Technology is the devil...

Met with someone in the Genius bar, who ran a series of tests and found my phone is in great condition and working fine. BUT...thanks to the sensitivity of the screen, even when it's in sleep mode if it's in your pocket and rubbing against material, it might think you're trying to log in. And after a number of false tries, it shuts you out for a while. That's what that message is all about.

I don't know that I accept that 100%, because I've been carrying it in my shirt or pants pocket for years. But to be safe I got a flip folder to hold it, so it won't be rubbing anymore. It's more protective, anyway, if a bit harder to use.

I'm at a point in HNH where Brendan sees his first ghost and I'm having trouble with it. He agrees to go to a meeting/party with Maeve, where Catholics and Protestants mingle to show how alike they all are...and he uses some of his punk music from Houston to liven the dreary atmosphere up. But as he's bouncing with some of the younger people there, he sees Joanna enter the room.

That Joanna.

It turns out she was not killed in the bombing but was badly burned. Half her face is fine, half is severely scarred. No one said a word about her surviving...and he comes close to losing it.

Thing is, this shifts a lot of the trajectory of the rest of the book. Maeve may not have known about Joanna, but surely his mother found out during the aftermath, during her fight with PIRA. And possibly his aunt and older sister were told. The sense of betrayal he feels about not being told is really going to mess with him. Because if he had known she lived, he'd have come back to her, no matter what.

Problem is, now she wants nothing to do with him...and that's tearing him apart, even more. He has to get out of Derry for a while to calm himself.

So this begs the question -- is the symbolism too heavy-handed and obvious?