Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 147

Officially an old man...

Today I turned 66, in age...have been told I'm ancient, in sprit...and I feel like I'm 27 in imagination. I cannot fathom how I got to this point...but reality is, I'm a brat in an old man's body. And I can live with that, despite current health issues. What's nice is, work was short and easy since it's finally our quiet time...and I sort of need it to recuperate from the last spate of jobs. Another part of your body being past its warranty date.

So I'm cleaning out my shelves of books and DVDs I no longer want or need. Pared 'em down a lot, with some going to the local library and others going up on ebay. But it meant nothing worked on, either with APoS or UG, today. I'm coming up on 2 weeks officially off and will slam headlong into one or the other or both, then. Right now, I'm still sifting the stories through my anarchic brain.

Devlin fits my cold, dark side so perfectly, in UG, while Brendan's circling and flirting with anarchy as a political means to an end in APoS. They may be two sides to the same coin; not sure yet -- Devlin's gay; Brendan's straight. Seems simple on the outside...but nothing ever truly is. And...that's why I write.

Because I need to write. Need it more than anything. I don't make much money from it...hell, not even enough to pay my rent for a month...but I can't stop. When I do, I'll die. I know it. My stories and characters are the blood in my veins. My future is theirs, and theirs is mine. My world only exists insofar as they are in it. So I guess I am courting madness, by most definitions...except when I finish my books and publish them and send them into the world, I don't expect any particular outcome.

I try to get them noticed and do as much publicity as I can, but my only goal is for them to be read by someone and the characters' stories known to others besides myself. And so far that has happened. Not on the scale of Steven King, by any means, but enough to make me happy. I don't think I have it in me to write a best-seller; I wouldn't even know how to begin.

I've read Grisham and Clancy, two authors who hit it big with their first books...both of which were excellent reads...but my work doesn't aim in that direction. And I haven't stuck with one particular genre, like they did. I've got suspense, farce, mystery, action, romantic comedy, fable...and even a cop biography (that's no longer in print under my name). God only knows where I'll go after these two. Gothic horror with Darian's Point?

You never know what you'll do till you do it...

Officially an old man...

Today I turned 66, in age...have been told I'm ancient, in sprit...and I feel like I'm 27 in imagination. I cannot fathom how I got to this point...but reality is, I'm a brat in an old man's body. And I can live with that, despite current health issues. What's nice is, work was short and easy since it's finally our quiet time...and I sort of need it to recuperate from the last spate of jobs. Another part of your body being past its warranty date.

So I'm cleaning out my shelves of books and DVDs I no longer want or need. Pared 'em down a lot, with some going to the local library and others going up on ebay. But it meant nothing worked on, either with APoS or UG, today. I'm coming up on 2 weeks officially off and will slam headlong into one or the other or both, then. Right now, I'm still sifting the stories through my anarchic brain.

Devlin fits my cold, dark side so perfectly, in UG, while Brendan's circling and flirting with anarchy as a political means to an end in APoS. They may be two sides to the same coin; not sure yet -- Devlin's gay; Brendan's straight. Seems simple on the outside...but nothing ever truly is. And...that's why I write.

Because I need to write. Need it more than anything. I don't make much money from it...hell, not even enough to pay my rent for a month...but I can't stop. When I do, I'll die. I know it. My stories and characters are the blood in my veins. My future is theirs, and theirs is mine. My world only exists insofar as they are in it. So I guess I am courting madness, by most definitions...except when I finish my books and publish them and send them into the world, I don't expect any particular outcome.

I try to get them noticed and do as much publicity as I can, but my only goal is for them to be read by someone and the characters' stories known to others besides myself. And so far that has happened. Not on the scale of Steven King, by any means, but enough to make me happy. I don't think I have it in me to write a best-seller; I wouldn't even know how to begin.

