Beginning, Previous Section, Section VI
Jump to new as of January 10, 2001
Jump to new as of January 20, 2001
Jump to new as of January 22, 2001
Elizabeth was stunned and speechless. Will didn't give her much opportunity to speak anyway, for he soon got up from the table, put on his coat. Elizabeth still sat there staring at her coffee cradled in her hands. Will paused before leaving. He stooped, kissed her cheek tenderly, and left the store, leaving a forlorn Elizabeth.
She wasn't long in staying there. She slowly walked back to her apartment. Once she was home, she became restless and bored. If she were idle for too long, she would start to think too much. She was hurt and upset. She finally resolved to clean the apartment to keep active.
During this deep clean, Elizabeth found the mystery film Will had given her. She swore that she'd develop it the next time she was in the dark room and tied it to the door handle so she wouldn't lose it again.
Jane soon came home and noticed Elizabeth was in a foul mood. For once, Elizabeth did not confide in Jane. It was too complicated to explain anyway. Jane gave up trying.
Over the following few days, Elizabeth seriously began to research and apply to colleges. NYU was her first choice but she had serious doubts about getting in. She also applied to Pace University in New York City and Boston University. It took some work and quite a few phone calls to send the right transcripts to the right places and to formulate a portfolio to send along with a questionnaire.
Only after all this was done did Elizabeth feel free to return to her photography once again. She had taken to walking the streets of New York just observing and taking pictures. Her favourite ones were those of ordinary people going about their lives. Her best one was of a street musician with his dog.
When she had five rolls to develop, Elizabeth immersed herself in her dark room. She spent a couple of days on them before taking a day off from the fumes and the darkness.
Elizabeth dressed warmly and grabbed a knapsack to put her camera, some food, matches, and water in. Then she took a train and a taxi out into the wilderness. There, she was able to think properly. It had been so long since she had been out in nature. She missed her long hikes through wilderness and woodland. But she wasn't going to go back. No, she needed to continue with her life and go on to do bigger and better things. She was applying to colleges and hoped to take up a new career- a new hobby.
It was not long before Elizabeth got to thinking about Will. What had happened? Was he just making excuses for breaking up? Were they ever a couple in the first place? They had only gone on a couple of dates.
She stopped and turned around to look at her long trail of footprints in the snow. She sighed, took off her knapsack, brushed the snow off of a boulder, and sat down. She thought as she ate a sandwich.
Will had broken up with her. She didn't want to use the word 'dumped'. He said he felt he was pushing her. Had he been pushing her? Elizabeth considered it for a long while. Yes, she supposed she had felt a bit rushed. But wouldn't she have said something if it got uncomfortable for her? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she would have kept quiet so as to spare his feelings. Why did she feel rushed? Because she didn't have much experience with dating. She moved around too much to date for long. She hadn't had a boyfriend longer than a month since high school. But... this was different. She was in New York for good. No, she wasn't. She was going to college in nine months.
Elizabeth stood up again, slung the sack over her shoulder and continued on her walk, occasionally stopping to take pictures.
Elizabeth woke early, refreshed from her long walk in nature. She decided to return to the dark room. She dressed in old clothes and her lab slippers, pulled her hair back and ate breakfast. Once she was stocked up and ready to go, she went to her dark room. On the door handle, she spied the mystery film she had never developed. Finally, she was too curious to delay it anymore. She cut the film off the handle, went in, and began work on revealing what the film held.
It wasn't long before she spied clues indicating the film to have been taken a few years ago, before she did the deal to sell her work. One particular picture really reminded her of Kansas. Suddenly, a trio of pictures caught her eye. They were of a man in a business suit in a crowd.
She was almost certain but she decided to make a print to be sure. Impatiently, she waited for the light to penetrate the sensitive paper. Then she tossed it into the chemicals needed to reveal the image in color. When it was in the final bath, Elizabeth turned on the light to see the image coming through.
Slowly, a dark suit became visible, then a briefcase, next appeared a bouquet of flowers held upside down, and finally the handsome face of Will Darcy. Elizabeth pulled it out of the bath and held it up to the light. Her heart clenched. He was definitely very good looking, despite the sour look on his face. She smiled sadly at the flowers. They had been for her. She hadn't even known who he was when she took the picture. He was just a handsome face in the crowd. He looked so proud and stiff. He never looked like that anymore.
