Some Broad Abroad

well, there’s only 30 hours left for something to go horribly, horribly wrong. a few weeks ago, we made a list of lame ways to die in india. we had a huge font of experience from which to drink. my favorite is probably “being hit by a roman candle meant to scare away monkeys in a kabir ashram” because that is a thing that almost happened to like 13 of us two weeks ago.

before we start the long goodbye, i’ll give you a brief update on ****MY LIFE****:

1) parasite feels better. i ate an entire block of cheese and i only felt like dying for 30 minutes. i told my mom thinking she’d be proud of me and she said to me, “eating an entire block of cheese is not a good idea in any circumstance.” then she fake whispered “SHE ATE AN ENTIRE BLOCK OF CHEESE” to someone next to her. whatever only god can judge me or whatever and also my peers.

2) i’m finished with all of my work save for the 14 pages that got lost in the great netbook tragedy of last week. it all sounds like the work of a narrow-minded but talented 7th grader. the broken netbook is scaring me but luckily, i have one of those brothers who is talented at being one of those brothers who fixes computers (that’s totally sexist, claire) so maybe he can do something about it? if not, i’m going to have to get professionals involved.

3) the new delhi metro is clean and efficient and the best. it has a women’s only car. to my chagrin, i had to take a ifnal rickshaw ride today and it was the worst. WHATEVER CHAPTA OVA****** (chapter over**********)

4) we get kicked out of our guesthouse at 12 noon tomorrow, but we don’t go to the airport until 8:30 pm, and we don’t take off until 1 am the next day. i swear to god if this is like my train rides all over again, imma pop off. and poop off too if the past is an indicator of the future.

5) i gave my presentation about colonialism and call centers and fake american names and stuff. got riled up and used the phrases “in a vacuum” and “dispossessed of our bodies.” i have to write a big old thesis over break about it, but i’ll have the modern conveniences of coffee and central heating to help me out (delhi is freezing right now and this is coming from the human space heater).

6) i’m really into this song lately. i thought it was called “jacques marquez,” which incidentally is my boyfriend’s name, but it is actually spelled “jhak maar ke”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb04JkvEitw

I GUESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I LEARNED AND WHAT I’LL MISS:

what i’ve learned: i have got to stop looking out for number one. or at least start looking out for number one in a group of two or more. i used to pride myself on liking my alone time, reading and going shopping alone (role model stuff), but now i realize things are easier when other people around. i’ve been with the same people for 4 months and they are beautiful geniuses who have literally saved my life on so many occasions. i’d be rickshaw roadkill if it weren’t for them. i have devised a brilliant system for crossing the street that i call ” the human shield” wherein i use a human as a shield, and i try to use strangers but sometimes i have to use my peers and THEY LET ME AND THEY LOVE ME. it’s fine to like who you are, i guess, but when that self-respect devolves into solitude and narcissism, you should go to india for a few months. not to find yourself like liz gilbert, but to find other people.

what i’ll miss: ever since i’ve been sick, i’ve become pretty patriotic for consumerism and occuping seventh street, so find me on twitter in a few days i guess? i don’t have a lot of perspective right now.

what i wore: party kurtas and shiny shiny fake leather drawstring pants. also note IV bruises and then feel sorry for me. also thanks emily for letting me use this picture. you look good. aaa

thank you all for sticking with me. i know i pretend like i think only my mom reads this but i have google analytics (SNEAKY!!!) and i know that a lot of you have been here with me the whole time. except for those assholes in the american southwest. GET MORE INTO ME, HOMBRES. CHILE GIVES ME MORE PAGEVIEWS THAN YOU DO.

if it weren’t for this blog, i probably would have lost it in jaipur and during the initial days of my parasite.

i love you all so much and thank you soooo much for agreeing to meet me at o’hare at 8 am on monday with 1000 tiny kidrobots, cookie cakes, grape cigarillos, and handwritten letters about how much i mean to you.

namaste om shanti and make some fucking noise for the desi boyz.

hi everybody:

i’m sorry that i’ve been away for so long, but i’ve been going through an amazing transformation. in just four nights and five days in a hospital (we’ll get there), i’ve gone from racist undergrad with with a slightly concerning dependency on prescription sedatives to grown-ass woman with a parasite of her very own!

the hospital that i was at was called MAX SUPER SPECIALTY HOSPITAL, which coincidentally is the same name as goofy’s son in the goofy movie and the goofy movie 2: the goofening. the hospital was indeed a super specialty hospital and had a WHOLE FOODS in the lobby. no but i know you don’t really care and want to hear my tale of limited suspense about the worms in my stool.