I've read Grisham and Clancy, two authors who hit it big with their first books...both of which were excellent reads...but my work doesn't aim in that direction. And I haven't stuck with one particular genre, like they did. I've got suspense, farce, mystery, action, romantic comedy, fable...and even a cop biography (that's no longer in print under my name). God only knows where I'll go after these two. Gothic horror with Darian's Point?

You never know what you'll do till you do it...

The return of Kyle's brain...

Had a visit to the doctor, this morning, to get my knee checked...and I've got water in there. Well, fluid. I've had X-rays taken and I'm seeing an orthopedic surgeon Thursday, next week, to have it checked to make sure and maybe drain it and shoot it up with shit and to have this come to me on the day before I'm officially a Senior Citizen is infuriating. Which is good...

Being pissed helped me get past a block and figure out the structure of an important moment in APoS after Brendan returns. He's under an alias because the British were once looking for him, to interrogate about the bomb at Joanna's father's shop, so he's using a friend's identity to hide behind while visiting his mother on her deathbed.

But...it's not completely believable no one would recognize him unless he told them what he's doing. Then they'd go along, just to spite the Brits and RUC. A few are doing exactly that, adding to his cover, but suspicion is building. Then, after an argument with someone who's accused him of being weak and cowardly for not staying to help with the fight, Brendan is storming back home when he hears someone call him by an old nickname -- "Me China" -- and turns without thinking...and it's Billy, an old Protestant friend who's now a constable with the RUC. Blows his cover, completely.

That's when things snowball into hell, for him.

Getting the first draft of that down relaxed me in ways I cannot begin to explain. I even felt good enough to watch the last two episodes of Season 4 of Shetland. They weren't offered when I watched the first 4 episodes and I complained about it. Britbox insisted they were there, and when I went to look, finally, they were. Don't know why they didn't show when I was bingeing on the show, week before last, but saw them through.

What's interesting is, I'd already figured out some of the subplots in the story, but not who the killer was until I read a synopsis; the information that leads to the killer wasn't given till episode 6. But this time, the mystery was solid and the acting rocked, so I still got caught up in the story.

This was, effectively, a 6 hour movie they shot. Meaning the script must've been a total of 360 pages. I guess that's really a miniseries, for TV...but didn't feel like it. Douglas Henshall as the DCI investigating the murders is a solid, subtle actor...and he was met...hell, almost outclassed...by Mark Bonnar, as an old friend and possible suspect. But Doug still has an edge -- he was in this brilliant adaptation of Anna Karenina back in 1999, as Levin! I kept thinking he looked vaguely familiar...and that was it.

His Levin was perfection.

Dead day...(WARNING--griping ahead)

I didn't get home till 3am, thanks to Southwest Airlines, and had 3 weeks worth of laundry to do along with a major inability to work up a want to do it. Took me 3 hours to talk myself into having clean clothes, in the morning, though I haven't done any ironing. But I can do some in the morning because I'm seeing the doctor at 11. My knee acts as if it's out of joint, and I'm feeling old and weary and in a foul mood so I probably shouldn't be writing on this blog but it's a sort of outlet and putting my feelings into my books is my other outlet but that may be a problem since, once they're in there, I don't want to mess with them so it might be hurting my stories except I don't think it is...

And there's my whine for the day. Now I'm off to have some cheese, albeit with a glass of milk. I did get some work done on UG while doing laundry. I've got a lot of reticent words in Devlin's speech, and he's anything but reticent. He's from Brooklyn; he needs more of a rat-a-tat in your face kind of talk and just saying fuck a lot is not a substitution.

It was also one of those days where I couldn't figure out what I wanted to eat, so wandered around and wound up having a turkey bowl from Old Boston...with stuffing and corn...which was a mistake. I keep forgetting a lot of people use chicken broth in their stuffing and I think they did because that's how it affected me. So now I have a headache and backache and want to sleep for a week.

Dammit, I am turning into a cranky old man.

Another job done...

