I was talking to a blogger once, and he said what he hates about blogging is the comments. Not that he hates comments in themselves – bloggers love comments. What he hates is the content of comments. Because sometimes, the comments tell you that your readers missed your point. They read, yes, they liked, yes, they responded, yes, but not in the way you wanted them to. They heard what they wanted to hear, not what you were actually saying.
I argued that all writing is like that, even songs. A man writes a song about a dog and his girl decides the song is about her. For example, I know people who are convinced this song is about drugs. And I suppose it could be. Except when I first heard this singer, it was on a gospel station, so I’ve always assumed the song is about God. To that, my blogger pal said sure, but with a blog, people tell you what they think immediately, and sometimes, knowing you haven’t been heard can really hurt.
I bumped into a post over at Biko’s. He starts by introducing his friend, Wanjiru, who has recently resumed writing. In his starting paragraphs, Biko says all good writing comes from dark spaces, just like heartbreak songs. He then includes a pretty good piece by Wanjiru, all about instagram, exercise, and people getting fat.
I’m not fat. It’s all this fur. It makes me look poofy.
In the comments, people rightly praised Wanjiru’s writing, because they could relate to it. It was a light, easy read, and they felt she understood them, that she was one of them. Her story touched people, as good writing should. It made a serious point, but made people laugh in the process. If you haven’t already, go over there and read it.
Something came up in the comments though. A few readers latched onto Biko’s comment about darkness breeding the best prose, and they asked him if he was happy, since he’s such a good writer. One commenter even said if misery was the source of his talent, then she kind of hoped he’d never be happy.
I’ve heard this kind of sentiment before. I was listening to Linkin Park with a friend, and we were comparing their earlier music to the stuff they do today. He said every time he hears ♫ Crawling ♫, he wants to walk up to Chester and ask, ‘Who hurt you?’ And then he wants to find that person and make them re-hurt Chester, so that we can hear that quality of music again.
Ed Sheeran sees it a little differently. He said in an interview that he writes the kind of songs that women listen to while crying and eating ice cream. True. He also says he’s a really happy person, because he pours all his sadness into his songs, and once the mood is out of his system, he feels great.
I suppose it helps that people love the songs and pay mad money for his concerts – that would lift anybody’s mood. That’s not the only thing though, since lots of rich, successful musicians and rock stars end up drugged, miserable, and dead…
I think both Ed and Biko are onto something. I think that dark space inside us can produce deep, haunting, beautiful pieces of art and writing. But I also think there’s a danger in wallowing in that space. Chimamanda says there’s a certain awe – almost an admiration for depression in art. I recognise that feeling, because for the longest time, I held on to depression. I felt it was vital to my identity, that without it, I would no longer be … me.
But as I begin to heal and acquire coping mechanisms, I realise that you can be in that space for a while, then you can leave. It’s like a room in your house – your writing room maybe. And you can walk into it, do your best work, then lock the door and walk out into the sunshine. Gifted genius(es?) don’t have to be tortured.
So no, you don’t have to be Edgar Allen Poe or Van Gogh to be brilliant. You don’t have to write beautiful books, create haunting paintings, or sing heart-rending songs then shoot yourself or drop dead from sheer misery. Yes, you can pick up a pen or a keyboard when the black dog attacks, and use that hole to inspire sacred works.
Then … put down your pencil, lock up your instrument, shut down your computer, close your book, clean your paintbrush, go have some milk-free ice cream. You can use the evil in the world – and the darkness in your soul – to inspire art and gifted writing. You just don’t have to use it to inspire your life … or catalyse your death.
I’m all about digital. I never do in person what I can do on my laptop or my phone. Except that. That, I still prefer to do in person. So when I heard about iTax, I was pretty excited. No lines, no security wands, no flimsy papers, just a log-in, an upload, and I’m done, yay! Except it didn’t quite work out that way.
Last year, I tried for weeks to file my taxes online, but I could never get the system to agree. It was always crashing or timing out or questioning my math skills. Yes, I know I suck at arithmetic, but surely, anyone can add 111 and 2 with a calculator.
After several weeks of trying, I gave up and filed my returns in person. Okay, that’s a lie. A pretty boy from accounting helped me do it. He was doing the office returns anyway, so he offered to help me with mine, then delivered it Times Towers three minutes before the deadline. Accountants are so cool … sometimes.
