Saturday Update

I think I may have a disease called schleroderma, and yesterday, I was kind of obsessing about that.

It's not a new idea. I have had problems with the skin on my toes and hands the past few years. It's something I've come across while Googling my symptoms before. 

I also did a ton of Googling when I had my blood clot, so maybe I came across it then as well. Blood clots aren't listed as a symptom of schleroderma, but I Googled yesterday to see if there was a connection, and they do say people with schleroderma are more likely to have blood clots.

But who knows. I might not have schleroderma. Or I might have it, and the blood clot was totally separate. 

In Broadchurch news, we are onto season 2.

Tim and I both correctly guessed the identity of the murderer...I think by the second episode of season 1, Tim claims I get the credit, because I said it first. But when I said it, he didn't argue against it. And he said something like, I was thinking the same thing. So, I feel we both get the credit. 

In contrast, when we watched Us, and I guessed the twist, Tim was more surprised at the idea, and he didn't tell me he had the same idea. So I give myself sole credit on that one.  

I feel a bit skeptical about season 2 of Broadchurch. 

One thing I'm wondering is if the creators intended to have season 2 or 3. Were they planning it when writing season 1?   

I get this idea it was supposed to end with the first season. But then they had so much fun making it. And the show got such good reviews, so they felt unwilling to let go.  

Watching the first episode with the new characters, new decisions, new backstories, etc. Were these in the mind of the writers during season 1. Or were they pulled out of thin air for season 2?

Another thing I'm wondering about the show...and this is less of a potential criticism...is whether the actors knew who the murderer was when filming? Was it one of those things where the actors themselves don't know their own character's secrets? 

Maybe the actors who weren't playing the murderer knew they weren't the murderer. But maybe they didn't know which of them among themselves WAS the murderer. And maybe the actor playing the murderer knew that he was the murderer.

I wonder about all this, because I remember learning that Terry O'Quinn in Lost didn't realize he was no longer playing Locke. And this led me to believing in this whole theory of Locke being the Man in Black all along.  Since Locke possessed by the Man in Black was acting so much like Locke...and adding all the time travel stuff...,

But then I realized it was probably just an actor not getting enough information on his character. 

Yesterday I was about to Google and try to get some answers to my Broadchurch questions...if they are out there. But then I realized I might run into spoilers. So I shall wait until we finish the series.

There are some new actors in season 2. Tim recognized Eve Myles, and I was able to quickly tell him she was from Torchwood. I felt compelled to add a disclaimer. I told him I was quick knowing it, because I had looked at IMDb for the episode. Otherwise, I would have been sitting through the episode thinking, she looks so familar. Where do we know her from????

Tim also asked about Charlotte Rampling. What do we know her from? 

My quick answer back: Racism. That's where I know her from. I told him it had something to do with saying something racist regarding the Oscars. I had to Google to remember what it was exactly.  

Rampling went with that idea that if we are colorblind and ignore things like race, the truly talented people will rise to the top and get their rightful rewards. Are the Oscars racist, or is it simply that all these years white people have shown more talent with acting?  And writing, directing, producing.....

With this mindset.....

Are we really supposed to believe that Jodi Whittaker is the first woman out there to have the talent and abilities needed to play the Doctor?

No. There have been plenty of actresses out there who could have done the job well. But someone...multi-someone's had to have the realizations that it actually doesn't make sense for a Time Lord to keep regenerating into white British men.  They had to put effort into diversity, because there is NO colorblindness or gender-blindness. Without that effort, the Doctor would probably continue to regenerate into white British male bodies way into the next 200 seasons of the series.  

Well, I just did some Googling to see if maybe I'm wrong about the Doctor always being British, and I ended up finding that Whittaker isn't the first time the Doctor has been a woman. Joanna Lumley played the Doctor in a Red Nose Day Sketch.  That's not a big step forward in terms of gender equality, since it was just a sketch. But at least it shows...some logical thinking.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I've been taking a break from the Peru travelogue in Dog Food For Chairs and am now reading Doctor Who posts from Dog Food for Chairs. This post is a history of the show in terms of being Broadcast in the U.S...and personal fandom history.  And this one goes deeper into the new series. 

I'm glad I'm back into Doctor Who and have a blogger I can turn to for information and encouragement/enthusiasm. Hopefully that will help me keep up the fan-feelings so that when the next season comes out, I've not lost the interest again.  

What else...

In YouTube news, my eleven-year-old nephew has a channel now, and I watched two of his Minecraft videos. One was very suspenseful. He played hardcore and spawned in a place with no animals. He injured himself falling and was running low on hearts and hunger. He made a boat and went off his spawn-land and found a ship wreck. I assume he was looking for food. Then he ended up drowning. 

I would share the link, but I don't think his mom would appreciate that. And sadly, I'm not popular enough to bring him more views anyway.  I'm more likely to anger my sister than I am to make my nephew a YouTube star.

Another thing I've been watching on YouTube is videos from the Learn French with Alexa channel. Yesterday I did one about adverbs.  For some reason, I'm very bad at learning pronunciation with Duolingo. I tend to pay more attention to the reading/writing aspects. So...the videos help me with the speaking.

In my screenwriting news. It's mostly bad news. Or...I should say stressful and unhappiness news.

I finished with a round of proofreading/revising The Dead are Online (version A) and am now onto version Version b. That's not an issue.

The issues began with me seeing something on Twitter about writing a one page pitch-summary of your screenplay. I HATE HATE HATE all that...loglines, synopsis, query letters, treatments.

