Category: Life

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Famous Pi on Pi Day

Semi-Fiction by Jason Edwards. I’m going to cheat and tell you what this story is about. This is the writer’s process, or at least one of a billion different process. It’s not always the process I follow, but one I sometimes use without really realizing it. Vaguery floats around, looking for an interesting morsel around which to coalesce. It is an unconscious process; even as I wrote this, I didn’t know what I was writing. I just wanted to write something, wanted to try out this little writing program called Dark Room. My apologies if the “ending” is not very satisfactory: since all endings are just beginnings anyway, I figure, why not use a beginning for an ending.

March 14th. Pi day. Isn’t that cute. I’m walking down a street somewhere in New Orleans. This place is supposed to be exciting. It’s not. This place is supposed to be warm, at least. It’s not. Maybe we’re too far past Mardi Gras. Maybe we’re not close enough to summer. Or even spring. Does spring start on the equinox? When’s the damn equinox. I’d rather not be wearing fleece, here in New Orleans.

My third visit. First visit: wife’s pharmacy conference. I came along for the ride, ran in the Mardi Gras half-marathon. That was fun. Bourbon street at nine in the morning is fun. I think we ran past Anne Rice’s house, because at one point there were people dressed like vampires passing out water and Gatorade. Orange Gatorade. Should have been red. But it was just one water stop.

Second visit: wife’s sister’s fiancée’s bachelor party. I was invited probably out of some sense of pity. I didn’t have a bachelor party of my own. Got married when I was 37. When you’re 37, you don’t get to have a bachelor party. If you’re 37, and you’re still doing the sorts of things that guys do at bachelor parties, things that you’ll miss once you’re married, you have no business getting married. But I digress. I was invited. I went. Whiskey and poker and steak dinners and city tours and few strippers. Typical, lots of fun.

Reason for third visit? I’m not sure. This is where the fiction begins. I woke up, and I knew I had a plane ticket. Couldn’t really remember why, but I checked, and my bags were packed. I almost remember that I packed them myself. I must have, because when I left the airport to get a cab, it was cold, and I knew there was a fleece for me inside the suitcase.

And the hotel, for that matter. They were expecting me. Walked right up the desk, told them I had a reservation. McGillan, I said, automatically. I have literally never heard that name before in my life. Of course, they said. We’ll just need a credit card. I pulled one out– it had the name McGillan on it too. I handed it over. Everything went very smoothly.

I also spied a driver’s license in my wallet, when I grabbed the credit card. But I’m afraid to look at it. Go ahead and laugh at me. When I got to the room (large, one king bed) I avoided all mirrors. I don’t want to see that I’m not actually me. Not yet.

And now here I am, walking somewhere in the middle of the place. Have you been to New Orleans? I bet you haven’t. It’s not a very large town. There’s the tourist part, of course, with a small slice for Bourbon street, a small slice for the waterfront. There’s a casino. Some jazz clubs you haven’t heard of, where musicians you haven’t heard of have played. But if you heard the music, you recognize it. “We heard that in third grade, during Black history month.”

That’s New Orleans. And I’m walking down clean sidewalks, not quite an industrial area, not quite residential, on the edge of the convention center district. Restaurants that cater to mid-week visitors looking for an authentic po’boy, jambalaya, or cat fish. I’ve had cat fish. It’s usually mushy.

Up ahead, I spy a sign. The word “spy” rolls around in my mind. Am I a spy? Have I been activated? Was I a sleeper, did I get a call yesterday, a cryptic word, a post-hypnotic suggestion? Am I Jason Bourne? Should I ask a cab driver to take me to the rough part of town, drop me off, walk into a pool hall and stick out like a sore thumb, invite trouble, an assault by three tough-looking youths, and me spinning around doing Jackie Chan moves with the pool cue and surprisingly useful empty bottle of Sazerac?

It could be like the witch trials, back in the day. If I survive, it’s proof I’m a secret agent. If I don’t, it’s proof I’m dead.

The sign hangs on the side of a building walled with corrugated metal sheets. I’m two blocks away now. 10 years ago my Lasik would have been good enough to read it by now. I can still see better than I did before the Lasik, but I can’t quite make it out yet. But there’s something compelling about it, something about its shape. I have no idea why I’m here, so I’m going to sate my curiosity and check it out. What else am I going to do.

