Nonfiction

Just Do It

This past winter – meaning July and August, which feels so really-come-on – my eight-year-old daughter decided to join a field hockey team. A popular sport in Australia, played by both girls and boys, field hockey is referred to simply as “hockey,” because, well, there’s no ice here.

At first, the Rockets were coached by an incredibly kickass mom, so kickass in fact, that she left the team mid-season to go work as a lawyer for the United Nations in Rome. Welcome to Australia, where gorgeous muscular women get up at dawn to bike 50 kilometers before managing a hedge fund and baking meat pies.

A dad took over coaching duties. He warned us he’d have to miss two games; he travels a lot for work because he is the best hockey player in the world. I am not exaggerating. This humble and not unattractive man has played in three Olympics and several times, has been voted the most valuable hockey player in the world. In the words of my husband, “It’s like our daughter joined a basketball team coached by Michael Jordan.”

Needless to say, the Rockets had a good season. At the end of every practice, the coach would challenge all twelve players to a game, which was like watching an Olympian play against a bunch of kids. Games were regularly held in the pouring rain, and players would stumble off the field, covered in mud, to exchange their slobbery mouth guards for orange slices and gummy snakes.

A few weeks ago, I became aware of a social hockey league, an opportunity for kids to maintain their prowess during the off-season, and parents to have access to an open bar on Friday nights. Many of the Rockets were booked with life-saving classes or crocodile wrestling or whatever these kids do in spring, but I managed to recruit two girls and six boys – enough to constitute a team.

The night before the first game, it dawned on me that in the midst of recruiting and filling out paperwork, I had forgotten something fundamental. “Simone?” I asked, “Do you think I’m supposed to be the coach?” She laughed hysterically, “Mom, you don’t know anything about hockey.”

“THAT’S WHY I’M PANICKING.”

She was still chuckling when I tucked her in. “I’ll help you,” she reassured me.

I stayed up late googling “field hockey rules,” and printed out diagrams and practice drills. Bored with reading about penalty corners, I resolved to be one of those coaches who focuses on life lessons and doesn’t get bogged down by technical details. I’ve watched Friday Night Lights. I’ve worked on teams before. I survived business school.

I arrived at the first game, clipboard in hand, ready to inspire. I met the parents, welcomed the players, and suggested they “go run around the field and hit the ball back and forth.” Do you even “hit” a “ball” in hockey? That was all I had planned for warm-up drills, so I breathed a sigh of relief when the umpire rounded everyone up to start the game.

Over the next hour, I tried to sound official, yelling out words of encouragement like “Nice job Rajat!” and “Emma, maybe you should move over a little?”

Luckily, although kids need rides to hockey games and money for hot dogs, other than that, they’re doing just fine without us. To my relief, “social hockey” means that all parents take turns coaching. So this week I get to hang back with a beer and watch another parent panic.

Dear Bush Flies

I think there’s been some confusion. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a human being. I am not the tail of a horse, nor am I a recently deceased possum. My mouth is not a cave in South Dakota with family spelunking hours. While I appreciate your interest in the vocation of ear, nose and throat medicine, and wish you well in your studies, my orifices are not currently offering internship programs.

Yes, I am aware that it is spring in Australia. I have sat on park benches mesmerized by baby ducks, and just yesterday I successfully dodged the magpie heading straight for my ear. Nature is exploding here in Perth, with bright purple blossoms and parrots squawking at dawn. I’m even getting used to the white flowers in Kings Park that smell “like a gym bag,” according to one local resident.

I understand that in your lifespan, everything needs to happen yesterday, and by yesterday I mean the time of your great-grandparents. But your frenetic pace is becoming tiresome. You are reminding me of this girl I knew in college named Rachel who wanted to hang out all the time, and eventually I had to tell her that our friendship was becoming more of a burden than a pleasure and then she told me you’re a total bitch and I told her I have many faults but I’m definitely not a bitch and then she said I hate you and I said if you hate me so much then why do you always want to hang out? My point is, it’s too much.

A shout-out to the ladies. I understand you female bush flies need protein in order to develop your ovaries, and I am honored that you think so highly of my saliva. I also know that you are programmed to hang around animals and wait for them to digest their food so you can lay your eggs in their poo. But you see, that is disgusting.

