Dan and I were going to begin moving into a new apartment on the 15th, but our breakup means that I will be living in the apartment solo (if you don’t count Lucy and Prandtl). I’m really excited about decorating it however I want, and I have a lot of decorating ideas! It is a relatively small apartment, but I think it will do. Prandtl might get a little frustrated about the lack of running space, but (as I will show you) we have a pretty big “backyard” to work with.
Anyway, some of my friends were wondering what the new place looks like, and I thought Gee… what better place to share my apartment than on my blog? So I took Prandtl with me to check the place out and take a few photos:
View just after coming in the front door:
View the opposite way (looking at the front door from across the apartment)
The kitchen… I LOVE IT:
However…. the washer and dryer is in a closet next to the fridge. Weird placement. I don’t know how I feel about it:
There is a HUGE bathroom with tons of extra space. This photo does it no justice!
Not really a great picture of the bedroom, but it was the only one I took for some reason.
Prandtl’s favorite thing to do! She can’t creep out of the windows at our current apartment. The windows at my current place are too high and they face a brick wall.
I asked Prandtl how she felt about the place… and she approves
This is in the lobby! WHAT UP FREE COFFEE?!!!?!
The view out of my windows!! It is WAY better than a brick wall!
This is basically my backyard I am gonna love living right next to the river!!
I can’t wait to get settled here! I basically will have two apartments until the end of the month.. so I have about two weeks to move everything from my current apartment to my new one. I plan on painting for a few days.. and then I’ll start moving things over and getting situated.
Now that my blog has become the most depressing space on the interweb, I find it appropriate to keep going with these little updates about how things are going for me emotionally. Afterall – it’s not like this can get any more depressing than it already is.
As I’ve said many times before, writing is how I deal with doubts, insecurities, and thoughts I can’t seem to let go of. Admittedly, I suppose I am being a bit of a drama queen about this whole thing. It’s not like we had a house, four kids, two dogs, and a life together. We had an apartment, one dog, and a big screen tv.** But this whole thing still sucks (for the lack of a better word). This morning I found myself forgetting why we broke up in the first place. Then I spent the rest of the day moping around, second guessing, and suffering from thoughts in my head that couldn’t sit still and give me a moment of silence.
And then, when I was venting to my friend Joe, he found it appropriate to say, “I totally thought you guys were going to get married”. WHOA… GEE… THANKS… I always appreciate it when someone cuts me right across the chest with a jagged and rusty blade, runs out to buy the biggest package of salt available at Sams Club, empties all of the salt into my fresh wound, and then rubs it in there so that not a bit of it is wasted — it is forced into the cut in a way that allows every individual granule to cause me an awful, resonating pain. Next time maybe he can grab some lemon juice to spray directly into my eyes, too. REAL COOL, BRO.
I also forgot to mention that I was given a $4000 Vera Wang wedding dress the day after breaking up. No joke. It was 100% free and is hanging in my closet right now. Of course the women who gave it to me had no idea that less than 24 hours ago I had broken up with a guy I once talked about marriage with… or that it doesn’t fit and I will need to lose about 5 lbs before I can zip it (not only could I feel lonely… I got to feel fat too!)… and they couldn’t possibly know that I would try it on as soon as I got home and tear up over how pretty it was and my lack of places to wear it. They were actually really sweet when I told them what happened, and they are totally cool with me selling it. But I just thought the timing was incredible. Seriously. Who does that happen to?
I am handling this well. I really am.
I started doing Yoga, and while it has been strenuous for me physically, I have found it soothing emotionally. My friends like to joke about the silly things they say (ex. “breathe out the impurities”), but I typically find myself trying to follow the instruction that they give. I do my best to inhale the best I have to offer and to exhale the things that keep me from being happy. In the last week and a half, I have been able to focus entire on me. It is no longer “What’s best for us?” Now it is “What do I want to do?”
When I was at dinner with a friend on Wednesday, we started to talk about the movie Eat, Pray, Love. I mentioned how I kind of wanted to go on a solo vacation, and she excitedly proclaimed, “I did that once and it was fantastic!” Apparently she went to Hawaii with a stack of books and spent an entire week there. She went to the beach every day and didn’t have to ask anybody else for their opinion. It was weird, she said, but a great experience. “No matter where you end up going, you will learn a lot about yourself.” Suddenly Take a vacation by myself is on my bucket list.