This year, I was feeling independent, so I didn’t go to any boy accountants. At least, not at first. Three nights ago, I got my P9 from HR and happily logged on to itax.kra.go.ke. Four hours later, I was exhausted but excited. I had finally got the damn thing to work, filed my own returns and everything! I even got the promise of a 60K refund from my government. Epic win! But then I had this exchange on Twitter.
It made me a little nervous, so I asked around the office to see if anyone else had the same problem. Turns out one of my friends had just come from KRA to a pay 75K penalty. Uh-oh. When you have life insurance, the government gives 15% tax relief up to a maximum of 5K. For some reason, when you file online, the system automatically gives you 5K. Then later, you have to deduct your actual 15% and pay the difference. Throw in a year’s interest and you end up owing KRA 75 ngwanyes.
I have life insurance. So when I filled my forms, in the space that said, ‘Do you have life insurance?’ I ticked, ‘Yes.’Hence the promise of a 60K refund. Thing is … my insurance started in January 2015 … and the returns I filed were for 2014. So the tax relief doesn’t kick in until next June. Plus, I had jotted information from the wrong column, and had put in the wrong bank account, because, you know, 60K refund.
Anyway, I logged back in the next night to see if I could change my wrong details. The amendment form only allowed me to change my basic information i.e location, bank account etc. So I did that and got a slip confirming they had gotten my amendment request. Trouble is, I still needed to correct the actual figures, as well as my (lack of) insurance information.
Let’s back up a bit. When I filling out my profile, I had to key in my P.O.Box, post code, district, and tax area. I filled in my district as Lang’ata, but when I typed in my post code, the automated system changed my area to Dandora. Apparently, my physical post office is in Uhuru Gardens, but my digital mail goes Huko D…
While I was doing my bank amendments, I was asked to key in my district and tax region again. Except this time, the only available options were Nairobi East, Nairobi West, and Nairobi North. (Um … isn’t Lang’ata somewhere closer to Nairobi South?) I chose Nairobi West, it being the closest to where I live … but once again, on keying in my post code, I was sent back to Dandora.
Haya. Now that my details were correct(?) I had to figure out how to change the actual … figures … and to un-tick the life insurance section. I went to the e-amends section and found the page to upload my amended form. Except I can’t do the amendment because my previous amendment is pending and will take – according to accounts – two weeks. At which point the tax window will be closed, so while I can still file my amendment, I will likely be penalised for filing a late return. *groan*
Now, let’s talk about the tax form itself. It’s an excel download that jumps from section A to section F to section M to section Q to section T. I don’t know where the missing pages are, or whether their absence makes any difference. When I filled the forms the first time, it computed a refund of 60K. Well, okay, 58,867.19999999995. That was because of the life insurance.
Since the actual amendment form had no pages for monetary correction, I downloaded the original form, and at the top, I selected ‘amended’ instead of ‘original’. Sawa. I filled the form a second time, with lots of help from our head of finance and another friend at the office. He has filed his tax online in the past (and ended up paying a 75K penalty, so I figured he knew how to, you know, not incur a 75K penalty.) Please note that this was happening at my house between 8.30 and 12.30 p.m., which means any help I got was via phone.
Ehe, after filling the form a second time, the computation said I owed my governement 15,345.76. How now? I made more calls, filled it a third time, and now KRA claimed I owe them 1,559. At that point, I was sleepy, running out of airtime, and feeling really stupid. And I hate feeling stupid. We concluded it was best that I go to accounts in the morning and ask a pretty boy to help me out. Haya.
So next morning, with my pride in my shoes and my laptop in my hands, I went over to finance. The nice boy in charge of taxes came to work a bit later that usual, so I tried to fill the forms by myself. Again.
The first time – or rather the fourth time, since I had filled it three times the night before – the debit balance was 1,559. The sixth time, the balance went to 3 bob. Well, okay, 3.68. By now I was more frazzled than ever, because, among other things, which one is debit and which one is credit? Googling left me even more confused, so by the time the tax guy reached the office, I was a total damsel in distress. Have I mentioned I hate feeling stupid?
I tried showing him the forms that I had already filled … except for some reason, the files had saved themselves as blank forms. WTF?!? So we started from scratch and he took me through the process. Turns out the computation had an error. (Yay! It wasn’t my fault!) The first try gave us 1,559, the second try gave us 3.68, and he showed me the exact place where the government calculator had got it wrong.