Elizabeth stared at, examined, and contemplated the photo for quite some time, before hanging it up to dry and going back to the rest of the film.
When she left the dark room, she took the finished, dry photo of Will to her room, and propped it against her mirror. For several days she would smile at it when she saw it, before remembering what had happened and becoming sad once more.
Over the next week, not a single day went by without Elizabeth thinking about Will and wishing she could tell him this or show that to him. In truth, she greatly missed him. By the end of the week, Jane had somewhat figured out the root of her sister's discontent. During one meal together, Jane said, "Elizabeth, I'm sure Will would love it if you asked him to go to the museum with you. I think I recall him saying he was looking forward to that exhibit."
"You think so?"
"I know so," replied Jane, though she actually had never heard Will say anything of the kind, but somehow, she knew that he would want to go.
"I don't know, Jane. I think Will said what he did because he wanted to get out of the relationship but didn't want to make me feel bad."
"No."
"No? That's it, just no? What kind of advice is that?"
"It's not advice. I know you're just fussing about, not doing anything but feeling sorry for yourself and this is just an excuse for not doing anything about it. So... I'm not going to go on and on about what Will really thinks, because frankly, I don't know. But I do know it's not that. So you fix it, not me."
Elizabeth wasn't too happy with this answer. It wasn't that she wanted out of the relationship. She just didn't understand why Will did it. He was probably just insecure, but she was too, so that didn't help matters.
Following the meal, Elizabeth picked up the phone and dialed his number. It did take a few tries to pull the guts together to dial the full number. It started ringing and she nearly panicked and hung up. Sheer will forced her not to.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Will, this is Elizabeth."
"Hi."
"I was... um wondering if you... would like to go to the museum exhibit with me this afternoon."
There was a pause. Then Will said, "What time?"
Elizabeth nearly let out an audible sigh of relief. "Is three o' clock okay?"
"Yeah, shall I meet you there?"
"That's fine. See you then."
They hung up and Elizabeth slunk onto the bed. How did something so easy as asking a friend out to the museum become so difficult?
Elizabeth kicked herself for being early. She didn't like this waiting around for him to show up. She never had any doubt of his showing up, but she certainly hated the waiting. She really didn't know what she was going to say when he arrived. A simple 'Hi, how are you?' just didn't seem to cut it.
Five minutes later, he walked up to her, hands deep in his overcoat pockets and a neutral look on his face. Elizabeth couldn't help but be a little disappointed. She didn't know what she expected, but it was definitely more than this. Little did she know how much he was restraining himself from at least kissing her cheek in greeting. He had no idea why she wanted to meet with him, but he decided to presume that she just wanted to be friends. He was not one to give up a friendship like hers, and so had resolved on not pushing things.
"Hi," Elizabeth said, and mentally smacked her forehead. She surprised herself sometimes at how stupid she could be.
Will cracked a light smile. "Hi."
"Shall we go in? My nose is nearly frozen off."
"You didn't have to wait outside, you know."
"I know."
They walked up the steps and pushed through the revolving doors into the warm building. They took their coats off and hung them in the cloakroom. Then they walked into the art gallery and began to look at the displays. Neither of them spoke for a good ten minutes. Finally, Will asked, "How's your work going on?"
"Pretty good. Not as hot as I used to be with Cleo, but I'm learning to pick up shots around the city."
"Do you just walk around or do you have a purpose?"
"Usually I just walk around and take pictures of what I see, but every now and then I'll know the shot I want and I just have to wait for the right conditions to make it perfect. It's different in civilization than it was in the nature. Usually I wouldn't notice a shot unless the conditions were perfect right then. But here, I can see a good shot and, as I said, I wait for the right moment."
"Are you going to send a lot of your contemporary, civilized work to your company?"
"I don't know. I'll see. If I don't have enough of my usual nature stuff, then I'll have to send them the other stuff, but I've kind of made my reputation as a nature artist, so I don't even know if the company would accept any other kind of work."
"That's rather single minded."
"Tell me about it. But I guess that's business."
"True."
They came up to a particularly odd looking painting. Elizabeth stopped and stared at it for a couple of minutes. "What is it?" she asked, turning her head sideways to see if it was better.
"I don't know, what does the title say?"
