't think we got much further than that. I'm not sure why. Perhaps some of us were bored with the discussion or just didn't see what the big deal was.

I didn't really mean for this to be another post about READING, though that is one of the great pleasures of my life. To me, that discussion is like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. And I am greatly curious about what my blogger friends think. Even the guys....your views are also very important. Give it a good think and get back to me.

My next post will be something light and stupid...to help you digest your turkey and dressing. Something gossipy like the fact that Julia Roberts just sold her house (or one of them) to the very pregnant Holly Hunter.

Wherein I make a shameful confession

My name is Wordgirl and I'm a...uh....a....magazine whore.

**pause here while the similarly afflicted respond with a friendly-sounding, "Hi, Wordgirl".**

You heard me correctly. I love magazines. This love in no way affects my uncontrollable affection for books, but that is another--and much longer--post. Considering that "Book Ho" was one of the many names I was considering for this blog, I thought I should mention it.

I came by this love honestly. My mother and both my sisters are also suckers for the slick and shiny power of the periodical. I don't know exactly when it started, but I know Christmas was involved. I cut my teeth on the Christmas issue of Good Housekeeping. All those wonderful photos of happy families with clear skin and good hair celebrating the holidays. And though it was technically not a magazine, the chunky Christmas edition of the Sears catalog served a similar purpose. The source from whence all good toys came, it was like having a big brick of crack delivered to our door.

I had to make do with reading TIGER BEAT, TEEN AND SEVENTEEN while standing at the magzine rack at the grocery store, because I was not really allowed to blow my money on something that might give me "ideas". By the time I was old enough to call the shots on that kind of reading I had already moved on to harder stuff....like GLAMOUR and MADEMOISELLE and occasionally COSMOPOLITAIN, though I confess I never really identified with the contents.
It was also clear that I didn't possess boobs the size of small flotation devices that seemed necessary to be a Cosmo Girl.

It was just as well. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and MS. came along and forced me to use the part of my brain that wasn't reserved for helping me match my purse with my shoes. And all these years later, I'm still buying magazines. Subscribing or buying off the rack. I'll buy an issue of DOMINO just for the picture of a wall color I want to try or because I like the idea of making a coffee table out of old pieces of wall trim, and I'll snag an issue of BELIEVER because there's an interview with David Sedaris in its pages.

Nothing can send a shot of endorphines coursing through my veins like the fiction issue of THE NEW YORKER or any of my arty mags like CLOTH, PAPER, SCISSORS, or HOME COMPANION. VANITY FAIR gets delivered to my door, but I'll buy ATLANTIC MONTHLY, MENTAL FLOSS, UTNE READER, YOGA JOURNAL, BOOKMARKS, RUNNER, or ROLLING STONE off the rack. Sometimes, if I'm feeling "flush", I'll buy them all at once. Once I even bought the premier issue of something called HEBE magazine...and I'm not even Jewish. I call that a "drive-by" purchase.

I draw the line at anything to do with NASCAR, tabloid trash (though they look interesting in a "Freak Show" kind of way) or that magazine for folks who enjoy raising ferrets.

So, there! It's all out in the open and I can pull out that copy of PEOPLE that I've been hiding and judge for myself whether or not Matthew McConnaghay (sp?) is really the Sexiest Man Alive.

Want to join my support group? Tell me what mags you read.

Responding to Stupidity

I am the mother of three sons. I find that despite the fact that I grew up in a female-dominated family (Dominated only by the presence of females, mind you. There was no majority rule. My father was every inch the Captain Von Trapp-type...minus the singing part and the little whistle), it was a bit of a shock to find myself living with so many males.

And it was an even greater shock to find myself LIKING it. I'm actually good at being a guy mom, despite having absolutely no training for the task. But I am continually bombarded by women of my mother's generation who ask me if I want to try for a girl. When I answer "no", they seem momentarily shocked, as if my answer somehow upended their view of how the world should be. (i.e. Women should ALWAYS want girl children).

Insisting that I don't want four of ANYTHING only inspires them to regale me with stories of how their poor mothers raised five kids in a log cabin with in the woods where bears ran rampant and how Pa played the fiddle at night and how sad it was when scarlet fever took Mary's eyesight....oh, wait...sorry.....wrong story. One lovely woman DID ask me that, if I COULD replace one of my three boys with a girl, which one would it be? At the time, there was a nice woman standing with us who had her 3-year old daughter with her and they both seemed to be waiting for an honest answer. I was totally flummoxed. Did they really think that some nameless/faceless phantom female child could replace any of the livestock--er--boys I have now?

