Whoa,” I say, opening my computer and pulling up our blog site. “Do you understand what a big deal this is, Jasmine? I mean, you posted this last night, and we each posted about it on social media—but . . . we’ve had more than a hundred visits to our blog site.” We are at school early, waiting for Ms. Lucas to arrive and open her classroom so we can work on the blog and create a schedule of posts.
“Chels, can we focus? What are you saying?” Jasmine says, sitting down next to me and eyeing our metrics page.
“What I’m saying is that you posted this at 9:07 p.m. and this morning when I checked the stats, just because I was curious to see if anyone even noticed we had a new club and blog, our site had been visited more than a hundred times, and look—every time I refresh, the number goes up.” I refresh again, and the number bumps up to 153. “People are reading it as we speak, which means people are talking about it and visiting, and reposting, and the day has just started! Write Like a Girl is a hit!”
I pause and look at Jasmine. “I’m so glad you wrote it all down. I’m sorry it happened, but I love that you put it all out there. I wish we had named names. I’d love to call out Mr. Morrison and Meg—who does she think she is, anyway?”
“I know,” Jasmine says. “She’s the worst. I can’t believe James is going out with her.”
“What!? No! No, no, no. That’s not even possible.” Of course I know it’s totally possible. Meg sings like a freaking angel and is one of the strongest actors in the school. Not to mention she’s definitely one of the most beautiful girls at school (I guess I should have started with that one). But she acts like the whole school rotates around her, and according to a handful of her close friends, it does. I can’t believe James is into that. So pathetic. But I guess I really have no idea what kind of person he’d be into. I just wish he’d be into me.
“I’m sorry,” Jasmine says. She gives me a hug.
“I don’t even know why I’m upset. It’s not like we’re even a thing. I just, I kind of wish we were,” I add, feeling like an idiot for liking someone who clearly has no feelings for me.
“I know. I get it.” But then Jasmine’s eyes fill with tears, and Jasmine never cries.
“What’s wrong?”
“My dad’s still in the hospital. I feel like nothing even matters because all I want is my dad to be better,” Jasmine says. “I just want to feel like myself again.”
I put my arm around her, and we sit together, watching the whole school start to file in and wake up.
“Hello, girls,” Ms. Lucas starts. “You two are here early. Did we have a plan to meet this morning?” she asks, looking confused.
“No, but we figured if you were here early, we could work in your classroom and plan some things for our club. Is that okay?”
“Of course, yes. Come in.” She looks at us again and can see Jasmine wiping away tears on her shirtsleeve. Ms. Lucas walks to her desk to grab a box of tissues. “You still have about fifteen or so minutes until the first bell rings. Stay as long as you want. But can I ask you two what’s wrong?”
“My dad’s in the hospital,” Jasmine says. “He has cancer. Stage four.”
“I’m so sorry, Jasmine. I had no idea you were dealing with that. What can we do? How can we help?”
Jasmine shrugs. “There’s nothing anyone can do right now.” We are quiet, and I really want to think of something to say. Jasmine beats me to it. “On a positive note, the blog is blowing up,” she says, and we all start to laugh.
“It is?” Ms. Lucas asks. “After just one post? What did you write? I didn’t even read it before you posted it,” she says, sounding concerned.
“Oh, it’s just your average takedown of Hollywood’s extremely superficial and stereotypical roles black women are assigned in the movie industrial complex that is basically ruining our lives,” I explain. “She also called out the August Wilson Acting Ensemble, which was named after a prominent social justice playwright, who is black, I might add.”
“We know that, Chelsea,” Jasmine says.
“Yeah, I know we know that. I’m just saying it out loud, okay, because it seems like most of the people in the acting ensemble . . . I’m sorry, the August Wilson Acting Ensemble, don’t seem to understand that.”
“Yeah,” Jasmine cuts in. She tells Ms. Lucas everything that happened. “That’s the story we didn’t get into yesterday when we told you we wanted to start our own club. He basically wants me to act the stereotype, which is just . . . it’s just wrong,” she says.
Ms. Lucas and I both look up.
“I’m done. I’m totally and completely done,” Jasmine says. “I’m tired of being invisible to people who only want to make me visible for specific roles. I’m not playing anyone’s parts or ideas of me anymore. And I’m going to say what I need, and I’m gonna start saying what I want too. I gotta get ready for class. Let’s talk more later?” Jasmine asks.