Sitting in Indianapolis' airport waiting to board my flight home, finally. I was done with everything by noon, today, so had some decent BBQ and went to a park to sit and think. There isn't anything else to do here, really, unless you're into the 500 Speedway...which I'm not. I considered driving down to Bloomington to the Lily Library but they closed at 1pm. Dammit. So sit and think it was.

I'm considering doing some sketches for UG, to help get across some things and, to be honest, because I like the idea. It works well, in my mind. I've also figured out ways to streamline the story more. It's pretty jumbled and all over the place, right now, but removing a bit of Dev's inner chat-line would be helpful. He's pretty closed off and self-contained, and that's what makes him both dangerous and reachable.

With Brendan, APoS depends on his voice being free and easy. It will still be more on topic than just meandering or stream-of-consciousness, but condensing his words to suit a faster narrative would be counter-productive. He's Irish; they love to talk in circles.

Getting these two pieces done in a timely fashion means I really should back away from the web. I get into arguments, online, via Twitter and Facebook that are pretty meaningless. But that wind up suddenly taking hours of my time before I even realize it and that has to stop. I'll still do occasional comments and postings on Facebook and Twitter, but nothing like I've been doing.

Something else is, I stupidly agreed to some friends requests on Facebook and suddenly I'm getting IMs and video calls from people I don't know who are in other countries. I don't know why and I'm canceling that crap out as fas as I can. But having women tell me they're horny and home alone is NOT something I would even begin to find interesting. You'd think it would be obvious from my sites that I'm queer, but they apparently don't bother with that. Irritating.

Of course, I'm also getting emails about erectile dysfunction, diabetes and herpes treatments. Why? I have no earthly idea. Maybe it's a case like this one co-worker I had at Heritage, who thought it would be funny to sign me up as a supporter of the GOP. That took me years to get done with, because they sell your info. So do the Dems, which I why I will not donate to any campaigns, anymore. I'm getting 2-3 hundred emails a day begging for money from politicians, all of them URGENT and IN DIRE NEED and IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD shit.

I'm also at the point where, if the Democrats can't manage to run the GOP out of Congress at this next election, they are almost as worthless as the Republicans...and I hate to say it, but Pelosi and Schumer are not giving me the warm and fuzzies about that. But if Republicans are left in any sort of control after the hideousness of the last two years, then this country is beyond redemption.

It'll be time to move.

A bit more APoS...

The beginning of part 3. Brendan's mother is dying from cancer and he's been called home after more than seven years --

----

A friend of Aunt Mari’s worked at American Express in The Galleria, so she found me the best way home. I flew out of Intercontinental on a TWA flight to Dublin via New York, where I caught a short-hopper to Derry’s Airport via Avair. It wasn’t cheap, but I had savings enough to cover it. Uncle Sean told me he’d pay the ticket, but I wanted nothing from him. He called me independent to a fault and I knew he meant it gentle, but only because he hadn’t noticed how I’d shut him off since my whipping, how I spoke to him only when necessary, how I was never around to work on that old Volvo, again. I simply wanted nothing to do with a man who’d let family be abused in such a way. Perhaps I should have told him why, but I never did because he was Aunt Mari’s husband and she’d done backflips for me. To have caused them all that disruption would have been a cruel way to repay her for all her kindness and generosity, not merely since I’d come there but in the years before. So I paid for my ticket, cashed all my savings into pounds with a few punt should I need them and when I said goodbye at the airport. I knew I’d not be coming back.

None of them asked me how I was getting back into Derry, what with me not having legal papers, and I offered no explanations. The less known by all, the better...except for Jeremy; it was him got me home without trouble.

Since he’d returned from Hong Kong, his position at Garrison Petrol had settled into Houston. His knowledge of the expanding Chinese market for oil and the secret (but widely known) discussions underway between London and Peking to hand the territory back at the end of the Brit’s lease made him too important to let go. So he handed me his passport and said, “With that moustache and sideburns, you look a lot like my photo.”