BET YOU FEEL LIKE AN ASSHOLE NOW, YOU WHO TOLD ME THEY WERE MAYBE MENSTRUAL CRAMPS.

AND BET YOU’RE REALLY KICKING YOURSELF NOW, YOU WHO TOLD ME TO TAKE CIPRO FOR 3 WEEKS STRAIGHT BECAUSE IT WAS TRAVELER’S DIARRHEA.

we got off an overnight train monday afternoon. it was supposed to take 12 hours but took 20. i was not doing well. i made the brilliant decision to intentionally dehydrate myself so that i would stop needing to use the train bathroom. but the next day, i went to the hospital for dehydration. it wasn’t until the second day there that i discovered the parasite. i was just laying there listening to le tigre and drawing a picture of albert hammond, jr playing with a husky, like any expat in my situation would be, and i got sick and went to the bathroom.

 i know i talk about poop too much, so i’m not going to tell you about my self discovery but you should seriously look it up because it’s terrifying. i know i’m an extremely unreliable narrator but trust me on this.

 i learned a lot about how The World works, though. for example, CRYING GETS SHIT DONE IN INDIA.

U WANT AN IV DRIP? NOW? CRY.

U WANT THE HOSPITAL TO TAKE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE? CRY HARDER.

U WANT YOUR BROKEN NETBOOK WITH A SEMESTER’S WORTH OF WORK TO BE FIXED? CRY. WELL ACTUALLY CRYING WILL NOT FIX THAT SITUATION AND YOU STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE RAMIFICATIONS BUT YOU STILL SHOULD CRY.

i spent 570 rupees on my phone crying to america. i was crying into my journal. into my standard issue gulag pajamas. into vegetable broths. into the bosom of indian nurses named anju michaels. even my iv drip was crying. but we’re cool now — my mom is already using my parasite for mileage at christmas parties.

indians just aren’t used to crying. i shy away from making “political commentary” on this blog because that’s boring and i won’t now (i’m sorry if it ever seems like i’m pandering but the concept of abroad blogs are generally the worst so i’m trying to shake it up). but i see a lot of reasons why indians aren’t used to crying that we can talk about some other time.

i’m not telling this to scare you, i’m just telling you this so you feel bad for me. i want you saying, “CLAR BECAUSE YOU HAD A PARASITE I DECIDED TO BRING YOU THIS COOKIE CAKE AND THOUGHT MAYBE WE COULD WATCH JERSEYLICIOUS FOR 7 HOURS INSTEAD OF GOING TO THAT RAGER WITH ACQUAINTANCES FROM HIGH SCHOOL. DO YOU WANT TO DO THAT CLAR?” and “CLAR I KNOW I SAW THIS SEVEN DOLLAR SWEATER FIRST AT FOREVER 21 BUT I WANT YOU TO HAVE IT. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?”

i am feeling better now and i think the worst part of the hospital was the boredom of it all. i was reading THE most depressing books of all time and i was finally just like “yo i need to stop alternating between the bend sinister and the sense of ending” so i was browsing the romance section of the kindle store just because none of my favorite teen lit was available in e-book format. i ended up buying mindy kaling’s book and i thought it was dumb. it made me sad because she’s just trying to impress zooey deschanel when i know she’s capable of amazing things.

but i have the best of friends here, who visited me for hours, wrote me poems about parasites, and bought me nail polish, and magazines (including india’s version of “people’s sexiest man alive,” whose name is hrithik rosham. he is super hot but has two thumbs but sort of works it. look him up.) they also brought me oreos and ritz crackers. the ritz crackers part really touched me because i have been complaining for 3 weeks straight that “a hobo stole my ritz crackers” at the delhi train station on our way to amritsar.

perhaps i am better now, more likely i am not and will need a whole new set of tests done in chicago, but i will be home in a week and we can deal with it with an arby’s roast beef sammich by my side. i was taken off my restrictive diet.

