Sunday Update

Happy Valentine's Day!

It is very cold and snowy here in Texas.

I ended up watching a lot of the last two days of impeachment. I was glued to the TV some of the time...which, for me, translates to-when is this going to get less riveting?  Because I really have to pee. 

My wish came true. More than six Republican Senators voted guilty.  These brave men and women are GOP rather than GQP.  They are deserving of the elephant mascot. 

I know some people are unhappy that witnesses weren't called. I'm not one of those people.  I think enough evidence and persuasion was presented. And all of that was hardly even needed since the members of the jury were actually VICTIMS of the event.  

No matter how many witnesses were brought forth, no matter how much evidence...even if Donald Trump got on the stand and said Yes! I wanted them to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi! I lied about the election, so I could stay in power. If you acquit, I'm going to run again, and the first thing I will do as President is start a nuclear war,  the Republicans would still vote not guilty.  

So anyway...some other random thoughts about the impeachment:

1. I loved Joe Neguse's speech. He tried so hard to appeal to the Republican Senators' better natures. Even though I had very strong doubts that there'd be more than a small handful of brave Republican Senators, I hoped to be wrong, and a teeny tiny part of me believed that I might be. Neguse failed to reach the Republicans' better nature, but he did succeed somewhat in reaching mine. He made me let go of some of my pessimism about whether bad people can change and become one of the good guys.  

2. I loved Raskin's speeches. Though Tim and I joked about his overuse of the fire analogy.  

3. Tim and I also joked that Bruce Castor and Michael van de Veen are the same person.  Tim confused the two, and I corrected him. But I admitted  that the only reason I knew van de Veen was a different lawyer is that I noticed his name posted on CNN.  And when I had seen van de Veen instead of Castor, I had been really confused. I kind of thought CNN had made a mistake and put the wrong name up. 

Our theory is that it's one guy playing two parts.  When he's in a friendly, dopey mood he puts on the Castor costume. When he's in an angry, manipulative mood he puts on the van de Veen costume.

4. I liked Chuck Schumer's speech at the end. I forgot what he said, exactly. It was along the lines of that although Trump was not convicted, he will be convicted by the American people. He will be convicted throughout history.   

Yep. 

Trump will be convicted in elementary school social studies books.

He will be convicted in future Broadway musicals.

He will be convicted in movies.

He will be convicted in Emmy nominated miniseries  

He will be convicted in novels and autobiographies.

He will be convicted in college history courses....around the world.

And the same goes for some of the prominent GQP Senators that voted Not Guilty.  

5. The Mitch McConnell speech was incredibly bizarre. I kept waiting for the punchline and wondering...did he say the wrong words when it was time to vote and then not realize he had messed it up?   

And yeah. The punchline came eventually. McConnell had felt compelled to vote not guilty.  Because in order for him to vote guilty, the impeachment trial would have had to begin before January 20.  And who refused to bring the Senate back to do that?  

 

I really hope that Biden and the Democratic Senators and Representatives stop trying to compromise and have unity with people like McConnell.  I hope they fight hard against him.  

It's hard, though. I get that. 

I want to stand strong against selfish, manipulative people who make me jump through hoops. But instead I usually end up going out of my way to try to please them.   

Anyway....

Onto Coronation Street...

 So, Abi (Sally Carman) and Ray (Mark Frost) meet for a secret meeting behind the Rovers.  

Credit goes to Abi for refusing to meet in an even more secluded location.  

At the Rovers, Ray acts like he's open to giving into Abi's blackmail demands. They argue over whether Abi should delete the incriminating video first or if Ray should turn himself into the police first.  Then Abi starts getting woozy. Oh no! 

So Abi was smart enough to not meet in a super secluded location but not smart enough to be weary of her drink.  

The episode ends with her collapsing while struggling to do something with her phone.

Not only did it seem like Abi's noble plan was foiled but also since Abi is a former junkie, it would be assumed she's gone back to the drugs again.  

But then....

In the next episode, it turns out that Abi managed to to send out the incriminating video to ALL of her contacts.  

The feelings I got from that development is like the opposite to the feeling you get when the car stopped for Chunk in The Goonies.   

I have Goonies on my mind, because last night Tim watched the trailer for Finding Ohana. I looked at IMDb and saw Ke Huy Quan is one of the stars. And...the movie is a reimagining of Goonies. We're going to watch that tonight.

