Confessions of a Starving Artist

Dropping the ball one more time.

The last day is upon us, and I will hereforto resist the urge to give some sort of year in review commentary on the wholly absurd year that was 2005. Rolling Stone Magazine called this year “…the worst year ever.” And I am inclined to agree with them, but reveling (or lack thereof) is not the point of this holiday. In fact, doing such would perpetuate the ills that this year has delivered upon us; expectations of some sort of gratification entitled to us, our fifteen minutes; our general apathy towards the growing ineptitude of the government that we seek to model the world after; our fascination bordering on hypnotism with shiny objects that seem to lower us to the level of fish chasing a lure; our general move into some sort of permanent media induced audience fixated on celebrities whose lives while monetarily worth much more that our own paint a fair greater scene of an intellectual and cultural wasteland than anything TS Elliot could have hoped to remark upon; in short - well, I’ll just digress.

 However, I wonder if marking the occasion with resolutions is the correct answer as well. At least, with respect to specifics, I have to question the validity of actually achieving these goals. True, there is the off chance that some things you resolve to do will happen, such as remodeling the kitchen or paying off all your holiday bills by April, but with these issues I’m sure that would have been accomplished without the aid of a holiday, party hats, and a ridiculous lit ball dropping from a crane. Further, other projects like losing weight or quitting smoking, while noble, are ninety-nine percent of the time recyclable resolutions, which will fit just as nicely next year when you give it another go. Do me a favor and be honest with yourself, that way the months of January and half of February in the gym won’t be so crowded.

That being said, the actual statements of resolutions seem to me to be ineffectual. New Year’s Eve and Day should be periods of reflection and projection, but not in a finite way, no directives. It is a time to surround ourselves with those who cause us to recollect the past times of this year as well as years past in order to truly take stock of what is important in our lives, not the lives of those on FOXNEWS or MTV; to make precedence of those morals, life style norms, and good time catalysts that we wish to continue in the grand continuum. Also, take the time to look critically into our mistakes, or more often the case, the questionable moments, with which reflection can only really be analyzed by Time removing us from the actual ordeal have letting us look at it both objectively as well as personally, and then deciding just what exactly it all means, for the good or the bad… or both.

I force myself to remember at this time of the year that this is just an observance that is not exclusive to this exact moment in the calendar. Example: Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Does this mean that the rest of the year we take no stock in the Christian Savior? No. Why would any other holiday be any different? While the directive of New Year’s is to reflect on the year past, I do resolve to do such reflection very so often during the constant changing of the leaves. As for myself? Not sure where this next year will take me, so it is hard to project much of anything, especially during a time in my life where I finally feel like I am honestly prepared to.

In broad brushstrokes, I do think that perhaps honesty should a bit more full in my life, not only with others, but also more with myself. Maybe being a little more true to myself and my newly immerging ideologies would be more of the spin to put on it. Going even a bit further I would like to find the timeless portions of my identity and bring those more to the forefront. Mid-life crisis seem to occur with people who do not discover anything timeless about themselves until it is perceived to be too late. Though at the same time would like to return to some things that I used to define myself with and for whatever reason I have pushed to the wayside. Writing for the purpose of publication (worthy of publication is more clearly stating the point), the arts (both martial and traditional), and my studies. But to be specific (I know I just pooh-poohed this sort of thing, but I state these completely in an ideological manner; that is, I hope to accomplish these things, I do not resolve to), I would like to seriously study the French language on my next deployment, I would like to be published this year, and I would to get a bit closer to the SOCOM world. Here’s to projecting.

At any rate, the Eve is upon us. I wish you all the safest and joyous of New Years, fullness in the days to come. Drink heartily and surround yourself with loved ones; remember what is to come. Blessings in the Yule Tide and Peace be with you.

Thank you, Jack White, for that fiber-optic Jesus…

First off, let me appologize that my normal format is not being adhered to. iMacs do suck a fart out of Steve Brunner’s ass, as does dial-up internet. Never fear, upon return to L-town (the fair land of milk and honey), I will up date the blog and make everything look nice and neat. Until then, the asthetics with have to wait.

