kiwords

Up until this weekend there were these kids living in our neighborhood. A boy about Tre's age who has a brother and sister who are twins and are six. These kids wander the streets a lot, often hungry, always searching for a place to belong. The older boy keeps an eye on the younger ones and carries his mom's cell phone to wait for word that they're allowed to come home. On weekends they will sometimes stay out all day, and hang around in front of the house with the gaggle of kids that congregates out there. Occasionally, they'll sigh as a grownup walks by, "I'm hungry..." Sometimes they disappear for a few weeks, sent to live with relatives. There is an angry stepfather in the house and a "real dad" whom they're not allowed to see, because he doesn't pay child support.

Those kids kill me. Their lives are so hard, so unreasonable and unyielding. I can pass out graham crackers and cheese sticks, yes you can use our bathroom, yes come on in, sure, join us in the back yard, but I can't change their lives. I can't feed them enough to make them not be hungry tomorrow. I can't break the terrified yearning they have for their parents' love, the dread that they never really will care.

The older boy announced this weekend that they're moving. We won't see them anymore, and they wanted to say good bye. I hugged them all and wished them well and watched them make their way down the street, too young, too old, too much to bear. I hope someone in their new neighborhood keeps an eye on them.

I remember the first time I wanted to save a kid. I was in third grade, and there was a student in our class who everyone hated. I can't remember her name, let's call her Anna. Anna was weird. She dressed wrong, and she was tone-deaf to the complex relationships of the school yard. Worst of all, she didn't even have the sense to seem embarrassed about being wrong and irritating and...WRONG. Everyone hated her. I felt bad for her, but couldn't figure out how to change things.

One day I was standing in a huddle of girls, trying to fix my necklace. It was some trinket, strung on a cord around my neck, and on that day it was the treasure of my life. The cord had come unknotted, and we were all jostling each other to be the next to try to re-tie it. Anna wandered up to us in the vague, unconcerned way she had, and when I saw her it struck me that this could be Anna's chance. I would give HER my necklace, and she would fix it, and everyone would stop hating her. In my mind I could see the scene, Anna, surrounded by friends, generously stopping to help anyone who needed something tied.

I handed over the necklace, ignoring the shocked glares of my friends. "Here, Anna, could you fix this?"

Well, no. She couldn't either.

And if anything, I was meaner to her than ever, I was so irritated by her failure.

My failure.

And there's where I balance, right between the desire to sweep in and be the savior, and hot-faced indignation that people just can't be saved. Not by me. Not today.

Tonight I sat in church, family all around. Raphael leaned hard against me, deep in grief at the fact that he had to sit through a SECOND church service in one day. On the other side of him sat Max, staring at the watch he had borrowed from Amma, sitting next to him. On my other side sat Clay, his hand warm around mine. Tre was stoic beside him.

It was an evening mass at a church that isn't ours, and we were there to see Kate be confirmed. Kate is Clay's brother's daughter, 15 years old. As the processional music swelled, people who were to be confirmed walked down the middle aisle. In the midst of that crowd strode Kate. Her chin was level, proud of every inch of her 6'1" (plus heels), and she carried a bright red banner that read, "Courage." She was so beautiful and brilliant that she brought tears to my eyes.

Kate spends quite a bit of time with us. There has been enough loss in her life that sometimes I look at her and want to pull every inch of her long-limbed frame into my lap and rock her like a two year old. I also find myself spewing out wise advice long winded lectures with alarming regularity. I just want so much for her to be ok. When she goes home at night sometimes I have to stand behind the door as it closes behind her and willfully disengage from my concern for her. I cannot save her.

But I watched her tonight, standing in the front of the church with such grace and joy. I am a fool to think that the biggest thing in Kate's life is the loss, and a bigger fool still if I think I am somehow her salvation.

"Stephen, be sealed with the Holy Spirit," said the bishop, pressing a cross of oil into her forehead. She chose Stephen as her saint name last week, and her face glowed as she described his devotion, his Christ-like-ness.

There was a sensation of lightness, like flying, sitting there with my family tangled around me. We are called to love, and to leave the salvation to Another.

The stupid thing I did the other day

To set the scene, I was standing in the bathroom, applying makeup. I do that. You might as well know. So anyhow, I was dotting concealer under my eyes (because if I don't people have a tendency to lay a gentle hand on my shoulder and say, "how are you...REALLY?"), when I noticed that the toilet had not been flushed.