“Sure,” I say. “So you’re gonna see James this morning?” I ask, a little too casually, mad at myself for even bringing his name up again.
“Of course I’m going to see James, Chelsea. I’m gonna see him every morning in the same class that we’re gonna have together all year—every day.”
“I know, I know, I was just confirming that you’ll be seeing him,” I respond. “Maybe you should remind him that Meg sucks, and that your awesome friend Chelsea is unique and kind of quirky . . . and hot . . . say I’m hot too. And remind him that Meg sucks,” I add again, stumbling over my words.
“Yeah, maybe I will. I’m going to tell him he needs to get his act together and drop Meg and her punk ways,” Jasmine says. “I’m going to tell him exactly how I feel. I think I might even tell him how you feel,” she says, standing up and packing her bags.
This is a new Jasmine.
“I’m going to start telling people the way it is.” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, waves to Ms. Lucas who has been staring at us wide-mouthed for the last few minutes, and walks out.
I don’t even have time to say, “Hey, maybe don’t tell James I’m into him because I’m trying to play it cool,” and then I think, I’ve never played it cool, so whatever.
By lunchtime, the school is humming. I rush through the cheeseburger line, which is the fastest line because it’s also referred to as the barf line (though I’ve never actually barfed from the burger). I go to our normal table and pull out my phone. I’ve been dying to refresh all morning long, and I see that the number is 452. Four hundred and fifty-two people have read the blog, or at least they’ve clicked on long enough to see Jasmine’s perfect title, and if they saw that, I know they had to read on.
“Hey, I saw the new Write Like a Girl blog. That piece Jasmine wrote was soooo good,” Isaac says, crashing into me with his tray. He has opted for the taco boat, piled so high the cheese is tumbling into his applesauce, which, I have to say, looks a lot more appetizing than my meal.
“Uh, yeah, your girl raised the bar about a trillion degrees,” I say, stealing a sliver of cheddar from his tray.
“That doesn’t even make sense, degrees, trillion . . . anyway, she’s not my girl,” Isaac says.
“Well, I don’t know about that. I heard about the scene, you know . . . the love scene.” I bust out laughing.
“What do you mean? What did you hear?”
“Ah, you’re curious, huh? I mean, I heard you went full-on relationship in the scene. You, too, raised the bar about a gazillion levels.”
He starts to laugh with me this time. “I did, I totally did.” He high-fives me, which tells me he’s as proud of himself as I am of him. I’ve always seen Isaac as my brother. How amazing would it be if Isaac and Jasmine actually started dating?
“A lot of good it did, since Jasmine quit the ensemble. I feel like I have you to thank for that,” Isaac says.
“Uh, I think you have Mr. Morrison to thank for that. He’s the one that lost his mind in class, which in retrospect was perfect, because now we have our own club. Ha!” I say.
“Well, if that first post is any indication of what’s to come, I think y’all have some good ideas, and a whole bunch of people are talking about it.”
I hear a voice say, “Congrats on your new club.” I swivel around in my seat. It’s James. He’s standing behind me with his tray in one hand and a basketball tucked inside his other arm. It’s such a cliché, and I’m falling right into it. “Hey, man,” James says to Isaac. They both nod.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” I say, smiling a little too wide. “How did you . . . how did you hear about it?”
“Jasmine told me all about it this morning,” James says, looking right at me. I have no idea what Jasmine said to James, and now I am wondering if she went full out. “She showed me the post, and in my second class, pretty much everybody was talking about it, and when half the basketball team’s talking about a blog post from some new club, then you know it’s making its rounds,” he says.
“Half the basketball team? Really?” I ask, and look around the lunchroom. It’s not as if everyone is looking at their phones, but there’s something about the intimate conversations and the huddles in small groups that makes me think this post has some staying power, or at least has pushed the conversation in some intriguing ways.
“You wanna sit?” Isaac asks James. I stare in his direction and can’t believe he asked James to sit with us.
James looks around the cafeteria for a minute, then back at us. “Sure.” He puts his tray down and slides his basketball to balance between his feet. He lets his book bag fall to the side between Isaac and him, and he’s sitting right next to me. Our arms would be touching if I’d stop being such a weirdo and start eating, but instead, I take a couple gulps of my iced tea and just sit. His tray has two burgers and a taco resting on top of each one. He starts to devour them.