You are lucky to live in Australia, one of the few countries in the world with more cattle than people. Cows are much more easygoing than humans, and my guess is that they wouldn’t mind at all if you flew in and out of their ears all day long. Plus, they bathe much less frequently and poo a lot. You would love them.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Not Talking About It

My brother was one of the first people I told I was pregnant. I asked him when I should break the news to Mom. He reminded me, “Just know that once you tell her, that’s all she’s going to want to talk about.”

It was good advice. Talking about doing something generally causes more anxiety than actually doing it, particularly in the case of big life changes like having a baby or, I don’t know, living abroad.

When we decided to move from San Francisco to Perth, we told our kids right away. The expat blogs convinced me that if our children heard it elsewhere, they would feel betrayed and develop permanent trust issues, dairy intolerance, and a fear of rainbows.

Our news spread quickly and, as a result, the kids engaged in a three-month long conversation called How Do You Feel About This Vague Scary Thing? My older daughter declared, “I’m ok with moving. I’m not ok with talking about it all the time.” I suggested she politely tell people she’d rather not discuss it, but she convinced me that was dumb advice. Our move affected people, and that is a good thing because it means we matter to them.

I don’t recall a lot of “How do you feel?” when I was growing up. At dinner, my father would ask inexplicably specific details of my day (“How many minutes did it take you to walk from Chemistry to English?”) and my mother would make statements like, “That school is falling apart” or “She sounds boy-crazy.” When my grandfather died and I saw my dad cry for the first time, my mother whispered, “He’s crying because his father died.” She did not say he’s crying because he’s sad.

Years later, in a psychology class, I learned about naming our own feelings, a topic that is now standard in American kindergarten curriculum. On the first day of school, I feel excited. I feel scared. Despite my best intentions, my patience level inhibits regular encouragement of my children to name their feelings. Eat your dinner. You love beans.

When we landed in Perth, the relocation chatter soon changed to Why Do You Sound Different? I contemplated distributing a fact sheet: We are Americans. We are here temporarily. We don’t like your vegemite but we love pavlova.

It has been almost nine months and we are now in something, instead of before or after something. There is a calm that has entered our home – the comfortable chaos of everyday living. We are back to life. There’s nothing to discuss. So let’s talk.

Folly

Gigi Hadid is an American supermodel and is the face of Seafolly, an Australian swimwear company. Seafolly ads featuring Gigi Hadid are all over Perth in magazines, at bus shelters, and on billboards.

There’s just no way around it. Gigi Hadid is drop dead gorgeous. She’s like Scarlett Johansson if Scarlett were always up for a game of beach volleyball. She has blond hair, full lips, and eyes that convey a combination of sleepiness and ass-kickiness, sort of like the actor who plays Puck in Glee.

In the Seafolly ads, Gigi has perfected two looks. One is the look of preoccupation. She’s busy but doesn’t mind stopping for a photo, as long as it doesn’t hold her up for too long. This look is often characterized by the use of an accessory – a duffel bag, a polaroid camera – and she appears to be on her way somewhere. Probably to a climate change convention.

Gigi’s second Seafolly look is more in the traditional supermodel style of, “I am a little bored but I also want to make out with you.” She is usually playing with a strand of her hair and reclining in a beach chair. She’s glistening with sweat, undoubtedly because she’s nervous to make out with me because I’m super-awesome.

Today I was at a mall in Perth to buy pants for my daughter. After an unsuccessful trip to Country Road, I turned a corner and there was Gigi Hadid, splashing in the water, looking over her shoulder like, “I’m just headed out to sea. Did you want something?”

It was an actual Seafolly store. At last. Through the window, I could see rows of bikinis, many of which I recognized from all the ads. It’s getting warmer here, which means I will be at the beach more often. I could probably use a new bathing suit. Yes I could definitely use a new bathing suit.

I walked into Seafolly and took three bathing suits into a dressing room. I undressed and pulled on a skimpy navy blue bikini. I adjusted the straps and took a good look at myself in the mirror.

Now I am about to tell you something that will shock you. Because it shocked the hell out of me.

I am not Gigi Hadid. I look nothing like Gigi Hadid. Really. There are zero similarities between Gigi Hadid and myself. If Gigi Hadid walked into your house, you would not think, “Well hello Rebecca, what’s in your duffel bag?” Not even for a second.

