The Beauty of a Woman.

My favorite thing about men, and the reason that I gravitate twords a friendship with them, is the honesty that comes out of it. You can ask them anything and they answer it candidly.

I love my friendships with women as well, but when you are friends with a man, it is a different sort of honesty. Sometimes it is jarring, and rude. But it is almost always truth. And there is nothing that I appreciate more, in ANY relationship, then truth.

While having lunch with a friend last week, I was making fun of him and in turn he was making fun of me. That is just the way our friendship is. It makes me happy, but I'm not sure why.

I was making fun of the fact that he is a neat freak and would probably need gloves and a towel for sex. And he responded with..

"I would never lay ANYWHERE around you, or near you." He said with utter disgust on his face.

And  I was immediately filled with questions.

Why?

Am I not beautiful enough?

Am I not intelligent enough?

Am I too fat?

Am I too short?

Does my laugh grate on your nerves?

Is it my Bells Palsey? Maybe that is gross to you.

What is so unattractive about me to you?

I had to bite my lips to keep from asking him these questions.

I did not ask him those questions because :

A) I couldn't figure out, at that time, how to ask them without him thinking that he had hurt my feelings or him backtracking entirely. And I didn't want him too.  I also did not want him to say anything good about me, because as sick as it is. We just don't "roll" like that.

B) We were interrupted

C) The venue that we were lunching at was too public. Plus my lunch time was too short.

D) If he took it back, he would immediately take away the blog that was already stewing in my brain.


Now. Let me explain my brain.
I can latch onto a subject that interests me quite quickly and my brain will not be able to let it go until the questions that I need to have answered ARE.

And it became a quest. About men, and what they find attractive in a woman.

I asked Men, Lesbians and Transsexuals.
 
I asked older men, younger men and in-between men.
 
I asked single men and married men.
 
I asked Happily married men and Fake happily married men.
 
I asked religious men and non religious men.Their answers are below. You can match them by numbers or colors. M1, M2 ect...

What makes a woman beautiful?

M1) It is attractive that a woman is showing her beauty through her actions. It is not an age thing. I personally have a distaste for selfish people in general. If I see a woman of any age, from my daughter to my grandmother in law  showing kindness or doing acts if kindness, especially if no one is looking.

M2) Aside from a nice body, I would say how they look. Looks as in, do they seem like they're happy with life or themselves. Do they smile, would it be someone I could talk to on a daily basis. I also like a woman who's more natural that wears very little makeup.

M3) Natural Beauty not needing a lot of makeup.... Another thing I find attractive is self confidence. Physical beauty may be one thing but emotional and mental beauty is on another level with me. How one feels about themselves is very important. Mental competence and awareness, always able to find something positive or beautiful. Beauty doesn't have to be seen, it is more important to be felt and shared. That is attractive to me.

M4) Smile, sense of humor and confidence. Initially tits....over time smile... Physically I don't really have limitations.

M5) her personality makes her beautiful. I am physically attracted to green eyes and pretty smiles.

M6) Boobs and Butt initially. Someone who is classy. Intelligence is very important. If you are intelligent then you are never boring. My wife is attractive to me because of the way that she shows caring with others. How she is always positive about everything.

M7) A pretty face
A woman who takes care of herself
Happy
Independent
And of course a lamb in the streets but a tiger in the sheets!

M8) I prefer pretty women over "Hot" women....also, you should know that alcohol can make anyone attractive.

M9) Being sexy. Their eyes. You can see a lot about someone in their eyes. Their hair...the way they talk.

M10) A nice smile, willingness to use said smile, intelligence, being nice, friendliness, a good sense of style, and a nice butt.

M11) A nice vagina is attractive.

M12) Intelligence is number one. A positive attitude. Nice boobs. Really nice boobs. And someone who isn't boring.

M13)  A woman with a body like a woman. Not too skinny. intelligence. That is important.

M14) Have you ever heard someone laugh, and then YOU laugh, simply because they are?
 I can think that someone is bleh and then she laughs and that laughter becomes infectious to me. If you laugh at my jokes you are sexy to me. If you laugh at my penis I do not.
 I think that attitude is the most important part of being sexy. I think that a woman who believes that she IS beautiful....is. It is in her confidence.
A woman can have a plain face, but a beautiful soul. And that soul glows from within. That soul will outlast the most expensive makeup and the most skilled plastic surgeon. I guess to me the most beautiful woman is the one who is the most real. Who laughs the loudest. Who loves every moment... even the bad ones.