Stinkin' boys.

I reached over and flushed it, but instead of a satisfying slurpy swoosh, there was a sick gurgle and the water level started rising. *sigh* I hate this toilet. It gets clogged at least fourteen hundred times a day. Or once a week. Too often, is what I'm saying. While I was standing there, glowering at the stupid bad dumb stupid toilet, I heard a voice from the boys' bathroom downstairs. "ABANDON SHIP!" someone bellowed gleefully.

This is code for "THE TOILET'S PLUGGED!" No, really.

*really heavy sigh*

Needless to say, I swung into toilet-plunging action, this despite the fact that plunging toilets clearly falls under the category of "man jobs" shut up, Gloria Steinem, you know it does. But Clay was at work, and I was left to deal with the tragedy of dual-plugged-ness on my own, much as a pioneer woman might, except yes I know they didn't have flushing toilets, you shut up too, please.

My point is that I DID it, I dealt with BOTH toilets, which were clearly in revolt, having plotted this vile uprising, probably communicated by a complex code of bubbles through their shared water supplies. But I - the mighty pioneer woman with indoor plumbing that I be - *I* QUELLED THEM. And lo, we were all very relieved.

A few hours later a friend stopped by, to drop off two of her boys to play. I answered the door and stood there, chatting with her whilst our children hopped and yelped and plotted around us. I thought everything seemed pretty normal, but she tilted her head at me and gave me quizzical face.

"You have...some sort of...dots..." she pointed under her eyes, "right there." I gave her quizzical face right back, and swiped at my face. Like I have time to keep track of everything on my face. As if.

"Is that better?"

She shook her head, then her face lit up. "OH, it's makeup! You didn't blend..." and she trailed off and looked away, not sure if it was safe to laugh right at me.

For some reason I decided at that point to take the dignified route. I suppose that's how a pioneer woman would have handled it. I raised my chin, gazed at her placidly from above dots of concealer, and persisted in making small talk. It was a little mean, I suppose. She stood there, chatting back, trying to figure out where to look, while I surreptitiously made little passes at my undereye with quick fingertips.

Because if she saw me blending my hours-old dots of concealer, THAT would have somehow made me look SILLY.

Not my most shining moment, but I suppose I can comfort myself in knowing that I made another mom feel really super on top of things, as compared to me (which is not a sensation that should be unfamiliar to her, because she IS super on top of things, even NOT as compared to me, which, let's face it, not that high of a bar, huh?). You're welcome, Alissa! And now I can share that joy with all of you.

OR! (and I'm liking this idea EVEN MORE) you could share your tales of humiliation, and we can all have a good laugh! Aaaaaaaannd....GO!

Oh Martha. I wish I could quit you.

Remember this? Where I said I was SO not renewing my subscription to Martha Stewart Living? I did NOT renew it, in fact.

All of March I went without the abuse of the MSL.

Yeah, that lasted one month. As I sit here, next to me is my April edition. In my defense, I did NOT pay for this subscription. Sort of.

See, somehow I seem to have fallen in with people who will "pay" me for taking their surveys online about various consumer matters. Answer a few questions about car insurance, breakfast foods, digital cameras, that sort of thing. It's time consuming and irritating, and at the end of the survey they say something like, "Thank you for your input. $1.75 has been credited to your account." Clay cannot believe I waste my time on such a thing, because I'll spend twenty minutes whining about how much I hate the questions and how boring they are, and then at the end of it all I get is this paltry sum. A pittance. But it's better than that, I tell him, because they don't actually give me money, oh no. They "pay" me "money" that I can redeem for "rewards," which are mostly really really lame - things like $5 off a $50 purchase at Ebags. Which, as Clay points out, is not so much a reward as an opportunity to spend more money, not something we were actively searching for.

BUT! You can also redeem your "money" for magazine subscriptions, which is how I ended up the proud owner of a year's subscription to LUCKY magazine, hide my head in shame. (Question? Do people actually dress like that? With ratted out hair and belts randomly knotted around sweaters even though there are perfectly serviceable buckles on them and scarves dangling off their shoulders like THAT wouldn't make you insane with the tickle tickle all day? Do people ACTUALLY pay thousands of dollars on a cotton dress? Who ARE you people?) 

