Spirits

Have I mentioned how much I love independent and foreign films? What's that you're saying--no? Impossible that I've never mentioned this before. Well, let me repeat then, I love independent and foreign films. The topics are usually much more intriguing, cinematography is all that more appealing and story telling that much more creative. At the very least I don't feel like my brain cells have died at the end of the movie. I am not crying the past 90 minutes of my life was wasted and therefore should be returned back.

However, there is a much more dire and imposing topic on my mind that I can't seem to let go; Spirits, aka. alcohol. I've always been fond of alcohol and drinking. It's never been an issue to stop drinking for me. I've never liked the idea of blacking out, or drinking so much to a point of drunken frenzy of crazy shenanigans and throwing up everywhere with a guarantee of hangover the next morning. I don't need alcohol to do stupid stuff, I do that plenty in my daily life. Nor do I need alcohol to have a good time. I do outrageous stuff...somewhat and any wild behavior with sober and "crisp" mind.

My definition of enjoying alcohol isn't getting pissed drunk where I don't remember what I've done the previous night. I've never been fond of that. I also don't like people who likes to get drunk every weekend just to "have fun". I don't mind baby sitting good friends who might eventually sometimes get drunk. Baby sitting is meant for children, not adults and adults who can't handle their liquor by no means intrigue me--quite to the contrary, decreases my willingness to hang out with them. I like people who knows how to drink--properly. I also don't like people using alcohol as a cloak to hide under in order to lower their inhibitions without a guilty conscience, behave dangerously and perhaps engage in wild, not so ethical acts and come to possess not so moral thoughts. If you don't have the courage to do something on your own, with a conscience that has the possibility to feel remorse and guilt, and a sober mind to make that decision, don't use alcohol to do things you would normally never partake in and get away with any consequences and perhaps only a slap on the wrist. People should take responsibility for their actions and should choose to do acts because of their own free will, not drunken influences that has cerebrally left them impaired.

That kind of drinking has never, ever appealed to me. But I realize that it's easy for me to sit down here and type all of this out. I am one of the lucky people on this earth in regards to alcohol: I owe my alcohol etiquette to my family and the sect I come from. I've been around alcohol my entire life. My family, meaning grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles love to drink and serve alcohol. Ever since I could remember myself we've always had an alcohol stock. From Gin to Tequila, to all different kinds of Whiskey to Vodka to beer to Cognac and Brandy to mixers and wines. It was never locked away, it was never seen as an evil doer. I was always taught that I will get to taste it and enjoy alcohol when my age permitted it. Growing up, there weren't adults who got drunk at our house parties, weddings, engagement parties or other outings. People drank, people got a little red and boisterous, but they remained themselves with enough clear logic to tell stories of the past and explain religious rituals without messing it up or offending anyone. I had my first glass of wine on my 16th birthday party and I was encouraged to drink my first hard liquors in moderation under the watchful eyes of my parents. I was told to always drink with my mouth, slowly, on a full stomach as I was eating. I was told that I should never use alcohol to sully my heart with or to act cowardly and insanely. I should always try to build up my tolerance slowly and if I was unable to remain intact and respectful then I should decline drinking and avoid bringing shame to myself, my family and my sect. When I turned 21 my parents probably gave me one of the best advices to give in regards to alcohol. "Drink everything in moderation and don't mix and match it's not a clothing sale. Also if you do not have the money to buy average vodka, rum and tequila, don't buy cheap ones. Call us and we'll wire you the money." Therefore, I never had an animosity towards drinking, alcohol, nor did I have a love hate relationship where I regretted my actions the morning after. I never had to drink in secret and find other people's stashes or get myself a fake ID to get in to bars so I could drink. There was never any need for those as I could always have a glass of wine at dinner with my parents.

