Thursday, June 18, 2009

Nebraska Bobby

Written in December 2008

I met Nebraska Bobby on the internet on a dating website that I hadn’t had much luck with. Most of the guys that I met through this particular website were particularly sketchy, but I was online giving it another chance and ran across Nebraska Bobby’s profile. He fit my height requirement, my desired education level and had a full time job, so at least worth an email.

After I pressed the send button a message popped up that I had a message. How wonderful! To my surprise it was from Nebraska Bobby. We started email back and forth a couple of times and it was normal and fun. We talked about traveling, he liked road trips and seeing new places. I liked those kinds of things. Definitely a good sign. Bobby had listed his yahoo messenger in his profile, so I just thought I would add it to mine. Unbeknownst to me, when I added him to my profile yahoo sent him a message to confirm. I was horrified. I signed off yahoo immediately, he was going to think I was some sort of stalker. I would fall into the category of crazy online loony girl. This was the first regular that I had come across in a while, and yahoo had blown it… stupid yahoo messenger.

I knew I had to own it. There was no way that I could avoid this one. I signed back onto to yahoo. There was an IM waiting for me asking, who I was. I admitted my nuttiness and an acceptable im chat ensued. He told me about his stable job, and his annoyance with the suburbs, both things that I could relate to, both things screamed regular guy. Woo Hoo a regular guy, let the online dating games begin!

Online email dating games I have played, but instant message games were totally new. Every time I signed on to my yahoo email I would see if Nebraska Bobby was signed on or if he was busy or if he was available. Then if he was available, should I start the instant message conversation, should I wait for him to message me? How does it work ? A couple of weeks ago I went and saw the movie He’s Just Not that into you, it gave me some perspective that I have kept with me. If he was interested he would start a convo, here I add my own rule, unless I have something exceptionally intriguing to say.

Well we had a couple of conversations, most he started, and most were pretty good conversations. I typically ended them because I was getting tired, or at least that was the excuse I was telling myself. Honestly the conversations were lagging, and I was getting tired of carrying them, I could only be so witty so late into the night.

Anyway, I was signed on to yahoo one morning at work and Nebraska Bobby was online. I took the stance that I would basically ignore him, I was at work. About five minutes later, to my delight, he imed me!! We began chatting back and forth for a couple of minutes when he asked me if I had heard of a band called the Shiny Toy Guns. I had not, but I did google them. Bobby told me about how he had won tickets to their concert for that night, but didn’t have anyone to go with him. Was he asking me out? I wasn’t letting him off easily, he would have to ask out rightly. Finally, after skirting around the issue for a couple of messages he asked me if I wanted to with him. We settled on the plans for the night which included dinner before the late night concert. I had just agreed to go on a date that night!

Oh Crap… I was going to have to bust my ass home to get ready just to head back into the city. Nothing was going to ruin my high though. I suppose that my favorite thing about dating is the excitement. The thrill. I love the anticipation. I love the high of dating. I look forward to meeting someone new, the possibilities that carries with it. That day was not different. I busted my ass home to change into something appropriate for a concert and dinner at a bar. I felt I chose just the perfect outfit and into traffic I went.

I got to the bar absurdly early. I had to account for traffic and rain right, well I accounted too much for both and was there a half hour early. I knew I wasn’t going in that early. No way, I decided to way in my car. I checked my makeup, reapplied deodorant, (nervous sweat never good), checked my jewelry, and finally checked my breath.

Mother nature wanted to balance out my excitement for the evening, so she gave me a pouring rain showers. Rain plus a straightened hair equals disaster, but thankfully, in my mess of a car I had an umbrella buried deep under some random CRAP. I found it and felt like a super hero already. In my head I was hoping that that would not have been the climax of my evening, sadly it may have been.

While I was checking my bodily scents, Nebraska Bobby had texted me that he was sitting in the bar. I walked into the restaurant, did a turn around the bar looking for Bobby, and I couldn’t find anyone that looked like him. This was not a good sign. I decided to call him and watch for people picking up their cell phone. The first guy that I had seen in the bar picked up his cell and I walked over. I considered hugging, but instead we awkwardly shook hands. Thank goodness I had taken the time to wipe the hand sweat off!