First visit, wife’s pharmacy conference. I worked on my laptop, from the hotel room, and when I didn’t have to work, I wandered around a lot. The new waterfront mall. Bourbon street at 2 PM, not quite the night life I’d see during the bachelor party on my subsequent visit, but still some liveliness. I was teetotalling at the time, so I avoided the daiquiris, just got drunk from walking around. Not exactly drunk, of course. That’s artistic license. My point is, that first visit, even with the half-marathon notwithstanding, I spent a lot of time on my feet.

Second visit, brother-in-law-in-law’s bachelor party, there was also a lot of walking. I’m an early riser, so while the guy’s slept it off, I would get up and see the city in the morning. If another of them was awake, we’d eschew the cab and go for a long walk to one eatery or another. One afternoon they guys wanted to visit the World War II museum, and I decided to skip it. I’m not passing judgment, I just can’t stand that kind of thing. Went for a long-ass walk instead.

Is that why I’m here now, on my third visit? Just to walk around all over the place? I read a story once, might have been a book, about this guy who decided to just start walking all over the place, and for some reason people start to join him, and soon there’s a crowd of folks walking across America, and the crowd grows and grows, picking up more people, until the author reveals it’s this thing the Earth is doing to cure itself of the cancer called Humanity.

Did some failsafe trigger inside me? Do I have some sort of cancer of the soul, did I unconsciously book myself a ticket for this place where I had, a few times before, just walked around for no good reason? I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times, walked my legs off there too, so why not Vegas? I’ve pounded the streets of Paris, a fool’s errand, walking around looking for the Bastille, stupidly unaware that it had been torn down at the start of the revolution. So why not Paris. Why not Seattle, San Jose, Washington DC. My feet have seen a lot of pavement.

One block away from the sign now, and I can finally make it out. It’s a gigantic Pi symbol. I remember this place. It’s called Famous Pi, and yes, they make pizza. A feeling of completion comes over me. I wandered by here during the bachelor party, and yes, it was March 14th that time too. Took a picture, sent it to my sister’s wife, who appreciates math jokes. Famous Pi on Pi day. Isn’t that cute.

And now here I am again. I check my pockets– no phone. So I’m not here to take another picture. I check my wallet. No cash– and a placard on the door of the place says they don’t take credit cards. You’d think, whatever complicated machine put me on this path would have known that. So I’m not here to eat.

I check my gut. I’m not even hungry. But I’m apprehensive. Add I don’t even know why. But I don’t hesitate. I walk right in.

The smell of garlic, cheese, bread. I look around– none of this is familiar. I’d only ever taken a picture from the outside, didn’t go in. So this is new. There’s no one here, except a guy behind the counter, who looks at me.

“McGillan.” he says.

And then it washes all away. I’ve been to New Orleans more than twice before. I’ve been here dozens of times. I don’t have a wife– I’ve never been married. I’ve been to a few bachelor parties, but never in this city. Everything I was thinking I was, before, I’m not. I’m someone else entirely.

“Luther.” I say.

“Welcome. We’ve got a story to write. Sit down. Get you something to eat? On the house.”

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A Few Words About That Book Review I Just Posted

Before I wrote that review of Promise Me Eternity by Ian Fox, I posted my misgivings over at Reddit, to see if anyone thought  I should give the author such negativity. For the most part, they said yes. Here’s that posting, which you’ll see has a few paragraphs I used in the review itself.

Additional note: a few days later, someone from Reddit has sent me a private message, asking me to read his book too, and provide “cruel cold feedback.” Oh boy.

Every time I finish reading a novel, I write a review on Goodreads. These are more like diary-style blog entries, but whatever. It’s about discipline, trying maintain an active reading habit. A few weeks ago, this guy sent me a message, via Goodreads, asking me to read and review one of his books. He sent me a coupon so I could download it for free from Smashwords. I figured, why not?

It’s really a horrible book. The characters are flat, stereotypical, and at the same time unrealistic. Entire chapters are dedicated to extraneous characters who have little, or nothing to do with the plot. The writer lavishly describes what they do, where the go, what they eat. It’s all very over the top.

A lack of verisimilitude pervades every aspect of this novel. None of the professions that the various characters possess are described in anything approaching a realistic fashion. I realize that most fiction takes license with this kind of thing (have a doctor watch Grey’s Anatomy, you know what I mean). But this novel shows not only lack of understanding, but a complete disregard for any attempt at reality.

