Billy London's Blog, page 4

Lost Boy

So six years later... Here we are! The herald of the coming of a little story I've been working on. No big deal. Just the seventh book in the Italian Knights Series. Forewarning - it's nuts - as you'll be able to tell from the sheer variety of music that I've included in this soundtrack. Enjoy, brace yourselves and send any complaints to the BBC!

Murano on Spotify

Progeny – Hans Zimmer Hey Mami – Sylvan EssoYou See All My Light – Jacques Greene Change Is Everything – Son Lux I Was Glad - Hubert Parry It’s Magic – Dinah WashingtonToo Original – Major Lazer 212 - Azealia Banks Playinwitme – KYLE ft Kehlani Suddenly, Seymour – Rich Moranis, Ellen Greene Sing, Sing, Sing – Benny Goodman You Give A Little Love – Paul WilliamsUltralight Beam – Kanye West  Palm Trees ¿Téo?Shadow & Light – Martin Luke Brown Surprise Yourself – Jack Garratt Waking Up – MJ Cole & Freya Ridings Back To You – Benjamin GordonI Am – Rock Mafia ft Wyclef JeanBreathe & Stop – Q-Tip  Tell Me That You Love Me – James Smith Oh Baby – LCD Soundsystem Same Drugs – Chance The Rapper Movement – Hozier The Gulag Orkestar – Beirut Not Dark Yet – Bob DylanLost Boy – Ruth B. Lie – Halsey, Quavo Do You Remember – Jarryd James ft Raury Fear Will Find You – Hans Zimmer Hell To The Liars – London GrammarWar Prayer – This Will Destroy You If I Go, I’m Goin – Gregory Alan IsakovSlide – James Bay  Cloudbusting – Kate Bush Don’t Forget About Me – Cloves On The Nature Of Daylight – Max Richter  Decks Dark – Radiohead Elephant – Tame Impala On Thin Ice – Hans Zimmer Set This House On Fire – Nick Vallee I Know All What I Do – Jack Garratt Overture – Michael Kamen Romantic Flight – John PowellHard Place – H.E.R All For Us – LabrinthSelah – Emeli SandéStrange Weather – Anna Calvi ft David Byrne Alone In the Dark – Will Cookson Carry You – Novo Amor When The Party’s Over - Billie Eilish Outro – M83 God Only Knows – John Legend and Cynthia ErivoThe Vow – RuthAnne  Etta James – Til There Was You Under Attack – Kin Palo ft Amy Stroup Smack My Bitch Up – The ProdigyMean Demeanour – Run The Jewels Ruelle – Take It AllMount Everest – Labrinth Why Do We Fall – Hans ZimmerVasily – Martin Phipps We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow – Soko  What You Won’t Do For Love – Luke Burr

Real Life

Right. I've made a decision and not at all due to the subliminal messaging I've received in my gmail inbox.

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. November marks National November Writing Month, where people across the globe commit to writing 50,000 words in 30 days and see if a novel can be formed from those words. I've had three stories emerge from the fires of NaNo - Remains, An Art To It and Hideout, and I need to feel that dedication to the writing. I mean, I'll probably be juggling edits at the same time, but if anything pushes you to write better, it's your editor telling you not to give an inanimate object feelings or a body part acting independently. Breasts don't talk do they? I mean mine make themselves very present (because they are ginormous) but speaking words? No... no...

I've been fiddling about with an idea for a while, mainly because I've been playing the Love Island Game and my obsession with pixelated dick is out of control, Hot Muse Hank has directed me to put the obsession to the laptop screen. If you follow me on Twitter, you are probably over aware of how much reality tv I watch. I know it's scripted, I know producers tell people what to do, how to breathe, when to fuck over their mates, and what to wear while they're doing it. In the age of social media, it's easy to find out how that those singletons continued their relationship on First Dates, if the stars (and I use that term loosely) of an entertainment reality show are still together, who got engaged, if it's true that so and so is pregnant, and the mystery is very tough to keep secret. Hot Muse Hank thought about it for a moment and said "Challenge accepted!" Means I'm writing one.