M15) A smile makes a woman beautiful. Boobs is a first attraction or what I at first.

M16) Are you going to be mad at me if I say "Id hit that?" I mean I'm nervous. You make me nervous. If I say something wrong then are you going to blog about it?

"Probably"

Stop laughing. Don't laugh. I'm not answering this.



What makes a woman Unattractive?

 M1) A woman can have gracefulness, and refinement and be unattractive because of the motives behind the actions. Someone who is physically attractive can open their mouth and their attitude and motives and selfishness shows, and "blehg" they aren't attractive anymore.

M2) Just say NO to cake faces! I mean how ugly are they to be covering up so much? Plus all that cooked tan skin and heavy makeup scream HIGH MAINTENANCE! Also, teeth are extremely important to me! If a woman isn't smiling I worry, because I think there may be horrible teeth she's hiding.

I like to know if a woman can be attractive OUT of makeup.

Plus all that tanning will be disgusting years from now!

Plus nobody likes a Debbie D. Depression Downer of Killjoy Village

M3) Being able to only see or share the negative and ugliness is a turn off.

M4) Personality wise prissy princes high maintenance types. Afraid to get dirty ect

M5) ignorance or playing "dumb" turns me off.

M6) I guess the opposite of what I was saying earlier. Someone who does not take care of themselves. You know...who does not even TRY to do something with themselves every morning. Someone who is NOT classy and who is unintelligent. Intelligence is very important.
Also....the kind of woman who is ALWAYS negative about EVERYTHING. No matter what you do, it is never enough. OR whatever YOU do she has done it better. Oh yeah...unattractive.

M7)  clumsiness is unattractive.
Smoking
Being loud and obnoxious (like ghetto girls)
Farting/burping
Bathroom stuff not being private
Getting drunk (not tipsy, but sloppy falling down, slurring, drunk).

M8) Anytime a woman utters the words "I can be a bitch" Yeah...that is unattractive to me.

M9) Smoking. You can be the MOST beautiful creature in the world. But I don't like smoking.

M10) Being mean, lack of intelligence, strongly held and poorly defended religious beliefs, lack of ability to self reflect, lack of thirst for knowledge

M11) Pshyco-ness is very unattractive.

M12) I guess the opposite of what I said. Stupidity..or someone who dumbs herself down. No boobs. And grumpy. I can't stand grumpy.

M13) I don't like women who are too skinny. And someone who has a bad attitude.

M14) I base unattractiveness on a case by case basis. If you are a woman who is all of the time negative. You are unattractive. If you have gorgeous heels on and bitch all of the time about my comic book collection. You are unattractive and your shoes become ugly too.
If you want to fight just because...That is most certainly ugly.

M15) A big mouth as in loud is a turn off.

M16) .........

In conclusion These were interesting questions to be asked. I noticed that the men who were married or had been married or in a long term relationship, answered with more character based answers.

In most men religion did not matter, unless it was considered to be a long term "relationship" . All men like boobs and some men were frightened of me.

In the end, Negativity and unintelligence seemed the most unattractive, while the reverse seemed to be the MOST attractive. Coupled of course, with tits and ass.

Home.

I have lived at this address for 13 years. Three of it were spent in a cramped teeny tiny brick house, that now sits rejected behind my new house.

It's name is bricky. In that home my daughter was born. Sometimes, I walk into it, leap over the boxes of Christmas decorations and try and remember how we fit inside of it.
But we did.

I swore to my then husband, that I would only live in it for one year.

One year turned into three and when my new home was nearly done, we crept inside of it with flashlights. I would oooh and ahhhh over the cabinets that I had picked out and my sunk in delicious bathtub.

In this home my daughter took her first steps, my son thought he was superman, leapt off of the swing set onto our trampoline.

He missed.

His broken arm and leg were a testament to that.

This home saw a divorce, which if it can be said, was a very nice and friendly one.

This home saw me go from a Domestic Goddess (SAHM) to a single mom who worked in the day and schooled in the night.

This home has seen me succeed and fail at this.

