I am ahead in my other blogs, so I have time to post here. Funny how I was so frustrated at not being able to post here yesterday, as certain projects were not done
LOL.
While it would seem that my parents would be responsible for trust issues from childhood, I don't think my trust issues of inability to make close friends comes from there. I am not sure it's even my inability to make friends rather than it's hard to make friends when you are forty, and I did not maintain those old friendships from grammar, junior high, and high school.
The younger school thing seems more routed in how children can do thoughtless things. When I was in grammar school, I was fairly popular. I remember that I was always the champion for the underdog then. There was this girl, Ellen. She brought a pocket book to school every day. She also had a funny short haircut that was not exactly flattering on her. Kids used to tease her mercilessly in the playground, and steal her pocket book. She would end up in tears at the end of recess.
I am not sure why, but I started to come to her defense and chase the other children away. She wasn't really my friend, and I didn't hang out with her beyond that. I was actually pretty shy, so other children had to come up to me to be friends. I don't think Ellen ever talked to me or anything, so it probably just didn't occur to me to extend myself at all (a situation that still occurs in my non business life).
It may have been that before I was going to school, I was teased by a group of boys waiting outside of my baby sitter's house for my mother. They took my barbie doll and ran away with it. Maybe that struck a chord with me for this poor girl. My parents would never help me out with stuff like that, they always told me to take care of it myself. Something that really didn't start to kick in until Junior High.
I was also very good friends with my neighbor Kathy (one year younger) and her sister Mary who lived next door to me. We could talk through the windows to each other, we played in the woods building forts in the stone wall. We actually got in big trouble taking a stone wall apart that was on the side of my house, and had to put it back together. I don't remember what happened, but as soon as I was in Junior High we were mortal enemies. It's a real shame because we did all sorts of cool things together. There was an abandoned tornado cellar in the field behind our house that was our secret fort, walks along the
forbidden railroad tracks, and monster sledding on the way steep hill at the end of the field. We would go back there with our notebooks, and make stories, lists or whatever. We used to make up dances to the
BGs, Diana Ross and Andy Gibb in their "den room". They were the first to have one of those basic video games as well. I used to go over there and play them all the time. Then there was the pop up camper and play house. At our other neighbor's house on the other side, all sorts of games were played, and we used to jump off the roof of their play house and swing on the tire swing. Alas something happened (probably me by the way) and we were never friendly again.
Junior High a couple of things happened. First, I made best friends with a really unpopular girl called Barbara. She was chubby and smelled like tuna fish sandwiches, but I had a lot of fun with her. She also hit puberty way early by developing and
menstruating first (I think). I've never really been about appearances. My popular grade school friends told me her or them. It became her. I was best friends with Sarah too, and that hurt much, but I wouldn't shelve Barbara over an ultimatum. So a large group of friends went bye bye. I sat at their table once with Barbara, and everyone was just silent, so the next day we just started sitting by ourselves.
I went through a really gawky streak in junior high, though if I look at my junior high graduation photo, I was a really cute kid. Also all the clothes my parents got me were not conventionally cool. It's funny to look at pictures with them in now. I had
tuff skin jeans from Sears in every color. I never liked them, but my parents would not buy me the more expensive Levis. I never did begrudge them for this, though my mother complains bitterly because later on in life during what I thought was a nice conversation, I told her how I was teased for the flood different colored
tuff skins only in explaining what a really difficult time junior high was. She went off on a tangent about this later on when explaining our estrangement. Good lord. A classic case of a parent of this narcissistic nature using something against you totally out of context.
I was little too in addition to being gawky, oddly dressed, and a band geek with undesirable friends. (or friend as it turned out) Oh, did I mention I was completely flat chested too!!! So I became a target of all the girl and boy bullies in school. Sandra, Nancy and Cheryl took quite a bit of pleasure finding me in the girls locker room and beating me up. Or at least pushing me around
et. Finally, I got sick of it and Cheryl came after me, only to find I had locked onto her head and fought back. She laughed then, but never bothered or came near me after that. I spotted Sandra in the hallway, she didn't do anything but I walked up to her and punched her in the face. She never bothered me again, and was too "tough" to report me to the principal. She actually grew to respect me and we had a cautious friendship later on, though I would never hang out with her outside school (didn't trust her that much). Nancy was dealt with later on in High School.