It's going to by a typical Billy London scrap with plenty of nonsense, a few twists, a quite a bit of sexy time and wrap it all nice and neatly in 50,000 words. With NaNo, the pantsing has to go out of the window and I need to be somewhat more structured to get the writing done. The last time I struggled to meet my word count, I just threw sex scenes at it until the words count depleted. May try the same cheat sheet this time around but I'm excited to start, to form my characters and to lead them on a path to love.

Waking the Demon

Facebook is still good for something! It reminded me that Said The Demon To Little Miss Eva is eight whole years old. Eight! Walking to school by itself and doing homework and watching Hollyoaks. Please don’t ask me where the time has gone!

Said the Demon was my first foray into horror! I’ve been obsessed with the supernatural ever since I visited the Tower of London and was told that Anne Boleyn’s ghost wanders the corridors at night. I’d haunt the fuck out of the Tower of London too if my husband accused me of incest and treason because I had the temerity to give birth to a girl... anyways! The frisson of fear; the kiss of cold on the back of one’s neck, the rake of icicles inside your stomach... all those sensations have been my theme park, my rollercoaster (let’s be honest Thorpe Park ain’t cheap!) I remember seeing The Blair Witch Project and having a job interview with Topshop the next day. I. Had. Not. Slept. Safe to say my wife, red eyed distress did not earn my a job. Probably best as retail was not my best work! I’ve always had an affinity for what goes bump in the night and nothing to do with bump n grind. I suppose it comes from being taught from an early age that demons are real and they will test you if you wander the desert for forty days.

It’s not for the faint of heart - there is an actual demon in this story. Eva Mensah is freakin’ haunted out of her home! Eva is an empath and that ability is probably conversely one of the most human and most draining ability to have. To feel and understand every emotion, as if you experience it yourself and to get through day to day... it would not be me. I have to have some empathy in my day job (I’d be a robot otherwise) and it can be so overwhelming. Imagine having nowhere to put those feelings and becoming a beacon to evil. Not what you want in your first home in London overlooking the Thames.

I gave Eva a happy-ish ending (I’m a romance author it’s gonna have a happy ending so not a spoiler!) but the ending I gave her didn’t ring complete which is why she got a sequel. We all know babies don’t solve things. As an empath, having a baby would only make Eva an even bigger beacon to evil. So it felt absolutely natural to give Eva and her man Gabriel a second go.

I never say never, as there’s nothing stopping baby Elijah from becoming teenage Elijah and causing yet more demonic shifts (that’s so Raven vision taking over me!!!!!) so don’t be surprised if Miss Eva pops up again. If you’ve never given her the chance because horror isn’t your thing - romance is my thing. Give it the old college try. See if you fancy a buy!

Last in this ramble is a thank you to Evangeline. She helped me exercise my own ghost in the telling of these tales and I feel all the better for letting that madness go. Couldn’t expect any more from a true empath!