But, I realize now that not everyone has that kind of upbringing in regards to alcohol. In most societies as revered and loved as alcohol is everyone is taught that alcohol is bad. Alcohol should be avoided and we learn from pop culture that drinking means getting drunk beyond capability of comprehending the meaning of our actions. We are taught that alcohol is always used to erase away shyness and bring out the best and the fun character that lives deep inside even in the driest person in the world. Sometimes having this abundant levels of alcohol leaves a lot of young people but no choice to use it as a defense and, or coping mechanism. We are taught we should drink until we forget or cannot remember, not understanding that alcohol only enhances what we want to forget and we can't remember the good part of life, that is because alcohol itself has depressants in them. I think these kind of cultural learnings develop unhealthy ideas and ideals about alcohol that in turn not only has the possibility to hurt young individuals who are experiencing "unsolicited freedom" for the first time and even adults. This cultural outlook paves the way for the dependency on alcohol and the background of alcoholism to exist in such a detrimental way to destroy one's life.

While I would like to point out that I had never gotten drunk, this does not mean that I never got dizzy and drank more than I had estimated myself of capable. I enjoy a glass of wine as I read and definitely when I am writing poetry. I am sure there are entries in this blog's past where I have celebrated wine induced writing where it allowed me to just kind of shut out the world and take a closer look or perhaps just focus on one particular thing rather than everything at once. I also don't want to be seen as a champion of alcohol and putting all the blame on individuals; however I would like to highlight that it is an individual's choice what they decide to do with what's in the bottle. The liquid in the bottle reacts differently with everyone. It likes some and it doesn't like others so much.

Up until recently, I had no remorse for people who used alcohol as a medium for other things in their life such as controlling of other factions in their life, coping or a defense mechanism are just a few to name. I always taught that people who relied on alcohol as people with weak wills and wavering resolves to live at best. I couldn't understand their relationship and was judgmental towards it perhaps because I had no real life examples of someone who relied on alcohol to get through their daily life; be it emotional or physical strife and agony in my personal life. I did have one great-uncle who was later diagnosed with alcoholism, but I had never seen him destroy his life. To me he will always remain as the great uncle with clear blue eyes that always sung a song to us when he got "happy". He did much damage I learned years later, however that side of his drunkenness was never shown to me, nor did I ever see him act in strange behavior when he was drunk. Sometimes we need an invested, direct relationship examples or experiences to really see that sometimes it's not always about the weakened will or shaken resolve. Sometimes we just don't know any better and upbringing can have monumental effects on the way we see, view, understand and ultimately our relationship to alcohol. So, I'm relaxing my judgments and bias on alcoholism and the people who depend on this substance to go through life. This does not mean that I empathize with it, especially if the person has no will to change or is not showing the effort to clean their lives up. But, now I see that not everything can be as it seems and there could be other stories to tell besides the one that's written on the label of the bottle.

Pictures and Reality

This is a little hard to explain. Sometimes I don't know which is which. Sometimes, in a moment of reality where time slows down, leaf of autumn halt and images attached to emotions are engraved in your heart and turn into stilled pictures. You won't ever come to possess them in print because reality can't do justice to what's engraved in your heart. Nothing can't match the vibrant colors of that picture at heart, the way strands of hair dances wildly in the wind, smell of pomegranates, and sways of hips, and how curves of life just get lost in the landscape...No camera can just catch that gleam in the eyes and that perfect smile that makes each breath worth it.

Then, there are other times, when a picture can't do justice to the reality of emotions. The loud banging of one's heart in her ears, the loud screaming that comes from somewhere deep within we didn't know we had the capability to carry around in us, or even come to abhor at times. No picture could ever hold a candle up to that.

There are plenty of times where reality mixes with pictures, and my pictures mixes into my reality, or become my reality. It's hard to separate from one another...that is exactly how I start writing each story and essay. There is a moment pictured so perfectly the whole story is just about trying to explain that one perfect moment. It's what love is after all. You'll see someone in one perfect shining light and that image will settle into our hearts and for the rest of our lives we'll try to live that moment over and over again, chasing after ghosts trying to find that person again whom we thought we knew then, only realize it was a stranger sleeping next to us all these years. When imagination is active and it's easy to daydream. But day dreaming and especially the ability of pictures and reality mixing into one another has a dangerous component when the two mixes about a person. Kind of like love. It could lead to lethal consequences and can make you cast out your whole un-lived entire future for that person, that love. You can find out that you never really loved the person for who they were, but just the image that was captivated in your mind. When the two mix, you don't know the reasons, how why and not being able to differentiate reality can lead to break-downs and break-ups. To love a person from pictures is rather dangerous because if reality doesn't match up, there reconciliation problems occur as mentioned above.