That's why I decided to go the contest route. I felt maybe I could have some success and not have to do all the hateful, evil stuff. But I started getting idea that I'll eventually have to do face my nightmare. 

And I finally paid some attention to this TV show bible thing I've been hearing about. I did some research into it. It seems like the kind of thing that would be extremely fun if you were doing it...just for fun. But doing it for other people to actually read and judge?  It sounds incredibly intimidating and NOT fun.  

So I had THIS writing angst going on.

Then I started blabbing to Tim about it, and somehow we got into the conversation of TV writing jobs. When I first started writing these TV pilots, I had this willful ignorance about the whole concept of success. I pictured if my writing-a-TV-show dream came true, it would involve me getting a nice check; then going on with my life, and watching the TV show when it came on TV. OR not watching it, because it would be too nerve-wracking to do that. But I would know it's out there...and that would be really cool.

I should not have been that ignorant, seeing that I'm a fan of TV and have read enough to understand the whole concept of writer's rooms and all that.

But it's like Hawaii. You hear that there are tall buildings...that there are regular cities there. But despite that, you get off the plane and are disillusioned that it's not 100% beaches, palm trees, and vacationing. 

Anyway, though. I started to face the idea that if a miracle happens and I have any screenwriting success, it might involve actually having to work at a job with people and all that.  

I suggested to Tim if such a thing happens, we might get to move to somewhere cool like Canada or Atlanta. Tim questioned this and said he thought writers usually work in Los Angeles.

I Googled and from what I saw, it looked like he might be right. 

This was very unhappy news for me.

The idea of living in Los Angeles didn't appeal to me...at all.

And then I felt super stupid for even worrying about it. I know that my chances of success are very slim.

Okay, but then I feel bad for having that negative mindset. And that makes me feel even worse. I feel annoyed at myself for feeling that way and hurt by imagining that all of my family would agree with my negativity. 

Then I stupidly start talking myself into not-hating-the-idea of living in Los Angeles. That then turns into, how stupid can you be? Why are you talking yourself into being okay with something that is not going to happen? But then....

If it's never going to happen, why am I spending money on screenplay contests?

I don't want to quit.

So I'll keep allowing at least a small part of myself to dream big.

In a way, maybe the Los Angeles thing is a good thing. Because if I end up having good luck and success, it will be a very nice turn of events in my life.  But if I end up having bad luck and no success, then at least I can say...well, at least I won't have to move to Los Angeles.

Although it would be really cool to live close to Disneyland. 

 

Thursday Update

I've been meaning to mention, and now I'm finally remembering to....

Another thing on my current watch-list is Schitt's Creek. 

It's my second time watching it. I love that show SO much.

I watch it with our Alexa Echo, which we have near our sink.  I watch, a little bit at a time, while I put dishes away, wash my water bottle, or feed the cats.

I alternate between Schitt's Creek and listening to various news reports on Alexa. And with the news, I alternate between the BBC (British) CBC (Canadian) and SBS (Australian).

And yes, I also get American news.

I read the Washington Post in the morning with Annie on my lap. 

Anyway, back to Schitt's Creek.  I'm currently on episode 7 of season 4. I'm surprised I've already gotten that far, because I watch only a little bit a day. Maybe a third or half an episode?

My plan, though, is to keep rewatching and rewatching until I'm fully vaccinated. OR...well, maybe when I'm fully vaccinated, I will stop going back to the beginning. I think it would be best if I get to the end of the series. Then I'll say good-bye. until the next pandemic comes along.

What else?

I'm really into Broadchurch now.  

Tonight we'll be watching the first season finale.

I'm wondering how the first season will end and what will happen in the next two seasons. Will it take them three seasons to figure out the murderer? Or will they find the murderer this season, and the next two seasons will be about the court case and all that?

Oh! Maybe it will be a serial killer?

Oops. I just realized I gave Tim the wrong information about the shame woman from Game of Thrones. I told him she (Susan Brown) played the reporter in Broadchurch. But now I see she plays Grandma Liz.

Edited to add: 10/3/22- Rereading this post, and I'm feeling SHAME for my mistake.  Susan Brown didn't play the shame woman on Game of Thrones. She played the Septa of Winterfell.  I know this only, because we've seen watched Ted Lasso which stars the actual Shame-woman (Hannah Waddingham)

I was thinking, last night, of all the Broadchurch actors from various other shows/franchises.  

From Game of Thrones, there's Brown, David Bradley, and Jacob Anderson.

From Harry Potter, there's David Tennant, David Bradley, and Alfred Enoch. Though I can't remember actually seeing Enoch in the show. I just remember seeing his face and name when looking at IMDb.

From the Crown, there's Olivia Coleman and Andrew Buchan. 

From Doctor Who, there's David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, David Bradley, and Arthur Darvill

I know I'm missing at least one person from somewhere. I remember looking at IMDb and seeing an actor in one of those shows, but I didn't remember their character.

It was either Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. Or...both.  

Here we go. Carolyn Pickles- who is the woman I mistakingly thought was Shame-Woman on Game of Thrones-was in Harry Potter. She played Charity Burgage.

I don't know who that is.  

Okay. Googled.

She was a professor  that was kidnapped and murdered by Voldemort before the Deathly Hollows. I think I vaguely remember that.

Speaking of Harry Potter, after reading a few more chapters, I opted to return the Robert Galbraith book. In lieu of that, I'm now reading Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 

It's good so far.

I recently read her other book Mexican Gothic and liked that a lot. 