" 'Fall'."
"That's it?"
Elizabeth nodded.
"Who's the artist?"
"Some name I can't pronounce."
"Huh. Interesting."
Elizabeth continued to stare at it. "You know, I think it's some kind of hidden map used in the Vietnam War by the Viet Cong."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well look. That's a river and that splash of brown is a bridge."
"A bridge?"
"Yeah. And then this is a tree and that's a...."
"I don't think Vietnam had one tree to put on a map, it had whole forests."
"Fine then. You come up with something!"
"I will," he said indignantly. "It's a display of emotion."
"That's original," Elizabeth snorted.
"Hear me out."
Elizabeth stood back and crossed her arms over her chest with a skeptical look on her face.
"The artist is in turmoil over some relationship. And the lack of red shows the absence of love in the relationship. The black represents depression and sorrow and the blue streak is the lifeline the artist is trying to cling onto."
Elizabeth felt like he was talking about her in some code language she wasn't sure she understood. Was he saying he didn't love her? Did she ever think he loved her? A small part of her mind said yes, she did. The bigger part of her mind said no, she never got that far. But then what was he saying? Or was he not meaning her at all?
"What about this one?" Elizabeth asked.
Will moved over to the next one. After studying it for a while, he started. "This painting represents the artist's hope over the same relationship. The cross represents the prayers said every night- hence the yellow dots in the blackness up there. He... prays for the girl to return to him, see that stroke that looks like a boomerang? And here's that lifeline he's still clinging too, trying to survive everyday without her."
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. His analysis was just too farfetched for him to really think that was what the artist meant. Therefore he must mean her. But what was he trying to say? It did sound very much like he really did think it was she who did not want the relationship and he did. From what he said, it seemed like he was almost pining for her. But that was ridiculous. Still, she had to send some kind of message back. So she moved to the next painting to contemplate it.
"So from what you say of the first two, I think this one is the final painting in the trilogy. It represents the return of the girl. The lifeline is gone and there is the red and the lightness that lacked in the other two." Elizabeth smirked and said, "It also seems to have more of a woman's touch. ...Yeah, I think the painting is generally happy and more content now that he knows that the girl loves him and they're together."
Good grief! She hoped Will wouldn't construe that she loved him. She felt very strongly, but she wasn't sure she could say she loved him per se.
"I see," said Will.
Was that a good 'I see' or a bad one? They moved out of that room to more conventional paintings where one could not really improvise as much about what the painting was of. It was usually straightforward with mythological, Biblical or historical subjects.
An hour and several interesting discussions later, they walked out of the museum and stood on the sidewalk, unsure of what came next. Elizabeth soon realized it was her move, so she thought about asking him to go have a cup of coffee with her, but realized that was rather unoriginal and she didn't want a repeat of what happened the last time she had asked him. So instead, she said, "Did you have somewhere to be right now? Because there's an ice cream parlor down the street and I wondered if you wanted to join me in getting some."
Will did actually have somewhere to be, but he figured his cousin would forgive him for standing him up just this once. Will raised an eyebrow. "Ice cream?" and pointedly looked at the snow pushed to the side of the sidewalk.
"If you want something warm, you can get hot fudge," she said, defensively.
Will grinned and nodded. They began walking down the street in a companionable silence. They ordered ice cream, (Will did get the hot fudge) and took it outside to eat and walked towards Washington Square Park.
"You're dripping," said Will.
"Oh drat!"
"Didn't you feel it going all over your hand?"
"No! My hands are numb."
"Then why don't you put your gloves on?"
"Because that would only result in getting the ice cream all over my gloves."
"You just don't know how to eat ice cream properly, do you?"
"You're right. I'm out of practice. Now are you going to give me a napkin or are you just going to stand there laughing at me?"
"I don't have a napkin."
"Then what do you expect me to do?"
"Lick it off."
"No. I haven't washed my hands."
"Then I'll lick it off."
"Gross! No way!"
"Then you're either going to have to let it freeze on your hand like that, wipe it off on the nearest passerby or try and wipe it off with a leaf."
"There aren't any leaves on the trees, Einstein. And I am not going to do the first two, either. Fat lot of help you are!"
"I'm not the one who didn't come prepared."
"As if you did?"
"Sure. I got napkins."