“I dunno, Jeremy; I can’t see it.”

“Sure, just lighten up your hair, cut it a bit shorter so it’s not so curly.”

“Without hair to hide me, I’ll look even less like you.”

“Fine -- Everett’ll slip your photo in for mine. I know they look for stuff like that, at immigration, but he’s an artist; he can pull it off.”

“But will he?”

“I’ve already talked to him.”

“You’ll need it again, sometime,” I said, looking it over, already knowing exactly what I’d do.

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

I shrugged. “Mairead says she’s fadin’ fast, then there’ll be the wake and family to settle. A month, maybe. Six weeks.” Forever.

“Don’t stay any longer; it’s due for replacement in a couple months and I have to send it in, so I’ll need to get it fixed, first.”

“I dunno, Jeremy -- really, do I look the part of a Jew?” I said it smiling.

“What does a Jew look like, bitch? And your dick sure as hell is Jewish. You’ll pass, so long as you don’t talk with that brogue.”

I snapped into a Texas twang, “Yor right a-bout tha-yat, little feller. Better if’n Ah talk lahk a fo-ohl.”

“Shit, don’t talk much at all. And when you do, whisper.”

I chuckled and slipped the passport into my back pocket. He also gave me use of his Master Charge card since it was slated for renewal the following month and had but five hundred left on its limit. “I’ll not use it,” I said, “unless absolutely necessary.”

He swatted me arse and sent me out the door with, “I’ll want post cards!”

I didn’t look around but waved my hand back at him, as if in agreement.

Everett helped me shift my looks to better suit Jeremy’s description -- first bleaching my hair a couple shades lighter then adding red highlights, and he worked his magic on my moustache and sideburns, as well. Then once my hair was cut back, we got a couple Polaroids snapped at a photo shop and he set to work. And he had no end of trouble exchanging out Jeremy’s photo for mine but once done, to my eye it looked damn good -- and I looked damn strange.

“This isn’t a good look for you,” he said, “but that should help. By the time they get to you, they’ll be so sick of dealing with Americans, they’ll probably just give it a glance, stamp it and tell you to fuck off.”

“In a true Irish fashion.”

“What’d you have to give Jeremy for this?”

“Promise to give it back when I return.”

“What’re you giving me?”

“Well...I could go to Rocky Horror... in a gold Speedo.”

He smiled, almost sweetly. “You -- you’d really do that?”

“I enjoy it, well enough. Susan Sarandon’s got a nice set on her.”

He laughed. “Shit, you’d make the perfect Rocky. So, they keeping your stuff in the pool house?”

No, I sold what I could and gave away the rest. “I got a storage unit. There’s too much of it.”

His expression froze and he looked at me, hard, as if he knew I wasn’t planning to return, then grabbed the back of my hair and pulled me close to kiss me, long and deep and French in style. Tender but needy. I let him.

When he finally pulled back, his eyes were filled with hurt. “Is that how you kissed her?”

“Vangie? Yes.”

“But not -- ?”

Joanna? “No. It would’ve put her off, and I’d do anything to keep that from happening.”

He nodded. “Like what I just did.”

“Have I run screaming down the street, yet?”

He stroked a thumb over my right eyebrow. “Considering your luck with girls, maybe you oughta try a walk on the wild side.”

Been there and tried that. “With you?”

He laughed to himself. “Me as Frankenfurter, you as Rocky?” He was hurting and he’d been such a mate to me, I couldn’t help but nod. He took in a deep breath. “Keep the dream alive. Okay. I’m gonna hold you to it, Pug.”

I yapped at him in answer and we parted with him laughing. And two days later I was on a plane for home.

Some of APoS

Long plane ride and too much to do this evening, but still managed to work a bit on APoS. This part is summer 1973, when Brendan's in Houston. He was taken there while in a catatonic shock, and it's about a week after he's come back to life and had his first meal with his Aunt Mari's family. I made some small changes and smoothed it up, a bit...