Then, what is one to do? Let go of the person whose reality doesn't match up to the pictures? Or further a lie until the very end?

Writing is Magic and...Writer's block??

So, I've pretty much spent the day writing away, after a job hunt session. I began my day with writing and it seems to be the only thing on my mind today. I saw the strangest dreams and so my day began with recording them in my dream journal, and I hopped over to poetry that pretty much kept me occupied till noon or so. I hadn't really written a poem since late April, early May... and to have written several is probably the reward of this week. I've missed holding the pen and writing in that silly composition book that's been marred with wine stains. It has done wonders to me, and today I feel like nothing can bring me down. I am giddy and childish today. In honesty, I feel like I am a red balloon filled with helium and have been left to travel far, far into the sky and there is no bird that would dare to beak my little bubble of pure delight and ignorance to the rest of the world. Writing, regardless is like magic.

It is magic to me. It's been hard trying to contain everything within and hoping to deliver them to their proper destinations (different notebooks for each different kind of writing). It hasn't been like this in a long time, and it's hard to sit here and try to explain my joy, delight and the happiness this has given me. It's even silly. For someone like me, who relishes in writing, who defines herself with and in politics and writing, who turns different inimical traits of herself into positive for the sake of writing (and only for the sake of writing, I'd like to note here that other wise I would have been far too skeptical, bitter and difficult woman), who puts herself into a regimen so she can become a better writer, who restlessly focuses on her mistakes and spends hours, days and weeks, even months trying to correct one mistake.

The only reason why I put my life into a daily schedule was so that I could become a better writer. I focus in the mornings on technicalities and at night I write to my heart's content (usually, obviously there are exceptions and forgoing meals often) because that's how much writing means to me. I hate regimens, orders and monotone. I hate doing things in specific order and following it religiously. I like spontaneity, I like doing things as I want and feel, but I pulled my life into a order of religiously to be followed for the sake of one day becoming a good writer and a full-fledged one..eventually. Maybe sometime in the next four decades I'll accomplish that. Whether I get published or not, or make a cent off of it or not, really doesn't matter to me at the least bit. It is true I am an aspiring writer, hoping one day to publish stuff, but hope is what writers made out of. Regardless, it's not a criteria I set myself up to possess. It's not a goal I have to accomplish in my life. So I reinvent myself as many times as possible, in the hopes to become a better writer. Now that's said, and I've went straight into writing again as soon as I came back home from my not so successful job hunt.

But I am happy, happier than I've been in such a long time--because I have a bigger gift...my will to write. Strings of lines, ideas, stories never cease in my mind or in my imaginary world I live vicariously through. But I had lost the will to write or record them...which does not happen often. But I just could not get myself to sit in my chair and write anything down, for what felt like an eternity to me. Even blogging had ceased and was about pointless things. So this brings me to what I've wanted to really say all along. The will to write.

I really don't believe in writer's block. There is always about a million things to write about. If you're living, you can write. Now let me elaborate. This doesn't mean that everything you write will become published, or is even good enough to be published, or will be well liked, and even if it does get published, this does not mean that it will sell well. One can write about endless possibilities of things...the sun out of your window, your neighbors as they'll surely have quirky stories behind them, the frustrations in traffic, inconveniences caused by summer constructions in Wisconsin and New York, the new gift you received, you will give and etc. Book reviews, essays, and what not. Ideas are endless but there is never any guarantee of your idea being good once it's transferred over to paper. Things often have a way of sounding better in your mind with your own background noise, because as it's creator, you're more likely to believe in what you are thinking and be kind towards it so it can grow to a budding flower.

Will to write however is entirely different. It related directly towards whether you believe what you are writing is worth anyone's interest, or genuinely believing what you're writing on that piece of paper isn't silly and useless and will attract no one's attention, including yours. So it requires confidence of the writer to believe that what she or he is writing to be important, to have the possibility of leaving a mark on someone's soul or be given the opportunity of having found one of many of universe's secret laws and truths. Each time we write, we not only discover something about ourselves (no writer has ever written anything without discovering new boundaries for her or himself, new depths, new lows and new personality traits, different hopes, or a long forgotten memory of the past) but also we believe to have observed, tried and successfully proven a hypothesis about people, their emotions, their bonds, and their link to the rest of the humanity.