Said the Demon on Amazon

Finish Line

Faaaackin' hell, I feel like Frodo at the end of Return of the King. I'm at the top of a flaming Mount Doom and I couldn't give a monkeys because I've finished. It is finished (sorry had to go Biblical). I am done! Funnily enough, I had a pre-completion cry because stupid me decided to listen to Grey Havens. My nerdishness around those films knows no bounds. Apart from the Titanic soundtrack, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King will guarantee me to cry. I used to think that if I ever became an actress (still a chance, Lady London will tell you about my dramatics) I would be able to cry on command by just recalling that music. "Miss London, you need to be emotional in this scene. Do you need some fake tears?"
"Move man. Bring my my phone and my Beats!"
Back to the main event. You know I write out of order. I don't write a story from A - Z because... well that's kinda boooorrriiiiing (Villanelle yell). I write the bits that are interesting first. So usually sex. Fight scenes. Banter. Food. Oh my god, so much food! More banter, and probably my favourite dinner scene between two characters ever. Obvs because Giuseppe Nardiello is one of them. Actually, there are two and Nonna Mamione is one of them.
I can be honest about why this book was so hard to finish. In between traumatic events which have been far too frequent, I'd like to end my trial period of trauma until 2031 please and thank you God, I didn't really want to say goodbye to these folks.
Nick and Gina have been my bezzies for the better part of a decade. Tony has been winding up Lydia for eight years. Rocco has succeeded in taming his storm, Anna, Luca has found his peace with Frankie, Auntie Belinda is getting it good and regular from OG Massimo (my true sugar daddy) Sofia is making herself content with Paul who is concentrating on being a good husband, a good son to a woman who never had her own children and keeping his wife in booze. Durante Da Canaveze has made Ella settle down. Ella! The freest of free spirits who couldn't give a fuck about anything but her son and Arlo Vitale. Speaking of, that little fucker is a big boy now. With a degree and everything! I've wrapped everyone up with Paperchase wrapping paper, with nice little bows and invisible sellotape.
So Beppe and Mimi were both like, "Excusi, what the fuck about us?"
Hot Muse Hank totally told me "Tell them both to do one, we're not ready! Too much junk is happening right now."
So I did. In the middle of all the shit that goes down for both of them, I needed a break. It was too much and too close to home and you all know I can't and don't write when I'm emotional. I cannae do it, Captain, I just don't have the power!
After Hot Muse Hank told me to get rid sharpish, Beppe and Meems were like "Well, fine. Fuck you too!" And disappeared into the night, never to be seen. Until Jack motherfucking Garrett and his voice of knicker-wetting gold. There's one song, and it rocks up on the soundtrack for Murano and the story came at me again, like it was playing at the IMAX. I saw Beppe and Mimi falling in love. I saw their wedding in Technicolor, down to the type of shoes Bep wears and the colour of Mimi's dress. I saw everyone backing Beppe up when he needed it. Anna being such a badass and yet fearful of losing the only friend she really has (Rocco doesn't count, he pounds her). Mimi told me where her piercings were and Beppe his favourite holiday. I love these people like they are family and half of why I burst into tears last night, wasn't just relief, or happiness, it was goodbye. I didn't want to let them go, they're bloody hilarious!
Anyway! It's done. Finito. Hot Muse Hank gave himself a pat on the back and snored off. I stayed awake until 2pm, thinking what I'm going to do with myself, now my babies are all grown up causing havoc in their own world without me.
It woke Hot Muse Hank enough to remind me to finish my Japanese dragon story. To finish Carole and Aneurin's tale. To sort out Taemar and Jack. Or do that murder at a wedding story which has written itself bar a few details. Or deal with those four women and a gun in East London. Maybe I could think about that fantasy novel I started years ago or fill out the short story about a director and her Irish seducer. And now that the biggest weight is off my shoulders with Murano, I feel I can dedicate that time to those tales.
Until edits. I mean, it could be 112,400 of utter shit and needs a hella load of work to even begin to be read-worthy (you read that right. 112,400 words). Or I'm just gaslighting myself and I need to chill out. I'm chilled. I'm happy. Truly, for the first time in a long time with the words I've typed to reach my "The End"...
Happy. Me.
I feel... I feel... I feel pretty good. 

Beloved

“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
Chloe Anthony Wofford “Toni” Morrison. It’s been a few weeks since she passed away, and it’s taken just as long for me to put what I felt into some semblance of understanding. That quote, one of many that blossomed from her fingertips, from her lips, from her beautiful mind, convinced me and I know thousands of others to put pen to paper and write what they wanted to read.
Toni Morrison epitomised the black American female experience. She wrote for black women and won Pulitzer Prizes (1988) and Nobel Prizes (1993). To a young black girl in England writing about girls getting lost in a shopping centre to get into secondary school, she was aspirational. Her calm and grace and the beauty in her work, the evocation that whispered like a memory, the pain felt chronic, the world tangible to the point where I lived the lives of the women she wrote about.
In a world where we are being suffocated with the “fake news” narrative, to lost Ms Morrison now, when we are so much in desperate need of her wisdom, of her truth, of her ability to cut straight through nonsense (sexist and racist) it cuts like a knife to know she’s no longer of this world. The words that remain are just as important, if not even more so now.
It reminds me to keep going, to keep writing, to speak the truth, to make my voice, Black and British as it is, be heard. There are still books that I want to read. There are still books that haven’t been written. Ms Toni told me to write it. I’m gonna write.

Perfume

Little known fact about me. I have about thirty odd bottles of perfume. My olfactory senses are legendary. I can tell what a woman and sometimes a man is wearing if they drift past me. I’ve scented Philosophy, Gucci and Byredo on people sitting next to me on the tube – often because they’re wearing far too much of it and I’m slowly suffocating while an episode of The Good Place reminds me about treating my fellow human beings, rather than throwing said person off at the next stop.