This is a not an embrace-your-body situation. My body has more or less been embraced. It does not need a video of women clutching their post-baby tummies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying that on this particular day, that is not what was going on in that dressing room.

What was going on is that all of those ads worked. Gigi Hadid got me into a Seafolly store, trying on bathing suits. Her hair, her attitude, and her glistening shoulders, all of it possessed me into thinking the only thing separating me from a supermodel was a navy blue bikini. I was actually surprised to see me in the mirror, wearing a surprised expression on my face and little else.

I wish this story ended with me buying the bathing suit. But $150 is too much to spend on something that won’t actually turn me into a spellbinding mermaid. So I left the bikini in the dressing room and drove home. Lauryn Hill was on the radio. Can’t take my eyes off of you.

One Time at Band Camp

We are an American family living in Australia and we are trying new things. This week, some of us tried walking to school by ourselves, and some of us tried going to work when we were sick. Some of us tried parking in a lot where in order to exit you need to have memorized your license plate number, and if you don’t know your license plate number, you end up angering a woman wearing a hot pink scrunchie.

Last week, the new thing we tried was Band Camp.

My daughter plays the keyboard in a band – less Duran Duran, more Mr. Holland’s Opus. Forty children meet up before school to play a variety of instruments and learn songs by the Beatles and Tchaikovsky. The talented bandleader has an equal amount of gorgeous white curls and schtick-jokes; he is turning these kids into proper musicians, and showing them how fun music can be.

Australia is big into fun. Are you having fun doing it? If not, then why are you doing it? It is a cultural ethos that I love and also struggle with, particularly when it comes to the kids. Don’t we need to teach our children that hard work combined with a healthy dose of dissatisfaction pays off? Don’t they need to suffer in order to succeed? Since moving to Perth, I am constantly reminded that, as it turns out, joy is a critical component to learning. (This no-duh moment was brought to you by Tim Tams, the greatest cookie of all time.)

Every year, the “band mums” coordinate a weekend getaway at Nanga Bush Camp, a well-known destination to Western Australians who did a lot of scouting in their childhoods. Nanga is located about 100 miles south of Perth, near the town of Dwellingup that has an art gallery where you can buy felt brooches and a cat sculpture titled Chairman Meow. While the band members have marathon practice sessions, their families go on long walks and sit around playing Uno and drinking instant coffee.

After almost crashing into a kangaroo (note: do not drive on a curvy, desolate road at dusk), we arrived at Nanga Bush Camp somewhat traumatized in the pouring rain, and discovered that we would be spending two nights in what essentially is a log cabin prison. Imagine a building about the size of a six-bedroom suburban home, but instead of walls there are curtains that haven’t been cleaned since 1968 and instead of beds there are tiny wooden slabs on which you roll out your sleeping bags. There is a basketball hoop in the main room and two fireman’s poles, presumably to encourage loud play at all hours. Seventy-five people snoring, farting, arguing and giggling. All we were missing were Ouija boards and an epic round of Spin the Bottle.

As an aside, to the parents of the boy who was singing the Disney classic “A Whole New World” at midnight: your son is adorable, and I look forward to seeing him on Broadway. But until then, please tell him that his late-night unsolicited singing almost caused an American woman to have a certain kind of breakdown that would have resulted in an arrest.

At Band Camp, we played by the river and walked on a tightrope. There was a Family Cabaret Night with skits and ukuleles and a certain American family singing “Norwegian Wood.” We square danced and tried to drink just enough wine so that we’d fall asleep on our wooden bunks but not get up every three hours to pee. It was fun.

Beep

Few things make me sadder for the state of the human race than self-checkout at a grocery store. If someone had told me self-checkout was alive and well in Australia, I may have decided not to move here. I was too busy thinking about schools and neighborhoods to focus on the critical issue of whether or not I will need to weigh my own limes.

To me, patronizing a store and having zero human interaction makes me feel like Tom Hanks befriending a volleyball. Removing humans from certain equations makes sense (driving, anyone?). But when it comes to my food, it feels good to hand over my money to a beating heart, preferably one that is in the body of a smiling human. Thank you for providing me with this food so I can feed my family. Particularly in the age of online shopping, there is a reason I go to a physical location to spend my money. (I’m Miss Cranky-Pants, I’ll be here all week.)