And then I also got a year's subscription to Martha Stewart Living.

Why do I do this to myself? It starts the minute I open the magazine. At the very front, there is a checklist of tasks for the month - "Gentle Reminders" - and right away I'm reading it like it's the opening statement for the prosecution. Hah, I think, dust your lightbulbs. As if. I have a perfectly useful method of getting rid of lightbulb dust. It's called "changing the burnt out bulb." Besides, we use those swirly bulbs that sort of look like DNA and are going to save the planet and those suckers have MERCURY in them, so why would I take the chance on breaking one? Don't we have enough to worry about with the mercury in sushi? Not that I eat sushi all that often, but if I WANT to, I WON'T be deterred by the fact that I've already had my mercury dose from the LIGHTBULB DUSTING, as if.

This is not a good or healthy start to a relationship. And it doesn't get better. I read Martha's letter closely - not so much for the information as to chortle over the AMAZING regard she has for herself. Does she not have an editor on staff that could gently point out to her that she sort of sounds like the girl in the Peanuts strip who is always mentioning that she has "naturally curly hair"? Martha, Martha. We know you win at domestic chores. WE KNOW.

As I move through the magazine, my emotions are all over the map. There's derision - As though I have time to comb the wilderness for edible weeds - and elation - I am SO making that flourless chocolate cake - and shame - this recipe calls for espresso powder. I wonder what Martha would think if she knew I would use instant coffee. The store brand. - and moments of hysterical grandiosity worthy of Martha herself - I want to make crepe paper birds! I would make the BEST crepe paper birds EVER! I am untethered, swept up in the wake of Martha's creative force.

One of the seventeen trillion cards that sifted out of the magazine was one that was especially for giving your mother a gift subscription to MSL for Mother's Day. I tried to imagine what my mom would do if I gave her such a gift. I can picture her face, studying the lovely card I would be sent to give to her to announce my gift. She would just look at it for a few minutes, speechless. Her face would betray a struggle not to laugh. And then she would look at me and ask the only question that could really be appropriate at such a moment. "WHY?"

No, Mom knows better. She is far to wise to fall under the spell of Martha's siren song.

I'm afraid this is between Martha and me - and only one of us is coming out alive.

My money's on Martha.

Suddenly, it all comes together, like a puzzle.

Look, I'm trying to be a better blogger, I REALLY REALLY am. I swear. It's just that...do you have any IDEA what sort of persecution I've been experiencing over the last few days? Dude. Something should be done, because it's out of control around here.

First, one morning I grabbed the tea kettle, to fill it up with water for my life-giving morning tea. (Tea. How I love thee.) And when I flipped the little top up, a spider came scuttling out, right across my hand, and then SLING it went across the room as the tea kettle clattered to the floor and I swore in front of my children. I'm not scared of spiders, you understand, but I was AFFRONTED. In my TEA KETTLE! I MEAN! That was NOT ACCEPTABLE.

And then there was the wicked headache that parked behind my eyes and squiggled my thoughts so that every time I headed for the kitchen to grab myself a fistful of the pharmacy's finest, I would get distracted and wander away and find myself pondering the toxic situation that is the floor around the toilet in the boys' bathroom. And let me assure you, that is not a situation that one wants to ponder even in the best of times.

And then there were the boys themselves, who have been just RELENTLESS lately with the needs. Breakfast! Lunch! Dinner! Every single day, if you can imagine! And then conversation and that whole...PARENTING deal they've come to expect from me. Honestly. How did we end up here, where an acceptable morning greeting is, "Hey, Mom, did you know I'm out of socks?" Crazy, man.

And Spring is being recalcitrant and moody. Rain, no wait snow. No wait, SUN! No, rain! PSYCH! SNOW! Look, Spring, I know you're calling the shots, but there's no need to be a jerk about it.

Clay insists on going to work. Monday through Friday. I keep telling him life would be a lot more fun if he'd just stay home and play, but he says things like "mortgage" and "bills" like anyone cares about THAT. It's like he doesn't WANT to understand.

And then on top of it all, I have to get my period, and that's just....hmmm.

Wait a minute. (re-reads the preceding complaints.)

Never mind. As you were.