No matter what the focus of a novel, short story or a poem is, it always moves from one of two directions. Individual or general; and eventually it will make the leap towards the opposite, and then come back in relation to the original focus of the work. So we like to think we understand the human psyche, and we will always have an idea about how human relationships should work in relation to ourselves, others, technology, nature/universe. We see how it works, but as we're delusional people, we will argue how it ought to work. We don't like traditions, labels, constrains on expression and human experience, and have a different understanding of ethics and values, along with morality--so we further lose ourselves in these figments of imaginations that we've build firstly in our own inner worlds. So to have the will to write about it is entirely a different imagination than not having a content or something else to write. I guess the will to write kind of relates back to having a muse or an inspiration...or how badly you want to write, rather than having an idea to write about.

There are so many things to explore, so much work out there to be influenced from that it's just hard not to be a prolific writer. And that is the difference between a good writer and just a writer who writes without understanding the craft, the responsibilities, consequences and the meaning of writing. A writer who publishes his or her exercises, and thinking the mass volume of work that's piled up will always be worth anything and will try to get them all published. Then there is a good writer who sees that practices are necessary to write meaningful and crafty literature and will use his or her past work to write better works of literature. So, I guess in conclusion, I am an adamant believer in the will to write to be a necessary pre-requisite to picking up the pen rather than believing writers being in possession of a writer's block, as finding nothing to write about.

On that note, I'll leave you to this poem that I received :) Enjoy.

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
O, happy planet, eastward go:
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister world, and rise
To glass herself in dewey eyes
That watch me from the glen below

Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Books and Poetry

I cannot wait for my books that I recently ordered from B&N. I went a little overboard when I should not have--that's a given, however, I still am expecting to be reading and writing a lot this summer. For one thing I plan on reading everything on my reading list, and those old books I've wanted to re-read for a long time by the last Sunday in August.

I've started off on a rocky path to reading and writing this summer when my mind shut down for a few weeks and I had so much to say and so many emotions that was lurking behind to escape, but I had no will to write a drop, nor was I strong enough to just write it all away. Odd--considering I find solace, harmony, balance and happiness in writing. I find strength in my ability to express myself and the revelations I excavate at the end of my writing exercises. But I just could not get myself to write. All I could do was to zone out, and I guess I just needed my mind to shut down and my heart to become numb, so I can restart and just look logically at my wounds, so I can heal them in a healthy way. I needed to get myself in a healthy mind set in order to be able to take care of myself. Shutting down at that moment was the only thing I knew how to take care of myself.

I was so relieved when everything was over that I didn't know what to do with myself. A ton was lifted off my shoulders. Writing about it in a blog, or my thought journal, or making a short-story out of it, writing one more poem about him seemed ridiculous and to give him more power over my creative forces just felt stupid. He didn't deserve it, so there was no way I was going to write about it. And now, it's over. I can write whatever I want, only from a logical way where I am analyzing my past and coming to terms with my own idiocy. It's another experience under my belt, which I can use to connect to an audience, but most important to others in humanity. For one thing, I've been writing very short, and well, very limited blog posts for a long time now, due to the restrictions on my self expression, due to being constrained and having so much energy sucked out of my soul. Now, look at me. It's hard to pull me away, it's even harder for me to stop. My entries are once again full, (somewhat childish) and long. I am not afraid to speak up again--freely. I don't feel those arbitrary restrictions there that were placed there by invisible hands. There is one person behind it all, and well he knows who he is :). Also I couldn't focus enough to finish reading a book in a while. The bubbles are sifting their way up and I will probably finishing a few novels a week after this point in time. Ah, that's one thing I am definitely looking forward to this summer.