Okay. So now that all the numbers were finally adding up (although I still owe the government 3 bob, which with interest will probably morph into several hundred thousands) we tried to upload the now amended form. Except … my previous bank amendment is still pending … and I can’t upload my now corrected form until my previous amendment is done. **pulling hair**
And so … in conclusion, I’m supposed to write a cheque to my government for three shillings and sixty-eight cents, because the calculator on the iTax site turns out to be worse at math than me. Of course I already knew that, because refer to Image 1. And I can’t correct its math because according to the files currently in my tax system, my government owes me 60K. If they ever pay me said 60K, they will then request I pay it back with interest, because they weren’t supposed to pay me in the first place.
Next year, I will qualify for an insurance refund. If the systems remain as they are, I might just receive that 60K tax relief, but then I will incur a penalty – with interest – because the actual tax relief I’m owed is only 18K. So … after spending more than fifteen hours on that KRA site and still not managing to do my taxes right, here’s what needs to happen for iTax to actually work.
(b) Said tutorial needs to show you how to fill tax forms correctly, not just how to log in and log out and where to find the forms. Because filling those things isn’t as easy as KRA (and professional accountants) seem to think. For one thing, that P9 form is for the devil (#Riswa!) and for another, even accountants take a 3-month course in taxes before they can fill said forms in minutes.
(c) For the (mashinani) people without home and/or office internet, a regularly and consistently repeated road show complete with dancers, Eric Omondi, live demos, and multiple computers, so that citizens can file taxes on site.
(d) For the love of all that is holy, fix those bloody bugs!
I understand that iTax isn’t for everyone. Hell, TAX isn’t for everyone – just ask your resident MP! So if for some reason you don’t want to deal with KRA, ignore this blog post, which you probably haven’t read anyway. But for those of us idiotsholy-joesgoodie-goodieshyperactive conscience types (mostly) law-abiding citizens that do want to file our returns online, stop making it so damn difficult!
To start with, I loved, loved, LOVED this show. I watched it all in one sitting, and as soon as I was done, I wanted to start all over again. Except I couldn’t because, you know, sleep. Secondly, I’m not going to talk about the content, the gorgeous soundtrack, or the visual beauty of the show, because a million other reviewers have done it so much better.
I will say if you liked Heroes, you’ll probably like Sense8. Its that kind of a show. And I mistakenly thought Mohinder was in it, but it turns out it was Naveen Andrews, another former crush who is equally yummy, though he doesn’t look as good here as he did in Lost. It’s probably the (lack of a) circle beard. I like circle beards.
Well I suppose I should at least include a summary in case you haven’t heard of the show. It’s about a group of 8 people with a telepathic connection that lets them share each others thoughts, feelings, and experiences (yes, that includes sexual ones).
They can also share talents as needed. For example, they can tap into each other’s fighting ability, knowledge of weapons, driving skills, or even certain attributes like not-giving-a-fuckery, or not-showing-emotion-ism.
The eight people are called a sensate cluster (spelled Sense8) and there are clusters all over the world. Which of course means there are (government?) forces hunting down the clusters, because on TV, that’s what nefarious (government?) agencies do.
In this way, the show is similar to X-men or Heroes because of that us-vs-them mentality, and the whole, ‘we either have to weaponise them or exterminate them, preferably both.’ That thread always runs through this kind of show. I don’t know if it’s a true reflection of society a self-fulfilled TV trope prophecy.
One thing this show is not short on: eye-candy. Exhibit A: Aml Ameen. That is one beautiful man. I found his Wiki page, which hinted at his origins, implying he might have a London accent. Which led to more googling so I could hear it. It’s beautiful.
Aml plays Capheus, a matatu driver that lives in Kibera with his mum. From his interviews, I know Aml is pretty good with accents. His American and Jamaican ones are spot on. His Kenyan accent, however, sounded a lot more West African, which was really annoying, and which is why I googled him in the first place.
Let me just step back for a second here, and say it was vaguely irritating to hear ‘street thugs’ and ‘Kibera residents’ speaking exclusively in English. Yes, most Kenyans speak English, and no, it’s not classist to imply that people in Kibera are more likely to be speaking Sheng’ at any given time. Kenyan English sounds nothing like Capheus or the other Kenyan characters on the show. And yes, that includes the Kenyan cast members and extras. Their ‘Kenyan’ accents were equally strange.