I have to admit it's getting better all the time

Years ago, when my first marriage was disintegrating, I went to a counselor, Kevin. Actually, we were originally going together, for couples counseling, but one day we had a huge blowup in the waiting room. Kevin saw us separately, and when it was my turn he told me that I needed to make some decisions, but his opinion was that the boys and I were not safe, living with my husband.

Thank God for Kevin.

Sometimes you just need to hear the right words from the right person at the right time. I drove straight home, packed up his things, and put them out in the car port while my friend Amy held Raphael and listened to me rant (and hyperventilate).

I was so stunned by the turn my life had taken that I moved through my days on autopilot. I kept going to see Kevin because every time I was there I made another appointment. As it turns out, this was a very good thing. At the time it wasn't really a choice I made, but just what happened. Those days I was just putting one foot in front of the other.

One day, during a session with Kevin, he told me, "You know, things WILL get better."

"Right. Ok."

"I promise."

I shrugged. It wasn't that I disbelieved him, it's just that it was too much work to try and imagine.

"Ok, fine."

When I left that day, Kevin handed me one of his business cards. On the back he had written in his messy scrawl, "Things will get better." I took it with me, shoved it in a compartment in the van, and forgot about it.

Years later I found it there, between two sticky cassettes of kid's songs. When I read those words, I shook my head in wonder. After all this time, it turns out that Kevin was right. Things got so, so much better.

I hadn't even met Clay yet.

When I cleaned out the van last September, after the accident, I found the card. I shoved it in a bag with the rest of the detritus and brought it home. Somehow the bag ended up in the laundry room, and has been slowly disgorging its contents ever since.

Recently Clay was doing a project in the laundry room, and he must have come across the card. Today I went down there and I saw, propped on top of the hot water heater,  this:

I stood there a long time, thinking back, comparing then to now.

Maybe it's the season, growing things all around me, new-bought seeds on the counter, compost under my fingernails. Everything seems so hopeful in the spring. But I couldn't help but think that it was true. For so long, things kept getting better.

And even though I can't imagine better than today...

 

...there is always something to hope for on the way.

Happy Love Thursday, everybody.

The love of my life...AND death

The other night Clay and I were watching a movie, and at the end there was a note, saying that the couple in the movie were married for thirty some years, and when she died, he died four months later.

"Awwww, honey," I sighed, "did you see that? He LOVED her."

"Mmm-hmmm," said Clay, as he rooted around in the bathroom cabinet for the floss.

"You'd do that, right?"

"Do what, now?" He was walking past me, floss in one hand, on his way to let the dog out.

"You'd die." He stopped at the door, and turned to look at me.

"You mean, like to save your life?"

"Well, duh, then. No, what I meant was when we're old and the kids are grown and gone, if I die first, you'll die within a few months. Right? What with the broken heart and all."

"How am I supposed to know if I'd DIE?"

"DO YOU LOVE ME?"

"You know I love you."

"Then why wouldn't you DIE?"

He sighed and disappeared into the garage. When he returned I was in full-on pout.

"WHAT?" As if he didn't know.

"I'D die if YOU died."

"Suicide is wrong."

"I'm not TALKING about suicide. My heart would just...wind down, like a clock that no one winds anymore. Life would hold no interest. Food would be sawdust in my mouth, and the sunrise would look like a paint-by-number picture. Unpainted."

"Wow."

"And then I would die." I sank back against the cushions of the couch, to illustrate. Then rolled my head his direction, opened one eye and prompted, "and you? If I should die first?"

"Fine, I would die."

"Within three months? Four, tops?"

"Probably."

"Do you PROMISE?"

He leaned against the wall and looked at me. Clay is not one to make frivolous promises. He means what he says, by golly, and that is not a quality to be relinquished lightly. Despite my dramatic plea, he knew this was not a promise he could actually make, logically.

On the other hand, if he didn't promise I would keep convincing him, and he wanted to go to sleep.

"Fine. I promise."

I beamed.

"You LOVE me!"

"I believe I already said that."

And then he walked away, shaking his head. He muttered something that sounded sort of like "I cannot BELIEVE I just promised to die," but I'm sure it was actually, "OH HOW I LOVE THAT BRIDE OF MINE."

He's so blessed to have me. Alive.

That which does not kill me...will when I blog it.

Sunday afternoon, we were all sitting around Mom and Dad's table, enjoying lunch. Mom feeds us lunch on Sundays, one of the many ways I am far more blessed than I deserve. Mmmmm. Lunch I didn't cook.