Hmm…
Well anyway, after rereading the beginning of what I have written here, I think I should mention that I am really not an emotional wreck. The fourth paragraph (about the wedding dress) was written because… lets be honest… who does that happen to? It is kind of sad, but at the same time very funny to me. The 3rd paragraph was written because my friends have the best intentions, but they say silly things sometimes. Also… I am pretty sure Joe reads this so he might appreciate a shout-out about how insensitive he sometimes is (and one of my favorite things to do is give him a hard time). The 2nd paragraph is honest to what I’m feeling. I’m not depressed and I’d like to think that those thoughts come with any breakup.
So, in case anyone was worried, my sense of humor is still intact and I am still the happy-go-lucky person I have always been
Besides all of that, I have a wedding to attend tomorrow. I thought about wearing my new wedding dress to it, but I heard that wearing white to a wedding is rude. Maybe a birthday party is coming up.
**In case anyone was wondering, Dan and I are going to move out of our shared apartment and into separate places beginning on Sunday. I get the television and the dog. He gets the desk that I spilled ink all over. I definitely won in the “who gets what” game.
Yesterday, after a grueling 2.5 hour work day, I felt inspired to run.
So I put on my running shoes, mapped out a 1.32 mile path, put Prandtl on a leash, attached my house key and a plastic bag to her collar (in case she had to… you know… GO) and left.
If you didn’t notice from the list above, I DID NOT bring an mp3 player. My reasoning is two-fold.
My shorts have no pockets and Dan yelled at me when I considered attaching anything else to Prandtl. He shouted something along the lines of “She is not a pack mule!” But for the record, she’d be cooler if she was
Thanks to four years in marching band, my feet still move with the beat of the music. God forbid “Overnight Celebrity” by Twista is followed by 3 songs that just so happen to be dance remixes. I will throw up. No doubt about it.
Okay, I just thought of one more. I ran 4 years of high school track and cross country without an mp3 player. I find that I am a lot more comfortable without it. I like hearing what’s going on around me. Plus, I have to constantly reassure Prandtl she’s doing a good job and I want to make sure I’m not trying to yell at her above my music. It’s kind of pathetic how sensitive she is.
The run wasn’t so bad. Admittedly, we did have to stop for a few seconds – Prandtl had to pee at the halfway point. But besides that, we moved at a pretty consistent pace and I know that I probably could have pushed myself to two miles if I had really wanted to. But I was proud of myself! I haven’t ran in over a year (maybe more), have not worked out a single day for the last 2+ months, and I was still able to go over a mile. Pardon me while I pat myself on the back. And don’t worry – I congratulated myself that that evening with two McChicken sandwiches loaded with mayonnaise. And a coke.
And today? Well, today my legs hurt any time they move. Tying my shoes is painful, and so is picking things up off the floor. Past experience has taught me that the best way to help sore legs is to exercise a little to loosen then up, so I went hiking in the woods with Dan and Prandtl, but that was the most painful hike of my life. And past experience has also taught me that tomorrow will probably hurt more than today. UUGGHHHH!!
I really believe that the 3 mile goal I set for myself is going to be easy. I could probably do it by the end of next week if I really wanted to. And now that I typed that for all the world to see, it is going to rain nonstop for the next three weeks and I’m not going to succeed at that resolution. Awesome. And I suppose I could up the resolution to 5 miles, but I really don’t see the point in running that long. I lose interest. Worst case, 5 miles will take me about 50 minutes to run. That’s almost an hour of running. Impatient people such as myself have trouble coming to terms with that. We like to believe we have better things to do (even though we are pretty aware that we really don’t).
So, while getting in shape and being able to go up a flight of stairs without having to catch my breath is the goal, the McChicken sandwiches are the biggest motivation. Is anybody else guilty of congratulating themselves on a workout well done by eating deep fried food or ice cream cones full of fatty things? Maybe my definition of “healthy” is a little different than everyone else’s.
