I’m Holdin’ On To Love (To Save My Life)

It’s a chilly Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and I slept late. Sparky let me be until about eight thirty, when his hunger overtook what little self-control the little demon has and he started pestering me. He really is a darling creature, isn’t he? I slept deeply and well, so feel pretty good this morning. I do need to do some stretching and use the massage gun on places where my muscles feel tight (my lower back especially) and maybe take a walk with a go-cup of coffee. I did a lot of chores and organizing yesterday, which was great–there’s some more touching up to do–and I did do some minor writing and also worked on a newsletter that I can get out either today or tomorrow. I have an errand to run in a moment, and yes, I really want to do some writing and reading today. LSU lost again last night, and I’m not even sad about it1; what was truly sad was when they joyfully embraced the MAGA curse. As such, I don’t really care that much about this college football season anymore–I barely watched any other games yesterday–but I can be happy about Ohio State’s shitty season, and I feel like the playoffs are going to have a smorgasbord of teams with a lot of losses. The expansion to 24 teams next year is just pure corporate greed, but at least they’re finally giving up on the pretense that the players are college students and their education is the most important thing anymore, the way they used to, despite everyone knowing that players were being illegally paid and cheating on the classwork, if they even bothered to turn any in.

Yes, I’m bitter, and at some point I’ll write an essay for the newsletter about how they’ve killed the golden goose in the name of ESPN shareholders.

My ambitious plans for yesterday actually came to naught; I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I had hoped to, or planned. But the apartment is neat and tidy and so is my workspace, and I also got the files and everything sorted, which is really nice. One thing I definitely want to do in the new year is get blinds for my windows here in the workspace, so I can shut out the sunlight in the summer, which is very brutal. I also need to get another chandelier ordered for the kitchen to replace the one that fell when the ceiling collapsed thar Thanksgiving weekend of my arm surgery. I did read through the draft of the short story I am currently working on–it will be easy to fix what I originally wrote and incorporate it in with this draft, and then getting it finished. I also want to work on the book some today, and do some more organizing of the next Scotty, which I am tentatively calling French Quarter Follies, which I am kind of excited to get to work on once I finish this first draft.

I did watch an episode of Friday the 13th the Series, “Cupid’s Quiver,” about a cursed statue that fires a beam from his bow that makes the person fall madly, obsessively in love with whoever has possession of the statue. Naturally, the statue falls into the hands of a creepy loser that nobody likes, who then uses the power of the statue to get even with girls who laughed at him before going after the girl he obsesses over; the classic horror trope of the downtrodden coming into great power and using it for revenge–a cautionary tale about the revenge of the bullied. It’s also built around a fraternity–Delta Lambda Chi–which is hilariously campy in its stereotypes, mostly straight out of Animal House, and all the college students who look like they were thirty when they were freshman. (The biggest campy mistake is that Jack goes undercover as the bartender at a “frat party”2–um, there were usually kegs of beer and if you wanted mixed drinks, you made your own in your room.) But it was fun, and I want to finish the first disc today with episode 4, which I’ve also seen before. I also want to get back to Crystal Lake. I also want to read the next case in She Kills, which I am enjoying. I also downloaded the audio book for Hell’s Half Acre, which is about the Bender murders in Kansas, which I’ve always been interested in. (Yes, Kansas, the heartland of the country, where some of the more famous true crime murders occurred and let’s not forget the good ole BTK Killer.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to run an errand this morning, which I am going to do once I post this, and then it’s back home to try to be productive. Have a marvelous Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning before dawn to say hello yet again. Till then, onward and upward!

  1. Klandry ‘s interference was already spoiling things–just in time for his campaign in the coming year–and of course, he’s a MAGA bootlicker and brought in Melania Trump to partner with and come to the Alabama game. ETTD, right? LSU has now lost two home games in a row for the first time since 2016–the year we fired a coach at the start of the season and brought in an interim. ↩︎
  2. Whenever a fraternity brother refers to it as a “frat,” my mind automatically dredges up something drilled into my head when I pledged one: you wouldn’t call your country a cunt, would you> The default is always misogyny. ↩︎

Home Ain’t Where His Heart Is (Anymore)