"You do?!! Then why don't you give me one?"
"Because you didn't ask me."
"Yes I did."
"No you didn't."
"Yes I did."
"No... you didn't."
"Well I'm asking now."
"What will you give me in return," he said, holding the napkin tauntingly out of reach. She tried to grab it from him a couple of times but he moved away.
"Nothing. Why should I give you anything for a stupid napkin?"
"Because I have something you need. It's part of the capitalist world. Supply and demand. I supply something you demand."
"You're darn tootin' right I demand it! Come on, Will, just give me the napkin," she whined.
"What will you give me for this napkin?"
Elizabeth gave up trying to grab it and sighed heavily, glaring at him. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want."
Elizabeth didn't know what to think about that. But she decided she had had enough of guessing games. If they didn't come to some kind of understanding now, she would just go home and be haunted by that handsome picture on her mirror.
"Fine. You have it."
"What?"
"What you want."
"And what is that?"
"Well if you don't know, then I sure don't."
"I know what I want but how do I know you know what I want?"
"I know you know what you want and I know I know what you want."
"But that's not enough for me. I need to know you know what I want."
"And how do I let you know I know what you want?"
"By saying what I want... and what you'll give me."
"But what if I don't know what you want."
"Then you would have lied when you said you knew what I want."
"So?"
"So then how do you know what you're giving me if you don't know what I want?"
"Whatever it is I'll give it to you... within reason... if you just give me that darn napkin!!"
Will thought for a moment, and then said, "Nah. I think I need to know you know what I want... and what you're giving me."
Elizabeth sighed deeply. "Fine. What is it you want?"
"Ah ha! So you don't know what I want!"
"No, I don't. Happy?" she snapped, irritated.
"Yes."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So aren't you going to tell me what you want?"
"Maybe."
"No, you can't say maybe, you have to say yes."
"Says who?"
"Says me."
"Fine."
There was a pause. "I'm waiting."
"And meanwhile, you're ice cream is getting worse."
Elizabeth looked down to see her ice cream had dripped over her hand even more. She licked it off the cone and some of the scoop. "I think I'm going to have brain freeze."
"Shouldn't affect you too much."
Elizabeth gave him a look. "Are you going to give me the freakin' napkin or not?"
"After you give me what I want."
She rolled her eyes. "Do we have to go through this again? Tell me what you want and I'll give it to you within reason."
"What's within reason?"
"Well I'm not going to give you a car or a house or something I can't give you."
"Okay."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So aren't you going to tell me what you want?"
"After you finish your ice cream."
"What?!"
"Well, I don't want to give you the napkin before your finished because then you'll just get more messy after you've used this hard-earned napkin to clean off. So I figure rather than go through two napkins needlessly, I can save a tree by not telling you what I want so you can't give it to me so I would have to give you the napkin."
"You're absolutely demented, you know that?"
Will grinned and nodded.
In silence they finished their ice cream. Then Elizabeth turned to him, outstretched her sticky hand and said, "Now can I have the napkin?"
"Only if you give me what I want."
"Tell me what you want."
"You."
"Fine. Now give me the napkin."
"Really?"
"Yes. Give me the napkin!"
"You give me your word?"
"Yes. So now will you give me the napkin? You're gonna give me frostbite in the hand that focuses my camera!"
Will handed her the napkin and she snatched it. She began wiping off the gooey mess but found that some of it had dried on and wasn't coming off with a napkin. Will saw her problem and suggested, "Go put some snow on it."
"What?"
"Melt some snow on your hand to wash it off."
"As if my hand isn't cold enough as it is??"
"Fine then, don't accept my advice!"
"And where has your 'advice' gotten me today?"
Will brushed off an imaginary speck of dust off his overcoat and said arrogantly, "Oh I don't know, it's gotten you a mighty handsome boyfriend."
"Ha! Looks aren't everything," she grumbled.
She spied a water fountain several yards away and stalked over to it. However she found it out of service and cursed a little too loudly. She took a quick look over to Will still sitting on the bench. When he turned his head to look at a particularly fine bitch (now, now readers, I meant a she-dog. Get your minds out of the gutters!!) run past, Elizabeth ducked behind a large tree and used snow to wipe off the ice cream. A minute later she walked jauntily back to Will.
He had a suspicious and teasing look on his face when he said, "What did you do behind the tree?"