Let the games begin. I wish I could say that conversation flowed, it didn’t. He had no problem talking about himself, but the really neat thing about conversation, is it takes two people’s involvement and only one person was talking. I kept trying to interject with stories of my own, but I had nothing to relate. He was asking very little about me, I think he was just shy. I couldn’t handle shy, it was so much work!

The second part of the date, yes there were two parts already planned, was a concert. I had never heard of the band, but I was always up for a good time. The concert was in a secret location, put on by a local indie radio station. I was actually pretty excited about it. At least at the concert we didn’t have to talk. Unfortunately, Nebraska Bobby could also be known as get there awkwardly early Bobby. We got to the concert two hours early. I was already struggling for conversation and the thought of two hours was unbearable. The icing on the cake was that the event was being hosted by my favorite vodka company and I had driven, no drinks for me.

The two hours dragged, it was painful. We were horribly awkward, I wanted to leave, get out, jump ship, but I had made a commitment. Happy people were running around with their delicious beverages and engaging conversation and I was stuck with Nebraska Bobby.

FINALLY the concert started and it was not my taste. It was a weird mix between hard rock and angry music. What do you do at a concert like this? You can’t dance, I had never heard them, so I couldn’t even fake that I knew the words, I was outta my element. I took a step back though, and realized that I could just enjoy the moment, I wasn’t expected to talk!!

The minute the concert ended I bolted for the door. I dropped Bobby at his car and was very careful not to say that I would talk again, I had no intention of carrying his conversation baggage again.

Cold Fusion

Written in November 2008

Heart break is painful. People have been going through heart break since the beginning of time, sure I have no proof of it, but as I know women, and I think I do, we have either been suffering from heart break or making others suffer from the beginning of time. This time though, I was the one suffering.

I had strange ways of dealing with my suffering. Instead of sitting around wallowing in my pain, and eating my depression, I decided to join an online dating web site. The first site that I joined was free. It had a totally cheesy name, and didn’t ask too many personality questions, but pictures were imperative. Now, I realize that I am more Drew Barrymore, than Heidi Klume, but Drew isn’t horrible looking, right? Luckily, I practically had a glamour shot from yearbook picture from my previous job that I had at the high school.

I got some hits, but most of the chat requests were from skeevy men who were far from gentlemanly! This method was certainly not easing heartbreak, in fact, it was making me wish for the ‘dude’ back that broke my heart. I needed a to try something else. While browsing the web one morning, I literally stumbled upon a website that looked hip, cool and it seemed to have credibility, so I jumped right in. It asked way more personality questions than the other website, already I felt better about this one. I took a great deal of time and care on my profile.

My use of sporting analogies would have impressed John Madden. (Look another one!) Again, I used my glamour shot yearbook pic and off I was, another online dating adventure.
This website was different though, it did not let you browse through the gentlemen, it matched you. Sounds cool right, NOT, it stunk, it only gave you ten men to look at per day. For a girl getting over a break up, those were not good numbers, I wanted men by the hundreds to assure me that there still were actually men out there. To be honest, more than half of the heart ache was caused by the debilitating fear of growing old alone.

Anyway, back to online dating, (something much more uplifting that growing old alone!). When presented with the ten men that this website provides, essentially, I was able to give each a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Once this was done, they would have to do the same for me. After that stage, meaningless priority scales are exchanged. An example of this priority scale was that I had to rate on a scale of one to ten how important humor, money, and religion were to me. Typically, when at this stage with a guy, I ignored all of that crap, just so that I could get to the email stage of the process. Communication either live or via email is what gets you to know people right?

So, I finally got to the email stage with one of my guys. I was so excited, I would be able to finally find out about this guy… heartbreak what? His name was Shawn, he was tall and slender in his pictures, so cute. One of his pictures was taken in Ireland, already I was impressed. Unfortunately, Shawn was not much of an emailer. He had a tendency to shoot rapid fire questions rather than exchanging a friendly email dialogue, I felt like I was on CNN Cross Fire. Ever the optimist, I kept the faith that perhaps he just wasn’t much of a typist. Over one of our emails Shawn asked if we could talk on the phone, I was estactic. I was desired, I was wanted, and now with phone time, I would be able to shine! He called me one night, I screened the call of course, then called him back. I was terrified. I hadn’t flirted with a guy in quite some time. What if I had forgotten, is it really like riding a bike? What does that even mean, I can only imagine what getting on a bike must feel like after not having done it in forever… TERRIFYING!