----

It took me a week after that dinner to be able to even so much as climb the stairs without being exhausted, and days after that before I ventured from the house, and then it was only because Uncle Sean was working on his car. It had rained and the air was thick and wet, making it difficult to breathe, almost. I was lying in my bed, staring at the blank ceiling, drifting in my usual nothingness as I heard the motor chugging, outside, over and over and --

-- Josiah O’Shea’s Cortina wouldn’t start on damp mornings and he’d had near everyone he could think of check into it, at no small cost to himself, until he let me look into it and I found the problem and --

I rose from the bed and went to the window. Uncle Sean was at the Volvo, under the bonnet -- the hood, as it were. It was a dark blue PV444 and looked like it had the twin SU Carbs to it. A decent-looking car it was but in need of a wash and maybe attention paid to the rust spots developing between the passenger door and front wing. The interior wasn’t quite as good of shape but wasn’t beyond saving, and from here the motor looked fine. But when Uncle Sean get behind the wheel to turn the key, I could hear the car creak a little so it definitely needed lubrication and maybe a fresh set of dampers.

I stood there and watched Uncle Sean try to start the motor and it just chug along, working really hard to catch. Then he’d go back under the bonnet, unplug the spark wires and replug them and try again only to get nothing. Then he’d go back under the bonnet and undo other connections and redo them and try again. Over and over. It was comical, for he didn’t sit easy in that car.

I finally had enough of it and went downstairs and out the back door. The ground was still wet and sticky, and the air felt even more smothering without the house. I wore only my pyjama bottoms, still, no slippers even, so the soaked grass tickled my feet.

“Having troubles?” I asked.

He jumped and looked at me as if I were a madman, which I probably seemed to him. “Brendan, what you doin’ out here? You ain’t dressed.”

I didn’t care. “Would you care for me to look at it?” I said, motioning to the Volvo.

He shrugged. “Does this every time there’s a fog in the mornin’. Then in the afternoon, it starts up fine. But I need to get goin’ an’ this is the only car left.”

I looked around and saw two dry spots where two cars had been. “When’s Aunt Mari due back?”

“Dunno. Guess I’ll just grab a cab. Lookin’ at buyin’ this bar in up in The Heights and the owner’s due at one. I’ll get it towed into the shop, later.”

In answer, I leaned over the motor and checked the cables. They were on the old side, probably original. Same for the coil. I pulled at it without gripping the glove and it nearly separated. “Try starting it, again.”

He shrugged and sat behind the wheel and the car creaked; definitely needed lubing but maybe only a topping off on the dampers. I pushed both ends of the coil’s cable against their gloves...and the motor fired right up.

Uncle Sean bolted from the car, startled. “What’d you do?”

“You need a new coil,” I said. “It’s coming apart inside the glove, so you can’t see it. It’s not making the connection. Is there an auto supply shop nearby?”

“Up Shepherd. I can stop on the way.”

I nodded. “You might want to think about having all the cables replaced. They’re about due.”

“Damn, Brendan, where’d you learn that?”

“I’ve been at this since forever. Clocks, tellys and the like. Cars. Made money from it. Had a job.”

“Your mother never told us.”

“Why would she? When I got on with Mr. McClosky, she thought I just cleaned the shop. She thinks me simple.”

“Didn’t you tell her what you were actually doin’?”

I nodded then headed back to the house, feeling vague and sleepy and actually hungry. Uncle Sean let me go.

I fixed a sandwich from the wealth of food available in the fridge -- cheeses and luncheon meats and lettuce so crisp it could cut you and rich red tomatoes and something called Sandwich Spread all piled high on some white bread that felt as light as a feather -- and found only a couple of Dr. Peppers chilled in the fridge’s door. I took one, opened it and returned to my room. I sat on the bed and ate, feeling very luxurious, and thoroughly enjoyed the Dr. Pepper; it wasn’t as sharp and biting as Coke. Then I dozed a little before rising, again, and deciding I was weary of having nothing on me but pyjamas.