There’s a plot, in the sense that people face conflict and attempt to resolve the conflict, but there’s no pacing to the novel, no rising action, and the climax is muddled. At no point is there a sense for why we should care about any of this. Deus Ex Machina in spades. I don’t mean to insult youth, or even insult inexperience. But the novel really does read as if it were written by an intelligent twelve-year old trying to sound like an adult.

But that’s my take as a reader. As a writer, I am questioning whether this kind of harsh judgment is even necessary. This guy wrote, proofread, and self-published a 400 page novel. I’ve written a few novels, but I’ve been too lazy to self-publish them. So I admire his work ethic. He reached out to me, and I assume he’s reached out to others. He’s making the effort. I can forgive ignorance (have to: I’m possessed of so much of it) but I can’t forgive laziness.

So I’m conflicted. On the one hand, this novel is so bad, I feel that pointing out its flaws ironically gives it credit, in that it’s worthy of being nitpicked. And it really isn’t. On the other hand, who am I to judge? I’ve heard horrible things about Twilight, for example, and what passages I’ve read were indeed horrible (in my opinion). But so many people love the book, who am I to tell them they shouldn’t love it? And maybe that’s the same for this guy’s novel. What credentials do I even possess that would legitimize a harsh review?

Perhaps silence is golden. But I should write back to this fellow, and tell him *something.* I don’t want to be cruel or mean or discouraging. The book’s already published, so there’s no sense in fixing it, and honestly, I don’t think it can be fixed anyway. But it’s not like I want to tell him to stop writing. Or publishing, for that matter. I reject the notion that arbitrary scholars get to say what’s good, so why should I get to say what’s bad?

TL;DR: Was asked to read a book, which turned out to be horrible, but who am I to judge.

Any suggestions?

 

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Puerto Rico, 2012

I’m not sure who’s idea it was originally, but somehow my wife and her best friend and the BFF’s cousin and I planned a trip to Puerto Rico. This was a much needed vacation, if only for the vitamin D we sorely miss during the winter months here in Seattle. What follows is my attempt at chronicling everything we did, based on my notes, journaling, receipts, tweets, photographs and my spotty memory. If these 2200 words are too much for you to read, here’s the short version: we ate, we drank, we gambled, we hiked, we swam, we laughed, we loved every minute of it.

Tuesday January 31st-Wednesday February 1st
Tuesday evening the wife and I hopped on a plane for an overnight flight— went through D.C., and then on the way to San Juan we had to make an emergency landing in Orlando (medical emergency— one of the passengers was having chest pains, poor guy). We finally landed by Wednesday afternoon, and took a shuttle to the car rental place. Turns out we were delayed enough so that our travel companions from Chicago were able to also take a shuttle and meet us there. We crammed our luggage and our tired bodies into a tiny red Hyundai and drove to our hotel. I only made one wrong turn getting us to our destination.

We checked into the Conrad, in the Condado section of San Juan. Puerto Rico is not an expensive place to visit, but we managed to find a very nice hotel nevertheless. And when I say “we” I mean my wife and the others did all the research and hard work. Once we were checked in, we went to our rooms—nice, big, gorgeous views of the ocean and the lagoon—then walked around looking for food. We wound up at the hotel’s Cafe Caribe, where I had paella. At least that’s what they called it. It was delicious, but not made the traditional Spanish way… but no complaints from me. I also had one of the local brews, a Medalla light.

Afterwards the old people (me and the wife) went to our room to crash, while the Chicago chickas did some gambling. I’m told they won big. Pretty girls always win big.

Thursday February 2nd
First whole day in Puerto Rico! Ah, the sunshine. After a Starbucks, (you can take the young urban professionals out of the continental United States, but you can’t take the convenient coffee addiction out of the yuppies!) we took a cab to San Felipe del Morro, an old fortress. This place was awesome. It was built back in the day (“the day” this time refers to the mid 16th century) to defend the waterways leading to the New World from the various enemies of Spain who wanted a chunk of that South American booty. We spent a few hours there, meandering around the walls, gazing out at the ocean, taking about three hundred pictures.