A really bad incident happened where I was attacked on the bus by three boys. They wanted to see if I had anything developing. The bus driver did nothing about it as I yelled and cried for help and tried to keep them off me. When I got home, it was obvious I was crying, but I didn't bother to tell anyone, as I had been expected "to take care of things in the past" with bullies myself. To my mother's credit, she did drag it out of me, and promptly reported it to the principal. The boys were all banned from the bus for the rest of the school year. They were not allowed in school for two weeks (suspended). When they came back, they all apologized to me (two sincerely I think). I overheard two of them talking about how angry and disappointed their parents were, although their parents never reached out or apologized. They never bothered me again, and in fact the two again apologized in high school. Later on when I was successful and went out to dinner with my parents, one of these two was our waiter
LOL. Talk about karma coming back to bite you in the butt(not that I have anything against waiters, they are hard working, and I held down a waitress dog for approximately two days before realizing I would hurt someone). However, I would never want to wait on someone that I had done that to or that I had a grudge against in some way. It was pretty funny though.
In Junior High I did get in huge trouble. My best friend and I used to get those Mad magazines. All sorts of cool things used to come with the magazine, and there was this record that had different messages or something, and said something like "I am coming to take you away
haha hoho". Any way, we made a bunch of prank calls from Barbara's house to my neighbour Kathy. Apparently she knew who it was (and this was before *69), and she became scared and told her parents. Her parents called my parents, and I denied it (and my parents believed me and reamed her parents). Then they called Barbara's parents, and she confessed. Then Barbara's parents called my parents, and I got in huge trouble. Grounded big time, and the worst was I needed to go apologize to not only Kathy but her parents the next day. Then we walked to the bus together. I did feel very bad, and having to face her parents was the worst as they had always been so nice to me.
When you have that stigma about you in Junior High, it pretty much goes with you to High School no matter what. What really sucked about Junior High was that we had two Junior High Schools. So another whole group of grammar school friends I didn't see again until High School. Many of them wouldn't have been friends with the more shallow group that had followed me, and would have been great support during those years. I had started to get those curves. Course, I was not interested in boys that came to High School with me no matter what, and some did approach where I promptly told them to take a long walk off a tall cliff. Self esteem with the boys, and getting involved with the knuckle
draggers has never been my problem. In fact, I do credit this early experience with boys with my ability to weed out the riff
raff, and have boyfriends that I still think of as good people later on. I had very odd groups of isolated friends in High School. I don't remember why, but I basically broke up with Barbara. Could be the incident that I described above with Kathy. Any way, always been ashamed of myself that I didn't keep both relationships alive (Kathy and Barbara).
One thing junior high did for me was because I didn't worry about what people thought about me, I was unafraid to do whatever I wanted. I joined the field hockey team and had a great time. I became very involved in band, and would do crazy things like initiate whipped cream fights or just be very silly publicly (some called me immature, but I had a good time without drinking, having sex, or doing drugs) which reminds me.... I spotted the other Junior High bully, Nancy in the band room one day. I was determined not to be picked on physically any more, and before she even saw me I was on top of her. The band director, Mr
Grimo, had to pull me off of her, and that was the first time that we met. I don't remember getting in trouble for that at all though.
(Good lord this is getting long and time consuming, but I won't feel like continuing it tomorrow so I will just keep going here)
So in High School, I had a very eclectic group of friends. Basically anyone who would talk to me and who was nice was my friend. There was Janet who came from a much worse family situation than me, and had the worse misfortune to be just as unpopular in High School and very developed. I was also friends with her older sister, and they were both involved with drugs. There was Darlene, very pretty girl but disturbed and involved in drugs. Tony, who was a girl, had gender issues before I really understood what those were. She was very funny, but her stories of going to the mall to confuse and kiss girls never made sense to me....until I understood more later. I understand that she did have a gender change later on. There was a large group of born again Christian friends (and remember I have always been agnostic). Julie and Stephanie are the two I remember the most. I always went to their "events" as social functions, and no one ever tried to pressure me to do anything other than hang out. Later on, I totally blew off a wedding invitation that Julie sent me. She got married in CA to a minister, and she was still very involved with all of that. She was a very nice girl, and I totally regret not keeping in touch with her. Stephanie (or now I think it was Lisa and her best friend was Stephanie) has seen me out several times after High School, and always recognizes me and seems to remember me fondly. There was a boy, David, that we hung out with who battled cancer during high school until he lost the fight in my junior year.