Ah, Saturday morning and college football all day once again, after an interesting and peaceful Friday the 13th around here–and by that I mean the Lost Apartment because the rest of the world , or at least the country, went insane yesterday. I mean, it was Friday the 13th and the end of Mercury in retrograde, so is anyone surprised a river tour cruise ship was hit by a massive container ship at the Port of New Orleans yesterday, and sink completely in less than an hour (how fucking deep IS the river along the shoreline of the port, FFS?). THe good news is there was no injuries or casualties, despite many people falling into the river–which is always dangerous, with the currents and depth and everything else (no one goes swimming in the river, and not just because its polluted and dirty). Meanwhile, there was a nation-wide ground stop thanks to DOGE and our former Real World star Secretary of Transportation; I hope no one forgets that POS when the tribunals roll around….which was completely unrelated to the Microsoft 365/Outlook email problem….which is why I’ve never used Outlook for my email. We have to use it at work, but otherwise, I never would.

There are some interesting games today in college football, but my primary interest is only the LSU-Texas game. LSU is pretty much done for the season with three losses, but can play spoiler for both Texas and Tennessee, which could be fun; LSU has wrecked other teams’ seasons plenty of times before, and that’s about the best we can hope for this year.

Overall, yesterday was a good day. I picked up the mail, made groceries, and picked up some books I’d ordered, came home, did my work-at-home duties, and even did some writing–not much, but like I said the other day, any writing progress is good progress. I did also the laundry and some other chores, and some organizing. I figured out how to write the essay I’ve been working on to no avail for my newsletter. I also got caught up with The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and The Traitors New Blood, and we started watching the Swipe Right for the Devil documentary–the crimes were in Nebraska, and I had been thinking about Kansas this past week (probably partly because they elected a Democratic senator) because I was thinking about In Cold Blood this week.I did start reading She Kills, beginning with the “The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob,” a delightful story about a middle aged woman who cross-dressed to rob banks–without a gun or threats. As I read it, I couldn’t help but think this is such a Texas story and again lamented that Texas doesn’t have a Carl Hiassen to write about how wacky it is there, but I suppose Larry McMurtry kind of filled that role sometimes. I need to read more of McMurtry; it’s been a hot minute and one of my friends adores his work–and Lonesome Dove is my father’s favorite book.

Remember I was feeling a bit trepidatious about seeing my new doctor for the first time? Constant Reader, she’s a Black woman! The weight that lifted off my shoulders when she opened the door and walked into the exam room–you have no idea, Constant Reader. I know she had to work twice as hard as everyone else in her class at medical school, and she was friendly, warm, and charmingly likable. I knew my new doctor was going to be a woman–and I was worried she’d be one of those white women (#notallwhitewomen) and I was going to have to find a new doctor. Seriously, the only thing better than a gay doctor is a Black woman.

The books I picked up were based on recommendations from friends: Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan (Catriona McPherson) and Profiles in Cowardice by Jacob Weisberg (Laura Lippman), as well as the new Donna Andrews, Jay to the World. I am ashamed to admit that I am behind on the Meg series and need to get caught up.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and move to the living room, where I can put on SEC Today (fuck Gameday and Pat MacAfee forever) while I do some chores, read, and write for a little bit. I ordered some things to be delivered this afternoon, too. Have a lovely if chilly day, Constant Reader, and I shall return on the morrow. Thanks for stopping by and hope you will tomorrow morning, too!

Someone actually walking like an Egyptian

Any Man of Mine

Work at home Friday, with a meeting on-line this morning and a doctor’s appointment and errands to run later. The low tonight is in the high forties, which means it’ll be a bit chilly in the Lost Apartment tomorrow morning, and Sparky might just want to cuddle in bed rather than getting me up to feed him. I am hoping to have a good and productive day today, but we’ll have to see how things go, won’t we? It is chilly this morning, and Sparky let me stay warm and comfy and sleeping in bed for an extra couple of hours, which is super nice. I do feel a bit physically tired this morning, but mentally I feel recharged. We’ll have to see how that lasts. I was a bit tired when I got home last night, so didn’t do any chores. I worked on a short story for a bit, clocking in about a thousand words on it, which felt great, and I also watched this week’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and caught up on the news some, too.