"None of your business."
"Of course it's my business. I own you now, remember?"
"I... was... looking at some particularly interesting bark on the tree."
"Really! Huh. Well show me this interesting bark of yours."
"No, no, no. You wouldn't find it interesting."
"Now how do you know that? If you find it interesting then surely I will."
"Not necessarily. You know? Now that I think about it, there wasn't anything interesting at all."
"I see. How did you get the ice cream off?"
"I used the water fountain."
"Really! Well now, isn't that funny. I thought the water fountain was broken, but maybe I was mistaken. That's just terrific because I need a drink after that mighty rich chocolate."
"You don't want to drink park water, do you? Why don't we go get a soda or something?"
"I don't mind park water. It's free, isn't it?"
"Huh, as if you'd care about that."
"I'm rich because I'm thrifty."
"Sure."
"You just wait here while I go and get this drink. I'm parched from arguing with you."
He started to walk off. "Wait," she said.
"What?"
"It doesn't work."
"The fountain? The fountain doesn't work? Well then how did you wash off that ice cream? Or does the fountain only work for you? Will you come with me to make it work so I can have my drink?"
Elizabeth glared at him. He innocently gazed back at her, the teasing showing itself in his eyes and the twitch in his mouth. "I didn't use the fountain."
"So how did you wash it off?"
She ducked her head and mumbled something. "What's that?" Will asked. "I must be hard of hearing, say that again."
She said, "I said (mumble mumble mumble)."
Will came up to her and lifted her chin up to look at him. "Repeat that one more time."
"I used the snow like you said to," she finally said, as defiantly and dignified as she could.
Will leaned forward and kissed her soundly. When he pulled away, he said, "I knew you'd see things my way eventually."
She smiled at him before he began kissing her again.
They stayed in the park until six in the evening when it got too cold for the couple. Elizabeth said, "Are you busy?"
Will looked down at her and said, "Not anymore."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I've canceled my plans for tonight."
"When?"
"Now."
"You can't do that."
"Course I can."
"What were you supposed to do?"
"Meet with a couple of my employees for dinner."
"You have to go then."
"No I don't. We're going to dinner together."
"We are?"
"Isn't that why you asked if I was busy?"
"Yes, but you are busy so we can't have dinner."
"I told you I wasn't busy so we can go to dinner."
"What about your other engagement?"
"I'll give 'em a call from the restaurant to let them know I am unavoidably detained from making it."
He kissed her but she pulled away saying, "That's... that's...."
"That's my privilege as head of the company. It's not like I do it regularly. Now come on, I'm getting too cold."
They quickly walked to a nearby restaurant and sat down.
After they ordered, Will asked, "So... what took you so long?"
Elizabeth sighed and said, "Well, it was partly because I had things to attend to, partly because I was working, partly because I was procrastinating, and mostly because I was doubting."
"Doubting what? Your own feelings?"
"No, not at all. I was really, really upset and I thought it was your way of trying to get out of a relationship you didn't want without hurting my ego."
"You mean blaming you for a breakup I wanted."
"I wouldn't have put it that way, but yeah."
"What or who put you straight?"
"Well, Jane suggested that you would like to go to the museum with me, the paintings did most of it, and then your behavior told me I should go ahead and risk it."
"Risk what?"
"Risk completely humiliating myself and breaking my heart."
"Flattering."
She just shrugged and ate her soup. "I think I'll ask what in the world caused you to think I didn't care some other time."
"Good. It'll give me time to come up with an answer."
"You don't know why?"
"Or don't remember."
"You're so weird."
"Tell me about it."
They continued with their meal, enjoying their light bantering back and forth with some serious conversation mixed in now and then. Afterwards, Will accompanied Elizabeth home. Outside her door, they kissed good night. Will held her for a minute before saying, "I may make light of it a lot, but I should let you know how very happy you have made me."
"I would say me too, but that wouldn't sound right. I guess I should say I've made me happy too."
Will smiled down at her and then let her go into her apartment.
Times improved with the group of friends. However one thing remained to be resolved. Just a minor detail like Elizabeth's future. She didn't tell Will about her college applications. Whenever he asked what her plans were, she would vaguely answer him or avoid the subject skillfully. Elizabeth didn't want to inform him of the applications until she got a favorable reply.