“You wanna take a breath?” I ask, watching him in wonder.
“What? I’m hungry,” he says, laughing. “I gotta get my energy up for our run this afternoon. I was thinking we could just run down to the Chipped Cup and get a doughnut today. We could get there and back easy.”
“You two are going out this afternoon?” Isaac asks, looking at me like I’ve left something out of the story. “I didn’t know you two were . . .”
“Gym class. We’re running partners until the end of the month,” I say, realizing that I’m already kind of sad that the month will end.
“For Halloween, we should run up and down 181st and get candy at all the stores. That’d be so cool,” James says, polishing off his first burger.
“So for gym class everybody just gets to run around the city and do whatever they want?” Isaac asks. “Uh, why did I take gym in the tenth grade? All we did was play volleyball and do burpees. This sounds way better.”
“Yeah, well, we’re really supposed to stick to a specific route, but we have it down to a science, so as long as we go twenty minutes in one direction, we can get back in time. The other day we caught the M4 down to Jackie Robinson Park to get on the swings and check out the empty pool and then raced the bus back.” I start laughing, thinking about James fake crying behind me, complaining about his ankle and limping along. “We’ve been pushing the limit each week.”
It’s true. Every time we get outside, we come up with a new plan and some new way of seeing the city. And we talk. We talk about when we were little, we tell stories, talk about the things we wanna do when we graduate. Somehow we never run out of things to say. I think that’s the reason I like him the most.
“And I also get schooled on about a hundred issues that are important to women today,” James says, smiling at me. “What do you always say? Down with the . . . down with the . . .”
“Patriarchy,” I finish, punching him in his ridiculously muscular arm. Oh, his arms, another reason I like him.
“Down with the patriarchy. That’s what you say, right?” James looks at Isaac. “The patriarchy is a system where men have all the power. And we’re a big part of the problem,” he adds, showing off.
“Oh, I know all about the patriarchy,” Isaac says. “And yeah, man, we’re definitely part of the problem.”
“Yes, I am so glad you two are seeing the ways of the world. Now if I could just convince everyone else, we’d be all good.”
“Well, get to it,” James says. “What’s the plan for your next post? You were all fired up about all those magazines we saw a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh yeah, it’s coming. Watch out for it. And I’m also writing a piece about the princess industrial complex,” I say, starting to feel comfortable and finally eating my food like a normal person.
“The what?”
“The princess industrial complex. The way the media convinces us that we should dress and act like royalty so we can get popular, get the guy, have a true love story, and on and on. It’s a setup.”
“Yeah, well, my mom is obsessed with the princess industrial complex. I think it worked on her, because she loves all that kinda stuff, so I guess I never thought it was that big of a deal,” James says.
“Oh, it’s totally a big deal,” Isaac says, shaking his head.
“I guess for me, it was just a way of telling me how to dress, how long to wear my hair, the kind of things I should say and do. It’s this whole idea that if you are a certain type of girl, you will always win, you know what I mean? And it starts when girls are as little as two and three years old,” I say.
“No way,” James says, finishing his last bite of burger, wiping his mouth, and looking around the cafeteria. I’m not sure what, or who, he’s looking for, but I keep on, trying to make my point.
“Yes! My little cousin is five years old, and she thinks that girls should wear dresses, her favorite color is pink, and she told her mom she wants to grow her hair long like Rapunzel so she can swing from it,” I say, looking straight at James now.
“Well, that’s just good thinking . . . she’s using her hair to get places.” He laughs. “No, no, I see what you’re saying. I do. I just don’t know if it’s that big of a deal. It seems a little over the top.”
“Uh, no, it’s real. All the princesses I grew up with were thin and white and had long straight hair—all of them. I didn’t see myself in them. That’s the main problem—when you don’t have any diversity. You just have these generic models of women, marketed and manufactured to little girls all over the world, who are meant to value and want to look and act like those women. And what if you don’t look like them? Then where can you even see yourself?”
“I just didn’t think any of it was that serious, but I get your point.”
“Yeah, it affects men too . . . because it makes you think that’s what a woman is supposed to look like and act like. And all these princess stories include being saved by men—sometimes by a kiss, or sometimes by true love. That sends a message that women literally can’t save themselves. Look at freakin’ Rapunzel! She has to get a man to CLIMB up her hair to save her. There is nothing more sexist than having a man use a woman’s body part as an accessory to save her. It’s ridiculous,” I say, looking up and realizing that James is standing and gathering his bag and tray.
“I am right there with you,” Isaac says. “Because for guys . . .”
“Hey, sorry to interrupt, and I’m totally with this—we can talk about it on our run today, but I gotta get out of here. I’m meeting a . . .” Meg walks up behind James and puts her hands over his eyes.
“Guess who?” she says. He swings around and puts his arm around her waist. It’s not really in a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of way, but it’s definitely more intimate than anything we’ve done together.
“You all know Meg, right?” James asks.
“Of course I know them,” Meg says. “Isaac is in the ensemble with me. How’s Jasmine doing, by the way?” she asks, eyeing me. She knows we’re best friends, and also that the blog post was written with Meg and Mr. Morrison in mind.
“She’s great,” I say. “Totally great.”
“Tell her I read her post, and that I had no idea she would take everything so seriously,” Meg says, lacing her arm behind James. He looks uncomfortable and starts to walk away, but she pulls him back. “You can also tell her that all stereotypes come from some form of truth. So they had to be based on something. Maybe Jasmine just looks the part.”
“Nope, nope,” I say. “Stereotypes are all fake. They aren’t real. They’re a way to lump people together and create bias about a whole group. That was Jasmine’s whole point. And it’s not a joke. None of it’s a joke. Her feelings, my feelings, are real. And if you think it’s no big deal, or that stereotypes can’t hurt people, then you’re part of the problem.” I stand up a little too fast and stumble as I try to collect my tray. James puts his hand on my elbow, but I brush it off.
“Me, part of the problem?” Meg calls after me, and I can hear her laugher echoing through the lunchroom as I walk away.
Posted by Chelsea Spencer
Princess Industrial Complex: What I learned from Rapunzel
Women with hair that is a long blond rope
have magical, mystical powers,
& can do most all things,
but they will always need to be saved
by a swashbuckling, bumbling man.
Rapunzel is thin as nothing,
paper fine, petite & small design.
She will learn when you cut your blond locks,
your powers will vanish & your tresses
will turn a drab & lifeless lackluster brown
(and short), but she will learn that princes
sometimes prefer brunettes & all will be well.
But here is what I say.
Hair can be an animal sometimes, up and off
your precious, precocious head in a flash.
Reckless & jumbled.
Women aren’t fairy tales, fluff, filtered
into fugitives trapped with their own powers.
My own hair is repugnant & revolting,
it’s ruthless & ravenous—relentless
slithering, sly & slick, bodacious & funky.
Yeah, repugnant as in take your breath,
lungs, heart. My hair won’t be your swing,
your sexy, can’t be teased or trotted out, your
perfection is not attached to my skull. Back up.
You can’t dye me to fit your pleasure.
I’m not sunflower, pure diamond, hot toffee,
sparkling amber, auburn dream, platinum crystal,
vanilla icing, caramel kiss, copper shimmer.
I’m not sprayed or straightened. I’m a bully.
My hair’s got you in the corner. Don’t dainty me,
don’t gel me up for the perfect curls.
Don’t you dare try to climb up me—to save me.
I’m keeping myself alive just fine.
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magicalme liked this
loulou commented: The PRINCESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
WHOA! I have never heard it compared to other industrial complexes—like this whole system that is set up to teach women how to act, how to think, what to wear . . . whoa! I am shook by this! I just looked through my old Halloween costumes and I was some type of princess from ages 3-9. What is that?! Wish I had been almost anything else. This is deep!
sophiamays commented: Same for me. I would ONLY wear dresses in pre-school because I thought girls were supposed to look pretty all the time, and in middle school, I stopped answering so many questions because I was nervous about being too loud or a know it all. Was princess culture—being quiet, calm, pretty—a part of that?
ginawilson72 liked this
wondergirl commented: Agree princesses are super problematic, and I’m so glad your school has a space for you all to write and critique what is happening in your worlds. Bravo!
writelikeagirl commented: Thanks so much!
firenexttime reposted from sophiamays
brandilux commented: Can I use this in my media class at school? We are studying how racist and sexist the media can be—it’s soooooo corrupt! I mean, look at the kind of girls they celebrate and put on magazines and in commercials. Always the same color, always the same size. I know people are trying to change that, and sometimes it happens, but not nearly enough. We need to be out there even more! I’ve even started to write some of my own poems. Thanks for the inspiration!
writelikeagirl commented: Yes, yes! Please spread the word!
marymarymary liked this
Posted by Chelsea Spencer
Beauty Magazine Redux
Beauty Magazine—Found Poem
You won’t be able to stop checking out your butt, but
be brave this year. This year look Hot! Hot! Hot!
in your jeans. Girls Gone Wild (for less). Less
is more. More is more. But how far must a girl go
to get his attention? Hot Abs. Hot Arms. Hot Thighs.
How far must a girl go? His attention? How hot hot
hot is his attention—girl? Get Instagram Instaglam. Oh!
Fashion, beauty & body tricks. Tricks of the beauty trade—
Bikini Body Confidence. Blitz. Glitz. Gutz. Butz & Bendz.
Slutz & Steady Glamor. Sexy cuts. Sexy tone. Sexy sexy
sexy sexy sexy sexy. Sexy. Amazing shine. Shine & get
the guy. Get flat abs. Fast. Get major confidence. Get:
Gutted. Get: Guilty. Get: Major stressors. Get smooth
skin fast. Get 625 pretty looks for YOU. Party hair. Party
skin. Party boobs. Party bod. 763 fashion tips & beauty
tricks. Boost your bra size in one month. Boost your hot
flat abs. Boost your confidence. Boost your mood w/
659 new luscious lip colors. Learn to kiss. Sexy like.
This issue is for YOU.
This issue is for YOU—
Is this issue
is this issue for?
How about—
Arithmetic paradoxes & aerial coordinates & butterflies.
You won’t be able to stop mastering quadratic equations.
This year be Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!
How ’bout his attention is secondary
to your valedictorian speech,
class president, National Honor Society, so let him choke
on your algebraic dust. His attention? Over it. Girl.
Get Instagram Instasharp. All knowing & resourceful. Oh!
Coding, programming & tech tricks.
Tricks of the job trade—
Yoga Body Confidence. Smartz. Slickz. Prowess.
Prodigy & Precocity. Brainy moves. Brainy body confidence.
Brainy flair. Brainy knack. Brainy. Brainy.
Brainy. Brainy—Brainy. Get the grades.
Get a 4.0. Get the gold medal in the 400-meter dash.
Get jacked biceps. Get the glory.
Get 625 genius moves for YOU.
763 ways to find & pleasure you. Learn to love
your boobs. Bod. Homage the muscles in your mind.
Boost your IQ in one month. Boost your peptides,
peripheral nervous system. Learn how to be a CEO, CFO,
executive direct like a boss. Do it all Brainy like.
No, this is the issue for YOU—
-------------------------------------------
bepretty commented: I am ALWAYS THINKING THIS HERE!!!!!!!!
wahibabeee commented: truth telling—that is all. and you all are on a roll. i am loving all these posts and poems. thanks for starting these conversations. and it’s gonna make me look at magazines in a whole different way—it also makes me want to get in the system to try and change it!
marymarymary reblogged this
mattcooper commented: Interesting read—I never thought about this
mslucas commented: This is one of my favorite poems so far—very cool.
writelikeagirl commented: Thanks so much for reading our posts! Be sure to check back often. We’ll be posting 1-2 times every week!
tamirb commented: guys have it just as bad—write one for us!
brooklynforever liked this
brandilux commented: YES! I saw a quote in my Media Studies class that said: A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance. And you both are doing it! I looked through some of my mom’s home and garden magazines and used your poems as inspiration. Here’s mine:
A woman’s place is not:
in the kitchen
or in the garden
or in the bedroom
or cleaning the counter.
She’s not an Easy-Bake Oven
or a dollhouse
or a doll.
A woman’s place:
is in the resistance
is in the existence.