It’s also Friday the 13th, the last day of Mercury in retrograde, and I do think that calls for some episodes of Friday the 13th the Series today, doesn’t it? After I get back from the doctor and errands, I’ll go sit in my easy chair doing quality assurance while the show plays. Needless to say, the serendipity of this is enormously pleasing to me and that side of my brain that likes full circle moments. The apartment also needs cleaning, so that’s a goal for the weekend–I never quite make it to cleaning the floors every week, but with everything else already caught up, I just have to empty the dishwasher and do the bed linens while working at home. I’d like to work on the short story and the next chapter of the book some today–I’d love to complete the story draft by Monday–and it feels like whatever that crud I’ve been fighting with for the last week or so is finally over; I woke up with no congestion and no coughing, which is marvelous. I wonder if the overnight temperature drop had something to do with it? The air has been damp ever since that big rain when I drove back from Baton Rouge. The high today is 67, which is lovely, and I am hoping to be able to take a walk a little later; just down to the park and back, just to get started, and maybe even do some calisthenics this weekend–and stretching.

I also am going to watch this week’s The Traitors at some point today, too. I am really feeling great this morning, maybe it was the extra sleep, maybe it was the cold, who knows? But I am going to embrace it and not ask any questions. I keep feeling scattered and disorganized with my life these days, so hopefully I am going to figure out how to organize everything and stay on top of things the way I used to–the anxiety meds aren’t helpful in that regard, LOL; maybe some anxiety is necessary for me to function, I also want to get back to reading and talking about true crime/non fiction this month. I think I am going to start my reread of In Cold Blood this weekend, too.

I am going to do Hardboiled Holidays for December, in which I’ll be reading noir and hardboiled crime novels for Christmas, as well as watching/revisiting some films like Body Heat, Mildred Pierce, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and some other classics. It’ll also give me a chance to do my snarky review of It’s a Wonderful Life as a truly dark hardboiled movie, and maybe some other Christmas classics, like Charlie Brown and Rudolph.

And on that note, I’m going to get another cup of coffee and maybe make a little breakfast so I can shower before my meeting at ten. Have a lovely Friday the 13th, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back bright and early and chilly tomorrow morning! See you then, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

No One Needs to Know

Somehow we’ve managed to roll around to last day in the office Thursday again, and I feel pretty good. I felt good all day yesterday and managed to make it through the day without getting tired–at least, not until I got home, at any rate. I did manage some chores last night too, once I was home, and that was terrific. I decided not to run any errands until tomorrow–I can make a grocery run and get the mail after my doctor appointment tomorrow. I am meeting my new doctor for the first time–my last one left the practice, and may have even left town for all I know, which is a shame, because he was the first doctor I’ve had in a while that I really liked. AH, well. Hopefully I’ll like my new doctor, who is a woman. (Women tend to be better doctors for me, probably the gay thing.) I slept really well, and feel a bit wrung out this morning, as one tends to feel on Thursday morning/last day of getting up at six for the week. I also have to make an appointment with my gastroenterologist. (Hey, spelled it right the first time; a good sign for the day.) I do want to watch an episode of Friday the 13th tonight, maybe do some picking up and cleaning, maybe even some reading or writing. #madness

I didn’t get a lot of things done last night because the final results finally came in and the race was called. MISSISSIPPI!!!! Even though it seemed inevitable, I didn’t put it past the establishment in that state to pull some hijinks, shenanigans, and outright fraud–which absolutely would have happened had the count not taken so damned long. Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida might flip next time around, too–I have high hopes of getting rid of Klandry next year, please God–as long as the corporate Democrats don’t fuck this up yet again. Don’t forget to write Senator-elect Turek about his betrayal of the queer community, too. I may not be an Iowa voter, but he needs to be shown the error of his craven ways.

I also took some grim satisfaction in knowing that his own party hates him so much that they would rather have the pedophile protecting piece of shit JIM JORDAN as leader than Steve Scalise. Ha ha ha ha, fuck you, Scalise, now and forever, you malignant racist homophobic piece of shit. I can’t imagine how humiliating it must have felt to know your own party–the one you sold your morality, conscience, and basic decency for–think that the moron from Ohio would make a better leader than you. If I were Scalise, I don’t know that I’d be able to show my face in public for a while…but again–no shame or conscience, so that won’t happen. I just am going to embrace that bitch slap for what it was, what it meant, and how good it was to hear the news. May the rest of your life be one humiliation after another, Steve, and I look forward to the day you’re as irrelevant as David Vitter.

Social media was abuzz yesterday with the news that Skydance fired James Gunn, and you know they are just going to fuck DC Studios hard enough to make it unsalvageable. That’s fine. I loved everything Gunn did with DC–vastly superior to its predecessors–and Superman was fucking incredible. Everything he did was. I’ve always liked DC since I was a kid and have always rooted for them to do well…now I no longer care. “Movies with Christian principles that my grandmother would have loved” is a tell, isn’t it? Makes you wonder how that is going to square with Wonder Woman, a figure based in Greek mythology who is from an island of only women? WIll she cover her bosoms for the first time in nearly a hundred years, and will she cover up her legs for the sake of modesty and not to tempt the other super-heroes with lust? I was looking forward to the next seasons of Lanterns and Peacemaker, too.