I took a long scalding-hot shower, letting the steam boil through me, catching the light from the window to make tiny rainbows and looking like clouds of gentleness come to fill my lungs and wipe away the world long past and the stickiness of the air. Then I toweled off...and had to towel off twice more, thanks to the combination of steam and humidity bringing out my sweat. No wonder they bathe every day and layer on deodorant, I said to myself; if they didn’t they’d reek.

I dug through a large set of drawers to find y-fronts and socks and undershirts and athletic shorts -- of course, I was in Scott’s room and they’d left me some of his things to wear. I was surprised they fit, seeing as how he’s taller than me and thinner, but then reminded myself I’d lost a fair bit of weight and was only just beginning to regain it. When I was back the way I used to be, I’d need a size larger -- and shorter.

I found my jeans hanging in a closet with some Levis. My boots sat on a shelf in the back, nicks in the leather and still covered with mud and dust and --

-- I slipped from the mud on my boots and the car vanished and I tumbled back as dust and filth and bits and pieces of metal and engine rained down on me and --

I stepped back. Saw a pair of sandals and took those. They were a bit on the large side, but an extra pair of socks helped them fit just right.

Of course, I was beginning to near weariness, again, but I decided not to give in, this time. I headed downstairs.

Pretensions of poetry and art...

I've long had the idea that in order to be a great director, you need to have a poet's soul. So many times I saw good directors miss or mess up moments that could have been beautiful...or just not be able to rise to the level the script needed in order to become great. My favorite comparison is Before Sunrise against Frost/Nixon.

Before Sunrise follows a young man and woman around Vienna as they talk and connect and maybe fall in love. It's just over a hundred minutes long but captures the ins and outs of two disparate people seeking something more and finding that even though he is American and she is French, they have a lot in common. Very simple. Very sweet, helped by the natural performances of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke...and by Linklater's carefully crafted direction. Look at the simple elegance of this scene...
The poet unto himself. A line between Ethan and Julie...him close to crossing it but not quite...until the poem is read. Linklater appears to have learned his craft from elegant filmmakers like Jean Renoir and Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirô Ozu and John Ford, all of whom knew how to build to a moment that could dip into your psyche and tear you up in ways wonderful and heartbreaking. Hell, Ozu even hated to move his camera, at all, and consistently placed it just 3 feet above the ground...but that added to the poetry of his loveliest works, like Late Spring and Tokyo Story.

Frost/Nixon is about the machinations leading up to the interview between David Frost and Richard Nixon. This happened during an intense time in America, not long after Nixon resigned in disgrace, with both men maneuvering to use the broadcast interview to their own advantage. It was initially a play, but I never saw that performed so don't know how much was changed, other than opening it up.

Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella do all they can with the script, and are very good, but Ron Howard is of the ham-fisted school of film, rather like Steven Spielberg and Sydney Pollack. He's a great craftsman of simple emotions but not a poet or artist, and it shows in how he just shoots scenes and does little to add to them...right up to the biggest revelation of all, which should bring chills to anyone who sees it -- when Frost gets Nixon to do something he's never done...admit he believed that the president was above the law.
This scene should tear across the screen, become two men fighting for supremacy of the moment, with one thinking he's winning while not realizing he's set himself up for complete collapse. But Howard keeps the audience at a distance from it, keeps Frost jammed into a corner by Nixon's shoulder, cuts to the two of them and a camera monitor, cuts to people watching as Nixon implodes, has Nixon's aide wait and wait before bursting in to stop it all...lovely to look at but devoid of real meaning or emotion.

This is what I've always felt and maybe was part of the reason I never really pushed hard to become a director, just always thought it would be nice to do...but that deep down I didn't have a poet's touch. But last night I re-read part of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor...mainly the end, as Jake comes to terms with the truth...and have come to think I was wrong about myself. Stupidly wrong. Easily wrong.