I have my Spring fragrances like Jo Malone’s Red Roses or Peony and Blush Suede, my Autumn fragrance, Miller Harris’ Peau Santal, my winter moves Tom Ford’s Tuscan Leather and YSL’s Black Opium and my Summer vibes are about Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her Musc for the evenings and daytime is about Calvin Klein’s Truth an oldie but a goodie.

I used to wear Armani’s Code and was called “Dangerous” by a guy who passed me. Insulting and complimentary. It reminds me of some great times, when I was running around London like a dervish, causing all kinds of trouble. I had to stop my mother from “borrowing” my bottles because she decided she liked the smell. I used to wear Coco Mademoiselle non-stop until Lady London nicked it and then bought her own bottle. So now the scent is associated with arguing with Lady London that you can’t replace perfume without buying a new bottle. She disagreed; basing her counter argument on the fact that she’d given birth to me. So I owed her. I reminded her that she’d been fine until she had my brother. So it’s his fault.

On the masculine side, I’m a fan of sandalwood. Nothing gets the knickers off faster than the scent of wood and leather. I don’t know what it is, like it’s similarity to the working man, getting his hands dirty, working his muscles to chop wood, how good an open fire smells on a fireside rug… Tom Ford has a knack for scents that emphasise a man’s virility. Helmut Lang has the cleanest male scent – it’s the scent equivalent of a tailored suit. I put this in An Art To It, how Art used fresh lime as his fragrance. I swear to you, it works, smells incredible and it tastes nicer than a squirt of Gucci.

Smell is such an important sense, not only that it creates intense sensations instantaneously, but it revives memories, leads one into temptation, clears the mind, transports you across the world and sends a tingle from your throat, through your tummy to give your buttocks a squeeze, tickle your knees and caress your ankles.

Now I’ve talked myself into a horny pretzel, I’m going to apply this to an Italian or two.

Beautiful Ones

So I’m on the home stretch with Murano, aka Italian Knights 7, aka Beppe’s story. There are about ten or so scenes that will connect the story from beginning to end and finish the flow. It’s not been an easy write, I’ll be honest. I knew what I wanted to write and I knew essentially what would happen and that the focus would be on Bep. Everything played in my head like a Christopher Nolan story, to the point where The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack has been my go to with everything. I mean not the bang-bang scenes, that would have been weird – but all the deep bits, the funny bits, the ‘where is this going mate’ bits, have had Hans Zimmer cheering it along. But I had a George RR Martin moment. The story got too big for me. I worried about how people would take to Mimi. Really worried. Because everyone knows that the heroine has to earn the hero – rarely the other way around, especially if he’s been established in previous books. Mimi is like a best mate and I want to protect her from any nonsense. It made me think what Beppe likes about so much that he falls for her and pretty damn hard. Let me try to do this without giving anything away. No spoilers.


1.       She’s a surgeon and she really enjoys it to a sort of perverse level. You kind of have to, in order to cut up people for a living and go home to sleep like a baby at night, no drugs involved.
2.       Speaking of drugs, she understands Bep’s vocation. You’ll get that when you read it.  
3.       She listens. To be as distracted as Beppe can be and to be patient enough to wait for him to get to his point and to hear what he’s said to have a conversation with him, rather than dismissing him as weird is something wonderful.
4.       She doesn’t give a fuck and she will tell you to your face. There are few people’s opinions that matter to her and they happen to be the same as Bep. Kismet.
5.       She’s kinky like him. You’ll see.
6.       She accepts him for who he is and that’s a lot when you think about the type of dude he is. Man’s wild.
7.       She’ll fight people for him. Verbally and physically. What it is to have a girl bat for you and bat hard with all the tools she has in her arsenal and then some, can only be a sign of true love and affection.
8.       His happiness is her happiness. The simplest things makes them both delight in the world and that shared joy brings the world into focus, excluding everyone but the two of you.
9.       She doesn’t hide her affections, making her as straight as a die. In a world of coded messages and timed communications, it’s refreshing to not doubt how a person feels about you.
10.   She’s fit. Come on, he’s Italian! He likes good looking girls and Amelia Johnson is buff.