This morning, on YouTube, I watched a video from The Daily Show about the whole unity thing.

The whole thing makes me so angry.

It makes me wonder if Biden has had a lack of experience dealing with manipulative, hypocritical, selfish people.

Well, now that I write that out, it sounds a bit nuts. He works with politicians. At least some of them have had to be manipulative, hypocritical, and selfish.

BUT sometimes people deal with these types of people not realizing that they are these types of people. 

In my book, unity involves compromise. And with compromise, both sides give in a little. 

Well, actually with politics...the losing side should have to give in more. 

When the winning side says unity, it doesn't mean...Hey, we're going to put away OUR agenda and let you put in your agenda...because we want your side to get everything they want. 

I think it's more along the lines of , We're going to put through our agenda, but if we get along...maybe we'll listen and consider your positions and maybe even put some of them into action.  

Personally, I'm not at all interested in having unity with Trumplicans. And sadly, most Republicans these days are Trumplicans. 

I want unity with the people who are against Trumplicans and Trumpism. 

Now I'm fine having unity with Trumplicans outside of politics. My family started a new rule of no political discussions, and we've all been getting along much better. It's impossible for us to unite on subjects like Trump, Impeachment, BLM protests, antisemitism, etc. But we get along pretty well when we're talking about TV shows, pets, family happenings, etc.  

In other news...

I'm still liking Shameless a lot. I think the Joan Cusack storyline is very sad. 

Some of the show is very pre-MeToo. They go with the trope of women lying about assault, and there's also a teenage girl (Laura Wiggins) sexually harassing an adult man (William H Macy). 

I think these are the storylines we tend to get when men are dominating the writer's rooms. 

I wonder what is the motivation behind these types of storylines. Is it male writers exorcising their personal anger? And if it's anger, does that anger come from their personal traumas? Or is it anger they've built up from seeing the women-are-liars-and-aggressors storylines in other TV shows, movies, books, etc. 

Is it fantasy? Older men wishing teenage girls would proposition them?

Is it a way to appease some of the guilt for their own experiences or fantasies?  Yes. I had sex with a fifteen year old. But it's not my fault. She was so sexy, and she kept flirting with me! What was I supposed to do?  

I have zero doubts that flirtatious, hyper-sexual teenager girls exist and that they sometimes target older men.

BUT...I think in the real world women are much more often the victim of men. I think there are more incidents of women being harassed and assaulted by men than men being falsely accused of crime.

And I think there are more incidents of children and teenagers being groomed by sexual predators to become victims than children and teenagers sexually harassing disinterested men trying to mind their own business.

I think shows like Shameless, and other shows in the pre-MeToo era, present a picture that is the opposite of reality.    

Hopefully that is changing a lot, because I think this false picture is one of the reasons that female victims are so often doubted when they speak up about abuse.  

 

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-beloved to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts 

Tuesday Update

First things first.

I now like Broadchurch.

The other day I had been thinking to myself, why in the world would I want to be watching a show where everyone is unhappy, because a very bad thing happened to a child.

Okay, but then we were watching the show. I started warming to it a little bit. They had a scene with the townspeople having a meeting with the police at the school. I turned to Tim and told him that it reminded me of Dark.

Because Dark has a scene with the townspeople meeting at the school. And guess what, Dark is about a child who goes missing in a small town. And like Broadchurch, the town is filled with unhappy people. 

Dark is very dark.

Then I soon realized that I love yet another show with a bad thing happening to a child and a bunch of unhappy townspeople. That's Fortitude. In this one, the show begins with a young child getting a horrible case of frost bite.

I noticed another interesting similarity between the three shows, but I think it's too much of a spoiler. So what I'm going to do is put the spoiler way at the bottom of this post.  That way, people can skip if they want. 

It's actually not a huge spoiler. It's just not something you're likely to get from reading or seeing a brief promo of the show. 

Anyway, I AM liking Broadchurch a lot now. I think, though, that I might end up liking it less than Dark and Fortitude, because those two have supernatural elements. I THINK Broadchurch is straight murder mystery. Though there is a psychic. But I'm not sure if they're going to go with the message that psychics are fake and predatory, or they're going to take a more magical realism path.  

Or I could be totally wrong, and young Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara) was kidnapped by demons. 

Other stuff....

I'm liking Shameless a lot.  Yesterday I watched the Aunt Ginger episode.

As for Coronation Street, I felt some regret for saying that Shona (Julie Goulding and David (Jack P Shepherd) are my favorite couple. I love them. But I also must say that Tim (Joe Duttine) and Sally (Sally Dynevor) are my other favorite couple. I hope they remain a couple for longer than what's average for soap opera couples. 

I finished A Tale for the Time Being and am in the process of selecting my next book. 

I've downloaded The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) and started reading it. I'm not liking it so much, but I'm going to give it another chapter or two.

I read the first book in the series years ago and didn't like it very much. But I thought maybe I was having too many Harry Potter desires at the time. 

I have liked Rowling's other two non-Harry Potter books, though—The Casual Vacancy and The Ickabog. 

The vote tracking website I've been following has been finally updated. I've been so excited about tracking the votes in our Congress. The last one was on Friday at 10:31 when the Senate confirmed Loyd Austin as Secretary of Defense.

I had to then wait through the weekend. I hoped to see some action Monday and kept checking.  Well, I guess I checked during the day and not into the evening. Because something finally did happen at 5:30.  The Senate confirmed Janet Yellen as Secretary of the Treasury.  She got passed 84-15.  Democrats all said Yeah. Republicans were split. I think it's good news for us Democrats if the Republicans are split a lot...just because it means some of them are willing to step outside the party and help us get things passed.  