I did manage to have Levis during High School by paying for them myself. Or maybe my parents might have made a Christmas present of one pair. My dad had found my first job for me working in a deserted
cemetery late at night. (
across from the High School by the way where jocks might wander through) I've always wondered if my dad wanted me to be raped and killed or something. Plus I was so scrawny,I was hardly capable of digging a grave. I was game and tried on more than one
occasion, but I am sure my employer thought the grave might be done by natural causes first. My next job,my mother used her "
antiquing"
connections, and I had a very cool job as a runner for an auction house in
Shrewsbury. I was strong enough to help hold up most pieces of furniture. I even got to log in the bidding sometimes. I
certainly felt a lot more safe. (although at the grave yard I did enjoy scaring my friends my jumping out of graves when they walked through) The job I found myself, close to home, was in the kitchen of a rest home. Have a mentioned I always sucked in the kitchen. Probably not as much as the cook who used to smoke while cooking, and flick her ashes into whatever she was cooking. Socializing and making the patients happy was more my skill, but my lack of skill in the kitchen (being the main job) is what eventually got me fired. Final job in High School and when I came home from college was at Webster Square Cinema. I could ride my bike to and from there. I started working early mornings as the janitor which was surprisingly cool. Then they also wanted to use me at the candy counter and ticket booth. It was easily the most fun job I had before going into the adult grown up jobs category. First of all my new best friend, Carol, worked there with me. We were surrounded by young people, and when everyone was in the cinema and it was quiet we had the best time.
Carol was one grade below me. I honestly don't remember how we made the connection and were friends. I imagine that it must have been that we were both in band. This was before funding was cut for arts or sports in schools, and so the program was well funded and involved. That and we both used to do those jobs during play productions that people that can't make the audition to be in the play do. Everything seemed to be a musical, and while I could play a decent flute, I could not manage to sing to save my life. My husband asked me to belt out a song once just to see how bad it was. He then requested that I never do it again (kidding of course, but seriously I don't come close to singing on key).
Any way, it was basically Carol and I joined at the hip from
sophomore to senior year for me. We were involved in all sorts of escapades together. Her house was equipped with cable, so we often had sleep overs where we would watch MTV until late in the night on the weekends. We
snuck out to Anna Maria college a lot, and tried to pretend we were college girls and climb into boys windows. I forgot why they were there, but we met two high school boys, that we would later on see again in music camp there. At a school dance, a few Worcester Academy boys had crashed our dance and became our boyfriends. Brendan (the tongue) is still remembered for being an incredible kisser. Carol was way more sexually daring, and liked to call me as she was measuring Matt's, well you know, which I found very disturbing. At a band trip to Toronto, I cut off my long hair with her (shocking everyone) into way cool eighties styles. My hair was down past my bum before we did this on a whim together. We were also on trips to
Philadelphia together. At music camp, we used to spy on the soccer team boys. God they were adorable. we had a swimming pool on site, and there was a viewing floor that had all glass towards it. When the boys would see us up there, their trunks always seemed to fall off or something, which was well appreciated by us. Carol, although younger, was more wild than me. She was also way smarter than me, as was her sister (
Princeton, Yale, Oxford, need I say more----oh full scholarships by the way) Their father was brilliant and a known professor and author. He was also very weird, and I am not really sure about what him and his wife were all about. They had
separate rooms, and didn't seem to hang out together all that much. So we had many adventures together. What eventually broke us up were two things. When we both got into college, our interests were very different, and I had made new friends. Also, she was very into showing pictures of her boyfriends private parts, and I was way into the fact that I wanted nothing to do with that. I would say I am far from a prude, but there is a line where you cross over into too much information. You know what I mean? I do have pictures from my graduation where we are hugging each other with our other friend, Wesley. Looking at that picture, I am sure we all thought we would be friend forever. I did see her later after a bunch of failed trips that we didn't enjoy. I was with my then boyfriend, Robert (
ie now husband) and our friend Rich. We saw her at a popular hang out called the firehouse. Ironically, she had become best friends with my Junior High best friend, Barbara. I wonder if it was some kind of support group. I was
admittedly a bit full of myself in college having finally fallen into a cool in group, and not a great friend to anyone. So Carol goes, "hey we should all go out together". So I said (in a hugely buzzed state) what I meant to keep in my head out loud!!! I said "yeah maybe.....Not!!!" That was the last time we saw each other, and I was mortified that I said that out loud.