i know you all love me for my winning sense of morbidity and my adorable anxiety problem, but i truly believe the worst is behind me.

worm facts:

this is gross and i’ll stop but the reason i was sick every week with a “bacterial infection” is because the eggs were laying eggs in my stomach once a week. I’M A MONSTER.

i had a whole lot of tests done, including an ultrasound and a chest xray. i swear to god the woman who got a chest xray in front of me had a wineglass in her esophagus.i was on a lot of drugs though and this may or may not be true. traditionally indians do not drink wine. or eat glass.

i popped off at my doctor today for not respecting me.

no room on my arms any more without bruises.

indian hospitals give you coconut water to drink. IT IS NOT JUST FOR HARLOW WINTER KATE RITCHIE-MADDEN ANYMORE.

related: the hospital started out giving me indian food but as they realized that i have wholly given up on notions of assimilating into their culture, they started giving me buttered noodles and apple juice. whatever i dun care.

my veins swelled so much from the ivs that i became more afraid that my veins were going to explode than that my pet worms would attack

i have a huge presentation tomorrow that i’m too vain to ask for an extension on so everyone is making power points with transitions and mine is handwritten on notebook paper. my plan is to just show off my bruises and stand pigeontoed in order to elicit sympathy from peers and instructors. maybe i won’t shower either.

i talked to alex one night and he was telling me about his shiny trip to tokyo and how dylan’s candy bar and lady gaga have teamed up with barney’s to make suggestive looking candies and i was just like ‘EUGH STOP TELLING ME THIS I CAN’T EVEN GET A FUCKING EDIBLE ARRANGEMENT MADE OF LIKE CANTALOUPE OR SOME OTHER SECOND-RATE FRUIT IN THIS COUNTRY. THERE IS A WHOLE FOODS DOWNSTAIRS THOUGH.”

bonjourno digiornos and dinovis:

sorry i haven’t been here in awhile. i’ve been to busy secreting bile and admiring indian winter fashions. do you want to know a cool thing? indians LOVE wearing chenille sweater vests. in orange! 

we want to get orange chenille sweaters for the entire thinktank and wear them on the plane home. we’re gonna look so fly, drinking those tiny ass bottles of wine and watching norbit on our tiny tv screens.

i’m leaving varanasi tomorrow. i can’t say i’ll miss it. i can’t say i’ll be back either but never say never. listen to the mustnts babe.

varanasi, however, is laid out along the river ganges, which makes getting places relatively simple. just follow your nose! to the smell of burning flesh!

oh oh i forgot to tell you i have a new psychosis! sorry if you have to foot the doctor’s bills and/or live with me in any capacity until we get this all sorted out butttttt 

(DRUM ROLL YALL)

now i have a crippling fear of getting lost!! leaving the house is a chore!! i prefer audiobooks and klonopin!

learning things about each other is exciting and intimate!

all i’m saying is that when a river leads you back to the hole you live in, it is not too easy to find the light. except when kids are throwing cow poo at you like they did to me yesterday.

anyways tomorrow we’re going to buddhaland, sarnath. we’re gonna sit under trees and escape samsara N SHIT. i heard there will be momos! i also heard a substantiated truth that we’re staying in a buddhist monastery. 

can’t wait to find enlightenment and ticks in my hair over the course of the next few days.

see you cats when i’m in delhi. then i’ll see you at portillo’s. after i go to a physician to determine whether or not i am both gluten and dairy intolerant.

because i rly want a cake shake.

fun facts:

-every night we watch The 9 O’clock Movie on the English channel. The repertoire has included such classic as “Bad Boys 2,” “Rambo,” “Paycheck,” and “Anaconda.” i’m actually rushing to type this because i need to be back at the guest house by 9 for the seminal “2012”

-still have never seen so much poop in one place in my life

-as i mentioned, young boys made snakes out of poop and taunted me with them. i really really LOST MY COOL with them and that made them want to play with me even more.