The same players who heavily pushed the of election fraud narrative and/or fawn over Trump are some of the ones who voted against Yellen: Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Josh Hawley, Rand Paul.....

I'm glad to see that Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell are being more cooperative. 

On Duolingo, I've finished with the French lesson "Emergency" and shall be moving onto "Dream Trip".

I'm still listening to the recording of Trump and Raffensperger; though Washington Post reloaded or something, and started me back at the beginning. I'm trying to find my place. The last time I posted I was at 37 minutes. So I think I'm a few minutes past that.  

I'm still working on revising my The Dead are Online (version A) Screenplay and still reading about the McGinley's 2014 trip to Peru. 

In part of my morning YouTube adventures, I watched this The Daily Show video pointing out the hypocrisy of Fox News—complaints about the mainstream media being too gentle with Biden intercut with Fox News pundits kissing Trump's ass.  

In other YouTube news, yesterday or the day before I watched The Take's video about gaslighting. I liked how they defined gaslighting and how they showed examples in film and television...ESPECIALLY because they actually mentioned Coronation Street! That was very exciting to me. They don't often mention non-American shows.  

The term gaslighting is thrown around so much these days. I think it's become if you don't like someone's opinion or the way they've treated you, you accuse them of gaslighting.

I personally feel it should have a more narrow definition and I go along with what The Take says. It's a type of behavior/abuse that leads the victim to question their reality and/or mental health. Or I should say it ATTEMPTS to lead the victim.....

Gaslighting doesn't always work.  

I was going to say that the more people are aware of gaslighting, the less it will work...the less it will hurt people. I used to think that. But now I think the gaslighters know the term, and they're going to use it against their victims.

So someone might say to their parent, I was traumatized by you cooking my pet rabbit for dinner and then gaslighting me about it when I brought it up later. Then the parent is likely going to say. I never killed your pet rabbit. What the hell are you talking about? You're just making things up! You're gaslighting ME and trying to make me imagine I was a bad parent. How dare you!

I don't want to end on that note, so I'll say a bit about food.

My new thing is eating oatmeal with milk and cinnamon. No added sugar. And I'm into green tea.

It sounds like I'm a healthy person. But trust me. I'm not. I love junk food and sugar. I eat too much of it. But I'm weird. With certain things, I don't like them sweetened. I prefer oatmeal unsweetened. With the cinnamon and sugar in the milk, it's sweet enough. And I also don't like sugar in my tea. 

But see...I will sit there and eat sugar cubes plan...just stick them in my mouth.

Another weird thing is Tim recently bought pumpernickel bread. I love pumpernickel bread. I also love bread with butter. But I've come to realize, I do NOT like butter on pumpernickel bread. I like it completely dry.

  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Spoiler: Okay, so in all three of the shows, Broadchurch, Fortitude, and Dark...the father of the dead, missing, or injured child is having an affair.  In both Broadchurch and Fortitude, the dad is doing adultery things the night the bad things happen to the child. In Dark, I can't remember if that's the case.  From what I can remember, most of the town's adults were at a party. I don't think there was any sex happening with the Dad, but I think there was some secret flirting.  

Sunday Update

I've been struggling with this blog lately...well, even more so than usual.

Of course, I've considered quitting again. But I've tried that and failed way too many times. Also, dead blogs kind of depress me. I mean I don't like finding other people's blogs out there that have died. So I guess I also don't want the same thing happening to mine. 

What happens often lately is I start writing a post. I spend too much time on it; then I get frustrated and delete it. I end up feeling like I've wasted a chunk of my day.

So...anyway I've decided to try doing basic update posts where I, at the minimum, list what I'm reading, watching, working on, etc.  If something inspires me to ramble a bit, I'll do that. But I won't feel obligated to. OR I should say I'll TRY not to feel obligated to.  

I'll also try not to feel obligated to shut up if my rambling goes on too long...feeling that whoever reading this can skip past those paragraphs if they're bored.

Anyway. I should start.

I'm watching Coronation Street....like always. My favorite couple on that show lately is Shona (Julia Goulding) and David (Jack P. Shepherd).

I just finally noticed that name Jack Shepherd. What kind of Lost fan am I?  Although it's spelled differently. Maybe that will be my excuse for not noticing.

Shona is brain-injured and her personality changed. I was missing the old Shona, but now I'm quite liking the new version.

Also on Corrie, there was this storyline where Tim's (Joe Duttine) long-lost mom Elaine (Paula Wilcox) gives him all the toys she had tried to send him through the years. His abusive father (Ian Bartholomew) kept returning the toys. Elaine held onto them and then gave them to Tim this Christmas. He then stupidly agreed to letting a neighbor (Maureen Lipman) sell the toys. His wife (Sally Dynevor) made him realize how awful a mistake that was, and he and his friends worked on getting the toys back.

That storyline stressed me out. It was very suspenseful. Fortunately...it seems things have worked out in that department.

My two other (solo-watching) current shows are season three of The Fosters and the first season of Shameless.  I had a hard time deciding whether to watch the British or American version of Shameless. I love watching British shows, but from when I can see online, it seems the American one is more-liked. 

Tim and I are watching the first season of Broadchurch. I'm not loving it. It's dark and depressing, but I feel if we quit, I'll be left hanging...and the show will haunt me.  