AH, well, life goes on and it’s not worth wasting any time being upset about it or anything. If that’s the worst thing that happens this month, then it’s a fucking good month. It looks like we are going to have some cold weather this weekend (for New Orleans) which means bundling up in the living room while reading or writing or watching television and marvelously deep sleep at night. I do love this time of year, and it’s almost Christmas, too…my favorite season. Maybe this year I’ll take some pictures of Christmas decor in the neighborhood. I do need to start taking walks…and with it getting dark earlier, I can go around six and the lights will be on. Huzzah! (I somehow didn’t get any Halloween pictures this year, either, like a terrible person.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will see you here bright and early before my meeting. Till then!

Statue of an Egyptian queen from antiquity; I think Nefertari, wife of Ramses the Great.

(If You’re Not in It for Love) I’m Outta Here!

Well, here we are on midweek Wednesday again somehow. The weekend looms on the horizon, and it will be a normal weekend for me for the first time in two weeks–I work at home on Friday and don’t have to go in for a meeting or drive to Baton Rouge, which will be lovely. I’ve not really checked the games for this weekend, but I do know the Texas-LSU game is Saturday night. I’ll watch the LSU game, of course, but am not terribly interested in much else. Last weekend’s loss put LSU out of the playoffs, deservedly so in my opinion, so paying attention to everything else really is unnecessary anymore, other than looking for games that might be fun to watch. Who knows? There are a lot of disgruntled LSU fans out there now, who thought we’d somehow make it all the way to the championship game in Coach Kiffin’s first year (which is absurd on its face, but fans are gonna fan, no matter what), but I”m not terribly disappointed. The four year cycle is next season, anyway (LSU won nattys in 2003, 2007, and 2019; played for it and lost in 2011; so the only four cycle years where we didn’t make it to the final were 2015 and 2023). The Saints aren’t doing great this season, either, but I like our new quarterback and he has a lot of potential to develop into a franchise quarterback in time…so the future looks good for Louisiana football. I have some errands to run this weekend, too, so not being vested in the rest of the college football world might help me get more things done over the days at home.

I didn’t feel tired yesterday, so I did some chores when I got home from the office; I even started writing the next chapter of the book! (Okay, it was only a paragraph, but progress is progress and that’s a paragraph I don’t have to write today now, do I?). I must have been more tired than I thought, though, because I fell asleep in my chair sometime between seven and eight–and finally went up to bed just before nine. It came out of nowhere, really, and I feel good and rested this morning, which is great. The clinic is going to be busy today, and so that will definitely keep me on my toes and might wear me down a bit tonight. I also need to swing by the post office on the way home from work, too, so will probably be a bit tired when I walk through the door of the apartment tonight. I was even in bed before Paul got home, so I don’t even know when that was last night! Needless to say, I didn’t watch another episode of Friday the 13th the Series, but I can catch up on that tonight when I get home–after doing so more chores. If I can keep up with chores all week and not leave them till Friday, I’ll have more time to read and write on the weekend and can do some other cleaning as well. Maybe even take the ladder outside and clean my kitchen windows. Stranger things have happened, after all.

Mississippi is still counting votes, but it’s not looking good for evil animated scarecrow Cindy Hyde-Smith, and yes, I am a terrible person because I am loving this humiliation for that hateful old witch. I hate that Louisiana elected its own version of her–the morally corrupt Julia Letlow–but she can have her six years of irrelevance in the Senate while we work to ensure she never gets reelected. It’s been so lovely since the election, you know? That sense of impending doom is gone, as is the “I don’t want to get out of bed because I can just imagine what new hellgate opened overnight” sense when the alarm goes off in the morning. Hitler’s granny Virginia Foxxe is also in a close one still being counted, but apparently it’s not a good year for the Daughters of the Reich to hold on to their seats–and that particular piece of shit should have retired when her mind started to go. I remember her hateful bigoted ass during the queer wars of the late aughts and early teens, and here’s hoping her reign of terror over the electorate is over and she can go back to making her relatives even more ashamed and miserable than they already are. Good times!