Most days in Perth, I walk to our neighborhood grocery store, Farmer Jacks, to pick up a few things for dinner. Farmer Jacks sells six different brands of agave nectar, and employs real people who are lovely and like to talk about squirrels and roller coasters. But occasionally there are days, like today, when I’m out and about so I swing by Woolworths, a national grocery chain that has decided to trade in customer satisfaction for really cheap milk. “Look at those suckers bagging their own groceries. Who cares that they’re wasting plastic bags and dropping jars of pickles on the floor? We get milk from robot cows and it’s 56 cents a liter, moohaha.”

Standing in line for self-checkout feels like waiting for someone to step on your toe. It’s humiliating and makes no sense. My heart went out to the old lady in the blue coat wrestling with the scanner gun, and I am a chump for not offering to help. But, toddlers should not teach babies how to fly if you know what I’m saying. So I watched this eighty-five-year woman reach down to pull her Weet-Bix out of her basket and try to locate the little scan-able doohickey. It made me sad.

Finally it was my turn. I spent five minutes scrolling through the produce list trying to find the price for red bell peppers before I remembered I’m in Australia and they’re called capsicums. I hope that sweet lady was watching me through the window thinking karma’s a bitch. But of course she wasn’t. She was on her way home to have a bowl of cereal and read about Australia’s new prime minister.

Everything you can imagine is real.

I can be a little grumpy about museums. Going to a museum creates a sense of stress in my body, like visiting a dog shelter. Look at all of these glorious things, stuck behind locked doors. There’s too much to see and it’s sterile and crowded.

But the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania is to a museum what a bicycle-riding unicorn is to a stick of gum. It opened in 2011 and is the pet project of David Walsh, a Tassie who made zillions in professional gambling and, instead of blowing it on pool boys and cufflinks, proclaimed, “You know what this Australian island state needs? A crazy museum with all the stuff that I like. What’s that you say? You have an issue with the animal carcass encased in latex that I want hanging from the ceiling? You object to the loud waterfall that spells out random words pulled from the web? You are offended by the hundreds of plaster cast vaginas? Well, start your own museum and shut up about what constitutes art.” (This is a direct quote from my fantasy of a city council meeting).

The museum is free to Tasmanian residents and $20 for visitors. It sits on a hill in Hobart, and is accessible by bus, car or preferably a ferry with a full bar and attractive Tasmanians wearing spiffy gray MONA jumpsuits (I asked one of them where I can purchase such a magnificent jumpsuit and he told me you only get one if you work on the ferry. My traveling companion, my brother, then asked if he could get a ferry job for one day and run off with the jumpsuit.).

MONA sits on several acres of lush vineyards. Walking up the hill, there are a few hints of what lies ahead. The parking lot has two reserved spots for “God” and “God’s Mistress.” There is a large trampoline covered in bells manned by a staffer who encourages every visitor to “have a go.” There are beanbags on a stage, a cast iron “teepee cathedral” and a glorious wine bar that opens at 9am (ahem). And because you are in Tasmania and not New York, London or Paris, there are no throngs of people fighting their way in. It is just you, your brother, and a handful of European tourists, who will come face to face with some of the weirdest art on the planet.

There is no signage at MONA. No artist statements on the wall, no titles. Upon entering the main building, Daniel and I were encouraged by a smiling, blond gentleman to take the elevator three stories below ground to pick up our customized iPods that would offer more information about each piece “if you want to learn more. Some people don’t.”

Once underground, we gaped at staged photographs of naked homeless people, pulled open drawers to reveal old photographs and pieces of twine, watched a video of a woman vigorously brushing her hair, and tried to avoid walking past a five-foot tall horrifying doll standing on one end of a giant seesaw.

We walked through a tunnel to a participatory exhibit, by Marina Abramovic, called Rice and Lentil Counting, where for over an hour, I sat on a wooden bench wearing a lab coat and noise cancelling headphones, separating and counting a pile of rice (3,662) and lentils (1,188).

Entering a room at the far end of the museum, I suddenly held my breath. We had arrived at the shit show.

The MONA piece de resistance is Cloace, or what the locals refer to as the poo machine. It is part of MONA’s permanent collection, which my brother and I decided means that it will be shown for a few years and then will be lovingly placed in a permanent storage unit never to be seen again.