Still...I don't enjoy seeing the 13th Doctor in severe emotional grief-agony and the 10th Doctor being all grouchy. I can't imagine things are going to get better for 13, but maybe there's hope for 10. Although I think he might be dying...so maybe not.

I have a feeling that the whole point of Broadchurch is to be utterly depressing.  

On my virtual bookshelf: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. I love this book so much, and unfortunately I'm almost finished with it.

The book is about a Canadian woman who finds the diary of a Japanese girl.  The Japanese girl wrote the diary sort of as a letter to the person she hoped would find it. It's that feeling of writing to a hoped for audience. 

As a blogger without many readers, I could really relate. It's that idea of reaching out with our writing and hoping that someone out there will eventually find us and care enough to read.  

Speaking of blogs for the last several months, I've been reading the travelogues in Jeff's Dog Food For Chairs blog. 

Lately, I've been reading about his family's 2014 trip to Peru. His post about having stomach problems during Water Fountain Adventure Day is pretty much as stressful as the Tim's lost-toy storyline on Coronation Street.

Also open on my browser....

Duolingo. I've been working on French for the last several years. Then also, Jack gave me the idea of going through and doing each language up to the first checkpoint. So right now, I'm on Turkish.

As for French, I'm currently on the Emergency lesson. No. It's not an urgent lesson. It's about emergency things like car accidents, a strange man on the street, and robbers. Oh, also there's a big spider in the shower.  

I'm slowly listening to the recording of Trump pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to give him 11,780 votes. I promised myself I would listen to the whole thing...but only a minute at a time. I did that so it wouldn't seem like such a huge stressful, assignment. The problem is, now I'm kind of wanting to just move on from Trump. But I feel obligated to finish listening.  

At this point, I'm at 37 minutes.

I have my screenplay The Dead are Online (Version A) opened for more proofreading and revising. I've already entered it into a few screenwriting contests, so hopefully I won't be finding any horrible mistakes. But...I feel I should keep working on it, so it's in even better shape for future screenwriting contests.

I took my novel The Dead are Online which has a LOT of characters and split everyone up into three different pilot screenplays.  

The problem is, after breaking them all up, it started to look impossible to put them back together again...which I'm hoping to do for a miniseries screenplay.

The main problem is I added these scenes with people becoming possessed in order to make the pilots more exciting. But put together, there would be too many possession moments. It would be major overkill. Just take them out, you say? Well, the problem there is, I love all the possessed scenes. It's going to be hard to say good-bye. Although I'll just remind myself that they live on in the pilot screenplays. 

What else....

I have a voting tracking website open on my browser to keep track of votes in the Senate and House. 

I've been keeping stuff open on my browser, because I bookmark too often and then forget to look at the bookmarks.

BUT...I do have some bookmarks I manage to keep track of on a daily basis.

I'm still looking at Covid stats for Tarrant and Denton county in Texas. And I'm now also looking at vaccine data for Texas. 

Well, that's about it for now. I'll update again soon. I'm thinking of doing this 3 or 4 days a week.  But we shall see what happens.  

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-beloved to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts 

Morning and Night

Most mornings I wake up feeling eager, excited, and hopeful.

Most nights, I end up feeling somewhat scared, worried, and hopeless.  

I'm not a big fan of the night.

It's weird, because one of my favorite things about myself is my dreams.  And I'm pretty sure that not only do my dreams happen at night, but I think most of them take place in a night-time setting.

So...what's up with that?

Sometimes I don't understand me. 

Back to Doctor Who

My family was really into Doctor Who in 2014...maybe in 2015 as well?

I'm not very good at sustained fandom. I love something whole-heartedly. Then I move onto the next thing and lose the love for the old thing.

I really took the 11th Doctor's speech to heart when he said, We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good you've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.  

But I adjusted it in my head to say something like, You've got to keep moving to new fandoms as long as you sometimes remember the old fandoms.  

Anyway. So...Yeah. I lost the Doctor Who love.  

A few months ago, Tim saw it was on the HBOMAX app, and we started talking about watching it. We were both interested in watching the first female doctor, but I couldn't decide if it was okay to start back into it with her episodes or whether we needed to watch the 12th Doctor episodes we had missed. (I had seen one season but Tim had missed all of them).

I guess the dilemma was just too strong, and since I wasn't feeling the Doctor Who love anymore, we kept choosing other shows instead.

Then one day we were going to start watching the Mandalorian, but suddenly I wanted to watch Doctor Who and suggested that.

I was just  thinking it was a random, mysterious desire. BUT no. I think I know what it was. We had finished watching The Flight Attendant with Michelle Gomez. I really liked her in that, and I think I had hoped she would still be playing Missy on Doctor Who.  We were also planning to soon watch her in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. See? I really wasn't ready to let her go.

It turns out there was no more Gomez in Doctor Who. The Master regenerated into Sacha Dhawan. But that's cool. I liked him.

BUT....not as much as I liked the 13th Doctor.

Jodi Whittaker has now replaced all my Michelle Gomez love...and all the old faded, lingering love I had for David Tennant and Matt Smith. 

Although it took me awhile to get there.

Well, actually it was just two episodes.

We watched the Christmas episode first; the one with Peter Capaldi. I felt like my past 2014 self was a stranger. I couldn't understand how that me liked a show like this. 

I had the same dislike/disinterest when we watched the first 13th Doctor episode.  

With "The Ghost Monument", I was still feeling kind of blah about the whole thing...but I guess I was warming up a little.

Then by the end of  "Rosa", I was back in love....and even more so with the spider episode. 