Well, the Christmas jingle-ring-ding is finally over with, and in stark contrast with years past, this year was like the baby bear of holidays - not too hot, not too cold, this year was just right. I think a big indicator of being the right age to finally appreciate the holiday is when you’re still getting presents and are thinking, this is way too much, I don’t need this many presents; and yet at the same time you still are excited to still be openning them. I’m sure this comes for people at different ages, but for me, it was my 26th Christmas. But the party most definately started the day before Christmas on Christmas Eve. Family started to roll in around the dinner hour and continued to float in and out for massive meal settings for literally the next twenty-four hours, leaving only a short eight hour lapse for sleeping. The stack of empty wine bottles is amazing, and that’s not counting Uncle Bruce who brought three bottles (jugs) of his homemade fruit wine. It was delicious. Still, I got to see everyone, I got everything I didn’t need, and managed to get a little bit of a buzz on as well.

All in all, not a bad round-up. The funnier part of the Christmas was the clothing coordination that was seemingly done via some sort of family radar love. There was a handful of the L****y clan who decided all on our own to wear some combination of red, black, grey, and white to make up the intirety of their outfits, myself included. Not sure how Jack and Meg found their way into the holiday season, but they did, and as such, I made it a point to put the White Stripes on every chance I got in lieu of Rod Stewart’s holiday CD. I will have the pictures forthcoming, but as I stressed earlier, iMacs suck.

Now in I start the rest of my supposed vacation which looks like I am backed up with more appointments are visits than I have days for. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get around to seeing everyone that I want to see or drinking every where that I want to drink, but we will see. I still got a few days left… and that fiber-optic Jesus.

Update:  6 January 2006

Check out the pics from Christmas Eve:

Home.  Home on the range…

So I’m less that twelve hours before going wheels up on a flight back to the land of pine trees, three foot snow drifts, and dial-up internet.  (if my coming posts are slow, bare with me) That’s right, I’m going to back to New England for the first time in nearly two years.  I expect the State band will be waiting for me as I exits the plane, and for Christmas proper I expect a massive gathering for friends, family, and those still loyal to my grand plans (… same thing we do everyday, Pinkie…).  If anyone needs to contact me, my voice mail will have contact numbers as Sprint has not yet dared the wilds of the Down East regions.  Apparently the moose are too much for them.  However; the powers that be have deemed it necessary that I spend some time in the state that is probably the most opposite of Maine; Texas.  I guess they don’t want me to get too comfortable.

Dallas, Texas.  My first time in earnest in this state since I was sixteen.  Fairly certain nothing has changed, and though I have only been here for less than twenty-four hours, I have already acknowledged that Texas truly is it’s own country.  The bumper stickers were correct, the vast amount of Texas state flags are warrented.  The Secretary of State is Kenny Chesney, the state tree is a telephone pole, the state bird is a football.

I am currently staying with a wonderful Texas family, everything that I would expect from the local populace; kind, Godly, decent accents.  I do feel very foreign in their house, though; not in a bad way, just in the way that I felt when perhaps visiting someone’s home in Germany or Korea.  Just not used to it.  I find this strange because having lived in Oklahoma for a total of a year and a half, you’d think that I would be de-sensitized to it.  Nope.  Further, while I’m still being the same charming self that many of you know and love, I feel like many of the topics we discuss are quietly being looked at under very scruntizing eyes.  I believe that it is my fathomless charm that keeps me in their good graces.  Steve Brunner and his lack of tact would have been linched hours ago.

Anyway, I do think that I have only tested the waters of this strange land, this Texas.  I think there is much more to see, to do, to drink here.  Moreover, there is lots of great vintage cowboy gear just lying around.  That alone will probably drag me back down here for a weekend. 

The best book-to-moive addaptation that I have ever seen.

I saw Narnia about a week ago, I loved it so much, that I felt I had to be being impulsive.  I waited, and listened to the critics, both good and bad; I listened to what my friends thought, their ups and downs; I went and re-examined the book, which I read all of the Chornicals less that six months ago over in the sandbox; and decided that yes, it is still, in fact, amazing.

Without hesitation, the film’s greatest triumph is that it did not devated from the book at all.  Only the scene with the river breaking up, and the sword into the ice; that was new, but with that being the only creative liberties taken, I was terribly impressed.  It was as if Andrew Adamson (director/ex. producer/co-screenwriter) just came in with the novel itself and said, there’s your script.  Further, the imagery produced and the liberties with such taken, where in my mind, well warrented based on the how the book was written.  CS Lewis leaves a great deal to the imagination, and the film stays true to that.  Nothing given, nothing taken away.