Ever since my boss gave the okay to 60 hour work weeks (meaning 20 hours of potential overtime), a lot people have been staying in the office until at least 6pm. Some even stay until 10pm. Me? I’m not too concerned with overtime and I leave about an hour after wanting to gouge out my eyes from staring at a computer and manipulating spreadsheets for too long. Some days it’s after 9 hours and some days it’s after only 5. It’s like my own test of willpower. Can I make it that next hour without blurred vision? Will my sanity still be there? It’s like this crazy mind game I can play.. and the outcome is never the same twice in a row. Usually I will take some time and just set my forehead down on my desk and leave it there for about 5 minutes. Then I pick it up and I have only 55 minutes to go. Score 1 me.
Needless to say, after anyone spends 3 hours making spreadsheets, they start to go a little crazy. But when 5pm rolls around and a lot of people have been there for 10 hours already (except for me… since I usually stroll in at about 9am), people start talking gibberish and laughing at God knows what. Suddenly people are talking about weird crap and nobody can focus any more. They are losing their minds.
I think that I have mentioned here before that I learned how to survive bear attacks at work. And believe it or not, that conversation did not happen at the late hours of the evening, but at around 2pm. The guy that sits next to me just knows a lot about bears. ANYWAY. Last night, as the sun was setting and we were all still sitting around talking and clicking away on excel, the bear conversation came up again. Eventually it evolved into a conversation about cougars and how, if you were to ever encounter one, you had better just get the biggest stick you can and hope to God that you’re able to beat it away (and then I giggled because I was thinking about how that might apply to the older-women-type as well). And then it become a conversation about all cats, big or small. And FINALLY, about 15 minutes after the initial conversation began, the common house cat was introduced into the discussion.
Are you ready for this? Because this totally blew my mind when they told me this little factoid. Make sure that you’re positive you’re ready because this post is about to go to a really weird, morbid place.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a cat, the cat would eat you to stay alive.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a dog, the dog would not eat you and starve to death instead.
**I had to stop writing at this point because my dog just consumed bits of the plastic water bottle I didn’t notice it was chewing. It won’t eat me as a last ditch effort to stay alive, but it will ingest plastic for no real reason at all. Wow. **
First, I was disgusted at this news. I felt betrayed, thinking that my cat would eat me to stay alive. My love for Prandtl grew exponentially as I thought about her, laying next to me, refusing to eat me because she was far too loyal.
But then I thought about it longer, and I suddenly thought Prandtl was an idiot. She’s a wild animal, for God sakes. She wasn’t raised eating ceasar salads and filet mignon. Her ancestors hunted for their food and stalked their prey to get it, but she wouldn’t eat me to stay alive? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She just lost a ball under the entertainment center and it looks like her brain is going to implode as she thinks about how to get it back.
So after careful consideration, I’m not hurt that cats are willing to eat their owners to stay alive. I’m not disgusted. It’s self preservation. They gotta do what they gotta do. I mean, as long as I’m not waking up in the middle of the night to find Lucy gnawing on my arm with a crazed look in her eye, I’m fine. I respect that she will do whatever she has to do to stick around. And I certainly don’t blame her.
And honestly, usually conversations like this gross me out. I’m usually really squeamish whenever it comes to anything dealing with the deceased or zombies eating one another. So sorry if you threw up in the middle of reading this, but I just couldn’t let this one go.
A lot of people think my dog is adorable and they’ll stop us in the street and ask questions about her.
“Awww!!!! How old is she?!”
“Almost one and a half now.”
“OHHHH She still looks like a puppy! What kind of dog is she?”
“I don’t know. We got her from a rescue. Her papers say Shiba Inu and Collie.”
“AWWW I LOVE HER! I WANT TO CUDDLE HER AND TAKE HER HOME! What is her name?”
“Prandtl.”
“.. Pransil? Pr.. Proodle?…”
“Prandtl”
“.. Pringle?”
“Prandtl. Like Mantle with a ‘Pr’”
“Prandil?”
“….”
“…”
“…”
Nobody has heard of the name Prandtl. It’s weird and different. I think it makes a cute dog name because we can shorten it down to just “P” and call her things like “Piddles” and “Poopface”, but nobody else seems to get it. And in all of the people that I have met on the face of this earth, only two people have understood exactly what her name references. TWO. And that is despite going to college for engineering.. and working with a bunch of engineers. And what was the first thing these two people said when they made the connection?
“JESUS! .. Really?? You ARE a nerd!” and “I’m about to throw up in my soup.”
Dan and I wanted a name that fit the following criteria:
1) German because at first glance her black muzzle makes you think about a German Shepherd.
2) Nerdy because her foster parent had named her “Spirit” since the woman was a total hippie. We thought that “Spirit” was stupid and totally unfitting, so we wanted to name her something engineeringy since we were very much NOT hippies and we were engineering students.
So we sat and we thought, and the only name we could think of at the time was “Prandtl”. We had learned about the Prandtl number in Heat Transfer. I copied and pasted the following from Wikipedia for your reference (and kind of mine too, because I really don’t remember when we actually used this number):
OH SNAP!! We looked up Ludwig Prandtl (on Wikipedia), too.. just to see if he was a good enough person for us to name our dog after. We have high standards, you know.
Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 – 15 August 1953) was a Germanscientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used to underlay the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him
So there you have it. Prandtl is named after a man who is referred to as the father of aerodynamics. Plus, they totally look alike.
And you had better believe that we plan on continuing the trend and naming our next dog something nerdy as well. Maybe we’ll name it Pythagoreon. Or Differential Equations (“Diff” for short).
I’ve tried to steer clear from ranting and raving on this blog. It hasn’t really been a conscious effort on my part, there have just been other people that I have been able to talk to before drafting anything to share. Today there is no such luck. I have no one to complain to right now, and I really need to complain.
I took Prandtl to our local dog park today because if I don’t let her run outside once in awhile, she’ll take it out on my studio apartment. She’ll run into walls, run into me, and tackle my poor 12 year old cat, Lucy. She’ll bark at anything that moves. She’ll bounce around until I pay attention to her… and then she’ll bounce around at me. And if I don’t pay attention to her when she’s in these squirrely moods, she’ll run up behind me full speed, take a big leap that puts her head shoulder level, and nip at a bit of my shirt as she flies by. In a nutshell, she is annoying unless she gets enough exercise. And I’m sure that’s true with any dog — I just happen to have one of those “high energy” types.
Anytime we’re outdoors (or indoors when she’s not amped up on excess energy), she behaves perfectly. Her recall is fantastic, and she’ll stop on a dime if I call her to come back to me. If she’s playing chase with another dog and she runs too far away, she will stop in the middle of the game if I call her. The best part is she typically won’t wander too far away from me in the first place. I don’t have to keep an eye on her because she keeps an eye on me.
And let me make this very clear: It Took Training To Get Her That Way.
So today when I took Prandtl to the dog park to play, she found a poodle to run around with. They played chase for awhile, and then a pitbull joined in the fun. At this point I got a little uncomfortable because my dog is usually the fastest and therefore the one being chased, and because she’s so small the bigger dogs (like the pitbull and poodle) tend to run her over. But her tail was still wagging and she still had a stupid, happy look on her face so I let it go.
Fast forward to a few minutes later, and the pitbull and poodle are barking directly into her face and nipping at her. They’re running around her like they’re going to attack her or something, and when she tries to run away they chase her, trample her, and bite at her. Prandtl tries to sit on the ground to tell them she doesn’t want to play, but they bark and nip. And every dog is baring their teeth and poor Prandtl is letting out little high pitched barks and doing her best to defend herself because she’s not much of a fighter.
When it comes to dogs playing too rough, I do my best to get Prandtl out of the situation. I will walk away from the owners of the dogs, call her over, and the other dogs’ respective owners will do the same. All of the dogs will be seperated, and everyone is happy. But today’s dogs were not well trained and did not listen to their owners, so suddenly there were two dogs that were getting more and more aggressive towards mine, and all kinds of people yelling out names that weren’t really having any kind of effect. I would call Prandtl’s name, but that would cause her to run for me which would just make things worse – she was just chased, trampled, and bitten some more.
Prandtl somehow got to me, and I grabbed her collar and sat her down. The other owners came running over to grab their dogs, but they couldn’t grab a hold of them so I just kind of sat there… hoping to God I wouldn’t get bitten… while nobody else could get control over their animals. And while I admit that putting my hand on Prandtl’s collar was probably a stupid move from a safety standpoint, I didn’t know what else to do. Nobody else seemed to be doing anything.
Anyway, this whole situation probably lasted about 5 minutes. We seperated our dogs and went to different parts of the dog park. Prandtl and I ended up running into the poodle again, and they played fine for awhile. I was hoping that it was the pitbull that escalated the first “situation”, but next thing I know the poodle is harassing my dog again. Since it was only one dog instead of two this time and I was already very cautious regarding that dog, I got that situation under control very quickly, but the woman still couldn’t get her dog to listen or get it onto a leash. And so I put Prandtl on her leash and left the dog park because I didn’t want to deal with another poorly trained dog. Then we went home.
I was okay with the dogs picking on Prandtl. It happens, they are dogs, and I expect it to occur once in awhile at a dog park. But what drives me crazy is when people bring dogs to the dog park that they don’t have under control. Every dog park in this area has a requirement stating that dogs must have a reliable recall, and it’s for reasons like this. This whole thing could have been avoided very easily, but instead I almost got my arm bit off by a pitbull.
The part that really has me fuming is that I have put in the time to have a well behaved dog. Prandtl did nothing wrong at the dog park and she did exactly as I told her. She came when I called her and sat when I told her to sit. And yet we were the ones that had to leave. I basically punished my dog for being obedient while the other dogs are being rewarded for disobedience. It’s a terrible cycle that I don’t really know how to stop. I need to take care of my dog, and letting her stay there in a potentially dangerous situation is not taking care of her. I certainly told the woman that she should think about not returning to a dog park with a dog that isn’t under her control, but she just gave me some “She’s usually not like this” excuse. And I wanted to slap her.
Anyway, sorry for this long, frantically written post.
But the worst part is that even if I were to go to a different dog park, people still bring disobedient dogs. There’s not much else I can do outside of buying a house with a huge yard for Prandtl to play in… but I don’t really have $100,000 laying around.
After a trip to Minnehaha Falls and after a short grocery shopping trip, I decided to do some cleaning around the apartment today. Living in a 700 square foot studio means that even the smallest mess can make it look like this whole place has been trashed. And so I got out the vacuum, turned it on, and started to move it around in order to pick up the salt, dirt, and pet hair that was on the floor of the apartment.
The vacuum looked like it was picking up dirt. It also sounded like it was picking up the dirt. The problem? It wasn’t picking up the dirt. Usually there is a tiny cyclone that forms inside of the vacuum, but the hair in the vacuum just sat there. Nothing was going in. It was time to investigate the situation.
Turns out, the hose was clogged with a huge mass of dog and cat hair. I probably could have taken a photo of the disgusting pile of hair and dust that came out of there, but I thought it was appalling and didn’t really want to remember. If we were to bunch it all together into a dense glob, it would probably be about the size of a cantaloupe. A disgusting, hairy, dusty cantaloupe. And Prandtl laid next to me, tail wagging and tongue hanging out, looking like she was proud of the havoc she had caused.
Cleaning out the vacuum was disgusting and not the way I wanted to spend part of my Sunday evening, and even though she sat there staring at me in a way that could have been construed as mocking, I was happy to have her. She may be clingy, high maintenance, annoying, and clog my vacuum, but she’s not afraid to be herself, and I kind of respect that. And I know it’s silly to say “I really respect my dog for _____”, but I do. She’s not afraid to be herself. Every time anyone has ever yelled at me for shedding (I have very thick hair and tend to leave it everywhere), I have been slightly embarrassed. What does Prandtl do? Just watch me clean it up.
I am always in awe of dogs because people love them for the way they are and dogs don’t have to pretend to be something that they’re not. Everyday we work to impress the people around us through our appearance, actions, and way of speaking. We work to impress people that we don’t know and are polite to people that we don’t even like. When my dog doesn’t like someone, she barks and growls. She prances in peoples’ way when we’re taking a walk because she wants to look at them. If someone wants to pet her and she’s not really into it, she runs away and barks at them under her breath from a distance. She’s a little bitch to everyone, but everyone still wants to love on her. Nobody cares because, after all, she is just a dog.
But I suppose she’s also so lovable because she’s so cute. It’s hard to say “stay away from me” to such a pretty face. And I hate to admit it, but I love that she will do anything she can to be as close to me as possible at all times .
I got paid today! Woo hoo!! It stunk not having any money these last few weeks, but cashing in three checks at once definitely made me feel good about my bank account.
Also, I’m not going to apologize for that last post (this is my blog and I can do what I want), but I do admit it came across as a lot more melodramatic than I intended.
I am also trying to think of something for the layout of this beast. I did like the last one (I was proud of the banner that I had made), but it was too dark. I like the colors of this one more, but I haven’t figured out how I want to customize it. And I’m not in any rush. I’d like to make another banner and throw myself into it somehow so I can feel really cool with my face plastered along the top of the page, but I need some inspiration first.
And finally, my heat hasn’t been working in my apartment, so it has been FREEZING in here. My dog was shivering out in the cold a few days ago, so I bought her a cute pink coat. It has been coming in handy these last few days. I should have gotten myself a snuggie as well.
Prandtl was egging Lucy on today, and I wanted to see what would happen. She does it all of the time, and I wanted to see her learn her lesson. I caught it on video and made this silly movie out of it. Enjoy.
A lot of people (ast least three) have been asking me, “What do you do all day?” Since I’m unemployed (until I start work at least), people seem to wonder how I fill my day. They assume I sleep until noon and watch lots of television.
Well, they’re wrong. I slept until 11:30am today. And I don’t watch a lot of television because I’ve got a Wii, internet access, and a needy dog. I’m much too busy for television.
So here’s a breakdown of my typical day:
10:30am – Wake up. Roll around. Try to guess what time it is since my alarm clock still hasn’t been set. Wonder why I got to sleep in without Prandtl waking me up and therefore I begin worrying that Dan left the closet open and Prandtl got a hold of my shoes.
11:00am - Get out of bed. Usually Prandtl has behaved herself so I feel relieved. But, since this is a summary of all of my days so far, sometimes I’m yelling at Prandtl for destroying a toy or harassing the cat (Lucy).
11:15am - I’m on the internet by now. I’ll check my email/browse the internet. Prandtl is especially energetic in the morning, so I usually throw her toys all over the room to try to preoccupy her from chasing Lucy. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, there is more yelling at Prandtl. If it does, I’m usually giggling at Prandtl’s wookie noises and throwing a ball across the apartment for her to fetch while I web surf.
11:30 – I take a shower. Since the water gets cold kind of fast, it is only about 10 minutes.
12:00 – Done with my shower and getting ready. My hair needs to dry though, so I just do whatever until that’s done. It takes about two hours. Usually I will take Prandtl out once while I wait.
After my hair dries, my day has consisted of anything from unpacking to cleaning to shopping to exploring Saint Paul. Dan gets home at a different time every day (ranges from noon to 9pm) and we’ll usually do something together if he doesn’t get home too late. Since we live in lowertown, we’re surrounded by skyscrapers and busy city life, and we have walked around to explore it all a few times. We’ve even had time to look through the Saint Paul skyway (which we live a block from).
Now that I’m unemployed with a job lined up, I really don’t have a lot going on since I can literally do whatever I want. When I didn’t have a job yet, I spent a good 2 – 3 hours looking for jobs and writing cover letters and refining my resume. But now, on the days that we don’t go out or he doesn’t come home until very late, playing Zelda on the Wii almost always makes a presence in my day. I also spend some time watching Prandtl because she does stupid things a lot and they make me laugh. She also does very smart things that impress me. On the days that she does neither of those things, we’ll go to the dog park. I have found it’s hard to fill up my day when I don’t have anything to do.
Now that I’ve downloaded a trial version of Adobe Photoshop CS4, I will be spending a lot of time learning that. I’m actually really excited for it! I learned to change my hair color and eye color last night, and I kept yelling for Dan to come look at what I could do. He wasn’t interested at one o clock in the morning, so he never looked. His loss. Speaking of which, I usually don’t get to bed until at least 1am.
So, there you have it! For the most part, that’s my “unemployed” day! Keep in mind I have only been here about 2 weeks, so it is (hopefully) subject to change as the weeks go on.
If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.
