Cultural Conversation 6 - Sex

Assignment 6: Your Experience of Conflict Involving Sexual Practice

Robert Heinlein used to say that everybody lies about sex. Well, I certainly have, and I know that I believe others have lied to me about sex, so it’s difficult for me say anything that doesn’t stink of deception in one way or another.

I’ll give you an example. I was around nine or ten when I first started approaching other boys for sex. Since I was attracted to women (girls, really) as well, I assumed that I was some sort of pervert; I didn’t have the language to adequately express what I was feeling sexually.

I would like to point out that if the thought of a nine or ten year old boy approaching others for sex doesn’t strike terror into you, it should. Those I approached were interested in experimenting, but I remember clearly being frustrated that they would not go as far as I wanted to go. I was very lucky not to fall into the hands of a pedophile.

This behavior continued into Jr. High School, when I ran into someone who was not interested at all in my advances. After that, it got around that I was a fag, (though I didn’t actually suffer any consequences from these rumors until later in high school), and I stopped approaching others for sexual contact until after high school.

There was a young man in our class, who I had a passing acquaintance with (he was a fellow cub scout in earlier years), whose behavior and speech were what we would call today flaming, or to use the more accurate but somehow more pejorative term, effeminate.

I never thought of approaching him; that would have made me a fag (or so my reasoning went, flawed as it was). I remember clearly that he tried out for the cheerleading squad in 7th grade, and I remember being in the stands of the auditorium where the tryouts took place (the student body being required to vote for whom the cheerleaders would be).

I also remember, with a clarity undiminished by time, of how much I made fun of him, along with the others around me in the stands.

How much braver he was than I, I still can’t adequately express.

Cultural Conversation 5 - Spirituality

Assignment 5: Your Experience of Religion/Spirituality

About seven years ago I got the Really Good Job. It was Oilfield Industry work, and it paid well. Very well. I had more disposable income than at any other point in my life. And I disposed of it.

One of the many vices I practiced was excessive eating, even when I wasn’t hungry. As a result, I went from about 250/275 to nearly 400 pounds at my high point. Now, I had worked in retail for many years before that, and by the time I got the Really Good Job, I had worked over my knees like you wouldn’t believe. As a consequence, I was having problems getting up steps, much less anything remotely strenuous. After I lost the Really Good Job I had decided that I would use my COBRA health benefits to get knee surgery. But my Orthopedist said that at my weight, this was probably a very bad idea. So I had to lose weight in a hurry. Then I went to the Gastric surgeon. He said he could help me lose weight; all I needed to do was to get clearance from a psychologist, to make sure I wouldn’t gain back all the weight and kill myself after the surgery.

I showed up at the psychologist’s office with a milkshake in my hand. Needless to say, he didn’t sign the paper giving me his approval, but instead recommended therapy.

I was in therapy for a year, trying my best to get that approval. My therapist would ask me, “Do you want to stop overeating?” and I would reply, “I’m here to save my knee.” and she would reply, “That means you’ll have to change, and stop overeating.” Like I said, this went on for a year.

About this time, my Dad had to go under the knife for 90% blockage in his arteries. I was so very worried about him, even though it seems like our strongest emotions for each other were anger, frankly. Right after the surgery I went on one of the more serious binges I have ever had. I made myself sick, I ate so much.

So there I was, in the car of the parking lot, scared to death to see my dad so scared and helpless. I desperately wanted to pray.

This wasn’t a new desire for me. I remember vividly, when I was maybe eight or younger, staying up all night, praying to God to reveal himself to me, desperate for any sensation, any emotion that might be called contact with God. By daybreak I had worked myself up into a frenzy of crying, but I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. From that time I realized that God hadn’t come to me for a reason. Whether the reason was that I was sinful (I certainly thought I was), or because God didn’t really exist, or because I lacked something which other people had, some faculty that allowed one to believe, was irrelevant. God didn’t exist for me. So, after a certain point, any discussion about the nature of the divine was irrelevant.

But in that car, on that night, I was lonely and scared and I thought to myself, “How can I pray, and it not be a lie?” Then it came to me, in a brief moment of inspiration, or epiphany, or intuition, or providence, or synchronicity, or pure chance.