The acting was also superb.  There is always a gamble with child acts, especially when they are the leads.  Nonetheless, well cast, with special regards to the White Witch (who’s name, Jadis, had questionable origins) played by Tilda Sweenton, a remarkable actress who’s prior works include Sally Potter’s Orlando and Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers with Bill Murry.  However, you might recognize her in Constintine with Keanu Reeves as well…

In short, this film was breathtaking, true to form, and extremely entertaining.  A must see for the holidays.

You can’t go back that way… I’ve already tried…  - The Professor, The Chronicals of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

How did I come to be prejudice?

It’s very interesting to me that since I was deployed to Iraq for a year, I have begun to make more extreme calls on different sects of people in this world.  Not the normal, more advertised prejudice that you might be warned against on Saturday morning PC-commercials directed are our ever more confused, blinded, and misguided youth, but rather demographics and nationalities seem to be my current focus.  Lets face it, we, as Gen. Xers at least, were brought up in this Sesame Street game-set where everyone was equal and that color, religion, and beliefs don’t matter because we are all the same under our skin.  The addendum to that sentence should have been; if you’re an American.  Example: an American Muslim: fine.  Even if he is an immigrant, there is a solid chance that he had to work his ass off to be here, and that he wants to be here, loves America (to some extent), and most important, embraces our values.  A Muslim from Iraq:… a subspecies at very best.  But I digress.

The observation that I am about to make is probably more offensive to the majority of you out there, and  for that, I would caution you to read just exactly what I am saying.  Young mothers are absolutely, without fail, un-datable in a traditional singles scene.  I’ve said it.  The irony is that they just don’t understand why. 

Let’s get down to it.  Young mothers out of wedlock - there are several different types, and for that there are several different levels of sympathy that I hold for them.  The first is the mother who had a child that was, to put it regally, a surprise and chose to take the child to term.  These woman get the most sympathy from me as it seems that they have taken the high road, most of the time do not have anyway of supporting themselves to the level that they and their child deserve, and most of all, by having the child they have completely sacrificed their own dreams (at least for a while) for the betterment of their offspring.  Noble and worthy of much respect, but I’m not saying it would make them any less easy to date.  I have a friend back in New England in this situation, and I have nothing but respect for her.

The second class are those woman who married early, got pregnant for whatever reason, then were divorced with child by around age 24.  I have a significantly less amount of respect for those people.  Granted, I am about to draw some generalizations, but for the most part these woman find themselves back in the single scene and the child then takes a massive back seat to momma-bear’s prancing about on stripper pole after about six alabama slammers at the local night club.  It’s bullshit to the child, and more often than not, its bullshit to whatever guy she picks up because now she has the convenience to pick and chose between which ever focus she wants, her man or her child.  I say this because the majority of men who pick a woman off a stripper pole (or whatever, you get the idea) have no interest in little Susie Creamcheese back home playing with barbie dolls with the sitter; just that they are both asleep when he gets home with mom.  Further, they couldn’t handle the relationship they started, had a child which obviously wasn’t the best call at the time, and now they are going to try again with some dude at the bar… come on.

I think the reason that I hate that group is two fold.  One, I spent so much time when I was 18-23 telling my friends who wanted to get married that it was the dumbest idea they could have short of leaving Steve Brunner baby sit for one of these tykes.  And two, I would be fairly certain that the child had been planned!  That, ever more so than the first demographic, deserves you wholly and undivided commitment to raising this child.  The only thing worse than this group of young mothers is those like the one who kept trying to hit on me last night; three kids, two from a first and failed marriage, and one from her current boyfriend with whom she was living with.  Did I mention that she was 25 and continually trying to get me to touch her ass to see “how well it’s held up”… horrid, scandalous, and pure debauchery.  She got nothing from me.

Now, I’m not saying all young mothers are bad, because I’m not.  The point that I have been trying to illustrate is that they are un-dateable in a more swinger type mindset, which is what these second-series’ go back to.  With the second category, you just don’t want to get involved because just going out to dinner, even as friends with benefits, involves more drama then an episode of “24″, and with the first, it’s almost like a no-fuck around commitment from the get-go because of the massive part her son or daughter plays in her life. 