To my left is my neighbor. She has been here longer then I have. She is a very good neighbor to me. She has put my dogs back in when they get out, she has accepted packages for me when I was working too late.
She is a part of my neighborhood. An essential additive to the mix. She knows everyone IN my neighborhood.

My neighborhood is what I affectionately call the Ghetto. And thanks to my last boyfriend, I know entirely too much of what happens when all good people go to sleep at night.

To the left of my home are my Mexicans. They are never the same family, they cycle out from year to year and a new family moves in.
Regardless, they are always a Mexican one.

This is the reason that I love Mexican music. It automatically makes me feel like I am home.

This home has also seen the joy of Jordan inside of it, and the loss of him leaving.
It has seen me laugh with him, exclaim with joy AT him and make up songs to go with every routine that I had set in place FOR him.

It has also seen me weep at the loss of him in my life, and the strength that I found to move on with it.

Everyone in my neighborhood knows who I am. I am The Teacher. This is what they call me. This is what the refer to me as. And thanks, in part, to my ex-boyfriend, and to be perfectly blunt. Nobody fucks with me.

This morning as I wrote my blog. Sirens sounded far off in the distance.

Emma was asleep right next to me on the couch, her hair glinted in the sun that just peeked into my window.

She smiled in her sleep and opened her eyes.

Hearing the sirens she murmured "There's our rooster"

I paused in my tapping on the keyboard and laughed outloud.

"The sirens wake us up instead of roosters?"

"Mmmhmmm" she smiled.

"Oh honey. You know there are roosters right next door! And goats." (Once there was a cow)

When I was taking care of Jorden, People from the 'street'  would come by and exclaim at how wonderful he looked. They would ask after my family and offer any help to me that was needed.

They would thank me for taking care of him, and I always allowed them to hold him. He used to look at me like they were crazy. He would raise his arms for me and yell "Mama!"

After he was gone, my neighbor came to me with worried eyes. I know she wanted to talk about it. I know she knew where he was and what was happening.

I just shook my head and said "I can't. I don't want to hear anything...ever."

"Im sorry Laurie." she said and walked away.

Time has passed and laughter has returned to my lips and my heart. I know that everything, both good and bad, comes with a reason. Every person that we meet and accept into our lives, has come into it to change it in some way.

A pathway that is entirely too hard to see, until the stage has been set in its entirety.

I wake every morning with a smile on my lips. Laughter infuses my home at all times. I am in a good place.

This evening I decided that I had to buck up and do boy stuff. Like weed eating and such. I didn't want too. I hate it. With every fiber in my vagina I hate it.

I stood in the front yard with my grey sweatpants, star wars shirt and glitter boots on. I started the weed eater up cursing between my breath.

I love yard work, okay? Like flowers and shit. Making things pretty....that's what I'm good at.

I stopped the machine and yelled "I HATE THIS SHIT!" I screamed it. My hate scream echoed across the entire ghetto.

Lotsa people were out.

Lotsa people stared, but only for a moment.

I looked at my neighbor. "Why do I have to do this?"

She laughed "I don't know why you are."

"Someone has too. And I have no boybeast."

She came over to the fence and leaned against it. With her came a woman. One who I recognized. She reached her hand out to me and I shook it. She held it in her own "How are you Laurie? You look real good."

"Thank you." I said. Staring into her eyes. It was hard not to follow the trail of tears that were tattooed on her face.

But I did not.

You have to lean in close to hear her. He throat, I heard, was damaged in a choking in one of her prison stints. She wore a Hurley shirt with a hood pulled over her head.

She came around the fence and took the weedeater out of my hands. "Oh! No, you do not have to do that!" I exclaimed as she started it up.

"You stand there. Ill knock this out."

And she did. I caught up with the neighborhood gossip with Liz, and checked out the renovated house next door. One man showed me his bike that he had put a motor on and Liz offered to take Karma out for a walk every now and again when she seems bored or lonely.

When the woman was done weeding my entire front yard, she curled up my extension cord and handed it to me. "You don't need to be doing this stuff. I can do it for you."

"Oh no. I really appreciate it but..."

She took my hand "You are a friend to us. You remember that. We take care of our friends, best we can. You aint got a man, and I can do this shit better. You need me, you holler. And that's all." And she walked out of my yard.

When I came into my home I was smiling. "Who was that woman?" Emma asked. "Did she just do our yard for you?"

"Yes."

"That was nice."

"Yes."