Where was I?

Oh, right. We were sitting there, after lapping up black bean soup, enjoying some ice cream, basking in the warm glow of family and love and (did I mention?) food that I didn't cook. Lovely. Max looked up from his bowl, a bright smile on his face, and said,

"Hey, you know what happened the other night?"

Oh lord, I thought, freezing, my hand clutching my spoon in midair, no no no, he's not going to -

"Dad was jumping on the bed!"

Oh no.

"WHAT?" said Raphael. "I'M not allowed to jump on the bed."

Please, God, just this once, could you override that whole "free will" deal and take away Max's ability to speak, and in return I will totally stop swearing in my head and calling other drivers jerks I promise please and amen.

"No, seriously. It was the middle of the night -"

I can't feel my fingers, I thought. This is like one of those dreams where everything is happening in sloooooowww moooootion, but you still are powerless to stop it. Max has been talking for weeks now. Can't he just STOP?

"You were probably dreaming, honey," Mom interjected, the angel of mercy that she is. Of course, if she really wanted to help, she would have lit a fire in the kitchen or something and cut the entire conversation short. Dad was looking hard at his empty ice cream bowl, his shoulders shaking, as he tried not to laugh out loud. Max was undeterrable.

"No, I had got up to go pee, and I heard this sound, like someone jumping on the bed - stop it, Dad." He waved Clay away from his ice cream bowl, where he had been dipping in his spoon in an attempt to distract Max. It wasn't working, damn the meds for all this stupid focus. "Anyhow, I heard this sound, so I went upstairs, but the bedroom door was LOCKED!"

Mom and Dad were both snickering at their ice cream bowls now. I tried to remember how to breathe, and wondered vaguely if it was possible for one's face to ACTUALLY burst into flames.

"Were you REALLY jumping on the bed?" Tre asked, incredulous. I seemed to have gone blind. I shook my head and coughed hard in my napkin.

"No," I gasped out, "of course not. Jumping on the bed IS NOT ALLOWED."

"Then why is everyone laughing so hard?" he asked.

Thirty seven isn't necessarily too young to have a stroke, I thought. Please, God, if you can't erase Max's last few sentences, you could take me home now, thanks, amen.

"And anyhow," Max finished, "they finally answered the door, and Dad had been jumping on the bed! In the middle of the night! He's such a goober."

And then I perished. But it was already way too late.

At the bottom of the stairs

Raphael was bouncing in the middle of his bed, giving me a hopeful look.

"Snuggle?" he asked. The boy loves him some mama-snuggles. Also anything that delays bedtime. Most nights I decline the snuggle offer, on the grounds that it took seventeen eons to get him into jammies, teeth brushed, and into bed. And I'm tired after anything more than fourteen eons of bedtime wrangling.

But after so many nights of snuggle rejection, I feel guilty enough to crawl in next to him, fold him in my arms, and feel his breath tickle my hair as he tells me and tells me and tells me things. Lordy. The words.

"G'night, Dad!" he sang out to Clay, grinning and wrapping his arms tight around me. My mom may have been the subtext there. It was subtle, can't be sure. Clay said his goodnights and exited, stage left.

Raphael wanted to tell me how good he is at kickball, and then to give me the play-by-play analysis of an imaginary kickball game.

"First up is Rebecca," he explained, holding up two fingers to represent her legs. Raphael thinks Rebecca is beautiful. That's exactly what he told me, "Rebecca, well, she's kind of...really...beautiful." This represents a huge shift for him, because for two years he's insisted he's marrying Iona. As much as I love Iona I think at six that it's reasonable that they see other people.

While he talked I closed my eyes and let the words just wash over me. All that is required on my part is appreciative noises. Raphael told me all about Rebecca's turn, then his friend Josh's. He was all set to send David to the plate when I cut him off.

"Tell me about it tomorrow," I urged him, crawling out of the bed. He protested, but I pulled the covers up to his chin, rained kisses on his face, and said a firm "goodnight."

"Mem!" he called after me. It wasn't a question, it was just an exclamation of love, and I winked back.

I picked my way through lego rubble, to Max's room. He was sitting on his bed, studying the directions for building a battery. On the floor next to him was a piece of loose-leaf paper, covered with words and drawings. I was aching to pick it up and read it, but one tries to respect privacy...

