Chicago

Flight was on time and got everything I needed with minimal trouble. Even avoided the craziness of these drivers, who like to jut out from alleyways to half block cars on the street so they can scoot across. Almost got hit by one and received a very dirty look when I honked. Boxes are built for tomorrow's use, and I had Panda Express for dinner. My favorite even though it's really too rich for me. Makes my blood sugar skyrocket.

But it helps center me. Settle me. For some reason, despite everything going so easily I was extremely tense, and it's telling in my neck. I'm downing Tylenol like it's Tic-tacs and slathering Icy Hot on it, but that's barely keeping the pain to a minimum. Don't know why I'm feeling this way, I just am.

Read some of Eamonn McCann's book and got some notes out of it. He clued me int on what it was I was trying to understand about Derry people -- they are brutally sarcastic and love to undercut egos. They also do not take shit off anybody. The UVF (the Protestant version of the IRA) once threatened to kill any Catholic who was working for the government's health system, in the main office. So the full office, both Protestant and Catholic, went on strike to let the bastards know it would not be tolerated. It worked. The UVF put out a mealy-mouthed memo saying they'd been misunderstood.

I was mistaken in thinking Brendan needed an excuse to want to be to himself and not have many friends. I was thinking of making him slightly autistic or with a mild form of ADHD, but that's taking his choice away. He just doesn't want to play the game the others do. He has a few really good friends, both Catholic and Protestant, but one of the Proddy lads betrays him, viciously. Twice. So he just gets very careful about who's going to be his mate. He's wary, not sick or disabled in any way, and loyal...but only to a point.

I also think I'm being too harsh about Eamonn, Sr. Brendan's da. He's a man in his mid-thirties who had dreams and hopes and did what he could with them...until he was killed. He was a storyteller, a weaver of words into magical worlds but without the opportunity or resources needed to make something of it. And Bernadette can see that. But all Brendan can see, at first, is how brutal the man could be when he was drunk. I'm finding Eamonn will reveal himself slowly, and Brendan's mother will do the same...

I think...I honestly don't know, just now.