I guess what it comes down to is that if you have a child, you’re kind of stuck with what you got.  Some people might say your not, but I disagree.  You got a kid, and that’s about all your getting unless you start count on luck to bail you out.  You’re going to meet a good man at the supermarket or library or daycare, but not at the club; so please say home with your child, tuck them in, and stop forcing me to stare at your stretched out bellies because you still thing your tummy shirt is cute.  Though in Lawton if that was to happen the bars would be pretty empty….

Oh, and the new bottom line: when I meet a girl now at a bar, and she says I have a son / daughter / kids, she has about thirty seconds to redeem herself or our relationship just ended.

Ladies and Gentlemen; I give you Steve Brunner.

This evening, while washing my car, I received a phone call from a dear friend back in the Mountain Post of Ft. Carson who live, works, and breaths the same air as one, Steve Brunner.  If you truly had spent time around Steve Brunner, you would understand what a horrid existence it is to share the same air as Steve.  At any rate, by friend informed me that Steve just recently found out of the, what’s the word?… slander?… that I have been doing to his good name on this forum.  By all accounts he went apocalyptic.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steve Brunner, let be bring you up to speed.  Steve Brunner IS that guy.  He is the perpetual “Beating of the Week”.  He’s the guy in your office that you just roll your eyes at, the one you shake your head when hearing their words at a staff meeting, the “Farve”, if you will.  He is a emissions producing, illiterate, Cro-Magnon who counts ceiling tiles as if it were a complex RPG on Xbox 360.  A walking bicep with a face like a 1960’s Canadian goalie, Steve Brunner has been the subject of humor for at least the past six months.  So much so that his name has become synonymous with fuck-ups, dumb mistakes, and general nastiness.  Examples being, “Jesus, you really Brunner-ed that,” or “Just when things were going well, boom, it rains Brunner all over my office” or my favorite, “Be right back, I have to take a Brunner.”

Really, I have nothing for the guy (really… I have nothing) except love… and a hand grenade.  The point of the matter is that mean it all in good fun.  So much good fun, that I think that it would be terrible for me to have it all myself.  Therefore; I would invite any and all of you to please insult Steve Brunner, in your own special ways on the small comment link below.  Now, some of you may be thinking, I don’t know Steve…. well, yes you do.  Just pick the biggest retard in your office, and for the next several minutes just rename that drooling number-one-draft-pick-for-Burger King, you guessed it - Steve Brunner.

Have a blast and don’t hold back.  Come on, let’s show our love.

Syriana as a technique that doesn’t really work… for me.

Some movies just jump out at when I see the trailer.  Of recent memories, Domino had me hooked about a month or two out, and Munich will have me waiting in line.  Syriana also had me hooked.  Now, I’ll be the first to admit when I am, are, or was wrong… and in this case, I fucked up.  Big time.

I think I saw this movie the first time when it was called Crash.  Or was it Magnolia?  Some such film where many lives are floating around in this chaos world, and by happenstance come together to prove some grandiose point.  Artistically, I think that it is a fine medium, and yes, it portrays the intercity of the world in our living days.  Just as Crash showed us how diverse ‘race’ is in our current society, the pro’s and con’s, blacks and whites (no pun), Syriana gives us the same interweaving of brushstrokes on a much larger and powerful scale.  But I just find it soooo boring.

Interesting?  Maybe.  Thought provoking?  At the end, most definitely.  Insightful?  Very.  Entertaining?  Not so much.  In their own ways, these characters are banal, single tracked events that blow by on the screen before I have any real way to make any real connection with the character.  Matt Damon and George Clooney, two fine actors by any ranking, are marginalized as is Jeffery Wright, Chris Cooper, and William Hurt.  Even Amanda Peet, whom I fall in love with every time she graces the screen, was barely in the movie.  I say more to a woman at the drive-thru at McDonald’s, than she did during the course of the film. 

If the point is for me to identify with a character, I was lost from the start.  If it was tell us that there is shady shit going on ‘up top’, I say, no duh.  All I got out of the film was the idea that many things in this world are being pulled at by an interconnectedness of societies that are not meant to be interconnected.  Fatalistic and perhaps anti-UN, but that’s what I got from it.  Certainly wasn’t entertainment.  Too bad, I usually like assassin movies.  Only the assassin was only really in the film for about the amount of time it would take the trailer on the web site to run.  Bottom line: walk away from this film.