I get that it was necessary for everyone to speak English. I get that subtitles would have broken then flow. I even get that they had to exaggerate the accents to create the effect of English being their second language. They probably overdid the German, Icelandic, Indian, and Korean accents as well. That didn’t make it any less annoying to listen to. You know why? Because nobody in Kenya talks like that!
They could have had the characters talk in English without making them sound like robotic Siri translations. Of course the problem might be more about the dialougue than the accents. The flow of words didn’t sound right. And not just with Capheus. Sun, Wolfgang, Felix, Riley – their dialogue felt stilted as well.
Again, that could have been deliberate on the part of the directors, to make it sound like English really IS a foreign language to them. Or to show that the translations were taking place in their heads, that they were each speaking their native tongues and could only understand each other because they are sensate. Kind of like the echoing effect on international mobile phone calls, metaphorically speaking.
There’s even a point where Capheus asks Sun how they can understand each other when she’s clearly speaking Korean and he’s speaking Swahili. Or the scene where Will speaks Korean and Wolfgang speaks Gujarati (?). So maybe the bad dialogue was an intentional stylistic device. It was still annoying to listen to though, and I’d have preferred to hear more natural use of language, accents notwithstanding.
In terms of the characters, I’ve already said I don’t like Capheus. He’s too – and I really hate this term – two-dimensonal. I feel like he’s supposed to be the token hobbit, the ‘life is good, enjoy its pleasures, don’t-worry-be-happy’ representative. He’s always smiling, painfully positive, fascinated by everything, like a sanguine kid in a grown up world. I suppose it’s meant to be refreshing, to remind us to re-embrace our childhood view of the world, but to me, it just feels fake.
I get that that’s what he’s supposed to be, this small town kid who’s never been on a plane or tasted English tea, but it felt overdone, and frankly, annoying. Looking at it that way, Riley was equally awed by visiting Chicago and Kibera and India, but her reactions weren’t as caricatured as Capheus. Capheus’ portrayal was a little too hippie-dippie for my liking.
The subtle nod to Nairobi Half Life was funny though, because it was used so ironically, and was so slight you’d probably miss it. FYI, Half Life and the Nairobi and Berlin scenes Sense8? Same director. Tom Twyker.
One thing I did like about Capheus’ portrayal was how easily he took to being a sensate. It didn’t bother him at all that he had 8 voices in his head and that their spirits were imbuing him with skills. I felt that part of him had echoes of reality.
A lot of Africans are spiritually inclined, as much as we may not admit it. Culturally, we’ve seen, heard, or experienced enough stories about genies and spirits and demons and ancestors that (positive) possession isn’t so far-fetched. That said, if I suddenly started seeing visions and having my body-snatched for travel, sex, and violence, I may not be quite as accepting as Capheus.
I also like that as child-like and simplistic as Capheus nature is, it’s infectious. I couldn’t help smiling during his scenes, and no, it’s not just because the boy is hot. SO hot. Yes, I know that I’m objectifying him and applying double standards and probably shaming feminists everywhere, but LORD, the boy is HOT!!
As for the other characters, Will is my favourite. He seemed the most natural in his role, the most realistically portrayed. Or maybe they just gave him the best lines. Nomi and Amanita are awesome, I love their rapport.
I like that the show has them in natural everyday situations – except, of course, for the running-for-their-lives part. Too much of TV focuses on gays and transgender people as – you know, – gays and transgender people. This show focussed on them as just people. They both have lives, thoughts, feelings, experiences, life-views. And oh, by the way, they’re LGBT.
TV STILL — DO NOT PURGE — Freema Andrews and Jamie Clayton in a scene from Netflix’s “Sense8.” Photo credit: Merie Weismiller Wallace/Netflix.
I recently watched Looking and Queer as Folk, and that’s a whole different discussion. But I remember thinking that yes, being LGBT does affect how you live, and how you see life. That said, my daughter asked me what I was watching, I said it was a show about gay people.
I would never say I was watching a show about black people, or white people, or even green people because that wouldn’t be enough of a descriptor. It would have to be about ‘white people in the army’ or ‘black people in a band’ or ‘green people in a dance competition.’ So why is it that shows about gay people are just that?