Well, no...I don't mean I had more love for the spider episode than the Rosa Parks episode. That would be a bit messed up.

I just mean the more and more I watched, the more the old fandom love grew.

I ended up sad a couple of weeks later when we had only one episode left.

And when we sat down to watch it, we realized we didn't even have that episode. The last episode hasn't been added to HBOMAX yet.  So I feel like I didn't even have a chance to say good-bye. 

What's horrible is I mourned Doctor Who through the third season of Cobra Kai!  I've been eagerly waiting for Cobra Kai, and it ended up being a rebound show. That kind of sucked.  

The way I am...you'd think by the time we got to the end of Coba Kai, I'd be like Doctor Who...Who?  And I'd instead be all into William Zabka...or something like that.

I did like the third season of Coba Kai...a lot.  But my heart was still with Doctor Who.

So much so....that I suggested to Tim that we next watch Broadchurch.

Broadchurch is like a really depressing spin-off of Doctor Who.

The child of the 13th Doctor is murdered and the 10th Doctor plus the second regeneration of the Queen of England are trying to solve the crime. And Rory is a minister in the town!

It's a good show, but I'm not sure it was the best thing to fill the Doctor Who hole in my heart. It's kind of horrible seeing the 13th Doctor going through the worst thing any human can go through. 

Eventually, there will be more episodes of Doctor Who, and we can watch that.

But by that time, I probably won't care enough to want to. I'll probably keep choosing to watch other things instead. Then when we finally do watch it, I'll probably wonder why I had ever liked it. And then I'll like it again. And then I'll love it again.  

After all that, I'll next have to go through the stages of I don't want a new Doctor. I'm not going to like this Doctor. Okay. I kind of like this Doctor. I love this Doctor.....

And so on and so forth.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

 

 

Three Categories of Work

This morning I was thinking about work and divided it into three categories.  Like I've said before, I really like putting things into categories.

So...anyway.

My three categories of work are Society-work, Family-work, and Self-work.

Society work would be any type of work paid or volunteer that benefits society in some way. It could have a big benefit to society such as helping to feed the homeless or a smaller benefit such as helping to facilitate the entertaining of children and adults by taking payments for laser tag.  

I think a lot of society work, unfortunately, has negative effects on society as well as benefits. For example, one might work at a clothing store that brings joy and fashion to young people. But the clothing is made from slave labor and the factory releases toxins in the water, air...whatever.

I'm guessing there are very few (paid) society-jobs that don't have some kind of toll on society. 

Family work is anything that is done to help the family. It could be paying bills, doing laundry, vacuuming, going food shopping, cooking, gardening, fixing the toilets, changing diapers, feeding pets, etc.

My feeling is that if your pets are rescue pets then taking care of them would also be included as society work. You're doing volunteer work at home to help with issues such as cat/dog overpopulation, abandoned and abused animals, etc. 

I wouldn't apply the same reasoning to pets bought from breeders or pet stores, but it would still count as family work.  

Self-work would be anything we do personally for ourselves to better ourselves. This would include things like meditating, exercising, learning a new language, journaling, learning circus acrobats, etc.

Sometimes the self-work may lead to family work or society work. For example, one might end up joining a circus which would benefit society by providing entertainment. And if paid, the money would benefit the family.

Oh yeah! That's something I've been meaning to mention.  Paid society work would also count as family work if the money earned goes to helping the family.  

I think sometimes people may overreach when it comes to seeing certain self-work as benefiting the family. For example, they may say their two hours at the gym each morning keeps them in good health, so they are around to watch their children grow up.  

Yeah. I'm not going to buy that. Sure, in a way, what we do for ourselves indirectly helps others. But I think we should be able to do things for ourselves for the sole purpose of doing things for ourselves. Too often I see mothers pushed to do self-care, because their children need happy mothers. Well, what about the mother's needs?

Can't a mom go to lunch with friends, because it would be fun for HER and not because it's important for her child to see her having fun?  

And here's another concept that's probably going to sound a bit crazy. I was rambling about it to Tim one day, and I think I confused him as well as myself.

My idea is that consumption counts as society-work. An example would be this blog. I am doing a minimal amount of work for society  I may be providing some sort of entertainment to a few people out there who end up reading this post.  But anyone who is reading this is doing work to benefit me. And I'm part of society. My blog would not exist without me, but it would be pretty meaningless without readers. I mean I really don't like blogging publicly with the idea that no one is reading.

What would TV shows be without watchers?

What would books be without readers?

What would restaurants be without eaters?  

What would Disney World be without tourists?  

What would a retail shop be without buyers?  

It can get a bit overly weird, though...if you think this way. Because then you can end up thinking, Wait...so if I get cancer, am I working for society by providing a patient to an oncology practice?  

BUT...if we think about it, medical and psychological professionals are kind of depending on bad things happening to us.  The same goes for police and lawyers.

Now I'm feeling somewhat conflicted for what I said about the guy going to the gym for two hours. I won't give him family-work credit, but I'm willing to give him society-credit for providing a customer for the gym?  

Well...no. I'm going to stick with my denying him family-work credit. But I AM thinking that most self-work probably could also be counted as society-work....in terms of consumption.    

I'll also add this.  I think the value of consumption-society work is dependent on the popularity of the product and content.  Or maybe not the value but the appreciation. I'm going to be more appreciative of one person reading this blog than Stephen King is going to be for one reader reading one of his novels.

Stephen King has enough readers and enough money.  I would say his book is providing more benefit to the reader than the one reader is benefitting Stephen King.  