Afterwards we wandered through Old San Juan, a kind of quaint touristy-trap collection of streets. And please note I do not say “tourist trap” in a negative way. Me and the wife love this sort of thing. For lunch we went to El Picoteo, a tapas place located in the Hotel El Convento. This was recommended to us by a friend who had been to Puerto Rico before, and if you know the guy I’m talking about, then you know following his advice is a no-brainer: he has excellent taste. Nor were we in the least disappointed by the food and drinks (the ladies had yummy cocktails. I had multiple beers).

(A side note—I think it was about this time that a burgeoning Foursquare check-in competition began. One of the four of us, and I won’t say who but it wasn’t me, ended this vacation with something like 544 points, thanks to all the check-ins. Personally, I earned seven badges, including The Great Outdoors (2x), Swimmies, and Player Please. Another one of us got her Hot Tamale and Fresh Brew (4x) badges, amongst others. Go ahead and laugh, but we now have a pretty cool archive of where we went and what we did while we were in PR. Very nice).

Once we were done with Old San Juan, we got into a taxi—the driver apologized, first, for the smell of cigarettes in his cab (which I could not really smell). He then asked if we wouldn’t mind his stopping at a gas station to get an air freshener. We said we wouldn’t, and none of us for a second thought this was a ruse to kidnap us and ask for ransom. Not even after he almost got into a wreck, pulling into the gas station. He bought the air freshener and then drove us to our hotel, explaining that his last fare had paid him $100 to let him smoke in the cab. I’m just glad none of us smoke—we would have used up all of the casino winnings from the night before.

Next on the agenda was a planned visit to the bioluminescent bays of Las Croabas, so we piled ourselves into the tiny red Hyundai (from now on, the TRH) for the two hour drive. Stopped at McDonalds on the way. Eventually the highways led to smaller streets and cramped roadways and just when we thought we’d gone the wrong way and got lost in a rainforest, we emerged from the trees and were there.

We waited for our boat to come back from its earlier outing, chatting with a Canadian couple who were staying at a nearby resort. Finally the boat returned, and alas, Captain Jeff informed us that the luminescence  in the bay was too low to really enjoy. He was very gracious about it, refunding our money, and apologizing for our two hour drive. He did recommend to us a nearby place to eat, Ole Lelolai, so we drove there instead. I had paella again. Love me some paella.

We drove home, and I’m not sure what happened before bed. There may have been gambling, or icecream, or both.

Friday February 3rd
I got up early to get a run in, and it was magnificent. Even though it was mostly uphill, the views and just the joy of running in a new place was exhilarating. Got back in time to walk with the wife and one if the Chicagoans to the Ocean Front Hacienda for breakfast. I had a club sandwich. It was enormous.

The other Chicagoan opted to go to the pool, and once we were done eating, (since this was to be a “chillax” day) we went to join her there. Had a very expensive cocktail and got a lot of reading done. Once afternoon was approaching, and with it hunger, we decided to go into old San Juan and eat before visiting the other castillo in the city. We tried to take a bus but the driver wouldn’t take dollar bills, so we got a deal on a taxi who dropped us off the Old San Juan Food Court.

Some of us had empanadas while our vegetarian companion had a tofu wrap in next door Cafe Berlin. Let me say this about travelling with people who have a dietary restriction: they keep you from settling for just any old thing (the visit to McDonald’s yesterday doesn’t count) and you end up getting a better meal than you might have otherwise. Kudos to her for that.

We spent about as much time in  Castillo de San Cristobal, the other fortress in old San Juan, as we had in del Morro. This fortress was built once the Spanish government realized that their enemies would be more than happy to attack by land if they couldn’t by sea. Just so you know, the cost for seeing both fortresses—as many times as we wanted in seven days—was five dollars. My wife felt like this was not enough, and donated some more money to one of the restoration and upkeep boxes.

After that we wandered around Old San Juan again, because wandering around with no agenda is a rare luxury for on-the-go types like us. We stopped by Vaca Brava to get a shirt for my brother (it’s where the Hard Rock Cafe used to be), and had a few beers and cocktails and appetizers at the only craft brewery in PR,. Dinner was at a different-friend-recommended placed called Tantra. This was a place that serves Indo-Latino cuisine, which was pretty darn good, especially thanks to the two dozen martini varieties they also served.