Let me do the same the other way around for evens stevens:



a)       Giuseppe Nardiello is ridiculous to look at let alone to touch. There’s a scene where he lets her put hands on and… yah.
b)      He’s a South Londoner and proud of it. He knows the city inside out and enjoys it with her.
c)       He does something for her that heals a crack in her heart like nothing else could have and no one else would have done. Actually, he does that a few times.
d)      He tear gases her neighbours for her. That’s romance when your neighbours are bastards.
e)      He appreciates her dedication to her craft and that sometimes, it comes first. It just has to.
f)        Beppe cracks her up. He’s said things to me that I’ve repeated to other people that has made them laugh just as hard.
g)       He’d kill to protect her. No questions asked.
h)      He loves his friends like family. You’ll see.
i)        He’s a feminist.
j)        He’s a clean freak. He has his places of sanctuary and they must be clean at all times. Good times or no. Think Naomi Campbell in flight mode.


Funny how that’s been the easiest thing of Murano to write – why Bep loves Meems and why Mimi loves her Beppe. They’re just two nice folks, with terrible things happening around and to them who hold on to one another to live through the storms. What they have together in the quiet, the stillness, after the rages have passed, is something that I’m rather proud of.

You’ll see when it’s done. Let me get back to it.

Good To Love

Now I've got all this time on my hands, I'm reviewing the stories that I started and abandoned due to, well the nonsense that's been going on in my life. Last week's post about Black-British history going back to Roman times was partly in connection with my research for a paranormal story that is so much fun to write. I wonder why more authors don't throw it back into the past. Black history is so much more than slavery and absolutely so much more than the Western World. Black women in the Netherlands, in England, in early 20th Century Hong Kong - we've been places!
This week, I've been thinking about my intersectionality, especially after the wonder that was UK Black Pride. If you saw some of the comments beneath the twitter posts from the organisations, you'd dislocate a retina rolling your eyes so hard - the melanin-deficient tears were abundant, despite there being plenty of the paler persuasion being present at the event itself. It made me have another look at one of my stories, and the daughter of my heroine - Jacqueline.
It's hard to be a black woman in this day and age, no doubt about it. We're the "least desirable" on dating sites, but the most frequently copied in fashion, style and looks. We're more than 5 times more likely to die in child birth related complications than our white counterparts. We're paid less even though we're more educated. Throw LGBTQ into the mix and life is inevitably harder. Reading the story with a neutral mind (really not that hard, it's been a while so I can truly question who the hell wrote that!) I can see where my prejudices have come through a little too obviously.
I'm too hard on Jacqueline. Her mother's perfect - truly Carole is a dream, I love her - her brother is getting all the support for his messed up love life, her sister can do no wrong and has the decency to be straight and her father is an emotionally abusive bully, who can't stand Jacqueline for being a lesbian. And I'm more critical of her than the other siblings because a little niggle in the back of my head keeps forgetting to beat me into remembering that her life is just that much harder and she's had to be just as hard to protect herself from a world that berates her for what it considers as "choices" and not what she can't help but be.
Jacqueline is a tough cookie who needs my understanding, for me to lean into that intersectionality I brag I know so much about. She is, despite what she knows, her mother's favourite. Like I said, Carole's perfect. And if Jacqueline is her mum's favourite, then she should be mine. I'm tapping away to do right by her.
It's what she deserves.