I would have to want to change, to be different than what I was, in order to be honest, and actually, genuinely pray to God. I wasn’t so much concerned about whether God existed or not. I just wanted to be honest and speak to something outside of myself. So I repeated to myself, “OK. I am going to have to change.”

And I was able to pray.

I had never realized before that night how much pain and loneliness I really felt. But I felt better after I prayed, then before.

I went to my therapist, and I asked her how I could change, because I really wanted to be able to continue to pray. She said, “That’s what I have been waiting for.” and she signed the approval papers for my gastric surgery, that day. Nine months later I got the knee surgery, just before my COBRA coverage ran out.

So when other people talk about God, or argue about God, or complain about God, or kill each other over God I suspect they are actually talking about institutions, or their parents, or themselves. None of that has anything to do with me. Oh it matters how they treat each other, but God? No. All I know about God is that I need him (or her, or it).

I read a pithy little quote about God once, along the lines of, “The theist says that there is a God. The atheist say there is no God. The mystic says that there is nothing but God.”

I like that, but I have no idea if it’s true or not.

Cultural Conversation 4 - Class

Assignment 4: Your Experience of Socio-Economic Class

I live in a garage apartment in the back of my parent’s house. I have always lived with my parents, except for a year in Austin when I was 19 and a year when I was 36 had a very well paying job in the oilfield industry. When I moved back into my parent’s home after I lost my well-paying job (long story) my parents thought it best that I move into the garage apartment, which I also believed to be very prudent, considering we get along as well as you might expect in such a situation.

After I moved in, my parents then started using a maid service, and also had my place cleaned up once a month.

Now, I don’t know about where you live, but in south Texas, a maid service means that several illegal immigrants from South or Central America come to your house, and you pay them about as half as much as you would pay a white person.

I use the term white person speculatively; I don’t actually know any white people you would be able to pay to clean your house. Don’t know any African-Americans who would do it, either. There are Mexican–Americans who will do it, but they probably don’t talk about it much (I would hazard to guess), and they are forced to accept the prevailing rate. If one of them said to my family, “Goddamnit, I am a citizen, you have to pay me a fair wage.”, I would expect that we (the family) would never, ever speak to this person again, and not because we would resent paying them the extra money, but because we would be far too ashamed by the exchange to ever want to speak about it.

I should point out here that my family consists of my Mom and Aunt, who are assimilated Mexican-Americans, my father, who is an Anglo, and me, who calls himself not-white. What does all this mean? I have no idea.

On a practical basis, it means that we act in an entirely schizophrenic manner about the cleaning people. When they come to my place, I try to clean up as much of my mess as possible. I clean the toilet and the counter of my bathroom, because I can’t stand the thought that I am paying someone to clean up my shitty toilet and filthy vanity area.

I don’t hang out at the main house when they are cleaning there, unless I am cooking for them or making them something to drink or putting on some music they like.

It means my family usually gives them packages of old cloths, toys for their kids or sometimes holiday food or bonus money that doesn’t get a cut taken out by their Mexican-American boss. It also means that my Aunt continually grouses about things missing that she assumes they have taken, or that my mother complains about something they have did wrong or broken to their Mexican-American boss.

It’s never just a job that they do, like we do, and it’s never just about them, it’s always about us, as well.

That’s about as close to a class conflict that I have been involved with, as about as close as I want to come, either.

It seems to me that the awareness of class is just not an awareness of difference; it’s also the awareness that you are exploiting someone else for you own benefit. I suspect that’s why it is nearly impossible to admit that class differences exist in this country. If we ever did, we would also have to face up to the fact that our power allowed us to exploit others who have less power. Such awareness probably makes one really schizophrenic, after a while.

Cultural Conversation 3 - Gender & Conflict

Cultural Conversation 3: Your Experience of Gender and Conflict

It was about ten years ago that I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t a man. This was not an altogether surprising epiphany, considering that I had never performed according to the expectations of what a man should be. But before that moment I had always assumed that I was simply bad at being a man, rather than not a man at all. It wasn’t until I realized that my actions fell so far outside the norm of what a man was that I didn’t really qualify anymore.

To utter such statements, especially in front of others who are fond of you, is disconcerting to them, to say the least. There is usually a gasp, and a determined refutation that, darn it, I am so a man, along with the unstated assumption that I am being dangerously self-deprecating.

The truth is I’m just trying to be honest.

The moment came when I realized that for some I chose to be honest with my sexuality about would never accept my behavior; they would always assume a betrayal of that standard of behavior which they assumed to be absolute. For these, I would never be a man, and circumstances forced me to admit that their interpretations, if not an accurate description of reality, were a least far closer to the social norm than I would ever accept. And if it was their interpretation, then why was it necessary to subscribe to it at all?

Funny thing was, it was about five years ago that I realized that I was a man.

I had been thinking about my first girlfriend. I was only 20, she was a thoroughly fucked up 30. So it was a recipe for a disaster. We fought quite a bit, and once I go so angry that I saw her cringe.

It threw me, and I immediately stopped fighting with her. The argument had been entirely verbal, and I honestly don’t remember either wanting to hit her or even making any sort of physical movement that could be construed as threatening. I think it was entirely a response to my intensity of emotion, combined with the fact of her history of relationships, which included dating physically abusive men. Once I got angry enough, she expected me to strike her.

So about five years ago I started thinking about that moment, and I realized that I occasionally performed in the world as a man, even if I didn’t always realize it.

To drift in and out of gender roles as if they were a set of clothes, or more accurately a set of behaviors that one could assume as one wishes, posits a single unanswerable question; what am I right now?

Cultural Conversations 2 - Conflict and Ethnicity

Assignment 2: Your Experience of Conflict and Ethnicity

It is one thing to understand that in the course of life conflicts erupt. It is quite another to be exposed to those ideas, although archaic and taboo, still exist below the surface of our daily lives.

To be exposed to these ideas is at once frightening and illuminating, for such revelations have the quality of initiation into a larger world. Inasmuch as the idea of an invisible or essential world underlies many of our most basic assumptions, so does the unveiling of such behavior act as a symbol; the microcosm reveal the macrocosm and confirms in the same moment that others willingly enslave us to their idea of the Other.

To understand that for some you are the ‘other’ confirms that you exist at the very least on the level upon which you are identified, and if you are now the enemy, at least you are not completely invisible.

For myself, I do not recall being referred to in the terms of a racial epithet until quite late in life – I was 25 or so. I had been entering a freeway, and sought to overtake a car travelling in front of me. The other driver observed my maneuver, and struck the rear of my car lightly with his front fender.

We pulled off into a nearby parking lot, where I was confronted with the spectacle of an angry man in his sixties, referring to me as a “Jew” and dirty, in addition to the more common pejoratives.

The situation seemed so ludicrous that I laughed in his face, but it was at the same time fundamentally unsettling. Eventually I got back in my car and drove off, my vehicle having sustained no damage.

Such experiences in no way match those who suffer from constant prejudice. But I am aware that my ethnicity is puzzling to some, and sometimes I aware of others’ curiosity about it, even when they don’t speak of it directly.

To imagine such expectations and prejudices following one around constantly seems maddening. I can only imagine that it is.

Cultural Conversation 1 - Your Family’s Geographic Origins

Assignment 1: Your Family’s Geographic Origins

My mother’s family is a late arrival in South Texas – 1925 or so. There are rumors that this has to do with a black sheep of the original family that had travelled here from Alpine, near El Paso. The family had been inhabitants (or so I am told) of that area from before the Anglos came in the 1820’s and 30’s.

My maternal grandfather came from Northern Mexico, emigrating quite early in his youth. The lines came together in a small town called East Barnard (affectionately know as East Barnyard), some forty-five miles from Houston.

My father’s family originates in Britain and came to the US sometime in the late 1800’s, settling in Indiana. They remained there until the early part of this century, when they too came to the East Barnard area.

My Mother’s family spoke very little Spanish at home; conversation, as a general rule, took place in English. Though unstated, assimilation was the goal, a reflection of the belief that success in life depended on speaking English like a native. The three sisters who survived childbirth (out of five, we believe) attended nursing school or college. This was where my Mother and Father met.

I remember my first maternal family reunion very clearly. It took place at my Aunt’s home, there were many relatives there I that I did not remember meeting before. I remember distinctly being surprised at both the speech and the hue of my distant relatives. Why were they so dark? When I asked my mother who they were she had to go to some length to explain that these people were my family.

Today, when people ask ‘what’ I am, I usually reply in an evasive manner. I certainly don’t feel Hispanic or Chicano. At the same time, neither do I feel comfortable thinking of myself as ‘white’, whatever that means.
The best answer I can give, the one that is most true, is that I am not white. Bi-racial or multi-ethnic don’t cut it, for some reason. I find it more truthful to define myself through negation than assert some more formal identity.

Cultural Conversations - Introduction

Over the next ten days, I will be posting a series of short essays that deal with conflict and culture. These essays were prompted by my attendance in a American Literature class, which focused on works from Colonial times to the post-Civil War era.

In general, our instructor (Dr. Holly Masturzo of the University of Houston) would ask us to write on a particular topic, which would also be connected to some work we were currently discussing in class. Many of my responses were of an intensely personal nature. I invite you to share your own experiences through your response to my work.

So, now what?

One of the most persistent problems of political victory is governing. I repeat the obvious to impress upon you (and me) the seriousness of the task; it's been so long, we may not remember how to do it.

And we weren't altogether good at it before. It is not enough to say that the era of Tip O'Neill and other old-style Democrats is gone, we must be willing to be as politically brave and resolute as the Republicans (the ones like Newt, anyway) before us. That means being willing to lose.

The willingness to dare, to risk, to lose all is the only way that any progressive advances in political thought and practice are made. Now this ruins careers, destroys specific institutions, and generally infuriates everyone. But these are, in the end, results that can be borne, if not results that should be borne. People can always find other jobs (universities love to hire failed politicians, as a rule, for exorbitant salaries) , institutions that outlive their purpose should become extinct, and pissing people off is fun.

Being willing to lose means being willing to take actions that will consume your political capital, actions that will remain necessary long after you are gone.

I am not suggesting that our party rule from the left as the GOP ruled from the right. The second coming of the leftist Jesus (or Antichrist, depending on your perspective) has yet to immanentize , despite the jubilation of victory. I am suggesting that the necessary and vital issues of the day may lead us all into areas that none of us will be ideologically comfortable with.

For example:

• The best way to save Social Security is probably what most experts say it is - cut benefits and raise taxes.

• The best solution to Iraq may be to increase the amount of troops, not decrease the amount through withdrawal (my own knee-jerk sensibilities compel me to state that I don't accept this to be true, and I certainly don't want it to be true).

• Social, arts and science program cuts may required to balance the budget. And balancing the budget may be both pragmatically and politically necessary.

Frankly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. However, I don't want to be known as the leftist who advocated not demanding and end to the homophobic practice of marriage exclusion. Some things are not worth capitulating for. The rub is, what are those? And perhaps more importantly, who decides?

So it's been a while...

What can I say? I am back cuz I want to impress a woman.

*sigh*

Surviving Rita

I thought I 'd repost the email alerts sent to friends and families during the recent hurricane scare. - DWRT


Hey y'all,

Well, we tried to get out twice, Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The first time we made it about twenty miles. The second time only 10 miles. Each trip took about 2 and 1/2 hours.

So, we have decided to stay home and bunker in. For those of you who don't know, we live thirty miles SW of Houston, so the current track (as of Friday 7:00 AM, CST) takes a track NW of Houston, so we may, and I stress the word may, be OK.

We have plenty of supplies, enough for a least a week or so, as well as plenty of water. We boarded up what we could, and now we just have to sit it out.

I'll try to email all of you as long as I can, and feel free to give us a call, if you want, at the home line -

XXX-XXX-XXXX

Wish us luck!

Doyle

PS To my gaming buddies: Well, I'll be in town, anybody wanna game?

PPS To Big Joe: I still blame this all on global warming, so, it's still George Bush's fault. :P


Hey everybody,

Well, today has been a little strange. Early on it felt like any other lazy Sunday, only that it wasn't Sunday. It only felt like Sunday because of the quiet in the neighbourhood. Let me tell you, having less neighbours does wonders for the neighbourhood.

So, in the midst of the day, more hurricane preparations as Rita inched closer on the TV screen, overlapping band of greens and yellows topped with cherry-red splotches. Filling the bathtubs, watching the water drain from the bathtubs (such excitement!), filling pans and bottles with water, grilling every piece of meat in the freezer, including eight Cornish hens - left over from some party miscalculation, filling the coolers with ice, moving hundreds of pounds of games and books from the floor to higher on the bookshelves, washing every scrap of clothing in the house, cleaning, storing filled trash bins in house (no garage), etc...

All under a moderately warm sun and blue sky filled with puffy white clouds. The last couple of days have been gorgeous, as long as you weren't stuck on a freeway somewhere.

But of course, the main activity of the day: watching the boob-tube as it belted out warnings, advisories, reports, tear-filled assertions of the toughness, politeness, and general good will of the citizenry and sundry other matters, always turning back to the radar, screen gradually filling with green, yellow and red.

I must admit to preferring the satellite images. Several days ago, Rita was beautiful, all puffy white, surrounding a perfect eye-wall. The better images would show a sort of 3-D view, where the clouds seemed like the brilliant cotton on the fields nearby our house (belonging to the Jester Unit prison-farm), sloping down toward that inner eye, perfect swirls disentangling themselves from the center of the storm like cotton candy.

Today she seems more ragged, as if haggard from her long journey, tired, wispy hair wild and unkempt, tears streaming from relief to be nearing shore.

The first of the storm bands is moving over our area now, and it is slightly darker outside, the sun fled, leaving a soft, subdued glow from the sky above, gently dimming down, waiting for the night.
A few drops of rain every once in a while, then nothing for an hour. The ground is actually quite dry, and the manicured lawn of our suburban home seems parched, thirsty, summoning to it a rain that will extend far past its welcome.

I do fear the flood. Different reports give wildly different estimates about amounts-in-a-24-hour-period, some asserting 12-15", others more conservative, offering a hopeful 3-5". All I know is that I don't want it in the house, thank you very much.

All this stuff surrounding me: books, games, furniture, computer. It all seems so important to me earlier, what to take, what to leave behind, agonizing over this supplement or that rare book. I was happy to come back to all of it, honestly.

Well, I have always been a hoarder. Way too much stuff. What will I do, what will I be if it all washes away?

It's gotten darker since I started this email, no more the diffuse dim glow of a sunset hidden behind the clouds. Now there is only the wind, and rain.

Lots of it, I am told.

Love,

Doyle


Hey,

I went out for about thirty minutes this morning and stared at the sky.

As some of you are no doubt aware, Rita hit the Texas coast at Beaumont/Port Arthur, across Galveston Bay from Houston. We live in the Richmond/Rosenberg area, which is 30 miles southwest of Houston. So from about midnight to 5:00 AM, all we really got was a long summer shower.Power has gone off intermitantly, but never more than five minutes or so at a time.

So after breakfast, I went outside, planted a chair in the front lawn and stared up.

As I have mentioned before, we live in suburbia, in one of those 'master plan' communities near a golf course. The street we live on runs roughly north to south, and is bordered with a fair amount of trees. The area, before it was developed, drained and sculpted, was wetlands, which means the indigenous trees are a fair mix of oak, willow, and other sorts that look different, but whom I am entirely ignorant of the names of. Have to try to change that.

So as I sat down, the first thing I noticed was the wind. It came in gusts, perhaps 20-30 mph at a time, or less, which is my best guess. The winds would come from the north and the northwest, due to the circulation of the storm. If you look at the radar images of the local area, you can see a county just to the right and slightly to the south of Harris. That's Fort Bend, where Jane Long came and settled after leaving the Alamo. I live roughly in the middle of that county.

So the storm circulates counter-clockwise as it travels north, which means that even though we are on the edge of the storm as it travels north, we still receive winds and rain from the trailing bands of the storm, which are progressing from the north and east to a southwest heading.
Thus, since my street runs north to south, as I listened to the wind, I could hear it progressing through the trees from the north end of the block, whispering through the treetops, making them shake as if in anticipation. Then the wind would reach me, and I would have a breeze that flowed over me like a caress.

The speed of the wind through the trees was about the same as a car coming down the street, which leads me to my conclusions about speed.

That amount of wind is still awe-inspiring. I could see the clouds over head, long narrow bands of them, all grey and white but tinged with the light blues and purples that come with grey. As they would whip down the street, I would imagine them as the bands I saw earlier on the ubiquitous radar shots. But they were too small to be anything but threads of the gigantic whiteness that spread over the continent.