El Niño means wet winter for us here in southeastern Louisiana, which plays havoc on my sinuses but i love rain and can deal, you know. I woke up to darkness, as usual after the time change, but as the sun rose it remained gray outside, and it’s sprinkling. It’s supposed to rain all morning, which is fun; I love rain, and I have a window in my testing room now so I can watch it for a zen moment throughout the day. I feel pretty rested this morning–the extra sleep from last night certainly was an enormous help in that regard–so hopefully we’ll have a productive day.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely midweek Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will be here again tomorrow morning bright and early. See you then!

Is There Life After Love?

Tuesday morning and can you believe it’s been a week since the national bloodbath? I am sure they are going to finish licking their wounds and start their next tantrum/breakdown/whatever they do to cope when they realize they are not the majority they love to think they are. The weather here has definitely changed, and this is absolutely my favorite time of year in New Orleans. I don’t like getting up in the dark or getting home after dark, but it’s nice to enjoy being outside again. I slept really well yesterday, which was great. I had a good day at work, and felt pretty good when I left the office for home. I am in the final vestiges of this cold or whatever it was, so that’s also kind of nice. I did some chores when I got home, and it was lovely coming down to a clean apartment. It’s lovely to not feel sick anymore…I made a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, chilled with Sparky, and did a little bit of reading and some free form scribbling in my journal. I even managed to get through some of my emails yesterday, and maybe can get the inbox cleared out once and for all. It’s hard to imagine that ever happening, but one can but dream, you know?

Lauren Boebert officially lost her House seat yesterday, and she can join her old buddies Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green over in the “irrelevant loser” pile. We, of course, are still waiting on results from Alaska and Mississippi, but soon enough those races will also be over and the rout of MAGA will be complete. I know I’ve lost track, but are there still any Tea Party/MAGA people really left in Congress anymore? I wonder how they’ll rebrand racism and white supremacy and Christian Nationalism for the next go round? They never go away, you know; evil conservatism is like a hydra.

I continued my rewatch of Friday the 13th the Series with the second episode of the first season, “The Poison Pen,” which is one of the sillier and more campy episodes. This time around, a monk known as the Oracle of Death writes prophecies about death down with a quill pen and they come true. (Of course, it never occurs to anyone that his pen is cursed and writing down people’s deaths with it essentially kills them.) The monastery is housed on valuable real estate downtown, and a construction syndicate is offering them a lot of money for their property–which is part of the scheming going on behind the scenes in the cloister. In order to get the pen, the three go undercover in the monastery to retrieve the object before more people die, and Mickey has to bind herself and pretend to be a man. (Hence the campy aspects of the episode.) The effects are cheap and silly to modern eyes, but probably weren’t as bad when the show originally aired; the wildest part is the homicidal, independently flying guillotine blade. But it was fun, and I think I already remember episode three of this season, “Cupid’s Bow,” which if I am remembering correctly, winds up in a fraternity house…which was even funnier than the cheap effects or Mickey in drag moments of episode 2.

We did finish Black Doves on Sunday night; it really is a fun show. I love the lesbian assassins–they remind me of my Ninja Lesbians in my Scotty series, Ben Whishaw is also fantastic as always, he needs to be in more things, and of course, Sarah Lancashire is a queen. I’m not sure how they’ll do another season, but I certainly hope they do and they know how how to do it properly rather than put something terrible together to cash-in on the excellence of the first two seasons.

I also sent out a newsletter, which you can read by clicking here. I talk about my short story “The Sound of Snow Falling”, which is in the newly released anthology Unloaded Volume 3. compiled and edited by Eric Beetner. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the morning. Have a marvelous Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back again bright and early for my midweek blog tomorrow. Until then–thanks for stopping by yet again!

This image perfectly illustrates why early settlers and the indigenous people thought the marshes, wetlands, and swamps were full of supernatural creatures in Louisiana.

Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Huzzah? I suppose. It’s in the low sixties this morning, which is brisk and lovely, and I slept really well last night. I’m feeling much better this morning than I have in days, which is also nice. I hate being sick, or under the weather; I suppose, now that I’ve been hospitalization sick, I need to be more careful about defining what sick means and how it feels to me. It was a head cold with a sore throat; not COVID or anything like that (I did check, of course), and now that it’s on the way out I am delighted. I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked; Sparky was a lap cat yesterday morning, which made it hard to get much done. I did work on an essay/newsletter which I hope to send out today, and scribbled notes in my journal. I did make a grocery run yesterday morning, and I also found some fleece sweatpants from Reebok that I really liked, so I bought them in three colors and can now get rid of those awful ones I bought last year when I was sick.