So college....I wish there was a way I could let everyone know, who has been unpopular during previous years, that it normally does get better from this point on. Fresh slate, way more diversity, everyone is starting off anew. My very first day at college, I met two friends Grace and Toby. Grace and my friendship was short lived, but me and Toby remained good friends during my whole three semesters until the end. I had started in college going for music. Performance music to be specific, but I was determined to be able to play with the Boston Symphony or nothing at all. To be honest, a couple years off of finding myself were called for. However, I got pressured. See my parents got divorced in my senior year of high school. I was basically notified of this the day before my mother moved into her new apartment, and I was thrilled. It was a long time coming. I thought even if I have to stay with one, they gotta do better apart than they do together. Any way, the divorce said that my father was only responsible for my college for two years, so his first priority was to minimize it (the college that is). So when I said I needed a break, he was like "up to bad, the divorce says I only need to support your college for two years now or never".
Being so young, needing to get out of that house, but not knowing how to do that on my own, I
acquiesced to what I thought my dad's wishes were. In hindsight, I really feel he was just trying to get out of it. In truth, I paid for my college. I didn't even know what he was doing, and he put the loans in my name. He had me deposit the excess in my bank account (for those of you with college kids, not a real good idea). I didn't even know it, and I already had my first loan. I'm not sure I was even told what I was signing. Later on, my mother somehow found out, and tried to influence me to sue my father (mostly over her bitterness that he didn't want to be friends with her after the divorce, because she was having an affair two years prior). I decided not to do it, as not only was it not worth it, but I didn't even try in college. My freedom was well worth the price of that loan, even if it was paid off finally when I was 35. My father is a great one for reneging on his word especially for material things. For instance, both my dad and mom agreed on the divorce settlement that I was to get my bed (an antique). My dad decided he wanted it for himself, so he kept it then sold it for himself. He never intended to keep that word. It would have in fact never occurred to the man I know to do so. He's done this so many times, and I forgave him so many times for things (other than the college) thatI never should have done so. That is why the final insult hurt so much. Any way, this novel is not to discuss that now, just let you know where my head was in college.
All during my pre-college school life, my parents were incredibly controlling. I was often in their site at any out of school time. I think that is why I didn't get involved in alchohol and drugs, and really was ignorant about boys (except the Hite reports my mom would force on me). There I was with my own dorm room all of a sudden. While I wasn't all that far away from home, I was not in easy reach to both of my parents. My mom had moved to PA by this point. Plus it was a clean slate as far as previous knowledge of me. No stigma followed me from Junior High to High School. In fact some other students went to U Lowell, and I was now the cool one. I had zero problem attracting boys. My college advisor (hot college boy named Bob) invited me to my first alcholic party the first day of classes. Where I met more hot boys, and some girlfriends (ie Stephanie) that I later became very close with. The girls left walking for the dorm I(or did the bus pick us up from the North to the south side?), the boys were ALL passed out with loftier goals forgotten.
So this was a whole different game for me, and I am not going to pretend it did great things for my personality. I did get very full of myself. However, it did provide me with humility and confidence later on. U Lowell did one thing right, which was to bring a group of students in their first year through all the same classes. This did a lot to expand my friend base, but as well distracted me completely from the task at hand. Although, for a performance student, performing in front of people has always been a problem for me. Now that I am older and wiser, I can handle it. Corporate world helped that in a big way. The school didn't actually nuture problem areas as much as bring students down who were not excelling. So my new interest combined with a disgust of the professors did not help. I recognized at this early age, that since I was not paying the tuition (and sadly not talking to my dad about this) that they were not interested in me or my development. A problem I found when I was aware that I was putting myself through college later on in business school, because they still thought only parents were paying tuition. Regardless, tuition paying parents were still the biggest demographic to be catered to, certaintly not the students.
Later on, one of my friends, Linda, and I decided to get our own apartment. My father flipped out, and sent me this letter apologizing but saying "you should know how your dad is". He was probably right, but the way he went about trying to "convince" me left me cold, and I was doing it if I had to pay for it myself (was anyway but didn't know it) or not. The dorms that is, were covered by the loan. Dad did in fact pay for the apartment, but I didn't understand that the difference was I had already paid for the dorm. I also got a job at a gas station doing the all night shift.