But dimly I began to see that we were on the edge of the circulation of the storm above us, as if I were looking at the bottom of a gigantic top that spun above us. It was too far away to see the opposite side of the storm, where the circulation was travelling the other way, venting all its fury before placidly passing over us, but I could just barely imagine it, in my mind's eye.

It's 10:00, and it's raining a little more now, and will no doubt do so for several days. But the worst seems to be past for us, depending on how much it pours down in the next couple of days. I hope the rest of you receiving this email in the area have been as lucky as we.

Doyle


Hey,

Just a short note to follow up on my previous emails.

After the wind and clouds passed over Saturday morning, the rest of the day was humid and exetremly hot. We ended up only receiving six-tenths of an inch of rain, which was consistant for our location in the path of the storm. I found it somewhat ironic that we had to water the lawn Saturday and Sunday, because we had not received enough rainfall.

I also find myself possessed, along with my family and neighbours, of a curious sense of vague disappointment. Such feelings, it seems to me, are inappropriate, given the genuine human misery suffered by so many to the east from Rita, as well as those who suffered (and continue to do so) from Katrina.

Some say that every human experience offers us the opportunity to learn and grow, in much the same way as the spirit of God surrounds us, if we only can begin to perceive it.

I found that I am entirely too attached to the material works that surround me. These books and materials I have built up over the years represent to me uncounted possibilities that do not exist in my own life.

But if that were true, then no book, no game, and no experience would be able to generate them within me. It may that I do not have Ulysses in my soul, waiting to be born, but there are other stories within, waiting for expression.

I do believe, however, there was a need within me to witness the destruction all the material things around me, at the same time that I also felt attached to them. There was a part of myself that wanted the storm to come, to wipe away everything, so that my life would be forced into a change that I felt I could not initiate on my own.

I hope that such thought lie within my genuine need and desire for change, rather than a masochistic urge. Of course, it is also possible that within masochism itself rests the need for spiritual change, however misdirected.

More than any other element, my lack of thankfulness disturbs me more than anything else. Especially given how much I have to be thankful for.

Doyle

Another Call To Arms

I wrote the following email on the date indicated, and I share it now with all of you.

November 3rd, 2004

I have received a considerable amount of email this morning, most of it from those of you expressing dismay and concern. This is entirely justified, and a period of mourning is altogether appropriate. We've suffered a loss, both literally and emotionally.

The most relevant conclusion that can be drawn, I believe, is the realization that we are truly in the minority. Most people in this country simply do not want the truth, and are content with injustice, as long as they are not personally affected.

This is not to say that the left has a complete choke-hold over the truth, but I believe what I believe, and that has not been shaken by the results this morning.

Rienhold Niebuhr’s prayer is "Grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I accept that George W. Bush has won the Presidency of the United States for four more years.

I accept that the leftist, progressive values I hold are held by the minority in this country.

I accept that I will need courage. Even though the right-wing has won, we will still need to defend those who need defending, whether they are the poor, the disenfranchised, the despised, or the world itself. And we will have to be there to defend them, because our government won't be doing it any time soon. If we don't, who will?

So after the mourning is over, I invite all of you to go to move-on.org, or your local food bank, or the local chapter of the Democratic Party, or whatever you have the time and willingness to attempt.

Because we no longer have the luxury to pretend that we are as powerful as they. Each one of us is now a cell in a conspiracy, or a partisan in their home country. We do what we can, where we are, and we pass messages among ourselves, trading techniques, experiences and hope. Hope that we can change what we can change.

My friend Maria Gonzalez, the most politically and socially active person I know, said to me last night, "Foucault said that things don't get better. Things just get different. There will always be the oppressed and the oppressors, just under different names." Hopefully, each of us acts to change enough of the world immediately around us to create a space where we can live.

Personally, I have run out of excuses for not acting. I’ll be able to throw away the walker in three to four weeks, and I’ll have to walk every day as part of my recovery. I might as well knock on doors while I am doing so.

I want to especially speak for a moment to our Gay and Lesbian friends. Don’t give up. We need heroes right now. And y’all have always been the heroes in my life. I know that I will never give up on you.

Where Was I?

So here we are. That is, if you are reading this, then we are connected in a kind of virtual space, where I am speaking to you, in your head.

Hi there.

Well, I won't take too long. This is mostly just a place holder post, until I can post something more substantial.

Come back tomorrow.