-the guest house had a farewell party for our leader, rana, and blew up balloons. one balloon had “CRAZY GIRLS MAKE LOUD NOISES BUT CUTE” in charles manson handwriting written on it. my question is do they think the crazy girls themselves are cute or that the crazy girls’ noises are cute? I’LL TAKE THE COMPLIMENT EITHER WAY, GUYS.

i know i really need to stop talking about this sort of thing, but i’ve “relapsed” when it comes to matters of the heart and matters of the small intestine. some are blaming the lo mein noodles i ate at an outdoor “pizza cafe” a stone’s throw away from a cremation ghat (maybe my body…is….HAUNTED!!!!!!), others are blaming my weak constitution, but most are blaming the “mind over matter” aspect of me really not wanting to be a pilgrim on a pilgrimage (though i luv being an inventor) and somehow conjuring up poossues (an incredible term i just coined) to prevent me from being such and doing so.

they’re not actually saying that (OUT LOUD I’M ON TO ALL OF YOU JUST LIKE I’M ON TO ALL OF YOU SECRETLY STEALING INTO MY ROOM AT ODD HOURS USING ALL MY SHAMPOO), but i feel really guilty i’m not with my thief-friends on their second 10 hour pilgrimage today. i hate sports but i love being a team player and i know they’re all suffering out there. also i had to text amira about how to use her tv and i thought that was extremely “uncool” (copyright jennifer aniston circa early-brangelina era) of me to do while she was respecting divine goddesses or whatever 84 km away from me.

i have left my hovel hole for the first time in a few days. i went up to amira and grace’s kennedy suite (with ac and afforementioned working tv) and watched REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY (!!!THE EPISODE WHERE DANIELLE BRINGS THE EX-CONS TO THE CANCER FUNDRAISER!!!!), THE BIG BANG THEORY (NOT THAT GOOD, GUYS AND GRANDMA) AND PRETTY LITTLE LIARS (KIND OF ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD, SISTER AND CORINE).

but i had to get out because shit was getting real real freshman year on me—laying bed a lot, only eating toast, lusting over scarves i couldn’t have, listening to the hold steady a lot, being generally miserable. etc. so here i am now blogging to you with a low-grade fever.

um what else ! ! ! !! 

yesterday i accidentally poured a lot of dehydration salts in my eyeball (i was laying half supine/half in the fetal position and that IS not conducive to being a salty scientist) and i said out loud to myself in delirium “well…that’s ONE WAY to stay hydrated” and then laughed like a maniac for 30 plus seconds.

i started wondering about why that was so funny to me and then i thought about this time when i was living in my sister’s apt during that awful awful heat wave and as a classic lol i stuck all of my sister’s bras in the fridge right before she was having some sort of get-together and a male consort of hers opened the fridge for a beverage and instead of loling hard at my sight gag and joie de raunch culture, he looked at the bras and said….”well…that’s ONE WAY to stay cool.”

then i spent to rest of the night wondering if this gentleman (remember that episode of the brady bunch where the narrator keeps calling that dude “the old hawaiian gentleman) made that bizarre comment in earnest or if it was cloaked in layers of irony and/or lust. i wish i remembered his name so we could fb chat about it and solve this mystery once and for all. keeps me up at night. but then again so do the banging drums from the evening arti and that high-pitched noise of cremation that only dogs and clars can hear. 

the bras are out of the freezer now, kids, and i have a gut infection!

shanti shanti ohm shanti shanti 

you guyz varanasi is terrifying

at this point i’m sheltering myself and i dgaf about authenticity or potatoes flavored with alloo so i’ve been bouncing around from cafe to cafe for the past 5 or so days, weathering the storm with a bunch of lost but proud looking white people. it’s easy for me to laugh at them for their eatpraylovewithlesspatchouliandmoreacid mission and their graduated ear lobes, but really at this point, i wish i were them. (((the man sitting next to me has dread locks, is speaking some sort of nordic language, and is casually strumming a guitar)))because being them would mean i would get to spend all day drinking chai and avoiding rana-ji.

rana is our psycho lecturer. he is currently distracted by his son’s reason marriage to a lower-caste woman (“her parents don’t care about those things…they are punjabi” ok rana) and peppers EVERY lecture with references to his frustrations. yesterday, while telling us about his let’s clean up the ganga activism (for which he was apparently beaten up by the indian mafia? he is an 80 year old man), he brought up the marriage. he also used the words “turtle scandal.” and “chutney of sex.” also he told us about the time that he took a group of americans to tribal UP and the girls got drunk and took their clothes off. and he also tried to convince us that there were dolphins in the ganges in the early 80s. 