Remember the Time

I see Romancelandia is having one of its moments about historical accuracy and the existence of melanated folks in the Western world before the 20 Century. Again. Did I ever tell you that history was one of my favourite subjects? And if I’d chosen a different path, I’d be one of those mad history professors, wearing bedazzled glasses, full maxi skirts and pencils in my hair to mark my most treasured textbooks. It always intrigued me that I would never see anyone with my skin tone in period dramas and be told it’s a matter of historical accuracy after all, black people were only slaves. Huh. Weird then that the Romans who conquered nearly the entirety of Europe and a good portion of the North and East of Africa, whose peoples joined their armies and were promoted in their ranks never stepped foot in Britain - also conquered by the Romans. But yet they did. Evidence of that was found of a lady of mixed heritage buried with seriously expensive jewellery.  The Ivory Bangle Lady. It shows that there was intermarriage and integration into England. Beachy Head Lady dated to 245AD was found in East Sussex. An Arthurian romantic novel depicts the hero as dark, save for his teeth.Edward III’s consort was said to be a woman of African decent - Philippa of Hainault from 14 Century.  In trading in gold from West Africa, men travelled to England to be intermediaries, to be translators, already extremely wealthy as a result of the sub-Saharan trade routes in the early 15 Century. We are well aware that Catherine of Aragon, in the course of her marriage to Prince Arthur (King Henry VIII’s brother who tragically died and thereby gave us the biggest marital drama of all time) brought servants and ladies in waiting with her that were from Africa. There is a wealth of information detailing the black Tudors - some freed from the Spanish colonies, others settlers following the trade routes between West Africa and England, others family members of European traders such as the Netherlands, France and Spain. There were Africans in the Scottish Court of James IV. Diplomats and statesmen were part of the Courts of this country. From Benin, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Morocco, Libya.Liverpool, outside of London, because it is a port, had what was considered to be a large black population, particularly in the 17 and 18 centuries, as not only did you have seamen of African descent settling in England, but you had attendants and servants, who married their white counterparts. They were shopkeepers, composers, writers, musicians, cooks and soldiers. African Chieftains sent their sons to England to be educated - something that still happens to this day. On Nelson’s column, considered one of Britain’s greatest heroes at the battle of Trafalgar (a whole square is named after him!) he is depicted fighting alongside an unmistakably African man. Queen Victoria had a young girl gifted to her. That same girl, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, had a wedding that was a societal event as she was under Queen Victoria’s protection. Many former slaves found themselves at the patronage of rich Britons who gave them means and an education; not just as abolitionists but as just decent people. True Christians - who knew?Far from writing a history lecture here - there are people who have done this much better and far more in depth than I have David, such as Olusoga’s magnificat Black and British: A Forgotten History, which has also a rather brilliant BBC series that accompanies it. It was his tv series that first alerted me to Nelson’s column and I went to have a look. I mean I live in London, it’d have been daft not to. Black people, especially in this country, have not been invented to guilt white people about anything at all. Simple acknowledgement of our existence in this country long before the general populace were able to read and write or even vote will suffice. If there can be hundreds upon hundreds of romance novels of earls and dukes of pale skin and sleek hair and all of their teeth and enormous penises that they know how to use(???), there can be and should be just as many of colour. Not that I should tell any romance author how to write, but the threads of a thousand tales are woven in the very history of the U.K. They are multi-faceted as well as multi-coloured. It’s not historically inaccurate to feature other races into a novel and to have those races lead, take your reader on the wildest of rides, to let them fall in love and be happy. The history is there: bold, accurate and realistic - let’s use it. 

Holiday!

I don't know if you can tell, but 2019 has not been kind to me. It's put weight on me. Made me commute on the Northern Line in the morning for work. Not allowed natural deodorant to work on me and I detoxed I swear! It's also trapped me in London - miserably. And I love this city, I do, but I need to be able to miss it once in a while.
My friends (experts in psychology) tell me that I need to have a break at least every three months as I work with members of the public in a stressful job. If you saw the number of grey hairs invading my scalp, you'd agree.
But this month begins the great travels of Billy! I'll be off to Oxford for a bit of boating. Then up to Leeds for some rebonding and meeting a new London descendant! Best of all, I'm going to Greece! Get me kalamalataed! Greece, if you remember, was the scene of drunken Lady London and I talking about getting Windows written up for other people to read. It was our first holiday away together and we spent a lot of it in the supermarket. I love a foreign supermarket! Cheap booze, cheap quality snacks, all those things you’d have forgotten at home are right there for you.
Greece also has an insane amount of mosquitoes who absolutely love the hell out of me and their repellent is the best, cannot tell you. Although I will be popping to Dulwich to get some natural repellent. Expensive as hell, but it smells like luxury, rather than chemical.
I'm not exactly returning to the scene of the crime but going to Corfu instead. It’s all beautiful, turquoise blue waters, sandy beaches, fresh fish and bread and olives and inching to 40 degrees C in August which will deepen this melanin to ecstasy!
I’ll be taking so many photos, probably of my toes in the water or in the sand, but lots that will carry me through the winter. At least until I’m back in Italy. Yep. That’s happening again this year too. I owe it to myself!