Maybe I have been afraid all my life...not of failure...not of success...just not of achieving what I see not only in my mind's eye but in my soul. I halfway think that would have destroyed me. No...I'm sure it would have...and it's sad to think it took all these years to finally see that.

So what does all this mean? How hell should I know? I'm just a writer.

Back to my usual indecision...

Going through Underground Guy...I've become less certain about the setup. My lead attacks an undercover cop in the middle of a surveillance operation, thus inadvertently helping get another man killed...according the the British police. The rest of the story depends on him being released after being arrested...but I don't think the cops would let him go. It's too likely he was working with a serial killer to throw the cops off while his partner fulfilled his bloodlust.

But the story doesn't work if I keep him in the station...or does it? Could imprisonment force him to come to terms with what's happened in his life to bring him to this point? And still wind up helping the cops?

The way it is, now... once he's released, he inadvertently connects with the man the cops have under surveillance for the killings...and starts piecing together that they may be focused on the wrong man for racist reasons. If I keep him under arrest, that part goes out. But I like it. It works into my intent for the story...

However, if I take out the killer stuff and just make this the story about a dangerous man who attacks a young man in London because of things that have happened back in his home of NYC...and comes to understand and accept the horrors of his own history...that changes the whole timbre of the story...makes it a lot deeper and demanding...and I wanted something cheesy and fun to write, to keep me from getting lost in A Place of Safety.

It's just, I can't figure out a good excuse for the police to release him on bail, even if it's them hoping he'll lead them to the killer and prove he's part of that devil's deal. That's too Hollywood-ish. Too contrary to reality, for me. Granted, I got carried away a bit like that in Rape In Holding Cell 6, especially the second part, but even that was still somewhat grounded. This is just...too much is convenient for convenience's sake, and I hate that.

Dammit, if there's anything I did NOT want right now, it's having another story argue with me over what it is.

BritBox is on my shit list...

After working all day on my apartment and paperwork, I decided to binge-watch the 4th season of Shetland as I prepped some magazines to donate. It's a murder mystery set in the Shetland Islands of Northern Scotland. The landscape is amazing and the acting top-notch. A couple of the mysteries in the first season were dumb, and I don't have access to 2 and 3 without paying Amazon for them, but this series looked pretty good, and was...until I got to what I thought was the end and found out it was only the 4th episode; there are two more...and they don't tell you that.

If I'd known, I'd have watched one of my DVDs instead. Shit. That really pisses me off because I now want to know what happened, but it seems only Amazon offers them on their video streaming service, for $1.99. I don't want to do business with that fucking company, and I'm adult enough to know it's just a work of fiction so I can walk away from the ending, but the way BritBox didn't bother to at least inform the viewer up front in practically insulting.

Hell, I could even have settled in and worked more on A Place Of Safety or Underground Guy and had as much fun (well, at least not been pissed off, like this). Makes me leery of the rest of their lineup. Do I have to check with IMDb every time I think I want to watch something on their channel, just to verify they've got everything? Why bother? Oh, well...another life lesson learned...that I've had to learn over and over and over -- check everything; trust nothing, completely.

I'm rearranging my apartment, in steps and stages. Getting rid of as much crap as I can. I've posted a few things on ebay for sale to see if they'll bring anything in, and have more to offer. I'm also giving away things I don't think are worth much. I won't part with gifts; that's rude. But I've already freed up 2 shelves worth of crap, giving a bit more space to spread out.

Part of what I'm getting rid of is my Alfred Hitchcock collection -- DVDs and books. He's the one who got me interested in film, which turned out to be a big mistake. Now that I'm done with it, after far too long, it's time he was removed. Other DVDs are going, as well. I have a lot that I've seen and don't want to see, again.

My main focus is elsewhere, now...