"Do you need that?" I gestured at the paper. He squinted at it.

"Oh, no." He snatched it up and crumpled it into a ball and shoved it in his trash can. "My leprechaun story. I messed it up." He shook his head ruefully. "I keep messing up my leprechaun stories."

Who knew he was writing leprechaun stories? I kissed the top of his head, damp from the shower, and breathed in the shampoo-and-boy perfume. What a mystery my Max is. He turned and threw his arms around me, to hug me thoroughly, then turned back to his battery instructions.

"Good night," I said.

"Right. Do we have any copper wire?"

"I don't know. Ask your dad."

He nodded and went on reading. I watched him for a moment, then turned to go.

From behind the bathroom door I heard the hiss of the shower, and I said a silent goodnight to Tre. He had some homework to do, but I knew he'd come upstairs before bed to say his goodnights and linger a few minutes longer. He's so in charge of his schedule, as he wrests more and more of his days out of my hands. This is good, I remind myself. This is right.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs, at the intersection of three boys' lives, and just stayed there for a moment.

And then I walked on.

An apology

Every so often, as I am reading others' blogs, I'll stumble across a situation, wherein the author of the blog offends someone. Unintentionally, usually, they write something that is taken the wrong way...it always makes me wince. That's the scary thing about blogging, your words out there, being interpreted. Judgments being cast.

I, for the most part, have avoided that sort of thing. Well, there was the one incident with the Bionicles - sorry, BIONICLE, no S, please. Really, I can't get too upset about mildly annoyed Bionicle trolls.

No, for the most part, I've carefully watched my words here. I've agonized over phrases and left out stories that I thought might offend. Sometimes I think I err on the side of over cautious, but oh well. We all have to pick our comfort zone, right?

However, I suppose it had to happen eventually. Even the most carefully worded opinions will eventually wound someone you love, and so, I must say this...

Randomness

Better living through chemistry

So I took Max back to the doctor for a med check/follow up. While his doctor and I talked about the amazing improvements we've seen in his school work and behavior, and how to get food in him, since the medicine makes food seem like the least important thing in the world (yet they won't give it to ME, go figure), Max sat calmly and listened. Toward the end of the visit I said, "I...don't know if you remember our last visit..." I inclined my head meaningfully toward Max, "or how different this one is?" Dr. S grinned and pushed Max's chart toward me and pointed to where he'd written, Patient is alert and cooperative. Exhibits decreased restlessness. We both sat there, smiling over the understatement that was.

Indeed, Doc. Thanks.

The wonders of the Wii

We have a Wii. And you know what? They're such a revolution in gaming. Instead of being the same old passive experience, they're practically exercise.

I mean, the physicality of it...it's truly inspiring.

Our dog is a dork

Really, she is. Her favorite thing to do these days is to go outside and roll around and waller in the grass. Except it's March, and the grass is dry and brown and dead, so she ends up coming back inside, COVERED in grass. Fortunately, we are effectively training her not to do this, because when she shows up at the door, bedecked in grass, someone goes outside with her, and brushes her. These are two of her very favorite activities in the world. Pretty much the only thing that would make that event better for her is if the neighbor's cat would come by with a steak strapped to her butt. Stupid dog is thrilled.

But no, that's not the dorkiest thing about her. She's completely neurotic. She's scared of chairs, and trimming her nails causes her to whimper and wail like you're boiling her alive. And she has this THING about bones. She likes them, the rawhide ones, but she won't let anyone see her chewing on them. You give her a bone and she'll take it in her mouth and trot off to hide somewhere and gnaw on it. If anyone else is in the room, she looks away from the bone as though it has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER.

See? I took pictures, stealth-like, around the corner.

Yummy bone, says Carmi. Nom nom nom nom.

   

But wait...she sees me!

Oh, hai. What? I've never seen this thing before. Want to go outside and roll in the happy grass?

Then she hopped up and licked my ear. Stupid dog.

Do you know what today is?

*smiles coyly*

It's the first day of Spring!

It's Maundy Thursday!

It's...Ok, enough of the coy.

It's MY BIRTHDAY!

I am 37, a prime number, and in the prime of my life. Gifts are not required, but compliments will be graciously accepted.

*looks meaningfully at the "comment" button*