With my blog, I feel the few readers are giving more to me than I'm giving to them. 

And....

There's a difference between eating at a new local restaurant that doesn't have a lot of reviews on Yelp yet vs eating at the most popular restaurant in town.

One more thing. I think there are also levels of consumption in terms of passive vs. active. One can be a passive Disney tourist. You pay your money, visit, have a good time, and leave. Or you could be an active one—writing blog posts, posting photos on social media, starting your own Disney World website, etc.  By being an active consumer of Disney World, you might be doing work for Disney...helping to bring them more customers. AND you may be helping to entertain people who are interested in Disney stuff. 

Maybe what I'm trying to do with this post is brainwash people into accepting the idea of a universal basic income. Because I think some folks shy away from it by imagining the government will pay people to sit around and do nothing.  But....if you think about it my way, then all people getting the basic income will be working through-out the day.  

My Prediction About Biden's Inauguration

Here is my prediction about Biden's inauguration.

Team Trump will obsess about crowd size. They will compare Trump's inauguration size with Biden's, trying to completely ignore the Covid 19 pandemic AND the needed security due to the domestic terrorist attack on January 6 and threats of future attacks.  

Wait.

It gets worse.

Some members of Team Trump will say that the threat to national security was exaggerated for the purpose of hiding the fact that no one likes Biden enough to come to his inauguration.

Some might even go as far to say that the whole thing was organized by Antifa with two goals A) the Impeachment of Trump B) Giving the left an excuse for the small crowds.  

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-beloved to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts 

The Different Ways Trumplicans Might be Responding to January 6

This is my list of the various ways that Trumplicans might be responding to January 6, 2021. 

Note: By Trumplicans, I mean any person who adored, supported, accepted, or tolerated Trump.

Another Note: Some of these responses I've seen. Others I imagine might be happening.

1. They are horrified by what has happened. They strongly regret being a Trumplican. They are apologetic and remorseful and want to use any power, they have, to right the wrongs that have occurred. They are very retrospective and are looking back and realizing that this was years in the making. They want to hit themselves for not acting or speaking out sooner.

2. They are inspired by what has happened. They see the people who broke into the Capitol as freedom fighters. They plan to join the war and take back the country that belongs to them.

3. They think what happened was awful, but they talk about how the Democrats started it back in 2000 and 2016 when they protested against the election results. You can try to point out the vast differences in the situations, but they're not interested in hearing it. 

4. They think what happened was awful but it's not as bad as what Black Lives Matter "thugs" did to their country over the summer. Oh and of course, they're not going to want to hear ANYTHING about the differences in the police response to the two situations.  

5. They think what happened was very bad, but it has nothing to do with Trump. Most of the protesters were peaceful. There were just a few bad actors. It's not Trump's fault. 

6. They believe what happened was bad, but it wasn't Trump supporters who did that. No way! Trump supporters are very peaceful people.  All those bad people were Antifa dressed up as Trump supporters.  Antifa is the real evil.  Antifa! Antifa! ANTIFA!!!!!!!!  

7. They believe what happened in the capitol was a travesty, and yes. okay. They will admit Trump is to blame for some of it. But was he a bad president? No way!  He was a good president and a good man. But the relentless witch hunt of the far left socialist radicals and the crooked, biased fake news drove Trump mad.  Oh...and it's also the fault of all those mean, annoying, shrill people with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  

8. They resort to gaslighting. What do you mean they supported Trump? They never did! They were against him from the very beginning! In fact, they were stronger critics than you. When you show them past texts, Tweets, or bring up past conversations, they ignore you and continue to DARVO. How dare you insult them with these accusations! 

9. They don't claim to have been against Trump, but they use DARVO to divert the conversation.  It's like yeah, what those guys did to the capitol is shitty. And Trump shouldn't have said what he said. But the real crime here is you guys attacking me for my opinions.  How dare you!!!!!

10. They are mildly outraged by what happened on January 6, but they save their strong outrage for the corrupt social media companies that have banned Trump. 

11. They react with silence. They say as little as possible about what happened. They change the subject quickly if the topic comes up. Though if pressed, they will resort to any of the above (but probably not #1)  

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-beloved to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts 

Getting off the Trump Trains

I'm going to say there are two Trump trains.

The first train is full of Trump adoration.  Some of it's riders see Trump as a hilarious superstar. They've been fans of him since The Apprentice...or maybe even before that. It's wonderful to them that "their guy" got himself all the way up to the White House. 

Other riders see Trump as some sort of Messiah. He is the one ordained by the mysterious Q. Trump is going to save the real Americans from socialists, globalists, Democrats, and Hollywood elitists. He's going to rescue the real American children from the blood-drinking habits of Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey. 

Some riders don't believe in all this Q nonsense. They're not into conspiracies. But still. They worry about the Clintons and Hunter's laptop. And they worry about all those children being kidnapped by sexual predators. No, no. Again. They don't believe in that QAnon stuff. But they're seeing stuff on social media with the hashtag SavetheChildren, and it breaks their heart.

The riders on this train love that Trump is brave enough to stand up against mask mandates, political correctness, lockdowns, Black Lives Matter protesters, and Antifa. 

Trump is their law and order president. He's going to keep them safe from Black People (AKA thugs) that get too close to white suburban neighborhoods. He's going to make sure to keep as many brown and black immigrants out of America as he possibly can.

The other Trump train is full of people who don't like Trump, but they don't think he's THAT bad. 