Corruption is what keeps us Safe  - Danny Daulton, Syriana

They are still in Ramadi.

Last night at the bar I happened to notice that there were three individuals wearing baseball caps that read “Camp Ramadi”.  I asked them which unit that they belonged to, and as situation dictates, it turns out to be the Iowa National Guard, an Engineering Battalion that was attached to our Brigade that was over there with us in that Godless city.  They were just now getting home and de-mobing here at Sill.  I told them that I was at Camp Combat Outpost for nearly eight months and that got their attention.  Then I told them I was with Baker Company, 1-503d AASLT IN.  I was shocked to learn that they actually remembered the unit!  They claimed that we had saved their ass and giving them support on several occasions during the retrograde of forces and assumption of area responsibility.  We could have, it’s all kind of a blur.  Its funny, but in our talks, these three guys and I, the rest of the obviously military in the bar seemed to listen in, I think trying to decide if we were full of shit.  The truth is that in ar-Ramadi the war still very lethal, and many GIs who think they have been in the shit, may or may not really have been.  Ramadi may not be the worst that country has to offer, but it is at least in the top percentile.  Regardless, it feels like those who have been to Junction City know. 

I think about going back a lot.

Fucking Cake-Eaters…

Due to early morning physical fitness testing, manual gunnery and safety examinations, dropping off a car at the Lawton airport in the wee hours of the morning, and basically having a full ten hour work day, I was unable to do any actual drinking on my birthday proper.  Some things cannot be avoided; you makes your choices and you lives with the consequences, as the saying goes.  Tuesday then came, and while the hammer was there, it just wasn’t time to strike the anvil.  Wednesday left me exhausted beyond reproach, and I fell into a comma on my couch after a meal of Dinte Moore and Sam’s Club Bottled Water while watching The Cobert Report.  Thursday was a better choice, but I got side tracked by downloading porn as the local cable company just double it’s network speed giving me a free upgrade.  Which left Friday as the first real opportunity for me to “get my drink on”.  

Now, I understand that its as lame as inviting Steve Brunner to compete in a spelling bee to celebrate your birthday nearly a week later, but sometimes you have to let the retards of the word have a shot to spell a polysyllabic word correctly.  Or in my case, just get a little time to let my figurative hair down.  So I get all dolled up for my big night (snake skin belt with buckle, Guess? pants with a cowboy trim, cowboy shit, etc… fitting in is Hell), and my friends all request to come out with me.  I should have noticed the semantics right then and there.  They wanted to “come out” with me, not “take me out”.  Apparently there are some stories floating around of my drunken actions that these supposed friends of mine wanted to see for themselves.  The bastards wanted a show… and by God, I was willing to give it to them.

Willing.  But like any good show, you have to pay for the price of admittance.  And these cheap sons of bitches most definitely wanted a free lunch.  To start with, my ‘birthday dinner’ was no more than a Korean buffet style dinner at one of their apartment’s cooked by a girlfriend.  No Chilis, No Applebee’s, No Chisholm Trail mom and pop steak house; no I get what was in the fridge.  That’s fine, I guess, I still didn’t pay for it, and with expenses being as tight as a date with a nun to a Christmas play, I’ll take what I can get.  So we head out to the bars.  This is where shit gets really fucked up.  I open a tab, or rather, I am allowed to open a tab.  I’m twenty-six, single, and out with the boys on my birthday… how the fuck was I even allowed to open a tab?!  Two years ago in Korea when I turned twenty-four, I couldn’t so much as reach for my wallet without getting at least a shot poured in my direction, and it has always been as such.  I think, maybe I’m getting older, maybe we don’t go as hard as we used to.  But wait.  I’m twenty-six, not fucking celibate.

The night progresses.  I drink.  At a decent pace.  I get a little rolling.  And my buddies never buy me a shot.  Five friends, not one friggin’ shot.  The only person who bought me a shot, was the bartender (an old friend of mine named Raffi who over heard me grumbling to myself as he made my gin and tonic).  The kicker was that one of the guys I was out with had the gall to say, geez L****y, you’re not nearly as wild as the stories make you out to be.  God fucking damn it.  Because in the stories, I’ve got drinking buddies not married or soon to be married neuteries who sit at the same table all night sipping NASCAAR beer on draft (which is 3.0 alcohol content in this state, half the normal amount) and not buying me an shots.  Gentlemen, I know that most of you haven’t been on a date or attempted to pick up a woman in some time, but remember the old rule, if you want her to act out of character and get ‘wild’ then you need to get her drunk?  Yeah, still applies… and no I am not a bitch, it’s just a metaphor.