Minus the artsy fartsy (pun intended) lingo, Cloace is a large machine that imitates the human digestive system. It was created by a team of scientists and engineers, led by a Belgian artist named Wim Delvoye who is now living in China due to the fact that his home country takes issue with his current endeavor, tattooing live pigs (typical Belgians with their ethical end-of-life treatments and commitment to chocolate). A MONA staffer is tasked with feeding Cloace two meals a day, prepared by the museum café. She told us Cloace does not respond well to alcohol so it only drinks warm water. Cloace digests a small amount of meat every day but generally prefers raw greens. Cloace is more or less that dinner party guest.

Every day at 2pm, without fail, Cloaca poos. Real poo comes out of a metal tube onto a glass plate. Poo. On a plate. At a museum. It makes me positively giddy.

On the return ferry, watching the clouds move across the sky, I felt transformed. What was all of that? It was all so beautiful and grotesque. I felt disturbed and thrilled and not at all grumpy. This was the museum I had been waiting for.

Tasmania sits quietly off the coast of Victoria. It is about the size of Massachusetts, with one-tenth the population. The city of Hobart is cradled between the mountains and the harbor. They have the best oysters and whisky in the world, and their infamous Devils are even creepier than you imagine. The people are good-humored and kind; many of them have long bushy beards. Tassie’s beauty took my breath away. And it wasn’t just the poo.

One more reason to not own a gun

There is a cat in heat howling outside her bedroom window. This is the third night. She wants this cat to stop screaming so badly she would toss all of her morals into the barrel of a gun and shoot them in the general direction of the cat.

She tries to reason with it. “Finn’s neutered. You’re wasting your time. Try Archie, on Hamersley.”

Finn is eating his wet food, pretending to ignore the sounds but secretly relishing the attention. At two in the morning he starts hollering back. “I’m trapped in here,” he cries. “I so want to make sweet love to you, but I’m stuck in this house, licking my butt. Tell me again what you love most about me.”

She calls triple zero, Australia’s 911.

“What’s your emergency?”

She talks quickly, aware she’s jamming the line. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call. Does Perth have some sort of animal control center?”

“Is everything ok, ma’am?”

“Yes, I’m fine. There’s this cat in heat. I love cats, but I’m so… tired…” Her voice trails off as she is suddenly aware she’s insane. She hangs up.

The cat keeps yowling.

“What if women cried like this when they were ovulating?” Dave wonders.

Let’s all stay on point.

A place called Cat Haven says they’ll be happy to take her, but she’ll need to trap her and bring her in. She stages a variety of attempts involving hot food, gardening gloves, and using her own cat as bait, all of them unsuccessful.

Her sleep hasn’t been disrupted like this since she had a baby. We are never having another baby, she announces while washing dishes.

She remembers she owns a string hammock, sitting in a drawer. It was a wedding gift. It’s thirteen years old. We could use that as a trap. Toss it over the cat. “That won’t work,” says Dave, looking up from his phone.

She wants to hear a better idea.

She pours herself a glass of wine and starts cleaning the stove.

Her daughter enters the room nervously. Are you going to kill that cat, her daughter whispers. Of course not, she says. We love cats.

The noise will stop abruptly on the fourth night. She will get six consecutive hours of sleep and wake up with the hook from Thrift Shop stuck in her head. She will hope that poor cat is ok, and feel ashamed of herself. But she doesn’t know that now. She only knows she’s thankful she lives in a country with very few guns, none of them anywhere near her.

The Anatomy of Funk

I woke up in a funk. Different from the funk I had a few months ago when my throat was killing me so I took cold medicine and stayed in bed staring at the heating vent, realizing it looked just like the profile of a baby lion. And unlike the I’m-living-in-another-country funk. This was the funk where the people you love most in the world appear to be incredibly irritating and you need to leave the house as soon as possible to avoid saying very mean things.

I’m a pretty happy person. Granted I’m no Mary Lou Retton, but I generally feel content and grateful. But today I felt angry, and no it wasn’t a female issue. The molehills felt like mountains and GOD HELP ME WITH THE CRUMBS EVERYWHERE WOULD IT KILL YOU TO USE A PLATE WITH YOUR FUCKING PEANUTS.