I don’t remember how we got back to our hotel. Blame Tantra’s martinis for that. But I do remember the ladies wanted to walk to Casino del Mar for some hot gambling action. Their game was craps, and I could have written “some hot craps action” but that just doesn’t sound right. While they rolled dice, I sat in a nearby chair, reading a book and pretending to be a hug muscle-bound bodyguard for a collection of wealthy Indian princesses. We all vacation in different ways.

Saturday February 4th
This was set to be a big day out, and didn’t disappoint. Did the Starbucks thing again, and climbed into the TRH for a drive to El Yunque, the only rainforest in the U.S. Just for the sake of consistency, we stopped at the McDonald’s again on the way there. At El Yunque itself, we paid a few dollars to stop at the Portal (visitor center), to get recommendations from the guide.

Thanks to his advice, we started off by driving up to Yokahu Tower, climbing the 96 steps for the view—you could see all the way to Luquillo from up there. After that we hiked the Bano de Oro trail, about 45 minutes, not too difficult, and I wore my Vibram Five Fingers just to make it all hipster and cool.

The most fun was after we hiked to La Mina falls— the water was cold, but the pounding of the falls warmed us up, quick. There’s something nearly indescribable about wading beneath a waterfall. We were, each of us, moved by the experience.

After that we drove to Luquillo beach, and called the bio-bay people to see if the luminescence was any better, since we were in the neighborhood. But it was not to be. Me, I blame the recent solar storm and the full moon.  At Luquillo itself we got some junk food (fried and bad for us and delicious) at the nearby kioskos, then went to the beach to play in the surf for a bit, at least until it rained.

Back in San Juan, we got cleaned up, and as tired as we were, we felt we deserved margaritas. So we walked over to a cute little Mexican place for dinner called Cielito Lindo. We had many many margaritas. How many margaritas? Your mom had margaritas, that’s how many.

Afterwards, some more gambling, at the Marriott, and then back to our rooms to hang out and play cards. Eventually all the hiking and laughing and drinking got the better of us, and we snoozed.

Sunday February 5th
Started off Sunday with the a trip to the Bacardi factory for a tour (drove there in the TRH). Pretty darn cool if you ask me. Bacardi has a lot of history, and it was fun learning about where they came from and the different varieties they cask. The wife and bought a bottle of the Reserva Limitada, which you can only get there at the factory— this is a sipping rum, and almost tastes like a fine whiskey.

Lunch was at a place one of the Chicagoans found in downtown San Juan, Abracadabra. The accordion player on stage was amazing, although a bit loud, so we opted to wait for a table a little less close to the stage. Worth it. The inexpensive meal came with coffee and juice, and my croque monsieur was mucho tasty.

Back at the hotel we chilled at the pool for a bit before the Super Bowl, which we watched in the Eternal lobby lounge. We set up one of those betting pools, where folks win based on the last digit of the scores per quarter. We felt a little bit shady, since one our own won three out of the four pots. Just goes to show ya. I told you pretty girls always win.

Monday February 6th
Last day of vacation. I woke up “early” to run a three miler from our hotel up all the way to Del Morro. So glorious. The view of the water, the buildings, the churches, the castillos themselves. I would gladly go back to Puerto Rico, just to run some more.

We spent most of the morning in the pool, playing on the waterslide like little kids, but having almost more fun than on the entire trip. The wife had brought her innertube floatie, and we kept trying to find new ways to abuse the waterslide—and ourselves—with it. Two of us would hold it at the bottom of the slide, while a third person would shoot through it.

In retrospect, it seems like the most fun we had on the trip were all about water: Mina Falls, Luquillo Beach, and the waterslide. Oh, and the margaritas…

But eventually it was time to go. We got packed up, popped into old San Juan for lunch at a dive called Moreno’s Spot, and then returned the rental car. Took the shuttle to the airport, checked our bags, went to our gates. Our Chicago friends had to board first, so we said goodbye. For the record, I would gladly travel with either or both of them again, anywhere. Puerto Rico was awesome, and they made it awesomer.

Then it was our turn to get on a plane, and 11 hours later, we were home again.

One of my all-time most-favorite vacations.

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Buzzard Beater

Well, crap, I’ve lost control. I got my days mixed up. Here I am, trying to get a fresh start on this blogging thing, trying to find my rhythm, and already I’m a mess. I’m posting things days late and back-dating them, posting them out of order. Chaos. Why bother. Ask Camus. I’m going to write a story tomorrow and call the main character Kamiss.