he is off his rocker, but worse he is very very boring. tomorrow he is making us GO ON A PILGRIMAGE ROUTE FROM 9 AM TO 5 PM. I DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN THIS SHIT AND NOW YOU’RE MAKING ME DO THIS? WHY RANA-JI WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. just let me stay in this bougie cafe and buy more silk scarves and ayurvedic face products. THAT’S WHAT STUDYING ABROAD IN INDIA IS ALL ABOUT.

and i still can’t find internet that works well enough to upload photos. FRUSTRATIONZ!!

there is poop everywhere here

today i got caught in the fray of a pack of wild water buffalo

i lost my ONLY bra in delhi somewhere so it looks like i’m wearing tiana’s size xxxxxxs sports bra until december 17

i should stop blogging i just reread this and i am the definitive Worst. also i need to stop following demi lovato on twitter.

hello it’s thanksgiving in india i’m trying not to think about it too hard so i’ll just tell you a little story about the time that i was supposed to be on a 12 hour train ride from delhi to varanasi scheduled to leave at 7 pm. 

the train did not show up at the station until 12 pm, did not leave the station until 2 am, and we did not arrive in varanasi until the next day AT 3 AM. 

we slept on a train platform. amira kept calling it a refugee camp. emily said that she knew what it was like to be a homeless person. me? i finally checked “become presiding queen of hobocamp headquarters” off of my bucket list. 

you see, often on cold days in upstate new york and i just want a lil bagel sammy and then go to the library to read about like, the feminist space of bouncy castles or whatever lit comprises my women’s studies major, i look like i’m reporting to hobocamp hq.

and sometimes in suburban chicagoland when when i’m recovering from a hard night of raging in a tastefully finished basement and need a burrito IV, i look like i’m reporting to hobocamp hq.

BUT NOW I’VE ACTUALLY LIVED IT!  

i was touched by the sense of camaraderie between the squatting men awaiting our train. they all seemed like they were in it for the long haul, in malaria and in emaciation, no matter what.

their sense of solidarity did not extend to me, though :(— probably because i was a white girl with a 76 liter lime green camping pack and a raging bacterial infection in my gut.

fun fact:

- i have actually made it to varanasi, where i’ll be for the next 10 days. today, we took a sunrise boat ride along the ghats. at one of the crematory ghats, i saw a priest (or something) stoke the fire with a rake and THE DEAD MAN’S SMOLDERING LEG AND FOOT CAME TO THE SURFACE OF THE PILE.

-the directors say they have a thanksgiving surprise for us, but it’s probably going to be like, a special dal or something. want 2 die.

-i’ve had to chug these disgusting hydration salts for the past few days to stay hydrated and then i found out tiana (similarly ill) LIKES TO EAT THEM LIKE FUN DIP WITH HER FINGER.

-at a mad hip cafe and they have played enrique and U2 in quick succession, and only 1 of those things are turn-ons.

-i want you all to have the best thanksgiving ever but also be upset that i’m not there because let’s face it I MAKE THANKSGIVING THANKSGIVING SO HAVE FUN BUT DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME AND ALSO TALK ABOUT HOW PRETTY I AM.

i love you all, even you with the gizzard, and i’ll see you in america in like 25 days or something.

good evening young stallions and mares:

i’m in delhi again. the ymca seems far more elegant this time than it has the other times i’ve been here. perhaps it’s because they have something that sounds very similar to a charlie brown christmas playing in the lobby, from where i am currently blogging at you. if george michael doesn’t show up imma freak out.

we left off with goat blood, and we shall end in scarves. srsly, bought so many scarves. do you want a scarf for christmas, channukah, winter break, your mid-december birthday, or the like? because i bought too many in kolkata.

besides buying scarves in western malls, another trip highlight was the pilgrimage to sri auro bindo’s childhood home. remember when i told you about the ashram where i had to take prasad in silence and was served by serene women in white kurtas? where they put tranquilizers in my food? where it was probably some sort of brothel? well i went to the boyhood home of its founder. 