This morning I feel better than I have in a long while, and I am also looking forward to a normal style weekend this week, but I imagine we’ll be heading over to Costco at some point this coming weekend. I did do a little bit of reading yesterday, too, which was nice, and I feel like this could actually be a really productive week for me; although we will have to wait and see, won’t we? I also need to remember that the ulcerative colitis is an auto-immune disorder, so my immune system is compromised so I don’t recover from things as quickly as I used to, and they probably hit harder than they used to, as well. I really don’t enjoy being sick.

I also started my re-watch of Friday the 13th the Series from the DVD set I recently purchased; it needs to be digitally remastered, but it’s still a lot of fun to watch. I only watched the debut episode, “The Inheritance,” which sets up the series and introduces us to the three main characters–Ryan, Mickey, Jack. Jack is a specialist in the occult, and Ryan and Mickey are cousins who’ve inherited their uncle’s antique shop. Their uncle was Lewis Vendredi, and he’d made a deal with the devil, so everything in his store was cursed. Mickey, engaged to a kind of controlling dick, just wants to liquidate and get out of there; Ryan goes along with it…but after selling a bunch of things, Jack Marshak shows up and tells them about the curse and the truth about their legacy. The first object they look for is a cursed doll, bought for an unhappy little girl with a horrific stepmother, and the doll starts killing people who upset the little girl. The mission is a success (despite a couple of deaths) and the episode ends with Mickey dumping her controlling fiancée, the three decide to team up to track down all the objects, and they rename the store Curious Goods. The visual quality isn’t great–it needs to be digitally remastered, as I noticed earlier–and of course, it was very low budget so the special effects aren’t that great, either–but the concept is great, and the cast is likable enough with strong chemistry. The rewatching will, of course, involve seeing episodes again that I’d already seen…but there are a lot of episodes I haven’t seen, and I am very excited about this prospect.

Several years ago I’d purchased a “fan companion” to the show called Curious Goods: Behind the Scenes of Friday the 13th: The Series by a USC film school graduate named Alyse Wax, which I had never gotten around to reading. Since I am now watching the series again, in order, I thought I should dig the book out and consult with it during the watch. I had to look everywhere for it before finding it, but the great thing about it was finding a bunch of other books I’d forgotten I had on hand and need to either reread or read for the first time; I have plenty of things to keep me occupied and therefore should never be truly bored. I reread the introduction to the book again yesterday, and I am looking forward to reading along while I watch! How fun is that going to be?

The Saints won yesterday in overtime, which was a lovely counter to the humiliatingly embarrassing LSU loss to Alabama on Saturday (BeBest), but I spent most of the day doing chores, playing with Sparky, and watching the news, anxious for updates on the Mississippi election. Interesting weekend in Mississippi for the racists, no? Three racist undergraduate skanks are currently under investigation by the school for being racist skanks, and of course, their humiliating home loss to Georgia also drove their entitled racist fan base to throw trash on the field and just be toxic fans in general…and they may wind up with a Black senator. Hotty Toddy, bitches. You can talk shit about LSU and its fanbase all you want, but they never act like that.

Yet theirs is the fanbase that thinks tailgating off fine china and hanging chandeliers in their tents is classy.

Well, I need to get ready for work and heading into the spice mines, so have a great day, Constant Reader, and I will be back again tomorrow morning bright and early. See you then!

His boots can go under my bed anytime—but looks can be deceiving. So many guys who look like this are lousy lays because they just lay there and want to be worshipped…

If It Don’t Take Two

Sunday morning and I’m not coming down, although that is a great song. The temperature has dropped here; it’s only fifty-four this morning, which is indeed cold for a November morning in New Orleans. I slept extremely well last night under my pile o’blankets, and feel pretty good this morning. Whatever this krud was, it seems to have run its course and all that’s left is the raspy voice….which I can actually live with, methinks. I don’t mind sounding like Kathleen Turner. I have an errand to run this morning, which I’ll do in a little bit. Yesterday wasn’t a good day for me as a football fan; some teams that I wanted to win did (Georgia and Tennessee come to mind), but most of the teams I did want to win did not. LSU embarrassed itself at home yesterday–the less said about that the better–but I knew they were going to lose as soon as I learned the Slovene Hooker was there, LSU had partnered with her “foundation,” and the team was wearing BE BEST stickers. For that alone, they deserved to lose, as they did when the stadium gave her a raucous welcome. Everything they touch dies, you know, and this was all because of our piece of shit governor, the sycophantic Klandry. So the loss was bittersweet;I hate it when LSU loses, but in this instance they deserved to, and I stand by that. Klandry makes it really hard for me to root for my home team, which makes me hate him all the more.