I posted a slam-style poem yesterday, thinking today was the day for one of those newspaper-column type posts. But now here I am doing more of a personal whinging kind of thing. I tried, I really did, I went to Huffington post to see if there was something there that might inspire me. Just a bunch of nonsense about Mitt Romney, and then I scrolled to an article about Olivia Munn getting naked for a PETA ad. Yeesh.

But I will prevail! I have not plated WoW in months! I’ve been flossing my teeth every day and doing crunches on the exercise ball! Today, I was only supposed to do 8 pull-ups, and I did NINE. Do you hear me? I will smell what the Rock is cooking!

I swear to god I’m not drunk right now as I write this. But I did have a LOT of fried chicken for dinner. Text for a future tweet: “I have a love-hate relationship with fried chicken. I love to eat it, and I hate when it’s all gone.” Folks can steal that one, use it for anything they like. I don’t mind.

Okay, sorry about this horrible blog folks, folks. And by “folks” I mean the two of you who read my claptrap. I’m going to write-me-up a cheat sheet and a post it and stick it on my monitor. And I’ll try to get some things written in advance. And drink lots of water, because we all know what that fried chicken’s doing to my innards. Meanwhile, here’s a random picture of a bird.

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Brightness

We did some home unimprovement tonight. One problem with our house is that’s a bit dark in places, and the living room doesn’t have any light fixtures at all, so we’ve been making do with lamps. But it’s just not enough. And we barely ever use the ceiling fan, anyway.

It was a bit of a chore. Getting the ceiling fan down was easier than we let it be. I ended up taking about more of the motor assemply than needed, but I would have had to have done so eventually anyway, to store the darn thing, so there’s that. Unwiring the fan was easy, and wiring the new light was even easier. And we did it all in the dark, since the circuit breaker was off. Used the headlamp that I got when I ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon (the one that’s run at night).

The truly hard part, the 45 minute part of the hour-long job, was getting the new fixture mounted. We were the victim of some shenanigans, as whomever it was the installed the ceiling fan in the first place did so at the expense of the light box in the ceiling, which I had to twist back into shape. That made my mounting screws crooked, but with a little perseverance, we managed.

Why tell you all this? Because it’s Friday, it’s a little after 9 PM, I don’t want to spend the rest of the night surfing Reddit, so I’m giving myself a pat on the back via blog bragging. What’s that? You’re out drinking and partying like people are supposed to on Friday nights? Heh. Youth.

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Aspirations, from the Latin “to breathe”

On Monday I posted a quick little short story I wrote on 750words.com, and yesterday I posted a review I wrote over at Goodreads. Today’s blog-post is for the purpose of testing out a Facebook thing. It was recommended to me by someone who knows a thing or two about Facebook, and I set it all up, and now I want to test it, but I want to do so in such a way as to make for a slightly nearly entertaining read. I have such aspirations!

I’m more or less covered in aspirations, so far this year. Coated. And maybe I’m jinxing myself, telling you about all of my aspirations. But if my convictions are not strong enough to survive being mentioned in public, then they’re not really convictions at all. They’re barely plea-bargains. PUN!

One of the things I’m trying to accomplish is better physical fitness, via sit-ups and flossing. These two things don’t go together per-se, but I’ve set my routine such that after I am done flossing, I go and do some crunches on one of those fitness balls. It’s a momentum kind of thing, where I’m hoping that while not doing one of those two things every once in a while is possible, not doing both is too much guilt to bear. So far so good, as they say.

Another aspiration is to write everyday (750words.com) and if that results in some new short stories by me, hooray. But I’m not going to promise that every day there’ll be a new story. Tomorrow, for example, I may use the daily exercise to write an email to my wife. In fact, I’ve already started composing it in my head. It’s about a missing pillowcase. I swear that’s not a euphemism for anything.

Other convictions/aspirations/resolutions include running more often, reading more books, and getting really aggressive with my to-do-list. I’m using a moleskine for my to-do list, which, as everyone knows, makes me a bad-ass GTDer.

Speaking of to-do-lists, I have about a million things to get to today, so I’ll stop writing for now. I need a cup of tea. That’s on my list, by the way. Green tea has antioxidants, which are good for me, I’ve been told (note to self: add “research antioxidants” to to-do list).