We're done with Broadchurch. I'm a little sad to be saying goodbye...wish there'd be more seasons. But on the other hand, I'm kind of glad to be getting out of that town.  Murder. Rape. And that scary suicide cliff.....

I finally finished listening to the Imagineering Podcast about family memories and have just begun listening to his podcast about The Carousel of Progress. I'm excited...and excited to listen to others. Though with the rate I'm going, it might take decades for me to go through with them all.

Back to Abi and her miracle.  How does one manage to send something to everyone in their contacts. I think I've seen that before in TV shows. Actually...the first example that came to my mind was Coronation Street. At a teen party, a sexting video was quickly sent to everyone at the party.  Is there a button on UK phones that allows you to send to everyone at a party?

Well...now that I think of it, there is that drop file thing. 

But that wasn't the case with Abi. She sent it to people who weren't in her vicinity.  

Is there an option on phones where you can send a video or photo to everyone on your contacts with a quick push of one button?

Last night I started editing my fourth TV pilot screenplay...the one about dreams. I was feeling really happy and excited about it.  It might have just been my mood. Who knows if I'll like it today.

Anyway, I started thinking maybe I should, for now on, send only that one out to contests.

What I told myself before is that I'm going to stand strong and not give up on screenwriting if I don't place anywhere in the contests. But I planned on giving up (at least temporarily) on those specific pilot screenplays.  What I wonder, though is if I'll end up questioning things....I might imagine well, maybe I sent out all the wrong pilots to the wrong contests.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining things right.

I'm just wondering if it's best to put most of my eggs in one screenwriting basket. Then if that one fails all the contests, I can still have my other pilots for next year's contests.  

On the other hand, what if I'm totally wrong, and it's the other pilots that are more likely to win?

What I've done with most of the contests I've entered so far is use Random.org to decide which screenplay to enter.   

I'm thinking of alternating...definitely enter the dream pilot in the next contest; then with the contest after that, use Random.org.  Random.org might choose the dream screenplay again...or not.  

And then...repeat.

I'm not sure how many contests I will enter.

I'm kind of plunging in this year.  Investing and gambling on myself.

If I lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, etc....But I still have the courage to get back up again, if I do more contests, I'll probably be a lot more conservative regarding how many contests I enter.  

One thing for sure is I have to get better at keeping notes about what and where I've entered. 

I wanted to be really careful about keeping track of things.  Yet in the center of my notes is The Dead are Online Version A...and there is no contest attached.  I don't know if I wrote that accidentally or if I entered a mystery contest.  

Well, it wasn't a mystery when I entered (if I entered),

But now it is.  

I have this idea in my head...because I'm disturbed in some ways... that if it's in my destiny to win any contests, it will be as a dead person.  Like it will be my luck to finally have a major writing success, but I will have died from Covid. 

I'm very morbid.

I have more to say about Broadchurch. Regarding the certain character who was stalking another character. He had been secretly in love with her for years, and thousands of photos of her were found on his phone.  Yes, that's disturbing, but I also thought it was nice. If someone doesn't demand anything in return and doesn't seek to cause harm, is that type of stalking really that awful?

Or maybe it doesn't have to be labeled stalking. Maybe we can just call it extreme unrequited love.  

I don't know, though.  Benign extreme unrequited love might be rare. Maybe in most cases, the obsession turns to demands and dangerous actions.   

It would also depend on the nature of the photographs. If you're out in public with the person and happen to get more photos than they're noticing...that's one thing. But if you're hiding behind bushes or spying on them from the windows, that's creepy and invasive.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Wednesday Update

We're now halfway through season 3 of Broadchurch. I like it MUCH more than season 2. 

There was one episode of season 2 where I started to believe I was liking season 2, but that soon fizzled.

I liked season 3 from the start.

I vaguely recognized Sarah Parish who plays the best friend of Trish (Julie Hesmondhalgh). I IMDB'd her last night and was reminded that she's from Blackpool!

I was kind of obsessed with Blackpool a few years ago.  And it's kind of what brought me to Doctor Who.

From what I can remember, this is what happened. My interest in Doctor Who was first sparked a bit by a commenter on my blog. He was a fan, and I have a love for people who are passionate about a specific things. I guess, in a way, I'm a fangirl of fanboys/fangirls. 