One side of the train has conservative riders. They don't like Trump as a person. They see him as obnoxious and embarrassing. They wish he'd stop Tweeting so much. But at the same time, they appreciate what he's doing for our country. They're thankful for what he's done in the Middle East. They're thankful for Operation Warp Speed. They're thankful that he gives brave law enforcement officers the respect they deserve. They're thankful that he's packing the courts with conservative judges. Because that will protect America from being destroyed by liberals. They're thankful that he speaks out so forcefully against the extremely dangerous ANTIFA organization that is trying to destroy our statues and the fabric of our nation.  

On the other side of the train are liberals. They don't like the conservative agenda, period. But really...what's the big deal about Trump? Yeah, he's awful. But how is that any different from any other Republican? THIS is where I sat before the end of September 2016.

Tim was never on the Trump train. During the election campaigning, he obsessively railed against Trump. It seemed like he'd find a way to turn every dinner conversation back to the subject of Trump. I found it pretty annoying. 

Jack was doing government for homeschooling at the time. For one of our activities, we read Trump's campaign website. We looked at his policies. Yeah. We didn't like them. But to us, they really didn't seem worse than any other Republican's. Really, we wondered. What was the big deal?

I got off the Trump train during one of Trump's debates with Clinton—the one where he stalked around her like a predator. The one where he attempted to gaslight the nation by claiming he never said climate change was a concept/hoax invented by Chinese even though there's a Trump Tweet showing otherwise.

I jumped off the secondary Trump train then and never got back on.

In the last four years, many people have jumped off the Trump trains. Many of them have fought passionately to try and get others off the train. They fought to end Trumpism. And sadly, they/we will continue to have to fight. No matter how bad things get, there will still be people who refuse to exit the Trump trains.

Enough people, though, got off the Trump train by last November for Biden to win the election.

81 million people were either never on the Trump train or at some point, they got off in time to vote for Biden.

A horrific 74 million people were still on the Trump train, and they voted for Trump.

After the election, one would suspect that those 74 million would still support Trump.  That's perfectly normal. I mean it's NOT normal to support Trump. I don't condone that in anyway.  But I think it's expected that people will be angry, disappointed, and scared when their presidential candidate loses.

Some Trump supporters felt the pain but accepted reality.

Other Trump supporters.—way too many—clung to Trump's lies regarding the election being stolen from him.

I saw a joke on Twitter that illustrates the whole thing very well.

Two Trump supporters die and go to heaven. They're given the opportunity to ask God one question. So they ask, how did the Democrats manage to rig the election?

God says, They DIDN'T rig the elections.

The Trump supporters reply. Wow. This conspiracy goes even higher up than we thought!

It didn't matter how many courts (even the Supreme Court) shot down Trump's allegations. Trump worshippers refused to believe that Biden was elected as the next POTUS.

Now because of all this craziness, I think there were more people stepping off the Trump trains. They had closed their eyes to Trump's bad behavior in the past, but now they were realizing that it would be best to get off the train.  

As we moved from November to January, I think more and more people stepped off the trains.

Some were still on one of the trains on the morning of January 6. By the afternoon and evening, some people FINALLY stepped off while others continued to cling either fervently or weakly to one of the Trump trains.  

In my opinion, January 6 was too late for people to step off the train without retribution. It's too late to just brush the dust off, shrug one's shoulders, and move on. There needs to be apologies. There needs to be expressions of sincere regret. There needs to be attempts at amends. 

For me, here are the NOT acceptable ways to step off the train on or after January 6. 

1. By condemning Trump and his terrorists but push the idea that the Black Lives Matter protests were worse.  If it doesn't matter to you that one protest was against systemic racism going back over two hundred years, including deadly police brutality, and the other protest was against democracy....you are really NOT off the Trump train.

2. By equating the 2020-2021 assault on democracy to disgruntled voters of 2000 and 2016. I won't deny that the level of disgruntledness were equal. But the past upsets did not include a President refusing to  to concede.

They did not include a president spouting election lies over and over and over on social media platforms.  

They did not include a lawyer associated with the President suggesting that the Vice-President be executed. 

They did not include a President calling up a state and spending an hour pressuring politicians from his own party to change the vote.  

They did not include a President encouraging/PUSHING people to go and protest.

They did not include a President pressuring his Vice-President to refuse the results of the election.  

3. By stepping off the train with the attitude that Trump was a beautiful President. You think he did a swell job. But now he's suddenly suffering some kind of breakdown.  His legacy has been unfortunately stained. Ruined. You're going to blow him a kiss, wish him a lovely recovery, and step off that train.  

No, no, and no.

I don't accept any of those Trump train departures.

At this juncture, the only departure I will accept sounds something like this.

I was very wrong about Trump.  I now finally realize this. I am sorry I took so long to see the hurt and pain he has caused, the damage he has done to our country and the world.  Please tell me what I can do to help fix things.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

What if the Vaccines Don't Work?

Vaccines usually save lives.

That's how it's always been...as far back as I know.

But what if it's different this time?

What if the B-cell receptors and T-cell receptors refuse to do what's expected of them?

What if they refuse to push Rona out? What if they say, the vaccine is fake news. It's a fraud. We're letting Rona stay!

What if some of our cells aren't personally very fond of Rona. But they, themselves, have future aspirations of causing disease in our body, and they feel they're going to need Rona's support to do that?  

What if some of these cells do everything in their power to keep Rona inside of us and active?

Even if we have some white blood cells and other cells that want what's best for us...can we still survive? Can we still be active and healthy?

Or will we die?  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online