Swagger vs. T-1000.

May 2-4 Saturday was like any other day, except for the fact that the infamous Apocalypse was to happen, but alas we were all fooled. Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny day that started out with a delicious breakfast on my deck, sun shining and birds chirping. Happy me.

After about 2 hours of lounging, my dog started getting ants in his pants, fidgety and grumpy...it was time to take him to the park for some good old tennis ball throwing.

For the past week and a half or so, my dog has had spring fever. The symptoms he's displaying are the following: not walking properly on the leash and being distracted by every flower, blade of grass, squirrel, bee...everything. He has cut me off twice now, sending me into a tizzy as I half trip/jump over him to avoid falling flat on my face. Also included in spring fever symptoms: excessive peeing on stuff outside. Because everything smells so yummy, Swagger wants to claim it for himself so he pees on it. He owns half the neighborhood...even the large concrete fountain in the community square at the end of my street. It's his. He also has heightened selective hearing, which is actually an ongoing occurrence throughout the year but spring time is extra special for him and he pays more attention to pebbles on the sidewalk than he does to me. Sometimes when I'm telling him something, like sit or heal, he does a fake yawn and pretends like he's tired and can't hear me. The last thing that Swagger's spring fever syndrome bring on is his high level of male dog displays. As in...his lipstick. Ew. He's just so damn happy with the weather that whenever he sits down, pop goes the weasel and there's the lipstick. In public too, like on street corners and in the subway. It's embarrassing and there's nothing I can do about it but walk on.

Yesterday was the first time his spring fever was truly at it's peak. We had been in the dog park for about half an hour when Peanuts came along and stole Swagger's heart. She's about half the size of Swagger and a real firecracker. They were running at full speed and all the humans were delighted at the exercise they were getting. Then they just kept on running...in a straight line towards the top of the park. I called out his name in a nonchalant way, usually he does a wide U-turn and comes back...but no. This time, he came to a screeching halt (as did Peanuts), turned and looked at me for about 5 seconds as I called his name, and then he bolted in the opposite direction alongside Peanuts. He ran for his life that little bugger did, across Logan Avenue and into the maze of streets they call Riverdale. I could hear car horns honking and people yelling. Peanuts' owner jumped up and started running as did I, in pursuit of our rogue dogs. I'm a jogger and not a runner but yesterday was different. I took off like the speed of light, left my flip flops in the dust and ran Terminator 2 style.

I ran up the hill, across the street and had people point me in the right direction. Peanuts' dad was far behind, so I was yelling for both  dogs, and just for the record, "Peanuts" sounds very close to penis when you're yelling it at the top of your lungs while running. I got to the point where I didn't know which direction they had gone, and the people on the sidewalks hadn't seen them. My heart exploded and the anxiety washed over me. I got tears in my eyes as images of the worst came to mind. All I could think of was the busy Danforth and how many cars there were up there. Peanuts' dad caught up to me and said something along the lines of "I don't know why your dog made Peanuts leave the park", and I almost poked his eyes out but there was no time for that.

I walked the streets of Riverdale for about 20 minutes when I heard the jingle of a dog collar. I looked up the street and there he was, my big sorry ass black dog walking at a slow pace towards me, his head hanging low and is tail down. He knew how much shit he was in, but I knew that this was no time for getting angry. It was too late though, he could sense my anxiety and anger and he turned around and started heading up the street again. Normally I wouldn't actually run after my dog in the hopes of catching him, but I broke into my T-1000 run again and I caught up to him (albeit he was a bit overheated and tired, a little slower than usual). I clipped on his leash and didn't say a word to him. We still had Peanuts to find. The humans split up to comb the streets, one with a dog the other still without.

I find human behavior to be ridiculous. I'm running around with Swagger like a headless chicken, asking people if they've seen a dog running through the streets off-leash. Do you know what every single response was? "What does it look like"? Does it matter what the hell the dog looks like!? It's running loose in your damn neighborhood...HAVE YOU SEEN AN OFF-LEASH DOG RUNNING AROUND OR NOT!? I have no time to waste, I need to know which way the dog went! It's a yes or no question, and then point me in the right direction you fools. One lady asked me what Peanuts looked like and when I took the time to give a brief description: "small and brown", she said "well, I did see a light creamy colored dog with no leash, but he was in the dog park when I was walking by". Thanks for the help lady.

Anyway, I never found Peanuts and I never reconnected with his owner. I went back to the dog park thinking that Peanuts may have gone back there, but she was nowhere to be seen, nor was her owner. I can only hope that he found her and that Swagger never meets Peanuts in the dog park again. I'm giving my dog the silent treatment, but he remembers yesterday like a fart in the wind. Dogs only really know right now, and at the moment he's snuggled up to me on this rainy Sunday, fast asleep, dreaming about God knows what.

Interweb Dating.

I never pictured myself as someone that would venture into online dating. In my mind the online dating world was instantly associated with crap like online predators, perverts, terrible and strange encounters etc. I always felt like I was cool enough, or hip enough, or outgoing enough to meet someone in a book store, a coffee shop or even while out on the town with friends. That cute romantic encounter  you wish to have as your own story: "oh, we made eye contact on the street and then he stopped me in my tracks and told me I couldn't go any further without at least considering having a coffee with him. Out of the blue, just like that! The rest is history!" Yeah...no.

Being out of a long term relationship now for nearly two years, I know it's not that easy especially in a city where, let's face it, isn't as friendly as some other city's: New York (I made 3 friends on the sidewalk in the first 2 hours of being there!), or even Paris for that matter. Agree or disagree, but the proof here is that almost every person I know in Toronto without a significant other is taking part in online dating because it's, and I quote, "too hard meeting someone in my every day life", "people aren't approachable", "the bar scene is for drinking and hanging with friends", and my personal favorite pulled straight from a Bay Street boy's profile: "I work hard and play hard, so I don't have time to meet people". Ugh. Anyway, all this to say that online dating has piqued my curiosity.

Messages come at you left right and centre, alerts of matches, chat requests, personality comparisons, a list of those who have viewed your profile...it's a whole other Facebook! I decided to go the 'free online dating' way, I figure that there are "normal" people on the free sites too, seeing as I'm there...no? Well, it turns out there is a very low ratio of what I would consider "normal" to "abnormal" people online.

At least three times a week I get a message in my dating inbox with the word "hi". That's it. Just "hi". Really though...are you expecting me to say "hi" back to you? What is it that you're doing? Waving to me through my dating inbox? "Hi". These messages, if you want to call them that, come from different people too so it's not like there's one "hi-guy" out there, they're all over the place. The last one I received, I simply responded with "bye" hoping that I wouldn't receive anything further from that particular user. I was wrong. I actually got a response to my "bye" saying "why"? Kill me now.

Then there are the RUDE messages that you receive. When you open up your dating inbox you close it with such haste that you nearly break your mouse because you feel like you've violated the internet space in reading such a message. I won't go into further details about this, all I can say is thank goodness for the blocking option.

Then there's the wordy guy, or the "question man" as I like to call him. I know this might be a violation of privacy, and I would hate it if this dude just happended upon my blog, but check this message out:

hello bella
hello what's up how are you and what are you doing tonight I honestly think you are very interesting and I honestly would like to know more about you and I am very interested in getting to know you alot better only if it is okay with you well I honestly would like to hear back from you soon okay bella

1.what is your favorite music

2.what is your favorite movie

3.what is your favorite thing to do on a first date

4.what is your favorite foods

5.do you have any siblings

6.do you have any tattoos

7.what is your background

8.what do you look for in a guy

9.what was your longest relationship

10.what is your favorite season

11.what is your favorite romance novel

12.what is your favorite animal

13.do you like cats

14.what is your favorite vacation place

15.where do you like to travel

16.would you like to talk on msn or would you like to text

17.do you have a blackberry

All in all, this message is completely overwhelming to say the least.
A) Bella? What the...that's not even my online name.
B) Honestly? Honestly. Honestly!
C) What really threw me off, and I mean made me laugh so hard that I almost had tea come out of my nose, was the question about the favorite romance novel. Enough said.

Although lots of junk comes through online dating sites, there are those rare moments where you virtually meet someone with a great sense of humour and a face that you think is pretty sweet. A first date comes along and you're full of nervous excitement mixed with the fear that you won't recognize the guy. Fortunately, I have yet to experience a bad first date. The two people I've actually met up with are wonderful and have become friends. Nothing more, but how fun is it to make new friends!? I'm willing and able to sift through the endless, shirtless, mirror self-portraits and find some genuine awesome guys out there.

Still waiting for a spark, but having fun in the meantime!

Not a Word of a Lie: I'm Lucky to Have Diabetes.

Okay. I know that title might sound a bit weird to some, but it's the truth. I actually feel LUCKY TO HAVE DIABETES, and here's why.

I just came back from a snowy weekend in Haliburton, Ontario, which I spent with 42 other people living with Type 1 diabetes. This is the third year I've attended the Winter Slipstream put together by a most awesome organization: Connected in Motion. Basically, Winter Slipstream is a weekend long bonanza filled with everything from an Inuit blanket toss to playing a life-sized Diabetes Cranium...Diabetium to be specific!

A few other things that went down this weekend: sleeping in bunk beds, reaching way down and pulling out my inner musician while sitting in a drumming circle, learning what not to do while belaying someone on a high ropes course (sorry for dropping you Mike, won't happen again!), testing my blood sugar while snowshoeing (using the glucometre in mouth technique, thanks Michelle!), waking up unnaturally early, lots of high fiving, a night ski across the lake (final destination: campfire and hot chocolate) and a discussion of diabetes topics that taught me a truck load of interesting tidbits. All of these moments are fresh in my mind and I'm still high off of the fun and physical activity. In the forefront of all these moments are the many people that I shared my time with.

I got to spend my weekend with some old friends that I've met through past Connected in Motion events, as well as some new people who came out to see what Winter Slipstream is all about. Every time I walk into a room filled with friends and strangers alike, all of them with Type 1 diabetes, there's something that happens that's really hard to describe. I feel a mixture of nervousness and apprehension, sandwiched between comfort and familiarity. I can feel my walls coming down and my guard wavering. People usually tend to retreat when this happens, but in my case it's a bit different.

Instead of the impulse to retreat, I can physically feel a burden being lifted off my shoulders and disappearing into thin air. All of these people, the one's that share the same full-time job that I have, make me feel like I'm me. Wholly and completely, diabetes and all. I have something in common with these people, something that those without diabetes couldn't ever possibly understand, no matter how much they may know about the disease. I felt like I could be entirely comfortable in my own skin, every second of every minute of every hour over the weekend because I knew that every other person there was dealing with a non-functioning pancreas. All of us were testing our blood sugars a billion times a day, constantly monitoring our food and trying to count carbs, thinking about how much insulin to take throughout a physically active weekend, dealing with lows and highs, and trying to keep our pumps and glocometres from freezing in the cold winter air!

Every time I take part in a Connected in Motion event, my positive attitude is fed to the point of self combustion. I get so excited and pumped up to live my life; the wheels turn in my head at exponential speeds and I want to experience anything and everything that I can. Connected in Motion inspires me to take part in my life and to be open and accepting of new experiences. It makes me want to be around healthy and happy people that are challenging themselves physically and mentally, pushing their limits and living on the edge of their comfort zones. I aspire to be one of those people and I truly believe that I'm on my way there...or maybe I've already arrived. With the help and support of these fantastic people who live their lives every day with diabetes, I'm aspiring to be the best version of me that there is. Winter Slipstream gives me the annual dose of motivation that I need to become a better person. Without diabetes I would be going through life on cruise control. With diabetes my life is infused with colourful people and I'm challenged to reach for the best parts of what life has to offer.

Christmas, Bailey's and a Phenomenal Stocking.

First thing roommate and I had to do was to get a Christmas tree. The first place we spotted them was at the Loblaws about a 20 minute walk from the house. I met up with roommate at the subway, me in my snow gear and her in her work clothes wearing a lovely black work coat, her Goretex ski mitts, a hat and her scarf wrapped around her neck...the fattest most chunky scarf you could possibly imagine.

We picked our glorious tree and carted it home in the freezing, biting, harsh, cold winter wind, all along the Danforth, roommate struggling with her purse while keeping a tight grip on the tree and me with my backpack full of groceries. Of course we had to get groceries at the same time as a Christmas tree...we would rather struggle through the pain of the heavy items weighing us down than have to go for a second trip to Loblaws.

We got home, I set up the tree stand and we brought the tree in. Swagger was extremely skeptical and very confused that the item he so frequently pees on outside was now entering his home. I held the tree in position as roommate tried to get the base of the tree secured in the stand. It was no use. "We have to do some sawing, the tree is too big for the stand". Oh roommate. Did she want me to go and grab the saw we had in our kitchen cupboard? As soon as she said it, she knew it was impossible. We don't own a saw. Nice try though roommate. So, a new tree stand it is.

Decorating the tree was magical, making sure we put nothing on the bottom part of the tree as Hooligan is mesmerized by lights and tree ornaments. I occasionally find an ornament on the floor and can sometimes hear her tinkering with the branches. I have a glass bell ornament that alerts me to her attack on the tree, it urgently chimes if the tree makes any kind of movement. Last year my tree took a tumble when she tried to climb it. Luckily I hadn't decorated it yet, and she narrowly escaped being squished.

Finally the tree was decorated, eggnog  and Bailey's bought, wreath hung on our door, stockings over the fireplace and garland hung. Since roommate headed west today we decided that we would have our Christmas last night. We did each other's stockings and seeing as her childhood stocking is with her family, i had to buy one for her. Unfortunately the thing is quite heinous. It was the only one I could find. A red felt thing with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" written across the top and three plastic bubbles on it with images of the classic Rudolph claymation film inside them.

Anyway, all cozied up in our jogging pants and hoodie attire with some wine in hand (and Bailey's too...), we began to unwrap our beautiful stockings:

Me: "Guacamole dip mix! I love guacamole!"

Roommate: "After Eights! I love After Eights!"

Me: "Organic animal crackers!? Amazing! I love animal crackers and they're organic!"

Roommate: "Oooooohh, Flake Away! For dryness! My scalp is so dry, this is perfect!"

Me: "Nooo! That doesn't go in your hair. It's a skin exfoliating wash! Please don't put it in your hair".

Roomate: "Oh, hahaha, imagine!?"

Me: "Yay! A Peel & Stick Chalkboard! We can put it in the kitchen and I can leave you a funny message every morning!"

Roommate: "Yeah, we have to find the other half of that gift. I couldn't find any chalk."

Me: "I love it!"

Roommate: "Oh my God...is this what I think it is!? Oh my God!" (Roommate is holding the yellow banana case I got for her). "Open that one! The one shaped like a banana!" she points to my pile of unwrapped stocking gifts.

Me: "No way! I got a banana case too!?!? Holy shit it's pink! I love it! And we'll know which one's mine and which one's yours because they're different colours!"

This was just phenomenal. There had been no previous talk from either of us about wanting a banana case for Christmas. We just knew. We knew it would be the best gift to give, and apparently it's the best one to receive too. No more bruised bananas, ever.

I was so excited for the last item roommate had to open. It didn't quite fit into the Rudolph stocking, it was on the fireplace mantle waiting for her. She unwrapped it and her eyes lit up right away and I could swear her head exploded when she recognized what it was.

Roommate: "NO YOU DIDN'T."

Me: "Yes! Yes I did! Ha!"

Roommate: "I was missing this! It's my favorite!!!!!"

Yes, I bought her the Dirty Dancing limited keepsake edition DVD. It comes with 2 special features DVD's and a book. It really is something. She loves it, and we decided right then and there that we were going to watch Dirty Dancing immediately. You can't just put that kind of thing on hold, but first I had to open my final gift. A beautiful pair of black leg warmers with buttons along the sides! I can't even explain how much I love these leg warmers. I knew right away they would be a perfect match for my black sparkle Christmas shoes. We really do know each other well.

Christmas is awesome, even if the lead up is chaos. I went to the mall last week, went into about 8 different stores and immediately turned on my heel and left. Too many crazy people. The Christmas music started on my favourite light rock station 98.1 the day of the Santa Claus parade, which was back in November. I hate radio Christmas music. That being said, I love curling up on the couch with roommate, the Christmas tree all lit up and sparkling, a hot chocolate and Bailey's in my hand (and a glass of wine!?), content after having opened the best stocking ever, munching on organic animal crackers.

Dirty Dancing starts, and our early Christmas couldn't have been more perfect.

After Christmas, we plan on making a giant snowman on top of all the empy bottles on the back deck.

Sailing School Chaos.

I love to sail. My parents signed me up for sailing lessons at the age of 8. Off I went with my lifejacket, my bathing suit, my boxers with hearts all over them, my Hypercolour cap and my brand new Teva sport sandals.The amazing thing about learning to sail when you're 8 is that they don't put an instructor in the boat with you. You pile into the bathtub-like boats with 3 other kids and away you go with minimal knowledge of sailing, let alone actually skipping a boat. You get a theory lesson or two, and then they just throw you in head first.

I went pretty far with sailing. I graduated from the bahtub boats, or as we called them "sea cows" and moved on to a Laser II. This was the only time I actually enjoyed wearing a diaper. The wire that comes down from the mast (trapeze wire) hooks onto the diaper that you're wearing and then you 'hike out' as the below picture displays. The feeling of trapezing is awesome, especially when you put both hands behind your head and stretch out over the lake, your body parallel to the water.

It's not me, but it's what I looked like when I was a cool sailor.

I got up to Silver Sail VI but when I was sent to boarding school, my sailing dreams came to an end. Taking sailing lessons was a thrill, and racing gave me a competitive edge that I didn't know I had. This being said,  there was also a kind of chaos that went on behind the scenes at sailing school. A couple of incidents that I'll never forget...

I think I was about eleven or so, and being that age you sometimes forget to do important things. It just so happened that all four of us forgot to put the plug in our boat. About an hour out, in the middle of the lake, we noticed that our boat was sinking. Slowly but surely our speed decreased and the gunwale (pronounced / "gunnel" to rhyme with "tunnel"- a nautical term describing the top edge of the side of a boat) was almost underwater. The emergency sign to hail the instructors over is to stand on the deck and flap your arms like a bird. We were in total panic mode and by this point we could swin in and out of the boat without any effort, meaning the whole top side of our little sailboat was under water. I flapped my arms, flapped and flapped until the instructors saw us. The zodiac turned in our direction and came at us full speed. I sat down/floated in the boat with a sigh of relief (and terror as I didn't know what the consequences would be for sinking a boat).

The zodiac approached really quickly and it was almost too late when we noticed the instructor putting up a battle with the steering shaft of the engine. He was freaking out, flailing his arms in every direction, yelling at us, making crazy hand gestures...and then... WABANG!!!! He ran us right over. Did you know that the bottom of a zodiac dinghy is made of fiberglass?

I think we all semi got out of the way when we realized he was going to run us over, but we got pretty pummeled. Four hysterical crying children swimming around in lifejackets, trying to figure out which way was up. I sprained my wrist, one of the girls broke her arm, my other friend got a concussion along with a HUGE egg on her head, and all of us were traumatized. The bruises were pretty hefty as well. Apparently they had the wrong motor on the zodiac and the driving shaft got locked. Don't ask me why the motor wasn't just turned off, but the instructor was all of 17 years old and probably wasn't thinking. I'm surprised the motor didn't chop anything up. We were legendary, and I'm sure this story still circulates at my sailing school.

'Chopping up' leads me to the next best sailing story that I can remember. I was about 13 years old. As we drifted along in our boat, my sailing buddy and I noticed something white floating in the water. It turns out it was a GIANT catfish. I'm not kidding, it was about 3 feet long, white, and super bloated. It was just bobbing along, belly up, and it stunk to high heaven. We poked at it a bit and every time we sailed by we tried to get a better look at it's face. This is what teens do, okay? Finally the sailing instructors (their nicknames were Toast and Jam, so you can imagine what kind of hooligan teen boys they were) came over to see what had peaked our interest.

They got so insanely excited about the catfish...they hauled it out of the water and started throwing it around. It was putrid and it smelled terrible. Toast and Jam thought it would be funny to throw it in the water and run it over.

Fish explosion. They took to that catfish at high speed and the thing got shredded in the motor. Fish guts flew up into the air for miles and our sails were sprayed with fish parts. Goo all over us, rotten fish, stinky fish. I can't even explain how gross this experience was. Toast and Jam pretty much died laughing and of course they didn't get one ounce of fish guts on themselves. We were unfortunately in the line of fire and we were shunned by the sailing community for the rest of the day.

I sometimes wonder where I could have gone with the sport if I had actually climbed to the top. For starters, I would be in wicked shape and I would probably be way more cocky than I am now. I would also have a great farmer's tan, calloused hands, blistered feet, a sense of invincibility, and advanced knowledge of cloud formations and wind changes.

And maybe I would even have a sailing medal or two hanging in my bedroom.



Blackberry Blackout.

I don't care how important you think you are. When you're in a meeting, get off your blackberry. Unless there's some kind of emergency like your wife is in labour, there's really nothing that can't wait for an hour. What ever happened to manners!?

I walked out of the subway a couple of weeks ago and joined about 20 other people at a bus stop. I waited and waited and after about 10 minutes I looked around and noticed that everyone, and I'm not exaggerating here, everyone was either talking on their phone or texting. It was super creepy, everyone was in their own little cell phone bubble and it just looked so strange. Like a bunch of robots lined up talking into mini robots, with robots responding back through the mini robot. Bizarro. Surprisingly enough, I can understand how we got here, how everyone is all wrapped up in technology and afraid of one another. I think it's ridiculous, but I get it. Insecurity, boredom and an addiction to technology makes us turn to our phones. But in a meeting? Isn't that basically like turning your back on the person that's speaking? You might as well just get up, turn around and stand there with your back to the world.

When someone is doing a presentation, don't sit in the front row of an all-staff meeting and start clicking away on your Blackberry. They aren't silent, and that damn clicking/typing noise drives me bananas. Why are you even in the room when all you're going to do it hang out on your Blackberry? It sends a really bad message, I don't care who you are...high up in the organization or not. Actually, if anyone lower down on the ladder (such as myself) were caught using their Blackberry during a meeting, there would be trouble. So why is it okay for the "higher-ups" to do it?

You know what's worse? Being in a meeting with three other people, two of them paying attention and the other one typing away on their Blackberry. I actually have a really hard time speaking in front of people especially when it's something prepared, like a presentation or leading a meeting. I start talking and you start texting!? Please save me the uncomfortable feeling of inadequacy and at least pretend to pay attention to what I have to say. If the topic of the meeting isn't important enough for you, then don't attend. Easy peasy.

I have a Blackberry, it was a free offer for switching over from Rogers the Hellraiser to Bell the Beast. I still hardly know how the thing works and my email isn't connected to it. I use it respectfully aka; it isn't my lifeline. I would die laughing if there was a mass Blackberry Blackout, it would be a good way to go. Come on people, get it together and stop disrespecting one another.

It's Not Cool to Pray All Up in My Face.

I won't go too far into religion here but there's one incident that I just have to share. It has to do with The Praying Lady at work.

There's a lady in my building that likes to pray out loud no matter who's around. I've been stuck in the elevator with her alone...pray pray pray. I've been stuck in the bathroom with her alone...pray pray pray. I've been on the bus with her surrounded by a million other people packed in like sardines...pray pray pray.

For the love of God, don't you have enough time to pray on your own? One particularly rainy morning, day before yesterday to be precise, I was waiting for the elevator in the lobby at about 8:30am. I was still groggy, clutching onto my coffee for dear life and a bit bitter due to all the kids and their backpacks on the bus. Two other people were standing around waiting for the impossibly slow elevator when in strolls The Praying Lady. She's quite a beautiful woman, very well put together and stylish, and always looking happy with a slight smile on her face.

Our lobby is quite big and the two other people were standing a fair distance away from me. I suppose The Praying Lady felt the need to get into my personal space. She came in and parked herself right next to me so that our arms were about an inch apart. And then it came...a strange kind of whispering with the only recognizable word being 'Lord'. Mumble... pssst...tretttt...mumble...LORD. Okay fine, I had heard it all before, but this time she was looking at me while chanting and she was way too close for comfort.

I took an exaggerated step away from her and told her she was in my personal space. She said nothing and continued to look directly at me while doing her weird whisper/chant thing. Then the elevator arrived. The two other people and The Praying Lady walked into the elevator and I hung back as the doors closed. What the hell...did she cast a spell on me!? Some kind of hex!? She freaked me out alright, and now I don't tolerate her presence anymore. I saw her in the bathroom again today and I actually left without washing my hands. That's how badly I don't want to see her or be in the same room as her.

Pray if you must lady, but don't come up into my personal space at 8:30 in the morning and start pushing your prayers onto me. And don't for one second expect me to be okay with it. You're freaky and I want nothing to do with you, not even shared air. Until next time Praying Lady, and maybe I'll prepare a chant just for you. A "get out of my personal space" chant.