I am brimming with so many story ideas and there are emotions that are just waiting the exact right moment to come out and to attach themselves to other words and turn into stanzas and before I know it, I'll be dotting my i's and crossing my t's of a poem. No more tears to roll down on my softened pieces of composition notebook papers. The world out there can be so beautiful with it's bold colors of the spectrum, it's eccentric smells and people of unforgettable traits and qualities. This summer will definitely be a very literary productive and time spent and earned well.

On that note, here's a poem I know anyone will enjoy.

"Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal"
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

--Lord Alfred Tennyson

Doctor Who

River Song is Melody Pond--whose real name is Melody Williams is Amy's Daughter! What!?!
One more time. River Song, the forty something year old, hot, confident, witty, cheek-in-tongue, heroine, action packed, all knowing and ominous River Song is adorable, clutz Amy Pond and some what cowardly Rory Williams' daughter. I did NOT see this coming...and I am somewhat disappointed to be honest. I knew there was going to be a mini arc regarding Amy's pregnancy and child, on how this season began, however--this was beyond what i could have predicted. I thought River Song was kind of like The Doctor's Wife. Whatever happened to that magical chemistry between the Doctor and River Song?? ...I'll tell you what...IT'S KIND OF RUINED NOW.

Moffat, you've totally killed it. It's going to be really interesting to see how the rest of the season will play out in regards to River's past coming out to play and what this will mean for the duo's relationship...however this doesn't take away from the icky and yucky and ew factor of the relationship.

Outside of Home :)

Some nights are long and dedicated. Sometimes you long to be home, alone with a your tea kettle on the stove hissing through the stale air. The curtain half veiled, half lifted off, only getting broken lights of the moon, like the hope that's been broken inside of you. And sometimes, it's absolutely necessary to leave everything behind and blend into the night, forget your self, gauge down that tequila and let the demons within you tempt your fate and indulge in your passions as your inhibitions are lowered.

But...even when you're out there, amongst friends and the solitude of night, the crowded bar streets and the calling of life...the only thing you can think about is one particular person. You'll think only about those particular pair of blue eyes that only return smile and an endless pool of hopes. The curving of his lips into his smile lines and his happiness shows through the redness on his face and the quirky sheesh sheesh sheesh laugh of his, as he calms down every nerve and quells every fear, reinstating the very self esteem and reinsuring a feeling of stable security. You'll miss the words he chooses and the ways he'll go out of his way to make you happy and to bend down to your will, just to make you happy for one longer second.

It's awkward to write from someone else's laptop as I am secretive about my blogging experiences. It's quite a difference as I seek to write from the comfort of my own solitary home that only rings true to my soul and none other. I tend to stash my writing and keep them a secret. I am not fond of showing my writing to everyone. I am selective...especially of such as journaling and blogging. For example, even coming out with my writing took me a long time. I used to hide my notebooks deep within closets and underneath beds and even carpets that's been pealed from the floor. One of my ultimate favorite spots was in the attic and I would hide stacks of loose paper behind the small door, which no one would ever think to look for. I took pleasure in keeping it a secret from the world, because it was my world and my world only, where no one could ever try to enter. It belonged to me and I was it's mistress where only I reigned. It was mine, no one else could touch it, soil it, or harm it, or change it, unless I wanted it to. I've always been fond of rare and special things.

So...it's a change and I am unsure whether this is a good or a bad change...Writing habits, at least for me, rarely change. And that change is at the very least, very slow and a very difficult task. I don't even like changing my writing process for essays. When I am made to change these, I became very angry and well, very unhappy.

People write as it pearls out of their soul and as we all know the process or birthing of a pearl is a long and a complicated process that makes hard demands on the oysters...as such it is for writing. After a writing session, I often feel tired, sleepy and well, with a ton off my chest, and I like taking my time to be lost in the bitter-sweet success and pleasure of writing...it's a tiring process in which it's a lot like giving birth. You not give it only a physical space to exist, but also a mental capacity, a character, traits, time, fate, and soul in which it exists as an extention of yourself in one way or another, in one dimension or another. Your writing continues to exist long after your heart stop beats, you stop breathing and your fingers case to pick up the pen, or your mind to stop thinking about the depths of life, religion, humanity, universe and death.