Tick-tock, bitch, tick-tock.

But a disappointing day in college football is a small price to pay for last Tuesday, and I’ll take Tuesday’s wins over an LSU win any day.

We also spent some more time with Black Doves, which is quite fun, primarily thanks to Ben Whishaw, who should get more flowers, and of course, Sarah Lancashire is a gift in everything she does. I can highly recommend the show, and do. I think there are some other shows we want to watch that have also dropped. I also got caught up on The Traitors–New Blood, and am loving Victor, who is the breakout star of the season. There are also some films that have dropped that I would like to watch as well, which is always fun–and I have my Friday the 13th-the Series to rewatch, too. I didn’t really do much yesterday, which is quite shameful, but this morning I think I’ll read a bit before running my errand (groceries), and maybe do some writing, too. Paul will probably not come downstairs until this afternoon, and the Saints game isn’t until noon, so I should be able to get some chores done.

It’s hard to grasp that it’s already November, and almost mid-November, at that. Thanksgiving will be here before you know it, and I’ll have a marvelous four day holiday. This entire year seems to have flown past–the Olympics seem like they were a million years ago, remember that? It’s very strange to me that it will be 2027 in no time at all; how is that even possible? Heavy heaving sigh. I also have so much writing to get done–short stories, essays, the book–that I really need to spend some time organizing my thoughts and figuring out a workable writing schedule. I also need to take the time to take a walk this morning, too, in the cool outside. So much, as always, to get done around here. Heavy heaving sigh. I’ve also not done a lot of reading since the 1st, either, so I need to rectify that some;I am excited about reading, and writing about, true crime. I’ve introduced a character into the Scotty series a true crime writer, that I consider spinning off into his own series sometime…but his story is so similar to both Scotty and Chanse that I stopped working on his spin-off, I Know Who You Are. And I do love reading true crime, so there’s that, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines while hoping for good news to come out of Mississippi and Alaska. Have a great Sunday, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before work. See you then!

It’ll probably never happen now, but the new Egyptian Museum is something I would love to see,

True to Life

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well, at least so far. Yesterday was gorgeous; sunny with some cloud cover, low seventies and no humidity. It’s nice to remember, once again, that going outside isn’t always hellish here in New Orleans. I slept a bit late and feel better physically this morning than I have all week, which is marvelous. Paul had been terribly sick before I went to Baton Rouge last weekend, and this week I had a much milder version of whatever crud he had. DayQuil kept it under control for the most part, but this morning I feel ever so much better and am glad that it’s on the way out. I didn’t do much of anything this week other than tale DayQuil, blow my nose, and joyscroll social media, but reality is beginning to take over for the euphoria again and I have things to get back to work on. There’s a lot of excellent college football today, anchored by LSU-Alabama at 2:30, and there are some other key match-ups today, notably Georgia-Mississippi and Kentucky-Tennessee (among others) so I will probably spend a lot of time in my chair with the games on. I also am going to dip into and out of She Kills by Skip Hollandsworth, while also beginning a revisit of In Cold Blood for Nonfiction November.

Yesterday was pleasant. I got a lot of chores done around here after work, we took Sparky to the vet, and had a nice relaxing, low key day. I watched this week’s reality shows (why is Real Housewives of Orange County still on the air?), and we also started watching the new season of Black Doves, in which Ben Whishaw continues to kill it. Today I am going to just stick around the house and have a low-key kind of day; football games and reading and probably picking up stuff, having stuff delivered, and trying to get the house back under control as well as getting some rest so I can get back to writing tomorrow. I”m going to make a grocery run tomorrow morning, and have some things delivered today so I can make dinner later.

Exciting, am I not?