I like that Sense8 has a strong LGBT quotient, but while it does address key LGBT issues like pride and closetting, it also shows these gay people as just people living their lives. Because they are, and the more we see them that way, the more we’ll treat them as ordinary, everyday humans, with as much right to life, love, happiness, privacy, and citizenry as anybody else.
Still on that note, as a loud-mouthed straight woman, there are tons of questions I would like to ask gay people, and transgender people too. Except I recently watched this video that showed just how rude and disrespectful those questions are. After all, you’d never ask a (straight) stranger any of those things. And yet we’re all curious.
Does that mean it’s okay to wonder, as long as you’re sensible enough not to ask? After all, in an ideal world, those are private matters that are none of anyone’s business. Plus, some situations are pretty clear cut. You never ask a straight person when they decided to be straight, or cis-person when they discovered they were cis. Those questions are more about ignorance and insensitivity than anything else.
And yet … you never ask a straight person how they have sex or which bathroom they use, because it ‘seems’ pretty obvious. And so you can’t help wondering how gays or trans people do it. As a kid, it was the first question I asked my mum when I found out some people are attracted to people of the same gender.
I like that the show addressed some of those issues without making it a big political thing. Rather than being didactic or soap-boxy, the situations were moving, hilarious, and human, sometimes all three. They subtly overturned stereotypes, showing pertinent matters in a light, effective, almost subliminal way. It was touching, and it was beautiful.
Last weekend, I marathoned through Looking and Queer as Folk, so Lito and Hernando didn’t shock me as much as they might have in the past. I liked that they didn’t, because it reflects a beautiful mind-shift in me. But more than that, I like that Nomi and Amanita got so much screen time. There seem to be a lot more shows depicting homosexual men than lesbians, and this spotlight definitely catered to the feminist in me.
Speaking of Lito, he’s a Mexican soap actor. At first I thought his character choice was lame. I mean, what could he possibly contribute to his cluster? And yet maybe that was the point. We have ‘pivotal’ characters like a cop, a hacker, a business mogul ninja. But we also have a thief, a bus driver, and yes, an actor. I wonder if people in Mexico, India, Seoul, or Berlin were as peeved with those accents as I am by Capheus and the other Kenyan characters.
Kala didn’t seem like much at first. She seemed – again – a stereotype. An educated Indian girl whose parents just want her to get married. She kept saying, ‘I went to University, I went to University’ and I know that was the point to the story, to bring out the injustice of it. But it wasn’t very subtle, and it got annoying pretty quickly. I think there are other ways to say a girl has a degree than to have her constantly reminding people that she has a degree.
Let’s talk about the love stories. Three cluster members have beautiful relationships outside the sensate, and while one character says love within a cluster is breathtaking and pure, another character says it’s evil and dangerous. Either way, to have eight linked people and more than one coupling is a tad overkill. It’s like the assumption that everyone in co-ed housing is constantly shagging everyone else. That said, I love the dynamic, and I’m curious to see where this thing might be going.
Another dynamic that I like is the polarity. We have a cluster with a cop and a thief, an atheist and a theist, a conservative Asian and liberal San Franciscans. I wondered pretty early on whether any moral questions would arise, like whether the cop would help the thief to steal, or how one part of the cluster might judge the ‘less desirable.’
Before I watched the show, I saw articles about how that was the whole point of the show, about how clusters were connected by their personalities rather than their locations or their beliefs. Their link isn’t about Kala’s religion or Wolfgang’s code or Nomi’s gender or Lito’s sexual orientation. They are linked by their cores, their innermost selves. They’re fused by who they really are.
They feel each other’s feelings, experience each other’s lives. So when they step into the body of another, it’s not just content, it’s context. It’s not just fear of being arrested – it’s fear of failing. It’s not just sex with men or women, it’s making love. It’s not just killing, it’s survival. They don’t just witness each other’s distress – they absorb it as their own, understand their motivations, and react accordingly.
This comes out beautifully in their interactions. When they need comfort, they visit Riley or Kala. When they need cheering up, they visit Capheus. When they need direction, they visit Will. They are instinctively drawn to whichever cluster-mate can give them what they require at that point, and it’s all credibly foreshadowed.