So, whats the sudden change? I am quite unsure, but I just couldn't stop thinking about you, and I couldn't stop thinking. Emotions and thoughts piled up, making it impossible for me to continue on without writing. So, I did grab the laptop of a friend to write this blog entry...because things needed to come off my chest and pearls were ready to be made. I am nearing the end of this post, because already my lids are becoming heavy, my sighing has increased and slowly the speed which I have been typing away has slowly started to slow down. But I guess, the consequences are to be found out, after today, and we shall see the reprecussions afterwards.

Until then...I'll be dreaming of you tonight...

Nightmares and Job Hunts

I would have loved to be still sleeping. But I woke up from my sleep--all of my prayers unsaid again--and was reading something and one thing left to another and read about a whole bunch of serial killers. Mm, not quite the most pleasant topic there is out there to read about, especially so late at night. Creepy being given, moving on to the scarier parts of this...Realizing that there is no possible guarantee of life as you live by about it...it's incredibly sad and threatening. It's as simple as looking a certain way, wearing a certain thing and not giving a second thought to help someone who pretends to be injured to ruse you into rape, torture, mutilate and eventually kill you. Someone who is set on ending your life from the beginning and in order to attain his goals he uses the most sympathetic ways to engage your attention and step on those sentimentalities to defile your life, your relationships and to ruthlessly pain those you love and hold dear. Your sole fault in this is, existing. There is no other way of justifying this. It's the most terrifying thought possible. It scares me so much that I have pulled all the blinds up and turned on all the lights, with a constant background noise and my ears are on alert, ready to pick up any stray and staggering feet noises outside of my door, in the hallway. I've checked my door lock about a billion times now and I could swear someone is trying to pick my lock.

They're out to get your life, a life that we in most cases take for granted. Days go by without a thing done, without happiness, cherishing others, finding love, or being grateful for the things one might or might not possess...days gone by without dreaming. days gone by being miserable and holing on to things now that seems a little silly and trivial in comparison to sacredness and uniqueness of an individual life and the sadness brought upon by it's loss and the sheer horror it leaves behind when one is cruelly and brutally murdered. Maybe I feel this way because I had a friend commit suicide at the youth of his life and a great uncle mercilessly killed for reasons unknown to us--reasons I don't think I could ever fathom...So, maybe this is one of my soft spots that seems to keep being dragged deeper and deeper.

Then you get to the end of the article and start finding out about these killers, so called human beings by specie to not possess a shred of remorse, guilt, or even viewing their victims as not human beings, but rather objects is beyond my imagination or empathy levels, not mentioning even being able to understand the process, logic or whatever there is beyond the killings...reasons, excuses, and etc.

To humiliate and objectify a human being so much that all you see is release of your own feelings and having felt the ultimate control over someone and to possess someone entirely. They're only flesh and bones in which you can manipulate in the way of your prefrence. This is frightening. I've always been attracted to the allure of the dark, charm of the night and the gaze of a bright full moon. I have never argued to possess a straight and pure moral compass. There are many absurdities that I find normal, and I tend to be not as harsh of a judge of human character and human experiences...that aside, this is beyond anything I could ever come close of illuminating of finding a way to settle things within myself. There is a scary world out there, and I'd like to protect myself and all those I love from it--an impossible wish to fulfill. Even by God's standards, it goes against the very fabric of destiny and fate God has established for his humble creatures to follow and taste.

Especially to meet that brutal fate, in your own home, supposedly your own sanctuary and the most safe place one would ordinarily feel, and in their sleep on top of that to only meet the end of a sharp force on your face. This makes my heart sink to the bottom of the ocean and it feels like I won't ever be able to retrieve it. A part of me died today...involuntarily.


As far as jobs goes...I've gotten a whole bunch of applications and have turned some in until the point of exhaustion. I have to go back today to finish University ave. On Saturday I'll seek out and solicit shops and stores on Monroe Ave., and eventually make my way down to State Street. It's tiring, it's gruesome and filled with disappointments. Filling out all those applications and hoping, and going through the nervous breaks--hopefully will eventually be worth it all by finding a job without having to go home.

Only if I have a job, things would fall into their places, at the very least I'd be able to sleep peacefully once I could manage to shut my eyes for more than a few seconds after all I have read.