"See? People judge others for the way they look. Or how they live. I bet there are rich fancy people that would judge us...and were fabulous."

"Yep."

"She had tattoos on her face huh. Does that mean she killed people?"

"Probably"

"Well...everyone deserves a second chance...or a third...." And she laughed.

I'd hit dat! A day of douchebags.

The other day when a friend of mine, a very good friend, mind you. Texted me a reply to a picture that he had seen of me.

"You look GREAT! I'd Hit that!"

And just like that *snap your fingers here* I was transported to a land of anger, self righteousness and as usual ...questions.

Our  conversation went as follows:

"Why do you speak like that to me?"

"Huh?"

"That is disrespectful."

"No it is not!"

"What, pray tell, would you hit? Why? And with what?"

"It is a saying! People say that!"

"Uneducated people?"

"NO!"

"Oh....retarted people then."

"Don't bust my balls about it. Jesus Christ. FINE, You look horrible. Terrible."

"Oh shut up. You know you want to fuck me."

"THAT'S WHAT I SAID!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Yeah. But you said it like a douchebag...and plus...I can't believe you said FINE like a woman."

"Jesus Christ."



Later that day, while driving home I heard it again. Driving slowly down the pockmarked streets of West Side Modesto. Inhaling deeply in the Ganja part of town, muttering to my self that I didn't inhale (much) and slowing even more for a stray dog limping across my pink lashed vehicle, there was a woman, pushing a stroller.

I'd say she was 20 but in Meth head years that is more like 45.

She was pushing her toddler, twitching ever so nicely, when a man across the street yelled to her. "OH yeah momma. I'd hit DAT!"

I slowed down even more to watch what she would do.

She turned her stroller, smiled widely and approached the man to flirt with him.

Really?

That is all it takes now? "I'd fuck you?"

Well gee... thank you very much. You would also fuck your hand, that goat... and a hole in the fence if someone spat on it.

I cannot blame men.

If it works, then good for them.

I want to know why women as a whole is even allowing those words to be muttered to them. Have some respect...even YOU crack head.

Later that night I was throwing baby FatFat in the air and blowing on his fatfat tummy. He was smiling at me in an "Im sorta scared" way when Dawn asked me to help her find a photo of her Dad.

We sat on her bed, laughing at Spencer, digging through years and years of snapshots, school photos and baby pictures.

I loved it.

I was putting photographs into piles. The DAD file. The Dawn DINGA file and the pile that I wanted to take home and put on my fridge.

Jesse came in and sat on the bed. I showed him some teenage pictures of Dawn.

He held it in his hand, stared at it and he said "MMMMM I'd hit DAT!"

Dawn screamed "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!" and smacked him with a stack of photographs. (But as she did it, her freckles popped with happiness, and her eyes lit up with love.)

I sighed, smacked Jesse, pinched his left nipple and kept on flipping.

"Bitches be crazy" He said as he left the room.

After the rain.

Blurred streets give way to brilliant sky. A sky so blue that it is almost neon. Your eyes blink and your head shakes because it takes you by surprise. The brilliance of this.

The green of the newly born leaves sway ever so softly as the wind tickles your cheeks. They stretch and grow almost before your very eyes. Needing to shade you from the thickening sun. The rays of which caress your hair and in one swift moment, blows away the cool from your face and warms it instead.

You close your eyes to commemorate this. To remember this. Your eyelashes meet your cheeks and you strive to capture this. To breathe it in and hold it inside. The smell of the fading rain, the heat of the coming sun and the earth unbinding because of them both.

If you glance up and ahead you will find brilliant greens enfolding crass blues. Like a lovers handhold. Folding and melding into each others embrace.

Fighting against one another, but loving every moment of it.

The sky gives birth to wind, which in turns shakes the buds and makes them fall forward. Inch upon centimeter, until they are unfurled and beholding the giggles and sighs of the children below.

They will shade. They will dance and they will absorb splashing puddle drops.

They shiver with excitement at it, and thrill through the summer breezes. They will age above them until they crinkle wrinkle with age and fall to the browning grass below, only to behold giggles once again as their aged carcasses become autumn pillows for laughing children to hop inside.

But for now they are new, and brilliant. And can only become this way once.

At this time.

After the rain.

Not yet.

It has begun.

Kindergarten Registration and testing at all of the schools.

Discussions about how to sit properly, line up properly and slowly.... ever so slowly snipping the ties that bind all of my children to me.

It is like an art. It is subtle and sad and sweet. All rolled into one.


It has already started. The parents mentioning to me that their children are sad to leave me. That maybe I could talk UP Kindergarten.

I don't want too. I want to stomp my foot and keep all my children for forever. I want to always have Masons Morehawks to look at, and Hannahs sweet smile, the way she crinkles her nose.

I want to slide my fingers over Jaydens hair every single morning and point out fat bits for Brooky to gobble up.

But I cant.

I do not simply teach the ABC's in my class. That's the easy part.

The MOST  important part of my job, is taking a child, who is nervous and scared and giving them strength.
Making a child SEE what is beautiful about themselves.
Teaching a child who is jaded and far too wise,  how to see magic in everything.

The first month in my class I do not introduce a single letter. THIS is what I call the bonding month.
We sing and we dance. I show them the BEST way to make fart noises with their mouths and I read them stories with both imagination and verve.

It is in this month that I gain both trust and love from them.
Now, it may sound strange or odd, but it is all for one purpose...it is because I believe that a child will learn more from someone that they love and who will also love them back.

And here is my quandary.
Each year my tiny babies will grow and learn and.... leave.

And that is good. But because I truly DO love them so, it breaks my heart.

We were sitting at circle time the other day, discussing Kindergarten and all that it would entail, when Mason proclaimed that he would never, EVER, leave me.

"Mace, you are going to go too." I crossed my fingers and sat on them so he would not see. "You will have so much fun and meet a new teacher who can read stories even better then I do."

(Which, is a lie. I mean have you EVER heard me read a story? Yeah...it's pretty much awesome.)

"No." He said. His face serious and his eyes wide. "I am not going too."

I sighed because he had buried his entire head into my crotch. and made a HURUMPH. sound which means, the conversation was over....for now.

From behind me (and to the left) Brooklynn piped up "Well I'm not leaving Mrs. Beanie either because I eat her farts." which, you know...is true but just pissed Mason off more because "NOOOOOOOOOO!" was echoed from my crotch.

I leaned back and smooshed Brooklynn against the wall, which made her laugh and we continued questions about Kindergarten.

Last Year it was Covin who refused to let go. And now he is fine.

I still see him every single day, I still demand a squish and a kiss (even though he hates it now)
And Corbin, just told me last week that even if he is grown and old, that he will "always, always love me. No matter what Mr.Juan says."

 I know that all of my babies will move forward and thrive, and I hope that whether it is confidence, intelligence or magic, that SOMETHING that I have taught, will always remain inside of them.

While Juan and I make Graduation plans for 2013, I have to blink back tears and gulp down sadness. Because I know this is necessary. I know this means that I have done my job well. I am just not ready to say goodbye.

Not Yet.

Gaydar and revirginization.

"DO I look like a lesbian?" I ask Brandee

"No...But do I?" she answers.

"Hmmm no. No you do not."

She nods her head.

I do not mind people thinking that I am a lesbian, I mean really, I could be called something a lot worse...like....a bad accesorizer. Or...ugly.

I am a huge Gay rights supporter. My cars all have an equality sticker on them. Brandee says that I am a better GLBT supporter then her and Mandy. And I HAVE been gay bashed before. Ask Brandee... it was awkward.

I take my children to our local Gay Pride days, and while we munch on homemade sandwiches we watch people dance and murmer praise over the hotpink hair that the man/woman is wearing. I take pride in the fact that my children view every kind of human being as a beautiful and unique one.

But...

I love penises.

I do not love Vag.

I do not want to smell it, lick it or even poke it with a toe.

I love Penises. I love the way they look and the way they feel. I love talking to them, singing INTO them and trying (my very) best to avert my eyes from them.

If you know me then you know that.

If you know me well then you know my quest of revirginization.

.....Maybe revirginization is the wrong word. I do not in any way wish for my hymen to magically reappear.

I do not wish to redo that awkward first time, where I was bored to death, popping my gum in time to the music that was playing on the stereo.

When I say that I am revirginizing, I mean that I have no plans in my immediate future to pursue any kind of relationship with the opposite sex. Sexual (yum) or otherwise.
I cannot conceive of a moment of time, in my day that I could or would give to another human being.

Now. Several friends HAVE urged me to pursue the booty call aspect. There is nothing wrong with a nice, healthy hump. But honestly, I feel that I really shouldn't just give my vagina away. I just shouldn't.

My vagina is amazing and should be treated as such.

Maybe it is because I am old....who knows.

Neither am I waiting for the perfect man. Men are not perfect. They smell bad sometimes and they almost always fart when they pee. They keep you waiting and turn everything you say into something sexual. Which is why, although men are not perfect, they are wicked funny.

(Okay. I sort of think men are amazing.)

Needless to say, this is what I mean when I say that I am revirginizing.

It means that I am not seeking out a hump-mate a soul-mate or a lesbian mate.

And although I do not MIND being considered or thought of as a labia licker. I am not.

Connect.

I hope to sweet baby Jesus above, beside or beneath you that All of the people in my life that I love...KNOW that I do.

I wake up at 5:00 in the morning, (earlier if Karma farts in my face) simply so that I have enough time in the day to get things done, Even if the things needed to get done, is coffee/quiet/blogging time.

If I wake up 30 minutes before 5. I do not go back to sleep, instead, I thrill at the 30 minutes of EXTRA time that my sleep pattern, or lack of it, has created for me.

Here is the part where I explore the guilt that I have when I slide my ringing phone to silent. The WHOLE time I murmmer to my phone "I'm so sorry, I promise...I promise I will call you after I get home, feed the children, spend time with them and eat.... and maybe poop."
Ask Brandee, she is usually sitting right next to me.

I can ALWAYS hear an irritated tone in my sisters voice. "I WAS TRYING to get a hold of you!" She grumps

"I know....Im sorry." I say

Saying I'm busy is relative, because I feel like everyone is. But the truth is, I multitask at most everything. I think about my day and figure out how I can stuff the most STUFF into it.

Plus. I love my friends. I enjoy their conversations. I want to brew a hot pot of coffee and sit Indian style on my bed while I giggle with them, or recite the newest song that Juan is teaching my children that day about me.


November 18th:  10:17 pm  (Three hour time difference)

Me: Miss you, love you! I know you are probably asleep.

MeLinda: Miss you ... Love you too! How are ya?

Me: Eating, call you in 20?

MeLinda: Can't! Call you later in the week!

December 4th 7:21am

MeLinda: You able to talk in a few?

(I was not able)

January 7th

Me: I tried to call. Love you MUAHZ!

MeLinda: Sorry, everyone in the worlds asleep in every room and it's fucking cold outside.
 text messages continue....

January 9th 5:18am
MeLinda: Call me if you have time this morning.

(I did not have time)

January 9th 9:51pm
U up?

(I was not up)

January 11th 7:25pm

MeLinda: Hey, can ya talk in 30 min?

Me: Perfect!

MeLinda: Woot! Ganna plug my phone in now!

30 minutes later....

"Men fucking stink. Like...it comes out of their pores."

"They do. But sometimes they smell good too...mmmmmm"

"Oh GOD Laurie. Brad stinks.Their balls stink, their feet stink...sometimes their hair...."

"Men are gross." I say this... but when you say men, I think penis. When I think penis, I think....
de-licious-ness.

"I am revirginizing myself." I declare.

"Goodluck with THAT!" She laughs..then she snorts. ( I know she is snorting at me)  "Brad wants sex all THE fucking time. It is ridiculous....I need a break."

Now I snort.

We talk for an hour. About our children who are like siblings. About work and worries and in the end we talk about the person who brought our friendship to fruitation. My Ex-Husband...her Ex-Boyfriend.

"You know...you think you could have shot me an email? Ya know...like hey, Maybe this isn't a good idea. Ya know. You could have filled me  in on a few things."

"Hell NO. I needed you to come and make him happy...You weren't, however, supposed to leave."

"Fuck you."

"You COULD have just sucked it up....Hey! Just think what you got out of the situation!"

" That is true. I did get you."

"Yep. We got each other....Do you ever think, that we are the reason that everything happened like it did? Did you ever think that? I mean...look who is still here. You and me..."

"Yep. And the kids."

"Weird right? You should come back. Just suck it up, and fucking deal with it for me."

"Fuck you."

So thank you to my friends and family that don't give up. That keep calling, text me random I love you's and connect with me in every way possible.