Casually pointing out to these morons the obvious fact that I am past the baby-making stage brings only rapid eye blinks followed by a pointless discussion about how young I look to them (irrelevant when considering motherhood) and how great it would be to have someone to take to ballet lessons (okay, now I'm going to have to hurt you).

And then I have to get brutal and tell them that I don't really miss having daughters. Don't want them, even.

*pause for audible gasp*

Sure, the reasons for this position are legion, even though I like girls just fine--plus--I AM a girl. I see the relationships that decline between mothers and daughters during adolescence and I send up a silent prayer of thanks that I don't have to go through that. And the part where I spend three afternoons as week hauling a kid to ballet lessons? That's sort of a dumb reason for trying to have a female child, isn't it.

The truth is, I would have tried really hard to raise my daughter the same way we're raising our boys. And that means we'd give them the same opportunities and the same privileges and expect the same kinds of behavior.

There are a few other reasons, but the biggest one is that I haven't totally resolved for myself what it means to be a female in this country. If I can't explain to my daughter why this country is still arguing over whether or not a raped woman should be required to bear the subsequent child, I would feel I wasn't doing my job. (I'm giving out big props to all you mothers of daughters out there who are trying to pull this kind of job off as we speak).

Here are a few other things that bug me:

1)A man takes his hat off when the American flag passes by in a parade, but women aren't required to.
2) Older men frequently don't offer to shake my hand in public unless I stick mine out first. When they DO shake my hand, they only grab my fingers...not the whole hand. Painful! Painful and insulting. Despite the very traditional views my father had, a firm handshake was non-negotiable. It was the hallmark of a strong person.
3) I still get birthday cards from my relatives that have Mrs. Bob Smith (not my real name) on it. Even on my own birthday...geez...and my name isn't even on the card. I complain all the time, but to no avail.
4) Even though it's one of the most syndicated shows on Planet Earth, no one, at the time, thought it was strange that Lucy was spanked by her husband on the "I Love Lucy" show.
5) Guys often still claim that cooking is really for girls, but the best chefs are men. That ballet and dance is for sissies, but the best dancers are really men.

Okay...I could say more, but I won't. I'll let you do that. Mind you, I'm not bashing men . I LOVES THE MENS! But a girl's got a right to speak out.

...later that same day

Holy crap! Christmas is almost here and I am SO not ready. November is supposed to be my "buffer" month. You know...the month where you work all the kinks out of the holidays with solid planning and anal-retentive organization? Lists, lists and more lists? Yet, I have squandered this month and I can't quite figure out how I've done it. Still...there it is. Thanksgiving is next week and lights are already going up around our neighborhood. Pumpkins are rotting on the front porch and I haven't purchased one gift or looked at one catalog.

November is also the month where you decide if you'll be creative with your Christmas cards or just totally cave to convenience and get something cheesy and uninspiring from the Hallmark store. Year after year I stand in the store trying to find something worth sending. Perhaps the picture is sweet, but the sentiment inside is trite. Or the message is meaningful, but the outside is hideous. Possibly, the card is perfect! Ideal! But there's only one box of 18 and I need five more boxes.

Two Christmases in a row, several years ago, I decided I would just make my own. I designed the front and made up my own sentiment inside. I took them to a printer and had them make what I needed--plus a couple of extra. It was the best decision I ever made and, had I been thinking clearly, I might have done it again. But I didn't, and I probably won't. And don't get me started on the fact that no one has taken the picture of the kids that goes INSIDE the card.

Please...someone tell me they feel as overwhelmed as I do.

How Did I Get Here?

It's easy to react to what others are saying. Someone writes about how vacuous Paris Hilton is and many readers will add their two cents. Throw down a question about favorite books or movies or top ten despicable human beings and then you'd better get the hell out of the way while everyone comes forth with their best or worst nominations.

So...reacting to what my fellow bloggers put out there for our consumption is simple. Coming up with a satisfactory beginning for an unknown blog is...well....not so much. Shoeless Joe claimed that "if you build it-they will come". I guess we'll see how true that really is.

Question of the day: Which do you regret more? The things you've done in life or the things you haven't?