Hmm, my job and my first college boyfriend, Matt. I have no pictures of college, but I remember that Matt was very cute, but perhaps not in your conventional male model cute way. He was not chubby, as became my preferance later on. He was fit,with curly hair, and he played an awesome classical guitar, although I don't know that he knewI had overheard him practicing. Like all the music majors that I tracked down, Matt has not used his music in his adult life. I thought he was really good, and there was nothing that got me hotter than excellent guitar playing. We flirted at first, and then I think he thought he scored when I agreed to date him. You know the thing was that Matt was a couple years older than me, and ready for a relationship. I had never really had the freedom to explore the relationship thing at all. So I was immature and incredibly cocky. So I appreciated Matt at first solely for the fact that he found me attractive, and we had some really great sleepovers that moved me into some new territory. Ironically, that didn't really hold when I basically forced him to initiate me in my first time. Due probably to the "sexual freedom" and girls should do everything that boys do and the free love mentality that my mom had preached to me, I was way up for the task. My virginity, to me was a hinderance. You can imagine that it might have been a bit uncomfortable for Matt. First of all, by the time it happened, we were kind of broken up. Second of all, that's kind of a lot of pressure to put on someone you don't have a more intimate relationship than a crush fullfilled. Needless to say, it wasn't good but it didn't ruin it for me. I had expected that, and treated it with that much respect. Interestingly enough, me and Matt did try to rekindle our romance during the year and a half, but it became kind of like kissing my brother despite the earlier chemistry. It is one of three friendships that I regret taking into that territory. I regret the hurt that I caused him before that incident that I will explain shortly.
In hindsight, I would have still liked to experiment, but would have put both my and my partners feelings first rather than treat it so cavelerly. I really didn't realize the difference though until I fell in love with my husband. I also had many more lessons to learn in college, and regrets to look back on later. One thing that I have never regretted about my earlier attitude though, is that I have never been curious about what it would be like to be completely wild. Been there, done that. No big deal. The really big deal is being completely in love and intimate with someone. If I had waited for that, it would have been Robert, and then would I have been curious? I don't know. I am for sexual freedom by the way. If one guy and two girls want to live together and call themselves a family, great. I am all for it. Same sex relationships, I have never seen the problem. As long as someone is not being molested or raped or hurt against their will (and I am including statutory rape here), that's really their business. It's not the way I choose to manage my relationship, but that's completely my choice. It's the way I naturally feel. If something else works better for another, why not? Assuming the no hurting thing of course, which means responsible sex as well. Plus all those gymnastics you go through when you are young (on the sink, in the car, on the balcony) are great for novelty. Let's face it though,not all that comfortable.
Probably falling into the category of too much info now LOL. Want to explain a bit where my head (or lack of understanding) was at the time. I was popular with both girls and boys (though not in the same way). I had freedom that I never imagined before. Sororities wanted me. People wanted to be my friend. I could pick and choose, but I was still friends with all alike. It wasn't like in High School, where the quality of your friends was judged by the "cool crowd". College was a diverse and interesting melting pot. Unlike my high school where there was one Jewish family, one Latin family, and one African American family. I hung out with some Iranian friends on the weekends, and talked indepth about the poster of (I can't remember who) on thier wall. I marvelled at the fact that their college car was a lambourgini (spelling I know). No one cared that I wore mostly Goodwill clothes (another place I worked and took some perks). In fact it made me cool and artistic. Plus in my shape then, I could have shown up in a large pillow case. This was something I never experienced before, and it was so exciting.
The first apartment was the party center. It was right accross from the college. I remember the first day of our second semester cracking a beer in the am (hate hate beer now) and then walked accross to my first class in my fuzzy blue pajamas. I was a goddess. During this period of time, I never gained any serious weight. Course the fact that I couldn't drive and had to bike and walk most everywhere (including the grocery store five miles away) certaintly helped. Well that and the coke we all started taking.