And when it comes to popular culture, I think I often have this desire to at least try to join the fandom. 

I found two Doctor Who books at a used book thing...maybe at a New York flea market?

I read them and wasn't really impressed. Well...it didn't seem like the type of thing I could love. 

Sometime later, I was into The Walking Dead. David Morrissey led me to watching Blackpool videos on YouTube. In the comments, there was a lot of enthusiasm for David Tennant, and I think that intrigued me. Plus...maybe around the same time, Jack began talking about watching it? 

Last night I rewatched one of my favorite Blackpool videos. 

One of my favorite actors on Blackpool was Georgina Taylor from Coronation Street.

Later I'd end up watching Coronation Street. Georgina Taylor was no longer on the show but eventually she came back, and she plays one of my favorite characters.  

Speaking of Coronation Street and Doctor Who. In an episode of Coronation Street that I watched recently, two the current villains mentioned the Doctor and the TARDIS. That was fun.

Onto other things....

I'm rewarming up to The Fosters.  So much so that...when it was my self-designated time to take a break from the show and watch an episode of Lucifer, I was less excited about Lucifer than I had anticipated. I was eager to get back to The Fosters.  

The Fosters does have a lot of angst, though. And that's fine. But I think it could use a bit more comic relief.  

It's like the characters on Coronation Street have a TON of problems. I mean that street is full of disaster. But they still manage to have a lot of comedy on the show...and the same for Shameless.

I think the character that brings the most lightness The Fosters is Mariana (Cierra Ramirez). She doesn't have less problems than the other kids. But she has more of a spark. Most of the other characters seem pretty melancholy and/or angry most of the time.  

In my book news, I'm reading Leah Remini's Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.  I'm liking that a lot and feeling that I've not hated enough on Scientology.

I've always been anti-Scientology...enough so that I become somewhat repulsed by actors when I find out they're Scientologists.  

I understood that Scientology is a manipulative cult that drives people away from their money, common sense, family, and friends.

And I heard of stories of abuse. But I often took the stance of....Well, all religions have abusers in their ranks. 

With what Remini describes, though....It's like the child abuse she experienced is baked into the actual Scientology program...rather than just being an outlier kind of thing. 

As a young teen, her family moves to a Scientology hotel or motel in Florida. Remini is made to do housekeeping work for very low wages. That's bad. But worse is that there's a daycare for the babies of overworked parents. And the babies are pretty much neglected. Remini describes babies soaked in their own urine.

Then again...maybe other Scientology centers/churches are less abusive?  Maybe I'm wrong to assume that each Scientology teen's experience matches Remini's. Maybe it would be like assuming that since a lot of kids are molested by priests, ALL Catholic kids are molested by priests.

I've been following the Impeachment trial to some extent. We were actually all watching Avengers: Endgame yesterday afternoon instead of the impeachment.  Though I found the movie enjoyable and interesting, my heart wasn't into it enough to not-multitask. So I was on Twitter and seeing very entertaining Tweets about Trump's lawyers.  I made a comment to Tim and Jack about how we should be watching the Impeachment.  Jack decided he wanted to take a break from the movie anyway.  I turned on the trial...and still stayed on Twitter, because Twitter was more entertaining than the actual trial.

I don't think I've seen such a stream of funny Tweets since the finale of True Blood.

Eventually, I gave up watching and just watched Impeachment comments and clips from Aaron Rupar

Rupar is very good at providing video highlights of various political events.

This morning I read articles and editorials  about the impeachment via The Washington Post.  Later I decided I should at least put some time into watching the actual live event. As luck had it, I tuned in right as Eric Swalwell began his speech. I watched the whole thing, because I like Swalwell.  I'm very glad he talked about how it's not just about a few random Trump Tweets encouraging people to fight and be wild. It's about months and months and Tweets upon Tweets of Trump pushing his supporters to believe the election was stolen from them.

Trump pushed the idea of the election being stolen from him before the election even began.

In other news....

I did a virtual doctor's (well Physician assistant) visit. It felt futuristic in a Horizon's kind of way.

It was also frustrating. They couldn't do it on the laptop.  I had to use my phone which hurt my vanity. I'm very ugly in phone images.