I also want to work on a newsletter. After the election, I was too caught up in afterglow and possibility that I couldn’t focus on anything else. They’re still counting in both Mississippi and Alaska, and I am really hoping for that wretched Klan bitch Cindy Hyde-Smith to get the karmic bitchslap she so richly deserves. I have several that are close to fruition; one about my short story in Unloaded 3, soon to be released and, I think, only my second publication this year; one about A Streetcar Named Murder; and another in my series about masculinity. I also have some short stories I need to get back to work on, and of course, I need to get back to the book. It is sort of disheartening to know the week was a bust for writing for the most part, but election euphoria and whatever this crud I’ve been fighting off all week had a lot to do with it. At least I didn’t fall behind on my day job duties, thank you Lord and pass the ammunition. I will probably do a lot of scribbling in my journal today, too. I also need to do some other chores around here, too–and honestly don’t feel like doing a fucking thing, which is also an option. It looks to be a gorgeous day outside, so maybe I can take a walk later and get started on building up my stamina again…and I do need to update the to-do diary.

As you can see, all kinds of things for me to get going on today!

There really isn’t much going on to report on, in all honesty. Like I have said repeatedly, I am still in a euphoric state of bliss that started Tuesday night and is only now beginning to wear off. Reading some will help, without question; I am very pleased with how much I read in October; and am looking forward to this nonfiction palate cleanser. I also need to make a grocery list and order some things to be delivered. Getting the apartment cleaned up will help, too. They are dishes to unload, too. One thing I have managed to do lately is get files cleaned up while I am watching things on television.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and get moving on my day. The walk isn’t going to walk itself, and the apartment isn’t going to clean itself, either. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I will check back in with you again tomorrow morning, okay? GEAUX TIGERS!!

Those legs….

The Space Between

Friday and I have a meeting this morning, so it is not, after all, a work-at-home Friday completely; I am ust going in for the meeting before I come home to do some work. Sparky also has to go to the vet this afternoon, so he can’t eat this morning, which isn’t going very well. (It’ll be worse when I get home from the office. “What do you MEAN no breakfast? What do you mean you left and came back and it’s not dinner time?” Sigh. He’s whimpering under my desk right now, and I get it totally; I hate not being able to eat something when I am hungry and it’s my usual time to eat. Sigh.

I’m still basking in the afterglow from Tuesday, just waiting for the Democrats to officially win Mississippi and Alaska now, and even if the fascists hold those two seats, it won’t matter1. Soon, the Republicans and Fox are going to pretend they were never MAGA and will try to distance themselves from this entire anti-American movement, and this cannot happen this time. We allowed them to move on from January 6th, which should have ended the entire thing. There’s also no doubt that the Democrats, particularly if led by Schumer and Jeffries, can easily fumble this opportunity. But all the right-wingers who might run in 2028 are uncharismatic and not very well-liked across the board; they’d be better off getting a governor from a red state that no one has ever heard of–much like the Democrats brought in an outsider after Watergate, which is how we got Jimmy Carter. But…they never really do the smart thing, do they? Either side? I’ll never forgive the DNC for not helping Louisiana, Florida or Mississippi flip; which all three could have done easily. Both Louisiana and Florida were a point or less from understanding the assignment.

Howard Dean should have never been let go from party leadership after the massive blue shift in 2008. The way the national party has abandoned the South since then has been positively shameful; is it any wonder there’s voter apathy down here when the national party has basically said, “oh, well, you’re on your own, we can’t win there.” Scott Colom’s winning campaign, as well as the close ones Angie Nixon and Jamie Davis ran, beg to differ. This absolute failure of party leadership should end with every leader stepping aside for fresh blood; the people do not want the same-old, same-old. I don’t trust either Schumer or Jeffries, in all honesty. I’d love to be proved wrong, but…I sincerely doubt that will happen.

Bliss.

I am planning on enjoying this through the weekend, for the record; Monday I’ll come down from my cloud and face the world again. But, for now, I’m going to enjoy knowing that Russell Brand is going to jail; the Tate Brothers will never see freedom again, and the country is bouncing back. This is what I’ve been waiting for ever since the golden escalator, and it is beyond time for it to have happened. The cybertruck is also dead, this morning, and and the AI bubble is bursting.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Friday be as marvelous as you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning.

The Byzantine horses, stolen from Constantinople by the Venetians during the 4th Crusade, when they sacked the capital of the last vertige of the Roman Empire.

  1. There are so many delightful karma stories, too–Cindy Hyde-Smith, aka as a Scooby Doo villain, had blocked Scott Colom’s appointment as an appellate court justice, so now he is taking her seat in the Senate. Now she can focus on attending lynchings and cross-burnings while brewing up some ‘shine back in her rancid holler. ↩︎