Did I mention my first boyfriend, Matt, was a coke dealer. He was a coke dealer on a very small scale. Still that will explain my access to this despite lack of funding. Despite the hurtful things I did to Matt, we were still very close all through college, except for maybe a few weeks (after the hurtful thing). I might as well get into that now. It's not something that I am even close to proud of. Matt's best friend was Dave. I remember that me and Matt were getting sort of bored of each other, and there were games being played (mostly by me). I refused to wear glasses, and a misunderstanding happened one day when Matt waved to me and I didn't acknowledge him. I remember the day, and I couldn't see who it was so I didn't wave. Matt was pissed and the beginning of the end was starting. Matt never cheated on me, and I am quite sure he would have broken up appropriately unlike myself.
Any way, I made a date to go to a party that he knew about with Chris, another flute player. I wasn't actually interested in Chris, and later on managed to hurt his feelings quite a bit. That's because I spotted Dave, who was Matt's best friend and a good friend of mine, and ended up spending most of my time at the party with him. Something sparked between us, and I ended up spending the night at his apartment although we did not do the deed. We thought it was our little secret, not realizing all of our many friends had witnessed this. So that morning Matt heard about it. It was probably Chris that was the first to tell him. Talk about Karma, huh?
David showed up to breakfast at Matt's the next morning. I wasn't there but Dave told me all about it. I amso glad they remained friends from the beginning. So Matt casually says something like "heard there was a good party the other night". David is clueless but wanting to deflect the topic. Matt's like "I heard Robin went with a date the other night. Did you see her there?" Dave is like, yeah I think she went with Chris. Then Matt goes, I heard she left with someone else though. The cat was out of the bag, and we became a couple (me and Dave) shortly thereafter. While this is one of the best pre-marriage relationships I have had, I still wish we had just remained friends. We would probably still be in contact today. When you have a close passionate relationship with someone, it normally ends up that you can't be friends. Especially when you have a young and immature girlfriend who is going to be so thoughtless about your feelings over and over again. We were on and off all through college. David was also a sweety pie. He got the first CD player that I ever saw, and on New Year's eve we had a picnic on his apartment floor and enjoyed a little Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Like Matt, he would save up and bring me out to dinner and cook me an awesome steak (no boyfriend I have ever had has expected that I might cook or clean LOL).
I don't really think about it now or try to count how many times I hurt David. We had a very passionate and close relationship. Another thing we shared though, was a temper. Although David was nothing like my dad, I think it brought up an unfortunate comparison and control issues that were not really there. I, however, had not learned to control my temper, and to have someone equally as volatile as me was not good. I recognized that. David had a lot of cause to be frustrated with me. The thing was, I was not mature enough to handle it. I also had the misconception that he would want lots of kids. So in the end, I never wanted to make any commitment to David no matter how hot and heavy we were running. I am sure this was very confusing for him. I want to get into the intro to coke first though. Be assured, I have never done it since my time at Lowell. I mean I would have had to 1) pay for it and 2) trust the source. I trusted Matt, I would never trust a stranger with that.
The reason for getting into this, is I don't want anyone to ever underestimate how this can effect relationships. The liquor is bad enough. I was horribly shy, and let me tell you that was the first step to any shyness being a problem. We used to get together at my friends Adam, Libby and Peter's apartment. Robin and Lorraine, (Libby's girlfriend) their next door neighbors would be over. Also Linda's old high school friends (and our neighbors) Chris (Scott's brother & not flute Chris), Scott (Chris's brother), and their roommate, Keith, would come over. We played poker or quarters many times at these gatherings. David would either by our drinks for that night, or we would go half and half for the white russian mixings or the Captain and Coca Cola would be provided (usually by Matt and his roommate John). This night, we were playing poker and the boys were enjoying some coke. Linda, surprising enough (normally very straight), was the first to ask for a try. The boys were like "no way, you don't need this". I think Matt later gave in, probably because he was pissed and me and thought "you aren't my problem to watch out for anymore". David was against it, but I wore him down somehow. I think he thought we would try it,hate it,and that would be it. Unlike pot though, I loved coke. Talk about getting rid of your shyness, and made you feel a lot more energetic as well. Linda stuck with it while I was there at college too. Turns out, it was a pretty good weight loss mechanism (like I needed that). It's pretty dangerous as well both physically and as far as good judgement happens. I probably won't go into all of that. This posting is way long enough as it is. Rest assured, there were more bad decisions than I am about to post about.
Now it's six pm, and I think I will have to continue the final chapters tomorrow.