In short, I need new friends.  These guys are proving to be twenty-five or twenty-six going on forty.  They have bed times and attempt to cut sugars out of their diets for fear of empty calories.  Man, I got the next sixty years to be grown-up, and I do enough grown-up shit at my job; I am in no hurry to surrender all of my youth.   

Regardless, I need new friends.  I am really getting sick of dealing with people who think that it is some sort of “Time” and the marriage comes for them now, regardless of relationship status; or people who are wrapped up in starting a family; or (and most common) people who carry around baggage (kids or psycho ex’s) from previous broke relationships yet are ready to run headlong into another one.  Not saying that any of these are wrong or better than any other, I just saying it’s not for me, and that these people are taking different routes in life that I.  So just one general question: are there any twenty-somethings who are mature/lucky/crazy enough to have made it this far and still think that it’s not time to join the rest of the demographics? 

From a monetary perspective, this is a dismal failure…

Seriously though, where the fuck is my money going?  I ask this question in earnest because I wonder if I have the ability to live within my means.  It is the sixth day since pay day, which means that I have a full nine more to go until the next wave of cash hits, and already I have spent more than my entire pay check.  Now, to be fair I had anticipated this (believe it or not) and I had prepared myself for this.  However, I had not prepared for it to happen in the first six days!  Rather, I was more or less expecting something more gradual, more easy to monitor, more easy to distinct and fix for next month.  Apparently, I’m out of control. 

Nonetheless I blame the Christmas Season.  (yes, Steve Brunner gets a break here… I blame him for everything else; to include world hunger, Kelly Clarkson, and the third season of The Chappell Show taking as long as it has to get up and running)  I have spent a more-than-normal percent of my income on presents.  True, more-than-normal would be just about anything over twenty bucks as I don’t typically spend money on anyone else but moi, so there is some inherent error there.  Also, I’m willing to concede that not buying anything in the manner of personal effects for that entire year I was in Iraq has finally started to catch up to me in the form of speakers, TV, stereo, DVD player, etc… all things that you all probably own, but I don’t.  It’s been just me and this laptop for some time now folks, and yes, this laptop is, in fact, horridly outdated.  Some of you have memory sticks with more memory than my hard drive.  Yes, my CD drive is as broke as the Philadelphia Eagles thanks to the Iraqi dust, and yes, I don’t own a printer.  These small, but necessary purchases are also breaking me down.

Bills.  When did these enter into my life?  Gas, phone, electric… shit, the lights in my hall and main living room haven’t worked since I moved into this apartment a month ago, so I know that they aren’t eating up my dime.  Who the hell is calling me some much that I am actually exceeding my phone minutes for the first time in over three years?!  (Axe, I am looking right the fuck at you!)  The only good thing about living in this area of the US is that premium gas is still only $2.01 on post.  The bad side is that since moving here I have gone from about 23 miles to the gallon to about 12 miles to the gallon.  I’m not making this up, and if any one has any idea was causes this, let me know.  I’m thinking it’s some sort of devilish cross between my V8 having to stop and start every hundred meters for a light and the fact that it is now as cold as it is on the left side of my bed lately. 

I’m not hurting though, and I’m not really complaining that much.  (little comic relief, folks)  I got the money in the checking and the savings to keep me a float with relative ease.  Further, later this month I’ll be home with the family in Maine, and a little chickadee tells me that I’m not going to be paying for shit while I’m up there.  Also noted, all my investments as well as bills come out of the first of the month, so really, it’s just going to take some revamping of the checkbook to make this all work.  No biggie, I’ve done worse and come out grinning like a dog shitting razorblades.

Lastly, yesterday was my birthday.  I did not drink to to a hectic schedule, which is why there has been no posts as of late.  However; if I haven’t received a monetary donation to the “I’m Twenty-Six and You Need To Drink More To Make Me Look Twenty-Two Fund” from you yet, please feel free to send that along ASAP.  Thank you.