Please, a word on crumbs. Why is it that I can sit in someone else’s home completely unaffected by crumbs, but yet in my own house, the crumbs stare up at me from the floor like tiny Donald Trumps, screaming in my face?

I called my friend Elaine and asked if she’d meet me for a run, warning her I was in a horrible mood. “I’m always in a crap mood,” she said happily. “Let me just get changed and I’ll meet you at the park.”

Grabbing my headphones, I left the house. This type of funk required extra consideration in the music department. Lorde and Yo La Tengo felt too tender, and Beyoncé only amplified my anger when I recalled her lip-synching at the Giants Stadium last year. I expected Johnny Cash to be a safe choice, but that lonesome whistle was not exactly blowing my blues away. The Beastie Boys came through of course. Don’t you tell me to smile, you stick around I’ll make it worth your while.

The friend and the exercise helped. Though dragging myself up the stairs to my front door, I still felt hazardous. So I turned around and kept walking. I ended up at the library where I sat in a beanbag and read a children’s book about a talking dog. I wandered over to the nonfiction section where the final selections of a Young Artist contest were being displayed. There was a bright yellow multimedia piece about the pressures facing teenage girls, and a very realistic illustration of a cat. I stared at the cat for a while, mesmerized by the details. Willa would love this picture, I thought. I felt my brain unclench.

I’ve walked home from the library so many times, I’ve memorized the storefronts on Rokeby Road. There’s the law firm, the shop that sells Eileen Fisher nightgowns and $90 throw pillows, the physiotherapy office, and the Moroccan café with the cappuccinos dusted in chocolate. So today, I was surprised to see a newly opened shop showcasing giant bins of dried beans and coconut flour. Hypnotized by the promise of artisanal pickles and macadamia doukka, I wandered in and bought some nuts. On the way out, I noticed the name of the store – Angry Almond.

When I got home, Dave and Simone were on the couch eating Doritos, watching Howl’s Moving Castle. Willa had gone to a friend’s house. “I bought some almonds,” I said quietly. “Welcome back,” Dave said.

Someone has to protect this family from the scone who protects this family.

Imagine Breaking Bad with all of the characters played by baked goods. Walter White, the temperamental perfectionist, would be a soufflé, and Jesse, a brownie. The part of Hank would go to a toasted onion bagel slathered in cream cheese, and his wife Marie would be a macaroon, preferably purple. The role of Skyler would go to some sort of bun.

And Gustavo Fring, the immaculate, philanthropic businessman who also kills people, would be played by the lemon blueberry scone from Baker’s Delight in Subiaco, Western Australia. It’s hiding in plain sight and it’s deadly.

The unassuming killer is covered in a sticky sugary frosting. When you bite into it, you get the sweet ooze before you’re hit with the sour lemon. The blueberries are there only to offset the butter. The experience is not unlike the Amy Winehouse documentary I saw this past weekend – completely wrong and strangely fulfilling.

The gateway was the free sample. I swear on this half-eaten scone that I walked up to the counter to buy a loaf of bread. But I am the person at the Stonestown Mall in San Francisco that says why yes thank you to the girl standing outside of Panda Express with the cold chunks of orange chicken on toothpicks.

I’ve since returned many times to try Baker’s Delight’s range of products. The date scone is decent and can pass as breakfast. The cheese and chive one could be less cheesy and more chivey but who cares because BUTTER.

Baker’s Delight is to a bakery what the Apple store is to an iPhone factory. It is a showcase for perfection, not a place to get into the nuts and bolts of how things are made. I’ve seen an oven behind the racks of bread, but airplanes also have ovens and no one’s cooking on an airplane. As they reheat muffins upon request, the young ladies behind the counter tolerate their Daisy-from-Downton-Abbey inspired uniforms, probably because they have unlimited scone access.

According to its website, the tagline for Baker’s Delight, a national chain, is, “We’re for real,” clearly the work of a brand management consultant who surveyed customers immediately after they inhaled scones. “You’re kidding me with these scones,” customers would exclaim. “No,” the consultant would reply. “We’re for real.”

Baker’s Delight lemon blueberry scones create a false sense of happiness and confidence, followed by symptoms of withdrawal and a craving for more. I guess the baker’s real delight is that she figured out a way to incorporate meth into her products, securing lifelong junkies. She’s slingin’ mad volume, yo.