On top of that major problem, it was hard for me to show the PA what I needed her to see. Especially when she asked me to press down on my fingers. I don't think she realized I was holding my phone with my other hand.  

I did manage to prop up my phone...with some mild struggling. The nearest thing for propping was a metal fruit basket and it didn't provide the best propping.  

So what has happened is that my very dried and chapped hands evolved into swollen fingers. I had that for a few weeks. A few times, I considered making a doctor's appointment and then I'd unconsider it.

Then.... I realized the red spots appearing on my fingers didn't blanch. I've always heard that this could be a sign of major disaster, so I decided I should probably get that checked out.

The PA didn't seem too concerned about the lack of blanching. And she compared it to my past major rash which DID blanch.  I'm not sure if she didn't hear me about the not-blanching...or didn't understand.

She prescribed me antibiotics, Prednisone, and steroid cream.

I did lots of Googling and saw somewhere that this could be a valid treatment for non-blanching rash bits.  So maybe she did understand me.

I'm weary of being on the Prednisone during a pandemic. Despite the statistics in my favor, I've been believing that if Covid finds it's way into me, I'm going to die or spends months in the hospital.  Since Prednisone decreases immunity, the situation seems even more dire.  Plus, I read about how even short term Prednisone increases your chance of getting Sepsis, fractures, and DVT's.  

I think maybe I could have done without the Prednisone.  

But I am glad for the antibiotics, because I'm a little scared that I was on the path to blood poisoning.  

I'm big on the whole thing of not over-prescribing antibiotics. But in this case, I'm glad to be taking them.

The combo prescription of antibiotics and steroids kind of reminds me of that episode of House MD where the doctors were struggling to diagnose and treat a woman. They didn't know if her symptoms were caused by autoimmune or infection.  There was a worry that if they gave her steroids then she wouldn't be able to fight the infection if it was an infection issue.  Or something like that. 

I also read how steroids like Prednisone can maybe SAVE people from dying of Covid....if their body overreacts to the virus.  

It's all very confusing.

Anyway...I've decided that after the pandemic, I'm going to take the plunge and start on the path of getting diagnosed with an auto-immune problem OR ruling out an auto-immune problem. For years, I've suspected I have an auto-immune disease. I'm tired of not knowing.   

In blog reading news, I finished reading about the McGinley trip to Peru and now am reading about their 2011 trip to Denver.  I'm running low on McGinley trip reports. I need the pandemic to end, so they can start traveling again.  

In podcast news, I'm very slowly listening to the Imagineer Podcast about his family's memories of Disney. It's great. They talk about the Disney stuff at the World's Fair, favorite parks, favorite rides, memories of Belgian waffles, etc.

One of my favorite parts was where they talk about bringing the Podcaster to Disney for the first time when he was four months old. They took him on It's a Small World and he was so enthralled by the whole thing. His eyes wide and all that. I imagine most babies would be scared, bored, or asleep.  But he was so into it.  I feel like he was born to be a Disney fan.

Or maybe I'm wrong and this is a typical reaction of infants to Disney rides.

I love hearing about families who have an intergenerational love for Disney.  

I plan to listen to more of the podcasts. 

I guess I might be becoming a podcast person.

In my screenwriting news...I'm now working on revising/proofreading The Dead are Online Version C. I made a decision last night while dealing with Prednisone induced insomnia. I had planned to write a The Dead are Online version D which would be a mix of version A, B, and C.  I decided I'm going to skip that...and end my loyalty to my novel.  

After I end up my contest-entering spree, I'm going to start slowly working on stuff for versions A, B, C...maybe work on further episodes and begin doing show Bibles. Then if I see any of the versions getting traction in the contests, I'll put extra speed and effort into that particular version.

 I feel good about this decision. And it's not like I necessarily will lose characters, because I have crossover characters.  One character is in all three versions and at least three characters are in two versions.  And that's just in the pilot episode. With version A and B, there will be a lot of crossover in later episodes...if I go by what's in the novel.  Version C is much more standalone.  But I can always bring in A and B characters somehow...somewhere. For some reason.  

I also have my pilot screenplay about dreams that I'm excited about.

And I shall have to eventually take a look at my Covid-therapy screenplays I wrote.

I sometimes get ideas for new screenplays but they never take off.

I had one about a dystopian that really wasn't a dystopian. It was a dystopia in the eyes of white supremacists.  It was going to be about how us left wing people got our way, and we're living our happy left-winged fantasy life while white supremacists live together in three star hotels teaching the children about how bad things are outside.

There's one half Black woman living in the hotel who's been brainwashed to believe that she shouldn't leave the community; the message told to her being that out there they despise and discriminate against anyone with white blood.

And the reason why I haven't gone far with the screenplay is that this woman is really the only character in which I have a real storyline for.   

It was too much of me wanting to world build a left wing paradise...and not enough story or character development. But maybe someday that will change.  

I had another idea that was a supernatural parenting kind of thing, but it might be too similar to Travelers.  Or that's my excuse for not try writing it, because I'm lazy and would rather have more time for Twitter.  

My idea is a mother slowly realizes her child is possessed and has been possessed for a long time.  The catch is that it's not an evil entity that has possessed her child but an innocent lost soul; I think a ghost of a child they encounter at a touristy haunted cafe.  

The possession happens gradually. The spirit takes awhile to completely take over.  But then the mother realizes that the child she knew and loved is gone and locked away in some spirit holding room.  She wants that child back, of course but also has grown to love the other child within her child.

I think I was also influenced by some certain horror movies that I won't name, because it would be too much of a spoiler. But it's the whole thing of a child being replaced but the replacement not being evil.  Although in that movie, it's not a matter of possession.  

I had another screenplay idea yesterday...more slow Indie type. It was based on my own personal experiences and things I've witnessed. A young girl with low self-esteem gets a boost when a teen cousin showers her with adoration and attention at a summer family reunion event. But then when she returns the next summer having lost some of her youthful cuteness, she's discarded and replaced with a younger, cuter cousin.  

I sort of like the idea.  The problem is I couldn't figure out how would it work. Do you cast two actresses to play the girl...so you can get the age difference. Or do you film part of the film when the actress is young and then wait until she goes through puberty to do the rest?  What if it ends up she has delayed puberty and you're waiting for years?

Then again, she doesn't necessarily have to go through puberty. She can just lose some of her youthful cuteness.  

I think the screenplay would also explore where do you draw the line between healthy, safe relationships between children and teens/adults and psychologically abusive/exploitive ones.  

I saw a social media post recently that declared grooming should not be seen as something that LEADS to abuse but something that in itself is abusive.  That stuck in my head.  

There definitely should be room in this world for healthy good relationships between children and older people...teens, adults, elderly folks, etc.  But we should also be aware of how easy it can be to fall into toxic behaviors...either out of ignorance or because of our own psychological issues.  And these toxic behaviors can be especially damaging to children.  Then again, toxic shit can happen between kids of the same age, so.....

I really don't know. But maybe one day I'll write that screenplay and know more. Or...more likely, I'll end up even more lost and confused about the matter.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

  

Monday Update

I'm really liking Shameless...so much so that I kind of regret my practice of watching one season at a time; then waiting for Random.org to pick it again for me.

On the other hand, I'm excited to see what my next show will be.

My favorite episode of Shameless so far has been "It's Time to Kill the Turtle".

In this episode, Frank (William H Macy) the alcoholic, narcissistic, father is told he will get $3000 if he stops drinking for three weeks.

He's a struggling, grumpy mess in the first hour or so of the experiment. But once he discovers the powers of sugar via his daughter's (Emma Kenney's) juice box, his mood picks up, and he becomes sober-super dad. 

He entertains and impresses his kids with his piano talent. He makes pancakes. He takes the kids bowling....

Most importantly, for the first time in the show, he shows interest in being with his children.

The tragedy in the episode is the children knowing that none of it will last.

One thing I wondered while watching the episode is if Frank's narcissism is dependent on his drinking. Without a drinking problem, would he be NOT-a-narcissist?

OR was he still a narcissist while sober but in a less noticeable way?  

The episode reminded me of two of my old blog posts.

Lucifer had inspired me to write God Narcissists and Demon Narcissists, and The Fosters inspired me to write this post. The former was my way of dividing narcissists into those who are adored by many and those who are scorned. The latter was about a character in a similar situation as Frank. She seemed to be a narcissistic heroin addict. Then she gave up the drugs and also seemed to give up the narcissism. 

Oh! I just saw that the post talked about another thing I've been wondering about. (Past me and Present me sometimes REALLY think alike)

Anyway, what I was and am wondering is if narcissism could influence the behavior of the drug addict and/or alcoholic.  

Do alcoholics without narcissism put in more effort to be sober/clean? And even when drunk/high, do they treat their kids better than a narcissistic drug user?  

What I asked in the old The Fosters post is this: I'm also wondering, are all addicts that desperately manipulative?  Are there some addicts who manage to have standards?  Like, I'll steal to get high. But NOT from my own children! If some addicts have lower standards and are more manipulative, could these manipulative traits be there before the addiction began and after they've become sober?  Could it simply take a more subtle and different form? 

As for the god and demon narcissist thing. I would definitely put Frank in the demon category. He's not seen in good light, maybe partly because of the narcissism but more so because of the heavy drinking and irresponsibility with money.  

Did Frank's narcissism disappear when he stopped drinking? And would it permanently go away if he stayed permanently sober? OR would he just become a God narcissist—someone who is self-absorbed, dishonest, and manipulative but hides it behind things like physical attractiveness, wealth, charm, talent, philanthropy, etc.  

Moving on....

I'm starting to like season 2 of Broadchurch. I wasn't too into it with the first two episodes. But with the third episode, I started warming up to the whole thing. And I was even dismayed when the episode ended...longing for more.  

I usually try to not play on my phone while watching shows. I'm bad at multitasking. But I started doing that while we were watching the second episode. I was looking for Broadchurch actors older than me so I could feel less old.  Yeah. I do that sometimes.

I found a few.

But I also found out that Jodie Whittaker and Arthur Darvill (who are dreadfully younger than me) have the exact same birthday. I was so excited about this. I blurted it out to Tim and actually asked him to pause the show, so he could fully hear the news.

Tim listened and then asked if they were born the same year.

I was like...hello? Why else would I see this as being newsworthy?  I mean it would be mildly cool for actors on the same show to have the same birthday. I probably wouldn't have interrupted the show for that, though. I might have just said it quietly to myself not caring if Tim heard or not.

I feel it's kind of a big deal to know someone who was born on the same day as you.

I don't think I ever met anyone who was born the same day as me.

BUT....one of the few things I remember from my late 1970's St. Louis life is that there was a girl in preschool. Her name was Allison, and her birthday was close to mine. I don't think we had the same  exact birthday. But it was a big enough deal to me just to have a friend with a close birthday.  I mean a big enough deal that I still think about it 43 years later.  

I wonder if we were the same age. Were we born days apart? It's possible that she was a 1973 birthday instead of my 1972.  

In screenwriting news, I'm feeling somewhat good about The Dead are Online version B. I had decided to NOT submit that one to contests.  I was unhappy with one of the characters...Anna.  My plan was to save the scenes in version B and use them when/if I wrote a miniseries version.  

I felt somewhat okay with her character in a full length project but felt things about her personality and storyline would be a deterrent to a contest judge liking my screenplay.  

SO I ended up deleting a couple of scenes that might have fixed the problem.

Well...to be less vague. Anna and her fiancee Eugene have a bad relationship. They are awful to each other; maybe more her to him than vice-versa. Then, in the end, they start mending their relationship. But I started to think that maybe Anna was too toxic, and the mending of the relationship wouldn't be seen as a positive thing.  So I took out her more toxic bits.  

I've not been a podcast person, but I was suddenly in the mood to hear the Horizons theme song and ended up finding the Imagineer Podcast, and they have a whole episode about the ride. I listened to it in bits...just like I've been listening to Trump bully Raffensperger in bits. But with the Horizons thing, I listened in larger bits, and I'm already done listening to it.    

I might listen to more episodes. Well...actually I started this one while doing some chores. So I'll probably continue with it.  

One last thing (hopefully).

Eastern Europe is the section of the world I've usually been the least interested in and attracted to. But I watched this video from the Frank James channel, and my interest was sparked when he said Latvia is the best country for introverts.

So this morning, I watched the Latvia episode of Geography Now! and learned about the Singing Revolution. That got my attention. My days of being disinterested in Eastern Europe are probably over (which is good because my great grandparents come from the Soviet Ukraine).

 

 Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

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 

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