And they are united in how they see the world. For example, they would all sacrifice everything for family – jail time, stigma, even their lives. And family here isn’t just blood relatives. It’s Nomi and Amanita, it’s Wolfgang and Felix. They are all the kind of person that puts others before themselves. They each have a pathological empathy – not just for each other as a cluster – but for the world in general.
Of course, while some characters wear this ‘world-love’ like a badge, others hide their empathy a few layers deep. Sun, Lito, and Wolfgang come to mind. But the more you watch the series, the clearer their solidarity becomes. I like the way the show sneaks in beautiful pieces of philosophy without making them sound preachy or sermon-orial. Like Nomi’s vlog about Pride, or Capheus explaining why so many people in bad neighbourhoods have massive TVs.
Incidentally, that’s one of my favourite scenes, when Kala visits Capheus in his house, and he stares at her and says, ‘You’re beautiful!’ Because she is ridiculously pretty, and in an age where we castigate beauty, it was refreshing to hear Capheus express it in such a pure, innocent, non-pervy way. No cheesy come-on, no underlying sexual tension, no subversion whatsoever, it was just him telling her she was beautiful and I was like, ‘Hell yeah! It’s about time somebody noticed!’
As a woman, there’s a certain polarity to my existence. I’m a feminist who wants equal rights opportunities, and who wants to be seen as more than my vagina; an intelligent being that wants to be recognised for my thoughts and feelings, not just my outward appearance. But I’m also a girl living in a world of impossible beauty standards. The prescribed feminist approach is to kick beauty out of the window, change the rules, burn my bras, shave my head, fight against anything ‘feminine’.
Still … there’s a part of me that just wants to feel pretty, maybe because another part of me has never quite admitted that I am. So in that world, it felt good to have a nice, calm, non-political moment when we could all just look at the pretty girl and say, ‘Oh my God, you’re gorgeous!’ Yes, the rest of the show elaborates her brains and her skills and her compassion, but I love that Sense8 said it was okay for her to also be pretty. And I know I’m not supposed to, but I really like Rajan.
I watched the whole series in a binge, and it sucks that I have to wait a whole year to watch another season. I don’t know if there will even be another season, because the story is complete in itself. I like that about it. I like that even if they don’t renew it, I was left with a satisfying ending. I hate when seasons close with cliffhangers.
Also, it’s already established that the key to world peace is for everyone to get into other people’s heads, but there’s only so many ways that can play out without it getting boring and repetitive. Case in point. I love Sun. She’s badass in the best possible way. And I like that she has emotions even though they don’t show.
The stereotype of stoic and/or robotic Asians has always puzzled me, so it was nice to see the feelings beneath her resting-bitch-face. But by the third time she body-shared her cluster-mates out of a fight, I was yawning.
And there were a few scenes and even entire episodes with too much talking and not enough doing. I wish they had paced the story evenly rather than toggling extreme action with tedium. When it comes to TV, I’m a show-me-don’t-tell-me kind of girl. Telling is for books. That said, as Un-PC as it is for a feminist mother to say, those birthing scenes were total overkill.
There’s still plenty of scope in terms of storyline, especially with Sun and Wolfgang. They haven’t been developed much, I’d love to see where they will go. We could be introduced to other clusters, maybe a new one every season in a spin-off-y Black Mirror style with no direct correlation. Or we could just delve into unveiling the grand conspiracy (BPO and etc.)
Also, Sense8 doesn’t really feel like a ‘mass’ show. It seems like the kind of series that will gain a rabid cult following while the rest of the world wonders what we’re on about. Early commentaries complained about the apparent lack of plot and their difficulty in following what was happening. I suppose I had read enough about the show before I watched it, and that made it easy for me to follow, but the average joe might find this type of storytelling a tad mind-boggling.
Sense8 is a mentally stimulating show, and not everyone wants to think while they’re watching tv. A lot of people prefer the passive, couch-potato mode of viewing. They don’t want to have to work to understand the show, and Sense8 definitely makes you work for it. That’s probably why I like it so much. That and all the deeper layers of reasoning it clearly evokes.
I’m generally fussy about my shows, and the people that know me have stopped recommending stuff because I never like what they like. I bumped into Sense8 on Facebook, and I’m really glad I did, because all my criticism aside, I loved this show and I refuse to delete it. I’ll probably binge on it fifteen more times before the next season comes out, and I hope it does, because I could use a whole lot more sensating.