in the gift shop, i tried to buy a picture of The Mother’s eyes. i had planned to place it strategically around peers’ belongings in hotels, hostels, inside the communal dal bucket at the golden temple, at the bottom of someone’s chai bucket. then, in charles manson handwriting, i was going to write “MOTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING.” either in blood or capuccino foam. i hadn’t decided.

my plans were foiled, however, because sri auro bindo’s boyhood home was understaffed (quelle surprise) and nobody was working in the gift shop. so my prank was foiled again. india is always ruining my plans!!! so is sri aurobindo FOR THAT MATTER.

i loved kolkata so much. we became pretty friendly with the lonely planet guide to kolkata that i have on my kindle, so much so that we were often quoting from it. they are very fond of the phrases “city of extremes” and “soul crushing 70s architecture” and “alley life.”

we thought we could be more descriptive than that, so becca, emily, and i are thinking of writing our own lonely planet-esque travel guide called “lonely girls.” it’s true that we are sometimes admit it. it’s the ones with the sorest throats, lalitha, who have done the most singing. EVERYBODY!

i know i was raving about indian air travel but our flight back had about 1000 very bumpy hiccups. first off, the kolkata airport looks like what i imagine the ussr in the 1970s looked like, except less playful. ((it was at least better than the syracuse airport, though, WHICH ONLY HAS A SBARRO)). then there was an extremely waspy looking hare krishna fellow beating on his drum THE ENTIRE TIME we were waiting in our gate. about half way through the flight, after 15 intense minutes of turbulence, he and his lacky (who was a decrepit looking 70 year old gentleman) colluded in the airplane bathroom for far too long for comfort and i was convinced we were going to die.

i’m very rarely afraid of terrorism (only mechanical and human failure, and my own mental frailty) while flying, but this was too much for me. i mean, i’m no slouch when it comes to leaving the comforts of home in order to “better myself” by “traveling around india,” but i just wanted to tell this kid to go home new jersey. he probably could have worked at his local ralph lauren factory outlet or something. i’m not dreaming too big for him. i’m sure his parents are worried about him, though. he really should call them and let them know he’s alright but also consorting with a geriatric man in airplane lavatories. and cut off his rat tail. 

the flight was extremely bumpy and though i had taken a goat tranquilizer cocktail and was trying to stay cool, between the hare krishna from the pingry school and becca PULLING OUT HER TRAVELER’S PRAYER FROM THE TORAH, i thought we were going to be toast (and indian toast is rarely buttered to my liking).

but somehow we survived and made it through our time in kolkata without dying. we even had a good time. one time we got to eat risotto at a restaurant with ipads. and i ate prawns out of a coconut. AND BOUGHT MAC MAKEUP AT A MALL. and a party kameez.

so tomorrow i leave for agra where i can see the taj mahal. i hope i don’t pull a julian casablancas circa 2001 and ask “is this it?” but i think i will be amazed. lonely planet says i will be amazed. you’ll have to wait until the next blog post to hear lonely girls’ consensuses. 

also, i know i keep talking about this communal dal bucket when i go to the golden temple on thursday, and i fear i’ve started a pretty intense rumor among the group. there is no actual proof that there will be a communal dal bucket. i just keep saying it. in turn, i believe i have unintentionally willed it to be true.

a portrait of jesus is staring at me so i should probably go

fun facts:

-wore a tank top in kolkata without being accosted. also there were women on the street. i think rajasthan was perhaps a weird place and it made me biased against india for awhile. new attitude. STAYING POSI AND STAYING HYDRATED, JUST LIKE SUMMER 2011

-i ate a coconut off the street. lonely girls decided that being a coconut boy is one of the most dangerous careers you could choose in india. they wield machetes without a cause. use a cutco knife, bro! or a slapchop!

-i skyped with my parents and having them sign on was a bigger production than getting a 6 month student visa to india.

-i thought the goat blood at kalighat may have given me some sort of goat aids, but i’m feeling healthy. maybe it made me stronger. like harry and voldemort. i am obviously harry. julia is draco. heather is a hufflepuff. 

wingedwords13:

Some more gems…

these dogs were died pink at kalighat. not with goat blood but with the hindu holy powder (or powder depending on if you think that’s a typo or not)

leaving kolkata right now. if i have internet tonight at the Y in delhi, i’ll write you the most eloquent and culturally sensitive blog post your beautiful little eyes have ever feasted on.