Surprisingly, I had something to say. We exchanged pleasantries about our work life, his being an electrician, mine in business. We talked about all the stupid stuff that you cover on a first conversation. At one point I started to notice myself getting a bit out of breathe, huh, that was weird, I mean, I do exercise. Had I really been talking so much that I couldn’t catch my breathe… the answer to that was yes. I had a major case of oral diarrhea. I paused for a minute to catch my breath and all that I heard was my breath. My oral sickness was due to the fact that Shawn wasn’t just afraid of the keyboard, but apparently his voice too!

Again, ignoring reason, I gave Shawn the benefit of the doubt. He was shy, he was nervous. Perhaps he would relax after a couple of conversations. Well a couple of conversations we had, he did warm up, a bit. He finally asked me out, after several conversations. Now, I was even more nervous, I hadn’t lost that relationship weight yet. I was going to meet up with a tall, slender, shy gentlemen at a tavern with no time to drop twenty pounds. Oh well, it was time for me to realize that I was the one dating, now, not twenty pounds from now.

Upon arrival at the tavern I found myself face to face with Shawn, four years older than his picture and forty pounds heavier. I no longer worried about my twenty pounds. So, I sat down, feeling somewhat betrayed, but figured a girl’s gotta eat right? Our conversation was slow, topics such as work and family were vaguely touched upon. I felt myself leading the conversation again, but not because I wanted to, but because without doing so, there would have been no conversation.

After ordering dinner, something that I did not want to, I prefer the first date drink only option, Shawn seemed to warm up and began talking. It was when dinner was served that he really began talking. Somewhere along the conversation journey the topic of alternative energy sources was brought up, not by me. I thought that I could keep up, I mentioned wind energy, and e-85, I thought that I was good.

Suddenly Shawn brought up cold fusion. What… cold fusion? The only thing that I could think of to add to the cold fusion conversation was about the movie The Saint. So, I basically, shouted, oh yea, they talk about that in the movie the Saint with Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue right? He looked as lost as I was. So, I tried to explain the plot, I even included character names, (shocking that I knew them yes, I went through a Val Kilmer stage). Shawn looked at me as though I had three heads, it was with that look that I recognized on my face when he was seriously talking about alternative energy sources. It was basically at that moment that I knew, there would be no date two.

Fido the Fink

Written in April 2005

After months of dating with my boyfriend and I, both of us still living at home we thought we had the art of avoiding the parents perfected. But, the minute we started to get comfortable, we got careless.

When it came to making out we had learned that if we left the television on, we could make out safely on the couch with no worries about noise. As thing started to get more intense as we dated longer, I could not get the image of his mother or father walking down the stairs catching us mid-grope. I started to get wierded out by the knowledge that the parents were just a flight of stairs away.

We began to argue about it, he called me a dead fish one night. Because instead of being in the heat of passion, like he was, I was dead still thinking that every noise I heard was the garage door opening with his younger brother walking in.

Finally, we were smart enough to make our way to the basement. Two flights of stairs separating us from the parents. (Thinking back, I actually cannot believe that it took us that long to think of it?)

One night he and I got into a fight. Typical affair for a young fiesty couple. Well, it was late into the night before the whole affair was finally settled, and I was exhausted. He offered to let me sleep over with the similar clause on the offer as always, I had to sleep in a separate bed from himself, (parents rules). Those crazy catholic parents, they think that sleeping together means sex. Well, in our case it did, so I guess that they were not wrong to put that stipulation on it.

Anyway, after making up, (best part of fighting), we laid on the couch even more exausted than before the fight, both of us were falling asleep. I nudged him to wake up, I was totally paranoid about those crazy catholic parents finding us sleeping together in the morning. He woke up and grunted that we were both fully clothed again and that there was nothing to worry about, just two innocent adults sleeping on a couch together snuggling. So, I fell asleep.

Early the next morning I heard his dog come down the stairs. I petted him and when he started to lick my face I shooed him away, I needed more sleep. Finally, he left, I was wide awake. I decided to get dressed and sneak home before anyone knew that we were even sleeping on the couch in the basement. I sucessfully made it out, no one knew any better, or so I thought!

Later that afternoon, I received a call from him. He and his mother had been talking, she had let the dog out earlier that morning. She continued to tell him that while she was making coffee the dog had found its way to the basement. She hurried down to make sure that he did not wake either of us, surprised as she was to see us both on the couch. Anyway, she managed to get the dog back up stairs but, as she began to finish making the coffee, the dog kept nudging her leg for her to play with him. She looked down and realized that the dog had something in his mouth, figuring it was a toy she started to tug at it. Finally, she got the "toy" out of his mouth and was about to toss it back for the dog to fetch and realized what it was... a condom.

Hearing this story on the phone was probably no less horrifying than hearing it come from your own mother. I do not think that I spoke for about two minutes and when I finally did open my mouth the words that managed to make their way out was "Oh my God." (Great time to invite God into this… right!)
He said that his mom was ok was being cool about it, but I could not help but think that the next time I went over to his house I would have a big A pinned on my shirt.

Role Reversal

Written in February 2008

It was about mid morning and I was chugging through the late week work, trying to meet my deadlines, when I my cell phone rang. My cell phone rarely rang at work, and I hear it even less. For some reason, I was able to hear it, and it was my mother. She was injured at her school and needed to get to the emergency room for some test. She was nervous, but being the stubborn woman that she is, insisted upon driving herself.

It was wierd, we were mother and daughter walking into the emergency room, but our roles were completely reveresed. As the sliding doors opened the smell of hospital disinfected assalted my nose. We were usered into a cubicle type room that was used for registering patients, and waiting began. A nervous paramedic in training named Maria popped into the room to take my mothers vitals. While Maria was in the small cubicle, a surly nurse squeezed in to make the room feel smaller. Poor Maria tried to finish her tests, but the surly nurse pulled rank and finished them for her.

Our next stop on the Emergency Room Journey was to our very own cozy room, with the warm and inviting lighting of the neon lights and the sterile furniture and uncomfortable bed. My mom was wheeled in and instructed to strip down and wear the gown. Now on a normal basis this would not sound inviting, but my poor mother was already cold with her two winter coats on. She was a true sport and did as she was told, without complaining as I would have.

After what seemed like an eternity, a woman came into our curtained room and introduced herself as the doctor. At first she was gentle and relating to my mother. She was attentive and answered my questions, but suddenly, the gentle doctor turned into a moodswing monster. The doctor snapped at my question, and shoot a look that would have killed a grizzly from miles away. It sure shut me up quickly. After the cold front left the room, we waited again.

A nurse, different from surly nurse, came in to take my mother for tests. I watched the clockand waited as the minutes clicked by. I used the phone, I got a drink, I read both pamphlets in the room (the first about germs and the second about tetnaus shots, and learned more than I really wanted to know about either), was completely out of my mind bored and worried about my mom. She may be stubborn, and tough, but she is still my mom.I started to think, how wierd it was to be worried about her. I had a flash of role reversal when we were on the way in, but it was really setting in this time. My stomach started to churn in a way I had never felt. My imagination had come up with a what seemed like a million scenarios as what the future held for my mother.

By the time my mom came back from some of the tests, I had concluded that she was going to have a myriad of diseases and health problems, most of which I could not spell, nor pronounce.Dr. Moodswing flew back into the room just long enough to curtly tell my mother she was FINE and should feel that way after taking multiple pain pills she was prescribing. We were discharged, FINALLY. We left the hospital the world was back the way it should be, my mother was ok.

Mission Makeout

Written in October 2006
A single gal’s least favorite thing to do on a Saturday is go to a wedding. I received a wedding invitation to my high school friends wedding, oh joy. I was definitely not looking forward to going. Luckily, a large group of my girl friends were also single and going alone. Still the idea of going to a wedding when single, was not something my idea of a wonderful Saturday. I convinced my friend to go dress shopping with me, if I was going to go to this wedding, I wanted to looked good. I bought a somewhat scandalous green halter dress that paired nicely with spikey gold heels. Single gals need to have fun too, and thus began mission makeout.

On the day of the wedding I was running terribly late. I wanted my hair to be just right, I needed to perfumed, but not too much, gum for good breath and a toothbrush too! I just kept forgetting things. When I finally got in my car, I was running VERY late. I was about a half mile from the church when a freight train pulled right in front of my car. So, basically, I ran in to the church late. My friend the bride was just about to walk down the aisle as I ran to get a seat next to my other friends. As I sat down, I was blissfully unaware of all the glares I was getting for my tardiness!

The ceremony was beautiful. It was rather surreal. I met the bride before our first day of high school at volleyball camp. I saw the groom go through a rough glasses phase between freshman and junior year. They were getting married. I was sitting watching my two friends stand up in front of me and pledge their eternal love. I couldn’t believe that I was hearing these two young people do something so adult. All I wanted to do in my skanky outfit was makeout with an eligible bachelor, and my friends were pledging to makeout with only one person forever! Shocking!

At about the homily, my friend in a whisper pointed out the usher sitting two pews ahead of me. He was tall, and from the back looked fantastic in a tux, hmmm, he would do just fine. I did feel a bit awkward checking out a man in the House of God, but God would want me to makeout right, it’s just good clean fun? The wedding ended and that long and terrible time in between weddings and receptions began. Four of my friends and I were sharing a hotel room near the reception site, so we filled that time with several drinks and signing wedding cards. The more we drank, the funnier we thought we were.

With our DD already appointed we piled into a car headed over as the reception began. Our table was half my gals, and half of the bride’s work friends, uh oh. My friends and I have a tendency to take over everything, and that night proved to be no exception. The wine began passed at my friends glasses and somehow never made it to the work friends. A waiter brought a second carafe and sadly, that too never made it to the work friends. The wedding was turning out to be more fun than I expected.

After two wine carafes my friends and I were dancing queens. Mission Makeout went into full swing on the dancefloor. There, I took my slinky green dress and spiky heels and shook it like a white girl. I scanned the dance floor for the hot usher and spotted another gentleman, a second option for mission makeout. I would need to weigh my options carefully, flirt appropriately, and shake it in both their directions. I spotted hot usher approaching the bar, dropped my drink on the nearest table and headed off to order another one.

I suavely ordered another vodka and something and smiled through the tipsy haze at the hot usher. Hot usher smiled back at me, sweet, I was in. We struck up some lame conversation about something that I cannot remember. He then introduced himself as the usher from the wedding next door. What? I think he was trying to make some sort of a joke or he was trying to pull my leg. I clearly had been checking him out at the church, so what was he talking about? In the course of mission makeout, I of course, played along. I even introduced him to one of my gals as the usher from another wedding. When it was just about to get weird, he laughed and admitted he knew the groom from college. Thank goodness! If he had kept that charade up much longer, I would have had to move on to option two. Phase one of mission makeout was complete, begin phase two.

Phase two posed a bit of an issue as hot usher didn’t dance. I used my feminine wiles and dragged him on the dance floor. It worked for about two songs and then hot usher pulled a Houdidni and disappeared. Bummed by the missing hot usher, I left the reception with my gals. We had found out everyone was heading to the hotel bar, fingers croseed that all my efforts weren’t for naught.

Sitting at the bar, hot usher was drinking Jack on the rocks… Hoorrah! I sat flirtatiously next to him leaning just forward enough for him to catch my scent of perfume mixed with vodka, oh yea and a classy view of my rack. I was incourageable, my mission was the only thing on my tipsy brain. While I was thinking of how suave and flirty I was, my friends later had the pleasure of how informing me that I was acting like a fool. Embarrassment would have to be dealt with later, I was so close. Between sips of his jack straight he was sending the signals hard core, that or he was drunk, but that was not an option at the time. Phase two complete, Phase three, always had been a bit trickier.

In phase three, I needed to get hot usher alone. My first attempt failed, I loudly announced that I needed to go to the washroom, then tip toed out thinking that he would have followed. He did not. (I later realized that the bathroom pickup was not the hottest option that I could have gone with.) I got smarter in my second attempt, or so I thought, I said that I had forgotten my room key, and needed to head up stairs to get one from my friend. Take two, again no dice. In the time that I was aimlessly walking the halls getting my room “key” the bar had started to clear out. What was it going to take?

Finally, I just asked him if he wanted to walk me to my room, at least if I wasn’t going to makeout, I would have company on my second walk up to my hotel room. About ten steps outside of the bar, he threw me against the wall and kissed me as if I was the heroine in a harlequin romance novel and he the hero. It was hot. We kissed against the wall for several minutes. Hot usher really was a hot usher, he had these arms and shoulders that were strong and muscled. His hands found my back and pulled me against him. When we both came up for air, we headed up to his room. The connection was fuzzy because of the cocktails, but the heat could not be denied.

In his room, on the bed, hands were everywhere, his lips were all over me and things were moving quickly, until… knock knock, pound, pound… “Lemme im!” Hot usher’s buddy and bunkmate for the night, had come a knocking. Damn… we looked at each other, we weren’t finished, so we headed down to the hotel lobby. It was about two in the morning and the lobby was clear. We found a quiet couch around the corner from the lobby and continued to makeout. It was one of the hottest makeouts I had ever had. After two solid hours we kissed each other out. We were exhausted. Together, we dragged ourselves back up to my room, where I realized I actually didn’t have my key. We then tried his room, only to find out that he didn’t take the time mid makeout to grab a key. We tried pounding on his door, unfortunately, the booze induced coma roommate was not going to budge, back to my room. Three of my friends were sleeping none in a booze induced coma, someone had to wake up. We pounded, whispered, and pounded more. I was so tired, I sat on the floor, was I going to end up sleeping on the floor of a hotel? How dirty was I going to be that night?

Creak… the door opened and my annoyed sleepy friend glared at me and let the hot usher and I in. She threw us one pillow and one blanket and we were back on the hotel floor. GROSS! We madeout until we forgot the grossness of the situation and we fell asleep.

What felt like five minutes later, the drapes were thrown open. Ughh, the sun needed to go away. Morning had come to quickly and I had hot usher drool on my arm. I had just realized that the hot usher was still there, oh my gosh, what the hell was I supposed to do. I did what every girl does when trying to get rid of her previous nights makeout… I woke him up and kicked him out. I had hoped that I did not wake up my friends, but I was definitely not that lucky. On his way out, hot usher walked slowly and loudly. At the door he paused, and looked at me. What was he waiting for, I needed him to leave, the night was over? He then shocked me, and I am hard to shock. He asked me for my phone number. WHAT did he need that for? Oops, I actually said that part outloud. Reluctantly, I gave it to him, at least he would go away then. We had made out one night, what was he going to do with my number?
Oh well, he had it now, Mission makeout complete?

Blowfish

Written in December 2007

Ok... so I had put on what I call.... relationship weight. I hadbeen dating my ex-boyfriend for more than a year. Both of us had gotten comfortable with each other. He liked the fact that I am not high maintenance when I order food, like some women. But, often, that translates to eating crappy food.

I have been wearing the same pants that I used to wear when actually was skinny. Every morning I squeeze myself into these pants and count the minutes down until I can get out of them. Well, today, my pants had a different idea for me.

This morning I had an important meeting with some big wigs. These meetings are obnoxiously long, but food and beverages are always served. In these meetings one must drink coffee in order stay awake and be able to pay attention, so I did. I was trying to be more aware of what I eat, so I also drank a bottle of water too! Well, about halfway through the meeting I had to pee. The meeting was droning on, people were arguing about something unimportant. With every change in conversation, my attention drifted back to my bladder. Every other minute I shifted in my seat, I would briefly find a postition in which I could hold it a little better, and then it would come back to me... I had to pee. My boss's phone rang... I had my salvation... I ran to the bathroom.

I opened the door and went. RELIEF! I pulled up my pants quickly, rushing to get back to the meeting to beat my boss before the meeting started again, but then the worst happened. My pants wouldn't zip all the way. About three quarters of the way up the little black zipper just decided to tell me how fat I had actually become. It refused to go any farther. I panicked... I no longer cared about getting back to the meeting before my boss, I just needed to get back to the meeting with my pants zipped up.

I cursed that cookie that I ate about ten minutes before, I hated those m and ms that I popped in my mouth earlier that morning, and all that I could think about was why didn't I work out yesterday? I sucked in my stomach, and tried again. Nothing. I tried the ever popular jump and zip, it had worked for me in the past. Nothing. After twenty tries my fingers were beginning to raw and I was sure that everyone in that meeting wondered where I could have slipped off to. All that I could think about was what I had eaten the night before.

It finally inched shut. I breathed... but not too deeply, it was closed. By this point, my fingers were red, and my brow was slick with sweat, relief, my pants were closed. Back to the boredom I went with pants fully zipped and a resolution to work out that night.