I exist.
writelikeagirl commented: Oh, we LOVE this poem! Thanks for sharing. Maybe when we bring Write Like a Girl to the world, you will come and write with us! Yes! Keep sharing.
jrock liked this
wahibabeee commented: You know I’ll be coming back to this blog. This is the only relevant blog at Amsterdam Heights anyway. Who cares about photos of the basketball club or the Environmental Club? This is where it’s at!
writelikeagirl commented: Thanks! We’re not trying to put any other clubs down, but we appreciate your comments. Come back soon!
Posted by Jasmine Gray
What It Be Like: on being a girl
It be like men telling you to smile when you’re all out of sunshine. Like your mouth being more familiar with saying yes than no. It be like hiding sometimes, wrapped in puffy coat, too-loose dress, nothing clinging or low cut. It be like wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen all at once. Like knowing you have the right answer but letting him speak anyway. It be like second-guessing your know-how, like fact-checking your own truth. It be like older women telling you how to get a man even if they don’t have a man, even if you don’t want a man. It be like learning how to play hard-to-get, how to entice, how to be sweet honey always. It be like being told you are too sweet, too loose, too woman and not enough girl, too girl and not enough woman.
It be like knowing all the world is expecting you to be nurturer, when maybe you want to hunt. It be like a wild flame trying to burn, burn while everyone else wants to extinguish it. It be like being told it’s okay to cry, but it never be like rage unfiltered, anger expressed.
It be like trying so hard to hold everything in: emotion, brilliance, waist. Breathe in always, never let out.
It be like stomach cramps and bloated belly, like cravings and moods that change like spring days. It be like trusting the mirror when it shows you your beauty. It be like trusting your heart when it tells you who to love, who to walk away from. It be like knowing you can always start again, that you can always create and make something because you are made for birthing.
It be like meeting other women—older and younger, living and no more breath. It be like their spirits are inside you, remaking you into something better and bolder every time you say their names, read their poems, learn their legacy. It be like knowing you are what praying women had in mind when they travailed for tomorrow.
It be like knowing you are a promise, a seed.
It be like knowing that without you
planted and watered and nurtured
the world can’t go on.
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bronxbeauty commented: It really be like this! Word.
harlemgirl commented: This poem is giving me life. And I mean that literally. It gives me something to look forward to. It’s making me think about how being a girl affects me.
jeremiahbbox commented: My new favorite blog.
lizfreeman commented: The world can’t go on without us women! Yes.
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wonderworld19 commented: This part right here “fact-checking your truth.” Girl, yes.
sugarhillforever commented: Why can’t I like this a million times? So good.
mslucas liked this
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jrock commented: I hope you all do something with these poems and posts and not just let them store up online. These words need to be spoken out loud.
Posted by Jasmine Gray
Playtime for Fat Black Girls
I
Mom wouldn’t buy me Barbies because there weren’t many black Barbies to choose from, and the ones that were painted brown had white girl features and hair, fake girl bodies. Mom made dolls instead, gave me brown cloth dolls with big brown eyes. Dolls that looked like my aunties and the women who sat at the window of Harlem brownstones. Dolls with twists and dreads, pressed hair and hair wrapped in fabric with African print. Dollies made just for me, black. But none of them were fat.
II
The only fat doll I had was a white baby doll that I got from a sidewalk sale. It was something to play with when pretending to be a mommy, something to feed and rock and lay down gently in a crib. The fatness was cute in a chubby, rosy cheeks kind of way. I knew it was okay to be a chubby baby but not a big-boned girl, a fat teen.
I knew my body was not normal.
Not even in make-believe did girls look like me.
I was never called on for stick ball. Maybe because I am a girl, maybe because the other kids at the park didn’t think a big kid like me could run fast. Maybe that’s how I got so good playing by myself in my journal, in my bedroom, in front of a mirror putting on shows for my teddy bears. My imagination was my playground.
IV
I pretended to be Storm and all the women who saved the day in the reruns my grandma watched—Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman. I did not pretend to be princess, in my make-believe I was queen.
V
I played make believe.
I made myself believe.
I believed what I made.
I made me.
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firenexttime reposted
mslucas commented: Just so good to see this perspective, Jasmine. Thank you!
magicalme commented: So for real. This is my story. Thank you for putting words to my experience.
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sydjohnson commented: “I made me.” I am thinking about this statement. How do we make ourselves and stay true to who we want to be?
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jokelly commented: You two make me cry every time!