The first college to accept her was Boston University. When Elizabeth received the missive in the mail, she immediately called Will's office and asked him to come over for dinner that night. Will complied without having any idea what the big news was.
Elizabeth had cooked a meal and was ready when Will finally arrived that evening. Elizabeth opened the door and greeted Will with a kiss. "Come in, my love. Dinner is just ready."
Will looked suspiciously at her. She was unusually jittery. Will helped her get the meal on the table and then they sat down together. Jane had agreed to eat at Charles' place to allow Elizabeth and Will privacy.
When they sat down, Elizabeth said, "I got some good news in the mail today."
"I knew something was up. What is it?"
"Well... I never told you that I applied to a few universities back in January. And I got my first reply today."
"Really! Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want to tell you unless I got in. So I got in to Boston U. and so I'm telling you."
"Boston University??"
"Yeah. It's a really good school. I can't believe I got in!"
Will seemed less than excited for her. In fact, he wasn't at all pleased.
"What?" asked Elizabeth.
"Boston?"
"Yes... so?"
Will squirmed in his chair a bit. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but... what did you expect me to do? I can't move from New York. Do... do I mean so little to you that you would move to Boston now?"
"No! Of course not! Will, I know you can't move. Boston is only one of the three that I applied to."
"So you're saying that it could be worse? Seattle? Alaska? If you insist on going away for college, then I think I have a right to have my engagement ring on your finger."
Elizabeth put her hand over Will's on the table. "Will. I'm flattered, really. But you're getting the wrong impression. The other two universities are here in New York City." Elizabeth grinned. "I don't think I could stand being away any more than you. I chose nearby on purpose. Now, Boston is the only university that has replied yet. So if NYU and Pace reject me, then I will be going to Boston. All right?" She added playfully, "But do I still get the engagement ring if I stay in New York?"
Will gazed across the table at her. "I think I would still insist upon it. That would warn off all those college lads."
Elizabeth grinned at him and then leaned across the table and kissed him. When she sat back down, Will said, "So shall we go looking for a ring Saturday morning?"
"What? You mean you don't have it with you?" she teased.
"Of course not. First of all, I didn't plan the proposal. And second, I want to get a ring you would like and wear, rather than hiding it away."
"You proposed? All I heard was that you wanted me to wear a collar declaring me yours."
Will got up from the table, came around to her chair and got down on one knee. He took Elizabeth's hand and asked, "Elizabeth, will you marry me?"
Elizabeth smiled down at him and said, "Of course I will."
She leaned down and kissed him.
By the next month, NYU and Pace had accepted her. NYU restricted Elizabeth to studying art and a liberal arts degree. Since Elizabeth was fairly sure she wanted to pursue an Environmental Science degree, she chose Pace University.
The month before she began classes, Will and Elizabeth got married in a small ceremony. (Will finally got to meet her family.) They went on a honeymoon to Switzerland, Germany and England for 3 weeks before returning to New York so Elizabeth could move in to Will's apartment on Fifth Avenue and get ready for classes.
Elizabeth completed her Environmental Science degree in four years and went on to get a Masters from Columbia University. She took a high-ranking job with Greenpeace for three years before going to part time while she and Will raised two sons and a daughter. Elizabeth continued to do photography for enjoyment, but never went back to it as a full time job.
Jane and Charles were, of course, married and soon moved to Paris, where Jane studied fashion at the Sorbonne. Colin found some girl or other to cater to his character. But things didn't work out between them. Colin remained a bachelor.
Cleo was recycled to make other metal products. Elizabeth had Cleo immortalized in one of her best-selling posters. And... Elizabeth and Will named their daughter... Cleo.
Hey guys. I'm already missing this story as much as you are. But I'm already well into a new work- a short story based on a song by Pentangle. It shouldn't be too long in coming. But I have recently had the privilege to meet a real photographer here at college. He is my roommate's good friend. He has a website that I got to see, and I thought it would be a neat thing to put at the end of Open Your Eyes. A lot of his photographs are exactly what I was imagining Elizabeth's work looked like. So, visit this site and look around to enjoy it. The photographer's name is Joel Belmont and he is an incredible person. He loves feedback, so after you've looked around, email him or sign his guestbook with lots of comments. Enough of my babble. Here it is: